COLLECTIVE MADNESS



Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
HELENA  Montana residents kept struggling Friday with the changing weather and poor road conditions while avalanche warnings remained in effect for backcountry areas in the western part of the state, with extreme danger in the mountains around Cooke City.

Icy roads in the Helena area prevented school buses from running Friday morning, but classes were still held. The afternoon bus routes were cancelled as well.

Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton issued an emergency travel only order for a few hours because of slick roads that had caused numerous crashes in the Helena area. The order was lifted shortly after 10 a.m.

Gov. Steve Bullock declared a state of emergency Friday for the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Glacier County and Lincoln County in northwestern Montana, which saw up to 4 feet of snow from a winter storm earlier this week. The governor authorized the National Guard and the use of state money to assist with health and safety needs in those areas.

The state Department of Transportation indicated highways were icy in northwestern Montana, including the Columbia Falls, Eureka, Libby and Troy areas and all of Montana Highway 83 from Bigfork to the junction with Montana 200.

The BSNF Railway line and U.S. Highway 2 remained closed Friday because of avalanche activity in the Marias Pass area on the southern edge of Glacier National Park. One slide covered the tracks with 6 to 8 feet of debris. Amtrak trains were stopped in Whitefish and Shelby with a total of about 140 passengers.

BSNF Railway spokesman Ross Lane said crews were working Friday to remove snow from the tracks, and they hoped to resume traffic on the rail line early Friday evening.

The Amtrak Empire Builder being held at Whitefish was going to return to Seattle and Portland, Oregon, via Spokane on Friday night. The train's estimated 85 eastbound passengers were being offered return travel west or a night of housing at Amtrak's expense, spokesman Marc Magliari said.

The Empire Builder being held in Shelby was going to return east on Friday evening. The 54 westbound passengers will be offered return travel east or a night of housing at the rail company's expense, Magliari said.

The U.S. Forest Service issued avalanche warnings for the Whitefish, Swan and Flathead mountain ranges, southern Glacier National Park, the mountains of west-central Montana and the area north of Yellowstone National Park. The Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center said there was extreme danger of avalanche in the mountains around Cooke City after the area received 5 to 7 feet of snow over the past week.

"The pure weight of this load will push any weakness in the snowpack past its breaking point," Gallatin avalanche center officials said. Continued snow and rain will make natural and human-triggered avalanches certain, the warning said.

Classes were not held Friday in St. Regis, Troy and Browning.
An estimated 64 per cent voters of the total 2.6-crore electorate exercised their franchise in the first round of seven phase Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls today in 26,823 polling booths, of which 5,140 are identified as hyper-sensitive, which passed off peacefully. Though there were reports of some minor incidents like clashes and firing, but it did not affect the polling anywhere. BJP candidate Sanjeet Som's brother Gagan Som has been detained after a pistol was recovered from him near a polling booth in Sardhana Assembly constituency, during polling. An FIR has been registered against Gagan under relevant Section of the IPC. Reports of minor clashes were received from Aligarh, Etah, Meerut and Ferozabad, but there was no such big incident. In Meerut, firing took place near Booth 34-37 at Mundali village in Kithore area, when supporters of SP and BSP fired on each other. One was injured in the firing. Besides minor clashes, polling was totally peaceful in all 73 constituencies of western UP with no reports of any untoward incident from anywhere, state ADG (Law and Order) Daljeet Singh here claimed. Around two-lakh policemen were on duty for ensuring free and fair polls, with alone 823 companies of central forces were deployed in this first phase of polling.Except for some teething problem of faulty EVMs , polling was peaceful everywhere, state chief electoral officer T Vekentesh told UNI here today thanking the people for coming out in big numbers to vote. The polling ended at 1700 hrs, but at several booths, voters were still in queue and they were allowed to cast their votes.There were 839 candidates in the fray in the first phase of polling, including 77 women, in which around 20 per cent have criminal cases registered against them and 36 per cent are crorepatis (multi-millionaires). BJP and BSP have fielded candidates in all 73 seats, while SP restricted it to 51 seats, its alliance Congress 24 seats and RLD in 57 seats. As many as 293 Independents are also in the fray. According of reports, the polling percentage till 1300 hrs was around 39.80 per cent, while till 1500 hrs, it was 52.90 per cent. At 1500 hrs, Agra polled in 51.47 per cent, Aligarh registered 52.57, Baghpat 53.30, Bullandshahr 54.20, Etah 51, Ferozabad 54.62, Gautam Buddha Nagar 49.33, Ghaziabad 46.60, Hapur 54.93, Hatras 50.20, Kasganj 50.87, Mathura 55.42, Meerut 56.27, Muzaffarngar 53.27, and Shamli 55.83 per cent. In 2012 Assembly polls, 73 constituencies polled an average of 61.04 per cent. The next phase of elections at 67 Assembly seats would be held on February 15. Polling for 403 Assembly seats in UP would be held in seven phases, which started today and will end on March 8. Counting of votes of all seven phases would be done on March 11.UNI MB RJ SNU 1740 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0138-1146341.Xml
The Crime Branch of Delhi Police has busted two drug trafficking modules, operating in the city, and arrested three people along with contraband worth Rs 2-crore in the international market.In the first incident, on a tip-off that one Nigerian national would come near Dwarka Mor between 1400 hrs and 1500 hrs, a trap was laid and one Uchenne was apprehended. From him, 330gm of heroin and 170gm of cocaine were recovered. The contraband is worth of Rs 1.5-crore in the international market, a police official said here today.He said in the second incident, information was received that two people Ajay and Naresh Kumar, who supply heroin in Delhi, would come near TVS Bajaj Showroom, Mor Road, leading towards Vikas Nagar, a trap was laid yesterday near the showroom and both were arrested along with 260grams of heroin worth Rs 50-lakh.Cases were registered against them under section 21/29 of the NDPS Act, the official said.He said further investigation in both the cases was in progress. UNI DS SW SNU 1645 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0177-1146173.Xml
The city police raided a booze party and arrested 29 students, including a foreign national, of the National Institute of Design (NID).The students were arrested from a private apartment in Paldi area of the city late last night. Acting on a tip-off received by the police control room, the police raided Pushkar Flats near the NID campus and arrested these students, 15 men and 14 women, while the booze party was going on. ''They all are studying in different faculty of NID and were caught consuming alcohol,'' KN Jhala, ACP, N-Division, Ahmedabad Police said. They have been booked under the prohibition law of the state and taken to Asarwa Civil Hospital for blood test to find any traces of alcohol consumed. Gujarat being a ''dry'' state, consuming alcohol without the requisite permit is deemed to be illegal and a punishable offence. Gujarat government had in December last brought in a new Ordinance that proposes imprisonment of up to 10 years for those involved in the sale and purchase of liquor in the state, besides maximum fine of up to Rs 5-lakh. Police sources said in Friday's incident some residents were disturbed by the loud music played during the party. The institute in its statement said, ''Regarding the police raid conducted yesterday evening, we wish to inform you that no such matter is tolerated at NID and laws are strictly followed by NID. The said incident happened outside the campus in a private residence where NID has no say or legal authority. NID is and will remain committed to extend full cooperation to the law enforcement authorities in this matter and will continue to do so. NID also remains committed to strive and maintain healthy creative environment on campus within legal parameters.'' The Ahmedabad Police Commissioner had recently informed the NID Director over phone that the police had information of students consuming liquor on the campus, sources said. UNI ND AE SNU 1749 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1146300.Xml
Deputy Commissioner D Randeep, who gave a presentation beforethree-member Inter-Ministerial Central team at the Government GuestHouse in city today, explained about the severe drought situation indistrict and the need for funds to carry out the drought relief works.

After the meeting, Jalaj Shrivastava, Additional Secretary,Department of Agriculture, Government of India, said the team wouldbe visiting various villages across the district to assess the situation.

He said three teams from the centre are visiting Karnataka tostudy the drought situation. While, two teams are in North Karnatakaregion, one team has come to Mysuru. The teams will meet atBengaluru on Monday and hold talks with the State Government beforesubmitting a final report to the Centre.

The team comprising, besides Mr Shrivastava, include Anuradha,NITI Aayog Research Officer, V Mohan Murali, SuperintendingEngineer, Ministry of Water Resources and Sachdeva, Director, PF-1,Ministry of Finance, New Delhi, visited Jattihundi and Jayapura. Thevillagers complained them regarding the scarcity of drinking waterand fodder.

They also alleged that the District Administration was notresponding positively to their problems.UNI BSP RS ADB1755

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Haryana Police has arrested four employees of an ATM cash management firm for stealing about Rs 30-lakh and setting on fire an ATM in Rohtak. The case has been solved within 24 hours and cash amounting to Rs 27.50-lakh has also been recovered from them. Stating this here today, a spokesman for the Police Department said on the night of February 8, 2017, three people on a motorcycle had doused the ATM at Gandhi Camp with petrol and set it alight. The fire had gutted the ATM and the adjoining shop. A case in this regard was registered under sections 392, 427 and 436 of the Indian Penal Code on the basis of complaint lodged by Coordinator, AGS Transact Technologies Limited, Mr Neeraj Kumar. The firm was hired by the bank to replenish cash in its ATMs.He said while the incident was earlier suspected to be a part of the ongoing agitation in the state, an investigation revealed that the arson was a cover-up for robbery committed by the four accused, namely Arun Yadav, resident of village Hidaula, district Dadri; Balraj, a resident of village Chuliana, district Rohtak;Sukhvinder and Jaibeer, residents of village Maukhra, district Rohtak, and employees of AGS Transact Technologies Limited, who were arrested on Friday night. While Arun Yadav and Balraj used to replenish cash in the ATM, Sukhvinder and Jaibeer worked as gunmen for the firm. They had been working for the firm for about three years.He said while Rs four lakh had been withdrawn from the ATM, cash amounting to Rs 58,800 was recovered after the fire. When interrogated, the accused revealed that on February 8, the firm gave them Rs 2.50-crore in cash for keeping it in the ATMs. While they were supposed to keep Rs eight lakh in the ATM at Gandhi Camp, they kept only Rs 4.50-lakh. Their records reflected that they had deposited Rs 34-lakh in the ATM. The same night, Balraj, Sukhvinder and Jaibeer visited the ATM and set it alight. He said the accused were presented in court today and remanded in police custody for four days. Further investigation is underway to recover the remaining cash and the motorcycle used in the crime.UNI JS AE SNU 1850 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-1146445.Xml
The YMCA University of Science and Technology, Faridabad has decided to follow a dress code of traditional dress at its convocation on February 15, 2017.A spokesman for the university today said instead of the traditional black robes and square hats that are worn by students during the convocation, they would wear the traditional Indian attire. The male students have been asked to wear white full sleeves shirt and white trouser with black shoes or white kurta and payjama with black shoes or sandals. The female students will wear white sari with golden border or white kameej with white salwar, white dupatta with black shoes or sandals. The faculty and guests will also adhere to the similar dress code. A decision to this effect has been taken by the university authority to simplifying the dress code. He said this would be the second convocation of the university and degrees would be conferred upon the students who have passed out in the years 2014, 2015 and 2016. Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki, who is also the Chancellor of the University, and Vice-Chancellor Dinesh Kumar will preside over the function and confer the degrees. Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma would be the Guest of Honour and Chairman of University Grants Commission Ved Prakash would be the distinguished guest and he would also deliver the convocation addresses. The convocation ceremony would be held at the main ground of the university.He said 1283 B Tech, 367 M Tech., 164 MBA, 90 MCA and 148 MSc and 20 PhD degrees would be awarded. Also, gold medals will also be given away to the meritorious students of different courses for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016.UNI JS SNU 1937 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-1146489.Xml
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today assured all help to the family of an Indian youth who was killed by robbers in Jamaica this week. Ms Swaraj has asked for a report from the Indian High Commissioner in Jamaica. ''Indian High Commission in Jamaica will follow up this case with the Police and help you in all possible manner,'' she said. ''Also, pls ensure best possible treatment to the injured Indian nationals and coordinate with the affected families,'' she said in another tweet. The 25-year-old youth, Rakesh Talreja, hailing from Vasai in Maharashtra, was living in Kingston with two other Indians. The robbers armed with guns entered the house and after looting cash and cellphones from him shot him in the back. Talreja was rushed to hospital but was declared brought dead. The robbers also shot at his two colleagues. They are undergoing treatment.UNI NAZ SHK 2014 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0091-1146673.Xml
Senior Samajwadi Party leader Mohammad Azam Khan today lashed out at Imam of Jama Masjid of Delhi Syed Ahmed Bukhari, calling him 'Kaum Ka Saudagar' and a 'blot on Islam and Jama Masjid'. Mr Bukhari was at the receiving end of Mr Khan for issuing an appeal to the Muslims to vote for the Bahujan Samaj Party as the Samajwadi Party has betrayed the Muslims by not fulfilling any promise it had made during the last assembly elections in 2012.Addressing an election meeting in presence of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in Milak town of Rampur, Mr Khan said,"Mr Bukhari is not your Imam, he is a merchant and a broker who sold himself for money and he is a blot on Islam and Jama Masjid.""Mr Bukhari came to Lucknow 20 days back, had breakfast with Mayawati and later had snacks with Mulayam Singh Yadav. He had come to Lucknow on `recovery mission' to extort money for his support but he went empty handed as neither Mulayam nor Akhilesh Yadav obliged him with suit cases full of cash'', alleged Mr Khan.Mr Khan alleged that Mr Bukhari has joined hands with the BJP and has secret understanding with the Party. "Mr Bukhari cannot openly ally with the BJP so he has chosen the route of the BSP and this party will join hands with the BJP after the elections to form the government as it has already done three times in the past," he said.Targeting BSP chief Mayawati, SP leader said, "Hathi wali mataji kisi ko paisa deti nahi hai, paisa lekar ticket deti hai (Mayawati never gives money to anyone, she only takes money and sells the party ticket)."Mr Khan added now Mayawati is saying that she would not install any statue and not construct new parks and memorials. Asking the Muslims to vote diligently, Mr Khan said,"each and every vote and even one vote can make a big difference and lack of one seat could even prevent the SP from forming the next government."Mr Khan also launched the usual broadside against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He criticised the PM for sending his 94 years old mother to bank and standing in queue to withdraw money, after the demonetisation of the high value currency notes in December last year.UNI MB PY SHK 2136 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1146768.Xml
Maharahstra Water Supply Minister and District Guardian Minister Babanrao Lonikar has appealed the people to vote in favour of BJP for overall development in the forthcoming Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti elections in the state. Addressing an election rally at Kedegaon village in Badanapur taluka last night, Mr Lonikar said both the BJP-led state and central governments have taken a number of developmental works in the state and launched various welfare schemes for all the sections including farmers, women and weaker sections of society which resulted in development of the state in right direction. He further said BJP means development and during the past two and half years, the central government launched a number of schemes including Jan Dhan, Mudra, Atal Pension, Gas Scheme, Beti Bachhav Beti Padav, Insurance and Dukanat for welfare of the people. The minister said Prime Minister Narendra Modi also sanctioned Indu Mill land for memorial of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in Mumbai and Shivaji Maharaj memorial in Arabian sea. He appealed the people to give full majority to BJP in ZP and PS elections for more development and promised that state government will provide enough funds to the local bodies for better development of roads, water and other basic facilities in the district, he added.UNI VKB SS PY SHK 2108 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1146719.Xml
POWELL, Wyo.  Dawa Sherpa remembers exactly where he was when a massive earthquake hit his home country of Nepal on April 25, 2015: He was climbing Mount Rainier in Washington state.

But his wife, Bindu Tamanz, and their two children were still at home in Nepal.

"She Skyped me and said an earthquake hit," Sherpa, now a Clark-area resident, recalled during an interview with the Tribune in December.

Since he and his family had been through five or six earthquakes in Nepal, "I said not a big deal. I did not realize the magnitude of it."

As details of the earthquake began to emerge, he soon learned it was a devastating 7.8 on the Richter scale. The death toll eventually climbed to 9,000 people, with another 22,000 injured.

Thankfully, Sherpa's family survived  but their home did not.

"Our house was broken," he said. "They couldn't live in the house."

That's when fate seemed to intervene on their behalf. For two years, Sherpa had been trying to get green cards for his family to come to the United States, to no avail.

But soon after the earthquake, their visas finally came through.

Sherpa returned to Nepal that June to rescue his family.

"When I got home, my wife was just bone and skin. She was so skinny," he said.

Though stressed from their ordeal, the children  their 18-year-old son, Gelu Ringi Sherpa, and their 8-year-old daughter, Nima Karma Sherpa  seemed to be OK.

They all boarded an airliner for the 24-hour flight, followed by a taxi ride to their new home in Prescott, Arizona, where Sherpa had secured a job as a framer in a friend's construction company. They arrived on July 24, 2015.

Two days later, Gelu, who had cerebral palsy, was sitting in a chair and eating a smoothie for breakfast.

"He looked at his mom and smiled, and ... he died. He just smiled, and he was gone."

Sherpa said he believes his son's death was caused by the physical and emotional stress that followed the earthquake, coupled with the long, exhausting trip to his new home.

"The cavity is going to stay there forever," Sherpa said, laying his fist on his chest over his heart.

Born to climb

That wasn't the first time Sherpa faced a difficult situation with determination to go forward, simply because going back wasn't an option.

Back in Nepal, Sherpa grew up at the foot of the Himalayas, and he began serving as a porter  a Sherpa then by name and by trade  when he was a teenager in 1987-88.

Soon, he moved up to kitchen boy, to assistant cook and to cook, then he became the head of the Sherpa on expeditions.

Though he became accustomed to the work and the danger, "every expedition was scary," he said. "In Nepal the system is, every time you join an expedition team, you have insurance. You sign on the dotted line saying the insurance will go to your wife or parents or your family. Every time I sign the paper, I get goosebumps."

Sherpa later began working for the Khumbu Climbing Center and he became manager of Camp 2 on Mount Everest, at an altitude of 21,000 feet.

As Camp 2 manager, he cooked meals for clients and Nepali climbers, kept an inventory of oxygen bottles and kept track of other supplies.

He was required to remain at the camp for the duration of each expedition  and that could take up to 45 days.

He watched climber after climber ascend to the top of Mount Everest's 29,029-foot summit, all while he was stuck at 21,000 feet.

"I wanted to climb Everest real bad, but since I speak better English than others, they wanted me to be in Camp 2, in case of static, if they need me to relay a message."

His chance to reach the summit came in 2001, when mountain climber Peter Hillary asked Sherpa if he would guide him and his party to the top of Everest.

Sherpa jumped at the chance. Then, after climbing to the summit with Hillary's party, he decided to never risk that climb again.

"I have been very, very lucky. I think I worked about 25 years on high altitude, and I lost lots of good friends. But luckily, I've been OK," he said. "Because of the danger ... we say, 'Before you go to the mountain, clear all your debts, because you don't know if you'll be back.'"

Nepalese people make good mountaineers because they live at such high altitudes that their bodies are acclimatized to the thin air, Sherpa said. But they are not compensated adequately for the risks they take.

Sherpa people may get $5,000 to $10,000 for one expedition while many people in other parts of Nepal earn $3-$4 per day  but that's just part of the picture, Sherpa said. Few crops will grow at that altitude, so virtually all food and supplies must be shipped in.

"What they're missing is, in our village in Khumbu, rice will cost 10 times more. They fly it in on a plane, then load it onto a mule or a yak or carry by a porter," he said.

Well-known foreign guides are paid between $25,000 and $100,000 for a single expedition, he said.

Family

Sherpa said 90 percent of Sherpa people's first job is guiding mountaineers.

But that's not what parents want for their children.

"It's too dangerous," he said. "If you ask any Sherpa, none of us want our children to be a mountaineer."

"In our culture, it's our job to take care of our wife and family and bring food into the house," he said.

For mountaineer guides, that means husbands are away from their families for long stretches of time. Too often, they don't come back.

Sherpa met his wife, Bindu Tamanz, 19 years ago through his uncle. In their culture, people from the same clan are not allowed to marry.

"Mine is an arranged marriage," Sherpa said. "My long-lost uncle, he found her to be my wife. ... He said, 'In this village are some beautiful girls. You want me to talk with someone?'

"I said, 'Yeah, why not?'"

Two days later, he and Tamanz were married.

Life in the U.S.

Sherpa came to the United States for the first time in 1998, ending up in Red Lodge, Montana, for a few months.

He was a guest of the late Rob Hart, whom he met while guiding mountaineers.

Since then, Sherpa has visited some part of the United States every year. He went back to Red Lodge a few times, and those visits often include stays in Clark. There he was the guest of Hart's brother, Douglas Hart, and his wife, Harriet "Rox" Corbett, at their CrowHart Ranch.

Sherpa, Tamanz and their daughter moved to Clark to live on the ranch last June, where Sherpa works as manager and caretaker. He irrigates and does maintenance during the summer, patrols for poachers during hunting season, and clears snow in the winter.

The family plans to apply for citizenship in a few years. They live in a cozy house, where the savory smells of traditional Nepalese food welcome and draw in their guests.

Sherpa and Tamanz enjoy cooking together, and eventually, they hope to own a small restaurant  maybe four or five tables, Sherpa said.

He said the adjustment has been more difficult for his wife, with language and isolation posing barriers for her.

"When something is hard for my wife, it takes a toll on me, too," he said.

Nima, now known as Angelika or Angelie, is attending Clark Elementary School and adjusting well, he said.

Angelie's education was the biggest reason for the family's move to the United States, he said.

Students in Nepal must carry many heavy textbooks and do pages and pages of homework each night, Sherpa said.

"When parents see more books, they say better school. (When they) see children pushing a pen or pencil day and night, they think they're learning  but really, they are not learning. It is ruining their brain."

Harriet Corbett said Angelika is "a gorgeous child who is quite shy, but she's coming out of that."

The language barrier has made it more difficult to get to know Tamanz, but Corbett said she hopes to get better acquainted over time. Tamanz had a beautician's license in Nepal, she said.

Corbett described Sherpa as "an extraordinary guy."

"He's entirely self-taught in language skills. He'd learn 15 new words every day, and by the end of the day, he was using them in context. He's got a better vocabulary than most Americans.

"He's just an engaging person, and everybody feels that when they meet him. He's got fans wherever he goes."

She said she went to Linton's Big R in Powell the other day when the young woman behind the counter said, "You must be Harriet. We've never met you, but we LOVE Dawa!"

Clark is fortunate to have Sherpa and his family in the community, she said. "I feel extraordinarily fortunate to know him."
Following the pattern set by Daurwadi in Bhokar tehsil, two more villages have joined the move of boycotting the forthcoming election of the Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti due on February 16. Durga Tanda and Shriganwadi, located in Kandhar teshil, have now decided to boycott the elections and the reasons are the same.These villages, having population up to 1400, do not have primary school, no road and other basic amenities since independence, following which the citizens of the villages have decided to boycott these elections. Previously, Daurwadi in Bhokar and Palaswadi Tanda in Hadgao tehshil had declared their boycott. Now, Durga Tanda and Shriganwadi joined them. These villages do not have approach roads to reach to Kandhar. They use kuchha (crude) road which turns useless during monsoon season. During the rainy season, these villages get cut off from remaining parts of the tehsil, causing hardship and trouble to the villagers. Fed up with the attitude of the political leaders and the officers of the concerned departments, the villagers have decided to boycott the elections. A petition regarding the demand has been submitted to the collector. UNI XR SS PY SHK 2107 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1146723.Xml
Lakhs of devotees attended the annual Feast of the Shrine of the Infant Jesus here today. The Feast, which has been continuing uninterrupted since 1970, is celebrated on the second Saturday of February every year at the ground of Saint Xavier's school.Infant Jesus Shrine, Nashik, is the first Infant Jesus shrine in India.There was a major traffic snarl on the busy Nashik-Pune Highway due to the event and traffic had to be re-routed as thousands of vehicles arrived mostly from Mumbai, Goa and other parts of the country.The major religious programmes including mass was held in the evening, while the Feast would be officially open till Sunday afternoon, Chaplain of the Shrine, Father Trevor Miranda said. On this occasion, the shrine was decorated and lit up beautifully. The Nashik-Pune highway near St Xavier's school wore festive look with hotels putting up different stalls of food items like biryani, kheema pav, Chinese, cold drinks and ice cream, which were enjoyed by the people visiting the fair. A huge pandal has been erected at the St Xavier's High School ground for this fair, where prayers are being held in Marathi and English every hour for the devotees. Police have made heavy bandobast at the fair place.UNI RDS SS PY SHK 2113 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1146728.Xml
One of the men spoke of "40 trucks driving down Oxford Street full of explosives", Sky News quoted the Old Bailey as saying on Friday.

Each was jailed for between two-and-a-half years and six years for drumming up support for the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.

They were arrested after an officer infiltrated the Luton chapter of the banned group Al-Muhajiroun (ALM).

During the operation, the police officer recorded hate-filled speeches over 20 months, delivered to up to 80 people, including young children.

They urged people to support the terror group and travel to Syria to fight.

Group leader Mohammed Istiak Alamgir, 37, who hailed the Tunisia terror attack as a "victory", was handed six years of jail term.

Rajib Khan, 38, was dubbed as an "important and influential" member of the group and was jailed for five years.

He hailed the Charlie Hebdo atrocity in Paris as "excellent news".

Yousaf Bashir, 36, gave a speech for which he was given four years and six months in prison.

--IANS sku/

( 203 Words)

2017-02-11-07:28:07 (IANS)
U.S. President Donald Trump during his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday said that Washington is committed to defend Tokyo 'through the full range of U.S. military capabilities, both nuclear and conventional', a stand that contradicts his campaign rhetoric that accused Japan of taking advantage of U.S. security aid and stealing American jobs. "The unshakable U.S.-Japan Alliance is the cornerstone of peace, prosperity, and freedom in the Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. commitment to defend Japan through the full range of U.S. military capabilities, both nuclear and conventional, is unwavering," said a joint statement issued by the White House after the meeting of the two leaders. The statement said that amid an increasingly difficult security environment in the Asia-Pacific region, the United States will strengthen its presence in the region, and Japan will assume larger roles and responsibilities in the alliance. "The two leaders affirmed the commitment of the United States and Japan to the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, to ensure the long-term, sustainable presence of U.S. forces. They affirmed that the United States and Japan are committed to the plan to construct the Futenma Replacement Facility at the Camp Schwab/Henoko area and in adjacent waters. It is the only solution that avoids the continued use of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma," it said. The two leaders also affirmed that Article V of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security covers the Senkaku Islands, a group of uninhabited islands controlled by Japan and also claimed by China. The statement said that the U.S. opposes any unilateral action that seeks to undermine Japan's administration of these islands. According to the statement, the two leaders also underscored the importance of maintaining a maritime order based on international law, including freedom of navigation and overflight and other lawful uses of the sea. "The United States and Japan oppose any attempt to assert maritime claims through the use of intimidation, coercion or force. The United States and Japan also call on countries concerned to avoid actions that would escalate tensions in the South China Sea, including the militarization of outposts, and to act in accordance with international law," said the statement. They also urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and not to take any further provocative actions, according to the statement. (ANI)
Severe winter weather has slowed rail deliveries of crops to shippers in the US Pacific Northwest, sending freight rates soaring and prompting Asian buyers to seek fill-in loads as they wait for the backlog at ports to clear.Blizzards, avalanches and heavy rain in recent weeks have hit transport of corn, soy and wheat to ports where they head for the lucrative Asian market, adding to the struggles that have plagued U.S. exporters since harvest.The setbacks come at a critical time for U.S. exporters, who are trying to move as much grain as possible before buyers turn their attention to South America when corn and soybean harvests in Argentina and Brazil accelerate in the coming weeks."There isn't much you can do about awful weather," said John Crabb, a grain broker at Tradewest Brokerage Co in Hillsboro, Oregon. "It's just expensive. You can't load in the rain."BNSF Railway Co shut down rail service between Shelby and Whitefish, Montana in both directions due to an avalanche. The company said in a statement on Thursday that it had rerouted some trains. A spokesman said that the company hoped to restore service in the area, which is on the way from the Midwest, where the crops are harvested and stored, to the Pacific Ocean, on Friday evening."This is a major pinch point for trains, and could impact an already awful logistical situation headed west," Tregg Cronin, a market analyst for Halo Commodity Co, a brokerage and marketing consulting agency, wrote in a note to clients.The cost of rail freight on the secondary market has spiked as shippers scrambled to secure empty space. The average rate in the secondary market for spot BNSF shuttle railcars has hit $2,000 above tariff rate per car, up from $1,267 above tariff a month ago. A year ago, it was $108 below tariff, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.On the Pacific Northwest coast, rains and snow stopped loadings of ocean vessels in Oregon and Washington this week. The National Weather Service this week instituted a flood watch for much of western Oregon.ALTERNATIVE SUPPLIERSA senior official at a major Japanese trading house said his company was looking into where to buy corn as an emergency measure if it was not able to source grain from the United States. Possible countries of origin include China, Australia or Russia, he added.Tradewest Brokerage's Crabb said there were few alternatives for Asian grain buyers, as it would likely take longer to ship grain to Asia from Brazil, Argentina, or the Gulf of Mexico.But indications are that the congestion at ports is unlikely to ease soon, as about 60 ships are in port or waiting offshore, Cronin added. Monthly loading capacity is about 40 ships."We are looking at a delay of about 15 to 20 days from the Pacific coast," said a Singapore-based grains trader with an international trading company.South Korea diverted 40,000 to 50,000 tonnes of its corn imports to Taiwan in late December and in January because shipments from the United States were delayed, a Korean trader said. South Korea imported more than 3 million tonnes of U.S. corn in the 2015/16 marketing year.The shipping season since last autumn's harvest has been among the most challenging for PNW grain shippers. After excessive rain delayed vessel loading in October, frigid temperatures and snow have hit rail deliveries across the northern Plains since December. REUTERS CJ RAI0949 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1145712.Xml
The UN's working group on enforced disappearances said that its search list for South Koreans believed to have been abducted by North Korea has been growing, the media reported. At a press conference in Seoul, the international panel on Friday said the reclusive country remains steadfastly unresponsive to requests for information to determine the fate of such people, Yonhap News Agency reported. As of last year, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances reviewed 53 cases of South Koreans suspected of being taken by North Korea during and after the Korean War (1950-53). The expert group had formally asked the North Korean government to provide information on 41 of the total cases, but the communist country did not come up with an answer sufficient to verify the fates of those missing, according to the group's report submitted to the UN's Human Rights Council last July. Since the report, there has been an increase in the number of such missing South Korean cases whose fates were unknown, the five-member panel's chairwoman Houria Es-Slami told the media here. Es-Slami said she could not disclose exactly how many until the group's annual report to be submitted later this year, but called the increase "alarmingly high". The Seoul government has said about 3,000 South Korean soldiers and civilians were confirmed to have been kidnapped by the North during and after the war. North Korea, however, categorically rejects such accusations, saying they are just slander aimed at toppling the country's regime. --IANS ksk ( 259 Words) 2017-02-11-13:54:08 (IANS)
South Korea's special prosecution asked a court to allow it to search the presidential office as part of a corruption probe of President Park Geun-hye after investigators were denied entry by her aides last week. The probe team submitted the request on Friday to the Seoul Administration Court, seeking the suspension of the presidential officials' disapproval of the search, the court and the prosecution said. Independent Counsel Park Young-soo also filed a lawsuit with the same court against Park's chief of staff and chief security officer to nullify the decision to block the prosecutors' entry into the Cheong Wa Dae's premises, Yonhap News Agency reported. The investigators tried to execute a court-issued search warrant on February 3 seeking to secure evidence ahead of a face-to-face questioning of President Park. Independent counsel spokesman Lee Kyu-chul told reporters that if the request is accepted, it would deprive the presidential office of an excuse to block the investigators. The raid into Cheong Wa Dae will become impossible if the suit is turned down by the court, the spokesman added. The special prosecutors can request an extra 30 days for their investigation with consent from Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, but Hwang has been refraining from making a clear remark on whether he will approve the request. Park, awaiting the Constitutional Court's decision on her ouster, has been suspended from exercising presidential powers since the parliament voted to impeach her in December. She is accused of letting her friend Choi Soon-sil meddle in state affairs and gain personal profits using her ties to the president. Special prosecutors also named President Park as an accomplice in her former aides' blacklisting of cultural figures deemed critical of the government, though she has been flatly denying the allegations. Park's former chief of staff Kim Ki-choon and ex-Culture Minister Cho Yoon-sun were indicted on Tuesday on charges of abuse of authority and coercion for allegedly creating and managing the list to deny those artists state support. --IANS ksk/vm ( 343 Words) 2017-02-11-14:56:10 (IANS)
"Talreja family - I am sorry to know about this tragedy. My heartfelt condolences," Sushma Swaraj tweeted.

"Indian High Commission in Jamaica will follow up this case with the police and help you in all possible manner," she said.

According to reports, armed robbers entered the home of 25-year-old Rakesh Talreja, hailing from Vasai in Maharashtra, which he shared with two other Indians, in Jamaica's capital Kingston on Thursday evening.

After snatching cash and cellphones from his roommates at gunpoint, they entered Talreja's bedroom on the first floor of the house.

After snatching his cellphone, they shot Talreja in the back three times. They also shot at his roommates before fleeing from the house.

Talreja was rushed to a hospital but was declared dead before admission. His two roommates, who sustained injuries on their legs, are undergoing treatment at the hospital.

Talreja worked as a salesperson at Caribbean Jewellers in Kingston and his employer used to ask his employees to take some amount of cash home everyday to avoid theft in the shop, according to the reports.

Seeking a detailed report about the incident, Sushma Swaraj directed the High Commission to "ensure best possible treatment to the injured Indian nationals and coordinate with the affected families".

--IANS ab/vm

( 250 Words)

2017-02-11-16:42:13 (IANS)
Saudi Arabia's relations with the United States are "historic and strategic", Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef said on the occasion of the visit of CIA director Mike Pompeo to Riyadh.This is the first reported visit by a senior Trump administration appointee to the kingdom."Our relationship with the United States is historic and strategic, any attemps to undermine that will falter," Prince Mohammed said, according to state news agency SPA late yesterday.Prince Mohammed, who is also interior minister, said his country will continue to combat terrorism.In a recent phone call Saudi Arabia's King Salman invited US President Donald Trump "to lead a Middle East effort to defeat terrorism and to help build a new future, economically and socially," for Saudi Arabia and the region. REUTERS AKC AS1521 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1146053.Xml
Iran has again allowed Russian planes to use its airspace during recent operations in Syria, a senior Iranian security official was quoted as saying today.In August, Russian aircraft for the first time used an Iranian air base to conduct strikes in Syria. The Russian military said its fighters had completed their tasks, but left open the possibility of using the Hamadan base again if circumstances warranted.Iran's Foreign Ministry said then that Russia had stopped using the base for strikes in Syria, bringing an abrupt halt to the deployment that was criticized both by the United States and some Iranian lawmakers.Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's National Security Council, today told the semi-official news agency Fars: "Their (Russians') use of Iran's air space has continued because we have a fully strategic cooperation with Russia.""In the recent cases, Russian fighter planes have only used Iran's airspace and have not had refueling operations," Shamkhani added.The agency said Shamkhani was commenting on media reports that Russia's Tupolev-22M long-range bombers had used Iranian airspace and a base in the country on their missions in Syria, where both Tehran and Moscow back President Bashar al-Assad's government.It was not immediately clear if the recent missions were linked to Russian air strikes on Thursday that accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers during an operation against Islamic State in Syria, according to the Turkish military.REUTERS AKC AN1659 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1146219.Xml
Hundreds took to the streets in the northern Italian city of Genoa to protest against a meeting of European far-right political groups today, and tension simmered at times with police.Demonstrators gathered in a square to the east of the coastal city ahead of the meeting, which was organised by hardline Italian group Forza Nuova and went ahead as planned.They waved banners reading, "Genoa anti-fascist, free city, defend our country." Local media said around 1,000 protesters turned out.The meeting was attended by Udo Voigt, a European lawmaker from Germany's far-right National Democratic Party, former leader of the British National Party Nick Griffin, and representatives of Romanian and French far-right movements.Genoa Mayor Marco Doria joined the protest march."The presence of figures in Genoa that call into question ... democratic values, anti-fascist values, tolerance, merits a response," Doria told local newspaper Il Secolo XIX.The largely peaceful demonstration was punctuated by isolated moments of tension. Some protesters brawled amongst themselves and others threw smoke bombs at police.Video footage showed protesters and police squaring up to each other in the street near where the meeting was held. A few blows were exchanged, but no injuries were reported. REUTERS PY BL2338 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1146842.Xml
The Union Pacific Railroad spokesman Justin Jacobs was quoted by the local KCRA TV as saying that three people were onboard the train when it derailed at about 12:45 p.m. (Local Time) Friday near the city of Elk Grove.

Twenty-two cars of the 33-car train derailed from its tracks and most of them landed in a flooded area adjacent to the Cosumnes River, Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.

The company "absolutely apologised for the disruption, but thankfully there were no injuries, no hazardous material involved," he said.

The northbound train carrying food products was headed from Tracy, a city belonging to the greater San Francisco Bay Area, to Roseville, which was located in the Sacramento metropolitan area.

KCRA's picture showed near the train derailment was a levee break, but it was unclear if that caused the derailment.

The cause of the derailment was under investigation.

--IANS lok/

( 189 Words)

2017-02-12-01:20:11 (IANS)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban delivers a state-of-the-nation report in Budapest, Hungary, on Feb. 10, 2017. Viktor Orban on Friday endorsed a nationalist policy again, claiming globalism and political correctness were on the way out in both Western and Eastern Europe. Orban made the statement when addressing Hungarians people in a state-of-the-nation report, which analyzed the past year and outlined the immediate future. (Xinhua/Szilard Voros)

BUDAPEST, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday endorsed a nationalist policy again, claiming globalism and political correctness were on the way out in both Western and Eastern Europe.

Orban made the statement when addressing Hungarians people in a state-of-the-nation report, which analyzed the past year and outlined the immediate future.

He spoke at length of the divide between supporters of globalism and the nationalist trends surfacing, citing Brexit and the United States presidential election, the Italian government crisis, and a referendum in Hungary when most voters rejected the admission of migrants.

People want to retain their own cultures, intellectual property, schools, and want security without the threat of terrorism which cannot be achieved as long as borders are open to whoever wants to move through Europe, he said.

Orban compared global economic life to allowing a fox into a henhouse to do business, and abdicating responsibility when the fox keeps winning.

Hungary, he said, was the first country to revolt back in 2010, when it ejected the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and introduced special taxes on banks and other measures that have resulted in growth over the past four years.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Friday said that it is ready to support Kenya after it declares drought a national disaster, which is affecting more than 23 counties in the African country.

"The United Nations stands ready to support the government in its assistance to affected communities," Farhan Haq, deputy UN spokesman, said at a daily news briefing here.

A preliminary assessment indicates that the number of food insecure across Kenya has doubled from 1.3 million in August 2016 to 2.7 million -- with a rainfall deficit of up to 75 percent in north-western and coastal areas, Haq noted.

Earlier Friday, the Kenyan government declared the current drought affecting 23 arid and semi-arid counties and pockets of other areas a national disaster.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta called on all stakeholders to support the government by upscaling drought mitigation programs as the severe drought has left more than 2 million people in urgent need of food assistance.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have warned that Kenya is facing a severe drought and with it a rise in food insecurity.

FAO said poor rains in 2016 and drought in 2017 has led to a significant risk of drought conditions in 2017, threatening the food security of some of the country's most vulnerable people.
GENEVA, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The heads of several UN agencies, who met here on Friday, underscored the need for a comprehensive approach to address the situation of migrants and refugees in Libya.

The high-ranking UN officials gathered here included the Director-General of the International Organization for Migration William Lacy Swing, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, and the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Martin Kobler.

They said in a joint statement issued Friday that along with many Libyans, migrants and refugees are heavily impacted by ongoing conflicts and the breakdown in law and order in Libya.

They added that untold numbers of migrants and refugees, particularly those smuggled or trafficked into Libya and those in detention, are subjected to grave human rights abuses and violations.

"Migrants and refugees in detention are held outside of any legal process and in conditions which are generally inhuman. They are exposed to malnutrition, extortion, torture, sexual violence and other abuses," they said.

The four principals stressed the need for close cooperation at the regional and international level, and the need to look at the drivers of migrant and refugee flows while simultaneously improving regular pathways.

They also called for international solidarity to address this crisis, with not only Libya involved but also countries of origin, transit and destination.

They welcomed in this respect initiatives aimed at enhancing the protection of the human rights of migrants and refugees, saving lives at sea and addressing the reasons why individuals are undertaking irregular and precarious migration.
GENEVA, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The UN refugee agency UNHCR on Friday welcomed renewed commitments taken at this week's Senior Officials' Meeting on migration in Valletta, Malta, and called for the full inclusion of refugees in all migration-related EU actions.

"I am encouraged by the reiterated engagement taken by EU officials in Valetta to promote the principles of solidarity, shared responsibility and respect for international obligations in migration management," said Vincent Cochetel, Director of UNHCR's Europe Bureau.

"However, to ensure proper migration management, it is vital to recognize the mixed nature of migratory flows within the African continent and from the African continent to Europe and to provide differentiated responses," he said.

The Senior Officials' Meeting was organized in Malta on Wednesday and Thursday to follow-up to last year's Valletta Summit on Migration.

During the two-day meeting, delegations from across Europe and Africa have engaged in constructive dialogue, taking stock of progress made under the principles of the Joint Valletta Action Plan, leading to the endorsement of a set of joint conclusions which represent a political reaffirmation of our commitment to both the spirit and the letter of the Joint Valletta Action Plan.

The Joint Valletta Action Plan, adopted at the Valletta Summit in 2015, enhanced cooperation between African and European partners and provided a framework for humane, sustainable management of migration on both sides of the Mediterranean.

"The commitment taken at the Senior Officials' Meeting to further promote legal migration is positive, but it must promptly be translated into reality, with a rapid increase in safe and legal pathways to Europe," Cochetel said.

The UN official also called for a dialogue on child protection to help find practical solutions to the plight of unaccompanied and separated children, including through identification, family tracing, family reunion and reintegration.
The national flags of the United States and China wave out of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, the United States, Jan. 5, 2009. NYSE kicked off its trading session with a special ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China. Stephen A. Orlins, president of the U.S.National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (NCUSCR), rang the market's Opening Bell. (Xinhua/Hou Jun)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The phone talk held by Chinese President Xi Jinping with his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump is a good first step in fostering the China-U.S. dialogue and provides a platform for further cooperation, U.S. experts said Friday.

"The phone call was a good first step...for fostering dialogue between Presidents Trump and Xi," Dan Mahaffee, an analyst at the Center for the Study of Congress and the Presidency, told Xinhua in an interview.

Trump and Xi held a lengthy and "extremely cordial" phone conversation Thursday night on numerous topics, during which they agreed that the two sides will engage in discussions on various issues of mutual interest.

"The fact that it was cordial, and the discussion' s tenor reflects that both leaders understand that while differences remain, they need to be addressed through dialogue and diplomacy," Mahaffee said.

Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International peace, told Xinhua that the call "was very important to provide a foundation of stability in the U.S.-China relations as well as a platform for further wide-ranging cooperation and the management of emerging tensions."

The call was the first between the leaders of the top two economies in the world since Trump's inauguration in late January. Before Thursday, Trump had already talked on the phone with about 20 foreign leaders except Xi, fueling concerns that the absence of contact between the two leaders could lead to renewed tensions in the China-U.S. ties.

The Xi-Trump phone conversation was important to break the ice in the China-U.S. ties, Darrell West, vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, told Xinhua in an interview.

"The call helped to open the door on high-level consultation, which is good for both countries," West said.

"It is important that China and the U.S. remain in close contact. They are the two leading nations in the world and it is crucial that there are open communications so there are no misunderstandings or (something) that could spiral out of control," he added.

The experts agreed that Trump's affirmation of the one-China policy, the bedrock of the China-U.S. ties, paved the way for the phone call, which probably came after Trump and advisers concluded that the costs of not doing so could bring greater costs than benefits.

Trump had previously aggravated China by taking a call from Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen after winning the U.S. presidency last November and telling the U.S. media in December that the one-China policy was open for negotiation.

"The fact that Trump now embraces the one-China policy will allow the relationship to unfold more naturally," West said, citing that resolving the issue was a prerequisite for addressing every other issue.

If Trump continues to question the one China policy, there would be no basis for President Xi to interact with him, said Paal, a former director of the American Institute in Taiwan.

Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Xinhua that Trump probably was convinced by his top aides that it was necessary to make the one-China statement "in order to move forward with the U.S.-China relationship in other areas."

"The costs of not adhering to the one China policy were very high," Glaser said, though adding that this should not be seen as Trump making a concession.

Media reports revealed that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said in written answers to questions after his Senate nomination hearing that the U.S. should adhere to the one-China policy.

As China and the U.S. start negotiations to address their frictions and advance cooperation on various issues of mutual interest, there is a broad range of issues that demand early attention, the experts said.

They include the nuclear program of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, U.S. trade deficit with China, mutual investments and boosting American exports, Paal said.

Mahaffee said at the top of the agenda of the China-U.S. talks should be the issues of maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas, cyber security, as well as trade, investment and currency.

"I think there can be discussions aimed at avoiding miscalculation between the nations in the sea, air, space and cyber domains, and I also think that agreements on trade and investment could be reached that would make it easier for companies from either country to invest in the other," he said.
DHAKA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least 13 people were killed and dozens of others injured in a collision between a bus and a pickup truck, carrying cylinders in Bangladesh's central Faridpur district, some 101 km away from the capital Dhaka, on Friday night, the district's police chief Subhash Chandra Saha told Xinhua.
DHAKA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least 13 people were killed and dozens of others injured in a fiery crash between a bus and a pickup truck, carrying gas cylinders, in Bangladesh's central Faridpur district, some 101 km away from the capital Dhaka, on Friday night, the district's police chief Subhash Chandra Saha told Xinhua.

He said the fatal road accident took place on a highway connecting the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka and southern Khulna divisional town, some 180 km southwest of the capital city.

He said the bus and the truck collided at around 11:30 p.m. local time on Friday night and the collision sparked a huge fire.

Saha confirmed the death of 13 people, saying the toll might rise as some of the 20-30 injured passengers were rescued in critical condition.

"Fire fighters recovered 13 charred bodies inside the bus after the accident," he said.

The cause for the accident is not immediately available, said the official.

Bangladesh has one of the highest fatality rates for road accidents in the world due mainly to shoddy highways, poorly maintained vehicles, violation of traffic rules and lack of monitoring of the traffic department.

Thousands of people are killed in road accidents in Bangladesh every year, and many of the fatalities occur in rural areas.
MANILA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least four people have been killed and more than 100 others injured in a powerful earthquake that hit a southern Philippine city on Mindanao island, media reports said on Saturday.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said in its revised report the magnitude-6.7 quake struck 10:03 p.m. Friday 14 km northwest of Surigao City in Surigao del Norte province.

Radio DzBB reported that several houses and buildings, including hotels, and roads were reportedly destroyed. The airport was also damaged, according to the reports.

The government disaster agency has yet to issue an official report on the quake.

Tremors were felt in neighboring provinces such as southern Leyte, Mandate City, Butuan City, Tacloban and Cebu City, in the central Philippines.

The institute has recorded at least 32 aftershocks after Friday's quake.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake, measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale, struck at a depth of 27 km.

Some residents posted status on Facebook saying they experienced power outages in the city. A Surigao-based television station posted pictures of a two-storey house with collapsed walls and a car with a fallen debris on top.

"Jesus Christ! That was a strong quake," posted another male resident of the city named Ilmen Ronzkie. He also posted pictures showing chaos of kitchen utensils such as plates, bowls, cups and saucers and the like that fell on the floor.
Dozens of North Dakotans will visit the Capitol to advocate for heart disease and stroke-related causes on Tuesday. The event will include visual displays by the American Heart Association and other partners, a heart-healthy lunch and State of the Heart address for legislators and survivor stories.

With House passage of House Bill 1210, which establishes a cardiac ready community grant program within the North Dakota Department of Health, the Senate will take up the bill soon. Community Hearts Day is an opportunity to share with legislators information on the Cardiac Ready Communities Project to date.

The Cardiac Ready Communities project is a partnership of the North Dakota Department of Healths Division of EMS & Trauma and the American Heart Association through the North Dakota Cardiac System of Care. The program is designed to promote survival from cardiac events.

Seconds matter when a neighbor, co-worker or family member has a cardiac event, and, in rural North Dakota, there can be time delays before first responders can arrive on the scene, said Jeff Sather, North Dakota State Medical Director.
CANBERRA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Australian Government has used anti-terrorism laws to strip an Islamic State (IS) terrorist of Australian citizenship.

A secret panel of intelligence officers, police, bureaucrats and lawyers reportedly made the decision to revoke Ahmed Sharrouf's citizenship earlier in 2017.

Sharrouf, 35, rose to notoriety after posting a picture of his son holding a severed head of a Syrian government official in 2014.

He was the target of wide-ranging anti-terrorism laws passed by the Australian parliament in 2015 which included granting the immigration minister the power to strip citizenship if it can be proved that a person was a member of a terrorist organization.

The law only applies to people who are dual-nationals due to Australia being a signatory to international convention that forbids it from leaving people stateless.

National security sources told News Limited on Saturday that the decision to strip Sharrouf's citizenship was based on his association with IS, which he joined in 2014.

Sharrouf, who was born in Lebanon, must now rely on his Lebanese citizenship if he wishes to leave the conflict zone.

Sharrouf allegedly left Australia with his friend, Mohamed Elomar, before both joined IS during the northern summer of 2014 just as IS launched a full scale assault on northern Syria and Iraq.

Elomar, who fathered a daughter with Shaffour's eldest daughter, was killed in 2015 by a drone strike in the Syrian city of Raqqa, oftn referred to as the "capital" of Islamic State's caliphate.

Both men documented their exploits on social media, posting photos of themselves with severed heads and even posting a video of themselves participating in a mass execution of Iraqi officials near Mosul.

Sharrouf had previously spent four years in jail in Australia for his involvement in a 2004 terrorist conspiracy.

Iraqi media reported in 2016 that Sharrouf had been killed in a United States (US) bombing strike on Mosul but the reports are unconfirmed.
KATHMANDU, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Nepal has completed the relocation of 15 wild water buffaloes (Bubalus Arnee) in protected area this week.

As part of the government's decision to relocate 30 rhinos, 30 wild water buffaloes, and 35 swamp deers to protected areas by 2018, the recent relocation has been conducted.

Among the proposed 30 wild water buffaloes, 15 have been relocated to Chitwan National Park in the first phase. Out of 15, 12 were shifted from Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve in the last week of January while 3 were shifted from National Zoo in Kathmandu on Thursday.

The Asiatic wild water buffalo is one of the protected species in the Himalayan country.

Dr. Chiranjivi Prasad Pokharel, project coordinator at National Trust for Nature Conservation told Xinhua, "The major objective of translocation of these wilds is to revive their population in the original habitats and to make them genetically strong through pure breeding."

For relocation, Chitwan National Park has separated 30 hectares of land and built several enclosures.

"The wild buffaloes comprising 3 males and 12 females will be kept in enclosures for two years before leaving them free for wild", Dr Pokharel added.

For years, Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve located in eastern part of the country was the only habitat for water buffaloes known as 'Arna' in local language. According to a survey in 2016, the wild water buffalo population increased to 432 individuals in Koshi Tappu, 105 more as compared to 2014 count.

Experts claim that the water buffalos are under threat due to anthropogenic pressure, habitat deterioration and hybridization with domestic buffaloes.

Beside Nepal, the Asiatic wild water buffaloes are found only in tropical and sub-tropical regions of India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Bhutan.
SANTIAGO, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The government of Chile announced on Friday that it ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change, a landmark accord on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

"Chile participated in an active manner ...influencing the recognition of important topics to our interests, such as adaptation to climate change, the link to the preservation of oceans, and the mitigation of the impact of this phenomenon," said Chilean Foreign Ministry in a statement.

The Paris Agreement was agreed by the 195 member economies that attended the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris.

"Chile is one of the countries most vulnerable and affected by climate change. This agreement will allow us to depend on a legal mark to realize the changes required for more resilient, low emissions development," said Foreign Minister Heraldo Munoz in the statement.

With the ratification, Chile is committed to "continue developing climate change policies, as well as advancing toward the fulfillment of its sustainable development objectives," according to the statement.

The agreement seeks to contain the rise in global average temperatures to under two degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels by the end of the century and strive for 1.5 degrees if possible.

For the first time, the agreement introduced ambitious targets to increase countries' capacity to adapt to climate change.
JAKARTA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Heavy downpours triggered another landslide in Bali resort island in central Indonesia on Saturday, bringing the total casualty of the disaster to 13 people with 5 others wounded, a senior official of Bali disaster agency said.

The natural disaster took place in Subaya village of Bangle district on Saturday morning, killing one person, said Dewa Made Indra, head of operation unit of Bali disaster management agency.

"The body of the villager has been recovered," he told Xinhua by phone from Bali Island.

Rains kept falling on Saturday, leading the local authorities to issue a warning to the people over the possibility of others landslides, floods or whirlwinds, the official said.

Previously national disaster agency reported that landslides occurred in three villages of Songan, Awan and Sukawana in the district on Thursday and Friday, killing 12 people and wounding 5 others.

Emergency relief efforts have been undertaken, involving soldiers, police, personnel of local search and rescue office and disaster management agency office as well as Red Cross, according Sutopo Purwo Nugoho, spokesman of national disaster management agency.

Indonesia is frequently hit by landslide and flood during heavy rains.
KIEV, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian experts see no prerequisites for holding a referendum on the country's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the near future, despite the recent declarations made by President Petro Poroshenko.

Viktor Musiyaka, a professor at the Kiev Mohyla Academy, said the intention of Poroshenko to call the plebiscite on NATO accession is quite astonishing at the time, when the alliance has not offered Ukraine even a membership plan.

"We have only received messages that nobody is waiting for Ukraine in the alliance. They said that the cooperation is possible, but the membership is either a remote prospect or something unattainable," Musiyaka said.

It is clear that holding a referendum is useless until NATO signals it is ready to accept Ukraine as a member, but currently, the military bloc is showing little enthusiasm to incorporate the East European country.

Poroshenko has said earlier this month that Ukraine was considering a possibility to hold a referendum on whether to join NATO, adding the number of Ukrainians supporting the accession to the military alliance has increased more than threefold to 54 percent over the past four years.

The president vowed to do all he can "to achieve membership in the transatlantic alliance" if the people voted in favor.

NATO and Ukraine have had a close relationship since the early 1990s, and their ties are one of the "most substantial" of NATO's partnerships, according to the alliance's website.

NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller on Thursday reaffirmed the alliance's support for Ukraine, urging Kiev to push forward the anti-corruption and other reforms.

"I encourage Ukraine to continue to press ahead with such reforms. NATO will continue to provide political and practical support to Ukraine," Gottemoeller said.

Commenting on the plans to hold the referendum, the head of NATO Representation to Ukraine Alexander Vinnikov said Kiev must carry out a series of reforms, especially in security and defense, before its bid can be accepted for consideration.

Without doubts, as long as Ukraine is involved in the conflict in the eastern regions and the territorial dispute with Russia over Crimea, its door to NATO is closed.

Besides, the Ukrainian economy and the political environments currently fall short of the alliance's criteria, which means the road to join NATO will be long.

What makes the referendum even more unlikely is the fact that Ukraine's military doctrine, which was approved by Poroshenko in 2015, set no prospect for NATO membership.

"The current law does not specify the aim of joining NATO -- the ultimate goal is to achieve specific technological criteria that meet NATO standards," said Yevgenij Marchuk, the head of International secretariat on Security and Civilian Cooperation between NATO and Ukraine.

He suggested that it would take Ukraine not less than 10 years to acquire the membership in the military bloc.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian society itself is not yet fully ready to cast their ballots in the referendum on NATO membership as the country's possible entry to the alliance is complicated by the internal differences on the issue and lack of information about it.

"I have serious doubts that the Ukrainian people understand the challenges of joining NATO. First, we should give our citizens information and knowledge on the issue and only then we could ask them to make a choice that will decide the fate of our country," said Anna Malyar, an independent analyst.

Some observers have suggested that Poroshenko's statements were not a political declaration that the plebiscite will take place soon, but only a signal of his readiness to hold such referendum someday.

This opinion is confirmed by the fact that shortly after the Poroshenko's announcement, the head of his administration Konstantin Elyseev said the referendum will be held only after Ukraine meets all NATO requirements.

Meanwhile, some other analysts believed that the words of Poroshenko, who said that 54 percent of Ukrainians will likely support NATO accession during the referendum, is nothing but an attempt to push forward the cooperation with the alliance amid fears that it may weaken after the change in the U.S. leadership.

"Obviously, these statements are aimed at putting pressure on our Western partners, showing them that Ukrainian people support NATO aspirations, so the cooperation should be expanded," said Iryna Bekeshkina, an analyst at Democratic Initiatives Foundation.
MANILA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from a powerful earthquake that rattled a southern Philippine city on Friday night has risen to at least 15, an official said on Saturday.

Surigao del Norte Governor Sol Matugas said that at least 100 residents had been injured in the magnitude-6.7 quake struck 10:03 p.m. Friday 14 km northwest of Surigao City in Surigao del Norte province.

Matugas confirmed in an earlier TV interview that four have indeed died in the quake.

The government disaster agency in Manila has yet to issue official data of damage or casualty.

Matugas said that the earthquake caused power outages in the city, destroyed the airport runway, bridges and buildings, including hotels and schools.

Already, airport authorities in Manila decided on Saturday to cancel flights going to Surigao City.

Tremors were felt in neighboring provinces such as southern Leyte, Mandate City, Butuan City, Tacloban and Cebu City, in the central Philippines.

The institute has recorded at least 89 aftershocks after Friday's quake.

While,the U.S. Geological Survey said the quake, measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale, struck at a depth of 27 km.

Some residents posted status on Facebook, saying they experienced power outages in the city. A Surigao-based television station posted pictures of a two-storey house with collapsed walls and a car with a fallen debris on top.

"Jesus Christ! That was a strong quake," posted another male resident of the city named Ilmen Ronzkie. He also posted pictures showing chaos of kitchen utensils such as plates, bowls, cups and saucers and the like that fell on the floor.
MEXICO CITY, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's potentially "disruptive changes to trade relations" can undermine the credit ratings of certain countries including Mexico, credit rating agency Fitch said on Friday.

"The Trump administration represents a risk to international economic conditions and global sovereign credit fundamentals," said the agency in a statement on its website.

Mexico, which shares a 3,200-km border with the United States and heavily relies on trade with its northern neighbor, is particularly vulnerable to "sudden, unanticipated changes in U.S. policy," said the agency.

The statement said Fitch's revision of "Mexico's BBB+ sovereign rating to Negative in December partly reflected increased economic uncertainty and asset price volatility following the U.S. election."

One of the biggest threats to Mexico's economy could come from mass deportations of undocumented Mexicans working in the Unitd States, which could notably diminish the flow of remittances, a key source of foreign revenue for Mexico, amounting to more than 24 billion U.S. dollars in 2016.

The rating agency also said that Canada, a party to the North American Free Trade Agreement along with the United States and Mexico, is also likely to be strongly affected.

Other countries most "at risk from adverse changes to their credit fundamentals" include China, Germany and Japan, according to Fitch.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Friday called on all parties in South Sudan to immediately stop fighting, saying that "there is no military solution to the conflict" in the world's youngest country.

The 15-nation UN body, in a press statement issued here, "strongly condemned continued fighting across South Sudan, particularly incidents in the Equatoria and Upper Nile regions of South Sudan and called on all parties to cease hostilities immediately.

"The members of the Security Council also condemned all attacks directed against civilians and expressed serious concern that, once again, there are reports of killing of civilians, sexual and gender-based violence, destruction of homes, ethnic violence, and looting of livestock and property," the statement said.

David Shearer, head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), on Thursday voiced concern about the escalation of the armed conflict between the government and opposition forces in South Sudan, saying that the fighting in the west bank of the River Nile in the northern part of the country has reached "worrying proportions."

"The members of the Security Council urged the Transitional Government of National Unity to take measures to ensure that those responsible for the attacks are held accountable," the statement said, adding that "they expressed deep alarm" that more than 84,000 individuals have fled South Sudan since the beginning of January and that many continue to be displaced internally.

"The members of the Security Council stressed the primacy of the political process and that there is no military solution to the conflict," said the statement.

Meanwhile, the council members also "reminded all parties in South Sudan that implementation of the cease-fire is critical for the success of any genuine, inclusive political process, including national dialogue, and that such a process should be based on the framework provided by the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan," the statement said.

"They reiterated their call on all stakeholders to commit to full implementation of the agreement," the statement said.

With already more than 3.5 million displaced within and outside the borders of South Sudan and thousands fleeing to neighboring countries every day, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) on Friday appealed for an urgent peaceful resolution to the refugee crisis.

"Recent new arrivals report suffering inside South Sudan with intense fighting, kidnappings, rape, fears of armed groups and threats to life, as well as acute food shortage," William Spindler, a spokesperson for the UNHCR told reporters.

"More than 60 percent of the refugees are children, many arriving with alarming levels of malnutrition - enduring devastating impact of the brutalities of the ongoing conflict," he said.

However, the crisis, now in its fourth year, is plagued by chronic levels of underfunding.

It started in December 2013 when a political face-off between President Salva Kiir and his former Vice President Riek Machar erupted into full conflict.

The crisis has produced one of the world's worst displacement situations with immense suffering for civilians.

Despite the August 2015 peace agreement that formally ended the war, conflict and instability have also spread to previously unaffected areas.
BEIJING, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- China will push for the normalization of initial public offerings (IPOs) and refinancing activities, while considering possible pressure on the market, said Deng Ge, spokesperson for the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

An IPO suspension between July and November 2015 was followed by a period of slower IPO approval. Under the current IPO system, new shares are subject to approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission, which controls both the timing and price.

China is working on an IPO approval system based on registration that will allow bourses to take over IPO approval and clear the backlog.

The regulator also said it will limit IPOs by steel and coal companies as the government is seeking to slim down the two bloated sectors.

Money raised through refinancing by listed firms cannot be used to pay back bank loans, the regulator stressed.

It also vowed to continue to crack down on any illegal activities, pledging strong measures against capital tycoons that violate regulations and laws.

Last year, 227 companies went public, raising total funds of 150.4 billion yuan (21.86 billion U.S. dollars).
RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The government of Brazil's Espirito Santo state said it reached a deal on Friday to end a week-long police strike that has sparked violence and chaos.

The striking police officers have agreed to return to work starting Saturday morning.

Espirito Santo is one of several Brazilian states hit by a budget crisis that is crippling essential public services for millions of citizens.

The police strike over pay during the past week has left a security vacuum. Since the officers walked off their jobs last Saturday, crimes were running rampant across the state, with more than 120 homicides registered in the capital Vitoria alone, and lootings reported by over 300 businesses and shops.

According to Brazil's Globo news website, in these seven days, the state saw more violent deaths than in the whole February of last year.

With no police patrolling the streets, Brazil's federal government deployed 1,700 military troops to keep order and was planning to raise that number to 3,000 this coming weekend.
A jury of 12 people found James Vann guilty as charged, with his own words having perhaps been his downfall.

"What was compelling in the case were the obvious admissions and the statements in the recordings," Burleigh County Assistant State's Attorney Marina Spahr said in an interview outside the courtroom. "We don't often have those kinds of explicit statements."

Vann was convicted on four counts of felony terrorizing for threatening his girlfriend, police and bystanders with strong words and a gun in a May 17, 2016, incident that began near U.S. Foods in north Bismarck and ended with his arrest in Wahpeton.

South Central District Judge Sonna Anderson ordered a pre-sentence investigation, so he was not sentenced Friday. He faces a minimum of two years in prison.

Over the course of the three-day trial, jurors listened to recorded comments Vann made to the police dispatch as he drove from Bismarck to Wahpeton and during his arrest there. Prosecutors were emphatic that his statements constituted threats that invoked real fear in police officers and bystanders.

"I know Ive got warrants. Im gonna turn myself in, after I kill that b...," he told police by phone of his then-girlfriend. "If I see another cop today, Im gonna kill you, though," he said.

Taking the stand on Thursday, Vann testified he would have never followed through on those threats. He described being frustrated by his then-girlfriend and worried that police had taken their toddler to stay with her once he took off.

"I said quite a few things I didn't mean to say," Vann testified. "I never had any intentions of hurting anybody."

But Spahr argued in her closing statement that Vann was at least reckless.

He certainly should have known that people would be terrorized by hearing that," she said.

Police officers and bystanders testified against Vann at trial. His former girlfriend, Alicia Holen, did not. She told the Tribune in June she was not threatened and wanted the charges dropped. Vann's attorney argued this should raise doubt in the mind of the jury, but the charges were written such that law enforcement's fear for her safety justified a guilty verdict.
by Raimundo Urrechaga

HAVANA, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- International oil companies believe there is still great potential to make new oil discoveries in Cuba since most of the island remains unexplored.

At a three-day meeting that started Wednesday, more than 200 experts from 15 oil companies shared their experiences in boosting the Cuban oil and gas industry.

The "Cuba Oil and Gas Summit 2017," hosted by Cuba's state-owned oil company CUPET, was aimed at attracting foreign investment.

Cuba has not made any major oil discoveries since 2002, according to Roberto Suarez, deputy general director of CUPET.

Cuba is looking to relaunch its own oil industry, particularly for offshore explorations and drilling, to reduce its dependence on oil imports, which currently account for more than 50 percent of the nation's needs.

"Our company believes Cuba has a rich natural endowment of oil and gas, particularly in the onshore sector where there are wells, existing production and reserves," Peter Strickland, managing director of Australia's Melbana Energy, told Xinhua.

This company has signed a production-sharing contract in Cuba's Block 9, about 140 km east of Havana.

The zone, which CUPET calls the North Belt, has been divided into 45 separate blocks to intensify shallow water and onshore exploration.

Strickland said Melbana Energy's block is at the exploration stage and the company has made "very encouraging" initial studies in the area.

"Our initial plans were to drill in 2019 or 2020. But I think with the work done so far, we can accelerate that. Potentially we might be drilling in 2018 if we can complete the technical, commercial and financial steps," he said.

Initial studies showed potential for approximately 600 million oil barrels in Block 9. "It's a lot of oil but it does come with risks...Until we drill, we won't know if that potential is real or not," Strickland told Xinhua.

Melbana Energy, which changed its name from MEO Australia, announced the great potential of its block in 2016 and estimated it could recover about 395 million barrels.

The discovery made CUPET enthusiastic about the future of this joint contract, especially as it began a massive seismic study covering 25,000 square kilometers around the island in December.

The survey is being carried out by BGP Inc, a Chinese geophysical company, with new high-definition technologies and software.

"The study is around 70 percent complete and is showing very good images and potential for oil discovery in Cuba. The data shows that we can help CUPET find oil in this country," Xing Hongkai, general manager of BGP Inc, told Xinhua.

At the summit, other firms, which previously held discussions with CUPET, came to offer their services, to see how they could boost the island's oil industry, such as Enviro-Tech Systems, a leading U.S. company in environmental operations that can process water treatment.

Since Havana and Washington reestablished relations in 2015, many U.S. companies have approached their Cuban counterparts to establish business ties. However, the continuing economic embargo on the island presents a major obstacle in sealing such commercial deals.

"Our equipment could allow CUPET to ensure discharged oily water could be made clean and usable again. Currently, they don't have this type of technology," Frank Richerand, general director of Enviro-Tech systems, told Xinhua.

"We came to the summit because it's a chance to network with CUPET and several other companies around the world as well as a good way to meet people in the industry. Our company is based in Louisiana and our state is very close to Cuba," he added.

One company that has been Cuba's long-time partner is Venezuela's state oil giant, the PDVSA.

Both firms have developed numerous projects over the last decade including a joint refinery in central Cuba which was supplied with oil from Venezuela. While the economic crisis in that country has led to oil shipments being cut nearly in half, new cooperation alternatives have arisen.

"We're currently working in offshore exploration up to 3,000 meters in depth. Our company continues to analyze and study this area to begin drilling once the technical, commercial and financial conditions are set," PDVSA Exploration Director Jesus Benavides told Xinhua.

CUPET is also looking for partners to introduce new technologies to its industry and continue deepwater exploration in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts estimated reserves equivalent to 22 billion oil barrels in the 112,000 square-km area.

Since 1999, CUPET and foreign partners have failed to find oil in the EEZ for four times, with a fifth attempt about to start.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's President Michel Temer condemned on Friday a week-long police strike in Espirito Santo state which prompted a spike in criminal activities.

It was the first time the president commented on the incident that has sparked violence and chaos.

In a statement released by the presidential office, President Temer described the strike as "illegal" and "unacceptable", accusing it of terrifying local people.

Earlier in the day, the government of Espirito Santo state said it has reached a deal with the striking police officers, who had agreed to return to work starting Saturday morning.

So far the protesters have not confirmed the deal.

Espirito Santo is one of several Brazilian states hit by a budget crisis that is crippling essential public services for millions of citizens.

The police strike over pay during the past week has left a security vacuum. Since the officers walked off their jobs last Saturday, crimes were running rampant across the state, with more than 120 homicides registered in the capital Vitoria alone, and lootings reported by over 300 businesses and shops.

According to Brazil's Globo news website, in the past seven days, the state saw more violent deaths than in the whole February of last year.

With no police patrolling the streets, Brazil's federal government deployed 1,700 military troops to keep order and was planning to raise that number to 3,000 this coming weekend.
BEIJING, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- China Railway Corp. expects 8.2 million trips to be made by rail Saturday as it is Lantern Festival, the end of the lunar new year celebrations.

The company said it had scheduled an additional 598 trains to cope with demand.

On Friday, 8.92 million trips were made by rail.

The Lunar New Year holiday was from Jan. 27 to Feb. 2 this year. The period, which is also known as Spring Festival, is known as the largest human migration in the world, as hundreds of millions of people go back to their hometowns, putting huge stress on the transportation system.

The first post-festival travel rush started toward the end of the week-long holiday. The second travel rush usually happens around Lantern Festival, when students return to start a new semester and migrant workers return to work.
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least 14 people were killed and 19 others injured in three separate road accidents in Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province over the last 24 hours, local Urdu media reported Saturday.

Geo News said that five people were killed and seven others injured when a car hit into a passenger bus in Mastung district of the province.

Police said that the car carrying five people hit into the over-speeded bus coming from opposite direction at a blind turn.

All the five people inside the car were killed in the crash.

In a separate accident, four people were killed and two others injured when a car hit into a truck in Qila Abdullah district of the province.

Police said that the car, carrying six people was on its way to provincial capital of Quetta when it met the accident on the way.

The third accident happened in Kalat district of the province where five people were killed and 10 others injured in a collision between a passenger van and a truck.

All the injured people were shifted to nearby hospitals.

Road accidents frequently happen in Pakistan due to poorly maintained roads, violation of road safety rules and reckless driving.

According to data compiled by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, over 9,000 road accidents are reported to the police every year, killing on average around 5,000 people annually in the country.

Traffic police officials say that 90 percent accidents in Pakistan are caused merely by human error.
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Pakistani army said terrorist from Afghanistan launched an overnight attack on a border post in Mohmand Agency in northern Pakistan.

"Pakistani troops at the post effectively responded to the fire. Terrorist fled back to Afghanistan," the army said in a statement late Friday.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (TPP JA), a splinter group of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The army statement did not say anything about casualties.

Spokesman for the TTP JA group Asad Mansoor said two of its fighters were killed and three injured in clashes with the Pakistani troops.
JAKARTA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least three foreign airlines have been planning to serve flights to part of Indonesia's ultimate tour destinations, Lake Toba in North Sumatra province.

As the flight services from Singapore's Tiger Air and Silk Air and Malaysian-based Air Asia are discussed by related authorities, the Lake Toba administrative agency is making preparations in Silangit airport to facilitate their flights.

Arie Prasetyo, head of Lake Toba tourism authority, said that the project to lengthen the runway in Silangit airport up to 2,650 meters is underway and expected to be settled in September.

"We already had discussions with Singapore Tourism Board, resulted in assurance that Tiger Air and Silk Air would land in Silangit airport," Arie said on Friday.

Air Asia CEO Tony Fernandes had met Indonesian Tourism Minister Arief Yahya for the same purpose, he said.

The airport now serves flights operated by domestic airlines of Sriwijaya Air and Garuda Indonesia which provide scheduled flights to Silangit with Boeing 737-500 and Bombardier CRJ1000 planes respectively.

To provide hotel and supporting accommodations for visitors, Lake Toba tourism authority has prepared 600 hectares of land for investors interested to invest in the tour destination, Arie said.

Lake Toba is a Jurassic one, created from mega volcanic explosions that occurred around 73,000 years ago in Sumatra and left behind a super wide lake with an island at the center of it.

The lake is 100-kilometers long and 30-kilometers wide. It is the largest one in Indonesia and in Southeast Asia as well.
NEW DELHI, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh went to polls Saturday, seen as a referendum for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetization move.

The first of the five-phase assembly polls in India's largest state began at 8 a.m. local time and will continue till 5 p.m.

Results will be announced on March 11, along with those of four other states -- Punjab and Uttarakhand in the north, Goa in the west, Mainpur in the northeast.

This year's election in Uttar Pradesh is witnessing a high-octane contest between the country's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the state's ruling Samajwadi Party and its ally Congress, and the state's main opposition Bahujan Samaj Party.

While the Samajwadi Party hopes to retain power for another five years, the Bharatiya Janata Party is eyeing a comeback in the state after a long gap of 13 years.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had won 71 of the 80 parliamentary seats in the general elections in May 2014, decimating all the other parties in Uttar Pradesh.

Experts say this year's election will be a tough fight between all political contenders, and it will be considered as a major electoral test for Modi's cash ban move.

On Nov. 8 last year, in a sudden televised address to the nation, Modi announced the demonetization of higher denomination currency notes to curb black money and the circulation of fake currency notes among terrorists.
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least five people were killed and five others went missing after a boat carrying devotees capsized in southern Pakistan on Friday night, local media reported Saturday.

Geo News said that the boat carrying 30 people capsized in the country's largest Indus River on Friday night on its way to Pir Muhban Shah shrine located in Dokri area of Larkana in south Sindh province.

Larkana's Deputy Commissioner Kashif Ali Tipu said that 20 people were rescued Friday night while 10 others went missing.

Search was suspended as rescue work could not be carried out in darkness of the night.

The rescue operation by divers from the Navy resumed on Saturday morning, during which five bodies were recovered while five others were still missing.

The accident happened due to over-loading as there were 30 people and seven motorbikes on the boat.

People living at the banks of Indus River use boats as their common transportation due to absence of proper road network and other traffic facilities.
ANKARA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Turkish security forces announced on Saturday that a total of 3,609 people were arrested as part of nationwide public order operations across the country.

According to a statement issued by the General Security Directorate, 3,609 arrested in simultaneous operations conducted by police, gendarmerie and coast guards late Friday and early Saturday, 2,282 wanted by police.

Police has confiscated 81 vehicles, 91 guns, 91 hunting rifles, 80,268 packs of smuggled cigarettes, 686 smuggled cell phones, 762 liters of unlicensed alcohol as well as 103 artifacts.

Around 81,000 officers participated in the operations titled "peace and safety", the statement said, adding that 17 drones, and 71 marine vessels were used.
by Xinhua writers Shen Anni and Zhang Jianhua

GUANGZHOU, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Felly Mwamba has traveled so frequently since he first came to China in 2003 that he is on his sixth passport.

The businessman, who is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa has been the representative of the African Business Freight Guangzhou Office for 13 years.

"There are still many opportunities in China. It is a very large market. I am currently thinking about what new opportunities there are for me here," he said, adding that he wanted to stay "as long as possible".

WORLD Of OPPORTUNITIES

With the Chinese economy expanding steadily over the past decades,Guangzhou, which is close to China's manufacturing heartland, has emerged as a trade hub for foreign business people. The provincial capital has one of the largest African communities in Asia. There are around 30,000 Africans in Guangzhou, according to police records, but researchers believe their population far exceeds this.

Mwamba said he was inspired by the dynamic environment.

"When I came to China I found there was a world of opportunities to do business so I decided to stay here," he said.

Mwamba has visited many factories in China and has a wealth of experience in selling and shipping electronics, furniture and construction materials to Congo, Angola and other parts of Africa.

"When business was good, I could ship five to 10 containers each month," he said.

In recent years, however, the business has changed, and two of his four employees have quit.

"I have been mainly doing international trade to Africa, but the economy in some African countries is not so stable," he said. "Living expenses and labor costs here in Guangzhou are also rising."

Despite increasing pressure, Mwamba said he never thought about leaving China. "I believe things will get better and I still have hope, so I am not afraid."

His company is mulling the possibility of extending business to Canada and the United States.

"When I was in North America, I went to a lot of shopping malls and many products there were 'Made in China'."

Mwamba was the chairman of the Congolese Community in China, an organization with over 1,200 members.

The organization, he said, aimed to maintain good relationships among the Congolese and between their community and other people in China.

It also helped its members understand Chinese laws, and share business experience.

"There are people with visa problems, money problems, translation problems. Some just need advice about business," Mwamba said.

Things were quite different when Mwamba first arrived in China. He did not know a single word of Chinese, but managed to learn the language within a year by socializing.

"When you live here, you just have to love this place, work hard and make friends. Like the saying, 'with more friends, life is flexible' ," he explained.

VALUABLE EXPERIENCE

Isidore Lunde-Okulungu, the secretary of the Congolese Community in China, said he has learned a lot from living and doing business in China.

Lunde-Okulungu, 34, lives with his wife and two children in Guangzhou. He came to China in 2007 and has set up a printing business in Guangzhou that produces books, magazines and T-shirts for the African market.

He said he was impressed that many Chinese, even those who were very wealthy, tended to live frugal lives.

"Chinese know how to save money. They can get rich because they know how to use money," he said.

Unlike Mwamba, Lunde-Okulungu did not intend to live abroad forever. With improving infrastructure, cheaper land and labor back in Africa, he always keeps an eye out for opportunities in his own country.

He said his experience in China is valuable for his future business.

"When I go back to my country, I know I will have more choices," he said.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi made Africa his first overseas destination in 2017, following a diplomatic tradition going back nearly three decades.

From December 2015 to July 2016, agreements worth over 50 billion dollars were signed in various fields between China and Africa, Wang said.

At the 2015 Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, China committed to a 60-billion-dollar fund that would deepen its relationship with Africa over the next three years.
The full Senate Appropriations Committee will take up recommendations from a subcommittee early next week on moving tobacco cessation programs to the North Dakota Department of Health and eliminating the programs as a separate agency.

Sen. Ralph Kilzer, R-Bismarck, said a three-member subcommittee voted 2-1 Friday to dissolve the funding for the Comprehensive Tobacco Control Advisory Committee in Senate Bill 2024. This would allow the agencys functions to be put into the health department.

The agency in SB2024 has a $16.5 million budget and eight full-time staff.

Kilzer said the staff and funding would be made up on some level in the health department budget, Senate Bill 2004.

He said the two budgets would likely be taken up on Monday or Tuesday.

The move would be in line with the budget recommendations of both former Gov. Jack Dalrymple and current Gov. Doug Burgum.
JUBA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- China and South Sudan have agreed to boost cooperation in the health sector by enhancing knowledge sharing, capacity building, and hospital to hospital collaboration.

The deal which was sealed in Juba on Friday will also allow Chinese health specialists to set up experimental operations and management units in the East African nation.

The pacts were reached during a meeting between senior South Sudanese government officials and a team of 15 Chinese health experts led by Wang Yuming, Associate Counsel of Health and Family Planning Commission of Anhui Province, east China.

South Sudan's Health Minister RiekGai Kok told Xinhua on Saturday that the cooperation agreements were part of a 33 million U.S. dollar medical assistance pledged by the Chinese government to improve South Sudan's health sector.

Kok described relations between the two countries as excellent and beneficial to the people of both countries, adding that his ministry has already received a donation of 600 bicycles and communication gadgets from the Chinese government to support health in the grass root level.

"The relationship between the peoples of South Sudan and China is excellent. The provision of this world-class diagnostic equipment is going to reduce foreign travel for medical attention," Kok said.

"Any time from now, we can receive a team of Chinese medical specialists to come and offer medical services and give mentorship to our doctors. So our friendship with China is really moving upward," he added.

The agreements also seek to modernize the country's main referral hospital, the Juba Teaching Hospital, and renovation of the China-funded Kiir Mayardit Women's Hospital in the South Sudanese town of Rumbek.

Apart from offering free medical services in the war-torn country , the Chinese medical team also donated more than 30 types of medicine, diagnostic equipments and a fully-stocked ambulance to the country's main referral hospital.

Zhang Yi, Economic Councillor at the Chinese Embassy in South Sudan said China is committed to helping Juba build an efficient health sector that can enhance bilateral ties between Beijing and Juba.

"We are trying our best to further improve the medical service here in South Sudan, improve the livelihoods of the South Sudanese People and in turn improve the bilateral cooperation and friendship between the two friendly countries, the two peoples and two governments," said Zhang.

Since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, China has contributed diplomatic and material support to South Sudan.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese concept of building "a human community with shared destiny" was on Friday incorporated into a UN resolution for the first time, mirroring the global recognition of the concept, diplomats told Xinhua.

The 55th UN Commission for Social Development (CSocD) approved a resolution by consensus, which calls for more support to Africa's economic and social development by embracing the spirit of building "a human community with shared destiny."

Since China first proposed the concept in late 2012, it has gone on to shape China's approach to global governance, giving rise to proposals and measures to support growth for all.

"It is the first time that a UN resolution incorporates this important Chinese concept," the diplomats said.

The fact shows the universal recognition by UN members of the Chinese concept, and manifests huge Chinese contribution to global governance, they said.

The resolution, titled "Social dimensions of the New Partnership for Africa's Development," welcomes the efforts by all the parties concerned to further promote the process of regional economic cooperation in Africa.

The UN commission approved the resolution, together with three others, for adoption by the UN Economic and Social Council, which is at the heart of the UN system to advance the three dimensions of sustainable development -- economic, social and environmental ones.

Since the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1995, the CSocD has been the key UN body in charge of the follow-up and implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration and Program of Action.

On Jan. 18, Chinese President Xi Jinping shed more light on the Chinese concept in his keynote speech at the UN Office at Geneva.

In a speech, titled "Work Together to Build a Community of Shared Future for Mankind," Xi renewed his call for building a community of shared future, another translation of the Chinese concept, offering inspiration to a world beset by rising challenges and risks.

To maintain peace, sustain development and ensure continued prosperity, China has proposed the building of "a community of shared future," and achieving shared, win-win development, he said.

Such a proposal transcends ethnic, national and ideological differences as it has been designed to help countries and regions cope with global challenges.

"Building a community of shared future is an exciting goal, and it requires efforts from generation after generation," Xi said. "China is ready to work with all the other UN member states as well as international organizations and agencies to advance the great cause of building a community of shared future for mankind."

The CSocD resolution also welcomes further world efforts to carry out China's Belt and Road Initiative, a trade and infrastructure network under the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

The network connects Asia, Europe and Africa and passes through more than 60 countries and regions with a population of about 4.4 billion.

Related:

Xinhua Insight: Xi's world vision: a community of common destiny, a shared home for humanity

BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of years ago, China envisaged a world where people live in perfect harmony and are as dear to one another as family. Today, President Xi Jinping has given the world a new name -- a community of common destiny. Full story

Interview: Building community of common destiny the only future for mankind: UN General Assembly president
Photo taken on Feb. 11, 2017 shows the scene of a damaged building after a 6.7 magnitude earthquake striking in Surigao City in southern Philippine province of Surigao del Norte. Seven people have died and 120 others injured in a 6.7 magnitude earthquake that rattled Surigao City in the southern Philippines Friday night, the city mayor said Saturday. (Xinhua/Stringer)

MANILA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Seven people have died and 120 others injured in a 6.7 magnitude earthquake that rattled Surigao City in the southern Philippines Friday night, the city mayor said Saturday.

Mayor Ernesto Matugas said that city officials have passed a resolution declaring the city a state of calamity, noting the earthquake was felt in all 54 villages of the city.

Matugas said that five of the people who were killed have already been identified, including a four-year-old boy and an 86-year-old man.

He said four of the victims died due to falling debris, one due to cardiac arrest and one was hit by a wall that collapsed in the tremor.

The strong earthquake struck Surigao City in Surigao del Norte province at around 10:03 p.m., causing power outage, damaging the airport runway, roads, bridges and buildings, including hotels and schools.

Airport authorities in Manila decided on Saturday to cancel flights to and from Surigao City.

In a statement, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said that it has issued a notice to airmen that Surigao Airport will be closed until March 10 due to a damaged runway.

Tremors were also felt in neighboring provinces. The government has recorded at least 89 aftershocks after Friday's earthquake.

Staff of a Surigao-based television station posted pictures of a two-story house with collapsed walls and a car with a fallen debris on top.

"Jesus Christ! That was a strong quake," posted another male resident of the city named Ilmen Ronzkie.

He also posted pictures showing chaos of kitchen utensils such as plates, bowls, cups and saucers that fell on the floor.
ANKARA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's Supreme Election Board announced on Saturday that a constitutional referendum will be hold on April 16, Turkish broadcaster NTV reported.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan approved constitutional amendments on Friday, which will bring drastic changes to the country's political system, including a shift to an executive presidential system from the current parliamentary system, paving way for a referendum.

On Dec. 30, 2016, a constitutional committee of deputies from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) submitted a proposed bill to Parliament for ratification.

The parliament passed the constitutional amendment on Jan. 21 in two rounds of voting for 18 articles. A total of 339 deputies voted in favor of the amendment, exceeding the 330-vote threshold to bring it to a referendum.

The constitutional change will bring a shift of regime change in Turkey with a strong partisan presidential system that will take over all authorities of the prime minister and cabinet.

According to the constitutional amendment, the president will exercise all the authorities of the prime minister and cabinet and possess the authority to issue decrees, appoint vice presidents and cabinet members from outside the parliament.
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) wait to be airlifted to the South Sudanese Northern State of Eastern Nile, in Juba, capital of South Sudan, Jan. 7, 2017. Hundreds of IDPs have been stranded in Juba since December 2016 following the start of a voluntary repatriation program initiated by the South Sudan's government, to resettle people displaced by three years of civil war. (Xinhua/Gale Julius)

JUBA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Intense fighting in South Sudan has displaced 1.5 million people who have been forced to leave the country and seek safety since conflict erupted in December 2013, the UN refugee agency said on Friday.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement that an additional 2.1 million people are displaced inside the world's youngest nation with no solution in sight.

"With this large scale displacement, South Sudan is now Africa's largest refugee crisis and the world's third after Syria and Afghanistan - with less attention and chronic levels of underfunding," UNHCR said.

Intense fighting broke out in South Sudan in July 2016 following the collapse of a peace deal between the government and opposition forces.

The UN agency said over 760,000 refugees fled the country in 2016, as the conflict intensified in the second half of the year - on an average of 63,000 people were forced to leave the country per month.

Some half a million had to flee in the last four months, it said, adding that over 60 percent of the refugees are children, many arriving with alarming levels of malnutrition - enduring devastating impact of the brutalities of the ongoing conflict.

"We are appealing on all parties involved in the conflict for an urgent peaceful resolution of the crisis, without which, thousands continue to arrive in South Sudan's neighbouring countries of Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the Central African Republic every day with the conflict now in its fourth year," it said.

The majority of the refugees are being hosted by Uganda, where some 698,000 have arrived.

Ethiopia is hosting some 342,000, while more than 305,000 are in Sudan and some 89,000 in Kenya, 68,000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and 4,900 in the Central African Republic.

According to the UN agency, recent new arrivals report suffering inside South Sudan with intense fighting, kidnappings, rape, fears of armed groups and threats to life, as well as acute food shortage.

"In 2017, we are seeking 782 million U.S. dollars for regional operations inside South Sudan and the neighbouring host countries," it said.

Those fleeing South Sudan are being hosted by the poorest communities in the neighbouring countries, under immense pressure with scarce resources.

UNHCR said it is extremely worried by the lack of resources to handle one of the world's largest refugee crises.
South Sudan government officials and a team of visiting Chinese medical experts pose for a group photo at the Juba Teaching Hospital on Feb. 11, 2017. (Xinhua/Gale Julius)

JUBA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- China and South Sudan have agreed to boost cooperation in the health sector by enhancing knowledge sharing, capacity building, and hospital to hospital collaboration.

The deal which was sealed in Juba on Friday will also allow Chinese health specialists to set up experimental operations and management units in the East African nation.

The pacts were reached during a meeting between senior South Sudanese government officials and a team of 15 Chinese health experts led by Wang Yuming, Associate Counsel of Health and Family Planning Commission of Anhui Province, east China.

South Sudan's Health Minister RiekGai Kok told Xinhua on Saturday that the cooperation agreements were part of a 33 million U.S. dollar medical assistance pledged by the Chinese government to improve South Sudan's health sector.

Kok described relations between the two countries as excellent and beneficial to the people of both countries, adding that his ministry has already received a donation of 600 bicycles and communication gadgets from the Chinese government to support health in the grass root level.

"The relationship between the peoples of South Sudan and China is excellent. The provision of this world-class diagnostic equipment is going to reduce foreign travel for medical attention," Kok said.

"Any time from now, we can receive a team of Chinese medical specialists to come and offer medical services and give mentorship to our doctors. So our friendship with China is really moving upward," he added.

The agreements also seek to modernize the country's main referral hospital, the Juba Teaching Hospital, and renovation of the China-funded Kiir Mayardit Women's Hospital in the South Sudanese town of Rumbek.

Apart from offering free medical services in the war-torn country , the Chinese medical team also donated more than 30 types of medicine, diagnostic equipments and a fully-stocked ambulance to the country's main referral hospital.

Zhang Yi, Economic Councillor at the Chinese Embassy in South Sudan said China is committed to helping Juba build an efficient health sector that can enhance bilateral ties between Beijing and Juba.

"We are trying our best to further improve the medical service here in South Sudan, improve the livelihoods of the South Sudanese People and in turn improve the bilateral cooperation and friendship between the two friendly countries, the two peoples and two governments," said Zhang.

Since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, China has contributed diplomatic and material support to South Sudan.
LASHKAR, Afghanistan, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least 15 people were injured as a suicide bomber blew himself up next to a bank here on Saturday, spokesman for the provincial government Omar Zawak said.

However, locals believe that some 40 people including a few military personnel were killed or injured in the suicide bombing that occurred at 2:15 p.m. local time.

A military vehicle was also burned in the blast, said witnesses.

Lashkar is a city in southern Afghanistan and the capital of Helmand Province.
ACCRA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo Friday night assured investors that his country is open for business.

Speaking to a delegation of investors from the United Arab Emirates which included the Chairman of the Al Serkal Group, Eisa Bin Nasser Alserkal, a Dubai-based business conglomerate, the president also assured them of the creation of a conducive business environment which will ensure that businesses flourish, thereby creating prosperity for Ghanaians.

The delegation was at the Flagstaff House in Accra to pay a courtesy call on the president, the presidency said in a release.

President Akufo-Addo noted that the topmost priority of his government is to create jobs for Ghanaians and return the country onto the path of progress and prosperity.

He told the delegation that the industrialization of the economy, with the aim of moving the country away from being dependent on raw material exports to an economy of value-added activities, and the revival of Ghanaian agriculture will be his main focus.

President Akufo-Addo said it is for this reason that his government is determined to partner with investors and the private sector to set up strategic industries, with the aim of helping to create jobs for the youth.

On his part, Alserkal said the decision of his company to invest in Ghana stemmed from its belief that Ghana offered the right opportunities for investors in Africa.

Al Serkal is a business conglomerate based in Dubai, with a bouquet of companies in the fields of healthcare, manufacturing, petrochemicals, commercial and residential real estate, banking, mobile telephony and construction services.
PHNOM PENH, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Sam Rainsy, president of the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), resigned as the party's president on Saturday.

In a resignation notice to the party's board of directors and posted on his official Facebook page, Rainsy said that he resigned as the president and member of the CNRP due to "personal reasons."

He said his resignation took effect on Feb. 11, 2017.

"In all circumstances, I continue to cherish and to uphold the CNRP's ideals in my heart," he wrote on his Facebook page, along with the resignation notice.

Rainsy has been living in exile in France since November 2015 to avoid a two-year prison sentence over a defamation charge.

In December 2016, a Cambodian court also sentenced, in absentia, him to another five years in prison for conspiring to incite chaos in the country through posting fake documents on his Facebook page.

Rainsy's resignation came just a day after 60 ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) lawmakers submitted a petition to the parliament proposing a law amendment that bans convicts from serving as president of a political party.
PARIS, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- A French farmer has been fined a suspended 3,000 euros (3,188 U.S. dollars) for hosting and smuggling migrants.

A court in the southern city of Nice on Friday convicted Cedric Herrou for helping migrants illegally cross the Italian-French border. He would not have to pay the fine provided that he follows the rules and stays clean for five years.

Herrou, a 37-year-old olive grower, assisted nearly 200 migrants in 2016 in their illegal entry from Italy to France, as well as their temporary accommodation in France, the court heard.

But Herrou was defiant. "We will continue to act and neither the threats of officials nor one or two politicians will stop us," Herrou told supporters after the verdict.

"It will only be a victory when we don't have to do this anymore and I can go back to my normal life and my work," he was quoted by France24 as saying.

"It is an act of humanity, not a crime," Herrou has told French radio.

Herrou was not the only person who faces prosecution for helping immigrants. A French university researcher named Pierre-Alain Mannoni got a six-month suspended jail sentence on Jan. 7 for aiding Eritrean migrants.

Such cases reflected the hot-spot debate on immigration, as some worried that rampant migrant flows may pose risks to France's security and become a heavy economic burden.
"The minute Morton County knew I was a journalist, they should have just let me go. I wasn't there locking arms. I was walking away."

 Jenni Monet, 40, a journalist for the Center for Investigative Reporting, Indian Country Media Network, PBS Newshour and High Country News, after being arrested at a recent Dakota Access Pipeline protest.

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"Please respect our people and do not come to Standing Rock and instead exercise your First Amendment rights and take this fight to your respective state capitols, to your members of Congress and to Washington, D.C. "

 Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II, after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it would approve an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline. A march against the pipeline is scheduled March 10 in D.C.

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"This is a pocketbook issue for thousands of North Dakota families and MDU's proposed rate hike will hurt fixed-income North Dakotans the most."

 AARP State Director Josh Askvig, voicing the groups objections to Montana-Dakota Utilities' request for a rate increase.

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"If you've got affordable housing, you should keep it affordable."

 Myron Atkinson, spokesman for a group of mobile home operators, on a request for a study on the needs of mobile homes.

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"It's a punch in the gut to the patients of North Dakota, and a slap in the face to the voters of North Dakota."

 Fargo resident Rilie Ray Morgan, who spearheaded the Measure 5 campaign, reacting to a Senate bill rewriting Measure 5 that would institute $300 fees for applicants wanting medical marijuana cards and a $100,000 fee for certification of compassion centers that would manufacture and dispense the substance.

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"The purpose of my bill ... is not to ban refugee resettlement. The purpose of the bill is to put into (North Dakota Century Code) that state and local governments be consulted as per federal law, which already requires this. And that's not happening."

 Rep. Chris Olson, R-West Fargo, primary sponsor of a bill that would allow North Dakota cities and the governor to place a moratorium on refugee resettlement. The bill may be turned into a legislative study during the 2017-18 interim.

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"They want to know that they are not doing anything inappropriate by removing a kid from a classroom if they need some time to cool down. And certainly, that was my experience while teaching, too."

 Sen. Erin Oban, D-Bismarck, on a bill that would require school districts to adopt policies on when it's appropriate for teachers to restrain a student or seclude them in a room.

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"Simply put, government shouldn't tell private businesses when they can and cannot open their doors. Many people have limited time to get their errands and shopping done over the weekend, and allowing retailers to open for business before noon on Sundays is an important step to strengthen North Dakota's retail sector and overall economy."

 Rep. Pamela Anderson, D-Fargo, on a bill to allow retailers to open on Sunday mornings. The House approved the bill, 48-46, a day after rejecting. It now goes to the Senate.

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"Hopefully it's going to enlighten our legislators' knowledge, skills and abilities on Native American ways."

 Sen. Richard Marcellais, D-Belcourt, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, on a bill to require cultural competency training for all lawmakers.

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"I respect a lot of people, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get along with him. He's a leader of his country. I say it's better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world  that's a good thing."

 President Donald Trump, discussing Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Chairman of The Pakistani Senate Mian Raza Rabbani said Saturday that no U.S. delegations, Congressmen or diplomats will be welcomed after the U.S. embassy in Islamabad delayed visas to two Pakistani senators.

Rabbani has further directed that no Senate delegation will visit the United States unless an explanation to the delay in issuance of visas is given by the U.S. government and the its embassy in Pakistan.

Deputy Chairman of the Pakistani Senate Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri and Senator Salahuddin Tirmizi had been scheduled to travel to the United States as part of a delegation to attend inter-parliamentary hearings at the UN headquarters in New York on Feb. 13-14.

The visit has been cancelled due to the delay in issuance of visas to the Senators.
NEW DELHI, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian woman, believed to be the world's heaviest woman that weighs some 500 kilograms, reached India Saturday for weight reduction surgery, doctors said.

Eman Ahmed Abd El Aty, 36, arrived at a health facility in Mumbai on Saturday morning for the treatment from Egypt's Alexandria city.

Abd El Aty will receivd treatment under the supervision of the city's bariatric surgeon Dr. Muffazal Lakdawala.

Reports quoting family members of Abd El Aty said she had not moved out of her house for 25 years.

According to doctors, she will remain under observation for about a month before undergoing surgery.

Indian doctors have been treating bed-bound Abd El Aty for almost three months and took all necessary precautions to transport her from Egypt.

Reports said a team of Indian doctors went to Egypt to optimize the conditions for Abd El Aty's travel, monitor her vitals and prepare for any eventuality during the flight.

The doctors had furnished a chattered flight with all essential equipment like portable ventilator, portable defibrillator, oxygen cylinders, intubating laryngoscopes and other safety drugs, besides a specially designed bed for Abd El Aty.

Last year, the Indian embassy in Cairo initially denied visa request of Abd El Aty because of her inability to present herself in person at the office.

However, she was later granted the visa after her surgeon Lakdawala tweeted to Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj about Abd El Aty's condition.
Smoke rises from the site of a blast in Helmand province, Afghanistan, Feb. 11, 2017. At least eight people have been confirmed dead and 20 others injured as a suicide bomber blew himself up next to a bank here on Saturday, spokesman for the provincial government Omar Zawak said. (Xinhua/Abdul Aziz Safdari)

LASHKAR, Afghanistan, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least eight people have been confirmed dead and 20 others injured as a suicide bomber blew himself up next to a bank here on Saturday, spokesman for the provincial government Omar Zawak said.

"A terrorist tied explosive device in his body blew himself up next to a local bank where a number of security personnel gathered to collect their salaries, killing himself and seven others on the spot and injuring 20 others," Zawak told reporters.

The victims included civilians and security personnel, the official said without giving more details.

Lashkar is a city in southern Afghanistan and the capital of Helmand Province.

The poppy-growing Helmand province has been the scene of fierce fighting between government forces and Taliban militants over the past few years.
NEW DELHI, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch 104 satellites in a single mission next week, officials said Saturday.

The record number of satellites would be launched on Wednesday from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota, an island off the Bay of Bengal coast located in southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

"India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its 39th flight (PSLV-C37), will launch the 714-kg Cartosat-2 series satellite for earth observation and 103 co-passenger satellites together weighing about 664 kg at lift-off into a 505 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO)," a statement issued by ISRO said.

"PSLV-C37 is scheduled to be launched Feb. 15, 2017 (Wednesday) at 9:28 a.m. local time from Sriharikota."

According to the ISRO, the co-passenger satellites comprises of 101 nano satellites, one each from Israel, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and 96 from the United States, as well as two nano satellites from India.

The total weight of all the satellites carried onboard PSLV-C37 is about 1,378 kg, ISRO said.

"The 101 International customer nano satellites are being launched as part of the commercial arrangements between Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix), a Government of India company under Department of Space (DOS), the commercial arm of ISRO and the international customers," the statement said.

Last year the ISRO launched 20 satellites successfully in an orbit in single mission.

So far, the highest number of satellites launched in a single mission is 37 by Russia in 2014.
RIYADH, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Saudi security forces arrested on Saturday morning more than 10 terror suspects during raids in Jeddah and Medina, Sabq local online news portal reported.

The raids took place as part of the preemptive operations to prevent terror plots. No official confirmation was made by the interior ministry yet, although the portal confirmed the confiscations of guns and sharp objects with the arrestees.

Last month, Saudi Arabia arrested 16 terrorists, 3 Saudis and 10 Pakistanis during similar raids in Jeddah, and two extremists killed by the police.

Saudi Arabia has been engaged in a war against terrorism for years, especially the Islamic State militant group.
ISTANBUL, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Visiting UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Saturday discussed the situations in Syria and Iraq with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as Ankara is a key partner in returning peace to the war-torn Arab countries.

Referring to the ongoing diplomatic efforts in ending the conflict in Syria, which has lasted almost six years, the UN chief said he was grateful that "the Astana conference was held in support of the Geneva process," according to a press release issued by the world body after the meeting.

"The secretary-general underscored the need to fight terrorism and extremists in Syria but that effort would not be successful without a political solution supported by the people of country," the press release said.

Russia, Turkey and Iran have initiated a series of meetings since last month in Kazakhstan's capital of Astana, including one that brought together representatives of the Syrian government and armed opposition groups for the first time after Syria was plunged into chaos in March 2011, paying the way for UN-led peace talks in Geneva now slated for Feb. 20.

In his meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim in Istanbul a day earlier, Guterres laid emphasis on an "inclusive" representation at Geneva talks.

In his discussions with Erdogan about Iraq, Guterres stressed that the ongoing operations to retake Mosul and other areas from the Islamic State should not exacerbate sectarianism "but instead be a symbol of national reconciliation."

Turkey has a military presence near Mosul, and it waded in Syria militarily in August last year, making it a key player in the war games in the neighboring countries.

The UN chief lauded Ankara's "outstanding generosity" in hosting millions of refugees from Syria and Iraq, and discussed with Ergodan the latest developments in Cyprus peace process.

On Friday, Guterres and Yildirim voiced optimism for a breakthrough solution in the near future to the Cyprus issue that would satisfy both Turkish and Greek communities.

Following his first ever visit to Turkey, the UN chief is continuing his Middle East tour that takes him to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Egypt.
MANILA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) ordered its guerrillas on Saturday to "heighten" its armed resistance against the government forces, stepping the need to "frustrate" the all-out war launched by the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.

The rebels ended their unilateral ceasefire midnight Friday, 10 days after announcing their plan to scrap the truce following Duterte's failure to free some 400 political prisoners.

The rebels' move prompted Duterte to cancel the ongoing peace talks and ordered a military offensive.

"Starting today, the unilateral declaration of interim ceasefire is now completely terminated. All New Party's Army commands and territorial units, as well as people's militia and self defense units, can now take the full initiative to defend the people and advance their interests, especially in the face of the declaration of all-out war of the Duterte regime," said the statement sent to the media, issued by the spokesman of the CPP's armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA).

Since Feb. 1, the rebels said they eagerly awaited the government's positive response to free the detainees but to no avail.

"Contrary to the hopes of the people, however, Duterte displayed intransigence and arbitrarily cancelled all peace negotiations, playing to the Armed Forces of the Philippines line of an all-out war against the CPP and NPA," said the statement.

As a result, the statement said, the NPA guerrillas carried out almost 30 military actions against government forces since Feb. 1 "in its active defense posture," said the statement.

"NPA operations were launched exclusively against paramilitary groups and uniformed personnel conducting combat, intelligence and psywar (psychological warfare) operations within the territories of the revolutionary government. A case in point is the Feb. 1 encounter between the NPA and troops (who occupied two villages) in Malaybalay City," the statement said.

The statement added that the NPA remains open to peace talks while fighting rages in the countryside. At the same time,

The rebels have been trying to overthrow the government since 1969. The conflict peaked in the 1980s, under the government of Ferdinand Marcos. However, military operation coupled with an internal split crippled the underground organization. The number of guerrillas dwindled from 26,000 in the mid-1980s to less than 4,000 this year, according to the military.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said last week that the rebel forces remain a threat to national security. He added that an "all-out war" is necessary to deal a fatal blow to the rebels who refused peace with the Duterte administration.
BAGHDAD, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Fierce clashes erupted on Saturday in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Saturday when thousands of demonstrators marched at the entrances of the heavily fortified Green Zone protesting over corruption and demanding a change in the election commission.

The protests began before noon when thousands of people, mainly followers of the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, rallied in Tahrir Square on the eastern bank of the Tigris River which bisects Baghdad, demanding a change in the Independent High Electoral Commission, and arguing that the electoral body is under the influence of leading parties.

The protestors also demanded real and comprehensive reform in the political process in order to fight the wide spread corruption in the country.

In the afternoon, the protestors crossed al-Jamhouriyah Bridge to the western bank of the Tigris and marched at the gates of the Green Zone, which houses the main government offices and foreign embassies.

The security forces warned the protestors not to come closer to the gates of the Green Zone, but clashes soon sparked with security forces, who fired tear gas and shot live ammunition in the air to disperse demonstrators.

Sadr followers held several massive rallies last year. In one occasion the protestors broke into part of the Green Zone, including storming the parliament building.

During the past months, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi made some reforms which were aimed at confronting the country's economic crisis due to the sharp decrease in oil prices in global markets at the time that the security forces are in full-combat with Islamic State terrorist group in the country.

However, Abadi's reforms, first gained popular support, but with the passing of time the reforms fell short to convince demonstrators who continued their protests and demanded that Abadi be more aggressive against the political parties that benefited from corruption and could reverse the reforms to their own good.
Actors perform dragon dance during a parade to celebrate the Lantern Festival in Tongliang District of Chongqing, southwest China, Feb. 11, 2017. (Xinhua/Chen Cheng)

BEIJING, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Are you curious about the Chinese Lantern Festival? Do you have a vague idea and would like to know more? Archeologists and craftsmen could help shine some light on this yearly event.

A 1,400-year-old fragment of silk, about the size of a piece of A4 paper, depicts lanterns hanging on trees. Surrounding the trees are rams and chickens.

This scene is all about the Lantern Festival, confirmed Adliabulizi, a research fellow with Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum.

"Chicken and rams are homophones for the Chinese characters for auspiciousness," he said. "This shows that people were celebrating Lantern Festival back then."

The fabric was found in the Astana Ancient Tombs in Turpan, Xinjiang, in the 1970s. The tombs are 2km north of the ruins of an ancient city called Gaochang, which was active from the 1st Century B.C. to the 13th Century A.D. The tombs were the final resting place of officials and ordinary people of different ethnic groups in Gaochang.

Traditionally, Chinese make lanterns and rice balls, which represent reunion, on Lantern Festival, the first full moon of a new lunar year, which falls on Feb.11 this year.

Cao Zhenrong, 73, has been making festive lanterns since he was four. This year is the Year of the Rooster, and Cao has made almost 2,000 chicken-shaped lanterns.

It used to take three days to complete all of the 30 plus steps needed to finish just one lantern, as split bamboo and paper were the usual materials. Today wire is used.

"Not many of the younger generation are interested in lantern making," said Cao. "There were more than 200 lantern workshops in Nanjing in the 1960s. Only 20 remain today."

Cao is hoping to innovate the craft so that it does not die out.

"I cannot just make lotus lanterns all the time, so I have experimented with silk and electricity," he said.

Lantern Festival marks the end of the Spring Festival celebrations. Duan Xujian insists on staying at home until Lantern Festival even though his company reopened on Feb. 3.

"This is how the Spring Festival holiday should end," said Duan, 28, from Nanyu Village, Qinyuan County in north China's Shanxi Province.

He was one of 400 villager who featured in a group photograph, taken Saturday morning. It was the first time the village has ever come together to have their photograph taken, according to 69-year-old villager Liu Guangming.

Aside from lion dances , rural folk performances, and lantern shows, villagers in Nanyu have prepared a zigzag pathway with wood sticks. All the villagers have to navigate it, in the hope that the road ahead is smooth in the new year.

Duan will return to work after this weekend. But for Chu Fengshan, the textile company that he works for in Jiangsu in east China is still struggling to fill its vacancies.

"We had 100 employment opportunities that we advertised at three separate job fairs in Henan province, but only recruited five people," said Chu.

More and more rural residents are looking for jobs closer to home, said Liu Peifeng, section chief in charge of rural workers at Henan provincial bureau of human resources and social security.

More than 28.7 million rural workers in Henan were employed within the province in 2016, more than the number of outbound migrant workers for six consecutive years, according to the bureau.

In east China's Fujian Province where the weather is much warmer, people are preparing to plough the fields. In Julin Village, Changting County, young men parade the fields holding a statue of the Guan bodhisattva on their shoulders to pray for a harvest.

On the other side of the Taiwan Strait, "Tong Liang Huo Long," a dragon dance under a shower of melted iron, debuted in Taiwan.

Named a national intangible heritage originating from Chongqing, nearly 10,000 people went to watch the performance staged in Nantou County, according to Lin Ming-chen, the county head.

"We were all thrilled by the fantastic performance," said Lin. "It was a delightful cross-Strait exchange. We look forward to more like it!"
DAMASCUS, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels entered the city of al-Bab on Saturday, the last stronghold of the Islamic State (IS) group in northern Syria near the Turkish borders, a monitor group reported.

The Turkish forces and the rebels it's backing under the umbrella of the Euphrates Shield succeeded to storm al-Bab after weeks of battles aiming to strip the IS of its largest remaining stronghold near the Turkish borders in the countryside of the northern province of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The UK-based watchdog group said the Turkish forces and allied militants were clashing with the IS in the northern and western part of the city, as the Syrian army is closing in on the city from its southern rim.

While the Turkish forces were on an offensive on IS from the northern, western and eastern part of the city, the Syrian army succeeded recently to besiege al-Bab from its southern edge, a move to prevent IS fighters to withdraw toward other stronghold in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, or the northern city of al-Raqqa, the de facto capital of the terror-designated group.

A military source told Xinhua on Saturday that the Syrian army is a few kilometers away from al-Bab, adding that IS militants have executed 40 civilians in the city over the past 24 hours, for unclear reasons.

Observers said the attacks on al-Bab were coordinated between the Russians and the Turks, until recently when the Syrian army clashed with the Euphrates Shield rebels near al-Bab, during which the Russian artillery "accidentally" fired and killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded 11 others.

The situation was later contained and the battles were refocused on IS again in al-Bab, which is important for both the Syrian army and the Turkish forces.

For the Syrian army, securing the southern rim of al-Bab means securing the vicinity of the northern city of Aleppo from the attacks of IS.

As for the Turks, capturing the northern part of the city cut the way in the face of the growing Kurdish influence in northern Syria, a red line drawn by Turkey.

Speaking of the Kurds, the complexity of the situation in northern Syria which reflects the conflict in the international interests have apparently delayed the Kurdish growing control, but pushed them to hasten to attack al-Raqqa, the self-declared capital of IS, as by such a move they can make up for the areas Turkey has taken in the north before the Turkey-backed rebels reach al-Raqqa.

The Observatory said Saturday that the Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces are closing in on the outskirts of al-Raqqa city amid battles with the IS.
Its a dark and dismal time for American liberals. Except for the part where the opposition keeps shooting itself in the foot.

We will now pause to contemplate the fact that this week the Senate Republicans attempted to forward their agenda by silencing Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts while she was reading a letter from Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow.

In explanation, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell basically called Warren a pushy girl.

Talk about the gift that keeps on giving. Never has a political party reached such a pinnacle of success and then instantly begun using it to inspire the opposition.

Were less than three weeks into the Trump administration, and almost every day the people in power stop delivering the message of the day and veer off into a Strange Tale.

Which do you think the Democrats found most empowering  Trumps first full day in the White House, when he marched off to the CIA to deliver a rambling tirade about the inauguration crowd size? The Holocaust Remembrance Day proclamation that eliminated any reference to the Jews? Or the new Supreme Court nominee saying the president who named him was being demoralizing and disheartening?

Or this Senate-silencing moment? The subject at hand was the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general. The debate was going to be endless. It was evening and nobody was listening. Warren was taking her turn and reading a letter Coretta Scott King wrote about Sessions in 1986.

That was when Sessions was rejected for a federal judgeship on the basis of an impressive record of racial insensitivity as a U.S. attorney in Alabama. The charges included referring to a black assistant U.S. attorney as boy, joking about the Ku Klux Klan and referring to the NAACP as un-American.

His supporters say hes changed. Indeed, Sessions has evolved into a senator who is well liked by his peers and obsessed with illegal immigrants. Totally different person.

Coretta Scott Kings letter was not flattering. (... has used the awesome power of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.) Neither were the quotes Warren read from the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (a disgrace). But none of it was exactly a surprise, and all of Washington knew the nomination was eventually going to pass. Yet McConnell decided to shut down Warren, claiming she had impugned the motives and conduct of a fellow senator.

McConnell cited Rule 19, which is more than a century old. It comes up about once a generation, when somebody calls a colleague an idiot or a liar. But this was totally different. The other senators were startled  or would have been if most of them had not been napping or back in their offices, dialing up donors.

She was warned, McConnell said later. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.

Wow, nothing worse than a woman who wont stop talking.

They were waiting to Rule 19 someone, and they specifically targeted Elizabeth, said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. I think because shes effective.

The social media exploded. You have to admit we live in wondrous times, people. There was a day when people took to Facebook only to post pictures of their vacation. On Wednesday they were pouring in to watch Warren read her forbidden letter.

Dark and extremely conspiratorial minds suggested the whole thing was a Republican plot to promote Warren as a presidential candidate, since they believe Trump could defeat her in 2020. This presumes that McConnell is suffering from a pathological case of advance planning.

More likely hes simply exhausted from dealing with a White House occupant whos managed, just this week, to accuse the media of not covering terrorism, to suggest that George W. Bush was more of a killer than Vladimir Putin, and to use the official presidential account to tweet an attack on Nordstroms for discontinuing his daughters fashion line.

And the Republicans in Congress cant figure out how to work around him. The other day the House majority refused to approve a Democratic resolution affirming that the Nazi regime targeted the Jewish people in its perpetuation of the Holocaust. It obviously was an attempt to remind people of that Holocaust Remembrance Day debacle. But still.

Theyre definitely squirming, said Rep. Joe Crowley of New York, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus, in a phone interview. Crowley was on his way to Baltimore for a party strategy conference. I believe I speak for a great many Americans when I say a strategy would be a very good thing.

The Democrats are immersed in an ongoing battle between centrists and progressives and a long way from coming up with a united message. Theres still anger and a bit of depression, but ... theyre giving us incredible fodder to use against them, Crowley said.

Its true. Always look for a silver lining. Or at least a little fodder. Keep talking, Elizabeth.
NEW DELHI, Feb.11 (Xinhua) -- A textbook has triggered discontent in India for teaching elementary students to suffocate cats as an experiment to learn that living beings must breathe air.

The environmental science textbook for fourth graders, entitled "Our Green World, " instructs students to put two cats in separate boxes, one with airholes and the other without, so as to learn that "No living thing can live without air for more than a few minutes."

"You can do an experiment. Take two wooden boxes. Make holes on the lid of one box. Put a small kitten in each box. Close the boxes. After some time open the boxes. What do you see? The kitten inside the box without holes has died," the textbook reads.

The textbook has been used in hundreds of schools since last April in New Delhi and the neighboring states of Punjab and Haryana, the AP reported.

The publisher of the textbook announced on Friday that it was no longer reprinted and would not be prescribed for the new school year following complaints from some parents.

"They said it was harmful for children and cruel to the animals," said the publisher.

The textbook has sparked outrage on social media. "Zero wisdom & unfit to step on curriculum, or be anywhere around impressionable children," twitter user @Tamil1974 commented.
BEIJING, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Dongfeng Yueda Kia Motor Co., Ltd. is to recall 31,803 defective automobiles over defective rear traction rods, according to China's consumer quality watchdog.

The recall, to start on Feb. 13, will involve some of the KX5 automobiles produced between Jan. 19, 2016 and June 21, 2016, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement.

The rear traction rods are not solid enough to withstand shocks and could break up, which could be dangerous. The company promised to upgrade the defective parts for free, the statement said.

Dongfeng Yueda Kia is a joint venture of Chinese auto maker Dongfeng Motor Corp. with China's Jiangsu Yueda Investment Co., Ltd and Kia, an auto maker from the Republic of Korea.
BEIJING, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Copycat terracotta warriors in east China have fueled hot discussions after pictures of the army replica recently surfaced on the Internet.

The replica, located in a theme park in Taihu County, Anhui Province, boasts up to 1,000 warriors. Pictures on the park's official website show the warriors standing in line, and on one side of the army stands a statue of China's first emperor Qinshihuang, waving his hand.

According to the website, the park was completed in 2008, and the warriors have been open to visitors ever since.

The original terracotta warriors are located in Xi'an City, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province. The relics were first discovered by farmers underneath a pomegranate orchard in Xi'an in 1974.

The images of the copycat army fueled a heated discussion on the Internet, with many questioning whether the display of the Anhui warriors is an act of infringement.

Authorities with the Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum, which manages the Xi'an terracotta warriors, apparently caught wind of the replica and have issued a statement on its website.

The museum said that any act of using the museum's name and its registered trademarks without authorization is an act of infringement.

"The museum did not permit or give authorization to the displaying of the copycat terracotta warriors in Taihu County of Anhui Province," said the statement. "We reserve the right to take legal action against any violators in accordance with law."

"The replicated warriors pose unfair competition," said Yan Yuxin, a lawyer for the museum. "We have sent a lawyer's letter to them."

Yang Ming, a law professor with Peking University, said that the key is to find out whether the Anhui organizers have advertised their replica as the genuine one. "If they did promote it as a replica, then it is a debatable issue."

On the Anhui park's official website, an introduction to the warriors said that "the replica of the terracotta warriors is intended to let the public feel the culture of the Qin Dynasty."

Liu Simin, deputy head of the tourism branch of China Society for Futures Studies, said that such copycat behavior is not worth promoting.

"Making such replicas is disrespectful to the original ones," Liu said. "Related departments should come up with ways to handle infringing behavior, which are still rampant in China."
MOMBASA, Kenya, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan police on Saturday morning arrested 4 nationals from South Africa and Seychelles in the coastal city of Mombasa during an anti-narcotics swoop.

Police said the foreigners were arrested in an apartment while in possession of unconfirmed quantity of hard drugs.

Regional police boss, Philip Tuimur said the seized narcotics had been dispatched to the government chemist for analysis as security forces intensify hunt for drug barons in Mombasa.

"We are looking for other accomplices of the foreign suspects in our custody and will not relent in the war against narcotics trade in the entire coast region," Tuimur told reporters.

Detectives apprehended the two South African and two Seychelles nationals following intelligence reports about their possible involvement in drugs trade.

The 4 foreign drug dealers rented an apartment in the upscale Nyali estate where they paid a monthly rent of 1,000 dollars.

While in custody, the suspected drug dealers will be interrogated to shed more light on the criminal enterprise.

Police sources said the foreigners could be extradited once their involvement in narcotics trafficking is confirmed.

Kenya has declared total war against narcotics trade that is rife in the coastal towns.

Two Kenyans and their two foreign accomplices were recently extradited to the United States to answer charges of running a transnational drug trafficking syndicate.

The two brothers, Baktash and Ibrahim Akasha and their foreign collaborators, Gulam Hussein and Vicky Goswami from Pakistan and India respectively were arrested by Kenyan security personnel during a sting operation.

Immediately after their arrest, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta declared the government had reactivated the war against drugs trade that has ruined the lives of youth in coastal towns.

Kenyatta said the government will not waver in its quest to eradicate narcotics trade in the country. Endterm
TEHRAN, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- A senior Iranian security official said here Saturday that Russia could use Iran's airspace against terrorists in Syria provided that joint decisions are made to this end, official IRNA news agency reported.

Russia and Iran are "strategic" partners in fighting terrorism, and Russia's use of Iran's airspace "requires arrangements and joint decisions to support operations in the battle against terrorists," Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani was quoted as saying.

"Issuing permission (for the Russian fighter jets) is a complicated procedure which requires comprehensive and multi-dimensional expert studies, as well as detailed examination of the need (for the operation) and accurate scheduling," he added.

Iran and Russia have been regional allies to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government in its fight against militants over the past six years.

For the first time in August 2016, Russian bombers took off from the Hamadan base in western Iran for three consecutive days to strike terrorist targets in Syria.
TOKYO, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Two were killed and train services disrupted as heavy snowfall continued in a wide area along the Sea of Japan coast Saturday.

In the city of Tottori in western Japan, snowfall reached 91 centimeters for the first time in 33 years, said the Japan Meteorological Agency.

In parts of southwestern Japan including the city of Saga, snow was also accumulating.

According to local police, a man in his 40s died after being trapped under a tire of his truck when trying to free the truck from snow early Saturday in Tottori.

Another man, 81-year-old Tetsusaburo Kosawa in Happo, Akita Prefecture, reportedly died after snow crushed his home when he was inside.

Operations of train services were seriously disrupted in some stricken areas, as bullet trains were forced to travel slowly due to the heavy snow, causing delays.

Some 26 passengers were trapped in a train at Aoya Station in Tottori city for some 22 hours due to blocked railway tracks by snow and fallen trees, before the train resumed operations Saturday evening.

The weather agency warned that more snowfall would occur along the Sea of Japan coast over the next 24 hours, especially in northeastern and western Japan.
LONDON, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- A search started Saturday to find a buyer willing to buy a 16th century masterpiece for 24.5 million pounds (30.6 million U.S. dollars) to keep the painting in Britain.

The work, The Virgin and Child with Saint Mary Magdalen and the Infant Saint John the Baptist, by the Renaissance painter Parmigianino, will be exported to the United States unless the money can be found to keep it in Britain, its home for 250 years.

British culture minister Matt Hancock has placed a temporary export bar on the painting.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) described the painting as an exceptional artwork and a rare example of a religious easel painting from the last decade of the artist's short career.

It is regarded as one of the finest examples by Parmigianino remaining in private hands and is the only late religious painting by the artist in the United Kingdom.

The extraordinary work has been in Britain for nearly 250 years and was one of the first Parmigianinos to be bought by a British collector.

Acquired from the Barberini Collection in Rome, it has passed through the collections of three of the country's major collectors of Italian Renaissance painting.

The Italian artist, Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, but commonly, as Parmigianino, was born in 1503 and died in 1549 aged just 37.

Last fall the J. Paul Getty Museum announced in Los Angeles its intention to acquire Virgin with Child, St. John the Baptist, and Mary Magdalene, subject to winning an export license.
XI'AN, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- At around 6 p.m. Saturday, Wang Qi set his feet on his homeland again in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, after spending 54 years in a life drift in India.

"I'm finally home!" a sobbing Wang hugged his tearful brothers and sisters at Xi'an Xianyang International Airport.

Wang, a Chinese solider, got lost in a forest on the China-India border in 1963. He was rescued by India's Red Cross Society and later handed over to Indian military. The military sentenced him in jail for seven years after regarding him as an "espionage."

Wang settled and married in a rural area in India after serving his sentence, but he always wanted to go home. During the past years, Wang sent many letters to his family members in Xuezhainan Village in Shaanxi's Qianxian County, expressing his homesickness and the desire to go back.

To help Wang return home, the Chinese embassy in India made every effort to get him an exit permit. In 2013, he received a Chinese passport and financial support from the government, which made it possible for him to return.

In Wang's home village, groups of people lined outside the house of Wang's younger brother Wang Shun on Saturday, which happens to be China's Lantern Festival, a day that traditionally represents reunion.

"After all these years, he is finally coming back," Wang Shun said as he prepared a quilt for Wang Qi. "We bought the furniture in this room many years ago."

"He has not changed much, I can still recognize him," said local villager Wang Ming. "All of us in the village have been waiting for his return, and we are just happy that he made it."
RIYADH, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Saudi firefighting team extinguished on Saturday a limited fire in an airplane of the Iraqi airline at the King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah and 356 passengers were evacuated.

According to local press, the fire started at one of the tires of the plane at 12 noon local time (9 am GMT) because of overheated brake. The fire occurred after it landed and the passengers were evacuated.

No official confirmation from the airport authority or the civil aviation was made yet.
ISTANBUL, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Supreme Election Board of Turkey on Saturday announced a constitutional referendum slated for April 16, putting on a collision course the ruling party and its allies and the main opposition and its supporters over a presidency to be strengthened.

A day earlier, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan approved the constitutional amendment package that would transform the country into an executive presidency from the current parliamentary system in place since the republic was established in 1923.

The battle lines have already been drawn among the public and the four political parties in parliament, as they have vowed to spare no effort to garner "yes" and "no" votes in the plebiscite.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is joining hands with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to strive for the amendment package's passage to give the president more powers, while the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) are saying a firm "no."

During the campaign for "yes," both the AKP and MHP are aiming to focus on explaining the rationale behind the shift.

"We realized that the public is not very well informed about the content of the constitutional amendment and the presidential system as well," Ravza Kavakci, AKP's Istanbul MP, told Xinhua.

The ruling party will devote its campaign to enlightening the Turkish people about what the future of the country looks like under a stronger presidency, the lawmaker said.

He noted that President Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and MHP leader Devlet Bahceli will all organize rallies across the country to explain the "new system" to the people.

For its part, the CHP will highlight "regime change" under the presidential system to contradict what the ruling party calls a "system change."

The main opposition has argued that if excessive authority vests on the president, a "totalitarian presidential system" will emerge.

"And this is obviously a regime change," the Hurriyet Daily News quoted CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu as saying.

The CHP has decided to use the national flag instead of the party flag throughout the campaign to drive home the message that "This is not about political identity, it is about all the people," according to press reports.

In addition, the "no" camp has agreed to use a positive language in the campaign.

"'No' seems to be a negative word at first glance, but it also expresses an objection, a firm standing," said Saruhan Oluc, co-chair of the HDP. "And most importantly it is the first word when introducing a new proposal."

"We will run our 'no' work as strongly as we can, despite all the difficulties in this process," he told Xinhua. "And I believe that the people of Turkey will say no to this anti-democratic regulation."

Otherwise, a "one-man rule" will be the natural outcome of a "yes" vote, he argued.

The ruling party rejected the suggestion, arguing that under the new system the government will operate more efficiently and people will have more power, as the president will directly get the vote of confidence from the public.

"If the people are not satisfied with the acts of the president, they would vote to replace him," Kavakci said, adding, "No one should have a doubt on the basic principles of the democracy under the new constitution."

Meanwhile, polarization among the divided public is deepening as the arguments are heating up.

"Mark my words, people who will say 'no' in the referendum are PKK, PYD-YPG, DAESH, DHKP-C and FETO members," said Mehmet Aras, a floor covering worker who was referring to the Islamic State and other groups blacklisted by Ankara as terror organizations.

"My vote cannot be in line with them," said Aras.

"We say 'yes' because the PKK says 'no.' We say 'yes' because FETO says 'no.'' We say 'yes' because the HDP says 'no'," Prime Minister Yildirim said lately.

"It is sure those who say 'no' will face various obstacles and bans," Serhat Gundogar, owner of a small fish restaurant in Istanbul, told Xinhua. "They are on the verge of labeling all naysayers as terrorists."

In the view of Selim Taylan Karabol, a 50-year-old teacher, the future of his country is quite dark.

Turkey is still reeling from a spate of deadly terror attacks and a failed coup over the past year, as detentions and dismissals are continuing amid a state of emergency which has been extended twice.

"I don't expect anything positive out of this referendum," Karabol said, adding chances for the "yes" camp to win are quite slim while the division in society is expected to be driven up in the days ahead when the opposing camps will gear up to woo voters for a win in the historic vote.
House members rejected a bill Friday that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the fourth time such legislation has failed at the North Dakota Legislature over the past decade.

Rep. Joshua Boschee, D-Fargo, the primary sponsor of the bill, made two attempts during the floor debate to have House Bill 1386 amended and gain more bipartisan support. After his motions were unsuccessful, the bill failed in a 22-69 vote.

Since day one, weve been ready and willing to work in a bipartisan fashion to pass this bill, Boschee said in a statement after the vote. We cannot let perfect be the enemy of good when it comes to providing basic protections that are so important to so many of our citizens. Passing a bill that provides these protections  even if it doesnt include every single provision we want  is better than not passing any bill at all.

Boschee asked to have the bill returned to committee, but that was rejected on a 32-59 vote. He then tried to amend the bill on the House floor to limit it to government employment and government-provided services, but that effort also failed.

Earlier this week, the House Human Services Committee gave the bill a do not pass recommendation after rejecting amendments.

House Majority Leader Al Carlson, R-Fargo, said there would have been no benefit to sending the bill back to the committee because the results would not have been any different.

They had that complete discussion on the very same document  down in committee and they were not accepted, he said, adding that he was pleased with a very polite debate.

Rep. Robin Weisz, R-Hurdsfield, chairman of the Human Services Committee, said discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation occurs in North Dakota, but he doesnt believe the bill would make a difference.

Weisz said North Dakotans can already file a complaint with the state Labor Department, which can forward complaints that relate to sexual orientation to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Rep. Thomas Beadle, R-Fargo, argued that the bill would also protect people against discrimination in housing, insurance and other areas that are not under the Labor Departments jurisdiction.

I believe our state needs to take a stance and say that its not OK to have an unlevel playing in regards to opportunities for employment, shelter, insurance protection and basic civil liberties, Beadle said.

Weisz said he believes people should be protected from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but the challenge with the bill is how to legally define something that is not readily apparent.

Legally what were addressing, what were protecting is a lifestyle. Now dont get me wrong, Im not implying that youre not born gay or anything else, Weisz said. What Im saying is the law cannot differentiate. It only knows if youre gay if you say so.

Rep. Karla Rose Hanson, D-Fargo, pointed out that the law already prohibits discrimination for other areas that may not be apparent, such as a persons religion or mental or physical disability.

Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican, supported the bill.

All North Dakotans deserve to be treated equally and live free of discrimination, Burgum said in a statement released after the vote. As we compete with other states to fill the thousands of open jobs in North Dakota, we must be a place where everyone feels welcome.

State law already prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability and status in regard to marriage or public assistance. House Bill 1386 would have added sexual orientation to that list.

The bill wouldnt prevent religious organizations from establishing any qualifications or hiring criteria for employees and volunteers in religious positions.

Similar legislation has failed in the North Dakota Legislature in 2009, 2013 and 2015 sessions.

After watching the vote from the House balcony, Kathryn Dunlap said she was disappointed but not surprised by the result. As a bisexual woman living in Bismarck, she said she could face housing discrimination.

Dunlap called the vote a continued slight.

Despite the rather passionate suggestion that this is a state in which we love, respect and support one another, that isnt the sensation I feel right now, she said. I dont feel supported. I dont feel respected.

Wearing a rainbow button outside the House chambers, Kevin Tengesdal, who is gay, said he was disappointed but had a positive outlook on the future.

Theres always hope, he said.

During the floor debate, Weisz emphasized that North Dakotans welcome everyone.

I would hope if this bill is defeated that people dont think that we are taking a welcome mat away from the border of our state, Weisz said.
WARSAW, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The driver of a Fiat Seicento who caused a collision with the car of Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo on Friday night has been questioned and charged with causing bodily harm in a car accident, Polish Press Agency reported Saturday.

The 21-year-old driver was questioned Friday and has been charged with causing bodily harm in a car accident, an offence that carries a penalty of up to three years' imprisonment, the report quoted Malopolskie province police spokesperson Sebastian Glen as saying.

The driver pleaded guilty, according to Glen, who added that the prime minister's driver had also been questioned and had said that the government motorcade was travelling with warning lights and sirens on.

Government spokesperson Rafal Bochenek said on Friday that the prime minister was undergoing a routine medical checkup after a minor collision in the south Polish city of Oswiecim late that day and had not suffered any serious harm.
DUBLIN, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Irish police said on Saturday they have deported eight foreign nationals caught on Monday at northern town Dundalk bordering Northern Ireland for violating immigration rules.

Several different nationalities were involved, a police statement said, adding that the eight people had made their way across the border after travelling from Britain to Northern Ireland.

The eight foreigners had been returned to the United Kingdom, the Irish police said.

Reports showed that some foreigners without proper documents were trying to enter Ireland from the United Kingdom after Britons voted to leave the European Union, of which Ireland is a member, in a referendum in June 2016.
Chinese Ambassador to Greece Zou Xiaoli (C) and President of TIF-HELEXPO (National Institution for the Organisation of Exhibitions, Congresses and Cultural Events) Anastasios Tzikas (R) attend a ceremony in Thessaloniki, Greece, on Feb. 11. 2017. Chinese and Greek officials hailed on Saturday China's expected contribution to local and regional economy as China officially assumed the honored country role of the 2017 Thessaloniki International Fair. (Xinhua/Liu Yongqiu)

by Liu Yongqiu, Chen Zhanjie

THESSALONIKI, Greece, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and Greek officials hailed on Saturday China's expected contribution to local and regional economy as China officially assumed the honored country role of the 2017 Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF).

In a ceremony held at the square in front of TIF-HELEXPO (National Institution for the Organisation of Exhibitions, Congresses and Cultural Events), Chinese Ambassador to Greece Zou Xiaoli noted that in 1998, China attended TIF as the first honored country in the exhibition's history.

As the second largest economy in the world, China demonstrates its great attention to and great expectations of TIF and China-Greece cooperation by being the honored country once again, said Zou.

"China stands ready to keep close communication with Greece and work together with other participating countries to make the 82nd TIF a grand gathering of economic and cultural exchanges between China and Greece, Southeast Europe, the Balkans, West Asia and North Africa, and write a splendid chapter in the process of jointly building the New Silk Road in the 21st Century," said Zou.

On his part, Anastasios Tzikas, president of TIF-HELEXPO which has been organizing the annual event since 1926, said China and Greece, the two ancient civilizations which have great connections and have contributed a lot to global civilization, should strengthen their economic ties to bring their collaboration to the future.

Tzikas said TIF-HELEXPO is planning the whole year's business and cultural events with partners in Greece and China, focusing on energy, telecommunication, technology, logistics and other strategic sectors that the two countries have common interests.

"As the historical center in the region, Thessaloniki and Greece in general can be a strategic bridge between China, Europe, West Asia and North Africa," said Tzikas in the ceremony attended by hundreds of guests from the Greek government, business community, as well as overseas Chinese.

TIF is Greece's largest annual trade fair and has great importance in southeastern Europe. It has been customary for Greece's prime minister to set out his government's policies for each coming year in a speech at the annual TIF, giving political significance in addition to its commercial importance.
BAGHDAD, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- A massive rally on Saturday against corruption in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad turned violent as fierce clashes erupted between demonstrators and security forces, leaving at least four protesters and one security member killed.

The protests began before noon when thousands of people, mainly followers of the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, rallied in Tahrir Square on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, which bisects Baghdad, demanding a change in the Independent High Electoral Commission, and arguing that the electoral body is under the influence of leading parties.

The protesters also demanded real and comprehensive reform in the political process in order to fight the wide spread corruption in the country.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called on the demonstrators to remain peaceful and to "abide by the law."

However, fierce clashes erupted a few hours later when the demonstrators crossed al-Jamhouriyah Bridge to the western bank of the Tigris and marched at the gates of the Green Zone, which houses the main government offices and foreign embassies.

The security forces warned the protesters not to come closer to the gates of the Green Zone, but clashes soon sparked with security forces, who fired tear gas and shot live ammunition in the air to disperse demonstrators.

Baghdad Governor, Ali al-Tamimi, said in a press release that four protesters were killed and 320 others wounded, 79 of whom received wounds by gunshots.

Tamimi, who is a Sadr loyalist, condemned the violence against unarmed demonstrators and "urged Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to form an investigative committee and to hold accountable all those involved in the assault against peaceful demonstrators."

On the other side, a statement by Baghdad Operations Command (BOC) said that a security member was killed and seven others wounded by the clashes.

BOC, responsible for the security in Baghdad, accused "some of the demonstrators, outside the permitted area of the demonstration, of deliberately creating friction with the security forces that led to the death of a security member and injuring seven others."

"The security forces found guns and knives with some demonstrators, which means that some protesters have intentions to breach the law and the right of peaceful demonstration," the statement said.

Later in the day, Abadi ordered a probe into the casualties of security members and protesters that occurred during the day by the clashes between the two sides, and pledged to prosecute those responsible for the incident.

For its part, Sadr political office in a statement held the government responsible for the clashes that killed and wounded many people and security members.

"The government abused its unarmed people; fired gas and live ammunition on them and chased them in the streets and alleys despite they did not cross any barriers or bypassing any restrictions," the statement.

Sadr followers held several massive rallies last year. In one occasion, the protesters broke into part of the Green Zone, including storming the parliament building.

During the past months, Abadi made some reforms, which were aimed at confronting the country's economic crisis due to the sharp decrease in oil prices in global markets at the time that the security forces are in full-combat with Islamic State terrorist group in the country.

However, Abadi's reforms, first gained popular support, but with the passing of time the reforms fell short to convince demonstrators who continued their protests and demanded that Abadi be more aggressive against the political parties that benefited from corruption and could reverse the reforms to their own good.
by Alexia Vlachou

ATHENS, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Ten years after the start of the biggest international economic calamity in post-war history, U.S. President Donald Trump's economic agenda is likely to bring a new circle of debt crisis and threatens to trigger a trade war globally, according to a Greek expert.

"The protective measures -- starting with the imposition of duties on imported goods -- not only may cause a new currency war, but a trade war as well, and they can also trigger a new international debt crisis," Kostas Melas, Professor of Economics at Panteion University, Athens told Xinhua in a recent interview.

As Melas highlighted, the risk of initiating trade wars between the United States and the countries that have large surpluses in their international trade is extremely high.

Another factor of uncertainty would be the change of the exchange rates of major international currencies. "This concerns, in particular, the U.S. dollar, which is the main reserve currency," Melas explained, saying the rate change of the major currencies may have dangerous repercussions on global economy.

For Melas, the global financial crisis of 2007 which began in the United States showed strongly how the financial system affected the growth of the global economy.

"A completely deregulated financial system, without regulatory standards, systematic control and supervision cannot be the engine of growth for the global economy, but it is a huge source of risk with terrifying and painful consequences for the economies of planet," he said.

Despite the global downturn, the United States reacted in the right way to the great crisis of 2007 managing to limit it to simple economic downturn and not let it become a major recession, Melas said.

According to the figures, the GDP growth rate was positive and quite satisfactory in the period after the crisis. The economic policies of former U.S. President Barack Obama and the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve contributed decisively to reducing unemployment in the United States, according to the Greek economist.

The United States rescued their banking system and at the same time, they voted a new institutional framework in which they attempted to set some basic settings and increase the control and supervision of the financial sector.

Melas stressed that the new U.S. president wants to abolish this law and return to the previous status of full deregulation.

RESCUE OF GREECE

Regarding the Greek case, Melas said no country of the size and economic potential of Greece can ignore for long the limitations posed by the economy and the international environment.

"In Greece the consequences of the global economic crisis, primarily occurred with the inability of refinancing the high debt due to strong imbalances of the Greek economy (high budget deficits and high deficits in the current account)," he said.

The rescue of Greece came along with a multi-billion-euro aid package by International Monetary Fund and European counterparts that support an austerity and reform program since 2010 to avoid a chaotic default that could also hit European and global economy.

"Unfortunately, the logic and the measures adopted did not result in a correct and quick recovery of the Greek economy imbalances with an unbearable alternative cost," Melas stressed.

Seven years after the implementation of the bailout programs, the uncertainty continues mainly derived from the "false requests of creditors (mainly Germany and IMF)," which "do not follow with any economic logic," as Melas said.

"Unimaginable demands for further fiscal adjustment (high primary surplus of 3.5 percent for ten years) are contrary to the needed economic policy for the growth of GDP and employment," he explained.

Melas pointed also to the role of the European Central Bank. "While it should help increase the liquidity of the Greek economy in order to facilitate the implementation even of this wrong program, it waits for the implementation of the program before starting to help," he said.
CAIRO, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian court declared on Saturday Hasm militant movement, which is believed to be linked to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood Islamist group, as a terrorist organization.

Hasm claimed responsibility for a number of attacks that killed several policemen in Egypt, yet it condemned December's church blast that killed at least 28 Copt worshipers, saying it targets security men not civilians.

Egypt has been fighting a rising wave of anti-government terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since the army removed former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Later security crackdown on Morsi's loyalists left about 1,000 of them dead and blacklisted his Brotherhood group as a terrorist organization.

Most of the attacks were claimed by a militant group located in Egypt's North Sinai province bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip and loyal to the regional Islamic State (IS) militant group.

However, a few of them, including a blast in December that killed six policemen, were claimed by Hasm movement, which is believed to be sponsored by the Brotherhood despite the latter's denial.

Over the past three years, security campaigns in Egypt killed about 1,300 militants and arrested a similar number of suspects as part of the country's "anti-terror war," declared by former army chief and current President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi following Morsi's ouster.

On Friday, during an army-organized symposium, the head of the Egyptian military intelligence said a massive security operation killed 500 terrorists in Sinai since it started in September 2015.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers detain a suspect as they conduct a targeted enforcement operation in Los Angeles, California, U.S. on February 7, 2017. Picture taken on February 7, 2017. (Courtesy Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via REUTERS)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of undocumented immigrants from a dozen Latin American countries have been arrested in at least six U.S. states this week, following President Donald Trump's executive order to broaden the scope of immigration enforcement targets.

They were netted in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials confirmed Saturday.

Among them 161 arrests were made in Los Angeles and some 200 in Atlanta, said local media reports. The authorities didn't reveal the total number of the arrests.

Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said the crackdown was part of "routine" immigration enforcement actions.

A majority of those detained were serious criminals, including some who were convicted of murder and domestic violence, she said.

"We're talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system," she said.

However, a Washington Post report said some of the detained are without criminal records, calling it the first large-scale crackdown under the Trump administration.

U.S. President Donald Trump (C) gestures to media before boarding Marine One departing for Andrews Air Force Base en route to West Palm Beach, Florida, at White House in Washington D.C.,the United States, Feb. 3, 2017. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

On Jan. 25, Trump issued an executive order ending the previous "catch and release" policy. Under the new order, the immigration enforcement are allowed to target undocumented immigrants with minor offenses or no convictions.

Immigration officials acknowledged that as a result of Trump's executive order, authorities had cast a wider net than they would have last year, said the report.

The Obama administration has also pursued a more aggressive deportation policy than any previous presidents, sending over 400,000 people back to their birth countries in 2012. However, in his second term, Obama prioritized convicted criminals for deportation.

On the 2016 campaign trail, Trump pledged to deport two to three million undocumented immigrants with criminal records.

There are estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living across the United States.
This, Sept. 15, 2014, file photo taken with a fisheye lens, shows beach goers cooling off during the Southern California heat wave, in Huntington Beach, California, the United States. (Xinhua/AP Photo)

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese concept of building "a human community with shared destiny" was on Friday incorporated into a UN resolution for the first time, mirroring the global recognition of the concept, diplomats told Xinhua.

The 55th UN Commission for Social Development (CSocD) approved a resolution by consensus, which calls for more support to Africa's economic and social development by embracing the spirit of building "a human community with shared destiny."

Since China first proposed the concept in late 2012, it has gone on to shape China's approach to global governance, giving rise to proposals and measures to support growth for all.

"It is the first time that a UN resolution incorporates this important Chinese concept," the diplomats said.

The fact shows the universal recognition by UN members of the Chinese concept, and manifests huge Chinese contribution to global governance, they said.

A man walks with his camels through the Danakil Depression, northern Ethiopia April 22, 2013. (Xinhua/REUTERS)

The resolution, titled "Social dimensions of the New Partnership for Africa's Development," welcomes the efforts by all the parties concerned to further promote the process of regional economic cooperation in Africa.

The UN commission approved the resolution, together with three others, for adoption by the UN Economic and Social Council, which is at the heart of the UN system to advance the three dimensions of sustainable development -- economic, social and environmental ones.

Since the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1995, the CSocD has been the key UN body in charge of the follow-up and implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration and Program of Action.

On Jan. 18, Chinese President Xi Jinping shed more light on the Chinese concept in his keynote speech at the UN Office at Geneva.

In a speech, titled "Work Together to Build a Community of Shared Future for Mankind," Xi renewed his call for building a community of shared future, another translation of the Chinese concept, offering inspiration to a world beset by rising challenges and risks.

To maintain peace, sustain development and ensure continued prosperity, China has proposed the building of "a community of shared future," and achieving shared, win-win development, he said.

Such a proposal transcends ethnic, national and ideological differences as it has been designed to help countries and regions cope with global challenges.

"Building a community of shared future is an exciting goal, and it requires efforts from generation after generation," Xi said. "China is ready to work with all the other UN member states as well as international organizations and agencies to advance the great cause of building a community of shared future for mankind."

The CSocD resolution also welcomes further world efforts to carry out China's Belt and Road Initiative, a trade and infrastructure network under the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

The network connects Asia, Europe and Africa and passes through more than 60 countries and regions with a population of about 4.4 billion.
BAGHDAD, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Three Katyusha rockets landed in Baghdad's Green Zone on Saturday night, just hours after fierce clashes between demonstrators and the security forces that resulted in the killing of four protesters and one security members, an Interior Ministry source said.

The rocket are believed to be launched from Baghdad eastern neighborhoods of Baladiyat and Palestine Street, which both are strongholds of followers the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

There were no immediate reports of casualties by the blasts in the zone, which houses some of the Iraqi government offices and foreign embassies, the source said.

The heavily fortified Green Zone has been frequently targeted by insurgents' mortar and rocket attacks. The roughly 10 square km zone is located on the west bank of the Tigris River, which bisects the Iraqi capital.

The attack came after heavy clashes erupted in downtown Baghdad in the afternoon when thousands of people, mainly Sadr's followers, crossed al-Jamhouriyah Bridge to the western bank of the Tigris River.

The protesters marched at the gates of the Green Zone sparking clashes with the security forces, who fired tear gas and shot live ammunition in the air to disperse the demonstrators.

According to Baghdad Governor, Ali al-Tamimi, the clashes resulted in the killing of four protesters and the wounding of 320 others, 79 of them received wounds by gunshots.

On the other side, a statement by Baghdad Operations Command (BOC) said that a security member was killed and seven others wounded by the clashes.

The protesters demanded a change in the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), which they argue that the electoral body is under the influence of leading parties.

They also demanded real and comprehensive reform in the political process in order to fight the wide spread corruption in the country.

Later in the day, Abadi ordered a probe into the casualties of security members and protesters that occurred during the day by the clashes between the two sides, and pledged to prosecute those responsible for the incident.

For its part, Sadr political office in a statement held the government responsible for the clashes that killed and wounded many people and security members.

"The government abused its unarmed people; fired gas and live ammunition on them and chased them in the streets and alleys despite they did not cross any barriers or bypassing any restrictions," the statement said.
JUBA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan's Cabinet on Friday approved an ambitious 1.6 billion U.S. dollars humanitarian response plan for an estimated 5.8 million displaced persons in the strife torn country, said Information Minister Michael Makuei on Saturday.

Makuei told reporters that the proposed budget seeks to cater for the resettlement and rehabilitation of people displaced by conflict and to respond to emergencies.

He said government would contribute 1 percent and the rest will be raised from the international community to address the fragile humanitarian situation in the world's youngest republic that has experienced civil strife since December 2013.

The ministry of finance has already financed the transport of more than 10,000 internally displaced persons to their homes. However, due to the current situation of the government, it is expected that the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs will raise funds to help in the transportation of these people to their respective homes," Makuei said.

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday that ongoing violence and pace of displacement in South Sudan has forced more than 1.5 million people to seek refuge in neighboring countries while there are additional 2.1 million people internally displaced persons in the country.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also warned last month that extreme levels of food insecurity are expected across South Sudan through the lean season of 2017 due to continued violence and drop in food production.

In a recent interview with Xinhua, Undersecretary in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs Gatwech Peter Kulang said humanitarian interventions in South Sudan were hampered by lack of an integrated plan and insecurity in some parts of the country.
GRAND FORKS -- Budget cut recommendations submitted last week to the UND presidents office by campus leaders have been returned for further editing.

A UND news release stated the presidents office has given campus leadership another week to rewrite their proposals with an eye toward more structural reductions as opposed to one-time cuts.

UND President Mark Kennedy stated his office is taking additional time to ensure that our analysis provides a sound basis for our budget decisions.

The recommendations delivered by the deans contained plans to reduce their budgets by 4, 8 and 12 percent to make way for an estimated university funding cut of $16 million and a fund reallocation of $7 million.

That overall cut is the product of an expected decrease in state funding and tuition revenue. The reallocation would direct money to a set of strategic goals.

Budget cutbacks already have been felt on campus. UND Law School Dean Kathryn Rand held a meeting with students Thursday to outline a picture of the future, which includes a two-year hiatus for the schools pro bono law clinic and the possibility of increased tuition fees. Earlier this year, university faculty and staff were invited to participate in a voluntary separation plan as part of a strategy to reduce campus personnel costs.

A reason given for returning the most recent budget reduction recommendations was a lack of permanence in the suggested cuts. Thomas DiLorenzo, UNDs provost and vice president for academic affairs, stated it was unclear how the deans proposals were tied to the universitys ongoing strategic planning process.

We wanted to make sure that some of these suggested changes by the deans fit into that plan, he said.
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- A freight train has derailed in the U.S. state of California, sending 22 train cars into a swollen river. No one was injured in the accident.

The Union Pacific Railroad spokesman Justin Jacobs was quoted by the local KCRA TV as saying that three people were onboard the train when it derailed at about 12:45 p.m. Friday near the city of Elk Grove.

Twenty-two cars of the 33-car train derailed from its tracks and most of them landed in a flooded area adjacent to the Cosumnes River, he said.

The company "absolutely apologized for the disruption, but thankfully there were no injuries, no hazardous material involved," he said.

The northbound train carrying food products was headed from Tracy, a city belonging to the greater San Francisco Bay Area, to Roseville, which was located in the Sacramento metropolitan area.

KCRA's picture showed near the train derailment was a levee break, but it was unclear if that caused the derailment.

Rescue operation was stuck by the flood as firemen had to walked there on foot from about 2 kilometers away and could not find a place for their cranes.

The cause of the derailment was under investigation.

Union Pacific was doing inspections in the area because of recent inclement weather.
KHARTOUM, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's Foreign Ministry said Sudan and Zambia signed a framework agreement on Saturday to establish a joint ministerial committee.

The agreement came at a meeting co-chaired by Sudan's Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour and his Zambia's counterpart visiting Harry Kalaba in Sudan's capital Khartoum.

"The talks reviewed enhanced bilateral cooperation in the economic, commercial and cultural fields, together with enhanced mechanisms of political coordination on regional and international issues," Ghandour told reporters.

"Sudan and Zambia maintain deeply-rooted ties," the Sudanese minister noted.

For his part, Kalaba, the first senior Zambian official to visit Sudan over the past thirty years, said his visit was meant to "develop bilateral relations in all fields."

"Sudan is playing an important role in Africa by virtue of its location at the heart of the continent," said the foreign minister.

Kalaba also announced a scheduled visit for Zambian President Edgar Lungu to Sudan.
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- After more than five years, the historic launch pad has a rocket on it again. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has gone vertical at U.S. space agency NASA's historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) for the first time.

"Falcon 9 rocket now vertical at Cape Canaveral on launch complex 39-A. This is the same launch pad used by the Saturn V rocket that first took people to the moon in 1969. We are honored to be allowed to use it," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk posted on Instagram Friday, along with a photo of the Falcon 9 on LC-39A, which is part of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

According to the California-based company, Falcon 9 will blast robotic Dragon cargo capsule, carrying cargo and science experiments toward the International Space Station.

"Targeting Feb. 18 for Dragon's next resupply mission to the @Space_Station - our 1st launch from LC-39A at @NASA's Kennedy Space Center," SpaceX posted on Twitter.

Over the years, NASA's Apollo moon missions and space shuttles lifted off from LC-39A. The last launch from the historic launch pad took place in July 2011, when the final flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off. It was also the last-ever mission of NASA's entire space shuttle program.

In 2014, SpaceX signed a 20-year lease for LC-39A. After making some modifications to adapt it to the needs of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, the company is now ready to start using the historic luanchpad.

Originally, the U.S. private space firm relied on Launch Complex 40 (LC40) to support all of its Florida launches. But on Sept. 1, 2016, a Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the pad during preflight fueling and the site was badly damaged.

SpaceX returned to launching rockets in January, four months after the explosion in last fall that destroyed a Falcon 9 and its payload, the 200 million U.S. dollars Amos-6 communications satellite.

On Jan. 14, the U.S. private space firm successfully delivered 10 satellites to low-Earth orbit and landed its Falcon 9 on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.
LAGOS, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian federal government is doing everything possible to implement development projects and sustain peace in the oil rich Niger Delta region, an official said Saturday.

Minister of Niger-Delta Affairs Usani Usani made the remarks at a stakeholders' meeting to mark the visit of Vice President Yemi Osibanjo to Bayelsa State.

The vice president led a delegation of ministers, heads of agencies and other federal cabinet members to Bayelsa as part of efforts by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to find a lasting peace in the region.

Women, youths, traditional rulers, captains of industries, political office holders and other government functionaries turned out in large numbers to participate in the dialogue.

The minister assured that the government was committed to building projects that would impact positively on the region, saying that the government shares in the pains of Niger-Delta.

"We have embarked on this journey to harness the issues of peace and stability and other developmental challenges," he added.

He stressed the need for collaboration with the government, adding that Bayelsa and the South-South region were critical to the nation.

On his part, Heineken Lokpobiri, Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, charged the youths in the region to embrace agriculture for development.

According to Lokpobiri, agriculture is a profitable business than oil and gas. He appealed to the people of Bayelsa to shun the acts of criminality.

The oil rich region is an unstable area of Nigeria, and inter-ethnic clashes are common as access to oil revenue is the trigger for the violence. Pipelines are regularly vandalized by impoverished residents, who risk their lives to siphon off fuel.

Vandalism is estimated to result in thousands of barrels of crude oil wastage every day -- a loss to the Nigerian economy of millions of dollars each year.

Nigeria is the world's sixth largest oil-producing nation. However, mismanagement and successive military governments have left the country poverty stricken.
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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.
Scotia marks 40 years of cultural involvement

Recently, Scotiabank .Foundation disbursed funds to Brimblers, Golden Hands Steel Orchestra, La Creole Pan Groove, Melodians Steel Orchestra, Merry Tones Steel Orchestra, Platinum Steel Orchestra, Potential Symphony Steel Orchestra, Star Sapphire Steel Orchestra, St.

James Tripolians Steel Orchestra, Trinidad Nostalgic and West Stars Steel Orchestra.

Golden Hands Steel Orchestra, whose membership consists of young players, all under the age of 25, is one such band. The Golden Hands journey, in 2017, has been made all the more exciting by the input of Scotiabank.

This connection is based on our mutual desire to hone the innate potential of the young musicians of our beloved T&T. We certainly appreciate Scotiabanks valuable contribution to our participation in the greatest Steelpan Show on earth- PANORAMA stated Franka Hills - Headley, Band Founder.

Peter Ghany  a Director, on the Scotiabank Foundation emphasised the commitment to not only the culture of Trinidad and Tobago, but also the youth.

In supporting the rich culture of our twin island state and the progression of our beloved national instrument, we are also helping our young people to become better off, instilling in them a passion for the steelpan providing them with positive opportunities.

It is about the passing on from generation to generation the unique knowledge and skill of pan playing, tuning and arranging
Groceries and appliances stolen

The school, at Robinson Circular, Arima, was broken into last Wednesday, when thieves stole all the grocery supplies meant to provide breakfast and lunches for the children .

Joan La Croix, the founder and principal of the Agape Training Centre, a school for children with special needs, told Newsday, a report was made to the Arima police .

She said although the school had been broken into over the years, this recent incident left her staff and herself heartbroken .

We work with children who people say cannot learn, and when we came into the school on Wednesday morning, the items we usually have to make breakfast for the children  everything was stolen .

They stole a gas tank, microwaves, kettles, paper towels, wipes and other stuff. They have not only stolen the items, but defecated along the corridor of the school .

It is not nice to know children are coming to the school and we have nothing to feed them. La Croix said the school was one of those that did not get any funding from the Ministry of Education or private organisations .

In the past, when we appealed for help in relocating the school, no one has helped us thus far. The MP office is a stones throw away from the school (but the MP) has not visited the school, dont matter how many times we go pleading to meet with MP Anthony Garcia. La Croix said the school had been pleading for help over the years because staff had been distressed time and time again. She said they now have to reheat the childrens lunches by putting their lunch bowls on top of water tanks to hot in the sun. This time it has affected me, because it is 20 years we have been in operation. We have been pleading for help from different authorities and no one is helping us. Private organisations said they would help, but none have not come forward. We are appealing for help from anyone .

To know we are doing our best to help these special-needs children, and we do not get any help from the Ministry of Education or private organisations.. .

it is very distressing to go through this ordeal over and over.
Tobago man held after shooting at police

Newsday Tobago understands the man was hurt after he fired at police.

Police reported that at about 9.50 am on Thursday, members of the Scarborough Criminal Investigations Department (CID) were on enquires at the Patience Hill area when they noticed several people congregating at Yorke Trace and saw one man in the group with an object in his hand.

When they got out of their car and approached, several people in the group fled. The police chased the man with the object and he reportedly fired at them.

They shot back and he was hit in the leg, according to a police source.

He was arrested and taken to hospital.

Police seized a Glock pistol, eight 9mm rounds and one spent shell.
Mount Hope Estate & Winery

Work began in December on repurposing a barn across the courtyard from the wine shop and turning it into a production building, which also will include a tasting room.

(Submitted)

Right now, Mount Hope Estate & Winery is expecting to open its new building, housing a production area and second tasting room, sometime in May.

Candice Smith, director of sales & communication for the winery, said Friday morning there will be a tasting bar on the ground level of the new winery, located in Manheim. It will complement the one that will continue to operate across the courtyard in the wine shop.

A peek at the stonework inside the barn, which was originally built in the 1800s and rebuilt in 1908.

The Lancaster County producer's new equipment, she said, will bring total capacity to 40,000 gallons.

Originally, this expansion project was going to include a new building; indeed, the Rapho Township Zoning Board gave its blessing last March for the structure. But Smith noted in a release that "as we collected cost estimates for the new building planned in 2016 on the estate property along Route 72, it became apparent that a more cost effective alternative was needed."

The decision was made instead to repurpose an existing barn located approximately 300 feet from the current wine shop and parallel to the SBC Brewsmiths Brewery. The barn was originally built in the 1800s and rebuilt in 1908.

Demolition began in December and consisted of gutting the inside of the barn and removing the outside structures, including the adjoining garage and awnings, Smith said. Construction will begin soon with completion scheduled for the end of April.

The ground floor will provide 9,250 square feet of workable space with 3,000 additional square feet on the second floor. The new winery will contain space for production, educational tours and sampling. All sales will continue out of the wine shop.

By utilizing this piece of the Estate's history, the campus of Mount Hope Estate comes closer together with the brewery next door to the winery, the Divine Swine In Out BBQ across the street, and the Wine Shop, Mansion and Anchor & Mermaid Tavern all within a very comfortable walking distance for guests visiting the estate, Smith said in the release.

What set this into motion was Mount Hope buying out Richard Carey and Linda Jones McKee in October 2015, purchasing the equipment and what was left of the inventory for Tamanend Winery, located in downtown Lancaster.

Excavation has been underway on the hill by the barn. Demolition began in December and consisted of gutting the inside of the barn and removing the outside structures include the adjoining garage and awnings.

Scott Bowser and his wife, Heather, purchased the winery in 2005. All the wine during the first 10 years of ownership, Scott said, was made at the Mazza Vineyards location in northwest Pennsylvania, near Erie, with the two working under an alternative proprietors license that allows them to share essential components such as equipment and space. All the juice used in the Mount Hope wine comes from Pennsylvania fruit, according to the website, and in total makes up one of the state's most extensive wine list.

In March 2016, the winery sent out a press release that it had purchased a 20-acre property that was an original piece of the Grubb Family Estate and would use the parcel for the business' agricultural operations to include viticulture, orchard and bee-keeping operations. It also had started to make some of its newest wines on the site rather than bringing them in from Mazza.

"Now being able to produce our own wines locally, the desire to cultivate the product from the vine to the bottle was created," Scott said in a written statement. "We will now have the ability to see the fruits of our labors from beginning to end."

Mount Hope expects to move closer to that goal this spring by planting grape vines and fruit trees, Friday's release said. "A bee-keeping operation is still in the long term plan to support the growing efforts on the new land and add to the honey needed in Mount Hope Meads," it added.

The sign is taken off the barn on the Mount Hope Estate & Winery property. Construction should begin on the structure soon and is expected to be completed in late April.

Shelby Hoffa, a 2016 graduate of Penn State University with a degree in biological engineering, was hired last July as the winemaker.

The release noted that she's "fulfilling a goal to become a wine maker that she set for herself as a teenager. Shelby's creative side is highlighted in the new Mount Hope Wines she produces. Fusion, with the aroma and taste of blueberries, ripe raspberries and tropical white kiwi, all beginning with an apple wine base, has been gaining popularity in its first year of production."

Fusion is one of the top three wines in retail sales with visitors to the estate and was a bronze-medal winner at the recent Farm Show Wine Competition. Results of that contest were announced last month.

Combining Mount Hope Honey Mead and Lancaster County Cider, Hoffa has created Mount Hope's Cyser, a blend of tart apples and sweet mead.

Hoffa also is working on adding bolder spice and fresh fruits to Mount Hope's popular Holiday Wine and bolder citrus notes to Mount Hope's Sangria.

Here are a couple other notes on progress at the site:
Contempt proceedings stall

The three were subpoenaed in December following statements made at a panel discussion hosted by the chamber, one month earlier. Objecting to having JTUM join the proceedings were attorneys for Ali, Mouttet and the TT Chambers CEO, with Senior Counsel Christopher Hamel-Smith, who represents the latter, warning against an expensive waste of invaluable court time. He said the contempt allegations were hanging over the head of Faria, Mouttet and Ali and had a chilling effect on the freedom of expression. Presiding over the proceedings in the Industrial Court in Port-of-Spain are court president Deborah Thomas-Felix and members Larry Achong, Ramchand Lutchmedial and Albert Aberdeen.

Hamel-Smith urged the judges to refuse to entertain JTUMs request and instead expeditiously deal with the issue of the courts jurisdiction.

Attorneys representing the three have also raised a constitutional issue. They argue that provisions of the Constitution permit the Industrial Court to refer to the High Court any allegation of constitutional impropriety.

Hamel-Smith said these issues were actively before the court since December.

These proceedings were in the public domain since December, he said. He said if JTUM was seriously interested in assisting the court, as its attorney Douglas Mendes SC claimed, it should have provided a proper explanation as to why it should intervene and should have made attempts to contact the parties to inform them of its intention.

Hamel-Smith, along with Alis attorney Reginald Armour SC and Mouttets attorney Fyard Hosein SC, said they were only informed of JTUMs application before the start of yesterdays proceedings which was for submissions on the preliminary jurisdictional and constitutional points.

President of JTUM Ancel Roget and executive member Vincent Cabrera were in court yesterday.

Armour expressed concern over an admission by the courts president that she had not yet read any of the submissions filed by attorneys in accordance with the courts orders in December.

In her reply, Thomas-Felix defended herself, saying no one could instruct her on when she should start reading submissions filed in matters before her.

She also said although she saw JTUMs application, the other members of the court only learned of it before yesterdays proceedings.

In the end, Thomas-Felix instructed JTUM to file submissions justifying its application to intervene. The joint trade union movement is to do so by February 24 and the three parties are to respond by March 20 after which the court will give its ruling on whether JTUM can join the proceedings.
3 deemed as terrorists

Granting the order this week was Justice Frank Seepersad, who was asked to declare Trinidadian national Abdel Nur; a former member of parliament in Guyana, Abdul Kadir; and US naturalised Guyanese national Russell De Freitas terrorists. The judge has also ordered that all the assets of the three men should be frozen.

A copy of the judges order has to be published by the AG within seven days, in both the Gazette and two daily newspapers. The order is to be reviewed every six months and had previously been granted by the High Court. A similar order had been previously sought for TT national Kareem Ibrahim, who was sentenced to life as a co-conspirator in the JFK airport terrorist attack. However, Ibrahim, died in a US prison on January 20, 2016.

Seepersads order is also be transmitted by international courier to the US Department of Justice, so that the three can receive it at the penitentiaries where they are incarcerated. The director of the Financial Intelligence Unit in TT will also be served with a copy of the order.

Section 22(b) of Anti-Terrorism Act allows the AGs office to apply to have terrorists assets frozen, provided there is sufficient evidence that they were involved in terrorism, either locally or internationally.

The application was heard ex parte.

Central to the application was evidence used to secure the conviction that was provided to the AGs office by the United States Department of Justice.

According to the trial evidence, the conspirators tried to enlist support for the plot from prominent international terrorist groups and leaders. Ultimately, the evidence said, the plotters followed Ibrahims direction.
TTUTA, dissatisfied with Ministry of Education

Doodhai said TTUTA was also distressed at the failure of the authorities (Ministry of Education and Teaching Service Commission) to make the necessary and suitable interventions to bring some semblance of peace and order at the school.

He said several of the schools teachers are working in fear and are being disrespected by officials by the ministry.

The learning community of Ste Madeleine Secondary deserves no less and the MoE ought to be getting much more for the several millions expended on the maintenance of the school. At a press conference, the president also addressed the matter where a student was robbed on her way to school.

We were told she was late for school and diverted from the normal route that students would use to get to school and would have been passing through an apartment block and she was held up by a group of persons wearing bandanas over their face(s). He continued, She was told to hand over her possessions which included money and cellphone. What was told to us is that if she did not hand over the possessions she would be raped.

We understand that someone raised an alarm and she was able to escape. He said there are several issues plaguing the school community for the last five to six years, under the present leader at the institution.

Doodhai said TTUTA has received reports that the past Superior Officer (SS) III who had been making strides in correcting the shortcomings of the Senior School Official (SSO) was rewarded/punished with re-assignment to a far off district. The continuing presence and conduct of the SSO is inimical to the best interest of all who are supposed to benefit from the institution.

It saddens TTUTA to have to bring these matters to the public domain, but it is believed that after five plus years, the fever must break and the healing at the school must begin as a matter of urgency. He added, It is intolerable and unpardonable to allow this state of affairs to go unheeded and those found wanting unpunished.

TTUTA is more than willing, prepared and capable of working together with the powers that be at finding solutions to the ongoing crises at the school.
Asami remembered on anniversary of death

The young woman, who came to Trinidad to play the steelpan and take part in the carnival celebrations was found murdered on February 10 last year. She had been coming to Trinidad on her own for eight years, to play the tenor pan. She last played with PCS Nitrogen Silver Stars but, also played with several other bands, including the Woodbrook Modernaires and Desperadoes.

Last year was her first time ever playing mas. It was, unfortunately, her last time. Her death remains among a long list of unsolved murders in which police struggle to find a breakthrough. Although an entire year has passed and her murder has faded from the memories of some, for her close friends and fellow pannists, the pain of her loss still resonates with them.

Newsday spoke to Marcus Ash the drill master of PCS Nitrogen Silver Stars, on Thursday night during a one-year commemoration of her death. The band put up a memorial at their panyard on Tragerete Road, which was on display while they practised. The memorial had a framed collage of photos, and sticks of incense which were lit in her memory.

The collage, along with a Japanese fan signed by the band members, would be part of a care package which would be sent to Nagakiyas parents at her home town, the Sapporo-shi province, in Hokkaido, Japan. They intend to send the package after Panorama.

Ash said on Thursday night that while he, along with all Nagakiyas friends and loved ones in Trinidad, feel disappointed that the murder was not yet solved, he wishes that her killer would come forward.

The entire thing is unfortunate. said Ash, I dont know if the killer would be able to sleep when the night comes, but I just wish they would turn themselves in and make this even easier. I would pray for them that they could find some peace someday. Ash described Nagakiya as a warm and friendly person with an effervescent personality.

If Asami were here today, she would have probably been running in the yard late, and busy looking for a pan to start practising.

She was the most bubbly and energetic person in the band, especially among the foreign players.

That personality is what she would be remembered for most. Ash said that when she died a year ago, he could not come to terms with it. He said that he still feels like if she is alive, but she simply did not come to the country this year.

We miss her. The band misses her. Ash said. To come to terms with the fact that she died is very hard, especially for the players.

Any conversation we have among ourselves, her name would pop up.

Every time someone does something, or makes a joke someone would say, what would Asami do if she were here? Some people would laugh, others would get very quiet. Ash recalled the last time he saw Nagakiya. He said that he, along with fellow band members were at the panyard on carnival Tuesday, when she showed up. The band was planning to go down the islands to relax on Ash Wednesday, and he reminded her that they had to meet up at 8 am to make the trip. She promised that she would be there early, but she never arrived.

According to reports, she was last seen walking up Woodford Street in the company of a man.

She had been staying on that street during the carnival season.

At 9.30 am on Ash Wednesday, Nagakiyas body was found by a street dweller. She was still wearing the carnival costume which she wore during the day while playing mas with the Legacy band.

Newsday spoke to one of the first responders on the scene - a police constable working at the Portof- Spain Division. The constable said that the discovery of the body came as a shock to him.

We were on mobile patrol on that day, and we were driving around the Queens Park Savannah, near Queens Royal College when out of nowhere a street dweller ran out in front the vehicle and stopped us. said the constable, The man said he was seeing something that looked like a mannequin lying under a Brazil Nut Tree, and we should investigate.

When we checked, we were not sure if it was a mannequin or a body, because of how pale her skin was, but when we saw ants crawling out from underneath her body, we realised it was a corpse. The constable said he immediately moved the man from the area, and called for Homicide and Crime Scene Investigators to cordon off the scene.

The entire pan community, along with the country as a whole, joined in mourning and bewilderment, wondering who would want to kill a woman who so loved this country and its national instrument.

Quite possibly the only person who was punished for her death was former mayor Raymond Tim Kee, for his remarks after her death. He said that women should take responsibility for protecting themselves and mentioned that he had spoken in the past about lewdness which was displayed by women during the carnival season.

The statements sparked outrage among feminist groups, such as Womantra. A massive call for the mayor to step down, ultimately led to his resignation.

An autopsy performed by Dr Valeri Alexandrov at the Forensic Science Centre in St James revealed that someone used their bare hands to strangle her.
Driver held for photographing Mrs Rambharat

According to reports, at midday on Thursday, Camille Rambharat who is the wife of Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries Clarence Rambharat, was standing on the pavement at Ariapita Avenue in Woodbrook when she saw her driver taking photos of her, with his cellphone. Rambharat became suspicious and contacted her husband.

The matter was referred to Minister of National Security Edmund Dillon and Special Branch officers were informed. Newsday understands that the driver, who is in his 40s, was detained and taken to St Clair Police Station where he was questioned.

The driver said he was sitting in a car and because he had nothing to do, decided to take the photos of Rambharats wife and intended to tell her later that he had taken the photos.

His cellphone was seized and the photos deleted.

Yesterday, senior police sources said that after interviewing the driver Special Branch officers were satisfied that there was no ill intention on the part of the driver.

Newsday understands that owing to a recent telephone threat made by a male caller to the E999 Command Centre three weeks ago, who said he intends to kill President Anthony Carmona and all of them, a decision was taken to not only increase security around the President and all government ministers
Schoolgirl runs from abductors

A report was made to the area police but the traumatised child could not give officers the vehicles make or license plate number.

Newsday understands the incident caused panic among some students at the school while teachers called for more police patrols in the area of the schools compound.

The girls parents were contacted and they are taking precautions to ensure their children arrive at school safely. The parents are also contemplating seeking a transfer for their child, to another school. A report on the incident was sent to the Ministry of Education and the schools PTA.

An emergency meeting is expected to be held at the school on ways and means of ensuring the safety of children and staff. Yesterday, head of the Western Division Snr Supt Basdeo Ramdhanie confirmed the incident, saying the girl had made an official report.

We have increased the number of patrols and I am calling on persons who may have been victims of similar incidents to come forward and report the matter. A source at the Ministry of Education said security is expected to be beefed up in and around that school.

A school source said, Letters have been sent out regarding safety procedures to parents with respect to drop-off and pick-up. It is a concern and it has been a bit of a scare for all of us. The official also confirmed that the student involved attended classes yesterday
Gasparillo pensioner reported missing

He was last seen at his home five days prior .

The pensioner is of African descent, 5 feet 11 inches tall, slim built with a short, grey afro hairstyle and weighing approximately 175 lbs. He was last seen wearing a white jersey, long black pants and brown slippers .

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Stephen Garcia is asked to call 800-TIPS or contact the police at 555, 999, 911 or any police station .
We must educate ourselves about our history

I cannot emphasise how important it is that we educate ourselves and our children about our history- from our perspective. Schnoors said so while paying tribute to the late Cuban President, Fidel Castro, during a function hosted in Castros honour at the ACS Secretariat, Sweet Briar Road, St Clair this past Thursday.

Diplomats and heads of mission from some of the 33 ACS member states attended the event to remember the revolutionary Cuban leader who passed away last November, at the age of 90, after leading his country for 49 years, the ACS said.

Schnoor said our world is changing - we have lost leaders and new leaders have emerged whose thinking and policies directly impact our region and challenge our principles. She added that the people of the Greater Caribbean must creatively make use of all means available, including story-telling, song, dance, literature, and the classroom to ensure that a bright Caribbean future could be built on the legacy of towering historical figures like Castro.

The story of liberation struggles like the Haitian Revolution that have brought our Caribbean civilisation to this point in history, must be passed on to future generations if we are to truly build on the heritage that passionate and brave men and women have bequeathed us. Soomer noted that under Castros leadership, Cubas strides in cultural, scientific and medical innovation were always part of building Caribbean civilisation.
The Obama administrations accountability regulations for the Every Student Succeeds Act have been paused by the Trump administration , and theyre on thin ice in Congress . But U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos wants states to keep going on their ESSA plans.

And shes keeping in place the Obama administrations timeline for submitting the plans, which includes one early bird deadline on April 3 and one later deadline, on September 18. (Thats not a huge surprise, DeVos said as much during her confirmation hearing.) So far, seventeen states plus the District of Columbia have told the department that they are shooting to have their plans ready in time for the April date .

Theres one twist though: The Obama administrations accountability regulationswhich Congress appears likely to toss include a template for states to use as they build their ESSA plans. DeVos and company have said they are reviewing that template to make sure that it doesnt ask for any information that isnt absolutely necessary. DeVos department may release a new template for states by mid-March.

And DeVos said the department may also consider allowing a state or group of states to work together to craft their own template through the Council of Chief State School Officers, as long as such a template meets the requirements in the law.

The possibility of multiple templates, including one developed outside the department, raises big questions. For instance, it might be difficult for peer reviewersthe folks who will actually be examining the plansto hold states to the same expectations if theyre not looking at plans presented in a uniform way.

And some states are also well on their way to developing their plans. Changing the template a few weeks before the first deadline could complicate that process. The letter also did not mention whether DeVos and company are planning to release updated guidelines for peer reviewers. That information could be critically important to states as they consider the nitty-gritty details of their ESSA plans.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., an ESSA architect, is pretty happy about the letter. In a statement, he called it a good step towards ensuring that states have clarity and are able to follow the timeline they have already been working towards when it comes to implementing the new law.

You can read the full letter below:

Dear Chief State School Officer:

Thank you for the important work you and stakeholders in your State are engaged in to develop new State plans and transition to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). I am writing today to assure you that I fully intend to implement and enforce the statutory requirements of the ESSA. Additionally, I want to provide you with an update on the timeline, procedures, and criteria under which a State Educational Agency (SEA) may submit a State plan, including a consolidated State plan, to the Department. States should continue to follow the timeline for developing and submitting their State plans to the Department for review and approval.

On November 29, 2016, the Department issued final regulations regarding statewide accountability systems and data reporting under Title I of the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA, and the preparation of State plans, including consolidated State plans. However, in accordance with the memorandum of January 20, 2017, from the Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff, titled Regulatory Freeze Pending Review, published in the Federal Register on January 24, 2017, the Department has delayed the effective date of regulations concerning accountability and State plans under the ESSA until March 21, 2017, to permit further review for questions of law and policy that the regulations might raise. Additionally, Congress is currently considering a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) (5 U.S.C.  801-808) to overturn these regulations. If a resolution of disapproval is enacted, these regulations shall have no force or effect.

In a Dear Colleague Letter dated November 29, 2016, the Department notified SEAs that it would accept consolidated State plans on two dates: April 3 or September 18, 2017. The Department also released a Consolidated State Plan Template that States were required to use if they submit a consolidated State plan. Due to the regulatory delay and review, and the potential repeal of recent regulations by Congress, the Department is currently reviewing the regulatory requirements of consolidated State plans, as reflected in the current template, to ensure that they require only descriptions, information, assurances, and other materials that are absolutely necessary for consideration of a consolidated State plan, consistent with section 8302(b)(3) of the ESEA. In doing so, the Department, in consultation with SEAs as well as other State and local stakeholders, will develop a revised template for consolidated State plans that meets the absolutely necessary requirement by March 13, 2017. The Department may also consider allowing a State or group of States to work together to develop a consolidated State plan template that meets the Departments identified requirements through the Council of Chief State School Officers.

The regulatory delay and review, and the potential repeal of recent regulations by Congress, should not adversely affect or delay the progress that States have already made in developing their State plans and transitioning to the ESSA. The Department will be notifying States and the public of the revised template once it becomes available. In the meantime, States should continue their work in engaging with stakeholders and developing their plans based on the requirements under section 8302(b)(3) of the ESEA. In doing so, States may consider using the existing template as a guide, as any revised template will not result in descriptions, information, assurances, or other materials that States will be required to provide other than those already required under the ESEA. The Department will still accept consolidated State plans on April 3 or September 18, 2017.

For your reference, the following programs may be included in a consolidated State plan:







Title I, part A: Improving Basic Programs Operated by Local Educational Agencies; Title I, part C: Education of Migratory Children; Title I, part D: Prevention and Intervention Programs for Children and Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk; Title II, part A: Supporting Effective Instruction; Title III, part A: English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement Act; Title IV, part A: Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants; Title IV, part B: 21st Century Community Learning Centers; and Title V, part B, subpart 2: Rural and Low-Income School Program.



In addition, pursuant to ESEA section 8302(a)(1)(B), I am designating the Education for Homeless Children and Youths program under subtitle B of title VII of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act as a program that may be included in an SEAs consolidated State plan.

I appreciate the hard work and thoughtful attention you are giving to implementing the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA. I understand that a great deal of work has already gone into the planning and preparation of your State plans, whether that is a consolidated State plan or individual program plans. One of my main priorities as Secretary is to ensure that States and local school districts have clarity during the early implementation of the law. Additionally, I want to ensure that regulations comply with the requirements of the law, provide the State and local flexibility that Congress intended, and do not impose unnecessary burdens. In the near future, the Department will provide more information on its review of existing regulations, as well as additional guidance and technical assistance.

We have a unique opportunity as we implement the ESSA. I look forward to working with you, districts, and parents to ensure every child has the opportunity to pursue excellence and achieve their hopes and dreams.

Sincerely,

Betsy DeVos

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
Dillon meets Muslim, US diplomats

He urged the Muslim leaders to encourage their respective Jamaat members to speak with a united, positive voice while taking action to root out and displace the criminal elements .

Saying only a minority of persons who leave TT enter areas of conflict, Dillon said the vast majority of local Muslims are law-abiding, living in a country proud of its harmonious existence of all citizens .

Dillon said Governments anti-terrorism agenda has a twopronged approach of legislative reform and operational mechanisms .

He stressed the need for heightened awareness among members of the Muslim community, as with all communities, and urged persons to share information if they see or suspect nefarious activities .

The Minister challenged the Muslim leaders to assist in the identification of potential terrorist recruiters and those who choose to enter into areas affected by conflict .

Hafeez Khan of the National Islamic Counselling Services, who led the Muslim delegation, was concerned about the negative image of TT and its Muslim community on international media .

US Embassy officials commended Government and Muslim leaders and assured that the US Government is a part of this approach to counter terrorism .

An undertaking was also given by the US delegation to provide reliable data to the Ministry including identifying possible causes which attract locals to conflict zones abroad .

More meetings are planned to build relationships between the Government and Muslim Communities, even as talks will also be held with other faith groups. Groups at the talks included the National Islamic Counselling Services; Islamic Resource Society; National Muslim Womens Organization; the Anjuman Sunnat-Ul - Jamaat (ASJA) and the Trinidad Muslim League
Govt sees positives at InTech Park

He said this is the most pressing economic issue facing the country, commenting that, Our economy is evolving in such a way that it will become difficult for people with lower levels of education to find jobs to sustain themselves. Cuffie later said that the Tamana InTech Park could be this countrys Silicon Valley .

The tour included Ambassadors and High Commissioners resident in this country who were expected to collect information about the park to send to companies in their home countries which might be interested in doing business in Trinidad and Tobago .

Executives of e-Teck, which is developing the park, said it is currently negotiating with between ten and fifteen companies and those negotiations are mostly complete in terms of the first phase of the estate .

The park already has one tenant, Florida-based iQor, described as one of the worlds largest business outsourcing companies, operating in the Flagship Building and has completed negotiations with one tenant for the lease of one lot .

Executives said that $1.08 billion has so far been spent developing the park and its first 21 lots. They said that once they have negotiated tenancies for half of those lots they will begin development of Phase Two of the park .

In his address, Professor Emeritus Ken Julien, Chairman of the Board of the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT), said UTT will set up programmes suitable to Trinidad and Tobago and is looking to fill gaps which are not being done or are not being done properly. He said one such programme would be aviation; another would be food security including Bio Sciences/Agriculture and Food Science .

A teacher training programme that would be four years instead of two as well as programmes in engineering; Information and Communication Technology (ICT); biomedical engineering; maritime studies and performing arts. He said the UTT is also considering a programme in security and public safety to deal with the current crime situation and train people at all levels who can contribute to dealing with crime.
HONORING THOSE WHO PROTECT US

By Allen B. Clark

February 11, 2017

NewsWithViews.com

As a severely wounded Vietnam veteran, retired in 1968 as a double leg amputee, the brave men and women who have protected us on active military duty, in the intelligence community, in law enforcement and first responders, have always been uppermost in my mind for their commitment, dedication, and often their ultimate sacrifice in fulfilling a purpose and calling to protect us in our beloved America.

Over the recent past years, it is my observation that only lip service officially has been given to these loyal Americans on the front lines daily in far flung overseas field of fight and daily on the front lines combatting crime and terrorism in the homeland. In my war, Viet Nam, a vocal minority of the population protested the war and the warriors. In recent years, I have been heartened that the majority of our citizens have measurably and demonstrably honored our military. However, on the home front our police often have been vilified and murdered in the streets, witness Dallas, Texas. It has been an appalling demonstration of strife on our own turf.

This past weekend I was brought to tears of joy, often by what I observed as demonstrated by our new President, Donald J. Trump. My witness to his actions and participations in recent days at the Inaugural events have been most heartening as to where his heart and soul reside.

As a teenager in Washington, I watched as members of the Old Guard marched their paces in front of the revered site at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. The day before the inauguration, there was our President-elect paying his respects at this memorial. There must have been many demands on his time, yet he took the time to visit Arlington. After the luncheon in the Capitol following the official inauguration, I viewed our new Commander-in-Chief and President and Mrs. Trump and Vice President and Mrs. Pence on the bottom steps of the east Capitol side, flanking probably the Commanding General of the Military District of Washington, in their first official function relating to the military. The active military units to be marching in the Inaugural Parade passed in review. There were few spectators. The Capitol grounds were closed off for security.

Viewing the parade, it was obvious the extraordinary security placed around the President's vehicle. When he exited, as it turns out, only shortly twice on the parade route, he was immediately "surrounded" by Secret Service, who were prepared to stop bullets if any of the protesters, who were so prevalent in the Capitol, had been so inclined to become world famous in infamy.

Then there was the parade itself. There the President was standing for most of the parade, saluting smartly, presumably each time our national colors passed him. It was especially noticeable, that, before each active military unit marched past the reviewing stand, that that service branch member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stood between the President and Vice President to honor their marchers. The family members of our military fallen in action were prominently represented as were our Disabled American Veterans and Paralyzed Veterans of America. My own service academy, West Point, was minimally represented in a small contingent of cadets, a far cry from the entire 2500-member Corps of Cadets, which marched in President Kennedy's parade in 1961. (With pride, I marched with my fellow cadets on that bitterly cold day!)

Typically, in the past, there have been a number of balls inaugural night, but only a reduced number this time, presumably only three. One, most important and heart-warming assuredly, was the Armed Forces Ball attended by our new President Trump. How it warmed my heart to view the President and First Lady, the Pences, and the new President's immediate family on the dance floor at the Armed Forces Ball, dancing with members of the backbone and soul of our military, our enlisted men and women!

It had been written, perhaps as "Fake News," that our new President was to take the weekend off, following the inauguration day activities. But, not for this new and vigorous Chief Executive. On Saturday, he was at the National Cathedral for a prayer service. On the morning of the inauguration he attended a worship service at the Church of the Presidents, St. John's Episcopal, across Lafayette Square from the White House and immediately west of the headquarters building of Veterans Affairs, where I served in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. Pastor Robert Jeffress in his sermon harkened back to the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem by Nehemiah in mid-fifth century B.C. Nehemiah, like our new President Trump, was subject to constant attacks. But Nehemiah, as will our new President, prevailed over all and accomplished his mission.

President Trump's first agency visit was to the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley on Saturday afternoon. It certainly did not look like he took the weekend off. His leadership style was in full bloom as he called attention to the endeavors of the CIA in combatting our enemies overseas. He brought significant and appropriate attention to his new CIA chief, Mike Pompeo.

A good and great leader gets with the 'troops" and this was a classic example of his style.

On Sunday, he continued his expression of his respect for our Americans, who are on the homeland's front lines in serving and protecting us. He held a White House reception for law enforcement and first responders. He called an individual forward to stand between him and VP Pence and I presume it was the head of Secret Service. President Trump stated words to the effect that he felt well-protected from the beginning. In the keeping of his relaxed and humorous style he called up FBI chief James Comey and joked, "He is more famous than I."

The most single expression of the respect to be commanded most deservedly by this new Commander-in -Chief is the story I heard about a high school senior residing in the northeast. A West Point classmate related he had been working with the senior for admission to West Point. He said he would not have entered West Point had President Trump's opponent become president, but was more than proud under President Trump to serve his country as an officer and as a graduate of West Point and is proceeding to obtain admission to the Academy.

That is my story and I am sticking with it! God bless America, our military, intelligence community, law enforcement, and first responders. It is morning in America again!

Please, click on "Mass E-mailing" below and send this article to all your friends .

 2017 Allen B. Clark - All Rights Reserved

A 1963 West Point graduate, Allen Clark, served in Vietnam as a Military Intelligence Officer involved in undercover intelligence operations against Cambodia assigned to the Fifth Special Forces Group (the Green Berets). On June 17, 1967 he was severely wounded in a mortar attack at Dak To Special Forces camp in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam and required fifteen months of hospitalization for treatment after amputation of both his legs below his knees. He was awarded the Silver Star for Gallantry in Action, a Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Air Medal and Combat Infantrymans Badge. He is airborne-qualified.

From 1979-1981 he served as Special Assistant to Texas Governor Bill Clements.

After nomination by President George H.W. Bush, he was confirmed twice by the United States Senate, once as the Assistant Secretary for Veterans Liaison and Program Coordination and then as Director of the National Cemetery System of the Department of Veterans Affairs. He retired in 2005 as the Public Affairs Officer of the Veterans Affairs North Texas Health Care System in Dallas. He was recognized as its 2011 Outstanding Veteran by the Texas Department Disabled American Veterans.

His lay ministry to veterans suffering from combat operating stress may be found at his website: www.combatfaith.com and www.combatfaith.com.blogspot.com. Also see this [YouTube Video]

His autobiography, Wounded Soldier, Healing Warrior, was published by Zenith Press. His interview on the Larry King program on May 17, 2007 may be viewed at his book website: www.woundedsoldierhealingwarrior.com. His second book, "Valor in Vietnam: Chronicles of Honor, Courage, and Sacrifice: 1963-1977", was published by Casemate publishers in July 2012. (www.valorinvietnam.com). See also [Link]

He is married to the former Linda Frost and lives in Texas.

E-Mail: allenbclark@aol.com
The same group behind the challenge to teachers union service fees for nonmembers that ended in a U.S. Supreme Court deadlock last year in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association has filed a new lawsuit.

The Center for Individual Rights , in Washington, has found a new set of plaintiffs: eight California teachers who object on First Amendment free speech and association grounds to the agency fees their local, state, and national teachers union charge them as nonmembers for costs associated with collective bargaining.

The group filed the case of Yohn v. California Teachers Association on Feb. 6 in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif. The teachers work in the Carlsbad Unified, Eureka Union, Pittsburg Unified, Porterville Unified, Riverside Unified, San Juan Unified, and Westminster school districts throughout the state.

The defendants are the CTA, the National Education Association, the local affiliates in the teachers districts, the superintendents of those districts, and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

Californias agency-shop arrangement violates plaintiffs First Amendment rights in two distinct ways, the suit says. First, it violates plaintiffs rights of free speech and association by forcing them to contribute to so-called chargeable union expenditures that are germane to collective bargaining, even though those contributions provide economic support to nonchargeable union activities and even though many of the chargeable expenditures and collective-bargaining activities are contrary to plaintiffs political beliefs and personal interests.

Second, the suit says, the system forces objecting non-members to undergo a cumbersome opt-out process each year to avoid paying the full amount charged to union members. The suit says that in recent years, the NEA has deemed some 48 percent of its spending to be chargeable to agency-fee payers, while the CTA has charged 70 percent of expenditures, and most locals charge the state percentage or more.

Terence J. Pell, the president of CIR, said in an interview that the group will seek to speed the suit along to the U.S. Supreme Court on the basis that only the justices may overrule the key precedentAbood v. Detroit Board of Education , the 1977 decision that authorized agency-fee arrangements for public-employee unions.

The issue here is purely a legal issue, said Pell. It concerns the question of whether compulsory dues do or do not violate the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has said that this is an exception to normal free-speech principles.

Pell said that under his best-case scenario, the new suit could be before the Supreme Court by the fall of 2018.

Eric C. Heins, the president of the CTA, said his union had not been served with the suit yet but that it was a matter that fit a Yogi Berra aphorism.

Its deja vu all over again, Heins said in an interview. The problem is this suit says nothing about improving schools or helping students. Its an attack on the unions.

We saw from the arguments in Friedrichs that even school districts and states support Abood, he said. It has created a stable environment for 40 years.

In the Friedrichs case, it appeared after oral arguments last January that Justice Antonin Scalia was prepared to join his fellow conservatives and overrule Abood. But Scalia died in February, and the court soon after announced a 4-4 deadlock that upheld a federal appeals court ruling in favor of the teachers union but setting no national precedent.

The objecting non-members, led by teacher Rebecca Friedrichs, also filed a rehearing request in the hopes the high court would keep their case alive until Scalias seat was filled. But after holding on to the request for more than two months, the justices denied it last June at the end of their 2015-16 term.

Pell notes that CIR was willing to keep the agency-fee case before the justices even with the possibility that President Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, who seemed at the time to be in a good position to be his successor, would fill Scalias seat.

Our view is that this is an important issue that affects teachers in 23 states that authorize agency-fee arrangements, Pell said. We do not take any justices vote for granted.
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Chances are good that the federal teacher-preparation regulations will be scrapped. The effort to quash the regulations already passed in the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 240-181 on Tuesday. The fate of the rules now rests in the Senates hands.

In the debate over the teacher-prep regulations on the House floor on Tuesday, Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., who is leading the effort to rescind the rules, argued that "[they] assume the federal government knows better than local education leaders when it comes to what makes an effective teacher. He indicated that teacher education should be addressed through the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, rather than by what he described as an overstepping of the federal government. Others have argued that the rules actually provide considerable flexibility to the states.

Its not unexpected, its not earth shattering, and its not concerning, said Deans for Impact Executive Director Benjamin Riley of the possibility that the regulations disappear. For some, it was like the sky was going to fall if these regulations were put into place, said Riley. But really the regulations were just providing an impetus to get moving on improvements to teacher prep.

The teacher prep regulations were released this past October. They call for states to rate teacher-prep programs annually based on several criteria, such as the number of graduates who get jobs in high-needs schools, how long those graduates stay in the teaching profession, and their impact on student-learning outcomes. The goal was for teacher-prep programs to use what they learn from the ratings to improve their training.

Many states have signaled that they are going to continue to improve teacher training, said Riley. That work isnt going to stop just because the regulations disappear. And long before the regulations came out, Riley said, many states across the country were already moving in the direction of revamping teacher prep. They werent waiting for the feds to act. From where I sit, the ball has been rolling on this for a while, and the regulations memorialized or codified work that was already in place.

While the repeal of the regulations did not surprise Kate Walsh, the president of the advocacy group National Council for Teacher Quality, she did hope they wouldnt be scrapped altogether. Its unfortunate that there was no attempt to scrutinize the regs to see where they added value and where they did not, she said.

Some will be happy to see the regulations go. The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education has been rallying members to urge Congress to scrap the regulations . The two national unions representing teachers have also denounced the regulations.

One argument has been that compliance with the regulations would require states to build data-collection systems without the requisite federal funding . Some have questioned whether the data collectedsay, on student achievementwould provide teacher ed programs with any useful information for improving quality.

Lets say we actually come up with a good indicator that shows how students are progressing, said National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen Garcia last October, after the regulations were released. Heres the thing: There is no researchnone, it doesnt existthat says these kids in this school in this situation, their report cards, their test scores, their growth, has anything to do with this school of education way over here, three or four levels away from them.

There is not a lot of research in this area, admitted Karen Syms Gallagher, the dean of the University of Southern Californias Rossier School of Education. But she is wary of unregulated prep programs. We should care about a new teachers performance, and we ought to be held accountable for the teachers we prepare, she said, and if no one tells teacher ed programs to report whats happening with their graduates, they wont do it.

Carole Basile, the dean of Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, agreed that without regulations some education schools will find little incentive to track their graduates. But the good ones will find a way, she said. There has to be a way to judge whether or not schools of ed are producing quality educators. A good teacher ed program is always looking out there to see how their graduates are doing.

What we should really worry about, said Basile, are that some states with teacher shortages are making it easier to become a teacher. Riley of Deans for Impact agreed. He cited Utah as one state that has turned the process of becoming a teacher into just passing a simple test .

Utah is about to run a massive experiment on many of its children with teachers without serious preparation or rigorous training before theyve entered the field, Riley said. Thats far more worrisome than a lack of federal regulation.
U.S. intelligence officials say Russia 'is considering' sending Edward Snowden back to the United States as a "gift" to President Donald Trump, who has consistently referred to the NSA leaker as a "spy" and a "traitor" for whom the death penalty would be appropriate punishment.

Trump has, however, also said weird things like this about Snowden which don't involve wanting to murder him.

ObamaCare is a disaster and Snowden is a spy who should be executed-but if it and he could reveal Obama's records,I might become a major fan  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2013

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the report "nonsense."

Snowden's lawyer at the ACLU, Ben Wizner, says they're unaware of any such deal in the workings.

The NBC News exclusive cites "a senior U.S. official who has analyzed a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations and who says a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to 'curry favor' with Trump."

The timing couldn't be weirder. Snowden is a shiny object.

also: I am verrrrrry curious about the decision to leak this to the media, and what goal it serves https://t.co/rl5yAQWT5m pic.twitter.com/mCFtcEqorz  Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) February 10, 2017

From NBC News:
ICE-released image of agents arresting an individual in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Photo: Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP

Federal agents have conducted their first large-scale operation targeting undocumented immigrants since President Trumps executive-ordered crackdown in late January. Between Monday and Friday, authorities raided homes and workplaces in multiple states arresting hundreds of undocumented immigrants, and reports of the daytime raids, particularly on social media, have rattled immigrant communities throughout the country. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Gillian Christensen told the Washington Post that the immigrants targeted in the routine raids across six states were mostly criminals, but immigration activists allege that the operation was larger in scope than the government claims, including at least four additional states, and that agents have also captured people without criminal records.

Immigration lawyers, activists, and Democratic lawmakers say they are hearing reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been setting up checkpoints, conducting random sweeps, and in at least one purported instance, going door to door in a Hispanic community in Atlanta and asking for peoples papers. These stories are mostly unconfirmed, and ICE officials strongly deny such claims, announcing in a statement that the rash of recent reports about purported ICE checkpoints and random sweeps are false, dangerous and irresponsible. (Its worth noting that over the past few weeks, there have also been at least some reports of anti-immigrant checkpoints that have turned out to be hoaxes.) ICE also says the raids had been planned before the Trump administration released its executive orders.

Related Stories Arizona Mother May Be Facing Deportation Owing to Trump Immigration Order

The DHS has confirmed that raids  or targeted enforcement actions as ICE prefers to call them  have taken place in New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, and the Los Angeles metro area, as well as in North and South Carolina. Other reports from the media and from the immigration-activist community indicate that raids have also been conducted in Texas, Florida, Kansas, and Northern Virginia. In Texas, the Mexican consulate in Austin said on Friday that 44 people had been detained by federal authorities in the state over two days. The circumstances surrounding those detentions are not clear. In Los Angeles, ICE announced on Friday that 160 foreign nationals had been arrested over the five-day period and that 150 of them had criminal histories, five had final orders of removal or had been previously deported, and 37 had already been deported. An ICE official in Atlanta reported 200 arrests across Georgia and the Carolinas. The total national number of immigrants detained in the raids remains unknown, and the government wont report that total until Monday, but it does seem clear that the vast majority were adult men.

Its not clear if or when ICE has conducted a coordinated, several-day, multi-state enforcement surge of this scale before, but there have been comparable single-state efforts targeting criminal aliens in the past, like a four-day operation in Los Angeles that led to the arrests of 112 foreign nationals back in July. For a larger context, ICE reported a total of 65,332 interior removals in the 2016 fiscal year, which is the number of foreign nationals apprehended by ICE officers someplace other than near the U.S. border.

The Consul General of Mexico in #Austin tells me # of Mexican nationals detained by ICE today is 6 x's more than average. @KVUE #Nightbeat pic.twitter.com/6AosYQCNZG  Tina Shively (@TinaShively) February 11, 2017

News of this weeks raids, which followed the controversial arrest and deportation to Mexico of a 35-year-old mother of two on Wednesday, has already led to organized protests on Thursday and Friday night in Los Angeles and on Friday night in New York:

Meanwhile, immigration lawyers, activists, and other aligned organizations have been working to inform anxious immigrants of their rights should they encounter ICE agents. The Mexican government has also issued a blanket warning to all its citizens in the U.S. noting that they face a new reality and should take precautions including staying informed with the latest news and getting in touch with their nearest Mexican consulate, in the face of more severe application of migration controls by the U.S.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: What to do if ICE agents show up at your door. #NoBanNoWallNoRaids pic.twitter.com/HOAF5qtYAs  ACLU (@ACLU) February 10, 2017

Immigrants with high-level criminal backgrounds were already prioritized for deportation under the Obama administration, which deported dramatically higher numbers of immigrants than any previous president. Late last month, President Trump signed an executive order expanding the classifications for prioritized deportation to such a point that every undocumented immigrant in the country could be targeted.

According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, this weeks raids were allegedly targeting (via ICEs already-underway Operation Crosscheck program):

1. Fugitives  Anyone with an outstanding order of removal [ICE statistics indicate that this refers to some 960,000 people];

2. Individuals who reentered after they were deported. No need for criminal conviction related to reentry to be targeted;

3. At large criminal aliens  Anyone with any criminal conviction.

They add that:

It also appears that other individuals who are identified in the course of an Operation Crosscheck action against a specific person may also be picked up if they fall within the broader enforcement priorities outlined in the Executive Order. Note that the new priorities are so broad that any undocumented individual could be deemed a priority. [] Though enforcement priorities outlined in President Trumps Executive Order on interior enforcement include anyone who was charged with an offense or committed an act that could be a chargeable offense, we understand that the current operation is focused on those who were convicted. However, any conviction (felonies, DUIs, non-violent offenses, etc.) could subject a person to enforcement.

Thus far, government officials have not acknowledged any connection between the surge of raids and Trumps executive order, but a DHS official has confirmed to the Post that, in accordance with Trumps order, agents were also capturing undocumented immigrants in the vicinity of those they had originally targeted. Speaking for himself, President Trump seemed to approvingly reference the raids Sunday morning on Twitter:

The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2017

Regardless, it seems clear that ICE is definitely expecting to go after the expanded categories of undocumented immigrants in the future, even if thats not what they were doing this past week, and one immigration official told the Post that big cities were going to target-rich environments because of their large populations of undocumented immigrants. Pew says that 61 percent of the estimated 11.1 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. reside across just 20 major metropolitan areas. Many of those cities have promised not to work with federal authorities to target, detain, and deport those residents, and Trump has signed an executive order going after those cities federal funding as well.

Its also possible, as NBC News points out, that ICE could have helped tamp down the resulting hysteria within immigrant communities by being more transparent about their actions. Along those lines, leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have now sent a letter to the acting director of ICE, asking for a meeting and for clarification as to how ICE policy has or will change with respect to Trumps order. These raids have struck fear in the hearts of the immigrant community as many fear that President Trumps promised deportation force is now in full-swing, the letter warns. They also want more detail on exactly who was targeted and detained in the raids, asking for the location of the raids, the number of individuals detained and deported, the number of parents of minor children that were apprehended, the reason for the apprehension as well as the number of people apprehended with criminal convictions and the types of criminal convictions.

Trump has repeatedly promised to deport the as many as 3 million undocumented immigrants with criminal backgrounds that he says are currently living in the U.S., but the actual actionable number could be as a low as 690,000. What happens to the other 9-million-plus undocumented immigrants under Trumps new policy, or measures he has yet to order, remains to be seen.
SEE YOU SOMEWHERE BESIDES COURT. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Shortly after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reinstate the Trump administrations ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations Thursday night, the president released a statement:

SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

It wasnt clear whom, precisely, Trump was vowing to see in court, but one thing was certain: The president was taking his case to the Supreme Court.

Alas, you cant believe everything you read on Trumps Twitter account: On Friday, the White House indicated that it would not be appealing the Ninth Courts decision, opting to draft a new executive order, instead.

BREAKING: White House does not plan to escalate travel ban case to Supreme Court, may rewrite executive order or issue a new one - official  Reuters U.S. News (@ReutersUS) February 10, 2017

One administration official described the likely countours of the new order, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times:



The administration ultimately could rescind the order and issue a new one that would suspend only refugee admissions and the issuance of new visas, according to an administration official familiar with the internal deliberations. The step would allow everyone who already was granted a visa or refugee status to keep it.

Among other things, this would reduce the number people and institutions with standing to challenge the order. But even a more carefully tailored version of the ban will be haunted by Trumps months of shouting anti-Muslim sentiments into the largest speakerphone he could find. As Voxs Dara Lind explains:

[T]heres no way the Trump administration could write a constitutionally watertight version of its refugee and visa ban. Thats because they themselves have put the idea out there that its just a dressed-up, constitutionally passable version of the Muslim ban Trump proposed during the campaign.



That doesnt automatically render the executive order unconstitutional  in fact, theres a decent chance that a maximally cautious version of a visa ban could, ultimately, be upheld. But it certainly makes it hard for any judge who does believe the ban had its origins in animus to put those worries aside.

Three weeks down, more than 200 (at least) to go.
Photo: Andrew Harrer - Pool/Getty Images

Donald Trump may hate his new job and be surprised to find hes not a dictator, but he is delivering on one campaign promise: innovation. At least in swearing.

The embattled new president is something of a muse for political obscenity. Consider the curious case of shit-gibbon, chronicled by linguist par excellence Ben Zimmer, in a new post at Strong Language, a sweary blog about swearing. The expletive exploded this week thanks to Pennsylvania state senator Daylin Leach. The public servant took umbrage when Trump joked of destroying the career of a Texas state senator who wanted to curb the police practice of asset forfeiture. Hey @realDonaldTrump I oppose civil asset forfeiture too! Leach tweeted. Why dont you try to destroy my career you fascist, loofa-faced, shit-gibbon! The response to the tweet has been beyond anything I could have imagined, the lawmaker said Thursday.

Hey @realDonaldTrump I oppose civil asset forfeiture too! Why don't you try to destroy my career you fascist, loofa-faced, shit-gibbon!  Daylin Leach (@daylinleach) February 7, 2017

Though loofa-faced is a gem, the operative word here is shit-gibbon. Zimmer, doing the Lords work, traces the insults trajectory. Where could Leach have alighted upon such a life-affirming insult? Why, naturally, the land of curses: Scotland. As you may have recalled from the innocent days of last summer, the Donald mistakenly thought that Scotland had voted to leave the European Union when in fact the mass majority of Scots voted to remain. Just arrived in Scotland, he tweeted. Place is going wild over the vote. They took their country back, just like we will take America back. And oh, the insults started pouring in. History was made when Twitter user MetalOllie called Trump a tiny fingered, Cheeto-faced, ferret wearing shitgibbon. (Note: MetalOllie is not Scottish, he says, thought he WISHES he were [caps his]).

Scotland voted to stay & plan on a second referendum, you tiny fingered, Cheeto-faced, ferret wearing shitgibbon. https://t.co/iKyEIxf8ej  Hamfisted Bun Vendor  (@MetalOllie) June 24, 2016

Shit-gibbon has a certain ring in the ear, a metrical urgency that Migos would be proud of. It belongs to an entire class of ritual Scottish insults (thats a real thing). Trump has a way of inspiring them, Zimmer notes; see also cockwomble, fucknugget, and jizztrumpet, to name but a few.

If the English major in you is tingling, thats because these insults all share a similar rhythm. As linguist/blogger Taylor Jones notes, these follow the formula of single-syllable expletive insult + trochee, or a two-syllable word where the first sound is stressed, like puffin or womble. (Due to their simplicity, perhaps, trochees make for great kids content, like turtle, power, and mighty, morphin, or ranger.) In poetry, this tressed-stressed-unstressed construction is called an antibacchius, Zimmer reports.

What makes the antibacchius such a fit for the anti-Trump? Why does the Orange One summon fucknugget and its peers? My guess is that, to follow up on Joness analysis, it has to do with the combination of high and low culture that the foot accommodates. Some variations are downright childish (fart person! poop human!) while others are Shakespearean (fart monger! piss weasel!). Its quite the match for a 70-year-old boy tyrant: fart basket, shit whistle, turd helmet, cock bucket. Feel free to invent your own, too.
We talked to a whole bunch of teens about Instagram Stories and Snapchat Stories.

When Instagram (and by extension Facebook) announced the rollout of Instagram Stories during summer 2016, the company wasnt shy about acknowledging that its newest product was all but a carbon copy of Snapchat. In design. In functionality. And, most blatantly, in its name: Instagram didnt even bother finding a synonym for the made-famous-by-Snapchat term Stories. Months later, at the beginning of February 2017, Snap, Inc. filed its IPO and acknowledged  though not by name  that Facebooks copycatting could impact its business: Our competitors may mimic our products and therefore harm our user engagement and growth. In an interview with the Times of London, model Miranda Kerr, fiancee of Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, put it more bluntly this week: I cannot STAND Facebook  Can they not be innovative? Do they have to steal all of my partners ideas? Im so appalled by that. When you directly copy someone, thats not innovation.

But innovation might not matter as much as it used to in Silicon Valley. Instagram has a large, captive audience that its all too happy to leverage in its quest to beat Snapchat  and scarily for Snap, theres some evidence its succeeding. The week before Snaps IPO, BuzzFeed published a story with data indicating that engagement was spiking on Instagram Stories (and, in Asia, on Korean Snapchat-clone Snow), while growth on Snapchat had stagnated. Around the same time, talent managers and analytics providers told TechCrunch theyd seen anywhere from a 20 to 50 percent decrease in story views since Instagram Stories hit the scene.

Of course, these reports need to be taken with a grain of salt. While Instagram is growing at a faster rate than Snapchat, it still has a large lead in time spent per user. And while people in the business of social-media fame might note a decrease in story views, theres still another larger, more important group of Snapchat users who seem to remain loyal  at least for now  to Evan Spiegel: The teenagers on whose stories and messages the service was built.

I use both [Instagram and Snapchat], but I definitely use Snapchat Stories way more, Jillian, a high-school senior from Oregon told Select All. I think Ive only used Instagram Stories maybe four or five times. Jenna, a 19-year-old from Texas, estimated that she posts a Snapchat Story almost every day, compared to maybe a few times a month for an Instagram Story. Cole, 16, said that despite having active accounts on both apps, hes never even bothered to post an Instagram Story. Michael, 17, said the same. In fact, of the dozen teenagers and college students Select All spoke with, only one said she preferred Instagram Stories over Snapchat, a preference heavily influenced by the fact that Snapchat was almost always slow on her Android phone. (A not-uncommon complaint among Android-device owners.) For everyone else, it was Snapchat all the way.

Their reasons? For many of these teens, Snapchat takes the number one spot simply because Snapchat invented the platform in the first place. Instagram basically copied Snapchat, Sam, a high schooler from North Carolina, said. Its kinda  stupid. Cole said that the high level of popularity of Snapchat with his classmates makes Instagram Stories irrelevant, and he doesnt see anything Instagram could do to make them feel like they needed to make the switch. Stories just doesnt seem like the function of Instagram, Neira, a 19-year-old college freshman from New York, explained. It was a kinda unnecessary add-on.

While the introduction of Instagram Stories might have slowed engagement and growth on Snapchat on a large scale, it only seems to have galvanized the loyalty of Snapchats younger users. For them, Instagram borrowing from its competitor doesnt seem like a savvy business move (which, clearly, it was), but rather a cheap play. I think that people feel like Instagram just ripped off Snap Stories, Verity, an 18-year-old college student in Massachusetts, told Select All. Emily, a high-school student in California, also acknowledged that the two apps serve the same purpose, but said she and her friends use Snapchat Stories exclusively. I think its because Snapchat Stories have been here longer than Instagram Stories, she said. Ive definitely heard a few jokes mocking Instagram for copying Snapchat, Jillian added.

Cyrene Quiamco, a professional Snapchatter who racks up an annual six-figure salary for her expertise, says shes not surprised to hear that teenagers are still clamoring for Snapchat, even while user engagement spikes on Instagram Stories. Its still the younger people, she told Select All of the group she believes is Snapchats core audience. The teens who have already established friends there. She also said shes not surprised Instagram Stories has been such a success with, well, non-teens. There is a different audience for Instagram. Youve got more people, like 20- to 30-years-olds, who established and grew their brands on Instagram, she said. These people might have tried to grow on Snapchat, but probably went back to Instagram [once it started offering the same feature as Snapchat]. (Interestingly, several interview subjects told Select All they prefer Snapchat because they find it easier to use and a better-designed feature than Instagram Stories, which will come as news to any 30something whos opened up Snapchat and fruitlessly tried to swipe through it to figure out how to make it work.)

Its worth noting that while these teenagers arent posting their own Instagram Stories, many of them will watch a story posted by an account theyre following. Most of them are from celebrities and brands and dogs, Jenna said. I see a lot of people using both and posting the same thing on both. Even the filters [so you can tell it was originally a Snapchat Story], Anna explained. This might reveal, to some extent, a bifurcation of uses for the two platforms: Instagram, a platform to follow public figures, brands, celebrities, and meme accounts; and Snapchat, to follow  and message with  well, your friends.

Of course, even if the two apps can stake out some independent territories, they both still have work to do. Snapchat has to figure out how to keep users Snapping and swiping while features like Instagram Stories and, down the road, Facebook Stories enable their much-larger user base to get similarly quick content on platforms theyre already using heavily. (Also Snap, as per last weeks IPO, still has to figure out how to actually turn a profit. The company lost $514.6 million last year.) Instagram, and by extension Facebook, is clearly happy to play Snapchats game  but faces its own problems: Multiple teens told Select All that, at this point, they didnt see any feature that Instagram could introduce that would make them want to use it over Snapchat.

Of course, a lot can happen in a short time. One of Snapchats defining features, lenses  dog face, flower crown, rainbow vomit, that one that makes you look like an old person with excellent bone structure  isnt even eighteen months old. Instagram may already be onto its next big thing: Snap is mainly for stories, Sam said. Pretty much the only thing Instagram is good for is live video.
At Creatures of Comfort. Photo: Andrew Toth/Getty Images

This season, designers are using the runway to take part in politics. New York Fashion Week has become a platform for brands to express their opinions on hot-button topics from Trumps presidency to the immigration ban. Whether speaking out personally or editorializing through clothes, here are all the ways fashion is being used as a political microphone.

Making All Sorts of Bold Statements



Ashish showed an entire line of boldly colored, sequined outfits emblazoned with political slogans like Nasty Woman, Stay Woke, Love Sees No Colour, Fall in Love and Be More Tender, and More Glitter Less Twitter.

Thank you to @marahoffman for inviting our national co-chairs to open her #NYFW show today. Women rise up! pic.twitter.com/f5htnz7sHG  Women's March (@womensmarch) February 14, 2017

Supporting the Womens March

The co-chairs of the Womens March on Washington opened at Mara Hoffman. The show notes stated that the event was dedicated to the women who are constantly creating in the name of change.

Embroidering Small Reminders

At The Rows presentation, one of the looks included a white shirt with the word hope sewn into the sleeve.

Putting the Spotlight on Refugees

The Gypsy Sport runway show was preceded by a speech from designer Rio Uribe about the plight of refugees living on the streets. He emphasized that people should engage with those on the streets rather than just ignoring their surroundings. The show also featured tents on the runway and music by a family who drums on the subway.

Photo: 2017 Getty Images

Reimagining Trumps Slogan

At the Public School show on Sunday morning, models came out wearing red hats that read Make America New York, a knowing twist on President Trumps Make America Great Again mantra. Some looks also included the phrase We Need Leaders, which the brand has been using for a few seasons.

Emphasizing That People Are People

Slogan shirts seem to be the main way designers are expressing their opinions, with the latest coming from Christian Siriano. The designer showed a black shirt with People Are People written in white paired with a floor-length pink silk skirt.

Photo: Soraya Zaman/Courtesy of Collina Strada

Prepping for Life on Mars

Collina Stradas line takes its cues from the current political climate and imagines a future that entails leaving Earth entirely. What would we look like? What would we wear in this brave new world? The theme is Terraform Mars, with each model transformed into cosmic-nauts apocalyptically adorned with futuristic visors and glasses, and a bevy of untied braided hairstyles that spiral around the scalp like rainbow cosmic waterfalls.

Photo: Indya Brown

Making Gloria Steinem Shirts

Milly handed out shirts to show attendees that had Steinem AF printed on them, in tribute to the feminist icon. Jonathan Simkhai handed out similar shirts reading Feminist AF at his show.

Photo: Courtesy of Instagram/Isabel Wilkinson

Presenting Protest Signs

A Girl Power sign was seen outside the Adam Lippes presentation Saturday morning.

Giving Out Planned Parenthood Buttons

Adam Selman gave out buttons in support of Planned Parenthood along with his show notes. Diane von Furstenberg was seen wearing one of them on Friday.

Gigi Hadid at Tommy Hilfiger. Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Wearing White Bandannas As Part of the #TiedTogether Movement

The Business of Fashion initiative is meant to make a statement of unity, solidarity, and inclusivity. The fashion crowd has taken to wearing white bandannas tied around their wrists, necks, or accessories as a show of support of humankind, regardless of race, religion, gender, and sexuality. The bandannas first made an appearance at the Tommy Hilfiger show in Los Angeles, and Calvin Klein sent them out to all attendees before their show on Friday. The white bandanna is sure to only become more ubiquitous throughout the week.

A model at the Creatures of Comfort show. Photo: Andrew Toth/Getty Images

Creating We Are All Human Beings Shirts

At their show Thursday night, Creatures of Comfort sent out a model wearing a blue long-sleeved shirt with the phrase We Are All Human Beings front and center. The statement is similar to that of the white bandanna, expressing unity and solidarity across communities.

Writing Slogans on Underwear

At the lrs show, models wore underwear with the slogan No Ban, No Wall under open coats and thigh-high boots.

Cindy Bruna leading the finale at Cushnie Et Ochs Fall 2017. #NYFW pic.twitter.com/4VlOyapAup  M. (@MEENAVOGUEE) February 10, 2017

Playing a Political Soundtrack

Several brands voiced their opinions via the music for their shows. One song at Chromat repeated F*ck Donald Trump. The soundtrack at Cushnie et Ochs had The future is female lyrics, along with other messages. Milly played Fight the Power by Public Enemy and Human by Sevdaliza.

Using Show Notes to Really Make a Statement

Also at Chromat: Guests show notes explained the collection was inspired by life vests and flotation devices meant for extended survival in rough, open water because of a trend toward othering certain groups, insisting on the need for inclusivity and empowerment. Eckhaus Latta used their show notes to print a poem that included themes about police brutality and immigration.

This post will be updated throughout New York Fashion Week.
Last night, at the Calvin Klein dinner, I learned that Raf Simonss new collection line will be carried in roughly 300 stores this fall. Thats up from 34 last year.

Three or four? I said to Michelle Kessler-Sanders, the companys president, not sure Id heard her correctly. I knew the collection business had been insignificant for years, so no figure would have surprised me.

No, 34.

Thats global. Imagine going to all the trouble and expense of staging four runway shows a year (two mens, two womens), paying those salaries, dressing celebrities, doing the whole whoopty doo  and it meant nothing. Just smoke and mirrors.

The objective of that strategy was to generate buzz to sell underwear and other lower-priced Calvin Klein products, and apparently it was very successful. But it must have been demoralizing, too. People want to feel theyre being challenged, that their work matters, and doesnt wind up in a puddle of, at best, 34 stores.

I remember the early days of Francisco Costa, the brands previous womens designer, and how he fought with management to get a sample room opened in New York, so that his staff wasnt working long distance from Italy, with uneven results. Eventually, he won that battle, but in a sense lost the war. His collections, while technically always interesting, ceased to be relevant as the disconnect between the collection line and the rest of the business widened.

Then came Raf Simons. In six months, he has made dramatic changes, on all fronts  advertising, marketing, art direction, and, of course, design. He asked his friend, the artist Sterling Ruby, to create a new showroom (a vivid splatter effect on walls and columns), where the dinner was held. I suspect that if Simons wants something, its green lights all the way  and you can bet hes going to be itchy to get stuff done now.

Almost certainly, one of those projects will be a redo of the Calvin Klein flagship on Madison. Its a stunning building, by John Pawson, but do you enter it with any sense of anticipation or reward? In a way, its emblematic of the brands past smoke-and-mirrors image.

Yesterdays Calvin Klein show didnt just raise the bar for New York Fashion Week; it exposed fundamental weaknesses. The lack of talent and ambition. A show schedule that is drawn out, zapping energy and heightening the impression that NYFW is diluted.

Jason Wu, showing at the fancy-pants St. Regis, really missed an opportunity to show off his young tailoring. Instead he focused on drippy knits in unflattering tones, silk prints, and asymmetrically hemmed dresses that weve kinda seen before. As usual, Adam Selmans denim separates were clever and feminine, with big red roses, but even he seemed bored with the rest of his offerings, including reworked shirtdresses.

View The Jason Wu Collection Photo: Imaxtree

View the Adam Selman Collection Photo: Imaxtree

Far more thoughtful and fresh was the R13 collection, by Chris Leba. His awkward-looking models, in drain-piped tweeds, big ratty sweaters, and some superb leather and shearling jackets have stayed with me. His turned-around dress shirts, with collars raised like a clerics, reminded me of early Veronique Branquinho, the Antwerp designer, but with an ambivalent American vibe.

View the R13 Collection Photo: Imaxtree

Yesterday, people were debating whether Simons had been wise to go with so much Americana. To be sure, it seems an easy theme, and weve seen so many flag sweaters and American shlock send-ups (Jeremy Scotts rather brilliant Jesus pants last night, for example).

But doesnt it depend on how you interpret it? And if this isnt an ideal moment to interpret American culture, then when is? Someone like Scott will always go for literal references, and thats fine  thats his thing. Hes so good at mining the material of American trash that you dont know whether to cry with laughter or cry with sadness.

View the Jeremy Scott Collection Photo: Imaxtree

But I think theres an enormous opportunity, perhaps exposed by Simons, to begin interpreting the tensions and rifts and hopes colliding on the American stage. As we know, it is already happening in other mediums, like comedy and television. The expression doesnt have to be obvious. Indeed, it should be subtle. But the point is the industry now has more than one incentive to make a greater show of itself  or risk becoming irrelevant.
The first clue were the words embossed in leather on the back of the invitation: Calvin Klein Established 1968. Walking down Seventh Avenue this morning to the companys headquarters on West 39th Street, I thought how deftly the words simultaneously acknowledged the weight of Kleins achievement, alluded to a watershed moment in American political history, and then drew us back to the present. Raf Simons was born in 1968, and today was his first show as chief creative officer for Calvin Klein.

It was the most anticipated collection in a long while, perhaps since the first shows that Helmut Lang did in New York in the late 1990s, and lets just say at the outset that it was wonderfully imaginative  and as real as your uncle. It was the work of Simons and the team led by Pieter Mulier, who, in Broadway terms, is Lerner to Simonss Loewe. Theyve been a creative act for 15 years, although theres no question that Simons sets down the melody. His collections, initially for his own menswear label and later for Jil Sander and Dior, have been remarkably consistent, and almost always spring from a romantic longing  to create something beautiful, to imagine a community of young guys  even if the results sometimes strike us as minimalist or unfeeling. I see things from a distance, Simons once told me. He said that in reference to a show in the mid-90s in which his male models literally approached the audience from a huge distance, in an outdoor setting in Paris. That perspective has matured and sharpened with the years, but it remains romantic.

Now Simons is in New York and his view of the U.S., unlike the famous Steinberg cartoon, and the fashions of many American designers, doesnt end at the Hudson River: It sweeps the country and lingers. Maybe thats because, like some of Americas greatest composers and filmmakers, Simons is European. He sees the unique pattern and beauty of a faded quilt and turns it into a coat or the lining for an urban parka. He sees the square-shouldered toughness of a 1940s leather policemans coat and produces a hipsters dream. He sees Americas weirdly twinned obsession with hygiene and plastic, and creates gorgeous shifts with lace and feathers trapped under clear vinyl. Or how about a jean-cut jacket and trousers in pure white leather? Thats surely an allusion to David Lynch  or maybe Elvis via Warhol.

View Slideshow Photo: Imaxtree

In between were updated versions of early Calvin Klein jeans and cowboy shirts (straight from the archive), and good-looking pantsuits and tailored coats in glen plaids or those saturated solid hues of deep blue, plum, and green that Simons likes. Nothing was overdone or without clear intent, except perhaps some sheer clingy tops with knitted sleeves in cheerleader tones (I preferred the sleeves as separates, worn over the arms of a wool coat and pushed up). In fact, just as Nicolas Ghesquiere of Louis Vuitton made the office suit look fresh last season, I felt that Simons did the same for sportswear.

Photo: Imaxtree

His friend and frequent collaborator, the artist Sterling Ruby, created the parade streamers and bunting that hung from the ceiling, part of a permanent installation. Again, think of the movies depicting sun-bleached shitholes on the Fourth of July. (Roger Cormans classic Jackson County Jail comes to mind.) This is not a satirical view of America, but neither is it wholly sweet. It is expansive, though, and engaging and real.

Simons at Calvin Klein makes sense for a couple of reasons: He started his career as a youth-culture designer in Antwerp, and explored that aesthetic extensively between 1995 and 2004. And he has always worked with fine tailoring, which fits the minimalist image of Calvin Klein. Yet the reality is that the brand has meandered through various types of pastiche for a couple of decades now. That leaves Simons with a blank slate to reinvent with the kind of freedom that would never be available at a couture house. You cant wait to see what comes next.
I guess this would make sense if Kaya was in the promotion. But the whole franchise was based off an amusement ride so this isn't so much of stretch to me.

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I'm kinda interested in seeing the colors and what they do with it. I'm thinking it might be jewel-toned.

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i love jewel tones. but i dont need more makeup [saying to convince myself]

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So a ton of black eyeliner?

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not me just realizing they're still making these movies



i thought they only made like 3? which # are they on now?

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they've made 4, the 5th one is out this year

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I hate these movies so much because they're terrible and have always been terrible but mostly because this was was my favorite Disneyland ride as a kid and they continue to ruin it with this franchise



Edited at 2017-02-10 11:29 pm (UTC)

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the ride is one of my favs. i love the smell inside the disneyland ride, give me a room mist of that over a makeup collection tbh.

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I don't trust ride mist or wetness anymore. I was on a ride at six flags and we went past the water and I felt a cold splash on my face. I thought it was part of the ride, but it turned out some guy vomited. I washed my face with the quickness after havin a mini meltdown after the ride.

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I like the smell of the Pirates ride, but I love the smell of the Indiana Jones ride so much. I would buy a candle of that no questions asked.

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i never got the appeal of this ride tbh. I never ride it unless other people wantt to. its so boring!

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I always liked the submarine ride, for the mermaids.

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I love it because it gives us 15 minutes to relax. One time, my friend and I got an ENTIRE boat to ourselves. That was the best time ever on that ride.

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The first movie is legit one of my favourites. I just find it so neatly done in so many ways.



I like to pretend the rest don't exist.

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really tryna grab that female demographic huh

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i love nautical shit, if depp wasn't involved in the new movie i would probably be very into this but I can't in good conscience support anything in this franchise anymore, monetarily or otherwise, which is a shame because I really did love it

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yup. i peaced out awhile ago; i wont support anything with him in it, it's just not worth my energy/time

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I'm not into any franchise that has Johnny Depp. Icky.



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Johnny will somehow make money off this so they can keep it.

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mte

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why

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lmao no and Lorac of all brands?

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Can we have a makeup post?



I'm looking for a red that will go w/my skin tone and I'm kind of olive. NYX's "rust" looks more brown on me, so that's out of the question. I'm assuming UD's "gash" will be the same.

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I couldn't find a decent red either and finally I just ended up making my own by blending like the tiniest bit of the pink over the orangey red from the UD electric palette and then UD Half Baked and then a little bit of the metallic brown next to HB in the naked palette I forget the name.

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Hm, I have a decent pink I can probably mix with orange. Thanks, bb! I just want my emo days to be back but the blush I used for eyeshadow is long gone

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have you looked at make up geek or sugarpill?

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all these brands make affordable reds:

geek chic cosmetics (

fyrinnae (they dont have a section for just red colors, so just google them)

concrete minerals (who is even having a sale atm on their reds:

sugarpill (apparently sold out)

makeup geek



FYI: you cannot make primary colors like red, blue, and yellow by mixing other colors together you want to look for a neutral red or a blue-toned red (as blue-toned reds are more flattering generally).all these brands make affordable reds:geek chic cosmetics ( http://www.geekchiccosmetics.com/all-red-eyeshadows.html fyrinnae (they dont have a section for just red colors, so just google them)concrete minerals (who is even having a sale atm on their reds: https://www.concreteminerals.com/collections/vday-shop sugarpill (apparently sold out)makeup geekFYI: you cannot make primary colors like red, blue, and yellow by mixing other colors together

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Johnny Depp can choke on it after he shoots himself out of that cannon he paid two million dollars for or whatever it was.



Edited at 2017-02-10 11:42 pm (UTC)

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Stay pressed!

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I'm on the fence about the new Brunch-themed pro palette. I'm mostly interested because it's the pro formula. I don't think it's a full palette for woc, but I'm interested in some the individual colors. The names make me hungry.



This is weird for Lorac. Even them announcing it so early is odd for them, since just came out with an "California Dreaming" and a pro "I Love Brunch" line without announcing them beforehand.I'm on the fence about the new Brunch-themed pro palette. I'm mostly interested because it's the pro formula. I don't think it's a full palette for woc, but I'm interested in some the individual colors. The names make me hungry.

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oooh I like Moonlight and French Toast the most; Gluten Free would be a good brow bone/inner corner color. I like the reds too, but not sure I could apply it well enough so I don't look like I have conjunctivitis.

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i was about to comment about this! i'm really pale so i'm guessing the colors will probably show up on me *if* they do have pigment. but pastels are really hard to formulate well without them being chalky/not very pigmented so i want to wait to see how the reviews are or swatch it in store. esp after the pro 3 reviews were so mixed.



i'm mostly interested in those lavender and gray/taupey shades tbh. and the packaging is so cuteeee



the california dreaming palette also looks really cute, but i probably already have a lot of those shades.

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i'm considering buying this because i really do love all the colors. i'll have to look at it in person.

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do you know how much it is? it looks like a good dupe for the VDL pantone palette from way back when rose quartz + serenity was a thing

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It's $44, and it comes with an eyeshadow primer and dual-ended eyeshadow brush. I think it's only available at Ulta at this time.



I don't think Pantone did anything for their greenery color this year. Sephora's collab with them for rose quartz and serenity was apparently terrible quality. The lip gloss set is still available on sale on Sephora's website.

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I was going to say the same. I bought the pallet when it was down to $13 on Sephora, but I'm so pale I'm not sure why I bothered.

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http://www.temptalia.com/sneak-peek-lorac-i-love-brunch-collection-photos-swatches/ it didn't swath amazingly, so consider saving your money and just buying singles of pastels you will wear frequently.

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Yay beauty post!



I called a place about getting a peel today and before they could give me a price they told me I had to go in for a consultation first. Is that normal? It's a plastic surgeon's office, maybe that's just standard for everything there, but for just a chemical peel I would think you could just book an appointment.

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They're removing a layer of skin off your face with a chemical burn, so it's important to do it right. The full peel takes a few days to complete after you're out of their office. The main part they'll stress is to stay out of the sun, but they also have to tell you you'll shed like a snake afterwards too.

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yes absolutely otherwise you could end up with serious burns, you could also have a bad reaction iirc

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 :     ,   ,   

  ,        , -     28         .




Dirty Dancing

: Spending the summer at a Catskills resort with her family, Frances "Baby" Houseman falls in love with the camp's dance instructor, Johnny Castle.





The Lost Boys

: A mother and her two sons move to a small coast town in California. The town is plagued by bikers and some mysterious deaths. The younger boy makes friends with two other boys who claim to be vampire hunters while the older boy is drawn into the gang of bikers by a beautiful girl. The older boy starts sleeping days and staying out all night while the younger boy starts getting into trouble because of his friends' obsession.





The Princess Bride

: Based on William Goldman's novel of the same name, The Princess Bride is staged as a book read by grandfather (Peter Falk) to his ill grandson (Fred Savage). Falk's character assures a romance-weary Savage that the book has much more to deliver than a simpering love story, including but not limited to fencing, fighting, torture, death, true love, giants, and pirates.





Moonstruck

: No sooner does Italian-American widow Loretta accept a marriage proposal from her doltish boyfriend, Johnny, then she finds herself falling for his younger brother, Ronny. She tries to resist, but Ronny lost his hand in an accident he blames on his brother, and has no scruples about aggressively pursuing her while Johnny is out of the country. As Loretta falls deeper in love, she comes to learn that she's not the only one in her family with a secret romance.





Fatal Attraction

: Happily married New York lawyer Dan Callagher has an affair with his colleague Alex, and the two enjoy a love weekend while Dan's wife and kid are away. But Alex will not let go of him, and she will stop at nothing to have him for herself. Just how far will she go to get what she wants? what's your favorite movie from the 80s??
- WTI snapped out of a two week coma on Wednesday trading to a low of $51.22 following an API report revealing a 14m bbl crude oil build which was later confirmed by EIA data. Technicians feared that a break below recent support near $51.50 and a spike in US crude stocks to within 3m bbls of their all-time high meant that oils 5 handle could be in jeopardy. A closer look at the data, however, brought relief to the market and a bounce back to the $53 mark with traders realizing that the second largest weekly crude oil build on record may not have been the fundamental disaster that the algorithmic traders had pounced on.

- Rather than signaling a renewed supply/demand apocalypse, the inventory build appears to be driven by trading flows revealed in three different trends occurring in PADD III where 11m of the 14m bbl build occurred. Firstly, imports into PADD III spiked to 3.97m bpd and are higher y/y by 19%. This trend is not surprising following a long stretch of LLS-Brent strength late in 2016 which invited more brent barrels into Houston. However, a reversal in this diff to brent-premium in January and February should limit import opportunities in the coming months. Secondly, more than 6m bbls appeared to have moved out of floating storage in the Houston area into inland tanks. Over the last 4-5 weeks Bloomberg estimates that USGC floating storage has dropped from 10.9m bbls to 4.3m bbls and appears to be merely a relocation of barrels as opposed to a signal of new supply congestion. Thirdly, US crude exports have slowed sharply in recent weeks from a peak of 727k bpd to just 567k bpd. We also expect this trend to reverse as WTI-Brent arbs have widened and offer profitable opportunities to export WTI to Asia. Were pointing to the combination of these three arb driven trends- in addition to the tailwind of seasonal inventory builds- as the culprit for the large inventory build and do not believe that weve entered a new phase of abnormally bearish data.

- Looking forward our view is unchanged that WTI will shift into a $56-$61 range as the effects of OPEC production cuts move west and the markets trend towards supply/demand deficit creates sharp global inventory drawdowns in the spring.

Prompt WTI strength catches traders off guard

The front WTI 1-month spreads performed extremely well in the second half of the week and by Thursdays close the WTI m1-m4 spread had rallied about $1 since January 10th. In trying to make sense of the rally traders cited optimism that dissipating imports and OPEC production cuts will take pressure off of Cushing in coming weeks. Short covering was also a major factor in the spreads strength with large positions caught wrong-footed as WTI m1-m2 managed an 11-cent rally to just 45 cents contango despite there being more than 65m bbls currently stored in Cushing. Further back in the curve WTI M17/Z17 was relatively tame moving in a -80 to -100 range before settling -92 on Thursday.

News flow from OPEC producers regarding production cuts (and production gains from Nigeria and Libya) was limited this week making way for sideways trading in brent spreads. In the front of the curve the Brent m1-m3 spread sold off from a weekly peak of -50 on Wednesday to a close of -69 on Thursday partially due to profit taking after an extended rally. In 2h17 the Brent M17/Z17 spread was basically flat for most of the week near -40 and Dated First Line vs. the 1-Month brent was steady near -84 cents.

(Click to enlarge)

US producers keep pedal on the metal

US producers were busy last week starting with a w/w increase in output of 63k bpd. US production at 8.98m bpd represents a 550k bpd improvement from its low mark last July. Meanwhile the US crude oil rig count jumped to 583 last week for an 84% jump since May. As for hedging, producers / merchants brought their gross short in NYMEX WTI to a new record high at 703k contracts. Given the combination of the rig count and hedging activity it seems the US output recovery is unlikely to wither in the near future.

Funds stay positive on oil

COT data for the week ended Jan 31 showed hedge funds as net buyers of NYMEX WTI for a fourth consecutive week and in ICE Brent for a third straight week. In NYMEX WTI funds added 8k contracts in net length w/w to bring their position to +380k for an all time high. In ICE Brent funds were net buyers of 25k contracts which brought their total to 473k contracts- within shouting distance of its all time high reached in December at 478k. A key contributor to the amount of length in the market is the lack enthusiasm from bearish speculators who continue to hold gross short positions of about 45k contracts in both NYMEX WTI and ICE Brent. Related: Nigeria Rescues Oil Tanker From High-Seas Pirates

Product flows, on the other hand, were bearish with funds selling a total of 5k contracts in gasoline w/w while also selling 2k Heating Oil contracts. In ETFs investors sold the USO to the tune of $15 million for the week ended February 3rd. The fund has experienced net outflows of $944 million since late November.

Options tic lower on range bound trading

WTI implied volatility moved slightly lower this week as range bound trading persisted and sent realized volatility down to just 24% for an 8-month low. By Thursday morning WTI J17 at-the-money vol priced near 27% while 25 delta puts implied 29% vol and 25 delta calls implied 26% vol. There was a slightly change in the skew compared to recent weeks as downside risk priced slightly cheaper and the heavy put-skew flattened out somewhat. FX was also a bearish influence on volatility with EUR/USD vol sinking below 8%.

(Click to enlarge)

PADD III leads second highest w/w crude build on record

 Crude oil inventories added 13.9m bbls w/w (surpassed only by a 14.4m bbl build in October of last year) due to a 10.9m bbl build in PADD III

 PADD III build was result of decreased exports, increased imports and barrels moving from floating storage to inland tanks

 Gasoline draw of more than 850k bbls was much more bullish than expected and took pressure off the market

US crude stocks jumped by 13.8m bbls w/w, are higher y/y by 8% and within just 3m bbls off their all-time peak reached last April. Inventories ballooned on a combination of 1- extremely high PADD III imports (which are higher y/y by 19% following an increase to 3.9m bpd last week,) 2- falling exports which were below 600k bpd for a second straight week and 3- movement of barrels from floating storage to inland tanks as USGC floating storage has decline from more than 10m bbls to less than 5m bbls over the last three weeks. Further north, stocks in the Cushing hub increased by 1.1m bbls and currently stand at 65.3m bbls.

US refiner inputs fell in line with seasonal expectations to (by 54k bpd w/w) to 15.9m bpd and are higher y/y by 2.2% over the last month. Regionally, PADD I remains as the major regional laggard with inputs on the east coast lower y/y by 6%. PADD III inputs are higher y/y by 5%. As for margins, the WTI 321 crack is roughly flat y/y trading near $14/bbl this week while gasoil/brent traded just over $11/bbl. On The east coast a rally in the 2q17 RBOB/Brent swamp to $18/bbl could improve PADD I demand in coming months. Related: Is $55 Oil Really Enough For Qatar?

US refiner inputs fell in line with seasonal expectations to (by 54k bpd w/w) to 15.9m bpd and are higher y/y by 2.2% over the last month. Regionally, PADD I remains as the major regional laggard with inputs on the east coast lower y/y by 6%. PADD III inputs are higher y/y by 5%. As for margins, the WTI 321 crack is roughly flat y/y trading near $14/bbl this week while gasoil/brent traded just over $11/bbl. On The east coast a rally in the 2q17 RBOB/Brent swamp to $18/bbl could improve PADD I demand in coming months.



US gasoline stats reported a surprise 869k bbl draw with help from a surge in domestic demand by 600k bpd to 8.94m bpd. PADD III stocks lead the decline with a w/w draw of 2m bbls and are now slightly lower y/y over the last four weeks. Overall inventories are flat y/y. Unfortunately PADD IB added 415k bbls to its already record-high pile of inventories bringing gasoline stocks in the mid Atlantic to a y/y surplus of 14% over the last month. Domestic demand improved sharply w/w but is still lower y/y by 2%. Exports at 900k bpd are higher y/y by 96%.

Gasoline futures were highly erratic this week moving to a 2.5 month low on Tuesday at $1.465/gl following the bearish API report before rallying back over $1.57/gl on Thursday. Spread markets were similarly volatile as M17/Z17 RBOB sank to +24 cpg on Wednesday before moving to +25.75 cpg on Thursday.

US distillate stocks were also more bullish than expected with a modest w/w build of just 30k bbls. Overall distillate inventories are higher y/y by 6% over the last four weeks. In the mid Atlantic PADD IB stocks fell by 665k bbls but remain bearishly +8.6% y/y. In the USGC distillate stocks are +3% y/y. As for demand, domestic consumption remained strong at 3.9m bpd (+24% y/y over last month) while exports at 1.1m bpd are lower y/y by 10%.

(Click to enlarge)

Heating oil futures followed crude oil and gasoline sharply lower through Wednesday morning bottoming at $1.6028/gl before rallying sharply to over $1.6600/gl on Thursday. In spread markets HO M17/Z17 was also somewhat dull this week trading between -5 cpg and -6 cpg.

Overseas product markets headed in different directions this week with ARA gasoil stocks enjoying a steep draw while Singapore distillate stocks jumped by more than 4.5m bbls. In Europe, gasoil stocks have averaged 3.2k mt over the last four weeks for a y/y decline of 8.6%. In Singapore distillate stocks are higher y/y by 3% after this weeks massive build. Gasoil spreads in 2h17 were basically unchanged for a second straight week with the M17/Z17 spread trading -9$/t.

By SCS Commodities Corp.

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector is seeing a lot of activity. Spurred by prices in the key Japanese market hitting a two-year high in recent weeks, averaging $8.40/MMBtu for January.

That resurgence has prompted several high-profile players to enter the space. Including Thailands PTTEP, which said this week it is prepping for a major move into LNG trading, storage and sales.

And elsewhere, the worlds second-largest LNG buyer  Korea Gas Corp. (KOGAS)  is going one step further. Saying that it wants to directly buy into natural gas projects that supply the global LNG industry.

KOGAS chief executive officer Lee Seung-hoon told a conference in Seoul Thursday that his company is interested in participating in U.S. shale gas projects  recognizing the ever-growing role shale is playing in supplying LNG exports.

Securing U.S. shale gas is crucial because its an important resource, Lee told attendees.

That interest is coming as KOGAS is expecting its first cargos of LNG supplied from U.S. shale to arrive this summer  under a 20-year offtake deal struck by the company with Cheniere Energy for shipments from the Gulf Coast. Related: Nigeria Rescues Oil Tanker From High-Seas Pirates

Such supply deals have given KOGAS a toe in the water for shale. But direct buy-in to producing projects would be a much bigger step for the firm, and could represent a new source of project funding emerging for shale E&Ps across the U.S.

The move makes sense given that some of Koreas competitors for gas supplies have been making similar moves into shale projects. With Japanese conglomerates like Mitsui having operated in plays like the Marcellus for several years now.

If this big jump does happen for KOGAS, it would make the market for shale projects even tighter. Watch for any announcements from the company on specific project acquisitions, and for more M&A activity driven by the ever-growing global LNG sector.

By Dave Forest

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
This past Friday, President Trump issued new sanctions on Iran following their missile test on Sunday. The administration believes this to be a violation of an agreement to refrain from developing missiles, separate from the agreement to develop nuclear weapons. In response to the new sanctions, Iran held a second test the following day. The escalation does not bode well for either country, creating a tense atmosphere.

Since sanctions were lifted on Iran last year, the nation has been working to rebuild its oil supply. OPEC agreed to exclude Iran from their planned supply cut, allowing them to return to pre-sanction production levels. Brent crude prices showed a slight uptick, no more than 20 cents, on Friday with the Treasury Departments announcement but had retracted within the hour. The sanctions were imposed strictly on 13 individuals and 12 companies believed to support and finance Iranian missile development. In no way did they limit Irans oil production.

The United States is the only country imposing these sanctions, less strict than the sanctions Obama and the United Nations lifted last year. To reinstate sanctions of a similar level would require a multilateral agreement from several nations, which is currently unlikely. If tensions with Iran are to continue escalating, however, this scenario may become more probable. Investors should watch for news involving the U.S. and Iran closely. In an event where Iranian oil production is to be limited again, oil prices would rise quite quickly.

OPECs monthly report shows Iran was producing on average 3,990,000 barrels of oil per day in November. Production has risen nearly 1 million barrels per day since 2015, quite a feat for the recovering nation. Iran is expected to pass the 4 million mark soon if it hasnt already. The country is holding a bid on February 15th for new oil contracts. There are currently 29 companies with an interest in bidding and the number is likely to grow. Lukoil, Total SA, and Sinopec already have deals with Iran so their interest is already expected. Investors should expect profits from any of these companies. Related: Are These OPEC Members Sabotaging The Output Deal?

Investors should consider buying shares in Russian Lukoil with the upcoming bid. Russia is part of the OPEC production freeze so its probable Lukoil is looking for an alternative way to increase business via Iran. Shell and other America based oil companies may not be as inclined to bid. In early January, President Trump tweeted about Ford considering building a plant in Mexico. With current Iran commotions, the president may feel the need to draw negative publicity to any participating companies. A short position in shell against long Lukoil could be profitable.

It can be expected that the Iranian Rial exchange rate with the U.S. Dollar will continue its downward trend. In 2013, Iran devalued its currency against the USD by more than 50 percent. This decision was due to the fact the Iranian economy was struggling on the imposed sanctions. Without sanctions suppressing Irans economy, theres a chance they could revalue their currency under better economic conditions. If Iran decides to continue escalating tensions with missile tests, then the exchange rate is sure to continue its descent.

By Michael McDonald of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
During his election campaign, Donald Trump announced a break with the policy of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which in his view adversely affects business in the United States. Among his stated aims were taking the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, cutting off financing for climate protection in developing countries, and repealing federal regulations aimed at reducing emissions and the use of fossil fuels. The limitation of actions related to climate protection in the U.S. seems to be a foregone conclusion, but the global consequences will depend on the specific decisions of the new administration.

Of the many announcements Trump made during his election campaign, those most likely to transpire seemed to be those relating to withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and federal carbon emissions regulations. In the first weeks after his election victory, the then president-elect sent ambiguous signals. On the one hand, he softened his tone, announcing that he would "look at" the Paris deal. At the same time, the then Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson (who has since been confirmed in the post) said he was in favour of continued U.S. participation in global climate negotiations. Later, however, Scott Pruitt was nominated as head of the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), and Rick Perry for Energy Secretary. These people openly question the impact of human activity on climate change. The nominations confirmed the tendency to negate or at least reduce the importance of climate issues in order to gain advantages for U.S. companies, especially oil and energy majors. Their representative is Tillerson, who, until 2016, was chief executive of Exxon Mobil.

Legal Options for the U.S. to Withdraw from the Paris Agreement

Negotiated in 2015, the Paris climate accord entered into force on 4 November 2016. All 195 countries pledged to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and the U.S. declared that it would reduce them by 2628 percent by 2025, compared to 2005. The Paris Agreement (art. 28) provides for withdrawal by any party that gives notice of such intent, no sooner than three years after it entered into force, and states that withdrawal shall be effective one year after such notice is given. This means that the U.S. may submit such a notification no earlier than November 2019, and actually leave the Paris Agreement in November 2020. Alternatively, Trump can opt for termination of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which automatically entails pulling out from the Paris accord. Such a procedure would take one year, and if Donald Trump makes such a move in 2017, the U.S. would cease to be a party to both in 2018. However, it is unclear whether the withdrawal of the U.S. from the UNFCCC would require qualified approval from two thirds of the Senate, which could significantly reduce Trumps freedom of action. In order to avoid confrontation with the Senate, and because the Paris commitments are not legally binding, there is a third option. The President may, refraining from the formal exit from international agreements, limit actions to reduce emissions at the federal level, which would result in a failure to deliver on declared commitments.

Related: Is $55 Oil Really Enough For Qatar?

Cancellation of Funding for Climate Protection

Implementation of the Paris Agreement is delivered not only by domestic emissions reductions, but also, in the case of rich countries, by financial support for climate protection in developing countries (through UN mechanisms). According to a State Department report, the U.S. allocated more than $15 billion for this purpose from 2010 to 2015. In 2014, Barack Obama declared support for the Green Climate Fund, with $3 billion. Because of the resistance of the Republican Party, the first payment of $500 million only became due in March 2016, and the second, for the same amount, in January 2017. Trump will probably fail to deposit the remaining $2 billion, since the cancelation of U.S. payments to UN climate change programmes was included in his Contract with the American Voter. This may discourage the intended recipients from implementing the Paris Agreement.

Repeal of Federal Regulations

The actions of the Trump Administration at the national level will have an impact on the pace and scale of emissions reductions, and hence on the implementation of the commitments adopted in the Paris Agreement. So far, the U.S. has failed to adopt federal legislation in this area. Therefore, the main role is played by the EPA, which, on the basis of a Supreme Court judgment of 2007, gained the right to regulate CO? emissions as harmful to public health or welfare. The most important carbon emissions regulation is the Clean Power Plan, issued by the EPA during Obamas tenure in 2015. It aims to reduce emissions from the power sector by 32 percent by 2030, compared to 2005. Key provisions of the plan are to establish CO? state-level goals, the introduction of emission standards for power plants, and the promotion of renewable energy sources. In 2015, 27 states challenged the Clean Power Plan in the Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia, on the grounds that it goes beyond the powers of the federal agency. As a result, the Supreme Court suspended the regulation in February 2016. Senate approval of a new judge just nominated by Trump will give the Republican Party, sceptical towards federal regulations on climate, an advantage in the Supreme Court. Irrespective of the above, the new administration can soften or reject the Clean Power Plan. As part of the marginalisation of EPAs activity, Republicans, who have a majority in both houses, may seek to prohibit the introduction of any new regulations on CO? emissions. They can also adopt a law giving Congress the right to object to or approve regulations of particular economic significance. Republicans also announced that the EPAs staff and budget would be cut, which is probably a reflection of Trumps announcement that he would reduce environmental legislation at the federal level in favour of actions taken by individual states.

Trump also announced the easing of regulations on the extraction of energy resources. During Obamas term, the provisions relating to the extraction of hydrocarbons from unconventional sources were strengthened (including the introduction of requirements for publishing information on the composition of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing and reduced methane emissions in mining and transport), as were those relating to offshore deposits (moratoria on production in the near-Arctic waters, and on a substantial part of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts). Trump announced the withdrawal of at least part of these regulations. He also intends to make all land and federal waters available for commercial extraction of raw materials (previously, approximately half were excluded from the lease), and wants to end the "war on coal" (allowing the leasing of federal lands for new mines, and reducing environmental restrictions). On 24 January, he resumed two environmentally controversial projects: the Keystone XL oil pipeline and Dakota Access. Related: Are These OPEC Members Sabotaging The Output Deal?

Conclusions

The direction of U.S. climate policy under Trump remains unclear. Although the radical step of the U.S. withdrawing from the Paris Agreement cannot be completely ruled out, it is more likely that the Trump Administration will simply ignore it. The voluntary nature of national contributions under the accord means that the limitation of actions aimed at climate protection will have a similar effect as a formal withdrawal.

The new administrations activities in the area of climate policy will aim to optimise the business environment in the U.S. and make life easier for fuel and energy companies. Despite this, it seems that Trump will try to distinguish himself from climate-friendly Democrats, and from climate-leery Republicans. He does not recognise climate policy as strategically important, treating it more as ideology, but will not block actions taken at the state level associated with the reduction of emissions and the development of low-carbon technologies. That is why local authorities will play an important role in the long-term policy of reducing emissions, as already visible with the example of Texas. Some of them will, in the event of relaxed federal environmental regulations, will replace them with their own. A departure from prohibitions and environmental standards may be accompanied by maintained or even increased incentives for investment in low-carbon technologies (such as clean coal, or tax credits for wind and photovoltaic power).

If the U.S. openly steps back from actions to protect the climate, it could have a twofold effect on global emission reductions. On the one hand, it will hinder the implementation of the Paris Agreement, undermining the joint effort (since the U.S. is the world's second largest emitter of greenhouse gases) and complicating discussions on future decisions (such as the expected ambitious reviews of national commitments). If the U.S. reduces funding for developing countries, this will adversely affect the commitment from less determined and less wealthy nations. On the other hand, it is unlikely that other major emitters will follow the United States, especially in the European Union, where the chances for softening climate regulations are negligible. What's more, it could possibly even provoke the introduction of mechanisms for raising the cost of goods produced without charges for CO2 emissions (such as Border Tax Adjustment), already voiced by Canada.

By Aleksandra Gawlikowska-Fyk and Marek Wasinski via PISM.pl

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Note from the editor: The following is a republishing of the email newsletter sent by Oregon State Senator Jeff Kruse. You can sign up for his newsletter on his legislative website.

By Senator Jeff Kruse

This was a week without a whole lot of significant activity, but with a lot of posturing. First I want to say that I have known Governor Kate Brown for 20 years and I consider her a friend. We have done tremendous work together over the years, especially in the area of our foster care system. But there are also many areas where we disagree, which is how this process is supposed to work. My comments this week arent pointed just at her, but at the entire leadership here in Salem.

When she took office Governor Brown said her administration would be the most transparent ever. We heard similar claims from House and Senate leadership. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

First example: At the end of last week House Speaker Kotek and Senate President Courtney issued a press release stating that they held secret talks between business and labor interest groups. While nobody was supposed to know who was in the meeting, we were able to find the list and it was not a fair representation of business in Oregon or Oregon itself. Those meetings are still going on and at this point no Republicans have been invited to attend. In fact, all attendees are from Portland. One can assume the only reason for these meetings is to try and build support for some form of tax increases.

Meanwhile, as we face a so-called budget crisis, the Governor gave state union workers a 6% pay increase. This is, of course, on top of their COLAs and step increases that happen as a matter of course. When you add that to the fact we may do nothing about PERS reform they have added over $500,000,000 to the cost of government. The issue here is the fact that the negotiations between the executive branch and the unions happen behind locked doors with no input from either the public or the Legislative Assembly. We are just told the results and then asked to pay the bill. Once again, there is no transparency in this process. I have offered legislation to help with this problem. My bill would require all negotiations between the executive branch and the public employee unions to be subject to public meetings laws. I think it is only fair that the people, who have to pay the bill through taxes, know how the process works. I think this speaks to the type of transparency the Governor was talking about, but I really dont think the majority party will even give the bill a hearing let alone pass it.

Another area with a complete lack of real transparency is the budget process. The Governor came out with her budget, which she is required to do, but like all other Governors budgets I have seen it doesnt even give us a good starting point. The real budget we work from is the one put out by the co-chairs of the Ways and Means Committee. Historically, they have waited until the budget subcommittees have had a chance to work on some of the major issues and we have had the first revenue projection for the year. However, this time they had a budget ready to go before we even started. The real reason is to attempt to drive for more tax increases. In fact, they are starting hearings around the state today with a hearing in Salem and one tomorrow in Portland. They will continue with Friday/Saturday hearings around the state for the next few weeks. This is all political with only one objective: massive tax increases on you and your loved ones.

They continue to talk about the fact we have a 1.7-billion-dollar deficit. They neglect to mention the fact we have 1.3 billion dollars more to spend. They also fail to mention the fact state spending is out of control. The fact is the state budget has grown by 40% over the last eight years. Rather than try to reign in this out of control spending cycle they want to expand it. I would suggest that because a large amount of Democrats campaign funds come from the public employee unions they have become more important to the majority party than the working people of Oregon who are forced to pay the bills.

We do face some significant challenges this Session, but it also provides us with tremendous opportunity to enact significant changes in the way government functions. First, we need to adequately fund education so it does not once again get trapped in the end of Session negotiations. We also need a real transportation package that benefits the whole state and only Oregon. Third, we need to do something to roll in the costs of the PERS system. And finally we need to have a balanced budget that solely deals with the States actual responsibilities to the people. Republicans stand ready to help; we just need to be invited to the table.
By Reagan Knopp

After being public for one day, the tax on coffee may already be dead. Willamette Week is reporting that Representative Phil Barnhart (D-Eugene)  Chair of the House Committee on Revenue  has said that a bill taxing coffee beans and ground coffee at five cents per pound (House Bill 2875) is unlikely to move forward. He did not specifically comment on the outpouring of negative feedback on social media was related.

The 79th Oregon Legislative Assembly is Constitutionally required to end their regular session on July 10th. Barnhart and Democrats on the committee could still decide to move the bill anytime before the legislature concludes their session.

Reagan Knopp is the Editor-in-Cheif of Oregon Catalyst.
Streetwise - Some Light Bedtime Reading

by Frank Dunnigan

October 2011

Now that its Fall, Im reminded of the affinity that so many of us have with books, newspapers, and magazines. Theres no better time of year than right now to curl up on the couch with some good reading, so its time to take a look back at our once-passionate love affair with the printed word.

Even though I received a Kindle for Christmas last year, Im still fond of printed paper, in spite of all the space that it continues to occupy in my ever-expanding bookcases. Whenever Im visiting a new city, I find myself drawn to local bookstores, just to look around and see what they have to offer, and a printed volume or two is often my only souvenir of a particular trip.

How could it be any other way? I grew up in a household that subscribed to two daily newspapersThe San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco News (later known as the News-Call-Bulletin from 1958-65), plus the weekly Catholic Monitor, and a stack of magazines, including Life, Readers Digest, Sunset, and The Saturday Evening Post. In addition, both my parents always had a paperback or two on their nightstands for late night reading, and Moms sister was always passing along copies of Bon Appetit and Gourmet plus stack after stack of condensed books once she was finished with them.

From the time that I started browsing the comic book selection at Reis Pharmacy at 18th & Taraval in the mid-1950s, Ive been hooked on reading. When I was six, the only thing that I wanted for my birthday was a library card so that I could have unlimited access to treasures contained within the red brick walls of the Parkside Branch at 22nd Avenue & Taraval, even though their six-book limit for checkout was a constant annoyance to me.

Most of us baby boomers remember the decor of our first apartmentsplywood shelves (sometimes wrapped in wood grain contact paper for a more upscale look), combined with concrete cinderblocks to form bookcases. This ubiquitous decorating item was sturdy enough to hold yard after yard of the volumes that we had collected from various college courses (things like the Norton Anthologies, Essentials of Accounting, and Churchills History of the English-Speaking Peoples), along with personal reading favorites of every sort. Today, the first things I see walking through my own front door are seven-foot-tall bookcases and my favorite armchair in the living room, with a strong reading lamp nearby. In the bedroom, I have a pair of nightstands with built-in bookshelves, so that I can keep even more reading materials close at hand for impromptu bedtime reading. With these items in place, Im all set.

However, selling the printed word today has become a tough business, even for big businesses. In the last 20 years, every city in America that still had a struggling afternoon newspaper has lost it, and since the dawn of the new millennium, several areas are on the verge of losing their morning journal as well. Bookstores have not fared much better, and the recent loss of the Borders chain is just another milepost on the long road of decline for reading in this country and here in the western neighborhoods, too.

When the new Stonestown Galleria opened in 1986, a huge Brentanos opened near the middle of the top level on the west side, replacing the tiny 1960s-era B. Dalton that had been tucked away in the old mall near Blums. Then Brentanos closed and was replaced by Borders (in the space once occupied by the Walgreens lunch counter and the Stonestown Market from 1952-1988, then by Bank of America from 1988-98). As Borders now vanishes into a cloud of paper dust, it has been replaced by ODE (newly named operation that makes use of some of the original letters on the buildings sign), with the same format of books, music, cafe. Any bets on how long that might last?

When the new Lakeshore Plaza opened on Sloat Boulevard in the 1980s, the big discounter of the time, Crown Books (unceremoniously dethroned by the sudden ascent of Amazon.com in the 1990s), occupied the corner at the western edge of the center near Sloatthe same spot once occupied by Grants Charcoal Broiler, Orlandos Restaurant, and then GETsbut that corner morphed into a pet supply store in about 1998.

A year or so ago, I noticed that Waldenbooks on West Portal (site of the old Sherrys Liquor Store), which had been a convenient reading spot for a nice 20-year run, had suddenly disappeared from the scene and had not merely relocated.

Canterbury Corner, out there at 17th Avenue and Geary Boulevard in the Richmond for many years, was once a prime location for St.Ignatiuss Stanyan Street students to find their copies of the iconic yellow-and-black Cliff Notes (and the less-common, but also good, red-and-black Monarch Notes) on everything from The Merchant of Venice to The Catcher in the Rye. Today, that corner has been taken over by yet another coffee house. Isnt it funny to think of how we now automatically associate books with the smell of coffee? I sometimes fear that we are raising a whole generation of young people who will have no goal for their working lives other than becoming baristas.

Sadly, the big department stores abandoned their book departments decades ago. Emporium Stonestown used to have a wonderful selection on the main floor near the elevators. Mom once stood in line there for nearly an hour to buy me a copy of William Manchesters Death of a President when it was published in 1967, and that was also where I discovered Robert Camerons great photo essay, Above San Francisco in 1969. The downtown store had an even larger area collection at the back of the main floor under the dome, and much of it was devoted to San Francisco historya browsers delight.

One of San Franciscos most colorful department store book buyers from the 1950s through the 1980s was the late Ethel Stevenson, and I had the pleasure of working with her for several years. Well-educated, well-read, and well-traveled, she put together an eclectic mix of titles that was guaranteed to draw people in. She believed in something for everyonebiographies, novels, history, reference, cookbooks, sports, self-improvement, plus science fiction and mystery paperbacks. When Roots became the smash hit of 1977there was Ethel, personally pushing a hand-truck laden with carton after carton of freshly printed volumes that she herself had just picked up from the distributor, in order to make sure that they were stacked and ready for her customers when the doors opened for business. She even pre-dated one Seinfeld gag by suggesting that some large picture books (known in the trade as coffee table books) could have four legs attached to the bottom and actually be used as a coffee table! And although she personally despised the genre, she always made sure that some tucked-away corner in each store contained an abundant selection of what she sarcastically referred to as T.R.trashy romance.

Waldenbooks and Tro Harper, both downtown institutions, have faded from the fog of days gone by, though the venerable Books, Inc. is still doing business out there on California Street in Laurel Village. Staceys, a Market Street icon since 1914, closed its doors for good in 2009.

The area around City Hall once contained several used book shops that would buy and sell old books and periodicals. Likewise, the area around McAllister Street in the Western Addition, prior to the redevelopment of the 1960s, was a second-hand treasure trove for all things, including books and magazines. All of these have now vanished in a cloud of dust called Redevelopment.

Book lovers are lucky that Green Apple Books, a neighborhood institution since 1967, is still doing business on Clement Street. It is a rare breedthe independent neighborhood bookstore. When the founder-owner retired a few years ago, he wisely structured the transition as a sale to a group of long-time employees who are truly dedicated to the business. Whenever Im in San Francisco, I can easily spend an entire afternoon, wandering aimlessly up and down the aisles, finding things that I never knew would interest me until I stumbled upon them.

Even the junk mail has changed. I no longer receive book club offers of ANY 20 BOOKS FOR JUST $1 TOTAL WHEN YOU AGREE TO BUY JUST 4 OTHERS AT REGULAR PRICE ANY TIME IN THE NEXT 5 YEARS! Those offers always seemed to hinge on the customers inability to return the OPT-OUT card for the monthly special, thereby generating shipment of another volume automatically. The advent of electronic communications obviously had something to do with the demise of this standard business model for many book clubs.

There are some high spots, though. Arcadia Publishing has done a great job of collecting and publishing neighborhood histories in concise 128-page format mid-size paperbacks that are chock-full of never-before seen photos, mostly from individual collections. Local offerings include volumes on the Sunset District and the Richmond District, both by Lorri Ungaretti, West Portal Neighborhoods by Richard Brandi, Catholics of San Francisco by Bernadette Hooper and Rayna Garibaldi, Jewish San Francisco by Edward Zerin and Marc Dollinger, San Franciscos Ocean Beach by Kathleen Manning and Jim Dickson, and the San Francisco Zoo by Katherine Girlich. Woody LaBountys Carville-by-the-Sea and an upcoming Ingleside Terraces book are also impressive contributions to local history, and make for very interesting reading.

Even a cookbook can be a good read if it is properly written. Not just a compilation of ingredients and instructions, a cookbook must tell a story, and even if you dont plan on preparing a recipe immediately, it can be an enjoyable read at any time. One local author, Rick Rodgers, always manages to weave his familys story into his writings, whether its an all-purpose cookbook or a single-subject collection of things like Thanksgiving, summer barbecue, or Christmas. Southern food writer Paula Deen is also an accomplished story-teller as she provides cooking direction and personal remembrances to her readers. Cookin, out there on Divisidero, has an entire back wall, from floor to ceiling, filled with used cookbooks, and I never tire of browsing the collection there.

During the years I worked at Williams-Sonoma, I once visited with company founder Chuck Williams (now a spry 96 years young) in his surprisingly modest office at the companys downtown headquarters. Dominating one entire wall were built-in bookcases nearly 12 feet high, and running at least 40 feet from one side of the room to the other. On a daily basis, he worked alongside thousands of different cookbookssome good and some not so, but all were interesting, he told me. He had read every one of them multiple times, providing him with just a bit of inspiration each and every time.

In its final year of publication in 1982, San Franciscos City Directory listed well over 200 retail bookstores. Sadly, things have been in decline ever since. So far this year, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported on a dozen or more closings of small neighborhood bookstores throughout the City. Not even the Government Printing Office Bookstore, once a fixture in the Federal Building, was able to survive, and is now gone.

Over the years, there were many book retailers operating in the western neighborhoods: Jabberwock Books, Porpoise Books, Slovo Books, and Gallery Bookshop on Clement Street; Liebers Bookstore on Geary Boulevard; the Russian Bookstore on Balboa Street; Book Fair, Blue Sky Books, and Sunset Books on Irving Street; Fannings Bookstore and Bolerium Books on Judah Street; Gutenberg Books on 9th Avenue, plus the ever-present Christian Science Reading Room on West Portal Avenue. Even the old California Book Company, forever on Phelan Avenue near Ocean Avenue, as the only book store for City College, has now become a mere annex to the main campus outlet, with merchandise offerings now focused on clothing and other logo items, snacks, sundries, calculators, CD players, and school supplies. So much for books

Our public libraries, saved from extinction by some recent voter-approved upgrades, can barely keep their doors open, and their once-standard 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. operating hours vanished while I was in college in the 1970s. Sadly, many are now open only a few days per week, with nighttime hours severely curtailed and even non-existent at some branches. Hey, City Hall, just when do you think that working people find the time to relax and read for pleasure?

For several years now, the U.S. Congress has officially sanctioned a proposal by a teachers group declaring October 20th as the National Day of Writing, in recognition of its impact on all of our lives. So lets all celebrate this new event by going out and picking up a newspaper or a magazine, buying a book, renewing a library card, and encouraging those around you to do likewise. Supporting writing through the related activity of reading can be a great way to start and end each day in the Outside Lands or wherever you happen to be.

Contribute your own stories about western neighborhoods places!
US would like to maintain close ties with Pakistan: US lawmakers 11 February, 2017



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Hand Wash and Toiletries in Pakistan And the Role of DUPAS in Reshaping the Industry

Woke Bingo WASHINGTON: The United States would like to maintain close ties with Pakistan and to use those ties to persuade Islamabad to change its policies towards Afghanistan, US lawmakers and a top American general indicated at the latest Congressional hearing on the situation in Afghanistan.



Although the hearing focused on Afghanistan, Pakistan was mentioned 73 times in this hours-long meeting on Wednesday while there were also dozens of indirect references to the countrys role in the Afghan conflict.



Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, set the tone of the discussion in his opening statement, saying that succeeding in Afghanistan will also require a candid evaluation of Americas relationship with Pakistan.



And the hearings sole witness, Gen John Nicholson Jr, commander of the US and international forces in Afghanistan, advocated for working with Pakistan and its military to stabilise Afghanistan and defeat extremists.



He disagreed with a suggestion that cutting off US aid to Pakistan would force it to cooperate. Every time he was asked about stopping US assistance, he emphasised the need for diplomatic engagement with Islamabad.



Senator McCain, a regular visitor to both Afghanistan and Pakistan, underlined the US dilemma on this issue. Acknowledging that thousands of Pakistanis had sacrificed their lives in the fight against terrorists, he said: But the fact remains that numerous terrorist groups still operate within Pakistan, attack its neighbours and kill US forces.



The senator, who also visited North Waziristan last year, praised Pakistan for conducting a successful military operation in that area, but said that this was not helping the US forces combating terrorists in Afghanistan.



Put simply, our mission in Afghanistan is immeasurably more difficult, if not impossible, while our enemies possess a safe haven in Pakistan. These sanctuaries must be eliminated, he said.



Senator McCain urged the new US administration to work with Congress to determine what additional actions are necessary, to ensure that the enemies we continue to fight in Afghanistan can find no sanctuary in Pakistan or in any other country.



Senator Jack Reed, the committees ranking Democrat, insisted that the alleged Pakistani support for extremist groups in Afghanistan, whether it is passive or deliberate, must end if we and Afghanistan are to achieve necessary levels of security.



He pointed to another dilemma that US forces in the region face, militants fleeing to Afghanistan when Pakistan launches an operation against them in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).



What we need to do concerning the safe haven issue in Pakistan? asked Senator McCain.



Sir, its very difficult to succeed on the battlefield when your enemy enjoys external support and safe haven. I think we need to continue to work closely with Pakistan, the general replied.



The Pakistanis did some good work in North Waziristan, right? asked the senator. They did, sir. And we have great respect for the operation they conducted in Waziristan. It was a very large and significant operation and they suffered heavy casualties, said Gen Nicholson.



But the problem is the Haqqani network, especially in places like Quetta, right? asked Senator McCain.



Sir, thats correct. We still have enemy sanctuary in areas like Quetta, like you mention, with the Taliban leadership, and other cities within the tribal areas for the Haqqani leadership, Gen Nicholson said.



You have had some dealings with the new chief of staff at the army. I dont know if youve had any dealings with the new head of ISI, but does it make sense to focus our persuasive efforts on specific sub elements within Pakistan? asked Senator Reed.



Sir, I have a great respect for the Pakistan military and its leaders. Im developing, I believe, a positive and constructive relationship with Gen Bajwa and his team. And again, we have great respect for the operations theyve conducted in Fata, Gen Nicholson replied.



The Pakistan people have also suffered from the scourge of terrorism. And I quite sincerely want to eliminate those terrorists that are attacking their society, he said.



The general then explained how the United States forces could help Pakistan fight the terrorists, noting that recently US counterterrorism forces killed Omar Khalifa, the head of the Tariq Gidar Group who perpetrated the horrendous attack on the Peshawar Army School, which killed over 130 children. Also, in a raid last year in eastern Afghanistan, US forces rescued Haider Gilani, the son of a former Pakistani prime minister.



Emphasising the need to improve cooperation between the US and Pakistani forces, Gen Nicholson suggested increasing the pressure applied on the Haqqanis and the Taliban on the Pakistan side of the border.



Senator Angus King, an independent lawmaker who caucuses with the Democrats, asked the general if cutting off funding would persuade Pakistan to eliminate the alleged safe havens in Fata.



The general, however, suggested conducting a holistic review of Americas Pakistan policy and to sit down with Pakistani leaders to do so.



We have many areas where we could be working together for our mutual benefit. And I think this is a key to the future, he said.



Im personally committed to this and working with my Pakistani counterparts in my initial conversations with my chain of command, this is a high priority for all of us.



Gen Nicholson expressed hope that the new administration in Washington would conduct this holistic review.



When Republican Senator David Perdue also suggested using US aid to Pakistan as leverage, Gen Nicholson underlined the need for working closely with the Pakistanis to eliminate or reduce sanctuary for the Taliban, Haqqani and other groups inside Pakistan.



Are we getting the kind of cooperation that we need from the Pakistanis? asked Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat.



Wed like to see greater cooperation, the general replied. Where, specifically has it been deficient? asked the senator.



Specifically sir, with respect to the Haqqani network and the Taliban sanctuaries and presence inside Pakistan, the general said.



Asked to identify the areas of concern, Gen Nicholson named Fata, areas around Quetta and Waziristan, where, he claimed, the Haqqani leadership resided. Those areas, he said, had bedevilled US forces for years.



Are we doing enough to bring pressure to bear on the Pakistani government to be more aggressive and active? Senator Blumenthal asked.



I think we need to do a holistic review of our relationship with Pakistan. There are many areas of common interest, where we could work together.



And we want to achieve progress in these areas but youre absolutely right, its been frustrating, the general said.



We need to keep military pressure on the Taliban and through diplomatic engagement with the Pakistanis to increase pressure on that side of the border. So this would be a whole of government approach but the objective of this would be an eventual reconciliation. This will take some years I believe, he added.
From Greg Swank, 12-4-2 You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As...
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Douglas V. Gibbs is a proud member of the American Authors Association

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How could tourism help you?

Washington County wants to know.

The county will hold two meetings for members of the chambers of commerce starting Feb. 15. The countys tourism consultant will report on data gathered over the course of the past year, including surveys of vacation-home owners and groups that run events in the county.

Then, business owners and event planners will discuss how they can use that information. The goal is to create programs that arent run completely by the county government.

We want to find a way to include the chambers in a public-private partnership that would ultimately deliver tourism programs and services, and have a discussion on how that might work, said Economic Development Director Laura Oswald.

Designing the right programs is the difficult part.

We want some discussion on how tourism is impacting local businesses, Oswald said.

Thats part of what the consultant tried to determine, but business owners can speak up at the meeting and describe whats working  and not working  right now.

We want programs that benefit everyone, Oswald said.

There is some funding available: the county still has most of the state I Love NY grant in its savings, awaiting concrete plans.

The county will hold two meetings. The first will be at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 15 at the Whitehall Municipal Center, with a snow date of Feb. 16.

The second meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 23 at the Lovejoy Building at the Freight Yard behind Hubbard Hall in Cambridge. The snow date for that meeting is Feb. 28. The Lovejoy Building is home to the Cambridge farmers market.

Tourism officials will use the input from those meetings to develop a final plan, which will be presented to the county at the tourism committee meeting on March 20. The Board of Supervisors must approve any spending from the I Love NY grant.

The data gathered by the consultant includes information on what vacation-home owners do in the county, when they visit, how much money they spend and how many people they bring with them. Event organizers were asked about their customers demographics and the amount of money spent at their events. However, the consultant struggled to get people to participate in the surveys.
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Snowden is a former US National Security Agency contractor who stole top-secret documents in 2013 that revealed mass surveillance efforts by the US government. He shared those documents with journalists. Russia has been sheltering Snowden since 2013, and recently granted him permission to stay through 2020.

Trump has in the past called Snowden a traitor and a spy, and suggested Snowden may have given US secrets to other countries. Snowden denied those allegations on Friday, saying on Twitter, "I never cooperated with Russian intel. No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next."

Snowden also tweeted an interview he gave to Yahoo News' Katie Couric, in which he again declared, "I'm independent ... I have always worked on behalf of the United States ... Russia doesn't own me."

The notion that Russia could send Snowden back to the US as a gift to Trump is buoyed in part by Trump's stated desire for warmer relations with the Kremlin.

Trump, throughout the presidential election, expressed an affinity for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those intimations were often echoed by Trump surrogates, including national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Those moves were regularly condemned by both Republican and Democratic leaders who have warned that Putin cannot be trusted.
The dossier alleges serious misconduct and conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia's government. The White House has dismissed the dossier as fiction, and some of the facts and assertions it includes have indeed been proven wrong.

Other allegations in the dossier, however, are still being investigated. According to a recent CNN report, moreover, US intelligence officials have now corroborated some of the dossier's material. And this corroboration has reportedly led US intelligence officials to regard other information in the dossier as more credible.

Importantly, the timeline of known events fits with some of the more serious alleged Trump-Russia misconduct described in the dossier. And questions about these events have not been fully answered, including the sudden distancing of Trump associates from the campaign and administration as the events and Russia ties became public.

The dossiers allegations of Trump-Russia ties and conspiracy

The dossier was compiled by veteran British spy Christopher Steele, who was hired to investigate Trump's ties to Russia by the Washington, DC-based opposition research firm Fusion GPS. Steele developed a network of sources while working on

An American consultant named Paul Manafort, who was mentioned throughout Steele's dossier, served as Donald Trump's campaign manager until August 2016. He is said to have close ties to Ukraine and Russia.

change "definitely came from Trump staffers."

$12.7 million for Manafort for his work

Michael Flynn: A trip to Moscow, a distraction from Ukraine, and secret phone calls

According to the dossier, a Kremlin official involved in US relations said that Russia attempted to cultivate US political figures by "funding indirectly their recent visits to Moscow."

What happened

In December 2015, Flynn, then recently retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency, traveled to Moscow to speak at a gala celebrating the 10th anniversary of state-sponsored news agency Russia Today.

Flynn later told The Washington Post that he had been paid to speak at the gala, where he was photographed sitting next to

Carter Page, a was an early foreign policy adviser to Trump. Page also served as an adviser " rel="noFollow" target="_blank"on key transactions" for Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom before setting up his own energy investment fund, Global Energy Capital, with former Gazprom executive Sergei Yatesenko.

the President was so keen to lift personal and corporate Western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered Page and his associates the brokerage of up to a 19 percent (privatised) stake in Rosneft."

The dossier says that Pageexpressed interest" in the offer but was "noncommittal." It also says that Page promised that "sanctions on Russia would be lifted" if Trump were elected.

What happened

Page's extensive business ties to state-owned Russian companies were investigated by a counterintelligence task force set up last year by the CIA, according to several media reports. The investigation, which is reportedly ongoing, has examined whether Russia was funneling money into Trump's presidential campaign  and, if it was, who was serving as the liaison between the Trump team and the Kremlin.

Sergei Millian: From touting Trump to downplaying ties

Sergei Millian, a Belarus-born businessman who is now a US citizen, founded the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in 2006. He has described himself as an exclusive broker for Trump's family business, the Trump Organization, with respect to real-estate dealings in Russia.

What the dossier says

One of the dossier's sources, "

The Kremlin recruited "hundreds of agents" both in Russia and in the US who were either "consciously cooperating with the FSB or whose personal and professional IT systems had been compromised," the dossier says, citing "a number of Russian figures with a detailed knowledge of national cyber crime."

"Many were people who had ethnic and family ties to Russia and/or had been incentivized financially to cooperate," the dossier says. Source E allegedly told his compatriot that agents were compensated by "consular officials in New York, DC, and Miami," who issued "pension disbursements to Russian emigres living in the US as cover...tens of thousands of dollars were involved."

In return for this effort, the dossier says, Putin wanted information from Trump on Russian oligarchs living in the US, Source E said. The same source is quoted in the dossier as saying

"Unlike in Russia, these [dealings] were substantial and involved the payment of large bribes and kickbacks which, were they to become public, would be potentially very damaging to their campaign."

What happened

"Source E," according to recent reports by the Wall Street Journal and ABC, is the Belarus-born businessman Sergei Millian, the founder of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce (RACC) who became an American citizen after arriving in the US 15 years ago.

Millian described himself in an interview with Russian news agency RIA Novosti last April.

Whereas Millian told RIA that he had been in touch with the Trump Organization as late as April 2016, he said in an email to Business Insider that the last time he worked on a Trump brand project was "

Millian, on his LinkedIn page, says he is the Vice President of the World Chinese Merchants Union Association. He wrote last April that he traveled to Beijing to meet with a Chinese official and the
The 45th president has signed 34 executive actions so far, with far-reaching effects on Americans' lives.

While many of them have been billed as executive orders in the popular vernacular, most of them were technically presidential memoranda or proclamations.

The three types of executive actions have different authority and effects, with executive orders holding the most prestige:

Executive orders are assigned numbers and published in the federal register, similar to laws passed by Congress, and typically direct members of the executive branch to follow a new policy or directive. Trump has issued 16 orders.

Presidential memoranda do not have to be published or numbered (though they can be), and usually delegate tasks that Congress has already assigned the president to members of the executive branch. Trump has issued 13 memoranda.

Finally, while some proclamations  like President Abraham Lincoln's emancipation proclamation  have carried enormous weight, most are ceremonial observances of federal holidays or awareness months. Trump has issued five proclamations.

Scholars have typically used the number of executive orders per term to measure how much presidents have exercised their power. George Washington only signed eight his entire time in office, according to the American Presidency Project, while FDR penned over 3,700.

In his two terms, President Barack Obama issued 277 executive orders, a total number on par with his modern predecessors, but the lowest per year average in 120 years. Trump, so far, has signed 16 executive orders in 45 days.

Heres a quick guide to the executive actions Trump has made so far, what they do, and how Americans have reacted to them:

Executive Order, March 6: A new travel ban

Trump's second go at his controversial travel order bans people from

Existing visa holders will not be subjected to the ban, and religious minorities will no longer get preferential treatment  two details critics took particular issue with in the first ban. The new order removed Iraq from the list of countries, and changed excluding just Syrian refugees to preventing all refugees from entering the US.

Democrats denounced the new order, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying the "watered-down ban is still a ban," and Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez saying "Trump's obsession with religious discrimination is disgusting, un-American, and outright dangerous."

Read the full text of the order here 

Presidential Memorandum, March 6: Guidance for agencies to implement the new travel ban

This memo instructs the State Department, the Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security how to implement Trump's new travel ban.

It directs the three department heads to enhance the vetting of visa applicants and other immigrants trying to enter the US as they see fit, to release how many visa applicants there were by country, and to submit a report in 180 days detailing the long-term costs of the

Read the full text of the memorandum here 

3 Presidential proclamations, March 1: National months for women, the American Red Cross, and Irish-Americans

The president proclaimed March 2017 Women's History Month, American Red Cross Month, and Irish-American Heritage Month.

Read the full text of the women's history proclamation here 

And the Red Cross proclamation here 

And the Irish-American proclamation here 

Executive Order, February 28: Promoting Historically Black Colleges and Universities

This order established the

Read the full text of the order here 

Executive Order, February 28: Reviewing the 'Waters of the United States' rule

The order directed federal agencies to revise the Clean Water Rule, a major regulation Obama issued in 2015 to clarify what areas are federally protected under the Clean Water Act.

Trump's EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt called the rule "the greatest blow to private property rights the modern era has seen," in 2015, and led a multi-state lawsuit against it while he was Oklahoma's attorney general.

David J. Cooper, an ecologist at Colorado State University, cautioned that repealing the rule wouldn't settle the confusion about what the federal government can protect under the Clean Water Act, or where.

Read the full text of the order here 

Executive Order, February 24: Enforcing regulatory reform

This order creates Regulator Reform Officers within each federal agency who will comb through existing regulations and recommend which ones the administration should repeal. It directs the officers to focus on eliminating regulations that prevent job creation, are outdated, unnecessary, or cost too much.

The act doubles down on Trump's plan to cut government regulations he says are hampering businesses, but opponents insist are necessary to protect people and the environment. L

Read the full text of the order here 

Executive Order, February 9: Changing the order of succession in the Department of Justice

This order enacted a line of succession to lead the US Department of Justice if the attorney general, deputy attorney general, or associate attorney general die, resign, or are otherwise unable to carry on their duties. In order, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and then the US Attorney for the Western District of Missouri will be next in line.

The action reverses an order Obama signed days before leaving office. After Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to enforce his first travel ban, he appointed

Read the full text of the order here 

Executive Order, February 9: Combating criminal organizations

The order is intended to "thwart" criminal organizations, including "

The action directs law enforcement to apprehend and prosecute citizens, and deport non-citizens involved in criminal activities including "the illegal smuggling and trafficking of humans, drugs or other substances, wildlife, and weapons," "corruption, cybercrime, fraud, financial crimes, and intellectual-property theft," and money laundering

The Secretary of State, Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Director of National Intelligence will co-chair a

It also instructs the co-chairs to present the president with a report within 120 days outlining the penetration of criminal organizations into the United States, and recommendations for how to eradicate them.

Read the full text of the order here 

Executive Order, February 9: Reducing crime

Following up on his promise to restore "law and order" in America, Trump signed an executive order intended to reduce violent crime in the US, and "comprehensively address illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and violent crime."

The action directs Attorney General Jeff Sessions to assemble a task force in order to identify new strategies and laws to reduce crime, and to evaluate how well crime data is being collected and leveraged across the country.

Trump has come under fire recently for claiming the national murder rate was at an all-time high, when it has in fact dropped to one of the lowest rates ever, with 2015 merely experiencing a slight uptick from the previous year.

Read the full text of the order here 

Executive Order, February 9: Protecting law enforcement

The order seeks to create new laws that will protect law enforcement, and increase the penalties for crimes committed against them.

It also directs the attorney general to review existing federal grant funding programs to law enforcement agencies, and recommend changes to the programs if they don't adequately protect law enforcement.

The action is likely in response to multiple high-profile police killings over the past year, including a sniper attack that killed five Dallas police officers in July.

Read the full text of the order here 

Executive Order, February 3: Reviewing Wall Street regulations

Trump signed two actions on Friday that could end up rewriting regulations in the financial industry that Obama and Congress put in place after the 2008 financial crisis.

The executive order sets "Core Principles" of financial regulation declaring that Trump's administration seeks to empower Americans to make their own financial decisions, prevent taxpayer-funded bailouts, and reduce regulations on Wall Street so US companies can compete globally.

It also directs the Secretary of Treasury to review existing regulations on the financial system, determine whether the Core Principles are being met, and report back to the President in 120 days.

Experts worry that loosening regulations could roll back the Obama administration's landmark consumer protection reform bill, Dodd-Frank, aimed at reducing risk in the financial system. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the progressive darling from , led the charge decrying the actions.

Read the full text of the order here 

Presidential Memorandum, February 3: Reviewing the fiduciary duty rule

The memorandum directs the Labor Secretary to review the "fiduciary rule," another Obama-era law

Presidential proclamation, February 2: American Heart Month

This ceremonial proclamation

Executive Order, January 30: For every new regulation proposed, repeal two existing ones

The order states that for every one regulation the executive branch proposes, two must be identified to repeal. It also caps the spending on new regulations for 2017 at $0.

Some environmental groups expressed concern that the order could undo regulations put in place to protect natural resources.

Read the full text here 

Executive Order, January 28: Drain the swamp

The order requires appointees to every executive agency to sign an ethics pledge saying they will never lobby a foreign government and that they won't do any other lobbying for five years after they leave government.

But it also loosened some ethics restrictions that Obama put in place, decreasing the number of years executive branch employees had to wait since they had last been lobbyists from two years to one.

Read the full text here 

Presidential Memorandum, January 28: Reorganizing the National and Homeland Security Councils

Read the full text here 

Presidential Memorandum, January 28: Defeating ISIS

Making a point to use the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" (something Trump criticized Obama for on the campaign trail), Trump directed his administration "

Read the full text here 

Executive Order, January 27: Immigration ban

In Trump's most controversial executive action yet, he temporarily barred people from majority-Muslim Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen from entering the country for 90 days, and Syrians from entering until he decides otherwise.

Federal judges in several states declared the order unconstitutional, releasing hundreds of people who were stuck at US airports in limbo. The White House continues to defend the action, insisting it was "not about religion" but about "protecting our own citizens and border."

Tens of thousands of people protested the action in cities and airports across the US, company executives came out against the order, and top Republicans split with their president to criticize Trump's approach.

Read the full text here 

UPDATE: Since the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down this order on February 9, Trump issued a new order intended to replace this one on March 6.

Presidential Memorandum, January 27: 'Rebuilding' the military

This action directed

Read the full text here 

Presidential proclamation, January 26: National School Choice Week

Trump proclaimed January 22 through January 28, 2017 as National School Choice Week.

The ceremonial move aimed to encourage people to demand school-voucher programs and charter schools, of which Trump's Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos is a vocal supporter. Meanwhile, opponents argue that the programs weaken public schools and fund private schools at taxpayers' expense.

Read the full text here 

Executive Order, January 25: Build the wall

Trump outlined his intentions to build a wall along the US border with Mexico, one of his main campaign promises.

The order also directs the immediate detainment and deportation of illegal immigrants, and requires state and federal agencies tally up how much foreign aid they are sending to Mexico within 30 days, and tells the

Read the full text here 

Executive Order, January 25: Cutting funding for sanctuary cities

Trump called "sanctuary cities" to comply with federal immigration law or have their federal funding pulled.

The order has prompted a mixture of resistance and support from local lawmakers and police departments in the sanctuary cities,

Read the full text here 

Executive Order, January 24: Expediting environmental review for infrastructure projects

The order allows governors or heads of federal agencies to request an infrastructure project be considered "high-priority" so it can be fast-tracked for environmental review.

Trump signed the order as a package infrastructure deal, along with three memoranda on oil pipelines.

Read the full text here 

3 Presidential Memoranda, January 24: Approving pipelines

Trump signed three separate memoranda set to expand oil pipelines in the United States, a move immediately decried by Native American tribes, Democrats, and activists.

The first two direct agencies to immediately review and approve construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline, and the third requires all pipeline materials be built in the US.

While pipeline proponents argue that they transport oil and gas more safely than trains or trucks can, environmentalists say pipelines threaten the contamination of drinking water.

Read the full text of all three memoranda here 

Presidential Memorandum, January 24: Reduce regulations for US manufacturing

Trump directed his

Read the full text here 

Presidential Memorandum, January 23: Reinstating the 'Mexico City policy'

The move reinstated a global gag rule that bans American non-governmental organizations working abroad from discussing abortion.

Democratic and Republican presidents have taken turns reinstating it and getting rid of it since Ronald Reagan created the gag order in 1984. The rule, while widely expected, dismayed women's rights and reproductive health advocates, but encouraged antiabortion activists.

Read the full text here 

Presidential Memorandum, January 23: Hiring Freeze

Trump froze all hiring in the executive branch excluding the military, directing no vacancies be filled, in an effort to cut government spending and bloat.

Union leaders called the action "harmful and counterproductive," saying it would "disrupt government programs and services that benefit everyone."

Read the full text here 

Presidential Memorandum, January 23: Out of the TPP

This action signaled Trump's intent to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that

said

Read the full text here 

Executive Order, January 20: Declaring Trump's intention to repeal the Affordable Care Act

One of Trump's top campaign promises was to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare.

His first official act in office was declaring his intention to do so. Congressional Republicans have been working to do just that since their term started January 3, though there's dissent among Republicans

Read the full text here 

Presidential Memorandum, January 20: Reince's regulatory freeze
Mr Akufo-Addo made this known on Friday, February 10, 2017, when the Chairman of the Al Serkal Group, Mr. Eisa Bin Nasser Alserkal, together with a delegation of investors from the United Arab Emirates, paid a courtesy call on him at the presidency.

In the presence of the Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen, President Akufo-Addo noted that the topmost priority of his government is to create jobs for the people of Ghana, and, thereby return the country onto the path of progress and prosperity.

The President told the delegation that the industrialization of the economy, with the aim of moving the country away from being dependent on raw material exports to an economy of value-added activities, and the revival of Ghanaian agriculture will be his main focus.

It is for this reason, the President indicated, that his government is determined to partner with investors and the private sector to set up strategic industries, with the aim of helping create jobs for the youth.

These strategic industries, he revealed, include an iron and steel industry, which will exploit Ghanas iron ore deposits at Oppon Manso and Sheini, near Tamale, and facilitate the manufacture of machine parts and equipment.

Additionally, President Akufo-Addo indicated that his government, in partnership with the private sector, aims to establish an integrated aluminium industry, which will exploit the countrys bauxite deposits at Kyebi and Nyinahin; and also petrochemical industries from our oil and gas deposits from the Jubilee, TEN and Sankofa fields.

On his part, Mr. Eisa Bin Nasser Alserkal, told President Akufo-Addo that the decision to invest in Ghana stemmed from his companys belief that Ghana offered the right opportunities for investors in Africa, and they, in turn, will help develop the country.
In her latest blogpost, titled " rel="noFollow"When the counsellor needs counselling: the curious case of George Lutterodt", the actress minced no words in criticising the television panellist for his numerous outlandish comments made over many years.

Now I dont know much about Counsellor George Lutterodts background or qualification, but I do know that if he were a he would understand the human psychology and the impact of his words and how and they can be, Ms Forson wrote.

"What counsellor would use words that can send people into depression, or cause others to possibly [cause] harm to themselves and even have to shame them to make a point? Which is how careless he is with his utterances. And thats why I strongly believe hes not an authority on counselling but a self-titled one, who has been given airtime to further misinform people.

Earlier this week, a video surfaced on social media in which George Lutterodt is seen at a radio station brazenly accusing a woman - in her face- of attempting to murder the actor Kofi Adjorlolo.

The woman, who is actress Victoria Lebene, is in a relationship with the veteran actor. In the video, Lutterodt suggests that Victoria (who is seen crying) wants to kill Kofi Adjorlolo because she is dating someone her fathers age. He is also heard shouting; 'let her cry, let her cry, let her cry!' in the video.

Counsellor Lutterodt condemns Kofi Adjorlolo & Victoria's relationship

This has led many on social media to condemn the self-styled counsellor, who in June 2016 was warned and censured by the Ghana Psychological Council to desist from parading himself as a counsellor because he has not been certified as such.

The award-winning actress was also critical of media organisation who urge him on and encourage this for their own  and ratings.

There have been calls on social media for the National Media Commission to sanction media organisations whose platforms and upon their invitation are used by George Lutterodt to make his notorious comments.

Analysis

George Lutterodts fame began about two years ago when he began serving as a panellist on a number of television and radio relationship talk shows on which he dishes out what he deems wise counsel.
The 25-year-old lady made the revelation after the fake man of God, Enyeribe Nkwocha was arrested after he allegedly forced her into prostitution and also made her his sex slave since she was 17-years-old.

Narrating how he cast a spell on her, the lady who further narrated how Nkwocha made her abandon school in SS2 and forgot about her family for the years he held her, said he was using her to make money from servicing men in different hotels in Abia State.

Recounting her ordeal, the victim said she was traveling from Lagos to Bayelsa State when she first met Nkwocha.

"When I got to Yenagoa, it was late and I boarded a taxi that would take me home. I did not know that the driver and the other passengers were kidnappers. But I became worried when the cab diverted into a bush.

I started screaming and one of the passengers who turned out to be Nkwocha, told her not to be scared, that he would help me. He promised that nothing would happen to me.

He told me that God sent him to come and use me for a missionary work. He reassured me he came to assist me; he said I shouldnt cry or be afraid.

He also told me that he was led by God to tell me that I had the gift of prophecy, which I should use to serve God. He said I was going to make money.

He said he would keep the money for me and use it to open a church for me. He brought out N1000 from his wallet and made me take an oath that whatever I did with him, would remain a secret between us.

He told me that any money I got would be kept for me in a special account. He said he was a foreigner, not a Nigerian. I was forced to take an oath with him in that taxi.

After the incident, he allowed me to go to my sisters house that night, but I couldnt tell my sister what happened because of the oath.

He warned that anytime I divulged the incident to anyone, I would vomit blood and die. I repeated the same pronouncement on him.

When my sister moved to Lagos, Nkwocha had more access to me and ordered me to start attending clubs and to have sex with men for money.

I am sure he used something on me because I was obeying him like a sheep. All the money I made while sleeping with men, I handed them to him.

When I got tired of going to the clubs and sleeping with men and told him I wanted to stop, he started taking me to hotels himself where he would arrange for men to have sex with me.

I was in SS2 and only 17 years when all these started. Today, Im 25 years old. I stopped going to school and forgot that I had parents or relatives.

He said that if I allowed any man to have sex with me without a condom, I would die! He said, he alone, had the right to have sex with me without a condom. He would me drink his semen anytime he had sex with me.

I now know that I was under a spell. In those eight years, he was also having sex with me.

The Abia State Police Commissioner, Leye Oyebade who confirmed the incident, said Nkwocha and others had abducted the lady from Bayelsa State and took her to Abia where he turned her into his sex slave and made sure he collected all the proceeds from her.

Oyebade added that the police had launched a manhunt for his partners in crime and once they are rounded up, they would be arraigned at a court for prosecution.
UNAIDS has set a target to eliminate Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (MTCT) by 2020 in response to the AIDS epidemic.

The first lady is of the firm believe that it is possible to eliminate mother to child transition of HIV by 2020.

"The elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV and Saving Mothers to achieve the 90-90-90 targets by 2020 is possible," she said.

"I am willing to learn and work to make the targets a reality. Looking forward to this partnership. It is possible, she stressed.

--About Mother-to-Child Transmission--

Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV occurs during pregnancy, at the time of labour and delivery, or after birth while breastfeeding the infant.

The HIV transmission rate from infected mothers to their babies is estimated to range between 15 to 30 percent, but could also be as high as 45 percent in the absence if any interventions for prevention.
The National Health Insurance Scheme/ Authority is one of the things that is a major challenge facing drug supply in Ghana. They owe suppliers between 900m and 1.2billion, he told the Business and Financial Times Newspaper (B&FT).

If there is no solution to this, it has the tendency of crippling the industry or supply in the country, because the National Health Insurance has to pay the facilities; the hospitals and the polyclinics, he said.

Payments which were due in the second quarter of last year is still outstanding, and we take money from the banks to work so if they owe us more than about a year, it is very worrying, he said.

The NHIS has come under stress owing to lack of dedicated sources of financing.

President Nana Akufo-Addo has pledged to commit Ghanas oil earnings into funding it.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Health Kweku Agyeman Manu has said that he will revive the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) within six months.

Within the shortest possible time we will solve the problems but like all of them will be based on how much money is provided for us to do what we think should be done. I have told some of my colleagues that within the next six months if we are not able to invest into the health insurance area for people to begin to see elements of something new happening in that sector, my party and my government will be in trouble.

Kweku Agyeman Manu who once acted as Chief Executive of NHIS said his past experience there will help him develop the scheme.
That's because the White House is apparently rewriting the controversial executive order  which temporarily bans immigration from six predominantly Muslim countries and permanently from Syria  so that it has a better chance of withstanding legal challenges.

Trump tweeted on Thursday night that he intends to appeal the Ninth Circuit's decision: "SEE YOU IN COURT," he wrote shortly after the judges issued their 29-page opinion. But he wavered on that pronouncement Friday, saying he "very well could" issue a "brand new order" next week.

Legal experts say rewriting the order is likely a much better option for the Trump administration than sticking with the "extreme vetting" order in its current form, which would likely result in more litigation.

"There are a variety of things the government could do to help their case. It's just a matter of how much they're willing to change the executive order," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law at Cornell University.

Yale-Loehr said that the order's most controversial sections  3(c) and the near entirety of section 5, which were the subject of a lawsuit brought by Washington and Minnesota against the government that ultimately resulted in the temporary restraining order (TRO) placed on the ban  would either have to be changed significantly or removed entirely if the administration wanted to shield itself from further litigation.

The key section

Section 3(c) of the immigration order stipulates that "immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from" Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya and Yemen "would be detrimental to the interests of the United States," and that Trump would "hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order."

The original order did not list the countries specifically but referred to those targeted in an Obama-era visa-waiver policy, the Department of Homeland Security later clarified.

The nationwide enforcement of Section 3(c) was restrained "in its entirety" last week by US District Judge James Robart, who sided with the states' argument that the order caused "significant and ongoing harm" to "substantial numbers of people, to the detriment of the States."

When Robart asked the government lawyer, Michelle Bennett, if there had been any terrorist attacks by people from the seven counties listed in Trump's order since 9/11, Bennett said she didn't know.

"The answer is none," Robart said, according to Reuters. "You're here arguing we have to protect from these individuals from these countries, and there's no support for that."

Even after appealing the restraining order to the Ninth Circuit, the government still had difficulty proving that citizens from the seven countries posed an elevated terror risk above others.

"The proceedings have been moving very fast," the Department of Justice lawyer, August Flentje, told Ninth Circuit Judge Michelle Friedland when she asked whether the government had any evidence connecting the seven nations targeted by the order to terrorism.

Another option  rather than gutting Section 3(c) altogether  would be to stipulate that people from those countries have to go through greater screening procedures to get a visa, Yale-Loehr said.

"But they'd need to outline what those new procedures are in a revised executive order to make them comply with due-process requirements," she said.

The due-process clauses in the Constitution safeguard people from arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property by the government outside of the sanction of law. The government had argued before the Ninth Circuit that the TRO should apply only to lawful permanent residents, because as it stands it "covers aliens who cannot assert cognizable liberty interests."

But the judges determined Thursday that limiting the scope of the TRO, as the government requested, would "on its face omit aliens who are in the United States unlawfully, and those individuals have due process rights as well."

"The government has not met its burden of showing likelihood of success on appeal on its arguments with respect to the due process claim," the judges wrote.

In need of an adequate factual basis

Critics of the order have said that the countries it targets seem arbitrary, since it does not include countries that have posed serious terror threats in the past, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. The immigration order cites the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks three times as justification, but the 9/11 hijackers were from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon.

Lyman Stone put it bluntly in an article for The Federalist: "Most reasonable people would agree that banning people who have never been associated with any terrorist attack in our country (say, Bhutanese Hindus) doesnt make much sense."

Litigation over the order will likely continue until the government provides "an adequate factual basis for singling out these specific countries as distinct sources of risk," Richard Pildes, a professor of Constitutional Law at New York University, told Business Insider in an email.

Trump has argued that the seven countries named in the executive order "are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror." The DOJ similarly claimed in its filing to the US Court of Appeals that the listed countries had "a previously identified link to an increased risk of terrorist activity."

Yet the Ninth Circuit judges expressed skepticism of Trump's use of Obama's policy to justify his immigration ban.

"Although the Government points to the fact that Congress and the Executive identified the seven countries named in the Executive Order as countries of concern in 2015 and 2016, the Government has not offered any evidence or even an explanation of how the national security concerns that justified those designations, which triggered visa requirements, can be extrapolated to justify an urgent need for the Executive Order to be immediately reinstated," the judges wrote.

"We cannot conclude that the Government has shown that it is 'absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur,'" they added.

Section 5

Section 5 of the immigration order  which stipulates a "realignment of the US Refugee Admissions Program for Fiscal Year 2017" and a suspension of the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for 120 days  has also proved controversial.

The nationwide enforcement of sections 5(a), 5(b), 5(c), and 5(e)  along with 3(c)  was blocked by the Seattle judge's retraining order, which was upheld by the Ninth Circuit on Thursday.

"In a best-case scenario, in terms of their chances of winning in court, they would not completely suspend the refugee-admissions program but require some kind of additional screening procedures for refugees and start rolling those out," Yale-Loehr said.

"Section 5(c), which bars anyone from Syria from entering the US, would also have to go," he added. "Any argument they make for keeping that in would result in the same kinds of legal challenges presented by Section 3(c), which poses the question of, 'Why have people from these countries been deemed more dangerous than others?'"

The States claims present significant constitutional questions

Sections 5(b) and 5(e)  which indicate that the US will "prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality"  have also been blocked, pursuant to the TRO, to the extent that it "purports to prioritize refugee claims of certain religious minorities."

The TRO also prohibits the government from "proceeding with any action that prioritizes the refugee claims of certain religious minorities."

Civil-rights organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, had cited the order's prioritization of religious minorities as evidence of discrimination in favor of Christians, who are minorities in the seven countries that the order targets.

Their arguments were bolstered last month by Trump's interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, during which he said that Syrian Christians would be given priority when applying for refugee status.

"The States argue that the Executive Order violates the Establishment and Equal Protection Clauses because it was intended to disfavor Muslims," the Ninth Circuit judges wrote on Thursday.

"In support of this argument, the States have offered evidence of numerous statements by the President about his intent to implement a 'Muslim ban' as well as evidence they claim suggests that the Executive Order was intended to be that ban, including sections 5(b) and 5(e) of the Order," the judges continued.
Amid pizza boxes stacked next to a variety of 2-liter soda bottles, volunteers  mostly programmers, software developers, system administrators, scientists, and librarians by day  made their way through a list of government websites, flagging them to be preserved and downloading the data sets they contained.

The 8-hour event, called Data Rescue NYC, is the latest in a series of similar gatherings organized by a group called the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI). The organization is attempting to download and archive data generated by government agencies like the EPA and NOAA that they believe is at risk of being taken down by the Trump administration. EDGI is also working to save versions of webpages and monitor sites for changes to wording about topics like climate change.

By the end of the day on February 4, the New York volunteers had archived over 5,000 websites and downloaded nearly 100 gigabytes worth of data sets.

The downloading efforts have only been underway for a few months  EDGI formed after Trumps election  but the work is already yielding results. The groups monitoring work has revealed that descriptions of the negative environmental impacts of coal, as well as graphs showing the carbon dioxide emissions levels associated with different energy sources, are gone from the EIA website. On the EPAs site, references to the US commitment to UN climate negotiations have been deleted, and phrasing has been changed on a variety of pages to emphasize adapting to climate issues, rather than mitigating the problem by addressing emissions.

EDGI has also found that reports detailing the progress made on President Obamas Climate Action Plan have disappeared from the State Departments website. The plan itself was briefly taken down and then put back up.

We feel like the administration has been called on a couple things theyve tried to take down, and theyve backtracked on a few things, says Jerome Whitington, an anthropology professor at NYU who is also a member of EDGI and helped plan the Data Rescue event. Basically they know theyre being watched.

Within 24 hours of registration opening for the New York Data Rescue day, all 200 slots were full, Whitington says. A similar event held in Ann Arbor, Michigan on January 27 attracted 350 volunteers. Another is planned at MIT on February 18.

The issue has gained so much traction among the scientific community, in fact, that the Congressional Transparency Caucus is now trying to figure out how to support data preservation efforts  or even how to create government archives to keep this problem from arising in the future.

We can't just capture everything at the end of an administration, Congressman Mike Quigley, who co-chairs the bipartisan caucus and represents Illinoiss 5th district, tells Business Insider. It needs to happen on an ongoing basis so that you're not waiting until the end and then  heaven forbid.

Quigley says the need to archive data gathered by government agencies  beyond just environmental findings  and make it accessible to the public is an important priority. He and Darrell Issa, the caucus' other co-chair, held a briefing about the issue last week. Quigley has also been working to compel the Congressional Research Service to make its reports public since early 2016, and now hopes to help groups like EDGI coordinate and even get funding for their efforts.

The federal government is the largest scientific institution in the country. We engage in research across every scale, from botany to nuclear energy and everything in between  critical information for how we base our decisions thats owned by the American people, he says. We base our policies on the best information we have. If you can't determine what the truth is, then we are lost because the world is an increasingly complicated place and it's difficult to make those decisions.

Beyond being used to inform policy decisions and scientific research, environmental data collected by the government is often cited in legal cases, so a movement has emerged to preserve it for those purposes as well.

On January 24, plaintiffs in a landmark climate lawsuit filed a legal request for preservation of all electronically stored information related to government knowledge of climate change and its effects. The case, which was brought by 21 young people between ages 9 and 20, alleges that because the federal government knew the risks of climate change but has done little to address its causes, it violated future generations rights to life, liberty, and property.

We are concerned about how deep the scrubbing effort will go, plaintiff attorney Julia Olson said in a statement at the time. Destroying evidence is illegal and we just put these new U.S. Defendants and the Industry Defendants on notice that they are barred from doing so."

The New York Attorney Generals office is also worried about what a lack of available information could mean for their current and future cases. Amy Spitalnick, the offices press secretary, says the Attorney Generals team has been downloading data, too.

Weve been working to preserve information from the federal governments databases, such as scientific info compiled under prior administrations on issues like climate change, she says. That info is vital to our legal work protecting New Yorkers.

At the Data Rescue event, volunteers were divided into different groups. Most worked on saving pages (based on a list EDGI had created beforehand), while others downloaded data that couldnt be captured by the web crawler. Programmers in a separate room worked on developing software that will be able to watch websites and create alerts when there are changes. In another space, a group of archivists were working to keep everything organized, and discussing ways to eventually get the downloaded information onto a new, non-governmental, publicly accessible platform. University librarians started a conversation about how libraries can help with the project.

Its definitely a powerful counterpoint to the administrations line and the movement in the House of Representatives to suppress the EPA right now, Whitington says. It definitely seems like were proving that Americans of all different stripes really care about this stuff.

Even so, he says, compared to the profusion of environmental data thats out there, the amount EDGI members and volunteers have downloaded so far is just a drop in the bucket. Smaller follow-up work groups, where local volunteers can meet for a few hours in the evening, are already being planned.

Mike Quigley agrees that compiling all the governments data into one archive or platform, even if just on one topic, is an immensely difficult task  for a group of volunteers or even for the government itself.
He took a daring step to upload his photo on the victim's Facebook account, (Gabrilla Uchechi Eberechukwu) on Thursday, February 9, 2016.

ALSO READ: Thief posts selfie he took with stolen phone

The victim who is a student of the Nnamdi Azikiwe university recounted the experience to a friend of hers.

The suspect who is yet to be identified went as far as changing the victim's profile picture to one of his and shared an update.

Writing on the victim's Facebook wall, the suspect said, I mind you, garnering a barrage of insults for his daring.

One of the victim's friends, Ifunanya Joy, commented on the picture, You stole my friends phone. You are a big thief, to which the suspect replied with a laughing emoji.

Joy explained that her friend had told her of how the man had taken control of her Facebook account, presumably through the phone.

ALSO READ: Burglar got his head stuck in protector for 8 hours

She doesnt even know what is going on with her Facebook now, Joy said.
Mrs Frances Teshoma, the Director of Programmes of the organisation, made the call during an awareness campaign in Kuje on Friday.

She said that the call had become necessary to enable Nigerians live a healthy life and to reduce death from cancer.

Teshoma said the campaign being organised with the support of Lift Above Poverty Organisation (LAPO), was aimed at reducing the number of deaths from cancer amongst the general public.

Cancer is a deadly disease and we have special focus on breast and cervical cancer, popular with the female.

We also aim to sensitise the public to prostate cancer, which is prevalent among male.

Early detection and prevention is very necessary, so that we can reduce the number of deaths and achieve zero level to cancer in the country, she said.

The director said people living with cancer can take control of their situation by being empowered to be active participants in decisions about their care.

She said that increased awareness of signs and symptoms and timely diagnosis would go a long way to improve survival from cancer.

Teshoma said, Not all cancers show early signs and symptoms and other warning signs can appear quite late when the cancer is advanced.

If people go for regular screening, there would be early detection; it makes it easy for treatment and cure, she said.

She, however, called on the Federal Government to fund relevant health organisations to assist in the fight against cancer in the country.
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I want to use this opportunity to thank all Nigerians for the goodwill and support for my husband and Nigeria in general, she said.

The First lady also prayed for peace, stability and progress of Nigeria.

She made the prayer shortly after her arrival at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja from Saudi Arabia where she performed the lesser Hajj.

Mrs Buhari, who arrived the Airport at about 3:15 p.m. urged Nigerians not to relent in their prayers and good deed for Nigeria to prosper among the comity of nations.

The wife of the President, who expressed her gratitude to God for the successful trip, also prayed for Nigerian leaders and the peaceful co-existence of Nigerians.

I thank God for a journey mercy, I prayed for Nigeria and Nigerian leaders and we should not relent in prayers and good deed. she said.

She was received apart from her aides, by the wife of the Senate President, Mrs Toyin Saraki, former Deputy Governor of Plateau State, Mrs Pauline Tallen.

Also on hand to welcome the wife of the president are the wives of the service chiefs.

The wife of Chief of Army staff, Mrs Ummu Kulthum Buratai, Mrs Theresa Ibok Ibas, Mrs Omobolanle Olonishakin, Mrs Hafsat Sadiq and wife of Inspector General of Police, Mrs Asmau Idris.
The President made this known in his letter to the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, informing the National Assembly of the extension of his vacation.

 I am extending my leave until the doctors are satisfied that certain factors are ruled out, Buhari stated in his letter dated February 5, 2017.

The letter, which has been published on PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday reads in full:

Further to my letter dated 18th January 2017 in which I notified the Distinguished Senate of taking part of my annual leave.

During my leave, I took the opportunity to have routine check-ups and consult my long standing doctors in London.

In the course of the routine examinations, certain test result indicated the need for a course of medications and further appointments have been scheduled for next week.

I am therefore notifying the Distinguished Senate that I am extending my leave until the doctors are satisfied that certain factors are ruled out. In the circumstances, the vice president will continue to act on my behalf.

Please accept, Distinguished Senate President, the assurances of my highest consideration.

The President first wrote to the National Assembly his decision to proceed on a 10-day leave and temporarily transferring presidential power to Vice-president Yemi Osinbajo.

ALSO READ: President Buhari is to return on Feb 6 - Presidency
According to a statement by the group, the call was made to the serving Senator to address the political marginalisation of North East zone of the country.

The non governmental group chairman, Mohammed Abdulazeez, made this call in Abuja over the weekend.

The group noted that the North Eastern part of Nigeria has been denied the opportunity to produce a President of the country.

If you will recall the North West has dominated the entire slot of the North in general. This include but not limited to the fact that the North West has produced nearly all the leaders from the entire North.

From late Gen Murtala Muhammad, President Gen Gen , to President and the current President ,

In view of the aforementioned scenario, it is crystal clear that North East has been sidelined in the affair of our great country," the group stated.

In conclusion, the group said: "We therefore appeal to former Governor Danjuma Goje, being the most consistent and political leader of people of North East to organise all North East politicians submit in order to address this issue. North East deserves to produce the next President or Vice President of this country.
Okowa made the call when he received the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr Paul Arkwright, in Asaba on Friday.

Anything that will create more job opportunities for the youths should be encouraged.

I want to reassure you that peace has returned to Delta State and we look forward to having investors from the UK and other European countries.

Delta State is blessed with fertile land apart from being rich in oil and gas.

We are encouraging our youths to go into agriculture to be employers of labour and we are giving hope to our youths, he said.

The governor said that most of the crises in the region were blown out of proportion, adding that only the creeks of the state were affected by the pipeline vandalism.

We had some pipeline vandalism in some parts of the state, but efforts have been made for us to achieve peace which led to the Vice President visiting the state.

His visit further encouraged the people and strengthen the existing peace. One of the issues at stake was the Maritime University and it is receiving deserved attention.

It is our hope that the peace process will be consolidated within the next few months, Okowa said.

He assured investors that the state was safe and investment-friendly, adding that his administration was committed to ensuring quick returns on investments for companies doing business in Delta.

Earlier, Arkwright said that he was in the state to assess areas of economic benefits for his country.
This was made known in a statement signed by the Commissioner for Information and Communication, Dr Austin Tam-George on Saturday, February 11, 2017.

Tan-George in his statement noted that the directors of the affected companies will face prosecution in accordance with the law.

The commissioner further stressed that the Task Force is issuing a stern warning all individuals and companies that engage in practices that pollute the air and ruin the environment to desist immediately, or face the full consequences of their actions.

ALSO READ: Rivers govt set to tackle environmental pollution
Usman said the demoted soldiers on Feb. 7, maltreated a physically challenged person, Mr Chijioke Uraku, on the street of Onitsha, Anambra, for allegedly wearing Army camouflage uniform.

He said they were arrested, summarily tried on two-count charge and found guilty.

Consequently, both have been sentenced to reduction in rank from Corporal to Private Soldiers and 21 days imprisonment with Hard Labour, respectively.

It includes forfeiture of 21 days pay to the Federal Government of Nigeria.

The Nigerian Army has also reached out to the victim of their unjustifiable assault, Mr Chijoke Uraku (alias CJ), as widely reported by the media.

We wish to reiterate our avowed determination to ensure that troops conduct themselves in the most orderly and professional manner at all times.
Usani restated this at a stakeholders meeting to mark the visit of the Acting President Yemi Osibanjo to Bayelsa on Friday.Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta has appealed to United Kingdom and other countries to invest in employment generating ventures in the Niger Delta.

Okowa made the call when he received the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr Paul Arkwright, in Asaba on Friday.

According to him, such investment will help to consolidate existing efforts at peace-building in the region.

Anything that will create more job opportunities for the youths should be encouraged.

I want to reassure you that peace has returned to Delta State and we look forward to having investors from the UK and other European countries.

Delta State is blessed with fertile land apart from being rich in oil and gas.

We are encouraging our youths to go into agriculture to be employers of labour and we are giving hope to our youths, he said.

The governor said that most of the crises in the region were blown out of proportion, adding that only the creeks of the state were affected by the pipeline vandalism.

We had some pipeline vandalism in some parts of the state, but efforts have been made for us to achieve peace which led to the Vice President visiting the state.

His visit further encouraged the people and strengthen the existing peace. One of the issues at stake was the Maritime University and it is receiving deserved attention.

It is our hope that the peace process will be consolidated within the next few months, Okowa said.

He assured investors that the state was safe and investment-friendly, adding that his administration was committed to ensuring quick returns on investments for companies doing business in Delta.

Earlier, Arkwright said that he was in the state to assesss areas of economic benefits for his country.

He said that Delta was one of the key states in Nigeria that the British Government would be focusing on.

Osinbajo resumed his his peace talk for sustainable development on Friday.

The minister assured that the government was committed to build projects that would impact positively on the region.

The Federal share in the pains of the Niger-Delta; we have embarked on this journey to harness the issues of peace and stability and other developmental challenges.

I must assure you of the Federal Governments desire for development for the people.

On the issue of the East-West Road, we have the desire to complete it for the betterment of the region.

He, however, stressed the need for collaboration with the Federal Government, adding that Bayelsa and the South-South region were critical to the nation.

Also, Mr Heineken Lokpobiri, Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, charged the youths in the zone to embrace agriculture for development.

According to Lokpobiri, agriculture is a profitable business than oil and gas.

He also appealed to the people of Bayelsa to shun the acts of criminality.

It is necessary for us to begin to invest in agriculture. It is key for reviving the Nigerian economy.
Armed soldiers, policemen and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps personnel deployed for duties were visible on the streets and strategic parts of the Yenagoa, the state capital.

Traffic was diverted from the roads leading to Bayelsa Government House, Ovom area, where Prof. Osinbajo is expected to hold an interactive session with stakeholders on the ongoing peace process in the region.

Pedestrians were, however, allowed to pass through the road after screening by security operatives.

The Bayelsa Police Command`s Spokesman, DSP Asinim Butswat, told NAN on Friday that the command was adequately prepared to make the visit hitch-free and warned miscreants to keep away from venue of the interactive session.

Attendance is strictly on invitation.

The Command therefore advises all law abiding citizens to go about their lawful and legitimate businesses.
Speaking exclusively to Pulse News at the premiere of the third season of the show on Sunday, February 5, 2017, the OAP shared some of his experiences as the host of the programme.

In his words: "Every season comes with its different and unique experiences. From Amala and Ewedu to Sharwama, Agege bread and Ewa gayin, I've tried and eaten them all. Believe me, the food is not only the experience I get to have for each season but also the people and owners of the joints or Bukas as the case might be."

ALSO READ: Olisa Adibua travels to Ibadan to discover the best

Speaking further, "I'm so connected with the show so much that recently, I met a woman at the airport who told me how her youngd son loves the show and is always looking out to see me eat. She went further to tell me that her son nicknamed me 'mister chop chop' and I couldn't stop laughing."

Olisa stressed that the third season of the docu-travel show will feature healthier meals and other locations around Nigeria.

ALSO READ: Banky W takes Olisa Adibua to a hotspot in Lekki

The third season series features Osas Ighodaro, Mike Ezuruonye, Cobhams among others.

The Nigerian travel food doc-series explores African cuisine and delicacies.
A correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), who monitored the election at Central Primary school, Ajari, Bindigari and Ali Marami, reports that voting commenced few minutes after 8a.m.

NAN reports that voters were seen on queue undergoing screening and casting their votes instantly.

Alhaji Ali Muhammad, a voter at Central primary school, however, observed that the turnout was low compared to the 2015 general elections.

There is less competition in this election and the mobilisation is also low compared to the 2015 national election.

NAN also reports that seven political parties were contesting for councillors and chairmanship positions of the 17 Local Councils in the state.

Meanwhile, Yobe Government has restricted vehicular movements throughout the state from 10p.m. on Friday to 2p.m. on Saturday to enhance security during the election.
He said: "All democrats have united. By saying we have crisis, you are kind of overstating the reality. 95 per cent of PDP leaders and members are together. All our governors, senators, House of Representatives members are together. Even in the non-PDP controlled states, 95 per cent of us are together. It is only one or two people like Senator Ali Modu Sheriff who are contending the leadership of the party with Senator Ahmed Makarfi. I have been in the PDP right from the start. The body of the PDP nationally is solid together."

Continuing, Jerry Gana said: "We are all together and very soon, we are trusting God that the Court of Appeal will give its judgment on the issue of leadership. There is already a High Court judgment which is in our favour. They have gone to appeal and the Appellate Court will soon give its verdict. I want to assure you that that judgment will be very clear and very fundamental.

ALSO READ: PDP will not change name - Jerry Gana

"We in PDP are not only, as it were, redefining the party and making sure that within we are strong again, but also making sure that we take note of all the mistakes that have been made in the past and correct them and then reach out to any democrat who will like to come together with us because this country is such a huge asset and we cant allow Nigeria to go to pieces.

"Nigeria must remain a solid democracy and this democracy must deliver development and the development must be for all Nigerians. But the way the All Progressives Congress (APC) government is doing it, I dont have to say much because there is a lot to be desired.
Opening a meeting of his Syriza party, Tsipras said he was confident a solution would be found, a day after talks between Greece and its creditors ended in Brussels with no breakthrough.

He urged a change of course from the IMF. "We expect as soon as possible that the IMF revise its forecast.. so that discussions can continue at the technical level."

Referring to Schaeuble, Tsipras also called for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to "encourage her finance minister to end his permanent aggressiveness" towards Greece.

Months of feuding with the IMF has raised fears of a new debt crisis.

Greece is embroiled in a row with its eurozone paymasters and the IMF over debt relief and budget targets that has rattled markets and revived talk of its place in the euro.

Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said progress had been made in the Brussels talks with Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and other EU and IMF officials.

But he provided few details.

The Athens government faces debt repayments of 7.0 billion euros ($7.44 billion) this summer that it cannot afford without defusing the feud that is holding up new loans from Greece's 86 billion euro bailout.

Breaking the stalemate in the coming weeks is seen as paramount with elections in the Netherlands on March 15 and France in April through June threatening to make a resolution even more difficult.

But Dijsselbloem warned Friday that the next meeting of eurozone ministers on February 20 -- seen as an unofficial deadline ahead of the votes -- would still be too early for a breakthrough.
Guterres also condemned those he claimed inspired, implemented and celebrated the launching of rockets, according to his Deputy Spokesperson, Mr Farhan Haq in response to questions about violence that has affected Israeli civilians.

We unequivocally condemn those who inspired, implemented and celebrated the launching of several rockets by IS militants from the Sinai at Israel on Wednesday, Feb. 8, he said.

The deputy spokesperson also said that UN welcomed the continuing efforts by the security forces of Egypt to prevent parts of the Sinai from being used as a basis of violent extremism.

We are deeply concerned by the shooting and stabbing attack by a Palestinian assailant that wounded six Israeli civilians yesterday in Petah Tikva.

There can be no justification for terrorism nor for the glorification of those who commit such acts, Haq said.
The arrests took place overnight Tuesday when police searched nine houses in various areas of Brussels including Molenbeek, the district that was home to several of those involved in the Paris and Brussels attacks.

"Everybody has been released after thorough questioning," the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement, giving no other details.

Prosecutors had said Wednesday the 11 had been arrested as part of a probe into the "issue of possible returning Syria fighters," adding no weapons or explosives had been found in the operations.

They said the case was completely separate from the probes into the March 22, 2016 Brussels attacks and the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks, which investigators say were hatched by the same Brussels-based cell.

Belgium has been on high alert since last March, when three suicide bombers attacked Brussels' Zaventem airport and its metro system, killing 32.
FBI agents questioned a 14-year-old boy from the US city of Pittsburgh, who admitted trying to hack Zaventem airport's website and computer system in March 2016, they said.

"Within the framework of this investigation, the FBI proceeded to a house search in Pittsburgh upon a request for legal assistance from the Belgian Federal Public Prosecutors Office, and interrogated a minor of American nationality," the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

"He confessed having committed the acts."

The boy's efforts to take down the airport's website and infiltrate its computer system on March 22-23 were unsuccessful, it added.

"From the investigation and the first analyses of the seized hardware it appeared that there were no terrorist motives for the cyberattacks and that they do not relate at all to the terrorist attacks of 22nd March in Brussels and Zaventem," the statement said.

A source close to the investigation told AFP the minor is a 14 year-old boy.

"He is not radicalised and he told himself it was the right time" to carry out the cyber attack, the source added.

Belgium has been on high alert since three suicide bombers attacked Zaventem Airport and the Brussels metro system in March 2016, killing 32 people.

Investigators said they were carried out by the same Brussels-based cell who staged the Paris attacks that killed 130 people in November 13, 2015.
A woman matching the description of a Pahrump resident who went missing last week has reportedly been found deceased in Las Vegas.

A woman matching the description of a Pahrump resident who went missing last week has reportedly been found deceased in Las Vegas.

Cynthia Thomas, 52, was reported missing to the Nye County Sheriffs Office on Aug 16 after she apparently failed to make it to her destination in Pahrump after leaving Las Vegas.

According to police, Thomas, who was driving a gold 2002 Pathfinder with Nevada Veterans plates, was last seen in the area of Las Vegas Boulevard and Windmill Lane when she went to get gas with a friend before her drive back to Pahrump.

When she failed to make it back from Las Vegas, police were contacted and the NCSO and LVMPD began an investigation into the womans disappearance.

On Thursday it was announced the body of a woman matching Thomas description had been located in Las Vegas and taken to the Clark County coroners office where they will conduct an investigation.

An LVMPD public information officer declined to comment on the circumstances of the womans death, stating the coroners office was handling the identification and determination of the womans cause of death.

As of early Thursday afternoon, the coroners office reported no one by Thomass name had been identified by their office.

At press time, the womans identity has not yet been confirmed.

A detective with the NCSO said he had no further details to give about the case other than what had been released thus far.

Attempts to reach the womans family for comment were unsuccessful before press time.

The investigation into Thomas disappearance remains ongoing.
The Davenport Hooters restaurant has been recognized by the parent company for its fundraising efforts to support breast cancer research.

During Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, the Quad-City store raised more than $10,000 from fundraising events. The tally now is in, and the local restaurant is in the Top 5 Hooters locations in money collected.

"We had a lot of generous regulars who helped us,'' said Gina Sheedy, the general manager.

The restaurant at 110 E. Kimberly Road, hosted a bake sale, a basket raffle, a silent auction and other activities to raise money.

"One of our local firefighters has a pumpkin farm and he donated pumpkins for the girls to paint," Sheedy said. Nearly 100 pumpkins painted with sporting logos, pink ribbons and other decorations were sold. Some went for as much as $100 each.

"One thing we know is the Quad-Cities really wants to help such a great cause," she said.

The events were organized by Hooters Girl and manager Caitlin Ponce.

The company-wide 2016 Give A Hoot campaign directly benefits the V Foundation for Cancer Research and the Kelly Jo Dowd Breast Cancer Research Fund, a grant at the foundation named in honor of Dowd, an original Hooters Girl.

Hooters raised more than $725,000 in October alone, but has raised more than $4 million over the years after being inspired by Dowd, the 1995 Hooters Calendar Cover Girl, who lost her battle with breast cancer in 2007.

Sheedy's said her own staff has had a few mothers survivor the disease as well as one lose her battle. "Everybody knows someone who is effected in their life," she said.

R.I.A. Federal collects food for River Bend

R.I.A. Federal Credit Union's locations across the Quad-Cities are encouraging members to assist the branches as they compete in River Bend Foodbank's Corporate Challenge.

R.I.A. is accepting donations of non-perishable food and money donations from members, the public and its employees.

Throughout February, the Bettendorf-based credit union is donating $2 to River Bend for each member who signs up for an e-statement and $1 for those for each person taking the savings pledge during America Saves Week, Feb. 27 to March 4. The credit union also is offering participants chances to win two $500 drawings.

R.I.A. also is partnering with the Quad-City Mallards by selling game tickets and fan experience packages with 100 percent of the proceeds benefiting the foodbank. Packets include four premium seats, a Zamboni ride and a chance to watch warm-ups from the bench.

The $50 packets will be sold first-come, first-served at at R.I.A.'s Corporate Center at 4343 Utica Ridge Road. You do not have to be a member. Call Jake or Kaylyn at 563-355-3800 x7049 for ticket availability.

Employees also are joining in by donating food, money and other activities. Just $1 provides five meals, R.I.A said.

Athena nominations extended to Feb. 17

In case you missed it, the Quad-Cities' longtime women's leadership organization  Women's Connection  became part of the statewide Iowa Women Lead Change, or IWLC.

As the two organizations unite, IWLC-The Women's Connection is busy combining forces and keeping each organization's best practices. That includes continuing Women's Connection's signature events, such as the Athena Awards on March 30.

IWLC is extending the deadline for nominations for the Athena and Male Champion of Change awards to Feb. 17. For a nomination form, go to Athena@womens-connection.org.
The Planning Center, Moline, is reshaping the financial planning mold with its unique culture, expanded depth and expertise, and a new, younger generation of leadership and clientele.

Launched in 1998 by Marty Kurtz in downtown Moline, the financial planning firm prepares to enter its third decade as its footprint grows nationwide and its advisers continue to focus on the technical and personal sides of money. It's a strategy that caters to its longtime clients as well as the younger generation just beginning to worry about their financial future.

According to Kurtz, now one of eight partners in the firm, the Planning Center now has the added strength of several "like-minded" offices that it has acquired over the past four years. Stretching from the Midwest to Alaska, the expansion adds new locations and staff in Chicago; Fresno, California; the Twin Cities; and Anchorage, Alaska. All operate as The Planning Center with a New Orleans firm expected to join the lineup by summer, he said.

"We've really gotten (firms) together where we have the same belief systems,'' he said, adding the growth has been "the result of mergers or acquisitions, and in some cases, stock swaps.''

Now located in a newly renovated space at 1615 5th Ave., the former storefront offers a full service center and is the headquarters for the national firm.

Leadership shift

The expansion also comes with a new company president, Eric Kies, at the helm. Kies, one of the partners, replaced Kurtz, who stepped down a year ago. Kies, 44, who joined the company in 2004, as a financial planner also serves as the chief compliance officer.

At 65, Kurtz is not announcing retirement plans, but is mindful of the need for a succession plan, having recruited several advisers early in their careers.

"This industry was created by people in Marty's generation," said Kies, who spent five years at American Express Financial Advisors before joining Kurtz.

But the need for financial planning only continues to grow as more people become responsible for their own savings, he said. Kies said his parents' generation, born in the 1930s, received "most of their retirement planning or income came from some sort of pension or defined benefit from your employer combined with Social Security. "My generation is dependent solely on your own savings ... " he said.

In addition to Kurtz and Kies, the other partners include brothers Matt Sivertsen and Andrew Sivertsen, of the Moline office; John Longstaf, Fresno; Cicily Maton and her daughter Michelle Maton, Chicago; and J.J. Sessions, Maple Grove, Minnesota.

Kurtz said the Sivertsens are the sons of longtime clients who visited the Planning Center over the years with their parents. In fact, a majority of the financial planners are under age 40, including some in their 30s and 20s.

"They are able to finish what I started," Kurtz said, adding that their presence also is drawing in a younger clientele with whom they can relate. "You want someone you can grow older with in your adviser."

Fee-only strategy

In 2008, The Planning Center Kies adopted a fee-only model. Under the model, the firm charges a fee based on a combination of half of the client's net worth and 1 percent of the client's adjusted gross income as opposed to charging by a percentage of assets under management, or AUM.

"We don't make any commissions for sales, we charge a fee," Kurtz said.

In an April 2015 article in Financial Planning magazine, Kurtz said the previous payment model "wasn't representing what we believed our value was to the client."

Best practices

With more than 30 years in financial planning, Kurtz has seen the industry evolve. "It used to be 'don't worry about it, we'll take care of you,'" he said of the days of pensions and defined benefits.

The advent of the 401(k) and the decline of defined benefits, put individuals in the position of managing their money  people not experienced in money management, he said. Relying on your employer "is not enough today."

Today, he said conversations with clients center around preparing for the future, their life goals as well as uncertainty. "We keep getting better at what we do  helping people with their money."

The merger with five other financial planning firms and a CPA office allows each office to reap the benefits of the best practices of the others, Kies said.

"When you get more professionals together collaborating, you get more opportunity to specialize more," he said, adding that technology has given clients access to more expertise through video conferencing and other tools. "We're committed to having the right people in the room at the right time."

One of its new niches is the financial psychology expertise of Dr. Marty Martin, a psychologist who worked with the Chicago office, Kurtz said. With expertise in the areas of applied behavioral finance and socially responsible investing, he brings a new skill set to the combined offices.

"Our feeling is everyone needs someone to talk about life and money because they're intertwined," he said.
MUSCATINE, Iowa  The Muscatine Community College Foundation has $300,000 in scholarship funds available for students planning to attend the college in the 2017-18 academic year.

One of the common misconceptions regarding scholarships is that only the very best of the current high school graduates receive scholarship dollars. The reality is far from that.

The MCC Foundation scholarships are awarded to deserving MCC students based on widely varied criteria. Some scholarships do emphasize academic achievement, but many others look more strongly at such things as financial need or community and school involvement. Others are dependent on the program in which the student is planning to enroll.

It is also important to note that applicants do not have to be the traditional college ages of 18 to 21 or even a full-time student. A large number of older MCC students receive scholarships every year and many part-time students receive funding as well.

In the past, these funds have been a tremendous financial help to MCC students as they pursue their educational goals. Below are some comments from current recipients:

Your donation is helping me pay for my tuition so I can continue my dream of being a vet tech and helping animals.

I am on my own in terms of paying my way through college, and this scholarship is appreciated even more so because of that.

By awarding me this scholarship, you have lightened my financial burden, which allows me to focus more on the most important aspect of school  learning.

The monies that you shared with me has made it possible to continue my schooling when I felt the expense was too much for my family to shoulder.

There is no cost to apply, but students are encouraged to begin the process as soon as possible in case any questions arise as they are completing the form. The application deadline is March 1. Students can submit their application online at eicc.edu/scholarships

More information is available at eicc.edu/scholarships or by contacting the college at 563-288-6005.
JOHNSTON, Iowa  The states top Republican said Friday he sides with GOP legislators on issues of state preemption of some local decisions and collective bargaining changes that may impact his other roles as a county supervisor and member of a community college employees union.

Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa who also is a Cedar County supervisor and instructor at Muscatine Community College, said his partys platform is very clear about we believe in local control but he there also are appropriate times for the state to set uniform polices in areas like the minimum wage and local siting of livestock confinement operations.

I think there is an appropriate time for preemption, but I would rather it be the exception than the rule, Kaufmann said in an interview at Fridays taping of Iowa Public Televisions Iowa Press show where he appeared jointly with Iowa Democratic Party chairman Derek Eadon.

I think the Legislature is going to have to make the decision as to when preemption is appropriate. But theyve got to make their case to county supervisors, the Iowa GOP chief said. We have a ton of new Republican county supervisors. There are a lot more Republican supervisors than Democratic supervisors  overwhelming, and so theyre going to have to make their case.

A bill that would pre-empt cities and counties from going beyond the state standard in areas of minimum wage, civil rights, consumer product restrictions and other employment areas has cleared the committee level and is awaiting floor debate in the Iowa House. Republicans who control the Legislature also are moving ahead with a sweeping rewrite of Iowas collective bargaining law.

Kaufmann, a former negotiator for his community colleges bargaining unit, said he welcomed the requirement that unions periodically recertify and the effort to include taxpayers in the discussion by revamping a binding arbitration process that pressures local officials to raise taxes to pay for contract awards.

Were still going to bargain salaries, he said and just because health insurance and other issues will no longer be mandatory items for bargaining that doesnt say you cant bargain those items. What it says is they have to be agreed upon. Since when is it a bad idea for both bodies involved in negotiations to talk about something?

Kaufmann said he liked Branstads idea of creating a statewide health insurance pool but was unaware that GOP legislators had scrapped that idea and did not include it in the collective bargaining bill working its way on parallel tracks through the House and Senate.

He said he expected that will still be a topic of conversation given the governors support even if it meant schools, counties or other local units banding together to create health insurance pools presuming they would not run afoul of state preemption rules. Common sense will tell you that its numbers that drive down costs, he said.

During the IPTV taping, Eadon said voter backlash over GOP efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, revamp collective bargaining and make other changes that werent part of their 2016 campaign messages could give Democrats an opening in 2018 when Republicans wont have Branstad or U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley at the top of the ticket.

I think we're optimistic that there's an opportunity to be able to show some of these folks that we have their back and that Republicans are not proposing anything that's going to help the middle class or job growth with this agenda. But obviously our base is going to be reeling from a lot of these bills, Eadon said.

I think we're already seeing this restlessness and this fear of some very dangerous policies being proposed at the federal level and at the state level and I think we're going to see more and more of this, the Democratic leader added. I don't think these rallies are going to stop with this disastrous union-busting bill that the Republicans are proposing.

Kaufmann conceded that having Branstad resign as governor to become President Donald Trumps ambassador to China is a loss. I cant sugarcoat that. But he said Republicans have a strong bench with Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds waiting in the wings and while he conceded Republicans have to guard against overplaying their hand the same is true of Democrats.

We're going to fight complacency, Kaufmann said. That would be an easy trap to fall into, and I didn't do a victory dance. I moved right into 2018.

Eadon said Democrats also have a strong bench and Branstads departure is absolutely an opening, but he conceded the party is starting from scratch without high profile candidates like Tom Harkin and Tom Vilsack. We still have a lot of time before that June primary of next year, he noted.
Not that there needed to be much more evidence, but state Rep. Gary Mohrs email inbox was a good example of how much interest there is in the proposed Republican overhaul of Iowas collective bargaining law.

At an early afternoon meeting Saturday at the Eastern Avenue branch library in Davenport, Mohr, R-Bettendorf, said he had received more than 260 emails since midnight. By the end of the meeting, he was up to 350. And that didnt even count the more than 200 people who crowded into a meeting room at the library to comment on the Republicans plan to limit the bargaining rights of more than 180,000 public-sector workers in the state.

Hundreds of people in the Quad-Cities  there were more than 75 at an earlier meeting held by state Rep. Phyllis Thede, D-Bettendorf  joined thousands of others across the state on Saturday to lobby their lawmakers ahead of what is expected to be votes this week at the Capitol in Des Moines.

At the Eastern Avenue library, most were critical of the plan. And many were passionate.

Ive been teaching 25 years. Ive never felt an attack on my profession like I do right now, and I go to work every day, and I look at each one of those childrens faces, and I put my heart and soul into each one of those kids, said Wendy Reyes, a teacher at Pleasant View Elementary School in the Pleasant Valley Community School District. It is not about the money. It is about our voice at the table.

The proposed collective bargaining overhaul, which was introduced Tuesday, would limit unions that dont predominantly represent public safety workers to bargaining on base wages. The plan would prohibit bargaining on such things as insurance, vacations, grievance procedures and a list of other items that currently are on the table.

The proposal also would change arbitration procedures to limit awards on wages and revise civil service standards for the discipline or dismissal of public workers. And it would prohibit unions from collecting dues through payroll deduction, as well change the rules for how they're certified.

Across the state, unions and their supporters are hoping that meetings with lawmakers will, at least, slow progress of the measure. A rally will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday near the Scott County Administrative Center, 600 W. 4th St., Davenport.

A public hearing in the House on the legislation is scheduled for Monday, and votes are expected in the Legislature this week.

Many people at Mohrs meeting wanted lawmakers to take more time to study the legislation. Although the majority of the crowd was in opposition, some urged Mohr to support the legislation.

"The cost of everything is not sustainable, said Ruth Johnson of Davenport, a former teacher who argued that teachers should be paid well but not at the expense of others.

Proponents of the bill say teachers and other public employees get better compensation than many in the private sector. Another man said that in Wisconsin, its collective bargaining bill saved money for taxpayers.

However, teachers at Saturdays meeting objected to the idea theyre getting too much, particularly when compared with other states.

At times, the discussion got heated. When a man from LeClaire in an Americans for Prosperity shirt began to speak, some in the crowd yelled, "No Koch brothers," referring to Charles and David Koch, founders of the conservative group.

Mohr interjected.

Everyone here gets a chance to speak, he said. "I dont care their background. I dont care their opinions.

Some in the crowd who said theyre involved with negotiating health insurance packages warned that going to a centralized health insurance system, which is what Gov. Terry Branstad has proposed, will raise costs and provide fewer benefits.

Branstad has said the change will save money.

On several occasions, people at the library compared whats happening in Iowa to Wisconsins decision in 2011 to strip most collective bargaining rights from public employees.

John Vance of Davenport, a union steward for Teamsters Local 238, told Mohr to support amendments to get rid of the union busting parts of the bill.

Get back to the insurance and the arbitration, he said. "Once we get there, you may be able to proceed a little easier."

Ty Cutkomp, an official with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, raised questions about how the bill affects grievance procedures.

These are very practical questions that deserve study, he said.

Mohr, who is in his first term, said he had not made up his mind how he will vote on the bill, and he declined to engage with audience members who tried to get him to explain his thinking thus far on the legislation. Mohr said he was there to listen.

Also in attendance were Thede and Sen. Jim Lykam, D-Davenport.

Mohr was the only Republican lawmaker in the audience. He agreed to the meeting on Friday while holding his regular constituent meeting.
Michael Flynn, the national security adviser to President Trump, shows visitors a map predicting what will happen to the Islamic State after its stronghold in Mosul is captured. It shows menacing black arrows reaching west toward other, future battlefronts in Iraq, Syria and beyond.

That's the worry that motivates the Trump administration as it plans strategy against the terrorist group: Rather than a shattering defeat for the adversary, Mosul may be the start of a breakout to other regions. That may be one rationale for Trump's controversial ban on travel from Iraq and six other Muslim-majority countries: He fears a metastasis of ISIS into the West after its capitals are crushed.

"As Mosul falls, everyone [in ISIS] will move out," argues a senior Trump administration official. "ISIS will fall back into different areas. You could get suicide attacks again in Ramadi," an Iraqi city that was liberated 14 months ago.

But many experts outside the administration see many holes in Trump's counterterrorism approach and worry that it could backfire. His rhetoric about "Islamic terrorism" has turned up the ideological heat, but it has frightened some potential Muslim allies at home and abroad. Trump has denounced the Obama administration's allegedly weak strategy -- which, however cautious, was slowly throttling ISIS -- without having a clear alternative.

The travel ban has offended the Iraqi government, for example, even as its elite forces bravely captured eastern Mosul. The casualty rate among the Iraqi Counterterrorism Service, which has done most of the heavy fighting, is about 30 percent, according to a high-level intelligence official. Because that unit must rebuild its strength, victory in Mosul is at least six months away.

Then there's the Iran conundrum. Flynn put Iran "on notice" after its Jan. 29 missile test, and the administration soon announced sanctions. But Tehran is also America's de-facto ally against ISIS in Iraq. Iran-backed Shiite militias haven't turned their guns on U.S. forces, but they could -- severely complicating the ISIS campaign.

And there's the puzzle of how to deal with the new alliance of Russia, Iran, Turkey and the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad. Will the U.S. join them in a shared fight against ISIS? If so, will that mean abandoning the Syrian Kurdish militia known as the YPG, which has been America's strongest partner against ISIS, but which Turkey rejects as a terrorist group?

During the 2016 campaign, Trump urged an alliance with Russia against ISIS in Syria, and some officials have talked of driving a wedge between Moscow and Tehran. But analysts from the Institute for the Study of War caution that such a Russia-Iran split is probably wishful thinking.

Trump's notion of partnership with President Vladimir Putin is also increasingly problematic. Congressional Republicans are wary about embracing Moscow. And last Friday, the senior administration official endorsed the hard-line statement by U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley that Russia must withdraw from Crimea before sanctions are removed. The White House position on Russia is now "high standards, high expectations," the administration official said.

The Trump team has criticized President Obama's plan for taking Raqqah as "sloppy staff work," without having its own version ready. Some analysts worry that ISIS is regrouping as the new administration recalibrates policy. "Simultaneity and pressure are the keys going forward," stresses one American commander. He urges that the U.S. sustain its broad coalition, including the Syrian Kurds, to keep up momentum.

Victory in Raqqah could be a year off, warns the intelligence official. That would give ISIS many months to plan the global attacks that Flynn fears. Given this danger, some analysts speculate that Trump may eventually decide to clear Raqqah with thousands of U.S. troops from mobile units, such as the 82nd Airborne Division, which is already partly deployed in Iraq. That would be a decisive show of force, and it could get the U.S. in and out relatively quickly. But it would probably mean high U.S. casualties.

The bitter irony is that as Trump proclaims his anti-ISIS campaign, al-Qaeda is becoming stronger in both Iraq and Syria, warn analysts from the Institute for the Study of War. This is a fight where easy slogans and rushed travel bans aren't likely to provide a path to victory.
A roundup of legislative and Capitol news items of interest for Friday:

GOP ASSAILS PRANK EMAIL: Iowa GOP chairman Jeff Kaufmann on Friday assailed as shocking and inexcusable a leaked email advising union members how to prank call lawmakers  who were labeled in various offensive ways to oppose a proposed collective bargaining rewrite that would limit workers rights. The email  reportedly forwarded by a teacher disgusted with the contents and made public by GOP officials  contained instructions for calling state legislators with various labels by their names to describe their responsiveness or lack thereof. Frankly, I am dismayed that Iowans would stoop this low and act in this manner, said Kaufmann, who referred to the comments as sexist and thuggish said in a statement. The collective bargaining bill  which is the subject of a public hearing at the Capitol building and expected floor debate next week  makes significant changes that would limit public employees rights in negotiating future contracts.

BISHOPS WEIGH IN: The Iowa Catholic Conference rereleased a Labor and the Common Good statement Friday regarding the Iowa Legislatures debate on changes to the collective bargaining law for public employees. Conference officials said they are neutral on the 68-page bill majority Republicans have proposed but was sending a statement  available at the www.iowacatholicconference.org web site  to all legislators and Gov. Terry Branstad that reflected the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding the common good and the rights of workers. In the statement, the diocesan bishops of Iowa  Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque; Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City; Bishop Martin Amos of Davenport, and Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines  express concern about provisions which limit the items that can be bargained as well as what an arbitrator can award for a pay raise. The bishops also affirm the role of labor unions in helping workers receive fair pay and benefits and improved working conditions that can help set standards for workers in other situations.

ADVOCACY DAY CANCELLED: Officials with the Brain Injury Alliance of Iowa say they have cancelled their annual advocacy day at the Iowa Capitol building next week due to the expectation of large crowds at the Statehouse. Alliance official Geoff Lauer said Wednesdays planned event was called off due to a high probability of large crowds and possible protests over proposed Republican legislation to revamp Iowas collective bargaining law. A very crowded Statehouse would result in significant safety and evacuation concerns for many of our attendees," Lauer said in an email to alliance advocates. "That is in addition to the challenges of noise, navigation and seating. We are currently working with the Statehouse schedulers to see if we can identify another time to gather later in the year, he added. Stay tuned for options.

 Times Bureau
There is one small ray of hope for individuals suffering from mental illness who hope to avoid being sent to jail in the wake of the major policy change by Rapid City Regional Hospital, which took effect Feb. 1.

The hospital is no longer taking in certain types of mentally ill patients and will instead contact the Pennington County Sheriffs Office to take them into custody.

Of the array of mental health providers in the area, the Crisis Care Center is uniquely positioned to help people in need of immediate help, due to either a mental health or substance abuse disorder.

Alan Solano is the chief executive officer of Behavior Management Systems, the nonprofit group that operates the Crisis Care Center. Upon seeing the news that it has become a matter of policy in Rapid City to jail people with mental health problems, Solano wanted to raise awareness about his group and the services it provides.

One of the greatest things people have is hope, Solano said. I think its important for all of us to make sure were offering that hopeful environment for people who are struggling.

Solano hopes the Crisis Care Center can provide that environment while keeping in mind that it is not the end-all solution to the severe lack of crisis and long-term mental health services in Rapid City.

Are we a part of that solution? Yes, Solano said. Are we the solution? Probably not.

The Crisis Care Center offers a wide variety of 24-hour counseling services for individuals in crisis.

Located at 121 North St., the Crisis Care Center has room to accommodate eight people at a time. Most people who go there stay for an average of about six and a half hours, Solano said, after which they are referred to other services if need be.

In December, the Crisis Care Center had 163 admissions, and a total of 1,812 for last year. Most people come of their own accord, though Rapid City Regional has referred people to the Crisis Care Center when the Behavioral Health Center is full.

A persons ability to pay does not stop them getting into these programs, Solano said.

Many people come because they are suicidal, which is a population that Solano said he is hopeful will be referred to the Crisis Care Center by Regional instead of to the sheriff's office per the hospitals new policy.

The Crisis Care Center sprang from a needs assessment in 2007, which determined that the Black Hills are lacking mental health and substance abuse services. More than 40 local organizations joined in a coalition to form the center, which opened in 2011.

For more information, call the Crisis Care Center at 391-4863, or 381-2482.

For information on more mental health services available in the Black Hills, dial the Helpline Center at 211.
The Griffin-Soffel Equine Rescue Foundation has pledged $50,000 in matching funds through The Wild Horse and Burro Sanctuary Alliance to support the rescue of 520 wild horses near Lantry.

Those interested in donating should log on to wildhorsesanctuaryalliance.org.

About $250,000 is needed to pay for the care and transport of the horses, which were impounded by local and state authorities in October after a finding of neglect by the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros. Last month, ownership of the horses was transferred to Colorado-based nonprofit Fleet of Angels.

Another nonprofit, Return to Freedom, is joining with Fleet of Angels and other individuals and groups to secure a new staging area with adequate facilities to safely treat and prepare the horses for adoption and transport.
HOT SPRINGS | Walk through the halls of Hot Springs schools these days and you might overhear a student greeting the principal with the phrase Hihanni waste.

"Hihanni waste" is a Lakota greeting that very roughly translates to "good morning." The use of Lakota in the Hot Springs schools has largely been attributed to the district's fledgling Native American Education Program, which began in 2015 and is being seen as a successful way to teach and appreciate Native culture.

Although many people are involved in the program, the effort is being led by Doug Gaulke, Title VII Indian Education coordinator and Lakota language class instructor for the school district.

Gaulke said there is a clear need for the program in Hot Springs, where more than 20 percent of district pupils are Native Americans. Serving the cultural and educational needs of those 164 students is critical to the educational efforts of the school district, he said.

Nationally and in South Dakota, data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that Native American populations are increasing rapidly. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of Native people in the U.S. increased by a third, and Native populations increased nearly 27 percent from 2005 to 2015. The total U.S. population of Native peoples in 2015 was more than 6 million, roughly 2 percent of overall population. The Census Bureau believes that by 2060, there will be 10.2 million Native people in the U.S.

In South Dakota, the Native American population grew by more than 15 percent in the past decade, thanks to a high birth rate and the increasing migration of people back to reservations. Some tribal officials believe these numbers are actually undercounted. The Census Bureau counted nearly 72,000 Native people living in South Dakota in 2010, or 8.8 percent of the state's population.

Gaulke says the school board and administrators in Hot Springs have recognized a student demographic that is important to serve.

Ive seen a great amount of support from our current superintendent, Kevin Coles, Gaulke said, for the facilitation of our present Native American course offerings, as well as those we intend to offer in coming years.

Others, including Coles and school board President Scott Thompson, say the Native education program has widespread support across the district.

Our staff, students and everyone in our district have been very open and supportive of this education program, said Coles. Our school board has also been active in supporting this program.

High school Principal Mary Weiss said the Native American education program was tremendous and that Gaulke in particular did an awesome job taking the program forward, applying for grants, bringing first one class, then two and soon three classes of Lakota language to the students.

The administration supports this, said Nikki Shaw, the school districts cultural liaison. They make us do our homework, but they support it. Take the Veterans Day flag song (a Lakota man, Whitney Rencountre, sang an honoring song), for example. They thought it was a good idea, but they also wanted it translated into English, so both cultures could understand it. Weve got a good rapport with the administration.

A big objective of the program is to spark cultural conversations, Shaw said.

They are talking in school, at home, in the community. There is a cultural exchange going on, a huge response to the Lakota language classes.

Older students from Gaulkes language classes taught kindergarten students to count from 1 (wanzi) to 10 (wikchemna) in Lakota. Hand games, in which two teams compete by hiding game pieces made of bones while the other team guesses where the hidden pieces are amid distractions such as drums and rattles, have sparked student conversations and enjoyment.

The district has served students traditional Native foods such as buffalo  in tacos, chili and stews  on the school lunch menu from time to time since 2013. Students have also studied a map of South Dakotas nine reservations.

Exposure to Native culture is important, Shaw said. Teachers need to become more comfortable teaching this, but were getting better. Were making progress. We need this education, to make people more aware, and were getting very positive feedback.

High School academic counselor Christ Christensen said one principle value of the program is to give Native students a source of identity. Many students dont know their own culture, he said.

Gaulke said that knowledge could help Native students in many ways.

A significant factor noticed in the unsuccessful completion of some primary and secondary education programs, said Gaulke, is the feeling of not belonging by Native American students. By simply offering elective classes, after school clubs or presentations that recognize Native American student culture, fewer students feel disconnected to the education process.

Jeanie Dumire, a member of a parent committee, said the program has brought more recognition to Native culture in the community, to Native students needs within the school, and heightened awareness of the Native population within the community. She specifically cited the current family language study program Gaulke runs at the school on Saturday mornings, where families, Native or not, can study the Lakota language and get a taste for its culture.

This is a wonderful idea, it brings families together, she said.

The Hot Springs schools have emerged as a leader in implementing Native education, officials say.

I believe our program has had a positive influence on everyone in our district, Coles said. Our students have been exposed to cultural influences and have been very accepting. The activities that Nikki and Doug have sponsored have been awesome. At one of the activities, our students were invited to participate in a Native American dance, and they voluntarily participated and showed great respect to the activity. I think that is the best thing Ive seen  respect for the Native American culture.

Shaw talked about how interest in the program sparked her to share resources with teachers implementing more Native cultural education into the curriculum. For example, she lauded how elementary students are learning how to communicate in three languages: English, Spanish and Lakota. She also talked about helping 13 Native students and their families get enrolled in recognized Native American tribes. This has a trickle down effect she said, because it can help them apply for multi-cultural grants for higher education of $2,000 per semester.

A brief look at the Native American education efforts during the 2016-2017 school year includes: Lakota bow making with Richard Giago, Lakota Language Arts project, Native American Day presentation by Whitney Rencountre, Veterans Day program with Rencountre, Hand Games with Emmanuel Black Bear, Middle School display, Family Lakota Language Nest that included eight Saturday morning workshops with Dollie Red Elk, Oglala Lakota College, as the instructor, Hot Springs Historical Society had displays for Native American month, cultural meals, adult language class, staff diversity training, Indian Education summit where five Hot Springs schools staff members attended, historical/cultural materials for students to check out, books/videos/craft supplies and tutoring by Shaw.
Tamra Jo Ness was found dead around 5:30 p.m. in the 5500 block of Greenwood Lane by Pennington County deputies responding to a cardiac call, said a release from the sheriff's office.

An autopsy showed no signs of trauma, and the cause of death will be determined once microscopic and toxicology results are completed. Investigators have labeled the death suspicious and believe illegal drug activity may have been a factor, the release said. Michelle Stout, 43, of Rapid City, was also arrested at the scene and charged with unauthorized ingestion of a controlled substance.
A 54-year-old fundraising partnership benefiting 4-H in South Dakota has deteriorated into a lawsuit by state government against a private charity.

The South Dakota Board of Regents, the South Dakota State University Foundation and the state of South Dakota are suing the organization formerly known as the South Dakota 4-H Foundation.

The suit was filed Dec. 21 in state court in Hughes County. The state is asking the court to dissolve the 4-H Foundation (which changed its name last year to South Dakota Youth Heritage Inc.) and transfer the foundations money to the SDSU Foundation, among other requests.

The state alleges that the 4-H Foundation violated laws, regulations and the foundation's own mission by funding and delivering programs independent of 4-H officials.

The 4-H Foundation and South Dakota Youth Heritage, Inc. have exceeded or abused, and continue to exceed or abuse, the authority conferred upon them by law, the lawsuit says.

No formal response has been filed, but Jim Burg, president of the former 4-H Foundation, said a lawyer appointed by the groups insurance carrier will mount a defense.

It just makes me sick, Burg, of Wessington Springs, said Friday in a phone interview with the Journal. Its made me really disappointed. Both sides have wasted a whole bunch of money that couldve gone to kids for what I see as no good reason.

The suit does not say how much money is at stake, but the 4-H Foundations 2014 annual report  the most recent one available on its website  says its total income that year was $864,027.28.

4-H is an educational and leadership program for children. Though not strictly agricultural in focus, it is popularly associated with livestock shows and other farm-and-ranch competitions and exhibits that are staged annually at county fairs and the state fair.

The states suit says the fight between the state and the 4-H Foundation began after Barry Dunn had become the SDSU dean of agriculture in 2010. Dunn, who has since been promoted to president of the Brookings-based university, did not immediately respond to a phone message Friday from the Journal.

In 2011, the suit states, Dunn grew concerned that the 4-H Foundation was violating federal regulations. Federal law places South Dakota 4-H under the authority of the SDSU Extension System, and the South Dakota 4-H Foundation was separately established in 1963 to raise money for 4-H programs.

Burg said a point of contention with Dunn was Character Counts, a non-4-H program that was introduced to South Dakota schools and 4-H clubs by the 4-H Foundation. Burg acknowledged that Character Counts is not technically a 4-H program, but he said the foundation did not go ahead with anything without agreement from SDSU Extension.

Disputes over that and other issues led to changes in SDSU's agreement with the 4-H Foundation, which were formalized in a one-year deal signed in 2014. That agreement has since expired, and no new agreement has been signed. The 4-H Foundation, according to the states suit, indicated that it was not interested in a new deal.

Burg said Friday that the terms of the proposed new agreement would have made it difficult for the 4-H Foundation to raise money. He said SDSU Extension wanted the 4-H Foundation to stop supporting Character Counts, for example, even though some of the foundations donors gave money specifically for that program.

Another dispute centered on the 4-H Foundations use of the 4-H name and four-leaf-clover emblem, which belong to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The state's suit alleges that the 4-H Foundation illegally used the 4-H name and emblem in connection with unauthorized activities.

When the dispute about the name and emblem arose, the 4-H Foundation reacted by creating a subsidiary, South Dakota Youth Foundation LLC, in late 2014, then dissolved it in 2015. Also in 2015, a new nonprofit entity, South Dakota Youth Foundation Inc., was formed with three board members who had also been 4-H Foundation board members. And in 2016, the 4-H Foundation changed its name to South Dakota Youth Heritage Inc.

Burg said the maneuvers were necessary to continue distributing money and honoring donor wishes while avoiding use of the 4-H name and emblem. He said board members of South Dakota Youth Heritage Inc., formerly the 4-H Foundation, have stopped raising money and would perhaps be willing to dissolve the organization voluntarily once all the donor wishes are ascertained and all the money is disbursed accordingly.

But the state's suit is seeking to suspend that effort so that the money can be transferred to SDSU. The suit says the involuntary dissolution of the former 4-H Foundation and the transfer of its money is necessary because the foundation's actions have put SDSU and SDSU Extension at serious risk of losing federal funding and/or the South Dakota 4-H program in its entirety."
There are several issues and one incident that have caught our attention in the Legislature over the past couple of weeks.

Here's a roundup.

Bills, bills, bills: The 92nd South Dakota Legislature made history: Lawmakers this session are dealing with the fewest number of bills ever.

By Feb. 2, the deadline for lawmakers to file new bills, the total was only 388. Compare that to 419 bills that were filed last year  also a record low, according to the Legislative Research Council.

In some ways, that's good news. We'd rather see fewer silly bills for bills' sake. Also tells us maybe there isn't so much that needs fixing?

Heck, there was plenty enough free time for lawmakers to spend dismantling ethics measures passed by voters.

Another abortion hoop: Another session, another incremental step to stigmatize abortion.

And to be clear, Senate Bill 102 does not criminalize abortion. But its assumptions about women seeking abortions are leading to another hoop, another lecture, that must be endured.

The bill would require that the name and telephone number of an organization fighting to end sex trafficking be given in writing to any woman seeking an abortion in South Dakota. The message would say:

"If someone is sexually abusing you or causing you to exchange sex for something of value, and you want help, call 911, or the telephone number provided on this notice."

This comment assumes some percentage of women exercising their legal right to an abortion have somehow been coerced or forced into it. It is another method to shame women, to guilt them, to mark them as something "other" because of their legal choice.

We believe in reducing the need for abortions and in fighting sex trafficking. The overlap in this bill is distasteful, however.

Causing a panic: Not only do South Dakota lawmakers think they know better than voters (again, see ethics measure repeal), at least one of them thinks the law doesn't apply to him in the first place.

Meet Sen. Larry Rhoden, R-Union Center, who pressed a panic button Monday in the Capitol just to see how fast the South Dakota Highway Patrol would respond.

Again: He pressed a panic button to see how fast police would respond.

Rhoden's misadventure was meant to show why it is necessary for legislation that would allow most people at the Capitol to carry guns using an enhanced pistol permit. He says the Highway Patrol didn't respond fast enough.

In an effort to show why he needs to carry a gun, Larry Rhoden broke the law: False reporting to authorities is a misdemeanor in South Dakota.

If it were you who hit a panic button falsely, or called 911, or pulled a fire alarm, or yelled "fire!" in a crowded theater, what do you think would happen?
News / Local

by Staff Reporter

A MAN from Bulawayo who allegedly killed his friend and buried him in a shallow grave in Burnside suburb could be a serial killer as he has led police to a second body.Rodney Tongai Jindu (25) of Glengarry suburb allegedly shot Cyprian Kudzurunga (28) from Queens Park suburb at point blank range with a shotgun on January 29 before burying the body at a vacant residential stand in the leafy Burnside suburb.Yesterday he led officers from the Criminal Investigations Department Homicide Section to the same piece of land - Number 13 Westmount Road - where the body of his second victim, Mboneli Ncube, was discovered next to the spot where he allegedly buried Kudzurunga.Ncube, also known as Keith, went missing on January 12 this year. He lived four houses away from Jindu's home in Glengarry suburb.There is allegedly a third missing person who was last seen with Jindu.Sources close to investigations said Jindu told police that he killed Ncube for ritual purposes and went on to kill Kudzurunga because he feared he would expose him after he (Kudzurunga) allegedly stumbled on evidence of the murder.Police yesterday exhumed Ncube's mutilated body. The head, a hand and both legs had been cut off."He said he killed Ncube after being offered $20 000 or a Toyota Quantum by a group of omalayitsha (names withheld). He said he shot Ncube dead and handed over the body to the cross border transporters who mutilated it and gave him the remains for burial," said the source.Ncube (age not established), was reported missing at Queens Park Police Station on January 15.A source said Ncube's family was alerted by a report in The Chronicle on February 6 detailing Jindu's alleged cold blooded killing of Kudzurunga.Neighbours in Glengarry said Ncube and Jindu were close friends with contrasting characters."Keith (Ncube) was a jovial young man, a devout Jehovah's Witness, but Jindu was a quiet person who kept to himself," said a neighbour.It has since emerged that Jindu was targeting people whose surname is Ncube for the ritual killings.One of neighbours who identified herself as MaNcube said she became worried after learning from the police that he was targeting Ncubes."He was very nice to me. From the first day he came here, we didn't suspect anything bad from him. But learning about his actions has made me develop goose pimples on my skin. I could have been his target that is why he was so nice to me," said MaNcube."We're shocked that someone as young and handsome as he is, is a ruthless killer."The Chronicle observed what looked like four empty graves at the stand where Jindu buried his victims.It has also emerged that Jindu got a licence for the shotgun he allegedly used to kill Kudzurunga in November last year.Ballistic reports indicate that about 36 bullets have since been fired from the gun.There is allegedly no record of him going hunting or visiting a firing range for target practice.He was often seen around the city centre selling second hand phones and laptops.Meanwhile, a postmortem report has revealed that a bullet fired from point blank range went through Kudzurunga's temple and exited at the back of his head after scrambling his brains.The second bullet, that could have been fired when Kudzurunga was already dead, went through his chest and came out through his lower back, after mincing up his internal organs.Last Saturday, police exhumed Kudzurunga's body in a shallow grave after Jindu made indications and allegedly confessed to killing him.He told investigators he sent a message to the deceased's mother pretending to be her son suddenly leaving the country.Jindu also allegedly stole Kudzurunga's laptop and cellphone which he sold in the city centre.He was arrested last Friday after making inconsistent statements to the police.A source close to the investigations claimed that on the day of the murder, the two spent close to seven hours drinking alcohol at Jindu's house.On their way to Jindu's place, the two bought a bottle of brandy which they drank.After 10PM Kudzurunga then decided to walk home using a footpath linking Glengarry and Queens Park East. Jindu offered to escort him and allegedly killed him along the way.
BILLINGS  Research that compared Yellowstone National Park grizzly bear and wolf interactions with those same animals in Sweden has produced a surprising finding: brown bear presence in both ecosystems reduces the wolf kill rate.

Its a baffling finding, said Doug Smith, Yellowstones wolf biologist. To be honest, for 20 years Ive been saying bears increase wolf kill rates because bears steal so many carcasses.

That data from two very different ecosystems pointed to the same conclusion helped convince Yellowstone bear biologist Kerry Gunther that the research was not just a fluke.

The studys lead author was Aimee Tallian, a Utah State University wildlife ecologist and former Yellowstone research assistant. Eleven international co-authors helped with the National Science Foundation-funded project that allowed Tallian to spend a year working in Sweden.

Different worlds

The research area in south-central Sweden is very different from Yellowstone, Tallian noted. Roads criss-cross the dense forest because it is logged. That means researchers could drive to most locations, compared to Yellowstone where hours spent hiking is more often the norm.

Its heavily managed by humans, but there are still a lot of woods and remote areas, she said.

Yellowstone is also unusual in that grizzly-wolf interactions are sometimes seen along the main roads where they are photographed by tourists or studied through spotting scopes. Seeing the animals in Sweden is rare, partly because they are still hunted populations.

Research says

Tallian said the assumption that the presence of an apex predator like grizzlies would drive wolves to hunt and kill more prey was never written down anywhere, but was a commonly held belief.

The results were the opposite of what we expected, she said. I double-checked the data so many times thinking, What did I do wrong?

Our results challenge the conventional view that brown bears do not affect the distribution, survival or reproduction of wolves, stated the research paper, which was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B on Feb. 8.

Although the outcome of interactions between bears and wolves at carcasses varies, bears often dominate, limiting wolves' access to food, the paper said. Furthermore, our findings suggest that wolves do not hunt more often to compensate for the loss of food to brown bears. In combination, this implies that bears might negatively affect the food intake of wolves," so wolf populations that live within the same geographical area as brown bears may see effects on their fitness.

King of the kill

Past research by Smith and his crew in Yellowstones remote, bear-rich Pelican Valley have found that, between March and October, virtually every wolf kill is taken over by a grizzly bear.

Wolves get a lot of food stolen from them by grizzlies, Smith said.

Gunther said it is common in Yellowstone for grizzlies to usurp wolf kills within hours, if not days. Takeovers by females with cubs is less common because the wolves will threaten, and sometimes kill, the young bears.

The missing piece was: What does that do to wolf kill rates? Smith noted.

Tallian said many assume that wolves are efficient and effective killers. But previous research in Yellowstone has shown that summer is a lean season, the same time that grizzlies are out of hibernation competing for food and theres no snow to slow down the wolfs favorite prey, ungulates like elk. Faced with a food shortage, packs break up into smaller groups, with wolves often dining on smaller and more varied prey than in winter.

So when wolves do kill a large animal, like an elk, it may be easier to stick around and wait for an encroaching grizzly to leave than to make another kill, Smith and Tallian agreed.

One of the implications is that maybe bears do have some impact on the fitness of wolves, because bears steal their food, theres a net food loss when bears are around, Tallian said.

New question

Tallians research prompts the question: Have wolves increased bears? That would be a huge headline, Smith said. But we cant back that up.

Grizzly bear populations in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem were climbing in the 1980s, before wolves returned to the landscape in 1995, Gunther said.

Certainly wolves have played a role because there is more meat on the landscape that bears have access to, Gunther said.

But there are also fewer winterkill animals awaiting bears when they leave hibernation in spring, and he noted that wolves occasionally kill a grizzly cub.

So there are positives and negatives, he said.

Tallians research helps fill one gap in a larger story about ecosystems that are incredibly complicated, interwoven and which, in many ways, operate beyond the scope of human understanding.

This is one more piece of the jigsaw puzzle, Smith said.
HELENA  A proposed checkoff program would allow hunters purchasing licenses to voluntarily donate for lethal control of wolves.

Rep. Becky Beard, R-Elliston, brought House Bill 367 before the House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee Tuesday. The bill creates a voluntary checkoff where hunters can donate $1 or more to help reduce the impact of wolves on landowners and livestock producers.

Beard brought the bill at the request of her constituents, she told the committee.

The bill requires Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use the funding to contract with USDA Wildlife Services, including but not limited to flight time, collaring, and lethal control of wolves.

FWP currently spends about $800,000 annually on collaring and lethal control programs.

Similar checkoffs are available for programs such as non-game animals and Hunters Against Hunger.

Avon-area rancher Brian Quigley with the Rocky Mountain Stockgrowers Association detailed some of the additional expenses faced by livestock producers, such as paying fees per animal for predator control.

We were asked how else hunters could help and this is what we came up with, he said of the proposed checkoff.

Ranchers will continue to bear the brunt of predator costs, particularly with the recent loss of a federal grant that financed a portion of predator programs, Jim Brown with the Montana Woolgrowers Association said.

Jay Bodner with the Montana Stockgrowers Association also voiced support.

In our mind, its money very well spent and another opportunity for hunters who want to contribute to this, he said.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks opposed the bill for technical reasons that it felt could be addressed through amendments. Wildlife division administrator Ken MacDonald said the department does not oppose the concept of the bill.

Marc Cooke with Wolves of the Rockies did oppose the concept of HB367. He argued that the bill excludes nonlethal measures that have proven effective and that wolf populations are stable.

To say wolves arent being killed and we need to kill more, I just dont buy it, he said.

Also opposing was Ben Lamb with the National Wildlife Federation, agreeing that funding should be available for lethal and nonlethal wolf management. Voluntary checkoffs also do not tend to work well in most cases, pointing to a similar program in Wyoming that runs at a deficit.

Beard closed on the bill noting the importance of agriculture in Montanas economy and touting the bill as a voluntary step to assist livestock producers requesting assistance. She indicated that she may be open to FWP suggested amendments but would need additional fact checking before deciding.

The committee took no immediate action on HB367.
HELENA - In his Head Start Day address at the Capitol on Friday, Gov. Steve Bullock asked parents and teachers to speak with legislators about the importance of funding early childhood education.

He said teacher and parents see how children benefit from early education and have the most power to encourage their elected officials to support state funded preschool programs. Montana is one of five states without it, although theres significant opposition from Republicans who say the state cant afford to fund the proposed programs.

The state received $30 million in federal grants from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education to fund free preschool and Head Start, a federally supported program for children ages 3 to 5. Early Head Start serves children 0-3 in collaboration with local child care providers.

Another $10 million in federal funds will help expand the programs to additional communities in the state.

This session, the governors budget proposal directs $12 million to preschool programs. Studies show that Head Start students are more likely to finish high school and go to college and less likely to commit crimes. They also have access to health care and nutritional services and have a lower death rate from disease than people who didnt attend Head Start.

Its an investment we cant afford not to be making, Bullock said.

Rep. Kathy Kelker, D-Billings, is carrying a bill to implement Bullock's plan, which is in legal review and is expected to be introduced next week. Kelker said she understands shes asking for a lot of money, but repeated the importance of education.

We have to put our children first, she said.

The proposal is facing strong opposition from Republicans.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen wont be supporting Bullocks bill. She said the governor is not prioritizing the needs of current K-12 students, who will be impacted by proposed budget cuts.

The Governor and the Legislature have already cut over $14 million from the education budget, plus shifted $11.4 million in taxes to local property taxpayers, she said in a statement.

Republicans said they dont expect the bill to go anywhere.

I wouldnt start any new government programs until were back on a sustainable track, Rep. Nancy Ballance, R-Hamilton, said.

When asked if putting more money into programs like early education could keep kids out of the costly and strained services such as Child and Family Services and the Department of Corrections, Ballance said shes asked for evidence from people testifying in appropriations.

We dont necessarily see it, she said. All these services keep growing.

But several parents stood in the rotunda to support early education, many saying they couldnt imagine being a successful parent without it. The Head Start program is modeled on a two generation approach by providing support for homeless children and families, offering parent classes and adult education.

Bree Garrett was pregnant when she was 17 and felt like everyone around her doubted her ability to be a young parent.

They were able to make me feel like I could do it, she said.

Both of Garretts children are in Head Start, which allows her to pursue her education. Next year shell graduate with a bachelors degree in early childhood education.

Michaela Talksabout, a parent to three children under the age of 5, said the program addressed their entire family dynamic. When her son was diagnosed with a disability, she was unsure what to do.

The teachers showed me all the things he could offer the world, she said.
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News / National

by Stephen Jakes

In a possibly anticipated change of the mind, the Lupane Criminal Investigations Department Law and Order summoned the Mthwakazi Republic Party Secretary General Hloniphani Ncube to undergo fresh investigations citing that there were newly founded developments on the arrest of the party top officials during the Mlamuli gathering which took place on the 14th of December 2016 which was a resounding success.MRP spokesperson Mbonisi Gumbo said in this unfortunate incident 11 top officials of the party were controversial arrested by the state agents of the brutal government ."As a law abiding political party the Secretary General heed to the nonsensical call and presented himself to the Lupane officers. The investigating officers asked the similar questions when they initially investigated the Secretary General and other top party official. They were charged with participating in an unlawful gathering intending to incite violence a charge which was a directive from Harare not a substantiated offence," he said. "However, the president of Mthwakazi Republic Party Mqondisi Moyo was mysteriously given a separate charge without evidence which alleged that he contravened section 25 (1) (5) of the Public Order and Security Act chapter 11; 17 (Notice of processions, public administrations and Public meetings) whilst on that particular gathering he was just an invited guest along with other top officials of the party."He said when they (CID) summoned the Secretary General on the 8th of January 2018 in a controversial change of mind they decided to lay a fresh charge to the Secretary General which is similar with the charge laid against MRP President Mqondisi Moyo which took them more than two months to reach yet another doomed decision."The Secretary General was supposed to go through court proceedings as per initial recommendations of the public prosecutor of Lupane Magistrate Court, and at 16:30 hours Central African Time the prosecutor changed his mind citing that such a matter needed to be handled by two magistrates and Lupane had one. He proposed that the Lupane CID Law and Order section would have to arrange for the Secretary General to go through two magistrates courts something which can also be perceived as unnecessary and unplanned summons by the institutions which are supposed to exhibit a high level of integrity," he said."This does not come as a surprise as 2012 police guiding principles released by (Commissioner General Police) Augustine Chihuri notes that officers are to give "customers" a full measure of their service. According to Chihuri policing is therefore a business rather than being public service. Thus why there are so many road blocks and corruption because Chihuri views the public as customers, not as people who are supposed to be served and thus a primitive assertion. How can the country develop being led by such fools masquerading as leaders. This is a doomed and a directionless institution."Gumbo said the Mlamuli case started with the arrests of Mlamuli parents after they had demonstrated."Now it vivid how weak the state institutions are under the Zanu PF leadership. It is clear that MRP officials were merely arrested on assumptions and investigated latter which is highly primitive. This does not surprise us because the justice system of Zimbabwe is led by a Gukurahundist who masterminded the killings of more than 20 000 innocent civilians and the world just permitted such a novice to walk free and continually manipulate the justice system and this is a shame and mockery of justice. To us entrusting Emmerson Mnangagwa to lead the justice system is like giving the prostitute the responsibility to be a pastor. His place in our government which would rule in our life time is jail and hell thereafter," he said."We further send a warning to the Zimbabwean government that if they continue to target Mthwakazi Republic Party officials who are busy campaigning in Mthwakazi which happens to be their territory, we will reach a stage whereby we will not allow to be trialed by the flawed Zimbabwean justice system which is confused. We are not confused as a political party and we do not want the demon of confusion rocking the Zanu PF system to be passed to us. We urge the justice system to be confident enough and to be humble enough to dismiss the baseless accusations by Mnangagwa.""I believe in Zimbabwe there are serious crimes committed by Mugabe and his confused cabinet and the little judiciary resources must be channelled towards addressing these criminals not law abiding MRP officials and it's supporters. We are for peace and justice in our life time."
In an Oakland meeting of the BART Board yesterday, two BART directors took the stance that the regional transit system should investigate and perhaps adopt a "Sanctuary in Transit Policy." That policy, those directors explained, would be an effort to better serve BART patrons regardless of immigration status in a corollary to the Sanctuary City policies of municipalities like San Francisco, where local law enforcement avoids collaborating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies and other federal officials.

The charge was lead by D9 BART Director Lateefah Simon and D8 BART Director Nick Josefowitz. Many undocumented immigrants ride BART every day," Josefowitz said in the meeting according to a press release issued afterward. "They should feel just as safe and secure as any other BART rider." Josefowitz cited the statistic that 500,000 undocumented immigrants call the Bay Area home.

"Local enforcement needs to focus on keeping our communities safe, rather than becoming entangled in federal immigration efforts, Simon said at the meeting. BART is the backbone of the Bay Area. Regardless of their immigration status, riders should have the security of getting to and from work without becoming unduly targeted during their daily commutes.

The elephant in the room is President Trump, who has repeatedly voiced opposition to Sanctuary City policies, threatening to cut federal funding to cities including San Francisco where that policy exists and signing in January an executive order punishing Sanctuary Cities. San Francisco moved to challenge the order, becoming the first city to sue over it. It's fair to guess that the President will make similar threats, on Twitter or by executive order, to cut federal funding to BART if it eventually enacts a Sanctuary in Transit policy.

As the proposal wasn't an item submitted in advance to the public agenda for the meeting, specific policy matters weren't discussed, as the Chronicle explains is in keeping with California opening meeting laws that require such public notice. Still, more than 10 speakers at the meeting during public comment voiced their support for the motion.

To provide an example of the policy's necessity, Simon recalled an undocumented immigrant who told her that he was cited for fare evasion and wanted to pay but was afraid that BART police or officials would turn him over to ICE. If our system can mirror some of the best cities and municipalities in this country that are standing up to hate and xenophobia that would be great, said Simon. We want to be on the right side of history.

The motion raised at the BART Board meeting yesterday will be taken up next by BARTs Operations & Safety Committee at its next meeting, KRON4 reports. If adopted, such a policy would be the first sanctuary-in-transit policy in the nation that would operate across multiple counties according to KQED.

Related: Trump Threatens To Yank Funds From 'Out of Control' California If It Declares Itself A Sanctuary State
As a respite to the disheartening stories about refugees being stranded at airport, we offer an opera about a refugee stranded at an airport. And this one is a comedy, just what the doctor ordered, both politically relevant and fun. Opera Parallele presents Flight through Sunday at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. It's a 1998 opera loosely inspired by Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian exiled from his country who got his papers stolen on his way to London. As a result, he ended up living eighteen (18!) years stranded at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris between 1988 and 2006. That Tom Hanks movie The Terminal? Based on the same guy.

Opera Parallele always picks modern operas with a ton of topical relevance, and their creative team (Nicole Paiement and Brian Staufenbiel) always puts together vivid musical performances and inventive and impressive stagings. Flight was written by British composer Jonathan Dove, and we chatted with him over the phone from his home in England. Dove penned Flight as a commission for the prestigious Glyndebourne opera house and it has since been produced many times all over the world, a rare feat for a modern opera.

How familiar are you with Opera Parallele, have you been in touch with them?

Not really. I've looked online when the question came in, if it was going to be possible for them to present the opera. It's been many years since I've been last been in SF. I'm not familiar with their work.

Your composing style has been compared to a blend of [Berkeley resident] John Adams and Leonard Bernstein. Is it a fair comparison?

I'm very happy to be compared to them. John Adams is the most exciting living composer. The strong connection between us is that, I've been influenced by him to a considerable extent, when I discovered that I really liked was music that had a pulse, with a strong rhythm, that's not chromatic, that's diatonic, or often modal, or pan-diatonic. I was not really in sympathy with the European avant-garde when I started writing. Boulez and Stockhausen were still producing at that point and in England, Birtwistle. George Benjamin is younger than I am, but he was producing work much sooner than I did. I wanted to make something different and I was surrounded by that. I felt closest to American composers, Adams and also Bernstein and Sondheim to an extent, who are not exactly opera composers. I grew up with influences from these two kinds of musical theater.

I think it's true the modernist language, modernist composers have not generally been interested in comedy. You'll find it quite hard to think of any comic opera for the whole of the 20th century. Arguably Albert Herring, and maybe some more recently...

We could not find much detail on the orchestration, is it written for a chamber orchestra?

Actually, it's written for a relatively large orchestra, it's not a chamber orchestra. But I did sanction a somewhat reduced orchestration a few years ago for a music college in Wales. I'm now racking my brains to remember if that's the version they are doing. I would imagine it is.

It was originally written for Glyndebourne opera company, which has a new opera house of about 1500 seats, and the orchestra matches that. It is somewhat spectacular, I would say, without sounding immodest. It's very colorful orchestration, it uses a lots of pitch, percussion instruments, and there are some moments where the orchestra tells the story. When the plane takes off in the first act, and comes back again in the last act, you can imagine those are noisy events. And throughout the second act, there is a storm.

You were originally asked to write a modern "Barber of Seville," is it why you have a storm?

It's part of the plot of a group of traveler stranded in an airport overnight during an electrical storm. I was interested in what would it sound to have a comic storm. In the recent history, the great storm in Peter Grimes, the storm in Porgy and Bess, these are dramatic storms. Actually, the storm in Barber of Seville is quite dramatic, but this has a kind of different edge.

Why did you decide to make fun of this situation?

I thought it was missing. I also thought it was something that I could do. In the 1980s and 90s, in Britain, new opera was often quite earnest and solemn. Probably ambitious, but never funny. I had really enjoyed as a musician, as a repetiteur, working on production of La Cenerentola, Cosi fan Tutte, or Falstaff. I enjoyed hearing audience laugh in the opera house, I thought it's important part of life. And nobody was really doing it.

I thought my musical language, because it's not modernist, would be suited for a comedy. The modernist language -to simplify, as modernism is an enormous field- arguably handles better anxiety, or complex and darker emotions. Mine tends more to celebrate. That was the musical impulse to make a comic work. In a way, it's complicated by becoming fascinated with a true story that is not funny at all: the true story of the refugee who lived in Charles De Gaulle for 18 years, a very strange tale.

There are other stories of people living in airports, that one is the most extreme. When I came across it, it had a strong hold on me, I found it fascinating, and the airport location very idea-making. It was inspiring: what would an airport sound like? What would a plane taking off sound like in music? Because I had been thinking of comedy, some comic situations that were in my mind and which I had been talking with [librettist] April De Angelis, collided with the refugee story. It has a tragicomic element.

But isn't the theme somewhat less funny now: immigrants being held at border?

I think it has become even more topical. The last production in London was in 2015, that was before Brexit. But already then we were seeing on the news every day that refugees were going to extreme length to get into the country. There was even a recurrence of the story that the refugee describes at the end of the opera, it happened in London during the run of Flight in 2015, of somebody stowing away in the undercarriage of an airplane and they didn't survive the journey. In the opera, the story that the refugee tells is not that of Mehran Nasseri, the real life refugee in Charles de Gaule, it's the story that has really happened of two brothers stowaways. That's unimaginable, with the noise, the cold. Is it possible to go into a kind of suspended animation in extreme cold temperature and to survive the flight? In this case, one of the brothers survived, and the other did not. That's a heartbreaking story happening at the center of it.

Immigration is certainly an interesting subject in America. Within the opera, the refugee presents a challenge, a dilemma for the travelers. It might feel that they want to help him, but they are much more preoccupied with their own issues, their own journey, their own luggage. To begin with, nobody wants to help the refugee. By the end, because of all that happens, they all do want to help the refugee as far as they can. It's not a magical ending, it's not the happiest ending imaginable, it's realistically happy. The immigration official quite unexpectedly decides he will turn a blind eye to the refugee. All the travelers who get involved in some way with the refugee try to help and attempt to prevent him from being deported. At the end of the opera, he doesn't get into the country, he doesn't get his new life, but he isn't sent home. It's a happy-ish ending for him.

I've no idea what point Opera Parallele is going to make with it. Within the narrative of the opera, there is a challenge. The refugee represents a moral challenge to which people may or may not rise. You could say: refugees challenge us and we may or may not behave well in relation to that challenge. I would be interested to find out what happens in this production.

What was the point of the homosexual interlude between two straight guys?

I has to do with the idea of adventure; a couple, Bill and Tina, are going on holiday to try to recapture something that has disappeared from their relationship. The wife provokes the husband because she says he used to be adventurous. Through a misunderstanding, he ends up having a liaison with the steward. I think it's funny. The stewardess is also an erotically active character. It's quite hard to have a successful liaison in an airport, there isn't anywhere to do it. The steward and the stewardess end up being discovered, the steward and Bill end up in the control tower. That's dealing with the environment of the airport, how impractical a place it is to have a liaison. You don't know what's going to happen between Bill and Tina afterwards, it's possible that they will be fine, or that adventure will have no difference. At the end, they are going off together. So it acknowledges the complexity and unpredictability of human relations. Relationships don't necessarily fit into comfortable patterns.

You are a prolific opera composer, what's the next one about?

I'm writing a comic opera, in my mind it's a comedy, about Karl Marx. For Bonn, a German opera house, next year. I guess it's what I do mostly. I've written around 28 operas, it's the main focus of my activity.
A man who threatened to shoot someone and told a witness he was a police officer was arrested Thursday morning, after the real cops arrived and called his bluff.

The San Francisco Police Department says the incident came to a head at 7 a.m. Thursday, on the 300 block of Noe Street between Market and 17th Streets in the Castro.

Police say that the suspect, a 48-year-old male, insisted that his 38-year-old male victim take him to a local hotel. When the younger man refused, police say that the suspect forced his victim east down 17th Street to Noe, where he brandished a gun and ordered the victim "to sit and tells him not to move or he will shoot him if he runs."

The gun-wielding man then demanded the victim's car keys. The victim refused to hand them over, according to the SFPD.

A passing witness who expressed concern was told to move along by the suspect, who showed "the witness a security badge and states hes a police officer."

The witness, who clearly was not born yesterday, called 911 anyway. The real police arrived shortly thereafter and arrested the suspect, whose name has not been publicly released as of publication time.

Related: Castro Doorman Beaten In Apparent Gay Hate Crime
All is not well when a mother and daughter can't sell some Samoas without getting robbed. But that is what happened outside a Union City Safeway on Wednesday night, when a man  or possibly a teenager  with a gun approached a table where a mother and her 12-year-old daughter were selling Girl Scout cookies. The man, they say, initially approached them saying he was interested in buying some cookies, but then he ended up returning with a gun and demanding all their cash. He apparently made off with about $600 as ABC 7 reports, but Union City police donated the money to cover the loss, and bought out all the girl's cookies as well.

The suspect is described as a black male between the ages of 16 and 19, as CBS 5 reports, and 5 feet 4 inches and 5 feet 6 inches tall. A sketch artist produced the composite drawing shown here by KRON 4.

As the Chronicle notes, since this is Girl Scout cookie season, there have been several reports of Girl Scout cookie-related crimes, like the man in Philadelphia who robbed an 8-year-old Girl Scout selling cookies outside her home on Saturday, and this drunk in Oklahoma who tried to trade vodka for Girl Scout Cookies, and got arrested.

Anyone who has information about the case is encouraged to call the Union City Police Departments investigations line at (510) 675-5275 or Detective D. Dejong at (510) 675-5227. People can also make tips anonymously by calling (510) 675-5207 or emailing [email protected]
"We are committed to join you to be a wall against hate and we will legislate Trump the hell out of San Francisco!" Jane Kim addressed the crowd at the Women's March in San Francisco, referring to herself and the five other women on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. "If Trump and the Republicans defund Planned Parenthood, 6 of us will vote to fill that gap. If Trump and the Republicans raid our homes searching for our undocumented brothers and sisters, we will fund the legal services to defend you and keep you in your homes."

Bracing for just these possibilities, Kim is reportedly drafting legislation after meeting with her five legislative aides. according to the Chronicle. It was just us sitting around going, Oh my God, whats going to happen? Ivy Lee, one member of Kim's team of aids, who are all women, told the Chronicle. "The city needs to make sure birth control is covered; that cant even be a question."

Trump is holding true to his campaign promises and his word, and I think eventually the president will go on a full-frontal assault on womens health care, Kim tells the Chronicle." Specifically, if Trump repeals the Affordable Care Act as he has threatened to do, the gains made through that legislation for women's access to free birth control could disappear. We want to be prepared for that."

Kim promises to be persistent in this fight. She's also coming off successes in two local skirmishes, having skillfully brokered deals, one for free City College and another for the creation of a transgender historic district in the Tenderloin.

Related: BART Directors Propose Sanctuary In Transit Policy


This weekend is going to see another, likely smaller scale protest battle over abortion rights reminiscent of Women's March day  when the annual anti-abortion march up Market Street coincided with the more liberal-heavy, anti-Trump event, though there were no reports of fistfights or screaming matches.

On Saturday, as the Examiner reports, a group supporting the congressional effort to de-fund Planned Parenthood will arrive, likely from far away from San Francisco, to rally outside the Planned Parenthood location at 1650 Valencia Street. This is one of 244 planned rallies nationwide to oppose women's right to choose as well as opposing women's reproductive healthcare and all the other free services Planned Parenthood provides.

Meanwhile, a counter protest is planned to show solidarity with Planned Parenthood, organized by the International Socialist Organization of Northern California, and over a thousand people have expressed interest on Facebook, with 270 saying they're going as of now.

Say the organizers, "Join us in taking back the conversation around Planned Parenthood. The majority of the country does not believe it should be defunded, but we need to make sure that our voices are heard."

The anti-choice group is expected to gather at noon, while the pro-choice protesters are being asked to show up at 11 a.m., you know, so they're there to greet them.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

A political analyst Vince Musewe has described President Robert Mugabe as a political schemer who always cause divisions in opposition political parties towards elections to take advantage of that to retain power.The remarks at a time when the opposition ZimPF led by Joice Mujuru faces turbulent times as divisions have rocked the party leading to the different groups dismissing each other. Mujuru announced that she has fired Didymas Mutasa Rugare Gumbo and others from the party due to their factional tendencies."Toxic politics. As we go towards 2018 political intrigue and drama will get worse. That is Robert Mugabe for you - a political schemer par excellence. I just wish he had used that skill to develop our country," Musewe said."Our economy is going nowhere, cash is going to be tight, false stories and inuendo will be the order of the day. We all need to be very careful because this could be the end of Zanu PF and they will not go down alone. Endless ZimPF speculations are flooding social media and no doubt the opposition will be under stress. We are going to see a total abuse of state resources and state media as the key propaganda machinery gets into a higher gear. We need to be very selective in what we consume."He said he do hope change is coming all people are exasperated by this beast called Zanu PF."God help them. God save our beautiful country Zimbabwe and it's people. They deserve better," he said.


A major train derailment that thankfully did not injure anyone occurred on Friday afternoon at about 12:45 p.m., sending 22 cars of the Union Pacific freight train into the Cosumnes River, as KCRA reports. The train was carrying food products between Tracy and Roseville, and there was no spilling of hazardous materials.

The derailment, which may have been tied to a levee break nearby, happened near Dillard Road, near Elk Grove and Highway 99 in Sacramento County. Apparently Union Pacific inspectors had been in the area this week inspecting the rails for damage due to inclement weather. Union Pacific spokesperson Justin Jacobs tells KCRA, "They inspect the rail to ensure that everything is as it's supposed to be. Safe for the trains to travel down. What happened in this incident will come out in the investigation."

20 to 30 trains that use this set of tracks, including Amtrak, will need to be rerouted until the situation can be cleaned up.
Musings about painting from the human figure and the human experience.
Hidden Figures -- a period movie about three black female mathematicians -- is not the kind of movie Hollywood looks to for lavish box-office returns.

Yet the modestly budgeted $25 million drama has shot past $100 million and is the best word-of-mouth title (judged by audience retention) at the multiplex -- the movie has left audiences in tears, and Hollywood scrambling to explain its success.

Perhaps the best explanation comes from Margot Lee Shetterly, who wrote the book on which the nonfiction movie is based.

All Americans, she writes, want to believe in the triumph of meritocracy, that each of us should be allowed to rise as far as our talent and hard work can take us.

This story of three women  (Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae), whose math and engineering skills allowed to them rise past obstacles of race, class, and gender, and through the ranks of government aerospace workers to make contributions to Gemini and other missions  provides evidence of something we believe to be true  but dont always know how to prove.

Writer-director Theodore Melfi said he viewed his job as simple: To be honest, just dont mess it up. Just tell the story. Its such an amazing tale. Everybody who hears about it has the same reaction: How is it Ive never heard about this story?

Part of the reason: It was classified. The women worked on top-secret projects. The United States was in a space race with the Soviet Union, and intelligence services (even after the Cold War) kept a tight lid on the work at the Virginia facility where Katherine Johnson (Henson), Mary Jackson (Monae), and Dorothy Vaughan (Spencer) worked as human computers, making complex mathematical calculations necessary to blast a rocket into space (and, as we see, ensure the safe return of astronauts like John Glenn).

In a quiet way, Hidden Figures conflates the space race with another ambitious national project: civil rights. The imperative of besting the Soviets has a NASA manager (Kevin Costner) looking for the best person for the job, so stand-out computer Johnson is chosen for the most formidable mathematical tasks, even as she is relegated to a segregated restroom and coffee pot.

Her persistence, and her excellence, cause those obstacles to fall away (Vaughan and Jackson have similar story arcs), to be exposed as irrational and counterproductive. Hidden Figures is a story of diversity wrapped in a classic American narrative of striving, augmented with touches of faith and family that add to its widespread appeal.

Something else struck Melfi about the women (he met and interviewed Johnson, as did Henson). There was something self-effacing about her  she deflected praise, turned it instead to her coworkers, and talked endlessly about the team at NASA.

I dont want this movie to be about me, she insisted.

Melfi said he looked Johnson in the eye and said, Were going to do it right.
In the movie La La Land, the heroine fields calls in the current style, with her cellphone pressed close to her ear.

When President Barack Obama gave his farewell address, he equated innovation with a computer in every pocket.

Some users sleep with their cellphones on the nightstand  or even tucked under the pillow.

But how close should you really get to your cellphone?

The answer depends, in part, on whom you ask. Government experts say cellphones, which emit radio frequency radiation, have not conclusively been linked to any health problem.

But some critics point to studies they say raise concerns, including a preliminary report by the National Toxicology Program that rats exposed to cellphone radiation experienced a small but significant increase in heart and brain tumors. Critics also point to studies indicating that cellphone exposure may negatively affect sperm quality.

Given those considerations, we asked government spokespeople, an industry representative and a skeptical scientist what Americans should do if they want to reduce their exposure to cellphone radiation.

Heres what we found:

 Follow the advice of the cellphone manufacturer. And no, youre probably not doing that. Cellphones are tested for radiation emission  and approved by the government as safe for use  at a small but significant distance from your body.

You should be able to find that distance in the fine print of your manual or other instructions that come with your phone, and it differs from phone to phone. Youre supposed to keep an iPhone 7 at least 0.2 inches away from your body, a Samsung Galaxy S6 at least 0.6 inches and a Google Pixel about 0.4 inches away.

The takeaway: Dont keep your cellphone in your pocket or your bra when its powered on.

 If you want to go further, consider the suggestions of government scientists. Youll see small differences in the positions stated on the websites of various government agencies, with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) telling us, reassuringly that the weight of scientific evidence has not linked cellphones with any health problems.

The National Toxicology Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences agrees that theres no conclusive evidence linking cellphones to any health problems.

But it also says that little is known about potential health effects of long-term exposure to radio frequency radiation, the kind of radiation emitted by cellphones, and that data from human studies is inconsistent.

The takeaway: Both the FDA and the NTP say that if you are concerned about cellphone radiation, you can take two simple steps. You can reduce the amount of time you spend using your cellphone, and you can use speaker mode or a headset to increase the distance between your head and the phone.

 Want to do everything possible, short of ditching your cellphone? There are webpages for that, but make sure you choose the right one. Rather than scrolling around and scaring yourself with off-the-wall claims, consider turning to reputable scientists, such as Devra Davis, who was the founding director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, or Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California at Berkeley.

Moskowitz and Davis are among the over 220 scientists who have signed the International Electromagnetic Field Scientist Appeal calling for tougher limits on cellphones and related technologies.

The takeaway: Moskowitz offers an extensive list of steps you can take to reduce radiation exposure, including:

1. Keep your distance. Keep your cellphone or cordless phone away from your body when its powered on, taking special care to maintain distance from your head and reproductive organs. Use your speakerphone or a wired headset, or text instead of calling.

2. Wait for a good signal. Your cellphone emits more radiation when the signal is poor, so avoid using it while in enclosed metal areas such as elevators, cars, buses, trains or planes.

3. Avoid secondhand exposure. Reduce the time you spend in places where a lot of people are packed together and using cellphones.

4. Turn off your phone. Turn off your cellphone when not in use, or switch to airplane mode.
TRENTON, N.J.  Cats would keep their claws under a bill that would make New Jersey the first state to prohibit declawing.

The measure, which cleared the lower house of the Legislature last month, bans onychectomies and flexor tendonectomies on a cat or any animal unless a veterinarian deems them medically necessary. A vote on the measure was delayed in a state Senate committee Monday, and it's not clear when it will move forward.

The practice, often undertaken to prevent cats from shredding furniture or injuring humans or other pets, is already banned in several California cities and in nearly 20 countries.

"Declawing is a barbaric practice that more often than not is done for the sake of convenience rather than necessity," the bill's sponsor, Democratic Assemblyman Troy Singleton, said in a statement.

An onychectomy involves amputating the last bone of each toe. A flexor tendonectomy involves severing the tendon that controls the claw in each toe, so that the cat keeps its claws but cannot flex or extend them, Singleton said.

Under the bill, vets who declaw cats other than to address a medical condition would face a fine of up to $1,000, a term of imprisonment of up to six months, or both. A violator would also be subject to a civil penalty of $500 to $2,000.

The American Veterinary Medical Association, which represents more than 89,000 veterinarians, does not support having lawmakers tell doctors what to do and does not agree onychectomies are barbaric.

However, the group said it's not medically necessary in most cases or even that frequent these days.

"It's a surgical procedure that has complications that go with it," said AVMA animal welfare division director Dr. Cia Johnson. The group believes declawing should be considered only if the claws pose a risk to the owner and attempts to modify behavior have failed.

Scratching is part of a normal feline behavior, and owners can positively reinforce it by providing them with posts, boxes and carpets.

Cat owners should frequently trim their cats' nails, and veterinarians can also place nail caps on to minimize damage, Johnson said.

The AVMA does not recommend tendonectomies.

Cat owner Laura Goode, of North Bergen, thinks a ban on declawing would be amazing.

"At the end of day, it's like removing the tips of their fingers. Cats use them as tools to stretch and to climb," she said.

Goode, who volunteers at Only Hope Cat Rescue, said she has cared for cats that have been declawed. Usually, the nails were removed from the front paws, but she once cared for a cat that lost nails on all four. The cat was aggressive and had a difficult time using the litter box because its feet hurt, she said.

Declawing is not as frequent as it once was, said Dr. James Nelson of Ewing Veterinary Hospital, who has been a vet for 35 years.

When he has performed the procedure, it was usually because a cat was hurting another animal or tearing up furniture. He performed the operation on his own cat when the cat "scratched my own 1-year-old son down to the eye."

"Cats wake up from the pain medication, and they're not crying or acting crazy," Nelson said. "They're fine."

The AVMA worries a declawing ban could lead some cat owners to relinquish their pets to shelters, where the animal risks being euthanized if it's not adopted.

"If the problem behavior can't be resolved," Johnson said, "we feel declawing is better than relinquishment."
SIOUX CITY | Woodbury County's top prosecutor on Friday cleared a Sioux City police officer in the shooting death of a Dakota Dunes man that officers believed to be armed during a Dec. 7 traffic stop.

Officer Dylan Grimsley was justified for firing at Daniel Anthony Riedmann, 36, and won't face criminal charges, Woodbury County Attorney P.J. Jennings said at a news conference at police headquarters.

Jennings said the three officers that first arrived at the scene were faced with a "rapidly evolving situation" in the 11 minutes between when the car was reportedly pulled over and when the four shots were fired.

"It was not until Officer Grimsley felt that his life, as well as the lives of the other two officers present, were in danger, that he discharged his firearm," Jennings said at the news conference. "It was reasonable under the circumstances known to Officer Grimsley for him to have fear of officer safety."

It took Jennings about a month to release his conclusion after he received the full report on the incident from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation early last month.

According to the report, an officer in a marked car believed there to be "suspicious activity" coming from a vehicle that was parked in the Burger King parking lot, 1724 Hamilton Blvd. after 10:15 p.m. on Dec. 7.

The officer then began to trail the Suburban as it left the parking lot and tried to initiate a traffic stop in the area of West First Street and Hamilton Boulevard after a check of the license plate showed the owner had a suspended license. The vehicle then came to a complete stop in the left turn lane on Hamilton at the intersection of Tri-View Avenue but then traveled eastbound before coming to a stop off the road onto Myrtle Street.

A second officer who was in uniform and in a marked patrol vehicle arrived on scene to assist the officer who pulled the vehicle over. Grimsley arrived shortly after in an unmarked vehicle and was wearing "plain clothes," the report said.

When pulled over on Myrtle Street, the first officer asked for identification from the female driver and Riedmann, a front seat passenger, and both gave "non-driver's license identification cards."

That's when one of the officers spotted what was believed to be a small handgun in the rear passenger area directly behind Riedmann, the report said.

A background check on Riedmann showed that he had an active warrant and had "violent tendencies" and was "usually armed and dangerous," Jennings said. The officer who pulled over the vehicle communicated those traits to Grimsley and the other officer and "instructed them to keep a close eye on (Riedmann)," the report said.

The three reapproached the vehicle and removed the female driver and placed her in a squad car. After that, police say Riedmann disobeyed repeated commands by the officers to show his hands and to exit the vehicle.

"Riedmann became combative with the officers and continued to resist their commands to exit...," the report said. "As the officers continued to make several verbal demands of Riedmann to exit the vehicle they did witness him make his first aggressive move towards his left side which immediately prompted the officers... to draw their service weapons and have them directed towards Riedmann."

The report included that Riedmann stated he was only attempting to "pull up his pants" and to "take off his seatbelt" when the guns were drawn at him after his "aggressive" actions.

Riedmann continued to disobey police commands and the officers thought he might try to jump into the driver's seat of the vehicle. An officer then removed the keys from the ignition, but Riedmann continued to make "furtive movements with his hands," the report said.

Another officer then holstered his weapon and began to make an attempt to open the passenger front door. At that point, Riedmann made "a second sudden and aggressive move away from the officers, causing Grimsley to discharge his service weapon four times at Riedmann out of fear for officer safety," the report said.

"Had Riedmann not made (his) aggressive movements away from the officers, which denied Grimsley the ability to see Riedmann's hands, Grimsley would not have been faced with the split-second decision resulting in him using deadly force for officer safety," Jennings said at the news conference. "Therefore, the death of Daniel Riedmann is determined to be a justifiable homicide under the laws of the state of Iowa."

All four shots hit Riedmann, but only three entered his body, according to the report.

As additional officers arrived on scene, Riedmann was taken from the front passenger seat and placed on the ground, and a loaded .40 caliber Smith & Wesson handgun fell from the vehicle as he was being removed, the report said.

Riedmann was taken to a local hospital where he died 30 minutes later. A toxicology report from the state's medical examiner revealed Riedmann tested positive for methamphetamine and amphetamine. The latter is commonly found in prescription medication.

Following the shooting, Grimsley and the two other officers involved were placed on paid administrative leave and returned after being cleared by doctors.

We are in agreement with County Attorney Jennings findings. Now the police department and the officers can move on, Police Chief Doug Young said Friday. But it is unfortunate that we have three young officers that have to carry this around with them for the rest of their lives.
Tyson Nawanna, 29, was arrested Thursday morning in Le Mars, Iowa. He was wanted by the Woodbury County Sheriff's Office for violating his pre-trial release.

Also, Duran Medina, 28, was captured after an agent recognized him in a local business on Feb. 7. He was wanted by the Iowa Department of Corrections for escaping from the Residential Treatment Facility in Sioux City. Medina was in the treatment center after being convicted of assault while participating in a felony and habitual offender.
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SIOUX CITY | A 20-year-old man shot a juvenile Friday night after stealing his cell phone and food and led to a two-hour standoff with police.

Darius Wright, of Sioux City, has been charged with attempted murder.

And Wright, Dontaiven Drappeaux, 18, and, Tykell Robinson, 20, have been charged with first-degree robbery.

The standoff with SWAT lasted from midnight to 2 a.m. Saturday at 423 16th St., which is at the intersection of the 1600 block of Pierce Street.

According to court documents, several people were walking near the 1600 block of Pierce Street at 11:25 p.m. Saturday and were approached by Wright, Robinson and Drappeaux and one of them brandished a handgun.

The three then stole a male juvenile in the group's cell phone and several food items he had just purchased at Kum and Go, 1373 Pierce St. Wright then shot the juvenile in the torso, and the small caliber bullets pierced his lung and liver. He was taken to Mercy Medical Center-- Sioux City for serious injuries.

Sioux City Police Sgt. Terry Ivener said at 3 a.m. Saturday authorities were first notified after the injured juvenile went back to Kum and Go to call for help.

Minutes later while police were at the gas station, more gunshots were reported from the area where the juvenile was robbed and shot.

"So we split the officers to both places and the (victims) said, 'Hey, that was the place that was shooting at us,'" Ivener said.

Upon arrival to the apartments, police knocked on the door and found spent gun shell casings.

"They wouldn't come to the door, but the neighbor said that people were in there. So we thought we had a possible barricaded subject, so we called SWAT," Ivener said. "When we know people inside have guns, we did what we needed to do."

Authorities surrounded the premises and blocked off streets while the SWAT team arrived. Police called for the occupants inside to "come out with your hands up" over an intercom system numerous times.

Sioux City SWAT and crisis negotiators arrived on scene at approximately 12:30 a.m. Saturday. The SWAT members went up to the door of the apartment fully equipped with protective gear and assault rifles and demanded the occupants to exit the building. Residents in the entire building-- and neighboring homes-- were forced to evacuate while police set a parameter around the building for more than two hours.

At about 1:20 a.m., two of the suspects came out separately from the building with their hands in the air and surrendered to officers' commands. The suspects were taken into custody.

BREAKING VIDEO suspect exits the building at gun point. He's one of two to come out so far, police are calling for another @scj @SUX911 pic.twitter.com/MGy2gOV9os  Alex Boisjolie (@scjAlexB) February 11, 2017

Ivener said that one of the three charged was stabbed at the gas station, but was uncooperative with police.

The documents said that Wright was arrested for attempted murder and first-degree robbery. And Robinson and Drappeaux were arrested and charged with first-degree robbery in connection with the incident.

Robinson is also awaiting trial for an armed home invasion last year.

The investigation is ongoing.

The release asks if anyone has information about the crime, contact Crime Stoppers at (712) 258-8477.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | Cleanup procedures are continuing at the site of a Wednesday sewage backup south of Interstate 129 in South Sioux City.

Brian McManus, a Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality spokesman, said 95,000 gallons of sewage were released after a pump failure at a temporary lift station that handles sewage from Big Ox Energy and other tenants in the Roth Industrial Park.

The sewage flowed out of a manhole and filled a north-south ditch running alongside C Avenue, as well as several meters of an east-west ditch alongside the interstate. City crews worked Wednesday and Thursday to clean up the liquid.

NDEQ is monitoring the cleanup, which McManus said continued Thursday. McManus said next steps will be include cleaning up the soil.

"From everything our inspector has seen, they're doing the proper cleanup procedures," McManus said.

He said no sewage reached any local bodies of water.

"A definitive statement our inspector told me was that none of it had gotten into rivers or creeks," McManus said. "They're just dealing with the area it was contained in."

City administrator Lance Hedquist said crews worked Thursday, and any remaining sewage was due to the need to obtain permission to enter Department of Roads property in the area.

Hedquist said the equipment manufacturer was visiting South Sioux City Friday to investigate what caused the equipment failure.

The temporary lift station is part of the city's plan to reroute industrial sewage around homes in a five-block area of Red Bird Lane and Lemasa Drive.

More than a dozen families were forced to flee last fall due to hydrogen sulfide gas believed to have emanated through pipes at several residences that, at the time, shared a sewer line with the Big Ox renewable energy plant, which fired up around the time the odors were reported.

A separate force main is scheduled to be expanded to the Roth Industrial Park later this spring. The temporary lift station that failed Wednesday will no longer be needed after that, city officials noted.




Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blog spot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

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..Tabletmag.com..08 February '17..As an indigenous activistI am a Metis from the Paddle Prairie Metis settlement in Alberta, Canadathere is one question I am most often asked by the public, one that can instantly divide a community due to its intense and arduous subject matter.Yet, regardless of the scenario, each time I hear the words, Are Jews the indigenous people of Israel? Im inclined to answer not only with my heart but with the brutal, honest truth, backed by indisputable, thousands-year-old historical and archaeological fact: yes.While evidence in favor of this view is overwhelming, activists who oppose Israels right to exist and deny the Jewish peoples connection to the landperhaps before learning where indigenous status stems from and what it meansstill have an issue with this claim, supporting a narrative built on falsehoods that today is basically acknowledged as fact.It is my belief that strengthening Jewish identity is the optimum way to fight against the perpetuation of false narratives and lies. This can be achieved only through an indigenous decolonization of Jewish identity, which would urge Jews to see themselves through a Jewish lens and manifest the indigenous aspects of Jewish identity in a meaningful way.
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GSK plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the creation, discovery, development, manufacture, and marketing of pharmaceutical products, vaccines, over-the-counter medicines, and health-related consumer products in the United Kingdom, the United States, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Pharmaceuticals, Pharmaceuticals R&D, Vaccines, and Consumer Healthcare. The company offers pharmaceutical products comprising medicines in the therapeutic areas, such as respiratory, HIV, immuno-inflammation, oncology, anti-viral, central nervous system, cardiovascular and urogenital, metabolic, anti-bacterial, and dermatology. It also provides consumer healthcare products in wellness, oral health, nutrition, and skin health categories. The company offers its consumer healthcare products in the form of nasal sprays, tablets, syrups, lozenges, gum and trans-dermal patches, caplets, infant syrup drops, liquid filled suspension, wipes, gels, effervescents, toothpastes, toothbrushes, mouthwashes, denture adhesives and cleansers, topical creams and non-medicated patches, lip balm, gummies, and soft chews. It has collaboration agreements with 23andMe; Lyell Immunopharma, Inc.; Novartis; Sanofi SA; Surface Oncology; Progentec Diagnostics, Inc.; Alector, Inc.; and CureVac AG., as well as strategic partnership with IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc. and Vir Biotechnology, Inc. The company was formerly known as GlaxoSmithKline plc and changed its name to GSK plc in May 2022. GSK plc was founded in 1715 and is headquartered in Brentford, the United Kingdom.
Canada, Social Movements  February 11, 2017  Andrea Levy and Corvin Russell

If there is a single theme that has distinguished left politics in Canada and Quebec at least since the 1960s, it is the aspiration to national sovereignty. For both the social-democratic and radical left in Quebec, the pursuit of social justice is inextricably bound up with national liberation and the creation of a sovereign state emancipated from the colonial chokehold of the Canadian federation. Meanwhile, a considerable part of the left in English Canada for decades similarly conceived the liberation of the Canadian economy and foreign policy from domination by the superpower to the south as the starting point of any viable left project.

And today the renewed struggle for self-determination of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and Quebec is slowly changing the character of left politics across the country, as the long overdue reckoning with the brutal historic dispossession of the original inhabitants of the places we call Canada and Quebec unsettles our ways of seeing, putting the concept of settler-colonialism in the centre of much contemporary left analysis and activism.

It is perhaps an irony but not an accident of history that these parallel and sometimes conflicting nationalisms have asserted themselves most forcefully in an era of accelerating capitalist globalization when the real scope of national sovereignty is being progressively narrowed in practice by a wired interdependent world, increasingly far-reaching corporate trade agreements, and a global ecological end-game which calls for strategies that lie beyond the purview of national states.

National and Regional Divides

The colonialism built into the bedrock of the Canadian state has bequeathed deep fractures and wounds which are, naturally, reflected in some of the tropes and tensions of left politics, broadly conceived. Historically, the Canadian social-democratic left has been indifferent at best and hostile at worst to the project and prospect of Quebec independence. And while the radical left has been, on the whole, more sympathetic to left nationalism in Quebec, dialogue in both cases is impeded by the linguistic divide: there are people on the left in Canada and Quebec who literally cannot understand one another.

Even within English Canada, the left is fragmented regionally. In the worlds second-largest country, geography is almost as much an obstacle to communication and unity as ideology. Distances are vast and national face-to-face meetings costly and difficult to arrange. Consequently, there are regional left cultures that often know little about one another. Few people on the left in Nova Scotia are conversant with the composition and activities of the left in British Columbia. The challenges for organizing are enormous.

In addition to the strains attendant on the particularities of Canada as a territorial state are the disputes and divisions more or less common to the left across the global North. There is the conflict, for instance, between an increasingly pallid Third Way social democracy, embodied by the New Democratic Party at the federal and provincial levels, and a small anti-capitalist left that is intellectually vigorous but largely devoid of any political or organizational structure. The type of inclusive party of the contemporary radical left that has been built in Europe, such as Syriza, Die Linke, or Podemos, has yet to emerge in Canada, although Quebec has witnessed the birth of Quebec Solidaire on the model of the coalition party, replete with organized tendencies.

Politics of Redistribution; Politics of Representation

The left in Canada and Quebec is also marked by the tension between the politics of redistribution, at the heart of the traditional left endeavour in both its reformist and radical guises, and the politics of representation, which animates many of todays progressive movements, from contemporary feminist politics to transgender rights. This disjuncture intersects with a generation gap when it comes to political priorities  particularly within the social movement left and radical left in English Canada  between those who came of age politically before 1980 and those who were politicized after. In the political analysis and practice of the latter cohorts, the structural oppression of marginalized minorities often occupies centre stage, and in particular the issue of structural racism and white privilege. There is a perception, particularly widespread among younger women and activists of colour, that traditional left culture has an unacknowledged, specifically white male bias that creates an inhospitable climate for them. They often see left organizations as environments that reproduce their marginalization, whether it is through ignorance of their issues or neglect of their analysis of those issues; a lack of sensitivity to important differences in collective experience and knowledge; or the resilient belief in class struggle as the primary struggle.

This has proved a challenge for some, rooted in older left traditions, who view the frame of identity as one that elides or downplays class analysis and aligns with liberal-individualist concepts of emancipation. Those who argue for the primacy of class, however, have not always put forward their own productive frameworks for engaging movements organized around race, gender, sexual orientation, and indigeneity, and their lack of sure-footedness in navigating the issues has rendered more traditional left analysis suspect among many young progressives.

If internal divisions were not enough of a challenge to the unity and coherence of progressive forces, a decade of relentless right-wing policy taxed the strength and resources of many left organizations. In the fall of 2015, Canada emerged from ten years of the most reactionary government in the countrys modern history, during which time organized labour, social programs, the legislative protections afforded the environment, the practices of representative democracy, and the right of dissent were all under siege. Even science was a target of repression under the Conservative regime of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Under these circumstances, the left in all its manifestations has primarily fought a rearguard action to protect past gains from the steady incursions of economic neoliberalism and social conservatism. Notwithstanding the rocky ground, the landscape of the left in Canada and Quebec has not been arid, however. A number of notable moments, movements, and even parties of opposition have made their mark. This brief survey offers an aerial view of contemporary left struggles, setbacks, and successes. 

Download full text: English | French.

This was published by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.
The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless.



The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well.







By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism.
Le Collectif Cheikh Yassine a organise un certain nombre dactivites et de festivites pour les enfants de Gaza sous le theme  La joie des enfants de Gaza pour lAid . Ces activites ont commence le premier jour de lAid et continue jusquau 4eme jour de lAid dans la bande de Gaza.



Plusieurs activites, ont ete organisees parmi lesquelles : des competitions recompensees par des prix, des jeux, des animations et des chants presentes par un groupe ainsi que des distributions de cadeaux et daides financieres.




American Girl was on her A game Friday night at Miami Valley Raceway, pacing the third fastest time by a distaff pacer in the tracks four-year history to capture the weekly $22,000 Mares Open Pace in 1:51.

The only quicker ones came in the last two editions of the Sam Chip Noble Memorial Grand Circuit Stake by Yagonnakissmeornot and Shebestingin.

Driver Trace Tetrick left alertly with American Girl from the No. 5 post position, opting for a two-hole trip when he let Jackies Rocket (Brady Galliers) clear to the lead approaching the :27.1 first quarter mile marker. Content to sit chilly in the pocket through middle fractions of :55.3 and 1:23, Tetrick sighed with relief when the outer tier started to falter and he found racing room at the head of the stretch. American Girl gained steadily on Jackies Rocket until passing the pacesetter with less than a furlong to go, then held off the furious late charge of runner-up Endeavors Fantasy (Mike Oosting) in deep stretch.

With the win American Girls lifetime bankroll grows to $754,388. It was the initial 2017 win for the eight-year-old Arts Chip mare who is owned by Darla Gaskin and Stanley Rosenblatt and trained by Tyler George. After a 10-win 2016 season, American Girl had finished second once and third three times in her first four outings this year.

Six divisions of a Survivor Series for $10,000 claiming male pacers were also contested with the top six finishers in each qualifying to return for Round 2 next Friday in four divisions.

Winners were Keystone Memphis (Chris Page, 1:54.1, $17.20 to win), Lexington Avenue (Jeremy Smith, 1:55.3, $70.80), Greatheart Hanover (Tyler Smith, 1:55, $8.40), Sand Summerfield (Mike Oosting, 1:55.3, $21.60), Ahdoughnolum (Tyler Smith, 1:54.3, $24.60) and Whoyoucallingafool (Jason Brewer, 1:53.3, $4.80).

A total of 15 of the 59 horses in Round One were claimed, eight of whom advanced to Round Two when they will carry 20% higher price tags.

(Miami Valley Raceway)
The essential component of totalitarian propaganda is artifice (het toepassen van kunstgrepen. svh) . The ruling elites, like celebritie...
U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, a Republican lawmaker from Missouri, has invited Dennis Freeman, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Cherokee Health Systems, to testify next week before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and provide the committee with an overview of the countrys mental healthcare system.

There, Dr. Freeman will also discuss the importance of increasing patient access to mental health services for those living in inner cities and rural areas, as well as for those without insurance coverage.

Dr. Freeman also plans to explain the Integrated Care model that Cherokee Health Systems uses to achieve positive health outcomes for its patients.

The hearing will begin at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC.




The Midtown Mayor Candidate Forum 2017 will be held on Monday, Feb. 20, from 6 p.m.-8 p.m. at Eastgate Town Center, 5600 Brainerd Road, Entrance C.

The forum is hosted by Cindys Choice and Eastgate Town Center. Sponsors include Mountain View Property Management, Avalon Design Studio and Heritage Health Food.

There will be networking and mingling with the candidates from 6-6:30 p.m. with complimentary appetizers available.

The event will be filmed for sharing on social media.

Cindy Deering, owner of Cindys Choice, will introduce Jennifer Yeally, event coordinator of Eastgate Center and co-sponsor, along with the presenting sponsor, Chanda Atchley of Mountain View Property Management, and sponsors Rob Gonyea of Avalon Design Studio and Jon Fish of Heritage Health Food and which ever of the City Council candidates that are in attendance (listed below) at 6:30 p.m.

Moderator to introduce the mayor candidates (listed below) and moderate the forum immediately following introductions by 7 p.m. or sooner depending on how many City Council candidates are in attendance.

Chattanooga Mayor Candidates

 Andy Berke - Incumbent

 David Crockett

 Larry Grohn

 Chris Long

City Council, District 1

 Chip Henderson - Incumbent

 Susan Miller

 Jay Nevans

City Council, District 2

 Mickey McCamish

 Jerry Mitchell - Incumbent

City Council, District 3

 Ken Smith - Incumbent

City Council, District 4

 Darrin Ledford

City Council, District 5

 Jeffrey E. Evans

 Russell Gilbert Sr. - Incumbent

 Cynthia G. Stanley-Cash

City Council, District 6

 Carol B. Berz - Incumbent

City Council, District 7

 Chris M. Anderson - Incumbent

 Erskine Oglesby Jr.

 Manny Rico

City Council, District 8

 Anthony Byrd

 Moses Freeman Jr. - Incumbent

 Thomas P. Kunesh

City Council, District 9

 Pat Benson Jr.

 Demetrus Coonrod

 Yusuf A. Hakeem - Incumbent

 John L. Kerns
My crystal ball CB said that the war in Ukraine will end by March 2023. Why? - Ukraine does not want to continue fighting, as most of thei...




The Net has described me as a 'mad scientist of RPG blogging,' and a 'Quixotic bastard' ... and also 'the most gonzo - and the grouchiest - old school DM.'









Began playing Dungeons and Dragons at the age of 15, forty-two years ago. I am a steadfast AD&D gamer, but I have made so many changes to the original system that my present model is something of a Frankenstein's monster of role-playing design. I continue to make new changes every day to my game's structure and function.
WOODLAND  Along a rural road in the Woodland Bottoms, theres a small grove of scraggly, moss-covered trees clustered near the charred remnants of an old burned home. Walnut shells litter the ground and a hawk flies over an empty field behind the trees. If it werent for a decaying sign with some missing letters, it would be easy to miss the Guild-Klady Centennial Farm, an acre-or-so sized community orchard that dates back nearly 140 years.

A group of local boy scouts hope to change that.

With finanical help from the Port of Woodland, which owns it, the scouts are restoring the orchard so that anyone from the public can pick the apples, walnuts, pears, plums, cherries and other fruits, for free. Port staff hope one day high school students can harvest an extra bounty from the orchard to donate to local food banks.

Fifteen-year-old Angus Moir said he was looking forward to making an impact in Woodland, where his family has deep roots.

My family has had three generations (here). None of them even knew (the orchard) was there. So hopefully it will be a little more well-known once the project is done, Angus said.

Over the next several months, Angus and two fellow scouts from Troop 531, Will Buttrell, 15, and Noah Kuykendall, 16, will work with port staff and community members to coordinate the restoration project. Already, some dead trees have been removed. The boys hope to replant trees, build and install new benches, add 200-feet of walking trails and create new signs with historical information. The port hopes to have the orchard restored by the summer.

The boys need to complete the community project to attain Eagle Scout rank. Parents and scout troop leaders have little to do with the success of the project, which is supposed to be driven and lead by the scouts themselves, said Richard Trygar, scoutmaster for Troop 531.

Its a unique project for the Port of Woodland, said Jennifer Keene, port executive director, whose son is also a younger member of Troop 531 but who will not be involved.

The orchard is nestled into the future of home of the Guild Road Industrial Park, where the port hopes to attract new light industrial clients. The project will provide an alternative green-space measure to meet city requirements for landscaping of new developments.

Rather than tear out this beautiful orchard and replace it with some regular trees, why not keep a little bit of heritage there? And it adds character, Keene said.

Originally, the property was part of the estate of Osa May Taggert, whose great grandfather (Guild) planted the trees in the late 1800s, according to WSU Vancouvers website. The apples were used to make applesauce and Christmas decorations. The pears, lacking flavor, were used to feed livestock. Severe winds and floods in 1893 forced Guild to replant several of the trees, and some of those trees are still standing today. Taggerts grandfather purchased the property in 1912 from his wifes father (Klady).

The Port of Woodland purchased eight acres of Taggerts property in 2011, which included the orchard. However, the port didnt actually take possession of the land until March 2016, about 18 months after Taggert died. In the last year, the port has worked with Cowlitz County fire officials to burn two of the old crumbling homes on the property, although one home still remains. Eventually that home will be restored and turned into the future site of the ports administrative offices in the next few years, Keene said.

Community members said it would be nice if you could try to keep (the orchard), Keene said. She mentioned it to some of the scout leaders, who pitched the idea as a potential Eagle project.

Its not clear yet how much the orchard project will cost, but port commissioners have agreed to pay the expenses. Angus said the scouts will try to get discounted or donated materials when possible.

The trio of scouts said they wanted to create a lasting project.

Later on this park will still be there. And we can take our kids there and say we helped do this, and that was really appealing to all of us, I think. Its just something that would leave a mark, a lasting impression on the city, Angus said.

Rather than tear out this beautiful orchard and replace it with some regular trees, why not keep a little bit of heritage there? And it adds character.  Jennifer Keene, executive director, Port of Woodland (owner of the site)
The United States conducting frequent and large-scale reconnaissance missions in the South China Sea is the root cause of accidents between US and Chinese militaries, experts said.

Therefore, China and US militaries should enhance communication and strengthen mutual trust to nip potential accidents in the bud, they added.

A US Navy plane approached a Chinese military aircraft on Wednesday in the airspace near Huangyan Island, one of China's islands in the South China Sea, an official close to China's Defense Ministry said on Friday. The Chinese plane, which was conducting routine training in the region, reacted professionally and adhered to law.

"We hope the US will take the big picture of Sino-US military relations into account, and take practical measures to remove the root cause of accidents between the two countries in air and on sea," the official added.

This was the first time US and Chinese military planes met in 2017. The last two incidents were on May 17 and June 7. A US official told Reuters that the incident was rare and inadvertent.

Ma Gang, a professor from the People's Liberation Army National Defense University, said the US has been conducting frequent and large-scale reconnaissance missions in the South China Sea for decades, and "this is the root cause for the accidents."

"If the US still views China as an obstacle, then similar accidents are still likely to occur," he said. "Accident prevention requires the US to keep an open mind about China and remain honest in dialogue."

The US government will remain committed to the one-China policy, and develop "a constructive relationship that benefits both the US and China," according to a White House news release on US President Donald Trump's first phone call with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Thursday, which described the call as "extremely cordial."

Last week, US Defense Secretary James Mattis suggested that diplomacy should be the priority in the South China Sea, and the US saw no need for "dramatic military moves" at this time.

Fu Mengzi, the vice-president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said it is a good sign that China and the US are having positive interactions, and the US should build mutual trust and respect China's stance on principle issues like national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Hindustan Motors is saying goodbye to the iconic brand Ambassador as it is selling it to French car-maker Peugeot. According to a report, C K Birla group firm has finalised an agreement worth Rs 80 crore with Peugeot SA.

The Ambassador has been one of the most important cars for India as it was the first 'Made in India' car. Hindustan Motors began production of the Ambassador which was originally the Morris Oxford series III that was manufactured in the UK. HM acquired the license to produce the Ambassador in India in 1954 with the first units rolling out in 1957, right when the production of the original came to an end in the UK. During that time, it was the only passenger car produced in India and that remained for years until Maruti Suzuki started its operations back in 1983.

The Ambassador has always had a strong Indian connection. It has been one of the longest running taxi and if you happen to visit Kolkata, you might still find a few running. Thanks to its strong and sturdy build, the Ambassador was also used as the official car for government officials for decades at was also titled 'The Neta'. The Indian government is said to have bought as many as 16 percent of total units produced by the company.

HM managed to sell 24,000 units of the car every year during the 1980s. With the emergence of new and improved automobiles, annual sales went down to an average of 6,000 units in the 2000s. It was discontinued in 2014 as sales dropped massively and it was difficult for the manufacturer to keep up with the new generation of cars.

Ironically, Peugeot had launched a commercial for one of their cars in 2002. It showed a young Indian trying to make his Ambassador look like the Peugeot 206 by ramming it against a wall, making an elephant sit on it and hammering it down.

Coming back to the deal, reports claim that the tie-up will allow Peugeot to enter the Indian automobile market through a joint venture.

"Hindustan Motors has executed an agreement with Peugeot SA for the sale of the Ambassador brand, including the trademarks, for a consideration of Rs 80 crore," Hindustan Motors said in a regulatory filing.

It is also expected to setup a plant with initial manufacturing capacity set at about 1 lakh vehicles per year. There is no word if Peugeot will use the Ambassador branding, but considering the deal, there is a chance that it could use it to leverage sales.
hidden

School children in England will be offered lessons in cyber security in a bid to find the experts of the future to defend the UK from attacks, the media reported on Saturday.

It is hoped that 5,700 pupils aged 14 and over will spend up to four hours a week on the subject in a five-year pilot, the BBC reported.

Classroom and online teaching, "real-world challenges" and work experience will be made available from September.

Cyber security is a fast-growing industry, employing 58,000 experts, according to the UK government, but the Public Accounts Committee has warned it is proving difficult to recruit people with the right skills.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is providing 20 million pounds ($24 million) for the new lessons, which will be designed to fit around pupils' current courses and exams.

Digital and Culture Minister Matt Hancock said: "This forward-thinking programme will see thousands of the best and brightest young minds given the opportunity to learn cutting-edge cyber security skills alongside their secondary school studies."

"We are determined to prepare Britain for the challenges it faces now and in the future and these extra-curricular clubs will help identify and inspire future talent," he told the BBC.

The government is already providing university funding and work placements for promising students.

Hancock said he wanted to ensure the UK "had the pipeline of talent" it would need.

IANS
Modi faces election test as voting begins in Uttar Pradesh

Muslim women queue to cast their votes at a polling station in Muzaffarnagar, India\'s Uttar Pradesh State on Saturday.

AFP, Muzaffarnagar :

Voting got underway on Saturday in India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh in a contest seen as a key test for Narendra Modi halfway into his first term as prime minister.

Uttar Pradesh is home to over 200 million people-more than the entire population of Brazil-and polls there are a bellwether of national politics.

"All voters must take part in this huge festival of democracy and cast their ballots in big numbers," Modi implored on Twitter Saturday.

But this election is also being seen as a referendum on his controversial ban on high-value notes, a move aimed at combating tax evasion by the rich that has hit poor rural communities hard.

The northern state voted overwhelmingly for Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2014 general election, powering him to victory over the Congress Party that has dominated Indian politics since independence.

This time around the BJP faces a major challenge from the youthful and charismatic current Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, running in an alliance with Congress.

Yadav predicted rural voters would vent their frustration with Modi's banknote ban and deliver the prime minister a "big jolt".

"Modi must answer the people," Yadav told reporters in the state capital Lucknow.

"His credibility will come into question, and that is why he is panicking."

There were no initial reports of disturbances but security was tight in Muzaffarnagar, with soldiers deployed to guard the nearly 900 polling stations across the state's western district.

The memory of Hindu-Muslim violence in 2013 that left at least 50 people dead and thousands displaced was fresh in the minds of some voters as they headed to the ballot box.

"We don't want a repeat of the riots. All we want is peace," Mohammed Shahid, 60, told AFP in Muzaffarnagar.

Voting will be staggered over several weeks, with results out on March 11, and pollsters put the BJP neck and neck with Yadav's Samajwadi Party and Congress.

Congress, whose 46-year-old likely next leader Rahul Gandhi has campaigned alongside Yadav, desperately needs a win after a dismal performance in 2014.

Both Modi and Gandhi-scion of the family that has dominated the party for generations-have their seats in Uttar Pradesh, underscoring the importance of the electorally pivotal state.

"The government will be judged on the popularity or lack of popularity of its demonetisation policy in India's most populous state," said Ashok Malik, a fellow with think-tank Observer Research Foundation.

"There will also be other factors at play in these state polls, but Modi's BJP will be judged in comparison to its performance in the state in 2014."
Assad rejects Trump's call for 'safe zones' inside Syria

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad during an interview with Yahoo News.

Agencies, Damascus :

Syrian President Bashar Assad, in an exclusive interview with Yahoo News, rejected President Trump's idea to create "safe zones" inside Syria as "not a realistic idea at all." He said he could see a role for American troops to fight the Islamic State in Syria, but only with his government's approval and as part of a "rapprochement" with Russia.

"So, if you want to start genuinely as United States to [defeat the Islamic State] it must be through the Syrian government," said Assad, when asked about reports that Trump has directed the Pentagon to develop new plans to destroy the Islamic State that could include the deployment of more U.S. special forces troops and Apache helicopters inside Syria.

"We are here, we are the Syrians. We own this country as Syrians, nobody else," he added. "So, you cannot defeat the terrorism without cooperation with the people and the government of any country."

Assad's comments during a 34-minute interview reflected his increasingly emboldened stance since Russian airstrikes helped drive rebels from eastern Aleppo, turning the tide in the country's six-year-old civil war. He acknowledged regularly consulting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, and demanded that the U.S. lift economic sanctions against Syria as a first step to working with his military and Moscow to defeat terrorists.The interview turned contentious when Assad was questioned repeatedly about new allegations of torture and other human rights abuses by his government - allegations he dismissed as "lies" and part of a campaign by Amnesty International, the Persian Gulf states and even the U.S. FBI to "demonize the Syrian government." The interview in Assad's office was his first since President Trump took office. While he said he found Trump's public statements about fighting terrorism "promising," he was dismissive of the U.S. president's recent assertion that he would "absolutely do safe zones in Syria for the people" endangered by the country's fierce civil war.

"But actually, it won't [protect civilians], it won't," Assad said. "Safe zones for the Syrians could only happen when you have stability and security, where you don't have terrorists, where you don't have [the] flow and support of those terrorists by the neighboring countries or by Western countries.


Iraq won`t take part in regional conflict, Abadi says after Trump phone call

Reuters, Baghdad :

Iraq won't take part in any regional or international conflicts, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Saturday.

The comment came after Abadi had spoke in a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump where tensions with Iran were mentioned.

"Iraq is very keen to preserve its national interests (..)and does not wish to be part of any regional or international conflict which would lead to disasters for the region and for Iraq," Abadi told state TV.

The White House on Friday said Trump and Abadi "spoke to the threat Iran presents across the entire region," in their first phone call since the inauguration of the U.S. president.

Abadi's office on Friday also gave a readout of the phone call that took place overnight Thursday, without specifically mentioning Iran.

Iraq won't take part in any regional or international conflicts, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told state TV on Saturday.

A political commentator close to Abadi, Ihsan al-Shammari, said Abadi's comment addressed the U.S.-Iranian tensions.

Iran has close ties with the Shi'ite political elite ruling Iraq while Washington is providing critical military support to Iraqi forces battling Islamic State.

"Iraq is very keen to preserve its national interests (..)and does not wish to be part of any regional or international conflict which would lead to disasters for the region and for Iraq," Abadi said, according to state TV.

Trump said on Friday that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani "better be careful" after the latter was quoted as saying that anyone who speaks to Iranians with threats would "regret it."
Are learning styles a myth?

Anna Weinstein :

What kind of learner are you?

If you ask most adults, they'll tell you-"I'm a visual learner," "Definitely an auditory learner," "A kinesthetic learner for sure." In fact, this general understanding of how people learn is so ingrained in public perception that many parents even apply their understanding to their children. For example, "Tommy isn't an auditory learner because when I tell him to do something, he doesn't listen, but when I display a sticker chart on the wall, he responds. He must be a visual learner."

Though this example might make intuitive sense, it doesn't tell the whole story. According to Dr. James Witte, Auburn University Associate Professor of Adult Education, there are several types of learning styles, including: cognitive (how we think about learning), affective (how we feel about learning), and perceptual (how we perceive our environment and how it relates to learning). When we talk about someone being a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner, we're talking about the perceptual learning style.

In fact, according to Witte, there are four other perceptual modalities: print (seeing written words); interactive (verbalization); haptic (sense of touch or grasp); and olfactory (sense of smell and taste). Witte, who established the Institute for Learning Styles Research Journal in 2006, explains that perceptual learning has to do with the five senses and the way in which people extract information from their surroundings.

"There's nothing restrictive about a learning style," Witte says. "Just because you prefer to read for informative purposes doesn't mean you can't learn through lecture." This is where many people get it wrong, Witte explains. It's not that someone is specifically one type of learner over another; it's that individuals have preferred learning styles.

Witte does not advocate testing perceptual modalities with children, however. "You have to read over and over again before you decide you like reading," Witte says. "I'm not sure that the child has sufficient neural network based on repetition to legitimately establish a modality preference. If a kid is just learning to read, why would you expect him to have a preference for reading?"

So is there such a thing as a kinesthetic learner (a person who learns best when involving the whole body)? Many parents have been told or have deduced that their energetic child who is constantly in motion, who must be "doing" at all times, is a kinesthetic learner. Witte would tend to agree that these children might be kinesthetic learners, though he admits that there's still a lack of evidence to demonstrate this with certainty. "I'm a very, very conservative researcher," Witte says. "I believe the learning styles investigation involving perceptual modalities are primary designed for adults. But even if we look at our high school students, if you are wiggling in your seat and showing a lack of attention, the odds are that you will not be identified as a ready-for-college student. And yet all the student wants to do is to learn by doing! It's amazing what students can produce if we can meet that kinesthetic need."

Witte's conservative approach to research is likely regarded as appropriate in the fields of education and educational psychology, particularly given the ongoing debate about whether there's any evidence that perceptual modalities and learning styles exist.

Dr. Daniel Willingham, Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Virginia, says "kinesthetic learners don't exist, and learning styles don't exist." Willingham explains that the notion of children learning differently (that some learn better if you read a story aloud, act out a story, etc.) is just a prediction. "It's been tested over and over again, and no one can find evidence that it's true," Willingham says. "The idea moved into public consciousness, and in a way it's perplexing. There are some ideas that are just sort of self-sustaining."

It's understandable, though, why this particular idea is self-sustaining. The Dunn-Dunn Learning Styles model is one of the more popular learning styles models, developed in 1967, and widely used U.S. schools. The model incorporates the following premises:

Everyone has strengths, but different people have different strengths.

Most individuals can learn.

Instructional environments, resources, and approaches respond to diversified strengths.

Individual instructional preferences exist and can be measured reliably.

Given responsive environments, students attain statistically higher achievement and aptitude test scores in matched, rather than mismatched treatments.

Most teachers can learn to use learning styles as a cornerstone of their instruction.

Many students can learn to capitalize on their learning style strengths.

This model, though researched in more than 90 higher education institutions across the United Stated, has its share of criticism. Dr. Frank Coffield, Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, assessed the Dunn-Dunn model along with other learning style models and came to the following conclusion, detailed in his report "Should We Be Using Learning Styles? What Research Has to Say to Practice." "Despite a large and evolving research program, forceful claims made for impact are questionable because of limitations in many of the supporting studies and the lack of independent research on the model."

Willingham explains the criticism this way: "One problem is that nearly all of the empirical work that is supposed to support the Dunn and Dunn model are masters and PhD dissertations of students who worked with her [Rita Dunn], and were not published in peer-reviewed journals. This makes people suspicious that these studies are not methodologically rigorous enough to stand up to scrutiny."

Witte agrees that most methods for testing learning styles have not demonstrated validity. "The vast majority of learning styles instruments do not seem to report validity and reliability," Witte says. "That's not to say that learning styles don't exist, but I would say that they're very difficult to measure."

Willingham suggests that we think about differences in material and what is to be communicated rather than thinking the differences lie in children. "Let the material be the guide," Willingham says. "There's no doubt that seeing something in different ways is going to be a good thing."

In response to the suggestion that learning styles do not exist, Witte says, "Well, we still have people who are convinced that IQ tests are nothing more than vocabulary tests. This should not be a debate over whether learning styles exist, but how we measure them."
BB not willing to raise banks stock exposure limit

Economic Reporter :

Bangladesh Bank has rejected the government's move to raise the limit of banks' stock market exposure and state loan guarantee to large business group for investment in priority sectors.

Besides, the local business groups can take any large scale loan from banking sector through syndication of banks and financial institutions if the government provides guarantee to the loans.

Bangladesh Bank General Manager Abu Fara Md Nasar last week sent a letter for not amending the provisions 26 (A) and 26 (B) of Bank Companies Act 1991.

He said if the provisions are amended, there will be a negative impact on the country's stock market.

Officials of the Bank and Financial Institution Division said the central bank does not agree with the amendment of the that provision 26 (A) as the big groups want to have contracts with the banks who invest in stocks.

They said the central bank thinks the investments are not certain and market base. BB letter reads: "Overall bank investment in the stock market needs to limit for betterment of the local stock market."

It says the government will provide guarantee to the business group loans on case to case basis.

It says: "The syndicated loans to the large business groups will ease risk in implementation of any big project."

Under the provision 26 (A), the bank is not allowed to invest in stock market more than 5% of its total paid up capital.

The banks' share market exposure limit is 25% of its capital under the provision 25 (B) of the Bank Companies Act 1991.
BD pharmaceuticals are of int'l standard

Abul Kasem Khan, President, Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) giving a crest to the visiting Sri Lankan Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen in a city hotel recently. Najith Meewanage, President, Sri Lanka Bangladesh Chamber of Com

UNB, Dhaka :

Sri Lankan Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen has said Bangladeshi pharmaceuticals are of international standard which are being exported to over 200 countries.

He said Bangladesh pharmaceutical industry will experience a bright future if they invest in Sri Lanka.

Rishad Bathiudeen said this at a meeting organised by Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) and Sri Lanka Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SLBCCI) at a city hotel recently, said a press release on Saturday.

Sri Lankan High Commissioner in Dhaka Yasoja Gunasekera was also present during the meeting.

Welcoming the Sri Lankan Industry and Commerce Minister to Bangladesh, DCCI President Abul Kasem Khan said Sri Lanka is one of the closest neighbours and excellent friend of Bangladesh.

Despite having good relation, the bilateral trade between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is far from the expectation level.

In 2015-2016, Bangladesh imported from Sri Lanka were worth only US$45.016 million as against US$30.45 million exported to Sri Lanka.

In order to deepen the existing level of bilateral trade, sensitive product list under SAFTA needs to be revised, said the DCCI President.

Abul Kasem also stressed direct marine connectivity between Chittagong and Mongla ports with Colombo and Trincomalee ports.

He invited Sri Lankan investors to invest in gas-based industry, power, fertilizer, backward linkage of RMG, leather and leather goods, ICT, Education and tourism sector.

Minister Rishad Bathiudeen said Colombo and Hambantota seaports are geographically placed in an advantaged area.

He requested Bangladeshi exporters to use these ports to cut their shipping cost.

Regarding free trade agreement (FTA), the Sri Lankan Industry and Commerce Minister said Sri Lanka is willing to sign FTA with Bangladesh.
Emon pairs up with Ishana in TV ad

Sheikh Arif Bulbon :

Earlier popular film actor Emon worked with model and actress Ishana in several number of TV plays. For the first time, Emon and Ishana performed together as a pair in a TV commercial. They worked together in a TVC of Spark Energy Drinks under Rana Masuds direction. Shooting of the TVC was done in the citys Kurmitola Hospital and Lalbag Fort areas.

While talking about the TVC Emon told this correspondent, Earlier I worked with Ishana in several numbers of plays. For the first time, I performed as a model with her as a pair in a TVC. As an advertisement-maker, Rana Masud is very much experienced. Under his direction, I have worked in the TVC. He has made the TVC cordially. So I am very much optimistic about this TVC.

Ishana shared her feelings by this way, Ripon Khan gave his voice for this jingle based TVC. Rana Masud Bhai has made the TVC cordially. So, I am very much satisfied to work in this TVC.

Director Rana Masud informed that the TVC will go on air in different satellite channels soon.

Emon and Ishana first acted together under Jewel Sharifs direction in a play based on the story of Liberation War. They last worked together in a play under Shahjada Mamuns direction. Emon recently performed with Sarika in a TVC under Sonok Mitras direction. Emon is now engaged with acting in TV plays and telefilms. His acted movie Porobashini will be released soon, he mentioned.

On the other hand, Ishana has been engaged with acting in several TV serials right now. These are: Syed Shakils Shanti Adhidaptar, Hasan Jahangirs Chapabaaj, etc. Ishana is acting in different roles in these serials.


Champagne moment: The players of Otago Sparks celebrate after winning the Women\'s T20 final against Canterbury Magicians at Rangiora on Saturday.
Why self-employment needs nurturing, not protection

Marco Torregrossa :

The report suggests full-time contracts should remain the norm, and on-demand platforms should guarantee certain core working hours to all workers.

As Bloomberg rightly puts it, this is a "maximalist" approach, which will stifle job creation and innovation. It would also speed up automation, solving the worker-protection problem by reducing the number of workers.

Freelancers and self-employed associations at national level regularly run quarterly confidence surveys with their members (e.g. in the UK). These surveys consistently indicate that social security is indeed a concern for the self-employed.

It's an area where access conditions (art. 49 TFEU) remain limited and the self-employed are discriminated vis-a-vis employees. However, social security is not as important as other topics which rank higher in the confidence surveys, such as access to markets (e.g. find work/clients), reducing admin burdens and taxation issues.

In other words, the self-employed generally would prefer to work more (if they are given the chance) rather than not working at all and instead access benefits. This is the reality.

Strict Employment Protection Legislation (EPL), as the European Parliament is proposing, does not by itself entail a higher protection and security for workers. On the contrary, academic research shows that workers feel less secure when jobs are more protected.

As the World Employment Confederation Europe writes, stricter EPL, as measured by the OECD, leads to longer unemployment durations and a lower uptake of entrepreneurship. While protecting employees by reducing the risk of job loss, EPL also increases the associated cost of job loss by reducing the "back to work" rate from unemployment.

In other words, strict EPL concentrates the unemployment risk among outsiders while protecting those that have a job (the insiders).

In the gig economy, a portfolio of work can better protect workers against the possibility of losing all their income at once. Once again, national freelance confidence surveys show that today, having a diversified portfolio of clients that generates multiple income streams is more secure than having one employer.

The labour market is changing, and traditional jobs often provide less security, fewer benefits, and fewer rewards than ever before. In that context, self-employment offers a measure of control over your own destiny.

Recent research by the European Forum of Independent Professionals found that the self-employed population contributed to European GDP with 8.6 billion in service trade in 2014.

The growth in self-employment and above all in freelancing (highly skilled segment of self-employment) has helped the European economy get back on its feet after the recession. It has increased labour productivity, workers' engagement and workplace innovation.

However, changing practices and structural shifts in the labour market aren't yet reflected in the policy thinking of the EU Institutions and national governments.

Governments must not blur the lines between vulnerable gig-economy workers and the on-demand flexible workforce as a whole in their attempts to bring equality to labour laws.

Policymakers must take into account that a blanket approach does not serve all independent workers adequately and has the potential to cause irreparable damage to those who genuinely choose to be self-employed, who largely remain the majority, according to McKinsey.

Good social rights do not automatically go hand in hand with permanent contracts. Employees are increasingly split between burn-out and bore-out, facing either psychological stress because of overwork or lack of rewarding tasks to perform. Rather, we need a policy environment that promotes customised contractual arrangements as a means to increase labour market participation and inclusion.

Addressed properly, the gig economy has the potential to eliminate skill shortages, ease unemployment and create a framework where workers are rewarded exclusively for their output, regardless of their location, education, gender, race or political opinions.

As Bloomberg puts it: applying a core of social rights to the on-demand economy would indeed promote equality by giving more people an equally good chance of being unemployed.

Independent workers are pioneering a new way of work. It's high time that governments listen to what they are telling them!

(Marco Torregrossa is secretary general at the European Forum of Independent Professionals and managing director at Euro Freelancers).


U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (R) addresses a joint press conference with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto (L) after their meeting in Mexico City, capital of Mexico, on Aug. 31, 2016. [Xinhua]

U.S. President Donald Trump is reconsidering the framework of his country's bilateral relations with several countries. Mexico has been one of his top priorities. As a presidential candidate he promised to construct an "impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall." He also visited Mexico City on Sept. 1 2016 and - in spite of his relatively mild tone in comparison to his domestic speeches - he referred to the construction of the wall during his press conference with Mexican President Enrique Pe?a Nieto. But Trump and Nieto soon started to disagree on who would pay for the wall. While the former asked Mexico to do so, the latter rejected any such possibility.

The issue came to the forefront after Trump's inauguration. A meeting with his Mexican counterpart was cancelled after their disagreement on the payment of the wall. Nieto declared in a televised speech to the Mexican people that "Mexico will not pay for any wall" and Trump announced his possible intention to impose a 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico.

The whole discussion about the construction of a wall is rather vague for the time being. That is because a barrier, though not a single continuous structure, already exists. It is therefore questionable whether a new fence will be built or the already existing one will be expanded. It is also not clear how any construction activity will deal with the factor of geographical morphology along the 2,000-mile border. In a final account, critical problems - such as illegal drug trading - will arguably not be stopped with the erection of a wall, as smugglers will be perhaps able to dig and normally continue trafficking.

rump's approach vis-a-vis Mexico is not only centered around the southern wall but also around other issues, such as trade and the North America Free Trade Area (NAFTA). The U.S. president sees a trade deficit for his country as anathema and is prepared to drastically act in order to reduce it. According to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. exports to Mexico from January until November 2016 amounted at $211,848 million and imports amounted at $270,647 million. his means that - in the eleven months of 2016 - Washington had a trade deficit of $63,191 million. More importantly, this deficit has grown in recent years. It was $60,662 million in 2015, $55,408 million in 2014 and $54,601 million in 2013.

Trump's emphasis on protectionism and his will to renegotiate NAFTA - under unknown terms - pose a serious threat to Mexico's export strategy. According to research conducted by the International Business Center of Michigan State University for 2015, 81.32 percent of Mexican exports have the U.S. as their destination. Canada follows with only 2.77 percent. This means that the country and its companies will suffer serious losses should Trump remain adamant on his position.

Mexico is attempting to overcome the problem via constructive diplomacy. Taking into account the new U.S. president's unpredictability, however, it is also looking for alternatives. China could certainly be one of them. According to the aforementioned research, it accounts for only 1.28 percent of Mexican exports. The room for improvement is obvious.

The intention of both sides to work together and improve their bilateral relationship has been strengthened since June 2013, when President Xi Jinping and Nieto decided to bring it to the level of a comprehensive strategic partnership. During his China visit in September 2016, for instance, the latter briefed Chinese journalists on the rising number of Mexican products reaching the country.

In an article published three months later, Mexico's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos de Icaza Gonzalez praised the "increasingly successful" relationship and characterized "the Chinese market increasingly more important for Mexico and (its) global companies." Subsequently, 2016 and 2017 will perhaps see the aforementioned percentage rise.

Last but not least, the future evolution of relations between the U.S. and Mexico might affect China not only in terms of trade policies and new business opportunities but also with regards to new diplomatic approach to international affairs. As long as Trump does not value traditional cooperation with his country's partners - in this case Mexico - it will be a natural consequence for those partners to respond to new developments and explore how they can regain lost confidence. China, a country significantly interested in North and South America, could offer an alternative friendship, which will not necessarily replace but will certainly complement the U.S. role.

George N. Tzogopoulos is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/GeorgeNTzogopoulos.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
Trump`s design to use fear of terrorism to become a dictator exposed

AFTER George Bush Junior, Mr Trump is the second US President to have launched his personal "war on terror". The former had launched his self-styled military campaign under the banner of 'fighting terrorism' in the wake of 9/11 terror attacks. His wrong war against Iraq and Afghanistan is the cause of creation of worst terrorism under the banner ISIS. The brutalities indulged in freely by American soldiers were direct provocation for encouraging terrorism in the Middle East. Mr Trump is using the fear of terrorism to position himself as a dictator in America.



The Muslim countries of the Middle East are the worst victims of so-called Muslim terrorists. Keep aside the 9/11 attacks, according to a FBI report only a small percentage of terrorist attacks carried out on US soil between 1980 and 2005 were perpetrated by Muslims, compared to the percentages of terror attacks carried by Latino and extreme left wing groups. It's a mere 6% and even this is debatable.



According to this data, there were more Jewish acts of terrorism within the United States - 7%. Reportedly, the extremist Jews who committed acts of terrorism based on their religious fanaticism in the likes of al-Qaeda.



A marked observation in this regard is: In the name of fighting terrorism the new leadership in America is becoming increasingly tyrannical. By repeatedly questioning and challenging the legality of his highly objectionable executive orders the US judicial system coupled with the people is now seeing a new dictator in the making. President Trump's all too open policy of reconciliation with Russia is too dangerous for the free world.



Having followed the START Global Terrorism Database which has recorded all terror strikes within America spanning from 1970 through 2012 - it was learnt that only a mere 60 out of a colossal 2400 terror attacks were carried out by Muslims. Yet, the Muslims as a whole have been branded terrorists and number one threat to US security.



For the United States terrorism in the Middle East cannot be such big a security priority that all Muslims should be stigmatised, forgetting that Muslim countries are also fighting ISIS terrorism side by side with America.



Great hope lies in the fact that the American people and the judiciary refused to accept the ban on Muslim entering America. The American people are welcoming the Muslims at the airports. Mr Trump's vicious propaganda against the Muslims has created the opposite and sensible reaction.



The brave role played by the American people and its judiciary will be helpful for the Muslims to fight ISIS terrorism against the West more solidly. ISIS will not have much to show the West's discrimination against the Muslims for targeting them as terrorists. But as terrorists they are not Muslims and not working for the good of Muslims.



But Mr Trump remains a threat to America's greatness. His problem is he himself and it is unbelievable to make him worthy leader of the great American country. 'America first' policy cannot make him the leader of the free world. America for Americans is no greatness.






Oil tank blast kills 13, injures 20

13 people were killed and over 20 others injured when a Dhaka-bound Hanif Paribahan bus hit the in-coming gas cylinder laden covered van sparking fire on Dhaka-Khulna Highway at Nagarkanda in Faridpur on Friday night.

Staff Reporter :

At least 13 people were killed and 20 others injured in a head-on collision between a Dhaka bound passenger bus and a covered van on the Dhaka-Khulna highway in Faridpur on Friday night.

Of the deceased, Golam Rosul, 55, Hemayet Hossain, 40, and Jewel Mia, 20, could be identified. Others could not be identified as they were burned beyond recognition, said the fire service officials who visited the spot.

Both the vehicles' oil tanks caught fire following the impact of collision, they added.

Twenty passengers of the bus, who received burn injuries due the blasts, were admitted to Faridpur Medical College and Hospital, and Bhanga and Mukdudpur health complexes in critical conditions, said our local correspondent quoting police.

Ejazul Islam, Officer-in-Charge of Bhanga Highway Police Station, said, "Twelve passengers of the bus and the driver of the covered van were killed and 20 others injured as the vehicles caught fire following the oil tank blast."

Both the vehicles were run by oil and Mobil, not compressed natural gas (CNG), the OC said.

"We could not identify most of the dead victims as they were burnt to ashes. Their identities might have been clear after verifying the DNA with their relatives," he said.

The local administration handed over Tk 10,000 to each of the deceased families and Tk 5,000 to each of the injured persons' families, he said.

The bodies will be handed over to their families by verifying their identities, the OC added.

Police seized the bus and the covered van, he said. A case was filed with the police station in this connection, the OC said.

In a query, he said that the covered van was loaded with plastic goods, not cylinders of gas.

According to witnesses, a team from Bhanga Fire Service rushed to the spot to carry out rescue operations. Another fire service team from Gopalganj and local police also joined the rescue efforts.

A Dhaka-bound bus of Hanif Paribahan from Narail collided head on with a Khulna-bound covered van in Gozaria area around 11:15pm, said Md Nasim, Officer-in-Charge of Nagarkanda Police Station.

Around 41 passengers boarded in the bus and most of the deceased took the front's seats of the bus, the police official said. Additional police forces have been deployed in the area to avert any untoward situation, he said.


Journos vow to forge united movement Road blockade today

A protest meeting organised by Dhaka Reportersa Unity (DRU) demanding punishment to killers of Sagar Sarwar and Meherun Runi as five years have passed without any trial. This photo was taken on Saturday.

Staff Reporter :

The leaders of journalists' organisations on Saturday vowed to launch a united movement demanding the arrest and exemplary punishment to the killers of journalist couple Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi.

They demanded resignation of the officials of the law enforcing agencies, who failed to discover the clue of the gruesome killing.

The BFUJ and the DUJ will observe the road blockade programme today (Sunday) in front of the National Press Club. They said this while addressing a protest rally in front of the Dhaka Reporters' Unity (DRU), marking the 5th death anniversary of the brutal killing of the journalists.

DRU President Shakhawat Hossain Badsha presided over the programme while its General Secretary Mursalin Nomani moderated it.

Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) (one faction) President Shawkat Mahmud, former President Ruhul Amin Gazi, former General Secretary of National Press Club Syed Abdal Ahmed, BFUJ (another faction) Secretary General Omar Faruque, former Secretary General Abdul Jalil Bhuiyan and Finance Secretary Modushudan Mandol, Joint-Secretary of National Press Club Elias Khan, former Joint-Secretary of the National Press Club Quader Gani Chowdhury, Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ) President Saban Mahmud and General Secretary Sohel Haider Chowdhury, former General Secretary of DUJ Quddus Afrad, BFUJ former General Secretaries Sazzad Alam Khan Topu, Elias Hossain, Razu Ahmed, BFUJ Organising Secretary Shahidul Islam, among others, addressed the programme.

The journalists demanded resignation of incumbent Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and criticise Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu for his recent remarks.

The BFUJ and the DUJ will also hold a grand protest rally and road blockade programme on March 11 in front of the National Press Club protesting killing and torture of journalists and exemplary punishment to the culprits across the country.

The leaders of the National Press Club, DRU, both factions of BFUJ and DUJ will sit with a view to taking next courses of movement to meet their demands on February 22.

BFUJ President Shawkat Mahmud stressed united movement to ensure punishment to the killers of the journalist couple.

"We launched a combined movement in 2012 just after the killing of Sagar-Runi. But it ended without any result. Now demand has been raised from all quarters to start united movement again. I hope that the killers of the journalist couple will be arrested and punished if we continue our joint movement," he said.

Former President of BFUJ Ruhul Amin Gazi said, there is no politics in the demand. A united movement only can accelerate the progress of the investigation and punishment.

BFUJ (another faction) Secretary General Omar Faruque said, "We (journalists) are the citizens of the country. We have rights to get justice. We never fought for a country without journalists' safety. The dissimilarities must be stopped and the killers of all journalists must be nabbed."

DUJ President Saban Mahmud said, the then Home Minister Sahara Khatun betrayed with the journalists' community as she assured to nabbed the killers of journalists Sagar-Runi within 48 hours. But she did not arrest them.

He called upon the journalists' leaders to launch a united movement regardless of political ideologies in the interest of the journalists and rule of law in the country.

DRU President Shakhawat Hossain Badsha said, announcement of a tougher movement will be delivered after the meeting on 22 February.

He promised of unabated movement until the killers of the journalist couple are punished.

DUJ General Secretary Sohel Haider Chowdhury said, "We will block a road in front of the Jatiya Press Club on March 11 if action is not taken before deadline."

Sagar, a News Editor of the private TV channel Maasranga, and his wife Runi, a senior reporter of ATN Bangla, were brutally killed in their West Rajabazar flat in the capital on February 11, 2012.
9 held with huge Yaba in C' Bazar

RAB-7 mobile team recovered five lakh pieces of Yaba worth Taka 20 crore with a fishing trawler including five Myanmar citizens among nine persons were arrested from the deep sea near Cox\'s Bazar on Saturday.

UNB, Dhaka :

Members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested nine people and recovered five lakh pieces of Yaba tablet in the Bay of Bengal in Cox's Bazar on Friday evening.

Tipped off, a team of the elite force conducted a drive at several points of the Bay from Friday afternoon, said Lieutenant

Colonel Mifta Uddin Ahmed, commanding officer of RAB-7.

Later, the team intercepted a trawler and arrested its eight crews around 5.30pm.

Acting on the arrestees' statements, the elite force recovered 4, 50000 pieces of Yaba tablet from various places of the Bay.

Later, the elite force arrested the owner of trawler 'Sultan' from his residence in Cox's Bazar and recovered 50,000 Yaba tablets around 7pm. The identities of the arrestees are yet to be known.
Allegation against new CEC proved: BNP

Staff Reporter :

BNP Secretary General Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Saturday said that the allegations made by his party against the newly appointed Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda are now proved.

"The ruling Awami League leaders and activists of Baufal upazila of Patuakhali district have given floral congratulations to Nurul Huda as he was made the CEC. It proves that our allegations against the new CEC that he is a man of AL have become clear to all," he said this while uncovering some books in the Ekushey Book Fair at Bangla Academy in the city.

Mirza Fakhrul said that the election under this CEC would not be free, fair and participatory.

"He (Nurul Huda) may not be able to play a neutral role during the election, because it is clear to all that he is a partisan person," the BNP leader said.

Replying a question on the conspiracy of corruption case on Padma Bridge in Canada, Fakhrul said, "We never say anything against the verdicts of courts. That time it was published that the conspiracy of corruption occurred on the Padma Bridge, so we said about the matter. The World Bank also stopped its finance on the project." The BNP leader also recalls the historic days of 1952 when the Bangalees had fought for their mother tongue 'Bangla'.

Fakhrul uncovered three books namely -- 'Shundory Shunno' of Fatima Salam, 'Pakhir Asha, Pakhir Basha' of Rafik Muhammad and 'Vuter Rajya' of Maidur Rahman Rubel.


Suu Kyi crafts a `fightback` strategy

Nikkei Asian Review , Yangon :

Stung by international criticism of military abuses in Rakhine State and by domestic complaints over the slow pace of reform, Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi is crafting what could be termed a "fightback" strategy. Among the steps her administration is considering or already implementing are moves to improve conditions for the Muslim population in Rakhine and a package of economic reforms covering everything from tax and banking to liberalization of agriculture.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy government marks its first anniversary on April 1.

Crucial tasks to be addressed ahead of this milestone include finalizing the national budget for fiscal 2017, which starts on April 1; implementing vital laws recently passed by parliament, including a new law governing both foreign and domestic investment; and preparing for a second round of nationwide peace talks with ethnic armed groups starting Feb. 28. There is also some discussion within the administration of a ministerial reshuffle.

A cabinet revamp would reflect a recent review by Suu Kyi and her advisers of the performance of some ministers and senior administration personnel. Some foreign experts dealing with senior personnel have described the decision-making process as "chaotic," with too much power given to a series of committees-mostly chaired by Suu Kyi herself-made up largely of inexperienced ministers and, in some cases, outside experts. Decisions often seem ill-conceived or arbitrary, at best, note observers. In a recent example, proposed laws governing foreigners in the country have dismayed the expatriate community and provoked protests from embassies and foreign businesses. At a forum in mid-February, foreign business associations said the onerous requirements and penalties of the laws would discourage overseas companies from setting up business. The government has given no clear explanation of the rationale behind the laws, although some officials said privately they were aimed largely at South Asian, Middle Eastern and Chinese nationals and reflected heightened concerns among security agencies about terrorism and foreign criminal elements.

After her government took power last April, Suu Kyi decided to merge numerous ministries, slash the size of the cabinet from nearly 40 members to about 22, and eliminate deputy minister positions. This initially created bureaucratic confusion and hampered decision-making throughout 2016. Deputy minister positions were later revived for some of the resulting mega-ministries. Domestically, the biggest task for Suu Kyi is to oversee finalization of the 2017 budget, which according to early drafts will not differ significantly from the 2016 budget of President Thein Sein. Proposed increases will reflect the new government's desire to prioritize education, health and social services while holding the military budget at almost the same level as last year. In international terms, her most urgent challenge is to address escalating criticism of the government's human rights record.

This sense of urgency has grown since the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a damning report in early February that concluded the government's actions in Rakhine State could amount to "crimes against humanity." Under Myanmar's constitution, the civilian administration has no authority over the armed forces, or the Tatmadaw, and was thus powerless to curb the milit ary's brutal response to the Oct. 9 attacks by Muslim militants on police border posts in Rakhine State. As enshrined in the constitution, the military holds three seats in the cabinet, a guaranteed 25% of parliamentary seats and veto power over constitutional amendments. The charter also bars Suu Kyi from the presidency, although the post she created of state counselor has enabled her to position herself as de facto leader.
BNP out to make EC controversial sensing polls debacle: Quader

UNB, Chittagong :

Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader on Saturday alleged that BNP is trying to make the new Election Commission (EC) controversial apprehending a debacle in the next general election like Narayanganj city polls.

BNP knows it very well that it won't be able to win the next national polls. It'll face a debacle like Narayanganj elections. So, it's trying to make the CEC controversial to create its logic in advance for its defeat so that it can say 'we said the CEC was controversial', he said.

Quader, also Road Transport and Bridges Minister, came up with the remarks while speaking at a rally at Patiya arranged by local Awami League. He claimed that no partisan person was appointed to the new EC unlike the one formed during the BNP's rule.The AL leader said the President constituted the Commission based on the search committee's recommendations taking one name from BNP's list, one from Awami League's and three from other parties' lists. Though Awami League has no objection to the Commission, BNP dislikes the CEC. Mentioning BNP has become reckless and directionless, he asked his party colleagues not to be worried about the party.

Quader said, though BNP has formed a jumbo-size 596-member central committee, it has no moral courage to take to the street and take out processions.

He also asked Awami League leaders not to ignore the dedicated and tested party leaders and activists while forming committees. Form committees where it's necessary, but don't make any pocket committee.

Quader came here to visit the site of Chittagong-Cox's Bazar Highway's bypass road from Indrapol to Chakrashala.
Bengali version of Cathy Stevulak`s `THREADS` screened

UNB, Dhaka :

A private screening of the Bengali version of Canadian filmmaker Cathy Stevulak's award-winning documentary on the ancient indigenous art of Nakshi Kantha, 'THREADS', was held at the residence of Enayetullah Khan, Honorary Consul of Romania in Dhaka, in the city's Baridhara area on Saturday. Cosmos Foundation arranged the screening event in the evening.

Noted economist Rehman Sobhan, former diplomat Farooq Sobhan, French Ambassador in Dhaka Sophie Aubert, South Korean Ambassador in Dhaka Ahn Seong-doo, renowned jurist Dr Kamal Hossain, noted political scientist Rounaq Jahan, UNB Chairman Amanullah Khan, Cosmos Foundation Chairman Enayetullah Khan, The Daily Observer Associate Editor Syed Badrul Ahsan, UNB Director (Digital and Strategy) Nahar Khan, 'THREADS' Director Cathy Stevulak, Producer Leonard Hill and Music Director Tanveer Alam Shawjeeb, UNB Chief News Editor Mahfuzur Rahman, Cosmos Foundation Adviser Zain Al Mahmood and UNB Digital Editor Maria Salam were, among others, present.

Enayetullah Khan, also Editor-in-Chief of UNB, is the executive producer of the Bengali version of the documentary, while UNB and Dhaka Courier are the media partners.

Meanwhile, the documentary supported by the Cosmos Foundation will be screened at the National Museum in the city on Sunday.

'THREADS' is an intimate portrait of 85-year-old Bengali artiste, Surayia Rahman, who transformed the quilt-work tradition of Kantha to create possibilities for a better life for her family and hundreds of destitute mothers in Bangladesh. Over three decades, as their art becomes prized possessions of connoisseurs around the world, Surayia Rahman and the artisans overcome their hardships with the needle and the thread, stitch by stitch.

'THREADS' takes us on a journey into the heart of an artiste and illuminates an unconventional path to dignity and independence.

The original version of 'THREADS' has won three international awards-Female Eye Film Festival, Toronto; Friday Harbor Film Festival and Audience Choice-as the best short documentary.

Catherine Masud is the co-producer of the documentary while late Mishuk Munier the cinematographer.
Megh demands punishment to killers of parents

Staff Reporter :

Mahir Sarowar Megh (10), the only son of slain journalist couple Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi and only witness of the gruesome murder, on Saturday demanded punishment to the killers.

Megh said this while paying respect by placing floral wreaths at the graves of his parents at Dhaka's Azimpur graveyard in the morning.

In the morning of February 11, 2012, the bodies of the couple were found at their West Razabazar house. The kitchen's grills were found cut, apparently in an attempt to show that the couple was killed by robbers or thieves. Runi's brother Nowsher Ruman a private service holder, expressed dissatisfaction over the investigation progress. He said that they had not been told anything about the probe.

"RAB has told us over the years that 'headways were being made.' The only thing we can hope for is a miracle," he added.

About the delay in cracking the case he said, "There can be two reasons: either it is to protect a very important person or simply because of the incompetency of the law enforcers."

Nowsher said that it was a shame for the authority that the mystery could not be solved yet.

Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police started the investigation after the murder.

Later the case was shifted to the DB police. But on April 18 that year, the High Court transferred the case to RAB after DB expressed inability to solve the case. So far, the court has extended the deadline for submitting the investigation report 47 times - the latest was on Wednesday.
BCL activist killed in Ctg infighting

Staff Reporter :

An activist of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) of Govt Chittagong City College unit was killed in a factional clash on the college campus at Riazuddin Bazar in the port city on Saturday afternoon.

The deceased was identified as Mohammad Yeasin, 23, a third year honours student of the college.

Police arrested Harun-ur-Rashid, a second year student of BSS (Pass Course), who was also injured during the clash.

According to police and locals, both Mohammad Yeasin and Harun-ur-Rashid were loyal to Abdul Ahad, deputy mass education affairs secretary of BCL central committee.

But recently Mohammad Yeasin cut ties with the followers of Abdul Ahad and thus led to a conflict. The two groups of BCL locked into a clash over establishing dominance on the campus at about 3.30pm yesterday. At one stage they launched attack with lethal weapons on each other.

Yeasin received serious injuries in the attack and was rushed to the Chittagong Medical College Hospital where the doctor declared him dead.

Mohammd Jashimuddin, Officer-in-Charge of Kotwali Police Station said during the clash, a group of BCL activists swooped on Yeasin and stabbed him with a sharp weapon, leaving him dead on the spot.

The body was sent to hospital morgue for autopsy.


 Flash

French police foiled "an imminent" terrorist plot after arresting four suspects in the southern town of Montpellier earlier on Friday, French Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux said.

During a raid by anti-terrorism units, four people were detained in and around Montpellier with "three of them are directly suspected of preparing violent action on our territory," Le Roux said in a statement.

"This operation, according to initial indications, has foiled an imminent attack," he added.

Le Roux confirmed three men and a minor female suspect were arrested during the raid in which police found explosives and other bomb-making materials.

One of the suspects was believed to be planning a suicide bombing assault against targets which were not identified yet, according to news channel BFMTV.

The 21-year-old man tried to join insurgents in Syria in November 2015. His 16-year-old girlfriend, the minor female suspect, had recorded on Feb. 8 a video in which she pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS).

Recently, an Egyptian national, armed with two machetes, attacked soldiers patrolling the area near Louvre Museum. He slightly injured a serviceman before being seriously shot. He reportedly said he acted alone to avenge Syrian civilians.

Risks of terrorist attacks remain high in France where a state of emergency has been declared after a group of terrorists killed 130 people in a series of explosions and shootings on Nov. 13, 2015.

In 2016, police foiled 17 terrorist attacks, according to official data.
Trump plans new travel ban

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers detain a suspect as they conduct a targeted enforcement operation in Los Angeles, California. Internet photo

Donald Trump is considering a new executive order to ban citizens of certain countries from travelling to the US after his initial attempt was overturned in the courts.



Mr Trump told reporters on Air Force One that a "brand new order" could be issued as early as Monday or Tuesday. It comes after an appeals court in San Francisco upheld a court ruling to suspend his original order.



It barred entry from citizens from seven mainly Muslim countries. It is unclear what a new US immigration order might look like. Mr Trump said that it would change "very little", but he did not provide details of any new ban under consideration. Despite his suggestion on Friday, Mr Trump's administration may still pursue its case in the courts over the original order, which was halted a week ago by a Seattle judge.



"We'll win that battle," Mr Trump told reporters, adding: "The unfortunate part is it takes time. We'll win that battle. But we also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order."



A unnamed judge from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which on Thursday upheld the stay on the original order, has called on all 25 judges of that court to vote on whether to hear the appeal again.



Technically known as an en banc review, a second hearing of the case would involve an 11-judge panel, rather than the three who initially heard the appeal.



Mr Trump's travel ban, which was hastily unveiled at the end of his first week in office, caused chaos at US airports and sparked protests across the country.



On Thursday, the appeals court said the administration failed to offer "any evidence" to justify the ban, which the president said was necessary to keep the US safe from terror attacks.



However Mr Trump insisted that the executive order was crucial for national security and promised to take action "very rapidly" to introduce "additional security" steps in the wake of the court's decision.



He spoke as Virginia state lawyers argued in court that his policy "resulted from animus toward Muslims".



Their challenge focuses on the travel restrictions imposed by the ban, rather than the four-month suspension of refugee admissions. But lawyers for the US government in Virginia wrote that "judicial second-guessing" amounted to "an impermissible intrusion" on Mr Trump's constitutional authority.



The appeals court ruling means that visa holders from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen can continue to enter the US, and refugees from around the world, who were also subject to a temporary ban, are no longer blocked either.



But the ruling does not affect one part of Mr Trump's controversial executive order: a cap of 50,000 refugees to be admitted in the current fiscal year, down from the ceiling of 110,000 established under his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Higher challenge is to the courage and integrity of the judiciary

The Chief Justice of Bangladesh Mr SK Sinha repeated his anxiety once again last Thursday about the dilemma judges face in doing justice because the laws have many loopholes. He was addressing the lawyers at Moulavi Bazar, Sylhet, joining their annual dinner.



His Lordship has been urging for a long time proper scrutiny of the laws passed without due care and making necessary amendments. He has been indicating that the lawmakers are not being diligent while examining the laws before passing such laws.



It is heard commonly that because of flaws in law, particularly regarding criminal justice, many guilty ones go unpunished. So the anxiety expressed by the Chief Justice is shared by all.



But the other anxiety which is no less disturbing for the criminal justice system is punishing the innocent ones by refusing bail. Saving the innocent ones should be our greater concern. That is why the presumption of innocence.



In our understanding, the main reason for defective laws is that neither the government nor the law makers give due importance to the need of justice. There should also be no hesitation in admitting that our parliament is filled mostly with businessmen.



Notwithstanding the deficiency of legal knowledge among the members of the Parliament the laws are be drafted in consultation with experts like any other country.



Our law makers are interested in arbitrary powers in their hands. Otherwise, they would have cared to get the draft laws carefully vetted by experts.



We are anxious to make the point that in Bangladesh the laws are used for abuse of power whoever is authorised to exercise it. Every such authority claims, he has absolute power not being accountable.



Our problem is abuse of power to do wrongs. There is little anxiousness for proper application of law to do justice to the people. The idea is: Justice should be in favour of those in power because they think they know what is best for the people and good for the country.



The difficulty for the court to do justice has become all the more difficult owing to abuse of power so that as soon police files an FIR against somebody, the courts are expected not to grant him bail, he should be available for police custody and willful interrogation by them. He is at police mercy. He is guilty, must suffer in jail because police says so.



Thus, not only that our laws have holes obstructing justice, our justice system has also many holes to punish people before they are found guilty by a court of law. Justice system must not allow itself to be dominated by the police. It is not unknown to the courts that police are not free to be fully trusted.



This month the High Court Division released twenty persons on bail when the matter was brought to their Lordships, attention that they were in prison without trial for a decade or so. There are many such helpless people languishing in jails all over the country.



It should be a matter of judicial conscience that so many years of their lives were wasted in jail although they were not found guilty of any offence. More than that, it is quite possible that their families got broken up and are living in the streets. The court should ask the government to compensate for the negligence.



Our criminal justice system is badly disoriented by the courts' attitude with regard to bail. To be more blunt and human, by refusing bail before trial we are punishing our people with police justice. Justice under the rule of law is judicial justice for imprisonment as punishment to be handed down only by a court after the trial.



At this difficult time of arbitrary use of power everywhere, the courage and integrity of the judiciary itself is being tested. The efforts are getting momentum to make justice by judges irrelevant.



The law to impeach the justices of the Supreme Court by the One-house Parliament is an audacious move to empower the Prime Minister as Leader of the House to sack the Chief Justice and other justices of the Supreme Court. Only under a parliament of two houses such power of impeachment is available. The Lower House initiates the impeachment proceedings, but it cannot punish a justice without the backing of the Upper House. So our parliament can at best claim the power to initiate impeachment proceedings. Whether he (a Supreme Court Judge) is to be found guilty or not will have to be decided by a different body created by law as there is no Second Chamber. And the body has to be like the present Supreme Judicial Council as contemplated under Article 96 of the Constitution but declared invalid to being introduced under a Martial Law government.



If what the government claims is conceded to then there will be no separation of powers as the basic structure of our Constitution. Only the executive power will prevail.



How to protect the judiciary to dispense impartial justice for saving the people from police justice is the greatest challenge the judiciary now facing. If the judiciary cannot protect itself then it's sacred obligation of protecting the Constitution is abandoned also.
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 Flash

"SEE YOU IN COURT," U.S. President Donald Trump responded on Twitter after a federal appeals court on Thursday refused to reinstate his controversial travel ban.

Refusing to see it as a major setback for the White House, Trump vowed to win the battle in the end, further cracking up an already divided nation.

MORE PARTISAN BRAWL

In response to the court's unanimous vote of "3-0," Trump said it was a "political decision." The president later told reporters that his administration would win the case "very easily."

The new ruling to block Trump's order barring immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries was seen as a victory by Trump's challengers.

The governor of Washington state, which sued over the travel ban along with Minnesota, applauded the court's decision.

Responding to Trump's tweet of "SEE YOU IN COURT," Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, said, "Mr. President, we just saw you in court, and we beat you."

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra also pledged to fight on until the executive order was permanently dismantled.

The legal disputes over Trump's hardline policy seem to have further intensified clashes between Republicans and Democrats following a heated fray over Trump's cabinet picks and nominees for other key posts.

On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Jeff Sessions as attorney general on a mostly party line vote of 52 to 47. Betsy DeVos was greenlighted Tuesday to head Trump's Department of Education after being rescued by Vice President Mike Pence's tie-breaker in a 51-50 vote.

Rex Tillerson, Trump's pick for secretary of state, was approved 56-43.

Such a divided Senate contrasts with the past 40 years, which saw most cabinet selections overwhelmingly approved.

The partisan tension added to Trump's frustration on delays to confirm his nominees. The new U.S. leader tweeted Tuesday: "It is a disgrace that my full cabinet is still not in place, the longest such delay in the history of our country. Obstruction by Democrats!"

As a rebuttal, Democratic senator Patty Murray was reported as saying that Trump was shaping a cabinet that "benefits those at the top and their allies, but really hurts the workers and families."

A FURTHER DIVIDED NATION

Since its launch on Jan. 27, the travel ban has sowed chaos and confusion, sparking furor at home and abroad.

National security veterans, major U.S. technology companies and law enforcement officials from more than a dozen states backed the legal effort against the ban.

Protests were staged in cities both inside and outside the country.

A group of United Nations (UN) human rights experts issued a joint statement saying that the executive order breaches the U.S. international human rights obligations.

While Trump's message has been criticized by experts as violating U.S. law, it appears to be resonating with supporters.

A Morning Consult-Politico poll revealed on Wednesday that Trump won a 55-percent

voter approval for his immigration ban, against a 38-percent disapproval rate.

The bitter division in public will probably go on as the legal wrangling continues.

The appeals court's ruling did not resolve the lawsuit. It said that more briefing would be needed to decide the actual fate of Trump's order.

The Department of Justice, on behalf of the Trump administration in the court, said it was reviewing the decision and considering its options.

According to legal experts, the federal government can either take the case to the Supreme Court, or ask a panel of 11 judges from the appeals court to review the case.

If the Trump administration appeals to the Supreme Court, it would need five of the eight justices to vote in favor of a stay blocking the district court's ruling.
Seven local attorneys say they have been contacted by federal authorities looking into the controversial billing practices of a company owned by candidate Candyce Perret's husband and for which she worked as recently as 2014.

Candidate Candyce Perret with her father in law, Hank Perret, at her Jan. 9 campaign announcement Photo by Robin May

[Editors Note: This is the first in a series of stories on the three Republican women running for the Third Circuit Court of Appeal. Candyce Perret, Susan Theall and Vanessa Anseman are seeking to serve out the unexpired term of Judge Jimmy Genovese, who was elected to the Louisiana Supreme Court in November. Genoveses former Division B seat covers Acadia, Allen, Evangeline, Iberia, Lafayette, St. Landry, St. Martin and Vermilion parishes. The election is March 25.]

Candyce Perrets campaign for a seat on Louisianas Third Circuit Court of Appeal has called public attention to a heretofore little known (except in some legal circles) but long-running federal probe into the medical billing practices of one of her husbands companies, Louisiana Specialty Institute.

Federal investigators will neither confirm nor deny an investigation into Hunter Perrets LSI, but seven Lafayette attorneys confirmed directly to The Independent that they were visited by federal agents regarding LSI in recent years. The attorneys each say that the federal agents asked them not to discuss their meetings, and they agreed to speak with The Independent on the condition that their names not be used.

One attorney says he was contacted by an FBI agent within the past three months.

Hunter Perret, 33, founded LSI in 2007, two years before he and Candyce Gagnard married. LSI operates at 501 W. St. Mary Blvd., and Hunter is the sole member of the limited liability company. He and Candyce are partners in The Perret Group through their marriage. In her campaign material, Candyce  who at age 46 is seeking public office for the first time  says that she is general counsel for The Perret Group.

While Candyce Perret has no ownership stake in LSI, she served of counsel for the firm starting in mid-2013 and was running the company while her husband was undergoing cancer treatment. She also signed off on documents as custodian of medical records for LSI in at least two court cases in 2014.

Hunter Perret at his wife's campaign announcement Photo by Robin May

And while much of the medical industry is governed by negotiated rate and fee schedules set by insurance companies and public sector funders, Hunter Perret and LSI found a niche serving the clients of personal injury lawyers. LSI entered the field as a new industry sprang up to help finance the medical care needs of those injured in accidents while litigation proceeds through the courts. Many plaintiff attorneys use lines of credit negotiated with their respective banks, but that method can constrain a firms ability to grow its clientele, particularly if cases drag on.

A host of non-banks saw opportunity there, including some founded by successful plaintiff attorneys. The field is medical lien funding. Essentially, an attorney, a client and/or a provider pledge their share of a settlement related to medical expenses in exchange for a percentage of the face value of invoices for medical services paid shortly after services are rendered. That enables medical bills to be paid and for treatment to continue as needed.

Hunter Perret tells The Independent that LSI typically got 45 percent to 55 percent of the face value of the invoices it sold to medical lien funders. Perret says the invoices were sold within 30 days of services being provided and that funding was wired to LSI by the companies based on the agreed upon rate.

He tried to clarify the payment system using the analogy of a bill he might receive from his attorney, Alan Breaud. At the end of the day, the simple explanation is, when Alan sends me a bill for legal services, he doesnt want me to write him a check for 80 percent of the bill, he wants me to write it for the 100 percent, Perret says. We dont, as a medical provider, want to take a discount from MedStar or Bayou Medical [Management], wed rather get paid 100 percent. Were forced to use them because the attorneys didnt have the money and said, Youve got to use these financing companies. We would love to get paid 100 percent, obviously.

MedStar Funding was an Austin-based medical lien finance company formed by plaintiff attorney Daniel Christensen that provided funding for patient care in personal injury cases. MedStar was sold in early 2016. Medical financing involves a patient/plaintiff assigning a portion of the proceeds from any case settlement to cover the cost of his medical treatment. The finance companies conduct a risk assessment of the accident and pay a percentage of the face value of the invoices based on that assessment.

Baton Rouge-based Bayou Medical Management, the second company Hunter Perret used in his analagoy, is a preferred provider organization catering to personal injury attorneys and their clients. The firm has a network of providers who work at contracted rates. Jack Onstott, Bayou Medicals owner, tells The Independent his company pays providers 70 percent to 80 percent of the face value of invoices for services shortly after care is rendered so that patients can continue to receive the care while litigation continues. Onstott says his firm requires attorneys to guarantee payment of settlement funds to cover the balance of the bill.

Hunter Perret, who studied accounting at UL Lafayette but does not have a degree, identified a niche for LSI in the personal injury funding business by positioning his company as the intermediary between the funders and the providers in a way that enabled him to pay providers the full face value of their invoices. To do this, LSI would aggregate the provider invoices for a patient who had been referred to LSI, mark up the prices charged by the providers, then sell the higher priced invoice to funders like MedStar Funding or PPOs like Bayou Medical Management. The face value of the invoices purchased by the funders became medical bills included in the mix in the personal injury cases linked to the specific patient/clients.

It proved to be a lucrative niche for LSI and Perret. But it had the effect of calling attention to LSIs pricing, which numerous sources tell The Independent is considered far out of line with other providers in the region.

LSI billing in personal injury cases became a flash point of contention not only between plaintiff and defense attorneys, but the paper has found instances where plaintiffs attorneys hired other attorneys to file suit against LSI over what were described in one case as the grossly inflated charges for medical procedures.

Keep in mind that those are merely allegations of grossly inflated medical bills, which may not be illegal. However, sources interviewed for this story believe such a practice, if proven, would certainly be unethical. But court records and attorneys interviewed by The Independent say thats not all the feds are looking into.

For their part, the Perrets say they have no knowledge of an ongoing investigation into LSI.

In an on-the-record meeting at the paper's office on Wednesday, Jan. 25, Hunter and Candyce Perret  along with attorney Breaud  say they have actively sought out information regarding a possible investigation but found nothing to substantiate it.

LSI has never been contacted or informed by the FBI of any investigation, Breaud says. Theyve never ever  ever  received a phone call, letter or memo from a federal investigative agency, FBI.

Put it to you this way, Breaud avers, We have made every reasonable effort to investigate whether there was an ongoing federal investigation, and our investigation found none. None. Zero.

Primarily because of the revered standing of Hunters father, attorney Hank Perret, in the community at large and in legal circles (Hank once chaired the Louisiana Board of Ethics), The Independent was unable to find anyone willing to speak on the record about LSI, its billing practices and other questionable practices that have come up in court cases. District court records, though, provide a rich vein of information about LSIs business practices and about the origins of the federal investigation into them.

LSI Exposed: the Stelly and Narcisse Cases

Court records show that LSIs billing was at the heart of fierce legal fights in two personal injury cases involving separate motor vehicle accidents that occurred in 2009 and 2010. The 2009 accident resulted in the 15th Judicial District lawsuit Stelly v. Clemons in Vermilion Parish. The 2010 accident in St. Martin Parish led to the lawsuit Narcisse v. Zurich American Insurance Co., et al in the 16th Judicial District Court.

In each case, the plaintiff, represented by counsel from different law firms, obtained at least some medical treatments through LSI.

Personal injury cases can take a long time to settle, but by April 2013, it appeared that the attorney for plaintiff Stelly and the attorneys for the two insurance companies involved in the case had agreed upon a general outline of a settlement  with the exception of LSIs charges for a neck and a back surgery performed on the plaintiff at Opelousas General Hospital and billed through LSI.

The case was in mediation. The Independent has confirmed that there was a mediation hearing held April 5, 2013, in attorney Clayton Burgess Lafayette office. Burgess represented Stelly, and Ian MacDonald of the Jones Walker law firm in Lafayette attended representing the primary insurance carrier, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company. Robert Mahtook Jr. was present representing excess lines insurance provider Markel Insurance Company.

Multiple sources tell The Independent that at some point during the session, two of the parties went to a phone in Burgess private office and placed a call to Hunter Perret. With one party listening to the conversation, one of the attorneys explained that LSIs charges for the surgeries were the sticking point blocking a settlement and urged Perret to go to Burgess office to clear the matter, if he could. Perret did not show up.

Over the next week, at least three emails  which the paper has reviewed  were sent to Perret regarding the Stelly case and issues with the bills. Two of the emails were letters on an attorneys letterhead. The second email contained a draft of the motion in limine that a defense attorney intended to file seeking to have LSIs billings tossed out of the case. The third was from an attorneys office informing Perret of the date of the critical hearing on the motion.

Ian MacDonald filed a motion in limine on April 12 asking presiding Judge Kristian Earles to disallow LSIs medical charges for surgeries performed on the plaintiff in the case. Such a motion asks the court to limit or prevent certain evidence from being presented by the other side at the trial in a case.

In his memorandum supporting his motion, MacDonald argues that LSI was billing for services it had not provided:

Since LSIs submission of its bills, Defendants have learned that some or all of the aforementioned providers of services to Stelly have no connection to LSI. Specifically, Dr. [George Raymond] Williams has testified that he has no affiliation with LSI. Furthermore, he has never had a contractual relationship with LSI and has no explanation why his services were billed through LSI. Dr. Kerry Thibodeaux also denies assisting Dr. Williams in performing surgery as indicated on LSI billing. Finally, defendants have learned that LSI arbitrarily added additional charges to the actual bills of Stellys medical providers on a routine basis and then billed the charges as its own.

In essence, MacDonald was making it clear that he wanted to pay the providers for the services they had rendered to Stelly, but that he wanted to toss out LSIs markup on those services. The Jones Walker attorney further writes:

In Louisiana, a certified copy of medical bills for the services rendered by the health care provider who rendered treatment, which is certified or attested to by that provider, may be offered in evidence as prima facie proof of its content. Medical bills or expenses from someone who did not provide the treatment and/or which are unrelated to the actual treatment are not admissible. In this instance defendants have no objection to the bills from the actual providers. However, LSIs bills represent nothing more than a misrepresentation of its involvement in Stellys treatment and an attempt to profiteer. Accordingly, they must not be admitted.

Surprisingly, Clayton Burgess, the attorney for plaintiff Stelly, did not object to MacDonalds motion to dismiss LSIs bills. In his written response to the motion in limine, Burgess writes:

The plaintiff is not relying on, does not intend to introduce into evidence and does not accept as accurate the certified bills presented by LSI for the services performed outside LSI. Plaintiff is not claiming $426,000 in medical bills as certified by LSI. The plaintiff will assist the Court in any form or fashion in its attempt to receive evidence on this matter. Rather, the plaintiff wishes solely to rely on the certified records from each facility, doctor or other medical health care provider accumulated in the instant case. The plaintiff will make no attempt to rely on, introduce into evidence or accept as accurate the bills presented by LSI for services provided outside the LSI clinic; therefore, the plaintiff does not object to the defendants Motion in Limine.

With no objection to MacDonalds motion, Judge Earles went down a spreadsheet of itemized charges for the surgeries on Stellys neck and spine. Charge by charge, Earles awarded payment to the actual provider of services and disallowed LSIs charges. He also struck what appeared to be phantom services  charges for services that were not provided or could not be substantiated in the billing submitted by the individual providers when compared to the LSI invoices.

The worksheet submitted by attorney Ian McDonald in the Stelly case shows the grossly inflated LSI charges, all of which were thrown out by District Judge Kristian Earles. Click image to link to full worksheet.

Of the original $426,000 in combined LSI charges for the two surgeries on Stelly, $123,803 were approved for direct payment to providers for services rendered. Earles and the attorneys identified $17,367 in LSI charges for services that were not rendered or for which there should have been no charge. That number includes the $6,560 charged for Dr. Kerry Thibodeauxs assistance on the neck surgery (Thibodeaux, who typically assisted Williams, was not present for this procedure, and LSI tells The Independent it was a billing error, an amount it refunded) and $9,560 for Osteogenesis Bone Growth, which apparently was billed by Dr. Williams on a later bill. (See sidebar "LSI's Stelly Numbers Reveal Its Business Model.")

Court documents in another case reveal that at the end of the session, after signing the judgment on the motion, Judge Earles told the attorneys on the case that he presumed the wrongdoing would be reported to the proper authorities.

Federal authorities, court records would later show, had years before been notified that something may be amiss at LSI, but that was not revealed until a March 7, 2014, hearing in the previously mentioned, Narcisse v. Zurich American case.

Collision in the 16th JDC

Like the Stelly case, the Narcisse case in the 16th Judicial District Court in St. Martin Parish resulted from a motor vehicle accident. Like the Stelly case, plaintiff Narcisse was treated for a time by providers at LSI. Unlike the Stelly case, however, there was no LSI bill for surgeries linked to injuries in the accident resulting in the Narcisse case.

Court records show that corporate defense attorney Bryan Scofield of Scofield & Rivera in Lafayette believed he could win Zurich Insurance and its trucking company clients some relief on medical expenses by questioning LSIs charges in Narcisse, using the record of the Stelly motion in limine hearing as a pry bar to get access to more information about LSIs practices and its relationships with providers.

The Narcisse case had been fiercely contested. Scofield went far back into the plaintiffs life to get high school records and employment records, and had hired private investigators to tail the plaintiff, according to documents from the case file in St. Martinville.

The case was set for trial in March 2014, and on Feb. 12 Scofield subpoenaed former LSI physicians Albert Gros Jr. and Baylor Jewell to testify. In his subpoena Scofield asks that Jewell produce:

1. All documents relating to any complaints filed against Louisiana Specialty Institute, LLC.

2. All documents supporting the basis for any complaints against Louisiana Specialty Institute, LLC.

On Feb. 18, 2014, Scofield files his own motion in limine in the Narcisse case that includes a range of issues he wants excluded from the trial; the attorney leads with a multi-page attack on LSI billing practices based on the successful challenge to LSI in the Stelly case.

It is a very revealing motion.

In the court documents, attorney Scofield acknowledges that he has no conclusive evidence of misconduct by LSI in the Narcisse case: However, based upon established conduct in prior cases and clear indications of impropriety in this case, Defendants request an evidentiary hearing to determine whether all or part of the LSI records and/or medical testimony should be excluded.

Scofield says in the court records that he wants the hearing before the scheduled March 14, 2014, jury trial and stipulates he is not seeking a delay in the trial. He writes:

Questions concerning LSI began to arise with undersigned counsel and local defense counsel in other cases. Instead of offering competitive prices as mentioned in the promotional material, LSI invoices appeared to be significantly inflated. There were also suspicious medical reports. Undersigned attempted to schedule LSIs 1442 deposition in other cases. However, cases settled before the depositions could be taken. One case settled for less than the medical expenses, presumably because LSI discounted their bills in order to avoid the depositions.

Scofield quotes extensively from the worksheet used in the Stelly case to strike LSI's charges, using the amounts billed by LSI versus the amounts actually billed by providers.

Scofield drops a bit of a bombshell on Page 3 of his motion:

The Judgment and worksheet established that LSI billed for phantom services that were never performed, and LSI grossly inflated the bills of the various health care providers. Judge Earles stated that LSIs actions seemed fraudulent and asked if the attorneys had alerted the authorities. Mr. L. Clayton Burgess had already done so.

In a footnote on that page, Scofield writes that Judge Earles comments are paraphrased from comments made by L. Clayton Burgess to undersigned counsel on February 12, 2014.

Scofield says in his memorandum that Dr. Albert Gros reveals in a deposition a second instance of LSI being under investigation.

Dr. Gros confirmed that LSI is under investigation for billing and/or documentation improprieties. The LSI investigation began when Dr. Baylor Jewell filed complaints about procedures that were allegedly ordered by Dr. Jewell, but actually werent.

Scofield also points to testimony by Dr. Gros in his deposition that his signature was used by LSI after he had stopped seeing patients at the company in March 2011. LSI officials tell The Independent that Gros's physician's assistant appeared to have continued to use his signature, though the court testimony never establishes whether the PA had permission to do so.

On Feb. 24, 2014, 16th Judicial District Judge Edward Leonard signed an order setting an evidentiary hearing on Scofields motion in limine for 9 a.m. March 7 in the St. Mary Parish Courthouse in Franklin.

Two days later, Scofield subpoenaed Louisiana Specialty Institute through its registered agent, attorney Frank Slavich, to testify in the March 7 evidentiary hearing on the motion in limine. That would bring Hunter Perret to the witness stand.

On March 3, 2014, Candyce Gagnard (Perret) signs off on documents responding to Scofields subpoena for plaintiff Narcisses medical records filed in early February. In the Jan. 25 meeting at The Independent's office, candidate Perret says her signature indicated only that the records had been assembled and sent in response to the subpoena.

The Narcisse Evidentiary Hearing

Attorney Scofield subpoenaed four doctors linked to LSI to testify in the March 7 evidentiary hearing on LSIs billing practices in Judge Leonards court. They were Drs. Peter Zimmerman, Steven Wyble, Albert Gros and Baylor Jewell. Only Jewell, a general practitioner/emergency room doctor now practicing in Prairieville, showed up.

Hunter Perret responds to the subpoena for LSI, appearing in court accompanied by his attorney Alan Breaud.

Clayton Burgess decides to attend the session, he has told associates, after he sees Breaud and Perret together earlier that morning in Lafayette. Through communications with Scofield, Burgess is aware of the hearing date. On a lark, he decides to attend.

In the hearing, Scofield moves to sequester the only two witnesses present to testify, Dr. Jewell and Hunter Perret.

Jewell testifies while Perret and Breaud wait in another room.

Under questioning by Scofield, Dr. Jewell, who had given an earlier deposition, testifies that he had worked for LSI for several months starting in the spring of 2011. He describes himself as a part-time contract employee of LSI, saying he saw patients two days per week and that he dictated reports on patient visits each of those days but rarely saw the reports unless he happened to see that patient again on a later visit. He says he was not given the opportunity to review the transcribed reports for accuracy.

Jewell testifies that an electronic signature was used on the encounter reports and that the use of that electronic signature became an issue between him and Hunter Perret.

[Scofield]: Okay. At some point did you prohibit LSI from using your electronic signature or ask them to 

[Dr. Jewell]: Prohibit, no. I asked on multiple occasions.

Q: And why was that, sir?

A: Because, A) I was not seeing the reports for proofreading. B) There was incidents where government forms had been signed with my electronic signature that I had not initialed or even filled out the form.

Q: And had you even authorized the use of your signature on these medical forms?

A: When I first went to work there, but I unauthorized it within a month or two.

Q: And did the practice continue even after you unauthorized it?

A: It continued even after I 

Jewell says the issue eventually led him to leave LSI. Scofield asks him to explain.

[Jewell]: Like I said, I had several conversations with Mr. Perret about the unauthorized use of my signature on the notes. I had contact with the U.S. Attorney about legality of what was going on. I had discussed it with the FBI. And there was some question of how long the FBI thought I should remain employed with Hunter Perret. And I walked into the office one morning with about twenty (20) patients sitting in the waiting room and there was a federal, I guess, Social Security application filled out on a patient I had never seen with my electronic signature on it. When I saw that I walked out of the exam room, picked up my briefcase and walked straight out of the office and the first time Ive seen or talked to Hunter Perret was about ten minutes ago in this courtroom since that happened.

[Scofield]: Did you alert Hunter Perret that your signatures were being used?

A: Absolutely. I told him directly.

Q: Do you know what action he took with respect to that?

A: As far as what I have seen in previous depositions, no action, they continued to do it.

In response to questioning by attorney Scofield, Dr. Jewell also says he believes that the language in his encounter reports had been altered by someone at LSI. Asked how he discovered this, Jewell testifies:

At the  when I would see a patient a second or third time every once in a while there would be a report that was actually in the file already been processed, already been done and it would be in the file and I noticed it on one or two occasions. Most of the time the report wasnt in the file. And I noticed it on depositions. On every deposition that Ive given Ive offered the disclaimer that this was not my signature, that it was electronic and I had no opportunity to review and I had not initiated or cosigned the report.

Jewell testifies that he went to the FBI on the advice of his brother in law, Lafayette attorney Lane Roy, and that Hunter Perret had asked Jewell about it directly.

[Jewell]: Well, the FBI called some of my co-workers at LSI, somehow let the cat out the bag and when I showed up for work the second day afterwards Hunter Perret asked me why I had been talking to the FBI.

[Scofield]: What did you tell him?

A: Because I didnt like what was going on, it wasnt right. And, you know, I consulted with my lawyer, Lane Roy in Lafayette and he told me that if I quit and there was any legal action against Hunter I could be found guilty also, unless I filed, you know, unless I made it aware that I didnt agree with it and thats why we contacted the U.S. Attorney and U.S. Attorney contacted the FBI.

Scofield calls Hunter Perret to the witness stand while Dr. Jewell reviews records from patient encounters related to the Narcisse case.

Attorney Alan Breaud asks permission from the court to participate in the questioning of his client, Perret. Scofield objects, saying Breaud is not part of the case. Judge Leonard, according to the court record, says he doesn't see what position Breaud has in the proceeding.

Breaud replies:

Well, from what Ive seen here there would be reason to object to leading him and misleading questions being asked of my client and Im not sure that any party here other than me has interest in the integrity of the questions being presented to my client.

Judge Leonard denies Breauds request to take part in the examination of Perret.

Under questioning by Scofield, Perret contradicts Jewells claim that doctors were not given the opportunity to examine their reports before their signatures were affixed onto them: Theyre always given the opportunity, yes, sir.

Perret testifies that Dr. Jewell did not quit LSI, maintaining that the doctor was fired. We terminated him, Perret says. He fell asleep on some patients that he was seeing. We had some other scheduling issues with him.

Scofield questions Perret about the use of Jewells electronic signature.

[Scofield]: Did he tell you of improper use of his electronic signature?

[Perret]: Yes. He talked about  No, he didnt talk about inappropriate use. He said he wanted to start seeing every single one, so we started stacking up all the narratives for him so that he could see them before they went out.

Q: Okay. And did that happen?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: Did he also complain to you about someone changing and modifying his reports without his authority or consent or knowledge?

A: No, he did not.

Q: That would be improper, correct?

A: In my knowledge, yes.

Q: And that would place a question on all of the records of LSI, correct?

A: I dont think so.

In response to a series of questions from Scofield, Perret denies knowledge of any complaints of irregularities and improprieties and investigations of LSI, any knowledge of the unauthorized use of electronic signatures, or of anyone modifying or changing physician reports.

Later in his time in the witness stand, Scofield asks Perret about his awareness of any federal agents contacting LSI employees.

[Scofield]: Are you aware of any  I may have asked this and I apologize, but there was some testimony today that the FBI contacted some of your physicians. Are you aware that the FBI or some federal authority was investigating LSI?

[Perret]: No, sir.

Late in the day, after reviewing records connected with the Narcisse case, Dr. Jewell returns to the stand to say that he found what he believes to be inconsistencies between the transcribed record and his knowledge of the patient visit:

So, Im just testifying to the, do I think these are the words that I would have used. Okay. And I cant tell you one hundred percent because I havent been given a copy of the tapes. Who knows where they are? Not me. So what Im telling you is there is no reason for me to do a peripheral vascular or lymphatic exam on this patient because hes in there because his back hurts. And in respect to the injuries Ive treated, you know, it was written significant for muscle spasms with decreased strength and and tone secondary to pain and spasticity. I never put spasticity in any report. I can barely pronounce it. Okay. Thats something that makes the report seem greater injury than what it would have been, what I would have ever put in it.

The hearing is continued until the trial date, March 14, but the case settles before the judge rules on the validity of the LSI charges.

Campaign Brings Federal Investigation to Light

In the interview at The Independents office, Candyce Perret was asked the question the paper has been hearing since the launch of her campaign, when one of her opponents, former 15th Judicial District Court Judge Susan Theall, spoke publicly about LSIs legal troubles. With this kind of baggage  and the presumption that all of it would see the light of day  why would she seek public office?

The Perret campaign made a big splash with a half page ad filled with more than 140 endorsements, a move that likely scared off some potential candidates. Click on image for larger view.



The Perrets say they believed the questions about LSI and its business practices had been put to rest and that it would not be an issue in the campaign. They explain that they discussed the matter with family, friends and campaign advisers before Candyce decided to become a candidate. Candyce Perret came out strong with a half-page newspaper ad announcing her candidacy, burnished with the names of more than 140 people she says have endorsed her, including Louisiana House Speaker Taylor Barras, Democratic state Sens. Eric Lafleur and Gerald Boudreaux, Republican state Reps. Stuart Bishop and Dustin Miller, and Trent Brignac and Bo Duhe, district attorneys from the 13th and 16th judicial district courts, respectively. (Duhe's name has since been removed from the list of those endorsing her on her website).

In the sit-down with The Independent, Candyce Perret did take the opportunity to distance herself from the companys legal problems, saying she did not work for LSI when the allegations of billing irregularities were made  though, if some of the more troubling allegations are true, she certainly would have been enriched by such a practice. She did say that during her time with LSI she instituted changes in the company's policies and procedures, including elimination of the controversial electronic doctors signature, which her husband defended in his court testimony.

Candyce says she was stunned that Theall spoke publicly about the matter at a meeting of the Lafayette Trial Lawyers Association the Monday before qualifying. Theall has told friends that she did so because of the ethical cloud that could hang over the Court of Appeal if Perret is elected.

I was hoping that things would stay positive, Candyce tells the paper. And I certainly intend to run a positive campaign. Its unfortunate that my opponent is trying to create a sideshow and divert attention from what the issues are in this campaign.

I do feel that Im the most qualified candidate in the race, with the most diverse legal background, she continues. Ive litigated hundreds of cases from my time as a prosecutor, and Ive handled every type of case that would come before the Third Circuit. The Marksville native graduated from the University of Denver and Loyola Law School and has worked as city prosecutor for Marksville, and as city attorney for Arnaudville, Krotz Springs, Leonville and Port Barre. She also previously served as senior law clerk for the New Orleans-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeal for two years before joining the law firm of Morrow, Morrow, Ryan and Bassett, where she worked from 2006 to 2012. I feel that I could walk in the door tomorrow and be able to do the job, she says.

Political consultant Joe Castille outside of the Lafayette Parish Courthouse in May Photo by Robin May

Theall, it turns out, might be the least of Perrets political worries. Sources tell The Independent that Joe Castille, a scheming political operative, was well-versed on the legal problems of LSI prior to qualifying. Castille, who has done media and strategy for a number of high-profile Acadiana campaigns (chief among them Chad Legers unsuccessful bid for Lafayette sheriff in 2015), was seeking a candidate willing to use the information about LSI and the Perrets. (Castille's collusion with Lafayette Marshal Brian Pope to advance the Leger campaign was the basis for criminal indictments against the marshal. Read more here.)

Workers compensation attorney Tom Budetti tells the paper he spoke with Castille while he was contemplating entering the race during the week of qualifying. Castille, Budetti says, seemed to know all about Hunter Perret, Candyce Perret and LSI.

For a while, Vanessa Anseman appeared to be the candidate Castille had been hoping for. Anseman, whose husband is a partner at Jones Walkers River Ranch office (headed by attorney Ian McDonald, the corporate defense attorney in the Stelly case), consulted with Castille early on.

Castille, however, is no longer involved with the Anseman campaign, having been replaced this week by political consultant Roy Fletcher of Baton Rouge.

Joe and I decided to go our separate ways, candidate Anseman tells The Independent. It was completely amicable.

But that may not mean Castille is out of the picture. Independent PACs have been the main source of attack ads in campaigns in recent judicial elections in Louisiana, giving candidates (when they want it) plausible deniability for some of the harsher attacks on their opponents. Castille, who has extensive ties in conservative and business circles, could still find a channel for his information albeit not tied directly to a particular campaign.

In other words, Candyce Perret is probably not going to get the positive campaign she hoped for.

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Contact Mike Stagg at [email protected]

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LSIs Stelly Numbers Reveal Its Business Model

Hunter Perret, owner of Louisiana Specialty Institute, his attorney Alan Breaud and Third Circuit Court of Appeal candidate Candyce Perret maintain that LSI was not given an opportunity to participate in the 2013 motion in limine hearing before Judge Kristian Earles where the companys charges for medical services in the Stelly case were disallowed.

The central issue in the hearing was whether LSI was the provider of the services rendered to patient Stelly. Judge Earles and attorneys on the case used a spreadsheet worksheet to itemize the services and charges in the April 15, 2013, hearing.

The Perrets and Breaud had been provided the worksheet prior to the Jan. 25 meeting at the paper's office. In the meeting, they claimed that they could not verify the accuracy of the LSI numbers in the worksheet. At the request of IND Media Editorial Director Leslie Turk, the Perret team delivered a single-page document to The Independent the following day, Jan. 26, that contains its numbers for the two surgeries performed on plaintiff Stelly that were at the heart of the legal fight.

What the LSI Sheet Tells Us

The sheet provided The Independent by the Perrets and Breaud establishes two important facts. The first is that LSI was paid for services rendered in the Stelly case invoices for the respective 2011 procedures (a cervical surgery on April 15 and a lumbar surgery on September 26) shortly after they were performed. The second fact is that the court in the Stelly case was absolutely working off LSI invoices when it considered the motion in limine when it struck LSIs charges. That is established by the appearance of payments LSI says it received by two medical care financers on LSI invoices submitted as evidence in support of the 2014 motion in limine.

According to the document, LSI sold the cervical surgery invoice to Austin-based medical lien financing company MedStar for $99,572 on May 26, 2011. With that money, it paid the providers who were involved in the surgery. LSI wrote checks for the Stelly cervical procedure in 2011 totaling $77,033.

On June 1, 2014, LSI wrote a check to patient Stelly in the amount of $3,608. That check was to cover the billing of what was originally listed as a surgical assist by Dr. Kerry Thibodeaux. Dr. Thibodeaux submitted an affidavit in the Stelly case that he had not participated in the surgery on Stelly. That charge ($6,560 on the original LSI invoice) was thrown out by Judge Earles and the attorneys in the 2013 hearing. Hunter Perret says he only learned about the inaccurate billing in 2014 while a witness in the Narcisse case in the 16th Judicial District.

Perret says the decision to pay the plaintiff directly on the matter was made after determining that MedStar had closed the account on the case two years earlier and had no interest in the money.

However, there is no listing of a payment to Dr. Kerry Thibodeaux in connection with the Stelly cervical surgery in the Perret/Breaud sheet. Had a check been cut for that in 2011, it would have alerted LSI and Perret as to what he has since cited as a clerical error in listing Thibodeaux on the original 2011 bill.

The sheet shows that after Stelly and the providers were paid, LSI cleared $18,930.26 on the Stelly cervical surgery, primarily for its work of gathering the invoices of the actual providers, marking them up and selling the marked up invoice to MedStar.

LSI was paid by Bayou Medical Management for Stellys lumbar surgery on the same day as the surgery. The payment of $94,344 to LSI was used to pay providers involved in that second surgery.

The sheet indicates that LSI cleared $15,963 after paying providers involved in this second surgery.

The 94,344 payment to LSI for Stellys lumbar surgery invoice shows up as the Case Total Payments figure on LSIs invoice for that surgery.

The Case Total Charges for that surgery are listed as $134,778 in LSIs invoice. The payment from Bayou Medical Management represents 70 percent of the face value of the LSI invoice.

That would be our money once the case settles, Bayou Medical Management owner Jack Onstott tells The Independent of the Case Total Adjustments line ($40,433 on the Stelly lumbar surgery invoice).

Funding Medical Care for the Injured Uninsured

In the medical lien financing business, once a provider sells an invoice to a funder (in this case, lien buyer MedStar) the provider is no longer involved in the case. LSIs involvement in the billing for the Stelly surgeries ended on the respective days that it sold the invoice for the cervical surgery to MedStar and the day it was paid for invoice for the lumbar surgery to Bayou Medical Management. Both those dates were in 2011. The hearing on the motion in limine to throw out LSIs charges was held in April 2013.

The payments by MedStar and Bayou Medical Management show up in the LSI invoices submitted for the two surgeries.

In the cervical surgery, the payment from MedStar shows up as the Case Total Payments line item in the lower right corner of the invoice. Hunter Perret says LSI gets between 45 percent and 55 percent of the face value of its invoices funded through medical lien finance companies.

Bayou Medical Management operates as a preferred provider organization for plaintiffs attorneys, according to Onstott. Although it serves much the same function as medical lien finance companies, Bayou conducts its business on a different basis. It openly markets to plaintiff attorneys, works out provider rate agreements based on its own assessments of the market, then pays providers a percentage of the face value of the invoices from particular cases backed by a guarantee from the plaintiffs attorney.

We negotiate rates with provider and pay them a percentage of the invoice based on those rates  typically 70 percent to 80 percent, depending on the case  within about 30 days of them providing us an invoice, Onstott explains via phone.

Onstott says his firm requires that attorneys involved in the particular case guarantee the payment.

Medical lien funders perform a risk analysis of the case involved in the litigation and the type of care and treatment involved. Typically medical lien funders pay a smaller percentage of the face value of medical treatment invoices. The plaintiff/patient typically assigns the proceeds from the litigation to the lien holder in exchange for their funding of medical treatment for their injuries.

Providers and Bills

LSIs bills for the two surgeries in the Stelly case were the obstacles to a settlement in that case. The decision to disallow LSIs charges was based on information gathered by the attorneys in that case that LSI had not, in fact, provided the services and that it did not have written agreements in place with the providers for whose services it had billed.

The court ordered the holders of the invoices  MedStar and Bayou Medical Management  to be paid only at the rates billed by the actual providers, not at the marked up rates that appeared in the LSI invoices for the two procedures. LSI didnt incur the loss; MedStar and Bayou did.

LSI had been paid for providing the services when it sold the invoice to MedStar for the cervical surgery and when Bayou Medical Management paid for the lumbar surgery based on LSIs invoice in 2011.

The Case Total Charges line in the cervical surgery shows a total of $181,040. The MedStar payment is 55 percent of the Case Total Charges for the April 2011 cervical surgery performed on Stelly.

The Case Total Charges line for the lumbar surgery was $134,778. Bayou Medical Management paid LSI 70 percent of the cost of the total services billed, which Onstott says was consistent with his firms agreements with providers in the region.

Onstott says his firm no longer does business with LSI primarily because he found the companys rates too high. We were able to find other providers who could provide the same quality services at more reasonable rates, Onstott tells The Independent.  _MS

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The LSI Markup and Move Strategy on Invoices

Hunter Perret maintains that he formed LSI in order to provide affordable access to health care, yet the companys higher billing rates have brought it into conflict with insurance companies, plaintiff attorneys and even companies that finance the care provided in personal injury litigation.

A long-running dispute between LSI and Lafayette attorney Cle Simon over the companys charges resulted in a Third Party Demand lawsuit being filed against LSI in April 2015 by attorney Kevin Duck. Duck was seeking relief for one of Simons clients from the cost of whiplash treatment provided by Hunter Perrets company. Ducks suit against LSI is part of the case record of Gabal v Belaire and Allstate Insurance Company in the 15th Judicial District Court in Lafayette.

Ducks suit and the defense of LSI mounted by its legal counsel Perret Doise (Hunter Perrets fathers law firm) provide keen insights into plaintiff attorneys frustration with LSIs high rates as well as the companys own view of its work as explained by its own legal team. Perret Doise also provides a possible explanation as to why Hunter Perret did not respond to entreaties from attorneys in the Stelly case to address issues with LSIs bills in that matter. In the suit filed by Duck, Perret Doise asserts that LSI has no role in billing once it has sold or been paid on invoices assigned to other companies involved in payment of personal injury care costs.

Third-Party Demand

At the center of the dispute is the amount LSI billed Simons client Gabal for neck injection treatment for whiplash suffered in a 2010 motor vehicle accident. Gabal was rear-ended, according to Ducks suit:

Initial billing records provided revealed medical charges that were not usual, customary, nor reasonable, but were grossly inflated and included charges for services not provided (hospital/facility fees). GABAL was never treated in any hospital or other facility. To the contrary, all services were provided in the same offices as were examinations. The medical charges initially totaled $11,022.00 (Exhibit 1) Subsequent alleged corrected billing records from LSI confirmed the fact that the initial charges were grossly inflated and revealed much lesser charges for the very same procedures on the very same dates of service. The alleged corrected billing records show charges totaling $7,900.00. Although allegedly corrected to reveal the actual charges, the alleged corrected billing records include charges for services not provided (hospital/facility fees). (Exhibit 2) On information and belief, LSI knowingly inflated its medical billing charges beyond the usual, customary and reasonable charges for the services provided and/or included charges for services never provided as part of a practice of LSI to inflate medical charges for personal profit. On information and belief this is not the first nor only instance of LSI inflating patient charges and, in fact, the practice of inflating patient medical charges is believed to be widespread and an unfair trade practice pursuant to LSA-RS 51:1401, et seq, commonly referred to as the UNFAIR AND DECEPTIVE TRADE PRACTICES ACT.

Jared O. Brinlee of Perret Doise responds to Duck for LSI by saying that the legal window for any cause for action against LSI has closed, while also claiming that the suit was premature:

Claims for delictual obligations or for violations of the Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act are prescribed after one year. Louisiana Specialty Institute, L.L.C (LSI) finished treating the Plaintiff and billed her for all services more than three years ago. But Plaintiff now asserts in her Third Party Demand (the Petition) causes of action for violation of the Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act and fraud years later. Both are prescribed based on the facts alleged on the Petitions face. Regardless of prescription, claims that are subject to arbitration by agreement between the parties will be premature if filed in the trial court. The contract between Plaintiff and LSI contains an arbitration provision, which will be binding as to LSIs right to recover against Plaintiffs settlement proceeds and Plaintiffs waiver and release of the exact claims contained in the petition. As these matters must be submitted to arbitration, Plaintiffs action is premature.

Brinlee, in his response to Ducks suit, then addresses the issue of the cost of the services billed by LSI:

To avoid having to pay the cash sum for the medical treatment originally quoted by LSI, Plaintiff instead entered into an agreement with LSI to finance the future procedures at a higher cost. The agreement is attached to this memo as Exhibit A. Such an arrangement required billing at LSIs credit price (rather than the usual cash price) in exchange for an assignment of a portion of Plaintiffs recovery in her personal injury suit. That assignment was made before the services were provided, and Plaintiff expressly acknowledged that, by assigning the lien, she would have to pay more for LSIs services than the case price of those services. On page 2 of that assignment, Plaintiff agreed that: I acknowledge that fees paid to medical providers vary depending upon the method of payment, and that fees paid by one patient may be higher or lower than the fees paid by another patient, depending upon contractual rights, government regulations, or negotiated payment agreements between the provider and the payor. I further acknowledge that medical providers typically receive more for their services when paid by contractual agreements, such as this, than if they were paid by health insurance companies, government programs such as Medicare or Medicaid, or by the patient in cash. I hereby waive any right to object to any fees charged by the PROVIDER that are the subject of this contract/lien based upon a claim that they are unreasonable or excessive (as opposed to erroneous), and by signing this contract/lien, I and the undersigned attorney waive any rights to challenge or object to the amount of any such fees or charges on that basis. (emphasis added)

Pursuant to that agreement, Brinlee asserts that LSI sold the invoice for the treatments to MedStar, which was brought into the process by Gabals attorney, Cle Simon, in the original motor vehicle accident case.

Brinlee says the agreement with MedStar mandates that arbitration of fee disputes take place in its home in Travis County, Texas.

Ducks response is blistering:

LSIs various exceptions are not well founded in law or fact and should be denied. Indeed, as set forth hereafter, LSI has relied on inapplicable law and jurisprudence and has not only ignored the actual facts germane to this case, but has actually made factual representations that are knowingly false. For example, as will be demonstrated hereafter, the suggestion by LSI that plaintiff failed to object to the billing during the years that have passed is totally false as revealed by various written communications between LSI and plaintiffs counsel of record.

Duck argues that LSIs inflated medical bills approach fraud:

LSI provided medical treatment to Cheryl Gabal for injuries resulting from an automobile collision that occurred on July 27, 2010 at which time Cheryl Gabal was rear-ended. Billing records were not produced contemporaneous with the treatment that was provided and it was not until many months subsequent to treatment being provided that any billing records were provided, which billing records were only provided upon the repeated insistence of Cheryl Gabal through her attorneys office. As with essentially every patient who was a client of plaintiffs attorneys office, Cheryl Gabals medical charges were grossly inflated to the extent such needless and grossly inflated medical charges are tantamount to fraud as contemplated by C.C. Art. 1953.

Duck then cites a litany of instances where Gabals attorney, Simon, questioned LSIs billing practices and charges involving a variety of Simon Firm clients who had received treatment through LSI. Duck then summarizes:

Clearly, any suggestion by LSI that plaintiff failed to object to the billing during the years that have passed is totally false and inaccurate. As revealed by the attachments, since the very beginning plaintiffs counsel has objected to the billing practices of LSI, has provoked and participated in meetings about the objectionable billing practices and secured an agreement to correct the grossly inflated billing charges. Regrettably, there has been no finality to the issue which provoked the filing of the Third-Party Demand so that the court may determine the issue.

Duck proceeds to explain the basis for his claim that LSI engaged in fraud in its medical charges. He also explains how plaintiffs (those injured in accidents) were harmed by LSIs inflated bills:

Two elements essential to establishing fraud are: 1) an intent to defraud or to gain an unfair advantage and 2) a resulting loss or damage. First Downtown Dev. v. Cimochowski, 613 So. 2d 671 (La. App. 1993). It is obvious that the billing practices of LSI in grossly inflating bills was done with the intent to gain an unfair and unjust advantage in the nature of an economic benefit for LSI. As a consequence, plaintiff stands to suffer a loss or damage to the extent that plaintiff would be required to pay more for treatment provided her than is reasonable and customary.

In personal injury cases, medical costs generally come out of the plaintiffs share of the money awarded or settled. LSIs higher costs amounted to a transfer of funds from the plaintiff and to LSI or whichever entity owned the invoice at the time cases were resolved.

Duck continues to pursue his attack on what he characterizes as LSIs fraudulent billing:

As the court is further aware, consent to a contract may be vitiated by error, fraud, or duress. C.C. Art. 1948. Specifically, C.C. Art. 1948 entitled Vitiated Consent states: Consent may be vitiated by error, fraud or duress. In other words, in the context of fraud, LSIs reliance upon any alleged contact or assignments is misplaced to the extent that in the context of fraud, any such contract or assignment is a nullity and therefore unenforceable. In this regard, if this honorable court ultimately determines at trial on the merits that LSI has committed fraud in its billing practices then the contract is considered an absolute nullity pursuant to C.C. Art. 2030.

Duck argues that the specter of fraud in LSIs medical billing extends the window for legal action to five years, keeping the fight over the bills alive.

Duck adds that the proper venue for any action regarding the billing issue is Lafayette Parish, where the contact was signed, where the treatment was provided and where the plaintiff and LSI are domiciled.

Not LSIs Bill

Responding to Duck, Brinlee of Perret Doise says that Duck is barking up the wrong tree by suing LSI:

LSI is not the owner of the claims that Plaintiff seeks to avoid paying, and LSI is not asserting any claims against Plaintiff. LSI has already been paid for these services, years ago. Plaintiffs claims are delictual actions, which prescribed no later than 2013.

Confronted with the reality of being paid a percentage of the face value of the invoices it sold or assigned companies like MedStar, Perret and LSI marked up Total Case Charges on its bills enough to generate the revenue needed to pay its providers 100 percent of the face value of their own invoices. LSIs ability to quickly pay providers 100 percent of the face value of their bills was unique in the region. But that practice  and the significant markups needed to cover the actual costs versus what funders would pay  drove LSIs charges to levels significantly higher than those of other providers in the region. Insurance companies and ultimately plaintiff attorneys began objecting to and then challenging the legitimacy of the charges.

In the Stelly case, documents submitted by Hunter Perret and Alan Breaud show that LSI was paid for the surgeries in that case shortly after they were performed in 2011. When the case was moving toward settlement in 2014, the costs of the respective surgeries billed by LSI became the final barrier to resolution. By that time, LSI had no incentive to settle or compromise, as Perret Doises Brinlee wrote in the Duck suit, having already been paid for those services, years ago.

Unlike the surgeries in the Stelly case, which were done at Opelousas General, the whiplash treatments for Gabal were all carried out at LSI.

In the end of Ducks Third-Party Demand suit, on Jan. 14, 2016, Allstate Insurance paid MedStar $7,650 of the original $11,022 LSI bill (69.4 percent of its face value). It is not clear how much MedStar paid LSI for Gabals bill in 2011. Hunter Perret says LSI typically got between 45 percent and 55 percent of the face value of the invoices it sold to medical lien finance firms like MedStar.

One day later, Gabal got at least a partial refund when Allstate issued a check to her for $3,230.60. The Lafayette Parish Clerk of Court was paid $692.50 for court costs incurred in the Third Party Demand fight.

Cheryl Gabal's comment about LSI stayed up on the company's Facebook page for almost two years. It was taken down around the time Candyce Perret announced her candidacy.

All of the parties involved in the Gabal case signed a confidentiality agreement, and none would speak on the record to The Independent. Gabal, however, did share her thoughts about the company on its Facebook page, calling it "a bunch of crooks!!!" in a post that stayed up for approximately two years before being removed around the time Candyce announced her candidacy.  MS
A Lafayette health executive faces up to five years in prison and a quarter million-dollar fine on each of 14 counts he was convicted on in connection with a kickback scheme at a Shreveport mental health facility he managed.

U.S. Attorney Stephanie A. Finley's office says 64-year-old Tom McCardell was found guilty by a federal jury following a four-day trial in Shreveport. According to Finley's release on the conviction:
There are plenty of familiar names from Festivals past, plus a few surprises and intriguing collaborations.

Balkan Beat Box

It's that time of year again: cascading and retreating cold fronts, king cake and Festival International de Louisiana releasing its lineup for that April's event. FIL put it out there today, and it features plenty of familiar names, some returning faves and some downright intriguing collaborations.

Among the latter is the Sunday closer featuring GIVERS featuring Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, the husband-wife team of Tom Tom Club and Talking Heads fame, Dickie Landry and others. This makes us go "hmmmm." In a good way.

Best act returning after a several-year hiatus: the funky French second-line group Ceux Qui Marchent Debout. And among groups who performed recently and we can now call regulars  Red Baraat and Balkan Beat Box. Good stuff all. (The full lineup is below; for more check out FIL's website.)

We also love the cross branding happening between FIL and Festivals Acadiens et Creoles; the former is a presenting sponsor for a few of the acts at this year's FIL.
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.
CARBONDALE  Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said that if his Republican colleagues in Congress are willing to engage in a negotiation about ways to improve the Affordable Care Act, he would be eager to join in the effort.

But Durbin, speaking in Carbondale on Friday afternoon at Shawnee Health Cares clinic on South Lewis Lane, said he is strongly opposed to efforts to repeal the act that was a signature policy of former President Barack Obamas administration.

He also expressed concerns about the calls of many of his Republican colleagues to repeal and replace the act, saying he has not seen from them a comprehensive, workable alternative.

The honest answer is theres no replacement, Durbin said. If there were a replacement, we would have seen it, and we would be talking about it. This is hard work. I worked on this thing for two years before we passed it and its far from perfect. But to replace it with something that is as good or better is a real challenge and they dont have a plan to do that.

Durbin said he believes the conversation in Washington, as it relates to the Affordable Care Act, is starting to change. Its evolved from a promise of Republicans to repeal it, to a call to repeal and replace it, to an even softer stance adopted by some that perhaps the best path forward is to repair the existing framework, Durbin said.

Thats happening, Durbin said, because more people are speaking up about what the law has meant to them -- that being life-saving preventive care and access to services beyond just the emergency room, he said. It is estimated that some 20 million Americans have gained access to health insurance since the laws passage in 2010. If you take repeal off the table, Im pulling up a chair, Durbin said, of what he tells Republicans looking to address concerns over the law such as high premiums, co-pays and limited options that some are facing when they buy a plan on the marketplace.

Durbin made these comments during an event in Carbondale his office billed as a roundtable discussion with healthcare leaders and community members about the Affordable Care Act. Everyone invited to the table spoke in strong support of the law. Neither representatives from Southern Illinois Healthcare nor Heartland Regional Medical Center, two of the largest medical providers in the region, were part of the formal roundtable discussion.

Franklin Hospital CEO James Johnson said repealing the act would cost his community hospital in Benton more than half a million dollars and result in loss of jobs and services that could be provided. Johnson said that as an independent hospital, We struggle every day to make our payroll and keep good jobs in the community. Johnson said the Affordable Care Act has translated into increased Medicaid reimbursements of $350,000 for the hospital as the income restrictions were eased to include more low-income people in the program.

Durbin said he asked representatives of the Illinois Hospital Association (IHA) which part of the state would be hit hardest by a repeal and they said downstate Illinois. Its going to hit you the hardest in downstate hospitals and it stands to reason, he said.

Durbin said that the IHA reported to his office that repealing the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, could result in a $594 million economic hit in the Southern Illinois area included in the 12th Congressional District, resulting in a loss of 4,300 jobs. U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, represents that district. Bost was not present at Friday's meeting. He has previously said he supports efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, but acknowledged in January he did not have details yet as to how that would work.

Patsy Jensen, Shawnee Health Services CEO, said that 9,000 patients served by the community health center were able to qualify for Medicaid with the expansion, and several thousand more were able to access health insurance on the marketplace. She said the conversations about Congress possibly repealing the Affordable Care Act are particularly difficult to stomach given that this area has been helped so much by the federal law, and how the states budget impasse is exacerbating the regions economic woes. If the federal government does a reversal on the Affordable Care Act and Illinois continues without a solid financial plan, the effects will be devastating for Southern Illinois, she said.

Its tragic for Southern Illinois because we feel those things, Jensen said. Our infrastructure is very, very, codependent on hospitals, on the university, on community health centers. And if any one of those legs breaks, and we all tumble.

Statewide, Durbin said that 1.2 million Illinoisans have been able to access health insurance as a direct result of the Affordable Care Act, about half of them because of the expansion of Medicaid that qualified a broader segment of low-income people, and the other half through Get Covered Illinois, the health care exchange Illinois operates in a partnership with the federal government. He also made note of the fact that the Affordable Care Act outlawed the practices of insurance companies turning away people with pre-existing conditions, discriminating against women by charging those of childbearing age more for coverage and setting lifetime limits for an individual, which most often affected those who faced cancer and other illnesses that are expensive to battle.

Julia McQueen, of Carbondale, is one of those individuals who has been able to buy insurance on the marketplace. McQueen, who works full-time at the Good Samaritan House of Carbondale, said she didnt think about health insurance access for years because she and her husband were both covered on his company plan. But when he retired, she found herself in a tough spot trying to find coverage on her own, as it was not available through her job at the nonprofit shelter that provides services to the homeless.

Ive got a pre-existing condition, she said. If they take that (law) away, Id be dead.
When an ice storm hit Southern Illinois and the Greater St. Louis Area last month, Jennida Chase was forced to reschedule a doctors appointment in St. Louis. But the medical office workers had a reaction she didnt expect: they simply refused to give her an appointment.

Like all Southern Illinois University employees, Chase is on state health insurance. Her longtime general practitioner had referred her to see a specialist in the Washington University hospital system.

Essentially what they said was, You have state insurance. They dont pay out, so we cant schedule you right now, said Chase, an assistant professor in the Department of Cinema and Photography.

Chase was dumbfounded. She started asking around, and she learned that many of her colleagues had had similar experiences with health care providers turning down Illinois insurance.

I found that startling and disturbing. Were all paying our health insurance and not able to be seen by a specialist who would generally take our insurance, she said.

In many cases, she learned, health providers were asking patients to pay out-of-pocket for expensive procedures and wait to be reimbursed down the line  something that just wasnt feasible for most of her colleagues.

For newly elected Democratic State Comptroller Susana Mendoza, Chases story is representative of the difficulties thousands of people are facing due to the states unprecedented budget impasse, which is now potentially going into its third year.

Mendoza, who met with The Southern Illinoisans editorial board this week, does not shy away from placing responsibility for the crisis squarely on the shoulders of Gov. Bruce Rauner.

The deflection, the blame game, the lack of an ability to take responsibility for his role in this budget impasse is something that I just find unconscionable, given that every day, I hear these stories, whether its someone reaching out to me via a letter, an email, or just talking to me when I see them, Mendoza said.

By refusing to present a balanced budget proposal, Mendoza argued, Rauner is failing to uphold one of his most basic constitutional duties.

The Constitution is very clear. It says in Article VIII, Section 2, The governor shall prepare and submit to the General Assembly a balanced budget proposal.  It does not say, The General Assembly shall prepare and submit to the governor a balanced budget proposal, she said.

Were burning $2 million a day

Mendoza, a two-term Chicago clerk, in November beat out incumbent Republican Comptroller Leslie Munger, who was appointed to the post by Rauner in 2015.

The state is now $11.2 billion behind in bills that Mendoza's office does not have the appropriation authority to pay, and those bills are accruing interest.

Every day that we go without a budget, were burning about $2 million in late-payment interest penalties, Mendoza said.

When her office does receive permission to make payments, she said, those late-payment interest penalties will add up to at least a staggering $700 million.

When we think about what $700 million  could actually spend to improve the climate here in Southern Illinois, whether it be the university, business development programs, early childhood programs, social service providers, domestic violence shelters, mental health clinics  you pick it. Right?

"Thats money, $700 million, that could make a huge impact, not just in Southern Illinois, but in every single region of the state, that we will never see, as taxpayers, invested either in people or in infrastructure of any sort. Its being burnt.

A massive disconnect

Mendoza said she believes Rauner, a billionaire venture capitalist, is unable to understand the financial struggles of Illinois' average citizens. During his time in office, his own income has tripled, Mendoza said, citing the governors tax returns.

Theres a massive disconnect that Bruce Rauner lives in, with his 10 homes, to the reality that Mr. Smith has in trying to make the mortgage payment for his one home, she said.  I almost feel like I cant even blame him, because when you have that much money, how do you relate to a person who cant make a mortgage payment, or that cant send their kid to school, or has to have three jobs?

In the Illinois Senate, Senate President John Cullerton and Republican Leader Christine Radogno have been working on a budget package known as the grand bargain. Mendoza said she approves of lawmakers stepping up to break through the gridlock, but that she believes state senators shouldnt be expected to do the governors job.

I think theres a point here to be made that the constitution is very clear as to whose job it is to lead. Its not Senator Cullerton or Leader Radogno. Its not the General Assembly. Its Bruce Rauner. And weve been running leaderless for the last two years, she said.

In a two-minute video posted online Thursday, Rauner told state workers he would do what he could to ensure they keep getting paid, and accused Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan of trying to create a crisis showdown.

Last week, Madigans daughter, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, filed court papers seeking to suspend worker pay by the end of February to create greater urgency in solving the budget stalemate.

In the video, Rauner said the efforts could lead to a government shutdown on June 30.

The only thing that that tells me is that hes already written off the Senate grand bargain. He has no desire to sign that. Theres no intention to sign that, Mendoza said.

Rauner told The Southern Editorial Board on Tuesday that he believes progress is being made.

"Im frustrated, but Im optimistic," Rauner said. "I think were finally starting to make genuine progress. We have the senators working, its clear they are really trying to do something productive on a bipartisan basis to get structural change and a balanced budget. I applaud them for that. Its not done. I think its got a ways to go. Its still evolving, but I think its a good thing."

Rauner has been holding out for approval of portions of his turnaround agenda, a plan that he says will get the state into fiscal shape by focusing on workers' compensation; property-tax freezes; term limits, as part of a transforming government initiative; and pension reform, which includes pension buyouts to state pension system employees in an attempt to save money.

But Mendoza said Rauner has not been able to effectively monetize the gains of what she calls his pet projects. She said she has seen estimates that the turnaround agenda could bring around $150 million to Illinois; meanwhile, the impasse is costing taxpayers $700 million or more in late-payment interest penalties and causing lasting damage for state vendors and agencies that have had to wait seven months to be paid, she said.

So this agenda, that he would like to have (as) a feather in his cap, is it worth all the pain and suffering that the people of Illinois are going through right now, just so he can say he shook things up? she said.
DENMARK -- City of Denmark and Bamberg County officials and members of the community gathered Friday for the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Denmark City Hall.

The new structure, which will replace the 105-year-old building that currently houses city hall, will be located at the corner of Beech and City Hall streets.

Mayor Gerald Wright said some citizens wanted to know why the city hall couldnt remain on the main highway. He said the property that is being used for the new construction is owned by the city.

We want to do everything that we can to keep cost down. The city doesnt own any property on the main street, he said.

The new location is directly across from the Brooker Center, which is owned by the city, and this could give the city a little complex of sorts, Wright said. He noted there's money in the city's budget to pay to landscape that area.

The city plans to move forward with construction fairly soon, the mayor said, adding that the current building is too costly to continue to maintain.

Its at the point where we cant keep putting money in repairing it, he said.

Jerry Bell, executive director of the Bamberg County Chamber of Commerce, attended the ceremony in support of the city, which is a chamber member.

Although I dont know all of the particulars, I know trying to rewire old buildings with new technology is difficult. And, workers deserve a nice place to work, Bell said.

Bamberg County Council Chairman Evert Comer said he is excited to see the direction Denmark is going.

As a citizen, I am excited. I think its a good thing. New buildings in a community suggest progress, he said.

Denmark City Councilwoman Hope Weldon said she is elated to be a part of the growth and development that is taking place in Denmark.

We are proud of things we have in place, and we have seen a tremendous increase in the people attending council meetings," Weldon said.

City Councilman Calvin Odom said he is also encouraged by the growth in Denmark.

I want the citizens to know that the new building will belong to everybody. We will have a conference room that can be used by everyone," Odom said.

According to Wright, the new city hall will house administrators and department heads. The city still has to seek bids and hire a contractor for the project.

Following the groundbreaking, a reception was held at the Gazebo in Jim Harrison Park.
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"Clap Your Hands If You Believe in Fairies!"
The demise of Saturday mail delivery is just another example of the changing times. Old curmudgeon that I am, I enjoy receiving mail, whe...
By Azertac





Georgias Minister of Justice Tea Tsulukiani and Azerbaijans Minister of Justice, Chair of the Judicial-Legal Council Fikrat Mammadov have explored the ways for expansion of the judicial cooperation.





Fikrat Mammadov emphasized fruitful friendly relations and cooperation between the two countries. He singled out the role of the heads of the states in the development of these relations.





Minister Mammadov recalled meeting with his Georgian counterpart at high-level international conferences and forums and underlined great prospects for strengthening of judicial relations.





The minister provided insight into wide-scale court and legal reforms carried out under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, including transparent election of judges in Europe, use of electronic courts and activity of administrative justice.





He also spoke about transparency in the justice system, encouragement of open government, public participation, as well as fight with corruption, including ASAN Service.





Tea Tsulukiani underscored development of relations between the two countries in various directions and bilateral support within the international organizations.





The two exchanged views on the prospects of cooperation between the ministries of justice of the two countries, including improvement of legislation, development of civil society, use of Mediation Institute.





Georgian ambassador to Baku Teymuraz Sharashenidze was also present in the meeting.
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

Blogger Alexander Lapshin, who was extradited from Minsk and will soon stand trial in Baku, met with representatives of the Israeli Embassy in Azerbaijan on February 10.

Eldar Sultanov, the spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Prosecutor Generals Office said that the meeting was held in accordance with international law, at the request of the Israeli Embassy to the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan.

Earlier, representatives of the Russian Embassy in Azerbaijan met with Lapshin. After the meeting, the embassy said that Lapshin has no complaints about conditions of detention.

Blogger Lapshin, who owns several citizenships, illegally visited Azerbaijan`s Armenia-occupied lands and now is charged under the articles 281.2 (appeals directed against state) and 318.2 (illegal border crossing) articles of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan.

Helped by his accomplices in the occupied territories, Lapshin, paid a number of visits to Azerbaijan`s occupied lands, where he voiced support for "independence" of the illegal regime, and made public calls against Azerbaijan`s internationally recognized territorial integrity.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.
By Trend





Fresh from a legal setback to his travel ban, U.S. President Donald Trump expressed confidence on Friday that his order would ultimately be upheld by the courts, and promised to introduce additional national security steps next week, Reuters reported.

Trump's executive order banning entry to the United States by refugees and by citizens of seven Muslim-majority was put on hold by a federal judge in Seattle last week, and that suspension was upheld by an appeals court in San Francisco on Thursday.

The White House is not ruling out the possibility of rewriting Trump's Jan. 27 order in light of the court actions, an administration official said.

Trump's order, which he has called a national security measure to head off attacks by Islamist militants, barred people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days, except refugees from Syria, who are banned indefinitely.

"We are going to do whatever's necessary to keep our country safe," Trump said during a White House news conference with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The Republican president did not answer directly when he was asked whether he would sign a new travel ban.

"We'll be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country. You'll be seeing that sometime next week," Trump added. He did not make clear whether he was talking about a redrafted travel ban directive or some other initiative.

The president, who has made extensive use of executive action that bypasses Congress since taking office on Jan. 20, said his administration would also continue to go through the court process.

"And ultimately I have no doubt that we'll win that particular case," he added, referring to Thursday's ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Bahrain-based Ebdaa Microfinance Bank said its chief executive Dr Khaled Al Ghazzawi has been inducted into the board of National Microfinance Bank in Jordan.



Dr Ghazzawi was also assigned the presidency of the risk committee under the board of directors and memberships of the audit and human resources committees.



This brings the number of boards in which Dr. Ghazzawi serves to four - Ebdaa Board of Directors in Syria, Ebdaa and Al Sharaka Bank in Sierra Leone, Ebdaa Microfinance Bank in Mauritania, and the National Microfinance Bank in Jordan.



The National Microfinance Bank in Jordan is one of the most important banks in a chain of nine similar banks -including the Ebdaa Microfinance Bank in Bahrain- working under the umbrella of the Arab Gulf Programme for Development "Agfund" spread across eight Arab countries, in addition to Sierra Leone.



Ebdaa Bank - Bahrain, pointed out that the new appointment assigned to its CEO is one of utmost importance and delicacy, at a time when the National Microfinance Bank in Jordan is witnessing a steady growth which has contributed to it to become one of the most prominent banks that operate in sustainable development and financial inclusion in the Arab region and the world.



The National Microfinance Bank attained more than half a million borrowers since it was founded in 2006, reaching operational and financial sustainability with a percentage that exceeded 140 per cent and collection rates exceeding 99 per cent.



The National Microfinance Bank aspires to benefit from the expertise of Dr. Al Ghazzawi in the development of new products and the effective management of resources.



On the appointment, Dr Al Ghazzawi lauded Agfund, King Abdullah II Fund for Development, the Jordanian company for promoting heritage products, and Fadi Ghandour for their trust in him, assigning him this position.



He also extended his appreciation to the banks team, represented by the president of the board of directors Reem Mudar Badran and director general, Khaled Muhaisin, for the warm welcome given to him by the management team in the first board meeting held last month.-TradeArabia News Service
Bahrain's Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Ministry has set up a new department to develop general strategy to tackle the issue of surface water drainage in the kingdom.



The department is part of the organisational chart for the office of the Works Affairs Undersecretary, the ministry said in a statement.



The ministry is also co-ordinating with the Civil Service Bureau regarding establishing a special organisational chart for the Surface Water Drainage & Management Department, stated a senior official.



The ministry faces many obstacles while designing, constructing and operating stormwater and surfacewater drainage networks, said Works Affairs Undersecretary Ahmed Al Khayyat, while giving a presentation to MP Jamal Ali Bu Hassan.



These include geographical, technical, financial and climate obstacles, in addition to human obstacles such as the absence of a specialised directorate, he added.



At the presentation, Al Khayyat highlighted the ministrys efforts towards handling the issue of surface water drainage.



Earlier, Bu Hassan met Minister of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Essam bin Abdulla Khalaf to discuss this issue.



The ministry has started implementation of 966 projects to address water collection points, which are distributed in Muharraq Governorate (71 projects), the Capital Governorate (303 projects), the Northern Governorate (296 projects) and the Southern Governorate with 296 projects, said Al Khayyat.



He also referred to the contracting projects related to the surface water drainage solutions (package projects) and the time contract projects at the Capital Governorate, which have been fully completed.



"These include the Road 4211 project in Block 742 in AAli, the Palace Avenue project in front of Ashraf Stores in Hoora, Avenue 85 project opposite to Maatam Al Basri in Block 361, implementing absorption tanks in Block 308, opposite Al Marjan Building in Block 356 and opposite to Bait Al Tijar in Block 410," said Al Khayyat.-TradeArabia News Service
The American University of Ras Al Khaimah (Aurak) has signed a MoU with Education For Employment (EFE), an international not-for-profit network that creates employment opportunities for youth across the Middle East and North Africa region.



The agreement seeks to provide jobseekers and university graduates in the UAE, regardless of nationality, with training opportunities as well as linkages to employers through developing relationships with local businesses and industries.



Through this agreement, Aurak has become EFEs first university partner in the UAE, said a senior official.



"I have very high expectations for this new relationship. As one of the leading institutions of higher education in the country, we are confident that we are producing top-quality graduates," remarked Prof Hassan Hamdan Al Alkim, president of Aurak.



"Now, with our new partner, Education For Employment, we are delighted that we can ensure that our graduates will be well supported in their search for meaningful employment within highly-competitive job markets," he stated.



On her part, Jasmine Nahhas di Florio, the senior VP (Strategy and Partnerships) at EFE-Global, said: "Each day, Education For Employments 40,000 graduates across the Middle East and North Africa send a clear message: with the right skills and tangible employment opportunities, youth can create a bright future for themselves, their families, and their communities."



"We are honoured to partner with Aurak, one of the countrys leading education institutions, to help youth in the UAE to transition from school to work and achieve their full potential," stated de Florio.



Education For Employments mission, she stated, was to create economic opportunity for unemployed youth in the Middle East and North Africa by providing world-class professional and technical training that leads directly to employment and the world of work.



The Aurak is a government-owned institution of higher education which provides an integrated North American-style education. It is accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and offers a total of 22 undergraduate and graduate programs across a wide range of disciplines.-TradeArabia News Service
International suppliers of stationery and office supplies are turning to the Middle East and Africa (MEA) for future business growth, with the UAE presenting itself as the ideal gateway to access hard-to-reach markets, said industry experts.



Analysts TechNavio forecast an annual market increase in the region of 15 per cent, while Conlumino, another analyst, estimate the MEA market for paper, stationery and office supplies, will be worth $12 billion by 2019.



While some suppliers are now just testing the waters, others have been in the market for many years, said Messe Frankfurt Middle East, the organiser of an upcoming industry event.



Paperworld Middle East, the regions largest B2B trade show covering the entire range of stationery and office supplies, will be held from March 14 to 16 at Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre.



More than 300 exhibitors from 36 countries will be taking part in the 7th edition of the expo which will see a wide range of products - from school and gift articles, office or household paper, arts and crafts, and party and festival articles, to printers and multimedia - on display.



Vienna Office Supplies (VOS) for example, has been exporting high-end stationery, office products, school supplies and artists materials to the Middle East for the last 30 years, said the expert.



Growth in the global stationery and office supplies market is expected to come from emerging markets such as the MEA, he stated.



The Austrian-headquartered company is entirely export-oriented, with the Middle East comprising 75 per cent of its market. VOS represents on an exclusive basis eight European brands, such as Schneider writing instruments, Cretacolor artist supplies, and Sax office accessories.



Karl Vytiska, the managing director of VOS, said the company has built up its presence in the region based on long-term relationships, including ones established at Paperworld Middle East.



VOS began exhibiting at Paperworld Middle East since its first edition seven years ago, and its where we first tied up with Dubai Library Distributors as our local partner, said Vytiska.



"Over the years, we have placed increased emphasis on exhibiting at the show, as it helps us reach over 95 per cent of our clientele," he stated.



Our capital is knowing the market through the people with whom we are dealing with for more than one generation in some cases. This personal contact is very important here in the Middle East, more important certainly than other markets, remarked Vytiska.



We keep our fires burning with our old clients and traditional networks in the Middle East, but there are always changes in the market, whereby distributors, wholesalers, and importers come and go. Its important to meet the new-comers in the field, and to that end, Paperworld Middle East is very important for us, he added.



The strong European presence will be complemented by exhibitors coming from the UK, Portugal, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, with household stationery names such as Lamy and Olympia taking part.



Other key exporting exhibitor countries include China, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, and Turkey.



Portuguese companies on-board include The Navigator Company, Olmar, Bi-Silque, DKT, and Olmer, which exports its range of Fegol office supplies and Pajory school supplies to over 25 countries.



Over the last three years weve increased our sales in the Middle East by over 45 per cent, which reflects the compatibility of our products with the region, said Joao Oliveira, the chief executive of Olmer.



We have created very good partnerships with distributors that weve established through Paperworld Middle East.



Meanwhile, Zebra, a Japanese maker of writing instruments, will also return, and will eagerly look to increase its footprint in the African market with its range of gel tip pens and mechanical pencils, said the organiser.



Weve been present in the Middle East now for more than 20 years through our distributors and so were looking out for other markets to develop, specifically Africa, said Terry Miyata, the general manager of Zebra, which posts $25 million in global sales every year.



Weve had strong leads from Ghana, Kenya, and Ethiopia that were actually through Paperworld Middle East. Our export market is about 40 per cent of our annual turnover, so we are looking to increase this through Africa, while also strengthening our position in the Middle East, he noted.



The countdown to the 7th edition of the annual showcase comes following a record turnout of exhibitors and visitors at the previous edition in 2016, firmly cementing its position as the must-attend trade show for the regional paper, office supplies, and stationery industries.



Ahmed Pauwels, the chief executive of Messe Frankfurt Middle East, said: "Shifting tides in international trade and economic uncertainty over the last 12 months has meant global manufacturers have had to refocus their export outlook, and the MEA is grabbing their attention."



"Paperworld Middle East provides unmatched access to market representatives from the fast-growing Middle East, Africa, Central and South Asia regions, and has seen increasing numbers of leading international brands and players participating from across the world," he noted.



Paperworld Middle East 2017 will return with popular features including the Green Office Area, where the spotlight will shine on sustainably produced essential office supplies; and the Wrapstar gift wrapping competition, he added.
Senaat, one of the largest industrial investment holding companies in the UAE, said it will be joining the Abu Dhabi Award for Excellence in Government Performance (ADAEP) this year.



Instituted in 2006, ADAEP is an awards program designed to recognize exceptional government employees, departments and initiatives, and to encourage the development of a culture of excellence, quality and transparency across organisations in Abu Dhabi, stated Dr Yasir Ahmed Al Naqbi, the director of the office of the Abu Dhabi Excellence Program who led a delegation to Senaat.



It met Senaats Executive Management team to discuss the fifth edition of the ADAEP and to highlight the latest developments around the award.



The delegation from Abu Dhabi Excellence Program was part of an awareness campaign organised by the General Secretariat of the Executive Council to shed light on the different requirements and categories of the ADAEP.



Jamal Salem Al Dhaheri, Senaats CEO welcomed the delegation, saying: "This year marks Senaats first participation in ADAEP and we feel privileged to be in a position to join the ranks of institutions across Abu Dhabi striving for excellence and international standards."



"The delegations visit today is an important step in supporting Senaat to build its knowledge of ADAEP," he stated.



"As an industrial champion for Abu Dhabi, a driver of economic diversification, and a major employer of Emirati talent, Senaat takes its commitment to excellence very seriously," stated Al Dhaheri.



"Over the years, we have looked to cultivate and affirm a culture of distinction across our portfolio by investing into a wide range of human development programs that can empower and guide our employees during fundamental decision-making moments that are crucial to the realization of Abu Dhabis economic vision," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
US President Donald Trump said he is considering issuing a new travel ban executive order and could do so within days, and the administration could still escalate a legal dispute over the original travel ban order to the US Supreme Court.



"We are going to do whatever is necessary to keep our country safe," Trump said earlier Friday during a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.



"We'll be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country. You'll be seeing that sometime next week," he stated.



The source cautions that the administration believes a new order risks making the current lawsuit "moot," which it may not want to do because it believes it can ultimately win on the merits.



However, a source familiar with the matter told CNN that the Trump administration will not immediately appeal the decision blocking its travel ban to the Supreme Court.



The decision to not go to the Supreme Court comes as the White House is examining several options to save President Donald Trump's controversial executive order on immigration, he stated.



Earlier talking to reporters onboard Air Force One, Trump said: "We will win that battle. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order."



Asked if his plan might be to issue a new executive order, he said: "It very well could be. We need speed for reasons of security, so it very well could be."



In the aftermath of a federal appellate court's decisive blow to Trump's move to ban citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries - Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen - from entering the US for 90 days, all refugees for 120 days, and all refugees from Syria indefinitely, the White House is working on "possible tweaks" to the executive order, according to a source in close contact with the White House on national security issues.



Should it write a new order, it would be more narrowly tailored than the one issued two weeks ago, the source said, such as explicitly stating that it does not apply to legal permanent residents.



"We are reviewing all of our options in the court system and confident we will prevail on the merits of the case," an administration official told CNN.



Questions on next steps have swirled since Thursday evening when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to lift of temporary restraining order on Trump's executive travel ban.



The Justice Department has a variety of options for how to proceed next in court, and Trump insists his administration will ultimately be successful.



"In addition we will continue to go through the court process, and ultimately I have no doubt we'll win that particular case," Trump stated.



The Justice Department might still try to persuade a larger panel of judges on the 9th Circuit to grant its emergency motion to "stay" (i.e., stop) US District Court Judge James Robart's temporary restraining order suspending key provisions of the travel ban.



DOJ could also dismiss its appeal of the temporary restraining order altogether and continue litigating the merits of the case in front of Robart in an attempt to bolster its case.



Additionally, some legal experts believe it may be advantageous for the administration to just write a new executive order to avoid the possibility of the President being subpoenaed over conversations regarding a "Muslim ban," said the source.


Dubai Supreme Council of Energy has announced the launch of the private sector platform of the World Green Economy Organisation (WGEO).



The newly launched platform is the first of WGEO that was launched during the third World Green Economy Summit (WGES) in Dubai on 5 October 2016, supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).



The platform aims to establish partnerships, enable dialogue and knowledge exchange among countries, public and private sectors, UN Agencies, financial institutions and civil organisations, to accelerate transition to green economy.



It was inaugurated by Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the chairman of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, on Saturday (February 11) at a grand ceremony in the presence of Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment; Suhail Mohamed Faraj Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy; Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, chairman of WGEO and Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).



The event kicked off with a keynote speech by Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, the chairman of WGEO.



"The UAE joined the organisation as its first member during the 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22) which was held in Marrakesh, Morocco, in November 2016," said Al Tayer.



"This reflects the diligent efforts of the UAE to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 and the Paris Climate Agreement. The organisation plays a pivotal role in limiting climate change as well as finding innovative solutions to the challenges related to sustainable energy, water and the environment in general," he stated.



Underscoring the vision of WGEO, Al Tayer said through its seven platforms, the green economy body aims to develop innovative solutions to climate change, as well as other challenges facing the environment and society.



"This initiative is in line with global agendas and the UAEs, A Green Economy for Sustainable Development initiative which was launched by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. It's not a secret the organisation's essential role is to reduce the investment risks in the green economy sector, and support international cooperation in innovation and funding," observed the top official.



The WGEO was founded on seven platforms, namely, countries, sustainable cities sector, private sector, academic sector, organisations and civil society, youth sector and financial sector.



"Today we are proud to launch our Private Sector Platform, which is the first initiative under the World Green Economy Organisation, in alignment with its first pillar," he said.



The platform, stated Al Tayer, aims to help WGEO to take on a frontline role by establishing partnerships as well as enabling dialogue and knowledge exchange among countries, public and private sectors, United Nations Agencies, financial institutions and civil organisations, to accelerate transition to green economy.



The role of the private sector in this transition is of crucial importance in establishing a strong foundation for a healthy and diversified economy. WGEO aims to catalyse the private sector towards a greener economy that achieves sustainable development, he added.



According to him, the new platform will help forge world-class partnerships, helping us build capacity and develop key opportunities for partnerships between private and public sectors across the region and internationally.



The Private Sector Platform will therefore create pathways to green development by facilitating the adoption of green innovative technologies, products and services on a global equilibrium. The private sector is increasingly seeing the opportunities that come along with 'green growth' and this Platform will provide the prerequisite channel for a vibrant private sector engagement, stated Al Tayer.



The focus on adopting a green lifestyle is going to be a key aspect of the new platform. We are determined to exceed the level of developing innovative important initiatives; we want to make sure these initiatives are applicable in everyday life so that future generations can benefit from our actions today. We also need to focus on opportunities to develop joints projects internationally, he added.



In her address, Clark explained UNDPs role in supporting WGEO.



UNDP is pleased to be associated with this ground-breaking initiative to support WGEO develop capacities in the coming years leveraging on the support of the private sector, he stated.



"The transition to a green economy is a challenging move for any country, a process that calls for multiple approaches and several catalysts. WGEOs initiative to launch the Private Sector Platform today reinforces its determination to persevere its green goals," noted Clark.



The launch of the Private Sector Platform, which is the first initiative under WGEO, is shaped by the organisations clear thinking and resilient policy-making capabilities. It will further enhance the private sector position as a global role model for green initiatives, she added.-TradeArabia News Service
Saudi Arabian Airlines, the kingdom's national carrier, said it has signed a medical health insurance contract with Company for Cooperative Insurance (Tawuniya).



As per the deal, Tawuniya will provide medical insurance services to the employees and their families of Saudi Airlines as well as companies and strategic business units that belong to Saudi Airlines.



It will also give these employees access to quality health care services through the wide network of hospitals and medical centers that Tawuniya has partnered with, said the company in a statement.



Saleh bin Nasser Al Jasser, the director general, said: "At Saudi Arabian Airlines, we give a lot of emphasis to our people who we consider our most important asset and the primary reason for our growth and achievement of the initiatives of the National transformation plan and the kingdoms vision 2020 Strageic plan."



"Saudi Arabian Airlines is committed to providing the best standard of healthcare services and benefits to its employees and are therefore keen to enable our employees and their families access to the best medical insurance services. We look forward to the partnership with Tawuniya, who we are confident will provide more value and benefits to our employees," he noted.



Tawuniya CEO Raeed Al Tamimi, said this new contract reflects the company's capacity and expertise in managing the medical insurance portfolios for large companies and government organizations in Saudi Arabia.



"We consider Saudi Arabian Airlines as one of our key customers and our partnership with them is based on trust and on our ability to meet the needs of their employees and serve them in the best way possible," he noted.



Al Tamimi pointed out that during last year, Tawuniya succeeded in attracting major companies from various sectors and with this new contract with Saudi Arabian Airlines, both sides will benefit from many value-added elements.



"Saudi Airlines employees will get the best medical insurance services provided by Tawuniya and at the same time Tawuniya will be able to further promote its insurance portfolio," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Meet award-winning artisans and buy their products at Kerala Arts and Crafts Village
In a move for greater state sovereignty over fracking regulations, Wyomings Republican Sens. John Barrasso and Mike Enzi introduced a bill Wednesday that says future federal standards on the drilling technique will come second to existing state rules if those rules are adequate.

The text of the bill is not yet available online, but the lawmakers who proposed S. 316 say it will protect states from overlapping regulations that cause confusion and cost money.

The measure reverses the normal approach to federal and state environmental issues. Generally, Washington sets policy and develops standards. States must then meet or exceed the federal minimum. On first blush, the Wyoming senators bill is the opposite.

The legislation joins a growing list of attempts to roll back or prevent industry regulation at the federal level. In late January, a representative from Florida introduced a bill to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. Multiple congressmen, including Wyomings delegation, have called on the Congressional Review Act as authority to kill recent regulations from the Obama Administration including the Streams Protection Act and the BLMs methane rule. The list goes on.

The clear message from Wyomings delegation and other conservatives in Washington is that states are best positioned to regulate fracking and other industry, leaving conservation groups worried that local standards will fall without a standard national backbone.

Wyoming first

Wyoming was one of the first states to develop fracking rules. However, efforts to create a nationwide standard from the Environmental Protection Agency, and more recently the Bureau of Land Management, have been contested.

This senate energy bill may stand in the way of the BLMs hydraulic fracturing rule that requires disclosure of chemicals used in the frack process and careful management of produced water. The agencys regulations on fracking are currently making their way through the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver after multiple states, including Wyoming, sued the Department of the Interior. Opening arguments are set for March 22.

Wyomings rules dont appear to fall short in anyones estimation.

State operators are required to do baseline water testing and submit a post-fracking report to state regulators. Since a court case that resulted in a settlement with groups like the Powder River Basin Resource Council and Wyoming regulators, companies must disclose the chemicals they inject into the ground, which break apart formations to reach more oil and more gas.

Wyoming can do a better job on compliance, but generally the state has strong rules, said Shannon Anderson, lawyer for the landowners advocacy group.

I would say Wyomings rules were first in the nation precedent setting, she said.

Some of the equality states rules are mirrored by the BLMs, which leads to Enzi and Barrassos complaint that duplicated rules are a problem.

State regulators agree.

Adopting a one-size-fits-all approach creates confusion and bureaucracy in an already complex process, said Mark Watson, supervisor of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, in an email. Adding another regulatory layer will inevitably lead to delays in the permitting process for operators without increasing environmental protection or providing more information for the public to review.

Whos whose regs

The bill is part of a trend that concerns environmental advocates who see partisanship in the current play. That hasnt always been the case in environmental policy, said Marta Stoepker, regional communications manager for the Sierra Clubs Beyond Coal.

One of things you have to understand is the EPA was created during the Nixon administration, part of a bipartisan Congress, because we understand that there are standards for air, for water, for public health that need to be met, she said. Some states dont have those standards in place.

But Max DOnofrio, spokesman for Enzi, said the bill didnt seek to supersede federal authority.

States play an extremely important role in managing regulations, and the decision to defer to the states is a road often taken by the federal government, he said. But it is important to note that this is a proposed federal law that would say states have this authority, in this area.

Environmental advocates are not arguing that states cant do a good job. Their concern is that federal regulations have an important role to play.

There is a general rule of environmental law that is, we dont want a race to the bottom, Anderson said. We dont want states to outcompete each other to have more industry friendly rules to attract business.

Agencies like the BLM and the EPA can create an even playing field for industry when it comes to clean energy practices, she said.

John Robitaille, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming agreed those national standards have a place, but said fracking is its own beast.

This is a situation where we are talking about a very narrow and highly engineered process which can be different well to well, he said. In this particular case, I would suggest that this action will make the process safer as each state can customize their rule for their specific needs.

Having state and federal rules that are sometimes similar, sometimes different, creates confusion, he said, echoing Watsons comments of the Oil and Gas Commission.

Anderson, of the Sheridan landowners group, disagrees.

When you get down to implementation, even if there is a federal rule or a fed law, its the state is the one implemented. Its a state permit, she said. I think these agencies work well together  and rely on each others expertise, which is what the public needs at the end of the day.

The bill was introduced Monday, read twice and referred to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, of which Barrasso is a member.
After a sluggish year in the commercial real estate business, caused by the collapse of Wyomings energy industry, some real estate agents say that market is starting to recover.

We are definitely seeing an uptick in activity in industrial space around Casper, said Charlie Shopp of Remax.

Shopp said the last six weeks have seen industrial and office space starting to lease again after a slow 2016.

Weve seen a lot more interest from energy companies, energy service companies, gathering information in the Casper market, he added.

Josh Jamison of Granite Peak Development, which operates primarily in Casper and Cheyenne, agreed that commercial leasing and sales was resuming.

We are seeing some more inquiries recently, Jamison said. Ive seen activity pick up in calls and tours.

Shopp said an increase in commercial real estate bodes well for the rest of the economy.

Ive been in the real estate business since 1982, and what I have learned for Casper is that the industrial space, the commercial business, picks up before the residential business does, he said.

Data from the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division released last month shows that residential housing prices and permits for new construction have yet to pick up.

As of November, statewide single-family housing permits were down 9.9 percent from a year earlier.

The divisions lead economist, Jim Robinson, said there are no consistent data sets for commercial real estate, so he could not say whether that market was improving statewide.

But Robinson agreed with Shopp and said residential real estate generally improves once economic growth has been clearly established.

You see the jobs first, and then you start to see the changes in terms of prices of homes, the number of homes being bought and sold, he said.

The jobs are there first, and then that typically will lead to more activity in terms of home-buying and the value of homes.

Jamison didnt know exactly why interest in commercial properties was picking up but speculated it was likely linked to rising energy prices.

While the oil price was recovering, leading to better conditions for the entire oil industry, Jamison pointed specifically to new drilling and exploration in the region north of Casper.

Theres some good signs of activity starting to come into the Powder River Basin, he said. Most people are cautiously optimistic about that activity increase.

Shopp echoed this analysis and added that many businesspeople he had spoken with were hopeful that Donald Trumps administration would help the energy industry by reducing regulations.

Their industry is very heavily regulated, Shopp said. What Im hearing from these guys is theyre a lot more optimistic about the future of the energy business and the overall business climate.

Most energy industry economists believe that the current slump has been caused primarily by market forces, with regulations as a secondary factor.

But the market may be improving somewhat as well, with Saudi Arabia, Russia and other major oil-producing countries recently agreeing to reduce exports to force up prices  opening the door for more production in the United States.

I think theres a lot more optimism, Shopp said.
Low vision support meets

The monthly meeting of the Casper Area Low Vision Support Group will be held at 10 a.m., Monday, Feb. 13, at the Casper Senior Center. Back by popular demand will be Matt Farnsworth, technology specialist from the Natrona County Library. He will present a program on current technology for low vision. Last year his presentation was so worthwhile, so please plan to attend.

All types of eyeglasses and prescriptions no longer needed are being collected for Jill Smiley to distribute in Africa and India. Bring those items to the meetings.

Please call Howard at 234-5867 if you need a ride to the meeting.

Soroptimists hear filmmaker McInroy

The Soroptimists of Central Wyoming (SICW) meet at noon on the second and fourth Mondays of each month. The club will meet for the February business meeting on Monday, Feb. 13, at the Ramada Plaza, 300 West F Street.

A program meeting will be held at noon on Monday, Feb. 27, at the Cheese Barrel, 544 South Center Street. Patricia McInroy will be the speaker. Patricia created a documentary, Clara: Angel of the Rockies, which aired on Wyoming PBS, on Jan. 8, 2017.

The documentary tells the biographical story of Clara Brown, a former slave who came west and made a fortune. The film was a winner of PBSs To The Contrary: All About Women, film festival in the womens U.S. history category.

McInroy grew up in Casper, went to Casper College, and is a former Star-Tribune photographer. She will talk to the group about Clara Browns life and the documentary.

All women are invited. Soroptimist means Best for Women. SICW is a volunteer non-profit organization which strives to improve the lives of women and girls through community-based and international projects. SICW provides gift baskets and holiday meals to Seton House, gift baskets to the Transformation Center, and offers an annual Live Your Dream cash award for women seeking higher education or job training.

For more information about the monthly meetings or the Soroptimists, please contact Debbie Ehlers at 234-2173 or debbiehlrs@yahoo.com and find SICW on Facebook.

Rotary hears Iris Clubhouse

On Monday, Feb. 13, Rev. Dan Odell will give a presentation regarding the Iris Clubhouse to Rotarians and guests at noon at the Parkway Plaza. Iris Clubhouse helps people with mental illness recover and rebuild their lives. It is an intentional community of recovery based on a model with sixty years of experience.

Rev. Odell is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church and serves Christ United Methodist Church. He earned a Bachelors degree in humanities from the University of Wyoming and a Masters degree in Divinity from Iliff School of Theology in Denver. In Jan. 2017, Dan began serving as development director of Iris House.

Democratic men meet

The Democratic Mens Group will meet at 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 14, at the Parkway Plaza in the Senate Room (behind registration desk). Order from the menu. The topic will be Precincts and Precinct Committeemen and Precinct Committeewomen. The presenter is Dorothy Bullard. For more information, call Robert at 702-0546.

Genealogists organize research

Genealogy is the second leading hobby in the United States. It is a hobby that usually includes mounds of paper and boxes and boxes of files and books. Natrona County Genealogical Society meets at 7 p.m., on Feb 16, 2017, at the Casper Senior Citizens Center, 1831 East 4th St. Donna Johnston presents a class with much needed information on organizing genealogy research and where it should go after the owner passes. As always, guests are welcome. For more information, call Marcia Stroh, 265-5568.

AAUW Readers meet

The AAUW Readers Group meets at 11 a.m., Tuesday, Feb. 28. After a no-host lunch, Carolyn Deuel will review Fess Parker: TVs Frontier Hero, by William R. Chemerka. Call Robin for information or reservations at 259-4174 by Monday, Feb. 20.

Craft night at Elks

Craft Night at the Elks Lodge at 6:30 p.m., on Tuesday, Feb. 28. Stop by the lodge between 4:30 and 6 p.m. Members, their spouses, and guests are welcome but class size is limited so sign up quickly! Cost is $5 for cost of supplies. Contact Stacey at 259-7809 or Wendy at 670-1078 to sign up or for more information.

Father Daughter at Elks

The annual Father Daughter Dinner and Dance at the Casper Elks Lodge is Feb. 25. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., dinner at 7 p.m. Music by Good Times Only. If you dont have a daughter, borrow one and come down for dinner, dancing and door prizes and get your picture taken. Ticket prices are fathers, $10; daughters ages 14 and up, $9; ages 8 to 13, $8, and ages 7 and under are free. For more information, call 234-4839.

NARFE has social

Casper Chapter #358 of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) will have a no-host Social Meeting at noon on Feb. 28, in the meeting room at the Casper Senior Center at 1831 East 4th Street.

Mardi Gras Bingo

Mardi Gras Bingo, sponsored by Reveille Rotary of Casper, is 6 to 8 p.m., on Tuesday, Feb. 28, at the Casper Senior Center, 1831 E. 4th Street. Enjoy Bingo fun for the whole family. Tickets are $20 for two Bingo cards. There will be eight $25 games, nine $50 games, one $250 game and one $500 game. Concessions will be available (including homemade slices of pie). Proceeds benefit Wyoming Dementia Care. Tickets can be purchased from any Reveille Rotary member or at First Interstate Bank Downtown.

Casper Charla meets

Would you like to practice conversational Spanish or help others learn? Come and join the Casper Charla! Te gustaria platicar en espanol? Ven y charla con nosotros! Todos son bienvenidos! Come and join us on the second Wednesday of each month this spring. We meet at a different restaurant each month and partake in food, drink and conversation. All levels of Spanish are welcome, from beginning to native-speakers. Nos reunimos los miercoles en varios restaurantes en Casper. Ven por una copa, un antojito o simplemente una charlita.

Wednesday, March 8, 5-7 p.m.: Guadalajara; Wednesday, April 12, 5-7 p.m.: La Costa; Wednesday, May 10, 5-7 p.m.: La Cocina.

Red Hats lunch Feb. 16

The Queen Bee Red Hat luncheon is 11:30 a.m., Feb. 16, at the Pizza Ranch, 5011 E. 2nd St. Please call Ardith Holmes at 265-2195 or Ellen Jevne at 259-2535 to make reservations.

Scholarship notice

The Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration  Central Wyoming Section offers up to four $2,500 scholarships, the Coates, Wolff, Russell, and Swank Memorial scholarships. Applicant must have graduated from a Wyoming high school, must be enrolled full-time for the 2016-2017 academic year, upperclassmen  current college sophomore, junior, senior or graduate student, enrolled in mining/mineral extraction-related discipline, and have a 3.0 GPA minimum. Application forms are available by email request to smecasper@gmail.com

Civil Air Patrol meets

Civil Air Patrol meets from 7 to 9 p.m. the first Tuesday of the month at Casper National Guard Armory, 5905 CY Ave. For more information, call 259-0855.

Stammtisch at Applebees

The Casper German Stammtisch is meeting weekly on Thursdays at Applebees from 6:30 to 8 p.m. New this year  on the second Thursday of each month we will focus on speaking German! All ability levels are welcome, as long as they are eager to hear German.
Senior Stompers meet Mondays

Free only for Seniors 60+ who like to have fun, love music and like to dance, tapping and stomping to the beat. Join Joyces Senior Stompers on Monday mornings at 10:50 a.m. and exercise your mind and body. Call Joyce for more information 237-4908.

Fun month at Mountain Plaza

Mountain Plaza Assisted Living, 4154 Talon Dr., has a packed month of February planned for residents, guests and those interested.

Feb. 14: Valentine Sweetheart Party, 2 p.m. King and Queen of Valentines will be crowned during the party. Fun and chocolate  who could ask for more?

Feb. 24: International Margarita Day at Happy Hour, 2 p.m. Virgin and non-virgin Margaritas will be served.

Feb. 28: Mardi Gras Masquerade Ball, 6:30 to 8 p.m. Lively music and masquerade costumes or masks. Music will be provided by the Twang Gang.

For more information, call 232-0100.

OLLI offers hand sewing

Sewable Circuits (OLLI 2052) is an exciting new class that will take hand sewing to the next level by using sewable circuit materials in sewing projects.

Offered by the Osher Lifelong Learning Center (OLLI) at Casper College, fabric creations will be spiced up using conductive thread and LED lights. The result will be two-and-three-dimensional fiber pieces with an extra flare.

The class, taught by Leah Ritz, will be held on Wednesdays from 1 to 3 p.m. Feb. 15 to March 15. No prior hand sewing or electrical circuits experience is necessary. Students are welcome to bring their fabric scraps, embroidery hoop, and thimble, but supplies will be available as well.

For more information or to register, contact Karen Arnold at 268-2099 or karnold@caspercollege.edu.

Cotherman teaches writing class

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Casper College is offering a class for writers of fiction, nonfiction, essay, and poetry beginning on Tuesday, Feb. 14.

Writing for Life (OLLI 4021) provides writers who want to share their work with other writers a nonthreatening environment in which to share. Writers will be able to read their writings and receive gentle suggestions and constructive criticism according to Audrey Cotherman, instructor. Writers will also learn how to prepare their work for publication or inclusion in their familys historical archives.

The two-hour class will continue on Feb. 28, March 14 and 28, and April 11 and 25. To register or for more information contact Karen Arnold, lifelong learning specialist at 268-2099 or karnold@caspercollege.edu.

What Washington wore

The Historic Bishop Home celebrates Presidents Day Weekend with a special evening on Friday, Feb. 17, 2017. The early evening event will feature a presentation on What George Washington Wore. Rosalind Grenfell will share the fascinating history of the clothing and social culture of our first president, George Washington. Grenfell is an expert in apparel, fashion history, and related arts. She received her graduate degree from Virginia Tech and has taught apparel, textiles, and fashion history at various institutions throughout the United States.

The lecture and light supper are Friday, Feb. 17, 2017 from 6 to 8 p.m. Salad, sandwiches, dessert and iced tea will be served. Tickets are $25 per person. Please call 235-5277 or email info@cadomafoundation.org for your reservation by Feb. 15, 2017. All reservations are confirmed upon payment. Payment should be made to the Cadoma Foundation and mailed to 220 East Midwest Suite B, Casper, Wyoming 82601.

The Historic Bishop Home is located at 818 East 2nd Street on the north side of 2nd Street between Lincoln and Jefferson. Parking is available on Jefferson and Lincoln Streets or in the parking lot directly behind the house off Lincoln Street. Parking is available in the homes driveway for persons with limited mobility.

Jam session Feb. 12

Jam Session at the Eagles Hall, 306 N. Durbin St. Jam session from 4 to 8 p.m., Feb. 12, all musicians, dancers, etc. are welcome to join in on stage or in the audience. The Eagle Riders will also be preparing scrumptious hamburgers with all the trimmings. Bring your Sweetheart on this Valentines day and enjoy good music, dance or join in on stage and order a great hamburger from the Eagle Riders. All hamburger sales are for charitable fund raising. See you there.

Robbie Daniels  235-5130

Apply for Mrs. Casper

The Mrs. Wyoming Pageant is seeking applicants for the title of Mrs. Casper. Once selected, the successful applicant will advance to represent her community in the 2017 Mrs. Wyoming Pageant to be held on May 6 in Cheyenne.

Local titleholders will compete to win a prize package valued at over $8,000 including an all expense paid trip to the national Mrs. America Pageant. Applicants must be at least 18 years old (no age limit), married at the time of competition and a Wyoming resident, no performing talent required.

Celebrating its 41st year, the Mrs. America pageant is the only competition to recognize Americas married woman.

To request the official application or for information, call Sheree Cooke, Wyomings state director, at 720-549-0440 or visit www.mrswyomingamerica.com.

New member exhibit opens

The Art 321/Casper Artists Guild, 321 W. Midwest, February Exhibit features the guilds newest members (three years as members or less). The New Members Exhibit will give the community a chance to get to know some new artists who may be exhibiting for the first time, as well as many already seasoned artists who have become new members of our organization.

The exhibit will hang until Feb. 25.

Art321/Casper Artists Guild is a non-profit organization that offers many art opportunities and experiences for the citizens of Casper and surrounding communities, offering exhibits, classes, workshops and the chance to meet fellow artists and art lovers. Please visit the gallery and see what becoming involved as a member has to offer.

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call 265-2655.

Nostalgic display at Senior Services

The Senior Center, 1831 E. 4th St., is featuring a display that features nostalgic items back to the late 1800s. The display will be up through February and March. Items include baby plates and cups, antique dolls, Steiff collectibles, and many other items, thanks to Tom and Lida Volin. For more information, call 265-4678.
Wyoming currently faces a dire challenge of how to cover projected yearly shortfalls of $360 million in K-12 education while maintaining state government services and higher education.

With energy revenue on a long-term decline, we cannot afford to live at our current expenditure levels in education. At the end of the day, there must be give-and-take, looking at reasonable cuts in education, government-wide efficiency efforts, and taxes.

Wyoming historically has had a strong commitment to K-12 education as embedded in the state Constitution. But the budget comparisons between K-12 education and state agencies and higher education cannot go unnoticed. The scale of the $360 million shortfall in K-12 education is enormous  43 percent more than the $251 million in draconian budget cuts taken by state agencies, community colleges and the University of Wyoming.

K-12s budget of $1.5 billion is close to the combined $1.7 billion budget for all other state agencies and higher education. Yet, the K-12 budget reductions of $1.2 million are minuscule by comparison to the $251 million, the 10 percent to 12 percent budget cuts, already absorbed by other state entities. In todays new Wyoming economic normal, we cannot assume that our energy sector will rebound tomorrow, in five years or ever. Wyoming is in a crisis mode, and K-12 education must enact commensurate savings.

Resolving the $360 million shortfall problem pivots around the school funding model, which was developed by education experts and subsequently approved by the Wyoming Supreme Court to give all students equal access to the best education possible. The model, pure and simple, is about two things: great funding and the promise of great results. Funding reductions would not necessarily mean poorer academic results. Today, 93,261 K-12 students attend schools in 48 school districts. We currently spend, on average, $15,700 per pupil, which equates to $5,000 to $9,000 more than our neighboring states. However, Wyomings high school graduation rate is lower than every neighboring state except one.

As the Legislature works toward funding solutions to resolve the $360 million shortfall, there is near unanimity that something has to be done. But what is that something? Raise taxes, by how much, and if so, what kind? Cut education expenses, and if so, by how much and where? Use some of the states savings accounts, and if so, what happens when those are bone-dry?

Wyomings K-12 challenges are multiple and intertwined. Our K-12 per pupil spending is the highest in the region. At the same time, our education results lag behind most. Simply put, our collective results while leading to improvement in some ways have not matched our spending commitments.

Solving the $360 million shortfall is inescapable. Increased taxes and the use of savings will be a hard sell to the public without commensurate management and program efficiencies. Some have boldly suggested scaling back spending by $180 million and raising taxes by $180 million. Thats a $360 million package which could solve the shortfall. It would be expedient and resisted. It is worth a try along with interim deft hands in adjusting the funding model to avoid litigation and another state Supreme Court go-around.

With a little give and take, K-12 funding issues can be resolved. Hopefully, the House and the Senate will be able to come together in the coming weeks and move forward with decisive and positive actions. Recalibration will be needed, but it is not the only answer. Wyoming can improve and excel despite funding adjustments. The Wyoming business community, through Wyoming Excels (an initiative of the Wyoming Business Alliance/ Wyoming Heritage Foundation), recognizes the importance of education for the workforce of tomorrow.
CHEYENNE  Senators proceeded with a budget amendment Friday that would mandate $91 million in education cuts, despite a late attempt by lawmakers to kill it.

The provision, an amendment to the Senates budget bill, would examine the cuts that have already been instituted by other legislation and ensure that reductions to public education reach at least $91 million. For instance, if a separate bill results in $65 million in reductions and is the only bill that cuts schools, then the budget amendment would mandate an additional $26 million in reductions.

The amendment is sponsored by Sen. Charlie Scott, R-Casper, and co-sponsored by Sen. Hank Coe, R-Cody. The attempt to kill the amendment, voted down 25-5, was brought Friday by Sen. John Hastert, D-Green River.

The Senate passed its budget bill early Friday evening. If the House adopts a budget, 10 representatives from the two chambers will meet to negotiate differences between the two bills. The Senates amendment on the $91 million in reductions would be up for negotiation.

The debate on whether to keep the provision was heated. Sen. Chris Rothfuss, a Laramie Democrat, said the amendment was unconstitutional because it failed tests laid out in landmark education Supreme Court cases of the past.

The court is going to come back within four minutes, he said.

Much of Wyomings public education system is wrapped in constitutional protections, the product of a series of court cases that began in the mid-1990s, which are known as the Campbell County cases. Rothfuss referred to the standards that cuts be rationally based and funding be equitably distributed.

LaGrange Republican Sen. Curt Meier said he knew many districts requested that if cuts were coming, that they come as percentage cuts to the block grant, which is the lump sum districts receive thats dictated by the funding model.

He noted that the amendment would institute such a cut, which would satisfy districts requests for percentage cuts and allow them flexibility to use the remaining money where they deemed fit.

Indeed, Natrona County School District Superintendent Steve Hopkins said last month that his boards preference is percentage cuts for the reasons Meier pointed out: flexibility and local control.

Rothfuss disagreed that districts would be happy with cuts just because they constituted percentage reductions to the block grant.

Thats not the end of their list, he said. There are ands after that, and theres a long list of ands after it that modify it, so they can modify it.

Hastert agreed that the amendment was unconstitutional, and he warned of the consequences of such a cut.

Wyoming students will be negatively affected by (these) cuts to funding, he said. Districts will have to lay off staff and increase class sizes.

Sen. Dave Kinskey, R-Sheridan, invoked Mark Twain while disagreeing with Hasterts warning.

Rumors of the death of public education funding in Wyoming are greatly exaggerated, he said, adding that its a 5 percent cut. Its time for a reality check.

Sen. Jeff Wasserburger countered that it would be more than 5 percent for many districts. He represents Campbell County, where more than 500 students have left the school district in the wake of the recent economic downturn.

The loss of those students means a loss of funding, he explained, so the cut from enrollment and the cut from the amendment is a double tap that would shake out to 18 percent of Campbell County School District No. 1s budget.

Coe, the bills co-sponsor, rose after Wasserburger and acknowledged that yes, the amendment was a bigger bite out of the apple. But he noted how well-funded Wyomings education system has been. Indeed, last month, a national report ranked Wyoming first in the nation for education spending.

We can absorb this, and we need to absorb it now, he said.

Looming shortfall

His sense of urgency comes from what looms on the horizon with education funding: Schools face a $400 million annual shortfall in the coming years, a hole that could hit $1.8 billion by the end of the 2022 fiscal year. Its the product of a downturn in the energy economy that has punched public education, 65 percent of which is funded by the mineral industry, in the nose.

The model may be well-funded, said Hastert, but that doesnt meant cuts wont hurt the education system in Wyoming.

This is a rich model, yes, but its the model we chose, he said, referring to the Wyoming Legislature, which after the landmark court cases settled upon what is called the cost-based model to fund education. We made these decisions, and we made these commitments, and we should stick to them.

Boyd Brown, the superintendent of Campbell Countys school district, agreed. The Legislature hires consultants to build the model and determine what will be offered and funded in it, he said.

He also suspected that some lawmakers were pursuing the old Winston Churchill axiom of never letting a good crisis go to waste.

There are some senators who are trying to use this crisis to reduce the cost of education, Brown said.

Bargaining chip?

Rothfuss characterized the amendment as a bargaining chip that some lawmakers wanted to use during negotiations with the House. Brown believed the amendment was an attempt to show the House that the Senate was instituting steeper cuts. He said it would be used as a way to get lawmakers in the other chamber to strike a conditional sales tax increase from an education omnibus bill, a measure that represents a wide-ranging attempt by the House to solve the school funding crisis.

But after the Senate adjourned, Coe told the Star-Tribune that he wouldnt call it a bargaining chip so much as a realistic approach to addressing the problem.

The revenue increase has been the most controversial aspect of the wide-ranging omnibus bill. The measure at one point had two such increases: It would have hiked the sales tax by 2 percent for a few years to help fund schools. That provision was removed.

The second tax increase in the omnibus bill would raise the sales tax should the Legislatures rainy day fund drop below $500 million. That provision has been removed and added back. Sen. President Eli Bebout said Friday morning that he did not support the omnibus tax increase.

Coe said he wasnt out to bargain with the House on anything, which he said would happen in any case. He said he and Scott arrived at $91 million by adding up a number of education cuts, including reductions to health care and transportation.

The methodology didnt satisfy Rothfuss.

A problem of this magnitude, severity and seriousness ... should be taken more seriously than one number, he said during the debate, which was arrived at by adding up a series of different policies that nobody had ever been looked at.
Mary Lovejoy Hein was an educator, a poet and an advocate for those who didnt always have a voice of their own. The 83-year old died peacefully, surrounded by family and her pastor, on Feb. 4. Her death ended her many years of struggle with heart disease.

Born on April 30, 1933, Mary was the oldest of six children: four boys and two girls. The first home she remembered was a long, narrow bunkhouse located at the end of a cow pasture. The one-room school where shed start her education as the only first-grader in a 17-student school was across a dry creek bed. Her mother cooked on a wood stove, and the familys water came from a hand pump at the school. When the dry creek filled with water and rocks during spring runoff, Mary remembered being carried across by her father.

Mary met her husband, Walt Hein, in college in Minnesota. By the late 1950s, they were married, with twin boys. Mary was the principal of two black elementary schools in Racine, Wisconsin, and was working on a doctoral degree. Walt was working on his masters and the couple spent four summers in Greeley and Fort Collins, Colorado, to finish their degrees.

Randy Hein said his parents discovered and fell in love with Wyoming during those summers. When racial tensions threatened to close Marys schools, they decided to head west and sent out teaching applications. They chose Casper and the Natrona County School District from among four offers.

Mary found a new professional home at Caspers Grant Elementary. Mike Phillips, now CEO of Elkhorn Rehabilitation Hospital, spent all of his elementary school years at Grant. He described his former principal as a fantastic role model. He liked to tease Mary about the swats she had given him 40 years before, when he was a second-grader. You probably deserved it, she always replied. When Mary retired in 1989, she had been in the neighborhood school as the principal for over 20 years.

Marys fierce advocacy for children continued after her retirement. She served her adopted state as Wyoming State PTA President, on the board of the Wyoming Childrens Trust Fund, as a board member and first director of Safe Kids of Wyoming and founded Well-Being of Wyoming. She and another former NCSD principal, Bill Hambrick, traveled the state to train and bring 75 AmeriCorps volunteers into the states classrooms. Mary was honored as a Casper Woman of Distinction in 2004.

In her mid-70s, as executive director of the Wyoming affiliate of the Alzheimers Association, Mary found a new passion. She had no formal medical education or personal experience with Alzheimers, but she learned firsthand about the unpredictability and burden faced by families of those with dementia. When the local affiliation with the national organization ended, she continued on her own to offer support groups and educate herself on dementia. She became recognized locally and statewide as a knowledgeable and well-respected advocate for more dementia resources.

By 2008, Mary, along with the late Tom Stroock, Laura Burback and Mary Ann Collins, was convinced a dementia-specific long-term care home was a better alternative for Alzheimers care. They formed a new local nonprofit, Wyoming Dementia Care. The organization was initially based in Marys home. She served as its unpaid board chairman, executive director, chief fundraiser and provider of information and services to caregivers.

Wyoming Dementia Care reinvented itself in 2013 when raising enough money to build the green-house style home proved impossible. Mary continued to steer the organization as it developed the current program that provides a range of free services to help caregiving families from first diagnosis to end of life. She retired from the board in 2015. Wyoming Dementia Care board member Sandy Stroock Leotta described Mary as an indomitable spirit. With her warmth and disarming strength, she helped our and many families transit the difficult path of dementia. Her force for improving the community has made a difference.

Mary often spoke through the poetry she wrote for her family and friends. Next summer, her family will meet in the mountains she loved to scatter her ashes.

The gathering will honor a wish expressed in one of her last poems, High Treasure, written in January 2016.

She wrote, I will die in the Big Horn Mountains. I will die near the ancient Medicine Wheel, seeking its Spirit to speak in my behalf . . . Circling in the updraft of Red Canyon, with the eagle I will soar.
With employment opportunities for software, application and system developers expected to grow, and most schools still not offering computer programming classes, dozens of Arizona libraries are beginning to turn themselves into more than just a place to check out books.

Its no longer OK to just sit around with books and wait for people to come get the books, said Kelly Smith, founder of Prenda, a Mesa-based education technology company.

You can find anything online, and so libraries are under some pressure to be different. Meanwhile, communities desperately need a place where individuals can come and learn and be challenged, Smith said. Libraries are stepping into that role and the best libraries get that.

According to Code.org, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to computer science, 40 percent of schools in the United States teach computer programming. In the 2015-16 school year, 31 schools in Arizona offered advanced placement computer science courses.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment for computer and information technology jobs will grow 12 percent from 2014 to 2024, which is faster than the average for all occupations. The bureau expects the creation of 488,500 new jobs in the industry by 2024.

Meanwhile, Code.org also reports that there are currently 9,667 open computing jobs in Arizona.

Although computer coding clubs may not teach all the skills children and teens will need to land computing jobs, those involved say coding clubs can provide a good foundation.

Every week, Dmitri Greene, 8, and David Greene, 9, attend coding club meetings at Tempe Public Library and Chandler Public Library, where they learn how to build websites, games and apps.

Their father, Conrad Greene, said he believes the skills his sons are learning will help them move forward in the growing fields of technology and computer programming.

Not only does the job market require it but, from an entrepreneurial perspective, it gives them more options to develop their own games or software to put out into the marketplace, Greene said.

Greene does not use coding in his work as a finance broker, but said the boys grandmother earned a doctoral degree in computer science and worked at Honeywell before retiring. She inspired Greene to emphasize the importance of computer programming and coding to his sons.

As a parent, you always want the best for your child, and you want to give them as many opportunities as possible, Greene said. The more skills they have, the more options they have.

Smith and his team created software that makes it easy for librarians with little computer programming experience to facilitate coding clubs. Smith said the software and program that Prenda offers are designed to make kids learn to problem-solve instead of having the club facilitator solve problems for them.

All librarians these days see the value of this, Smith said. They think its important but they dont feel confident that they can do it. So we give them software and training that makes it feel really comfortable for them.

When Tempe Public Librarys club began last summer, youth librarian Alicia Hancock said she was shocked to see 40 kids on the wait list to fill 15 spots.

Ive never had a wait list for a program that was that big, Hancock said. I felt so bad that we couldnt get them all in. This summer were going to go ahead and have two sessions.

Earl Aguilera, a doctoral student in the Learning, Literacies and Technology program at Arizona State University, helps facilitate Tempes weekly meetings with Hancock. He said he believes that coding and computer programming are important skills to learn but feels they also let students cultivate other valuable skills that they might not learn in typical classroom settings.
So you told an insurance agent what you wanted and got your policy in the mail, complete with a cover sheet declaring what coverages you have.

Now, if some lawmakers get their way, youll have to read that whole multi-page contract to be sure that youre getting what you want.

Legislation awaiting Senate action would spell out in statute that it would not matter whats on that cover sheet and synopsis of benefits. Instead, only what is actually in the contract would govern  even if that page of declarations clearly says otherwise.

And theres something else in HB 2045 that cleared the House last week on a 35-23 party-line vote: If there are differences between the English version of the contract and any version in a foreign language your agent gives you, the English version governs.

Rep. David Livingston, R-Peoria, is pitching the measure as one of consumer protection.

He said insurance companies are afraid to provide contracts in languages other than English for fear that something might not have been translated correctly and a policyholder could claim that he or she is entitled to coverage based on the Spanish-language version.

And Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, said thats only proper given that a state constitutional amendment makes English the official language.

We spent hundreds of millions of dollars in our public education system on something called English-language learning, he said. Yet we are making excuses for people to not learn the English language.

Rep. Mitzi Epstein, D-Tempe, said that focus on foreign language misses the key point of the legislation: Policyholders would no longer be able to rely on that cover page to determine if they got the insurance they wanted.

This is about that declarations page ... and looking out for consumers, she said.

If we leave the law alone, they can trust the declarations page, Epstein argued. If we change this, all of our constituents will have to read every single word of their contracts in order to trust whats going on in their policy.

Rep. Isela Blanc, D-Tempe, questioned Livingston during floor debate about the change, noting his comments that it is good for insurance customers. She wanted to know whether the changes were actually requested by those who buy policies.

Citizens of the state of Arizona asked me to run this bill, he responded during floor debate.

That answer clearly did not satisfy Blanc.

These so-called citizens, are they connected to insurance agencies, companies, groups, special interests related to insurance? she asked.

Yes, he finally conceded.

Blanc said that proves HB 2045 has nothing to do with consumer protection and will lead to policyholders being misled. And she cited her own practices as an insurance consumer as a prime example.

I have home insurance, I have car insurance, she said.

I trust that my insurance company, in the one- or two-page sheet has covered me, Blanc continued. And I do not go through the contract.

Blanc said she presumes thats the case with most policyholders.

But it wasnt only the issue of consumer protection that resulted in all House Democrats voting against the change. Rep. Eric Descheenie, D-Chinle, pointed out to the GOP majority that they could eventually come to regret the idea that the majority should determine what is the official language of Arizona and that documents in other languages have no legal force.

Its a statistical certainty that in our lifetime the Latino community, the Hispanic community, are going to become the most populous race amongst us, he told House colleagues. I would like to think we would begin to shift away from English version in terms of institutionalizing some of these discussions and these bodies of law, given where were headed.

Descheenie said he comes from an area where the majority speak neither English nor Spanish. And he said thats not just reflecting the Navajo language but also the Hopi.
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some Feb. 11 papers in history. With a subscription to newspapers.com you can search the Arizona Daily Star and many other newspapers using keywords or dates, and download articles or pages.
On February 5, 2017, Wuxi Church held a one-day worship service to support the "Good Shepherd Campaign" that aims to send hundreds of pastors to preach sermons in local churches of Jiangsu Province. Rev. Gu Oufen from Jiangyin sent by the city's CCC&TSPM shared the message on this topic.

Jiangsu CCC & TSPM marks the second Sunday after the Spring Festival as the day when all the offerings are used for theological education. The day falls on February 5 for this year.On this day, Zhongshanlu Church of Wuxi also delivered the purpose and significance of the campaign in the four services.

It was said that last year more than 200 pastors were sent to about 200 local churches to give sermons in the whole province. Pastors from Nanjing, Taizhou and Jiangsu Theological Seminary went to churches and their campuses in Changzhou, Zhangjiagang, Suzhou and Taizhou, etc.

The campaign was initiated by the provincial CCC & TSPM in 2014, aiming at cultivating preachers and raising money to strengthen the theological construction of Jiangsu by coordinating the communication and interaction among all the churches in Jiangsu.

Translated By: Karen Luo
Universities across the country are declaring themselves as sanctuary campuses in light of tougher immigration policies from the White House  some, under pressure from students and local communities.

Arizonas three public universities, however, have no such plans to designate themselves sanctuary campuses.

Sanctuary in the political sense generally means a safe place, such as a church, where people can take refuge from immigration enforcement. While campuses, like churches, are considered to be sensitive zones, local and national experts say sanctuary campuses may not come with tangible protections for international, immigrant and undocumented students, experts say.

Arizona students asked for sanctuary designations of campuses at the Board of Regents meeting last week in Tempe. While state university presidents have openly expressed support for international and immigrant students, the schools are not considering it.

An unofficial count puts the number of sanctuary campuses nationwide at around 30, including the University of Pennsylvania and Portland State University.

We dont want to jeopardize our campuses in any way, said Eileen Klein, president of the Board of Regents. Yet, at the same time, weve done a good job of making sure that our students know that were actively working to make sure opportunities are there for them.

Many universities, like Arizonas, have shied away from labeling themselves for the fear that federal funding would dry up.

The Star tried to independently confirm each universitys stance, but Northern Arizona and Arizona State universities did not respond. University of Arizona spokesman Chris Sigurdson referred to memos written by President Ann Weaver Hart and declined to comment further.

UA president opposes travel ban

In a recent memo to UA students and employees, Hart said she opposed executive order banning entry to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, which has now been overturned, and indefinitely suspending the refugee program. She has also expressed support for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals students.

Many of the policies that sanctuary campuses enact already exist at the UA, according to Hart. She said in a November memo: Student privacy is assured by federal law, and it applies to all students regardless of residency status. That includes safeguarding their personal information, academic record, counseling services and any information the students want to withhold from the student directory.

She also said there is an Immigrant Student Resource Center, which is funded by student fees, that also helps DACA students and that UAs online programs are open to all students at the same price, regardless of state residency or immigration status.

But Irasema Fonseca, a UA junior who has interned for the resource center and spoke out in favor of sanctuary campus designations at the regents meeting, said she doesnt agree that enough is being done for the immigrant community on the UA campus. These are words and not enough actions, she said.

Fonseca said students are scared and they cannot focus on their academics when theyre afraid of themselves or their family members being deported.

For Fonseca, a sanctuary designation is a necessary move, especially for a diverse institution like the UA. Were one of the most diverse universities in the nation. Were extremely close to the border with Mexico. Theres a huge population of students from Mexico.

Its not just about undocumented students from Mexico or those who have deferred action status, she said. Its about the entire immigrant community at the UA, which includes international students and scholars.

Rapidly changing situation

Regent Ron Shoopman said in a meeting with the Star that the board will not act on any sanctuary designations based on speculations about what the Trump administration may do.

We try to do things based on the facts of the situation, he said. It would be speculation for me to even say whether Id go this way or another until we can better understand it.

That was in response to questions regarding the possible termination of DACA, which President Trump said on the campaign trail he would repeal. So far, that hasnt happened, but what did happen is a less-publicized executive order that increases interior enforcement, which could affect Arizona students lives.

Interior enforcement refers to immigration enforcement that happens inside the United States, away from borders and other ports of entry, including airports.

Nina Rabin, an immigration attorney and professor at the UAs law college, explained at a forum on the executive order that people who didnt used to be on the priority list for removal may now face deportation.

That group includes a long list of people: those who were charged with criminal offenses, whether the case was resolved or not, committed acts that constitute criminal offenses, deemed to be a threat to public safety, found to be abusing government benefit systems or suspected of misrepresenting their immigration status, she said.

It also includes those who live within 100 miles of the border, which includes the UA, but who cannot produce proof of having lived in the country for two years, she said. That would mean foreign and undocumented students should carry copies of necessary documents with them at all times, she said.

Sanctuary designation has no legal effect

Sanctuary is a spectrum, says Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration attorney and professor at Cornell University, at a recent panel discussion in Philadelphia on sanctuary campuses.

Some colleges designate specific spaces where undocumented students can go to be protected, he said. Others have reaffirmed existing policies of not disclosing student information to federal immigration officials.

Whats important to note, though, is that sanctuaries dont have legal effect, he said. If immigration enforcement officials want to enter campus, they can get a warrant to do so. But sanctuary resolutions help students feel more secure, he said.

Having a single point of contact to deal with immigration issues on campus, providing counseling and legal consultation to foreign, immigrant and undocumented students whose stay in the U.S. may be in jeopardy are some things universities can do within legal limits, he said.

The situation regarding immigration policies is changing by the minute, local and national immigration attorneys say. We dont know whats going to come out next. Its just chaos, said Roxie Bacon, a Phoenix-based attorney who has worked in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Bacon advised students to suspend travel outside of the U.S., make copies of all immigration-related documents and safeguard them with friends, stay away from internal Border Patrol checkpoints and reach out for help.

Youre not as scared if youre prepared, she said.
The last time Joel Moreno saw his longtime friend, Jose Manuel Quero, they talked in the morning like they did every day for the past 20 years. When their daily chat ended, Quero asked for 10 bucks, which Moreno gave him, like he always did when Quero asked.

Quero then walked off to do his daily thing. His routine was to hang around the intersection of South 12th Avenue and West Irvington Road, stand at the corner, wave to motorists, walk up and down the two main streets, visit friends in the stores and businesses, talk to strangers who happened to pass by or greet people he knew who stopped to say hi.

He made that intersection the focus of his life, and it turned out to be the place he lost his life.

Quero was walking in the crosswalk about 10 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4, when a taxi, westbound on Irvington, struck him. He died later at a hospital. He was 63.

It seems that anyone and everyone who lived and worked in a several-block radius of the intersection knew Quero, or as his friends called him, El Chaka.

He was a south-side legend, said Bobby Chambers, a barber at Henrys Barber Parlor on South 12th. Quero, who talked in a raspy voice and loved to shadowbox, would walk in and shoot the breeze with Chambers, fellow barber Paul Nogales and shop owner Henry C. Paredes.

El Chaka was everyones friend. If he bummed a dollar off of you, hed pay you back. If you asked him for a dollar, hed give it to you without expecting hed get it back. He ate at the small restaurants and taco carts near his perch, where he had credit.

Manny, as he also was known, remembered everything, man, said Rene A. Moreno, Joels nephew.

Quero would pay everyone back when his Social Security checks came in, said Joel Moreno, who managed Chakas money and knew him since 1991. Quero lay his head first in a trailer, and later in a small house behind Morenos business, All Star Window Tinting on South 12th.

He was familiar to everyone for his smile, his laughter, his loyalty and his affection for children, to whom he would give a dollar if he had one in his pocket.

But Quero, a military veteran who immigrated from Mexico City and lived in California before coming to Tucson, fought his demons. He was an alcoholic and battled mental issues, his friends said.

He was a little bit off, said Nogales, the barber, but he was cool.

Tucson police said the taxi driver, who had the green light when he drove into the intersection, exhibited signs and symptoms of impairment and a DUI investigation was conducted. Police investigators had not released additional information as of Friday.

Three days after his death, I stopped at Chakas corner. An altar had been created with candles and photos of him. A blue quilt lay on the sidewalk where people wrote their condolences with a black marker, and empty cans of Bud beer completed the tableau.

His son, Edgar Quero, was standing there. But he wasnt alone. In the few minutes that we talked, people drove up, got out and paid their respects to his father.

One of the many was David El Real Ochoa, one of Queros younger street-running buddies. Luis Ramirez and Rosana Luque also stopped. Martin Suarez, who works at Pepes and Sons Tire Shop on South 12th, also visited the impromptu shrine. They all had good words and thoughts about Chaka.

And so it went all week.

Daniela Verduzco Montijo, who works at Title Max Title Loans on the southwest corner of the intersection, would see him every day. But she didnt realize how popular he was until the altar sprouted.

This outpouring of affection and sadness speaks to Chakas appeal and humanity. He was loved.

He was a great man. He had love for everybody, said the homie, El Real. He had problems but he was a good man. He helped out everyone.

Apparently he helped everyone but himself.

I tried to get him to quit, but I couldnt, said Edgar Quero, who recently returned to Tucson to look after his father.

Chaka got beaten up sometimes on the street and punks would steal the few dollars he carried. The beat cops also knew him. Not long ago, Chaka was on the street with a pellet rifle, which prompted calls to the police.

Despite Chakas struggles with booze, Edgar accepted his father.

I dont care what people would say, he said. I loved him for the way he was. I respected him for being my dad.

There was a time when people talked about Chakas abilities and not his drinking. He was talented at reworking a cars body and painting it with luxurious colors and images. Sleek, chill low-riders were his specialty.

He worked at several car body shops along South 12th and South Sixth avenues. His talent was known far and wide, and car owners and body-shop owners would seek him out, Joel Moreno said.

He was the best, Moreno said.

Chakas life, nonetheless, was difficult. There was worry that an accident was waiting to happen.

It was always on the back of my mind, Edgar said. I would tell him to be careful.

Joel Moreno told his friend the same. But he didnt think Chakas life would end on the corner that he called his roost. When I got the call at 1 in the morning, I didnt believe it.

Neither do Chakas many other friends, said Marisa Moreno.

Its not gonna be the same anymore passing by that corner.
At first, the ground crack is a few inches wide, as it cuts south from a dirt road through mesquite-and-creosote flats about a dozen miles south of Eloy.

Slowly, it opens up, at times wide enough to swallow a quad vehicle and deep enough that you cant see bottom. Back and forth, the fissure narrows then widens, grows deeper then shallower, until petering out nearly two miles later.

This is the longest single fissure ever discovered in Arizona, geologist Joe Cook said recently as he walked along it. Up to 10 feet wide and 27 feet deep, its deep enough that you wouldnt want to fall in.

It is also Arizonas newest physical evidence of the impacts of chronic over-pumping.

The groundwater pumping leads to subsidence, the geologic phenomenon of ground settlement that triggers fissures. Its a persistent and worsening problem in some rural areas, even as other areas have replaced groundwater with Colorado River water.

Lying about halfway between Tucson and Phoenix, west of Picacho Peak and north of Ironwood Forest National Monument, this fissure was discovered in two parts. The northern half appeared in December 2014 in Google Earth satellite images. The southern half, which hasnt shown up on Google yet, was discovered Jan. 12 by Cook, manager of the Arizona Geological Surveys fissure mapping program.

Its one of hundreds if not thousands of earth fissures across the state. First discovered in the Picacho-Eloy area in 1927, Arizonas fissures total about 170 miles today and are increasing in number yearly. About 70 miles of fissures have opened in this area alone, the state water agency said in a new report.

While no humans have fallen in, at least in Arizona, fissures are a known hazard to animals, having swallowed a 1,500-pound horse and a number of cattle over the years.

Across the state, the cracks have undermined roads, homes, power lines, sewer lines, irrigation canals and one section of Central Arizona Project aqueduct. They can be conduits for contaminants traveling to the aquifer, and sometimes become dumping grounds for peoples unwanted pharmaceuticals, tires, garbage and even refrigerators.

I think its a little shocking that were causing these huge cracks to form in the landscape, Cook said. Isnt it a rude awakening  a wake-up call?

Fissure creation could speed up if and when Lake Mead drops low enough to trigger a Colorado River shortage that curtails CAP deliveries to farmers, said Cook, state water officials and Brian Betcher, general manager of a Pinal County irrigation district. Then, farmers could step up their groundwater pumping, triggering more subsidence.

For now, this giant crack aside, the states most active fissuring is in the Willcox groundwater basin in Cochise County, said state officials. There, unregulated groundwater pumping has increased in recent years as more farmers have moved in and sunk new wells.

Forty-two miles of earth fissures are known in the Willcox area. Nearly 20 miles have opened up in the neighboring San Simon-Bowie area.

In both the Willcox and the Eloy-Picacho areas, said geologist Cook, every time I look at Google Earth, I see another fissure.

DAMAGES ADD UP

Subsidence and fissuring are problems across the arid West. In the 1970s, fissures undermined home foundations in North Las Vegas, causing $14 million in damage. In California, a new NASA study shows that subsidence from over-pumping in the drought-stricken Central Valley has caused a 2-foot drop in sections of the California Aqueduct, limiting its ability to deliver water to 25 million people and nearly a million acres of farmland.

In Arizona in July 2007, a fissure opened and swallowed a horse, after a thunderstorm dropped 2 inches of rain in an hour and eroded ground at the Maricopa-Pinal County border. Known as the Y-Crack, the fissure had opened and been backfilled several times before. This time, water undermined the backfill, leaving a hole 40 feet deep and 15 feet wide. A 13-year-old horse named Cash fell in and died despite 15 hours of rescue efforts.

In the late 1990s, workers discovered a section of CAP canal in Scottsdale was sinking because of land subsidence. Project officials spent $350,000 fixing the problem. And in September 1992, more than $3 million in damage occurred at Luke Air Force Base west of Phoenix when subsidence caused the slope of a drainage facility to reverse, sending floodwaters to the base.

A 9-mile-long discontinuous earth fissure in the Picacho-Eloy area crossing Interstate 10 has repeatedly damaged the freeway and required repairs. In the Phoenix area, authorities had to spend $200,000 to prevent damage from a fissure crossing the Red Mountain Freeway during its construction.

In agricultural areas of Pinal and Cochise counties, the fissures arent as big a threat because few people live nearby, officials say.

But in the Willcox area, two major intersections are regularly broken up by fissures: at Dragoon and Kansas Settlement roads and at Kansas Settlement and Parker Ranch roads.

At Dragoon and Kansas Settlement roads, the county consistently backfills it and puts up warning signs, said Murray McClelland, a longtime area resident and former president of the Pearce-Sunsites Chamber of Commerce. That fissure has also ruptured a nearby high-pressure natural-gas line.

An earth fissure also lies underneath fly ash ponds at the Apache Generating Station near Cochise southeast of Benson, the state water agency said.

As Cook walked along the newest Pinal County fissure, he recalled pulling a calf out of one near Elfrida in Cochise County a few years ago.

I was mapping a fissure and a saw a big white triangular thing down there  a cows face, only a few feet deep. It was stuck in the mud, Cook said. Me and another guy had to lever it out, seesawing it back and forth.

Pointing to the new fissure, he added, If a cow is in this thing, Im sorry, cow. Im not going to get you out.

OLD PUMPING,

NEW CRACKS

Fissures can exist for years or decades underground before theyre even seen.

Often, they open only after monsoon storm waters erode the ground and seep into existing cracks. Many fissures that could form above ground in the future probably exist today, undetected.

For the root cause, scientists blame differential subsidence, when adjoining sections of land decline at different rates as groundwater is pumped.

In Arizona, where groundwater over-pumping was rampant until the CAP arrived, more than 3,400 square miles have subsided in at least 26 separate areas, said the new Arizona Department of Water Resources report.

Only one known fissure has formed in Pima County  in the Avra Valley in 1981. Since then, subsidence from groundwater pumping has declined here because of the retirement of farms and arrival of the CAP.

But in the Eloy-Picacho area north of where the big fissure opened, land has dropped up to 19 feet since the 1940s. An area about 15 miles north of the new fissure sank 15.5 feet just from 1954 to 1985.

No one can say whether the new fissure was triggered by old or recent pumping. Since CAP water arrived in 1986, Pinal farmers groundwater pumping has dropped two-thirds, but it started rising again in this decade.

The subsidence that caused this crack was likely caused by the collective impacts of groundwater withdrawals over several decades, the state water agency said.

Brian Betcher, general manager of the Maricopa-Stanfield Irrigation District north of Eloy, said he suspects the cause is historic pumping because despite recent increases in groundwater use, were not even near those levels of pumping in the 1960s and 70s.

SOLUTIONS ARE ELUSIVE

As Cook walked along the new fissure, he recalled that when its northern end was discovered in 2014, it was deeper and wider than now. Much of it has filled in with sediment dumped by big storms. Thats happened to many other fissures and will eventually happen to this fissures southern end, he said.

But longer-term solutions to fissuring are more elusive. The Arizona Department of Water Resources has held five planning meetings on water in the Willcox area since March 2016. Theres been zero progress, said former chamber president McClelland. While some farmers there are willing to self-regulate their pumping, other landowners including ranchers see that as a violation of property rights. Another meeting will be held by this spring.

In Pinal County, efforts to arrest groundwater pumping are hampered because the 1980 Groundwater Management Act, while terrific up to a point, doesnt really give the department the tools it needs to stop the overdraft completely, said Kathleen Ferris, former director of the state commission that drafted that law.

For example, the state water agency has the right to impose a pump tax on farmers to raise money to buy and retire farmland, said Ferris, who ran the department in the 1980s. But the tax is limited to $2 an acre-foot, and weve known from the beginning that it wouldnt generate enough money to buy much ag land and put it out of production, she said.

In Las Vegas, authorities were able to halt subsidence and fissuring by replenishing the aquifer with water from neighboring Lake Mead. But recharging wont restore previous aquifer conditions or prevent future fissures in Pinal County, said state water agency spokeswoman Michelle Moreno.

A great deal of the subsidence in the Pinal area stems from compaction of fine-grained sediments that lost water.

Such subsidence, she said, is permanent and irreversible.
A former Tucson group foster home worker was indicted Wednesday on federal charges of distributing and possessing child pornography, court records show.

A federal grand jury indicted 27-year-old Taylor Ray Freeman on one charge of distributing child pornography and two charges of possession of child pornography, according to U.S. District Court records.

The charges stem from a Dec. 27 online chat during which Freeman told an undercover police officer that he had a sexual interest in children and that he had naughty pictures to trade, according to a complaint filed in federal court in Tucson.

He emailed the officer a sexually explicit photo of a girl, resulting in the charge of distributing child pornography, according to the indictment.

Homeland Security Investigations agents were able to track the email to Freemans computer and served a federal warrant at his home Jan. 10. Agents seized a smartphone and internal hard drive, both of which contained photos and videos of child pornography. He was charged with one count of possession for each device, the indictment shows.

Pima County sheriffs deputies arrested Freeman the same day and held him in jail for less than 24 hours before transferring him to the custody of federal authorities, Deputy Cody Gress, a Sheriffs Department spokesman, previously told the Star.

On Jan. 11, U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernardo P. Velaso signed a detention order, remanding Freeman to federal detention until his trial. Velasco accepted the recommendation of Pretrial Services, which decided he posed a serious flight risk, the order shows.

Freeman was hired in 2013 by local nonprofit TMM Family Services, according to Arizona Department of Child Safety records.

TMM, which provides social services outreach, runs 10 group homes for up to 53 children ages 1 to 17, according to its website.

Donald Strauch, TMMs executive director, did not immediately respond to the Stars inquiry as to whether Freeman had contact with children.
Sara Jo Schneider and Hickle, along with fellow Girl Scouts Jayna Kelley and Autumn Helgeson, were killed when a pickup truck crashed into them as the scouts cleaned up debris on the west side of Highway P at about 11 a.m. Nov. 3, 2018. All four were killed at the scene. A fifth girl was injured but later recovered. The girls attended Southview Elementary and Halmstad Elementary in Chippewa Falls. On Wednesday, a 20-foot-tall memorial was dedicated at the crash site, honoring the three scouts and mother killed that day.
When the Democrats pick their new national chairman later this month, the choice will send a signal about the partys direction as it sets out to recover from the erosion that began even before Hillary Clinton lost the White House.

If they choose Rep. Keith Ellison, an African-American congressman from Minnesota who is one of two Muslims in Congress, they will opt for an outspokenly liberal course and, in effect, turn the party over to the forces of insurgent 2016 candidate Bernie Sanders.

If they elect former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, the son of Dominican immigrants who held elected local and statewide appointed posts in Maryland before taking two top positions under former President Barack Obama, they will choose a more centrist direction.

And if they pick the relative unknown who has emerged as the most interesting alternative to the two perceived front-runners, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, they will elect a millennial from the industrial belt region that rejected Democratic candidates in 2016.

With 447 voters, the Feb. 24 election is the kind of political contest that is notoriously difficult to predict. Ellison, Perez and Buttigieg (pronounced Boot-edge-edge) have the most organized support and got the best receptions among the nine candidates last Saturday in Detroit at the third of four party-sponsored forums for Democratic National Committee members.

The others include four who have held significant positions within state and local parties: longtime New Hampshire Democratic Chairman Ray Buckley, South Carolina Democratic Chairman Jaime Harrison, Idaho Executive Director Sally Boynton Brown, and Jehmu Greene, an African-American from Austin, Texas, who was executive director of the states Young Democrats before holding several party posts in Washington and serving as a Fox News contributor. Interestingly, none of the top seven is a straight Anglo man.

The candidates range in age from 27 to 59, ensuring a chairman younger than the partys geriatric congressional leadership. While Ellison has the most big-name endorsements, followed by Perez, those may not mean much in a party that lacks major power brokers.

None of the nine fits all of the jobs requirements: spokesman, organizer, manager, fundraiser. But they agree on the need to provide the help for local and state parties that has been lacking in recent years, to reach out to the partys multiple constituencies, to make the party more transparent and accessible, and to stand up to President Donald Trumps efforts to overturn Obamas policies.

Given the high feelings among many Democrats these days, one consideration may be which candidate members feel can best make the anti-Trump case. Buttigieg got a leg up on his better known rivals as the only candidate to join one of the Jan. 21 womens marches against the new presidents policies while the others were at a Florida conference for major donors, a point he noted to cheers in Detroit. After the DNCs Jan. 28 forum in Houston, Buttigieg, Perez and Harrison joined protesters against Trumps travel ban at George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

The high-profile supporters for Ellison, 53, led by Sanders, include Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, the Steelworkers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and liberal icons Gloria Steinem and Rep. John Lewis. He agreed to leave his House seat if elected, heading off one major argument against him.

Perez, 55, who led Obama administration voting rights efforts as assistant attorney general for civil rights before becoming Labor secretary, was endorsed recently by former Vice President Joe Biden. He is also backed by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a former DNC chair and a key Clinton supporter; several unions including the Food and Commercial Workers, Plumbers, Bricklayers, Carpenters and Firefighters; and an array of Texas Democrats, including party chair Gilberto Hinojosa.

Buttigieg, 35, a Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan veteran who came out as gay during his first term as mayor, backed Clinton in 2016 but doesnt mention it much. He has the endorsement of Steve Grossman, party chairman during Bill Clintons administration. Alluding to the perception the Ellison-Perez battle is a proxy fight for the divisive 2016 Clinton-Sanders fight, he said, This is not a time to re-litigate an old battle.

What I bring to the table is a little bit different, he said in Detroit, warning that, If you do what youve always done, youre going to get what youve always got.

Whoever wins will become an important anti-Trump voice. But as Democrats struggle to counter Trump in middle America, the young South Bend mayor raised a potentially crucial question: Should the Democratic Party do something different?
Does Donald Trump understand this ? Do his closest advisors ? Only time will tell. But if they think "intelligence fusion cells", "combined joint task forces" and "kill lists" alone are going to get us anywhere near the goal the President is contemplating, they are deeply mistaken. Kinetic actions have their place in any overall strategy mixing military assets and foreign policy efforts. However, they are only means to an end. They are not a self serving purpose as such, even less so in Yemen.

I surely can't make that call, but it seems the first raid authorized by the President has already lost the US some good will among the Saudi backed "legitimate" government of Yemen, as well as among Central Yemeni tribes that were not overly hostile to US interests. This is a game where patience trumps bravado, and you'll have to bite your lip more often than not, missing out on a good chance to get a bad guy out of the way.

Taking risks is in the nature of military arts, but when giving the green light for anything like this, you need to carefully weigh the prospective gains against the risks incurred. Getting the scalp of a senior AQAP may certainly justify putting US operators at risk. Does it necessarily mean you try and have a go at the next best occasion, getting into something that has potentially serious implications in case anything goes wrong ?

It is hard to imagine an administration that has already shown its lack of preparation on such basic issues as immigration law having a well thought through strategy for any kind of US intervention or operation. If the recent SEAL Team 6 raid is any indication to go by, we are in for a rough ride.

A close advisor to President Trump recently said the President would take on Islamic radicals, whether they are "Jihadists or Khomeinists", meaning whether they are ISIS/AQ or the IRGC and its surrogates. Taking the morale high ground and wanting to confront Evil is nothing new in American politics. From that point of view, the administration's statements do not exactly come as a surprise. There has been the "Empire of Evil" and the "Axis of Evil" before. In both these cases though, there was a strategy - however flawed and misguided - underpinning the moral claim, which seems to be totally lacking today.

As explained in part (1) of this piece, President Trump is facing some tough challenges if he intends to unsettle the "empire by proxies" that Tehran has established in the Middle-East. By chosing Yemen as the starting point for his roll back policy of Iranian influence, his team has picked a country that is going down the road other failed States have taken before in the region. But even though Yemen might be the weak link in the Iranian chain of "choke points" spread all around the Arabian peninsula, there is no guarantee of success for the new US administration.

"Morality is the weakness of the brain. It can be dangerous when it is not alleviated by thought and reason" (from A Season in Hell , by Arthur Rimbaud)

The Yemeni Quagmire

Looking at the situation on the ground, there is no doubt that of all the players involved, the Saudis are probably the ones in the most uncomfortable situation. They have already played their trump card with very mixed results and are at a dead end. Overall, they have achieved very little, despite considerable resources dedicated to their operations.

Recent diplomatic efforts aimed at rallying the whole GCC will not fundamentally change the equation.The Saudi air force has been flying air strikes ever since the start of the war. Despite deliveries of precision guided weapons by a number of Western countries, they did not have a significant impact on their adversaries. This is all the more relevant, as both the US and the UK have been sharing intelligence with the Saudis regarding target acquisition and identification.

Other than occasional hits on HVTs and recurring instances of civilian infrastructure destroyed (and innocent people killed in the thousands already), there is not much to take away from this campaign. Considering the "low tech" profile of their adversaries, the Saudis could bomb Yemen back into the stone age anyway and not get much more result.

Their ground offensive, involving both Saudi and allied troops as well as local allies, has made some ground over time, but the area it managed to win back from Saleh and his Houthis basically coincides with the limits of the Northerners area of influence. Aden is not under threat any more, there is serious fighting going on around Taiz, but the Houthi heartland and most of the Red Sea coast north of Perim Island is out of reach for the Saudi coalition.



According to the "official" Saudi backed Yemen government, the port of Mocha has now finally fallen into GCC hands, after about six weeks of intense fighting. This would be confirmation that the 300 miles of Read Sea coastline are indeed considered of vital interest to the Saudis. It is unclear however how much control they have over Mocha at this point and how long they will be able to maintain it unchallenged. Suffice to say, Mocha is the easiest target on Western Yemen shores.

Ali Abdullah Saleh and the Houthis

The Houthis on the other hand are stuck with their cumbersome ally, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and parts of the army loyal to him. Saleh is his own man, playing his own game. For now, his interests are in line with those of the Houthis, but it may not always be the case. From a US point of view, it would make sense finding out it if there is any modus vivendi that could be achieved with Saleh, in order to drive a wedge between him and the Houthis for example. A man hungry for power, Saleh's goals are not too difficult to read. He wants a seat at the table, and most probably a large slice of the cake as well ...

This is an area where diplomacy and shrewd politics would undoubtedly get the US further than brute force. Convincing the Saudis that they will have to swallow their pride and accept a number of Saleh demands will not be easy though. Tillerson's State Department might have its plate full in that regard. As for the Houthis, they are anything but the Iranian puppets some officials are trying to turn them into. Their demands have been as much social as economic and political in nature.

If the US decides to go after them, the Houthis will fight, and fight relentlessly. History should not be disregarded and what it teaches us about them is that this is not a people that gives up easily. Isolated minorities in rough mountain lands do have a tendency to hold a serious grudge once they've been antagonized. Generally, they also turn out to be resilient warriors, who won't back down from a fight. If the new adminitration plans to launch raids, airstrikes and drone attacks against the Houthis in the same way as against AQAP, we are probably all in for a tough awakening.

The stretch of red Sea Coast under Houthi control extends for miles and miles and there is no way international shipping lanes can be consistently protected, unless you control the shores as well. Furthermore, areas North of the Saudi border in Jizan, Asir and Najran have already proven vulnerable to Houthi incursions. Besides, and this is a more basic question, why would the US escalate a situation militarily, with no guarantees of success, if there is a less risky road to achieve the same result ?

Splitting up the circumstantial alliance between Saleh, the Houthis and Iran

There is probably a danger in having military technicians rather than genuine strategists in charge of national security policy. That danger is closely linked to the cognitive bias and experience these people bring to the table. Having contributed to serious revamping of military intelligence in Afghanistan is a good thing, but believing every international issue the US is confronted with can be solved through "find, fix and finish" would be a serious problem.

The US is still engaged in Afghanistan, in a war that is about to be lost, while at the same time taking the fight to ISIS in its strongholds in Iraq and Syria. You have to really wonder if and why this should be the time to pick another fight against an adversary that has not threatened US interests in any significant way ? This is all the more relevant, as Yemen's East is another hotbed of Jihadism and it would surely not do us any harm trying to find more local allies against AQAP, rather than making new enemies !

Any objective analysis of the triangular alliance between Saleh's army, Houthi forces and their alleged Iranian supporters clearly indicates that there is plenty of room for negotiating with at least two of these players and peeling away two layers of the problem by doing so. Has there been any attempt at doing so ? I surely hope so !

This brings us back to the core issue at stake, because splitting the Houthi-Saleh joint venture needs taking into account the Iranian ghost presence in the room. As already mentioned in part (1), there is not much evidence currently pointing to an increased or significant Iranian presence in Yemen. It does not mean the Iranians aren't there and most likely, they are indeed, for all the reasons previously explained.

Preventing further Iranian expansion ?

The choice of Yemen as the starting point for a US policy aiming at rolling back Iranian influence in the region does certainly make sense, depending on which military and foreign diplomacy assets the administration is willing to use. But it is undeniable that should they want to go for a weak spot in Tehran's strategy, there is no better place than Yemen.

Looking at the overall situation in the Middle-East, it is clear that the battle of Aleppo, which ended in total defeat for the insurgents, has far reaching consequences. There isn't much that the Saudis in particular can hope to gain any more. They can make sure the war drags on, but they won't be able to break the lock Iran has closed in on them in that part of the Levant, and neither will the US. The so-called "Shia Crescent" will stand, there is no way around this.

However, to fully implement its "choke point" strategy, Tehran also needs to be in a position where it can threaten to interrupt naval shipping through the Red Sea, which is the only viable lifeline the Saudis have left in case things go sore in the East, around the Strait of Hormuz. Achieving the same degree of militarization as in the Strait of Hormuz is out of the question for the Iranians. They have neither the capabilities nor the resources. But the remote prospect of shipping through the Mandeb Strait being seriously interfered with  or worse, interrupted  by Yemen proxies, with the help of Iranian advisors, is the kind of nightmare scenario nobody in Riyadh is willing to entertain.

It does not take that much equipment and technology to mine the Strait, deploy mobile missile batteries capable of hitting at least civilian ships, or send out a swarm of attack speed boats  or torpedo drones  that could also do some damage to Western military vessels. If you add to that, the ageing stock of ballistic missiles that the Yemeni army has in its possession, using them to good effect against the Saudis every now and then, and you get an idea of what is potentially at stake here.

Potential for Iranian Retaliation

Implementing such a strategy however requires the Iranians to rely on local forces in Yemen, whether that is the Houthis, Saleh's army or both. This is all the more reason not to play into their hands by unnecessarily antagonizing these players. On the contrary, it would definitely make more sense to try and bridge the gap, gradually undercutting Tehran's alleged influence on them. Agreed, easier said than done, but "doing stupid sh*t" certainly is no winning strategy either.

By singling out Yemen, the Trump administration has chosen to go after the soft spot in the Iranian "choke point" strategy. Whether or not this move was well prepared is another matter. Recent events would tend to prove otherwise. It is one thing to make claims about wanting to roll back Iran in the region, or even drive a wedge between Iran and its Russian ally. It is a totally different matter to develop a viable strategy to achieve such goals without incurring significant blow back. The balance of power has shifted in the Middle-East over the last 15 years and it has shifted towards Tehran.

There are many asymmetric responses the Iranians might resort to if they feel they are threatened or under attack in Yemen or elsewhere. In that regard, the Trump administration might soon find itself in a situation where it would have to choose between continuing with the promising offensive against ISIS or shifting the effort towards containing Iran. The current battle of Mosul, the coming fight for Raqqa, the offensives that will be needed to expunge ISIS of its sanctuaries along the Tigris and Euphrates cannot be thought without Tehran's agreement.

Such is the Iranian influence in Iraq and Syria that US troops there would be at serious risk should the situation escalate beyond breaking point in Yemen. Short if invading Iran itself, there is not much anybody can do to leverage those asymetric assets the Iranians now firmly hold in their hand. As for full-on invasion, a prospect that would be dear to the few the Neo-Cons who made it into the Trump administration, it would probably make "Operation Iraqi Freedom" look like the cakewalk Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said it would be !
Help India!

By Asif Moazzam for Twocircles.net

During the seven decades of independence, we have observed and monitored many political parties closely and hopefully, have understood well the meaning of secularism. Without going into the detail of their precepts and practices in the decades-long history, lets have a look at the recent incident in Assam to understand the political game under the garb of secularism.

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In last years Assam state elections, BJP+ AGP+ BPF alliance got 41.9 % of vote share while Congress got 31% and AIUDF 13% of the total vote. Congress and AIUDF put together amount to 44%. Congress didnt form an alliance with AIUDF and was reduced from 79 to 26 seats. So-called secular party like Congress could afford to see BJP in power and lived through its humiliating defeat, but couldnt afford to see Badruddin Ajmal in power. In Indian political context, secularism urges to get the vote of Muslims, but refuses an alliance with them, even if it costs dear.

In recent Bihar election, Muslims voted for the grand alliance en masse and as such, all the six candidates fielded by AIMIM, including the veteran Akhtarul Iman, a two-term MLA and very popular candidate, lost to grand alliance candidates from Seemanchal, a thickly Muslim populated area. Soon after, Nitish government reduced the minority budget from 309 to 294 crores. The fact is that in politics, there is no friend or foe, but the truth is that power recognizes power. Our crisis remains because we are a vote bank without a leader.

Any community deprived of its leader is a pushover. Why shouldnt Muslims, as a marginalized community and not as a religious minority, have the custodian of their votes? Some argue this will lead to polarization, which is not true. Vote pattern in India is now deeply on caste line and not on religious line. Therefore, Muslims voting in unification for their leader and party will be simply a pattern followed by other communities of India.

In this caste based political system in India, each political party is supported primarily by a sizeable section of particular community and caste. Their caste votes bring them electoral strength and real political power with a capacity to rule and bargain.

Following the own leader and the party headed by own leaders will reduce chances of being blackmailed. Such a party will definitely be part of alliance and governance as well. The mass following will strengthen the leader and place him in a position to bargain, which is a must for the community.

In Uttar Pradesh, in 73 of 403 assembly constituencies, Muslims form more than 30% of the electorate. AIMIM is contesting around three dozen seats. Muslims must vote unanimously across Uttar Pradesh to defeat communal force but shouldnt they throw their weight behind Owaisi contesting few seats and give him a chance to lead and represent the community?

The author teaches at the Department of English, University of Bisha, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Two Microsoft employees were told to "take more smoke breaks" when they complained to their bosses about the psychological toll of the murder films and child pornography they had to watch for their jobs on the Online Safety Team, a lawsuit has alleged.

Damning allegations

Henry Soto and Greg Blaubert, the two plaintiffs, said that Microsoft's Online Safety Team enjoyed "God like " status, having access to "literally any customer's communications history at their behest". The customer's history was used to screen Microsoft user's devices for child pornography and evidence of other heinous crimes.

Soto and Blauert allege that they suffered "severe psychological trauma" from watching the most "twisted videos on the internet". The plaintiffs are suing Microsoft for the permanent psychological injuries sustained from their work. Furthermore, Soto and Blauert claim that they were denied compensation for the psychological suffering they endured while employed by Microsoft.

Soto, who was involuntarily transferred to the Microsoft Online Safety Team in 2008, said: " I was not informed prior to the transfer as to the full extent of my new position. I was told that I would be reviewing terms of use violations. A policy decreed that we were not allowed to transfer from our new positions or at least eighteen months".

Soon, Soto discovered the true nature of his new position with Microsoft. "Quickly, I discovered that I would be sharing traumatic information on crime rings and child pornography with the authorities. The job required me to witness brutality, murder, sexual assaults, videos of humans dying and images and videos designed to titillate the most depraved minds".

Soto's lawyer said that his client was diagnosed with PTSD: "He suffered from an internal screening of these disturbing images which translated into crippling anxiety and irritability", said Soto's lawyer. After viewing one particularly disturbing video, Soto began having auditory hallucinations. Soto claims that he desired to continue with his work but needed psychological help.

However, Microsoft failed to provide adequate care.

A fundamental failure

Similarly, Greg Blauert stated that he suffered PTSD symptoms after viewing thousands of "indescribable images and videos". Blauert added that, if an employee broke down at work, their employers encouraged them to "take a cigarette break or go home early".

Years into their positions, psychologists diagnosed Soto and Blauert with PTSD and recommended that they should both take medical leave. Both men applied for worker's compensation but both were allegedly declined. The denial of both men's psychological afflictions is symptomatic of a society that continues to neglect and stigmatise issues of mental health.

Neither Soto or Blauert has returned to work.
The CLE Azabache is CLE Cigar Companys contribution to the 2016 Tobacconist Association of America (TAA) Exclusive Series. 2016 was the second consecutive year CLE has been a part of the TAA Exclusive Series. A year prior (2015), CLEs Asylum brand contributed the Asylum Nyctophilia Maduro. With Azabache, it is the first CLE branded cigar to be a part of the TAA series. The name Azabache translates to black or jet and its appropriate for this name because not only does the CLE Azabache have a dark maduro wrapper, but company founder Christian Eiroa is known to fly jet airplanes. One unique thing about the CLE Azabache is that it is offered in multiple vitolas  the only offering to do so among the new 2016 TAA Exclusive Series releases. Recently Ive had an opportunity to smoke the CLE Azabache in the 50 x 5 box-pressed Robusto size. Overall, I found this to be a nice release by CLE

In terms of the TAA as an organization, it is a small group of retailers. At press time the number of retailers is approximately 80. As per their web-site, the TAA is defined as:

The Tobacconists Association of America, Ltd. is a trade organization established in 1968 by visionary retail tobacconists. By providing education, communication, research, advocacy, and member discount programs, The TAA works with our members and the industry they support to offer the tools and relationship building opportunities needed to maximize professionalism and success.

Exclusive cigars for the TAA are nothing new, but over the past few years the number of offerings offered per year has grown quite large. 2016 included ten new limited offerings, six on-going exclusive offerings, and the event-only La Flor Dominicana TAA 48 Celebration Limited Edition Maduro. This brings the total cigars for 2016 available to TAA members to seventeen.

This year, the following new cigars have been released for the 2016 TAA Exclusive Series (displayed from left to right in the photo that follows):

In addition to the offerings introduced in 2016, the six blends used as on-going releases exclusive for TAA retailers are:

Ashton VSG Robusto Especial

Drew Estate Acid Big Bang

Padron 1964 Toro TAA Exclusive Natural

Padron 1964 Toro TAA Exclusive Maduro

Rocky Patel 15th Anniversary Robusto Grande

Nat Sherman Panamericana

As mentioned, in 2015, CLE released a TAA Exclusive Series offering with the Asylum Nyctophilia Maduro. The Nyctophilia has since become a regular production offering in the Asylum portfolio. Eiroa and CLE are not known for one and done cigars, so it will be interesting to see if the Azabache follows the Nyctophilias lead and eventually becomes an on-going regular release. For completeness we list the two cigars that CLE has released for the TAA.

Asylum Nyctophilia Maduro

CLE Azabache

Without further ado, lets break down the CLE Azabache 50 x 5 and see what his cigar brings to the table:

Blend Profile

The dark wrapper is a maduro from Mexico. The blend is not your typical CLE blend as it also features tobaccos from Honduras, Nicaragua, and Peru. The cigars are produced at Eiroas El Aladino factory in Danli, Honduras.

Wrapper: Mexican Maduro

Binder: Honduran

Filler: Honduran, Nicaraguan, and Peruvian

Country of Origin: Honduas (El Aladino)

Vitolas Available

As mentioned the CLE Azabache is the one offering in the new 2016 TAA Exclusive Series cigars to be featured in multiple vitolas. Each of the three sizes is box-pressed. The cigars are offered in 25 count boxes.

50 x 5

54 x 6

60 x 6

Appearance

The Mexican Maduro wrapper of the CLE Azabache 50 x 5 has a dark roasted coffee bean color. There is a light coating of oil not he surface. I found this cigar to have a smooth service. Most of the wrapper seams are well hidden and any visible veins are on the thin side. I found the box-press to be firm with a soft Cuban press style.

The band to the CLE Azabache is silver with black and gold pin striping. Prominently on the center of the band is the CLE logo in black font. The lower portion of the band features a rectangular holographic background with the text AZEBACHE in black font.

There is tissue paper covering the footer and extending up to the bottom of the band. The tissue paper is white with black font. On the tissue paper is the Tobacconists Association of America logo as well as the C.L.E. Cigar Company logo. The text TAA Exclusive also appears on the tissue paper. The use of the tissue paper is in place of cellophane to protect the cigar. Christian Eiroa mentioned on Episode 150 of Stogie Geeks that he does not like cellophane, thus the use of the tissue paper in place of it.

Preparation for the Cigar Experience

After first removing the tissue paper from the CLE Azebache 50 x 5, I went with a straight cut to remove the cap. Once the cap was clipped, I commenced with the pre-light draw. The cold draw produced some notes of chocolate along with a touch of cedar and a touch of floral. Overall I considered this to be a satisfactory pre-light draw. At this point I was ready to light up the CLE Azebache 50 x 5 and see what the smoking experience would have in store.

Flavor Profile

The CLE Azebache started out with a mix of chocolate, maduro sweetness (something I define as a cross between natural tobacco flavors and dried fruit), and cedar notes. The chocolate and maduro sweetness moved into the forefront while the cedar notes went into the background. The chocolate and maduro sweetness alternated in intensity throughout the first third. Meanwhile I detected an additional layer on white pepper on the retro-hale.

The second third of the CLE Azebache 50 x 5 saw the cedar notes move into the forefront joining the maduro sweetness. There was now a black pepper note present on the tongue (providing a nice complement to the white pepper on the retro-hale). This black pepper gradually increased through this segment of the CLE Azebache. The chocolate notes were also primarily background note, but during this stage of the smoking experience did float in and out of the forefront from time to time.

As the CLE Azebache 50 x 5 moved into the last third, there was much more in the way of spice. The cedar notes were grounded in the forefront while the pepper notes were a close secondary note. There was still a touch of maduro sweetness and chocolate. This is the way the flavor profile of the CLE Azebache 50 x 5 came to a close. The resulting nub was firm to the touch and cool in temperature.

Burn and Draw

In terms of burn, the CLE Azebache 50 x 5 scored quite well. The cigar had no difficulty maintaining a straight burn path and the burn line also remained relatively straight. This was a cigar that didnt require an excessive amount of touch-ups. The resulting ash was gray in color and was on the firm side. The burn rate and burn temperature were both ideal.

The draw also performed quite well. This was a draw that was more on the open side, but was not a loose one either. Overall, this was a low maintenance cigar to derive flavor from.

Strength and Body

In terms of strength, the CLE Azebache 50 x 5 started out medium. There was a slight increase in strength along the way, but the cigar never crossed the line into medium to full territory. The body of the CLE Azebache also started out medium, then gradually increased during the first half. By the second half, I did find he Azebache moved into medium to full territory.

In terms of strength versus body, I found both attributes balanced each other nicely in the first half. As the body increased in the second half, the body would have a slight edge.

Final Thoughts

If you have read many of my reviews of the TAA cigars, you have seen I have been very critical that there now are too many cigars in released the TAA Exclusive Series. While on paper it sounds like it is a great idea to have a large selection of cigars in the TAA, it has less to a series that has become somewhat diluted and thinner in terms of offering those special cigars. The CLE Azebache is one of those cigars. On its own, its a fine cigar and I enjoyed it. However it falls short of being that special cigar I would expect in a TAA series.

The CLE Azebache 50 x 5 is a cigar that had good flavor and excellent construction. It just lacked that intangible I was hoping to get from something in the TAA series. This is still a cigar Id recommend to an experienced cigar enthusiast. Its a nice cigar for a novice to graduate to something medium / medium plus. As for myself, this is a cigar that I would smoke again  and its worthy of picking up a five pack.

Summary

Key Flavors: Chocolate, Cedar, Pepper, Maduro Sweetness

Burn: Excellent

Draw: Excellent

Complexity: Medium-

Strength: Medium

Body: Medium (1st Half), Medium to Full (2nd Half)

Finish: Excellent

Rating

Assessment: 3.0-The Fiver

Score: 89

References

News: CLE Cigar Company to Launch CLE Azabache for TAA and Unveil 2016 Plans at TAA Convention

Price: $7.00

Source: Purchased

Reference: CLE
KGO-TV(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) -- When one woman in Nashville, Tennessee, learned she needed a kidney transplant this fall, she didn't realize her husband was the perfect match.

Doctors discovered from tests that Matt Stewart could donate a kidney to his wife Britney, despite her rare blood type AB positive.

"I pretty much put myself on the top of the list, said you know what let's go ahead and knock myself out of the way. I tell everybody, I've already given her my heart and my money. Might as well give her my kidney, too," he said according to ABC affiliate KGO-TV.

The couple is now recovering at home after a successful surgery earlier this month.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
"No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth."



Plato





"This country has shed more blood for the freedom of other people than all the other nations in the history of the world combined, and I'm tired of people feeling like they've got to apologize for America."

Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN)







In a time of universal deceit  telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

George Orwell, the author of 1984







"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.""Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.""A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example."Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right.
In whats becoming all too familiar, furious Democratic voters invaded congressional town hall meetings across the country, including one held by Rep. jason chaffetz in Utah last night. More than 1,000 protestors spent over an hour and a half harassing Chaffetz, who spent much of his time pleading to let him answer their questions. The largely progressive base was angry at President Donald Trump for not releasing his tax returns, telling Chaffetz to investigate Trump over possible conflicts of interest.

Others criticized Chaffetz for backing then-candidate Trump in the election, even after the Access Hollywood tape was made public.

Even though Chaffetz disavowed Trump after the tape was released, he later said in the election that Trump was better than Hillary. In my heart of hearts, Chaffetz told the protestors he believed he made the right decision. Sources said at least 90 percent of the attendees were progressive liberals.

'Do Your Job!': @jasoninthehouse Faces Enraged Town Hall Crowd in Utahhttps://t.co/O7svsPAXA7  Fox News (@FoxNews) February 10, 2017

Do your job

Chaffetz said there was zero chance he would vote for Hillary Clinton. He got booed again and the crowd chanted do your job, do your job, referring to Trumps tax returns. Attendees accused him of favoring Trump because he investigated Hillarys private email server but wont get Trump to release his tax returns.

Chaffetz heads the House Oversight Committee.

Chaffetz said President Trump is exempt from these conflict of interest laws. But he got some cheers when he talked about Kellyanne Conway, Trumps closest White House aide. He said she was wrong for asking people to buy Ivankas clothing line in an interview about stores dropping Ivanka after pressure from left-wing groups. He also said he sent a letter to the Office of Government Ethics about her comments.

What she did was wrong, wrong, wrong. Here is our bi-partisan letter to the White House and OGE. #Donteverdothis https://t.co/zqeYhcttMB  Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) February 9, 2017

Tempers flare

Even though Chaffetz quickly realized the town hall meeting was stacked with angry progressives, he said the GOP was working to block Planned Parenthood from getting federal dollars.

In deep-red Utah, that is a popular refrain but he got jeered by the largely liberal attendees. The auditorium was filled with about 1,000 people, with hundreds more waiting outside. Many were angry at the temporary travel ban and still others over public lands disputes.

At times Chaffetz was energized by the irate crowd, but he spent much of the time being interrupted by taunts, boos, and angry chants. Tempers flared in the open forum with Democrats furious over his support for Trump. Chaffetz tried to bring up Vice President Mike Pence but was scoffed at as the crowd booed. He managed to say Pence is like the nicest human being, earning him more jeers.

Chaffetz on co-sponsoring bill: We simply dont need the Department of Education https://t.co/yICKQ0WKAg pic.twitter.com/IRGD41rOBV  Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) February 9, 2017

Get rid of you

Chaffetz also tried to find a common enemy in the new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who was confirmed along party lines with the Utah senator voting against her.

He touted a bill he sponsored that would eliminate the Department of Education, handing control of schools and funding to the states. He also told the attendees that he wanted to get rid of Betsy DeVos. That prompted a man to scream, We want to get rid of you.

Chaffetz got reelected for a fifth term by beating his opponent by 47 percentage points. Some accused him of holding the town hall as a prelude to taking over Sen. Orrin Hatchs leadership.
The State of Virginia has requested that a federal judge issue a "nationwide injunction" against the Muslim immigration ban imposed by President Donald Trump, who met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday. The executive order is on hold currently because of a restraining order that was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. In issuing the request for the nationwide injunction, Virginia Solicitor General Stuart Raphael stated that as he sees it, it is vitally crucial that "immigration law be uniform."

Animus towards Muslims

Attorneys representing the State of Virginia argued that there exists "overwhelming evidence" that the executive order is not "constitutional." The attorneys further argued that, as they see it, the President's executive order "resulted from animus toward Muslims." The attorneys further argued that the State of Virginia, its residents, and the public universities of the state, all would be harmed by the enforcement of the executive order.

The attorneys' arguments pertaining to the harm imposed on the people of Virginia by the executive order is clarified when one considers the fact that Muslim doctors often fill the overwhelming doctor shortage in rural communities across America, including Virginia. Also the gap in intellectual brainpower across America, especially in rural states like Virginia, is often filled by Muslim professors and students at universities.

It is for these reasons and more, that the attorneys for the State of Virginia see Trump's executive order as resulting from "animus towards Muslims." As the attorneys see it, the ban could not result from anything other than hatred of Muslims, since Muslim immigrants to the United States fill so many urgent needs across America, especially in rural states like Virginia.

National security undermined

Virginia attorney general Mark Herring, also vehemently arguing against Trump's Muslim immigration ban, stated that the ban is "conceived in religious bigotry," (ABC News, 2/10/17). Furthermore, Herring described the executive order as being dressed up "just enough to make it look legal," (ABC News, 2/10/17).

Herring made it abundantly clear that no matter how it is dressed up, Trump's executive order is not fooling him.

Trump's Twitter tantrum

Meanwhile, Trump had a "Twitter tantrum" over the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision not to issue a stay on the restraining order of his Muslim immigration order. The President described the three judge panel's decision as "political" and told the judges that he would "see" them "in court." To date, Trump has not filed a lawsuit nor submitted legal arguments for a court hearing with the three judges as defendants and himself as the plaintiff. An auction of an ocean bridge in Arizona might be more likely.
Last Junes Brexit vote in great britain threw a spanner into the works of British and international politics. David Camerons unwise decision will mean the Britain will once again become a lone player on the international political field. This new found independence will come with a price, the secret will be to try and reduce what the country will pay for it.

Cameron's folly

Despite voices of concern David Cameron decided to call the Brexit vote to silence a vocal minority within his own Party. Nobody expected the NO vote to win, not even Nigel Farages openly nationalistic UKIP Party which would later give moral support to the Republican candidate during the American presidential campaign.

But like the Americans with #Donald Trump Cameron discovered that in electoral matters there is no sure thing. The result eventually led to his resignation and current Prime Minister Theresa May has been left to negotiate the terms for Britains exit from the European. She and the country are now discovering that this is no simple matter.

Costs of the vote

The success of the High Court appeal over Brexit revealed that no thought had been given before the vote to what Brexit would mean and its eventual costs. The decision by the High Court angered many who had not realized that the vote was not binding and that the decision would always belong to Parliament. In addition, Scotland and Wales were angered by the vote as they were decidedly pro Europe and voted to remain in the Union and some in Scotland have called for another secessionist vote.

Recently this mix of unexpected developments was made more confusing by reports from the unelected House of Lords that they will demand certain conditions to the proposed law in order for it to become law.

Yesterday European legislators also told Britain that they could not expect London to remain the financial hub of the European Union and the transfer of important institutions to other capitals will not only be a severe blow to Britains economy, but also a bigger blow to its prestige.

The future

Britain was a major player on the international stage for centuries, but the end of the Second World War saw it become a support player of the United States in its Cold War with the Soviet Union which has now been replaced by the much subtler struggle with Vladimir Putins Russia which replaced it.

The British decline coincided with its decision to end its colonial empire.

Although this was replaced by the British Commonwealth which Queen Elizabeth oversees with great zeal, the end of the Empire had a great impact on Britains economic and military power.

Theresa May will now have to negotiate strongly to ensure that Britain keeps its voice in international politics, but it will not be easy. It will now have to negotiate the diffidence of its ex European partners and the inconsistencies of Donald Trump to form diplomatic partnerships.

In his turn Donald Trump will undoubtedly look to Britain for its support, but it will not be the deciding factor that could give decisive contributions to negotiations that were possible when in the EU. This too is another cost of Brexit that nobody anticipated.
Recent reports of conversations between President #Donald Trump senior security adviser Mike Pence with Russias Ambassador to the United States during the weeks leading up to the Inauguration have once again focussed the spotlight on Russia activities and not only in regards to the United States.

#Vladimir Putin has become a constant presence if international politics in an increasingly aggressive manner that few would have expected until relatively recently. His activities and manipulations are now become ever more part of news reports and show the world that it is once more involved in a Cold War.

Elections

Donald Trumps election victory is the subject of allegations of Russian interference. The allegations included controlled leaks, and the use of trolls on the internet spreading false news and thus to manipulate perceptions of Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. These and other unsavoury allegations are now under investigation by Americas intelligence community, but the allegations are not isolated.

In the light of their upcoming elections both Germany and France and announced that steps will be taken to combat the spreading of false news and to neutralize other forms of manipulation of the electorate. In addition, reports from the Guardian that now Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni had been hacked by Russian agents during his period as Foreign Minster have given proof that the Russian President is interested in destabilizing not only American politics, but also that of its allies.

The ongoing conflict

In 2014 the international community led by American President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia over its conflict with the Ukraine which led to the annexation of Crimea. These sanctions have been a bone of contention with between the superpowers since then and explain one reason for Russias covert activities.

The best known incident of this period was the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17 over the Ukraine with the deaths of all 283 aboard which included 80 children. A subsequent international investigation blamed pro russian forces for this incident, a claim denied by the Russian government which blames Ukrainian forces.

Since then supposedly pro Russian forces have continued their opposition to the Ukrainian government, even though many international experts openly state that these rebels are in fact undercover Russian troops following orders from the Kremlin.

Deadly politics

Reports from Russia that politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, a critic of Vladimir Putin, had fallen into a coma following allegations of having previously been poisoned is only the latest of a long line of allegations of political assassination of Russian politicians, journalists and dissidents opposed to the Kremlin.

While the allegations have been strenuously denied by Putins Office they were the basis of a question on Donald Trumps interview with Bill OReilly who defined Vladimir Putin as a killer which led to Russian government demands for an apology from OReilly.

Euope and the United States

Donald Trumps Presidency has begun under the shadow of the Russian Bear. Not only with the allegations of interference in his election victory, but also with the other doubts over Vladimir Putins activities in world politics, including his involvement in the conflicts in the Middle East. These activities must become a priority for the new Secretary of State Rex W Tillerson as he begins his tenure. The changes currently transforming the European Union and Great Britain mean that American foreign policy must allow for unexpected electoral developments.

Only cooperation between the United States and Europe can oppose Russia activities and this can only be done with a White House with a precise and clear policy regarding Russian activities.

The only solution cannot come from vague intentions of future cooperation because Vladimir Putin is an opponent who acts and strikes before talking. This will be a hard challenge for Trumps Presidency.
COLOMBO - The Sri Lanka government will undertake a tourism promotion drive in Fujian province of China next week to attract more and more Chinese tourists, a Sri Lankan Minister said on Friday.

Tourism Promotion Minister John Amaratunga told Xinhua that tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka were up by 20 percent in January compared with the corresponding period of the last year.

"We received more than 200,000 tourists last month. This is despite flight restrictions at the Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport for renovations of the runways," he said.

Asserting that the Chinese and Indian nationals account for a bulk of tourist arrivals, he said he would leave for Fujian on Feb 17 to start a promotion drive with the help of authorities in the southeastern province of China.

"We will set up a tourism promotional centre in that area for the benefit of those willing to travel in Sri Lanka," he said.

Last year 2.2 million tourists visited Sri Lanka. The minister said he was targeting to bring as many as 2.5 million this year.

Sri Lanka became a place of attraction particularly after the civil war ended in May 2009.
LASHKAR, Afghanistan - At least eight people have been confirmed dead and 20 others injured as a suicide bomber blew himself up next to a bank here on Saturday, spokesman for the provincial government Omar Zawak said.

"A terrorist tied explosive device in his body blew himself up next to a local bank where a number of security personnel gathered to collect their salaries, killing himself and seven others on the spot and injuring 20 others," Zawak told reporters.

The victims included civilians and security personnel, the official said without giving more details.

Lashkar is a city in southern Afghanistan and the capital of Helmand province.

The poppy-growing Helmand province has been the scene of fierce fighting between government forces and Taliban militants over the past few years.
President Donald Trump pushed back early on Saturday on assertions that the wall he wants built on the US border with Mexico would cost more than anticipated and said he would reduce the price.

Trump made his comments in two Twitter posts but did not say how he would bring down the cost of the wall.

Reuters on Thursday published details of an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security that estimated the price of a wall along the entire border at $21.6 billion. During his presidential campaign Trump had cited a $12 billion figure.

"I am reading that the great border WALL will cost more than the government originally thought, but I have not gotten involved in the ... design or negotiations yet," Trump tweeted from his Florida resort, where he is hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"When I do, just like with the F-35 FighterJet or the Air Force One Program, price will come WAY DOWN!"

Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, said in late January that his administration had been able to cut some $600 million from a deal to buy about 90 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from Lockheed Martin. Defense analysts and sources downplayed news of those cuts, saying the discount hailed by Trump was in line with what had been flagged by Lockheed for months and would apply to other countries committed to the program.

A border wall to stem illegal immigration was one of Trump's main campaign promises. He has vowed to make Mexico reimburse the United States for its cost but Mexico has repeatedly said it will not do so.

Trump also tweeted on Saturday about another aspect of his immigration policy - the legal battle over the presidential order banning entry to the United States by refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries.

"Our legal system is broken! '77% of refugees allowed into U.S. since travel reprieve hail from seven suspect countries.' (WT) SO DANGEROUS!" he said.

The tweet was in apparent reaction to a Washington Times story saying 77 percent of the 1,100 refugees who have entered the United States since Feb. 3 are from the countries covered by Trump's ban.

A federal judge in Seattle blocked Trump's executive order on Feb. 3, lifting the ban while litigation proceeds. Trump has been steadily critical of the ruling from Seattle and a subsequent appeals court ruling upholding it.
Anti-abortion protesters rallied at scores of Planned Parenthood clinics on Saturday to urge Congress and President Donald Trump to strip the health services provider of federal funding, while supporters of the organization staged counter-demonstrations around the United States.

With anti-abortion groups expecting protests at up to 225 clinics, Planned Parenthood supporters organized 150 protests of their own at parks, government buildings and other sites, including clinics. At some of those clinics, the counter-demonstrators outnumbered those demanding an end to federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

All told, rallies and marches were called in 45 states in cities large and small, including Washington and Philadelphia. As many as 6,000 people turned up for competing demonstrations in St. Paul, Minnesota, police said, but at other places, only a few dozen demonstrators turned out.

We expected that tens of thousands of pro-lifers will be out today sending a message that we want Planned Parenthood to be defunded," Monica Miller, director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society and one of the national organizers of the anti-abortion rallies, said in a telephone interview.

"As long as they are going stay in the abortion business, that is an organization that shouldnt be getting one red cent of federal tax money."

The 100-year-old organization of about 650 health centers provides birth control and other women's health services in addition to abortion, according to its website.

The US Supreme Court legalized abortion in the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling but US law prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions. Anti-abortion activists say funding for other purposes acts to subsidize abortions.

In some cities, the two sides in the long-simmering issue positioned themselves along the same street. Initial reports indicate the rallies were vocal and peaceful.

In the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, anti-abortion and abortion-rights groups took opposite sides of a four-lane highway, waving signs at traffic and shouting slogans.

"Trump is going to hear our trumpet call," said anti-abortion activist Sandy Prescott, 61, a homemaker from Roswell, Georgia, who was part of a group of about 100 people demanding an end to federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

At the competing abortion-rights demonstration, about 50 people gathered and held signs that included: "Women's rights are human rights." Many wore the pink "pussy hats" that have became an anti-Trump symbol since the Republican's inauguration on Jan. 20.

ALLIES IN WASHINGTON

Anti-abortion activists have said they are energized by the election of Trump, who has promised to restrict abortions. He selected their long-time ally, Mike Pence, and nominated conservative jurist Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court.

Two weeks ago, tens of thousands converged on Washington for the 44th March for Life, where Pence became the most senior government official to speak in person at the annual anti-abortion rally, organizers said.

"We finally have someone in the White House who has the power and authority to save and defend lives, said Margie Sznajder, one of 300 anti-abortion protesters at a rally in her hometown of Aurora, Illinois, outside Chicago.

Planned Parenthood leaders say abortions rights supporters also have been energized by Trump's election, as exemplified by the hundreds of thousands who flooded Washington a day after Trump's inauguration in favor of women's rights, including abortion rights.

The pro-Planned Parenthood events on Saturday were organized spontaneously, without the group's initiative, a spokeswoman said.

"Saturday, and every day, Planned Parenthood advocates and activists show that they refuse to be intimidated and they won't back down," Kelley Robinson, a leader of Planned Parenthood Action Fund Support, said in a statement.

Planned Parenthood receives federal funds from Medicaid reimbursements and Title X, a federal program that supports family planning and preventive health services. Planned Parenthood says cutting off those funds would make it more difficult for women to get birth control, Pap smears or testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

At some points in Washington, Planned Parenthood supporters formed lines to block about 50 people marching from the Supreme Court to a Planned Parenthood clinic but police officers moved them aside.

"Abortion, to me, is the greatest evil of our time," said Delia Tyagi, 36, an accountant who lives in Arlington, Virginia. "Planned Parenthood has wronged women in a lot of ways. I feel like we have the momentum to finally defund them."
DAVID CITY  Moving a highly specialized business from one end of the state to the other is no easy venture.

Just ask the management and staff at the newly opened Hershey Flying Service in David City.

It has been a very difficult process to get Hershey Flying Service to where we are at now, said Jared Storm, owner of the $1.2 million aircraft repair station.

Storm, who has an aerial spraying service in Wahoo, purchased the Hershey-based company in 2011 with plans to move it to eastern Nebraska. He considered Wahoo and other cities came calling, including Columbus.

David City landed the company by providing a long-term lease and new water main to the site at David City Municipal Airport.

Hershey Flying Service coming to David City is an exciting development. Mr. Storm is an entrepreneur and has a passion for airplanes and flying, said David City Mayor Alan Zavodny.

Storm said he moved the company east to access a broader base of workers who specialize in welding and metal fabrication.

We have had a complete turnover in personnel from the day I bought the company in 2011 to now, Storm said. That in itself has been challenging, but I feel we have a very good core group of people working for the company now.

General manager Kevin Woockman, a native of the Stanton area, joined the company in 2013. Seven other employees also work there.

The bulk of our work is building and repairing parts and components, mainly for Ag Cats. We also build some parts for Piper Braves, Weatherly and Air Tractors, said Storm.

The companys specialty is building components for and repairing the Grumman Ag Cat, a plane designed in the late 1950s and built through the 1970s.

The city added a grass taxiway from the new 22,000-square-foot facility to the airport runway.

I am very grateful for the support we received from David City and the city council members, Storm said. I would like to see the city continue to support infrastructure projects on the airport that will be needed for future growth. The seed has been planted and as this seed grows it will continue to bear fruit for the city in the form of jobs and tax revenue.

The facility is well-prepared for the future, equipped with an efficient subfloor heating system, state-of-the-art paint booth and advanced computer numeric control equipment.

The company is also developing new components to make flying safer for pilots. Two of the companys innovations, the Storm Cutters and Storm Shield, are intended to decrease hazards associated with crop dusting, which requires low-level flights and sharp turns around power lines and poles, birds and, increasingly, drone aircraft. Line strikes are one of the leading causes of crop duster pilot deaths.

Already on the market, Storm Cutters are thin bars attached to the front of a planes landing gear, one bar on each side. The bars' edge, similar in hardness to a chisel, is designed to cut through a power line a plane might encounter in a crop dusting flight.

(It works) just by getting rid of the power line quicker and faster. If you didnt have them (the plane) stretches the power line like a rubber band. It comes back and lashes the wing. It can tear chunks out of the wing, Woockman said, adding that in the worst cases the lines will bring a plane to the ground.

A replacement windshield, the Storm Shield is awaiting Federal Aviation Administration approval so it can be installed in Air Tractor and Thrush models, Storm said. The Storm Shields material has tested to be eight times stronger than the factory-installed glass, according to the National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University.

Hershey Flying Service was established in 1949 by crop dusters Pete and Floyd Rouche, two brothers who got their start working in World War II aircraft bomber plants.
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Last Monday, the Columbus City Council approved moving the library/cultural arts center project forward for a third vote April 11. It is very important that people know the ballot question is not asking for new or additional tax funding for the library/cultural arts center.

Last spring Columbus voters approved the renewal of the half-cent sales tax to fund both the library/cultural arts center project and public safety facilities. The half-cent sales tax was approved on May 10, 2016 and is already being collected.

The financing for the library/cultural arts center project is unique for a public project. The library/cultural arts center project will be voted on three times. The first allowed the library to begin planning and design for the facility.

The second renewed the funding mechanism for the project by maintaining the current level of sales tax in Columbus. That second vote also named the library/cultural arts center and public safety projects as the recipients of the half-cent sales tax.

The third vote, scheduled for April 11, will allow the funds from the already approved half-cent sales tax to be used for the library/cultural arts center project. The question will ask voters to approve up to $8.5 million dollars of bonds. The half-cent sales tax will be used to repay those bonds. The half-cent sales tax generates roughly $2 million every 12 months.

The library/cultural arts center design has been built on community input. Through the town hall meetings, focus groups, open houses, committees and city council meetings, Columbus has arrived at a project that will meet its long term needs.

If voters approve the $8.5 million of public funds on April 11, they will be combined with donations, grant funds and gifts to create a $16 million facility in downtown Columbus. The communitys priorities were identified as a multi-function, multi-purpose building with space for events in a medium-sized auditorium style space, a visual arts gallery and a 21st century library. The library space will provide the community with room to grow collections and services for 25 years.

The City of Columbus has a lot of priorities and a lot of needs. It is important that the library/cultural arts center fit financially with the needs of the whole community. The borrowing of $8.5 million for the library/cultural arts center and its repayment by the half-cent sales tax do not endanger public safety improvements for Columbus. The half-cent sales tax makes it possible to fund police and fire improvements and the library.

If you have questions about the April 11 ballot question or the library/cultural arts center project, please contact me at Drew.Brookhart@Columbusne.us
COLUMBUS  A 23-year-old Columbus man is accused of sexually assaulting his female roommate at their 11th Avenue residence after she went to the emergency room seeking medical treatment.

Platte County Court Judge Frank Skorupa set bond at $225,000, 10 percent allowed for release, for suspect Martin D. Fowler Jr. during a brief bond hearing held via video link from the county jail.

Skorupa scheduled Fowler, who was arrested Monday for first-degree sexual assault, for a felony first appearance hearing on Feb. 22. Fowler remained in custody Friday afternoon.

The judge ordered the suspect to have no contact with the 23-year-old victim and not to go within five blocks of the residence the roommates shared.

Fowler had not been formally charged by the Platte County Attorneys Office as of Friday.

A Columbus Police investigation began shortly after midnight Monday with a report of a sexual assault victim showing up at the Columbus Community Hospital emergency room.

Investigator Greg Sealock wrote in his probable cause arrest statement that the victim reported the assault occurred about 12 hours earlier and identified Fowler as her attacker.

Sealock wrote that the victim reported she repeatedly told Fowler no and stop during the assault.

During a subsequent interview with Fowler, the investigator said the suspect initially denied having any sexual contact with the victim.

Sealock wrote the suspect later stated he had consensual sex with the victim, but refused to offer further details and later ended the interview.
HA NOI  The property market of Viet Nam is attractive to foreign investments due to the countrys rapid ubanisation, open policies and improved investment climate, experts said.

Foreign Investment Agency statistics show that nearly US$300 million worth of foreign direct investment (FDI) was poured into the property market in January, accounting for roughly 20 per cent of the total FDI attraction.

Nguyen Mai, chairman of the Viet Nam Association of Foreign Investment Enterprises, said that the Viet Nam real estate market appeals to foreign investors due to two factors:

The first one is the growing middle class, which is expected to reach 33 million by 2020 from 12 million in 2012. A series of policies targeted to improve the investment climate and allowing foreigners to own real estate assets in Viet Nam also consolidated confidence, Mai said, adding that investments in property assets promises higher returns in Viet Nam than in many other countries.

Mai said that the low- and middle- income housing market is catching the eyes of foreign investors due to land use incentives and credit. This is a good sign, he said.

According to Phan Huu Thang, former Director the Foreign Investment Agency, many foreign investors and investment funds are eyeing opportunities in the realty market of the country of 90 million population.

Opening-up policies together with rapid ubanisation are turning Viet Nams realty market into a destination, Thang said.

However, Thang noted that attention must be paid to attracting investors of adequate capacity to implement projects, calling this essential to prevent stagnation, which has caused significant losses.

In 2016, foreign investors poured a total of $1.3 billion into the realty market. - VNS
Iran celebrates National Day

First and foremost, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my congratulations to the great and noble nation of Viet Nam and its respectable Government on the occasion of Tet  the Vietnamese Lunar New Year  and wish a year full of happiness and success. Iran, with its very wonderful civilization as well as its brilliant and old history, is one of the first places in which mankind established collective life and built brilliant cities and monuments.

Geographical location plays an important role in destiny of a country and its people. The importance of a geographical location in terms of geopolitics (regional) and in terms of geostrategy (universal) can be very effective in the political and economic destiny of a country. As a vast country in south west Asia with a population of approximately 80 million and an area of 1,648,195 square meters, Iran ranks seventeenth in the world in terms of area.

Iran, located in the center of Eurasia, is a neighbor with Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and Iraq. Neighboring these countries  along with bordering Caspian Sea in the north, Persian Gulf and Amman Seain the south  has made Iran a country with a strategic location in the Middle East. Iran is replete with variety of mines such as coal, gold, manganese, lead and copper mines. It should also be noted that in fishing and pearling (pearl hunting), oil, gas, petrochemical, textile and automobile industries, Iran has a lot of words to say. With 138.2 billion barrels of crude oil, equal to 11 per cent of global oil reserves and 26 trillion cubic meters of gas, equal to 18 per cent of the global gas reserves, Iran ranks the second in the world in terms of oil and gas reserves.

One of the important pages of Irans history is the Islamic Revolution. The revolution triumphed with the participation of the all strata of society under the leadership of Imam Khomeini on 11th February, 1979 and was recognized by a referendum with 98.2 per cent votes in favor. Following the 1979 revolution, Iran sprung up in all dimensions one after another.

The I.R. of Iran has gained a lot of great achievements in various fields. One of the proudest achievements is rapid growth and active presence in scientific fields with thousands of patents being registered. Iranian researchers have been among the worlds top scientists elevating Iran to a country with high position in scientific products. Other achievements which we never had before can be seen in mastering technology of nuclear fuel cycle and being among the worlds 5 top countries in that field, successful entry into new sciences such as nanotechnology, laser, microelectronic, robot manufacturing science, software, hardware development and building supercomputer, unprecedented increase in capacity of universities, number of scholars & students, significant increase of doctors transforming the country into regional hub of medical tourism, acquiring knowledge in stem cells, being among top countries in kidney, heart transplantation and eye diseases treatment, being first in pharmaceutical production, export in the Middle East, self-sufficiency in producing different vaccines. Industrial development has also made so fast progresses with construction of numerous industrial parks, refineries, complexes for building wind, gas and fossil power plants and construction of the first nuclear power plant in Bushehr and etc.

In domestic and foreign policy, under the leadership of Hazrat-E-Ayatollh Khamenei, Iran has considered transparent, clear and valuable measures and plans which arose from spirituality and transcendent ethics to promote prosperity and development in human societies. Thus the foundation and keyword of the foreign policy of the I.R. of Iran, emanating from the Constitution, emphasizing on principles such as respect for the dignity of human beings, realization of prosperity and well-being of the entire international community in peace, security, freedom, equality, independence, rejection of hegemony and negation of domination. Iran follows important principles such as independence, freedom and territorial integrity in accordance with policy of defying foreign interference in national sovereignty and internal affairs, non interference in internal affairs of other countries and strives for secure peace and security in region and the world.

Over the years, we have had excellent and significant ties with proud country and nation of Viet Nam and every day we are moving towards further expansion of relations. Objective evidence of the development of bilateral relations is the exchanges of Presidents, Ministers and high ranking officials between the two countries in 2016. Supreme Leader of Iran spoke highly of respectable and noble people of Viet Nam particularly the late Leader Ho Chi Minh, and General Giap; so, I see the outlook of the relations of the two countries very bright and promising. In conclusion, once again, I would like to extend my cordial congratulations to the honorable people of Viet Nam on the occasion of Tet festival which its ancient celebration and rituals share a lot of similarities with Iranian Norouz. I wish a year replete with happiness and success for all. Happy New Year! VNS
HCM CITY Dozens of young poets will present their works at universities and colleges around HCM City on the night of Feb 11 as part of the opening ceremony for National Poetry Day held on the 15th day of the first lunar month.

The theme of this years event, called Xuan Nghia Tinh (Sentimental Spring), celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Viet Nam Writers Association.

The poets works feature topics about country, life, love and Spring.

Veteran writers, such as Truc Phuong, Hoai Vu, Huynh Dung Nhan and Tran Le Son Y, will introduce their latest poetry collections at the HCM City Literature and Arts Association in District 3.

Young poets Tran Da Lu, Pham Quang Tien and Thien Ha have also been invited.

During the event, poetry clubs from local universities and cultural houses will introduce their new members, while amateur poets will read their works.

A drama show, called Vong Tay Mua Xuan (The Arms of Spring), will start at 8pm with a special performance by the youngest writers of the Writers Association and actors of the HCM City Traditional Arts Troupe.

The writers Minh an, Tieu Quyen and Nguyen ang Thanh plan to recite and sing their poems about love and family relationships.  VNS
Ministries and agencies have proposed simplifying 1,126 out of 1,934 administrative procedures related to population managemen.  Photo baodauthau.vn

HA NOI  Ministries and agencies have proposed simplifying 1,126 out of 1,934 administrative procedures related to population management, heard a meeting held on Thursday to review a master plan on simplifying administrative procedures, citizenship papers and the population management database for 2013-2020.

The master plan, known as Programme 896, was approved by former Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in 2015 as part of the development of e-government in Viet Nam.

The plan aims to increase the use of IT in administrative procedures, reduce paperwork and streamline processes related to population management.

Under the plan, basic information on every citizen will be included in a national database on population using personal identification numbers by the end of 2020.

Regarding issuing personal identification numbers, the Ministry of Public Security reported that it co-ordinated with the Ministry of Justice to install birth certificate registration software on a trial basis at population registration and management agencies in 12 provinces and cities, including Ha Noi, Hai Phong, a Nang, HCM City, An Giang, ong Thap, Soc Trang, Ha Nam, Ha Tinh, Quang Ninh, Vinh Long and Nghe An.

As of last Sunday, 335,371 newborns had their birth certificates registered and were issued citizen identification numbers.

The scheme will be rolled out nationwide in April.

Many participants at the meeting proposed granting personal identification numbers to Vietnamese people who return to Viet Nam from abroad.

The national population management database plan was approved and is ready to be built, according to Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh, who is also Head of the Programme Steering Committee.

Regarding the implementation of the programme in 2017, the deputy PM urged ministries and agencies to intensify efforts to build technical infrastructure for the national database.

The database will be decisive to the success of the national scheme to simplify administrative procedures, citizenship documents and population management, he said.

Binh asked the ministries and agencies to review difficulties and obstacles in granting personal identification numbers to those in remote and mountainous areas and people working and studying abroad.

The 2017 tasks will focus on completing the construction of the national database on population, expanding the granting of personal identification numbers nationwide and submitting a resolution on administrative procedures simplification to the Government.  VNS
The Governments success can always be attributed to significant contributions from the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said yesterday.  VNA/VNS Photo Thong Nhat

HA NOI  The Governments success can always be attributed to significant contributions from the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said yesterday.

He was speaking at a joint conference between the Government and Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee (VFFCC) held in Ha Noi to review their cooperation last year and set out new tasks for 2017.

The meeting was co-chaired by the PM and VFFCC President Nguyen Thien Nhan.

Participants said 2016 saw effective co-ordination between both sides, particularly in organising campaigns for sustainable poverty alleviation, building new-style rural areas, encouraging Vietnamese to use Vietnamese goods and protecting the environment.

Nhan highlighted his agencys full involvement in implementing policies issued by the Party and Government through the years.

He cited as an example the handling of public petitions, when the VFFCC sent its representatives and lawyers to attend meetings between the people, State inspectorate and internal affairs agencies.

Phuc stressed that the Governments success is always attributable to significant contributions from the VFF, adding that joint work by both sides had helped boost socio-economic development last year.

He urged that they strengthen co-operation in building a transparent Party and administration, focusing on deterring corruption, degradation and wastefulness.

He called on agencies to make public their inspection results for the VFF and the press to monitor.

He said it was also necessary to jointly launch social campaigns that have far-reaching impacts on building new-style rural areas, supporting the poor and boosting domestic consumption of locally-made products.  VNS
According to state law, fines, penalties, and license money shall be appropriated exclusively to the use and support of the common schools ... . An exception is fines for overloaded vehicles. Seventy-five percent of those funds go to state highways; 25 percent go to the county general fund where the fine or penalty is paid. Fifty percent of money forfeited or seized in enforcing drug laws goes to counties for drug enforcement. Vehicles seized in drug law cases may be used by law enforcement agencies or sold with the proceeds going to schools.
QUANG NINH  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc yesterday urged the Chinese autonomous region of Guangxi to increase its import of Vietnamese agricultural produce and encourage its businesses to invest in Viet Nam.

Meeting with Peng Qing Hua, Secretary of the Party Committee of Chinas Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Quang Ninh Province, he noted that trade with Guangxi had surpassed US$25 billion last year, accounting for 25 per cent of the total trade value between the two countries.

The PM also expressed satisfaction with the outcomes of the New Year meeting between Guangxi and the four Vietnamese localities of Quang Ninh, Lang Son, Cao Bang and Ha Giang.

He also pointed out a few shortcomings in co-operation between Guangxi and Vietnamese provinces, including slow implementation of agreements and persisting trade imbalance.

The PM said he hoped the Chinese region would expand co-operation with more localities in Viet Nams northwest, central and southern regions.

He also requested the region to effectively implement agreements on the management of cross-border labour flow.

The PM urged both sides to ensure social order and security in areas along their shared border while effectively carrying out the two countries agreement on protecting and tapping tourism resources at the Ban Gioc  Detian waterfalls and another on free navigation of boats at the mouth of the Bac Luan River.

Shared visions

Peng responded that Guangxi would do its best to realise the shared visions of Vietnamese and Chinese State and Party leaders.

He noted that under the leadership and support of both Parties and States, partnerships between his region and Vietnamese provinces were thriving.

He cited as evidence the successful New Year meeting held earlier yesterday between leaders of Guangxi and four Vietnamese provinces.

He proposed that both countries upgrade their international border gates very soon.

Peng also told PM Phuc that he had ordered Guangxis relevant agencies to deal with the issue of Vietnamese exports being stuck at local border gates.  VNS
HCM CITY  Companies in the southern province of ong Nai need to find more than 30,000 new employees by the end of next month to make up for the shortage caused by the post-Tet staff turnover, according to the local Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

Firms in labour-intensive industries such as footwear, electronics, textile and garment are in need of a large number of workers, it said.

For instance, TaeKwang Vina Industrial JSC needs 2,000 and Olympus Vietnam, 1,500.

According to a spokesperson for the ong Nai Garment Corporation, the company urgently needs 2,500 workers, but labour demand constantly outstrips supply in the province.

The company has to improve wages and the working environment to retain and attract workers.

Most companies require female manual workers with monthly salaries of VN6 million (US$265) per person.

Over the course of the whole year the province needs to recruit nearly 79,000 workers, more than 60,600 of them unskilled, the department reports.

Companies in Bien Hoa City alone will hire nearly 30,000 workers, with those in Nhon Trach and Trang Bom districts adding 11,000 each.

ong Nai Province is home to 30 industrial parks and export processing zones with tens of thousands of companies.

In HCM City, companies in industrial parks and export processing zones alone need 3,000 manual workers and 300 trained engineers this month, according to the Employment Service Centre of the HCM City Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority.

The hiring will be done by both existing companies to expand production and new companies.

Tran Anh Tuan, deputy director of the HCM City Centre for Forecasting Manpower Needs and Labour Market Information, said that post-Tet labour demand in the city was estimated at 20,000.

Of that figure, workers with college degrees or higher qualifications accounted for 27 per cent, semi-skilled and skilled workers for 38 per cent and manual workers for the remaining 35 per cent.

Navigos Search, a senior and mid-level manager recruitment service provider, has forecast that besides key industries such as manufacturing, banking, retail, and IT, which always have demands for workers, some new industries like advertising and communications are likely to grow rapidly this year after a series of M&A deals done last year.  VNS
HCM City  Mekong Delta provinces face a threat of H5N1 bird flu with the disease season just starting and farmers leaving their ducks to freely feed in fields following the completion of the winter-spring rice harvest.

Besides, there have been breakouts in many areas already and the disease is highly contagious.

In the middle of January the Hau Giang Province Veterinary and Husbandry Sub-Department found and culled around 800 ducks with H5N1 in Long My towns Long Tri A Commune.

Their owner, Nguyen Van Thanh, had bought them in neighbouring Vinh Long Province and vaccinated them against H5N1, but to no avail, losing over VN12 million in the process. It is not known why the vaccination did not work.

In late January Bac Lieu Provinces Veterinary and Husbandry Sub-Department found and culled 1,700 diseased chickens in Vinh Phu ong Commune, Phuoc Long district.

Authorities in both places disinfected a radius of 1km from the outbreak spots and vaccinated all poultry there.

But they have an unenviable task since after the rice harvest most farmers let their poultry freely roam the fields, increasing their chances of contracting the disease.

Despite the fact we have been able to control the disease so far, the province and the Mekong Delta in general must maintain a high level of vigilance, Truong Ngoc Trung, head of Hau Giang Provinces Veterinary and Husbandry Sub-Department, told Lao ong (Labour) newspaper.

The sub-department has stepped up oversight in places near the disease breakout area and encouraged farmers to vaccinate their birds.

The most worrying thing is that H5N1 has similar symptoms as normal flu, except for some minor differences like continuous fever over 39 degrees Census, headache, and stomachache and vomiting in some cases, and sore eyes and breathing difficulty in case of a severe incidence.

Nguyen Van Lanh, director of the province Preventive Health Centre, said, Farmers should wear protective suits when taking care of poultry.

People should only buy food authorised by related authorities or choose healthy poultry that show no signs of illness.

There are 2 million heads of poultry in Hau Giang, and it is a common sight to see thousands of birds moved from one commune to another and from one district to another during the harvest season. -- VNS
HCM City is now offering online registration for 15 administrative procedures managed by the citys Transport Department. Photo vnexpress.net

HCM CITY  HCM City is now offering online registration for 15 administrative procedures managed by the citys Transport Department.

Individuals and companies can apply for or renew their driver licences, register vehicles, and apply for extension of permits for Laos  Viet Nam cross-border transport.

Online registration can be found at https://dichvucong.hochiminhcity.gov.vn or https://sgtvt.hochiminhcity.gov.vn .

Of the procedures, three are considered level-4 online public services and the rest are level 3 services.

Level-3 services allow people to pay charges, if necessary, and receive results via the internet.

Level-4 public services, the highest of the four administrative levels in the country, allow people to pay online and the results can be sent via the internet and the post office.

The purpose of public online services is to improve administrative procedures and services to residents and enterprises.

For further information, organisations, enterprises and individuals can call (84 8) 38237439 or (84 8) 38257062 from Monday to Friday 7:30 am-5:30 pm in HCM City during working hours. VNS
As many as 490 foreigners have registered for electronic visas to enter Viet Nam, 210 of whom have been issued with their visas, after the first week of the e-visa pilot scheme.  Photo vov.vn

HA NOI  As many as 490 foreigners have registered for electronic visas to enter Viet Nam, 210 of whom have been issued with their visas, after the first week of the e-visa pilot scheme, the Ministry of Public Securitys Department of Immigration has said.

Major General Le Xuan Vien, head of the department said that decree 07/2017/N-CP, which allowed visitors from 40 countries to apply and receive Vietnamese visas online, took effect earlier this month.

Foreigners could apply for visas and pay fees through the website. The process takes only three days for an e-visa valid for 30 days without requiring letters of guarantee or invitation.

The first foreigner to receive an e-visa was a British tourist. Britain was among the countries subject to visa exemption for stays of less than 15 days in Viet Nam, he added.

Vien said the move was an effort by the Government to boost socio-economic development, making it more convenient for foreigners to enter the country without being guaranteed by certain organisations or individuals.

It also aimed to contribute to the development of the tourism industry, which hopes to attract between 15 and 20 million tourists in the next two years.

Foreigners can apply for e-visas via https://www.immigration.gov.vn.

Visitors from the following 40 countries can apply for Viet Nams e-visas during the course of the pilot programme: Azerbaijan, Argentina, Armenia, Ireland, Poland, Belarus, Bulgaria, Brunei, South Korea, Germany, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Cuba, Denmark, Timor Leste, the United States, Hungary, Greece, Italy, Kazakhstan, Russia, United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Myanmar, Mongolia, Japan, Panama, Peru, Finland, France, the Philippines, Romania, Spain, Sweden, China (not applicable for Chinese e-passport holders), Uruguay, Venezuela, Norway, and Slovakia.

Currently, about 30 nations issue e-visas. The Vietnamese procedures seem to be simpler than most other nations, as foreigners did not have to be fingerprinted, photographed, or interviewed, Vien said.

Visitors could conduct temporary residence declarations online when travelling with e-visas.

"E-visas can be accepted at most international airports and 28 border gates in Viet Nam," he said.

In reply to questions on the management of e-visa holders, Vien said the issuance of e-visas only simplifies procedures for foreigners. The process of approving visas remained the same as before.

So far, the Vietnamese Government has signed more than 80 agreements on visa exemption for 13 nations, including Russia, Denmark, South Korea, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Belarus, Britain, France, Spain and Italy.  VNS
Gia Loc

HCM CITY  Hospitals in HCM City have been striving to reach five goals to improve the quality of examinations and treatment, including safety, patient satisfaction, efficient management, effective services, and appropriate costs and prices.

Eight years ago, the city Paediatric Hospital 1, for instance, set up a Red Alert emergency aid procedure to save young patients.

The procedure yesterday won first prize in a contest on activities that have improved quality of examination and treatment, organised by the citys Department of Health.

Dr Nguyen Thanh Hung, head of the Paediatric Hospital, said the procedure had helped reduce the number of complicated administrative procedures, which in turn had improved the rapid response of emergency aid.

It has been very effective in saving patients with many injuries, Hung said.

In 2013, for example, two children were brought to the hospital for emergency aid after being stabbed by their neighbour nine times with a knife.

The hospitals Red Alert procedure was activated and within only 15 minutes, doctors and nurses were available to provide emergency aid, conducting a five-hour operation in which two children were saved.

In the last several years, the department has expanded the procedure, which now links hospitals in the city, he said.

Last year, the Ministry of Health instructed all hospitals in the country to carry out the procedure to treat patients in need of emergency aid.

In addition, the Thu uc District Hospital has successfully piloted an electronic medical records project, creating a database on patients health to enhance the tracking of their condition and treatment.

Nguyen Minh Quan, head of Thu uc District Hospital, said the hospitals doctors were ready to share their expertise with other hospitals in the country.

Databases between hospitals are connected, which helps reduce the need for repeated tests and makes it easier to carry out treatment at family medicine clinics, Quan said.

Among other efforts, Cho Ray Hospital and Gia inh Peoples Hospital have used software for the control of antibiotics, while Binh Dan Hospital has used robots to assist 20 surgeries.

The hospitals activities were honoured at an awards ceremony yesterday held in HCM City for a contest to select outstanding activities related to examination and treatment quality.

Many of the hospitals have carried out activities to increase patient safety. For instance, Nguyen Trai Hospitals traditional medicine ward uses a plastic card attached to the patients bed that notes the number of needles used in acupuncture treatment.

This alerts other medical personnel involved in the procedure about how many needles that need to be removed.

Dr Tang Chi Thuong, the deputy head of the Department of Health, said at a meeting reviewing activities and the contest, that the department had issued a handbook on what health facilities should do to improve quality of treatment.

The handbook is based on 80 criteria on hospital quality, Thuong said.

The department has also increased training for more than 1,600 people and staff working in wards and divisions who are in charge of quality management at hospitals.

A database of 3,399 treatment guidelines for hospitals from the city to grassroots levels has been completed in order to standardise treatment.

Thuong said that successful programme models should be replicated at other hospitals.

Luong Ngoc Khue, the head of the Department of Health Examination and Treatment at the Ministry of Health, said: Patients in the city as well as the southern region have received benefits from these improved activities.

Improvement seen

Dr Nguyen Thi Thoa, deputy head of the citys Health Departments medical affairs division, said that it had assessed hospitals activities for improvement last year.

The assessment focused on five groups of criteria: patient satisfaction, human resources, professional activities, development of medical specialities, and quality of treatment.

The results showed that city-level hospitals such as 115 Peoples Hospital, Gia inh Peoples Hospital, Tu Du Obstetrics Hospital and Trung Vuong Hospital had high and comprehensive improvement.

Thoa said those hospitals had average scores of 3.43 out of a maximum of five.

District-level hospitals had an average score of 2.93 and private hospitals an average score of 2.77.

The department has instructed city-level hospitals to continue training and technical assistance for district-level hospitals, especially District 3 and 9 hospitals, which had a score of less than 2.5, she said.

Private hospitals, especially those in the plastic surgery and cosmetics field, are in need of improvement as well. Eighteen out of 46 of them in the city scored under 2.5.  VNS
HA NOI  The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development plans to hold more unscheduled inspections of food hygiene and safety in food production and trading this year.

Speaking at a conference on food quality, safety and hygiene in the agricultural sector yesterday, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong said that food hygiene and safety was still a problem and directly impacted society.

The ministry plans to prioritise supervising the use of agricultural materials, especially pesticides due to the risk of serious environmental pollution. Any substance containing chemicals that harm people or the environment will be banned.

Last year, the ministry banned 300 kinds of pesticides.

In terms of fertilizer, Minister Cuong said it was necessary to promote switching from inorganic to organic fertilizer.

Each year, up to 12 millions of tonnes of inorganic fertilizer is used for agriculture, causing pollution and reducing the quality of agricultural products.

The ministry will also focus on improving awareness in society about food hygiene and safety regulations.

Nguyen Van Viet, chief inspector of the ministry, said that the inspection teams would keep close watch of drinking water for cattle and chemicals used on shrimps. The teams would also inspect the responsibilities of local authorities in managing agricultural materials and food hygiene.

Reports from the ministry showed that last years percentage of pork contaminated with Salbutamol, a banned substance to stimulate growth in animals that can affect human health, was 0.44. The percentage of the previous year was 1.07 per cent.

In the last six months of last year, no samples were found to contain the banned substance.

The percentage of vegetables containing pesticides was 4.1 per cent, a reduction of 3.66 per cent compared to the previous year.

Authorised agencies inspected more than 21,360 businesses in agriculture, forestry and aquaculture and found 1,923 businesses to be in violation of the law.

Accordignt to Nguyen Nhu Tiep, head of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery Quality Management, this year, the department aims to reduce biological and chemical residues and antibiotics in the production of agriculture, meeting requirements for domestic consumption and the export market.

The rate of samples containing pesticides in vegetables and chemical residue in meat and seafood is expected to be reduced by 10 per cent compared to last year by the end of this year.

The department will also improve food chains to ensure food safety for people in all cities and provinces.

So far, 50 cities and provinces have built 444 food chains with safe agricultural, forestry and seafood products with clear origins.

In Ha Noi alone, 60 food chains were set up with licences from authorised agencies. The number in HCM City was 32.

At the conference, Minister Cuong asked localities to tighten controls and enhance the responsibilities of leaders.

He also urged authorities to increase high-tech application on agriculture and food chain production, encouraging potential enterprises to invest in agricultural production.  VNS
CEDAR FALLS  Public employee Linnea Nicol gave a passionate takedown of how proposed collective bargaining changes feel like being slapped in the face to workers like herself during a legislative forum Saturday.

Nicol talked about how the changes might affect her lifestyle  no extra cup of coffee at Cup of Joe  and hurt the local economy. As she bemoaned the attack on the working class, the moderator interrupted to ask her to state her question.

My question is, why? Nicol said to applause from the more than 350 people.

It was the first of several questions from public employees, particularly educators and social workers, during the hour-long public comment period. They wanted to know why Republican lawmakers proposed sweeping changes to collective bargaining.

Rep. Walt Rogers, R-Cedar Falls, the lone Republican lawmaker at the table, defended the changes introduced last week. He said the bill would make public employees face the same challenges private sector employees do.

This bill is not eliminating collective bargaining, Rogers said to groans and jeers from the audience. It does not eliminate anybodys opportunity to ever talk to their employer about their situation. Thats a fact. You can always talk to your employer about anything.

That led a member of the crowd to shout back, Where does it protect us? That question went unanswered.

Throughout the meeting, Rogers was interrupted as he tried to explain why changes are needed, and the moderator often reminded people to remain civil.

The audience, mostly supporters of public employees bargaining rights, asked follow-up questions and groaned at Rogers responses. But most also applauded as Rogers was thanked for showing up. He also got applause when he said he was there to listen and wants to work together.

One audience member  criticizing the lack of civility on the issue  cited an email leaked from a labor lobbyist that called Rogers and other lawmakers a particularly crude name. Rep. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo, agreed name-calling was uncalled for.

But Dotzler also explained the sentiment that led to the email.

Its unfortunate that some of that language was used. I come from a factory, and some of the language we had in there wasnt very appropriate either. We used four-letter words in the middle of words. Youve got to remember that these people that are upset are afraid about their future and their families future, Dotzler said.

Both Rogers and Dotzler said theyd been getting phone calls at all hours of the day over the issue. Dotzler said he hasnt been exempted from some four-letter words, either.

Despite the high emotions, people offered legitimate concerns about the proposal and civilly expressed frustrations with the proposed changes.

Some of the questions and answers:

Why cant the state use reserve funds to address some needs. Rogers said the money would have to be replaced the next year;

How does the state plan to retain and attract teachers and avoid an exodus like Wisconsin saw after passing similar collective bargaining changes. Rogers said the situation was different in Wisconsin, as lawmakers passed a large funding cut at the same time.

Noting test scores declined in Wisconsin, one person asked if a similar outcome is desirable in Iowa. The moderator assumed it was a rhetorical question and moved on.

Some asked why some workers are exempt. Rep. Jeff Danielson, D-Waterloo, and a Cedar Falls firefighter explained how public safety employees are also negatively impacted by the proposed bill.

Jonathan Grieder, a Waterloo West High School government, economics and U.S. history teacher, was surprised by the standing ovation he got for his question.

In 2013, the state Legislature cut corporate property taxes for companies like John Deere, Grieder managed before he was drowned out by applause. We have had a $100 million shortfall every year since then  so will you please all promise to stop giving corporate handouts, and golden handshakes, and fund our schools?

Rep. Timi Brown-Powers, D-Waterloo, said she wasnt in the Legislature at the time of the tax cuts but would oppose them in the future. Dotzler said it was a compromise with a Republican House and governor, though he regrets voting in favor of it.

I can assure you that that wont be a vote Ill ever take again, Dotzler said.

While the meeting focused on public educators, a couple of social workers did get up to explain they do work few others would do by going into dangerous situations unarmed to protect children. They said all public employees should be seen as heroes who put their lives on the line for their work.
BMG/The End RecordsJethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson has teamed with ex-Tull keyboardist John O'Hara and the Carducci Quartet -- an award-winning Anglo-Irish string quartet -- to record an album featuring reimagined classical versions of songs by his old band.

Jethro Tull -- The String Quartets, which will be released on March 24, includes 12 tracks based on or inspired by such well-known tunes as "Living in the Past," "Bungle in the Jungle," "Songs from the Wood," "Locomotive Breath" and "Aqualung."

Anderson plays flute on most of the tracks, and also lends vocals to a few songs. The album was arranged and orchestrated by O'Hara.

Each piece has been renamed and combines the melodies of Jethro Tull songs with classical elements. For example, the song inspired by "Aqualung" is called "Aquafugue" and begins with the classic tune's six-note riff before moving on to follow the musical rules of a fugue. The album also features a piece called "Songs and Horses" that mixes melodic elements of "Songs from the Wood" and "Heavy Horses."

You can pre-order Jethro Tull -- The String Quartets now at PledgeMusic.com.

In other news, Anderson has announced plans for a brief U.S. solo tour, dubbed the Jethro Tull by Ian Anderson tour. It'll showcase the band's classic tunes augmented by a multimedia presentation. Ian will be joined by a band that includes various former Tull members: O'Hara, bassist David Goodier, guitarist Florian Opahle and drummer Scott Hammond.

The tour will kick off May 26 with a special performance at Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheatre featuring accompaniment from the Colorado Symphony.

Here are all of Anderson's confirmed U.S. tour dates:

5/26 -- Morrison, CO, Red Rocks Amphitheatre

5/27 -- Albuquerque, NM, Route 66 Casino - Legends Theatre

5/28 -- El Paso, TX, Plaza Theatre PAC

5/30 -- Sugar Land, TX, Smart Financial Centre

5/31 -- Austin, TX, ACL Live at the Moody Theater

6/1 -- Durant, OK, Choctaw Casino - Choctaw Grand Theater

And here is the track list for Jethro Tull -- The String Quartets:

"In the Past" ("Living in the Past")

"Sossity Waiting" ("Sossity: You're a Woman"/"Reasons for Waiting")

"Bungle" ("Bungle in the Jungle")

"We Used to Bach" ("We Used to Know"/"Bach Prelude C Major")

"Farm, the Fourway ("Farm on the Freeway")

"Songs and Horses" ("Songs from the Wood"/"Heavy Horses")

"Only the Giving" ("Wond'ring Aloud")

"Loco" ("Locomotive Breath")

"Pass the Bottle" ("A Christmas Song")

"Velvet Gold" ("Velvet Green")

"Ring Out These Bells" ("Ring Out, Solstice Bells")

"Aquafugue" ("Aqualung")

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
COLUMBUS  Tracey Hagerbaumer has worn a lot of hats over the years.

Hagerbaumer moved to Columbus from Denver when she was in her 20s and got her associate degree in business from Central Community College-Columbus.

Since then shes worked at a bank, run a family restaurant in Genoa, sold Mary Kay products and handled paperwork for housing projects, her husbands drywall business and livestock traders.

It was that last job in particular that piqued her interest. After taking on the paperwork for a family friend who was a broker for several years, he decided to move on to something else and she decided to start her own swine-trading business.

There's a need. These guys want pigs and these guys have pigs to sell and they don't want to market them themselves, she said. Honestly, the producer just wants to take care of his pigs. He doesn't want to deal with that.

Hagerbaumer founded Select Swine Inc. in 2008 and has swapped weaner and feeder pigs between producers ever since. Her contributions to the industry will be recognized March 14 when she receives Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce's Outstanding Woman in Agriculture award during the Rural Recognition Banquet at Platte County Agricultural Park.

Select Swine has expanded to include clients in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and even Arkansas. Hagerbaumer said shes done trades with 150 head and shes done trades with 20,000 head. One wall of her office is a giant whiteboard she uses to track what producers are looking for and whats for sale.

The guy that wants the pigs basically just wants to pick up the phone and say, 'Hey, I need 2,000 head of pigs. Do you have them? she said. And I always have a ready list available.

Theres a lot shes had to learn about the industry. A client wants to know the animals' genetics, health, weight and other information before making a deal. Hagerbaumer said shes gotten a lot of help over the years, particularly from Bruce Hild, a broker and hog farm from Neligh who passed away in early 2015.

He mentored me and he taught me a lot about the business, Hagerbaumer said. We talked probably 10 times a day on the phone. And then he passed suddenly and it was hard. Very, very hard.

She also picked quite a time to get into agriculture. Since 2008, the industry has experienced a lot of ups and downs.

I've seen $5 winter pigs and I've sold $130 feeder pigs, she said. The high corn, the low corn.

Whats kept her going are the relationships shes built with her clients.

I really enjoy working with the farmers, she said, "because they're so friendly and down-to-earth, family people. If you take care of them, they're very loyal.

Along with her attention to detail and hard work, she credits the attention she gives to those relationships for her business success.

I'm a people person. I like working with people and I think its all about customer service, she said. If I can fill the need and they don't have to call anybody else, then I'm doing a good job.

Owning her own business has given Hagerbaumer quite a few perks. While her children were in school she had the flexibility to attend games and other events. And she earns enough to help support the three kids who are still in college.

Plus, she gets to work from home with her dogs.

Being able to sit with a dog on my lap and talk on the phone is awfully nice, too, Hagerbaumer said. I feel very spoiled. I feel very blessed to do what I do.
WATERLOO -- Firefighters had to return a second time to finally extinguish a house fire that started in a wall on Friday evening.

Waterloo Fire Rescue was called to 302 Clay St. just before 5:30 p.m. Friday for smoke coming from a wall.

Firefighters tore through a stairwell wall to reach cellulose insulation, which had caught fire. They left at 6:07 p.m., according to the fire log.

They were called back just after 7 p.m. to extinguish the fire in the same spot, leaving just after 8 p.m.

The cause of the fire was unknown.

There were no injuries and the occupants of the home did not need Red Cross relocation assistance, according to officials.
WATERLOO  The citys top law enforcement officer supports pursuing traffic cameras but doesnt believe his officers should be cross-trained as firefighters.

Police Chief Dan Trelka fielded those questions Saturday while presenting his budget during a City Council work session at the Waterloo Center for the Arts.

Trelka said he initially didnt like the cameras some Iowa cities used to issue tickets for speeding and red-light violations when he came to Waterloo from Wisconsin in 2010. But hes now involved in discussions to have them locally if the Iowa Legislature allows them.

I am a fan, Trelka said. Cedar Rapids showed me the benefit they had down there in saving lives and lowering traffic crashes, and I instantly became an advocate for them.

Councilman Bruce Jacobs piggybacked on a question he asked Fire Chief Pat Treloar last week about having police officers assist on fire emergency calls.

Could we seriously look into cross-training some police officers to assist the fire department, such as Cedar Falls has done? Jacobs asked.

But Trelka said he did not believe it would work given the type of calls Waterloo officers handle and the other perishable skills they need to maintain without diluting them with fire training.

That is something we have looked at, we have studied, and what we have found is mostly because of socio-economic factors the type of policing we engage in in Waterloo is so different than the type of policing they engage in in Cedar Falls  We dont think it would work, Trelka said.

Lets face it, the policing needs and the type of policing in Cedar Falls are vastly different than policing needs and the type of policing in Waterloo, he added. Its not because the cities are so different, its because of the socio-economics of a larger, blue-collar industrial town compared to a smaller college community.

The Waterloo Police Department, with a $13.2 million property tax asking, is the largest department in the city. Trelka is seeking a 1.8 percent increase next year, primarily to cover contractual wage increases.

Bascially its a cookie cutter budget from previous years, he said.

Trelka said his department is effective, as the crime rate has fallen 26 percent since 2009, and is a bargain compared to other large Iowa cities. Waterloo police costs are $195 per capita compared to Sioux City at $257, Cedar Rapids at $279 and Des Moines at $288, he said.

Budget ideas

The councils budget meetings so far have been relatively free of policy debates, although some cost-savings ideas brought up in past years are resurfacing.

Councilman Steve Schmitt, for example, asked whether the city could consider selling off some of its 52 parks. That would cut maintenance costs and provide room for some development.

There are many parks in this community that are used very seldom, Schmitt said. The immediate neighbors would not be happy, but five years from now theyd never remember there was a park there.

Councilman Pat Morrissey wanted the city to add funding for the Historic Preservation Commission, which has been looking for money for a study to help create historic districts in several neighborhoods.

Mayor Quentin Hart said the commission needs to put together a strategic plan on how it would use city support first. We need to see what they want to do with the money before we just say heres $20,000, he said.
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What is Living History?

What is Living History?

Living history makes history come to life. To do this members emulate different sorts of people from history. These can include blacksmiths, seamstresses, housewives, farmers, woodsmen and woodswomen. We wear the clothes of the time and learn and use the life and trade skills of the period.

What period of history does the NECLHG re-enact ?

Approximately 1680-1760 on the New World Frontier.

Why this period of history and why a New World lifestyle and not Australian?

The New World was settled much earlier than Australia and enables us to choose from a larger variety of nationalities, occupations and skills. All of these options make the activities more fun.

Australian settlement was in a later period and founded on a penal colony. There are other re-enactment groups for people interested in the Australian colonial period.

Is joining NECLHG expensive?

No. There are no membership fees for the group. The activity is only as expensive as you want it to be! Many members make all their own period style clothing and equipment. This is an ideal activity for people who like to make things and be creative.

What if there are some items I can not make myself or I am too busy to make?

You always have the option of buying or trading for items. People who want to purchase their clothing and equipment can do so; there are many specialist suppliers. Also you can trade for items you can not make .

Can my family join this group?

Yes we are very family oriented.

What is experimental archaeology?

This is the term used when someone makes and uses a period tool or item. This can be anything from lighting a fire with a flint and steel to building and sailing a ship on an original route! It is the only way to really discover how things were done back then.

What is historical trekking?

This activity is trekking and camping in an historically accurate manner. People on a historical trek wear the clothing of the period and carry and use only the equipment used in that period. These treks are a great way to learn woods lore and survival skills.

What sort of period skills can we learn and practice?

You can learn and use any skill that was used in the period you reenact. For the mid-18th century these include spinning and weaving on a loom, finger weaving, tomahawk throwing, fire lighting, blade sharpening, leather making and leather working and much, much more.

Is the NECLHG a gun club?

No. Some on our members may carry a period gun on treks and camps as part of their persona. These guns are flintlock muzzle-loading antique guns or copies. The highest level of safely is maintained at all times. Guns are not carried loaded and all gun carrying members are licensed.

What about women members?

In the 18th century women performed many traditional and non traditional roles. There were women blacksmiths, naturalists, artists, and woods-women. Some accompanied militia on scouts . In the NECLHG a women can be what ever she wants to be!

What about children.?

Children are always welcome. Naturally children are the responsibility of their parents. Children really enjoy the living history activities and skills. It is a wonderful way to learn history and it makes their school based history a lot more meaningful. Also children can learn bush craft, survival skills and camping skills.


Korsnick: nuclear provides 'critical infrastructure'

10 February 2017

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US policymakers understand the potential impact of losing nuclear plants and states are increasingly recognising the benefits of nuclear power to consumers, the economy and the environment, Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) CEO Maria Korsnick said yesterday at its annual briefing to Wall Street analysts.

NEI CEO Maria Korsnick addresses Wall Street analysts in New York (Image: NEI)



Nuclear power is the "backbone" of the USA's electricity system, providing sustained economic benefits, assuring grid reliability and supplying the country's largest source of low-carbon energy, Korsnick said. The US nuclear fleet provides about 475,000 jobs and produces more than $12 billion annually in federal and state tax revenues, she added.

Korsnick identified two challenges of immediate concern to the US nuclear industry: preserving its existing nuclear fleet, and creating policy conditions under which companies will build and develop new nuclear capacity.

Future grid



"The grid of the future will include a growing role for intermittent renewable energy. So the nuclear reactors of the future will accommodate that reality. Some will make electricity around the clock. Others will produce electricity when it's needed, then produce other products when it is not. Some will supply the transportation market. Nuclear electricity will charge batteries and nuclear process heat will make alternative fuels. Some reactors will make fresh water. Some will drive industrial production. Some reactors might even produce energy from today's used fuel, reducing the disposal burden," she said.

The country's existing nuclear power plants need to be preserved so that the knowledge and expertise developed in support of today's fleet will assist the development of new reactor technologies, she said.

"We see this now. We have four reactors under construction in Georgia and South Carolina. These designs use passive safety approaches to advance the state of the art in nuclear technology. This approach was informed by decades of operational experience and innovation," Korsnick said. In addition, combined construction and operating licences for seven additional reactors have been issued by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with three more currently being evaluated, providing "valuable options" for future development.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) - expected to be deployed in the early to mid-2020s - would maximise safety and inform the configuration of nuclear plants, offering flexibility in deployment and operation, she added.

Tipping point



Allowing existing nuclear plants to close prematurely would compromise the country's ability to develop a sustainable power industry, Korsnick said. Premature closures would cause significant economic damage, with the loss of expertise and the erosion of commercial infrastructure, which would limit development of the grid. The challenges of low growth in electricity demand, low natural gas prices, state and federal policies to promote renewables, transmission constraints, and other factors have led to the premature closure of several plants in recent years while others remain at risk.

"We are reaching a tipping point as policymakers have come to appreciate the risk of losing nuclear plants," she said. "However, I believe the tide is turning. The federal government, the regional transmission organisations and the states now recognise the problem, and are moving to reform the competitive markets where the greatest threats exist."

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has taken action to support capacity and energy market reform, and some regional transmission organisations have identified energy market challenges created by federal and state policies. The states of New York and Illinois have taken steps to preserve their nuclear generation, serving as examples to other states that effective solutions are possible, even in competitive markets, she said. The NEI has supported and worked with power companies, business, labour and advocacy groups in the pursuit of New York's Clean Energy Standard and the passage of Illinois' Future Energy Jobs Bill, she added.

Legislative or policy changes to support the continued operation of the nuclear fleet are likely to emerge in Connecticut, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania, she said. The best solutions would need to reflect the individual needs and opportunities of each state and region, she added.

"We are painfully aware of the serious challenges facing us. The forces that are putting pressure on the competitive generation sector are taking their toll on the nuclear fleet. But 2016 is also when we began to see the ocean liner change its bearing. We see states, regions and the federal government taking actions to preserve our nuclear power plants. The industry was able to work with stakeholders to preserve five nuclear plants that would have otherwise shut down. We will continue working to find policy solutions that allow these plants to remain part of our electric infrastructure."

Critical infrastructure



Nuclear energy would serve the country's priorities to improve infrastructure and create jobs, she said, adding that financial support - such as the federal loan guarantee program introduced in 2005 - would be essential to support the "relatively small companies" taking on the large capital investments associated with building a new reactor.

Chinese and Russian designs "are ahead" with global nuclear construction projects, she said, while the USA has failed to view the nuclear industry strategically.

"Although US nuclear technology suppliers still have the most advanced, most innovative and safest technologies, they start at a disadvantage, competing against sovereign entities around the world," she said.

"To preserve its ability to shape global use of nuclear technology, the US must have both a strong domestic nuclear power program and an aggressive nuclear trade and export program. The US will not be seen as a credible global nuclear leader if it casually allows its nuclear fleet to atrophy. All of this begins with strong nuclear energy infrastructure at home."

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

Related topics
Over the past few weeks, Ive been writing about the lease considerations for the farmland cash lease for 2017. This is my final installment on the matter for the time being.

My No. 1 question received at the office is: What is a fair lease, and what should I charge (or pay) for rent? I will always give an answer, and I will below, but first lets examine that question. The best rental rate is what the tenant is willing to offer, and the landlord is willing to accept. It's not what I think and certainly not what the coffee shop thinks.

In my view, for 2017, there are two lease rates for farmland. One is the rate that should be paid based on the productivity of the farmland and the economics of production. The other is determined by local supply and demand. This second rate will be higher, as demand still exceeds supply in most of our neighborhoods.

However, I do want to focus this article on the rental rate that should or could be paid based on the productivity of the ground and the economics or raising an acre of crop. If you have read my articles over time, you will know I recommend this way to get to a rental rate staring point. The landlords share should be 28-33 percent of the gross income per acre of corn. For soybeans, 32-37 percent of the gross income per acre would be the landlords share.

Im not just making those numbers up. If we were to take a conventional 50-50 crop share lease and strip away the expenses to the landlord, the share lease would be in the neighborhood of 30-70 or 33-67, with the lower number going to the landlord. In addition a couple of financial institutions in the area support the numbers that I suggest.

If Im raising corn with an average yield of 200 bushels per acre and that corn is worth $3.50 per bushel, the total gross income would be $700 per acre. Thirty percent of that is $210, which is what the landlords share would be given this yield and price.

If we were raising soybeans at 60 bushels per acre with the price being $9.50 per bushel, that gross income would be $570 per acre. Thirty-five percent of that gross would be $199.50 which is the landlords share given this price and yield.

Use the above calculations to get to a starting point to discuss rental rates. Im not suggesting that this is where rental rates will end up at. I know better than that. However, I would suggest that the above calculations do show the pinch we are creating for tenants given these economic conditions.

Im pleased to be able to talk to anyone about this. If you are coming to see me in person, please call ahead and be sure that Im around that day. Otherwise, call or e-mail and Ill be glad to visit as I can.

Announcements/Reminders: The next pesticide applicator training in Platte County will be at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Pinnacle Bank (east), just west of Applebees on Highway 30 in Columbus.
Feb 10, 2017 | By Julia

A savvy cardiologist at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles has successfully used a 3D printed model heart to help save an infants life.



When 18-month-old Nate Yamanes pulmonary artery began narrowing due to a life-threatening heart condition, Pediatric Interventional Cardiologist Frank Ing realized he would require a stent, a small mesh tube thats used to treat narrow or weak arteries.



Though stents are relatively common nowadays, Nates case presented a unique challenge: the infants tiny pulmonary artery had narrowed to just nine millimetres, requiring a customized device specially outfitted to the small space. Perfect measurements were crucial.

Using CT scans of Nates heart, the Hospital team was able to create a 3D printed model of the obstructed area. Dr. Ing could then fashion a special, tiny stent to fit exactly into the narrowed artery from the 3D model. The results were successful: Nates oxygen level improved overnight.

Pediatric Interventional Cardiologist Frank Ing

The 3D model was very helpful because it gave me confidence that [the size of the stent] was going to work," says Dr. Ing.

Considering Nates rocky young life, confidence had already proved hard to come by. Born in June 2015 with the rare condition Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) with pulmonary atresia, the infant had difficulty breathing almost immediately after birth. His pulmonary artery was obstructed, preventing blood flow from the heart to the lungs.

Crisis was averted after Nate was rushed to the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles from a South Bay hospital, but complications persisted.

Doctors say Nates particularly severe case of TOF arose due to his pulmonary artery not forming properly while in utero. Generally the human body responds to this type of obstruction by growing collateral arteries that redirect blood around the problem area and to the lungs.

3D printed model of Nate's heart

Imagine blood flowing in the artery like cars on the freeway, and its blocked. Cars exit and find an alternate route to its destination; blood does the same, and in this case finds its way through collateral vessels to the lungs, explains Dr. Ing, Chief of the Division of Cardiology and Co-director of the Heart Institute at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

Although a typical development with these types of blockages, these vessels need to be quickly rebuilt after birth to prevent heart failure. We use whatever the body gives us, Dr. Ing explains. The standard surgical procedure here is known as unifocalization, in which surgeons repair the vessels by sewing them together.

Only a month into his young life, Nate had already undergone two of these open heart surgeries as well as a catheterization procedure. Still, in December 2015, it was discovered that Nates pulmonary arteries were narrowed in both the right and left branch.

Beginning with the right side, Ings team was able to open the blockage using a balloon. For the left side, however, they required a stent. Since Nates left pulmonary artery had narrowed to just 15 mm, special measures were taken: Dr. Ing carefully cut the Hospitals smallest existing stent and folded it back on itself, using a special technique developed by his team, and effectively tailoring a functional custom stent.

Although Nates blood flow improved almost immediately, and his blood pressure dropped to healthier levels, he still wasnt recovering as well as hoped. Over the next several months, Nate continued to barely gain weightan urgent issue, since he would need sufficient strength and weight before doctors could even consider performing another procedure. Nate underwent physical therapy, and his family did everything possible to assist in his weight gain.

By January of 2017, Nate was finally ready for his next heart procedure. On January 19, Dr. Ing inserted the second, even smaller stent he had fashioned from the 3D printed model into Nates right pulmonary artery. The open-heart surgery was performed in the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles catheterization lab in front of a large audience of international cardiologists watching via live video feed. Dr. Ing and his team were able to successfully open up Nates right pulmonary artery. The infants oxygen levels improved almost immediately, giving hope where before there had been almost none.

Cardiologists around the world watched Nate's procedure via live video feed

So far, Nates condition has remained stable. Doctors say he will still require additional surgeries in the months and years ahead, but hes already getting bigger and stronger. His weight is currently up to 21.5 lbs, and hes eating much better, according to his mother. Hes rolling around with energy and even took his first baby steps, she says. Theres a big difference and a lot of improvement. Were going in the right direction.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Robert McCrum in The Guardian:

William James, brother of the more famous Henry, was a classic American intellectual, a brilliant New Englander and renowned pragmatist  a celebrity in his time who coined the phrase stream of consciousness. He responded to the cultural and social ferment of the late 19th century with the Gifford lectures, given in Edinburgh during 1900-02. When he turned these talks into a book, James, a Harvard psychologist and the author of The Principles of Psychology, placed himself at the crossroads of psychology and religion to articulate an approach to religious experience that would help liberate the American mind at the beginning of the 20th century from its puritan restrictions by advancing a pluralistic view of belief inspired by American traditions of tolerance. Like his brother, he was obsessed by the problem of expressing individual consciousness through language; this is just one of the principal themes of The Varieties of Religious Experience.

The idea that all citizens were equally and independently close to God sponsored among the James family the conviction that religious experience should not become confined within the narrow prison of a denomination. The same irreverence towards categories encouraged William James to adopt a high-low style that gives his writing a fresh and populist character thats rather different from the mature style of his brother the novelist. William used his populism to suggest that any religious experience was true if the consequences of holding it were pleasing to the individual concerned. This restatement of the American pursuit of happiness gave his audiences a new appreciation of human dignity grounded in everyday reality.

More here.
Given our current political climate, I guess I shouldnt be surprised by how different people react to that clip in different ways. Some viewers have told us that they see the ad as an endorsement of President Trump. Others suggest that were criticizing him.

In fact, were doing neither. Were simply reminding you  and members of Congress  what our president said.

Heres what you should know about AARP: We are a nonpartisan organization. Our 38 million members come from across the political spectrum and hold a wide range of views. As an association that represents all those people equally, we never endorse candidates or political appointees. We dont have a political action committee, and we dont contribute to candidates or campaigns. We have a long history of working with elected officials on both sides of the aisle.

What we do is take positions on issues that are important to our members, and safeguarding the health of older Americans has been one of our biggest issues since we were founded almost 60 years ago. Protecting Medicare is a cornerstone of that goal.

We commend those who stand with us on this, and we criticize those who dont. President Trump consistently said throughout the campaign that he is committed to protecting Medicare. Thats why our criticisms are aimed squarely at Congress, where certain leaders have been quietly working on a plan to dismantle our current Medicare system and turn it into a voucher program. Despite how they might try to spin it, our research shows that changing Medicare like that would cut benefits  and raise costs  for current and future beneficiaries. And were not going to let that happen.

While many of you have seen our ad, whats less visible  and just as vital  are the many people working behind the scenes, fighting to protect Medicare. Our leaders and our staff are meeting with members of Congress and the administration to remind them of AARPs clout. Through our state offices, were mobilizing armies of volunteers to collect petitions and make phone calls to galvanize support. Were tweeting. Were posting on Facebook. Were working hard for you in every way we can.
How many people have already voted absentee in South Dakota ahead of Election Day?
Ahead of elections in UP PM Modi took a dig at Rahul Gandhi, saying, If you google his name, then you will find the largest number of jokes on his name. At an election rally at Bijnor, he also slated Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadavs decision to have coalition with the Congress. Modi said Akhilesh has sided with the Congress leader who has largest number of jokes on him in Google.

One need to understand, how Google searchs algorithm works is a well-kept secret that only a few top executives inside the worlds largely used search engine knows. However, over the last so many years GoogleBot  the web crawling bot or spider that scans websites to retrieve information  has faced criticism for not being accurate and for showing undue inclinations towards a few websites. Google has categorically denied these allegations and on a few occasions have even admitted that the results shown are based on over 200 Page Rank factors that decide which web page should come up on results page. Google says its search engine results page or SERP dont reflect the companys opinion or beliefs but its just what the robot thinks will give Google user the best answer for the query entered. Here are a few instances when the worlds best search algorithm Google faced criticism for not being accurate with its search results.

Let it be Rahul Gandhi jokes or PM Modi in the list of top 10 criminals, Google actually has no control. Today, PM Modi criticised Rahul Gandhi but when he had to face the same attack that time Google India was served a legal notice after the Google Image search results page for the keyword Top 10 criminals featured Modis image first. Google soon took a defensive stand and posted a disclaimer on the page saying, These results dont reflect Googles opinion or our beliefs; our algorithms automatically matched the query to web pages with these images.

India not a Namak Haraam Country: Google search result for the keyword namak haraam country meaning traitor country came up with a result that had Indian flag. Soon, Pakistani media took this up and made up stories that even Google knows that India is a traitor. A further investigation on this revealed that Namak Haraam was a 1973 Bollywood movie starring Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, and Rekha. The Indian flag was shown because the movie name was accompanied with the keyword country, giving users the result for the country where the movie was released.

Google News resulted in UAL stock crash: In 2008 the shares of United Airlines fell 75% after an old story featured in 2002 on Florida Sun-Sentinel website about the company filing bankruptcy resurfaced in Google news. Google later said that the error was the result of Sun-Sentinel website not having an original dateline inside the article, as a result of which the google bot one of the dates mentioned on the story page.

Google Map depiction of Indian borders: Google was forced to make changes in Google Maps and Google Earth in India after the government passed a law that says the wrong depiction of an Indias map which includes showing Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) or disputed areas of Arunachal Pradesh as not a part of India on any online platform or physical documents could elicit legal action that could lead to seven years imprisonment and heavy penalty of Rs 1 crore.

Google vs Federal Trade Commission: Google came under the scrutiny of Federal Trade Commission after it received complaints that the search engine giant is using deceptive methods to get clicks for paid ads. The FTC observed that it was difficult for users to differentiate between ads and organic search results in the SERP. After this Google made considerable changes to its ads, going to the extent of even displaying a blurb that read Ad. Google said that results to the query top 10 criminals in India was due to a British daily, which had an image of PM Modi and erroneous metadata. It said that in this case, the image search results were drawn from multiple news articles with images of PM Modi and his statements with regard to politicians with criminal background. The spokesperson added that the news articles do not link Modi to criminal activity, and the words just appeared in close proximity to each other. On the same theory, its Modi supporters who made Rahul Gandhi jokes famous on internet by posting anything to everything about him portray him a pappu or a lame character.

Irony is that most of the Indian politicians have worst of search engine results. However, when they have to take advantage against other politicians they go random attacking without looking into their own plight.

With inputs from Various Sources

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday ridiculed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for peeping into others bathrooms and said he was a complete failure at the job.

The Prime Minister is fond of Google searching, peeping into others bathrooms. Let him do that in his free time but his main job is that of a Prime Minister in which he has been a cent per cent failure, Gandhi said while addressing a joint press conference here with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.

Gandhis jibe come a day after Modi, while campaigning in the poll bound state, mocked the Congress leader for being the most joked about politician.

The Prime Minister had earlier attracted the wrath of the Congress over his bathing wearing a raincoat barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

The countrys biggest problem is lack of jobs. Modi promised two crore jobs but has not fulfilled even one per cent of his promise. Modi talks a lot about security, terrorism and surgical strikes.

But the result is we have suffered most number of casualties in the last seven years. Over 90 of our security personnel have been killed, said Gandhi while referring to the Indian Armys September 29 surgical strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan occupied territory.

The Prime Minister is apprehensive of Uttar Pradesh polls result. The result will give him a big shock, will put a question mark on his credibility. That is why he is saying such things, he added.








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Date: 10 May, 2004.

Place: Parque Forestal, Santiago de Chile, Chile.

The following case is from a few years ago, but due to its shocking content, it deserves to be analysed one more time.

On 10 May, 2004, in the city of Santiago de Chile, Chile, a local resident photographed what appears to be an alien entity walking through a group of trees in a local park.

The witness, a Civil Engineer called German Pereira, told paranormal website Inexplicata.blogspot: I'm from Concepcion and have been working in Santiago for little over a a year. On May 10 this year [2004] I decided to take some photos at Parque Forestal, taking some 10 shots which I downloaded to my PC the following day.

I thought it would be interesting to photograph a group of Carabineros (state police) on horseback patrolling the sector, Mr Pereira continued. The photo was taken at 17:40 hrs approximately from the corner of JM de la Barra and Av. Cardenal Jose Maria Caro, in front of bellas Bellas Artes and looking east, he added.

The Chilean citizen also explained the reason for the average quality of the photo. It was a cloudy day and the sun was hidden, for which reason my digital camera (Kodak DX6490) adjusted to low speed (1/10 seg.). This is the reason why the photo shows motion (those knowledegable about photography will know the reason why), he expressed. Furthermore, the Carabineros were som 20 meters distant, and I employed the camera's optical zoom (10x) which added to the blurred result, he said.

The Civil Engineer is convinced of the authenticity of the sighting. For this reason, he consulted Mr Erick Martinez, member of CIFAE (an organisation created to investigate unusual phenomena in Chilean airspace). The fact is that I am very impressed by this image. I attest to the fact that it is neither a fraud nor anything similar. For this reason I have made it public and I contacted the staff of CIFAE Chile, he affirmed.

I would like to know the true nature of the image that appears in it and if anyone has ever caught anything similar in a photo. Nothing else, he commented.

On this case, UFO researcher and writer, Scott C. Waring, of UFO Sightings Daily, said: this is one of the most amazing alien catches I have ever seen. An alien was caught walking across the street in a protected forest area of Chile. This particular little species is very interested in all areas of human activity.

This species takes a lot of risk to gather their evidence, and they like to do it in person, instead of using computers and drones, he asserted.

Draw your own conclusions

For further information: http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/2017/02/tiny-alien-strolls-across-street-in.html

Tiny Alien Strolls Across Street In National Forest In Chile, May 10, 2004, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: May 10, 2004

Location of sighting: The Parque Forest, Santiago, Chile

Source: http://inexplicata.blogspot.com

This is one of the most amazing alien catches I have ever seen. An alien was caught walking across the street in a protected forest area of Chile. This particular little species is very interested in all areas of human activity. For instance this same small species of alien flew and crashed a UFO on a farm back in 1896 in Aurora, Texas when it was so busy looking at things that it missed the fact that it was about to hit a windmill on the farm...and then the UFO exploded. Metal fragments were found, and a tiny alien pilot about 1 foot tall was found and buried in the local cemetery. This species takes a lot of risk to gather their evidence, and they like to do it in person, instead of using computers and drones.

Scott C. Waring

News states:

Report from the witness, Civil Engineer German Pereira:

I'm from Concepcion and have been working in Santiago for little over a a year. On May 10 this year I decided to take some photos at Parque Forestal, taking some 10 shots which I downloaded to my PC the following day .

I thought it would be interesting to photograph a group of Carabineros (state police) on horseback patrolling the sector. The photo was taken at 17:40 hrs approximately from the corner of JM de la Barra and Av. Cardenal Jose Maria Caro, in front of bellas Bellas Artes and looking east.

It was a cloudy day and the sun was hidden, for which reason my digital camera ( Kodak DX6490) adjusted to low speed (1/10 seg.).

This is the reason why the photo shows motion (those knowledegable about photography will know the reason why)Furthermore, the Carabineros were som 20 meters distant, and I employed the camera's optical zoom (10x) which added to the blurred result.

The fact is that I am very impressed by this image. I attest to the fact that it is not a fraud nor anything similar. For this reason I have made it public and I contacted the staff of CIFAE Chile. I would like to know the true nature of the image that appears in it and if anyone has ever caught anything similar in a photo. Nothing more.

German Pereira A. Ing. Civil Mecanico
To the editor:

I absolutely loved living in Schuyler. It's my hometown. Several years ago, I moved back there under special circumstances. I embraced my family, my friends and my church in Schuyler  all of which were familiar to me. Now I live back in Alabama and miss my life in Schuyler terribly.

That having been said, Should Schuyler Police officers be required (or any other employee) to live in the community? My answer is, no.

The Schuyler City Council needs to make a serious, truthful and comprehensive list of the pros and cons of a job applicant being required to uproot and move a family, young or older, to Schuyler, Nebraska, and then seriously, truthfully and comprehensively discuss that list before voting again. This list might also include the pros and cons of simply living in Schuyler, not just requiring a job applicant to live there.

Marie Kracl Myrick

Bessemer, Alabama
Aiken, SC (29801)

Today

Cloudy this evening with showers after midnight. Low 67F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Cloudy this evening with showers after midnight. Low 67F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
Trump's Syria Dilemma: Turkey or the Kurds?

Last July, in the midst of the presidential election campaign, Donald Trump declared in an interview that he was "a big fan of the Kurds." Speaking about the fight against ISIS on the ground in Syria, Trump said he hoped there was a way to get the Kurdish forces, which have been supported by the U.S. for the last two years, to join forces with their bitter enemy, the Turkish government.
February 10, 2017

Istanbuls love of cats is world-famous. From tributes to Tombili, the late feline phenomenon, to social media photos and short clips, cat lovers can find their fill of cat accolades posted from the streets of Istanbul. And now that love has been documented in a new film.

The cats are strays but have names. Their favorite hangouts and foods are well-known to locals. Kids grow up hearing the warning, If you kill a cat, you have to build a mosque to receive Gods forgiveness.

The neighborhoods take care of them, yet they have no official owners.

So how would you like to see a cats daily life on the streets of Istanbul? The movie "Kedi" (Turkish for "cat") will show you. Its not animated, as some might expect. Ceyda Torun, the director of "Kedi," was six months pregnant when she and her crew started shooting in the streets and alleys of the megalopolis in April 2014. The actors in the documentary are peculiar: seven cats, each with a unique character.

Gamsiz, the player, is a young male whose main caregiver is a baker. However, for special delicacies he visits different homes every other day. As he jumps on to one homes balcony, the homeowner mimics for the film crew just how he will enter. As the camera zooms on Gamsiz, he is persistent but charming, holding up one paw behind the glass door, requesting that it kindly be opened  exactly as his host had predicted.

Torun, who grew up in the Kadikoy district of Istanbul, told Al-Monitor she and her crew searched almost all the neighborhoods to cast the most ideal stars. All the cats names are well-known names in their neighborhoods  except for Hunter, whose nom de guerre is more a description of his cavalier acts than an official name. He resides around a cafe by the seashore of Kandilli. The cafe owner is grateful to him for catching mice and doing so in a discreet manner. He does justice to the love he receives here, the owner said.

Age-old stories suggest Istanbul has a variety of cats because ships visited the city from different places, and some of their mousers ended up missing their return trips.

The way Toruns camera captures the cats steals your heart, even if youre a dog person. Istanbuls sights and sounds are presented in a way that makes you feel you are roaming the city both through the eyes of a feline but also on a magic carpet. The documentary is a brilliant product of passion.

And love. Torun not only directs the film, but she and her husband, Charlie Wuppermann, are the producers. Wuppermann also assumes the role of cinematographer, along with Alp Korfali. When Al-Monitor asked Torun how it feels to work with her husband, she said, We were co-workers before our romance started. So it helps to have a good friend, someone straightforward and knowledgeable to provide feedback and critique your work. The disadvantage is that you never stop working. There is no separation of family and work.

That lack of separation is reflected in the film as dedication. Toruns actors didnt schedule breaks, so neither did Torun and her crew. The result is a once-in-a-lifetime experience of alluring sights and sounds.

When it premiered at the end of 2016 in Turkey, critics applauded the film. It begins screening today, Feb. 10, in New York and received four claws up from New York Times reviewer Glenn Kenny. From New York, "Kedi" will visit several cities in the United States and Canada. The date for worldwide availability hasnt been determined, Torun said.

The documentary is also precious for its choice of music. For people who have grown up accustomed to Turkish music of the 1980s, the soundtrack is a special gift on its own. It is almost as if you are maneuvering the cobbled Istanbul alleys with the cats and the street vendors are playing these catchy tunes. Each elegant cat step is synchronized with the beats. Each cat and neighborhood are matched with a different tune for their own idiosyncrasies.

Yet beyond the gorgeous scenes and exciting images, the documentary shows the cats interactions with the people of Istanbul. Torun has done an amazing job reaching out to a diverse group of citizens. In each neighborhood you see quirky characters going about their daily routines.

Istanbul is a rough city, with an increasing number of high-rises, intense traffic and overcrowded public transportation. Yet these people all share a genuine smile at the end of their chats with Torun. They each explain the cats' characters and how those characters have captured them  and through the words of every one of them you can see the cats' healing abilities. The people all are grateful for the cats; they all understand the cats have served their well-being. These ordinary men and women from different walks of life appear as people who would never be captured in public with such astonishing smiles and honest confessions. To describe the relationship between himself and a cat, one says, Cats choose people. Another person adds, Its therapy.

The documentary is itself therapy for weary souls, for anyone who can appreciate loyalty, a fighting spirit and an aversion to unconditional obedience. Cats of Istanbul and their tales told from the eyes of Toruns camera and the words of those who witness their lives closely show us a unique form of resistance in a city that is increasingly buried under steel and concrete.

These arent house cats. They refuse to live locked behind doors; instead, people open doors to them. They have compelled the locals, from fishmongers to market managers, to establish accounts for them with veterinarians, accounts that are paid for by donations. There is an impressive system in place without any written rules, codes or regulations.

Cats cross all dividing lines of society in Istanbul. When you watch the film, you are not only filled with hope for the future of Turkey but also a sense of identity that binds the people of Anatolia together.
Student loans ILLUS.jpg

Debt shame may be epidemic in America. Total student loan debt stood at $1.4 trillion as of September, double the amount in 2009.

(Illustration by Don Coker)

Financial services companies go into overdrive around Valentine's Day, along with florists, chocolate makers, and jewelers. Usually, it's surveys about love and money, with advice on avoiding financial conflict with a partner.

Student loan company SoFi has thrown its hat into the ring with that old standby of V-Day marketing: VD.

Here's the pitch. It seems 39 percent of millennials would rather disclose a preexisting sexually transmitted disease to a potential partner than reveal their debt, according to a survey of 2,000 millennials SoFi conducted, using online poller Survey Monkey. In addition, the survey found that serious debt was the second-biggest romantic deal-breaker, after workaholism.

Both STDs and debt are epidemic in America. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced late last year that STDs were at an "unprecedented high" in 2015. So is student loan debt, SoFi's bread and butter. Total student loan debt stood at $1.4 trillion as of September, double the amount in 2009. It makes sense that a potential partner's debt would play a bigger part in relationships today.

In fact, debt shame may be epidemic in itself.

Melanie Lockert, 32, remembers how she felt when-$81,000 in debt after getting her bachelor's as a theater major at California State University at Long Beach and a master's in performance studies at New York University-she couldn't find a job in her field. Six months after graduation, she was on food stamps and working for $10 an hour in Portland, Oregon.

Her debt highlighted her mistakes and shortcomings and "made me feel guilty that I went to a crazy expensive school," Lockert said. "It represented a huge amount of shame for me, because I thought I'd done everything right. I'd worked hard in school, had a part-time job, did everything that I was supposed to."

Of the survey, she said, "I don't think anyone would actually want to disclose their STD status, either. But what it's saying is that debt and money still has very much of a taboo." Student loan debt is synonymous with the millennial generation, she said, "but no one wants to say, 'Hey, I graduated with $100,000 in debt, do you want to get married?'"

A partner's significant debt "could delay the purchase of a first home, require cutting back on vacation or travel, reduce retirement contributions, along with plenty of other financial sacrifices that a debt-free partner wouldn't require," said financial planner Jon Powell, of Ferguson-Johnson Wealth Management, in Rockville, Md.

Here's the vicious circle. "The old adage 'out of sight, out of mind' is the solution for many people, and thus the problem," said financial planner David Mullins, of Mullins Wealth in Richlands, Virginia. Balances build, interest accrues, "and before too long, there is a four- or five-figure monster arriving in the mail each month to say hello," he said. "The problem is, the debt makes you feel bad, so to feel better, you spend more. The cycle can continue until a breaking point is reached."

Mullins had one client who reached that point only after she had mortgaged her home, which had been mortgage-free for 20 years, to pay off her credit-card debt. Her mother had died and she had been doing what she described to Mullins as "retail therapy" to fill the void. When she realized she had cashed out the equity in her home, she was cured."Mortgaging her home literally made her sick of spending money," Mullins said. "This was her bottom that she needed to change her habits."

The key is to realize "it's OK to make mistakes, and it's how you learn from them that defines your character and builds your self-esteem," said Pat Clark, director of financial planning at wealth management firm RS Crum, in Newport Beach, Calif.

The lesson for you? Keep track of your spending. Write it down, Mullins advises, because "when it comes to keeping a budget, mental accounting just won't work, and a small vice can balloon into a big problem before you know it. Compounding interest works both ways."

Lockert compared getting out of debt to the five stages of grief. "I was angry, I got depressed, I felt overwhelmed. I went through all of those stages before accepting it and deciding I was going to get out of debt, no matter what," she said. "You're not ready to take action on that debt when you're in those stages."

To turn her debt from a negative into a positive, Lockert started a blog, deardebt.com, in 2013, in which she encourages people to write breakup letters to their debt-Dear John letters, of a sort.

"I've heard from a lot of people that it's a way for them to take back ownership of their debt," she said. "You need to face the debt head-on and realize that you want this relationship to really be over and want to move on with your life."

Over about four years, Lockert dug herself out with a full-time job at $31,000 a year, plus part-time work in the mornings, evenings, and weekends, eventually leaving the job when she got higher-paying side hustles. She became debt-free on Dec. 10, 2015, she said.

Relationships with humans can make it even more complicated. Nearly a quarter of respondents to the SoFi survey said they had been "lied to by a date or partner about how much debt they were in." For those who planned to give honesty a whirl, most said you should tell a partner about your debt only when things are getting serious between you, and you're considering sharing household expenses.

Just how much debt would it take to send a potential partner packing? A good chunk of the millennials surveyed were true romantics, saying they would never reject a partner because of debt, but 38 percent said it depends.

Lockert's best advice for people of any age who feel shame about debt is to remember they're not alone.

That's meant as reassurance-but it highlights an alarming reality, too.

Article by Bloomberg writer Suzanne Woolley.
A Gadsden woman has been arrested after Georgia officials have charged her in connection with abusing two students in the classroom in connection with her duties as a special education teacher.

Deborah Alexander Alford, 58, was arrested Thursday in Gadsden and has been transferred back to Polk County, Ga., according to the Northwest Georgia News.

The paper reports that Alford has been charged with four counts of first degree cruelty to children (maliciously causing excessive pain), first degree cruelty to children and misdemeanor battery.

Alford has taught for 26 years in Georgia schools and has worked 19 years as a special education teacher, the paper reported. She is currently on administrative leave from Westside Elementary School in Cedartown, Ga.

WSB in Atlanta is reporting that video exists of the incident under investigation.

Cedartown Police Chief Jamie Newsome said the video "was disturbing to me to the extent that I agree with my (school resource) officer as to his findings."
Another teen is charged with capital murder in the shooting death of a Wenonah High School senior more than a week ago.

Birmingham police on Friday night announced the arrest of 17-year-old Dequerius Tyrell Fair. Sgt. Bryan Shelton said Fair was allegedly in the vehicle when Juzahris Webb was gunned down Jan. 31 while he and a friend were walking home from school.

Fair was arrested by the police department's Neighborhood Enforcement Team, and is being booked into the Jefferson County Jail where he will be held on $250,000 bond.

Police had already charged 18-year-old Monsure Davis with capital murder in Webb's death. Davis, a Jackson-Olin student, is being held on $250,000 bond. A third teen - 18-year-old Sha Quon Edwards - is charged with first-degree theft of property in connection with a stolen car the teens were in during the shooting.

The shooting reportedly stemmed from a disagreement over a girl. The charges are capital because the shots that killed Webb were fired from a vehicle.

The shooting happened just before 4 pm in the 3200 block of Cedar Avenue Southwest, just out of eyesight of the high school. Webb and his friend were walking to the friend's grandmother's house on nearby Hemlock Avenue when a car passed them at an intersection.

It appears the car turned around, and drove back by the teens. Someone inside the vehicle opened fire, and Webb was shot in the stomach. After the shooting, the two teens ran back to the nearby Coleman Auto Parts and Sales, with Webb clutching his abdomen. He collapsed on the floor, telling shop employees, "Somebody shot me. Call the police."

Employees said the victim wasn't bleeding externally, but began to drift into unconsciousness. "He was very alert,'' said an employee who asked not to be named. "But the longer he sat there, he just started to go."

Webb's friend wasn't injured but was visibly shaken at the scene.

Davis and Edwards were taken into custody the same night of the shooting, after they were spotted in a stolen vehicle matching the description of the vehicle used in the shooting. Birmingham police, with the help of tracking dogs, spent three hours searching for them after they bailed from the vehicle, which rolled back and hit a police cruiser.

Webb's father, Chris Major, said his son was involved in a dispute Friday at a Birmingham park with another teen - believed to be Davis - who was jealous of Webb over a girl. "He didn't really have a lot of enemies,'' Major said. "He had his head screwed on right."

Webb was buried last weekend.

"He was a real kind person,'' Major said. "Everybody loved him."

Another Wenonah High School student was shot to deather earlier this week - on Tuesday, Feb. 2. The shooting happened about 2:50 p.m. on Second Avenue South at 18th Street. in front of the Railroad Square office building.

The victim was 17-year-old Isaiah Johnson, and was there to exchange guns and buy an additional gun in a deal that was brokered on Facebook, police said.

No arrests have been announced in Johnson's slaying.
Stephen Miller.jpg

Senior adviser Stephen Miller with White House chief of staff Reince Priebus in the foreground.

(Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

As a young conservative in liberal Santa Monica, Calif., Stephen Miller clashed frequently with his high school, often calling in to a national radio show to lambaste administrators for promoting multiculturalism, allowing Spanish-language morning announcements and failing to require recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Miller's outrage did not appear to subside after he graduated. As a Duke University sophomore, Miller penned a column, titled "Santa Monica High's Multicultural Fistfights," in which he ripped his alma mater as a "center for political indoctrination."

"The social experiment that Santa Monica High School has become is yet one more example of the dismal failure of leftism and the delusions and paranoia of its architects," Miller wrote in the 2005 article for the conservative magazine FrontPage.

In the years before he became a top adviser to President Donald Trump and a leading West Wing advocate for the executive order temporarily halting entry into the United States from seven majority-Muslim countries, Miller was developing his skills as a culture warrior and conservative provocateur eager to condemn liberal orthodoxy - particularly on matters of race and identity. Like Trump, Miller forged that identity while immersed in liberal communities, giving him cachet with fellow conservatives for waging his battles on opposition turf.

Starting as a teenager, with his frequent calls to the nationally syndicated "Larry Elder Show," Miller made a name for himself in conservative media circles for his willingness to take controversial stands and act as a champion for those on the right who felt maligned by a culture of political correctness.

He produced a canon of searing columns on race, gender and other hot-button issues and, at Duke, became known to Fox News viewers as a leading defender of the white lacrosse players wrongfully accused of raping a black stripper. By his late 20s, Miller was a key aide to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., helping to torpedo a long-sought goal of immigrant advocacy groups to put millions of unauthorized Hispanic immigrants on a path to citizenship.

Today, at 31, he has emerged alongside former Breitbart News chief Stephen Bannon as a chief engineer of Trump's populist "America first" agenda that has roiled the Washington debate over immigration and trade and sparked alarm among traditional U.S. allies abroad.

Miller, whose White House title is senior adviser to the president for policy, has been at Trump's side for more than a year, joining his campaign in January 2016 when Sessions, who was sworn in Thursday as attorney general, was one of the only Republican officials to endorse the businessman's candidacy.

While Trump at times revamped his campaign leadership, with Bannon joining relatively late in August 2016, Miller remained a steady presence whose profile and influence grew over time.

He wrote some of Trump's most strident speeches during the campaign, including his Republican National Convention acceptance address in which Trump declared that "nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it."

And Miller sometimes served as the warm-up act for Trump at his large campaign rallies, including a rip-roaring speech in Wisconsin during the Republican primary when Miller thrashed Trump's chief rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for supporting increases in legal immigration that would result in more Muslims entering the country - a position Miller charged that Cruz held with "no regard, no concern" for how it would "affect the security of you and your family."

After reports of Miller's central role crafting the order imposing a 90-day ban on citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States, the young aide has drawn uncomfortable new scrutiny. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, host of the "Morning Joe" program that is a Trump favorite, recently blasted Miller as a "very young person in the White House on a power trip thinking that you can just write executive orders and tell all of your Cabinet agencies to go to hell."

For Miller, though, working in the Trump White House is a natural culmination of his young career - a chance to work for a president who appears to share his zeal for getting under the skin of political opponents.

"The way that people on the left abuse and slam people on the right - that's probably the thing that's most concerned Stephen," said Elder, the Los Angeles-based conservative talk-show host who Miller describes as a mentor. "The lack of fairness. The left wing dominance in academia. The left wing dominance in the media. The left wing dominance in Hollywood."

Miller's ideological awakening found its roots in a left-leaning high school where he has written that social life and academics were badly segregated, despite what he saw as a devotion among teachers and administrators to multiculturalism.

"My best judgment at the time was that the educational answer that had been provided, which was to reject the melting-pot formula in favor of an educational formula that focused on all the things that made us different, was not working," he told The Washington Post in an interview.

Miller said he rejects the "provocateur" label, saying it suggests that his intentions are to seek attention rather than what he says is his true goal - "to battle against slim odds, a stacked deck and powerful entrenched forces, in pursuit of justice."

Miller said he turned away from the more liberal politics of his parents as he grew up in Santa Monica after buying a subscription to Guns & Ammo magazine and becoming familiar with the writings of actor Charlton Heston, a longtime president of the National Rifle Association.

Miller began appearing on Elder's show, a local broadcast that is aired in 300 markets, after the 9/11 attacks, when he felt his hometown lacked sufficient patriotism.

Elder said that Miller called in the first time to voice objections to his school's failure to recite the Pledge of Allegiance daily as required by state law.

In writings at the time and later, Miller said he lobbied for the pledge recitation against a recalcitrant administration that refused to put the practice in place even after he had flagged the legal violation. "Osama Bin Laden would feel very welcome at Santa Monica High School," he wrote in a letter to the editor at the time.

"It's difficult to overstate the extent to which the instructional environment on campus was breathtakingly PC," Miller said in an interview.

Mark Kelly, who was the principal at the time, said he did not recall the episode as a major fight. When Miller flagged the issue, Kelly said he researched the law and realized that the school, indeed, needed to change its policy and institute the recitation of the pledge. Miller was invited to lead the pledge after it was reinstated.

"Stephen was right," Kelly recalled.

The victory was a validation for Miller of the necessity to fight powerful figures who opposed his views.

Miller pushed the school administration over his desire to host an on-campus speech by David Horowitz - a onetime Marxist, then controversial far-right conservative - who became an early mentor and would later introduce Miller to Sessions.

Horowitz recalls being immediately impressed with Miller. "One of the things that struck me when I became a conservative was that conservatives don't have any fight," Horowitz said. "They don't have any stomach for it. . . . Stephen Miller had that from the get-go."

Cultural-identity issues appeared to particularly animate Miller. In a column in his high school newspaper, titled "A Time to Kill," he urged violent response to radical Islamists.

"We have all heard about how peaceful and benign the Islamic religion is, but no matter how many times you say that, it cannot change the fact that millions of radical Muslims would celebrate your death for the simple reason that you are Christian, Jewish or American," Miller wrote.

Ari Rosmarin, a civil rights lawyer who edited the student newspaper at time, recalled that Miller was especially critical of a Mexican American student group.

"I think he's got a very sharp understanding of what words and issues will poke and provoke progressives, because he came up around it and really cut his teeth picking these fights that had low stakes but high offense," Rosmarin said.

That skill led Miller to become a mini-celebrity in conservative intellectual circles because of his passion, age and home town. He appeared 70 times on Elder's show before his high school graduation, according to the host.

"He found a really unique role to play that was deeply attractive to national conservatives," Rosmarin said. "He was like a lonely warrior behind enemy lines."

In the halls of Santa Monica High School, though, where students and teachers took pride in their ethnic diversity and liberal values, Miller was becoming something of a pariah. That environment prompted Miller to become even more assertive, recalled one of his former teachers.

"He had to come on a little strong as a defense mechanism - just to survive," said the teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for how colleagues would react to the defense of an alumnus so closely associated with Trump. "He came under a lot of fire, even from teachers."

At Duke, Miller wrote a biweekly column for the student newspaper that regularly aroused the ire of classmates.

"Men and women are in many ways the same, but they're also innately and magnificently different," he wrote in one column that argued laws requiring men and women to be paid equally would hurt businesses and that the pay gap largely resulted from women taking time off for childbirth, being less willing to ask for raises and being less likely to take part in hazardous work.

"The point is that the pay gap has virtually nothing to do with gender discrimination," he wrote. "Sorry, feminists. Hate to break this good news to you."

In a column titled "The Case for Christmas," Miller, who is Jewish, argued that the holiday should be more widely recognized as a "crucial American holiday."

"Christianity is embedded in the very soul of our nation," he wrote.

Miller stepped into the national spotlight after three white lacrosse players were falsely accused of rape in a case rife with racial tension. The players were eventually cleared and the local district attorney was disbarred for prosecutorial misconduct in the case. Miller wrote a series of columns about the case and appeared on national television to discuss it.

"This travesty has been allowed to continue because we live in a nation paralyzed by racial paranoia," he wrote in November 2006, writing that professors and others were frightened to speak in defense of the students because the district attorney had turned the case into a racial crusade and opposition "would be perceived negatively by the black community and that there would be a political price to pay."

Speaking years later about his role as an advocate for the players, Miller told The Post: "The one takeaway I have from it is that in a difficult moment, I took a stand on principle - and I was correct."

Reflecting more broadly on his college-era columns, Miller said his writings were a good reflection of his views at the time. But, he said, "I would surely hope that any person who was a writer about political and controversial topics in college would find that their thoughts had matured on a variety of issues." He declined to outline where his own views had changed over time.

Miller's outspokenness in the lacrosse case first brought him to the attention of Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who was a Duke graduate student at the time. Spencer said he became friendly with Miller through the Duke Conservative Union in fall 2006.

"He was very out in front, very bold and strong," Spencer said in an interview.

Spencer last year told the Daily Beast that he was a "mentor" to Miller, which Miller has angrily denied.

"I condemn him. I condemn his views. I have no relationship with him. He was not my friend," Miller said.

Miller noted that he served on campus as the executive director of the leading conservative group, which put him in contact with Spencer. "Our interaction was limited to the activities of the organization, of which he was a member, and thus ceased upon graduation," Miller said.

But Spencer said that the two met frequently during their Duke days. As first reported by Mother Jones magazine, they both helped organize an immigration debate between Peter Brimelow, an anti-immigration activist whose website has been labeled a hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Peter Laufer, who advocated for opening the southern U.S. border. Spencer praised Miller's media savvy and organizational skills in advance of that event.

David Bitner, a friend of Miller's who also belonged to the conservative club at Duke, said the two did interact in the small group. But Bitner called it "scurrilous libel" for Spencer to claim he was Miller's mentor.

"Richard Spencer believes in white identity politics. Stephen Miller disavows identity politics," he said.

Nevertheless, Miller's role in the White House has been greeted with enthusiasm by Spencer and other white nationalist figures.

"He is not a white nationalist," Spencer said. "But you can't be this passionate about the immigration issue and not have a sense of the American nation as it historically emerged."

After attending Trump's inauguration, Jared Taylor, another high-profile white nationalist, posted a piece to his website in which he wrote that Trump is "not a racially conscious white man" but that there "are men close to him - Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller - who may have a clearer understanding of race, and their influence could grow."

In an interview, Taylor said he was "speculating" and that he has not met or spoken with Miller.

Miller said he has "profound objections" to the views advanced by Taylor and Spencer, saying: "I condemn this rancid ideology."

Elder, who is black, said he has never heard Miller speak of Spencer or Taylor or express what he considers racist views.

Instead, Elder said, Miller believes as he does: "Race and racism are no longer major problems in America. This is the fairest majority-white country in the world. If you work hard and make good decisions, you'll be fine."

Miller said that his views at the time were best summed up in a 2005 column in the Santa Monica Mirror, titled "My Dream for the End of Racism," in which he argued that Americans should focus on how far the country has come in overcoming such prejudice. "No one claims that racism is extinct - but it is endangered," he wrote. "And if we are to entirely extract this venom of prejudice from the United States, I proclaim Americanism to be the key."

Focusing on "multiculturalism," he wrote, has had the effect of keeping different groups separate.

Miller's White House role is in many ways a departure for an activist who has mostly seen himself as representing an oppressed political minority. Now he holds the power, helping to drive the government while working steps from the Oval Office.

Bitner said he wonders how Miller's tactics will translate.

"I don't think he's had the opportunity to practice this," he said. "These are all outsiders, many of them people who have been vocal minorities. How do you transition from there to governing?"

Author Information: This article was written by The Washington Post reporter Rosalind S. Helderman. Alice Crites contributed to this report.
A man was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds Friday night in an abandoned home in northeast Birmingham, police say.

The name of the 29-year-old victim is being withheld pending notification of family, Birmingham police said. Police describe the man as being white and a transient.

A Birmingham police detective received a tip at around 9 p.m. of a man being shot inside a home in the 6800 block of 5th Terrace North. At the scene, officers found the victim on the floor of the residence. He was dead of multiple gunshot wounds.

Sgt. Bryan Shelton said the homicide investigation is in the early stages, and no clear motive or suspect has been identified yet.

"Our investigators have to piece this one together bit by bit," he said. "First we must make sure the victim's family is aware of what has happened to their loved one."

Anyone with information on the case is asked to contact the Birmingham Police Department Homicide Unit at 254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 254-7777.
Legislature First Day

Sen. Quinton Ross, left, and Sen. Del Marsh, president pro tem, on the Senate floor Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, during the first day of the regular legislative session in Montgomery, Ala. (Julie Bennett/jbennett@al.com)

(Julie Bennett)

Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, who led the controversial passage of the Alabama Accountability Act four years ago, wants to expand the tax credits available to those who donate to scholarship programs created by the school choice law.

Some education groups are opposed to the bill because the tax credits reduce funding for public schools.

Marsh's bill does not raise the total maximum amount of the tax credits, which would remain capped at $30 million a year.

Donors gave $19.9 million last year, down from $25.8 million in 2015.

Marsh, a Republican from Anniston, said his intent with the bill was to create more ways for taxpayers to donate and earn a credit to help reach the cap.

Marsh said he is concerned that students who receive scholarships under the program might lose them if donations fall short.

"What's most important to me is what we don't want to see in any given year, that young people who have received these scholarships, because of lack of funding lose that scholarship," Marsh said.

Marsh said he believes donations fell off last year because some companies that would have donated did not have enough tax liability to claim the credits.

Under the Accountability Act, taxpayers can claim a credit on their state income for donations to scholarship granting organizations set up under the law.

Marsh's bill would allow companies that donate to also get credits on their utility gross receipts tax.

To be eligible to deduct the utilities tax, they would have to have a minimum of $100,000 liability under that tax.

They could receive credits for up to 75 percent of their utilities tax liability for scholarship donations.

Marsh's bill would make other changes to help reach the $30 million cap.

Individuals and corporations could receive income tax credits equal to up to 75 percent of their income tax liability. The cap is now 50 percent.

Sally Smith, executive director of the Alabama Association of School boards, said the association has "grave concerns" about the bill.

"This makes it easier for them to reach the cap, which means a reduction in funds to our public schools," Smith said.

Smith said it's important to take a long-term view. She's concerned that if taxpayers are allowed to take a credit of up to 75 percent of their income tax liability it will result in a rise in donations that will increase the pressure to raise the $30 million cap.

"So presumably, looking in the future, if this increases contributions or people taking the tax credit, it will be very detrimental because we've always feared that the cap will increase as well, as time went on," Smith said.

Students can use the scholarships to attend private schools. Eligibility is based on income.

When the Accountability Act passed in 2013, it was billed as a way to help children in "failing" schools whose parents could not otherwise afford private school.

Students who are zoned for schools designated as "failing" under the law get priority for the scholarships.

Almost 4,000 Alabama students attend private schools using the tax-credit scholarships, according to latest reports from the Alabama Department of Revenue.

About 1,300, or one-third, were zoned to attend a "failing" school.

The Accountability Act defines a "failing" school as those in ranking in the bottom 6 percent statewide on standardized tests.

Marsh's bill would not change that criteria but would change the term "failing" to "underperforming."

"That was a request of the education community because they don't like the label of a failing school," Marsh said.

He said the terminology did not matter to him.

"I don't want to do anything that would be detrimental," Marsh said. "If they think that labeling it a failing school is detrimental, that's fine, move it to an underperforming."

Smith said the change of terms was the only positive change she saw in the bill.

Marsh said the bill added some accountability measures. It says that scholarship granting organizations would be audited every three years to ensure compliance with administrative and financial accountability standards.

Smith questioned whether triennial audits would be an adequate way to monitor the organizations.

Eric Mackey, executive director of School Superintendents of Alabama, said in an email:

"We have serious concerns about reopening this Act and providing additional tax credit vouchers to pay private school tuition, especially without accompanying accountability measures. We still want to take time to thoroughly analyze (the bill) but we cannot support any efforts to divert even more money away from our already cash-strapped public school classrooms to private schools."

Amy Marlowe, spokeswoman for the Alabama Education Association, said the AEA was still reviewing the bill and was not yet ready to take a position on it.

The AEA has been opposed to the Accountability Act from the outset. The AEA supported lawsuits in unsuccessful efforts to stop the law and would support repealing it, Marlowe said.

Marlowe said AEA would support eliminating the use of the term "failing school."

"We don't believe that any school in the state should be labeled a failing school," Marlowe said.

Marsh's bill would also expand how the scholarship money can be used.

In addition to paying for tuition and mandatory fees, students could receive money for other "qualifying expenses" such as uniforms, textbooks, school supplies, tutoring, summer school, school meals and transportation.

Scholarship granting organizations must use at least 95 percent of funds donated for scholarships. The money for other qualifying expenses would come from that 95 percent and would be capped at $800 per student.

Marsh introduced his bill on Thursday, the second day of the legislative session.

It was assigned to the Senate education budget committee.

Lawmakers return to resume the session on Tuesday.
marshall.JPG

Steve Marshall

(Rob Culpepper | for AL.com)

Longtime Marshall County District Attorney Steve Marshall has been appointed Alabama Attorney General by Gov. Robert Bentley.

Bentley made the announcement late Friday afternoon.

Official Media Release announcing Alabama's Attorney General: https://t.co/XuxEvNoyQw  Governor Robert Bentley (@GovRBentley) February 10, 2017

Marshall, 52, has served as district attorney in Marshall County since 2001.

Marshall will serve the remainder of Strange's term, which is up for re-election in 2018.

He is a past president of the Alabama District Attorney's Association and currently serves as commission chairman of the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center. He switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party in 2011.

Marshall replaces Luther Strange, whom Bentley appointed to the U.S. Senate on Thursday.

Steve Marshall, left, looks on as Gov. Robert Bentley formally appoints him as Alabama Attorney General on Friday. (Alabama Governor's Office photo)

"Steve is a well-respected District Attorney with impeccable credentials and strong conservative values," Bentley said in making the announcement. "I know he will be a great Attorney General who will uphold the laws of this state and serve the people of Alabama with fairness. Steve has been instrumental in key legislation to protect Alabamians when it comes to opioid abuse, and I know he will continue to uphold the law as he serves as the state's top law enforcement official."

Marshall was a quick selection to be named attorney general. Bentley said he interviewed seven candidates in addition to Marshall over the past two days. Those who interviewed: state school board member Mary Scott Hunter, Deputy Alabama Attorney General Alice Martin, Pickens, Lamar and Fayette counties District Attorney Chris McCool, former state Sen. Bryan Taylor, state Sen. Cam Ward, state Sen. Tom Whatley and state Sen. Phil Williams.

Those interviews came on the heels of Bentley accompanying Strange to Washington on Thursday to be sworn in as senator replacing Jeff Sessions, who was confirmed earlier this week as U.S. Attorney General.

Steve Marshall. (Alabama Attorney General's office photo)

Marshall was considered an early favorite for the job when Strange's appointment to the Senate began to leak on Wednesday night. Politico reported that Marshall was expected to get the job.

"It is a great honor to be named Attorney General, and I am thankful to Gov. Bentley for the opportunity to serve the people of Alabama," Marshall said in Bentley's announcement. "The time spent working alongside law enforcement for the last 20 years has been a remarkable privilege.

"As Attorney General, we will continue to support their efforts to keep Alabamians safe and free from violent crime."

Before becoming district attorney in Marshall County, he formed the law firm McLaughlin & Marshall. According to Bentley's announcement, Marshall also served as a district representative for Alabama and Georgia to the American Bar Association and was a member of the Alabama Young Lawyers Executive Committee.

While practicing in Marshall County, he served as a legal analyst for the Alabama House of Representatives for several legislative sessions. During that time he was the prosecutor for the Arab and Albertville municipal courts and served as municipal attorney for Arab.

Marshall received votes of confidence from AG finalists Bryan Taylor and Phil Williams.

"I wish Mr. Marshall great success and will do everything I can to help him carry out his responsibilities to uphold the Rule of Law, protect Alabama's citizens, and keep government accountable to the people we serve," Taylor, now an assistant attorney general and general counsel for the state finance department, said in a statement.

Williams said he had never met Marshall but wished him the best.

"He's taking on a wide, broad, encompassing job at a critical time," Williams said. "He has my support."

Barry Matson, executive director of the Alabama District Attorneys Association, said Marshall's appointment marks a good day for the "rule of law, justice and victims of crime in Alabama."

"Steve Marshall, as district attorney, was an incredible prosecutor who understands that a prosecutor'ss oath is to firmly seek justice, tempered with fairness and mercy for every citizen," Matson said.

"It's also important to know that Steve Marshall is a good man, perhaps one of the best men I have ever known."

Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, who interviewed for the job, said Marshall was a good choice.

"I think he'll do a great job," Ward said. "He's got a good record as a prosecutor in north Alabama. I look forward to working with him as chairman of the Judiciary Committee."

Darlene Hutchinson, a longtime crime victims' advocate who has worked with Marshall, applauded his appointment.

"Alabama is so fortunate to have a man of Steve Marshall's character and intellect serving as our state's Attorney General," Hutchinson said. "When a victim is first impacted by crime - whether it's a violent offense or a property crime - they often feel lost, confused, defeated, beaten down, and rarely do they know where to turn or what to do next. It is so critical to have champions in place - in public office - who are standing in the gap and administering to the needs of victims.

"Governor Bentley has made an exceptional appointment in selecting Steve Marshall as Alabama's top prosecutor."

I am excited to welcome my friend Steve Marshall to Montgomery as Alabama's 50th Attorney General! Steve is a man of character & integrity! pic.twitter.com/pa3ESza8RY  John Merrill (@JohnHMerrill) February 11, 2017

Marshall was born in Atmore in Escambia County near Mobile but his family moved throughout his childhood to several southern states.

He received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina, then graduated in the top 10 percent of his class from the University of Alabama School of Law.

After working for private law firms, including the one he founded in Guntersville, Marshall was appointed district attorney of Marshall County at the age of 36 -- making him the second-youngest DA in the state. He has been re-elected three times, each of those elections unopposed.

As district attorney, Marshall founded the Marshall County Major Crimes Unit and the Marshall County Computer Forensics Lab. He also created the Marshall County Crystal Meth Task Force, made up of community leaders to brainstorm and help combat crystal meth.

Beyond his legal career, Marshall worked as campaign chair for the United Way of Marshall County from 2009-14, helping to raise more than $4 million. He also started a mentoring program designed to involve successful adults in the lives of at-risk children.

He is an elder at Lifepoint Church in Albertville and part of a mission trip to India and last year participated in an extended Bible study trip, which included a visit to Israel.

He and his wife, Bridgette, live in Albertville. Their daughter, Faith, is attending Snead State Community College in Boaz and plans to attend Jacksonville State University in the fall.

AL.com reporters Mike Cason and Kent Faulk contributed to this report.




1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
Lizzetta McConnell, president of the Mobile County Branch of the NAACP, speaks on Friday, Feb. 10, 2017. McConnell says an apparent NAACP award plaque honoring then-Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2009 doesn't represent the official position of the organization. (Lawrence Specker/LSpecker@AL.com)

The president of the Mobile County branch of the NAACP has called a purported 2009 award to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions "bogus" and "made up" - but hasn't ruled out that it might have been given to him by an NAACP member acting independently.

Lizzetta McConnell, who took over as president of the branch in January, spoke on Friday afternoon in response to the emergence of the plaque on Wednesday, the same day the U.S. Senate confirmed Sessions as the country's attorney general. The plaque reportedly was found by an aide who was cleaning out Sessions' Mobile office. The inscription it reads: "NAACP Civic And Human Rights Convention / April 23rd-26th, 2009, Mobile / Alabama NAACP Governmental Award of Excellence / Senator Jeff Sessions / For The Outstanding Work You Do."

A formal statement issued by the state-level NAACP said that the "Alabama State Conference of the NAACP has learned of a plaque that is in Senator Sessions possession that indicated it was given to him by the NAACP for Governmental Award of Excellence in April 2009. President Benard Simelton, who has been President of the Alabama State Conference since October 2009 stated that he was not aware of this award being presented to the Senator or any of his staff. Simelton was present at the convention during the time this award would have been presented according to the date on the award."

McConnell said that in researching the dates in questions, NAACP members have found no evidence that an award to Sessions was part of the convention program. She said that a number of members who were present have been contacted, and none could recall such an award being presented.

McConnell did say, however, that the NAACP was a nonpartisan organization and might have had some members favorably inclined toward Sessions. "We do know, and it was confirmed, that there were some Republicans who were very active members of the NAACP then, that it could have possibly came from them. That being said ... different people give us sponsorships and give us moneys and stuff to support events like this. So we're thinking that that's a possibility, that maybe someone that was on the Republican end or whatever, was part of the planning committee or whatever, who knew and had access to how we order plaques and stuff like that could have possibly done it, but as far as the president, who was at that time on the state and the local level, have no knowledge of him or his staff every receiving the governmental excellence award."

If so, she said, that would mean the NAACP, as an organization, never gave Sessions the honor.

"We think it's made up," she said. "We think it's bogus." She went on to say it also was difficult to believe that Sessions could have forgotten about getting an award from a group that has regularly given him "F" ratings in its evaluations and vigorously opposed his nomination as attorney general, only for his staff to discover it at an opportune moment.

"Isn't it strange that out of all the things we did, and the huge campaign that we launched ... Isn't it strange that Senator Sessions never once brought that up to challenge, debate or refute what the NAACP was saying about him?" McConnell said. "No way."

In a separate statement , the state NAACP said it planned to act as a watchdog on Sessions going forward.

"The Attorney General has a significant responsibility to the people of the United States to ensure the laws are enforced fairly and that the Civil Rights and Voting Rights of all citizens are protected. Senator Sessions and his supporters have stated that he is not a racist, that he will be fair in his judgement and will not let the President influence his decision making," wrote Simelton. "The Alabama State Conference of the NAACP will hold him accountable for all these important decisions coming from the Department of Justice."

Sessions was sworn in as attorney general on Thursday. "We will defend the lawful orders of the president of the United States," Sessions said during his speech.
A Clio man was killed early Saturday morning in a rollover crash in Barbour County.

Reggie Govan, 30, was killed when the 2006 Mitsubishi Galant he was driving left the roadway, struck a driveway and overturned, according to Alabama state troopers.

Govan, who was not using a seat belt, was ejected from the vehicle. He died at the scene.

The crash occurred at around 12:43 a.m. on Barbour County 15, 10 miles south of Clio.

Troopers continue to investigate the cause of the crash.
American Village

Members of the community gather at the newly named Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore Liberty Hall at American Village on Monday, Feb. 15, 2010. Lt. Gen. Hal Moore holds his hand over his heart during the musical selection "America! Medley" performed by pianist Denise George. (The Birmingham News/ Michelle Williams)

(Michelle Williams)

Retired Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, of Auburn, who led the first major battle of the Vietnam War, died on Friday after suffering a stroke, the Opelika-Auburn News reported. He was 94.

Moore is considered a national hero for his actions at the Battle of Ia Drang, where he saved the lives of most of his men despite being heavily outnumbered by North Vietnamese forces. At the time, he was Lieutenant Colonel in command of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment.

Moore was portrayed by Mel Gibson in the film, "We Were Soldiers."

A few months ago Gibson, who had become friends with Moore, and Vince Vaughn traveled to Auburn to visit Moore, according to the newspaper.

Many of Moore's family members, including his five children, were in Auburn this weekend to celebrate what would have been his 95th birthday on Monday.

Funeral services have yet to be announced.
I was wrong.

Completely.

All this time I thought Governor Robert Bentley was just inept and bungling, that he took bad advice and doubled down on stupid primarily because he listened to the wrong people.

What do you do when you're caught on tape telling an aide you like to come up behind her and touch her breasts?

You look into the cameras and vow it was nothing physical.

But not for lack of trying.

And what do you do when you're staring down the barrel of impeachment and indictment because of your own lack of self control?

If you're Gov. Bentley you take a long hard look at yourself, examine your integrity and ethics and find - surprise, surprise - you have none.

You have nothing left to lose. So you don't care how it looks. You don't care about right or wrong. You do what you can to save your own lascivious hide.

You promote the attorney general, the guy who opened a special grand jury to determine whether you are indicted or not, to the job he always wanted: United States senator.

Wow. That's not bungling or inept. It's calculating and abusive to the people and the integrity of the state of Alabama.

With a stroke of his pen this week the accidental governor took the first step toward carving his legacy in stone as the worst, most ineffective chief executive in modern Alabama history. And that's saying something.

Nothing to lose but threadbare shreds of dignity. Now that's gone. Bentley goes down in history. And he takes now-Sen. Luther Strange - the Big Sellout - with him.

Strange's ambition overwhelmed his ethics. His desire to be senator was as consuming as Bentley's desire for Rebekah Mason. It took him and turned him and made him a senator, with a giant footnote that will follow him forever.

Luther Strange, no longer thinking about indicting the guy who made his dream come true. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Think about it. Imagine any prosecutor anywhere, in the smallest of towns or the biggest of nations, trying to decide whether a person should be charged with a crime. If they go to the target of that investigation in the middle of that investigation and ask for a job or a slice of pizza, they have crossed the line.

It's as simple as that.

Bentley and Strange are banking on the hope that Alabama will forgive and forget. That Alabamians wil look the other way like a habitually abused spouse.

There was one chance for Bentley to salvage his sad legacy. There was one way Strange could avoid being dragged into the undertow of perpetual doubt.

But Bentley blew it. Again.

The governor could have assured Alabamians the appointment of Strange had nothing to do with the investigation by appointing interim AG Alice Martin to continue in that role. Without conditions.

Steve Marshall, left, looks on as Gov. Robert Bentley formally appoints him as Alabama Attorney General on Friday. (Alabama Governor's Office photo)

She's over the corruption unit now and has a long history of professional prosecution. She and her team have shown anything, it's a willingness to prosecute criminals who have abused the trust of the people of Alabama. Even when it is politically hard. Even when confronted by resistance from the most powerful politicians in Alabama.

If he had appointed Martin, he had a chance at redemption.

But if he had appointed Martin, he had a chance of prison, too. So he saved himself. And lost himself too.

Bentley today appointed Marshall County DA Steve Marshall to replace Strange as AG. He'll get a chance to prove himself, but all Alabama can do is wait and see if Bentley applied conditions to that appointment, if he doubled down on reprehensible.

It'll be easy to spot. If Marshall stymies or - heaven forbid - disbands the corruption unit investigating the governor and others across Alabama, he'll go down in history with Bentley and Strange. He will hook his wagon to a dark star.

Alabama will be watching. Marshall can be a real prosecutor, or he can be a lackey. For a governor who stands only for himself. When he was elected to stand for Alabama.
Palestinian astrophysicist Suleiman Baraka wants to put Palestine on the map for research in the field.

Gaza City  Living in what has been called the worlds largest open-air prison did not deter astrophysicist Suleiman Baraka from turning his gaze to the cosmos.

Astronomy is the science of everything. When you study astronomy, you study yourself, because you are part of this cosmos, Baraka told Al Jazeera from inside his lab at Gazas Al-Aqsa University, a small room that he shares with two research students.





Papers and books are piled up next to several desktop computers arranged in a semicircle. A whiteboard is covered with scribbled formulas, while posters of celestial bodies hang on the walls and two telescopes sit in cardboard boxes nearby.

Although humble, the small Centre for Astronomy and Space Sciences aims to put Palestine on the map for research in the field.

Because we dont have advanced labs, our students use theory a lot, and they are very strong in it. I have a student who published a book, Baraka, 52, said proudly.

His own research, which won him a prestigious collaboration with French scientists, involves studying atypical events in the magnetosphere, the region within Earths magnetic field.

Currently the holder of the Palestinian astrophysics chair for UNESCO, Baraka in 2010 brought the first telescope into Gaza  a donation from the International Astronomical Union. Since then, Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank, has also equipped its department.

I cannot work to US standards while trapped like a prisoner in Gaza, said Baraka, who was banned from leaving the Gaza Strip to enter Israel and the occupied West Bank three decades ago. December 16, 1987, was the last time I crossed Erez.

The decade-long Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip has severely curtailed freedom of movement for the territorys two million citizens, who must obtain permits from Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian authorities in order to leave. Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have consequently missed out on study, business and work opportunities.

According to the Gisha Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement, restrictions on travel increased in 2016, despite being eased somewhat at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt in the last few months of the year.

Last time I went to the US to work for NASA, it took me seven months to leave and two months to come back, waiting for the border to open, Baraka said.

But the conflict with Israel has cost him much more than this: His 12-year-old son, Ibrahim, was killed in an Israeli air strike during the 2008-2009 war on Gaza. Baraka later began giving astronomy lessons to his sons classmates as he worked through the profound sense of loss.

I started teaching his classmates science and peace, not war and revenge, Baraka said.

Because you and me and everybody, you can easily die for an idea or a principle, but the hard thing is to have to live for a principle or a cause  so I decided to live for the Palestinian cause. And the best way of doing it is through science and education.

In our universities, we have no one from outside Gaza. We should be having exchange programmes with different universities, and bring in people with different perspectives. by Suleiman Baraka, astrophysicist

It was this sentiment that led Baraka to organise stargazing evenings, which are open to the public. Each week last summer, astronomy students, aficionados and curious members of the public gathered on the roof of Al-Aqsa University to gaze at the universe through a telescope. Some of Barakas students have also formed a group, the Gaza Ambassadors of Mars, that holds workshops for youth on modern and ancient astronomy.

As a young man during the first Intifada at the end of the 1980s, Baraka says that he never engaged in armed struggle, but instead taught children in underground classrooms after regular schools were shut down by the military.





We moved students to houses, mosques and churches. I was working in my fathers butcher shop from eight to two oclock. In the afternoon, I volunteered as a teacher, he recalled. I taught physics and mathematics, geography and history. We taught the history of Palestine, which was forbidden by the occupation forces. Some of my students are now doctors and engineers.

Several years later, as the second Intifada broke out, Baraka once again found his life steered by the events shaping Palestinian history. For two years, he worked as part of the former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafats diplomatic delegation, meeting foreign business representatives. But shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accords, he quit, disillusioned by the political process.

The conclusion I came up with is that rights have no meaning without power  I decided not to be part of the system, because I came to the conclusion that our leadership was not working to apply even what had been agreed upon, Baraka said.

There were some differences of opinion that destroyed the integrity of the collective work to make [things] better for the Palestinian people and cause. And I have only one life.

INTERACTIVE: 24 Hours in Gaza

According to Baraka, the siege on Gazas intellect, much like the siege on its borders, has multiple sources.

In our universities, we have no one from outside Gaza. We should be having exchange programmes with different universities, and bring in people with different perspectives, he said, noting that students from as far away as India have expressed interest in working in his research lab. They have been unable to travel to Gaza, however, as it can be accessed only by humanitarian workers, journalists and Palestinians via a maze of special permits issued by Israeli and local authorities.

Al-Aqsa University has also witnessed a drop in its student numbers this year, amid a dispute between authorities in Gaza and Ramallah over the universitys management.

Some 25 employees have had their salaries suspended, while at least 20 were arbitrarily suspended or transferred. The education ministry announced that students certificates from Al-Aqsa may not be accredited, leading to a sharp drop in the number of students enrolling, from an average of 3,000 to 4,000 to just 500 this year.

And while Israels last war on Gaza in 2014 took a massive toll on the territorys collective psyche, Baraka remains among those who still believe there are better days to come.

Physics is a probability. Its the richest of all sciences, around which all others unravel. It sets off our imagination so that our horizon is expanded, Baraka said. And when our horizon is expanded, our understanding is deeper. If our understanding is deeper, we are more peaceful and more wise.
Japanese Americans will be allies of Muslims. We know civil rights can be overridden in a climate of fearmongering.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, my grandmother, Aiko Nishi, was an eager 18-year-old sophomore at San Francisco State University who dreamed of becoming a teacher.

She was a Nisei, a second-generation Japanese American born in the US to Japanese immigrant parents.

Two states away in Washington, my grandfather, Matao Uwate, was enrolled in college classes after his graduation from Everett High School. He was a Nisei-Kibei  an American-born Nisei who spent most of his childhood years in Japan.

He had returned to the US a few years earlier after being raised by his grandmother in a quiet Japanese fishing village.

The day after Pearl Harbor, the US declared war on Japan and my grandparents families became the subject of extreme anti-Japanese hostility. Unable to continue her education, my grandmother returned home to Florin, California, where her familys strawberry basket factory was burned to the ground by arsonists.

Military officials questioned my grandmothers parents and searched their home for any evidence of Japanese loyalty, confiscating Japanese cultural objects and destroying their radios shortwave capabilities.

In Washington, my grandfather stopped leaving the house alone because he feared physical assault.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. Citing national security interests, the law broadly authorised the Secretary of War to prescribe military areas and to determine the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave those areas.

Within a few short months, the military designated the entire West Coast a military area and forced the relocation and mass incarceration of approximately 120,000 residents of Japanese descent. My grandmother, her parents and her six siblings sold nearly all of their belongings at big discounts, and each packed the two small suitcases they were allowed for relocation.

Meanwhile, my grandfather painted banners to protest against the forced evacuation and loss of his constitutional rights. As anti-Japanese animosity increased, fear seized the Japanese American community. Many feared forced labour and mass execution while incarcerated.

The military first evacuated my grandmothers family to a temporary relocation centre in Turlock, California, and then to an internment camp on the Gila River Indian Reservation in Arizona. There, her family inhabited hastily constructed barracks with tar paper walls that offered little protection from the extreme elements.

READ MORE: Muslim ban  Japanese and Muslim Americans join forces

Already considered suspect owing to his childhood in Japan and protest activities, my grandfather was incarcerated in the Tule Lake Segregation Center in Northern California. Tule Lake  the largest and most controversial internment camp, heavily patrolled by more than a thousand soldiers and surrounded by a barbed-wire fence and guard towers  housed Japanese deemed disloyal for resisting incarceration.

Conditions in both internment camps were deplorable. They were severely lacking in basic amenities such as health and sanitation services.

At Tule Lake, guards subjected internees to tear gas and other forms of abuse, such as placing internees in stockades. In a later federal court case, a Ninth Circuit judge wrote that Tule Lake internees experienced unnecessarily cruel and inhuman treatment and characterised the camp conditions as  as degrading as those of a penitentiary and in important respects worse than in any federal penitentiary.

By the end of World War II in 1945, Congress had considered measures for repatriating Japanese immigrants and successfully implemented a plan to strip some American-born Nisei of their citizenship via a confusing loyalty questionnaire.

Fearing for their personal safety outside Tule Lake, my grandfathers parents repatriated to Japan but subsequently faced a decade-long travel ban that prevented their return. Despite their prior legal residence in the US, zero evidence of any disloyal activity during the war, and formal petitions made by their American citizen children, they were unable to return until 1955. My grandmothers family returned to Florin, California amid a local petition to prohibit Japanese, where her father attempted to rebuild their lives by picking grapes.

The Japanese-American internment now flickers at the edges of Americas political consciousness.

READ MORE: Six other times the US has banned immigrants

The climate of anti-Muslim, anti-Arab fear and hostility that has pervaded the US since September 11, 2001 resembles anti-Japanese sentiment following Pearl Harbor. Both then and now, wartime hysteria has led to the racialisation of conflict based on generalised claims that entire groups defined by national origin, ethnicity, or religion pose a threat to national security.

The racialisation of conflict has led to the perception of cherished cultural objects and traditions as suspicious, precipitated hate crimes, and enabled the erosion of civil liberties  by undermining the rights of legal residents already subject to rigorous vetting procedures, employing racial profiling for security searches and screening, and imposing travel bans.

Also troubling is the invocation of concerns for national security and incitement of fear to advance or protect economic interests. Mass incarceration effectively dismantled the agricultural hegemony established by Japanese-American farmers on the West Coast, disrupted the education and employment trajectories of an entire generation, and led to long-term adverse effects on human capital formation, industry participation, and family economic stability.

Today, economic anxieties among large portions of the American electorate fuel general anti-immigration sentiments, creating a fertile environment for acceptance of the Trump administrations recent executive actions. Those actions are likely to have negative economic consequences for some Arab and Muslim families.

More than 70 years later, the spectre of internment continues to haunt Japanese Americans descended from Nisei.

In the coming days and years, we will serve as advocates and vocal allies of Arab and Muslim communities in America as they face increased scrutiny, extreme vetting, travel bans, and potential registration requirements. We know all too well how quickly constitutional rights and civil liberties can be overridden in a climate of fearmongering, and that eternal vigilance is the price of our own fragile liberty.
It has been more than a year since international sanctions against Iran were lifted, symbolically reopening the country to the rest of the world.

While political tensions between the West and Tehran continue, one of the industries that has benefited most from the thawing of relations is tourism, with the country reporting 18 percent growth in international arrivals last year. Visitors from North America, Europe and the Middle East represented more than a quarter of the total number of arrivals from January to December 2016, according to a ForwardKeys study published in January.

Among the top destinations in Iran is Persepolis, the 2,500-year-old heritage site, once considered to be the capital of the Persian empire. Located north of the city of Shiraz, Persepolis, also known as Takht-e-Jamshid (Throne of Jamshid), has been in ruins since Alexander the Great raided it in 333 BC.

What is left of the ancient city has become an attraction for local and foreign visitors alike, particularly after it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979. At the Gate of Xerxes, two massive winged bulls with human heads, also known as Lamassu, stand at the eastern doorway.

In recent years, however, agricultural activities have caused the soil around Persepolis to collapse owing to the depletion of groundwater and drought. Growth of algae and bacteria in the ruins have also threatened the many archaeological objects at the site, which was carved on the side of the Rahmet Mountain.

But with the reopening of the country, experts from Japan and Italy are lending their hands to preserve the site for the many visitors expected in the years to come.
Erta Ale, Ethiopia  The words from the young and energetic guide hurrying toward the Erta Ale volcano in north-eastern Ethiopia were not particularly reassuring. Tourists will die here someday. Im sure of it, he said, albeit in a light manner.

Darkness slowly set over the barren landscape, but temperatures still hovered at around 35 degrees Celsius.

The guides gloomy premonition was also a reminder of a very grim past. In 2012 a group of tourists were ambushed by gunmen on the edge of this crater. Five European tourists were killed and four others abducted.

The Afar Revolutionary Democratic Front, a separatist group, claimed responsibility for the attack. The incident led to a period of fighting between Ethiopian and Eritrean forces as Ethiopia accused the Eritrean government of supporting, harbouring and training the attackers.

Since then security has been buffed up, with government-appointed soldiers routinely monitoring the inhospitable desert terrain for potential ambushers and bandits. All tourist groups are now accompanied by an armed guard and an armed policeman. Indeed, as unrest spread and a state of emergency was imposed in Ethiopia in the last half of 2016 as a result of widespread protests, Erta Ale and the Danakil Depression were among the safest places to travel in the country.

With the dangers of a violence at bay, the tourist guide focused his commentary on the more actual dangers of the fiercely active and constantly erupting volcano, which holds one of only six lava lakes in the world.
Alexandre Bissonnette was not charged with terrorism although his attack in Quebec has all the elements of a terror act.

Within 24 hours of the Quebec City mosque attack killing six and wounding nineteen, the 27-year-old suspect, Alexandre Bissonnette, stood in court charged with murder and attempted murder.

PM Justin Trudeau and others called it terrorism. But why is there no mention of terrorism or hate in the criminal charges?

The Criminal Code defines terrorism as an act committed, entirely or in part, for political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause that has the intention of intimidating the public, or a segment of the public with regard to its security.

In this case, there are plenty of reports documenting the 27-year-old Laval University students journey from a moderate conservative to someone with far-right sympathies and connections. And there is no doubt that Bissonnettes victims, Muslims, were terrorised.

There is still a possibility that charges of terrorism may follow because prosecutors are still reviewing evidence. Ultimately, its their call.

Onerous to prove





Prosecutors have told the media that they have charged Bissonnette with the offences for which they have evidence to convict. Terrorism is more onerous to prove than regular crimes, in part because critical parts of the charges rely on motive and other factors.

If the crown believes that the evidence against a suspect is solid, then adding terrorism charges may unnecessarily complicate the case from a strictly legal perspective. Understandably, establishing intent to kill is much easier than proving the motivation behind the action.

But, assuming the evidence exists, prosecutors will undoubtedly introduce the hate angle during the sentencing stage to seek an enhancement of the ultimate sentence, if he is found guilty.

Yet, many are cautioning against charging him with terrorism. In fact, some even contend that there is no real purpose to pursuing such charges beyond the symbolism because it would have little, if any, impact on the sentence.

I agree. Moreover, being a critic of the anti-terror regime, I also believe the law should be scrapped. That said, until and unless that happens, Bissonnette should be charged with terrorism.

As long as we have the law in place, to paraphrase PM Trudeau with a twist, a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist. The degree of caution argued above is rarely exercised when suspects are Muslims. In such instances, the terrorism label is used with relative ease, without regard to the devastating impact on both the community and individual members.

Terror vs murder

As Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Faisal Bhabha told CBC, its impossible to ignore the social and political context in which such decisions are made. He further contends that men of colour, and Muslim men, in particular, are more likely to face terror charges than white male mass shooters 

Bissonnette must be charged with terrorism for the sake of public perception and to challenge the falsehood that only Muslims commit terrorism. by

Indeed, the selective use is evident from even a cursory review of a handful of recent cases. A simple Google search will also reveal that numerous Muslim men were charged with terrorism offences, sometimes with tenuous or imagined connections to terror. Meanwhile, non-Muslims get a pass.

Lets go back to 2013. Despite evidence disclosing an elaborate plan to send a political message by killing staff and blowing up the Veterans Affairs building in Calgary, discharged ex-military intelligence operative Glen Gieschen was not charged with terrorism.

The Calgary Herald reported that he had building plans and specifications on his mobile and laptop. The paper also reported that he had surveillance videos and photographs  and a detailed attack plan including equipment and armaments to be used, military assault apparel  and strategies to complete the attack 

Yet, ill-conceived and even amateurish initiatives by Muslims get much greater attention and the label terrorism.

In 2014, crimes committed by Martin Couture-Rouleau (who rammed his car into two soldiers, killing one) and Michael Zehaf-Bibeau (who shot and killed a soldier) are not presented just as the crimes of two individuals. Despite being assessed with chronic psychological problems, as converts to Islam their crimes were attributable to their religious worldview and were labelled terrorist acts.

At the same time, Justin Bourque, who shot five RCMP officers and killed three, has been merely called a murderer. The fact that Bourque grew up in a religious fanatic environment and believed that he was a soldier of Jesus Christ was never used to link him to a broader community or to frame his violence as terrorism. Bourque even told police he was rebelling against the oppressive government. Bourques psychiatric assessment concluded that he was fit to stand trial, and he was convicted and sentenced.

Challenging public perceptions

In 2015, an alleged plot to cause mass casualty at the Halifax Shopping Centre on Valentines Day was foiled by police who found three long-barreled rifles and suspect James Gamble dead of self-inflicted wounds. Two other suspects, Randall Shepherd and Lindsay Souvannarath, were arrested. Shepherd pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, while Souvannarath will stand trial in May 2017.

Nova Scotia RCMP Commanding Officer, Brian Brennan, told reporters the suspects were a group of individuals that had some beliefs and were willing to carry out violent acts against citizens.

OPINION: Why the Quebec mosque shooting happened

Justice Minister Peter MacKay said that this was a group of murderous misfits that were  prepared to wreak havoc and mayhem on our community. He added that the attack does not appear to have been culturally motivated, therefore not linked to terrorism.

Racist and Nazi political beliefs are apparently not serious enough. In fact, mainstream media outlets only noted these in passing. Independent media even dug up that at least one of the alleged plotters had a long-time infatuation with fascist and white supremacist ideas.

It appears that white supremacist terrorism tastes less bitter than Islamic terrorism.

Muslims bear the brunt of the anti-terror legislation and the stigma associated with it. Bissonnette must be charged with terrorism for the sake of public perception and to challenge the falsehood that only Muslims commit terrorism. Otherwise, terrorism will only be a dysphemism restricted to refer to crimes committed by others.

Faisal Kutty is an Associate Professor at Valparaiso University Law School in Indiana, an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University and serves as counsel to KSM Law.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
These communists, I dont like [them]  they are spoiled brats. Youd think they were in government, the way they make demands, exclaimed the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte shortly before effectively ending high-stakes peace negotiations between the government and communist rebels.

The tough-talking president then proceeded to categorise the New Peoples Army, the armed wing of the communist movement, as a terrorist group. Both sides withdrew from a tenuous ceasefire agreement, raising the spectre of renewed armed conflict across Philippine peripheries, where the communist movement is still alive and kicking.

Philippines Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana declared an all-out war against the group, with one general warning that his men will hit them in all sides of their bases. The rebels, not short of braggadocio, simply told their counterparts to bring it on, nonchalantly boasting that the governments all-out-war order is nothing new to us.

And just like that, months of intense anticipation and unprecedented optimism over the prospect of lasting peace were reduced to ashes.

One of Dutertes key election promises was to bring back law and order to the impoverished and conflict-ridden nation. That vow now hangs in the balance as antagonists lurch back to the all-too-familiar battlefield.

Genesis of conflict





The Philippines is notorious for having one of the highest rates of inequality, poverty and land tenancy in the world.

Abusive landlords, greedy middlemen and opportunistic politicians routinely victimise millions of ordinary farmers, who are yet to benefit from any genuine land reform programme.

The upshot of this oppressive dynamic is widespread grievance in the rural Philippines. And it is precisely this ecosystem of collective human suffering that has fuelled insurgencies, most tinged with communist ideology based on principles of social justice and wealth redistribution.

After reaching their peak in the early 1980s, particularly during the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, the communist movement has gradually lost its ideological momentum, support base, and military muscle in recent years.

Today, larger insurgent groups eclipse it, particularly the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has been facing stalled negotiations with the government since 2015.

Yet Duterte, who, as a mayor, was legendary for brokering peace among warring factions in his home city of Davao, was eager to bring lasting peace between the government and the communist rebels.

As a self-described socialist with a long history of relatively cordial ties with communist rebels, Duterte was seen by many as the Philippines best hope to end a decades-long insurgency.

Breaking with tradition

The Philippines leader even offered four presidential cabinet positions, namely the departments of labour, social welfare, agrarian reform, and the antipoverty commission, to figures associated with the communist movement.

This stands in clear contrast to almost all other Filipino presidents, who were staunch cold warriors that didnt shun military campaigns against and/or brutal crackdown on the leftist group.

In fact, Duterte was the student, a particularly attentive one, of Jose Maria Sison, the founder and chief ideologue of the Communist Party of the Philippines. Over the years, the two maintained friendly relations.

It is likely that the Filipino leader is just trying to draw the line in the sand, cautioning the other party from exploiting the peace negotiations for short-term tactical gains. by

Until recently, there were even hopes of a reunion between the pupil and teacher, a political exile based in the Netherlands, back in the Philippines. This would have required the Duterte administration to go the extra mile, seeking Washington to remove the communist movement founder from its terrorist list.

Meanwhile, two rounds of high-stakes negotiations were held, one in Oslo and the other in Rome, raising hopes of a swift, mutually acceptable deal that would put an end to Asias longest communist insurgency.

Once more, I am grateful to President Duterte for his acts of goodwill to move forward the peace negotiations, shared a gleeful Sison, showing utmost gratitude to his former student, now the Philippines most powerful man.

Chimera of peace

Amid the euphoria of a potential breakthrough in peace negotiations, some observers quipped half-jokingly that Duterte could soon become a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize.

After all, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who ended a similar communist insurgency after years of sincere and trust-based negotiations, won the prestigious award last year. Two factors, however, undermined the whole gambit.

First and foremost, Duterte was enraged by how the rebels constantly demanded concessions before the conclusion of a framework agreement and implementation of confidence-building measures.

After the government released top communist leaders, they faced another series of demands, which rankled the military and those who fought a bitter war with communists for decades. In response, Duterte explicitly warned them not to be too pushy  to no avail.

The bigger concern, however, was the ability of the communist leadership to exercise full control over their rank and file.

The situation reached a tipping point after a series of attacks by local communist groups against luxury resorts (Pico de Loro Resort in Batangas) and Filipino soldiers (in Davao del Sur) amid ceasefire and seemingly successful peace negotiations.

INTERACTIVE: Philippines  Whos liable for the mounting death toll?

In response, Duterte began to wonder if there was any point to negotiating if the other party wasnt in full control of its own ranks.

It is likely that the Filipino leader is just trying to draw the line in the sand, cautioning the other party from exploiting the peace negotiations for short-term tactical gains.

Many still fervently hope that the peace talks will resume in the near future. After all, there is no alternative to peace.

Following decades of bloody conflict, peace has become an evermore-precious commodity, yet seemingly still a mirage, in the Philippines.

Richard Javad Heydarian is a specialist in Asian geopolitical/economic affairs and author of Asias New Battlefield: The USA, China, and the Struggle for the Western Pacific.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Espirito Santos police union had agreed to end walkout before refusing to return to work as unrest claims more lives.

The police force in Brazils southeastern state of Espirito Santo has rejected a return-to-work agreement aimed at ending a strike that has paralysed several cities and led to an outburst of crime and violence in which more than 130 people have reportedly died over the last week.

The state government announced on Friday that the police officers union had agreed to end the walkout, which is over wages and work conditions, and said it would drop charges against officers indicted for allegedly participating in the strike, which is illegal for Brazils so-called Military Police to carry out.

But Gustavo Tenorio, a spokesman for the Espirito Santo Public Safety Department, told the Associated Press news agency on Saturday that the agreement was rejected by those manning the barricades and that the military police officers have refused to go back to work.

That left the state reliant on federal troops, including both members of the military and the national guard, who have been patrolling the streets of several cities since early this week.

Drop in homicides

Raul Jungmann, Brazils defence minister, who visited Espirito Santo on Saturday said that life was beginning to return to normal now that more than 3,000 federal troops are patrolling the streets.

Jungmann said that, since the troops arrived, looting and break-ins have stopped. He also said there had been a reduction in homicides.

The state has seen an extraordinary wave of violence in the last week, and the union representing civil police officers says 137 people have been killed since military police stopped patrolling.

The state government has not released a death toll.

Helen Diass, a local, told Al Jazeera she was attempting to leave Espirito Santo because it has become much too dangerous.

For sure, if you run away, you will be assaulted. If you walk or run, you will be assaulted, I have no doubt. My father is coming for me. Im leaving. I will not stay here.

Amid the insecurity, most state services ground to a halt over the past week.

Significant reduction

Bruno Farias, a local retailer, told Al Jazeera on Friday: There has been a significant reduction in customers and we have also seen difficulties with leaving areas, there is a lack of buses, a lack of security in leaving and getting home. Business is complicated.

Bus service partially resumed in the state capital of Vitoria on Saturday, and hospitals were open, according to Tenorio. But smaller health centres remained closed.

On Monday, this was a ghost town, Jungmann said.

Today, we see a city that is getting back to normal: People are on the beach, people are in the streets, people are moving about.

Because the military police, who patrol Brazilian cities, are forbidden to strike, relatives of the officers took the lead and blocked access to their barracks to demand higher pay.

The government, which is experiencing an economic and fiscal crisis like many Brazilian states, has continued to reject that demand, though it said on Friday it would analyse the system of promotions.

The strike in Espirito Santo inspired a handful of much smaller family protests in neighbouring Rio de Janeiro state on Friday and Saturday.

However, in Rio, family members did not block barracks, instead, demonstrating peacefully outside them.

The military police there took to Twitter to repeatedly reassure the population that they were on patrol.
At least seven people killed in an attack outside a bank in Lashkar Gah as Afghan soldiers arrived to collect their pay.

At least seven people have been killed and dozens more wounded in a suicide bombing in the capital city of Afghanistans Helmand province, according to officials.

The bomber detonated an explosives-packed car next to an Afghan army vehicle as soldiers arrived at a bank in Lashkar Gah to collect their pay, Omar Zwak, spokesman for the Helmand governor, told Reuters news agency.

Among the dead were four civilians and three soldiers, Zwak said.

The Taliban later claimed responsibility for the attack, which also wounded 16 civilians and four soldiers.

Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said on Twitter that 39 soldiers and officers had been killed and wounded in the martyrdom attack.

Different sources cited conflicting death tolls.

A suicide car bomber killed six people, including five soldiers, and 21 others were wounded, Agha Noor Kentoz, Helmand police chief, told AFP news agency.

READ MORE: US air raids hit Afghan Taliban after tunnel attack

Hundreds of international troops are stationed in Helmand as part of a NATO-led effort to train and support Afghan security forces.

At least one US special forces soldier was wounded in fighting there this week.

To the north of Lashkar Gah, a local official said that an American military air strike killed a number of civilians in a recent bombing in Sangin district.

The allegation has not been independently verified.

Captain Bill Salvin, a US military spokesman, said US fighter jets had conducted strikes in Sangin in the past few weeks.

While US forces had no evidence that civilians were killed in these strikes, Salvin said the command would investigate the claims.

We take every precaution to prevent and mitigate civilian casualties and we take every allegation seriously.
Sam Rainsys decision comes after long-serving prime minister proposes political party law seen as targeting opposition.

Cambodian self-exiled opposition chief has resigned from the party leadership in apparent response to plans by the countrys long-serving prime minister for a law that could lead to the partys dissolution.

Sam Rainsy, 67, announced his decision on Saturday in a letter to senior members of his Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) that was published on social media, saying he was standing aside for the sake of the party.

In all circumstances, I cherish and uphold the CNRPs ideals in my heart, wrote Rainsy who has led the party since its creation in 2012.

He has not visited Cambodia since 2015, when he fled to France to avoid a two-year jail term for defamation, which his supporters say was politically motivated.

Defamation lawsuit

In December, a Phnom Penh court handed him a five-year prison sentence over a post on his Facebook page  a conviction that made any imminent return from exile even more unlikely.

Hun Sen, Cambodias prime minister, also lodged a one-million-dollar defamation lawsuit against Rainsy last month and threatened to seize the CNRPs headquarters if he wins the case.

Rainsys resignation came shortly after Hun Sen proposed amending political party laws to bar convicts from leadership positions.

READ MORE: Cambodian court orders arrest of opposition leader

The sudden resignation casts doubt over a party that poses the only viable challenge to Hun Sens 32-year rule in a general poll scheduled for 2018.

Kem Sokha, Rainsys deputy, who has been serving as acting leader, is expected to guide the party as it prepares for local commune elections in June.

Although nominally a democracy, Cambodia has been ruled for more than three decades by Hun Sen, who has amassed extensive control over the government, armed forces and economy.





Ever since he nearly lost his office to the CNRP in 2013, rights groups say Hun Sen has been bent on dismantling the opposition, using pliant courts to target his rivals and other critics.

Hun Sen claims to have brought much-needed peace and stability to an impoverished nation ravaged by decades of civil war and the Khmer Rouge government.

But opposition groups have drawn growing support in recent years amid disillusionment with the endemic corruption and rights abuses that have flourished under his watch.
Supporters of powerful leader Muqtada al-Sadr are demanding that the electoral commission be reformed.

Iraqi security forces fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at thousands of supporters of an influential Shia leader demonstrating near Baghdads Green Zone to press for electoral reform.

Four protesters and one police officer were killed during Saturdays protests, Baghdads governor told Al Jazeera.

Police and hospital officials said hundreds of protesers and seven other policemen were also injured in clashes.

The Associated Press news agency quoted hospital officials as saying that the officer died of a bullet wound.

Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia leader, accused the elections commission of being corrupt and called for the commissions members to be changed, according to a statement from his office.

Rising to his call to protest, demonstrators had gathered near the Green Zone  a cluster of embassies and government buildings  to demand an overhaul of the commission that supervises elections before a provincial vote due in September.

Riot police fired tear gas when the crowd tried to move towards the zone, which also houses international organisations and the homes of prominent politicians.

Shots rang out in central Baghdad as security forces used live fire and tear gas to disperse the crowds.

We will not give in to threats, said the head of the electoral commission, Serbat Mustafa, in an interview with a local Iraqi television channel Saturday afternoon.

Mustafa said he would not offer his resignation and accused Sadr of using the commission as a political scapegoat.

Sadr has been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and last year protests that included many of his followers breached the highly fortified Green Zone twice.

An Associated Press news agency team at the scene witnessed ambulances rushing away protesters suffering from breathing difficulties.

The protest organisers said about two dozen demonstrators had choked on the gas.

Live TV footage showed young men running away as white smoke filled Tahrir Square in downtown Baghdad.

Sadrs supporters stormed the Green Zone last year after violent clashes with security forces.

Sadr suspects that members of the electoral commission are loyal to his Shia rival, Nouri al-Maliki, former prime minister, one of the closest allies of Iran in Iraq.

Prime Minister Abadi called on the demonstrators to remain peaceful and to abide by the law.
More than 100,000 Indonesians have gathered for mass prayers at Jakartas national mosque, where religious leaders urged them to back a Muslim candidate in a vote next week to select the capitals governor.

Organisers decided to hold Saturdays gathering at Istiqlal Mosque after police banned a planned street rally by those opposing incumbent Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, who is accused of insulting the Quran.





An ethnic Chinese Christian popularly known as Ahok, the governor is on trial for alleged blasphemy but remains a leading candidate in Wednesdays elections.

Ahok will come up against two Muslim contenders: Agus Harimurtri Yudhoyono and Anies Baswedan, in a contest analysts say has shaped as a proxy fight before a presidential election in 2019.

On February 15, we are happy to vote for a Muslim leader, one speaker, Maulana Kamal Yusuf, told the crowd.

Jakarta will be led by a Muslim leader who submits to the will of Allah, he added, urging voters to choose Yudhoyono or Baswedan.

Jakarta will be a religious city.

By 06:00 GMT on Saturday, police officials estimated that more than 100,000 demonstrators had attended the gathering, with people overflowing from the mosque in the heart of Jakarta into the surrounding streets.

Al Jazeeras Step Vaessen, reporting from the demonstration, said people were streaming into the capital from across the country.

The other two Muslim candidates were also seen at the mass prayer, despite a police warning that this  should be non-political  but people are carrying a lot of political slogans here at the rally, she said.

This election is not about Jakarta; it has become a national topic. Its about religion and it says a lot [about] Indonesias  future.

Jakartas governor is accused of saying his opponents had used a verse from the Quran to deceive voters and prevent him from winning another term during a meeting with residents in the city.

Protests against him drew hundreds of thousands to Jakartas streets in November and December and shook the government of President Joko Jokowi Widodo.

If none of the contenders gets more than 50 percent of votes, a run-off election between the top-polling candidates would be held in April.

Indonesia is the worlds most populous Muslim nation, but recognises several faiths, and has a large Christian minority.
Objection by US ambassador Nikki Haley follows UN chiefs naming of Salam Fayyad as head of political mission in Libya.

The United States has objected to the appointment of a former Palestinian prime minister to lead the UN political mission in Libya, saying it was doing so to support its ally Israel.

Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, said on Friday that her government was disappointed to learn that Antonio Guterres, UN secretary-general, planned to appoint Salam Fayyad as the special representative.

Fayyad served as the Palestinian Authoritys prime minister from 2007-2013.

Appointments of the UN special representatives of the secretary-general require the unanimous backing of the 15-member council.

It was unclear whether the objection had ended Fayyads candidacy.

The US wields significant influence as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

For too long, the UN has been unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel, Haley said. Going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies.

Guterres later on Saturday defended his choice, saying it was solely based on Mr Fayyads recognised personal qualities and his competence for that position.

United Nations staff serve strictly in their personal capacity. They do not represent any government or country, he said.

READ MORE: Israels settlement law  Consolidating apartheid

Al Jazeeras Rosiland Jordan, reporting from New York, said the very strong statement by the US ambassador had surprised many.

Fayyad is universally liked by many diplomats here at the UN, so there was a real sense that the letter coming from Guterres was nothing more than a formality and that his appointment would be announced as early as next week.

Palestine is a non-member observer state at the UN and its independence has been recognised by 137 of the 193 UN member nations.

Haley, though, said the US does not recognise a Palestinian state or support the signal Fayyads appointment would send.

Speaking from Ramallah, Hanan Ashrawi, senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), dismissed Haleys statement as absolutely ridiculous, adding there is no logic that can explain the US position on Fayyad.

This is discrimination against the Palestinian people as a whole, she told Al Jazeera. This is the rejection, beyond logic, of the most qualified person with the highest standard of profession and integrity.

It sets a precedent of excluding Palestinians from participation in the international arena, and depriving the international community from the skills and abilities, on the basis of national identity.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Ali Abunimah, cofounder of the Palestine-focused Electronic Intifada website, called the US move bizarre.

It is ironic because Fayyad was elevated by the Bush administration to the Palestinian Authority, he said.

Abunimah said Fayyads planned appointment to the post had nothing to do with Palestine, the Palestinian Authority or Israel.

Difficult discussions

UN diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press news agency that Fayyad was well-respected for his work in reforming the Palestinian Authority and revitalising the Palestinian economy.

Officials said Fayyad had the support of all 14 other Security Council members to succeed Martin Kobler, a German career diplomat who has served as the UNs Libya envoy since late 2015.





The US protest came days before a planned meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump at the White House on February 15.

This is the beginning of a new era at the UN, an era where the US stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish State, Israels UN Ambassador Danny Danon said of the US decision.

Trump, though, indicated in comments to an Israeli newspaper on Friday that there may still be difficult discussions with Netanyahu next week on Israels settlement expansion.

The US president was quoted as saying that the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements did not help peace prospects.

Israels settlements in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, have been declared illegal by the UN, and have been a stumbling block in talks.
Anger over rape of 22-year-old black youth worker boils over as more than 2,000 gather outside courthouse in Bobigny.

A peaceful rally in a Paris suburb has descended into violence amid anger over the case of a black youth worker who was allegedly raped with a police baton.

Police on Saturday fired tear gas at protesters who threw projectiles at officers and set cars and rubbish bins alight.

More than 2,000 people gathered peacefully in the northern suburb of Bobigny outside the courthouse calling for justice for the 22-year-old victim, who has been identified only as Theo.

Later, however, some in the crowd hurled crude projectiles at riot police.

Al Jazeeras David Chater, reporting from Bobigny, said: The whole area where the demonstration started is now soaking in tear gas.

He said the protesters were taking out their anger and frustration over what they see as a burning sense of injustice out on the streets.

A police statement said: Several vehicles, including a media truck, were set on fire and police officers had to intervene to rescue a young child trapped in a burning vehicle.

Fury over incident

On February 20, the Bobigny court will decide whether the accused policemen  who all deny the accusations against them  will face trial.

Instead of being a peaceful demonstration trying to get justice outside the courthouse where we will hear what will happen to those police officers, our correspondent said, this has turned into a series of running fights, in what Im hearing will continue into the night.

Saturdays riots came more than a week after one of the accused policeman was placed under formal investigation for suspected rape and three others for unnecessary violence during Theos arrest in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a northern suburb of Paris.

READ MORE: Paris police say rape of black man an accident

Fury over the incident has culminated in days of peaceful protests and riots.

On Friday, AFP news agency cited a police source as saying that having taken into account CCTV recordings and witness accounts, there are insufficient elements to show that this was a rape.

A video of the scene shows a policeman applying a truncheon blow horizontally across the buttocks with a truncheon and Theos trousers slipped down on their own, the source said.





A lawyer for the officer charged with rape said that any injury inflicted was done accidentally.

Video that apparently showed Theos arrest circulated on the internet, showing the youth worker on the ground against a wall being beaten by four men.

Theo, whose family say he was not known to police, required surgery for severe anal injuries after he was assaulted with a truncheon, and also suffered head trauma.

Yasser Louati, a French human rights and civil liberties activist, told Al Jazeera: Police brutality is not a random and isolated event, but is more accurately a structural problem that [the government] has so far refused to address  nobody wants to see what is happening at the systemic level.

READ MORE: Justice for Theo  Protests erupt after police rape

The solution, he said, does not lie in cosmetic changes  it is in addressing [the question] why do these events keep happening? Unless you address the why, these events will keep happening.

My fear is that whats happening in Aulnay-sous-Bois might result in more riots, giving credit to Marine Le Pen or right-wing candidates.

Theos suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois was one of the worst-hit areas during 2005 riots around Paris, which were prompted by the deaths of two teenagers  Zyed Benna, 17, and Bouna Traore, 15  who were electrocuted after running away from police.

That incident touched off three weeks of violence in which 10,000 cars and 300 buildings were set on fire, spurring Nicolas Sarkozy, then interior minister, to declare a state of emergency.
At least seven killed during demonstration by Muqtada al-Sadr loyalists demanding overhaul of Iraqs electoral system.

At least five protesters and two policemen have been killed in the Iraqi capital during a rally by thousands calling for an overhaul of the electoral system, according to police.

Iraqi security forces fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at thousands of supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr, an influential Shia leader, who were demonstrating on Saturday near Baghdads Green Zone to press for electoral changes.

At least 320 protesters and seven police officers were wounded as violence gripped the rally.

The Associated Press news agency, quoting hospital officials, said the officer died of a bullet wound.

There were seven dead as a result of the violence. Two of them are from the security forces and the other five are protesters, a police colonel told AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.

He put the number of people hurt in the chaos at more than 200.

Sadrs demands

Sadr has accused the elections commission of being corrupt and called for the commissions members to be changed, according to a statement from his office.

Rising to his call to protest, demonstrators gathered near the Green Zone  a cluster of embassies and government buildings  to demand an overhaul of the commission that supervises elections before a provincial vote due in September.

Riot police fired tear gas when the crowd tried to move towards the zone, which also houses international organisations and the homes of prominent politicians.

Shots rang out in central Baghdad, as security forces used live fire and tear gas to disperse the crowds.

We will not give in to threats, said Serbat Mustafa, the head of the electoral commission, in an interview with a local Iraqi television channel on Saturday afternoon.

Mustafa said he would not offer his resignation and accused Sadr of using the commission as a political scapegoat.

Haider al-Abadi, Iraqs prime minister, called on the demonstrators to remain peaceful and to abide by the law.

The Najaf-based Sadr, however, gave a green light to an escalation of the protests, telling his supporters: If you want to approach the gates of the Green Zone to affirm your demands and make them heard to those on the other side of the fence  you can.

Sadr has been a fierce critic of Abadi, and, last year, protests that included many of his followers breached the Green Zone twice.

Eventually, he called for restraint on Saturday but warned Abadi not to turn a deaf ear.

I urge him to deliver those reforms immediately, listen to the voice of the people and remove the corrupt, he said in a statement.

Rockets hit Green Zone

Late on Saturday, the body coordinating security operations in Iraq said several Katyusha-type rockets were fired at the Green Zone from within Baghdad.

Several Katyusha rockets fired from the Baladiyat and Palestine Street areas landed in the Green Zone, the Joint Operations Command said in a statement, without specifying who fired them.

Police and interior ministry officials confirmed to AFP that several rockets were fired at the area, but could not specify what the presumed target was nor whether there were any victims.

Several rockets, maybe six or seven, struck the Green Zone. I can hear the siren is being sounded in the area, Maysoon Damaluji, a legislator who lives in the protected area, told AFP.

A diplomat who also lives in the Green Zone said he heard four blasts.
Vote in Indias most populous state widely seen as a referendum on prime ministers controversial banknote ban.

Voting has opened in Indias most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, in a contest seen as a key mid-term test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his economic reform policy.

Some 26 million people are expected to cast their ballots on Saturday as part of a seven-stage, one month-long voting process to elect a new state assembly.

Uttar Pradesh is home to an estimated 220 million people and polls in the state are typically a bellwether of national politics.

READ MORE: Women in Uttar Pradesh are still waiting for justice

The vote is widely seen as a referendum on Modis controversial ban on high-value notes, a move aimed at combating tax evasion by the rich that has also hit poor rural communities hard.

The banknote ban, launched in November to purge the economy of untaxed income and the proceeds of crime and corruption, has disrupted daily life and commerce and caused the economy to slow.

On the campaign trail, Modi, who in 2014 swept the state in a landslide, said he had the interests of the poor at heart in making the move  the biggest gamble of his prime ministership.

A strong showing at the polls would strengthen his chances of a second term in 2019.

The results will tell us whether Modi continues to enjoy unquestioned support or if it has started to erode, RK Mishra, an independent political analyst based in the state capital, Lucknow, told the Reuters news agency.

Godzilla of states

Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) polled 42 percent of the vote in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 general election, winning 71 out of 80 seats on its way to claiming Indias biggest national mandate in three decades.

Yet, voters have shown growing impatience that Modis campaign promises have failed to deliver new jobs to a state where per capita incomes average less than $750 a year.





Many communities in the state still lack access to power, clean water and basic medical services.

It is the Godzilla of states, said BJP national spokesman Nalin Kohli.

People tend to vote along traditional caste and religious lines, and successive governments have exploited communal divisions to fire up their base and poach voters from opponents.

Pollsters say it will be tough for the BJP to repeat its general election performance in 2014.

The BJP is locked in a tough fight with the incumbent chief minister

Akhilesh Yadav from the regional Samajwadi Party, which has formed a political alliance with the countrys main opposition Congress Party, led by Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

The last phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections is scheduled for March 8, and results from the state, along with elections in Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur, are due on March 11.
In 2011, protests forced Saleh to quit as president, but hopes have been destroyed by sectarian divisions and conflict.

Yemenis have marked the sixth anniversary of the start of an uprising that ended three decades of rule by President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi on Saturday declared February 11 the countrys National Day, marking the beginning of the Youth Revolution against Salehs rule.

A statement issued by the civil service ministry said it had been decided that February 11 would be an official holiday for all state institutions.

However, six years after the start of the uprising, hopes of change in the Arabian Peninsula country have been destroyed by sectarian divisions and a long-running conflict.

I couldnt have been more proud of the revolution we launched, said Afnan Qaid Alyousufi, an activist from Taiz, in western Yemen.

Freedom is so precious that we have to continue the fight. The reason why instability continues is that because the world has betrayed us.

On Friday, the UN refugee agency said tens of thousands of people had been displaced by fighting along Yemens western coastline.

William Spindler, UNHCR spokesperson, said 34,000 people fled their homes after fierce fighting erupted in the port towns of Mokha and Dhubab on the Red Sea.

The majority of the displaced were headed to the outskirts of Taiz, he said.

Houthi warning

Yemeni forces, allied with the Hadi government that is backed by a coalition of mostly Gulf states, have recently seized Mokha and plan to push northward.

For his part, the leader of Yemens Houthi fighters announced on Friday that his forces have built drones and missiles that will be used against the Arab coalition and would target the Saudi capital.

In a speech aired on Al Masirah TV, Abdel Malik al-Houthi offered no evidence or figures for the number of drones and missiles allegedly manufactured by the rebels but the UAE, which is part of the coalition, has recently accused the Iran of providing the Houthis with drones.

The speech also followed a Houthi claim earlier in the week that they targeted Riyadh with missiles.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia but a week ago, it said a suicide gunboat belonging to the Houthis rammed into one of its frigates in the Red Sea, killing two crew members.
Climate change and extreme weather events are displacing people in record numbers.

Our climate is changing at a rate that has exceeded most scientific forecasts and affecting lives around the world.

About 140 million people have been displaced from their homes because of natural disasters linked to climate change. And the UN says the number of so-called climate refugees could reach 300 million by 2050.

Drought, floods, fires and extreme temperatures can leave entire communities and cities without shelter, clean water and basic supplies.

So, what should be done about it?

Presenter: Hazem Sika

Guests:

Asad Rehman  head of International Climate at Friends of the Earth, the organisers of the London conference

Sterling Burnett  research fellow on Environmental Policy and managing editor of Environment & Climate News with the Heartland Institute

Jonathan Neale  coordinator with Global Climate Jobs
The case against Assange is as political as it is legal; where does it go from here? Plus, Kenyas election influencers.
The TV host and comedian on his new book Born a Crime, the link between comedy and politics, and Donald Trump.

With a black, Xhosa mother and a white father of Swiss-German descent, Trevor Noahs existence was considered a crime by his own government in apartheid South Africa. Born in 1984, when interracial unions were still forbidden, the comedian has come a long way from his humble upbringing in Johannesburg.

As human beings, we want to tell the truth about what we see and comedy is essentially supposed to be that. Dick Gregory once said to me, 'The truth is way funnier than any joke you can try to concoct'. by Trevor Noah

He began his career at the age of 18, starring in a soap opera and then went on to host his own radio show, Noahs Ark, which he eventually quit to focus on comedy.

Noah made a name for himself, attracting the attention of some of the worlds most renowned comedians, like Jon Stewart. After moving to the United States in 2011, Noah would go on to become the first South African comedian to appear on The Tonight Show hosted by fellow comedian and actor Jimmy Fallon. After becoming a regular contributor to The Daily Show, with over 200 writing credits under his belt, Jon Stewart handpicked him to be his successor as host of one of Americas top political satire programs.

But as a foreigner in Trumps America, how does Noahs voice resonate? And can political satire be a force for change?

This week, comedian and TV host Trevor Noah talks to Al Jazeera.

Asked about a recent comment he made, in which Noah related current events in the US to what he has already lived through in his life, the comedian expresses concern over worries that a culture of segregation and oppression is brewing.

If you live in a place where people use economic instability to [place] blame on certain groups of people, those are the first steps to building a society that is isolated, and most importantly, seeks out to oppress, says Noah. A leader like Trump who has shown  even in the little time that he has been in power  that he will use this to his advantage.

On the topic of whether the media has contributed to the rise of Trump and reports calculating free advertising worth billions of dollars of airtime, including on The Daily Show, Noah says there is a distinct difference between unchallenged platforms and critiques of current affairs.

Its one thing to have Donald Trump on TV saying something and criticise that, call him out and fact-check him, dispel myths, he says. Its another thing to put his podium on TV for two hours before he comes out, an empty podium  what are you doing? Youre giving the man free promotion.

He continues: As a comedy show, your job is to look for the truth, find the laughter and speak truth to power. Donald Trump will always be somebody that The Daily Show is looking at as long as he is involved in the realm of politics.

Discussing his newly released book, Born a Crime, Noah credits his upbringing with sheltering him from the potentially jarring trauma of experiencing the true meaning of being considered a product of illegal activity by his own government and people.

I did not know. I couldnt live with my father, but I did not know why. I could not walk with my mother in the streets at times, but I did not know why, he says. The perception of your reality is everything. Thats what I believe. What we perceive is often times more important than what is real. When I was older, I realised how many obstacles they had to get over just for us to exist as a family.

You can talk to Al Jazeera, too. Join our Twitter conversation as we talk to world leaders and alternative voices shaping our times. You can also share your views and keep up to date with our latest interviews on Facebook.
Dr Marc Lamont Hill is an award-winning journalist and author and is the Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions at Temple University. Hill is known for his work addressing the intersections of race, justice, politics and culture. His latest best-selling book is We Still Here: Pandemics, Policing, Protest and Possibility which follows on the success of Nobody: Casualties of Americas War on the Vulnerable from Flint to Ferguson. Hill has received numerous prestigious awards from the US National Association of Black Journalists, GLAAD, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.
UF admitted 13,214 students to start in Summer and Fall, UF spokesperson Steve Orlando wrote in an email. The university received more than 34,000 applications this year. In 2016, 42.5 percent were admitted from about 32,000 applicants, and 44 percent were admitted for the class of 2019.

Innovation Academy, where students take classes in Spring and Summer, admitted 979 students, he said. The Pathway to Campus Enrollment program, PaCE, where students take 60 credits online before taking on-campus classes, admitted 2,420 students.

The average newly admitted UF student starting in Fall has a GPA of 4.4, an SAT score of 1349 out of 1600 and an ACT score of 30 out of 36.

But President Donald Trumps immigration ban could still affect international students choices to enroll at UF, wrote UF spokesperson Janine Sikes in an email.

Though the ban is currently on hold and expected to end before new students would start, Sikes said it could play a role in prospective students decision.

We are concerned about that because a diverse student body is something, we as a public research university, value and are especially proud of, she said.

Of admitted students, two are from Iran and two are from Iraq, countries that are affected by the ban.

Qambar Hasan, a high school senior from Coral Springs, Florida, knew he wanted to come to UF the minute he got accepted.

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The 17-year-old attending J.P. Taravella High School said he was driving Friday night when his friend told him admissions were out. At the first red light, he pulled out his phone to read his acceptance.

Literally at that moment, I went from stressing out to being excited, Hasan said.

Hasan said he grew up a lifelong Gator fan. In Fall, he plans to major in biology as he follows his family and friends who attended UF.

Im just excited to be a part of Gator Nation and the wonderful atmosphere there, Hasan said.

For Nada Hussein, waiting to hear that her brother was admitted to UF was as nerve-wracking as waiting for her decision two years ago.

When she called her brother, Adam Hussein, she could hear in his voice how happy he was to come to UF, she said.

Nada Hussein, one of eight children, said shes excited to have another sibling at UF.

To have him in Gainesville, its like you dont have to be worried or you dont have to be scared, because you have someone in your corner, she said.

@romyellenbogen

rellenbogen@alligator.org
At a time when Western people are constantly warned to speak respectfully of Muhammad, or else offended Muslims might respond with violence  to the shame and blame of those who exercise their freedom of expression  consider what Muslims regularly say about the things non-Muslims hold dear.

Recently, during his televised Arabic-language program, Dr. Salem Abdul Galil  previously deputy minister of Egypt's religious endowments for preaching  gleefully declared that, among other biblical women (Moses' sister and Pharaoh's wife), "our prophet Muhammad  prayers and peace be upon him  will be married to Mary the Virgin in paradise." (Note: the Arabic word for "marriage" denotes "legal sexual relations" and is devoid of Western "romantic" or Platonic connotations.)

Where did Galil  this governmental official who also holds that Muslims can wear the hated crucifix to deceive Christians  get this idea? As usual, from Muhammad himself. In a hadith that was deemed reliable enough to be included in the renowned Ibn Kathir's corpus, Muhammad declared that "Allah will wed me in paradise to Mary, Daughter of Imran" (whom Muslims identify with Jesus' mother) (1).

If few modern Christians are aware of this Islamic claim, medieval Christians living in Muslim-occupied nations were not. There, Muslims regularly threw this fantasy in the faces of Catholic and Orthodox Christians, who venerated Mary as the "Eternal Virgin."

Thus, Eulogius of Cordoba, an indigenous Christian of Muslim-occupied Spain, once wrote, "I will not repeat the sacrilege which that impure dog [Muhammad] dared proffer about the Blessed Virgin, Queen of the World, holy mother of our venerable Lord and Savior. He claimed that in the next world he would deflower her."

As usual, it was Eulogius's offensive words about Muhammad  and not the latter's offensive words about Mary  that had dire consequences: he, as well as many other Spanish Christians vociferously critical of Muhammad, were found guilty of speaking against Islam and publicly tortured and executed in "Golden Age" Cordoba in 859.

Not only do many Western academics suppress or whitewash such historical anecdotes of Muslim persecution of Christians, but some  whether intentionally or out of ignorance  warp them in an effort to portray Christian victims of Islam as Christian persecutors of Islam. Thus, after quoting Eulogius's aforementioned lament against Muhammad, John V. Tolan, a professor and member of Academia Europaea, writes:

This outrageous claim [that Muhammad will marry Mary], it seems, is Eulogius's invention; I know of no other Christian polemicist who makes this accusation against Muhammad. Eulogius fabricates lies designed to shock his Christian reader. This way, even those elements of Islam that resemble Christianity (such as reverence of Jesus and his virgin mother) are deformed and blackened, so as to prevent the Christian from admiring anything about the Muslim other. The goal is to inspire hatred for the "oppressors[.]" ... Eulogius sets out to show that the Muslim is not a friend but a potential rapist of Christ's virgins. (Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination, p.93)

As already seen, however, it was Muhammad himself  not any "Christian polemicist"  who claimed that Mary would be his eternal concubine. But facts apparently don't matter to academics like Tolan, who are more eager to demonize Eulogius in an effort to exonerate the "offended" Muslims who slaughtered him.

Putting real or feigned history aside, let's return to modern-day Egypt and consider why Dr. Galil  a governmental official described as a "moderate," a bridge-builder between Muslims and Christians  would openly say what he knows that millions of Orthodox Christians in Egypt will find repugnant: that Christ's mother would be given to  and have sex with  what Christians deem a false prophet.

To be sure, many Egyptian Christians did express outrage, including on social media, though none responded with violence. Had a leading Christian cleric, or even a little Coptic boy, claimed that Aisha  Muhammad's favorite wife, who holds a venerated place in Sunni tradition  will be married to and have sex with a false prophet, he would have been beaten and, if not killed in the process, imprisoned under Egypt's "anti-defamation of religions" law, which supposedly protects both Islam and Christianity.

But as every Muslim and Christian knows, Egypt's "anti-defamation of religions" law  which has been responsible for the arrest and punishment of many Copts accused of mocking Islam on social media  is in reality an anti-defamation of Islam law. Things held sacred by Christians are free game  including, apparently, for "moderate" governmental officials.

After all, Islam  beginning with its prophet and all throughout its scriptures  is built on defaming non-Muslims and their religions, Judaism and Christianity in particular. So how can repeating what Islam holds to be true ever be deemed blasphemous by Muslims  sensitivities of infidels be damned?

(1) From al-Mujam al-Kabir, an early collection of hadith compiled by Imam Tabarani.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of The Al Qaeda Reader and Crucified Again, is a Shillman fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a Rosen fellow at the Middle East Forum.
After eight years, Barack Obama left the White House on Jan. 20, bringing an end to a failed policy of appeasement. This policy led to the spread of fundamentalist and state-sponsored terror, displaced millions, plunged the entire Middle East into instability, and cast a long shadow over the future of U.S. influence in the region.

Now with a new administration in Washington, President Donald Trump is facing tough challenges with regard to relations to Iran as a result of that legacy.

Based on a recent interview with Fox TV, Trump does mean to initiate a new approach. But he is up against an Iran that has become emboldened following the Obama nuclear deal, with Trump noting that it has resulted in an Iran that has become increasingly disrespectful to the U.S. and remains the number one state sponsor of terrorism.

Iran is still an uncontained regime. It continues to issue threats to pursue its expansionist ambitions and can be seen in its behavior. This is despite its being sidelined in the Syria ceasefire and suffering major military defeats in Yemen with its Houthi rebel proxies. These setbacks have only cornered Tehran into a defensive position.

Senior Iranian officials are now concerned about losing their influence and network across the region. At the same time, the mullahs are increasingly terrified of domestic uprisings similar to those of 2009. Last week alone, 76 protests were registered across Iran by teachers, college students, laborers and administrative workers.

It's a powder keg, and explains exactly why the mullahs are resorting to numerous executions and increased domestic crackdowns.

Iran still employs lobbyists and apologists abroad and they are concerned about major policy shifts in Washington. Their agenda is to attempt to annul or at least downgrade a possible firm U.S. policy vis-a-vis Tehran, by advocating the perception that any strong approach against the mullahs is the equivalent of marching to a pro-war tune.

To this end, they are pursuing two key objectives. First, they are advocating the continuation of more appeasement. Second, based on the logic of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend,' they have launched a hate campaign against the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the main Iranian opposition group known to have first blown the whistle on Irans clandestine nuclear weapons program.

Irans lobbyists are also very concerned about the revelation that the Obama administration provided them with unprecedented White House access. These Iran apologists have taken advantage of the Iran nuclear deal by claiming it promotes peace, and yet have reaped huge profits from the economic deals with Iran associated with it.

Iran apologists have also portrayed Irans role in the global war against terror as important. If the Trump administrations priority in the region is to annihilate Daesh (ISIS/ISIL), they claim Washington needs a coalition with Russia - and Iran - meaning the U.S. must maintain the nuclear deal with Tehran.

This is happening while many world leaders have expressed concerns about how Iran has played a major role in allowing the spread of Daesh, especially in Iraq, and consider such a phenomenon a result of Obamas appeasement policy.

Under the pretext of concerns over the new U.S. administration's policy on the Iran nuclear deal and possible imposing new sanctions, Iran's appeasers are actually preventing the new White House from containing Tehrans sponsoring of terrorism, its meddling in the Middle East and its flagrant human rights violations.

Another tactic involves spreading the notion that Iran lacks any opposition, or at least is devoid of any democratic opposition to the mullahs. In pursuit of such a policy, they have focused on discrediting the MEK and the long slate of political figures in Washington in favor of a tough stance against Iran.

Twenty-three former senior U.S. officials recently signed a hand-delivered letter to President Trump emphasizing that Iranian intelligence is covertly spreading false and distorted claims through third parties in the Westabout the MEK.

While Iran's apologists are seemingly targeting the MEK, and complaining about U.S. dignitaries supposedly taking part in their events, their real issue is U.S. policy on Iran.

The choice is between a firm stance against the mullahs regime, and supporting the will of the Iranian people in their quest to establish democracy.

What it shows is that the Trump administration has an opportunity to support the Iranian people against the mullahs regime, and stand on the right side of history.

Hassan Mahmoudi is a human rights advocate, and a graduate of California State University, Sacramento.
Among the many epithets the Uber-Left hurls against its opponents  racist, sexist, homophobe, Islamophobe, etc.  a persistent tendency has been to scream. Fascist, Nazi, etc.

For whatever the reason, the Internet search engine, Google, has redefined fascism as a right-wing political and social movement. Does Google want to get in on the Lefts favored tactic?

Lest anyone think that cries of fascist, Nazi, etc. somehow belong to the past, watch scenes of the violence at the University of California  Berkeley in early February 2017, and count the number of times the loonies charged that Milo Yiannopoulos  a flamboyantly gay Trump supporter  was a fascist, Nazi, etc.

Claiming that Yiannopoulos is a Hitlerite is strange indeed, if one remembers how the Nazis under Hitler treated homosexuals.

(Im not rushing to Yiannopouloss defense. Before the Berkeley riots I had not heard of him, and still dont know what to make of him.)

If were going to bandy about the F-word  not that one, another one: fascism  it behooves us to get a firm understanding of what the term means. The corpus dealing with diverse facets of fascism in general and National Socialism in particular is too large and diverse to encapsulate in a short essay. There is, however, a book by an expert on the subject: Stanley Paynes, Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980). Paynes book is concise, is not suffused with Marxist or neo-Marxist cant, and does not suffer from political correctness run amok. Payne is a Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Wisconsin  Madison, and is regarded as a major analyst of fascism.

Although there were harbingers of fascism in Europe as long ago as the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, Louis Napoleons authoritarian regime in France between 1852 and 1870, or the emergence of anti-Semitic parties in Germany and Austria in the 19th century, Payne contended that classic fascism was a direct product of World War I, which destroyed the intellectual and cultural tenets that had buttressed Western civilization since the Enlightenment. He also noted that the interwar decades constituted the fascist era in Europe.

It would help pin down the factors that produced fascism if we had a solid working definition of the concept. Unhappily, as Payne noted, [f]ascism is probably the vaguest of contemporary political terms, largely because the word itself has no implicit political references. Moreover, most of the political movements in interwar Europe commonly termed fascist did not in fact use that name for themselves. Finally, fascist movements differed from each other as significantly as they held notable new features in common.

Nevertheless, Payne did boil the notion of fascism down to three common characteristics: (1) the fascist negations, or what they were against, (2) common points of ideology and goals, and (3) special features of style and organization. There were three fascist negations: antiliberalism, anticommunism, and anticonservativism. In terms of ideology and goals, fascists glorified nationalism, militarism, and an authoritarian, one-party, state. They preferred corporatist economic structures, and appealed to collectivism in place of individualism. Fascists tended to view the past, present, and future in millenarian images. They also glorified youth and so-called manly virtues. Finally, they developed a militant, quasi-military-style, party organization, led by a charismatic, omniscient, leader.

Specific fascist organizations or regimes, such as National Socialism in Germany, manifested other highly recognizable traits, such as anti-Semitism and military aggression, but this tendency did not characterize all fascist parties and/or regimes.

Interestingly, Payne had little to say about fascism in America. He passed over the small, but vocal, fascistic outbursts in the 1930s, such as William Dudley Pelleys Silver Shirts, Father Coughlins National Union for Social Justice, Huey Longs, and later Gerald L. K. Smiths, Share the Wealth movement, and the German American Bund. He pointed out that the fascist characteristics of radical minority movements have also sometimes been pointed out. He noted that Marcus Garvey claimed to have invented fascism. (One wonders what he would make of the Black Lives Matter movement.) He also observed that some claimed Cesar Chavezs La Raza and the young radicals of the late 1960s and early 1970s manifested fascistic qualities, but he discounted such claims.

Although Payne concluded by suggesting that, as the only major new ideology of the twentieth century, attributes of fascism would probably continue to crop up in radical movements and national authoritarian regimes in later times and other regions, others have disputed that assertion. In the 1981 expanded edition of Political Man, the late Seymour Martin Lipset wrote that, [i]n the contemporary era, fascism appears to have disappeared as a viable political force in Western society. Several factors contributed to fascisms waning fortunes, of course, but a major one was the delegitimation of Italian Fascism and German National Socialism following both countries devastating defeat in World War II. Other fascistic leaders such as Spains Francisco Franco and Argentinas Juan Peron met the Grim Reaper decades ago.

There are still many oppressive regimes in the world, but many, if not most, eschew fascistic rhetoric, if not methods, in favor of some form of socialism. Contemporary autocratic regimes, such as Robert Mugabes Zimbabwe or Vladimir Putins Russian Federation, are clearly authoritarian governments, but labeling them as fascistic stretches that terms meaning up to, and probably past, the breaking point. If Lipset was right, then, its probably best to think of classic European fascism as a movement of the period between 1919 and 1945.

What are we to make, then, of the American Lefts on-going propensity to call their foes fascists, Nazis, etc.? Certainly it lends additional wisdom to George Orwells observation, expressed in his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, that [t]he word fascism now has no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable. If todays Left does not like someone  George W. Bush or Donald Trump  or something  the Republican Party or conservatism  it tars that person or thing with the F-word, and hopes others will know that the tarred individual or entity isnt desirable.

In keeping with Orwells contention that the corruption of the English language was inhibiting political communication is John Daniel Davidsons observation that the Lefts promiscuous use of the F-word is but one example of the pernicious habit of sloppy thinking thats plaguing our public life. Davidson noted that words are ideas, and like ideas, they have consequences. The mishandling of fascist and other such terms will, in time, cause us to lose grip of their meaning, which would be dangerous.

Promiscuously hurling the F-word at people for no other reason than labeling them as irredeemably deplorable has two unfortunate consequences. First, it inhibits people from comprehending an important, albeit horrible, political movement of the mid-20th century. Let us remember Santayanas observation that historical ignorance has serious consequences. Second, and more important, it is deleterious to civil discourse. You cannot have a civil conversation  which should be an essential feature of popular government  with those who make such historically and politically erroneous claims.

Its time for the Left to take that page out of its playbook.
After nearly three decades in L.A. County, Nestle will soon move its headquarters from California to Virginia. This food services giant with an estimated $235 billion in assets worldwide will by the end of 2018 remove 1,200 jobs from a state that relies heavily on income taxes to fund its massive public sector.

Nestle's exodus follows other big employers, including Toyota, Campbell's Soup, Dunn-Edwards Paints, and eBay  which took with them tens of thousands of jobs  and mirrors the flight of mom-and-pop operations, entrepreneurs, families, and individuals who have ditched the once Golden State for places where the weather is less clement but the business and tax climate is welcoming. With Republicans, conservatives, and Reagan Democrats hightailing it out of high-priced California, the remaining statist majority has a voice that is progressively increasing in volume, and with it, the call for a "Calexit" secession from the Union grows louder. With some cynicism and a bit of righteous indignation, many Americans long to look westward to San Francisco, L.A., and Sacramento and wave goodbye and good riddance.

Because the values of California's popular majority are diametrically opposed to individual liberty, religious freedom, and the unimpeded pursuit of one's own personal happiness, the idea of an independent country being formed from the 31st state is attractive to both progressives and conservatives. The left would love to run a new socialist nation in North America, where it could tax brutally and spend wildly on transgender bathrooms, climate change initiatives, high-speed rail boondoggles, and a host of other agenda items championed by the purveyors of identity and environmental politics. The right would like to see California's 55 electoral votes, which give the Democratic presidential candidate a big head start every four years in the Electoral College, removed from the equation.

The clear problem concomitant with a successful Calexit would be the impact on at least four million Americans who showed up in November 2016 at the polling places across the state to cast a vote against the statist agenda promoted by the Democratic presidential candidate. Should California go full Confederate, and thereafter somehow achieve a permanent status as an independent nation-state, those millions of trapped American citizens would find themselves personae non gratae. A People's Republic of California led by a Jerry Brown or an Antonio Villaraigosa would most certainly tack even harder to the left than the state currently does. The California-Mexico border would surely be opened wide, prompting a spike in unfettered immigration by desperately poor people, drug dealers, and gang members to what is already a virtually lawless and out-of-control welfare state. Novel impositions would be levied on anything the new government could dream up to bilk. Entrepreneurship would be stifled, radical environmentalism would quash the effective use of natural resources, and hyper-sexualized secularism would be the cultural mainstream. It would be a woeful place for anyone valuing Judeo-Christian traditions, American history, religious freedom, and the Protestant work ethic who by misfortune could not migrate back to the United States.

For patriotic Californians who relish their constitutional liberties, Calexit would create an international barrier between them and their natural rights.

There is, fortunately, another option: the State of Jefferson.

The powers that be in Sacramento have increasingly impaired the ability of the state's rural residents to benefit from their regions' water, timber, and mineral resources; saddled them with onerous taxes; and disregarded their petitions for an audience to air their grievances. As a result, some 21 Northern California counties, with a combined population of almost two million people, have developed a plan to exit California and apply to become the 51st state in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, Article 4, Section 3. State of Jefferson advocates have been working diligently to get the attention of their legislators; sadly, their requests have gone unheard, as attested to at the 25:59 mark of this video. Thus, while the left seeks to withdraw California from the U.S., the concerned citizens of the would-be State of Jefferson wish to emulate the words of the Declaration of Independence:

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Like our revolutionary forefathers who fought to leave Great Britain, the Jeffersonians are pursuing separation from California at least in part because they are not adequately represented in the statehouse. Between 1926 and 1964, California's rural areas enjoyed healthy representation in the legislature based on Proposition 28, which provided for a government model similar to the federal government's construction. There was roughly one state senator for each county (with only the most sparsely populated counties sharing a senator), while the assembly was seated largely with urban representatives, thus California's bicameral legislature had checks and balances between country and city interests. With the 1964 Reynolds v. Sims case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state legislative voting districts must represent roughly equal populations, thereby cementing the idea of "one person, one vote" set in motion by the 1962 Baker v. Carr and 1963 Gray v. Sanders cases. The Reynolds ruling opened the door for the neutralization of Proposition 28. The result: thirty-six percent of California's counties now have less than eight percent of the representation in the legislature.

Further diluting rural representation is the 1879 California State Constitution, which limits the legislature, irrespective of the massive growth of the state's population over time, to 40 state senators and 80 assemblypersons. The apportionment scheme endorsed by the SCOTUS, in a state with the bulk of its of nearly 40 million inhabitants stuffed mostly into urban corridors, means that the population centers in the coastal and southern regions have significantly more representation in the legislature than do the inland and northern regions, such that the 21 State of Jefferson counties have nine state representatives out of 120.

In 1983, the SCOTUS ignored the Reynolds decision and in Brown v. Thomson ruled in favor of legislatures apportioned geographically, citing the Wyoming legislature's finding that "the opportunity for oppression of the people of this state or any of them is greater if any county is deprived a representative in the legislature than if each is guaranteed at least one representative."

Brown v. Thomson thus provides case law to bolster the State of Jefferson's legal efforts to have their grievance related to lack of representation addressed.

California today is effectively a socialist democracy, with lopsided representation. This defies the republican tradition of the United States. If the legislature continues to ignore the state's rural quarters and persists in implementing policies that crush economic productivity, the Jeffersonians will only enjoy increased justification to sever ties with the state and do what Vermont, Maine, Kentucky, and West Virginia did in breaking away from New York, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Virginia, respectively, to join the Union as separate states. Thus, as they are wont to say in the fledgling State of Jefferson, the time has come for 51.

John Steinreich has an M.A. in church history from Colorado Theological Seminary and is the author of two Christian-themed non-fiction books, The Words of God?  the Bible, the Qu'ran and How They Are Lived in the Post-9/11 World and A Great Cloud of Witnesses. His works are available on Lulu Press and on Kindle.
After a painful, Obama-induced decline, worsened by a sustained slump in oil prices, the U.S. oil and gas industry is finally staging a comeback. While the liberal elite wastes no opportunity to decry Trumps America First energy plan, a more sober look will actually show that not only is the policy a godsend for the industry, but it will actually help Washington build stronger bridges with other countries.

After a lengthy slump, last Decembers OPEC agreement to lower production has set the stage for Americas fossil fuel resurgence. Saudi Arabias commitment to cut production by 1.2 million barrels a day, with additional cuts by other OPEC members and non-members, led Goldman Sachs to predict oil prices will rise to around $60 per barrel in the first half of 2017. U.S. shale production has declined by about 1 million barrels a day since hitting a peak in April of 2015, but output has stabilized in recent months -- during a period when oil prices were still at $50 a barrel. A price hike like the one predicted by Goldman Sachs promises to accelerate that recovery -- and it was already confirmed by a recent Drilling Productivity Report released by the Energy Information Administration, which showed that crude oil output will continue to rise in the following months.

These developments promise a golden future for the American fossil fuel industry. As oil prices increase again, it has become clear that OPEC has had to relinquish its once tight grip on the global energy market. In fact, the OPEC agreement is nothing short of a surrender to American shale, which has elevated the U.S. into the position of the worlds pre-eminent swing producer. This means that American shale now has the power to dictate global oil price fluctuations in the future, in line with predictions made last year by Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, now Secretary of State.

While Obamas anti-oil policies hastened the energy industrys decline, Trumps pro-oil stance is already attracting new investments into U.S. oil production. For example, Saudi Arabia seeks to invest more heavily in the U.S. oil sector in order to better align the U.S. and Saudi economies and build a stronger relationship with Washington. Since the kingdom rolled out its Vision 2030, an economic diversification plan designed to reduce its reliance on oil, the sheiks have embarked on a worldwide campaign to win the hearts and minds of investors to help them achieve their objectives. To that end, the Saudis have requested proposals from banks including Morgan Stanley and HSBC on the initial public offering of state-owned Aramco, the worlds largest oil firm, while looking towards markets in New York, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. They found a willing audience in the U.K., where the post-Brexit government of Theresa May is fast at work sealing a free trade agreement with Riyadh and its Gulf neighbors. While Saudi Arabia will undoubtedly profit from the influx of capital, this long-term Saudi move away from an oil-based economy tellingly points towards the cementation of American oils primacy on the global energy market.



By following through on his campaign trail promises to lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and boost fossil fuels, Trumps revival of the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines has swiftly brought to an end obstacles from the past designed to prevent oil from reaching its full potential. The decision to relaunch the pipeline projects was enthusiastically welcomed in Canada, where Obamas energy policies, and particularly his rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, had badly damaged bilateral relations. Not surprisingly, Canadian PM Trudeau has come out in strong support of Trumps decision, which he says will provide jobs and a much-needed economic boost for Canadians.

But thats only half the picture. America First will deliver a stunning blow to the mandarins in China, who will finally be shut out of the U.S. Over the last 15 years, Chinese companies were allowed to invest $7.4 billion in Texas, most of which went towards the oil and gas industry. One Chinese investment firm spent $1.3 billion on Texan oil fields in 2015 alone. Thankfully, the Chinese push to penetrate the American oil industry and compromise our energy security will no longer be that easy, as Trump has taken a hard line stance against Chinas encroachment. Add to this the possibility of slapping the Chinese with a 45% import tariff and speaking out on Beijings currency manipulations, and Chinas U.S. plans will be stifled before more damage is done. With the Saudis reaching out to the U.S., Washington has very little to lose from a potential shift in Chinese investment.

Donald Trump is shaking up the old guard dominating the global oil market, and as energy prices recover and the administration rolls out its fossil fuel friendly packages, the momentum will be unstoppable. For the U.S., and much of the world, this will be a blessing.
Prior to the Civil War, some states advocated a theory of constitutional law that each state has a right to nullify, or not follow, a federal law. The basis of this argument is that each state retains enough sovereignty to decide the constitutionality of laws. The purpose was to have federal law not apply in the state if the state disagreed with the law on constitutional grounds.

The theory started with John Taylor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. They belonged to Democrat-Republican Party, which opposed President John Adams, of the Federalist Party, over the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. Specifically, they opposed the Sedition Act that made it a crime to criticize the government. Taylor, Madison, and Jefferson argued that a state can judge whether a federal law is constitutional. It was part of the states' rights doctrine.

Madison and Jefferson made these arguments before the Supreme Court, in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) held that the Supreme Court judges the constitutionality of laws. But the nullification doctrine persisted and was advanced by John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, against Andrew Jackson, which almost led to war during President Jackson's administration.

The nullification doctrine has never been adopted as law by any federal court.

It appears, though, that the Ninth Circuit's decision, and Judge Robart's decision, in State of Washington v. Trump is based on the nullification doctrine. That is the practical effect of the ruling, and the underlying premise of the claim that the State has interests that the Court must balance against the interests of the immigration ban to determine the constitutionality of Trump's executive order banning immigrants from certain countries.

The premise of the arguments made by the State of Washington is that the temporary ban, based on 8 USC 1182, can be reviewed by the State of Washington to decide if it serves the interests of the State of Washington. Washington argued that the ban affected its universities and businesses, and Robart and the Ninth Circuit agreed.

Neither Robart nor the three-judge panel discussed section 1182, which gives the president the exclusive authority to restrict immigration based on a finding made by the president.

Those who advocated nullification two hundred years ago did not want the federal government to impose its will on a state. Now those opposing the ban on immigration have filed suit to have the state's view imposed on the rest of the country by virtue of the temporary restraining order that Robart applied nationwide.

We can see elements of this nullification doctrine in the various states and cities that declare themselves "sanctuary" cities or states in that they will not comply with federal immigration laws in notifying the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of the arrest of illegal aliens, nor will they hold illegal aliens for ICE.

The Supreme Court must issue a stay of the Ninth Circuit decision and dismiss the suits challenging the temporary ban.

It must rule that the states do not have standing to bring lawsuits when the real plaintiffs, the real parties in interest, are residents of the seven countries designated as risks. Foreign residents are not protected by the U.S. Constitution.

The Supreme Court must rule that the courts do not have the power, or subject matter jurisdiction, to consider the merits of the executive order because Section 1182 vests that power solely in the president.
Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake, who referred to President Trump's travel ban as "cruel stupidity," nevertheless believes it's ridiculous to make the argument that the travel ban  and just about any other anti-terrorism action we take  is a recruiting bonanza for terrorists.

This is a familiar line to anyone who has followed the national security debate since 9/11. Democrats in particular have argued that the Iraq War, the Guantanamo Bay prison and anti-Muslim web videos help to radicalize otherwise peaceful Muslims to murder us at random. Hence Trump's travel ban is now a "recruitment tool." If only jihadi recruitment were so easily disrupted. Sadly it's much more complicated. To start, the process by which an individual gets sucked into the death cults of al Qaeda or the Islamic State cannot be reduced to a single cause. Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, the research director for the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, put it like this: "The argument that the Trump policy will radicalize people is predicated on the flawed premise that people radicalize as a response to government policy. The reality is it's a highly complex process that involves religious and personal factors. A government policy may play a role, but it's one of many factors." Meleagrou-Hitchens's program released an invaluable report last year that studied motivations of Americans who had declared allegiance to the Islamic State. It found that the motivations ranged from sympathy for the plight of Syrians suffering under their dictator's war to a sense of religious obligation to join a new utopian Islamic caliphate. Another problem with this argument is that it fails to account for the significant rise in radical Islamic terror under President Barack Obama. He went out of his way to counter the jihadist worldview. He began his presidency by delivering a speech to the Islamic world from Cairo, in which he stressed his own administration's respect for Islam. He promised, and ultimately failed to, close Guantanamo; he withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011, and he scrubbed terms like "radical Islam" and "war on terror" from the government's lexicon. And yet despite his efforts, the FBI arrested more Americans for joining Islamic terrorist groups during his presidency than during that of George W. Bush. And while Obama decimated al Qaeda's central leadership following the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda's franchises in Yemen, Somalia and Libya grew stronger. Meanwhile, the Islamic State broke away from al Qaeda during Obama's presidency and managed to gain territory in Syria and Iraq. Only now has the military campaign to liberate Mosul shown some success.

The CIA leaked a report in 2002 stating flatly that Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other aspects of the U.S. war against the terrorists created more terrorists. The report contained no empirical data to support that conclusion  largely because counting the number of terrorists is a futile exercise. Besides, there was no analysis of how terrorist recruitment is impacted by a spectacular success like 9/11.

Ever since the report was leaked, it has been conventional wisdom that the U.S. is assisting in the recruitment of terrorists whenever we do anything to protect ourselves. The bottom line appears to be that we shouldn't do anything to anger the terrorists, lest we hand them a recruiting tool.

The flip side of this argument is the "give the terrorists good jobs" narrative that presupposes that terrorists are angry because they're poor and unemployed. What they need are good schools and good job opportunities, and then the terrorist problem will disappear.

If this were true, the only way the program would work is if the terrorists died of laughter. Lake calls out this ruinously simple-minded thinking and, despite his opposition to Donald Trump and the travel ban, makes valid points about the reality of terrorist recruitment and how the West can counter it.
File under 'Fake News contender.'

NBC News reports that Russian President Vladmir Putin is likely to hand fugitive former National Security Agency and CIA contractor Edward Snowden over to the U.S. in a bid to grease the skids for better U.S.-Russia relations.

Color me skeptical

Snowden, you recall, is the little punk who once had it made: Living in a Hawaiian paradise, he had a $100,000 a year Booz Allen Hamilton job, no college degree, a security clearance, and as the cherry on top, a pole-dancing live-in girlfriend. He threw it all away and fled the U.S. in 2013 with a massive treasure trove of U.S. intelligence in squirrelled away on laptops and thumb drives taken illicitly. After that, he made a cockamamie claim about merely being motivated by concern about NSA spying on Americans, which in fact was nothing but meta-data of no consequence to the average American. It had the look of a baloney alibi, given that he ended up in that press-freedom and transparency bastion Russia and the more likely scenario that the Russians might have had something on him, perhaps from one of his trips to spy-haunt Geneva, and he seemed to have known the lawmen were after him as he fled the country suddenly. It would all be consistent with the Cold War spy pattern in any case.

What was different was that he cloaked himself in the flag after stealing secrets, illustrating Samuel Johnson's dictum that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Many in the media praised him as a "patriot" and called for pardons. Safely ensconced in Russia, Snowden would now have us believe he never disclosed U.S. secrets to the Russians, who apparently, just give any American fleeing the long arm of the law asylum - and keep extending it, along with free housing, Russian lessons, security, and a propaganda soapbox in exchange for nothing in return. Buried deep in the Bear's embrace, the Russians limited outside access to him yet allowed him to become a media star, writing New York Times op-eds and tweeting commentary to great press coverage, showing that espionage ain't what it used to be.

Snowden not only damaged U.S. intelligence-gathering and made it more difficult for U.S. spies to recruit informants, his thievery also stoked paranoia in the U.S., leading to measures in Congress that tied U.S. intelligence agencies' hands as they sought to hunt down terrorists through their electronic communications. It was virtue-signalling at its worst.

Now the story is out from NBC that Putin wants good relations with U.S. so badly he's willing to fork over Snowden.

Color me skeptical again.

NBC is a paid-up member of the mainstream media which has repeatedly been caught dispensing fake-news stories along with much of the mainstream media. The idea that Putin wants to hand Snowden over as a sort of love-offering to Trump is hard to believe, given that Russia isn't giving up Crimea and it grudgingly endures sanctions with few complaints.

The story also has been picked up by the British tabloid press, some of which at times appears to be Russian propaganda conduits with unusually good Russian sourcing. Put the two together and it all suggests the story at best could be a weather balloon from the Kremlin, or more likely, the Russians contemptuously jacking with the mainsteam media, which has been punked repeatedly in recent months for reporting false stories based on what they want to believe.

In reality, Putin is very unlikely to hand over Snowden. He's extended the former spy contractor's asylum to 2020 which would make him eligible for Russian citizenship if he lasts that long. History shows that traitors who make it to Russia have a funny way of dying early, sometimes in accidents when their use for the Kremlin runs out and they make themselves nuisances.

But more to the point, the Russians deny that there is any truth to the report. Putin, as an experienced former intelligence officer, knows that treating Snowden badly would send out a message to future spies that it's not such a good idea to flee to Russia, and shut an important doorway for more defectors. Lastly, the U.S. hasn't made much effort to get him back, at least overtly, suggesting that they may think Snowden's living Russia is its own punishment.
It appears that at least a few left-wing commentators believe that the Trump administration  and Stephen K. Bannon, in particular  wants essentially to take over the Vatican and influence American Catholics more than Jorge Mario Bergoglio, also known as Pope Francis. (That might not be such a bad idea in certain respects, but I digress...)

From Catholic World News :

In a Washington Post column, E. J. Dionne strings out the absurdity to imply that Bannon  a man mostly unknown in Church circles until a few months ago  is now a lead player in a dramatic struggle 'to define the meaning of both Americanism and Catholicism.' If you are prepared to believe that a single friendly meeting is enough to serve as evidence of conspiracy, I doubt that I'll be able to change your mind. But it's absurd.

Bannon had this meeting nearly three years ago with conservative American cardinal Raymond Burke, who has been at odds with Francis over a doctrinal matter addressed (sort of) in a recent papal document. By way of dubia , Burke and three other cardinals have formally asked Francis for clarification on the matter. The pope has not responded to the dubia but has made it known that he's not pleased with the cardinals' actions.

It just so happens that Burke is more supportive of the Trump administration than other prelates, including, it would seem, the pope.

In yet another absurd hit piece from The Washington Post's website, Emma-Kate Symons wrote:

Burke ... is also using his position within the walls of the Vatican to legitimize extremist forces that want to bring down Western liberal democracy, Stephen K. Bannon-style. Simply put, the Vatican is facing a political war between the modernizing Pope Francis and a conservative wing that wants to reassert white Christian dominance[.] ... But the virulently anti-Islam ('capitulating to Islam would be the death of Christianity'), migrant-phobic, Donald Trump-defending, Vladimir Putin-excusing Burke is unrepentant and even defiant, continuing to preside over a far-right, neo-fascist-normalizing cheer squad out of the Holy See.

WaPo sure loves to publish left-wing lunacy.

So does Esquire.

From Bill Donohue of the Catholic League :

At one time I used to subscribe to Esquire. It was a well written, often provocative and entertaining magazine, one that covered a wide range of subjects. But it lost its way in recent years, evolving into a series of screeds. Its nuttiest writer is Charles P. Pierce, a man whose fondness for all matters Catholic is, well, not so kind[.] ... He calls Bannon a 'political thug,' and Burke a 'theological thug[.]' ... Pierce wrote a piece right after the election branding Bannon as Trump's David Duke. Just last week he repeated his charge that Bannon is a white supremacist. Now he says he is taking over the world. I do not exaggerate.

It's interesting how an effective Republican strategist can cause the left to froth at its collective mouth. Remember the left's frequent attacks on Karl Rove during the George W. Bush administration? Now Bannon is the prime target, one reason being that he was effective in helping Trump win the Catholic vote. Hillary-supporting Catholics (and non-Catholics) are still in a tizzy about that.

As for Burke, he's a staunch defender of Catholic orthodoxy who speaks with clarity and understanding. Unfortunately, he's not the pope. In fact, Francis demoted Burke a few years ago, and he might "demote" him even more if he can.
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Early in his campaign, Donald Trump pledged, "As president, I will establish the national goal of providing school choice to every American child living in poverty. If we can put a man on the moon, dig out the Panama Canal, and win two world wars, then I have no doubt that we as a nation can provide school choice to every disadvantaged child in America."

Now that Betsy DeVos is confirmed, America could be closer to achieving this goal, but the path will not be easy due to strong partisan opinions in both the House and the Senate. Already pegged as the "most polarizing education secretary ever," it is clear that DeVos has a tough job ahead of her.

In order to lead America's education policy and quell the legitimate concerns raised by her opponents, DeVos should explain to worried Americans that school choice can still include an effective public school system. Further, DeVos should repeal federal regulations that disincentivize states from adopting personalized education programs that could benefit their students.

While some criticism of DeVos has been political theatre, a few of DeVos's colleagues have legitimate worries about her policies. Two of them, Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, even broke rank to make the confirmation vote close. DeVos is a strong advocate of school choice policies and the reallocation of public school funds to voucher programs and private schools, which can be a scary prospect for senators from rural areas like Alaska and Maine.

School choice programs are difficult to implement in rural areas due to low populations and the inherent lack of educational choice. There is simply no market for a private school to open in an area that has a graduating class of only ten students. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) brought up this specific concern during the committee hearing for DeVos:

Eighty-two percent of communities in Alaska are not attached by road[.]  [My constituents] are concerned because they would love to have the choice we are talking about, but when you are a small school, and there is no way to get to an alternative option for your child, the best parent is left relying on a public school system[.] ... [We want] to make sure that your commitment to a public education, particularly for rural students, who have no choices is as strong and robust as the passion you have dedicated to advancing charter schools.

There is a solution to the problem that Senator Murkowski raises. Instead of focusing on national education programs, DeVos should direct all decisions regarding education to the states. This would allow for rural states like Alaska to choose to keep effective public school systems in place, while also allowing school choice programs, like those found in Florida, Nevada, and many other states, to flourish.

Education policy at the state level is not a new concept and would be easy to implement. In fact, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution shows that education should have been a state issue from the very beginning. Not only is this solution constitutionally appropriate, but it would also be a catalyst for school choice, a concept that has gained significant backing in the recent years.

Many states have expressed strong interest in enacting school choice policies but have been discouraged by red tape that the previous administrations have put in the way. Many senators are aware of this red tape and have already proposed legislation at the committee level to remove harmful regulations. Now Betsy DeVos needs to join the fray.

Some of these harmful regulations still exist in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The ESSA was a step in the right direction with regard to diminishing the federal monopoly on education, but still represents a 1,000-plus-page document that the federal government is using to manage decisions that should be made at the local level. Specifically, DeVos should look to get rid of regulations carried over from No Child Left Behind, through ESSA, that promote national curricula and "correct" ways to teach. By getting rid of the incentives that encourage states to rest in the status quo, states will be free to explore school choice policies that could truly benefit their students.

Congrats to Betsy DeVos on her confirmation. She has a lot of critics to quiet, even within her own party. Hopefully, she can do what is best for our nation by giving the freedom to experiment with greater school choice in the states.

Stephen Strosko is a graduate student at George Mason University and a Young Voices Advocate.
Never content to simply stop improving things, Google has now added three more African countries to its Street View application. The announcement of the additions was made via the companys own blog on February 10. Happily, Street View was also just optimized for mobile in August, as well as having Daydream VR support added November. That means that these new locations can be explored by users both from virtually anywhere and completely virtually

The inclusion Ghana, Senegal, and Uganda in Street View brings the number of African countries included in the virtual exploration tool to seven and the total tally including all countries worldwide to 81. Among the new locales that Google seems most excited about are a UNESCO World Heritage site village called Nzulezo. The village sits atop stilts over Lake Tadane in Ghana and became a world heritage site in the year 2000. The company also added Ghanas National Theater, which is where the countrys national companies for dance, theater, and orchestra reside. Moving on to Senegal, it is now possible to virtually visit the 160 foot tall African Rennaissance Monument. The bronze monument is located just outside of Dakar, which itself sits along the western coast of the country on the Atlantic Ocean. Aside from the city of Dakar, Google also mentions the addition of several other large towns, landmarks, and the main roads within Senegal. Lastly, the company has added a total of seven national parks in Uganda. These are said to include Queen Elizabeth National Park, which is likely Ugandas most popular park  with the Ministry of Tourism for the country having previously said that visits to the park make up as many as 42% of all park visits in the country. The park boasts a huge array of birds and 10 species of primate. Many examples of those were likely digitally captured by Googles Street View teams and Ugandan partners.

Google initially began adding Africa to its Google Street View in 2009, so the latest additions may seem to have been a long time coming for those users who have been wanting to explore other parts of the continent  especially for those who simply dont have the means to actually go and do it. While using either the standard or virtual reality version of an application like Street view is not likely to ever be as good as the real thing, it is something. So its great that Google continues to support Street View with new locations and experiences.
Microsofts Project Rome efforts seek to bridge a users experience across all of their devices, and todays release of an SDK for Android allows developers to help Microsoft in that goal by implementing Project Rome in a number of ways. The SDK allows developers to make system calls and utilize Project Rome through methods rooted in both Java and Xamarin, making it easy to implement in almost any projects codebase. The SDK includes two key APIs; the Remote Systems API, which detects eligible Windows devices that a user owns, and the Remote Launch API, which launches apps remotely on the target device. These tie into remote app services, but those services are not in this release of the Project Rome Android SDK, and will be seeing the light of day at a later date, which Microsoft has not yet announced.

The SDKs most basic implementation in an app allows a developer to trigger the launching of a custom URI on the target device, which could conceivably lead to web apps, custom code, or a number of other elements that could be used to build a cohesive cross-device experience. While Project Rome can also be used to simply control a computer or phone outright from the other device, the focus here is on building cross-platform experiences on a per-app basis. The implementation of Project Romes Android SDK via Java involves using Webview as a passthrough, while the Xamarin implementation uses URI sync. Both of these standards should already be present on most devices, making Project Rome apps widely compatible.

For those who dont already know, Project Rome was announced by Microsoft just a couple of days ago as a remote control platform meant to allow developers to create cross-device experiences across ecosystems, and give a user full control of all of their devices from any one of them. While the project is not open-source, Microsoft has provided a number of tutorials and samples for developers on a GitHub page. Users can expect to start seeing some fairly exciting uses for Project Rome across their devices, since the simple implementation of API calls makes it possible to insert a call just about anywhere into an app.
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YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 11, ARMENPRESS. The Association of Armenian students of California University (ASA at UCLA) organized an annual protest Stain of denial on February 9, aimed at raising public awareness of the Genocide committed by Ottoman Empire against Armenians.

Armenpress reports the participants toured in the city, chanting Denial is the final stage of genocide, Unpunished crime is an encouraged crime, Do not deny our history.

We came together yesterday, Armenians united throughout the continent, to show everyone that we do not remember the Genocide only in April. The fight for recognition has not ended and will not end until the Republic of Turkey, United States, other countries and organizations throughout the world realize that this active denial is a human issue. We demand the recognition that our history deserves and we will stand together, Armenians in Diaspora and in Armenia, until we get just that, reads the statement on the Associations Facebook page.
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 11, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia received on February 11 Russian Transport Minister, Co-Chairman of the Armenian-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation Maksim Sokolov who is in Armenia to participate in the 6th consultation of transport authorities of the EAEU member states.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Government of Armenia, the sides discussed issues of further development of Armenian-Russian relations, as well as the implementation process of the agreements reached during the official visit of the Armenian Prime Minister to Russia. It was stated that there is already progress in that direction.

Highly assessing the level of allied relations between Armenia and Russia, Karen Karapetyan once again noted that there is great potential to deepen them in a number of directions. In this regard, Premier Karapetyan highlighted the creation of Armenian-Russian investment fund, which will give an opportunity to attract the Russian capital into Armenian business by the implementation of joint ventures and foster trade turnover.

The Head of the Executive underlined the necessity to deepen agricultural cooperation and mentioned with satisfaction that specific measures are already taken with the Russian side for the supplies of agricultural techniques.

Karen Karapetyan and Maksim Sokolov referred to the cooperation in the sphere of transport, improvement and development of infrastructures, the program to establish a free economic zone on the border with Iran and the involvement of Russian companies there.

The Russian Transport Minister stated that the free economic zone to be established in Meghri can serve as a good platform for the Russian business to expand trade and economic relations with the Iranian market. According to Sokolov, this project can be beneficial for all the sides.

Karen Karapetyan and Maksim Sokolov expressed readiness to continue the productive cooperation and give new impetus to bilateral trade and economic relations.
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Extensive revisions to New Mexicos medical marijuana program that would automatically allow all military veterans to qualify as patients are advancing in the state Legislature.

The Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed the proposed legislation on Wednesday despite objections from members to the veterans eligibility provisions. The bills next stop is the full Senate.

Other proposed changes to a 2007 law legalizing medical cannabis would add treatable medical conditions including substance abuse disorder. State registry cards for approved patients would require renewal every three years instead of annually.

Senate bill sponsor Cisco McSorley of Albuquerque says the provision for veterans addresses the stigma associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. Republican Senator and former Navy Rear Admiral William Payne called the provision offensive because it paints all military veterans as presumptive marijuana patients.
VIENTIANE - Laos has been seeking to attract more Chinese tourists after noticing the large numbers of Chinese people who travel overseas and the large sums of money they spend, local media reported on Friday.

"Laos should target more Chinese tourists because they are high-end customers and spend a lot," Lao state-run Vientiane Times on Friday quoted Lao Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism Bosengkham Vongdara as saying at an annual meeting of the information, culture and tourism sector held recently in capital Vientiane.

According to statistics from the ministry's tourism sector, China ranked third in terms of the number of people visiting Laos in 2016. Some 399,556 Chinese nationals came to Laos from January to September in 2016. In 2011, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Laos was recorded at 150,791 people and the figure has steadily increased since then.

China is one of Laos' five neighboring countries, with the others being Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar.

But tourism operators and specialists say Laos needs to develop its tourism market to meet the demands of Chinese customers. Supporting factors such as transportation, services, and tourist sites must be upgraded, while it is also necessary to address the problems that perennially cause difficulties for visitors, according to Vientiane Times.

Xanglao Travel Sole Co Ltd Director Vilaysone Louangaphay said on Vientiane Times that in order to fully welcome large numbers of Chinese people the tourism sector needs to study their requirements.

Vilaysone said service standards are something that entrepreneurs must improve, stressing that restaurants, hospitality facilities and transport operators must engender trust among their guests.

Meanwhile, Director of the Information, Culture and Tourism Department in northern Oudomxay province Phonsavanh Phanthavichit said Oudomxay authorities had met with related sectors in three northern provinces that share borders with China, those being Luang Namtha, Bokeo and Phongsaly, to seek consensus in solving issues that impact the tourism climate.

Oudomxay authorities have also discussed with their Chinese counterparts efforts to encourage Chinese companies to invest in various sectors in the province, including tourism.

Phonsavanh said the department will continue to work with hospitality businesses, tourist site operators and restaurant owners to upgrade their services and infrastructure to facilitate visitors.

Chinese people are interested in Lao culture and the lifestyle of ethnic groups, so these areas should be highlighted as part of Laos' sales pitch, said the official.
Taapsee Pannu reveals how she got into the skin of her character in Runningshaadi.com, her expectations from the movie and more.

Taapsee Pannu is rather excited about the release of Runningshaadi.com, which is soon to be renamed. Im very proud of it, she says. Dada (Shoojit Sircar, producer) gave me Pink after seeing what I could do in Runningshaadi.com, I can tell you without hesitation. The girl in Pink was different from who I am. My character in this movie, Nimmi, is closest to the person I am in real life.

How, we ask her. Like Nimmi, Im a Punjabi; a Sardarni, she explains. But Im a little wary of the way Punjabi men and women are portrayed in our films. Theyre always loud, always aggressive, forever singing, dancing and screaming. Yes, all this is a part of the average Punjabis DNA, but all sardars are not boisterous all the time. A Punjabi woman also has a softer, gentler side. Ive shown this in the movie.

Her biggest temptation to do Runningshaadi.com was the opportunity to break away from stereotypes. The Punjabi girl I play is different from what we see. The Bihari guy Amit Sadh plays is not the stereotypical Bihari speaking in a singsong voice. In fact, when Amit was researching for his character, he met a Bihari gentleman who told him, Bihari is not a language; its an attitude. That one statement became the basis of his character.

The actress is all praises for her director, Amit Roy. There were two Amits on the sets, she laughs. Amit Sadh and Amit Roy. We didnt know how to tell them apart. This is Amit Roys debut film, but it doesnt look like a first film. Hes not only directed the film, hes also done the screenplay and cinematography. So young, and so much responsibility.

Taapsee started her career with a light-hearted Chashme Buddoor and shes back to the genre after the dark and grim Pink. In Chashme Buddoor, David sir (David Dhawan) had already edited the film in his mind. He was very clear about what he wanted, she reminisces. But with Amit, there was a lot of give and take. Of course, David sir allowed us to improvise a huge amount. But with his experience, I had to think a million times before making a suggestion. With Amit, it was like having a comrade on sets.

The fact that she played a character close to her heard seems to have worked for Taapsee. I took the liberty of asking for changes in scenes, and kept constantly questioning Amit. He was very flexible. He was worried about my accent, but I got it right. I had such a ball shooting with the two Amits! Wed shoot for 12-13 hours at a stretch, but I never felt the weight of the long hours. Thats the spirit I want to shoot in.

Tapsee is confident of scoring a post-Pink success. Shoojit sir is known to deliver very strong content. So, I knew from the start that whatever we do will be worth the while, she signs off.
Tiger has also reportedly been shooting in Teen Batti chawl in Mumbai, where Jackie was brought up.

The actor recently shot for a song, Dhing Dhang, where hes dressed like his father was in his debut film Hero, with a red bandana and a checked shirt. He is seen dancing along with his co-star, debutante Niddhi Agerwal, in the song.

Father and son, Jackie and Tiger Shroff, recently made an appearance together on Karan Johars chat show Koffee with Karan, and showed just how close they were. Now, Shroff Jr. is all set to pay tribute to his father in his next, Munna Michael.

The actor recently shot for a song, Dhing Dhang, where hes dressed like his father was in his debut film Hero, with a red bandana and a checked shirt. He is seen dancing along with his co-star, debutante Niddhi Agerwal, in the song.

His director Sabbir Khan also went gaga over his actor by tweeting that only Tiger could have pulled off that killer one shot.

Incidentally, the story of Munna Michael is quite similar to Jackie Shroffs life.

Tigers character is seen growing up in the slums of Mumbai before becoming a popular dance star like Michael Jackson, just like his father was brought up in a chawl before he went on become a successful actor.

Tiger has also reportedly been shooting in Teen Batti chawl in Mumbai, where Jackie was brought up.

Munna Michael is gearing up for release on July 7 this year.
As many as 549 bulls and 1,050 tamers participated in the event and many went home with handful of gifts.

Madurai: It was another historic moment for the Tamils separated by the Palk Straits when Sri Lankan minister Senthil Tondaiman won a Maruti Swift car and a native cow  both bonanza prizes  for the best bull in the internationally famous Alanganallur Jallikattu.

Alanganallur was the first epicentre for the Tamil Spring which brought Jallikattu back among the people. Locals had first gathered at this village to demand restoration of Jallikattu, which hadnt been held for the past two years. On Friday, they organised a grand show with DMK working president M.K. Stalin participating while VIPs, film personalities and social activists cheered both the bull tamers and owners.

Nearly 50,000 spectators gathered from various parts of the state to watch the bulls passing through Vadi Vasal and taking on tamers in the arena from 8.15 am. The village festival committee also set up an exclusive gallery for students as a token of gratitude for their participation in the protest on Marina beach in Chennai to safeguard the traditional sport of the Tamils.

The performance of the bulls of Alanganallur held the audience spellbound. The bull tamers couldnt tame the first three bulls. The spectators raised their voice in unison when woman bull owner Rani from Pallapatti village in Dindigul district challenged the bull tamers betting Rs 1,000 (apart from the prize money) to prove valour against her bull. Her bull crossed the mark untamed, winning her a gold ring from Mr Stalin.

As many as 549 bulls and 1,050 bull tamers participated in the event and many of them went home with a handful of gifts.
The council is protesting against creation of seven new districts in the state.

Guwahati: The Prime Ministers envoy for the Naga peace-talks, Mr R. N. Ravi on Saturday said that ongoing economic blockade in poll-bond Manipur may have an impact on the peace-talks.

Talking to this newspaper, Mr Ravi said, The Naga issue cant be dealt in political isolation. Naga neighbours are important stakeholders. A durable solution is not possible by disregarding neighbours sentiment and confrontational attitude towards them.

Expressing his displeasure over the stubborn position taken by NSCN (I-M) in Manipur, Mr Ravi said, It is bound to impact the tenor and character of further talks with NSCN (I-M).

Its significant the United Naga Council and NSCN (I-M) are spearheading the economic blockade in Manipur for over three months and two rounds of meetings with the stakeholders to resolve the crisis failed to elicit any result.

Mr Ravi said that some senior Naga leaders of Manipur including some UNC leaders have also expressed their concern to him over the stand of the NSCN (I-M).

Mr Ravi admitted that he was hopeful after tripartite talks of February 3 in New Delhi where a conducive environment was created. The United Naga Council and state government have tentatively agreed to resolve the deadlock, he added.

Pointing out that economic blockade has also sharpened the divide of Nagas and non-Nagas in the region, Mr Ravi said that it has also made his task of an early amicable solution so much difficult.

The council is protesting against creation of seven new districts in the state.
Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi hit out at the Prime Minister during the launch of SP-Cong alliance's Common Minimum Programme.

Taking a swipe at Narendra Modi for his "raincoat in bathroom" barb at Manmohan Singh, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today said the Prime Minister was more interested in "peeping into bathrooms of people".

The Congress Vice President also said that the Prime Minister will get a "jolt" once the results of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections are out.

"Modi likes to read janampatri (horoscope), search Google and peep into the bathrooms of people...but he is a failure as a Prime Minister," he said at a joint press conference with Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav where the SP-Congress alliance released a 10-point Common Minimum Programme (CMP).

"He (Modi) can do this (peeping into bathrooms) in his free time," Rahul said.

His comments come against the backdrop of the Prime Minister's remarks in Parliament that one should learn the art of "bathing with a raincoat on" from Manmohan Singh as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams having taken place during his regime.

Modi had said in an election rally in Haridwar yesterday that BJP had a detailed dossier on the Congress leaders.

"Mein Congress ke logon se kehta hoon: jabaan sambhaal kar rakho, warna mere paas aapki poori janampatri padi hui hai (hold your tongue, I have your entire horoscope).

Reacting to this comment, Rahul today dared him saying, "You are the Prime Minister for over past two years...You can take out the janmapatri of Congress and go ahead with it."

To another comment of Modi that Rahul is the "most joked about person" on Google, the Congress Vice President hit back, saying, "...he likes to search Google and he can do so in his past time...but he has failed in his functions as PM...he will get a jolt from the results of these elections."

"(Actually) Modi's policy is that of distraction...when he cannot give answers to issues like employment, security, demonetisation...he indulges in distraction and the whole country knows about it," Rahul said.

He said Modi had promised to provide two lakh jobs every year and last year only one lakh youths were provided jobs and this year with the unemployment going high, things are back to square one.

"Modi talks about security and terorism...the result of surgical strike has been that some 90 security personnel had to sacrifice their lives first time in seven years," he said.

Speaking at the press conference, the UP Chief Minister said emotions and anger were not right as these were elections for growth and prosperity of the state.

"Anyone's 'janmpatri' is just a click away in this age of Internet," Akhilesh said, asking the "PM and BJP not to mislead people and come forward and tell them as to what they have given to the state which has elected all prominent NDA leaders".
The high-stake Assembly elections are seen as a litmus test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's nearly three-year rule.

People standing in queue at a polling booth to cast their vote in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district. (Photo: ANI Twitter)

Lucknow: Sixty-three per cent voters exercised their franchise till 4 pm in 73 assembly constituencies in the first of the seven-phase UP polls, the Election Commission said on Saturday.

Barring an incident of voter-slip snatching and clashes among supporters of rival parties at Baghpat, polling was peaceful.

The turn out was estimated at around 45 per cent, he said. A total of 2.60 crore voters, including over 1.17 crore women and 1,508 belonging to third gender category are eligible to cast their ballot to decide the fate of 839 candidates.

A report from Baghpat said RLD workers obstructed Dalit voters from exercising their franchise in Looyan village under Badaut area leading to clash.

Police swung into action to disperse them. FIRs have been filed against three RLD workers.

In Meerut, controversial BJP leader Sangeet Som's brother Gangan Som was detained by police for carrying a pistol inside a polling booth.

Gagan reached the polling booth in Sardhana Assembly seat at 9 AM. The security personnel deployed there frisked him and found a pistol in his possession. He was immediately detained, police said.

Officials said that as per the poll code, those possessing licensed weapons are required to deposit them with the police.

The permission to keep arms is granted in special cases only. Sangeet is the sitting MLA from Sardhana and had shot to limelight for his controversial speeches during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.

In Mathura, minor EVM malfunctions were reported at a few places. No incident of violence took place in all 5 seats of the district, Deputy collector Basant Agrawal said.

The first phase of polling will decide the electoral fortunes of Pankaj Singh (Noida seat), son of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Congress Legislature Party leader Pradeep Mathur (Mathura) against whom BJP spokesman Srikant Sharma is in fray, Mriganka Singh (Kairana), daughter of BJP MP Hukum Singh and controversial BJP MLAs Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana - Sardhan and Thanabhawan respectively.

Former BJP state president Lakshmikant Bajpai (Meerut), RJD chief Lalu Prasad's son-in-law Rahul Singh (SP) from Sikandarabad, and Sandeep Singh, grandson of Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh from Atrauli are among other key figures in this phase.

The districts where polling is on in this phase are Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Hapur, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras, Agra, Firozabad, Etah and Kasganj.

In the 73 constituencies where polling is being held today, SP and BSP had bagged 24 seats each, BJP 11, Rashtriya Lok Dal headed by Ajit Singh nine and Congress five in the 2012 polls.
The 25-year-old's breast burst while she was getting a tattoo in Thailand

There are many weird videos that are shared on social media and take the internet by storm because of the surprising yet hilarious content. A woman in Thailand recently had an unusual day when she went to a tattoo parlour to get a tattoo. While the tattooist is busy making the tattoo, the womans breast explodes suddenly in his face leaving him shocked.

The video which has now gone viral because of its hilarity has a 25-year-old woman called Mint getting a tattoo in a tattoo parlour in Thailand. While the tattooist is busy getting the tattoo on her arm, her boob suddenly explodes in his face. The tattooist taken by surprise actually falls of his chair before the video ends.

There are several reports that say that the woman had to put balloons so that she could promote her boyfriends tattoo parlour in another place. The surprising video has however gone viral and is being seen by many people across the world. The girl may have tried to promote the parlour but she definitely got the fame she didnt expect at the end of the surprising video.

Watch the video here:
Case pertains to the death of three Sikhs in the aftermath of the riots that broke out after the assassination of then PM Indira Gandhi.

New Delhi: Congress leader Jagdish Tytler, on Friday, told a Delhi court that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has not given any reason in its plea to conduct the lie detection test on him in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case. Mr Tytler, who did not appear before the court personally, filed an application through his lawyer stating that the CBI plea was a gross misuse of law and it was filed with mala fide intention.

Arms dealer Abhishek Verma, who was also issued a notice by the court on the CBI plea, appeared before the court and said that he stands by his statement given to the probe agency earlier and was ready to join the investigation. Mr Verma, a witness in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, has deposed before the CBI earlier that Mr Tytler had told him in 2008 that he got a clean chit in the case after meeting the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Advocate Maninder Singh, who represented Verma, also said that the CBI has not given any reason to conduct the lie detection test on him and he was ready to record his statement before a magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC. He also sought a weeks time to file his reply on the plea.

The additional chief metropolitan magistrate, Shivali Sharma, granted time to Verma to file his reply and listed the matter for February 23 for hearing arguments on CBIs application.

Senior advocate H.S. Phoolka, who represented the riot victims, said that Tytler had earlier given a statement to the media that he was ready to undergo lie detection test. The court had on February 8 issued notice to Tytler and Verma on CBIs plea.

The case pertains to the death of three Sikhs in the aftermath of the riots that broke out after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Mr Tytler has been given a clean chit by CBI thrice in the case but the probe agency has been directed by the court to further investigate the matter. Verma has made several statements to the CBI against the senior Congress leader that he allegedly pressurised witnesses in the case.

During the hearing, Verma told the court that he was facing threat and should be given protection. The CBI in its plea has said, For the purpose of further investigation, polygraph test (lie detection test) needs to be conducted on Abhishek Verma and Jagdish Tytler.

It has cited the courts December 4, 2015, order in which it was mentioned that a lie detection test may be conducted, if required.

The presence of these two persons, namely, Abhishek Verma and Jadgish Tytler, is necessary before this court to accord their consent about the polygraph test, the plea said while seeking the courts direction to Tytler and Verma to appear before it.

The court had earlier held that Verma, in his statement to the CBI, disclosed an active role played by Tytler in extending a helping hand to a witness against him. It had noted that the statement given by Verma to the CBI, in which he has claimed that Tytler had sent the son of Surinder Singh Granthi  a key witness against him  to Canada, cannot be a sheer coincidence and the agency should probe whether it is true.
She is smart, educated and works for a trust, which supports transgender community.

Mumbai: Priya Patil, a 30-year-old transgender, has filed her nomination as a Nagrik Adhikar Manch (NAM) candidate from ward number 166 in Bail Bazar, Kurla West.

She is smart, educated and works for a trust, which supports transgender community. She has now decided to enter political fray to create awareness about her community by contesting the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls.

She has completed a diploma course in social work from Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work, Churchgate, and is now working as a program manager for the Kinnar Maa Trust, which works for the transgender community.

There are a lot of misconceptions about the transgender community, and I want to change it. I want to educate and empower our people and provide employment to them. If elected as a corporator, I will be able to pursue our issues at the government level in a much efficient manner, said Ms Patil.

Highlighting the apathetic approach of government towards transgender communitys demands, she said, Our trust Kinnar Maa has been demanding a Ashram (shelter home) for transgender community for last five years. But no decision has been taken yet.

I want to set up Ashrams in the city for the transgender community where we can educate and empower them. Due to discrimination and stigma, Kinnars are not able to seek education even if they wish so. We plan to set up at least three such Ashrams across the city for their benefits, she added.

Apart from this, Ms Patil also wants to start skill development and career guidance programmes for women and unemployed youths in her ward.

The complaint of the people about the civic issues will be recorded. This way, I would be able to solve their problems, she said.
The man claims he once connected to Uber via his wife's phone but despite using the log-off function, the app continued to send her updates.

The bug in the Uber software was not a one-off case and had been experienced by other users. (Photo: Representational Image)

Nice: An adulterous businessman in southern France is seeking damages of up to 45 million euros ($48 million) from Uber over his wife's discovery of his extra-marital rides, his lawyer and a report said Friday.

The man, from the glitzy Riviera area on the southern coastline, claims he once connected to the ride-hailing application via his wife's phone to request a driver.

Despite using the log-off function, the application continued to send her updates afterwards, revealing his travel history and arousing suspicions about his lover, Le Figaro newspaper said. The couple have since divorced.

"My client was the victim of a bug in an application," his lawyer David Darmon told AFP after the case was lodged at a court in Grasse in south-east France.

"There's a function to disconnect but the session was not disconnected and the bug has caused him problems in his private life," Darmon added.

He declined to comment on claims in Le Figaro that he had sought damages of 45 million euros, saying only that his client "wished to remain discreet and retain his anonymity."

The newspaper said the bug in the Uber software was not a one-off case and had been experienced by other users.

Uber told AFP in a statement that it would not comment on the case underway but that the best possible protection of clients' personal details was a priority.
The aim is to preserve a spirit of unity, harmony and peace among villagers. Residents bought alcohol from stores and pour it in a ditch. The move is linked to high rate of alcohol abuse and social problems rather than religion.

Bishkek (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Worried by the high rate of alcohol and drug abuse among young people, residents of the village Ornok (Chon-Sary-Oy district) have decided to ban the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Last week, residents raised US$ 382 and bought all the alcohol available in ten stores and pour it into a ditch.

Local authorities and the district imam backed the anti-booze campaign. Some shop owners voluntarily gave away alcohol for disposal. Grateful, residents gave them a letter of appreciation.

According the Turmush regional news service, neighbouring villages have decided to join the campaign out of a spirit of unity, harmony and peace.

Businesses that did not join the campaign might face closure.

On 23 January, the President of Kyrgyzstan Almazbek Atambayev approved an amendment to the law that bans the consumption of alcoholic beverages in unsuitable places such as public places and the workplace.

The law, which came into force at the beginning of February, increases fines by ten times (US$ 14).

About 78 per cent of Kyrgyzstans population is Muslim. Religious prohibitions aside, alcohol abuse is mostly related to high rates of poverty and employment.
by Purushottam Nayak

Today the Church marks the 25th World Day of the Sick established by John Paul II. For Mgr Mallavarapu, it is critical to fulfil the mission and "serve the poor, the sick, the suffering, the exiled and marginalised." On the occasion, the CBCI is promoting initiatives in hospitals, nursing homes, and parishes.

Bangalore (AsiaNews)  On the occasion of World Day of the Sick, which the Church celebrates today around the world along with the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, the Catholic bishops of India have decided to renew their call to serve the sick and the most vulnerable people in society.

In a message signed by Mgr Prakash Mallavarapu, archbishop of Visakhapatnam and president of the Health Care Commission of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), the bishops express hope that on this day "we can find new incentives to work for the growth of a culture of respect for life, health and the environment."

John Paul II established the World Day of the Sick, which is now at its 25th edition, to help the faithful to care for the sick through works and prayers.

This year Pope Franciss chosen theme is Amazement at what God has accomplished: The Mighty One has done great things for me . . . (Lk, 1:49).

Inspired by the message of the Argentine Pope, Mgr Mallavarapu reiterated his call to "follow in Marys footsteps" and "renew ones spiritual energy" to fulfill the "critical" mission of the Church to "serve the poor, the sick, the suffering, the exiled and marginalised."

"I encourage all of you  the sick, those suffering, doctors, nurses, family members and volunteers  to see Mary, health of the infirm, as a sure sign of God. May Marys gaze, comforter of the afflicted, illuminate the face the Church in its daily commitment to those suffering and those in need."

The CBCIs Health Care Commission includes its president Mgr Prakash Mallavarapu, Mgr William D'Souza, the archbishop of Patna, and Mgr Jacob Manathadath, bishop of Palghat. Fr Mathew Perumpil is the secretary.

Founded in 1989, the commission is tasked with coordinating the activities of all Catholic institutions and bodies in the field of public health.

The commission also operates as a national forum for meeting and discussing various topics related to health and well-being on the basis of Christian doctrine and values that inspire and characterise its activities.

"The Catholic Church in India, noted the archbishop of Visakhapatnam, aims to create a healthy society, where people, especially the poor, the needy and the marginalised can reach and maintain holistic well-being and live in harmony with the Creator and with themselves whilst leading a balanced life in union with others and the environment."

Across India, 12 to 19 February will be a Healing Week Ministry". With this in mind, Indian bishops call on the faithful to pray and take care of the sick, alleviating their suffering.

Various Christian organisations and associations  the Christian Medical Association of India (CMAI), the National Council of Churches of India (NCCI) and the Catholic Healthcare Networks in India  have joined the event reiterating their renewed commitment to work with the Church for the care of the sick.

For the occasion, the CBCI has proposed two activities: common prayers in hospitals and clinics, fully respecting patients and believers of other religions, and blessing the sick, interfaith prayers, and liturgical ceremonies in parishes.
by Sumon Corraya

A big local household appliance company has hired 43 young people who completed a two-year programme. Bipul and Laxmi, two young Hindus, are among them. Today they offer hope to their poor families. In Bangladesh unemployment exceeds 14 per cent and fuels crime.

Dinajpur (AsiaNews)  In more than 50 years of activity, the Novara Technical School in Dinajpur, a vocational school run by the missionaries of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), has trained hundreds of young poor people.

The school takes in children in need, unable to pay expensive fees elsewhere, and once they complete a two-year programme, all of them get jobs in a country where unemployment exceeds 14 per cent.

Bipul Chandra Sharma and Laxmi Kanta Roy, both Hindus, are among the 43 students that the RFL Group, a local home appliances company, hired after they graduated last January.

Speaking to AsiaNews, Bipul said that his parents could not pay for his college education, "but now with this new job, I offer hope to my needy family."

For his part, Laxmi, who just got his first monthly wages, said with emotion, "I sent money to my parents, so they can eat some sweets."

Both went to the Novara Technical School and stayed at its hostel. Founded in 1965 by Fr Faustino Cescato, the facility offers courses in mechanics, electrical trades, radio, and carpentry.

A satisfied Sylvester Corraya, who teaches at the school and is in charge of its hostel, said that "The RFL Group executives learnt from Caritas Bangladesh that we train young people and booked interviews. For us, the fact that our students have found work in this company is a great achievement."

Last year, 93 students completed the two-year programme and got jobs in various companies, Corraya noted. No one was left without a job.

Our school, he added, is a blessing for many families and significantly reduces the countrys unemployment."

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), at least 2.3 million people are unemployed, 1.4 million of these are men. Every year, 1.3 million youths enter the labour market.

However, high unemployment fuels crime and social unrest.
The pope wants to understand more the needs of the faithful who come on pilgrimage to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The commission that investigated the authenticity of the apparitions finished its work long ago. Francis often jokes about Our Lady the postwoman delivering appearances on command, or the Virgin Mary superstar but never explicitly in relation to Medjugorje.

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  Pope Francis has named Mgr Henryk Hoser, archbishop of Warsaw, as a Special Envoy to Medjugorje. So far, the Church has not made any statement about the veracity of the apparitions to visionaries. In the statement published today by the Holy See Press Office, the Vatican Secretariat of State said that Mgr Hosers task has "exclusively pastoral character."

The statement reads:

On February 11, 2017, the Holy Father entrusted Archbishop Henryk Hoser, S.A.C., bishop of Warsaw-Prague (Poland), to go to Medjugorje as Special Envoy of the Holy See.

The mission has the aim of acquiring a deeper knowledge of the pastoral situation there and above all, of the needs of the faithful who go there in pilgrimage, and on the basis of this, to suggest possible pastoral initiatives for the future. The mission will therefore have an exclusively pastoral character.

Archbishop Hoser, who will continue to exercise his role as bishop of Warsaw-Prague, is expected to finish his mandate as Special Envoy by summer of this year.

Over the years, contrasts have developed between the bishop of Mostar and the community that has emerged around the visionaries who claim to have daily visions of the Virgin at least since 1984.

In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI set up a commission headed by Card Camillo Ruini to investigate the phenomenon of the apparitions and vet the Marian devotion that developed around the world with millions of pilgrims who come to Medjugorje every year.

The results of the commission's work went to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but so far there has been no papal pronouncement.

More and more testimonies have been coming to the fore about the truthfulness of the faith of the people who come to the shrine in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including people converting, returning to the faith, or making vocational decisions.

For this reason, while not yet expressing views about the apparitions, the Vatican gave instructions that pilgrims receive all religious services: Mass, Stations of the Cross, Eucharistic adoration, confessions, etc. Groups that visit the sanctuary are also advised to be accompanied by a priest.

Pope Francis seems to have some doubts with respect to the truthfulness of appearances, although in the past, he seems to have been a devotee of Medjugorje.

He has sometimes expressed views about Our Lady acting as a postwoman continuously delivering messages, and about the booking of appearances, with lots of time and room, that some visionaries seem to exploit during ecclesial gatherings.

Speaking with religious superiors in November, the pontiff said he refuses the Virgin of a post office that every day sends a different letter, saying: My children, you do this and then, tomorrow, you do something else.

Instead, "The real Virgin is the one who generates Jesus in our hearts; she is a Mother, he explained. This fashion of the Virgin Mary superstar, as a protagonist that puts herself at the centre, isnt Catholic, he added.

In any event, Francis has never closely tied these utterances to the phenomenon of Medjugorje.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "The devil is cunning" and uses an attractive method to cheat, "cheating" talk and leads us into corruption. "There is no talking to temptation: pray." These are some of the statements made by Pope Francis during the morning homily at the Mass in Santa Marta.

The Holy Father was reflecting on the devil's temptation Both of Adam and Eve, in the first Reading, and of Jesus in the Gospel. With Satan, the Pope said, there is no dialogue, Because dialogue with the devil ends in sin and corruption.

Temptations lead us to hide ourselves from the Lord, so That We remain with our "fault," our "sin," our "corruption." Beginning with the first Reading, from the Book of Genesis, Pope Francis focused on the temptation of Adam and Eve, and then Considered That of Jesus in the desert. The Devil Appears in the form of a serpent: he is "attractive," and with His cunning he seeks "to deceive." In this he is a specialist, he is "the father of lies," "a liar." I know he knows how to deceive and how to "cheat" people. This is what he did with Eve: he made her "feel good," the Pope Explained, and so he Began to dialogue with her; and, step by step, Satan led her where he wanted. With Jesus it is different; it ended badly for the Devil, the Pope said. "He tries to dialogue" with Christ, Because When the devil deceives a person he does so with dialogue. "He attempts to deceive Him, but Jesus does not give in. Then the devil is revealed for who he is. Jesus answers him, not with His own words, but with the Word of God, because "you can not dialogue with the devil"; you'll end up, like Adam and Eve, "naked":"The devil is a bad paymaster, he does not pay well. He is a cheat! He promises you everything and leaves you naked. Jesus, too, ended up naked, but on the Cross, through obedience to the Father: this is a different path. The serpent, the devil is cunning: you can not dialogue with the devil. We all know what temptations are, we all know, Because We all have them. So many temptations! Of vanity, pride, greed, avarice ... so many! "

Today, the Pope said, there is a lot of talk of corruption; and for this, too, We Should ask for the Lord's help: "There are so many corrupt people, corrupt 'big fish' in the world, Whose lives we read about in the papers. Perhaps they Began with a small thing, I do not know, maybe not adjusting the scales well. What was a kilo ... no, let's make it 900 grams, but That Will Seem like a kilo. Corruption begins in small things like this, with dialogue: 'No, it's not true That this fruit will harm you. Eat it, it's good! It's a little thing, no one will notice. Do it! Do it! 'And little by little, little by little, you fall into sin, you fall into corruption. "

The Church teaches us in this way, the Pope said, so we will not be deceived - not to say foolish - So That when we are tempted we have our "eyes open" and know to ask the Lord for help, "Because We Can 't do it on our own. "Adam and Eve hid Themselves from the Lord; on the contrary, it takes the grace of Jesus in order to "turn and seek forgiveness": "In temptation, you do not dialogue, you pray: 'Help me, Lord, I am weak. I do not want to hide from you. 'This is courage, this is winning. When you start to dialogue, you end up overcome, defeated. May the Lord give us grace That, and Accompany us in this courage. And if we are deceived Because of our weakness in temptation, may He grant us the courage to get up and go forward. It's for this That Jesus came, for this. "
by Sr. Benigna Menezes

Some 1.5 million pilgrims are expected this year. Plans are underway to equip the shrine with facilities and devotional accommodations similar to those of other Marian shrines around the world. A Vatican delegation is expected to visit the site soon. The shrine itself was founded by PIME missionaries in 1923.

Vijayawada (AsiaNews)  As in previous years, Our Lady Mother of Good Health brought at her feet thousands of believers for a three-day festival (9-11 February) in Gunadala.

Two days ago, hundreds of people got up very early in the morning to attend the first Mass of the day under a colourful pandal*.

Mgr Telagathoti Raja Rao, bishop of Vijayawada, greeted and blessed the pilgrims, then together with priests, he went to the altar to light festive lamps.

The bishop explained the origins of this festival, and how the apparitions of Our Lady to Bernadette Soubirous in the grotto of Lourdes spawned a new world-wide devotion, linked to great healing and anointing of the sick.

In an ambiance filled with sacred music and chants, a silver and golden jubilee was celebrated to honour the priests who have served the Church in Andhra Pradesh for many years.

The director of the new Catholic Divya Vani TV channel, Fr Udumala Showry Bala Reddy, recited the homily, giving thanks to Our Lady of Good Health for helping him in his 25 years of priesthood.

PIME missionaries began the festival in Gunadala, Vijayawada, in 1923. After more than 90 years, the event has become an important moment for Catholics, although Muslims and Hindu pilgrims come as well.

Speaking at a press conference, Mgr Telagathoti Raja Rao, said the shrine of Gunadala Matha (Mother of Gunadala) in the new capital region of Andhra Pradesh** needs fresh developments because It has become a destination for pilgrims all year round, and not only for this period.

Facilities are need to accommodate pilgrims who come from afar and proposals are required for those seeking spiritual solace and blessings.

To this end, the bishop wants to set up a group of priests to visit and learn from other Marian shrines in the world  such as those in Rome, Lourdes, Fatima, and Czestochowa  to study their reception capacities and expressions of Marian devotion, in order to adapt the Vijayawada shrine to world standards. A Vatican delegation is expected to study the shrine in the near future.

Today's celebration was preceded by a novena that started on 31 January. Holding lighted candles, the faithful walked in procession with the Blessed Sacrament up to the shrine on the hill, site of the statue of Mary, praying the rosary and singing hymns.

The shrine director, Fr Eleti Jaya Rao, said that at least 1.5 million pilgrims are expected, thanks to new accommodation facilities and the ubiquitous atmosphere of prayer.

Andhra Pradesh is home to 300,000 Catholics served by 200 priests in 1,600 churches under the Krishna Unit. In addition, there are hundreds of schools, and charities for the poor and the needy.

For this event, the government has organised a special bus service for pilgrims from the Gunadala train and bus stations to shrine. The railway company has also authorised special stops at Gunadala station for pilgrims.

* A pandal is a temporary structure set up for religious ceremonies.

** The old capital, Hyderabad, has become the capital of the new state of Telangana.
Via the Ministry of Health: Ministerio da Saude lanca campanha com orientacoes sobre a vacinacao contra a febre amarela.[Ministry of Health launches information campaign on yellow fever vaccination] The edited Google translation:

"Information for all and vaccine for those who need it." This is the slogan of the information campaign against yellow fever that the Ministry of Health is launching this Friday (10).

In addition to clarifying who needs to be vaccinated at this time, the campaign will explain to the general population that there is no need for vaccination at all. The recommendation is for those who live or will travel to areas affected by yellow fever. In that case, the advice is to seek the nearest health facility to take the vaccine.

Initially, the campaign will be directed to the states of Rio Janeiro, Espirito Santo, Bahia and Minas Gerais, lasting a month. In a second stage, it should be extended to other states.
Hi there,



Stumbled on this forum having lots of confusing visa questions and seems amazing.



Thanks to all the great people on here sharing their knowledge to help us!





Alex
My Passport and 2 IDs

4 weeks of my Pay Slips (I gross $1400 a week)

8 pictures of us and her family

Screenshot of our FB accounts (6 in total)

Screenshots of Viber call logs (6 in total)

My stamped Australian passport pages to Philippines

Future Airfare tickets of myself travelling to Philippines for this April

Her Notarized copies of Passport, Birth Cert, IDs, NBI Clearance

Proof of Western Union receipts that I sent money (8 receipts)

Hi AllFirst time posting but long time reader.I just would like to share my experience in successfully getting my GF from the Philippines a tourist visa (Got approval next day) submitted Feb 9 2017 and approved Feb 10 2017My GF is 28 yrs old and has no job, no savings, no assets.I've traveled to the Philippines 3 times to visit her in 2016 and things got serious and started a relationship.I ended up writing a Letter of Invitation and support, A 3 page Letter from my GF about her intentions on visiting Australia as well as outlining that she does nothave a job or assets. All she wrote was that they earn their living from their farm land and extra support from the money i send her weekly (AU $130).Attached to our online application wason her side of things she sentPlease note she did not submit proof of Financial documents - She addressed why she had no bank records on the cover letter to immigration. I did include on my Letter of Invitation and Support that I will cover all her expenses including Airfare and Medical Insurance.$135 and the next day Tourist Visa Approved for 3 months.So guys just be truthful and write your Cover Letters carefully and precisely and address things that could be questioned by immigration and you might just get lucky.I can't wait to bring her over here and enjoy Australia.Cheers All
There doesn't seem to be a lot of traffic on this forum from people applying from Turkey, but I thought I would add our information, to help anyone considering applying for a 309/100 through the Australian Embassy in Ankara. I know that the few posts I found while searching this forum helped us to decide to file offshore rather than onshore.Applied: 8 August 2016Police Checks: 8 August 2016Medical: 23 September 2016Case Officer: 25 November 2016Visa Granted: 30 January 2017All up, our processing time was just under 6 months.We did not use a RMA - however, I am extremely grateful for the RMAs who regularly post on this site. I did a LOT of forum searches before we applied, and the answers and information provided from RMAs and other posters really was invaluable!My husband is American - we just happened to be living in Turkey.We submitted police checks and medicals without waiting for them to be requested, as processing times out of Ankara are relatively quick.Our first contact with the case officer was a request for my husband to provide a Statutory Declaration in lieu of a police clearance from Indonesia. Our case officer was lovely! She arranged for my husband to go to the Consulate in Istanbul, and they forwarded the Stat Dec on to the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia for verification.There was no interview.Our case officer contacted us again on 20 December 2016 to say that everything was in order, and that the visa would be granted in the new year / "after the holidays."The 309 and 100 both came through on the same day (30th January 2017), as we had been married 12 years at the time of application.My husband will be joining me here in Australia later this month!If anyone is applying from Turkey and has any questions, feel free to ask!
Deal of Rs 80 crore part of a joint venture agreement between PSA Group and CK Birla Group.

Hindustan Motors has sold its iconic brand, Ambassador to the PSA Group in a deal worth Rs 80 crores that will include trademarks as well. HM has indicated that the amount will be used to clear its outstanding dues.



The PSA Groups plans are unknown and it remains to be seen if it will revive the model or relaunch the brand as a retro-lifestyle offering with an all-new car, a la BMWs Mini. More details are likely to emerge in the next few days. Interestingly, a few years ago, the Ambassador was featured in an advertisement for Peugeot and it showed a man remodelling the Ambassador to make it resemble a Peugeot 206.

The HM Ambassador was based on the Morris Oxford III model and was brought to India by the Birlas in 1957. It then went on to become a venerable icon of the Indian automobile landscape. During the pre-liberalisation times, the Ambassador became a favourite of the masses, the taxi drivers and the political class. Over the decades, the Ambassador received countless iterations with the Mark series of cars, Nova, ISZ (with an Isuzu engine) and the most recent (03-04) Grand and Avigo versions.

However, most of these changes seemed to be few and far in between when compared to the other modern offerings in the market. Sales dwindled but the Ambassador soldiered on for another decade until production was suspended in 2014 at HMs Uttarpara plant in West Bengal.



Earlier this year, the PSA Group, parent company of Peugeot and Citroen announced that it would return to India through joint ventures with the CK Birla Group. These joint ventures cover manufacturing, distribution of vehicles in India and a powertrain manufacturing unit, and will be based out of Tamil Nadu.

The PSA Group had in April 2016 revealed its aggressive Push to Pass growth plan for the 2016-2021 period. India is part of this plan as per which the carmaker is targeting a partnership deal by 2018 and a product launch before the end of 2021.

Also read

Hindustan Ambassador - The car that refused to die

Peugeot plans India comeback


Photo of Commercial Vehicle Center interior courtesy of Ford.

Ford is launching the Commercial Vehicle Center dealer program that will replace the Business Preferred Network (BPN) and offer improved service, better parts availability and a new loyalty program, Ford announced.

The program is rolling out at 650 of Ford's more than 3,000 dealers in the U.S. and replaces a program that was heavily used by smaller fleets to set up work trucks and vans.

Much like a BPN dealer, a Commercial Vehicle Center will offer sales, service, and financing support for commercial buyers.

"Nearly 30 years ago, Ford established its first program to improve the purchase experience for our commercial vehicle customers," said John Ruppert, Ford general manager, commercial vehicle sales and marketing. "Now we are introducing the next chapter in our commercial vehicle story, not only by rebranding the program, but by further expanding a number of program elements to improve the overall customer experience."

A Commercial Vehicle Center will offer a service counter that's open at least 55 hours per week and new stocking programs that will improve parts availability, according to Ford.

Ford is also offering a new Commercial Advantage Rewards loyalty program that allows customers to earn various factory benefits that can be redeemed at a Commercial Vehicle Center location. Dealers can offer their own rewards through the program.

The centers will support Ford's commercial vehicles, including Transit Connect compact vans, full-size Transit cargo vans, F-150 pickups, Super Duty chassis cabs, as well as F-650 and F-750 medium-duty trucks. Commercial Vehicle Center dealers will also offer the best selection of in-stock Ford commercial vehicles, and a range of financing options and incentives, according to Ford.
Lamborghini Urus concept is coming to life and production will begin by April of this year. This was confirmed by Lambo's CEO Stefano Domenicali. This is the first for Lambo to finally commit to building an SUV.

The Lamborghini Urus concept first debuted back in 2012. After 5 long years, it seems it is finally happening. Digital Trends reported that there are two important points that Lamborghini's CEO confirmed.

Upcoming Lamborghini Urus SUV will reportedly be brands first plug-In hybrid.https://t.co/n98ByuXPMK pic.twitter.com/TahBxFJ7rg  The Drive (@thedrive) December 28, 2016

Stefano Domenicali confirmed that start of production will begin in April and will be made in Sant'Agata Bolognese, like all Lambo vehicles that are built in their sole factory. Lambo's CEO also confirmed that the new SUV will retain its moniker "Urus," a concept the first made its debut at the 2012 Beijing Auto Show. "It's a matrix of complexity that, for our dimension, is a big, big step," said CEO Domenicali during a sat down with Digital Trends.

Domenicali also divulged a few juicy details, CNET reports. The Lamborghini Urus will also be able to handle off-road conditions, such that it will have specific modes for "ice, snow, stones, and sand." The CEO hinted that it could have a similarity with the Ego approach found in the Aventador S.

In terms of hybrid vehicles, Lambo is expecting that the Lamborghini Urus' second variant could hit the market as a hybrid.

According to Motor Authority, a standard 4-liter twin turbocharged V8 engine could power this luxurious SUV. It could produce around 500 to 600 horses. But we will soon find out once the Lamborghini Urus finally makes its grand entrance.

A production version of the Urus could possibly grace the Geneva Motor Show that will kick off this March. Geneva has been home to Lambo's supercar debut, so the company debuting its luxurious SUV is a strong possibility.

Since production of the Lamborghini Urus will begin this April, the SUV could hit the stores by 2018. Stay tuned for more updates on the latest of this must-have flashy, luxury SUV.
Toyota HiLux Tonka teaser photo and clip has recently surfaced revealing the concept of the new ute. The new truck is an excellent concept collaboration with toy truck manufacturer Tonka.

Big boys can now have that feeling of riding on their favorite Tonka truck. The new Toyota HiLux Tonka got its inspiration from the iconic Tonka yellow trucks.

A photo of a one-page sketch of the concept of the upcoming Toyota Hilux Tonka is now circulating the web. The new pick-up is making an early debut boasting of its upgraded tough design and features.

In addition, a video clip revealing the exteriors and interiors of the new Hilux Tonka has also surfaced. The clip reveals how gorgeous the new pick-up is.

With regard to the concept, Toyota teases that the new HiLux is the "ultimate off-road adventurer." Toyota Australia's product design chief Nicolas Hogios shared that they anticipate the "extreme style and capability" of the upcoming Tonka will fascinate the young and adults alike.

The product design chief illustrates how the new truck could be as extremely valuable as a boy's toy truck. Nicolas Hogios claims the new HiLux is somewhat an answer to the dream of each Australian child who is fond of owning a truck.

Mr. Hogios further teased that the new truck is considered a brilliant canvass. He emphasized that they exerted efforts with Tonka, their number one selling brand, CarAdvice reported.

With regard to the design, the iconic Tonka yellow HiLux double-cab is integrated with wild bumpers, tailgate, grille, door moldings and wheel arches. Underneath, the suspension is customized for the gigantic off-road tires.

4x4Australia has posted the teaser video of Toyota's presentation of the new HiLux Tonka concept. You may want to check it out on this link.

The upcoming Toyota HiLux Tonka has been announced to be released in the coming months. However, Toyota has not disclosed the exact release date.


Cisco System Inc., the networking giant, has just announced that it has teamed up with Microsoft to offer the Azure Stack on its Unified Computing System. Hoping to make its mark in the hybrid cloud space, Cisco's integrated approved UCS will allow its customers to deliver Microsoft Azure services from their on-premises server center.

Azure Stack is a pile of technologies that Microsoft is designing for clients and partners to run in their own particular data centers. It includes experiences and programming interfaces that Microsoft offers through its own Azure open cloud.

The California-based networking leader stated that the new joint arrangement with Microsoft would allow enterprises to develop and modernize their applications in an exceptionally flexible and versatile hybrid cloud environment. As traditional business transition moves from on-premise data centers to more cost-effective, adaptable open cloud solutions, the hybrid cloud draws in customers searching for the best of both worlds.

Liz Centoni, senior vice president, and general manager, Computing Systems Product Group, Cisco, said; "Cisco and Microsoft are coming together to offer a hybrid cloud solution built on the power of UCS and Microsoft Azure." "Through our joint engineering efforts, application developers and IT managers will have a turnkey solution that is easy to deploy, manage and scale."

In December, Cisco reported the end of its $1 billion public cloud platform, Intercloud, clarifying that it was moving its focus to help other enterprises build and manage their increasingly hybrid IT infrastructures. Cisco joined some tech organizations including Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and VMware Inc. that are focusing on the hybrid IT space as they dropped their cloud platforms and teamed with suppliers as public cloud pioneers such as Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft.

Furthermore, both companies said that the Cisco Integrated System for Azure Stack will be accessible sometime in the Q3-Q4 2017 time period. Microsoft officials said a year ago that Azure Stack had been deferred from 2016 to mid-2017.

Microsoft officials also have said that customers at last might have the capacity to run Microsoft's Azure Stack on the hardware that they already own, which a few users say they'd favor as a cost-saving measure. However, Microsoft executives haven't mentioned yet that this is a definite or given a timeframe to when that may happen.
Via the South China Morning Post: Chinas Guangzhou has third of live poultry markets contaminated with bird flu, survey finds. Excerpt:

Guangzhou officials have advised residents to avoid contact with live poultry after one-third of poultry markets in Chinas third-largest city were found to be contaminated with H7N9 bird flu.

The warning was given on Thursday after the Guangzhou Centre for Disease Control and Prevention found in its latest weekly sample assessment that more than 30 per cent of local live poultry markets were contaminated with the H7N9 avian flu virus.

Live poultry markets are a major source of human infection, as previous cases indicate.

The result fans fears of a wider spread as the city, which has a population of 17 million people, is a major transportation hub for migrant workers, many of whom are now returning to Guangdong province from their hometowns after the Lunar New Year holiday.

Guangzhou announced last month that it would halt live poultry trading in all markets three days a month in the first quarter of the year.

The city has had 35 people diagnosed with the virus in the past three years, more than half of whom died, Zhang Zhoubin, the deputy director of the municipal disease control centre, told local media.

Winter and spring are usually the peak seasons for humans to contract bird flu, requiring the culling of live poultry and closure of markets to contain its spread.

The China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention warned last month that the peak season for bird flu would occur one month earlier this year, and it expected to see a larger number of cases and a wider region of infection than in previous years.

The Centre for Health Protection of the Department of Health in Hong Kong on Friday received notification from its mainland counterpart that 45 new human cases of H7N9 bird flu had been recorded from January 30 to February 5, with four of those in Guangdong province.
The 2018 Volkswagen Atlas Weekend Edition debuted at the 2017 Chicago Auto Show previewing an accessory lineup built specifically for its biggest vehicle. Although this is much a concept and not a production model, it still pretty much sells it, because simply VW can. Targeting families with an active lifestyle, VW wants them to buy the accessories made for the crossover.

The highlight of the 2018 Volkswagen Atlas Weekend Edition is its cargo carrier, aptly referred to as "Urban Loader." It's a hard-shell, roof-mounted cargo box that can expand to swallow around 17.7 cubic feet of cargo. In order to reach the soft sides of the box, the vehicle has side steps to help you. Also, the carrier bars can be used to hold kayaks, bikes, skis, and other outdoor equipment. Hood protector, splashguard, and wheel locks also come with the car.

The front seats are equipped with a universal tablet mount. This is so passengers could enjoy while waiting to arrive at their destination on long drives. They can also utilize the in-car Wi-Fi to stay connected even on the go.

Meanwhile, there is a cargo divider that can be used to keep your pets in the rear, in case you want to separate them. Also, there is a trunk liner used to cover both the seatbacks and trunk, for improved protection.

The 2018 Volkswagen Atlas Weekend Edition packs a 3.6-liter V6 engine, producing 280 horses and 260 lb-ft of torque. An 8-speed automatic transmission, controlled by shift paddles and VW's 4Motion AWD system is spun by the six cylinders on all 4 wheels, according to Digital Trends.

Paying homage to VW's weekender packages such as the Eurovans and Vanagon, the 2018 Volkswagen Atlas Weekend Edition is relatively an Atlas crossover that is equipped with a whole bunch of accessories.

CNET reports that not every single part of the Weekend Edition will go on sale. These include the chunkier tires and LED light bars behind the grille.

Volkswagen is yet to officially announce pricing for the Atlas Weekend Edition. But 2018 Volkswagen Atlas Weekend Edition will hit retailers this spring.
11 February 2017 12:02 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenias armed forces have 33 times violated the ceasefire in various directions along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported on February 11.

The Azerbaijani army positions located in the Gizilhajili village of Azerbaijans Gazakh district underwent fire from the Armenian army positions located in the Berkaber village of the Ijevan district of Armenia.

Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani army positions located in the Kokhanabi and Aghbulag villages of Azerbaijans Tovuz district were shelled from the Armenian army positions located on nameless heights and in the Chinari village of the Berd district of Armenia.

The Azerbaijani army positions located in the Garavalilar village of Azerbaijans Gadabay district also underwent fire from the Armenian army positions located on nameless heights of the Krasnoselsk district of Armenia.

Moreover, the Azerbaijani army positions were shelled from the Armenian army positions located near the Armenian-occupied Goyarkh, Chilaburt villages of Tartar district, Yusifjanli, Shuraabad, Marzili villages of the Aghdam district, Mehdili village of the Jabrayil district, as well as from the positions located on nameless heights of the Goranboy, Tartar, Fuzuli and Jabrayil districts of Azerbaijan.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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11 February 2017 11:24 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Iran's Central Bank Chief Valiollah Seif is expected to discuss an earlier reached agreement between Tehran and Baku on opening settlement accounts with his Azerbaijani colleagues over the coming week in Baku, an Iranian diplomat said.



Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Javad Jahangirzadeh, in an interview with Trend said that talks on settlement accounts have not produced any outcome yet, expressing hope that the upcoming visit would contribute to the talks.



Valiollah Seif is slated to arrive in Baku on Feb. 12 to discuss financial cooperation between the two countries.

Last August, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Baku where the sides agreed to expand financial cooperation and signed several documents.



During the visit, Valiollah Seif, who accompanied the president, told Trend that the central banks of the two countries have agreed to open settlement accounts.



In the meantime, the sides may also discuss using national currencies in bilateral trade. An announcement by the Central Bank of Iran on the countrys plan to stop using the US dollar in its official statements has fueled speculations on the possibility of employing national currencies of Iran and Azerbaijan in bilateral trade between the two countries.



The talks in this regard reportedly may still be held between the sides in the near future.

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11 February 2017 18:46 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijan`s Ministry of Economy has sent an export mission to Pakistan, Azertac reported.

The export mission met with representatives from leading companies of Pakistan.

More than 70 Pakistani companies attended the meeting. They discussed expanse of ties between the companies of the two countries.

The export mission also met with the representatives of more than 40 companies in the other cities of Pakistan.

The export mission includes 16 companies specializing in the production of fruits, vegetables, mineral water, fruit juices, sugar and confectionery, cotton, chemical and industrial products.

They will today pay a visit to Lahore.

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11 February 2017 10:39 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Israeli Embassy in Baku is closely following the situation regarding Alexander Lapshin, extradited from Minsk, the embassy told Trend February 10.

We are cooperating with all the sides involved through diplomatic and consular channels, the embassy said.

"The consul of the embassy of Israel in Baku visited Alexander Lapshin in the detention center today. Mr. Lapshin has been medically examined and is kept in appropriate conditions."

Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and has had a criminal conspiracy with Armenians living in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.

Lapshin is accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012.

On Jan. 17, Alexei Stuk, deputy prosecutor general of Belarus, issued a ruling on Lapshins extradition to Azerbaijan.

Lapshin was brought to Azerbaijan on February 7.

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11 February 2017 11:18 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Involving Armenian banks and companies, operating in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, in the World Bank projects is inadmissible, said Azerbaijans Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev.

He was addressing a meeting with WB Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Cyril Muller in Baku Feb. 10.

The minister once again reminded Muller about Azerbaijan's fair position in the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

Speaking about the Azerbaijan-WB cooperation, Mustafayev noted that the bank has implemented 40 projects in Azerbaijan, as of now, and 11 more projects are now being carried out.

Mustafayev noted the significance of the World Banks continuing financing the projects in Azerbaijans private sector.

At the same time, Azerbaijan is interested in cooperation in agriculture and training of employees of industrial parks, the Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park as well, he added.

Azerbaijan joined the WB Group in 1992.

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11 February 2017 10:04 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on additional measures to improve the food safety system in Azerbaijan.

In order to ensure the implementation of state control for all stages of food production in Azerbaijan, Food Safety Agency will be created.

A Food Security Commission was created under the chairmanship of Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmadov for ensuring the activity of the agency.

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@AzerNewsAz
11 February 2017 10:17 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev congratulated Hassan Rouhani, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, on the occasion of the Victory of the Islamic Revolution on February 10.

On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I extend my most sincere congratulations to you and through you to the whole people of your country on the occasion of the national holiday of the Islamic Republic of Iran - Victory of the Islamic Revolution, said President Aliyev in his congratulatory letter.

Relations between our countries are based on the will of our nations, who have historically lived in an atmosphere of friendship and good neighborliness, and common spiritual values, he said.

I believe that we will continue our joint efforts towards strengthening our intergovernmental relations and continuing fruitful cooperation within international and regional organizations, the president said.

On this remarkable day, I wish you good health, success in your activities, and the friendly and brotherly people of Iran peace and prosperity, Ilham Aliyev added.

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11 February 2017 15:31 (UTC+04:00)

Georgias Minister of Justice Tea Tsulukiani and Azerbaijans Minister of Justice, Chair of the Judicial-Legal Council Fikrat Mammadov have explored the ways for expansion of the judicial cooperation, Azertac reported.

Fikrat Mammadov emphasized fruitful friendly relations and cooperation between the two countries. He singled out the role of the heads of the states in the development of these relations.

Minister Mammadov recalled meeting with his Georgian counterpart at high-level international conferences and forums and underlined great prospects for strengthening of judicial relations.

The minister provided insight into wide-scale court and legal reforms carried out under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, including transparent election of judges in Europe, use of electronic courts and activity of administrative justice.

He also spoke about transparency in the justice system, encouragement of open government, public participation, as well as fight with corruption, including ASAN Service.

Tea Tsulukiani underscored development of relations between the two countries in various directions and bilateral support within the international organizations.

The two exchanged views on the prospects of cooperation between the ministries of justice of the two countries, including improvement of legislation, development of civil society, use of Mediation Institute.

Georgian ambassador to Baku Teymuraz Sharashenidze was also present in the meeting.

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11 February 2017 17:27 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

SOCAR Trading SA, the marketing arm of Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR, can focus on working with partners in mostly developing countries to help satisfy their power generation needs through LNG (liquefied natural gas) and linked power stations, Arzu Azimov, director general at SOCAR Trading SA, said in an interview with Platts.



SOCAR Trading SA, which this year commissioned the ambitious integrated LNG-to-power project in Malta, expects to agree deals for similar projects elsewhere in the world in the coming years, he said.



Our strategy was based on the idea that the market was getting long on LNG sooner than expected, Azimov said. So one opportunity was to create a consuming project for LNG. We see ourselves as pioneering in this field.



The integrated LNG-to-power project in Malta could be a model for the future, Azimov said, especially in growing economies in Africa and Asia.



ElectroGas Malta Consortium, where SOCAR is represented with a 20-percent share by its marketing arm SOCAR Trading, was chosen to implement the gas power plant construction project in Malta.



SOCAR Trading also participates in the project as a supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG), floating installation for storing the LNG, and equipment for LNG processing.



The plants construction costs 175 million euros and its capacity will allow meeting up to 50 percent of Maltas electricity demand.



We are prepared to look at any location - we do all the necessary due diligence and look for partners looking to build or modernize a power plant, Azimov said. The Malta project was very complex with a lot of technological innovation. We learned a lot in that process.



Different projects in different countries will need different solutions, he added.



Some are willing to agree to a fully integrated project, with power station and LNG offtake contract and guaranteed supply, he noted. In some areas there are existing power plants, but not enough gas. We can source LNG for them. We are competitive and we are flexible, Azimov said.



We are not hostage to our own production - we can always take the cheapest LNG available on the market at any given time, he added.



Azimov pointed to the start of US LNG exports as a key turning point for the industry - the ability to source flexible, cheap gas quickly.



With an attractive market set to stay in place for the foreseeable future, Azimov said there could be more project announcements in 2017.



It depends how focused our partners are to complete their projects, he noted.



Azimov added that SOCAR Trading was essentially open to offers when it comes to future LNG-to-power projects.



We would look at LNG and gas-fired power generation projects in places isolated from any existing grid or pipeline supply - islands, or places with very regionalized consumption, he said.



Greener power supply is becoming a priority in developing countries so countries that are short on power are falling under our strategy, he noted.



Azimov said most LNG suppliers have their own production that is mostly tied up in long-term contracts.



They have to balance their own LNG production with their own term supply deals and find homes for any excess LNG, he said. But we are flexible and as such we will always be competitive.



In Cote dIvoire, SOCAR Trading is part of a consortium that won a tender to operate an LNG-to-power project, Azimov noted.



Other projects are currently at different stages of development - either with an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) being prepared, due diligence being carried out or bilateral talks ongoing, he said.



Azimov added that SOCAR Trading has no ambition to be a pure LNG trader.



We dont see the benefit in pure LNG trading - we dont have our own supply and we dont have customers we have to supply, Azimov said.

SOCAR is neither a producer nor a consumer of LNG, so trading LNG was not our priority.



He noted that LNG spot trading was on the increase, a trend that is likely to continue.



More and more term contracts are expiring and customers are not extending them, so the share of spot trading has grown and will continue to grow, he said. This is driven by the increased availability of LNG,

especially with the US volumes coming to market. He added that technology was advancing quickly, allowing more LNG buyers to source import facilities.



There are more carriers, more market participants, so more liquidity, Azimov said. There are new buyers - the likes of Pakistan, Egypt, Kuwait and Jordan - building up their consumption of LNG.

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Via The Star Online: No microcephaly in baby born to Zika-infected mum. Excerpt and then a comment:

PETALING JAYA: The pregnant woman from Johor Baru who was infected by the Zika virus has given birth to a normal baby girl with no microcephaly, the Health Ministry said.

The 28-year-old mother, the first pregnant woman in Malaysia to be tested positive for Zika, delivered the baby in a public hospital in Johor Baru on Thursday night, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

The baby has normal head circumference. The mother and baby are well, he told The Star.

Microcephaly is a rare condition where a baby is born with a small head or the head stops growing after birth.

It can occur with no other major birth defects but severe microcephaly can result in a babys brain not developing properly during pregnancy, or it develops correctly but is damaged at some point during pregnancy.

In September, the mother from Taman Desa Harmoni, whose husband worked in Singapore where the infection was at its height there then, was the third person to be tested positive.

She was over three months pregnant when she showed signs of fever, rashes and body aches.

Her husband was later confirmed as the fourth patient to be infected. The man in his 30s was a chef in Singapore and commutes there daily.

Dr Noor Hisham said that there were no documented cases of microcephaly associated with the Zika virus in Malaysia as of today.

The other pregnant woman who tested positive for Zika was the fifth patient  a 36-year-old woman in Miri, Sarawak.

She was admitted to hospital in September after complaining of prolonged fever, flu and sore throat.

The ministry had said that the two pregnant mothers were being closely monitored by their obstetrics and gynaecology specialists in their respective states.

In total, eight people tested positive for Zika in Malaysia.

All the patients were well at the point of discharge from hospital except for one patient who died of heart complications while in hospital.

The Malaysian health authorities should track this baby girl and her mother for several years. We still know far too little about long-term consequences of Zika infection in pregnant women.
11 February 2017 12:38 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Citizens of Turkey and Ukraine will be able to visit each others countries using national passports, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said during a working visit to Ukraine.

Preparation for the introduction of a new regime has been completed, Turkish media outlets reported citing the foreign minister.

Turkey and Ukraine are planning to increase mutual tourist flows. We plan to introduce the travel without international passports for Ukrainian citizens coming to Turkey and Turkish citizens going to Ukraine before the start of the summer season, Cavusoglu said.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
11 February 2017 13:17 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Iran has been in talks with eight foreign banks to finance its petrochemical projects, National Petrochemical Company CEO Marzieh Shahdaei told a press conference.

According to Shahdaee, Iran has been holding talks with three German banks, four Japanese credit institutions, and a British-Danish bank over the past year.

Also, the German BASFs $4.6 billion investment in Iran is currently under technical studies, Shahdaei said, Tasnim news agency reported February 8.

She also said Total and Shell have recently signed agreements with Iran and they are exploring the situations to invest in the Iranian petrochemical industry.

The countrys nominal petrochemical output is expected to hit 64.1 million tons by March. The real output will reach 51 million tons by then.

Irans annual petrochemical export is expected to reach 20.2 million tons by the said time. However, the value of the export is calculated to stand at 9.5 billion, 21 percent lower than that achieved four years earlier due to plunging global oil prices.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
A brazen assassination, the strange discovery of a human brain and the continued rise of heroin and opioid use put their marks on the criminal justice system in 2016.

Overall, violent crime in Cumberland County was up slightly compared to 2015, with the majority of the increase being in misdemeanor or lower-level offenses, according to an analysis of court records conducted by The Sentinel.

However, one case stands out.

American Legion shooting

Shortly before 1 a.m. June 11, 30-year-old Daniel Harris Jr. was shot and killed while sitting inside the Haines Stackfield American Legion on West Penn Street in Carlisle.

Police described the shooting in the middle of a crowded bar as an assassination.

One of the difficulties of this case was that the shooting happened in a room full of people and nobody saw anything, Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said.

The Legion shooting appeared to be turning out similar to a spate of shootings within the borough in the year before Harris death. The shootings would occur, police would investigate but those with the most useful and intimate knowledge of the incident refused to cooperate.

When you are in a relatively small community and people are getting arrested for things, I dont think you will ever have perfect relations between the police, and especially with the families and friends of the people who are arrested, Freed said. Carlisle Police Department has done a good job. They work hard, and even in light of lack of cooperation continue to work the cases.

I dont believe  we single anyone out or treat anyone unfairly, he added.  However, youd have to be less than thoughtful to not consider the feelings of people in the community. Whether we believe they are warranted or not, we have to be considered and those community relations need to be considered.

A grand jury was convened to investigate the shootings. This allowed authorities to compel testimony and provide anonymity to witnesses.

While Freed said he quickly became a suspect in the shooting, it took four months before Robert Rocky Anderson, 38, of Carlisle, was charged in Harris killing.

At a press conference in October, Freed said Anderson and Harris had a long-standing feud that encompassed several of the shooting incidents in the borough and ultimately led to Harris killing.

Anderson is the first person to be charged with criminal homicide in Carlisle since 2013 and only the second since 2010, according to court records.

Freed attributed a drop in violent crime in the borough to many of the people in the feud being locked up, but said he was concerned what could happen once they are released.

There is definitely a concern for what happens when they get out, Freed said.

Anderson is in prison with bail denied and is awaiting trial.

Overdoses

Heroin and opioids are just so dominant in whats going on around here, Freed said.

There were 66 overdose deaths in Cumberland County in 2016, according to Coroner Charley Hall.

Of those, 51 were opiate related with the largest portion  38 deaths attributed to heroin or a mix of heroin and fentanyl, Hall said.

Nearly half of all the people who died of an overdose in the county last year had been charged with a criminal offense during the last five years, according to an analysis of court and coroner records.

Many of these people were involved in the criminal justice system at the time of their deaths.

In one case, a 25-year-old man who had been charged with a drug offense died of an opiate-related overdose in Mechanicsburg while awaiting his preliminary hearing.

A 23-year-old man died in March in Lemoyne of an accidental opiate-relate overdose while awaiting trial after being charged with possession with intent to deliver.

In January, a 29-year-old man died at West Shore Hospital of an accidental opiate-related overdose just six days after pleading to a drug-related charge.

In total 10 people died of drug overdoses after being charged with a crime but before being sentenced, according to court and coroner records.

Several others died while on parole or within a few months of the disposition of their cases, like a 34-year-old man who died of an accidental overdose of heroin and fentanyl less than one month after completing his sentence for retail theft.

All those who died of a drug overdose in 2016 were listed as white, according to coroner records.

The average age of drug overdose victims was 39, with the oldest person being 88 and the youngest 18, according to coroner records.

The brain in a Wal-Mart bag

In one of the weirder stories to come out of 2016, a human brain believed to have been stolen from a teaching hospital was found hidden inside a Wal-Mart shopping bag under a porch in Penn Township.

Joshua Lee Long, 26, of Carlisle, was charged in July with abuse of a corpse after a brain was found under the porch of a home owned by Robbie Lee Zoller, according to Pennsylvania State Police.

The two were using the formaldehyde that was being used to preserve the brain  which Zoller and Long named Freddy  to dip marijuana in before smoking it, police said.

Police were alerted to Freddy after one of Longs relatives found it while cleaning out Zollers home while Long was in prison and Zoller was wanted on burglary charges, police said.

In a phone call from prison, Long admitted that it was a human brain and that the two used the formaldehyde to smoke wet marijuana, police said.

Long, Zoller and several others have also been charged in a string of burglaries throughout the Midstate that included the theft of nearly $200,000 in electrical components, according to police.

Zoller and Long are both listed as inmates at Cumberland County Prison.
Emergency medical services staff from as far north as Jefferson County and as far south as Cape Girardeau were represented at a training event Jan. 30 at Black River Electric Cooperative in Fredericktown. The training was spearheaded by Madison and Washington County ambulance services and lasted much of the day.

Washington County Ambulance District Chief Operating Officer Justin Duncan welcomed the group in the morning and set the stage for the topics to be discussed over the course of the day. Duncan stressed the technological changes affecting paramedics, who he says have faced an identity crisis in the past, in terms of where they fit in the chain of administering medical care.

We are making differences in patient outcomes by decisions we make in the field, Duncan said. We are now moving to becoming pre-hospital clinicians. We are initiating care in the field that directly affects our patients outcomes.

Duncan said the focus of the day was to show the changes that are affecting ambulance services, and to encourage those attending to be receptive to that change.

Today, the big thing was challenging the norm of the industry and really opening their eyes to different ways of doing business in the care of critically-ill patients, Duncan said. So we started the day with lectures on medication-assisted intubation. Patients that require a breathing tube to facilitate breathing for them, the proper medication to achieve that in a critically-ill patient  we now have tons of options as compared to five years ago, or 10 years ago.

Madison County Ambulance District Chief Medical Officer Darick Day said what was discussed dealt directly with airway assistance in patients.

In a nutshell, this is all stuff about managing peoples airways in an emergency setting, Day said. So that starts with simple oxygen administration, different medications we can administer to help facilitate that, and then we transitioned into more advanced stuff like performing intubations, placing people on mechanical ventilators, and then our final step, if we cant do anything else, is the surgical airways.

For the surgical airway training, the paramedics practiced on supplied pig tracheas. Day said the process is not the preferred method of facilitating a patients breathing, but it sometimes becomes the only remaining option.

In addition to receiving functional training in airway management, the attending EMTs also received credit toward their relicensing. EMTs must be relicensed every five years in Missouri, and in that time must accomplish a certain amount of credited hours of training. Duncan said the thought behind the process is to keep paramedics abreast of current technological and medical trends.

Our business changes all the time, Duncan said. The science changes all the time. And so it requires our providers to maintain education to hold their license.

Duncan added the class was developed to not only be informative, but also engaging to those who attended.

Historically, in our profession a lot of the continued education can be boring, canned classes,' Duncan said. So our vision has always been to kill two birds with one stone. Lets make it interesting while giving something that they can fundamentally use to do their job, and help them with their relicense.

Day said the training was originally planned to include only Madison and Washington County ambulance districts, but as others began showing interest, it became clear that the training would require a larger venue.

Initially, the thought was that it was going to be Washington Countys service and our service, and that would really be the only people wed get, Day said. And then just through word of mouth I kept getting more and more people that would be emailing me or messaging me and saying, Hey, can I join this class? We ended up moving out here because we didnt have a training facility big enough to house everybody.

Duncan said he and Day were more than happy to invite other services to take part in the training.

We all take care of the same patients, Duncan said. We take care of critically-ill patients. So lets bring these services and work together, as opposed to everyone doing their own different thing.

Duncan and Day are planning to hold another, similar event in Washington County in March, focused again on airway management in emergency situations.

Our plan for the next good while is that this is a hot topic in our business right now, Duncan said. Every class turns out a little bit different, but this is our topic. This is our plan for the near future.
It was 2006 when a group in Farmington got together to hold a bake sale.

This was not a typical bake sale  this sale would take place the Saturday before Thanksgiving. The reason for the sale was to provide assistance to the Farmington Ministerial Alliance and St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantries.

Since that time, the Help the Hungry Bake sale has raised nearly $400,000 for the two organizations.

Proceeds from the 2016 bake sale and related fundraising activities brought in $67,000 to help feed the community.

On Tuesday, members of the Help the Hungry Committee gathered to present checks for $33,500 each to representatives from the Farmington Ministerial Alliance and St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantries.

Chris Landrum with the committee once again thanked the community for the outpouring of support shown for the bake sale, cookbook sales, barbecue and benefit gospel concert held last year.

For Nancy (Faulkner at the Farmington Ministerial Alliance), she uses it to buy fresh food like chicken and eggs and milkthings like that she doesnt normally have money for, Chris said. St. Vincent de Paul, their sources for funding are fewer and I think they use it for just about everything. I know both pantries really look forward to it and appreciate it.

Faulkner said the donation is a huge part of the pantrys budget.

It helps us get through for the items that dont get donated that we have to buy every year, she said. This is huge for us.

Shirley Bieser is president of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at St. Joseph Catholic Church. She said the Help the Hungry donation goes a long way in helping with the churchs ministry.

Bieser said the pantry currently serves a little more than 250 families a month.

Landrum credited the committee for doing an outstanding job in raising money for the 2016 sale.

Im very proud of them, she said. And, I sound like a broken record, but Im so thankful for the community and for everybody that participates in any way to make it a success.

A new fundraiser this year was a cookbook, which brought in $5,000. A bake sale held in October brought in more than $8,000.

We always like to think win-win, Landrum said when talking about the cookbook. That was a fun fundraiser for us to do.

The committee also partnered with the KnightTime Snack Program for a gospel concert fundraiser last year.

Plans are already in the works for two gospel concert fundraisers this year. A concert with The Berry Brothers and Book of Ruth is scheduled for April 30. Another concert is in the works for late summer/early fall with The Berry Brothers and The Wallen Family.

Were looking at some other potential fundraisers that might be fun, she said.

Most important, Landrum said, the committee is putting a call out for bakers to provided baked goods for this years sale  which will take place on Nov. 18.

I feel like we had a decrease in our baked goods this year, she said. Were going to make an attempt to seek out everyone we know that bakes and offer them a personal invitation to bake something for the bake sale.
Update: (2/11 @ 9:04 a.m.)

St. Petersburg police said the suspicious devices at Tyrone Square Mall were identified as three sections of an underground power cable. The sections of the cable were approximately 12" in length and around 2" in diameter.

Officials said the cables had end caps that were taped onto their ends which resembled pipe bombs.

Three teens had found the items somewhere nearby and were playing with them. Officials said the teens placed them on the ground after being approached by mall security.

There was no criminal intent or wrongdoing on the part of the teens, officials said.

Original report:

St. Petersburg Police are currently investigating reports of suspicious devices outside the Tyrone Square Mall.

Officials said mall security notified police of the devices around 6:31 p.m. Upon arrival, officers roped off the area around the devices and contacted the Tampa Police Bomb Squad.

Currently, the mall is still open for business. The only store that has been closed is Victoria's Secret - the suspicious devices were located by that store's exterior door.

No further information has been made available.
With his executive order on hold by order of a U.S. appeals court, President Trump said he was considering signing a new executive order for his plan to bar people traveling from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he's confident he'll win in court, but he has other options as well.

Trump said the new order would change very little and may come next week.

Trump is headed to South Florida, where he will host Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

On Thursday a federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld a lower court ruling blocking the executive order.

The executive order suspended the country's refugee program and barred travel to those coming from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The program's roll-out led to confusion, frustration and protests at the nation's airports as hundreds were barred from entering the country and others were deported.

Several states sued to stop the order.

The Justice Dept. argued the president had wide powers to grant orders like this one in matters of national security, and the orders were unreviewable.

However, the federal appeals judges ruled that was not the case.

"Although our jurisprudence has long counseled deference to the political branches on matters of immigration and national security, neither the Supreme Court nor our court has ever held that courts lack the authority to review executive action in those arenas for compliance with the Constitution," the ruling said. "To the contrary, the Supreme Court has repeatedly and explicitly rejected the notion that the political branches have unreviewable authority over immigration or are not subject to the Constitution when policymaking in that context."

President Trump replied to the ruling last night, tweeting "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!"

Information from the Associated Press was used in the report.
With three months left to go in the 2017 legislative session, Republican lawmakers in Jefferson City are facing some tough decisions on bills and budget cuts, particularly regarding the proposed statewide expansion of charter schools and the possible gutting of funds available for home health care.

With Republican Gov. Eric Greitens sitting at his desk pen in hand ready to sign bills that his Democratic predecessor Jay Nixon vetoed, such as the right to work measure he signed Monday, GOP lawmakers are hoping to pass a good chunk of their legislative agenda by the time this session ends in May.

Contacted this week by the Daily Journal, local lawmakers Sen. Gary Romine, R-Farmington; Rep. Kevin Engler, R-Farmington; Rep. Mike Henderson, R-Bonne Terre; Rep. Elaine Gannon, R-De Soto; and Rep. Paul Fitzwater, R-Potosi, offered their take on bills they will be working on in the weeks ahead.

"We've got some good pieces of legislation ahead of us and I'm looking forward to getting them done," Romine said. "Our main goals in the state Senate are three key pieces of legislation  the arbitration bill, the employment discrimination bill and the higher education degree offering program."

Addressing each of the bills individually, Romine said, "Arbitration is an alternative dispute resolution allowing the employee and employer to resolve employment issues. The courts have torn down the original concept of the arbitration process and so this bill will bring things back together and create some standardization in the process."

The senator explained that passage of the employment discrimination bill would bring back the original language found in the Missouri Human Rights Act.

"When they went to a jury process in 2005, the jury instructions changed the terminology in the Missouri Human Rights Act and dropped it down to a 'contributing factor,' we've seen a higher number of frivolous lawsuits." he said. "Contributing factor is such a low standard that we've seen an increase in frivolous lawsuits. Bringing the language back to its original intent will create a balance between the employer and employee on what a discrimination factor is."

Regarding the higher education degree offering program, Romine said, "There was a group brought together by the speaker of the house to study how community colleges could collaborate with four-year institutions and offer four-year degrees like a Bachelors of Science in Nursing. There's some doctor degree offerings at Southeast Missouri State University and Central Missouri State University that others need to offer, but that's out of their mission statement.

"Through a collaboration with Missouri S&T or maybe Mizzou, then they will be able to offer those doctor degrees. This is particularly helpful for folks 30 to 40 years old that have a chance to advance their career, but the only way they can do that is to get that higher degree. If that could be offered to them locally, they wouldn't have to disrupt their family or have to walk away from a job to get a degree.

Romine described the legislative session so far as having "gone good."

"We've slowed things down and the process is deliberate as it should be  particularly on the Senate-side," he said. "I feel pretty comfortable that my office and staff has established itself as one that wants to get things done."

Rep. Engler sees the Senate's 'deliberate process' as something else entirely.

"We don't know what's going to happen because the Senate has been fairly dysfunctional," he said. "They've done one bill this week, basically. I do know that we're going to be doing some tort reform. I don't thing the prescription drug monitoring will get through. I think my bill on the pregnancy resource centers has got a real good chance of getting out of the house. I don't know if they'll take it up in the Senate. I also think there's going to be some work on prevailing wage  we've been negotiating some of that.

"The big thing coming up next month is trying to come up with a budget. I met with the budget director today and tried to encourage an 'early out' program for some of our employees, to give them some incentive like private businesses do. We have a lot of 30-year-olds and 50-year-olds  but we fired most of the 40-year-olds over 10 years ago. So, we're going to look at the budget and try to figure out how we can trim it without having to cut the disabled and the seniors and everybody else, but there's not a lot of fat left after we cut 10,000 jobs and a lot of programming in the last 10 years."

Rep. Henderson said one of the big issues coming the House's way in coming weeks is a bill on prevailing wage.

In government contracting, a prevailing wage is defined as the hourly wage, usual benefits and overtime that is paid to the majority of workers, laborers and mechanics within a particular geographical area. Prevailing wages are established by regulatory agencies for each trade and occupation employed in the performance of public work, as well as by the state's Department of Labor.

"I'm worried about it principally because it's going to affect a lot of hard working people in our area," Henderson said. "I understand the other side where people say you'll be able to build schools and some things cheaper, but on the other end, most of that money is going to middle class families in the district where that money recirculates in the district."

Henderson is also concerned about a big push on in the legislature to allow charter schools throughout the state.

"I actually don't have a big problem with charter schools, even as a former educator, if they're in places where there are failing schools," he said. "Right now they can only be in St. Louis and Kansas City, which is fine. I hate to say this, but St. Louis public schools, which are better now, some of the districts were failing. They were not giving their kids a good education, so charter schools was an option for those families. But to just say that we're going to spread them over the entire state and take millions away from public education  I have an issue with that."

Rep. Gannon, a retired school teacher, was not shy in giving her opinion on charter schools.

"I know that the Republicans tend to support the idea of charter schools," she said. "I'm a Republican, but I do not support House Bill 634. I feel like there's some serious issues with the bill in that it will filter money out of our traditional public schools and into the charter schools.

"Evidence has shown that the track record for charter schools in the state, I think since 1999, speaks for itself. I think the biggest issue is that charter schools are not held accountable as the traditional public schools are, and if my public dollars and your public dollars are going to be used, then I'd like to see local control and accountability.

"Right now, most of these charter schools in the state of Missouri are under-performing. We also know that they are costly and inefficient. Some of our little rural schools are getting high scores. They're doing a great job on the annual test that they take. Charter schools have not been shown to do a better job than the public schools."

Rep. Fitzwater also voiced serious concerns regarding the negative affect that charter schools will have on rural schools in his district.

"This bill on charter schools is one people better understand," he said. "Right now we have a total of 39 charter schools in Missouri and most of them are failing, but they want to go statewide with them. What this is going to do is take money away from the formula and it's going to take money from my small rural schools. I cannot sit back and allow that to happen.

"Vouchers  there's another one. There are people up here who want school choice / open enrollment? Allow students to go to school wherever they want? What's going to happen to my small rural schools? I'm troubled about that and I'm going to stand my ground. I'm not going to back down at all."

Fitzwater admitted that, while he supported Gov. Greitens in the election, he doesn't necessarily agree with him on every issue.

"The governor's budget recommendation is to cut about 21,000 people off the home health care roll," he said. "What are we going to do with all these people? I've been meeting with the budget chair. We're going to put them in nursing homes? It costs about $900 a month for people who are receiving health care in their homes. You go to a nursing home and it's going to be $5,000-$6,000 a month. Who's going to pay that?"
Saturday 1 p.m. UPDATE: Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen has confirmed they have found the vehicle and are still at the scene investigating the disappearance of Leadwood resident Frank Ancona.

The area where Anconas car was found is a very large heavily wooded area in the Mark Twain National Forest.

We are still seeking the whereabouts of Mr. Ancona and we have requested the assistance of the Missouri State Highway Patrol with processing the crime scene and they are here now, said Jacobsen. We are still way back here at this location and are processing the vehicle. We are working this case in conjunction with the sheriffs office in Washington County, St. Francois County Sheriffs Office is involved, the Leadwood Police Department and then the state highway patrol.

ORIGINAL STORY: A Leadwood man went missing several days ago and it appears to be under suspicious circumstances.

Frank Ancona, 51, was last seen Wednesday morning. Then Friday evening it was learned that Ancona's car had been found in a remote area of Washington County. A preliminary search of the area did not turn up the missing man, but due to nightfall the scene was secured to be searched more thoroughly on Saturday morning.

Leadwood Police Chief William Dickey said his officers were told by Malissa Ancona, Franks wife, that she saw him last on Wednesday leaving to go to work around 8:30 to 9 a.m. in the morning.

I have talked to other people who are claiming its more along the lines of 6 a.m., explained Dickey. His wife, Malissa, has stated he got a call from his workplace and he needed to drive across the state to deliver a part, which is what he does for a living, he delivers vehicle parts. So that was the last time she had seen him and he has not made contact with any family members. The son states he always talks to his father and so does the daughter.

Dickey said Franks place of employment reached out to them and that is how they found out he was missing. His employer is stating they did not send him on a run across the state.

We were getting ready to put a stop and hold out on her as well, because we werent able to make contact with her, Dickey said of Ancona's wife. So my officer called me at home and said he was getting ready to contact the Missouri State Highway Patrol in reference to this. I told him that I would just come on over and we would go on in, because he was assuming and thinking that he was dead inside the house.

Dickey said when he got to the home Malissa was sitting in the driveway with her son, getting ready to go inside.

She was a little hesitant to let us go into the house at first, said Dickey. She said she didnt really want us going in, but after talking to her in detail about what we were there for, she let us inside. We found a safe that looked like somebody had taken a crowbar to it and beat the side out of the safe. Everything was missing from inside the safe. Right now I dont believe it was a burglary, because she didnt want to report anything.

Frank is described as a 51-year-old man with short brown hair, brown eyes, 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing 180 pounds. He drives a 2015 black Ford Fusion, which was located in the remote area of Washington County on Friday evening.

Right now we are investigating and trying to get more information from his wife and trying to contact her son, his stepson, added Dickey. She was the last one to have any kind of contact with him and it just so happened that when we pulled up to the house we found his stepson with her and he hardly ever comes around this residence.

Dickey said he questioned Malissa about a Facebook post she wrote looking for a roommate and she said she posted that the day that Frank left.

She stated she did it because when he said he was leaving to go out of state on this job he took a bag of clothes with him and said when he got back he was filing for divorce, said Dickey. She told us she figured she would need help to pay the rent, so she put an ad out looking for a roommate.

Dickey said all of Franks firearms that were in the home are missing and Malissa said he took them with him.

His family, which lives next door, states no, he wouldnt have taken all of his firearms with him, said Dickey. The gun he usually carries on him on a daily basis was left in the house and she turned it over to us.

The Daily Journal will bring more details as they become available. Anyone with any information on Ancona's disappearance or his whereabouts is asked to call Central Dispatch at 573-431-3131.
Rep. Tom Price, MD, R-Ga., was officially confirmed early Friday morning to lead HHS under the Trump administration.

Here is how the healthcare industry is reacting.

1. Donald Fisher, PhD, president and CEO of AMGA, congratulated Secretary Price. "He brings significant clinical and policy expertise from nearly two decades as a practicing physician as well as his leadership on the House Ways and Means Committee, House Budget Committee and the House GOP Doctors Caucus. We look forward to working with him and his team to transition the financing of our healthcare system from volume-based to value-based payment."

2. Anne Davis, MD, medical director of Physicians for Reproductive Health Consulting, expressed disappointment at the confirmation. "As physicians who care for women, we are deeply disappointed that Tom Price has been confirmed as the Secretary of [HHS]. During his time in Congress, Price was a staunch and rigid opponent of comprehensive women's reproductive healthcare and the [ACA].  We hope Tom Price will use the many opportunities afforded to him as HHS Secretary to promote the best medical evidence and improve health outcomes for patients."

3. B. Douglas Hoey, RPh, CEO of the National Community Pharmacists Association, also expressed congratulations. "He is uniquely qualified to lead HHS, which will oversee the potential repeal and replacement of the [ACA] and possible reforms to the Medicaid program, among other high-profile priorities for America's complex health system.  We are eager to work with Secretary Price and look forward to sharing our thoughts with him going forward."

4. Chip Kahn, CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals,said his organization stands ready to work with Secretary Price to ensure Americans are able to maintain access affordable care. "His experience as a thoughtful detailed-oriented legislator, combined with his decades working in the medical field make him uniquely qualified to confront the challenges facing patients, families and caregivers," Mr. Kahn said.

5. Former CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt,wrote in an open letter to Secretary Price, published by U.S. News & World Report, "The president and some Republicans leaders have promised that under their plans for health reform, no American will lose coverage, the process won't pull the rug out from under people and care will be more affordable and better. These are important promises and you will need everybody  Democrats and Republicans and an engaged private sector  to help you get there. The only way for that to happen is to step back from repeal and focus on the incremental improvements that will make the healthcare system work better for more Americans."

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U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled in favor of the Justice Department and stopped Indianapolis-based Anthem's proposed $54 billion acquisition of Bloomfield, Conn.-based Cigna Wednesday.

In a 12-page order, the judge said the deal would negatively affect consumers and hinder innovation. Additionally, Judge Jackson said disagreements between the insurers were the "elephant in the courtroom" that couldn't be ignored.



The decision arrived a few weeks after another judge sided with the DOJ in its antitrust case against Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna's proposed $37 billion acquisition of Louisville, Ky.-based Humana.

Here are five reactions from company officials, healthcare leaders and litigators regarding the judge's decision on the Anthem-Cigna case.

1. Anthem Chairman, President and CEO Joseph Swedish said in a statement Thursday the company "is significantly disappointed by the decision as combining Anthem and Cigna would [have] positively impact[ed] the health and well-being of millions of Americans  saving them more than $2 billion in medical costs annually." He added Anthem's "decision to acquire Cigna is grounded in our commitment to this goal and to leading our industry during this period of dynamic change."

Anthem said it will appeal the ruling.

2. Cigna said in a statement Thursday it "intends to carefully review the opinion and evaluate its options in accordance with the merger agreement."

3. Andrew Gurman, MD, President of the American Medical Association, applauded the decision. He said the "ruling is an important victory for consumers. Coupled with the recent court-imposed injunction on the Aetna-Humana merger, the rulings demonstrate the vital role the U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys general have in protecting patients and physicians from harmful mergers that substantially lessen competition in highly concentrated health insurance markets."

He added the "AMA will continue to vigorously oppose any health insurer mergers that will reduce competition and negatively impact physician markets and the quality of patient care."



4. Matthew Cantor, partner at Constantine Cannon, told Becker's Hospital Review most investors and antitrust lawyers expected the decision, and he thinks there is a low chance the order will be reversed on appeal.

He added he doesn't think striking down the Anthem-Cigna and Aetna-Humana deals will end health insurance consolidation. He said "there [are] still going to be some transactions out there" and thinks "Humana in some way, shape or form will be at play, whether the Aetna deal closes with a new divesture plan or whether that deal breaks up and Cigna pursues Humana."



5. Randal Schultz, a partner at Lathrop & Gage and chair of the firm's healthcare strategic business planning practice group, told Becker's Hospital Review he also thinks there is "going to be another business strategy that the insurance companies are going to use to create their economies of scale and coordinate market share. That's logical. If you get a road block, you find another way to go around it."
A Leadwood man went missing several days ago and it appears to be under suspicious circumstances.

Frank Ancona, 51, was last seen Wednesday morning. Then Friday evening it was learned that Ancona's car had been found in a remote area of Washington County. A preliminary search of the area did not turn up the missing man, but due to nightfall the scene was secured to be searched more thoroughly on Saturday morning.

Leadwood Police Chief William Dickey said his officers were told by Malissa Ancona, Franks wife, that she saw him last on Wednesday leaving to go to work around 8:30 to 9 a.m. in the morning.

I have talked to other people who are claiming its more along the lines of 6 a.m., explained Dickey. His wife, Malissa, has stated he got a call from his workplace and he needed to drive across the state to deliver a part, which is what he does for a living, he delivers vehicle parts. So that was the last time she had seen him and he has not made contact with any family members. The son states he always talks to his father and so does the daughter.

Dickey said Franks place of employment reached out to them and that is how they found out he was missing. His employer is stating they did not send him on a run across the state.

We were getting ready to put a stop and hold out on her as well, because we werent able to make contact with her, Dickey said of Ancona's wife. So my officer called me at home and said he was getting ready to contact the Missouri State Highway Patrol in reference to this. I told him that I would just come on over and we would go on in, because he was assuming and thinking that he was dead inside the house.

Dickey said when he got to the home Malissa was sitting in the driveway with her son, getting ready to go inside.

She was a little hesitant to let us go into the house at first, said Dickey. She said she didnt really want us going in, but after talking to her in detail about what we were there for, she let us inside. We found a safe that looked like somebody had taken a crowbar to it and beat the side out of the safe. Everything was missing from inside the safe. Right now I dont believe it was a burglary, because she didnt want to report anything.

Frank is described as a 51-year-old man with short brown hair, brown eyes, 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing 180 pounds. He drives a 2015 black Ford Fusion, which was located in the remote area of Washington County on Friday evening.

Right now we are investigating and trying to get more information from his wife and trying to contact her son, his stepson, added Dickey. She was the last one to have any kind of contact with him and it just so happened that when we pulled up to the house we found his stepson with her and he hardly ever comes around this residence.

Dickey said he questioned Malissa about a Facebook post she wrote looking for a roommate and she said she posted that the day that Frank left.

She stated she did it because when he said he was leaving to go out of state on this job he took a bag of clothes with him and said when he got back he was filing for divorce, said Dickey. She told us she figured she would need help to pay the rent, so she put an ad out looking for a roommate.

Dickey said all of Franks firearms that were in the home are missing and Malissa said he took them with him.

His family, which lives next door, states no, he wouldnt have taken all of his firearms with him, said Dickey. The gun he usually carries on him on a daily basis was left in the house and she turned it over to us.

The Daily Journal will bring more details as they become available. Anyone with any information on Ancona's disappearance or his whereabouts is asked to call Central Dispatch at 573-431-3131.
Here are 14 key notes on orthopedic and spine device companies from the past week.

San Diego-based NuVasive saw revenue of $962.1 million for the full year of 2016, an 18.6 percent increase from full-year 2015.

Smith & Nephew reported full-year 2016 revenue hit $4.6 billion, up 1 percent over 2015.

Farmingdale, N.Y.-based Misonix reported net sales totaled $23.1 million in FY 2016, reflecting a 4.2 percent increase over FY 2015.

Kalamazoo, Mich.,-based Stryker Orthopaedics Corp. landed a deal with the Defense Logistics Agency which calls for the medical devices and equipment manufacturing firm to supply the Department of Defense with orthopedic devices.

Thomas Scully, MD, of Tucson, Ariz.-based Northwest NeuroSpecialists, was the first surgeon in the world to perform spine surgery with Life Spine's CALYPSO Midline Retractor System.

Reston (Va.) Hospital Center added the Mazor Robotics' Mazor X system to its award-winning spinal surgery program, becoming the first hospital in the Mid-Atlantic to have the device.

Knoxville, Tenn.-based ChoiceSpine has released its Harrier ALIF system after receiving 510(k) clearance.

Overland Park, Kan.-based Spinal Simplicity received clearance from the FDA to market its newest Minuteman device.

Warsaw, Ind.-based Zimmer Biomet released the Subchondroplasty Procedure on the international platform.

Paris, France-based SpineGuard earned a U.S. patent for its Dynamic Surgical Guidance technology's bone quality measurement.

Joseph Berman, MD, of Arlington Orthopedic Associates treated knee patients with Active Implants' NUsurface Meniscus Implant as part of the SUN clinical trial.

Castel San Pietro, Switzerland-based Medacta acquired Austrian distributor Vivamed.

AxioMed gathered all of the two-year follow-up data on the Freedom Lumbar Disc for its USA investigational device exemption clinical study.

The collaborative efforts of Toronto-based ReMAP O7  made up of 7D Surgical, Celestica, Ryerson University and Sunnybrook Research Institute  have produced the 7D image guidance system for spine surgeries.
The old Edwardian buildings of Belvoir Park Hospital in south Belfast are set for a new lease of life as homes.

A development of Edwardian-inspired houses built on the wider site in 2015 sparked such excitement that prospective buyers queued from 6am on the morning of their release for the chance to buy one.

A developer has now secured permission to restore and convert some of the original buildings into homes.

The oldest sections of the hospital date back to 1906, when it was primarily used to treat fever. It later became a cancer treatment centre, until it was eventually closed in 2006.

Planning permission has been granted for site clearance and decontamination works, including the demolition non-listed buildings such as former nurses' homes and ancillary structures.

The new application submitted by Belfast-based Urban Dynamics requests a variance of conditions for the plans to convert the six historic Edwardian hospital buildings, five of which are Grade B2 listed.

The executive summary of the planning application states that "one of the fundamental principles of the Belvoir Park redevelopment is that phases of new build should be accompanied by phases of restoration, in order that the restoration of the buildings is secured".

One letter of objection raising a concern for the survival of the historic buildings, has been submitted so far.

Planners have recommended approval for the scheme.

This is on condition that none of the residential units in any phase are occupied until the works to restore the listed and retained buildings within that phase have been completed in accordance with the plans previously approved, and written confirmation has been obtained by the council.

The reason given for this was to ensure that the listed and other retained buildings are restored.

However, full permission will not be granted until the scheme has been approved by the council's planning committee.

The committee is set to consider the application next Tuesday.

The site has a long history and was the one-time residence of Lord Dungannon, the Bishop of Down and the Batt family. The last private tenant was Sir James Johnston, the Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1917-18.

Belvoir Park Hospital, which opened in 1906, was originally known as Purdysburn Fever Hospital and later Montgomery House, before being renamed in the 1960s. Throughout its lifespan, the hospital was the main regional centre for oncology, offering radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatments.

In 1983, the hospital was the first in the province to take delivery of a CT scanner. Its Gerard Lynch Centre held many cancer support groups for patients and their families.

It closed in March 2006 following the opening of a new cancer centre at Belfast City Hospital and was reportedly sold by the Belfast Health & Social Care Trust to private developers for 4.4million.

The site went on the market in April 2013, and in June 2014 it emerged a sale had been agreed.

It was bought by the Neptune Group, a residential and mixed-use property development and investment company.
Denzel Washington pictured with the Oscar he won for Training Day

Denzel Washington said he has "no idea" why he has never been nominated for a Bafta Award.

The Hollywood star has won two acting Oscars during his decades-long career and is nominated this year for another two: best actor and best picture for Fences, which he both directed and stars in.

On his lack of a nod from the British Academy of the Film and Television Arts, he told the Press Association: "I've never been nominated for a Bafta.

"You'll have to ask them why, I have no idea. I've been nominated for eight Oscars, won two."

He added: "Morgan Freeman and I have never been nominated for a Bafta."

Washington's Fences co-star Viola Davis has received a nod in the best supporting actress category at this year's Baftas, which take place on Sunday February 12 at the Royal Albert Hall.

The actor, 62, also discussed the current trend for stars using their acceptance speeches at awards ceremonies to air their views about politics.

He said: "It's America. People have the right to do and say what they want.

"There's a feeling in the air."
Communities will lose out if apathy is the winner in next month's Assembly election, a former trade union chief has said.

Peter Bunting took the unusual step of intervening in an election campaign to urge people to come out and vote.

The well-known civic leader also warned against the consequences of a return to direct rule from Westminster, which he claimed could include the privatisation of health services, drastic cuts in the welfare state and abolition of basic protection rights for workers.

"You may not agree with some of the policies enacted by the Assembly, but at least you have a say in those policies by voting in the election for or against MLAs and their parties," he said. "(That) would disappear under direct rule."

The veteran campaigner urged voters to "cast aside" their green or orange ideologies, but also to recognise that Stormont needed to be supported.

He said: "Devolution has created a secure sense of identity for those who see themselves as British, or Irish, or Northern Irish.

"We need to support Stormont in order to achieve a changed Stormont for the better.

"As we are all aware, there will be, as there has always been, people who will not bother to vote in the upcoming Assembly Election.

"Their excuses range from being tired of the traditional, tribal in-fighting or, more worryingly, 'Our Assembly is useless and has done nothing for me'.

"Not to use your vote is, in my opinion, a surrender of your democratic right and, more importantly, it will result in the loss of something valuable, which you may regret in the future."

The Executive had meant no extra water charges, no 9,000 per year university fees, free prescription charges for all, free public transport for pensioners, no bedroom tax or amelioration of other welfare cuts and more publicly owned social housing, he claimed.

"Under direct rule, the people would have no say in any of the above," Mr Bunting, the former assistant general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, concluded.
DUP leader Arlene Foster with Jennifer and Maeve McCooey at the Buddy Bear Trust Conductive Education School in Dungannon

Arlene Foster has branded Michelle O'Neill's request for 31m to resolve the waiting list crisis as "woefully inadequate".

The DUP leader wrote to Sinn Fein's Health Minister and new Stormont leader in response to her written request for political rivals to back her plan.

While Mrs Foster indicated "provisional support" for extra funding to address waiting times, she said the cash injection fell well short of what the health service needed.

Mrs O'Neill announced proposals earlier this week aimed at reducing the large number of patients waiting longer than a year for treatment.

However, the plan was not funded because Stormont's collapse has left the administration without an agreed budget for the next financial year.

The Health Minister said political consensus on the need to spend the money would provide "clear political direction" to civil servants who may be forced to take control of the purse strings if a power-sharing government is not restored on the other side of March's snap election.

Mrs Foster, who claimed the Sinn Fein plan had been "rushed out in the mouth of an election" without due Assembly scrutiny, said if devolution was not returned, the likelihood was that it would be direct rule Conservative ministers making decisions on health spending, not civil servants.

"It is unfortunate that the political priority of Sinn Fein to force an early election took priority over the interests of those most in need of the health service", she wrote. The DUP leader also said the failure to strike a budget had already "jeopardised" the delivery of key public services.

"My view remains that a cross-community power-sharing administration made up of people from Northern Ireland is a better way forward than leaving decisions to Conservative ministers, but I appreciate that you may now have a different view", she told Mrs O'Neill, suggesting that Sinn Fein appeared willing to trust the UK Government with the region's public services.

Mrs Foster pointed out that both the DUP and Sinn Fein had made manifesto pledges in the last election to spend an additional 1bn on health in five years.

"An allocation of 31.2m is woefully inadequate in relation to the needs of the health service", she wrote.

The DUP leader added: "What is now needed is a comprehensive budget which makes provision not just for the health service but for all government departments".

Mrs Foster said it would have been possible to have agreed this but for the "unnecessary election".

An estimated 40,000 people are waiting more than 52 weeks for a first outpatient appointment. Around 8,000 patients are waiting longer than a year for day care inpatient treatment.

Outlining her vision on how to transform health and social care services, Mrs O'Neill said 31m would clear the backlog, by March 2018, of patients waiting more than 52 weeks for a first outpatient appointment and inpatient/day case.

In addition, the backlog of patients waiting more than 26 weeks at March 2017 for diagnostics would also be cleared by the same date.

Sinn Fein's health spokesman, Pat Sheehan, claimed Mrs Foster's criticism was "another desperate attempt" to deflect attention from her handling of the botched Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme.

"Arlene Foster's criticism of a plan put forward by Health Minister Michelle O'Neill to reduce waiting lists is pathetic," Mr Sheehan added.

"It is yet another attempt to distract the public's attention from the DUP's botched handling of the RHI scheme.

"Some 30m is being lost to the public purse this year as a result of the DUP's botched RHI scheme. That would cover the Health Minister's plan to reduce waiting lists in 12 months."
Politicians last night expressed their dismay after a west Belfast man who raped a 12 year old girl -and got her pregnant - was jailed for just 10 and a half months.

Conair Adams-Whyte (20), from Crocus Street off the Springfield Road, pleaded guilty at Belfast Crown Court yesterday to a single charge of raping the schoolgirl in the bedroom of his home.

Members of the Green Party and DUP, said they were dismayed by the leniency of the sentence handed down by the judge.

DUP South Antrim election candidate Pam Cameron welcomed the prosecution but said it was "very important that the toughest possible sentences are handed out for child rape". "If it was my child, I don't think I'd feel that justice had been done," she said.

Clare Bailey of the Green Party, who worked for sexual abuse counselling service Nexus, said that many people would feel that the sentence needed to be longer.

Judges are bound by sentencing guidelines and must take into account mitigating circumstances, such as early guilty pleas, co-operation with police and remorse, as well as aggravating factors, such as intent and excessive violence.

Prosecution counsel Jackie Orr QC told the court that on September 29, 2015, police received a report that a 12-year-old girl was pregnant.

The police later met the schoolgirl at her home and she told officers that the father was Conair Adams-Whyte and she showed officers a number of messages she had received from the father on Facebook.

During a later recorded interview, the girl told police that she was supposed to be staying with Adams-Whyte's mother but she failed to pick her up.

She said that sometime later the defendant arrived at her home to collect her by taxi and took to the home he shared with his mother.

"The couple sat and watched television in the living room. She told police she asked him where she was going to be sleeping, the defendant told there was a TV in his bedroom and she was going to sleep in another bedroom afterwards.

"She told police that 'things just started to happen... it wasn't planned to happen but it did'.

She told police the defendant kissed her, took off the bottom part of her clothing and then he took off the bottom part of his clothing and he had sexual intercourse with her.

During the interview, she told police it was "sore" but she said she did not say 'no' or tell him to stop.

Adams-Whyte was arrested on October 1, 2015 and police took a DNA sample from him.

Ms Orr QC said: "He completely denied having sexual intercourse with the complainant and was released on bail."

In April 2016, the baby boy was born and a DNA sample was taken from the child which was a match to the defendant.

He was again arrested and when told that he was the father of the child, the prosecution counsel said Adams-Whyte "was speechless".

Saying the defendant had come from a "difficult family background'' Judge Smyth said that he was currently the subject of a "severe threat from a criminal element".

The court was told that a victim impact report said that the 12-year-old child was not suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

It added that she was receiving support from a "loving mother" and her family along with social services as she copes with bringing up a child now as a 14-year-old.

Adams-Whyte has been assessed as medium likelihood of reoffending, but was not regarded as posing a serious risk of harm to the public.

"You have expressed shame for your offending and you agree that you took advantage of the situation.

"I am taking into account the fact that you're a vulnerable young man with cognitive difficulties. You were exposed to inappropriate influences which may explain your sexualisation as a young child yourself and in my view I find it likely that this contributed to this offending.

"If it were not for that fact I would have imposed a sentence of two years.

"In all the circumstances the appropriate determinate sentence is one of 21 months with 10 and a half months in custody and 10 and a half months on licence."

Adams-Whyte was placed on the sex offenders list for 10 years, barred from working with children and was told by the judge he may be barred from vulnerable people.

He was also made the subject of a five year Sexual Offenders Prevention Order.

Last night, Clare Bailey of the Green Party, who worked for sexual abuse counselling service Nexus, said: "I welcome the fact that a conviction was secured in this case. However, the sentencing seems to be very lenient.

"This man will be out of jail in ten and a half months but the impact of what he did to this child will be life-long for her.

"The sentence doesn't seem to be sufficient for a crime like this."

The South Belfast Green party candidate added: "I hope this young girl and her family are receiving all the help they need to recover from this devastating experience.

"The case also raises the issue of the access that rapists can have to their children."

The DUP candidate for South Antrim, Pam Cameron, said: "I welcome the prosecution and conviction secured in this case but it is very important that the toughest possible sentences are handed out for child rape.

"If it was my child, I don't think I'd feel that justice had been done.

"I believe that sentencing guidelines must be reviewed. The question must be asked if a sentence of 10 and a half months is enough to deter other perpetrators. The case also highlights that rape isn't a crime confined to strangers attacking women on a dark street at night. The perpetrator knew this child and raped her in his home," she said.
Loyalist paramilitaries have put a special protection order on a flock of Greylag geese from Iceland who have visited the Shankill estate in Belfast for 10 years

Loyalist paramilitaries have put a special protection order on a flock of Greylag geese from Iceland who have visited the Shankill estate in Belfast for 10 years

Loyalist paramilitaries have put a special protection order on a flock of Greylag geese from Iceland who have visited the Shankill estate in Belfast for 10 years

Loyalist paramilitaries have put a special protection order on a flock of Greylag geese from Iceland who have visited the Shankill estate in Belfast for 10 years

Loyalist paramilitaries have helped a flock of geese set up home in a Belfast housing estate after putting word out that they were "not to be touched".

The BBC reports that a flock of Greylag geese turn up on Belfast's Shankill estate every year, having made the long journey from Iceland. It's thought they have been making the journey for the past decade.

However, residents thought the creatures would be put off returning - that was until loyalist paramilitaries intervened.

Residents who regularly feed the geese said that in the beginning people joked that they would make a good Christmas dinner.

"The paramilitaries round here put a stop to that," said one local.

"They said 'leave the geese alone', so nobody touches them."

And in light of that intervention, the birds have become an integral part of the local community, drawing kids and people out to feed them.

They even hold up traffic as they cross roads in the area.

Belfast Lord Mayor Brian Kingston is one of the area's representatives on the city council.

A keen amateur photographer, the Lord Mayor said he'd photographed the geese on many occasions in the past.

"They're very beautiful birds. They visit every year, attracted by the green grassy area in the estate.

"They're very tame."

"The children love watching them feed - they're a real talking point, and a welcome sign that spring is just around the corner," the DUP politician commented.

Belfast Telegraph writer Malachi O'Doherty counted 55 of the Greylag geese in the Shankill estate on their previous visit in 2016.

"Apparently they are regular visitors.

"It's their traditional route!" Malachi quipped on social media.

The migratory birds are also thought to spend time feeding at Belfast's Waterworks Park, and at the Rathcoole housing estate in Newtownabbey.
Just one vulnerable child was brought to Northern Ireland under a scheme to let unaccompanied migrant children into the UK, it has been claimed.

Earlier this week it emerged that a key route to the UK for children caught up in Europe's migrant crisis would close after 350 arrivals.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the UK would stop receiving children via the so-called Dubs amendment at the end of March.

The law, designed by peer and former refugee Lord Dubs, a former NIO official, aimed to help some of the estimated 90,000 unaccompanied migrant children across Europe.

Amnesty International said just one unaccompanied child refugee was brought here under the Dubs scheme.

Patrick Corrigan, the Northern Ireland programme director of Amnesty International, said: "We can reveal that only one unaccompanied child refugee has been brought to Northern Ireland under this scheme.

"With wars in Syria and elsewhere showing no signs of ending, there are thousands of desperate, unaccompanied children in need of refuge. Against that background, the fact that only one such vulnerable child has been settled in all of Northern Ireland under the scheme should shame the government for its lack of compassion.

"The announcement that the scheme is now to be ended with only 350 children helped, is a dismal reassertion of the government's refusal to share responsibility with European neighbours for what is a global crisis in urgent need of a collective response.

"By depriving refugee children of a safe route out of dangerous situations elsewhere, the Government only increases the risk that these children fall victim to traffickers and other abusers. The Home Secretary must think again."

On Wednesday, the government announced its intention to end its use of the Dubs scheme.

The agreement, named after its architect, Labour peer Lord Alf Dubs, requires the Government to relocate unaccompanied refugee children from other countries in Europe.

Lord Dubs was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office from May 1997 to December 1999.

Yesterday, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Winton - hailed as "Britain's Schindler" after saving hundreds of children from Nazi tyranny - called on Theresa May to reverse the closure of scheme.

Barbara Winton's late father helped 669 mostly Jewish children flee Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, she wrote: "Donald Trump's refugee ban echoes the terrible failures of the human spirit that, on the eve of the Second World War, saw country after country close its borders to Jewish refugees in urgent need of protection.

"My father ... knew that each and every one of us share in a responsibility to our fellow men and women, a responsibility to offer sanctuary to those fleeing persecution. 'If it's not impossible', he used to say, 'then surely something could and something must be done'."

Controversy erupted over the Dubs scheme after it emerged that it would come to an end after 150 unaccompanied children are brought to Britain, on top of 200 who have already arrived through the programme.

Mrs May insisted the Government's approach to assisting refugees is "absolutely right", while the Home Secretary defended the approach to the Dubs scheme - saying British and French authorities feared it was acting as a "pull factor" for children to head to the UK and provided opportunities for people-traffickers.

The Home Office has insisted it is not giving up on vulnerable children and youngsters will continue to arrive from around the world through other resettlement schemes and the asylum system.
Judge James Robart, of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington State, believes there is no basis for President Trump's executive order temporarily suspending non-American entry from seven terrorism-plagued countries.

In court last week, Robart questioned Justice Department lawyer Michelle Bennett about the administration's decision to confine the moratorium to Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran.

"Have there been terrorist attacks in the United States by refugees or other immigrants from the seven countries listed, since 9/11?" Bennett said.

"Your honor, I don't know the specific details of attacks or planned attacks," Bennett responded. "I think -- I will point out, first of all, that the rationale for the order was not only 9/11, it was to protect the United States from the potential for terrorism. I will also note that the seven countries that are listed in the executive order are the same seven countries that were already subject to other restrictions in obtaining visas that Congress put in place, both by naming countries, Syria and Iraq, and that the prior administration put in place by designating them as places where terrorism is likely to occur, or -- the specific factors are whether the presence in a particular country increases the likelihood that an alien is a credible threat to U.S. security or an area that is a safe haven for terrorists."

Bennett was obviously improvising a bit at that point and did not have the facts at her fingertips. Robart would have none of that.

"Well, let me walk you back, then," Robart said. "You're from the Department of Justice, if I understand correctly?"

"Yes."

"So you're aware of law enforcement. How many arrests have there been of foreign nationals for those seven countries since 9/11?"

"Your honor, I don't have that information. I'm from the civil division, if that helps get me off the hook."

"Let me tell you," Robart said. "The answer to that is none, as best I can tell. So, I mean, you're here arguing on behalf of someone President Trump that says: We have to protect the United States from these individuals coming from these countries, and there's no support for that."

In that brief moment, Robart declared there is "no support" for Trump's decision. And with that, the judge from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington State ordered a nationwide -- actually worldwide -- halt to enforcement of the president's executive order.

Now, it turns out Robart might not know as much as he let on. Last summer, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest analyzed public sources of information, seeking to learn more about people convicted of terror-related offenses. The Justice Department provided the subcommittee with a list of 580 people who were convicted -- not just arrested, but tried and convicted -- of terror-related offenses between Sept. 11, 2001 and Dec. 31, 2014.

The subcommittee investigated further and found that at least 380 of the 580 were foreign-born and that an additional 129 were of unknown origin. Of the 380, there were representatives -- at least 60 -- from all of the countries on the Trump executive order list. And with 129 unknowns, there might be more, as well.

In addition, since the Senate list was compiled, there have been others involved in terrorism in the United States from the seven countries. One highly publicized example was the case of Abdul Artan, a Somali refugee who last November wounded 11 people with a machete during an attack on the campus of Ohio State University. In fairness to Judge Robart, Artan was shot and killed by police -- not arrested -- so perhaps the judge didn't count him.

In a report Monday, the Associated Press, relying on the research of University of North Carolina professor Charles Kurzman, reported that "23 percent of Muslim Americans involved with extremist plots since Sept. 11 had family backgrounds from the seven countries."

The bottom line is, Robart's confident assertion to Bennett was wrong.

In her exchange with the judge, Bennett tried to argue that the Constitution and the law make clear that the president is the person charged with making national security decisions like those in the Trump executive order.

"Your honor, I think the point is that because this is a question of foreign affairs, because this is an area where Congress has delegated authority to the president to make these determinations, it's the president that gets to make the determinations," Bennett said. "And the court doesn't have authority to look behind those determinations."

Robart strongly disagreed, and stopped the president's order. After all, he knew best.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.
Police have issued an apology to the family of a man whose body was not discovered for 10 weeks after he went missing from a mental health unit at the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald.

The body of Bangor man James Fenton was found close to the unit 10 weeks after he disappeared in July 2010.

Mr Fenton's mother Janice told the BBC yesterday that the outcome could have been very different if only the police had conducted a more thorough search at the beginning of their hunt for 22-year-old James.

"If they had looked for James and found James, they could have taken him into a ward and they could have helped him. If that wasn't the case, his family would have been able to see him again, would have been able to say goodbye," she told the BBC.

In 2013, 12 PSNI officers were disciplined after a Police Ombudsman Investigation into the police handling of Mr Fenton's disappearance.

Coroner Joe McCrisken, who conducted Mr Fenton's inquest, was heavily critical of the PSNI's performance in the search.

He described the PSNI's officers' actions as "inexplicable, inexcusable and deeply unsatisfactory".

Mr McCrisken also said that if a search dog had been used Mr Fenton's body could have been found more quickly

In the event, the Coroner ruled that the cause of Mr Fenton's death could not be ascertained because of decomposition .

Following the Coroner's criticism, the PSNI issued a 'wholehearted apology' to the Fenton family.

Superintendent Sean Wright who attended the inquest on behalf of the PSNI, said: "This has been a painful week for the Fenton family.

"My thoughts are with them all as they've had to revisit the tragic events of 2010.

"I note the findings of the Coroner and his comments made in respect of the police investigation.

"On behalf of the Police Service of Northern Ireland I wholeheartedly apologise to the Fenton family for the police failings in this case.

"We would wish to assure the public that the Coroner did acknowledge the PSNI's policy around dealing with Missing People is now fit for purpose and that our procedures have improved."
After departing Dublin the flight was diverted.

An Etihad Airways flight that departed from Dublin has been diverted to a military air base in Dubai.

Flight EY042 board left from Dublin Airport at 8.30am on Friday morning bound for Abu Dhabi.

The passenger plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Al Minhad Air Base after a "security threat onboard".

It is understood that there were a number of Irish people on board the flight.

"The crew completed all necessary inflight checks as per procedure, with no abnormalities found, then followed the authorities instructions to undergo further security checks at the Air Base," an Etihad Airways spokesperson said.

It is understood that the passengers on board the flight "went through additional security screening which took several hours".

"Throughout this process, the guests were accommodated in the Air Base and were provided with refreshments. Guests then boarded police escorted buses to Abu Dhabi airport to be processed through the terminal," said the spokesperson.

The majority of disrupted passengers were re-booked on flights on Saturday morning - and were offered overnight accommodation in Abu Dhabi.

Etihad Airways officially moved to its new home in Terminal 1, Dublin Airport earlier this month.

The move to Terminal 1 comes ahead of the airline's recent announcement that it will fly double daily between Dublin and Abu Dhabi from April this year.

This increase in frequency means that Etihad Airways will have 28 flights weekly between the two cities.
The Republic of Ireland is to become the latest country to legalise the use of cannabis for treating specific medical conditions

The Republic of Ireland is to become the latest country to legalise the use of cannabis for treating specific medical conditions.

Despite a government-ordered report warning of a lack of evidence over the drug's safety and effectiveness, Irish Health Minister Simon Harris has given the green light for its use in certain circumstances.

Mr Harris said he will establish an access programme for cannabis-based treatments for conditions "where patients have not responded to other treatments and there is some evidence that cannabis may be effective". These will include multiple sclerosis sufferers, cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and epileptics.

Pressure is mounting in Britain for similar moves.

Germany is already preparing to legalise cannabis for medical purposes, while Canada is set for decriminalisation.
An Iraq War veteran investigated by the discredited probe into murder and torture allegations against British troops has said its closure is "long overdue".

The 60 million Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat) inquiry will be closed in months after its caseload is whittled down and around 20 investigations are handed over to military police.

Former colour sergeant Brian Wood, who served in the 1st Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment at the Battle of Danny Boy in May 2004, said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Government had "big lessons to learn".

He told BBC Breakfast: "The allegations were of the highest order - unlawful killing, mutilation and mistreatment of prisoners of war.

"That just did not happen and I just don't know where they got the fuel from.

"It's good news (Ihat's closure), long overdue but it's good news. We had holes in our system which were exploited."

Mr Wood also suggested the allegations made to the Al-Sweady Inquiry should not have been made public until the claims were thoroughly investigated.

He said: "Because of the seriousness of the allegations, they should have looked into them in so much detail before releasing it as a public inquiry.

"What they have put us through for that period was damaging to the degree of careers, marital split-ups and fuelling the fire of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and the trauma we had seen on the battlefield."

And former Army captain Rachel Webster, who is taking legal action over her 2014 arrest and questioning by Ihat, told ITV News: "I hadn't done anything.

"I was humiliated and I will never ever forget it and neither will any other soldier or veteran that has had this done to (them) as well. It has ruined lives. It has destroyed me, literally destroyed me."

The Government has defended its handling of the investigation, with v eterans minister Mark Lancaster saying the probe was abused by lawyers but the MoD acted correctly.

He told BBC Radio Four's Today programme: "It was set up for entirely the right reasons.

"Without having Ihat, potentially our troops could have been subjected to inquiries by the International Criminal Court."

He was asked about a damning Commons Defence Committee report that said the MoD had been complicit in the creation of the legal industry that sprang up around Ihat.

Mr Lancaster said: "It is a serious allegation. I'm not sure that there is any evidence that the MoD have been complicit in that."

Mr Lancaster, who would not be drawn on possible compensation for veterans impacted by Ihat, said that a small number of serious cases involving personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq would still be investigated by military authorities.

Asked if comments made by Tory MP Johnny Mercer, who led the defence committee probe, that there is a "rotten core" of civil servants at the MoD rang true, former head of the army, General Sir Mike Jackson, told LBC: "They're harsh words but I have no reason to doubt the committee's findings.

"I had my own difficulties with the civil service when I was head of the army.

"I fear the reputation of the British Army has been damaged from these unfounded and trumped-up allegations."

But defence minister Lord Howe rejected any attacks on civil servants.

Lord Howe told LBC that he "completely repudiated" the suggestion "that we have dishonest civil servants in the Ministry of Defence. There is absolutely no basis for that criticism of our civil servants who have been doing their loyal duties for many months."

The scathing report by the Defence Committee said the probe had subjected serving and retired troops to "deeply disturbing" treatment and had "directly harmed" UK defences.

MPs set out a litany of failures about the way the MoD had handled the probe.

They criticised it for "serious" failings after it handed over more than 110,829 to Abu Jamal, an Iraqi middleman, while he was employed by Public Interest Lawyers (PIL), the defunct firm behind many of the claims.

Phil Shiner, who ran PIL, has been struck off after being found to have acted dishonestly in bringing murder and torture claims against Iraq war veterans.

The committee said it was "deeply concerned" the MoD had used public funds to cover the costs of those who were bringing "spurious and unassessed" cases against the war veterans and about the lack of support for those accused.

Ihat investigators used "intimidatory tactics", including "deeply disturbing" methods such as impersonating the police. Serving and retired soldiers have also been spied on, the report found.
Crew from the Royal Navy's Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon manning a large sea boat as they help to rescue 14 sailors from the stricken yacht (MoD/PA)

The skipper of a racing yacht has described the moment a "rogue wave" tore off its mast and left the crew stranded in the Atlantic Ocean for nearly two days.

The 60ft Clyde Challenger yacht was battered in stormy conditions as it was returning to the UK from a four-and-a-half month trip and had to be rescued by a Royal Navy warship.

Its crew of 13 Britons and one American waited 20 hours for HMS Dragon to reach them as t he Type 45 destroyer was diverted 500 miles from a routine deployment.

Roy Graham, the Challenger's skipper, said the problems began five days after leaving the Azores, in the mid-Atlantic, when a large wave threw the yacht into chaos on Thursday evening.

The 66-year-old Scot told the Press Association: "We lost our mast and the rigging, that was the problem.

"We got hit with a rogue wave coming in the opposite direction.

"It hit us and knocked us over and dragged the crosstrees into the water, which dragged the mast into the water and snapped it at deck level."

Four crew members were clipped on deck at the time but Mr Graham said they would have been submerged for several seconds, adding: "T o them it probably felt like minutes."

And he said he had fears for the crew's safety and was relieved when he was told on Friday the Royal Navy was en route.

The professional sailor said: "There were maybe a few doubts in my mind but when I knew HMS Dragon was coming for us, I knew it was going to be a positive outcome.

"We are really pleased the Navy took up the challenge to come and rescue us."

Travelling at a top speed of around 30 knots, the warship arrived at the yacht's position - some 610 miles south west of Land's End - at around 2.30pm on Saturday.

The operation concluded at around 5pm and all crew members were said to be "alive and well".

They were treated for "bumps and bruises" and given hot food, including steak and chips, as well as the chance to call their families once on board the vessel.

Crew member Elisabeth Ligethy, from Glasgow, said she had been below deck and was thrown 10ft when the wave hit the yacht.

The 62-year-old, who retired shortly before setting off on sailing tour last year, praised the Navy crew for the rescue, saying: "The hospitality extended to us just beggars belief."

The UK Coastguard said it received an emergency beacon alert at 8pm on Thursday and several vessels responded to a call for assistance before an RAF C130 Hercules was scrambled to the scene on Friday morning.

US Air Force jets from RAF Mildenhall joined the search, while chemical tanker CPO Finland attempted to rescue the crew three times but was hampered by bad weather.

HMS Dragon Captain Craig Wood said he was "proud" of the actions of the seamen who operated the rescue boats and praised the "really professional" Challenger sailors.

He said: "It was pretty miserable conditions and pretty marginal conditions for what we wanted to do.

"This was about as challenging as we would like to put them (sea boat teams) out in.

"We rewrote a couple of pages of the textbook today but it could not have gone any better. Their families know they are safe in the hands of the Royal Navy.

Petty Officer Max Grosse, chief bosun's mate on board HMS Dragon, said the yacht was in a "desperate state" after 48 hours drifting in treacherous conditions.

"Despite racing through the night we only had three hours of daylight remaining in which to safely remove the crew," he added.

A Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokeswoman said: "HM Coastguard would like to thank all those that took part in providing a successful outcome to this complex long range search and rescue mission."

The Clyde Challenger, which is owned by Lewis Learning Ltd, was designed and built to compete in the Clipper round-the-world yacht race and is also used for corporate, private and charity charters, according to its website.

A statement on the company's Facebook page said: " We are extremely grateful for this news and extend huge thanks to all those involved in standing over the yacht, organising and executing the safe transfer of the crew."

The Challenger, which is normally berthed in the Clyde estuary, in Scotland, could not be recovered.
A bullet-ridden sports utility vehicle is taken away by authorities after a gun battle with Mexican marines in Tepic, Nayarit state (Chris Arias/AP)

An alleged regional leader of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel and 11 accomplices have been killed in clashes with Mexican marines who poured gunfire into a house from a helicopter-mounted machine gun.

Juan Francisco Patron Sanchez headed the cartel's operations in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit and in the southern part of Jalisco state, the federal interior department said.

Patron and seven accomplices had opened fire on marines and had barricaded themselves in the upper part of a house in the Nayarit state capital of Tepic, a Mexican navy official said, i dentifying Patron by the criminal nickname "H2."

The official said that a helicopter gunship had been called in to provide "dissuasive fire", to suppress outgoing gunfire from the structure on Thursday.

Use of such "minigun" weapons from a helicopter gunship is extremely rare in urban areas.

They have apparently been used before by Mexican police, but usually only in rural areas.

The navy said the helicopter gunship was used in accordance with its rules of engagement, "with the aim of reducing the level of aggression and reducing the risk of civilian or federal casualties".

The navy said that a grenade launcher and several rifles and pistols were found at the scene.

The navy said a second gunbattle occurred soon afterwards near Tepic airport, when federal forces came under attack from gunmen.

They returned fire, killing four members of the same cartel.

The Beltran Leyva cartel has been active in the northern state of Sinaloa and the southern state of Guerrero.

It has since reportedly expanded into other states, and may have allied itself with Mexico's fastest-growing gang, the Jalisco New Generation cartel.

AP
Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo is being checked out in a hospital after the accident (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz )

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo has suffered minor injuries in a car crash and been flown to the capital Warsaw for medical tests, a spokesman said.

The accident happened about 6.30 pm on Friday in the town of Oswiecim, southern Poland - Szydlo's home town.

Officials said Szydlo was travelling in the second car in a convoy along the town's main road when a car drove into Szydlo's black Audi limousine, causing it to hit a tree.

Two security officials were also injured in the accident.

Government spokesman Rafal Bochenek told the news agency PAP that Szydlo's injuries were not serious and was conscious but that she was undergoing a precautionary examination in a hospital.

She was later flown to Warsaw for more medical tests. "Fortunately, nothing bad happened," he said

The state broadcaster TVP published an image of her limousine, with the front of the car bashed in.

Sebastian Glen, a police spokesman, said the car that hit the prime minister's car was a small Fiat driven by a 21-year-old man who was sober. He said Szydlo, the driver and a security officer were taken to a nearby hospital.

Oswiecim is best known to the world by its German name, Auschwitz. It is the town where Nazi Germany ran the death camp in occupied Poland during World War II and today is the site of a memorial and museum that draws large numbers of visitors.

It was the second accident involving a convoy that Szydlo was travelling in.

In November, several vehicles in a Polish government convoy collided during a state visit to Israel. Szydlo was not in one of those that collided but two other Polish officials had minor injuries.

Separately, Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz escaped uninjured from an eight-car collision in January.

Poland's interior minister Mariusz Blaszczak has called an emergency meeting with the leadership of the Government Protection Office, which protects and drives Prime Minister Szydlo and other top government figures.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- The Cold War was waged and won in many places, including this beach city, home to the RAND Corp. Created in 1948 to think about research and development as it effects military planning and procurement, RAND pioneered strategic thinking about nuclear weapons in the context of the U.S.-Soviet competition. Seven decades later it is thinking about the nuclear threat from a nation created in 1948.

When Defense Secretary James Mattis said that any North Korean use of nuclear weapons would draw an "effective and overwhelming" U.S. response, he did not, according to RAND's Bruce W. Bennett, "overcommit" the president by saying that the response would be nuclear. But an overwhelming response could be.

On Jan. 1, North Korea's 33-year-old leader Kim Jong Un said that his regime was at "the final stage in preparations to test-launch" an ICBM, perhaps one capable of reaching America's Pacific Coast. On Jan. 2, Donald Trump tweeted: "It won't happen!" He thereby drew a red line comparable to his predecessor's concerning Syrian chemical weapons. So, Trump, who excoriated Barack Obama for ignoring that red line, must, Bennett believes, be prepared to threaten actions that would prevent North Korea from learning from its test, actions such as shooting down the missile.

The United States has 30-some ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greely in Alaska and others at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. This small capability is intended to cope with an accidental firing by an adversary, or an intentional firing by a rogue general, or to deter or defeat a deliberate attack by an adversary with a small nuclear arsenal, such as North Korea. Will the U.S. anti-ballistic missile system work? Bennett says technologies can go wrong, so this would be an opportunity to fix any failures. And unless we then are prepared to shoot down theater-range ballistic missiles, we will signal less-than-convincing commitment to South Korea and Japan. To those who say it is premature to conclude that Kim is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, Bennett says: In 1966, China, in its fourth nuclear test, just two years after its first, had a missile carry a nuclear weapon to its detonation over its western desert.

In 2006, William Perry, who had been defense secretary for Bill Clinton, and Ashton Carter, who would be Obama's final defense secretary, recommended U.S. action to destroy any ICBM set for testing on a North Korean launch pad. But that nation's conventional retaliatory capabilities, including artillery and rockets capable of inflicting considerable damage on at least Seoul's northern suburbs, forestalled this. And North Korea has perhaps 1,000 tactical-range ballistic missiles capable of striking throughout South Korea and Japan. Furthermore, North Korea has cyberwar, commando and sabotage capabilities.

Today, U.S. surface ships and submarines alone could deliver dozens of cruise missiles, and each of up to 10 B-2 bombers could carry two Massive Ordnance Penetrators to destroy underground leadership or missile bunkers. But as soon as Kim has one or more ICBMs (probably road-mobile) capable of delivering, on short notice, a nuclear payload to, say, Santa Monica, pre-emptive U.S. action, even just against his nuclear infrastructure, might be too risky.

Furthermore, preparations for a more ambitious strike -- against North Korean artillery and rockets, ports, airfields, command-and-control centers, leadership bunkers and forward-positioned forces -- might be apparent and might provoke Kim to strike first against Seoul and U.S. forces in South Korea. South Korea talks openly of creating, this year, a "decapitation brigade" involving perhaps as many as 2,000 troops whose mission would be to eliminate North Korea's leadership in the event of war.

Kim recently dismissed the head of his secret police, the latest sign of insecurity. Bennett believes Kim, undeterred by tweets, might test his ICBM for internal purposes -- to impress restive North Korean elites. Bennett suggests that the threat to shoot down the test flight would constructively exacerbate Kim's problems. As might U.S. propaganda, for example by reminding North Korean elites that China's president has had eight summits with South Korea's president in the last four years but never has had one with Kim, who China apparently considers not important.

North Korea, which has been run opaquely for the Kim family's benefit since 1953, is approaching a red line. Although the line was drawn before Trump took office, perhaps it represents continuity. It prefigured the kind of improvisational governance that has made his early weeks so interesting.

George Will's email address is georgewill@washpost.com.
Former Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad has been blocked by the US from leading the United Nations' Libya mission

The United States has blocked the appointment of former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad to lead the United Nations' political mission in Libya, saying it was acting to support its ally Israel.

US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said the Trump administration "was disappointed" to see that UN secretary general Antonio Guterres had sent a letter to the world body's Security Council indicating his intention to appoint Mr Fayyad, who was the Palestinian Authority's prime minister from 2007-2013, as the next special representative to Libya.

"For too long the UN has been unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," Ms Haley said.

Palestine is a non-member observer state at the UN and its independence has been recognised by 137 of the 193 member nations.

But Ms Haley said the United States did not currently recognise a Palestinian state "or support the signal" Mr Fayyad's appointment would send within the UN.

UN diplomats said Mr Fayyad was well-respected for his work in reforming the Palestinian Authority and spurring its economy and had the support of the 14 other Security Council members to succeed Martin Kobler in the Libya job.

Despite opposition to Mr Fayyad, Ms Haley indicated that the Trump administration wanted to see an end to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We encourage the two sides to come together directly on a solution," she said.

Her statement came ahead of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting at the White House with US president Donald Trump on February 15, and was welcomed by Israelis.

"This is the beginning of a new era at the UN, an era where the US stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish state," Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon said of the US decision to block Mr Fayyad's appointment.

"The new administration proved once again that it stands firmly alongside the state of Israel in the international arena and in the UN in particular."

The new US ambassador made clear that "going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies".

But Mr Trump also indicated in comments to an Israeli newspaper on Friday that there might be some difficult discussions with Mr Netanyahu next week on Israel's settlement expansion.

Mr Trump was quoted as saying that Israel's settlement expansion in land claimed by the Palestinians does not advance peace.

Israel's settlement building has been a key obstacle to the revival of stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Most of the international community considers all Israeli settlements in territory the Palestinians want for a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal and counter-productive to peace.
New beginnings: Dean John Mann at St Annes in Belfast City Centre with George Jones (left) and Dame Mary Peters (right)

This has been a week of announcements about the departures and arrivals of leading clergy. The Dean of Belfast the Very Reverend John Mann announced that he is leaving St Anne's Cathedral at Easter to take up the post of a group rector in England.

Then on Tuesday the Presbyterian Church elected the Reverend Noble McNeely to take over from the current Moderator the Rt Reverend Dr Frank Sellar in June.

The role of a leader is important to set the tone, whether it is a Moderator, Archbishop or parish minister.

The departure of Dean Mann from St Anne's was surprising, partly because his five years there is much shorter than the time spent by his predecessors.

Deans Crookes, Shearer and McKelvey each spent an average of almost 14 years at the cathedral.

Five years ago, Dean Mann inherited a tricky situation when the cathedral suffered much internal wrangling,

Since then he has brought healing, and developments including the establishment of a girls' choir, and relatively modest charges for visitors.

He is going back to England for family reasons, and also because he believes that he has done what he can and that the cathedral is entering a new phase.

I had thought that John Mann was destined for greater things in the Church of Ireland, but no one can blame him for returning to his roots. I wish him well.

I also wish the best for the Rev Noble McNeely. He has taken on the daunting role of Presbyterian Moderator, though this can be as less or more daunting as each incumbent wishes it to be.

Some Moderators have chosen to act mainly as chairman (never a chairwoman) of the General Assembly, and to follow the routine of special services, opening churches and halls, and making mostly anodyne public statements when required, though not always so.

The current Moderator, Dr Sellar, has been putting his head above the parapet on occasions. The fact that he has been criticised for doing so is evidence that he is being taken seriously.

One hopes that the new Moderator follows a similar path in speaking to the wider secular world, and not just to the church faithful.

He will also become aware, if he does not realise this already, that there is a deep worry among many Presbyterians about the steady move in the Church towards Right-wing conservatism. There is also concern that women are being discriminated against when it comes to choosing a Moderator - so far not even one female leader has been appointed, compared to all the other Reformed churches.

Many Presbyterians are also concerned by the way in which the Church is so ham-fisted and insensitive about gay and lesbian issues.

To be fair, the Presbyterian Church does much caring and bridge-building work in many parishes, but its general image is that of a closed institution.

So the role of the new Moderator is to try to make a real difference, within the strait-jacket of Assembly control. Hopefully he will have the support of those at the nerve-centre of Presbyterianism to project the Church as increasingly relevant to the wider world.

They could all make a start by ensuring that a woman is elected as Moderator on merit, and that the Presbyterian establishment treats gays and lesbians with the Christian love that one expects from any major Church in the 21st century.

All churches are long on words, but in the end they are judged on their actions.
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It can be tough to be a vegetarian. You have to work harder than everyone else to make sure youre getting all the nutrients your body needs. So, when its time to take a
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British Airways cabin crew are to stage a fresh four-day strike in a long-running dispute over pay.

Members of the Unite union working in the airline's so-called mixed fleet will walk out on February 17.

The announcement on Friday was made before crews stage the last day of a three-day stoppage on Saturday, which followed a similar strike earlier this week.

Unite also urged BA to meet the union for fresh talks at the conciliation service Acas.

A BA spokesman said: "We have flown all customers to their destinations during the previous strikes by mixed fleet Unite and we will ensure this happens again.

"We will publish more details on February 14 once we have finalised our contingency plans. Our pay offer for mixed fleet crew is consistent with the deal accepted by 92% of colleagues across the airline, most of whom are represented by Unite.

"It also reflects pay awards given by other companies in the UK and will ensure that rewards for mixed fleet remain in line with those for cabin crew at our airline competitors."

Unite national officer Oliver Richardson said: "British Airways should focus on addressing poverty pay in its mixed fleet, rather than continuing to waste hundreds of thousands of pounds on chartering in aircraft to cover striking workers.

"Despite the bully boy tactics, the threats and the sanctions, our members in British Airways mixed fleet have continued to show great resolve in their fight for better pay. Mixed fleet cabin crew are the future of British Airways and deserve better.

"We would urge British Airways to join us at reconvened Acas talks and negotiate a settlement to avoid the cost and disruption of a further four days of strike action."

The two sides have clashed over pay, with Unite saying the cabin crew earned an average of 16,000 a year, including allowances, but BA insisting no-one was paid below 21,000.

The mixed fleet work on short and long-haul flights.
Ciara Donlon of THEYA Healthcare has been announced as a finalist for the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards.

She is one of 18 finalists selected from almost 1,900 applications from over 120 countries.
Gardai in Dublin have seized more than 6,000 worth of cocaine, heroin and tablets in a house search.

Gardai from the Ballymun Drug Unit, helped by members of the Task Force searched a property in Shangan Terrace, Ballymun, last night.
Update 7.50pm: Sinn Fein have said they are to table a motion of no confidence in the Government "without delay".

Announcing the motion of no confidence, Sinn Fein Deputy Leader Mary Lou McDonald branded the Government a "kick for touch, cover up" government.

Deputy McDonald said: "People the length and breadth of Ireland are rightly outraged by what has transpired over the course of the last week. The Government is clearly unable to deal with the major issues facing our people.

"The hospital waiting list scandal has exposed the government's complete failure to deal with the crisis in our health service.

"The manner in which they have handled the scandalous campaign of character assassination against Sergeant Maurice McCabe renders this government unfit for public office.

"The behaviour of government, particularly over the last week, has eroded public confidence in this coalition in the most fundamental and profound ways."

She said that the Government's "chaotic behaviour and blatant disregard" for transparency necessitates a General Election.

She said: "Sinn Fein will table a motion of no confidence in this kick for touch, cover up government without delay.

"We will be seeking support for this motion of no confidence from all opposition TDs and Fianna Fail."

Update 3pm:Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has called for a General Election.

Deputy Adams was speaking in Belfast this afternoon on the controversy surrounding Sergeant Maurice McCabe.

Mr Adams said: "The Fine Gael-led government is one without authority. It is stumbling from one crisis to another - in health, in housing, in homelessness.

"They have covered up on the NAMA scandal and they are now playing the public for fools on the Garda/Tusla/McCabe controversy.

"Fine Gael is in power only by dint of patronage from Fianna Fail, and Fianna Fail is keeping the wreck afloat.

"Citizens are scandalised by the arrogance of Enda Kenny and his Cabinet colleagues. The Taoiseach should do the right thing. So should Micheal Martin. He should withdraw his support for the government."

Mr Adams said that if his party was in government, they would not tolerate it.

He added: "People deserve an election. They deserve to have their say on all of these matters.

"The Sinn Fein Chief Whip has written to the Business Committee in the Dail seeking a debate on the Commission of Investigation to be brought forward to Tuesday to allow the Tanaiste and the Minister for Children to clarify their positions.

Update 1.30pm:The Health Service Executive (HSE) has apologised unreservedly to Garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe for the distress caused to him on foot of its error.

In a statement released today, the HSE said there was an administrative error in its counselling service which led to an allegation being mistakenly handled.

The error has been the subject of a major political controversy this week.

In its statement, the HSE said that in July 2013, an allegation of retrospective abuse was made against Garda Sgt Maurice McCabe.

In line with process, the HSEs National Counselling Service referred this allegation to HSEs Child Protection Services (now Tusla). This matter has been reported quite extensively in the media over the past 48 hours.

"The HSE wishes to confirm that there was an administrative error made by a staff member of the HSEs National Counselling Service in the referral made at that time (August 2013)," the statement added.

This administrative error was brought to the attention of the National Counselling Service in May 2014.

The National Counselling Service responded immediately in May 2014 by bringing this error and a corrected report to the attention of Tusla and an Garda Siochana, the HSE said.

"In line with usual process, the error was brought to the attention of the HSEs Regional Manager for Data Protection and Consumer Affairs. The National Counselling Service would have had no further involvement in this matter once the corrected report was provided to Tusla and an Garda," it continued.

The HSE is satisfied that correct procedure was followed once this error was brought to the attention of the National Counselling Service, it added.

"An immediate internal review of guidelines, practices and protocols was undertaken within the National Counselling Service to ensure that such an error would not reoccur. Appropriate training was also undertaken. Additional supervisory procedures were put in place by the National Counselling Service in relation to the staff member concerned," the HSE said.

As a result, the HSE said it is apologising unreservedly to Mr. McCabe and his family for the distress caused on foot of this error.

"The HSE is making arrangements to offer this apology formally to Mr. McCabe as soon as possible," the statement added.

In conclusion, the HSE said it will fully co-operate with any Inquiry or Investigation into this matter.

Update 12.45pm: Sinn Fein has called on the Justice Minister to come before the Dail to tell deputies what she knew about a meeting between Minister Katherine Zappone and Garda whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe.

Frances Fitzgerald says she was aware of the meeting - but the Tanaiste has indicated she wasn't aware the Garda whistleblower was the subject of baseless sexual offences allegations that were on the files of the child protection agency Tusla.

Sinn Fein is claiming her version of events doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

The party's Justice spokesperson Jonathan O'Brien believes Minister Fitzgerald misled the Dail, and needs to set the record straight.

"Now it is unconceivable and it's just not credible that Minister Fitzgerald did not pose the question to Minister Zappone 'why are you meeting the most high-profile Garda whistleblower in the history of the State."

Sinn Fein Children's spokesperson Donnchadh O Laoghaire TD has expressed deep alarm that the file was held, and widely circulated, and has called on Tusla to come before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs to outline the situation and clarify whether there are any other similar cases.

Deputy O Laoghaire said: The fact that such a file, concerning very serious, but unfounded allegations, was held by Tusla, unbeknown to Sgt McCabe, but appears to have been widely known amongst other high ranking Gardai in the force raises some questions and many concerns in relation to Tusla's practices.

These allegations, which have since been found to be untrue, are damaging to the character of Sgt Maurice McCabe, and he is at the very minimum deserving of a public apology on behalf of Tusla.

Tusla receives allegations of this nature regularly, and has to treat all information with care, but the manner in which this information was made widely available to others in senior roles within an Garda Siochana due to a clerical error is questionable at best, and quite sinister at worst.

Earlier: The Children's Minister says it would have been inappropriate for her to brief the cabinet on what was discussed during her meeting with Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe.

It has emerged that both the Taoiseach and Tanaiste had been told that Katherine Zappone was meeting Sergeant McCabe, but not the reasons why.

The statement from a spoksperson from her department read: "Minister believed Tusla would be subject to investigations by the Commission of Inquiry.

"It would have been highly inappropriate for the Minister to brief the Cabinet on confidential, highly sensitive and personal information which one could reasonably assume was the subject of a protected disclosure, which was leading to the establishment of the Commission."

An earlier statement said she had informed 'relevant government colleagues' about the meeting - but as yet she has not revealed who she was referring to.

The Cabinet is expected to discuss the matter further when it meets again next Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivan has repeatedly denied knowledge of issues at the heart of the whistleblower scandal, writes Caroline O'Doherty.

Heres what she said:

February 2017:

Brendan Howlin told the Dail on Wednesday he had been informed by a journalist that other reporters had been contacted by the commissioner and told about sex crime allegations against Maurice McCabe.

The Garda press office said: This is the first occasion on which the commissioner has been made aware of the allegations made by Deputy Howlin.

January 2017:

The commissioner gave a wide-ranging radio interview to RTEs Sean ORourke.

On the treatment of whistleblowers, she said: Im not aware nor was I aware of any campaign to discredit any individual.

October 12, 2016:

The commissioner was questioned by the Oireachtas justice committee on the treatment of whistleblowers.

She stated: I am not privy to, nor did I approve, nor would I condone, any campaign of harassment or any campaign to malign any individual employee.

October 7, 2016:

Judge Iarfhlaith ONeil was appointed to examine claims by former Garda press officer Supt David Taylor that senior officers ran a smear campaign against Sgt McCabe.

The Garda press office said: Commissioner OSullivan would like to make it clear that she was not privy to, nor approved of, any action designed to target any Garda employee who may have made a protected disclosure.

May 30, 2016:

John McGuinness told the Dail that former commissioner Martin Callinan arranged to meet him in a hotel car park days before McGuinness was to chair a Public Accounts Committee hearing on the whistleblower affair, and told him Sgt McCabe was not to be trusted.

The press office said: Commissioner OSullivan was not aware of any private meeting between former Commissioner Callinan and Deputy McGuinness as outlined by Deputy McGuinness in the Dail.

May 2016:

Unpublished transcripts from the OHiggins Commission revealed by the Irish Examiner show the commissioners legal representative briefed the judge that he had been instructed to attack Sgt McCabes credibility and motivation throughout the hearings.

The tactic was not subsequently employed.

OSullivans initial response on May 16 was: I want to make it clear that I do not  and have never  regarded Sergeant McCabe as malicious.

She further stated on May 25: An Garda Siochanas legal team was not at any stage instructed to impugn the integrity of Sergeant Maurice McCabe or to make a case that he was acting maliciously.
A ruling to grant an expansion to Liffey Valley shopping centre in Dublin has been overturned.

An Taisce has welcomed the ruling from An Bord Pleanala saying the decision is a major vindication.
By David Raleigh

A man has been taken to hospital after getting out of a taxi on a bridge in Limerick and entering the River Shannon.

The man, aged in his 20s, was rescued from the water by members of Limerick City and County Fire Service who received the emergency call around 10pm tonight.

"A call came into Limerick City Fire Station that a man had exited a taxi on Shannon Bridge and entered the River Shannon. A male and female passerby threw a life buoy which the man held onto," a source said.

"Within three minutes of receiving the call, Limerick Fire Service Swiftwater Rescue Technicians launched their Rescue Boat - FireSwift - and rescued the man from the water," they said.

"He was brought to a slipway near St Michael's Rowing Club where he was treated on scene by firefighters and HSE paramedics."

The source said the man was taken by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick "where his physical condition is believed to be stable".

Limerick Marine Search and Rescue Service were alerted to the incident by Valentia Coast Guard and its volunteer crews launched two boats in the rescue operation.

A LMSR spokesperson said: "Well done to the member of the public who reached the person in the water with a life ring, and to the crew of Limerick Fire and Rescue who took the person from the water and brought them to the awaiting ambulance."
A woman who died crossing a railway line was seen with a male companion, now being sought by police as a key witness to the accident.

British Transport Police released a picture of the man in the hope of jogging people's memories, as the victim was identified as a 29-year-old Dublin woman.

Officers investigating what is being treated as "a tragic accident" at Barnt Green station in Worcestershire on Thursday, are now appealing for the man to come forward.

They have stressed he is not in any trouble but may have crucial information about the woman's last moments.

Inquiries have established the woman arrived on a ferry from Ireland at the port of Holyhead in the early hours of Thursday.

She got a coach to Birmingham and was spotted on CCTV at the city's main New Street station with a man whose image is now being circulated.

Police said it was understood the pair had been trying to get to Worcester and boarded a train shortly before 6am, getting off at Barnt Green.

The two then tried to walk across the line to reach another platform, but while the man made it the woman was hit by a train.

Detective Chief Inspector Tony Fitzpatrick said: "We are conducting numerous inquiries to confirm the man's identity, but we need to find him as we believe he is a key witness and the last person to see his companion alive.

"I would like to stress he is not in any trouble - we just need to talk to him.

"The woman's family are understandably devastated and it is important we understand the circumstances leading up to her death so we can give them the answers they so desperately need."

Anyone with information about the man or his whereabouts is asked to call police on 0800 405040 or text 61016.
SIPTU is warning that industrial action could be on the way for Dublin Bus and Irish Rail, as well as Bus Eireann.

The union is balloting members in Dublin Bus over a broken settlement deal, it's also in discussion with members of Irish Rail over broken agreements, and members in both companies have already pledged solidarity with their colleagues in Bus Eireann who are striking on February 20 over threatened cuts.
It is being reported that US President Donald Trump will not appeal to the Supreme Court to have his controversial travel ban reinstated.

The US President has told journalists on Air Force One that he also has "a lot of other options".
US president Donald Trump has promised more legal action after a federal appeals court refused to reinstate his ban on travellers from seven predominantly Muslim nations.

Mr Trump tweeted "SEE YOU IN COURT" after the decision came out on Thursday, but what he has in mind remains to be seen.

He said on Friday that he has "no doubt" he will win the case in court and told reporters he is considering signing a "brand-new order" on immigration.

The 3-0 ruling means that refugees and people from the seven nations - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - can continue entering the United States for now.

The administration has several options on how to proceed. Here is a look at where the legal fight goes from here:

REHEARING AT THE APPEALS COURT

The Trump administration could decide to ask the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the three-judge panel's ruling.

But the odds of success seem low, said Margo Schlanger, a law professor at the University of Michigan.

She noted that the three-judge panel was unanimous and included a judge chosen by a Republican president.

SUPREME COURT APPEAL

The government could file an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court and ask the justices to restore the ban.

But it would take at least five justices to overturn the ruling from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals and that may be a long shot.

The high court still has only eight members since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia - four conservative and four liberal justices.

"There are almost surely four votes to deny an emergency request to reinstate the order," said Peter Spiro, a law professor at Temple University.

The last immigration case to reach the justices ended in a 4-4 deadlock last year.

That suggests a similar split over Mr Trump's order, which would let the 9th Circuit ruling stand and keep the freeze in place.

WAITING FOR GORSUCH

If the Supreme Court declines to intervene right away, the case would remain in the 9th Circuit and ultimately be considered on its legal merits.

It also could return to US District Judge James Robart in Seattle, who temporarily blocked the ban after Washington state and Minnesota urged a nationwide hold on the January 27 order.

The lower court action so far is temporary and has not resolved broader questions about the legality of Mr Trump's order.

It simply halts deportations or other actions until judges can more fully consider whether the order violates legal or constitutional rights.

Allowing the case to play out longer at the appeals court has one advantage: By the time a ruling on the merits comes down, the Senate may have confirmed Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

That may improve Mr Trump's chances to prevail on appeal.

But just how the issue might reach the Supreme Court is not clear. Several other challenges have been launched in courts around the country, and the court could opt to wait before stepping in.

REVISING THE EXECUTIVE ORDER

The White House could amend the executive order to expressly carve out existing green card holders and other people that already have some ties to the United States.

Up to 60,000 visas were initially cancelled in the wake of the ban, affecting the lives of students, professors and workers.

White House counsel Donald McGahn had issued guidance days after the executive order saying it did not apply to legal permanent residents of the US, but the appeals court said that was not enough.

"The government has offered no authority establishing that the White House counsel is empowered to issue an amended order superseding the executive order signed by the president," the opinion said.

Revising the order "shifts the legal boundaries so that it becomes a tougher constitutional target", Mr Spiro said.

The appeals court issued a sharp rebuke to the Justice Department's argument that the president has the constitutional power to restrict entry to the United States to prevent terrorism, and that courts cannot second-guess that authority.

"There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy," the opinion said.

Washington state, Minnesota and other states say Mr Trump showed his intent in the presidential campaign when he called for a ban on Muslims entering the country.

They also say his order discriminates against Muslims because it provides exceptions for refugees who practice a religion that makes them a minority in their home country. That would favour Christians in the countries affected.

The appeals court said the administration failed to show that the order satisfied constitutional requirements to provide notice or a hearing before restricting travel. But it did not rule on whether the order violated religious protections under the First Amendment.

Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni told a Virginia judge hearing arguments in a similar case on Friday that the administration has not decided what to do.

AP
Blog Hinangai

While there is much discussion in Guam about the economic benefits of increasing the islands military presence, the damages/dangers that they represent are rarely mentioned. This blog, a supplement to the Peace and Justice for Guam Petition, is meant to counter that by providing information about the US military in Guam, with the hopes of steering policy away from a dangerous unilateralist course to more sustainable notions of regional development and a strengthening international solidarity.
Tomago Aluminium, Australia's largest smelter and the state's largest electricity user, was ordered to prepare to dramatically reduce power consumption for a second day as a record heatwave strains NSW's power sector.

AGL told Tomago - which consumes about 10-12 per cent of the state's energy - to prepare to curtail electricity use, starting at 4pm on Saturday. As with Friday's reductions, the smelter would have had to turn off each of its three potlines in sequence for 75 minutes.

The demand for curtailment was dropped early Saturday evening, according to the NSW Government.

AGL's order for Tomago to prepare for power curtailment came despite the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) telling Fairfax Media it had not seen the threat to grid stability that prompted the curtailment demand on Friday.
All had loud music playing. I chose Belluci's. The service and food were excellent, but as a social interaction it was largely wasted because we only caught a handful of each other's words. At the National Library restaurant last year I actually asked them to turn the music off so I could converse, and they complied. If discos are still available, I suggest those wishing to interact instinctively rather than mentally should try them in the first instance, and leave restaurants for the rest of us. Michael McCarthy, Deakin Refugees lose

If the "deal" with the US goes ahead, "extreme vetting" of the offshore refugees could allow Donald Trump to exclude perhaps most, if not all, of them as unwanted immigrants and rid himself of "this dumb deal" approved by his predecessor. It would leave the refugees hopeless and stranded on Nauru and Manus Island, and further humiliate Australia. Recognising this possibility, Michelle Grattan (in The Conversation, February 3) recommends that although it's "the last thing Malcolm Turnbull would want to do, or will do", he should "persuade his cabinet to grant a one-off amnesty, and let these people settle in Australia". This would give our Prime Minister a lead role in the situation with applause from most Australians, defuse the crisis and lessen any pressure on this country to fall into line with subsequent US proposals. H M Whyte, Weston

What will the "deal" be? As a blindly loyal ally, I reckon that ultimately the refugee exchange will go ahead. It will be on the tacit, if not explicit, understanding that we will follow the US under the vindictive and unhinged Donald Trump and weak and supine Malcolm "Trumble" into war, wherever and whenever that may be. In such a short time we have learned that Trump is to be taken both seriously and literally. When he and his cabinet members threaten war with China, Iraq, Iran and North Korea, he should not be dismissed. We must engage in an urgent national debate about our security. I would prefer our country to be friendly, independent, neutral (and armed as is necessary). There are perfectly legitimate models of this concept available to draw from.

The current situation is unthinkable whereby we slide at a pace we do not control, into a war or wars of aggression, on a scale and of a type that may make World War I and World War II look like skirmishes. David Perkins, Reid Our wealth gap Many thoughtful readers of your paper will agree with Paul Malone's call for a redistribution of the world's wealth ("Inequality refuses to disappear ", canberratimes.com.au, February 5) when he states Oxfam's revelation that eight men own as much wealth as the 3.6 billion poorest people in the world. In addition, a report from the Australian Taxation Office reveals that 294 Australian-owned private companies with an income of $200million or more, paid no tax. In America, a country admired by many Australians, it is estimated that the top wealthiest 1 per cent own 40 per cent of the nation's wealth, while the bottom 80 per cent own just 7 per cent.

In Australia, deeply expanded inequality over recent decades has destroyed our once-proud egalitarian way of life, along with the dream of home ownership and weakened social services that were the envy of many countries. As inequality grows in our capitalist society and revolving governments fail to adequately respond to such a serious flaw in our social system, more Australians should dust off their copy of Capital by Karl Marx and ponder if socially democratic "gravediggers" can prevail. Keith McEwan, Bonython Gas guesstimate I refer to the current crop of letters regarding overstated estimates of gas usage by customers of ActewAGL.

My bill for the period to January9 showed an estimated gas usage per day 6.37 times the rate for the same period last year. I then discovered that the meter had not yet reached the estimated reading for the previous period to October 10, 2016, resulting in an overpayment from that period. I am owed a refund going back to the time of the payment for the previous quarter. I queried this with ActewAGL who advised that an actual meter reading would be made on February 3 and also promised to send information on their estimation method. As requested, someone stayed home all day but as far as I am aware no one turned up.
Under overcast skies last Sunday afternoon, the Victorian Greens held a party at the Fitzroy Bowling Club to celebrate 10 years of MPs in state Parliament. Shortly before the cake was cut and the band started playing, rookie politician Ellen Sandell made her way to the microphone.

In a speech peppered with anti-Labor sentiment, the Melbourne MP  who recently became the first Green to snatch an ALP seat in Victoria's lower house  told the crowd they had a lot be proud of. Daniel Andrews' decision to dump the East West Link? It might not have happened without the threat to Labor's inner-city electorates, Sandell declared. The push towards assisted dying laws in Victoria? The Greens put up a private members bill years ago and had been campaigning ever since.

Credit:Michael Leunig

Or what about the government's renewable energy targets and other environmental gains? These too, she argued, had as much to do with politics as good public policy. "Do we really think Daniel Andrews would be crowing about investing in renewable energy if he wasn't trying to win back votes from the Greens and hold the prized seats of Northcote, Richmond and Brunswick?" she said. "Just having Greens threaten to win Labor seats can make change  even before we've won them!"

There's no doubt the Victorian Greens have done pretty well in an electoral sense: the 2014 election gave the party its first two lower house seats (Melbourne and Prahran) and a record five spots in the Senate-style upper house. But to get a sense of what it's been like to have the Greens at Spring Street over the past decade, it's worth reflecting on what they have achieved.
Defence heads decided against moving the swelling Australian Cyber Security Centre from the new ASIO building to the spy agency's former headquarters, a parliamentary committee has heard.

The Joint Standing Committee on Public Works scrutinised department representatives on the $38.8 million decision to move the cyber security centre to Brindabella Business Park, just two years after the organisation moved into the custom-built Ben Chifley Building.

The ASIO headquarters in Canberra. Credit:Katherine Griffiths

The representatives revealed they considered moving the centre to ASIO's old headquarters in the nearby Russell Offices precinct, but a cost-benefit analysis found the building works alone would cost $22 million more than the total Brindabella Business Park proposal.

Sites at Majura Park and Fairbairn were also rejected for the move, with Brindabella chosen due to the number of Defence facilities already based at the precinct.
In the past three years, Daramalan College has produced eight of the finalists in the most prestigious student science competition in the country.

Teenagers from across Australia enter the BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards, with three winners chosen from 26 finalists this year.

Daramalan College science teacher Colin Price. Credit:Rohan Thomson

The awards are a notch on the belt of gifted students at Daramalan. While working on the high-level projects for the awards, the main aim for the students is to reach the silver or gold level in CSIRO's Crest program, a non-competitive awards system supporting students to design and carry out their own open-ended investigations or technology project.

The science students at the college are being afforded a rare opportunity to collaborate with university mentors in high-level, open-ended investigations, an initiative instigated by their teacher, Colin Price.
Mr Beattie said despite its issues with candidates, One Nation appeared to be a better oiled machine in 2017 than it was in the 1990s. Pauline Hanson during the 1998 Queensland state election campaign. Credit:Steve Holland "They're out disendorsing candidates and taking a much harder line, so they're a lot more disciplined now than they were in 1998 and that is a significant difference," he said. Despite the resurgence and an expectation that One Nation was set to perform well at the next Queensland state election  possibly even holding the balance of power in a hung Parliament  Mr Beattie said the major parties need only look to the past for comfort. When Mr Beattie defeated the Rob Borbidge-led Coalition government in 1998, 11 One Nation MPs joined the new Labor government as cohorts in the Queensland Parliament.

Mr Beattie was only able to form government with the support of independent MP Peter Wellington. "What happened in 1998 was both sides of politics were unpopular and, as a result, One Nation set off that," he said. "People were basically registering a protest vote with One Nation and that's why they won 11 seats." Mr Beattie said his Labor government was able to "pull them back" by running a positive strategy in regional Queensland. That included holding community cabinet meetings in those communities.

"We went into each electorate and talked to each community" Mr Beattie said. "We started in the One Nation seat of Mulgrave (now held by Labor Treasurer Curtis Pitt) because we wanted to engage people." At the next election, in 2001, One Nation was reduced to just three seats. Mr Beattie said then, as now, people were worried about employment prospects. "That's a post-mining boom thing now, but then people were concerned about unemployment, which is why we had a number of regional infrastructure projects that were constructed to drive jobs," he said.

"If you go to Cairns, you'll see the Esplanade; in Townsville, you'll see the Strand; you'll see all sorts of work right across the state, where we actually invested in jobs in the regions." The other thing that helped Labor then, Mr Beattie said, was that One Nation "basically imploded". That was a part of history less likely to repeat, he said. "I think they're a lot more disciplined this time than they were last time, but the major parties can still tackle the One Nation support base provided there are two clear rules," Mr Beattie said. "One is, don't attack Pauline Hanson personally. Every time the major parties do that, it increases her support. "The second way is to deal with the issues that she's raising. That is jobs, security, job security and opportunities in the regions.

"She's talking about these things now, so the only way to do it is to be positive, don't attack her personally and come up with a jobs agenda, a strategy that creates jobs and opportunities, particularly in the post-mining boom in the regions." As for the how the 2017 state election would pan out, Mr Beattie said it was still too early to judge, particularly with the reintroduction of compulsory preferential voting. That was a system Mr Beattie said he still opposed. "It all comes down to one issue  will One Nation give their preferences to the LNP and will the LNP give their preferences to One Nation?" he said. "In 1998, the Labor Party on my insistence put One Nation last and then (Nationals senator) Ron Boswell and Tony Abbott in the Liberal Party argued strongly that they put One Nation last.
Authorities are searching for two female prisoners who escaped from Numinbah Correctional Centre overnight.

Police and Corrective Service Officers are hunting Jahnessa Jerome, 24, and Charlotte Bowman, 19, who were discovered missing just before midnight on Friday.

24-year-old Jahnessa Jerome has several tattoos including two hearts on her left hand, 'Damien' on her left forearm and a heart/scroll on her left elbow. Credit:Toby Crockford

Ms Bowman is serving one year for assault while Ms Jerome is serving 15 months for assaulting police.

Ms Jerome has several tattoos including two hearts on her left hand, 'Damien' on her left forearm and a heart/scroll on her left elbow. Ms Bowman has a 'Codie' tattoo on her left wrist and 'RJB' on the right wrist.
A sacked police prosecutor has won his job back despite admitting he had a conflict of interest when he dropped a charge against an acquaintance who led police on a 200km/h car chase.

The prosecutor, who cannot be named, dropped a dangerous driving charge against the country Victorian man  known as Mr B  who was an employee of the police prosecutor's friend.

The male officer has been stood aside. Credit:Rohan Thompson

It was a decision which would cost him his job, and spark a two-year battle to win it back.

When Mr B was involved in the 2013 chase, he was on a suspended sentence for drug offences, and could have been jailed had the charge proceeded. He also had an extensive history of driving offences.
Footage has emerged of a vicious brawl on board a train heading to Flinders Street Station in the early hours of Saturday morning.

According to a video aired on Channel Nine, about 10 people, both men and women, have been caught on camera in the violent fight, throwing punches and kicking each other.

There have been reports of a violent brawl on a Metro train in the early hours of Saturday morning. Credit:John Woudstra

The fight occurred on a train travelling between Victoria Park station and Flinders Street station.

It is reported that some of those involved in the fight had been at a rave that had been shut down by police.
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A Brooklyn pol falsely claimed that several of the 9-11 hijackers lived in Bay Ridge before crashing planes into the World Trade Center. State Sen. Martin Golden (RBay Ridge) made the bogus statement while defending President Trumps immigration ban on WNYC on Thursday.

A number of them that drove the planes into the  9-11  into the building at World Trade Center that killed 3,000 Americans  are you ready for this? They were in this community, they lived here in Bay Ridge, they were visiting in this community, Golden told host Brian Lehrer.

That number is zero, according to official reports, and Golden sounds a lot like a certain White House advisor who invented a terror attack on U.S. soil while also defending the Presidents ban, according to a local immigration activist.

Thats completely a lie. Hes like New Yorks Kellyanne Conway, and we dont need anyone like that, said native Bay Ridgite Murad Awawdeh, who also heads the Muslim Democratic Club of New York. For him to make a statement like that  hes peddling fear.

A rep from Goldens office later said the senator had mixed up the deadliest attack on American soil, in which 2,996 people died, with the World Trade Centers 1993 bombing that killed six.

He didnt make it up, he mis-spoke, said chief of staff John Quaglione. When he said 9-11, he was thinking World Trade Center bombing, but it didnt come out. He had his incidents mixed up.

Only one of the six men convicted in the 1993 bombing, Mahmud Abouhalima, lived in Bay Ridge, according to a New York Times account following bombing.

The Bay Ridge portion of Goldens district is home to the boroughs largest concentration of Muslims, and Arabs constitute the neighborhoods second-largest ethnic group, according to census data.

9-11s tenuous ties to Brooklyn

The 600-page 9/11 Commission Report meticulously traces the 19 hijackers as they crisscrossed the U.S. in the months leading up to the attacks, but it does not mention any living in Brooklyn, let alone Bay Ridge.

A few media accounts that emerged in the days after the tragedy tenuously connecting two hijackers to the borough.

An anonymous Justice Department source told the Associated Press in 2001 that Mohamed Atta, who flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, entered the U.S. via New Jersey in 2000, briefly stayed in a Brooklyn hotel before moving to the Bronx and then Florida for flight school.

Pilot Ziad Jarrah, who crashed United Flight 93 into a Pennsylvania field en route to the nations capitol, has an even murkier tie to the borough. His name appears on a lease for an unspecified Brooklyn apartment between 1995 and 1996, according to a 2001 Boston Globe article, which says landlords confirmed a photo of Jarrah, but the hijackers family said he was living in Beirut.

Jarrah  a native of Lebanon, which is not on the Presidents travel ban  first showed signs of radicalization in late 1996 while attending university in Germany, and he trained to fly planes in Florida, according to the 9/11 Commissions report, which makes no mention of Jarrah ever living in Brooklyn.

Goldens claim may be bogus, but the cop-turned-legislator is stoking real fear among Bay Ridges Muslims, Awawdeh said.

We dont need more incitement  especially in Bay Ridge, especially with the Muslim ban that was put in place, he said. And someone whos a former law-enforcement agent whos doing crazy s, that should unsettle anyone.
HS Football: North Penn upsets Pennsbury in instant playoff classic

With the game on the line, North Penn coach Dick Beck opted to go for the win with a two-point conversion attempt against Pennsbury.
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is taking a lot of friendly fire from libertarians.



The big issue is Paul's vote to confirm Jeff Sessions as attorney general. "[H]ow does a drug war and mass incarceration critic vote for the Senate's most strident supporter of both to run the DOJ?" asked The Washington Post's libertarian scribe Radley Balko.



Complicating things: While the Kentucky senator seemed to bend on Sessions, he was gearing up to oppose the hawkish Elliott Abrams if he was nominated for deputy secretary of state, just as Paul promised to do whatever it took to block Bush-era hawk John Bolton from either of the top two State Department jobs. (The Abrams point is now moot, as President Trump has personally nixed his nomination.)



But I must say: I think Paul's priorities here are correct.



The libertarian case against Sessions, characteristically well made by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), is that he is bad on civil asset forfeiture, bad on drug policy, and a throwback to law-and-order Republicanism after several years of conservatives warming to criminal justice reform.



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Libertarians believe America is locking too many people up and police power is prone to abuse. While Sessions' views on these subjects have often been caricatured by the left, it is fair to say he is not on the same page as libertarians. And indeed, if Paul had voted against Sessions on the basis of any of this, it certainly would have been defensible.



But no matter who became attorney general, the Trump administration is obviously going to be bad, from a libertarian perspective, on these issues. The president's impulses on dealing with "bad hombres" are not remotely civil libertarian. President Trump was inevitably going to get an attorney general who reflected his views on these issues, and he could have gotten one much less competent and personally decent than Sessions. From a libertarian perspective, Sessions is bad  but it could have been much worse. Sen. Paul understood this.



What is still very much up in the air is what kind of foreign policy we are going to get from the Trump administration. Trump's impulses are often sensible. He understands that the wars of the past 16 years have not achieved their desired objectives despite their considerable cost in blood and treasure.



"One of the things I like most about President Trump is his acknowledgement that nation building does not work and actually works against the nation building we need to do here at home," Paul wrote. "With a $20 trillion debt, we don't have the money to do both."



But obviously, our new president represents some danger abroad, too. Trump temperamentally does not like to back down from fights. And a lot of his advisers are hawkish. It's an open question what his foreign policy will look like.



In that sense, the advice Trump gets on foreign policy can make a big difference. And right now, we are counting on a defense secretary nicknamed "Mad Dog" to be a major voice of restraint.



Abrams is a leading neoconservative, a proponent of the foreign policy Trump rejected when he called the Iraq War a disaster on the eve of winning the South Carolina primary and ending Jeb Bush's presidential campaign. Bolton is no neocon, properly understood. He rejects democracy promotion and other more idealistic parts of the neoconservative vision. But he embraces too low a threshold for the use of military force.



Trump is going to be a law-and-order president. (It's also worth noting that conservative support for criminal justice reform is dependent on relatively low crime rates that were not entirely secured by libertarian means.) But Trump doesn't have to be a hawkish president. Paul understands this, and is picking his spots to oppose and prod Trump accordingly.



As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Paul has more practical ability to stall or even circumvent nominees who would try to make the Trump foreign policy George W. Bush 2.0. But if Paul had voted against Sessions, the Alabama Republican would still have been confirmed. Paul would just have been the sole Republican on the side of Democrats who tried to assassinate Sessions' character.



Many libertarians don't like Paul's collegiality with more statist Republicans. But if you are going to work within the Republican Party, sometimes you've got to, well, work within the Republican Party.



Immigration and foreign policy realism are two good things we might get out of a Trump administration. On civil liberties, the new president will sadly not be an improvement over other post-9/11 administrations. That's something we all have to accept.



But anything Paul can do to keep the foreign policy voices surrounding Trump from simply being a cacophony of hawks is constructive  and the smart way to focus his energy.
Previously on The Vampire Diaries, Cade forced the brothers to either kill 100 strangers or each others soulmate. Stefans been off the rails for weeks now, so of course he went straight for Elena. To get Enzo out of his way, Stefan ripped out his heart, and in a move of self-defense, Bonnie pumped Stefan full of the cure.

It also turns out Matts family is just as important as that of the other, well-known Mystic Falls founding families. The Armory intern, Dorian, must be working overtime because every week it seems he finds something new from the Maxwell bloodline. In this weeks episode, What Are You? he finds a journal that proves to be very important.

A Bell, Talisman, and Journal

What do all of these things have in common? First, theyre all artifacts tied to the Maxwell bloodline. Second, they are all found in the Armory. Third, they all seem to be very valuable to Cade.

In the beginning of this episode, Matt is having a nightmare. There are flashes of the witches who burned to death, and someone furiously scribbling in a journal. Matt wakes up inside one of the caves of the Armory. The alarm is going off as he limps down the hallway dragging a bloody foot, and sweating profusely. Alaric finds him and wants to know what the hell is going on. Matt has no idea.

Alaric tries to convince Matt that it was just a nightmare. Matt tells him it wasnt. He could feel the heat of the flames. This is a perfect time for Dorian to walk in holding the witchs talisman and a journal. He believes Matt isnt having nightmares, but is seeing the memories of Ethan Maxwell. Ethan Maxwell is the smith who created the Maxwell Bell. Well get to the details of his story a little later in the recap.





The Vampire Diaries Recap: Which Major Character Meets Their Fate>>>

The Deal is Off

Cade pays Damon a visit to tell him the deal is off. Now that Stefan is mortal, the contract is null and void. Cade has a new plan. He will take Stefans soul at midnight, unless Damon helps him get what he wants. And what does Cade want? You guessed it, Ethan Maxwells journal. Damon is like, Bet! Thats easy. He agrees to help without asking why Cade would want the book in first place.

Damon goes to the Armory to ask Alaric ask about the journal. Of course, its perfect timing because they were just talking about it. Alaric refuses to hand it over to Damon. If Cade wants it, then it must be important. Damon is ready to fight. As everyone is aware, Damon will always do anything to save his brother, no matter who or what stands in his way. Alaric pretends to have a change of heart, letting Damon think he can have the journal, but when Damon turns his back, Alaric injects him with vervain.

Alaric locks Damon in the same quarantine room where they kept Sybil. There is a window which looks into another room. Dorian and Alaric are hooking Matt up to machines. Theyre going to trigger his Ethan Maxwell visions by inducing a hypnotic state. Matt goes under fairly quickly and starts relaying what he sees.

Hes at the site where the witches were burned alive, except they havent burned yet. He sees Ethan and Beatrice Bennett talking about the bell. Sybil walks up. Weve heard this story before, but from Sybils point of view. Now, we get a few more details. Sybil tells Ethan everything about the bell, hell ring it 12 times, and hell fire will be unleashed upon Mystic Falls, blah, blah, blah. She sirens him into not saying anything to the witches.

When Beatrice asks what he and Sybil were talking about he just responds with, I cannot say. He repeats that over and over, finally handing over a note with the decoder that employee of the month, Dorian, previously found in the Armory. She decodes the note and realizes the sirens have sabotaged the bell. The witches hold hands and chant around the bell. They absorb the hellfire that is actually meant for Mystic Falls. On the 12th ring, their souls (and Im assuming magic) are transferred to the bell. Ethan and Beatrice are the only survivors.

They have a plan to stop the sirens. The two lure the sirens into the caves of the armory. At the right moment, Beatrice uses her magic to lock Sybil and Selene in the cave. Ethan can still hear them though, and hes sirened to kill Beatrice if he wont free them and unleash Cade to walk the Earth. He goes after Beatrice, but she saves herself by locking him in a room  the room where Alaric found his bones. Ethan screams through the door that he knows how to kill Cade. At this point, Beatrice is over it. She walks away as Ethan yells that he knows but cannot say. Again, he begins furiously scribbling in his journal.

Back in present day, the Ethan visions have literally given Matt a heart attack. Alaric releases Damon in order to give Matt his blood. During the commotion Damon is able to steal the journal. He takes it to Cade, and just like that  Stefan is saved. Damon asks Cade if anyone has ever been able to earn their redemption. Cade doesnt answer, saying he doesnt want to give Damon any false hope. Then he throws the journal INTO THE FIRE and walks away. Damon gave up a chance at killing Cade just to save his sad brother.

The Vampire Diaries Cast Shares Photos from the Final Day on Set>>>

Whats Stefan Doing?

Stefan doesnt know how to deal with being human. Hes been on a murder spree lately and the faces of his victims keep flooding his mind. Hes struggling with the guilt. Hes driving down the street, hands covered in blood from just having killed Enzo, when hes pulled over. Hes immediately arrested. In the interview room the cop throws name after name at Stefan. They have his fingerprints at every crime scene of these murder victims. Luckily, Caroline shows up to save the day. She compels the officer to let Stefan go, and to relay to the entire precinct this was all just a big misunderstanding.

When theyre leaving the police station, Stefan overhears a little girl telling an officer her mother is missing. Stefan catches a glimpse of the womans picture. Its the lady he compelled to sign the deed to Bonnies house. He feels guilty because he left her in the trunk of a car to die. He knows the police wont find her body for weeks. To appease his guilt, and start on the path of redemption, he and Caroline set out to find the woman.

They finally find the car in the woods. When they open the trunk, its empty. She has managed to crawl out. So they follow the trail of blood. Stefans legs are longer so he finds the woman first. Shes terrified of him. She ends up stabbing him in the stomach, which isnt good because hes human now. Caroline finally catches up. Stefan yells at her to save the woman. Caroline feeds her some of her blood and then feeds Stefan. It takes a second for them to remember that wont work because Stefan has the cure in his body.

Luckily for Stefan (again), Caroline is able to save him by calling an ambulance. They stitch him up, give him blood, and send him on his way. While hes grateful he has someone like Caroline looking out for him, he doesnt know what their future holds. Caroline believes he can redeem himself. They both know the first step on his path of redemption is talking to Bonnie.

Bonnie Opens a Door and Closes Another

Bonnie is still at the safe house. She starts hearing voices. Enzo is calling out to her. Then there is a knock on the door, its her mother. Her mom has shown up to console her. She tells her they need to bury the body so that Bonnie can start to move on. Bonnie refuses because she thinks Enzo is asking for help. Her mother does a spell and sees that Enzo isnt really speaking to her. In Bonnies grief she opened a door to darkness. Whatever voice it is, its trying to pull her in. Bonnie collapses during the spell, and her mom uses this as an opportunity to set Enzos body on fire. When Bonnie comes to, first shes upset but she realizes it needed to be done.

Bonnie goes home to find Matt waiting on her porch. Bonnie confesses that she feels responsible for everything. If she still had her magic she could have prevented all of it. He tells her how strong she is, and a little bit about how their families are tied together. Its a sweet moment.

Stefan heads out to talk to Bonnie as well, even though he doesnt know what hes going to say. That doesnt really matter, though, because someone in a black hoodie tazes him before he even reaches the steps!

A lot happened in this episode. Damon destroyed a chance to kill Cade, and didnt really care about it either. That might be because he knows another way. He and Alaric go down into the caves of the Armory and find one of the weapons Matt saw earlier in his visions. Just as their making plans to make a plan to kill Cade, an old face shows up. Its Kai, the crazy Gemini twin who killed Elena.

It looks like Kai wants to help take down Cade. The boys dont trust him, so he makes an offer they cant refuse  hell bring back Elena.

What did you think of tonights episode? Sound off in the comments below.

The Vampire Diaries airs Fridays at 8/7c on The CW. Want more news? Check out our The Vampire Diaries Facebook fan page.

(Image courtesy of The CW)
Daylight saving time ends soon, but will it soon be the new normal?
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge:Trump administration members and other Republicans are using the encrypted, self-destructing messaging app Confide to keep conversations private in the wake of hacks and leaks, according to Jonathan Swan and David McCabe at Axios.Axios writes that "numerous senior GOP operatives and several members of the Trump administration" have downloaded Confide, which automatically wipes messages after they're read. One operative told Axios that the app "provides some cover" for people in the party. He ties it to last year's hack of the Democratic National Committee, which led to huge and damaging information dumps of DNC emails leading up to the 2016 election. But besides outright hacks, the source also said he liked the fact that Confide makes it difficult to screenshot messages, because only a few words are shown at a time.That suggests that it's useful not just for reducing paper trails, but for stopping insiders from preserving individual messages -- especially given the steady flow of leaks that have come out since Trump took office.As Axios notes, official White House business is subject to preservation rules, although we don't know much about who's allegedly using Confide and what they're doing with it, so it's not clear whether this might run afoul of those laws. It's also difficult to say how much this is a specifically Republican phenomenon, and how much is a general move toward encryption.
The heady days of rising ARPU (average revenue per user) are long over. But the ARPU decline now is sharp and steady, which, combined with falling profits and in some cases serious losses, is prompting the Indian to look at consolidation as the only way to boost revenues.
will invest $1 billion over five years in an artificial intelligence startup with the aim of developing an autonomous vehicle by 2021, the auto giant said.

will take a majority stake in Argo AI, an artificial intelligence company based in Pittsburgh, started in late 2016 by former Google and Uber employees who had worked on autonomous driving.

The venture will employ leading engineers and "roboticists" to develop a "virtual driver" system, described by officials as the "brain" of an autonomous vehicle.

The setup is intended to give Ford a head start on competitors in the race to commercialise autonomous vehicles, said Ford executive vice president Raj Nair.

"This is really unique in the industry," Nair said on a conference call with analysts.

It will have the "speed and nimbleness of a startup, but also integrated into a full production development team."

Nair said research towards full autonomy has moved "beyond the research phase," but there remains the need for a "tremendous leap" between the driver-assist technologies now available and full autonomy.

Argo AI employees will have a minority equity stake in the venture. The structure is intended to lure top engineers to the venture, Ford executives said.

Ford said the investment would help it to realize a previously announced plan to introduce an autonomous vehicle for ride-hailing or ride-sharing service in 2021.

Argo AI plans to hire more than 200 people at sites in Pittsburgh, Michigan and Silicon Valley, according to a press release.

Argo AI and other boosters of autonomous driving argue it could make roads safer and open up mobility to the elderly and others.

"We are at an inflection point in using artificial intelligence in a wide range of applications, and the successful deployment of self-driving cars will fundamentally change how people and goods move," Argo AI chief Bryan Salesky said.
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Indias IT services expects Japans proposal to relax residency norms for highly skilled professionals to set a trend of new geographies welcoming Indian talent that could potentially offset some impact on business slowdown from the US.
attracted 1.8 million overnight visitors from India in 2016, recording a 12 per cent growth over the previous year to become the number one source market in South Asia.

The country hosted 1.6 million Indian travellers in 2015, according to data from Tourism.

Data also revealed that overall worldwide, attracted 14.9 million overnight visitors in 2016, recording five per cent increase over 2015. Overall Dubai attracted more than 14.2 million overnight visitors in 2015.

"Expectations on tourism growth from India remain high for 2017 with even stronger bilateral ties being forged between the UAE and India," a release issued here said.

The strong performance of the Emirate's tourism industry amid turbulent year across the world indicates that progress towards the annual target of 20 million visitors by 2020, is on track, it added.

With our international overnight traffic reaching 14.9 million, Dubai has cemented its ranking as the fourth most visited city in the world, critically delivering the highest value to the domestic economy with the country getting number one ranking in terms of spend per tourist compared to any other competitor destination, Dubai Tourism Director General Helal Saeed Almarri said.

"The effectiveness of our three-pronged approach is evidenced by the encouraging 13 per cent growth in volumes from South Asia led by India, despite the demonetisation and cash pressures facing the market. Similarly, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) remained the dominant market within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), bringing first time and significant repeat travellers to Dubai," he added.

Highlights of 2016, also include the massive 20 per cent boost in Chinese visitors, crossing the half-million mark for the first time with 5,40,000 tourists arriving in Dubai and the definitive resurgence of Russian inbound tourism recording a 14 per cent growth in overnight traffic, he said.

"Our traditional core markets spanning the GCC, India, UK and Germany, continue to deliver over 40 per cent of our tourism traffic and we remain committed to investing further in driving greater penetration and frequency from these bases where we have built a credible recognition of the Dubai destination offering," he said.

Almarri said infrastructure, accommodation, air connectivity, access and policy enablers continue to be the facilitating levels that ensure Dubai remains price competitive and hugely attractive for a broad range of global travellers.
The timing of the Union government appointing directors of the 10 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have raised eyebrows, as a Bill to provide autonomy to these premier institutes is pending in the Lok Sabha.
After an intervening phase of lull, non-major port projects proposed in are back on track. The state government is gearing up to set in motion the stalled land acquisition process for such ports. Though land acquisition was initiated and concession agreements inked for some of the port projects, they failed to make headway due to a pending order by the High Court that had restrained the state government from going ahead with the projects till the matter was disposed off.
Shadab Hussain, 23, dropped out of school at age 11 to work in a leather factory in Kanpur, the oldest and largest industrial city of Indias most populous state. To support his family, parents and four siblings, he worked eight-hour shifts every day for a monthly salary of Rs 9,000.

Over eight years, he remained semi-literate, but he learned the fine art of creating new shoe designs from photos, making sure the shoes would fit, last and be comfortable. But his skills did not change his status as a casual worker with no medical or other benefits and no prospect of pension. As Hussain came of age working with cow hides, Kanpurs once booming leather economy began to shrink, pushed to the edge by falling global demand, environmental regulations and contemporary cow politics.

Three years ago, with no prospects of a better life or a pay hike, Hussain and five friends from his mohalla (neighbourhood) quit the only job they knew. He drives an autorickshaw today; the others run roadside snack stalls.
Marking the beginning of a series of ceremonies at the National Police Memorial here today, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Shri Kiren Rijiju was the Chief Guest at the Band display and retreat ceremony at National Police Memorial. The Minister and other distinguished guests paid rich tributes to the Police Martyrs at the Memorial. The Border Security Force (BSF) put up a mesmerizing band display and a perfectly orchestrated retreat ceremony in a befitting homage to the Martyrs. The somber yet spectacular display was highly appreciated by Shri Kiren Rijiju and all guests present at the venue. .

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In a charged atmosphere, the memorial site came alive with the outstanding band display by BSF. The martial tunes played and different formations display by the Brass and pipe band teams of BSF was followed by crisp retreat ceremony by the Seema Praharees who stand as the impregnable wall of Indias first line of defence on Pakistan and Bangladesh Border. .

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On February 1, 2017, with the initiative of Special Secretary (IS), Ministry of Home Affaris (MHA), Shri Mahesh Kumar Singla, it was decided that every Saturday a band display as well as retreat ceremony will be conducted at National Police Memorial site. It is a monthly event for all Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs). BSF has the distinguished honour of initiating this solemn ceremony for times to come. .

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Mandated to serve motherland and to save the society from external and internal vices, Police forces of India have proven their mettle braving all odds. Every year, 21st October is observed as Police Commemoration Day. On this fateful day in 1959, 20 brave police men stood as rock against external aggression and gave supreme sacrifice on the altar of duty at the altitude of 16000 feet at Hot springs Ladakh. This legacy of selfless service to nation is carried on with great responsibility and selfless zeal by all Police Forces of India. A Memorial service is conducted every year at Hot springs Ladakh by representatives of all police forces. Since 2012 the same is being observed at a National level at National Police Memorial, Chankyapuri, New Delhi. .

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Retired and Serving Senior Police Officers, Officers and family members of CAPFs and security agencies, MHA and other Ministries were present during todays ceremony. The ceremony to be held on every Saturday is open to the public. .

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Until he was appointed manager of a in China, Will Cao had never seen a taco before. When confronted with its hard, U-shaped shell in Los Angeles last June, he wondered: How do you eat it?



Everything was spilling all over the place, said Cao, a 31-year-old Shanghai resident. Then I looked at the other customers to learn that, actually, you are supposed to tilt your neck to eat it.



Caos employer is betting that other Chinese diners will figure it out. Yum China, the company behind KFC there, last month opened the first in China in years, and says it plans to open an unspecified number more. The company is turning to double-layered tacos and overstuffed quesadillas in hopes of regaining ground in a market where its fried chicken has shown the limits of its appeal.
With Donald Trump's state visit to the UK triggering controversy over his address to the Parliament, Britain may host him during parliamentary recess to avoid a snub of the US President by the lawmakers, a media report said on Saturday

The state visit invitation on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II has attracted a lot of opposition in Britain following the new President's controversial immigration ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries entering the US.

The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, was the latest to weigh in on the issue earlier this week saying he was "strongly opposed" to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall.

Buckingham Palace and White House officials are in discussions to plan the visit around August and September this year, when Parliament will be in recess, the Guardian reported.

A source told the newspaper that such a plan was "the preferred option" at the UK end.

Parliament will be in summer recess until September 5 and adjourns again for the annual political party conferences on September 15 for nearly a month.

A weekend within that period is now a likely timeframe for the visit. This would take any address to MPs and Lords out of the itinerary.

As the Queen and her husband, Duke of Edinburgh, usually spend time in Balmoral Castle in Scotland at that time of the year, it remains to be seen whether the customary state banquet will be held in Windsor Castle or back in London at Buckingham Palace.

According to the report, officials are also said to be keen to limit Trump's public exposure more generally during the visit, in order to reduce the opportunities for protests and disorder on a state occasion.

This suggests that the President will spend relatively little time in London, while the majority of the visit will be conducted behind as strict a security cordon as possible.

"We have no further details to share at this time," a White House spokesperson told the newspaper.With Donald Trump's state visit to the UK triggering controversy over his address to the Parliament, Britain may host him during parliamentary recess to avoid a snub of the US President by the lawmakers, a media report said on Saturday

The state visit invitation on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II has attracted a lot of opposition in Britain following the new President's controversial immigration ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries entering the US.

The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, was the latest to weigh in on the issue earlier this week saying he was "strongly opposed" to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall.

Buckingham Palace and White House officials are in discussions to plan the visit around August and September this year, when Parliament will be in recess, the Guardian reported.

A source told the newspaper that such a plan was "the preferred option" at the UK end.

Parliament will be in summer recess until September 5 and adjourns again for the annual political party conferences on September 15 for nearly a month.

A weekend within that period is now a likely timeframe for the visit. This would take any address to MPs and Lords out of the itinerary.

As the Queen and her husband, Duke of Edinburgh, usually spend time in Balmoral Castle in Scotland at that time of the year, it remains to be seen whether the customary state banquet will be held in Windsor Castle or back in London at Buckingham Palace.

According to the report, officials are also said to be keen to limit Trump's public exposure more generally during the visit, in order to reduce the opportunities for protests and disorder on a state occasion.

This suggests that the President will spend relatively little time in London, while the majority of the visit will be conducted behind as strict a security cordon as possible.

"We have no further details to share at this time," a White House spokesperson told the newspaper.
US President Donald Trump's decision to roll back his rhetoric on 'One China' policy is a sign that he is "learning" about his new job and no longer wants to be a "disruptor" of the Sino-US ties, China's official media said on Saturday.

Hailing Trump's surprise commitment to Chinese President Xi Jinping during their first phone call to abide by the 'One China' policy which was observed by the US for decades, recognising Taiwan as part of Chinese mainland, the state-run Global Times said Trump has changed his rhetoric about China.

"Since assuming office, Trump and his team have changed their rhetoric about China. Trump has stopped openly challenging China's core interests, and instead showed respect to Beijing," it said in an editorial.

Before assuming office, Trump had said he did not feel "bound by a one-China policy" and had broken protocol by speaking with Taiwan's President on the phone.

China considers Taiwan to be a breakaway province to be brought back within its fold, by force if necessary, and is opposed to any official contact between foreign governments with the leaders of the self-governing island.

The first phone conversation between Xi and Trump - the leaders of the world's largest economies - come after lengthy round of negotiations during which the Chinese side reported to have insisted that Trump should show commitment to the One China policy which he had promised to renegotiate.

"The change creates an impression that Trump is learning about his role in the realm of Sino-US ties. He's now sending a new message that he does not want to be a disruptor of the Sino-US relations," the editorial said.

"This phone call between the top leaders is a sign that some confusion in the relationship has been sorted out at the current stage. The Sino-US ties have, after a little shiver, returned to where they are supposed to stand.

"Uncertainties still loom but they will be about specific interests. The Sino-US relations will continue to move forward under the complicated framework where cooperation and frictions coexist," it said.

Before assuming office, Trump gave an impression that a trade war between the two countries was around the corner.

The communications between the two countries since Trump came to power were not high profile but have now proven to be effective.

"The phone call between Xi and Trump marks the beginning

of a new stage of diplomatic interactions between the top leaders. There are many unresolved issues that need to be addressed. When facing difficulty, neither country should act impetuously.

"They should know that even if some problems cannot be removed like a rock, when the time comes, they can be submerged under the river of history," it said.

Another official newspaper, China Daly said "should he (Trump) seek to change the state of affairs by playing the Taiwan card and undermining the longstanding One-China policy, Sino-US relations will see earthshaking reversals.

"But the phone conversation between the Chinese and US Presidents went far beyond fulfilling the routine formalities and making up for the once missing symbolism," it said

Among the numerous topics they touched upon during the conversation over the phone, it was Taiwan that mattered the most, it said.

Chinese state-run think-tanks also welcomed Trump's affirmation of One China policy.

Ruan Zongze, vice-president of the China Institute of Studies, said that since Trump's assurance on the One-China policy has removed a stumbling block on bilateral ties, the two sides can now start talks on a two-way cooperative mechanism.

Cheng Li, director of the John L. Thornton China Centre of the Brookings Institution, told the Daily that improving US relations with China and Russia is part of Trump's global strategy.

Li Haidong, a professor of US studies at China Foreign Affairs University, said that Trump's clarification on the One-China policy is likely the result of evolving discussions within the Trump team on China policies and the end of the team's internal divergence.

Since China is indispensable for resolving many global and regional issues, part of Trump's long-term diplomatic strategy may be to "strike a balance between US treaty allies and China", not sabotaging ties with either side, Li said.

Zhong Feiteng, an expert on Asia-Pacific affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Trump's clarification might have been partly driven by the urgency to fulfil his campaign pledges on economic policies.

"Since China accounts for 30 to 40 per cent of global growth, if he breaks up with China, it will be quite difficult for him to boost public satisfaction and employment," Zhong said.
US President Donald Trump wants to build a wall along the US-Mexican border. Britain wants to retreat into its shell to become an isolated island state.
Ford President and Chief Executive Mike Fields. If we can combine the best of a start-up and marry that with proper equity compensation, then thats the best of both worlds, said Fields on Friday Photo: Reuters
A California Islamic school wanted to keep an open mind before Donald Trump took office. But less than a month into Trump's presidency, the school rejected $800,000 in federal funds aimed at combatting violent extremism.

The decision made late Friday night by the Bayan Claremont graduate school's board to turn down the money an amount that would cover more than half its yearly budget capped weeks of sleepless nights and debate. Many there felt Trump's rhetoric singling out Islamic extremism and his affecting predominantly Muslim countries had gone too far.

It also marked the fourth organisation nationwide under the Trump administration to reject the money for a program created under President Barack Obama known as countering violent extremism, or CVE, which officials say aims to thwart extremist groups' abilities to recruit would-be terrorists.

Bayan Claremont had received the second-largest grant, among the first 31 federal grants for CVE awarded to organisations, schools and municipalities in the dwindling days of the Obama administration. The school had hoped to use the money to help create a new generation of Muslim community leaders, with $250,000 earmarked for more than a dozen local nonprofits doing social justice work.

But the fledgeling school's founding president, Jihad Turk, said officials ultimately felt accepting the money would do more harm than good.

It's "a heck of a lot of money, (but) our mission and our vision is to serve the community and to bring our community to a position of excellence," Turk said. "And if we're compromised, even if only by perception in terms of our standing in the community, we ultimately can't achieve that goal," he said, adding that accepting the funds would be short-sighted.

The school's internal debate is also emblematic of handwringing among grassroots and nonprofit organisations involved in the program in the last couple weeks.

At Unity Productions Foundation of Potomac Falls, Virginia, officials said they would decline a grant of $396,585 to produce educational films challenging narratives supporting extremist ideologies and violent extremism "due to the changes brought by the new administration," according to a private message to donors reviewed by The Associated Press.

And in Dearborn, Michigan, Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities said last week it was turning down $500,000 for youth development and public health programs because of the "current political climate." Ka Joog, a leading Somali nonprofit organization in Minneapolis, also turned down $500,000 for its youth programs.
posted much stronger-than-expected trade data for January as demand picked up at home and abroad, an encouraging start to 2017 for the world's largest trading nation even as Asia braces for a rise in US protectionism under President Donald Trump.

Trump criticised China, Japan and Germany last week, saying the three key US trading partners were engaged in devaluing their currencies to the harm of US companies and consumers.

But he has not followed through yet on threats to label a currency manipulator and slap heavy tariffs on Chinese goods, and took a major step on Thursday to improve ties by holding a phone call with President Xi Jinping.

"China's trade data are going to be pretty good in the first part of this year because of the very good run that we had in the last part of 2016," said Louis Kuijs, head Of Asia economics at Oxford Economics in Hong Kong.

"The worry we have is really about US trade policy, which is undeniably turning more protectionist...It is pretty obvious to me that the climate for exports to the US is going to be much harsher in the coming years."

China's imports in January rose at the fastest pace in four years, fueled by a continued construction boom which is boosting demand and global prices for resources from copper to steel, preliminary customs data showed on Friday.

The 16.7 per cent bounce easily eclipsed an expected rise of 10.0 per cent in a Reuters poll.



China's imports from the United States rose 23.4 per cent in January, the fastest pace in at least a year, while its monthly trade surplus with the US dipped to $21.37 billion.

Both Chinese and US data show China's surplus with the US narrowed last year, but it remained well above the sustained level of more than $20 billion that is one of three criteria used by the US Treasury to designate another country as a currency manipulator.

The surplus decreased $20.1 billion to $347.0 billion in 2016, the US Commerce Department said Tuesday, while Chinese data put it somewhat lower.

Led by electronics, China's January exports climbed the most in almost a year, adding to evidence that Asia's long trade recession may be bottoming out.

January shipments rose 7.9 per cent, more than twice as much as expected, after 2016 exports slumped nearly 8 per cent.

had been lagging a recent export recovery seen in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, dragging on the regional supply chain. Its integrated circuit shipments rose 14.5 per cent last month, while exports of mobile phones rose 7.9 per cent.

That left the country with a initial trade surplus of $51.35 billion for the month, the highest in a year. Customs is due to release updated data for trade on Feb 23.

"The export outlook for China is good, except for the potential risk of a Sino-US trade war. The most important risk for China is what the Trump administration will do," Jianguang Shen, chief economist at Mizuho Securities in Hong Kong.

China watchers warned the long Lunar New Year holidays may have distorted the data to some degree, with companies pumping up production or rushing to build inventories before the break, which can last for weeks.

But most economists agreed the trend backed the view that manufacturing demand is improving in China and globally.

MAN OF STEEL

The world's second-largest continued to hoover up commodities ranging from coal and iron ore to soybeans.

Iron ore imports were the second highest on record, while crude oil imports were the third highest ever. Coal purchases also soared, for use in both power generation and steelmaking.

"Steel mills are making really good money. So that means they can afford to pay for more iron ore," said Lachlan Shaw, an analyst at UBS in Melbourne, adding that government efforts to reduce excess capacity were aiding the trend.

Chinese futures prices for steel reinforcing bars used in construction have surged some 80 percent since last February, adding to views that price pressures are slowly building in the .

But analysts are not sure how much longer the commodities buying frenzy will last, noting that inventories are building up at Chinese ports and pointing to signs that a year-long housing boom is cooling off.
Japan and the US will begin new talks on trade and investment following President Donald Trumps decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the two governments said in a statement after their leaders met in Washington on Friday.
At least 13 people were killed in a gas cylinders explosions after a bus and a CNG-run covered van collided on Dhaka-Khulna highway in Faridpur's Nagarkanda last night.

The Daily Star quoted a police official, as saying that some gas cylinders in the covered van got exploded after the collision.

Twelve passengers of the bus and driver of the covered van were among those killed.

According to fire service officials, most of dead were burned beyond recognition as both the vehicles caught fire after the collision.

Three among the dead were identified as Golam Rosul, Hemayet Hossain and Md Jewel.

Four burnt victims were rushed to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

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A delegation of Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Saturday arrested Avdhesh Rai, the absconding father of Bihar's Class 12 examination topper in Arts, Ruby Rai.

A team of SIT from Patna, along with a team of police from Bhagwanpur area of Vaishali district arrested Ruby's father from their residence.

Rai had earlier claimed that she had asked her father to ensure she just passes in the exams, but he managed to make her the topper in the state.

This admission immediately put Ruby's parents under the scanner, following which her father was summoned to join the probe.

Rai came to limelight after a video went viral in which she described political science as "prodigal science" and stated that political science, a subject she virtually aced, teaches cooking.

Soon, a seven-member expert committee was constituted and Rai was asked to appear before the committee. The panel cancelled her result after the review.

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.

The girl, from the controversial Bishun Roy college of Vaishali district, was taken into custody by the SIT on the basis of arrest warrant issued by a Patna district court against her and three other rank-holders in the examination racket case.

Rai was earlier sent to judicial custody till July 8 after her arrest on June 25 in connection with this case, following which she was shifted from Beur jail to a remand home on grounds that she was a minor.

This came after a district court in Patna accepted that she was a minor on the basis of her matriculation certificate which mentioned her date of birth as November 15, 1998.

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Wang Qi, the Chinese soldier who crossed over to India post the 1962 war and raised a family in Madhya Pradesh's Balaghat district, left to visit his native country after five decades on Saturday along with his family.

He is expected to reach Beijing later today, just in time for the Lantern festival.

Wang, now 77, was caught for entering the Indian Territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962. He was later released from jail and shifted to Tirodi village in Madhya Pradesh where he married a local woman and settled there ever since.

He flew to China with his wife Sushila, their son Vishnu and two other children.

After their arrival in China, they would travel to his native place in Shaanxi Province to meet Wang's relatives.

The development has come within a week after a delegation from the Chinese Embassy met Wang who had wanted to visit his country.

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The first indigenous Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&C) in IOC configuration would be handed over to the Indian Air Force (IAF), on February 14 during Aero India 2017 at Yelahanka Air base here.

Chairman Defence Research and Development (DRDO) and Secretary Department of Defence (R&D), Dr. S. Christopher announced this while addressing the media here, during the curtain raiser on DRDO's participation in Aero India-2017.

The Surveillance System is a game changer in air warfare. It has voice communication system and self protection suite, built on an Emb-145 platform, having an air to air refueling capability to enhance surveillance time.

The software has been developed for fusion of information from the sensors, to provide the air situation picture along with intelligence to handle identification or classification threat assessment.

Beside this, the system has been developed and evaluated through collaborative efforts between DRDO and the IAF, with coordination for certification clearance and quality assurance by CEMILAC and DGAQA.

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Skipper Mushfiqur Rahim and Mehedi Hasan struck scorching half-centuries as Bangladesh reach 322 for six at stumps on the third day of the one-off Test match against India at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here in Hyderabad on Saturday.

Resuming at yesterday's score of 41-1, Bangladesh were reduced to 246-6 at tea and it looked like India will be able to bowl them out on day three.

However, Bangladesh displayed a spirited fight back in the final session to trail India by only 365 runs by the end of the day's play.

After losing the top five wickets cheaply, Shakib-Al-Hasan smashed 14 boundaries in his 82-run knock besides sharing a 107-run stand with Mushfiqur.

At stumps, Mushfiqur remained unbeaten on 81, while Mehedi was at 51 not out. The pair added 87 for the seventh wicket after carefully negotiating the final session without loss.

For India, Umesh Yadav bagged two wickets while Ishant Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja chipped in with a wicket each.

Earlier, India declared their first innings on day two at 687-6.

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Iran and Sweden on Saturday signed five memoranda of understanding to further deepen and cement ties and cooperation.

The MoUs were signed by the high-ranking officials of the two countries at a ceremony, that was held in the presence of Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven in Tehran, said an official release.

The documents were in the fields of science and technology, higher education and research, roads, telecommunications and technology, and women and family.

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The Mountain Film Festival which aims at showcasing adventure opportunities across the nation and offering adventure film makers a platform for sharing their stories is being organised by the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF).

The festival is scheduled for February 11 and 12 at the IMF campus in New Delhi.

The films which will be screened at the festival cover a number of adventure disciplines, climate change and stories from the mountains.

The films have been shot across India at various popular adventure destinations such as Sikkim, Himachal, Gulmarg, Ladakh and Kerala.

One of the many films that will be screened is 'The Ganga's First Born' which showcases high altitude exploration in the rarely visited Nelang region of Western Garhwal bordering in Tibet.

The entry to the festival can be obtained through passes which can be obtained from the registration desk at the IMF.

The festival is being organised in collaboration with the Tourism Department of Jammu and Kashmir.

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Prominent cleric Maulana Khalid Rashid Firangi Mahali on Saturday extended his support to the Samajwadi Party and Congress alliance, and expressed confidence for the coalition's victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.

The Samajwadi Party came under the scanner yesterday after Emam Bukhari of Jama Masjid accused the party for being the sole cause of Muslim anguish in the state and urged the community to look for political alternatives.

"I believe that this alliance is in benefit of Muslims as well as the entire state. If we look back in two years, all the development oriented works from Expressway to metro, was carried efficiently by the Samajwadi Party. If you see from a Muslim point of view too, their work towards Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar University, pension schemes for 11 lakh destitute women and several other efforts were taken in favour of Muslims," the cleric told ANI here.

He further asserted that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav assured them of sanctioning all those demands which fall in legal peripheries, once he takes the office.

Stating that the Samajwadi Party- Congress alliance is tended towards a secular orientation of affairs, he added that Muslim community in the state is also of the same opinion and are hence in support of this alliance.

Urging Muslims to stand united and not fall prey to the 'planned conspiracy' of dividing Muslim votes he condemned vote appeals based on religion.

"A concerted effort has been made to feud confusion between Muslim voters to divide their votes. We believe voters are smart enough to understand these tactics", he added.

He added that these people who have appealed are the ones who crop up in every elections, appealing on behalf of every party, and it's a record that none of those parties have ever made a mark.

Yesterday, Jama Masjid Imam, Syed Ahmed Bukhari had urged the Muslim community of Uttar Pradesh to boycott the Samajwadi Party in the upcoming state assembly polls.

He further stated that the party has been a constant cause of regret for the Muslims in the state, be it the frequent break-out of riots or discrimination in the employment sector, adding that the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) could prove to be a better contender this time.

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Calling the Samajwadi Party -Congress alliance a 'corrupted' alliance, Bharatiyab Janata Party president Amit Shah on Saturday said while Mulayam Singh is fed up with his son, Akhilesh, Sonia Gandhi, is upset with her son Rahul Gandhi.

Shah further said that for the 15 years, both the SP and the BSP have not provided basic benefits like electricity, jobs, clean drinking water , medical facilities and proper roads to the people of Uttar Pradesh.

Addressing a rally in Sitapur, Shah blamed the Akhilesh Yadav government for poor management for mismanagement which has led to an increase in murders and rapes across the state.

Shah urged the people to vote for Prime Minister Modi and a BJP government in the state and assured that their government would work for the welfare of the people nad make the state number one in the country.

He said if elected to power, the BJP would waive off loans for small farmers and less deprived people. He said the BJP -led government would also provide laptops with internet connectivity.

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The Election Commission on Saturday announced the tentative voter turnout of the first phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, which was recorded at a decent 63 percentage.

Deputy Election Commissioner Vijay Dev informed that the first phase of elections took place in 15 districts at around 73 constituencies where 2,60,53,940 voters participated in the polls.

"Around 839 candidates contested in the first phase out of which 77 are female candidates," Dev said.

Around 26,823 polling stations were constructed. In this phase, around 1, 899 Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) were used.

"Important to note is that is that we replaced only 42 EVMs and 52 VVPATs in this polls. Compared to that, in 2014, these figures stood at 115," Dev said.

Around Rs. 19.56 crores were seized and 4.44 lakh liter liquor amounting to Rs. 14 crores was confiscated during the assembly polls.

"We also initiated a special campaign on drugs and seized Rs. 96.93 lakh wroth drugs. Rs. 14 crore worth gold and silver was also confiscated," Dev said.

The Deputy Commissioner further stated that 4,253 non-bailable warrants were executed and 2,96, 906 trouble makers were identified and took action under the preventive action.

The Deputy Commissioner said that elaborate arrangements were placed by the Election Commission where 2,19,414 police personnel were deployed including 826 companies of the Central Reserve Police Force.

"Apart from these, 62 general observers, 19 expenditure observers, 10 police observers and one awareness observer and 4910 micro observers were also used," he said.

He said that there were 13 cases of paid news, out of which 10 has been confirmed in first phase of Uttar Pradesh elections.

The second phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections will be held on February 15.

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US President Donald Trump's envoy to the United Nations is moving to block the appointment of the former Palestinian prime minister to lead a mission to Libya.

According to the Independent, Nikki Haley, the new American ambassador to the UN, said the US administration was 'very disappointed' at Salam Fayyad's selection for the role.

"For too long the UN has been unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," Haley said.

Palestine is a non-member observer state at the UN and its independence has been recognised by 137 of the 193 member nations, but Haley said the US does not recognise a Palestinian state "or support the signal" Fayyad's appointment would end.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had sent a letter to the Security Council, indicating his intention to appoint him as the next special representative to Libya, where a fragile unity government is struggling to end the civil war amid growing pressure to stop hundreds of thousands of refugees departing the country's shores for Europe.

Fayyad, a Texas-educated former International Monetary Fund official, was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013. He had earned praise in the international community for his efforts to crack down on corruption and to build effective Palestinian public institutions.

Guterres selected Fayyad to take over as Libya envoy from Martin Kobler, a German diplomat who has served as the U.N. representative since November 2015.

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Does your child love to study mathematics and can solve sums in a snap?

If yes, then it's a new good news, as a recent study reveals that kids who enjoy and take pride in maths, may achieve better grades that significantly increases their positive emotions.

The study further revealed that successful performance in maths increased students' positive emotions and decreased their negative emotions over the years as emotions influence adolescents' achievement.

Researchers focused on achievement in maths, which is not only important for education and economic productivity and is also known to prompt strong emotional reactions in students in the study appeared in the journal Child Development.

"We found that emotions influenced students' math achievement over the years," said lead researcher Reinhard Pekrun from the University of Munich in Germany.

"Students with higher intelligence had better grades and test scores, but those who also enjoyed and took pride in math had even better achievement. Students who experienced anger, anxiety, shame, boredom, or hopelessness had lower achievement," Pekrun added.

The team included annual assessments of emotions and achievement in maths in 3,425 German students from grades five through nine.

The students' self-reported emotions were measured by questionnaires and their achievement was assessed by year-end grades and scores in math test.

The study also found that achievement affected students' emotions over time.

"Successful performance in math increased students' positive emotions and decreased their negative emotions over the years," explained co-author of the study Stephanie Lichtenfeld from the University of Munich.

"In contrast, students with poor grades and test scores suffered from a decline in positive emotions and an increase in negative emotions, such as math anxiety and math boredom. Thus, these students become caught in a downward spiral of negative emotion and poor achievement," Lichtenfeld added.

The results suggested that emotions influence adolescents' achievement over and above the effects of general cognitive ability and prior accomplishments, the authors note.

The study's authors recommend that educators, administrators, and parents work to strengthen students' positive emotions and minimise negative emotions related to school subjects, for example, by helping students gain a greater sense of control over their performance.

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Hospitals from Seattle to northern California  including Samaritan Health Services hospitals in Albany, Corvallis and Lebanon  have been overrun with patients for the last two months, due in part to unusually nasty winter weather and influenza.

An emergency room physician at Samaritan Albany General Hospital recently told Dan Keteri, vice president of patient services, that he'd seen 72 patients in a single shift, by far well above normal.

Weve been crazy-busy, Keteri said. It started in mid-December and has just started to let up.

The Albany hospital has 79 beds, although it's down now about 10 due to a construction project.

Keteri said patient health issues have ranged from broken appendages caused by slipping on snow and ice, to influenza and asthma.

There are high census counts everywhere, he said. Right now, everyone is trying to balance the art and science of managing patient flow.

Basically, Keteri said, hospital staff members are monitoring bed counts hourly and stay in contact with other Samaritan hospitals that might be looking for an open bed.

We have had calls from hospitals as far away as Seattle and Redding that are looking for open beds, he said. As soon as beds open up, hospitals are filling the rooms.

To meet demands, staff members are working extra-long hours and coming in on their days off.

Our staff has been wonderful, Keteri said. One night, when the weather was really bad, we had about 18 staff members who slept in the hospital because they wanted to be sure they could be at work the next morning. They have been great, but they also have been affected by the flu.

Although staff members are tired, he said, They rally and reach deep to do whats right. They voluntarily come in. We dont have a mandatory policy. They are awesome.

Keteri said staff members have also been holding surgery patients in the recovery room longer than usual as they wait for open beds elsewhere in the hospital.

We hope the peak is over, Keteri said. During the worst of it, there were three skilled nursing facilities that closed, so we could not take patients back there from here.

Samaritans emergency rooms are equally busy, Keteri said. Albany's saw a record 2,760 patients in January, up from 2,371 in December. The Lebanon hospitals emergency rooms saw 1,966 patients in January compared to 1,888 in December.

Keteri said hospital staff members keep in contact not only with Samaritan facilities, but also use a statewide computer program called HOSCAP (hospital capacity) to monitor where open beds may be available.

We are all in the same boat, Keteri said.

Keteri has worked in the health care field for more than 30 years and said this has been unique.

We had two beds open late last night and they filled up quickly, he said.

Registered Nurse Birgit Rogers has worked at the hospital for 17 years.

Weve been extra busy since Thanksgiving, she said. The flu season seems to have come on sooner and is staying longer than usual.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that 40 states have flu activity. More than 25,000 cases have been reported nationwide and 15 children have died due to influenza.

Dr. William Muth, infectious disease specialist with Samaritan Health Services, said theres still time to get a flu shot.

There has been a considerable amount of flu, he said. Its been a pretty typical flu season.

Muth said this seasons influenza vaccine seems to be a good match for the H3N2 flu strain that appears to be prevalent this year. He also believed the H3N2 flu strain is accounting for about 90 percent of local cases, and that the H1N1 strain that was at pandemic levels in 2009 is accounting for about 5 to 10 percent of local issues.

Being a good match doesnt mean a person wont get the flu, but it may help decrease the length and severity of an infection, he said.

Influenza vaccinations are available at Samaritan facilities other area medical clinics and from local pharmacies.

Albany Fire Chief John Bradner said his ambulance crews have been very busy, our call volume is at the highest level ever.

Bradner said that volume cant be attributed to the flu bug.

Were running a lot of transfers over to Good Samaritan, and then to Portland and Eugene hospitals as well, he said. The hospitals are moving patients where they can find an open bed.

Bradner said the department ran 55 hospital transfers in December and 72 in January.

Lebanon Fire Chief Gordon Sletmoe echoed Bradners comments.

We are always busy, but we have seen an uptick in inner-facility transfers from one local hospital to another. But weve also seen a huge uptick in out-of-area transfers, Sletmoe said.

And, he added, those transfers have been to hospitals Lebanon ambulance crews have never taken patients before, such as Silverton, McMinnville, Newport, Hillsboro and Vancouver in the last month.

Our folks are tired, Sletmoe said. Sometimes, they are making transfers all night long. At times, we have had five transfers stacked up on the board at once.

Lebanon Fire and Ambulance District provided 113 transfers in December and 123 in January.

Bill Howden, vice president of patient care services at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, said Emergency Department visits were up 3 percent in December 2016 compared to the same time period in 2015, and Januarys visits were up by 4.6 percent.

Good Samaritan has 188 beds.

Our admission rate from the ED was consistently 21 to 22 percent. Our staff stepped up to make sure that we had the resources to care for those who came to us for help, Howden said. Our situation is the same as hospitals throughout the Northwest that have been at maximum capacity. We accepted a patient from Crescent City, California, in January due to a lack of available hospital beds between Corvallis and there.

Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital has 25 beds.

This flu season and winter weather have put our resources to the test, along with the ongoing remodel and expansion of our Emergency Department, said Marty Cahill, CEO of Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital. Our working conditions have been busy and rapidly changing, and Im proud of the skills and teamwork from our staff and providers to keep providing excellent care to our patients under these conditions.
A 36-year old Egyptian woman, weighing around 500 kgs, arrived in Mumbai on Saturday to undergo a weight reduction programme at a city hospital.

Arriving here by an Egypt Air flight, Eman Ahmed stepped out of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport around 6 a.m. - making this her first outdoor visit in over 25 years, an official accompanying her said.

Accompanied by her sister Shaimaa, she is due to be under the care of bariatric surgeon Muffazal Lakdawala and his team at Saifee Hospital over the next few months.

The woman from Alexandria - considered among the heaviest in the world - was lifted by a crane onto a waiting truck outside the airport and transported to the hospital with a police escort and an emergency ambulance in tow.

The hospital has been making preparations for the patient including a special bed to bear her load.

--IANS

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The first phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections passed off "peacefully" on Saturday with over 64 per cent polling recorded, bettering the record of the past two state polls, the Election Commission said.

"Participation (of voters) has been exemplary," Deputy Election Commissioner Vijay Dev told reporters in New Delhi.

Voting continued even after 5 p.m. at some polling stations since voters who had queued up late were allowed to exercise their franchise.

He said the elections spread across 15 districts, 73 assembly constituencies, involved over 2.6 crore voters, 839 candidates, including 73 women candidates.

He said there was no major law and order problem, and EVMs which malfunctioned at few polling booths, were replaced within no time.

"Elaborate security arrangements were made to ensure free and fair elections," he said, adding that over two lakh security personnel were deployed at various locations across the 15 districts.

Dev said that nearly three lakh "troublemakers" were bound down.

He said 3,888 cameras were also placed at various locations to keep watch on every activity in poll bound areas.

The Deputy Election Commissioner also said that Rs 19.56 lakh in cash, 4.4 lakh litre of alcohol worth Rs 4.4 lakh and gold and silver worth Rs 14 crore were seized before the

elections.

Asked about the call for election boycott at a few places, Dev said that things were sorted out at six out of seven places where poll boycott call was given by the public dissatisfied for various reasons.

He, however, expressed satisfaction on the overall exercise of polling and thanked and congratulated all political parties and general public for their "cooperation".

"The first phase (of elections) has set the tone for the next six phases," he said

The polling percentage in the region has bettered the past two elections of 2007 and 2012, an election official in Lucknow told IANS based on reports gathered from all polling stations. The average polling is over 60 per cent in western UP seats.

According to Chief Electoral Officer of Uttar Pradesh, T. Venkatesh, the total voter turnout was 64.22 per cent with Shamli recording highest 67.12 per cent.

While in Agra, the voter turnout was 63.88 per cent, in Aligarh it was 64.66 per cent, Muzaffarnagar 65.50 per cent, Hapur 65.67 per cent, Firozabad 63.59 per cent, Mathura 65.39 per cent, Noida 59.17 per cent, Ghaziabad 58.10 per cent, Bulandshahr 64.65 per cent, Etah 64.73 per cent, Kasganj 64.83 per cent, Meerut 66 per cent, Hatharas 64.10 per cent and Baghpat polled 64.99 per cent.

The polling percentage in Mathura improved by eight per cent over the 2012 state assembly elections.

Total vote percentage in the 2007 state assembly polls was 45.96 per cent and 59.40 per cent in 2012.

At a few places, polling was disrupted or delayed due to technical snags in EVMs, said an official, adding that by and large voting was smooth and steady at most places.

Sporadic incidents of poll violence were also reported from some places. Clashes between activists of the ruling Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party were reported from two places.

The largest constituency in this phase, as per population, is Sahibabad in Ghaziabad and the smallest is Jalesar in Etah.

There were 26,822 polling centres in this phase of polling. Among the candidates in the fray was Pankaj Singh, the son of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

The seven-phased elections in Uttar Pradesh are from February 11 to March 8.

--IANS

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The first indigenous Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&C) will be handed over to the Indian Air Force (IAF) on February 14 during the Aero India 2017 here, DRDO Chairman S. Christopher said on Saturday.

He made the announcement during the curtain raiser on DRDO's participation in Aero India 2017 here.

"The Airborne Surveillance System is a game changer in air warfare," an official statement said.

The AEW&C System is a system of systems populated with state-of-the art Active Electronically Scanned Radar, Secondary Surveillance Radar, Electronic and Communication Counter Measures, LOS (Line of Sight) and beyond LOS data link, voice communication system and self protection suite, built on an Emb-145 platform, having an air to air refueling capability to enhance surveillance time.

A complex tactical software has been developed for fusion of information from the sensors, to provide the air situation picture along with intelligence to handle identification/classification threat assessment.

It has battle management functions, built in house, to work as a network centric system of Integrated Air Command & Control System (IACCS) node.

This system has been developed and evaluated through collaborative efforts between DRDO and the Indian Air Force.

"The AEW&C system has undergone all weather and environmental trials and has been accepted by the IAF for induction," the statement added.

--IANS

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The AIADMK faction led by acting Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam should soon announce the election schedule to elect General Secretary for the party, said a former party MP on Saturday.

"It is not sufficient to declare V.K. Sasikala's election as party General Secretary by the general council invalid. The anti-Sasikala camp has to come out with an advertisement announcing the election schedule for electing the new General Secretary," K.C. Palaniswamy a former AIADMK Member of Parliament (MP) told IANS.

AIADMK's former Presidium Chairman E. Madhusudanan on Friday said he had sent a petition to the Election Commission not to recognise V.K. Sasikala as General Secretary of Tamil Nadu's ruling party.

Speaking to reporters here, Madhusudanan, now in acting Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam's camp, said: "As per the party by-law, a person can become General Secretary of AIADMK only if he/she is a member for a continuous period of five years."

Madhusudanan said Sasikala was not a party member for a continuous five years and hence she was not qualified to be the General Secretary.

In December 2016, after then Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa's death, Sasikala was elected the General Secretary at a General Council meeting of the AIADMK.

Incidentally Palaniswamy in January had sent his petition to Election Commission not to recognise Sasikala as AIADMK's General Secretary and declare her election as void.

"If Panneerselvam or Madhusudanan make an announcement for the election of General Secretary then the issue would certainly turn in his favour as the cadres are against Sasikala," Palaniswamy said.

He said once the election schedule is announced then the legislators supporting Sasikala housed in a beach resort would rush back to their respective constituencies.

--IANS

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A bank employee, who says he was wrongly accused in a case of exchanging old currency notes, has committed suicide in West Bengal's Howrah district, Government Railway Police (GRP) officials said on Saturday.

"The body of Rajat Chowdhury, an employee of Union Bank, was recovered from the railway tracks near Uluberia station on Friday night. He was run over by a train. The body is sent for autopsy," an official from Uluberia GRP said.

Chowdhury's relatives said he posted a suicide note in a social media website at around 9 p.m. in which he accused two of his fellow employees of forcing him to illegally exchange old currency notes at the bank.

"They forced me to exchange the old notes and later lodged a police case against me. I am going away. Please look after my wife and daughter. Please forgive me," the Facebook post said.

The relatives of the deceased claimed he was not someone who would commit suicide without grave provocation and alleged that his colleagues were involved in the matter.

"He left for bank at 3:30 p.m. after getting a call from the bank manager and posted the message on Facebook in the evening. We want to know what happened in those six hours that he took such a drastic step. We want the police to check the CCTV footage of the bank and trace his call list to find out what exactly happened," one of his relatives said.

"If his colleagues are not involved then why haven't they come to meet us after the incident. All of their phones are switched off. This shows they have some involvement in the matter," she said.

--IANS

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A group of angry high-school students vandalised a police vehicle during a clash over the distribution of bicycles in West Bengal's Murshidabad district on Saturday afternoon, police said.

According to police, a clash broke out among the students of Kashipur High School in Murshidabad's Rejinagar over the distribution of bicycles under a state government project.

"A section of students got agitated for not getting the bicycles on Saturday's allotment and clashed among themselves. Stones pelted by them hit the police van parked at the school premises and broke the windscreen," said Prasanta Dutta, Officer in-charge of Rejinagar police station.

"The students were upset with the school authorities but had no personal grudge against the police. The situation is normal now," Dutta added.

--IANS

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Anis Amri, the Berlin Christmas market attacker, was a "ladies man" before he became radicalised inside an Italian prison, a woman at whose house he stayed has claimed.

The 22-year-old Italian woman, named only as Jessica, spoke out for the first time about Amri in an interview with Germany's Bild daily.

Amri killed 12 people when he drove a lorry into a packed Christmas market in Berlin in December. The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack, and released a video of Amri pledging allegiance to its leader, the Telegraph reported.

But Jessica described Amri as "charming" and "almost childlike" when she first met him in 2011.

She spoke of her horror when recognised the man who slept on the sofa at her and her husband's home in Rome in television reports of the attack.

Jessica's husband, who is not named in the interview, is a Tunisian asylum-seeker like Amri.

"They'd both done a lot of bad stuff: drunk, smoked weed, hit on women," Jessica said, adding "Anis was a rebel. He was stubborn, he didn't talk much."

The two became friends but Amri was jailed after he set fire to a refugee accommodation. After his release, he asked if he could stay with Jessica and her husband. He arrived later in 2015 with a prayer rug and a robe.

"He was suddenly quite different. Much quieter," Jessica said. "He prayed at least five times a day. I think he was radicalised in prison. He didn't smoke any more. If a beer was on the table, he wouldn't even sit down."

He spoke only rarely about the, and was critical of the group.

"He said IS has nothing to do with the Quran. But I saw some of his friends on Facebook had IS flags on their profiles. And he talked about attacking Israel with a nuclear bomb."

After a few weeks he left for Germany, saying he had found a job there. It was the last Jessica saw of him, the Telegraph reported.

A few days later Amri, on the run across Europe, was killed in a shoot-out with Italian police in Milan.

The next day officers came to Jessica's house and questioned her about Amri.

"They wanted to find out if he'd tried to come to us. Of course not," she said. "We have nothing to do with it. We're scared of the Islamists. "

Her husband is currently serving a jail sentence for drug trafficking.

--IANS

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The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Bihar Police probing the topper's scam on Saturday arrested the father of Ruby Rai, an accused, police said.

The SIT with the help of local police in Vaishali district arrested Avadesh Rai, who has been absconding for over seven months after his involvement in the topper's scam surfaced last year.

"A team of SIT went to Ruby's house to attach the property of Avadesh Rai to put pressure on him to surrender, but much to its surprise, her father was found inside and arrested," a police official said.

Ruby Rai had topped this year's Class XII examination conducted by the Bihar State Education Board in humanities stream.

She got into trouble after a sting by a TV channel showed her giving ludicrous answers to elementary questions related to her subjects.

Class XII science stream topper Saurabh Shreshtha was also caught on camera giving wrong answers to basic science questions.

The sting suggested the "toppers" might have used cheating or fraud to achieve their ranks.

Both Ruby and Saurabh belonged to V.R. College in Vaishali district.

According to police, the SIT last year arrested Ruby but later a special juvenile court here granted bail to her.

A chargesheet was filed against former Chairman of BSEB Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh, his wife and former JDU legislator Usha Sinha, the alleged kingpin of the scam, Bachcha Rai, and former director and principal of V.R. College and former board secretary Harharnath Jha.

Singh and Jha are currently in jail.

--IANS

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Britain will remain under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice for years to come if it seeks a transition deal to secure its withdrawal from the European Union (EU), a top official said.

Chief negotiator for the European parliament Guy Verhofstadt said on Friday that European negotiators were primed to push back against British Prime Minister Theresa May's promises to remove the UK from the writ of European judges as soon as the country leaves the EU in 2019, the Guardian reported.

Verhofstadt, who is representing the parliament in the article 50 -- formal process of exiting the EU -- negotiations, said he expected a transition agreement to be put together following the settling of Britain's debts and before withdrawal in 2019.

But asked whether the UK would remain under the European court of justice after 2019, Verhofstadt, who is also a former Belgian Prime Minister said: "The starting point from the European side will be yes".

The Downing Street made clear last month that it believed the UK would leave the jurisdiction of the court as soon as the Britain exited the EU.

With just weeks to go before May is expected to formally announce Britain's intention to leave the EU by triggering article 50, Verhofstadt also dashed the UK government's hopes that it will be able to conduct negotiations in tandem about withdrawal and a future trade agreement with the EU.

The EU is assuming that May will deliver a letter to the European council on 9 March, formally triggering article 50.

"Then we come out in mid-March with the opinion of the parliament," Verhofstadt said.

Leaders of the other 27 EU member states plan to meet on April 8-9 to finalise their negotiating position.

--IANS

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Supporters of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) clashed on Saturday in Meerut city of Uttar Pradesh over issues relating to voting.

In the first phase of voting in western Uttar Pradesh, some people opened fire on others in a village in Kithaur area, a police official told IANS.

Firstly there was a minor clash in a polling booth in which one person was injured.

The two sides were pacified by security personnel deployed there but an altercation broke out later in the village where one side opened fire on another.

The two sides belonged to SP-BSP, an official confirmed, adding the situation was under control.

Polling began at 7 am on Saturday for 73 seats in 15 districts.
LEBANON  Scot Noss grew up wanting to be a soldier, and not just any soldier: an Army Ranger.

Once, when he was elementary-school age, Scot watched a video on being an elite soldier and learned that sometimes you have to find protein in "unique locales," his brother Ryan remembered. So Scot promptly went outside and chowed down on some earthworms, just for practice.

But Scot loved books, too, as friends and family attest. His mother, Nelda Noss, a former Lebanon teacher, said during his time at Lebanon schools  Cascades and Queen Anne elementary schools, then later at Lebanon Middle and Lebanon High  he'd ask for hall passes and head for the school library to read.

For that reason, said Ryan Noss, former principal of Pioneer School in Lebanon and now superintendent of the Corvallis School District, the Noss family supports a request to name the Pioneer library in honor of Scot.

"I always thought of Scot as the intellectual of our family," Ryan Noss told the Lebanon School Board on Thursday.

Pioneer is well known for its work with veterans and its association with the adjacent Oregon Veterans Home, Ryan said. "The culture of Pioneer is particularly fitting."

Scot achieved his soldier dream, growing up to become Sgt. 1st Class Scott R. Noss of the Army Rangers. Among other awards, he received the Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal, Combat Infantryman's Badge, an FBI award for hostage negotiation and rescue, and the Order of Saint Maurice from the National Infantry Association.

Scot's group was returning from a mission in Afghanistan in 2007, his eighth deployment, when engine failure caused the Chinook helicopter to crash.

He didn't lose his life, but he suffered a traumatic brain injury that all but took it, said lifelong friend and relative Patrick Quinn, himself a retired sergeant and combat medic. Today, Scot is considered "minimally conscious."

Scot Noss essentially sacrificed himself for his country, Quinn told the Lebanon School Board. Like others who made that sacrifice, he said, he'd like to see him honored in a tangible way.

If the naming is approved, Quinn said he'd like to see a plaque that reads, "The Scot R. Noss Honorary Library" and contains information about his military biography. He said the family could supply a scrapbook about Scot's life to be placed in the library.

"It seemed to me to be appropriate that we honor Scot, even though he didn't pass away," Quinn said.

By board policy, public comments must be taken during the school board's next two public meetings before a decision can be made to name the library. But board members on Thursday said they welcomed the idea of starting that process.

Kellie Weber said she particularly loves the scrapbook idea and would like to see it "tour" all district schools, so all students and teachers have the chance to learn about Noss.

"They all need to know who this person is," she said.
Wang Qi, a Chinese soldier who had inadvertently strayed into Indian territory soon after the 1962 Sino-Indian war, reached Beijing on Saturday on his way to his home in the country's Shaanxi province.

"Wang Qi and his family members arrived in Beijing a short while ago," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said on Saturday afternoon.

"They were received by Chinese officials from MFA and the provincial govt of Shaanxi province," he said.

"From our Embassy, Second Secretaries Thelma John David and Siddharth Malik were present to receive them as well. Two of our mission officials are also traveling with Wang Qi and family to their hometown."

Wang, who joined the Chinese army in 1960, strayed into Indian territory one night soon after the 1962 war.

He was handed over by the Indian Red Cross to the Indian Army in 1963 and spent time in jails in Assam, Ajmer and Delhi before his release was ordered by the Punjab and High Court in 1969.

He finally settled at Tirodi in Madhya Pradesh's Balaghat district and raised a family after marrying an Indian woman.

Wang, who is now 77, has returned to his home after more than five decades.

--IANS

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A Chinese pilot had responded "legally and professionally" to a close encounter between military planes from China and the US over the South China Sea, a media report said on Saturday.

A US plane approached a Chinese military jet on a routine mission near the Huangyan Island and the Chinese pilot responded with legal and professional measures, Global Times quoted an official of China's Defence Ministry as saying.

"We hope that the US could take the bilateral military relations into consideration and adopt practical measures to eliminate the root cause of air and sea mishaps between the two countries," said the official.

A US Navy P-3 plane and a Chinese military aircraft came close to each other over the South China Sea in an incident the US Navy believes was inadvertent, according to a media report.

According to the US official, the aircraft came within 1,000 feet (305 meters) of each other on Wednesday in the vicinity of the Huangyan Island.

The official added that such incidents involving Chinese and American aircraft are infrequent, with only two having taken place in 2016.

"On February 8, an interaction characterized by US Pacific Command as 'unsafe' occurred in international air space above the South China Sea, between a Chinese KJ-200 aircraft and a US Navy P-3C aircraft," said the statement quted by the a news outlet.

The KJ-200 is a propeller airborne early warning and control aircraft based originally on the old Soviet-designed An-12.

--IANS

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School children in England will be offered lessons in cyber security in a bid to find the experts of the future to defend the UK from attacks, the media reported on Saturday.

It is hoped that 5,700 pupils aged 14 and over will spend up to four hours a week on the subject in a five-year pilot, the BBC reported.

Classroom and online teaching, "real-world challenges" and work experience will be made available from September.

Cyber security is a fast-growing industry, employing 58,000 experts, according to the UK government, but the Public Accounts Committee has warned it is proving difficult to recruit people with the right skills.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is providing 20 million pounds ($24 million) for the new lessons, which will be designed to fit around pupils' current courses and exams.

Digital and Culture Minister Matt Hancock said: "This forward-thinking programme will see thousands of the best and brightest young minds given the opportunity to learn cutting-edge cyber security skills alongside their secondary school studies."

"We are determined to prepare Britain for the challenges it faces now and in the future and these extra-curricular clubs will help identify and inspire future talent," he told the BBC.

The government is already providing university funding and work placements for promising students.

Hancock said he wanted to ensure the UK "had the pipeline of talent" it would need.

--IANS

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At least eight persons were killed and 20 injured as a suicide bomber blew himself up next to a bank in Lashkargah city of Afghanistan on Saturday, an official said.

A terrorist tied explosive device in his body blew himself up next to a local bank where security personnel gathered to collect their salaries, Xinhua news agency reported.

The victims included civilians and security personnel, the official said.

Lashkargah is a city in southern Afghanistan and the capital of Helmand province.

The poppy-growing Helmand province has been the scene of fierce fighting between government forces and Taliban militants over the past few years.

--IANS

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At least five persons were killed and five went missing after a boat capsised in Pakistan's Sindh province.

According to Geo News, the boat carrying 30 devotees capsised in the Indus river on Friday night while it was on its way to Pir Muhban Shah shrine in Larkana.

A police official said 20 persons were rescued till Friday night and search and rescue operation was suspended due to darkness.

The rescue operation resumed on Saturday morning, during which five bodies were recovered while five others were still missing.

The accident occurred as the boat was over-loaded.

--IANS

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Former Minister and AIADMK spokesperson C. Ponnaiyan on Saturday joined the group of old timers to join acting Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam's camp - in another jolt to party General Secretary V.K. Sasikala.

The development came as Tamil Nadu School Education Minister K. Pandiarajan too joined the Panneerselvam camp earlier in the day.

Besides them, two sitting Lok Sabha members -- Ashok Kumar representing Krishnagiri constituency and Sundaram representing Namakkal - have also joined the group.

Till Friday Pandiarajan, Ponnaiyan, Ashok Kumar and Sundaram were with Sasikala and were defending her in a staunch manner.

Earlier, sitting Rajya Sabha member V. Maitreyan joined Panneerselvam's camp.

The four new joinees to Panneerselvam's camp comes a day after AIADMK spokesperson Vaigaichelvan said people joining Panneerselvam's camp are "beyond their expiry date".

Speaking to reporters here, Ashok Kumar said other AIADMK MPs will also start joining hands with the acting Chief Minister.

The AIADMK has 37 members in the Lok Sabha.

Panneerselvam revolted against AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala on Tuesday night alleging that he was forced to resign as Chief Minister to pave the way for her to occupy that chair.

As of now seven legislators (including Panneerselvam), three sitting MPs - two Lok Sabha and one Rajya Sabha - several office bearers, old timers, former legislators and most of the party's grass root workers are in support of Panneerselvam.

According to V. Maitreyan, more ministers and legislators are likely to join the Panneerselvam camp.

--IANS

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Police raided a liquor party and arrested at least 29 NID students from a private apartment in Paldi area here, police said.

Acting on a tip-off, police raided Pushkar Flats near the National Institute of Design (NID) campus and arrested 29 students, including 14 women, who were involved in the liquor party. They have been booked under The Bombay Prohibition Act.

Police said some residents got disturbed by loud music played in the flat.

The Ahmedabad Police Commissioner had recently informed the NID director over phone that the police had information of students consuming liquor on the campus, sources said.

--IANS

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The emerging consensus that there is a wave in favour of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab is terrible news for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, not because they will have lost the election but because the road ahead will become that much more difficult.

The image of Narendra Modi, after reversals in this round of election, will have lost sheen irretrievably. The euphoria his victory in the May 2014 general election had generated should have begun to evaporate after two successive AAP victories in Delhi in December 2013 and February 2015, the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Janata Dal-United (RJD-JDU) victory in Bihar followed by BJP defeats in the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.

These did not appear to demoralise him. But defeat in key states in the current round will create internal restiveness and aggravate the political effects of demonetisation.

For the Congress, the AAP's further rise spells an existential danger. Its inability to reclaim lost ground in the northern states will begin to look like a pitiable reality, exactly as the visage of the Gandhi-Nehru parivar will. Holding on to Akhilesh Yadav's coat-tails in Uttar Pradesh will carry neither Rahul Gandhi nor the Congress very far.

That Priyanka Gandhi may give the party a helping hand at a critical juncture is a hope some peripheral Congress leaders nurse. If her behaviour were anything to go by, she is by some accounts in indifferent health and cannot focus even on Rahul and Sonia Gandhi's constituencies, Amethi and Rae Bareli, which have been assigned to her for safe-keeping.

But she clearly has a tremendous sense of survival. There were fears during the 2014 general elections that these seats would be swept away in the Modi wave. That her mother and brother may not be in the next Parliament was an unnerving prospect. She stiffened her sinews and in two weeks of campaigning ensured success for her sibling and her mother. She has talent but, apparently, is short on stamina.

There are several reasons for the Congress' expected defeat. Among the reasons is the habitual delay in naming the chief ministerial candidate. Amrindar Singh was projected as Chief Minister far too late in the day.

Congressmen murmur but never actually say that the Congress President will not project anybody who might have the potential of eclipsing the family, particularly Rahul Gandhi. I am not implying Amrinder specifically, but there are instances.

I have always maintained that in 2014 Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit may well have come up trumps in the state had the party High Command by hint or gesture talked of her in Prime Ministerial terms. Remember the state victory would have been her fourth in a row. Her late husband had been a popular IAS officer; she had been a minister in the Prime Minister's Office.

Instead of these credentials being advertised, something that would have enthused the cadres, the High Command demonstrated hostile indifference. Dikshit lost. That was the beginning of Kejriwal and AAP.

It is now of course too late in the day for any movement towards fulfilment of Sonia Gandhi's dream of crowning Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister. What future for the party Vice President who is now playing second fiddle to Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow?

During the Panchmarhi conclave of the Congress in September 1998, senior leaders Kamal Nath, Arjun Singh and Jitendra Prasad had refused to see the writing on the wall: they had shot down a proposal that the Congress must seek alliances for survival.

"No," they said, "we must recover the social base lost to the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party." By what feat was this goal to be achieved?

Chandrajit Yadav and Rajesh Pilot (Sachin Pilot's father) cried themselves hoarse: "In the present circumstances, there is no alternative to alliances."

What irony, then, that 18 years after Sonia Gandhi shot down alliances at the Panchmarhi conclave, an alliance has been forged in Uttar Pradesh precisely with a party which was anathema to Congress leaders who are even today part of the Sonia coterie.

The BJP and the Congress would not have been in the state of funk in which they are today had they defeated each other in the contest. As the third force called AAP rises from Delhi to Punjab, making inroads in Goa too, the demoralisation of the Congress in states like Rajasthan will become palpable as results start coming on March 11.

Corporates, comfortable with alternating between the Congress and the BJP, will now have to find new ways of placing their bets.

In anticipation of the Punjab results, Kejriwal has already immersed himself in the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections due in two months.

What must cause considerable disquiet to the Modi-Amit Shah duet is the AAP targeting Gujarat. To make matters worse, Hardik Patel, the Patidar icon, is already positioning himself in that state as a Shiva Sena leader.

Despite the chaos attending demonetisation, Modi was able to prove one thing: he could make the country stand outside banks without any leader being able to ignite a revolt. Things will change now. The momentum behind Kejriwal and Akhilesh Yadav will make Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar-Lalu Prasad and others look like a muscular array of regional forces.

Where Rahul Gandhi fits into this arrangement only time will tell.

(A senior commentator on political and diplomatic affairs, Saeed Naqvi can be reached on saeednaqvi@hotmail.com. The views expressed are personal)

--IANS

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Enhancing its capability to dealing with a nuclear attack threat, India on Saturday successfully test fired a Prithvi Defence Vehicle (PDV) interceptor missile designed to intercept and destroy hostile ballistic missiles in space even before they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.

The test took place at 7.45 a.m., and an incoming missile was successfully intercepted at a height of 100 km with a direct hit by an interceptor missile, said a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) official. The PDV can reach even higher altitudes.

"India successfully conducted a test wherein an incoming ballistic missile target was intercepted by an exo-atmospheric interceptor missile off the Bay of Bengal," an official statement said.

"With this commendable scientific achievement, India has crossed an important milestone in building its overall capability towards enhanced security against incoming ballistic missile threats. It has entered an exclusive club of four nations with developing capabilities to secure its skies and cities against hostile threats," it said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar lauded the efforts of the DRDO and all the scientists involved for their dedicated efforts in this significant achievement.

"Today (Saturday) our scientists have made a missile that could attack an incoming missile in the sky. Only four-five countries in the world have done this," Modi said at a poll rally in Uttarakhand.

The two stage PDV missile is part of the two layered Ballistic Missile Defence system developed by the DRDO, the research and development wing of the Defence Ministry, with the Hyderabad based Research Centre Imaarat (RCI) as the nodal laboratory.

Its interception window spans from 80-120 km.

The fully automated system consists of a network of sensors, computers and launchers, designed to intercept hostile ballistic missiles, possibly carrying nuclear weapons and destroy them before they can cause any damage.

This was the second test of the PDV.

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The father of Muslim US Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in the Iraq war, and fierce critic of President Donald Trump's travel ban, has urged Latinos to join hands with other communities to emerge even stronger, the media reported.

The only solution to such suffering is unity, Khizr Khan told Efe news on Friday during an interview in Miami in reference to Trump's recent anti-immigration measures.

The Pakistani-American lawyer urged the Latino community to remain hopeful, strong and united, to join forces with other communities, assuring them "you are not alone".

In his first week in office, Trump had signed executive orders ending safeguards for undocumented immigrants in the country and banning the entry of travellers and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, among other measures affecting both the Muslim and Latin communities.

Khan said that while Trump will cause "difficulties", he believed the President will not succeed, based on his firm belief in the US judicial and legislative system.

The activist said while he felt heartened by the appeals court decision from Thursday striking down Trump's travel ban on citizens from Muslim nations, he was worried such orders (as Trump's) can be detrimental for US security.

Explaining, he said that US Army personnel deployed in Muslim countries now face much less cooperation from the Muslim community and "we need more cooperation to defeat terrorism".

Khan, who became famous for his moving speech against discrimination of Muslims during the 2016 Democratic National Convention, stressed the Democratic Party maintains its identity and "faith in good values".

Saying the election loss had led the Democratic Party to undergo a restructuring, he said they are now moving together towards a common agenda for consensus in the entire country.

Khan, who received the "America's Immigrant Spirit Award", on Friday from the Miami-based group Americans for Immigrant Justice, stressed no community is alone in this hour, and this is the moment for minorities to unite.

Confident of success as they were "on the right path," he said the US Constitution provides for all people in the country to have the same right to dignity and protection from the law.

The father of Captain Humayun Khan, killed in Iraq in 2004 in a suicide bomb attack, is best-known for having challenged Trump during the Democrat convention, when he pulled out a copy of the US Constitution and asked Trump -- Republican candidate at the time -- "Have you even read the US Constitution?"

He told Efe news he did not fear reprisals for his anti-Trump stance.

"I am not scared because I have faith in the legal system, I am a patriot, I did not break any law, the only thing I did is speak out, and that is not a crime," he concluded.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Albany voters reiterated their support of legalized marijuana businesses during the November general election, and on Thursday, Going Green Albany became the first shop to sell recreational pot in the city  and Linn County.

Its been a long struggle and now people dont have to go to Corvallis, said Sarah Whitely, who owns the business with her husband, Shawn Aman.

She expects Going Green Albany to get a huge boost from being the first in Linn County to offer recreational marijuana.

Residents have been eagerly awaiting a pot shop, and many people were upset their tax dollars were going to other nearby cities, including Salem, Whitely added.

Its great, said Mike Boykin of Lebanon, who visited Going Green Albany on Friday morning. There are a lot of people here who need it who cant afford a (medical marijuana) card, he said.

Boykin added that he been going to Corvallis to buy recreational marijuana, though he uses the substance as a sleep aid and pain reliever.

Going Green Albany received its license from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission on Thursday, according to Mark Pettinger, spokesman for the OLCC Recreational Marijuana Program.

Modern Forest, a Lebanon marijuana shop, was approved by the state on Friday, though it is not open for business yet.

That store, at 634 S. Main St. in Lebanon, is still waiting for approval from the city of Lebanon, said a store representative.

Unlike Going Green Albany, Modern Forest has not operated as a medical marijuana dispensary.

Pettinger said that a few other dispensaries in Linn County have been assigned to the agencys investigative staff members, who do background checks and make sure paperwork is in order.

Going Green has dispensaries in Sweet Home, Toledo and Grand Ronde. The Sweet Home and Toledo shops can only sell medical marijuana at this time, and are awaiting their recreational licenses from the state.

Aman said that with recreational marijuana legal  and able to be sold in more areas of the state  people are abandoning the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program because of the annual fee of about $200. Nobody wants to renew their cards because its a financial hardship, he said.

Cardholders are exempt from taxes, however, and some people who opted out of the OMMP program are now having second thoughts, Aman added.

More than half of Going Greens customers are older than 40, and about one-fifth want to try an alternative to pharmaceutical drugs, Aman said.

Whitely acknowledged worries with Donald Trumps administration and how it might view legalized marijuana, but she also said she was confident that Oregons attorney general would fight against any federal overreach.

Other concerns for the marijuana industry persist, however.

Our banking is a real dilemma for us, Aman said. The business remains cash-only, and representatives must travel to Salem to make deposits at a credit union that charges the company $250 a month, plus 1 percent of all deposits, to have an account.

Going Green Albany, 1225 Commercial Way S.E., is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week. For more information, call 541-405-8856.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on Saturday said the Mahanadi water issue is being politicised only to divert attention from core issues ahead of the panchayat polls in Odisha.

"The people in Odisha want to know what steps have been taken to address migration problem, poverty, electricity, road and farming issues. But they are raising the Mahanadi issue at the time of Panchayat polls to divert attention from the core issues," he said.

Addressing a gathering during the campaign for BJP in Sundargarh district Singh said, "There can't be a dispute over Mahanadi. There would be no issue in future as well. Mahanadi unites the people of Odisha and Chhattisgarh. It doesn't divide them," the Chief Minister said.

He said while Chhattisgarh uses only 4 per cent of Mahanadi water, Odisha uses only 14 per cent and the rest 82 per cent goes to the sea unutilized.

The Odisha government can use the entire water, which goes to sea every year, he added.

Informing that Chhattisgarh has marched ahead in terms of development in past 16 years, Singh said there was lack of eagerness to perform in Odisha despite the state having abundant natural resources.

The Chief Minister appealed the people to vote for Bharatiya Janata Party to bring changes in the state.

Meanwhile, the BJD workers staged a demonstration at the district headquarters in Sundargarh protesting the visit of the Chhattisgarh Chef Minister.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Well-known music composer Mani Sharma has been finalised for actor Allu Sirish's next yet-untitled Telugu science-fiction thriller. The project is slated to go on the floors next month.

"We are still finalising the rest of the cast and crew. Apart from Sirish and Avasarla Srinivas, we have also signed Mani Sharma sir to take care of music. It will go on floors from mid-March," film's director Vi. Anand told IANS.

Known for helming Telugu actioner "Tiger", Anand is currently basking in the success of his latest release "Ekkadiki Pothavu Chinnavada".

Talking about the project, he said Sirish was kicked about working in a science-fiction film.

"Sirish really liked the script. The fact that we haven't made an authentic science-fiction film yet in Telugu filmdom got him really excited," he said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
"The Batman" standalone film will be helmed by Matt Reeves, say sources.

Reeves is in early talks to take over directing duties after actor-filmmaker Ben Affleck stepped down from the role in late January. Affleck will still star in and produce the Warner Bros. movie.

Sources told variety.com that the "War for the Planet of the Apes" director has already committed to helming the superhero movie, although a deal isn't done yet.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a strong attack, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was "fond of peeping into others' bathrooms". Gandhi's comment came in response to Modi's remarks against former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who along with Gandhi launched the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance's Common Minimum Programme here, also pitched in and advised Modi against "getting emotional" or angry and said a walk on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway would compel even the prime minister to vote for the alliance.

"The prime minister is fond of Google searching, peeping into others' bathrooms, and reading others' horoscope. Let him do that in his free time but his main job is that of a prime minister, in which he has been a cent per cent failure," Gandhi said at the joint media conference.

Gandhi's jibe came a day after Modi, while campaigning, mocked the Congress leader for being the "most joked about politician". He also warned the Congress saying he had janampatris (horoscope) or dossiers on each of them.

The prime minister had earlier attracted the wrath of the Congress for attacking his predecessor Manmohan Singh in Parliament, accusing him of "bathing wearing a raincoat".

The duo accused Modi of "distracting people from his failures" through his fiery speeches and trying to hoodwink people

"The country's biggest problem is (the) lack of jobs. Modi promised two crore jobs but has not fulfilled even one per cent of his promise. Modi talks a lot about security, terrorism and surgical strikes. But the result is (that) we have suffered most number of casualties in the last seven years. Over 90 of our security personnel have been killed," said Gandhi.

He was referring to the Indian Army's September 29, 2016, cross-LoC surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads.

Targeting Modi, Akhilesh asked the prime minister what he had given to Uttar Pradesh, which elected 70 of the BJP's Lok Sabha members.

"This is election, I don't think he should get emotional or angry. Instead of getting angry, he should talk about the ground realities. As regards janampatri, anyone can have one at the touch of a button," he said.

He also said that the prime minister needs to answer on burning issues like unemployment, farmer distress and security concerns.

"The people of UP gave the prime minister (sic); the home minister (Rajnath Singh) is from the state, 70 of your Lok Sabha members are from here. But what have the people of the state got in return? They are still looking for the acche din (good days) promised by Modi," said Akhilesh.

Highlighting the developmental work done by his government, Akhilesh said: "I would ask the prime minister to walk on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway. Even he would be inclined to vote for the alliance."

The two leaders also refused to give any significance to issues of seat sharing.

"In 99 per cent of the seats there is no problem. There may be some issues on 5-6 seats but that is insignificant. What is significant is the entire force of the Samajwadi Party and the Congress is fighting unitedly to transform UP. This is an alliance of two youngsters and a partnership of shared vision," said Gandhi echoing Akhilesh.

The duo claimed that Modi was "losing control over his mood and language" because he was unsettled by the coming together of the two young leaders and reports that the alliance might come to power.

"The prime minister is apprehensive of the Uttar Pradesh poll result. The result will give him a big shock, will put a question mark on his credibility. That is why he is saying such things," Gandhi added.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday ridiculed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "peeping into others' bathrooms" and said he was a complete failure.

Gandhi, along with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, was speaking to reporters after releasing a common minimum programme of the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance for the polls, when he launched the attack.

"The Prime Minister is fond of Google searching, peeping into others' bathrooms. Let him do that in his free time but his main job is that of a Prime Minister in which he has been a cent per cent failure," Gandhi said.

Gandhi's jibe came a day after Modi, while campaigning in the poll bound state, mocked the Congress leader for being the "most joked about politician".

The Prime Minister had earlier attracted the wrath of the Congress over his "bathing wearing a raincoat" barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

The duo accused Modi of "distracting people from his failures" using fiery speeches trying to hoodwink people

"The country's biggest problem is lack of jobs. Modi promised two crore jobs but has not fulfilled even one per cent of his promise. Modi talks a lot about security, terrorism and surgical strikes."

"But the result is we have suffered most number of casualties in the last seven years. Over 90 of our security personnel have been killed," said Gandhi.

He was referring to the Indian Army's September 29, 2016 surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control in Pakistan occupied territory.

Talking about Modi's warning in Uttarakhand on Saturday that he had everyones' horoscopes, Gandhi said that it might be the Prime Minister's favourite pastime and that he should continue to google.

SP President Akhilesh Yadav suggested that Modi should not "get too angry", instead he should tell what he has done for the people of the country in the past two years.

With regards to the knotty issue of seat sharing in a dozen seats including Amethi, both leaders made light of the issue and said "minor irritants" will be thrashed out.

"On the larger issue, we are together and there is full coordination between our leaders and workers," both the leaders said.

Rahul said Modi had done nothing for Uttar Pradesh in the last two years.

Akhilesh Yadav claimed that Modi was loosing control over his mood and language because he was unsettled by the coming together of the two young leaders and reports that the alliance might come to power.

"The Prime Minister is apprehensive of Uttar Pradesh polls result. The result will give him a big shock, will put a question mark on his credibility. That is why he is saying such things," Gandhi added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NASA said its New Horizons spacecraft is healthy and operating normally after just over 24 hours in a protective "safe mode" -- the result of a command-loading error that occurred this week.

The spacecraft is designed to automatically transition to safe mode under certain anomalous conditions to protect itself from harm.

In safe mode, the spacecraft suspends its timeline of activities and keeps its antenna pointed toward Earth to listen for instructions from the Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.

"Our rapid recovery was supported by other NASA missions that provided New Horizons with some of their valuable Deep Space Network (DSN) antenna time," said Alice Bowman, New Horizons mission operations manager at APL.

New Horizons is healthy and continues to speed along toward its next target - the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 - while its operations team works to restore it to full operations and resume scientific data collection, the US space agency said.

Due to the 10.5-hour round trip communications delay that results from operating a spacecraft more than 5.7 billion kilometeres from Earth, the team expects New Horizons to be back on its activities timeline early Sunday.

The New Horizons mission was launched on January 19, 2006 with the aim of helping us understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of the dwarf planet Pluto and by venturing deeper into the distant, mysterious Kuiper Belt -- a relic of solar system formation.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least nine people were killed and 32 others wounded on Friday in a car bomb explosion in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

The attack occurred in the evening when a booby-trapped car detonated at a thoroughfare in Resalah district in southwestern Baghdad, Xinhua reported on Friday.

The blast caused damages to several nearby shops, buildings and civilian cars.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, in most cases, is responsible for targeting Iraqi security forces as well as crowded places, including markets, cafes and mosques across the country.

Terrorist acts, violence and armed conflicts killed 382 Iraqis and wounded 908 others in January across Iraq, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said.

The attacks came as the Iraqi security forces backed by anti-IS international coalition are carrying out a major offensive to drive out the IS terrorists from its last major stronghold in and around Mosul.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Saturday said that nobody has the right to judge anyone's patriotism.

Speaking at the launch of journalist Vijay Manohar Tiwari's book "Bharat ki khoj mein mere paanch saal" (My five years of discovering India), Bhagwat said: "No one has the right to judge others on the basis of patriotism. Even those who may feel they are running the show in this country, cannot measure anyone else's patriotism and pass judgements."

The statement came days after Bhagwat said that all the people who live in India and have respect for its traditions are Hindus and all the Hindus should remain alert for the honour of the country.

The RSS chief is on a eight-day visit to Madhya Pradesh. On Tuesday, he met with Sangh officials in Bhopal and on Wednesday, he visited Betul jail to pay a tribute to Sangh ideologue Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar.

Bhagwat also participated in the Silver Jubilee celebrations of the Bhausaab Bhuskute Samiti in Bankheri area of Hoshangabad on Thursday. He will address a labour rally in the capital city on Friday.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Over 50 per cent turnout was witnessed till late afternoon in the first phase of the staggered Uttar Pradesh assembly elections spanning 73 constituencies in the western part of the state, officials said.

Polling was more or less peaceful across the 15 districts with some sporadic incidents of violence reported at some places, while at quite a few places, voting was delayed due to malfunctioning EVMs.

While an Election Commission official in New Delhi told IANS that 53 percent voting has been recorded till 3 p.m., a poll official in Lucknow put the turnout at 52 per cent till this time.

The highest turnout was seen in Aligarh (55.85 per cent), Mathura (55.42 per cent), Etah (55.01 per cent) and Meerut (55 per cent), followed by Bulandshahr (54.51 per cent), Baghpat and Muzaffarnagar (both 54 percent). All had overtaken Taj city Agra which had initially led the turnout figures in the first few hours after polling began at 7 p.m. but only registered 51.74 per cent by 3 p.m.

Hathras recorded 50 per cent, Shamli 53 and Kasganj 51.17 per cent, while Noida and Ghaziabad adjoining the national capital recorded 49 per cent and 50.42 per cent respectively.

The least turnout was witnessed in Firozabad - 40.80 per cent by 3 p.m.

At many places, polling was disrupted or delayed due to technical snags in EVMs, said an official, adding that by and large voting was smooth and steady at most places.

Sporadic incidents of poll violence were reported from some places. Clashes between activists of the ruling Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party were reported from two places.

The largest constituency in this phase, as per population, is Sahibabad in Ghaziabad and the smallest is Jalesar in Etah.

There are 26,822 polling centres for over two crore voters in this phase of polling, for which 839 candidates, including Pankaj Singh, the son of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, were in the fray.

--IANS

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Child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, whose Nobel Prize citation was stolen among other things, said on Saturday that he was deeply pained by the "unfortunate incident" and added that the theft has strengthened his resolve to continue working for the cause of children.

"When me and my wife came back this morning from our Latin American tour, we saw our belongings lying scattered. This pained us a lot. When we left home everything was safe and I considered that my Nobel citation was lying safe with the people of India but this unfortunate incident happened," Satyarthi told reporters here.

"No such attack can deter me from my resolve. Even in the past I have faced such attacks. In fact, after this incident my resolve will further be strengthened," he added.

Satyarthi was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 with Pakistani child rights activist Malaila Yousufzai.

He is the founder of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), which is dedicated to battling child labour and rehabilitating rescued former child workers.

Dubbing the incident of theft as "shameful", Satyarthi said that the Nobel citation was a national treasurer and it was the responsibilty of the society and the country to keep it safe.

"Obviously, those who have stolen this citation, would be from the country. They should understand their responsibilty towards the country. I appeal them to return it as the citation would inspire the future generations of the country," Satyarthi said.

The burglary took place on the night of February 7 in Alakananda, south Delhi.

At the time of incident, Satyarthi and his wife were attending the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Colombia.

He hoped that police would understand the importance of the citation and would leave no stone unturned to recover it.

This is the second instance of theft of a Nobel memorabilia in India.

The country's first Nobel winner, Rabindranath Tagore's medallion along with 47 other pieces memorabilia were stolen from Rabindra Bhawan at Santiniketan in West Bengal.

The theft came to light on March 25, 2004. The investigation was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation but the case remains unsolved.

Satyarthi also expressed his pain over the theft of his wife's ornaments, saying it was given to his wife by his mother.

"My mother had bought these gold ornaments by selling her all her silver jewellry and savings. I had bought two lockers. One for the ornaments and another for the citation but unfortunately these were broken," he said.

Satyarthi also said that he and her wife were having dinner with the President of Panama, when he got to know about the incident.

"But I didn't tell anyone because it's not good to say that the national pride was stolen," he said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Jill Locantore

Around 2:00 am on Sunday January 15th earlier this year, Christian McDonald walked onto Blake Street in downtown Denver, just west of 16th Street, and stood facing oncoming traffic. Its impossible to know what Christian may have been thinking. The police officer who investigated the crash indicated that Christian had a history of mental illness that may have caused him to act erratically. Was he aware of the cars swerving around him? Did he understand the danger he was in? Well never know, because eventually someone driving a black BMW hit and killed Christian, who was 39 years old. The driver then sped off without stopping to check on him or call the police.

Its tempting to conclude there is nothing we, as a community, could do to prevent another tragedy like this from happening in the future. Whether intentional or otherwise, people sometimes do risky things and suffer the consequences. In fact, human behavior is a contributing factor in the vast majority of fatal traffic crashes. We can wage educational campaigns admonishing people to be more cautious, but we cant change the fundamental fact that humans are fallible. Sometimes people have health problems (e.g., suffer a stroke while driving, or become disoriented due to stress or mental illness), become distracted (e.g., the kids are fighting in the back seat), do dumb things (e.g., dash across an 8-lane road against a red light to catch a bus before it leaves), or simply make mistakes (e.g., forget to check for pedestrians in the crosswalk before turning left).

But if we start with the assumption that people will, inevitably, make mistakes, can we design a forgiving transportation system that prevents those mistakes from resulting in tragedy? Consider the major improvements to vehicle safety over the years. People who drive cars with airbags are no less likely to crash than people driving cars without airbags. But airbags significantly reduce the chances a crash will be fatal. So whats the equivalent of airbags for pedestrians?
Haryana Police said on Saturday it has arrested three people for an armed bank robbery in Gurugram and recovered about 30 kg stolen gold, firearms and ammunition from them.

A police spokesman said that some unidentified persons carrying firearms stole gold weighing 33 kg and Rs 7.80 lakh in cash from Manappuram Finance Bank on New Railway Road, Gurugram on February 9.

They also injured employees and customers of the bank.

A case was registered under Sections 395 and 397 of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act at Civil Lines police station in Gurugram.

"While the Special Investigation Team (SIT) arrested three accused, namely Hoshiar Singh, Vikas Gupta and Bijender from Sector 29, Gurugram, another accused, Devender, was arrested from Ahmedabad," the spokesman said.

"At least 829 pouches of gold and some loose pouches, weighing about 30 kg, were recovered from their possession. Police also recovered two pistols and four rounds of ammunition from them," he added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Russia is considering turning over as a "gift" to US President Donald Trump who had said the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower deserves to be executed for being a spy, according to a senior American intelligence official.

The official made the remark after analysing a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations and who said a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to "curry favour" with Trump, NBC News reported.

However, Snowden's American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer, Ben Wizner, said that they were unaware of any plans that would send him back to the US.

"Team Snowden has received no such signals and has no new reason for concern," Wizner said.

Snowden responded to NBC's report on Twitter and said it shows that he did not work with the Russian government.

"Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intelligence," Snowden said, adding, "No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next."

The White House had no comment, but the Justice Department told NBC News that it would welcome the return of Snowden, who currently faces federal charges that carry a minimum of 30 years in prison.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said talks about returning Snowden is "nonsense".

If he were returned to the US, Snowden  a divisive figure in America who is seen by some as a hero and as treasonous  would face an administration that has condemned him in the strongest terms.

"I think he's a total traitor and I would deal with him harshly," Trump said in July. "And if I were President, Putin would give him over."

In October 2013, Trump tweeted: "Snowden is a spy who should be executed".

Snowden was working as a contractor at an NSA facility in Hawaii when he began stealing top-secret documents that he gave to journalists in 2013, exposing details of US domestic surveillance programmes.

After Snowden fled to Hong Kong and was charged with violating the US Espionage Act, he ended up in Russia. Moscow granted him refuge and his residency permit was extended until 2020.
AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala on Saturday sought an appointment with Tamil Nadu Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao along with all legislators supporting her.

In a letter to Rao, copies of which were issued to the media, Sasikala said acting Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam has resigned from his post and the same was accepted by the Governor a week ago.

"...taking the urgency of the situation at hand, I would like to seek an appointment with Your Excellency by today with all MLAs (Members of Legislative Assembly) who extended their support to me regarding further course of action to form the Government," Sasikala told Rao.

"I believe Your Excellency will act immediately to save the Sovereignty of the Constitution, democracy and the interest of the State," the letter notes.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Saudi Arabian security forces arrested more than 10 terror suspects on Saturday during raids in Jeddah and Madinah, local media reported.

The raids took place as part of the preemptive operations to prevent terror plots. No official confirmation was made by the Interior Ministry yet, although the portal confirmed the confiscations of guns and sharp objects with the arrestees, Xinhua reported.

Last month, Saudi Arabia arrested 16 terrorists, including three Saudis and 10 Pakistanis during similar raids in Jeddah, while two extremists were killed by the police.

Saudi Arabia has been engaged in a war against terrorism for years, especially the Islamic State militant group.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Delhi Police arrested three drug traffickers of two interstate modules here in two separate incidents, police said on Saturday.

The accused have been identified as Uchenne, 28, a native of Nigeria, Ajay, 33, and Naresh Kumar, 39, both of whom are residents of Delhi.

According to police, 170 gm cocaine and 590 gm fine quality heroin, valued at Rs 2 crore in international market, was recovered from the arrested persons.

"They were arrested by police teams, while they were going to supply cocaine and other drugs to their contacts on Friday night at Dwarka intersection and Vikas Nagar separately," Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tamil Nadu Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao will take a decision on the new Tamil Nadu Chief Minister only after detailed deliberations, Minister of State for Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan said on Saturday.

Radhakrishnan, a BJP member of the Lok Sabha from Tamil Nadu also said the situation is not like "a game of card where one can deal a card soon after picking a new one".

Speaking to reporters here, Radhakrishnan said: "The Governor cannot take a decision in haste. He has to take into various aspects before."

The ruling AIADMK now has two divisions -- one led by party General Secretary V.K. Sasikala and the other under acting Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam.

Sasikala has already submitted documents electing her as the leader of legislature party and staked her claim to form the government.

Prior to that, Panneerselvam had alleged that Sasikala had forced him to resign.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump agreeing to "One China Policy" signals that he is learning about his role in the realm of Sino-US ties and does not want to be a disruptor, a Chinese newspaper has said.

An editorial in Global Times, which came after Trump on a phone call assured his counterpart Xi Jinping that the US respects One China Policy, said: "The change creates an impression that Trump is learning about his role in the realm of Sino-US ties. He's now sending a new message that he does not want to be a disruptor of the Sino-US relations."

"Since assuming office, Trump and his team have changed their rhetoric about China. Trump has stopped openly challenging China's core interests, and instead showed respect to Beijing," the paper said.

Trump on Friday spoke to Xi, saying the US would adhere to "One China Policy," marking a shift in his earlier stand, which challenged Beijing's claim to self-ruled island Taiwan.

After his election, Trump spoke to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen, breaking the US protocall maintained since 1979. This angered China.

Further, the US President said "One China Policy" was negotiable, infuriating China.

"This phone call between the top leaders is a sign that some confusion in the relationship has been sorted out at the current stage. The Sino-US ties have, after a little shiver, returned to where they are supposed to stand." the editorial said.

"Uncertainties still loom but they will be about specific interests. The Sino-US relations will continue to move forward under the complicated framework where cooperation and frictions coexist."

"Before assuming office, Trump gave an impression that a trade war between the two countries was around the corner. The communications between the two countries since Trump came to power were not high profile but have now proven to be effective."

"It's always better for China and the US, the world's No.1 and No.2 economies, to resolve their differences through dialogue rather than conflict. Neither country should try to break the other side's bottom line."

"In terms of national strength, the US is more powerful than China. However the US has broader interests around the globe and some of its interests extend close to China's area of core interest. This has led to a special type of balance in East Asia, especially in areas around China, where China's strength and resolution to defend its core interests matches with that of the US."

"The phone call between Xi and Trump marks the beginning of a new stage of diplomatic interactions between the top leaders. There are many unresolved issues that need to be addressed."

"When facing difficulty, neither country should act impetuously. They should know that even if some problems cannot be removed like a rock, when the time comes, they can be submerged under the river of history."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump said that drafting a new executive order is one of the options he was considering in response to a court ruling blocking his January 27 measure barring citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations, the media reported.

On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a restraining order issued on February 3 by a district judge in Seattle, Efe news reported.

"We will win that battle. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order," Trump told the media Friday aboard Air Force One.

When a journalist asked if issuing a new executive order would be the best option, the President replied: "It very well could be. We need speed for reasons of security, so it very well could be."

Trump had addressed the issue earlieron Friday during a joint press conference with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"We'll be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country. You'll be seeing that sometime next week," the president said.

Trump's original order mandated a temporary pause in admission of refugees, a 90-day prohibition on entry by residents of Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen, and an indefinite suspension of admission of Syrian refugees.

The administration can ask for a review of the panel's decision by the full 9th Circuit, or it can seek intervention by the US Supreme Court, which is still one short of its normal complement of nine members, creating the possibility of a 4-4 deadlock.

A tie in the Supreme Court would allow the appellate ruling to stand.

The White House said that the executive order was meant to provide time to develop a procedure for "extreme vetting" of Muslims seeking to enter the US, something Trump proposed during the presidential campaign after his initial call for an outright Muslim ban drew criticism from across the political spectrum.

Roughly 1,000 State Department career employees have signed a memo denouncing the executive order.

The Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Washington, has pointed out that since at least 1975, no terrorist attacks have been carried out on US soil by nationals of the seven nations affected by the visa suspension.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Organised crime groups trying to dig tunnels across the border between the US and Mexico is a sign of the effectiveness of the frontier wall as well as the personnel guarding it, said the new US Homeland Security Secretary.

Secretary John Kelly's visit coincided with the discovery of an under-construction tunnel in the neighbouring Mexican city of Tijuana, after which he told reporters tight border security was forcing criminal organisations to take recourse to such methods to transfer drugs, Efe news reported.

"I would argue the fact they (drug cartels) are spending huge amounts of money to tunnel underneath the wall tells you they can't get through it," Kelly said, adding it signals the barrier, and the people who patrol it, are very effective, at a press briefing that followed his meeting with local, state and federal authorities in San Diego.

The secretary visited the California border as part of a tour of the whole region bordering Mexico, which began last week in Texas and took him to Arizona on Thursday.

Kelly reiterated the aim of the tour was to hold a dialogue with law enforcement agencies in a bid to know what resources are needed to facilitate their work.

He added that relations between US border agencies and their Mexican counterparts are good and said he will continue cementing such relations.

On routine inspections by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in southern California - leading to the arrest of 160 undocumented individuals - the official said he was personally present at a couple of such operations early Friday where he witnessed the professionalism of the border personnel first-hand.

He also reiterated his remarks at his confirmation hearing, saying ICE, like the rest of the agencies forming the Department of Homeland Security, are bound to enforce compliance with law.

However, hours before Kelly's visit to the port of entry, San Diego immigrant rights defence organisations said they had not been able to secure a meeting with the secretary during his stay in the area.

Having failed to secure a meeting, Enrique Morones, founder of rights group Border Angels, said a meeting with different organisations is necessary for authorities to know the "reality of the border, and hear views from the other side", and not just the negative ones.

Another activist from the Southern Borders Community Coalition, stressed that border security is something that impacts the daily lives of people in the region, and that instead of militarising and building walls that separate, it was important to invest and revitalise the communities.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh(UP) Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday appealed to the people to cast their ballots in the first phase of state assembly polls.

"Today (Saturday) is the first phase of poll in Uttar Pradesh. All the voters must participate in the grand festival of democracy and cast their vote in huge number," Modi tweeted.

Akhilesh Yadav also appealed people to "vote for development" and said: "Be a part of Uttar Pradesh's development. Vote for development."

Over two crore voters are exercising their voting rights for 73 seats spread across 15 districts.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje will on Sunday inaugurate a Vipra Business Summit here, attended by over 1,000 industrialists, entrepreneurs, professionals and experts.

The summit will also see the establishment of the Vipra Chamber of Commerce and Industries (VCCI), which is aimed at strengthening the Brahmans in business, industrial and economic front, said a media statement.

The Vipra Foundation said that the Vipra Business Summit, "Sarv Utkarsh", will see workshops on several contemporary issues including those related to start ups.

"The VCCI is being established to strengthen Brahmans in business, industrial and economic front, which will not only bring the budding entrepreneurs on one platform and work towards community uplift, but also seek guidance and help from the top industrialist and businessmen for enhancing the employment opportunity for the youth," the foundation said.

It said that VCCI mobile app will also be launched to provide business connectivity and networking among the members.

Vipra foundation is an NGO working towards national integrity, social harmony and uplift of the community.

--IANS

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In a sharp reaction to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's warning to Congressmen that he had prepared dossiers on them, Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday warned that even he had the "horoscopes" of both Modi and BJP President Amit Shah.

"Everybody who is born has a 'janam patrika' (horoscope). The PM must not forget this. Even we have his and Amit Shah's 'janam kundli'. Have they forgotten how they survived after the Godhra communal carnage? It was because my late father, Bal Thackeray stood solidly behind them," he said.

Interacting with a select group of senior media persons at his residence 'Matoshri' here, Thackeray spoke on a wide range of issues, including relations with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its ally in both Maharashtra and the centre, though he unilaterally snapped ties on January 26.

Criticising Modi, Thackeray said that "never before has any Indian Prime Minster stooped to such levels" in .

"All he does is mock and ridicule leaders of other parties but now people are tired of this. During the 2014 Maharashtra assembly elections, he addressed 27 rallies in this state. So I demanded he should come here even for the BMC elections," he said.

Alleging that they (BJP leaders) are "liars, who are not interesting in anything but grabbing power", Thackeray said this was the reason he decided to break the alliance with the BJP for the civic polls and would henceforth fight all elections independently.

Asked how the Shiv Sena continued with the ruling alliance in centre and Maharashtra, he countered: "Have they asked us to get out? If they don't like us, they can leave. But they are stuck. We will decide our future course after the civic elections here."

He recalled how, with the blessings of people like his late father Bal Thackeray and late BJP leaders Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Munde, the alliance between the two parties was finalized and it grew from strength to strength.

"At that time, my father decided that to prevent a split in the Hindu votes, the BJP would concentrate at the central level and Shiv Sena at the state level. It worked fine. But, now, the BJP wants to grab everything - the centre, state, civic bodiesa and all else," he said.

Looking back at the past few years, it would have been much better if the Shiv Sena had gone alone, as it would have emerged into a major national political force in the past 25 years, he said.

Touching on allegations by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on transparency in administration and a corruption-free government, Thackeray sarcastically said first he should look within and at his own partymen.

"All the ministers facing allegations of corruption in Maharashtra belong to the BJP. Not a single Shiv Sena minister is facing similar charges of graft," he said.

On the issue of transparency, he said the Union government has declared last week that the administration of BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation is the country's most transparent, adding the Sena already has "complete transparency" in the civic body where all major decisions of the Standing Committee are taken in the presence of officials, opposition leaders and even media.

"We are talking of such high levels of transparency. Why can't the BJP do the same at the state or centre? The Leaders of Opposition enjoy a cabinet status, so they should be invited to cabinet meetings along with the media," Thackeray said.

"When everything was done so transparently, with the media witness to the decisions, how can the BJP accuse Shiv Sena of corruption or malpractice?" he asked.

Asked whether the war with BJP has entered a new dimension with his party praising the Congress, Thackeray said the good work they did cannot be ignored.

"There's no question of praising the Congress. I was only appreciating the good work they have done all these years. Indira Gandhi had the guts to break Pakistan, for instance... What has the BJP done, except the 'surgical strike' on the borders," he said.

Asked to list the achievements of the Modi government in the past 33 months, Thackeray smiled smugly: "They have survived for so long on lies... That's an achievement ! And they will continue doing so for the remaining 27 months."

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at q.najmi@ians.in)

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actor Rana Daggubati delivers an important speech towards the end of forthcoming Telugu-Hindi bilingual drama "Ghazi". He says he felt intensely patriotic while delivering these lines.

A sneak peek of the speech can be seen in the film's trailer.

"We wanted the speech to be highly inspiring and emotional. It comes out of the character's strength at that crucial moment, and I felt intensely patriotic delivering those lines. I credit the script writer for writing such brilliant, powerful and short lines, as passionate as the entire team wanted," Rana told IANS.

The film, which is slated for release on February 17 in both the languages, is based on the mysterious sinking of PNS Ghazi submarine during the 1971 war between India and Pakistan.

Rana plays Lt. Commander Arjun Varma in the movie.

Directed by debutant Sankalp, and co-starring Taapsee Pannu, Atul Kulkarni and Kay Kay Menon, the film is partially based on the book "Blue Fish", penned by the director himself.

The story is about an executive naval officer of the Indian submarine S21 and his team who remain underwater for 18 days.

The film also stars Nassar and late actor Om Puri in a pivotal role.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As support for rival O Panneerselvam continued to grow, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) General Secretary V K Sasikala on Saturday sought an appointment with Governor C Vidyasagar Rao. She said her camp would be patient for some time and then "do what needs to be done".

Speaking to Jaya TV, Sasikala said she believes in democracy and justice and maintaining patience.

"Only to some extent we can be patient. After that we altogether would do what needs to be done," she said.

She said the party is like an iron fort and cannot be shaken by anybody.

Sasikala said the party has a cadre strength of 1.5 crore and those who try to divide the party would lose.

She also said that there is nothing for her to fear.

Her remarks came after she sought an appointment with Governor Rao along with all legislators supporting her.

In a letter to Rao, copies of which were issued to the media, Sasikala said acting Chief Minister O Panneerselvam has resigned from his post and the same was accepted by the Governor a week ago.

"...taking the urgency of the situation at hand, I would like to seek an appointment with Your Excellency by today with all MLAs (Members of Legislative Assembly) who extended their support to me regarding further course of action to form the Government," Sasikala told Rao.

"I believe Your Excellency will act immediately to save the Sovereignty of the Constitution, democracy and the interest of the State," the letter notes.

Panneerselvam revolted against Sasikala on Tuesday night alleging that he was forced to resign as Chief Minister to pave the way for Sasikala to occupy that chair.

Subsequently, a state minister, five legislators, one sitting MP, party old-timers, former legislators and others have started expressing their support to Panneerselvam.

The ruling now has two clear divisions  one led by Sasikala and the other under Panneerselvam.

Sasikala has already submitted documents electing her as the leader of legislature party and staked her claim to form the government.
Tamil Nadus caretaker chief minister, O Panneerselvam, on Saturday received support from K Pandiarajan, the states education minister, and C Ponnaiyan, a senior All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) leader, as the partys general secretary Sasikala met MLAs at a private resort near Chennai to further her claim to the chief ministers post.
With the political crisis in Tamil Nadu escalating, the Chennai police force has stepped up patrolling in the city and is conducting checks on public places and vehicles.
Last month, Chief Minister was on a visit to Jagdalpur, the divisional headquarters of restive Bastar. As his cavalcade entered the main road of the city, a poster put up by a vigilante group called Samajik Ekta Manch (also called Action Group for Integrity or AGNI) drew his attention: Stop supporting the rights activists.
Around 54 per cent voters exercised their franchise till 4 PM in 73 assembly constituencies in the first of the seven-phase UP polls, with some stray incidents reported from Baghpat and Meerut.

Official sources that said barring reports of election slips being snatched at some places leading to pelting of stones and clashes, polling was going on peacefully.

The turn out was estimated at around 54 per cent till now, they said.

A total of 2.60 crore voters, including over 1.17 crore women and 1,508 belonging to third gender category are eligible to cast their ballot to decide the fate of 839 candidates.

A report from Baghpat said that members of different communities clashed in Baghu colony in the city when one side tried stop the other from casting their votes.

In the clash, ten persons were injured and admitted to hospital, police said.

In another incident in Baghpat, Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) workers obstructed Dalit voters from casting their vote in Looyan village under Badaut area, leading to clash and FIR was lodged against three party workers.

In Meerut, controversial BJP leader Sangeet Som's brother Gagan Som was detained by police for carrying a pistol inside a polling booth.

Gagan reached the polling booth in Sardhana Assembly seat at 9 AM. The security personnel deployed there frisked him and found a pistol in his possession. He was immediately detained, police said.

Officials said that as per the poll code, those possessing licensed weapons are required to deposit them with the police. The permission to keep arms is granted in special cases only.

Sangeet is the sitting MLA from Sardhana and had shot to limelight for his controversial speeches during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.

The first phase of polling will decide the electoral fortunes of son of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Pankaj Singh (from Noida), Congress Legislature Party leader Pradeep Mathur (Mathura) against whom BJP spokesman Srikant Sharma is in the fray, daughter of BJP MP Hukum Singh Mriganka Singh (Kairana), and controversial BJP MLAs Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana from Sardhana and Thanabhawan respectively.

Former BJP state president Lakshmikant Bajpai (Meerut), RJD chief Lalu Prasad's son-in-law Rahul Singh (SP) from Sikandarabad, and Sandeep Singh, grandson of Rajasthan Govenor Kalyan Singh from Atrauli are among other key figures in this phase.

The districts where polling is on in this phase are Hapur, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras, Agra, Firozabad, Etah and Kasganj.

In the 73 constituencies where polling is being held today, SP and BSP had bagged 24 seats each, BJP 11, RLD nine and Congress five seats in the 2012 polls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With the Navy ruling out deploying indigenously built Light Combat Aircraft Tejas on its aircraft carriers, Aeronautical Development Agency today said it was restricted only to Mark I which was a technology demonstrator and pinned hopes on Mark II for use by the Navy.

ADA Director C D Balaji said he believed that the December 3 statement by Navy Chief that the aircraft was overweight and therefore would not be useful for the services was restricted to LCA Navy Mark I.

"...We knew (it) was a heavier platform upfront and it was basically a technology demonstrator and that is how it is intended," he said.

ADA is the nodal agency for the design and development of the LCA.

Stating that in 2009 it was recognised by the Cabinet Committee that it would be a technology demonstrator, he said "...I basically presume that there is an immediate need for Navy and therefore they have basically sent out an RFI (Request for Information) for 57 aircraft based on the situation."



In December Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba had said the "present LCA does not meet the carrier capability required by the Navy", following which the Navy has launched an RFA to procure 57 multi-role combat aircraft for its carrier.

Pointing out that the number of testings that are going on from last year or so, Balaji said "....We will convert this project into a product and that will happen once we do an arrested recovery (by mid of this year), the moment we do that we will carry the learning into Mark II which has already been designed."



Once the product was available, the user would take it." So I think we have to deal with CNS's statement towards the Mark I as rejected...," he said.

Balaji was speaking to reporters at the curtain raiser of 11th biennial Aero India International Seminar to be held from Feb 12 to 14, here, as a prelude to the eleventh edition of the Aero India Aerospace Exposition from February 14 to 18.

Defence Research and Development Organisation Chairman S Christopher said "we have levels of R&D development, particularly when we are doing technology development.

"Whatever has been spoken is for Mark I, the Mark II programme still exists. As far as the government of India is concerned Indigenous efforts are supported fully," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With the induction of more Dreamliners to its fleet this year, national carrier Air India is planning to start more direct international flights, including one from Kolkata," AI Chairman and Managing Director Ashwani Lohani said here today.

After an internal meeting at the AI Headquarter here, Lohani said that "Air India is set to enhance its connectivity in the Eastern Region from its summer schedule starting in a phased manner from March-end this year."



The national carrier would launch a thrice-a-week Kolkata-Bangkok flight operated by the state-of-the-art Airbus A320 Neo aircraft in May.

Air India would also reinstate the day-return Kolkata-Bangalore flight in addition to the existing flight to Bangalore from the city.

"The AI, which is set to induct 34 aircraft this year, is on an expansion mode driven by its policy 'Fly More Fill More' directly connecting Delhi with Washington shortly and also launching a Dreamliner flight to Copenhagen later in the year.

Besides, Air India would start a flight from Mumbai to Guwahati and from Mumbai to Ranchi and start a service on the Delhi-Guwahati-Dibrugarh sector, Lohani said.

"This will be in addition to the already existing flight from Delhi to Guwahati. This flight will also link Dibrugarh for the first time with the capital," he said adding that also on the anvil was a second Kolkata to Hyderabad flight via Bhubaneswar.

Recently, Air India Express had launched services to Singapore and Dhaka from Kolkata. Operations to the Northeast have also been strengthened with the commencement of point to point operations from Kolkata to Imphal and from Kolkata to Aizwal as well as between Kolkata and Dimapur and Dibrugarh.

Air India, along with its subsidiary Alliance Air, has also been connecting Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities to boost regional connectivity within the country, Lohani said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Amid his high-voltage campaigning for the Mumbai civic polls, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray today sought to assert his legitimacy in calling the shots in the party's prime political space, invoking the legacy of his late father and party founder Bal Thackeray.

"...Yes, I am. I definitely am the boss being (late) Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray's son. Even they (BJP) have to accept that I am the boss as I also head a powerful organisation. But, these (BJP leaders) are the people who can merely level allegations, but have no worth," Thackeray said in the second part of his interview in Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana'.

He alleged that the BJP-led governments in Maharashtra and at the Centre only tried to constantly pull the Sena's leg, instead of supporting it in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

"All this is being done with political motives. Only if they stop pulling our leg all the time, it will be a big support to us," Thackeray said.

The strained relations of the Sena and the BJP, despite being partners in governance in the state and at the Centre, have hit a new low after they broke ties for the civic polls in Maharashtra, scheduled for later this month.

Thackeray also said the work on the grand memorial of Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, to be built off the Mumbai coast, will not take off till the required clearances were granted by the Centre for the Coastal Road project.

"Chhatrapati Shivaji is revered not only in the state but across the country. Do not deceive him for ulterior political motives. How will you get the stones required for the memorial project unless you give permission for the Coastal Road project? How will you take forward the memorial project which was promised to the people?" he asked.

Thackeray's assertion, however, drew flak from the Congress, with a state unit leader of the party saying it betrayed an undemocratic mindset.

Reacting to Thackeray's 'boss' remark, Maharashtra Congress secretary Al Nasser Zakaria said there was no boss in democracy where the common man was supreme.

"This is an example of naked abuse of power. There are no bosses in democracy. Law is equal for everybody but the common man is supreme. How can a party chief talk about forming a government on their own strength?" he asked.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Popular Ukrainian writer Serhiy Zhadan said today he had been detained in ex-Soviet Belarus and ordered to leave on the basis of a Russian entry ban for "involvement in terrorism".

Zhadan, an acclaimed novelist and poet whose books have been widely translated, wrote on Facebook that Belarusian police told him Russia had barred him in 2015.

Belarus has a border agreement with neighbouring Russia, but Ukrainian citizens can visit either country without a visa.

The writer took part in pro-European protests that led to the ouster of Ukraine's Moscow-backed president in 2014 and was beaten up by pro-Russian activists.

Zhadan said Belarusian police -- working with the feared KGB special forces -- entered his hotel room as he slept at around 2 am on Saturday and took him into custody.

"It turns out that back in 2015 they banned me from entering Russia... For 'involvement in terrorist activity'," Zhadan said.

"Since Belarus and Kazakhstan are in the same visa zone -- unluckily for me -- the ban automatically applies to Belarus and Kazakhstan," he added.

Belarusian media published a photograph of Zhadan holding his passport with a stamp saying he is banned from entering Belarus and must leave by Sunday. It gives no expiry date for the ban.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded to a request for comment from AFP by saying this should be directed "to the relevant authorities".

Iryna Gerashchenko, deputy speaker of Ukraine's parliament, wrote on Facebook that Kiev's foreign ministry was aware of the situation.

"This is a real disgrace," she said.

Zhadan, 42, lives in Kharkiv in the Kiev-controlled part of eastern Ukraine. He grew up in the Lugansk region now partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

He supports the Ukrainian forces fighting the rebels, has visited the conflict zone and has raised funds to help those living in the war-torn area.

His novels have won numerous European prizes and the New Yorker in 2014 called him "Ukraine's most famous counterculture writer".

He had flown into Minsk to attend a poetry festival, and wrote on Facebook that he visited Belarus last year without any problems.

Belarus has been led by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994.

Russia's FSB security service this month ordered tougher restrictions along its frontier with Belarus, angering Lukashenko.

This came after Minsk said it was scrapping visas for short-term visits by citizens of 80 states from February 9.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
BJP today won three graduate constituencies in the Legislative Council elections in Uttar Pradesh, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi terming it an indication of things to come in the state.

BJP won the Kanpur, Bareilly-Moradabad and Gorakhpur- Faizabad MLC graduate constituencies, the results of which were declared today.

Expressing happiness over the results, Modi said in Badaun, "This is an indication of things to come."



"In one month's time new government will be formed in the state...Things have started to change with the MLC results, of which three have gone in favour of BJP...Had BJP lost it would have been breaking in the media," he said, adding that it shows how strong the wave is in favour of BJP.

Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said he was "extremely happy at the resounding victory" of the BJP candidates in three MLC graduates constituencies.

"It is a clear indication of the mood of the people and I am sure that the same trend will be reflected in the ongoing Assembly elections all over that state," he said.

While Jaipal Singh Vyasth retained the Bareilly-Moradabad constituency with a majority of 25,000 votes, Arun Pathak won the Kanpur MLC constituency by a margin of 9,000 votes. The Gorakhpur-Faizabad seat was wrested from SP by Devendra Pratap Singh.

Pathak credited his victory to the party's policies and development work.

Naidu said the victory reflects the "overwhelming popularity" of the Prime Minister and the support of the people for his drive against corruption and black money through demonetisation.

"It is also a clear endorsement of various pro-poor, pro- farmer and pro-women welfare schemes and other developmental initiatives launched by the NDA government during the last two-and-half-years," he said.

Congratulating the three victorious BJP candidates, Naidu said, "I'm sure this would create a positive impact in the rest of Uttar Pradesh where people are fed up with the misrule of Samajwadi Party."



"Despite its desperate, last minute alliance with Congress, the people in that state will clearly reject this opportunistic combination and support BJP for the all-round development of Uttar Pradesh," he added.

Polling for the Legislative Council seats from graduates constituency was held on February 3. Counting began yesterday and concluded this morning.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The BJP has won the graduate MLC seat from Kanpur while an independent candidate clinched the teacher MLC seat here.

BJP candidate Arun Pathak managed to secure 40,633 votes votes, defeating his independent rival Manvendra Swarup, whose family held the position for 99 years, by 9154 votes.

Pathak credited his victory to the party's policies and development work.

Meanwhile, in the Kanpur Nagar, Kanpur Dehat and Unnao seats, Raj Bahadur Chandel defeated Hemraj Gaud by 708 votes.

Chandel registered 4283 votes, while Gaud managed to get 3575 votes.

Polling for the Legislative Council was held on February 3. Counting began yesterday and concluded today morning.

Kanpur, Unnao and Kanpur Dehat districts recorded a total of 1,34,711 voters for the graduate MLC seat, while 18,707 teachers participated in the polling for the teacher MLC seat.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a boost to O Panneerselvam camp, an MLA and three MPs of AIADMK today joined him after deserting V K Sasikala who met the legislators supporting her and threatened to hold protests tomorrow against the delay in swearing her in as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

MLA and School Education Minister K Pandiarajan as also MPs P R Sundaram, K Ashok Kumar and Satyabama switched over to the Chief Minister's camp, pledging their support to him, amid mounting pressure from the party cadres and apparent public sentiment.

In the evening, party veteran, spokesman and minister in the MGR Cabinet C Ponnaiyan also drove to Panneerselvam's residence and offered his support.

After these switchovers, Panneerselvam camp now has seven MLAs, including him. In the 235-member Tamil Nadu Assembly, AIADMK has 135 MLAs.

A former minister M M Rajendra Prasad also joined the Chief Minister's camp.

Rattled by the desertions, Sasikala, who has been elected the Leader of the AIADMK Legislature Party on February 5, drove to the luxury resort, 100 km from here, in an attempt to prevent the MLAs who have been put up there for the last three days from switching sides.

K A Sengottaiyan, who was appointed the presidium chairman after the removal of Madhusudhanan, told reporters after Sasikala's meeting with the MLAs that all of them have taken a pledge that they will back her to the hilt till she becomes Chief Minister.

Kept on wait, Sasikala tonight said, "We were patient, tomorrow we will protest."



Earlier in the day, she wrote a letter to Governor Vidyasagar Rao, asking him to take steps immediately to swear her in at the earliest. She said she was ready to parade the party MLAs supporting her before him.

She told him she had on Thursday submitted an "elaborate presentation to invite me to form the government as I have absolute majority," besides the original letter and true copy of the resolution electing her as the AIADMK Legislature party leader.

Sasikala said she believed that the Governor would "act immediately to save the sovereignty of the Constitution, democracy and the interest" of Tamil Nadu.

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A Chinese soldier, who was stuck in India for over 50 years after he crossed over the border post 1962 war, today arrived in Beijing with his Indian family members to an emotional reunion with hisChinese kin.

Wang Qi, 77, was received by his close Chinese relatives, besides officials of the China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Indian embassy when he arrived here along with his son, daughter-in-law and grand daughter from Delhi-Beijing flight.

Wang became emotional as he hugged his relatives, their first reunion after he crossed into Indian side over five decades ago.

"It was an emotional reunion," an official present at the airport told PTI here.

Wang was accompanied by his son Vishnu Wang, 35, daughter-in-law Neha and grand daughter, Khanak Wang. His Indian wife Shushila, however, stayed back.

Indian officials said Wang and family members will be later flown to Xian, the provincial capital in Shaanxi province from where he will be taken to his native village Xue Zhai Nan Cun in the province.

His return became a possibility after India and China worked out modalities for both Wang and his Indian family to travel together to China and later return as per their wish.

Wang was caught when he entered the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962.

After his release from prison in 1969, he settled in Tirodi village of Balaghat district in Madhya Pradesh.

Though his story has been published by Indian media several times in the past, a recent BBCTV feature on him was widely picked by the Chinese social media highlighting his plight, prompting the Chinese government to initiate action in coordination with India to facilitate his return.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on February 6 that he was provided a passport to travel to China in 2013 and he was also paid a living allowance.

Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui recently spoke to him.

While the Chinese government has provided visas for his family to visit China, India has provided a re-entry visa for Wang to return back if he chooses to.

Indian officials terms the facilitation of the travel of Wang and his family by both sides s positive development, specially at a time when India-China relations were stuck with differences over issues like China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China blocking India's entry into Nuclear Suppliers Group and listing of JeM leader Masood Azhar as terrorist by UN.

Before leaving for Beijing, Vishnu told media in India yesterday that"my father joined the Chinese Army in 1960 and he entered India through the eastern frontier after losing his way in the darkness one night."



He landed in Assam where an Indian Red Cross team handed him over to the Indian Army on January 1, 1963.

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today met Leader of Opposition Abdul Manan, who fell ill in the Assembly while being evicted earlier this week, at a city hospital where he is under treatment.

Banerjee along with two ministers met Manan and inquired about his health and wished him a speedy recovery.

"Mananda is recovering fast after successful installation of pace maker. Due to the scuffle he had fallen ill and was admitted to the hospital. Later on he was shifted to a super specialty hospital for better cardiac treatment," senior Congress leaders Amitabha Chakraborty said.

Manan was hospitalised on February 8 after he had taken ill while being evicted by the marshall from the House which witnessed a scuffle between Congress MLAs and security staff.

He was suspended by Speaker Biman Banerjee as he continued his protests against the government for bringing West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order (Amendment) Bill, 2017 and termed it as "black law" while refusing to heed to the Speaker who asked him to wait for discussions on it.

As soon as he was suspended, Mannan sat in the well of the House and the marshalls tried to forcibly evict him, leading to a scuffle between them and Congress members. The Congress leader fell sick during the scuffle and was taken to a hospital.

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Former Samajwadi Party MP Atiq Ahmed was today arrested in connection with the recent assault on staff members of an agriculture institute on the outskirts of the city.

The arrest comes a day after the Allahabad High Court had rapped the district police for its failure to nab the mafia don-turned-politician, even after a month of the lodging of the FIR.

"Ahmed was arrested at the Naini police station where he had gone this afternoon to give his statement in connection with the FIR lodged by employees of SHIATS agriculture institute in December last year," Additional SP (trans-Yamuna) Allahabad Ashok Kumar Rai said.

"He was arrested and produced before a magistrate before being sent to jail", the Additonal SP added.

Ahmed, along with a number of supporters, was named in the FIR lodged after staff members of the institute had been allegedly beaten up by the former Phulpur MP and his aides on December 14 on being prevented from forcibly entering the premises.

Yesterday, a Division Bench headed by Chief Justice D B Bhosle had come down heavily on the police for its failure to arrest Ahmed and summoned his criminal history besides ordering that all accused in the case be arrested by the next date of hearing in the matter on Monday, February 13.

The court had warned the police that it might consider handing over the probe in the matter to "some other agency" if Ahmed was not arrested at the earliest.

Upon being told that the former Phulpur MP had moved a surrender application before the court of Special Chief Judicial Magistrate of Allahabad, the court had made it clear that if he wished to surrender he must do so "before this (High) court and no other".

The High Court was hearing a petition filed by the institute's employeesrequesting directions to the administration for providing them with adequate security.

Taking a grim view of the situation, the court had yesterday also declined a request from the institute's proctor to withdraw the petition and said "if you do not wish to pursue the matter, we will treat it as a Public Interest Litigation and proceed suo motu".

Named in a number of serious offences, most notable of these being the murder of BSP MLA Raju Pal in 2005, Ahmed was offered a Samajwadi Party ticket from Kanpur Cantt assembly seat by the then state (Uttar Pradesh) party chief Shivpal Yadav.

His candidature was, however, strongly opposed by Chief



Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who took a tough stance against those with a criminal history.

When the CM emerged as the party's de facto leader after a bitter family feud which left SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Shivpal isolated, Ahmed announced his "decision to withdraw in deference to Akhilesh".

Meanwhile, welcoming Ahmed's arrest as "a development which will lessen fear in the minds of the people during elections", the BJP lambasted the ruling SP in the state, squarely blaming it for "inordinate delay in arrest of an accused which forced the court to intervene".

"I am contesting from Allahabad (West) which Ahmed has represented for a record five times. Although it has been long since he was the local MLA, his terror seems to weigh heavily on people's minds, especially on account of the blatant patronage he received by the party in power in the state. Now the electorate can vote without fear", BJP national secretary Siddharth Nath Singh said.
Stressing the need to develop the mindset to go digital, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathy Raju today said only through modernisation the country will benefit and dreamscan be materialised. In his inaugural address at the second 'Digi Dhan Mela' in Kerala here to create awareness on various digital payment options, he said here 'We need to, as people, develop the mindset to become digital'.

"If we look at the economies throughout the world, India is a country where cash was used most as liquid form of transactions," he said.

Pointing that Kerala was already cent per cent Aadhar complaint and every family had bank account, he said there "is need to modernise to get the dreams of our future materialised. It is in the interest of all to modernise and the country will benefit," he said.

In his special address, Minister of state for External Affairs, M J Akbar, said the digital technology was going to be led increasingly by women and it gave them economicempowerment which they never had. "A revolution is happening in the country despite a profusion of skeptics. Today also the country is pock marked by people who are regressive, particularly a political party which is a champion of regression," he said. Technology does not belong to any particular religion, caste or language and was a means to develop all. "It is a great unifier," he said.

Stating that all cash was not black money, but all black money was cash, he said only one per cent of Indians pay income tax.

"It is the rich who have refused to honour their obligation to the poor... Tax is a legitimate transfer of wealth from those who have to those who do not have," he said. Thanks to demonetisation, banks have money which would help in its utilisation for various anti-poverty programmes of the government, he said.

Kerala IT Secretary M Sivsankar was among others who addressed the gathering.

The Union Ministry of Information of Information Technology organised the mela in association with the Kerala State Electronics and IT department.

All stakeholders--Banks, Public sector oil companies, telecom companies were among those who took part.

The event is aimed at familiarising various digital payment systems, including mobile wallets, to the citizens through real time transactions.

The 'DigiDhan Abhiyan' aims to cover two lakh common service centres (CSCs) across rural areas and enable them to become digital financial education centres, it was stated.

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Union Minister of State for Labour Bandaru Dattatreya would inaugurate a 100-bed ESIC Hospital at Ankleshwar, about 100 km from here, on February 13.

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani would be the chief guest on the occasion, an official press release said.

The Employees' State Insurance Corporation has built the hospital at the cost of Rs 90 crore.

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Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Union's powerful executive Commission, said he would not seek a second term when his tenure expires in 2019.

"It was a fine election campaign" in 2014, Juncker told Deutschlandfunk radio, according to extracts of an interview that will be broadcast today.

"But there won't be a second one, because I won't be putting myself forward as a candidate for a second time."



He also admitted to fearing that Britain's negotiations to leave the European Union could open up splits in the bloc.

"The British are going to succeed, without too much difficulty, to divide the 27 other EU countries," he said.

"The British know very well how to achieve this," he added. "You promise one thing to state A, another to state B and something else to state C and you end up with no united European front."



Germany's influential Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week that European leaders may commit to a union of "different speeds" when they make a major declaration on its future at a summit in Rome next month.

Juncker, 62, a conservative former prime minister of Luxembourg, took office on November 1 2014 after a long spell at the helm of the Eurogroup, gathering ministers of countries which share the euro.

Presidents of the Commission are appointed for a five-year term, which is renewable once.

The post is elected by the European Parliament, on a proposal by the European Council, which comprises heads of state or government.

Juncker was chosen despite fierce objections by Britain, which regarded him as too federalist.

In other comments, Juncker urged the 27 EU countries -- the entire bloc minus Britain, which wants to leave -- to face its challenges with strength and unity, but admitted to "serious doubts" that its members shared the same goals.

"Has the time come for when the European Union of the 27 must show unity, cohesion and coherence?" he asked.

"Yes, I say yes, when it comes to Brexit and (US President Donald) Trump... But I have some justified doubts that it will really happen.

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A group of Libyan militias entered the capital Tripoli this week and said they were creating a "Libyan National Guard", to the alarm of the country's unity government and Washington.

The Libyan capital has been controlled by dozens of militias with shifting loyalties and territories since the overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

On Thursday, Mahmud Zagal, a militia commander from Misrata, announced the creation of the "Libyan National Guard", saying it would stay out of "political, party and tribal disputes".

It aims to continue the fight against the Islamic State jihadist group, secure state institutions and diplomatic missions, he said in a statement.

It did not say whether or not it would support Libya's UN-backed Government of National Accord, which has struggled to assert its authority across Libya or even control the capital.

A GNA source said today that most of the groups involved had taken part in a seven-month battle to oust IS from its stronghold of Sirte, which fell in December.

Misrata's well-armed militias, which control much of western Libya, led the fight but say the GNA stopped supporting them after Sirte fell.

"They now feel marginalised and are looking for support," the source said, asking to remain anonymous.

Misrata's powerful militias, which led the fight, control much of western Libya.

GNA officials met today with the group's leaders "to attempt to find a solution", the source said.

Several locals said the militias included backers of Khalifa Ghweil, the leader of a self-proclaimed "Government of National Salvation" which in January tried and failed to seize three government ministries in the Libyan capital.

The United States said yesterday it had noted with "serious concern reports that numerous tactical vehicles from an organisation claiming to be the 'Libyan National Guard' have entered Tripoli".

"This deployment has the potential to further destabilise the already fragile security situation in Tripoli," it said.

It said Libya should work to build "a unified national military force under civilian command that is capable of providing security for all Libyans and combating terrorist groups."



The development adds to the chaos that has rocked Libya since Kadhafi's fall.

It also weakens the GNA, which has been unable to establish its authority despite its efforts to create a "Presidential Guard" to secure state institutions and diplomatic missions.

Formed in March last year, the unity government faces hostility from a rival authority based in the east of the country, which refuses to recognise its authority.

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In a first, people gathered today at the National Police Memorial here to pay the first musical tribute to the over 36,000 police and paramilitary personnel who laid down their lives in the line of duty to safeguard the internal security of the country.

Neatly dressed brass and pipe bands, troops dressed in ceremonial regalia and caparisoned camels of the country's largest border guarding force BSF lined up to deliver a befitting and the first band display and retreat ceremony to pay homage to the fallen trooper in 'khaki' and its various camouflage uniforms donned by these men and women.

Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju, while officiating as the chief guest at the maiden event, called it a "historic day" to honour the martyred men and women of the central and state police forces as he said that these brave hearts should never be forgotten.

The ceremony, that started with the national anthem, saw Border Security Force bands playing patriotic tunes as part of the musical tribute and they followed it up with martial music to the delight of the top brass of central police forces and few of those from the general public.

Band songs like 'ye desh hai veer jawano ka...', 'mere desh ki dharti...' and 'kadam kadam badhaye ja...' filled the atmosphere at the memorial, located in central Delhi's Chanakyapuri, with an air of patriotism and solemn proud for lakhs of these men and women who not only guard India's borders but also protect the hinterland, day and night.

The hour-long event came to an end with the bringing down of the national flag in the iconic military retreat fashion even as a number of people paid their tributes and salutes to the large memorial built in the memory of the fallen troops.

Senior officials from paramilitary forces, Home Ministry and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) paid floral tributes at the memorial before the retreat ceremony began.

A senior official said the event has been planned to reach the common public with the stories of these brave men and women and also so that they get to know more about the unsung heroes of these central forces and state police units who render their duties in the harshest of terrains and with the most difficult work hours.

While the first event today was hosted and conducted by the BSF, the Union Home Ministry has mandated that all the central forces will take charge to undertake the same every month, one after the other.

There is also a proposal to invite state police bands to conduct this event.

The ceremony will be held every Saturday evening, starting at 5:00 PM in winters, and is open for the public.

Apart from the state police forces, the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) comprising the BSF, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), National Security Guard (NSG), and the Delhi Police.

There are about 8 lakh personnel serving in these forces under the command of the Home Ministry.

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Five medical representatives were killed when their vehicle fell into a gorge in Kangra district, police said today.

The ill-fated Toyota Fortuner plunged 400 feet into a deep gorge at Dopan near Barot on border of Mandi and Kangra districts last night.

All five bodies have been recovered. Four of the deceased have been identified as Amar Singh and Ajay Kashyap from Mandi district, Amit Sharma from Hamirpur and Rohit Sibbal from Ghaziabad. Efforts to identify the fifth victim are still on, police said.

The bodies have been sent for post-mortem and relatives of the victims have been informed.

A case has been registered and investigation is in progress to ascertain the cause of the accident, police said.

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A former LTTE leader in Sri Lanka today floated a new political party to press for all Tamil issues as he accused the main party representing the minority community of not doing enough for the Tamils.

Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan alias Karuna formed the Tamil United People's Front in the eastern town of Batticaloa.

The Tamil United People's Front (TUPF) was formed with the objective of pressing for all Tamil issues, Muralitharan told reporters.

He accused the main Tamil party Tamil National Alliance (TNA) of not doing enough for the Tamils.

"It was us in the LTTE who created the TNA," he said.

Muralitharan's break away from the LTTE in 2004 had weakened its eastern recruitment and fighting capability.

Soon after leaving the LTTE he had formed Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP).

Later, when the civil war ended in 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE, he joined President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2010 and became Vice President of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the second largest national party.

Muralitharan was later made a deputy minister in the Rajapaksa government. After Rajapaksa's defeat, he left the SLFP.

Late last month, he appeared publicly with Rajapaksa again by attending the Joint Opposition rally.

He is currently on bail after having being remanded over misappropriation of state vehicles.

The Lankan troops defeated the LTTE which was fighting for an independent state for minority ethnic Tamils.

According to a 2011 report by the UN, about 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final weeks of the civil war.

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In a bid to supply generic medicines to people, Tripura State Co-operative Marketing Federation Limited (Tripura Markfed) and Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India (BPPI) have decided to open counters in all government run hospitals in the state.

"The decision to open counters in all government hospitals in the state for supplying generic medicines among common people was taken yesterday in a joint meeting of Tripura Markfed and BPPI. We welcome this decision because common people would be able to buy medicines at much cheaper rates than commercial medicine shops," State Cooperative Minister, Khagendra Jamatatiya told reporters today.

The task to run the stores for selling generic medicine was entrusted to Markfed and BPPI under Jana Aushadhi Sangsthan scheme, he said.

Generic medicines are now available in eight hospitals of the state and 16 new shops would be opened in the same number of hospitals by March this year.

"Markfed is now selling medicines worth Rs 20 lakh a month from eight counters. The commercial value of these medicines from branded pharmaceuticals cost about Rs 2.5 crore," he added.

BPPI was established on in December 2008 comprising all pharma CPSUs under the Department of Pharmaceuticals. It co-ordinates marketing of generic drugs through Jan Aushadhi stores.

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The nephew of Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh was cremated today, a day after he succumbed to injuries sustained from being run over by a car.

Akansh Sen died of his injuries at PGI, Chandigarh yesterday. He was cremated at his native place at Kuthar in Solan district, 75 kms from here.

His body was brought here from Chandigarh by his father Arun Sen, the CM's brother-in-law.

Akansh was admitted to hospital after being hit by a car.

He was run over by a luxury car on Thursday after an altercation broke out between the car occupants and one of the victim's friends.

A large number of people including the chief minister, his cabinet colleagues and senior officers of the state government and other relatives were also present on the occasion.

Irrigation and Public Health Minister Vidya Stokes also visited Kuthar and expressed her deep sympathies with the bereaved family members.

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India today successfully tested its interceptor missile off the Odisha coast, achieving a milestone in developing a two-layered Ballistic Missile Defence system.

The country has entered an exclusive club of four nations with developing capabilities to secure its skies and cities against hostile threats, an official statement said after the test in which an incoming ballistic missile was intercepted by an exo-atmospheric interceptor missile off the Bay of Bengal.

With this commendable scientific achievement, India has crossed an important milestone in building its overall capability towards enhanced security against incoming ballistic missile threats.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parikkar lauded the efforts of the DRDO and all the scientists.

The interceptor was launched from Abdul Kalam Island (Wheeler Island) of ITR at about 7.45 AM, a Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) official said adding that the mission, termed as "PDV mission is for engaging the targets in the exo-atmosphere region at an altitude above 50 kilometer of earth's atmosphere."



"Both, the PDV interceptor and the two-stage target missile, were successfully engaged," he said.

The target was developed mimicking a hostile ballistic missile approaching from more than 2,000 km away launched from a ship anchored in the Bay of Bengal.

In an automated operation, radar based detection and tracking system detected and tracked the enemy's ballistic missile.

The computer network with the help of data received from radars predicted the trajectory of the incoming Ballistic Missile.

PDV that was kept fully ready, took-off once the computer system gave the necessary command. The Interceptor guided by high accuracy Inertial Navigation System (INS) supported by a Redundant Micro Navigation System moved towards the estimated point of the interception.

Once the missile crossed the atmosphere, the Heat Shield ejected and the IR Seeker dome opened to look at the Target location as designated by the Mission Computer.

With the help of Inertial Guidance and IR Seeker, the missile moved for interception. All events were monitored in real-time by the Telemetry/Range Stations at various other locations, the statement added.

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Hundreds of passengers were evacuated safely from an Iraqi Airways plane today after a wheel caught fire on landing in Saudi Arabia, Saudi state media said.

Emergency crews evacuated 356 passengers "in record time without any casualties", the official Saudi Press Agency said.

The aircraft was landing at King Abdulaziz International Airport in the Red Sea city of Jeddah when fire broke out on one of the wheels, the agency said.

SPA said the captain radioed the control tower to report the problem and fire crews rushed to the aircraft to extinguish the flames.

It said the fire was "limited" in scope.

The airport, one of the Saudi kingdom's busiest, is a key gateway for millions of Muslims who visit for the yearly hajj and for minor umrah pilgrimages to Islam's holiest cites in Mecca and Medina.

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Union minister Jitendra Singh today called for a thorough probe into the "antecedents" of Rohingya Muslims and Bangladeshi settlers in Jammu and Kashmir.

"There is a need for a probe into the antecedents of these settlers in Jammu and Kashmir," he told reporters here after a function.

The Union Minister of State in the PMO also pointed towards the habitations of Bangladeshis and migrants from Myanmar in Jammu and said there was a need to inquire the reason behind their stay here.

"Why some people, who have vested interests, have not objected to their stay in Jammu while continuously raising questions on the issuance of identity cards to West Pakistani refugees," Singh said, adding, "I think, they want a demographic change in the state by supporting these foreigners staying here."



Addressing a public meeting, the Union minister said all the major road projects for Kathua, Udhampur districts and the erstwhile Doda district have been cleared to receive Central funds under the Central Road Fund (CRF), Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and Union Ministry of Defence/Border Road Organisation (BRO) fund.

He also laid foundation stones for road projects under PMGSY in Kathua and Hiranagar Assembly segments.

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Two juveniles have been apprehended for allegedly breaking into a church, destroying the Holy Cross and decamping with the donation money at Rohini in north west Delhi, police said today.

"The incident took place yesterday and was captured in a CCTV camera installed in an adjoining school. Two juveniles were apprehended on the basis of the CCTV footage," Sanjay Singh, joint commissioner of police (Northern Range), said.

The juveniles aged 17 years live in a village in Rohini Sector 3 and had carried out a recee before committing the crime, a police official said.

The police said that the accused broke the glass panes, the Holy Cross and other items at St Basil church apart from emptying the donation box.

The matter was reported by Father George Kurian Thomas who discovered the theft when he came for prayers, they said.

According to police, a case of theft in a religious place was registered and 10 teams were formed to apprehend the accused.

The police officials, however, ruled out any communal angle behind the incident.

The duo has confessed that they committed the crime for money and there was nothing communal behind their act, police said.

In view of the incident, SHOs have been asked to step up the vigil around churches and PCR vans directed to regularly patrol areas.

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Kerala state Chalachitra Academy today paid tributes to renowned actor Om Puri, by screening three of the films of the late actor here.

The actor, who gave countless memorable performances in movies of diverse genres, died at his residence in Mumbai on January 6 after a massive heart attack at the age of 66.

The film festival was opened by Kerala State Film Development Corporation chairman, Lenin Rajendran. 'Ardha Satya', 'Akrosh' and Malayalam film 'Puravrutham', in which puri had essayed a memorable role, were unveiled at the festival.

Academy chairman Kamal, Vice Chairman, Bina Paul, were among those present.

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A team of Maharashtra police's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has detained a man here on suspicion in a case registered under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, city police said today.

Zadil Pervez, resident of Khijrabad Colony here, was taken into custody by the Maharashtra ATS yesterday, Khajrana police station in-charge Kamlesh Sharma said.

Zadil was allegedly in contact through Facebook with one Tabrez from Thane in Maharashtra who is the main accused in the UAPA case, Sharma said.

Zadil hails from neighbouring Ujjain district and was living with relatives in Khijrabad Colony for the last two months, he said.

Zadil's brother Aamil was among the 13 SIMI activists arrested from Shyam Nagar here on March 26-27, 2008, with weapons and other objectionable material.

Local police were also probing Zadil's activities, Sharma added.

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A 37-year-old Mexican woman living in Texas was sentenced to eight years in prison for voting illegally in elections in 2012 and 2014.

Rosa Maria Ortega was found guilty on Wednesday on two counts of illegal voting after she falsely claimed to be a United States citizen and voted at least five times between 2012 and 2014.

A jury sentenced her Thursday to eight years in prison and a USD 5,000 fine.

Ortega, a permanent resident and a mother of four who lives outside Dallas had voted in five elections before her registration was cancelled in April 2015.

Ortega's identity came into question after she tried to register to vote twice in Tarrant County. Both applications were denied.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton - for whom Ortega voted in 2014 - assisted in the prosecution.

"This case shows how serious Texas is about keeping its elections secure, and the outcome sends a message that violators of the state's election law will be prosecuted to the fullest," he said.

Ortega was born in Monterrey, Mexico and brought to the US by her mother as an infant. More than a decade later, her mother was deported and Ortega became a permanent resident.

In her defense, Ortega testified that she didn't understand the differences between the rights granted to citizens and the rights granted to legal residents.

"My mom just used us to get stamps. She never gave us love or guidance. She got deported," she said.

"All my life since I worked, I always on my knowledge thought I was a US citizen because I never knew the difference of US citizen and US resident. And the point is if I knew, everything would've been the correct way.

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Mexico's government is warning its citizens to "take precautions" amid the "new reality" in the United States, after an undocumented mother was deported to her home country.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos was sent back to Mexico on Thursday, a day after she checked in for a routine visit at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Phoenix, Arizona.

A 35-year-old mother of two US-born children, her deportation sparked protests outside the immigration office, according to US media.

"The case of Mrs Garcia de Rayos highlights the new reality that the Mexican community is experiencing in US territory with the stricter application of migration control measures," the Mexican foreign ministry said in a statement late Thursday.

"For this reason, the entire Mexican community is invited to take precautions and keep contact with its closest consulates to receive the necessary help to face this type of situation."



US President Donald Trump signed executive orders last month to build a wall along the US-Mexico border and speed up the removal of immigrants living illegally in the country.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto canceled a White House visit over Trump's insistence that his country will pay for the wall.

Pena Nieto also pledged $50 million to his country's consulates in the United States to increase legal assistance to Mexicans living in the northern neighbour.

The foreign ministry's statement said the consulates have "intensified their work to protect fellow nationals in anticipation the tightening of migration measures by authorities of this (US) country, as well as possible violations to constitutional precepts during such operations or absence of due process.

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An accused in the Rs 3700 crore online trading fraud case has told the police that his company had planned a tour of Australia for 150 distributors which also included sky-diving, officials said today.

UPSTF ASP Triveni Singh said the Special Investigation Team had carried a search of Ablaze's Ghaziabad office, and seized 32 CPUs, bank drafts worth Rs 7 crore from the premises. The search was carried out following a detailed interrogation of the accused.

Documents of a villa at JP Greens, a commercial property in Greater Noida and 36 passports were also seized, Triveni said.

The company's director Abhinav Mittal, who is one of the accused, told the team that these passports belonged to the diamond and gold distributors.

The company has planned a 6 night and 7 day tour of Australia for 150 such distributors as a promotional tour to motivate them, starting from March 13 to 19, he said.

The tour included plans for sky-diving as they wanted to create a new record in Guinness book. Company CEO Sridhar had contacted a Pune-based tour operator and given them a cheque of Rs 3 crore as advance payment, Triveni added.

Three persons were arrested on February 1 in connection with the scam under which nearly seven lakh people had been duped on the pretext of getting money in lieu of clicking on specific links.

District court had granted their custody to the police from February 9 to 14.

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A decision by Pakistan to deport Turkish employees of Pak-Turk Schools forced some of them o to seek UN protection due to fear of persecution back home in Turkey, a media report said today.

Pak-Turk schools were run by a foundation linked to Fethullah Gulen and Pakistan government was asked by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to close them or hand over control to his nominated people after the failed coup in Turkey in July 2016.

Pakistan handed over the administration of schools to a new organisation close to Turkish government and refused to extend visas of Turkish employees of the schools, leaving them with no choice but to leave.

Dawn newspaper said that as many as 108 the Turkish employees of these schools along with their families opted to seek United Nations' (UN) protection instead going back.

It reported that these individuals had requested the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, that they be resettled in a country other than Turkey after Pakistan ordered to deport them.

The applicants had told UNHCR they feared arrest, coercion and torture by the Erdogan government in Turkey in case the Pakistani government forcibly deported them to Istanbul.

A spokesman for the UNHCR confirmed that the affectees will stay in UN protection until November 2017 and that efforts are underway to resettle them in another country.

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The Palestinians condemned as "blatant discrimination" today Washington's decision to block the appointment of their former prime minister Salam Fayyad as UN peace envoy to Libya.

UN chief Antonio Guterres nominated Fayyad to the post on Thursday and the Security Council had been expected to approve his appointment without objections.

But late yesterday, US ambassador Nikki Haley announced she was blocking the appointment because "for too long, the UN has been unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel."



Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi dismissed the "flimsy excuse" for a move she described as "unconscionable."



"Blocking the appointment of Dr Salam Fayyad is a case of blatant discrimination on the basis of national identity," she said.

Fayyad, 64, was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013, and also served as finance minister twice.

He had been tapped to replace Martin Kobler of Germany, who has been the Libya envoy since November 2015.

US President Donald Trump and Haley have criticised the United Nations for adopting a resolution in December that demanded an end to Israeli settlement building.

"Going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies," Haley said yesterday.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi today slammed Uttarakhand's Congress government, accusing it of lacking political will for development, and urged the electorate to vote for BJP for the state's growth.

Addressing a rally here, he said Uttarakhand has huge potential in tourism and industries sectors capable of generating maximum employment and it needs an honest government to tap that.

He again invoked former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee during whose tenure the state was created, saying he had tried to develop the state but he faced difficulties.

"I have been there for two-and-a-half years trying to do something for the state but those in power here are interested only in saving their chair. They are not interested in development," Modi said at his election rally here in the state's industrial belt.

Reminding people of the grand vision Vajpayee had for the state at the time of its creation 16 years back, he asked people to install a BJP government in the state and give the party a chance to serve them.

He said a "double engine", with his government at the Centre and a BJP government in the state, alone can pull the state out of the pit of its woes.

The state would not feel the dearth of anything if BJP comes to power in Uttarakhand, the Prime Minister said.

Exulting over the BJP winning three Council seats of Goarakhpur, Bareilly and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Modi said it is a pointer to what is going to happen in Uttarakhand.

"The unimaginably huge crowds at Rudrapur where people from all over the country reside making it a veritable mini- India are an indication which way the winds are blowing," he said to loud cheers from the crowds.

Describing Uttarakhand as the land of brave soldiers,



Modi referred to the surgical strikes and made a veiled attack on Congress in that context.

He said, "Will you tolerate a party in power which asked for evidence of a rare military operation like the surgical strikes in which our forces inflicted heavy damage after penetrating into enemy territory? Wasn't it an insult to our soldiers? Wasn't it an insult to our country's strengths?"



On the occasion, the Prime Minister shared with people the about successful testing of an interceptor missile which can hit an incoming ballistic missile at a height of 150 km in the air.

He termed it as a significant milestone and congratulated the scientists for it while noting that it was a feat achieved by only 4-5 countries in the world.

It was an achievement which should make every Indian proud but there are political parties which may once again ask for a proof of this, he said.

Asking people to look upon demonetisation as his campaign against corruption and black money, he said he was fighting for the honest people, the poor and the middle classes.

"It is not small businessmen who have looted the country. They would perhaps lead an honest life if they don't have to oil the palms of bureaucrats. It is the 'babus' and the politicians who have looted the country and I will force them to cough up the money they have looted," Modi said.

He asserted that he had waged a battle against the corrupt and no one can stop him from taking the fight to its logical conclusion.

He asked people of the state to extend their co-operation to him in giving them an honest government which determines their future by building the Rs 12000 crore all-weather 'char dham' roads project which will link four major Hindu pilgrimage centres of the state with proper roads.

It will give tourism a big boost besides generating maximum employment for people of the state, he said.

Modi also spoke of the interest generated in yoga all over the world by the Centre's promotional efforts and the growing interest of people all over the world to come to Uttarakhand to learn yoga.

He said industrialisation of Rudrapur was a contribution of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and he wanted to give it a further boost.

Asserting that he would not shy away from taking any



tough measures to cut down to size those who have looted the country's money, the Prime Minister said stringent rules have been made for those owning benami properties with a minimum punishment of 7 years in prison if proved guilty.

"They are my next target and action against them has already begun," he said.

Making an indirect reference to the sting video in which Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat is purportedly seen negotiating a bribery deal to buy the support of disgruntled MLAs, Modi said it was time people of the state got rid of "bahubali" politicians who are not shy of talking about monetary exchanges even in front of the camera.
Political parties including Ramadoss-led PMK and the CPI today said a solution has to be found for the ongoing political crisis in Tamil Nadu as "administration has come to a standstill."



"A political crisis has taken place in Tamil Nadu as the Governor (CH Vidyasagar Rao) is unable to take a decision. It has led to the state administration coming to a standstill. It is unfortunate that Tamil Nadu is undergoing a critical situation," Ramadoss said in a statement.

Referring to the recently concluded Assembly session, he said several draft bills, including one on NEET, that would benefit the state were passed.

"Such bills need to get the approval from President (Pranab Mukherjee) and only a stable government can handle it," he said.

He said several files have been pending in government departments due to the ongoing "political uncertainity" and added a solution has to be found to end the crisis.

CPI Tamil Nadu unit General Secretary R Mutharasan said it was the governor's duty to form a government which proves its majority in the Assembly.

"Any delay in formation of a government will impede democracy," he said.

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Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat today objected to the checking of his helicopter for unaccounted cash during campaigning in Haldwani and alleged he was being harassed at the behest of the Centre.

In a complaint to the Chief Election Commissioner, Rawat said why only his helicopter was being checked "when BJP leaders from New Delhi were bringing money in their choppers to distribute it among party candidates".

Taking exception to the "special treatment" being meted out by the Commission to BJP central leaders, Rawat alleged he was being harassed on the direction of his influential political adversaries based in Delhi.

Rawat's chopper was checked in Haldwani yesterday by the administration apparently to find out if unaccounted cash was being carried in it.

Accusing BJP of having pumped Rs 2,000 crore into the elections so far, Rawat said the poll panel should subject everyone to equal treatment howsoever important they may be.

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At least 12 people, including four members of a family, have been killed and eight others injured in three separate road accidents in Pakistan's Balochistan province, a media report said today.

In the first incident, four members of a family, including a woman, were crushed to death when a passenger bus rammed into their car near Surgaz area of Mastung district.

The car was on its way to Kirdgab from Quetta when a bus crashed into it yesterday, killing all the passengers in the car. The bodies were shifted to District Hospital Mastung and were later handed over to the heirs, officials said.

Six passengers died on the spot and four others sustained serious injuries when a truck hit a passenger vehicle near Surab area of Kalat district, 'The Express Tribune' reported.

The injured and the deceased were shifted to the government hospital in Surab.

Meanwhile, in a separate accident, two women were killed and four others injured when a truck collided with a car near Saranan area of Qila Abdullah district yesterday.

The car carrying six people was on its way to Quetta from Chaman when it was hit by a truck near Saranan area, the report quoted security officials as saying.

Two women traveling in the car died on the spot, while four others sustained injuries, it said.

The injured and the deceased were shifted to district hospital Qila Abdullah. A case has been registered against the truck driver and investigations are under way, officials said.

Road accidents are common in Pakistan due to poorly maintained roads, violation of safety rules and reckless driving.

According to data compiled by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, over 9,000 road accidents are reported every year, killing 4,500 people on average in the country.

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A Japanese national was found dead in his hotel room in Rajarhat area of North 24 Parganas, police said today.

Hori Masanori (66), was found dead in his room in a five star Hotel in Rajarhat area last night rpt last night and police have launched an investigation into the case



"He had checked in to the hotel on February 8. During initial investigation it was known that he was an electrical engineer and had come to Kolkata from Ranchi. His body has been sent for post mortem," a senior police official said.

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Russian warplanes are using Iran's airspace to carry out airstrikes in Syria, an Iranian official said today.

"The fact that they (Russian bombers) use Iranian airspace continues because we have total strategic cooperation with Russia," Admiral Ali Shamkhani told the Fars agency.

Shamkhani is secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and Tehran's coordinator of political, security and military actions with Russia.

"The use of Iranian airspace by Russian aircraft is made subject to a joint decision, taking into account the need... to fight terrorism," he told the IRNA agency.

He said Russian planes had not recently needed to land in Iran for re-supply.

Russian fighter bombers first used an Iranian military base in August 2016 to attack jihadist positions in Syria.

Iran and Russia are closely cooperating in Syria and provide political, financial and military backing to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Tehran has sent military advisors and "volunteer" fighters to support the Syrian military in its fight against rebel and jihadist groups.

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A day after Shiv Sena praised former Congress Prime Ministers, including Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam today said that since the Uddhav Thackeray-led party knows that it would lose the upcoming BMC polls, it is trying to woo the Congress.

Nirupam also attacked the Sena over the issue of graft in the cash-rich Mumbai civic body, saying that if voted to power, the Congress would launch an inquiry to expose corruption and send the offenders to jail.

"Shiv Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' is coming out with articles praising former Congress Prime Ministers. I want to clear that we do not need any sort of certificate from the Shiv Sena and I promise to you all that when we come to the power in BMC, we will book those people, be it engineers, contractors, politicians and their mastermind, who indulged in corruption. We will not spare anyone," Nirupam told reporters here.

Shiv Sena, in its editorial in 'Saamana' yesterday praised the contribution of former Congress Prime Ministers, including Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh for their contribution.

"Shiv Sena knows that it is going to lose the BMC polls and hence trying to woo the Congress now. Sena has left Mumbai in dire straits. There are scams everywhere in BMC like, road scam, desilting scam, dumping ground scam, tab scam, sewerage scam," he added.

"The present state government is just conducting inquiries and only few engineers and contractors have been booked so far, but their masterminds have been conveniently left out," the former MP from North Mumbai alleged.

On the Sena-BJP's political slugfest, Nirupam said both the parties would pay a price of this "political drama".

"Despite being partners in the government, both of them have brought the level of politics down. Each party is blaming the other, calling it a party of goondas (hooligans) and mafia. What is Modiji doing? If Shiv Sena is so corrupt and a party of goondas and bribe-seekers, then why he is still taking that party's support in the state," Nirupam asked.

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For Seychelles Vice President Vincent Meriton, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) is an event that gives people "the hope to live by putting art at the centre of life".

Among a host of high-ranking officials and foreign representatives to visit the ongoing third edition of the Biennale over the past week, Meriton spent time looking at the exhibits at primary venue Aspinwall House in Fort Kochi on Thursday, organisers of KMB said today.

"The Biennale puts art at the centre of life, something that one would have never thought was possible. The event allows us to dwell not only within the realms and mind spaces of the artist, but of everybody who visits this space.

"We need hope to appreciate each other irrespective of the boundaries and differences between us. And this festival keeps our hopes alive," Meriton is quoted as saying a release here.

He noted that he was especially moved by Chilean poet Raul Zurita's installation 'Sea of Pain' and Hungarian artist Istvan Csakany's 'Ghost Keeping'.

"Through hopelessness and hope, these works shed light on the cries of the souls who have departed, which are being represented by those who are left behind. It also conveys that while modernisation has helped a lot, we have also lost a lot. The work conveys that we should keep our humanity even when we are chasing profits," Meriton added.

The list of visiting dignitaries include Australian High Commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu, Belgian diplomat Ilse Dauwe and Sultan Saif Al-Mahrouqi, a government representative of the Sultanate of Oman.

"I am very impressed by the collection of artworks at the Biennale, which demonstrates how exciting the Indian art scene is at the moment. Australia has been participating in the event since its inception and this year we have three artists from Australia.

"Events like the Biennale give us a platform for the exchange of arts and culture, which is very important because we get to understand each other much better and more deeply," a KMB release quoting Sidhu said.

Al-Mahrouqi said that he saw the Biennale as representational of the cosmopolitan nature of "Indian civilisation" and expressed his admiration for choosing to the host the event in venues and sitesthat are of great historical importance.

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The SHO of Phagwara city station was sent to police lines for allegedly misbehaving with a woman and taking her along with her children to police station without any lady constable accompanying them.

Phagwara City SHO Nirmal Singh yesterday allegedly misbehaved with the woman, manhandled her and pushed her and her two children into his official vehicle and illegally took them to police station, police said.

A video had also gone viral on social media, purportedly showing Singh misbehaving with and bundling the woman and her children into his vehicle.

Following a report by Phagwara S P Harwinder Singh Sandhu, who recommended disciplinary action against Singh for the "indiscreet act", Kapurthala SSP Alka Meena yesterday dispatched the SHO to police lines, declaring that thorough investigation into the incident will follow.

Sandhu had sent the report after Congress activists, led by senior Congress leader and party's nominee from Phagwara Joginder Singh Mann, had staged a dharna outside SP's office last evening demanding action against the SHO.

Even a faction of BJP, led by Phagwara Block President Pankaj Chawla, had supported the protest.

Protesters alleged that Singh had raided the house of Vivek Chadha in Hadiabad sub-town yesterday.

Not finding Chadha at home, he allegedly misbehaved with his wife, manhandled her and pushed her minor son and daughter into his official vehicle and illegally took them to police station.

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Tunisian security forces have broken up a six-member "terrorist cell" who had been recruiting people to fight with jihadist groups abroad, the interior ministry said today.

A statement said the six were arrested yesterday in the Monastir region in the east of the North African country.

The suspects, aged between 19 and 51, admitted being in contact with Islamic State group jihadists in neighbouring Libya and recruiting Tunisians to fight in Syria, it said.

The six also said that they themselves had undergone clandestine "military" training "with the aim of joining jihadist groups abroad", it added.

According to the United Nations, more than 5,500 Tunisians, mostly aged between 18 and 35, have joined jihadist organisations in conflict-riddled Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Mali.

The Tunisian authorities put the number at nearly 3,000.

Last month, parliament voted to set up a commission of inquiry into "jihadist channels" and their recruitment.

Since the 2011 Tunisian revolution that sparked the Arab Spring, the country has experienced a rise in jihadist activity that has killed more than 100 soldiers and police, some 20 civilians and also 59 foreign tourists.

Authorities have cracked down on extremists since a November 2015 attack in central Tunis killed 12 members of the presidential guard and a March 2016 jihadist attack on the town of Ben Guerdane near the border with Libya.

There has also been a state of emergency in force continuously since the end of 2015.

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US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has vowed to work together to strengthen the relationship between the two countries in defence, strategic ties and agreed to make their bilateral trade more fair.

"We are committed to the security of Japan and all areas under its administrative control and to further strengthening our very crucial alliance. The US-Japan alliance is the cornerstone of peace and stability in the Pacific region," Trump told reporters at a joint conference with the visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at White House yesterday.

Following a Oval Office meeting between the two leaders Trump insisted that it is important that both Japan and the US continue to invest very heavily in the alliance to build up their defence and capabilities which, under their mutual leadership, will become stronger and stronger, and as time goes by, ultimately they will be impenetrable.

Trump said the two countries face numerous challenges and bilateral cooperation is essential to address them.

"We will work together to promote our shared interests, of which we have many, in the region, including freedom from navigation and of navigation and defending against the North Korean missile and nuclear threat, both of which I consider a very, very high priority," Trump said.

"On the economy, we will seek a trading relationship that is free, fair and reciprocal, benefiting both of our countries. The vibrant exchange between us is a true blessing. Japan is a proud nation with a rich history and culture and the American people have profound respect for your country and its traditions," Trump said.

Abe, speaking through translator, congratulated Trump on being elected as the US President.

"The mutually beneficial economic relations have been built by Japan and the US," he said.

With Trump taking on the leadership, Abe said major scale infrastructure investments will be made, including the high-speed train.

Japanese bullet trains are known for their speed, and safety, he said ,adding that "With the latest magnetic technology from Washington, DC up to New York where Trump Tower exists, only one hour would it take if you ride the bullet train from Washington, DC to New York".

Japan, with high level of technical capability will be able to contribute to Trump's growth strategy, he said.

The two leaders in a joint statement announced a three-pronged approach of mutually-reinforcing fiscal, monetary, and structural policies to strengthen domestic and global economic demand.

Trump and Abe discussed opportunities and challenges facing each of their economies and the need to promote inclusive growth and prosperity in their countries, the Asia-Pacific region, and the world.

"They emphasised they remain fully committed to strengthening the economic relationships between their two countries and across the region, based on rules for free and fair trade," the joint statement said.

"This will include setting high trade and investment



standards, reducing market barriers, and enhancing opportunities for economic and job growth in the Asia-Pacific," the joint statement said.

Trump and Abe affirmed the commitment of the US and Japan to the realignment of US forces in Japan, to ensure the long-term, sustainable presence of US forces, it said.

They also confirmed that Article V of the US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security covers the Senkaku Islands.

"They oppose any unilateral action that seeks to undermine Japan's administration of these islands," the joint statement said.

The US and Japan will deepen cooperation to safeguard the peace and stability of the East China Sea, it said, adding that the two leaders underscored the importance of maintaining a maritime order based on international law, including freedom of navigation and overflight and other lawful uses of the sea.

"The US and Japan oppose any attempt to assert maritime claims through the use of intimidation, coercion or force.

The US and Japan also call on countries concerned to avoid actions that would escalate tensions in the South China Sea, including the militarisation of outposts, and to act in accordance with international law," the joint statement said.
President Donald Trump has said he is considering issuing a "brand new" executive order on immigration by next week, even though he expressed confidence that he will win the legal battle over the immigration ban on nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries.

"We will win that battle. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order," Trump told reporters travelling with him on Air Force One from Andrews Air Force Base to Florida.

Asked if his plan might be to issue a new executive order, Trump said: "It very well could be. We need speed for reasons of security, so it very well could be."



Trump said that "in honour of the (9th US Circuit court) decision" he will likely wait until next week to respond with any action.

"Perhaps Monday or Tuesday," he said.

The new executive order on immigration would include security measures, Trump said.

"New security measures. We have very, very strong vetting. I call it extreme vetting and we're going very strong on security. We are going to have people coming to our country that want to be here for good reason," he said.

Speaking at the White House Trump said: "We will be doing something very rapidly to do with the additional security for our country. You'll be seeing that sometime next week,"



"In addition, we will continue to go through the court process and ultimately, I have no doubt we will win that particular case," Trump told reporters during a joint conference yesterday with the visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"We are going to keep our country safe. We are going to do whatever is necessary to keep our country safe. We have had decision which we think will be very successful with, it shouldn't have taken this much time because safety is a primary reason," Trump said.

"One of the reasons I am standing here today, the security of our country, the voters felt I would give it the best security," he said indicating that, despite the court setback, he would continue with his efforts for the safety and security of the US.

"While I've been President, which is just for a very short period of time, I've learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely President," he said.

Trump said there are tremendous threats to the country.

"We will not allow that to happen, I can tell you that right now. So we'll be going forward and we'll be doing things to continue to make our country safe. It will happen rapidly and we will not allow people into our country who are looking to do harm to our people," he said.

(Reopens FGN 6)



Meanwhile Trump declined to respond to a report in Washington Post that his National Security Advisor General (rtd) Flynn discussed sanctions with Russia's Ambassador to the US before he was sworn in as National Security Advisor.

Trump said he was not aware of the report.

"I don't know about that. I haven't seen it. What report is that? I haven't seen that. I'll look into that," the President said.

He cautioned Iran when he was asked how he plans to respond to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who had earlier said that any nation that threatens Iran will "regret" it.

"He better be careful," Trump said.
US President Donald Trump has said he is "working" on a major tax reform which would massively reduce taxes of workers and businesses of the country.

"We are in the process right now of working on a major tax reform that will massively reduce taxes on our workers and businesses," Trump said yesterday in his weekly web and radio address to the nation.

"We want to make it much easier to do business in America, and that's what we're going to do. We're going to make it also much harder for companies to leave. They're not just going to say bye-bye and fire everybody. There will be consequences," he said.

Trump said, he met the CEO of Intel (Brian Krzanich) this week, who announced that his company will invest USD 7 billion in a new manufacturing facility in Arizona, creating thousands of new American jobs.

"That's what we want, new American jobs and good jobs. Intel decided to move forward with this project because they know we are totally committed to lifting the regulatory and tax burdens that are hurting American innovation and companies," he said.

Trump said he want America to be the greatest jobs magnet of the world.

"But we can't do that if we don't stop the wasteful rules and excessive taxes that make it impossible for companies to compete," he said.

Every hour of every day, his administration is focused on creating jobs for people, Trump said.

"I mean good jobs. More jobs, better jobs, higher paying jobs, that's our mission," he said.

Referring to his meeting with sheriffs and police chiefs from across the country, Trump said his administration is committed to national security, which is why he will continue to fight to take all necessary and legal action to keep terrorists, radical and dangerous extremists from ever entering the country.

"We will not allow our generous system of immigration to be turned against us as a tool for terrorism and truly bad people We must take firm steps today to ensure that we are safe tomorrow," Trump said.

"We will defend our country, protect our Constitution and deliver real prosperity for our people," he said.

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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras today warned the International Monetary Fund and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble to "stop playing with fire" in the handling of his country's debt.

Opening a meeting of his Syriza party, Tsipras said he was confident a solution would be found, a day after talks between Greece and its creditors ended in Brussels with no breakthrough.

He urged a change of course from the IMF. "We expect as soon as possible that the IMF revise its forecast.. So that discussions can continue at the technical level."



Referring to Schaeuble, Tsipras also called for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to "encourage her finance minister to end his permanent aggressiveness" towards Greece.

Months of feuding with the IMF has raised fears of a new debt crisis.

Greece is embroiled in a row with its eurozone paymasters and the IMF over debt relief and budget targets that has rattled markets and revived talk of its place in the euro.

Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said progress had been made in the Brussels talks with Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and other EU and IMF officials.

But he provided few details.

The Athens government faces debt repayments of 7.0 billion euros (USD 7.44 billion) this summer that it cannot afford without defusing the feud that is holding up new loans from Greece's 86 billion euro bailout.

Breaking the stalemate in the coming weeks is seen as paramount with elections in the Netherlands on March 15 and France in April through June threatening to make a resolution even more difficult.

But Dijsselbloem warned yesterday that the next meeting of eurozone ministers on February 20 - seen as an unofficial deadline ahead of the votes - would still be too early for a breakthrough.

"We will take stock of the further progress (during that meeting)", said Dijsselbloem, who is also the Dutch finance minister.

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Turkish troops and Syrian rebels today entered the Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab in northern Syria, as government forces also approached the jihadist bastion, a monitor said.

"Turkish forces and allied rebels in the Euphrates Shield campaign entered the western edge of the town and took control of a number of areas," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The monitor said heavy clashes were underway with IS in the town, which is the jihadist group's last stronghold in the northern province of Aleppo.

The town has been seen as a key prize and Syrian government troops and allied forces have also been advancing towards it in a bid to wrest it from IS.

Al-Bab was besieged since Monday, when government forces advancing from the south cut off a road leading into the town.

By yesterday, government forces were just 1.5 kilometres from the southern outskirts of Al-Bab, while Turkish troops and allied rebels advanced from the north, east and west.

Turkey began an unprecedented campaign inside Syria on August 24, targeting both IS and Kurdish militia.

After initial rapid progress, the campaign became mired in the deadly fight for Al-Bab since December.

Turkey's Dogan agency says 66 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the campaign since it started, mostly in IS attacks.

Al-Bab has been under IS control since 2014, when the group seized large swathes of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, proclaiming its self-described caliphate.

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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says an operation to liberate Iraq's second-largest city from the Islamic State group should not inflame sectarian tensions.

The secretary general said the ongoing operations to free Mosul should instead be a "symbol of national reconciliation."



Guterres made the comments during a meeting in Istanbul with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today, according to a statement from the secretary-general's office.

The recapture of Mosul would effectively break the back of the militant group in Iraq by ending their self-declared "caliphate" there. But many fear that the battle could give way to sectarian tensions.

Guterres is visiting Turkey, five Mideast nations and Germany on his first major trip since taking the helm of the United Nations on January 1.

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In a Taliban-like diktat, Uttar Pradesh Minister Radhey Shyam Singh allegedly threatened to set a local journalist afire for not supporting him during the ongoing Assembly elections in the state.

Kushinagar goes to polls on March 4 in the penultimate phase of the seven-phase Assembly elections ending March 8.

The journalist has filed a complaint with the police and has handed over the mobile audio of the alleged threat to the Superintendent of Police, Kushinagar, Raju Babu Singh.

Singh said he had received the complaint and the matter would be investigated.

In the past too, the minister was accused of abusing and threatening local government officials over phone.

Earlier, another Uttar Pradesh Minister, Ram Murti Singh Verma, was booked along with five others in connection with the killing of a journalist Jagendra Singh by allegedly setting him on fire in Shahjahanpur district in June 2015.

Jagendra had made a Facebook post against the minister regarding his alleged involvement in illegal sand mining and land grabbing.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
People of Bihar experienced yet another bright and sunny day while minimum temperature declined by a few notches in major cities of the state today due to westerly wind.

As per the Met bulletin, the minimum temperature of Patna was 9 degree Celsius against yesterday's 13.1 degree C. The capital's normal minimum temperature is 12 degree C.

The city's maximum temperature, however, did not witness any change from yesterday's 27 degrees C.

"The decline in minimum temperature by two-three degree C from normal temperature was caused by westerly wind," Met official said.

Gaya and Bhagalpur too witnessed decrease in their minimum temperature between two to four degree C in past 24 hours registering minimum temperature of 9.7 and 12.6 degree C respectively, Met office said.

Purnea recorded minimum temperature at 12.3 degree C.

Bhagalpur, Purnea and Gaya recorded the maximum temperature at 27.8, 26.7 and 25.8 degree C respectively.

The state's lowest minimum temperature was recorded at 8 degrees C at Sabour in Bhagalpur district.

Met office predicted partly cloudy skies in Patna, Gaya, Bhagalpur and Purnea tomorrow.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
YSR Congress MLA R K Roja was today detained at the Vijayawada airport as she arrived from Hyderabad to take part in the ongoing National Women's Parliament (NWP) at Pavitra Sangamam here.

Roja was not allowed to attend the conclave though she was duly registered and invited, as police suspected she "might create trouble" at the venue. In fact, Roja is also a member of the NWP 'welcome and reception committee'.

A delegation of YSRC leaders later met Director General of Police (in charge) N Sambasiva Rao, protesting against Roja's detention, but was told that there was "credible information" that the firebrand MLA was planning to stage a protest at the NWP venue.

"We have credible information that Roja is prepared to stage a protest at the venue. Since a number of national and international delegates are attending the prestigious event, it is the police's responsibility to ensure it is conducted smoothly. Hence, we detained her," the DGP told YSRC legislators Gouru Charita, G Eeswari and other leaders, who met him in Vijayawada.

Eeswari, however, blamed Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu for the detention.

"Roja was detained only at the behest of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. Is this democracy or dictatorship?," Eeswari said.

It all began in the morning when Roja arrived at the Vijayawada airport from Hyderabad when the police took her away to a room saying the Dalai Lama was about to arrive (to proceed to Hyderabad).

After over an hour, they told the legislator that she would be dropped at her hotel in Vijayawada.

"But they are taking me away from Vijayawada on the National Highway towards Ongole. Why should they invite me (to NWP) and then detain and take me away like this," Roja questioned in a video that was captured on her mobile phone and posted on Facebook.

The MLA was driven away to Medikonduru police station in Guntur district and later allowed to return to Hyderabad.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
While hailing the successful test-firing of an interceptor missile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday took potshots at the Congress party saying they would ask for proof of the test.

Addressing an election rally in Uttarakhand, he also said that more than the business class, the corrupt ways of politicians have harmed the country. He asserted his government's war against corruption will continue.

Addressing another rally in Uttar Pradesh's Badaun, Modi lashed out at the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government for sheltering criminals.

"You hear news about some country developing missiles with a range of 5,000 km or 8,000 km. Last month, you must have heard the news of Pakistan developing a missile that can destroy the Andaman Islands. But let me tell you, India has no dearth of missiles. And today, our scientists have achieved a feat which has made the entire country proud," Modi said hours after India successfully test-fired its interceptor missile off the Odisha coast.

"The missile test fired today (Saturday) can intercept incoming missiles and destroy them 150 km into the sky. Only four or five countries so far have achieved this feat," said Modi.

Referring to opposition calls for proof of the Indian Army's September 29 surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC), Modi ridiculed the Congress saying they might even demand proof of the missile test.

"I don't know what new demand our opponent Congress will come out with. They will say give us proof that the missile went up to 150 km into the sky. They will ask for proof of the missile hitting the incoming missile," said Modi, evoking laughter among the crowd."

Modi went on to say: "The surgical strike was such a big achievement for the country. The enemy is still to come to grips and the whole world is raving about India's might. But there are few leaders who questioned the surgical strikes, demanded its proof."

"Isn't this an insult to our brave soldiers, an insult to the country's achievements and self-esteem," added Modi.

He also accused the state's ruling Congress of undermining the development of Uttarakhand and called upon the people of the state to vote the Bharatiya Janata party to power to ensure 'Vikas' (progress), Vidyut (Electricity), Kanoon Vyavastha (Law & order) and Sadak (roads).

"A business man may charge Rs 25 for a Rs 20 thing, or may pay just Rs 80 instead of Rs 100 payable to the government. But it is not the businessmen but corruption by politicians and babus that have hurt the country most. My fight is against these politicians who using their power looted the country's wealth. I know there will be difficulties in the fight against who have looted the country for 70 years. But our fight will continue," he said.

Addressing a rally in in Badaun he accused the Samajwadi Party and Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party of playing with the aspiration of the people for their political gains and asserted the BJP would usher in development if voted to power in the state.
PLEASE NOTE!

Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate!

All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited!

(One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!)
Polling on Saturday turned out to be largely peaceful for many in high-rise apartments and gated societies that dots of landscape of the two townships that border capital Delhi as the first phase of polling in the crucial Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh ended with a high turnout of 64 per cent.
The Infosys board does not want a war of words with the Indian software services company's former leadership to descend into the kind of damaging row seen at Tata, an Infosys boardroom source said on Friday.

India's second biggest IT services company, has been in an escalating public dispute with its founders and former executives this week, who have accused the board of lapses in corporate governance. The founders own 12.75 percent of the company.

ALSO READ: From Narayana Murthy to Mohandas Pai: Why they feel Infosys must explain what it is hiding



The boardroom tussle at Infosys comes at a time when another iconic Indian firm, Tata Sons, has been hit by allegations of corporate governance lapses following the ouster of former Chairman Cyrus Mistry.

The Tata row has spilled into the courts and has tainted the reputation of one of India's most respected business houses. "For sure we don't want another Tata happening. We don't want that replay and therefore we will do what it takes to avoid that kind of situation," said the boardroom source, asking not to be named given the sensitivity of the situation.

Earlier on Friday, V. Balakrishnan, a former chief financial officer at Infosys, told Reuters the company's board had become "lax on corporate governance and was undermining the values on which the company was built".

ALSO READ: Govt finds 9 lakh registered firms never filed I-T returns. Crackdown begins


Logan City is asking residents of communities that are connected to their sewage system to stop sending water down the drain.

The Logan City sewage system is at capacity due to all the heavy rainfall and snow melt. According to a Logan City press release, sewer pipes are running at full capacity and pumping facilities and the waste water treatment plant are struggling to keep up all the water.

In addition to Logan City, communities connected to the Logan sewage system include Smithfield, Hyde Park, Nibley, North Logan, Providence and River Heights. Utah State University is also connected to the citys sewer system.

Until further notice, we ask that residents please avoid putting additional and unnecessary water down drains, the release states. This includes laundry, showers, dishes, and flushing.

There is also a call to stop putting any storm water or ground water of any kind into sewer lines through sump pumps, man holes or storm drains. That water should be sent into yards or fields.
The Utah State School Board voted Friday to agree with proposals by the Cache County, Logan and Box Elder school districts to extend school hours rather than extend the school season.

School was canceled in January because of excessive snow, extremely cold temperatures and January rain. All three districts grappled with how and when to make up the lost days. The State Board is now allowing schools to make up the hours instead of holding them to the 180 day requirement.

Effectively, this means the Cache County district will not utilize June 5th, 6th and 7th as make-up days, but instead will explore how to extend school days to make up the time before the end of the school year, the district explained in a press release Friday.

The other districts will similarly be engaging their Calendar Committees to determine the best options to accomplish the extended hours and to make recommendations to their school boards.
Des gendarmes et policiers Archives

Sources say the two print media journalists arrested in connection to the ongoing crisis rocking the Anglophone regions have been tossed to Yaounde.

Its not clear where they are detained at the moment, but they are most likely to be at SED, a staff of The Guardian Post where Amos Fofung works said.

The two men were bundled from the Molyko and ferried to the 3rd Police District where they spent the night in custody before their transfer to Yaounde.

The duos Buea colleagues recounted that they were picked up by the police in connection with a bag that contained anti 11 February tracks purportedly dropped by the Publisher of Voice of the Voiceless from Bamenda.

Same sources explained police had already arrested the visiting Bamenda publisher and were in search of his bag that was dropped at the Molyko residence of Amos Fofung. At the time police came to search the house, Atia Tilarious was with Amos and the armed uniform men bundled all of them.

According to Elah Geoffrey, Editor of The Sun Newspaper, the arrested journalists were interrogated by investigators at the Judicial Police in Buea on Friday prior to their overnight transfer.
Senator Fon Teche Telling Paul Biya his Mind Wilson MUSA

Members of the North West Fons Union, NOWEFU have written s strongly worded memorandum to Head of State, Paul Biya on the situation of the Anglophones in Cameroon.

The Guardian Post reveals that the Union headed by Senator Fon Teche Njei is worried about the growing rate of insecurity in the two English speaking regions of the country.

According to the release, NOWEFU says the All Anglophone Conference I and II, SCNC and other secessionist movements were born because of the precarious conditions Anglophone Cameroonians have been going through since they joined French Cameroon in 1961.

In the Memorandum to President Paul Biya signed by the President General of NOPWEFU, the Unions SG, Fon Zofoa Ndofoa III and Treasurer General Fon Tekouh Simon, the traditionalists said positive dialogue is the only way in which the people can come out of this impasse.

They also regretted the fact that some top Government officials including some Journalists dont still believe that there is an Anglophone problem.

Even though they applauded the creation of the Commission on Bilingualism and Multiculturalism, the custodians of the tradition said those appointed into the Commission should have good faith, honest, patriotic and God-fearing.

NOWEFU also trumpeted the call for amnesty to be given to all arrested and the withdrawal of Francophones from Anglophone courts.
Transcription

1 New Mexico Volunteer Firefighter Retirement Program Reporting Guide

2 VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER REPORTING WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The New Mexico Volunteer Firefighters Retirement Act (VFRA) applies to volunteer non-salaried firefighters who are listed as active members on the rolls of a fire department, and whose first year of service credit was earned during or after the year they turned 16 years old. Exclusions: There are no exclusions; volunteer firefighters receiving a pension from another state or educational system are eligible for VFRA benefits. Contributions: No member or employer contributions are required by the VFRA; contributions are made annually by the State Fire Marshal s Office from the fire protection fund. Reporting: Attendance information is required. Effective January 1, 1979 through December 31, 2008, to qualify for service credit, each volunteer firefighter must: Attend 75% of all scheduled fire drills; Attend 75% of all scheduled business meetings; and Participate in at least 50% of all emergency response calls. Beginning January 1, 2009, to qualify for service credit, each volunteer firefighter must: Attend 50% of all scheduled fire drills for which the fire department held the member responsible to attend. Attend 50% of all scheduled business meetings for which the fire department held the member responsible to attend; and Participate in at least 50% of all emergency response calls for which the fire department held the member responsible to attend. Note: This is not necessarily 50% of all fire drills held, business meetings held, or emergencies responded to by the department, it is 50% of those which the fire department held the member responsible to attend. Retirement: A volunteer firefighter who is close to retirement eligibility should contact PERA and request a Volunteer Firefighter Retirement Kit, which contains all the forms and information necessary for members to begin the retirement process. The completed Retirement Kit should be submitted to PERA at least 60 calendar days prior to the expected retirement date. Those who are entitled to a deferred pension payment when they meet VFRA age and service requirements should contact PERA at that time. Termination: There are no notice requirements to PERA upon termination of service. 1

3 Survivor Benefits: A retiring member may name either his/her surviving spouse (if any), or a dependent child under the age of 18, as his/her beneficiary. If the member is married and names a dependent child as beneficiary, spousal consent is required. In the event of the member s death the survivor beneficiary will receive an amount equal to 2/3 of the pension the retired member was receiving. If the beneficiary predeceases the annuitant, there is no survivor benefit. A surviving spouse will receive the benefit for their lifetime, unless they are remarried. Surviving children will receive a benefit up to age 18. MEMBER ENROLLMENT WHAT YOU NEED TO DO: Each volunteer firefighter must complete a membership form and submit a copy of his/her Social Security card at the time they become a member. The form is available from PERA or at under FOR MEMBERS then Forms/Kits/Handbooks. See Volunteer Firefighter Enrollment Form (Sample Form A). IMPORTANT: ALL blanks must complete unless they are not applicable. Please ensure that writing is legible. The member must use his/her name as it appears on legal documents, and not a nickname (e.g., Charles Smith rather than Chuck ). The Fire Chief must complete the Department Certification section. WHEN YOU SHOULD DO IT: The application should be completed and submitted to PERA no later than the time the annual report is submitted (March 31 st each year), but should be submitted when a new member joins the Volunteer Fire Department. 2

4 INSTRUCTIONS Volunteer Firefighters Enrollment Form (Sample Form A) USES: Use this form to enroll volunteer firefighters in VFRA coverage. DO NOT USE: Do not use this form to update or change a previously enrolled member s information; instead, use the Change in PERA Records Form (Sample Form A). An exception would be for a volunteer firefighter who begins service with a different fire department, in which case a new enrollment form should be filed. PROCESS: Submit to PERA, Attn: Records. DEADLINE: Completed enrollment forms should be submitted to PERA no later than the time the next annual report is submitted (March 31 st each year), but preferably during the year when a new member joins the Volunteer Fire Department. FILL IN THE BLANKS Member Information Section Social Security Number Name Enter first and last name (mandatory) and middle initial (if used) as the member s name appears on legal documents If applicable, enter the Previous Last Name and/or Previous First Name of any firefighter previously enrolled under the VFRA Address Type Check box for Permanent, Temporary, or Mailing Address, City, State, ZIP Home Telephone No. Business Telephone No. (optional) Gender Check box for Male or Female Date of Birth City of Birth (optional) State of Birth (optional) Have you ever been a PERA member? Check box for Yes or No Are you or have you been a member of any other New Mexico retirement plan? Check box for Yes or No Address (optional) Marital Information Current Marital Status Check box for Never Been Married, Married, Divorced, or Widowed Spouse s Name, SSN, Date of Birth 3

5 Member Certification Member must sign and date Volunteer Firefighter Department Certification Name of Volunteer Fire Department PERA Fire Department Number The 5-digit number assigned by PERA. Start Date The first day of the member s service certification Signature of Chief Be sure the form is signed by the Fire Chief Date of Signature Chief s Address Business or Cellular Telephone No. The Fire Chief s business or cell phone number Sample Form A 4

6 ANNUAL REPORTING WHAT YOU NEED TO DO: Each fire department must annually file the following with PERA: Volunteer Firefighters Annual Reporting Form (Sample Form C) and. Volunteer Firefighter Service Credit Qualification Record Form (Sample Form D) In addition, any new Member Enrollment for Volunteer Firefighters Forms (Sample Form A) not submitted during the year should be enclosed, along with a copy of the member s Social Security card. WHEN YOU SHOULD DO IT: All affiliated Volunteer Firefighter Departments are required to submit an annual report to PERA beginning January 1 st but no later than March 31 st of each year. This deadline is set by statute (Section 10-11A-6(B), NMSA 1978) and must not be ignored. Service credit will not be given to any volunteer firefighter if completed reports are not submitted by March 31 st. HOW YOU SHOULD DO IT: The information on the Volunteer Firefighter Service Credit Qualification Record Form should be submitted online at beginning January 1st but no later than March 31 st of each year. Both the Volunteer Firefighters Annual Reporting Form and the Volunteer Firefighter Service Credit Qualification Record Form must be mailed/submitted to PERA no later than March 31 st of each year. Please see the following instructions for setting up an account and reporting; HOW TO SET UP A USER ACCOUNT: SUBMIT CONTACT INFORMATION TO: Public Employees Retirement Association Attn: VF Program Administrator 33 Plaza La Prensa Santa Fe, NM See Volunteer Firefighter Retirement Contact Information for Online Reporting Form (Sample Form B). 5

7 Sample Form B Fire Departments must assign one main contact for reporting in RIO (Retirement Information Online). The employer must submit the following contact information to PERA: Organization Code (the 5-digit number assigned by PERA) First and Last Name of the main contact. Address of the Contact Person. Last Four digits of Social Security Number for Contact Person. Once this information is entered, RIO will automatically generate the Contact Person s: User ID Number (permanent) Temporary Password 6

8 STEPS FOR THE ONLINE REPORTING Access the PERA Home Page at Click on (Diagram 1) This opens the RIO Self Service page (Diagram 2). Diagram 1 7

9 Click on Login (Diagram 2), this will take you to the Login page (Diagram 3). Diagram 2 Enter your User ID and Password. (Diagram 3) The first time you log in you will be asked to change your password and will be taken to the Instructions page (Diagram 4). Diagram 3 8

10 Click on (Diagram 4) to continue on to the Employer Home Page (Diagram 5). When you the next time you will be taken directly to the Employer Home Page (Diagram 5). Diagram 4 Click on Work on Reports. (Diagram 5) This will take you to the Reports page (Diagram 6). Diagram 5 9

11 Click on Create a New Report. This will take you to Report Creation page (Diagram 7). Diagram 6 The report type defaults to Regular. 1. Enter the Start Date and End Date (January 1 st and December 31 st ) for the year being reported. Make sure and enter the / between the day, month and year. 2. Click on I would like to create a report with no member records. 3. Click on NEXT and new report will appear under Regular Reports. (Diagram 8). THE NUMBERS FOR THE FIRE DRILLS AND MEETINGS HAVE BEEN GRAYED OUT. YOU CAN NO LONGER ENTER ANY NUMBERS, THEY MUST REMAIN ZEROS. Diagram 7 10

12 Click on edit. (Diagram 8) This will redirect you to the page where you will Add or Edit a Record for each member. (Diagram 9) Diagram 8 a Enter the social security number for the first member. (Diagram 9) Click on Add or Edit Record (Diagram 9) Diagram 9 11

13 This will take you to the screen where you will edit or add the member record (Diagram 10). Diagram 10 b If this is a Current Member of the department, the member s address, date of birth and name will appear as displayed in PERA s database. Please verify they are correct and make any necessary corrections. (Diagram 11). Diagram 11 12

14 Click on Plan Code, select Volunteer Firefighter Plan. Click on yes or no to indicate whether or not the member met the minimum qualifications to earn VF service credit. Then Click Save. This will take you back to the Add or Edit a Record page. (Diagram 9) Repeat steps a and b for each member. If this is a New Member of the department, you must enter the member s address, date of birth, name and gender. You must also click on Status Code and select New Hire. Then Enter the Status Date for example; 01/01/2016. (Diagram 12) Click on Plan Code, select Volunteer Firefighter Plan. Click on yes or no to indicate whether or not the member met the minimum qualifications. Then Click Save. Repeat steps a and b for each new member. 13 Diagram 12

15 Each night the information entered will be posted. Check your report the next day to verify it has posted to your department s account. If there are any errors, please contact the following for assistance: Public Employees Retirement Association Attn: VF Program Administrator 33 Plaza La Prensa Santa Fe, NM INSTRUCTIONS Volunteer Firefighters Annual Reporting Form (Sample Form C) USES: Use this form to summarize the annual membership and qualification records submitted to PERA. PROCESS: Submit to PERA, Public Employees Retirement Association Attn: VF Program Administrator 33 Plaza La Prensa Santa Fe, NM DEADLINE: March 31 st of each year. FILL IN THE BLANKS Section A Volunteer Firefighter Department General Information 1. Department Name Enter the name of the volunteer fire department 2. Department Mailing Address Enter the fire department mailing address, city, state, ZIP 3. PERA Number The 5-digit number assigned by PERA 4. Fire Chief Enter the Fire Chief s full name Phone: (work) Enter the Fire Chief s business phone number (home) Enter the Fire Chief s home phone number 5. Address Enter the Fire Chief s address Section B Department Totals 1. New Member enrollments Enter the number of new members enrolled and reported. 2. Members with prior service reported this year Enter the number of volunteers with prior service reported for current year. 3. Total number of volunteer firefighters reported this year This number should match both the sum of #1 and #2. 14

16 Section C Certification This form must be signed before a notary public: By the Fire Chief, and By the Municipal Mayor if distributions from the fire protection fund are made to an incorporated municipality, or by the Chairman of the County Commission if distributions from the fire protection fund are made to an independent fire district. Notary section The notary must complete this section; the notarization date must match the Fire Chief s and Mayor s/chairman s date of signature, all blanks must be completed, and the notary s seal or stamp must appear on the document. Sample Form C 15

17 INSTRUCTIONS Volunteer Firefighters Service Credit Qualification Record Form (Sample Form D) USES: Use this form to list the membership and service credit submitted to PERA. PROCESS: Submit to PERA, Public Employees Retirement Association Attn: VF Program Administrator 33 Plaza La Prensa Santa Fe, NM DEADLINE: March 31 st of each year. FILL IN THE BLANKS 1. Department Name Enter the name of the volunteer fire department 2. PERA Number The 5-digit number assigned by PERA 3. Report Year The year that is being reported. 4. The Social Security number, name, address, age and whether that volunteer receives service credit for that year. 5. Signature, Title and Date of the authorized person reporting the information. 16

18 Sample Form D 17
"However, by the time the next event occurs, we as a community have unfortunately become slack and are not as well prepared as if the event had occurred a few years following the previous incident."
"We had to stay at friends' places for a while. [Carol] had to find a full-time job, that was really hard on both of us but this just helps so much because now we don't need a second person in the house to help with everything."
"All school zones in the ACT are clearly signposted identifying the speed and operating times. The government takes this issue seriously, so also runs a radio advertising campaign at the commencement of each school term to remind motorists that school zones are operating," Mr Rattenbury said.
Mr Gibbs started his Maremma tribe again in 2004 with dogs Esky and Mo, but Canberrans became more widely aware of the breed with the story of Franklin, Gungahlin's roaming guard dog. To the rest of the world, the 2015 movie telling the story of Oddball protecting penguins off the coast of Warrnambool brought the breed to greater prominence.
Transcription

1 Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 1 NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C , of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Nos and GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES THE BOEING COMPANY, SUCCESSOR TO McDONNELL DOUGLAS CORPORATION, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT [May 23, 2011] JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court. We consider what remedy is proper when, to protect state secrets, a court dismisses a Government contractor s prima facie valid affirmative defense to the Government s allegations of contractual breach. I In 1988, the Navy awarded petitioners a $4.8 billion fixed-price contract to research and develop the A 12 Avenger carrier-based, stealth aircraft. The A 12 proved unexpectedly difficult to design and manufacture, and by December 1990, petitioners were almost two years behind schedule and spending $120 to $150 million each month to develop the A 12.

2 2 GENERAL DYNAMICS CORP. v. UNITED STATES Petitioners informed the Government that the cost of completing the contract would exceed the contract price by an unacceptable amount. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 567 F. 3d 1340, 1343 (CA Fed. 2009); see McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 182 F. 3d 1319, 1323 (CA Fed. 1999). They proposed restructuring the contract as a cost-reimbursement agreement and offered to absorb a $1.5 billion loss. The Department of Defense had lost faith in the project, however, and Rear Admiral William Morris, the Navy s contracting officer for the A 12 agreement, terminated the contract for default on January 7, By that point, petitioners had spent $3.88 billion attempting to develop the A 12, and the Government had provided $2.68 billion in progress payments. A few weeks after terminating the contract, the Navy sent petitioners a letter demanding the return of approximately $1.35 billion in progress payments for work never accepted by the Government. The parties later entered into a deferred payment agreement covering this amount. Petitioners filed suit in the Court of Federal Claims (CFC) to challenge Admiral Morris s termination decision under the Contract Disputes Act of 1978, 92 Stat. 2388, as amended, 41 U. S. C. 609(a)(1). The Federal Circuit has recognized a governmental obligation not to mislead contractors about, or silently withhold, its superior knowledge of difficult-to-discover information vital to contractual performance. GAF Corp. v. United States, 932 F. 2d 947, 949 (1991). Petitioners asserted that the Government s failure to share its superior knowledge about how to design and manufacture stealth aircraft excused their default (and also asserted other claims not relevant here). Uncovering the extent of the Government s prior experience with stealth technology proved difficult. The design, materials, and manufacturing process for two prior stealth aircraft operated by the Air Force the B 2 and the F

3 Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 3 117A are some of the Government s most closely guarded military secrets. [N]eed-to-know or [special] access controls beyond those normally provided for access to Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret information apply. 32 CFR 154.3(x) (2010); see App The Government nevertheless granted 10 members of petitioners litigation team access to the Secret/Special Access level of the B 2 and F 117A programs. Id., at 385. Four of those ten individuals received access to even the most sensitive aspects of the programs. See ibid. That neither satisfied petitioners thirst for discovery nor prevented the unauthorized disclosure of military secrets. In March 1993, Acting Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley asserted the state-secrets privilege to bar discovery into certain aspects of stealth technology beyond petitioners need-to-know authorizations. At a deposition that month, a former Navy official s responses to questions by petitioners and the Government revealed military secrets neither side s litigation team was authorized to know. Copies of the unclassified deposition were widely distributed and quoted in unsealed court filings until Government security officials discovered the breach a month later. A July 1993 deposition caused further unauthorized disclosures of military secrets. These disclosures led Acting Secretary of the Air Force Merrill McPeak to file a declaration with the CFC. He warned that further discovery into the extent of the Government s superior knowledge would present a continuing threat of disclosure of... military and state secrets surrounding the weight, profile or signature, and materials involved in the design and construction of stealt[h]... aircraft and weapons systems. Id., at 633, 635. Even relatively straightforward and innocuous questions, in his opinion, would pose unacceptable risks of disclosure of classified, special access information, id., at 636, including the potential disclosure of covert Government pro-

4 4 GENERAL DYNAMICS CORP. v. UNITED STATES grams, id., at 637. The CFC took Secretary McPeak s concerns seriously and terminated discovery relating to superior knowledge. It later decided that the extent of the Government s superior knowledge was a nonjusticiable question. Both sides had enough evidence to present a persuasive case on the superior-knowledge issue, but the CFC worried that, wit[h] numerous layers of potentially dispositive facts hidden by the privilege, its superior-knowledge rulings would be a sham, McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 37 Fed. Cl. 270, 280, (1996), and one that would threaten national security, see id., at In 1996, for reasons not relevant here, the CFC converted the termination into a less-government-friendly termination for convenience and awarded petitioners $1.2 billion. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 35 Fed. Cl The Federal Circuit reversed, 182 F. 3d, at 1332, and left it for the CFC to reconsider on remand whether the need to protect military secrets precluded discovery into the superior-knowledge issue, id., at After a 6-week trial, the CFC sustained the default termination, McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 50 Fed. Cl. 311, 326 (2001), and reaffirmed that the parties could not safely litigate whether the Government s superior knowledge excused petitioners default, id., at 325. The Court of Appeals reversed the default termination, but agreed that the state-secrets privilege prevented adjudicating whether the Government s superior knowledge excused the default. See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 323 F. 3d 1006, 1024 (CA Fed. 2003). It rejected petitioners assertion that the Government could not pursue a claim against a party and then use the statesecrets privilege to completely preempt defenses to that claim; the Court of Appeals believed United States v. Reynolds, 345 U. S. 1, 12 (1953), had already rejected this very argument. 323 F. 3d, at Litigants can-

5 Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 5 not complain, the Court of Appeals held, when the statesecrets privilege trumps a defense in [a] purely civil matter, suing the sovereign on the limited terms to which it has consented. Ibid. On remand, the CFC again found petitioners had defaulted. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States, 76 Fed. Cl. 385, 430 (2007). The Court of Appeals affirmed, see 567 F. 3d, at 1356, and we granted certiorari to review its state-secrets holding. 561 U. S. (2010). II Many of the Government s efforts to protect our national security are well known. It publicly acknowledges the size of our military, the location of our military bases, and the names of our ambassadors to Moscow and Peking. But protecting our national security sometimes requires keeping information about our military, intelligence, and diplomatic efforts secret. See Haig v. Agee, 453 U. S. 280, 307 (1981); Martin v. Mott, 12 Wheat. 19, (1827). We have recognized the sometimes-compelling necessity of governmental secrecy by acknowledging a Government privilege against court-ordered disclosure of state and military secrets. In Reynolds, three civilian contractors died during a test flight of a B 29 bomber. Their widows filed wrongfuldeath suits against the Government and sought discovery of the Air Force s accident-investigation report. Federal discovery rules, then as now, did not require production of documents protected by an evidentiary privilege. See 345 U. S., at 6; Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 26(b)(1). We held that documents that would disclose state secrets enjoyed such a privilege; the state-secrets privilege, we said, had a well established pedigree in the law of evidence. 345 U. S., at 6 7. The penultimate paragraph of Reynolds rejected the widows assertion that if the Government invoked the

6 6 GENERAL DYNAMICS CORP. v. UNITED STATES state-secrets privilege it had to abandon the claim to which the thereby privileged evidence was relevant. That was, the widows observed, the price paid in criminal cases. If the Government refuses to provide state-secret information that the accused reasonably asserts is necessary to his defense, the prosecution must be dismissed. See id., at 12; Jencks v. United States, 353 U. S. 657, 672 (1957). The penultimate paragraph of Reynolds said that this was a false analogy. A like abandonment of the Government s claim is not the consequence in a civil forum where the Government is not the moving party, but is a defendant only on terms to which it has consented. 345 U. S., at 12. Both petitioners and the Court of Appeals rely upon this statement to support their differing positions. We think that Reynolds has less to do with these cases than the parties believe and its dictum (of course), less still. Reynolds was about the admission of evidence. It decided a purely evidentiary dispute by applying evidentiary rules: The privileged information is excluded and the trial goes on without it. That was to the detriment, of course, of the widows, whom the evidence would have favored. But the Court did not order judgment in favor of the Government. Here, by contrast, the CFC decreed the substantive result that since invocation of the statesecrets privilege obscured too many of the facts relevant to the superior-knowledge defense, the issue of that defense was nonjusticiable, and the defense thus not available. See 37 Fed. Cl., at And that was so even though petitioners had brought forward enough unprivileged evidence to make a prima facie showing. Id., at 280. While we disagree, for reasons set forth below, with the CFC s disposition of the remainder of the case, its perception that in the present context the state-secrets issue raises something quite different from a mere evidentiary point seems to us sound. What we are called upon to exercise is not our power to determine the procedural

7 Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 7 rules of evidence, but our common-law authority to fashion contractual remedies in Government-contracting disputes. See Priebe & Sons, Inc. v. United States, 332 U. S. 407, 411 (1947). And our state-secrets jurisprudence bearing upon that authority is not Reynolds, but two cases dealing with alleged contracts to spy. In Totten v. United States, 92 U. S. 105 (1876), the administrator of a self-styled Civil War spy s estate brought a breach-of-contract suit against the United States. He alleged that his testator had entered into a contract with President Lincoln to spy on the Confederacy in exchange for $200 a month. After the war ended, the United States reimbursed expenses but did not pay the monthly salary. We recognized that the estate had a potentially valid breach-of-contract claim but dismissed the suit. The contract was for a secret service, and litigating the details of that service would risk exposing secret operations and other clandestine operatives to the serious detriment of the public. Id., at [P]ublic policy, we held, forbids the maintenance of any suit... the trial of which would inevitably lead to the disclosure of matters which the law itself regards as confidential, and respecting which it will not allow the confidence to be violated. Id., at 107. Six years ago, we reaffirmed that public policy forb[ids] suits based on covert espionage agreements. Tenet v. Doe, 544 U. S. 1, 3 (2005). Such suits threaten to undermine ongoing intelligence-gathering and covert operations two vital aspects of national security through inadvertent exposure of espionage relationships. Id., at 11. Rather than tempt fate, we leave the parties to an espionage agreement where we found them the day they filed suit. We think a similar situation obtains here, and that the same consequence should follow. Where liability depends upon the validity of a plausible superior-knowledge de-

8 8 GENERAL DYNAMICS CORP. v. UNITED STATES fense, and when full litigation of that defense would inevitably lead to the disclosure of state secrets, Totten, supra, at 107, neither party can obtain judicial relief. As the CFC concluded, that is the situation here. Disclosure of state secrets occurred twice before the CFC terminated discovery. See 37 Fed. Cl., at Every document request or question to a witness would risk further disclosure, since both sides have an incentive to probe up to the boundaries of state secrets. State secrets can also be indirectly disclosed. Each assertion of the privilege can provide another clue about the Government s covert programs or capabilities. See Fitzgerald v. Penthouse International, Ltd., 776 F. 2d 1236, 1243, and n. 10 (CA4 1985). For instance, the fact that the Government had to continue asserting the privilege after granting petitioners access to B 2 and F 117A program information suggests it had other, possibly covert stealth programs in the 1980 s and early 1990 s. It seems to us unrealistic to separate, as the CFC did, the claim from the defense, and to allow the former to proceed while the latter is barred. It is claims and defenses together that establish the justification, or lack of justification, for judicial relief; and when public policy precludes judicial intervention for the one it should preclude judicial intervention for the other as well.* If, in Totten, it had been the Government seeking return of funds that the estate claimed had been received in payment for espionage activities, it would have been the height of injustice to deny the defense because of the Government s invocation of state-secret protection, but to *Of course, this does not mean the nonjusticiability of one aspect of a case will necessarily end the entire litigation. If, for example, the Government asserts two justifications for its default termination, and if state secrets deprive the contractor of a prima facie valid defense to only one of those claims, the court can still adjudicate the validity of the other.

9 Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 9 maintain jurisdiction over the Government s claim and award it judgment. Judicial refusal to enforce promises contrary to public policy (here, the Government s alleged promise to provide superior knowledge, which we could not determine was breached without penetrating several layers of state secrets) is not unknown to the common law, and the traditional course is to leave the parties where they stood when they knocked on the courthouse door. In general, if a court will not, on grounds of public policy, aid a promisee by enforcing the promise, it will not aid him by granting him restitution for performance that he has rendered in return for the unenforceable promise. Neither will it aid the promisor by allowing a claim in restitution for performance that he has rendered under the unenforceable promise. It will simply leave both parties as it finds them, even though this may result in one of them retaining a benefit that he has received as a result of the transaction. 2 Restatement (Second) of Contracts 197, Comment a, p. 71 (1979); see, e.g., Worlton v. Davis, 73 Idaho 217, , 249 P. 2d 810, 814 (1952). These cases differ from the common-law cases that we know, in that the unenforceability did not exist at the time the contract was formed, See 2 Restatement (Second) of Contracts 179, Comment d, at 18, but arose because of the Government s assertion of the state-secrets privilege that rendered the promise of superior knowledge unadjudicable. We do not see why that should affect the remedy. Suit on the contract, or for performance rendered or funds paid under the contract, will not lie, and the parties will be left where they are. The law of contracts contains another doctrine that relates to the CFC s concern about the reliability of its judgment without numerous layers of potentially dispositive facts, 37 Fed. Cl., at The Statute of Frauds, which has been with us since the 17th century, reflects concerns about the reliability of oral evidence. See Valdez

10 10 GENERAL DYNAMICS CORP. v. UNITED STATES Fisheries Development Assn., Inc. v. Alyeska Pipeline Serv. Co., 45 P. 3d 657, 669 (Alaska 2002); 9 R. Lord, Williston on Contracts 21:1, pp (4th ed and 2010 Supp.). It assumes a valid, enforceable agreement between the parties but nevertheless leaves them without a remedy absent reliable evidence a writing. See 1 id., 1:21, at 82 (4th ed and 2010 Supp.); 9 id., 21:5, at 192. So also here, it is preferable to leave the parties without a remedy rather than risk the potential injustice, Valdez Fisheries, supra, at 669, of misjudging the superior-knowledge issue based on a distorted evidentiary record. The Government suggested at oral argument that where the parties stood at the time of suit was that petitioners had been held in default, liable for the ensuing consequences. See Tr. of Oral Arg ; see also Brief for United States 32, n. 9, That had been the declaration of the contracting officer, pursuant to Chapter 9 (entitled Contract Disputes ) of Title 41 (entitled Public Contracts ). See 41 U. S. C It was final and conclusive... unless an appeal or suit is timely commenced. 605(b). We regard that, however, as merely one step in the contractual regime to which the parties had agreed. It has no more bearing upon the question we are discussing than would a provision in a private contract that declaration of default by one of the parties is final unless contested in court. The position of the parties in which we will leave them is not their position with regard to legal burdens and the legal consequences of contract-related determinations, but with regard to possession of funds and property. III Neither side will be entirely happy with the resolution we reach today. General Dynamics (but not Boeing) wants us to convert the termination into one for convenience and

11 Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 11 reinstate the CFC s $1.2 billion damages award. See Brief for Petitioner in No , pp The language of the A 12 agreement does not give us that option. It authorizes a court to convert a default termination into a termination for convenience only if it determine[s] that the Contractor was not in default, or that the default was excusable. 48 CFR (g) (2010). Our opinion does not express a view on those issues. It holds them nonjusticiable. Moreover, state secrets would make it impossible to calculate petitioners damages. A termination for convenience ordinarily entitles a contractor to recover its incurred costs of performance, reasonable termination expenses, and a reasonable profit on the work performed (or an offset to account for the contractor s expected losses had the contract been performed to completion). See (g). The CFC s $1.2 billion award to petitioners in 1996 simply reflected their actual costs incurred minus progress payments received. The CFC decided it could not calculate petitioners expected losses (or profits) without deciding the extent to which the Government s alleged failure to share its superior knowledge contributed to petitioners cost overruns a nonjusticiable question. See 37 Fed. Cl., at 285. Absent proof of the Government s superior knowledge, and of how the sharing of that would have made this a profitable contract, the $1.2 billion award might represent an undeserved windfall. The Government, for its part, wants a return of the $1.35 billion it paid petitioners in progress payments for work which it says it never approved. But the validity of that claim depends upon whether petitioners are in default on their contract. If they are not, termination for convenience of the Government would entitle them to retain those progress payments (unless, of course, they would have incurred a loss on the entire contract). Neither the question whether they are in default nor the

12 12 GENERAL DYNAMICS CORP. v. UNITED STATES question whether performance of the entire contract would have left them with a loss can be judicially determined because of the valid assertion of the state-secret privilege. We leave the parties where they are. As in Totten, see 92 U. S., at 106, our refusal to enforce this contract captures what the ex ante expectations of the parties were or reasonably ought to have been. Both parties must have understood, ibid., that state secrets would prevent courts from resolving many possible disputes under the A 12 agreement. The Government asked petitioners to develop an aircraft the design, materials, and manufacturing process for which would be closely guarded military secrets. See Contract Schedule H 1, App ; Contract Security Classified Specification, id., at The contract itself was a classified document at one point. See Contract Schedule H 1, 8, id., at 75. Both parties the Government no less than petitioners must have assumed the risk that state secrets would prevent the adjudication of claims of inadequate performance. We believe, moreover, that the impact of our ruling on these particular cases (which we think produces rough, very rough, equity) is probably much more significant than its impact in future cases, except to the extent that it renders the law more predictable and hence more subject to accommodation by contracting parties. They can negotiate, for example, the timing and amount of progress payments to account for the possibility that state secrets may ultimately render the contract unenforceable. The Government s concern that contractors will raise frivolous superior-knowledge defenses designed to goad the Government into asserting the state-secrets privilege is misplaced. To begin with, the rule we announce today applies only when the superior-knowledge defense is supported by enough evidence to make out a prima facie case. Moreover, Government contractors especially cutting-edge defense contractors of the sort likely to operate in the

13 Cite as: 563 U. S. (2011) 13 state-secrets field are repeat players. Even apart from the judicial sanctions available to punish bad conduct, see Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 11, 26(g), they have strong incentive to behave rather than risk missing out on the next multibillion-dollar defense contract. And finally, while we anticipate that the rule we set forth will ordinarily control Government-contract disputes that become nonjusticiable because of state secrets, what we promulgate today is not a statute but a common-law opinion, which, after the fashion of the common law, is subject to further refinement where relevant factors significantly different from those before us here counsel a different outcome. The foregoing analysis assumes that the Government generally has an obligation to share its superior knowledge, see GAF Corp., 932 F. 2d, at 949; the parties have not challenged that assumption. The Government argued below, however, that it does not have that obligation with respect to highly classified information, and does not have it when (as was the case here) the agreement specifically identifies information that must be shared. Brief for United States 52. The Court of Appeals did not address those questions (it had no reason to, given its disposition of petitioners appeal), and we did not grant certiorari to decide them. Those issues (and whether they can safely be litigated without endangering state secrets) therefore remain for the Court of Appeals to address on remand. * * * In Reynolds, we warned that the state-secrets evidentiary privilege is not to be lightly invoked. 345 U. S., at 7. Courts should be even more hesitant to declare a Government contract unenforceable because of state secrets. It is the option of last resort, available in a very narrow set of circumstances. Our decision today clarifies the consequences of its use only where it precludes a valid defense in Government-contracting disputes, and only

14 14 GENERAL DYNAMICS CORP. v. UNITED STATES where both sides have enough evidence to survive summary judgment but too many of the relevant facts remain obscured by the state-secrets privilege to enable a reliable judgment. We vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the cases for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.
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Transcription

1 Welcome to Arkansas History Chapter 04- A Land Called Arkansas

2 Changes at Home and Abroad The United States of America had obtained its independence after the Revolutionary War. George Washington was elected as the first president of the United States. Offered a $25,000 salary Honorable person

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4 The French Revolution The people of France overthrew the French Monarchy the same year George Washington became president. Thousands killed King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were beheaded. A French general named Napoleon became the nations dictator. A hero and tyrant (harsh ruler). Dreamed of expanding the French Empire.

5 A Secret Treaty Forced Spain to sign a treaty giving Louisiana back to France. (Spain still governed the land) Thomas Jefferson was concerned with the French controlling the Louisiana Territory. Spain limited the rights of American traders. Jefferson tried to buy New Orleans who ever controlled New Orleans would control the Mississippi River.

6 The Louisiana Purchase Robert Livingston, U.S. Ambassador to France, was sent to buy New Orleans. Napoleon refused to sell New Orleans, hoping to expand the territory. James Monroe was sent to help negotiate. Slave revolt in the Caribbean left the French Army destroyed and the French government short of cash. The French Colony of Saint Dominique gained its freedom and is known today as Haiti.

7 The Louisiana Purchase Napoleon was desperate for cash and was willing to sell the territory by the time Monroe arrived. Napoleon needed money to fight against England. Livingston and Monroe were authorized to offer $10 million for New Orleans. Taking advantage of the opportunity, they offered $15 million (three cents per acre) for more then 500 million acres of land.

8 The Louisiana Purchase Jefferson cautiously supported the purchase. April 30, 1803 Livingston and Monroe signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty with France. The United States Senate ratified the treaty. The United States did not have the money to buy the land so they borrowed it from banks in England. Remember Napoleon needed the money to fight England.

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11 Paving the Way The Louisiana Purchase was one of the most important events in the early history of the United States. Doubled the size of the United States. Room for an additional 15 states.

12 Troubled in the Bubbles When Napoleon sold Louisiana, he changed world history. He was soaking in a bathtub when he decided to sell more then New Orleans but the entire territory. He no longer needed the colony and he needed the money.

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14 A New Era The people who lived in the territory were not sure how things would be under their new government. Many of the people were French Catholics and were unsure of how they would fit into the predominantly Protestant America. News did not arrive at the Arkansas Post for some time.

15 Three Flags in Three Weeks Three weeks after celebrating the transfer of power from the Spain to France, another ceremony celebrated the transfer from France to United States. C.C. Clairborne was named the first governor of the new territory. At the Arkansas Post, they held a simple ceremony, lowering the French Flag and raising the American Flag.

16 A Land of New Ideals Gone were the days of Mercantilism All powerful Monarchs Only one acceptable religion- Catholic New American ideas of Free enterprise Party politics Voting Jury duty Freedom of religion

17 Exploring Frontier Lands After purchasing 500 million acres of land from Louisiana, Jefferson realized we did not know much about the territory. Explore the land Learn about the people Legendary Northwest Passage Jefferson asked his young secretary, Merriwether Lewis to lead the expedition.

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19 The Adventures of Lewis & Clark Merriwether Lewis Army Captain From Virginia Learned all he could about the new territory. Learned to draw maps and to read the stars. Asked an old army friend to help lead the expedition. William Clark From Virginia Old army friend of Lewis Excited about the assignment

20 The Corps of Discovery A group of strong men were needed for the trip. Good hunters Stout (strong) Healthy Unmarried Outdoorsmen who know the woods. Men who were tireless.

21 The Corps of Discovery A group of strong men were needed for the trip. gunsmith carpenter cook woodsmen hunters 43 men in all, including York a slave owned by William Clark.

22 York William Clark s African slave. York and Clark grew up together. About the same age We don t know his full name One of the first African person to cross North America and one of the first ever seen by Native Americans. Eight islands named after York. Freed at least 10 years after the expedition Believed to have died of cholera in about 1832

23 Lewis

24 Clark

25 The Corps of Discovery The Corp of Discovery set up camp across the river for St. Louis. Built a large keelboat Usually had one sail Could be rowed, sailed, polled, or towed. Needed 22 men to keep it moving (going upstream).

26 The Adventure Begins Lewis and Clark set out in the spring of 1804 Traveled west along the Missouri River Traveled about miles per day. Encountered trappers and Indians Many of the Indians were peaceful, others not so peaceful. Wintered at a Mandan Indian village in North Dakota territory.

27 The Adventure Begins The Mandans were already trading with Europeans. French Trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau, offered to be their translator. Married to a young Shoshoni girl named Sacagawea. She is going to be a great help on the trip. Gave birth to a son while on the trip.

28 Chronometer

29 Maps of the Western Frontier Detail journals from all of the expeditions gave us information on the native groups, wildlife, and the land of the Louisiana Territory. The maps they created were very important.

30 Returning Home Arrived back in St. Louis in September Difficult and long journey Hunger Disease Exhaustion Extreme weather Swarming insects Hostile Indians

31 The Hunter Dunbar Expedition Jefferson sent another group to explore the southern part of the Louisiana Territory. William Dunbar was from Scotland Well known scientist Inventor Plantation owner Naturalist Collected minerals, fossils, and plants Skilled surveyor and astronomer

32 The Hunter Dunbar Expedition Dunbar was asked to lead the expedition Another Scotsman, George Hunter helped to lead the expedition The Grand Expedition Along the Red and Arkansas Rivers Troubles with the Osage warring with other Indians Explored the Ouachita River Left from Natchez, Mississippi River

33 Keeping Record Dunbar and Hunter kept detailed records. Buffalo Bears Landscape Beauty Weather temperature

34 The Hot Springs One of the more unusual natural resources of the area was called hot springs of the Washita today s Hot Springs. Hunter and Dunbar camped at the Hot Springs for over a month.

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36 Freeman and Custis Expedition After the Dunbar and Hunter Expedition, Jefferson sent Thomas Freeman and Peter Custis to find the source of the Red River. William Dunbar helped plan the expedition. Warned of problems with the Spanish. Collected plant and animal specimen. Slowed down by a 100 mile log jam. Forced to stop and turned around by Spanish soldiers. Good look at Southern Arkansas.

37 More American Explorers Zebulon Pike Explored much of the Arkansas River Henry Rowe Schoolcraft Spent three months exploring southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. First accounts of life in the Ozarks. Thick forest Trading with the Osage

38 Zebulon Pike

39 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

40 More American Explorers Thomas Nuttall Hoped to find and study new plant species Explored the Arkansas River Valley and the Red River region. Described the region as a wilderness of trees. Visited Arkansas Post Cadron Ft. Smith

41 Frontier Arkansas Others who traveled Arkansas used many of the rivers and waterways to travel. Stumped Have you ever been stumped by a problem? Ever wondered where the expression came from? As people cut down trees to build houses, farms, roads, etc they couldn t remove the tree stumps. Over time, the ruts in the road left the stumps sticking up enough to stop wagons. The were stumped.

42 Building Log Homes Clearing the land was a difficult task. Some trees as thick as six feet. Enough trees were cut down and the logs were split to build log cabins. Chinking thick mud or clay used to fill the cracks between the logs.

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44 The New Madrid Earthquake Winter of 1811 a severe earthquake rocked present day Missouri and Arkansas. Homes and towns destroyed Sink holes formed Mississippi River changed course (said to have flowed backwards). Felt as far away as the east coast. After shocks continued for weeks and would have registered about 8.0 or higher on today s Richter Scale.

45 The War of 1812 The United States and Britain had a difficult relationship since the Revolutionary War. British Ships attacked American ships and forced sailors to serve in the British Navy. Impress forced to serve in the military. Encouraged Indians to attack settlers. The United States tried to find a peaceful solution. Declared war in June of 1812.

46 The War of 1812 The Untied States burned the British city of York (Toronto). The British captured and burned Washington D.C., including the White House. The British tried to block trade coming out of New Orleans. Andrew Jackson Old Hickory was sent to protect New Orleans.

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48 The Star-Spangled Banner Francis Scott Key British ships were attacking Fort McHenry. After a long night of bombing, Key saw the American flag still flying over the fort and wrote a poem which is our national anthem today. The song is from an old British tune.

49 The Treaty of Ghent The Treaty of Ghent was signed before the Battle of New Orleans ending the war. Andrew Jackson and the British in New Orleans did not know about at the time of the battle. The war had brought the American people together and combined with a strong and growing economy, the nation had a renewed feeling of pride.

50 Laying Out Townships Following the War of 1812, surveyors began to lay out the new lands into townships. Arkansas was divided into 60 townships, each about six square miles. Each township is divided into 36 one mile squares. Each section was divided into 640 acres Much of the United States is laid out using this system created by Thomas Jefferson.

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52 Settling the Frontier To encourage settlers, the government is going to give away free land. Veterans of the War of 1812 were given 160 acre plots using a lottery system. Much of the land located between the St. Francis River and the Arkansas River was given away but was un-inhabitable because of damage from the earthquake which had left much of the land swampy.

53 Settling the Frontier Many filed law suits against the government, while others traded their land. Benjamin Crowley settled near Paragould Arkansas and became an important community leader. The family plantation is now Crowley s Ridge State Park.

54 Hunting for Food Many of the settlers are going to survive hunting in the new territory. Buffalo Beaver Wild turkey Deer Elk Bear Trading with local Indians

55 Religious Awakening Circuit Riders preachers who traveled around spreading Protestant Christianity. Camp Meetings Methodist Circuit Riders were some of the first to come to Arkansas. People would travel hours to visit the camp meetings. The Great Revival

56 Arkansas s Indian Lands Osage Indians were forced to give up thousands of acres of land north of the Arkansas River set aside for other Indian tribes immigrating into the area. Cherokee Indians were forced to move from their homelands in the east to Arkansas. To keep peace between the tribes, the federal government established a fort in western Arkansas. The post was called Ft. Smith.

57 Disappearing Quapaw Lands As Americans moved west, even the Quapaw began to lose lands that they had lived on for centuries. The Treaty of 1818 reduced the Quapaw lands from 32 million acres to less then 2 million acres. Many of the settlers were up set that these Savages were allowed to keep some of their land. Not wanting to deal with the Indians, the remaining Quapaw were moved to Indian Territory.

58 Arkansas Cherokee More than any other tribe, the Cherokee tried to adopt American ways. They plowed, planted and harvested crops. Their homes, clothes, and daily life were much like those of other settlers.

59 The Dwight Mission Education was also apart of Cherokee life. With the help of white missionaries, they opened the first mission and school in Pope County called the Dwight Mission. Ran like a small frontier town. It had a post office, library, drug store, horse stable, kitchen, dinning hall, and more Students learned arithmetic, reading, sewing, cooking, carpentry, and farming. Everyone received religious training.

60 The Dwight Mission One important teacher at the Dwight Mission was a Cherokee man named Sequoyah. (more on him Monday) He taught the students to read and write in their own language using an alphabet system he had created. Turn to page 86 and read more about Sequoyah.

61 Becoming a Territory Arkansas was originally apart of the Louisiana Territory. When Louisiana became a state, Arkansas was a part of the Missouri Territory. When Missouri becomes a state, they do not want the lands that will become Arkansas. The people of Arkansas wanted to become their own territory. Their petition will set off one of the biggest debates in American history.

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63 Balancing Slave and Free When Missouri and Arkansas send their petitions to Congress, it set off a fierce debate on the issue of slavery. Many in Congress wanted to keep slavery out of the western lands. Southern states wanted to allow slavery to spread west. Northern states were opposed to allowing slavery out west. Prior to the petitions, there were 11 free states and 11 slave states.

64 Balancing Slave and Free Congress wanted to maintain this fragile balance. Missouri s request would upset this balance. As congress debated the issue, the northern territory of Maine decided to petition for statehood. Maine would be a free state, Missouri would be a slave state.

65 The Missouri Compromise Henry Clay of Kentucky helped establish the Missouri Compromise line along the northern Arkansas border. Missouri would be the last state north of the line to allow slavery. All other states admitted north of the line would be free states. The Missouri Comprise also called for the balance of power between slave and free states be maintained as new states are added.

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67 End of Slide Show
10 Reconstruction 38. What was the purpose of the Freedmen s Bureau? 39. This invention, found on our third floor, helped produce the first black newspaper in the south. 40. Carpetbagger is a derogatory term that was used to describe 10

9 THIRD FLOOR Slave Trade and Antebellum Plantations 33. List the two major commercial crops that were produced in and exported from antebellum Louisiana. a. b. 34. invented the, a machine that increased the supply of cotton produced in Louisiana. 35. Without slave labor, what would have happened to the cotton industry in Louisiana? Why? The Civil War in Louisiana 36. On January 26, 1861, Louisiana became the state to secede from the Union. 37. Why was the capture of New Orleans important to the Union? 9

8 Battle of New Orleans 30. This famous general led the United States troops in the Battle of New Orleans. 31. In the Venn Diagram below compare and contrast the US and British forces. 32. The name of the Treaty that ended the War of 1812 is a. Treaty of Ghent b. Adams-Onis Treaty c. Treaty of Fontainebleau 8

7 Sala Capitular 20. How did the French Revolution negatively impact Napoleon s plans to renew France s western empire? 21. What did the slave revolt in St. Domingue do to Louisiana s population? 22. Why was it important for the United States to acquire New Orleans? 23. The United States sent and to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans. 24. Why did Napoleon offer to sell the United States the entire Louisiana territory? 25. List in chronological order the three nations who were part of the two transfers of Louisiana as a result of the Louisiana Purchase. 26. How did Plessy v. Ferguson impact not only Louisiana, but the entire nation? The Louisiana Purchase 27. Use the map to find the rivers on the western and eastern borders of the Louisiana Territory Western Border: Eastern Border: 28. The established the boundary between Texas and the United States in. 29. Louisiana became the state on. 7

6 15. Many Louisiana slaves spent their Sundays Immigrants 16. List two reasons New Orleans was an ideal destination for immigrants. a. b. 17. Explain how the Civil War impacted immigration. 18. Choose one ethnic group who immigrated to Louisiana and describe how they impacted the local economy. Take a walk into our beautiful second floor gallery 19. How many flags have flown over Louisiana? a. 3 b. 12 c. 10 d. 1 In the space below, draw your favorite flag that has flown over Louisiana! 6

5 Second Floor SECOND FLOOR Antebellum Louisiana: A Medley of Cultures 10. Many schools in the area are named after this man because he donated a great deal of his fortune to local education. 11. True or False: Wealthy Louisiana planters supported tariffs. 12. Louisiana has a multi-party political system. List three political parties from Louisiana s past. a. b. c. 13. The only President who lived in Louisiana was a. Abraham Lincoln b. James Madison c. Zachary Taylor 14. Name one custom from Louisiana s past that we still celebrate today. 5

4 Colonial Louisiana 5. Interdependence is a relationship in which each group is equally dependent on the other for goods and/or services. Give an example of interdependence between Louisiana Native Americans and European colonists. 6. Colonists used these items for both currency and games because of a scarcity of hard currency. 7. Define mercantilism. 8. How did colonists get the goods they desired when mercantilism failed? Colonial Life 9. Describe one of the causes of the Rebellion of

3 Directions: Explore the Cabildo s three floors of exhibitions and look for the answers to the following questions. FIRST FLOOR Exploring the New World 1. Using the map, name the river that runs through the city, which functioned as a transfer point for both legal and illegal goods being shipped between Louisiana and Texas. 2. Why did Iberville construct a permanent site on the Gulf Coast versus the Mississippi River? 3. Who founded New Orleans? a. Iberville b. Napoleon c. Bienville 4. The founder of New Orleans chose this location for a settlement because 3

2 Explore the Cabildo to find the answers to the questions on the following pages. If you get stumped, do not be afraid to ask museum staff for assistance. While exploring the museum please be mindful of the following procedures. - Always keep your voice at a whisper. - Always walk inside the museum. - Refrain from touching, sitting, or standing on artifacts and platforms. - Refrain from bringing any food or drink inside the museum. - Always be respectful of other museum guests. - Remain inside the building until otherwise instructed by your chaperones. Thank you, The Louisiana State Museum Staff 2

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A man in Houston has been charged with endangering a child after taking his 5-year-old son on a joyride on a lawnmower on a Texas freeway.



According to KTRK, Keith Anderson, 42, tied his son to him with a dog leash and drove along the HOV lane of the North Freeway before being stopped by police approximately two miles from his house.

Speaking of the incident, Andersons neighbor Issac Jefferson said Its amazing because I thought he was a good guy, all the way.

Interestingly, this wasnt Andersons first brush with the law. In fact, at the time of his lawnmower arrest, he was out on bond of charges of making a terroristic threat and assaulting a family member.

His bail for the case has been set at $10,000.

VIDEO
As impressive as the Lamborghini Aventador is to look at, its less satisfying the moment you step behind the wheel. A proper drivers car it is not.

However, has the updated Aventador S fixed this and made the model a true rival to Ferraris and McLarens offerings?



Auto Express magazine traveled to Spain to find out by putting the Aventador S through its paces on a racetrack and were happy to report that according to this review, the Italian brands 277,000 halo supercar is finally a drivers car.

Steve Sutcliffe mentions in the review that the facelifted Aventador feels much more coherent and connected than the outgoing model and benefits hugely from a four-wheel steering system and recalibrated steering. He also says that the carbon ceramic brakes provide much better feedback and that improvements have even been made in how the V12-powered supercar accelerates in a straight line.

Were still on the fence about how the new Aventador S looks, but it is good to know that the Ferrari F12 now has a fierce rival.

VIDEO
Footage of a large tractor trailer blowing over and crushing a Wyoming Highway Patrol car, which fortunately, was unoccupied at the time, was captured by a nearby parked police cruiser.



The scary incident happened on the I-80 near Elk Mountain on Tuesday afternoon when gusts were nearly around 70mph (113 km/h) Wyoming Highway Patrol Lt. Kelly Finn told EastIdahoNews.

Our troopers were already in the same area working on two other semi-trucks that had blown off the interstate, said Finn. Fortunately nobody was in the police car or it would have been a lot worse.

The driver and a passenger of the truck escaped unscathed. Foxnews reported that the trucker apparently ignored a high wind advisory prohibiting commercial vehicles on that stretch of road.

The Wyoming Highway Patrol issued a statement advising drivers to heed high wind advisories. All we ask is that you please follow high wind advisories and closures when you are traveling in our great stateeven if you plan to travel at reduced speeds. Hopefully this video illustrates why.

Video




Justin Amash isn't hiding from his constituents and he's not hiding the media coverage of his raucous downhill meetings. He welcomes them and wants Michiganders to know about them. Amash's Grand Rapids-based seat is in a swing district (PVI is R+4); most of the voters coming from Kent (Grand Rapids) and Calhoun (Battle Creek) counties. Obama won it 50-49% in 2008, lost it 53-46% in 2012 and Hillary lost to Trump 51.6% to 42.2%. 3 months ago, Amash did considerably better than Trump-- winning reelection with 203,069 votes (59.6%) to 128,159 (37.5%). He won all 5 counties in the district.





According to the ProgressivePunch crucial votes scores, he's the most likely Republican in the House to support progressive legislation and, in fact, his score so far this year is 40.0, more progressive than would-be Democratic Leader Tim Ryan (D-OH), New Dem leader Jim Himes (CT), Blue Dog leader Kurt Schrader (OR) and over two dozen other Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, who apparently see the Trump-Ryan agenda as more attractive and supportable than Amash does. Amash's 2017 score is 40.0 while reactionary Blue Dogs like Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Collin Peterson (MN), Henry Cuellar (TX), Jim Costa (CA), Dan Lipinski (IL), Jim Cooper (TN), and Tom O'Halleran (AZ) all have scores of... ZERO. You can see why Ryan and McCarthy prefer Democrats like Sinema and Cuellar way more than independent-minded Republicans like Amash and Walter Jones (NC).





This week, while Ryan's lockstep Republicans were being torn apart by their own constituents in town halls, even in deeply red districts and in every part of the country, Amash was packing in the crowds-- and with a different result than, for example, Tom McClintock found waiting for him in Roseville, in the suburbs north of Sacramento.

More than 600 people showed up to a town hall meeting hosted by Congressman Justin Amash Thursday night. It was his second Grand Rapids town hall in less than a month and it was the second time so many people showed up they had to close the doors and turn people away.



Some Michigan members of Congress have been criticized lately for avoiding constituents.



But town halls are not new for Amash. The Republican says hes always felt taking unscripted questions from his constituents, in person, is part of the job. But under the new administration, the crowds have been major.



I like to be here hearing the different perspectives. Im not afraid of my positions. Theyre positions I believe in and positions I ran on, Amash said... The generally left-leaning crowd gave Amash heat for supporting the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and a bill dismantling the U.S. Education Department. Amash got cheers for his support of immigrant families and civil rights. He told the crowd President Donald Trump needs to release more personal information, up to and including his tax returns if necessary, in order to ease ethical concerns.



But, more than anything, they thanked him for showing up and listening.



16-year old Holly Heathfield came with a group of classmates from Coopersville seeking extra credit in her government class. She asked Amash whether he supported expanded charter schools; she doesnt, he does.



Even though I dont agree with all his views I do respect him for holding these meeting and hearing other peoples opinions. I think thats really important for the community as a whole, Heathfield said.



You can see how hard it is to get people to accept the idea of non-partisan discourse, Amash said after the event, Of listening and working together and learning from each other, but I believe that a majority of Americans want something like that.

The Republican town hall that got all the attention Thursday night was Jason Chaffetz's in the Salt Lake City suburb of Cottonwood Heights , one of the more moderate parts of his district. He was roundly booed by a thousand of his constituents, who are sick of him on a whole array of issues.

The din of the hostile and harassing audience that filled the 1,000 seats of a high school auditorium Thursday night drowned him out.



"Explain yourself," they roared over him.



When the congressman did get a chance to speak, the crowd often didn't like what he had to say. And he knew it.



The town-hall meeting was 75 minutes of tense exchanges between Chaffetz and residents from across the state. They were frustrated by the Utah Republican's refusal to investigate President Donald Trump's potential conflicts of interest. They doggedly pursued him for his initiatives to transfer or sell public lands. They questioned his position on immigration and refugees.



And that was only half of the largely liberal crowd.



About 1,500 people stood outside Brighton High School, too far back to make the cut, their signs reading, "Do your job" and "America is better than this."



...The congressman addressed 13 questions, three focused on public lands and four on investigating Trump. The other subjects jumped from Planned Parenthood to air quality to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.



Noor Ul-Hasan, a Democratic activist, said, "If you want to continue to look into Hillary Clinton, I don't care. But why aren't you checking out your own president?"



Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said he's looking into comments made by Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to Trump, who plugged Ivanka Trump's fashion line in a national television interview.



"There's no case to be made that we went soft on the White House," Chaffetz said as police nervously patrolled the perimeter of the room. "In terms of doing my job, that's what I'm supposed to be doing."



Melissa Batka Thomas, from Salt Lake City, steadied her shaking hands as she read a quote from Chaffetz in which he called on presidential candidates to release their tax returns and "show everything."



"I'm asking you to explain what your timeline is to uphold your word or why there is a reluctance to do so," she said.



The congressman said, as he has before, that the president is "exempt" from conflict of interest laws. "Until there is evidence that [Trump] has somehow overused that to ingratiate his family " Chaffetz said before boos cut him off.



...While discussing public-land use and his opposition to Bears Ears National Monument, Chaffetz was greeted by the strongest pushback of the night.



"I hope you do appreciate that not every person has the same viewpoint on the use of public lands," he said. "What we're trying to do is find a balanced approach."



The topic came up again, giving him a chance to speak about his bill to strip Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service employees of their law enforcement powers, an idea that elicited protest from the audience.



"I'm trying to be as representative as I can," he said.



Charlie Luke, a Democratic member of the Salt Lake City Council, wrote on Facebook that the harassment Chaffetz faced "ensured his reelection for as long as he chooses to run."



"It will embolden his majority Republican district," he wrote. "We need to resist, but let's be smart in the way we do it."

This drooling imbecile represents TN-06 in Congress





In November Trump only got 47.2% of the votes in Chaffetz's district, dramatically down from the 78.3% Romney got 4 years earlier. Clinton actually beat Trump in Salt Lake County 175,863 to 138,043. Chaffetz was reelected 186,743 (73.3%) to 68,104 (26.7%), a feat he's unlikely to duplicate in 2018. Halfway across the country in Tennessee, Diane Black, her state's most reactionary member of Congress, represents one of the state's two most backward fascist-oriented districts, TN-06, the north-central Tennessee district composed mostly of the suburbs and exurbs east of Nashville. She won every county in the district-- by a lot-- as did Trump. Trump beat Hillary there 72.6% to 23.7%. Black did nearly as well-- 71.1% to 21.8%. Her Murfreesboro town hall wasn't as raucous as Chaffetz's or McClintock's, but it was no love-fest either. One hundred of her constituents confronted her at an "Ask Your Reps" event hosted by the Middle Tennessee State University's College Republicans.

Mike Carlson, a 32-year-old student from Antioch, Tennessee, said that as an overweight man, he depended on Obamacare to stay alive.



"I have to have coverage to make sure I don't die. There are people now who have cancer that have that coverage, that have to have that coverage to make sure they don't die," Carlson said. "And you want to take away this coverage-- and have nothing to replace it with! How can I trust you to do anything that's in our interest at all?"



Black responded that Obamacare's individual mandate-- which requires everyone to have health insurance or pay a penalty-- still allowed millions, including many young and healthy people, to be without coverage.



"About 20 million people did actually come into the program who were uninsured," Black said. "You don't want to hurt one group of people to help the another. We can help both groups at the same time."



Bohon shot back: "How many of those people were in states where they played a political game with people's lives?"



Black appeared flustered, and declined to continue. "I'm going to pass this one," she said.



Bohon told CNN afterward that as a state employee, she receives health insurance through the state. Her question to Black, she said, was motivated in part by her Christian beliefs, as well as her upbringing in the coal-mining town of Grundy, Virginia.



"Growing up in the community that I grew up, in Appalachia, because we were so poor there that we had to take care of each other," Bohon said.



Both Carlson and Bohon told CNN that they voted for Hillary Clinton in the general election.



The same event hosted by MTSU's College Republican last year was attended by around 30 to 40 people, according to organizers. On Thursday night, the room was quickly filled to capacity while dozens outside chanted: "Let us in! Let us in!"



Black, along with two other GOP local officials, were at first asked questions that had been pre-submitted on the topics of healthcare and tax reform-- a format that clearly frustrated audience members and prompted some to interrupt.



At one point in the discussion, GOP State Rep. Mike Sparks told the room: "I'll be honest with you. As a state representative, I got health insurance. I feel a little guilty."



Multiple audience members could be heard responding: "You should."

Politico writers use the word "moderate," they are invariably referring to corrupt right-wingers, in this case the putrid whores from Third Way] think tank. And several lawmakers worried that the Democratic leadership would be too dependent on consultants and data to chart a course forward, rather than focusing on a clearer vision for the party... [I]ts obvious from private and public conversations with members and Democratic aides that the caucus is still struggling, trying to unite on a path forward while still fighting about how they got here in the first place." While Republicans were suffering through accountabilty sessions with their constituents, House Democrats were at a retreat in Baltimore where they tried to figure out what went wrong in November and how to move forward . As has become too commonplace among House Democrats-- so utterly dominated by timid corporatists-- everyone was all smiles and upbeat, while "progressives privately vented about being lectured to by a speaker from a moderate [note: whenwriters use the word "moderate," they are invariably referring to corrupt right-wingers, in this case the putrid whores from Third Way] think tank. And several lawmakers worried that the Democratic leadership would be too dependent on consultants and data to chart a course forward, rather than focusing on a clearer vision for the party... [I]ts obvious from private and public conversations with members and Democratic aides that the caucus is still struggling, trying to unite on a path forward while still fighting about how they got here in the first place."





Silicon Valley freshman Ro Khanna (D-CA) had far more to offer than Pelosi and her sad-sack eggshell-walking lieutenants. "We need to stop doing the autopsies, stop doing all this metric data stuff and listen to the visionary voices. [Trump] didnt have deep-dive data. He bragged about not polling. He offered a vision based on what he thought was his vision." Khanna proposed including liberal economic thinkers like Robert Reich and Paul Krugman in Democratic Party discussions like the one they were having.





ABC News' John Parkinson and Mary Alice Parks reported more fully on what Khanna had to say.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California, echoed, "I dont think that running on Donald Trumps missteps is going to win. That didnt work for Hillary."



As she has often repeated since the election, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said again this week that the problem for Democrats during the election was messaging around their own ideas.



"There wasn't that clarity of the message coming through so we could represent we were the party of the working people," she said.



But Khanna and other progressive members in the party argue it isnt that simple. They contend Democrats need to spend time crafting a clearer, populist economic agenda, in line with the ideas offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders during his presidential campaign, in order to present a concrete alternative to voters.



What is the Democrats bold economic vision? Khanna wondered rhetorically, during an interview with ABC News. People get that the Democratic Party is for the little guy, but that is not a bold economic vision where it is clearly rejecting corporatists past, being populist and future looking and aspirational.



He argued the passion and energy in the party right now was with the left and that he worries the party was looking for an all-inclusive lowest common denominator message to present that all members in the party, including more moderates, could get behind.



I think the way to win is to be clear, to be bold, to be progressive, to look at where [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren and Sanders are taking the party and if there are 20 or 30 folks who are not onboard with it fine. But it is better to run with a bold, clear, contrasted vision of the future, he said.

Jim Himes (New Dem-Wall St)

"The energy of this party is with a message of economic populism, of... questioning the rules of capitalism and saying that these rules have been rigged and written in a way that favors concentrated economic interests and need to be changed" was the message Khanna wanted House Democrats to focus on, something that frightens and infuriates the Members from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, like Jim Himes (ex-bankster and head New Dem-CT). Times was obviously discomforted by Khanna's perspective. "We need to be really careful about convincing ourselves that the right answer is to have 'the perfect message,'" said the congressman who has taken $5,547,712 in legalistic bribes from the Finance Sector since first being elected in 2008. "We bristle a little bit at the idea that 'my gosh, this person shouldnt even be allowed in the room.'"





After the conference Progressive Caucus officers Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) issued this statement on the confirmation of Tom Price as Secretary of Health and Human Services. It's probably no more what Himes or his Third Way buddies would have like to have seen than it is what Chaffetz, Black and McClintock would embrace:
Photo: Contributed

Treatment at Kelowna's BC Cancer Agency centre has allowed a 68-year-old woman to live 18 months cancer-free.

And the BC Cancer Foundation's goal of raising $600,000 for clinical research expansion will direct more money to Kelowna to save more lives.

I sincerely do believe in the power and purpose of research, says Sharon Daley.

Daley lost her father to lung cancer and her granddaughter to brain cancer, all before being diagnosed with uterine cancer herself.

She received chemotherapy and radiation at Kelowna's Sindi Ahluwalia Hawkins Centre for the Southern Interior in 2011.

Before her four-year mark of being completely cancer free, Daley noticed things weren't right. Her doctor confirmed a cancerous mass again.

Daley took part in high-dose-rate brachytherapy, and after finishing treatment in three months, is now 18 months cancer-free.

Having that faith that my oncologist and gynecologist were there for me and everybody at BC Cancer was there for me  it was a very personalized experience, said Daley.
Photo: Contributed

Someone is making the rounds claiming to be associated with FortisBC, and the energy company is not amused.

In recent weeks, FortisBC customers have alerted officials about salespeople visiting their homes asking to see their furnace.

FortisBC reminds all customers it does not solicit door to door.

FortisBC warns people to:

Be cautious of anyone who shows up unannounced claiming to be offering appliance inspections.

Always ask for photo identification and get the name of the person and the business.

If the salesperson asks to see your gas or electricity bill, decline. Your bill contains personal information and should not be shared with anyone.

If you ask the salesperson to leave, they must leave right away. If you feel unsafe, call the police.

In the event that you are asked to sign an agreement or any paperwork, ensure you read the fine print and understand what you are signing.

For information about maintaining your furnace and tips on choosing a licensed contractor, go to fortisbc.com/findacontrator.

Anyone who is suspicious of someone claiming to be a FortisBC representative is urged to call the company at 1-888-224-2710, or go online.

People can also contact the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, through its website, or by calling 1-888-495-8501.
Photo: Contributed

Some of Okanagan's best wines will be featured in Vancouver this week.

The 39th annual Vancouver International Wine Festival brings together wine professionals and enthusiasts from across B.C. and around the world.

In honour of our nations 150th birthday, Canada will be the festivals theme country, featuring wines from the Okanagan Valley of B.C., to the Niagara Peninsula and Essex County regions of Ontario, to the growing regions of Nova Scotia," said Coralee Oakes, minister responsible for the Liquor Distribution Branch.

"Seventy-six of Canadas finest wineries will present bottles that show how our unique climates and abundance of varietals have earned Canadian wines their place at the international table."

In total, 180 wineries from 16 countries will be featured at 54 events over eight days.

The festival runs from Saturday to Feb. 19 at multiple venues across the city.

Harry Hertscheg, festival executive director, said: Its not surprising to receive many winery applications from the Okanagan each year, as its a premier opportunity for them to showcase their wines for both trade and public alongside their international counterparts. The wine world is here, and so is the Okanagan.
Photo: Contributed

A high-risk sex offender is on the loose in the Lower Mainland.

The Vancouver Police Department is warning the public about Antoine Naskathey, 36, who has a history of sexual offences.

Naskathey is a second-time federal offender currently on a six-year long-term supervision order for a sexual assault.

In 2001 and 2009, Naskathey was convicted of breaking into homes and sexually assaulting female residents.

He has more than 50 convictions since 1994, primarily for break-and-enter, theft and property-related crimes.

According to police, Naskathey had a temporary residence at a Vancouver halfway house and was being transferred to a residence in Saskatchewan.

On Feb. 8, Naskathey was supposed to be on a plane from Vancouver to Regina, but missed the flight. His whereabouts are unknown, and a Canada-wide warrant has been issued for his arrest.

Naskathey is gender variant and identifies as a female at times.

He is aboriginal, five feet 10 inches tall, 161 pounds, with long brown hair and brown eyes and is believed to be wearing a black jacket with a white stripe down the back and blue jeans.

Anyone who sees or knows the whereabouts of Naskathey is asked to call 911 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
Almost at the summit of the #coquihalla ...finally pic.twitter.com/UnFPj5w9PO  Jen Spark (@rainstorm3) February 11, 2017

UPDATE: 10:30 a.m.

The northbound lane of the Coquihalla Highway has now been reopened to vehicle traffic, after closing Thursday night at 8 p.m.

DriveBC is warning drivers to use caution in the area.

Additionally, Highway 1 has reopened in the westbound direction from Boston Bar to Yale.

UPDATE: 9:40 a.m.

The Coquihalla Highway is expected to fully reopen late this morning, after the northbound lanes were closed through the evening for the second night in a row.

Mike Lorimer, regional director with the Ministry of Transportation, said the highways had incredibly high traffic volumes throughout the night, and large commercial vehicles were losing control and blocking traffic.

We were trying to police it, we had our CVSE officers out there trying to restrict them to the right hand lane, so we always had a lane open to passengers, but what we ended up seeing was them ignoring that, and getting into the fast lane, spinning out and blocking three lanes, said Lorimer.

While the southbound lanes were closed until about 4 a.m., and the northbound lanes were closed all night, Lorimer says there were no passenger vehicles stranded on the highway all night like Thursday night.

Through the closure area, when I made the call at 4 a.m., we had cleared all the passenger vehicles out of there at that time from the two ends, he said. That was our priority.

There are still people held up on the highway near the Hope area, though.

A lot of the delays were also from crews enforcing the chain up areas, causing the slow going.

You can only chain up so many trucks at a time, Lorimer said.

He says they plan to completely open the Coquihalla later this morning, but warns it will be a slow opening.

It won't be an open free-for-alll, we're going to send 20 trucks, get them through, send the next 20, that kind of thing, Lorimer said.

But with the forecast in the area looking more positive, he says things are looking up.

Aside from that final cleanup and getting those trucks out of the way, the Coquihalla is in good shape, he said.

UPDATE: 7:20 a.m.

Traffic on the Coquihalla Highway is now clear in the southbound direction near the Great Bear Snowshed, after heavy traffic volume and poor weather conditions slowed traffic to a crawl overnight.

The highway remains closed in the northbound direction from the Portia Interchange to Merritt, due to poor driving conditions, stranding hundreds of drivers for the second night in a row.

The estimated time of reopening the northbound lanes has been pushed back to 8 a.m..

UPDATE: 6:40 a.m.

The Coquihalla Highway was closed again overnight and drivers were stranded on the freeway.

DriveBC anticipates the route will open soon, possibly as early as 7 a.m.

It's currently closed from the Portia interchange to Merritt, a stretch of 88.3 kilometres, because of severe winter driving conditions.

Crews are reported clearing backed up traffic queues and are working to access all blocked vehicles as soon as possible.

The highway reopened at the Coldwater interchange, south of Merritt as of 4 a.m. and was previously closed because of a vehicle incident.

UPDATE: 11 p.m.

Social media indicates motorists stranded on the Coquihalla between Hope and Merritt are being allowed to proceed. Drive BC is currently reporting that new traffic will be allowed to head north around 1 a.m..

Southbound traffic is being held at the Coldwater Interchange south of Merritt due to a motor vehicle incident. No estimated time the road will reopen south.

UPDATE: 9:40 p.m.

It looks like hundreds of commuters may be stranded on the Coquihalla Highway again tonight. Many people have been taking to social media to voice their frustration.

Castanet will continue to update you as more information becomes available.

UPDATE: 9 p.m.

DriveBC reports that Highway 5 is closed in both directions from Exit 202, Portia Interchange to Merritt (88.3 km) because of severe winter driving conditions and traffic congestion.

An assessment in progress.

ORIGINAL

DriveBC is warning of "significant delays in both directions due to traffic volume and congestion," as vehicles deal with compact snow, icy roads, pooling water, and dense fog.

Commuters are reporting significant delays in south and northbound between Hope and Merritt after the highway was closed for 20 hours on Thursday and Friday.

Castanet will continue to update you as more information becomes available.
Photo: @OhmsB

Protesters staged demonstrations across Canada Saturday to attack the governing Liberals' decision to abandon their promise of electoral reform.

Hundreds of people turned out to the Toronto protest, some holding signs critical of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and demanding proportional representation.

Trudeau repeatedly promised to get rid of the first-past-the-post voting system in time for the 2019 election, both during his campaign in the last election and again as prime minister.

But earlier this month, he announced that electoral reform would not be part of the mandate of newly-appointed Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould.

Erich Vogt said he comes from Germany  a country that's had proportional representation for decades. He said he had hoped to see Trudeau bring in a similar system in Canada.

"I wanted to believe him, and I did," he said. "I am very disappointed."

"People feel that they have been cheated. Politicians walk back on their words," Vogt added. "And Mr. Trudeau should know that we will not take this sitting down. That we will stand up, and we will march, and we will be visible and we will be loud. And we will remind him that promises are to be kept."

Sharon Bider of Toronto said she was devastated when Trudeau reneged on his promise to change the electoral system.

"I understand that there's a lot of turmoil right now, but that didn't justify shutting the system down and shutting the options down," she said.

She says she believed the prime minister when he said that 2015 would be the last election that used the first-past-the-post system.

But Trudeau has defended his decision by saying that Canadians haven't expressed a clear preference for electoral reform  let alone a consensus.

Toronto's protest was one of more than 20 planned for Saturday across Canada, from Antigonish, N.S., to Victoria.

In Vancouver, dozens of people gathered in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery, chanting "we want PR."
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A compulsion to collect things is a well known human trait. For centuries, people have collected practically anything that interests them. This could be obvious things such as stamps and coins, or it could be the hundreds of varieties of beer cans, arrowheads, antique bottles or samples of antique barbed wire.

I must admit that at different times in my own ancient history, I have dabbled in collections of all those things mentioned above. Having grown up on a ranch and worked on several others, I found that there were many varieties of interesting barbed wire to be found along the miles of old fence surrounding the fields and pastures of Nevada. I also learned there were collectors who had a passion for seeing how many different varieties they could assemble into a collection.

Many books have been written about the subject and each variety was given a name. One of the earliest patented varieties was the Kelly Diamond Point which was patented in 1868 by Michael Kelly. It had a distinctive diamond shaped point and one of the twisted wires passed through a small hole in each diamond point.

Rules for collectors were established and those included the obligation to repair any standing fence where a sample was removed. Sample size was set at 18 and over 1,000 different varieties of American made barbed wire have been identified.

My own collection at one time covered an entire wall of my house and included over 500 different types. It was during my barbed wire collecting phase that I learned there was one variety of barbed wire that was manufactured in Virginia City, Nevada using materials taken from the Comstock mines.

Many of the hoisting works of some Comstock mines used massive flat wire cable straps to raise and lower the heavy elevators deep into the earth. After months of lifting tons of ore, timbers, men and equipment, the flat strap cable became dangerously worn. No longer safe to use for its intended purpose, the cable had to be scrapped and replaced.

In those days, the Chinese built the V&T Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad across northern Nevada. The Chinese, however, were not allowed to work in the deep mines, but they did work placer mines such as in Gold Canyon between Dayton and Silver City.

Enterprising Chinese laborers soon found there was a market for the worn-out flat cable from the Comstock mines. Miles of the used flat cable was laid out flat on the ground and split apart by the Chinese laborers into several strands, complete with barbs that were formed where the cable was cut apart with chisels.

Wagon loads of this heavy barbed wire were sold to farmers and ranchers in the Truckee meadows, Dayton and the Carson Valley. Fencing of the various farms and ranches became necessary about the same time the Comstock Mines were being developed.

The Comstock has always been known for its superlatives and Comstock barbed wire continued this tradition. Comstock Barbed Wire is easily the largest and heaviest barbed wire ever made and it had the longest barbs of any barbed wire. It is also perhaps the rarest of barbed wire types. This is because it was hand crafted from local materials and was used extensively on the farms and ranches surrounding the Comstock region.

Surprisingly, examples of Comstock mine cable barbed wire can still be seen on a few fences along the back roads of Carson Valley today. A few years ago I photographed a section of this wire on a fence near Genoa. Several other sections of the wire are still in place, but are not easily recognized since many of the barbs have fallen out. Please try to look for the distinctive Comstock barbed wire during your next visit to Carson Valley. It is truly a relic of the old Comstock days and worthy of preserving. Cameras only, pleaseno wire cutters.

I want to ask a favor from my readers. I know the distribution of the Comstock mine cable barbed wire was probably the immediate area surrounding the Comstock. If any of you readers out in Winnemucca , Elko or Hawthorne have seen this unique wire, please let me know by email. Not exact locations please, just general locations so the fences can be preserved.

It will be interesting to learn the geographic distribution of this amazing artifact from the Comstock. It likely was distributed around other agricultural areas where the Comstock obtained its food, livestock, hay and grain. If any of you know that some of the wire still exists besides Carson Valley, could you please let me know?

Dayton author and historian Dennis Cassinelli can be contacted at cassinelli-books@charter.net or on his blog at denniscassinelli.com. All books sold through this publication will be at a 20 percent discount and the author will pay the postage.
The maze of pipes and valves of the Tennessee Valley Authoritys Browns Ferry Nuclear plant is a world away from an airplane cabin where Brady Queen-Peden started her professional career as a flight attendant in the 1980s. But her amazing career trajectory took her from helping air travelers to ensuring the safety and soundness of nuclear energy equipment that helps generate electricity for millions of people in the Tennessee Valley.

Success stories like Ms. Pedens circulate faster than cooling water in a reactor at the 2017 Region II Southeast Regional Women in Nuclear Conference, hosted by TVA this year in Chattanooga, Tenn.

It's an interesting ride to reinvent yourself, said Ms. Peden, who held a career in marketing before returning to college and landing at TVAs Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in 2003.

Safety lessons learned at 35,000 feet apply directly to Ms. Pedens current position as one of two nuclear surveillance [equipment test] coordinators at Browns Ferry. She helps ensure the plants equipment is continually tested and that it always operates as designed. Missing even one test on the day and time is "unacceptable," Ms. Peden said.

As a chairperson for Browns Ferry's Women in Nuclear (WIN) chapter, Ms. Pedens mission is outreach. When people hear the word nuclear they seem to panic, she said. She changes that mindset by working with hundreds of young women to educate them about careers in the nuclear industry. She helps them to realize that all careers at TVA Nuclear and the nuclear industry in general are open to womenand that positions include administration, communications, engineering, finance, IT, medical, maintenance, plant operators, technical trades and more.

Maintaining a willingness to learn is key, Ms. Peden said. There are jobs for women in all applications of nuclear science and technology.

The nuclear industry employees about 100,000 people in the United States; however, a very small percentage of them are women. WIN wants to increase awareness among women that the nuclear career door is open to them. This year the WIN conference is bringing together over 250 female nuclear industry employees and nuclear engineering students from around the southeast who want recruit new sisters into their nuclear family.

Jenny Baglio, a nuclear engineering major at North Carolina State University and first time WIN attendee, wants to network and meet the women who in a few short months will become her peers.

I dont think it has fully hit yet, said Ms. Baglio, who is a senior. Im going to be around these people for the rest of my career.

Ms. Baglio, who grew up in Houston, recently accepted a nuclear engineering position at GE-Hitachi, in Wilmington N.C. She chose an engineering career because I really wanted to do something for the world. I could not see a major that was as active in everyones lives as engineering. I think it is the easiest way to touch on multiple lives in a positive way.

Ms. Baglio is just the type of woman WIN wants to attract into the industry. I would like to be in the forefront of nuclear technologies. I want to be part of the first economic simplified boiling water reactor that is going to go online in the future. Im very hopeful that it will happen in my lifetime.

At WIN conferences around the county participants learn about just such new industry trends, network with each other and share their experiences to with the hope to achieve critical mass by inspiring young ladies to choose STEM careers that may lead directly to the nuclear industry.

TVA is proud to be a part of this conference, said Beth Jenkins, TVA Watts Bar director, Plant Support. TVA fully supports WINs mission to inspire young women to choose STEM careers and break all barriers before them.
The Chattanooga State Faculty Fellows program provides professional encouragement and support to faculty across campus. Chattanooga State Faculty Fellowships are named for former faculty members and/or administrators who demonstrated outstanding scholarship and dedication to teaching and learning.

Chattanooga State faculty must apply for a fellowship with an innovative project that promotes the highest levels of scholarship. Based upon these applications, Faculty Fellows are selected by the Faculty Senate Fellows Selection Committee.

The Chattanooga State Faculty Fellows for 2016-2017 are:

The Dr. Howard Yarbrough Fellowship: Robin Hoffecker, assistant professor in Nursing and Marie Loisy, associate professor in Nursing, are developing a multi-client simulation experience for fourth semester RN students during their final clinical rotation of the program. Previously, students were providing care to single clients but with the new advancement, students will have the opportunity to care for three to four clients at a time. This multi-client experience enables students to take on the RN role and develop critical thinking skills in a controlled environment. This experience will provide students the opportunity to practice skills of prioritization, delegation, and management of resources in a safe and controlled setting, says Assistant Professor Hoffecker and Associate Professor Loisy.

The Amanda Wynn Fellowship: Jason Huddleston, assistant pprofessor for Humanities and Fine Arts, designed an English 1010 Composition course that focuses on current social issues in the community. The primary goal for the course is for students to be more aware of issues in their community and to become more involved in finding solutions to those issues within their local, national, and global communities. The students complete a community project that actively engages them in a local social issue. Students are required to volunteer with a local organization that advocates for their selected topic. At the end of the course, students write a research paper that explores the history of their topic and proposes a solution to the issue. Students have the opportunity to present their final proposal to a committee of community stakeholders and fellow students.

The Richard K. Lamerand Fellowship: Caitlin Moffitt, assistant professor, Civil and Construction Engineering, has developed a tiny house building project that will enhance the Chattanooga State Associate of Applied Science Degree (A.A.S.) in Construction Engineering Technology. Students in the A.A.S. Degree program plan and construction a fully functional tiny house. It is imperative that all students have access to experience on a real-world construction project, says Assistant Professor Moffitt. The Tiny House project is a multi-semester project that will expose students to the different facets of a construction industry.

The goal of the Faculty Fellowship program is to engage faculty in a learning environment that supports teaching and learning scholarships in order to promote student mastery and engagement. The program awards each Faculty Fellow $2,000 to support their work and $1,000 in travel funds to a professional conference or event where they can present their work or become inspired for their next innovation in teaching and learning.

For more information about the Faculty Fellow program, contact Donna Seagle at 697-3361 or email at donna.seagle@chattanoogastate.edu.






Mayors from three of Mexico's largest cities were in Chicago on Feb. 10, 2017, seeking to reinforce their relationships with the city and reassure members of the local Mexican community who are worried by the policies of President Donald Trump. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

Mayors from three of Mexico's largest cities were in Chicago on Friday, seeking to reinforce their relationships with the city and reassure members of the local Mexican community who are worried by the policies of President Donald Trump.

The delegation, which included Miguel Angel Mancera of Mexico City, Enrique Alfaro of Guadalajara and Hector Armando Cabada Alvidrez of Ciudad Juarez, met with their Chicago counterpart, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, to discuss commerce, human rights and immigration  issues brought to the forefront by a flurry of Trump executive orders.

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"We are in Chicago to make sure Mexicans living here and across the country know that their elected officials in Mexico care for them and will support them in the most effective way we can," Mancera said.

Mexico City is one of Chicago's largest North American trading partners, and Chicago has more than 1.65 million residents of Mexican origin, ranking fourth among U.S. metropolitan areas, according to the Pew Research Center.

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Guadalajara Mayor Enrique Alfaro, from left, Ciudad Juarez Mayor Hector Armando Cabada Alvidrez and Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera converse Feb. 10, 2017, after speaking with a Tribune reporter about Mexico-U.S. trade and political issues at the Union League Club in Chicago. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Emanuel and Mancera signed a partnership agreement in 2013 to promote economic, intellectual and cultural exchanges.

More recently, Emanuel pledged that Chicago would remain a "sanctuary city" in the wake of a Jan. 25 Trump executive order that threatened to withhold federal funds from cities that "shield aliens from removal" by federal immigration authorities.

The Mexican mayors sat down with the Tribune to discuss municipal relationships under the Trump administration, covering everything from deportation and tariffs to the proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The interview was edited for length and clarity and conducted through a translator.

Q: A federal appeals court on Thursday unanimously refused to reinstate Trump's travel ban. While Mexico was not directly affected, what is your reaction?

Alfaro: That is a good lesson for everybody that the United States' institutions and laws are much more stronger than the will of any man  even if he is the president of the United States.

Q: Has the 2013 agreement between Chicago and Mexico City produced results?

Mancera: Ever since the memorandum was signed, they've been able to create more employment and business opportunities between the two cities. Gino's East opened up a restaurant (in 2015) in Mexico City.

Q: Trump has floated a 20 percent tax on goods imported from Mexico. What impact would that have on Mexico City's trade relationship with Chicago?

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Mancera: If the 20 percent tariff was to be imposed, Mexico would be doing something similar to American products. I believe that the relationship should be positive, as it has been in the past.

Q: On Jan. 25, Trump signed an executive order authorizing the construction of a wall to prevent illegal immigration from Mexico, a campaign pledge. Will it work, and will Mexico pay for it?

Alvidrez: We're on the border with El Paso, Texas. We already have a wall that serves as security right on the border. It's an unnecessary expense for the United States, and Mexico is not going to pay for it.

Mancera: The United States has the right to build a wall on their side of the border and to invest their own money in whichever way they see fit. What is already built between Mexico and the United States is communication and connection. Mr. Trump wouldn't be building a wall; he would be destroying those bridges of communication.

Q: That same order expanded the list of people considered a priority for deportation, beefed up the border patrol and expanded the number and size of detention facilities to speed up the process. Are you concerned about this policy?

Alfaro: We see now the consequences of immigration reform that was never completed. It's not just Mexico's problem  it's a problem for both Mexico and the United States. We're going to defend our people with everything we have.

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Q: You are inviting mayors from sanctuary cities to a forum in Mexico City on Feb. 20. What is the purpose of that meeting?

Mancera: It's very important for us to meet with mayors of sanctuary cities, to ensure the care and protection of human rights. Even though they may not be receiving as many resources from the federal government, it's very important that mayors of sanctuary cities have come out in defense of the human rights of immigrants.

Q: Chicago is home to a very large Mexican population. What do you want them to take away from your visit here?

Alvidrez: One of the reasons that we are here is because we understand the fear that is running through the Mexican community in the United States. We want to assure them that in the case that they were to be sent back, they would be received with open arms.

rchannick@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @RobertChannick
A few days after the Super Bowl Sunday blizzard, the temperature in Chicago upgraded to socks-moistening. Roads were a slushy gray; pedestrians everywhere played dirty snow hopscotch.

In West Ridge, a steady flurry fell over a shop called Lickity Split, and a worker inside named Alec Gottberg poured vanilla frozen custard mix into a mechanical churn. The machine whirred and rattled, and minutes later, extruded a plank of pliable, semifrozen cream.

The point of this scene is dichotomy. It's frigid and wintry, and all over Chicago, ice cream parlors operate. On its face, the combination makes as much sense as a furnace repairman in sub-Saharan Africa. This raises several questions: 1) What kind of person eats ice cream when it's this cold? 2) Who goes into the ice cream business in a city that's freezing four months out of the year?

Ice cream (let's just use that term to include gelato, frozen custard and froyo too) begins with a competitive edge. Few foods elicit more cheery nostalgia: Kids don't win a Little League game and celebrate with potatoes au gratin.

Lickity Split in West Ridge, barely a month old, is the second location of a cheerily nostalgic shop that first opened in Edgewater in 2011. At the West Ridge site, two descriptors that come to mind are happy and shiny. Its aluminum ceiling, marbled tabletop and pastry glass cases reflect effervescence. Menu boards are handwritten with items like Bing Crosberry  custard mixed with raspberries, cherries, cheesecakes and graham cracker crust. The shop aims its crosshairs at our retro-aesthetic pleasure center and hits the bullseye.

As with most new food establishments, construction delays pushed back Lickity Split's grand opening, doubly inopportune for a seasonal business such as frozen custard. Owner Ken Anderson intended for a late summer launch; when he finally opened Jan. 5, the daytime high was 8 degrees. Still, nearly 75 customers, many of them neighborhood children, showed up on its first day.

Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune At Lickity Split in West Ridge, Leo Lopez serves frozen custard to customer Ned Dooley. At Lickity Split in West Ridge, Leo Lopez serves frozen custard to customer Ned Dooley. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

Anderson, whose first job as a teenager was at an ice cream shop in Rockford, said scarcity was a reason he went into the business in Chicago. That dichotomy of cold food in a cold-weather town, he said, made the market less competitive.

Yes, it's counterintuitive to open an ice cream shop in Chicago, Anderson said. But there's not that many ice cream shops in Chicago either.

Many cold-food shops (Scooter's Frozen Custard and Mario's Italian Lemonade come to mind) close every year during the winter months. Many others operate through the winter for a simple reason.

You gotta pay rent either way, said Kristen Hoel, co-owner of the Elmhurst ice cream shop Brain Freeze since 2011. My husband and I cover most of the hours so we're not paying someone to be here.

Said Lickity Split's Anderson: We don't need to have six people working a shift. We'll have two instead. The rent and utility stays the same, but that helps a lot with expenses.

At Plush Horse Ice Cream Shoppe in Tinley Park, where 59 house-made flavors are offered, manager Mary Rydberg did the math. She figured during the winter months, her operating costs were roughly the same whether she was open or closed. If the shop were open, the sales that day might not make up for employee payroll.

Ultimately, her decision to keep the ice cream shop open year-round was about keeping Plush Horse in the forefront of the neighborhood's mind. If a store is closed for a few months, she said, customers will get used to driving past it and opt for the chain ice cream shop instead.

It's a combination of momentum and loyal customers who want ice cream all year round, Rydberg said. Ice cream is comfort food even though it's cold.

Other owners will echo that sentiment with enthusiasm: Yes! Everyone loves ice cream year-round!

But there is quantifiable correlation between the public's interest in ice cream and the temperature. As one falls, so goes the other.

The NPD Group, a consumer market research firm, conducted a survey about ice cream consumption in the Midwest. They found that restaurant customers were 3.36 times more likely to purchase ice cream from June to August than from December to February.

In dollar amounts, the Chicago-based market research firm IRI found similar figures. The four weeks between June 16 and July 12, 2014, netted the most sales of ice cream and sherbet for American retailers: $562.6 million. The slowest? The four weeks beginning Dec. 1, 2014: $404.8 million in sales.

Chicago's relatively mild winter thus far has, not surprisingly, been a boon for ice cream shop owners.

This has been our best winter so far, said Kristen Hoel of Elmhurst's Brain Freeze. Last year during the polar vortex, we closed that one day. The next day, we had maybe three, four customers all day.

These business owners arrived at a consensus. The secret to making a seasonal business sustainable year-round is to find other seasonal businesses that can slot in during the slow season. The popular hot soup restaurant Soupbox rebrands itself during the warm months as Icebox, selling fruit juice frozen slush alongside its soups.

Anyone who goes into the ice cream business, they have to be nuts, said Peter George Poulos, longtime owner of Margie's Candies. You have to know how to make candy. You have to know how to make a sandwich. You have to know how to diversify.

At Lickity Split, Anderson stocks a wall of retro candies and a shelf of novelty sodas. One bottle, which people probably buy as a gag gift, was Buffalo chicken wing-flavored soda.

Last year we changed the logos on our windows to say we sold hot chocolate, coffee and steamed cider, Anderson said. It did make a difference. If we have just frozen custard, maybe we'd have to close. To open all year round, we couldn't be foolish. We had to offer a broader menu.

Another source of revenue during the winter for ice cream parlors is take-home sales.

The biggest difference is, during the summer, there's a line of people buying single scoops and cups, said Sandy Blechman of Sweet Pea's in Highwood. During the winter, at 6:30 p.m. people are coming off trains, buying pints and quarts and taking it home. You rarely have those in the summertime.

Blechman has run Sweet Pea's for 11 years, and like all ice cream shop owners who are open year-round, he understands that he's taking a loss during the cold season. He says this time of the year, he might be losing $1,000 to $1,500 a month. But when the whiff of warm weather arrives  March 1 seems to trigger a psychic switch for ice cream customers  it more than compensates for the slow times.

Still, Blechman comes into his shop every day. He was even open for three hours during the Feb. 2 blizzard of 2011. He made $100 that night.
Heinz has jumped onto the Sriracha flavor bandwagon with a chili pepper-spiked version of its ketchup. We taste-tested it against the maker's jalapeno and Tabasco flavors. (Michael Tercha, Chicago Tribune)

Sriracha sauce, that chili-garlic-sugar-vinegar condiment with roots in Thailand, has been dubbed the "new ketchup" by trend prognosticators and has become a kitchen staple for the 35-and-younger crowd. So it's no surprise that ketchup giant Heinz just entered the condiment market with Heinz Tomato Ketchup Blended with Sriracha Flavor. Try it with burgers, fries, hot dogs, chicken or eggs, they suggest in announcing the new flavor. A 14-ounce squeeze bottle will sell for $2.69. This Sriracha version joins a pair of spiced ketchups already in the line: Heinz Tomato Ketchup Blended with Real Jalapeno and Heinz Hot & Spicy Ketchup Blended with Tabasco Brand Pepper Sauce.

So how does the new kid in the family fare in a blind tasting? Here's what our tasters found (scores from 1 to 9, with 9 the highest):

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Heinz Ketchup Blended with Real Jalapeno

Score: 6.7

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Ingredients: Tomato concentrate from red ripe tomatoes, distilled vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, salt, spice, natural flavors (bell pepper concentrate), onion powder, dehydrated jalapenos.

Nutritionals: 1 tablespoon = 20 calories, 160 mg sodium.

Comments: "Delayed heat that hit pretty well." "Dark red glossy, some tang." "Peppery chili heat coming on almost immediately, burns in 5 seconds with another burst of pepper." "Fairly tame but nice flavor, more heat in the aftertaste." "Somewhat thin, vinegary." "Darker with a faint sweet smell." "Rich taste with a surprising spicy kick."

Heinz Ketchup Blended with Sriracha Flavor

Score: 6.4

Ingredients: Tomato concentrate from red ripe tomatoes, distilled vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, salt, natural flavoring, paprika extractives.

Nutritionals: 1 tablespoon = 20 calories, 160 mg sodium.

Comments: "Good body, mellow, cayenne and spice." "Chili pepper in first take, some tomato sweetness, then a slow burn." "Spicy but not hot." "This would be great on meatloaf." "Like a tomato-y pizza sauce, a little heat at start, more at end." "Sun-dried tomato taste and a little spicy." "Like cocktail sauce rather muddled."

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Heinz Hot & Spicy Ketchup

Score: 5.4

Ingredients: Heinz tomato ketchup (tomato concentrate from red ripe tomatoes, distilled vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, salt, spice, onion powder, natural flavoring), Tabasco brand pepper sauce (distilled vinegar, red pepper, salt), natural flavoring.

Nutritionals: 1 tablespoon = 20 calories, 200 mg sodium.

Comments: "Musky and not that hot." "Least thick, aroma not a factor." "Chemically aftertaste." "Lots of heat, good with other foods." "Like regular ketchup at first, but then with a bite." "Overly sweet with interesting curry-ish aftertaste." "Tastes the most like red ketchup and a little tangy." "Bacony, but very sweet."

jhevrdejs@tribpub.com

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Twitter @judytrib
ELKO  County Sheriff Jim Pitts told local, state and federal officials that the flooding situation may become worse, but the governor declaring the county in a state of emergency will help with relief efforts.

Gov. Brian Sandoval made the declaration Friday due to the flooding and activated the Nevada National Guard to assist.

Elko County officials declared a state of emergency Thursday and spoke with the state today.

Pitts and Undersheriff Ron Supp both emphasized on Friday that the majority of the flooding in Elko County is due to runoff from snow melting. A deputy checked the bridge over Salmon Falls Creek and Nevada Department of Transportation is worried about the stability of the structure.

I just had a deputy drive through there about an hour ago, Pitts said Friday evening. He says the water is up over the guardrail, all the way over, and you cant even see the guardrail. ... He said that hed be surprised if that bridge is there tomorrow morning. Its that much water going through there.

Sen. Dean Heller, in town for the Republican Partys Lincoln Day Dinner, thanked the County for the update on the situation. He will be traveling to the western part of the state to assess the flooding situation in Humboldt and Douglas counties and Carson City.

There was a lot of things that I expected that I would be monitoring back in Washington, D.C., after the first of the year, but I didnt think it was going to be the weather, he said.

The National Guard is deploying a team of two high-water vehicles and four soldiers to assist with potential evacuations and flood support in Montello.

The soldiers will begin operations Saturday morning.

We have recently witnessed the devastation of flooding and experienced the benefit of preparation and early response. The State will continue to assist and make all resources available to communities experiencing flooding throughout the weekend, said Sandoval. The Division of Emergency Management will coordinate requests from our local partners and dispatch resources to all affected communities.

The Nevada Division of Forestry also has a helicopter on standby, said Pitts.

The sheriffs office will stay open over the weekend and encourages people to call 777-2502 for help or with questions on flooding in the county. Someone will be in the office from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Pitts said. However, if someone has an emergency they should still call 911.

People in need of sandbags can pick them up at the sheriffs office, 232 S. 10th St. in Elko, the south side of the underpass of Osino, Spring Creek fire station on Licht Parkway, and Wells rodeo grounds.

Prior to the main flood event, the NDF dispatched crews to support flood control efforts and remained overnight in Washoe, Douglas and Elko counties, the governors office said. The Divisions crews will continue to be available as a local resource.

The Nevada Division of Emergency Management will coordinate and make state resources available to municipalities, counties and local tribes affected by the flooding. A formal Emergency Declaration will be issued at a later time once all requests have been made to the governor by the regional and emergency response teams.
Think before you write that love letter.

Or that I-don't-love-you letter.

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And if you're holding on to such letters written or received in your misbegotten past, please, in the name of Cupid, get rid of them now.

This warning comes to mind, conveniently timed for Valentine's Day, with the news of an impending auction of letters that Jacqueline Kennedy wrote to a dear friend who wanted to marry her after the assassination of her husband, John F. Kennedy.

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The dear friend was David Ormsby-Gore, a British ambassador who had been an adviser to the president. He died in 1985.

It was only recently, however, that the letters Jackie wrote him turned up in locked red-leather cases in the family home in Wales. His grandson is selling them to pay for renovations on the house.

"You are like my beloved beloved brother  and mentor  and the only original spirit I know  as you were to Jack," Jackie writes in one letter.

That sounds benign  until you learn that she had rejected Ormsby-Gore's proposal and was writing him from Greece, aboard the yacht of Aristotle Onassis, whom she planned to marry instead.

"Please know  you of all people must know it  that we can never really see into the heart of another," she wrote, on stationery that bore the yacht's logo. "You know me. And you must know that the man you write of in your letter is not a man that I could marry."

Other people's intimate letters are like accidents. You shouldn't look. Looking is likely to make you queasy. But sometimes you can't help yourself.

As intimate letters go, this batch of Jackie Kennedy's is mild  or so they seem, based on what has been released so far  and yet it still feels wrong to read such deeply private thoughts without express permission of the writer.

The recently discovered cache also contains a draft of a letter Ormsby-Gore wrote to Jackie after she rejected him.

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"As for your photograph I weep when I look at it," he wrote. "Why do such agonizing things have to happen? Where was the need for it?"

It's like looking through a peephole at someone's most private pain.

Historians may make a case that these letters tell us something vital about one of the main characters in one of American history's main events. Even if that were true, making the letters public seems wrong. So does the "what-do-they-care-they're-dead" argument.

How are we to know there's no embarrassment in the afterlife?

The good news for most of us is that historians are unlikely to care about our letters. Nevertheless, the lesson here shouldn't be lost: You're going to die someday. Do you know where your love letters are? Have you thought about who might read them when you're gone?

(The same question applies to email, though I think it's likelier that someone would read your paper letters post-mortem than weed through your emails in search of the good stuff.)

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I have a stash of old letters that every now and then I vow to get rid of, but the energy required to climb up to the dusty top shelf of a closet and dig to the back past piles of books fades as quickly as it rises. One day. Soon. Later.

No one's life would be ruined by their discovery, but I put myself in the place of the letter writers: How would I feel if my old letters turned up in their post-mortem affairs?

That, of course, is the greater fear for most of us  that our own old letters are sitting in some faraway drawer or closet where they may be unearthed by people we'd rather not have read them.

Writing an emotional letter feels like a way to control the emotion, as well as to express it, but once it's sent the writer loses all control  which is why it's only good karma to be careful with the letters we've received.

I know several people  men and women, married and not  who hang on to old love letters, out of nostalgia or laziness or the feeling that getting rid of the letters would kill a part of their past.

But on this Valentine's Day, in the spirit of true love, be guided by this thought: Do unto others' old letters as you would have them do unto yours.

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mschmich@chicagotribune.com Twitter @MarySchmich
Updated Feb. 13, 3:58 a.m.  A man was killed and eight others were wounded from Friday to early Saturday in shootings across the city.



In the fatal shooting, a 29-year-old man was shot multiple times about 2:25 a.m. Saturday while sitting on a porch in the 300 block of North Lorel Avenue in South Austin.

He was taken to West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

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In nonfatal shootings:

 In the Uptown neighborhood, a 29-year-old woman was shot in the leg while sitting in her car near the 1200 block of West Lawrence Avenue about 4:45 a.m. She was taken in stable condition to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center.

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 Also in South Austin, a 24-year-old man was shot during an argument in the 5600 block of West Fulton Street about 1:40 a.m. He was taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition.



Police said a 21-year-old man was taken into custody for questioning.



 In Lawndale, a store security guard shot a man near the 3800 block of West Roosevelt Road about 1:25 a.m.



Police said a 27-year-old man threw a brick and bottle at the 55-year-old security guard during an argument. He was shot in the chest and abdomen and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition.



The security guard was taken into custody for questioning, police said.



 In Englewood, a 27-year-old man was walking in the 6100 block of South Halsted Street about 8:54 p.m. Friday when an unknown man approached him and fired shots, police said.



The victim was wounded in the left knee and transported to Stroger Hospital in stable condition.



 Two 17-year-old boys were walking near the 10300 block of South Corliss Avenue in Roseland about 6:50 p.m. when an unknown assailant approached them and fired shots.



The first boy was shot in the back and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in good condition. The second victim was shot in the leg and taken in good condition to Roseland Hospital.

 About 2:30 p.m. Friday, a 27-year-old man was shot while he was walking in the 3700 block of West Roosevelt Road. A person confronted him and fired shots, hitting him in the foot. The 27-year-old man was taken by friends to the University of Illinois Hospital, where he was treated, police said.

 A 19-year-old man was shot in the thigh about 9:45 a.m. in the 9000 block of South May Street in the city's Brainerd neighborhood, police said. He was taken in good condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center.
Justin Bowers, father of Kanari Gentry Bowers, middle, stands silently during a press conference at Stroger Hospital announcing the death of his daughter on Feb. 15, 2017. Kanari, who was shot outside her elementary school, died at 3:38 pm at Stroger Hospital. (Chicago Tribune)

An 11-year-old girl was in "very critical'' condition after a shooting Saturday night on the South Side.

Two other people were fatally shot and at least four more were wounded in separate attacks in the city.

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The child was sitting in a parked vehicle in the 6500 block of South King Drive in the Parkway Gardens neighborhood about 7:40 p.m. when someone fired shots, hitting her in the back of the head, police and fire officials said.

Police earlier said the shooting occurred in the 6300 block of South King Drive.

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The child was taken to Comer Children's Hospital, where she was listed in "very critical'' condition, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Curtis Hudson.

Four people were shot, including a 25-year-old woman who has died, in another attack, about 8:30 p.m. in the 100 block of North Mayfield Avenue, said police spokeswoman Officer Michelle Tannehill and Hudson.

The four were on foot when a dark-colored SUV pulled up and two people got out and began shooting at them, hitting them, police said.

The 25-year-old woman was shot in the neck and died, police said. A 25-year-old man was shot in the arm and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he is in stable condition; another man, 18, was shot in the leg and taken to West Suburban. Another 25-year-old woman who was shot in the face was taken to Stroger, where her condition has stabilized, according to police.

As of about 10 p.m., the block, lined with large multi-unit apartments and large homes, was quiet. A police officer shone a flashlight onto yellow markers on the sidewalk before opening the black iron gate that led to the courtyard of a brick complex.

No one is in custody.

A block away and about 14 hours earlier, a 23-year-old man was killed in the 100 block of North Menard Avenue in the city's Austin neighborhood.

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It happened about 6:55 a.m. Saturday when someone shot him in the head. He was found by responding officers lying on the ground in an alley and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

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His name was not being made public yet. The shooting may have been gang-related and no arrests have been made, police said.

Separately, a woman in her early 30s was shot in the left side of her head about 7:15 p.m. Saturday in the 1900 block of West 57th Street, police said.

Earlier, police said the shooting occurred in the 5600 block of South Winchester Avenue, which is nearby.

The woman was taken to Stroger Hospital, where she was in critical condition.

No one was in custody and police are investigating.

Check back for details.
Michele Robey, 55, was fatally shot by police as was brandishing a knife outside a CVS Pharmacy store in the 3900 block of North Western Avenue on Feb. 10, 2017, in Chicago. (John J. Kim/ Chicago Tribune) (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

A woman has died after she was shot by a Chicago police officer in the North Center community Friday night on the North Side.

It happened in the 3900 block of North Western Avenue near a CVS Pharmacy store, police and other officials said.

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Shortly before 6 p.m., officers responded to a call of a disturbance at the CVS at Irving Park Road and Western Avenue, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said at the scene.

"We had an adult female that was being combative and was destroying some property inside," he said.

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The woman was outside the pharmacy when officers arrived, Guglielmi said.

She walked toward the officers, both assigned to the Town Hall patrol district, and they saw that she was armed with "what appeared to be a knife," he said.

He said the woman "made some threatening statements," and the officers tried to calm her down. She continued to walk toward the officers, before they deployed a Taser on her twice, Guglielmi said.

"That had no effect," he said. "She continued to advance after that, making threatening statements toward the officers, and the officers discharged their service weapons."

Guglielmi said the woman was shot twice and transported to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead. He said the woman had no identification on her and hasn't been identified yet. He said the woman is believed to be about 40 or 50 years old, and a knife was recovered.

He said the officers, who were not hurt, have more than 10 years of experience with the Police Department. They will be placed on a 30-day administrative assignment, mandatory for all Chicago police officers involved in shootings.

Guglielmi said the shooting might have been captured on a squad car dashboard camera, which will be reviewed.

He said he didn't know whether the woman had a mental illness. But he noted that the emergency call did not come in as a call for a "crisis intervention team," which would have summoned officers who are trained to deal with the mentally ill.

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Darryl Dixon, 55, said he saw the woman lunge at one of the officers.

"She was yelling ... 'I got a knife! I will cut you! Get back! I will cut you! I'm not playing!'" he said.

Another witness said that, as he was driving in the area, he had to stop suddenly when he turned onto Western because he encountered a woman standing in a brick crosswalk, flanked by two police officers.

He said she was wearing a dark-colored puffy down coat, baggy pants and a stocking cap and was holding a fountain drink. The woman did not appear to be doing anything aggressive and there was no physical contact between her and the male and female officers, the witness said.

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As the uniformed officers stood near her, the male officer screamed multiple times, "Drop it!" or "Stop it!" the witness said.

The women then turned toward the female officer and he heard, "Pow, pow!" The woman dropped her drink and collapsed on the street falling on her right side. "She didn't move again," he said.

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Her eyes remained open, but she was motionless as the male officer kicked a dark-colored object toward the curb, he said.

The witness said he did not see the officer's gun when he fired and he noticed a Taser on the ground nearby.

Within moments, the area was swarming with dozens of police officers and at least one helicopter.

"This happened so quickly," he said. "I'm shaken up."

Check back for details.
Kia Walker, Tommy Schaefer's mother, speaks to the media regarding her son and also her granddaughter, Stella, at O'Hare International Airport Terminal 5 in Chicago on Nov. 3, 2021. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

The toddler lives in a Bali prison, raised by a mother convicted of helping to commit murder while on a luxury island vacation, but now the little girl's paternal grandmother is petitioning for guardianship to bring her back to the Chicago area.

Stella Schaefer was born in Indonesia on March 17, 2015, as her parents, Heather Mack and Tommy Schaefer, faced charges in the slaying of Mack's mother, 62-year-old Sheila von Wiese-Mack, whose battered body was discovered stuffed in a suitcase in 2014. The young couple were convicted and sentenced to prison, but Mack has been allowed to care for Stella behind bars until the child turns 2, per Indonesian custom.

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As Stella's second birthday approaches next month, the little girl's fate outside of prison is expected to be decided in the coming weeks. Kia Walker, Schaefer's mother, filed for guardianship of Stella on Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court.

"My granddaughter deserves an equal opportunity to a better start at life, and she deserves to know her grandmother," Walker, 44, of Forest Park, said in a phone interview. "I believe it is in her best interest that she's brought back to America."

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Heather Mack, with her baby, Stella, has cared for her daughter since she gave birth to her in March 2015 while behind bars in Bali. She is serving a 10-year sentence for her mother's murder. (Courtesy of attorney Michael Elkin)

But a lawyer representing Mack in Bali says the 21-year-old woman wants to keep the little girl in Indonesia.

"My client Heather Lois Mack as the blood mother of Stella, wants Stella here in Bali, so she has chance to meet Stella twice a week or more, so the relationship and psychological of Stella as well as the Mother more healthy," attorney Yulius Benyamin Seran wrote in an email late Saturday.

Seran went on to say the important thing is that Stella "has her right as a child to grow up in healthy environment, not in the prison. We will transfer Stella out soon."

Another one of Mack's lawyers previously has discussed the possibility of a local couple raising Stella until Mack is released from prison.

Mack is serving a 10-year sentence.

Walker has had regular contact with Schaefer and has visited him in prison, and he has indicated he wants Stella to be raised by Walker in Chicago, according to the petition.

Although Stella was born in Indonesia, the court documents say she is a U.S. citizen through acquisition because both her parents were U.S. citizens and resided here prior to traveling abroad on a tourist visa. Indonesian law says a child born there to non-Indonesian parents would not automatically be considered an Indonesian citizen, according to the court documents.

The grisly murder case has drawn interest across the globe, most recently last week when Mack appeared to confess that she alone killed her mother, motivated by revenge, in videos posted on YouTube. She said in the videos that just before the murder, she'd learned that her mother had killed her father  acclaimed composer James L. Mack  while on vacation in Athens, Greece. A 2006 obituary cites a pulmonary embolism as his cause of death, and von Wiese-Mack's sister said Mack's claim is a lie.

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Then a statement released Wednesday by Mack and her lawyer in Bali said the claims in the videos were untrue and written by Schaefer; they were recorded under pressure and then posted online by another party who deliberately created a fake account using Mack's name, according to the statement.

The question of Stella's guardianship comes amid an ongoing legal dispute over Mack's $1.56 million trust in Chicago. Mack's maternal uncle, the trustee, has argued that Mack should not be permitted to profit financially from her crime under Illinois' slayer statute, which states that a person who unjustifiably causes the death of another person cannot receive property as a result of that death.

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Stella would be next in line for the trust fund.

Schaefer, formerly of Oak Park, is serving an 18-year prison term. He had testified during his trial that von Wiese-Mack became angry when he came to her hotel room to tell her that Mack was pregnant; he said he struck her with a heavy metal fruit bowl handle after she threatened to harm the unborn baby and then began strangling him.

But emails obtained by the Tribune show that von Wiese-Mack was aware of her daughter's pregnancy prior to the trip.

The couple broke up in 2016, according to posts on social media.

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Chicago Tribune's Christy Gutowski contributed.

eleventis@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @angie_leventis
Immigration officials said Friday evening that they are conducting regular "targeted enforcement" operations in Chicago aimed at apprehending deportable foreign nationals.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Gail Montenegro declined to say if there was a surge recently in the operation or to detail how many, or if any, arrests have been made.

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"The focus of these operations is no different than the routine, targeted arrests carried out by ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis," an emailed statement from ICE said.



The operations are conducted professionally and respectfully, according to ICE.

In Los Angeles, immigration officials said they arrested more than 160 people  most of them with criminal history  during an operation this week across Southern California.

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The arrests, which officials there have also described as routine and not part of a crackdown promised by President Donald Trump, have sparked fear and anger in immigrant communities.

"ICE regularly conducts targeted enforcement operations during which additional resources and personnel are dedicated to apprehending deportable foreign nationals," according to the statement.

David Marin, director of enforcement and removal operations for ICE in Los Angeles, said the actions taken this week were planned before Trump took office and were comparable to a similar weeklong operation taken last summer that resulted in 200 arrests.

Marin said roughly 75 percent of the people arrested this week had prior felony convictions for crimes that included "sex offenses, assault, robbery and weapons violations." Most of the 161 people arrested this week had been targeted for removal based on past criminal convictions, but Marin admitted a few people were swept up because they were found to be living in the U.S. illegally while other arrests were being carried out.

"Those were individuals that are in the country illegally, so they had no documentation or any right to be here in the country," he said.

"The rash of these recent reports about ICE checkpoints and random sweeps and the like, it's all false, and that's definitely dangerous and irresponsible," Marin said. "Reports like that create panic, and they put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger."

Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. >

ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said it was not immediately clear how many of those arrested in California this week had been deported. Marin also sharply criticized activist groups that characterized the operation as an indiscriminate series of raids, claiming such allegations put law enforcement officers and residents at risk.

The Los Angeles-area operation was carried out in conjunction with similar actions in New York, Atlanta and Chicago, according to Kice, who said it was not uncharacteristic for ICE operations to coincide in major cities. Kice could not immediately provide arrest statistics for the operations in other cities.

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Los Angeles Times' James Quelly and Chicago Tribune's Rosemary Regina Sobol contributed.

rsobol@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @RosemarySobol1

james.queally@latimes.com

Twitter @JamesQueallyLAT
The Chicago Board of Education will host its third set of budget hearings for the 2017 fiscal year on Monday after another revision of its annual spending plan.

Officials will outline $104 million in spending reductions through school spending freezes, furloughs and other cuts. The school board is expected to vote on those changes Feb. 22, according to Chicago Public Schools.

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Hearings on the cuts follow a tense week of exchanges between CPS CEO Forrest Claypool and Gov. Bruce Rauner, who traded criticism over who bears responsibility for the district's budget problems.

CPS says budget trims are necessary because of a Rauner veto that cost CPS $215 million in state aid, though one of the Republican governor's top education officials said the cuts are being laid out even as lawmakers work on proposals that include more money for the system.

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The district's amended budget says it continues to pursue the money. "If it is not received, CPS will take additional cost-saving steps," the budget says.

CPS principals have until Monday afternoon to submit budget cuts, after the district announced a $46 million "spending freeze" as part of its latest bid to cover for the lack of state assistance.

Budget hearings are scheduled for 2 and 6 p.m. Monday at CPS headquarters, 42 W. Madison St. Members of the public who wish to speak are asked to register at least a half-hour in advance of each session.

After first approving a $5.6 billion operating budget in August, the board voted to amend the plan in December to account for $55 million in new expenses related to its agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union.

The now $5.4 billion operating budget assumes the state will send $111 million to ease the cost of the district's rising pension payment.

jjperez@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @Perezjr
The Thursday death of a 2-month-old Humboldt Park girl has been ruled a homicide, authorities said.

A Friday autopsy determined Aliya Acosta, of the 3500 block of West Pierce Avenue, died of multiple injuries from child abuse, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

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A male was watching Aliya on Jan. 17 at the Pierce Avenue address when he gave her a bottle but she started vomiting, according to Officer Michelle Tannehill, a spokeswoman for the Chicago police.

Aliya became ill sometime between 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. and was taken to Lurie, Tannehill said.

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Acosta was pronounced dead at 2:04 a.m. Thursday at Lurie Children's Hospital, according examiners' office. Her death was ruled a homicide.

No arrests have been made but police are investigating.
U.S. immigration authorities arrested hundreds of undocumented immigrants in at least a half-dozen states this week in a series of raids that marked the first large-scale enforcement of President Donald Trump's Jan. 26 order to crack down on the estimated 11 million immigrants living here illegally.

The raids, which officials said targeted known criminals, also netted some immigrants who did not have criminal records, an apparent departure from similar enforcement waves during former President Barack Obama's administration that aimed to just corral and deport those who had committed crimes.

Trump has pledged to deport up to 3 million undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Last month he also made a change to the Obama administration's policy of prioritizing deportation for convicted criminals, substantially broadening the scope of who the Department of Homeland Security can target, to include those with only minor offenses or those with no convictions at all.

Immigration officials confirmed that agents this week raided homes and workplaces in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, the Los Angeles area, North Carolina and South Carolina, netting hundreds of people. But Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said they were part of "routine" immigration enforcement actions. ICE dislikes the term "raids," and prefers to say authorities are conducting "targeted enforcement actions."

Christensen said the raids, which began Monday and ended Friday at noon, found undocumented immigrants from a dozen Latin American countries. "We're talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system," she said, noting that the majority of those detained were serious criminals, including some who had been convicted of murder and domestic violence.

Immigration activists said the crackdown went beyond the six states DHS identified, and said they had also documented ICE raids of unusual intensity during the past two days in Florida, Kansas, Texas and Northern Virginia.

That undocumented immigrants with no criminal records were arrested and could potentially be deported sent a shock through immigrant communities nationwide amid concerns that the U.S. government could start going after law-abiding people.

"This is clearly the first wave of attacks under the Trump administration, and we know this isn't going to be the only one," Cristina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream, an immigrant youth organization, said Friday during a conference call with immigration advocates.

ICE agents in the Los Angeles area Thursday swept a number of individuals into custody over the course of an hour, seizing them from their homes and on their way to work in daytime operations, activists said.

David Marin, ICE's field director in the Los Angeles area, said in a conference call with reporters Friday that 75 percent of the approximately 160 people detained in the operation this week had felony convictions; the rest had misdemeanors or were in the U.S. illegally. Officials said Friday night that 37 of those detained in Los Angeles have been deported to Mexico.

"Dangerous criminals who should be deported are being released into our communities," Marin said.

A video that circulated on social media Friday appeared to show ICE agents detaining people in an Austin shopping center parking lot. Immigration advocates also reported roadway checkpoints, where ICE appeared to be targeting immigrants for random ID checks, in North Carolina and in Austin. ICE officials denied that authorities used checkpoints during the operations.

"I'm getting lots of reports from my constituents about seeing ICE on the streets. Teachers in my district have contacted me - certain students didn't come to school today because they're afraid," said Greg Cesar, an Austin city council member. "I talked to a constituent, a single mother, who had her door knocked on this morning by ICE."

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said he confirmed with ICE's San Antonio office that the agency "has launched a targeted operation in South and Central Texas as part of Operation Cross Check."

"I am asking ICE to clarify whether these individuals are in fact dangerous, violent threats to our communities, and not people who are here peacefully raising families and contributing to our state," Castro said in a statement Friday night.

Hiba Ghalib, an immigration lawyer in Atlanta, said the ICE detentions were causing "mass confusion" in the immigrant community. She said she had heard reports of ICE agents going door-to-door in one largely Hispanic neighborhood, asking people to present their papers.

"People are panicking," Ghalib said. "People are really, really scared."

Immigration officials acknowledged that authorities had cast a wider net than they would have last year, as the result of Trump's executive order.

The Trump administration is facing a series of legal challenges to that order, and on Thursday lost a court battle over a separate executive order to temporarily ban entry to the U.S. by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries, as well as by refugees. The administration said Friday that it is considering raising the case to the Supreme Court.

Some activists in Austin and Los Angeles suggested that the raids might be retaliation for those cities' so-called "sanctuary city" policies. A government aide familiar with the raids said it is possible the predominantly daytime operations - a departure from the Obama administration's night raids - meant to "send a message to the community that the Trump deportation force is in effect."

Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a pro-immigrant advocacy group, said the wave of detentions harks back to the George W. Bush administration, when workplace raids to sweep up all undocumented workers were common.

The Obama administration conducted a spate of raids, and also pursued a more aggressive deportation policy than any previous president, sending more than 400,000 people back to their birth countries at the height of his deportations in 2012. The public outcry over the lengthy detentions and deportations of women, children and people with minor offenses led Obama in his second term to prioritize convicted criminals for deportation.

A DHS official confirmed that while immigration agents were targeting criminals, given the broader range defined by Trump's executive order they also were sweeping up non-criminals in the vicinity who were found to be lacking documentation. It was unclear how many of the people detained would have been excluded under Obama's policy.

Federal immigration officials, as well as activists, said that the majority of those detained were adult men,and that no children were taken into custody.

"Big cities tend to have a lot of illegal immigrants," said one immigration official who was not authorized to speak publicly because of the sensitive nature of the operation. "They're going to a target-rich environment."

Immigrant rights groups said they were planning protests in response to the raids, including one Friday evening in Federal Plaza in New York City, and a vigil in Los Angeles.

"We cannot understate the level of panic and terror that is running through many immigrant communities," said Walter Barrientos of Make the Road in New York City, who spoke on a conference call with immigration advocates.

"We're trying to make sure that families who have been impacted are getting legal services as quickly as possible. We're trying to do some legal triage," said Bob Libal, the executive director of Grassroots Leadership, which provides assistance and advocacy work to immigrants in Austin. "It's chaotic," he said. The organization's hotline, he said, had been overwhelmed with calls.

Jeanette Vizguerra, 35, a Mexican house cleaner whose permit to stay in the country expired this week, said Friday during the conference call that she was newly apprehensive about her scheduled meeting with ICE next week.

Fearing deportation, Vizguerra, a Denver mother of four including three who are U.S. citizens, said through an interpreter that she had called on activists and supporters to accompany her to the meeting.

"I know I need to mobilize my community, but I know my freedom is at risk here," Vizguerra said through an interpreter.
Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos is locked in a van that is stopped in the street by protesters outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility Feb. 8 in Phoenix. (Rob Schumacher / Associated Press)

Reporting from Mexico City  The much-publicized deportation of an immigrant who had been living illegally in Arizona prompted the Mexican government on Friday to urge its nationals in the United States to "take precautions" amid a "new reality" for the immigrant community.

The expulsion of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, a Mexican citizen and mother of two U.S.-born children, "illustrates the new reality of the Mexican community living in the United States in the face of more severe application of migration controls," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

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The ministry urged its citizens to "stay informed about immigration matters"' and keep in touch with the extensive Mexican consular network in the United States.

However, Mexican authorities acknowledged there is little they can do to slow deportations or counter other get-tough immigration policies of President Trump.

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Trump's threats to step up deportations and his vow to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border have caused widespread indignation in Mexico  and stirred up anti-U.S sentiments that had been mostly dormant.

Mexican authorities, not wanting to be viewed as compliant to the new U.S. administration, have vowed to boost aid to migrants and returning deportees in a bid to show solidarity with them. Critics have long said such aid was inadequate.

A "Respect for Mexico" protest march assailing Trump's Mexico agenda is scheduled for Sunday in Mexico City. Tens of thousands are expected to participate.

In recent weeks, Mexican politicians have been photographed visiting Mexican communities in the United States or deportees arriving from the north.

President Enrique Pena Nieto met at the Mexico City airport this week with deportees who had just been expelled from the U.S.

The president, who had been suffering from record low approval ratings, saw a slight spike in support last month after he cancelled a planned meeting with Trump in Washington, rebuffing the White House insistence that Mexico pay for the proposed border wall.

Garcia de Rayos, 36, was deported Thursday, a day after she reported in to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Phoenix for what her attorney said was supposed to be a routine "check in" regarding her ongoing deportation case.

Her subsequent detention and deportation sparked protests and made headlines in both the United States and Mexico.

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While immigrant rights activists and others denounced her removal, advocates of stricter immigration controls applauded the move.

This is Manuel Saldana. He tied himself to one of the front wheels of the van. He said he's going to be here "for as long as it takes." pic.twitter.com/Q8mtzzIjnC  Fernanda Santos (@ByFernandaS) February 9, 2017

"She's with her kids right now," said Lucia Sandoval of the immigration advocacy group Puente Arizona. "Then she goes south."

Garcia de Rayos was reared in a small Mexican town a 20-hour drive from the U.S. border. Her children, both U.S. citizens, were due to return from Nogales on Friday and rejoin their father, who remains in Phoenix.

From the age of 14, Garcia de Rayos lived in the United States. She was arrested in a workplace enforcement immigration raid in 2008 and convicted of felony identity theft for having false papers she had used to secure work.

It was that felony conviction that ultimately led to her deportation. The Trump administration has said it plans to focus its immigration crackdown on so-called "criminal aliens."

In a statement, U.S. immigration officials said Garcia de Rayos' case "underwent review at multiple levels of the immigration court" and that she was found to have no legal basis to remain in the United States.

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Officials depicted the case as a routine enforcement matter, but it has fueled anxiety in immigrant communities nationwide.

In Austin, Texas, the teachers' union Education Austin on Friday sent union members a flier with a section called "What to do if ICE comes to your door."

The flier recommends against speaking with ICE agents or allowing them entry. "Do not open doors," the flier reads. "Stay silent.

Jacob Barrett, a district spokesman, said Friday that some teachers may have distributed the fliers to students.

Staffers at some district campuses decided that the flier did not constitute advocacy, and were therefore permissible for teachers to distribute. Overt advocacy, Barrett said, such as religious proselytizing or political speech, could lead to discipline, but the staff felt that the flier was instead informational in nature.

McDonnell reported from Mexico City and Duara from Bisbee, Ariz.
AUSTIN, Texas  A lawyer for a Mexican national sentenced to eight years in prison for voter fraud in Texas said that President Donald Trump's widely debunked claims of election rigging was "the 800-pound gorilla" in the jury box.



Rosa Maria Ortega, 37, was convicted in Fort Worth this week on two felony counts of illegal voting over allegations that she improperly cast a ballot five times between 2005 and 2014.



Her attorney, Clark Birdsall, said Friday that Ortega was a permanent resident who was brought to the U.S. as a baby and mistakenly thought she was eligible to vote. He said she voted Republican, including for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office helped prosecute her.



The sentence was stark  voter fraud convictions, which are rare, many times result in probation. And as a convicted felon, Ortega will very likely be deported after serving her sentence.

Birdsall said the Texas attorney general's office had agreed to leniency in exchange for Ortega testifying to lawmakers about illegal voting, but said Tarrant County District Attorney Sharon Wilson quashed those talks. A Wilson spokeswoman acknowledged plea negotiations but would not divulge details. A spokesman for the attorney general did not respond to an email seeking comment.



Birdsall said Ortega has lived in the U.S. since she was a baby and has four teenage children. He said Ortega had learning disabilities and only a sixth-grade education.



Tarrant County prosecutors say jurors made clear they value voting rights, but Birdsall said he believes Ortega would have fared better in a county with fewer "pro-Trump" attitudes.



Trump carried North Texas' Tarrant County with 52 percent of the vote in November. Birdsall said he wanted to steer the jury of 10 women and two men from any lingering thoughts about Trump's unproven claims that 3 million people illegally voted in 2016 but the judge wouldn't allow him.



"It was the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the jury box," Birdsall said. "I would have said, 'You cannot hold this woman accountable for Donald Trump's fictitious 3 million votes.'"



Sam Jordan, a spokeswoman for Wilson, said the decision to prosecute had "absolutely nothing" to do with immigration.



"This is a voter rights case. Does she consider voter rights important? Yes she does," Jordan said of the district attorney. "And she thought it was important enough to go forward to a jury and let the jury of citizens decide, and they decided pretty clearly how important they think voting rights are."



Texas is one of many Republican-led states that have pushed for tighter requirements on voters to show identification at the polls. Supporters say such measures are necessary to combat voter fraud and increase public confidence in elections. But research has shown that in-person fraud at the polls is extremely rare, and critics of these restrictions warn that they will hurt mostly poor people, minorities and students  all of whom tend to vote Democratic  as well as the elderly.
WASHINGTON  National security adviser Michael Flynn spoke privately with Vice President Mike Pence on Friday in an apparent attempt to contain the fallout from the disclosure that Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with that country's ambassador and then allowed Pence and other White House officials to publicly deny that he had done so, an administration official said.

The conversation took place as senior Democrats in Congress called for existing investigations of Russia's interference in the 2016 election to expand in scope to scrutinize Flynn's contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak weeks before the Trump administration took office.

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Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that if the allegations are proven, Flynn should step down.

"If the now-national security adviser was undermining U.S. national security interests, he's unfit to hold that office," Schiff said in an interview with The Washington Post. "Compounding the issue is whether he then misled the country about the nature of his contacts."

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Current and former U.S. officials said that in his conversation with Kislyak in late December, Flynn urged Moscow to show restraint in its response to punitive sanctions being imposed on Russia by former President Barack Obama's administration, signaling that the Trump administration would revisit the issue when it took office.

Those contacts were seen by some U.S. officials as potentially illegal interference in the U.S. relationship with Moscow at a time when U.S. intelligence agencies were concluding that Russia had waged extensive cyber and influence campaigns to upend the 2016 presidential race and help to elect Trump.

President Trump claimed to be unaware of the Flynn controversy as he traveled to Florida on Friday afternoon as part of a weekend trip with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In a brief exchange with reporters during the flight south, Trump was asked about the report in The Post that Flynn had discussed sanctions against Russia despite repeated denials.

"I don't know about that, I haven't seen it," Trump said, according to a transcript of the conversation. "What report is that? I haven't seen that. I'll look into that."

Flynn's relationship with Pence was placed under particular strain because the vice president - apparently relying on inaccurate accounts from Flynn - publicly declared that Flynn had never discussed sanctions with the Russian diplomat.

A senior administration official said Flynn and Pence spoke in person Friday morning and by phone in the evening. Officials declined to discuss the outcome of the conversations. The two men could be seen engaging in an awkward handshake later in the day while taking their seats in the audience for Trump's news conference with Abe.

The controversy fanned speculation about Flynn's standing in the White House and whether he would face pressure to resign. The senior administration official disputed that Flynn was in jeopardy.

"He seems fine," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters. "He's in every meeting he's supposed to be doing, fulfilling his job as national security adviser. He's seeing the president constantly."

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Flynn also traveled to Florida with Trump.

Republicans were quiet on the matter Friday, but senior Democrats called for investigations of Flynn's contacts with Kislyak. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, called for FBI Director James Comey to testify before the committee on the status of the bureau's examination of Flynn's calls.

Schiff said that he intends to request the intelligence reports on Flynn's conversations with the Russian ambassador. Their contacts were captured as part of routine U.S. intelligence surveillance of Russian officials in the United States.

"This is one discrete set of allegations that ought to be simple to prove or disprove," Schiff said. "If these allegations are true, it ought to compel him to step down."

Senators Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo requesting a review of Flynn's security clearance.

The Washington Post's Ashley Parker contributed to this report.
People look at handguns as thousands of customers and hundreds of dealers sell, show, and buy guns and other items during The Nation's Gun Show at the Dulles Expo Centerin October 2015. ( The Washington Post/Getty Images)

If someone has a mental illness severe enough that he cannot work or manage his own money, should he be allowed to own a gun?

In the waning weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama answered that question. Motivated by Adam Lanza's bloody rampage at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 children and six educators in 2012, Obama imposed a rule that barred gun ownership for people who qualify for Social Security disability insurance because their mental illness keeps them from working, and who cannot manage their benefits. That pool is small  just 75,000 Americans.

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The GOP-led U.S. House just voted to scrap that rule. Bad move. The Senate now decides whether to back that bad move. If it does, President Trump would decide whether to go along or disagree.

Republican lawmakers hang their case on the argument that the rule stigmatizes people with disabilities as dangerous. "There are people who need help and seek help, but that is not a criteria for taking away one's constitutional right" to own a gun, Texas Rep. Pete Sessions said.

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Sessions implicitly exaggerates the impact of the rule. As gun control measures go, the scope of this one is narrow. Its goal is to keep guns out of the hands of people on record as having a disabling mental disorder. The standard for taking that gun away is steep  they have to be on Social Security because their psychiatric disorder keeps them from working, and they cannot manage their own affairs. Both conditions must be met. Even if the rule keeps someone from owning a gun, that person can pursue an appeal.

America has seen what can happen when someone with severe psychiatric issues has access to firearms. Their names and crimes live in infamy:

In 2007, Seung Hui Cho shot to death 32 people at Virginia Tech University before killing himself. Two years earlier, a judge had deemed Cho an "imminent danger" because of mental illness and ordered him to seek treatment. But because he was never committed, that assessment never got recorded in the federal database of people ineligible to buy guns. Cho passed the background check and bought the guns he would wield at Virginia Tech.

In 2011, Jared Loughner shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head and murdered six other people in Tucson, Ariz.

In 2012, James Holmes strode into a packed movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and opened fire, killing 12 people.

And there's Lanza, who went through months of hysterical crying, stretches of lethargy and self-imposed isolation from his family before unleashing terror at Sandy Hook Elementary School. "I didn't understand that Adam was drifting away," his father, Peter Lanza, told The New Yorker in 2014.

These crimes showcase the dangers in allowing severely troubled individuals to buy firearms. The rule the House voted to scrap doesn't cast so wide a net that it applies to anyone seeking psychiatric treatment. It's specific in scope, and anchored by a common-sense premise that many House Republicans ignored: If a person's psychiatric disorder is disabling enough that the individual cannot work or deal with money-managing, bright red flags are being raised about his or her capacity for sound judgment.

To us, that's a logical, well-grounded reason why he or she shouldn't own a gun.
Mario Vargas, center, with his daughter Jersey, foreground, and his attorney walk to his hearing before an immigration judge in Los Angeles last week. (MARK RALSTON / AFP/Getty Images)

Because legal decisions are weightier than tweets: Readers have to bear down and reach the middle of Thursday's 30-page federal appeals court ruling to appreciate the thrashing it delivers to President Donald Trump's attempt to fight terrorism via executive order on immigration.

The three-judge panel's repudiation begins with insertion of the word "merely." The ruling notes that Trump administration lawyers did not "merely" argue that the courts owe deference to the president on issues of immigration and national security, they also asserted that the president has "unreviewable authority to suspend the admission of any class of aliens."

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LOL, replied the judges of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Well, no, they didn't include a Twitter-friendly "laugh out loud." But they were dismissive: "There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy."

And from there, the appellate panel  two Democratic appointees and one Republican  went off on the president. In a unanimous decision, the judges upheld a lower court ruling that put a temporary halt to Trump's order keeping citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations out of the United States. The judges said the government offered no evidence of an urgent terrorist threat that would justify an immigration ban. Meanwhile, they said, the order didn't provide due process for those caught in its web. Fighting terrorism is crucial, the judges summed up, but the government needs to do more than "reiterate that fact" to win this case.

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The president thundered his reaction Thursday night on Twitter in capital letters: "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!"

Indeed, Trump can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. "We will continue to go through the court process and ultimately, I have no doubt we will win that particular case," he reiterated Friday.

That would be a bad idea, though, and Trump seems to be coming around to that reality. With two courts ruling against him, his visceral response to protecting the country from terrorism is constitutionally on thin ice. His sweeping order was written hastily, implemented chaotically and smacks of targeting adherents of Islam. It's wrong for America. We could see that the minute we read it.

There were suggestions Friday that the White House is in no hurry to appeal. Trump acknowledged to reporters on Air Force One that he was considering a revised or new order on immigration. Even that likely would be too aggressive.

The president needs to back off. He should rescind his order and start over: Assess the immigration vetting system and border controls to identify potential weaknesses. Then consider next steps.

Citing 9/11, the order would indefinitely block Syrian refugees and bar entry to the U.S. for 90 days for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Yet the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and other lands, none of which is on the list. Nor is Taliban-ravaged Afghanistan. Of recent attacks here, none was perpetrated by citizens of the seven countries. An American citizen was responsible for the Orlando attack. A U.S. citizen and a Pakistani staged San Bernardino.

Trump took office vowing to put "America first" and eradicate Islamist terrorism. He translated that pledge into harsh action without taking time to consider the implications or legality. Call it a rookie mistake or a fundamental misreading of American values and law. Either way, the courts played their role as a check on presidential power. They rejected Trump's sloppy overreach. He should learn from this.

Whatever his path, he should move thoughtfully and transparently, explaining to the public and Congress why it's appropriate and constitutional. Americans all want their country kept safe. But they won't accept action at the price of liberty.
Winner:

"Wow, what a boring winter. I would say let's go and catch a "Hamilton" matinee, but have you seen those ticket prices?"

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Rhonda Imhoff, Boise, Idaho

Extras:

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"Did President Trump ban snow in Chicago too?"

Sheila Barkes, South Bend, Indiana

"Ok, I believe that global warming exists. Now please make it snow here."

Wally Salganik, Buffalo Grove

"Just like the Chicago tax payers, we're high and dry."

John Slenczka, Woodridge

"Can we get some of those wheels Madigan threw off state government?"

Bill Mauer, Kenosha

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"I Executive Order You to SNOW!"



Mark Fleszewski, Homer Glen Illinois

"Take a good look at our country, Mikey, it's all downhill from here."

Carolyn Wartinbee

"If this is our entry for the winter Olympics, we are in real trouble....."

Thom Sczygielski, Zion

"I give up, let's go swimming."

Robert A. Koch, Chicago

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"WTF...Where're The Flakes??"

Cliff Kroeter, Chicago

"According to Trump's weather channel it was supposed to snow today."

Bob Murphy, Aurora

"That groundhog better be right."

Charles Wilt, Cary

"Ma. Did Trump sign the order for snow."

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Philip Lewan, Palos Hills.

"We're ready to emulate another childhood memory of yours, Dad."

John Rappel, Chicago

"Let's hurry up and get over the wall to Mexico before he signs another executive order!"

Latasha Wright, Monee

"We hiked up here, and switched who was in front  we did the 'climb it, change' Dad mentioned, so now what?"

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Paul Lockwood, Woodstock

"Hang on partner, it's going to be a bumpy ride."

Ronald Etickson, McHenry

"This winter's been a pain in the grass!"

Marc Connelly, Grand Beach, MI

"Oh no - don't look away-it's the slippery slope."



Lyn Stukalo, Lyons

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"Wait!! is it a 120 day ban on snow?"

Ronald S. Cheeks , Monee

"Good thing Rahm didn't count on a tax on every sled ride to close the budget. "

Gary Macari, Crystal Lake

I may only be in first grade but Im pretty sure I read January on the calendar.

Ed Washak, Yorkville
A group of constituents on Jan. 31, 2017, wanting to voice their opinions about President Donald Trump, fill a hallway of the Campton Hills congressional office of U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-Plano. (Linda Girardi / The Beacon-News)

A heartfelt attaboy to Gov. Bruce Rauner for agreeing to appear monthly on WBEZ-FM 91.5 to answer questions from the public mediated by program host Tony Sarabia. Rauner's first half-hour appearance Friday morning wasn't particularly notable or newsworthy to those who've been following his statements and speeches, but it marked an improvement from the Facebook Live events in which the governor answered questions that had been screened by his staff.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel makes similar, though less regular, appearances for grillings on WTTW-Ch. 11's "Chicago Tonight." Other prominent pols should volunteer to follow suit. Reclusive Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, for instance, ought to sign on for monthly "Mike Check" segments on a prominent local broadcast outlet so that voters can force him to better explain his vision for the state's future.

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Ditto members of Congress.

Republican U.S. Reps. Peter Roskam of Wheaton and Randy Hultgren of Plano have both come under fire for ducking groups of constituents who wished to confront them over Trump administration policies, most notably what will become of the Affordable Care Act  also known as Obamacare  now that those who have vowed to repeal it have their hands on all federal levers of power.

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Roskam abruptly canceled a Feb. 1 meeting with 16 constituents when he learned a reporter would be present. Then he closed to the public a Feb. 4 appearance at the Palatine Township Republican Organization when hundreds of protesters showed up. He said he would conduct one-on-one meetings with constituents instead.

Hultgren declined to meet with groups of protesters who showed up at his district office Jan. 31, and has since put off calls for a town hall-style meeting.

In a strange bit of political cloak-and-dagger, Hultgren's office began contacting some of the protesters recently with invitations to meet privately with the congressman at what was first an undisclosed location.

With about a day's notice, then, they were then told to go to the Kendall County Courthouse in Yorkville Friday afternoon, where a security guard would escort them into Hultgren's presence.

"Refusing to hold a simple town hall meeting is exactly the opposite of responsive leadership," said Allison Klein, the Naperville resident who started Action 14th District Illinois, a nonpartisan 700-member organization of people "uncomfortable with the way our country is heading" who are seeking "change and responsive leadership," she said.

"Is the congressman really that afraid of his own constituents?"

My efforts to discuss the matter with Hultgren's office were basically unsuccessful.

Groups of angry voters can be unruly, and confrontations with them seldom go well. Many Democratic congressmen found this out in 2009 when tea party protesters and others who were riled about proposals that would become Obamacare turned their town hall meetings into noisy sideshows.

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Thursday, Feb. 9, Republican U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah was lustily booed and catcalled by hundreds of attendees at a town hall meeting in a high school auditorium in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. Videos taken at the tumult made Chaffetz look feckless, and were all over my social media feed.

It did not appear that a useful exchange of views was taking place

So yeah. I can see why elected officials try to avoid situations in which they become props for protest and have little choice but to sit there on the ledge of a metaphorical dunk tank.

But I can also see why concerned citizens want more from their representatives than private colloquies for the selected few.

"Our team sees this tactic as an attempt to intimidate people from asking what they really want to," said Klein of Hultgren's one-on-ones. "It's intimidating to walk into a room with a sitting congressman. We also believe it's an attempt to control the environment (by preventing) photos and videos  while mitigating any possible protests or bad press."

Of course it is. Hultgren! Roskam! And you, too, Madigan! Get thee to a radio or TV studio! Invite a handful of protesters with you for the conversation. Grow spines. You're all going to need 'em.

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Is the Skyway worth $5? That item from my Sunday column is here.
ELKO -- City Council declared the city was in a state of emergency Saturday after the Humboldt River flooded many low lying areas and displaced people out of their homes.

"This is just a formality," said Elko City Manager Curtis Calder.

He said the city was covered under the County's emergency declaration, but the city wanted to make sure it was covered for funding from other sources.

Elko police and fire departments issued a voluntary evacuation notice Saturday morning for residents in low-lying areas along the Humboldt River.

The notice comes after days of rising water pushed the river far beyond its artificial channel through town. Water was pouring into southside neighborhoods Saturday morning.

Police are asking residents to stay away from flooded areas along the river. They said driving cars through standing water pushes more water toward homes that are threatened with flooding.

Anyone needing help or wanting to volunteer to help should call one of the following numbers: City, 777-7320; City Dispatch, 777-7304; County, 777-2520.

The Red Cross set up an emergency evacuation shelter at Elko High School's Centennial Gym. Beds and food are available for people who need a place to stay. Pets are not allowed in the shelter, so officials ask people to find a place for their animals.

Emergency crews are visiting affected neighborhoods in Elko, beginning with Lyon Avenue and South Ninth Street, to check on the welfare of residents. Power was temporarily shut off to the area for safety reasons.

About two dozen residences were evacuated as a result. Between 50 and 60 city emergency and water personnel worked throughout the day.

Much of the water that flooded into streets is likely to turn to ice Saturday night, as the National Weather Service is forecasting a low of 16 degrees in Elko.

Police planned to keep an eye on affected neighborhoods throughout the night.

A state of emergency has already been declared in Elko County by Gov. Brian Sandoval, Sheriff Jim Pitts and Elko County Commissioners.

"Observed flooding increased from moderate to major severity," the National Weather Service reported early Saturday morning.

City of Elko crews were busy pumping water back to the river, and some residents were putting sandbags around their homes.

Sandbags are available at the City of Elko public works facility, 232 S. Tenth St.

Floods are also occurring along northern Elko County's two major rivers, the Owyhee and Salmon Falls Creek.

"Both are rivers are deadly," warned the weather service. "Stay away from them. Choose alternate routes if you must travel."

U.S. 93 between Wells and Jackpot remained closed. Water from Salmon Falls Creek was reported to be flowing over the guardrails on Friday.

Sandoval deployed the National Guard to assist with voluntary evacuation in Montello, where State Route 233 is impassable in two locations.

Northeastern Nevada remains under a flood warning through at least 10:45 p.m. Sunday.
Aurora police said they took a 24-year-old Aurora man into custody Friday morning after he led police on a second pursuit in about 14 hours.

The man, Deandre O. Mitchell, has a history of running from police and was wanted on numerous warrants, police spokesman Dan Ferrelli said in an email.

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Mitchell, of the 1500 block of Hollycrest Drive, was taken into custody after he was found hiding in a crawl space at the home of an acquaintance on the 500 block of Conservatory Lane after fleeing police, Ferrelli said.

At 11:25 a.m. Thursday, Mitchell, driving a gold 2010 Dodge Journey that belongs to an acquaintance of his, fled from police when they tried to stop him for running a red light in the area of Lincoln Avenue and New York Street, Ferrelli said.

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"He proceeded to lead police through several near East Side neighborhoods running numerous stop signs and committing multiple traffic offenses all while driving at a high rate of speed," Ferrelli said.

When Mitchell exceeded 70 miles per hour near High Street and Front Street, police terminated the pursuit in the interest of public safety, Ferrelli said.

At 1 a.m. Friday, an Aurora police officer noticed the Dodge Journey parked in the area of Kane and State streets and recognized it as the car Mitchell was driving when he fled police Thursday, Ferrelli said.

The officer waited and at 1:13 a.m. saw Mitchell enter the Dodge. A short time later, the officer saw Mitchell blow the stop sign at Kane and Ohio streets, Ferrelli said. When the officer tried to stop Mitchell, he took off and led police down East New York Street to Route 59 at speeds as high as 85 mph, Ferrelli said.

When Mitchell turned northbound onto Route 59, police terminated the pursuit due to public safety concerns, Ferrelli said.

Officers researched some past contacts they've had with Mitchell and came across the Conservatory Lane address as one he was known to frequent, Ferrelli said. Police contacted the residents of the home, got permission to search the residence and located the Dodge in the closed garage and Mitchell hiding in a crawl space, Ferrelli said. Police took Mitchell into custody at 2:20 a.m. Friday without incident, and charges are pending in connection with the Friday pursuit, Ferrelli said.

Warrants already issued for Mitchell included one for driving on a revoked license and obstructing police Jan. 7, when he allegedly ran from the same Dodge Journey after police tried to pull him over in the area of Liberty Street and Farnsworth Avenue, Ferrelli said. Mitchell eventually stopped the car at Farnsworth and Fenton Street but then ran, Ferrelli said.

Mitchell also had warrants for reckless driving and reckless conduct in connection with allegations that he chased two people in his car through several near East Side neighborhoods in an apparent domestic dispute Oct. 13, Ferrelli said.

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Mitchell has been charged with two counts of felony aggravated fleeing and eluding, along with a misdemeanor charge of driving on a suspended license, in connection with the Thursday pursuit, Ferrelli said. Kane County records show that both of the fleeing charges are class 4 felonies.

hleone@tribpub.com

Twitter @hannahmleone
A refugee who resettled in Aurora last year hold prayer beads his family brought from Syria. (Kristen Norman / The Washington Post)

Aurora has become home to more refugees from the countries listed in President Donald Trump 's now-frozen travel ban than all but four other cities in the state over the past 10 years.

Still, refugees from Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Iran make up about a quarter of the total number of refugees that World Relief has resettled in the city, according to numbers provided by Susan Sperry, the executive director of the agency's Aurora and DuPage offices. Aurora has not seen any refugees from Sudan, Libya or Yemen, the other countries listed in Trump's executive order, which was put on hold after judges upheld a legal challenge.

Sperry estimated that the "vast majority" of refugees resettled in Aurora have come through World Relief.

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Given that Aurora is the second-largest city in the state, Sperry said she would expect the number of refugees who have come from the countries identified in the order to be higher.

A legal battle is raging around the controversial executive order, which Trump has said was designed to establish "new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America." It initially sought to stop acceptance of Syrian refugees indefinitely, suspend at least temporarily the issuance of visas for people from the other listed countries and pause the broader refugee program.

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On Thursday, a panel with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to immediately reinstate the directive after a Seattle federal judge earlier issued a restraining order, though the White House has said it would continue to weigh options.

Of the countries listed, Aurora has seen 467 refugees resettled from Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Iran since 2007. Chicago, north suburban Skokie and Rockford have each seen more refugees resettled from those countries and, in Chicago and Rockford, from Sudan. Wheaton has hosted only slightly fewer refugees from those countries than Aurora.

In total, World Relief has resettled about 1,875 people in Aurora during those 10 years, Sperry said. That has included Congolese, Burmese and Bhutanese refugees, and they have often ended up on the city's West Side, she said. More than half have had family or friends in the city already and likely would have ended up in Aurora regardless of whether World Relief had a local office, she said.

When reviewing cases, local World Relief offices weigh cost of living, employment options, available housing and other factors, Sperry said. In Aurora, the agency often resettles people on the West Side because of housing options and its connection with West Aurora School District 129, she said.

Though the U.S. refugee program is federal, rather than state or local, World Relief meets regularly with representatives from the city, police, schools and other organizations, Sperry said.

City officials declined to comment on refugees in Aurora other than to reiterate a previous statement from Mayor Robert O'Connor.

"The city of Aurora stands in support of families in our community," he has said. "The very fabric of Aurora is interwoven with the stories of immigrants of the past and present."

In West Aurora School District 129, 60 of the district's roughly 12,500 students this year came from countries from which Trump has sought to ban travel: 35 from Iraq, 24 from Syria and one from Iran, spokesman Tony Martinez said. He said he could not provide information from earlier years because the district's computer system does not flag refugee students.

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Because those students are spread throughout the district, it does not have a dedicated Arabic-speaking teacher, Martinez said. But the district works with World Relief and provides students a crash course in the types of English words they are most likely to need. It has provided Arabic translators for districtwide events, as it has to translate for other refugee populations in the district, he said.

Overall, Martinez said, students from different backgrounds expose West Aurora students to a variety of cultures.

"We do the best we can to make sure we serve those families," he said.

Often, after arriving in a city, refugees will relocate to join family and friends or because their job prospects change, Sperry said.

In Aurora, Bhutanese, in particular, have established a strong community, owning homes, grocery stores and small businesses, Sperry said.

Many Iraqis  who outnumber Aurora's Syrian, Somali and Iranian refugees combined  are purchasing homes in the area, and small businesses catering to them have sprung up, a sign that they are likely to stay, Sperry said. But the 55 Somalis that have been resettled in Aurora since 2007 have tended to move away, often to larger communities in Minnesota or Ohio, she said.

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The Syrian community  105 have been resettled in Aurora since 2007, the majority of them last year  is a recent development, and time has yet to tell what their presence will look like long term, Sperry said.

World Relief has partnerships with several area companies and is able to help newcomers find jobs, typically within slightly more than two months of their arrival, Sperry said. They often work with a staffing agency or manufacturing or light industrial companies, but Sperry said they have been able to find jobs throughout Kane and DuPage counties.

Recently, Sperry said, World Relief staff have heard concerns from refugees about the executive order and whether Americans still want refugees in the country. The organization has sought to provide information during English classes and through case workers, she said.

"With the current climate, there's a lot of fear," she said. "Especially the last couple of weeks. There's a lot of fear about how they'll be treated, and there's a lot of fear about what the executive order will mean for these families."

Beacon-News reporter Hannah Leone, The Associated Press and the Washington Post contributed.

sfreishtat@tribpub.com

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It's been 10 years since a crash in Oswego left five teens dead, several others injured and sent a woman to prison for driving drunk, but some can still remember where they were when they first heard what had happened.

Phil Murray, then an assistant principal at Traughber Junior High School in Oswego, was at a theater having brunch and seeing a play with the school principal and another administrator when the principal got the call.

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Dwight Baird, then Oswego police chief, thought of his own teenage son, home with friends sleeping over, when he was awakened by the call.

For many in the community, the effects were felt long after that tragic Feb. 11. In Community Unit School District 308, the district where eight passengers involved in the crash had attended high school, administrators recalled recent programs sparked or affected by the crash. Murray said in his 13 years in the district, the crash was the single biggest event he could remember.

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"When you take five youth out of your community that are somewhere between the ages of 13 to 16 or 17, in one event, it's nothing like an act of terrorism but it can definitely tear the fiber of the community and the stuff that can hold it together," Baird, now Kendall County sheriff, said earlier in the week as he spoke to reporters about a remembrance project at the Kendall County state's attorney's office.

In the early morning hours of Feb. 11, 2007, Sandra Vasquez went to pick up her sister from a home where teens had been drinking until a parent came home and broke up the party, according to witness testimony. She offered an intoxicated teen a ride, and soon wound up with a car full of teens.

She crashed the sedan into a utility pole, shearing it off at the bottom.

Katherine Merkel, 14, Tiffany Urso, 16, Jessica Nutoni, 15 and Matthew Frank, 17, were pronounced dead at the scene, and James McGee, 14, died later. Three other teens were injured. All had, for at least a time, attended Oswego High School.

Vasquez, then 23 and a young mother, was also injured, and later sentenced to 15 years in prison after jurors convicted her of multiple counts of aggravated drunken driving and reckless homicide.

An Oswego police detective at the time described "a mess of a scene." Damage to the utility pole caused a power outage in the area, and when a Beacon-News reporter saw the car days later at the police station, it was crushed and twisted.

Later in the afternoon following the crash, Oswego High School students gathered to mourn their classmates by a series of white crosses perched in snow near the crash site. Students and staff flooded the high school parking lot, said Heidi Podjasek, then an assistant principal at Fox Chase Elementary School and now district director of professional development.

In part of a six-page letter from prison, parts of which were published in a Beacon-News column, Vasquez apologized.

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"I think of everyone I've hurt, and the fact remains, behind my bad decision was a good intention," she wrote. "And I know the survivors know this in their heart and those who are not here today they know I have always been sorry and if my remorse is not outspoken enough for some, I'm OK with that ...because God knows where my intentions were."

The crash deeply affected a tight community, Podjasek said. Everyone she encountered seemed to have some connection to what had happened.

She said adults were struck by the idea that they could think their kids were in one place  at home, in bed  and that instead something like the crash could happen. It caused many parents to reflect on how they could support and protect their children, she said.

For weeks, support poured in for siblings and friends throughout the district, said Murray, now principal at Long Beach Elementary in the same district.

At Fox Chase Elementary, where Podjasek said three siblings of those involved in the crash attended school, teachers worked to help students understand what had happened, learn how to support their classmates and keep life as normal as possible for students, Podjasek said.

"It was a whole community effort, and the whole community cared," she said.

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In the months after the crash, a state program designed to trace liquor sales and deter underage drinking was extended into Kendall County. Kendall County officials proposed legislation that would cause anyone underage caught drinking any amount of alcohol to face a three-month license suspension. The school district worked to put together a booklet on underage drinking for parents, the school board approved a stricter set of punishments for student-athletes caught drinking during summer breaks and off-seasons, and the superintendent sought to ensure health and driver's education curricula addressed teen drinking.

Five years later, the mangled sedan was put on display at Oswego East High School. It took several more years, as far as one school administrator knows, for a widely-used crash simulation designed to address underage drinking and driving to come to Oswego High School.

When the simulated car crash, often conducted around prom season, took place at the high school last spring, organizers took into account the crash 10 years ago, said Bill Nunamaker, an assistant principal at Oswego High School. They sent messages home to parents letting them know it could be sensitive, and sought to make sure anyone connected to the crash was aware of what would be happening and had the option not to attend, he said.

"There's always going to be sensitivity to that," Nunamaker said. "You've got to treat that in a way that's cognizant of that, and respectful of not only the families that were involved but all the people who were affected by it and continue to be affected by it."

Some current learning efforts in the district began soon after the crash. Podjasek said the district's "social emotional" learning initiatives, designed to teach students skills to make good decisions and solve problems, began afterward.

Relatives of all but one of the teens who died in the crash and survivors of the crash could not be reached by the Beacon-News or declined to comment.

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Mike Nutoni, Jessica Nutoni's father, said recently his daughter's death "still burns" him.

Nutoni, who now lives in Florida, said he has a cross made by an Aurora resident and placed candles around the base. Every year, on his daughter's birthday and on the date of the accident, he kneels down to pray, he said.

"It just eats me up..." he said. "I can just imagine right now if she had beautiful grandkids for me. I don't see that."

Beacon-News reporter Hannah Leone and the Chicago Tribune contributed.

sfreishtat@tribpub.com

Twitter @srfreish
Questions on citizenship

The question has arisen in my mind, who am I? The globalists in their desire to speed up the One World Utopia have decided to annihilate nationalities and ethnic backgrounds with few exceptions. Here in the U.S., we are to answer American. That presents a problem for me. I like being Polish/American.

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Now, when in Rome must I become Roman or Italian or European? If I change my residency to China, will I be Chinese or Asian? And in Egypt, Egyptian or Middle Eastern or Muslim, whatever? I think I shall move to Ireland; being Irish appeals to me, but not being part of the British Empire or European Union. Whose citizen will I be then?

The most dangerous question, though, is if I move to Israel, can I even become a citizen? Will I be Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish or something new?

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Someone help me, I am drowning in questions.

Joan Solms, Aurora

Support slate for lower taxes

On Feb. 28th, a very important primary election will take place in Naperville Township. A bit of background.

Last year, Naperville Township Supervisor Rachel Ossyra and Naperville City Councilman Kevin Coyne proposed consolidation of the Naperville Township Road District (which includes 14.8 miles of unincorporated roadway) with the City of Naperville's Public Works department. The city estimated that effort would have saved township taxpayers over $800,000 annually. That's a savings to taxpayers of almost $55,000 per mile per year.

Opponents have claimed the savings are not real. I would suggest you simply compare budgets and you will easily be able to see for yourself the savings are real.

Last November, an advisory referendum question was placed on township and city ballots asking voters if they support this consolidation effort. Both measures passed by overwhelming margins of close to 90 percent. The voters were very clear they want cost-saving consolidation to proceed.

The Naperville Township Team for Lower Taxes of Rachel Ossyra, Catherine Hanzelin, Kerry Malm, Daniel Porter and Kurt Dorr fully support roadway consolidation to reduce property taxes.

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Most of the other candidates for township trustee do not support this effort, including incumbent Paul Santucci (who voted against the consolidation effort), and candidate Jim Ruhl. They have opposed the cost-saving consolidation efforts every step of the way  ignoring the will of the voters.

I urge everyone to vote for the Naperville Township Team for Lower Taxes slate of Rachel Ossyra for supervisor and Kerry Malm, Catherine Hanzelin, Daniel Porter and Kurt Dorr for trustees.

Roy Ozols, Naperville

Share your views

Submit letters to the editor via email to suburbanletters@tribpub.com. Please include your name and town of residence for publication. Please include phone number and email address for confirmation. Letters should be no more than 250 words.
CSX held an informational open house Thursday at Crete-Monee High School to discuss plans for an intermodal terminal it hopes to build in Crete. (Mike Nolan / Daily Southtown)

A few years ago, when plans for an immigrant detention center were proposed in Crete, Concetta Smart helped organize Concerned Citizens of Crete in a bid, ultimately successful, to keep plans for what opponents referred to as a 700-bed "prison" from being realized.

The group, still intact, is now focusing its energies on trying to block plans by a subsidiary of Florida-based CSX Corp. to build an intermodal terminal in that village, picking where another developer had proposed a similar freight handling complex.

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Proponents of the project say it will create jobs and spawn other development that will benefit Crete, while residents of that community, such as Smart, are worried it could hurt property values and bring additional truck traffic into their neighborhoods.

Dozens of people attended an open house the company held Thursday in the library at Crete-Monee High School, where several CSX representatives were on hand to answer questions about the project, which is in the very preliminary stages.

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CSX has an option to buy up to 1,100 acres, with the initial phase of the terminal using about 350 acres and, depending on how successful the first phase is, a second phase encompassing another 120 acres, according to Louis Renjel, vice president of infrastructure investment with CSX Transportation, a subsidiary of CSX Corp.

Another CSX subsidiary, CSX Intermodal Terminals, would develop the facility, which the company expects would cost $230 million to build and create 200 permanent jobs once operational.

The company hopes to have necessary approvals to proceed in hand by the end of this year, with construction starting in the first quarter of 2018 and the terminal operational by sometime in 2020, Renjel said.

The site is bordered by Crete-Monee Road on the north, Goodenow Road on the south, and is about a half-mile west of Illinois Route 1.

Krystal Hollars, who said she left work early to attend the open house, said she and her husband recently moved to Crete from Joliet, with plans to raise a family in "the quiet town of Crete." She said her home is less than half a mile away from where the intermodal facility would be built, and that she couldn't, from the information available at the open house, yet gauge what impact it would have on her and her neighbors.

"We can't get definitive answers," she said.

Renjel said CSX plans to hold other informational meetings for residents, and is created a website, csx.com/creteintermodal to provide updates.

"We are going to be doing these (public meetings) almost quarterly through the rest of the year," he said.

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Smart said she lived in nearby Chicago Heights most of her life, and moved to Crete in 1992, in part because of its tranquil, more rural feel.

"People came here (to Crete) to get away from industrialization," she said.

Another Crete resident, Michael Anthony, said the project would be an "environmental disaster," a "traffic disaster" and harm residents' property values.

In information provided to residents, CSX maintains the terminal would be "among the cleanest, most efficient terminals in the country."

It will have a total of 10 tracks, each more than a mile in length, and seven zero-emission electric cranes to hoist containers. It will have the capacity to handle a half-million container "lifts" each year, and space for 2,600 shipping containers, the company said.

The site will be graded to "screen sights and sounds" coming from the terminal, and directional lighting will be employed "to limit offsite impacts," according to the company.

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The property is west of the former Balmoral Park harness racing track, which is being renovated to host horse-jumping competitions starting this spring.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

Several people at the open house crowded around a map of the intermodal facility, which shows truck traffic going into and out of the terminal using a section of Illinois Rt. 1 and connecting with Illinois 394 southeast of the terminal.

The land CSX wants to buy and build on was annexed by Crete several years ago when CenterPoint Properties proposed to develop an intermodal terminal there, but those plans did not move to completion. CenterPoint is the developer of a massive 6,400-acre intermodal facility in Elwood near Joliet, where 15 million square feet of warehouse and distribution space has been built, according to the company's website.

Renjel said that the proposed CSX terminal also could spur warehouse-distribution development in the area.

Reggie Greenwood, deputy executive director of economic development for the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association, said at the open house that he sees only benefits from the CSX project. He said there is potential for synergy between the facility and the proposed third airport, which would initially focus on handling cargo.

Greenwood said he can "respect people's opinions" about their opposition to the development, but that CSX would be making an "incredible investment" that would further secure the south suburbs' position as a rail freight handling hub, citing Union Pacific's intermodal yard in Dolton and Canadian National's intermodal terminal in Harvey.

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The Concerned Citizens of Crete plan to hold a meeting regarding the CSX proposal at 1 p.m. Feb. 25 at the Crete Public Library, 1177 N. Main St., and in a separate but related matter, Will County Board member Laurie Summers, D-Crete, said she is forming a Citizen Advisory Board for Regional Infrastructure for District 1, which she represents. In a release, Summers said that the announcement of the CSX project, "it is imperative for the citizens' voices to be heard." District 1 residents interested in being on the board can email Summers at lsummers@willcountyillinois.com

mnolan@tribpub.com
After pleading guilty to a homicide charge, Shawn Eikey offered a tearful apology Friday to the parents of a Joliet woman who died after a drug overdose  the result of drugs he was accused of providing to the woman's boyfriend.

Emily Buckley, 22, died Aug. 26 after overdosing on hydromorphone, a prescription opioid, officials said. Eikey was accused of delivering the drugs to Buckley's boyfriend the day she died.

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"I want to apologize to (the family), she was really a nice girl," Eikey told Will County Judge Sarah Jones. "Nothing I can do will bring her back."

Eikey, of Rockdale, pleaded guilty to drug-induced homicide in exchange for a six-year prison term. He was eligible to serve six to 30 years in prison.

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State law allows for a charge of drug-induced homicide when a person unlawfully delivers a controlled substance that causes another person's death.

Though Jones thanked Eikey, 22, for his "very honest" apology, she told Eikey he stole Buckley's life.

"You're a thief," she told Eikey. "You stole the promise of a vibrant, young life."

She encouraged him to take advantage of any drug treatment he may receive in jail and change course.

"If you continue to be involved in opioid use, you may not live to be 30 ... nobody wants that," Jones said.

Buckley's mother, Pam, told Eikey she regularly prayed for him. She also said she hoped that Eikey would see his plea deal as rehabilitative rather than punitive.

"It is my true hope that Shawn will use this time to make important changes in his life," Buckley said as she read her victim impact statement in court Friday.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

Eikey nodded his head in agreement when Buckley said her daughter's friends told her that Emily did not use opioids and, in fact, "hated them" and would often argue with her boyfriend over his use of them.

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"She told him that she was afraid that something very bad was going to happen, and she was right," Buckley said.

The night she died, Buckley said her daughter took the drugs after noticing police talking to her boyfriend outside his house. Worried that the house might be searched and unable to find a place in the basement to dispose of the drugs, Emily took them herself.

"Obviously, this was a very poor split-second decision on the part of Emily and we will never understand it," Buckley said during her victim impact statement Friday.

She described her daughter, who has a twin brother, as a loyal friend who was quick to help others. Eikey nodded his head in agreement and wiped away tears as Buckley talked about her daughter.

"We have a serious problem with opioids in our community," said Buckley, who has participated in drug abuse awareness forums since her daughter's death, "and it all starts with prescription opioids."

Alicia Fabbre is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
After decades of "pumping like crazy," groundwater levels are so dangerously low that some wells will go dry in 15 years if current practices continue, said Walt Kelly, of the Illinois State Water Survey.

Kelly, who has been presenting his findings throughout the region, where many towns rely on well water, spoke to the Executive Committee of the Will County Board on Thursday, urging officials to organize a regional water planning group to address the issue and partner with ISWS to collect data and monitor the water supply.

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The Illinois State Water Survey, based at the University of Illinois in Champaign, has been a leader in the study of water resources for more than a century, according to its website.

With the residential and industrial growth that Will County has experienced, coupled with the fact that the rainwater does not replenish the aquifers because the layers above it are impermeable, Kelly said, "all data indicates that within 15 to 20 years we could have some serious problems."

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The concern is outside of Chicago, where most communities rely on groundwater, not Lake Michigan water.

Although there are serious groundwater depletion issues in northeastern Will County, surrounding counties also are affected, so the solution must be a regional effort in order to make a difference, Kelly said.

According to his data, communities in northeastern Illinois pump 100 million gallons per day from shallow aquifers, and groundwater levels have dropped 800 feet or more. The city of Joliet alone uses 25 million gallons per day, he said.

Withdrawals from groundwater supplies are becoming unsustainable, and alternative water supplies will be necessary, said Kelly, a groundwater geochemist.

Illinois' rivers are a likely source, but there is a limit to what can be withdrawn from them, and some have water quality issues, he said, adding that towns may still need to rely on aquifers as a backup water source.

The Kankakee River is a preferred alternative source for water for this area, and Joliet is planning to submit a permit to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to withdraw water from the river, he said.

Similarly, the villages of Montgomery and Oswego, in Kendall County, may switch to Fox River water.

This will help, but not solve, the problem, Kelly said.

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Those who switch to river water would have to build new treatment plants because river water must be treated differently than groundwater, he said.

The Des Plaines River is not a viable option because of poor water quality, he said.

Drawing water from Lake Michigan may be "prohibitively expensive," Kelly said, adding that municipalities not only would have to build new lines but also would not be able to control their water rates. Illinois also is limited to what it can take from the lake, he said, and building reservoirs would only be a "drop in the bucket."

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

Other "pie-in-the-sky" options include reusing wastewater, which is "technically challenging" but possible, Kelly said.

Digging wells deeper is cost-prohibitive because the water is salty and would have to be treated, he said.

Kelly urged officials to act quickly, work in cooperation with other counties and the ISWS, and get industrial users on board because they account for high water usage.

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"No one thing seems to solve the problem. It will be a series of actions," said County Board Speaker Jim Moustis, R-Frankfort Township, adding that communities could start by using less water.

Board member Jackie Traynere, D-Bolingbrook, cited the "huge" water problems in California, which forced that state to push conservation methods.

"I have seen no campaign in Illinois to conserve water," she said. "Now is the time to start."

slafferty@tribpub.com
Rama Atieh, case manager with Syrian Community Network, poses outside a south suburban apartment building where a widowed Syrian refugee and her three children have settled. (Ted Slowik / Daily Southtown)

Syrian refugee Lama Al-Kussa sat on a couch in the living room of her south suburban apartment and talked about her fear of being deported.

Though the 36-year-old widowed mother of three spoke about her fear, her calm and friendly demeanor conveyed a sense of strength.

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She wants to stay in America, she said. She risked everything to flee Syria and make a better life for herself and her children. She's learning English, looking for work and helping her children adjust to local public schools.

Al-Kussa and her children are refugees. There are about 100 additional or so refugees from Syria or Iraq who have settled in the Southland during the past decade, according to data compiled by the Associated Press.

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"I hope nobody bothers us and tells us we need to leave," she said through an interpreter. "I escaped all that. I left from one place to another and I traveled so much and after a few months of being here and being happy," the future is uncertain.

I visited Al-Kussa's apartment in Justice on Friday. Rama Atieh, a case manager for the Syrian Community Network support organization, translated Al-Kussa's responses to my questions from Arabic to English.

The context of our discussion was President Donald Trump's Jan. 27 executive order temporarily halting the refugee program from Syria and restricting travel between the United States and six other predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Late Thursday, a three-judge panel upheld another judge's order that suspends implementation of the order, allowing people in transit and legal immigrants granted visas to travel.

Trump has said the order is needed to prevent terrorists from coming to America, and that refugees and other immigrants should be subject to "extreme vetting" in the interests of national security.

Between 2007 and January, Illinois took in 10,864 refugees from the seven countries specified in Trump's order, the Associated Press found. The largest number  5,422  settled in Chicago, and hundreds of others found homes in Aurora, Niles, Rockford, Skokie and Wheaton.

Comparatively few have settled in the south suburbs. During the past 10 years, 17 refugees from Iraq and Syria have settled in Orland Park, 14 in Palos Heights, 10 in Tinley Park and nine in Alsip, according to the AP analysis.

Other south suburbs reporting refugees from those two countries include Bridgeview, Chicago Ridge, Hickory Hills, Justice, Lansing, Lockport, Markham, Mokena, Oak Forest and Oak Lawn.

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Al-Kussa and her children apparently aren't reflected in the Illinois numbers because they initially settled in New York. The AP analysis tracked stated destinations of immigrants, though many have since moved.

Millions of civilian refugees from Iraq and Syria have been caught up in violent conflicts in their home countries. More than 4 million people have fled Syria since 2011, according to the United Nations.

Last year, during President Barack Obama's administration, the United States reached its goal of admitting 10,000 refugees from Syria. During the 2016 fiscal year the United States admitted a record 38,901 Muslims out of nearly 85,000 total refugees, the Pew Research Center reported.

Since civil war began in Syria following the 2011 Arab Spring protests, more than 470,000 Syrians have been killed and more than a million others have been injured, according to a report issued Friday by the Syrian Center for Policy Research.

Al-Kussa's odyssey began in 2014, when the neighborhood in Homs where she lived with her husband and three children was bombed. He worked as an auto mechanic, she said.

"They left everything, took off and never came back," Atieh, the translator, said.

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They initially fled to Lebanon, then to Jordan, where they rented an apartment. After a year in Jordan, Al-Kussa's husband died of a heart attack.

A plate of baked goods made by Syrian refugee Lama Al-Kussa rests on a coffee table in her south suburban apartment. She earns money by selling food she makes. (Ted Slowik / Daily Southtown)

"She stayed in Jordan for about two and a half years," Atieh said. "She was left alone with her kids there, no family, no friends."

I asked about applying to come to the United States as a refugee and the vetting process. The United Nations coordinates the process, I was told.

"When she got to Jordan, she signed up with the U.N. organizations to get help," Atieh said. "They asked her, 'Would you like it if you left and came to America?' They gave her an option and she said yes."

"They said you would live just like everybody else here," Atieh said.

The vetting process was "very precise and very hard," Al-Kussa said through Atieh. Steps included medical examinations, iris scans, X-rays, vaccinations, and lengthy interviews.

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"They did research on her family history  her grandparents  on all the places she's lived before and all the schools she went to all her life," Atieh said.

"They have them go through the process over and over again to see if they answer all the questions the same way," Atieh said. "They asked her the same questions but in different ways to see how she answered."

Once accepted into the refugee program, Al-Kussa had to pledge to repay the cost of air travel for herself and her children, Atieh said. Their application was expedited because her older son has a heart condition that required medical attention in the United States, she said.

The family initially settled in Rochester, N.Y., Atieh said, but Al-Kussa didn't like it in New York. After 10 days, she boarded a train for the first time and met up with a family friend in the Chicago area.

Catholic Charities helped relocate Al-Kussa and her children to Illinois in September, Atieh said. The agency coordinated with Syrian Community Network because it has better connections with schools and others organizations in the south suburbs where Al-Kussa wanted to settle, she said.

Al-Kussa's children are her daughter, Ayah, 16, and two sons, Obieda, 14, and Shad, 9. The two older children attend Argo Community High School in Summit.

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"The minute she got to Chicago she said she smelled freedom," Atieh said. "She felt safe and she got used to the environment very quickly."

Atieh accompanied Al-Kussa and her children when they registered for school.

"For her to see the smiling faces and the way the teachers were so (kind to) the kids, just the way they were talking to them, it brought her to tears," Atieh said.

She hopes her son Obieda, who underwent a procedure for his heart condition a month ago, becomes a doctor and helps others.

"We want to work, we want to go to school, we want to build a future," Al-Kussa said through the interpreter.

Al-Kussa stays in touch with her elderly parents in Syria through Facebook Messenger, but connections are often interrupted, Atieh said. Her parents are safe, but they often go without water, electricity and access to health care, Atieh said.

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"My mom is always cold and there's nothing to keep her warm because there's no electricity," Al-Kussa said.

Numerous charitable organizations are involved in refugee settlement efforts, including Catholic Charities and World Relief. Syrian Community Network receives all its funding from donations, Atieh said.

The agency helped pay about 25 percent of Al-Kussa's rent for three months and is helping her find a job, Atieh said.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

"We provide them with the resources they need because this is all new to them," Atieh said. "We help them become independent."

Al-Kussa is receiving some public assistance and works out of her home making baked goods that she sells, Atieh said. Al-Kussa asked that she not be photographed for this story.

State Sen. Toi Hutchinson, a Democrat from Chicago Heights, recently noted the state budget impasse has disrupted about $7.7 million in annual funding for such programs as refugee welcoming centers, immigration integration services and other social services that help refugees.

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"Now more than ever, immigrants and refugees coming into our state need comprehensive services to ensure they are able to successfully integrate into our society and become productive residents," Hutchinson said in a Jan. 31 news release.

"Continued cuts that target the most vulnerable among us will do nothing but threaten the future stability of the state."

tslowik@tribpub.com

Twitter @tedslowik
Since when does the House of Representatives do my voting for me. We tax paying citizens pay the bills and should be the ones voting for speaker, president , etc. The Democrats have too many stale people in power too long. They are voted in over and over. They ruined our state and expect it to be healed over night. Give Gov. Bruce Rauner a chance. We need term limits and less unions. You lower the assessment of a home and raise taxes. Does that make sense?

Worth

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Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, criticized the House GOP's proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act, labeling it as "a horrible idea." "We need to repeal it first before deciding what comes next. I think there is a lot of agreement among Republicans in Congress with regard to the repeal bill. There is a lot less agreement on what comes next," the lawmaker added. As aware voters have known for some time, the GOP has no plan to replace the ACA. They simply want to eliminate access to health care for 30 million Americans. Is this what making America great again is all about?

William, Oak Lawn

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Chris Kennedy announced he's going to run for Illinois' governor. He not only has a great, beloved name but is also strongly endorsed by Mike Madigan's and his Cook County machine. I'm afraid, in spite of all Gov. Bruce Rauner's efforts to turn our fiscal problems around, they'll go down the drain unless "common-sense voters" realize that the Democratic combo of Kennedy/Madigan will continue with what we've had to endure for decades of liberal "tax and spend" ideology. Madigan must be giddy with Kennedy's announcement because as was quoted in the Daily Southtown, Kennedy will never stand up to him. Nothing's changed.

Bob, Oak Forest

To Don from Orland Park: The 55% first installment of the previous year's Cook County property taxes was the brainchild of former Gov. Pat Quinn. The stated objection was to not make school districts wait for the increase in property taxes each year assuming they increase 5% annually. This also duped taxpayers into believing their property taxes decreased when the second installment was less than the first installment, assuming taxes did not increase by more than 10%. All of the money the legislators promised to be allocated to schools from gaming revenue and lotteries is being distributed as such. The problem is that monies previously allocated to education are now being spent elsewhere. Its Illinois version of bait and switch.

Jay, Tinley Park

What's Speak Out?

Speak Out allows readers to comment on the issues of the day. Email Speak Out at speakout@southtownstar.com or call 312-222-2427. Please limit comments to 30 seconds or about 120 words and give your first name and your hometown.
Kids line up to make jump ropes using an old fashioned contraption owned by the Getzelman family at the 2016 Burlington Fall Fest. (Jeanie Mayer / The Courier-News)

Burlington's annual Fall Fest may be eight months away, but the Odd Fellows organization is already planning the fete and looking at new ways to fund it.

Tom Carey, Odd Fellows member and one of the Fest's organizers, asked the village board to support the festival with a donation of $500. Carey said the festival has cost as much as $5,500 to put on in the past.

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Carey said he was able to bring down the cost of electricity and generator rentals by a wide margin last year, reducing the overall costs to about $4,000. He said they have increased offerings at the fest over the years, with the addition of a beer tent, petting zoo, pony rides and a clown with balloons.

Village board members expressed their desire to support the festival that they said showcases the village to visitors from many neighboring areas.

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Carey said the Oddfellows would like to host a fundraiser at Mott's Lounge in Burlington on Saturday, April 1.

Village President Bob Walsh said the festival is "a big day for the village." Walsh said he'd like the trustees to think about how much to donate and come ready to make a decision at the March 1 board meeting.

Jeanie Mayer is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
Elgin Fire Chief Dave Schmidt shows a compartment for storing advance life support equipment on an engine the city bought in 2015. Elgin is set to get a very similar engine late this year. (Mike Danahey / The Courier-News)

The Elgin City Council unanimously backed almost $1 million in purchases for the Elgin Fire Department, including a new fire engine, 11 tablet computers used in the field and 65 breathing apparatus.

The contract for the new Emergency One Fire Engine from Fire Service, Inc. of St. John, Indiana is set to be $505,385. However, its terms offer a $10,000 trade-in allowance for the existing KME fire engine and a $9,271 discount for prepayment, reducing the actual purchase to $486,114. Money from the city's share of Grand Victoria Casino taxes will be used to pay for the new engine, which will replace one that is 14-years-old and that has maintenance repair costs that exceed its trade-in worth.

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"We keep that engine in reserve at Station 6 (along West Chicago Street)," Elgin Fire Chief Dave Schmidt said on Friday. "But with routine maintenance of vehicles and repairs, about 40 percent of the year we're using a reserve."

According to a memo provided for the Feb. 8 Elgin City Council meeting, as recently at Jan. 20 the old vehicle has about 59,000 miles on it and had been outsourced for brake work and diesel repair, with the cost for such estimated at $4,000 - $5,000. The memo noted repairs over time have amounted to more than $41,000, thus far, with the estimated trade-in value for the engine at $10,000 to $15,000.

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The new engine would be very similar to one Elgin purchased in 2015 that is being used at Station 5 at Villa Street and Willard Avenue and kept at Station 2 along Big Timber Road, Schmidt said. A difference is the new unit will have an LED light tower to illuminate nighttime incidents.

The price is a result of a contract former Chief John Fahy negotiated with Fire Service for the 2015 purchase, which gave the department what amounts to a 4.5 percent price break and a savings of about $25,000, Schmidt said. On Wednesday, Council member Terry Gavin complimented the department on its foresight that led to the new deal.

Friday, Schmidt and firefighters Brandon Schuh and Karl Jeschke showed some features of the 2015 purchase that are pluses and that the new model also will have.

The hose bed height is lower, making it easier to get hose off the truck, Schmidt said, and the step on the back of the truck is wider than on other engines, making it easier and safer for firefighters to stand on it.

The ladder is kept in a compartment instead of exposed to the elements and on top of the engine, Schmidt said. The 2015 purchase and the new engine also have more storage space than other engines and can hold extrication equipment.

Perhaps the biggest advantage is that the design of the compartment for holding advance life support medical equipment allows firefighters to access it once they are outside the big vehicle, instead of having to retrieve or carry it out of the inside as on other models.

"It's a great rig all-around," Schuh said.

Schmidt said once the contract is signed later this month, it will take about 11 months to get the new engine. With the improving economy, Fire Services has seen an increasing number of orders, including one from Boston for more than 35 vehicles, Schmidt said.

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The Council on Feb. 8 also approved the purchase of 11 Getac brand tablet computers from New Jersey-based SHI to replace Panasonic models purchased in 2012 for use in fire inspections and patient care.

"It's a newer brand, with a lower price than what Panasonic offered. It's better equipment, with a better processor," Schmidt said.

According to Schmidt, some of spinning hard drives on the Panasonic models now in use have crashed. The Getac units have solid state hard drives that should be sturdier, Schmidt said.

According to city documents, the Getac tablets also are lighter in weight and thinner in size than the Panasonic models. They have larger screen size than the models currently in use and have full-size keyboards, compared to the smaller ones on the Panasonic devices.

Schmidt noted that Getac has partnered with FedEx, which should expedite any replacement or service work the new models might need. They also come with a 3-year "bumper-to-bumper" accidental damage warranty, Schmidt said, and the order should be filled by April.

The final purchase moved along Wednesday was for 65 self-contained breathing apparatus and related equipment from Air One Equipment of South Elgin for $415,712.

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Schmidt said the department tries to replace such equipment every seven years, but in this case, because of other budget issues this time is replacing items that are 10 years old.

The gear is Bluetooth enabled to make it easier for firefighters to verbally communicate and come with exterior amplified speakers worn on shoulders, as well, Schmidt said. Another feature are buddy lights that can be seen from most directions and indicate critical air supply information.

Once the contract is signed, Schmidt said all items ordered from Air One Equipment should be in use by June or July.

mdanahey@tribpub.com
First Congregational United Church of Christ's unofficial creed is no matter who you are or where you are in life's journey, the church welcomes you, says Lois A. Bucher, the church's associate pastor.

Last year, the Elgin church welcomed a refugee family from Afghanistan by sponsoring their journey through RefugeeOne, the state's largest refugee resettlement agency.

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Church pastor Dr. Paris Donehoo, Bucher and parishioners welcomed the family of nine from Kabul, Afghanistan almost a year ago and helped set up an apartment in Chicago.

Bucher is one of the people who have watched the family's ups and downs adjusting to a new way of life. She and other parishioners were worried about the family once news of President Donald Trump's executive order on immigrants and refugees was signed Jan. 27.

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"People from the church were asking, 'Are they OK?' " Bucher said. When she reached out to the family, the father said they are fine and not impacted by the order, she said.

The executive order halts entry of immigrants from seven countries  Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia  for 90 days and suspends the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days. A federal judge on Feb. 3 suspended the order, and a U.S. appeals court upheld the decision Thursday.

Churches and nonprofit agencies throughout the U.S. are involved with sponsoring refugee families. In Illinois, there were 920 refugees from Syria last year, 136 from Iran, 473 from Iraq, 69 from Somalia and 78 from Sudan, Associated Press data shows. Locally, six people arrived from Iran and five from Iraq last year, according to data.

Elgin took in refugees from Iran and Iraq in 2009, and today the refugee population is 26 from both countries, the data showed. West Dundee has four people from Iraq listed as refugees living in the village. St. Charles has 10 refugees living in the area.

In 2015, First Congregational Church split money raised during Christmas services between a donation to PADS and RefugeeOne, Bucher said. The cost to sponsor a family is $8,000, she said. The church also used money from a trust, she said.

Last year, RefugeeOne resettled 837 refugees from around the world and helped about 2,500 other refugees and immigrants through services and support as they adjust, said Jims Porter, grants and communication director for RefugeeOne.

"Our goal is to match every refugee family with a co-sponsor or group," Porter said. "Religious organizations or communities of faith are some of the biggest supporters of RefugeeOne, through co-sponsorship."

Since November's election, RefugeeOne has seen an "outpouring of support in the form of volunteer applications," Porter said. "We had to make a wait list. We felt a similar surge when President Trump signed the executive order and it was implemented."

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The $8,000 is used toward rent for one month and gas, electric and other costs to set up a household, Bucher said. For the family from Afghanistan, the church began gathering donations for an apartment in a Chicago neighborhood where many refugees from Afghanistan have settled. She said the decision was made to have the family live there because the schools have other children who speak their language and there is a strong support system for refugees.

Church members donated toothbrushes, towels, furniture, dishes, glasses  everything the family would need, Bucher said.

The family had been attempting to get refugee status for about a year, she said. The father, whose identity the church is not releasing, was a translator for the U.S. military, Bucher said.

"He was really a marked man," she said. "His life was in danger. He worked for our government protecting our military."

The man, his wife and seven children ages 3 to 16 were granted refugee status and moved to the Chicago area. But the process took a while, and the church was left waiting.

It was like waiting for a baby to arrive, Bucher said. The day came in April 2016.

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Bucher and some parishioners went to the airport to greet the family. While getting refugee status was a milestone, it marked the beginning of another journey that Bucher said has not been easy.

The man's wife is diabetic but had not brought her medication because she worried customs would not allow her to carry it into the U.S. She ended up getting sick and spent four days in the hospital, Bucher said. Later, a son was diagnosed with diabetes, she said.

The father has since lost his job, Bucher said. He is worried about paying the rent and has not found a new job, she said. In Afghanistan, he received a college degree in American literature, but it is not valid in the U.S. In his homeland, he owned property; here, he struggles to pay rent, she said.

"It's been hard to watch that, and we can't fix that," Bucher said.

Meanwhile, "we've tried to provide little things," she said.

The church has helped the family by donating coats, gloves and school supplies to the children, Bucher said. Parishioners have held picnics and celebrated birthdays with the family.

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"Coming here is not an easy life," Bucher said. "It's not an easy thing to do."

Bucher said she disagrees with Trump's executive order.

"I cannot speak for the whole church. There are people on both sides of the issue, but I am personally appalled because we are a nation of immigrants, and Jesus was a refugee," Bucher said. "We're stronger together. When someone is in danger and we can provide safety, we have to do that."

When refugee families arrive, "you think they've come and things are good, but it is a struggle to settle in," she said. It can "really be tough, all the things you have to go through."

Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
Last year, the Hampshire Fire Protection District celebrated 85 years of serving the Hampshire community.

With a referendum question on April 4, the district will ask voters to approve a second fire station, the hiring of two more part-time firefighters/paramedics, and the conversion of one of its two fire engines into a paramedic unit.

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Voters will be asked two questions:

 Shall the Hampshire Fire Protection District, Kane and DeKalb Counties, Illinois, be authorized to levy a new tax for emergency and rescue crews and equipment purposes and have an additional tax of .10 percent of the equalized assessed value of the taxable property therein extended for such purposes?

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 Shall the Hampshire Fire Protection District, Kane and DeKalb Counties, Illinois, be authorized to levy a new tax for tort liability purposes and have an additional tax of .15 percent of the equalized assessed value of the taxable property therein extended for such purposes?

The district held an informational meeting concerning the referendum on Thursday.

Another meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 18, at the Hampshire Township building, 170 Mill Avenue.

"We are capped on how much we can ask for," said Hampshire Chief Bill Robinson. "It would be a 30 percent increase. We are trying to get back to the amount we once received."

The district receives 90 percent of its funding through property taxes. In 2010, the district received $1.65 million in property taxes. In 2013, the number dropped to $1.4 million.

"The district, which was created in 1961, encompasses 42 square miles that include most of Hampshire Township and one square mile in DeKalb County, including unincorporated New Lebanon," said Hampshire Deputy Chief Trevor Herrmann. "The district currently has a population of approximately 8,000 residents. It also protects 9 miles of Interstate 90. We have one fire station located at 202 Washington Street that became staffed 24 hours a day on Jan. 21, 2007. We own land for a second station at the corner of Harmony and Melms roads."

At this time, instead of building a new station at Harmony and Melms, the district wants to open a second station in a multi-tenant building on Arrowhead Drive in the Route 20 and Interstate 90 area.

The District 2 fire station would cover 500 homes, two schools and 22 businesses, factories and hotels.

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Herrmann said that the district responded to 1,175 calls in 2016, which was the largest amount handled by the district. The response time was 3.01 minutes within the immediate village and 9 minutes and 45 seconds in the rural areas.

"Our current ISO (insurance service office rating) has been 4 out of 10 for the past decade," Herrmann said.

The district has seven full-time and 38 part-time crew members. Two part-time firefighter/paramedics would be assigned to the second station. The goal is to have a total of 55 crew members so that there can be 6 on a shift at all times.

"I've been working for the district for the past 28 years," Herrmann said. "Quick intervention of oxygen and drug administration is critical for a heart attack patient. Quick intervention is also critical for stroke patients. The brain begins to die without oxygen after 4 to 6 minutes."

In addition, the sooner fire district personnel arrive at the scene, the better the chances of saving lives and property.

"Fires double in size every 30 seconds to one minute," Herrmann said.

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The district needs funds for apparatus replacement. Herrmann said fire engines must be replaced every 15 to 20 years at a cost of $700,000. An ambulance should be replaced every 10 years at a cost of $250,000. A tanker should be replaced every 20 to 25 years at a cost of $300,000. Firefighting gear is mandated to be replaced every 10 years at $2,900 a set.

Denise Moran is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
Blame it on Roskam

It's no surprise that the story in the Feb. 6 edition of The Courier-News blames the DCCC for Peter Roskam's problems. The blame is on Peter Roskam for not listening to his constituents.

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David Berkey, Elgin

Roskam staff's meeting position 'entirely reasonable'

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Your editorial headlined "Time to open doors to constituents" reflects two points of view  both erroneous  and confirms the continuing leftward drift of the Naperville Sun's editorial page. First, you state that President Trump's temporary ban on travelers from some Middle Eastern countries is "rash," "broadly flawed" and dubious as to its efficacy. Your statement expresses a misunderstanding of the president's primary responsibility (i.e. commander in chief) and echoes the continuing refrain from liberals, sore losers and cry babies over the November election outcome.

The president is charged with protecting our nation's security and not promoting political correctness. At times, this means limiting travel and immigration (as numerous previous presidents have done) until we can be sure immigrants have been properly screened. This is entirely constitutional and can only be considered "rash" or "flawed" by dissidents, radicals or political opponents. Could the order have been presented better? Of course. However, the order is not only constitutional but sensible, as we will certainly soon find out.

As to the second point of your editorial, you criticize U.S Rep. Peter Roskam's staff's refusal to meet with constituents. But it was entirely reasonable following the surprise discovery of an unannounced reporter being present. This clearly suggests an ambush. After the constituents were caught red-handed, it is understandable that the congressman's staff would continue refusing to meet. Once lost, trust is difficult to regain. In addition, edited secret recordings and videos would have been a continuing risk.

While editorials are by nature slanted, please try to take a less partisan position in the future or, at least, present the facts fairly.

David Mead, Naperville

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Submit letters to the editor via email to suburbanletters@tribpub.com. Please include your name and town of residence for publication. Please include phone number and email address for confirmation. Letters should be no more than 250 words.
Survivors of sexual assault and their supporters march Feb. 10, 2017, at Northwestern University in Evanston, making demands on the university following allegations of use of a date-rape drug at a fraternity on campus. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune) (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune)

The hundreds of marchers from Northwestern University were loud and raucous Friday as they rounded Sheridan Road in Evanston, chanting for the removal of a NU fraternity where alleged sexual assaults occurred in January.

But the crowd soon stood silent, and listened with rapt attention as student after student told their stories of being sexually assaulted.

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The Stand with Survivors, as the demonstration was officially called, followed Monday's announcement of drugging and sexual assault allegations at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house and another, unidentified fraternity.

The march started at SAE's Northwestern chapter house and ended about a mile away near its national headquarters.

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It was billed as a rally to support survivors of sexual assault, condemn the assault allegations and challenge the institutions and environments that facilitate that type of violence, organizers said.

Some of the speakers, describing their own experiences of sexual assault, said they knew their attackers. Others didn't.

Some talked about an ex-boyfriend, others a stranger  maybe someone they met earlier at a party  or a mentor at work.

For one it happened as a child. For some it had happened multiple times.

One woman shook as she talked, the paper she read from quivering in her hand. Many on stage and in the audience wiped away tears as they told and heard the stories.

The message, over and over, was that it was not the survivor's fault a person was assaulted. It was always the perpetrator's, regardless of what someone was wearing or how much they had to drink or whether they had lost track of their friends that night.

"As a survivor I don't need someone asking me, 'are you sure you said 'no' loud enough,'" said one woman, who asked not to be identified. "Stop questioning survivors and start questioning rapists."

Co-organizer Amanda Odasz, a Northwestern senior, said she was motivated to get involved after receiving the campus-wide alert about the alleged SAE attacks.

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"This email came out and I was like, 'how do I call to action?'" Odasz said.

Already a member of Northwestern's Sexual Health and Peer Educators group, Odasz helped craft the rally agenda, reserved classrooms and other spaces for those who might need to talk about their experiences in private, among other things, she said.

While she is not involved in a fraternity or sorority, about 40 percent of Northwestern's student population is, Odasz said. So allegations like those reported Monday, she said, affect many students on campus.

"It is very unlikely that you will go to class at Northwestern and not see someone wearing letters," Odasz said, referring to the Greek alphabets that serves as acronyms to identify fraternities and sororities.

Northwestern junior Lucy Godinez said in her presentation that hers was one of the sexual assault cases reported on campus in 2015.

"I never thought that I'd stand in front of many people and say I was raped," Godinez said. "I was raped."

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Godinez spoke out Friday to help protect her sister, she said, who will start Northwestern as a freshman in the fall.

Also on Friday, Northwestern University spokesman Bob Rowley confirmed that the Interfraternity Council, which governs social fraternities, has suspended indefinitely all social activities for all campus fraternities.

And officials at the national headquarters for Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity on Friday confirmed that they had suspended all activity at the fraternity's Northwestern University campus chapter.

The suspension means that the Illinois Psi-Omega of SAE cannot hold chapter meetings, attend fraternity social events or do any other activities under the SAE banner, said Brandon Weghorst, SAE spokesman. The suspension is expected to stay in place while the reported assaults are under investigation.

"They have to cease and desist all operations," Weghorst said.

The suspensions and rally came after Northwestern administrators on Monday issued a security alert after receiving reports that as many as four female students were possibly given a date rape drug at a Jan. 21 event at the SAE house, according to Chicago Tribune reports. Two of the women said they were sexually assaulted after receiving the drug.

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The university received a second allegation last week of a woman being sexually assaulted after receiving a date rape drug at a different fraternity house, according to Tribune reports. That fraternity has not been identified.

Northwestern's Student Government Association on Wednesday called for the suspension of SAE and any other fraternities involved in the reported assaults.

gbookwalter@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @GenevieveBook
Following lengthy closing arguments Friday afternoon, a Lake County jury began deliberations into whether Kevin Curtis, charged with murder, purposefully stabbed 19-year-old Jacob Blum in a Waukegan motel or whether the stabbing was an accident, as claimed by the defendant.

After deliberating for hours, the jury was sent home after 8 p.m. and is scheduled to reconvene to continue deliberations Tuesday morning, according to Assistant State's Attorney Scott Turk.

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If convicted of the first-degree murder charges against him, Curtis, 29, a transient at the time of the July 16, 2013, stabbing, faces a mandatory sentence of 20 to 60 years in prison.

Curtis and Blum were co-workers at Windy City Meats in Gurnee, and Curtis was in the motel room used by Blum, his brother Kevin Blum and his father, Jeffrey Blum, when the stabbing occurred, authorities said.

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During the weeklong trial, prosecutors said Jacob Blum was lying in a bed in the room watching a movie when Curtis attacked him, stabbing him once in the chest with a switchblade.

Blum made it down to the lobby of the motel and was treated by paramedics but died of blood loss, a collapsed lung and cardiac arrest while en route to or shortly after arrival at Vista Medical Center West in Waukegan, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors and witnesses said that Curtis sometimes stayed with the Blums in their hotel room while the Blums were looking for a permanent residence but that Curtis had been told on that evening that he could come up to the room and use the phone but not stay overnight.

"At first, this may seem complex with a lot of witnesses and evidence," Turk said in his closing argument to the jury. "This is murder. Murder by Kevin Curtis, sitting right at that table over there."

Turk said the Blums had experienced a fairly normal night until the stabbing occurred.

"What happened next, though, was horrifying," he said, holding the folding knife that killed Jacob Blum in his hands. "The defendant took this knife and plunged it into (Blum's) chest."

Defense attorney Eric Rinehart told the jury Friday there was no objective evidence in the case that showed Curtis killed Blum. He said Curtis was telling the truth when he took the witness stand earlier Friday and said that as he was cleaning his fingernails with the knife, Blum "plowed" into him and was accidentally stabbed.

Curtis testified there had been several occasions of wrestling and horseplay between he and Blum in the recent past.

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Rinehart said most of the state's evidence, from bloody pictures of the motel breakfast room where Blum was being treated to audio of the 911 call in which Blum can be heard screaming "I'm going to die," was used to elicit sympathy but did not prove what happened in the room.

"If you have more questions than answers, then your verdict must be not guilty," Rinehart said.

Turk said that while the state has the burden of proof in the case, it does not have to provide or prove motive in the case.

"Sometimes people just do things. (We) just have to prove facts," Turk said, arguing that the angle of the stab wound did not corroborate Curtis' account of what had happened and that Blum had told witnesses he had been stabbed.

Rinehart and defense attorney Kevin Malia argued throughout the trial that there was no reason for Curtis to attack Blum and that there was no testimony that Curtis had even been asked to leave the motel room by anyone even though the incident occurred late at night.

But prior to closing arguments, the state called a witness who said he was attacked without reason by Curtis the very same day that Blum died.

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Gregory Davis, who lived in Gurnee at the time, said Curtis and another man came by his home selling meat from a truck on July 16, 2013. Davis agreed to buy some hamburgers, but Davis said Curtis was struggling to get his portable credit card machine to accept the payment from Davis.

Suddenly, Davis said, Curtis, who was an acquaintance, punched him in the face with no warning "at all" while Davis was standing in his driveway. Davis said Curtis then punched him in the face again. Davis said he then went to the ground "covering my head" when Curtis punched him a third time in the back of the head before being pulled off of Davis by two bystanders.

Police were called, and pictures were taken of Davis' injuries.

On Thursday of the weeklong trial, Blum's father testified about his memories of that night.

Jeffrey Blum said that after work, he returned to his motel room about 10:30 p.m. to find his sons in the room, as well as Curtis.

He said that shortly after he arrived, Kevin Blum left the room to make a phone call, Jacob Blum was lying on one bed watching a movie and Curtis was sitting on the other bed cleaning his fingernails with a knife.

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Jeffrey Blum said he went into the bathroom to shave, leaving the door open, when he heard Jacob Blum scream, "What the (expletive), Kevin!"

"I heard Jacob screaming," Blum said, stating that he immediately left the bathroom to find his son rushing toward him "with blood gushing out of his chest."

Jeffrey Blum said he directed Jacob Blum to the door and told him to get to the motel lobby because he was bleeding badly, and then he saw Curtis coming toward him with a bloody knife.

Jeffrey Blum testified that he then grabbed Curtis by the wrist, removed the knife from his hand and dragged him down to the floor, holding him by the arm so that he couldn't leave.

He said that after about five minutes, Kevin Blum returned to the room and tackled Curtis off of his father, at which point Jeffrey Blum said he grabbed the knife and scissors on a nearby table to clear the room of weapons before heading down to the lobby.

Jeffrey Blum said he was met by Waukegan police officers who told him to "drop the weapons," and he said he put them on a chair in the lobby and then was allowed to go to his wounded son.

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He said he saw Jacob Blum lying in a small dining area near the lobby with motel employees and that paramedics had just arrived.

"He said 'I'm not going to make it,' " Jeffrey Blum said. "I told him, 'Let these guys (paramedics) work on you, these are the ones who are going to save you.' "

Curtis, who was taken into custody at the hotel, was treated for cuts on his hand, which he told police and paramedics happened when he cut himself. He invoked his right to remain silent shortly after questioning began with a Waukegan detective.

jrnewton@tribpub.com

Twitter @jimnewton5
The Elko County Sheriff's office released the following statement during the noon hour Saturday:

ELKO -- During the past 24 hours the Sheriffs Office has observed a significant rise in the Humboldt River which has caused significant flooding in the low lying areas of the City of Elko. Additionally, there have been reports of further road wash outs in the Ryndon, Osino and Elburz areas. County road crews are attempting to mitigate these problems as well as they can.

In Elko County, the Montello and surrounding areas including Pilot Valley continues to be the most impacted area due to the washouts of all major roads in and out of the area. SR-223 is completely shut down due to several areas of the highway that have been entirely washed out. Pilot Valley road is currently impassable due to the washout of a culvert near SR-223.

Citizens are advised stay away from these areas and not attempt to travel these roads; as it is likely to be dangerous due to water of the roadways that could conceal the road being washed out or other unseen hazards. The presence of additional unnecessary persons in the area could impede ongoing rescue efforts as well as the need to divert resources if they become in need of rescue themselves.

Current operations by the Elko County Sheriffs Office include;

-- Deputies with the assistance of the Nevada National Guard in high water rescue vehicles are attempting to reach residents in the isolated reaches of the Montello area. They are facilitating evacuation of residents who wish to be evacuated.

There is no mandatory evacuation order in place at this time. Deputies and the National Guard also have the capability to distribute emergency rations of food and water as needed.

-- Also, deputies with the assistance of a crew and helicopter are flying the extreme remote regions of the impacted area of Montello attempting to located residents who have no means of leaving and/or are in need of supplies. These crews are also able to provide emergency rations of food and water to those residents.

 These operations are expected to continue for approximately the next 12 hours.

The Sheriffs Office is continuously monitoring the situation and is responding accordingly. We are appreciative of and ask for the patience of citizens as the crisis unfolds. If you are in need of evacuation or have questions regarding the current situation at your location please call the Elko County Sheriffs Emergency Operations Center at 775-777- 2520. You can also visit the Sheriffs Office website at elkosheriff.com for continued updated information.
Legal fights over a unionization effort, unfair labor allegations and an unemployment benefits claim led to skyrocketing legal costs for the Lake County circuit clerk's office over the past two years, records show.

The office spent about $185,000 on outside attorneys and their associated fees from January 2016 through part of September 2016, nearly six times more than the nearly $32,000 that was spent in all of 2012, a News-Sun review of legal bills found.

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The News-Sun obtained copies of the bills, which ran from January 2012 to mid-September 2016, more than two months after requesting them through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

Erin Cartwright Weinstein, who took over as circuit clerk in December, had raised the issue of the office's legal expenses during her campaign against the previous officeholder, Keith Brin.

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She has promised to be more transparent about the office's expenses and to avoid outside counsel whenever possible.

"(The approach) was fight, fight, fight; it wasn't 'How can we resolve these things and make these issues go away in a reasonable manner?' " Cartwright Weinstein said. "To me, attorney fees go up because you want to fight. They don't go down unless you're trying to resolve the issues.

"I have such a different perspective on things than my predecessor. I don't have any desire to have these fights with the employees or the fights with the unions."

Brin did not return calls and emails seeking comment this week, but when the News-Sun approached his office in October about legal expenses, Jeanne Polydoris, then the chief deputy clerk, released a written statement that in part said: "Legal expenditures for government offices are common. The majority of our office's expenditures were for legal services, not legal representation. On several occasions we engaged legal experts to train our team on how to properly handle specific office situations and labor issues, to ensure our office was following the latest laws, rules, and regulations."

The battle that racked up the highest bills  about $242,000 over 2015 and part of 2016  was over an effort by clerks in the office to unionize and whether the vote held by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 was legal.

An appellate court ultimately found that there was no evidence to support the administration's claims that the union had used fraudulent information and had threatened employees in an effort to coerce them into signing dues-deduction cards.

Polydoris had reported that she was told by four employees that prospective union members were sought out at their homes in an attempt to get them to sign up with the union and that some said they felt uncomfortable as a result, according to the appellate ruling.

Brin decided in September not to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.

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In a statement issued at the time, Brin said that his "steadfast position has been that he was elected to represent the taxpayers in the process, and that taxpayers are already struggling under the weight of government overspending and high taxes."

Negotiations with the union started in December after Cartwright Weinstein took office, and the two sides have been "making decent progress," said Colin Theis, a staff representative with AFSCME.

Theis added that he didn't have an idea how long the process takes, but because it's a first contract and all the language has to be worked out, they "still have a lot of work to do."

Cartwright Weinstein, who had also criticized Brin for low employee morale during her campaign, said she hopes that through good relationships with employees and the union, she'll be able to keep costs in line.

"I want to hear that they're happy," she said. "I want the employees to want to get up and come to work. ... They're great. This is a really good group of people."

The office under Cartwright Weinstein hasn't done anything so far to raise concerns, including discipline for union members or treating certain employees different than others, Theis said.

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While Theis said he thinks employee morale has improved, he added that the administration is in the process of looking at issues and hasn't made "meaningful changes" to processes at this point. The negotiations are trying to address some issues employees would like resolved and create a process to address any issues as they come up.

The circuit clerk's office is also in the process of resolving four employee grievances, one of which turned into a lawsuit, Cartwright Weinstein said.

Theis called the settlement discussions "meaningful," adding that he's "hopeful" agreements can be reached on some of them.

The one complaint that has gone to court  which has cost at least $28,000, according to the legal bills  centered on whether Joan Neal was entitled to unemployment benefits after she was fired from her job as a senior court clerk, according to court filings.

Brin's administration argued in court documents that Neal "had compiled an indisputable history of insubordination and rules violations," though the Illinois Department of Employment Security's Board of Review concluded that she was fired "for reasons other than misconduct connected with work."

When asked in October about legal expenses, Polydoris said the "office engaged approved outside legal representation to fight against paying unemployment benefits to an employee who had been fired for cause after over a decade of poor performance, excessive tardiness and absenteeism, unprofessional behavior and insubordination.

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"Keith Brin stands by his position that the taxpayers should not be obliged to foot the bill for benefits for employees who fail to perform their duties."

Neal and Donna Hamm, another employee who filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, have been rehired, with Hamm serving as Cartwright Weinstein's new deputy clerk, she said. A third who had not been fired has since been promoted by Cartwright Weinstein.

"My opinion is different than theirs about the employees," Cartwright Weinstein said. "I am bringing some of them back, so we have a difference in opinion on that for sure."

Cartwright Weinstein said she plans on approaching these types of complaints differently, adding that the office recently fielded a recent unemployment benefits claim that she did not fight, even though she might have had grounds.

It wouldn't have been "worth it to the taxpayers to do that" because the costs of fighting the claim could easily surpass the costs of fulfilling it, she said.

Cartwright Weinstein said she is also still in the process of transitioning and determining what greater transparency and responsiveness would look like concretely.

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The office is in the process of creating a separate email address to handle inquiries from the public as well as responses to news releases and other public notices, she said. It is also working on bringing in a communications specialist.

emcoleman@tribpub.com

Twitter @mekcoleman
Six Flags Great America officials meet with construction crew members on the site of the new Joker roller coaster on Feb. 10. The ride is projected to open Memorial Day weekend. (Six Flags Great America)

This being February, Speculation Season is in full bloom.

Who will win Best Actor  Denzel Washington or Casey Affleck? Who will run against Bruce Rauner in 2018  perpetual guess Lisa Madigan or maybe a Pritzker? Who will the Bears draft at No. 3 overall  a guy who will immediately suffer a season-ending injury, or another guy who will immediately suffer a season-ending injury?

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And, in a certain noisy corner of the Internet, the dead-quiet weeks between the Super Bowl and Spring Training bring you all the informed and uninformed speculation you'll ever need about roller coasters  including The Joker, an under-construction "free fly" coaster at Six Flags Great America.

"Might as well start standing in line right now, about time its finished, it'll only be a 4 hour wait."

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"Am I the only one that thinks this is the same thing as the Batman ride just different colors and name?"

"Should've gotten a B&M."

Those are but a few of the comments posted in recent weeks on Great America's Facebook page as Joker updates trickled out. That last comment makes reference not to a bodily function but to Bolliger & Mabillard, the Swiss design firm that delivered Batman: The Ride and Raging Bull.

Speaking of cynicism, while most of the chatter expressed excitement about the coming of warmer weather, there's also stuff like this: "Eh these rides aren't that great, but you GP love them."

I am informed by no less an authority than a 13-year-old relative that in the roller coaster Internet-forum world, "GP" means "general public." This proves once again that there is no arena of interest that cannot be turned inside out by someone who knows more than everyone.

We're also told that "excitement is so on fleek" for Joker  "on fleek" being, for the next five minutes, the current slang for "on point" or "very good" (note: your regional slang might vary).

Also seen here and there this week were questions about where exactly this new Joker would be located. The responses ranged from "this is where east river crawler was" to "they put this where Rajin cajin use (sic) to be."

Last but not least, speculators are guessing about when the ride will open, noting that Great America usually opens for weekend-only operation in late April or early May, or when the last parking-lot piles of plowed snow would melt away during a normal winter.

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For answers, let's turn to Tess Claussen, the new communications manager at Great America. It was Claussen who headed outside to The Joker's work site on Thursday's sunny afternoon and posted a video that, as of Friday morning, had been viewed 122,000 times.

According to Claussen, speaking on Friday just before heading out to take more construction photos, crews are "well over halfway through" with assembling the 109-foot-tall coaster. "The weather has definitely been in our favor," she added, "(so) we are shooting for a Memorial Day-weekend opening."

Lake County News Sun Twice-weekly News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

A couple of points to cover here: Claussen said The Joker is going up just east of Batman, in what is technically Yankee Harbor but has also been referred to as the Gotham City corner of the park.

The footprint cleared out to house the 1,000 feet of track does include the site of Ragin' Cajun, which skipped town at the end of 2013. But designers also had to move the nearby covered bridge between Mardi Gras and Yankee Harbor  a structure that has been in place since Great America opened in 1976  which is why the East River Crawler had to move to the site of the now-defunct Orbit.

Claussen added that work will continue in coming days on the fourth and final level of the Joker track. When Great America opens for weekends-only operation on April 29, expect some of the aforementioned coaster enthusiasts to capture their own construction video and photos for release into the wired world, complete with more comments on how Shockwave should come back and how the GP crowd is lame.

By the way, should you see any rumors out there about Vertical Velocity being affected in some way by the development of Joker or the arrival of the 2017 operating season or the general march of time, Claussen said for the record that the Yankee Harbor coaster also known as V2 "has not been touched, (and) there are no future plans to make any changes" to the ride.

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For a second or third opinion, feel free to log onto the discussion forum of your choice.

danmoran@tribpub.com

Twitter@NewsSunDanMoran
With the process to merge the DuPage Election Commission into the DuPage County Clerk's Office under way, some citizens are concerned over elements of the consolidation.

Among five points of contention, members of the Democratic Women of DuPage County group said, is county board chairman, Dan Cronin, a Republican, should not choose the Democratic members of the new election board.

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"It's important that we not have cross-party appointments," said Jennifer Barron, a Naperville attorney and group member. "When the party in power is appointing a representative of the party not in power, that's not truly bipartisan. It's not even a Republican-Democrat issue, it's a citizen issue because everyone should want transparency and for both parties to be represented fairly."

Under the current merger plan, a five-person board will make decisions and settle ballot disputes from a new elections division of the clerk's office. The current election commission has a three-person board.

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"As we discussed this in a working group, everyone agreed that having a five-person board with two members from each main party would be the best and the most transparent," DuPage County Clerk Paul Hinds said. "And when you look at any appointed position coming from a county board chairman, mayor or village president, you have to remember that the person making the appointment himself was elected by the people. You also have to consider that party chairmen, meanwhile, are in favor of what's best for the party."

Winfield resident Stan Zegel, a Republican, is the executive director of the open government advocate Citizen Participation Institute.

"Having the county chairman choose election commission members is appropriate," Zegel said. "I think if he consults and gets ideas from various parties, it's a good idea. But in the end, he's the person who was elected to his office and is the person to be held accountable."

The women's group also is calling for a financial audit over election-related jobs and salaries.

The election commission and clerk's office already have hired the Novak Consulting Group, of Cincinnati, to look at potential overlapping jobs. A final report is expected by the end of the month, Hinds said.

Critics of the merger also say the $27,500 annual salary given to election commissioners is excessive.

"I think the idea of having to pay someone to make sure he shows up at a meeting is not based in fact, because you have so many people throughout DuPage County who volunteer to serve on many other boards where there's no pay," Barron said.

State Reps. David S. Olsen, R-Downers Grove, and Jeanne Ives, R-Wheaton, last month introduced House Bill 294, which proposes that members of election commissions created by county boards "shall serve in an unpaid capacity."

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According to current state statute, election commissioners in counties with population totals like DuPage are to be paid at least $3,200 per year.

Besides DuPage, the only other county-wide election commission in Illinois is that of Peoria County, where commissioners are paid the legal minimum and are chosen by the chief judge of the circuit court.

"We've got a nice bipartisan board, and the chief judge has done a good job of making the selections," Peoria County Election Commission Executive Director Tom Bride said this week.

The DuPage County Legislative Committee voted 5-1 Tuesday against supporting HB 294.

"I just don't want our board to be handcuffed with no ability to pay our election commissioners anything," said District 2 county board member Pete DiCianni, a legislative committee member, in explaining the majority vote. "Once the state actually passes a balanced budget and gets their ship in order, then they can start looking at other ships that are doing well -- ones like ours that has a AAA bond rating from two of three credit bureaus and has a balanced budget that's $10 million less than the previous year."

Olsen said one of his intentions in proposing the legislation was to suggest an area "where residents might save money."

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"It's also to ensure that the folks interested in being election commissioners are doing it for the right reasons," said Olsen, who also is a College of DuPage trustee. "The COD board, like school, park and many other boards, all are unpaid positions by statute. They're able to get very good, qualified people who are willing to sacrifice their time, energy and efforts because they're qualified, they have a sense of civic duty and they're passionate about what they're doing."

The Democratic Party of DuPage County, which is not affiliated with the women's group, similarly approves of the merger idea but with several differing caveats.

"This legislation should require qualified individuals with knowledge and interest in the election process before someone is appointed a commissioner," party Chairman Bob Peickert said. "A complete implementation plan also should be required before this can be seriously considered."

The DuPage County Republican Party did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but Cronin said in a statement, "During the months of December and January, the county gathered feedback on the draft proposals both electronically and at a public hearing. After considering the comments offered by the public, DuPage County is in the process of drafting specific language to combine the DuPage Election Commission with the county clerk's office. A bill draft is currently being prepared at the Legislative Reference Bureau in Springfield and should be available within the next two weeks."

Jean Kaczmarek, of Glen Ellyn, said she had no confidence Cronin's process for making political appointments.

"There was no public notification prior to the announcement that Democratic election board member Art Ludwig was being replaced by John Boske, both of whom are closely affiliated with trade unions that have donated many thousands to Cronin's political campaign," she said. "I'm also against pay for appointed positions. The perception is that when commissioners are paid very well, they are not going to rock the board because they hope to be reappointed."

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In his statement, Cronin said election commissioner remuneration is one small piece of the merger and, "I assure you, under this new plan, the commissioners will realize a pay cut."

In addition to board personnel, critics also worried that a clerk's office does not hold open public meetings like an election commission does.

In nearby counties such as Cook, Kane and Kendall, election concerns are handled by internal committees consisting of representatives of the respective state's attorney, county and circuit clerks offices. Representatives for all three counties said this week that, despite the clerk's office holding no open public meetings, citizens with concerns over election matters have ample opportunities to comment in person, at county board meetings and via email.

Cronin said he proposes keeping election board meetings public.

The DuPage Election Commission recently passed a Political Participation Policy to allay concerns that their counsel, Bond, Dickson & Associates, made financial donations to the political campaign of a candidate for county office. Officials said it remains to be seen whether the policy stipulation that no dollars may be contributed will supersede the standing county ethics policy that allows up to $5,000.

As a unit of the county clerk's office, the new election board will be under the legal representation of State's Attorney Robert Berlin.

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Hinds said the merger process currently is on track for the same timeline previously announced, with legislation to be introduced during the spring session. If the governor signs off on the measure, Cronin would then announce his selections for the additional Republican and Democratic election commission members. The clerk's office could begin handling elections at the start of the next county fiscal year, on Dec. 1.

Gary Gibula is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
About 20 bakers donated items to Saturday's "Sweets from the Heart" cookie walk at Fifth Avenue Station in Naperville. Proceeds benefited Holly's Safe House for Strays, which helps older and special needs dogs. (David Sharos / Naperville Sun)

Katie Potts has found an easy way to buy Valentine's Day treats for herself and her children, Eli, 6, and Eleanor, 3, while helping a good cause at the same time.

"I come every year to the cookie walk and we pick out what we want," said Potts, of Wheaton, as her son eyed a box of lemon drop cookies that he declared as "yummy." "We adopted some rescue cats 11 years ago and like to support animal rescue organizations."

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The third annual "Sweets from the Heart" cookie walk and bake sale was held Saturday at Fifth Avenue Station in Naperville, with all money raised to be donated to Holly's Safe House for Strays.

Visitors stocked up on sweets donated by about 20 volunteers, each of whom supplied four to five dozen cookies or candies in three or four varieties. Each guest was given an empty box to fill with their cookies of choice, which were then weighed and sold by the pound. Specialty items like rolls were sold separately.

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The event was held to support Holly's Safe House for Strays, an animal rescue group that specializes in helping older dogs and those with special needs, such as health issues or abuse recovery, said Sandy Boston, the shelter's president and founder.

"We get a majority of our animals from Chicago-area animal control, and we hold both a Christmas and Valentine's cookie event to raise money," Boston said. "Over the past three years, we've averaged about $3,000 annually from the two events combined."

Large display tables were loaded with baked confections that emitted a tempting aroma. Chicago's Laura Agin said she made candy-coated Oreos, which she painstaking painted in various flavors.

"I made about 56 cookies this year and it took me about three hours," Agin said. "I do this because I love all animals and have three rescue dogs myself."

Another baker, Trina Ribordy, of Elgin, donated vegan brownies, which she said taste no different than those made the traditional way.

"The eggs in regular brownies don't add any flavor, they're just a binder, and I use flax seed and water instead," Ribordy said. "I made nearly three dozen of these and think they're as good as anyone else's brownies."

Chris Humble, of North Aurora, said he and his son Quinn, 4, stumbled upon the sale by chance. They were walking by after getting a haircut.

"I know this event supports animal rescue, and my son wants a real dog himself soon," Humble said, as Quinn made his selections. "We held back on the cookies as we're going out to get some doughnuts now too."

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Quinn Humble said picking out cookies is almost as fun as going to a candy store.

"I won't eat my cookies with milk as I don't drink that," he said. "I'll probably have some juice."

Lisle resident Rochelle Storm filled two containers with cookies.

"There's a least a pound for me and a pound for a friend of mine, maybe more than a pound," Storm said, smiling. "I have four rescue animals myself  three cats and one dog. I like the fact that you know these are baked fresh and you recognize the ingredients. I normally don't indulge like this, but this is a good excuse."

Rachel Moore, of Naperville, lauded the "great selection." She said she's been a regular at the cookie walk since it started in 2015.

"I think the peanut butter balls are my favorite, and it's great people can come and enjoy this and give back to the animals," Moore said. "You know there are no preservatives and that the people who made these, for them, it's a labor of love."

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Eli Potts said he was ready to indulge as his mother filled their box.

"I bet I can eat all these cookies in about three minutes," he said.

David Sharos is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
Abdisellam Hassen Ahmed, a Somali refugee who had been stuck in limbo after President Donald Trump temporarily banned refugee entries, walks with his wife Nimo Hashi, and his 2-year-old daughter, Taslim, after arriving at Salt Lake International Airport, Friday. (Rick Bowmer / AP)

Evangelical leaders from across the United States gathered in Naperville a year ago to discuss a response to the global refugee crisis created as millions of Syrians were displaced by turmoil in their homeland.

A year later, many of those same pastors and ministry leaders attending the Naperville summit joined with international aid agency World Relief in sending a letter to President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence urging them the reconsider the dramatic reduction in refugee resettlement included within a presidential executive order.

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"As Christians, we have a historic call expressed over two thousand years to serve the suffering. We cannot abandon this call now," the letter said.

The initial communication published this week as a full-age ad in The Washington Post was signed by 102 leaders, including the lead pastors from two Naperville congregations  Ron Zappia of Harvest Bible Chapel and Dave Ferguson of Community Christian Church  and evangelical leaders, including senior pastor Bill Hybels and author Lynne Hybels from Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington.

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"While we are eager to welcome persecuted Christians, we also welcome vulnerable Muslims and people of other faiths or no faith at all. This executive order dramatically reduces the overall number of refugees allowed this year, robbing families of hope and a future," the letter went onto say.

Ed Stetzer, executive director of Wheaton College's Billy Graham Center for Evangelism, which organized the Naperville summit, said the idea for the 2016 meeting held at Community Christian Church was to shed light on the refugee situation and focus people and groups who are doing good work in the field.

He said the response was overwhelming, with more than 500 evangelical leaders in attendance and thousands more viewing online. "I do think it was the beginning of a conversation," Stetzer said.

A similar response came from evangelical leaders this week as the number people signing onto the letter to the president grew from the original 102 to include more than 4,500 names.

"Christians have always spoken up for the vulnerable. I hope the Trump administration hears our concerns that we have a safe and compassionate refugee policy  and our confidence that we can continue to do both," Stetzer said.

He said a refugee is the worst way for an individual to come into a country because the process takes 18 months to two years. "We have, ironically, extreme vetting already," he said.

World Relief President Scott Arbeiter said it's not new for the church to use its voice on behalf of those who have none. The letter from evangelical leaders was coordinated by World Relief.

"It is part of our historic call and identity. And for nearly four decades World Relief has helped thousands of churches and tens of thousands of volunteers express that call by welcoming refugees," Arbeiter said.

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World Relief, which has offices in Aurora and Wheaton, is one of nine agencies nationally authorized by the U.S. State Department to resettle refugees. Arbeiter said his group has helped resettle 300,000 refugees in the last 40 years.

"We recognize we live in a dangerous world. Security matters," Arbeiter said. "We do not need to accept the notion that security and compassion are mutually exclusive."

Arbeiter said he was heartened a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upheld the temporary block on Trump's ban on travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

"So many families, already separated for long periods by terror, war and persecution can now continue the process of being reunited," he said.

The ruling, he said, does not address the reduction in the number of refugees to be admitted from 110,000 to 50,000, some of whom could come to towns in DuPage and Kane counties.

Over the past 10 years, Aurora has received more refugees from countries named in the executive order than any other city in DuPage or Kane. Only slightly fewer have gone to Wheaton.

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Since 2007, Aurora has seen 467 refugees arrive from Iraq, Syria, Somalia or Iran. Wheaton, which has significantly fewer residents than Aurora, has seen 445 refugees during that time frame from Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan or Syria.

Refugee resettlement in Naperville is significantly less than nearby communities, with only 24 refugees arriving from Iraq and four from Iran in the last decade. There have been none in the last two years.

Susan Sperry, executive director of World Relief's Aurora and DuPage offices, said when placing refugees locally, the agency considers the location of existing family, the cost of living and employment options.

Should the numbers increase, local organizations will be available with open arms.

Michelle Iskowitz, communications and event manager for Loaves and Fishes Community Services, said her agency requests a photo ID, proof of residency in DuPage County and a signed statement regarding income eligibility to provide services. "We do not ask if a new client is a refugee," she said.

Laura Devine-Johnston, Indian Prairie School District 204 assistant superintendent for elementary education, said for any student to succeed, the first priority is for a student to feel welcomed and safe. She said that is what the district strives to do.

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Groups like the district's Parent Diversity Advisory Council also help by offering insight in developing programs and activities to make families feel more at home.

Individual schools like Cowlishaw Elementary in Naperville annually host a culture fair where families showcase their country or culture through performances, traditional attire and ethnic foods.

A recent fair at the school spotlighted, among the many cultures, the food and dance of Iran.

"I think it is our most popular event; everyone seems to love it. It's a night that everyone can be proud of who they are, where they come from and share their culture with others," said Willa Brinke, co-president of the Cowlishaw PTA.

Cowlishaw is one of the most diverse schools in the District 204. Of the ethnic makeup, 36 percent of students are Asian, 28 percent white, 17 percent Hispanic, 15 percent black and the rest American Indian or mixed race backgrounds.

"We have students from all over the world and a lot of different languages are spoken by our students," Brinke said.

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She said the PTA established a special team to provide welcome packages with information about the school and the area. In addition, the PTA recruits ambassadors from countries all over the world.

"We can hopefully match a new family from abroad with an ambassador that comes from the same country or speaks the same language," she said.

That type of teamwork is possible because the PTA executive board is equally diverse.

"Sometimes cultural differences make it hard for people to approach someone. By having a cultural diverse board, we hope we can reach and represent every family," Brinke said.

subaker@tribpub.com

Twitter @SBakerSun1
The Forest Preserve District of DuPage County has changed its policy in regard to spraying or fogging to kill mosquitos, saying they will not do either unless they absolutley have to to protect the public, because the practice also kills "good" insects, such as bees and butterflies. (John Smierciak / Daily Southtown)

Insecticide sprays and fog that kill beneficial insects along with mosquitoes will be used on forest preserve land only under extraordinary circumstances, under a new policy announced this week by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County.

Effective this year, the district "will only use fogs and sprays to kill adult mosquitoes as a last resort," according to a release from that agency. The chemicals dissipate within two days of being deployed, but in the meantime kill all other insects and arachnids they touch, including such beneficial bugs as bees, butterflies and spiders, the release said.

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District employees "will continue to monitor forest preserves for Culex mosquitoes," the ones most likely to transmit the West Nile virus, the release said. Workers will use "larvicides made from a natural bacterium" to kill the Culex larvae when discovered. The old policy allowed for use of "adulticides" during public health crises but did not include "specific criteria (to) be met before any adulticide treatments (took) place."

Under the revised policy, the district will consider insecticide use when the Health Department's "personal protection index for West Nile" is at its highest level and when data "conclusively show the source of targeted mosquitoes is on district property," the release said.

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The fog or spray will be targeted to the specific area rather than used as a blanket application, and only then when it's shown there are no other alternatives in order to protect the public.

District President Joe Cantore said the revisions "further strengthen the policy's intent to support the district's mission in protecting and preserving the native biodiversity of DuPage County, while also continuing to protect the public health."

Patti Girard, assistant forester for the city of Naperville, oversees mosquito control efforts within the city limits. She said she was happy to hear of the district's policy revision, especially since many neighborhoods and business districts abut the massive Springbrook Prairie Forest Preserve in Naperville.

Mosquito control in Naperville begins in the spring and ends in the fall, Girard said. The city has 7,000 to 8,000 catch basins and storm sewers that are typically treated with BTI, a solid-form "insect growth regulator," or larvicide, she said.

"Our main job is finding the standing water" where female mosquitoes lay their eggs "and then using BTI to kill the larvae before they become adults," Girard said.

"That way, we don't have to spray with Zenivex, which is one of the lowest toxicity sprays" that kills mosquitoes but, unfortunately, also kills other insects, she said.

Forestry employees "spray maybe 15 or 20 times a year with Zenivex, but we don't ever do citywide spraying," Girard said. "We spot-treat (with Zenivex) where we find West Nile virus, or ahead of special events" like the annual Ribfest and Last Fling celebrations, she said.

West Nile virus was first detected in Illinois in the late 1990s. Health officials today also worry about the spread of the Zika virus, which can cause birth defects.

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Kevin Dixon, director of environmental health for the DuPage County Health Department, said the West Nile virus "hasn't been around long enough" for researchers to draw conclusions about its effects on birds and humans. Crow and blue jay populations have been particularly hard hit by the disease.

"I think the short answer to your question is it's not certain that birds are developing an immunity to the disease," Dixon said. "I think that's a question researchers are still working on."

"The number of human (West Nile) cases can vary dramatically from year to year," Dixon said. "So far, there doesn't seem to be a pattern to the number of people contracting the disease."

Additionally, "researchers haven't yet come up with a definitive answer" as to whether humans can develop temporary or permanent immunity to the virus, Dixon said.

wbird@tribpub.com
It's been 30 years since the passing of dazzling stage entertainer Liberace, who died at his Palm Springs, Calif., estate Feb. 4, 1987, at age 67.

Despite his showbiz persona, glittering costumes and signature shiny pianos (always garnished with a candelabra), Liberace, who was born in West Allis, Wis., always identified with his Midwest roots. He was the son of working class immigrants, with his father, Salvatore, originally from Italy and his mother, Frances, from Poland.

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Liberace maintained a fondness for his Northwest Indiana connections throughout his career, including friends, favorite dining haunts and profitable stage affiliations with Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville.

While performing at Star Plaza Theatre  when the theater would book headliners for two weeks of shows  Liberace liked to take his meals at The White House, at Jefferson Street and Morgan Avenue in Valparaiso.

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Liberace liked the menu, as well as the history associated with the restaurant. It was built as the home of the Calkins Family before it was purchased in 1873 by Henry Baker Brown, who was president of what today is Valparaiso University. Even though the mansion space, which still stands, always has been painted white, the name the White House is derived from the interior design. All of the rooms are oval, paying homage to the Oval Office concept of The White House in Washington D.C. The restaurant, which closed in 1996, was operated by brothers John and Harry Pappas, who also owned the adjacent floral shop and became fast friends of Liberace.

Liberace also befriended a Northwest Indiana dentist, who was surprised to discover the pianist needing a teeth cleaning while booked in Merrillville.

Dr. Robert Angerman, who died at age 76 in June 2014, was a dentist living in Dyer with his wife, Sarah. Angerman had a practice in Merrillville in the Twin Towers next to the Star Plaza Theatre. Sarah, who died at age 73 on Dec. 29, used to tell me great stories about the stage legend when I worked with her in the world of newspapers before her retirement. She said Dr. Angerman met Liberace in 1980, and "Lee," as his friends referred to him, soon began dining at their home and invited the Angerman family to Las Vegas to see his shows and spend time backstage.

Bill Wellman, 92, a longtime executive of Whiteco Industries and region restaurateur, was the man hired in 1976 to work with the Dean and Bruce White to help develop the Holiday Star Theatre, which opened in 1979 and was later was rebranded as Star Plaza Theatre. Wellman's Bridge VU Theater and Wellman's Restaurant on U.S. 30 in Valparaiso had been very successful, and Wellman quickly forged a reputation for booking headlining celebrities such as Joan Bennett, Phyllis Diller, Henny Youngman, Jerry Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Morey Amsterdam.

When I chatted with Wellman during a Christmas party, he reminded me that his favorite entertainer of all time is Liberace, who would play 14 shows at the Star Plaza in 12 days.

"On 'The Tonight Show,' Johnny Carson once asked Liberace of all his tour dates, where did he earn the most money from sold-out audiences," Wellman said. "Carson thought the answer was going to be some place in Las Vegas or at Radio City Music Hall (in New York City). To his surprise, Liberace said it was a small theater in Indiana called Star Plaza."

I checked with my friend Charlie Blum, who continues as the CEO and president of Star Plaza, and he confirmed that based on gross revenue, Liberace, even by today's math, still ranks as the theater's biggest money-making headliner.

And when Liberace stayed in the penthouse suite in the Radisson Hotel, he loved the expansive two-level "star" apartment living space. It included a full kitchen where he could cook, and a formal dining room to entertain and serve his guests.

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Though I never met nor interviewed Liberace I did meet and get to know Jamie James, his longtime publicist. James, who died at age 75 in April 2012, shared with me one of Liberace's "secret" favorite recipes for a homemade meatless spaghetti sauce, which Liberace, who was raised Catholic, liked to make and enjoy during the meatless Fridays of Lent, and when he was trying to watch his waistline.

Columnist Philip Potempa has published three cookbooks and is the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. Mail your questions to From the Farm, P.O. Box 68, San Pierre, IN 46374.

pmpotempa@comhs.org

Liberace's Meatless Spaghetti Sauce

Makes 8 servings

2 tablespoons olive oil

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1 cup minced onions

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 can (29 ounces) peeled, chopped Italian tomatoes

1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste

3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

1 tablespoon minced fresh basil (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)

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1 teaspoon Italian herbs/spices

1/2 cup water

Parmesan cheese

1. Heat olive oil in saucepan. Saute onions and garlic until they turn translucent. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, parsley, basil, herbs/spices and water. Bring ingredients to a boil, then simmer on medium heat for at least four hours, allowing sauce to take on a smooth consistency.

2. Remove from heat and allow to sit for at least one hour before serving over pasta.

3. Garnish with Parmesan cheese.
ELKO  Clear and cooler weather is forecast for this weekend but dangerous flooding conditions were expected to persist in northeastern Nevada.

The Humboldt River swelled beyond its channel through Elko and caused flooding on Water Street, while Salmon Creek south of Jackpot continued to rise Friday morning and keep U.S. 93 closed north of Wells.

Conditions are expected to worsen before they get better, according to the National Weather Service. Elko meteorologist Jeremy Michael said Friday's rain and warm temperatures melted more snow, adding to the force of nature.

We are approaching 10.5 feet on the Humboldt River, said Michael. The impact of this is that major flooding would occur throughout the reach of the river. That would mean major damage to roads, structures, railroads, and loss of cattle in the flood plain.

He also said this level of flooding is equivalent to a 50-year flood. The river is at its third all-time crest since records have been kept, Michael said. It has not crested this high since May 17, 1984, and the water is continuing to rise.

At the 10.5-foot level the agency's impact statement shows that areas would be flooded to River Street north of the river, Wilson Avenue south of the river, between First and 11th street and Lamoille Road. Areas up and downstream of levies would flood, basements and low lying parts of town would flood, and the Elko sewage treatment plant would be at capacity.

The impacts will be much more significant if the river swells higher and Michael thinks that might occur.

Thankfully, the cold front that is in the process of moving through will bring the cold air down which will slow the melting in the higher elevations, said Michael. Unfortunately, the freezing level is not going to get down low enough quick enough to make much of an impact.

He said there is a tremendous amount of water coming from tributaries, and that means there will be a lot more water going into the Humboldt. By Tuesday Battle Mountain and Winnemucca will likely see flooding. Carlin and Palisade are already experiencing rising waters.

The local National Weather Service office is continuing to provide warnings on television, radio and other sources. Michael advises staying away from the river, especially the embankments.

At any given moment our soil is easily eroded and we can have significant bank failures. Sometimes a 10 feet chunk of bank can fall in and the last thing we need is for emergency officials to have to divert their flood mitigations to rescue someone.

Major highway closed

In the eastern part of the county, the Nevada Department of Transportation had no estimate of when U.S. 93 might reopen.

Right now were waiting for the water to recede, District Engineer Kevin Lee said at noon Friday. There is  Id hate to guess how much  water over Salmon Falls Creek Bridge.

Lee said the water level was still rising Friday morning.

As soon as it recedes we can assess the actual bridge itself, and then open the road potentially, he said.

Shoulders along the highway have been heavily damaged both north and south of Wells.

Interstate 80 between Elko and Wells was being reopened to two-lane travel around noon Friday after being restricted because of water over the lanes.

Lee said State Route 233 to Montello washed out in three places, and is impassable in two of them.

He said the agency was in the process of awarding three emergency repair contracts  one for S.R. 233, one for U.S. 93 north of Wells, and one for U.S. 93 south of Wells.

County roads damaged

Damage to unpaved roads in the county has been extensive.

I have been stuck at home since Tuesday night, said Melissa Thacker of Ryndon.

Her husband was finally able to get her and they came into Elko.

We just walked into a hotel room for a few days. I am amazed at how everyone has come together and helped out with all their neighbors. It eased the stress a little.

Assistant County Manager Randy Brown said crews are fighting the weather and rising water in an effort to make some roads passable.

Were doing the best we can, he said. We have two crews in Osino trying to get some places open. We cant do anything in Ryndon until the water recedes.

Brown said when Sheriff Jim Pitts and county commissioners declared the flooding a state of emergency it helped a lot, because it allowed staff to go off their regular maintenance plan.

County road crews are working on Comanche and Victory Boulevard in Osino, but many dirt roads have too much water to work on them, he said Friday afternoon.

Our first priority is the health, safety and welfare of everyone, Brown said.

Sherman Creek is flooding in Osino and Coal Mine Creek is impacting Ryndon.

The runoff water is coming from everywhere, Brown said.

Sand and sandbags are available in the Osino area on the south side of Interstate 80 for people to use around their homes.

We would like to see the sandbags used for residential use only, Brown said.

He doesnt want people using sandbags around roads because it could cause other problems.

Humboldt River rising

In Elko, the Humboldt River was flowing rapidly and had swelled far beyond its artificial channel through town. Water was covering parts of Water Street.

The FISH thrift store was closed Friday morning while water was pumped out of the parking lot, across the street, through the railroad sound barrier, under the mainline railroad tracks and back to the river.

Water also covered the street near the entrance to ALS Minerals and Western Nevada Supply. The road in front of the westbound Amtrak station was covered with water but passable.

In many cases we get the storm water pushing back up through the storm drain and that results in some street flooding," said Elko Assistant City Manager Scott Wilkinson. "What we do is, we go into all the drop inlets in the street and we attempt to plug them the best we can so it slows the rate of inflow from the river back into the street. Then we set up pumps and pump that water from the street back into the river.

"As long as we can pump the water out faster than it comes in we can control that street flooding, he said.

Dangerous conditions

The weather service reported Friday that most rivers in northern Nevada were flooding and climbing higher.

In Elko County virtually every river, stream, and the Humboldt River main stem were flooding. "Also, normally dry washes are flowing or overflowing.

In the Winnemucca area, the Humboldt River was just beginning to rise as it enters Humboldt County.

Maggie Creek, Willow Creek, and the Humboldt River in northern Eureka County were already flooding.

The U.S. Forest Service was warning people to use caution when traveling forest roads in the Mountain City, Ruby Mountains and Jarbidge Ranger Districts.

Expect possible mud and rock slides on the Lamoille Canyon Road, stated the agency.

This is a very dangerous, even life threatening situation still, warned the National Weather Service. Do not let your guard down. Road beds are washed out or damaged. If you come to a flooded or closed road, turn around. Don`t drown. Most people in floods die in their vehicles. Trucks, cars, all of them are subject to flooding. Even semis are washed away.
As the darkness of night comes to an end and the rose-pink glow of dawn starts to appear, nuns JoAnn and Pat wait in their dark car.

For most people, the rising of the sun brings the promise of a new day. But for the immigrants awaiting deportation inside the Broadview Detention Center, a temporary staging facility for people in the U.S. illegally who are being processed in and out of Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, any hope of living the American Dream is lost.

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For nearly a decade, on most Friday mornings, Sisters JoAnn Persch and Pat Murphy, both nuns with the Sisters of Mercy religious order, have stood outside the Broadview Detention Center, 1930 Beach St., Broadview, Ill., and prayed. The detained immigrants inside the facility will be bused to the Gary/Chicago International Airport, where they will eventually be flown out of the country.

"We're here to stand in solidarity with those being deported today and with their families," Persch said. "But we also pray for immigration officers, elected officials and our president."

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ICE Air Operations, the transportation division within the ICE Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations, first began using the Gary/Chicago International Airport for detainee removal flights in June 2013, according to ICE officials.

IAO conducts one flight per week departing from the Gary/Chicago International Airport, transporting Mexican nationals to the Texas-Mexico border, where they are then escorted into Mexico. There were a total of 62 IAO flights in and out of the Gary/Chicago International Airport in 2016, according to an analysis of the airport's flight records.

On this February morning, Persch, 82, occasionally places a tissue over her mouth, silencing the faint sound of her fading cold. She doesn't let the freezing weather prevent her from advocating for those about to be flown out of the United States.

"It's a very sad day for us," Persch said. "We know most of them won't see their families again. As you can imagine, the families that get here can be so distraught."

Over the years, what started as a small prayer group blossomed into a prayer vigil with a core group of at least 30 people who attend regularly.

As the prayer vigil gets started, just paces away from the facility's doorsteps, family members of the detained immigrants exit the building dejected, often in tears. Yet not even the tears of crestfallen family members douse Persch's and Murphy's burning ambition to defend the rights of refugees and immigrants.

Every Friday, detainees sit shackled in silence on a bus waiting to be driven to Gary. The only sound comes from Murphy, who says a prayer through a hole in the Plexiglas that separates them.

"We pray and talk to them a few minutes and let them know we aren't with this system at all," Murphy said. "We say a protection prayer and let them know we'll be with them on their journey to their home country."

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There are 14 men and women in need of prayer on this day.

Little-known departures

The weekly ICE flights departing Gary typically make a stop at the Kansas City International Airport, flight records show. The flight stops in Kansas City to pick up additional ICE detainees before continuing to Brownsville, Texas, where Mexican nationals are bused to the border and escorted into Mexico, officials said.

The majority of the other ICE flights departing Gary fly into Alexandria International Airport in Louisiana, where detainees are placed on charter flights to countries other than Mexico.

Additionally, nearly every week, ICE detainees are flown into Gary from Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport in Cameron County, Texas, on the southern tip of Texas bordering Mexico, records show. Detainees who are flown into Gary from there are transported to various county jails in Illinois and Wisconsin, where ICE contracts detention space, according to ICE officials.

The Rev. Cheryl Rivera, who last year spearheaded a protest that helped push the Gary Common Council to vote against allowing the GEO Group to build an immigration detention center across the street from the airport, said she does not support an operation that assists in "people being ripped away from their families."

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"We are very concerned," said Rivera, director of the Northwest Indiana Federation of Interfaith Organizations. "We will be having some actions and reactions to the deportations at the Gary airport. We want no part of that."

With President Donald Trump recently signing an executive order prohibiting immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from entering the United States  an order on hold after the latest court decision from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday  Murphy said the current immigration climate is frightening. But her frustration doesn't lie exclusively with the current administration.

"The reason we're in this whole mess is because no administration ever took the bull by the horns and did anything to reform this whole broken system," she said. "It's a mess."

ICE is responsible for removing immigrants who could present a danger to national security or are a risk to public safety, as well as those who enter the United States illegally.

During the 2016 fiscal year, ICE removed 240,255 people, 58 percent of whom were previously convicted of a crime, according to the agency's most recent published statistics.

The human toll

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As the doors to the detention center shut behind her, Elizabeth Jauregui crumbled to the ground in tears.

"I might never see him again, and that's heartbreaking," Jauregui said, wiping the tears from her face. Although her husband, Carlos Villa, had been detained since September, Jauregui said it's still going to be tough trying to cope with him being deported to Mexico. With a 13-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son at home, she said that despite the unbearable weight of separation from her husband, she has no choice but to muster up enough strength to move forward.

"It doesn't stop," she said. "I have children at the house. They're not his, but he found and accepted me with two children. I have to keep on moving just one step at a time."

Jauregui, of Elgin, Ill., said she and her husband discussed possible visitation trips in the future, but with current hysteria surrounding the executive order, she's unsure if they'll be able to reunite.

"The law is the law, and there's nothing I can do to change that, and it's not getting better apparently," she said. "We just have to abide and do what we can."

Outside the detention facility, with the American flag hoisted overhead, dozens of people gather for the weekly prayer vigil.

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"Today I weep with those being sent away and with all those they leave behind," Persch said. "I stand in solidarity with their struggle and pain."

Despite being slight in stature, soft-spoken and as unassuming as the detention center tucked behind a production facility on a dead-end street, Persch and Murphy are dogged in their pursuit of benevolent treatment for refugees and immigrants.

"We work peacefully and respectfully, but we never take 'no' for an answer," Persch said. Whether it's the prayer vigil at Broadview, meeting with detainees at county jails or protesting the discrimination of Muslims, the duo said they aren't stopping anytime soon.

"They are our brothers and sisters," Murphy said, referring to refugees and immigrants. "We really believe that. They're the ones that keep me going."

jaanderson@tribpub.com

Twitter @JavonteA
Crippled by debt that threatens its future, the city of Lake Station is considering the sale of its water treatment plant to Indiana America Water for $20.7 million.

The sale, if approved by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, would enable the city to pay off its debts and provide about a $9.5 million profit, Mayor Christopher Anderson said.

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The city has been in talks with Indiana American Water for about 14 months. The city council must approve the sale ordinance before the deal can move forward.

The council will consider first reading of the ordinance at a special 6 p.m. meeting Wednesday at City Hall. If the measure wins an initial positive vote, the council will consider final reading in a 6 p.m. meeting Thursday. The council has until Feb. 20 to act or the process must begin again with a new plant appraisal.

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Anderson, who supports the privatization move, said he isn't sure how his seven council members will vote. "I think it will be close," he said of the vote.

The sale would mean the approximate 2,900 residents, whose water comes from wells operated by the city's utility plant, would begin receiving Lake Michigan water provided by Indiana American through its plant in Gary.

Matt Prine, director of governmental affairs for Indiana American Water, told residents at a Thursday meeting they could expect lower monthly rates if the utility acquires the plant.

For example, a Lake Station customer using 4,000 gallons of water each month is now paying $39.33 a month. With Indiana American service, the rate would drop to $33.25 each month, officials said.

Prine said the utility company would only use Lake Station's plant as an emergency backup.

Indiana American president Debbie Dewey said the company serves 300,000 customers across the state so it has the advantage of a large base to keep its costs down, compared to Lake Station operating on its own. Lake Station residents would pay the same monthly rates as neighbors in Hobart and Portage, she said.

Anderson hopes the deal goes through so the city can begin to rebound from a $1.8 million general fund shortfall his administration inherited. Anderson said the city is staying afloat with temporary loans that are depleting other funds for general fund bills.

Lake Station's $12 million water plant, at 2898 Union St., opened in 2015. Anderson said the city is struggling to pay down the $750,000 annual mortgage on the plant that was built under former mayor Keith Soderquist who's serving a four-year term in federal prison for using campaign money and money from the city's food pantry for gambling at area casinos.

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Carole Carlson is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
A three-week jury trial ended with a guilty verdict Friday against two women charged in a 2013 prostitution trafficking indictment.

Rita Law, 58, of Chicago, was initially charged in October 2013 with transporting a woman in interstate commerce with intent that the woman engage in prostitution. On the day she was charged, Law fled to Hong Kong.

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Upon her arrival in Hong Kong, Law was apprehended and extradited to the United States. A grand jury sitting in Hammond brought additional charges against Law for sex trafficking and involuntary servitude and for using an interstate facility to promote prostitution, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney David Capp.

Crystal Wireman, 32, of Lake Station, was found guilty of using a telephone to promote, manage, establish, carry on and facilitate prostitution. According to testimony and evidence presented at trial, Wireman worked as a masseuse at Law's spas in Hobart and Gary and assisted Law in managing her prostitution business, the release stated.

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Capp said court testimony and evidence presented at trial showed Law provided and obtained the labor and services of two victims, referred to at trial as HV and XC, by means of a scheme, plan and pattern intended to cause them to believe that if they did not perform the labor and service they would suffer serious harm and physical restraint, the release said.

Law engaged both women at her businesses in Gary, Hobart and Lake Station, where they engaged in sexual acts in exchange for money with Law's predominantly male clientele, the release said. Law's businesses were called Duneland Spa in Lake Station and Gary, and Fun Fun Feet in Hobart.

Law was also convicted of transporting victim XC in interstate commerce with intent that she engage in prostitution and using a telephone to promote, manage, establish, carry on and facilitate prostitution in violation of Indiana Code, the release said.

Jim Masters is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Portage Mayor James Snyder speaks after being sworn into his term in office at Woodland Park in 2015. (Kyle Telechan / Post-Tribune)

Should Portage Mayor James Snyder step down from office while awaiting his public corruption trial in April?

Before you jump to a knee-jerk answer  I'm pretty sure all of us have one by this point  ask yourself why Snyder hasn't done it yet. Would it further tarnish his public image? Would it suggest guilt to city residents? Would it complicate his legal defense? Is it strictly about keeping his income, health insurance and other financial perks intact?

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I don't think so.

Sure, those are all factors in his decision, but I believe Snyder is convinced he's innocent of all federal charges against him. Convinced. Nothing less.

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"I am absolutely convinced that he believes that," said Portage City Councilman Collin Czilli (D-5th), who has called for Snyder's resignation along with several other city officials the past few weeks.

On Nov. 18, Snyder was formally charged with one count of tax evasion and two counts of bribery involving a local towing firm. Snyder pleaded not guilty, and he's been repeating that mantra since that day. I don't see him stepping down, even for the next two months, despite public outcry to do so.

Unlike those of us who either hope the mayor is innocent of these charges or that he will be found, or plead, guilty, Snyder acts assured he has done nothing wrong. Nothing. He has stated this publicly, and to me, and to other city officials.

Is this the common, even predicted, response from yet another Northwest Indiana public official indicted by the feds? Or is this the sad delusion of a man who may be serving prison time later this year? His supporters insist it's possible that Snyder has indeed been wrongly accused, and he will soon be exonerated of all charges.

And yes, presumed innocence until proven guilty is legally correct in our country, though many observers in this area have already presumed his guilt. It's easy to do in Northwest Indiana, where federal agents historically charge and convict public officials with an impressive success rate.

Snyder knows this, yet he insists he is not guilty of any wrongdoing.

Former Lake Station Mayor Keith Soderquist, who could easily serve as the poster child for modern-day public corruption, took a different tact after he and his wife Deborah were caught by the feds.

"They both knew they were guilty," said Kim Frizzell, the city's administrative assistant and a longtime city employee. "He essentially cased the joint during his time as a city councilman, learned how to manipulate people and using his terms as a training ground for public corruption later in his career. He had an agenda from early on."

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The former eight-year city councilman pleaded guilty to improperly and illegally using money from his reelection campaign and the city's food pantry. The stolen funds were used for gambling at a casino boat, federal prosecutors said.

After deliberating only a few hours after an eight-day trial, a jury found Soderquist and his wife guilty. They were both sentenced to prison late last year.

Will the same fate be served to Snyder, who also is battling against public perception?

"My reputation is shot until I win, and I understand that," Snyder told me.

On Thursday, I heard from city residents who had just found out that Snyder drives a city-leased vehicle costing $866 a month. He also used this vehicle last month to drive his family to Washington D.C. to attend inauguration events for President Donald Trump. And he upgraded his hotel room on the taxpayers' dime.

"The fact that in 2016 we raised utility rates by 32 percent makes it look even worse," Czilli said.

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Regardless whether you believe he should have attended this event with his family, or not, it simply looks bad for his public image. Then again, public image is not supposed to sway the verdict of his trial, scheduled for April 10. Just the facts, ma'am.

Czilli shared with me the Portage Utility Service Board paperwork filed for 2017 regarding Snyder's city-leased vehicle, a 2016 Chevy Tahoe. Snyder is one of several city officials with city-leased vehicles at their disposal, ranging in monthly cost from $613 to $779 for the five-year lease term.

"We also paid for Sirius XM and OnStar data in (Snyder's) vehicle," Czilli said.

To add context, it should be noted that the City Council voted unanimously for this fleet of vehicles after the general election in 2015. (Other municipalities in this area pay for similar city-leased fleets.) And it's likely that most Portage residents would never know about this contract if not for Snyder's indictment.

A federal indictment magnifies every move, every decision, every public comment. Everything he does is now under a microscope. Snyder knows this.

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It's hard to believe after all these decades, all these indictments and all these convictions that a public official would dare commit a crime of any kind, even stealing a handful of paperclips.

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Then again, it's not that hard to believe when you consider the human dynamics at work, the same universal dynamics that existed more than a century ago, corrupting so many others after they were elected into public office. Those damning attributes haven't gone away. Greed, ego, arrogance, the lust for power and a feeling of invincibility.

Does Snyder feel invincible against the charges against him? Should he show this attitude in public? Is this merely a reflection of how he genuinely feels in private? I don't know. Unlike his critics and political opponents, I'm not hoping for a guilty verdict in April. We've had too many public officials found guilty of corruption in this area.

But one thing is certain regarding public opinion about Snyder, and it was echoed publicly by U.S. District Court Judge James Moody at Soderquist's sentencing hearing.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he asked incredulously.

jdavich@post-trib.com

Twitter@jdavich
It's encouraging to see the General Assembly finally embrace a permanent fix for Indiana's sagging transportation infrastructure. Republicans and Democrats have put forth bills to establish revenue streams while funding from the state's gasoline tax dwindles because vehicles are more efficient and people drive less.

This can shouldn't be kicked down the road again. Now that former Gov. Mike Pence is vice president, Republicans seem willing to take steps that Pence wouldn't during his re-election campaign last year. In 2015, Pence faced a torrent of criticism over the emergency month-long closure of an Interstate 65 bridge near Lafayette.

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In response, the GOP-dominated legislature passed Pence's lukewarm effort of a short-term solution. The legislation resulted in a two-year $800 million infusion into the highway and bridge system. Critics assailed the measure as a stop-gap solution that did nothing to address the long-term issue of crumbling roads and shrinking revenue to support them.

With Pence out of the way, Republicans are moving forward on legislation to raise gasoline taxes at least 10 cents per gallon, and the stars seem aligned for Hoosiers to soon pay more at the pump. The GOP still maintains an aversion to tapping into the state's $1.8 billion surplus.

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In a role reversal, Democrats are responding to the specter of increased pump costs with a "No New Taxes" refrain. They've offered their own legislation that doesn't raise taxes. Given the GOP's supermajorities in both chambers, there's little chance that bill would move forward.

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There are signs, however, that the GOP is listening to Democrats. On Wednesday, an amendment was added to the GOP gas tax measure, House Bill 1002 . It takes a page from the Democrats' bill and calls for gasoline sales tax revenue to be devoted entirely to transportation infrastructure needs. That could hurt public schools, prisons and other agencies that depend on that revenue, estimated at $600 million over the next two years.

The amended House bill, authored by Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, moves to the full House next week for a vote. Republicans hope to add $1 billion a year for infrastructure needs. Besides the 10-cent hike on gas tax, vehicle registration fees would increase, along with the probability of future tolls on highways across the state.

The GOP's uncharacteristic and bold effort to raise taxes isn't coming without peril. The measure has drawn the ire of powerful GOP supporters, such as the billionaire Koch brothers. It's jump-started a trade association resistance movement in Indiana gas stations that provides motorists with contact information for lawmakers. Well-known anti-tax activist Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform has joined the fray, voicing disdain to lawmakers about the tax increase.

Despite the high-profile opposition from its base, Republicans seem bent on moving forward. Indiana is not alone in its quest to find solutions to fix battered highways. The gasoline tax in seven states, including neighboring Michigan, went up last month.

Indiana's gas tax hasn't been raised since 2003. The state collects 18 cents a gallon on gasoline and 16 cents on diesel. Presently, 1 percent of the revenue generated by the state's sales tax is earmarked for transportation. The increase, if approved, would push Indiana's state gas tax higher than its neighboring states, according to Scot Imus, executive director of the Indiana Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association.

A 2015 study commissioned by the General Assembly showed a projected decline in transportation funds over the next 20 years, if the revenue stream remains the same. If no changes are made, state and local transportation needs would exceed available funding for the state's 30,000 miles of roads and about 6,000 bridges, including 183 in Lake County, where 20 need replacement. The current revenue picture won't support road maintenance or allow the transportation system to grow.

Cars and trucks are only getting more efficient. The time to act is now to safeguard Hoosiers using our roads and bridges.
What's Quickly? It's where readers sound off on the issues of the day. Have a quote, question or quip? Call Quickly at 312-222-2426 or email quickly@post-trib.com.

How can the Westminster Dog Show allow cats? You gotta be kitten me!

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I think it is great our judicial system is reminding our new President that we are a nation of laws. The President cannot do things which are in violation of our laws or of the constitution. Our system of checks and balances is working.

Democracy is not a given; it is earned. Benjamin Franklin once said, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Make yourselves sheep my friends, and the wolves will eat you.

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We're not still upset or sore losers that Hillary lost. We're upset at the direction this fascist dictator wannabe is taking our country. He is a sore winner that is trying to destroy the Middle Class of this country while enriching himself and his family. He doesn't care about making America great again, he just wants to make Trump great again.

Barack Obama is vacationing with the billionaire Richard Branson on his private island, where they have been wind surfing. I don't think he's coming back to save the Democratic party from there free fall any time soon.

It is refreshing to have a new Governor that seems more concerned with the welfare of the people of Indiana so far. He seems to be putting the people of Indiana first rather then his political ambitions first as our prior two Governors did.

I read a book once that said God created the heavens and the earth. Does the atheist have a opinion?

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Trump is making it abundantly clear that he thought by occupying the White House, it gave his entire family free reign to capitalize on all of their "brands."

President Trump stated, after talking to the major airlines who favor privatizing air traffic control, "It might work better if a pilot were in control." I found his logic amazing, but I wonder ,using this logic, how and why he felt that putting a wealthy donor, who never attended a public school, in charge of the Department of Education was a good idea?

When these Democratic members of Congress go to work in the morning, do they independently decide what they want to obstruct today or do they collectively get together and boycott targeted cabinet members or pieces of legislation? How can they sleep at night knowing they never do anything productive?

Trump may be trying to set up scapegoats in advance of a terror attack on his watch. The judiciary, the media, the protesters. If something happens, he will claim, it wasn't his fault. Of course not, nothing is ever his fault.

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Gymnastics scores are arbitrary. A high score at one meet might be a lower score at another. It all depends on the mood of the scorer.

Trump said his daughter was treated unfairly by Nordstrom's. Oh, was she detained for 19 hours when she entered the store?

Read more at www.post-trib.com/quickly
What's Quickly? It's where readers sound off on the issues of the day. Have a quote, question or quip? Call Quickly at 312-222-2426 or email quickly@post-trib.com.

Quickly, the original analog version of Twitter.

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I seem to remember some protesters stealing a product and dumping it in the harbor. It was called the Boston Tea Party. Our country was founded on protests, so don't be so fast to judge the protestors and their actions.

I predict Trump will not last the four years he will implode with all of the people telling him he was wrong. He will either quit out right of get caught in a bad deal and get impeached. Hopefully, his own party will keep him in control, he said he would drain the swamp but with the exception of the generals he only appointed super rich Wall Street bankers or total incompetents.

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Why don't people just give Trump a chance?

Democrats are the obstructionists? In 2010, Mitch McConnell stated that the number one priority of the Congress will be limiting President Obama to only one term. Instead of tweaking the dreaded Affordable Care Act to make it more Republican friendly  thus more happy Republicans  they spent the next six years trying every way possible to get rid of the President.

Thank God for the three branches of government designed by our Founding Fathers. The Judiciary has denied President Trump's executive order to ban Muslims. Thank God we have three branches of government to act as checks and balances on leaders like Trump who think they are a king.

For a businessman, Trump is pretty dumb. If his daughter's clothing line were good sellers, Nordstrom's would never consider getting rid of them. Her stuff is overpriced, Chinese made junk.

Post Tribune Twice-weekly News updates from Northwest Indiana delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

Our state leaders want to lower the amount of money major utilities are paying for electricity coming from the solar panels of small producers and homeowners  a measure which would corner the market to benefit longtime political allies and campaign donors and allow them to keep burning fossil fuels and to keep profits high for them. But bills and smog will go higher for us.

Thank you to Governor Holcomb and the Indiana legislature for overturning all of former Governor Pence's backward actions. It's a new day in Indiana and we have a new direction, free from the ridiculous shackles.

This is no longer about Hillary losing. Stop using that as your only defense. This is about a president that can't do his job and a Congress that is too afraid to stand up to him.

It's a real shame how automation has turned into a double edged sword by making more things run without man power and eliminating hundred of thousands of jobs at the same time. What amazes me most is that products never got any less expensive since all the manpower hours were eliminated. And another point is that robots do not put anything back into the economy to help run this great country.

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Jeff Sessions, our new Attorney General, says he has changed from that apparent racist he was all those years ago when he was denied a federal judgeship. Yes, he's changed, in the same way that Donald Trump has become so presidential since his election. We know what they say about a leopard and its spots.

24/7 Wall Street said Indiana is ranked the 4th most miserable state. What really stood out was the fact that we are one of the worst educated states and we ranked worse in every category of well being. We can thank our short-sighted republican leaders who think they are doing a great job.

Read more at www.post-trib.com/quickly
New Trier Township High School District 203 has rejected calls to change or postpone a planned civil rights seminar day later this month, saying it's too late to adjust the schedule, despite claims by some parents that the event is liberally biased and lacks conservative voices.

District officials and organizers of a parents' group opposing the Feb. 28 seminar on "Understanding Today's Struggle for Racial Civil Rights" met Monday to discuss possible changes to the program, both sides confirmed.

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But Betsy Hart of Wilmette, part of a group that bills itself as "Parents of New Trier," said administrators wouldn't agree to add speakers or postpone the seminar day so more presenters could be added. Nor would the district agree to hold an event later in the year to present what Hart called "diverse voices to help problem-solve on race relations."

Supt. Linda Yonke said Thursday that it was too late to add speakers, since more than 80 percent of students have already chosen the workshops they plan to attend. However, she said the district will keep the names of possible speakers on file in case it offers similar seminars in the future.

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This week's meeting comes amidst an uproar over the all-day seminar. Students at the predominantly-white school must attend one keynote speech and one homeroom class on civil rights, but will be allowed to leave either of the two workshop sessions they attend if they feel uncomfortable. Workshop topics include "Disney and Racial Stereotypes," "Media Literacy and How People of Color are Depicted in Movies, Sports, and Advertising," and "Emotional Intelligence in Race Relations."

Yonke said the day is a regular school day, and she has gotten only two or three messages from parents who say they will pull their children from school that day.

Opponents of the seminar day say it presents a biased and politicized offering of liberal viewpoints on the issue, though New Trier's website says the day isn't meant to promote the views of any political party.

As of Friday afternoon, more than 3,700 people had signed an online petition in support of the current seminar day, at http://action.stand.org/page/s/support-seminar-day.

Mimi Rodman of Wilmette, one of the creators of the petition, said the large response has been a positive surprise to the group.

"We said, 'Wouldn't it be great if we got 1,000 by the board meeting.' We launched it last Saturday afternoon and it's gone crazy," she said.

"I haven't had a chance to do the hard analysis, but the initial read is that the overwhelming support is from parents who have direct ties to the high school. Either they're an alum or a parent or a resident," she said.

Meanwhile, a petition against the current seminar day had gathered several hundred signatures as of Friday, according to Hart. The petition is accessible at https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/new-trier-seminar-day.html at the Parents of New Trier website, but does not list the number of signatures.

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Hart said most of the signatures are from district residents and most are parents.

"The point is, this is not a popularity contest for the homecoming queen," she said. "Even if we are in the minority, even if that's true, our concerns are valid."

Hart said opponents of the seminar day don't oppose the group of students who helped develop the list of workshop and seminar presenters, nor did they oppose the two keynote speakers.

"All we're saying is that they shut down an avenue to fresh voices looking to solve issues," she said.

The group's website suggests that the seminar include speakers such as Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump and a critic of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Residents on both sides of the issue plan to attend the New Trier School Board's next meeting on Feb. 20 to present their arguments.

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Even with only weeks to go before the seminar, Hart said the district could have made changes to the program.

But Yonke disputed claims by Hart and other opponents that the day's content ignores a school policy requiring balanced coverage of controversial issues.

"This policy was developed to address issues like sex education and evolution that were considered controversial," Yonke said. "The history of civil rights in our country is not a controversial issue; it did happen."

She said the day meets other policy goals that require the district to foster students' appreciation for cultural diversity, as well as the elimination of prejudice.

kroutliffe@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter: @pioneer_kathy
Two US students learn about TCM at a traditional Chinese medical hospital in Liaocheng, Shandong province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

China's trade in medical products grew by 7 percent in 2016, and the segment drove overall trade as well, a key industry body said on Friday.

The China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products said higher imports show robust demand in the domestic market, suggesting significant growth potential.

"The export and import of medicines and health products in China have stepped into a low-growth rate period, under a declining overseas demand and fierce price competition," said Xu Ming, vice-president of the chamber.

"With an overall downward pressure on exports, the foreign trade in medicine and healthcare products has achieved a relatively good performance."

Also, according to the General Administration of Customs data, although China's exports of medicines and health products in 2016 fell 2 percent from the 2015 level to $55.4 billion, imports were worth $48 billion, up nearly 4 percent, thus brightening the net trade figure.

But, the export of traditional Chinese medicine or TCM products saw an overall decline. The drop was due to the slide in exports of essential oil plant extracts. Besides, very few TCM products get registered in Europe, and hence cannot be sold there, the chamber said.

"It's critical for more TCM doctors to go abroad, and prescribe their products. Without prescriptions, TCM exports won't increase," Xu said.

On the other hand, China saw a significant increase in its export of preparations to developed markets such as Europe, the United States and Japan. In particular, exports of preparations to the US reached $295 million last year, up 40 percent year-on-year.

Last year, Chinese drug companies expanded overseas through mergers and acquisitions, and exported their products.

Gao Yue, a medicine analyst at Haitong Securities Ltd, said Chinese enterprises have to comprehensively and deeply understand the rules of medicine markets overseas to better organize their operations.
Chinese prominent smartphone producer Xiaomi Corp initiated the production at its Indonesian plant, aimed at complying with Indonesia's local content adoption obligation.

Xiaomi's Indonesian production was declared in an event themed "We are made in Indonesia" held in a lavish hotel here on Friday, attended by the firm's executives, senior government officials and Chinese ambassador to Indonesia Xie Feng.

Operating its production facility located in Indonesia's Batam industrial zone, Xiaomi embraces local partners that comprised of Erajaya Swasembada, Sat Nusapersaada and TSM Technologies.

Addressing the event, Wang Xiang, senior vice-president of Xiaomi, said initializing its production in Indonesia is a proof of the importance of the Indonesian market to Xiaomi.

"We learn huge potentials for growth in Indonesia. It would be an honor for us to take part during the period that would encourage Indonesia in entering new phase in smartphone industry," he said.

Xiaomi initially entered Indonesian smartphone market in 2014 with Redmi 1S model. It consequently launched more advanced models offered in affordable prices to tap fortune the lucrative smartphone market in Indonesia.

To support its booming sales Xiaomi also opened its service center in Indonesia.

The smartphone model designated to be produced in its Indonesian plant is Xiaomi Redmi 4A. The gadget is fitted with Qualcomm Snapdragon 425, 4G dual SIM card and 3120 mAh battery, allowing the device to have longer active time up to seven hours.

The smartphone would be offered at 1,499,000 rupiah ($113) for Indonesian market with sales scheduled to commence by the end of this month.

Ambassador Xie Feng said the initialization of Xiaomi's Indonesian version represents a new stage in China-Indonesia cooperation, namely a transition from traditional trade and project contracting to investment, technological transfer, personnel training and joint production.

"Once again, it proves the commitment of Chinese enterprises to localization and readiness to grow together with the Indonesian society," the ambassador said in his remarks.

He added that Xiaomi has demonstrated a fine example of Chinese manufacturing in the global market. Its smartphone market share currently ranks the fourth in Indonesia.

"It shows that Indonesian customers not only recognize Xiaomi's quality and service as well as Chinese manufacturing but also have high expectation and confidence in our bilateral cooperation," he added.

According to the ambassador, Xiaomi is among the nearly 1,000 Chinese enterprises investing in Indonesia, bringing their capital, technology and advanced managerial expertise, which help boost local revenue and employment and strengthen Indonesia's economic growth.

Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia region, has a growing number of internet users which mostly accessed through smartphones.

According to the results of a 2016 survey, 132.7 million from 256.2 million of population actively accessed the internet in Indonesia. That figure was 51.8 percent higher than in 2014.

Of that internet user figure, 63.1 million ones, or 47.6 percent, used smartphones to access internet.

According to an official data, Indonesia has vibrant smartphone market with annual sales estimated at 35 million ones nationwide.
Self-proclaimed "qigong master" Wang Lin, who was facing several criminal charges, has died in a hospital in east China's Jiangxi Province following an illness.

Wang died from multiple organ failure from ANCA-related vasculitis and peripheral neuritis on Friday afternoon, said Fuzhou City Intermediate People's Court.

The man, who claimed to be a master of qigong, a traditional martial art combined with meditation, came to public attention in 2013 when images of him posing for pictures with celebrities and stories of his supposed "supernatural powers" like conjuring snakes from thin air were posted on the Internet.

He was detained by police in July 2015 on the charge of illegal detention. In November last year, Fuzhou City People's Procuratorate filed a public lawsuit to the court, accusing Wang of illegal detention, fraud, illegal possession of a gun and bribery.

Because of his illness, Wang was allowed out on bail and his trial postponed in January while the trials of other defendants in the case continued.

Despite Wang's death, the court said it would issue a verdict on his case.
A fire is seen in an MTR train in Hong Kong on Feb 10, 2017. [Photo from Facebook]

A fire broke out on Friday inside a Hong Kong underground train near a busy station, with at least 17 people being injured and a man being detained after claiming that he has set fire with a Molotov cocktail.

The fire broke out at around 7:00 local time inside an underground train crossing the Vitoria Harbor for the busy Tsim Sha Tsui station, forcing the train to stop at the station and all the passengers to be evacuated, public broadcaster RTHK reported.

Footages from social media show flame and smoke from inside the train and several people burned.

The injured, two of whom in severe condition, were sent to nearby hospitals.

A man at the age of around 60 claimed that he set the fire with a Molotov cocktail. The police has detained the man and has been investigating his motive,a police officer told media outside the station, which has been temporarily closed.

The counter-terrorism response unit has been deployed at the scene.
Wang Qi in the early 1960s and today. [Photo/China Daily]

After being held in India for 54 years, Chinese veteran Wang Qi was ready to make his long-awaited trip back home on Saturday.

According to the Chinese embassy in India, 77-year-old Wang had left his home in central India's Madhya Pradesh and arrived in New Delhi on Friday afternoon.

He was eager to return to hometown in Shaanxi province and would start the journey as early as Saturday, said the embassy.

In 1963, Wang, a Chinese army surveyor, got lost, crossed the border and was captured by Indian authorities. He was moved from one jail to another for nearly seven years.

When he was finally released in 1969, police escorted him to the remote village of Tirodi in Madhya Pradesh and told him to start a life there. He married a local woman, and they had three children and grandchildren.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Monday that China had been "pushing India" to complete procedures to return the veteran. In 2013, the Chinese embassy in India issued him a 10-year Chinese passport and a living allowance every year since then, Lu said.

Vikas Swarup, the Indian External Affairs Ministry's spokesman, said on Thursday, "The ministry is helping Wang and his family membersincluding his son Vishnu Wang, daughter Anita Wankhede, daughter-in-law Neha Wang and grandson Khanak Wangto visit China to meet his extended family."

"We are working with the Chinese embassy in Delhi and the Indian embassy in Beijing to ensure that all formalities are completed and arrangements are in place," he said.

A China Central Television report on Friday said that Wang is eager to taste noodles, a local specialty in Shaanxi, after arriving home.

Wang's plight was highlighted last month in a special report by the BBC.

On Feb 4, Luo Zhaohui, China's ambassador to India, spoke by telephone with Wang and expressed sympathy over his suffering over the years. Yan Xiaoce, a counselor at the Chinese embassy in India, visited Wang's village on the same day, according to the embassy.

Liu Shurong, another Chinese veteran, underwent the same plight as Wang and lives in the same village. But Liu said he had no intention to return to China because he no longer has family there, the embassy said.
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that the recent report issued by Amnesty International about mass hangings in a prison near the capital Damascus is biased and politicized.

In an interview with the American Yahoo News issued Friday by state news agency SANA, the president said the report put the reputation of the organization into question.

"We don't look at it as unbiased, it's always biased and politicized, and it's a shame that such an organization releases a report without any evidence whatsoever," Assad said.

On Feb. 7, the Amnesty released a report stating that the Syrian authorities in Saydnaya prison near Damascus carried out mass hangings of as many as 13,000 people.

The rights watchdog accused the government of a "policy of extermination," adding that its report is based on interviews with 84 witnesses, including guards, detainees, and judges.

The executions happened between 2011 and 2015, said the report, adding that most of those slain are civilians opposed to the Syrian government. They were taken out of their cells "in the middle of the night and in total secrecy."

In his interview, the president said "that doesn't mean anything."

He continued that Amnesty International didn't visit Syria, "and they have made their reports based on allegations, they could bring any person, regardless of whom he is, you can forge anything these days, and we are living in the era of fake news, as you know, and thus we should not rely on that."

On allowing international organizations to visit the prison and inspect the allegations, Assad said that such approval relies on the credibility of the organization, "because they could use such a visit to demonize the Syrian government more and more, like what is happening now."

Assad maintained that what is happening in Syria is a result of the western and regional support to the terrorist groups, saying that the United States have killed civilians since their war on Vietnam, all the way to Iraq, where 1.5 million Iraqis were reportedly killed by the U.S. invasion.

He further quoted former U.S. President Barack Obama as confessing that the presence of IS was a result of the U.S. invasion to Iraq.

On prospects of cooperation with the current administration of Donald Trump, Assad said that if the Trump administration was serious about fighting terrorism, it should happen through cooperation with the Syrian government.

Regarding Trump's talks of creating safe zones in Syria to host the Syrian refugees, Assad said that such a plan is "unrealistic."

"Safe zones in Syria can happen when there is peace and security, where there is no more support to the terrorists by neighboring or Western countries, then there can be a natural safe zone, which is our country."

He further said that restoring stability to make Syria safe again is less costly, and more practical that creating safe zones.

Assad considered that any cooperation in any conflict around the world demands a Russian-U.S. rapprochement, "It's extremely essential, not only for Syria."
 Flash

South Sudanese army SPLA said Friday it had dislodged rebels from the northern strategic town of Kuek in Upper Nile region following the recent renewed fighting on the western bank of the River Nile.

SPLA spokesman Lul Ruai Koang told journalists in Juba that Kuek, which was being used by SPLA-In Opposition (SPLA-IO) to launch major attacks against them, was enshrined in the signed 2012 cooperation agreement as buffer zone between Sudan and South Sudan.

The SPLA-IO spokesman William Gatjiath recently claimed they had taken over Kuek from government troops.

On Feb. 8 and 9, the government troops clashed with Aguelek militia led by Johnson Olony who is allied to SPLA-IO in Malakal, South Sudan's second largest town.

"On the Feb.8-9, Aguelek rebels have been scaling up operations against SPLA forces. They have been using Wau-Shilluk to shell parts of Malakal. The sound of heavy gunfire artillery scared a lot of civilians and also the UN was concerned about repeated clashes that were spreading," Koang said.

He denied that the SPLA attacked the rebels, hence leading to the renewed clash.

"SPLA had to move out of the defensive positions to clear the threat. The clashes went on for about three days and yesterday, we were able to take control of Wau-Shilluk, Detang and law and order has been restored," he added.

He added that they have pushed the rebels north of the border with Sudan.

"And as we speak, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are in Jalal and we SPLA are in full control of the border town (Kuek)," Koang said.

"The absence of the rebels will pave way for the verification teams to be sent to the area to verify whether the two armies are complying with the provisions," he said of Kuek.

He also disclosed that about 151 rebels defected from Akobo area that was hitherto a stronghold of the SPLA-IO.

"Greater Akobo had been the center of resistance for forces of Riek Machar. This is the first time for rebels from that area to abandon rebellion," he said.
An investor checks stock information on his mobile phone in front of an electronic board showing stock information at a brokerage house in Beijing, February 16, 2016.[Photo/Agencies]

China's top securities watchdog vowed on Friday to "capture big crocodiles" in the country's stock market, suggesting that a tougher regulatory stance against stock speculation and manipulation will be a priority for the regulator.

In a highly anticipated speech at the regulator's annual work meeting, Liu Shiyu, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, implied that the "big crocodiles" were tycoons who wield capital power to manipulate stock prices and disrupt fair market play.

"No one will be allowed to create winds and waves in the stock market. The big crocodiles will not be allowed to suck the blood of small investors," Liu was quoted by Chinese media outlets Caixin and Sina.com as saying.

Liu's remarks were seen as the latest evidence of China's increased supervision of illegal market activities.

"I think Liu has been frank with his opinion. Increased supervision and regulation have begun and will be one of the themes for 2017," said Hong Hao, chief strategist at BOCOM International in Hong Kong.

The CSRC chief has been known for his outspoken attitude and harsh criticism of the Chinese stock market. He recently condemned the aggressive buyouts of listed companies by those using speculative capital, whom he described as "evil monsters" and "barbarians" in the market.

Liu was appointed the country's securities chief in February last year after the stock market suffered a turbulent ride that wiped out massive market value.

At Friday's meeting, Liu also said that the regulator's review and approval of initial public offerings by companies is not contradictory to the goal of introducing a registration-based IPO mechanism, which he said remains the "direction" of the capital market reform.

Wang Jianhui, director of the research center at Capital Securities, said that Liu's comments underscored the regulator's effort to strike a balance between allowing the market to have a greater say and weeding out poor quality companies through the administrative approval process.

Deng Ge, a CSRC spokesman, said on Friday that the regulator will maintain a normal pace for the IPO approval and will actively increase new share supplies in the market while forbidding companies from using the proceeds for speculative purposes.
An undated photo shows a ship loads containers at a terminal in Qingdao, Shandong province. [Photo/China Daily]

China recorded double-digit growth in exports and imports in January, thanks to surging industrial demand and enhanced manufacturing capabilities as a result of the ongoing industrial upgrading, experts said on Friday.

Imports surged by 25.2 percent year-on-year to 911.2 billion yuan ($132.4 billion), indicating growing demand amid ongoing supply-side reform.

Exports increased by 15.9 percent to 1.27 trillion yuan, according to the General Administration of Customs.

Commodity imports, such as iron ore, crude oil and coal, continued to grow in January, featuring general price rises.

China bought 92 million metric tons of iron ore from global markets last month, up by 12 percent year-on-year, with an average price of 525 yuan per ton.

Crude oil imports reached 34.03 million metric tons in January, 27.5 percent higher than the same period a year earlier.

"The rebound in commodity prices and overseas demand for industrial products boosted the country's exports.

"The growing imports were also attributed to this year's Spring Festival, which arrived earlier than last year," said Xu Yang, an analyst at Sinolink Securities.

China's foreign trade reached 2.18 trillion yuan in January, up by 19.6 percent year-on-year. This led to a monthly trade surplus of 354.53 billion yuan, down by 2.7 percent from a year earlier, customs data show.

As both trading prices and volume of commodities were notably higher than the same period last year, China's trade surplus might narrow in the future, since domestic demand is likely to improve continuously, Xu said.

The continued recovery of the world economy and rising demand in the global market also played big roles. Trade with the European Union, China's biggest trade partner by volume, surged by 14.1 percent year-on-year in January.

Meanwhile, trade with the United States, China's second-biggest trade partner, rose by 21.9 percent.

"Even though this is an encouraging result, exports are still constrained by instability in the recovery of global demand, growing trade frictions and the reality that China's new competitive edge in high-end service and manufacturing sectors has not been fully established," said Huo Jianguo, vice-chairman of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies.

Tu Xinquan, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said big-ticket projects also mean huge demand for Chinese equipment, construction materials, services and technologies in markets in countries and regions along the Belt and Road Initiative. They will continue to support China's foreign trade.

A number of infrastructure projects have been launched along the Belt and Road trading routes, including Pakistan's Karakoram Highway and Karachi-Lahore Motorway and the China-Laos Railway.
Investment in Britain's warehousing sector is in fashion, thanks to a boom in China-related e-commerce activity that has put strain on the nation's warehousesa trend that is likely to continue post-Brexit when European ports will be less able to handle UK's imports.

Major British asset management companies, such as Investec, are already capitalizing on the trend by investing in warehousing management firms, such as Tritax Big Box and Prologis, while the Shanghai-based private equity firm PGC Capital is preparing for the launch of a 1 billion yuan ($145 million) fund to help Chinese institutional investors reap returns.

Denise Li, CEO of PGC Capital, said the fund is already assessing three-to-five warehouses near Manchester for potential investment.

Atul Shinh, an investment specialist at Investec, said investing into warehouse management firms offers a steady and attractive yield, with cash flows from rent and potential for capital appreciation.

At the core of the profitability of warehouses is the huge UK-China e-commerce trade.

Wayne Yu, vice-president and operations director at STO Express Europe, estimated that Chinese exports comprise 60 to 70 percent of the UK's e-commerce market in the number of items.

STO, a Shanghai-based delivery firm that expanded into the UK in 2004, now rents about 10 warehouses across the UK, most of which were established in the past two years or so. Its shipment volume in 2016 grew by 50 percent.

Oscar Lin, manager at London-based Onetwothree Logistics, which rents warehouses in Slough, Felixstowe and Ipswich, serving both the sea and airfreight trade, has paid more rent each year.

"We only found the Ipswich warehouse last year, after searching for about a year and a half, because warehouse facilities are in demand in that area," Lin said.

"With increased warehousing facilities, we are able to serve customers more efficiently."
Companies in Dongguan, a major manufacturing base in the Pearl River Delta, will receive a series of preferential policies and financial support in the years to come, through a local government plan aimed at upgrading local industries.

The plan, announced on Friday, will select 200 pilot firms. The latter will be encouraged to boost their market competitiveness by increasing investment in technologies, developing new businesses, restructuring existing units and introducing more service-oriented manufacturing.

The companies will be selected from a pool of private sector manufacturers in fields like high-tech that are foreign funded and listed, according to the local government.

Liang Weidong, mayor of Dongguan, said each of the pilot companies is expected to post double-digit growth of both revenue and profit by 2021-end.

"After years of rapid development (off the back of China's opening up and reforms in the late 1970s), Dongguan needs to shift its focus to development of advanced manufacturing and high-tech businesses, to maintain sustainable economic growth," said Liang.

Advanced or value-added manufacturing and high-tech businesses will account for 50-52 percent of Dongguan's industrial output by 2021. Most of the pilot companies are engaged in emerging industries like information technology, he said.

"Companies will be supported financially in technology, research and development, market expansion and land use, as well as by way of other preferential tax policies."

In addition, other local firms with 5 billion yuan ($726.3 million) in annual sales each, will receive similar backing, he said.

In recent years, an increasing number of technology-driven companies have emerged in Dongguan, a city traditionally known for labor-intensive manufacturing.

"Increased efforts in research and development, along with effective marketing and advertising, helped us see a strong growth over the years," said Shi Yujian, senior vice-president of Vivo Mobile Communication Technology.
This week a coalition of Nevada organizations supporting scientifically sound and humane wildlife practices launched a public education and outreach campaign, Know Your Nevada Neighbors. The campaign is an effort to make all Nevadans more aware of the fact that trophy hunting and trapping animals for fur are still common practices in our state  practices that are not only inhumane but that have negative impacts on our states ecosystems.

The coalition is launching the Know Your Nevada Neighbors campaign this week to coincide with both The Wildlife Society  Western Section annual meeting at the Peppermill Resort Casino and the February meeting of the Nevada Wildlife Commission.

The Wildlife Society, the largest professional organization in the world for wildlife managers, has a series of experts addressing the topic, Predators: History and Human Interactions. At the Nevada Wildlife Commissions meeting Friday and Saturday in Carson City, commissioners will consider the draft predator plan for fiscal year 2018 and will set hunting seasons for mountain lions and bears in Nevada.

By understanding our wildlife neighbors, like mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes and bears, we can advocate for common-sense policies that respect these animals without infringing on the rights and activities of hunters. Trophy hunting and trapping inflict significant damage on wildlife populations. Hunting these animals is not only barbaric, dangerous and unsustainable, but it fails to consider the latest science that shows that conflicts with people, pets and livestock often increase because of these practices.

We hope that people will consider that not only are wild animals being needlessly killed for trophies and pelts but that these policies have other consequences such as leaving kittens, pups and cubs orphaned to die when their mothers are hunted, said Lynn Cullens of the Mountain Lion Foundation.

By educating Nevadans we hope to encourage action  whatever your perspective, sign a petition, call your lawmakers or write a letter to your local newspaper. We need to make sure wildlife is conserved for the benefit of all Nevadans, and for our public lands and ecosystems, said Trish Swain of the League of Humane Voters  Nevada.

Consider the facts:

With a population of less than 1,400 mountain lions, Nevada allows them to be hunted year-round in numbers exceeding sustainable limits broadly accepted by scientists and other state wildlife agencies. In Nevada, 245 mountain lions may be hunted for trophies this year.

Nevada still allows killing contests where hundreds of coyotes are hunted for prizes and fun. At least 10,000 coyotes are killed in Nevada each year. There is no hunting season or limit on coyotes, leaving hundreds of pups orphaned to die of starvation or exposure. These mass killings disrupt natural ecosystems and cause unnecessary conflicts between coyotes and people.

Scientists at the Nevada Department of Wildlife estimate between 300 and 400 black bears may survive in the mountains of western Nevada. In a single decade, humans have killed the equivalent of the states entire bear population.

Thousands of Nevada bobcats are killed each year in cruel steel leg-hold traps and snares so that trappers can sell their furs to be made into coats in Russia and China. Commercial trappers profit from taking a public resource with little regulation.

To learn more about the Know Your Nevada Neighbors campaign, please visit our website at www.KnowYourNeighbors.net, or follow us on social media: Facebook, knowyourneighbors.net; Twitter, @knowneighbors; and Instagram know_your_neighbors.

Hunting these animals is not only barbaric, dangerous and unsustainable, but it fails to consider the latest science that shows that conflicts with people, pets and livestock often increase because of these practices.
BEIJING - Chinese regulators will inspect cement and glass factories to determine whether the two bloated sectors have taken serious efforts to eliminate outdated capacities.

From Feb 12 to Feb 22, eight inspection teams, headed by ministerial officials, will be sent to 31 provinces and regions across the country, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The inspection aims to find out whether government policies, including the phasing out of outdated technology and equipment, and the adoption of higher standards for pollutant emissions, are being effectively delivered.

The move is the latest sign that the government is determined to keep a tough stance on overcapacity after its successful capacity-cut efforts in 2016 helped to support economic growth.

For years, a wide range of industries in China, from steel, cement, aluminum and flat glass to coal, have been running at overcapacity.

The gluts have extensive implications: depressed commodity and material prices, reduced profits of debt-ridden firms, increased non-performing loans that jeopardize financial stability.

Last year, China introduced policies on fiscal and tax support, the handling of non-performing assets, redundancy support, and sought to encourage mergers and acquisitions in the bloated sectors.

By the end of the year, the capacity-cut targets in the most troubled coal and steel industries had been achieved ahead of schedule.

At the Central Economic Work Conference held in December 2016, China's policymakers continued to make addressing industrial overcapacity a major task for 2017.
BEIJING - China will spend 50 billion yuan (about $7.3 billion) on building methane projects in rural areas as the government seeks to increase the use of clean energy.

According to a plan released by the country's top economic planner, during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) period, China will build 172 new biogas projects and 3,150 large-scale methane projects.

The plan aims to increase the country's methane producing capacity by 4.9 billion cubic meters, replace the equivalent of 3.49 million metric tons of standard coal with cleaner energy and cut carbon emissions by 17.62 million tons.

The projects will benefit more than 230 million rural residents.

China's fast-growing economy has seen rural energy consumption surge and the rapid expansion of the livestock breeding and agro-industries. These rural businesses create billions of tons of biomass waste annually, which can potentially be used to produce energy.

According to official estimates, China generates 1.4 billion tons of rural waste materials annually that could be used for methane production. This amount of waste could produce 73.6 billion cubic meters of biogas and replace 87.6 million tons of standard coal.
A man charges an electric car at a charging station in Xiangyang, Hubei province, Jan 4, 2017. [Photo/VCG]

A comprehensive electric vehicle powering grid will be rolled out in major Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.

The country's energy planner on Thursday vowed to further expand its public fast-charge networks to enable users to power up within a close radius.

China plans to build 800,000 charging points, including 100,000 public ones, for electric vehicles this year to meet increasing demand, the National Energy Administration announced on Thursday.

A total of 100,000 public charging points were installed nationally last year, a tenfold increase on the total for 2015, bringing the total number of public charging points in China to 150,000, it said.

An analyst said China had a very strong incentive to ramp up the penetration of electric vehicles in big cities because of the widespread air pollution.

Setting up charging stations ahead of demand would greatly promote the usage of electric vehicles in China, which would in turn yield a number of benefits for the country, said Asian utilities and infrastructure analyst Joseph Jacobelli at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Drivers were reluctant to use electric vehicles unless they had access to several reliable charging facilities, he said.

Jacobelli said roadside pollution was a key source of emissions in China and the plan for more EV charging stations would not only reduce emissions and reduce oil consumption, but also boost grid management.

Electric power companies in China have also been asked to beef up EV charging stations nationwide, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

State Grid Corp of China, the nation's electric power giant, said recently it planned to build 10,000 charging stations and 120,000 charging units by 2020 to further expand public fast-charge networks for electric vehicles in major Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

The company said it plans to build 29,000 charging stations this year alone, up from 22,000 in 2016. It aims to expand its fast-charge networks to 47,000 by 2020.
A woman surfs internet at a Starbucks outlet in Beijing. [Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

For those scratching their heads about a decent but budget Valentine's Day idea, a Starbucks-branded e-gift card might take your fancy.

You can now text your beloved one with a peach frappuccino, after mobile social app WeChat partnered with Starbucks Corp to roll out its first ever social gifting feature that allows the completion of a social-to-commerce loop within the app.

The new function, "Say it with Starbucks", is embedded in Starbucks' official WeChat account and enables WeChat users to gift a beverage priced from 31 yuan ($4.50) or a digital gift card (up to 500 yuan) with personalized messages.

With just a few taps on the phone, the transactions are handled through WeChat Pay, its affiliate payment tool. The coupons will then be saved in the recipient's WeChat app and can be redeemed at Starbucks' 2,500 stores in the Chinese mainland.

The partnership follows a December agreement when the coffee giant began accepting WeChat Pay as a payment method. Starbucks China Chief Executive Officer Belinda Wong said the move aimed to foster closer human relationships through instant deliveries of gratitude and love.

For WeChat, the collaboration is also the latest example of how the all-purpose app banks on its 846-million user base to mine bigger potential for mobile shopping. Li Peiku, deputy general manager of WeChat Open Platform division, said it will continue to connect users with quality services with an enhanced and constantly-evolving digital experience.

WeChat Pay is still second to archrival AliPay in China's third-party payment sector, but it is quickly eating up the market share and will hit an estimated 30 percent in 2017, according to Counterpoint Technology Market Research.

The gift-card function is another area where WeChat flexes its muscles to divert more traffic to the broader Tencent ecosystem including payment, just as it did with the virtual red packet campaign, said Zhang Mengmeng, a senior analyst at Counterpoint.

Social commerceor the ability to purchase goods directly through a social media platformhas become pervasive among internet users.
Lei Jun, founder and CEO of Xiaomi Corp, is pictured at the company's new product release ceremony in Beijing, May 10, 2016. [Photo by Feng Yongbin/China Daily]

JAKARTA - Chinese prominent smartphone producer Xiaomi Corp initiated the production at its Indonesian plant, aimed at complying with Indonesia's local content adoption obligation.

Xiaomi's Indonesian production was declared in an event themed "We are made in Indonesia" held in a lavish hotel here on Friday, attended by the firm's executives, senior government officials and Chinese ambassador to Indonesia Xie Feng.

Operating its production facility located in Indonesia's Batam industrial zone, Xiaomi embraces local partners that comprised of Erajaya Swasembada, Sat Nusapersaada and TSM Technologies.

Addressing the event, Wang Xiang, senior vice-president of Xiaomi, said initializing its production in Indonesia is a proof of the importance of the Indonesian market to Xiaomi.

"We learn huge potentials for growth in Indonesia. It would be an honor for us to take part during the period that would encourage Indonesia in entering new phase in smartphone industry," he said.

Xiaomi initially entered Indonesian smartphone market in 2014 with Redmi 1S model. It consequently launched more advanced models offered in affordable prices to tap fortune the lucrative smartphone market in Indonesia.

To support its booming sales Xiaomi also opened its service center in Indonesia.

The smartphone model designated to be produced in its Indonesian plant is Xiaomi Redmi 4A. The gadget is fitted with Qualcomm Snapdragon 425, 4G dual SIM card and 3120 mAh battery, allowing the device to have longer active time up to seven hours.

The smartphone would be offered at 1,499,000 rupiah ($113) for Indonesian market with sales scheduled to commence by the end of this month.

Ambassador Xie Feng said the initialization of Xiaomi's Indonesian version represents a new stage in China-Indonesia cooperation, namely a transition from traditional trade and project contracting to investment, technological transfer, personnel training and joint production.

"Once again, it proves the commitment of Chinese enterprises to localization and readiness to grow together with the Indonesian society," the ambassador said in his remarks.

He added that Xiaomi has demonstrated a fine example of Chinese manufacturing in the global market. Its smartphone market share currently ranks the fourth in Indonesia.

"It shows that Indonesian customers not only recognize Xiaomi's quality and service as well as Chinese manufacturing but also have high expectation and confidence in our bilateral cooperation," he added.

According to the ambassador, Xiaomi is among the nearly 1,000 Chinese enterprises investing in Indonesia, bringing their capital, technology and advanced managerial expertise, which help boost local revenue and employment and strengthen Indonesia's economic growth.

Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia region, has a growing number of internet users which mostly accessed through smartphones.

According to the results of a 2016 survey, 132.7 million from 256.2 million of population actively accessed the internet in Indonesia. That figure was 51.8 percent higher than in 2014.

Of that internet user figure, 63.1 million ones, or 47.6 percent, used smartphones to access internet.

According to an official data, Indonesia has vibrant smartphone market with annual sales estimated at 35 million ones nationwide.
Assurance in call with Xi paves way for enhancing relations, analysts say

In a phone call with President Xi Jinping on Friday, US President Donald Trump assured his Chinese counterpart that Washington will continue to honor the one-China policy, which analysts said removes an obstacle to developing bilateral ties and paves the way for cooperation.

In their first telephone conversation since Trump's inauguration, the two leaders also agreed to maintain close contact and said they expected to meet with each other at an early date.

After winning the presidential election in November, Trump broke with precedent and took a phone call from Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen.

In several tweets afterward, Trump said he would use the one-China policy as a bargaining chip in dealing with Beijing, an issue that Beijing said was "non-negotiable".

Analysts said that since Trump has said he will honor the one-China policy, the two countries can prepare for two-way consultations by senior officials in key areas, as well as a possible meeting between Xi and Trump sometime this year.

The two leaders have yet to meet since Trump took office on Jan 20.

The White House said in a news release that the "lengthy" phone call "was extremely cordial".

Trump told Xi that he was fully aware of the great importance of the US government honoring the one-China policy.

Xi hailed Trump's assurance and said the policy forms the political bedrock for Sino-US relations.

Xi also said "necessity and urgency are on the rise" for the two countries to reinforce cooperation in such areas as the economy, culture and infrastructure.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the big picture of China-US cooperation will not be affected as long as Washington handles the Taiwan question properly.

Beijing hopes to work with Washington "for greater development of China-US ties from a new starting point", Lu said.

Ruan Zongze, vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, said that since Trump's assurance on the one-China policy has removed a stumbling block on bilateral ties, "the two sides can now start talks on a two-way cooperative mechanism and further collaboration on international affairs".

Ruan envisioned high-level consultations that could include, or be similar to, the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

Cheng Li, director of the John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution, said that improving US relations with China and Russia is part of Trump's global strategy.

Li Haidong, a professor of US studies at China Foreign Affairs University, said that Trump's clarification on the one-China policy likely is the result of evolving discussions within the Trump team on China policies and the end of the team's internal divergence.

Since China is indispensable for resolving many global and regional issues, part of Trump's long-term diplomatic strategy may be to "strike a balance between US treaty allies and China", not sabotaging ties with either side, Li added.

Zhong Feiteng, an expert on Asia-Pacific affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Trump's clarification might have been partly driven by the urgency to fulfill his campaign pledges on economic policies.

"Since China accounts for 30 to 40 percent of global growth, if he breaks up with China, it will be quite difficult for him to boost public satisfaction and employment," Zhong added.




A white dolphin in Guangzhou swims in a tributary of the Pearl River in Jiangmen, Guangdong province. Wildlife experts are trying to rescue it. [Photo/Xinhua]

Wildlife experts in South China are trying to rescue an endangered white dolphin that is in worsening health after mistakenly swimming into a freshwater river a week ago.

The Chinese white dolphin, about 30 years old, equivalent to 70 human years, swam into the BaishaRiver, a tributary of the Pearl River in Jiangmen, Guangdong province Feb 1. The animal is in a stretch about 100 km from the river's estuary. The species is under China's top protection list.

A rescue team comprising personnel from a local nature reserve and fishery authorities have attempted several times to drive the creature back to the sea without success.

"As it is too old and has been stranded for many days, the skin of the dolphin is festering and its health is deteriorating... its area of movement is shrinking," Feng Kangkang, a worker with Jiangmen Chinese White Dolphin Nature Reserve, said on Thursday.

Driving it back to sea should cause the animal minimum harm, but the dolphin has repeatedly swam back into the river due to weakening bodily functions, according to Feng.

The team is watching the dolphin round-the-clock and recording its health conditions, according to the Guangdong provincial ocean and fishery department.

White dolphins rely on echoes to identify the location of objects in water, but when they get old or suffer disease they are likely to run aground.

Each year, Guangdong reports two to three cases of senior white dolphins mistakenly entering freshwater rivers.

Chinese white dolphins are mainly exist only in small numbers, with about 2,000 detected at the mouth of the Pearl River.


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UK university builds partnerships in China to improve technology, talent

The University of Cambridge, one of the world's top research universities, established two partnerships in China on Thursday, the first of their kind in the university's more than 800-year history.

The UK-based university signed a memorandum of understanding with Qingdao, an economic hub in East China's Shandong province, and Shandong University, a major national university in China, on Thursday.

The University of Cambridge aims to take advantage of its research strength to help facilitate technology transfer processes and encourage entrepreneurship in China.

The parties agreed to explore ways to improve interactions, build a world-class institution and cultivate talent, according to a news release. They will also guide students to put innovative results into practice.

"We will set up a team in Qingdao and share our experience and knowledge to help businesses innovate and thrive, improve university campus and support the city's development," said Tony Raven, chief executive of Cambridge Enterprise.

Cambridge Enterprise was established in 2006 to support members of the university in licensing their inventions, providing consultancy services, and creating companies based on university research.

"The goal of the University of Cambridge is to benefit society and the university's research has changed people's lives all around the world," Raven said.

Raven said he was impressed to see many students and academics successfully use their technological knowledge and set up companies in China and the UK.

Lu Maozu, director of Center for Globalization and Chinese Economy of Shandong University, said China needs to further change its mindset about innovation as the country is still eager for instant benefits under pressure for economic growth.

"Innovation will go to areas which are unknown," Lu said. "Our action plan in the next step will depend on the social changes."

To date, 28 universities and institutions have decided to establish new campuses or build branches or codeveloped facilities in Qingdao.

Shandong University, in Jinan, last year opened a new campus in north Qingdao, where high-tech industries and marine sectors have been growing quickly.
The United States conducting frequent and large-scale reconnaissance missions in the South China Sea is the root cause of accidents between US and Chinese militaries, experts said.

Therefore, China and US militaries should enhance communication and strengthen mutual trust to nip potential accidents in the bud, they added.

A US Navy plane approached a Chinese military aircraft on Wednesday in the airspace near Huangyan Island, one of China's islands in the South China Sea, an official close to China's Defense Ministry said on Friday. The Chinese plane, which was conducting routine training in the region, reacted professionally and adhered to law.

"We hope the US will take the big picture of Sino-US military relations into account, and take practical measures to remove the root cause of accidents between the two countries in air and on sea," the official added.

This was the first time US and Chinese military planes met in 2017. The last two incidents were on May 17 and June 7. A US official told Reuters that the incident was rare and inadvertent.

Ma Gang, a professor from the People's Liberation Army National Defense University, said the US has been conducting frequent and large-scale reconnaissance missions in the South China Sea for decades, and "this is the root cause for the accidents."

"If the US still views China as an obstacle, then similar accidents are still likely to occur," he said. "Accident prevention requires the US to keep an open mind about China and remain honest in dialogue."

The US government will remain committed to the one-China policy, and develop "a constructive relationship that benefits both the US and China," according to a White House news release on US President Donald Trump's first phone call with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Thursday, which described the call as "extremely cordial"

Last week, US Defense Secretary James Mattis suggested that diplomacy should be the priority in the South China Sea, and the US saw no need for "dramatic military moves" at this time.

Fu Mengzi, the vice-president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said it is a good sign that China and the US are having positive interactions, and the US should build mutual trust and respect China's stance on principle issues like national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
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The new policy of collecting foreign passport holders' fingerprints upon their arrival in China went into effect on Friday in pilot ports of entry including Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport.

The policy will be rolled out in other ports across the country by the end of this year, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

Foreigners ages 14 to 70 are fingerprinted upon entering China. Diplomatic passport holders and beneficiaries of reciprocal agreements are exempted.

Foreigners arriving at the airport in Shenzhen on Friday had to submit first the four fingerprints on their left hands, then the four on their right hands, and finally their thumb prints.

Zhang Jie, a professor at People's Public Security University in Beijing who specializes in the study of exit and entry policies, thought Shenzhen was selected to test the initiative because of its relatively long history of openness, which makes it more open to accepting new things.

In addition, passenger flow at airport in Shenzhen is significantly less than in Beijing or Shanghai, making it a more suitable testing site, she said.

Victor Olsen, of Singapore, was among the first group of foreign travelers to undergo fingerprinting in Shenzhen and said it was very efficient.

"There were signs and people to guide us to the area. It only took one minute to get my fingerprints," he said.

"I totally understand the move and believe it is quite necessary to implement such a policy, as it is an effective way to strengthen border control and ensure security."

Another passenger, Ming Low, of Malaysia, said that the new fingerprinting requirement did not cause any delay for her and that such a move to enhance security should be supported.

However, Sai Subbaraju, of India, who also arrived in China at the airport in Shenzhen on Friday, wondered whether the initiative might lead to infringements of passengers' privacy.

"I'm concerned that the fingerprints collected may be misused or leaked," he said.
Exhibition demonstrates the sway China had over Korea for centuries

From left: Nam Yohong painted in 1627; Nam Yohong painted in 1706. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Nam Yohong, the right-hand man to Korea's king Yi Jong, who lived in the first half of the 17th century, had his portrait painted twice by Chinese painters.

The first, in 1627, shows Nam as a benign-looking civil servant with a pair of baggy eyes that may have been the permanent residue of overwork or of the fierce power struggle that jolted the Korean court a few years earlier. (Four years earlier in 1623, Yi Jong rose to power by staging a military coup and deposing the king, his much-resented uncle Gwanghaegun. In the portrait, a tense and taut looking Nam appears to be still recovering from the aftershock of the event.)

The baggy eyes are still there in the second painting. But the gaunt feel has given way to a look of grim determination - a steely gaze and slight frown that betray an iron shrewdness. This was a man who had seen so much blood flow that eventually such violence would not make him flinch. It was painted in 1647, a year after Nam died aged 73.

Such emotional subtleties point to the tremendous skill of the portraitists - in Nam's case two. Both were court painters employed by the Chinese emperors to paint the Korean emissary while he was in Beijing. The city was the capital for the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the succeeding Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Fan Jinmin, a history professor at Nanjing University, says the paintings and all other exhibits - about 300 pieces (sets) in total - that have been on view at the Zhejiang Provincial Museum testify to the deep devotion that China and Korea had for one another between the 14th and 17th centuries. In a sense, Nam witnessed the end of that relationship.

"During the time of Ming, Korea was China's vassal state," Fan says. "A Korean king would seek the approval of the Ming emperor if he wanted to banish his queen and marry a new one. When he died he would also be given a posthumous title by the Ming emperor. The influence was not played out merely on the court level. The Chinese lunar calendar, the ultimate time guide for an agricultural society, was widely used in Korea at the time."

Asked if the relationship was formed as a result of China's military and political might, Fan says such factors were certainly crucial. However, he emphasizes the cultural kinships that he says he believes lay at the heart of this prolonged period of mutual respect and admiration.

"Confucianism and classical Chinese culture, the version ordained by the Chinese rulers, made their way into Korea during the Ming era and was enshrined by the ruling elite. Those who wished to enter court service had to sit exams that tested their knowledge of Chinese literary and philosophical classics. Of course they wrote in Chinese."

Calligraphic works

In the exhibition you can gauge China's cultural influence over Korea from the calligraphic works of Koreans who lived between the 14th and 17th centuries. Many of these are in fact works of poetry penned during the process of what Ni Yi calls "literary diplomacy". Ni is the curator of an exhibition that tries to shed light on the Sino-Korean relationship during the Ming era by constructing a narrative line surrounding Choe Bu, a 15th-century Korean who had the bad luck to encounter strong wind at sea and the good luck to travel across China before returning to his native land.

"Given the frequency with which Korea sent its envoys to China - on occasions including the ascension to the throne of a new king, royal birthdays and funerals as well as important festivals - well-versed civil servants such as Nam were big assets to the Korean court," Ni says. "They also served as hosts to the Chinese envoy, often greatly impressing their guests, and in the process drew China and Korea even closer."

In the exhibition two beautifully made file cases are on display, one demonstrating a stunning natural grain of wood and the other showcasing the lacquer work of Korean craftsmen. Both were used to carry royal documents and letters.

More telling of the literary diplomacy are the ingeniously designed portable ink-and-brush holders. When inspiration hit, a poet could wait no more. Inspiration had presumably hit many times when a Chinese (or Korean) official was touring in foreign parts accompanied by his Korean (or Chinese) counterpart.

Given that most leading painters during the Ming era were literarily accomplished, it was only natural that the literary influences already mentioned seeped into the more broader area of aesthetics. (In 13th-century China and later, paintings by men of words were much celebrated and dubbed literati painting.)

Regrettably, few examples are on view in the exhibition, apart from portraits, one of which showed Kim Yuk, a Korean emissary, standing under a giant pine tree. It was done in 1659 by a Chinese painter named Hu Bing.

"Plein-air portraiture, which started to gain popularity during the Ming era, was also adopted by Korean artists of the time," Ni says. "The casual style of dress, complete with a jade pin to hold the flowing garment together, exudes a sense of leisure and calmness often associated with literati painting."




Song jewelry designers gave us something to sing about

Top from left: Earrings from the Song Dynasty; gold bracelets; scarf weights; the Chinese words inscribed on the hairpin read zi jin zao, meaning made from self-provided gold. Below from left: A gold hairpin from the Song Dynasty features two headsa gourd and a litchi fruit; phoenix hairpins; gold rings; gold earrings. [Photo provided to China Daily]

When Shi Chao of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum was busy preparing last year for an exhibition on gold and silver jewelry and wares unearthed in the province, he found a line of words inscribed on a gold hairpin. The words read: zi jin zao, or made from self-provided gold.

"The hairpin is from the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), one of China's most culturally accomplished era," Shi says. "The inscription indicates not only the source of material, but also the fact that the owner of the hairpin may have had a say in its making.

"Usually, a goldsmith produced his designs based on what was in fashion before trying to sell them to a potential buyer. In this case, he may have listened to what his customer had to say before picking up the hammer."

The final result is a combination of popular aesthetics and personal preference. With two flying phoenixes adorning its body, the hairpin widens and bifurcates toward one tip to feature two heads - one a gourd, the other a litchi.

"In traditional Chinese culture, gourd, with its entangled wines, symbolizes productivity, the continuity of a bloodline," Shi says. "The litchi seems to have been directly borrowed from the paintings of the time - an example of how painting, for which the Song era was famous for, had influenced jewelry design."

"While most hairpins from the era feature only one theme - either gourd or litchi fruit for example, this one has two," he continued.

In the exhibition nearly 200 pieces are on display in chronological order from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) all the way to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). However, the real emphasis, Shi says, is on the Southern Song period.

"It's impossible to have a deeper understanding of the exhibition without knowing the history of Song, a dynasty cut - both in time and space - into two parts: the Northern Song and the Southern Song."

Relocation

The Song Dynasty was founded in 960. In 1125 war broke out between Song, which had long passed its zenith, and Jin, a rising power set up by the horse-riding Manchus from the north. In 1127 two Song emperors, Huizong and his son Qinzong, were taken prisoners by the Jin army. Deeply ashamed, Song was forced to relocate its court from what is today Kaifeng city in central China to what is now Hangzhou, then called Lin'an, in southeastern China. The surrounding region is known as Jiangnan, meaning "area south of the Yangtze River".

The removal of the capital signaled the loss of control on Song's part of the vast land in central China. A return was never seriously discussed; successive Song emperors seemed to be equally impressed with the richness of their adopted home as they were with their enemy's military might. The regional culture, famed for its strong literary tradition, suited the artistically minded Song emperors very well.

Although on the defensive most of the time, Southern Song was not without military triumph in its continued wars with Jin. For the next hundred years the retreat and its surrounding region south to the Yangtze River enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity. Population expanded and arts and crafts flourished.


Nam Yohong painted in 1706.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Exhibition demonstrates the sway China had over Korea for centuries

Nam Yohong, the right-hand man to Korea's king Yi Jong, who lived in the first half of the 17th century, had his portrait painted twice by Chinese painters.

The first, in 1627, shows Nam as a benign-looking civil servant with a pair of baggy eyes that may have been the permanent residue of overwork or of the fierce power struggle that jolted the Korean court a few years earlier. (Four years earlier in 1623, Yi Jong rose to power by staging a military coup and deposing the king, his much-resented uncle Gwanghaegun. In the portrait, a tense and taut looking Nam appears to be still recovering from the aftershock of the event.)

The baggy eyes are still there in the second painting. But the gaunt feel has given way to a look of grim determination - a steely gaze and slight frown that betray an iron shrewdness. This was a man who had seen so much blood flow that eventually such violence would not make him flinch. It was painted in 1647, a year after Nam died aged 73.

Such emotional subtleties point to the tremendous skill of the portraitists - in Nam's case two. Both were court painters employed by the Chinese emperors to paint the Korean emissary while he was in Beijing. The city was the capital for the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the succeeding Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
US President Donald Trump speaks while signing executive orders at the White House in Washington January 24, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

First it was that belated Chinese Lunar New Year's greeting.

Then came a similarly belated, yet in the White House's words, "lengthy" and "extremely cordial", telephone call.

To many who have waited in anxious anticipation for the completion of the diplomatic ritual, now is the time to heave that overdue sigh of relief. And for the Asia-Pacific region, it can now afford to breathe more freely.

Even after United States Defense Secretary Jim Mattis used his first official visit to Asia to allay fears over a possible military conflict in the South China Sea, there was lingering concern that the absence of the usual courtesy and formality from the new US leader might bode ill for the China-US relationship. After all, nobody knew for sure what US President Donald Trump had got up his sleeve thanks particularly to his previous harsh remarks on bilateral ties.

Should he seek to change the state of affairs by playing the Taiwan card and undermining the longstanding one-China policy, Sino-US relations will see earthshaking reversals. Which is why it would be unfair to blame people for nitpicking about the formalities. Indeed, the presence or absence of formalities may signify more than people believe.

But the phone conversation between the Chinese and US presidents Thursday night, Washington time went far beyond fulfilling the routine formalities and making up for the once missing symbolism. And that the White House described the phone conversation as "extremely cordial" and said the two presidents extended invitations to each other to visit their respective countries makes it more than the dispensing of a customary act.

Among the "numerous topics" they touched upon during the conversation over the phone, it was Taiwan that mattered the most.

If Mattis' reiteration of US commitment to diplomacy in the South China Sea alleviated fears over a possible China-US conflict there, Trump's latest pledge to honor the one-China policy removed a potentially more dangerous stumbling block for bilateral ties.

Now that the two most inflammable flashpoints in China-US ties have been taken care of, the precious predictability will do more than help allay concerns.

While it is true that either of the two issues could derail and upend the bilateral relationship, result in jitters and even head-on conflict, the constructive approach the Trump administration has finally demonstrated will create endless possibilities for this crucial relationship to grow and prosper, beneficial to the world at large.

This will become even more evident as representatives of both countries "engage in discussions and negotiations on various issues of mutual interest"because their respective interests overlap more than their differences.

Since the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation and the Trump presidency's aspiration to "make America great again" are essentially homogeneous, only cooperation can guarantee the peaceful environment their respective ambitions entail.

If Beijing and Washington can treat each other as "cooperative partners", as President Xi Jinping hopes, and "push bilateral relations to a historic new high", both countries will find themselves better off.

The fear-inspiring Thucydides trap is not inescapable if both Beijing and Washington believe they can win together.
The Japanese embassy in the UK is seen in this file photo taken on March 6, 2008. [Reuters/Toby Melville]

On Jan 29, The Sunday Times reported that the Japanese embassy in Britain had been paying 10,000 ($12,480) a month to Henry Jackson Society, a registered charity, to encourage British politicians and journalists to oppose China's foreign policy. One such opposition came from Britain's former foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind. The headline of the article Rifkind purportedly authored for The Daily Telegraph in August read: "How China could switch off Britain's lights in a crisis if we let them build Hinkley C".

The Henry Jackson Society reportedly approached Rifkind with a prepared article, asking him to read and (if need be) amend it. The Daily Telegraph then published the article with Rifkind's permission.

Since the article was published before Britain gave the go-ahead to China and France to build the Hinckley Point C nuclear power plant, it raised public fears over "backdoor technologies" being introduced in a nuclear power plant.

Was the article aimed at helping Japanese companies, which were also bidding for the project, to bag the deal? And was a Japanese company paying the monthly "honorarium" to the Henry Jackson Society? Either way, the Japanese embassy's deed qualifies as a political scandal.

So far, the Japanese government has kept silent over the incident. The Japanese embassy in Britain told China Daily through an email that it "is not in a position to comment on the article since it is about the activities by a British private entity which do not concern the embassy". And Japanese media outlets have ignored it.

It appears Western think tanks and the Japanese media are not as independent as they claim to be. Money and political clout make a powerful concoction.

Many Chinese people already believe Japan is a past master at striking underhand deals and disowning its contemptible behind-the-curtain actions.

What makes this scandal different, however, is that it has been exposed by a Western media outlet.

Had a Chinese newspaper done so, the Japanese government would probably have trashed the report and accused China of trying to frame it.

But thanks to centuries of China-Japan interactions, the Chinese people are too familiar with these tricksfrom Japan's invasion of Northeast China during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) to the Diaoyu Islands dispute in the East China Sea.

For United States citizens, the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 gave them a taste of this duplicity, which saw overt and amiable Japanese diplomatic talks going on well with covert but intense military preparations till the last minute before the attack. As US anthropologist Ruth Benedict argues in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, such duplicity has its origin in Japanese people's inexplicable, if not congenital, fear of the unknown and the sense of shame that usually comes with failure.

To avoid failure, Japanese people make very thoughtful preparations and plans, but it is very difficult for them to accept failure, even if it is temporary. That the Japanese tend to use many self-deceptive or even immoral practices to hide, dilute or ignore their failuresbe they in war or businessputs them in a state of constant anxiety and nervousness.

In their language, Japanese call the day they surrendered to the Allies in World War II as a day of "war's end"no place for surrender or defeat. But when it comes to victories, they term those against the Qing Dynasty in 1894 and Russia in 1905 as glorious.

Last month, 73-year-old Toshio Motoya, president of APA Group of hotels, and 69-year-old Takashi Kawamura, mayor of Nagoya, denied that the Japanese army had perpetrated the Nanjing Massacre or forced women into sexual slavery during World War II.

Are they really ignorant of history? Or were they trying to whitewash it? And were they whitewashing history because they were defeated in the war or because of the shame of being exposed?

Aping an ostrich is not going to help Japan, especially in its relations with China. Only when it owns up to its war past and accepts China's rise as the present reality can Japan succeed in building a brighter future.

The author is a writer with China Daily. liyang@chinadaily.com.cn
Even before she embarked on what turned out to be a controversial visit to the White House, British Prime Minister Theresa May said she planned an early trip to China that would focus on boosting trade.

There is a slight air of desperation in the May government's haste to reinforce ties with partners both old and new outside Europe as the economic consequences of the electorate's decision to quit the European Union sink in.

She was the first foreign leader to meet US President Donald Trump after his inauguration and secured what she described as his 100 percent commitment to the NATO alliance. However, Trump's subsequent move to ban travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries, announced the day that May left Washington, provoked an outcry in Britain as it did elsewhere.

From her next stop, Turkey, May eventually issued a late-night statement saying she did not agree with the policy, a somewhat lukewarm concession to Trump's critics that nevertheless knocked the gilt off her White House visit.

Since her return home, almost 2 million people have signed a petition opposing the invitation to Trump to make a state visit to the United Kingdom which she had announced in Washington.

State visits of the kind that President Xi Jinping undertook in 2015 routinely include a meeting with Queen Elizabeth as British head of state. Xi's visit included a state banquet which she hosted at Buckingham Palace.

In Trump's case, the petitioners said such a meeting "would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty".

As May was preparing what must now be viewed as her overhasty dash to the White House, she was already courting China. She revealed in an interview with the Financial Times in mid-January that she planned to travel there "relatively soon". She took the opportunity to recall Xi's speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January and China's commitment to free trade.

May followed that up with a Chinese Lunar New Year message to the Chinese in which she heralded a coming year of blossoming ties between the UK and China. "We receive more Chinese investment than any other major European country," she reminded them.

The Washington trip and a Beijing visit"We are looking at what timing would be appropriate," she told the Financial Timesis clearly part of a twin-track policy to extend the UK's relationship with two of its biggest trade partners post-Brexit.

Her challenge is to see if the UK can do better in trade deals with the US and China outside the EU than it would have done as part of a giant 500-million-population trading bloc.

With Trump having broadcast an "America First" strategy that signals a return to protectionism, it seems unlikely Washington will be handing out too many special favors to its close but now diminished ally.

China's continuing commitment to free trade may offer a more promising prospect but, at the very least, May can expect some hard bargaining from Beijing.

In his interview with China Daily this week, Liu Xiaoming, China's ambassador to the UK, said 2017 would be a year for consolidating the "golden era" of relations between the two countries. Elsewhere, however, he noted a potential downside of Brexit for Chinese companies operating in the UK who faced uncertainties around Britain's relationship with the European single market.

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing May's twin-track policy toward Washington and Beijing is the uncertainty about the state of future relations between those two capitals.

Trump's threats of a trade war with China may turn out to be overblown rhetoric once the realities of office take hold. Alternatively, the current antagonism could further worsen with unpredictable consequences.

The UK could find itself caught in the middle. In former times, Britain might have emerged as an honest broker to calm tensions in a troubled world. In the 21st century, that is a role it might have been in a more influential position to play if it had remained within a wider European alliance.

The author is a senior media consultant to China Daily.

harvey.morris@gmail.com
Volunteers take part in firework-free publicity in Sanmenxia's Dazhang Square, Jan 18, 2017. [Photo/Sanmenxia Daily]

A series of recent local regulations targeting civil servants has drawn huge media attention. Kaili, a city in Southwest China's Guizhou province, issued a regulation on banquets which, among other things, says officials can hold a banquet for only their "first marriage".

The regulation says officials should not organize a banquet if they get married a second time (after divorce from or the death of their first spouse) because they cannot have two banquets for the same reason. It also says people should fill out an application form and submit it to the relevant local department saying when they plan to hold a wedding banquet, and the application will be kept by the local disciplinary authority as part of their personal record.

In Binxian county, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, the local government even issued a specific rule that says the prices of cigarettes and wine offered to guests at banquets should not exceed 10 yuan ($1.5) a pack and 100 yuan a bottle.

Before this year's Spring Festival, the local government of Zhenjiang in East China's Jiangsu province issued an order banning government employees from setting off fireworks, in order to "reduce" air pollution.

The original intention of these rules is obviously a response to the austerity campaign launched by the central government in 2012. The campaign has seen thousands of officials being reprimanded or demoted for leading an extravagant lifestyle, including holding lavish banquets.

On important familial and social events such as weddings, the invited guests, out of tradition, offer fenzi (gifted money). So, it appears the Kaili local government's regulation is aimed at preventing officials from making money by holding banquets. And government officials are obliged to set a good example for the public to follow by strictly adhering to the austerity rules.

But administrative efforts to change centuries-old tradition and culture don't seem to be a wise move. Holding banquets on special occasions, even a second marriage, has long been an accepted practice across China. Besides, a local government has no legal basis for setting restrictions on the prices of wine and cigarettes offered at banquets.

Prohibiting civil servants from setting off fireworks, too, appears to be an unwise move. Setting off fireworks during Spring Festival is a tradition that dates back to centuries. Government employees are also social animals, and even though they are obliged to set a good example for the public, they should not be forced through regulations to do so.

Ordering people to abandon centuries-old traditions through administrative orders will raise public concerns.

Moreover, a recent circular from the central government instructed State-owned enterprises and institutions to ensure their employees are not deprived of their legitimate welfare benefits.

By issuing restrictive rules, the local governments have shown they are incapable of curbing extravagance through normal means. It's time such local governments realized the difference between "advocacy" and "regulation" when mapping out their policies.

A more scientific approach would be to encourage, rather than order, public servants to change their lifestyles by abandoning decadent practices and set a good example for the public to follow.

The writer is an editor of China Daily. lifangchao@chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese travelers account for 16.7 percent of the total foreigners visiting Cambodia during the first 10 months of 2016.[Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

China has become the second-largest source of tourists for Cambodia, following Vietnam, according to the China National Tourism Administration

Cambodia is a small country with a long history, and it now has become more appealing to Chinese travelers. The country with its world-famous cultural relics draws Chinese traveling in Southeast Asia.

China has become the second-largest source of tourists for Cambodia, following Vietnam, and Chinese travelers account for 16.7 percent of the total foreigners visiting the country, according to the China National Tourism Administration.

For first-timers, the ruins of the Angkor temples are very important - sometimes they are only reason - to visit the country, and Siem Reap, the gateway to Angkor in northern Cambodia, is often the first stage of their journeys.

The temples, built over the 9-14th centuries, and rediscovered by the French, are visually, architecturally and artistically breathtaking.

As the temple ruins, hidden and spread in the forests and farmland, take up an area too large to be covered in a short time, planning a visit to the Angkor temples always involves making choices, especially if the trip is short.
Beijing is Qantas' third destination in China, in addition to Shanghai and Hong Kong.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Qantas' new service to Beijing took off on Jan 26. The new service aims to help power the Australia-China travel boom and marks the Australian airliner's next step in its Chinese growth strategy.

Beijing is Qantas' third destination in China, in addition to Shanghai and Hong Kong. The new service gives the capital's residents a direct gateway to Australia.

It represents a huge opportunity for the Australian tourism industry and companies doing business in China under a Free Trade Agreement, an official with Qantas says.

Flights to Australia on the new route are timed to connect with Qantas' domestic network to popular onward destinations such as Melbourne, Brisbane and Hobart, as well as the airline's Tasman services to Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown.

Meanwhile, Qantas will be working with Tourism Australia and Destination NSW to draw more Chinese to visit. It will also sell the route with its joint venture partner China Eastern.

Flights operates to Beijing Capital International Airport Terminal 3, using a 235 seat Airbus A330-200 aircraft.

Overall, the service adds 3,300 seats to the market per week.
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The file photo showing Toshiba unveiled the robot on June 30, 2015, which was developed for the investigation of Primary Containment Vessel (PCV) interiors of Unit No 2 at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (Tepco) Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. [Photo/VCG]

A cleaning robot sent into a damaged reactor at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant had to be removed on Thursday before it completed its work because of camera problems most likely caused by high radiation levels.

It was the first time a robot has entered the chamber inside the Unit 2 reactor since a March 2011 earthquake and tsunami critically damaged the Fukushima Da-ichi nuclear plant.

Tokyo Electric Power Co said it was trying to inspect and clean a passage before another robot does a more thorough assessment of damage to the structure and its fuel.

The second robot, known as a "scorpion", will also measure radiation and temperatures.

Thursday's problem underscores the challenges in decommissioning the wrecked nuclear plant. Inadequate cleaning, high radiation and structural damage could limit subsequent probes and might require more radiation-resistant cameras and other equipment, said TEPCO spokesman Takahiro Kimoto.

"We will further study (Thursday's) outcome before deciding on the deployment of the scorpion," he said.

TEPCO needs to know the melted fuel's exact location and condition and other structural damage in each of the three wrecked reactors to figure out the best and safest ways to remove the fuel. It is part of the decommissioning work, which is expected to take decades.

During Thursday's cleaning mission, the robot went only part way into a space under the core that TEPCO wants to inspect closely. It crawled down the passage while peeling debris with a scraper and using water spray to blow some debris away. The dark brown deposits grew thicker and more difficult to remove as the robot went further.

After about two hours, the two cameras on the robot suddenly developed a lot of noise and their images quickly darkened a sign of a problem caused by high radiation.

Operators of the robot pulled it out of the chamber before completely losing control of it.

More obstacles

The outcome means the second robot will encounter more obstacles and have less time than expected for examination on its mission, currently planned for later this month, though Thursday's results may cause a delay.

Both robots are designed to withstand up to 1,000 Sieverts of radiation. The cleaner's two-hour endurance roughly matches an estimated radiation of 650 Sieverts per hour based on noise analysis of the images transmitted by the robot-mounted cameras. That's less than one-tenth of the radiation levels inside a running reactor, but still would kill a person almost instantly.

Kimoto said the noise-based radiation analysis of the Unit 2's condition showed a spike in radioactivity along a connecting bridge used to slide control rods in and out, a sign of a nearby source of high radioactivity.

Levels were much lower in areas underneath the core, the opposite of what would normally be the case. He said the results are puzzling and require further analysis.

TEPCO officials said that despite the dangerously high figures, radiation is not leaking outside of the reactor.

Images from inside the chamber show damage and structures coated with molten material, possibly mixed with melted nuclear fuel, and part of a disc platform hanging below the core that was been melted through.
By Zhao Huanxin in Washington and Zhang Yunbi in Beijing | China Daily | Updated: 2017-02-11 07:13

Japan's prime minister hopes to sell Trump on growth and jobs initiative

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is going into his summit with US President Donald Trump with a plan.

For their meeting on Friday in Washington, Abe is bringing a proposal called the "Japan-US growth and employment initiative".

Abe, the first world leader to meet Trump after the US president's election victory on Nov 8, will lay out a plan for cooperation in infrastructure, robotics and other fields that would generate jobs and create new markets in the US, according to Japanese media reports.

But the visit has more political than economic implications, since both sides will try to strengthen the Japan-US alliance, according to Zhang Jifeng, director of the Japanese economy department at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Japan Studies.

Economically, Zhang said, Trump will push to redress the trade imbalance, but it is not realistic for Abe to make big concessions because he needs to ensure a firm political foundation at home to remain in office.

Japan logged about a $60 billion annual trade surplus with the US. Its largest exporter, the auto industry, has been singled out by Trump for criticism. Meanwhile, Japan is on guard against US agricultural exports, according to Zhang.

Su Xiaohui, an international strategy researcher at the China Institute of International Studies, said she believed that Abe's chief goal in the visit is to build closer personal ties to facilitate further communication.

Last weekend, US Defense Secretary James Mattis claimed that the Diaoyu Islands, an inherent part of the Chinese territory, fell under Article 5 of the US-Japan security treaty, a statement sparking criticism from China.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said that the US-Japan treaty was a product of the Cold War and must not harm China's territorial sovereignty and legitimate rights.

Brad Glosserman, an expert on Japan at the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Pacific Forum in Hawaii, said Abe would want Trump to affirm the solidity of the US commitment.

That will give the US president leverage for more trade and economic concessions from Abe, according to Yang Bojiang, deputy director of the Institute of Japan Studies.

"Abe will give an omiyage (gift) of substantial Japanese investment projects in the US. That will allow the president to claim he is creating jobs and fixing an unfair trade relationship," Glosserman said.

"Early success (in) negotiating with Japan could ... embolden the Trump administration to engage in talks with China at a later time," said Simon Lester, a trade policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. "They may feel that a successful Japan-US trade agreement gives them more leverage over China."

Contact the writers at zhaohuanxin@chinadaily.com.cn and zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn
PARIS - French police foiled "an imminent" terrorist plot after arresting four suspects in the southern town of Montpellier earlier on Friday, French Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux said.

During a raid by anti-terrorism units, four people were detained in and around Montpellier with "three of them are directly suspected of preparing violent action on our territory," Le Roux said in a statement.

"This operation, according to initial indications, has foiled an imminent attack," he added.

Le Roux confirmed three men and a minor female suspect were arrested during the raid in which police found explosives and other bomb-making materials.

One of the suspects was believed to be planning a suicide bombing assault against targets which were not identified yet, according to news channel BFMTV.

The 21-year-old man tried to join insurgents in Syria in November 2015. His 16-year-old girlfriend, the minor female suspect, had recorded on Feb 8 a video in which she pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS).

Recently, an Egyptian national, armed with two machetes, attacked soldiers patrolling the area near Louvre Museum. He slightly injured a serviceman before being seriously shot. He reportedly said he acted alone to avenge Syrian civilians.

Risks of terrorist attacks remain high in France where a state of emergency has been declared after a group of terrorists killed 130 people in a series of explosions and shootings on Nov 13, 2015.

In 2016, police foiled 17 terrorist attacks, according to official data.
Military policemen stand inside their battalion during a police strike in Vitoria, Brazil, February 10, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's President Michel Temer condemned on Friday a week-long police strike in Espirito Santo state which prompted a spike in criminal activities.

It was the first time the president commented on the incident that has sparked violence and chaos.

In a statement released by the presidential office, President Temer described the strike as "illegal" and "unacceptable", accusing it of terrifying local people.

Earlier in the day, the government of Espirito Santo state said it has reached a deal with the striking police officers, who had agreed to return to work starting Saturday morning.

So far the protesters have not confirmed the deal.

Espirito Santo is one of several Brazilian states hit by a budget crisis that is crippling essential public services for millions of citizens.

The police strike over pay during the past week has left a security vacuum. Since the officers walked off their jobs last Saturday, crimes were running rampant across the state, with more than 120 homicides registered in the capital Vitoria alone, and lootings reported by over 300 businesses and shops.

According to Brazil's Globo news website, in the past seven days, the state saw more violent deaths than in the whole February of last year.

With no police patrolling the streets, Brazil's federal government deployed 1,700 military troops to keep order and was planning to raise that number to 3,000 this coming weekend.
ANKARA - Turkey's Supreme Election Board announced on Saturday that a constitutional referendum will be hold on April 16, Turkish broadcaster NTV reported.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan approved constitutional amendments on Friday, which will bring drastic changes to the country's political system, including a shift to an executive presidential system from the current parliamentary system, paving way for a referendum.

On Dec 30, 2016, a constitutional committee of deputies from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) submitted a proposed bill to Parliament for ratification.

The parliament passed the constitutional amendment on Jan 21 in two rounds of voting for 18 articles. A total of 339 deputies voted in favor of the amendment, exceeding the 330-vote threshold to bring it to a referendum.

The constitutional change will bring a shift of regime change in Turkey with a strong partisan presidential system that will take over all authorities of the prime minister and cabinet.

According to the constitutional amendment, the president will exercise all the authorities of the prime minister and cabinet and possess the authority to issue decrees, appoint vice presidents and cabinet members from outside the parliament.
DAMASCUS - Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels entered the city of al-Bab on Saturday, the last stronghold of the Islamic State (IS) group in northern Syria near the Turkish borders, a monitor group reported.

The Turkish forces and the rebels it's backing under the umbrella of the Euphrates Shield succeeded to storm al-Bab after weeks of battles aiming to strip the IS of its largest remaining stronghold near the Turkish borders in the countryside of the northern province of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The UK-based watchdog group said the Turkish forces and allied militants were clashing with the IS in the northern and western part of the city, as the Syrian army is closing in on the city from its southern rim.

While the Turkish forces were on an offensive on IS from the northern, western and eastern part of the city, the Syrian army succeeded recently to besiege al-Bab from its southern edge, a move to prevent IS fighters to withdraw toward other stronghold in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, or the northern city of al-Raqqa, the de facto capital of the terror-designated group.

A military source said on Saturday that the Syrian army is a few kilometers away from al-Bab, adding that IS militants have executed 40 civilians in the city over the past 24 hours, for unclear reasons.

Observers said the attacks on al-Bab were coordinated between the Russians and the Turks, until recently when the Syrian army clashed with the Euphrates Shield rebels near al-Bab, during which the Russian artillery "accidentally" fired and killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded 11 others.

The situation was later contained and the battles were refocused on IS again in al-Bab, which is important for both the Syrian army and the Turkish forces.

For the Syrian army, securing the southern rim of al-Bab means securing the vicinity of the northern city of Aleppo from the attacks of IS.

As for the Turks, capturing the northern part of the city cut the way in the face of the growing Kurdish influence in northern Syria, a red line drawn by Turkey.

Speaking of the Kurds, the complexity of the situation in northern Syria which reflects the conflict in the international interests have apparently delayed the Kurdish growing control, but pushed them to hasten to attack al-Raqqa, the self-declared capital of IS, as by such a move they can make up for the areas Turkey has taken in the north before the Turkey-backed rebels reach al-Raqqa.

The Observatory said Saturday that the Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces are closing in on the outskirts of al-Raqqa city amid battles with the IS.
BAGHDAD - Fierce clashes erupted on Saturday in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Saturday when thousands of demonstrators marched at the entrances of the heavily fortified Green Zone protesting over corruption and demanding a change in the election commission.

The protests began before noon when thousands of people, mainly followers of the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, rallied in Tahrir Square on the eastern bank of the Tigris River which bisects Baghdad, demanding a change in the Independent High Electoral Commission, and arguing that the electoral body is under the influence of leading parties.

The protestors also demanded real and comprehensive reform in the political process in order to fight the wide spread corruption in the country.

In the afternoon, the protestors crossed al-Jamhouriyah Bridge to the western bank of the Tigris and marched at the gates of the Green Zone, which houses the main government offices and foreign embassies.

The security forces warned the protestors not to come closer to the gates of the Green Zone, but clashes soon sparked with security forces, who fired tear gas and shot live ammunition in the air to disperse demonstrators.

Sadr followers held several massive rallies last year. In one occasion the protestors broke into part of the Green Zone, including storming the parliament building.

During the past months, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi made some reforms which were aimed at confronting the country's economic crisis due to the sharp decrease in oil prices in global markets at the time that the security forces are in full-combat with Islamic State terrorist group in the country.

However, Abadi's reforms, first gained popular support, but with the passing of time the reforms fell short to convince demonstrators who continued their protests and demanded that Abadi be more aggressive against the political parties that benefited from corruption and could reverse the reforms to their own good.
RIYADH - Saudi security forces arrested on Saturday morning more than 10 terror suspects during raids in Jeddah and Medina, Sabq local online news portal reported.

The raids took place as part of the preemptive operations to prevent terror plots. No official confirmation was made by the interior ministry yet, although the portal confirmed the confiscations of guns and sharp objects with the arrestees.

Last month, Saudi Arabia arrested 16 terrorists, 3 Saudis and 10 Pakistanis during similar raids in Jeddah, and two extremists killed by the police.

Saudi Arabia has been engaged in a war against terrorism for years, especially the Islamic State militant group.
Chinas Relations With the West: Straight Line Decline

There are those who believe China's ongoing Party Congress will bode well for companies that do business in or with China. I am firmly convinced that the opposite is true and that it will used as yet another opportunity by China to show that it will not be cowered by the declining relations and sanctions/counter-sanctions between the United States / EU / Australia / Japan on the one hand, and China on the other. I see China using this Congress to let the world (domestic and external) know that it fully intends to fight back and fight back hard. In other words, this Party Congress will lead to China's decoupling from much of the world accelerating, not slowing down.
(Photo : Getty Images) The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Hong Kong, Cardinal John Tong, has suggested in a lengthy essay that China and the Vatican are nearing a major breakthrough deal on bishop appointment.

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China and the Vatican are heading towards reconciliation after almost six decades of animosity. This is what head of the Roman Catholic Church in Hong Kong has suggested in a lengthy essay published diocese's website on Thursday.



Cardinal John Tong claims that both China and Vatican are close to a breakthrough deal on Bishop appointment in Mainland China, suggesting that the Pope could retain the veto power of Bishop appointment under the new arrangement.



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However, Cardinal Tong did not shed much light on the details of the proposed deal.



Vatican spokesman Greg Burke on Friday confirmed that the talks with Beijing were "a work in progress," but refused to comment anything further.



Many have shrugged off Tong's views in the essay as his personal opinion. However, others have noted that it could indeed be an insight into developments between China and the Vatican.



The issue of Bishop appointment is apparently the bone of contention in the decades-long dispute between the two countries. Beijing snatched the authority of appointment from the Holy See in 1951 and since then has maintained a monopoly over the issue.



The Vatican and China pursued series of quiet negotiations during the late 1980's to resolve the contentious issue. Both countries even reached an informal deal for the mutual recognition of Bishops. However, Beijing has been accused of violating the deal by unilaterally ordaining Bishops without Rome's official consent.



If the breakthrough deal is sealed during the on-going negotiation, then it would be seen as a major diplomatic victory for Pope Francis, who has been desperately seeking to improve ties with the world's most populous nation. Unlike most of his predecessors, he has not been very critical of China's so-called human right violations record and also has been less enthusiastic in meeting the controversial spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.



However, Pope Francis' eagerness to improve ties with Beijing has met with stinging criticisms from several Catholic churches across Mainland China. They claim that Rome is likely to compromise on several key issues in its eagerness to improve ties with the Chinese government.



The Vatican's diplomatic relation with Taiwan is also likely to become a bone of contention if the breakthrough deal is sealed. The Vatican is apparently the only European country that officially recognizes Taiwan.



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TagsChina and Vatican, Vatican, china, roman catholic church, Pope Francis China
(Photo : Getty Images) China has expelled 32 South Korean Christian missionaries, after carrying out a sudden raid in the countrys improvised north-eastern region of Yanji.

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Nearly 32 South Korean Christian missionaries have been expelled from China following a sudden raid in the country's improvised north-eastern region of Yanji. The raid comes at a time when Beijing is upping the antic against South Korea over its planned deployment of the US' anti-ballistic missile in the Korean Peninsula.



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The 32 Christian missionaries were forced to leave China in the month of January, people familiar with the matter have said, with one source claiming that the number of Christian missionaries fleeing the country is as high as 60.



South Korea's foreign ministry has also confirmed that the missionaries left China in the month of January, adding that the government has updated local Christian groups about the incident.



Over the past couple of months, Beijing has been pursuing retaliatory measures against its Korean neighbor, as Seoul gets ready to deploy the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile system on its territory.



The Chinese government is against the deployment of the missile system, arguing that such a provocative move will further heighten tensions in the Korean Peninsula.



China's Christian Community may raise Concerns



Meanwhile, the local Christian community is expected to react sharply to the reports of 32 Christian missionaries fleeing the country. The Chinese government remains under the scanner of international organizations over its treatment of religious minorities.



China is believed to be home to about 100 million Christians, with more than 80 percent of the population reportedly professing their loyalty to China's Communist Party. Some experts have argued that if the country's Christian population continues to grow at current pace, then the Asian giant will become home to largest Christian population in next 15 years.



The Chinese government is currently busy pursuing a major deal with the Vatican in a bid to improve its image in the Catholic world. If this breakthrough deal is sealed, Pope Francis will enjoy complete control over the appointment of Bishops across Mainland China.



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Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH

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

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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

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
home World Chinese authorities prosecute Christian for alleged involvement in 'evil cult'

A member of an unofficial Protestant church in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan is being prosecuted by the authorities for allegedly organizing and taking part in the activities of an "evil cult."

Tu Yan, who was initially detained three months ago, denied the charges, saying she is simply a Christian believer. Her lawyer, Ren Quanniu, said that she was accused of being a member of the Three Teams of Servants Church, which is considered as "heretical" by the authorities.

"They are saying that she's a Three Teams of Servants member, but naturally Tu Yan denies this," Ren told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. "The state security police were insistent that she be prosecuted on these charges on the basis that she is party of the Three Teams of Servants, which is designated an evil cult," he added.

Tu's father, Tu Lijun, said that he was not allowed to visit his daughter in detention. Ren said that the authorities also denied him permission to see his client.

"Back then I applied for bail for Tu Yan, for a second time, but they haven't approved my application," he narrated. "After New Year, I got a phone call from the state security police saying that the case had already been transferred for prosecution, which was followed up with a written notification," he continued.

The U.S.-based Christian rights group China Aid reported last December that four other church members have been detained along with Tu. Local Christians however, claimed that as many as 12 people were taken into custody.

Tu's sister, Tu Kui, said that the other Christians who have been detained in Yunnan on similar charges have already been released. She expressed her belief that her sister is being used as an example to pressure other unofficial churches to register with the government's Three-Self Patriotic Association.

In November, the police detained eight Christians in Yunnan's capital of Kunming on similar charges. The Christians have been accused of belonging to the Shouters, a Christian sect that originated from Taiwan and designated as a cult by the Chinese government. However, Xu Yonghai, the pastor of Holy Love Fellowship in Beijing, maintained that it is a Christian denomination.
How A Church Is Bringing Light To Its Community In Uganda's Rwenzori Mountains

When one simple action raises money, helps people's lungs, gives children a better chance at an education and introduces people to Jesus as Lord, it's probably worth doing. That's what one Ugandan Christian thinks about a solar panel project he has helped to bring to a rural mountain village.

The solar powered light that has transformed the life of Kayanji Baptist Church, nestled in western Uganda's Rwenzori Mountains, was installed three years ago through a project funded by UK charity BMS World Mission. Since the solar power was given to the church, its membership has more than doubled  from 30 to 80 people.

'The Bible says, "Let there be light,"' says Isaiah Thembo, a local BMS worker and the man who helped to install the lighting. 'Through the project, people are coming to see that God is love, because the church is connecting the community to God.'

Kayanji village used to be plunged into darkness when the sun went down, but now the Baptist church is sharing the light.

It opens its doors every evening for people to come and use the light to read and to study  the whole village is welcome. The pastor also uses the light to run a Bible study every morning, that more and more members of the community are attending. In addition, the solar power is used for people to charge their mobile phones, at a small cost. The money raised through phone-charging maintains the church and is used to help struggling people in the community, such as widows and orphans.

Only seven per cent of the whole of Kasese District, of which Kayanji village is a part, has mains electricity. For the vast majority of the district, the only source of light is by burning kerosene lanterns or candles. Until a few years ago, this is what everyone in Kayanji village was doing. But kerosene is expensive and dangerous. It produces a dim light and toxic smoke, which irritates the eyes and skin and is a major cause of both respiratory diseases and harmful CO2 emissions.

In a country that is in darkness for nearly 12 hours a day, a safe source of light can completely change people's quality of life.

'My kids come here for [school] preparation every evening,' says father-of-10 Kambala Limengo. Kambala is a member of Kayanji Baptist Church and is excited about the change the solar project has had, both for his family and for the wider community. 'Our children used to learn from home using candles,' he says. 'But this solar light is bright, and it doesn't give out smoke  it doesn't use firewood or kerosene to burn, it is just using the sun.'

Another father, Kahoja Murugire, who has nine children, is also thankful for the light and the opportunities it is bringing. 'This solar has a bright light, and it does not spoil eyes,' he says. 'I think it is going to help my children, because they come here daily. I am giving a lot of thanks for this light.'

Church members like Kambala and Kahoja believe that the huge growth in the church is a direct result of the light. 'We are seeing new members in the church because of this project,' says Kambala. 'When it is dark, these newcomers come in. And then the pastor meets them for a Bible study and it changes their lives.

'They are seeing that love is here.'

Kayanji is one of eight rural villages that have had their churches and their evenings transformed thanks to this BMS World Mission solar project. The lights are helping children thrive at school, they are providing income for practical outreach into the community and, perhaps most exciting of all, they are providing a way to introduce people to the Light of the World.
Hundreds Of US Immigrants Arrested In Enforcement Surge

US federal immigration agents arrested hundreds of undocumented immigrants in at least four states this week inwhat officials on Friday called routine enforcement actions.

Reports of immigration sweeps this week sparked concern among immigration advocates and families, coming on the heels of President Donald Trump's executive order barring refugees and immigrants from seven majority-Muslim nations. That order is currently on hold.

'The fear coursing through immigrant homes and the native-born Americans who love immigrants as friends and family is palpable,' Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, said in a statement. 'Reports of raids in immigrant communities are a grave concern.'

The enforcement actions took place in Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and surrounding areas, said David Marin, director of enforcement and removal for the Los Angeles field office of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Only five of 161 people arrested in Southern California would not have been enforcement priorities under the Obama administration, he said.

The agency did not release a total number of detainees. The Atlanta office, which covers three states, arrested 200 people, Bryan Cox, a spokesman for the office, said. The 161 arrests in the Los Angeles area were made in a region that included seven highly populated counties, Marin said.

Marin called the five-day operation an 'enforcement surge.'

In a conference call with reporters, he said that such actions were routine, pointing to one last summer in Los Angeles under former President Barack Obama.

'The rash of these recent reports about ICE checkpoints and random sweeps, that's all false and that's dangerous and irresponsible,' Marin said. 'Reports like that create a panic.'

He said that of the people arrested in Southern California, only 10 did not have criminal records. Of those, five had prior deportation orders.

Michael Kagan, a professor of immigration law at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, said immigration advocates are concerned that the arrests could signal the beginning of more aggressive enforcement and increased deportations under Trump.

'It sounds as if the majority are people who would have been priorities under Obama as well,' Kagan said in a telephone interview. 'But the others may indicate the first edge of a new wave of arrests and deportations.'

Trump recently broadened the categories of people who could be targeted for immigration enforcement to anyone who had been charged with a crime, removing an Obama-era exception for people convicted of traffic misdemeanours, Kagan said.
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A handful of old-timers in Beaumont were witnesses to rock and roll history 47 years ago this week and they likely don't remember a darn thing about the night.

But what they saw changed the course of Texas rock for decades.

On this date in February 1970, ZZ Top played at a Knights of Columbus Hall on old U.S. 90, a gig booked by Beaumont radio personality Al Caldwell of KLVI, who would later also broadcast the band's first recordings.

This would be the bands first show together with their now-iconic lineup of Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard installed. Gibbons started the band in late 1969 and the pieces soon came together.

FARRAH HAD IT: The hidden Houston connection to a classic R&B radio hit

Houston fans will get to see ZZ Top back in action next month as the band is slated to play RodeoHouston on Tuesday, March 21 at NRG Stadium. The band turned in a raucous set last weekend at Super Bowl Live festivities in downtown Houston.

Back in 2015 bassist Hill told Chron.com via email that he had to borrow a pivotal piece of stage equipment to play the show.

"I had to borrow a bass for that gig. I didn't actually own one. It was the Knights of Columbus Hall and though I didn't meet any knights or royalty, there were a lot of cool people who came out to hear us play," Hill wrote. "And so it began..."

In those early days they also played a handful of proms and sanctioned high school parties, probably warping hundreds of young Texans for decades to come.

THE VERY FIRST TOP: The story of ZZ Tops first album

A picture of the band at the Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School prom in Orange made the rounds years back over on Reddit. Its probably the closest picture one will find of the band when it was just a few months old. A yearbook club error had them billed as Zee Zee Top in the photo.

A year or so after that first gig in Beaumont the band released its debut album simply titled ZZ Tops First Album on U.K. label London Records.
Health officials in Galveston County were awarded a $613,000 federal grant to use to fight the spread of the Zika virus. In 2016, the county reported at least nine cases of the nearly 100 virus cases to hit the Houston region.

The funding is a portion of $9.7 million the Texas Department of State Health Services is allocating to local health departments for Zika-related prevention. Approval to move forward is expected by March and the funding runs through mid-2018.
The Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce has raised $615,000 in its campaign to expand economic development and to better brand the community.

It is part of the chamber's Grow Northwest capital campaign launched with the goal of raising $2 million to address community issues such as community branding, safety and security and economic development, said Barbara Thomason, president of the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce.

The first goal of the capital campaign will be to add new signs to identify Cypress Creek neighborhoods. The chamber will start with two signs bookending the Cypress Creek Cultural District.

"These community monument signs are a pivotal part of launching the effort to brand our Great Northwest community," said Clara Lewis, vice president and director of the Cypress Creek Cultural District. "We are anxiously awaiting this great new era of awareness throughout our community of all the exceptional amenities available within the Cypress Creek Cultural District that the new monument signs will help facilitate."

The Cypress Creek Cultural District completed the fundraising for the Cultural District monument signs early last year, Lewis said.

The Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce has been working with the county, HOA and water districts to coordinate installation.

Other signs will be installed as additional funds are raised. The signs will say "Cypress Creek Community" and will then include an identifier such as Gleannloch Farms, Champions or Klein.

The sign campaign will help give the community identity, Lewis said. In addition, the signs will help bring the community together, she said.

The signs will start with the cultural district because it is the center of the community, Lewis said.

The district includes the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Art, the Centrum, Barbara Bush Library, Cypress Creek Community Center and the Harris County Precinct 4 Courthouse.

To help with funding the capital campaign, the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce has added a fundraising component to utility bills in the region, asking area businesses and residents to contribute $2 for the branding campaign through their water bills.

The capital campaign will continue through the first half of 2017.

"We are encouraged that despite all the many fundraising campaigns that take place in this community, that our major employers have decided that Grow Northwest represents a significant return-on-investment for them," Thomason said in a statement. "We are grateful for their understanding and support of community and economic development."

The Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce received a grant from the Houston-Galveston Area Council to conduct a study on revitalizing the region, and one of the ideas out of the study was to install the unifying signs.

The Cypress Creek Livable Centers study focused on the area of Cypress Creek Parkway, also known as FM 1960 West, and the intersections of Kuykendahl Road and Ella Boulevard. It encompasses a 1,600-acre area and includes areas of single-family homes for around 6,100 residents.

The plan calls for creating an effective use of space that includes transforming abandoned shopping centers, and underused parking lots into green space, and thriving and aesthetically pleasing economic centers; adding trees and sidewalks along the corridor for walkability and helping to create future building and design standards for the corridor.

The stakeholders group, which consists of the chamber, the Ponderosa Forest Utility District and the Cypress Creek Parkway Property and Business Owner's Association, was awarded a $125,000 grant from the H-GAC to conduct the study.

Grow Northwest

The Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce has raised $615,000 in its Grow Northwest capital campaign.

The chamber's goal is to raise $2 million to address community issues such as community branding, safety and security and economic development.

The first goal of the capital campaign will be to add new signs to identify Cypress Creek neighborhoods. The chamber will start with two signs bookending the Cypress Creek Cultural District.

For more information about Grow Northwest Houston, visit http://growhoustonnw.com/
Elections of Board of Chamber of Advocates do not pass smoothly (video)

Armenian advocates today are electing Board of the Chamber of Advocates. 39 candidates put their candidacy, 12 out of whom will be included in that body. The voting has kicked off in the morning but isnt passing smoothly. A1+ witnessed an incident. One of the observers of Europe in Law NGO noted a violation in the actions of one of the advocates, who was trying to vote. In reply to the warning, the advocate himself made a remark to the observer, This girl doesnt understand. You dont understand and continue Observer Lilith Gevorgyan told about the incident, The reason for the incident was that I simply asked not to hinder the voters. The advocate, who was standing between two voting booths, expressed anger and said that he hadnt violated the rule. He mentioned another reason for violations, Peoples accumulations is the main reason for violations. There are too many voters both inside and outside, we are not able to control the flow. Aramaz Kiviryan, trustee of the advocate Dianna Grigoryan, expressed hope that as a result of elections truly quality board will be established, As an advocate I am not pleased with the board, which exists today, the other advocates too. I hope the situation will change. To note, the number of advocates having license in Armenia is 1779. They all have a right to participate in the elections of the head bodies of the Chamber. The advocates today will also hold elections of the people preparing disciplinary activities. Though 20 posts are vacant, the number of candidates is less- 18. The results of the voting will be announced on Sunday. Watch detail in the video!
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Lone Star College-Kingwood will host an immigration workshop to address questions surrounding the recent executive order, "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States," Tuesday, Feb. 21 from 3-5 p.m. in the Student Conference Center.

The workshop is one in a series that will occur across Lone Star College System campuses the week of Feb. 20.

The workshop series is being held at the request of students and their families for more information about the impacts of the order.

"We received requests from students and families, so we wanted to try to bring some clarity to the issues," Dr. Alicia Harvey-Smith, LSC Executive Vice Chancellor of Academic and Student Affairs, said. "Things are rapidly changing and our students were concerned about what all of the changes meant for them and their families. We thought the best way to address their concern is to provide information forums at each of the campuses."

With approximately 3,000 international students from over 100 countries, LSC reports that there are at least six students enrolled who are from the countries specified in the executive order.

"LSC is diverse and welcoming institution. We have international students from over 100 different countries," Harvey-Smith said. "I'm sure at each of our campuses there are students who have been impacted either directly or indirectly. That's why we decided to host these at all campuses. And, students who are unable to attend their campus' workshop have the opportunity to go to another campus' workshop that fits in their schedule."

The workshops will have qualified immigration attorneys available to answer questions and discuss how the executive order may impact various communities.

People are invited to bring question for a question and answer session. Harvey-Smith explained that LSC hopes to compile recorded answers from the workshops into a public service announcement to post on the website.

"We want to make sure our community is as up-to-date as possible," Harvey-Smith said. "We have attorneys prepared to answer questions. This is a good opportunity for students and the community to learn more about this topic."

The workshops are free and open to the community.

"The audience is anyone who's interested," Harvey-Smith said. "We want to be a source of information for students and their families. It's not about targeting a certain student group; it's about providing a free opportunity for additional information."

Immigration Workshops Schedule:

Monday, Feb. 20:

12:30-2:30 p.m.  LSC-Tomball, North Hall 103

3-5 p.m.  LSC-University Park, West Dining Room

Tuesday, Feb. 21:

3-5 p.m.  LSC-Kingwood, Student Conference Center

6-8 p.m.  LSC-North Harris, Academic Building 126

Thursday, Feb. 23

3-5 p.m.  LSC-Montgomery, General Academic Center Building 102

Friday, Feb. 24

1:30-3:30 p.m.  LSC-CyFair, Center for the Arts 111

For more information about LSC- Kingwood, visit http://www.lonestar.edu/kingwood.htm.
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When former NASA astronaut Captain Robert L Crippen asked the students of Crippen Elementary School how many of them wanted to be astronauts, dozens of little hands rocketed into the air.

Crippen Elementary School in New Caney Independent School District was named after Captain Crippen, who grew up in Porter and graduated from New Caney High School in 1955.

"I grew up in Porter," Crippen said. "It was not the same town it is now. It was a little country town back then. In fact, the only school building we had was in New Caney. We had first (grade) through twelfth (grade) all in that one building."

Crippen was the guest of honor during the Robert L Crippen Elementary 20th Anniversary Celebration at the elementary campus Feb. 8, where he spoke to students at the elementary school campus about goal-setting and the importance of education.

"One of the reasons I'm so proud to have my name on your school is I'm a strong believer in education," Crippen said. "Education is what will allow you to achieve goals. It is important that you have goals. Just to finish up to the school year is a goal. To finish elementary school; to finish middle school; to finish high school and go on from there."

Among his numerous contributions to the field of astronautics, Crippen piloted the first manned space shuttle, Shuttle Columbia, in 1981, and served as Commander of three following missions.

Crippen has worked alongside several other renowned astronauts, including Sally Ride.

"Girls can be astronauts too," Crippen said. "When I started flying, women didn't think they could be, but Sally Ride, who was the first woman from the U.S. to fly in space, flew with me on her initial flight and also on a second flight; and we have a woman commander for the International Space Station at this time. Nothing is beyond your reach."

Crippen recalled the exciting an unusual experience of being in space, including weightlessness and the breathtaking view of the earth from space.

"Most of the astronauts would spend all their time staring out the window if they didn't have to work," Crippen said. "It's a beautiful place to watch. You go around the earth once every hour, so you get a chance to see most of the earth. It's a beautiful place we live on and it's one we need to take care of."

Students in the National Elementary Honors Society presented Captain Crippen with a book made by Crippen Elementary School students in honor of his visit to their school and New Caney ISD Superintendent Kenn Franklin presented him with a Distinguished Graduate Award from New Caney ISD.

Crippen Elementary Principal Crystal Mayes presented Crippen an action figure with a special story.

"I was pleased and surprised to find out when I started as principal here that there were only a few GI Joe dolls named after a select few American Heroes," said Mayes.

Captain Crippen was one of those heroes. The school purchased the action figure and the students voted to name him Robert. The Robert Crippen action figure has traveled with teachers and taken photos in locations around the world including the Eiffel Tower, Harvard University, Spain and Jerusalem.

The ceremony ended and students lined the hallways of Crippen Elementary. The waved American flags and chanted Crippen's name as he toured the school.

After the tour, Crippen joined guests in the school library for a reception. Guests included his family, friends, New Caney ISD representatives and even fellow graduates of New Caney High School class of 1995.

Crippen's journey from Porter to space may serve as inspiration for New Caney ISD students for years to come.

"I have enjoyed all the things I've had a chance to do in the space program," Crippen said. "My education starting out here in the New Caney school district is what allowed me to do it."

To view a video about Robert L. Crippen featuring Crippen Elementary School students visit http://www.newcaneyisd.org/domain/188.
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.
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Retail group predicts spirited season Store executives are in a merry mood amid forecast of 4.1% sales increase

The National Retail Federation expects retail sales to grow by "at least 3.7 percent, and potentially as high as 4.2 percent" for the 2017 retail year that started this month. That estimate doesn't include automobiles, gasoline stations or restaurants, but it does include online sales. Online sales by themselves are expected to increase between 8 percent and 12 percent in 2017.

(Lisa DeJong, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The National Retail Federation is unabashedly optimistic about this year's retail sales, forecasting they will grow by "at least 3.7 percent, and potentially as high as 4.2 percent" for the 2017 retail year that started this month.

That's a noticeable improvement over the 3.75 percent increase in 2016, as well as the 3.4 percent growth in 2015.

Those estimates don't include automobiles, gasoline stations or restaurants, but they do include online sales. Online sales broken out by themselves are expected to increase between 8 percent and 12 percent.

National Retail Federation President and CEO Matthew Shay

"The economy is on firm ground as we head into 2017 and is expected to build on the momentum we saw late last year," NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. "With jobs and income growing and debt relatively low, the fundamentals are in place and the consumer is in the driver's seat.

"But this year is unlike any other - while consumers have strength they haven't had in the past, they will remain hesitant to spend until they have more certainty about policy changes on taxes, trade and other issues being debated in Congress," he said.

"Lawmakers should take note and stand firm against any policies, rules or regulations that would increase the cost of everyday goods for American consumers," he said, in a reference to the border adjustment tax on imports.

Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation, the world's largest retail trade association, said the retail forecast is still not at the rate that everyone would like to see, but it is building slowly and "trending in the right direction."

He pointed to the steady increase in economic momentum during 2016, which started out slowly, but rebounded in the summer and third quarter, before wrapping up with a solid holiday shopping season. Not only did employment increase over the past year, but wages started inching back up as well, he said.

Jack Kleinhenz, Cleveland-based chief economist for the National Retail Federation.

Jack Kleinhenz, the Cleveland-based chief economist for the National Retail Federation, pointed out that last month, payroll employment increased by 227,000 jobs, and employment has grown by an average of 183,000 over the past three months. The labor participation rate also moved up, to 62.9 percent.

"More jobs and more income will result in more spending," he said. "The economy is in a much better place than even a year ago."

Among other sunny economic signs:

-- The Consumer Confidence Index has settled down to 111.8 in January, down slightly from the 15-year high of 113.3 it hit in December, but it remains high.

-- That also bodes well in terms of the labor market, he said, citing 5.2 million job openings nationwide.

-- Consumers are using their credit cards and are expected to continue doing so, in another sign of greater consumer confidence, he said.

-- Housing prices are up 5.6 percent year over year, according to Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which also gives consumer households confidence in their ability to spend. He said the outlook for the housing sector was very positive, which could mean strong demand for furniture, construction, and building materials.

Although demand for home improvement, electronics and apparel will remain strong, whether those industries will grow remains unclear because of retailers' power to raise prices has become more difficult, NRF said.

"It is clear that online sales will continue to expand in 2017 and provide growth for the retail industry," Kleinhenz said. "But it is important to realize that virtually major retailer sells online, and many of those sales will be made by discount stores, department stores and other traditional retailers. Retailers sell to consumers however they want to buy, whether it's in-store, online or mobile."

Going forward, NRF expects the economy to gain an average of about 160,000 jobs a month, down slightly from 2016 but still a growing labor market.

It also expects the unemployment rate to drop to 4.6 percent by the end of the year, with economic growth in the range of 1.9 percent to 2.4 percent.

Nevertheless, Shay said that consumers are likely to remain cautious about spending, "until there's greater clarity" on some lingering fiscal issues such as trade, healthcare, and tax reform.

"There are dramatic potential upsides here if things are handled the right way, so we remain very, very optimistic about the potential to get the economy moving forward for the first time in nearly a decade," Shay added.

"We believe that comprehensive, meaningful tax reform is absolutely essential in this country," he said. But he said a the "so-called border adjustment tax [on imported goods] would have the ultimate effect of raising prices for the middle class and working class."

At the end of the NRF presentation, when a journalist asked how retailers felt about operating in an environment where President Trump had just criticized Nordstrom for dropping his daughter Ivanka's clothing line, Shay did not directly comment on the Nordstrom controversy but said: "We've been encouraged all along," because Donald Trump is "a businessman and a retailer."

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

Shay said Trump is clearly a different kind of chief executive, one who likes communicating directly with people and expressing his opinions. "His instincts are very good," Shay added. "He's very much in touch with the voters in this country."

He said retailers are very much engaged in what's going on with the incoming administration and with Congress. "This is an environment where if you're not at the table, you're on the menu," he said.

"They're optimistic about the potential, for the first time in many years, to see their issues addressed in a way that will create jobs."
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Former Summit County Councilwoman Tamela Lee was convicted Friday of six charges related to corruption after prosecutors said she took bribes from a convenience store owner in exchange for political favors.

Lee, 58, took money, food and cigarettes from Omar Abdelqader -- who is affiliated with multiple convenience stores and businesses in the Akron area, including a Bi Rite on Diagonal Road -- in exchange for her intervention in criminal case involving his nephews. She also wrote a letter of support to the IRS for George Albanna, the owner of Prestige Auto Group in Tallmadge who was under investigation at the time.

It took the jury less than two hours to deliver its verdict in the weeklong trial. Lee was found guilty of two conspiracy counts, honest services mail fraud, Hobbs Act bribery, obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI.

She faces up to a decade in prison. U.S. District Judge Christopher Boyko will sentence her May 26. She is free on bond.

The verdict cements a fall for Lee, who was once the second in command for the Summit County Democratic Party. She was on the County Council from 2011 to 2016, and lost her seat in a primary race last year.

Lee acted in disbelief as Boyko read the verdict, and each juror affirmed his or her decision. She fell into her chair, put her hands on her head and said "oh my God." Her loved ones comforted her after the trial ended.

"This is a public official who used her office to line her pockets and fill her bank account," U.S. Attorney Carole Rendon said in a statement released shortly after the trial ended. "She violated the public's trust and will now have to answer for her actions."

Timothy Ivey, Lee's federal public defender, said he was disappointed in the verdict. He said Lee would pursue an appeal.

FBI agents built their case by tapping Lee and Abdelqader's cellphones. They also conducted surveillance on Lee and Abdelqader as they met up and exchanged money, and even had George Albanna's father Malek Albanna wear a wire.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Hollingsworth said during his closing arguments that Lee characterized the money and items Abdelqader gave her as campaign donations, but the money always went into her personal bank account. He said Lee did not know Abdelqader nephews when she made phone calls to prosecutors and judges to try to intervene in their cases.

Nor did she know George Albanna, but she sent a letter at Abdelqader's request.

Hollingsworth played back phone calls and read transcripts of calls captured on an FBI wiretap that he said proved both Lee and Abdelqader knew exactly what they were doing.

In one call, when a friend told Lee that Abdelqader must like him, she responded by saying "No. Omar ask me for more damn favors." She later said it's because "him and his people, them folks always in trouble."

Hollingsworth said, "she used him for cash. He used her for political influence."

Ivey told the jury the calls prosecutors played to the jury did not show a conspiracy but rather conversations between friends. Abdelqader knew Lee through her husband, and Ivey said Abdelqader was helping Lee out while her husband was in Yemen for three months.

He said Lee is entitled to have a private life, and the conversations were being mischaracterized by the government as a grand conspiracy.

"This is the type of conversation a person has with a friend, not some clandestine bribe situation," Ivey said.

Abdelqader pleaded guilty in January to six federal charges. His brother, Abdelrahman Abdelqader, also pleaded guilty to corruption-related charges. Both will be sentenced in May.

Samir Abdelqader, Omar Abdelqader's nephew, pleaded guilty last year to making false statements to the FBI. Boyko placed him on three years' probation.

This story has been updated to correct Omar Abdelqader's correct affiliation with a Bi Rite convenience story in Akron.

If you would like to comment on this story, please visit Friday's crime and courts comments section.
RTA in Public Square

Bus stops on Public Square are closed on Jan. 2, 2017. (Lisa DeJong/The Plain Dealer)

(Lisa DeJong)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The city of Cleveland does not plan to reopen Public Square to buses by Monday as the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority requested.

City officials say they won't reopen the square while they still are in discussions with RTA on "financial, transportation and security issues" related to the square.

RTA General Counsel Sheryl King Benford on Feb. 6 sent a letter to the city requesting that Public Square be reopened to buses by Feb. 13.

In response, Richard Horvath, chief corporate counsel of the city's civil division, wrote in a Feb. 10 letter to Benford, "These ongoing discussions supersede the requests made in your letter and constitute the city's response to your requests."

Horvath's letter also addressed issues about indemnification Benford raised in a Jan. 31 letter to Barbara Langhenry, the city's law director.

Benford had said RTA didn't have the authority to absolve the city from any legal responsibility if anything were to happen on the square because bus traffic was permitted to cross the space.

She was responding to comments Darnell Brown, the city's chief operating officer, made about indemnification during a Jan. 30 meeting between the city and RTA. Brown had said the city would want RTA to "hold the city harmless from any liability for third party claims arising out of a decision to open Superior Avenue at Public Square to vehicle traffic."

But Horvath, disagreeing with Benford, argued that RTA does have the authority enter into a contract holding the city harmless from legal responsibility for reopening the square.

The square has been closed to buses since Aug. 1, when Mayor Frank Jackson chose to ban them in favor of a unified Public Square. Jackson has said he would reopen the square to bus traffic if there was no way to keep it closed without harming RTA's operations or bottom line, and if RTA addresses the city's safety concerns.

RTA is on the clock from the Federal Transit Administration to either reopen Superior Avenue through the square to buses or to repay $12 million in federal grants it received for the the Euclid Corridor Transportation Project by Feb. 21.

Because the city will not permit buses to cross Public Square, RTA is not upholding its end of a funding deal it made for the Euclid Corridor Transportation Project, the FTA asserts. The Euclid Corridor Transportation Project established the HealthLine, which runs down Euclid Avenue and ends in Public Square.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Cleveland man charged with killing an State Highway Patrol trooper was released from the Cuyahoga County Jail Friday night, according to court records and his attorney.

Josh Gaspar, 37, is charged with aggravated vehicular homicide in the death of trooper Kenneth Velez. The crash happened on Interstate 90 near the Cleveland-Lakewood border. The father of three was killed by the impact.

Officials have said that Gaspar was under the influence of drugs when the crash happened. Defense attorney Jonathan Sinn vehemently denied that accusation and said that he and his client intends to take the case to trial. The trial is scheduled to begin March 1, but will likely be pushed back, Sinn said.

"He's getting out. He's going back to work, and he's trying to get his life back together," Sinn said.

Sinn noted that Gaspar posted 10 percent of his $500,000 bond in early July, but he remained in jail because he was on probation from a 2014 conviction in Alabama where he sold prescription drugs to an undercover informant. Securing his release in Cuyahoga County required a hearing in Alabama, Sinn said.

Gaspar's release comes with a slew of conditions. He'll be required to wear a GPS monitor and he's not allowed to leave Cuyahoga and Summit counties. He'll also undergo regular drug testing. He was also required to surrender his passport.
Kevin McKinney

Opening statements began Friday in the trial of Kevin McKinney, who faces aggravated murder and conspiracy charges in the June 2015 killing of a witness against McKinney's brother, Douglas Shine Jr.

(Cory Shaffer, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A prosecutor and a defense lawyer on Friday each called the case against a man accused in a conspiracy that resulted in the death of a key witness in a triple murder at a Warrensville Heights barbershop an "attack on the criminal justice system."

But each claimed it was an attack for very different reasons.

Kevin "Buffy" McKinney, 31, is accused of plotting the death of Aaron "Pudge" Ladson who was a state witness in the 2015 gang-related triple murder at the Chalk Linez barbershop.

Assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor Andy Santoli in opening statements said that McKinney helped hatch a plot, along with his younger brother Douglas Shine Jr., to hire a third man to kill Ladson to prevent him from testifying against Shine at trial.

"What this case is about is an attack on our criminal justice system," Santoli told the jurors. "It's about an attack on our constitution, and our community, to conspire to execute and eliminate a state's witness."

Shine was eventually sentenced to life in prison in December after he was convicted of a string of shootings including the Feb. 5, 2015 killing of William Gonzalez, Walter Barfield and Brandon White. Shine was also convicted of conspiracy to kill Ladson, who was White's brother.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Saffold characterized the state's case as weak and relies solely on circumstantial evidence. He noted that investigators never found the gun used in Ladson's death, or any physical evidence like fingerprints or DNA that tied McKinney to Ladson's death.

"This is a murder, and it's still unsolved," Ladson said. "That's the real attack on justice."

Prosecutors are expected to rely on a great deal of evidence from Shine's trial to lay the foundation for the conspiracy charge against McKinney.

Ladson was in a car outside the barbershop when he told police that he watched Shine leave the shop with pistols. He later told investigators that Shine stopped at the car and told him "I spared your life." Shine threatened him in phone calls later that night, police said.

Shine and McKinney came to believe that he was the only witness that the prosecution had, Santoli said.

McKinney ran into Ladson at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center several weeks after Shine's arrret and called him a "snitch," Santoli said.

A series of recorded phone calls between Shine in the Cuyahoga County Jail and McKinney show that the two men discussed how to find Ladson's name and address in court records. They used a burner phone to text Ladson's address to Lawrence Kennedy, and McKinney received a text message from Kennedy minutes after Ladson was killed that said "checkmate," Santoli said.

Santoli said phone records, including data gleaned from cellphone towers, will show that the burner phone and McKinney's phone were near the same location in the weeks leading up to Ladson's death.

Saffold sought to separate McKinney, whose nickname was Buffy, from his younger brother Shine, saying that McKinney moved out of the home when Shine was 6 or 7 years old, before Shine's stints in youth prisons began.

When McKinney found out Shine was accused of killing three people inside the barbershop, he couldn't believe it, Saffold said. He "didn't give up" on Shine and continued to talk to him in jail, Saffold said. Then, police and prosecutors began listening to their conversations.

"Maybe the mistake Buffy made was he continued to maintain a relationship with Duke," Saffold said, referring to McKinney and Shine by their nicknames.

Prosecutors are asking jurors to "lower the standard" of convicting a man of murder by not presenting physical evidence, Saffold said.

To comment on this story, please visit Friday's crime and courts comments page.
PAINESVILLE, Ohio - Juan Horta sits in a comfy chair in the living room, his plaid flannel pajama pants pooling over his feet. He stares at the TV screen, but he doesn't seem to be watching the cartoons that are on for his nephews.

The left side of his face looks sadder than the right. The side of his mouth droops into a frown, and his left eyelid is a bit lower. The purple adapter end of a feeding tube rests on his black T-shirt.

A year ago, Horta, 32, a factory and nursery worker, began having headaches. They weren't much at first, but got progressively more severe. Horta's brother, Caesar, took Juan to a clinic, but Juan doesn't have insurance. Eventually, the pain was so bad they went to the emergency room.

Juan was diagnosed with xanthoastrocytoma, an uncommon and aggressive brain tumor. Stage three. A surgeon at University Hospitals removed the tumor, and Juan was sent to a nursing home to recover. Caesar, and his mother, Maria Guillen, visited daily. They noticed what Caesar called "a ball" on the back of Juan's neck, and it was getting bigger by the day. On the fifth day, Juan was unresponsive. The "ball" was filled with cerebrospinal fluid, and Juan needed another surgery to insert a shunt.

A spokesperson for University Hospitals confirmed the hospital spends millions annually on charity care for people who, like Juan, are uninsured. UH also created the Medical Access Clinic to care for patients who are uninsured.

Caesar said it has been difficult to watch his brother go through this. Five months ago, Juan was strong and hard-working.

"It took us by surprise that he needed this brain surgery," he says, sitting on the sofa next to his wife, Amelia, and across from Juan. "Then, to see how he was when he came out of surgery -- unable to speak or walk or eat. Because he has no insurance, he has had no radiation, no chemo."

Juan's family came to the United States from San Pablo, Mexico, and his family is here legally, "working hard and paying taxes," says Veronica Dahlberg, founder and executive director of HOLA, a Latino outreach and advocacy organization headquartered in Painesville. Juan, however, is an undocumented immigrant.

"It's complex, and there is so much hate and political rancor around this issue," she says. "Juan has the proper avenues open to him to get citizenship."

As an undocumented immigrant, he is not qualified for public benefits, including Medicaid. Government programs require proof of legal immigration. Once that proof is supplied, it is still five years before immigrants can apply for assistance.

"Our nursery and agriculture industry depends on workers like Juan," Dahlberg says, sitting on a loveseat in the Horta living room. "It's an $85 million industry in Lake County alone. It is only fair that the workers should be able to get medical treatment when they need it, but that's not always the case, as we see here,'' she said.

According to undocumentedpatients.org, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) states that "any patient arriving at the Emergency Department of a hospital participating in the Medicaid Program must be given an initial screening, and, if found to be in need of emergency room treatment, or in active labor, must be treated until stable." The law does not require facilities to provide additional treatment, such as radiation or chemotherapy.

Caesar walks over and grabs Juan by the shoulders. He leans him forward in the chair, drapes Juan's right arm over his shoulder, then grabs him under the arms and lifts him to his feet. Caesar tries to get Juan up and moving to keep his blood flowing and to keep him from losing more strength. They head slowly toward a large wooden crucifix, the focal point of the dark living room. Caesar uses his own legs to move Juan's. After three steps, they turn back around, and Caesar stops to hitch up the pajamas that Juan's wasted frame is refusing to hold up. Three more steps, and Caesar lowers Juan back into the chair.

"I don't know, sometimes we have a lot of hope that maybe he could get better, and sometimes we see him and," Caesar pauses, and drops his voice. "sometimes we think maybe not."

Maria comes over and takes Juan's strong hand in hers. She wipes some saliva from the corner of his mouth.

"Siento tanta tristeza." "I am so sad," she says, looking down into her son's dark brown eyes. Juan hears this and begins to cry. Maria comes in close, puts her face on his cheek and he begins to sob, his face a mask of grief. "Cry it out, miho, go ahead, get it out," she tells him as she holds him tightly. He wails like a child in his mother's arms. Caesar wipes Juan's tears, then leans in to hug them both. "Cry, scream, get it out," Caesar says. In no time, the whole family is weeping.

"He is so frustrated," Caesar says, swiping at his own eyes. "He wants to tell his own story. He wants to walk and talk and eat and go back to work."

Juan's co-workers are trying hard to help their friend. They are selling food at work to try to raise money to help meet his medical needs. They want Juan to be able to have nursing services and get physical therapy at home. They want to help pay for the Nutren 2.0, liquid nutrition that is inserted into Juan's feeding tube. A case of 24 one-meal cartons is $43.00 through Amazon, Caesar says. That lasts for four days.

As word of Juan's illness spreads, more people in the close-knit Painesville community step forward. They have donated a hospital bed, a wheelchair and a walker. Others stop by to visit. The choir of St. Mary Catholic Church in Painesville came by to sing and pray.

On Tuesday, nearly 100 people gathered at HOLA headquarters in Painesville. They came to talk about issues important to the community, and to finalize preparations for a fundraiser for Juan.

Dahlberg steps to the front of the room. "Bienvenidos a todos," she says with a smile. "Welcome, everyone!" She tells the group, in Spanish and in English, that she just came from visiting Juan and his family. Everyone listens in silence, then Blanca Mata and Rosario Chavez step to the front to hammer out the details of the upcoming fiesta for Juan. Who will cook the tamales, posole, tostadas, quesadillas and taquitos. Who will bring Mexican chocolate or baked goods. "We also need help for cleanup," Chavez says, her eyes scanning the room. "People will be coming in and out, and we will need people to clean up and handle the trash in between crowds. And we will need cleanup at the end of the night, too."

A young woman offers to make streamers of flowers to hang from the ceiling to add a festive Valentine atmosphere, and a man walks in with an armload of themed baskets for the raffles. Cecilia Mendez stands and asks if it might be possible to start a "Go Fund Me" for Juan. "I think it is admirable that we are together, doing this at a time of so much stress and tension," she says. "If we keep doing good things, in time, we can hope to make a difference. We need to have some courage."

A woman named Nancy, tucked into a corner of the room, agrees. "Do not get carried away thinking all Americans are racist," she says. "As we are seeing here tonight, that is not the case." The crowd, a mixture of colors, looks around the room at one other. A group of students from Hawken School blush and smile.

Mata tells the group to contact her with any more donations for the raffles. "As a community, we want to come together to help them out," she says, hoping to drum up more help. "This time it's for Juan. We have done this for others many times before. And, who knows? Maybe next time..." Her voice trails off, but everyone understands the unspoken words.



The fundraiser will be held Saturday, at the Painesville Knights of Columbus, 987 Mentor Avenue, from 5-10 pm. Admission is free. Tickets for food or raffle are one dollar, or six for five dollars. Dahlberg says that if you prefer to have a festive Valentine Saturday at home, food is available to go. Cash donations can be made through holatoday.org. They are not tax deductible.
Jim Cramer knows that defense contractors are in a position to benefit under Donald Trump's administration, but he says that Kratos Defense and Security Systems is right in the sweet spot and ready to roar higher.

Kratos is mainly involved in making unmanned systems, the kind used for targeting for drones, along with microwave electronics, electronic warfare, military-grade cybersecurity, satellite communications, missile defense and combat systems.

Most of its work is performed on a military base, in a secure facility or at a central intelligence location. Basically, it is focused on the most cutting-edge technology.

It is also too small and too low-profile to get the attention of Trump, which is the reason the speculative stock is up 48 percent since the election.

"The move here is logical, but at these levels, I would recommend staying on the sidelines. I hate to chase and that is what you would be doing if we buy Kratos up here," the "Mad Money" host said.

However, on a significant pullback or clarity on Trump's defense spending, Cramer said to be prepared to pounce on Kratos.

Taser is the company known for non-lethal stun guns used by law enforcement. With the stock up more than 12 percent this year and 75 percent in the past year.

Cramer attributed some of the strength behind Taser to it expanding into new areas. Taser makes technology to capture evidence, including body cameras and audio recorders and sells evidence management software to help police and prosecutors store and compile data.

Cramer spoke with Taser's CEO Rick Smith, who said he plans to expand the technology to help police offers transcribe reports.

"The average police officer spends two-thirds of their day sitting at a keyboard typing. We believe the technology is there today that police reports should be recorded, not written by some cop on a keyboard. We've got the video. Let's transcribe it and make the police report from there," Smith said.

Cramer thinks the averages could continue to roar higher next week, but recommended keeping one eye on tweets from President Donald Trump, and the other on earnings.

"Remember, if rates are up and oil is up, then the tone of the tape will be positive," Cramer said.

That should free up investors to trade some of the names on Cramer's radar next week. He outlined some of the stocks he will be watching:

T-Mobile : Cramer is willing to bet that CEO John Legere will deliver a strong quarter. He thinks the company can keep its momentum going without having to merge with another company.

"Be aware that there have been occasions where T-Mobile has reported a blowout quarter and the stock has sold off," Cramer said.

Diamondback : With the fastest growth of any of the Texas oil plays, Cramer said this stock will work as a trade.




Jim Cramer thinks the averages could continue to roar higher next week, but recommended keeping one eye on tweets from President Donald Trump, and the other on earnings.

"Remember, if rates are up and oil is up, then the tone of the tape will be positive," the "Mad Money" host said.

That should free up investors to trade some of the names on Cramer's radar next week. He outlined the stocks he will be watching:

Monday: Teva Pharmaceuticals, Noble Energy

Teva : This stock is right up there with Valeant on Cramer's list, and he is worried about the company's balance sheet after it doubled down and paid $40 billion for Allergan's generic business at peak.

Noble : This company could tip investors off on how oil stocks are really doing now that OPEC appears to be pretty serious about supply cuts.

Tuesday: T-Mobile, Diamondback Energy

T-Mobile : Cramer is willing to bet that CEO John Legere will deliver a strong quarter. He thinks the company can keep its momentum going without having to merge with another company.

"Be aware that there have been occasions where T-Mobile has reported a blowout quarter and the stock has sold off," Cramer said.

Diamondback : With the fastest growth of any of the Texas oil plays, Cramer said this stock will work as a trade.

Wednesday: PepsiCo, Applied Materials, CBS

PepsiCo : Unlike Coca-Cola , which reported a quarter that wasn't very exciting, Cramer expects PepsiCo to shine because of its snack business. With PepsiCo playing the stay-at-home thesis that is sweeping the country, Cramer expects good things.

Applied Materials : Cramer thinks it will deliver better-than-expected results, given how well the chip business is doing and how well Lam Research has done.

CBS : This stock is always a crowd pleaser. Cramer expects CEO Les Moonves to have positive things to say about ratings, programs and distribution. Sometimes the stock responds negatively to positive news, but then turns right back up. Cramer anticipates it won't be different.

Thursday: MGM Resorts, Zoetis

MGM Resorts : With good news coming out of China on gambling and a surge in new casino gambling in Vegas, MGM could report great numbers that could send the stock above the $28 to $30 range finally.

Zoetis : The humanization of pets theme has also driven stocks like Idexx Laboratories higher. Thus, this animal and livestock drug company could post better than expected numbers.

Friday: Campbell Soup, Deere, VF Corp

Campbell : This stock is a real conundrum for Cramer. Its last quarter was disappointing, but the stock has been climbing since, as if someone has taken a large position in the stock in order to influence management.

"The Dorrance family owns a big chunk of it, but the stock just acts too well for me to believe it's being propelled by itself," Cramer said.

Deere : It might not even matter what Deere says on Friday. The industrial agriculture cohort continues to trade up, and Cramer says Deere could paint a better worldwide picture for investors.

VF Corp : This stock has been absolutely horrendous, but it seems like it is trying to bottom. Cramer didn't have a case to own it other than management possibility announcing an acquisition or break-up.

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Can't afford the leather jacket you were salivating over at New York Fashion Week? Le Tote, a subscription fashion rental site based in San Francisco, wants to put it within reach.

Founded in 2012 to make designer duds more affordable, Le Tote operates as a hybrid between two popular online fashion sites. Similar to Stitch Fix, a subscription styling service, Le Tote charges customers a monthly fee (starting at $39), and uses a style quiz and member feedback to recommend items. Like Rent the Runway, it allows shoppers to experiment with designer brands by renting them at a lower cost.

Le Tote has raised $27.5 million in three rounds of funding, according to Crunchbase. Its revenue and customer base have grown between 300 percent and 350 percent over the past two years, and it's on track to keep up that pace over the next 12 months. With that scale, Le Tote plans to be profitable at the end of the year, co-founder Rakesh Tondon told CNBC.

But in an increasingly crowded marketplace for these types of businesses, it isn't just pairing aspiring fashionistas with designer goods that makes Le Tote stand out, Tondon said.

By culling information from customer profiles and product reviews, the e-tailer can nail down exactly why a certain sweater isn't performing well, and give that feedback to a designer for changes. Three-quarters of the items on Le Tote's site get rated.

"We took a very data driven approach," Tondon told CNBC. "Traditionally, retail hasn't been that data driven because they didn't have that level of granularity. Even e-commerce companies, they know that the product was purchased, but they don't exactly know why. And they don't know why it was returned."

In one instance, a brand had no idea why a certain dress it designed kept getting returned. But when Le Tote's customers reviewed the item, they said they loved the color and length of the dress  it was just too tight in the bust. Based off that feedback, the brand reconfigured the garment for the next season. In the meantime, Le Tote recommended the existing dress to renters who said in their style surveys that they had a smaller bust.

"We were able to optimize use of that inventory, versus a traditional retailer that would just essentially have to write that down," Tondon said. The company also uses customer feedback to create its own private-level products, which make up roughly a third of its styles, he said.

Still, there are challenges with these types of fashion rental models. From an operational standpoint, some of the biggest issues are the costs associated with shipping as well as managing wear and tear, Brendan Witcher, a principal analyst at Forrester Research, told CNBC.

"If I'm paying $60 a month [for example] to 'rent' a shirt, I won't wear it once  I'll look to get some real mileage out of that," Witcher said. "This means the rental company needs to get that item back to new."

There are also drawbacks on the customer side.

"Most people that care that deeply about fashion actually want to own the brand. They want to build a wardrobe of fashion that they can call their own," Witcher said.

Despite these challenges, fashion rental models should continue to grow in popularity, Vincent Quan, an associate professor at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, told CNBC. It's become less passe to rent apparel and accessories, especially as millennials aspire to own fewer things.

"It allows you to have the look without making the initial investment," Quan said. "At a certain price point, folks can't afford it So what do you do? You rent it."
U.S. intelligence has collected information that Russia is considering turning over Edward Snowden as a "gift" to President Donald Trump  who has called the NSA leaker a "spy" and a "traitor" who deserves to be executed.

That's according to a senior U.S. official who has analyzed a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations and who says a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to "curry favor" with Trump. A second source in the intelligence community confirms the intelligence about the Russian conversations and notes it has been gathered since the inauguration.

More from NBC News:

Putin hails Slovenia's offer to host summit with Trump

Official says Flynn did discuss sanctions with Russia before taking office

Trump tells Chinese president he'll honor 'One China' policy

Snowden's ACLU lawyer, Ben Wizner, told NBC News they are unaware of any plans that would send him back to the United States.

"Team Snowden has received no such signals and has no new reason for concern," Wizner said.

FOR MORE, READ THE FULL REPORT AT NBC NEWS...
A human's level of happiness is linked to their genetic makeup, according to a researcher who carried out groundbreaking work in the areabut it's nearly impossible to modify genes to boost your contentment.

In an interview with CNBC at the World Government Summit in Dubai, Meike Bartels described herself as a "scientist on a mission." She's the university research chair at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and last year published a paper that, for the first time, linked genetics to happiness.



In a first ever study, Bartels and a group of researchers studied nearly 300,000 people, sampling DNA material as well as measures of well-being. Looking at human genomes, which contain the genetic material that determines an organism, the study found links between genes and feelings. There were three genetic variants for happiness, two that account for differences in symptoms of depression, and eleven locations on the human genome that may account for varying degrees of neurotic behavior.

When the study was published, there were two points on the human genome that Bartels said could be linked to human happiness. As the sample size grew, Bartels revealed on Saturday that the researchers have now found 20 areas on the genome linked to happiness.



However, Bartels said that even though genes are linked to your levels of happiness, external environmental factors can actually influence how those genes exhibit themselves. She is now focused on uncovering the extent of that dynamic.

"My main aim is to get a better hold of the environment. We think we know a lot about the environment but we do not. Most environmental factors are genetically influenced," Bartels told CNBC.



Knowing the location of specific genes opens up questions about the ability to modify a person's genetic make-up. If you know what to change to be happier, why wouldn't somebody in the people in the future make sure they are full of happiness genes?

Because it'll be nearly impossible, Bartels said. She added that there'll be a "couple thousand" genetic variants linked to happiness so it'll be "too complex" to start altering that much DNA, but she declared she's up for the task.

"I am not afraid," the professor said.

Meanwhile, learning about the genetics of happiness and how the environment affects that could be the key to better health and education, which could be customized to each individual person in the world.

"I think when we realize people are genetically different, we can start customizing more than we do now," Bartels told CNBC.
Iraq won't take part in any regional or international conflicts, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Saturday.

The comment came after Abadi had spoke in a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump where tensions with Iran were mentioned.

"Iraq is very keen to preserve its national interests (..)and does not wish to be part of any regional or international conflict which would lead to disasters for the region and for Iraq," Abadi told state TV.

The White House on Friday said Trump and Abadi "spoke to the threat Iran presents across the entire region," in their first phone call since the inauguration of the U.S. president.

Abadi's office on Friday also gave a readout of the phone call that took place overnight Thursday, without specifically mentioning Iran.


What did Eli Drinkwitz say after Missouri's game vs. Kentucky?
Phew. That must have been the reaction among the spin doctors at the Local Government Association this week. Over the last week there has been an explosion of moral indignation over the number of child refugees being accepted into the UK. But it has been almost entirely directed at the Government in general and at Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, in particular. Local authorities have been let off the hook.

All this concerns the announcement that only 350 unaccompanied children from Europe will be taken under the Dubs amendment  rather than 3,000 which campaigners had called for. The Archbishop of Canterbury gave a statement saying that he was shocked and saddened by the Governments decision. He made no criticism of local authorities in his statement  only mentioning them in passing, making the (false) claim that they are bearing the cost of the resettlement and must be given the resources and time needed to meet our original commitment.

But the Government never committed to 3,000. As was reported at the time David Cameron made a point of not specifying any figure. The Dubs amendment doesnt specify a figure. What it says is that: The number of children to be resettledshall be determined by the Government in consultation with local authorities.

The funding available to local authorities willing to take part is very substantial. 114 a day for under 16 year olds which comes to 41,496 a year. Local authorities claim the full cost is 50,000 per child refugee. But there is also extra money available  there is the Controlling Migration Fund of 100 million, specifically for local authorities, and which can fund recruitment campaigns and training for social workers, additional English language provision, and specialist counselling. So local authorities that participate in the scheme are most likely to find it fully funded  indeed they may well end up with a surplus.

Despite all that money, the response from local authorities has been derisory. That is how the figure of 350 comes about. That is the number of people that councils are willing to take. We dont yet know the breakdown of individual local authorities. Hammersmith and Fulham, my own council, managed to get lots of publicity about how caring it was going to be  but then only agreed to take ten.

It will be interesting to see how many Labour, Lib Dem, and SNP MPs are prepared to publicly challenge the local councillors in their own constituencies. Diane Abbott asked the Home Secretary how she can live with herself. Will enquiries in the same indignant tone to be made to her Labour colleagues on Hackney Council? After all, Abbott will surely be anxious to avoid any association with hypocrisy and double standards.

We do have details on how councils have responded under a different scheme  the Syrian Vulnerable Peoples Relocation Scheme. Here the Government has specified a target of 20,000 people. Plenty of Labour MPs have attacked the figure for being far too low  yet many Labour councils havent taken any. The same applies to the Lib Dems.

Brexit will allow us to control of immigration  which is an argument for saying that we could take more refugees than otherwise. Christians are facing particular persecution.

And its not just a matter of the total number of refugees we admit. The details of where we take them from is a matter of life and death. However well-intentioned, the Dubs Amendment was a terrible mistake. Taking any refugees from Europe encourages the people smugglers  and results in people drowning trying to cross the Mediterranean. On the other hand the Syrian Vulnerable Peoples Relocation Scheme is a very worthwhile humanitarian initiative as it takes people from the camps in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. I would like to see it expanded. The Home Office could help by changing the guidance. For instance sometimes refugees who arrive here should be allowed to stay in spare rooms, rather than specifying that accommodation must always be self contained.

But simply announcing that it will be 30,000 or 50,000 people instead of 20,000 doesnt turn those numbers into reality. The constraint is the bureaucratic inertia in our town halls. Those who want our country to provide sanctuary to more of those desperate to escape tyranny, should speak to their local council leaders.
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A team of economists have validated and confirmed that first born children have the advantage when it comes to intelligence. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh found evidence that first born children have higher IQ scores than they younger siblings as early as their first birthday. The study was published in the Journal of Human Resources.

Researchers believe parents were able to give more mental stimulation and support in developing thinking skills. Parents took part in more activities, such as reading and crafts that helped stimulate the mental growth of the child.

By the time the next child came along, parents had already changed their behavior. Mothers took more risks during later pregnancies such as smoking. First born children have the advantage which they say leads to better wages and higher levels of education.

According to Huffington Post, Edinburgh and her team of experts observed almost 5,000 children from pre-birth to 14-years-old. They have been assessed every two years on reading, vocabulary and other skills.

Parental behavior was also observed and linked to the children's test scores according to CBS Philly. After controlling socio-economic factors and family background the study found that first-born children were better in reading, math, verbal communication and general awareness than younger siblings.

The National Bureau of Economic Research used data from Denmark and Florida. They used data from the US children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The survey is a dataset collected by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"For most, it is probably not difficult to understand how and why one's parenting focus and abilities may change with his or her latter children," said Dr. Ana Nuevo-Chiquero of the University of Edinburgh's School of Economics.

She added "These broad shifts in parental behavior appear to set their latter-born children on a lower path for cognitive development and academic achievement with lasting impact on adult outcomes."

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
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Probably one of the best news in Astronomy, NASA has already produced an electronic device which can possibly survive the hell-like atmosphere in Venus. The integrated circuits introduced by NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, can lead to the first ever successful mission done in the said planet.

NASA: meet the planet Venus

Venus has an extreme atmospheric condition, that previous Venus landers only lasted for only a couple of hours in the planet's surface due to its severe hotness. The temperature recorded in Venus is 860 degrees Fahrenheit, which means that no oven can be hotter than this planet. Also, it contains a huge amount of high-pressure carbon dioxide. That is the reason why, according to The Verge, there is no landed mission in Venus since the 1984 trip by Soviet Vega 2. Landers wore thermal and pressure resistant gears to protect themselves from harm.

What did NASA do to solve this issue?

Phil Neudeck, the lead electronics engineer in NASA Glenn Research, said that this long duration mission going to Venus will be greatly supported by the integrated circuits the team created. He also highlights that they came up with a more complicated and sophisticated design for the this device.

They produced utmost durable silicon carbide semiconductor integrated circuits. Two of these circuits have undergone testing in GEER or Glenn Extreme Environment Rig, which triggers the atmosphere in Venus. Fortunately, these devices overcame the testing for 521 hours, which makes it a hundred times better than other electronics invented for the Venus mission. Earlier this year, Neudeck's team came up with the same carbide semiconductor circuits and showed how it lasted 1,000 hours of 900 degrees Fahrenheit in an Earth atmosphere.

The said electronic devices are invented for Venus mission purposes but, NASA posted that it can also has Earth significant application. One of it is that it serves as aircraft engines with new capabilities.



See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
Dani Pedrosa and MotoGP team-mate Marc Marquez travelled straight to Indonesia from Sepang, where a quick PR tour culminated in the Repsol Honda launch in Jakarta.

Crash.net sat down with Pedrosa, a 29-time MotoGP race winner and triple title runner-up, moments after he had left the stage.

The Spaniard had improved from 13th on day one at the Sepang test to finish a close fourth fastest, as he and Marquez worked on evaluating the latest Honda engine - a process that also requires significant work on the single electronics...

Crash.net:

Dani, you've had quite a wild reception here for the past few days, especially during the factory visit. You've been in MotoGP a long time so does that kind of thing still surprise you?

Dani Pedrosa:

Of course, of course. It was a unique thing because - like you said - we've had many, many experiences with fans; many different moments in many different countries. But here, yesterday, was surreal. Firstly, to see the huge factory, but more than that to see all the employees together. Because it was almost 3,000 people screaming and wanting to have a picture! I've never had so many people at once like that. Amazing.

MotoGP is still surprising you off track, how about on track? What is it that keeps you coming back and pushing to the limit?

Dani Pedrosa:

It's the aim to always improve, to win, and to test yourself. To push yourself all the time. That's the spirit I feel inside.

Crash.net:

You showed, most recently at Misano, what you can do when the bike is working for you - what sort of 'character' do you like from a MotoGP bike?

Dani Pedrosa:

Well I would say I like a bike that is more-or-less stable, because my riding style suits the way of repeating the same line and hitting the same points lap-after-lap. Being really consistent, in the way of riding and for that you need a stable machine.

Obviously, it's no secret that I am very light, so I use quite a soft shock at the rear, but not as soft on the front suspension. Because I still have to battle with the best braking guys. But my front suspension is not as hard as them because I am not as big, so I cannot [use my body to] put the same weight over the wheels as they can.

I can't transfer my weight [forward and back] in the same way they do, so I need a softer bike to transfer the weight; I need the bike to pitch more for itself. But obviously, the G-force and the speed is the same, so you still need to have a [stiff] spring.

Crash.net:

The type of Michelin tyre available played a big role for you last year, how is the new 'fatter' Michelin front? Is it more to your liking?

Dani Pedrosa:

Yeah, the new tyre has a bit more grip and there was a bit more feeling with it. The fact that it's fatter - we still have to judge better, because leaning the bike into the corner was a bit slower. So that is not one of the strongest points of the new tyre, but the fact there was more grip and more feeling turned out to be why, I think, there were less crashes at the Sepang test. I'm not sure if it was the new asphalt or the new tyre, but we didn't see as many crashes. So now we need to go to different tracks and check again.

Crash.net:

The other big change last year was the move to single 'unified' electronics, how is the level of performance?

Dani Pedrosa:

The level of performance with the electronics is not high as before, but I also believe the strategy of each bike or team is different for this unified software and this effects the performance differently.

Like we started in a not-so-good level at the Sepang test because of that basically, but could improve during the test. Instead, for example the Ducatis, they started already with quite a high pace.

So I would say it's a little bit like 'hiding'. Some tracks benefit for one [kind of electronic strategy], some tracks can benefit for others, depending on how the bike is reacting to the conditions.

Crash.net:

Honda also had to do a lot of work on the new electronics at the start of last season, does it make it easier that you've been through that process once?

Dani Pedrosa:

Not really! But basically what we've learned is to put a lot more focus on that area. Because we were focussing more on different parts of the bike and we didn't expect that to be such a big difference, compared to our rivals; the strategy we use, how we use the electronics. So we learned that we need to focus a lot also in that part of the machine.

Crash.net:

Now you almost need to get the electronics sorted out first, before you can look at other parts of the bike?

Dani Pedrosa:

Basically, I would say yes. Because most of the strange behaviours we have on the bike are coming because maybe [the electronics] are not completely set-up in that sector of the track. And then we have movement, or we have more wheelie, or power feeling.

Crash.net:

The single electronics are staying but the winglets are gone. You were one of the riders who clearly thought they were dangerous, what do you make of the new Yamaha fairing?

Dani Pedrosa:

I've seen some pictures and clearly it looks more safe than having a 'blade'. The other issue is the feeling of riding with it, but I can't speak about that obviously.

Crash.net:

We saw at Sepang that Marc is considering a thumb-operated rear brake, is that something you are interested in?

Dani Pedrosa:

I have tried it once. It's not a bad idea if you get used to it, I think Dovizioso is the one using it already in MotoGP. But I didn't test it long enough to really learn how to use it and see the benefit of it.

Crash.net:

Finally Dani, at this early stage, how do you see the balance between the manufacturers?

Dani Pedrosa:

It looks like all manufacturers have raised their performance, but not only the bike itself in the corners - with electronics for example - but with the engines also. It looks like in the straight, from the speeds at this test - the Ducati was still ahead, but the Yamaha was fast, the Suzuki and the KTM is already fast in a straight line also.

So it looks like all manufacturers are getting to a good level and providing good performance from their bikes, which raises every team.

Crash.net:

Thanks Dani.

Dani Pedrosa:

You're welcome.
Channel programs News

Accenture To Buy Prolific Threat Intelligence Provider As It Scales Security Practice

Michael Novinson

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Accenture plans to purchase one of the world's first threat intelligence companies to gain faster and more complete knowledge of emerging security challenges.

The Dublin, Ireland-based company, No. 2 on the CRN Solution Provider 500, said buying Reston, Va.-based iDefense Security Intelligence Services will get Accenture closer to where threats are actually propagating.

This will help shorten the time between what's happening in the wild and when Accenture starts devising plans to thwart an emerging threat, according to Ryan LaSalle, Accenture Security's managing director of growth and strategy.

[RELATED: Accenture Buys Endgame's U.S. Federal Services Business]

The iDefense acquisition will also bolster other parts of Accenture's security business, injecting better intelligence into Accenture's existing information streams and enabling the company to create more plausible, realistic, and hard-hitting threat simulations, said LaSalle, noting the deal will mark Accenture a producer rather than just a consumer of threat intelligence.

Accenture currently subscribes to commercial threat intelligence feeds and has a small internal practice, LaSalle said, but the iDefense deal will dramatically scale the size and scale of the company's threat intelligence capabilities. Competitors similarly have some threat intelligence capabilities, but the size and maturity of iDefense's offering will help set Accenture apart, LaSalle said.

iDefense employs more than 140 security researchers and threat intelligence analysts worldwide, according to the business's website. Accenture is planning to bring over iDefense's entire workforce, LaSalle said.

Accenture hasn't decide whether or not it'll maintain the iDefense brand, LaSalle, and the company will spend the next year looking into how to best keep iDefense's core business going strong while still leveraging its capabilities across all of Accenture's security portfolio.

The financial services and oil and gas industries have the most mature threat intelligence practice, LaSalle said, with many clients having dedicated teams building and delivering skills and capabilities. Threat intelligence is also delivered as a managed service to other verticals such as retail, telecom, high tech, automotive and the public sector, according to LaSalle.

iDefense has invested heavily in recent years in making its intelligence more actionable and usable by clients, LaSalle said. Specifically, LaSalle said the business recently rolled out IntelGraph, a software platform tailored around the work analysts do to process, investigate and understand emerging intelligence.

iDefense's intelligence can also be embedded directly into client's existing threat defense systems, according to LaSalle. The business has a fantastic legacy and reputation from its 18 years in business, LaSalle said, and can be easily scaled to the size of Accenture's global footprint.

iDefense is currently a business line of domain name and internet security company Verisign. Terms of its sale to Accenture weren't insight, and the deal is subject to customary closing conditions.

This is the eighth security-focused deal Accenture has made in the past 18 months as the company pushes to build a $1 billion security practice.

Since August 2015, Accenture has bought a minority stake in Israeli cybersecurity company Team8 and has acquired: Arlington, Va.-based attack simulation company Fusion X; Houston-based industrial IoT security specialist Cimation; Israeli cybersecurity company Maglan; Arlington, Va.-based Defense Point Security; French identity and access management company Arismore; and Arlington, Va.-based Endgame.
The experts at Travel + Leisure named the top 50 places to visit in 2017 after asking their "A-List travel specialists" to look at the most exciting hotel and restaurant openings from around the world.

The United States and North America as a whole represented well, with some from last year's list reappearing, such as Philadelphia.
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MONROE  When Harriette Trevino picked up the phone, she had no idea who would be calling her.

She had just finished marching at the womens rally in Stamford with a group of friends and family.

Her friend Myrna Mills Albino  who was on her way back to Connecticut after participating in the Womens March on Washington - was on the line.

I saw all these posts on Facebook after the march, Albino said. I called (Harriette) from the car.

Both women decided to take the first of 10 calls to action that had been given to them through the D.C. March.

The concept behind the calls is to continue building on the foundation that the recent rallies had started - each action is announced on the D.C. March website  with all 10 actions to be completed over a span of 100 days.

Trevino and Albino knew that there had to be more like-minded individuals in the area.

We either called or emailed between us and we had people start sharing with friends, Albino said.

Just like that, Hear Our Voice CT was born.

When the first action was announced  the group had 14 members. As word spread, more interested women came forward.

Soon the group had reach 75 members  a majority of them women  from Monroe, Trumbull, Newtown, Stamford, and into the Naugatuck Valley, Albino said.

Having a group come together, we can do so much more, she said.

Trevino said that after the polarizing campaign season that culminated in the election of President Donald Trump, the group gave her a much-needed opportunity.

It was interesting because during the campaign I was very surprised and shocked at how people acted, she said. I was very quiet. But after the march, I felt like it was my coming out.

There were a number of marches, including those in Washington and New York. Trevino marched in Stamford.

We marched passed the Trump Tower, she said. It was a lot of fun. The signs were hilarious and poignant. It felt great.

Albino had gone through similar feelings.

After the election, Albino said. I was feeling as if everything I thought about American values were turned upside-down.

When the opportunity to march in D.C. came  she jumped at it.

It took 10 hours to get to D.C., Albino said. We started to get this sense that this was going to be bigger than expected.

Once in D.C., and various estimates put the march participation at 500,000 people. Back in Stamford, expectations were for a small group, but close to 5,000 people  including Trevino  came out.

The group the two women formed has nothing to do with taking a political stance, Trevino said.

Its not an anti-Trump whining session, she said. One of the things that came about is, even if it doesnt affect me personally, we have to protect those that feel marginalized.

After completing the first action - writing postcards to U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal about what matters most to them  the group will look to continue to grow, Albino said.

Its been very positive, she said. Everyone had an opportunity to express how they felt  just opening themselves up to being understood.

The group wants to be known as a pro-human rights organization that wont be deterred by criticism.

It strengthens my resolve, Albino said. This is not a flash in the pan.

ajohnson@hearstmediact.com;
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Two years after Connecticut lawmakers voted to keep jobs  and gambling cash  in the state by approving a third Native American tribal casino, this one for the Hartford area, the proposal is languishing in federal court and local governments.

At the same time, the $900 million MGM Resort in Springfield, Mass., is well under construction, on track to lure away business from the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos in eastern Connecticut, where revenue has been steadily falling over the last 10 years.

So if less money is being wagered, why does Connecticut need another casino? Thats what some lawmakers and activists are asking, as the state ponders its next move. Others want to do whatever it takes to accommodate a casino expansion to protect jobs and staunch the hemorrhage of Connecticut gambling dollars heading to Springfield.

Bridgeport representatives, recalling the 1995 Senate vote that rejected a casino proposal for their city, still want southwestern Connecticut to be considered as part of an imminent gambling expansion.

State Reps. Ezequiel Santiago and Chris Rosario, Bridgeport Democrats, have introduced legislation that would allow new gambling locations throughout the state, along with competitive licensing processes and a tax of 25 percent on gross revenue from slot machines and table games.

The Shoreline Star (pari-mutuel wagering facility) is zoned, has parking for ample growth and it can be linked to the development under way nearby, Santiago said. It would be beneficial for the Shoreline to team up with the tribes with slot machines, but we are not even given that opportunity.

More Information Declining slots The state's share of casino slot machine revenue over the past decade. See More Collapse

The Indian casinos have a monopoly on the gaming industry, Santiago said. Shoreline is a pari-mutuel that suffered because the tribes got the gaming in the first place. Shoreline Star pays taxes. They hire people, but theyre not getting a seat at the table.

State Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, said, I would not be opposed to slots down at the Shoreline Star, as long as there is local support and a local revenue stream, with a municipal benefit for being a host site.

Its about jobs

State Rep. Joe Verrengia, D-West Hartford, a new co-chairman of the Public Safety and Security Committee, which has oversight on gambling, said he is planning an informational meeting to get the views of a variety of interests out into the open.

First and foremost, I think that we need to have an open and transparent process, Verrengia said in an interview. He also wants to know what effect a third casino, off the tribal reservations, might have on the deal  called a compact  that then-Gov. Lowell P. Weicker signed with the Native Americans a quarter century ago, conceding their exclusivity in exchange for 25 percent of all slot machine wagers.

I think thats a key piece of this, before anyone can make an educated decision on whether or not they explore the expansion of gaming, Verrengia said, stressing that the Kent-based Schaghticoke Tribe, which is still pursuing federal recognition, could demand consideration if the so-called satellite casino gets sited in northern Connecticut.

Theres definitely the possibility of a domino effect, and if we submitted a bill that opened it to everyone, there could be the fallout, Verrengia said. I think we hear over and over again from the tribal leaders, its about jobs. Yeah, it is. There is a job piece. There is also an economic-development piece to this.

And whether youre talking about East Hartford, East Windsor or a tobacco field, I think there is more in the decision-making process than just looking at gaming or just looking at particular jobs. Lets look at how it may impact the areas economic activity.

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen met Friday with Verrengia and other members of the committee to offer an overview, and my office has been in communication with legislative leadership, the administration and the stakeholders about this issue, he said afterward.

We stand ready to provide legal guidance as appropriate and when requested, Jepsen said.

The attorney general has been battling MGM in court since 2015, when the multinational corporation, with resorts as far-flung as Macau and mainland China, claimed its rights were violated by the law passed to allow a new casino.

The District Court agreed that the state has not  at least to this point, in light of the limited nature of the special act  infringed on MGMs rights and granted our motion to dismiss MGMs lawsuit, and MGM has appealed that decision, Jepsen said. The appeal has been argued, and we currently await the Second Circuits decision.

Opposition

State Sen. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield, is part of a new group, including religious organizations and people with gambling addictions, against any gaming expansion.

During a recent news conference with other opponents, he said while the tribes have been promoting the potential jobs and economic benefits of another casino, the industry is well past its prime.

We may be looking at an industry that is at a saturation point, Hwang said. The real concern is, are we looking at a proper economic benefit? Are we opening up a Pandoras box of our constitutional equal protection, in which we are, in essence, allowing a monopoly who control gambling in our states, in exchange for our tribal compact?

Weve not yet done a very good job in the Connecticut General Assembly to understand the full impact and really create the resources to allocate against the plight and devastation of gambling addiction, he said.

Michele Mudrick, legislative advocate for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, one of the 12 groups that in the Coalition Against Casino Expansion, said they want voters throughout the state to be given a chance to decide the issue.

Bob Steele, of Vernon, a former Republican congressman, said gambling addictions are wrecking the lives of many people, including a church treasurer who gambled away an endowment funded by years of bake sales and craft fairs.

The house always wins, he said. The Legislature should require a statewide referendum on any expansion.

However, there is no such statewide approval process in Connecticut law.

State Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich, a co-chairman of the Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee, said does not favor an expansion.

I think theyre going to have a really tough time finding a place to put it where everybody is amenable to it, Frantz said in a recent interview. I think there are a lot of people who oppose gambling. I dont think were doing much for our state or citizens if we put up another casino.

All I know is, we had much higher expectations of the existing casinos than was feasible, Frantz said. We became very quickly addicted to the revenue stream of the existing two casinos, and now theyre underperforming and the state is hurting.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy admits additional revenue is not the best reason to consider a new gambling location.

I think what the Indian tribal nations within Connecticut are saying is that our market is under assault and we need help in defending that market. Ultimately, that is a question for the Legislature, Malloy said.
It should be obvious to even the casual observer that the new American president has something up his sleeve regarding how he engages with the Russian president. Part of that engagement clearly involves curious responses to those who would make observations abut the Russian leaders various sins.

In a presidency as volatile as Donald Trumps, this will tend to drive people batty, generating much comment which is, as usual, projected through the lens of what everyone thinks of Trump in the first place. His detractors will wail that he is propping up an evil tyrant in Vladimir Putin; his supporters will insist that there is a method to what others see as madness.

So what might that method be?

The way to understand Trump is to recognize his main motivating forces. One is a key reason he won: his drive to make decisions based on American interests first, rather than the global dalliances that have distracted us for years. The other is his well-established desire to be viewed as a success.

There would be no greater foreign policy success for Trump than the measurable suppression of ISIS as a threat, across the Middle East, Europe, and its tentacles that have reached into America. In a classic case of the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend, he makes frequent mention of Putin as a potential ally in the fight against global jihad.

Is this realistic? The answer lies in an even deeper unknown: the level of interest Putin has in partnering with America to deflect ISISs bloody advances. Russia has been a target of terrorism and will likely face further threats. But that doesnt make Putins motives pure. His fingerprints may be on the 1999 Moscow bombings just before the Chechen war, attributed by some to the KGBs successor agency, the FSB, led at the time by Putin. As recently as the last few years, Russian-led forces have been blamed for targeted political terror attacks in various Russian cities.

This is not a good guy. And his terrorism radar may be frustratingly selective. While it was encouraging after the 2015 Paris attacks for Russia to join a U.N. Security Council resolution backing all necessary measures against ISIS, its dark collaborations with Iran and Syria make Russia a reliable facilitator of arms to Hamas and Hezbollah.

So it becomes equally useful to discern what is the advantage to Putin of partnering with Trump? The goals are a mirror image: The Russian president wants to be able to claim his share of credit for declawing ISIS, and he wants to bolster his popularity by scoring points for keeping his own citizens safe. Those instincts could prove useful.

But as Trump plots a cooperative path that could yield real progress in stifling ISIS with Russian help, he should keep his eyes wide open that one convenient partnership, even one as ambitious and vital as this, does not mean the Russian regime deserves broad praise.

Trump will pursue Russian help to fight global jihad, as well he should. He knows that Putin, who can match him ego for ego, could balk at joining the effort if he hears Trump taking the bait as people goad the U.S. president to savage his Russian counterpart.

Trump being Trump, that means we will get occasional confounding moments like the Were so innocent? retort to Bill OReillys accurate claim of Putin as a killer.

This does not in any way mean Trump morally equates American actions to Putins sinister exploits; it simply means he will say what is necessary to keep the Russian president on the hook for a partnership that could help achieve the most important foreign policy goal of our time.

Imagine Trump calling Putin all of the nasty names people seem to want him to use, and which Putin surely deserves. Then imagine the Russian leader storming away from a potentially vital role in joining us to beat ISIS.

Would everybody be happy then?

Mark Davis is a radio host in Texas and a columnist for The Dallas Morning News. Email: markdavisshow@gmail.com.
Still Standing: Four the Moments legacy honoured at Nova Scotia Music Week

When a quartet of Halifax women began singing together a cappella in the name of social justice in 1982, there was little in the way of a music industry at play in Atlantic Canada. And even if there had been, its likely that Four the Moment would ...
We must rethink the U.S. response to infectious disease. Here's why.
I believe that the politician who deserves the most plaudits for this week was not a Tory. He is the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn

The seismic fallout from the European Union referendum continues to send tremors of rancour through the corridors of Westminster.

But if Brexit was the only game in town at Westminster this week, the issue of our relationship with Europe is also set to dominate an upcoming political dogfight in the provinces when the Stoke-on-Trent by-election takes place in 12 days time.

The votes in the Commons to trigger Article 50 were perhaps the most momentous in recent times, as MPs took a massive step towards our departure from the European Union.

And it is hugely to the credit of the Tory Chief Whip, Gavin Williamson, that he maintained party discipline on an issue which has divided the Conservatives for decades.

Only one Tory MP  Ken Clarke  voted against the motion and just five abstained. (And how ironic to find that Gina Millers effort to derail Brexit in the High Court has so far come to nothing.)

But, perverse as it may sound, I believe that the politician who deserves the most plaudits for this week was not a Tory.

He is the embattled Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Nothing would have been easier for Mr Corbyn than to have avoided trouble and permitted his catastrophically divided party to vote according to conscience.

Instead, he took the lonely but honourable course and declared a three-line whip. Cynics claim that he had no choice, given that so many Labour voters support Brexit.

I disagree. Mr Corbyn was placing his personal authority on the line in the cause of Brexit  and paid the inevitable price. More than 50  mainly Blairite  Labour MPs opposed Mr Corbyn and voted against the Bill.

Naturally, this revolt generated a series of damaging headlines about Mr Corbyn. His more unscrupulous enemies even spread the rumour around Westminster that he will quit.

MPs held a marathon series of votes in the Commons, causing turmoil for the Labour party

In the media he has been pilloried and stigmatised as the weak leader of a morally bankrupt party.

I do not deny that there is some truth in that, but there is also another side to the story which needs to be told.

Last weeks vote shows that  on the issue of Brexit  Mr Corbyn is dragging Labour back in touch with its rank-and-file voters for the first time in almost a quarter of a century. As a party leader who reaches decisions not through calculation but through principle, he puts to shame the lies and spin of the New Labour era.

However Jeremy Corbyn faces one profoundly serious remaining challenge to his integrity.

This concerns that Stoke by-election. It is one of the most important votes in Labour history, and the contest is on a knife edge.

Such is the strength of antipathy towards the EU in Stoke that it has been dubbed the Brexit capital of the country.

Almost 70 per cent of people there voted Leave  the highest proportion for any city. For that reason, Labour is up against a powerful Ukip challenge in the shape of its new leader, the working-class Liverpudlian Paul Nuttall.

Ukip is throwing all its resources into winning the seat, which used to be so safe that it has never been held by any other party except Labour.

Jeremy Corbyn promoted Rebecca Long-Bailey to shadow business secretary to replace Clive Lewis, who resigned to vote against the Government's bill to trigger Britain's EU divorce

Defeat at the hands of Ukip could foreshadow a huge shift that would change British politics for ever, signalling the demise of Labours traditional power base in the North of England.

No wonder the Labour party is pouring in every resource at its disposal to try to secure the victory of its candidate, Gareth Snell. The result of this feverish activity, I have discovered, is that the Stoke by-election is descending into one of the most vicious and even violent for many years.

Much of the violence has been aimed at Paul Nuttall himself.

Ukip leaders need to be physically brave, and Mr Nuttall was required to muster courage last Monday night at a public meeting, where he spoke alongside former party leader Nigel Farage.

A screaming Left-wing mob assembled outside, hurling missiles and yelling insults at Ukip supporters as they entered the building. According to one report, demonstrators, who were holding placards saying Strength through diversity, told an orthodox Jewish Ukip supporter to go home  a deeply unpleasant reminder of the well-founded anti-Semitism allegations made against the Labour Left last summer.

Party sources also say that Mr Nuttall has been targeted personally. They report that there have been two attempted break-ins at the house where he has been staying in the constituency in the past seven days, terrifyingly on one occasion when a female party activist was alone in the building.

Of course, the Labour party cannot be held responsible for this weeks ugly and vindictive occurrences.

However, it is more than likely that some of those involved believe they are acting in the name of Labour, and indeed Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Corbyn needs to intervene and condemn the kind of intimidation we are seeing in Stoke, which is reminiscent of the worst excesses of the Left in the Eighties.

Whatever the critics say, Mr Corbyn  for all his considerable shortcomings  has greatly improved the quality of our national discourse by bringing a welcome integrity back to the heart of our politics.

Now, he must show that he has the discipline to bring his followers into line, not only for the sake of his party, but for the sake of democracy, too.

Harman failed to raise Iraq concerns

Harriet Harman's recently published memoir raises disturbing questions about her conduct when she was Solicitor General during the run-up to the calamitous Iraq War in 2003.

She says that Lord Goldsmith, the then Attorney General, ordered her exclusion from access to any papers about Iraq, including successive versions of his advice concerning the legitimacy of the war, and indeed from any meetings in his office about Iraq.

Harman says that she never saw any papers on Iraq until Lord Goldsmiths notorious final one-page verdict that the conflict was legal.

Harriet Harman's recently published memoir raises disturbing questions about her conduct when she was Solicitor General during the run-up to the calamitous Iraq War in 2003

Yet she was the senior Law Officer in the House of Commons and knew of doubts by MPs on all sides about the legality of the approaching war.

It is now clear that she did not take up the matter of Iraq with Goldsmith or his officials. What a contrast there is between her performance as Solicitor General and that of one of her predecessors, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster.

Sir Harry joined his boss Reginald Manningham-Buller in warning Prime Minister Anthony Eden that the 1956 invasion of Suez was unlawful. He did his job over Suez. Sadly, Harriet Harman did not do hers when it came to Iraq.

This week, Tory MP Nick Boles, who is fighting cancer, rose from his hospital bed to vote in favour of triggering Article 50, which will set Britain on the path of leaving the European Union.

What a telling contrast there is between Mr Boles and his friend  and fellow Remainer  George Osborne.

Mr Osborne defied a three-line whip to go off and make a doubtless lucrative speech at a business summit in Antwerp.

No praise is too high for Nick Boles. While we do not yet know the scale of the fee he received, George Osbornes dereliction of duty is beneath contempt.

The sooner this greedy, money-grubbing individual quits the House of Commons, the better for the quality of British public life.
Now, with the death of Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, we have a tragic new poster girl. Drugs are devastating, as Leah and now Taras family know all too tragically

Until this week, Leah Betts was the poster girl of the say no to drugs campaign. The haunting picture of her dying in hospital after taking ecstasy at her 18th birthday party became a shocking symbol of the dangers.

Now, with the death of Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, we have a tragic new poster girl.

It was in 1995  the very year Leah died  that Tara was catapulted into public consciousness after being pictured pecking family friend Prince Charles on the cheek in Klosters.

We quickly learned about her oh-so glamorous life and how she lived it to the full. The original It-girl, she epitomised the reckless spirit of the Nineties; a life of parties, champagne, fast cars, faster men, luxury holidays  and recreational drug-taking.

As her friend, the Mail journalist Rebecca Hardy, wrote: Tara was one of those rare people who, whatever life threw at her, was determined to squeeze as much fun from it as she could.

Along with so many stars of her generation, Kate Moss among them, she gave the impression that drink and drugs were fun. Indeed, loads of fun, according to another contemporary, Sienna Miller.

It was a message that seduced countless impressionable fans into thinking that binge-drinking and drug-taking were harmless. And it was a wicked lie, because drugs are devastating, as Leah and now Taras family know all too tragically.

Behind Taras cheeky smile and effervescent personality, she was an addict. Far from having fun, she was frail, deeply insecure, lonely and suffering from depression.

Friends say that in the days before her death, she was in a dark place. Many believe she was back in the grip of drugs, although at this stage we dont know what caused Taras death.

Magazines never show the stints in rehab when the celebs they glamorise try to kick their habits  the delirium they suffer, the agony they endure away from the cameras. What the Sienna Millers of this world never mention are the victims who fall for the idea that drugs are cool.

Magazines never show the stints in rehab when the celebs they glamorise try to kick their habits - the delirium they suffer, the agony they endure away from the cameras. What the Sienna Millers of this world never mention are the victims who fall for the idea that drugs are cool

Victims like Penny Hargreaves, a lovely, kind 21-year-old trainee nurse who died after taking cocaine. She partied, drank and snorted the drug over a period of two days with friends  and was later found dead in bed.

I do not want to be sat here at another inquest into the death of a young person who has everything to live for because of an act of crass stupidity, the coroner said.

Those who knew Tara say she was a woman who had kindness beyond measure, a huge heart and a playful impetuosity that was infectious.

What a tragedy she will now be remembered not for these wonderful attributes, but for the deeply distressing way she died  alone and possibly undiscovered for days.

If ever there was a message here, it is the very opposite of glamour and fun.

Its the same one as Leahs: drugs  which know no class barriers  are merciless.

Yes, Taras death was tragic. But its a funny old world when there are countless headlines about the death of an It-girl, while the passing of Nobel prize-winning Sir Peter Mansfield, the physicist who developed MRI scanning and saved millions of lives, goes almost unmentioned.

Becks is just as foul as I said

Four years ago in this column, I questioned the motive behind David and Victoria so publicly donating old clothes to the Red Cross.

Was it selfless giving? Or selfish promotion of Brand Beckham?

Four years ago in this column, I questioned the motive behind David and Victoria so publicly donating old clothes to the Red Cross. Was it selfless giving? Or selfish promotion of Brand Beckham?

I was vilified by many of their fans. One complained of my negative and spiteful comments. Now, through emails full of f-words and c-words, we know what a self-seeking opportunist David Beckham is, and how he used his charitable works to try to get a knighthood.

So, Ms Disgusted of Worthing, my address for your apology remains the same as in 2013.

Harry Potter actress Emma Watson, 26, says scepticism over her new role as a feminist has only made her stronger.

She wants to write a book about feminism, but needs to do and see a bit more first. How humble. Having landed the role of Hermione at nine, shes worth around 56 million. Many might question what she can know about the battles of women in the real world. Her latest role is Belle in that great feminist work Beauty And The Beast which, she says, is pure escapism. If only we could escape her puerile outpourings.

Despite widespread disapprobation, Madonna has been proudly showing off the new additions to her family four-year-old twin daughters Stella and Esther, adopted from Malawi. At the age of 58, Madge was initially considered too old to adopt  even in Africa.

Fair enough. But why are no questions being raised about George Clooneys suitability to become a father of twins at 56?

At the age of 58, Madge was initially considered too old to adopt  even in Africa

After the death of his wife in April last year, Tom Jones is dating Elvis Presleys ex Priscilla.

Friends say she has put a smile back on his face, a compliment that, sadly, the ageless and cosmetically enhanced Priscilla cannot reciprocate.

Her face hasnt been able to crack a smile for four decades.

After the death of his wife in April last year, Tom Jones is dating Elvis Presleys ex Priscilla

Love's bad investment

A shiver ran done the spine of divorcees this week, when a judge ruled a man whod been divorced from his wife for 15 years had to pay more maintenance.

Theyd divided their assets when they divorced after a 13-year marriage, with businessman Graham Millss ex-wife Maria, 51, being awarded 230,000 in cash as well as 1,100 a month. Mr Mills now has to increase that monthly payment to 1,441 to meet her basic needs, because Mrs Mills squandered her cash on unwise investments.

Where is the justice in that? Shell get a tax-free income of 17,300 a year  and given that women live until their mid-80s, that could reach 600,000 on top of the original cash settlement.

Why would any man want to get married nowadays?

Sixty-eight years ago today, my mother, Norma June Malland, married Frank Platell. Three children and five grandchildren later, they are as devoted to each other as they were that sunny Saturday in Perth, Australia. How fitting that after so many years, Dad is the only one my Alzheimers-stricken mum really remembers. Happy anniversary Mum and Dad  and thanks.

The Aussie who survived for five hours trapped in a mud pit in the Outback with just his nose above water after adopting a yoga pose says hes lucky to be alive.

A yoga pose? Given the macho culture Down Under, I wouldnt give a Four-X for his chances when he next drops into his local pub.

After the Queen reluctantly relinquished the role, Camilla has become the new royal patron of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. Given that her nemesis Diana used to call her the Rottweiler, it proves she still has a great sense of humour.

Liz back in her slimline bikini

Despite threatening to hang up her bikini for good, Liz Hurley, 51, looks as staggeringly slimline as ever promoting her swimwear range (for which she posed... in a bikini).

Her favourite is called Aquarius in toffee, a string bikini like the ones we wore in the Eighties  only then we called it beige.

Isnt it inspirational she can still wear it, all these decades on from the days she held her dresses together with safety pins?

Despite threatening to hang up her bikini for good, Liz Hurley, 51, looks as staggeringly slimline as ever promoting her swimwear range (for which she posed... in a bikini)

A body language expert would have a field day interpreting pictures of Barack Obama and Richard Branson horsing around together after kitesurfing off the tax-exile billionaires private Caribbean island.

In one snap, Branson has his hands around the former Presidents throat, as if to say: Im going to wring millions of pounds of free publicity out of you.

Obama has his arm raised in a fist as though hes about to punch the smug smirk off Bransons face. If only!

In one snap, Branson has his hands around the former Presidents throat, as if to say: Im going to wring millions of pounds of free publicity out of you

Westminster Wars

After Speaker Bercows hysterical outburst telling Donald Trump to stay away from Parliament, some believe there was method to his madness and he was trying to secure his place in history.

More likely hes got an eye on his future earnings and was just trying to up his American speaking fee on the Democrat circuit when he stands down  which we all fervently hope will be sooner rather than later.

Despite rumours from within his circle, Jeremy Corbyn denies talk that hes planning to step down. He will stay at least until his 70th birthday in 2019. Given his Steptoe-like appearance this week when he opened his door in a pair of crumpled trousers and a tatty vest, I thought hed seen 70 decades ago.

Nigel Farages German wife Kirsten was very cool when confronted with news he was sharing a flat with a French former waitress. Theyd led separate lives for several years, she said.

All very dignified, but a bit odd that the staunch Eurosceptic Farage cant seem to find a suitable British lady companion.
The ruthless hounding of hundreds of innocent soldiers over false allegations of atrocities and abuses supposedly committed in Iraq has been one of the most shameful chapters in the annals of British justice.

Cheered on by the sanctimonious human rights lobby, a group of unscrupulous lawyers led by the infamous Phil Shiner pursued a staggering 3,600 compensation cases against our troops  almost all spurious  ranging from minor rough treatment to murder.

For years, the Mail has been the main voice campaigning for an end to this grotesque witch-hunt.

For years, the Mail has been the main voice campaigning for an end to this grotesque witch-hunt. Its therefore with a huge sense of pride we report today that Defence Secretary Michael Fallon is bringing down the curtain on this travesty

We have done so in the face of sneering opposition from the legal establishment and liberal commentators, who were only too happy to champion Shiner (once named Law Society solicitor of the year) and vilify both the soldiers and this newspaper.

Its therefore with a huge sense of pride we report today that Defence Secretary Michael Fallon is bringing down the curtain on this travesty by winding up the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat)  created to look into the abuse claims. More than 600 cases relating to Afghanistan are also being discontinued.

Writing in this paper, Sir Michael says its time to put an end to the poisonous lies which have plagued our armed forces and pledges to ensure British soldiers wont be subject to similar damages claims in future by derogating from the European Court of Human Rights during military conflicts.

We wholeheartedly applaud him and are only sorry his predecessors werent so decisive. This should have happened years ago, before so many lives were cruelly blighted.

That Shiner was an amoral rogue should have been clear from the start as he employed a network of agents, who persuaded thousands of Iraqis to claim they had been abused by British soldiers with the lure of handsome pay-outs.

The MoD couldnt cope with the sheer volume of cases so Ihat was set up to look into them, employing 145 investigators  mainly ex-police officers  at a cost to the taxpayer so far of 36.3million.

We wholeheartedly applaud Sir Michael (pictured) and are only sorry his predecessors werent so decisive. This should have happened years ago, before so many lives were cruelly blighted

Indeed its been a nice little earner for everyone concerned  lawyers, agents, Iraqi civilians who received compensation settlements, and of course the Ihat investigators themselves.

Meanwhile, brave soldiers who risked their lives for their country had their reputations smeared, and their lives and those of their families have been in a Kafkaesque limbo for years.

So the real question is, why did it take so long for Shiner to be exposed? It had long been clear his clients were overwhelmingly bogus and the charges trumped-up. After all, in nearly seven years they didnt produce one conviction.

So the real question is, why did it take so long for Shiner to be exposed? It had long been clear his clients were overwhelmingly bogus and the charges trumped-up

Yet it was only last week that he was finally struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal following an inquiry launched by Sir Michael.

The truth is that because he masqueraded as a champion of human rights, he was feted by the liberal Left and the subject of admiring profiles in the Guardian newspaper. For nearly a decade no one dared challenge him. Fuelled by legal aid and assisted by pusillanimous politicians and gutless civil servants, this parasite was able to make his false allegations with impunity.

And the sorry saga is not over yet. Although Shiner is disgraced, the suffering of another group of veterans continues. While IRA killers are free to walk the streets of Ulster unmolested, police are investigating 300 killings by British soldiers during the Troubles  some more than 45 years ago.

Its another politically-motivated witch- hunt against troops who, lets not forget, were simply trying to keep the peace between two vicious warring factions.
If you've been putting in the gym time and eating healthily since the New Year but still haven't seen the results in one stubborn area, then you're not alone.

Countless women around the world struggle with genetically-predisposed pockets of fat - and no amount of kale or Crossfit will fix them.

FEMAIL spoke to leading Sydney Liposculpture surgeon Dr Meaghan Heckenberg, to find out how the treatment differs slightly from regular Liposuction.

Tiarne Baker, 23, from Sydney, also shared her story of having the procedure done on her arms.

FEMAIL spoke to leading Liposculpture surgeon in Sydney, Dr Meaghan Heckenberg (pictured) to find out how Liposculpture differs from Liposuction; she also talks about the ideal clients

Tiarne Baker, 23 (pictured after), shares her story of having the procedure done on her arms - she said she is extremely happy with the outcome as has always been slim with bigger arms

Ms Baker (pictured before and after) had always been slender, but suffered from genetically predisposed pockets of fat on her arms

LIPOSUCTION VS LIPOSCULPTURE * Liposuction requires larger incision, as well as general anaesthesia to remove fat from different areas of the body. * Liposculpture, on the other hand, is conducted by removing excess fat from certain areas of the body through a tiny cannula which is 1mm in diameter, which means minimal to no scarring after the surgery is completed. * Recovery time for Liposculpture is often much shorter than Liposuction; patients can be back at work within days quite often. * Patients often find Liposculpture less scary because it can be done under local anaesthesia, meaning the patient can converse while being treated. Advertisement

Dr Heckenberg - who has worked in the cosmetic surgery industry for years - said that Liposculpture has become increasingly popular with women in recent times, because it is less aggressive and more refined than Liposuction:

'I do the treatment under local anaesthetic which means it's less scary for patients,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'It's a very smooth, refined and subtle treatment and works well for the modern person because recovery time is much shorter and often men and women can be back at work next day.'

Dr Heckenberg has had Liposculpture done on herself on her inner thighs, outer thighs and knees, and she said that when she was happy with the results she knew she wanted to help others find the same body confidence:

'I remember before I had it done I would train really hard to reduce the fat in these areas, but it only made me look gaunt around the face, neck and chest.

'There's a misconception out there that Liposculpture and Liposuction are for fat people. They actually work best on slim people, but on people who have fat deposition in their thighs, in their arms or on their tummy.

'You can have the procedure done on the smallest part of your body - such as your neck or chin - and places like your abdomen.'

'I do the treatment under local anaesthetic which means it's less scary for patients,' Dr Heckenberg told FEMAIL; she has personally had the treatment done on areas of her body, too

'There's a misconception out there that Lipo is for fat people. It works best on slim people, but on people who have fat deposition in their thighs or on their tummy,' Dr Heckenberg said

While the treatment doesn't have a long recovery time, and most people are back at work within one or two days with minimal bruising and soreness, it comes with a hefty price tag.

Procedures can cost anywhere between AUD $2000 and $4500 depending on the area.

However, surgeons do maintain that unlike many other non-surgical procedures, Liposculpture lasts for life.

'These days, men and women have all sorts of requests,' Dr Heckenberg said.

'Women whose calves stop them from doing up their knee boots, men with man boobs and other women with turkey necks.

'It is always quite busy at this time of year - it's the summer and a new year. It's often a time when people decide to implement change.'

While she had never gone under the knife before, Tiarne Baker is delighted with the results of her Liposculpture (pictured)

The treatment doesn't have a long recovery time, and most people are back at work within one or two days with minimal bruising and soreness (pictured: Tiarne Baker)

'I can see definition in my arms for the first time and am able to dress how I want,' Ms Baker said (pictured before and after having Liposculpture)

Tiarne Baker, 23, from Sydney, had the treatment done recently on her arms.

'I've always been slim, but had these out-of-proportion arms,' she said.

'They would stop me from wearing sleeveless tops and dresses and no amount of food or working out would change them. It was genetic predisposed fat rather than regular fat.'

While she had never gone under the knife before, Ms Baker is delighted with the results of her Liposculpture:

'I can see definition in my arms for the first time and am able to dress how I want,' she said.

For more information about Dr Meaghan Heckenberg's Liposculpture studio in Sydney, click here.
A breast cancer survivor has shared an image on Facebook of her breasts post-surgeries, in response to requests to post a heart emoticon to support the disease.

The Sydney woman posted the photograph to her Facebook page on Friday with a caption asking people to stop sending her the requests.

She wrote: 'Seriously people. STOP sending me messages asking me to post a heart on my Facebook wall in support of Breast Cancer. Are you kidding me?'

A breast cancer survivor has shared an image on Facebook of her breasts post-surgeries (pictured), in response to requests to post a heart emoticon to support the disease

The trend is to post a heart on a female friend's wall and then send them a private inbox message explaining the heart a reminder to get their breasts checked.

Instead the woman wrote: 'Here is a REAL photograph of my post-breast-cancer-post-double-mastectomy-post-failed-reconstruction chest.'

'Taken today. 5 minutes ago even. Enjoy. Don't be me. CHECK YOUR BOOBS.'

'And stop sending me that s**t', she wrote.

The post has been shared more than 1,000 times and attracted hundreds of supportive comments.
Several studies have shown that breast milk is the best thing to be feeding your baby.

It has a nearly perfect mix of nutrients, protein, and fat - and in a form more easily digested than formula.

But did you know it could also kill off bacteria?

A recent Facebook photo, uploaded by a biosciences student, that went viral proves just how vital breast milk can be in fighting off infection in your baby.

A recent Facebook photo uploaded by a British biosciences student went viral for showing how breast milk kills bacteria. The Petri dish is entirely covered in bacteria except for the area in the middle smeared in breast milk, which has has killed the bacteria

It's been proven indisputable that breast milk has properties unable to be replicated in formula.

Doctors have long known that infants who are breast-fed contract fewer infections than those who are given formula. But until fairly recently, they though it was because the milk being supplied directly from the breast was free of bacteria.

Formula, often mixed with water and then placed in bottle, can become contaminated easily - even sterilized formula.

As it turns out, breast milk contains antibodies, other proteins and immune cells that help prevent microorganisms from penetrating body tissue.

Additionally, studies have shown that breastfed babies are less likely to catch viruses.

And if they do catch a virus, antibodies are produced by the mother which are then passed on to the baby via breast milk.

While it's not the norm in most cultures, both UNICEF's and the World Health Organization's most recent guidelines advise breast-feeding to 'two years and beyond' because a child's immune system doesn't reach full strength until about age five.

WHAT DOES BREAST MILK CONTAIN? PROTEIN Breast milk contains whey and casein protein. This balance of the proteins allows for quick and easy digestion. They also have great infection-protection properties. FATS Human milk contains fats that are essential for brain development, absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and a primary calorie source. Long chain fatty acids are needed for brain, retina and nervous system development. VITAMINS The amount and types of vitamins in breast milk is directly related to the mothers vitamin intake. Fat-soluble vitamins vital to the baby's health include vitamins A, D, E and K. Also important are water-soluble vitamins such as vitamin C, riboflavin, niacin, and panthothenic acid. CARBOHYDRATES Lactose is the primary carbohydrate found in human milk. It accounts for approximately 40 percent of the total calories provided by breast milk. Lactose helps to decrease the amount of unhealthy bacteria in the stomach, ANTIBODIES Antibodies, which are also called immunoglobulins, contain molecules passed to the baby and they bind to microorganisms and keep them away from the bodys tissues. Advertisement

According to The American Academy of Pediatrics, breastfeeding is recommended up until age two.

Now a viral image is proving again just how powerful breast milk really is.

Vicky Greene, a first year biosciences student at South Devon College in Paignton, England, and a mother of three, posted the photo on Facebook.

It shows nine Petri dishes containing the bacteria M. luteus. Greene added breast milk samples to each of the Petri dishes  some with breast milk from the mom of a 15-month-old, and others with breast milk from the mom of a three-year-old.

Greene said she wanted to see if the antimicrobial properties changed the older a child was fed.

The perimeter of each Petri dish is covered in bacteria but, in the center, where the breast milk was spread, the bacteria is completely gone, killed off by the breast milk.

As Greene explained in the post caption: 'The white spots in the middle are discs soaked in two samples of breast milk. See the clear bit around the discs  that's where the proteins in the milk have killed off the bacteria!'

Since the photo was posted on February 6, it has been 'liked' over 25,000 times, and shared over 24,000 times.

Greene has shared that in her next experiment, she is going to use colostrum, which is a yellow-colored, immune-fueled milk that a baby gets right at birth, before a mom's milk fully comes in.

She also said she's done this same experiment with E.coli and MRSA bacteria, showing similar results.

In 2010, a groundbreaking study found that breast milk contains a substance called HAMLET, which has been shown to kill 40 types of cancer cells.

Researchers are currently working on ways to isolate HAMLET from breast milk and use it to treat all different types of cancer.

There has also been a growing market for healthy, pure breast milk for babies. Although the exact amount that breast milk sells for varies, the rate is usually $1 to $3 per ounce.
This was it: an opportunity for the government to show that it was listening to growing concerns about health tourism.

Legislation would be put in place, we were told, to stop our wonderful, free-at-the-point-of-delivery health service being taken advantage of.

I had high hopes and yet when I heard what was being proposed, they were instantly dashed  the supposed solution is completely pointless. It wont work.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt (pictured) said this week the law will change in April to ensure that overseas patients made a fair contribution. But the supposed solution is completely pointless. It wont work

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said this week the law will change in April to ensure that overseas patients made a fair contribution. Great, about time.

But all the new legislation says is that NHS trusts will have to charge patients who are not UK residents upfront for non-urgent treatment such as knee replacement surgery, or a cataract op.

This is opposed to the current system where the NHS attempts to chase patients for the cost of their treatment after the fact, often fruitlessly as they have since left the country, meaning bills running to the tens of thousands go unpaid.

But the obvious problem is what happens if someone simply cant pay for their treatment then and there? So the new plan is that hospital staff can decide whether to take payment from an overseas patient on the spot, or ask them to sign a form to agree to longer-term payment.

A form? Really? Is that the best they could come up with?

Maybe Im being cynical, but arent most people  when confronted with a bill for thousands of pounds for a treatment they desperately want, but may not be able to afford  going to sign the form and worry about payment later? Leaving us with the same old problems of having to track them down and make them pay.

The new proposal also fails to address the cases that costs us the most money  urgent cases where people fall ill while here and require emergency treatment (file photo)

The new proposal also fails to address the cases that costs us the most money  urgent cases where people fall ill while here and require emergency treatment. These cases are to be exempt from the proposed legislation, yet are the ones that tend to be the most expensive, needing complex surgery and intensive care beds.

The dilemma is plain  you cannot, in all human decency, turn away, say, a woman who goes into labour prematurely, and whose baby then needs an urgent operation, or an elderly man who collapses on holiday and requires a triple bypass, just because they dont have 50,000 in their bank account to pay for it. Yet the NHS cant afford to keep footing the bill.

Under the new plans, GPs are also going to be given extra cash to identify patients who turn up at their surgeries and are not eligible for NHS treatment  and to pass this information on to hospitals. They will be given 5 million to help with the administrative cost.

On the face of it, using GP surgeries as gatekeepers looks fairly sensible. However, the reality will be rather different.

The British Medical Association  the doctors union  has long complained that doctors shouldnt act as border guards. So the deal they have agreed with the government will see patients self declare their residency.

And so actually, all that is going to happen is a GP (or more likely the receptionist) is going to hand anyone who crosses the surgery threshold a form and ask them to tick whether they are eligible for NHS treatment or not.

I cant believe Im the only one who can see the flaw here. Theres almost a wilful naivety in the plans. When it comes to healthcare, people are desperate and will lie.

Why on earth would anyone who has come here to get free healthcare tick no, knowing that it will land them with a massive bill?

Why on earth would anyone who has come here to get free healthcare tick no, knowing that it will land them with a massive bill (file photo)

So what should the Government do instead? I touched on this in my column last week. My ideas are simple: everyone coming into the country would have to demonstrate they had medical insurance to cover the cost if they fell unwell. This would be part of immigration checks at border control, and those who failed to do this would be sent back.

Second, those who leave the country without paying an NHS bill are banned for life from returning unless they settle their debt.

I obviously hit a nerve last week because I was inundated with correspondence from readers. Many of you told me of visiting countries such as Australia and being quizzed at immigration about how you planned to pay for treatment if you were unwell. You also expressed frustration that we seemed utterly incapable of doing the same.

So Im sure youre as frustrated as I am that what is being touted as a solution to save the NHS millions is little more than a half-measure.

The government has utterly failed to protect the NHS with this flimsy, ineffectual legislation. This was an open goal and yet our politicians have managed to miss it entirely.

A father's heartache and a lesson for us all

Newsreader Mark Austins account of dealing with his daughter Madeleines anorexia was unflinchingly honest and utterly heartbreaking

Newsreader Mark Austins account of dealing with his daughter Madeleines anorexia was unflinchingly honest and utterly heartbreaking.

He confessed this week that he once said to her in frustration: If you really want to starve yourself to death, just get on with it. She is now said to be doing fine.

Looking back, Austin says that he understands he dealt with the situation in the wrong way, but I think he can be forgiven for not knowing how to respond.

When I worked in dementia services, the children of elderly patients would often confess to becoming very angry with their parents as they became confused or wandered, and yet of course it was not their parents fault, but part of their illness.

Its interesting how we would never get angry or frustrated at someone who was struggling to walk because of a broken leg.

Because mental health problems are something that we cant see, its much harder to hold on to the fact that the symptoms are the result of an illness. Without the visual prompt, we soon slip into blaming the person. Its a salutary lesson for us all.

When the best nurse you can have is a pet

How are you feeling? I asked my patient, an elderly lady. Mrs Leslie sighed and turned her face to the wall. She pulled the bed sheets up to her chin.

Do you think you are depressed? I ventured. I miss Robbie, she said.

I nodded. Mrs Leslie had been widowed for two years and was all alone. It must be very hard, I replied. How long were you married?

Pet owners have lower blood pressure and better cholesterol levels. Their rates of depression are also lower (file photo)

Robbies my Jack Russell! she said, puzzled. I was married to my husband for 40 years but God, I dont miss him.

Mrs Leslie had been in hospital for four months after breaking her hip and then developing a chest infection. She had become increasingly withdrawn and tearful, so I was asked to go and see her.

She told me Robbie had been left with neighbours. What if I have to go into a home? she said. I dont know what I would have done without that dog.

She said shed never felt lonely with Robbie. He gave her meaning and structure in her life in a way that no tablet I could prescribe would.

I thought of Mrs Leslie this week when I read about a report on the economic costs and benefits of pets.

Older dogs owners are more than twice as likely to maintain their mobility than non-dog owners, for example. Pet owners have lower blood pressure and better cholesterol levels. Their rates of depression are also lower.

I didnt start Mrs Leslie on an antidepressant. Instead, I spoke to the surgeons and the district nurse and we found a way to let her go home to the care of a certain Jack Russell.

Impulsive? It's just your inner lizard!

We all know someone who, despite everyone nagging them to go to the doctor, makes excuse after excuse as to why they cant.

Ive often found it baffling how long people wait to get something checked out. Surely its better than sitting at home not knowing and worrying yourself silly?

Yet a study published this week by the think-tank 2020health has shown that fear of finding out is the reason a third of people put it off.

The coping mechanism at play here is denial. In the short term it might allow us to avoid something anxiety provoking, but in the long term it can result in far bigger problems.

And theres an interesting psychological explanation for this. Its an example of the constant conflict between two parts of our mind: the reptilian brain and the neocortex.

The reptilian brain is involved in our basic, primal needs. It results in short-term thinking and is only interested in satisfying its basic desires. Its irrational and impulsive and doesnt worry about long-term consequences.

The neocortex, on the other hand, is the rational part of our mind that sets us apart from animals and enables us to understand cause and effect.

When people bury their heads in the sand about their symptoms, the reptilian part of our minds has over-ridden the sensible, smart neocortex, which knows that simply not knowing something wont make it go away.

The reptilian part of our mind is said to be responsible for all sorts of problems, from war to marital strife. If only we could be less lizard.

drmax@dailymail.co.uk
Lee Child has sold 70 million books and turned his creation Jack Reacher into a billion-dollar brand, but on a dark night in New York recently it was Child who morphed into a real-life hero.

The Birmingham-raised author, who took to writing after being fired from Granada Television at the age of 40, admits he shares many of Reachers trademark qualities of silent masculinity, brute force and the desire for good to triumph over evil.

It was late at night on Lower Broadway and I was walking home for dinner, Child explains, his Brummie accent still strong despite spending the best part of the past two decades living in Manhattan.

Lee Child based Jack Reacher on the universal theme of the silent yet menacing loner who shows up unexpectedly to right a wrong and who then moves on

A taxi stopped and this tiny Hindu taxi driver had this big, fat frat boy [student] in the back who was about to throw up. The driver was desperately trying to get him out of the cab. And the frat boy was being violent and abusive towards him. It was such a mismatch I had to step in. I crossed the street and hauled the guy out of the back seat. Then he hit me in the face so I had to demolish him in good old Brummie fashion. What? With a headbutt? No, he laughs, but with feet and knees.

Its this kind of macho spirit that has made Child, 62, his huge fortune. He based Reacher on the universal theme of the silent yet menacing loner who shows up unexpectedly to right a wrong and who then moves on, devoid of worldly possessions or even much dialogue.

The character, a former military policeman, has attracted millions of fans around the globe including Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (who Child has met four times) and has launched a much-criticised film franchise starring Tom Cruise, whose diminutive 5ft 7in stature outraged die-hard fans of the Reacher character, who is described as 6ft 5in and 18st of pure muscle.

Unlike many in the tread carefully world of Hollywood, Child is refreshingly unafraid of voicing his opinions. Speaking about the latest film adaptation, Never Go Back, which was panned by critics, Child shrugs and says Tom Cruise personally apologised to him.

The reviews werent that great and we had a chat at the London premiere and he apologised and I told him not to worry about it. These films arent expensive to make, so this one will probably be profitable.

Theres always a problem when popular books are turned into movies. When you read a book its your personal secret, how you imagine that character. With any actor, people would have been upset and Cruise is an easy target, obviously, because of the size disparity.

For the first time, Child exclusively discloses some of the other actors considered for the Reacher role.

Hugh Jackman was in the frame at one point. And Both Will Smith and Jamie Foxx were interested. Can you image how people would have reacted to a black Reacher?

Child believes the appeal of his stoic, silent character who famously carries no more than a passport, ATM card and fold-up toothbrush is that he sums up the ideal of masculinity, something that appeals to both men and women.

Doing the right thing, the noble thing, is a masculine fantasy. And Reacher has a complete lack of commitments and responsibilities, which I predicted would be a masculine fantasy. The idea of walking away from a mortgage and all that c***. I knew it was a masculine fantasy but whats surprised me is that its a feminine fantasy too. My readers are split in half, 50-50 men and women.

Child was born plain Jim Grant in Coventry, one of four brothers, but moved to Birmingham at four when his father switched jobs: Birmingham was an inarticulate society where if you had problems the only recourse was violence. My elder brother was a small kid and I was big for my age. I had to fight to survive.

After studying law at Sheffield University he joined Granada and worked in what he calls the golden era of TV, producing shows like Brideshead Revisited and The Jewel In The Crown. But then, suddenly, aged 40, he was made redundant.

Id been a big reader all my life. When I was let go I thought, Im going to write books. It was as clear as day to me. I bought legal pads and pencils and started writing.

'I was angry and in a hurry and you feel that in the first book, the urgency and fury. I had only seven months of living expenses in the bank.

The name Lee Child was born when he and his wife struck up a conversation on a train with a loud Texan who was bragging about his new car, a Renault 5, then marketed in the States as Le Car. The man mispronounced Le as Lee and Child and his wife began using that as a private joke (Pass Lee salt, dear).

When their daughter Ruth was born she naturally became Lee Child, a name he liked so much he took it as his moniker for his first Reacher novel, Killing Floor.

Every September 1 he starts a new Reacher novel. The date is significant because it is the date he began the first novel.

The latest Night School, is number 21. Child, who maintains a home in the UK, says he is uncertain if he will ever return to Britain, so shocked was he by the Brexit vote: I felt very dispirited by the quality of the debate. It was very negative and unpleasant. I dont feel settled about Britain yet.

Lee Child admits he shares many of Reachers trademark qualities

He is equally depressed about President Trump. In terms of loutishness and unacceptability its like electing [former BHS boss] Philip Green as PM. Were headed back to the Fifties, with more wars along the way, and another recession is a certainty. I pity the next Democrat president, because he or she will have a gigantic mess to clean up.

Child has been married for 41 years to wife Jane, an American he met at university.

The couple have one daughter, Ruth, 36. Child has been open about his love of cigarettes, marijuana and black coffee: My idea was always to have more fun in 60 years than anybody else would have in 90.

Ive been smoking [weed] since 1969. It hasnt done me any harm at all, less harm than if Id developed a taste for whisky.

While he jokes about a liking for cheap clothes (he wore a 120 suit to the UK premiere of his latest film) he does have a weakness for expensive cars.

My most sentimental possession is a 1977 Bentley which was registered the same month I started work after college. I have a lot of cars.

I spend what I need and give a lot away. You meet a disabled person who needs an electric wheelchair or someone whose home is about to be repossessed and you can make a real difference, randomly. Thats what I enjoy most. For a relatively small amount of money compared to what Im earning I can change somebodys life.

He is now hard at work on book number 22, but would he ever consider killing off Jack Reacher? He pauses.

Its obviously no longer about the money for me. Its purely emotional. The readers want more stories. I used to think about how Id do it, how Id end it. I used to think that Reacher needed a noble end, that hed sacrifice himself for someone else.

But that would be gratuitously upsetting to the reader.

I think hell end in a more subtle way. Maybe hell just ride into the sunset, ride into silence forever.

Night School by Lee Child is out now in hardback, 20. The DVD Never Go Back is out on Feb 27
Kyoto Kitchen

70 Parchment St,

Winchester,

kyotokitchen.co.uk

Rating:

'Tablecloths! says Joe, with barely concealed excitement. Real, white tablecloths made from cotton. In a Japanese restaurant. He pauses, stroking the starched material with incredulous delight, as if his eyes have somehow deceived him, and only actual physical contact between fleshy digit and pristine linen will prove hes really here, in Winchesters Kyoto Kitchen. Rather than trapped, forever, in some infernal alternate reality. He shakes his head in amazement. And sinks back in his chair. Youd never find this in London. Never. In fact, I dont even think theyre legal.

But once his gast is unflabbered, he notes the stencil of Mount Fuji on the window, the kimonos on the wall, and the airport massage bar muzak. And seems to relax. As he resigns himself to yet another well-meaning but ultimately disappointing regional samurai stab at this most elusive of cuisines.

With sweet service, and sensible prices, Kyoto Kitchen is a true regional delight

Especially when it comes to sushi. Because unless youre situated close to a massive Honda factory (take a bow Mount Fuji in Swindon), or vast Toyota plant (konnichiwa to Derbys Ebi Sushi), with their hungry hordes of discerningly homesick ex-pats, conventional wisdom has it that youre best off sticking to the big cities. Astronomical costs of suitably top-grade fish means you require the constant, twice-daily cacophony of chopsticks on china in order to shift all that expensive, and deeply perishable, stock.

As to the other Japanese staples  tempura, noodles, yakitori and the rest, theyre too often second-rate afterthoughts, boring ballast treated with insouciant disdain.

But at Kyoto Kitchen, things are rather different. Its rammed, on the glummest of early weekday lunches, a miracle in itself. Theres a decent sake list too. Not that we get too stuck in, as none are currently available, save for a distinctly average Genshu. Typical. But three kinds of tea, including the wonderfully nutty, malty genmaicha, and the fact they use fresh wasabi root, grown locally by the excellent Wasabi Company, makes up for any rice wine withdrawal. Even Joe is impressed.

FROM THE MENU

Beef tataki 7.95 Ebi Tempura 7.95 Agedashi tofu 5.95 Nigiri selection 12.95 Lamb saikyo miso 14.95 Advertisement

Tataki to start, good quality beef fillet, marinated in soy, sake and mirin, the outsides swiftly seared. Served with a delicately acidic ponzu dip, thick with gentle garlic. Tempura next, serious, grown-up tempura, succulent prawns clad in elegant tatters of batter, and fried with a truly expert hand. Where thin, cool coating meets clean, shimmering oil. The dipping sauce is discreetly sharp, the quality of the dashi stock and mirin shining gently through.

More deep-fried brilliance in agedashi tofu, so often a sullen lump of cheap tofu, dumped in a flood of oversweet mediocrity. Here, though, the tofu is lasciviously silken, the batter dreamily diaphanous, and that sublime yet understated sauce a subtle variation of the tempura tentsuyu, blessed with sonorous depth and a last, breathy gasp of vinegar. I want to slurp the whole bowl down, but worry, momentarily, about resembling some hairy-handed gaijin. Greed, though, conquers good manners. And its gone in one glorious gulp.

Nigiri sushi next, and they easily master the rice, which is the difficult part. Its warm, creamy and cooked so that each grain holds its own, yet melds into one magnificent whole. The toppings range from the great (a thick slice of vinegared mackerel, more akin to battera sushi than nigiri) to the decent (mellow yellowtail) to the distinctly average (an overcooked slice of octopus, and some forgettably everyday tuna). Sashimi, too, is superior, and mainly well cut. The sea bass is a touch ragged, but fresh enough to still wear the oceans scent. Splendid chunks of yellowtail and more of that vinegared mackerel impress, while salmon is above average, and the violently scarlet tuna just plain dull.

Nigiri sushi

Fresh wasabi, rubbed on a sharkskin grater, is more discreet than its pungent, mustard spiked commercial counterpart. It has a verdant, peppery sweetness, and a quietly strident charm. Just like Kyoto Kitchen. We share a Winchester roll, where fresh wasabi leaf (rather than the more usual nori seaweed) is wrapped around rice and slivers of locally smoked trout. A clever, delicate and natural take on a dish that rarely gets me excited. A splodge of sharp mango puree is a distinctly alien flourish, but works all the same. Only a silly goji berry garnish feels wildly out of place.

A trio of lamb chops, charred and gently bleating, have a subtle white miso tang. Theyre the yin to Rokas chilli-marinated yang, and typical of the kitchens understated, yet entirely assured, approach. Chicken yakitori is the only bore, the meat suitably fatty, but lacking that all-important char.

Still, this is a lunch of rare grace and poise. A few rough edges, sure, and a finer grade of tuna wouldnt go amiss. But with sweet service, and sensible prices, Kyoto Kitchen is a true regional delight, a white tableclothed Japanese joy in this most English of Hampshire cities.

Lunch for two: 50

What Tom ate this week

Wednesday

Lunch at Hix Mayfair. Bump into the man himself, tasting new dishes with Kevin Gratton, his cracking executive chef. Eat wonderful grilled turbot, with a herb flecked salad. Almost healthy. Then dinner with my mother at Wilton. A dozen Colchester natives no 2, blissfully briny. Then Dover sole and a wodge of Dauphinoise potatoes.

Tacos

Thursday

Back to El Pastor in Southwark with my friend Manuel, a Mexican who gives it the thumbs-up. Carinatas, short rib and el pastor tacos, sopa di tortilla and frijoles charros.

Friday

Lunch with the editor of Esquire at St John. Bone marrow on toast and punchy devilled kidneys. A pint on the way home, then hoover up the kids Bella Napoli pizza.

Saturday

Off to Saturday Kitchen to plug the Fortnums cook book. Spicy Sichaun dumpling cooked by the legendary Ken Hom, mango and crab salad from the great Angela Hartnett, and wonderful steak from the hugely talented Adam Handling.
Internet never cease to surprise us - be it trolling a naive celebrity for being 'politically incorrect' or uniting a bunch of lost kids with their mother by tweeting about it- netizens can do anything.

There's one more magic that the internet pulls off and we get to witness it every now and then - saving lives!

Here are three such wonderful stories about the time when internet felt empathy, sat up straight and did its bit to completely change the lives of a few children.

BEFORE: Siddhant & Sayali were diagnosed with a condition that gives scales on body

Sagar Dorji, a four-year-old boy from Lakhimpur in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam, developed a rare form of blood cancer in August 2016.

This rare condition made his eyes swell and bleed. Sagar's picture placed on his Ketto fundraiser had the power to evoke an emotion like no other.

AFTER: Rs 1,94,552 were raised to buy their medication for next seven months

Hundreds of philanthropists from India as well as all corners of the globe came together to raise Rs 3,41,554 to pull Sagar out out of his misery.

It's been five months since his campaigner Sanjay Pandey ended the fundraiser on Ketto.

The funds were used to fly Sagar, from Assam to Bangalore for chemotherapy, the money raised was also used for the food and accommodation of his parents while he got his treatment done.

BEFORE: Aditya was found in dumpster after neighbour threw acid on his face (left). AFTER: Rs 11,77,450 were raised for Aditya, who is slowly recovering after surgery (right)

After treatment the swelling in Sagar's eyes has reduced to a large extent, and the bleeding has also stopped.

As many as 137 people helped in contributing, which led to Sagar's eye treatment.

Online donations helped another little boy, a victim of acid attack, undergo several surgeries.

Online readers were horrified to learn that a two-year-old boy named Aditya was found in a dumpster after his neighbour threw acid on his face to avenge his mother's refusal to his sexual demands.

Aditya's mother was harassed for a year by her neighbours, and thus the family decided to move out of their house.

BEFORE: Sagar Dorji developed a blood cancer in 2016 that made his eyes bleed

The obsessed stalker's friend, in order to take revenge from Aditya's mother, kidnapped the boy, allegedly poured acid on his face, and left him to die in the dumpster.

In less than 24 hours, more than 600 people came forward to support 'Make Love Not Scars' fundraiser and helped in raising Rs 11,77,450.

Aditya was treated by private doctors and was recently discharged from the hospital after his condition improved.

AFTER: Rs 3,41,554 were raised online to treat Sagar. Now, his eyes have stopped bleeding

According to his relatives, he will spend some more time in another hospital, in an isolated ward to avoid the risk of infection.

He is slowly returning to his playful self that he was before the attack. A local hospital has also offered to lend support to Aditya's healing process.

The internet also alleviated what can't be fixed. Sayali and Siddhant were diagnosed with a tragic condition called 'Lamellar Ichthyosis' that is estimated to occur in one out of 600,000 infants.

The rare condition gives them scales all over their body resulting in excessively dried skin that keeps peeling off.

Even though their condition can't be cured completely, both siblings have to apply medicated oil at least three times a day as well as medicated soaps, shampoos, lotions, and creams to keep their skin in tolerable condition which their parents can't afford.

Their mother Sarika is a home-maker and father Santosh is working in a factory and earns Rs 8,500 per month.

A person named Gaurav Malhotra started a fundraiser on the internet and collected Rs 1,94,552.

Due to this disease, Siddhant and Sayali would anxiously wait for winter months from November to February, as they would perspire less, which will reduce itching skin.

But now after the treatment, Siddhant and Sayali are relieved of itching and burning skin and they can enjoy summer.

The funds raised on Ketto will be used to buy their medications for the next seven months.

Online donations from unknown people from all corners of the world has given a new life to these three beautiful children.
CJI Khehar had begun the practice of disposing of old petitions in a single sitting without granting any adjournments

'Whatever the case, we have to read all these pages. My brother judges are young (looking at justices DY Chandrachud and NV Ramana seated with him).

They have no problem going through the entire records but I am old. Look at my white beard. After reading all this I feel tired also. So please'

Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, 65, said in the Supreme Court on Friday.

The CJI was both upset and angry about the number of frivolous petitions piling up in the apex court, which is already reeling under a backlog of nearly 61,000 cases.

Pointing out that he has started imposing heavy costs on such petitioners, he slapped fines of Rs 10 lakh on a Bihar MLA and Rs 1 lakh on a Maharashtra professor in two separate cases.

The CJI's remarks came just before the lawyer representing the professor said she wanted to withdraw the case, which was filed challenging a circular issued by the Gujarat government.

An angry Khehar rebuked the lawyer and allowed her to withdraw the plea, but only after imposing a fine of Rs 1 lakh.

Backlog

'Why do you now want to go back to Gujarat? Why did this not occur to you when you were preparing the petition?' he said.

Millions of cases are pending in India's courts, draining litigants of resources and pointing towards an urgent need for more judges and judicial reforms.

When the lawyer pleaded for cancelling the cost, CJI Khehar shot back: 'No. This has to stop and only this way it can stop.

'For years we have not done it. See if you have a good cause we are with you but not for such petitions which takes away judicial time.'

Millions of cases are pending in India's courts, draining litigants of resources and pointing towards an urgent need for more judges and judicial reforms.

Khehar's predecessor, TS Thakur, said last year that the country needs to double the number of judges.

The CJI imposed a Rs 10 lakh fine on Bihar MLA Ravindra Singh for indulging in frivolous litigation.

The legislator from the state's ruling RJD, in the Supreme Court had challenged a high court order dismissing his petition, which questioned the veracity of a 23-year old newspaper article.

Supreme Court said the cost needs to be higher as the representative of the people was found indulging in 'unpardonable' activity of wasting judicial time.

When the MLA's lawyer pleaded that the cost could be reduced, the CJI said after hearing the plea for leniency what came to his mind was the story of a hostel mate while he was a college student.

Adjournments

Recounting the incident, the CJI said: 'When a fine of Rs 25 was imposed on him in a case of indiscipline, he had said: 'I belong to a rich family. At least impose a fine of Rs 250.'

Likewise you also please say I am an MLA, please impose a fine of Rs 1 crore on me and not mere Rs 10 lakhCome on,' the CJI told the MLA's lawyer, raising peals of laughter in the packed courtroom.

What apparently set the tone for the CJI's angry mood in the morning hours itself was a petition filed by a car mechanic from Madurai.

He was challenging 'illegal additional floors' in a hospital in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.

'Can a car mechanic complain about a hospital? What has he got to do with it? All these are vested interests.

'If anybody has a good cause we are there to hear it. We are adjourning this matter and in the next hearing if you are not able to prove your bonafides, we will impose costs on you,' he said.

'How many cases we are going to hear which are nonsense and trash? We are seeing such petitions increasing on daily basis..this is Supreme Court.

'Do have some respect for us.'

Within hours after taking charge on January 4, CJI Khehar had made his determination to bring down the backlog in the apex court clear by summarily dismissing long-pending frivolous petitions and refusing adjournments in cases.

He had begun the practice of disposing of old petitions in a single sitting without granting any adjournments.

The CJI also identified central and state governments as the biggest adjournment seekers and threatened to impose heavy fines on requests for deferments.

'Things cannot go on like this. I will start imposing heavy cost on adjournment seekers. I find government lawyers the biggest culprit. How will cases finish?' he had asked a lawyer who appeared for the Centre on January 5.
The Supreme Court in 2011 legalised passive euthanasia by means of the withdrawal of life support to patients in a permanent vegetative state

The euthanasia debate has divided the city doctors.

A two-year old AIIMS study has revealed the differing opinions among doctors in the national capital over mercy killing - whether or not it should be allowed for terminally ill patients.

While oncologists are against the practice, most other doctors expressed strong support.

Euthanasia is the termination of a very sick person's life in order to relieve them of their suffering.

The Supreme Court in 2011 legalised passive euthanasia by means of the withdrawal of life support to patients in a permanent vegetative state.

The decision was made as part of the verdict in a case involving Aruna Shanbaug - a sexual assault victim who remained in a coma for 42 years.

The court later referred the issue to a constitution bench.

The Centre prepared a draft bill and invited public suggestions last year for authorising passive euthanasia.

The internal AIIMS study interviewed doctors from 28 government and private hospitals.

These include 50 oncologists, 50 haematologists, 50 psychiatrists, and 50 intensivists.

A study conducted by AIIMS revealed that the doctors were divided over the issue of mercy killing

The report that was also published in the Asian Journal of Oncology, noted: 'Oncologists and haematologists are 'against' the practice of any form euthanasia while psychiatrists and intensivists 'supported passive euthanasia'.

Medical experts say that worldwide only the Netherlands, Belgium, Colombia, and Luxembourg allow euthanasia.

Those who are against mercy killing may argue for the sanctity of life, while proponents of euthanasia rights emphasise alleviating suffering, and preserving bodily integrity, self-determination, and personal autonomy.

Dr Sheetal Singh from AIIMS who conducted the research under the guidance of Dr Shakti Gupta, head of hospital administration and medical superintendent at the institute, told Mail Today: 'The study showed about 87 per cent oncologists and 82 per cent haematologists believe no action should be taken to induce death.'

Indian psychiatrists say that a person with a terminal and painful disease should have the right to refuse life-support treatment

'Even if death is preferable to life in a terminally ill patients, whereas 74 per cent psychiatrists and 63 per cent intensivists disagree with the same.'

'80 per cent of psychiatrists, 77 per cent of intensivists were of the opinion that a person with a terminal and painful disease should have the right to refuse/reject life-sustaining/support treatment.'

'However, 67 per cent oncologists and 61 per cent haematologists opposed the same,' said one of the authors, Dr DK Sharma.

While passive euthanasia entails the withholding of common treatments, such as antibiotics, necessary for the continuance of life, active euthanasia involve the use of lethal substances or forces, such as administering a lethal injection, to kill.

'There should be strong protocol and it should not be affected by the thought process of psychiatrists and his/her personality traits.

'There should be robust mechanism and understanding among psychiatrists even if passive euthanasia is followed,' said Dr Nand Kumar, psychiatrist at AIIMS.

According to Dr Gupta, the attitude of doctors towards various components of euthanasia varies with their training and their experience of caring for terminally ill patients.
Following a surprise visit to Delhi's beggar home, DCW chief Swati Maliwal has issued notices to Delhi Police and Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in connection with complaints regarding detention of foreign nationals at a beggar home.

DCW received complaints from a 20- year-old Nigerian woman who was forced into prostitution.

A widow from Afghanistan was forcefully detained in the beggar home.

DCW chief Swati Maliwal (pictured) has issued notices to Delhi Police and Foreigner Regional Registration Office

Nigerian national Maria (name changed) informed the Commission that she has been detained in the beggar home since 17th January 2017.

'I was brought to India by another Nigerian woman who promised me a job here.

'Instead, she made me work as domestic help in her house and also forced me into prostitution,' Maria said.

Maria told DCW that she ran away from that place in order to escape prostitution anf went to her employer's house.

'The woman, along with four other men, abducted me for seven days,' she said.

Maria was handed over by her abductors to the police in Uttam Nagar, and was later sent to Foreign Regional Registration Offices (FRRO).

In another case of detention, DCW received a complaint from a woman from Afghanistan for getting blacklisted by FRRO and was confined to the beggar home.

'My husband was killed in Afghanistan in 2009 by the Taliban after which I had to come to India with my three children on a six-month visa.

'On the expiry of visa, I returned to Afghanistan but then Taliban took away one of my sons.'

An Afghan widow and her children have been detained in the beggar home

'I again came back to India. We have been living here since then on a permit from UNHCR which allows us to stay here till 2017,' the woman told DCW chief.

The woman and her sons have now been detained by the FRRO, citing that they have blacklisted the family.

The family has been confined to the beggar home since January 17 of this year.

'The woman has informed us that her children are enrolled in a school and their examinations are approaching. With the family being moved to beggar home, the kids will face trouble ahead of their exams,' DCW officials told Mail Today.

'There are several complaints received against the FRRO.

'It is nothing short of sad that they have failed to provide adequate information to the Commission till date.'

'Lack of transparency in the working of the FRRO is not proper.

'We have issued notices and summons to FRRO and Delhi Police on the serious complaints of the women detainees of the beggar home,' Swati Maliwal told Mail Today.
The Delhi high court on Friday asked the Centre to allow the wife of the BSF jawan, who went public through the social media alleging poor quality food being served to soldiers, to meet and stay with him for two days at the base where he is posted at present.

The direction by a division bench of Justices G S Sistani and Vinod Goel came after Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain informed the court that BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav is not under any illegal confinement and he has been shifted to another battalion, 88th Bn HQRS at Kalibari, Samba in Jammu.

Taking note of the submission, the high court bench said if the wife has an apprehension that her husband is under threat, she and their son should be allowed to meet the soldier.

Soldier's wife Sharmila Devi (right) moved to court alleging that her husband is untraceable and the family has been unable to contact him for the last few days

It also said: 'We should not get into logistics of any kind, the wife must be allowed to meet him and let us burst the bubble.'

The bench further directed the ASG, who was representing the Centre and BSF, to make all possible arrangements for the wife to meet her husband at the Jammu camp and there should be no difficulties while she visits the place.

Tej Bahadur came into prominence after he posted video of poor quality food given to soldiers at the border

The court's direction came after the jawan's wife Sharmila Devi moved the court by way of a habeas corpus plea, alleging that her husband is untraceable and the family has been unable to contact him for the last few days.

Advocate Manish Tewari, appearing for the woman, said that since February 7, the wife was not able to speak to her husband and even the BSF chief did not reply to the representation sent by the family in this regard.

They were not even informed about the disciplinary action taken against Yadav for his releasing the video alleging his seniors, which went viral on the social media.

Yadav had on January 9 posted a video on Facebook which showed a meal box comprising a watery soup-like dal, which he said had only turmeric and salt and a burnt chapati.
The wait for chief ministership in Tamil Nadu got prolonged with governor Vidyasagar Rao still undecided on the issue as the feud in the ruling AIADMK escalated on Friday.

V K Sasikala sacked party presidium chairman E Madusudanan, who wrote to the Election Commission not to recognise her as general secretary.

The governor was said to be still evaluating legal opinion on Sasikala's claim to having an overwhelming support of party MLAs while the judgement of Supreme Court on disproportionate assets case against her was imminent next week.

V K Sasikala sacked party presidium chairman E Madusudanan, who wrote to the Election Commission not to recognise her as general secretary.

On his part, chief minister O Panneerselvam asserted that his camp would not allow the party to go into hands of 'a family' and that the dream of those to capture power will end as a day dream.

Sending a strong message to her detractors, Sasikala sacked Madusudanan from the primary membership of the party, a day after he switched over to the rebel camp led by caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam, and appointed former minister K A Sengottaiyan in his place.

Tamil Nadu governor Vidyasagar Rao is believed to be waiting for SC judgment in a corruption case against Sasikala

But hours after he was expelled from AIADMK, pro- Panneerselvam leader E Madusudanan claimed he in fact had sacked party interim general secretary V K Sasikala and continued to be the party's Presidium Chairman.

'Before that (his sacking), I expelled her (Sasikala) from the party,' he told reporters tonight when asked about his removal from all party posts, including Presidium Chairman and primary membership, by Sasikala.

Flanked by a smiling Panneerselvam and other leaders, Madusudanan announced that an election will soon be held for the post of party general secretary, adding the chief will be elected by the party cadres.

Giving a major boost to the rival camp, Madusudanan had extended his support to Panneerselvam, saying he wanted to safeguard the party.

'To protect AIADMK, everybody should join hands with OPS (Panneerselvam),' he had said.

Sasikala had removed Panneerselvam from the Treasurer post immediately after his revolt

Sasikala had removed Panneerselvam from the Treasurer post immediately after his revolt, but he has maintained that being a temporary general secretary, she does not have the powers to appoint or remove party functionaries.

Insisting that he continues to be the treasurer, Panneerselvam has written to banks not to allow anybody else to operate the party accounts without his consent.

Sasikala had appointed another senior leader Dindigul C Srinivasan as the treasurer.

Hitting back at Sasikala, Madusudanan has written to the poll panel urging it to not to recognise her as AIADMK general secretary, saying she was not elected to the post as per party by-laws.

Madusudanan told reporters about the letter shortly before he was sacked from AIADMK by Sasikala for acting against the party.

Asserting that only cadres can elect a general secretary as per party rules, Madusudanan said he had asked the EC not to recognise Sasikala as party chief.

Expelled AIADMK Rajya Sabha member Sasikala Pushpa has already petitioned the EC against the election of V K Sasikala, saying it was not done as per procedure and the EC has sought the party's response to it.

'As per party by-laws, the general secretary can be elected only by cadres. As per rules, there is no temporary General Secretary post,' Madusudanan said.

A candidate for the post should also have completed at least five years in the party and Sasikala had joined on March 31, 2012, so she does not qualify, he added.
Love hurts, so the song goes, but it can also wreck your finances if the object of your affection proves to be a fake.

Organised gangs of scammers, using both humans and robots, are ruthlessly targeting people through online dating services to steal money and identities.

As the number of victims rises, follow our guide to fend off internet love cheats.

Love's labour's lost: The average online dating scam costs lonely hearts a staggering 10,000

Romantics are preparing for Valentines Day on Tuesday but Cupids arrow has a costly outcome for an increasing number of single people searching for a soulmate.

The booming 12billion online dating market is proving rich fodder for fraudsters who regularly trawl websites to hoodwink thousands of victims out of millions of pounds every year.

A dating fraud campaign launched today aims to stamp out these romance scams  where dates turn out to be nothing more than fraudsters who destroy peoples lives both financially and emotionally.

The crime cost victims a collective 39million last year, a rise of nearly 50 per cent since 2015.

Police figures show that 3,900 people reported being duped into parting with an average 10,000 last year through dating websites, with two thirds of victims women and one in four in their 50s. The average time it takes for someone to start sending money to a fraudster is 30 days.

The date safe campaign is a collaboration between the charity Victim Support, advice website Get Safe Online, Age UK, City of London Police and Metropolitan Police, working with trade body the Online Dating Association.

A spokesman for the City of London Police warns: The numbers we see are just the tip of the iceberg as people often do not report cases because they feel stupid for being deceived.

People often do not report cases because they feel stupid for being deceived

The campaign hopes to prevent the heartache and financial loss suffered by people such as David, who told The Mail on Sunday about being defrauded of his life savings in a dating scam.

The warehouse worker is still piecing his life and finances back together three years on.

David, 58, turned to online dating after the break-up of a long-term relationship. He says: I tried to meet someone the conventional way by going out with friends, but got nowhere so I tried a dating website.

He soon stumbled across the profile of a woman called Kerry, who resembled someone he had known years before, who had moved to Canada. They began chatting online, but it was not long before she suggested they move their communications off the website.

A scammers classic ploy is to lure their target away from the relative safety of the dating website. David says: We started emailing each other instead. The relationship made me happy.

About four months later Kerry, who claimed to be 45, began to request money, initially for an air fare from Ghana, where she said she lived. David says: I agreed and sent money through the MoneyGram service at a post office.

Have you lost your heart  and money  to an online trickster? Tell us in confidence. Email sally.hamilton@mailonsunday.co.uk

The use of a money transfer service is another crafty ruse, as payees cannot be easily traced.

David became suspicious as the requests for cash increased. But so sophisticated was the scam that Kerry produced a plane ticket, visa and other paperwork that all appeared genuine.

He even called the immigration number on her documents. Unfortunately, it was an accomplice at the end of the phone. In total, David sent Kerry 15,000.

He says: I got into debt, but she said she would pay me back.

Many romance scams are even carried out by bots - whose questions and responses are automated using artificial intelligence software

When Kerry said she could not get the flight to visit him without yet another payment to immigration, David finally sought advice and learnt he had been scammed. He had been targeted in a wider 7million fraud.

Devastated, he turned to Victim Support to help him get back on his feet emotionally, and to debt charity StepChange to sort out his debts.

He says: I was encouraged to take up a hobby and have been ballroom dancing several nights a week. It has been great as therapy and for making friends.

Ive only just started to be able to trust people again. It would be nice to have romance, but I will never go near another dating website.

He said he was a US soldier who needed to get out of the army

Another victim who is also wary of the internet and has not used social media since she was scammed is Julie  not her real name.

Three years ago, Julie signed up to a dating website and fell for a tall, dark and very handsome man in uniform. He claimed to be a widower in his late-40s with a teenage daughter.

Julie, then 47, believed he was from the American Midwest, a career soldier and an animal-lover who was fond of travel and looking for a long-term relationship.

He told her he needed to buy himself out of the army and asked for thousands of pounds. Julie paid 5,000 in total.

It was only when her sister became suspicious that she got in contact with the American Embassy to check his credentials. Her sister told The Mail on Sunday: Within 24 hours they confirmed he didnt exist. And the mobile number hed given her was tracked to Africa. She called it to confront him but he hung up. The number was no longer in service when she tried again.

Analysis suggests that most victims of relationship fraud are men and women in their 40s and 50s

Julie, like most victims, feels angry, stupid, duped and impotent.

Behind the scenes, dating websites try to prevent these nightmares by weeding out scammers. Matt Connolly, founder of MyLovelyParent, aimed at older divorced or widowed customers, says it checks the IP or Internet Protocol address that pinpoints the location of computers.

He says: If someone says they are in the UK, but the IP address is Nigeria, then that rings alarm bells and we can delete a profile.

None of the profiles go up on the website until they have been approved by humans.

Dan Winchester works for Scamalytics, a software company that helps protect many dating websites and their customers.

He says: We help websites share intelligence, so if a scammer targets someone on one website this will be flagged up to others.

Know the tell-tale signs: How to spot an internet dating fraudster

Classic signals that a fraudster is at work include the use of fake photos, culled from other websites, or overly elaborate language on their profile.

Winchester says: Sometimes they use the same photos, but with different profiles, which is another red flag.

Many romance scams are even carried out by bots  whose questions and responses are automated using artificial intelligence software. Their aim can be as simple as to persuade a customer to switch to another better website and take out a new subscription.

This can be either a legitimate website that pays commission for new leads or a fake website gathering the cash for itself.

Although people of all ages and genders are potential targets, analysis suggests that most victims of relationship fraud are men and women in their 40s and 50s.

Winchester says scammers typically use photos of classically attractive women, often blue-eyed brunettes aged about 30, which are lifted from glamour websites, to reel in 50-something males.

Female victims are usually hooked with profiles of middle-aged men. They are often of average appearance, wearing shirts with button down collars, and who claim to have solid jobs in the likes of medicine, the military or engineering.

It is often this appearance of normality that lures victims in. Neil Masters, national fraud and cyber crime lead at Victim Support, says: We want to encourage anyone who may have been affected to seek help. People should not feel ashamed or embarrassed if they have been tricked this way.
The housing market is broken, according to a Government White Paper issued this week  but while that may be a disaster for homebuyers, it should prove a boon for builders.

The UK has a major housing shortage and, while the Government has pledged to build up to 1m new homes by 2020, it is estimated that the housing gap could reach 1.8m by 2025.

With around 60 per cent of homes built by the largest ten firms, this weeks White Paper promised to encourage innovation and new entrants to the sector after admitting there was a lack of competition in the industry. Certainly there are plenty of opportunities for investors who want to back smaller or niche builders. For example, part of MJ Gleesons business focuses on homes for those on low incomes in areas of deprivation in the North.

Kier Groups boss recently said that Government stimulus and support was needed for the industry as well as a significant increase in council housebuilding. The property business works with housing associations and local authorities.

It is one of the few companies in the sector whose shares are higher than they were before Brexit. Having fallen from 1252p to 934p after the referendum, shares are now 1470p.

Telford Homes is focused on brownfield sites in London and builds schools and churches as well as apartments and housing. It recently revealed plans to develop a site in east London, which is expected to be completed in 2021.

Watkin Jones concentrates on student accommodation and has planning permission to house more than 8,200 people across the country, including a development in east London for the University of London.

The business, which only floated on the stock exchange last year, soared last month as it reported earnings were up 22 per cent to 41.6m.

Retirement home provider McCarthy & Stone has limped along since the referendum vote but could potentially be one of the greatest beneficiaries of Government plans to free homes by encouraging older home- owners to downsize.

Incentives such as assistance with moving costs or a reduction in stamp duty could be brought in to encourage people to move. But some experts fear that even if elderly owners did move into retirement properties, younger families might not be able to afford their larger homes.

Morgan Sindall gets around 22 per cent of its earnings from affordable housing and a further 18 per cent from urban regeneration.

As well as homes, it builds schools, works on infrastructure and specialises in refurbishments and fitting out premises.

Shares are up more than 40 per cent since July. But despite the vast realm of alternative opportunities, the experts are still banking on the blue-chips.

Analysts at Liberum say the major builders still stand to benefit from any measures introduced because if approvals get easier it means they can build more homes.

But its not building plans that investors are interested in  its income.

Galliford Try, for example, has a dividend yield of around 5.7 per cent, Crest Nicholson returns 5.1 per cent while Bellway pays 4.1 per cent.

In an environment where its difficult to find a savings account paying even 1 per cent, that is incredibly alluring.

Troubled builder Bovis saw shares fall after a profit warning in December but the stock yields a healthy 4.8 per cent.

Berkeley has been shunned by many investors who fear that its focus on the London market could be its demise if demand for high-end properties tails off. It is one of the most shorted stocks on the market  that means people are betting against it. But the firm has a dividend yield of 7.2 per cent.

Richard Watts, manager of the Old Mutual UK Mid Cap fund, thinks there is scope for these payouts to go up.

The price of land is not rising at the same rate that house prices are going up which means companies can make bigger margins on the units they sell and continue to buy more land to develop more sites, he said.

Its entirely possible that dividend yields could reach 20 per cent.

His fund, which has returned 50 per cent over the past three years, invests in Taylor Wimpey and Barratt Developments.

He says: As long as you think the UK economy will remain robust over the next few years there is no reason not to own shares in housebuilders.
Tesco is planning a major offensive in the online market following its acquisition of Booker, its boss Dave Lewis has told the City.

The deal will more than double the number of click-and-collect locations for internet orders to almost 8,000. And it formed a key part of the strategy that led to the proposed takeover, announced last month.

Booker has annual sales of 5billion, meaning that if the merger is approved the combined groups turnover will be almost 60billion.

Box of tricks: The merger gives Tesco a greater reach with its click-and-collect services

The online strategy, which emerged in Lewiss discussions with City analysts after the announcement of the merger, provides Tesco with a new weapon in its war against Amazon, as well as rival supermarkets.

The revelation of what could be a significant push into local delivery of orders placed online comes as Amazon steps up its battle to undermine the UKs grocery retailers with its AmazonFresh offer.

Amazon launched a London-only grocery delivery service in June, but last week said it planned to expand the service to Hampshire and Surrey.

The two counties are among those with the lowest penetration of hypermarkets and discount stores and are fertile grounds for home shopping growth.

Amazons launch is widely seen as a test run for a national rollout of the service, which offers everything from Chef and Butcher Dry Aged Mature Cote de boeuf at 30 a kilogram to basics such as milk and cornflakes.

The service offers products from local suppliers as well as big brands, including supermarket Morrisons.

However, Lewis said on a conference call with analysts that the merger with Booker would benefit Tesco by offering customers a greater range of locations to collect orders. He added: Consider the idea that through this merger and through a network of close to 8,000 click-and-collect points we would drive traffic to those independent stores as a way of giving more service from the combined operation.

Deliveries: Click-and-collect is increasingly seen as a more cost effective and faster way to make deliveries

Tesco already has 3,500 stores, while Booker supplies 120,000 retail outlets, including 4,000 Premier, Londis and Budgens convenience stores, which it controls.

Many observers initially believed that consumers would see little change to the Tesco business from the deal  and that the bulk of cost savings would come from keener negotiations with suppliers.

Lewis said becoming a click-and-collect point for Tesco deliveries was an opportunity for independent stores rather than a threat.

We hope they will see that actually we bring something which makes them much more competitive than they would be, he said. Such a network would rival click-and-collect delivery specialist CollectPlus, which has 6,000 delivery points and works with retailers including Amazon, Asos, Marks & Spencer and Very.

One senior executive at a rival supermarket said: The home shopping sector is now all about logistics and fulfilling orders. Tesco suddenly has a network twice the size of the previous one to consider offering its general merchandise or even food.

People might think of convenience stores as having limited space  and in big cities that might be true. But many have the opposite problem, or else have space in adjoining car parks which are underused.

In areas where Tesco doesnt have a presence, you might even be able to put automated click-and-collect lockers for food products.

Siobhan Gehin, managing director at consultancy Kurt Salmon, said click-and-collect is increasingly seen as a more cost effective and faster way to make deliveries, as many shoppers cannot guarantee to be in when a delivery arrives.

She said the average time for standard delivery was almost four days, compared with little more than two for click-and-collect.

Over the next year, we anticipate that retailers will be looking even more closely at how they can best meet customer demand and service expectations during peak times, particularly with store deliveries as click-and-collect grows in popularity, she said. Online grocery sales were 10.5billion last year, according to the Institute of Grocery Distribution think-tank. It expects that to increase to 17.6billion by 2021.

Tesco agreed to pay 3.9billion for Booker last month, adding 5billion to its turnover and greatly increasing its bargaining position with suppliers. That could add to suppliers concerns as the weakening pound forces up the price of imported goods and raw materials.

Lewis said becoming a click-and-collect point for Tesco deliveries was an opportunity for independent stores rather than a threat

The consultancy GSCOP, which advises suppliers on the Grocery Supplies Code of Practice, told The Mail On Sunday that thousands of suppliers are financially exposed because they are trading with major supermarkets on a handshake.

Many could face problems when renegotiations under the Tesco deal begin and as other supermarkets look for discounts as the value of sterling falls.

Sainsburys chief executive Mike Coupe said last year that he expected suppliers to mitigate cost pressures they might feel through their supply chain before asking for price rises.

GSCOP director Ged Futter, a former supermarket buyer, said he expects to meet the Groceries Code Adjudicator this month to raise his concerns over the situation after speaking to hundreds of suppliers over the past two years.

Supply agreements are few and far between. Where they are in place, they are often not fit for purpose, he said.

Without contracts suppliers have no recourse to complain to the adjudicator.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW EACH WEEK: THE THIS IS MONEY PODCAST
The Government has launched a search for the UKs first small business commissioner to crack down on late-paying big firms.

The post has been long-awaited by small business groups, having been announced by the Government in 2015. The role was formally created as part of the Enterprise Act last May, but the job advert, on the Cabinet Office website today, is the first real sign of it becoming a reality.

Late payment is responsible for the collapse of up to 50,000 businesses a year, according to the Federation of Small Businesses.

Former Small Business Minister Anna Soubry said the commissioner would communicate with chief executives of big firms directly to help solve the late-payment problem

At the time of the Act, then Small Business Minister Anna Soubry said the no nonsense commissioner would communicate with chief executives of big firms directly to help solve the late-payment problem.

FSB chairman Mike Cherry was among business leaders to repeatedly call for a timetable so that companies would be clear on when someone would be in the post.

He has also demanded clarity around formalising the commissioners relationship with the Prompt Payment Code and the powers the office has to publicly name and shame those companies that dont comply.

The Prompt Payment Code sets standards for payment practices and best practice, and is administered by the Chartered Institute of Credit Management. More than 1,800 firms are signed up to the code, with each one committing to the fair and equal treatment of suppliers. They agree to maximum payment terms of 60 days, but should aim to pay within 30 days.

If payment terms stretch beyond 60 days, companies must show that exceptional circumstances apply. These will be considered on a case-by-case basis, but could include commitments made to pay smaller suppliers faster than larger ones.

Signatories include BAE Systems, Carillion, G4S, Microsoft, BT and Vodafone, and 30 of the Governments 33 strategic suppliers have signed up. But FSB research suggests small firms have little confidence in it.

Cherry said: In order to do this effectively, the Government should ensure the commissioner has sufficient resources to tackle the 26.8billion owed to smaller businesses across the UK.

A new duty to report, where big firms will have to detail how they pay smaller suppliers, was due to take effect last April, but was delayed.

At the end of last month, the Government finally published the new reporting guidance for large firms as Small Business Minister Margot James announced the regulations in Parliament.

From April, large firms and limited liability partnerships will have to publish details of their payment practices twice a year, including the average time it takes to pay suppliers, or face criminal proceedings and fines.

The Business Department said this would shine a light on poor payment practices and enable suppliers to make informed decisions about who they do business with.

Small Business Minister Margot James

Of the search for the commissioner starting this weekend, the Business Department said it was looking for a candidate who had credibility with both small and large businesses, can advise parties in resolving disputes, and has an appetite to become a national spokesperson for small businesses affected by payment issues.

The appointment decision will be made by the Business Secretary, supported by a panel that will include Cherry. He said: I am delighted to be invited to be part of the selection process. There is simply no excuse for a business culture where supply chain bullying or poor payment practice are acceptable.

James said: An unfair payment culture that hurts small and medium firms has no place in an economy that works for all. This is why we are looking for an exceptional individual to help smaller firms resolve payment disputes and champion a culture change. The search will run until March 13.
Wolfpack Lager, the craft beer business founded by Saracens player Chris Wyles and former captain Alistair Hargreaves, is expanding with its first microbrewery in Queens Park, North West London, due to open imminently.

The pair launched Wolfpack Lager, currently brewed in Suffolk, in 2014, when Hargreaves was also still a professional rugby player, as they wanted to plan ahead for their retirement from the sport.

Game plan: Hargreaves, left, and Wyles

Hargreaves retired last autumn, at 30, after sustaining five concussions in two years, and spoke in support of The Mail on Sundays Concussion Campaign, aimed at raising awareness of the danger from concussion in sport.

During his career he won four international caps for South Africa. American-born Wyles has captained the USA Eagles.

Hargreaves said to create Wolfpack  a nickname for Saracens  we consulted a lot of people. We both brew as a hobby, but we went out and spoke to people with decades of experience in brewing.

Craft beer: Wolfpack is a nickname for Saracens Rugby

Now it is sold in around 50 pubs in London and on the Wolfpack Bus on match days at Allianz Park, the home of Saracens Rugby. The duo have plans to sell Wolfpack through pubs nationwide.
The former British spy behind the discredited Donald Trump dossier is accused of twisting the truth in similar fashion, three decades ago, by smearing a political rival.

Steele, described by university contemporaries as ruthlessly ambitious, allegedly badmouthed former Cambridge Union Vice President Lance Forman, wrongly accusing him of supporting apartheid.

Now, 32 years later, according to Mr Forman, the former MI6 agent has behaved equally badly, tarnishing the President with lurid claims, linking him to Russian prostitutes.

'When I heard about the Trump dossier, I thought: 'He hasn't changed at all, has he?',' Mr Forman told MailOnline. 'He took a fact and blew it up into a story which wasn't true.'

Political ambition: Former MI6 spy Chris Steele invited a number of high-profile British and US politicians to pose for this picture in 1986 when he was Cambridge Union President. Left to right are Conservative MP Ray Whitney, Professor Colin Renfrew, US Ambassador Peter Jay, Steele, Senator Larry Pressler, MPs Bryan Gould and former Home Secretary Jack Straw

Dodgy dossier: Steele, pictured with a woman believed to be his second wife Katharine, was described as ruthlessly ambitious by his Cambridge University contemporaries. One time political rival Lance Forman said Steele wrongly claimed that he supported apartheid for helping to organise the visit of the South African Ambassador to the university in the 1980s

High-profile guests: Steele showed that he was a social climber in 1986 when he invited Jack Straw, left, and Senator Larry Pressler, right, to his presidential debate at Cambridge

Another contemporary of the former spy, who read social and political sciences at Girton College, agreed about the lengths to which he was willing to go to further his career.

'When you took part in politics at the Cambridge Union, it was very spiteful and full of people spreading rumours,' he said. 'Steele fitted right in. He was very ambitious, ruthless and frankly not a very nice guy.'

Even Steele's presidential photograph, taken the following year, when he was in his final year at university, shows the extraordinary ambition of the man branded a 'failed spy' by Trump, after he authored the dodgy dossier.

The picture, which was snapped in June 1986  when Steele was in his final year at Cambridge and President of the oldest debating society in the world shows the height of his political aspirations.

It is in complete contrast to Mr Forman's 1985 presidential photograph: while he invited DJ Paul Gambaccini and BBC That's Life star Chris Serle to his annual debate, Steele invited the great and good of UK and US politics.

Seated between former US Ambassador Peter Jay and Senator Larry Pressler, Steele, then 21, looks completely at ease as he stares straight into the camera lens, despite being flanked by men twice his age and experience.

On his right are renowned archaeologist Professor Colin Renfrew, 48, and Conservative MP Ray Whitney, then Parliamentary Under Secretary for the DHSS. On his left are MPs Bryan Gould and Jack Straw, who went onto become leading lights in successive Labour governments.

University days: Steele who studied at Cambridge, is circled here in 1985 with, among others, DJ Paul Gambaccini and That's Life star Chris Serle, on either side of Lance Forman, centre front row. At university Steele read political sciences at Girton College

One fellow Cambridge graduate, who knew him well in his days at the Union, told MailOnline: 'This photograph shows, even as a 21-year-old, his intense interest in both British and American politics.'

Steele arrived at Cambridge in the Michaelmas term 1983 and gradually became involved in the Union Society. In little more than a year, he started to show his true colours.

President Laura Chapman controversially invited the South African Ambassador to her Presidential debate at Michaelmas 1984 and asked Mr Forman, then Vice President, to organise the logistics.

But during the following Lent term, in 1985, when Mr Forman was standing as President, Steele, 'a confirmed socialist', accused him of supporting the South African regime and smeared him in the local newspapers.

'He took a fact  that I went to South Africa House and blew it up into a story which wasn't true,' added Mr Forman, who was nonetheless elected President.

Nemesis: Steele is said to have compiled a discredited dossier on President Donald Trump, pictured, linking him to Russian prostitutes during a visit to Moscow in 2013. He is said to have compiled the document for Trump's rivals during the presidential election

Angry tweet: President Trump called the allegations against him 'phoney' and said they had been put together by his political opponents and a 'failed spy afraid of being sued'.

In Easter 1986 Steele himself was finally elected President and in charge of the guest list. His invitation to the late Sir Raymond Whitney, gives a fascinating insight into his future career.

Then a 55-year-old Conservative minister in the Department of Health and Social Security, Whitney had a background in diplomacy. A former First Secretary at the British Embassy in Peking  he was lucky to escape with his life after an attack by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution - he had headed the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Overseas Information Department, which handled counterpropaganda.

Neither Bryan Gould, then 47, nor Jack Straw, then 39, had reached the height of their political careers when they attended the presidential debate. Gould was serving his second term as a Labour MP and would later serve in Neil Kinnock's Shadow Cabinet.

Straw was MP for Blackburn and would go on to become Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary serving under Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

But former Ambassador Jay and Senator Pressler were more high-profile, showing that, even in his days at Cambridge, Steele had US connections. At that time Jay, 49, a former economics editor at The Times had returned to Britain after serving his time as Ambassador.

Pressler, 44, was the serving Senator for South Dakota, who appears to have similar political leanings to Steele - last year he switched political allegiances to endorse Democrat Hillary Clinton, rather than Trump.

Office: Former diplomat Steele set up Orbis Business Intelligence in 2009 with Chris Burrows from this London office, pictured. The business has reportedly earned multi-million-pound contracts due to Steele's contacts in Russia during a distinguished diplomatic career

Heartache: Steele, left, was a widower after his first wife Laura, right, mother of his three children, died from cirrhosis of the liver. He married second wife Katharine, a divorced career diplomat in 2012

But MailOnline has learnt that his second wife is well versed in diplomacy  she has spent her career as a diplomat, working at the Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The couple married in September 2012 at St Andrew's Church, Farnham. By then Steele was a widower  his first wife Laura, mother of his three children, died from cirrhosis of the liver  and was running his company Orbis Business Intelligence.

Katherine, 51, the daughter of an aerospace engineer and former Second Secretary in New Delhi, was divorced from her first husband with a 14-year-old daughter.
Bernadette Brown, who lives in Brighton, had bought the 15 piece NutriBullet Pro 900 series extractor to make smoothies

It is the trendy kitchen gadget championed by celebrities that costs three times more than a standard blender and is purportedly the Duchess of Cambridge's 'secret weapon' for staying in shape.

However, in recent weeks there have been several reports of people getting injured when using their NutriBullet power blender.

In the latest incident Bernadette Brown, a mother-of-one from Brighton, couldn't get her machine to turn off and smoke started 'ploughing out' of it.

Ms Brown had purchased the 15-piece NutriBullet Pro 900 series extractor - which retails at 99 - to make smoothies as part of a health kick.

The kitchen gadget, which can smash and blend fruit, vegetables and nuts into nutritious drinks, has become hugely popular since its launch in the UK in 2013, helped by the power of celebrity.

But there have been recent instances of people sustaining burns, blisters and cuts after their device exploded.

Describing her problems with the machine, Ms Brown, a business psychologist, told MailOnline this week: 'My friend had a NutriBullet when I was living with her, but after she moved out I bought a NutriBullet 900 series of my own.

The kitchen gadget has become hugely popular since its launch in the UK in 2013

'I used it once or twice a week since buying it from Amazon in April last year and only ever used it for five to 10 seconds at a time.

'I bought it to make smoothies and tended to put cold vegetables in the machine. I never put anything hot in there.

'A few weeks ago I had put vegetables and water in it, but it wouldn't stop and I could not get it to turn off and I was freaking out.

'Smoke was ploughing out from it and I had to turn it off at the wall. I was lucky the socket was next to me so I didn't have to lean over to switch it off otherwise I don't know what would have happened.'

BRITAIN'S TRENDIEST KITCHEN GADGET The kitchen gadget is at the centre of many people's New Year health regime. It has become hugely popular since its launch in the UK in 2013, helped by the power of celebrity. Famous names including Ruth Langsford, Lucy Watson, Abbey Clancy and Freddie Flintoff are all said to be users. Even the Duchess of Cambridge is rumoured to have one. Health food bloggers and authors such as Delicioulsy Ella, Niomi Smart and the Hemsley Sisters have also sung the praises of a device that has become a best-seller for John Lewis. Advertisement

She added: 'I just got out of the kitchen after turning it off and I told my son [who is in his early 40s] not to go in there.

'When I told Amazon what had happened, they told me to send it back and they would replace it...but then I looked it up online and saw other people had problems with it and so I thought I don't know if I want to buy another one as it seems unsafe.

'The manufacturer don't seem interested.'

MailOnline have contacted NutriBullet for a comment.

Martyn Allen of Electrical Safety First, the product safety charity, told MailOnline: 'We advise anyone who is buying a new electrical product to purchase from a reputable retailer and to read product instructions carefully before use.

'Sophisticated fake electrical products such as counterfeit Nutribullets are widely available on online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon.

'Despite appearing more convincing than ever, fake electrical products can contain less than half the internal components required to run safely. The best way to guarantee an item's legitimacy is to buy directly from official online retailers.

'Furthermore, if you notice anything unusual about how your appliance is working (e.g. smoke) our advice is to turn off the power supply and contact the manufacturer immediately. If you have purchased through a reputable retailer, the product can be traced and any fault can be investigated immediately.'

Richard Moore, 27, from south-east London, said his NutriBullet machine exploded when he was making a cold smoothie

The 27-year-old film producer was left with burns and blisters on his face, neck and hands

Ms Brown's warning comes after Richard Moore, a film producer, suffered burns and blisters after his machine shattered, showering his hands and face with shards of plastic and burning liquid.

Mr Moore, 27, from south-east London, said the machine exploded when he was making a cold smoothie - using peanut butter, honey, and coconut milk - recommended by NutriBullet.

He was making a smoothie with his wife, Ramla, when he said the blades starting moving faster than usual and it started to smoke.

He turned it off, but was too late and the machine exploded leaving him with burns and blisters on his face, neck and hands.

Wendy Littlefield, from Nevada, has sued Homeland Housewares, who manufacture and distribute the kitchen gadget after she sliced her right hand

The 27-year-old freelance film producer, said: 'It felt like my hands were on fire.

'I was told that the burning liquid had effectively rested on the top of the nerves without actually destroying them, so that it just continued to burn the nerve.

'Apparently it would have been less painful if it had gone straight through the flesh.'

And in a further incident last week, Wendy Littlefield, from Henderson in Nevada, sued the company after claiming the device exploded which led to the spinning blades chopping her right hand.

She had used the NutriBullet 900 series machine to blend canned tomatoes and beans.

However, in a lawsuit, she said the device 'suddenly malfunctioned', causing severe injuries to her right hand which left her with severe nerve damage and cuts.

She claimed her injuries were caused by the negligence of Homeland Housewares, who manufacture and distribute the kitchen gadget.

She said they should have known the machines were 'unreasonably dangerous and defective when used for its intended use'.

She claims she is entitled to compensation - for an amount yet to be determined - as well as general damages for pain, suffering, emotional distress and disfigurement.

In her lawsuit, her attorneys at Abir Cohen Treyzon Salo, LLP, said she had incurred medical and hospital bills and will require further medical care for the injuries she sustained.

Her husband Darryl also alleges that, as a result of his wife's injuries, their 'marital association has been altered'.

He also claimed to have suffered 'mental anguish' from seeing his wife sustain the horrific injuries to her hand.
A regional leader of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel and seven accomplices were killed when Mexican marines poured gunfire into a house from a helicopter-mounted machine gun.

A video posted online shows the helicopter in the air while firing down below on Thursday.

The federal Interior Department said via Twitter that Juan Francisco Patron Sanchez headed the cartel's operations in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit and in the southern part of Jalisco state.

The Navy official identified the dead capo by the criminal nickname 'H2'.

A regional leader of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel and seven accomplices were killed in a clash which saw Mexican marines pour gunfire into a house from a helicopter-mounted machine gun

A video posted online shows the helicopter in the air as it fired down below on Thursday

The Interior Department said Juan Francisco Patron Sanchez headed up the cartel's operations in the state of Nayarit and in the southern part of Jalisco state

State police on Friday guard the area after a gun battle with Mexican marines in which suspect Juan Francisco Patron Sanchez and several accomplices died in the exchange

A Mexican Navy official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said Friday that Patron and seven accomplices had opened fire on marines and had barricaded themselves in the upper part of a house in the Nayarit state capital of Tepic.

The official said that a helicopter gunship had been called in to provide 'dissuasive fire,' to suppress outgoing gunfire from the structure on Thursday.

Use of such 'minigun' weapons from a helicopter gunship is extremely rare in urban areas. They apparently have been used before by Mexican police, but usually only in rural areas.

A Mexican Navy official said that a helicopter gunship had been called in to provide 'dissuasive fire,' to suppress outgoing gunfire from the structure on Thursday

A bullet ridden sports utility vehicle is taken away after a gun battle with marines in which Juan Francisco Patron Sanchez and several of his accomplices died during the exchange of gunfire

The Navy said the helicopter gunship was used in accordance with its rules of engagement, 'with the aim of reducing the level of aggression and reducing the risk of civilian or federal casualties'.

The Navy said that a grenade launcher and several rifles and pistols were found at the scene.

The governor of Nayarit state praised the armed forces 'surgical' precision in the gunbattle, and said there had been no civilian casualties.

He called the gun battle 'proof that Nayarit is, and will remain, at peace'.

'Yesterday's events were done to protect and safeguard the citizenry,' Sandoval said. 'We had zero civilian losses.'

The Navy said a second gunbattle occurred soon afterward near the Tepic airport, when federal forces came under attack from gunmen.

They returned fire, killing four members of the same cartel.

A house riddled with bullets is seen from a rooftop after a gun battle with Mexican Marines

A vehicle of Mexico's Medical Forensic Service leaves the scene in this Friday photograph

The U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara issued a notice Friday advising American citizens to avoid traveling to Tepic and barring its own personnel from going there until further notice 'due to ongoing Mexican military operations in the city'.

The Beltran Leyva cartel has been active in the northern state of Sinaloa and the southern state of Guerrero.

It has since purportedly expanded into other states, and may have allied itself with Mexico's fastest-growing gang, the Jalisco New Generation cartel.
A judge has sentenced two teen parents to probation for leaving their newborn girl in a dumpster in western Kentucky.

The teenagers, 16-year-old Casside Cherry and 18-year-old Trevon Elmore, had earlier been convicted by a jury of first-degree wanton endangerment, third-degree criminal abuse, and tampering with evidence, Kentucky.com reported.

They were acquitted of attempted murder.

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Casside Cherry (left) and Trevon Elmore (right) were convicted by a jury of first-degree wanton endangerment, third-degree criminal abuse, and tampering with evidence

The teenagers (pictured in court) were acquitted of attempted murder

McCracken Circuit Judge Craig Clymer said during the sentencing hearing Thursday that he had to follow the juvenile code.

According to Kentucky.com, he said: 'The court could not have certified them... as adults on the crimes for which the jury found them guilty.

'So we then have to go back to the juvenile code and treat them as juveniles as far as the sentencing goes.'

Clymer said both have already served more time in a juvenile facility than he could impose, so he sentenced them to 12 months' probation.

He also ordered them to complete a moral therapy program.

The teenagers were ordered to pay $150 each month for the child's care, according to Kentucky.com.

The crying infant was found in a dumpster in July 2015 with its umbilical cord still attached. The baby was hospitalized and later released into state custody

McCracken Circuit Judge Craig Clymer sentenced Cherry and Elmore to probation for leaving their newborn girl in a dumpster in western Kentucky

The crying infant was found in a dumpster in July 2015 with its umbilical cord still attached. The baby was hospitalized and later released into state custody.

Cherry told the judge the baby is with her sister in Iowa, WPSD reported.

The teenagers were ordered to get jobs to assist in providing for the youngster, according to the TV station.
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Hillary Clinton is a public figure who bitterly divides the nation, perhaps more than any other politician, and she has done so since she came into prominence 24 years ago with the election of her husband.

And though she has been twice thwarted in her ambitions to enter the White House as President of the United States, she did live there for eight years, from 1993-2001, as First Lady.

Only a handful of people spent as many hours in close proximity to the Clintons as Robert McNeely, who spent six years with the family as the White House photographer, and whose photographic book, 'The Making of Hillary Clinton, photographs by Robert McNeely';  2017 by The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, published by the University of Texas Press, of the former first lady came out in January.

For six years, Hillary Clinton barely noticed his unobtrusive presence, reported the Financial Times.

Only a handful of people spent as many hours in close proximity to the Clintons as Robert McNeely, who spent six years with the family as the White House photographer

Family: Chelsea smiles as her mother wearing dark sunglasses hugs her husband in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room

Another showed Clinton's clear enjoyment of the celebrity glamour that comes with the first lady role. In the photo, she is being touched up for a shoot with Elle magazine in 1993

Hillary Clinton shows her playful side with Chief of Staff Mack McLarty. Taken in the first few days of the Clinton presidency, this photo represents the high spirits and hopes of the early months, February 16, 1993

He said: 'Hillary Clinton is an intensely private person - she gives away so little. If she weren't in politics, she could be a world-class poker player.'

She has admitted before in speeches that she prefers the 'service' part of public service, compared with the public aspect which she has referred to as a 'necessary evil'. And in that way, it is hard to think of two politicians more different than Hillary and her husband.

McNeely described the former president as someone who craves attention, while his wife does not care if people like her or not, reported the Financial Times.

Returning to the White House with Chelsea Clinton through the Diplomatic Reception Room, July 13, 1998. The book contains the black and white photos that he developed in the dark room of the White House basement, and that chronicle the lives of Bill, Hillary, and their daughter Chelsea

Greeding President Clinton with Chelsea after his surgery for a knee injury at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, March 14, 1997

Showing off a new hat to an off-camera Bill and Chelsea Clinton in the guest quarters of the Kremlin, Moscow, January 14, 1994

His book contains the black and white photos that he developed in the dark room of the White House basement, and that chronicle the lives of Bill, Hillary, and their daughter Chelsea.

He followed the first couple almost everywhere, even into their private apartments, and was one of very few to receive an advanced copy of the presidential schedule. The final result is more than half a million photographs, taken from 1992 to 1998.

One tells the story of Hillary Clinton's first event as first lady in which she was seated in the East Room to face the assembled media.

The first couple at the state dinner in the White House for Chinese President Jiang Zemin, October 29, 1997

A stop during Hillary Clinton's senate campaign, summer 2000. This photo also broke a 200 year precedent of a First Lady holding a political position while her husband remained in the White House

A close family friend to the Clintons', Vince Foster, had just taken his life following revelations over the Clintons' failed Whitewater property deal. The first lady attempted to stop a firestorm, but it backfired. Whitewater led to the appointment of Starr as special prosecutor, whose investigations eventually led to the semen-stained dress of a White House intern.

Another image shows Clinton standing in the Roosevelt Room near her husband, seated with aides. Mandy Grunwald and Michael Sheehan are both in the frame. They were working on her healthcare reform bill, whose demise in 1994 triggered the second-biggest crisis of the Clinton years.

The photo shatters a 200-year precedent, as Clinton was the first first lady to take charge of a serious policy initiative, and it was her husband's top priority, reported the Financial Times.

'After Hillarycare failed, she did not sink into gloom, as Bill was prone to do at times,' said McNeely. 'She divided into the next project with the same workaholic zeal. Nobody should underestimate how tough she is. There aren't many men like her.'

A moment of levity between Hillary Clinton and vice-president Al Gore (at right) in the Oval Office, as President Clinton speaks with aides in 1994

One photo shows Clinton listening on the edge of a presidential huddle on a MD80 plane during her husband's 1996 re-election campaign. IT was she in 1988 who convinced him it was too early to run for president. She also persuaded him in 1993 to hire David Gergen, a former Republican adviser, to bring perspective into a the White House

Hillary Clinton rearranging Christmas decorations during one of the many Christmases celebrated in the White House

One photo shows Clinton listening on the edge of a presidential huddle on a MD80 plane during her husband's 1996 re-election campaign. IT was she in 1988 who convinced him it was too early to run for president. She also persuaded him in 1993 to hire David Gergen, a former Republican adviser, to bring perspective into a the White House.

Another showed Clinton's clear enjoyment of the celebrity glamour that comes with the first lady role. In the photo, she is being touched up for a shoot with Elle magazine.

The same enjoyment can be seen in a photo in which she is surrounded by Diana, Princess of Wales; Anna Wintour; editor of Vogue, and Katharine Graham; owner of the Washington Post, at a breast cancer awareness event in the White House.

The same enjoyment can be seen in a 1996 photo in which she is surrounded by Diana, Princess of Wales (far left); Anna Wintour,(center) editor of Vogue; and Katharine Graham (far right); owner of the Washington Post, at a breast cancer awareness event in the White House. Ralph Lauren (center left) is also in the frame, and McNeely described Clinton as 'in her element'

Another photograph shows her relaxing with the Blairs, and Cherie Blair is kicking off her shoes, somewhat to the surprise of the Clintons

Ralph Lauren is also in the frame, and McNeely described Clinton as 'in her element.'

Another photograph shows her relaxing with the Blairs, and Cherie Blair is kicking off her shoes, somewhat to the surprise of the Clintons.

One of the most telling photos in the bunch shows the first lady at the Secret Service firing range in Beltsville, Maryland. A trainer steadies her shoulder as she fires the sniper rifle at a target. You can just make out the haze of an exploding glass bottle at the other end of the range.
Emergency services are on high alert for catastrophic fire conditions across NSW as the state prepares to experience its hottest February day on record.

As the mercury soars past 40C, a state-wide total fire ban has been declared for Saturday.

Fire officials reported 45 bush or grass fires in the state on Saturday morning.

At 10am, 14 of the fires were still not contained, according to the NSW Rural Fire Service.

The Rural Fire Service has also warned of a potential 'catastrophic' fire danger warning on Sunday largely around the Hunter, from the coast, mid-north coast, out through the Central Tablelands, the top end of the greater Sydney region and out to the central west.

Emergency services are on high alert for catastrophic fire conditions across NSW, as as the states prepares to experience its hottest February day on record

A state-wide total fire ban has been declared as temperatures soar across NSW

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service posted this picture from Wimbledon Road, Georges Plains

NSW RFS crews were in Georges Plains fighting a fast moving grass fire, officials wrote

'Crews are gaining the upper hand' against a grass fire at Georges Plains, NSW FRS wrote

The majority of the area in the state as of Saturday are on a 'very high' fire danger warning, meaning residents should be informed, monitor conditions and be ready to act if necessary.

When conditions reach 'catastrophic' people are urged to leave the night before or early in the day, as homes are not designed to withstand fires in catastrophic conditions.

Aircraft and strike teams are on standby in preparation to battle the potentially 'catastrophic' blazes.

The RFS has urged residents to have their bushfire survival plans ready with the rising temperatures

'If you're a little bit inland from the coast in Sydney or the Hunter district, you'll experience probably mid-40s,' senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology Andrew Haigh said.

'That goes for anywhere west of the ranges as well'.

At 10am 45 bush or grass fires in NSW. 14 not contained. Statewide total fire ban in force all weekend due to dangerous conditions. #NSWRFS  NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) February 10, 2017

Aircraft and strike teams are on standby in preparation to battle the potentially 'catastrophic' blazes

The state's northwest will cop the brunt of the extreme heat with Wilcannia, Ivanhoe, Bourke and Menindee forecast to reach 47C on Saturday.

In the Hunter region, Singleton and Cessnock are predicted to reach 46C and 43C on Sunday.

Sydney will get no relief over the weekend with the city forecast to reach 39C on Saturday, and the west to reach the mid-40s.

Health experts are reminding people to stay hydrated, wear sunscreen and look out for people most at risk, while NSW clubs say they will provide water and respite for vulnerable people.
Residents in New Mexico say the world's first atomic bomb test caused generations of families to suffer from cancer and economic hardship, according to a new report.

The report, based on surveys and published by the advocacy group Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, argues that many Hispanic families struggled to keep up with cancer-related illnesses after they were affected by the 1945 Trinity Test.

But the health effects of the test have long been debated in New Mexico, and data shows cancer rates in Tularosa are around the same as other parts of the state, according to Chuck Wiggins of the New Mexico Tumor Registry.

Residents say the world's first atomic bomb test caused generations of southern New Mexico families to suffer from cancer and economic hardship, according to a new report (pictured, a file photo showing the aerial view over the first atomic explosion at the Trinity Test Site)

Members of the TBDC have long contended that those living near the site of the world's first atomic bomb test in 1945 weren't told about the dangers or compensated for their resulting health problems.

Since then, they say, descendants have been plagued with cancer and other illnesses while the federal government has ignored their plight.

The report released on Friday, based in part on 800 community health surveys, included residents' stories from the areas surrounding the 1945 Trinity Test.

Tina Cordova, co-founder of TBDC, believes her father, who died from multiple bouts of cancer, was affected by the Trinity Test

Two community focus groups were also used to collect data for the report in partnership with the New Mexico Health Equity Partnership, an initiative of the Santa Fe Community Foundation.



Tina Cordova, co-founder of the TBDC, said the report wasn't a scientific epidemiology study but an attempt to gather information from residents who have complained about various forms of cancers in families who had limited access to health insurance.

The surveys involved residents of the historic Hispanic village of Tularosa and four New Mexico counties. They want lawmakers to include New Mexico in a federal law that compensates residents near atomic tests.

Cordova said: 'We wanted people to tell their stories in the fashion because it's never been done before.'

Wiggins, director of the New Mexico Tumor Registry, has said data shows cancer rates in Tularosa are around the same as other parts of the state. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death all over New Mexico, he said.

On Friday, Wiggins said he hadn't gone through the report released by TBDC yet.

'It is detailed and lengthy,' he said. 'I have not had a chance to systematically review the entire document.'

Residents did not learn that the Trinity Test had involved an atomic weapon until the U.S. dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (pictured above, the radioactive plume on August 9, 1945)

The Trinity Test took place as part of the Manhattan Project, a top-secret World War II nuclear development program run out of the then-secret city of Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Residents did not learn that the test had involved an atomic weapon until the U.S. dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war ended.

In 2015, U.S. Senator Tom Udall, D-New Mexico, pressed the Senate to include New Mexico residents in the law after meeting with Tularosa Downwinders.

'The Consortium's Health Impact Assessment Report is important work,' Udall wrote in a letter to the group on Friday.
The biological father of a little girl he has never met made an emotional plea for the custody of his daughter, in order to take the child away from her adoptive family.

Andrew Jack Myers is in a custody battle involving three-year-old Braelynn with her adoptive parents Tammy and Edward Dalsing, who have been raising the little girl since birth, in South Carolina.

Myers has never met his daughter because he was incarcerated when she was born, but said it was time Braelynn 'came home to her real family' on Friday.

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Andrew Jack Myers (left) is in a custody battle over his three-year-old daughter Braelynn (right) in South Carolina. The father has never met the little girl because he was incarcerated when she was born, but said it was time 'she came home to her real family' on Friday

Braelynn has lived with adoptive parents Tammy and Edward Dalsing (above) since she was a newborn in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Despite legally adopting her in 2015, a court recently ruled that she belongs with Myers after he appealed the adoption order

Braelynn was taken in by the Dalsings when she was just three weeks old in 2012 after her biological mother Erica Smith gave her up due to drug use. The family legally adopted her in 2015.

Myers had his parental rights terminated while he was incarcerated by a judge during the adoption proceedings, according to court document.

Since his release from prison three months ago, Myers and his mother Sherry Powers are fighting for custody of Braelynn.

Myers told CBS News: 'Ive got my life together and there is no reason she shouldnt be able to come home to me.

'I appreciate that they took care of her and gave her a loving home and all. 'I really think it's time that she came home to her real family.

'I want nothing more. I mean, its been really difficult.'

Myers was jailed in Virginia in 2013 on two contempt of court charges, two fraud, bank notes or coins charges and one probation violation. Myers claims his parental rights should have never been terminated and a judge agreed with him last month and vacated the Dalsings' adoption order

Erica Smith (pictured), who is the biological mother of Braelynn (left as a baby), believes she should stay with her adoptive parents

The Dalsings are now fighting to keep Braelynn after Myers successfully appealed the adoption order and had his parental rights reinstated.

The girl's biological mother Erica Smith spoke out for the first time in an interview with WBTV saying she wants her daughter to remain with the Dalsings.

'Please just listen to Braelynn's voice. And give my baby a shot at a normal, fulfilling, happy life that she deserves,' Smith said.

Smith said Braelynn was initially taken from her when she tested positive for drugs but went to rehab in the hope of regaining custody.

When she realized that wouldn't happen, Smith said she decided to give up her parental rights so her little girl could be adopted instead of being raised in foster care.

'It was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. But I just wanted the best for Braelynn,' Smith said.

Braelynn's (above) biological mother gave up her parental rights while her biological dad was incarcerated and due to that, his rights were also terminated, according to court documents

She said the Dalsings allow her to visit Braelynn but she fears that will soon end if the girl is reunited with her father.

'I can't fathom the thought of Braelynn being jerked away from this family,' she said.

Myers had criminal charges pending prior to Smith's pregnancy, according to court documents. He turned himself into authorities when Smith became pregnant so that he could serve his prison sentence before their child was born.

Smith gave up her parental rights while Myers was incarcerated and due to that, his rights were also terminated by a judge during the adoption proceedings, according to court documents.

Myers claims his parental rights should have never been terminated and a judge agreed with him last month and vacated the Dalsing's adoption order.

The Dalsings, who are registered foster parents and have seven children of their own, claim Myers never tried to be part of his daughter's life while he was in jail.

They fear taking her away from the family she has only even known will have a devastating impact on the girl.

Tammy said Braelynn was a beautiful loving, trusting, happy, and healthy child. She said she is as much a part of them as their biological children

'Our family loves Braelynn tremendously and she is as much a part of us as our biological children,' the couple said.

'To take Braelynn from her home and family would be devastating to her, her sisters and brothers, and of course, us as her parents. Braelynn has never spent even a night away from home.

'Please tell me how to explain to a three-year-old that you are no longer a part of our family. That we are no longer your Mommy and Daddy. That your sisters and brothers are no longer your sister and brothers.

'This is impossible and incomprehensible. We dont feel that the South Carolina Court of Appeals decision to overturn our adoption is at all in the best interest of Braelynn.'

The couple has requested a re-hearing in the case with the state court of appeals.

The little girl is still living with them, as she has never met Myers.

He was jailed in Virginia in 2013 on two contempt of court charges, two fraud, bank notes or coins charges and one probation violation.

The girl's adoptive father Edward said he was 'stunned' when the court sided with her biological father in their case

The little girl is still living with her adoptive parents, as she has never met Myers

Myers disagrees with the couple. His attorney sent the following statement to WBTV on his behalf:

'Mr Myers is very pleased with the outcome in the Court of Appeals,' it reads.

'He has tried to remain positive throughout this ordeal. In defeat, he quietly persevered through the appellate process.

'In victory, he patiently awaits the next step. It is extremely unfortunate that a case that should have been kept so private to protect this young child has become so public at no fault of Mr. Myers or this young child.

'The social media footprint that has been created by the defeated party in this case will forever haunt this child and be available for all to see for years and years to come. It is extremely selfish and will never be in the best interest of any child.'

South Carolina Department of Social Services had no comment on the situation.

The Dalsings have launched an online petition and created a website titled Save Braelynn to bring awareness to their plight.
Chelsea Clinton and husband Marc Mezvinsky enjoyed an afternoon trip to a gourmet food emporium with their son Aidan on Friday.

The family was spotted walking to Eataly Market just hours after Clinton denied that she would run for New York Sen Kirsten Gillibrand's seat.

Clinton was attending her friend Tanya Taylor's fashion presentation when she shut down the rumors that she'll run for office with one word: 'No!'

Baby Aidan was strapped to his mom's chest in an carrier as she walked to meet up with her husband.

The tiny tot wore a blue coat and a grey knit hat, while his mother donned a Canada Goose jacket.

Chelsea Clinton and husband, Marc Mezvinsky, enjoyed an afternoon trip to a gourmet food emporium with their son Aidan on Friday. The family was spotted walking to Eataly Market just hours after Clinton denied that she would run for New York Sen Kirsten Gillibrand's seat

Baby Aidan was strapped to his mom's chest in an carrier as she walked to meet up with her husband

Clinton was seen taking a phone call before Mezvinsky, who made headlines earlier this week, caught up to them.

The family bought a bag of groceries before heading home.

Mezvinsky, who has kept a relatively low profile since he quietly shut down his hedge fund, Eaglevale Partners, in December after his mother-in-law, Hillary Clinton, lost the election to President Donald Trump, has been seen out and about all week.

He spent about an hour at the cheese steak bar Shorty's Bar and Restaurant with an unidentified friend on Thursday.

And then on Wednesday, he and his wife, who are currently both out of jobs, were photographed by DailyMail.com heading to their Manhattan home a few hours before Hillary Clinton stopped by for a brief visit.

The tiny tot wore a blue coat and a grey knit hat, while his mother wore a Canada Goose jacket. Clinton was seen taking a phone call

The family bought a bag of groceries before heading home. Mezvinsky, who has kept a low profile since he shut down his hedge fund, Eaglevale Partners, in December after Hillary Clinton lost the election to President Donald Trump, has been seen out and about all week

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Mezvinsky shut down his hedge fund in December, just weeks after Hillary Clinton lost the election.

Mezvinsky and his partners are now working to return what money is left in their fund to investors, including Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein, according to Bloomberg.

It was revealed last May that Mezvinsky suffered a huge loss after trying to bet on the revival of the Greek economy, forcing him to shut down one of his hedge funds.

He and his partners, former Goldman Sachs colleagues Bennett Grau and Mark Mallon, raised $25 million from investors to buy up bank stocks and debt from the struggling nation.

That fund however has lost 90 per cent of its value, investors with direct knowledge of the situation told The New York Times, and was closed.

Eaglevale Partners was started in 2011 by Mezvinsky and his partners, with their former boss, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein, one of the first investors.

He spent about an hour at the cheese steak bar Shorty's Bar and Restaurant with an unidentified friend on Thursday. He appeared to be giving his friend directions after leaving the bar

And then on Wednesday, he and his wife, who are currently both out of jobs, were photographed by DailyMail.com heading to their Manhattan home a few hours before Hillary Clinton stopped by for a brief visit

Another is leading financier, Marc Lasry, co-founder of $13 billion hedge fund Avenue Capital, where Chelsea worked after graduating from Stanford.

'I gave them money because I thought they would make me money,' Mr Lasry told The Times last year, after investing $1 million in Eaglevale and urging a relative to do the same.

Shortly after starting Eaglevale, Mezvinsky and Chelsea moved into a $10 million New York City apartment opposite Madison Square Park.

The four-bedroom, 5,000-square-foot apartment is one of only four residences in the building, which despite the low occupancy rate still has a full-time doorman.

The apartment's hallways stretch a full city block and it has two dishwashers, two washer and dryers, dressing rooms with double-sided vanity mirrors and two massive walk-in closets. The apartment's current value is closer to $15 million.

Hillary Clinton was spotted arriving at the couple's home on Wednesday night with Secret Service in tow

Clinton, who has also remained out of the limelight, was spotted on Wednesday night arriving to Mezvinsky and Chelsea's Manhattan apartment.

The former Democratic presidential nominee pulled up at the home with the Secret Service in tow around 6.30pm, but only stayed for a half hour before leaving around 7pm.

It has been rumored that Clinton is possibly planning her comeback. This week, she recorded a video for the MAKERS Conference - focused on women's leadership - saying 'the future is female'.

A number of Clinton allies told Politico that she is waiting out the Democratic National Committee chair election in February, which is shaping up to be a rematch of the Clinton versus Bernie Sanders Democratic primary war.

Last month, Clinton began looking at a series of reports to examine what went wrong as she and Bill Clinton figure out what's next for the couple who have dominated their party's politics for 25 years.

And Clinton's detractors can take comfort in knowing that the former secretary of state, senator and first lady  nor her ex-president husband  will likely ever appear on a ballot again.

The former Democratic presidential nominee pulled up at Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky's Manhattan home around 6.30pm
President Donald Trump has revived groundless claims of voter fraud, arguing in a lunch meeting with senators that he and former Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte would have won in New Hampshire if not for voters bused in from out of state.

A GOP official with knowledge of Thursday's lunch conversation described the president's comments.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because it was a private meeting. There is no evidence of people being improperly bused into New Hampshire to vote.

When Trump made the remark, 'an uncomfortable silence' was reported among attendees of the meeting, according to Politico.

President Donald Trump has revived groundless claims of voter fraud, arguing in a lunch meeting with senators at the White House (above) that he and former Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte would have won in New Hampshire if not for voters bused in from out of state

When Trump (second from left) made the remark, 'an uncomfortable silence' was reported among attendees of the meeting

Ayotte was unseated from the Senate by her Democratic opponent, Maggie Hassan, who won the election by just 743 votes.

Trump lost New Hampshire to his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton, by roughly 3,000 votes.

Ayotte was present for the meeting at the White House with a bipartisan group of 10 senators because she is working with Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trump's Supreme Court nominee, to shepherd him around Capitol Hill for meetings.

The discussion at Thursday's lunch partly involved Gorsuch's nomination as Trump looks for eight Democratic votes to get him over a procedural hurdle in the Senate.

In the course of the conversation Trump had a lighthearted exchange with Ayotte, who withdrew her support from Trump during last year's campaign after audio emerged of him boasting about groping women.

Trump said he wished Ayotte had endorsed him like she'd endorsed Gorsuch and also made the comments about voting in New Hampshire.

Ayotte (seen on the left with Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch) was unseated from the Senate by her Democratic opponent, Maggie Hassan (right), who won the election by just 743 votes. Ayotte is shepherding Gorsuch around Capitol Hill for meetings with lawmakers

'There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of major voter fraud in New Hampshire's elections,' New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, said in a statement.

'President Trump continues to spread a dangerous lie and it's long past time for Republican leadership in New Hampshire to stand up and defend our state's electoral system.'

Later Friday, Ellen Weintraub of the Federal Election Commission called on Trump to 'immediately share his evidence with the public and with the appropriate law-enforcement authorities so that his allegations may be investigated promptly and thoroughly.'

'The president has issued an extraordinarily serious and specific charge,' the commissioner said in a statement. 'Allegations of this magnitude cannot be ignored.'

It's the second time Trump has used a bipartisan meeting with lawmakers to make erroneous claims about voter fraud.

Last month, during a bipartisan congressional leadership meeting at the White House, he claimed that he would have won the popular vote if not for 3 million to 5 million immigrants in the country illegally voting for his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

There is also no evidence of that.
A boy from an illustrious private school has been attacked by another student in an ugly case of bullying.

The attack happened on Friday at private boy's school Trinity College in East Perth, according to Perth Now.

Shocking video from the incident has emerged and shows one boy being repeatedly punched by another boy.

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Shocking mobile phone footage has captured a boy from an illustrious private school in Perth being attacked by another student in an ugly case of bullying

The video begins with a boy in a dark blue shirt and dark blue shorts speaking with a boy wearing a white T-shirt and grey shorts.

The boy in the white T-shirt who is carrying a black folder tries to leave but is confronted by the boy in the blue shirt who tells him that he is 'f*****g asking for it'.

The boy is then pushed and punched a number of times from behind as he tries to flee before he is pushed again this time colliding heavily with the metal lockers.

The boy in white is punched one final time as he tries to escape as students watch on.

The video begins with a boy in a dark blue shirt and dark blue shorts speaking with a boy wearing a white t-shirt and grey shorts

The boy is then pushed and punched a number of times from behind as he tries to flee before he is pushed again this time colliding heavily with the metal lockers

The attack happened on Friday at private boy's school Trinity College (pictured) in East Perth

School headmaster Ivan Banks issued a statement about the incident on Friday but would not confirm if disciplinary action had been taken against the offending student.

But Perth Now reported at least one student has since been suspended.

'We are disappointed that such an incident occurred as we do not condone violence in any form', Mr Bank's statement read.
A failed French rapper who became one of the most wanted ISIS terrorists has been targeted in a coalition air strike near the Iraqi city of Mosul, with one high ranking counter terrorism official claiming his death in the blasts is highly probable.

Jihadist Rachid Kassim, who is suspected of inspiring several attacks in France, was a primary focus of the raids over the past three days, the Pentagon said on Friday.

'We can confirm that coalition forces targeted Rashid Kassim, a senior ISIS operative, near Mosul in a strike in the past 72 hours,' said Pentagon spokesman Major Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway.

Jihadist Rachid Kassim, who is suspected of inspiring several attacks in France, has been targeted in strikes him over the past three days

'We are currently assessing the results of that strike and will provide more information when it becomes available.'

In Paris, a high-ranking official involved in counterterror operations, who wished to remain anonymous said there was not 'absolute confirmation' of his death, but that the probability was high.

Earlier in the day, several French media reports had reported Kassim's death.

Kassim, who is in his 30s and originally from Roanne in the Loire Valley, is believed to have inspired an attack last year in which a senior French policeman and his partner were knifed to death and another in which Jacques Hamel, an elderly priest, had his throat cut.

Kassim, seen here in Iraq, is thought to have inspired an attack last year in which a senior French policeman and his partner were knifed to death and another in which an elderly priest's throat was cut

Dressed in fatigues with a turban on his head, the black-bearded Kassim was seen in July in an ISIS propaganda video in which he praised the attacker in the Nice truck massacre that killed 86 people on the July 14 Bastille Day holiday.

The failed rapper of Algerian descent, who is also known as Ibn Qassim, gave a startling interview to Washington-based academic Amarnath Amarasingam in November last year.

The militant claimed beheading ISIS prisoners was 'a pleasure' and said the saddest thing about fleeing France for Syria was leaving his pet cat behind.

He stated: 'To behead an animal, it would be difficult, with enemies of Allah, it is a pleasure.'

French priest Father Jacques Hamel was murdered in an attack on his Catholic church in a Normandy town after two teenager Jihadists slit his throat in church

He revealed that he fled France after being placed under constant surveillance because of his radical views, leaving in the middle of the night with 1,500 Euros in his pocket.

Kassim is also believed to have run an encrypted app called Telegram, used by jihadists to share tips on how to carry out terror attacks in France from ISIS controlled territory.

The app was taken offline by French security services in September.

US-backed Iraqi forces are currently battling to take back the remaining western districts of Mosul that are still under IS control.

France, which is taking part in the US-led, anti-IS coalition in Iraq and Syria, has been the target of a series of jihadist attacks since 2015 that left 238 people dead.
When she was a little girl, Kimberley Taylor was painfully shy. She would hide behind you so no one would notice her, her mother recalls.

Back then, Kimberley  or Kimmie as she is known  lived in Darwen, a quiet market town in the heart of rural Lancashire, with her parents and elder sister Samantha. Their dad was a local teacher.

Kimberley was clever; her favourite subject was maths.

But the thing everyone remembers about her is her quiet, timid nature. Kimberley wouldnt say boo to a goose.

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Kimberley Taylor (pictured) is believed to be the first British woman to travel to Syria to take on ISIS

How could her family  how could anyone who knew her in those days  possibly have imagined what the future held for her?

For Kimberley Taylor, now 27, didnt follow her father into the classroom after studying maths at university. Nor did she get what you might call a normal job like her schoolfriends.

This is immediately obvious to anyone who scrolls down her Facebook page, which is dominated by a photograph of a young woman in full-combat fatigues.

Alongside the picture is whats known as her battlefield name: Zilan Dilber.

Zilan Dilber is apparently a member of an all-female Kurdish militia group fighting Islamic State in Syria. Extraordinarily, Kimberly Kimmie Taylor and Zilan are one and the same.

Miss Taylor, it emerged this week, is believed to be one of the first British women to travel to the hell-hole to take up arms against ISIS.

Her latest dramatic post from the frontline appeared only yesterday.

Wake-up call this morning at 4am when ISIS attacked our base, she wrote. We put up an incredible fight for three hours. Just two friends slightly injured. Im so proud to call these people my comrades. We fight with unconditional resistance.

Kimmie as she is known  lived in Darwen, a quiet market town in the heart of rural Lancashire. In this video (pictured) she explained why she was fighting ISIS

Her latest dramatic post from the frontline appeared only yesterday. She is known by her battlefield name: Zilan Dilber

Zilan Dilber, the name taken on by Kimberley, is apparently a member of an all-female Kurdish militia group fighting Islamic State in Syria

I wont go into details about the attack because it [sic] super gory.

Another base was attacked, four comrades were martyred. At the very front, two comrades were martyred.

You gave your lives for peace, democracy, and humanity. Your memory will live on in the revolution.

Her update ends with the words: Sehid nemirin, which, loosely means martyrs never die in Kurdish.

So how did this quiet, bright young woman end up taking herself off to one of the most dangerous places on Earth to fight ISIS?

This is what we know. Miss Taylor joined the Officer Training Corps at Liverpool University and is later understood to have turned down a place at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy.

Until now at least, she had no actual military experience.

Video by Nazim Dastan for dihaber

Miss Taylor joined the Officer Training Corps at Liverpool University and is later understood to have turned down a place at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy

She left the UK last March, travelling first to Kurdistan in northern Iraq before crossing into northern Syria to take part in the battle for Raqqa, the de facto capital of Islamic State.

She did not tell her family what she was up to until she arrived. Soon afterwards, Miss Taylor revealed her whereabouts on Facebook  on April Fools Day last year, stressing that it was not a prank. You are absolutely crazy, was the reaction of one friend. Others hailed her as a truly amazing person.

Miss Taylor last spoke to her family on Christmas Day to reassure them that she was safe.

The young woman on Facebook is dressed in the uniform of the all female YPJ, pronounced Yuh-Pah-Juh, which roughly translates as Womens Protection Units. This is the all-female brigade of the YPG, the armed forces of Syrias Kurds.

She is barely recognisable as the lass from Lancashire her family and friends recall.

Died fighting: Maths graduate Miss Taylor, who has enrolled in the Women's Protection Unit, an all-female Kurdish military unit, said four of her friends were killed in another attack on a nearby base

So who is Kimmie Taylor? Her formative years were spent on a newly-built estate in Darwen, Lancashire, where her parents Phil and Mary bought a semi-detached house at the end of a small cul-de-sac.

Kimmie, who clearly overcame the reticence of her early years, developed a reputation, alongside her sister Samantha, for being a tomboy who attracted gangs of kids  boys and girls  from the surrounding area.

Their sometimes raucous behaviour did not always go down well with elderly neighbours in a row of bungalows across from their home.

The Taylors are believed to have left the estate in 2002 when their marriage broke down.

Kay Bottomley, 81, who still lives in the bungalow directly opposite their old home, remembers them well. She says: They were a good, hard-working couple, and the kids were lovely. They were a very nice family and I always got on with them.

The University of Liverpool graduate has spent the past 11 months training with the women fighters, learning Kurdish, weaponry and battlefield tactics

I know some people complained, but children are children. They were never a problem to me.

Kimberly went on to live with her father Phil, 57, in Prescot, Merseyside, when she was 15. She has not spoken to her mother, Mary Lang, 57, from Chorley, properly for years following a family row. This was over something and nothing her mother said this week.

Miss Taylor studied maths at Liverpool University but did not complete the course and spent her early 20s travelling the world and hitch-hiking alone.

Her previous life is vividly captured on social media.

In Ghana, in 2013, she is pictured with a snake and monkey on her arm. In Burkina Faso, West Africa, she is playing with young children. In the Estonian capital, Tallinn, she can be seen busking.

Miss Taylor also studied political science at Stockholm University, eventually returning to Britain early last year.

As we now know, she did not stay long. What motivated her to take such a drastic course of action and risk her life in Syria?

The self-styled revolutionary, who joins 20 other Brits fighting alongside the Kurds, is determined to help bring about the final defeat of ISIS

She attempted to answer that question on Facebook in September last year.

It all began in Athens, Greece, in November 2013, she wrote. My first introduction to people fleeing the Syrian civil war. As they sat with me, sincerity in their eyes, telling me their personal stories of tragedy, fear and loss, the reality of war was brought to life for me . . .

At around that time, the U.S.-backed YPJ took her on as a volunteer with their media team, taking photographs and compiling reports.

The unit is greatly feared by the jihadis, who believe it to be a disgrace and a dishonour to be killed by a woman in battle, as they think this prohibits them from entering paradise.

After speaking to her family on Christmas Day last year to reassure them that she was safe and well, she wrote an accompanying message on Facebook.

Ive come from the frontline to say Merry Christmas to all my family and friends, she announced. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. I miss you and love you all.

Miss Taylor now works for the media team of the Kurdish People's Protection Units, taking videos and photos of the battles

Life is powerful. Revolutionary women together on frontline. We are unstoppable. Soon I should be [re] joining the Raqqa operation. The capital city where ISIS keeps Yezidi children and forces them into sex slavery . . . together we are women liberating women. This is history in the making . . .

Shortly afterwards Miss Taylor returned to the battlefront. On January 31, in a disarmingly cheery post, she wrote: Heading to the frontline in Raqqa. Ciao!

Her decision, she said, was influenced by the experience of a friend, an Arab YPJ fighter whose village was ransacked by ISIS last year. Her friends eight-year-old sister was repeatedly run over by a car before being pushed off a building. The friend ran off to join the YPJ, where she met Miss Taylor.

Her dispatches on social media make harrowing reading.

Three days after arriving on the frontline again, she wrote: 19km from Raqqa. Next to her post was a picture of an unexploded mine.

In a subsequent post, she revealed: Three of our comrades were martyred today who were fighting for the freedom of Raqqa. She also uploaded a video of women and children liberated from ISIS, writing: Today, the Syrian Democratic Forces liberated a village from ISIS. This video is of the hundreds of civilians who found safety today, all with very happy faces.

Miss Taylor, pictured in Rojava, northern Syria, now works for the media team of the Kurdish People's Protection Units, taking videos and photos of the battles

In an interview with Sky News in Syria yesterday, Miss Taylor said: The operation of Raqqa is a chance to tell our ideology, tell the reality of the revolution to the outside world.

I see this as maybe the last step towards Daesh [Islamic State] being finished. And for that reason its really important that we create diplomacy for outside. We take this chance now that everybody is listening to tell our ideology, to tell our revolution.

There are thought to be as many as 15 Britons currently fighting alongside the Kurds, but Kimberley Taylor is believed to be the first woman to join their ranks.

Three Britons have been killed fighting against ISIS since the first foreign volunteers arrived in Iraq and Syria in the autumn of 2014.

As the fighting has become more intense in recent weeks, Miss Taylor has been forced to pick up a gun herself, which is apparent from her most recent post yesterday.

It is almost impossible to imagine what her family must be going through now.

Rest day: Miss Taylor, pictured eating ice cream on the Syrian border, has spent the past 11 months training with the women - learning Kurdish, weaponry and battlefield tactics

Her father said: I was upset in the first instance upon learning of Kimmies intentions . . .and worry about her safety.

But to ask her not to follow her beliefs would be like asking her to cut her arm off. She just wants to change the world.

But where most of us think and talk about it, she acts. She is truly one in a million and we are very proud of who she is and what she stands for.

But her sister Samantha struck a more sombre note.

I dont expect her to live, she admitted. But if she did come back, she could get hit by a bus so I think it is better if she died doing what she believed in.

Brave words. But what a terrible agony for any family to live with.
Investigators have verified some elements of a 'dirty dossier' of information gathered on President Donald Trump when he was a candidate for the office, it was revealed Friday.

The information that reportedly checked out involved conversations between Russian individuals and Russian government officials  but not the most salacious claims in the 35-page briefing that a former British intelligence officer compiled on Trump.

The information did not confirm discredited information that the Russians were in possession of a sex tape involving Trump and prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.

CNN, has, however, located current and former law enforcement sources who say other elements of the dossier hold up, potentially speaking to the credibility of the overall document.

President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump arrive on Air Force One at the Palm Beach International airport as they prepare to spend part of the weekend with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe at Mar-a-Lago resort. The White House branded a new CNN report on a 35-page 'dirty dossier' on Trump 'fake news'

Nor do the sources confirm potentially damaging financial information about the president.

The officials said intercepts reveal that some of the conversations referenced in the dossier referenced the same people on the same days and locations mentioned in the dossier.

The corroborating material provide 'greater confidence' in the credibility of the dossier, three anonymous sources told the network.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer blasted the network when asked for comment.

'We continue to be disgusted by CNN's fake news reporting,' he said.

CNN reported a week before the inauguration that President Obama and Trump had been briefed on a two-page summary of the dossier, which Buzzfeed then published in full, although the raw intelligence document contained unverified information.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump talk with reporters on board Air Force One while traveling to Palm Beach

US President Donald Trump (C), First Lady Melania Trump (2nd R), Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (3rd L) and his wife Akie Abe (L) prepare to board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base

The dossier charges that the Russian government has gained compromising information on President Trump

Spicer later called to say, 'This is more fake news. It is about time CNN focused on the success the President has had bringing back jobs, protecting the nation, and strengthening relationships with Japan and other nations. The President won the election because of his vision and message for the nation.'

British former M16 spy Christopher Steele compiled the dossier

Trump labeled the network 'fake news' after its initial report.

Intelligence officials said the conversations that were monitored were between foreign nationals, but revealed little else.

Two officials told the network some of the individuals involved in the intercepted communications were 'heavily involved' in digging up dirt on Trump rival Hillary Clinton.

The dossier included multiple claims that Buzzfeed, which first reported it, acknowledged were 'unverified.'

Among the unverified material was the claim that Trump engaged in perverted sex acts with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room, and that he was videotaped was taped receiving a golden shower by the Russians.

But the dossier, produced by a former agent who was hired first by Republican rivals and then by pro-Clinton donors for research, also included information about potential financial leverage that Moscow allegedly held over Trump.

The officials told the network that investigators haven't concluded whether the Russian government had compromising information or 'kompromat' that it could use against Trump.

'Until now, US intelligence and law enforcement officials have said they could not verify any parts of the dossier,' according to the report.

But an official told the network officials had not been able to corroborate 'the more salacious things'  a reference to the discredited allegations.

U.S. law enforcement officials are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions between Russian officials and Trump associates, the New York Times reported in January.

Part of the investigation deals with business dealings Trump associates had in Russia, the paper reported.
It has been reported that Russia is considering sending Edward Snowden back to the United States as a 'gift' to President Donald Trump, and the NSA whistle-blower appears to be thrilled.

Trump has called the him a 'spy' and a 'traitor' who deserves to be executed, reported the Huffington Post.

Snowden, however, tweeted: 'Finally: Irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian Intel. No country trades away spies.'

The upbeat tone is understandably surprising, as he faces a future in prison for treason charges after leaking thousands of pages of classified documents in 2013, uncovering NSA's massive surveillance programs.

A Snowden handover is an attempt for Russia President Vladimir Putin to 'curry favor' with Trump, a senior US official with knowledge of sensitive Russian intelligence information told NBC News on Friday.

Russia is considering sending Edward Snowden back to the United States as a 'gift' to President Donald Trump

In response to the news, Snowden tweeted: 'Finally: Irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian Intel. No country trades away spies'

The Trump administration should be cautious in accepting any Snowden offer from Putin, said former deputy national security adviser Juan Zarate.

'For Russia, this would be a win-win. They've already extracted what they needed from Edward Snowden in terms of information and they've certainly used him to beat the United States over the head in terms of its surveillance and cyber activity', said Zarate.

'It would signal warmer relations and some desire for greater cooperation with the new administration, but it would also no doubt stoke controversies and cases in the US around the role of surveillance, the role of the US intelligence community, and the future of privacy and civil liberties in an American context.

'All of that would perhaps be music to the ears of Putin'.

Trump has called the whistleblower a 'spy' and a 'traitor' who deserves to be executed

The White House didn't comment on the report, but the Justice Department told NBC News it would welcome the return of Snowden, who has been charged under the Espionage Act and could face decades in prison.

Snowden was working as a contractor at a National Security Agency facility in Hawaii when he leaked a trove of documents to journalists in 2013 that exposed widespread surveillance on ordinary Americans through the bulk collection of metadata.

He fled to and was granted asylum in Moscow. His residency permit was recently extended until 2020, which could make him eligible to apply for Russian citizenship, officials say.

He had a similar reaction to that on Twitter when he was ionterviewed with Yahoo News in December. He smiled, and even laughed, saying: 'I'm actually kind of encouraged. IT wasn't so many years ago that people said "this guy's a Russian spy." But countries don't give up their spies'.

However he did say that it would not be something he wanted to happen, saying: 'That would obviously be something that would be a threat to my liberty and to my life'.

Trump and CIA Director Mike Pompeo have condemned Snowden in the strongest terms.

'I think he's a total traitor and I would deal with him harshly', said Trump in July.

'And if I were president, Putin would give him over'.

The Trump administration should be cautious in accepting any Snowden offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin, said former deputy national security adviser Juan Zarate

Snowden live tweeted in a December interview that being forced to return to the US would violate his human rights

In October 2013, Trump tweeted: 'Snowden is a spy who should be executed'.

Pompeo concurred last February: 'I think the proper outcome would be that he would be given a death sentence'.

In a December interview live streamed on Twitter, Snowden said being forced to return to the US would be a human-rights violation.

'A lot of people have asked me: Is there going to be some kind of deal where Trump says, "Hey look, give this guy to me as some kind of present"? Will I be sent back to the US, where I'll be facing a show trial?' said Snowden.

'Is this going to happen? I don't know. Could it happen? Sure. Am I worried about it? Not really, because here's the thing: I am very comfortable with the decisions that I've made. I know I did the right thing'.

Snowden's Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told Russian news agency RIA Novosti that Snowden wants to return to the US without the fear of arrest.

'We hope very much that the new U.S. president would show some weighted approach to the issue and make the one and only correct decision  to stop prosecution against Edward Snowden', Kucherena said.

There's no way to predict if Putin will hand Snowden over to Trump, Zarate said.

Snowden has said he would be willing to return if he could be guaranteed a fair trial, reported the Huffington Post.
The Duggar family took to Facebook on Friday to welcome theirir 20th child and celebrate his birthday.

'Happy 9th Birthday Tyler! We are so glad to have you in our home and a part of our family! Your bright smile and sweet spirit brings much joy to us all!' wrote the family, while also posting a photo of Jim Bob and Michelle out to eat with Tyler, Jackson, and Michelle sister Carol and Jim's mother Mary.

Tyler, who is the son of Michelle's niece Rachel Hutchins, officially became a member of the Duggar clan back in November, four months after he moved in with the family.

He has also found a great friend in Jackson too it seems according to the Duggars post on Friday.

'Jackson loves having a "little brother/cousin" to ride bikes and play with and read your Bibles together. Our prayer is that each day you will seek God's will for your life, and that God will use your life in a great way,' said the post.

'We pray over you that one of your first memory verses from the Bible will be lived out through your life!'

The message was then signed with love from 'Aunt Michelle & Uncle Jim Bob.'

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New boy: The Duggar family publicly welcomed their 20th child Tyler into the family on Friday (clockwise from center: Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, Mary Duggar, Carol, Tyler and Jackson)

Family: Michelle and Jim Bob were named the permanent guardians of Tyler, the son of Michelle's niece Rachel Hutchins, in November (Rachel holding Tyler above with Michael Wright in the background)

Tough times: Hutchins was arrested and charge with felony breaking and entering last April (mugshot above)

In Touch reported last year that an Arkansas judge granted a request made by Jim Bob and Michelle to become the permanent guardians of their grand-nephew on November 14, stating in his ruling that it was in the 'best interest' of the child.

The Duggars took in the boy after his 'unemployed and homeless' mother struggled to care for him.

The news comes a little over a year after it was revealed that the Duggars' eldest son Josh had molested four of his minor sisters when he was a teenager, and that Jim Bob did not formally notify members of law enforcement about his son's offenses.

'Jim Bob and Michelle have made the child feel right at home. They treat him like their own and he looks up to them as parents,' a source told the magazine, adding that the boy's mother is also able to have supervised visits with her son at the Duggar's home.

Hutchins was reportedly among those who supported the Duggars' bid to be named the guardian of her son, with her own personal struggles making it difficult to raise the child.

She is on probation for three years after being arrested this past April on felony charges of breaking and entering.

'She's a good person, but she's made some bad decisions,' an insider previously told InTouch.

Her current situation is not known, but according to Facebook she is engaged to a man named Michael Wright. She gave birth to her son as an unwed teenager.

Hutchins first gave up custody in August 2015, months before her arrest, to Michelle's sister Carolyn.

The Duggars then took custody of the young boy after Carolyn suffered a stroke this past July.

New baby: In November, Michelle and Jim Bob became the permanent guardians of the 8-year-old son of Michelle's niece Rachel Hutchins (l to r: Jessa, Joy Anna, Janna, Michelle, Carolyn, Rachel and her son, Jinger and Jill in 2014)

Close: Hutchins frequently posted photos of her self with the Duggar family (left with Jinger, right with Tyler)

The family has spent a good amount of time with Rachel and the young boy in the past, with Hutchins frequently posting photographs of them together on her Facebook page.

Michelle has also frequently talked about her desire to have another child, having given birth to a stillborn daughter in December 2011 that she named Jubilee Shalom.

And it seems that the family's recent scandal was not an issue for the court when agreeing to grant the request for guardianship.

It was revealed in May that Josh had molested multiple minors when he was a teenager, and in June the family confirmed that four of the five victims were his own sisters.

Then in July, TLC announced they would be cancelling the family's show 19 Kids and Counting, but featuring Jessa and Jill in a sexual abuse special.

Josh was never charged with a crime for the incidents as by the time police learned of the offenses the statue of limitations had passed, and his parents did not notify authorities in an official capacity at any point after learning about their son's actions.

That all seems to be behind the Duggars now though, with a source close to the family saying: 'Jim Bob and Michelle couldnt be happier right now.'
Georgie Robertson, who posed in a 6,000 gown for Tatler has joined a Corbyn-supporting plot to take over the youth wing of the Labour party

A former debutante who posed in a 6,000 gown for Tatler has joined a Corbyn-supporting plot to take over the youth wing of the Labour party.

Georgie Robertson, the 23-year-old daughter of Australian chick lit author Kathy Lette and human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC, came out at a glittering ball in Paris.

But today she will stand for election as part of a bid to oust opponents of Jeremy Corbyn from the London Young Labour committee.

Miss Robertson, who attended the 17,700-a-year Queens College School in London, is hoping to become womens officer.

She has been endorsed by Left-wingers as the Corbynista candidate for the role.

In her manifesto, she has pledged that she wants, to work with grassroots womens campaigns to collectively organise against patriarchy and all other forms of oppression.

After making her debut at the Crillon Ball in 2009, Miss Robertson boasted in an article online about the fairy tale event in which the aristocracy rub sequinned shoulder pads with the celebritocracy.

She described the weekend as an endless flurry of hot hair rollers, make-up, trying on diamonds, couture fittings and fashion shoots.

All decked out in couture, we made our entrance into the glittering ballroom and were launched into society. A few waltzes later and we swapped our 6,000 gowns for 6 mini skirts to hit Paris hotspots, she added.

From Marxism to Marie Antoinette

Miss Robertson claimed Le Bal was a celebration of womanhood, saying: Just because were standing on our own two stilettos, doesnt mean we dont want to be twirled around the ballroom in them. Some people have said that its old fashioned for girls to come out. But none of us is waiting to be rescued by Prince Charming. Also, with so much misogyny in the world, Le Bal is a celebration of womanhood. She wrote that she hoped her coming out would lead to receiving a lot of invites to exotic mansions worldwide, but instead it seems she has taken the path of student activism.

Robertson is the 23-year-old daughter of Australian chick lit author Kathy Lette

Her father is human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC

After graduating from the School of Oriental and African Studies, she was elected co-president of the students union and is now part of the Corbyn-supporting wing of the Labour Party.

Last September, she wrote an article for blog Labour List under the headline Why Jeremy Corbyn is the right choice for women.

On her LinkedIn page, she describes herself as a dynamic history and politics graduate as well as a social and environmental justice activist and human rights advocate, with a successful background in community mobilisation, lobbying and negotiation.

Supporters of Mr Corbyn are hoping to wrestle control of the London Young Labour executive committee after it expressed no confidence in his leadership of the party last June.

She previously worked as a volunteer at Wikileaks, after her father defended its founder Julian Assange in extradition proceedings.

Miss Lette has previously joked about how her daughter has divided her time between protests and a life of luxury, saying it is from one extreme to the other, from Marxism to Marie Antoinette.

She added: We have a little politician in the making. She is a straight-A student and politics is her passion. She is so wonderful and clever, she must be adopted as a candidate.
A mystery man seen with Tara Palmer Tomkinson in the weeks before her death may have been a drug dealer, her friends have revealed.

The bar staff at her local in Earl's Court, south west London, said the older man may have been her boyfriend, but friends have suggested he was a dealer.

A friend told the Sun: 'In the final months, she barely left her flat and had never mentioned a boyfriend.

Tara was found dead in her flat on Wednesday. She is pictured left, with her close friend Ivan Massow at Annabel Goldsmith's party in in 2014, and right in November,when she revealed she was being treated for a tumour

Friends have now revealed fears she was with a drug dealer, not a new boyfriend, when she was spotted with a mystery man in her local pub

'The fact she was only seen with this guy in pubs or when he visited her flat at odd hours makes me fear he may have been helping her get drugs again.'

It comes as it was revealed Tara said therapy was not enough to keep her clean, and she wanted drugs 'every day'.

In one of her last interviews, she told journalist Rob McGibbon she had put her family through a lot but wanted to make them proud.

A family death notice in the Telegraph revealed the socialite and It Girl died 'peacefully' in her sleep.

Tara was said to have found it difficult to give up drink and drugs and friends worry she may have been supplied by this older man

Palmer-Tomkinson was a family friend of Prince Charles (pictured together, left, in 2003) and attended numerous royal weddings and occasions. She was last pictured (right) two weeks ago outside her flat, where she was found dead

Her body was found in her flat in south west London by her cleaner.

Neighbours reported hearing a 'loud bang' on Friday evening before her death, but the staff at her pub confirmed they had seen her the following night.

Tara's sister, author Santa Montefiore, posted a tribute on Twitter, sharing a photograph of the 45-year-old, with the words 'My darling sister, I miss you' and a broken heart emoji.

In November, Palmer-Tomkinson revealed she was being treated for a non-malignant growth in her pituitary gland and added she feared she would die after being told of her condition.

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson's sister Santa Montefiore posted a tribute to her late sibling on Twitter today alongside a black and white photo of the socialite, pictured

She was diagnosed with the tumour last January after she returned from a ski trip, and was also suffering with an auto-immune disease which caused tiredness, joint pain and acute anaemia.

Tara was last seen with the mystery man at her local pub on Saturday. Friends of hers described him as a 'difficult' older man aged in his 50s who 'stopped her visiting' The Bottlery pub near her home, where staff said she was a frequent visitor.

The socialite's body was discovered at her luxury 1.6million west London apartment by her cleaner. The Portuguese cleaner, who is in her 30s, arrived at the socialite's west London flat at around 1.30pm on Wednesday and was heard crying by builders renovating the apartment below.

Minutes later an ambulance arrived with several paramedics, followed by three police cars. Undertakers took the former model's body away on Wednesday evening.
Ivanka Trump was dressed to impress when she boarded Air Force One for the first time on Friday morning, just days after major retailer Nordstrom dropped her fashion line due to poor sales.

Ivanka boarded the plane at Joint Base Andrews alongside her husband, Jared, a top White House adviser, wearing an overcoat and her own label's shoes and purse on a blustery day.

She clutched a $150 velvet cocktail bag and left her legs bare to show off her $126 matching lace-up blue heels.

The couple joined First Lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump aboard the plane as he welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife, Akie, for a weekend getaway at Mar-a-Lago.

Ivanka Trump wears her own label's shoes and purse as she walks alongside her husband, Senior White House Advisor Jared Kushner, from the White House to join President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Marine One in Washington

Kushner and Trump walk along the colonnade ahead of a joint press conference by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and her father, President Donald Trump, at the White House

Trump clutches her label's Women's Blue Mara Velvet Cocktail Bag, which retails for $150

Kushner helps his wife Ivanka, who is wearing her label's Women's Blue Brita shoes, originally $126, up the steps of the presidential helicopter before taking off for Joint Base Andrews

Trump and Kushner walk off Air Force One with their children at Palm Beach International airport as they prepare to spend part of the weekend together with her father President Trump at Mar-a-Lago resort

Ivanka's clothing line, which she has built over the past five years, is facing difficulties.

President Trump lashed out at Nordstrom this week for dumping his daughter's brand.

'My daughter has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom', the president wrote in a tweet. 'She is a great person  always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer defended President Trump's comment later in the day, saying that he was responding to 'an attack on his daughter.'

Spicer also implied that Nordstrom made the decision to drop Ivanka's line because they did not agree with President Trump's ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations entering the country.

Nordstrom said they cut Trump's fashion line based on the 'brand's performance' and that they decided 'not to buy it for this season'

Shortly after making the announcement, Nordstrom had completely taken off the first daughter's merchandise from their website (above)

She was also not listed on Nordstrom's master list of brands available and the page that previously featured items from her brand was empty. Above Ivanka is pictured in 2011 at a Nordstrom in California presenting the launch of her footwear collection

President Donald Trump lashed out at Nordstrom this week for dumping his daughter Ivanka Trump's clothing and shoe line

But on Wednesday Nordstrom revealed in a statement to MailOnline that Ivanka was personally told about its decision in early January  weeks before the travel ban.

Nordstrom said the decision to stop selling the Ivanka Trump Collection was based on the sales performance of the first daughter's brand.

'We've said all along we make buying decisions based on performance', said a spokesperson for the Seattle-based retailer.

'We've got thousands of brands  more than 2,000 offered on the site alone. Reviewing their merit and making edits is part of the regular rhythm of our business'.

Nordstrom said that each year the chain cuts about 10 per cent and refreshes its assortment with about the same amount.

'In this case, based on the brand's performance we've decided not to buy it for this season', Nordstrom added.

When the 35-year-old businesswoman launched the Ivanka Trump footwear line in 2011, Nordstrom was one of the first retail partnerships for her.

The mother-of-three announced in January on her personal Facebook page that she was taking a 'formal leave of absence' from both her brand and Trump Organization to help settle her family in Washington, DC.
Angela Merkel will offer cash handouts worth millions of pounds for migrants to leave Germany in an effort to silence criticism of her open-door border policy.

In a highly-embarrassing U-turn over the ill-fated plan, which saw 1.2million migrants flock to the country, Mrs Merkel has now vowed to send many of them home.

The German chancellor agreed a package of measures to speed up the deportation process for an estimated 450,000 migrants who have been rejected asylum.

Angela Merkel will offer cash handouts worth millions of pounds for migrants to leave Germany in an effort to silence criticism of her open-door border policy

The plan includes a 76million scheme that will offer migrants cash incentives to leave Germany voluntarily

The controversial plan, which marks a significant toughening of previous proposals, includes a 76million scheme that will offer migrants cash incentives to leave Germany voluntarily.

Many will see the move as a desperate attempt for Miss Merkel to claw back support ahead of her challenging re-election bid in September.

Criticism of her decision to leave Germanys borders open and welcome all refugees during Europes migration crisis in 2015 has led to a surge in support for anti-immigrant parties.

Criticism of Angela Merkel's decision to leave Germanys borders open and welcome all refugees during Europes migration crisis in 2015 has led to a surge in support for anti-immigrant parties

The proposed crackdown, which has been criticised by human rights groups, will also include the creation of a department in Berlin to co-ordinate mass deportations

Flaws in the open borders system were highlighted in the aftermath of last years Christmas market attack in Berlin when it was revealed that Tunisian terrorist Anis Amri had been denied asylum months earlier.

The plans agreed by Miss Merkel will allow officials to analyse asylum seekers telephones in an attempt to verify their identity, while rules for detaining migrants will be widened.

The proposed crackdown, which has been criticised by human rights groups, will also include the creation of a department in Berlin to co-ordinate mass deportations.

The German chancellor agreed a package of measures to speed up the deportation process for an estimated 450,000 migrants who have been rejected asylum

As part of the 16-point plan, a number of federal departure centres will also be established near airports to hold migrants before they are deported.

Miss Merkel admitted that relying solely on migrants putting themselves forward for deportation would fail to tackle the huge backlog of rejected requests.

We rely heavily on voluntary departures, but we know that voluntary departures will not take place if people know that there is never a mandatory return to their home country, she said.

The deal was agreed with Germanys 16 regional governors, who are largely responsible for orchestrating deportations.

Current measures have left officials struggling to deport those whose asylum requests are rejected, largely because they come from areas deemed to be safe, unlike war-torn countries such as Syria.

Of the 170,000 applications that were rejected last year, 55,000 decided to leave voluntarily and a further 26,000 were repatriated.

Former Brussels chief Martin Schulz is understood to support the deportation measures

Officials believe that the total number of failed asylum seekers could reach 450,000 by the end of the year if the proposed measures are not pushed through.

While unlikely to fall foul of EU laws, the measures will trouble officials in Brussels who expressed concerns this week that some member states were turning their backs on migrants.

CONTROVERSIAL NEW MIGRANT PLANS FOR HUNGARY Hungary yesterday announced highly-controversial proposals to detain all migrants in container camps until there asylum claims are settled. The country, which has constructed a wall along its border as part of a tough stance on those seeking entry to the country, said new rules would migrants without documents automatically deported. Human rights groups described the plan for mass detention as a new low. Advertisement

In a further departure, Germany also looked headed for another collision with the EU after announcing plans to cut child benefits for EU migrants yesterday.

It wants to follow concessions previously won by the UK to cut its large bill for children who reside in their home country but whose parents work in the Germany, saving around 136million per year.

A shock poll last week revealed that Miss Merkels Christian Democratic Union party had fallen behind in the polls for the first time in seven years.

Former Brussels chief Martin Schulz, whose re-energsed Social Democrats will be Miss Merkels main rivals in the upcoming election, is understood to support the deportation measures.

But Miss Merkel will noenetheless want to ensure their implementation to in an attempt to put forward a tough stance on immigration and ensure success at the polls once again.
Gail Hart, 43, was using Garnier Pure Active Deep Pore Wash when she felt an intense discomfort in her right eye and a scratching feeling against her eyeball

A woman was left in agony after a microbead embedded itself in her eye.

Gail Hart, 43, was using Garnier Pure Active Deep Pore Wash when she felt an intense discomfort in her right eye and a scratching feeling against her eyeball.

The graphic designer went to hospital where doctors had to scrape the bead out with a needle because it was stuck in her cornea.

A medic told her he had seen other cases like hers of patients getting the tiny balls of plastic caught in their eyes.

Miss Hart said microbeads should be banned. The Daily Mails Ban The Beads Now campaign has called for them to be removed from beauty products after supermarkets banned them in rinse-off, but not wash-off versions.

The UK dumps 86 tonnes of microbeads in the sea every year, where they collect in the bodies of marine life including fish, birds and crabs. Some experts believe the beads can enter the food chain.

Miss Hart, of Iver, Buckinghamshire, had been using the exfoliating face product for a while before the incident last month. She returned from the gym one day and washed her face.

Afterwards, she could feel a scratchy object in her eye, so she went to her GP who sent her to a walk-in centre.

There, doctors put orange dye into her eye and examined through a magnifying lens. They found a microbead in her cornea and transferred her to King Edward Hospitals eye clinic in Windsor, Berkshire.

dors then used needles to scrape the bead out of her cornea using an anaesthetic spray. They gave her a course of antibiotics and eye gel to help it heal.

Miss Hart said: The microbead left a crater in my cornea the size of the microbead. The discomfort was awful. It was like a sharp object was scratching my eye continuously.

It gave me that horrible anxiety where you think its never going to come out. At first I didnt realise what was in it. I wash my face daily, but youre only meant to exfoliate every now and then. It was a painful and terrifying experience. The doctor said hed seen other patients with the same problem.

She said that the process to remove the bead had worried her.

When they told me they had to get a needle into my eye, I freaked out. But luckily it was numb and I didnt feel a thing, she added. I cannot believe its left a crater.

Miss Hart has contacted Garnier to complain about the product but she is yet to hear back from them.

She added that she had been unaware that the product contained microbeads. I didnt know the wash was bad for the environment  I didnt even know microbeads were plastic, she said. I thought its bio-friendly and will break down, but they dont. I was reading up about them  Theyre terrible for the animals.

I think microbeads should be banned  not just because of what happened to me but also because of the environment.

A spokesman for LOreal, which makes the face wash, said it was using a new formula without microbeads which was being rolled out across the country

She said doctors had confirmed that it was a microbead in her eye and she had not used any other products with them in and had experienced discomfort as soon as she had washed her face.

Stuart Hemingway, a consultant nurse who treated her, said that he had since seen another woman with the same complaint, adding that it is clearly a problem. The 4.99 200ml product is on sale online.

A spokesman for LOreal, which makes the face wash, said it was using a new formula without microbeads which was being rolled out across the country.

They added: Garniers number one priority is the safety of our consumers. We are very sorry to hear of Gails experience and we are reaching out to her to understand what has happened and how we can help. With any type of scrub we advise against using the product around the eye  this advice is clearly communicated on the packaging.'
The family on the TV reality show 'Sister Wives' and several hundred other protesters in polygamous relationships and their supporters said Friday they won't stop fighting for the legal right to plural marriage.

Holding signs that read, 'I love all my moms,' and 'If we were gay, we'd be OK,' the group rallied in the rain on the steps of the Utah Capitol on Friday afternoon.

The demonstration comes a month after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case from Kody Brown and his four wives on the TLC show 'Sister Wives' challenging Utah's bigamy law.

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The family on the TV reality show 'Sister Wives' and several hundred other protesters in polygamous relationships and their supporters said Friday they won't stop fighting for the legal right to plural marriage

Kody Brown, center, from TV's reality show 'Sister Wives,' marches during a protest at the state Capitol Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in Salt Lake City. Several hundred people in polygamist relationships say they want Utah lawmakers and law enforcement officials to know that they're not going away and should be allowed the freedom to practice their plural marriages

'I am not a criminal,' proclaimed Joe Darger, a Utah man who has three wives and helped organize the rally.

'If you commit adultery, that's not a felony. It's only a crime when you have a family and you pretend to be married.'

The high court left Utah's law in place, but state legislators are considering changes this year that would leave those convicted under it facing harsher penalties if they're also convicted of other crimes such as domestic abuse.

The sponsor, Republican Representative Mike Noel of Kanab, said other changes in his proposal would help the law withstand any future court challenge.

Shortly before the rally began outside the Capitol, Noel and more than half a dozen women who left polygamous communities held a news conference to defend his bill, saying the plural relationships hurt women and children.

They said the closed communities where polygamy is practiced can be rife with welfare fraud and child abuse, sexual abuse and forced labor.

The sponsor, Republican Representative Mike Noel of Kanab, said other changes in his proposal would help the law withstand any future court challenge

Shortly before the rally began outside the Capitol, Noel and more than half a dozen women who left polygamous communities held a news conference to defend his bill, saying the plural relationships hurt women and children

Outside the Capitol, polygamy supporters said the law criminalizing a relationship between consenting adults keeps anyone witnessing crimes like fraud or abuse from speaking out.

Prosecutors say they generally leave polygamists alone but need to keep the ban to pursue polygamists for other crimes. Only 10 people have been charged with violating the law between 2001 and 2011.

Utah's current polygamy law bars married people from living with an extra spouse or claiming to have a second purported 'spiritual spouse.' Noel's bill would make it a crime only if someone lives with and claims they have another spouse.

Outside the Capitol, polygamy supporters said the law criminalizing a relationship between consenting adults keeps anyone witnessing crimes like fraud or abuse from speaking out

Prosecutors say they generally leave polygamists alone but need to keep the ban to pursue polygamists for other crimes

Kody Brown, center left, from TV's reality show 'Sister Wives,' and his wife Janelle Brown, left, and a group of pro-polygamy protesters rally at the state Capitol

It would also shield from prosecution anyone who leaves a polygamous relationship because they feared coercion, bodily harm, are underage or trying to protect a minor in a plural family.

The bill was approved by a House committee this week and awaits a vote by the full House of Representatives.

Court documents show there are about 30,000 polygamists in Utah. They believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven  a legacy of the early Mormon church. The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abandoned the practice in 1890 and now strictly forbids it.

Several hundred people in polygamist relationships say they want Utah lawmakers and law enforcement officials to know that they're not going away and should be allowed the freedom to practice their plural marriages

Noel, who is Mormon, said Friday that his great-grandfather was jailed for being a polygamist and he's irritated that today's polygamists refer to themselves as Mormons.

'They've hijacked my religion and I actually resent that,' Noel said.

Brenda Nicholson, a former member of a sect led by Warren Jeffs on the Utah-Arizona border, said polygamy is not just a relationship involving consenting adults.

'It's not a choice,' she said, 'if you're told this is what God expects of you.'
John Bercow has told friends he wants to stay on as Speaker until 2020, despite formal moves to force him out after his extraordinary attack on Donald Trump this week.

Mr Bercow pledged that he would serve for nine years when he took over as Speaker in June 2009. Under this timetable he would step down in June next year.

But he has refused to commit publicly to a departure date in recent years. And a senior Tory source said he was now canvassing opinion about the idea of staying in post until the next election in May 2020  almost two years beyond his promised exit date.

Commons Speaker John Bercow has told friends he wants to stay on as Speaker until 2020

'John is being very vague about it,' the source said. 'He did promise it would be nine years but it now appears to be 'about nine years'. He still has a good relationship with his local Conservative Association and is suggesting he wouldn't want to put them through a by-election campaign.

'In the end, it's up to him. He promised he would go after nine years but there is very little anyone can do about it if he decides to changes his mind.'

The revelation that Mr Bercow is planning to extend his term will enrage his Tory critics, who believe he has damaged the impartiality of the Speaker's office with his outspoken attack on President Trump.

Mr Bercow stunned MPs this week when he said Mr Trump should be banned from making a joint address to parliament in Westminster Hall because of his 'sexism and racism'.

The outburst also prompted a rebuke from the Speaker of the Lords, Lord Fowler, who suggested he should lose his veto over foreign visitors to parliament as a result.

Ministers were privately infuriated by the 'insult' to Mr Trump, who was invited by Theresa May to make a state visit to the UK in June.

On Thursday, former Tory minister James Duddridge took the rare step of tabling a motion of no confidence in Mr Bercow, saying he had 'overstepped the mark'.

Mr Duddridge said the attack on the US President was 'the straw that broke the camel's back', following long-running concern about anti-Tory bias.

'It was wholly inappropriate and it means that he can no longer reasonably chair, as Speaker, any debate on those subjects.'

He added: 'I have got absolute confidence that a majority of MPs will be in the 'he's not doing a good job and should go' category.

Mr Bercow pledged that he would serve for nine years when he took over as Speaker in June 2009

'How many of those will go as far as voting in a vote of no confidence and how many will sign up to an EDM, I genuinely don't know.'

Fellow Tory Alec Shelbrooke said that although he disagreed with Mr Trump's 'discriminatory' travel ban, Mr Bercow had gone too far.

He said he would back the motion to eject him, saying Mr Bercow had 'politicised the office of Speaker and his position is untenable'.

Tory Andrew Bridgen became the third MP to call publicly for Mr Bercow to quit yesterday, saying: 'Speaker Bercow's position is untenable, he needs to be replaced before President Trump's state visit.'

Friends of the Speaker claim he was simply responding to a question by Labour MP Stephen Doughty. But one Labour source claimed the question had been deliberately 'set up' in order to embarrass Mr Trump and strengthen support for Mr Bercow among opposition MPs, who applauded his outburst.

Senior Tories also believe Mr Bercow 'orchestrated' the row in a ham-fisted attempt to bolster his own position.

'Bercow did this to win Labour, SNP and Lib Dem support for staying on,' a senior member of Theresa May's Government said. 'He has orchestrated the whole thing.'

Commons sources yesterday refused to deny that Mr Bercow may extend his term until 2020.

Mr Bercow made his nine-year pledge when he was first appointed. He has since said he does not 'resile' from it, but has also said that his re-appointment as Speaker after the 2015 was 'for a full parliament'.

A spokesman for Mr Bercow said: 'Both of those things are true. I'm not going to get into what his decision is going to be.

'It's up to him when he wants to stand down. I've no comment on what his future plans are.'
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Debenhams is to become the first major department store to sell the traditional hijab.

A range of Muslim clothing including hijabs, tops, dresses, jumpsuits, kimono wraps, hijab pins and caps will be sold in selected stores from May.

An outlet of Aab, an international brand selling 'contemporary modest wear' for women, will open inside the Oxford Street branch of Debenhams in London.

Debenhams is to become the first major department store to sell the traditional hijab

The brand will then be introduced to stores in Birmingham's Bullring, Westfield in Shepherd's Bush, Manchester's Trafford Centre and Leicester's Highcross Shopping Centre.

The Aab roll-out will coincide with launches at international branches of Debenhams in Dubai, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iran, Indonesia and Malaysia.

A hijab is a headscarf worn by some Muslim women as a symbol of modesty and privacy.

It covers the head and neck but, unlike the burqa or niqab, leaves the face clear. Aab also stocks body-covering abaya dresses.

Jeanette Whithear of Debenhams said: 'Adding the high quality fashion range to our product mix enables us to offer collections that are highly relevant in both international markets and to our domestic customers.

'This is a step closer to creating a product offer that caters for broader customer needs.'

Nazmin Alim, founder and creative director at Aab, which means water in Persian, said: 'We started Aab almost a decade ago as a label that redefined modest fashion and one that caters for everyday modern wardrobe staples.

'The partnership with Debenhams opens up some very exciting opportunities for us.'

In March, Marks & Spencer stocked burkinis for the first time. The company explained that the 49.50 suit 'covers the whole body with the exception of the face, hands and feet, without compromising on style'.

In 2014, John Lewis sold the hijab in its school uniform department for the first time. The headscarf was sold in the company's stores in London and Liverpool.
A plumber who wanted to cut his working hours yesterday won a new court victory for gig economy self-employed workers.

Appeal judges ruled that Gary Smiths employer should have given him basic workers rights, such as paid holidays and the right to bring tribunal claims, even though he was legally working for himself.

The case was hailed as another advance for workers like Uber drivers and delivery riders who are technically self-employed and without legal employment rights despite working for one large organisation. A series of tribunal and court cases have wrestled with the arguments over the past six months.

Plumber, Gary Smith, who wanted to cut his working hours yesterday won a new court victory for gig economy self-employed workers

Mr Smith worked solely for Pimlico Plumbers in London and drove its branded van during his working hours. But he was registered for VAT and paid tax as a self-employed contractor.

In 2010 he suffered a heart attack, and asked his employers if he could cut his contracted five-day week down to three days. They refused and took away the van. Mr Smith said this amounted to dismissal.

The decision by three Court of Appeal judges, Sir Terence Etherton, Lord Justice Davis and Lord Justice Underhill, to back Mr Smith appears a fresh step towards tying in gig economy workers as legal staff of their employers. The Pimlico firm had, at the time Mr Smith left, 125 plumbers and maintenance workers on similar contracts.

The judges supported an earlier tribunal decision in Mr Smiths favour.

Pimlico Plumbers founder Charlie Mullins said he may fight the decision in the Supreme Court

Mr Smiths lawyer Jacqueline McGuigan said the ruling was a resounding victory for Mr Smith, whose work had been tightly controlled by Pimlico Plumbers, and who, despite his technically independent status, had not been allowed to work for any other organisation.

We are absolutely delighted, she said. The decision brings welcome clarity to the issue of employment status relating to work in parts of the economy.

But Pimlico Plumbers founder Charlie Mullins said he may fight the decision in the Supreme Court.

He said that plumbers were hired on a self-employed basis, provided their own tools and materials, and did not have employee benefits. As a result they could earn much more than they otherwise would. Mr Smith, he said, had been earning 80,000 a year, and it was a shame that we could not continue with his services.

Mr Mullins added: Like our plumbing, our contracts are now watertight.

One of the judges, Lord Justice Underhill, warned that the decision was unlikely to be the final word in the gig economy argument.

Mr Smith worked solely for Pimlico Plumbers in London and drove its branded van during his working hours. But he was registered for VAT and paid tax as a self-employed contractor

Although employment lawyers will inevitably be interested in this case, the question of when a relationship is genuinely casual being a very live one at present  they should be careful about trying to draw any general conclusions from it, he said.

A group of experts led by Matthew Taylor of the Royal Society for the Arts is currently examining the arguments over workers rights at the request of ministers. Topics include job security, pension, holiday and parental leave rights for workers, and the freedoms and obligations of employers

A Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spokesman said: We are determined to ensure our employment rules keep up to date to reflect new ways of working.
Jeremy Corbyn lost a trial of strength with 14 Labour shadow ministers who defied him over Brexit last night

Jeremy Corbyn lost a trial of strength with 14 Labour shadow ministers who defied him over Brexit last night.

In a humiliating climbdown, the Labour leader ruled that the 14 rebel frontbenchers will keep their jobs despite defying a three-line whip.

Parliamentary convention dictates that frontbenchers who defy a three-line whip have to resign or be sacked automatically.

But, after crisis talks stretching over two days with Labour's chief whip Nick Brown, Mr Corbyn concluded he was not strong enough to sack his rebels.

Instead they will receive a written warning asking them not to do it again.

Embarrassingly, three of the rebels are Labour whips who are meant to be in charge of maintaining discipline in the party.

A Labour source said the 'extraordinary' circumstances surrounding the EU referendum were the reason for the major break with parliamentary convention.

'A formal warning will be issued to all Labour MPs who broke the three-line whip,' he said. 'They will be expected to vote with the Labour whip in future, in keeping with party rules. They will also receive a written warning about their future conduct.'

But the climbdown will inevitably be seen as sign of Mr Corbyn's weakness and inability to dictate policy on Brexit to his own party.

The turmoil follows the Commons debate on the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill this month, which has plunged Labour into chaos.

Mr Corbyn ordered his MPs to support the legislation, which gives Theresa May the power to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the formal process for leaving the EU.

But 52 MPs refused to follow his orders. Four members of the shadow cabinet resigned in order to defy Mr Corbyn, as did education spokesman Tulip Siddiq, who said she had expected to be sacked for rebelling.

But, after crisis talks stretching over two days with Labour's chief whip Nick Brown (pictured), Mr Corbyn concluded he was not strong enough to sack his rebels

Party insiders believe the divisions over Brexit could prove disastrous in the forthcoming by-elections in Stoke on Trent and Copeland, in Cumbria, where Labour is battling to cling on in what were once safe seats.

But many Labour MPs are so opposed to Brexit that they refused to accept the outcome of last year's referendum.

Thousands of party members are also said to have quit in recent weeks over Mr Corbyn's decision to back Brexit.

And the row has left Mr Corbyn vulnerable to a potential leadership challenge, as it has angered many of his traditional supporters.

Former shadow business secretary Clive Lewis, who resigned this week to vote against Brexit is said to be 'on manoeuvres' with an eye to a future leadership bid. He has told friends he wants to be 'on the right side of the argument' over Brexit when Mr Corbyn eventually faces a challenge.
The father of internet sensation Danielle Bregoli, also known as 'Cash Me Ousside girl', has spoken out after the 13-year-old reappeared on Dr Phil this week

The father of internet sensation Danielle Bregoli, also known as 'Cash Me Ousside girl', has spoken out after the 13-year-old reappeared on Dr Phil this week.

Bregoli and her mother Barbara Ann have had a rocky relationship with father Ira Peskowitz, who is a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy in the family's home state of Florida.

Peskowitz, who has been embroiled in legal disputes with Danielle's mother for a decade, has called his daughter's attitude 'appalling' but expressed hope for her future.

Bregoli reappeared on Dr Phil on Friday slightly more humbled, though still broadcasting her trademark attitude.

As her mother bragged about the viewers her daughter brought the top rated day time show, Danielle told Dr Phil that he was 'nothing' before she came onto the show.

Scroll down for more videos

Bregoli, right, and her mother Barbara Ann, left, have had a rocky relationship with father Ira Peskowitz, who is a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy in the family's home state of Florida

'That behavior is appalling. And it's appalling that anyone can think it is acceptable behavior,' Peskowitz told the Palm Beach Post on Wednesday.

'She is still young. Danielle needs to be allowed to be a normal, healthy 13-year-old girl. Danielle needs to get treatment, needs to get a good education, get involved in physical activity,' Peskowitz said.

He and Danielle's mother Barbara Ann have been involved in a decade-long legal battle, court documents reveal.

The two never married, and Peskowitz has been married to his current wife for nearly Danielle's entire life.

Peskowitz reportedly filed a report for domestic abuse against Barbara Ann, after she made threats to 'stab and kill him', in front of Danielle, who was then just four months old.

Peskowitz reportedly filed a report for domestic abuse against Barbara Ann, after she made threats to 'stab and kill him', in front of Danielle, who was then just four months old

Barbara Ann followed with a counter suit the next day that alleged Peskowitz grabbed her 'with force' and also made threats to her life and that of Danielle's, and threatened suicide.



'Danielle feels rejected by me. That poor girl. I did not abandon her. I left her mother, but I did not abandon her,' Peskowitz said.

'I know there is a little girl in there and I hope one day she can hug me and say, "I love you, daddy."'

Barbara Ann followed with a counter suit the next day that alleged Peskowitz grabbed her 'with force' and also made threats to her life and that of Danielle's, and threatened suicide

The teen originally appeared on Dr Phil in September 2016 after mom Barbara Ann brought her in, saying that her behavior was out of control.

The episode was titled: 'I Want To Give Up My Car-Stealing, Knife-Wielding, Twerking 13-Year-Old Daughter Who Tried To Frame Me For A Crime'.

It was then that she uttered her now-famous phrase, 'Cash me ouside, how bout dat,' as she prompted an entertained audience to fight her as she told her mother and Dr Phil of her bad-girl behavior.

In her time since her first television appearance, the 13-year-old has racked up 3.4 million Instagram followers and nearly 1 million on her Facebook page, and has begun promoting her famous phrase on 'Cash me ousside' merchandise.

As a part of her rehabilitation from the day time talk show, she attended Turn-About Ranch, which is a treatment center for troubled youth.

Dr. Phil paid for her in patient residential treatment after her first appearance on the show and in a follow up show she hugged the therapist and told him she was thankful and doing great.

In her time since her first television appearance, the 13-year-old has racked up 3.4 million Instagram followers and nearly 1 million on her Facebook page, and has begun promoting her famous phrase on 'Cash me ousside' merchandise

However, after filming the return episode, Danielle and Barbara Ann were filmed in a physical altercation with a woman while boarding Spirit flight at LAX, prompting them to all be removed from the plane.

Danielle took to Facebook to explain the incident, calling the woman a 'drunk crackhead' who pushed her mother.

The fight allegedly went down after mom Barbara Ann got in an argument with the third party - who became angry when it took her some time to load her carry on bag above the seat.
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Family and friends have performed an emotional haka to farewell Johann Ofner.

The stuntman 28, was shot and killed at Brooklyn Strand in central Brisbane in January after being fatally struck with a blank round.

Mr Ofner was shot dead on the set while filming a music video for hip hop group Bliss n Eso and on Saturday mourners gathered at the Sacred Heart Church in Clear Island Waters on the Gold Coast to pay their respects.

Mourners then headed to Allambe Memorial Park where a group of men performed an emotional rendition of the haka as Mr Ofner's body was lowered into the ground.

Family and friends have gathered to farewell Johann Ofner who was killed on the set of a music video

Mourners then gathered at Allambe Memorial Park where a group of men performed an emotional rendition of the haka as Mr Ofner's body was lowered into the ground

Mr Ofner's order of service showed a touching pic of him kissing his six-year-old daughter, Kyarna, on the cheek.

The cover of the order of service features a picture of Mr Ofner posing against a wall in which wings have been painted on and superimposed on top of that is photo of the stuntman smiling shirtless.

Mr Ofner's girlfriend Kati Garnett posted an emotional message to Instagram on Saturday.

The message read: 'Today's the day we put you to rest, fly high and sore above us forever. We miss you and love you.'

The stuntman 28, was shot and killed at Brooklyn Strand in central Brisbane in January after being fatally struck with a blank round

Mourners gather for the funeral at the Sacred Heart Church in Clear Island Waters on Saturday

A group of women gather outside the church ahead of the funeral

A car arrives to crowds of mourners for the event of Mr Ofner, who went to school at Palm Beach Currumbin High School on the Gold Coast

The stuntman was soon to be on the Nine Network's reality TV show Australian Ninja Warrior, which is based off an American show

Mr Ofner's order of service on Saturday featured photos of the late stuntman

Family and friends console one another at the Sacred Heart Church in Clear Island Waters on the Gold Coast

Ofner's girlfriend Kati Garnett (left) posted an emotional message to Instagram on Saturday

Mr Ofner, 28, was shot and killed at Brooklyn Strand in central Brisbane in January after being fatally struck with a blank round
Boris Johnson encouraged a senior ministerial colleague to continue selling weapons to Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of a devastating attack that killed 140 civilians, it has been revealed.

The Arab nation, which has repeatedly been criticised for its human rights abuses, found itself at the centre of an international outcry over the attack in Yemen last year that struck a funeral.

But when the UK decided to review the export of defence equipment, the foreign secretary intervened and asked for the highly-lucrative deals to go ahead.

Boris Johnson encouraged a senior ministerial colleague to continue selling weapons to Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of a devastating attack that killed 140 civilians, it has been revealed

Letters have revealed how he wrote to then trade Secretary Liam Fox in which he urged him to wave the contracts through despite the Saudi attack last October.

He wrote: I am aware you have deferred a decision on four export licence applications to supply the Royal Saudi Air Force with equipment which could be used in the conflict in Yemen.

In another letter on 8 November, seen by the Guardian, Mr Johnson acknowledged that the situation was extremely finely balanced.

But he added: I judge at present the Saudis appear committed both to improving processes and to taking action to address failures/individual incidents.

As a result of the intervention, Mr Fox decided to permit the deals despite acknowledging the situation was complex.

Rules prevent the UK from selling weapons to a country if it is thought they will be used in a way that will breach humanitarian law.

Despite criticisms of the countrys authoritarian regime, it remains one of the UKs key defence clients and has signed off arms deals worth 3.3billion since 2015.

The documents emerged during a highly-secretive court case this week involving the Governments decision to continue its multi-billion pound arms deals with the country.

When the UK decided to review the export of defence equipment, the foreign secretary intervened and asked for the highly-lucrative deals to go ahead

The judicial review has been brought by the NGO Campaign Against Arms Trade faced in light of the 4,600 civilians killed by the regime in its battle with Yemeni rebels.

The strike, one of the deadliest in its 19-month-old bombing campaign, incorrectly targeted the funeral after Saudi military bosses used false information.

A spokesman for the UK government said: The UK is playing a leading role in work to find a political solution to the conflict in Yemen and to address the humanitarian crisis.

We operate one of the most robust export control regimes in the world and keep our defence exports to Saudi Arabia under careful and continual review.

Given the current legal proceedings we will not be commenting further outside of court at this stage.
A mother has been left furious after she claims her dehydrated 14-year-old son was refused water at McDonald's because he couldn't pay the 30 cent charge.

Vasu Sharrock said her son Kuvam was 'sweating from head to toe' as he approached a staff member at a McDonald's in Adelaide's north on Wednesday when temperatures reached a scorching 42 degrees.

But when Kuvam politely asked the employee to put some water in his plastic bottle, he was allegedly refused because he couldn't fork out the money.

Vasu Sharrock (left) said her son Kuvam (right) was denied water at McDonald's in Adelaide

Ms Sharrock said she was 'disgusted' when she heard her dehydrated son was refused water on such a hot day, and took to Facebook to demand an explanation

Kuvam had left his wallet at home during the busy morning rush. He says he explained this to the staff member, and offered to pay the 30 cents when his mum arrived, but was again knocked back.

Ms Sharrock said she was 'disgusted' when she heard her dehydrated son was allegedly refused water on such a hot day, and took to Facebook to demand an explanation.

'Hi Maccas As you may or may not have noticed, today was a hot day in Adelaide,' Ms Sharrock wrote.

'Well imagine the surprise when he (Kuvam) was asked for $.30 to fill his bottle.

'Are you kidding me, $0.30 to fill his bottle on this bloody hot day?

'He even said that I (his mum) was on her way and could pay within 20 mins. But no.'

A mother has been left furious after her dehydrated 14-year-old son was refused water at McDonald's because he couldn't pay the 30 cent charge (stock image)

McDonald's has sparked outrage online after it denied a dehydrated 14-year-old boy water

A McDonald's Australia spokesperson responded by saying: 'Free water is at the individual store/licensee discretion.

'Most stores will offer a cup of courtesy water if a purchase has been made.'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted McDonald's Australia and the store's licencee for comment.
The No. 8 worst spammer on the planet, Michael Persaud (pictured), is now facing decades behind bars after being arrested for wire fraud

The No. 8 worst spammer on the planet is now facing decades behind bars after being arrested for wire fraud.

Michael Persaud, who is accused of sending more than a million spam emails and selling millions of email addresses to use for spamming, may face up to 20 years in prison for each of his 10 federal wire fraud charges.

Persaud used multiple internet addresses and domains  a technique known as 'snowshoe spamming'  to transmit spam emails over at least nine networks, according to cyber-security expert Brian Krebs, who profiled Persaud last year.

The 36-year-old was arrested last year after the networks he was using discovered his alleged scheme.

He reportedly used pseudonyms such as 'Michael Pearson' and 'Jeff Martinez' to continue using the systems and earn commission for sales made by his spam, according to the indictment.

In 2001, Persaud and an accomplice pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges for reportedly using a California company's system to blast out thousands of spam emails.

He ended up paying nearly $10,000 in restitution, according to ABC News.

Persaud was believed to be able to send out a million messages in less than 15 minutes.

Three years earlier, he was sued by AOL for a series of 'indiscriminate mass mailings and deceptive practices' that 'repeatedly bombarded AOL and its members with millions of deceptive emails.

When Persaud appeared in court this week, he pleaded not guilty to the charges. He has been dubbed the eighth worst spammer in the world for his online activities, with anti-spam organization, Spamhaus (file photo)

A federal judge ordered Persaud to pay $490,000 in restitution and more than $54,000 in damages.

When Persaud appeared in court this week, he pleaded not guilty of the charges.

He has been dubbed the eighth worst spammer in the world for his online activities by anti-spam organization, Spamhaus.

The alleged spammer has insisted that his 'email marketing business' is legitimate and conforms to anti-spam laws, according to Krebs.
A Golden Retriever puppy was found alive after being left alone for a month in an apartment by his owner, a University of Oregon college student.

The four-month-old puppy, named Jake, weighed ten pounds, according to KVAL.

Eugene Animal Services said in a release: 'On November 30, an animal welfare officer responded to Uncommon Apartments for an abandoned animal.

'The property manager called after receiving an e-mail from an 18-year-old male tenant reporting he had returned home to China and believed his dog was dead inside the unit.'

A Golden Retriever puppy was found alive after being left alone in an apartment by his owner, a University of Oregon college student

According to Eugene Animal Services, 'the officer found an severely underweight and lethargic puppy unable to stand'

Jake is seen getting a snuggle (left) and posing next to a Christmas tree (right)

According to Eugene Animal Services, 'the officer found an severely underweight and lethargic puppy unable to stand.

'The estimated 4-month-old golden retriever was taken to the Emergency Veterinary Hospital and spent two days receiving around the clock care.'

Eugene Animal Services said when Jake was stable, he was taken to First Avenue Shelter and put in foster care.

Jake was probably left alone for a month before he was saved, KVAL reported.

Molly Monette, who is the Eugene Police Department's Animal Welfare Supervisor, told The Register-Guard: 'There was a bag of food in the apartment that (Jake) didn't have access to.

'So we don't know if there was someone that was going to take care of him and wasnt showing up. There was a food dish with no food and water in it.

'When we got there, there was access to nothing. So we don't know how long he was left with no food and water.'

Jake is currently six months old and 35 pounds, yet his growth was possibly stunted by that month, she told newspaper.

The Eugene Animal Services release said: 'After two months of close observation from Greenhill Humane Societys Veterinary Team, he reached a healthy weight'

Jake has since been adopted after he was discovered alone in the apartment

The Eugene Animal Services release said: 'After two months of close observation from Greenhill Humane Societys Veterinary Team, he reached a healthy weight. The puppy was named Jake by staff and was adopted by his foster family.'

Attempts to contact Jake's owner proved unsuccessful, it said.

According to release: 'Further investigation by Animal Services and Eugene police detectives found that he left the country on October 29, and has not returned or enrolled for the new term at the university. The man remains a suspect in the case.'

Monette told KVAL: 'When he didn't return in time for classes to start, his visa was suspended. So he has not returned and we have not had contact with him.'

She was Jake's foster parent and adopted Jake, explaining to the TV station: 'He has become the therapy dog for the department. So he is the newest addition to the Eugene Police Department.'
Levenski Crossty (above), 27, was convicted of three charges, including abducting his former girlfriend, aggravated burglary, and felonious assault

The man caught on surveillance footage trying to grab a child from the arms of his ex-girlfriend as she tried to hand her to a McDonald's drive-thru worker was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Friday.

Levenski Crossty, 27, was convicted of three charges, including abducting his former girlfriend, aggravated burglary, and felonious assault, according to USA Today.

It took a jury in a Cincinnati courtroom two days to deliberate before handing down its verdict on Friday.

Crossty was acquitted of kidnapping and other abduction charges related to the three other children in the car that night.

The terrifying surveillance video showed Jessica Wilson's desperate attempt to hand her toddler to a McDonald's drive-thru worker as she battled Crossty, the child's father, who kidnapped and beat her.

Wilson was seen on surveillance video rushing out of a car holding her two-year-old daughter in the drive-thru of a McDonald's in Cincinnati.

Three other children were in the back seat of the car as the incident took place.

Wilson tried to escape from Crossty, who immediately got out of the car and tried to pull the child away from Wilson, according to Cincinnati.com.

At one point, Crossty is seen in the video pulling Wilson's arm in what appeared to be an attempt to get her back in the car.

Jessica Wilson was seen on surveillance video rushing out of a car (left) holding her two-year-old daughter in the drive-thru of a McDonald's in Cincinnati

Wilson tried to escape from Levenski Crossty, the child's father, who immediately got out of the car and tried to pull the child away from Wilson. In the video, Wilson appeared to seek help from the car behind them in the drive thru

Crossty climbed over to the passenger side door and tried to pull Wilson back in the Pontiac Grand Am

She then makes it over the the drive-thru employee, who reached out for the little girl and told Wilson to 'hand the child to me', according to prosecutors.

Once Crossty managed to pull the child away from Wilson, he got back in the car with the child and drove away.

Wilson was left stranded and 'desperately asking someone to call 911', prosecutors said.

The incident took place in July 2016 but Crossty's trial began on Tuesday.

Wilson is seen in the video making her way to the drive thru window as Crossty continued to pull on her arm and waist

Prosecutors said the woman was badly beaten before the incident at McDonald's

She then makes it over to the drive-thru employee, who reached out for the little girl and told Wilson to 'hand the child to me', according to prosecutors

Before the incident at McDonald's, Crossty broke into Wilson's home where she was staying with her four children, prosecutors said in court.

Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Broo said Crossty climbed in through a window after pushing in an air conditioning unit and confronted Wilson about being unfaithful, according to Cincinnati.com.

She testified that she tried to lock herself in a bathroom, but Crossty forced his way inside.

Crossty beat Wilson and left her with two black eyes, a cut on her head and a bite mark on her hand.

Wilson testified that after she got into the car with Crossty and the kids, the beatings continued.

Crossty then demanded the passcode to her smartphone, according to the news site.

He wanted to see who she had been texting, she said.

'He kept hitting me, wouldn't stop,' Wilson said, adding that she told him the passcode.

She said before they got to the McDonald's, they stopped at Crossty's sister's home, and she tried to get away but he bit her.

Wilson said they went to the McDonald's shortly after 8pm when she told him the children needed food.

His attorney, Stephan Madden, called it a misdemeanor domestic incident.

He said Crossty drove away with the children to protect them from Wilson, who he said was intoxicated.

'There is no abduction, there is no kidnapping, there is no theft,' he said.

Madden said after he left the McDonald's with the children, Crossty dropped them off at Wilson's father's home.

Once Crossty managed to pull the child away from Wilson, he got back in the car with the child and drove away

After Crossty drove away, Wilson (right) was left stranded and 'desperately asking someone to call 911', prosecutors said. The incident took place in July 2016
Two theaters in the heart of Hollywood were evacuated on Friday evening following reports of a suspicious package.

Police were called after a black bookbag was seen leaning on the third railings at the Hollywood/Highland subway station, which lies directly underneath several busy Los Angeles landmarks.

The scene was chaotic on the Walk of Fame as thousands tried to make their way home during a rare rainy night with many streets and subway stops closed due to the package.

Police were called after a black bookbag was seen leaning on the third railings at the Hollywood/Highland subway station, which lies directly underneath several busy Los Angeles landmarks

Two theaters in the heart of Hollywood were evacuated on Friday evening following reports of a suspicious package

Both Hollywood and Highland avenues were shut down causing what ABC 7 referred to as a 'huge mess'.

The Los Angeles County bomb squad arrived on the scene around 4.30pm to secure the area, and evacuated the TCL Chinese Theater and the El Capitan Theater to ensure the public's safety.

Several subway stations, including Universal/Studio City and Hollywood/Western were temporarily shut down while authorities investigated.

Around 6.30pm, they gave the all-clear and officials began to open up the streets.

The Los Angeles County bomb squad arrived on the scene around 4.30pm to secure the area, and evacuated the TCL Chinese Theater and the El Capitan Theater to ensure the public's safety
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A powerful nighttime earthquake in the southern Philippines has killed at least six people and injured more than 120.

The quake, which reached 6.7 on the Richter scale, rattled 11 towns destroying a number of buildings, roads, bridges and an airport runway in the Surigao del Norte province, on the island of Mindanao, forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes.

The quake's epicenter has been pinpointed to about 8 miles northwest of the provincial capital of Surigao at a relatively shallow depth of 6 miles, said Renato Solidum of the Philippine Institute of Seismology and Volcanology.

Nearly 100 aftershocks have been felt, officials said. Evacuation centers accommodated wary residents overnight, but many returned home Saturday, Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo said, adding that officials were continuing to assess the damage in Surigao and outlying towns.

Devastation: A damaged office block in the city of Surigao just a few hours after it was rattled by the powerful quake

Ruin: The quake was centered about 8 miles northwest of the provincial capital of Surigao at a relatively shallow depth of 6 miles

Destruction: A number of buildings, roads, bridges and an airport runway in the Surigao del Norte province were damaged in the 6.8 quake

Desperate: Hospital patients take shelter in a pedestrian-waiting shed for safety in the city of Surigao

Provincial information officer Mary Jul Escalante was being interviewed by ABS-CBN TV network when another aftershock struck. 'Oh sir, there's an aftershock,' she said. 'I'm shaking, we have a phobia now.'

At least six people were killed, mostly after being struck by falling debris and concrete walls, provincial disaster-response official Gilbert Gonzales said.

And more than 126 others were injured in Surigao, where the quake knocked out power and forced the closure of the domestic airport due to deep cracks in its runway, according to officials.

Several buildings, including a state college, a hotel and a shopping mall, were damaged in the city, located about 430 miles southeast of Manila.

Surigao was placed under a state of calamity to allow faster release of emergency funds, provincial police chief Senior Superintendent Anthony Maghari said by phone.

TV footage showed army troops and other rescuers pulling out the body of a man from the concrete rubble of a damaged house while relatives wept.

In Surigao's downtown area, the facade of a number of buildings were heavily cracked, their glass windows shattered with canopies and debris falling on parked cars on the street below.

Hurt: An injured woman is accompanied by family members at a hospital in Surigao City, in southern island of Mindanao

Aftermath: The Park Way hotel, retailers and a restaurant were rocked in Surigao causing a concrete block to fall out of place and onto the ground

Holed up: A damaged runway at an airport in the badly-hit city of Surigao. The city has been placed under a state of calamity since the quake

Blocked: Vehicles attempt to pass cracks on a road that appeared along the National Highway at Rizal town near the state capital

Roads had visible cracks in the coastal city and a bridge collapsed in an outlying town.

'The shaking was so strong I could hardly stand,' coast guard personnel Rayner Neil Elopre said by phone.

The earthquake also forced the closure of Surigao City domestic airport due to the damaged runway. The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said the airport might be closed until March 10.

There is still no power and electricity supply in some quake-affected areas.

Village leaders asked residents to move to a school building on higher ground, Elopre added, pausing briefly during a mild aftershock while talking on the phone.

Police officer Jimmy Sarael stated he, his wife and two children embraced each other until the shaking eased. They later moved to the moonlit grounds outside the provincial capitol complex to join more than 1,000 jittery residents.

The last major earthquake that struck Surigao, an impoverished region also dealing with a communist insurgency, was in the 1879, Solidum said. A magnitude 7.7 quake killed nearly 2,000 people on the northern island of Luzon in 1990.

Amid the calamity, the military appealed to New People's Army guerrillas not to disrupt rescue and rehabilitation work. 'We urge you not to attack our soldiers,' according to military spokesman Col. Edgard Arevalo.

The Philippines sits in the Pacific 'Ring of Fire,' where earthquakes and volcanoes are common.

Refuge: Civilians take cover in a hospital shelter. Several buildings, including a state college, a hotel and a shopping mall, were damaged in the city

Blocked: Despite the damage rickshaw drivers try to navigate over the bumpy roads. The last major earthquake that struck Surigao was in was in the 1879

Inspection: A close-up view of a tsunami hazard map in coastal areas after an earthquake hit Surigao Del Norte province at the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Philvolcs) in Quezon City, east of Manila

Warning: A safety reflectorized vest is placed on a tire to deter motorists from the damaged road hours after the powerful earthquake

Stuck: Residents look at the collapsed portion of a bridge in Surigao hours after the quake. Hundreds were forced to flee their homes in its aftermath
Rachel Einspahr (above), 28, was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to robbing a Colorado bank while babysitting two children

A Colorado woman accused of taking two children she was babysitting to a bank robbery was sentenced to six years in prison on Friday after she pleaded guilty to three charges in two separate cases.

Rachel Einspahr, 28, pleaded guilty to theft, forgery, and attempted robbery stemming from the incident at a Colorado bank as well as dozens of other embezzlement-related charges in a separate case, according to The Denver Post.

Einspahr was facing 31 charges after she allegedly skimmed money 'off the top' while she was managing a local business.

Einspahr's attorney, Michael Williams, said that the litany of embezzlement charges that his client was facing convinced her to eventually accept a plea bargain for both cases.

Prosecutors allege that Einspahr stole approximately $32,000 from a small business in which she worked.

If Einspahr weren't facing the other theft charges, she would have pleaded not guilty to the bank robbery, according to her lawyer.

'I think shes overly charged in that [embezzlement] case,' Williams said.

'We dont believe the people couldve met that burden, but since shes charged with three pages of counts in the other case shes agreed to take the six years.'

Prosecutors say that Einspahr stole the money from her boss even though she acknowledged that she was well-treated.

'The defendant acknowledges [her employer] was someone who was very good to her, like family,' Wilson said.

'Weve been trying to come up with an [agreement] that rightfully acknowledges the defendants actions.'

Einspahr was arrested after authorities said she drove through the drive-thru of a bank in Severance, Colorado with the two children on May 13.

After arriving at the bank, she sent a note to the teller saying that there was a man in her car who wanted money and was threatening to her hurt her children.

'Do not sound alarm, the man in the very back wants $100s and $50s  no dye packs or trackers  he has gun on my kids,' the note read, according to CBS.

Investigators say the teller at the Colorado East Bank & Trust in Severance gave her $500.

'The bank teller, under the assumption that lives were in danger, gave her $500,' the police said.

Sheriff's office spokesman Matt Turner says there wasn't a man in the car with them.

Einspahr admitted to the bank robbery and told police she needed the money to pay restitution in the other embezzlement case.

'To expose children to that type of activity when theyre in your care is a breach of trust,' Kathryn Wilson, one of the prosecutors in the case, told The Greeley Tribune.

Courtesy CBS 4
A widowed single father has penned a sobering letter to a man he met at an airport bar who was just there because he didn't want to go home to his wife and kids.

Daddy blogger Lach Searle was waiting for a flight when he ran into a man at Melbourne airport last month.

The man referred to as 'Dick' bought Searle a drink at the bar, which the blogger explained is the last compliment he good give the stranger.

Daddy Blogger Lach Searle is a widowed single father and was taken aback at the way this stranger spoke about women

The man bought Searle a drink at an airport bar before telling him he didn't want to go back to his wife and kids (Stock Image)

He then went onto explain the enraging 'lack of respect' the man had for his wife and kids.

'Your lack of respect for your wife, and your children was abhorrent in the ten minutes that we spent chatting, and I just hope that your 10-month-old daughter doesn't grow up to marry someone like you,' Searle wrote.

After the man complained about going home to his wife and kids during feeding time and not wanting his partner to 'bust his balls', Searle said he wished he had told the man of his situation.

'What I should have said was that my wife wasn't here either, in fact she never is anymore, having passed away over two years ago,' he wrote.

'In the 12 years we were married I never once used the term 'busting my balls'.'

Outraged that the man was blindly disrespecting women, the daddy blogger said the irony was he was at the airport to meet 12 mates at a bucks party - where there was no disrespect for women.

Searle said the man described his stories and family in an 'abhorrent' manner (Stock Image)

He said he was glad 'Dick' was not on the trip and warned him to pull his head out and stop acting like a 'lad'.

'Sure, blokes like a laugh, but the next time you decide to make your own 'new mate' at the airport, instead of going home to your wife and family after two days away, maybe you shouldn't,' he wrote.

Searle's final sign-off on a strong-willed warning was for the father to read 'The Greatness of Dads' by Kristen Matthew if he ever decides to change his ways.
A New Zealand woman has claimed her face was burned after she got a waxing treatment at a beauty salon.

Golnaz Bassam Tabar paid $25 for a face wax at Icandy Nail and Waxing in Ponsonby on Friday afternoon, reported the NZ Herald.

Ms Tabar said a few hours later noticed tiny red spots underneath her eyes.

New Zealand woman Golnaz Bassam Tabar (pictured) claimed her face was burned after she got a waxing treatment at a beauty salon

She said the spots got worse as the evening progressed and ended up turning into brown welts, which now cover multiple parts of her face.

She told the NZ Herald: 'It's butchered, it's so bad I'm horrified. It looks like I've been in a freak accident.

'It's so sore. It's completely raw. I can't be out in the sun. It's just red, I look like a burns victim,' she said.

Ms Tabar told Daily Mail Australia her face was now 'raw and stinging'.

Ms Tabar paid $25 for a face wax at Icandy Nail and Beauty in Ponsonby on Friday afternoon. Hours later she noticed red spots appearing, before they transformed into angry-looking welts

'I have three different creams I have to apply at different times of the day to avoid scarring and pigmentation, and will need LED red light treatment until it heals.

'My welts have gotten quite dark and hard and I'm told they will scab. I can't be in the sun and go to the beach or pools,' she said.

Ms Tabar added that she is planning legal action against the salon.

Ms Tabar (pictured before the facial wax) said: 'It's butchered, its so bad I'm horrified. It looks like I've been in a freak accident'

She has also been advised by a cosmetic clinic to see a plastic surgeon.

A comment posted on the Icandy Nails and Waxing Facebook page told customers the business has since contacted the client and given her a refund.

The company also posted a message to customers saying they would be stopping facial waxing.

Pictured is Icandy Nails and Waxing (pictured) in Ponsonby. Ms Tabar said she plans to take legal action against the salon

Daily Mail Australia contacted Icandy Nails and Waxing and they confirmed they had refunded Ms Tabar $55, including $30 for cream to prevent brown pigmentation from the marks on her face.

Ms Tabar told Daily Mail Australia said it was the first time she'd visited the salon. She said they only agreed to refund her money after she removed her scathing review from their Facebook page.

Auckland Council said they would be investigating the premises 'to see if the salon is in breach of the health and hygiene bylaw'.
This video shows the shocking moment an 18-wheeler tips over and smashes a patrol car on a Wyoming highway.

In the footage, captured by Wyoming Highway Patrol, an 18-wheeler is travelling westbound on Interstate 80 near Elk Mountain, Wyoming.

Three troopers were outside of their vehicles assisting drivers who were involved in other crashes along the highway when a gust of wind suddenly caused the truck to fall on its right side and crush a patrol car parked in the emergency lane.

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Wyoming Highway Patrol captured the moment a truck tips over and smashes a patrol car

The crash occurred on Interstate 80 near Elk Mountain, Wyoming

'Our troopers were already in the same area working on two other semi-trucks that had blown off the interstate,' Wyoming Highway Patrol Lieutenant Kelly Finn told East Idaho News.

'Fortunately nobody was in the police car or it would have been a lot worse'.

Wind gusts were nearly 70 miles per hour when the crash occurred.

The 18-wheeler was travelling westbound on the highway

Three troopers were outside of their vehicles helping drivers who were involved in other crashes along the interstate

A high wind advisory was in effect prohibiting commercial vehicles on the interstate

Wyoming Highway Patrol Lieutenant Kelly Finn said trucking companies are not heeding high wind advisory warnings

Nobody was injured, including the two occupants of the truck

A high wind advisory was in effect prohibiting commercial vehicles on the interstate.

'Were seeing less and less compliance from these trucking companies when these wind advisories are out', said Finn.

'Theyre in a hurry and taking chances and its dangerous'.

Nobody was injured, including the two occupants in the truck.

The Wyoming Highway Patrol posted the video to its Facebook page to warn drivers to follow high wind advisories and closures.

'All we ask is that you please follow high wind advisories and closures when you are traveling in our great state. Even if you plan to travel at reduced speeds. Hopefully this video illustrates why,' the agency's Facebook post reads.
Michael Flynn's top aide was fired from the National Security Council (NSC) on Friday, just a day after it was revealed that the National Security Adviser may have discussed sanctions with a Russian ambassador to the US.

Top deputy, Robin Townley, who is the senior director for Africa, was rejected for a critical security clearance by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Townley, who is a former Marine intelligence officer, had made a request for an elite security clearance required for service on the NSC, sources told Politico, but his request was ultimately denied.

The denial ended Townley's tenure on the NSC as tensions continue to escalate between Flynn and the intelligence community.

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Michael Flynn's (pictured Friday) top aide was fired from the National Security Council (NSC) on Friday, just a day after it was revealed that the National Security Adviser may have discussed sanctions with a Russian ambassador to the US

Top deputy, Robin Townley, who is the senior director for Africa, was rejected for a critical security clearance by the Central Intelligence Agency. The denial effectively ended his tenure on the NSC as tensions escalate between Flynn (pictured) and the intelligence community

One source told Politico that the rejection was approved by President Donald Trump's CIA director Mike Pompeo.

It's still unclear why Townley's request for 'Sensitive Compartmented Information' clearance was rejected.

But Flynn and his allies believe it was motivated by Townley's skepticism of the intelligence community's techniques, sources told Politico.

'They believe this is a hit job from inside the CIA on Flynn and the people close to him,' one source told the site.

The source went on to say that some in the intelligence community feel threatened by Flynn and his allies, including Townley, who 'believes that the CIA doesn't run the world'.

Rep Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, dismissed the claims as 'baloney', according to Politico.

Schiff said that Trump and Flynn 'see treachery everywhere they go' and 'if a security clearance is denied, it's for a reason'.

Earlier on Friday, Flynn faced new accusations that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about discussions with a Russian official regarding the Trump administration's willingness to ease US economic sanctions on Moscow

Flynn has acknowledged communicating with Kislyak (pictured) and is no longer denying the subject was raised

Another source told Politico that within the White House, Flynn is regarded by some as waging 'a jihad against the intelligence community' for trying to turn Trump against the intelligence community during the campaign and transition period.

Earlier on Friday, Flynn faced new accusations that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about discussions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak regarding the Trump administration's willingness to ease US economic sanctions on Moscow.

Flynn has acknowledged communicating with Kislyak and is no longer denying the subject was raised.

That version of events differs from an ironclad denial Pence delivered to a CBS News interviewer last month, when he said the conversations were 'strictly coincidental' and had nothing to do with then President Barack Obama's decision to punish Russia for meddling in the November presidential election.

A Trump administration official told DailyMail.com on Friday that Flynn 'can't be certain sanctions didnt come up' in a December call, which occurred while Obama was still president.

A second official added: ' To the best of his knowledge he does not recall having talked about sanctions but he cannot be 100 per cent that they didnt come up.'

That same official, when asked whether Flynn's role advising Trump has changed in light of the latest allegations, said: ' Not that Im aware of.'

Trump himself deflected a question about the brewing scandal during a brief conversation with reporters Friday on Air Force One.

'I don't know about that. I haven't seen it,' he said while responding to a question about The Washington Post story. 'What report is that? I haven't seen that. I'll look into that.'

Trump deflected a question about the brewing scandal during a brief conversation with reporters Friday on Air Force One. 'I don't know about that. I haven't seen it. What report is that? I haven't seen that. I'll look into that.' He's pictured walking with Flynn on February 6

Flynn told the Post that he and Kislyak hadn't discussed sanctions.

The first administration official who spoke on Friday did not dispute the Post's story.

Pence declared January 15 on CBS's 'Face the Nation' program that Flynn and Kislyak 'did not discuss anything having to do with the United States decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia.'

The vice president insisted then, 'is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy'.

Politico reported Friday that an administration official had confirmed Pence's remarks were guided by what Flynn told him, raising the possibility that the retired US army lieutenant general gave him false information to communicate on television.

Pence's reputation as a cautious straight-shooter makes him an exception in an administration whose senior ranks include many officials seen as inconsistent in their statements  and a few the press corps see as crafty and evasive.

Last month, it was reported that Flynn had held five phone calls Kislyak on December 29, the day Obama retaliated for Moscow's alleged interference in the election.

However, several current and former senior US officials interpreted the contacts as a 'potentially illegal' signal to Russia that it could expect a reprieve from sanctions imposed by the Obama administration in December, according to the Post.

The Kremlin denied Friday that Flynn and Kislyak discussed the sanctions before Trump took office.
Photos allegedly showing distressed caged puppies suffering through Friday's 44C heat have emerged on social media.

Aimee O'Brien, 18, posted the photos to Facebook on Friday after she says she discovered the dogs at a market place in New South Wales.

'So disgusted right now ... all the cages are covered in tarps so there's absolutely no air circulation,' she said.

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Distressing photos of caged puppies allegedly suffering through Friday's 44C heat have emerged on social media

'Only a hole in the side of the dog cages which let me see into them.

'There's three (dogs) in one cage and six squished into the other.'

When Ms O'Brien visited the market place on Friday, she said she soon realised the markets were closing and claimed the animals belonging to one of the vendors were left alone in the heat.

The 18-year-old said the market felt like an 'oven' and was horrified to see the dogs reportedly trapped in cages without any reprieve from the scorching hot conditions.

Ms O'Brien said the conditions the puppies were reportedly suffering through left her heartbroken

The dogs can be seen grouped in cages, and Ms O'Brien claims temperatures soared to the mid-40s

'With no fans or anything, and the actual complex being made of metal/corrugated iron, it's essentially like an oven in there,' she said.

'The only thing the dogs have to cool them down are cold water bottles which they're laying on.

'I was heartbroken.'

Ms O'Brien claimed the dogs had 'glazed eyes' and were drooling excessively.

She also claimed other animals were caged in the markets including cats, guinea pigs and birds.

Since the photos were posted to Facebook on Friday, they have garnered thousands of shares, likes and comments.

A change.org petition was also set up on Saturday.

The petition gained more than 22 thousand signatures within a couple of hours.

Aimee O'Brien, 18, (pictured) posted the photos to Facebook on Friday after she discovered the dogs

A change.org petition was also set up on Saturday to stop the vendor from selling animals. The petition gained more than 22 thousand signatures within a couple of hours

Birds can be seen stored in cages at a market place, where Ms O'Brien claims temperatures soared to 44C on Friday

With the petition, Ms O'Brien said she hoped the vendor would be prevented from selling animals.

New South Wales police told Daily Mail Australia on Saturday they were aware of the situation but it was out of their hands.

The police spokesman said animal welfare was an RSPCA issue and their involvement with the case had ended.

New South Wales RSPCA told Daily Mail Australia on Saturday they were investigating the matter and taking it very seriously.

New South Wales RSPCA told Daily Mail Australia on Saturday they were investigating the matter, and taking it very seriously

An RSPCA spokeswoman said they visited the market on Saturday morning to investigate, but said the puppies were not there when they arrived.

She confirmed it was illegal for animal vendors to operate if temperatures were higher than 29C.

'When we went out the inspector measured the temperature in the high 30s, which is way beyond what would be acceptable, but there were no dogs there,' she said.

She said the vendor was spoken to and talked through the code of practice, but the RSPCA was unsure if any action could be taken 'because the dogs weren't there when we arrived'.

'We're figuring out whether the photographs constitute enough evidence,' she said.

The spokeswoman said the RSPCA was 'monitoring it quite closely'.

An RSPCA spokeswoman said they visited the marketplace on Saturday morning to investigate, but the puppies were not there

The RSCPA told Daily Mail Australia the investigation was ongoing.

The marketplace where the vendor operates issued a statement on Saturday which said it took the welfare of animals seriously.

'The pet stalls at the markets are regularly inspected by and comply with the guidelines set by agencies such as RSPCA,' it said.

The marketplace issued a statement on Saturday which said it took the welfare of animals seriously

'The stallholders monitored the temperatures within the markets throughout yesterday. Misting fans were also in use.

'Once the temperature reached the upper limit, removal cages were brought in and the animals were removed.'

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to the vendor for comment.
Step aside Scandi dramas, there new kids on the block.

While television viewers have been raving about spine-tingling shows featuring missing children and sadistic serial killers, a Channel 4 television expert has revealed that a new wave of shows will now reign supreme.

Enter Latino crime dramas - think drug barons, bloody fights in prisons and intimidating, slick characters.

Walter Iuzzolino, founder of Walter Presents streaming service, has said Scandi crime shows, such as The Killing (above), are now inspiring so many other dramas it's becoming 'repetitive'

Mr Iuzzolino said Latino dramas, such as Locked Up (above), are now going to take over television screens

Mr Iuzzolino is the founder of Channel 4's streaming service Walter Presents. His role is to find the best foreign television shows and create playlists for television junkies to watch

According to Walter Iuzzolino, founder of Channel 4's streaming service Walter Presents, these red-hot Latino dramas are overtaking the likes of The Killing, a Danish murder-mystery psychological thriller, starring Sofie Grabl, and popular 2011 Swedish series, The Bridge.

He says this is due to the 'repetitiveness' of the Scandi shows and their premises being replicated.

Speaking to The Times, he said: 'The slightly chilled, emotionally pared-back thing works so the themes are becoming repetitive. The real revolution is the red-hot Latino drama.'

In his latest installment of Walter Presents, Mr Iuzzolino, 48, has hand-picked several new television shows which he believes are now more entertaining.

Speaking to The Times, he said: 'The slightly chilled, emotionally pared-back thing works so the themes are becoming repetitive. The real revolution is the red-hot Latino drama'

He also praised Chilean drama Profugos, known as Fugitives in the UK, which is a programme about two rival families that run drug cartels

They include the second series of emotionally-charged Locked Up, a story about a woman who has been imprisoned in Spain after taking the blame for a fraud crime and Dupla Identidade (known as Merciless in Britain), which documents the life of cold-hearted serial killer, Edu.

He said: 'You have these baddies who are extraordinarily bad. You want to scream at the telly. Latino hits you in the stomach - they cry, they bleed they die.

'Here you have the exact opposite of cold and chilly calvinistic Scandi. You have southern, sunny, sweaty, muddy and dirty.'

Walter Presents was launched in January last year after Mr Iuzzolino quit his job as a television producer to source the best foreign language programmes for Channel 4 viewers.

His recommendations are compiled into different categories and the entire box set of episodes are offered to viewers to watch for free.
A murderer's girlfriend took up a job at a police station and seduced a colleague to get access to databases that could reveal a protected witness who helped put her lover behind bars.

Lydia Lauro, 33, was employed a civilian job at Hammersmith Police Station two months after her lover Leon De St Aubin was convicted of an execution-style shooting outside Wandsworth prison.

She seduced fellow police detention officer, Hayden Cheremeh, 36, and used his log-in to get into the intelligence system.

Lydia Lauro and Hayden Cheremeh have both been jailed for five years after she seduced him in order to gain access to classified information

Lauro then handed the details of the anonymous prosecution witness to Aubin while he was behind bars.

She and Cheremeh were jailed for five years each at the Old Bailey on Friday.

Lauro did not show any emotion as the sentence was passed. Cheremeh refused to attend court.

She leaked the details of a young woman who had given crucial evidence from behind a screen, using a voice-altering device and under a pseudon

Judge Anthony Morris said: 'There was a danger not only of this witness's identity being revealed but of the wrong women being identified and the danger this posed to all such a women.'

Leon De St Aubin (pictured, right) and former public schoolboy Rupert Ross was jailed in 2011 for the murder of Darcy Austin-Bruce

Austin-Bruce, 20, was shot five times outside Wandsworth Prison in May 2009 in an execution-style killing

He added: 'There's no evidence that anyone has been caused death or serious injury to date but it must have been very worrying to that woman believed by Lauro to be Sam Richmond to know she had been searched.'

'This has the capacity to damage public confidence in the police to get and hold information securely and to discourage witnesses who may only be prepared to give evidence under the condition of anonymity.'

Lydia Lank admitted receiving the confidential information but said it was justified

The court heard that Lauro had also abused the system to search for the criminal history of potential sexual partners.

She leaked the details of a young woman who had given crucial evidence from behind a screen, using a voice-altering device and under a pseudonym.

Lauro plied Cheremeh with sexual favours to get his access to the system and looked up more than 150 confidential reports while trying to track down the witness.

Lauro sent screenshots of a list of possible names of the witness to Diana Lank, the mother of Aubin's co-defendant.

The wealthy businesswoman, who ran a clothes shop in Chelsea, masterminded the plot after the witness testified against her son Rupert Ross.

Aubin and Ross were handed a minimum term of 30 years in November 2011 for the shooting of Darcy Austin-Bruce.

Dulwich College ex-pupil Ross was from a wealthy background, with some of his family working as lawyers, but fell under the spell of drugs.

He shot Mr Austin-Bruce, 20, five times outside the jail in May 2009, before Aubin drove him away on a stolen moped.

Ms Lank admitted receiving the confidential information but claimed her actions were justified, insisting her son had been wrongfully convicted.

Judge Morris described her as 'forceful and manipulative'.

Lauro and Cheremeh - a former community support officer - arriving at the Old Bailey ahead of their sentencing

Laurie-Anne Power, defending Lauro, said she was misguided, vulnerable and had been influenced by Ms Lank.

Cheremeh, a former police community support officer, was totally obsessed with Lauro.

Jeminipe Akin-Olugbade, defending, described him as a 'naive, infatuated and possibly over-idealistic person who got caught up in actions far greater than himself'.

Cheremeh and Lauro were found guilty after trial of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office between November 2011 and May 2013.

Lank was cleared of the same charge after the jury failed to agree on a verdict against her.
A pair of size 12 M&S knickers has been blamed for a massive blockage of a town's sewage system.

The underwear was flushed down a toilet in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and became wedged in an underground pipe, creating a jam.

The filthy bloomers were sucked out of a congealed mass of fat and other debris by workers sent to investigate why a waterworks in the area was running slow.

Blooming disgusting: The pair of size 12 M&S knickers were blamed for blocking the sewer system in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Staff at Severn Trent's Hayden sewage works found the pants when emptying one of the machines used to clear a blockage.

They say people flushing clothes down the loo is a major cause of the 50,000 blockages they have in the area ever year.

Grant Mitchell, community relationship advisor for Severn Trent said 'How on earth people have managed to flush underwear down the loo, I don't know.

'You wouldn't think boxer shorts or pants would fit down a toilet, but this is just one example of amazing things we find blocking the sewers.

Knickers in a twist: The filthy pants were sucked out of a congealed mass of fat and other debris by workers sent to investigate why a waterworks in the area was running slow

You're knickered: The briefs responsible for the blockage after being removed by Severn Trent Water

'Having sewage flooding inside your home due to sewers being blocked is one of the most horrible things that can happen to you, and we don't want our customers to suffer in this way, as it's entirely preventable.

'The drains that take waste water away from your home are only a few inches wide and are only meant to take water, toilet roll and human waste.

'Remember toilet roll is meant to break down when it gets wet so it washes easily through the system. That's not the case with things like sanitary products, cleansing wipes or in this case pants which can get stuck in smaller drains.'
A Belgian backpacker was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a man who answered her Gumtree ad asking for a farm work job.

She was picked up by a 52-year-old man when she arrived in the rural town of Murray Bridge, southeast of Adelaide, on Thursday morning.

Police alleged the man drove her in his red Toyota Hilux ute to a property in Meningie, 77 kilometres to the south, where she was sexually assaulted.

A Belgian backpacker (pictured) was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a man who answered her Gumtree ad asking for a farm work job

The ad, posted earlier in the week accompanied by a photo of her feeding a kangaroo, said she was looking for a farm or fruit picking job in Melbourne

The 24-year-old tourist managed to send a message to her family and a friend, who raised the alarm and sparked a manhunt across the area on Friday.

The ad, posted earlier in the week accompanied by a photo of her feeding a kangaroo, said she was looking for a farm or fruit picking job in Melbourne.

'I'm looking for these jobs in Melbourne starting 30 of January. With accommodation stay or hostel nearby. Cuz I don't have a car,' it read.

'I love nature and animals, I eat fruit every day;) it would be nice to do a job like this. If you have something please let me know. Thx.'

She was found alone in a house in Murray Bridge at 6pm on Friday after a woman answered a police appeal for help.

Dozens of officers swooped on the alleged kidnapper's Meningie farmhouse at about 12.30pm on Saturday, arresting him and seizing the Hilux.

Major Crime detective superintendent Greg Hutchins said the man would be charged with abduction and 'very serious sexual offences'.

He said the womans family was relieved she had been found after the terrifying ordeal, but did not say how she got back to Murray Bridge from Meningie.

'I can confirm now she was able to get a message home to her family, and that obviously led to the police (becoming involved),' he said at a press conference.

'My understanding is that she is still with police and is well and unharmed and obviously her family are very grateful for everything that has occurred and that she is safe, obviously her safety is the main priority.'

The abducter allegedly lured the victim to Murray Bridge where she arrived at a bus stop at 10.15am on Thursday and was not seen again.

She was earlier seen leaving accommodation and getting on a bus, after arriving in the city from Kangaroo Island on February 6.

The well-travelled backpacker earlier visited Tasmania, Sydney, and China recently and other parts of the globe over the past few years.
The first customer to open their new trainers was 19-year-old Jujhar Singh

Trainer fans have braved two chilly nights - and flurries of snow - to be among the first to get their hands on limited edition Kanye West trainers.

The pairs of Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 V2, at 150 a pop, were released at 8am this morning from the 18montrose store in Nottingham.

Shoppers have been queuing since Wednesday, with tents, chairs and sleeping bags lining up along Bridlesmith Gate in the city ahead of the launch.

The small Nottingham shop is the only outlet in the UK selling the exclusive sneakers.

Rapper Kanye West is well-known for his penchant of selling new clothing exclusively in small, sometimes remote stores - a move described by fashion commentators as a publicity stunt.

More than 200 people queued outside the store as security guards handed out tickets before the first eager shoppers were allowed inside to get their hands on the shoes.

Tanay Fernando, 21, was the first to get his hands on the trainers after he camped outside the store for four days to make sure he was at the head of queue.

Jujhar Singh, 19, leaves 18montrose in Nottingham with his new purchase

The student, who travelled almost 130 miles from London to Nottingham, said: 'It's been tough.

'It was snowing and raining, it's been cold.

'It will be worth it, I'm going to be keeping mine. A few people are here to sell theirs to make a few quid.

'It's done. I'm just tired right now, I need my bed.

'I'm waiting to open them.'

Jujhar Singh, from Nottingham, was also one of the first people to buy the shoes after queuing outside the store for three days.

The pairs of Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 V2, priced at 150, were released at 9am this morning

The 19-year-old was the first customer to open the shoes and was pictured excitedly examining his new purchase.

He said: 'I'm a fan of the music, and of the fashion.'

James Lewin, 20, from West Bridgford, Nottingham, added 'They are worth 600 now and they will keep their value. So I'm going to enjoy them for a bit.

'He's releasing some new ones in two weeks. So I'll probably be doing it all again.'

Another shopper, who didn't want to be named, admitted he had already sold his Yeezy Boosts on for 450 minutes after buying them in the store.

Keen shoppers armed with sleeping bags and camping chairs drove almost 130 miles from London to queue outside the store days before the launch

Some customers at the back of the queue were left disappointed after the store completely sold out of the shoes at 9.30am - just 90 mintues after opening.

Rapper Kanye West joined forces with Adidas in 2015 and premiered his clothing collaboration with the brand in February that year.

An initial release of the Yeezy Boosts was limited to 9,000 pairs, which were available only in New York via the Adidas smartphone app, and they sold out within 10 minutes.

Other so-called 'sneaker heads' have said the trainers could fetch up to three times their original value if auctioned online.

Crowds of people had lined up along Bridlesmith Gate in the city ahead of the launch

The small Nottingham shop is the only outlet in the UK selling the exclusive sneakers

Student Zaheed Bukreedan, 20, said the group of six friends had brought digestive biscuits to keep them going in the queue.

He added: 'We have a hotel room at the Ibis and are taking it in shifts to sit in the queue.

'A friend of mine is a 'sneaker head', he's been collecting them for about five years and has around 30 in his collection.

'So when he saw the shop's blog post announcing it, he said he wasn't risking missing out.'

Shoppers have been queuing since Wednesday, with tents, chairs and sleeping bags lining the street outside the shop

Zaheed, who owns nine pairs of Yeezy trainers, said the whole trip from London to Nottingham will have cost the group 1,500.

He added: 'We've costed everything and the trip will have cost us 250 each but if any of us were to sell them we would still be in profit.'

The black and red footwear is being sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

Describing it as 'The first adidas x Kanye West drop of 2017', the store has also set up an online raffle system to ensure fairness amid the high demand.

Such a frenzy surrounding West's merchandise is not uncommon.

If any of the shoppers decide to part with their shoes they trainers are expected to fetch high prices online

Throughout 2016 people queued outside stores across the country as several batches of the limited edition shoes went on sale.

And fashion fanatics queued outside a shop in Newcastle 48 hours early when the trainers went on sale in 2015.

In June last year Adidas announced a new long-term contract with Kanye, adding that the trainers would be sold in a number of new stores.

Older editions of the Yeezy Boost shoes are currently being advertised on eBay for 1,500.
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Britain will fall into the grip of a mini cold-snap this weekend and the 'vast majority' of the country will see snow.

Forecasters have issued a severe weather alert for northern England and the south east, warning of 'persistent snow' up to four inches deep.

Today, there was sleet as far south as Exeter and Brighton with temperatures around zero in the Kent town of Lydd.

The Met Office said the 'vast majority' of the UK could see a 'wintry mix of sleet, rain and snow' today which may accumulate as snow if temperatures are cold enough.

But forecaster Emma Salter said temperatures will begin to rise next week, potentially reaching 'double figures' by Wednesday.

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Children in Devon enjoying the first significant snow fall of the year. Today, there was sleet as far south as Exeter and Brighton with temperatures around zero in the Kent town of Lydd

This boy enjoyed a ride on a sled in Devon today. But anyone wanting to enjoy the snow needs to be quick. The Met Office's Emma Salter said: 'Over the afternoon we'll see temperatures rise to around 4 or 5C and the snow turn into rain'

A dog on a blue lead bounds along with a sprinkling of sleet on his nose amid snowy scenes in Devon today

The words Snow Joke were written on a car in Birmingham as it got a light layer of snow this morning. Today's temperatures will remain between 3 and 5C but biting Scandinavian winds will make it feel a lot colder, forecasters said

Britain will fall into the grip of a mini cold-snap this weekend and the 'vast majority' of the country will see snow. Pictured: Homes dusted with white in Bromley, London

Flurries of snow in Kent caused three collisions on the M20 in the early morning, with two cars crashing between junctions 8 and 9 just after 5am. Pictured: A wintry scene in Bromley

Forecasters have issued a severe weather alert for North England and the South East warning of 'persistent snow' up to four inches deep. But the white stuff drifted as far south as London, with these cars receiving a light dusting

White sheep, black sheep: Lambs were seen in the fields at Llanddewi'r Cwm in Powys as snow fell gently around them

Most of the snowfall today should take place in the morning and the Met Office' s weather warning lasts until 10am today. Pictured: A car in Birmingham with a smiley face drawn in the snow

Areas likely to see accumulated snow include parts of Kent, and areas in the North of England between Sheffield and Edinburgh. Pictured: A train travels through icy conditions near Westwell Leacon in Kent

A woman walks across Westminster Bridge in London, where sleet was falling without resting on the ground as snow

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Saturday's temperatures will remain between 3 and 5C but biting Scandinavian winds will make it feel a lot colder, forecasters said.

This weather graphic, above, shows that air from Scandinavia is pushing through and bringing with it snow, sleet and biting cold.

Most of the snowfall today should take place in the morning and the Met Office' s weather warning lasts until 10am today.

Areas likely to see accumulated snow include parts of Kent, and areas in the North of England between Sheffield and Edinburgh.

Sunday will see a slight improvement with temperatures one to two degrees higher, but most of the country will wake up to widespread frost and it will feel very cold.

It is likely that at some point over the weekend the country could experience the lowest temperature of winter. The coldest reading so far was -11C (12F) in North East Scotland on December 5 last year.

Forecasters predict a band of warmer air from Europe will push up temperatures next week, with highs of 10C possible on Wednesday.

Public Health England (PHE) has issued a warning amid the plummeting temperatures.

Medical director Professor Paul Cosford said: 'With more cold weather across all parts of England, now is the time to really think how it could impact you and your family, particularly those who are very young, over 65 or who have heart and lung conditions.

Sunday will see a slight improvement with temperatures one to two degrees higher, but most of the country will wake up to widespread frost and it will feel very cold. Pictured: Walkers in North York Moors National Park this morning

It is likely that at some point over the weekend the country could experience the lowest temperature of winter. The coldest reading so far was -11C (12F) in North East Scotland on December 5 last year. Pictured: Snowy cars in the North York Moors

Forecasters predict a band of warmer air from Europe will push up temperatures next week, with highs of 10C possible on Wednesday. The Lion Inn on the North York Moors might be happy to get some respite from the wintry weather

Met Office meteorologist Emma Salter said Aberdeenshire, Northumberland, Durham, Lincolnshire and East Anglia would be worst affected by the cold. This cemetery was covered in white after snowfall overnight

'Try to keep homes heated to at least 18C (64F), stock up on any essential medicine or food that you need before the cold arrives and remember that you will be warmer wearing several thin layers instead of fewer thick ones.

Flurries of snow in Kent caused three collisions on the M20 in the early morning, with two cars crashing between junctions 8 and 9 just after 5am.

Less than half an hour later, another car skidded onto the opposite carriageway and ended up in ditch.

At 6.15am a lorry and a crash collided between junctions 8 and 9, close to where the earlier crash happened, on the coast-bound carriageway.

A spokesman for Kent Police said: 'Motorists are being urged to take extra care on the roads today with snow and ice reported in many parts of east Kent.'

Met Office meteorologist Emma Salter said Aberdeenshire, Northumberland, Durham, Lincolnshire and East Anglia would be worst affected by the cold.

'The snow will turn heavy for a time along coastal parts and eastern high grounds like the Pennines,' she said.

'There, as well as the South Uplands and Scottish mountains, between 5-10cm of snow will fall. It will be just a dusting, a centimetre or so in lower areas.

'In northern Scotland temperatures could come down to -10C, but lower temperatures could also be recorded.

People were out in Castleside, County Durham, clearing the roads and pathways on Friday to make it safe to travel and commute to work

A vehicle is sidelined in a ditch near Hamsterley, in County Durham on Friday as the icy and snowy conditions make roads hazardous

The freezing cold conditions which have dominated the week will continue over the weekend and bring up to four inches of snow (Castle Hill, Huddersfield, pictured on Friday)

A dusting of snow by Victoria Tower, on Castle Hill, in Huddersfield, pictured yesterday morning

A grouse in the snow on the North Yorkshire moors yesterday, as the temperature in northern Scotland fell to -20C overnight

Forecasters have issued severe warnings for ice for eastern regions of England and Scotland as daytime temperatures struggle to pass 0C. As the outlooks (left and right) show the snow could much of the country over the weekend

'Today will be a very cold day, areas in the south and south east may reach 3-4C, which will be the warmest. Places in the north of England will be 1-3C and the same for Scotland and Northern Ireland - a really cold day.

'The coldest temperature anywhere is likely to be in East Anglia or east coast, somewhere like Yorkshire which will be 0-1C.'

Forecaster Emma Salter added: 'We have seen sleet in Southampton and all along the south coast.

'Over the afternoon we'll see temperatures rise to around 4 or 5C and the snow turn into rain.

'But it will get warmer at the beginning of next week with temperatures potentially rising to double figures by Wednesday.'

Monday of last week was the coldest night of the year so far, with -10.1C recorded in Braemar, Aberdeenshire. The coldest UK temperature of 2016 was -12.4C at Kinbrace, while in 2015 it was -13.7C at Loch Glascarnoch.

As the new week begins on Monday the weather will become warmer and more pleasant.

Air from Europe will bring temperatures up to 6-7C in the daytime, with night time lows only 3-4C.

By Wednesday highs are set to have rose to 9-10C caused by more sunshine and dryer air.

A spokesman from St John Ambulance encouraged people to learn first aid to prepare themselves if a loved one suffers a fall in the snow and ice.

'As parts of the UK experience severe weather conditions, with temperatures set to drop below zero and snow and ice predicted in some areas, we are likely to see an increase in people becoming ill and injuring themselves,' she said.

DOG OWNER CRAWLED ACROSS A FROZEN LAKE TO RESCUE HER DOG AFTER IT FELL THROUGH ICE Alice Wardill spotted the dog walker edging across the frozen pond to rescue dog Freddie after he became trapped in the icy water in Chingford, Essex A dog owner crawled across a frozen lake to rescue her pet dog after it fell through the ice during a recent cold spell. Alice Wardill spotted the brave dog walker edging across the frozen pond to rescue dog Freddie after he became trapped in the icy water. The 78-year-old had gone to Connaught Water, in Chingford, Essex, for a walk with husband Peter, 80, and disabled son Paul, 56, on January 27. Alice said: 'We were at Connaught Water as usual at around 12pm when we heard a woman shout 'no Freddie'. The dog ran onto the ice and then fell into the water where it had melted. 'We really thought he wouldn't get out, and then we saw her crawling on the ice - first on her front and then she got on her knees. At one point I couldn't watch, I thought she would fall. 'The dog was flailing around but she pulled him by his collar and crawled back to safety. 'She was very brave, and it was Freddie's lucky day - she got him very quickly. 'It was so cold he would have died if she hadn't rescued him.' Alice said by the time the fire brigade had arrived, the woman had already jumped in her car and taken Freddie home. Alice took photos of the woman trying to rescue her dog from the frozen lake in Chingford, Essex during a previous cold spell Advertisement

A farm building in Teesdale, County Durham, was surrounded by snow after wintry showers fell over higher ground
A brave toddler has become the hero of the Sydney heatwave after he was filmed wheeling a trolley filled with cold drinks to firefighters battling a blaze on his street.

The youngster was sporting a sizable cowboy hat as he dished out sorely needed drinks in 47C heat at Willmot, in western Sydney, which sweated through the brunt of the severe heat.

Fire & Rescue NSW Superintendent Mark Reilly told Daily Mail Australia the fire ignited at 5.24pm on Saturday at the back of the property.

A brave toddler has become the hero of the Sydney heatwave after he was filmed wheeling a trolley filled with cold drinks to firefighters

The youngster was sporting a sizable cowboy hat as he dished out sorely needed drinks in 47C heat

Supt Reilly said the little legend and his family, who live next door, came to the aid of the fire crews in a show of solidarity.

'It was a very kind gesture in the extreme conditions they were facing,' he said.

He said there was nobody home as the property is under renovation, allowing crews to swiftly extinguish the inferno.

The Rural Fire Service has warned of a potential 'catastrophic' fire danger warning on Sunday on the greater Sydney region and out to the central west.

It now officially the hottest summer in Sydney's 158 year recorded history, with 10 summer days over 35C, according to Bureau of Meteorology.

The monster hot air mass hovering over NSW had had 'a baking effect' on vegetation, which meant extreme warnings would pose major risk on Sunday.

Supt Reilly said the boy and his family, who live next door, came to the aid of the fire crews in a show of solidarity

The blaze, at a property in Willmot, western Sydney, ignited on Saturday afternoon

The Rural Fire Service has warned of a potential 'catastrophic' fire danger warning on Sunday

The monster hot air mass hovering over NSW had had 'a baking effect' on vegetation

While a staggering 53 bushfires burned all over NSW, crowds flocked to beaches in droves in a bid to beat the beat.

Huge crowds descended on world-famous Bondi Beach where temperatures reached a comparatively mild 35C, and was still packed well into the evening past 7pm as the weather stayed at 34C.

While the mercury is expected to drop to about 23C in parts of Sydney overnight, humidity is forecast to reach a suffocating 86 per cent to make sleep difficult.

NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the real test lay ahead as firefighters battled 53 fires across the state, 16 of which were not contained.

Conditions were set to intensify in centres including Dubbo, Coonabarabran and Narrabri in the north through to the Hunter Valley and the coast at Port Stephens

Bondi beach was still packed with beach-goers well into the evening past 7pm as the weather stayed at 34C

Pictured, a woman cools off at Bondi, where thousands of beach-lovers sought refuge from the sizzling conditions
A single mother-of-four has sold all her assets, including her house and three cars, to pay back the $2.7 million she swindled from lonely older men.

Sanaa Derbas ran a systematic scheme to defraud six Sydney men - all aged between 43 and 69 - out of millions of dollars during the period of 2008 and 2014.

Her house in the southwest Sydney suburb of Miller, which she built after knocking an older one down, sold for about $600,000 and she also had up to $520,000 in various bank accounts, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sanaa Derbas, 41, (pictured) has pleaded guilty to systematically swindling six men out of a combined $2.7 million

Derbas is selling her family home to pay back the victims

Derbas' manipulations left one man with just $20 to his name - making him unable to pay school fees for his children.

The 41-year-old also swindled close to $1.7 million from just one man, 69, in the space of little more than a year after she told him she needed to pay off her mortgage and her son died of swine flu.

She told another victim her daughter died and she needed to cover funeral costs.

Derbas pleaded guilty to 11 counts of dishonestly obtaining money in August, and faced the Downing Centre District Court on Friday for sentencing.

The single mother-of-four from Sydney met the men through mobile and online dating forums and told them she was looking for love, before stealing their money

She stole $1.7 million from just one 69-year-old man in the space of a little more than a year over the six year scam. She is pictured here being arrested in 2014

The court heard she stole the money to finance a drug habit that stopped in 2010, though the swindling took place between 2008 and 2014.

Derbas found her victims on dating site Lavalife, and trawled lonely hearts messages online and in newspapers.

She even used aliases as part of her money making campaign, calling herself Sarina Lopez, Sarrina, Marrisa and many others written in a gold diary found in her home.

It detailed the place of work, number and age of children, and a residential address for each alias, and used 15 phones to contact her victims.

The game was finally up for Derbas in 2014 (pictured) after she was reported to police by some of the men who she had never paid money back to

Derbas' cars being taken away after her assets were frozen in 2014

After meeting them men online she would ask for money to be transferred to her so she could book a hotel room.

Derbas would then cancel the date - often pocketing up to $600 - using excuses including that her mother had died, but promising to pay the men back with help from a wealthy grandfather in Egypt.

'Seeing my mum last night and feeling her cold body did something to me that I couldn't shake. Baby please don't leave me,' she told one 59-year-old victim in a text, according to court documents reported by Sydney Morning Herald.

Some victims had to dig into their pension or even ask bosses for advanced pay to cover the expenses.
Kirk Haworth, 29, was a rising star in London's Michelin-starred restaurant scene when he began suffering chronic pain and memory loss

The son of celebrity chef Nigel Haworth had his own cooking career cut short after contracting Lyme Disease while abroad.

Kirk Haworth, 29, was a rising star in London's Michelin-starred restaurant scene when he began suffering chronic pain and memory loss.

This was diagnosed as Lyme Disease last May, four years after Kirk says he contracted the illness from a tick bite while working in Sydney.

By then his symptoms were so bad he had to retire, bringing to an end a stellar career at top restaurants including The Square in London and The French Laundry, California.

His father, Nigel, winner of BBC's Great British Menu and contributor to Saturday Kitchen, described the hell his son had been through.

'Kirk has had chronic body and joint pain, 24-hour headaches that feel like something is actually controlling your brain, and memory loss,' he said.

'That is in addition to chronic fatigue where you just can't get out of bed, depression, anxiety and more.

This was diagnosed as Lyme Disease last May, four years after Kirk says he contracted the illness from a tick bite while working in Sydney. He is pictured with his father, Nigel Haworth

By May Kirk's symptoms were so bad he was forced to retire, bringing to an end a stellar career at famous restaurants including The Square in London. Pictured: Kirk and Nigel in the kitchen

Kirk cooking with another chef for Man United legends Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville

'These are just some of the symptoms that say you can't hold down a job , and certainly not a job at the highest level of cooking.'

Kirk will travel to Cyprus in a week for intense treatment by specialist doctors.

But before then he is teaming up with Andy McFadden, head chef at Michelin-starred Pied a Terre in Fitzrovia, to put on a one-off charity lunch.

The 45-a-head menu includes smoked eel caesar, roast chicken broth and caramelised venison with barbecued celeriac.

Funds will go towards helping people with Lyme Disease.

Nigel, winner of BBC's Great British Menu (pictured) and contributor to Saturday Kitchen, said his son's symptoms meant he could not hold down a job at the highest levels of cooking

Nigel Haworth, (left) works at Northcote Manor in Blackburn. Pictured right: Pied a Terre head chef Andy McFadden, who is hosting a charity lunch at L'Autre Pied in Marylebone on Sunday

Nigel, who works at Northcote Manor in Blackburn, added: 'I am extremely proud of how Kirk is attacking this illness and raising awareness of it through food.

'He is determined to try and help as many people as possible not go through all the suffering he has and also improving our poor treatment options here in the UK.'

Kirk said: 'This disease attacks hundreds of thousands of people world-wide every year and is just not taken serious enough.

'I was going to the doctors several times a week complaining about serious symptoms and just being ignored or not taken seriously

The 45-a-head menu at Sunday's event includes smoked eel caesar, roast chicken broth and caramelised venison with barbecued celeriac

'This is an invisible and life changing disease; patients are not being helped and treated in the correct way.

'We plan to fight against this and try and get some awareness and help for not only us Lyme sufferers but for everyone. Things must and will change.'

Kirk's first event will see him host a 45 lunch with Pied a Terre head chef Andy McFadden at L'Autre Pied in Marylebone at 1pm on Sunday.
Its broadcasts are supposed to be politically impartial - but the BBC are expected to screen somewhat of an anti-Trump protest at the Baftas tomorrow.

Hollywood's biggest names will descend on The Royal Albert Hall tomorrow night for the most prestigious film awards in Britain, against a backdrop of political controversy in the USA.

A huge number of stars from both sides of the Atlantic - such as Meryl Streep, Hugh Laurie, Bryan Cranston, Viola Davis and Steve Coogan - have already voiced their disapproval towards the President at public events.

Georgia Cox arranges the seating plan for the Baftas, which will take place tomorrow night at the Royal Albert Hall in London

And that pattern is expected to continue at the Baftas, which will be aired on the apolitical Beeb two hours after the event's conclusion, with some of those names on the guestlist.

Stars have been told they are free to say as they please when accepting awards, but their speeches may be edited down if they waffle on for too long.

Director Ken Loach is also expected to air some fiery views if he is presented with the opportunity to get on stage in recognition of his film I, Daniel Blake, which is a contender in five categories.

Loach has been highly critical of austerity and the odds of him speaking out are increased further by the fact his film is a direct attack on the UK benefits systems.

A BBC spokesman told MailOnline: 'All content on the BBC is published in line with our editorial guidelines.

'As with any televised awards show, we seek to fairly and accurately reflect the passionately held views of recipients and attendees.

Meryl Streep headed the list of stars who took aim at Donald Trump during their speeches at the Golden Globes

'At the same time, we have a duty to fairly reflect as many awards, nominees and winners as possible.

'Where we have to edit for length, we ensure that the essence of the speeches, which are included, are properly reflected.'

The corporation's guidelines state they must: 'fairly and accurately reflect the passionately held views of recipients and attendees'

'At the same time, we have a duty to fairly reflect as many awards, nominees and winners as possible. Where we have to edit for length, we ensure that the essence of the speeches, which are included, are properly reflected.'

Though La La Land continues to be the success story of awards season thus far, Best Film nods also go to Arrival, I, Daniel Blake, Manchester By The Sea and Moonlight.

The males recognised in the Best Supporting Actor category this year include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Dev Patel, Jeff Bridges and Mahershala Ali.

British star Patel has been nominated for the profoundly moving Lion, a film about a five-year-old Indian boy who gets lost on the streets of Calcutta.

Director Ken Loach is also expected to air some fiery views if he is presented with the opportunity to get on stage in recognition of his film I, Daniel Blake, which is a contender in five categories.

He is adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later and sets out to find his long-lost family.

Compatriot Harris features in the Best Supporting Actress category alongside Hayley Squires, Michelle Williams, Nicole Kidman and Viola Davis.

Harris's nomination follows critical acclaim for her role as crack cocaine addicted single mother Paula in Moonlight, a screen adaptation of Tarell Alvin McCraney's play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue.

This year's EE Rising Star award nominations - announced last week and voted for by the public - go to Laia Costa, Lucas Hedges, Ruth Negga and Anya Taylor-Joy.
John Bercow may have launched his extraordinary attack on US President Donald Trump in a bid to remain as Commons Speaker until at least 2020.

Sources within the cabinet have claimed Bercow 'orchestrated' his scathing remarks about Trump's 'sexism and racism' to win support in the House.

An unnamed senior member of the government told The Telegraph: 'Bercow did this to win Labour, SNP and Lib Dem support for staying on. He has orchestrated the whole thing.'

Commons Speaker John Bercow has told friends he wants to stay on as Speaker until 2020

In an extraordinary attack, Bercow said launched a scathing attack on 'sexism and racism' by the US President

The outburst also prompted a rebuke from the Speaker of the Lords, Lord Fowler, who suggested he should lose his veto over foreign visitors to parliament as a result.

Ministers were privately infuriated by the 'insult' to Mr Trump, who was invited by Theresa May to make a state visit to the UK in June.

Former Tory minister James Duddridge tabled a motion of no confidence in Mr Bercow

On Thursday, former Tory minister James Duddridge took the rare step of tabling a motion of no confidence in Mr Bercow, saying he had 'overstepped the mark'.

Mr Duddridge said the attack on the US President was 'the straw that broke the camel's back', following long-running concern about anti-Tory bias.

'It was wholly inappropriate and it means that he can no longer reasonably chair, as Speaker, any debate on those subjects.'

He added: 'I have got absolute confidence that a majority of MPs will be in the 'he's not doing a good job and should go' category.

But The Telegraph reports that numerous Labour, Liberal Democrat and SNP MPs have vowed to support the Speaker, meaning he is likely to remain in post for the next four years.

Mr Bercow pledged that he would serve for nine years when he took over as Speaker in June 2009. Under this timetable he would step down in June next year.

But he has refused to commit publicly to a departure date in recent years. And a senior Tory source said he was now canvassing opinion about the idea of staying in post until the next election in May 2020  almost two years beyond his promised exit date.

'John is being very vague about it,' the source said. 'He did promise it would be nine years but it now appears to be 'about nine years'. He still has a good relationship with his local Conservative Association and is suggesting he wouldn't want to put them through a by-election campaign.

'In the end, it's up to him. He promised he would go after nine years but there is very little anyone can do about it if he decides to changes his mind.'

The revelation that Mr Bercow is planning to extend his term will enrage his Tory critics, who believe he has damaged the impartiality of the Speaker's office with his outspoken attack on President Trump.

Mr Bercow stunned MPs this week when he said Mr Trump should be banned from making a joint address to parliament in Westminster Hall because of his 'sexism and racism'.

Mr Bercow pledged that he would serve for nine years when he took over as Speaker in June 2009

'How many of those will go as far as voting in a vote of no confidence and how many will sign up to an EDM, I genuinely don't know.'

Fellow Tory Alec Shelbrooke said that although he disagreed with Mr Trump's 'discriminatory' travel ban, Mr Bercow had gone too far.

He said he would back the motion to eject him, saying Mr Bercow had 'politicised the office of Speaker and his position is untenable'.

Tory Andrew Bridgen became the third MP to call publicly for Mr Bercow to quit yesterday, saying: 'Speaker Bercow's position is untenable, he needs to be replaced before President Trump's state visit.'

Friends of the Speaker claim he was simply responding to a question by Labour MP Stephen Doughty. But one Labour source claimed the question had been deliberately 'set up' in order to embarrass Mr Trump and strengthen support for Mr Bercow among opposition MPs, who applauded his outburst.

Senior Tories also believe Mr Bercow 'orchestrated' the row in a ham-fisted attempt to bolster his own position.

'Bercow did this to win Labour, SNP and Lib Dem support for staying on,' a senior member of Theresa May's Government said. 'He has orchestrated the whole thing.'

Commons sources yesterday refused to deny that Mr Bercow may extend his term until 2020.

Mr Bercow made his nine-year pledge when he was first appointed. He has since said he does not 'resile' from it, but has also said that his re-appointment as Speaker after the 2015 was 'for a full parliament'.

A spokesman for Mr Bercow said: 'Both of those things are true. I'm not going to get into what his decision is going to be.

'It's up to him when he wants to stand down. I've no comment on what his future plans are.'
A 2014 photo of Patrizia Reggiani in Milan. She served 18 years in jail for her role in the murder of her husband Maurizio Gucci

An Italian socialite sentenced to 26 years in jail for ordering the execution of her multi-millionaire ex-husband will receive 900,000 a year from his fortune, a court has ruled.

Patrizia Reggiani, nicknamed the Black Widow, was found guilty of paying a hit man 300,000 (240,000) to murder 46yearold Maurizio Gucci, an heir to the Gucci empire.

He was shot dead on the steps of his office in Milan as he arrived for work in 1995.

Now, an appeal court has ruled that Ms Reggiani is entitled to annual allowance because of an agreement Mr Gucci signed two years before he was killed.

She is also entitled to back payments from her time behind bars, which would amount to more than 16 million, the Telegraph reported.

The money will come from her ex-husbands estate after he signed an accord in St Moritz in Switzerland, agreeing to pay her an allowance of 1.1 million Swiss francs a year for the rest of her life.

In its ruling, the court of appeal said: The criminal act carried out by Patrizia Reggiani has nothing to do with the accord with Maurizio Gucci. It is irrelevant. Any other opinion belongs to the moral, rather than the strictly judicial, sphere. It cannot have a bearing on the interpretation of the accord.

Ms Reggiani, also known as Lady Gucci, was said to be furious her former husband had started seeing other women, and feared her daughters inheritance was at risk if he remarried before ordering the hit.

The couple had divorced in 1985.

During the murder trial, which transfixed Italy, she arrived each day wearing head-to-toe Gucci clothes and accessories.

She was initially sentenced to 29 years in 1998, which was reduced to 26 on appeal. She served 18  with her pet ferret Bambi as a companion for some of the time - before being released in October 2014.

Maurizio Gucci (left) was killed on his way to work in Milan 21 years ago. Patrizia Reggiani (right), was nicknamed the Black Widow after the murder

Reggiani in court in 1996. The money will come from her ex-husbands estate after he signed an accord in St Moritz in Switzerland

Ms Reggianis daughters, who live in Switzerland, are expected to contest the appeal courts decision in Italys Supreme Court, the Telegraph said.

Well-known across Italy for her extravagant lifestyle, Ms Reggiani was said to spend thousands of pounds a month on Orchids. She once said: I would rather weep in a RollsRoyce than be happy on a bicycle.

Reggiani with her Parrot Bo. She was released from prison in October 2014

She was allowed out on day release to work in a jewellery shop before being freed from prison.

In an interview following her release, she said she never intended for her husband to die. Its true that speaking with certain people, I said, in a rash outburst, I wish Maurizio would die. But I never imagined that the scenario would come true. Nor did I want it to. I never ordered the murder.

The dynasty of the luxury clothing company has been plagued by rifts and infighting.

I n 2012 heirs of the brand Guccio Gucci and his brother Alessandro were sued by Gucci for trademark infringement. The company has also taken legal action against three others members of the families for using their famous name to launch products.

Guccio Gucci, great-grandson of the company's founder who shares the same name, was arrested in 2014 for alleged fraud worth 800,000 euros (650,000) in 2014.

The Florentine fashion entrepreneur was accused of removing hundreds of thousands of pounds from the coffers of his own fashion company to pay off personal debts, before declaring bankruptcy.

And in 1986 founder Guccio Gucci's son Aldo was convicted of tax fraud in the US in 1986 and served a year in a Florida jail.
Donald Trump referred to Elizabeth Warren as Pocahontas again as he attacked her ancestry during a private meeting with senators, sources said Saturday.

The president, who previously used the insult on the campaign trail, told Democrat lawmakers Thursday: 'Pocahontas is now the face of your party,' CNN reported. He then claimed that the only reason she said she had Native American origins was due to her 'high cheekbones', a source told the network.

Trump's comment came the day after GOP senators silenced Warren on the Senate floor by invoking a little-used rule while she spoke out against Jeff Sessions during his confirmation hearing to become attorney general.

The rebuke has prompted a wave of support for Waren among outraged Democrats.

Donald Trump referred to Elizabeth Warren as Pocahontas again as he attacked her ancestry during a private meeting with senators, sources said Saturday

The president used the 'Pocahontas' insult several times during the closed-door meeting with senators, making it 'equal parts bizarre and completely awkward', a source told CNN.

His renewed use of the insult came as Trump reflected on the current state of the Democratic Party.

The mogul has previously referred to Warren as Pocahontas and attacked her over her heritage repeatedly.

'Pocahontas is not happy. She's not happy. She's the worst,' he said in June at a rally in Richmond, Virginia. 'I'm doing such a disservice to Pocahontas, it's so unfair to Pocahontas. But this Elizabeth Warren, I call her goofy Elizabeth Warren, she's one of the worst senators in the entire United States Senate.'

His insult referred to Warren's previous statements saying she has Native American origins, which her opponents challenged during her run for Senate in 2012, when she became the first woman to hold the office in Massachusetts.

Warren had at one point referred to her grandfather's high cheekbones to support her comments.

Trump's comment came the day after GOP senators silenced Warren on the Senate floor by invoking a little-used rule while she spoke out against Jeff Sessions

The Massachusetts Senator's rebuke during Sessions' confirmation hearing Wednesday has drawn outrage among Republicans.

She was reading a letter by Martin Luther King Jr's widow, Coretta Scott King, opposing Sessions' ultimately unsuccessful nomination to a federal judgeship in 1986.

The GOP majority voted to silence her under a little-used Senate regulation, Rule 19, which bars any senator from impugning the motives of any other or imputing 'any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming of a senator.'

Several male Democratic senators stood up and read from the same letter but without drawing objections, leading Democratic activists to proclaim that Senate Republicans were interested only in silencing a woman.

Democrats accused Republicans of selectively enforcing Rule 19. They noted the GOP did not apply it when, for example, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas accused Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of lying in relation to a dispute over the Export-Import Bank two years ago.

The moment inspired a Twitter hashtag, #LetLizSpeak, and clips from C-SPAN2 went viral.

'ShePersisted' trended on Twitter after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said: 'Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.'

Hillary Clinton picked up on the quote on Twitter, adding: 'So must we all.'
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said he would 'welcome' US troops into the war-torn country to fight ISIS militants.

He made the comments amid reports that President Trump is considering sending thousands of troops and Apache helicopters into the country to 'crush' Islamic State.

However, he cautioned that any such move must be part of a 'genuine' effort to fight terrorists and must 'respect the sovereignty of Syria'.

He referred to his ally Russia, who Assad said had respected Syria's sovereignty while waging war in the country.

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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said he would 'welcome' US troops into the country to help fight Islamic State

In his first interview with Western media since Trump took office, Assad told Yahoo News: 'If the Americans are genuine, of course, they are welcome, like any other country that wants to defeat and to fight with the terrorists. Of course with no hesitation.'

However, he dismissed Trump's idea of creating 'safe zones' for refugees inside Syria as 'not a realistic idea at all' while fighting in the country is still ongoing.

Assad said: 'Safe zones for the Syrians could only happen when you have stability and security, where you don't have terrorists, where you don't have [the] flow and support of those terrorists by the neighboring countries or by Western countries.

'This is where you can have a natural safe zone, which is our country. They don't need safe zones at all. It's not a realistic idea at all.'

The Syrian leader also called a 'rapprochement between the Russians and the Americans'.

Assad said it was 'very essential not only for Syria' for the two countries to work together to defeat Islamic State.

Assad has called for the United States to join forces with Russia to drive Islamic State fighters out of Syria

However, he said he was not in a position to encourage the two nations to cooperate, as although he has Moscow's ear Syria 'does not have any contact with America'.

Earlier this week, Assad was the latest political figure to play the fake news card, when he rejected claims he had 13,000 people executed in one of his prisons.

Amnesty International published a shocking report claiming victims were given death sentences after sham trials lasting less than three minutes, often on the basis of confessions extracted through torture - all of which was commissioned by top officials.

The Syrian leader reacted to the allegations of mass execution by calling the report false, saying people could 'forge anything these days', suggesting the charity bribed officials in order to produce a biased report.

A spokesman for the Amnesty told MailOnline that the charity 'robustly rejected' Assad's claims.
Moaz al-Kasasbeh was slaughtered on camera by Islamic State thugs

The Jordanian air force pilot filmed being burned to death by Islamic State extremists was unaware that he was about to be brutally set on fire until militant thugs poured petrol over him, a former militant involved in his death has confirmed.

Moaz al-Kasasbeh was slaughtered on camera by Islamic State thugs who locked him in a cage before setting him alight.

'We filmed him on the site of where he was going to be executed and zoomed in on his face, but at that time he didn't know we were planning to set him alight,' the anonymous jihadist said.

'We also filmed the fighters, who were standing on guard,' he added, speaking in a documentary that aired on Al Arabiya this week.

Titled 'Healing the Believers' Chests', the 22-minute film, which was released by Islamic State two years ago, showed the captured airman walking alone in front of masked fighters, and locked in a cage before a trail of petrol leading up to its bars is set alight.

The militant said that the 22-year-old airman only realised what was about to happen when he was drenched in petrol by ISIS thugs.

The video showed the captured airman locked in a cage before a trail of petrol leading up to its bars is set alight

The video shows one of the ISIS brutes lighting a torch and igniting a trail of gasoline

An anonymous militant has confirmed that the 22-year-old airman only realised what was about to happen when he was drenched in petrol

Reports at the time said al-Kasasbeh was plied with drugs so that he did not scream as flames consumed his body during his grotesque execution.

The extremist revealed the elaborate set-up used by Islamic State to film the execution, saying that four different cameras had been used to record the horrific event from different angles.

In the high-quality film, dramatic music plays in the background moments before al-Kaseasbeh is cruelly set on fire.

The video shows one of the ISIS brutes lighting a torch and igniting a trail of gasoline, which leads to the young pilot's cage.

The heart-wrenching footage shows the airman collapsing to his knees and screaming in pain as he is engulfed by the flames.

The murdered airman's wife Anwar Tarawneh holds a photo of him taken before his grotesque execution was confirmed, left, and is consoled by Queen Rania of Jordan, right, after the brutal video was released by Islamic State

Officials believe Kasasbeh had been killed almost one month before the video was made public on September 3, 2015, despite ISIS attempting to carry out a prisoner exchange in return for the captured pilot.

After the footage was released, Jordanian officials promised to retaliate harshly and quickly executed two Iraqi militants connected with ISIS.

They included Sajida al-Rishawi, the female would-be suicide bomber whose freedom ISIS had originally demanded in exchange for releasing Kasasbeh.

Jordan's King Abdullah II pledged to hit the militants 'hard in the very centre of their strongholds' following al-Kasasbeh's death.

He said Jordan's response would 'be harsh because this terrorist organisation is not only fighting us, but also fighting Islam and its pure values.'
A 33-car freight train derailed in Northern California, sending 22 cars into the mucky and swollen Cosumnes River, according to the local fire department.

The Cosumnes Fire Department said the Union Pacific train carrying food products was headed from Tracy to Roseville on Friday when it derailed around 12.45 in Elk Grove, 15 miles southeast of Sacramento.

There were three people onboard the train, but no one was injured.

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A 33-car freight train derailed in Northern California, sending 22 cars into the mucky and swollen Cosumnes River

A Union Pacific train carrying food products was headed from Tracy to Roseville on Friday when it derailed around 12.45 in Elk Grove, 15 miles southeast of Sacramento

There were three people onboard the train, but no one was injured. Hazardous materials crews were called to the scene as a precaution

A red substance was spilled, but no hazardous material was involved. Some fuel and a food substance did leak into the river

A red substance was spilled and hazardous materials crews attended the scene as a precaution, but no hazardous material was involved, Union Pacific Railroad spokesman Justin Jacobs said, KCRA reported.

Some fuel and a food substance did leak into the river, Fox40 reported.

Union Pacific Railroad spokesman Justin Jacobs apologized for the disruption and said an investigation into what caused the derailment is ongoing

Union Pacific has been performing inspections due to the recent torrential storms in Northern California

At least 20 trains, which have since been re-routed, use the line each day

Jacobs apologized for the disruption and said an investigation into what caused the derailment is ongoing.

Near the train derailment, there was a levee break.

Union Pacific has been performing inspections due to the recent torrential storms in Northern California and at least 20 trains, which have since been re-routed, use the line each day.
Iain Duncan Smith is among the members of the influential group

Government policy is being shaped by a 59-strong WhatsApp group of Brexit supporting MPs, ministers have claimed.

Members of the European Research Group (ERG) are reportedly using the messaging app to co-ordinate and influence the government.

Tory MPs who are involved in the group, set up by MP Steve Baker, include Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Gove, and Theresa Villiers.

The 59 Conservative MPs are joined together by their desire for a hard, clean Brexit.

Using WhatsApp, The Times reports, members have planned attacks on former diplomat to the EU Sir Ivan Rogers, who resigned last month.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney has also come under fire from the group, as have High Court judges who they feel stood in the way of the Brexit process.

An insider from the group, which on WhatsApp is called 'ERG DExEU/DIT Suppt Group', told The Times: 'Our real power is that, by using the WhatsApp group, we can also ask everyone to shut up.

Michael Gove and Theresa Villiers are both members of the group, which uses WhatsApp to co-ordinate and influence the government

'If the request goes out, MPs of all levels of seniority stop giving interviews, quotes to newspapers or complaining. Sometimes No 10 asks this  the fact we can deliver gives awesome leverage.'

It has a close relationship with ministers, it is claimed, with group members being given special briefings on Theresa May's Lancaster House speech, during which she laid out the government's Brexit objectives.

One member told The Times: 'We get everything we want.'

The group is led by Tory MP Steve Baker, who described WhatsApp as 'extremely effective'

The WhatsApp group was created after the Brexit vote in June last year to agree on 'lines to take' in public, The Telegraph reported in December.

But members have found the use of the app irritating, with one saying: 'It is a thorough nuisance. I find it tremendously annoying when it buzzes in my pocket 30 to 40 times a day.'

Organiser Mr Baker told The Telegraph: 'As far as Im concerned, one of the most crucial means of organising against the determined and sustained attacks by our opponents is instant rebuttal.

'That requires instant communication, which is what we use the WhatsApp group for.'

He said the approach was 'extremely effective'.
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Multi-million dollar homes in Vancouver are getting snapped up like hot cakes as the 'frenzied' real estate market booms.

But when residents walk their dogs or take their children trick-or-treating, empty homes line the streets.

The flood of international investors has driven home prices out of reach for members of Vancouver's middle class, many of whom fear that their neighborhoods are slowly turning into ghost towns.

Filmmaker Corbie Fieldwalker was struck by the abandoned mansions in Point Grey and began creating eerie videos that show the peeling paint, broken windows and graffiti inside.

Multi-million dollar homes in Vancouver are getting snapped up like hot cakes as the 'frenzied' real estate market booms (pictured, an abandoned mansion in the Point Grey neighborhood captured by filmmaker Corbie Fieldwalker)

The flood of international investors has driven home prices out of reach for members of Vancouver's middle class, many of whom fear that their neighborhoods are slowly turning into ghost towns

An astounding $1billion CAD of global money poured into the city's properties over the course of a five-week period, Bloomberg reported

And more than $57.1million worth of homes in the small neighborhood of Point Grey - which measures just 2.5 square miles - were purchased by students reporting no income

At the same time, there are now 66,719 vacant or temporarily occupied homes in the Vancouver area - more than double the numbers recorded in 2001, according to Simon Fraser University's Andy Yan

An astounding $1billion CAD of global money poured into the city's properties over the course of a five-week period, Bloomberg reported.

And more than $57.1million worth of homes in the small neighborhood of Point Grey - which measures just 2.5 square miles - were purchased by students reporting no income.

At the same time, there are now 66,719 vacant or temporarily occupied homes in the Vancouver area - more than double the numbers recorded in 2001, according to Simon Fraser University's Andy Yan.

Some buyers are simply parking their money in the homes, while others are looking to turn a quick profit amidst the high demand

Other investors are putting down millions of dollars only to demolish the houses in favor of new developments. Pictured right, a newly built home in Point Grey, the same neighborhood where Fieldwalker captures abandoned mansions

Manfred Trummer (above) lives in West Point Grey. He's been offered $2million CAD for his home, but said: 'Where do we go then, right? We like to live here. Weve raised our kids here'

Some buyers are simply parking their money in the homes, while others are looking to turn a quick profit amidst the high demand.

One home went for $361,000 more than the price it sold for just three months earlier, the Globe and Mail reported.

Other investors are putting down millions of dollars only to demolish the houses in favor of new developments.

One resident Claire Cullen told the Globe and Mail in 2015: 'I see a house sold now  and you just know its going to get demolished.

'If families were then moving in and engaging, that would be different. The houses they build are empty  or people are only here for a month.'

Corbie Fieldwalker was struck by the abandoned mansions and began creating eerie videos that show the peeling paint, broken windows and graffiti inside

Claire Cullen told the Globe and Mail she fears that her neighborhood is turning into a ghost town. Safety was also a concern for her, and she wondered: 'If I suddenly run into trouble in the street, whose house would I knock on?'

Politicians are now playing catch up as they try to impose taxes and close loopholes to ease the flow of international cash

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said: 'Its unacceptable for so much housing to be treated as a commodity. Housing is for homes first, and as investments second'

Politicians are now playing catch up as they try to impose taxes and close loopholes to ease the flow of international cash.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said: 'Its unacceptable for so much housing to be treated as a commodity.

'Housing is for homes first, and as investments second. Vancouver will continue to do all it can to maintain and protect affordable homes, and pursue all tools available to ensure the best use of all our housing.'

A 15 percent tax has been imposed on foreign buyers since August, and officials introduced additional tariffs on empty homes to encourage international buyers to rent out their properties.
Ugly scenes have unfolded on a Melbourne train after a rolling brawl broke out between partygoers leaving a rave shut down by police.

Footage shows about at least 10 people, both male and female, raining hammer blows on one another on a train bound for Flinders Street Station about 2.30am Saturday morning.

Victoria Metro condemned the behaviour of those involved and called on commuters to alert authorities if they witness brawls, reports The Age.

Footage shows about at least 10 people, both male and female, punching and kicking each other on a Melbourne train

It is reported some of those involved in the brawl left with bloodied noses but escaped serious injury.

'We urge anyone who witnesses dangerous or illegal behaviour to report the incident by pressing the emergency button in trains and on platforms or by contacting the police,' Metro spokesman Marcus Williams said.

He said there was a dedicated security and surveillance team who work with police to investigate similar incidents on board trains.

However, a Victoria Police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia they had received no reports about the incident.

They confirmed they shut down a secret party at Dights Falls in Abbotsford, about 1.30am without incident.

It's believed the group of men and women were leaving a rave shut down by police
A carpet cleaning company have found themselves in hot water after openly calling a customer's home a 's***hole'.

Clean Carpets Plymouth's rant against Tracey Sturridge Lumley is not the first time they have hit the headlines recently, prompting a police investigation after hounding a cancellation fee from a woman who suffered a miscarriage.

Mrs Lumley hired the company in August last year to sort out her front room after it became home to a litter of puppies.

Clean Carpets Plymouth told Tracey Sturridge Lumley that her house was a 's***hole' on Facebook

When they arrived at her house, company owner Ben Harbour wiped the mud off his boots onto her floor, claiming 'I'll be cleaning it up anyway,' according to The Sun.

During his work at the house Mr Harbour also repeatedly sent her husband to fetch extra buckets of water.

After almost a week her carpets were still wet, and the company offered her an industrial one for money, only to deliver a normal fan.

But, even more shocking behaviour was to follow as she later discovered an array of messages on Facebook mocking the state of her house.

Mr Harbour brazenly boasted on Facebook: 'We did an amazing job considering ur house is a s***hole lmao.

This escalated into an argument between the cleaner and Mrs Lumley's friend Jo Tennant, who questioned how much business he would get if he speaks to customers like that.

In one post, he said: 'Who runs a cleaning company here??? Me right??? Normally clean houses don't hire carper cleaners?? Fair assumption???'

This escalated into an argument between the cleaner and Mrs Lumley's friend Jo Tennant, who questioned how much business he would get if he speaks to customers like that

He added: 'If it's all the same to you I'll follow my own guidelines in business and I do with with a direct truth if u don't like that use someone else! I said from day one I won't butter anything up and I certainly won't pander to w******.'

It comes just days after it emerged that the same company had demanded money from a couple for a short-term cancellation after they learned they had lost their unborn baby.

Dean and Charlotte Coutts cancelled their appointment just hours after booking it, when she was rushed to hospital and discovered she had suffered a miscarriage.

A furious text message row followed, with the company repeatedly threatening the couple with a 85 fee or a small claims court date.

According to Mr Harbour, his terms and conditions clearly state that Clean Carpets Plymouth must be informed of cancellations 48 hours before the appointment.

But the couple claim this was not even possible as they had only booked the job with 24 hours' notice.

They even claim a company representative told them 'you deserved to lose your baby' and the manager Mr Harbour added they were not 'worthy of being parents'.

Dean and Charlotte Coutts cancelled their appointment just hours after booking it, when she was rushed to hospital and discovered she had suffered a miscarriage

Clean Carpets Plymouth demanded money from Mrs Coutts for the cancelling ther appointment

Mr Coutts, aged 26, told the Plymouth Herald: 'He was saying we owe him money and he would take us to court. My wife is just in bits, it's terrible for me to see. She's not in the best place.

'I am on edge, I haven't had a proper night's sleep for days. It's not about the money. It's about how poorly he's treated us.'

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said: 'We are currently investigating an incident that could fall foul of the malicious communications act. Enquiries are underway.'

MailOnline has made attempts to contact Clean Carpets Plymouth, whose website has been taken down.
Piers Morgan and JK Rowling became embroiled in a Twitter row after the Harry Potter author expressed delight that the breakfast TV presenter was sworn at over his support of Donald Trump.

Piers Morgan was appearing on panel show Real Time with Bill Maher, alongside Australian comedian Jim Jefferies.

The pair were debating President Trump's attempt to stop people from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the US.

Piers Morgan, left, was told to 'f*** off' by a comedian and JK Rowling, right, called the moment 'delicious' sparking a Twitter battle between the pair

JK Rowling said it was 'satisfying' to see Piers Morgan be sworn at, in a tweet that was retweeted thousands of times - and sparked a row with the man himself

Piers criticised JK Rowling for agreeing with free speech until someone refuses to agree with her and called her a liberal

DailyMail.com U.S. Editor-at-Large Morgan said the travel ban was not a Muslim ban, to which Jefferies said: 'Oh, f*** off. It's a f****** Muslim ban.'

Rowling wrote on the social networking site: 'Yes, watching Piers Morgan being told to f*** off on live TV is *exactly* as satisfying as I'd always imagined.'

Morgan replied: 'This is why I've never read a single word of Harry Potter.'

Morgan said that 'everything I said was factual'. He added, referring to Jefferies: 'If you think screaming 'F*** OFF!!!' at me changes that, then you're mistaken.'

Rowling then asked Morgan: 'Would you like a couple of hours to mock up some pictures of refugees carrying explosives to substantiate your position?'

'The superior, dismissive arrogance of rabid Remain/Clinton supporters like @jk_rowling is, of course, precisely why both campaigns lost,' Morgan wrote in response.

JK Rowling told Piers Morgan that reading her books would show him sucking up to the bully means people get burned alive

The pair ended up in a Twitter spat for much of the day, throwing insults to one another and reminding the other of ways they had won something over the other

Morgan said: 'I'm under attack from a comic who tells rape jokes, Sulu from Star Trek & an author who writes about wizards.'

Rowling wrote to her 9.55 million Twitter followers: 'The fact-free, amoral, bigotry-apologism of celebrity toady Piers Morgan is, of course, why it's so delicious to see him told to f*** off.'

Morgan shared Rowling's post and described it as 'peak foul-mouthed, minor celebrity anti-Trump hysteria at its most deliciously supercilious'. He called the author a 'liberal', and said that she is 'all for tolerance & free speech, until you refuse to call Trump the new Hitler'.

Entering the debate, Star Trek actor George Takei countered Morgan's claim about why he has never read the Harry Potter books.

Morgan said: 'I'm under attack from a comic who tells rape jokes, Sulu from Star Trek & an author who writes about wizards. What a morning.'

Morgan's appearance on Friday night's episode of Real Time saw him angrily rebuked by Jefferies. The British broadcaster said, over Jefferies's protests: 'This is the hysteria I'm talking about; 85% of the world's Muslims are allowed in the country.'

Piers Morgan commented 'what a morning' after the spat, which even drew in George Takei

George Takei joined in the spat too, taking the Harry Potter author's side. He said Piers 'lacked imagination'

Jefferies said: 'Oh, f*** off. This is what you do, Piers. You say 'He hasn't done this, he hasn't done that, he's not going to do all these things.'

'Give him a f****** chance mate  Hitler didn't kill the Jews on the first day, he worked up to it.'

He added: 'You just like that you won The Apprentice and you have a famous friend.'
Donald Trump took to his preferred medium to sound off on the latest controversy surrounding his planned border wall between the United States and Mexico.

Over the course of two tweets, he said: 'I am reading that the great border WALL will cost more than the government originally thought, but I have not gotten involved in the design or negotiations yet.

'When I do, just like with the F-35 FighterJet or the Air Force One Program, price will come WAY DOWN!'

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Donald Trump tweeted about the controversy over his planned border wall between the United States and Mexico on Saturday morning

He wrote: 'I am reading that the great border WALL will cost more than the government originally thought, but I have not gotten involved in the design or negotiations yet. 'When I do, just like with the F-35 FighterJet or the Air Force One Program, price will come WAY DOWN!'

Information emerged Thursday that the wall could cost as much as $21.6bn and might not be completed until 2020, according to a US Department of Homeland Security internal report.

The report's estimated price-tag is much higher than a $12bn figure cited by Trump in his campaign and estimates as high as $15bn from Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The report is expected to be presented to Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly in coming days, although the administration will not necessarily take actions it recommends.

The plan laid out what it would take to seal the border in three phases of construction of fences and walls covering just over 1,250 miles by the end of 2020.

The report is the work of a group commissioned by Kelly as a final step before moving forward with requesting U.S. taxpayer funds from Congress and getting started on construction.

Information emerged Thursday that the wall could cost as much as $21.6bn and might not be completed until 2020 in a DHS report. Trump cited a $12bn figure during his campaign

The report is expected to be presented to Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly in coming days, although the administration will not necessarily take actions it recommends. Pictured: A section of a border fence in Calexico, California

Trump has said Congress should fund the wall up-front, but that Mexico will reimburse U.S. taxpayers. Mexico has said it will not pay.

The report accounted for the time and cost of acquiring private land, one reason for its steep price increase compared to estimates from Trump and members of Congress.

Bernstein Research, an investment research group that tracks material costs, has said that uncertainties around the project could drive its cost up to as much as $25 billion.

A source familiar with the plans said DHS may have to go to court to seek eminent domain in order to acquire some of the private land needed to cover the final and most ambitious phase.

The report is the work of a group commissioned by Kelly as a final step before moving forward with requesting U.S. taxpayer funds from Congress and getting started on construction. Pictured: The border near San Ysidro, California

Trump has said Congress should fund the wall up-front, but that Mexico will reimburse U.S. taxpayers. Mexico has said it will not pay. Pictured left to right: Melania Trump, Akie Abe, Shinzo Abe and Donald Trump in West Palm Beach

In addition to seeking eminent domain and environmental waivers, the U.S. government would also have to meet the requirements of the International Boundary and Water Commission, a U.S.-Mexico pact over shared waters.

The report estimated that agreement alone could bring the cost from $11 million per mile to $15 million per mile in one area.

Trump's reference to the F-35 jets comes following a Department of Defense and Lockheed Martin announcement of an agreement worth about $8.5bn for 90 F-35 jets, the lowest price to date for the Pentagon's most expensive program.

The cost amounted to a savings of $728m, more than the $600m that Trump claimed he had been able to shave off the program.

Lockheed Martin said in a statement that 'President Trump's personal involvement in the F-35 program accelerated the negotiations and sharpened our focus on driving down the price.'
Ukrainian writer Zhadan detained by police in Minsk over ban to enter Belarus

KYIV. Feb 11 (Interfax-Ukraine)  Belarusian police officers late on Saturday detained Ukrainian writer, poet and volunteer Serhiy Zhadan in a hotel in Minsk and kept at the police station until the morning. Zhadan is banned from entering Belarus.

"Here is a funny story happened to me today in Minsk. Around two a.m a police patrol being serious and concentrated arrived to my hotel room. Without explaining anything they delivered me to the police station, starting searching the database and found nothing. We called to KGB. They advised them to go to another police station  Leninskoye. They again searched the database in the Leninskoye station and finally explained me that in 2015 I was banned from entering Russia (what a pity!) as I am involved in terrorist activities. Belarus and Kazakhstan are in the same visa zone with Russia, the ban is automatically spread to Belarus and Kazakhstan," Zhadan wrote on his Facebook page on Saturday.

The police stamped Zhadan's passports banning from entering Belarus for an indefinite period.

Zhadan asked Ukrainian diplomats to react to the incident.
Footage has been released by ISIS purporting to show the moment drones were dropped on Iraqi tanks.

The video shows three bombs being dropped from the sky, and it is believed some of the footage was taken in war-torn Mosul.

The three clips were taken from unmanned drones, and appear to show the bombs being dropped with a high level of accuracy.

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Aerial footage taken from an unmanned drone believed to have been taken in Mosul

On the ground people are seen scrambling around, but it is not known if anyone was killed or injured by the bombs.

Last months coalition forces battling the terror group said they had hit drone production sites in both Iraq and Syria, with ISIS modifying commercial unmanned devices in an effort to cause maximum damage.

A US central command official told Defense One last month: 'Over the last two months, coalition forces have observed about one adversary drone every day around Mosul.

A bomb is seen falling through the sky above the streets as an ISIS drone targets Iraqi miliary targets

The undated video is believed to have been taken in Mosul, where ISIS has increasingly used modified drones

'The Coalition has struck a number of what we believed to be unmanned aerial vehicle facilities in Mosul.

The drones have been found to be carrying various types of bombs, including grenades and mortars.

In October two Kurdish soldiers were killed dismantling a drone which had been shot down.
James Logan was hospitalised with dysentery

A mother has told of the horrifying moment she feared for her son's life when he was struck down with a dysentery virus that is plaguing the country.

More than 100 people across Britain have contracted bacillary dysentery, or shigellosis, which is brought on by poor hygiene and causes chronic diarrhoea, nausea, fever and stomach cramps.

One of its victims was sixteen-month-old James Logan from Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, who was unconscious for 40 minutes after suffering a fit.

The youngster's terrified mother Charlotte Cullum, 24, called paramedics who rushed him to hospital where he recovered for three days.

His 17-month-old cousin Ruby is still recovering in Basildon Hospital in Essex after she caught the bug when playing at James' house.

Miss Cullum told MailOnline: 'On Sunday night James went to bed as normal but then he woke up in the middle of the night and was violently sick all over the bed and then the diarrhoea started aswell.

The youngster's terrified mother Charlotte Cullum (pictured), 24, called paramedics who rushed him to hospital

Playmates: James' 17-month-old cousin Ruby is still recovering in Basildon Hospital in Essex after she caught the bug when playing at James' house

'On Monday he suffered an upset tummy and the same on Tuesday.

'After lunch he was playing with his toys in the living room and he had a fit.

'It was really scary - I saw him lying face down on the floor and making a strange noise as his tongue vibrated in the back of his throat.

'He was shaking on the floor and his face was floppy so I pulled him up and called 999. The paramedics came and ran tests but he remained unconscious for about 40 minutes even though his heart rate was fine.

'They took him to hospital where he slept for an hour. His temperature was normal and he didn't have and fever symptoms so I was able to take him home.

'The on Wednesday he had another fit at 10.30am and he was rushed back to hospital where he stayed for 36 hours suffering dehydration.

On the mend: Ruby caught the bug after James and her mother is hoping she will be home soon

'Thankfully he's now getting better at home but my sister's daughter Ruby is still in hospital.'

Ms Cullum said she didn't know how James got the bug because her house is very clean and she makes sure his hygiene is good.

She said: 'Perhaps its from something he touched in the playground because we always go to the same one.'

Almost 90 people in Stoke-on-Trent alone have been struck down, prompting health chiefs to hold an emergency meeting.

There have also been unconfirmed reports of the condition as far apart as Preston, Lancashire and Cornwall.

Basildon Hospital did not comment on how many other people in the region had been stuck down.

Bacillary dysentery or shigellosis, the most common form of the illness in the UK, is caused by the shigella bacteria

NHS advice says that the spread of the disease can be prevented with proper handwashing

The NHS says the disease is spread by poor hygiene, when people with the illness do not wash their hands properly after going to the toilet.

WHAT IS DYSENTERY? Dysentery is an infection of the intestines. It causes diarrhoea that contains blood or mucus Other symptoms of dysentery can include painful stomach cramps, and nausea or vomiting The condition can also cause a high temperature of 38C or above, or 37.5C or above in children under five. There are two main types of dysentery: bacillary dysentery or shigellosis and amoebic dysentery or amoebiasis. Bacillary dysentry is the most common form in the UK, while amoebic dystentry is mostly found in tropical countries. Dysentery is highly infectious and can be passed on by ingesting the feces of an infected person. The infection normally clears up by itself within a week, and can be treated at home with plenty of fluids as well as oral rehydration solutions. Advertisement

The bug can be passed on by direct person-to-person contact, but can also be spread if germs are left behind on surfaces such as doorknobs and toilet handles.

In the UK, most outbreaks occur in places where people are in close contact, such as schools, workplaces, or within family groups.

In Stoke-on-Trent at least three schools have reported cases of the illness, prompting Public Health England to hold an emergency 'outbreak control meeting'.

They schools have been carrying out 'enhanced cleaning' and have brought in supervised hand-washing to help control the spread of the disease, which is highly-contagious.

Dr David Kirrage, consultant with PHE West Midlands Health Protection Team, told the Stoke Sentinel: 'Effective hand washing is also helpful in controlling norovirus and flu, which are also in circulation at this time of year and which could account for some of the cases we are seeing.

'So people should wash hands regularly and thoroughly with soap and warm water, particularly after using the toilet, changing children's nappies and before preparing or eating food.

'The schools have taken measures to reduce the risk of this infection being passed on including enhanced cleaning of communal areas and touch points, supervised hand washing, and ensuring children with symptoms do not return to school until they are free from the infection.'
After a 19-year-old successfully sued her parents to pay $16,000 of her college tuition to Temple University, an appellate court says parents can't legally be viewed as a grown child's wallet.

The opinion is in response to Caitlyn Ricci whose grandparents financed her lawsuit against her divorced parents Michael Ricci and Maura McGarvey.

The appellate court wrote: 'A parent cannot be viewed as a 'wallet' and deprived of involvement of college decision making process.'

Caitlyn Ricci sued her parents to pay $16,000 of her college tuition in 2014

Caitlyn's parents Maura McGarvey (left) and Michael Ricci (right) filed an appeal saying it was unconstitutional that divorced parents should have to pay for their child's college

'Once the issue of emancipation is decided, an obligation to pay college costs for an academically motivated un-emancipated child requires a two-fold analysis.'

'Despite these very well-intentioned purposes [of the first judge's decision], the threshold legal question of emancipation, which must precede any analysis, was not examined.'

The court said the obligation depends on whether or not the parents are involved in the college making decision and whether or not they can afford it according to NJ.com.

Caitlyn won the case in 2014 based off of the 1982 ruling of Newburgh vs Arrigo which states divorced parents are legally obligated to pay for their child's tuition.

Her parents appealed the ruling claiming it was unconstitutional and refused to pay. Once they refused, Caitlyn sued them for contempt of court.

'That's fine, they can hold me in contempt of court,' her father told ABC6 after this week's hearing. 'They can do whatever they want. I'm not going to pay. I'm not going to give them any money until my daughter has a relationship with me and we start to heal our family.'

Caitlyn's father (pictured with her during her high school graduation) said he wanted a relationship with his daughter before he would pay

McGarvey told the court that her daughter left after refusing to do chores and follow a curfew, which they enforced after she repeatedly got in trouble for underage drinking.

Caitlyn's grandparents helped her sue her mother (pictured) and father for tuition

But Caitlyn said she moved partly because of a dispute about taking a summer class.

McGarvey explained they had enforced the summer class as punishment for Caitlyn getting kicked out of the Disney College Program - paid for by her and her ex-husband - for underage drinking.

She moved in with her paternal grandparents in Cherry Hills, New Jersey and, despite their fallout, Maura said she tried to reach out to Caitlyn - sending her letters and writing her poems - but she never heard back.

The parents claim she also purchased a car when she left the family home and subsequently demanded the money through her lawyers.

They eventually tried to file for an emancipation but the day before Mothers' Day last year, papers from Caitlyn's attorneys arrived at their home.

The girl's grandparents - who have not spoken to their son in years - paid for her to get a lawyer to sue her parents.

McGarvey's attorney told the publication that Caitlyn has reconciled with her parents after the legal battle.
John Bercow stopped a Tory MP telling the Commons about a police probe into Keith Vaz after receiving tens of thousands of pounds worth of donations from his alleged associates, according to reports

John Bercow stopped a Tory MP telling the Commons about a police probe into Keith Vaz after receiving tens of thousands of pounds worth of donations from his alleged associates, according to a newspaper report.

Donations to help the Speaker keep his parliamentary seat reportedly included a sum from Narinder Chadha - chair of the management board of Mr Vaz's Silver Star charity.

However a spokesperson for Mr Vaz told MailOnline the newspaper's story was 'wrong' and that Mr Chadha denies having spoken 'this year' to The Times.

The newspaper reported an alleged conversation with Mr Chada in which he is said to have confirmed that he gave the money after a request from the MP for Leicester East.

Mr Vaz's representatives deny this saying that Mr Chada will be complaining to IPSO over the Times article.

In total, the Speaker accepted 41,000 from donors thought to be linked to Mr Vaz, according to the newspaper.

The Times claimed Mr Bercow refused to tell Mr Vaz to resign as chair of the Home Affairs select committee after Tory MP Andrew Bridgen privately warned him the Labour MP was being investigated by police - an investigation Mr Vaz later said he knew nothing of in September 2015.

The Speaker later interrupted Mr Bridgen when he attempted to talk about the allegation in the Commons, according to The Times.

A spokesperson for the Speaker told the MailOnline that 'a personally defamatory attack on another Member[ was not allowed] on the floor. The Speaker allowed....[Mr Bridger to speak] on matters of public record, and stopped him when he sought to embark on other allegations, and again when he sought to reveal the contents of confidential correspondence with the Speaker.'

Mr Vaz did eventually step down as chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee last year after he was caught meeting two male prostitutes.

This scandal was said to be unrelated to the police investigation in 2015.

A spokesman for Mr Bercow said the role of Speaker did not give him the right to tell an elected member of a select committee to step down.

Mr Vaz's representatives said Mr Chadha had not spoken to The Times and called the claims in its article 'wrong'.

All the other people who gave money to Mr Bercow told The Times they had not been told to do so by Mr Vaz.

Donations to help the Speaker keep his parliamentary seat included a payout from Narinder Chadha - chair of the management board of Mr Vaz's (pictured) Silver Star charity

They also denied the donors listed by The Times were 'associates' of the Labour MP or they donated to Mr Bercow because he told them to do so.

There is no suggestion in The Times investigation Mr Bercow or Mr Vaz broke any rules.

Mr Vaz now sits on the Justice Committee, which oversees the director of public prosecutions.

After his appointment on October 1, 2016, Mr Bridgen spoke in the Commons to claim police were investigating claims Mr Vaz could have 'abused his position in public office'.

The Speaker interrupted the Tory MP twice, saying he was discussing information that was not in the public domain.

A spokesman from the Speaker told MailOnline: 'All of the donations to the Speaker Seeking Re-Election campaign were from eligible donors, and are a matter of longstanding public record.

The Times claimed Mr Bercow refused to tell Mr Vaz to resign as chair of the Home Affairs select committee after Tory MP Andrew Bridgen privately warned him the Labour MP was being investigated over an alleged abuse of public office in September 2015

'There was absolutely no impropriety of any sort before or after any donation from any individual was accepted.

'To suggest that this is not the case would not only be a wholly unfair impaction it would be, and is, demonstrably unproved and, more importantly completely and utterly untrue.'

Referring to Mr Bridgen's speech, the representative said Mr Bercow had allowed him to speak on 'matters of public record'.

But she added: 'The Speaker topped him when he sought to embark on other allegations, and again when he sought to reveal the contents of confidential correspondence with the Speaker as per the longstanding rules.'

The spokesman also said Mr Bercow was not allowed to publish correspondence on a sensitive matter between him and another MP.

Mr Vaz said: 'The British Asian community should not be criticised for making lawful political donations to political parties or to individual MPs. They are entitled to make their own decisions.

'I am not surprised that they choose to donate to people like Speaker Bercow or Theresa May who are greatly admired by the community for their commitment to equality and diversity.

'In the 30 years I have been in Parliament I have observed that the British Asian community have moved from just supporting the Labour Party to supporting other political parties.

'This is a sign of the diversity of our country and the strength and confidence of the community. Long may it continue.'
Princess Alix of Hesse (left) was the wife of doomed Russian Tsar Nicholas II (right)

A precious gift of Faberge cutlery sent from the last Empress of Russia is to go up for auction.

The set belonged to Princess Alix of Hesse, wife of the last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II.

In 1894 she travelled to Harrogate in North Yorkshire, seeking a cure for her sciatica at the town's famous baths.

There Princess Alix stayed at Cathcart House, a boarding house in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, then owned by a Mrs Allen.

While the princess was staying there Mrs Allen gave birth to twins, a girl and a boy.

The Russian royal took their arrival as a good omen for her upcoming marriage to the soon-to-be Tsar Nicholas II.

She asked to be godmother to the twins and that they be named Alix and Nicholas.

Afterwards she maintained a close relationship with her godchildren and regularly sent them gifts.

Princess Alix was made godmother to Mrs Allen's twins, and regularly sent them extravagant gifts like this enamelled box of Faberge cutlery

The Russian Royal asked to be godmother after taking the twins' birth as a good omen

One of the remarkable reminders of their friendships was a fabulous boxed set of Faberge cutlery.

Two identical boxed sets were sent to the Allen twins as a first birthday present and the box being sold is the one sent to young Alix.

The set of champleve-enamelled cutlery was stored in a bank for many years - and as a result is still in immaculate condition.

Now they're set to be sold, on March 2, at an auction house in Christchurch, Dorset.

The legendary jewelry firm Faberge was founded in St Petersburg, Russia in 1842

The detail in Faberge designs have made them some of Russia's most precious artifacts

Delighted auctioneer Kate Howe recalled her surprise when the set turned up during an ordinary valuation day.

She said: 'Amongst all the tea sets and framed prints was this beautiful object - and we couldn't quite believe what we were seeing.'

Also in the sale is a family scrapbook containing many fascinating letters and news clippings of the time documenting the Russian Royal connection to the Allen family and Cathcart House.

Who was Russia's last Tsarina? This painting shows the extravagant wedding of Nicholas and Alexandra in 1894 Alexandra Feodorovna was born in 1872 in Darmstadt, Germany. She was one of Queen Victoria's grandchildren and spent many holidays with her British cousins. In 1894 she married Tsar Nicholas II, despite the union not being popular at the royal court. After the wedding Alix took on the name Alexandra Feodorovna to be accepted into the Russian Orthodox Church. Alexandra also allegedly carried the 'royal disease' haemophilia. Her only son, Alexei was infected with the sickness. Desperate to heal her son, she turned to the infamous mystic Rasputin, who claimed to be able to 'cure' him through hypnosis. During the Russian Revolution in 1917 Alexandra was placed under house arrest. In 1918 she was murdered along with entire family by the Bolsheviks. Advertisement

The book includes two hand-written letters signed by Carl Faberge, telegrams from Queen Alexandra to Princess Victoria who also stayed at Cathcart House at the time and other fascinating documents.

Interest in the set is expected to be high and the auction house estimate is between 8,000 and 10,000.
Scottish protesters demonstrated their opposition to US President Donald Trump in their own unique way.

Signs at a protest in Edinburgh today referenced popular film Trainspotting, and accused him of 'talkin' mince without a tattie in sight'.

The large crowd took part in a rally outside the Scottish Parliament protesting against the 45th President of the USA, whose mother Mary Anne hailed from the Highlands.

'Yer heid's full o'mince ya blethering bigot' proclaimed one of the signs at the rally in Edinburgh today

One of the signs proclaimed 'Awa'an boil yer heed', while another one branded him a 'walloper'

The protest was organised by protest group Scotland Against Trump

One of the signs referenced popular Scottish film Trainspotting, urging people to 'choose resistance'

The colourful march organised by lobby group Scotland Against Trump, and marchers travelled from the Meadows before passing the Royal Mile and continuing over the North Bridge.

They had expected to protest outside the US Consulate, but were stopped from passing the building by police.

Organisers said people had been brought in by bus from the major cities in Scotland.

The protest group made its opposition to Trump - who is half Scottish - clear

One protester mocked the 45th President of the United States by painting his face orange

The event included speeches by human rights groups, trade union representatives and anti-racism campaigners.

After arriving at the Scottish Parliament, a series of speakers spoke against the US president.

In a statement, Scotland Against Trump said: 'Trump is the apex of an insurgency of an international far-right.

'We will resist. We are the majority. We are ready to make our voice heard.'

Not Trump fans: The demonstrators showed their opposition to the Trump administration

One sign at today's rally in Edinburgh stated: 'Down with this sort of thing'
A comprehensive school that once banned flapjacks is to allow well-behaved pupils to leave ten minutes earlier than those who have been naughty in class.

For the first time in the UK, good pupils will go home at 2.50pm while others will be made to wait until the bell rings at 3pm for the 'second dismissal' it emerged on Saturday.

Teachers hope the new behavioural technique will encourage students to make 'the right decisions, every lesson of the day'.

The Castle View School in Canvey Island, Essex will test the initiative next Monday after half-term

The Castle View School in Canvey Island, Essex, is behind the controversial move, which is set to be rolled out when pupils return from half term on February 20.

In a letter to parents explaining the system, the school, rated 'good' by Ofsted, said: 'Our second dismissal system is designed to ensure students have an instant consequence that can be put right at the end of the day and start afresh the next day.'

But parents raised concern over the new system, claiming it could cause problems picking up their children.

One said: 'They might think it's just ten minutes but I struggle to get to the school gates for 3pm as it is.

'I'm not the only one and it's going to mean children are hanging around outside unnecessarily.

'I think it's great they want to praise good behaviour but I don't really know how much difference this is really going to make.'

Another noted: 'I've got two children at the school. Does this mean I've got to get there for 2.50pm and then sit around waiting for my other child if they're not both on their best behaviour?

Naughty students will have to stay ten minutes longer in class than their well behaved peers

'We haven't been told much about this so we don't know if the time our kids are leaving could change on a daily or weekly basis.

'It sounds like it will be a nightmare knowing what time we need to get there on each day.'

A third added: 'It's got good intentions but I don't think it will really work.

'I can't see many of them thinking it's a punishment hanging around for a few minutes longer.'

Teachers previously banned triangular flapjacks in 2013 to avoid children getting injured after a boy was hit in the face by one in an 'isolated incident'.

The academy trust school has about 1,100 students aged 11 to 16, who start their day at 8.30am with lessons starting 20 minutes later.

Teachers previously banned triangular flapjacks in 2013 to avoid children getting injured after a boy was hit in the face by one in an 'isolated incident'

An NUT official said he had not heard of a school doing this before, but that it was 'not that innovative' if it was just another way of giving detentions.

Jerry Glazier, general secretary of the Essex branch of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) said: 'Then again, perhaps it is not that innovative if most pupils are leaving at the normal time and the rest are getting detentions.

'It is up to schools to determine what rewards or sanctions they want to use to motivate pupils.'

Michelle Doyle Wildman, policy and communications director at PTA UK, which represents parents and teacher associations, said: 'PTA UK's position would be that its really important that parents are fully informed and preferably consulted on any changes to arrangements to the beginning and end of the school day.

'The best schools do see parents as key partners and will consider how they approach things from a parent and family perspective.

'This is especially relevant to parents juggling work and additional caring responsibilities.'
Patricia Lashley went missing from Dudley near Wolverhampton in 1998. The family of the mother-of-seven have now put out a fresh appeal hoping to find her

The family of a mother-of-seven who went missing in 1998 have issued a fresh appeal to trace her - and introduce her to her newborn granddaughter.

West Midlands Police and relatives of Patricia Lashley hope new information from the public could assist the ongoing investigation into her disappearance.

Ms Lashley - known to friends as Pat or Jade - was last seen at her flat in Hall Street, Dudley, but was known to have links to Newcastle, London, Wales and Scotland.

She moved to Dudley three years before her disappearance and was known to frequent the town's No Limits club and pubs in the area.

Despite officers carrying out a series of searches and trawling through a mass of information they are still to trace Ms Lashley - who would now be aged 51 and may also have used the surname Bradford and first names Jade, Vanessa or Tricia.

Detective Inspector Richard Jones, from Dudley Police, said: 'We believe people may remember Pat as she was very well known locally and be able to provide new and important information.

'It may be that she confided in a friend and shared plans for leaving the area.

Ms Lashley's eldest son hopes to find his mother and introduce her to his newborn daughter Shakira. He said: 'I would love my mum to meet her granddaughter after all this time'

'We have not heard from her in over 18 years, she has not appeared on any government systems, claimed any benefits or used any bank accounts.

'We don't know where she is now and we need the help of the public.

'The one thing we do know is that Pat's sister and children were distressed and bewildered by her disappearance and even today still desperately want to know what has happened to her.'

Ms Lashley's eldest son Sinan, who lives in Glastonbury, Somerset, said he hopes to be able to introduce her to his baby daughter Shakira, who was born just before Christmas.

He said: 'I would love for mum to meet her granddaughter after all this time; family is so important to us.

'There is a big hole which can't be filled even after all this time.'

The last description of Patricia, who has a Geordie accent, is white, 5ft 4ins, slim, with mousy brown hair.

Anyone with relevant information is urged to call the Dudley Neighbourhood Policing Unit on 101
A year and a half after a gunman shot and killed a TV anchor and camera man, the anchor's boyfriend, who was also a reporter, decided to step down.

Chris Hurst watched his girlfriend, Alison Parker, as she was shot to death during a live television broadcast.

The co-anchor of Roanoke, Virginia's WDBJ-TV's 6pm news appeared in his final broadcast Thursday, and has announced he intends to run for public office, reported the Richmond Times.

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Chris Hurst (right) watched his girlfriend, Alison Parker (left), as she was shot to death during a live television broadcast

Hurst (pictured) is the co-anchor of Roanoke, Virginia's WDBJ-TV's 6pm news, and appeared in his final broadcast Thursday, and has announced he intends to run for public office

He told viewers: 'My life changed dramatically on August 26, 2015, when Alison Parker and Adam Ward were killed while reporting a story live on this station.

'It was forever altered because, as you know, Alison was more than just my colleague. We were in love and planning our future together.

'In one moment, my life, my direction, and my mission changed forever.'

Parker was interviewing Vicki Gardner, the executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake chamber of commerce, at approximately 6:45am Wednesday morning when gunman Vester Lee Flanagan II approached and started shooting at the two women and Ward.

Hurst (right) told viewers that he and Alison Parker (left) were in love, and were planning their lives together when she was tragically shot and killed

The interview was being aired live so tens of thousands of homes were tuned in as the massacre unfolded.

Parker, 24, and Ward, 27, were pronounced dead at the scene but Gardner, 41, survived after suffering a bullet wound to her back.

After the attack, gunman Flanagan fled the Smith Mountain Lake area in his Ford Mustang. He switched that car for one he rented a month earlier at the airport and then headed east.

Parker (left) was interviewing Vicki Gardner, the executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake chamber of commerce, at approximately 6:45am Wednesday morning when gunman Vester Lee Flanagan II approached and started shooting at the two women and Ward (right)

Alison Parker, 24, (left) and Adam Ward, 27, (right) were pronounced dead at the scene

While being pursued by police, Flanagan, who was a former coworker of both Parker and Ward, posted several tweets detailing his grudges against Parker and Ward and a graphic video showing his point of view during the murders.

Gunman Vester Lee Flanagan II (pictured) was a former coworker of Parker and ward, and a former on-air reporter for WDBJ

Police finally cornered Flanagan about five hours later and he committed suicide.

Hurst openly shared his grief on air, and has not yet disclosed what office he is considering seeking.

'Because of you, this community, and your love and support, I have been able to face each day with the hope that it does get better,' he told his viewers.

'You held my hand as I walked through the wilderness, and I'm connected more to humanity than I ever though possible. For that, I thank you.'

Parker's parents have also stated new interest in public policy following the murder of their daughter.

Calling it his 'mission in live, Parker's father told Fox News that he would fight for gun legislation that closes loopholes and ensures background checks.

In the wake of the shooting, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe called for stricter gun laws, restating his support for background checks.
Brian Golsby (pictured), 29, was arrested Saturday on charges of aggravated murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery, Grove City police said

A convicted sex offender released from prison in November has been charged in the shooting death of a 21-year-old Ohio State University student, two days after she was shot dead and her nude body was found near a public park.

Brian Golsby, 29, was arrested Saturday on charges of aggravated murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery in Reagan Tokes' death, Grove City police said.

Reagan was last seen leaving work at Columbus restaurant Bodega Wednesday night.

Her nude body was found Thursday near the main entrance to Scioto Grove Metro Park, around 15 minutes' drive south of Bodega.

Tokes grew up outside Toledo and was a fourth-year psychology major at Ohio State.

Police said they arrested Golsby after finding Tokes' car near his Columbus residence and matching his DNA with evidence gathered in and around the car.

Golsby pleaded guilty in 2011 to Franklin County robbery and attempted rape charges.

Reagan Tokes (pictured left next to her sister) was last seen leaving work at a Columbus restaurant Wednesday. Her nude body was found Thursday near a park entrance in Grove City

The student (with boyfriend Jake Hadley left and her parents right) had a car, but it is missing. CCTV showed her going toward the car as she left work, but not whether she reached it

Reagan's family has now started a Go Fund Me, hoping to create a scholarship in her name to help a student attend her or his dream school.

He sister Makenzie said in a heartbroken tweet Friday: 'The fact that our teachers from middle school are calling just shows how much of an impression you made on them. Everyone loves you.'

A service for Reagan has been planned at Maumee United Methodist Tuesday and Wednesday.

Her body was found around 100-150 yards from the park's entrance by a passerby, who called police at around 1:10 pm, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

Police said at the time it was unclear whether she was shot there, or if she was killed elsewhere and her body dumped.

However, no shell casings were found in an initial search of the park, an officer said.

On Wednesday Makenzie, told The Tab that the psychology student had been seen approaching her car on security cameras, but it wasn't clear whether she reached the vehicle.

She also said the last message delivered to Reagan's phone was sent at 10:30 pm. There was no reply.

'She was supposed to contact us after her shift last night and did not,' Makenzie said. 'We assumed she went home and slept but we werent able to get through her phone this morning and her roommates said she didnt come home.

'I reached out to her roommates this afternoon to find out they hadn't seen her or heard from her since before her shift last night.'

A service for Reagan (pictured) has been planned at Maumee United Methodist Tuesday and Wednesday. Her family now hopes to create a scholarship in her name

Reagan's friends and sister shared tribute to her online saying how much they loved the student (pictured) and how much her death pained them

Her sister Makenzie tweeted this photo of herself and Reagan as children with their father early Wednesday night, with a message implying that something awful had happened

Her nude body was found Thursday near the main entrance to Scioto Grove Metro Park, around 15 minutes' drive south of Bodega (police are pictured at the scene)

On Thursday evening Makenzie tweeted: 'You hear about these things on the news but you never think it could happen. I love you with all my heart gee gee.'

Later, she tweeted Donald Trump with the message: 'Security is a major issue if my sister was killed leaving her job last night. Please do all you can to keep us safe.'

She wasn't the only one paying tribute to the slain student. Reagan's uncle, Jamie Tokes, previously shared a heartbreaking update on Facebook after the body was found.

'Thank you all for your prayers and support for my beautiful niece/god daughter Reagan Tokes that went missing at OSU last night,' he wrote. 'This afternoon, her body was found.

'Words can't express the pain we are feeling as a family.'

Reagan's friends also spoke of their love for her. Twitter user Maddie wrote: 'I am hearbroken and sick to my stomach. rest in peace Reagan. prayers to the Tokes family. heaven gained an angel.'

A girl named Amber tweeted: 'Rip beautiful, love you lots. this can not be real.'

Steph Fragale, a friend of Reagan's who had tried to get the word out about the missing student on Wednesday, tweeted: 'Absolutely heartbroken.'

And Jordyn Cousino simply said: 'I love you @reaganstokes.'
Life of sailors from BBC Caribbean vessel captured by pirates in Nigeria not in danger

The life of sailors from the BBC Caribbean ship captured by pirates in Nigeria is not in danger, the consulate department of Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has reported.

"The state of captured sailors from the BBC Caribbean ship is satisfactory, and there is no danger to their lives and health," the consulate department said on Twitter on Saturday.

As reported, on February 8 the Russian Embassy in Nigeria reported that pirates captured seven Russian sailors and one Ukrainian sailor: the BBC Caribbean cargo vessel was attacked in the territorial waters of Nigeria by pirates. Seven Russian citizens and one Ukrainian citizen from the vessel were captured.

  
Mystery surrounds the death of a successful doctor who was found shot, stabbed and strangled inside his waterfront mansion in 2014 as his family has been torn apart in the battle over his $30million fortune.

Steven Schwartz, 74, was killed in his waterfront mansion in Tarpon Spring, and Anton Stragaj, the handyman who helped maintain the doctor's numerous rental properties, was charged with first degree murder.

But Stragaj claims he was set up by Schwartz's wife Rebecca Schwartz, and the victim's three children are now suing both of them for conspiring to murder their father for financial gain, WTSP reported.

Steven Schwartz, 74, a successful doctor with a $30million fortune was brutally murdered inside his waterfront mansion in Florida

His wife Rebecca Schwartz initially called 911 on May 28, 2014, reporting that their mansion had been burgled. Responding police found the doctor in a pool of blood inside

Months later, Stragaj's DNA was found on the doctor's clothing, and he was charged with the murder

Rebecca Schwartz initially called 911 on May 28, 2014, reporting that the mansion on 1310 Belcher Drive where she lived with Steven Schwartz had been burgled.

In the audio recording, she told dispatchers: 'I just walked into my house and somebody robbed my house.

She went on to say: 'I mean, I had a lot of cash. It's gone. And I mean, some of my jewelry is gone.'

Rebecca Schwartz was told to wait outside, and when police arrived at the home, they found the 74-year-old doctor lying in a pool of his own blood.

Stragaj, who was arrested and charged with the murder, claims he was set up by Rebecca Schwartz.

Pictured, evidence inside the mansion. Steven Schwartz was shot, stabbed and strangled

In an interview with 48 Hours, Stragaj said Rebecca Schwartz set him up, asking if he could pick up her purse, which she left at the home

In an interview with 48 Hours, he said Rebecca Schwartz appeared at his home earlier that morning, and asked if he could pick up her purse, which she left at her home.

While Rebecca Schwartz drove to her son's house, Stragaj headed to the mansion, and found the doctor's body at the bottom of a staircase near the garage.

Stragaj, who was born in Albania, said: 'I touched the man and I'm trying to see if he's alive or if he's hurt or what's going on.'

When he realized Steven Schwartz was dead, however, he didn't call the police, saying he was worried about his future prospects of getting a green card since immigration officials warned him about staying out of trouble.

He found Rebecca Schwartz's purse, which he said had a knife inside, and confronted her at her son's home.

Months later, Stragaj's DNA was found on the doctor's clothing, and he was charged with the murder.

A lawsuit filed by the doctor's three children from his first marriage, Casey Schwartz, Kelly Ma and Carter Schwartz, claim Rebecca Schwartz stole their father's money

The lawsuit claims both Stragaj and Rebecca Schwartz (right) conspired to murder their father for financial gain

To complicate matters, it was revealed Steven Schwartz had been convicted of murder before he went on to become a well-respected doctor

But he pined the blame on Rebecca Schwartz, and said: 'She asked me to find someone to kill Dr. Schwartz'.

While Rebecca Schwartz was once listed as a suspect, she was never charged. Her lawyer told 48 Hours there was no evidence tying her to the murder.

But a lawsuit filed by the doctor's three children from his first marriage, Casey Schwartz, Kelly Ma and Carter Schwartz, claim Rebecca Schwartz stole their father's money.

'Both prior to and after marriage, Defendent, Rebecca A. Schwartz, had been fraudulently siphoning significant sums of money from Steven P. Schwartz's accounts into accounts under her control,' the lawsuit states.

It also claims she threatened members of the doctor's office staff not to tell their boss.

Money was a source of tension, and Steven Schwartz had threatened to divorce his second wife over her spending habits and 'personal misappropriations of money' the lawsuit states.

While the lawsuit does not explicitly point to Steven Schwartz's past, it claims Rebecca Schwartz threatened to expose 'information important to his reputation in the community'

To complicate matters, it was revealed Steven Schwartz had been convicted of murder when he was in his early 20s, years before he went on to become a well-respected doctor.

While the lawsuit does not explicitly point to Steven Schwartz's past, it claims Rebecca Schwartz threatened to expose 'information important to his reputation in the community'.

In return the doctor changed his estate plan to 'benefit her rather than his natural children', the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also alleges Rebecca Schwartz and Stragaj had a 'close personal relationship' that she offered him both 'financial and non-financial compensation' to help murder the doctor.

The children's layer Wil Florin told WTSP Rebecca Schwartz is now buying planes and homes for her own sons from a previous marriage and has a new boyfriend.
One man was murdered and another left fighting for his life after a double stabbing incident which happened at separate homes in the same town.

The bizarre attacks were discovered when police were called to one property and found a man with life-threatening injuries.

As a result of inquires they then went to another house several streets away where they found the body of a 59-year-old man.

Police are investigating a double stabbing incident in Slough after one man as left fighting for his life and another dead in close succession. After initially finding a man with life threatening injuries they made their way to a second house nearby, finding a 59-year-old man dead

Detectives confirmed that they were treating the incident as murder although they did not reveal any more details about the two men involved.

The attacks happened in Slough, Berkshire and police said that no arrests had been made in connection with the stabbings.

However, they did say that they did not believe a third person was involved.

A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said: 'We have launched a murder investigation after a man was found with stab wounds inside a property in Slough.

'Police officers were called to reports of a man with stab wounds in Lower Cippenham Lane at 5.43pm on Friday evening. The man was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.

'As a result of further inquiries police officers then attended a property in Lewins Way where they discovered a second man with stab wounds. Sadly, the man, aged 59 years, found inside the property in Lewins Way was pronounced dead at the scene.'

Police say that they are not searching for anyone else involved in the incident.Detective Chief Inspector Ailsa Kent said: 'I believe that the only two people involved were the man who is currently under police supervision in hospital and the man who sadly died inside the property in Lewins Way'

Detective Chief Inspector Ailsa Kent, of the Major Crime Unit at Thames Valley Police, said: 'This is undoubtedly a distressing incident which will have caused concern within the local community.

'At this stage of the investigation no arrests have been made. However I believe that the only two people involved were the man who is currently under police supervision in hospital and the man who sadly died inside the property in Lewins Way. I am confident there is no risk to the wider public.

'Members of the public will see a particular increase in police presence in Lewins Way where we are continuing to examine the scene and in Lower Cippenham Lane where officers are carrying out house-to-house inquiries and reviewing CCTV footage.

'The deceased's next of kin has been informed, although the man is yet to be positively identified at this time. A post mortem examination is likely to take place tomorrow.'
Record-breaking sailor Alex Thomson has been welcomed back on dry land after he came second in the Vendee Globe solo round-the-world yacht race.

The Welshman, 42, was beaten by Frenchman Armel Le Cleac'h by just 16 hours.

Thomson completed the round-the-world trip in 74 days, 19 hours and 35 minutes, but was slowed down by equipment issues.

Record-breaking sailor Alex Thomson was welcomed back to his home town of Gosport, Hampshire, after he came second in the Vendee Globe solo round-the-world yacht race. Pictured, Thomson with his son Oscar

During the race he set a new world record for the most distance sailed solo in 24 hours.

He also broke his own 80-day record to become the fastest Briton to sail solo around the world in a monohull.

He was welcomed back to his home town of Gosport, Hampshire, travelling down the Solent in his 3.5 million Hugo Boss boat and into Portsmouth Harbour.

He was beaten by Frenchman Armel Le Cleac'h by just 16 hours, finishing the race in 74 days, 19 hours and 35 minutes. Thomson's second place matched the Ellen MacArthur's 2001 achievement

The sailor was followed by a flotilla of boats.

He said: 'I am always overwhelmed by the support I receive from my local community, but today has been particularly special.

'I'm truly honoured that these crowds came out to celebrate not only my achievement, but also the work of my team both before and during the race, today is as much a day for them as it is for me and it is something none of us will ever forget.

'It was brilliant, and lovely to be able to bring the boat back to its home port and home town of Gosport and to be able to show it off a little bit, it was really great.'

Early on in the race the father-of-two's carbon fibre boat hit an unidentified object submerged in the water, causing his starboard foil to break.

Thomson (centre) sailed into harbour on a 3.5 million Hugo Boss boat and was followed by a flotilla of boats. He was hampered by equipment failure early on in the gruelling race

Wind issues on the boat meant that his autopilot stopped working properly.

Alex Thomson Racing chief executive Stewart Hosford said: 'We are incredibly proud of what Alex has achieved and are delighted to see the tremendous support from our local community.

'An achievement such as this is the result of four years of extremely hard work and preparation from both Alex and the team behind the scenes and it is fantastic to be able to celebrate such a fantastic result.'

The Vendee Globe, a race dubbed the 'Everest of sailing', has never been won by a Brit.

Thomson matched the result of Dame Ellen MacArthur, who came second in 2001.

Thomson and Oscar wave to the crowd as he docks in Hampshire. He said: 'I am always overwhelmed by the support I receive from my local community, but today has been particularly special'

Competitors have to compete alone at sea without stopping, setting foot on dry land, or receiving any form of assistance for almost three months - pushing sailors to their limits.

Thomson said he might take part in the race in four years time and confirmed his wife Kate has given him permission.

He added: 'It is down to whether we can put together the right package and get the right people on board and put together a credible campaign.

'I need to make sure we can put something together that is very competitive - obviously this time the only one result which we are looking for would be first.

'We have got to go through that and obviously in the next few months hopefully we can start moving forwards with that.'
Jamie Lynn Spears' 8-year-old daughter was seen leaving the hospital on Friday with bruises still visible on her neck after she nearly died in an ATV accident.

Maddie held hands with both her step-dad Jamie Watson and her mother, who wore a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants with bright yellow socks, as they headed home.

Maddie spent two minutes submerged under water after the ATV she was driving flipped into her family's pond in Kentwood, Louisiana, on Sunday.

Jamie Lynn Spears' 8-year-old daughter Maddie (pictured) was seen leaving the hospital on Friday with bruises still visible on her neck after she nearly died in an ATV accident

Speares, who wore a baggy t-shirt, sweatpants, and bright yellow socks, smiled as she held her daughter's hand

Pictured, Maddie walking in between her parents. Both Spears and her step-dad Jamie Watson had desperately tried to save her after the ATV she was driving flipped into a pond

Her mother also posted a photo on Instagram of her family on a New Orleans Children's Hospital helicopter ready to go home.

'Thanks to the amazing first responders, and medical teams at University and Children's Hospital in New Orleans, LA, we are headed home with our baby girl as she continues to recover,' Jamie Lynn wrote.

'Above all else we are so thankful for each and every prayer, because we know that is what truly made the difference. Thank you again to everyone. We are truly blessed.'

Maddie had been driving the Polaris ATV when she swerved to avoid a drainage ditch and flipped into the pond.

The ATV immediately went under - trapping her underneath, according to the police report.

Maddie swerved to avoid a drainage ditch and was trapped under water by her safety belt during the accident on Sunday. She didn't regain consciousness until Tuesday

JJamie Lynn posted a photo (above) of the pair on Friday in the hospital helicopter

Both Spears and Watson fought desperately to free their daughter from her safety belt, and the girl was eventually rescued by paramedics who arrived a couple minutes later.

Maddie was airlifted to the hospital where she remained in a critical but stable condition for several days.

Maddie finally regained consciousness and was surrounded by family who stayed by her hospital bed following the accident.

The ATV had been a gift for her 7th birthday, TMZ reported. The website said that Maddie should never have been riding the vehicle as she was under the age of 10.

The ATV had been a gift for her 7th birthday, TMZ reported. The website said that Maddie should never have been riding the vehicle as she was under the age of 10

Jamie Lynn posted a photo on Instagram of them on a New Orleans Children's Hospital helicopter ready to go home saying they were truly blessed

Maddie's aunt Britney Spears rejoiced on Twitter that the little girl was able to go home

Britney and Jamie Lynn's mother Lynne, 61, took to Facebook to thank God for her granddaughter's miracle recovery

Maddie's popstar aunt Britney Spears rejoiced on Twitter that the little girl was able to go home.

'So grateful that Maddie was able to go home today... it's truly a miracle. Our prayers were heard, and they were answered! Thank you so much for all your love and support this week. My family appreciates it more than you will ever know,' she tweeted.

Britney and Jamie Lynn's mother Lynne, 61, took to Facebook to thank God for her granddaughter's miracle recovery.

'Sometimes I just look up, smile and say, 'I know that was you, God. Thank you!' her post read.

Her caption read: '#soblesssed #somuchbetter'.

The entire incident took place in front of Maddie's horrified mother, Jamie Lynn and her husband Jamie Watson (pictured with his wife and step-daughter)

Maddie (left and with mom Jamie Lynn, right) woke up on Tuesday after her devastating ATV accident at the weekend

Britney posted a plea for 'wishes and prayers' on Twitter after the accident and confirmed her niece was improving in a follow up tweet.

'We are so grateful to share that Maddie is making progress. Thank you all for sending thoughts and prayers out way. Let's all keep praying,' she wrote.

Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards said the accident occurred shortly before 3pm on Sunday at the family's home.

Maddie's aunt is singer Britney Spears who thanked fans for their prayers on Wednesday and revealed the little girl was 'making progress'
It is a tradition that the hunters of Kazakhstan have kept alive for the last 4,000 years.

And in the south-eastern corner of the country, a group of 'berkutchi' took part in their annual eagle hunt.

The men train the giant birds, who are used to swoop down and snatch corsac foxes and rabbits in the barren countryside near Almaty.

Groups of hunters, or berkutchi, train eagles and use them to hunt foxes and rabbits in the Kazakh countryside. Pictured, an eagle swoops down and catches a corsac fox

The tradition of hunting with eagles has been maintained by Kazakhs for the last 4,000 years

During the hunt, the men track the animals' footprints in the fresh snow and use the eagles to catch their prey.

The hunters, wrapped up in furs and traditional clothing, stand and watch from the rocks and trees as the birds make the kill.

The enormous birds of prey stand out in the grey sky as they look for their targets.

The Kazakh eagle is one of the world's fiercest, with a wingspan of 6.6 ft, razor-sharp talons and the ability to dive at the speed of an express train, up to 190 mph.

There are only about 50 professional eagle hunters, called berkutchi in Kazakh, in the whole country

The Corsac fox is native to Central Asia and their silver fur blends in with the icy landscape

The Corsac fox is native to Central Asia and their silver fur blends in with the icy landscape.

Many in Kazakhstan see eagle hunting as a romanticised symbol of their nation's nomadic past.

There are only about 50 professional eagle hunters, called berkutchi in Kazakh, in the whole country.

Since the oil boom in the early nineties, young Kazakhs have looked to eagle hunting as a way to connect with their country's traditions

The Kazakh eagle is one of the world's fiercest, with a wingspan of 6.6 ft, razor-sharp talons and the ability to dive at the speed of an express train, up to 190 mph

The hunters usually gather on the border with China to compete over whose eagle is the best.

After decades of economic growth, Kazakhstan has transformed itself from a sleepy Soviet backwater into a modern consumer society.

Since the oil boom in the early nineties, young Kazakhs have looked to eagle hunting as a way to connect with their country's traditions.

Speaking in 2009, museum curator Dinara Serikbayeva said: 'Kids once again think it's cool. It's an essential part of our nomadic ancestry and we are extremely proud of it.'

Between 1990 and 2009, the number of eagles in the village of Nura grew from two to 30.

Hunter Baurzhan Yeshmetov said in 2009: 'Hunting is my life. The eagle is my life.'
The man has been seen walking around the town Hitler was born in, with his moustache

Austrian authorities are investigating after several people spotted a man dressed as Adolf Hitler strolling through the birthplace of the Nazi dictator.

The man is said to be sporting the distinctive moustache, as well as the haircut and clothing as he walks through Braunau am Inn, in the former Austria-Hungary.

The Oberoesterreichische Nachrichten paper quoted a resident as saying: 'I have often seen this gentlemen in Braunau and wonder if this means something.'

Prosecutors confirmed reports of the strange sighting.

The man, estimated to be 25 to 30 years old, was last seen in a local bookstore browsing through magazines about World War Two, adding he had identified himself in a local bar as 'Harald Hitler'.

On at least one occasion, he was photographed in front of the house where Hitler was born.

Austria's parliament voted in December to buy the three-storey house where Hitler was born, which the government has rented since 1972 to control how it is used.

The house Hitler was born in was bought by Austria's parliament so that they could regulate the usage. The man is thought to have been photographed outside it at least once

Glorifying Hitler or the Nazis is a crime in Austria, which Nazi Germany annexed in 1938.

Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn in 1889.
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Tiffany Trump and her mother Marla Maples hit the city to attend New York Fashion Week.

The mother-daughter pair were spotted front row at Taoray Wang's runway show at Skylight Clarkson Square on Saturday. Tiffany was also accompanied by her boyfriend, Ross Mechanic.

The Chinese fashion designer made Tiffany's white dress and matching coat she wore for Donald Trump's inauguration last month. The ensemble was said to be worth around $2,500-$3,700.

Wang said she gave the 23-year-old the outfit as a gift, but the designer has stated she 'is not political.' She seems to be Tiffany's go-to designer as she was previously seen clad in her clothing during presidential debates

Marla Maples and Tiffany Trump attend the Taoray Wang collection during, New York Fashion Week on Saturday

The mother-daughter pair were spotted front row. Tiffany was also accompanied by her boyfriend, Ross Mechanic.

Wang said the daughter of Donald Trump and Marla Maples has been a 'supporter since a long time before the election'

'I think Tao's aesthetic is just unparalleled. She puts so much effort into the slightest detail,' Tiffany told The Hollywood Reporter.

Wang said the first daughter has been a 'supporter since a long time before the election,' and has ordered pieces before attending Wang's show in 2016.

Tiffany was dressed in Wang's designs during one of the presidential debates. Her interest in the designer drew criticism because of Donald Trump's remarks against China.

The blonde did comment on anything regarding politics and her father.

She added: 'We talked a lot and I think now she really knows my style, so we work closely together.'

The president's daughter plans to stick around the city saying she will attend other New York Fashion Week shows.

Taoray Wang designed Tiffany's white dress and matching coat for Donald Trump's inauguration last month. The ensemble is said to cost around $2,500-$3,700

Marla Maples, Tiffany Trump, and Ross Mechanic attended the show despite some designers' recent political statements about Donald Trump

The 23-year-old blonde looked on as she sat between her mother and boyfriend. Tiffany said she plans attend other New York Fashion Week shows

Tiffany was spotted backstage at the Taoray Wang show draped in a pink coat

But just a few days into the NYFW kickoff, designers have made politically sartorial statements about the new president.

Calvin Klein played This is Not America and a Mexican immigrant designer, Raul Solis, 32 sent a model wearing 'f*** your wall' down the runway in a clear message to President Trump.

He told W Magazine: 'Its important to have that message of sexual empowerment, especially nowto say, "Hey, actually, you can do whatever you want."

'I dont get too political, but obviously [this season] its impossible to dismiss.'

Before the show, designer Simons, sent out white patterned bandannas to attendees in order to promote that message of inclusion, much like the ones Tommy Hilfiger had models wear in his show in California.

LRS Studio and designer Raul Solis chose to make a bold political statement by sending a clear message to President Trump. A model sported white underpants that declared 'f*** your wall' at New York Fashion Week on Friday afternoon

Anna Wintour wears a pink badge in support of Planned Parenthood as she sits with Sarah Jessica Parker in the front row Calvin Klein show




A 16-year-old boy saved a young girl from a burning car moments after it had been firebombed by rioters in Paris protesting at the alleged rape of a man by police officers.

The incident happened in the northern suburb of Bobigny, near Aulnay-sous-Bois shortly after dark last night.

According to local police, 2,000 youths took to the streets before the car with the young girl inside was attacked.

Emmanuel Toula, pictured, said he was afraid as he entered the burning car to save the girl

Protesters set alight the car containing the young girl amid violent scenes last night

Police in riot gear have come under attack from protesters in Bobigny, near Paris, tonight after a peaceful demonstration over the alleged rape of a 22-year-old man earlier this month

It is the latest bout of violence and destruction near the capital, pictured, with police patrols previously attacked earlier in the week

The girl was dragged from the burning car by Emmanuel Toula who was passing the scene yesterday evening.

He told Bondy Blog: 'I pulled this little girl out of the car. I am not a hero.'

He said he saw the small city car pull up when it was surrounded by a group of youths wearing hoods.

The hooligans gathered up rubbish and set fire to it in front of the car. He said the woman driving jumped out and took her young son with her.

'At that moment, I approached the car and I saw a little girl. She was terrorised. I was afraid because I imagined the car could explode at any moment. I have four little brothers and two little sisters and I though I could not leave a little girl like that.

'Nobody did anything. I said to myeself and I had to take my courage in both hands. I went back into the car. I opened the door. My hands were trembling. The girl was in the back. She did not cry, but she was also shocked. I tried to remove her belt, my hands arms, still trembling. Then I took her in my arms and I tried to run. I started to pick up speed and I felt the tear gas. Deafening grenades fell two metres from us.

According to a police statement, around 2,000 people took to the streets last night outside the Bobigny Court House before the violence struck

The protest in the northern suburb of Bobigny near Aulnay-sous-Bois was peaceful at the start but groups of demonstrators later clashed with police and went on the rampage, attacking cars, shops and public property.

Crowds have also been pictured entering vandalised supermarkets and taking goods, pictured

Officers have been quick to respond to the violence and have been stopping traffic in the area

Several vehicles were torched and bus shelters and shopfronts smashed in Bobigny and neighbouring areas.

The police accused 'several hundred' individuals of various 'acts of violence and damage'.

The rioting capped a week of nightly clashes in the northern Paris suburb over the treatment of Theo, who claims a police officer sodomised him with his baton after a stop-and-search check in a housing estate.

Around 50 people have been detained since the protests began.

One officer has been charged with rape over the affair, and three others with assault. All four have been suspended from their duties.

Theo's case has revived long-simmering frustrations over policing in immigrant communities, where young men accuse the police of repeatedly targeting them in aggressive stop-and-search operations and using excessive force during arrests.

Officers have responded by firing tear gas at the protesters, pictured

Windows have been shattered, pictured, as police continue to stand guard in the area

The police for their part complain of being drawn into a cat-and-mouse game with delinquents and drug dealers operating out of housing estates.

In 2005, the death of two teenagers who were electrocuted while hiding from police in an electricity substation sparked weeks of riots in France.

Some of the demonstrators in Bobigny on Saturday carried placards reading 'Police rape' and 'Police kill innocent people'.

Small rallies took place in other French cities, including Rouen in the north, Nantes in the west and Toulouse in the south-west.

Theo is still in hospital where he was operated for severe injuries to the anus and rectal area. He was declared unfit to work for two months.

An internal police investigation found insufficient evidence to support allegations that he was raped and said the injuries were not inflicted intentionally.

The criminal probe is, however, ongoing.

Cars have also been smashed by demonstrators, pictured, despite the victim calling for 'calm' during the investigation

Last Monday 17 people were arrested after rioting, which saw a nursery school and a car showroom set alight.

In a neighboring suburb, 28 people were detained for 'throwing objects, lighting fires and violence'.

In northwestern France, in Nantes, 20 people were arrested during a demonstration of about 400 people in support of the victim.

He has urged people to stay calm while the investigation took place telling residents of Aulnay 'not to go to war'.

After his visit, the French President tweeted that the victim had 'reacted with dignity and responsibility', and trusted that justice would be served.

He is understood to have been at his bedside for around half an hour.
A group of officials including former Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda hopes to cause distress for the already-backlogged US immigration courts by encouraging migrants to fight their cases in court

Mexican officials, legislators, governors and public figures are pushing back against Trump's antagonistic stance toward their country.

Means include increasing the 'backlog in the immigration system' and defending undocumented migrants in the US and the Wall Street Journal reported.

Other proposed measures include renegotiating deals such as the one that currently makes Mexico accept deportees from the United States without proof that they are Mexican.

This comes as Donald Trump continues to demand Mexico pay for his much vaunted border wall, to renegotiate NAFTA, and his promises of aggressive deportations.

Mexican senator Arturo Zamora told the Journal: 'We want to be friends, but in the face of continued hostility we don't have to keep a friendly attitude forever.'

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Pictured left: Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto welcomes home 135 Mexican migrants deported from the United States as they arrived at Mexico City International Airport on February 7. Mexican officials, legislators, governors and public figures are pushing back against Trump's antagonistic stance toward their country

A group of officials including former Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda hopes to cause distress for the already-backlogged US immigration courts by encouraging migrants to fight their cases in court.

This comes as Donald Trump antagonizes Mexico through, for example, his plans to build a border wall with Mexico - which could cost $22bn or more - and make Mexico pay for it, to renegotiate NAFTA, and his promises of aggressive deportations

The group coined itself as Monarca, after the butterflies that migrate across North America.

While emigrants might be detained for months during the court process, Castaneda said measures such as government funds going to legal representation or paying bail could speed up the process.

Meanwhile, the Mexican government has assigned $50m in assisting undocumented migrants in the United States as the Mexican Foreign Ministry responds to 'the hardening of measures by immigration authorities in the U.S., as well as possible constitutional violations during raids or in due process.'

Mexican Prime Minister Enrique Pena Nieto has met with deportees at Mexican airports after cancelling a planned trip to Washington to meet Trump in late January.

Trump has said that the U.S. Congress should fund his wall up-front, but that Mexico will reimburse U.S. taxpayers. Mexico has said it will not pay.
The president of the European Commission has raised concerns for the unity of the rest of the bloc as Brexit negotiations start in the next few weeks.

Jean-Claude Juncker said he thinks Britain will divide the European Union's remaining 27 nations by making different promises to each country during the Brexit process.

Juncker told Deutschlandfunk radio: 'The other EU 27 don't know it yet, but the Brits know very well how they can tackle this.

Jean-Claude Juncker told a radio station in Germany that he thinks Britain could offer different things to different nations in the Brexit talks and divide the remaining EU countries

'They could promise country A this, country B that and country C something else and the end game is that there is not a united European front.'

Britain will by the end of March trigger formal divorce talks with the EU, a major test for the bloc which is struggling to have a grip on other challenges like keeping Greece in the euro zone, the refugee crisis and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president.

The Netherlands, France and Germany are also holding general elections this year, in which populist anti-EU parties are expected to make strong showings.

Juncker added: 'Now everyone is saying in relation to Trump and Brexit: "Now is Europe's big chance. Now is the time to close ranks and march together".

He said there had been talk of a united 27 countries but he did not know if it would happen like that

'I wish it will be like this, but will it happen? I have some doubt. Because the Brits will manage without big effort to divide the remaining 27 member states.'

His warning echoed remarks by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at an EU summit in Bratislava last year aimed at finding a way forward after Britain's vote to leave, that the bloc is in a critical situation.

Juncker said one area where the remaining 27 could improve cooperation was defence. Britain and France are the only EU countries with nuclear arsenals.

Juncker, who will host U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in Brussels next weekend, said a protectionist trade policy by the Trump administration would be an opportunity for the EU to forge new trade alliances.

'It would be a change that we have to use,' Juncker said.

'And we should not allow the Brits to pursue trade deals now with others because they are not allowed to do so.'

He added that as long as Britain was in the bloc, the European Commission was in charge of negotiating trade deals.

He also confirmed he will not run for another term as president, saying he had a good campaign in 2014.

The Brexit Department declined to comment directly on Mr Juncker's remarks, but pointed to a recent speech by the Prime Minister in which Mrs May said she wanted a 'strong and constructive' partnership with the EU.

Nigel Farage said his comments show Brussels is 'worried and nervous' about UK tactics.

Former Ukip leader Mr Farage said the remarks 'showed cracks were appearing' in the EU stance as tough exit horse-trading looms.

Nigel Farage said the comment show that Brussels is nervous about EU tactics in the Brexit negotiations

'I am surprised that Jean-Claude Juncker is so worried about the British.

He said: 'From a UK perspective, I am pleased to see his nervousness. Up until now we have been constantly told it is going to be us versus the other 27.'

Prime Minister Theresa May is set to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty which formally begins the two-year withdrawal negotiation process next month as long as the Brexit Bill giving her the power to do so passes the House of Lords.
Ukraine and NATO will discuss the possibilities of stepping up the reform of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, the press service of Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has reported after a meeting of Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman and NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller (performs duties of Secretary General when Jens Stoltenberg is sick).

"The reinforcement of the institutional ability of the State Emergency Service and its technical equipment are important for us. Improvement of technical abilities is additional contribution into safety and health of Ukrainian citizens who are under the pressure of Russian aggression," the press service said, referring to Groysman as saying.

It was arranged at the meeting that Ukraine and NATO will study the possibility of stepping up the State Emergency Service reform to provide for effective internal security in the country, taking into account Russian aggression.

The Ukrainian prime minister proposed to consider the expansion of the reform support.

"The acting NATO Secretary General welcomed the idea. She said that Ukraine and NATO cooperate in rescue efforts. She said that this cooperation could be expanded," the press service said.
Johannet's decomposing body was discovered by police on a hiking trail Sunday afternoon, three days after she had left on a trip to the beach

Hundreds gathered at the memorial service for the slain Columbia graduate, Catherine Johannet on Saturday.

The 23-year-old was found dead on a hiking trail on Bastimentos Island in Panama on Sunday afternoon.

About 200 friends and family turned out to pay their tributes at Scarsdale Congregational Church, nine days after Johannet went missing. Autopsy results revealed the woman was strangled, but so far no arrests have been made.

Catherine's family made touching remarks during the service. Her older brother Paul Johannet, said: 'Im devastated at the thought of life without her.

'And I hope we meet again, though it wont be soon enough,' the New York Daily News reported. No casket was displayed at the memorial service.

Johannet's father, Chris Johannet described his daughter as a 'world traveler' and said they had been planning a trip to Antarctica.

Hundreds turned out to honor the 23-year-old at Scarsdale Congressional Church on Saturday

Friends and family hug as they leave Catherine Johannet's memorial nine days after she was reported missing

A woman is seen looking somber as she holds a pamphlet with Catherine's picture as she leaves the church

Catherine's brother had previously paid a tribute to his sister on social media describing her as a globetrotter as well.

The college grad, who had a Bachelors degree in comparative literature, had visited six continents and had gone on a recent 18-month trip to Vietnam where she taught English Literature to local students.

She was last seen alive at around 10am on Thursday on Colon Island, where she had been staying during a backpacking vacation.

Police and volunteers scoured the islands in search of the missing tourist until her decomposing body was discovered by an officer on a hiking trail near the beach on Bastimentos at 2.11pm on Sunday.

Reports said Johannet was strangled with a pink swimsuit cover-up, which she had been wearing at the time.

Final post: American tourist Catherine Johannet, 23, was likely strangled on an island off the coast of Panama, just days after posting on Instagram this selfie and gushing that she 'found paradise' on Isla Ina

The young woman's family members, including her two older siblings, arrived in Panama on Monday to help identify her body and eventually bring her home for burial.

On Saturday Johannet's father spoke of his daughter's uplifting attitude. 'I know that her wisdom and grace, her spirit, can lift mine by saying, "Dad, its OK,"' he said.

Catherine's sister, Laura Johannet said she had struggled in preparing eulogy saying she never thought of describing her 'in a few paragraphs.'

'You said you needed to work with people and help others in need. I told you you were a better person than me and its true, you always were,' she said.

Grief-stricken: Johannet's family members are pictured arriving in Panama Monday after learning of her death

Day of mourning: Friends and family look somber after paying their tributes to the slain 23-year-old

The Columbia graduate was described as a 'world traveler' and had been visited six continents




Chief Whip Gavin Williamson (pictured) threatened to get a senior Conservative sacked as an MP after he criticised Theresa May's Brexit tactics in the Mail on Sunday

Chief Whip Gavin Williamson threatened to get a senior Conservative sacked as an MP after he criticised Theresa Mays Brexit tactics in The Mail on Sunday.

Mr Williamson lambasted Tory Neil Carmichael who said it was illogical for Mrs May to offer a Commons vote on any deal after talks with the EU, but not if there was no deal.

Sources say Mr Williamson, who revels in comparisons with Francis Urquhart  the sinister Tory Chief Whip in the British version of TV political thriller House Of Cards  threatened to have Mr Carmichael deselected as MP for Stroud.

One Tory insider said it was an outrage to make such a threat against Mr Carmichael, chairman of the Commons all-party Education Selection Committee.

The clash came days after Mr Carmichael, who opposed leaving the EU, told The Mail on Sunday: Parliament must have a final say when we get to the endgame.

We could be faced with leaving the EU by falling off a cliff with potentially disastrous consequences.

Some MPs were surprised when Mr Carmichael did not join the seven Tory MPs who rebelled against the Brexit Bill last week.

Allies of the MP say he decided that Mrs May had listened to his concerns by making concessions allowing MPs more say over the final outcome of the EU talks.

Mr Williamson threatened to have Neil Carmichael (centre) deselected as MP for Stroud, according to sources

Others said they believed that the deselect threat may have influenced him.

Mr Williamson was involved in foul-mouthed exchanges with other rebel Tory MPs including Bath MP Ben Howlett and former Cabinet Minister Nicky Morgan.

A source close to Mr Williamson said he scowled at Mr Howlett: You think Im a nasty little c***, dont you? before hurling more four-letter insults. Mr Howlett later abstained in the key vote, telling friends he believed the Government had given ground.

Mr Williamson revels in comparisons with Francis Urquhart (pictured), the sinister Tory Chief Whip in the British version of TV political thriller House Of Cards, sources say

However, there were further clashes with Mr Williamson after the crunch Brexit vote following claims that the concession won was a con.

Several rebels including Mr Carmichael, Mr Howlett and ex-Cabinet Minister Nicky Morgan decided not to vote against the Government, convinced that Mrs May had effectively agreed to their plea for a Commons vote if she fails to get an EU deal, and to go back to Brussels and try again.

But there was fury when Brexit Minister David Jones appeared to contradict this moments before Tuesdays vote.

Mr Howlett and Ms Morgan, who both abstained, rounded on Mr Williamson in the Commons chamber claiming that they had been duped. Mr Howlett raged: What the hell is going on? Ms Morgan told him: This is a f****** disgrace! Eye-witnesses say Mr Williamson replied: I am sorry, there has been a mistake.

Mr Carmichael, Mr Howlett, Ms Morgan and Mr Williamson declined to comment.
A burglar shot in the butt by cops who caught him inside a Queens home is asking for $10million for his trouble.

Felix Perez, 38, is being held at Rikers Island on burglary and assault charges, and claims he's unable to get a good night's sleep.

Perez, who allegedly stole rings, watches, earrings and a chain from the house, says in his Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit that he now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has 'nightmares of being killed by officers and fear of anyone in uniform'.

The Crown Heights resident, who is acting as his own lawyer, states in the lawsuit: 'I was shot by an officer of the 104th Precinct while trying to flee the scene of a burglary.

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Felix Perez, 38, of Crown Heights, New York, claims he suffers from PTSD after Queens police shot him in the butt as they wrestled over a gun during an attempted burglary in August

Perez is being held at Rikers Island on burglary and assault charges

'I was unarmed and showed no intention of harming anyone nor did I make any hand gestures indicating that I was armed or dangerous'.

Perez already had six burglary arrests when cops found him in August lurking through a home on 66th Street near Hull Avenue in Maspeth, reports the New York Post.

The resident noticed a man walking through her child's bedroom on a live surveillance-video feed she was monitoring on her phone and called the cops.

Perez already had six burglary arrests when cops found him lurking through a home on 66th Street near Hull Avenue in Maspeth

In a neighbor's footage of the scene, officers surround the two-story brick house where a woman can be seen pacing outside.

A cop then enters the house through the front door. The woman can be seen going inside and returning with her dog.

'She was afraid for her dog the entire time', NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce told the New York Daily News.

Perez, wearing shorts and a Yankees hat, was still hiding inside when cops entered the house.

An officer found Perez and shot him in the butt as they wrestled over a gun.

The gunshot can be heard in the video, which captures Perez running out of the house.

A bloody Perez made a run for it as patrol cars arrived on the scene, forcing cops to chase him through the neighborhood.

'I heard a shot. I turned and saw a guy with a mask and gloves run past', Roy Johnston, 42, who lives across the street from the scene, told the Daily News.

The bullet, which 'barely missed my femural [sic] artery, urethra and rectum', is lodged in his butt, Perez states in his lawsuit.

Perez is scheduled to appear in Queens Criminal Court next week.
Fishing enthusiasts have been left outraged after a pile of dead eagle rays was photographed on a South Australian beach.

A man who posted the picture on a fishing Facebook page wrote that he found the fish, about a dozen in total, on Goolwa Beach 'along with a heap of rubbish.'

'This is disgraceful,' the man added.

Fishing enthusiasts were outraged after a pile of dead eagle rays was photographed on a South Australian beach

The chief executive of Conservation Council SA said there should be protection for rays

Assuming that the rays had been left for dead by a fisherman, the chief executive of Conservation Council SA said the incident 'gives responsible fishers a bad name.'

'There's currently no protection for rays in South Australia. We think there should be,' the chief executive, Craig Wilkins, told the Mercury newspaper.

The mayor of nearby Alexandrina Council, Keith Parkes, said he has 'never come across anything like this before.'

'I hope Fisheries catch them and hit them with everything they have got,' he fumed.

Eagle rays are not registered on the SA Primary Industries and Regions protected species list.

The fish are found across southern Australia, and can grow to be over 2 m long, according to the Australian Museum.
The Reverend Philip Fowles has been suspended for telling Conservative MP Anna Soubry: 'Burn in hell you evil bitch'

An Anglican cleric has been suspended from his job after telling Conservative MP Anna Soubry: Burn in hell you evil bitch!

The Reverend Philip Fowles sent the hateful message about her stance on Brexit using an official email account from the Anglican retirement homes where he works.

His message also claimed that the prominent Brexit critic was a traitor and a disgrace to our great party, suggesting he is an active Conservative supporter.

When Ms Soubry reported the email to police, Rev Fowles apologised for the tone of his outburst, before seemingly backtracking saying that it was heartfelt and written in the heat of the moment.

Former Minister Ms Soubry, a leading critic of calls for a hard Brexit, said last night: This kind of hateful behaviour is appalling and has no place in a democracy.

His message also claimed that the prominent Brexit critic (pictured) was a traitor and a disgrace to our great party, suggesting he is an active Conservative supporter

The email that was sent to Ms Soubrys Commons office came from Rev Fowless email address at the St Monica Trust in Bristol, where he is a pastoral co-ordinator for the old peoples homes it runs. The trusts motto, Delivering well-being was prominently displayed directly below his obscene rant.

The email said: Madam, You are a traitor to the British people who have voted to leave the EU to build a better Britain outside of their sticky-fingered control. You are also a disgrace to our great party.

Ms Soubry would go down in history as a desperate and treacherous politician who wanted to shackle the UK in European serfdom, he raged, adding: Traitors are long remembered. May you burn in hell you evil bitch!

It was signed Maggie & Philip Fowles, with Rev Fowles job title, pastoral co-ordinator, mobile phone number and address.

After Ms Soubrys staff called in police, Rev Fowles emailed her the next day to apologise and said the message was written 'in the heat of the moment'

After Ms Soubrys staff called in police, Rev Fowles emailed her the next day to say: Dear Miss (sic) Soubry, I write to offer our unreserved apology for the tone of our email communication to you. He added that the last line was written in the heat of the moment and admitted using unwarranted language.

Rev Fowles added: Unfortunately, the whole communication inadvertently went via the St Monica Trust website and whilst the views expressed were heartfelt and personal they in no way represent those of the Trust.

This time it was signed Revd. Philip and Mrs Margaret Fowles.

Last night, St Monica Trusts head of people, Julie Haydon, said chief executive David Williams had made a personal apology to Ms Soubry.

She said: Mr Fowles has been suspended pending further investigation. There hasnt been a hearing as yet.

We cant comment until weve concluded our internal processes. But we do obviously take matters like this incredibly seriously. Our chief executive spoke to Anna Soubry as soon as it came to our attention and expressed an apology on behalf of the Trust for any distress caused.

The 100-year-old St Monica Trust, which describes itself as an Anglican Foundation, runs retirement communities in the West Country.

It was named after founder, Dame Mary Monica Wills of the Wills Tobacco firm.

Rev Fowles works at the charitys Westbury Fields and Monica Wills House sites. He is also a lay preacher at nearby Nailsea United Reformed Church.

A colleague described him as impulsive.

The charity pledges to uphold the dignity and spiritual well-being of residents in a non-judgmental way to share their concerns, hopes, joys and frustrations.
A man is alleged to have impersonated a famous child actor from the hit sitcom Family Ties in order to meet a slew of women online before raping them.

Nathan Larry Loebe, 36, was arrested on Thursday by police after a woman from Bardstown, Kentucky, alleged that he sexually assaulted her last Sunday inside an apartment.

The woman, 40, told police that she had just met Loebe two days prior to the alleged assault, according to the Lexington Herald Leader.

Authorities later learned that Loebe is wanted in Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Ohio for dozens of other alleged crimes including stalking, harassment, and sexual assault.

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Nathan Larry Loebe (left), 36, was arrested Thursday by police after a woman from Bardstown, Kentucky, alleged that he sexually assaulted her last Sunday inside an apartment. He is wanted for sex crimes against other women who say he impersonated Brian Bonsall (right)

The woman, 40, told police that she had just met Loebe two days prior to the alleged assault

In Tucscon, Arizona, alone, Loebe is wanted for questioning in connection with nine sexual assaults and 40 instances of stalking and harassment.

Police investigating Loebe found that he had lured women online into meeting him by making them believe that he was Brian Bonsall.

Loebe even went so far as to ink himself with the same tattoos as those Bonsall has on his body, according to police.

After appearing in a few films, Bonsall (above) retired from acting in 1995 in order to pursue a career in music

Bonsall (seen above sitting on Meredith Baxter's lap far left) is best remembered for his portrayal of Andrew Keaton, the youngest child, in the hit 1980s sitcom Family Ties, which starred Michael J. Fox

Loebe is being held on $2.2million bond.

Bonsall is best known for his portrayal of Andrew Keaton, the youngest child, in the hit 1980s sitcom Family Ties, which starred Michael J. Fox.

After appearing in a few films, Bonsall retired from acting in 1995 in order to pursue a career in music.

In June 2015, Bonsall sent out a message on Twitter warning that Loebe was impersonating him in order to meet and rape women.

Authorities later learned that Loebe is wanted in Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Ohio for dozens of other alleged crimes including stalking, harassment, and sexual assault

In Tucscon, Arizona, alone, Loebe is wanted for questioning in connection with nine sexual assaults and 40 instances of stalking and harassment

He is currently touring Europe with his band, The Ataris.

Bonsall has also had run-ins with the law. In 2007, he was arrested on charges of assaulting his girlfriend. As punishment, he was given two years probation.

In 2009, he was arrested again for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend. A year later, he was charged with marijuana use and violating the terms of his release.

In April 2010, he was given two more years of probation.
Nigel Farages wife erupted with fury after finding him on the family sofa with a female press officer late one night, it has been claimed.

Shortly after the 2015 incident, the woman involved, Alexandra Phillips, left her 80,000-a-year post as Mr Farages spokeswoman and moved to Wales. But she denies there was ever any physical relationship.

The claim comes after The Mail on Sunday revealed last week how the former Ukip leader has been living with another woman, Laure Ferrari, in a 4 million bachelor pad in Chelsea, West London.

Former head of media for UKIP, Alexandra Phillips, 33, left her 80,000-a-year post as Mr Farages spokeswoman and moved to Wales after the former leader's wife, Kirsten, 50 found her sitting on the family sofa, it has been claimed

Mr Farage, 52, dismissed any suggestion of an affair with Ms Ferrari, 37, as ludicrous and crackers.

But this newspaper has been told by a senior party source that Mr Farage has been visiting Ms Ferrari at a house in South London for more than two years  and has been close to her for at least eight.

After our report, Mr Farages wife Kirsten, 50, announced that the couple had been living separately for some years.

Today one of Ms Phillips friends claimed Kirsten had misunderstood her husbands behaviour, explaining: The incident at Nigels house in Kent was very weird. Alex was there with Kirsten. Nigel was out, and came back in late.

Pictured, Ms Phillips (centre) with Mr Farage. After the Mail on Sunday revealed how Mr Farage has been living with another woman, Laure Ferrari, in a 4 million bachelor pad in Chelsea, West London, wife Kirsten announced they have been living apart for years

While Alex waited for a lift home, Kirsten went up to bed, and Alex and Nigel sat down to watch TV. Alex thought everything was OK.

But Kirsten came down later and was furious to find them still on the sofa together.

Threat to sue over lurid tapes Nigel Farage has threatened to sue a senior Ukip politician over lurid allegations she made about his personal life. Lawyers acting for the former party leader have accused Lisa Duffy, the partys foreign aid spokeswoman, of defamation after she was secretly recorded making shocking claims about Mr Farages behaviour. Her comments were recorded by a colleague on a mobile phone. Ms Duffy was campaigning in Stoke yesterday and would not return calls or messages. But her husband, Peter Reeve, who is Ukips local government spokesman, said she was too busy to comment. Ms Duffy was appointed foreign aid spokeswoman by Ukip leader Paul Nuttall in December. She is also chief of staff to Ukip MEP Patrick OFlynn. Last summer, she ran to replace Mr Farage as Ukip leader and came second to Diane James, who lasted 18 days in the role before she resigned and forced a new round of elections. It was during this time that Ms Duffy was secretly recorded making allegations against Mr Farage by a party official. Last night, a spokesman for Mr Farage said Ms Duffys comments are untrue, malicious and libellous and we have begun legal proceedings. A Ukip spokesman said: These allegations are the subject of an ongoing personal legal action and are not a Ukip matter. Mr Nuttall is standing in the Stoke by-election on February 23. Yesterday he was reported to have moved home amid fears for his safety, after being accused of lying when he claimed to be a survivor of the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy. Advertisement

The source added: The next day Nigel told Alex that Kirsten got the wrong end of the stick about something going on.

Tensions between the women were not helped by another incident during the 2015 Election campaign at the Double Tree hotel in Lincoln.

Mr Farage allegedly upset hotel staff by angrily demanding more alcohol when the bar had closed, and insisting on smoking inside, after he and Ms Phillips had been drinking with other Ukip aides.

One witness said: Nigel was monkeying around with Alexandra. Everyone had been drinking. Nigel started shouting and swearing when the staff said the bar was closed. Kirsten sorted it all out as she always did when Nigel was out of order.

Mrs Farage was not present at the April 7 incident, but is said to have told Nigel off by phone and then smoothed things over with the hotel.

Ms Phillips, 33, said the move to Wales was unconnected to any intervention by Mrs Farage. She said: I became aware at the time of these baseless rumours being spread about me by individuals in the party involved in a power struggle.

It had been decided long before this that I would move to Wales for the Assembly election. I am incredibly fond of Kirsten and very sorry to learn of their marital situation.

Ms Phillips put herself forward as a Ukip candidate for the Welsh Assembly, but withdrew before polling day in May last year. She has since left Ukip to join the Conservatives and has taken a new job in Africa.

Until now, most of the controversy about Mr Farages private life has centred on Annabelle Fuller, another former Ukip press officer. A rival politician once called her Farages former mistress in the European Parliament, but both have denied any affair.

Ms Fuller is now known as Trixy Sanderson and is an aide to Ukip MEP Mike Hookem.

Now the focus has turned to Ms Ferrari, who runs the Institute for Direct Democracy in Europe.

Mr Farage allegedly upset hotel staff by angrily demanding more alcohol when the bar had closed, and insisting on smoking inside, after he and Ms Phillips had been drinking with other UKIP aides

The body is at the centre of an Electoral Commission probe over 400,000 in donations which it, and an affiliated political alliance, funnelled to Ukip.

Mr Farage says he allowed Ms Ferrari to stay in his bachelor pad as a favour after her organisations funding was stopped.

But this is not the first time he has helped with her accommodation, a Ukip source claims, saying that in 2015 Mr Farage helped arrange for Miss Ferrari to live in a house in Clapham on his route between London and his home in Kent.

Last night, a spokesman for Mr Farage said: The allegations you make are all based on hearsay.
It is one of the Air Force's longest serving bombers, having been in service since 1952.

Yet the B-52 bomber could soon get a radical overhaul, making it one of America's first military planes to have a laser weapon system.

Air Force bosses are experimenting with fitting external laser pods to the giant plane, allowing it to blast incoming missiles out of the sky or jam their navigation systems.

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The Boeing-manufactured bomber (pictured) has been in use since 1952 and is expected to remain operating until 2040, when it'll be replaced by the Northrop Grumman's B-21. Air Force bosses are experimenting with fitting external laser pods to the giant plane, allowing it to blast incoming missiles out of the sky or jam their navigation systems.

LASER WEAPONS 'COMING SOON' Air Force bosses have boasted combat lasers will be fitted to fighters planes 'very soon' and have revealed a full scale prototype is being built. 'I believe we'll have a directed energy pod we can put on a fighter plane very soon,' Air Force General Hawk Carlisle claimed at the Air Force Association Air & Space conference last year in a presentation on what he called Fifth-Generation Warfare, according to Ars Technica. 'That day is a lot closer than I think a lot of people think it is.' Advertisement

The project is part of the Air Force Research Lab's five-year plan to create power, optics and lasers to help defend large bombers such as the B-52.

Air Force Chief Scientist Greg Zacharias told Scout Warrior: 'You can take out the target if you put the laser on the attacking weapon for a long enough period of time.'

The researchers say the older, larger plane cold be perfect for laser weapons, and attaching an external pod would not affect its capabilities.

Zacharias said the laser system would not be expected to work on stealthy aircraft such as F-15's or F-35's.

Lasers use extreme heat and light to burn targets without creating a large explosion.

They work at very high speeds so they have an almost instant ability to destroy rapid targets and defend against enemies.

Zacharias also said that if for some reason a pilot doesn't want to destroy an incoming missile but throw it off course, lasers could jam them.

Lasers use extreme heat and light to burn targets without creating a large explosion. They work at very high speeds so they have an almost instant ability to destroy rapid targets and defend against enemies. The lasers could even be synchronized with telescopes to make them more precise for tracking and destroying attackers

The lasers can be synchronized with telescopes to make them more precise for tracking and destroying attackers.

Aircraft lasers for fighter jets such as the B-52 could eventually be applied to a wide range of uses such as air-to-air combat, air support, counter-drone, counter-boat and ground attacks.

The Air Force Research Laboratory has said that they aim to have a plan in place for a laser weapon program by 2023.

Aircraft lasers for fighter jets such as the B-52 could eventually be applied to a wide range of uses such as air-to-air combat, air support, counter-drone, counter-boat and ground attacks. The Air Force Research Laboratory has said that they aim to have a plan in place for a laser weapon program by 2023

Ground level testing for a weapon called the High Energy Laser has been taking place for the last few years at White Sand Missile Range in New Mexico, with the first airborne tests set to take place by 2021.

Air Force leaders told Scout Warrior that they plan to also integrate the lasers in large platforms such as C-17s and C-130s, and eventually on smaller jets such as the F-15.

But these laser weapons may not stick solely to aircraft platforms.

The US Navy has plans to incorporate these lasers on US naval ships to help defend ships from drones and missiles.

The lasers could also play a crucial role in defending against ballistic missiles.

According to Air Force experts, one of the clearest advantages of this laser technology is that instead of carrying a limited number of missiles on an aircraft, an energy based weapon such as a laser could fire thousand of shots using one gallon of jet fuel.
If you're still searching for a last minute break for you and a loved one to take this Valentine's day, look no further.

Couples can find romance in the city at London's Andaz hotel or snap up a last minute cottage escape to Yorkshire.

Whether you'd like to indulge your regal fantasies in Wales or snuggle up by the slopes in Italy, the Daily Mail has rounded up some special travel treats.

Welsh hospitality

The Welsh castle overlooking St Bride's Bay in Pembrokeshire has been converted into a six-bedroom retreat

Roch Castle, the 12th-century Pembrokeshire landmark overlooking St Brides Bay, has won a clutch of awards since being converted into a six-bedroom retreat  including Best Five-Star Hotel in Wales for 2017.

Stay for two nights between February 12 and 16 and theyll throw in prosecco, Wickedly Welsh Chocolates and a three-course meal each evening at the two-AA Rosette Blas Restaurant in St Davids. Costs 210 per room per night (rochcastle.com).

Cuddle up

Enter your own frozen kingdom in the new Snow Suite at the Lac Salin SPA & Mountain Resort, in the Italian Alps.

Youll spend a night wrapped up in furs in your hut made of pressed snow beside the main hotel.

From 284 per couple until February 28, it includes breakfast, morning tea served in the suite, a gourmet dinner and one massage each, sauna, steam bath and herb bath (hotels.com).

Movie night

Couples can binge-watch blockbusters in a luxury suite, while they devour ice cream, prosecco and soft drinks at Andaz Liverpool Street Hotel

Five-star hotel Andaz in Londons Liverpool Street has put a literal twist on Netflix and chill with its new Bed, Flicks and Chill package, from 199 per couple B&B.

It involves binge-watching blockbusters in a luxury suite, while you devour ice cream, prosecco and soft drinks.

With 25 per cent off room service, those who over-indulge will enjoy the 2pm checkout. Book before April 30 for any weekend date until December 31, 2017 (andazliverpoolstreet.com).

Bargain breaks

Snaptrip.com offers last-minute cottage breaks with up to 60 per cent off.

Valentines week availability includes a cottage in Addingham, Yorkshire, on February 14 and 15, for 291, and two nights in barn conversion Chulmleigh Cottage for 204 next weekend.

Plus, Daily Mail readers get 35 cashback on bookings made before 11.59pm on February 18: enter code DMST2017 (cashback paid seven days after booking).

Tuck into afternoon tea and hit the dance floor at the Blackpool Tower Ballroom for Valentine's

Vintage romance

Dazzled by the Blackpool Tower Ballroom on Strictly? Take your partner for a whirl around the hallowed hall for this Valentines event between February 11 and 18, 10am to 5pm.

Therell be a live performance on the famous Wurlitzer organ and youll feast on afternoon tea (50 per couple or upgrade to the champagne version for 69.95). Call 0811 222 9929 to book.
He's the lovable hunk regarded by many as one of the world's hottest men.

But Hugh Jackman, 48, was no doubt feeling cooler than normal this week as he braved New York's snowstorm.

The Hollywood superstar took to Instagram on Friday to share a picture of himself in the middle of blizzard-like conditions.

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The Boy from Oz! Hugh Jackman took to Instagram on Friday to share a picture of himseld in heavy snow in New York

Wearing a navy blue jacket with the zip pulled all the way up and the hood over his head, the Australian star pulled an excited expression as posed for a selfie.

In the caption, the Sydney-native, described something that many of his fellow Australians would be able to relate to.

'For those of us who grew up without snow... it never gets old!' he wrote.

Hollywood hunk: Wearing a blue jacket with the zip pulled all the way up and the hood over his head, Jackman pulled an excited face as he took the photo

The selfie in -1 degree weather is not the first he's posted from New York this week, after the city was battered by snow.

Days earlier, he shared a video showing the reality of a 'snowday,' where his windows were completely covered in white sleet and rain.

Jackman is currently preparing for the release of his upcoming film Logan - the latest installment of the hit Wolverine franchise - on March 3.

In recent weeks he's shared a number of photos of billboards featuring Logan ads, clearly excited about the release of the new film.

He comes from a land Down Under: 'For those of us who grew up without snow... it never gets old!' Jackman captioned the photo

Superstar: Jackman will return to the role of Wolverine that further established him as a bona fide star of Hollywood for his upcoming film Logan (Pictured with singer Ariana Grande)

Jackman will return to his famous role as the comic book character in the upcoming film.

The blockbuster is reportedly the last time he will portray Wolverine, a role that further established him as a bona fide star of Hollywood.

A father-of-two, Hugh has been married for more than twenty years to fellow actress Deborra-Lee Furness.
China's top securities watchdog vowed on Friday to "capture big crocodiles" in the country's stock market, suggesting that a tougher regulatory stance against stock speculation and manipulation will be a priority for the regulator.

In a highly anticipated speech at the regulator's annual work meeting, Liu Shiyu, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, implied that the "big crocodiles" were tycoons who wield capital power to manipulate stock prices and disrupt fair market play.

"No one will be allowed to create winds and waves in the stock market. The big crocodiles will not be allowed to suck the blood of small investors," Liu was quoted by Chinese media outlets Caixin and Sina.com as saying.

Liu's remarks were seen as the latest evidence of China's increased supervision of illegal market activities.

"I think Liu has been frank with his opinion. Increased supervision and regulation have begun and will be one of the themes for 2017," said Hong Hao, chief strategist at BOCOM International in Hong Kong.

The CSRC chief has been known for his outspoken attitude and harsh criticism of the Chinese stock market. He recently condemned the aggressive buyouts of listed companies by those using speculative capital, whom he described as "evil monsters" and "barbarians" in the market.

Liu was appointed the country's securities chief in February last year after the stock market suffered a turbulent ride that wiped out massive market value.

At Friday's meeting, Liu also said that the regulator's review and approval of initial public offerings by companies is not contradictory to the goal of introducing a registration-based IPO mechanism, which he said remains the "direction" of the capital market reform.

Wang Jianhui, director of the research center at Capital Securities, said that Liu's comments underscored the regulator's effort to strike a balance between allowing the market to have a greater say and weeding out poor quality companies through the administrative approval process.

Deng Ge, a CSRC spokesman, said on Friday that the regulator will maintain a normal pace for the IPO approval and will actively increase new share supplies in the market while forbidding companies from using the proceeds for speculative purposes.
She is known for her impeccable sense of style.

And Diane Kruger looked flawlessly chic as she attended Jason Wu's Fall 2017 fashion show at New York Fashion Week on Friday.

The 40-year-old actress donned a two-toned blue blazer dress which stopped short of her knees showing off her lithe legs and strappy nude stilettos.

Stylish star! Diane Kruger looked flawlessly chic as she attended Jason Wu's Fall 2017 fashion show at New York Fashion Week on Friday

The blonde beauty's short wavy tresses looked fierce styled half slicked back behind one ear.

The German-born bombshell added a bronze eye shadow to play up her baby blues and opted for a muted lip.

The fashionably savvy star went light on the accessories and topped off her polished look with a leopard printed clutch.

The actress was spotted mingling with Adriana Lima on the front row before the show.

Beautiful in blue! The 40-year-old actress donned a two-toned blue blazer dress which stopped short of her knees showing off her lithe legs and strappy nude stilettos

VIP: Adriana Lima joined Diane Kruger on the front row

Catwalk chatter: The Victoria's Secret Angel and the German-born actress were spotted mingling before the show

The Victoria's Secret Angel looked pretty in a pink silk midi-dress with a plunging neckline.

The Brazilian beauty paired the feminine frock with a long black leather jacket.

The five-foot-ten stunner added extra height to her slender frame with a pair of metallic stilettos.

Sitting on the sidelines: The supermodel looked pretty in a pink silk midi-dress with a plunging neckline

A little bit rock n roll: Adriana paired the feminine frock with a long black leather jacket

What's so funny? The Brazilian beauty looked thrilled to be at the designer's show and at one point she got the giggles and lost herself in laughter

Adriana left her long raven locks down in messy curls which cascaded past her shoulders.

The mother-of-two looked thrilled to be at the designer's show and at one point she got the giggles and lost herself in laughter.

Another model - Amber Valletta- sat front row joining Adriana on her right hand side.

Models unite: Amber Valletta also sat front row next to Adriana

Lovely lady: The 43-year-old fashion model and actress looked demure in a navy ruffled midi-dress. She hid her fit figure beneath a long grey coat for warmth

The 43-year-old fashion model and actress looked demure in a navy ruffled midi-dress which hugged her svelte physique.

But Amber hid her fabulous figure beneath a long grey feathered coat to add warmth to her look for the chilly New York winter weather.

The natural beauty showed off her good looks with minimal make-up and swept her blonde hair back showing off asymmetrical hoop earrings.

In the house! Emily Ratajkowski also hit up Jason Wu's Fall show

All covered up: The 25-year-old model, known for shedding it all in Robin Thicke's 2013 Blurred Lines music video, dressed modestly in a long sweater dress

Details: The pretty brunette embraced her inner geek and sported a pair of round spectacles on her glamorously made up face

Emily Ratajkowski also hit up Jason Wu's Fall show.

The 25-year-old model, known for shedding it all in Robin Thicke's 2013 Blurred Lines music video, dressed modestly in a long sweater dress.

The Gone Girl actress teamed her look with black leather booties and a coordinating hand bag.

The pretty brunette embraced her inner geek and sported a pair of round spectacles on her glamorously made up face.

Sitting pretty: Emily was joined by French model Constance Jablonski

Standing tall: At five-foot-11, Constance towered over Emily as they posed for a photo ahead of the show

Monotone look: The 25-year-old Estee Lauder model looked effortlessly chic in all black

Emily was joined by French model Constance Jablonski.

At five-foot-11, Constance towered over Emily as they posed for a photo ahead of the show.

The 25-year-old Estee Lauder model looked effortlessly chic in all black.

Jason Wu, who is known for his impeccable attention to detail, celebrates 10 years in the fashion business.

Wu's Fall 2017 runway show dazzled with delicate hand embroidered lace designs featuring couture techniques with a modern eye and lots of sexy cut-outs.

The runway: Jason Wu's Fall 2017 fashion show dazzled with delicate hand embroidered lace designs featuring couture techniques with a modern eye and lots of sexy cut-outs
It was reported this week that she had threatened to kill herself during a meltdown in her backyard last month.

And seemingly putting the incident behind her, Mischa Barton was spotted heading out for a rainy day drive with a friend in her vintage convertible on Friday.

The 31-year-old stepped out just one day after she was spotted 'drinking and smoking until 3 am at a West Hollywood bar,' according to Yahoo.

No care in the world: On Friday, Mischa Barton was spotted heading out for a rainy day drive with a friend in her vintage convertible

For her Friday outing, Mischa covered up in a navy sweater with a green cardigan and black slacks.

The star wore sunglasses with her light locks loose around her.

She was spotted moving items around her driveway before getting into her car with a male friend.

Mischa was seen backing out of the driveway with the top down, even though it was raining on and off in LA on Friday.

On the go: The 31-year-old stepped out just one day after she was spotted drinking and smoking until 3 am at a West Hollywood bar

Probably not the best weather for drive: Mischa was seen backing out of the driveway with the top down, even though it was raining

Here they go! The former OC actress was seen heading out in her car

On Thursday, Mischa was spotted at Barney's Beanery, where she enjoyed 'drinks and cigarettes' in between a game of pool, reports Yahoo.

The former OC star's outing comes just weeks after she had a 'meltdown.'

In January, her neighbors called emergency services after they heard her crying and screaming outside in her backyard.

Relaxing day out: The former OC star's outing comes just weeks after she had a 'meltdown'

Getting ready: In January, her neighbors called emergency services after they heard her crying and screaming outside in her backyard

'My downstairs neighbor is hysterically crying in the backyard and says she's going to kill herself,' said a female neighbor in a 911 tape obtained by TMZ.

'She's screaming and she just keeps on saying "I want to die" and then she's like "I'm going to kill myself" and then she just keeps on, yeah, it's all nonsensical. But I'm very concerned.'

She later told People magazine that she was out with friends the night before and that she was drugged.

Mischa explained to the magazine that: 'While having drinks, I realized that something was not right as my behavior was becoming erratic and continued to intensify over the next several hours.'

Adding: 'I voluntarily went to get professional help, and I was informed by their staff that I had been given GHB. After an overnight stay, I am home and doing well.'

Tidying up: She later told People magazine that she was out with friends the night before and that she was drugged; seen Friday
This month is a big one for June Brown.

She not only celebrates 32 years on British TV screens as arguably the most infamous character on an English soap, but she turns 90 as well.

The veteran star, who has played Dot Branning nee Cotton on EastEnders since its inception in 1985, has marked the occasion by opening up on a life that can only be described as colourful.

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'He was on the bed, the gas fire next to him': EastEnders' June Brown admits she blamed herself for her husband's suicide... as she celebrates her 90th birthday and 32 years as Dot Branning

First and foremost, she has insisted that she won't be giving up her job any time soon.

'As long as I am capable of working, and can learn lines and move around, I will carry on. Id be utterly bored if I stopped,' she has explained to The Sun.

58 was the age at which June started on EastEnders - a role that she has stuck with, making her the show's highest-paid female star (300,000 a year).

Veteran actress: June insists 'as long as she can move' she won't retire from acting (pictured R in Coronation Street in 1970 as Mrs Parsons)

Soap star: June plays EastEnders' longest-serving character Dot Branning on the BBC soap

Despite her recent diagnosis of partial sight loss through macular degeneration, the loyal scriptwriters have incorporated this into the plot of the show, as an extra assurance she'll stick around.

June's own life has seen its fair share of soap-worthy twists.

Her brother John died of pneumonia when she was five - he was only 15 days old.

When she was seven, her oldest sibling, Marise, also perished from an ear infection.

Soap legend: She has revealed that she left money for the gas meter for her husband the day he gassed himself... and blamed herself for his untimely death

Bonding: June appeared on The Graham Norton Show last year... where she hit it off with Lady Gaga

National treasure: June says she explored sex following her stint as a Royal Navy Wren during WWII

June deems this 'the defining moment of my life' as she was suddenly thrust into the position of eldest child.

The Second World War was merely an inconvenient speed bump in her road to womanhood.

She joined the Royal Navy Wrens at 18 and, when the war ended, enrolled at The Old Vic Theatre School in London, where she explored her sexuality in post-war Britain.

Candid: The actress has spoken about the tragedy of losing her second child 16 days after the birth

'If Id stayed at home Id have married as a virgin. But, in the heady post-war years, I fell in love all the time.'

She met John Garley - a fellow actor - at the Old Vic in 1950. They married the same year, cheated on one another, but salvaged things - until he killed himself in 1957.

'I walked into the bedroom and there was Johnny, lying on the bed, the gas fire propped up next to him,' June explained. 'Suicide was still a criminal offence in the late-Fifties. Id got him breathing again but he lasted three days in hospital before dying on May 8.'

Nasty Nick: Dot killed her own son during EastEnders' live 30th anniversary episode in 2015

Her own share of tragedy: June's own life has seen its fair share of soap-worthy twists and turns

Not slowing down: June has insisted that she won't be giving up her job any time soon. 'As long as I am capable of working, and can learn lines and move around, I will carry on. Id be utterly bored if I stopped,' she has explained

The actress revealed that she blamed herself for the death; although John was depressed, leading to his decision to take his own life, June had left him one and eight pence for the gas meter. She openly wonders what would have happened if she hadn't left him that money.

Less than a year later, she married Robert Arnold, or Bob, who played PC Swain in BBC series Dixon Of Dock Green.

They had a daughter, Louise, and another, Chloe; but Chloe died 16 days later, having been born only 28 weeks into June's pregnancy.

Tragic past: The actress revealed that she blamed herself for the death of her first husband (pictured on BBC's Who Do You Think You Are

Historic: She has since made soap history - being the only cast member to appear in a single actor episode in which Dot recorded a message for husband Jim Branning

Old pals: June remains great friends with fellow soap veteran Barbara Windsor - who left the series last year

Four further children followed  Sophie, William, another Chloe and Naomi  and Robert died in 2003 after 45 years of being married.

'Ive been telling him off recently as Im convinced hes acting as a sort of poltergeist. Things keep vanishing,' June revealed.

EastEnders was certainly June's big break - having only landed small bit parts in the likes of Coronation Street, The Bill and Doctor Who before then.

Getting the nod: June is only the second performer to receive a BAFTA nod for their work in a soap opera

Dot and Ethel: Ethel dropped a bombshell when she told Dot that she was terminally ill with cancer

Cotton no more: Dot became a Branning when she married Jim on the BBC soap

On Leslie Grantham's recommendation (he played Dirty Den in EastEnders) she signed a three month contract - which has turned into a lifelong role.

She has since made soap history - being the only cast member to appear in a single actor episode in which Dot recorded a message for husband Jim Branning, who was recovering from a stroke in 2008 - landing her a BAFTA nomination (she is only the second performer to receive a BAFTA nod for their work in a soap opera).

Ever the consummate pro, June admits that the episode was 'very very easy' to film, as there was no other actor with her to mess up the scenes.
She was turning heads before the fashion show even started.

Kylie Jenner posed up a storm at Jeremy Scott's New York Fashion Week show on Friday in the Big Apple.

Before taking her seat in the first row, the 19-year-old showed off her dazzling fringed gold ensemble - which was designed by Jeremy Scott.

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Fancy: Kylie Jenner posed up a storm at Jeremy Scott's New York Fashion Week show on Friday in the Big Apple

The makeup entrepreneur flashed her flat midriff, her cleavage and her toned legs in the eye-catching look.

Kylie rocked the glittering halter crop top with a matching skirt that featured a thigh-slit.

The unique two-piece had bits of chain hanging off the look for a fringed effect.

The teenager paired the flawless ensemble with metallic strappy heels and studded diamond earrings.

Strike a pose: The makeup entrepreneur flashed her flat midriff, hints of her cleavage and toned legs in the eye-catching look

She's a star! Before taking her seat in the first row, the 19-year-old showed off her dazzling fringed gold ensemble

Kylie wore her raven locks loose, opting for waves and a deep part.

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star wore brown shadow on her lids with nude lipstick and peach blush on her cheeks.

She posed next to her friend - the ever so stylish Sofia Richie.

Sofia, 18, also wore a belly baring look; she opted for a black crop top with matching silky bottoms.

Good looking group: She posed next to her friend and the ever so stylish Sofia Richie

Eyes on the show: Sofia, 18, also wore a belly baring look; she opted for a black crop top with matching silky bottoms

The model, who is also Justin Bieber's ex, added a colorful jacket and layers of chokers for an edgy touch.

Sofia also rocked wavy hair, but decided to keep her makeup to a minimum.

Ashley Benson sat in the front row as well; she was seated next to model Barbara Palvin.

The Pretty Little Liars star wore a red leather skirt with a bold top; adding a motorcycle jacket.

The 27-year-old wore her short blonde tresses loose with bold red lipstick on her full pout.

So into the show: Ashley Benson sat in the front row as well; she was seated next to model Barbara Palvin

Bold combination: The Pretty Little Liars star wore a red leather skirt with a bold top; adding a motorcycle jacket

Fashion forward: The 27-year-old wore her short blonde tresses loose with bold red lipstick on her full pout; pictured with Kylie

Barbara wore a colorful pleated dress with a cropped denim jacket and pink Moschino heels

Debbie Harry also attended the show, as did Mia Moretti.

Jeremy Scott's ready to wear fall/winter 2017 was all about bright colors and eye-catching textures.

Model Gigi Hadid strutted her stuff down the runway in an embellished white and gold motorcycle jacket with matching bottoms.

Pretty lady: Barbara wore a colorful pleated dress with a cropped denim jacket and pink Moschino heels

Smiles all around: Debbie Harry wore a bright top with black jeans and a jacket

Serious: Mia Morettie wore a black frock with a furry trimmed jacket to the show

Wow: Model Gigi Hadid strutted her stuff down the runway in an embellished white and gold motorcycle jacket with matching bottoms; her second look had a religious print on the bottoms, paired with a cheetah patterned jacket

Her second look had a religious print on the bottoms, paired with a cheetah patterned jacket.

During rehearsal, the 21-year-old wore sunglasses with a pink crop top and a camel trench coat.

Romee Strijd wore two looks as well; the model rocked a shiny trench for her first look with a purple jogger set for the second.

Elsa Hosk wore a bright blue dress in one look and a sequined frock for another.

So stylish: During rehearsal, the 21-year-old wore sunglasses with a pink crop top and a camel trench coat

Hitting her stride: Romee Strijd wore two looks as well; the model rocked a shiny trench for her first look with a purple jogger set for the second

That's quite a top! Stella Maxwell rocked a bold look for her turn on the runway

Interesting: Elsa Hosk wore a bright blue dress in one look and a sequined frock for another

Model Jasmine Tookes showed off her cleavage in a zebra printed gold and white frock.

After the show, Kylie took to her Instagram to thank Jeremy for the flawless ensemble.

She shared a back view of the revealing frock; the snap was taken during a previous fitting.

Kylie showed her Snapchat followers more glimpses of her fancy ensemble.

Beautiful: Jasmine Tookes showed off her cleavage in a zebra printed gold and white frock

What a look: Kylie looked focused on the fashion once the show got underway

Breathtaking: Kylie took to her Instagram to thank Jeremy for the flawless ensemble

Views: She shared a back view of the revealing frock; the snap was taken during a fitting

So sweet: Kylie hugged Jeremy following the show

The beauty thanked Jeremy for picking the look for her and said that she's 'obsessed' with it.

She took a side profile picture of the look, writing: 'Hi sparkles.'

She posed with Sofia in several clips for her Snapchat; the star also took some with Jeremy backstage.

Shiny: Kylie showed her Snapchat followers more glimpses of her fancy ensemble

Details" The beauty thanked Jeremy for picking the look for her and said that she's 'obsessed' with it

Hourglass: She took a side profile picture of the look, writing: 'Hi sparkles'

Kisses: She posed with Sofia in several clips for her Snapchat

Pose with me: Kylie filmed herself with Jeremy backstage

Serious pose: Sofia filmed Snapchats too - with Kylie in the background

Having a laugh: The teen grinned during the short clip

Meanwhile, Kylie's boyfriend Tyga was seen in a red jacket and sweats outside his hotel

After the fashion show, Kylie stepped out with her beau Tyga for dinner in the Big Apple.

The raven haired stunner stayed warm in a fur coat with cream knee-high boots.

She also changed her hair, opting for sleek tresses.

Her boyfriend also swapped out the red set for patterned bottoms with a motorcycle jacket.

Glamour: After the fashion show, Kylie stepped out with her beau Tyga for dinner

Sparkle: The raven haired stunner stayed warm in a fur coat with cream knee-high boots

Not shy: Her boyfriend also swapped out the red set for patterned bottoms with a motorcycle jacket; pictured in the Big Apple




It's an issue with any dramatised version of a true story: time moves on, and people grow older.

And with the success of the first season of Netflix's royal drama The Crown, it would seem the writers are thinking beyond the commissioned season two, to what will happen next.

As it stands, Matt Smith and Claire Foy portray Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh as their younger selves, between the years 1947 and 1955.

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Actor abdication: The Crown creator admits he's 'thinking about recasting everybody' as the plot progresses... meaning Matt Smith and Claire Foy would no longer star in the hit drama

But as their tale progresses, so does time - and the characters of the series will naturally age.

And using make-up, or even CGI, to make the actors look older is not something show creator Peter Morgan is interested in doing.

'I feel that when we reach 1963-64 weve gone as far as we can go with Claire Foy without having to do silly things in terms of makeup to make her look older,' he said of the actress, who is currently 32 (Matt is 34).

Referring to what happens if a third season is commissioned (which it's likely it will be seeing as there is a six season arc planned) Peter told ScreenDaily: 'Wed probably need to think about the issue of recasting everybody and so those conversations are happening now.

Cast cull: And using make-up to age the actors, or even CGI, is not something show creator Peter Morgan is interested in doing

Time to dethrone? Matt Smith and Claire Foy portray Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh as their younger selves, between the years 1947 and 1955

'I couldnt tell you where well come out. Its a big thing to go on again. Everybody needs to look at one another and [ask] under which circumstances and what terms would we do it.'

Series two of The Crown started shooting last October, with Michael C. Hall and Jodi Balfour recruited this week to portray President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jackie Kennedy.

The plot arc in which the Dexter actor and Final Destination 5 actress feature concerns a visit the Kennedys made to London in June, 1961.

New addition: Producers on the next series of the Netflix smash hit The Crown - which will document Queen Elizabeth II's reign over six seasons - have hired Michael C. Hall to play President John F. Kennedy

History repeated: The episode concerns a visit the Kennedys made to London in June, 1961

The visit was considered tricky and sensitive because, back then, divorcees were not invited to state dinners at Buckingham Palace.

Jackie had wanted her sister Princess Lee Radziwell, then on her second husband, to attend. The Queen was furious but reluctantly agreed.

The episode will show that the Queen was clearly annoyed with Jackie Kennedys behaviour and that the two didnt get on particularly well.

Spitting image: Jackie will be played by actress Jodi Balfour (above in Bomb Girls)

However, when Jackie confided to the Queen that she found being on public view exhausting, the Queen confided to her: One gets crafty after a while and learns how to save oneself.'

The two women met again nine months later, but it was just the two of them and the visit was less frosty.

One of the production executives told MailOnline that once Hall has been through hair and make-up, 'he bears an uncanny resemblance to JFK'.

The Crown has become a huge hit for Netflix with the drama winning top awards at the Golden Globes and at the Screen Actors Guild awards, plus Best Actress in the TV categories at the Globes and SAGs for Foy.
She's gone nude multiple times on her show Girls.

But on Friday Lena Dunham was showing off a different pair of pups on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

The 30-year-old actress and activist arrived on set toting two canine companions.

Showing off! On Friday Lena Dunham showed off a pair of pups on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon

Each furry friend even had their own outfit, with one pooch sporting a leopard print vest, while the other rocked a hot pink parka complete with grey fur trim.

Of course Lena herself had also dressed up for the occasion.

The Tiny Furniture star turned some heads in an eye-catching black and white stripe dress.

Spaghetti straps and a moderately low neckline meant she flashed a bit of skin.

Fashionistas: Each furry friend even had their own outfit, with one pooch sporting a leopard print vest, while the other rocked a hot pink parka complete with grey fur trim

She completed the outfit with a pair of pumps which included a strap on the heel, though she opted not to take advantage of the optional extra security.

Her chestnut tresses were pulled back into a bushy ponytail, and also featured some short bangs.

The New York native kept her make-up to a minimum, with light blush, some pale rose lipstick and orange eye shadow.

While she seemed to enjoy the interview, and even handed off one of her dogs to Jimmy at one point, her recent interview on the Today show was slightly rougher.

Contrast: The Tiny Furniture star turned some heads in an eye-catching black and white stripe dress

Nothing complicated: Her chestnut tresses were pulled back into a bushy ponytail, and also featured some short bangs

Could you hold this? While she seemed to enjoy the interview, and even handed off one of her dogs to Jimmy at one point, her recent interview on the Today show was slightly rougher

As fill-in host Maria Shriver was ending her interview and thanking the star for joining her, things started to go off the rails.

'Thank you so much for stopping by. I had a chance to look at three shows for this new season, and it looks terrific,' she complimented the star.

In true Lena fashion, she replied in a deadpan voice: 'You saw a penis, right?'

A flustered Maria had no idea what to say, but tried to recover:

'Yeah. Well, I saw more than that! You caught me there for a second. I am not sure if you are allowed to say that on televisionbut you did!'

Precious cargo: Lena was later seen at JFK airport with her two pups
She's the Balinese princess, creating a name for herself after splitting from husband and former Olympian Michael Klim.

And Lindy Klim stunned as she attended Omega's lavish black-tie event in Sydney on Friday, honouring veteran model and brand ambassador Cindy Crawford.

Taking to Instagram on Saturday, the 39-year-old highlighted her delicate decolletage and offered a glimpse of cleavage in a plunging white frock by Christopher Esber.

Timeless! Lindy Klim, 39, took to Instagram on Saturday, sharing a stunning snap from the previous night, highlighting her slim figure in a plunging white frock, at Omega's lavish black-tie event in Sydney

'A stunning night celebrating @omega last night,' Lindy captioned the snap shared with her 92,100 followers.

Posing in front of an elegant white and gold dinner table, the brand ambassador showed off her slim figure in a semi-sheer white frock.

The sleeveless design showed off her lithe arms, while the plunging neckline drew attention to her decolletage.

All in the details: A black and white image shared to Instagram on Friday, saw the mother-of-three flaunting her toned back in the Christopher Esber frock

Accessorising with red Miss Louise heels and statement jewels, Lindy swept her dark locks into a sleek bun at the nape of her neck, accentuating a minimal makeup palette.

Meanwhile, a black and white image shared to Instagram on Friday, saw the personality flaunting her toned back in the Christopher Esber frock.

Lindy posed on the balcony of the InterContinental hotel in Double Bay, Sydney, after spending time in her native Bali.

New love: Michael and Lindy Klim announced their split in February 2016, after a decade of marriage. She is now engaged to British beau Adam Ellis (pictured)

With her back turned to face the camera, the mother-of-three showed off the gown's elegant corset-like detailing.

Lindy captioned the post: 'A very hot summer Sydney night out with @omega wearing @christopher_esber,' alongside the hash-tag #omegahertime.

It's certainly been an eventful past year for Lindy, having called time on her marriage to former husband Michael Klim, 39, in February 2016.

In happier times: Michael and Lindy share three children together, daughters Stella and Frankie, and son Rocco

The couple share three children together, daughters Stella and Frankie, and son Rocco.

Lindy has since moved on, becoming engaged to British property developer Adam Ellis in October last year.

Michael is also enjoying a blossoming relationship with fashion designer and Lindy-lookalike Desiree Deravi.
She's the Australian supermodel who's taken the fashion industry by storm.

But this time Nicole Trunfio was arm in arm with her musician husband, of almost one year, Gary Clark Jr.

The 30-year-old shared a sweet selfie with her beau in the back of a car en route to MusiCares Person of the Year event, honouring musician Tom Petty, in Los Angeles, California.

Loved-up! Australian model Nicole Trunfio shared a selfie of herself with musician husband Gary Clark Jr. en route to MusiCares Person of the Year event, honouring musician Tom Petty, in Los Angeles

In the photo the Perth-born beauty leans into her husband, placing her hand up towards her collar bone showing off sparkling rings and statement gold earrings.

Meanwhile, Gary looked dapper in a grey coat and shirt, pairing it with black skinny jeans.

He accessorised his look with black boots and a Fedora.

Goddess: The 30-year-old looked like a Greek Goddess in her unusual white silk gown

'Stunning couple': Fans of the supermodel liked their sweet selfie, friend and E! presenter Renee Bargh commented on the post 'Cuties. Miss you'

Their adorable pre-event photo was liked by plenty of her fans, including friend and E! presenter Renee Bargh who commented on the post: 'Cuties. Miss you'

Another fan wrote: 'You both look amazing...his suit is HOT!!'

While someone else said: 'Stunning couple.'

Happy family: The supermodel and musician have been married for almost a year and together share son, two-year-old Zion

At the event, Nicole stunned red carpet in a unusual and unique designed gown.

She flaunted her enviable figure in a one-shouldered, white silk dress that had an asymmetrical design that prominently featured the whole of her right leg.

The brunette beauty appeared like a Greek goddess pairing her ensemble with a gold waist belt, clutch and strappy stilettos.

Nicole and Gary married in April 2016 and together share a son, two-year-old Zion.
She grew up the product of an immigrant family in the suburbs of western Sydney.

But while Vimala Raman, 37, is still relatively unknown to Australian audiences she is one of the country's best acting exports alongside Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

In an interview with Good Weekend, the Bollywood actress and University of New South Wales graduate revealed her unexpected rise to becoming one of India's biggest celebrities.

Move over Nicole Kidman! Meet Vimala Raman, 37, the Aussie girl who grew up in western Sydney watching Bollywood movies and is now one of India's most successful actresses

Born to Indian parents who had migrated to Australia, Vimala was raised in the south west Sydney suburb of Narwee and spent her teen years hanging out at local shopping centres and watching Bollywood movies.

The brunette beauty taught herself how to dance from these tapes, and in 2004 was crowned Miss India Australia.

Part of her win involved competing for the international title in India, where she placed in the top five.

Dual identity: The actress confesses to still feeling Australian despite her years living in India, but jokes that it often reverses when she is back home

But Vimala scored a much bigger prize from the beauty pageant, landing a role in a movie directed by a prestigious Bollywood director.

While the film flopped it lead to a score of over roles and Vimala becoming one of India's biggest movie stars in just over a decade.

She has since become fluent in eight different languages in order to act in roles for different regions of the vast country.

Unknown: Vimala can still visit Australia without the mobs of fans and recognition that follows her everywhere in India

'I never thought it would be a life-changing decision for me. After that it was bam-bambam movies, and before I knew it I had a house there, I was visiting Australia, and getting my overseas citizenship in India,' she told Fairfax Media.

Despite her success - she boasts more than two million likes on Facebook - Vimala can still visit Australia without the mobs of fans and recognition that follows her everywhere in India.

The actress confesses to still feeling Australian despite her years living in India, but jokes that it often reverses when she is back home.

A Sydney girl: Born to Indian parents who had migrated to Australia, Vimala was raised in the south west Sydney suburb of Narwee

'If I'm in India, I'll be supporting Australia like anything; "Aussie Aussie Aussie, yeah mate, go slam that shit",' she said.

'... But in Australia, if India comes to play, I'd be supporting the Indian team. It's like your right eye and your left eye. Which one do you need more? You need both.'
She's known for commanding the runway with her signature strut.

Yet, Lily Donaldson managed to turn heads for her enviable style as she attended the F Is For Fendi party at New York Fashion Week on Friday night.

The 30-year-old British beauty showcased her never-ending pins in a thigh-grazing suede miniskirt as she posed for photos on the star-studded red carpet.

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Chic: Lily Donaldson managed to turn heads for her enviable style as she attended the F Is For Fendi party at New York Fashion Week on Friday night

Keeping to an all black look, she teamed a loose-fitting tee with her flesh-flaunting skirt, while her oversized T-shirt swamped her leafy frame.

The blonde beauty - who has fronted campaigns for Burberry, Gucci and Fendi - added a touch of sex appeal to her ensemble as she slipped into a pair of thigh-high boots.

Helping elongate her already lengthy pins, her choice of footwear hugged her toned legs as she sashayed to the venue.

Lily completed her look by accessorising with a number of layered gold necklaces and large hoop earrings as she worked her golden tresses into a messy ponytail for the bash.

Flesh-flaunting: The 30-year-old British beauty showcased her never-ending pins in a thigh-grazing suede miniskirt as she posed for photo's on the star-studded red carpet

The model - who has 28 Vogue covers under her belt - conquered the catwalk at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris in December.

It marked the seventh time the veteran Angel had stormed the catwalk at the prestigious annual fashion event.

Meanwhile, Lily previously discussed reigniting her passion for adventure after a terrifying accident forced her to change her outlook on life.

Feeling flirty: The blonde beauty - who has fronted campaigns for Burberry, Gucci and Fendi - added a touch of sex appeal to her ensemble as she slipped into a pair of thigh-high boots

In an interview with The Edit, the star recalled her horse-riding accident which left her unable to walk for three months.

'It readjusted my feelings. It was like, 'Oh, you can hurt yourself',' she said.

Lily enjoyed a period of soul searching, taking time to travel the world before returning to her modelling career.

'I'd (modelled) solidly for a long time and it was great, but I had to take a step back', she said.
Giant panda Bao Bao eats sugar cane in the yard in the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington.

Panda breeders in Southwest China's Sichuan province are preparing for the return of Bao Bao, a female giant panda born in the United States, who is scheduled to arrive Feb 22.

"The Dujiangyan base of the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Panda in Chengdu city has prepared a 100-plus-square-meter panda habitat composed of a lounge and playground," said Qiu Yu, a publicity worker with the center.

"After arrival, the panda will spend a month-long quarantine at the base, where she will start to adapt to local bamboo and Chinese-style bread, as well as breeders speaking Sichuan dialect," Qiu said.

Bao Bao was born on Aug 23, 2013 at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington D. C.

The zoo said that a FedEx aircraft will carry the panda to Chengdu from Washington D. C. on Feb 21 local time.

The panda's mother Mei Xiang and father Tian Tian moved to the zoo in 2000 under a collaboration agreement between China and the United States. According to the agreement, panda cubs born in the United States to parents on loan from China must be returned to China.
She's been embroiled in a bitter spat with her husband Amir Khan's family, which has seen her looks being likened to Michael Jackson and her father-in-law vowing never to speak to her again.

And the boxer's stunning wife Faryal Makhdoom could be set to add further fuel to the fire as she revealed she's 'in talks' with Celebrity Big Brother bosses to appear in the next series of the hit Channel 5 reality series.

The Pakistani American beauty, 25, took to her Snapchat account to announce the potential TV opportunity which could see her unveil explosive family secrets - but has enlisted the help of her fans to decide whether she should accept the offer.

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Soon to tell her side of the story: Amir Khan's wife Faryal Makhdoom, 25, could be set to reveal explosive family feud secrets as she announced she's 'in talks' with Celebrity Big Brother bosses to appear in the next series

The Brooklyn, New York native explained the situation on the social media platform, revealing: 'Hey guys, I got asked to be on Celebrity Big BrotherIts a very tricky one and idk (sic) if I can do it.

'I want my followers (sic) advice. On my last Instagram post, tell me whether I should or shouldnt? I want you guys to pick,' she asked.

And her 602k followers quickly rushed to her aid on her latest stunning Instagram selfie, with an overwhelmingly pro-CBB response.

'You should deffo go on big brother ' one user egged her on, while the other explained the pros of appearing on the show, 'I think you will bring a lot of viewers to the show.'

'I want you guys to pick!' The Pakistani American beauty took to her Snapchat account to announce the potential TV opportunity - but has enlisted the help of her fans to decide whether she should accept the offer

Offering their opinions: Her 602k Instagram followers quickly rushed to her aid on her latest stunning Instagram selfie, with an overwhelmingly pro-CBB response

A plethora of others supported her decision with similar comments such as: 'Go on Big Brother! Would love itt!!!!'

'U will be more famous than kim kardashian if u came on big brother...' another teased her with her future status.

Meanwhile, a few of her dedicated fans expressed their concern: 'Don't do big brother, trust me it'll be a mistake, please don't do it.'

'Isn't what you have always dreamed of? Being famous and getting attention. Don't forget that you are a wife but on top of all a mummy. BIG BROTHER IS NOT SUITED TO YOU,' another offered his opinion.

If the make-up entrepreneur makes the decision to star in the next instalment of CBB - which saw Coleen Nolan being crowned champion in the latest series - she would make for a feisty addition to the line-up.

'You will be more famous than Kim Kardashian!' One user teased her with her future status as a result of the upcoming TV opportunity

'It'll be a mistake!' A few others expressed their concerns about the 'tricky decision'

Faryal is no stranger to squabbles and her drama with her husband's family has been played out extensively over the past few months.

She recently gave her sports-star hubby an ultimatum to choose between her or his family after months of infighting and rows.

Faryal banned the boxer from attending his younger brother Haroon's wedding because she still can't forgive him for comparing her to Michael Jackson.

And she also harbours fears that more sex tapes of her husband could emerge, putting further pressure on their relationship.

The recent sex tape, which was reportedly been leaked to a major US porn site, featured the former world champion boxer carrying out a sex act while speaking to a female model on Skype.

Explosive: If the make-up entrepreneur makes the decision to star in the next instalment of CBB, she would make for a feisty addition to the line-up

Feud: Faryal is no stranger to squabbles and her drama with her husband's family has been played out extensively over the past few months

The Khans appeared on This Morning last month to claim that the webcam footage of Khan was made before they met.

The couple, who live in Bolton, Greater Manchester and married in the US 2013, also suggested it was leaked out of spite by someone once 'close' to them.

But now beauty blogger Faryal, who became engaged to the star five years ago on Sunday, fears another tape could soon be unveiled.

'She's paranoid about another sex tape being leaked. She's controlling and bossy and now wants to be with her husband all the time,' said a source close to the couple.

Drama: She recently gave her sports-star hubby an ultimatum to choose between her or his family after months of infighting and also harbours fears that more sex tapes of her husband could emerge

'She wants to be with Amir at every moment and in everything he does to keep tabs on him and ensure he remains on track,' a source close to the family revealed.

The source said: 'It caused a huge problem when it was leaked last week and although Faryal was aware of it they still had a big row and they've been arguing endlessly about the family rift and Haroon.

Meanwhile, Haroon said he was 'bitterly disappointed' at the boxer not attending the wedding and said he was upset that his famous brother 'didn't even send a message of congratulations.'

'Amir told Faryal that would cause an outcry if they didn't go.'

At war: The bitter feud has seen her looks being likened to Michael Jackson and her father-in-law vowing never to speak to her again

'She said if he went it would be alone which would show he had disowned her in favour of pleasing Haroon. She can't forget about those remarks, they really hurt her.

And to add a further blow, Amir's father revealed he would never talk to Faryal ever again after he was 'humiliated' following his sacking as the boxer's manager.

Mr Khan has always managed his son's professional career, seeing him through the ups and down of the 30-year-old champion boxer's life.

'He feels humiliated in his community, in my own homes, and globally,' a family friend told MailOnline. 'Credit for that goes to Faryal who got Amir to do it.'
It was claimed the construction manager was 'angry' after images emerged of his ex Sam Frost getting close with her good friend Dave Bashford.

But on Saturday, Sasha Mielczarek seemed to be in good spirits as he donned an Australian flag print bikini along with a blonde wig and red lipstick.

The 32-year-old smiled for the camera alongside a male pal and captioned the post: 'Does anyone think I'm a failure because I go home to Starla at night? FORGET ABOUT IT!'

Missing Sam much? On Saturday, Sasha Mielczarek seemed to be in good spirits as he donned an Australian flag print bikini along with a blonde wig and red lipstick

Fellow Bachelor star Richie Strahan posted the comment: 'Burn it with fire!'

The social media post comes a week after Sasha was apparently displeased with Sam who he broke up with over Christmas.

A friend was quoted Woman's Day magazine: 'Sashas a typical proud Aussie bloke and he thinks out of courtesy Sam should wait a little longer until shes seen canoodling with another guy'.

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'Sashas a typical proud Aussie bloke': According to a friend, the former Bachelorette winner is angry with Sam for 'canoodling' with another guy so publicly and so soon after their split

Touchy-feely picnic: Photos emerged of Sam and her friend Dave Bashford at an Australia Day picnic with friends with their arms around one another for most of the outing

Daily Mail Australia reached out to Sasha for comment.

The pair announced their split in December, two days after Christmas.

And one month later, on Australia Day, Sam was pictured with her arm around Dave, while he was touching her knee tenderly.

The pair appeared inseparable as they sat among friends at a Sydney park for a picnic.

Upset? It's claimed the construction manager is 'angry' after images emerged of the original Bachelorette getting touchy-feely with her good friend Dave Bashford

Moving on? The pictures of Sam with Dave suggested The Bachelorette has moved on following the end of her 18-months relationship with Sasha

'Mates': A rep has denied a relationship between Sam and Dave (pictured), telling Daily Mail Australia that 'Dave is one of Sam's mates'

However, Sam's representative told Daily Mail Australia when the pictures first came out: 'Dave is one of Sams mates, hes not a boyfriend'.

The reality TV personality's rep added that the magazine 'ran a series of pap photos without checking any facts'.

Adding to the theory that Sam and Dave are merely 'mates' it was claimed the pair have been friends for years.

However, according to , OK! magazine the duo are reported to be ready to move in together just months after being introduced to one another.

Single lady? It's understood the Sam (pictured) met Dave through her former housemate Sarah-Mae Amey last October and the pair are believed to have been inseparable since

It's understood the pair met through Sam's former housemate Sarah-Mae Amey last October and have been inseparable since.

Meanwhile, there were rumours Sasha was dating Gold Coast beauty Elisa Nolan, a friend of the massage therapist's told Daily Mail Australia last month the duo are simply long-time family friends and not romantically involved.

Sasha and Sam announced their split in late December following months of speculation the pair had called it quits.

Summer split: Sasha and Sam announced their split in late December following months of speculation the pair had called it quits

'After 18 months together, Sam Frost and Sasha Mielczarek have come to a mutual decision to end their relationship,' read a statement she released at the time.

The couple dated after meeting on the reality TV series in 2014 and were building a house together at the time of their split.

Following the summer split, the 27-year-old appears happier than ever on social media, telling fans she is 'feeling like me again' recently in an Instagram post.
She jetted to Cape Verde with her husband Kieran Hayler back in 2014 - and had heavily documented the sun-soaked break on social media.

However Katie Price has now revealed that the idyllic getaway actually brought her close to death, after she almost drowned at the hands of the island's dangerous ocean.

The 38-year-old took to her Twitter on Friday to explain how she had been swept into the sea by a treacherous wave during the holiday - which would have killed her if Kieran had not been there to pull her out.

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Close call: Katie Price, 38, has revealed that her husband Kieran Hayler saved her from drowning during their holiday to Cape Verde two years ago

The TV personality took to the social media site to address recent claims regarding the island's dangerous waves, which have reportedly left holidaymakers injured.

Clearly bringing back bad memories from her own trip, Katie went on to reveal her terrifying incident with fans, which brought her close to death.

She wrote: 'Omg this is where I got knocked out in the see from the waves and if it wasn't for kieran pulling me out I would have been dead' (sic)

Shaken up: The TV personality took to the social media site to recall the terrifying incident (above) in light of recent reports that the Cape Verde waves had left holidaymakers injured

Happier times: She explained that during the break with her children (including Princess, then 7, above) she was 'knocked out' by the waves and would have died without Kieran saving her

The incident had occurred during the couple's holiday to Cape Verde in 2014 with their first child Jett, born in August 2013, as well as Katie's three other children - Harvey, now 14, Junior, eleven, and nine-year-old Princess.

However the holiday had certainly not been without drama for Katie, who went on to discover she was expecting her fifth child while on the island - making her near-death experience even more dramatic.

She had realised she was six months pregnant after suffering a series of intense stomach aches during the holiday - her first with baby Jett - before going on to welcome a daughter, Bunny, in August of that year.

Dramatic: The incident had occurred during the couple's holiday to Cape Verde in 2014, which Katie heavily documented on social media (above)

New memories: The trip had been the first with the couple's first child Jett, born in August 2013, as well as Katie's three other kids - Harvey, now 14, Junior, 11, and nine-year-old Princess

Only adding to the hectic period of her life, the trip was also where she had walked in on her husband kissing her married ex-best friend Jane.

At the time, Katie revealed to The Mirror her furious reaction at the discovery of Jane and Kieran becoming intimate behind her back.

'I got up and proper got her,' she said. 'I thought I was a cage fighter or something... I was that angry I just clutched her hair. I'm not hard but I've done training.'

Happy news: However the holiday had certainly not been without drama for Katie, who went on to discover she was expecting her fifth child while on the island

The following year, the former I'm A Celebrity star went on to explain the exact moment she found the duo together, leading to her heartbreak and very public rows.

She recalled: 'I remember going down to the bar one day in Cape Verde to ask the staff if they had seen my husband.

'They pointed towards the beach and said he'd gone that way. I asked them if he was with anyone and they said no. At that point, I knew he had gone to meet her.

'So I started walking towards the beach and in the distance, I could see these two silhouettes on the sun loungers. My heart was racing because I knew it was them. Then there they were, kissing each other.'

Lucky number five: She had realised she was six months pregnant after suffering stomach aches during the holiday before going on to welcome a daughter, Bunny, in August of that year

Katie and Jane had known each other for 20 years when the ten-month affair came to light, and the latter was even maid of honour at Katie's weddings to Alex Reid and Kieran.

However, after declaring her desire to divorce Kieran in light of the events, the pair later reconciled - with Katie admitting on Loose Women last year that they were seeing a therapist to help them recover from the fallout of the affair.

Katie and Kieran originally tied the knot in the Bahamas on January 16 in 2013, and recently commemorated their fourth anniversary on social media.

Sharing a throwback snap from their beach-side wedding day, Katie decorated the image with the word 'Love' and a kiss in bright pink letters - proving they were now stronger than ever.
She's an internationally acclaimed Australian actress known for her comedic turn in Bridesmaids and Spy.

But now Rose Byrne, whose son Rocco is almost one, is happy to be making her first children's film as she films Peter Rabbit in Sydney.

And while speaking to Daily Mail Australia at Tropfest on Saturday, the 37-year-old hinted she may stick to kids movies for a little while yet.

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'We'll see - maybe another kids movie': Tropfest judge Rose Byrne hinted she may stick to kids movies for a little while yet as the mother-of-one films Peter Rabbit in Sydney

When asked on the black carpet what she would be working on after finishing with Peter Rabbit, a coy Rose revealed: 'Not sure what is next but we will see - maybe another kids movie'.

Rose, who was Tropfest's head juror, said she was excited to show Rocco her upcoming children's movie Peter Rabbit.

The actress is currently filming the Beatrix Potter classic in Centennial Park, Sydney.

'It's going to be a really good one for him and my nephews,' Rose gushed. 'It's a super cute film.'

'It's going to be a really good one for him': Rose, who was Tropfest's head juror, said she was excited to show Rocco her upcoming children's movie Peter Rabbit

Decisions around which film projects to accept hadn't changed in principle since welcoming her son with long term partner actor Bobby Cannavale

'It's always about director and script and timing,' Rose said. 'It is such a complicated decision once you have a family having to factor that in.

But Rose confessed to loving the juggling act, saying: 'We have really been enjoying it'.

Going casual: Also on the Tropfest carpet was veteran actor Sam Neill, who attempted to combat the 40 degree heat in a light cotton shirt and chino pants

Support: The New Zealand born actor is a long time advocate of local film making

The Bad Neighbours actress braved the stifling heat in a stunning black jumpsuit, pairing the outfit with a pair of patterned red platform heels.

Also on the Tropfest carpet was veteran actor Sam Neill, who attempted to combat the 40 degree heat in a light cotton shirt and chino pants.

The Jurassic Park star caught up with Tropfest founder and director John Polson, with the pair happily embracing each other in greeting.

Fancing seeing you! The Jurassic Park star caught up with Tropfest founder and director John Polson, with the pair happily embracing each other in greeting

Visionary: Tropfest was founded in 1993 and bills itself as a launching pad for local talent

Leading the ladies fashion pack was the stunning 2015 Miss Universe Australia Monika Radulovic.

The model wore a breezy white maxi dress which featured an eyelet design and plunging neckline.

The 26-year-old styled her brunette locks poker straight, accessorising with a pair of daring abstract earrings.

Stunning: Leading the ladies fashion pack was a stunning 2015 Miss Universe Australia Monika Radulovic

Cute: Home And Away star Penny McNamee was pretty in pink at the film festival wearing fashionable wrap dress

Matching: The mother of one accessorised her outfit with a light pink clutch

Home And Away star Penny McNamee was pretty in pink at the film festival wearing fashionable wrap dress.

The mother of one accessorised her outfit with a light pink clutch and white heeled shoes.

Former Big Brother star Aisha Jade paired a red floral dress which hugged her curves with a pair of white runners.

Street smart: Former Big Brother star Aisha Jade paired a red floral dress which hugged her curves with a pair of white runners

Fun look: The Loop's Olivia Phyland went playful in a strapless floral top which bared her toned stomach

On trend hairdo: She wore her blonde locks half up in a bun and sported a deep summer tan

The brunette beauty went bold with a bright red handbag, also accessorising with over-sized bejewelled earrings.

The Loop's Olivia Phyland went playful in a strapless floral top which bared her toned stomach.

She wore her blonde locks half up in a bun, pairing the summer look with a pair of wedge sandals.

Keeping it simple: Also representing the boys was Justified actor Damon Herriman and Mad Max director George Miller

Ladies: Head juror Rose posed for photos alongside other prominent female Australian actors

Also representing the boys was Justified actor Damon Herriman and Mad Max director George Miller.

Former Bachelor star turned radio host Heather Maltman attended the event, pairing a white dress with tan cowboy boots.

The aspiring actress paired her look with a pair of drop earrings and a navy mongrammed clutch.

Yee Haw! Former Bachelor star turned radio host Heather Maltman attended the event, pairing a white dress with tan cowboy boots.
Leading the ladies fashion pack was the stunning 2015 Miss Universe Australia Monika Radulovic at Tropfest on Saturday.

The model wore a breezy white maxi dress which featured an eyelet design and plunging neckline.

The 26-year-old styled her brunette locks poker straight, accessorising with a pair of daring abstract earrings and beige wedges.

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White hot! Leading the ladies fashion pack was the stunning 2015 Miss Universe Australia Monika Radulovic at Tropfest on Saturday

Internationally acclaimed Australian Rose Byrne was also present and wore a classic black jumpsuit.

Rose, who was Tropfest's head juror, revealed to Daily Mail Australia she was excited to show Rocco her upcoming children's movie Peter Rabbit.

The actress is currently filming the Beatrix Potter classic in Centennial Park, Sydney.

Stunning: The model wore a breezy white maxi dress which featured an eyelet design and plunging neckline

'We will see - maybe another kids movie!' Tropfest judge Rose Byrne hinted that she may stick to children's movies for a while yet, as the mother-of-one films the new Peter Rabbit movie in Sydney

'It's going to be a really good one for him and my nephews,' Rose gushed. 'It's a super cute film.'

Decisions around which film projects to accept hadn't changed in principle since welcoming her son with long term partner actor Bobby Cannavale.

'It's always about director and script and timing,' Rose said. 'It is such a complicated decision once you have a family having to factor that in.

But Rose confessed to loving the juggling act, telling Daily Mail Australia: 'We have really been enjoying it'

When asked on the black carpet what she would be working on after finishing with Peter Rabbit, a coy Rose revealed: 'Not sure what is next but we will see - maybe another kids movie'.

'It's going to be a really good one for him': Rose, who was Tropfest's head juror, said she was excited to show Rocco her upcoming children's movie Peter Rabbit

Going casual: Also on the Tropfest carpet was veteran actor Sam Neill, who attempted to combat the 40 degree heat in a light cotton shirt and chino pants

Support: The New Zealand born actor is a long time advocate of local film making

Also on the Tropfest carpet was veteran actor Sam Neill, who attempted to combat the 40 degree heat in a light cotton shirt and chino pants.

The Jurassic Park star caught up with Tropfest founder and director John Polson, with the pair happily embracing each other in greeting.

Fancing seeing you! The Jurassic Park star caught up with Tropfest founder and director John Polson, with the pair happily embracing each other in greeting

Visionary: Tropfest was founded in 1993 and bills itself as a launching pad for local talent

Cute: Home And Away star Penny McNamee was pretty in pink at the film festival wearing fashionable wrap dress

Matching: The mother of one accessorised her outfit with a light pink clutch

Home And Away star Penny McNamee was pretty in pink at the film festival wearing fashionable wrap dress.

The mother of one accessorised her outfit with a light pink clutch and white heeled shoes.

Former Big Brother star Aisha Jade paired a red floral dress which hugged her curves with a pair of white runners.

Street smart: Former Big Brother star Aisha Jade paired a red floral dress which hugged her curves with a pair of white runners

Fun look: The Loop's Olivia Phyland went playful in a strapless floral top which bared her toned stomach

On trend hairdo: She wore her blonde locks half up in a bun and sported a deep summer tan

The brunette beauty went bold with a bright red handbag, also accessorising with over-sized bejewelled earrings.

The Loop's Olivia Phyland went playful in a strapless floral top which bared her toned stomach.

She wore her blonde locks half up in a bun, pairing the summer look with a pair of wedge sandals.

Keeping it simple: Also representing the boys was Justified actor Damon Herriman and Mad Max director George Miller

Ladies: Head juror Rose posed for photos alongside other prominent female Australian actors

Also representing the boys was Justified actor Damon Herriman and Mad Max director George Miller.

Former Bachelor star turned radio host Heather Maltman attended the event, pairing a white dress with tan cowboy boots.

The aspiring actress paired her look with a pair of drop earrings and a navy mongrammed clutch.

Yee Haw! Former Bachelor star turned radio host Heather Maltman attended the event, pairing a white dress with tan cowboy boots.
They starred together in the highest grossing New Zealand film of all time.

And it was a happy reunion for Hunt For The Wilderpeople co-stars Sam Neill, 69, and Julian Dennison, 14 on Saturday.

The New Zealand natives reunited at Tropfest in Sydney, enthusiastically hugging each other and posing for photos together.

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The boys are back! Sam Neill reunites with Hunt For The Wilderpeople co-star Julian Dennison, 14, at Tropfest

Julian and Sam met up backstage at the festival on Saturday afternoon, which was held in Parramatta, western Sydney.

The Jurassic Park star wore cream chinos with a loose button down shirt, pairing the outfit with brown runners.

Julian dressed for the hot day in black shorts and a T-shirt, added colour with his bright blue shoes.

Fancy seeing you! The two hugged each other appreciatively, with a gleeful Julian over the moon at meeting up with the veteran thespian

Reunited: Julian and Sam also shook hands enthusiastically, The Dish actor grinning happily at the young teen

The two hugged each other appreciatively, with a gleeful Julian over the moon at meeting up with the veteran thespian.

Julian and Sam also shook hands enthusiastically, The Dish actor grinning happily at the young teen.

The two actors starred in the 2016 comedy, which sees an older man taking the teen on an adventure through the New Zealand bush.

Sleeper hit: The two actors starred in the 2016 comedy, which sees an older man taking the teen on an adventure through the New Zealand bush

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia at Tropfest, Sam revealed he often turned down larger roles in favour of smaller films such as the sleeper hit Hunt Of The Wilderpeople.

'[I've turned down] quite a few,' Sam said. 'It's actually better not to talk about the roles you turned down because the person who replaces you feels like second choice. It's undiplomatic.'

Sam is currently shooting Peter Rabbit in Sydney's Centennial Park alongside the 'darling' Rose Byrne.

Choses carefully: Sam revealed he often turned down larger roles in favour of smaller films

He is taking on the role of the villainous farmer intent on catching Beatrix Potter's most famous creation.

'I am playing Mr McGregor who hates rabbits, so philosophically we disagree about the rabbit population,' Sam joked. 'Other than that we've had great fun.

'It's a different approach to film making when you're working with animated creatures.'
Along with a whole host of stars, Former Bachelor star turned radio host Heather Maltman attended Tropfest 2017 on Saturday.

The brunette beauty channelled her inner cowgirl as she paired a white dress with tan cowboy boots.

The aspiring actress paired her look with a pair of drop earrings and a navy mongrammed clutch.

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Yee Haw! Former Bachelor star turned radio host Heather Maltman attended Tropfest 2017 on Saturday. The brunette beauty channelled her inner cowgirl as she paired a white dress with tan cowboy boots

Leading the ladies fashion pack was also the stunning 2015 Miss Universe Australia Monika Radulovic.

The model wore a breezy white maxi dress which featured an eyelet design and plunging neckline.

The 26-year-old styled her brunette locks poker straight, accessorising with a pair of daring abstract earrings and beige wedges.

Looking good! The aspiring actress paired her look with a pair of drop earrings and a navy mongrammed clutch

Stunning: The model wore a breezy white maxi dress which featured an eyelet design and plunging neckline

Internationally acclaimed Australian Rose Byrne was also present and wore a classic black jumpsuit.

Rose, who was Tropfest's head juror, revealed to Daily Mail Australia she was excited to show Rocco her upcoming children's movie Peter Rabbit.

The actress is currently filming the Beatrix Potter classic in Centennial Park, Sydney.

'We will see - maybe another kids movie!' Tropfest judge Rose Byrne hinted that she may stick to children's movies for a while yet, as the mother-of-one films the new Peter Rabbit movie in Sydney

'It's going to be a really good one for him and my nephews,' Rose gushed. 'It's a super cute film.'

Decisions around which film projects to accept hadn't changed in principle since welcoming her son with long term partner actor Bobby Cannavale.

'It's always about director and script and timing,' Rose said. 'It is such a complicated decision once you have a family having to factor that in.

But Rose confessed to loving the juggling act, telling Daily Mail Australia: 'We have really been enjoying it'

When asked on the black carpet what she would be working on after finishing with Peter Rabbit, a coy Rose revealed: 'Not sure what is next but we will see - maybe another kids movie'.

'It's going to be a really good one for him': Rose, who was Tropfest's head juror, said she was excited to show Rocco her upcoming children's movie Peter Rabbit

Going casual: Also on the Tropfest carpet was veteran actor Sam Neill, who attempted to combat the 40 degree heat in a light cotton shirt and chino pants

Support: The New Zealand born actor is a long time advocate of local film making

Also on the Tropfest carpet was veteran actor Sam Neill, who attempted to combat the 40 degree heat in a light cotton shirt and chino pants.

The Jurassic Park star caught up with Tropfest founder and director John Polson, with the pair happily embracing each other in greeting.

Fancing seeing you! The Jurassic Park star caught up with Tropfest founder and director John Polson, with the pair happily embracing each other in greeting

Visionary: Tropfest was founded in 1993 and bills itself as a launching pad for local talent

Cute: Home And Away star Penny McNamee was pretty in pink at the film festival wearing fashionable wrap dress

Matching: The mother of one accessorised her outfit with a light pink clutch

Home And Away star Penny McNamee was pretty in pink at the film festival wearing fashionable wrap dress.

The mother of one accessorised her outfit with a light pink clutch and white heeled shoes.

Former Big Brother star Aisha Jade paired a red floral dress which hugged her curves with a pair of white runners.

Street smart: Former Big Brother star Aisha Jade paired a red floral dress which hugged her curves with a pair of white runners

Fun look: The Loop's Olivia Phyland went playful in a strapless floral top which bared her toned stomach

On trend hairdo: She wore her blonde locks half up in a bun and sported a deep summer tan

The brunette beauty went bold with a bright red handbag, also accessorising with over-sized bejewelled earrings.

The Loop's Olivia Phyland went playful in a strapless floral top which bared her toned stomach.

She wore her blonde locks half up in a bun, pairing the summer look with a pair of wedge sandals.

Keeping it simple: Also representing the boys was Justified actor Damon Herriman and Mad Max director George Miller

Ladies: Head juror Rose posed for photos alongside other prominent female Australian actors

Also representing the boys was Justified actor Damon Herriman and Mad Max director George Miller.
He's known for tasting and critiquing dishes on Masterchef.

But Matt Preston is taking on a role of a different kind as he is set to make a cameo on soap opera The Bold And The Beautiful.

The 53-year-old was signed to appear on an episode by producers as the Los Angeles based drama shoots scenes in Sydney, according to a report by The Daily Telegraph.

Conquering the small screen: Matt Preston is taking on a role of a different kind as he is set to make a cameo on soap opera The Bold And The Beautiful

Aside from Matt, Channel Ten personalities Amanda Keller, Ida Buttrose, David 'Robbo' Robinson and WS FM presenter Brendan Jones will appear on the show.

It's not known in what capacity their small roles will play in the narrative.

The day-time drama has partnered with airliner Qantas to bring the cast and crew to Sydney's sunny shore to film.

Part of the cast: The Masterchef judge will appear on an episode by producers as the Los Angeles based drama shoots scenes in Sydney

Bradley Bell, the show's executive producer and head writer said viewers will be treated their world class drama set in the iconic harbour city.

'Viewers will witness romance, high style, jaw-dropping twists, harrowing stunts and major cliffhangers, all hallmarks of The Bold and The Beautiful,' he said.

The drama first came to Australia to film scenes for the show in almost ten years ago.

Part of the cast: The Masterchef judge will appear on an episode by producers as the Los Angeles based drama shoots scenes in Sydney

Stars of the long running soap including Don Diamont, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood Rena Sofer and Scott Clifton arrived in Sydney on Friday.

Fans of the Emmy Award had the opportunity to met the stars at a question and answer sessions at the Parramatta's Riverside Theatre on Saturday night.

Tickets for the event were sold out in 35 minutes as the show celebrates 30 years on the air.
It was revealed earlier this week that he and his wife Amal are expecting twins - their first children together.

So George Clooney certainly had cause to celebrate on Friday night, as he enjoyed a relaxed dinner at Craig's restaurant in West Hollywood.

The Syriana star, 55, looked in good spirits as he left the swanky eatery after a low-key outing with his close friend Rande Gerber, in light of the happy news.

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Good spirits: George Clooney enjoyed a relaxed dinner at Craig's restaurant in West Hollywood on Friday night after announcing that he and his wife Amal are expecting twins

The Hollywood actor looked as slick as ever in a leather jacket as he made his departure from the restaurant with Rande, who was the best man at his wedding in 2014.

Heading straight to his car in the pouring rain, George kept a low profile as he slipped away from the restaurant to continue their celebratory evening elsewhere.

Meanwhile the businessman, who is married to supermodel Cindy Crawford, soon followed suit as he headed home close behind in equally smart attire.

Handsome: The Hollywood actor looked as slick as ever in a leather jacket as he made his departure from the restaurant

Off we go: Meanwhile businessman Rande (above), who is married to supermodel Cindy Crawford, soon followed suit as he headed home close behind in equally smart attire

The couple have been friends with George for more than 20 years - after the two men met in a bar in New York.

The pals even had twin villas in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, which they sold to a Mexican billionaire for a whopping $131 million in April last year.

The friends then went into business together in 2015 when they launched their own brand of tequila, Casamigos - which has gone on to win several awards.

Excited: Rande and George perhaps headed home to celebrate further together - having been friends for more than 20 years

Close: The pair even created their own brand of tequila, Casamigos in 2015, and the two couples celebrate the launch in Ibiza that year (above) with Mario Testino (second right)

Having been friends so long, the pair were no doubt celebrating George's recent happy news that he and Amal are expecting twins.

The joyful announcement was made on CBS show The Talk by Julie Chen, who confirmed the pair were welcoming their new arrivals in June.

The human rights lawyer, 39, had been showing off a bump in recent weeks, particularly during her visit to Barcelona last week - although they remained fiercely tight-lipped about the speculation.

According to InTouch, Amal is expecting 'a boy and a girl', which helped dispel their inital fears of welcoming two children into their lives.

Celebration: The dinner comes after it was announced that George and his wife Amal (above) were expecting twins - their first children together

A source told the site: 'When George and Amal found out it was twins they were surprised,' the source said, 'but also a little scared because they both had said that one was enough.

'But the news that it was a boy and a girl made them both really happy ... they cant believe in just a few months, theyre going to have two babies.'

George and Amal have since been met with an influx of congratulations from both fans and famous friends - including Matt Damon, who gushed that his Ocean's Eleven co-star had 'hit the jackpot'.

'I'm thrilled for him. She's amazing. He hit the jackpot. Just on every level. She is a remarkable woman. They're gonna be great. They're gonna be awesome parents. Those kids are lucky,' the 46-year-old told ET Canada.
Blac Chyna shared a throwback photo of herself at the tender age of 17 to her Instagram account on Friday.

Now engaged to Rob Kardashian, 29, the 28-year-old mother of two looks completely different.

Not only was her hair very light, but she also was dressed casually like the girl next door.

So different! Blac Chyna shared a throwback photo of herself at the tender age of 17 to her Instagram account on Friday

In what was likely a photo taken during her senior year of high school in Maryland, the Rob & Chyna star sat backwards on a white chair in front of poster of a tropical paradise scene.

She had on a classic look, wearing fitted, dark denim jeans and an olive green top with a layered necklace.

Perhaps the most notable difference in her appearance was her long, strawberry-blonde locks and choppy bangs that framed her face. With her hand under her chin, she exuded all the confidence and sass that fans have come to love her for.

More mature: Chyna, born Angela Renee White, posted a photo of herself on Wednesday in a daring new hairdo that followers were quick to compare to her future mother-in-law's style

That confidence came through in the most recent photo she shared prior to the teenage image, as well.

Chyna, born Angela Renee White, posted a photo of herself on Wednesday in a daring new hairdo that followers were quick to compare to her future mother-in-law's style.

The entrepreneur rocked a platinum pixie cut in front of a fireplace, wearing a gorgeous, all-black printed gown. She captioned the photo with only the word, 'Success.'

Changing it up: Fans have seen her go from bleached blonde dread locks to a softer strawberry coif with loose waves, to au naturale curls with her little ones; seen here in social media posts from Tuesday in a strawberry wig and December 13, 2016 in bleached blonde dreadlocks

Her babies: The model has been known to change up her look, so there's no telling how long she'll rock this more mature style; seen here in a post from February 4 with her children

The model has been known to change up her look, so there's no telling how long she'll rock this more mature style.

Over the past few months, alone, fans have seen her go from bleached blonde dread locks to a softer strawberry coif with loose waves, to au naturale curls with her little ones.

The reality star has two children. Her oldest is four-year-old King Cairo Stevenson, who she shares with ex, Tyga, now dating Rob's half-sister, Kylie Jenner. Chyna and Rob just gave birth to their daughter, Dream Renee Kardashian, on November 10.

The new parents will return to television for a second season of their show, Rob & Chyna, which will premiere on E! later this year.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 11

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenias armed forces have 33 times violated the ceasefire in various directions along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry told Trend Feb. 11.

The Azerbaijani army positions located in the Gizilhajili village of Azerbaijans Gazakh district underwent fire from the Armenian army positions located in the Berkaber village of the Ijevan district of Armenia.

Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani army positions located in the Kokhanabi and Aghbulag villages of Azerbaijans Tovuz district were shelled from the Armenian army positions located on nameless heights and in the Chinari village of the Berd district of Armenia.

The Azerbaijani army positions located in the Garavalilar village of Azerbaijans Gadabay district also underwent fire from the Armenian army positions located on nameless heights of the Krasnoselsk district of Armenia.

Moreover, the Azerbaijani army positions were shelled from the Armenian army positions located near the Armenian-occupied Goyarkh, Chilaburt villages of Tartar district, Yusifjanli, Shuraabad, Marzili villages of the Aghdam district, Mehdili village of the Jabrayil district, as well as from the positions located on nameless heights of the Goranboy, Tartar, Fuzuli and Jabrayil districts of Azerbaijan.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
They appeared to be back on top form during recent filming in Tenerife, after enduring a blazing row at the NTAs last month.

And Megan McKenna appeared more in love than ever with her boyfriend Pete Wicks on Saturday, as they shot new scenes for TOWIE together in Essex.

The 24-year-old looked truly radiant as she laughed animatedly with her tattooed beau, 28, at Lockie's Kitchen in Romford - despite recent claims that his ex Harriette Harper is in talks to join the ITVBe show.

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On good form: Megan McKenna appeared more in love than ever with her boyfriend Pete Wicks on Saturday, as they shot new scenes for TOWIE together in Essex

Rising above it? However Megan's cheery exterior comes in light of recent rumours that Pete's glamour model ex Harriette Harper (above) is in talks to join the ITVBe show

Megan appeared to be utterly relaxed as she headed to the healthy eatery, owned by co-star James 'Lockie' Lock, to film for the upcoming series of TOWIE.

Dressed in a simple burgundy dress and classic waterfall coat, the beauty looked typically chic as she embarked on a charming conversation with Pete, with a glass of champagne clutched in hand.

Sweeping her curled hair off her face, Megan displayed a wide, beaming smile for all to see as she laughed continually with her boyfriend of almost one year - implying the pair were stronger than ever.

Stronger than ever: Sweeping her curled hair off her face, Megan displayed a wide, beaming smile for all to see as she laughed continually with her boyfriend of almost one year (right)

The stage star appeared to be in high spirits for the duration of filming, despite recent rumours that Pete's ex Harriette Harper is next in line to join the ITVBe show.

According to The Sun, the glamour model, who is currently starring on MTV's Ex On The Beach, has attracted show bosses due to the drama she could cause on the next series - after Megan's fiery reaction to Pete's infidelity in October.

A source told the paper: 'Megan has unleashed utter fury on Pete before when he rekindled a relationship with an ex.'

Not bothered: The stage star appeared to be in high spirits for the duration of filming, despite recent rumours that Pete's ex Harriette Harper is next in line to join the ITVBe show

'Bosses know Harriette will ruffle a few feathers, while obviously adding to the show's glamour.'

The insider added of the beauty, who dated Pete in 2015 prior to his arrival on the show: 'Once Ex On The Beach finishes, she'll be free to join TOWIE.'

If she does make an appearance, Harriette will no doubt stir up Megan's famously fiesty temper which fans saw during The Only Way Is Marbs last year, after news of his sexting scandal came to light.

Ruffling feathers: The Ex On The Beach star (above) has reportedly attracted show bosses due to the drama she could cause - after Megan's fiery reaction to Pete's infidelity in October

The brunette embarked on a screeching rant at the tattooed hunk on the beach in Spain after discovering that he had sent explicit text messages to several women.

However the pair were seen reconciling and getting back together on the show's Christmas special - making Harriette's potential entrance on the new series even more explosive for fans.

Yet, things have already appeared slightly turbulent for the couple in recent weeks, after they embarked on a blazing row at the National Television Awards last month.

Megan was seen leaving the ceremony, held at London's O2 Arena, in floods of tears - with Pete reportedly ignoring her calls of his name as he made his departure.
Kourtney Kardashian can't stop talking about how much she's into organic food.

But on Friday the 37-year-old reality star seemed to take a big break from her quinoa and kale.

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star shared a photo to Instagram where she and daughter Penelope were scarfing down potato chips.

Diet break: Kourtney Kardashian shared a photo to Instagram where she and daughter Penelope were scarfing down potato chips on Friday

'Friday night': The star also flashed her legs while in her closet

The chips were Boulder Canyon and Ruffles.

Then the diva did a mirror selfie taken in a closet heaped with shoes.

She had on black fuzzy boots and a robe, and as she held her phone with her left hand. 'Friday night,' she captioned the image.

Penelope is her mother's middle child and only daughter by Disick, whom she began dating in 2006 and broke up with most recently in 2015.

Co-parents: Penelope is her mother's middle child and only daughter by Scott Disick, whom she began dating in 2006 and broke up with most recently in 2015

Their tempestuous on-and-off relationship first produced seven-year-old son Mason, whose birth was filmed for Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

They've also got a son called Reign who was born in December of 2014, and they remain amicable co-parents despite no longer being together.

On Thursday, however, People quoted a source who said Disick's made his ex 'very disappointed for the kids. It makes her upset when he parties for days.'

After joining the Kardashian claque unannounced on their Costa Rican trip last week, he decamped to Miami and hobnobbed with models by the pool.

According to the source, 'Its just totally unacceptable behavior for a 33-year-old with three kids. The kids keep asking for him and its just sad.'
He plays fictional commander Poe Dameron in the Star Wars franchise.

And it's back to the battlefield for Oscar Isaac, who's set to star as double agent Juan Pujol Garcia in the new World War II drama, The Garbo Network.

The film tells the story of the Spanish spy who successfully deceived the Germans during the Invasion of Normandy.

New film: Oscar Isaac, 37, is set to star as double agent Juan Pujol Garcia in the new World War II drama, The Garbo Network. He is pictured in Toronto in September

During the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, Juan Pujol, who had no professional military training, pitched himself as a spy to both the Americans and the British forces.

After facing rejected, he created a false alter-ego as a fanatical Nazi supporter, which eventually lured the Germans his way.

Juan successfully created false reports for the Germans, who eventually believed they were sponsoring a collection of nearly 30 made-up secret agents.

Britain eventually took notice of the spy's true allegiance, and he joined their team.

Good works: The film tells the story of the Spanish spy who successfully deceived the Germans during the Invasion of Normandy

The script for the based-on-a-true story was drafted by Queen of Katwe writer, William Wheeler, according to Deadline.

Just Jared reports that Oscar, 37, has also signed on as producer.

A release date for the film has yet to be released.

Double duty: Oscar has also signed on as producer. He is pictured in NYC in September 2016

Currently, The Nativity Story star has five films in the works.

He will star alongside Natalie Portman and Gina Rodriguez in Annihilation. He'll also joine Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Julianne Moore in Suburbicon.

Oscar will also appear in The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, Life Itself and Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi.
After months of bitter animosity Jeremy McConnell has finally confirmed that he is the father of Stephanie Davis new-born son.

Breaking the news on Saturday afternoon, the Irish model publicly acknowledged baby Caben-Albi for the first time by sharing a shot of the tot with his 495,000 Instagram followers.

Captioning the snap, he wrote: Happiest man alive, my new focus.

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'My new focus': Breaking the news on Saturday afternoon, Jeremy McConnell publicly acknowledged baby Caben-Albi for the first time by sharing a shot of the tot with his 495,000 Instagram followers. Captioning the snap

Showcasing his devotion to the tiny tot, he also wrote on Twitter, 'I'll love this monkey with every bit of me'.

Jeremys confirmation brings to an end months of acrimony with former Hollyoaks actress Stephanie, who gave birth to their son in January.

Earlier this week the 26-year old McConnell claimed it was 'disgusting' that his ex has named little Caben-Albi after a 'random' guy she met at a nightclub.

Speaking to The Sun Online, he said: 'Regardless of the name, if she met a fella on a night out and named the baby after him then it's disgusting and hurtful.

Sign of devotion: Showcasing his devotion to the tiny tot, he also wrote on Twitter, 'I'll love this monkey with every bit of me'

Confirmation: Jeremys confirmation brings to an end months of acrimony with former Hollyoaks actress Stephanie, who gave birth to their son in January

'I wish she could have waited until after the DNA test. It doesn't matter what the name is, it's the principle.'

Stephanie - who split from Jeremy mere weeks before discovering she was pregnant last April - revealed she'd chosen Caben's name before he'd been born after she met someone with the unusual moniker while holidaying in Jersey over the summer period.

She said at the time in her OK! magazine blog: 'I'm going to keep it a secret for now but I will say it's something different - I've not heard it before!

'It's like a movie star name. We got it when a guy started talking to me while I was with my friends recently and he said his name when he left - we just all looked at each other and knew, so thanks to him!

Quirky name: Stephanie - who split from Jeremy mere weeks before discovering she was pregnant last April - revealed she'd chosen Caben's name before he'd been born when she met someone with the unusual moniker while holidaying in Jersey

'My mum loves it but my brothers weren't so sure to start with - but I think they want a proper lad's name.'

In the same interview, Jeremy insisted he was 'serious' about being a hands-on father to the little boy should he turn out to be the father, and was hoping to be 'amicable' with Stephanie.

The star told The Sun he would fly out to Liverpool every weekend from Dublin in a bid to spend time with the little boy, and would be furious if another man ended up raising his son.

Just a few hours earlier, Jeremy slammed ex Stephanie and accused her of 'manipulating the public against him' amid their ongoing paternity battle.

The Irish model finally took a DNA test live on air on This Morning on Wednesday to determine whether or not he is the father.

'She's manipulated the public against me' Jeremy slammed 'toxic' ex Stephanie on This Morning on Wednesday as he FINALLY took a DNA test

All over: Stephanie, 23, has always maintained that the baby is Jeremy's - they split a month before she announced she was pregnant - (pictured on Celebrity Big Brother)

'I'm upset. She's puppeteering the public,' he told hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby,' as he spoke about the debacle for 'the first and last time.'

Jeremy claims Stephanie, 23, wanted him to sign an 'unreasonable contract' in order to get the DNA results done - the contents of which cannot be discussed for legal reasons.

The former Hollyoaks actress, has always maintained Jeremy is the father, but still has to agree to have her newborn swabbed by the nurse at ITV to get the results.

Jeremy said: 'No man in their right mind would sign that. It's disgusting. She's puppeteering the public. I'm sorry, I just can't'

Phillip agreed, saying: 'I've read it and I wouldn't sign it. It would have an impact on your entire life.'

Swabbing: The 26-year-old finally took a DNA test live on air on This Morning on Wednesday to determine whether or not he is the father of Caben-Albi George

Jeremy also claimed he had never stated he wasn't the father, but said he needed to be sure as Stephanie had told him she had been intimate with someone else.

Phillip said: 'We can mention Joshua Ritchie as he has claimed he was worried he could be the father.'

Jeremy said: 'If he is my flesh and blood then I will step up to my responsibilities. I want to step up to the plate but I'm not being given that opportunity at the moment, my hands are tied.

'She banned me from the birth. There was no contact though. My responsibility as a father starts when the baby is born.

Jeremy claims Stephanie, 23, wanted him to sign an 'unreasonable contract' in order to get the DNA results done - the contents of which cannot be discussed for legal reasons.

Phillip agreed: 'I've read it and I wouldn't sign it. It would have an impact on your entire life'

I don't owe anything to Steph. If she had asked me to be at the birth then I would have been there 100 per cent. I hope I am the dad,' he said. 'I 110% could be.

'I didn't want any of this. She's made everything so public so now I feel like I have to defend myself. Maybe my silence has been taken as weakness but that's not the case.

'I've always wanted to do the right thing. I would never let my own flesh and blood get away like that.'

Defending herself: Shortly after the show, Stephanie posted her side of the story on Twitter

Refuting claims: She also hit back after he claimed he had never denied paternity, posting tweets he had previously sent to fans

Jeremy said that Stephanie told him she had been intimate with another man shortly after they split.

He claims: 'She said herself that she was with someone else shortly after we broke up.

'The reason I didn't get back with her and supported her through the pregnancy was because the relationship was so toxic and I just wasn't putting myself, her and the baby at risk of anything.'

'So much went on behind the scenes. Stephanie would agree things had to end. We tried so many times to fix things but we couldn't. It was so toxic.

'Cape Verde was the final straw. Everyone said we should break up. I know I wasn't perfect and I'm sorry for that but she had her issues too.'

Honest: Jeremy said he hopes he is the father and '110% could be' but added he was keen to clear up any doubt as he claims Stephanie had told him she had been with another man

He said: 'I've always wanted to do the right thing. I would never let my own flesh and blood get away like that'

The heavily-inked star has continuously denied cheating on Stephanie throughout their four-month relationship but he has now revealed he did sleep with a number of girls while they were arguing towards the end of their romance.

He said: 'Yeah there was some girls. There were incidents where I felt like I did and I held my hands up to that.

'There was more than one time, which I don't feel great for but there was reasons. We were on and off. The arguments were too much. I think Steph was faithful when we were together.'

This Morning asked DNA testing laboratory AlphaBiolabs (also used by The Jeremy Kyle Show) to collect a sample from Jeremy during the show.

While Stephanie was not present for the collection, it shows Jeremy is keen to finally clear up the truth about whether or not he is the father.

Hitting back: Jeremy also said that he would have been at the birth had he been asked, although Stephanie said in a statement that she never banned him from being there

Conflict: Stephanie said Jeremy never asked to be at the birth but he claims she banned him, saying: 'She said in an interview I was banned'

If Stephanie agrees to testing, AlphaBiolabs will be able to deliver results within 24 hours.

Phillip said: 'ITV use a very reputable company so we've acted as a mediator here.

'We don't want to know the results, we don't want anything to do with it other than the fact you can say you've had the DNA test. The nurse came in this morning, that will now be sent off to the lab and will be held there securely."

Holly said: 'We just want you to be able to say that you've done your part in a controlled environment.'

Jeremy agreed: 'Now is the time for us to put our differences aside. This could all have been dealt with in private from the start.'

Swab: This Morning asked DNA testing laboratory AlphaBiolabs (also used by The Jeremy Kyle Show) to collect a sample from Jeremy during the show

Holly said: 'We don't want to know the results of the test. We just want you to be able to say that you've done your part in a controlled environment.'

Soon after the show ended, Stephanie took to Twitter to hit back at her ex.

She shared a post which read:' Stephanie has felt humiliated by Jeremy denying his own son and foolishly announcing publicly his request for a DNA test.

'Jeremy has caused Stephanie massive amount of stress, pressure and upset throughout her pregnancy, ruining what for most women is one of the most special time of their lives.

'Jeremy has at no point throughout the pregnancy or after the birth been in contact directly with Stephanie. Jeremy was categorically not banned from the birth nor did he ever ask to attend.'

'Stephanie confirmed to Jeremy that she was pregnant 10 days after they split, any suggestion that she was unfaithful to him is to detract away from his numerous infidelities whilst in the relationship.

'Jeremy has been given the option at all times to take part in a DNA test because of past behaviour Stephanie has requested that this is handled via the correct channels and managed by her solicitor.

Happy times... Jeremy met Stephanie when they entered the Celebrity Big Brother house in January 2016, where they struck up a turbulent romance despite her taken relationship status with model Sam Reece on the outside

'Jeremy to date has continually refused the terms of the agreement that Stephanie has proposed which he was given the right to make his own amendments to suit him.

'This confidentiality agreement was made to ensure the privacy and protect Caben Albi. Stephanie as a single mother reserves the right to undertake any work she sees fit to provide for their son, her priority.

'It is upsetting to think that Jeremy would stoop so low to challenge the mother of his child to a DNA test live on TV when it was already in hand.

'This shows how little concern he has for Caben and this is already being dealt with privately.

'Caben and Stephanie have only been out of hospital for a few weeks however after spending nine months denying that he is the babys father we cannot believe that Jeremy has the audacity to turn the situation around and bring all of this very much into a media circus on his terms only.'

Jeremy said: 'I did love her, of course. We met in a confined space and it was a whirlwind when we got out into the big bad world. I wasn't used to it'

He continued: 'There was so much pressure. She would agree that we had to end it. We tried to make it work a few times but we couldn't'

Making his own rules: Jeremy showed off his inkings wearing a casual vest and skinny jeans for the big interview

After the show, Stephanie's ex Sam Reece tweeted about the appearance, sarcastically writing: 'Been a loverly morning hasn't it?' and a cry face emoji. [sic]

Jeremy met Stephanie when they entered the Celebrity Big Brother house in January 2016, where they struck up a turbulent romance despite her taken relationship status with model Sam Reece on the outside.

Their meet and subsequent love affair saw the couple descend into a toxic romance, marred with accusations of infidelity and violent fights from both sides.

Having fun? Stephanie's ex Sam Reece seemed rather amused by Jeremy's This Morning appearance

Sarcastic: Stephanie's ex Sam Reece had something to say following Jeremy's appearance on the show

Jeremy said: 'I did love her, of course. We met in a confined space and it was a whirlwind when we got out into the big bad world. I wasn't used to it.

'There was so much pressure. She would agree that we had to end it. We tried to make it work a few times but we couldn't.'

In May, after the couple split amid mud-slinging from either sides, the former Hollyoaks actress announced she was expecting Jeremy's child - claims he vehemently denied throughout her entire pregnancy.

Awkward: Stephanie had vowed to undergo a paternity test upon her baby's arrival and in a recent interview with OK! magazine she stated: 'The paternity tests in the process of being arranged, but any tests that happen will be dealt with privately'

He explained: 'We broke up at the end of April and it was closer to the end of May that I found out she was pregnant.

'She called me and said she'd just done a blood test and found out she was pregnant.

'There was a lot of mixed emotions going through my head at that point but obviously when you break up with someone you have lingering feelings and you're texting and you're calling them and there was certain activity I wasn't happy.'

Stephanie had vowed to undergo a paternity test upon her baby's arrival and in a recent interview with OK! magazine she stated: 'The paternity tests in the process of being arranged, but any tests that happen will be dealt with privately.'

After she gave birth, Jeremy wrote: 'I am delighted that Steph has safely had the baby, of course if he is my son I will absolutely step up and do what I can to support him.'

Went well then? Jeremy looked pretty pleased with himself as he made his way to his car following the interview
He plays real-life DEA agent Javier Pena in the Netflix drama, Narcos.

And last week, Pedro Pascal returned to Colombia to shoot scenes for season three of the popular, based-on-a-true-story show.

The actor was joined by co-star Miguel Angel Silvestre, with the two sharing Instagram snaps from their day of filming.

Back to work! Pedro Pascal, 41, returned to Colombia last week to shoot scenes for season three of the popular, Netflix show, Narcos

Pedro, as Javier, wore a pastel button-down, with one piece tucked slightly in a pair of denim jeans.

The handsome 41-year-old sported wet hair, which could have been styled to give off the appearance of sweat.

His wardrobe was complete with a silver watch, brown dress shoes and a hat.

Getting into character: Pedro, as Javier, wore a pastel button-down, with one piece tucked slightly in a pair of denim jeans

On the go! The handsome star sported wet hair, which could have been styled to give off the appearance of sweat

Also on set was Spanish actor Miguel Angel Silvestre.

The Sense8 star was confirmed as a season three castmember, who, according to HOLA!, plays the lead cartel money launder.

Both star shared several friendly snaps from their time on set.

'Be able to work with good friends is priceless!' wrote Miguel, in one photo.

Bros! Also on set was Spanish actor Miguel Angel Silvestre, 34

Bad guy! The Sense8 star was confirmed as a season three castmember, who, according to HOLA! , plays the lead cartel money launder

Enjoying the moment: Both star shared several snaps from their time on set

Pals! 'Be able to work with good friends is priceless!' wrote Miguel, in one photo

The series follows the chase and ultimate capture of known drug lord, Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel.

According The Christian Post, it seems that season three will follow Mexican drug lord, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.

A season three premiere date has not been set.
He announced last week that he would be letting someone new regenerate into Doctor Who following the next season of the show.

And now Peter Capaldi's on-screen sidekick, Pearl Mackie, has revealed how she feels about the show's current leading man quitting the series.

Having only been able to work with him for one run of new episodes, Pearl - who plays Bill - has admitted how sad it is to see him go.

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'He's such a generous actor': New Doctor Who sidekick Pearl Mackie has revealed how upset she is that Peter Capaldi is leaving having only worked on one season of the show with him

Speaking of the time she's spent on set with him thus far, the 29-year-old told InStyle: 'I'm very new to camera acting and all the technical stuff and he will always check if I'm okay.

'We really get into the scenes and he's very open to my opinions. I'm so sad [that he's quit] but I'm just happy I got to work with him.

'He's such a generous actor.'

As reported by Digital Spy, Peter wasn't the only outgoing star to offer up some sage words to the young actress.

She'll miss him: Having only been able to work with him for one run of new episodes, Pearl - who plays Bill - has admitted how sad it is to see him go

'[Former star Jenna Coleman said] I didn't need any advice [except] not to eat the faggots in the canteen.'

Having dropped the bombshell overnight last Monday, it wasn't long before the rumour mill went into over-drive when it came to who would be the thirteenth doctor.

And following his own announcement that he was quitting Death In Paradise after four years, so that he can spend less time away from his family, Kris Marshall was thrust into the mix.

Almost immediately, speculation began to spin on social media as to the real reason Kris Marshall had chosen to quit his role on the hugely popular series.

Avid BBC viewers seem to be under the impression that Marshall is transferring his skills as a Detective to that of the Doctor - and is in the running to play Doctor Who in the wake of Peter's decision to leave.

The new Doctor? Following his own announcement that he was quitting Death In Paradise after four years Kris Marshall was thrust into the running by fans

'Maybe a coincidence but since Doctor Who needs a new lead, interesting that that Kris Marshall has now quit Death in Paradise. New doctor?' came a theory from one fan.

Another typed 'Kris marshall should play doctor who...' as a further tweeter concurred: 'Kris Marshall will be the 13th Doctor. Calling it. He'd be perfect. #doctorwho!'

The theory proved popular as the news spread that Marshall is leaving the role of Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman.

'So Kris Marshall leaves #DeathInParadise, just as they're starting to look for a new #DoctorWho... #Coincidence...?? ;-)' a fourth person theorised.

'Huh so Kris Marshall leaves Death in Paradise around the same time Peter Capaldi leaves Doctor Who. Hmm, interesting...' a fifth wrote.

Time to go: Peter announced his decision to quit as the twelfth Doctor on Monday night - prompting a flurry of actors and actress to be thrust into the running for number 13

Speculation: Avid BBC viewers seem to be under the impression that Marshall is transferring his skills as a Detective to a Doctor - and is in the running to play Doctor Who in the wake of Peter Capaldi's decision to leave

Some didn't seem too keen on the idea.

'If Kris Marshall is the new #DoctorWho they might as well cast a toilet brush. Dull,' a fan seethed.

The 43-year-old actor - whose big break came in the form of BBC sitcom My Family - revealed on Thursday's episode of Good Morning Britain that the decision was made in order to spend more time with his family after his daughter was born last year, leaving him 'bereft' while away filming in the Caribbean.

Pastures Who? Kris said of the decision to quit - 'I've loved it. It's time to move on and give someone else some sun. I'm still thinking whether I've made the right decision'

It has been confirmed that after he departs the show, he will be replaced by Father Ted funnyman Ardal O'Hanlan, who will play Detective Inspector Jack Mooney, a role he debuts in Thursday night's episode of the show.

Kris said of the decision to quit: 'I've loved it. It's time to move on and give someone else some sun. I'm still thinking whether I've made the right decision.

'It is amazing and I've been filming in London since and there's a moment when you stand in the cold and think why am I not in flips flops in the Caribbean?'

He admitted he struggled being away from his family for filming, saying: 'For the last few years I have been able to take them with me but we had a daughter and this last series I did on my own. Skyping leaves me bereft.'

She's the favourite: Olivia Colman has become a hot bet among punters hoping to predict the new Doctor

And while playing The Doctor would certainly keep him closer to home, he's not the only name floating around for the role.

Olivia Colman has become favourite among the bookies to land the role of the 13th Doctor with odds on the actress with Betway bookmakers tumbling from 20/1 to 5/1 in the last 24 hours, fuelling speculation that the Night Manager star could become the first female Doctor.

BOOKIES' ODDS ON THE NEW DOCTOR ON FEBRUARY 1 2017 Olivia Colman: 5/1 Andrew Buchan: 14/1 Iwan Rheon: 14/1 Ben Whishaw: 16/1 Robert Carlyle: 16/1 Tom Ellis: 16/1 Rupert Grint: 16/1 James Norton: 20/1 Jason Flemyng: 20/1 Reece Shearsmith: 20/1 Rory Kinnear: 20/1 *source Betway Advertisement

'Since our market opened weve seen a wave of support for Olivia Colman to be the next Doctor Who,' said a Betway spokeman.

Olivia, who recently received an Emmy award nomination for her role in The Night Manager, has even been tipped for the job by her Broadchurch co-star David Tennant who played the tenth Doctor.

'Olivia would clearly be a magnificent choice. If you have the right people telling the right stories then its absolutely a possibility,' he said.

Other favourites with punters include Broadchurch actor Andrew Buchan, Game Of Thrones star Iwan Rheon, James Bond's Q Ben Whishaw and and The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade.

Capaldi himself joined in the name-dropping for the next Time Lord - and is giving his backing to Rising Damp veteran Frances de la Tour.

Bizarrely, she was considered to be the first female Doctor in the 1980s, when producers were desperate to change the sex of the time-travelling alien in a bid to keep it on the air - but it was cancelled, only to return again in 2005.

Rising dame? Exiting Doctor Who Peter Capaldi has joined in the name-dropping for the next Time Lord - and he wants a woman to take over from him, Rising Damp star Frances de la Tour

Announcing his decision to step down from his Time Lord role, Peter said: 'This'll be the end for me. I feel sad. I love Doctor Who. It's a fantastic programme to work on.'

'It's been a huge pleasure to work with... a family. I can't praise the people I work with more highly.

'I've never worked the same job for three years, and I feel like now is the right time to move on. I'll still be the Doctor for a while.'

Twelve actors have played the time-travelling Doctor since William Hartnell first adopted the role in 1963, and so far all of them have been men.

Billie Piper, who played the Doctor's assistant when the show was brought back in 2005, tweeted that it would be a 'welcome turn' for a woman to take the role.
Sofia Vergara has come a long way since she became famous, but she's always been a bombshell.

The 44-year-old took to her Instagram page on Friday to share a photo of herself from her earlier Hollywood days when she posed for comp cards.

The wife of Joe Manganiello captioned the pic: '#tbt to when I looked like a Vergashian @barrypeele,' using the word 'Vergashian' as a reference to the popular reality stars the Kardashians.

Massive Kim K resemblance: Sofia Vergara posted a throwback photo of herself on Instagram on Friday where she said she looks like a 'Vergashian'

Deja vu: Kim Kardashian posing in a very similar bikini in Miami in 2010

It's safe to say that Sofia has resemblance to a Kardashian since she's got major curves and long dark hair just like Kim K.

The actress poses like a professional model in the photo in her white lingerie that shows off her stunning figure.

She adds on a fancy necklace while standing next to white curtains.

Typical look: Kardashian in a white bathing suit after welcoming daughter North

More Gloria: The actress was in Los Angeles this week filming a new scene for Modern Family

One of the star's most notable roles is Gloria on Modern Family.

Sofia recently graced the cover of Hola! USA where she dished on her character and how people might see her as a stereotype.

'What's wrong with being a stereotype?' she said.

Lovely lady: The Colombian native donned a black dress with tights on a night out with friends in Hollywood, California last week

'Gloria's character is inspired by my mom and my aunt,' the actress added.

'They are both Latin women who grew up in Colombia, like me. They love color, prints and shoes...it upsets me when Latinos complain about Gloria. I am grateful for the opportunity because the gringos have let me in with this strong accent I have.'

Sofia has been married to actor Joe Manganiello since November 2015.

Hot couple: Sofia and her husband Joe Manganiello have been married since November 2015. Here they are at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles last month

The couple appeared on the Hola! USA cover together, something that Sofia was proud to share.

'It's so special for us to do this cover and that's why I convinced Joe.'

'Because this is a really special time for us in our relationship, and we enjoy our privacy, but we have the best fans in the world and we know it makes them happy to see us happy and in love.'
Jamie Dornan recently revealed there was a rise in pregnancies following the Fifty Shades of Grey hit flick.

And Dakota Johnson looked in good spirits as she arrived at LAX airport late on Friday evening to continue promoting the Fifty Shades Darker sequel.

The actress, 25, opted for a faux fur coat following London's blistering weather.

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50 Shades of black! Dakota Johnson looked in good spirits as she arrived at LAX airport late on Friday evening to continue promoting the Fifty Shades Darker sequel

Hiding her face behind large shades, she opted for minimal make-up and left her brunette hair loose.

And putting on a casual appearance, she wore black cut-off jeans and stylishly embellished pumps, opting for comfort during her travels.

Adding a splash of colour in a green blouse, Dakota covered the ensemble in a faux fur trim coat, adding a touch of designer with a Louis Vuitton handbag.

Covering up: The actress, 25, opted for a faux fur coat following London's blistering weather

Having attended the Berlin and London premiere last week, America was her next stop.

Meanwhile speaking on The Graham Norton Show this week, co-star Jamie Dornan- who was spotted being swamped by fans in London on Saturday, revealed Fifty Shades Darker had created a pregnancy boom among fans.

'There was a bit of a baby boom, which is a lovely thing,' he explained, recalling the moment he was accosted by a pregnant fan.

Understated: Putting on a casual appearance, she wore black cut-off jeans and stylishly embellished pumps, opting for comfort during her travels

'I was in a lift and was recognised by this woman who said, 'Oh my god, you're Jamie Dornan.

'For years my husband and I struggled to conceive a baby, we tried IVF and everything but after your movie came out we made a baby naturally.'

'It was so hard to know how to respond!'

Busy lady: Having attended the Berlin and London premiere last week, America was her next stop

This comes after the Fifty Shades Darker cast has reportedly been banned from being 'overtly sexual' on social media and interviews.

According to Oscar-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden, who stars in the film as the mother of Jamie's Dornan's character Christian Grey, she was reprimanded by movie bosses for her lewd talk.

She told The Sun: 'We can't talk too much about nipple clamps.

Oops! Jamie Dornan- who was spotted being swamped by fans in London on Saturday, revealed Fifty Shades Darker had created a pregnancy boom among fans

'I used to send out some naughty little tweets... and I was told by Universal that I couldn't do it any more.

'It is a love story after all  I don't think they want us being too overtly sexual in interviews.'

One recently-aired teaser for the film, released on February 10, shows the lead actors getting very steamy together in a shower scene.

'There was a bit of a baby boom, which is a lovely thing,' he explained, recalling the moment he was accosted by a pregnant fan

In the Fifty Shades series, Dornan plays Christian Grey, an enigmatic billionaire with a penchant for BDSM.

Johnson plays Steele, an ingenue who falls into Grey's world of weirdness.

Fifty Shades Darker hit UK cinemas on the 10th February.
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Her spellbinding turn in science-fiction flick Arrival won her a Best Actress nod at the BAFTA's.

And Amy Adams stole the spotlight once again as she stormed the red carpet in a showstopping ivory gown for the star-studded nominees party at London's Kensington Palace.

The stunning actress, 42, exuded elegance in the Bardot creation featuring a romantic lace overlay, which she teamed with tumbling Old Hollywood curls.

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Lovely in lace: Amy Adams, 42, stole the spotlight as she stormed the red carpet in a showstopping ivory gown for the nominees party held at London's Kensington Palace

The auburn-locked beauty looked every inch the red carpet queen in the sweet lace dress, which featured nipped in her tiny waist thanks to a sports-trim belt.

Swathed in delicate lace, the gown was given a modern twist thanks to the off-the-shoulder neckline and lacy hemline.

Adding height to the romantic look, Amy added some simple black barely there heels and accessorised with simply diamond drop earrings as she posed at the event, which was hosted by Nespresso.

She channeled Old Hollywood with her styling, wearing her enviably glossy hair in Veronica Lake style waves, and complemented her striking features with minimal make-up.

Turning heads: The stunning actress oozed elegance in the Bardot creation which featured romantic lace overlay, which she teamed with tumbling Old Hollywood curls

Stunning: The auburn-locked beauty looked every inch the red carpet queen in the sweet lace dress, which featured nipped in her tiny waist thanks to a sports-trim belt

Simply stunning: She wore her enviably glossy hair in Veronica Lake style waves, and complemented her striking features with minimal make-up

In high spirits: The American Hustle star looked at ease as she mingled with other guests inside

Talk of the town: The stunning actress left guests around her chuckling in appreciation as she appeared to recount something funny

Also in attendance was talk of the town Emma Stone, whose turn in hit musical La La Land sees her battling Amy for the Best Actress gong.

Showcasing her enviably lean legs, the 28-year-old actress opted for a 20s-style retro flapper dress with an exotic tulle layered hemline.

Injecting a dose of sparkle to the look, the flirty minidress also boasted a beaded bodice dripping in gold embellishment.

Finishing the look with dramatic ankles-trap courts, Emma kept her hair and make-up simple to let her dress do all the talking.

Retro chic: Also in attendance was talk of the town Emma Stone, whose turn in hit musical La La Land sees her battling with Amy for the Best Actress gong

Ready for her close-up: Emma kept her hair and make-up simple to let her dress do all the talking

Stylish: Showcasing her enviably lean legs, the 28-year-old actress opted for a 20s-style retro flapper dress with an exotic tulle layered hemline

Injecting a dose of sparkle: The flirty minidress also boasted a beaded bodice dripping in gold embellishment

Anchored by Amy Adams's mesmerising performance, Arrival is contemplative science-fiction drama which imagines mankind's shambolic reaction to first contact with an otherworldly race.

Like Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, director Denis Villeneuve's picture philosophises and digests before it considers locking and loading a weapon.

Meanwhile, glittery Hollywood musical La La Land will battle gritty British drama I, Daniel Blake for the top prize at the EE British Academy Film Awards on Sunday.

Emily Blunt, Andrew Garfield and Hugh Grant are among the UK stars hoping to walk away with Bafta acting gongs.

Natural beauty: She showcased her striking green eyes with a subtle sweep of mascara and bronze shadow

Mane attraction: Emma wore her glossy hair in polished waves that effortlessly framed her features

Keeping good company: The statuesque beauty posed cheerily alongside La La Land director Damien Chazelle

Having a whale of a time: The actress and director seemed to be in great spirits on the night

Slightly awkward? Emma's ex-boyfriend of four years Andrew Garfield was also in attendance, looking dapper in a dark peacoat

Warm embrace: The former lovers shared a friendly hug as they bumped into each other

Just a bit weird! The pair, who split in 2015 to shock from their fans, appeared to be enjoying themselves as they mingled with guests

Sorry, did you say something? Emma looked animated as she leaned eagerly forward to chat to a guest

Winner? Garfield is nominated for leading actor for playing a US Army medic in Mel Gibson's film Hacksaw Ridge

La La Land, a whimsical love story about an aspiring actress and a jazz musician, leads the nominations with 11 and has already made Oscar history by landing more nods than any other musical.

It will go head-to-head with Ken Loach's unflinching examination of life in the UK welfare system for the best film Bafta, after winning the coveted Palme d'Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Also vying for best film will be sci-fi movie Arrival, melancholy drama Manchester By The Sea and Moonlight, a coming of age story about a gay black man growing up in Miami.

Blunt has received a leading actress nod for her role in The Girl On The Train, while Garfield is nominated for leading actor for playing a US Army medic in Mel Gibson's film Hacksaw Ridge.

Turning heads: Wearing her glossy raven tresses in an understated middle-parting, Louise Thompson, 26, added some decadent glittering chandelier earrings

Quite the eyeful! Louise teased more than a hint of her cleavage in a showstopping fuchsia gown at the BAFTA nominees party at Kensington Palace on Saturday

Chic: Louise subtly showed off her svelte frame in the floor-sweeping number, which featured opulent bell sleeved and tie-belt to cinch in her tiny waist

Quite the couple: Louise cosied up to her personal trainer boyfriend Ryan Libbey, who she has credited with helping her achieve her gym-honed physique

While Garfield's performance has won critical praise, he faces stiff competition from Casey Affleck, who has already won a Golden Globe for his performance in Manchester By The Sea.

They will both compete against La La Land's Ryan Gosling, who also scored a Golden Globe, Jake Gyllenhaal for Nocturnal Animals and Viggo Mortensen for Captain Fantastic.

Blunt will go head-to-head with Meryl Streep for the film Florence Foster Jenkins, Amy Adams for Arrival, Golden Globe winner Emma Stone for La La Land and Natalie Portman for her portrayal of former first lady Jackie Kennedy in Jackie.

Grant received a supporting actor nod for his role opposite Streep in Florence Foster Jenkins and will compete against fellow Brits Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who is nominated for Nocturnal Animals, and Dev Patel, who got a nod for Lion.

Exciting: The 20-year-old former model has been nominated for the EE Rising Star Award alongside Loving star Ruth Negga, 34, Spanish actress Laia Costa, 31, Spiderman actor Tom Holland and US star Lucas Hedges, both 20

Stunning: The blonde beauty looked striking as she pouted at the camera, before chatting with an interviewer

New horizons: Anya Taylor-Joy, who stars alongside James McAvoy in M Night Shyamalans thriller Split, stunned in a flirty black lace minidress

Making everyone green with envy! Xenia Tchoumi stunned in a strapless emerald gown with a sweetheart neckline

Taking centre-stage: The 29-year-old Russian-Swiss model wore her glossy hair in a sleek high ponytail

Preened to perfection: Xenia pouted sultrily over her shoulder before checking her phone

They will take on American stars Mahershala Ali and Jeff Bridges, for Moonlight and Hell Or High Water respectively.

Skyfall star Naomie Harris is nominated in the supporting actress category for playing a drug addicted mother alongside Ali in Moonlight.

Meanwhile I, Daniel Blake star Hayley Squires is nominated in the same category for her role as a young woman scraping by in the welfare system.

Fashionable crowd: Amanda Berry (L) wore a black semi-sheer lace dress while Take Me Out: The Gossip presenter Laura Jackson (R) opted for a yellow striped midi dress and Irish actress Catriona Balfe wore an elegant black column gown

Looking stunning: Ripper Street actress MyAnna Buring, 37, stunned in a floral embroidered navy maxi dress

Mother-to-be! The heavily pregnant star proudly showed off her burgeoning baby bump in the cobalt creation

They will compete with Manchester By The Sea's Michelle Williams, Lion star Nicole Kidman and perceived frontrunner Viola Davis for Fences.

Philosophical sci-fi Arrival and Tom Ford's noir thriller Nocturnal Animals both receive nine nominations and Manchester By The Sea has six.

I, Daniel Blake, the Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, as well as Hacksaw Ridge and Lion will compete for five awards.

The statuettes will be handed out at a star-studded ceremony hosted by Stephen Fry at the Royal Albert Hall on February 12.

Cutting a casual figure: Film producer Jay Van Hoy wore a navy duffel coat over his suit as he posed with a pretty female companion

Just smile and wave boys! Captain Fantastic star Viggo Mortensen (R) looked typically suave in a sharp suit, while Noel Clarke rocked a navy two-piece and Grantchester star James Norton opted for grey
She's got puns for her lover.

Billie Lourd shared a snuggly photo with sweetheart Taylor Lautner to celebrate his 25th birthday on Saturday.

Billie, 24, and Taylor, 25 on Saturday, wore matching sheep jumpsuits in the photo, which the Star Wars star captioned, 'Happy birthday to my #numberonesie.'

Her 'number onesie': Billie Lourd shared a snuggly photo with sweetheart Taylor Lautner to celebrate his 25th birthday on Saturday

To add the cuteness of the birthday shout out, Billie tagged the location of the photo as 'Kingdom of Dreams,' which is a real place in India.

The photo was a throwback from an outing with a larger group of friends, also all clad in onesies, in late January.

The two first started showing signs that they were a couple in early December, when they were spotted kissing at the wrap party for Scream Queens, according to Just Jared.

Lucky in love: The two first started showing signs that they were a couple in early December, when they were spotted kissing at the wrap party for Scream Queens, according to Just Jared

Since then, the two have been publicly showing their mutual affection for each other all over social media.

The Twilight saga star shared a photo with his lady in late December expressing how happy he was to have Billie in his life.

'This girl is one of the strongest, most fearless individuals I've ever met.' he wrote with the photo. 'Absolutely beautiful inside and out. I'm lucky to know you @praisethelourd.' He signed off on the caption like an old-fashioned love letter with a heart emoji and 'me.'

Tough times: Taylor was there for his sweetheart when her mom, the beloved Carrie Fisher, passed away at age 60 on December 27 after suffering an unexpected heart attack

Taylor posted that photo on December 27, the same day that Billie's mom, the beloved Carrie Fisher, passed away at age 60 after suffering an unexpected heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles a few days earlier.

Her grandmother, Debbie Reynolds, died the very next day on December 28.

The young actor shared a photo with her mother several weeks after her passing, with a quote by the original Star Wars star and a heartfelt caption of her own.

'If my life weren't funny then it would just be true and that is unacceptable,' she wrote, quoting her mom. She then added, 'Finding the funny might take a while but I learned from the best and her voice will forever be in my head and in my heart.'

RIP Dr. Cascade: Taylor's character of Dr. Cassidy Cascade got killed off at the end of season two of Scream Queens; seen here with Billie in an Instagram post from December 21, 2016

With their bond growing through this tough time for Billie, it seems their relationship has the makings of one that could last beyond their 'showmance' on Scream Queens.

That's a good thing, because Taylor's character of Dr. Cassidy Cascade got killed off at the end of season two, so he won't be returning if the show continues. Billie has played Chanel #3 in both season one and two.

Fox has yet to release whether the show will be returning for a third season.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 6

By Seba Aghayeva  Trend:

Pakistani businessmen consider investing in Azerbaijans technology parks and industrial districts, Azerbaijani Ambassador to Pakistan Ali Alizade said in an interview with Trend.

A number of technology parks and industrial districts have already been created in Azerbaijan, the diplomat said. They offer favorable conditions for business, tax exemption, simplified procedures for entrepreneurial activity and attracting foreign investment, which is also interesting for Pakistani business circles, he added.

He said the Azerbaijani Embassy provides Pakistans businessmen as well as public and private enterprises with information about Azerbaijans technology parks and industrial districts. Pakistani businessmen have big opportunities to benefit from participation in these projects, the diplomat said.

Currently, work is underway in Azerbaijan to create plants and enterprises in the Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park, Balakhani, Garadagh, Mingachevir and Pirallahi industrial parks, Mingachevir High Tech Park, Sumgait Technologies Park, as well as in Neftchala and Masalli industrial districts.

Residents of Azerbaijans industrial parks are exempt from real estate, land, profit taxes, as well as value-added tax on import of equipment for a period of seven years.
Halle Berry just doesn't seem to age.

The 50-year-old Oscar winner looked exquisite at the City Summit 2017 at USC Tower in Los Angeles on Saturday.

The Catwoman star wore a pretty black dress and decorated heels that made the most of her 5ft5in frame.

Gorgeous woman: Halle Berry attended City Summit 2017 in Los Angeles on Saturday where she donned a black dress with strapped shoes

The dress was unusual because it waved around her knees.

The Extant actress added on a pair of red and black strapped shoes that flaunted her unique style at events.

Carrying herself well with plenty of confidence, the mother of two wore a silver bracelet as she smiled for the cameras.

Doing a nice thing: The actress took part in the event meant to help raise funds for charities

The Oscar winner kept her dark hair curly and big with her locks flowing down.

She appeared to be in positive spirits as she attended the event that helps raise funds for awareness and charities.

Other celebrities who were scheduled to show up include Anthony Mackie, John Travolta and Quincy Jones.

Keeping it pretty: Letting her curly hair flow down, the 50-year-old looked more fresh than ever

Camera ready: The Oscar winner smiled for more photos while posting like a star

Halle remains to be incredible shape, but that doesn't come easily for her.

She told LA Times in August 2015 that she's had to take more caution in staying healthy.

'I am more conscious of what I eat,' she said. 'I have never worked out with a lot of weights unless I had to for a film role.'

Say cheese: Halle took a moment to pose with Ryan Long

'Left to my own devices, I just do cardio,' the X-Men star added.

'I do exercises that involve my own body weight because I never want to get too muscly. I am diabetic, so exercising has always been a part of managing my disease and keeping my sugars under control.'

Halle is a mother to her daughter Nahla, eight, and her son Maceo, three.

Dressy guy: Ryan wore a grey sports coat with a pair of jeans for City Summit

Halle's next film is called Kidnap where she plays a mom whose son gets snatched away by a driver.

She then goes on a wild goose chase to rescue him causing more chaos along the way.

The film hits theaters on March 10.
She's one of Australia's most in-demand model exports.

And Abbey Lee Kershaw, 29, made sure to turn heads as she attended New York Fashion Week's Calvin Klein runway show wearing very daring ensemble this Friday.

The catwalk queen showcased a generous glimpse of decolletage by donning a corset which featured a neckline plunging toward her naval.

Making a style statement! Abbey Lee Kershaw, 29, made sure to turn heads as she attended New York Fashion Week's Calvin Klein runway show wearing very daring ensemble this Friday

Her Gothic-inspired look was completed with a pair of wet-look black flares, a thick duster coat and a large crucifix necklace.

Parting her blonde mane in the centre, the Melbourne-born beauty wore a minimal makeup look for the occasion, wearing a touch of black eye-liner and a subtle lip hue.

Abbey Lee's acting career has gone from strength-to-strength in recent years as she steps back from modelling work.

Black on black! Her Gothic-inspired look was completed with a pair of wet-look black skinny jeans, a thick duster coat and a large crucifix necklace

She has also began using 'Abbey Lee' professionally, telling The Daily Telegraph she ditched her family name so it sounds 'sexier, it's short and sweet'.

Abbey's recent role in psychological horror film The Neon Demon finds her playing an ageing model obsessed with a younger protege.

'I f****** hope that my performance is good enough to shut them all up,' she previously told Dazed and Confused.

Neutral makeup look: Parting her blonde mane in the centre, the Melbourne-born beauty wore a minimal makeup look for the occasion, wearing a touch of black eye-liner and a subtle lip hue

'I guess we'll see. I wanted to not only do my character justice, but for the film to do the industry justice, and I wanted it to be right.'

Abbey rose to fame after winning the 2004 Girlfriend Model Search and later moved to Sydney to pursue a runway career.

She has appeared on the front cover of Vogue Australia and has posed in editorial campaigns for the likes of Anna Sui, Chanel, Gucci and Calvin Klein.

What's in a name? She has also began using 'Abbey Lee' professionally, ditching her family name so it sounds 'sexier, it's short and sweet'
Just last week she was complaining about one-dimensional female characters that were merely 'projections of male fantasy'.

Now actress Elizabeth Debicki  who shot to fame after a raunchy clinch with Tom Hiddleston in The Night Manager  is to appear in more, equally racy, scenes.

In Australian drama The Kettering Incident, which hits British TV screens this week, she is seen baring her flesh in a skin-coloured bra as she gets intimate with a sleazy police officer, played by Matthew Le Nevez.

Now actress Elizabeth Debicki  who shot to fame after a raunchy clinch in The Night Manager  is to appear in more, equally racy, scenes in The Kettering Incident (pictured)

Debicki's character then develops a nose bleed before the pair take things any further.

In another scene her character, a doctor, makes the resourceful decision to remove her top to use as a tourniquet on an injured man. And in order to look more closely at the wound, the 26-year-old pulls his head against her chest.

In The Night Manager, Debicki's character Jed was often involved in risque sex scenes

Debicki plays the lead role of Dr Anna Macy in the adult drama, which airs on Sky Atlantic from Wednesday. The plot revolves around her character returning to her home town 15 years after a mysterious, traumatic event that led to the disappearance of her best friend.

In The Night Manager, Debicki's character Jed was often involved in risque sex scenes. But she said producers made the character more substantial than in John le Carre's original novel.

She told the Radio Times: 'When we set out to make The Night Manager, we were all very aware that in the book  and John le Carre doesn't mind me saying so, he's said it to me before  Jed was quite lacking in dimension.

I just don't think she was his focus. Also, in that genre, women just become a strange projection of male fantasy, they don't seem to think or feel anything; if something ripples their surface, they instantly recover.'
He's been the toast of the town during awards season for the past few years.

But Eddie Redmayne was enjoying a welcome break from the pressure this time around, partying in style with his wife Hannah Bagshawe at a BAFTA party hosted by Charles Finch and Chanel at Annabel's in London on Saturday.

The 35-year-old actor looked dapper in a smart suit as he cosied up to his glamorous wife Hannah Bagshawe.

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Celebrating in style: Eddie Redmayne was partying with his wife Hannah Bagshawe at a BAFTA party hosted by Charles Finch and Chanel at Annabel's in London on Saturday

Fantastic Beasts star Eddie posed like a pro on the red carpet, one hand slung nonchalantly in his pocket.

Hannah dared to be different in a leather minidress with spaghetti straps and a knee-length cut.

The brunette completed her attire with a simple pair of heels and wore a simple pendant around her neck.

Hell for leather: Hannah dared to be different in a leather minidress with spaghetti straps and a knee-length cut

Loved up: Eddie and Hannah have been an item since 2012 after previously being friends during their school days

Stylish: The brunette completed wore a simple pendant around her neck

It's been quite a year for Eddie, who welcomed his first child, daughter Iris Mary, into the world in June.

And his stellar 2016 was capped off when he collected an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) from Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle in Berkshire in recognition of services to drama.

The Eton-educated star admitted that while being a parent was 'wonderful', he was feeling a little sleep deprived on his big day because of little Iris.

'She does have the habit of knowing when you have a big day, like today', he sighed.

Happy families: It's been quite a year for Eddie and Hannah, who welcomed their first child, daughter Iris Mary, into the world in June

Handsome chap: Fantastic Beasts star Eddie posed like a pro on the red carpet, one hand slung nonchalantly in his pocket

'And she was up until four in the morning, so both my wife and I came today with matchsticks under our eyes. Other than that she is on cracking form.'

Of his latest honour, he said: 'It was absolutely wonderful.

'Also being with such extraordinary people the whole experience is incredibly humbling and also getting to be in Windsor Castle is breathtaking, around Christmas as well with all the decorations.'

Prestigious: He recently collected an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) from Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle in Berkshire

Pressed on what the Queen had said to him, the Danish Girl star said: 'She was asking me whether I prefer film or theatre, and asked me if I enjoyed it.

'Im very lucky to do something I am passionate about - Im very grateful to do something I love because it is a rare thing.'

Eddie and Hannah have been an item since 2012 after previously being friends during their school days.
Yemen loyalists retake historic Red Sea coastal town

Yemeni government forces took full control of the Red Sea coastal town of Mokha on Friday after weeks of deadly fighting with Shiite rebels and their allies, a spokesman said.

Before the 19th Century, Mokha was Yemen's main port and export hub for coffee grown in the highlands and its historical symbolism meant it was fiercely fought over.

"We have done with the Battle of Mokha," armed forces spokesman Mohammed al-Naqib told AFP, adding that the rebels had been forced to flee the town.

Yemeni pro-regime forces patrol the port of Mokha, on February 9, 2017 SALEH AL-OBEIDI (AFP)

Another loyalist military source confirmed that government forces were in "full control".

The rebels had put up fierce resistance in the town. Twenty-four rebels and eight loyalist troops were killed in fighting on Wednesday alone.

Tens of thousands of civilians were trapped in the fighting. Many of them had sought refuge in Mokha after fleeing their homes in towns to the south as government forces pushed up the coast.

The UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, said late last month that "scores of civilians" had been killed or wounded by shelling and sniper fire around Mokha or by air strikes carried out in support of government forces by a Saudi-led coalition.

He said most services in the town had ground to a halt, including the mains water supply.

- Next target Hodeida -

Government forces had already taken Mokha's docks earlier this month but there was heavy fighting in other parts of the town before the rebels withdrew north towards the main Red Sea port city of Hodeida, which they still control.

"We now preparing for the second phase of the battle for the coast, which is to advance towards Hodeida," the loyalist armed forces spokesman said.

Before the government launched its offensive on January 7, the rebels controlled virtually all of Yemen's 450 kilometre (280 miles) Red Sea coastline.

But with the support of the Saudi-led coalition, the loyalists have made their biggest advances in months in heavy fighting that has seen more than 400 combatants killed.

Despite nearly two years of coalition air and ground support, government forces had previously been almost entirely confined to the south and areas along the Saudi border.

The rebels hold the capital Sanaa and most of the northern and central highlands as well as the coast around Hodeida.

The coalition has enforced an air and sea blockade of rebel-held territory that prevented the rebels making any use of Mokha's small docks.

All deliveries of basic goods are under UN supervision and those by sea pass through Hodeida making the port city vital to the rebels.

Late last month, the rebels carried out a rare seaborne attack on a Saudi frigate on patrol in the Red Sea, killing two sailors.

Last year, there were missile attacks from rebel-held territory on two US warships in the Red Sea and a United Arab Emirates vessel contracted to the coalition.

Washington responded with missile strikes.

- Humanitarian crisis -

The Red Sea is one of the world's most important shipping lanes linking to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal and Washington has deployed warships to ensure it is kept open despite the conflict raging onshore.

The United Nations has called repeatedly for a ceasefire in the government's offensive to allow the delivery of desperately needed relief supplies.

UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien warned last month that Yemen could face famine this year if no immediate action is taken.

Nationwide, 17.1 million Yemeni's are now struggling to feed themselves and 7.3 million of those are in need of emergency assistance, UN agencies reported on Friday.

UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has criticised President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi for refusing to discuss a political transition plan that would pave the way for government of national unity.
Altice to launch US cable news channel

European-based media and telecom group Altice is launching its i24news channel next week in the United States, underscoring its ambitions as a global television news operation.

The i24news channel is set to debut Monday on Altice-operated cable systems, which are available in 20 US states.

The move expands the footprint of the company led by French-Israeli entrepreneur Patrick Drahi, who created i24news in 2013 in Tel Aviv. The network broadcasts in English, French and Arabic.

CEO of the new Israeli-based TV channel "i24 news" Franck Melloul poses at the station's headquaters on June 17, 2013 in Tel Aviv's seafront Jaffa district JACK GUEZ (AFP/File)

The US channel will be in English and draw on content from i24news in other regions, including Israel and France.

Chief executive Frank Melloul said the US launch adds an important element to the creation of a global news operation.

"We are a global news network," he told AFP. "We have our headquarters in Tel Aviv, studios in Paris and we are opening a bureau in New York and a little bureau in Washington."

The move will mean "covering all the international news but with different points of view, from the Middle East, from Europe and America," he added.

It will include "a lot of debates, a lot of talk shows, a lot of interviews, a lot of guests," and provide "an opportunity to show different points of view."

The US channel intially will have four hours of live programming from the New York studios in Times Square, and the remainder from the i24news global network.

The channel debuts only on Altice-owned cable systems, but Melloul said the group was in talks with other cable operators.

The news organization has more than 250 journalists of some 35 different nationalities and is adding around 50 positions for its New York and Washington bureaus.

The i24news channel is available to "millions of households" on cable or satellite systems in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, according to Altice.

- 'Not Al-Jazeera' -

The launch comes after last year's shutdown of Al-Jazeera America, which failed to gain traction in the US cable news market dominated by CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.

The group controlled by Qatar's royal family paid some $500 million to launch the US channel known as AJAM, which shuttered after less than three years in April.

Melloul said i24news will avoid the same fate.

"I don't think we have the same DNA" as Al-Jazeera, he said.

"I don't think we're doing the same thing. We are not a Middle East channel or an American version of a Middle East channel. We're a global news channel."

Altice announced Thursday its news team will be anchored by David Shuster, a former news host with MSNBC and Al-Jazeera America, and Michelle Makori, formerly of China's CCTV, CNN and Bloomberg TV.

Altice USA became the fourth-largest US cable operator after its purchase last year of Cablevision.
Trump warns Iran president he 'better be careful'

Donald Trump dialed up the rhetoric against Iran on Friday, warning the country's president he "better be careful" about his words.

The war-of-words between Tehran and Washington escalated as President Hassan Rouhani and Trump traded threats and warnings.

Rouhani told a crowd of hundreds of thousands marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution that "the Iranian people must be spoken to with respect."

A handout picture provided by the office of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on February 10, 2017 shows him delivering a speech at Azadi Square in the capital Tehran during a ceremony to mark the 38th anniversary of the Islamic revolution

"Iranians will make those using threatening language against this nation regret it," he said.

"Anyone threatening Iran's government and armed forces should know that our nation is vigilant."

Trump was asked about the remarks later, responding that "he better be careful."

The US president has toughened the rhetoric against Iran considerably since coming to office.

He has also introduced sanctions after an Iranian missile test.
Cambodia opposition leader resigns for 'sake of party'

The self-exiled leader of Cambodia's opposition party said Saturday he would resign his post, a shock blow to a movement struggling to unseat the country's authoritarian premier.

Sam Rainsy, who has led the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) since its creation in 2012 and has spent over a year in France to avoid several lawsuits, announced his resignation from the party on Twitter and Facebook.

The sudden move casts doubt over a party that poses the only viable challenge to strongman Hun Sen's 32-year rule in a general poll scheduled for 2018.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has not visited Cambodia since 2015, when he fled to France to avoid a two-year jail term for defamation Yoshikazu TSUNO (AFP/File)

"I resign as CNRP leader for the sake of the party. In all circumstances I cherish and uphold the CNRPs ideals in my heart," wrote the 67-year-old, who has been a major force in Cambodian politics for decades.

His resignation comes shortly after Hun Sen proposed amending political party laws to bar convicts from leadership positions -- a clear threat to Rainsy, who has long been his top foe and the target of his political machinations.

The opposition leader has not visited Cambodia since 2015, when he fled to France to avoid a two-year jail term for defamation, which his supporters say was politically-motivated.

In December a Phnom Penh court handed him a five-year prison sentence over a post on his Facebook page -- a conviction that made any imminent return from exile even more unlikely.

Hun Sen also lodged a one-million-dollar defamation lawsuit against Rainsy last month and threatened to seize the CNRP's headquarters if he wins the case.

The party's spokesman Yim Sovann told AFP he had no other information about Rainsy's decision to step down on Saturday, saying only that it was motivated by "personal reasons".

Rainsy's deputy, Kem Sokha, who has been serving as acting leader, is expected to guide the party as it prepares for local commune elections in June.

Sebastian Strangio, an expert on Cambodian politics, said it was unlikely that Rainsy was bowing out for good and would perhaps try to return before 2018 elections.

"He is stepping aside so the party can move forward, unburdened by his legal sideshow with the Cambodian judiciary," Strangio added.

Although nominally a democracy, Cambodia has been ruled for more than three decades by Hun Sen, a shrewd political operator who has amassed extensive control over the government, armed forces and economy.

Ever since he nearly lost his office to the CNRP in 2013, rights groups say Hun Sen has been bent on dismantling the opposition, using pliant courts to target his rivals and other critics.

Hun Sen claims to have brought much needed peace and stability to an impoverished nation ravaged by decades of civil war and the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.

But opposition groups have drawn growing support in recent years amid disillusionment with the endemic corruption and rights abuses that have flourished under his watch.
Taliban suicide bomber kills six in Afghanistan's Helmand

At least six people were killed Saturday when a Taliban bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into Afghan soldiers who had queued outside a bank in southern Helmand province to collect their salaries, officials said.

Nearly two dozen others, including women and children, were wounded in the explosion in the capital Lashkar Gah, many of them critically.

The Taliban, who control vast swathes of the opium-ravaged province and have repeatedly threatened to seize Lashkar Gah, claimed responsibility for the bombing, calling it revenge for recent US air strikes in the volatile district of Sangin.

Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers investigate the aftermath of a suicide car bomb attack in Lashkar Gah in Helmand Province on February 11, 2017 Noor Mohammad (AFP)

"A suicide car bomber killed six people, including five soldiers, and 21 others were wounded," Helmand police chief Agha Noor Kentoz told AFP.

Omar Zhwak, the provincial governor's spokesman, confirmed the casualties from the bombing, which upturned military vehicles and left the area strewn with charred debris.

The Italian-run Emergency hospital in Lashkar Gah said it had received at least 12 people, including a woman and a child.

The Taliban ruled out civilian casualties in a statement on their website, claiming that 21 Afghan army soldiers had been killed. The insurgents are known to exaggerate battlefield claims.

The attack comes after the US military this week stepped up air strikes in Sangin as fierce fighting with the Taliban raised fears that the key district could fall to the insurgents.

NATO on Friday said it was looking into local media reports of nearly a dozen civilian casualties from the strikes.

"While supporting and defending Afghan troops, the US conducted air strikes in Sangin district," the coalition said in a statement.

"We're aware of the allegations of civilian casualties, and take every allegation very seriously. We'll work with our Afghan partners to review all related material."

For years Helmand was the centrepiece of the Western military intervention in Afghanistan only for it to slip deeper into a quagmire of instability.

The Taliban effectively control or contest 10 of the 14 districts in Helmand, the deadliest province for British and US troops over the past decade and blighted by a huge opium harvest that helps fund the insurgency.

Lashkar Gah -- one of the last government-held enclaves -- also risks falling to the Taliban's repeated ferocious assaults. The intensified fighting in the province last year forced thousands of people to flee to Lashkar Gah from neighbouring districts.

The Pentagon said last month it will deploy some 300 US Marines this spring to Helmand.

NATO officially ended its combat mission in December 2014, but the Marines will return to train and advise Afghan soldiers and police officers fighting the Taliban, said US Central Command.
Trump vows to bring planned border wall costs "way down"

President Donald Trump insisted early Saturday that he would bring the price of his planned Mexican border wall "way down," after US media circulated a government report estimating it would cost $21.6 billion.

In the internal government study, the US Department of Homeland Security said the contentious border barrier would take more than three years to build and the price could soar much higher than the $12-15 billion figure cited by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan last month.

"I am reading that the great border WALL will cost more than the government originally thought, but I have not gotten involved in the design or negotiations yet" Trump posted in a series of tweets.

US President Donald Trump speaks during a joint press conference at the White House in Washington, DC. with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on February 10, 2017 Brendan SMIALOWSKI (AFP)

"When I do, just like with the F-35 FighterJet or the Air Force One Program, price will come WAY DOWN!" the president promised.

Shortly after his inauguration Trump ordered work to begin on building the wall along the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) US-Mexico border -- one of his signature campaign promises -- in a bid to block migrants from illegally entering the United States.

The issue has infuriated Mexico, whose president has vowed his country will not pay for a wall, which Trump insists the country will fund.

Trump's Twitter missives came as he and his wife Melania are hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie at the US president's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

As he transitioned into the presidency prior to his swearing-in, Trump -- a real estate mogul who prides himself on his deal-making skills -- blasted what he called "out of control" costs of Lockheed Martin's F-35 stealth fighters.

The company said afterwards it would trim costs for the next batch of planes, announcing $728 million in savings, although most of the price cuts were already planned ahead of Trump's involvement during a months-long contract negotiation.

The US president has also pushed for reducing the cost of the next generation Air Force One presidential jet, which is built by Boeing.

The MIT Technology Review estimated in October that the border wall bill could skyrocket to around $40 billion.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 7

By Seba Aghayeva  Trend:

Pakistan is currently studying the possibilities of using the resources of Azerbaijans telecommunications satellite Azerspace-1, Azerbaijani Ambassador to Pakistan Ali Alizade told Trend.

"This issue was previously considered in 2016 during a meeting of the intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation. Azerbaijan offered Pakistan to use the resources of the national telecommunications satellite," the diplomat said.

He added that the issue is currently being considered by relevant bodies of Pakistan and there is a plan to establish cooperation in this sphere.
Trump's travel ban legal battle an uphill undertaking

After his travel ban suffered two defeats in the US court system, President Donald Trump has vowed to continue his judicial fight -- but with the controversial measure now on shaky ground, it is likely to be an uphill battle.

Trump's executive order -- issued on January 27 with no prior warning -- suffered two blows over the course of two weeks in western US courts.

Since then the president has proffered a variety of solutions, from taking the matter to the Supreme Court to simply writing a new executive order.

Following the court decision to not overturn an earlier court's suspension of US President Donald Trump's executive order travel ban, he tweeted: "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!" Brendan Smialowski (AFP/File)

The president's decree, which temporarily barred nationals from seven mainly Muslim countries and refugees, was halted nationwide by a federal judge in Seattle on February 3 and last Thursday a three-judge panel in San Francisco declined to reinstate the ban.

Following the latter decision, Trump tweeted: "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!"

But the options available to him are not extremely appealing.

After a day of evaluating the best course of action, the White House Friday evening betrayed its understanding of this fact, expressing hesitation at taking the matter to the Supreme Court.

For Trump and his administration, the top court would be a risky bet, as it is currently divided evenly between four conservative and four progressive justices.

A tie vote would leave the San Francisco court's halt in place. And it would mark defeat at the highest level of the judiciary for the brand new president.

- Keeping 'options open' -

The high court is not the Trump administration's only legal option, however, and the White House could consider taking the case back to a lower level.

"We're keeping all our options open," one official said.

On Thursday, the three San Francisco judges who upheld the ban from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals only weighed in on whether the lower court's suspension should be upheld. In doing so, the judges only partially touched on the legal validity and underpinnings of the decree.

A possible hearing to delve further into these matters would be heard in a lower court rather than the Supreme Court.

As if there were not enough options on the table, Trump told reporters Friday while traveling on a plane to Florida that he would consider writing a totally new executive order.

"The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order," Trump said, adding that any action would not come before next week.

Regardless of the path Trump choses, the decision rendered in San Francisco on Thursday will carry substantial weight going forward: in their 29-page ruling, the judges expressed deep concerns with the measure.

- Arguments against ban -

In upholding the suspension, the three judges said that the government had provided no evidence that any foreigner from the countries named in the order had carried out a terrorist attack on US soil.

They also rejected the idea that the impact of the ban was light. Although the Trump administration reported that 109 people were held for questioning under the executive order, the court pointed to the thousands of visas that had been abruptly cancelled, hundreds of travelers forbidden from arriving in the United States and the detentions.

While the court sided against the administration's argument that the temporary ban was within the president's prerogative, it declined to decide whether the executive order discriminated against people from the seven barred countries -- all of which have Muslim-majority populations -- on the basis of religion.

The court did, however, open the way for future hearings in which opponents would be able to cite anti-Muslim rhetoric made by Trump and his advisors.

"Recognizing that national security matters are the purview of the president, the Ninth Circuit refused to bury its head in 'alternate facts,'" said David Pressman, a lawyer and former assistant secretary of Homeland Security.

Instead, he said, the court "considered the real ones -- including the impact of the president's executive order on so many and the unambiguous statements of the president's discriminatory intent."

The outside of the federal appeals court is seen on the day it ruled against lifting the stay on U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order imposing a temporary immigration ban on seven Muslim-majority nations in San Francisco, California Elijah Nouvelage (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File)

Dina Cehand protests U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order imposing a temporary immigration ban on seven Muslim-majority nations protest outside a federal appeals court February 7, 2016 in San Francisco, California Elijah Nouvelage (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File)
US agents conduct first Trump-era raids targeting undocumented migrants

US authorities arrested hundreds of undocumented migrants this week in the first large-scale raids under President Donald Trump, triggering panic in immigrant communities nationwide.

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency rounded up undocumented individuals living in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and other cities two weeks after Trump signed an executive order that broadened which undocumented immigrants would be targeted for deportation.

According to ICE, however, the operations were "routine."

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency rounded up undocumented individuals living in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Austin and Atlanta two weeks after an executive order that broadened who would be targeted for deportation JOHN MOORE (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File)

"The focus of these operations is no different than the routine, targeted arrests carried out by ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis," said agency spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea.

David Marin, head of ICE's removal operations in Los Angeles, told reporters that approximately 160 people had been arrested in the California metropolis.

Some 75 percent of them had prior felony convictions, he said, adding that some people had been nabbed solely because they were undocumented.

By Friday night, 37 undocumented immigrants had already been expelled to Mexico.

In a January 25 decree, Trump prioritized the deportation of undocumented males who had been convicted of or "charged with any criminal offense," including misdemeanors.

The order was a move to make good on his campaign pledge to crack down on America's undocumented population, estimated at 11 million people.

Marin said the operations were planned prior to Trump's swearing-in and were comparable to past actions.

He rebuffed reports about ICE checkpoints and random sweeps, calling them "dangerous and irresponsible."

"Reports like that create panic, and they put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger," Marlin said.

The raids, which hit residential areas and workplaces, sparked protests and provoked the ire of elected Democratic representatives, notably in California and particularly in Los Angeles, where the Pew Research Center estimates around a million undocumented migrants reside.

"President Trump's policy change betrays our values," Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said in a statement.

"Tearing families apart isn't what this country stands for."

- 'New reality' -

In Austin, Texas, where 100,000 unauthorized migrants live, a bystander captured video footage of an arrest, which made local front-page news and ignited demonstrations.

Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas confirmed the launch of a "targeted operation" aimed at arresting the undocumented.

He has asked ICE officials to "clarify whether these individuals are in fact dangerous, violent threats to our communities, and not people who are here peacefully raising families and contributing to our state."

Castro said the roundups were part of "Operation Cross Check" -- a series of large-scale raids that began in 2011 under Barack Obama.

The agency conducted the last sweep in March 2015, corralling 2,059 undocumented immigrants deemed threats to "public safety."

In New York, which hosts the country's largest population of undocumented immigrants -- 1.15 million, according to Pew -- a few hundred people demonstrated near the immigration services office.

Obama deported more immigrants than any of his predecessors, prioritizing the expulsion of repeat criminal offenders or those convicted of serious crimes, including rape, child pornography and gang membership.

Undocumented migrants with repeated drunk driving convictions were also targeted.

With his decree, Trump -- who vowed as a candidate to deport some three million undocumented immigrants with criminal records -- broadens the scope of the Obama administration's policy, dropping the distinction between convicted criminals and those who have simply been charged.

Activists have rallied around the case of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos -- a 35-year-old mother arrested during a routine visit to Phoenix, Arizona who has become symbolic of Trump's hardline measures.

The mother of two US-born children was caught in 2008 using a fake social security number and slapped with a deportation order. Authorities had not previously expelled her for practical reasons, however, as she posed little threat.

But by Thursday, she was in Nogales, the Mexican border town where she crossed into the US more than two decades ago.

The Mexican Foreign Ministry said her deportation "illustrates the new reality of Mexican community living in the United States in the face of more severe application of migration controls."

The ministry urged Mexican citizens to "take precautions" and stay in close contact with consular authorities, echoing instructions from immigrant advocacy groups stateside.

El Salvador, in Central America, also is home to many recent immigrants to the United States. Their remittances are key to its economy.

"We are working to ensure that Salvadorans who are overseas, especially... in the United States are protected," Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren told local media.

People attend a demonstration against the immigration polices of U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington Square Park on February 11, 2017 in New York City SPENCER PLATT (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP)
Shanghai designer readily embraces Trump daughter

To boycott or not to boycott First Lady Melania Trump because of her husband's politics has been hotly debated in US fashion circles, but for one Chinese designer, at least one member of the first family is a major asset.

Tiffany Trump, the youngest daughter of the US president, was guest of honor in the front row at Taoray Wang's New York fashion week show Saturday, accompanied by her mother, Trump's ex-wife Marla Maples.

The 23-year-old first daughter, who wore Taoray Wang at her father's inauguration weekend, has been happily adopted by the Chinese label as it seeks to open its first overseas store, in New York in September.

Marla Maples (L) and Tiffany Trump attend the Taoray Wang collection during, New York Fashion Week: The Shows at Gallery 1, Skylight Clarkson Sq on February 11, 2017 in New York City Jamie McCarthy (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP)

She looked beautiful in a pale pink Taoray Wang coat and ivory dress, a similar version of which appeared in navy on the catwalk, and the label proudly announced her attendance in a subsequent statement.

The namesake brand of Shanghai-based designer Wang Tao, the fall/winter 2017 collection starred her modern take on classic suiting, with a unique twist of East meets West, and an empowering masculine look made feminine when paired with delicate lace negligees.

Wang designs for the powerful, professional and modern woman -- leaders in government, business, finance and law who are not afraid to disguise their femininity.

She sent down the runway black jackets, military-style double breasted coats and wide-legged tweed pants -- a powerful look made sexy with knee-high platform boots, lace underlay and pink silk lining on coats.

Wang said that clients, who are largely in China, and been delighted to see Trump -- "this wonderful young lady" -- wear her clothes at the inauguration and said there had been no negative feedback.

"I would rather focus on personal qualities and characters, rather than labeling them," she told AFP backstage before the show.

It was a stunning collection inspired by contemporary Chinese drama depicting Qing dynasty characters crossing over from ancient times to the present day, and earned her cheers of approval at the end.

Wang said she had not given much thought to the refusal from some prominent American designers to dress the new first lady.

"I didn't think about that, because I'm very open minded. I cooperate with international celebrities and all these leaders," she said.

Front of house was packed, a mix of Chinese and Asian guests mingled with Park Avenue types -- sleekly dressed, stiletto-wearing and well-groomed American women similar to the younger Trump.

"I believe there is a lot of bridge between different cultures," said the designer, who studied in Japan and keeps a studio in London.

Her label focused on "this blending and diversity," she said.

Tiffany Trump poses backstage at the Taoray Wang show during New York Fashion Week on February 11, 2017 Angela Weiss (AFP)

Tiffany Trump (L) and Eric Trump arrive on the West Front of the US Capitol during their father US President Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC Win McNamee (POOL/AFP/File)
UK sees IS being ousted from Iraq towns this year

British Defence Minister Michael Fallon said Saturday in Iraq that he expected to see the Islamic State group expelled from the country's major towns by the end of 2017.

"We expect to see Daesh (IS) expelled from the major towns and cities of Iraq during the course of the year," he told reporters in Arbil, the capital of Iraq's northern autonomous region of Kurdistan.

Iraqi forces are nearly four months into a massive operation to retake nearby Mosul, which is the country's second city and where IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a "caliphate" in 2014.

Iraqi counter-terrorism service vehicles drive past an explosion crater January 21, 2017 while patrolling the Andalus neighbourhood in the city of Mosul after government forces retook control of the area from the IS group AHMAD AL-RUBAYE (AFP/File)

The jihadist organisation then controlled around a third of Iraq, but federal and allied forces have since retaken around two thirds of that territory and Mosul is IS's last major stronghold.

After retaking the eastern side of Mosul last month, Iraqi forces are currently preparing to launch an assault on the part of the city that lies west of the Tigris River.

Commanders expect the battle to be fierce because the narrow streets of the Old City will complicate operations and the western side also harbours some traditional jihadist bastions.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said around the new year that he expected his forces would need three more months to rid the country of IS.

Most observers argued that the premier's prediction was optimistic, however, with Mosul alone threatening to bog down Iraqi forces way past that target.

Retaking the northern city would deal a death blow to the "caliphate" and any claim that IS is still running a "state", but the group retains control of several populated areas.

In Iraq, IS still holds Hawijah, a large town southeast of Mosul, and the town of Al-Qaim on the western border with Syria.

When Iraqi forces retake Mosul, the jihadists' last major hub will be the city of Raqa in neighbouring Syria.

"The situation in Syria is more complicated, given the continuation of the civil war there," Fallon said.

A 60-nation coalition led by the United States has carried out thousands of air strikes in support of the war on IS and provided assistance and training to thousands of Iraqi forces.

Britain is a key member of that coalition, together with France, Italy and Australia.
AP FACT CHECK: Are immigration raids result of Trump policy?

LOS ANGELES (AP)  Advocacy groups say that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are rounding up people in large numbers around the country as part of stepped-up enforcement under President Donald Trump.

They say a roundup in Southern California was especially heavy-handed and cite arrests in places such as Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Texas and North Carolina that have rattled immigrants.

The government says it's simply enforcing the laws and conducting routine enforcement targeting immigrants in the country illegally with criminal records. Authorities say it's no different than what happened during the Obama years on a regular basis.

Marlene Mosqueda, left, who's father was deported early Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, is comforted at a news conference by her attorney Karla Navarrette at The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). Navarrete, said she sought to stop Mosqueda from being placed on a bus to Mexico and was told by ICE that things had changed. She said another lawyer filed federal court papers to halt his removal. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

The truth lies somewhere in between. Here are some of the facts surrounding what's happening with immigration enforcement:

TRUMP VS. OBAMA

As a candidate, Donald Trump vowed to take a hard line on immigration. Five days after taking office, he signed a sweeping executive order that made clear that just about any immigrant living in the country illegally could be a priority for deportation, particularly those with outstanding deportation orders. The president's order also said enforcement priorities would include convicted criminals, immigrants who had been arrested for any criminal offense, those who committed fraud, and anyone who may have committed a crime.

Under President Barack Obama, the government focused on immigrants in the country illegally who posed a threat to national security or public safety and recent border crossers. But despite the narrower focus, more than 2 million people were deported during Obama's time in office, including a record of more than 409,000 people in 2012. At one point, he was dubbed the "Deporter in Chief" by his critics.

The record was reached with the help of the Secure Communities program that helped the government identify immigrants in the country illegally who had been arrested. In the latter half of Obama's tenure, deportations plummeted to lows matching those of former President George W. Bush's term.

___

ARE THE LATEST RAIDS A DIRECT RESULT OF TRUMP'S ORDER?

Immigration officials say they aren't.

David Marin, Immigration and Customs Enforcement's field office director for enforcement and removal operations in greater Los Angeles, said the agency carries out these operations two or three times a year in his region. He says the California operation was in the planning stages "before the administration came out with their current executive orders."

But immigrant rights groups say the actions are harsher than in the past.

Advocates began fielding calls Thursday from immigrants and their lawyers reporting raids at homes and businesses in the greater Los Angeles area. In one instance, agents showed up at the home of a 50-year-old house painter named Manuel Mosqueda in the Los Angeles suburbs, looking to arrest an immigrant who wasn't there. In the process, they spoke with Mosqueda, arrested him and put him on a bus to Mexico  though lawyers were able to halt his deportation and bring him back.

In all, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested about 160 people during a five-day sweep in Southern California aimed at immigrants with criminal histories and deportation orders, including a Salvadoran gang member wanted in his country and a Brazilian drug trafficker. Marin acknowledged that five of those arrested would not have met the Obama administration's enforcement priorities.

The agency called it an "enforcement surge" that was no different than enforcement actions carried out in the past and said a "rash of recent reports about purported ICE checkpoints and random sweeps are false, dangerous, and irresponsible." In a statement, the agency said "officers frequently encounter additional suspects who may be in the United States in violation of the federal immigration laws. Those persons will be evaluated on a case by case basis and, when appropriate, arrested by ICE."

___

THE NEW NORMAL?

Despite the claims that this is business as usual, an indication of the changed tactics came earlier in the week when Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly testified before Congress. He told lawmakers immigration agents expressed frustration about that they were not fully allowed to enforce immigration laws under the Obama administration. He predicted Trump's directives would end that frustration.

"I think their morale has suffered because of the job they were hired to do, and then in their sense, they're ... kind of hobbled or, you know, hands tied behind their back, that kind of thing," Kelly told the House Homeland Security Committee. "And now, they feel more positive about things. I bet if you watch the morale issue, you'll ... be surprised going forward."

Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan, who was previously in charge of the agency's enforcement and removal operations, earlier this month made a point of noting that his agents would enforce the law.

In at least one case, it seems clear that Trump's order changed someone's fate. Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, a mother of two in Phoenix, was arrested nearly a decade ago for using a false ID to get a job as a janitor at an amusement park. She pleaded guilty to a felony charge, but the government during the Obama years declined to deport her despite her being in the country illegally. On Wednesday, she showed up at the ICE building in Phoenix for a scheduled check-in with immigration officers and was swiftly deported to Mexico.

___

Caldwell contributed from Washington, D.C.
Activision Blizzard and Sears surge while Yelp skids

NEW YORK (AP)  Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily on Friday:

Activision Blizzard Inc., up $7.50 to $47.23

The video game publisher had a strong quarter thanks to its game "Overwatch," which debuted this year.

Sears Holdings Corp., up $1.42 to $6.96

The retailer said it plans to cut $1 billion in costs and could sell more brands and more locations.

Skechers USA Inc., up $4.50 to $27.78

The shoe retailer announced strong sales, particularly in China.

Mead Johnson Nutrition Co., up $4.67 to $87.72

The Enfamil maker agreed to be bought by Reckitt Benckiser of Britain for $90 a share, or $16.6 billion.

CBRE Group Inc., up $2.43 to $34

The real estate investment management services company posted a bigger-than-expected profit and gave a strong outlook for 2017.

Yelp Inc., down $5.66 to $35.83

The online business reviews company's revenue projections disappointed analysts.

Cerner Corp., down $2.38 to $51.50

The health care information technology company cut its earnings and revenue forecasts for the year.

Western Union Co., down 64 cents to $19.74
Mexico releases businessman wanted for organized crime in US

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP)  Mexican federal authorities have released a businessman wanted in the United States on organized crime charges hours after his arrest.

The state government of Nuevo Leon said late Thursday night in a statement that the federal Attorney General's Office had released Fernando Cano Martinez. It said Cano was a target of an Interpol red notice to arrest and hold for extradition, but the Attorney General's Office told state prosecutors that they did not have an extradition request for him.

As recently as November 2016, U.S. federal prosecutors in Texas told a judge they were seeking Cano's extradition. It is unclear if that extradition request was ever formally conveyed to the Mexican government.
US voices concern over shadowy 'Libyan National Guard' group

WASHINGTON (AP)  The United States says it has "serious concern" about the emergence of a security force claiming to be the "Libyan National Guard" in the city of Tripoli.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner says "numerous tactical vehicles" from the organization have entered Tripoli. He says the deployment could further destabilize Tripoli's fragile security.

Toner says the Islamic State group "and other terrorist groups" benefit when there's disunity and lack of coordination among Libyan forces.

The U.S. says Libya must build "a unified national military force" under civilian control that can protect all Libyans.
Injured hiker reunited with dog he left on mountain

LOMA LINDA, Calif. (AP)  A hiker who was badly injured on Mount Baldy has been reunited with his dog, a week after he was forced to leave her behind on the snowy Southern California slope.

Warren Muldoon, 62, of Whittier was reunited with Dakota on Wednesday at Loma Linda University Medical Center, where he is recovering.

The dog had belonged to his son, who died after a motorcycle crash last year.

"I truly don't know how I'd live the rest of my life if she died up there," Muldoon told the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (http://bit.ly/2kO5mOO ).

The 3-year-old German shepherd mix was rescued by experienced hikers who went up the mountain to find her after Muldoon's wife, Connie, posted a plea for help on Facebook.

Muldoon had left home on Feb. 1, intending to climb to the summit of the 10,000-foot-high mountain northeast of Los Angeles.

Muldoon said he and Dakota reached the summit but on the way back down, the wind kicked up and covered the trail. He took a wrong turn then tumbled down a series of waterfalls.

Muldoon's cellphone was broken and he had fractured ribs and was freezing when he decided he had to move on.

Dakota, perched 30 feet above him on a ledge, had fallen twice with him. She was too scared to proceed and the rocks were too slippery for Muldoon to reach her.

"Dakota, you gotta come with me," Muldoon recalled pleading. "I can't leave you here."

Eventually, he did.

He came to another waterfall.

"I said this is bad, this is real bad, but I couldn't go (back) up," he recalled. "So I got on my butt, and I just went down so fast and my foot hit the rock in the water and I heard (my leg) snap."

Muldoon had a broken leg, five broken ribs and a punctured lung when he reached a ledge above a 40-foot waterfall and managed to get the attention of some people in a valley below.

A San Bernardino County sheriff's helicopter rescued him. Dakota was left behind.

The dog had belonged to Muldoon's son, James, who was 32 when he died of brain damage last August after a car ran a red light and hit his motorcycle.

Muldoon's wife, Connie, broke down by her husband's bedside when she learned that Dakota was left on the mountain.

"She's the last piece that I have of my son," she said. "I wasn't ready to say goodbye."

Connie sent out a Facebook post asking people to watch for Dakota. It went viral and caught the attention of several hikers.

Patrick Moran of Yorba Linda, who had been on the mountain hundreds of times, called Muldoon in the hospital and learned where Muldoon had fallen  San Antonio Canyon. Moran sent Facebook posts to numerous hiking groups and pages noting Dakota's probable location.

On Feb. 2, several experienced mountaineers made their way up the mountain to find Dakota.

Ricardo Soria Jr. of Glendora was one of them.

"I made it past the second tier (of the falls) where I peered over a ledge and let out a few whistles," Soria recounted in a post to Instagram. "Within moments, a set of eyes popped up."

Chris Simpson and John Bishop managed to reach Dakota. Simpson lured her into his arms with a package of salami.

Except for dehydration, bruises and a cut to her paw, Dakota was fine.

On Wednesday, Dakota wagged her tail, licked Muldoon's leg bandage and snacked on crackers provided by nurses.

Muldoon told the dog he was sure she would say that "you won't ever go hiking with me ever again."
The families of the two men who were with Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez when his boat capsized on a Miami Beach jetty  killing all three  are suing the All-Star's estate, each seeking $2 million.

Attorney Christopher Royer, who is representing the families of 25-year-old Eduardo Rivero and 27-year-old Emilio Jesus Macias, told the Sun Sentinel that Rivero's claim was filed Friday, and Macias' will be filed Monday.

'The Rivero and Macias families are deeply scarred by the loss of their sons,' said Royer in a news release Friday. 'We remain open to a settlement and are hopeful a prompt resolution can be achieved to spare these families, and that of Jose Fernandez too, from any additional suffering'.

The families of Eduardo Rivero, 25, and 27-year-old Emilio Jesus Macias who were with Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez (pictured) when his boat capsized on a Miami Beach jetty are suing the All-Star's estate for $4million

Fernandez owned the 32-foot boat, but investigators haven't determined whether he was driving at the time of the crash on September 25

Macias (left), a banker at Wells Fargo, and Rivero (right), a sales rep at Carnival Cruise Lines, were lifelong friends. Rivero had met Ferndandez through their girlfriends

Authorities say Fernandez, 24, had cocaine and alcohol in his system when he, his friend Rivero and acquaintance Macias were killed in the wreck off South Beach.

While Rivero and Macias had alcohol in their systems, neither was legally drunk, according to toxicology reports from the Miami-Dade Medical Examiners Office.

However, the reports showed Rivero had cocaine in his blood.

Fernandez owned the 32-foot boat, but investigators haven't determined whether he was driving at the time of the crash on September 25.

The attorney representing Fernandez's family, Ralph Fernandez (no relation), told the Sun Sentinel a settlement is 'highly unlikely', saying the official crash investigation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission hasn't been completed, but he expects it to find Jose Fernandez was not driving the boat when it capsized.

They were travelling between 55 and 65 miles per hour, when the boat hit the jetty.

The high-speed collision caused the boat to flip over and crash on the rocks. None of the men were wearing life jackets.

Olga Fernandez (left), the grandmother and Maritza Fernandez the mom of pitcher Jose Fernandez watch as the Miami Marlins play against the Colorado Rockies at the Marlins Park on April 1 in Miami

Maritza Fernandez (center) and Olga Fernandez (right) before a memorial service at St Brendan Catholic Church in Miami on September 29

Olga Fernandez (center), and his mother Maritza Fernandez during the Public Memorial at St Brendan's Catholic Church on September 28 in Miami

Ralph Fernandez also said Jose Fernandez may not have known he had ingested cocaine.

'There are indications that his cocaine use that night was not voluntary', the attorney told the Sun Sentinel.

Last month, Jose Fernandez's mother, Maritza Gomez Fernandez, filed a petition to administer his estate, valued at an estimated $2 million to $3 million.

Her son was about to sign a contract that would have paid him $30 million a year.

His career earnings were $6.5 million, with his estate in line to receive a $1.05 million accidental death insurance payment and another $450,000 life insurance payment through Major League Baseball's benefits package, ESPN reports.

Fernandez immigrated to the United States from Cuba in 2008. He became a US citizen in 2015.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Feb. 11

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Turkmenistan is taking concrete steps to strengthen the market foundations of real economy along with the measures in other areas in the face of the expected low prices for oil and natural gas, the Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper reports.

Particular importance is attached to the improvement of economys efficiency, especially by strategic fuel and energy industries.

According to the report, Turkmenistan will use the main part of incoming investments to develop production of such expensive products as polyethylene, polypropylene, high-octane gasoline.

A large amount of investments will be directed to development of power industry and food industry that have a great export potential.

Investments will also be used in the development of transportation and communications, construction of the Turkmenbashi international sea port and other projects, which will open the prospects for Turkmenistans transformation into one of the transport and logistics centers of Eurasia.

Moreover, the projects for an ore-dressing and processing enterprise for production of potash fertilizers in the Lebap provinces Garlyk village, a carbamide plant in the Balkan provinces Garabogaz city, a gas and chemical complex for production of polyethylene and polypropylene in the Balkan provinces Kiyanly village, a steam-gas power plant in the Mary province, a plant for production of gasoline from natural gas in the Ahal provinces Ovadan Tepe also serve to the strategic goal of the economys diversification and innovative development.

Turkmenistan is one of the rich countries for its natural gas resources. According to BP, the countrys recoverable reserves are estimated at 17.5 trillion cubic meters of gas or 9 percent of total global reserves, which puts Turkmenistan on the fourth position in this field after Iran, Russia and Qatar. The country has an opportunity to export its gas to China and Iran.
The Latest: No "Draconian moves" on sanctuary cities: Kelly

SAN DIEGO (AP)  The Latest on U.S. Homeland Security chief visiting California border (all times local):

5:40 p.m.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has told officials at the California-Mexico border that he won't make any "Draconian moves" regarding federal funding for so-called sanctuary cities.

Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly speaks at news conference as vehicles enter the United States from Mexico at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

Kelly spoke Friday with federal, state and local law enforcement officials at the San Ysidro port of entry.

President Donald Trump last month said he would cut federal grants for sanctuary cities.

Kelly, who visited Texas last week and Arizona on Thursday, said he got an "earful" from law enforcement officials about where they'd most like to see sections of Trump's promised border wall built.

San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman asked for a definition of a sanctuary city and Kelly replied that he didn't "have a clue."

The security chief said he was stunned when some people say local authorities won't cooperate with federal authorities even in removing convicted criminals from the country.

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9:57 a.m.

SAN DIEGO  U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly is wrapping up a two-day tour of the nation's border with Mexico as plans take shape to build a wall along the 2,000-mile divide between the two countries.

Kelly was scheduled to tour one of the most fortified stretches of the border on Friday, separating San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico.

On Thursday, he toured southern Arizona, which was the busiest corridor for illegal crossings from 1998 to 2013, when large numbers of Central American families and children made southern Texas the most preferred route.

The visit is Kelly's first to the border in Arizona and California since he became secretary last month. Last week, the retired four-star Marine general toured the border in southern Texas.

Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, right, shakes hands with Chief of Law Enforcement & Homeland Security of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services Mark Pazin before a meeting held at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy, Pool)
Ohio governor works to erase state's 'Rust Belt' label

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)  Ohio Gov. John Kasich has a pet peeve: the use of the term "Rust Belt" to describe his state.

The Republican governor has made it his mission to send the label to the scrap heap of history. He points to advances in such areas as drones, data analytics, biotechnology, robotics and autonomous vehicle research.

"We're a big manufacturing state. But we also want to change the image of Ohio into something from the Rust Belt to the Knowledge Belt," Kasich said during an Associated Press forum this month. "Now, this is hard."

FILE-This Friday, May 20, 2005 file photo shows the Mittal Steel mills south of downtown Cleveland pictured. Republican Gov. John Kasich says he's doing everything he can to shed Ohio's reputation as a Rust Belt state. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan, File)

Why is it hard? Because it's been repeated and entrenched over more than 30 years, including by President Donald Trump during last year's election, when he called Ohio and Pennsylvania places where "everything is rusting and rotting."

A look at the economics and politics of the debate:

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MANUFACTURING ROOTS

Ohio's manufacturing roots date to the earliest days of its statehood. The first steel furnace west of the Alleghenies was built in Poland Township, near Youngstown, in 1802, according to the Ohio Steel Council. The region's readily accessible coal stoked steel-making furnaces and the region's steel, rubber and glass were shipped to nearby plants to make cars.

The industry was devastated by a combination of economic changes in the 1970s and 1980s, including foreign competition and strict environmental regulations. That left behind abandoned  yes, rusting  mills, unemployment and a fleeing working class. Ohio lost 405,000 manufacturing jobs between 1969, when employment at Ohio factories peaked, and 1983, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The sector settled in at around 1 million jobs for almost two decades after that. The sector began a pre-recessionary descent in the early 2000s before employment bottomed out at 614,000 in 2009. Advances and innovations are bringing the sector back, with 76,000 jobs added as of 2016.

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ONE RUSTY, AND PERSISTENT, LABEL

Democrat Walter Mondale helped invent the term Rust Belt during his 1984 presidential bid. Mondale attacked the economic policies of incumbent Republican President Ronald Reagan for "turning our great industrial Midwest and the industrial base of this country into a rust bowl," according to the Dictionary of American History. The media picked up on the concept and the Rust Belt label was born.

Kasich isn't the first to try to replace the name.

During their 2006 campaigns, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and former Gov. Ted Strickland, both Democrats, promised to make Ohio "the Silicon Valley on alternative energy." Technology business in northeast Ohio created a "Tech Belt" with western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia.

A recent "Trust Belt" movement by central U.S. business leaders pushes back against what they say is a media misrepresentation of the region's economic progress.

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WHAT'S PAST IS PROLOGUE

Marketing and economic development experts say the best way to shed Ohio's Rust Belt label would be to acknowledge and embrace the state's manufacturing legacy with a new image that it can live up to.

That's what Las Vegas did when it moved to replace its unwanted "Sin City" label with the slogan "What happens here, stays here," said Mike Diccicco, CEO of the Philadelphia-based brand communications agency DDCworks.

"If you took a look at it, you'd have to say the dominant theme of Las Vegas is one of adult freedom. It's not a place to take your family," he said.

Ohio State University economist Ned Hill said Ohio shouldn't try to shed its Rust Belt label, but to build on it.

"It's a part of our heritage, but it's not our future," Hill said.

Younger generations actually like the label, said Richey Piiparinen, director of Cleveland State's Center for Population Dynamics and author of "Rust Belt Chic."

"'Born into ruin' is what we say. They don't have the psychic baggage, they were not born in the heyday," he said. "And so this idea of resiliency, of struggle, of fighting for your land, of being proud of your land, but at the same time not having any illusions about what we were, that's been a whole new generation owning that term."

He said Kasich's promotion of Ohio's knowledge economy makes sense amid a climate where Trump is stoking the fears of blue-collar regions that elected him by painting a picture of "this Mad Max world."

FILE-This May, 19, 2001 file photo shows The LTV Steel Cleveland Works seen in an aerial photo with downtown Cleveland in the background. Republican Gov. John Kasich says he's doing everything he can to shed Ohio's reputation as a Rust Belt state. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan, File)

FILE  This Nov. 28, 1979, file photo shows U.S. Steel's Youngstown Works plant that was slated to permanently close, affecting some 4,000 workers around Youngstown, Ohio. Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich has made it his mission to send Ohio's "Rust Belt" label to the scrap heap of history, but it's been repeated and entrenched over more than 30 years since the steel industry's devastation in the 1970s and 1980s by foreign competition and environmental regulation, leaving behind abandoned, rusting mills and unemployment. (The Vindicator via AP, File)

FILE  In this September 1980 file photo, a Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp. coke plant is wreathed in smoke and steam in Struthers, Ohio. Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich has made it his mission to send Ohio's "Rust Belt" label to the scrap heap of history, but it's been repeated and entrenched over more than 30 years since the steel industry's devastation in the 1970s and 1980s by foreign competition and environmental regulation, leaving behind abandoned, rusting mills and unemployment. (AP Photo/Madeline Drexler, File)

FILE  In this September 1980 file photo, arriving steelworkers greet a demonstrator at U.S. Steel's Youngstown Works plant that was slated to permanently close, affecting some 4,000 workers around Youngstown, Ohio. Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich has made it his mission to send Ohio's "Rust Belt" label to the scrap heap of history, but it's been repeated and entrenched over more than 30 years since the steel industry's devastation in the 1970s and 1980s by foreign competition and environmental regulation, leaving behind abandoned, rusting mills and unemployment. (AP Photo/Madeline Drexler, File)

FILE  In this Sept. 20, 1977, file photo, Ohio steelworkers who were among about 5,000 who would be unemployed when the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. moved production to the company's Indiana Harbor Works in East Chicago, Ind., leave their plant after shifts at the company's Campbell Works in Youngstown, Ohio. Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich has made it his mission to send Ohio's "Rust Belt" label to the scrap heap of history, but it's been repeated and entrenched over more than 30 years since the steel industry's devastation in the 1970s and 1980s by foreign competition and environmental regulation, leaving behind abandoned, rusting mills and unemployment. (The Vindicator via AP, File)
Spain: police arrest 21 suspects u international drug ring

MADRID (AP)  Spanish police say they have made 21 arrests in an investigation of an alleged drug ring which is said to have been operating for almost 15 years from southern Spain.

Police said Saturday those arrested included individuals of Spanish, Croatian, Bulgarian and Estonian nationalities.

Police say they confiscated a large amount of hashish, small boats, upscale cars and other valuable goods.
Study: Invasive bugs found in fallen trees years after storm

CONCORD, N.H. (AP)  They may be down but they're not out: Damaging insects can emerge from fallen trees and logs for several years after a major storm, according to a U.S. Forest Service study that reinforces longstanding warnings against moving firewood from place to place.

Timber that gets blown down, broken or damaged by wind is often cut and used as firewood, which in turn can enable the spread of invasive, destructive insects that drain the life out of forests from New England to the West Coast.

Such pests are projected to put 63 percent of the country's forest at risk through 2027 and carry a cost of several billion dollars annually in dead tree removal, declining property values and timber industry losses, according to the peer-reviewed study last year in Ecological Applications.

FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2009 file photo, a tree removal worker with a chainsaw watches as a log is removed by an oversized claw in Worcester, Mass., after an 2008 infestation of the Asian longhorned beetle in the city resulted in the removal of tens of thousands of trees. Damaging insects can survive in fallen trees and logs for several years after a major storm, according to a U.S. Forest Service study that reinforces longstanding warnings against moving firewood from place to place. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

The emerald ash borer alone, now in 30 states, has killed hundreds of millions of trees and has the potential to cause $12.7 billion in damage by 2020.

After a tornado tore through western Massachusetts in 2011, U.S. Forest Service officials based in New Hampshire collected ash, birch, maple, oak and pine logs from the affected area in 2012, 2013 and 2014, split them into firewood-sized pieces and put them in barrels. They painstakingly counted the insects that emerged from the wood  32,121 to be exact. Eastern ash bark beetle was the most common, accounting for 85 percent of the total.

Researchers were surprised to find that wood harvested even three years after the tornado produced a significant number of insects.

"It was a little surprising that even after three years, we still found insects associated with recently killed trees emerging from firewood," said Kevin Dodds, one of the study's lead authors.

Not all the trees die at the time of the tornado or wind storm. Instead, there is a range of damage and pockets of living trees that create insect habitat over time, researchers said.

"You might think that several years after a windstorm that blows down trees, it would be safe to cut the downed trees into firewood and transport them. But this study shows that some of this downed wood still harbors insects several years later," said Gary Lovett, a senior scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies who was not involved in the study.

While the best solution is to keep invasive insects out of the country in the first place via stronger controls on imports, Lovett said, the study "reinforces the point that we should be using firewood locally rather than transporting it to use in second homes, cabins, or campsites."

Nearly 40 states have imposed restrictions on the movement of firewood in an effort to protect forests from the pests. In New Hampshire, out-of-state firewood has been banned since 2011 and in some areas, is not allowed to be moved from county to county.

The study was published in January 2017 in the journal Agricultural and Forest Entomology.
AP FACT CHECK: Improv week at the White House

WASHINGTON (AP)  It was a week of sound and fury from President Donald Trump, the commander in tweets. A look at how some of his statements fit with the facts:

TRUMP made an unsupported assertion Monday that terrorist acts in Europe are going unreported: "All over Europe it's happening. It's gotten to a point where it's not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that."

THE FACTS: Trump and his team cited one example of a deadly terrorist attack going unreported: the one that didn't happen in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Adviser Kellyanne Conway spoke a week earlier about a Bowling Green "massacre" that didn't take place, correcting herself when she was called out on the error.

In this Feb. 9, 2017 photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Senators on his Supreme Court Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. Trump has disputed statements by at least three senators that his nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, voiced complaints to them about the president's recent attacks on the judiciary. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

As for Trump's claim about Europe, it's probably true that you haven't heard of every attack on the continent that can be tied to terrorism. Scores if not hundreds happen every year. Many don't rise to the level of an international audience because they cause no casualties, or little or no property damage, or are carried out by unknown assailants for unclear reasons.

One exhaustive list is the Global Terrorism Database, maintained by the University of Maryland. It lists 321 episodes of suspected or known terrorism in Western Europe alone in 2015. Many are anti-Muslim attacks against mosques, not the brand of terrorism Trump has expressed concern about. Many are attacks undertaken for right-wing or left-wing causes that have nothing to do with Islamic extremism or xenophobic attacks on mosques.

The database defines a terrorist act as one aimed at attaining political, religious, social or economic goals through coercion or intimidation of the public, outside acts of war.

The devastating attacks by Islamic extremists in 2015 are also on the list, among them the murderous assault on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and the even bloodier attack at Paris' Bataclan concert hall, the worst in a series of killings in one day. Those attacks and other deadly ones in Europe received saturation coverage for days.

But even the smaller, nonlethal acts of terrorism received coverage. The database itself is built from media reports.

THE WALKBACK:

Trump made his claim before a broad audience on live television, while speaking at Central Command headquarters in Florida. On Air Force One, before a smaller audience, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump did not really mean that terrorist attacks received no coverage. Trump's actual complaint, he said, was that such acts don't get enough attention.

The White House later released a list of 78 worldwide attacks it described as "executed or inspired by" IS. Most on the list did not get sufficient media attention, the White House said, without specifying which ones it considered underreported.

Attacks on the list that had high death tolls were given blanket coverage, such as the Brussels bombings in March, the San Bernadino, California, shootings in December 2015, and the Paris attacks in November 2015. Some with a smaller death toll, such as two attacks in Canada that killed one soldier each, were covered at the time and well known.

The White House did not point to any examples supporting Trump's contention that terrorist attacks were "not even being reported."

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TRUMP, speaking to sheriffs Tuesday: "The murder rate in our country is the highest it's been in 47 years, right? Did you know that? Forty-seven years. I used to use that  I'd say that in a speech and everybody was surprised because the press doesn't tell it like it is." He circled back to add: "The murder rate is the highest it's been in, I guess, from 45 to 47 years."

THE FACTS: The murder rate in 2015, the latest year for which figures are available, is actually among the lowest in half a century. It stood at 4.9 murders per 100,000 people, a far cry from the rates in the 1970s, 1980s and most of the 1990s, when they were typically over 6 per 100,000, peaking at over 10 in 1980.

It's true that 2015 saw one of the largest increases in decades, up 10 percent from 4.4 murders per 100,000 people in 2014. But even with that rise, homicides are not on the order of what the country experienced in previous decades.

Trump has misrepresented crime statistics on several occasions. He stated last month that Philadelphia's murder rate has been "terribly increasing" even though it dropped slightly last year. The city's murder rate rose in the previous two years but remained substantially lower than in past decades.

He also incorrectly claimed that two people "were shot and killed" in Chicago during then-President Barack Obama's farewell speech on Jan. 10. Although Chicago has experienced a surge in murders compared with previous decades, no one was fatally shot in Chicago that day, police records show, much less during Obama's speech.

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TRUMP in a tweet Thursday: "It is a disgrace that my full Cabinet is still not in place, the longest such delay in the history of our country. Obstruction by Democrats!"

THE FACTS: That's a premature judgment. It's only February, and several other recent presidents did not have their full Cabinets seated this soon. Obama did not have all his Cabinet vacancies filled until late April 2009, for example, or President Bill Clinton until mid-March 1993.

Looking at the far broader range of people throughout government who must be confirmed by the Senate, it's true that the process has lagged this time. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price this past week became the ninth member of Trump's administration to be confirmed. At this point eight years ago Obama had more than 20 officials confirmed, including department heads and deputies.

Democratic resistance is partly responsible. So is the fact that Trump has been slower than his predecessor in submitting vetting information and paperwork for his nominees, even though he was unusually fast in putting the names of his Cabinet picks into play.

As for his accusation of Democratic obstructionism, the opposition party can cause some procedural delays, and has done so. But obstructionism isn't what it used to be. Unlike Obama, Trump only needs a simple majority to confirm his executive-office nominees, thanks to a change in rules instituted by Democrats when they controlled the Senate in 2013. And Trump has a Republican-controlled Senate to push his nominees through.

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TRUMP on Thursday disputed statements by at least three senators that his nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, voiced complaints to them about the president's recent attacks on the judiciary. Tweet: "Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?" At a lunch with senators: "His comments were misrepresented."

THE FACTS: Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut who falsely claimed in years past that he had served in Vietnam, offered an account of his meeting with Gorsuch that was corroborated by Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist serving as communications director for the team that is working to get Gorsuch confirmed by the Senate.

The senator said Gorsuch told him it was "disheartening" and "demoralizing" to see Trump disparage the judge who temporarily blocked the president's restrictions on visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries and on refugees. Trump has called U.S. District Judge James Robart a "so-called judge" and accused the judiciary of being political. Robart's decision was upheld Thursday in a unanimous decision by an appeals court panel that includes a Republican appointee.

A Republican senator said Gorsuch also objected to Trump's comments about Robart during their meeting.

"He got pretty passionate about him, about it," Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska told MSNBC on Thursday. "I asked him about the 'so-called judges' comment, because we don't have so-called judges or so-called presidents or so-called senators, and this was a guy who kind of welled up with some energy and he said any attack on any of  I think his term to me was, brothers or sisters of the robe  is an attack on all judges, and he believes in an independent judiciary."

The Senate's top Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York, also said Gorsuch told him he was "disheartened" by Trump's insult.

Former GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is helping to usher Gorsuch through the Senate, said in a statement released by the White House that the nominee "made clear that he was not referring to any specific case," but "finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing." Even if Gorsuch did not name Trump in some of his exchanges with senators, however, it's clear that judicial integrity only came up because Trump had attacked it.

Blumenthal told The Associated Press that Ayotte and White House staff members were in the room during his conversation with Gorsuch, that "there's no question that he said that President Trump's attacks on the judiciary are demoralizing and disheartening" and that the nominee added: "You can repeat that. You can quote me."

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TRUMP tweet Thursday: "Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave 'service' in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!"

THE FACTS: Not so. Cuomo, a CNN host, brought up that issue upfront with Blumenthal. Cuomo asked him about Trump's belief that the senator has no credibility "because you misrepresented your military record in the past." Blumenthal did not answer the question, but went on to talk about his meeting with Judge Gorsuch.

During Blumenthal's Senate campaign in 2010, The New York Times reported on multiple occasions when he falsely claimed he had served in Vietnam during the war. He joined the Marine Reserve but never served in Vietnam. Blumenthal told AP on Thursday: "I've been in public life for quite a while. Anyone who is interested can go back over it."

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TRUMP tweet Friday: "LAWFARE: 'Remarkably, in the entire opinion, the panel did not bother even to cite this (the) statute.' A disgraceful decision!"

THE FACTS: In this rather bewildering tweet, Trump cited a legal blog as support for his complaints about the appeals case that kept the borders open to people he wants banned.

Trump accurately quoted a passage from the Lawfare blog about the decision Thursday by the federal appeals court in San Francisco. But the blog's editor-in-chief and author of the post, Brookings Institution scholar Benjamin Wittes, actually wrote in favor of the decision while exposing what he considers its weaknesses.

He wrote that Trump's executive order barring visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries and refugees worldwide was promulgated with "incompetent malevolence." Continuing its suspension, as the appeals court did, avoids plunging the country into turmoil again while other courts address the merits of the case, he said.

Yet Wittes said the judges failed to address the law at the heart of Trump's statutory case. The law says the president may, "by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens" or impose "any restrictions" if he decides their presence in the country would be detrimental to the U.S.

That's a "pretty big omission," he wrote. Wittes also criticized the court's "arch and clucking dismissals of presidential demands for deference in national security cases."

Trump's selective citation from the blog suggests that this line of argument could be central to the administration's case that courts have not given presidential authority proper weight.

The passage quoted by Trump was featured on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and the president's use of it prompted the author to tweet: "You've found the only sentence in it congenial to your views."

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UN chief warns of sectarian tensions after Mosul

ISTANBUL (AP)  U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says an operation to liberate Iraq's second-largest city from the Islamic State group should not inflame sectarian tensions.

The secretary general said the ongoing operations to free Mosul should instead be a "symbol of national reconciliation."

Guterres made the comments during a meeting in Istanbul with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday, according to a statement from the secretary-general's office.

The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, left, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shake hands before a meeting in Istanbul, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017. Guterres, the former chief of the U.N.'s refugee agency, has called Friday on nations "to match the generosity" of Turkey in protecting refugees, saying that too many borders are being closed and many nations are "escaping their responsibilities." ( Kayhan Ozer/Presidential Press Service, Pool Photo via AP)

The recapture of Mosul would effectively break the back of the militant group in Iraq by ending their self-declared "caliphate" there. But many fear that the battle could give way to sectarian tensions.

Guterres is visiting Turkey, five Mideast nations and Germany on his first major trip since taking the helm of the United Nations on Jan. 1.

The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, left, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speak during a meeting in Istanbul, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017. Guterres, the former chief of the U.N.'s refugee agency, has called Friday on nations "to match the generosity" of Turkey in protecting refugees, saying that too many borders are being closed and many nations are "escaping their responsibilities." ( Kayhan Ozer/Presidential Press Service, Pool Photo via AP)
Tucci's "Final Portrait" depicts Giacometti's struggles

BERLIN (AP)  A film about the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti shows the famous sculptor and painter driven by self-doubts and anger toward the end of his life, but also depicts his sense of humor and his obsession with women.

"Final Portrait" by American director and actor Stanley Tucci was well received Saturday as it played at the Berlin International Film Festival. It is not among the 18 films vying for the festival's top Golden Bear award.

Set in Paris in 1964, the movie follows the artist at work in his studio, but also shows his relationships, including with his wife and a favorite prostitute.

From left, actor Armie Hammer, director Stanley Tucci and actress Clemence Poesy pose for the photographers during a photo call for the film 'Final Portrait' at the 2017 Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

Giacometti, played by Geoffrey Rush, asks art critic James Lord, played by Armie Hammer, to pose for a portrait, and Lord gets to see the artist's eccentric behavior.

From left, actor Armie Hammer, director Stanley Tucci and actress Clemence Poesy pose for the photographers during a photo call for the film 'Final Portrait' at the 2017 Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

Actor Armie Hammer poses for the photographers during a photo call for the film 'Final Portrait' at the 2017 Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

Actress Clemence Poesy poses for the photographers during a photo call for the film 'Final Portrait' at the 2017 Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

Director Stanley Tucci poses for the photographers during a photo call for the film 'Final Portrait' at the 2017 Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

Director Stanley Tucci poses for the photographers during a photo call for the film 'Final Portrait' at the 2017 Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

From left, actor Armie Hammer, director Stanley Tucci and actress Clemence Poesy pose for the photographers during a photo call for the film 'Final Portrait' at the 2017 Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

Actress Clemence Poesy poses for the photographers during a photo call for the film 'Final Portrait' at the 2017 Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
Iran detains 8 Sunni 'terrorists'

TEHRAN, Iran (AP)  Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency is reporting that the country's intelligence forces have detained eight non-Iranian "Takfiri terrorists" who they say planned to sabotage celebrations during the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution near Tehran.

Takfiri is a term used by Iranian officials to describe militant Sunni Muslim fundamentalists like the Islamic State group.

The Saturday report quotes Iran's Intelligence Minister, Mahmoud Alavi, as saying: "During this operation, on Feb. 3 to 9, a secret network of terrorist was identified and eight of its main elements were detained and all of them were non-Iranian."
Jamaican police arrest 2 in killing of 15-year-old girl

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP)  Authorities in Jamaica say they've charged two men with the stabbing death of a 15-year-old girl.

Police said Friday night that 23-year-old Mario Morrison and 31-year-old Gregory Roberts are in custody.

Authorities say the body of Shanika Grey was found with multiple stab wounds on Feb. 1 in the Mount Salem community just outside the Montego Bay resort town.
Baku, Azerbaijan Feb. 10



By Farhad Daneshvar, Dalga Khatinoglu  Trend:



Iran's Central Bank Chief Valiollah Seif is expected to discuss an earlier reached agreement between Tehran and Baku on opening settlement accounts with his Azerbaijani colleagues over the coming week in Baku, an Iranian diplomat said.



Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Javad Jahangirzadeh, in an interview with Trend said that talks on settlement accounts have not produced any outcome yet, expressing hope that the upcoming visit would contribute to the talks.



Valiollah Seif is slated to arrive in Baku on Feb. 12 to discuss financial cooperation between the two countries.





Last August, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Baku where the sides agreed to expand financial cooperation and signed several documents.



During the visit, Valiollah Seif, who accompanied the president, told Trend that the central banks of the two countries have agreed to open settlement accounts.



In the meantime, the sides may also discuss using national currencies in bilateral trade. An announcement by the Central Bank of Iran on the countrys plan to stop using the US dollar in its official statements has fueled speculations on the possibility of employing national currencies of Iran and Azerbaijan in bilateral trade between the two countries.



The talks in this regard reportedly may still be held between the sides in the near future.
Panama arrests partners in Mossack-Fonseca firm

PANAMA CITY (AP)  Prosecutors in Panama say they've formally arrested the partners of a law firm involved in last year's "Panama Papers" scandal, in which thousands of pages of documents related to offshore accounts were leaked.

The arrests announced Saturday are related to another scandal involving bribes paid by the Brazilian company Odebrecht.

Ramon Fonseca Mora and Jurgen Mossack are partners at the Mossack-Fonseca firm. Officials pulled them in for questioning on Thursday and formally detained them following two days of interrogations.

FILE - In this April 4, 2016 file photo, a marquee of the Arango Orillac Building lists the Mossack-Fonseca law firm, in Panama City. Prosecutors in Panama said on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017 theyve formally arrested the two partners of the Mossack-Fonseca law firm involved in last years "Panama Papers" scandal, in which thousands of pages of documents related to offshore accounts were leaked. The arrests are for money laundering related to another scandal involving bribes paid by the Brazilian company Odebrecht. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco, File)

The Attorney General's Office has searched the firm's offices, accusing them of setting up offshore accounts that allowed a Brazilian construction company to funnel bribes to various countries.

The two face charges of money laundering.

Odebrecht has acknowledged paying $800 million in bribes across Latin America.
Piers Morgan, J.K. Rowling in Twitter fight over politics

LOS ANGELES (AP)  British TV personality Piers Morgan and British author J.K. Rowling are in a Twitter war over American politics.

He called her work "drivel" and she called him "amoral" after Morgan defended the U.S. government's travel ban during an appearance on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" on Friday.

Morgan faced off with Australian comic Jim Jefferies on the episode during a discussion of the executive order. Morgan said it was "not a Muslim ban," and Jefferies directed an expletive at him. Rowling tweeted that it was "satisfying" to hear Jefferies say that.

In this Friday, Feb. 10, 2017 photo provided by HBO, guests on a panel, John Waters, from left, filmmaker and author, Karine Jean-Pierre, senior advisor and national spokesman for MoveOn.org, and Piers Morgan, U.S. editor-at-large DailyMail.com, speak with host Bill Maher on the show, Real Time with Bill Maher, in Los Angeles. Morgan and British author J.K. Rowling are in a Twitter war over American politics. He called her work drivel and she called him amoral after Morgan defended the U.S. governments travel ban during an appearance on HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher Friday. (Janet Van Ham/HBO via AP)

A flurry of tweets between Rowling and Morgan followed.
Convicted sex offender charged in Ohio State student's death

GROVE CITY, Ohio (AP)  A convicted sex offender released from prison in November has been charged in the shooting death of a 21-year-old Ohio State University student.

Grove City police say 29-year-old Brian Golsby was arrested early Saturday and charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery in the slaying of Reagan Tokes. Her nude body was found Thursday near a park entrance in Grove City. She was last seen leaving work at a Columbus restaurant Wednesday night and was reported missing by her off-campus roommates and co-workers when she never made it home.

Tokes grew up outside Toledo. She was a fourth-year psychology major at Ohio State and was due to graduate in May.

Grove City Police Sgt. Chris White said at a news conference Saturday that Tokes was shot twice in the head. A coroner didn't find any other visible injuries but would be testing a rape kit, White said.

Golsby was arrested around 4 a.m. Saturday after being identified as a suspect through DNA evidence gathered in and around Tokes' car, which was found not far from where Golsby was living in Columbus, White said. Police believe Tokes encountered Golsby not long after she left the restaurant shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday.

It's unclear whether Golsby has an attorney.

The charges against Golsby also were based on statements he gave to police, White said.

Asked if Golsby had confessed, White said: "He gave us details of these events of that night that closely match what we're finding."

Golsby registered as a sex offender after being released from prison. He pleaded guilty in Franklin County Common Pleas Court in Columbus to aggravated robbery and attempted rape charges in May 2011 and received a six-year sentence.

Tokes' uncle, Jeff McCrary, issued a statement on behalf of her family.
A severe weather warning is in place for parts of the country with sleet and snow expected to fall until Sunday afternoon.

The freezing temperatures are expected to last for the weekend, with the mercury rising into the high single figures by Monday.

A yellow snow warning is in place until 3pm on Sunday across north-west and north-east England, Yorkshire and Humber and the West and East Midlands.

Widespread and at times heavy snow  rain or sleet at lower levels  is expected to develop along the Pennine chain, with it drifting in the strong north-easterly winds.

Helen Roberts from the Met Office said: On Sunday there will be a reasonably widespread frost despite the cloud so temperatures, away from towns and cities, widely below freezing, a few degrees below in a few spots.

Warnings for #snow still around for some? https://t.co/rVBBv30Eew Temps on rise from Mon with hint of Spring https://t.co/9SH5cv1dZO ^Rob pic.twitter.com/EjNOHraoH3  Met Office (@metoffice) February 11, 2017

She added: Maximum temperatures on Sunday will probably not be dissimilar to Saturday, so we are looking at generally between about 2C to 6C (36F to 42.8F), right the way across the country.

Then into the start of next week we start to see some slightly less cold weather actually pushing in.

So by Monday probably more in the way of sunshine, temperatures into high single figures.
US president Donald Trump has promised more legal action after a federal appeals court refused to reinstate his ban on travellers from seven predominantly Muslim nations.

He said on Friday that he has no doubt he will win the case in court and told reporters he is considering signing a brand-new order on immigration.

The 3-0 ruling means that refugees and people from the seven nations  Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  can continue entering the United States for now.

The administration has several options on how to proceed. Here is a look at where the legal fight goes from here:

Rehearing at the appeals court

3-0  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 10, 2017

The Trump administration could decide to ask the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the three-judge panels ruling.

But the odds of success seem low, said Margo Schlanger, a law professor at the University of Michigan.

She noted that the three-judge panel was unanimous and included a judge chosen by a Republican president.

Supreme Court appeal

The US Supreme Court

The government could file an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court and ask the justices to restore the ban.

But it would take at least five justices to overturn the ruling from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals and that may be a long shot.

The high court still has only eight members since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia  four conservative and four liberal justices.

There are almost surely four votes to deny an emergency request to reinstate the order, said Peter Spiro, a law professor at Temple University.

The last immigration case to reach the justices ended in a 4-4 deadlock last year.

That suggests a similar split over Mr Trumps order, which would let the 9th Circuit ruling stand and keep the freeze in place.

Waiting for Gorsuch

Judge Gorsuch spends Day Three on Capitol Hill meeting with Senators from both sides of the aisle  #SCOTUS #JusticeGorsuch pic.twitter.com/PfgG0VFV4N  Gorsuch Facts 45 Archived (@GorsuchFacts45) February 7, 2017

If the Supreme Court declines to intervene right away, the case would remain in the 9th Circuit and ultimately be considered on its legal merits.

It also could return to US District Judge James Robart in Seattle, who temporarily blocked the ban after Washington state and Minnesota urged a nationwide hold on the January 27 order.

The lower court action so far is temporary and has not resolved broader questions about the legality of Mr Trumps order.

It simply halts deportations or other actions until judges can more fully consider whether the order violates legal or constitutional rights.

Allowing the case to play out longer at the appeals court has one advantage: By the time a ruling on the merits comes down, the Senate may have confirmed Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. That may improve Mr Trumps chances to prevail on appeal.

But just how the issue might reach the Supreme Court is not clear. Several other challenges have been launched in courts around the country, and the court could opt to wait before stepping in.

Revising the executive order

The White House could amend the executive order to expressly carve out existing green card holders and other people that already have some ties to the United States.

Up to 60,000 visas were initially cancelled in the wake of the ban, affecting the lives of students, professors and workers.

White House counsel Donald McGahn had issued guidance days after the executive order saying it did not apply to legal permanent residents of the US, but the appeals court said that was not enough.

The government has offered no authority establishing that the White House counsel is empowered to issue an amended order superseding the executive order signed by the president, the opinion said.

Revising the order shifts the legal boundaries so that it becomes a tougher constitutional target, Mr Spiro said.

The appeals court issued a sharp rebuke to the Justice Departments argument that the president has the constitutional power to restrict entry to the United States to prevent terrorism, and that courts cannot second-guess that authority.

There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy, the opinion said.

Washington state, Minnesota and other states say Mr Trump showed his intent in the presidential campaign when he called for a ban on Muslims entering the country.

They also say his order discriminates against Muslims because it provides exceptions for refugees who practice a religion that makes them a minority in their home country. That would favour Christians in the countries affected.

The appeals court said the administration failed to show that the order satisfied constitutional requirements to provide notice or a hearing before restricting travel. But it did not rule on whether the order violated religious protections under the First Amendment.
Leicester boss Claudio Ranieri hopes his squad can take confidence from the FA Cup win against Derby and build some much-needed momentum in the Premier League.

The champions have slumped to within a point of the relegation zone after just two wins in 15 league matches and face a crucial clash on Sunday at Swansea, who like Leicester have 21 points from their 24 games.

Ranieris side travel to the Liberty Stadium having lost their last four Premier League fixtures without scoring a goal and they have yet to find the back of the net in the league in 2017.

Claudio Ranieri

WATCH: #lcfc boss Claudio Ranieri is looking to carry the Foxes' FA Cup form into their Premier League clash against Swansea City. #SwaLei pic.twitter.com/Cl9G2a10Jj  Leicester City (@LCFC) February 10, 2017

Wednesdays replay win against Derby, for which Ranieri made 10 team changes, provided some relief and the Italian hopes the 3-1 victory, which came after extra-time, can give Leicester a lift.

To score three in one match is good, good for confidence, and I hope it can improve our Premier League season and give us confidence, he said.

We need momentum. It is important to keep the momentum of the squad going. We might make changes, but it is still Leicester. If we lose in the FA Cup, it is always Leicester. But Leicester won so it is good.

To win in the FA Cup gave us confidence but we have to keep going. It (Swansea) is one of our important matches from now until the end  we have to achieve our points. But I am confident with the players, always.

WATCH: The Foxes put in their final preparations before travelling to Wales to face Swansea in the Premier League. #SwaLei pic.twitter.com/OOC7WUF53g  Leicester City (@LCFC) February 10, 2017

Leicester will face a Swansea side rejuvenated since the arrival of Paul Clement, who has just been named the manager of the month for January.

The former Derby boss has overseen a notable upturn in form since replacing Bob Bradley at the turn of the year. The last three Premier League matches have seen Swansea defeat Liverpool at Anfield, win at home against EFL Cup finalists Southampton and lose narrowly to an injury-time goal away at Manchester City.

#GOTD: We beat Swansea 3-0 away from home last season thanks to a @Mahrez22 hat-trick. 



Here's his superb second from that game  pic.twitter.com/eZqWAQ1fDr  Leicester City (@LCFC) February 10, 2017

Ranieri has been impressed by the impact Clement has had, saying: They changed their manager and they play very well. It will be a tough match for us.

When he came, they changed totally. There is a very good shape, they know what they have to do and how to do it. They have a good shape, they attack together, defend together.

They are very good team because they move the ball quickly. There are some good players in good condition.

WATCH: Foxes goalkeeper @kschmeichel1 talks to LCFC TV ahead of #lcfc's trip to Liberty Stadium to face Swansea on Sunday. #SwaLei pic.twitter.com/T0VwfLJuYh  Leicester City (@LCFC) February 11, 2017

Ranieri will make several changes on Sunday with the likes of Kasper Schmeichel, Robert Huth, Wes Morgan, Danny Drinkwater, Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy, should he overcome a calf knock, all expected to be restored to the team.

Winger Demarai Gray is pushing for a starting place after impressing against Derby while recent signing Molla Wague could be involved in the squad. Like Vardy, Islam Slimani (groin) will be assessed but fellow striker Leonardo Ulloa (thigh) remains out.
Captain Rory Best has been ruled out of Irelands RBS 6 Nations clash with Italy in Rome, so Niall Scannell will win his first cap at the Stadio Olimpico.

Best has failed in his bid to shake off a stomach bug in time to lead Ireland in their second Six Nations clash of the 2017 tournament, so Jamie Heaslip will skipper Joe Schmidts side.

Leinster hooker James Tracy has been drafted in to take a seat on the bench, with Bests streak of consecutive Six Nations appearances ending at 51.

Rory Best

Ireland must win in Rome to keep alive any slender title hopes following last weekends 27-22 loss to Scotland at Murrayfield.

Ulster stalwart Best missed Irelands captains run training session on Friday in a bid to rest and recuperate from his illness.

But now the 101-cap front-rower will sit out Saturdays pivotal clash with Conor OSheas Azzurri in Rome.

Scannell was an unused replacement in Edinburgh, but is now thrust into the spotlight.

Ireland unusually struggled at the lineout last weekend, so Scannell must quickly organise his set-piece work with lock Devin Toner.

Leinsters fast-improving hooker Tracy won his first cap against Canada in the autumn, and may well join the fray in the final quarter.
An Iraq War veteran investigated by the discredited probe into murder and torture allegations against British troops has said its closure is long overdue.

The 60 million Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat) inquiry will be closed in months after its caseload is whittled down and around 20 investigations are handed over to military police.

Former colour sergeant Brian Wood, who served in the 1st Princess of Waless Royal Regiment at the Battle of Danny Boy in May 2004, said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Government had big lessons to learn.

I hope I got my point across regarding #IHAT and Shiner's greed that has wounded so many. This can never happen again @BBCBreakfast pic.twitter.com/554FdV81ql  Brian Wood MC (@BrianWoodMC) February 11, 2017

He told BBC Breakfast: The allegations were of the highest order  unlawful killing, mutilation and mistreatment of prisoners of war. That just did not happen and I just dont know where they got the fuel from.

Its good news (Ihats closure), long overdue but its good news. We had holes in our system which were exploited.

Mr Wood also suggested the allegations made to the Al-Sweady Inquiry should not have been made public until the claims were thoroughly investigated: Because of the seriousness of the allegations, they should have looked into them in so much detail before releasing it as a public inquiry.

What they have put us through for that period was damaging to the degree of careers, marital split-ups and fuelling the fire of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and the trauma we had seen on the battlefield.

Government IHAT decision most welcome; thoughts with those who were hounded; we remain true to our values pic.twitter.com/vm3KSO2tkm  The Chief of the General Staff (@ArmyCGS) February 10, 2017

The Government has defended its handling of the investigation, with veterans minister Mark Lancaster saying the probe was abused by lawyers but the MoD acted correctly.

He told BBC Radio Fours Today programme: Without having Ihat, potentially our troops could have been subjected to inquiries by the International Criminal Court.

He was asked about a damning Commons Defence Committee report that said the MoD had been complicit in the creation of the legal industry that sprang up around Ihat.

Mr Lancaster said: It is a serious allegation. Im not sure that there is any evidence that the MoD have been complicit in that.

Mr Lancaster, who would not be drawn on possible compensation for veterans impacted by Ihat, said that a small number of serious cases involving personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq would still be investigated by military authorities.

Pleased to publish report on #IHAT historical allegations practices. Full report here: https://t.co/Ll1FAak5FW pic.twitter.com/2g9BM5jBU3  Rt Hon Johnny Mercer (@JohnnyMercerUK) February 10, 2017

Asked if comments made by Tory MP Johnny Mercer, who led the defence committee probe, that there is a rotten core of civil servants at the MoD rang true, former head of the army, General Sir Mike Jackson, told LBC: Theyre harsh words but I have no reason to doubt the committees findings.

I had my own difficulties with the civil service when I was head of the army. I fear the reputation of the British Army has been damaged from these unfounded and trumped-up allegations.

But defence minister Lord Howe rejected any attacks on civil servants, telling LBC that he completely repudiated the suggestion that we have dishonest civil servants in the Ministry of Defence. There is absolutely no basis for that criticism of our civil servants who have been doing their loyal duties for many months.

The scathing report by the Defence Committee said the probe had subjected serving and retired troops to deeply disturbing treatment and had directly harmed UK defences. MPs set out a litany of failures about the way the MoD had handled the probe.

Phil Shiner has been struck off (John Stillwell/PA)

They criticised it for serious failings after it handed over more than 110,829 to Abu Jamal, an Iraqi middleman, while he was employed by Public Interest Lawyers (PIL), the defunct firm behind many of the claims.

Phil Shiner, who ran PIL, has been struck off after being found to have acted dishonestly in bringing murder and torture claims against Iraq war veterans.
Four children are recovering well in hospital after being rescued from a house fire which left a man and woman dead.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) praised the brave and selfless actions of rescuers who saved the three girls and a boy, aged between 10 and 17, and a man from the blaze in Withington, Manchester.

Five people who were rescued from a fire in Withington are all in a stable condition. https://t.co/mXYvHub7Qu  Greater Manchester Police (@gmpolice) February 11, 2017

A man and a woman died at the scene in Parsonage Road, where emergency services were called at about 2.20am on Friday.

Robert Chilowa described helping two of the children escape out of a window.

I followed where the scream was coming from and I got to the house and saw there was fire, he told the BBC.

I turned around and there was this young girl there lying on the floor and she pointed at the window to say, please can you save my brother and my sister  ask them to jump?. So both of them jumped and I managed to put them in a safe place.

The scene in Withington (Peter Byrne/PA)

Those rescued were taken to hospital, where they remain in a stable condition. Police and fire investigators are probing the cause of the blaze.

Detective Inspector Tony Lea, of GMPs City of Manchester Team, said: Im pleased to report that despite their injuries, those in hospital are in a stable condition and are recovering well.

It is clear to me that without the brave and selfless actions of those at the time of the incident, the circumstances could have been even more tragic.

My thanks and well wishes go out to the neighbours and to the wider community for their continued support as we carry out our enquiries.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 11

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Iranian Customs Administration has lifted the ban on rice import until July 23, 2017, Mehr news agency reports.

The Iranian government bans rice import annually with only a few months of break to support domestic products.

The latest ban which was imposed on July 21, 2016 was removed Dec. 21, 2016.

Iranian administration has recently decreased a 32-percent import tariff on rice import to 5 percent.

The annual consumption of rice in Iran is 3 million tons. Iran produces 2.2 million tons and imports 800,000 tons from India, Pakistan and Uruguay.

Iran imported 620,000 tons of rice, worth $520 million during the first eight months of the current fiscal year (started March 20, 2016). About 150,000 tons of rice was imported to the country during the ban period.
Fourteen sailors have been rescued by the crew of a Royal Navy warship after their racing yacht was stranded for 48 hours in the Atlantic Ocean.

The 60ft Clyde Challenger yacht lost its mast in the turbulent waters as it was returning from the Azores, in the mid-Atlantic, to the UK and the crew waited 20 hours for HMS Dragon to reach them.

The Type 45 destroyer was diverted 500 miles from a routine deployment to rescue the crew, travelling at 30 knots to arrive at the yachts position  some 610 miles south west of Lands End  at around 2.30pm on Saturday.

The rescue (Royal Navy/Crown Copyright/PA)

The operation concluded at around 5pm and all crew members were said to be alive and well.

They were treated for minor injuries and given hot food and the chance to call their families once on board the vessel.

The Challenger, which is normally berthed in the Clyde Estuary, in Scotland, could not be recovered.

Petty Officer Max Grosse, the Chief Bosuns Mate on board HMS Dragon, said: "When we arrived on scene it was clear the yacht had lost its mast and looked in a pretty desperate state after nearly 48 hours drifting in the challenging conditions.

"We were however hugely relieved to see all 14 crew alive and well. Despite racing through the night we only had three hours of daylight remaining in which to safely remove the crew.

HMS Dragon is fitted with two large sea boats capable of carrying six passengers each. We were able to use both boats to transfer the crew as quickly as possible. The prevailing weather conditions and notorious Atlantic swell made it enormously challenging though and really tested the skills of my experienced sea boat coxswains."

The Clyde Challenger, which is owned by Lewis Learning Ltd, was designed and built to compete in the Clipper round-the-world yacht race and is also used for corporate, private and charity charters, according to its website.

Updates on the travel companys Facebook page said the crew reported a problem with the yachts rudder late on Thursday evening and steering was affected. They were aided by another vessel and a cargo ship and reported they had made a temporary rudder on Friday morning but damage to the mast and sails meant they were unusable and on Friday afternoon it was decided the crew needed rescuing.

The resuce (Royal Navy/Crown Copyright/PA)

A statement said: We are delighted to report that a UK Navy vessel has successfully transferred all 14 crew members from Clyde Challenger.

They are all safely onboard and under the care of her majestys naval Service.

We are extremely grateful for this news and extend huge thanks to all those involved in standing over the yacht, organising and executing the safe transfer of the crew.

The Challenger, which is normally berthed in the Clyde estuary, in Scotland, could not be recovered.
Two rockets have landed in Baghdads Green Zone following clashes at anti-government protests that left five people dead, according to Iraqi officials.

The rocket attack caused no casualties as the munitions landed on the parade grounds in the centre of the highly fortified compound that is home to Iraqs government and most foreign embassies. It was not immediately clear who fired the projectiles.

Saturdays protests were called for by influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and clashes that erupted as crowds pushed towards the Green Zone left two policemen and three protesters dead, according to police and hospital officials.

Protesters run from tear gas (Karim Kadim/AP)

The officials said six other policemen were injured along with dozens of protesters.

The violent outbreak prompted the government to call for a full investigation.

The demonstrators loyal to Mr al-Sadr gathered in Baghdads Tahrir square to demand an overhaul of the commission overseeing local elections scheduled for this year. Mr al-Sadr has accused the commission of being riddled with corruption and has called for its overhaul.

Shots rang out in central Baghdad as security forces used live fire and tear gas to disperse the crowds.

An Associated Press team at the scene witnessed ambulances rushing away protesters suffering from breathing difficulties.

Iraqi riot police close a bridge leading to the heavily guarded Green Zone (Karim Kadim/AP)

Hospital officials said the policemen died of gunshot wounds. They gave no details as to the cause of death of the protesters.

While at times the crowds advanced towards the Green Zone, by afternoon they began to disperse after a statement from Mr al-Sadrs office called on his followers to refrain from trying to enter the compound.

Meanwhile, Iraqs prime minister Haider al-Abadi ordered an investigation into the violence.

Thousands of Muqtada al-Sadr's followers attended the protest (Karim Kadim/AP)

Mr al-Abadi has said that he respects the rights of all Iraqis to peacefully demonstrate but called on the protesters to obey the law and respect public and private property.

Mr al-Sadrs office issued another statement on Saturday night following news of protester casualties, claiming that excessive force was used against the demonstrators and threatened greater protests, saying: The next time the blood of our martyrs will not go in vain.

We will not give in to threats, said the head of the electoral commission, Serbat Mustafa, said in an interview with a local Iraqi television channel. Mr Mustafa said he would not offer his resignation and accused Mr al-Sadr of using the commission as a political scapegoat.
Yemen rebels call on U.N. to investigate bombings, dismiss peace envoy

SANAA, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Rebels controlling Yemen's capital called on the United Nations on Friday to take action to end violence that has destroyed large parts of the country and to investigate bombings carried out by a Saudi-led coalition.

In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the Houthi movement urged the U.N. to investigate a Saudi-led airstrike on a funeral in Sanaa last year and not renew the term of U.N. peace envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed.

"The United Nations should take a serious stance against the foreign aggression in Yemen and end the air and naval blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia," the letter quoted Saleh al-Sammad, a Houthi official, as saying.

The statement is a blow to the U.N., which has sought since 2015 to end fighting between the Iran-aligned Houthis and a Saudi-led alliance of mainly Gulf states in a conflict that has unleashed mass hunger and disease and killed over 10,000 people.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who has served as United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen since April 2015, has brokered several ceasefires, which have however foundered within days.

Earlier this week, Yemeni government forces backed by Gulf Arab troops recaptured control of the Red Sea city of al-Mokha in a push that paved the way for an advance on Hodeidah, the country's main port city.

The U.N. said on Friday that the Saudi-led coalition had intensified air strikes on Hodeidah, possibly trapping civilians and hampering a humanitarian operation to import vital food and fuel supplies.

The statement also expressed concern that civilians in al-Mokha had been deliberately targeted by Houthi-linked gunmen during the battle for control of the port.
Bolivia reports first yellow fever case in a decade

LA PAZ, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Bolivia's government on Friday said a Danish tourist had tested positive for yellow fever, its first case in a decade, after he visited a jungle area in the far west of the landlocked Andean country.

After an initial stay at a Bolivian hospital, National Health Director Rodolfo Rocabado said the stricken tourist traveled on to Chile for treatment. He also urged Bolivians not to fear an outbreak.

"This person came from another place and was not vaccinated," he told Reuters. "Our population is covered because massive vaccination campaigns have been done."

Yellow fever is a viral disease found in tropical regions of Africa and the Americas that mainly affects humans and monkeys and is transmitted by the same type of mosquito that spreads dengue and the Zika virus.

Brazil experienced an outbreak in a rural area earlier this year, leading to 40 confirmed deaths. Brazil has not had an urban outbreak of yellow fever since 1942.
Trump to Iran's Rouhani: Better be careful

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE, Feb 10 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that Iran President Hassan Rouhani "better be careful" after Rouhani was quoted as saying that anyone who speaks to Iranians with threats would regret it.

Trump was asked in a brief appearance in the press cabin aboard Air Force One about Rouhani's reported remarks to a rally in Tehran to celebrate the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Rouhani was quoted in media reports as saying Iran had shown in the 38 years since the revolution that "it will make anyone who speaks to Iranians with the language of threats regret it."

"He better be careful," Trump said.

Trump on Feb. 2 put Iran "on notice" over charges that Tehran violated a nuclear deal with the West by test-firing a ballistic missile, taking an aggressive posture toward Iran that could raise tensions in the region.
Missing China billionaire taken from Hong Kong hotel in wheelchair -source

By Venus Wu and Julie Zhu

HONG KONG, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Missing China-born billionaire Xiao Jianhua was whisked in a wheelchair from a luxury Hong Kong hotel in the early hours of Jan 27 with his head covered, a source close to the businessman told Reuters.

Xiao was carried into his own car at the entrance to the Four Seasons serviced apartments in the heart of the Asian financial hub in what appeared to be a "smooth operation", another source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The comments from the sources confirmed a report in the New York Times on the disappearance of Xiao, who has close ties to senior Chinese officials and their families.

Despite a statement issued in Xiao's name over 10 days ago that he was seeking medical treatment overseas and had not been abducted, his disappearance has rekindled fears over Hong Kong's status as an independent judicial entity of China.

"It is uncertain if Xiao was conscious when he left," the second source said, adding that it took at least a few people to carry the billionaire into the car.

"There was no struggle in the whole process. You could even say it was efficient. It was a smooth operation."

Reuters could not independently verify the circumstances at the time Xiao was taken out of the hotel or the condition of his health.

Assistants of Xiao were waiting in the lobby of the hotel's serviced apartments when at least five people, dressed in casual attire, came in, said the second source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The group, which some media have reported were mainland Chinese agents, were escorted to Xiao's room by his assistants and they left shortly after with the businessman and some luggage, the second source said.

The source close to Xiao who said the billionaire left the hotel in a wheelchair said his head was covered with some cloth, but it was not clear what the material was. The source added that as far as he knew Xiao did not use a wheelchair and there was nothing wrong with his legs.

A Hong Kong police source who was briefed on the probe into Xiao's disappearance had previously told Reuters the case was initially treated as a "kidnapping" following a complaint from someone connected to Xiao.

But after a review of CCTV footage at the Four Seasons and at the border checkpoint, police concluded that Xiao had voluntarily left Hong Kong.

They said Xiao had entered mainland China through a border checkpoint on Jan 27 and that they were seeking more information on the case from Chinese authorities.

Police and the Four Seasons did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.

China's Ministry of State Security, Foreign Ministry and Public Security Bureau have so far not responded to Reuters requests for comment on whether Chinese agents were involved in Xiao's disappearance.

CORRUPTION CRACKDOWN

Xiao's disappearance has sparked widespread media speculation that he has been drawn into Chinese President Xi Jinping's crackdown on corruption, which has ensnared a string of Chinese executives.

Any indication that Xiao may have been forcibly removed from the former British colony would be a breach of the "one country, two systems" framework under which it has been governed since its return to mainland Chinese rule in 1997.

Xiao's case has already spooked many mainland Chinese working in the city, with some already making contingency plans and seeking advice on moving assets overseas.

Another source close to Xiao said his immediate family and the company's senior executives witnessed nothing unusual ahead of his disappearance.

Xiao's wife and brother were not in Hong Kong when he left the Four Seasons, the third source said, declining to say where they were at the time.

They immediately rushed back to Hong Kong, the source said.

"Everybody freaked out," the source said. "Nobody knew where he went, nobody knew what was happening."

Xiao's wife and brother have already "fled" Hong Kong to Canada, according to the third source.

Xiao's family, company executives and lawyers wrote a statement in Xiao's name "in a rush" to quell speculation that the billionaire had been kidnapped, the source said.

The statement, published on the front page of Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper five days after he went missing, said he was seeking medical treatment "outside the country" and "had not been abducted to the mainland."

It is uncertain if the family had been in touch with Xiao when the statement was drafted.

Outside law enforcement agencies, including those from mainland China, are not authorised to operate in Hong Kong, which enjoys wide-ranging freedoms not allowed on the mainland, including a separate legal system.

Police commissioner Lo Wai-chung said in a radio talk show last Saturday that there was no sign of mainland authorities enforcing the law in Hong Kong.

Xiao, who runs Tomorrow Holdings, a financial group headquartered in Beijing, was ranked 32nd on the 2016 Hurun China rich list, China's equivalent of the Forbes list, with an estimated net worth of $5.97 billion.
Greece says bailout deal close, Juncker says it's on shaky ground

By Karolina Tagaris and Joseph Nasr

ATHENS/BERLIN, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras warned international lenders on Saturday not to heap new burdens on his country but said he believed the drawn-out bailout review with them would end well.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, however, said the deal was "on shaky ground" because the International Monetary Fund had not decided what role it would play.

The comments came a day after Greece and its international lenders made clear progress towards bridging differences over Athens's fiscal path in coming years, moving closer to a deal that would secure new loan disbursements and save the country from default.

"(The review) will be completed, and it will be completed positively, without concessions in matters of principle," Tsipras told a meeting of his leftist Syriza party on Saturday.

But further cutbacks, particularly to pensions which have already gone through 11 cuts since the start of the Greek debt crisis in 2010, would be hard to swallow.

"We are ready to discuss anything within the framework of the (bailout) agreement and within reason, but not things beyond the framework of the agreement and beyond reason," Tsipras said. "We will not discuss demands which are not backed up by logic and by numbers."

He warned all sides to "be more careful towards a country that has been pillaged and people who have made, and are continuing to make, so many sacrifices in the name of Europe".

Accepting more reforms is fraught with difficulties in Greece which has only just emerged from a multi-year recession brought on by the debt crisis and the austerity demanded in exchange for the bailouts.

Greece's unemployment rate is 23 percent and while year-on-year GDP growth was 1.8 percent in last year's third quarter, the economy contracted at a rate of more than 10 percent earlier in the decade.

IMF ROLE

Juncker, in an interview to be aired on German radio Deutschlandfunk on Sunday, praised Greece for some of the steps it has already taken.

"No country has managed bigger steps to improve competitiveness than Greece," he said.

But the Commission president also said that the bailout programme, Greece's third, could fall apart as the IMF has not yet made up its mind whether to take part in providing more aid.

"Yes, it is on a shaky ground in the sense that we don't see how the International Monetary Fund could manage this problem," he said.

The IMF has sat on the sidelines of the latest bailout programme and says it cannot participate in a programme which could keep Greece in a never-ending cycle of indebtedness that could push national borrowing to 275 percent of economic output by 2060.

Tsipras also accused the IMF, with which Greece has had testy relations since its first bailout in 2010, of being "cowardly," and of coming up with "new demands for Greece".

"Absurd, imaginary unreal, it doesn't matter, as long as it is made to look like Greece is to blame," he said.

Reaching agreement would release another tranche of funds from its latest 86 billion euro bailout, and facilitate Greece making a major 7.2 billion euro debt repayment this summer.

The European and IMF lenders want Greece to make 1.8 billion euros - or 1 percent of GDP - worth of new reforms by 2018 and another 1.8 billion euros after then and the measures would be focused on broadening the tax base and on pension cutbacks.
Brazil police refuse to end week-long strike in state plagued by murders

By Paulo Whitaker

VITORIA, Brazil, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Police in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo did not return to work on Saturday, despite the government announcing hours earlier a deal had been struck with officers to end a week-long strike that has led to a sharp increase in murders.

Most of the violence has been centered in the poor regions of metropolitan Vitoria, the state capital ringed by beaches and where the petroleum, mining and port industries have a strong presence.

Vitoria streets were calm on Saturday, however, as more soldiers and elite federal police arrived in the state, with more than 4,000 expected to be in place on Saturday to bolster the initial deployment of 1,200 soldiers.

Officials in the state just north of Rio de Janeiro told reporters late Friday that they had reached an agreement with representatives of the police that patrols would resume at 7 a.m. (0900 GMT). But family members of the officers told Reuters that no such accord had been reached.

Gustavo Tenorio, a spokesman for the Espirito Santo state security secretariat, said Defense Minister Raul Jungmann and Brazil's chief prosecutor Rodrigo Janot would be in Vitoria on Saturday to help advance negotiations.

"We had reached an agreement last night with police associations that they return to work today, but that has not happened," Tenorio said. "We continue to work on this problem."

Tenorio said more than 700 police are already facing possible charges of insurrection for not working, which could lead to prison time. Officials said late on Friday that if the police returned to work, no officer would be charged.

Jungmann told the UOL news portal that striking police officers "are contributing to the rise in crime" and that "whether they know it or not, are on the side of the criminals that are killing citizens."

The wives of police and other relatives, who have led the strike by forming human blockades of barracks, refused to budge by mid-morning Saturday and officers remained on strike.

Under Brazilian law, it is illegal for police to strike, which is why their family members have taken action to physically prevent police cars leaving barracks. The police themselves have not tried to remove their families, leading to fears among some of the relatives that soldiers could try to remove them by force.

The striking police said they had not received a raise in four years and that their base pay of about 2,900 reais ($931) a month was among the lowest in Brazil.

Aline Santana, an 18-year-old mother of two young boys, was out for a walk in central Vitoria on Saturday, and her mix of understanding and frustration echoed the sentiments of many citizens.

"I think most people understand their need to strike, but they are leaving the population vulnerable to all types of threats," she said. "If they had been on strike for two or three days, we could take it. But a week of being in this chaos is not acceptable."

Officials have closed schools, clinics and public transportation, while shops and other businesses have remained shuttered, causing over $30 million in losses, a state retail association said.

Espirito Santo is one of several Brazilian states hit by a budget crisis that is crippling essential public services. The police strike over pay has left a security vacuum and led to rampant assaults, robberies and looting, often in broad daylight.

The police union said Saturday that 137 people had been murdered in the state since last Saturday - a six-fold increase over the average homicide rate in 2016. State security agents have said that most of the murders appear to be related to the drug trade or other crimes, although bystanders have also been caught up in the violence.

Limited protests by police in nearby Rio de Janeiro on Friday and Saturday alarmed residents of the metropolitan area of 12 million people, where crime has spiked in the past year. But state officials said more than 95 percent of police were on patrol in Rio, calming fears of an imminent strike.
The Central Bank Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy has briefed the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management on the current state of the economy, outlining hardships that lay ahead.

According to a minister who wished to remain anonymous, the Governor, in his detailed briefing also dealt with issues relating to debt re-payment. In this case, the government is expected to an uphill task for the next few years.

The government is also compelled to restrict capital investments given the current financial constraints.

When asked to comment, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said there was a briefing with the areas the government had made progress also being highlighted.

The minister said the Government's fiscal performance had been up to the mark and the revenue level increased.

We have moved from negative to stable, he said.

The minister said no one had assumed that the government would achieve the targets that were given. (KB)
Government hopes to give schools the freedom to choose the subjects they need to teach in their respective institutions, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said at Kandy's Trinity College prize giving.

He said the government might focus on introducing subjects such as dress designing and hair dressing to schools.

This way students studying for the advanced level could learn the basics before attending vocational training centers. What we hope to do is to give you the opportunity to plan your career in school itself, the Prime Minister said and added that character building was also important and this aspect too would be looked into.

He said the Government was also focusing on ensuring that children obtain employment as soon as they leave school.

We want to see that children obtain employment when they leave school and that is why we have focused on industrial development as well. We will also take steps to develop the Kandy District keeping in mind the focus on tourism, the Prime Minister said and added that a cultural centre would be set up in the vicinity of the Bogambara Prisons Complex while developing the Colombo-Hambantota-Kandy corridor with two air ports and two sea ports.

The Prime Minister stressed the need for all political parties to get together if the country was to achieve economic progress.

We are ready to work with the Opposition, with the JVP and any other political parties. Let us rally round President Maithripala Sirisena to achieve these goals. If we dont do it now even countries such like Afghanistan will move ahead leaving us still struggling to succeed, he added. (Yohan Perera)
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 11

By Mehdi Sepahvand  Trend:

Iran has inaugurated a 500,000-ton steel mill in Bardsir, Kerman Province in a ceremony attended by Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and Minister of Industry Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh.

The mill will produce 500,000 tons of rebar per year, creating 250 job opportunities directly as well as 700 more job positions via intermediates, the factorys Public Relations Office told Trend February 11.

The mill came on stream with a budget of 1.5 trillion rials ($46.26 million) and 24.5 million euros by Sirjan Jahan Steel Complex.

The building of the factory had been stopped 20 years ago due to lack of economic justification, but was resumed two years ago, the companys CEO Ali Abbaslu said.

He said the factory uses gas and gas oil as fuel, adding the feed comes as steel ingots from the same complex.

Abbaslu further announced that on the sidelines of inaugurating the mill, another project for the production of alloy steel was launched.

The factory will produce 500,000 tons of steel alloy per year. An investment of 3.5 trillion rials ($108 million) will go into building it. We have set a goal for ourselves to inaugurate a new project every 1.5 years.

Another part of the complex houses a steel mill with a capacity of 440,000 tons per year. The products are billets and are used for the production of rebar at a hot rolling mill.
Five patients who were treated for Influenza H1N1 at the Bibila Hospital have now been discharged, Hospital Director Dr. Y.M. Sunil Senarath said yesterday.

He said one of the pregnant women who was infected the virus had successfully delivered her baby and they are both in good health.

However, another patient admitted to the hospital yesterday was awaiting a medical report from the Medical Research Institute (MRI) to confirm whether she too was infected with H1N1.

The health condition of the in-house patients is not critical. There is no sign that the virus is spreading. We have informed the people to be vigilant and look out for any symptoms of the disease and consult a doctor in case of doubt," Dr. Senarath said adding that some 28 to 30 infected cases had been reported in the Bibila area up to Thursday.

The normal work schedule of the hospital is reported to be restricted, to minimize the risk of the virus spreading.

Residents have been informed by the divisional health officials, that the situation was under control. (Thilanka Kanakarathna)
Deans of medical faculties of eight universities have written to Higher Education Minister Lakshman Kiriella outlining suggestions to resolve the issue involving the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) in Malabe and the standards of the medical education in the country.

While stressing the need to mete out justice to the students currently studying at SAITM, the deans of the medical faculties of Colombo, Ragama, Karapitiya, Rajrata, Batticaloa, Jaffna, Peradeniya and Sri Jayawardenepura universities have pointed out that the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) has to be the authorized institution that would decide the standards of medical doctors and that its independence had to be safeguarded.

They have also said that it was imperative for the Health Minister to present the minimum standards prepared by the SLMC for medical colleges in Sri Lanka in the Parliament for them to be legalized. There must be a programme for the current students of the SAITM to obtain another few month's proper clinical training and the SLMC should conduct an examination in order to gauge the level of their knowledge thereafter, the medical faculty heads have suggested.

Those who would be successful in that examination should be provisionally registered with the SLMC so that they can carry on their internship training, the letter further stated.

However, the deans were of the view that enrollment of new students to SAITM should be temporarily suspended until the issue involving the private medical college is resolved.

They have expressed their fear on the possible damage that could be caused to the National Nurses Council and other such institutions in the medical field in case of independence of the SLMC being harmed in any manner.

Professor Jenifer Perera (Colombo), Professor Vajira Weerasinghe (Peradeniya), Professor Sarath Lekamwasam (Karapitiya), Dr. S.Raviraj (Jaffna), Professor Nilanthi de Silva (Ragama), Professor Surangi yasawardene (Sri Jayawardenepura), Dr. A. Arutpragasam (Batticaloa) and Professor Sisira Siribaddana (Rajarata) were the signatories of this letter.

When they met the minister at the Parliamentary complex on Wednesday to hand over the letter they had a brief discussion with the minister who had been accompanied by State Minister for Higher Education Mohan Lal Grero and Universities Grants Commission Chairman Professor Mohan de Silva. (Ranjan Kasturi)
Malaysian police have detained a Sri Lankan (27) and an Indian (30) in connection with the death of their Sri Lankan friend at an estate off Jalan Sidam Kiri in Malaysia, the Bernama reported.

Initial police investigations revealed that the body of the 49-year-old victim, believed to have been bludgeoned with a stone, was found in Padang Buluh Estate at about 10.20pm.

Kuala Muda police chief ACP Md Zukir Md Isa said police believe there was an argument between the victim and the two alleged assailants, a day before the body was found.

He said that at about 9pm on Thursday, the victim was contacted by his wife in Sri Lanka through a video call before two men arrived at the scene.

"Using a concrete stone, the duo is believed to have struck the victim's head from the back, causing him to die on the spot," Md Zukir added.

The body was sent to the Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital in Alor Setar for a post-mortem.
She says that it is hard not to spot a report in newspapers pertaining to violence against women. Every day.

She also says that it is hard to fathom the source of their anger and wonders how men can be devoid of any sympathy for the women who are the victims of their violent acts  this is what led her to explore the subject in her latest film, Anatomy of Violence.

Filmmaker Deepa Mehta thinks aloud, I then began a process of exploration as to what in our culture, what in our society, what in our circumstances brings about this level and frequency of violence. Rape exists in every society but not at the level that we see here. This would suggest that there is a degree of complicity in the entire society as we are creating the environment and culture in which these men are permitted to express their savagery. What makes us different from Japan, for example, where this kind of violence does, of course, exist but not anywhere close to the level of India?

Talk to her about the larger discourse from some quarters that points out the societys responsibility for the rapists behaviour, and Mehta feels it is important to understand that cultural norms do play an important role in shaping us as individuals, and that patriarchy, misogyny, gender inequality all contribute to the way the female gender is perceived by males.

Earth (1998)

Though I feel society is complicit in contributing to the making of a monster, in no way do I feel that the molesters/rapists are not accountable for their act.

Her film, which reimagines the life of the rapists with a desire to grasp and infer the making of a monster, does not depict the actual rape.

I had absolutely no intention to re-victimise the victim, Mehta closes the topic.

Talking about her collaboration for the film with Chandigarh-based theatre director Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry, the filmmaker insists that the movie would not have been possible without the latter.

Mehta held an elaborate workshop with actors from Chowdhrys repertory  The Company.

We recorded the imagined lives of the actors on film as part of creating the screenplay. I ended up on day two, for some reason directing the camera, perhaps subconsciously realising that what was unfolding before us was so organic in its honesty and brutality that to re-film it in the future with stars and the whole machinery of a large crew, huge locations would be a travesty.

So we shot a major portion of the film in and around Chandigarh. Frankly, the actors are the real "stars" of the film, she says.

The Indo-Canadian director, who has worked on several literary texts and adapted them into films, including Salman Rushdies Midnights Children and Bapsi Sidhwas Cracking India (the film was called Earth 1947), says collaborating with the authors and adapting them into a screenplay is always about close collaboration and conversation with the writer.

Bollywood/Hollywood (2002)

A screenplay based on a novel and writing an original script are a whole different kettle of fish. The process is entirely different. The challenge is to condense say 400 or 600 pages of a book into a screenplay of a 100 pages without losing the narrative arc, the essential plot, the in-depth look at the characters that inhabit the novel but can't be contained in a script; it's a constant tug of war. What and who to leave out, to even enhance, to make more cinematic, is a huge dilemma, she smiles.

When asked about patriarchy being the recurring theme in her works, Mehta feels that being a woman who was brought up in India, it is hard not to be affected by the society we live in.

Remember, patriarchy and its fallout permeates the female existence in India. I saw a film that blew me away years ago  Manish Jhas Matrabhoomi. It affected me as deeply as Satyajit Ray's Charulata. Both stayed with me and have had a great influence on my work.

And Bollywood/Hollywood, a comedy, must have been quite a surprise for those who have been following her work?

Believe me, I really loved doing Bollywood/Hollywood. It came as a reaction to a particularly dark time after Water was shut down in Varanasi.
In an apparent loss of face for Pakistan, more than 39,000 of its nationals have been deported from Saudi Arabia in the last four months, according to a notification by the kingdom.

Islamabad stands beleaguered with Donald Trump's contemplation of a hardened stance against its government, including a ban on Pakistani nationals' entry into the US as it joins the league of seven countries on the US president's immigration ban list.

It is still in a state of flux as prime minister Nawaz Sharif's foreign ministry advisors continue to face immense embarrassment in front of the international community.

Pakistan has no defence and no sympathisers to speak for it. Photo: Reuters

Saudi Arabia's cold shoulder is indeed a matter of shame and there is sparse measure and determination in sight to salvage the damage inflicted.

While some quarters have attributed violation of rules of residence and work as reasons for the Pakistani nationals' deportation, several reports suggest that many of them are connected with terror activities orchestrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Their involvement in crimes of drug trafficking, theft, forgery and physical assault promoted the calls for deportation as these are serious charges warranting maximum action.

In another setback to Pakistani "esteem", Abdullah Al Sadoun, chairman of the security committee of the Shoura council, called for thorough scrutiny of Pakistanis before they are inducted for work in Saudi Arabia.

Sadoun said Pakistan should thoroughly verify the antecedents of those trying to come to Saudi Arabia, ostensibly due to the involvement of a number of Pakistanis in a variety of security issues. He also stated that Pakistan itself is plagued with terrorism due to its close proximity with Afghanistan.

Taliban, according to the security panel chief, was born in Pakistan. Such a pointed attack at Pakistan is rare, but will have far-reaching consequences.

Islamabad is in no position to contest these charges because as many as 82 Pakistani suspects are languishing in intelligence prisons over charges of terror and linked offences.

Pakistan has no defence and no sympathisers to speak for it.

It is also pertinent that in 2013 alone, Saudi authorities had deported more than 7,00,000 foreigners for violating work and local laws and foiled more than 2,90,000 attempts by infiltrators to enter the kingdom illegally.

These are no mean figures and fresh in public memory.

It's likely such breaches of contract will continue to occur with no impact on the Pakistani establishment or expression of remorse.

The Pakistani government's silence on the development indicates state inertia to react or even register a token protest.

It's also possible that it is deliberate because it is on a weaker wicket in the face of a dedicated reverse swing from the Saudi bosses.

As it is increasingly isolated in the international community, with Trump's threat of exclusion looming large, it's high time Pakistan concentrates on putting its house in order rather than poking its nose in the affairs of Kashmir, or abetting terror in India through ISI's network.

If Pakistan fails to act now, it's surely heading for worse with far-reaching implications.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 11

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Iran has imported its first floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for extracting oil from the South Pars oil layer, Roham Qasemi, the managing director of Petro Iran Company, said.

The FPSO vessel is sailing to the South Pars for deployment at its planned location within the next few days, Qasemi said, Mehr news agency reported Feb. 11.

FPSO unit is a floating vessel used by the offshore oil and gas industry for the production, processing of hydrocarbons and for storage of oil. An FPSO vessel is designed to receive hydrocarbons produced by itself or from nearby platforms or subsea template, process them, and store oil until it can be offloaded onto a tanker or, less frequently, transported through a pipeline.

Ali Kardor, head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), earlier said that Iran plans to start extracting oil from the South Pars oil layer from early 2017.

The FPSO was manufactured in Singapore for $300 million.

Iran eyes to pump 35,000 barrels of crude oil a day from the field, which it shares with Qatar in the first phase of the project.

The figure is planed to reach 200,000 barrels in next 20 years. At least 300 wells will be drilled in this regard.

It was earlier announced that Tehran will offer second phase of the layer development project to foreigners.

Kardor said in August 2016 that Iranian companies are working on the first phase of the project, but they lack the necessary technology for development of other phases.
Executive Director for Investment in Sweden's Commerce Ministry Ms. Elva Berri said on Saturday that Swedish companies are so interested to invest in Iran by sharing know-how, IRNA reported.

She made the remarks in a joint meeting of Swedish industrialists and companies' directors with their Iranian counterparts in Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO) here on Saturday.

On the sidelines of the meeting, she told reporters that presence of directors from big Swedish companies like Volvo, Scania, Ericson and Danske Bank indicated interests of those companies to develop activities with the Iranian side.

Given the importance of banking relations development between the two countries, Ms. Berri said that banking officials are trying during this visit to facilitate banking cooperation between Iran and Sweden.

Berri said that Swedish companies give a lot of importance for cooperation with Iranian companies and by establishment of Iran-Sweden Trade Bureau are preparing grounds to transfer know-how to Iran.

The Swedish Commerce Ministry official said that Swedish companies have plenty of cooperation grounds for new energies sector, and added that companies from both states may begin their cooperation with Swedish companies financing the projects.

She also expressed the hope that during stay of the Sweden's prime minister in Iran the two sides would witness signing agreements in the field of new energies.

Prime Minister Stefan Lofven at the head of a senior economic delegation arrived in Tehran on Friday evening with the aim to develop bilateral relations.

In the delegation, directors of Swedish well-known companies like Scania, Ericsson, Elekta, Volvo, ABB, Sensys Gatso Group, Danske Bank, financial agency of EKN, Swedish Energy Agency, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority and IF Metal are accompanying the prime minister in his visit.

Following meeting of the president Hassan Rouhani with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven on Saturday morning, five cooperation Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) were signed by officials of the two countries.
Baku, Azerbaijan Feb. 11

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iranian security forces have arrested members of the Islamic State (aka IS, ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) terrorist group in the outskirts of capital city of Tehran.

Mohammad-Jafar Montazeri, the attorney general of Iran, has said that a group of Daesh forces was arrested near Tehran over the past several days, Mehr news agency reported.

According to the official, the IS members had a plan to target rallies marking the anniversary of Irans 1979 Revolution on Feb. 10.

He declined to unveil further information on the development, but vowed to brief the public on the operations details in near future.
Baku, Azerbaijan Feb. 11

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

A high-ranking Iranian security official has said that the Islamic Republic has strategic cooperation with Russia.

Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani has said the country will continue its cooperation with Russia regarding Syria, Fars news agency reported.

He added that Tehran issues the required permissions for Russian warplanes to fly over Irans airspace.

Earlier in August 2016, long-range Russian Tupolev-22M3 bombers and Sukhoi-34 fighter bombers used the Islamic Republics Nojeh airbase, near the city of Hamadan, in northwest Iran to launch air strikes against armed groups in Syria.

The development sparked controversy in Iran as the opponents suggested that the decision to allow foreign forces to use the countrys military base was against the constitution.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 11

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Iran and Sweden are determined to take the bilateral relations to the level of pre-sanctions era, the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said.

He made the remarks during a joint press conference with visiting Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven in Tehran Feb. 11, Irans state-run IRINN TV reported.

We attach special importance to Sweden as not only a developed and advanced European country and a member of the EU but also as a non-permanent member of the Security Council of UN, Rouhani said.

Following the implementation of the nuclear deal between Iran and the six world powers, which came into force in January 2016, proper conditions are prepared for broader trade relations between Iran and the EU, he added.

Sweden has always had moderate approach towards Iran, Rouhani said, adding that relations between Tehran and Stockholm continued even under the sanctions.

The Iranian president further said that transportation, mining, ICT and environment are good areas for cooperation between the two countries.

Iran is willing to use Swedens economic potential, in particular in the fields of exports and banking, Rouhani added.

Iran expects the EU to provide full support of the European banks and companies in their cooperation with Iran following the implementation of the nuclear deal, he noted.

Rouhani said the two countries discussed transit route of Iran to connect East and North Europe to the Indian Ocean via rail and road, adding, we also discussed academic and research cooperation, especially in the field of high-technology.

Swedish prime minister arrived in Tehran on Feb. 10 for an official three-day visit. He is scheduled to discuss issues of mutual interest with Iranian officials.

Iranian and Swedish officials signed five memorandums of understanding (MoUs) on the sidelines of a meeting between Rouhani and Lofven.

The signed documents include cooperation in new technologies, higher education and research, road transport, ICT and women empowerment and family affairs.
Tehran, Iran, February 11

By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:

Iran has been ramping up its natural gas output as part of efforts both to increase its income and catch up with the countries with home it shares gas fields. Iran shares gas fields with neighbors such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq. Iran currently produces over 600 mcm/d of gas.

Recently, Deputy Oil Minister Hamidreza Araqi said within the 6th Development Plan (2017 to 2022), Iran intends to achieve the export of 200 mcm/d of gas. But, as much as the countrys gas output increases, the revenue is falling. According to official reports, Irans gas export price plunged from $450 per thousand cubic meters in 1H14 to about $250 currently (a 44 percent decrease).

A proper strategy the country has adopted to make the best it can of the situation is to use gas domestically as much as possible, replacing it for much liquid fuel previously used in various sectors, from power generation to industries and transport. However, Iran is going to produce more than that and it would have to find some use for the gas overseas. Iran is also considering the generation and export of electricity produced in gas-powered plants. The profitability of this is, however, the subject of much debate. Naturally the use we are talking about would, due to market situations, not be instantly lucrative, but will give the country political advantages, and via that, economic gain in the future.

A case in point was mentioned last year by Deputy Oil Minister Amir Hossein Zamaninia when he said Iran wants to use gas export to create political cohesion with other countries. The reality is that Irans economy at present does little to create such cohesion. Recently Dr. Mahmoud Sariolghalam, professor of International Relations at the School of Economics and Political Science in Shahid Beheshti University, said the fact that Iran is easily put under sanctions is because strong interests in preserving economic ties with Iran do not exist for the countries that impose the sections.

A great part of respect extended from one country to another comes from need, not ethics, he said, adding many countries that politically violate the interests of the U.S., for example, are not so easily put under sanctions by Washington because the States need them on economic grounds. This is while, according to the World Trade Organization, in 2016 Irans trade value stood at $63 billion, sharing 0.4 percent of world trade.

On the export front, Iran is looking forward to adding Oman to its customers in mid-term. There are a number of projects underway, but their fates are not so clear. The Iran-Oman natural gas pipeline first proposed in 2013 is on track to come on-stream by 2020, authorities have said. Through this project, Iran will export 28 million cubic meters of natural gas per day to Oman - part of it will be consumed by the country, while the rest will be turned into LNG and exported on behalf of Iran. Also, it has been said that a long-awaited gas pipeline project between Iran and Pakistan will complete by 2018. Iran plans to deliver 21.5 mcm/d of gas to Pakistan through the project. Nonetheless, Iran has said it is ready to start exporting 25 million cubic meters (mcm) a day of gas to Iraq via a 270-kilometer pipeline. The amount would increase to as high as 35 mcm/d during summer. Iran also exports about 27 mcm/d of gas to Turkey.

Iran is also considering a long-term project to export gas to Europe, either via pipeline or as LNG. This, however, is subject to development of two important players gas exports to the continent, one being Russia, which already enjoys good footing in the European market, and the other being the U.S. with its newly out unconventional resources.

As the market indicates, the export of gas may not be quite a money-making business for Iran, the prices falling as the market is becoming more and more saturated. Yet if Iran stops extracting gas, the countries which share many of its gas fields will just take away the resources. In such circumstances, therefore, Iran can use the export of gas for reasons other than direct economic gain, namely strengthening of ties with other countries and creating cohesion.

Follow the author on Twitter: @mehdisepahvand
RICHMOND  A federal judge on Friday ordered that a Charlottesville man convicted in a $10.5 million bank fraud case be taken into custody.

Magistrate Judge David J. Novak made the decision, which was later affirmed by U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, after a federal prosecutor said the defendant was a flight risk because he had been in negotiations to buy a multimillion-dollar airplane.

Michael P. Klekamp, 68, sat down in his chair and shook his head after Novak announced he was revoking his bond.

Klekamp pleaded guilty on Dec. 9 to defrauding the Fauquier Bank, causing a $10.5 million loss. He had been released on bond as he awaited sentencing next month in the case, an arrangement that initially raised no objections from federal prosecutors.

But David T. Maguire, an assistant U.S. attorney, urged Novak to revoke that bond during Fridays hearing. Maguire laid out a case where Klekamp tried to purchase the aircraft for no more than $4 million using a Washington, D.C., airplane broker.

There are new circumstances that scream out that say he is a risk of flight, Maguire said.

FBI Special Agent Jane Collins testified that she received an email Feb. 6 from officials at a complaint line that the bureau maintains. That email summarized a complaint from a Washington-based plane broker who told federal law enforcement officials that he had been in contact with Klekamp about him buying the plane, which is located in Dallas, Collins said.

Negotiations over the plane had cooled down for a period of time before Klekamp contacted the broker again on Feb. 2, Collins said. A federal probation officer, Diane Moczydlowski, testified that she had received a call from Klekamps wife saying he was distraught and had suicidal thoughts over the possibility of going to prison and worried about his safety while incarcerated.

Maguire had argued in court papers that Klekamps efforts to buy the plane amounted to an attempt to obtain property by false pretenses as he had nowhere near $4 million in assets, is unemployed and is likely going to prison over the bank fraud.

Maguire told Novak that Klekamps actions constituted wire fraud and demonstrated he was a danger to the community, but the judge rejected those arguments. The federal magistrate was more swayed by Maguires argument that Klekamp might flee if he wasnt taken into custody.

Novak asked Klekamps attorney, Paul G. Gill, what his client was planning to do with the aircraft.

Why else buy the airplane if not flight? the magistrate asked Gill.

Gill said his client has long had an interest in airplanes. The defense attorney dismissed as pure folly any notion that securing an aircraft would be the most efficient way to flee authorities.

Under questioning by defense attorneys, federal witnesses acknowledged they had no evidence that Klekamp is a pilot or that he put down any money for the airplane.

In court documents, Gill wrote that emails the government relied on for its case indicated he met the airplane broker in Charlottesville in August, months before he first appeared in court.

Court records show Klekamp was the president of Capitol Components and Millwork Inc. of Culpeper, which manufactured and distributed building material for mid- to high-end residential and commercial buildings.

The company drew money from a secured revolving line of credit at Fauquier Bank. In pleading guilty, Klekamp admitted fraudulently maintaining the credit line by misrepresenting the true financial condition of his company and lying to the bank about the true value of the firms collateral.

On Oct. 25, 2015, Klekamp told the bank that there was approximately $17 million of total accounts receivable and inventory to secure the banks $11.5 million credit line, while there was actually no more than $3.4 million of accounts receivable and inventory.

The company was not able to repay the interest or principal amount of the loan, resulting in a loss of about $10.5 million as a result of the scheme.

Klekamp is expected to be sentenced March 24 by Hudson.

He faces up to 30 years in prison, but sentencing guidelines will likely call for a lesser term.
Many Charlottesville-area shoppers will be out buying their loved ones gifts for Valentines Day over the weekend and into early next week.

According to an annual survey by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics, U.S. consumers are expected to spend an average of $136.57 on Valentines Day gifts, down from last years record-high of $146.84. Total spending is expected to reach $18.2 billion, down from $19.7 billion last year, which was also a record.

The survey found consumers plan to spend an average $85.21 on their significant other/spouse, $26.59 on other family members such as children or parents, $6.56 on childrens classmates/teachers, $6.51 on friends, $4.27 on co-workers and $4.44 on pets.

According to the national survey, about 50 percent of consumers plan to give candy this Valentines Day.

Mary Ellen Isaacson, owner of Chocolatesville in the Rivanna Plaza shopping center, said the past week has been pretty slow but shes not sure if thats usual for the week before Valentines Day.

Ive had a lot of people come in say they were looking at Valentines things and theyll be back, she said. Maybe they will, maybe they wont  its hard to say.

Isaacson opened her shop in early November after moving to the area in 2015. She previously worked as a chocolatier for a few years in Florida.

We moved here and I looked for chocolate because I always like to see where the good chocolate shops are, but I live up by the airport and had to drive to Gearharts, she said. Gearharts is great, but it was 10 miles from my house and I thought that was kind of crazy. I dont want to drive all the way downtown just to get chocolate.

Isaacson said that during the first two months in business, the store averaged creating one new item every day. She makes a variety of items, including chocolate barks, dipped fruits and caramels. Chocolatesville also makes a pizza-shaped chocolate figure.

We started making individual slices because a lot of people said, Oh, thats a lot of chocolate, and it is, she said.

Specifically for the holiday, Chocolatesville made solid chocolate roses, peanut butter-filled hearts and pretzel rods with climbing rose vines. They also decorated some of their usual items with the holiday in mind. They ramped up their truffle production, and on Valentines Day theyll be dipping strawberries in chocolate.

We dip wine bottles, or anything really, in chocolate, Isaacson said. You just put food-safe shrink-wrap around whatever it is and you can encase it in chocolate. 

About 35 percent of consumers plan to buy flowers for Valentines Day, according to the national survey.

At Hedge Fine Blooms, owner Karen Walker starts ordering flowers right after Christmas for the next major holiday.

I always make notes every year and so we try to gear it towards that; making notes on what didnt sell so well, what sold really well, she said.

They also come up with example designs around the same time, in case people need help with an idea for an arrangement.

You get all your flowers and you go, OK, I hope people show up, and they do, she said. Weve got a really wonderful clientele and we try to have really cool flowers and unusual things.

Walker said Valentines Day and Mothers Day are their busiest times. Around this time of year, her husband, who normally isnt involved in the business, helps her make deliveries and they hire additional employees and some former employees come back to assist.

For Valentines Day, the five days leading up to the holiday are the most hectic.

Its a very last-minute holiday but people start ordering two weeks out, she said. Those are people who are very organized and very thoughtful, not that people who are last minute arent thoughtful, but the person whos just really trying to wow that person.

The shop has flowers from all over the world, including the ranunculus flower. They usually end up being grown in Canada or Holland, but they also have some from Japan that are larger and look like roses.

Walker said roses are a popular flower for Valentines, but they also have many people who dont want roses at all.

I would say its 50-50, some people just want straight-up red roses and then theres the other half who want unusual beautiful blooms that they know they can get here, she said.

According to the national survey, about 47 percent of consumers plan to give greeting cards for the holiday.

Heather Haynie, co-owner of Rock Paper Scissors, said after the winter holidays, Valentines Day and Mothers Day are about even when it comes to sales. Valentines sales are more concentrated in the week leading up to the holiday.

The last three days it is nonstop card sale after card sale, so thats really the magic time, she said.

Haynie said she thinks they have more cards this year than in the past, as they tended to run out. The selection of cards ranges from those appropriate for children or grandparents to more risque options in the shops PG-13 bin.

She said some people have felt embarrassed bringing those cards to the counter, but they shouldnt be.

We dont judge; were very accepting, Haynie said.

They also have an anti-Valentines Day bin, with cards that say things like, Happy Single Shaming Day.

Its super popular every year, she said. If I dont have something that is anti-, people are always asking for it. There are a lot of people who dont love the holiday.

But they do have many sweet cards, some with simple illustrations, and trendy cards, such as a Prince card and one that references man buns.

We live in such and electronic world that to have a Hallmark holiday is kind of nice because you get to put your feeling on paper to somebody, she said. Its kind of rare that we do that to especially our significant others, I think. Its almost like the card has grown more and more important for Valentines Day because of our increased use of electronics. Sometimes thats enough of a present; just put your sentiments on paper. 

In addition to candy, flowers and cards, about 37 percent plan to give an evening out, 19 percent plan to give jewelry, 19 percent plan to give clothing and 16 percent plan to give a gift card or certificate, according to the national survey.
A source reports that Syrian government forces have cut off the retreat path from the city of al-Bab near the Turkish border for Daesh militants, Sputnik reported.

Syrian government forces have cut off the retreat path from the city of al-Bab near the Turkish border for militants from the Islamic State (ISIL, also known as Daesh) terrorist group, a source told Sputnik.

"It is very important that yesterday [Thursday] the army took control of the Ayn Alloushye height. The thing is, the only retreat path for Daesh is thus cut off," the source said, adding that on Friday, the Syrian army and allied forces came to Tadif, which is less than one kilometer (0.6 miles) away from al-Bab.

Turkish media reported on Friday that Turkish airstrikes had killed almost two dozen Daesh militants in al-Bab.

The Turkish army launched Operation Euphrates Shield against Daesh, outlawed in many countries, in August 2016. Currently, Turkish-led forces are attempting to advance into and liberate al-Bab, controlled by Daesh forces, from the north and east.

Meanwhile the Syrian army is approaching al-Bab from the west and south. The Syrian government forces and the Turkish-led forces are not coordinating their actions since Damascus considers the presence of Turkish forces on the territory of Syria a violation of Syrias sovereignty.
LYNCHBURG  After more than a year of investigating by the Virginia State Police in the Dec. 30, 2015, death of Daniel Jacob Rasnake of Shipman, Nelson County Commonwealths Attorney Daniel Rutherford concluded that evidence is insufficient to support criminally charging anyone in the fatal hit-and-run, authorities announced Friday.

Rasnake, 21, was walking up Route 6 near Route 810 when he was struck between 3:45 a.m. and 4:15 a.m., state police have said. At approximately 3:15 a.m., his Jeep Grand Cherokee had run off the road, struck an embankment and overturned in the trees and he was able to call a family member for help, authorities have said.

Rasnake, who authorities have said was wearing dark, non-reflective clothing, in an unlit stretch of highway, died at the scene.

The state police, with the assistance of the Nelson County Sheriffs Office, have gone to great lengths to develop and exhaust all possible leads in this case, Rutherford said in a statement Friday announcing the case is officially closed. We sincerely appreciate the publics assistance with the many tips called in during the past year. But, the uncertainty as to Mr. Rasnakes time of death and the difficulty proving which vehicle  if any  was responsible for causing it makes this a tragedy.

Rutherford and state police met with Rasnakes family Friday to inform them of the closure of the case, the statement said.

According to his obituary, Rasnake was a 2013 graduate of Nelson County High School and enjoyed hanging out with friends and family, skateboarding, music, Jeeps, video games and movies.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart came to Charlottesville on Saturday to defend the citys statue of Robert E. Lee in a downtown park, only to be swarmed by dozens of protesters who shouted him down everywhere he went.

It was the harshest reception yet for the provocative chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, who is campaigning for the GOP nomination for governor as Virginias Donald Trump, with a hard-line stance against illegal immigration.

A divided Charlottesville City Councils recent decision to remove the statue of the Confederate general gave Stewart an opening to appeal to his base. On social media, he urged people to defend Virginias heritage, likening those who wanted to remove the statue to tyrants and Nazis.

But when he tried to take his message to this college town Saturday morning, protesters shouting White supremacy has got to go! drowned out his interviews and conversations.

Stewart took it in stride, frequently grinning and trying to chat up his detractors. In an interview, Stewart welcomed the protests and the attention they would bring, believing they would buttress his pitch as a conservative standing up to an intolerant left and political correctness.

I am calling them out for who they are, Stewart said. Its really a symptom of the problem of the left and their unwillingness to listen to alternative points of view.

He recorded a Facebook Live video with Thaddeus Dionne Alexander, an African-American veteran who became a conservative star online after his Facebook video railing against liberal protesters went viral.

Their latest video ran a little more than two minutes and had racked up more than 13,000 views by 3 p.m. Saturday.

They have no respect for our heritage, Stewart said over shouts in the video. They have no respect not only to Robert E. Lee, a great American, but they have no respect for Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington or any of the other great American and Virginia heroes.

The demonstrators continued to follow Stewart, hoisting signs saying Ban Bigots and No tolerance for white supremacy over his head as they yelled at him to go back to Prince William.

Do you need to be escorted to your car? Toby Gray, 51, carrying a giant American flag, asked as Stewart walked down the stairs out of the park.

I think I do, Stewart responded, crossing the street to a parking lot.

Protesters didnt follow, shouting Whose town? Our town!

The protesters outnumbered a group of supporters of the statue, some of whom carried Confederate flags. The statue supporters  who said they were angered by the wave of protests against Trump nationwide  said the whole exchange left them feeling warmer about Stewart.

I wasnt sure about voting for Corey Stewart before, but Id be very honored to vote for him after today, said Isaac Smith, a 20-year-old Charlottesville resident who filmed the rally for a local blog.

He backed Trump for president but said he was uneasy about the prospect of having a mirror image in the governors mansion.

Id like to see something a little more tempered, a little more mild. Certainly the way Stewart dealt with these people, I think he was an absolute angel, Smith said.

Fellow Republican candidate Ed Gillespie, a political strategist whom Stewart derides as Establishment Ed, said in a statement that he doesnt support moving statues but that such decisions are local issues. Gillespie is leading the Republican field in polling and campaign cash for the June primary.

Republican distillery owner Denver Riggleman, who, like Stewart, is running a populist campaign, also denounced the statue move and instead recommended using money that would go toward demolition to add a statue of a prominent African-American.

The fourth Republican candidate for governor, state Sen. Frank Wagner of Virginia Beach, says he opposes removing the statue, calling it political correctness run amok.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello, who represented the Charlottesville area in Congress from 2009 to 2011, supports the statues removal as part of creating a more inclusive environment. Lt. Gov Ralph Northam, the Democratic front-runner in the gubernatorial contest, has said local communities should make decisions about Confederate symbols, but held up Charlottesville as a model for creating a welcoming community.

As Stewart hopped into his Toyota Tundra to go to his next rally in Winchester, he flashed a thumbs-up sign to the handful of supporters who escorted him to the park.

This was fun, he said.
Next month, the Charlottesville City Council is expected to adopt changes to the structure of its business and professional license tax. If approved as drafted, the city effectively would be giving a tax break to hundreds of small-business owners who bring in between $50,000 and $100,000 each year.

According to a city staff report on the proposal, businesses grossing that much would no longer be subject to rates based on industry, services provided and individual companies gross receipts. Instead, they would be charged a flat fee of $50.

In addition to the recent renewal and expansion of a tax credit for qualified technology businesses, the BPOL fee structure change would eliminate the flat fee for any tech business that brings in less than $100,000 a year.

Businesses that gross less than $50,000 annually would remain subject to a fee of $35.

In recent budget work sessions with the citys executive staff and the council, Mayor Mike Signer mentioned his interest in the proposal.

On Friday, Signer said he first proposed the idea to Todd Divers, the citys revenue commissioner, and Jason Vandever, city treasurer, in 2014.

Calling small business the lifeblood of our creative economy, Signer said the change would help lawyers, graphic designers, civil engineers, architects, accountants, handymen and many others.

The staff report also mentions recent property assessments and collections of business-related taxes.

Recently, the city reported that the value of commercial properties has increased by an average of 30 percent, per the citys most recent annual assessment. Meanwhile, the value of residential property has increased by 4.2 percent on average.

Eighty percent of residential and commercial properties in the city saw their assessed values increase.

The potential BPOL restructuring could soften the tax blow for smaller businesses. City officials estimate the change would benefit about 450 businesses.

It will mean a few hundred dollars back in their pockets, which they then can spend in our local economy, Signer said. I couldnt be happier about the support by the [Charlottesville Regional] Chamber of Commerce and the Charlottesville Business Innovation Council, among others, and am very grateful to Commissioner Divers and Treasurer Vandever for their hard work and support of this measure.

In Albemarle County, where officials recently faced some criticism over an initiative to find small-business owners who have not applied for a business license and paid associated fees or taxes, telling them they need to comply with county law, the BPOL fee structure works in a similar way, but any business bringing in up to $100,000 must pay a $50 fee.

Councilor Kathy Galvin said she is in favor of more closely aligning the citys BPOL fee structure to that of the county, rather than continue making city businesses that gross between $50,000 and $100,000 subject to the complicated tax rate system.

I do agree with this adjustment as it doesnt automatically penalize small businesses (often minority and woman owned) with an additional burdensome tax, simply because they grow to the next modest level, she said.

Councilor Bob Fenwick said changing the citys fee structure could help the citys competitive position with surrounding localities.

From a business standpoint, we should do anything to help take care of them and bring new businesses to town, he said. Its always good to show businesses that we are supportive.

Councilor Wes Bellamy said he also supports the idea, which means the measures chance of success is high with a majority of councilors seemingly supportive.

We are prepared to accommodate the modification of the BPOL license fee in my proposed budget, City Manager Maurice Jones said. His budget proposal is scheduled for presentation to the City Council on March 6, the same evening the proposed ordinance amendment is anticipated to go before the council for consideration.

In a statement released Friday, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce shared the staff report and applauded the proposal, calling it a modest, yet important, reform of the citys Business and Professional Occupations License Tax.

Although the chamber and the Free Enterprise Forum, a local public policy watchdog, are in favor of the tax being repealed over time, Neil Williamson, president of the forum, said hes also in favor of the proposed measure.

When properly implemented, we see these changes as leveling the playing field with adjoining localities, increasing fairness for small- to mid-sized businesses and promoting economic development, Williamson said in a blog post Friday.

Yes, repeal would be better, but we support these commonsensical BPOL reforms, he said.

According to the staff report, adoption of the proposal is estimated to reduce city revenue by more than $90,000. In the fiscal year that ended June 30, the BPOL tax generated $6.9 million, accounting for 4.4 percent of total annual revenue.

If approved, the change would take effect Jan. 1.
WASHINGTON  Heres how area members of Congress voted on major issues in the week ending Feb. 10.

House

Management of public land in the West. Voting 234 for and 186 against, the House on Feb. 7 nullified a new rule that would update Bureau of Land Management steps for obtaining science-based information and public comments in its management of 245 million publicly owned acres in western states. The BLM said the Planning 2.0 rule would help it balance competing uses such as ranching, recreation, conservation, drilling, mining, military activity and economic development. But critics said the rule would tighten a BLM land grab of vast expanses, harming local economies, imperiling private property rights and restricting grazing, logging and drilling access. Two years in the making and the subject of more than 3,000 public comments, the rule would update BLM procedures in place since the 1980s.

A yes vote was to send the measure (HJ Res 44) to the Senate.

Voting yes: Tom Garrett, R-5th; Dave Brat, R-7th.

White House Holocaust statement. Voting 234 for and 187 against, the House on Feb. 7 blocked a move by Democrats to force floor debate on a resolution affirming that the Holocaust occurred and that it targeted Jews. Democrats raised this issue after the White Houses International Holocaust Remembrance Day statement, released Jan. 27, omitted mention of the Jewish people, six million of whom died in the Holocaust, which was carried out by German leader Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime between 1933-1945. Had Democrats prevailed on this vote during debate on the unrelated H Res 91, they would have had an opportunity to bring the Holocaust measure to the floor. Republicans said education and land measures rather than the Holocaust were the business at hand.

A yes vote was to quash a Democratic attempt to bring up a Holocaust resolution.

Voting yes: Garrett, Brat.

Nullification of K-12 education rule. Voting 234 for and 190 against, the House on Feb. 7 rescinded a new rule that would give states and localities requirements for carrying out the Every Student Succeeds Act. That is the main federal law for K-12 education, having replaced the No Child Left Behind Act. Foes called the rule a federal overreach, while defenders said it protects against discrimination, including in the allocation of resources and treatment of historically marginalized students.

A yes vote was to send the measure (HJ Res 57) to the Senate.

Voting yes: Garrett, Brat.

Rescinding teacher assessment rule. Voting 240 for and 181 against, the House on Feb. 7 nullified a new rule that would upgrade federally set standards for teacher training on the state and local levels. In part, the rule requires measurements based on learning performance, employment outcomes and employer surveys, with federal funding used to leverage compliance. Critics say the rule would infringe on state and local education prerogatives. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., said nullification was in order because the federal government has played too large a role in education for far too long.

A yes vote was send the measure (HJ Res 58) to the Senate.

Voting yes: Garrett, Brat.

Senate

Jeff Sessions, attorney general. Voting 52 for and 47 against, the Senate on Feb. 8 confirmed Jeff Sessions, a four-term senator from Alabama, as the 84th U.S. attorney general. Sessions, 70, formerly was his states attorney general and U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. President Ronald Reagan appointed him in 1986 as a federal judge for the same district, but the Judiciary Committee rejected his nomination over his record and comments on race and civil rights.

A yes vote was to confirm Sessions.

Voting no: Mark R. Warner (D); Tim Kaine (D).

Vote to silence Elizabeth Warren. Voting 49 for and 43 against, the Senate on Feb. 7 upheld the ruling of the chair that Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., had impugned the motives and conduct of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and therefore was required to take her seat and be silent for the remainder of the debate over his nomination as U.S. attorney general.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., invoked Rule 19 against Warren based on her reading of a letter that Coretta Scott King write to the Judiciary Committee in 1986 in opposition to Sessions nomination to a federal judgeship. King wrote (and Warren read) that Sessions, while a U.S. attorney, had used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.

McConnell said after the vote: Here is what transpired. Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.

Kamala Harris, D-Calif., replied to McConnell: The suggestion that reciting the words of the great Coretta Scott King would invoke Rule 19 and force Senator Warren to sit down and be silent is outrageous.

A yes vote was to silence Warren in debate over the Sessions nomination.

Voting no: Kaine.

Not voting: Warner.

Tom Price, health and human services. Voting 52 for and 47 against, the Senate on Feb. 10 confirmed Tom Price, 62, a seven-term GOP congressman from Georgia, as secretary of health and human services. Price drew criticism because of apparent overlap between healthcare legislation he sponsored or voted for and health stocks in his portfolio. Price said there was no ethical misconduct or illegality because the purchases were made by his broker without his knowledge. Price, a physician, is the 23rd secretary of his department, which originally was named the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

A yes vote was to confirm Price.

Voting no: Warner, Kaine.

Betsy DeVos, education. By a vote of 51 for and 50 against, with Vice President Mike Pence casting the 51st vote, the Senate on Feb. 7 confirmed Betsy DeVos as the 11th U.S. secretary of education. All Republican senators except Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine supported DeVos, and all members of the Democratic caucus voted against her nomination.

DeVos, 59, is prominent in the national school-choice movement and has helped expand charter schools and school-voucher programs in Michigan, her home state. An heiress who also married into wealth, she reported $5.3 million in political contributions to benefit Republican candidates over the past five years, including $1.99 million in the 2015-16 election cycle.

Supporters said DeVos would direct improvements in K-12 education, particularly for students now unable to leave inner-city schools, while disrupting teachers unions and shaking up education bureaucracies. Critics said DeVos used campaign donations to buy her nomination, would divert limited taxpayer dollars to ideological causes and has a financial portfolio in conflict with programs she would administer. They noted she has never been a part of public education.

A yes vote was to confirm DeVos.

Voting no: Warner, Kaine.
RICHMOND  The Virginia Senate voted overwhelmingly on Friday to oust state Inspector General June Jennings, despite the protests of Gov. Terry McAuliffe earlier in the week.

McAuliffe, who defended Jennings and suggested sexism had a hand in her dismissal, now has to appoint a new inspector general to serve as the states top watchdog.

Jennings had come under fire for her offices handling of the investigation into the death of Jamycheal Mitchell at Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth. She did not respond to a request for comment; neither did the governors office.

Mitchell, who had been diagnosed as having bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, was supposed to be taken to a state mental hospital, but his transfer paperwork first was lost and then stuffed in a desk drawer by an overwhelmed hospital worker.

The inspector generals probe of the circumstances surrounding Mitchells death drew sharp criticism from lawmakers, mental health advocates and civil rights organizations who alleged the investigation, and subsequent reviews by other entities, left basic questions unanswered.

Among them: how Mitchell was allowed to waste away in plain sight of guards. He lost more than 40 pounds during his 101-day stay at the jail, which was the deadliest in Virginia, according to a Richmond Times-Dispatch review of data.

Mitchell was awaiting trial on charges of stealing $5 in snacks from a 7-Eleven store.

The U.S. Department of Justice said in December that it had opened a federal civil rights investigation into the jail over concerns about inmates access to medical and mental health care. The Virginia State Police have concluded an investigation into Mitchells death, but the results havent been made public yet.

The House of Delegates voted Wednesday to remove Jennings from a long list of gubernatorial appointees. The vote largely was along party lines, with Republicans favoring Jennings ouster.

The Senate approved the Houses amendment 37-2 on Friday with little discussion. The deadline to approve the appointees was Friday.

Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment, R-James City, said he regretted that the House left the Senate so little time to act on the list.

No one in the Senate spoke for or against removing Jennings.

Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Fauquier, who carried the list of appointees in the Senate, said afterward the chamber was boxed in by the deadline and felt there was no choice but to vote on the list without Jennings. Otherwise, none of McAuliffes appointees would have been approved.

Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, said he would have preferred to leave Jennings in office because he doesnt like to interfere in gubernatorial appointments. He has expressed frustration in the past with her offices handling of the investigation into Mitchells death.

Ive got to be about something bigger than one person, Deeds said.

The Houses vote on Wednesday drew a swift rebuke from McAuliffe.

Why do we keep going after women here? he asked in a radio appearance on The John Fredericks Show.

This is a very qualified woman.

Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle, who led the charge in the House to oust Jennings, said it was silly to suggest sexism had anything to do with the decision to remove Jennings.

We approved 549 of his appointments. And 199 of them were women, Bell said. This had nothing to do with her gender. It was just whether she was the right person for this life-and-death job.

Bell said he believes the position should be filled by someone who is forceful and persistent in leading investigations, but ultimately the decision is up to McAuliffe.
Mary L. Barbour, 98, of Crozet, Virginia passed away peacefully on Wednesday afternoon, February 8, 2017, at the Mountainside Senior Living Facility in Crozet, Virginia. She was born on August 23, 1918, in Lowesville, Va., the middle child of thirteen to the late Orville and Murrell Wright Braxton. She was the widow of Roosevelt W. Barbour Sr. A son, James "Rodney" Braxton; oldest granddaughter, Fonda Fay; five brothers, James "Sandy" Braxton, Wade "Hampton" Braxton, John "Pete" Braxton, Willard Braxton, and Norvel Lee Braxton; and six sisters, Pauline Barber, Bertha Sheffey, Elsie Yancey, Louise Rogers, Dorothy Robertson, and Alice Williams also preceded her in death. She was educated in the Amherst County School System. She gave her life to Christ at a young age joining St. Mary's Baptist Church in Lowesville, Va.; much later in life she became a member of Mount Carmel Baptist Church, Brown Cove, Va., where she served as a deaconess, head of the Missionary Fund, Communion Steward and sung on the choir for over forty years. She was blessed to be employed for eighty years as a domestic worker/ housekeeper in Waynesboro, Va., for the Antrobus, Pendergast, Penn, Stubb, Hendrix, Ried and Resencran families. Retirement came when she felt she could no longer give an honest day's work for and honest day's pay. Mrs. Barbour could be seen enjoying power walks throughout Crozet. She was gifted in crocheting, knitting, quilt making, making homemade fudge, baking cakes and constructing cane bottom chairs. She leaves to morn a son, Roosevelt W. Barbour, Jr. and wife, Pearl; a daughter-in-law, Janet Earl and husband, Eugene; her youngest brother, Julian Braxton and wife, Liz; five grandchildren, Audrey, Jamie, Edith, Lisa, and Charis;13 great grandchildren, four great-great grandchildren, a host of nieces, nephews, cousins and other relatives. Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 12, 2017, at Mount Carmel Baptist Church, Brown Cove, Va., withthe Reverend Lloyd Martin officiating and the Reverend Henry Stewart delivering the eulogy. Interment will follow in the church cemetery. The family will receive friends at the church one hour prior to the services. The family would like to thank the staff of Mountainside Senior Living and the Hospice of the Piedmont for the service that was provided to Mrs. Barbour. J. F. Bell Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. www.jfbellfuneralservices.com
The Russian Center for Syrian reconciliation has delivered 6.2 tonnes (metric tons) of aid to Syrian civilians in the course of seven humanitarian operations carried out in the past 24 hours, Sputnik reported citing the center informs in its daily bulletin.

"In the past 24 hours the Russian center for the reconciliation of the conflicting sides carried out seven humanitarian operations  The total weight of the humanitarian cargo passed to the population amounted to 6.2 tonnes," the statement says.

According to the reconciliation center, Russian planes have also delivered 20.6 tonnes of humanitarian aid received by the Syrian authorities through UN channels to the Deir ez-Zor area in eastern Syria.

Civilians in Syria have been severely affected by the civil war that has been ongoing in the country since 2011. The internal fighting between government forces and various opposition and terrorist groups has claimed thousands of lives.
Last week we riffed on snow sculptures in Wisconsin and sand sculptures in Virginia Beach. Those creations are solely artistic.

But heres a sculpture with a practical use.

Sosnovka, Russia, is a village in Siberia that lacks its own church. So resident Alexander Batyokhtin has spent nearly two months building one  out of snow.

Nothing stopped him  not even temperatures that plummeted to -22 degrees Fahrenheit or the architectural challenges of construction.

But Mr. Batyokhtin said the work wasn't all that difficult. He told The Associated Press that the biggest challenges were fashioning the altar and a cross for the roof.

"The main thing is to say a prayer and keep a fast for some time, then just go and do it," he said.

Sosnovka administrator Yuriy Kirsh told AP that the church "means a lot to our hearts and souls."
Now for something a little, um, warmer.

A deputy mayor in Austria isnt plunging into snowbanks, but rather into saunas.

And hes inviting his constituents to join him.

In case you didnt know, people who take saunas in Austria (and some other parts of Europe) traditionally do so in the nude. And theres no segregating men from women  its just all one big happy family.

Deputy Mayor Gerhard Kroiss says he wants to discuss improvements to the community sauna. What better venue than the facility itself?

Maybe the sauna experience will mellow people out  and have a beneficial effect on discussion.

Perhaps forward-thinking Charlottesville should give it a go, hmm?
A man who pleaded guilty to collaborating with his wife in a psychic-reading scheme that swindled victims out of millions of dollars was sentenced Friday to more than two years behind bars.

More than two years after authorities raided their business, Readings by Catherine, on U.S. 29 in Albemarle County, Donny Stephen Marks, 43, was sentenced in federal court in Charlottesville to 33 months in federal prison on charges of mail fraud and money laundering.

In November, his wife, Sandra Marks, was sentenced to 30 months for her role in the fraud. Both are required to pay back more than $5.4 million in restitution to their victims.

According to the original indictment, Sandra Marks told clients that she had spoken to spirits and learned of a curse or dark cloud surrounding the clients families. She would then bury a box of the clients money or valuables and cleanse the box through prayers, rituals or meditation, telling the clients that money was the root of all evil.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Huber told the court that, although Sandra Marks convinced the victims she was psychic, Donny Marks organized and managed the schemes moneyacknowledging their different roles, but equal culpability. Huber said the victims came to the couple looking for hope and relief, but the money was spent on a lavish lifestyle instead.

Sandra Marks never had the power to cleanse money and Donny Marks knew it, Huber said in court.

Though acknowledging Donny Markss full cooperation in the investigation and twice agreeing to travel to Charlottesville from his current home in Georgia, Huber expressed concern that Marks might return to the gypsy lifestyle and commit fraud again.

Were hopeful incarceration and paying restitution will convince Mr. Marks this way of life isnt worth it, Huber said.

Taking into consideration the sentencing guidelines of 37 to 46 months, Markss attorney, Fred Heblich, asked the court for a sentence of 30 monthsthe same as Sandra Marks sentence. Citing his clients sixth-grade education, Heblich agreed with the prosecution and said the two were equally culpability.

He had more education than his wife, but it doesnt put him in the upper echelons of academia, Heblich said. Theres no reason to think hes more likely to get involved in this than Sandra.

He was cooperative and helpful to the government, he added. Thats not a gold star, but it should be considered.

With his attorney next to him, as well as half a dozen family members behind him, Marks stood before Judge Glen E. Conrad and apologized for the damage he and his wife caused.

Me and my family have realized the extent of the hurt we caused, Marks said. I will try to make amends.

Choosing to go below the recommended sentencing guidelines, Conrad sentenced Marks to 33 months in prison and to make full restitution to the victims. Marks also will serve four years of rigorous supervision after his release.

You should have known better, Conrad said. But your acceptance of responsibility exceeds that of most people.
Virginians who want to post scathingly honest online reviews on websites such as Yelp and Angies List soon could be able to fire away with less fear of getting sued.

But whether a new free-speech law pending in the General Assembly extends beyond political speech to cover the increasingly online rating-powered marketplace will depend on how the House of Delegates and Senate reconcile two versions of the bill.

Commonly known as anti-SLAPP statutes (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), the proposals are aimed at cracking down on defamation lawsuits that, despite having little merit, could scare people into holding back their opinions for fear of a costly court case.

The legislation doesnt slam the door shut on defamation lawsuits over provably false statements, but some legislators fear it could leave businesses susceptible to damaging attacks on their reputation by competitors or others.

Yelp, the San Francisco-based online platform for user-powered reviews of restaurants and other businesses throughout the country, is backing the legislation with the help of Richmond lobbying powerhouse McGuireWoods.

Yelp is proud to provide an online platform where consumers can post their honest, fact-based opinions, Laurent Crenshaw, Yelps director of public policy, said in a written statement.

Virginians need anti-SLAPP protections to ensure that bogus lawsuits can no longer undermine their free expression.

In one closely watched lawsuit in Virginia, a contractor sued a Fairfax woman in 2012 over negative reviews she posted on Yelp and Angies List after hiring the company to do work at her home.

The postings also implied the contractor may have stolen her jewelry because no one else had a key. In 2014, a jury essentially declared the case a draw.

Though some lawmakers are skeptical of adding protection for online reviews, a separate provision shielding speech on government and civic affairs appears to have wide bipartisan support.

That element of the legislation was inspired by the case of a Richmond Public Schools principal who sued a group of parents who wrote a letter criticizing the principals performance.

A bill that passed the House 74-23 covers both political and consumer speech.

What my bill would do is say if youre in the marketplace and youre holding yourself out to the public, then folks can go on and make an honest take on your business, said Del. Terry G. Kilgore, R-Scott, the patron of House Bill 1941.

The bill that cleared the Senate 38-2 covers only political speech, after the consumer element was stripped out in committee.

The Senate bills sponsor is Glen H. Sturtevant Jr., R-Richmond, who had an up-close view of the principals defamation case in his former role as a member of the Richmond School Board.

In 2014, the then-principal of Lucille M. Brown Middle School filed a $3 million lawsuit accusing four parents of conspiring to write a damaging letter criticizing the schools administration and atmosphere.

The letter, written to school system leaders, later was published by Style Weekly, Richmonds alt-weekly newspaper.

The lawsuit was struck down, but the principal appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which struck down the case again.

That didnt prevent the parents from having to hire lawyers to defend themselves, Sturtevant said.

Were talking about private citizens. Parents who are concerned about the education of their kids, Sturtevant said. And they were being faced with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit that had the potential to cost them their homes, their life savings, kids college funds, their livelihoods.

Wendy Martin, one of the parents named in the suit, along with her husband, said in a statement that their insurance company bore legal costs that approached $40,000.

Every court that saw this case  the Richmond Circuit Court and the Virginia Supreme Court  shut it down immediately, she said. Yet winning didnt feel like a victory. It felt more like wed survived a 486-day hostage situation. The overwhelming emotion was trauma.

This bill  when it becomes law  will represent the true victory for me.

Martin said at a recent legislative hearing: These suits are brought to be vindictive, adding: I am confident that if I had lived in any of the 28 other states, red and blue, that have this legislation, I never would have been sued.

State law already protects comments on public matters made before a governing body in a public hearing. This years legislation would widen that protection to statements communicated to a third party, which could cover letters, online comments and other forms of expression.

Sturtevant and Del. G. Manoli Loupassi, R-Richmond, pushed for a bill signed into law last year to allow people who beat meritless defamation suits to recoup attorneys fees and costs.

Though the added protection for political speech outside of public hearings seems headed for easy passage, the commerce provision sought by Yelp faces tougher odds.

At a Feb. 1 Courts of Justice committee hearing, Sen. Mark D. Obenshain, R-Rockingham, said it could be particularly perilous for small businesses.

For every action, there is a reaction, said Obenshain, the committee chairman. And I get what youre trying to protect, but youre going to hurt other people in the process.

Without the marketplace provision, matters of public concern would be defined as issues properly before a governing body or reasonably likely to encourage consideration or review by a governing body.

Sturtevant said he doesnt expect the commerce provision sought by Yelp to make it out of the Senate.

Kilgore was more optimistic.

Hopefully well get it all, he said.
Heres a sculpture with a practical use.

Sosnovka, Russia, is a village in Siberia that lacks its own church. So resident Alexander Batyokhtin has spent nearly two months building oneout of snow.

Nothing stopped himnot even temperatures that plummeted to -22 degrees Fahrenheit or the architectural challenges of construction.

But Mr. Batyokhtin said the work wasnt all that difficult. He told The Associated Press that the biggest challenges were fashioning the altar and a cross for the roof.

The main thing is to say a prayer and keep a fast for some time, then just go and do it, he said.

Sosnovka administrator Yuriy Kirsh told AP that the church means a lot to our hearts and souls.

New York state

of kind(ness)

Want more snow stories?

Heres one.

A snowstorm hit New York state a couple of days ago, creating the usual problems of difficult driving and stranded motorists.

But one driver in trouble got help from a special Samaritanthe governor.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo was traveling in his motorcade through Westchester County when he and staffed noticed a car stuck in a snowbank. The motorcade stopped, and the governor was among those who got out to assist.

Mr. Cuomo himself checked on the driver and then helped attach towing cables to the vehicles bumper. His security detail then successfully pulled the car back onto the highway, and the motorcade went on its way.

Now, thats constituent service.

Saunter over

to the sauna

Now for something a little, um, warmer.

A deputy mayor in Austria isnt plunging into snowbanks, but rather into saunas.

And hes inviting his constituents to join him.

In case you didnt know, people who take saunas in Austria (and some other parts of Europe) traditionally do so in the nude. And theres no segregating men from womenits just all one big happy family.

Deputy Mayor Gerhard Kroiss says he wants to discuss improvements to the community sauna. What better venue than the facility itself?

Maybe the sauna experience will mellow people outand have a beneficial effect on discussion.

Perhaps forward-thinking area residents should give it a go, hmm?
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that the Syrian army supported by Russian aviation have destroyed a Daesh stronghold near the city of al-Bab in the Aleppo province, Sputnik reported.

The Syrian army killed over 650 terrorists and terrorists' hardware in their operation to free the town of Tadif near al-Bab.

"During the fighting near the Tadif populated area, the [Syrian] government forces killed more than 650 terrorists, destroyed two tanks, four armored personnel carriers, 18 off-road vehicles equipped with heavy weapons, seven mortars and six 'jihad-mobiles'," the Defense Ministry said.

According to the Russian ministry, Tadif which is located in Aleppo province's north-east was "one of the most fortified strongholds of terrorists near al-Bab."

After liberating Tadif, the Syrian army agreed with Turkey on a demarcation line with Ankara-backed Free Syrian Army opposition fighters.

"As a result of the advance, the Syrian government forces have reached a demarcation line with the Free Syrian Army's units as it had been agreed with the Turkish side."

Moreover, the Syrian government forces have gained control over a strategic highway leading to Raqqa.

"Daesh fighters in al-Bab used to receive arms and ammunition via the highway leading to Raqqa," the ministry said.

Currently, the Syrian army is approaching al-Bab controlled by Daesh from the west and south, while the Turkish-led forces are attempting to advance into and liberate the town from the north and the east.

On Friday, a military source told Sputnik that the Syrian government forces cut off the retreat path for Daesh from al-Bab.

The Turkish military operation in Syria's al-Bab has entered the final stage. Turkey's units entered central al-Bab, the operation is being conducted in coordination with Russia to prevent clashes with Syrian government forces.

Al-Bab is one of Daeshs last remaining strongholds near the Turkish border. Capturing the city is of strategic importance to Turkey in order to prevent the Syrian Kurds taking it and unifying their own territories.
President Donald Trumps proposed border wall continues to climb in cost. The most recent estimates peg it at $21.6 billion, almost twice the $12-billion price tag Trump claimed during his campaign, Sputnik reported.

The wall, which would take at least three years to build, would be built in three phases, to cover some 1,250 miles (2,000 km) of the border, according to an internal report expected to be presented to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Keller. This will join the 654 miles of wall previously fortified by President George W. Bush, and will cover nearly the entire 2,000 mile border.

The first phase would cover 26 miles of high-risk area near America's southernmost cities such as San Diego, California, and El Paso, Texas. The second phase would cover an additional 151 miles, mostly in Texas, but also around Tucson, Arizona. The third and final phase would cover 1,080 miles, in effect attempting to seal off the border.

Who will pay for the cost of the wall's construction and upkeep remains very much a subject of controversy, following Trump's vow that Mexico will foot the bill. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has repeatedly said that his country will not pay. Trump floated the possibility of taxing Mexican imports to pay for the wall.

Bernstein Research asserts that unforeseen expenses could easily balloon costs to as much as $25 billion. While the first phase will be relatively inexpensive, at some $360 million, each successive addition will require the US government to acquire the land via eminent domain as well as through environmental waivers.

An estimated 400,000 cars and 15,000 trucks cross the US-Mexico border every day, in over a million crossings. Construction must work around those daily crossings, as well.

The DHS hopes to secure Congressional funding for the wall in April or May, and begin construction in September. If all goes according to plan, the wall could be completed just in time for the 2020 presidential election.
US President Donald Trump pledged on Saturday to reduce the cost of the wall set to be constructed on the border between the United States and Mexico, Sputnik reported.

He cited the costs of F-35 fighter jet and the Air Force One programs as an example of his intervention leading to a lower price of the projects.

"I am reading that the great border WALL will cost more than the government originally thought, but I have not gotten involved in the design or negotiations yet. When I do, just like with the F-35 FighterJet or the Air Force One Program, price will come WAY DOWN!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

In January, Trump announced that the price of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program would be reduced by some $600 million following an agreement with Lockheed Martin, the US defense contractor in charge of the program. Trump has also discussed the possibility of reducing the cost of the new Air Force One Airplane with Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg.

On January 25, Trump issued an executive order aimed at speeding up the construction of the wall along the US-Mexico border, delivering on his signature campaign pledge.

Trumps demand that Mexico fully covers the cost of the border wall has prompted Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to cancel a planned summit with Trump in Washington, DC which had been slated to be held earlier in February. The Mexican government has said it would not pay for the border wall.
Hundreds of passengers were evacuated safely from an Iraqi Airways plane on Saturday after a wheel caught fire on landing in Saudi Arabia, Arabnews reported.

Emergency crews evacuated 356 passengers in record time without any casualties, the official Saudi Press Agency said.

The aircraft was landing at King Abdulaziz International Airport in the Red Sea city of Jeddah when fire broke out on one of the wheels, the agency said.

SPA said the captain radioed the control tower to report the problem and fire crews rushed to the aircraft to extinguish the flames.

It said the fire was limited in scope.
Plenty of people dont like Japanese cars, whether theyre rampant nationalists from Louisiana with a slightly unhealthy interest in 1930s German politics, or theyre a stuck up arts professor who swears by his Citroen, but no one could say that Japan isnt technologically adventurous. Sometimes it goes brilliantly, often its gimmicky, and usually it fails. The Miller Cycle Mazda falls into all three categories. Find this 1996 Eunos 800M for sale in Cairns, QLD, for $2,000 AUD ($1,530 USD at the time of writing) via gumtree.





The 800M didnt have an easy birth; it was originally conceived as an Amati, Mazdas stillborn Lexus-fighting division. However, Mazda decided the car was too far in the development cycle to cancel, and Mazda already had their Eunos brand for sporty cars in Australia, so the 800M became a Eunos here. Americans got the car as the Millenia from 1995, and it was sold as the Mazda Xedos 9 in Europe.

Eunos was confusing at best for Australians, we didnt have Infiniti or Acura, just the lone Lexus, so a quasi-luxury-sports Mazda division made as much sense as an Australian Crawl song. The other Eunos offerings were another stillborn Amati, the 500, and the MX-3, badged as a 30X.

The biggest sales catch though was the Japanese Dilemma: a technologically audacious car, embroiled in conservative design and sold without any consideration for the market. The styling appealed to stuffy Japanese businessmen, as did the price tag: $85,000 AUD. For the same amount, you could choose to drop a size class and buy a BMW 328i. Never the less, it seemed far too expensive, sitting in a showroom alongside diminutive $15,000 121s.

The biggest tragedy of it all was the 800M was a brilliant car. It had every high-end feature of the day, from four-wheel steering, to traction control, to vegan-repellent seats. And finally, the amazing Miller Cycle V6 engine. Displacing only 2.3L, the 800M produced a supercharged 220hp, and still maintained decent fuel economy. Essentially, the Miller Cycle introduces a fifth stroke, as the compression stroke is comprised of two periods, one with the intake valve open and the second with it closed, making the engine more efficient. The Eunos was so successful virtually no one has used a Miller Cycle since!

See another Mazda with Maxima wheels? Email us at: tips@dailyturismo.com

Michael is a teenager whos been obsessed with cars since he was able to talk, but has no ability in mechanics whatsoever. His daily driver is a manual transmission Nissan Maxima  the Australian Infiniti I30
The Turkish Supreme Board of Election has announced that a constitutional referendum will be held on April 16, Reuters reported.

The referendum date was announced by the head of the High Election Board Feb. 11.

The referendum will propose an 18-article amendment to the Turkish Constitution that has been long sought by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and its founder, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Amendments to the Constitution got more than 330 votes in the Turkish Parliament, which is the minimum number of votes needed for holding a referendum.

According to the amendments, the number of seats in the Turkish Parliament will increase from 550 to 600.

It is also suggested that Turkish citizens can run for the MP seats from the age of 18. Currently, the lowest age limit is 25.

It is offered to hold parliamentary elections every 5 years. Currently, the parliamentary elections are held every 4 years.

A Turkish citizen no younger than 40 can become a president, according to the amendments.

The Turkish president will also have the power to appoint ministers and replace them. The president-elect will not be obliged to be a non-party nominee any more.
One Turkish soldier was martyred during the ongoing Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria's Al-Bab, Anadolu reported.

In a written statement, the Turkish General Staff said clashes between Turkish troops and Daesh terrorist organization also left another soldier wounded.

Earlier Saturday, the military released a statement and said a total of 223 Daesh terrorists were "neutralized" in northern Syria as part of Turkish-backed Operation Euphrates Shield over the past week.

Turkish authorities use the word "neutralized" in their statements to imply the terrorists in question either surrendered, were captured or killed.

The Turkish army is supporting Free Syrian Army fighters in liberating Al-Bab, a strategic city for Daesh, from the terrorist group.

Operation Euphrates Shield began in late August to tighten border security, eliminate terror threat along Turkish borders and support opposition forces in Syria.
Mumbai: Hindustan Motors has sold Ambassador, India's iconic car brand, to French car giant Peugeot SA for Rs 80 crore. Sale of the once ubiquitous car brand comes three years after the company, India's first local car manufacturer, stopped making new units.

"We have executed an agreement with the Peugeot SA Group for the sale of the brand Ambassador, including the trademarks," The Economic Times quoted one CK Birla Group spokesperson as saying. The Group owns the Hindustan Motors company that once churned out the white vehicles.

The company that offered voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) to its permanent employees wants to use proceeds from sale to clear dues of employees and lenders.

Sales of the car crashed to less than 2,500 units in 2013-14 from 24,000 units per year in mid-1980s. Its peak years were 70s when the white car captured 75 per cent of car market share.

However, the advent of Maruti Suzuki 800 in 1983 on the Indian auto landscape brought along with it demise for Ambassador brand. As, by 1990s its market share that had already started on a downward slope saw a steep decline to 20 per cent that means a whopping loss of 65 per cent in short time.

According to a report in Business Standard that cited unnamed executives at Hindustan Motors that lack of funds for plants and innovative designs triggered demise of the brand, once an integral part of India's auto consumers.

Hindustan Motors was set up in 1942 by B M Birla, C K Birla's grandfather. In 1948 the company shifted its plant in Uttarpara in Hoogly in West Bengal for making Ambassador cars. As late as 2014, the company shut its operations at Uttarpara and in 2015 offered VRS to identified employees.
New Delhi: Marti G Subrahmanyam, whose name was suggested as a potential infosys co-chair by co-founder NR Narayana Murthy, on Friday said he will be happy to help with his "counsel if called upon to do so".

The NYU professor, who served on board of Infosys from 1998 until 2011, admitted that paucity of time had led to reduced correspondence with the company once he retired from the board.

Asked about the tension brewing between the board members and founders of India's second-largest software services firm, Mr Subrahmanyam said: "I certainly cannot claim to have any insight into the affairs of the company today."

He added: "I remain a well-wisher of the company, but do not have any specific views about the affairs of the company simply because I do not have any access to information about what is going on today. I am always happy to help with my counsel if called upon to do so."

Mr Murthy is of the view that Infosys' board needs to be re-constituted so that their governance standards improve.

"... Maybe, people who have served on the board earlier like Marti Subrahmanyam will come back for a few years," Mr Murthy had said.

Stating that Infosys as a bellwether of the industry has an important role to play, Mr Subrahmanyam, in an e-mail to PTI, said he is hopeful that its future will "remain bright".

The rift between the founders of Infosys and its board spilled out in the open today, with co-founder Mr Murthy questioning executive compensation and corporate governance at Infosys.

Mr Murthy, along with other co-founders Nandan Nilekani and S Gopalakrishnan, are believed to have written to Infosys board asking why Mr Sikka's compensation was raised and hefty severance packages offered to two top-level executives who quit the company.

Infosys, however, has denied any governance lapses.

"The board is fully aligned with the strategic direction of Dr Vishal Sikka and is very appreciative of the initiatives taken by him in pursuance of this transformation," Infosys Chairman R Seshasayee said in a statement.

The conflict at Infosys has surfaced within days of Tata Sons removing Cyrus Mistry as a director of the holding company as well as other group operating firms.
Watches are not rocket science. Or are they? Watches are not rocket...

Perhaps you dont have a PhD. Well, thats a shame, because with some watches, youll need one to understand how to tell the time. Perhaps you dont have a PhD. Well,...
Bengaluru: The bruising boardroom battle between the founders and the board of the countrys second largest software services firm, Infosys, which saw board members raise concerns over lapses in governance took a turn for the worse on Friday as founder N.R.N. Murthy made it clear that his differences were not so much with CEO Vishal Sikka as much as with chairman of the board R. Seshasayee, with calls from former board members for the chairman's head to roll.

Mr. Murthy defended Mr. Sikka saying that he has done a good job. In an interview to a private television channel, Murthy said however that certain acts of the board regarding corporate governance could have been better.

In a war of words that many said was similar to the damaging row at Tata Sons, the contradicting views of board members and founders pertaining to the salary and severance packages paid to the C-level executives has driven a wedge among shareholders of the IT bellwether.

For sure, we dont another Tata happening, a boardroom source said. The crisis has been simmering in the boardroom for several months now. However it came out in the open when, the founder of Infosys, Narayana Murthy questioned the board over the Rs 23 crore severance paid to the companys ex CFO, Rajiv Bansal.

The severance is usually paid to departing employees on the basis on an agreement that keeps details of the payment, and information about the company, confidential.

Infosys former CFO V. Balakrishnan said that the incumbent chairman of the board, R Seshasaaye should be held responsible for the lapses in corporate governance and that he should resign. Balakrishnan said the company's board had become "lax on corporate governance and was undermining the values on which the company was built". Balakrishnan said "it is not about performance, or Vishal Sikka."



Mohandas Pai, the ex board of director of Infosys told Deccan Chronicle: "Narayana Murthy questioned the 24 month severance pay given to Rajiv Bansal and the board did not respond properly. We were informed that the board stopped the severance paid to Bansal. Similarly, the compensation paid to the CEO is also a matter of concern for the shareholders." He said that "Infosys is built on fairness, compassion, and meritocracy. There are certain value systems and norms that they need to follow. That's exactly what Narayana Murthy is questioning and all the shareholders are supporting."

"A fresher joining Infosys has not seen his compensation above Rs. 3.5 lakhs in the last seven years and why should the top level executives get higher salaries," questioned Pai. "Vishal Sikka should reveal the strategy to achieve $20 billion revenue and 30 % margin by 2020," said Pai, highlighting his concern over Sikka's salary package,

However, in an official statement issued by Infosys, R Seshasayee, the chairman of the board defended Vishal Sikka.

"The Company is in the process of a formidable transformation journey. The Board is fully aligned with the strategic direction of Dr. Vishal Sikka and is very appreciative of the initiatives taken by him in pursuance of this transformation. Vishal and the Board, while being pleased with the Company's resumption of industry leading performance on many parameters, are keen to further accelerate the progress and achieve even more shareholder value increase, on the foundation of sound governance. We will remain undistracted with this focus," said Seshasayee.

Sources said that the board is likely to take the legal route to address the concerns of the founders NRN Murthy, Kris Gopalakrishnan and Nandan Nilekani.
Bengaluru: Although a slew of former directors and non-executive founders of Infosys have raised concerns over alleged lapses in corporate governance, with ex-director V. Balakrishnan calling for the current chairman's resignation, the chances of shareholders and non-executive members ousting Chairman R. Seshasaayee are very slim as they have no executive or managerial roles to play in the company.

A legal expert, Rajiv Khaitan, of the law firm, Khaitan & Co., said that the board is not legally bound to consider the recommendations of shareholders and non-executive founders.

As long as the board supports the current chairman, the shareholders or non-executive founders have no say in the decision-making process of the management, explained Mr Khaitan.

Infosys has appointed Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, corporate governance experts, as a protection mechanism to facilitate the process in a manner which is not violative of law.

According to an official statement issued by the company, the board has appointed the law experts to formalise the process and receive inputs from promoters and other key stakeholders to recommend to the board accordingly.

Chances of Seshasayee's ouster slim

The long-term investor in Infosys, Oppenheimer Funds' portfolio manager, Justin Leverenz, has supported CEO Vishal Sikka in an open letter to Infosys.

OppenheimerFunds holds 2.7 % stake in the company. "As large, long-term investors in Infosys, we want to express our support for the management team of Dr Vishal Sikka. There have been loud, cancerous rumours of intervention by non-executive founders in the management team," he stated in the letter.

In an official statement issued by Infosys, the seniormost member of the board and chairman of the nomination and remuneration committee, Jeff Lehman, also backed Mr Seshasaayee.

"The members of the Board are deeply engaged with the Company and spend considerable time on the affairs of the Company. The Board has full confidence in the leadership of Seshasayee to steer this Company in these challenging times," he said. With the current management being backed by the investors and the board members, Mr Seshasaayee's ouster at this current juncture, seems

unlikely.
New Delhi: Did you know! Despite working for more than two decades in the Bollywood film industry, it is for the first time that the two Khans- SRK and Aamir- have come together for a selfie!

Shah Rukh Khan, who recently headed to Dubai to attend the birthday bash of entrepreneur Ajay Bijli, took to Twitter to post a picture with the 'Dangal' star and captioned it as, "Known each other for 25 years and this is the first picture we have taken together of ourselves. Was a fun night."

Decked in white, the Khans make for a perfect picture, isn't it?

On a related note, the two superstars have not worked together in any movie except for a special scene in the 1993 movie 'Pehla Nasha'.
Mumbai: In the history of the final campaign for Oscars, producer Harry Weinstein, in his signature style, discusses the burning socio-economic issue of travel ban.

Weinstein has made a bold move right before the Oscars to take a dig at Donald Trump and his recent Executive Order of banning immigrants from entering the United States. The Harry Weinstein Company, producer of the film LION starring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman and 8-year-old Sunny Pawar in pivotal roles, is one of the front runners this year with 6 Oscar nominations, winners of which will be announced at the ceremony slated to take place on February 26.

In an advertisement with a leading newspaper in America, Harrys company talks about how difficult it was to get child actor of Indian-origin Sunny Pawar to America.

The ad read,"It took an extraordinary effort to get the 8-year-old Sunny Pawar a visa so that he could come to America for the very first time. Next year, that might not be an option".

In the meanwhile the film has just had a wider release in the US and is slated to release in India on February 24.
Mumbai: After the Jaigarh Fort havoc over Rani Padmini (better known as Padmavati) being allegedly portrayed in bad light in Sanjay Leela Bhansalis (SLB) magnum opus Padmavati, the Directors team has clarified in a series of tweets that the characters of tyrant Alauddin Khilji (Ranveer Singh) and Rani Padmavati (Deepika Padukone) have no scenes together.

The team has assured that SLB holds Rani Padmavati in high regard and will never hurt the sentiments of Rajput or do anything that tarnishes the Princesss reputation.

One of the tweets by Bhansali Productions reads: Repeating. #SanjayLeelaBhansali revers #RaniPadmavati and will NEVER do anything to hurt #Rajput sentiments. Do not believe otherwise

The team has repeatedly clarified that the characters of Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji will not cross paths even for one scene and that there are no dream sequences or dance numbers between them.

Repeating. There NEVER was and never will be any scene or dream or song between #RaniPadmavati and #AlauddinKhilji in #Padmavati.

Anyone working on #Padmavati will confirm that there NEVER was any scene or dream between #RaniPadmavati and #AlauddinKhilji @ShobhaIyerSant.

In addition to that, the official Twitter handle of Bhansali Productions ( currently named Padmavati) has also urged the fans of all the actors involved in the film  Shahid Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Aditi Rao Hydari and Deepika Padukone  to spread the word with the hashtag #NoSceneBetweenRaniPadmavatiAndAlauddinKhilji.

A couple of weeks back, SLB was shooting with the secondary cast of Padmavati at Jaigarh Fort in Jaipur when a group of activists from Karni Sena, a local organisation, vandalised the set alleging the Director of distorting historical facts and portraying Rani Padmavati in poor light. SLB was also beaten up by the activists.

Following the attack, Bollywood stood in complete solidarity with the ace Director.

In the film, Shahid Kapoor plays Raja Ratan Rawal Singh while Aditi Rao Hydari will don the role of Alauddin Khiljis wife Kamla Devi.
Mumbai: Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt are going all out to promote the song Tamma Tamma Again from their film Badrinath Ki Dulhania which is set to release on Saturday. The original song from the 1990 film Thanedaar, featured Sanjay Dutt and Madhuri Dixit, and Varun and Alia look extremely keen to seek their approval of the new version.

We had previously seen a video where Madhuri announces that the song was releasing in two days and another video where we see teaching her signature step from the song to the two young stars.

And now Sanjay Dutt has also given his thumbs up to the new version.

Varun and Alia shared a video on Twitter where Sanjay Dutt informs the fans that the song will be out on Saturday and asked them to look out for the kids who termed as magic.

Watch the video:

With the two original stars giving their approval for the new version, Varun and Alia can definitely expect a brilliant response from the audiences as well.

Badrinath Ki Dulhania, directed by Shashank Khaitan and produced by Karan Johar, releases on March 10.
Yes, you heard that right. Actor Nandamuri Balakrishna is going to hike his remuneration. The senior actor, who just delivered a hit with Gautamiputra Satakarni, is now going to charge a whopping Rs 10 crore as his remuneration, as opposed to his earlier fee of Rs 7 crore that he charged for each of his film. A source from the industry says, In recent years, the actor hadnt hiked his remuneration as he didnt want to burden the producer much. But now, with the success of Gautamiputra Satakarni, one of the highest grossers amongst his films, he has decided to go ahead with the hike.

Balakrishna had recently announced that he is planning to shoot a biopic on his late fathers life, but he is also looking out for other interesting commercial scripts. The source adds, He is yet to take a call on what his next film will be. If both the films are ready at the same time, he could shoot both together.
Berlin: Children who enjoy studying mathematics and take pride in good scores are more likely to have higher academic achievements, say scientists who found

that positive emotions and success at learning in math mutually reinforce each other.

Scientists found that students' learning and cognitive performance can be influenced by emotional reactions to learning, like enjoyment, anxiety and boredom. Researchers Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat (LMU) in Munich in Germany studied how students' emotions in a school context relate to their achievement.

The study focused on achievement in math, which is not only important for education and economic productivity but is also known to prompt strong emotional reactions in students. "We found that emotions influenced students' math achievement over the years," said Reinhard Pekrun, professor at LMU Munich and Australian Catholic University.

"Students with higher intelligence had better grades and test scores, but those who also enjoyed and took pride in math had even better achievement," said Pekrun, who led the study. "Students who experienced anger, anxiety, shame, boredom, or hopelessness had lower achievement," he said.

The research was conducted as part of the Project for the Analysis of Learning and Achievement in Mathematics (PALMA). It included annual assessments of emotions and achievement in math in 3,425 students from grades five through nine. Students' self-reported emotions were measured by questionnaires, and their achievement was assessed by year-end grades and scores on a math achievement test.

The study also found that achievement affected students' emotions over time.

"Successful performance in math increased students' positive emotions and decreased their negative emotions over the years," said Stephanie Lichtenfeld, from LMU.

"In contrast, students with poor grades and test scores suffered from a decline in positive emotions and an increase in negative emotions, such as math anxiety and math boredom," said Lichtenfeld. "Thus, these students become caught in a downward spiral of negative emotion and poor achievement," she said.

The findings that emotions influenced achievement held constant even after taking into account the effects of other variables, including students' intelligence and gender, and families' socioeconomic status. The results are consistent with previous studies showing that emotions and academic achievement are correlated, but they go beyond these by disentangling the directional effects underlying this link.

Specifically, the research suggests that emotions influence adolescents' achievement over and above the effects of general cognitive ability and prior accomplishments.
Even dermatologists are best able to compare the effectiveness of sunscreens when presented with SPF values, a recent study suggests.

The doctors tended to underestimate the effectiveness of sunscreens when they were presented with information on how much radiation is absorbed by the sunscreen, say the authors. "Ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure from the sun and artificial UV sources is the major cause of skin cancer and premature skin aging," lead author Stefan Herzog told Reuters Health in an email.

"The sun protection factor (SPF) is the best known sunscreen parameter. It conveys a sunscreens effectiveness in protecting against the UV radiation that causes sunburn," said Herzog, a researcher at the Max-Planck Institute of Human Development in Berlin.

Herzog said the UV radiation that causes sunburn is also known as is erythema (redness)-inducing radiation, or EIR. "The SPF is defined as the ratio of the EIR dose that induces the first visible redness on sunscreen-protected skin to the EIR dose that induces the same redness on unprotected skin," Herzog said.

Herzog said that when it comes to skin damage, what matters is how much of the radiation is transmitted through the sunscreen to your skin and not how much is absorbed by the sunscreen. Doubling SPF, for example from 30 to 60, cuts the amount of radiation transmitted to the skin by half, thus protection is doubled, the researchers write in JAMA Dermatology.

Herzog and his colleagues wanted to know whether dermatology experts are able to adequately assess differences in sunscreen protection based on SPF, the percentage of EIR absorbed by the sunscreen or the percentage of EIR transmitted through the sunscreen to the skin.

A total of 261 dermatology experts from Germany, the U.S., Switzerland and Australia participated in the web-based test. The doctors were asked to assess the increase in protection for 10 pairs of sunscreens with different SPFs. Each sunscreen pair had effectiveness information presented as SPF, the percentage of EIR absorbed by the sunscreen or the percentage of EIR transmitted to the skin.

The doctors were asked which sunscreen in each pair would protect a person longer and how much more effective one was compared to the other. On average, the doctors underestimated the protection ability of all the sunscreens, especially when they were presented with percentage of EIR absorbed. The underestimates were smallest when information was presented in terms of SPF.

"For effective communication of sunscreen effectiveness, we recommend to only use SPF. Dont get too fancy and just stick to the SPF," Herzog said. Unfortunately, big increases in SPF look small when expressed as proportion absorbed, he said, so dermatologists underappreciated the increase in protection that comes with higher SPFs.

"To curb the skin cancer epidemic, health-care professionals should understand the basics of the SPF and should consistently advise patients to use high to very high SPF sunscreens," he said.

Herzog suggests looking for SPFs of 30, 50 or more and a "broad spectrum" claim on the product labels. Sun protection is not limited to just using sunscreens, he noted. Seeking shade and wearing protective clothing whenever possible are also important.

"Even dermatologists can miss the nuances of what exactly SPF or sun protection factor really means from the physics standpoint," said Dr. Steve Xu, a dermatologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago who wasn't involved in the study.

"For consumers, it's important to know that SPF is a laboratory measure of a sunscreen's strength," Xu said, adding that there are several things a consumer should consider when picking a sunscreen product.

"I recommend consumers pick sunscreens that they find affordable, like to use in regards to smell, color and how it feels on the skin," he said.

The sunscreen should offer broad spectrum protection and water resistance if there is going to be exposure to water or high ambient temperature, Xu added, and sunscreen should have an SPF of 30 or higher, but even that isnt sufficient on its own.

"A higher SPF offers an extra level of protection in the real world. But, consumers have to apply enough sunscreen and reapply frequently enough to ensure protection regardless of the SPF on the label," Xu said.
The wind is the whisper of our mother the earth. The wind is the hand of our father the sky. So welcome the wind and the wisdom she offers. Follow her summons when she calls again, John Denver.

In 2014, Denmark, a tiny country of 5.6 million people, revealed one of the most aggressive policies against climate change by any country  to end the burning of fossil fuels in any form by 2050. Although the Danes having invented the modern wind-power industry, and have pursued it more than any country, doubts were expressed for their ambitious policy.

To prove the sceptics wrong, on 6th October 2016, Denmark produced 116% and the next day, 140% of national electricity demands, allowing the country to export power to Norway, German, and Sweden. It shows that a world powered 100% by renewable energy is no fantasy, the European Wind Energy Associations Oliver Joy told The Guardian. Wind energy and renewables can be a solution to decarbonisationand also security of supply at times of high demand.

Denmark has long been a global leader in renewable energy. With almost unanimous political consensus, the Danish population has in recent years pushed aggressively for the installation of new wind farms across the country, with the goal of producing half of its electricity via renewable sources by 2020. Now, the ultimate giant of Denmark has arrived. A 720-foot-tall wind turbine has been installed and has gone on line. Located off the coast of steril, this giant windmill has 35 ton blades measuring 262 feet in length, sweep a total area measuring 227,380 square feet. This giant has just set a new world record, producing a 216,000 kWh of energy over a span of 24 hours.

MHI Vestas Offshore Winda joint venture between Vestas Wind Systems and Mitsubishi Heavy Industriesrevealed the 9 MW prototype in late 2016 and on December, 1st 2016, the machine, named V164-8.0 MW, set the world record, for a commercial offshore wind turbine. Given the success of this test, the company is hoping to increase the energy production of its customers fleets, but with fewer turbines and at a lower cost. The new machine is part a broader push to get more value out of offshore wind turbines in general.

Elsewhere, in the United States, some more good news for wind energy, despite all the fear of Trumps negative policies for renewable energy.The South Fork Wind Farm, a proposed 90-megawatt (MW) wind energy plant to be built off the coast of Long Island, was granted a power-purchase contract from the state-run This is a big day for clean energy in New York and our nation, Deepwater Wind CEO Jeffrey Grybowski said in a statement. There is a huge clean energy resource blowing off of our coastline just over the horizon, and it is time to tap into this unlimited resource to power our communities.

The Department of Energy estimates that the United States has a technical offshore wind power capacity of 2,000 gigwatts (GW), or roughly double the electricity generated by all fossil fuel plants in the United States last year.Harnessing even a small fraction of that potential, however, has proven extraordinarily challenging due to a lack of regulation at the state and federal level. While over the past 25 years, European nations have built thousands of offshore turbines in the Baltic and Irish seas, the United States has built five  a long way still to go for the worlds most advanced economy.

When giants like V164-8.0 MW come into town, and when countries like Denmark push technology further, it seems like this will be the answer for clean energy for the planet. Even Bob Dylan said so prophetically when he wrote, The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.
2014 Lollapalooza - Day 1 (Photo : Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

Big Sean's song "No Favors" that features Eminem is quite controversial struck as the supporters of Detroit-based rappers voiced their displeasure towards the lyrics. Some organizations are also threatening to press charges against the musicians.



A Canadian Women's Rights group, RINJ (Rape Is No Joke), released an official statement claiming that they want further action to be taken against the rappers. The group criticized the musicians as "rape rappers" and suggested that they should be banished and arrested.



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Eminem not only incensed the women's group in his latest track, he also shot down many political figures, including President Donald Trump that he refers to as "B***h" and also launched a rap-attack at conservative political commentator, Ann Coulter.



"And f*ck Ann Coulter with a Klan poster, With a lamp post, door handle shutter," he raps in his latest song. Coulter shot back at Eminem's diss via TMZ, claiming that the 44-year-old rapper is only trying to gain publicity by using her name.



Meanwhile, in latest Eminem news, a poster has surfaced online suggesting that the rapper may be headed to Australia for a tour in 2017. It is no news that the "Not Afraid" rapper is already planning to release his ninth studio album soon. Hence, it is possible that an Australian tour may be in the offing.



However, the artwork that started the rumor of a possible 2017 Australian tour has been called bogus as the image that made the poster can be found on the Deviant Art website that, according to the website, has been credited to Ali Chegini, an artist from Iran. The alleged tour poster is a composite of two pictures.



Since there is no latest update on Eminem news, the Australian Tour seems unlikely at this point. However, considering an album is in the works, a tour may not entirely be out of question. But the fans should take this news with a grain of salt, until it has been officially confirmed or denied by Eminem or his reps.



Listen to Eminem's New Song here:






A Valentines Day card comparing the intensity of ones love to Hitlers hatred for Jews was handed out to students at Michigan University. (Photo: Twitter)

Its unfortunate that some people can be such ignorant bigots that they actually find anti-Semitism romantic. A Valentines Day card comparing the intensity of ones love to Hitlers hatred for Jews was handed out to students during a Republican group meeting at Michigan University, in the United States.

The so-called Valentine card had the words My love for u burns like the 6,000 Jews along with even a close-up photo of Adolf Hitler in case you failed to make the connection. University President George Ross told the Washington Post that campus leaders will meet on Thursday to discuss what kind of action will take place next.

Many people took to the internet to express their outrage at the shocking incident.

The @CMUniversity I love doesn't tolerate hate speech. This is not what being a Chippewa stands for. #WhyIResist pic.twitter.com/uIIR4pVbYf  Autumn Gairaud (@aegairaud) February 9, 2017

Why would ANYONE think this is okay?

Student organization sorry for Hitler-themed Valentine's cardhttps://t.co/eMyQoXEz3s #WTSP pic.twitter.com/bz7meCXvme  Caitlin McGehee (@CaitlinMcGehee) February 10, 2017

Tell me again they're not Nazis: College Republicans Apologize For Handing Out Hitler-Themed Valentine's Card https://t.co/lc2CjtZB74   (@bluelighttv) February 10, 2017

So a young GOP adult couldn't figure out this was wrong? Fuck that, we did leave children behind https://t.co/X0Ryua5E5G #atheist #jewish  & then there's Maude (@proudliberalmom) February 10, 2017
The doll was designed and sculpted by company founder Robert Tonner and depicts everything he stands for, from human point of view. (Photo: AP)

Washington: A New York doll maker says it will be selling what it believes is the first transgender doll on the market.

The doll is based on Jazz Jennings, the teenage transgender subject of the TLC documentary series "I am Jazz." It will make its debut at the New York Toy Fair next week and be available on the Tonner Doll Co.'s web site and in specialty stores in July.

A spokesman for the company said the 18-inch doll, which has a "genderless" plastic mold typical of most dolls, is being tested for kids aged 8 years and older and is expected to retail for $89.99.In comparison, the popular mass-market "American Girl" 18-inch dolls, which come with a book, sell for $115 on AmericanGirl.com.

Tonner Doll, which is based in Kingston, New York, said Friday that the "Jazz" doll is being launched as a test for the specialty-retail market and will be sold by 25 to 50 stores. If it's a hit, the company hopes to take it to the mass market.

The doll was designed and sculpted by company founder Robert Tonner. His company has made dolls based on a variety of TV, film and book characters including Spiderman, Harry Potter, Dr. Who and Wonder Woman.

"Jazz stands for everything I respect from a human nature point of view  she's incredibly brave, intelligent, warm-hearted and creative," Tonner said.Jennings appeared at age 6 on a Barbara Walters 20/20 special in 2007. She has identified as a female since she could talk, her parents told ABC News.

She is the youngest person ever to be recognized in The Advocate Magazine's "Top Forty Under 40" annual list and was named as one of Time Magazine's Most Influential Teens for 2014 and 2015.In 2014, Jennings co-wrote a children's picture book titled "I Am Jazz" and her memoir, "Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen," was released last summer.

The Jazz Jennings doll comes 40 years after the release of the "Gay Bob" doll, widely thought to be the first doll based on a gay character.
On the route, Hayathnagar police and transport officials from Ibrahimpatnam were conducting checks on private buses in Pedda Amberpet. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: About 50 passengers travelling in a Bharat Travels bus to Bhadrachalam had a terrifying experience when their driver  heavily drunk, as it turned out  drove over a road divider and continued to speed ahead on the highway to Vijayawada.

Hayatnagar police and transport officials in a joint operation intercepted the bus, belonging to Bharat Travels, on the Vijayawada-Hyderabad highway.

Police subjected the driver, Nirmala Yadagiri, to a breathalyser test and found his blood alcohol content at 474 mg decilitre, which is almost 16 times higher than the permissible level.. All the passengers escaped unhurt when the bus hit the divider.

According to the police, the bus (AP 28 TY 6599) was heading to Bhadrachalam from the city.

On the route, Hayathnagar police and transport officials from Ibrahimpatnam were conducting checks on private buses in Pedda Amberpet.

Yadagiri, who was driving the bus at high speed, did not notice that a line of buses had stopped for the checks.

He overtook all the buses, hit the divider and continued at the same speed, gravely imperilling the safety of passengers.

Police teams immediately gave a chase and intercepted the bus near the ORR underpass in Pedda Amberpet.

In the breath analyser test, his BAC was measured at 474 mg dl which is very high. He was so inebriated that he did not notice the vehicle checks or even when the bus hit the divider, Hayathnagar inspector J. Narender Goud said.

Yadagiri was booked under Sections 185 (driving under the effect of alcohol) and 184 (rash driving) of the Motor Vehicles Act and detained for questioning. Police also seized the bus. The passengers were shifted to another bus and taken to Bhadrachalam.
Kottarakkara: In a shocking case of child abuse, a seven-year-old was brutally beaten by his father and step-mother in Kottarakkara, Kerala, leading to partial loss of hearing.

According to a report in The News Minute, the minor boy suffered damages in his right ear, due to the repeated abuse he suffered at the hands of his parents.

The boy was submitted to a hospital in the Kottarakkara Taluk of Kollam District with the injury. Police said that the boy told the doctors that his parents often hit him without good reason.

However, the boy has refused to speak to anyone since and has not given any statement to the police either. But a police officer told The News Minute that the boys father, identified as Tulasi, has been taken into their custody on charges of child abuse. His step-mother is allegedly mentally unstable.

The boys mother had died few years ago. He was living with his step-mother and father. Tulasi is a drunkard and the step-mother is mentally unstable. Now the boy is under the protection of ChildLine. We will file the FIR in the case after a full enquiry, Kottarakkara Sub Inspector Mahesh was quoted in the report.
Srinivas had an argument with his agent Sampath after he landed in Saudi Arabia over commission. His family said that Sampath had killed Srinivas. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: Manda Srinivas Reddy, 35, hailing from Siddipet district, inherited an acre from his father. He wanted to buy two more acres in his village as he thought that farming conditions will improve in the new state, and he can provide better education to his two sons.

To fund his dreams he went to Saudi Arabia, but died in suspicious circumstances three weeks ago. Srinivas had an argument with his agent Sampath after he landed in Saudi Arabia over commission. His family said that Sampath had killed Srinivas.

With the help of a social worker from Jagtial, Shaik Chand Pashan, they filed a complaint with the Protector General of Emigrants and appealed for a thorough inquiry.

Srinivas Reddy, of Husnabad mandal in Siddipet district, owned an acre in Mohammadapur village. Nearly 10 years ago, when there was drought in his village, he went to Saudi Arabia to work as a houseboy.

He worked for two years, returned home, and took up farming again. Eight months ago, he went again to Saudi through an agent named K. Sampath, who demanded Rs 20,000 from him for the visa. After landing in Saudi, when Sampath asked Srinivas to pay his commission, Srinivas said that Sampaths brother-in-law back home had borrowed Rs 13,000 from him and paid the balance of Rs 7,000.

This led to an argument between them. Srinivas kafeel (sponsor) who came to know of this filed a case against Sampath, and he was arrested by Saudi police. After coming out, Sampath threatened to kill Srinivas. Fearing Sampath, Srinivas ran away from his Kafeel for a few days. He called me after Sampath came out, but from the next day, there was no communication. His Kafeel says he ran away and he gave a NoC also. He was found dead a few days later. We came to know that through a relative there, Srinivas's brother-in-law M. Venkat Reddy said. After running away from the Kafeel, Srinivas told his relatives how Sampath had threatened to kill him and to save himself he had run away. His father Malla Reddy said that Sampath could have kidnapped, tortured and killed Srinivas, and dumped his body somewhere. We strongly suspect Sampath killed my son. he said. Srinivas is survived by his wife Saritha, sons Nitin, Ranjit and parents Raji Reddy and Madhuravva.
The Central government has decided to release funds directly to district collectors to start the campaign on cashless transactions.

Hyderabad: The Central government has decided to release funds directly to district collectors to start the campaign on cashless transactions. The move is being seen as the Centre is being suspicious that the funds will be diverted to other schemes, especially in non-BJP ruled states.

NITI-Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has asked the TS government to immediately send district-wise population data and bank account numbers of the district collectors. The Central government will release Rs 10 per head for this campaign.

On the basis of population, TS will get about Rs 35 crore and AP about Rs 45 crore. A senior officer said this was the first time funds are released directly to the district collectors by the Central government. Earlier too, Mr Kant had written a letter on incentives for digital payments directly to district collectors and had asked them to start the campaign on digital payments.

When a senior officer in the TS government asked NITI-Aayog officials why the funds were being released directly to the district collectors, he was told that the Central government is not sure if the state governments will not divert these funds.
India also has an option for 18 more aircraft which can be exercised in the future.

Bengaluru: One of the main attractions at the AeroIndia 2017 will be Dassault Aviation's Rafale 'omnirole' fighter that was designed for nine specific roles: Air-defence/air-superiority, anti-access/air denial, reconnaissance, close air support, dynamic targeting, air-to-ground precision strike/interdiction, anti-ship attacks, nuclear deterrence, and buddy-buddy refuelling. It is one of the very few fighters with that diversity of roles.

India is buying 36 of Rafales, which can also play the role 'airborne strategic delivery system', which in simple English means they can carry nuclear bombs. The first squadron of Rafale that India will receive will be deployed on the Chinese border in the north-east and are set to be hardwired for nuclear delivery. India also has an option for 18 more aircraft which can be exercised in the future.

This acquisition illustrates the strategic relationship between India and France and marks the culmination of the relationship initiated in 1953 when India became Dassault Aviation's first export customer.

"Dassault Aviation, the Rafale manufacturer, has contributed proudly to India's defence preparedness for more than 60 years. Demonstrating the Rafale capabilities in Aero India, is reaffirming our total commitment to India's sovereignty. We have had a long standing relationship with Indian Air Force and industry and, thanks to the unmatched capabilities of the Rafale and to our full involvement in the innovative approach of the 'Make in India' initiative, we are entirely dedicated to partner India in meeting its strategic defence and economic needs," said Eric Trappier, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation.

Boeing to display large-scale models

Aerospace behemoth Boeing of the United States has limited its participation in Aero India 2017 to display of large-scale models and interactive displays to showcase the company's advanced commercial and defense products and services capabilities of interest to India. A KC-46A Air Refueling Operator System will be available to visitors for demonstrations. "Boeing's participation at the show will highlight its enduring defence and commercial footprint in India and demonstrate alignment with the 'Make in India' initiative," says a release. Experts from Boeing, however, will be on hand to discuss defence capabilities of military jets such as the F/A-18 Super Hornet, KC-46 tanker, C-17 Globemaster III, P-8I aircraft, AH-64D Apache, CH-47F Chinook, V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and ScanEagle and Integrator unmanned airborne system.
Ahmedabad: As many as 29 students of premier design institute National Institute of Design (NID), including 14 females and a foreign national, were arrested on Saturday in connection with a liquor party here, police said.

"We arrested 29 students of National Institute of Design after conducting raid on a private apartment based on a complain to police control room late last night that a liquor party was being organised there," said ACP (N Division) Kalpesh Chavda.

Among the arrested students, 14 are women, he said, adding that one of the students is a foreign national from Johannesburg in South Africa.

The liquor party was organised at one Pushkar Apartments located in Paldi area of the city near the NID campus, following which police conducted raid at around 3 AM today, Chavda said.

"Six bottles of liquor were also seized from the apartment. We have taken all students into custody and are investigating as to where they sourced liquor from, among other things," he said.

An FIR was lodged at Paldi police station under various sections Bombay Prohibition (Gujarat Amendment) Act, he said. Consumption of liquor is prohibited in Gujarat.
Madurai: It was another historic moment for the Tamils separated by the Palk Strait when the Sri Lankan Tamil and minister, Senthil Tondaiman, won a Maruti Swift car and a native cow - both bonanza prizes - for the best bull in the internationally famous Alanganallur jallikattu.

Alanganallur, was the first epicentre for the 'Tamil Spring' which brought jallikattu back to the people. Local people had gathered at this village first for a protest demanding restoration of jallikattu, which wasn't held for the last two years. The village put up a grand show on Friday with the DMK working president MK Stalin participating in the event along with a galaxy of VIPs, film personalities Lawrence, Ammer Sultan and social activists cheering the bull tamers as well as the bull owners.
Fake topper, Ruby Rai said she had told her father to ensure she just passes in her exam. (Photo: PTI)

Patna: A delegation of Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Saturday arrested Avdhesh Rai, the absconding father of Bihar's Class 12 examination topper in Arts, Ruby Rai.

A team of SIT from Patna, along with a team of police from Bhagwanpur area of Vaishali district arrested Ruby's father from their residence.

Rai had earlier claimed that she had asked her father to ensure she just passes in the exams, but he managed to make her the topper in the state.

This admission immediately put Ruby's parents under the scanner, following which her father was summoned to join the probe.

Rai came to limelight after a video went viral in which she described political science as "prodigal science" and stated that political science, a subject she virtually aced, teaches cooking.

Soon, a seven-member expert committee was constituted and Rai was asked to appear before the committee. The panel cancelled her result after the review.

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.

The girl, from the controversial Bishun Roy college of Vaishali district, was taken into custody by the SIT on the basis of arrest warrant issued by a Patna district court against her and three other rank-holders in the examination racket case.

Rai was earlier sent to judicial custody till July 8 after her arrest on June 25 in connection with this case, following which she was shifted from Beur jail to a remand home on grounds that she was a minor.

This came after a district court in Patna accepted that she was a minor on the basis of her matriculation certificate which mentioned her date of birth as November 15, 1998.
Foreign Tourists Can Now Enjoy 144-Hour Visa-Free Entry in Shanghai

The Great Wall, one of the most iconic structures in the world, is more or less the symbol of China. Due to its history and beauty, it also attracts a great number of tourists each year. (Photo : Getty Images)

Good news to all travelers!



From 72-hour visa free, Shanghai has now allowed nearly 39,000 foreign tourists to enter the country visa-free for 144 hours.



The 144-hour visa-free entry for international transit passengers started on Jan. 30, 2016, which was aimed at renewing effort to boost business and tourism.



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Upon entry via Shanghais air, sea, and railway ports, tourists can enjoy a 144-hour stay in the Yangtze River Delta, Jiangsu Provinces Nanjing Lukou International Airport and Zhejiang Provinces Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, providing they have third country visas and tickets to leave for a third country or region within 144 hours.



Since 2013, Shanghai, Zhejiangs capital Hangzhou, and Jiangsus capital Nanjing had allowed 72-hour visa-free entry for international transit passengers.



Beijing, Guangzhou, and provincial capitals like Xian, Chengdu, and Kunming all have allowed 72-hour visa-free entry for international transit passenger.



Every month, nearly 3,000 foreign tourists entered Shanghai without a visa, according to Shanghai Customs.



China is very popular with tourists due to its different culture, ancient cities, fast modernization, and natural highlights.



Next to France and the U.S., China ranks third as a tourist destination; and worlds number one tourist destination if Hong Kong and Macau are included.



In 2015, 98.8 million people visited China for tourism, work, or business-related purposes.



Aside from tourist attractions, China offers remarkable diversities of cuisines and food. Among the must-taste Chinese food are Beijing roast duck in Beijing, rice noodles in Guilin, steamed buns in Shanghai, hotpot in Chengdu, dumplings in Xian, and dim sum in Hong Kong.



There also sweet and sour pork, Gong Bao chicken, Ma Po tofu, wontons, chow mein, and spring rolls.



If youre planning to visit China, avoid peak weeks: Spring Festival, the National Day Holiday (Oct. 1-7), and around the May 1 national holiday. Avoid weekends, too.


Chennai: A team of bouncers from a private security agency was deployed at the house of caretaker chief minister O. Panneerselvam on Friday to provide an inner security cover to him and the senior leaders of his team.

The deployment of private security personnel happened a day after Dr M.Sudhakar, deputy commissioner of the Core Cell CID went on leave. The Core Cell CID team is responsible for chief ministers security and is also supposed to provide security for his private and official visits.

Sources said that number of Core cell team members deployed at Panneerselvam s house on Greenways Road had decreased drastically in the last couple of days.

However, a platoon of police personnel from the Tamil Nadu Special Police (TSP) has been deployed outside his house. The police can give security for the chief minister, but not for other AIADMK leaders who reach his house to extend support. A lot of people are allowed to visit his house. May be that is why they decided employ private security personnel, a senior official noted.

A party source, however, said that the bouncers deployed in the morning were removed by Friday evening.
Bengaluru: Britain's defence minister, Mrs Harriett Baldwin, and her counterparts of several countries as well as service chiefs and heads of department are heading to Aero India 2017, billed as Asia's biggest aerospace and aviation exhibition, commencing here on February 14, to explore opportunities for partnership, collaboration, investment and transfer of technology during the five-day event.

An Indo-UK round table has been scheduled to discuss collaboration and investment in aerospace and related fields during the event while inveterate aviation enthusiasts could look forward to stunning aerobatics by Evolvkos Aerobatic Team from Britain.

Defence delegations from other countries include Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Brunei, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Sudan, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, the UAE, USA and Uzbekistan at the exhibition, the biggest since Aero India commenced here in 1996, with the total gross area increase from 2,50, 000 square meters to 2, 60,000 square meters to accommodate 72 aircraft and military equipment of more than 500 firms from 51 countries across the world.

In addition to the Indo-UK round table, an Indo-Swiss business meet and an Indo-Polish business meet are also scheduled during the event. Under the Make in India initiative, "Indian Aerospace: Investor's Meet" and "Make in India in Aerospace: Are MSMEs geared for it? - Reflections and the Way Forward" are scheduled for February 15.

Official sources said more than two lakh business visitors would participate in the event as a special area will be created to facilitate B2B meetings. The home state, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Kerala will set up exclusive SEZ pavilions for attracting investments.

Besides the Indian Air Force (IAF)'s Surya Kiran and Sarang aerobatic teams, the Scandinavian Air Show Team from Sweden will enthral visitors with breath-taking manoeuvres during the air show.

UK companies to step up game

Led by their government, companies from the United Kingdom are looking to make an impression at Aero India 2017.

British Defence Minister Harriett Baldwin will lead the UK delegation at Aero India 2017 as Britain and India focus on partnership, collaboration, investment and technology transfer.

Mrs Baldwin, the Minister for Defence Procurement, joined 20 UK companies at the aerospace exhibition held at Air Force Station Yelahanka. Showcasing some of the most innovative technology in the defence, aviation and security sections, these cutting edge businesses will be forging long-lasting industrial partnerships and joint ventures with Indian companies.

"The UK and India have much to offer one another in defence; from manufacturing collaboration and simplified export controls, to military cooperation, training and research partnerships.

As Britain steps up globally, we will work together with India to build knowledge, security and prosperity through a close industrial, military and economic partnership," said Mrs. Baldwin.

The Minister for Defence Procurement added that, ""The UK has a significant range of world class products across the air, land, maritime and security sectors and we are encouraging UK and Indian companies to develop and sustain long term industrial partnerships, to meet our future requirements and to launch new products into the global marketplace."

The minister's visit is set to build on the Defence and International Security Partnership (DISP) agreed in November 2015. Mrs Baldwin was accompanied by the British High Commissioner to India; Lieutenant General Mark Poffley, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff for Military Capability in the UK's Ministry of Defence (MOD); and Sophie Lane Regional Director for India in the Department of International Trade's Defence and Security Organisation (DSO).

UK's defence exports in 2015 were worth 7.7bn making the UK the second highest defence exporter in the world. UK's security exports in 2015 were worth 4b.
Beijing: A Chinese soldier, who was stuck in India for over 50 years after he crossed over the border post 1962 war, today arrived in Beijing with his Indian family members to an emotional reunion with his Chinese kin.

Wang Qi, 77, was received by his close Chinese relatives, besides officials of the China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Indian embassy when he arrived here along with his son, daughter-in-law and grand daughter from Delhi-Beijing flight.

Wang became emotional as he hugged his relatives, their first reunion after he crossed into Indian side over five decades ago. "It was an emotional reunion," an official present at the airport said.

Wang was accompanied by his son Vishnu Wang, 35, daughter-in-law Neha and grand daughter, Khanak Wang. His Indian wife Shushila, however, stayed back.

Indian officials said Wang and family members will be later flown to Xian, the provincial capital in Shaanxi province from where he will be taken to his native village Xue Zhai Nan Cun in the province.

His return became a possibility after India and China worked out modalities for both Wang and his Indian family to travel together to China and later return as per their wish.

Wang was caught when he entered the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962. After his release from prison in 1969, he settled in Tirodi village of Balaghat district in Madhya Pradesh.

Though his story has been published by Indian media several times in the past, a recent BBC TV feature on him was widely picked by the Chinese social media highlighting his plight, prompting the Chinese government to initiate action in coordination with India to facilitate his return.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on February 6 that he was provided a passport to travel to China in 2013 and he was also paid a living allowance. Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui recently spoke to him.

While the Chinese government has provided visas for his family to visit China, India has provided a re-entry visa for Wang to return back if he chooses to.

Indian officials terms the facilitation of the travel of Wang and his family by both sides s positive development, specially at a time when India-China relations were stuck with differences over issues like China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China blocking India's entry into Nuclear Suppliers Group and listing of JeM leader Masood Azhar as terrorist by UN.

Before leaving for Beijing, Vishnu told media in India yesterday that "my father joined the Chinese Army in 1960 and he entered India through the eastern frontier after losing his way in the darkness one night."

He landed in Assam where an Indian Red Cross team handed him over to the Indian Army on January 1, 1963.

"My father spent six years in prisons in Assam, Ajmer, Delhi before the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered his release in March 1969," Vishnu said.

"The Indian government had promised to the court that it will rehabilitate my father. He was taken to Delhi, Bhopal, Jabalpur and then finally handed over to Balaghat police," said his son.

Wang started working as a watchman with a mill and soon his colleagues named him Raj Bahadur, apparently due to his Nepali features, Vishnu said.

Wang's mother died in 2006 but he could not be with his dear ones in the time of grief, Vishnu said.

Three years later he met his nephew Yun Chun, who had come to India as a tourist and narrated his ordeal to him. After returning home, Chun got in touch with Chinese politicians and authorities to bring his uncle home. Finally, he met then Chinese Foreign Minister who helped Wang to get a Chinese passport in March 2013.
Bhopal: Wang Qi, a Chinese prisoner of war who settled in Madhya Pradesh's Balaghat district after his release from jail and raised a family here after marrying an Indian, is all set to fly to his native country after five decades.

Wang, now 77, was caught for entering the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962. He was later released from jail. "Wang with his wife Sushila, and their son Vishnu and two other family members will be flying to China," Balaghat Collector Bharat Yadav said.

He said Wang and his four family members got visa today and they might fly to China tomorrow. This has happened due to the help they received from the Ministry of Home and External Affairs.

Official sources in Beijing said Wang and his family members are expected to arrive here tomorrow.

After their arrival, they would travel to his native place in Shaanxi Province to meet Wang's relatives, they said. The development has come within a week after a delegation from the Chinese Embassy met Wang who had been wanting to visit his country.

"Three officials from Chinese Embassy in India met my father and talked to him for more than one hour. They assured him all possible help to visit China," his son Vishnu (35) had said over phone from Balaghat on February 4.

Wang, who lives with his wife and three children in Tirodi area of Balaghat district, has not been able to visit China for the last five decades for want to permission from Indian government, according to the family. "My father joined the Chinese Army in 1960 and he entered India through the eastern frontier after losing his way in the darkness one night," son Vishnu said.

He landed in Assam where an Indian Red Cross team handed him over to the Indian Army on January 1, 1963. "My father spent six years in prisons in Assam, Ajmer, Delhi before the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered his release in March 1969," Vishnu said.

"The Indian government had promised to the court that it will rehabilitate my father. He was taken to Delhi, Bhopal, Jabalpur and then finally handed over to Balaghat police," said his son.

Wang started working as a watchman with a mill and soon his colleagues named him Raj Bahadur, apparently due to his Nepali features, Vishnu said.

But little did he know that the enemy nation against whom he had waged a war would become his home, where he would raise a family. Wang married Sushila in 1975 but his desire to live a comfortable life was short-lived.

"Soon after my father married my mother, the Indian government stopped his monthly pension of Rs 100," Vishnu, who works with a small business unit as an accountant said.

"My father faced a lot of hardships, wanting to go to China. He tried very hard and even entered into correspondence with the then Prime Ministers but in vain," he said.

According to Vishnu, Wang also moved a plea in Madhya Pradesh High Court in 2009 for going to China but couldn't succeed. "His life has been difficult as he couldn't get Indian citizenship because of his Chinese origin. Hence, he couldn't buy land or avail other facilities," he said.

Home sick Wang's mother died in 2006 but he could not be with his dear ones in the time of grief, Vishnu added.

Three years later he met his nephew Yun Chun, who had come to India as a tourist in New Delhi and narrated his ordeal to him.

After returning home, Chun got in touch with Chinese politicians and authorities to bring his uncle home. Finally, he met then Chinese Foreign Minister who helped Wang to get a Chinese passport in March 2013.
Chennai: Amid desertions by some key leaders, AIADMK General Secretary V K Sasikala on Saturday held discussions with party MLAs supporting her at a resort near Chennai.

Disappointed with the delay in her swearing-in ceremony as Tamil Nadus Chief Minister, Sasikala said her party will launch a different kind of protest from Sunday.

We were patient until now, tomorrow we will protest, Sasikala told the media after her meeting with the MLAs. She said that the delay in her swearing-in was intended to cause a split in her party.

Delaying tactics is an attempt to create divisions in the party. We will take necessary steps, she said.

In the hour-long meeting, she held discussions on the "next course of action", party-backed Jaya Plus TV Channel said.

Sasikala's meeting with the MLAs came hours after she shot off a letter to Governor Vidyasagar Rao seeking appointment by today to meet him along with the legislators supporting her for government formation.

Sasikala's meeting with her supporting MLAs came even as two Lok Sabha MPs and the AIADMK spokesperson left her camp to join Panneerselvam's side.

Last week, she had been elected AIADMK Legislature Party Leader, the first step towards becoming the Chief Minister, but was halted in her path by incumbent O Panneerselvam who raised a banner of revolt alleging he was forced to step down for her.

Sasikala had met the Governor on Thursday and staked claim to form government, but Rao, who also heard Panneerselvam, is yet to take a call.
Dr Shailaja, superintendent of Government Maternity Hospital, Sultan Bazaar, has been appointed the new superintendent of Niloufer Hospital. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: Following the deaths of five women who underwent Cesarean section deliveries at Niloufer Hospital, the services of superintendent Dr C. Suresh Kumar, and resident medical officer Dr K. Usha Rani surrendered to the director of health and medical education.

A three-member committee headed by senior anaesthetologist Dr Deep Raj Singh and two gynaecologists was appointed on February 6. A day later, collector Rahul Bojja was appointed by the state government to conduct an inquiry into the deaths that occurred in the course of a week and to furnish a detailed report within a week. The probe is still under-way.

Dr Shailaja, superintendent of Government Maternity Hospital, Sultan Bazaar, has been appointed the new superintendent of Niloufer Hospital.

The director of medical education and health will file a compliance report to the government immediately, sources told this newspaper.
Bengaluru: The Income Tax department claimed on Saturday to have detected undisclosed income worth Rs 120 crores and seized cash worth Rs 1.10 crores and 10 kgs of gold after it conducted raids on a Congress MLA here earlier this week.

The department had been conducting searches since Thursday on multiple premises related to Hoskote MLA M T B Nagaraj, as part of its investigation into alleged tax evasion charges against him and others.

"The raids conducted in the tax evasion probe case against the Congress MLA resulted in disclosure of unaccounted income exceeding Rs 120 crores. Unexplained cash worth Rs 1.10 crores and 10 kgs gold have also been recovered as part of this action," officials said.

The department found that the undisclosed income was created by way of unaccounted property investment; construction of commercial property, hospital, houses; withdrawal of bogus unsecured loans; and even some cash deposits made on account of renting out convention halls and paying guest accommodation.

Over 3,500 land documents indicating that the Congress lawmaker and his associates allegedly owned 560 acres were also seized, officials said.

The searches were conducted here and in Hoskote, and have now ended.

The taxmen are also probing payments worth Rs 70 crore "received by various independent landlords" connected to the MLA and where no capital gains were paid.

Sources claimed that an instance of claiming exemption of Rs 125 crores related to "running of an SEZ" is also under the scanner of the tax department.

Attempts to get Nagaraj's comments by PTI did not bear fruit.

In a similar instance last month, the department had claimed to have detected undisclosed assets worth over Rs 162 crores and seized Rs 41 lakhs cash, besides over a dozen kg in gold and jewellery after searches were conducted on the premises of Karnataka Minister Ramesh L Jarkiholi and Mahila Congress president Laxmi R Hebbalkar.
Hassan: Two men, who came to the rescue of a girl being teased by a youth from Shravanabelagola, were attacked with a knife by the eve-teaser on Friday. But the locals caught him and gave him a thrashing before handing him over to the police.

Naveen alias Battery of Jinnananthapura in Shravanabelagola allegedly often teased the girl from Kotanaghatta. Seeing her near the KSRTC bus depot on Friday, he once again began to harass her.

But he had not reckoned with the presence of the girl's relatives, Dilip and Anand, who had followed her to the bus depot for her safety and saw Naveen harass her. When they began to question him, Naveen fled from the spot and ran inside an ATM for safety.

But Dilip and Anand gave chase and followed him into it. Cornered, Naveen pulled out a knife and stabbed Dilip on his back and Anand on his fingers before fleeing from the spot.

But he was caught by the people around Masjid Road, who proceeded to thrash him black and blue before handing him over to the police.

As news of the attack spread, people of Kotanaghatta tried to storm the Shravanabelagola hospital where the injured men were being treated, but were prevented by the police.

Responding to the upset villagers, who blamed lack of action by the police for eve-teasing going unchecked in the town, Hassan Superintendent of Police, Rahul Kumar visited the spot and assured the people he would take suitable action to curb eve-teasing in their village.
Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir police on Saturday lifted a siege laid two day back around the house of Kashmiri separatist leader and chief Muslim cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in Srinagars Nigeen area to allow him to visit a private city hospital where his wife Sheeba Masoodi gave birth to a baby boy in the morning.

Mirwaiz, 44, was among key separatist leaders and activists who were placed under house arrest or detained in police stations ahead of the death anniversaries of pro-independence Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Front co-founder Muhammad Maqbool Butt and Parliament attack convict Muhammad Afzal Guru.

Butt, charged with murder of Indian intelligence officer Amar Chand in Bomai area of Sopore in mid-1960s, was executed in Delhi Tihar jail on February 11, 1984. Like Guru, who was hanged to death in the same jail on February 9, 2013, Butts mortal remains were also buried inside the prison premises.

Mirwaiz was allowed to come out of his residence and drive to Modern Hospital in Srinagars Zero Bridge area after he told the officials that he wants to visit his wife and their newborn son.

He married Masoodi, the youngest daughter of Sibtain Masoodi, a Kashmiri doctor who left the Valley in the 1970s and settled in Buffalo (USA) in 2002. The couple has two daughters, Maryam, 8 and Zainab, 6. Soon after the siege was lifted, hundreds of his supporters visited him to congratulate him.

Family sources said that his son is likely to be named Ibrahim or Yusuf, the Quranic names of Abraham and Joseph, respectively.

Meanwhile, clashes between irate crowds and police erupted at a few places in the Valley on Saturday during a general strike called by separatists to commemorate the death anniversary of Butt.

Also, curfew-like restrictions were imposed on Srinagar and some other places outside the summer capital to hold back street protests by separatists. The restrictions and shutdown threw life in the Valley out of gear.

Protests and clashes were reported from Trehgam , the hometown of Butt in frontier Kupwara district, Palhalan village of neighbouring Baramulla district and some parts of Srinagar.

Earlier on Friday, the security forces foiled a march on the summer headquarters of the United Nations Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) in Srinagar's Gupkar Road area called by an alliance of key separatists-Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mriwaiz Umar and Muhammad Yasin Malik. It had asked the people to converge at the City's central square Lal Chowk, the starting point for the proposed march to the UNMOGIP office to present a memorandum demanding the mortal remains of Butt and Guru be returned to their families in Kashmir so that they are give "decent funeral". Malik was arrested by police and sent to Srinagar Central Jail after foiling an attempt by him and activists of his Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front to relocate to Lal Chowk.

The Valley had witnessed a strike on Thursday as well. The security forces had also enforced a lockdown in parts of Srinagar and a couple of other places to hold back protests planned on Gurus anniversary.
Itanagar: Days after a news portal made public the contents of the 60-pages booklets allegedly written by former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Kalikho Pul before committing suicide, his widow Dongwimsai Pul on Saturday demanded that the Centre initiate a CBI inquiry into his death.

The news portal 'The Wire' had on February 8 published the content of the booklet Mera Vichaar (My Thoughts) wherein Pul had allegedly brought corruption charges against Chief Minister Pema Khandu, his deputy Chowna Mein and Tourism Parliamentary Secretary Passang Dorjee Sona.

It went viral in the social media for the last couple of days.

Addressing a press conference here during the day, Dongwimsai demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju initiate a CBI inquiry into her husband's death.

She also demanded that Khandu, Mein and Sona should step down to facilitate a free and fair investigation.

The suicide note which went viral in the last few days is very much authentic and it can be believed to be the original copy of the note left behind by my husband, she claimed.

Pul had committed suicide on August 9 last year and his body was found hanging in the official residence of the chief minister, which he was yet to vacate.

He had taken over the reins of the state on February 19 last year for a brief period with the Supreme Court in July reinstating Nabam Tuki, who then made way for Pema Khandu.
The meat of pangolin and other exotic animals are advertised in a menu of a Chinese restaurant. (Photo : Getty Images News)

There's a renewed call from conservation groups to intensify protection of the Chinese pangolin after a Sina Weibo post showed meat of the endangered species being served to a business delegation from Hong Kong.



Advertisement

The four pictures of the buffet that appeared on social media were taken in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in 2015.



There are around 100,000 pangolins captured every year from across Africa and Asia, with most shipped to China and Vietnam, where their meat and scales are sold. It is believed that these have medicinal qualities.



Pangolin scales are dried and roasted when used in traditional Chinese medicine for relieving palsy, stimulating lactation and draining pus. They are also used to make coats. These scales have a black market price of over $3,000 a kilogram.



The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has all eight species of pangolin on its list of animals endangered with extinction.



The IUCN listed the Chinese pangolin as "critically endangered" in 2014 after population declined by up to 94 percent in 2003 from the 1960s. It is estimated that its population at 50,000 to 100,000.



Traffic China recommended that the Chinese government should fortify the management of the animal on top of upgrading it from the list of second-class protected species to first-class.



Wu Shibao, a professor at South China Normal University who has devoted himself to pangolin protection since 1995, said the Chinese pangolin is already extinct in the wild. He added that some hunters told him they haven't seen a pangolin in the wilderness for three decades.



However, Wu is positive about the pangolin's future considering that the giant pandas and Tibetan antelope were saved from the brink of extinction.



According to one of the authors of the review, it is more difficult to protect the Chinese pangolin that the likes of the giant panda since the majority of China's zoos or rescue centers or zoos are not properly trained on how to keep pangolins alive and energize reproduction.


New Delhi: The Delhi HC on Friday asked the Centre to allow the wife of the BSF jawan, who went public alleging poor quality food being served to soldiers, to meet and stay with him for two days at the base where he is posted at present. ASG Sanjay Jain informed the Bench that BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav is not under any illegal confinement and he has been shifted to another battalion.
Kochi: Two Keralites have got a new lease of life after the family of a brain-dead woman from West Bengal donated her kidneys at a private hospital here.

Kajori Bose, a woman tourist, was declared brain-dead at VPS Lakeshore Hospital, where she was undergoing treatment.

The 55-year-old, a resident of Behala in Kolkata, would probably be Kerala's first organ donor from outside the state, doctors said.

"What is laudable is that initiation for transplantation of organs came first from her family after she was declared brain-dead yesterday," Dr H Ramesh, who led a team of doctors for transplantation, said.

Hospital authorities said the woman, who was on a tour along with her family in Alappuzha, suffered breathlessness and collapsed inside a house boat on January 24.

Though she was first rushed to a private hospital in Thathampilly, Alppuzha, later shifted to VPS Lakeshore Hospital.

Hospital authorities said the woman's husband came forward to donate the organs.

"We decided to donate her kidneys as it would save life of two people and it will also help us to keep her memory alive. Usually people donate organs if brain death happens in their hometown, Deviprasad Bose, husband of Kajori Bose, is quoted as saying a release here.

"We hope that our decision to donate organs will encourage people to donate organs of the near and dear ones even if brain death happens irrespective of any part of the country," it said.

The kidneys were transplanted into Philip T A (55) of Anchal in Kollam and Makkar T M (61) of Mulavoor in Ernakulam at the same hospital yesterday.

Ramesh said the recipients were selected from those who were registered in Kerala Network for Organ Sharing Mrithasanjeevani, an online transplant registry of patients on waiting list for kidney, liver, heart and pancreas transplants in the state initiated by the state government.

The woman's body will be taken to her native place in a flight after embalming it at Ernakulam General Hospital.
AIADMK General Secretary VK Sasikala presenting the letter of presumably the MLAs support to her candidate to stake claim during the meeting with Tamil Nadu Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao at Raj Bhavan in Chennai. (Photo: PTI)

Chennai: In another setback to AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala, Tamil Nadu school education minister Pandiarajan, Namakkal MP PR Sundaram and Krishnagiri MP Ashok Kumar joined Chief Minister O Panneerselvams camp.

Pandiarajan is the first cabinet minister to join Panneerselvam camp.

Pandiarajan, the suave face of the AIADMK, arrived at the Greenways Road residence of Panneerselvam with his supporters and joined his group in the presence of other dissident leaders, including former Minister K P Munsamy and Rajya Sabha MP V Maithreyan.

"My belief is that here is the man who has captured the hearts of the masses. Amma's legacy will continue to rest on his able shoulders and that is the reason I am here," Pandiarajan said.

"We are here as followers of Puratchi Thalaivi Amma," he said, adding that the "spirit of the masses" would carry the party through.

"This is the voice of the collective," he said, referring to support for Panneerselvam.

"Every other MP and MLA will see the writing on the wall and will be right here," Pandiarajan said

To a question, he said "we have no doubt about Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao's impartiality."

Stating that if a non-member of the Assembly were to be sworn in Chief Minister, he or she should have the scope to get elected to the House within six months, he said "the Governor should evaluate this aspect and we believe he is doing it."

He expressed confidence that the caretaker government would transform into a permanent regime.

Hours before he joined hands with Panneerselvam, Pandiarajan had said he would listen to the voice of his voters.

"Will surely listen to the collective voice of my voters & decide in a way to uphold the dignity of Amma's memory & unity of AIADMK," he had tweeted.

Welcoming Pandiarajan, Pannerselvam said "let us all unite and slog and guard the people."

Thanking Pandiarajan, the Chief Minister, in a veiled attack on Sasikala and her family, said "let us work and stop the party and government slipping into the hands of a family."

Pandiarajan had been criticising Panneerselvam till recently. He had alleged that Panneerselvam was instigated by opposition DMK to split the party.

Meanwhile, Sasikala, who is backed by majority of MLAs so far, wrote a letter to Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao questioning the delay in oath-taking ceremony and asked him to "act immediately to save" the sovereignty of the Constitution and democracy.

Governor is of the view that it would not be prudent to call VK Sasikala to form a government now in view of the impending Supreme Court judgement in the corruption case in which she is an accused, sources said.

A day after meeting the leaders of the warring factions, the Governor sent his detailed assessment of the extraordinary situation in Tamil Nadu to the Centre which, according to reliable sources, may have dashed Sasikalas immediate hopes of being sworn-in as chief minister.

It is believed the Governor has also concluded that there should be a reasonable guarantee that the person who is not a member of the Assembly should have the ability to be elected to the Assembly within six months of being named as CM.

The Governor is reported to have said in his assessment: Even when there is iota of doubt about the ability of the person to get elected to Assembly within six months, Article 164 (4) has to be interpreted as a restriction/disqualification as contained in the interpretation of Supreme Court mentioned above.

The report is said to acknowledge the fact that the Governor is also bound by Constitution to satisfy himself that a person staking claim would form a stable government. In view of the impending judgement in the DA case as uncertainty exists about the qualification of VK Sasikala to become MLA.

The source who revealed the Governors thinking and his possible line of action also said pending court cases have been mentioned as an impediment to calling the particular person now.

The decision means that without the concurrence of the Centre or instructions to the contrary, the Governor will first await the SC judgement in the Sasikala case and so is in no hurry to either invite, O. Panneerselvam or Sasikala for a show of strength. A peculiar situation in this case, the Governor is said to have stated in his report, is the resolution of the AIADMK legislators actually proposed by O. Pannerselvam.

In the resolution given by V.K. Sasikala it is seen that it is mooted because O. Pannerselvam informed Sasikala of his resignation having being submitted to Governor.

It is also noted that O. Pannerselvam has proposed the resolution and also signed the same. Now Pannerselvam has stated that he was constrained, forced and coerced to sign the resignation letter under duress and therefore requested to rescind any action taken thereon.

The current situation in Tamil Nadu presents a unique set of constitutional issues with no precedent of this kind. Here is a person who stakes claim to form the government based on the resolution passed at a meeting of the party legislators. But she is not a legislator of the Assembly. Hence it is not a straight case under Article 164 (1) but has to be considered under Article 164 (1) read with Article 164 (4).

Rao, who has sent a detailed report to Centre on the developments in TN, also asserted that since OPS is the caretaker CM, there is no vacuum and hence there is no need for being unduly alarmed.
Hyderabad: The city will soon get another pollution control agency. A nod has been given for the setting up of an Air Authority on the lines of the Clean Authority of Tokyo. This authority will have statutory powers and will mainly be concerned with air pollution. However, noise and water pollution will be included in its jurisdiction. After municipal administration minister K.T. Rama Rao visited Japan, he proposed the setting up of a similar authority for Hyderabad. The new agency will be headed by the state chief secretary and include the heads of all the departments.

The contributory factors of pollution, rules of solid waste management and the guidelines of the Tokyo Clean Air Authority would also be studied for preparing the concept note. A committee was constituted to prepare a concept note and submit it by February 15. This committee would prepare a note on the creation of a model Act, and define the structure and jurisdiction of the proposed authority, said minister KT Rama Rao.

Municipal administration secretary Navin Mittal said while the pollution control board (PCB) would function as a regulatory and enforcement agency, the proposed authority would look after planning, coordination and implementation.
Hyderabad: Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and several states are showing keen interest in Mission Kakatiya, irrigation minister T. Harish Rao said.

Asking officials to complete projects on time, Mr Harish Rao said a five-member delegation from Maharashtra would visit the state on February 13 to see the Mission Kakatiya works.

The team will see the revival of defunct irrigation tanks. They will interact with Mission Kakatiya officials, Mr Rao said. He said the visit of the Tamil Nadu delegation had been postponed following the sudden demise of Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

He said noted scientist M.S. Swaminathan had praised the project, which had received appreciation from aboard. Mr Harish Rao said about 11,000 of the planned 46,531 tanks had been revived.

The first phase cost Rs 5,700 crore and Rs 1800 crore had been spent on the second phase. We have provided irrigation to 15 lakh acres, he said. Mr Harish Rao released a documentary, Punar Nirmanam and said the project would help revive the rural economy.
A special bed was created by local Egyptian artisans in requirements with the safety precautions as laid out by the Egypt Air for her safe transport. (Photo: AFP)

Mumbai: Eman Ahmed (36), arguably the heaviest woman in the world weighing at 500kg, arrived in the city on Saturday. A special crane was used by Saifee Hospital to carry her bed inside the hospital.

The crane was prepared according to the requirements for Ms Ahmeds surgery, which is scheduled after the required tests and observations are completed, the medical team who is treating Ms Ahmed said.

The Airbus 300-600 of Egypt Air, which landed in Mumbai Aiport at 4 am, was modified according to Ms Ahmeds requirements. Ms Ahmed, along with her sister was brought out from gate number five, which is the cargo section of the international airport.

As a precautionary measure, the flight was furnished with all the equipment required in case of an emergency such as portable ventilator, portable defibrillator, oxygen cylinders, intubating laryngoscopes and other drugs.

A medical team and officials loaded the specially designed bed for Ms Ahmed on an open truck, which was escorted by an ambulance and police van to Saifee Hospital.

A team of two doctors along with Ms Ahmeds took five hours to reach Mumbai from her hometown in Egypt  Alexandria. No medical complications occured during the flight to India.

Top officials including Egyptian consulate general Ahmed Khalil were present until Ms Ahmed was safely admitted in the hospital. The hospital will be treating Ms Ahmed for free, which includes both the treatment and surgeries. Meanwhile, the hospital refused to comment anything for now, saying that they will comment in detail on Monday.
Bhanwarlal said the notification would be issued on February 13 for five MLC seats in AP and one in in TS.

Hyderabad: Having waited for long for nominated posts, many TRS leaders are now are now eye MLC tickets. While the party has nominated Mr Katepally Janardhan Reddy for the Mahbubnagar-Ranga Reddy-Hyderabad teachers constituency election on March 29, elections will be held to six other sets.

Three MLC seats from the Assembly quota will fall vacant; these are currently held by Mr M. Ranga Reddy (Congress), Mr V. Gangadhar Goud (TRS) and Mr Syed Altaf Hyder Razvi (MIM).

The term of two nominated MLCs, Mr D Rajeswara Rao and Mr Farooq Hussain (TRS), will end soon, and the local bodies seat represented by Mr Syed Amin Jafri (MIM) will fall vacant.

Since Opposition leaders defected to the ruling party and are now now TRS MLCs, it has to be seen whether Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will renominate sitting members or select fresh candidates in the elections.

Many TRS leaders have been waiting since the formation of the state, including some who are holding key posts, are eyeing MLC tickets. Though Mr Rao will take the decision, everyone is trying their luck, a senior TRS leader said.

It is learnt that among the aspirants are Mr Devi Prasad, Mr Desapati Srinivas, Mr Erolla Srinivas, Mr Mynampally Hanum-antha Rao, Mr Rajaiah Yadav and Mr Kaveti Sammaiah.

Many are eyeing seat held by Mr Ranga Reddy. Assembly quota seats and those nominated by the Governor will always be in demand since there are no hassles and no contest, another TRS leader said. The aspirants are lobbying with top ministers.
Hyderabad: Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday said the BJP had no intention of meddling in the ongoing political turmoil in Tamil Nadu.

We do not have a member in the Assembly. Where is the question of the BJP doing anything (there)? We are not part of the government, Mr Venkaiah Naidu told mediapersons here on Saturday.

Stating the power struggle in Tamil Nadu was an internal affair of the AIADMK, he said the people wanted a leader who could take forward the ideology of the late Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

We feel sad about what is happening within that party. How to go about... they should decide. As far as the Governor is concerned, he is bound by the Constitution. He will do, he will go by the book and he will go by precedence. He will go by legal opinions. The BJP is not interfering in the internal affairs of that party, he said.

The BJP, he said, had always maintained a good relationship with AIADMK when Jayalalithaa was alive and would continue to do so.

He lambasted the Congress for targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that if general elections were held now, the BJP will win over 300 seats. He said the party had not learnt its lesson even after repeatedly losing elections.

The Congress is unable to digest the growing popularity of the PM and is resorting to a dirty smear campaign, he said. He said the BJP was committed to categorisation of SCs into A, B, C and D groups.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao could not get an appointment with the Prime Minister last week due to busy campaign schedule. It took a political turn, but that is not the case. Due to the busy election schedule, he might not have got appointment, Mr Naidu said. He said that Mr Rao would meet Mr Modi soon.
Hyderabad: Students from seven Muslim nations  Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  are of the view that courts will apply brakes on President Trumps plans to ban entry of citizens from their countries into the United States. They are not worried about the likelihood of them losing educational opportunities since the doors are open for them in several countries including India. Nearly a thousand students from these countries have enrolled in different UG, PG and Ph. D courses this academic year in Osmania University.

Somalia born Ifrah Omar Warsame, doing her BA final year in Nizam College, said, Students from Somalia go to Asian countries like India and Malaysia as to Canada, Germany, Fran-ce and the US. In case of restrictions in one country, students are free to explore alternative destinations. Varsity officials spoke to international students to find out what was on their mind. Students are not losing their sleep over the issue and they are not Ame-rica-bound either. Also, they feel Trumps decision will not stand in co-urt since America is a country of immigrants, Prof. GB Reddy, director, University Foreign Relations Office, said.
Hyderabad: Taking advantage of the Government's push for cashless transactions, banks have increased their transaction charges substantially. Withdrawals from ATMs, using cards at petrol bunks, online transfers to other bank customers, and outstation cheque transactions will all cost more now. Though the central government has announced 0.75 per cent of money back on transaction charges imposed at petrol bunks for debit card usage, banks are collecting one per cent and refunding 0.75 per cent in one or two days to the account of the bank customer. Transactions through credit cards at petrol outlets are being charged at 2.5 per cent.

Consumer activist Thakur Rajkumar Singh said that the cashless transaction system has become very complicated due to the hidden and transaction charges. When I went shopping for garments, a board at the cash counter stated non-acceptance of Andh-ra Bank and SBI cards. Some retailers are still demanding 2 per cent extra charge on card transactions, which is illegal, he said.

He added that For more than five ATM withdrawals with the home bank and three withdrawals with other banks, banks charge `20 per transaction. We have written a letter to the ce-ntral government to lift the transaction charges in the cashless system. Advocates B. Yogesw-ara Rao and T. Venkata Ramana, who deal with consumer related cases, said that banks are looting bank customers. They said that when manual banking was the norm 15 years ago, banks used to collect a transaction fee up to `100 for outstation cheques. Now all banks have technology that ensures money is transferred at a click.

But banks are still collecting the same charges. The lawyers say some banks are even charging Rs 150 per cheque transaction. The action of the banks is not encouraging custo-mers to go cashless. If the central government wants to encourage the cashless system, it sho-uld cancel transaction charges on cashless payments and should imp-ose the same on cash payments, they said.

M Madhu Latha, a techie from Madhapur, said that the looting by banks will take the transaction system back two decades. "Now, no transaction charges on withdrawals from banks and bank customers are rushing to banks and filling up of green/yellow/pink forms for withdrawing money against utilising ATM as banks imposed conditions on free transactions," she said. Now, because there is no transaction charge on cheque withdrawals from banks, customers are rushing to withdraw money that way instead of through ATMs on which conditions have been imposed regarding the number of transactions that are free," she said.

Youre being charged to encash reward points:

All banks have started collecting transaction/handling charges towards redemption of reward points on special cards like i-mint, payback etc. Before January 1, 2017, there was no charge when redeeming points at e-commerce and m-commerce sites and on-line shopping applications. The reward points scheme is to motivate card users to make online transactions instead of cash payments.

But, all banks integrated with reward cards have begun charging handling/transaction fee for converting points to cash. GVR Kishore, a techie from the city, said that the transaction charge on redemption of points is discouraging those who regularly use cards to pay for shopping. "I have a mobile app for recharging my mobile and mostly I convert my points to cash with the app. Recently, when I opened the app, it automatically converted my points into cash worth Rs 20 while my bank charged me Rs 25 towards handling charges! Since January 1, banks are charging Rs 25 every time when converting my points into cash," he said.
The proposed policies include incentives in education, employment and state benefits. (Photo : Getty Images)

China's office that is responsible for cross-Straits relations has urged Taiwan in improving the safety across its whole tourism sector. They also urged Taiwan to take measures in ensuring the safety of travelers from mainland China.



Local media reports stated that Taiwan's transportation authority will raise the daily quota for Chinese tourists from 5,000 to 6,000. They will also raise the number of days that tourists can stay from 15 days to 30 days.



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Taiwan did this after statistics showed a drop in the number of mainland tourists visiting over the Spring Festival.



According to an annual list of most popular destinations for outbound tourists published by online travel agency Ctrip, Taiwan's rank dropped from fifth to ninth in 2016.



Data from Taiwan's Travel Agent Association showed that the number of mainland visitors had dropped by 20 percent during the Spring Festival compared to last year.



An Fengshan, a spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, stated that the reason for the decline was "quite clear" and would only be reversed through improving the cross-Straits relations.



"The decline in mainland tourists has affected Taiwan's tourism industry and its economy," said Zhu Songling, a professor at the Institute of Taiwan Studies of Beijing Union University.



The relations between China and Taiwan have been tense ever since Tsai Ing-wen took office as Taiwan's new President on May 20.



Tsai failed to acknowledge the one-China Policy, suspending the official channels of cross-Straits communication.



According to Ma Xiaoguang, another spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, "The 1992 Consensus has damaged all the hard work toward peaceful relations across the Taiwan Straits. Whoever started the trouble should end it."



The situation of the relations was further compounded when Donald Trump, the current U.S. president, challenged the one-China policy by taking a congratulatory call from Tsai. She called shortly after Trump won the presidential elections.



The Foreign Ministry of China has called on the new U.S. administration to limit its relationship with Taiwan to a nonofficial level and stick to the one-China principle.


Hyderabad: Ministers are making a beeline to New Delhi to meet Union ministers and Central government officials after Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao told them to recover arrears pertaining to the schemes implemented by their respective departments. He told the ministers at a Cabinet meet that their performance would be assessed based on this parameter.

Deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari, ministers A. Indrakaran Reddy, P. Mahender Reddy and Jogu Ramanna have visited Delhi during the past week. Ministers C. Laxma Reddy and Jupally Krishna Rao plan to go to the Capital next week.

The CM said state was yet to receive nearly Rs 1,100 crore to implement Centrally sponsored schemes and this was because of the failure of the respective departments which failed to submit utilisation certificates to the Centre in time to seek funds.

The Centre sponsors 64 schemes in which it gives up to 70 per cent funds; the rest is borne by the state government. The government needs to submit utilisation certificates to the Centre periodically to claim funds in instalments.

The government estimated that it would receive Rs 7,800 crore from the Centre in 2016-17 but has received only Rs 6,700 crore. With the current fiscal set to end in 50 days, Mr Rao asked ministers to act quickly.

The arrears pertain to TRS government's flagship programmes like 2BHK houses for the poor, Mission Bhagiratha, Mission Kakatiya. The government is heavily dependent on bank loans to implement these projects. Failure to secure funds from the Centre is imposing a heavy financial burden in the form of interest on loans, said an official in the finance department.
Lucknow: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, on Saturday, responded to Prime Minister Narendra Modis raincoat in bathroom remark and said that the latter liked peeping into others bathrooms.

Addressing a joint press conference with UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in which the two alliance partners released a joint manifesto, Mr Gandhi said, I understand that Modiji likes to read horoscopes, search google, make people stand in queues and peep into bathrooms of others, but he remains a failure as a Prime Minister. He can peep into bathrooms in his free time.

Mr Akhilesh Yadav also joined the Congress vice- president in attacking the Prime Minister. In an obvious reference to Mr Modi, the Chief Minister said, Some people do mann ki baat but no kaam ki baat (all talk, no work).

The CM also had a word of advice for the PM when he said, It is not healthy to be so angry because it reveals your nervousness, he said in an apparent reference to the Prime Minister statement on Friday in which he warned the Congress saying, Hold your tongue, I have your entire janampatri (horoscope).
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam being greeted by his supporters at his residence in Chennai. (Photo: PTI)

CHENNAI: Six senior leaders  school education minister 'MaFoi K. Pandiarajan, three MPs and spokesman C. Ponnaiyan  on Saturday extended support to Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, while AIADMK general secretary V.K. Sasikala warned of a different kind of protest since her patience has run out.

Stung by the OPS team gaining more traction with four LS MPs  P.R. Sundaram, K. Ashok Kumar, V. Sathyabama and Vanaroja  extending their support, Ms Sasikala met legislators lodged at the Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur and expressed confidence that she has the numbers.

After Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao did not respond to her letter seeking an appointment to parade her legislators, Ms Sasikala issued a veiled warning to the Centre and the constitutional head of the state accusing them of delaying the government formation only to split the AIADMK. We have been patient till today and we will protest in a different way from tomorrow, she said.

Police question Sasikala MLAs

Kancheepuram district administration and police on Saturday morning inspected the Golden Bay resorts in Kuvathur and village retreat resort in Mahabalipuram where a good number of AIADMK MLAs, reportedly belonging to Sasikala camp, are staying. The officers interacted with all of them to know whether they were forced to stay at the resort or were there at their own will.

A team consisting of Cheyyur tahsildar Ramachandran and additional superintendent of police Tamil Selvan visited the resorts, where the MLAs, are staying since Wednesday night, from 6.30 am on Saturday.

We visited the resort and took statements from MLAs staying there. We are supposed to submit a detailed report to the court by Monday. We are preparing the report, one of the officials part of the inspecting team said.

It may be noted that over dozen MLAs staying in Golden Bay resort had told the media on Friday that they were not confined there. Police and district administration were asked to interact with the legislators staying in the two resorts to file a report in the court by February 13.

When a petition, regarding the whereabouts of MLAs, came up for hearing on Friday at the high court, public prosecutor had asked time till Monday to find out where about of the legislators and to submit report.

By Saturday evening, after AIADMK general secretary visited the MLAs staying at the Kuvathur resort, additional police force were deployed in the area. Meanwhile, security has been beefed up in the city with intensified patrolling and checking of places of accommodation to prevent anti-social elements from creating any law and order issues, police said.

The measures come at a time when political uncertainty has gripped the state following Chief Minister Panneerselvams revolt against AIADMK chief V.K. Sasikala.
Since the inception of Uttarakhand this seat has always been won by the BJP.

Yamkeshwar: Yamkeshwar Assembly constituency in Pauri district is witnessing an interesting contest between dynasty and a party hopper. Ritu Khanduri the daughter of former Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Maj. Gen. B.C. Khanduri is contesting on a BJP ticket.

Besides being the former Chief Minister of the state her father is also the sitting Lok Sabha MP from Garhwal in which Yamkeshwar falls. But the contest is certainly not one sided, she is facing stiff competition from the Congress candidate and the independents.

Since the inception of Uttarakhand this seat has always been won by the BJP. In the 2017 election the BJP denied its sitting MLA Vijaya Barthwal a ticket but instead gave it to Ritu.

This caused a major rebellion in the ranks and Vijaya went ahead and filed her nomination as an independent candidate. Senior leadership of the BJP intervened and eventually persuaded Vijaya to withdraw her nomination and throw her weight behind Ritu.

Vijaya Barthwal has been an MLA from this seat since 2002 and has been a minister in the state. Officially Vijaya is not contesting but insiders feel she is neither campaigning effectively for the BJP candidate.

Sensing an opportunity in the Congress dropped its 2012 candidate Renu Bisht and gave the ticket to a BJP rebel Shailendra Singh Rawat. Though Shailendra hails from the neighbouring constituency of Kotdwar, he has sizeable influence in Yamkeshwar too. Shailendra was upset with BJP as he was once again denied a ticket.
ALAPPUZHA: Dowry death cases are on the increase in Kerala, the most literate state. Women are subjected to physical and mental torture by husbands and in-laws for bringing more dowry, including cash, jewellery, clothes and cars. The Malayalis greed for instant money and wealth may be the reason for such a despicable state of affairs, it is said. As per last years crime statistics available with Kerala police, 24 women either committed suicide or were murdered following dowry-related incidents. The figure was just seven in 2015. The conviction rate in dowry death cases is low. Rasiya, 26, Valiyamaram ward of Alappuzha municipality, set herself ablaze on May 12, 2012 after six years of torture by her in-laws and husband for dowry. Though the south police here registered a case against her husband Haseeb and others involved, no justice had been meted to them so far, said her brother A. Anas. She took the extreme step after she was detained by the accused in the house and barred from meeting her parents, it is stated.

The laws prohibiting dowry and dowry harassment have not been effective in the state. Though it is illegal to give or take dowry under the dowry prohibition Act (1969), the practice is prevalent in all sections of society. The justice system takes years to punish the guilty. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 87 per cent of dowry deaths in the country are pending in courts. More than 83 per cent of the cases registered under the dowry prohibition Act are pending trial. This is when the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, assures special protection for the victims. The women should show the courage to stand up for their rights, Ms K.C. Rosakutty, chairperson, Kerala Women's Commission, said. There is nothing to be ashamed of divorce if needed. If a woman cant adjust with in-laws and husband, she has to take a call on married life. Suicide is not a remedy, she said. The parents of the victimised woman often force her to patch up with the culprits to maintain their honour. But it lands her in adverse situations. Effective implementation of dowry prohibition Act can save several women on the verge of suicide, she added.

The number of dowry victims may be higher as they are reluctant to lodge complaints. I know scores of women who do not go to the police station fearing that it would spell the end of their married life, she said. The commission had submitted a proposal to the government in June 2015 seeking regulations to provide help to the brides, including at least120 grams of gold. But it has not been considered, she said. A total of 24,771 dowry deaths were reported in the country in the past three years with the maximum number occurring in Uttar Pradesh with 7,048. In a written reply in the Lok Sabha in July 2015, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said that 8,233 cases were registered under section 304B of the Indian Penal Code (dowry death) in the country in 2012, 8,083 in 2013 and 8,455 in 2014 . Ms J. Devika, associate professor, Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram, and noted feminist, opined that women should be made independent financially and intellectually. The girls should be given moral and emotional support by the parents. An emergency phone service that connects all authorities concerned should be set up so that the victimised women can contact them at a critical time, she said.
Thiruvananthapuram: The district administration issued a notice to the Kerala Law Academy Law College on Friday asking the management to remove the gate at the main entrance of the college which is constructed on puramboke' land. This was done following a directive from Revenue Minister E. Chandrasekharan, who had asked district collector S. Venkateshpathi to take steps to retrieve the government land diverted for non- educational purposes.

Meanwhile, Kerala University Vice-Chancellor P.K. Radhakrishnan said that the decision on the status of the law academy should be taken at the earliest as Governor P. Sathasivam had asked a report on it. He was speaking at the syndicate meeting on Friday on the basis of the questions raised by syndicate member and KPC treasurer Johnson Abraham. The confusion was because the college was given affiliation in 1968-69 before the concept of self-financing colleges was introduced in the state.

However, the college stayed away from the direct payment agreement in 1972 which all aided colleges had entered into for ensuring that the salary of teachers and non teaching staff was paid by the government. It was only in 2001 that self-financing colleges were sanctioned by the A.K. Antony government. The government has initiated steps to identify whether changes were made in the bylaw of the law academy for changing the pattern of the original governing council. They are also ascertaining whether such changes were officially registered.

The revenue minister told Deccan Chronicle that the government had initiated steps at three levels. At one level, the law department has been asked to look into the legal aspects of the recommendations of the report submitted by revenue principal secretary P.H. Kurian on the land belonging to the college. The district collector has been asked to identify any encroachment. The registration department will look into the issues related to the changes made in the bylaw, Mr Chandrasekharan said.
Kochi: The Kerala police have asked the State Water Transport Department (SWTD) to temporarily withdraw the countrys first solar ferry boat from operation and subject it to dry-dock inspection to facilitate the collection of forensic evidence as part of the probe into the alleged sabotage attempt against it over a week ago. Unidentified miscreants had removed the rudder installation of the solar boat, deployed on the 2.5-km Vaikom-Tavanakkadavu route, on February 1, putting in danger the lives of hundreds of commuters. The rudder device is used to change the direction and control the boat.

The forensic wing has handed over a letter to the SWTD director for dry-dock inspection of the boat. This is a crucial part of the probe to ascertain whether the incident was a mishap or a sabotage attempt, said Vaikom Sub-Inspector M. Shahid. The SWTD had filed a complaint with the Kottayam Superintendent of Police while terming the sabotage attempt as deliberate to prevent the first such venture turning into a success and the subsequent roll-out of more solar ferries. The state had handed over a request to the Union Renewable Energy Ministry to allot funds for rolling out 10 more solar ferries on January 12.

Weve received the letter from the forensic wing and also from the ports department for facilitating the dry-dock inspection. Its a tedious process and involves making a special docking plan and getting the approval of the same from authorities like IRS (Indian Register of Shipping). It would also mean the suspension of services for nearly a month, said an SWTD official. The department has convened a special meet on Monday to take a decision on when to withdraw the service and adhere to the requirement of the police.
Lucknow: Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over raincoat remark about former PM Manmohan Singh, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said the Prime Minister loves surfing on Google, reading horoscopes and peeping into people's bathrooms.

Modi likes to read 'janampatri', search Google and peep into bathrooms of people...but he is a failure as PM; he will get a jolt from results of Uttar Pradesh polls, Rahul said.

Congress and BJP were locked in fiery exchanges inside and outside Parliament over Narendra Modi's remark that one should learn the art of "bathing with a raincoat on" from Manmohan Singh as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams having taken place during his regime.

For almost 35 years, Manmohan Singh ji had a lot of influence on country's economic policies. Politicians have a lot to learn from him (Manmohan Singh). So much has happened (corruption scandals) during UPA rule, but there is not a single taint on him. Bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on is an art only Dr Sahib (Manmohan Singh) can know of, the PM had said in the Parliament on Thursday.

Continuing his tirade against the Prime Minister, Gandhi said the former resorts to the strategy of 'distraction' when he does not have answers to questions. "Narendra Modi's strategy is distraction...He uses this strategy when he doesn't have answers. Modi ji has failed cent percent in the past 2.5 years," Rahul said.

Condemning the Prime Minister for not fulfilling his promises, Gandhi said, "Prime Minister promised employment to two crore people every year. Not even percent has been accomplished."

Under attack from Congress over his remarks, Modi had also warned the grand-old party that he has a detailed dossier on them. Hold your tongue, I have your entire horoscope. I do not want to abandon reason and propriety, but if you abandon reason and propriety and speak nonsense, your history will always chase you, your evil deeds, your sins will always chase you, Modi had said on Friday at an election rally in Haridwar.

Taking a swipe at Modi, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said, Anyone's 'janmpatri' is just a click away in this age of Internet. PM and BJP should not mislead people and come forward and tell what they have given to the state which has elected all prominent NDA leaders.

Rahul and Samajwadi President Akhilesh Yadav released the Common Minimum Programme at a joint press conference in Lucknow.

The programme includes ten points of commitment to the people of Uttar Pradesh, such as free smart phones to youth, employment to 20 lakh youth, loan waiver to farmers, reduction of power tariff, pension schemes for poor, better infrastructure, cycle to girls who will fall under merit list, 33 percent reservation to women in government jobs, free residence to Dalits and backward class poor.

Refuting the speculations of any rift between the Samajwadi Party and Congress, Gandhi asserted both the parties are coordinating with each other. On 99 per cent of 403 seats there is no problem and issues are being resolved on the remaining seats...we are fighting polls together and it is wrong to say that there no coordination in alliance, said Rahul.

The Congress vice-president assured that they will develop Uttar Pradesh and bring about a change in the state. We want a government of the youth and vision...these ten points in the joint programme are foundations of development, said Rahul.

No need for emotions and anger...these are elections for growth and prosperity of the state, Akhilesh said.

To a question on prominent Muslim clerics like Maulana Ahmed Bukhari and Kalbe Jawwad extending support to BSP, Akhilesh said personal issues should not be manifested at the political level.

"One maulana earlier used to seek votes for BJP and is now backing BSP. Is he working towards an alliance between the two parties? As far as the second maulana is concerned you can ask him personally he will give his blessings to the two of us," he said.

To a question on whether this alliance will remain intact in the future too, Rahul said, "This is also an alliance of joint vision. We have not come together just for forming a government in UP but also to transform the state."

Reality is that the voters understand that the alliance is going to sweep these elections and change Uttar Pradesh, he said.

To a question on "lack of coordination" in the alliance, especially on certain seats where both parties are in contest, Rahul said, "On 99 per cent of 403 seats there is no problem and issues are being resolved on the remaining seats...we are fighting elections together...it is wrong to say there is no coordination in alliance."

"We want that the government is a set up of youths with a vision...while other parties do not talk about foundation...these 10 points in the joint programme are foundations of development," Rahul stressed.

"We also want that the state get a government of all and everyone feels that it is their government...we will help farmers and give jobs to youths," he said.

Akhilesh said he was happy with initial voting trend in the first phase of polling. "First votes went to SP-Congress alliance and so the alliance will be ahead," he said.

In a dig at BSP chief Mayawati, Akhilesh referred to statues of elephants and stone memorials built in her tenure and said, "Pattharwali sarkar bhi ab development ki baat kar rahi hai...yeh alliance ka impact hai."
Vijayawada: YSRC MLA RK Roja on Saturday said she was detained by the police when she arrived at the Vijayawada airport to participate in the National Women's Parliament which began on Friday.

Roja alleged that the Assistant Commissioner of Police told her they were taking her to a hotel and detained her instead.

At the airport, the ACP very proudly told me that they were sending me to a hotel. From 8.50 am to 10.20 am I was made to wait and then was packed in a police van with protection and taken to Ongole by road, she said.

Roja alleged that she was invited to the National Women's Parliament by a legislator and then was arrested at the airport. She attacked Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and asked why she was invited to the event at all.

Are they (TDP) scared of us? she asked in a video she recorded in the police van while she was being taken to an undisclosed location.

"They are spending close to Rs 11 crore for the event and invited many legislators from all over the country. But they do not want me at the venue. If they are so scared, they should not have invited me," she added.

YSRC legislators have attacked the TDP government over Rojas detention and reportedly even staged a protest in Vijayawada.
Thiruvananthapuram: CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan on Friday alleged that BJP and Congress used the 29-day strike at Law Academy to destabilise the LDF Government in the state. In an article in the party mouthpiece Deshabhimani, the CPM state secretary lashed out at the opposition. Congress and UDF fell into the trap laid by the RSS in the Law Academy issue, he said, adding that the Law Academy agitation was uncalled for. In an indirect reference to CPI, Kodiyeri said other parties too fell into the trap of BJP. The LDF government was a model before the country and nothing that damaged its reputation should be done from within the front.

It is now clear that the Congress had backed the BJP-sponsored agitation in Law Academy to weaken the left government. It seems the BJP and Congress are mutually agreed upon such issues to rally against the LDF, he said. Kodiyeri said the Law Academy agitation sounded a warning that the Congress, League, BJP (Kolibi) alliance could emerge in the state at any time. He refuted the allegations that there were sharp differences between CPIM and CPI and within the government. The two parties are strengthening joint struggles not only in Kerala but across the country.

However, what was witnessed during the Law Academy agitation was the open display of UDFs affection for BJP. Senior Congress leader A K Antony, Muslim League leader Hyderali Shihab Thangal and P K Kunhalikutty came to the agitation pandal of BJP and blessed their leaders. That was the kind of camaraderie on display in Peroorkada. V.M. Sudheeran had earlier refused to come along with the Left to fight against Centres demonetisation decision. Meanwhile, CPI state secretariat Kanam Rajendran said he did not believe that Kodiyeris advise was directed at them. We dont require anyones advise, he said.
U.S. visa denial (Photo : Getty Images)

The current U.S. administration has shortened the expiration period of visa renewal without interview for Chinese citizens from 48 months to 12 months. Experts believe that this is linked to the determination of current U.S. President Donald Trump to restrain illegal immigration.



A published note on the website of the U.S. embassy in China has been changed. It now says: "If Chinese citizens previously received a U.S. visa that expired within the last 12 months and they are returning to the country for the same purpose of travel, they may be able to obtain a visa without coming to the consulate for an interview."



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Previously, it was indicated as 48 months.



According to an agent that provides visa services, this change will make it harder for Chinese citizens to apply for a visa. This, however, will have little influence for citizens who hold a 10-year travel visa.



Last November, the U.S. required Chinese citizens with 10-year B1, B2 or B1/B2 visa to update their biographical information from their visa application through the Electronic Visa Update System before they will be able to travel to the country. They require this update to be done every two years, or upon getting a new visa, or upon getting a new passport, whichever occurs first.



Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of China Foreign Affairs University, said: "The change in the rule might be related to Trump's attitude to immigration and it will have a negative effect on people-to-people and cultural exchanges between China and the U.S."



"It may not be a China-specific policy but part of a global strategic shift, showing Trump's determination to prevent illegal immigration," he added.



According to a report issued by the Asia Society, a task force of Chinese experts offered their recommendations to the new Trump administration on the China-U.S. relationship.



The members of the Task Force on U.S.-China Policy include scholars, think tank researchers and former U.S. government officials. They have generated a report as well as a set of recommendations to assist the new U.S. administration in formulating a China strategy that will protect U.S. national interests


Mumbai: Seeking to put an end to rumours that Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar might be a contender for the Presidents post, his daughter and Member of Parliament Supriya Sule has refuted any such possibility.

I know we dont have the numbers to see Pawarsaheb as President of India. So, when we know our limitations then why would we dream about it? Ms Sule said in an exclusive interview to this newspaper on Friday.

President Pranab Mukherjees five-year tenure will expire in July this year. Mr Pawars proximity to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has seen the NCP chief being rumoured as a possible candidate for the coveted post.

I am not that new to politics. I know the reality and I am a responsible MP. I work professionally. So no emotions attached in such issues. There are limitations of our party. We dont have the numbers that it requires. So we do not see such dreams, which are not possible, Ms Sule said when asked whether Mr Pawars close relations across the political spectrum will help him become the next President.
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav along with Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi launched the Common Minimum Programme on Saturday in Lucknow.

The joint programme of the SP-Congress alliance promises smart phones, skill development, free cycles and homes for the poor.

We want a government of the youth and vision...these ten points in the joint programme are foundations of development, Rahul said at the launch.

During the launch the party leaders hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks against former prime minister Manmohan Singh and for failing to provide employment to youth of the state.

PM only likes to surf the internet and peep into people's bathrooms, Rahul said, taking a jibe at Modi for his bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on remark against Manomohan Singh.

Akhilesh too hit out at Modi for his janam patri remark against the Congress. Too much anger is not good; this proves that they are losing ground. No need for emotions and anger...these are elections for growth and prosperity of the state, Akhilesh said.

Responding to Congress backlash for his raincoat remarks against Manmohan Singh, Modi had on Friday warned the Opposition party to keep its tongue in check or I have your janam patri (horoscope).

Further lashing out at Modi, Rahul said PM's strategy is distraction. When he can't answer questions, he starts distracting. Truth is that in two-and-a-half years, he has failed. He also challenged Modi to release the janam patri.
It is ironic that the BJP, when raising the issue of triple talaq, is claiming to speak for the interests of Muslim women when its leaders like Yogi Adityanath are busy demonising the Muslim community. (Representational image)

The the spian qualities of outrage that Ravi Shankar Prasad displayed when speaking of the BJPs views on the practice of triple talaq among Muslims in India were quite transparent. As a lawyer, he must have been aware that the matter is sub judice before the Supreme Court. While the NDA government has filed an affidavit before the SC opposing the practice, the judgment is still awaited. Did the renewed burst of indignation then have less to do with a suddenly reignited desire for social reform, and more to do with the ongoing UP Assembly elections, and the falling electoral prospects of the BJP?

The question of banning triple talaq is part of the BJPs stated goal of expediting the adoption of a uniform civil code (UCC). The goal by itself has the sanction of the Constitution, but in a specifically conditioned manner. Article 44, which states that the State shall endeavour to ensure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India, was deliberately placed by the makers of our Constitution in the section on Directive Principles in order to stress the element of discussion and consensus that should inform such endeavours.

The problem is that the BJP has decided, somewhat selectively, to select this one Article from among the Directive Principles, and then proceed to try and implement it in a manner that closely resembles a bull in a china shop. No one can deny the need for all religion-based personal laws in India to change in accordance with modern notions or reform, equity and gender justice. But, in order for this process to be sustainable and enduring, it is imperative to think about how these ends are best achieved.

On October 7, 2016, the Law Commission shot off a letter to chief ministers enclosing an objective-type questionnaire on the need for an UCC. Nitish Kumar, was the first CM to reply to that letter. He said that he had examined the questionnaire carefully, but it was his considered view that the questions were framed in such a way as to force the respondents to respond in a specific manner. Complex issues, he said, cannot be tackled through such an amateurish approach. The UCC must be seen as a measure of reform for the welfare of the people, and not a political instrumentality to be hurriedly imposed against their wishes and without consultations with them.

Democracy is based on the foundational principle of a constructive dialogue. Where the UCC is concerned, such a dialogue, based on broad-based consultations with all religious denominations, is particularly necessary given the multi-cultural, multi-religious nature of our society. In the absence of such in-depth consultations, any attempt at premature or hasty tampering with long standing religious practices that deal with complex issues of marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance and the right to property and succession, would, Mr Kumar stressed, be inadvisable.

What the BJP does not want to understand is that the enforcement of a UCC would require all current laws applicable in such matters in respect of Muslims, Christians, Parsis and Hindus (including Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains) to be scrapped. Does the Central government have a draft of such a law, with concrete details of which provisions of what religion are to be scrapped, and what will replace them? No such draft has been circulated. The stakeholders are in the dark about what is being proposed and what is to be replaced. Nor has there been any discussion on this subject in Parliament, the Legislative Assemblies of states and other forums of civil society.

The essential point is that while the State must, indeed, endeavour to bring in the UCC, such an effort, in order to succeed in any meaningful way, must be based, to the greatest extent possible, on a broad consensus within religious denominations in favour of such a move, rather than be imposed by fiat from above. If such an approach is not adopted, there could be avoidable social friction, and an erosion of faith, specially among minorities, in the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion.

Political maturity requires that on the issue of triple talaq all parties await the judgment of the Supreme Court. Equally, on the question of the UCC, statesmanship requires the government to initiate a process of persuasion and consultation with different sections of the Muslim community on the desirability of reform. Unfortunately, the BJP is showing neither maturity nor statesmanship in this matter.

What is on display is rank opportunism, which reduces a serious matter like the UCC to an electoral ploy whose aim is polarisation of votes for short-term electoral gain. The stridency with which Mr Prasad took up the issue of triple talaq on the eve of the ongoing Assembly elections, and in particular, the UP elections, clearly shows what the BJPs real intention appears to be.

It is ironic also that the BJP, when raising the issue of triple talaq, is claiming to speak for the interests of Muslim women when rabid BJP leaders like Yogi Adityanath, Vinay Katiyar and Suresh Rana are at the same time busy demonising the Muslim community as a whole. No one from the top leadership of the BJP has condemned this fanaticism, and even if there is a token reproof, it hardly carries any conviction, given the fact that such attacks, specially at the time of elections, have become standard BJP policy of divide in order to rule.

The Muslim community has many credible voices seeking reform of their personal laws in conformity with modern notions of gender equity. But, when the BJP, while inciting violence and hatred against this very community, cynically seeks to amplify these voices at the time of elections, the project of reform itself is devalued.
All ministers and Prime Ministers who take office in India make this promise: I do swear in the name of God that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, that I will uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India, that I will faithfully and conscientiously discharge my duties... and that I will do right to all manner of people in accordance with the Constitution and the law without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.

This oath is taken from the Constitutions third schedule. There is also an oath of secrecy that the minister will not directly or indirectly communicate or reveal to any person or persons any matter which shall be brought under my consideration or shall become known to me except as may be required for the due discharge of my duties as such minister.

How seriously do our ministers and leaders take this promise to be faithful to the Constitution, which means essentially to uphold the law? This week, BBC reported this news: An Indian minister says she made rape suspects beg for their lives and ordered police to torture them.

Uma Bharti, the water resources minister, claims she told the victims to watch as the offenders were hung upside down. Rapists should be tortured in front of victims until they beg for forgiveness, she said. The rapists should be hung upside down and beaten till their skin comes off, the minister is reported to have said.

Salt and chili should be rubbed on their wounds until they scream. Mothers and sisters should watch so they can get closure.

What the minister is claiming to have done is essentially a criminal act. The law and the Constitution do not allow for what Ms Bharti did, because the process for handling crimes is clear. The police register a case and investigate, the state prosecutes and the judiciary decides. What Ms Bharti is boasting she did is violating the Constitution and law she swore to uphold.

We expect mobs in the subcontinent to hand out punishment without trial. To have ministers doing it and then being proud about it says something about how the law is treated in India and how seriously ministers take their oath of office.

The other thing is that these boasts about punishment to rapists should be contrasted with Indias actual record of action on that crime. None of the seven survivors of gangrape in the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, who filed FIRs, has got justice yet. One of the women has died while the other six have been fighting against the system to be heard. The women have been threatened by their alleged rapists and have received no support from those who are advertising their great actions against sexual violence.

A massive movement was launched in India after the incident in Delhi known as the Nirbhaya case in which a young woman was sexually assaulted and murdered. After it, changes in law and in procedure were made to ensure that victims and survivors of such violence received speedy justice. The reality is that there is no change on the ground, as the Muzaffarnagar gangrape cases show.

And so on one hand we have total failure from the state on its actual performance and delivery on sexual violence and rapists. And on the other hand we have these statements about what fabulous things ministers have done to address these crimes.

The unusual thing about what Ms Bharti said is this. She will likely not even be aware that she is violating the Constitution because she is convinced she is doing the right thing. And the right thing, in the perspective of people like her, is not necessarily the legal thing. She swore that I will do right to all manner of people.

But the distinction between an accused and a convict does not really exist in a society, which believes that there are people who come from good families. Those who do not come from good families must possibly be bad by birth and should be punished for that. The civilised idea of law is that it grants protection to the accused and that is why we have the phrase presumed innocent until found guilty. But that goes against the primitive thinking exhibited by our minister.

All the focus in the oath is on that line about unity and integrity of India. That is sacred and those who are accused of violating that sentiment, even verbally, will be thrashed, again without trial. The rest of it, the bearing of faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, is incidental.
Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, BJP MP and former chief minister of Uttarakhand, spoke to Ashhar Khan on his partys prospects in the state.

What do you think are the BJPs chances in the current Assembly elections?

I would say that the chances are very bright for the BJP this time. In fact, I am sure that we will form the government in the state, as the people are very disappointed with the way the Congress ran its government in the last five years. People of the state were happy with our work when we were in power. Also, no government in Uttarakhand has come to power twice in a row.

Do you think that a chief ministerial candidate should have been named by the BJP for Uttarakhand?

The Congress hasnt named its chief ministerial candidate as well! Frankly, it will make not much of a difference as we are all from the same organisation. After we secure a majority, which I am sure we will, a final decision on the name of the chief minister will be taken, so what is the big deal?

There are several rebels of the BJP who are contesting as independent candidates. How will it affect its chances in the polls?

It will be wrong to say that the rebels of the BJP will not cause problems. We are working very hard to convince them to return to our fold as the organisation comes first. If the party requires some sacrifices from them, then they should stand up to the challenge if they are loyal soldiers of the party. For instance, in the Yamkeshwar constituency we got our rebel candidate to withdraw his nomination. So I will say that this is work-in-progress. As the polling day comes closer, I am confident that our former colleagues will see reason and not contest against leaders who have been given tickets by the BJP. Yes, they are causing some problems for us, but in the overall picture it will not have any impact on us.

How will the induction of Congress rebels, who have also been given tickets, impact your party?

The BJP is a robust organisation, which attracts many people. We understand that everybody has ambitions, and so its natural workers have been with the BJP for a very long time to expect tickets. We are meeting them and assuaging their apprehensions. After all, the BJP is a disciplined party and everybody who has worked as a karyakata has to follow the rules.

Chief minister Harish Rawat has been using the issue of dismissal of his government as a poll plank. Do you see that this will make an impact?

The impact will be in our favour and against the Congress. It has no moral right to be in power post-March 18, 2016. In fact, the chief minister has lied about passing the budget at various levels. If it was passed on March 18, 2016, then why was a special session of the Assembly called just to pass it? This is a very serious matter, which will go against the Congress. It clearly shows that as per records the budget was not passed on March 18, which means that the government had automatically fallen. The Congress is trying to play with facts and this will cost them dearly in the polls. The citizens of Uttarakhand are very enlightened and discerning.

Congress alleges that the BJP is being run by its Delhi leadership and not by its state leadership. Is that true?

It is completely false! Everybody has a role to play in the smooth functioning of any party. The Central leadership has its own role and so does the state leadership. I am campaigning actively in the state so are other state leaders, including Khanduriji, Koshyariji. You have to understand BJP in Uttarakhand is a single unit and we are all fighting for the rights of people of the state. The Prime Minister being a national leader is leading from the front. Our national president of the party Amit Shahji is also actively campaigning in the state.

How can the BJP give a stable government in the state when in the seven years of its rule it has had five different chief ministers in the state?

This is certainly not an issue. The first government from 2000-02 was an interim one. Yes, when we returned to power in 2007 there were some changes at the top level, but this did not affect the development of Uttarakhand. When we were in power the state grew at a rapid pace. We were amongst the top states in the country. It is only after the Congress came to power that there has been a downfall in the fortunes of the state.

Local Congress leaders have accused your party of using black money in the elections. What do you have to say regarding this?

They need to prove it; mere allegations will not get the Congress anywhere. In fact, it shows their anxiety about losing the elections, so they are relying on cheap gimmicks. The people of the state will see through this. On the contrary, it is the black money of Congress leaders that is coming out in these elections. Look at their campaign  they have got specialists to strategise for them. I want to ask them from where have they got money to hire experts? People have the right to know and the Congress is answerable.

Mr Rawat has accused the Centre for hounding him and has also unleashed the CBI on him. How would you like to respond?

The chief minister should be thankful to the Prime Minister for awarding so many schemes to Uttarakhand. The state got an additional `12,000 crores in the Budget. Look at the projects in the state. Uma Bhartiji launched the Namami Gange project here. Transport minister Nitin Gadkariji has announced that the Central government will make Auli a world-class tourist destination. Look at the railway allocations, which have been made. The Central government under our leader Narendra Modiji has always stood for the welfare of the state. With regard to the CBI issue, there was a CD that came out in the public domain, in which Mr Rawat was seen horse-trading. If it is doctored then why is he afraid of being investigated? Let the CBI investigate, and the truth will come out. The CMs unease clearly tells a story.

The Congress has also accused the Centre of not releasing funds for the state and is making it a poll issue. Whats your take on this?

The Congress can make anything into a poll issue. I challenge them to give one example to prove their case. Everything is being done on time. I am a Lok Sabha MP from Haridwar I am the voice of the state in Parliament and I know that no injustice has been committed by the Centre on the state. The fact is that Mr Rawat is running the state like a private limited company, which is why there is problem in the state. If he had thought about the state things would have been very different on the ground.

Do you think demonetisation will have an impact on the upcoming elections?

We welcome this decision, as we will benefit from it. People here were not affected because we are simple people; we dont have any black money. It was the wrongdoers who were upset and angry. Yes, people stood in long queues but they knew that it was good for the country.
A spectre is haunting Europe  the spectre of Communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre. If adapted to the situation we now face, and have witnessed in the last three decades and more, these opening lines of The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848, would yield a startling result: the so-called spectre of the Muslim faith worries the West today.

Ever since Donald Trump threw his hat in the ring in the contest for the US presidency, he has denounced Islam and Muslims relentlessly. At a rally in Youngstown last August, he said, that the ideology of radical Islam (must not) be allowed to reside or spread within our own communities.

Given that he is the Presidents closest aide, Steve Bannons hostility is even more menacing. In 2014, he told a meeting at the Vatican that the Judeo-Christian West was at war with Islam. There is a major war brewing, a war that is already global. On his erstwhile radio show he warned that Christianity is dying in Europe and Islam is on the rise. He took the lead in shaping the infamous executive order that President Trump signed on January 27, which suspended entry into the US of nationals from seven Muslim countries for 90 days, all refugee admissions for 120 days and Syrian refugees indefinitely.

What the order signifies is that, far more than ever before, Islamophobia has acquired prominence in the US administrations thinking and policies. Speaking on February 5 at the Kerala Literature Festival, British-Pakistani novelist Qaisra Shahraz said that Trumpism had led to a surge in hatred towards Muslims around the world. Donald Trumps administration has legalised this hatred. While Islamophobia was ever present in Western Europe, it has surged higher now.

In Europe, however, Islamophobia is almost as old as Islam itself. The reasons are ideological, religious and political. Minou Reeves, a former Iranian diplomat, surveyed a millenniums worth of European criticism of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in her book, Muhammad in Europe: A Thousand Years of Western Myth-Making  from the days of the Biblical scholar Bede, who died in 735, to this day. Karen Armstrong explained in her magisterial biography, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet, that until the rise of the Soviet Union in our own century, no polity or ideology posed such a challenge to the West as Islam. Later, political challenges gave an edge to the hostility that the faith of Islam had aroused.

Arab rule in Spain lasted for nearly eight centuries until the fall of Grenada in 1492. Before that, however, Constantinople fell to the forces of Mehmed II in 1453. The Turks had taken over from the Arabs the mantle of the Islamic threat to Christian Europe. They knocked at the gates of Vienna twice  in 1529 and 1683.

The 19th and 20th centuries saw a sharp reversal of this tide. Western imperialism colonised Muslim lands. Israel was planted on Arab land in 1948. Muslim resentment was ignored until it became assertive. Western intellectuals went to work to give Islamophobia a new intellectual veneer, producing literature such as Bernard Lewis The Roots of Muslim Rage and Samuel P. Huntingtons The Clash of Civilisations.

In Britain, the hate spread far enough to warrant an excellent study by the Commission on British Muslims in 1997, entitled Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All. In his foreword, Prof. Gordon Conway wrote, If you doubt whether Islamophobia exists in Britain, I suggest you spend a week reading, as I have done, a range of national and local papers. If you look for articles which refer to Muslims or to Islam you will find prejudiced and antagonistic comments, mostly subtle but sometimes blatant and crude. Where the media lead, many will follow. British Muslims suffer discrimination in their education and in the workplace. Acts of harassment and violence against Muslims are common.

Two decades later, this disease still persists and is unlikely to disappear soon. It calls for a political as well as an intellectual response.

There must be a concerted effort to dispel the poisonous myths fostered by the practitioners of Islamophobia.

By arrangement with Dawn
It took less than a week of exploring Kenya to realise that this is a special country. While most think of this African nation as the hub for wildlife, the truth is there is plenty more if you go deeper and explore. I started my journey in the capital city of Nairobi, which is home to fabulous restaurants and energetic nightlife, but more importantly, it is home to a noble cause called the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. The trust rescues abandoned, injured or orphaned elephants (usually when they are babies), nurtures them and then releases them back into the wild. Visitors can help donate or adopt a baby elephant and can visit for an hour in the day, to watch these beautiful creatures roll about in the muck, feed on baby formula, or drink water and enjoy themselves, even as the humans are educated about the elephants. If youre lucky and they come close, youre encouraged to pet them and rub their backs, which is the closest you will get to real wild elephants.

For another close animal encounter, the Giraffe Center is highly recommended. Here, you get close to the tallest animal on the planet and feed them or even pose for a kiss. Be warned, they tend to be very slobbery, but the cuteness overload is worth it. The best part is that all proceeds from this center go towards educating Kenyan children about wild life and conservation. The center was established in order to protect the Rothschilds giraffe, which is an endangered species.

Nairobi is a unique city, since its probably the only one that has its very own national park. You dont even need to drive to the outskirts; it is located in the heart of Nairobi and, in fact, makes up a large part of the city. The first glimpse of the park you get is when you exit the airport and notice vast stretches of greenery. If there isnt enough time to visit any of their multiple parks or reserves, then this is a good stop. If youre keen on seeing more wildlife, then this works as the perfect teaser for what Kenya has in store.

The heart of the Savannah and wildlife in Kenya is in the Maasai Mara, and a visit to the bush is vital to get the real flavour of Kenyan wildlife. Close to the Serengeti in Tanzania, it is part of the greater Mara  Serengeti eco system and home to the great migration, which is the largest annual spectacle on Earth. It sees more than two million wildebeest, zebra, giraffe and other animals migrating between the Serengeti in Tanzania and the Mara in Kenya during the months of July to September.

In the Mara youll find the most magnificent animals from the popular Big 5 (lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos and buffalos) to others like cheetah, zebra, wildebeest, hyena, baboons, antelopes, migratory birds and plenty other. It is home to the famous Maasai tribe who it is named after and you could even visit a local Maasai village to learn more about their culture, customs, traditions and beliefs.

Its an enriching experience to stay in a camp in the Mara and wake up for early morning game drives, which include indulging in breakfast in the middle of the wild. The choice for accommodation is plenty and each one as luxurious as the next, and that makes the entire safari experience an indulgent but truly memorable affair.

While Nairobi and the Maasai Mara are popular choices while planning a visit, most tend to forget that the country has a stunning coastline. Once a popular hub on the trade route, it still has remnants of its Arab influence. The coast is studded with sandy beaches, marine parks and various conservation projects. Plenty of places to explore on the coast, but the small town of Watamu is worth visiting for its pristine beach. You can spend days enjoying various activities from visiting a butterfly and snake parks to snorkeling, feeding fish and dolphin watching along with every conceivable water sport. For a more relaxed affair, you can enjoy a cruise on the famous dhow (a river boat used by the Arab traders) and enjoy a pretty sunset fueled with drink and nibbles on the river creek.

DID YOU KNOW?

Kenya is known for its coffee and it is the largest income generator (more than tourism), but instead Kenyans prefer to drink tea.

EAT TREAT

Kenyans love their meat. Beef is hugely popular as is goat and other game meat. At the coast, seafood is widely available, but poultry is considered more expensive. The most famous restaurant in all of Africa is called Carnivore, and is located in Nairobi that prides itself on serving all types of game meat, including crocodile, ostrich, ox balls.

GETTING THERE

You can fly directly with Kenya Airways from Mumbai or Delhi to Nairobi, or then fly Ethiopian Airlines via Addis Ababa.

Roxanne is a travel blogger
Technology firms must up their game in tackling "fake news", Apple chief executive Tim Cook said Saturday, calling for a major public information campaign.

"All of us technology companies need to create some tools that help diminish the volume of fake news," the US tech giant boss told the Daily Telegraph in an interview.

"We must try to squeeze this without stepping on freedom of speech and of the press, but we must also help the reader.

"Too many of us are just in the complain category right now and haven't figured out what to do."

But Cook, who met British Prime Minister Theresa May at Downing Street on Thursday, said governments should also introduce a public information campaign.

"We need the modern version of a public-service announcement campaign. It can be done quickly if there is a will," he said.

He added: "We are going through this period of time right here where unfortunately some of the people that are winning are the people that spend their time trying to get the most clicks, not tell the most truth.

"It's killing people's minds in a way."

Fake news  fabricated reports designed to promote a particular agenda  came to prominence during last year's US presidential election campaign.

Facebook in particular has come under pressure for failing to take action, and last month modified its system for showing trending topics.

The change is designed to ensure that trends reflect real world events being covered by multiple news outlets.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
In a logo leaked by renowned mobile tipster Evan Blass on Twitter, it is confirmed that Samsung is dropping off the 'Edge' moniker, and instead, using + for the larger variant of the Galaxy S8 smartphone, unlike its last two predecessors.

Samsung is expected to launch two models of the Galaxy S8 smartphone, one sporting a 5.8-inch display, while the other one featuring a 6.2-inch display. The smartphone maker had used  Edge moniker for the larger variant of the Galaxy smartphone, however, this time, by going with the leaked logo, Edge will be replaced by a + symbol.

In terms of specifications, the smartphone is expected to be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, coupled with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage option, which will be expandable up to 256GB using a microSD card. The flagship is also expected to be the first smartphone to debut Samsungs voice assistant Bixby, and to run on Android Nougat 7.0 OS.

The Galaxy S8 will come with a 12MP rear sensor and an 8MP front sensor, but with improved image quality, low-light performance and speed, compared to S7. Additionally, the camera will feature built-in object recognition found in Google Glasses.

The iris-scanner biometric technology, which made its debut with ill-fated Galaxy Note 7, will be available on the Galaxy S8 smartphone. Since the smartphone will not be housed by the home button, Samsung has moved the fingerprint sensor at the rear next to the camera lens.

A glimpse of Galaxy S8 is reported to be showcased at the MWC this month, but Samsung is believed to unveil the handset completely in a separate event in New York on March 29.

The 5.8-inch model will retail for 799 (approx. Rs 58,000) and the 6.2-inch model at 899 (approx. Rs 65,000). Both the models will be available in the market on April 21.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
US President Donald Trump's controversial ban on refugees and nationals from seven Muslim-majority nations has prompted many who had hoped for a new life in the US to flee north. (Photo: Representational Image/AFP)

Emerson: Farhan Ahmed hoped to find refuge in the United States after fleeing death threats in Somalia, but fear over a US crackdown on immigration sent him on another perilous journey to Canada.

The 36-year-old was among nearly two dozen asylum seekers who braved bone-chilling cold on a February weekend to walk across the border, trudging through snow-covered prairies in the dead of night to make a claim in this country.

It was a record number of arrivals for a single weekend in the small border town of Emerson, and Canadian officials said Thursday they are bracing for more.

US President Donald Trump's controversial ban on refugees and nationals from seven Muslim-majority nations has prompted many who had hoped for a new life in the US to flee north.

While the ban is currently on hold due to two successive defeats in federal court, Trump has warned he is weighing a new immigration order.

Among the first wave of immigrants to Canada in the wake of Trump's measure was a two-year-old boy who reportedly begged his mother to let him to die in the snow because he could walk no further.

Two others lost their fingers to frostbite in -20 degrees Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) temperatures when they made the same trip in December.

Wayne Pfiel works at the Emerson hotel steps from the boundary. Asylum seekers, he said, often stop here for a moment of respite after walking up to 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from the United States, coming in to ask if they have reached Canada.

Others have called police for help, and are taken to the closest border outpost, where they can file an asylum claim.

"They usually call us if they're cold or lost, and we find them on the side of the highway," said RCMP Corporal Paul Manaigre.

Risky desperation

An agreement with the US prevents asylum seekers from lodging claims in Canada if they first landed stateside, but it only applies to arrivals at border checkpoints, airports and train stations.

Rita Chahal, executive director of the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, described a "big surge coming across the border."

According to Canada's Border Services Agency, numbers have roughly doubled in each of the last four years to 321 cases in fiscal 2015-2016. Since April, there have been 403 cases.

People often come from Djibouti, Ghana, Nigeria and Somalia, said Chahal, whose agency works out of a building designed by a top Canadian architect who was once himself a refugee.

The numbers are high, but the risky routes asylum seekers take are also alarming.

"They're crossing through farmers' fields. Many of them are getting lost," Chahal said.

The recent arrivals, she said, tell a common story: "'We're afraid of what's happening in the United States, we're not sure what's going to happen if I get sent back to my country.'"

Samatar Adam, 30, from Djibouti, arrived last month. Asked why he did not file a refugee claim in the US, he replied: "Donald Trump."

He left soon after the inauguration.

"It saddens me to see refugees flee not only their country but also a safe, democratic country like the United States," said the Immigration Partnership Winnipeg's Hani Al-Ubeady, himself an Iraqi refugee who now helps resettle others.

"They have to take another risky journey to make it to another safe place, Canada."

Walk north

Last weekend, Brenda Piett, an Emerson volunteer emergency coordinator who also publishes the local newspaper, received a call from border agents asking for help with the overflow of asylum seekers.

Piett said she arranged to feed and house the cold, exhausted group members many wearing wet socks overnight at the Emerson curling rink.

The next day, they took a taxi an hour north to Winnipeg, where aid agencies helped them find shelter and legal counsel.

Ahmed of Somalia said it was a much warmer welcome than the one he received in Texas in 2014.

In the lobby of a gloomy downtown hotel where he now shares a small room with three others, he described being handcuffed and detained until his US asylum bid was heard.

New arrivals received blankets, food and housing while their cases are ongoing, according to Ahmed. The next day, he expected to be given a date for his hearing.

Ahmed told the Americans he had witnessed his father being slaughtered by a rival tribe in his hometown, and as the oldest son, he feared he would be next.

He left behind his wife and three children, the youngest born only months earlier and traveled through nine countries before reaching the US.

A US panel rejected his claim, but he was released under supervision and allowed to work as a truck driver until his deportation could be arranged.

After Trump announced his ban, which includes Somali nationals, Ahmed said he feared imminent deportation.

"I decided to try my luck in Canada to ask for protection, because if I were deported to Somalia I would surely be killed," he said.

Ahmed took a bus to Minneapolis, where he met a man who dropped him off at the border with instructions to "walk north."

Ahmed said he had seen snow in the United States, "but not like this."

"That night it was very, very cold," he recalled. "My hands were frozen. I couldn't feel my feet."
Members of Chinese spiritual group Falun Gong condemn the Chinese government's persecution against them, which includes forceful organ harvesting on many of its detained members. (Photo : Getty Images)

Controversy arose when the Vatican invited China on an organ trafficking summit, despite the country's known record of harvesting organs from detained or executed prisoners. Nonetheless, the mainland stressed that it's already changing its ways against forced transplants.



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Dr. Huang Jiefu, a former Deputy Health Minister responsible for China's transplant program, assured the Vatican conference that his participation does not aim to erase the country's notoriety for using organs from prisoners in its transplant program, Channel NewsAsia reported.



Huang elaborated that China is currently improving its system for organ donations and transplants, following the country's departure from the practice of sourcing from prisoners in 2015, which remains the subject of ire among human rights and medical ethics groups over transparency issues.



The purpose of China's presence in the Vatican conference, Huang said, is to allow the country to announce its reformed stance on the matter of organ transplants, as well as engage in the exchange of ideas on the matter. Nonetheless, skeptics remained wary of the mainland's current stand on the matter.



Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), an advocacy group against organ trafficking, said that China's lack of clearance proving that illegal harvesting activities is a compromising factor to the conference, calling on the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) to contest the mainland, the BBC said.



The absence of an independent investigation proving that China is no longer practicing forced organ donations among prisoners invalidates the country's claims that it is already taking key steps for reform, DAFOH added.



Huang, for his part, asked that patience be given to China's efforts at reforming its way of doing things over organ donation, saying that the current program, which has yet to mature further, has already led to the closure of 18 medical facilities found guilty of unethical harvesting practices.



PAS head Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo came to the defense of China, saying that Huang's presence in the Vatican conference is instrumental for discussions on reforms concerning organ trafficking, which happens typically in developing countries within sub-Saharan Africa.


Washington: US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Iran President Hassan Rouhani "better be careful" after Rouhani was quoted as saying that anyone who speaks to Iranians with threats would regret it.

Trump was asked in a brief appearance in the press cabin aboard Air Force One about Rouhani's reported remarks to a rally in Tehran to celebrate the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Rouhani was quoted in media reports as saying Iran had shown in the 38 years since the revolution that "it will make anyone who speaks to Iranians with the language of threats regret it."

"He better be careful," Trump said.

Trump on Feb. 2 put Iran "on notice" over charges that Tehran violated a nuclear deal with the West by test-firing a ballistic missile, taking an aggressive posture toward Iran that could raise tensions in the region.

Trump made the comments about Rouhani while flying on the presidential jet carrying him and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a weekend at Trump's Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida.
Washington: President Donald Trump promised on Friday to take action very rapidly to protect the US and its citizens, a day after a federal appeals court firmly kept his travel ban on hold. He didnt reveal his planned next step to control travel into the US from countries that he considers potential terrorist threats.

Well be doing things to continue to make our country safe, Trump pledged at a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It will happen rapidly. We will not allow people into our country who are looking to do harm to our people.

Trump added that still expects to prevail in a legal challenge to his travel ban, despite Thursdays 3-0 ruling by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals that kept it from going back into effect.

Ultimately, I have no doubt that well win that particular case, he said.

Trump stressed that voters elected him to keep the country secure, so well be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country. Youll be seeing that sometime next week.

He added that extreme vetting is still planned for would-be visitors or immigrants from other countries.

Conjuring images of unspecified danger, Trump said he had learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely president. And there are tremendous threats to our country. We will not allow that to happen, I can tell you that. We will not allow that to happen.

Trump is standing by his argument that national security hangs in the balance. He issued an all-caps Tweet shortly after Thursdays court ruling: SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!

In West Wing comments on Thursday night, he exhibited an air of confidence: We have a situation where the security of our country is at stake and its a very, very serious situation, so we look forward to seeing them in court. He added: Were going to win the case.

The Justice Department said it was reviewing the decision and considering its options. It could appeal the restraining order on Trumps travel ban to the US Supreme Court or it could attempt to remake the case in the district court.

White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway suggested the next step would be to argue the merits of the executive order.

The statute provides a president with great latitude and authority to protect the citizens and to protect the nations national security, Conway said. This was not argued on the merits. Now that well have an opportunity to argue on the merits we look forward to doing that. We look forward to prevailing.

The ruling represented a setback for Trumps administration and the second legal defeat for the new president in the past week. Trumps decision to sign the executive order late last month has sparked protests at airports around the world as authorities barred scores of travellers from entering the country amid confusion over how to implement the details.

The appellate decision brushed aside arguments by the Justice Department that the president has the constitutional power to restrict entry to the United States and that the courts cannot second-guess his determination that such a step was needed to prevent terrorism.

Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer tweeted Thursday that Trump ought to see the writing on the wall and abandon the proposal. The New York Democrat called on the president to roll up his sleeves and come up with a real, bipartisan plan to keep us safe.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California promised, Democrats will continue to press for President Trumps dangerous and unconstitutional ban to be withdrawn. And Trumps former presidential rival Hillary Clinton offered a terse response on Twitter, noting the unanimous vote: 3-0.

Congress Republican leaders, house speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, declined to comment.

US district judge James Robart in Seattle issued the temporary restraining order halting the ban after Washington state and Minnesota sued, leading to the federal governments appeal.

The Trump administration has said the seven nations, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen have raised terrorism concerns. The states have argued that the executive order unconstitutionally blocked entry based on religion and the travel ban harmed individuals, businesses and universities.

In a hallway conversation with reporters, Trump expressed confidence that he will prevail in court if the case is argued on the merits.

He and his aides frequently refer to a ruling by a federal judge in Boston who declined last week to extend a temporary injunction against Trumps travel ban. In the separate federal ruling in Seattle that night, a different federal judge put the ban on hold nationwide; it is that judges decision that the White House has challenged.

Its a decision that well win, in my opinion, very easily and, by the way, we won that decision in Boston, Trump said.

The president, in his third week in office, has criticized the judiciarys handling of the case. Last weekend, he labeled Robart a so-called judge and referred to the ruling as ridiculous. Earlier this week he accused the appellate court considering his executive order of being so political.

Trumps Supreme Court nominee, judge Neil Gorsuch, has referred to the presidents comments as demoralising and disheartening, according to a Democratic senator who asked him about Trumps response.

Trump has yet to nominate a candidate to be solicitor general, the lawyer who argues before the Supreme Court on behalf of the United States. Trump told reporters hell be making that decision over the next week.
Kabul: At least 60 Taliban insurgents have been killed in a series of air strikes in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, said the Afghan army on Saturday.

The insurgents were planning to launch a major attack on Sanging district.

The provincial government officials, including the provincial governor, deputy provincial intelligence chief, and the commander of 215th Corps of the Afghan Army briefed the media about the latest development during a press conference in Helmand on Saturday.

Khaama Press quoted the officials as saying that hundreds of fighters were called from other provinces and districts by the Taliban, after one their largest attack on Sangin was repulsed nearly two weeks ago.

According to the officials, the security forces were keeping a watch on the Taliban insurgents and thwarted their offensive on Sangin by killing nearly 60 of them.

So far, there has been no comment by the anti-government armed militant groups about the report.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, center, speaks to erring policemen during an audience at the Presidential Palace grounds in Manila, Philippines on February 9. (Photo: AP)

Manila: The Philippine police have sacked nearly 100 policemen since the start of the year because they were found to be drug users, a top official said on Saturday, in a clean-up of the ranks after President Rodrigo Duterte halted police anti-drug operations.

More than 7,700 people have been killed since Duterte unleashed his bloody war on drugs seven months ago, about 2,500 in police operations, while the rest are being investigated.

Duterte had been unwavering in defending the police in the face of international outrage over the toll, but his faith was shaken by the killing of a South Korean businessmen late last year by rogue officers.

Ninety police officers have been fired since the start of the year and nine were removed last year, Internal Affairs Service Inspector General Alfegar Triambulo said in comments broadcast on ANC TV.

"Those caught using illegal drugs, according to the civil service rules, must be dismissed...that is a grave offence," he said, adding that he had promised the chief of police that he would quickly resolve outstanding cases.

Triambulo said he would recommend next week the dismissal of 40 more policemen to the chief of police.

Last month, Duterte denounced the police as "corrupt to the core" and suspended their role in anti-drug operations, although he vowed to forge ahead with the drug campaign.

Human rights groups suspect many of the killings being investigated were committed by vigilantes or hitmen supported by the police.

The Philippine Drugs Enforcement Agency has been put in charge of anti-drug operations and Duterte has also raised the possibility of getting the military to help.
A Russian long range Tu-22M3 bomber carries out an air strike over Aleppo region of Syria on Tuesday, August 16, 2016. (Photo: AP)

Tehran: Russian warplanes are using Iran's airspace to carry out air strikes in Syria, an Iranian official said on Saturday.

"The fact that they (Russian bombers) use Iranian airspace continues because we have total strategic cooperation with Russia," Admiral Ali Shamkhani told the Fars news agency.

Shamkhani is secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and Tehran's coordinator of political, security and military actions with Russia.

"The use of Iranian airspace by Russian aircraft is made subject to a joint decision, taking into account the need... to fight terrorism," he told the IRNA news agency.

He said Russian planes had not recently needed to land in Iran for re-supply.

Russian fighter bombers first used an Iranian military base in August 2016 to attack jihadist positions in Syria.

Iran and Russia are closely cooperating in Syria and provide political, financial and military backing to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Tehran has sent military advisors and "volunteer" fighters to support the Syrian military in its fight against rebel and jihadist groups.
Millions of Jakarta residents head to the polls on Wednesday to pick the next governor of the sprawling city. (Photo: Representational Image)

Jakarta: Thousands of Indonesians gathered on Saturday at a mosque in central Jakarta, where religious leaders urged them to support a Muslim candidate during next week's contentious election to select the capital's governor.

Millions of Jakarta residents head to the polls on Wednesday to pick the next governor of the sprawling city, in a contest analysts say has shaped as a proxy fight ahead of a presidential election in 2019.

Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population but recognizes six religions and is home to hundreds of ethnic groups and adherents of traditional beliefs.

In Jakarta, the Christian and ethnic Chinese incumbent, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, faces two Muslim contenders, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, the son of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and former education minister Anies Baswedan.

Purnama is in the extraordinary situation of campaigning for election while he is on trial for blasphemy, making weekly court appearances to defend himself against charges of insulting the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

"On Feb. 15, we are happy to vote for a Muslim leader," one speaker, Maulana Kamal Yusuf, told a crowd of men and women in white robes who had poured into the vast Istiqlal mosque from the early hours for mass prayers.

"Jakarta will be led by a Muslim leader who submits to the will of Allah," he added, urging his listeners to choose Yudhoyono or Baswedan. "Jakarta will be a religious city."

Security around the mosque was tight, with armed military and police officers standing guard.

Saturday is the last day before a 'quiet period' in which candidates and their supporters are barred from canvassing for votes.

Yusuf also asked his audience to support Habib Rizieq, the head of hardline Muslim group Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), who has been reported to the police for allegedly insulting the state ideology, Pancasila, and state symbols.

The allegations against Rizieq "go against justice," a senior official of the group has previously said.

Muslim groups led by FPI have held rallies demanding that Purnama be jailed for the alleged insult, a sensitive topic in a country where the population of 250 million is mostly Muslim and Chinese-Indonesians officially make up just over 1 percent.

One of the biggest rallies in November last year was attended by hundreds of thousands.
THAAD's radar is capable of penetrating Chinese territory. Beijing has objected to the planned deployment, saying it will destabilize the regional balance. (Photo: Representational Image)

Beijing: China has expelled 32 South Korean Christian missionaries, a Korean government official said on Saturday, amid diplomatic tension between the two countries over the planned deployment of a US missile defence system in the South.

The 32 were based in China's northeastern Yanji region near the border with North Korea, many of whom had worked there more than a decade, South Korean media have reported.

South Korea's foreign ministry said on Friday it briefed Christian groups on the case of the missionaries, adding that they were expelled in January.

The ministry advised the groups on the importance of complying with the laws and customs of the areas where they work, it said.

In South Korea, China is widely believed to be retaliating against Seoul's plan to host the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system of the U.S. military, against the threat of the missile attack from North Korea.

But there was no indication of a direct link between the expulsions and tension over THAAD, said the South Korean government official, who requested anonymity.

"There was no official explanation from China," he said. "There is no confirmation that it is related to THAAD."

China's Communist Party says it protects freedom of religion, but keeps a tight rein on religious activities and allows only officially recognized religious institutions.

The number of Korean missionaries working in China might top 1,000, South Korean media say. Most are in the northeast, and many help defectors flee North Korea and travel to third countries, including the South.

THAAD's radar is capable of penetrating Chinese territory. Beijing has objected to the planned deployment, saying it will destabilize the regional balance of security, threaten China's security and do nothing to ease tension on the Korean peninsula.

Many South Koreans believe Beijing is retaliating against THAAD, with measures against some companies and cancellations of performances by Korean artists.

On Wednesday, South Korea's Lotte Group said Chinese authorities had halted construction at a multi-billion dollar real estate project after a fire inspection.
Beijing: A Chinese soldier, who was stuck in India for over 50 years after he crossed over the border post 1962 war, on Saturday arrived in Beijing with his Indian family members to an emotional reunion with his Chinese kin.

Wang Qi, 77, was received by his close Chinese relatives, besides officials of the China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Indian embassy when he arrived here along with his son, daughter-in-law and grand daughter from Delhi-Beijing flight.

Wang became emotional as he hugged his relatives, their first reunion after he crossed into Indian side over five decades ago.

"It was an emotional reunion," an official present at theairport told PTI here.

Wang was accompanied by his son Vishnu Wang, 35, daughter-in-law Neha and grand daughter, Khanak Wang. His Indian wife Shushila, however, stayed back.

Indian officials said Wang and family members will be later flown to Xian, the provincial capital in Shaanxi province from where he will be taken to his native village Xue Zhai Nan Cun in the province.

His return became a possibility after India and China worked out modalities for both Wang and his Indian family to travel together to China and later return as per their wish.

Wang was caught when he entered the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962. After his release from prison in 1969, he settled in Tirodi village of Balaghat district in Madhya Pradesh.

Though his story has been published by Indian media several times in the past, a recent BBC TV feature on him was widely picked by the Chinese social media highlighting his plight, prompting the Chinese government to initiate action in coordination with India to facilitate his return.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on February 6 that he was provided a passport to travel to China in 2013 and he was also paid a living allowance. Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui recently spoke to him.

While the Chinese government has provided visas for his family to visit China, India has provided a re-entry visa for Wang to return back if he chooses to.

Indian officials terms the facilitation of the travel of Wang and his family by both sides a positive development, specially at a time when India-China relations were stuck with differences over issues like China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China blocking India's entry into Nuclear Suppliers Group and listing of JeM leader Masood Azhar as terrorist by UN.

Before leaving for Beijing, Vishnu told media in India yesterday that" my father joined the Chinese Army in 1960 and he entered India through the eastern frontier after losing his way in the darkness one night."

He landed in Assam where an Indian Red Cross team handed him over to the Indian Army on January 1, 1963.
Karachi: Pakistan's top diplomat Sartaj Aziz on Saturday alleged that India's evolving "expansionist" maritime security strategy and un-demarked border of Sir Creek pose "threat" to the security of the Indian Ocean.

"The un-demarcated borders in Sir Creek have the potential to cast a shadow on maritime security. India's evolving expansionist maritime security strategy is a cause for concern for peace in Indian Ocean," said Aziz, the PM's Advisor on Foreign Affairs.

He made the remarks at a conference on 'Strategic outlook in Indian Ocean Region 2030 and Beyond Evolving Challenges and Strategies' organised by the Pakistan Navy as part of a multi-nation five-day naval exercise in the Arabian Sea.

"Nuclearisation of the Indian Ocean has also led to further instability in the region," he added.

He said that with 95 per cent of Pakistan's trade taking place through sea, Pakistan was heavily dependent on a tension-free Indian Ocean.

Aziz said Pakistan is third largest Indian Ocean littoral country and as a matter of policy it continues to pursue the goals of realising the economic potential of the region.

"We are aware of our national interests and every effort would be made to strengthen our capacity to ensure that we remain ready to meet the emerging maritime security challenges. For us, to remain oblivious of the developments taking place in the Indian Ocean Region is not an option.

These developments have a direct impact on our security and prosperity," he said.

Aziz said that the several Indian Ocean Region contains several conflict zones and the regions maritime security challenges have grown and are affected by key variables such as militarisation, the involvement of major and extra-regional powers, and non-traditional security threats.

"On the other hand, the militarisation of the Indian Ocean region, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, increased missile capabilities and power projection by foreign militaries are a threat to peace in the Indian Ocean Region. And this trend is likely to intensify in the coming years," he said.

"And to add to this complex scenario, today, the Indian Ocean faces many non-traditional security challenges and threats including piracy, illegal fishing, human trafficking, drug smuggling, trafficking of weapons, maritime pollution and climate change," he added.

Aziz said Pakistan has a strategic stake in peaceful navigation and security of Indian Ocean region.

"Our interests emanate from our coastline that is over 1000 kilometres long, an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of around 300,000 square kilometres, the Karachi port and the newly built deep sea port of Gawadar," he said.

He said that due to presence of several powers in the Indian Ocean, the changing power balance and relentless pursuit of national interest prompted analysts to suggest that many global struggles will play out here in the 21st century.
Islamabad: The family of activist Samar Abbas, who was abducted by unidentified persons early this year, has filed a petition with the Islamabad High Court to secure his release at the earliest.

The Inspector General of Islamabad, intelligence agencies and the Interior Ministry are amidst the respondents in the case in the petition filled by Samar's brother, Ash'ar Abbas.

In his petition, Abbas has pleaded that the court orders his brothers' release and ensures his safety.

Samar Abbas, who is the president of Civil Progressive Alliance Pakistan (CPAP) went missing from Islamabad since January 7 this year.

Samar is an activist based in Karachi who is affiliated to various forums that have been raising their voices against atrocities committed against minority groups in the country.

An FIR has already been lodged by Samar's family over his disappearance.
Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hand with British Prime Minister Theresa May before their meeting at the West Lake State House on Sept. 5, 2016, in Hangzhou, China. (Photo : Getty Images)

British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to discuss trade ties, among other matters, with China on her scheduled visit to the country later this year.



Reuters said the visit is part of the series of British leader's foreign trips, which are aimed at strengthening relations with major powers as Britain negotiates its separation from the European Union.



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The report said that although only a few details about the trip were given, May is interested in ensuring the support of other countries before the start of the Brexit talks, which many consider as one of the most complicated talks that Britain has ever conducted.



The talks with EU are expected to be launched before the end of March, the report said.



"It would be a renewed expression of the close relationship between Britain and China, something that you have seen obviously develop over the past few years," May's spokesman said on Tuesday, Feb. 7.



"I would imagine that trade would form some part of the discussions that we have," the spokesman added.



Shortly after she became prime minister, May attended the G20 summit in China last Sept. Chinese President Xi Jinping also asked May to visit China again during the summit.



According to the report, trade has become a major topic of May's talks with foreign leaders as she has clearly expressed her plans for Britain to break away from the EU market in recent months.



U.S. President Donald Trump, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other world leaders have assured May that they are interested in starting talks on strengthening their relations.



The British leader, however, received criticisms on her attempts to win trade promises while some opposition MPs have accused her of avoiding difficult issues.



Last month, May became the first foreign leader to visit Trump who had been under fire for his recent immigration policy.



The British leader was also criticized for enhancing relations with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan who had been accused by rights groups of detaining tens of thousands of people following a failed coup in July.


A Chinese KJ-200 flew within 1,000 feet of a US Navy P-3C in international airspace over Scarborough Shoal near the Philippines on Wednesday. (Photo: Representational/AP)

Beijing: The Pentagon said a close encounter between a Chinese early warning aircraft and a US Navy patrol plane over the South China Sea appeared to be unintentional and both pilots maintained professional radio contact.

This is the first such incident known to have taken place under President Donald Trump administration.

A Chinese KJ-200 flew within 1,000 feet of a US Navy P-3C in international airspace over Scarborough Shoal near the Philippines on Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters in Washington.

He said the Chinese aircraft "crossed the nose" of the P-3, forcing it to make an immediate turn.

"We don't see any evidence that it was intentional," he said, adding that the incident was a "one-off." He said both pilots were in "normal radio contact" and their communication "professional."

The Chinese Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.

However, the website of the Communist Party newspaper Global Times quoted an unidentified ministry official as saying that the Chinese pilot had responded in a "legal and professional manner."

"We hope the US side will focus on the relationship between the two countries and two militaries in their entirety, adopt concrete measures and eliminate the root causes of accidental incidents between the two countries on sea and in the air," the unidentified official was quoted as saying.

Philippine Defense Department spokesman Arsenio Andolong also expressed concern because the incident happened near Scarborough Shoal, which is located within the Philippines' 200-mile exclusive economic zone but claimed by China, which seized it in 2012 after a tense standoff with Philippine vessels.

"We're worried of possible miscalculation and it's good to know that nothing untoward happened," Andolong said by telephone. If such foreign aircrafts venture into Philippine airspace, "we deserved to be told out of courtesy."

Such incidents have occurred occasionally over and within the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety.
Indian Space Research Organisation's workhorse PSLV will carry a record 104 satellites in a single mission on February 15 from the space centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.





"PSLV-C37/Cartosat-2 Series Satellite Mission is scheduled to be launched on February 15, 2017 at 9.28 hours IST from SDSC SHAR Sriharikota," ISRO said.



Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its 39th flight (PSLV-C37), will launch the 714 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite for earth observation along with 103 co-passenger satellites, together weighing about 664 kg at lift off. It will be launched into a 505 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO).



ISRO said the co-passenger satellites comprise 101 nano- satellites, one each from Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and 96 from United States of America (USA), as well as two from India. The two Indian nano-satellites are ISRO's INS-1A and INS-1B.



INS-1A and INS-1B will carry a total of four different payloads from Space Applications Centre (SAC) and Laboratory for Electro Optics Systems (LEOS) of ISRO for conducting various experiments, the space agency said.



Last year, ISRO had launched a record 20 satellites at one go. The highest number of satellites launched in a single mission is 37, a record that Russia set in 2014. The US space agency, NASA has launched 29.



The 101 international customer nano-satellites are being launched as part of the commercial arrangements between Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix), the commercial arm of ISRO and the international customers.



Speaking on the record launch, ISRO Chairman Kiran Kumar had earlier said the aim was to maximise the capability with each launch and it was not to set a record.



"We are not looking at it as a record or anything like that; we are just trying to maximise our capability with each launch, in trying to utilise that launch for the ability it has got and getting the maximum return," he had said.
Of late, Saif Ali Khan has been in the news more for the confidence with which his wife lived out her pregnancy, and for the controversy surrounding their choice of name for their newborn son. But Khan is hoping that the only thing people will soon be talking about is his performance as a Parsi movie producer in Vishal Bhardwajs February 24 release, Rangoon.



Hes been acting for 23 years, weathering many a storm along the way  both professionally and personally  but hes managed to take the highs with the lows and at 46, found calmness within. Memorable movies like Dil Chahta Hai, Being Cyrus, Love Aaj Kal and Kal Ho Naa Ho are just some that have earned Khan his fan following although some of them must have been surprised at his National Award for best actor for Hum Tum (in 2005).



Inspired by the fit and furiously busy senior actors, Saif has decided to give film production a break and concentrate on acting, paying particular attention to the choice of roles and directors he works with. He shares these thoughts while seated in his office, looking relaxed in a white kurta-pyjama, sipping a cup of coffee.



Hes thoughtful about every question asked and, unlike his more effervescent wife Kareena Kapoor Khan, more politically correct. Echoes of his boarding school and British education are still evident in his clipped accent as he speaks about the influence of cinema in his life, his future plans and, of course, Rangoon.



In Rangoon, I play a former actor turned producer called Russi. The film is set during World War II, which gave us the opportunity to play with the period setting. A great deal of credit should go to the very hardworking and sporting assistants who managed to zero in on locations and create an atmosphere for us to work in. Also, the visual effects guys are magicians and we rely heavily on them to recreate Bombay of that time, says Saif, who particularly enjoyed playing dress-up  borrowing ideas and inspiration from memory and his grandfathers albums.



Hes old-fashioned



I suppose I am quite old-fashioned in my tastes. I think I drove our costume designer, Dolly Ahluwalia, quite mad. I have seen a lot of films from that time and I know what it looked like. Not just films, but also my grandfathers albums, he adds.



This is Saifs second film with Vishal Bhardwaj after Omkara, which gave the actor the fabulously textured and dark part of Langda Tyagi. Khan says working on an adaptation of Shakespeare made him and his colleagues feel like artistes. That gave a lot of respect. Once again with Rangoon, Vishal has created this epic world. Vishal has a tremendous visual sense and he creates that world and that era. When you are working with him, you always feel the setting is cool, and it is a really nice experience to be a part of that world. I think audiences today also want a cinematic experience with costume, production design etc.



Following Rangoon, this year Saif should also be seen in two other films  the Hindi remake of the Hollywood film Chef, directed by Raja Menon, and an offbeat film directed by Akshat Verma. Hes also close to signing on two other films  one in which he plays a soulless music producer, and another in which he plays a portly businessman.



In other words, in the coming films, Saif will be seen as a psychopathic, egotistical film producer, a banker with a terminal illness, a chef, a music producer, and maybe a Gujarati businessman. But besides all the work, including reading scripts, hes also ensuring a healthy work-life balance. This includes improving his command over French, listening to and playing music, reading voraciously and travelling.



Having a Plan B



I found I had a concentration problem and I wanted to work my way through it, and I have. I can now read for a couple of hours at a stretch and absorb at the same time. I love my library, he says.



Khan calls watching his mother Sharmila Tagores films, while growing up, an experience he didnt wholly enjoy. I saw my mother in a couple of Hindi movies. They were very emotional films like Mausam and Amar Prem. I didnt like the idea of her crying on screen; it used to disturb me slightly. I generally found her Hindi movies to be very emotional. So I didnt watch them as a kid. Later, when I was older, I could separate the emotional aspect.



Saifs one regret in life is not following up a solid UK school education with a university degree. But where his children Sara and Ibrahim are concerned, hes clear that though they might want to follow the family profession, its imperative they have a plan B. Ibrahim is in a boarding school in England and enjoying that. Sara has graduated from Colombia University with honours a year early. Shes smart and she has an education to fall back on. If she had said that she didnt want to go to college, I would have insisted she get a degree before doing anything else. But you cant make someone do these things  as my parents saw with me! says the father of three.



And now Sara is poised to be the next generation in the Tagore-Khan clan to step in front of the camera. Yes. Sara is very driven. She has always wanted to act. This is a fascinating profession and everyone around her has gained so much from it. If you know how to use it to your benefit, this profession can give you a really good life. But you must think like an actor. Dont think 9-5, but be an artiste  read, travel, think about the art and figure out what kind of actor you want to be. That would be my advice, he says.



By his own admission, it took him a while to figure out the kind of actor he wants to be, and hopefully his forthcoming slate, starting with Rangoon, will be a reflection of that.


For decades, Bengalureans had no choice beyond the citys notoriously inadequate public transport system and troublesome autorickshaw rides.



App-based taxis gave them that alternative, and with carpooling, those services became affordable for many more. Now, most would consider this a godsend in a city struggling to cope with its traffic-choked roads. Four people in one car would effectively remove three extra cars. But no, the state transport department would have none of them. It now wants taxi-aggregators Uber and OlaCabs to take them off.



Heres the departments rationale, articulated by Transport Commissioner M K Aiyappa: The shared carpooling services are a violation of the Motor Vehicle Act and the Karnataka On-demand Transportation Technology Aggregators Rules, 2016.



The message to the aggregators is clear: Operate the cabs only from a single pickup point to a single destination point. OlaShare or UberPool, which allows the passengers to board the same car from multiple points along a common route, will just have to go.



Legality of service



But Uber insists that its UberPool service is perfectly legal. Ridesharing products, says Uber, help decongest the roads by getting more commuters into lesser cars. They are cheaper than autorickshaw rides. Affordable, convenient transport options that can effectively reduce pollution and congestion are the future of urban mobility.



For now, the aggregator and the transport department appear to be on a collision course, although a resolution is likely next week. Yet, the issue has brought to the fore the governments fixation with an old licence raj that thrives on bribery and opaque deals, say mobility experts.



Laws are meant to improve the lives of people, not make it difficult, contends former co-chairman of the Commuter Comfort Task Force, Muralidhar Rao. It is criminal to suggest that carpooling services should not be encouraged. The roadblocks are only to perpetuate their vested interests, he says.



The Centre has already tabled the Transport Bill that deals with concepts such as ridesharing. But why wait for it to be passed? When clearly, the times have changed, you dont need to amend the Constitution, reasons Rao.



Contract carriage permits



The ride-sharing services are offered under contract carriage permits, which the department reiterates, cannot be used to pick up and drop passengers in between trips. In effect, the cabs will have to work like vehicles hired for school picnics or marriage functions.



To pick up and drop passengers along a given route, stage carriage permit is required. But only the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) is accorded this permit, besides school and college buses.



Transport authorities had impounded 32 cars of Ola and Uber last week, contending that the aggregators had defied orders. The cab firms then sought 15 days to comply with the regulations. Drivers say they will continue to operate but the companies and department have to clear the uncertainty soon.



If law is the stumbling block in allowing ride-sharing, why not amend rules to issue the stage carriage permit to others too? This is the counter by the experts, who cite BMTCs challenges in addressing the mounting public transport demands of a fast-growing city.



Cheaper alternative



Global studies indicate that 70% of daily trips in cities of developing countries are work and education-related. If this is addressed by an efficient public transport system, most city commute problems can be tackled. But in Bengaluru, BMTC is plagued by problems of funds, quality and efficiency.



Commuters have found the car-pool services just the right alternative since the cost per ride is about 50% less than individual rides. Uber has stated that over 25% of its total trips in the city are now Pool trips. The OlaShare service too has been popular, although the rates often go up during peak hours.



Determined to keep BMTC the only public transport option under the stage carriage permit, the state had earlier cracked down on ZipGo, a shuttle bus aggregator, citing violation of the Karnataka Motor Vehicles Rules of 1989. Its vehicles were impounded in big numbers, following which the service was shut down in 2015.



The same logic was applied by the government to deem the bike taxis launched by both Ola and Uber illegal. In March 2016, both the aggregators had to withdraw the services. While this has become the norm, private maxicabs and private buses heading out of the city are often seen picking up passengers from BMTC bus stops. Nobody seems to mind!


The police claimed to have busted an online cheating racket using duplicate credit and debit cards and arrested seven people, six from African countries and one from Bengaluru.



The police have recovered Rs 21.4 lakh in cash from them. The arrested include Eremhen Smart (33), Kenny (32), Oloadeji Olayemi (34)  all three from Nigeria, Martin Nsamba (25), Jolly (23) and Tinah (23), from Uganda, and Vikram Rao Nikkam (40), from Bengaluru. Nikkam operates via.dom, a travel agency in the city.



There are 14 people in the gang led by Hillary Kiegen, a Kenyan national. They are all at large and the police are on the lookout for them, DCP (East) Ajay Hilori told reporters on Saturday.



Modus operandi:



Jolly, a resident of Goa, had bought a magnetic card reader based on Martins directions. She had prepared a thin reader which resembled a plastic over. She had given it to the five African suspects in Bengaluru. The suspects had inserted the reader inside the passage of an ATM kiosk in Kammanahalli. They had also inserted the reader in other ATM kiosks.



The reader would store the data of credit and debits cards including Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) once they were inserted inside the kiosk. The suspects would remove the reader later, prepare duplicate credit and debit cards by transferring the data from the reader. They would withdraw cash from ATM kiosks using duplicate cards. They would also swipe the cards at business outlets for buying goods.



The gang struck a deal with Nikkam and transferred money they had withdrawn from various ATM kiosks to his account. Nikkam got a commission for each transaction, said the police.



The Banaswadi police received about 10 complaints of misuse of funds using fake cards.



Based on definite leads, the police picked up Smart on January 17 in Bengaluru. During interrogation, he disclosed the modus operandi and revealed the involvement of five of his associates from Africa.



He also led the police to Nikkams office where police recovered Rs 2.64 lakh from him and froze Rs 2.40 lakh in his account. Based on Smarts inputs, the police arrested four others.

Jolly was picked up from a KFC facility in Calangute beach, Mapusa, in Goa. Jolly claimed that she had destroyed the machine and had dumped it in a lake in Dharwad.


A 35-year-old stroke patient lost his life while being shunted in an ambulance from one hospital to another.





Mohammed Sayeed died after being denied timely treatment. His family had to run from pillar to post for six hours on Saturday after being turned away by three private hospitals and one government hospital.



While the private hospital turned him away on grounds that he was unable to foot the medical bills, KC General Hospital in Malleswaram refused to admit him for want of a ventilator.



According to a source close to Sayeeds family, he was admitted to a private tertiary care hospital on Tumakuru Road on Friday. He was referred to KC General hospital from there at 11 am. His family was told that they will not be able to pay the bills.



His wife works as a housemaid to make a living. The source claimed that he was brought to KC General Hospital at 12 noon and rushed to the emergency department. The patient was not even given primary treatment. After nearly two-and-a-half hours, they were told that the hospital did not have vacant ventilator beds and was referred elsewhere.



He was later taken in the same ambulance to a private multi-speciality hospital on Hesarghattha Main Road. The patient was allegedly kept waiting outside the hospital in the ambulance for three hours as the family did not have enough money for his admission.



The ambulance driver told the family that the oxygen levels in the cylinder were depleting and that he had to be rushed inside immediately. However, the hospital authorities paid no heed to this, said the source. His wife had to later contact her employers seeking help.



Local MLA S Muniraju had to later intervene. In turn, Principal Secretary, Department of Health and Family Welfare Shalini Rajaneesh, had to direct the hospital authorities to consider the case. When DH spoke to her, she said, We tried our best. Action would be taken against KC General Hospital staff for this. After a three-hour of wait in the ambulance, he was declared brought dead at Sapthagiri Hospital.
Brush up on the history of World War Two, Wang reportedly said during his visit to Canberra, Australia, regarding the Chinese territories taken by Japan. (Photo : Getty Images)

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi advised the United States to acquaint itself on the history of the South China Sea disputes during his visit to Australia, according to an article by The Independent.



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Brush up on the history of World War Two, Wang reportedly said during his visit to Canberra, Australia, regarding the Chinese territories taken by Japan. In accordance with Second World War agreements, these islands must be transferred back to Chinese authority.



This includes the Nansha Islands, said Wang. Nansha is the Chinese name for the Spratlys Islands.



In 1946, the then-Chinese government with help from the United States openly and in accordance with the law took back the Nansha Islands and reefs that Japan had occupied, and resumed exercising sovereignty.



Afterwards, certain countries around China used illegal methods to occupy some of the Nansha Islands and reefs, and its this that created the so-called South China Sea dispute, said Wang.



Wangs remarks come as a response to statements made by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.



In the Senate confirmation hearing, Tillerson said that China should not be granted access to the islands it has created in the South China Sea. Tillerson also asserted that the White House will help defend international territories in the disputed area, The Independent reports.



Tillersons statements in his Senate confirmation hearing is in line with US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis stance on the South China Sea dispute, that diplomacy should take precedence over conflict.



To resolve the South China Sea dispute, Wang reiterated that China is committed to pursuing diplomatic discourses with all the parties involved. In addition, historical facts and international laws wont be set aside.



Instead of creating conflict, Wang advised countries from outside the region to back China in its efforts to maintain the peace and stability in the South China Sea.


A section of Congress leaders criticised BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa for saying that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had bribed his party leaders to save his chair.



At a party programme in city on Saturday, various Congress leaders said Yeddyurappa has made wild charges that Siddaramaiah had paid over Rs 1,000 crore bribe to his bosses in Delhi. Minister K J George said Yeddyurappa should be releasing documents to support his charges that bribe was paid. Otherwise, he should retire from politics as suggested by Siddaramaiah, he said. State party vice president B L Shankar said the high command is not in need of money from Karnataka.



Also, it is not possible to raise such huge funds from Karnataka, he added. Shankar wondered how Yeddyurappa could access the Enforcement Directorates documents. The BJP leader on Friday had stated that he had Enforcement Directorate documents to prove his charges against Siddaramaiah.



Party working president Dinesh Gundu Rao said Yeddyurappa has been making baseless accusations and misleading people out of desperation.
Former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa said on Saturday that he would make another revelation involving chief minister in Bengaluru on Sunday.





Addressing a massive audience in Gundlupet on Saturday, Yeddyurappa reiterated that Siddaramaiah has given Rs 1,000 crore to the Congress high command to save his position. Senior Congress leaders themselves gave me this information over phone, he said.



Siddaramaiah has also made a mention in his diary about the payment to the high command. The Gundlupet and Nanjangud bypolls are going to be a major challenge for Siddaramaiah. The Congress, which claims to be a national party, does not even have a candidate to contest in Nanjangud, he said.



Speaking at another programme in Chamarajanagar, Yeddyurappa said, social reformer Basavanna, who was the prime minister of Kalyana state, assumed that the kings treasury was the peoples property. Nowadays, the politicians are misusing public funds as if they are their personal property, so corruption has become rampant. Yeddyurappa was in Nanjangud (Mysuru district) and Gundlupet (Chamarajanagar district) in the wake of the byelections, necessitated due to the resignation of V Srinivas Prasad in Nanjangud and in Gundlupet due to the death of minister H S Mahadeva Prasad.



Siddaramaiah is scheduled to visit the two places on Sunday. As the visit of Yeddyurappa evoked good response on Saturday, Congress party organisers have to work hard to make the visit of Siddaramaiah on Sunday a success. The chief minister is scheduled to participate in the Mahasmarane programme in memory of Mahadeva Prasad at the late ministers native Halahalli, in Gundlupet taluk. Later he will take part in a couple of events in Nanjangud taluk.
Senior BJP leaders B S Yeddyurappa and K S Eshwarappa seem to be on a collision course again. BJP national president Amit Shah had brokered peace between the two state leaders only last month.





But on Saturday, Eshwarappa attended a meeting of the Sangolli Rayanna Brigade, though Shah had asked him not to associate with it. Eshwarappa had distanced himself from the Brigade, a forum of OBCs and Dalits, after Shahs mediation in New Delhi last month.



Eshwarappa is said to be upset that Yeddyurappa is yet to fulfil an assurance made to Shah that he will review the appointment of office bearers and district presidents.



Eshwarappa had informally set a deadline to Yeddyurappa to revisit the list by February 10. A committee comprising Eshwarappa, Yeddyurappa, BJP general secretary Muralidhar Rao and party organisation secretary B L Santosh was to discuss changes in the list of office-bearers of the party. However, Yeddyurappa has not yet convened a meeting of the committee.



Eshwarappa and several second-rung leaders in the party feel that Yeddyurappa had appointed party functionaries unilaterally.



Eshwarappa told reporters that Shah had not objected to his association with the Brigade but had told him that the forum should not indulge in any political activities or work against the BJP. It is an apolitical forum working for the welfare of OBCs and Dalits, he said.



Calendar of events



At the same time, Eshwarappa said he will discharge his responsibilities as BJPs OBC Morcha in-charge. The central leadership has directed the state unit to hold conventions across the state in the name of Sangolli Rayanna. I will meet Yeddyurappa on February 13 to chalk out a calendar of events, he said.



Eshwarappa said the Brigade is planning to provide scholarships to 10,000 merit students across the state from the next academic year.


The government has begun studying the consequences of the ruling of the Supreme Court, striking down the consequential seniority in promotions awarded to SC/ST employees.



The order will have far-reaching consequences. There will be demotions of several employees who have been promoted as per the provisions of the Karnataka Determination of Seniority of the Government Servants Promoted on the Basis of Reservation (To the Posts in the Civil Services of the State) Act, 2002, as the entire legislation has been quashed by the court, Law Minister T B Jayachandra told DH.



The minister said it is too early to get the exact number of demotions that will happen as the process of calculation will take time.



I have held discussions with the advocate general and the law secretary and told them to study the order. They will recommend to the government whether it is a fit case to file a review, Jayachandra said.



T K Anil Kumar, secretary to the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, said a clear picture on the consequences of the order was yet to emerge.



The Supreme Court, on Thursday, had held that proportionate representation of posts for SC/STs was not sufficient reason to grant promotion. It had held that an exercise for determining inadequacy of representation, backwardness and overall efficiency must be carried out before granting promotion to SC/ST employees.



Official sources said implementation of the order will result in demotions of employees across 39 departments. It will also result in promotion of employees from the general category who had been awaiting their turn for years, in spite of meeting eligibility criteria. The order does not affect those who have got promotions and retired.



CMs reaction

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday said the government was likely to file a review petition against the Supreme Court order on promotions. He was answering a query from reporters in this connection.



Court relied on 2006 decision

The Supreme Court has relied upon the Constitution benchs decision of 2006 in the M Nagaraj and others case to declare as invalid a Karnataka law to the extent that it provided consequential seniority to state employees belonging to SC/STs. We declare the provisions of the impugned Act to the extent of doing away with the catch up rule and providing for consequential seniority to persons belonging to SCs and STs on promotion against roster points to be ultra vires Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, the court said, reports DHNS from New Delhi. The catch up rule, as explained in the Nagaraj judgment, stated that if a senior general candidate was promoted after SC and ST candidates, he would regain his seniority on promotion in relation to the juniors who had been promoted against reserved vacancies.


Forty-seven days have passed since Anna Mathews last saw or heard from her five-year-old son.



Anna has been told that her child, Samuel, is somewhere in the United Kingdom (UK) in the custody of his father, James Robert Edward Peirce aka Tom, a British national.



That, however, is the only piece of verified information she has on the whereabouts of Samuel because Peirce, her estranged husband, had sneaked him out of India to the UK in early January, with forged travel documents, and has since remained incommunicado.



Anna, a Thiruvananthapuram-based PR professional, said she had to keep the fight for her son alive, but this is also a time of doubt and distress; and a time to question systems that cannot prevent an alleged international child abduction or make proactive follow-up interventions.



A child has been illegally taken out of the country. Documents have been forged and the abduction was carried out after meticulous planning. The enormity of the crime is baffling, but my efforts to get the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) involved have failed, Anna told DH. Peirces family has refused to intervene.



Peirce (54) has been living in India on a tourist visa for 10 years. On the morning of December 26, Anna dropped Samuel off with him at the Kollam District Family Court.



Peirce was scheduled to return Samuel to her on December 31  in line with interim custody arrangements stipulated by the Kerala High Court  but did not. On January 18, the British High Commission in Chennai confirmed that Peirce obtained emergency travel documents for him and Samuel, from the commission in Kathmandu, and left for the UK.



The original British passports of Peirce and Samuel have been submitted to the high court. Anna, in a Facebook post on January 13, revealed details of the abduction.



The Fort Kochi police had already registered a case; leads following mobile tower locations in Goa and north India were failing to make headway when the High Commission confirmed what Anna termed was her worst fears.



Earlier this month, the state police informed Anna about a high court directive for Peirces extradition. The police said efforts to track Peirce were at a preliminary stage.



The case reports have been mailed to the police in London and possibilities of having Interpol involved are being explored. Since extradition procedures involve government-level directions, we are focussing on cases filed locally; the next step will be based on warrants, Rajkumar P, Circle Inspector, Fort Kochi, told DH. Anna said despite support from DGP Loknath Behera, lack of intent from the political leadership was leaving the trail cold.


Pangolin, an endangered species, is listed as one of the most trafficked animals in the world. (Photo : Getty Images)

An investigation has been launched by Chinese authorities regarding a banquet in Guangxi Province that allegedly served pangolin meat, Chinese local media reported according to BBC.



The main question investigators aim to answer is whether or not officials were the ones responsible behind the banquet, which was held in 2015.



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Anger and outcry erupted when pictures from the banquet, which were uploaded on Sina Weibo by a user called Ah_cal back in July 2015, began making the rounds on the Internet. The post, which has since been deleted, included pictures of what seems to be a posh Chinese feast, with one picture an up-close shot of cooked meat.



According to Ah_cals post, the feast was organized by local officials. Cooked pangolin was served to us to eat.



It was my first time eating it, the taste was very good, and I have already deeply fallen in love with this taste of wildlife, Ah_cal described the experience in the post.



Just recently, it was revealed that the individual behind the username Ah_cal was a Hong Kong businessman named Calvin Lee Ka-wo. According to Chinese news outlets, Lee Ka-wo was part of a group of entrepreneurs who visited Nanning in Guangxi to explore local business opportunities.



The Guangxi Investment Promotion Bureau has since admitted that it has received a business delegation in 2015. The officials denied, however, holding any such feast that served pangolin meat.



We have diligently identified the diners in the photographs, and none of them belong to Guangxi Investment Promotion Bureaus leadership or its staff, a bureau spokesman reportedly told Chengdu Shangbao, a local newspaper outlet.



Peoples Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, published a commentary criticizing Guangxi authorities. It also offered that the banquet may have been organized by a different provincial government department.



The pangolins scales are so hard, while the response of the officials is so weak--with such a clear contrast, it is hard to dispel the doubts that have broken out.



Pangolin, an endangered species, is listed as one of the most trafficked animals in the world, according to the BBC. Roasted pangolin scales are believed to be useful in detoxification in traditional Chinese medicine.


Both buildings, due to their "vertical forest" design, will feature about 2,500 cascading plants and over 1,100 trees. (Photo : Facebook)

To help fight greenhouse gas emissions, China has recently unveiled plans for two "vertical forest" towers to be constructed in the city of Nanjing, according to a report by The Telegraph.



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Based on the plans designed by Italian architect Stefano Boeri, the smaller of the two towers will house a Hyatt hotel with a swimming pool to be added in the rooftop. Meanwhile, the taller tower will house a museum and a green architecture school. Several floors will also be dedicated to hosting office spaces.



Both buildings, due to their "vertical forest" design, will feature about 2,500 cascading plants and over 1,100 trees. Green tanks and balconies will also be a dominant exterior feature of the towers. It is hoped that these leafy additions will help curb air pollution in Nanjing by absorbing 25 tons of carbon dioxide every year.



It is not the first time Boeri designed such project. In 2014, he completed his first vertical forest project located in Milan. The Nanjing vertical forests are expected to be completed by 2018.



Similar plans have popped up across Asia, although the Nanjing towers will be the first of its kind in the region. On the other side of the world, living walls are a hot trend. One example is the Perishing Hall in Paris, which features a living wall designed by botanist Patrick Blanc in its central atrium.



Another hotel in Europe with a living wall is The Rubens at the Palace in London, along Buckingham Palace Road. The southwest-facing wall of the hotel has been installed with approximately 10,000 herbaceous plants that help regulate hotel temperature and attract insect pollinators.



Once the Nanjing towers are done, Boeri Studios hopes to build more vertical forests in China, with cities like Shanghai, Liuzhou, and Shijiazhuang in mind. There are also plans to build vertical forests in Europe, particularly in Switzerland and Italy.


China and Greece were home to ancient civilizations that, although differed, brought about major discoveries still relevant in the modern age. (Photo : Getty Images)

The Confucius Museum Qufu, Shandong Province--the birthplace of China's most famous philosopher--is set to open in the second half of this year, a local official said on Wednesday, describing it as the country's first museum to focus exclusively on the life and work of Confucius.



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"Work on the exhibition center, the main building of the museum complex, has been completed, while detailed work on exhibition platforms and landscaping is underway," Zhang Lizheng, a spokesperson for the Qufu Culture Industry Park where the museum is located, told China Daily.



The $102 million museum complex consists of an exhibition center and six smaller halls that cover a total of 57,000 square meters.



The museum is a cultural project showcasing Confucian teachings and relics as well as a place for learning about traditional Chinese culture, said Yang Jinquan, deputy head of the Qufu bureau of cultural relics.



Construction of the museum began in 2013, but was temporarily suspended due to financial issues and concerns on how to present Confucius's thoughts and teachings accurately.



Yang Chaoming, head of the Confucius Research Institute, said the museum will serve as another source of information about Confucius and his teachings aside from books and Confucian temples.



"At the museum, visitors will be able to gain a more in-depth understanding about Confucius and his teachings via images, modern technologies and relics related to the sage," said Yang, who is also a member of the provincial political advisory body.



Yang Yitang, an expert on Confucian studies, said the museum will serve as a huge repository for Confucian artifacts.



"About 350,000 Confucius-related relics and archives that now rest in storerooms will be better protected and presented to the public, helping experts and tourists to learn about the sage," said Yang.



Born in 551 B.C., Confucius has deeply influenced Chinese culture and philosophy. He is also credited with establishing China's first private schools that accept students from all walks of life.



In his report to the provincial legislature, Shandong governor Guo Shuqing said the local government is committed to completing the Confucius Museum and opening it to the public this year.


Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi discussed with his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop. (Photo : Getty Images)

Amid rising tensions between the China and the U.S. over the South China Sea dispute, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that conflict between the two superpowers would not amount to a winning solution, saying that neither of them cannot afford to start one.



Wang's comments in an Australia press conference emerge as an attempt to diffuse any pressure between China and the U.S., given the rise of Donald Trump to the White House, Reuters reported. The billionaire turned politician is known for his brash anti-Chinese statements in emphasizing his "America First" policy.



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Downplaying the possibility of an armed conflict between China and the U.S., Wang emphasized that both countries have gone through thick and thin in resolving differences, citing the comments of U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis on the importance of exhausting all diplomatic avenues.



Wang remarked that China is committed to fostering lasting peace, but he nonetheless criticized Trump's protectionist stance, saying that It would do no good in propagating inclusiveness as the global economy expands towards greater sustainability.



Despite Chinese President Xi Jinping's keynote remarks during this year's World Economic Forum on China's plans to have a greater role in the international community, Wang said that the country does not seek a global leadership position, citing its need to focus on domestic development first.



Meanwhile, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop urged Wang to consider joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)--a trade pact exited by the U.S. through Trump, who stressed his preference for bilateral agreements.



Wang, for his part, committed to exploring possibilities to connect China's Belt and Road Initiative to the development of Australia's frontier Northern Territory, a vast expanse of land on the continent that has yet to develop infrastructurally due to the lack of willing investors.


Elementis was a top riser as it entered into an agreement to acquire specialty chemicals platform SummitReheis from an affiliate of One Rock Capital Partners for an enterprise value of $360m.

SummitReheis  which is expected to report revenue of $134m and underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of $28m for the year ended 31 December  will become part of an enlarged personal care business within Elementis.

Dunelm Group also advanced as Numis upgraded the stock to buy from add and reiterated a target price of 825p. The homewares company on Wednesday reported a drop in first half profit and revenue, due to weaker pound, disruptions following its recent acquisition of Worldstores and a challenging homewares market.

Numis said: "Despite the tougher current backdrop for homewares, which is likely to result in limited near-term growth in core Dunelm, with the shares now trading on a sector multiple (11.5x FY18 PE) we see value, given the quality of Dunelm's core operation alongside the growth opportunity afforded by the integration of Worldstores' capabilities."

Going the other way, Just Eat tanked after saying David Buttress had informed the board of his intention to step down from his role as chief executive officer due to urgent family matters.

The FTSE 250 company said Buttress would continue to work full time in the company until the end of the first quarter, at which time John Hughes - who has been chairman of the board for almost six years - will assume the role of executive chairman.

Greene Kings shares fell as Canaccord Genuity reiterated a buy rating after the pub operators third quarter trading update, but cut the target price to 850p from 900p and lowered its earnings guidance.

Canaccord said the pub operator's integration of Spirit Pub Company will be "disruptive and hard work" in the near term but "investors should not lose sight of the goal that Greene King is after".

Greene King and Spirit together is a much better investment proposition with higher quality earnings, stronger free cash flow and better growth prospects than before.

FTSE 250 - Risers

Elementis (ELM) 300.70p 9.27%

Kaz Minerals (KAZ) 570.50p 8.67%

Ferrexpo (FXPO) 163.00p 5.23%

Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 267.80p 5.23%

Dunelm Group (DNLM) 648.50p 5.02%

Ashmore Group (ASHM) 351.60p 4.96%

Nostrum Oil & Gas (NOG) 455.80p 4.49%

Berendsen (BRSN) 938.50p 4.45%

Vedanta Resources (VED) 1,081.00p 3.54%

Amec Foster Wheeler (AMFW) 460.40p 3.53%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Just Eat (JE.) 518.50p -6.49%

Electrocomponents (ECM) 475.80p -5.60%

Dairy Crest Group (DCG) 557.50p -3.38%

Greene King (GNK) 678.50p -3.21%

Senior (SNR) 193.50p -2.32%

OneSavings Bank (OSB) 354.50p -2.23%

Essentra (ESNT) 435.90p -1.98%

Shawbrook Group (SHAW) 260.50p -1.96%

William Hill (WMH) 272.90p -1.59%

PZ Cussons (PZC) 312.10p -1.55%
SOUTHWEST ASIA -- Who was Archduke Franz Ferdinand? What year was the ice cream cone created? Who was the first person to fly around the world? Questions such as these might bring back memories of sitting at a rickety desk as some history teacher spouts off endless lists of names and dates to be memorized in preparation for an end-of-year exam. Chances are, however, most people can name at least one history teacher who breaks the stereotype.

Master Sgt. Jason Paseur, currently deployed in Southwest Asia as the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing historian, is always on the hunt for creative lessons for the classroom where he teaches as a civilian. Paseur is a reservist deployed from the 94th Airlift Wing, Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Ga.

I really wanted to teach history because I wanted to make it interesting, said Paseur. My goal is to make history tangible.

Known as Mr. Paseur to his students at Trion High School in northwest Georgia, Paseur uses personal experience to liven up his lessons. In the past, this has included bringing an antique loom into his classroom, where he uses it during lessons on the Industrial Revolution. He also takes his classes on the occasional field trips around the region that coincide with the curriculum.

This works well with teaching U.S. history, but becomes a bit more complicated with world history.

Ive never been out of the United States until now, so this is going to help me to be able to teach U.S. history as well as world history next year, Paseur explained. This is going to really broaden my experiences to share in the classroom.

As a first-time deployer, he likes to explore the region to learn more about its culture. Whether its shopping at local souks or visiting museums, Paseur hopes to take this experience back to the classroom.

Where I live in northwest Georgia, a lot of people grew up camping with their parents, said Paseur. You kind of equate camping with skills that are passed down. Its interesting that their culture here promotes camping as way of not forgetting their past. Historically there were Bedouin tribes camping and going to various areas, so if I can somehow tie that into what my students do, they may remember what the term Bedouin means.

The same is also true at a more local level. His students are no strangers to seeing Operation Inherent Resolve on social media. In fact, several of his students follow the 386th AEWs Facebook page to see what hes doing. Being an active member of OIR will be beneficial in teaching U.S. history, said Paseur.

When I incorporate lessons in the classroom, I try to use experiences and descriptions to teach my students, Paseur said. Of course with todays technology you can almost bring them to certain places.

The knowledge and experience Paseur will share with his students wont fit on flashcards. Instead, students will hear his stories and will have a better understanding of the world around them. They might sit up a bit straighter at their desks, listen a bit more attentively and ask more engaging questions. More importantly, theyll be on the path to becoming more informed citizens, ready not only for their end-of-course exam but also for life outside the classroom walls.
Deep concern has been expressed at the falling number of gardai in Donegal town after two gardai were recently transferred to other stations.

In the last six years numbers at the Donegal town station have fallen by almost 50 per cent from 37 in 2009 to 20 today. Gardai at the station are deeply concerned and have said that it is increasingly difficult to manage all the rosters.

One garda source in the town said: It is worth stressing that in these 20 members, sergeants, detectives, traffic corps and junior liaison officers are included.

Garda Brendan OConnor of the Garda Representative Association told the Democrat: The numbers speak for themselves and it is a worrying situation. There simply is no fresh blood coming into the Ballyshannon district with the result that transfers and promotions cannot be replaced, with the result that garda numbers are falling countywide.

An aggravating factor is that with the merging of the Glenties District, gardai in south Donegal have to cover an area stretching from Bundoran to the Gweebarra Bridge.

It is now not uncommon to see a patrol car manned by only one member - this is not safe practice.

Garda OConnor continued: All the resources are being pumped into the Dublin area - the local district office is not being given the budget or the resources to provide effective policing.

The traffic corps has been downgraded with those dedicated to traffic now assisting in normal duties.

For several years we have been asking a simple question: 'How many gardai does it take to police the country?' We just cannot get an answer - nobody seems to be able to quantify the number.

Like all operations or commercial companies we have to factor in injuries, maternity leave, sickness and holiday leave - at present we are just operating on a skeleton crew.
A vigil is being held at Letterkenny University Hospital next week by a campaign group calling for improvements in the health service.

The group, Still Waiting, have organised the the vigil for next Thursday.

Vigils will also take place at the acute hospitals in Sligo and Mayo at the same time as the Letterkenny event, 7:30pm.

The group says the event is in memory of those who have suffered and are still suffering as a result of the government and The health service.

Still Waiting is running the campaign to highlight all the people who are suffering in Ireland from the state of the health service.

The group is calling for the resignation of the health minister, Simon Harris, and for a radical increase the numbers of nurses and frontline staff.

People attending have been asked to bring candles and pictures of those who have suffered and are still suffering.
Fierce opposition backed by trade unions and Mahinda Rajapaksa, former president of Sri Lanka, hamper the billion-dollar investment. (Photo : Getty Images)

China's agreement with Sri Lanka to develop the island nation's strategic port town of Hambantota has attracted controversy over insinuations that it is meant to usher in Chinese military presence in the Indian Ocean, with India being the most worried.



The Global Times reported that Sri Lankan Ambassador to China Karunasena Kodituwakku's remarks emphasizing that China would not allow any military activity in Hambantota was made to appease India, with University of International Relations associate professor Chu Yin calling it "unnecessary."



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Chu added that the Belt and Road Initiative is intended for civilian development, and that China respects the security concerns of countries where it invests on infrastructure. He then went on to say that India is merely "interfering" with Sri Lanka's domestic issues.



Another expert, professor Lin Minwang of the Institute of International Studies of Fudan University, weighed in on the issue, saying that it was India who Sri Lanka approached first for funding Hambantota's development, only for it to defer over financial constraints and issues on competition with its own ports.



Yahoo Finance reported that the Belt and Road Initiative is seen by Sri Lanka as an "economic lifeline" that can help offset its own debt problems, with Hambantota being among the major recipients of China's near-$2 billion investment in the country.



However, groups in Sri Lanka opposed to Chinese infrastructure investment in the country said that the deal benefits China more than anyone else. Former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who once allowed Chinese investments during his term, is among those vehemently opposing the move.



Fears over Sri Lankans losing their land on areas where China will build their infrastructural developments have stoked violent demonstrations. Rajapaksa's successor, Maithripala Sirisena, once called Chinese infrastructure deals "unfair," ended up signing a $1.2 billion deal with China Merchants Port Holdings.



The deal, which is set to last 99 years, leases 80 percent of the port at Hambantota to China Merchants Port Holdings. Sri Lanka's burgeoning debts may have prompted Rajapaksa to agree with the deal, despite the country having a $1.5 billion, three-year loan deal with the IMF signed in 2016.


A local group and elected representatives are calling on the public to have their say on future oyster farm developments as part of an independent review into the Department of the Marine aquaculture licensing process.

Coiste Timpeallachta an Ghaoith, the Channel Environmental Group, has also applied for a public hearing on licenses granted for oyster farms in Gweedore Bay that they say would cover 99 acres.

Aodh Mac Ruairi, a coiste spokesperson, said the group wants people to make submissions for the independent review of the licensing process. He said the main concern for the coiste is the method in which licenses were granted without what they said was proper public consultation.

The review has invited interested parties to make a formal submission before the deadline closes tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 10th.

Cllr. Marie Therese Gallagher and Joe McHugh, TD and minister of state, are also urging the public to make submissions.

Cllr. Gallagher said most people are not against aquaculture, nor do they reject the important role marine-based activities can play in a local economy. However they are opposed to developments on our beaches and strands which may be poorly planned or are disproportionate to the local area in terms of both their size and scale, she said.

Thomas Pringle, independent TD, also raised concerns in relation to the volume of aquaculture licenses granted by the department for Braade Strand/Gweedore Bay, saying, the large number has raised concerns locally due to the scale and the possible restriction of the beach to the local community as a result.

Submissions to the review of the licensing process may be emailed to aquaculturereview@agriculture .gov.ie with subject heading Aquaculture Comsultation; or posted to: Independent Review of Aquaculture Licensing c/o Deirdre Morgan  Secretary to the Independent Review Group, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, National Seafood Centre, Clonakilty, Co. Cork, P85 TX47.
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley recently proclaimed the month of February as Alabama Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month, and to kick off this years celebration was a weeklong Alabama CTE State Tour that began Friday afternoon.

The first two stops on the Alabama CTE State Tour were the Houston County Career Center and Enterprise High School.

EHS is one of just 14 schools being highlighted on this state-wide tour which was attended by community leaders, businesses, Alabama State Representative Barry Moore and even Dr. Philip C. Cleveland of the Alabama State Department of Education.

Cleveland is the Deputy State Superintendent for the Division of Career and Technical Education/Workforce Development.

Its always an honor to come back to Enterprise and to recognize the success this community and school provides for students, Cleveland said. Our goal is to get students, college and career ready and we can help that through Career-Tech Education.

During the Enterprise stop on the Alabama CTE Tour those in attendance visited a number of EHS classes in session including Human Services, Nurses Aide, Arts, Nutrition, Agriscience, Automotive, Welding and JROTC programs.

The programs give students the opportunity to earn credentials in a number of fields which can go to some college credits or even certification for certain jobs like nursing, culinary jobs and welding.

Since 2013 the EHS CTE programs have grown from six CTE programs and 15 CTE teachers to 10 CTE programs and 31 teachers at EHS, Coppinville Junior High and Dauphin Junior High.
Future doctors and nurses practiced communicating in a clinical setting on Friday at an interprofessional event sponsored by the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine and Wallace College.

More than 100 Wallace nursing students and ACOM medical students worked in simulation labs at Wallaces new health science building with standardized patients on Friday. Standardized patients are actors paid to describe symptoms taken from carefully written scripts to medical and nursing students. The practice gives students an opportunity to practice their diagnostic, patient-monitoring and people skills.

Kathy Buntin, associate dean of health science at Wallace, said that the interprofessional training allows prospective doctors and nurses learn how to communicate with one another and learn more about their roles in a real-life setting.

Neither one is with the patient 24 hours a day, Buntin said. They need to learn how to collaborate and share information.

The simulated patient scenarios are monitored by instructors behind one-way mirror glass.

Koneshia Shipman is a nursing student at Wallace. She said the event gave her better insight into what doctors priorities are in clinical settings.

If you can communicate with the doctors, thats the key to patient treatment, she said.

Billy Hsu, an ACOM student, also participated. He said he appreciated the chance to work in a scenario-based training exercise with future nurses.

It helps give you better perspective concerning how to work with other medical professionals to provide good patient treatment, he said.
Geneva County authorities have arrested an 18-year-old in connection with a stabbing at a Halloween party reportedly prompted by a Ku Klux Klan costume. WDHN is reporting that Michael Harrison Barrett, 18, a senior at Slocomb High School, has been charged with first-degree assault. More arrests could follow, authorities said. Attempts to contact Geneva County Sheriff Tony Helms were not ...
Rev Fr. James Shevlin who died suddenly at the Mater Private Hospital on Saturday 7th January 2017, was a popular priest for over 50 years who ministered in several parishes in County Louth, his last being Carlingford and Omeath.

A member of the Society of African Missions, Dromantine he lived and worked in many places throughout his life of 79 years.

He was born in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan in 1937 to Bernard and Annie Shevlin and was the middle child of five. He went to the Patrician Brothers School in Carrickmacross.

Fr. Jim always spoke fondly of his time growing up in Carrick, the market days in the town and helping out in the family s public house. He always knew he wanted to become a priest and joined the missionary order.

He was ordained on the 10th December 1961 in St Peters Church in Lurgan, which was televised by BBC Northern Ireland. His first Mass was celebrated in St Josephs Church, Carrickmacross.

In 1962 he went to the missions and spent ten years in Jos, Nigeria. Ten years later he moved to New York before returning to Nigeria in 1975. He then had another spell in New York before returning home in 1978.

On his return to Ireland Fr. Jim was asked to help out in the parish of Ardee where he spent almost 17 years, becoming a familiar face not only within the Church and parish but also at the cattle mart on the occasional Tuesday and calling out the Bingo numbers on Friday nights. Fr. Jim loved meeting people and talking to them. He knew everyone by name. He also loved to sing. In 1984 he became an Armagh Diocesan Priest and in 1994 he moved to Kilkerley.

Although only there for four years he always remembered it fondly as it was his first position as Parish Priest and he gained a lot from the people and their community spirit.

In 1998 he became parish priest of Dunleer, and during his time there with the people of Dunleer they refurbished St. Brigids Church. In 2006 he joined Fr.Mac Raois in the parish of Carlingford and Omeath.

Fr Jim settled in very well with the people and the surroundings and made it his home. He celebrated his Golden Jubilee in 2011, both in Omeath and with his fellow SMA fathers at the SMA House in Cork. He retired in 2014 from his parish duties, but still continued to be very much part of the community.

He was predeceased by his parents, his sister, Mary and his brother, Noel. He is survived by his brothers, Tom (Carrickmacross), Brendan (London), sister-in-law, Ann, nephews, nieces, grandnephews, grandnieces, relatives and friends.

Fr. Jim's funeral Mass was held on Thursday 12th January 2017 and the Principal Celebrant was Most Rev. Eamon Martin, DD Archbishop of Armagh. Cardinal Sean Brady, Fr. Brian MacRaois PP, fellow priests and S.M.A fathers concelebrated the Mass. Burial took place in the adjoining cemetery.

The Readings were read by his brother, Brendan Shevlin and nephew, Thomas Shevlin. The Prayers of the Faithful were read by his nieces, Orla Harney, Ciara Shevlin, Suzanne Shevlin, his nephews, Brian and Jim Shevlin and his grand-nephew James Daly. The Offertory gifts were presented by his niece, Ann Kieran, grandnephew Patrick Kieran, Mary Fegan and John Elmore.

St Laurences Church Choir, Scoil Naomh Lorcan, Scoil Naomh Brid, Ruth Kelly-Brady and Paddy Neary provided the wonderful music and hymns.

The Church was beautifully decorated with flowers which he always appreciated, thanks to the Altar Society and Alice Cunningham. Eamonn Brennan provided a visual display of readings and reflections. The Scouts gave him a guard of honour.

Fr Jim knew the importance of having family and friends. He will be greatly missed but will always be fondly remembered.

The Months Mind Mass for Fr. Jim is on Wednesday 8th February 2017 in St. Laurences Church, Omeath at 7.30pm
Louth Deputy Gerry Adams has called for a General Election.

Deputy Adams was speaking in Belfast this afternoon on the controversy surrounding the Governments handling of the campaign against Maurice McCabe.

Adams said: "The Fine Gael led government is one without authority. It is stumbling from one crisis to another - in health, in housing, in homelessness.

"They have covered up on the NAMA scandal and they are now playing the public for fools on the Garda/Tusla/McCabe controversy.

"Fine Gael is in power only by dint of patronage from Fianna Fail, and Fianna Fail is keeping the wreck afloat.

"Citizens are scandalised by the arrogance of Enda Kenny and his Cabinet colleagues. The Taoiseach should do the right thing. So should Micheal Martin. He should withdraw his support for the government.

"Sinn Fein in government would not tolerate this type of behaviour.

"People deserve an election. They deserve to have their say on all of these matters.

"The Sinn Fein Chief Whip has written to the Business Committee in the Dail seeking a debate on the Commission of Investigation to be brought forward to Tuesday to allow the Tanaiste and the Minister for Children to clarify their positions.
DHS reveals that visitors must surrender their online credentials before entering the US

DHS reveals that visitors must surrender their online credentials before entering the US (Photo : CBS News/YouTube)

The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) could begin interrogating visa candidates and refugees from the seven Muslim-majority nations. President Donald Trump's controversial executive order requested visitors to surrender their online passwords before entering the country.



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DHS Secretary John Kelly revealed that social media credentials are needed for visa applications from the banned nations. Kelly added that if the visa applicants do not cooperate, then they cannot travel to the US.



According to NBC News, handling over the social media credentials to DHS officials is a part of enhanced security measures. Under the current checking process, authorities "don't have a ton to work with," depending on the candidate's documentation and getting some information about their experience.



Kelly claimed that the process is significantly more chaotic when managing "failed states, for example, Syria or Somalia, where strife and conflict have corrupted the record-keeping. He revealed that the government could interrogate the financial status of the applicant.



The government is checking over the particular circumstances to people who may be possibly involved in any terrorist organization's payroll. Getting online passwords was considered by top authorities at the DHS under the Obama administration, yet the strategy was never implemented, as per AOL News.



The administration declared the plan in June in an offer to give the DHS clarity and visibility to possible disreputable activity and associations. It will add a line to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) application that US-bound visitors must fill out the security questions plan.



President Trump proposed travel ban said that the Department of Homeland Security would finalize the proposed travel ban and ensure that the visitors can enter the nation with consistency and immediately without undue delay. The countries that are prohibited from entering the United States within the 90 days are Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Iraq and Syria.






Women of the Communist Party of China continue the fight and are inspired by the life of Huang Mulan. (Photo : Getty Images)

Huang Mulan is well loved and regarded as "the most beautiful agent" by the Communist Party of China (CPC) as she was known for many acts of courage and heroism in the struggle against the Kuomintang (KMT).



She recently died in Nanjing and many revere her memory as the "most beautiful agent." She was born in Hunan to a wealthy family.



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She joined the CPC in 1926 and was part of the underground movement and engaged in many acts of heroism during the struggle against the KMT.



In 1930, she protected Zhou Enlai, China's first premier, by providing information about an attempted abduction by the KMT.



The Party's General Secretary Xiang Zhongfa engaged in acts of betrayal that same year. Huang was the one who exposed him, which helped the CPC avoid many mistakes.



A year later, she led a group of political prisoners from the CPC to escape.



However, she was arrested and jailed for 17 years during the years of purging that was implemented during the Cultural Revolution. She was released in 1975.



Upon release, she continued her fight to clear up her name. Her efforts finally came to fruition when the Communist Party recognized their mistakes in 1980.



She was married four times in her life. She bore a son in 1928 when she was assigned in Jiangxi Province.



He son died four months later, but it did not deter her from continuing her work for the CPC.



Huang's autobiography was published in 2016 and revealed many recollections and insights on Huang's life struggle.



According to General Chen Geng, "the life of Mulan is a reflection of the vicissitudes of the Chinese revolution."



"I'm never pessimistic, always sticking to inspiring ideas even in the face of adversity. This is one of my strengths, and the only secret of my health and keeping fit," Huang wrote.


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A search is performed on The Pirate Bay Web site on a computer monitor in Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, November 7, 2005. (Photo : Getty Images/ Adam Berry)

Is the end near for The Pirate Bay, ExtraTorrent, Kickass Torrents and similar torrenting operations? Reports indicate that search engines sites like Google, Yahoo and Bing will permanently block torrent-related queries from their results while the so-called mother of ISPs (internet service providers) will make TPB and other piracy destinations disappear from the face of the internet.



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In a report, TorrentFreak said that if the latest collaboration by search engine providers and copyright holders will be implemented search queries for The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites will not appear on Google, Bing and Yahoo starting June 1, 2017. A new piracy code from the parties concerned is being worked out and should be introduced in the next few months.



"All parties have also agreed that the code should take effect, and the targets in it be reached, by 1 June this year," the report said.



When the anti-piracy measure takes effect, search indices will no longer display torrent-related results. The hope is to gradually erase traces of digital content piracy from the internet and eventually kill the likes of TPB and KAT.



The chance of the piracy code getting finalized appears high as the same report noted that the UK's Intellectual Property Office and search engine operators are inching closer to a definite agreement. "The search engines involved in this work have been very cooperative, making changes to their algorithms and processes," the report quoted one source as saying.



And likely to further accelerate the likelihood of piracy operations shutting down soon, TorrentFreak said in a separate report that Cogent Communications has started blocking The Pirate Bay, Torrentz.cd and other specifically identified torrenting operations.



To put into perspective how the latest blockade action will impact on online piracy, Cogent Communications is described as the backbone of internet access worldwide. The giant ISP is provider of support services for local counterparts in many countries, which means that the company restricting access to torrent sites will cause huge problems for such operations.



This will be true for TPB and other file-sharing sites, and likewise applies to millions of users regularly frequenting these operations.



But as indicated in the same report, torrent fans that will be denied access to The Pirate Bay and the like have some options available to circumvent the digital roadblock - the use of virtual private network (VPN) and Tor. TorrentFreak also noted that proxy sites for these operations remain up as of writing.


By Jessica A. Knoblauch

A U.S. District Court judge took the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to task on Jan. 10 for withholding government documents related to the agencys approval of genetically engineered (GE) salmon. The judges decision is a big win for public transparency, but its also a small step toward finally doing a proper evaluation of the risks posed by GE animalswhich could one day end up on our dinner plates.

In 2015, the FDA approved GE salmon made from the DNA of three different animals: Atlantic salmon, deep water ocean eelpout, and Pacific Chinook salmon. The GE version is intended to grow faster than conventional farmed salmon, reportedly getting to commercial size in half the time.

FDA Approves AquaBounty's Genetically Engineered Salmon Despite Widespread Opposition https://t.co/AUdqzoy7SB via @ecowatch  Food Babe (@thefoodbabe) November 19, 2015

Even though this is the first time any government in the world has approved a GE animal for commercial sale and consumption, so far the FDA has taken a lackadaisical approach to evaluating the salmons potential for harm to wild salmon and the environment. If the GE salmon were to escape, it could threaten wild salmon populations by outcompeting them for scarce resources and habitat, by mating with endangered salmon species, and by introducing new diseases.

The worlds preeminent experts on GE fish and risk assessment, as well as biologists at U.S. wildlife agencies charged with protecting fish and wildlife, heavily criticized the FDA for failing to evaluate these impacts. But the FDA ignored their concerns, so in March 2016, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against the agency.

As part of the lawsuit, the FDA is required to compile a record of documents that illuminate the path the agency followed to reach its decision to approve the GE salmonmuch like a student is required to show their work for a math problem in middle school. A complete record is essential in all cases. But it is especially important here because the FDA has so far refused to release most of the documents related to its decision, despite repeated requests for that information from Earthjustices diverse set of clients under the Freedom of Information Act.

The public has a right to know how the agency came to this seemingly ill-informed decision, especially because the FDAs approach will likely serve as a precedent for the assessment of future GE food animals. Withholding that information is illegal because government agencies like the FDA are funded by taxpayer dollars, which means that any records they create, with only limited exceptions, can and should be available to the public and to citizens seeking to hold the government accountable in court.

Last month, a U.S. District Court judge agreed, concluding that: the government is wrong to assert that these types of materials  should be excluded from the record. The FDA is now required to fully complete the record with all relevant documents no later than July 2017. In addition to working to ensure the timely completion of that process, we will thoroughly review the full basis for the agencys decisions.

Theres no way to know what exactly is in these documents until we see them, says Earthjustice attorney Brettny Hardy. But they will undoubtedly provide a far more complete picture of how we got here, including information that raises legitimate questions about the agencys decision.

Jessica Knoblauch is a former award-winning journalist who now serves at the helm of Earthjustices editorial team, which tells stories through the organizations blog, quarterly magazine and website.
By Samantha Parsons

George Mason University (GMU) students filed a lawsuit Thursday against George Mason University and fundraising arm, the George Mason University Foundation, in hopes of obtaining grant and gift agreements between private donors and the foundation.

Transparent GMU, the student organization that filed the suit, is concerned about the potential for private donors to influence students education.

In 2014, Mason students began raising concerns about the schools close relationship to the Charles Koch Foundation (CKF), citing fears that CKF might have gained influence over their faculty, curriculum and research in exchange for large financial contributions.

Students filed their first Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that year, seeking grant and gift agreements between the university and CKF. They were told that the documents were controlled by the GMU Foundation, which claimed to be exempt from Virginias Freedom of Information Act. In response, students launched a grassroots campaign asking for the university to release the documents. For over two years their requests went ignored despite having collected over a thousand signatures from alumni, students, faculty and other concerned community members.

The lawsuit demonstrates these students unwavering commitment to enforcing appropriate checks and balances over the public institution they call home. The students legal argument asserts that their university is breaking the law by refusing to respond to their FOIA request, as a public university cannot simply conceal its records by outsourcing its public business to a private company like the foundation.

This is the first time students have sued their own university to force disclosure of agreements with the Charles Koch Foundation.

Koch and Higher Education

In the last few years, Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries have gained considerable attention for their large financial contributions to conservative political candidates and libertarian political organizations. However, through further investigation, students learned that the ability of the Koch brothers to exert long-term political influence does not actually depend on individual election outcomes. Instead, the Kochs rely on an integrated strategy penned by Richard Fink, President of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, in an essay called the Structure of Social Change.

As explained by Fink, Structure of Social Change begins with corporate-funded academic research or raw intellectual materials. These ideas are then transformed into policy recommendations at Koch-funded think tanks, which often rely on the talent of other professors on Kochs payroll. Koch-forged policies are then championed by Kochs advocacy groups to lobby elected officials to enact the policies. Usually, the politicians themselves are beneficiaries of political cash from Koch Industries, Koch executives and Kochs network of dark money nonprofits.

#DidYouKnow One-Third of the Trump Team Has Ties to the Koch Brothers https://t.co/HVcFo5PoGr  The YEARS Project (@YEARSofLIVING) January 14, 2017

In a self-reinforcing cycle, Koch and his donor partners contract universities to bring students into their talent pipeline, which produces staff for the Koch networks think tanks and political groups.

The ways in which Koch gains influence over universities in order to successfully incorporate them into this integrated strategy was first exposed at Florida State University. In a 2007 grant agreement, the Charles Koch Foundation required the university to provide it with input over hiring decisions, curriculum and research.

Just last month, a new report reviewing the agreement revealed that Kochs Undergraduate Program involved donor creation of several new courses, donor influence over at least nine courses and donor control over introductory principles courses. Today, a Koch advisory board still has control over graduate fellowship selection and dissertation topics in Kochs graduate and Ph.D fellowship program.

George Mason University in Virginia is ground zero for Koch influence in higher education. The school has received $95.5 million from the Charles Koch Foundation since 2005, earning it the title of Koch U from Center for Public Integrity investigative reporter Dave Levinthal.

Students wonder: If Koch could buy that type of influence at Florida State University for $2.3 million, how much has $95.5 million bought at George Mason?

Koch and GMU

In addition to providing massive donations through the GMU Foundation, Charles Koch plays a governing role at two think tanks on GMUs campus that receive his financial support.

The Mercatus Center conducts economics research that is used by Koch-funded political groups to advocate against taxes on the wealthy, on corporations and regulations that may affect corporate profitability. Mercatus is the model program which Koch has attempted to replicate at dozens of other schools hoping to exert a deregulatory influence in their respective state capitals.

The Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) coordinates networking and professional development opportunities for students interested in working at Koch-funded political groups. The curriculum taught during IHS fellowship seminars was recently criticized for being designed more to help corporations fight regulations than to advance scholarly inquiry and understandings of political freedom by a former student fellow.

Charles Koch sits on the Board of Directors of the Mercatus Center, which he founded and IHS, where he is the chairman. Fink, the longtime advisor who was nicknamed Charles Kochs brain by Koch biographer Daniel Schulman, helped Charles Koch establish the Mercatus Center and remains a member of its board.

Blazing the Trail

It is no secret that state investment in higher education continues to decrease, causing public universities to seek private donations to make up the difference. Most scholarships, professorships and new programs on campuses around the country would not be possible without contributions from private donors. However, academias growing reliance on this private support brings with it a new set of challenges.

The ways in which the Charles Koch Foundation has been able to buy influence over higher education through philanthropic donations is a perfect example of such a challenge and demonstrates why the activities of public institutions, such as universities, should never be veiled in secrecy.

While there are still many questions to be raised and solutions to be debated regarding this changing landscape of higher education, the public must first be given the opportunity to participate in that debate. That requires transparency and students at George Mason are leading the charge to demand that they get to have their say.

Samantha Parsons is a 2016 graduate of George Mason University where she majored in Conflict Analysis and Resolution and focused her studies on structures of violence and social movements. She co-founded UnKoch My Campus.
By Jenny Shalant

Lets say youve got a problem thats, well, big league. As in an all-out assault on the very air you breathe, the water you drink and the ground you stand on. Your representatives in Congress can helpespecially after their phone lines get lit up by citizen activists. Need proof? Just look at the GOPs reversal of its decision to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics and the withdrawal of a bill to sell off public landsboth of which were influenced by public outcry and lots and lots of phone calls. Heres how to join the resistance and make your voice heard.

Exit the Echo Chamber.

On Facebook, Twitter or whatever social media platform youre obsessively logging into these days, youve shared articles about the shaky future of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the reauthorization of the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines and all of the weeks bad environmental news in Trump vs. Earth. (So have wehey, we wrote them). Sure, your digital voice matterstheres power in the vast numbers of tweets, emails and petition signatures. But to really make your voice heard, congressional staffers advise that you talk instead of type.

Army Corps to Grant Final Permit for #DAPL https://t.co/YbQSP4Dxn0  Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 7, 2017

Focus.

If you dont channel your shock, your fears and your anger, its easy to feel overwhelmed by all thats currently at stake. What issues matter most to you personally? To keep up with pertinent legislation affecting those issues, consider registering with Countable, one of many newly hatched civic-activism websites and apps that send you regular updates on where your lawmakers stand and developments on related bills moving through Congress.

Put Your Representatives on Speed Dial.

The civic sites GovTrack and Vote Smart offer comprehensive details on members of Congress, including how to get in touch with them. Former congressional staffer Sarah Gray, who worked in U.S. Senator Barbara Boxers Los Angeles office, recommends that you use your lawmakers local district office as your main point of contact, since constituent relations is top priority for these offices. Enter the numbers for your two U.S. senators and one U.S. representative into your phone contacts with Politician in front of the officials last name so you have all three grouped together on your contact list.

Jot Down Your Thoughts.

Include a few details youll highlight when you call, with a note about why the issue at hand matters to you personally. Thatll help make your story memorable for the person on the other end, whose job it is to convey your message to the congressperson. Remember that the staffer will be matching your concern with one of the topics on his or her spreadsheets. Be specific about the issue or bill number youre calling about so youre presenting a clear path to actione.g., Vote no on   or Support the bill to   Also mention your zip code (the staffer will probably ask) so the congressperson can track the issues of greatest concern to his or her voting districts.

Introverted? Read From a Script!

You can crib one from a website like The 65 (named for the 65 million Americans who rejected Trump on Election Day) or Indivisible (which applies lessons derived from the Tea Partys obstruction of efforts by the Obama administration). The website 5 Calls (which recommends you spend 5 minutes, make 5 calls) goes a step further and tells you whom to call on which issues, based on your location and whats important to you, plus what to say once you get through.

Make These Calls Part of Your New Daily Routine.

Consult your congress members websites to find their business hours and decide on a time to call thats convenient for you. Maybe thats at lunchtime or during your midmorning coffee or after a cataclysmic news cycle. But dont be too reactiveformer congressional staffer Emily Ellsworth, who worked in the state offices of Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), reminds phone activists to be mindful of what role the given official plays in the federal government and make sure the lawmaker is in a position to deliver on your request. For instance, dont call a member of the House to discuss a Supreme Court nominee, since confirmation hearings take place in the Senate.

Dont Give Up After You Dial.

With Congress reporting a surge of constituent calls in the era of Trump, persistence is key. Be prepared to hold the line as you wait to be connected and if youre directed to voicemail, try again tomorrow. If youre calling with a question that the person on the phone cant answer, ask to speak with a senior staffer in charge of the issue. Dont forget your manners and remember to keep it snappy, for the sake of the busy staffers timeand your own. If you can limit your speech to one minute, youll be more likely to make a habit out of placing these calls.

Up Your Game: Show Up in Person.

Members of Congress routinely hold town hall meetings and host public forums at their mobile offices in order to hear from constituents. Check your representatives websites for schedule info, or consult this list maintained by the Town Hall Project, which compiles all upcoming town halls and tele-town halls (conference calls with the representative) as well as some ticketed events. Its best to prepare for these rare face-to-face opportunities to talk with your elected officials. Rehearse your pitchthe people at the podium are more likely to remember compelling personal stories about how a given policy or course of action will affect their constituents. Go with a group to make more of an impact, craft a clever sign, order that T-shirt, lift your voice and dont be afraid to ask questions. If you have something important to share, seek out a member of the congresspersons staff before the meeting, if possibleyou can hand that person a business card and talking points or a memo to pass on to the legislative assistant who handles the relevant issue. Remember that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

By showing up at rallies and marches, along with dozens or hundreds or millions of other concerned citizens, you can also make a strong impression on your representatives. Some cities, like New York, are creating websites to keep citizens in the loop about the next protest happening in their area. These events will not only uplift you and your perspective but also serve as a barometer of how strongly people feel on a current issue. So speak up. Congress is listening.

Jenny Shalant is a senior editor for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
By Scott Weaver

As a climate scientist Ive been trained to base my conclusions strictly on scientific evidence and not on politics. This is why I find it so troubling that President Trumps pick for the top job at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) openly misrepresented scientific data during his confirmation process.

Here are three climate facts Scott Pruitt denied in his written testimony before the U.S. Senatefacts that an incoming EPA administrator simply cannot get wrong.

1. There is no hiatus. The Earth is consistently getting warmer.

Pruitt wrote in response to a question from Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon that he was aware of a diverse range of conclusions regarding global temperatures, including that over the past two decades satellite data indicates there has been a leveling off of warming, which some scientists refer to as the hiatus.'

In reality, his idea of a hiatus, and of a potential discrepancy between satellite and surface-based data, has been under intense objective scrutiny by the scientific community for some timeand the results are clear.

NOAA scientists recently published a peer reviewed article in the Journal Science that clearly shows the hiatus never existed. A follow-up study undertaken by a separate group of researchers as an objective check on the NOAA result confirmed that the global warming hiatus never happened.

The alleged satellite discrepancy has also been debunked. Stated plainly, raw satellite observations from space are not as accurate as those taken in the actual location, so these raw observations must be quality-controlled for scientific accuracy.

Bottom line is: All data today point in the same direction.

2. Urbanization has not created a fictitious warming trend.

But Pruitt continued to use the idea of a discrepancy between satellite-based and urban land-based data to build his narrative. He now attempted to blame it for the increasing temperature trendwhich he just argued did not exist.

Pruitt wrote that he was aware that this so-called discrepancy can be attributed to expansive urbanization within our country where artificial substances such as asphalt can interfere with the accuracy of land-based temperature stations.

Agencies charged with keeping the data, he alleged further, do not accurately account for this type of interference. Well, he was wrong again.

The impact from urbanization and so-called heat islands has long shown to be minimal at best, especially when applied to the massive geographic expanse of the world relative to the lesser change in the geographic extent of cities.

Again, Pruitt ignored scientific facts.

3. Trend is clear: 2016 was the hottest year on record

Pruitt went on to quibble with the fact that 2016 was the warmest year ever recordedby overemphasizing the role of negligible differences in how various scientific agencies around the world calculate the globally averaged temperature.

Scientists say 2016 is hottest year ever recorded https://t.co/IVWS7E7SrC via @EcoWatch pic.twitter.com/PHE14dPXt2  Climate Nexus (@ClimateNexus) January 4, 2017

Except, the diversity of approaches is a scientific strength because it provides a balanced view of the data, much like one seeks a second opinion on a medical diagnosis. These minimal temperature differences dont matter in the end; the overall trend has remained the same over the last several decades.

Despite the trivial differences in methodology Pruitt emphasized, the three long-running analyses by NASA, NOAA, and Great Britains UK Met Office all showed 2016 to be the hottest year on record, following the two previous record-setting years.

You cant quibble with that fact.Pruitt hopes to run the agency responsible for protecting the lives and health of Americans from environmental threats, a mission that includes reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet. And as the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, the EPA has the authority to address greenhouse gases.

This is why the man chosen to lead this agency needs to manage science responsibly so it can do its job. That means listening to scientists and accepting facts, plain and simple.
The proposed policies include incentives in education, employment and state benefits. (Photo : Getty Images)

China wants Taiwanese to come live and work in the mainland. As a means to this desired end, Beijing has begun drafting laws that aim to attract Taiwanese to migrate, according to a report by TaipeiTimes.com.



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The proposed policies include incentives in education, employment, and state benefits, An Fengshan, Chinas Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman, said on Wednesday, Feb. 8, at a bimonthly news conference.



According to An, the proposed laws main aim is to boost economic and social integration between the sides. It is unclear when the Chinese government will roll out the policies, however.



The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) are supportive of the proposed measures, as long as they dont violate Taiwanese laws and would not infringe on Taiwans national dignity.



Furthermore, the proposed policies are welcome provided the provisions will be advantageous for both Taiwanese business investments and development in China.



The council also called on Beijing to continue enforcing the provisions laid out in the Cross-Strait Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement, which was signed in 2012.



Taiwan already enjoys considerable benefits from China, including the freedom to enter China and remain in the country for an indefinite period of time as long as their Taiwan Compatriots Pass is valid.



An, at the bimonthly news conference, also expressed Chinas displeasure on a planned visit of an exiled Chinese ethnic minority leader, Rebiya Kadeer, to Taiwan by the invitation of the Taiwan Solidarity Union.



We are resolutely opposed to Rebiya Kadeer engaging in activities in Taiwan in any form. In inviting this person to Taiwan, Taiwanese independence forces are seeking to create an incident that is sure to undermine relations between the sides, An said according to TaipeiTimes.com.



Rebiya Kadeer, an advocate of rights for the Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, was imprisoned in China for more than five years and was eventually exiled to the U.S. in 2005.


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
Upon entering China, foreign passport holders aged 14 to 70 are required to submit their fingerprints to authorized airport officials. (Photo : Getty Images)

Starting this year, foreign travelers entering China will be fingerprinted by airport authorities, The Independent reported.



According to the Ministry of Public Security, the new policy will be rolled out gradually until all airports are successfully screening foreign tourists by the end of the year.



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The first airport to implement the new process is Shenzhen Baoan International Airport in Guangdong Province.



Upon entering China, foreign passport holders aged 14 to 70 are required to submit their fingerprints to authorized airport officials. Foreign passport holders aged 13 below, as well as those who hold a diplomatic position, are exempt from the new regulation.



The collecting of fingerprints has become common practice for border control authorities around the world, the Ministry of Public Security said in an issued statement on its official English-language website.



Authorities will ensure that the new system is efficient and does not result in unnecessary delays.



According to official government data, over 76 million foreigners entered Chinese territory in 2016. This includes passport holders from all over the world, with the largest groups from South Korea, Japan, the United States and Russia.



As mentioned by the Ministry of Public Security, China is not the first country to implement such border control and travel regulation.



The United States customs and border protection has started fingerprinting foreign visitors since the early 2000s, and data shows that the country fingerprinted the most number of tourists in 2004. The U.S. is planning on adding facial recognition software and biometric screening in its border control process, and is currently conducting tests.



Meanwhile, in Asia, Japan has been fingerprinting all arriving foreigners since 2007 as a means of enforcing public safety in the country.



By the end of the year, the Ministry of Public Security expects that all Chinese airports will be able to fingerprint all arriving foreign travelers.


'Power Rangers' movie 2017 spoilers: Zordon as a former Red Ranger teased; New 'Power Ranger' series on Netflix in the works?

Power Rangers reboot is a joint production of both Saban and Lionsgate, which will be directed by Dean Israelite. (Photo : Facebook)

The latest details and spoilers for the 2017 "Power Rangers" movie will feature Zordon as a former ranger and a new series being developed on Netflix.



It seems that Zordon's backstory in the 2017 "Power Rangers" movie has been teased as "Breaking Bad" star Bryan Cranston's character could be one of the original Ranger before the events of the movie.



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The theory was teased when an Instagram post from Andrew Grey (via Power Ranger Now) which featured Cranston's book "A Life in Parts" with a message that reads To Andrew, Happy Birthday! To a Power Ranger, from a Power Ranger. Be well.  Bryan Cranston, 2017.



With that in mind, this could mean that Zordon could be a former ranger, particularly the Red Ranger before Jason Scott (Dacre Montgomary). It is also theorized that the main villain in the "Power Rangers" movie, Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks) was the Green Ranger, but was seduced and betrayed her fellow rangers for the Zeo Crystal, the source of there power.



Rita's mission in the movie to gain the Zeo Crystal using the monster Goldar and deliver it to her master Lord Zedd, which is Zordon will need Jason along with the other chosen teenagers Kimberly Hart (Naomi Scott), Billy Cranston (RJ Cyler), Zack (Ludi Lin) and Trini (Becky G) as the next Power Rangers to defend the earth.



In other news, it seems that a new "Power Rangers" series is being teased for Netflix being produced by "Punisher: Dirty Laundry" director Adi Shankar.



The new "Power Rangers" series is said to be "darker" than the ones shown in television, a nod on Shankar's version called "Power/Rangers", which took a dark path for the heroes in an altered/possible future.



Shankar told Polygon that the dark "Power Rangers" series is in the works, but it will not be a live-action series and instead it will be in animation. Shankar added that the new "Power Rangers" will be a dark retelling from all three seasons of the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" from the 90's.



A dark tone comes as no surprise given the films produced by Shankar himself ina series of shorts. Animation is not a new to him either as his recent bootleg, "James Bond: In Service of Nothing", depicts an animated retired James Bond, who has had his license to kill revoked.



Shankar notes the Power Rangers is still very much in the conceptualization phase, but he hopes to see it land at Netflix where his current project, "Castlevania", has just been announced. He commented on the streaming service and how their format has changed the way people watch TV



The "Power Rangers" movie will be in cinemas on March 24, 2017.


Police begin Special Constable recruitment drive

The Island's police are recruiting new Special Constables to assist the Manx police force.

Special Constables are part-time volunteers who work alongside police officers.

Drop in sessions are being held around the Island in the next two weeks for those interested to learn more about the Special Constabulary and speak to those already serving.

The sessions get underway on Monday evening in the Sea Terminal in Douglas, with further meetings being held in Ramsey, Peel and Castletown - full details of the times and places can be found on the Constabulary's Facebook page.

Application packs are available by contacting Police Headquarters on 631212, and must be submitted by March 10th.
A new Google Pixel XL phone is displayed at the Google pop-up shop in the SoHo neighborhood on October 20, 2016 in New York City. (Photo : Getty Images/Spencer Platt)

Following the prevailing audio problem experienced by Pixel users, Google has silently resolved the issue after rolling out its February Security Update patch.



Last December, users of Google Pixel and Pixel XL have reported a sudden audio distortion on their smartphones whenever their volumes were turned to the maximum setting. 9to5 Google further noted that the distortion produced static and popping noises, regardless of the app or media playing. Some users even experienced this event at some frequencies.



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But with the February Security update, Google has addressed the issue with a hidden fix on the Pixel and Pixel XL devices. Upon installing, several users have reported a clear audio feedback on their phones if they are put in maximum volume.



According to Google, the said audio distortion may have been regarded as a hardware defect and not a software problem as February's security patch includes a fix for the issue, NDTV noted. However, the patch did not mention the said fix in the official February security update change log.



Together with the said fix, the February security update also include fix for call popping issue, while the handset is connected to the Honda Bluetooth car kit. Verizon further points out that Pixel users should consider downloading the update with their manual.



On another note, the February security update includes two patch levels. The first was published on Feb. 1, which includes fix on "critical security vulnerability that could enable remote code execution on an affected device through media files." The second patch level string came on Feb. 5.



On the latest security bulletin, the February security update addressed eight critical issues while 18 issues are rated as high severity, as well as nine issues that are rated as moderate. Google cited the resolved critical security vulnerabilities such as remote code execution vulnerability in Surfaceflinger, remote code execution vulnerability in Mediaserver, remote code execution vulnerability in Qualcomm crypto driver, elevation of privilege vulnerability in kernel file system, elevation of privilege vulnerability in Nvidia GPU driver, elevation of privilege vulnerability in kernel networking subsystem, elevation of privilege vulnerability in Broadcom Wi-Fi driver, and vulnerabilities in Qualcomm components among others.






Amal Alamuddin's double whammy is expected to arrive soon. She is gearing up to give birth to twins in London. The human rights lawyer, along with the Hollywood star and father of her child, George Clooney, will give birth to their twins at a multi-million dollar estate in nearby Sonning.

The British lawyer, 39-year-old Amal Amaluddin and her star husband, 55-year-old George Clooney, got married in Venice, in 2014. The wedding had been grand, but it took a couple of years for her attempts to get babies to yield results. Last January, the screening of the Netflix documentary premiere called "The White Helmets" began with the rumor of the pregnancy. Even as the buzzword of her pregnancy has been going round, she has been seen wearing loose clothes since then, according to Lebanon Daily Star.

Amal Amaluddin and George Clooney have not revealed too many secrets regarding the pregnancy. Both of them were seen dining with George's parents, Nick and Nina Clooney. They were spotted at the Rooftop Smokehouse Restaurant, Barcelona. Amal seemed to be concealing a baby bump.

However, the rumor was confirmed by Julie Chen, who was the host of a US chat show The Talk. She is said to have a number of contacts in Hollywood, according to Mirror.

The most photographed pair of George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin will reveal more facts about the baby sooner or later. Yet, they are all under wraps at present. It is surprising that George Clooney, who has come out openly in public about his marriage with Amal Amaluddin, is keeping quiet about the impending pregnancy.

It was seen that when George flew back home to Kentucky last week in order to market Casamigos, his tequila brand, he was not joined by his wife. That raised the speculation that Amal Amaluddin may be gearing up to get her baby in London. As it is not safe for pregnant women to go on any trips in their third trimesters, Amal Amaluddin decided to stay back and get ready for childbirth near her approaching due date.

YouTube/Topics Education
To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant. Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry.

Disclaimer

Endrtimes does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article/video posted on this site. The information provided here is done so for personal edification; It's up to the reader to separate truth from error, and to examine everything (like the Bereans) from a Biblical perspective. Let the Holy Scriptures be you guide! - - - FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/videos may contain copyrighted () material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that 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, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes.
In January, Mozambique failed to pay a $59.8 million coupon to its bondholders, saying that its capacity to service its debt would be very limited this year. This is the latest event in a saga that has lasted years and follows a meeting with creditors in October during which the country announced that its debt levels were unsustainable.

After the October revelation, the sovereigns bond  a 10.5% dollar-denominated bond maturing in 2023 and totalling $727 million  quickly lost value in secondary trading. Some analysts interpreted the announcement as meaning Mozambique might miss its January coupon payment. The bondholders apparently held on to the hope that they would receive their money as expected and declined to enter into negotiations with Mozambique over a debt restructuring.

Now that the bondholders know they will not receive the latest payment on Mozambiques debt, they may be finally forced to the negotiation table.

Stuart Culverhouse,

Exotix

Stuart Culverhouse, head of research at Exotix, tells Euromoney this may even be the reason for Mozambiques decision to withhold payment.

It seems the government is trying to take a hard line, he says.

A kinder reading is also possible: Mozambiques economic woes may be such that it simply cannot afford to pay. In any case, the failure to do so hardens the tone of whatever discussion will take place with the bondholders.

It gets more complicated. Mozambique and its bondholders are not the only parties involved in the debt restructuring process to come. Mozambique has held informal talks with the IMF and is hoping to obtain the Funds support. The IMF may well be willing to help, but only once the sovereigns existing debt is on a path to sustainability  meaning only once a restructuring has been agreed with the bondholders.

There is the rub.

So far, the bondholders have said they would not even consider a debt renegotiation until Mozambique had reached an agreement with the IMF, as they think only the IMF can now bolster the countrys weak financial position.

Its a chicken-and-egg situation: the IMF will not negotiate with Mozambique until the bondholders have done so and the bondholders wont until the IMF has.

Stuck in the middle is a country not known for savvy debt dealings.

But there is a solution to this seemingly intractable problem. Mozambique could negotiate with both parties simultaneously, rather than go through one restructuring process before moving to the other.

Simple enough, in theory at least. But it will require a little flexibility on all sides and for the IMF and bondholders to reassure one another that they are committed to making things work. If the bondholders and IMF are confident in each others participation and are regularly informed of the state of each others negotiations, a comprehensive debt restructuring deal, with the injection of new IMF money, could be struck.

Whether or not this will happen is, at this stage, anyones guess.

Trust

A level of trust is necessary for this solution to be workable. But all creditors have developed a profound distrust for the sovereign, borne out of years of deceit.

The last time the sovereign borrowed from the IMF, in 2015, it failed to disclose $1.4 billion of other borrowings, giving the Fund a false impression of the state of its finances  one of the worst possible offences as far as the IMF is concerned.

The bondholders have also been mistreated recently. The 2023 bond they now hold is itself the result of a previous restructuring  that of the much-maligned tuna bonds due in 2020. That restructuring took place only last year.

It is a near miracle that the sovereigns creditors have expressed a tentative willingness, whether on or off the record, to keep working with Mozambique. But if the country chooses to bulldoze through negotiations, forcing bondholders to the negotiating table and only then trying to reach a deal with the IMF (or vice versa), whatever goodwill there is could quickly evaporate.

Mozambiques economy is on its knees. The $1.4 billion of undisclosed debt alone represents over 10% of the countrys GDP  a huge burden on Mozambiques public funds. And although Mozambique struck gas in the Indian Ocean in 2010, that discovery has so far failed to produce the kind of economic growth many had hoped for.

The reputation of those that have worked on its debt  in particular Credit Suisse and VTB Capital  is also being damaged.

There are ways out of this mess. One such way is seeking the joint support of the IMF and the bondholders. If Mozambique opts for that approach, as appears likely, the country had better perform a thorough audit of its past borrowing mistakes and carefully plan the timing  and tone  of its debt talks.




Update: Darwin Day is also Academic Freedom Day. Be sure to check back in here after midnight to find out who our 2017 Censor of the Year will be!

This year, Darwin Day falls on a Sunday  tomorrow, February 12. Of all the Darwinist talking points, the most transparently false may be the claim that this 19th-century materialist theory of origins poses no challenge whatsoever to serious, sincere religious belief.

Oh, please! Do they really think were that gullible? Well, maybe they are not wrong about that anyway.

As Tom Bethell (thats him in the video above) points out over at The American Spectator, many churches and synagogues, pastors, priests, and rabbis, have been captivated by the idea that they can have their cake and eat it too: enjoy the prestige and regard that come with assenting to evolutionary theory, while retaining the authority and regard that come with their clerical position.

February 12 is Darwin Day, and this year the international celebration falls on a Sunday. Look for theistic Darwinists to reassure churches that Charles Darwin believed in God, or at least that his theory of evolution harmonizes beautifully with Christian theology. The reality is more complex. In The Origin of Species, Darwin suggested the idea of a God who created a few original forms and then let the laws of nature govern the outcome. It is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, he wrote, as to believe that he required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of his laws. But later he wrote privately to friend Joseph Hooker, I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation. And in 1862, he told Harvard botanist Asa Gray there seemed to be too much misery in the world. He could not accept, for example, that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created [digger wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.

Darwin was careful to conceal his own loss of faith, and his surviving family members kept up the tradition.

[R]ealizing that a thoroughgoing materialism wasnt an easy sell, [Darwin] actively concealed this aspect of his thinking. In one notebook he reminded himself to avoid stating how far, I believe, in Materialism.  One doesnt hear much about the materialism of Darwin and Darwinism, likely because there has been a longstanding effort to ignore and suppress it. Many of todays theistic Darwinists play this game, but they are hardly the first. So, for instance, Darwins mounting hostility to Christianity was suppressed by his widow, who removed some inflammatory comments from his Autobiography.

Read the rest here. Veteran journalist Bethells new book is Darwins House of Cards: A Journalists Odyssey Through the Darwin Debates. As a writer, he is a delight, praised by Tom Wolfe as one of our most brilliant essayists. The tragedy of the clergy and their mass surrender to evolutionary thinking is that it is so unnecessary.

Yes, it requires some homework and independent thinking to realize this, but the cogency of evolutions main claim  that blind churning produces brilliant novelties  rests on remarkably little evidence. Bethell, as Ive pointed out, has put to the rest Im not a scientist dodge beloved by clergy, journalists, and other professionals unwilling to do that homework for themselves.

Im on Twitter. Follow me @d_klinghoffer.
Hi all



I am moving over in May/June and I have a few questions to ask, thought I would put them on one post, with the hope that someone can answer all for me.



Question 1

My husband and I have sold our house so we have around 160000 available for our move. When we come over we do plan on working, but on a self employed basis (although my husband is a qualified electrician 17th edition, me a teacher of 20 years and now a dog groomer 2 years). Hopefully though we want to change our lives by running a small guest house, we have been looking at resales and visited 4 times last year, but no luck. Do we have to complete any immigration??? We are moving from the UK. I've looked at the site and it has just confused me, saying you have to have a set amount per annum. If we purchase somewhere most of our funds will disappear, but we will then get an income back once the guesthouse is up and running, paying into their taxation setup. Any advice would be great, I'm getting a little worried that we will be turned away. You are required to register for residency in any EU country if you stay for 90 days or longer. There are other threads that detail the procedure which is quite simple and easy. Nothing to worry about at all.



Question 2

If we found somewhere that is a little dearer than the money in the bank, is there anyone who would give us a mortgage? Did any of you arrange this in the UK? You can try the banks here for mortgages. Be cautious though, you can't take the success of a B&B for granted.



Question 3

My son comes over in April and has an internship with a company in Latchi for 6 months. Does he have to inform immigration etc? If he enjoys it he will probably stay too, as we will have moved over by the time he has finished. If he is to be here for 6 month he too will have to apply for resident's permit also known as yellow card.



Question 4

My son is selling his car in the UK and will be looking for a runaround approximately 1500 when he gets to Cyprus. We are going with him too for a couple of weeks so that we can sort this out, so knowing where to go would be fab.



Can you recommend anywhere that is reliable? No, it's a car! At that sort of price he will probably need to buy an old banger privately.

Can he get car insurance over there? Any sites please? Of course he can get car insurance over here, it's a legal requirement. I use Abbeygate for mine. Each other person will recommend their own company as "marvellous". Best advice with insurance is to ignore the smiles and niceness while they are selling and check on claims experience. That it why there is 1 popular company I will not recommend.

Where would he go to register the car etc? He will need to go to the registration office situated on the Polis Road in Paphos although there may be another office if he is in Polis. I am not up to date on these procedures as they have changed over the last few years.



Question 5

He has rented an apartment where the buildings and contents insurance is arranged by his landlord, however he has been told to purchase some insurance for his personal belongings, which isn't much. Any recommendations please on companies for this?Same companies that provide car insurance.



Thank you for all your support.
benchmark said: My family and I are travelling to the Los Banos area in Laguna province in July/August. Does anyone have any recommendations where to stay?



Thanks,

Mark Click to expand...

Lol... I live real close to Los Banos Laguna, I live near Pila Laguna, so it depends on what end of Los Banos you will be visiting because their are spots on either end south or north of the city.Spot near me is called the Slide and Dive https://www.facebook.com/SlideNDiveResort/ right off the highway and real peaceful, quite and during the holidays you'd want to book something because these spots are gonna be all taken, we were there 3 days ago and the only ones in the pool the weather right now is cold, I did meet and talk with a former Philippine citizen who lives and works in California he told me he was originally from Manila he was staying in the resort rented room him and his family, also noticed two other groups that came down to relax by the pool from their rented rooms. This spot would be affordable.On the northern end of Los Banos or closer to Calamba would be Splash Mountain https://www.facebook.com/pages/Splash-Mountain-Hotel-and-Resort-Los-Banos-Laguna/545478362153194 the costs look like they would be double at this location.But there are several spots in this area probably not listed and you'd need to know someone from this area to help you find locations, I have been to just a couple spots. Many of the other smaller resorts (I haven't done this yet) are hot natural springs or private spas, they have men on the side of the road with mini signs saying private spa or something like that. If you have family here or acquaintances they would know where to go for sure.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres started on Thursday a visit to six Middle East countries including Egypt, where he will discuss regional and international files with President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and other state official, state news agency MENA reported on Friday.

As part of his first official tour in the region, the UN's secretary-general will accordingly visit Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Egypt.

President El-Sisi congratulated the Portuguese people on the election of Guterres as the new secretary-general of the United Nations during an official visit to Lisbon in November 2016.

Last October, the General Assembly of the United Nations appointed by acclamation Antonio Guterres, who is the former Prime Minister of Portugal, as the United Nations Secretary-General to succeed Ban Ki-moon, who ended his term on 31 December.

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Oil rose as the International Energy Agency said OPEC has achieved a record 90 percent initial compliance with a production cut accord, while demand grew faster than expected.

In the first month of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreement, key member Saudi Arabia reduced production by even more than it had committed, while higher demand is aiding the groups bid to rebalance world markets, the IEA said.

Its real positive that OPEC is at 90 percent compliance, said Mark Watkins, the Park City, Utah-based regional investment manager for the Private Client Group at U.S. Bank, which oversees $136 billion in assets. Their credibility is higher than its been in a long time. This proves that they are serious about supporting the price of oil.

West Texas Intermediate for March delivery rose 86 cents, or 1.6 percent, to settle at $53.86 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices rose 3 cents this week.

Brent for April settlement climbed $1.07, or 1.9 percent, to $56.70 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark crude dropped 0.2 percent this week. The contract closed at a $2.37 premium to April WTI.

Oil has fluctuated above $50 a barrel since a deal to trim output between OPEC and 11 other crude exporters took effect on Jan. 1. U.S. producers are taking advantage of higher prices by boosting output to the highest level since April, a dynamic the IEA said is capping prices in the mid-$50s.

Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday that the number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. had increased by 12 this week to 741, with 591 rigs seeking oil. Texas led the way with an increase of seven rigs. A year ago, 541 rigs were active.

The IEA increased its estimates of 2016 world oil demand growth for a third month and boosted its outlook for 2017, anticipating an increase of 1.4 million barrels a day this year. World oil inventories will fall by 600,000 barrels a day during the first half of the year if OPEC sticks to its agreement, the IEA said.

OPEC is being joined by 11 nonmembers including Russia and Kazakhstan, who implemented about half of their pledged cut of 558,000 barrels a day last month, preliminary data from the agency shows.

Data from OPEC itself, derived from six external sources including the IEA, showed a compliance rate of 92 percent, according to a person familiar with the matter. The organization will publish the statistics in its monthly report Monday.

The market is focused on reduced supply and increased demand, said Gene McGillian, manager of market research for Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. There was also data showing that while Chinese imports were down last month, they remain very strong, adding to the rebalancing picture.

Chinas crude imports in January slipped from a record as refiners eased buying before the Lunar New Year break. China imported 8.05 million barrels a day in January, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data Friday from the General Administration of Customs. While imports are up 27.5 percent from the same month last year, theyre down 6.4 percent from Decembers record 8.6 million barrels a day.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Oil rose as the International Energy Agency said OPEC had achieved record initial compliance of 90 percent with their production cuts accord, while demand grew faster than expected.

Futures advanced as much as 2.1 percent in New York.

In the first month of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreement, key member Saudi Arabia reduced production by even more than it had committed, while higher demand is aiding the groups bid to rebalance world markets, the IEA said.

Oil has fluctuated above $50 a barrel since a deal to trim output between OPEC and 11 other crude exporters took effect on Jan. 1. U.S. producers are taking advantage of higher prices by boosting output to the highest level since April, a dynamic the IEA said is capping prices in the mid-$50s.

Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday that the number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. had increased by 12 this week to 741, with 591 rigs seeking oil. Texas led the way with an increase of seven rigs. A year ago, 541 rigs were active.

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.

Its real positive that OPEC is at 90 percent compliance, said Mark Watkins, the Park City, Utah-based regional investment manager for the Private Client Group at U.S. Bank, which oversees $136 billion in assets. There credibility is higher than its been in a long time. This proves that they are serious about supporting the price of oil.

As of midday, West Texas Intermediate for March delivery was trading up nearly $1, or 1.7 percent, at $54.38 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Total volume traded was about 9 percent above the 100-day average. Prices are little changed this week.

Brent for April settlement climbed $1.11, or 2 percent, to $56.74 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange, and are also little changed for the week. The global benchmark crude traded at a $2.31 premium to April WTI.

The IEA increased its estimates of 2016 world oil demand growth for a third month, and boosted its outlook for 2017, anticipating an increase of 1.4 million barrels a day this year. World oil inventories will fall by 600,000 barrels a day during the first half of the year if OPEC sticks to its agreement, the IEA said.

OPEC is being joined by 11 nonmembers including Russia and Kazakhstan, who implemented about half of their pledged cut of 558,000 barrels a day last month, preliminary data from the agency shows.

Data from OPEC itself, derived from six external sources including the IEA, showed a compliance rate of 92 percent, according to a person familiar with the matter. The organization will publish the statistics in its monthly report on Monday.

The market is focused on reduced supply and increased demand, said Gene McGillian, manager of market research for Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. The IEA is saying that OPEC compliance is at an impressive 90 percent while increasing their demand outlook. There was also data showing that while Chinese imports were down last month, they remain very strong, adding to the rebalancing picture.

Chinas crude imports in January slipped from a record as refiners eased buying before the Lunar New Year break. China imported 8.05 million barrels a day in January, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data Friday from the General Administration of Customs. While imports are up 27.5 percent from the same month last year, theyre down 6.4 percent from Decembers record 8.6 million barrels a day.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The 28-year-old suspect  who French officials believe to be Egyptian  was charged Friday

Paris prosecutor's office says the suspect in last week's machete attack at the Louvre Museum is facing preliminary charges of attempted murder and association with a terrorist organization.

The 28-year-old suspect  who French officials believe to be Egyptian  was charged Friday.

Paris prosecutor's office said the man, who Egyptian authorities identify as Abdullah Reda Refaie al-Hamahmy, remains hospitalized after he was shot four times during the Feb. 3 attack. His injuries are not life-threatening.

Louvre Museum reopened to the public on Saturday, a day after the attack in which the assailant reportedly shouting "Allahu akbar!" attacked French soldiers guarding the sprawling building.

Reda Refaie al-Hamahmy, the father of the alleged attacker told AP last week that his son is not a terrorist and that he leads a normal life with his wife and infant son.

French President Francois Hollande has said there is "no doubt" that the suspect's actions were a terror attack.

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AUSTIN  Two San Antonio lawmakers got chairmanships Thursday when House Speaker Joe Straus made committee assignments, giving the Alamo City leadership positions on water and veterans issues.

Statewide, Straus said, he focused on reflecting the diversity of the Texas House. Eight members will be chairing committees for the first time, while 11 returning chairs will be heading new committees.

There is always a balance to strike between continuity and fresh thinking, and I think we have the right mix, said Straus, R-San Antonio.

From San Antonio, Rep. Lyle Larson, a Republican, is Natural Resources chairman and Rep. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat, was named chairman of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

Among other key assignments for San Antonio lawmakers, Democratic Rep. Diego Bernal was named vice chairman of the Public Education Committee, which will be headed by a new chairman, Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Houston.

Democratic Rep. Justin Rodriguez retained a seat on the budget-writing Appropriations Committee, whose new chairman is Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond. The committees new vice chairman is a South Texas Democrat, Rep. Oscar Longoria of Penitas.

I think San Antonio fared very well, said Larson of the appointments.

Larson said his focus as Natural Resources chairman will be water: We have to prepare ourselves for that next drought.

Gutierrez said that he looks forward to working with his colleagues to advance legislation that takes into account the sacrifice of veterans and their families and provides the care and services they need.

In San Antonio alone, Gutierrez said, veterans contribute over $2 billion annually to our local economy and are an integral part of our community.

Gutierrez also will serve as a member of the Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee, while Larson also is an Elections member.

Bernals other assignments include being a member of the House Administration and Urban Affairs committees, while Rodriguezs other appointments are as a member of Pensions and Texas Ports, Innovation and Infrastructure.

Other San Antonio representatives, all Democrats, were named as members of the following committees: Rep. Diana Arevalo to Defense and Veterans' Affairs, Public Health, Rules and Resolutions; Rep. Philip Cortez to Public Health and Special Purpose Districts; Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins to Criminal Jurisprudence, Culture, Recreation and Tourism, and Rules and Resolutions; Rep. Ina Minjarez to Human Services, Local and Consent Calendars and Transportation; and Rep. Tomas Uresti, County Affairs, Government Transparency and Operation.

From other parts of South Texas, appointments include Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, chair of Calendars; Rep. Tracy King, D-Uvalde, chair of Agriculture and Livestock; Rep. Richard Pena Raymond, D-Laredo, chair of Human Services; Rep. Rene Oliveria, D-Brownsville, chair of Business and Industry; Poncho Nevarez, D-Eagle Pass, vice chair of Homeland Security and Public Safety; Rep. Sergio Munoz Jr., D-Mission, vice chair of Insurance; Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, chair of Land and Resource Management; Rep. Ryan Guillen, D-Rio Grande City, vice chair of Licensing and Administrative Procedures; Rep. Eddie Lucio III, D-Brownsville, chair of Rules and Resolutions; and Rep. Armando Martinez, D-Weslaco, vice chair of Transportation.

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Tom Cleary, interim president of Northeast Lakeview College, said this week that a visiting team from the community colleges accrediting agency had given it a perfect review and the college is set to earn accreditation in December at the latest.

Clearly its going to happen, because there are zero negative findings, Cleary said. This is a slam dunk.

Northeast Lakeview, which enrolls about 5,000 students on its Universal City campus, opened a decade ago and is not yet accredited. It is the newest of five community colleges in the Alamo Colleges District.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, which separately accredits each of the Alamo Colleges, meets in June and December every year. In a Thursday email to college employees, Cleary said he had petitioned the agency to move Northeast Lakeviews accreditation decision to the June meeting.

Given our exceptional results on this review, I am hopeful that SACSCOC will accommodate us, Cleary said in the email.

An accrediting agency representative did not return a message Friday seeking comment.

The agency sent Cleary a letter informing him that it planned to look into six standards related to institutional autonomy on Jan. 12. Thats the same day that three other Alamo Colleges got letters from the agency finding them out of compliance with the same six standards. SACSCOC had issued warnings in December to the other three institutions: San Antonio College, St. Philips College and Northwest Vista College. The only remaining institution in the district, Palo Alto College, was not scheduled for an accreditation review last year.

Among other findings, SACSCOC said the colleges were not representing themselves as separately accredited institutions and the district board of trustees had overstepped its bounds in policies governing curriculum and hiring.

I am delighted to report that NLCs solutions to each of these standards were also found to be 100 percent in compliance, Cleary said in his email to employees.

Northeast Lakeview spokeswoman Kathleen Labus said the colleges solutions were similar to those implemented by the other warned institutions. Alamo Colleges was rebranded as the Alamo Colleges District on all electronic correspondence, and Northeast Lakeview, rather than the district, is conferring degrees, Labus said.

Additionally, the colleges no longer follow a former policy that included The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in curriculum district-wide.

Northeast Lakeview and the three warned colleges have until Sept. 8 to submit a report addressing the six standards. All four institutions have now petitioned the accrediting agency to advance the deadline, meaning the warnings could also be dropped in June if the agencys review is favorable.

The visiting teams assessment of Northeast Lakeview bodes well for the three warned colleges, Cleary said.

Its important and its serious that we get warnings, but we felt this was something easily correctable, he said. That view was substantiated because the commission looked at it and our answers were good.

Northeast Lakeview was scheduled for an accreditation vote in December even before this months site visit, Cleary said. Visiting teams typically come away with findings that the colleges have five months to address, he said. As Northeast Lakeview had no such findings, Cleary sent a letter to the accrediting agency waiving the five-month response period.

Once the college is accredited, it can start developing new programs, Labus said. The college offers three types of associates degrees, but has not been able to develop more technical certification programs without accreditation, she said. And, while Northeast Lakeview does have some special agreements with four-year institutions to accept Lakeview credits, being accredited means credits can transfer to more universities.

I could not be more proud of the NLC team and of our district colleagues who played a big role in producing this ridiculously incredible outcome, Cleary said in his email to employees.

amalik@express-news.net
AUSTIN  Despite calls from Senate leaders to give their school choice plan a fair shot  a plea directed at the voucher-averse House  their most formidable challenge this session may be getting enough Republican support to push the proposal out of the upper chamber.

As in the last session, Sen. Larry Taylors school choice legislation has the forceful backing of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who considers it a top priority, but key senators remain undecided on the bill in its current form.

Taylor, R-Friendswood, likely has enough votes to pass Senate Bill 3 out of the chambers Committee on Education, which he chairs and where he serves with several school choice backers. However, he lacks support from a sufficient number of his GOP colleagues to bring the measure to the Senate floor for a vote.

Senate rules require the approval of 19 of the chambers 31 members before a bill can come up for floor debate and a vote. Even with a 20-11 GOP majority, Taylor needs as many as five more Republican votes in the face of solid Democratic opposition to get a floor vote.

We have more time than we did last time, Taylor said, adding that he has been in talks with several House members in recent days. Im trying to meet a lot of folks concerns. Weve got some time to work with a number of them, and spend some time explaining it.

Some of the earliest negotiations are likely to come from within the Senate GOP caucus, whose 20 members easily can approve their priority bills if they vote as a bloc. However, Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, said his mostly rural district has only a few private schools.

Theres a question of money, and where the money comes from and what its effect is, Seliger said. Were going to hold public schools to pretty rigorous assessments, but not private schools or parochial schools which are going to take the same money.

A specific concern of his is a provision in Taylors bill that would exempt private schools receiving public money from complying with state education laws that were not in effect by last month.

Any requirement we make of public schools, in any area, does not apply, Seliger said. Just exactly what does that mean?

Taylors efforts to shepherd his bill through the legislative process also will test whether a majority of lawmakers in the House, where school choice traditionally has been opposed by Democrats and rural Republicans, is willing even to discuss the issue.

Many of us in the House are concerned about giving taxpayer dollars to schools that are not held accountable for their financial and academic performance, said Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Humble, who chairs the House Committee on Public Education. If both public and private schools are getting taxpayer funds, why should only public schools be subject to accountability measures? The House Committee on Public Education and my colleagues in the Texas House of Representatives have a responsibility to do what is best for our constituents and our students, no one else.

Announced last month, Taylors Senate Bill 3 would allow parents to create education savings accounts to pay for certain expenses related to their childs education. Those expenses would include tuition and fees at private schools, online educational courses and other materials for home-schooled students, and private tutoring.

The accounts would be available to families at all income levels. Each year, the state would deposit into their accounts a set amount of funds, adjusted for the total annual income of the household. Students living below the federal poverty level could qualify for 75 percent of Texas per-student allocation, or an estimated $6,000 per student each year. The rest of the money would go back to the school district where the student otherwise would be enrolled. The bill would allow students with disabilities, regardless of family income, to receive 90 percent of the public school allotment. Students in families who live above the federal poverty level could get 60 percent.

Taylors bill also would create a tax credit scholarship program that would provide money to parents who move their children from traditional public schools and enroll them in charter, private or home schools. The measure also would give a tax credit to businesses that contribute to the fun.

Taylors bill differs in many respects from school voucher bills the Legislature considered in past sessions, when Senate Republicans attempted a time-intensive, piecemeal approach. In 2015, for example, the Senates tax credit proposal passed the chamber about a month before the session was scheduled to end. It was assigned to a House committee but never got a hearing date. The Senate also passed a separate bill that would have ordered the Texas Education Agency to conduct a study on implementing educational savings accounts. It died in another House committee.

Taylors bill could apply to about 15,000 students statewide in its first year of implementation, Patrick said. There are an estimated 5.2 million students in Texas public schools.

That is one-quarter of 1 percent. So, when people say the sky is falling and that we are undermining education, no, we are not, he said. We are providing choice for parents who are not wealthy enough to choose a school for their child.

Public education advocates have condemned Taylors proposal as the latest attempt to pass a wide-ranging voucher program in Texas.

If Dan Patrick and his followers wanted to give all students and their parents a meaningful educational choice, they would more adequately fund public education, so that children of all economic backgrounds would have a full menu of academic offerings and electives in their neighborhood public schools, said Texas State Teachers Association President Noel Candelaria.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott long has supported school choice. At a rally on the Capitol steps last month, he urged lawmakers to send Taylors Senate Bill 3 to him and promised to sign it. He lauded charter schools in his State of the State address, saying they do a great job and deserve more funding.

However, the governor did not place Taylors legislation on his list of emergency items, which would allow lawmakers to vote on the issue promptly. They still can consider the bill in committee and debate the merits of different proposals, but without Abbotts emergency blessing, legislators must wait more than a month before either chamber can vote on passage.

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U.S. immigration authorities arrested hundreds of undocumented immigrants in at least a half-dozen states including Texas this week in a series of raids that marked the first large-scale enforcement of President Donald Trumps Jan. 26 order to crack down on the estimated 11 million immigrants living here illegally.

The raids, which officials said targeted known criminals, also netted some immigrants who did not have criminal records, an apparent departure from similar enforcement waves during former President Obamas administration that aimed to just corral and deport those who had committed crimes.

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said Friday he confirmed with the Immigration and Customs Enforcements office in San Antonio that the agency has launched a targeted operation in South and Central Texas as part of Operation Cross Check.

I am asking ICE to clarify whether these individuals are in fact dangerous, violent threats to our communities, and not people who are here peacefully raising families and contributing to our state, Castro said in a statement Friday night.

ICE officials in San Antonio told San Antonio Express-News reporters that there were no operations in San Antonio, adding that they do not comment on ongoing operations.

Trump has pledged to deport up to 3 million undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Last month he also made a change to the Obama administrations policy of prioritizing deportation for convicted criminals, substantially broadening the scope of who the Department of Homeland Security can target, to include those with only minor offenses or those with no convictions at all.

Immigration officials confirmed that agents this week raided homes and workplaces in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, the Los Angeles area, North Carolina and South Carolina, netting hundreds of people. But Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE said they were part of routine immigration enforcement actions. ICE dislikes the term raids, and prefers to say authorities are conducting targeted enforcement actions.

Christensen said the raids, which began Monday and ended Friday at noon, found undocumented immigrants from a dozen Latin American countries. Were talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system, she said, noting that the majority of those detained were serious criminals, including some who had been convicted of murder and domestic violence.

Activists said the crackdown went beyond the six states DHS identified, and said they had also documented ICE raids of unusual intensity in the past two days in Florida, Kansas, Texas and Northern Virginia.

That undocumented immigrants with no criminal records were arrested and could potentially be deported sent a shock through immigrant communities nationwide amid concerns that the U.S. government could start going after law-abiding people.

This is clearly the first wave of attacks under the Trump administration, and we know this isnt going to be the only one, Cristina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream, an immigrant youth organization, said Friday.

ICE agents in the Los Angeles area Thursday swept a number of individuals into custody over the course of an hour, seizing them from their homes and on their way to work in daytime operations, activists said.

A video that circulated on social media Friday appeared to show ICE agents detaining people in an Austin shopping center parking lot. Immigration advocates also reported roadway checkpoints, where ICE appeared to be targeting immigrants for random ID checks, in North Carolina and in Austin. ICE officials denied that authorities used checkpoints during the operations.

Im getting lots of reports from my constituents about seeing ICE on the streets. Teachers in my district have contacted me  certain students didnt come to school today because theyre afraid, said Greg Cesar, an Austin City Council member. I talked to a constituent, a single mother, who had her door knocked on this morning by ICE.

Late Friday, Castro told the Express-News that his office wont receive any further updates from ICE until the operation is complete.

He requested via Twitter that people forward him any videos, photos or other documentary evidence of the ICE raids, including evidence of random citizenship checks.

Castro said it would take a few days to comb through the Twitter responses.

Jonathan D. Ryan, executive director of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, said as of Friday afternoon that there had been no calls to attorneys from the community or families about arrests in and around San Antonio.

The activities in Travis County classify as plain old-fashioned immigration enforcement actions, Ryan said. The stuff done under Obama  just didnt have so much attention. It was not shrouded in fear and anticipation as activities are now.

Some activists in Austin and Los Angeles suggested that the raids might be retaliation for those cities so-called sanctuary city policies. A government aide familiar with the raids said it is possible the predominantly daytime operations  a departure from the Obama administrations night raids  meant to send a message to the community that the Trump deportation force is in effect.

Ryan attributed the actions to acting ICE director Thomas D. Homan, who entered the position Jan. 30.

Homans 30 years of immigration enforcement experience includes a stint as the assistant district director for investigations in San Antonio and later Dallas as part of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service

During that time, Ryan said previous news reports were that he ran a safe house to gather intel from immigrants.

Immigration officials acknowledged that authorities had cast a wider net than they would have last year, as the result of Trumps executive order.

The White House is facing a series of legal challenges to that order, and on Thursday lost a court battle over a separate executive order to temporarily ban entry to the U.S. by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries, as well as by refugees.

Staff writers Jacob Beltran and Guillermo Contreras contributed to this story.
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WASHINGTON  U.S. Rep. Lamar Smiths Make EPA Great Again Science Committee hearing on Tuesday had a ring of irony given jarring change coming to the federal agency charged with protecting air, water and human health.

President Donald Trump has said hed like to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, although shrinking it now seems the plan. Hours after being sworn in, Trump ordered a freeze on the agencys grants and contracts, a prelude to his executive orders to revive the controversial Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines.

Trumps choice to head the EPA, Scott Pruitt, gained a national reputation for suing the agency he likely will lead. Myron Ebell, a climate change skeptic who headed Trumps EPA transition, says cutting two-thirds of EPAs 15,000 employees should be the goal.

So the audience arriving at Smiths Making EPA Great Again hearing might have been confused  until they heard him speak.

The EPA has proposed some of the most expensive and expansive and ineffective regulations in history, he said. In recent years, the EPA has sought to regulate every facet of Americans way of life.

Smith, R-San Antonio, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, is among the EPAs fiercest critics. He also is one of Capitol Hills foremost skeptics of the science underpinning dire warnings about the dangers of a warming planet, a belief he has backed up with subpoenas that riled the nations scientific establishment.

But with Trump in the White House, Smith may become a player rather than an outlier in what is shaping up as a concerted effort in Washington to recast the body of environmental rules and protections that have evolved over four decades.

Besides oversight of EPA science and research, Smiths committee also has jurisdiction over roughly $9 billion worth of Energy Department research and development. In addition to working with Pruitt, Smith can expect to do business with former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is expected to be confirmed soon as energy secretary.

In an overheated Washington environment exploding with Trump-related news, Smith managed to get noticed recently by admonishing the national liberal media on the House floor for not printing good news about Trump.

Better to get your news directly from the president. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth, he said.

Make EPA Great Again  a phrase Smith and aides designed to draw attention  did indeed get noticed, not always in ways flattering to Smith.

Scott Faber, vice president of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization in Washington, referred to Smith when he said: Bogus efforts to promote 'sound science and 'regulatory reform' are thinly veiled campaigns, at the behest of industry, to rob EPA of the ability to provide basic public health safeguards.

A headline alongside Smiths photo in a New Yorker magazine post this week read: The Congressman Whos Trying to Make the Environment Worse Again.

Smith said he is undaunted by that characterization and other criticism.

It doesnt bother me because I consider the source, he said. Some publications are simply so liberal and have such a blatant political agenda that I dont take them seriously.

In an interview, Smith spelled out his view of what EPAs return greatness would look like. Among changes, the $8 billion agency would cease practicing secret science in dealings with Americans and Congress and take seriously the costs of regulations when measuring their benefits.

The aim is to make the EPA more honest and open and transparent, he said. For the last eight years, the EPA, in my view, has had a political agenda and not a scientific agenda. Were hoping to correct that and have the EPA go the direction of legitimate science and not politically correct science.

Smith said he intends for his committee to take a lead role in pressing for solutions other than federal regulations to environmental concerns. That would apply both to his scrutiny of EPA workings and research choices in the Energy Department.

What is being proposed by the alarmists, in my view, is neither effective nor efficient. And thats why I think a much better way to go is technology and innovations, which has always been the answer in our country when weve had challenges, he said.

Smith thought enough of Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general, to bring him to testify before a science subcommittee last May on the Obama administrations Clean Power Plan  a far-reaching initiative to combat global warming by limiting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. It is held up in court.

Pruitt left no mystery about his views, referring to the power plant plan as extraordinary in scope, extraordinary in costs, and extraordinary in its intrusion into the sovereignty of the states, and all done not by this body, but by nameless, faceless and politically unaccountable bureaucrats.

Smith said he believes that Pruitt brings a lot of common sense to the table. He makes an effort to reach out to all parties  I like what I hear about him sharing the feeling that extreme environmental regulations serve no purpose.

Ebell, tapped by Trump to handle EPA-related transition matters, praised Smith for keying on the science behind EPA rules.

I think that the EPA misuses science to justify some of its regulations, Ebell said. Rules that we think have very little environmental benefit that are very costly are going to continue unless the use of science is reformed.

As an example, Ebell pointed to the EPAs rule in 2015 lowering the ozone limit from 75 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion, a costly tightening that he said is based on scientific modeling but lacks proof of quantifiable health benefits.

Chairman Smith and his House Science Committee have been exceptionally good at analyzing these problems, said Ebell, who heads the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank.
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NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico  When three men armed with assault rifles stormed the Hotel Dos Laredos looking for Cuban migrants earlier this month, Lester Diaz, 43, escaped out a second-floor window.

Soldiers quickly thwarted the attempted kidnapping. But for Diaz, a chef from Havana, the ordeal exposed the vulnerability of his countrymen in limbo here since the Obama administration last month abruptly ended a decades-old policy that had given privileged status to Cubans who reached U.S. soil.

Were afraid, Diaz said, wearing a T-shirt declaring his pursuit of freedom. And we need protection.

More than 500 Cubans have amassed in Nuevo Laredo since the so-called wet foot, dry foot rule was eliminated Jan. 12, and still more are expected to arrive in the weeks ahead.

Most hope President Donald Trump, who has promised to crack down on illegal immigrants and ordered construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall, will offer them a reprieve.

They bide their time near the pedestrian bridge and in city plazas, lining up for food doled out by church groups and kindhearted locals.

At night, they take up residence at migrant shelters, churches and hotels, straining resources already stretched thin. With the prospect of stepped-up deportations from the U.S. looming, leaders of this industrial border city say theyre bracing for a possible crisis.

Were facing a critical situation, said Jose Martin Carmona Flores, who heads up the Instituto Tamaulipeco Para los Migrantes, a state agency that provides aid to migrants and deportees.

Formed after a drug cartel massacred 72 migrants in Tamaulipas in 2010, Carmonas agency is helping mostly road-weary Central Americans, as well as Mexicans deported by the busload. But lately, it seems that concerns surrounding the fate of Cubans have dominated his time, even as other migrants flood the region.

At his desk, Carmona fields calls from anxious immigration officials. Among the pressing issues is the shortage of available beds. With only 600 beds across the city set aside for migrants, Cubans already occupy most of the available bed space.

The news of several dozen Cubans deported back to the communist island from southern Mexico late last month has many here on edge, and fearful they also could be removed.

If it were up to me, I would look for a way for the Cubans to stay, because Im pro-migrant, Carmona said. But the National Immigration Institute has the final word on whether to deport them.

Sent back to the border

Meanwhile, the humanitarian agency is filled with larger groups of deported Mexicans. Around 40 percent of all deportees to the Southern U.S. border are dropped off in Tamaulipas, though few are from the area.

Mexicos federal immigration agency in 2014 launched Somos Mexicanos, a program offering the recently deported a bus ticket back to their communities, yet some invariably are marooned on the border.

During a typical week, Carmonas agency receives about 900 deportees, yet over the past couple of weeks those numbers have inched upward. Last year, the U.S. deported around 217,000 Mexicans. If that number doubles, as some observers estimate, the pressure will mount on border communities to act.

Antonio Cruz, 52, was sent to Nuevo Laredo after 16 years working in a Minneapolis shampoo factory. He was detained by local police on a routine traffic stop when he could not produce a drivers license last October, then turned over to U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement agents.

In Mexico, Cruz is struggling to find his place. While his family is in Mexico City, his life, now out of reach, remains in Minneapolis.

Id like to go back, but I dont think I will, Cruz said. Its too difficult now.

Further straining resources in recent months has been the persistent influx of Central Americans trying to cross the pedestrian bridge to claim asylum. The sheer volume has overwhelmed U.S. immigration officials, who send them back to Mexico, telling them to try again later for an appointment.

Similarly Cubans who express a credible fear of return at international ports are processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, then placed in a detention facility pending their asylum hearing.

As it becomes more difficult to cross the border, theres going to be a greater number of people along the northern crossing points, said Christopher Gascon, chief of the Mexico office for the International Organization for Migration. Well see how Mexico reacts.

Mexico in a bind

In a drafty room of the Casa Migrante Nazareth, Maria Ofelia Sanchez, 38, had become frantic after she was cut off from her two teenage children. The Guatemalan immigrant had escaped gang violence, only to be separated from her children at the bridge in Nuevo Laredo when Mexican immigration officials allowed her children to cross, but temporarily detained her.

In the days that followed, Sanchez received word from her mother still in Guatemala that her son and daughter had made it to the other side, and were put in the temporary custody of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.

I cant leave my children alone, Sanchez said. Im desperate to see if they accept me at the bridge this time.

Back in 2014, responding to pressure from Washington to do more to stem the tide of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador from reaching the U.S. border, Mexican authorities launched an immigration crackdown on its southern border.

Now, Central American nations hope to leverage Trumps tough talk on immigration, and his plan to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, to open dialogue with Mexico about its response to U.S. immigration policy and the fallout in the region.

It does seem like Mexico could have a problem in several parts of their border where deportees from the United States, but also migrants who cant get across, are stuck there for a while, said Maureen Meyer, an analyst with the Washington Office on Latin America. One of the things Mexico feels like it has to negotiate is what theyve done to stop migration from coming to the U.S.

At the other end of the border, around 5,000 Haitians have landed in Tijuana, blocked by the Obama administration from entering the U.S. on humanitarian grounds. Already, Tamaulipas Gov. Francisco Garcia Cabeza De Vaca has been searching for federal assistance to manage the steady rise of migrants across his border state.

Later this month, mayors from all over Mexico will meet in Nuevo Laredo to begin crafting a response to possible difficult days that lie ahead.

Once the migrants have been here for months, it will be unsustainable, Nuevo Laredo Mayor Enrique Rivas said. We dont have the funds to handle the problem, particularly in the case of the Cubans.

Providing food and shelter to the Cubans mostly has fallen upon religious groups and humanitarian organizations. The Texas Baptists River Ministry hauls hundreds of dollars worth food from neighboring Laredo every day.

Harrowing journey

Up until last month, Cubans had streamed across the border by the tens of thousands. After the sudden rule change, however, thousands of Cubans still in transit became like any other migrant  perilously traversing Mexico toward an uncertain future.

For most, the harrowing journey from Cuba wends across thousands of miles and nearly a dozen nations. They hack through the dense Amazon rain forest, then brave the sea aboard rickety boats, only to walk for days through the untamed Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama.

Along the way, smugglers rob them of their belongings, and immigration officials shake them down for money. But once at the border, Cubans never stayed long enough to fall victim to the criminal gangs that prey upon migrants.

After the attempted kidnapping at Hotel Dos Laredos, Carmonas agency was flooded with Cubans fearing for their safety. Some said human smugglers had begun offering to sneak some people across the Rio Grande.

One legal alternative being presented to the Cubans is to apply for either a humanitarian visa or refugee status. Those who were assaulted in Mexico qualify for a humanitarian visa, while others could meet the requirements for a refugee visa. But both take months to process, and few appear ready to stay in Mexico despite unease over possible reprisals if they are sent back to the communist island.

At a Baptist church, Josley Garcia Lopez, 31, and Glayde Vilches Jimenez, 30, fawned over their newborn daughter. They named her Melania, in honor of the first lady.

Vilches walked the Darien Gap over five days while seven months pregnant, an experience that must be lived to be believed, she said. Their daughter is Mexican by birth, which could support their case to remain in Mexico should they choose, but their sights are set on Michigan.

Were not thinking about Mexico, Vilches said. Were hoping for something positive from the United States.

anelsen@express-news.net

Twitter: @amnelsen
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The mission of the San Antonio Police Department, according to Police Chief William McManus, is straightforward: to answer calls for service and work with the public to solve and prevent crime.

Thats not to say this mission is easy. Its not. This week, with the passage of legislation that would push officers to enforce federal immigration laws, the Texas Senate proved its perverse determination to make the dangerous work of police officers even more difficult.

If we were to have to enforce immigration laws, that would interfere with that mission, McManus told me before the Senate passed the so-called sanctuary cities bill.

McManus delivered the same message to Republican lawmakers before they passed Senate Bill 4 on a party-line vote. (Deemed an emergency by Gov. Greg Abbott, the measure is now pending in the House.) In urging senators not to pass the legislation, McManus was echoing law enforcement leaders across the state, including Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo and Interim Austin Police Chief Brian Manley.

Led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Republican senators simply ignored the pleas of law enforcement. This is puzzling considering Patricks loudly touted support for police over the past year.

For instance, on Thursday, a mere two days after ushering Senate Bill 4 to passage, Patrick issued a statement naming July 7 as Fallen Law Enforcement Officer Day. Its impetus was the fatal shooting of five officers at a Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas by a deranged Army Reserve veteran.

July 7, 2016 was a dark day in Texas history when five brave police officers were shot in Dallas, Patrick said. It was a great blow to our state and it is fitting that we set aside a day to honor their loss and the loss of other officers and first responders who have fallen in the line of duty.

A few days after the shooting, Patrick attended a town hall discussion on race and policing, where he lectured then-President Barack Obama on not doing enough to help police.

Im concerned that police officers across the country  they know you support law enforcement of course, but do they really in their heart feel like youre doing everything you can to protect their lives? Patrick said.

The following month, Patrick made a show of delivering $45,000 to the Assist the Officer Foundation in support of the families of fallen and wounded officers.

To the men and women who wear a badge, I say: weve got your back, Patrick said then. My wife Jan and I made the first contribution. This check represents the contributions of many more who stand with law enforcement in Dallas, in Texas, and around the world.

Why, then, is Patrick refusing to stand with law enforcement at the Capitol?

Why did he ignore the pleas of McManus, Manley and Acevedo? The latter wrote to senators last week warning that Senate Bill 4 would undermine the level of trust and cooperation between local police and immigrant communities.

Acevedo continued, Such a divide between the local police and immigrant groups would result in increased crime against immigrants and in the broader community, create a class of silent victims and eliminate the potential for assistance from immigrants in solving crimes or preventing crime.

Solving and preventing crime: a police departments mission. The top law enforcement brass in Texas are unequivocal in saying a law against sanctuary cities would undermine that dangerous job.

And anything that undermines the work of police also endangers the lives of police.

After the shootings in Dallas, Patrick called the demonstrators there hypocrites for seeking protection from the same police they were protesting. (As if Americans must surrender any expectation of public safety when exercising their right to speak and assemble freely.)

Patrick was projecting. His support for Senate Bill 4 in spite of vocal opposition by the same police he pretends to support is what real hypocrisy looks like.

bchasnoff@express-news.net
Egypt's current Press Syndicate head, Yehia Kalash, declared in a statement Saturday his candidacy for a second term as head of the union, while currently waging a legal battle to overturn a two-year prison sentence on "harbouring fugitive journalists" at the syndicate's headquarters.

"Based on what we achieved [in the past two years] and the upcoming challenges that await us en route to complete what we started and to ensure the continued momentum in the spirit of the union ... I found it my duty to rerun for head of the syndicate," Kalash's statement to the press read.

Kalash is currently appealing a two-year sentence issued in November for harbouring two journalists wanted by police inside the syndicate in May 2016, a case many local and international rights watchdogs have called an attack on the press freedom in Egypt.

Journalists Mahmoud El-Sakka and Amr Badr were among many wanted on arrest warrants ahead of the 25 April 2016 protests against an Egyptian-Saudi Red Sea island maritime border agreement. Badr and El-Sakka were arrested inside the Journalists' Syndicate premises. They were later released on bail pending trial.

I urge you to face the real problems ... such as the new press law, the social and economic rights of journalists and to focus on changing the syndicates bylaws, Kalash told reporters following the prison verdict.

"I did not allow all the repercussions, which you know well, to distract me from carrying my responsibility towards my colleagues' wellbeing and to protect their rights," Kalash's candidacy statement read.

Last week, former head of the Press Syndicate Diaa Rashwan announced that he will also be running for syndicate head.

The union will hold elections for syndicate head and six board members 3 March, with the deadline for declaring candidacies 11 February.

Rashwan, who was syndicate head between 2013 and 2015, lost the position to Kalash in 2015.

Rashwan cited his candidacy bid as his duty to save the profession and the syndicate from serious pitfalls that resulted from stances that lacked wisdom [and were made] in the name of principle and policies [by union leaders] that did not appreciate journalists or honour their syndicate.

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa.  Like Punxsutawney Phils 2017 prognostication, AccuWeather forecasters are predicting winter weather will linger into spring across much of the United States.

From coast to coast, cold air will maintain its grip across the northern tier of the country. Meanwhile, rain, thunderstorms and severe weather will threaten to kick off farther south, leading to a volatile season for many.

Warmup delayed

Spring will start off on a wet note for the Interstate-95 corridor, including Boston, New York City and Philadelphia. Rain and snow will fall through mid-March in most of the Northeast, holding back temperatures.

As far as a significant warmup goes in the Northeast, I think you have to hold off until late April and May, said AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Forecaster Paul Pastelok.

Though the forecast aligns with Punxsutawney Phils prediction, its not all bad news for those eager to leave winter behind. The warmup should arrive faster than in the past couple of years, Pastelok said.

Chilly air will also stretch westward into the Midwest.

It seems like all the cold and all the snow has been really piling up across that area and its going to be no different going into the early spring, he said.

With a significant snowpack remaining, its difficult to judge when the cold air will retreat.

North and west [of Chicago] is going to be delayed because of the amount of snowpack. It will be running behind schedule, no doubt in my mind. I just dont know how far behind at this point.

Rain in the South

Showers and thunderstorms will dominate the springtime weather pattern across the southeastern United States. While the rain will be largely beneficial, too much in February and March could make it tough for farmers to get into fields early on. Florida may mark the only exception.

The Plains states may be in for an active severe weather season, thanks in part to winters lingering pattern. A northern jet stream which brings cold air to the upper levels of the atmosphere may be slow to retreat, according to Pastelok.

If its slow to move out, which is typical of a weak La Nina season, youre going to get more explosive systems, more severe weather and thats a good possibility in the southern Plains this year, Pastelok said.

The active weather could kick off as early as March, so residents will want to be prepared. In the northern Plains, flooding will be of concern.

Northwest

Wintry conditions will continue across the northwestern U.S. in March, with rain and snow frequenting the region. Some of this precipitation will also reach down into northern California. Following a winter in which Los Angeles, San Francisco, Fresno and Sacramento, California, each doubled their citys normal seasonal rainfall total, spring flooding cannot be ruled out.

Getting farther south from Fresno to Bakersfield, that area still may deal with some minor drought conditions but its improved dramatically, Pastelok said.

Southwest

The Southwest will be much less active than its northern counterpart. High pressure will allow drier- and warmer-than-normal conditions to dominate from southern California to central Texas.

Its not going to take too long to get those temperatures to bounce in the Southwest, Pastelok said.
As she concluded a two-day trip to Washington, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Wednesday that she told U.S. politicians that Canada would strongly oppose new tariffs  and would respond in kind.

That early warning comes as Congress begins a debate on a once-in-a-generation reform of corporate taxes, following a series of stalled efforts over the years under successive legislatures and administrations.

Freeland said Canada doesnt intend to provide running commentary on this debate. But she used her trip to register, for the record, Canadas feelings about one idea being floated. She told lawmakers that if the final legislation includes a tariff-like penalty on Canadian imports, Canada would retaliate.



.. if such an idea were ever to come into being, Canada would respond appropriately

 Chrystia Freeland

I did make clear that we would be strongly opposed to any imposition of new tariffs between Canada and the United States, Freeland told reporters.

That we felt tariffs on exports would be mutually harmful. That if such an idea were ever to come into being, Canada would respond appropriately.

The good news: its still hypothetical

Numerous other tax-reform plans have stalled in Congress over the years and this conversation has barely begun. There are different ideas being bounced around Congress and even the White House is sending contradictory signals.

President Donald Trump has suggested he dislikes the idea of a broad border adjustment on foreign companies and favours narrow tariffs on certain imports  but then he has also made more favourable comments about the adjustment idea.

Freeland said she leaves Washington sensing the plan is far from settled.

The conversation  is very much just at a beginning, she said. How it might work, and what it might include, and whether tariffs might be a part of it, is very much all under discussion. 

All very, very preliminary.  So we do not know what the position of the United States might be.

NAFTA negotiations havent started

Freelands main takeaway from two days of meetings was actually quite encouraging. She said everyone she spoke with viewed Canada as a model trading partner, with balanced trade, and comparable labour standards.

She said she kept getting the same positive response, whenever she raised the importance of Canadian trade for U.S. jobs: I really felt I was pushing on an open door, with everyone.

One thing Freeland would not discuss in detail: NAFTA negotiations. She noted that the U.S. Senate has not yet confirmed the key cabinet members who will be involved in the file, the secretaries of commerce and trade.

As the countries prepare for the talks, Freeland said she has begun consulting Canadian industry stakeholders, meeting over the last few days with representatives from the auto and lumber sectors.

She visited Capitol Hill on her first day in Washington for meetings with top House lawmaker Paul Ryan and Senate foreign affairs power-brokers John McCain and Bob Corker. On her second day, she went to the State Department to meet the new Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson.

She said Tillerson knows Canada well  the former Exxon boss was heavily involved in oilsands projects.

Further updates on PMs trip expected

Freeland called that familiarity a benefit for Canada. As she sat down to meet Tillerson, she mentioned his reputed knowledge of Canada. He chuckled and replied: Been there a few times, indeed. Indeed.

Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau could soon be making his third visit to Washington as prime minister. Officials in both countries said plans are being discussed for a possible meeting with Trump within days, although the specifics havent been nailed down.

I will have further updates on the prime ministers schedule, either later today or tomorrow, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Wednesday.

Im not in a position where I can finalize that.

Sources familiar with planning for the event say the Canadian side is determined to set specific objectives for the first Trump-Trudeau meeting, so that the countries can start making progress on key priorities, rather than just make it a social visit.

The back-and-forth over agenda items has delayed the meeting.

Source: Meatbusiness
The little-known group has claimed responsibility for a number of terrorist attacks, including two high profile assassination attempts

The Cairo Court for Urgent Matters has designated on Saturday the militant group "Hasm", which claimed responsibility for a number of deadly attacks on security forces as well as assassination attempts on public figures over the past year, as a terrorist group.

The little-known group claimed the assassination attempt on the deputy prosecutor general in September 2016 as well as the assassination attempt on leading Islamic cleric Ali Gomaa in August of the same year.

In December 2016, Hasm also claimed responsibility for a deadly explosion at a police checkpoint in the Haram district in Giza, which killed 6 policemen and left 4 injured.

In mid-January, the High State Security Prosecution referred 304 people to military trials for alleged membership in Hasm.

Last week, Cairo Court for Urgent Matters also designated a group calling itself the Popular Resistance a terrorist organisation. The group, which was formed in 2014, first gained widespread attention in June 2015 when it claimed responsibility for the murder of the country's chief prosecutor, Hisham Barakat, in Cairo.

Since 2013, the Egyptian government has linked most of the militant groups in the country which announced responsibility for attacks on security forces to the banned Muslim Brotherhood organisation.

The government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation in December 2013 as the government blamed the group for a number of deadly attacks on security forces in the aftermath of the ouster of Islamist former president Mohamed Morsi in July of that year.

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FOLLOWING the extremely wet conditions through most parts of the Great Southern last year, canola growers in the area can use findings from a grower-led canola variety trial to make informed decisions on their crop choices for this year.
Apart from the sheer size of the task, originally set at 28,000 pilots per year, Britain wasn't a great place to train pilots for it was on the front line and all airfields were likely to be disrupted, either by enemy aircraft or lousy weather.
"Mum and Dad always thought I should just do agricultural science, and then I called them up on the last day of first year when I'd changed degrees and they said "we told you so," she said.
NC State football score vs. Wake Forest: Live updates

The No. 21 Wolfpack (6-2, 2-2) look to extend a 15-game home win streak on Saturday ( 8 p.m., ACC Network) when they host No. 20 Wake Forest (6-2, 2-2)
Egypt's Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry met on Saturday in Cairo with a delegation from the US Congress headed by Republican MP Dana Rohrabacher, where they discussed a number of issues including Egyptian government efforts to face terrorism targeting Egyptians, according to a statement by the ministry.

The meeting also saw a discussion on the different facets of political and economic reform programmes in Egypt, as well as the importance of Egyptian-American relations, which require all efforts to enhance bilateral cooperation and coordination in facing the challenges in the region.

The meeting also addressed Egypt's role in bringing peace and stability to the Middle East, referring to the conflicts in Libya, Yemen and Syria, as well as the fight against terrorism.

In December, Shoukry travelled to the US where he met with a number of congressmen and lawmakers to discuss a number of bilateral and regional matters, including US military aid to Egypt and Cairos keenness on enhancing relations with the US under the new administration of President Donald Trump.

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Powerstar Puneeth Rajkumar, who has just started shooting for his next film Anjaniputra, has initiated talks with Tamil director Vetrimaraan for his 28th film. The critically acclaimed director was in the city earlier this week.

Vetrimaraan was in Bangalore to take part in the Bangalore Film Festival. He also narrated a storyline to Puneeth, who liked it and gave a go ahead for the director to work on the script.

Top producer Rockline Venkatesh will be bankrolling the project. He has also bagged the remake rights of Vetrimaraan's Visaranai and Rockline will be remaking the film in Kannada and Hindi languages.

Vetrimaraan is currently busy with Vada Chennai which has Dhanush playing the lead role. The work on Appu's film will start only after the shoot of Vada Chennai is completed. We can expect the pre-production work to start in the latter half of 2017.

Puneeth has been part of both class and mass films. He is one of the few stars in Kannada film industry who is ready to be part of different films like Mythri and Prithvi. With Puneeth joining hands with maker like Vetrimaraan, a meaningful film can be expected.

Meanwhile, the actor will finish shooting for Anjaniputra, which will be shot in various locations of Karnataka and Bihar. The team also has plans of shooting a couple of songs abroad and intends to complete the shoot by May.

Currently, scenes featuring Puneeth, Rashmika, Chikkanna and other artists are being shot in various locations of Bangalore. The first schedule in Bangalore is expected to be completed by end of this month.
Russian warplanes are using Iran's airspace to carry out airstrikes in Syria, an Iranian official said Saturday.

"The fact that they (Russian bombers) use Iranian airspace continues because we have total strategic cooperation with Russia," Admiral Ali Shamkhani told the Fars news agency.

Shamkhani is secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and Tehran's coordinator of political, security and military actions with Russia.

"The use of Iranian airspace by Russian aircraft is made subject to a joint decision, taking into account the need... to fight terrorism," he told the IRNA news agency.

He said Russian planes had not recently needed to land in Iran for re-supply.

Russian fighter bombers first used an Iranian military base in August 2016 to attack militant positions in Syria.

Iran and Russia are closely cooperating in Syria and provide political, financial and military backing to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Tehran has sent military advisors and "volunteer" fighters to support the Syrian military in its fight against rebel and militant groups.

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EDMONTON, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/10/17 -- Altiplano Minerals Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: APN) ("APN" or the "Company"): Further to the Company's press release dated January 3, 2017, APN is pleased to announce that the Company has entered into a definitive earn-in and joint venture agreement (the "Agreement") with Comet Exploration Ltd. ("Comet") in respect of acquiring a participating interest in a joint venture (the "CJV") on two copper and gold projects called the Farellon and Maria Luisa projects, which are located near the town of La Serena, Republic of Chile (collectively, the "Projects"). Comet is a private Australian exploration and development company with a focus in Chile principally in base metal and gold projects, held through its Chilean subsidiary.

Pursuant to the Agreement, the Company may earn up to an initial 20%, 35% or 50% interest in the CJV, respectively, by funding up to an aggregate of US$0.75 million, US$1.25 million, or US$2.0 million, respectively, on or before the date of acceptance of the Agreement for filing by the TSX Venture Exchange, March 30, 2017, and May 31, 2017, respectively.

The Agreement is subject to certain conditions, including the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange.

About Altiplano

Altiplano Minerals Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: APN) is a mineral exploration company focused on evaluating and acquiring projects with significant potential for advancement from discovery through to production, in Canada and abroad. Management has a substantial record of success in capitalizing opportunity, overcoming challenges and building shareholder value. Additional information concerning Altiplano can be found on its website at www.altiplanominerals.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

John Williamson

President and CEO

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.

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address exploration drilling, exploitation activities and events or developments that the Company expects are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continuity of mineralization, uncertainties related to the ability to obtain necessary permits, licenses and title and delays due to third party opposition, changes in government policies regarding mining and natural resource exploration and exploitation, and continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on the Company, investors should review the Company's continuous disclosure filings that are available at www.sedar.com.

Contacts:

Altiplano Minerals Ltd.

John Williamson

President and CEO

(780) 437-6624




London & Nuremberg (ots) - Acceleratio Capital N.V., a holding company controlled by funds advised by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. (together with affiliates, "KKR"), today announced that the minimum acceptance threshold of the voluntary public tender offer for the shares (ISIN: DE0005875306) of GfK SE ("GfK") has been exceeded.As at the expiry of the acceptance period at midnight (CET) on 10 February 2017, the acceptance of the offer was declared for more than 18.54 percent of the outstanding GfK shares."We are pleased to have cleared this important hurdle. Now we will work towards the closing of the transaction so that we can support GfK SE's growth strategy together with the GfK Verein," said Philipp Freise, Member, Private Equity & Head of TMT, Europe.The final result of the acceptance period will be published next week. GfK shareholders that have not accepted the offer within the acceptance period can still accept it within the additional acceptance period, which is expected to begin on 16 February 2017 and end at midnight (CET) on 1 March 2017. Following the exceeding of the minimum acceptance threshold, the takeover offer remains subject to the completion conditions described in section 12.1.1 (a) and (g) of the offer document (merger control approval by the European Commission and Ukraine).The respective announcement and a non-binding English translation are available at www.acceleratio-angebot.de.-###-About KKR KKR is a leading global investment firm that manages investments across multiple asset classes including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit and hedge funds. KKR aims to generate attractive investment returns by following a patient and disciplined investment approach, employing worldclass people, and driving growth and value creation at the asset level. KKR invests its own capital alongside its partners' capital and brings opportunities to others through its capital markets business. References to KKR's investments may include the activities of its sponsored funds. For additional information about KKR & Co. L.P. (NYSE:KKR), please visit KKR's website at www.kkr.com and on Twitter @KKR_Co.Disclaimer and Forward-Looking Statement This release is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell GfK shares or any other security. The offer document, the terms and conditions contained therein shall have sole relevance in respect to the offer. Investors and holders of shares in GfK are advised to read the relevant documents regarding the tender offer published by Acceleratio Capital N.V. as they contain important information. Investors and holders of shares in GfK can receive the offer document as well as other documents in connection with the offer from the website www.acceleratio-angebot.de.The information herein may contain "forward-looking statements" that may be identified by words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" or words of similar meaning about the expected future business of Acceleratio Capital N.V., GfK or any other entity. These statements are based on the current expectations of the management of Acceleratio Capital N.V. and KKR and are inherently subject to uncertainties and the change of circumstances. Acceleratio Capital N.V. and KKR do not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, or any change in events, conditions, assumptions or other factors.Originaltext: Acceleratio Capital N.V. digital press kits: http://www.presseportal.de/nr/122678 press kits via RSS: http://www.presseportal.de/rss/pm_122678.rss2Pressekontakt: Dominik Veit Phone: +49 69 92 18 74 87 Email: dveit@heringschuppener.com
DEARBORN (dpa-AFX) - Ford Motor Co. (F) announced that it is investing $1 billion during the next five years in Argo AI to develop a virtual driver system for Ford's autonomous vehicle coming in 2021 - and for potential license to other companies. The company said that the $1 billion investment in Argo AI will be made over five years and is consistent with the autonomous vehicle capital allocation plan shared last September as part of Ford Investor Day. By the end of this year, Argo AI expects to have more than 200 team members, based in the company's Pittsburgh headquarters and at major sites in Southeastern Michigan and the Bay Area of California. Argo AI's initial focus will be to support Ford's autonomous vehicle development and production. In the future, Argo AI could license its technology to other companies and sectors looking for autonomous capability. Founded by former Google and Uber leaders, Argo AI will include roboticists and engineers from inside and outside of Ford working to develop a new software platform for Ford's fully autonomous vehicle coming in 2021. Argo AI founders Bryan Salesky, the company's chief executive, and Peter Rander, chief operating officer, led the self-driving car teams of Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) and Uber, Ford said. 'Argo AI's agility and Ford's scale uniquely combine the benefits of a technology startup with the experience and discipline of the automaker's industry-leading autonomous vehicle development program,' Ford said in a statement. Ford last year announced plans to sell driverless cars by 2021 and unveiled partnerships and investments in the arena, as well as buying a San Francisco-based shuttle startup. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Nomo Ventures, a San Francisco, CA-based early stage venture capital firm, has launched with the raise of its maiden fund.

According to a regulatory form filed with the SEC, NOMO Ventures GP, LLC, is seeking to raise $25m.

The new firm is led by Rahul Prakash, a 3x entrepreneur turned investor at Coyote Ridge Ventures, and Kate Rohacz (partner at Coyote Ridge Ventures).

Prakashs most recent company, MyEnergy, was sold to Nest prior to Googles $3.2B acquisition. In 2013, he founded Coyote Ridge Ventures whose Fund I invested in 20 early stage technology companies including Chariot (acquired by Ford Motor Company), Expensify, inDinero, MeUndies, Spotlight Ticket Management and Spotsetter (acquired by Apple).

FinSMEs

10/02/2017
Senior bureaucrat Ajay Tyagi was appointed as chairman of Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to succeed U K Sinha, whose extended tenure ends on March 1.

Tyagi, a 1984 batch IAS officer of Himachal Pradesh cadre, is at present Additional Secretary (Investment) in the Department of Economic Affairs and handles capital markets, among others.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved his appointment for a period not exceeding five years or till the age of 65 years, an order issued by Personnel Ministry said.

58-year-old Tyagi, who hails from Uttar Pradesh, is a Post Graduate in Economics. He did Masters in Public Administration from Harvard and holds a Master in Technology (Computer Science) degree, as per his official resume. He holds a Bachelor degree in electronics also.

He was Joint Secretary in Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change before joining Finance Ministry on November 1, 2014 as Additional Secretary.

During his stint at the Centre, Tyagi has also worked in ministries of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Steel and Rural Development. He held various posts in Himachal Pradesh government including in power, revenue, finance and information technology.

Tyagi, for a short while, was also on the board of Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

In the run-up to the appointment of the capital markets regulator, many senior bureaucrats, including Power Secretary P K Pujari were in contention.

Incumbent Sinha, a 1976 batch IAS officer of Bihar cadre, had assumed office as Sebi chairman on February 18, 2011, when the previous UPA government was in power.

He was later given a two-year extension. Days before the end of his tenure in February last year, he was given another extension till March 1, 2017.

Sinha's over six-year tenure as the Sebi chief is the second-longest after D R Mehtas seven-year term from 1995 to 2002.
IT major Infosys has been in the news after the company's founders expressed concerns over transparency and corporate governance. They have questioned the compensation package of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Vishal Sikka and the severance package to its former chief compliance officer David Kennedy.

Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy has asked how the company would achieve the $20-billion target by 2020, as set by Sikka, in an uncertain global environment, said sources. Last month, Murthy, Nandan Nilekani and Kris Gopalakrishnan raised their concerns with the board. Last year, promoters of Infosys had abstained from voting to give an extension to Sikka for another two years. The extension also came with an increase in compensation. This renews concerns about issues with corporate governance within the realm of Indian industry.

Corporate governance is the system by which business corporations are directed and controlled. The corporate governance structure specifies the distribution of rights and responsibilities among different participants in the corporation, such as the board, managers, shareholders and other stakeholders, and spells out the rules and procedures for making decisions on corporate affairs. By doing this, it also provides the structure through which the company objectives are set, and the means of attaining those objectives and monitoring performance.

However corporate governance has wider implications and is critical to economic and social well-being, firstly in providing the incentives and performance measures to achieve business success, and secondly in providing the accountability and transparency to ensure the equitable distribution of the resulting wealth.

Significance of corporate governance

The significance of corporate governance for the stability and equity of society is captured in the broader definition of the concept offered by Sir Adrian Cadbury (2002): "Corporate governance is concerned with holding the balance between economic and social goals and between individual and communal goals. The governance framework is there to encourage the efficient use of resources and equally to require accountability for the stewardship of those resources. The aim is to align as nearly as possible the interests of individuals, corporations and society."

The current wave of reform of corporate governance commenced with the Cadbury Code of Practice published by the London Stock Exchange in 1992; proceeded with an OECD inquiry in 1997-99, and the publication of OECD guidelines on corporate governance which have been adopted in national codes by all of the industrial countries, and with the assistance of the World Bank and Asian development bank, by many developing countries.

The urgency of this endeavour was increased by the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 that revealed the danger of systemic corporate governance failure. These codes have been reinforced by the influence of the market through investment institutions, and national regulators. Even with the efforts towards comprehensive reform serious weaknesses in corporate governance still occur as with the HIH Insurance and One-Tel collapse in Australia, and the failure of a series of major corporations in the United States in 2001/2002 commencing with Enron and WorldCom. So why is good corporate governance so important?

Effective corporate governance ensures the optimal use of resources both intra-firm and inter-firm. With effective systems of corporate governance, debt and equity capital will go to those corporations capable of investing it in the most efficient manner for the production both of highly demanded goods and services as well as those with the highest rate of return. This helps to protect and nurture scarce resources thereby ensuring that societal needs are met. In all probability this will mean that incompetent managers are replaced. These efficiency effects both as to scarce resources and the quality of managers should apply whether a firm is a state owned enterprise, a private closely held firm owned by a family group, or a publicly traded corporation on a stock exchange.

Effective corporate governance also helps to lower the cost of capital by improving the confidence of both foreign and domestic investors that their assets will be used for the purposes agreed. A survey of institutional investors found that they would willingly pay on average well over ten percentage points more for a well-governed company, all other things being equal. In competitive markets, this means that managers must constantly evolve new strategies to meet the changing circumstances. This requires that managers be empowered to make decisions.

However, as observed by that famous 18th century economist Adam Smith, managers may have incentives to act in their own self-interest under such circumstances. Other researchers have found that when firm ownership is separated from control, the managers self-interest may lead to the misuse of corporate assets, for example through pursuit of overly risky or imprudent projects. Therefore, we need to have in place rules and regulations to protect the best interests of the providers of capital. They include the following:

i. Independent monitoring of management

ii. Transparency about the performance, ownership and control of the corporation

iii. Participation in certain fundamental decisions by the shareholders

When corporate governance is effective, it provides managers with oversight and holds boards and managers accountable in their management of corporate assets. This oversight and accountability combined with the efficient use of resources, improved access to lower-cost capital and increased responsiveness to societal needs and expectations should lead to improved corporate performance. Effective corporate governance should make it more likely that managers focus on improving firm performance and are replaced when they fail to do so.

A study carried out by Millstein and MacAvoy in the United States (US) analyzing data from 1991-1995 found that U.S. corporations with active and independent boards of directors generated higher economic profit hence supporting the reasonable assumption that corporate governance matters to corporate performance. Effective corporate governance also helps to reduce corruption in business dealings by making it difficult for corrupt practices to develop and take root in a company.

In the developed countries, the elements of effective corporate governance include well positioned and regulated securities markets; laws which recognize shareholders as the legitimate owners of corporations whilst at the same time ensuring the equitable treatment of minority and foreign shareholders; enforcement mechanisms protecting the rights of shareholders; laws to protect against fraud on investors; sophisticated courts and regulators; an experienced accounting and auditing sector and significant corporate disclosure requirements.

In addition to this, the developed countries also have well-developed private sector institutions such as organizations of institutional investors, professional associations of directors, corporate secretaries and managers, as well as rating agencies, securities analysts and a sophisticated financial press.

On the other hand, many emerging countries have not yet developed fully their legal and regulatory systems, enforcement capacities and private sector institutions required for effective corporate governance.

There is in many of these countries, a need for further development of the stock exchange, systems for registering share ownership, enactment of laws for the protection of minority shareholder interests, the empowerment of a vigilant financial press, the improvement of audit and accounting standards and a paradigm shift in the mindset against the widespread tolerance of bribery and corruption as an unavoidable cost of doing business in some of these countries.

According to the Millstein Report, corporate governance takes place within the corporation and as such it depends very much on investors, boards and managements for its successful implementation. The report noted that for corporate governance to be effective in attracting capital, it must focus on four important areas:

a. Fairness by ensuring the protection of shareholder rights in particular the rights of minority and foreign shareholders. These rights can be strengthened by ensuring the enforceability of contracts made by the providers of capital.

b. Transparency by the timely disclosure of adequate, clear and comparable information concerning corporate performance, governance and ownership.

c. Accountability by clarifying governance roles and responsibilities and by means of voluntary efforts to ensure the convergence of managerial and shareholder interests as monitored by the board of directors.

d. Responsibility by ensuring corporate compliance with other laws and regulations reflecting the extant societys values.

In summary therefore, the Millstein Report (1998) urged the promotion and articulation of the four core standards of corporate governance: fairness, transparency, accountability and responsibility.

As a response to the Millstein Report (1998) recommendations to promote and articulate the four core standards, the OECD set up a Task Force to operationalize the findings. In April 1999, the Task Force issued a set of corporate governance principles building on the four essential components articulated by the earlier Millstein Report (1998).

The principles provide useful working guidelines to countries seeking to further strengthen the foundations of their corporate governance practices by expanding on the core concepts identified earlier by the Millstein Report (1998).

Protecting shareholder rights

In relation to this core concept, two separate principles were developed. The first principle states that the corporate governance framework should protect the rights of shareholders. This includes both their proprietary as well as their participatory rights. Effective corporate governance depends on laws, procedures and practices that protect their property right and ensure the security of ownership as well as the unfettered transferability of shares. This principle also recognizes their participatory rights on key corporate decisions such as the election of directors and the approval of major mergers or acquisitions.

The second principle states that the corporate governance framework should ensure the equitable treatment of all shareholders including the minority and foreign shareholders and that all shareholders should have the opportunity to obtain effective redress for violation of their rights. This means that the legal framework should include laws that protect the rights of the minority shareholders against misappropriation of assets or self-dealing by the controlling shareholders, managers or directors.

The third principle states that the corporate governance framework should recognize the rights of stakeholders as established by law and encourage active cooperation between corporations and stakeholders in creating wealth, jobs and the sustainability of financially sound enterprises. This means that corporations must abide by the laws and regulations of the countries in which they operate.

However, laws and regulations impose only minimal expectations as to conduct and corporations should be encouraged to act responsibly and ethically with special consideration for the interests of stakeholders particularly the employees.

It is now acknowledged that socially responsible corporate conduct is consistent with the principle of shareholder wealth maximization. In numerous countries around the globe, the practice of corporate social responsibility accounting is now well established with corporations going beyond the legal requirements to provide health care and retirement benefits, financially supporting education and formulating and adopting environmentally friendly technologies. Similarly other companies strive to avoid practices, which are socially undesirable even if not prohibited under the law.

The fourth principle states that the corporate governance framework should ensure that timely and accurate disclosure is made on all material matters regarding the corporation including the financial situation, performance, ownership and governance of the company. This is in recognition of the fact that both investors and shareholders need information regarding the financial and operating performance of the company as well as information about their corporate objectives and material risk exposures. This information should be prepared in accordance with internationally acceptable accounting and auditing standards and should be subject to an independent audit, which is conducted annually.

The use of internationally accepted accounting standards would enhance comparability and assist both investors and analysts in comparing corporate performance and decision-making based on their relative merits. Likewise information about the companys governance such as share ownership, voting rights, identity of board members, key executives and executive compensation is also a critical component of transparency.

The fifth principle states that the corporate governance framework should ensure the strategic guidance of the company, the effective monitoring of management by the board as well as the boards accountability to the company and the shareholders. This principle implies a legal duty on the part of the directors to the company and its shareholders.

The directors are said to have a fiduciary relationship to both the shareholders and the company, which requires that they avoid self-interest in their decision-making and act diligently and on a fully informed basis. This principle also recognizes the duty of the board to oversee the professional managers who have been entrusted to run the company and who are accountable to the board for the use of firm assets. Thus the board acts as a mechanism for minimizing the agency problem inherent in the separation of ownership and control.

If the board is to be an effective monitor of managerial conduct it must be suitably distinct from the management in order to be objective in its assessment of management. This requires that some of the directors are neither members of the management team nor closely related to them through family or business ties.

A critical aspect of effective corporate governance is the quality of the directors. Objective oversight therefore necessitates the participation of professionally competent non-executive and independent directors on the board. The latter must have the capability, fiduciary commitment and objectivity to provide strategic guidance and monitor performance on behalf of the shareholders. In order for the board to be able to play their roles effectively, they should meet often, at least once every three months and if possible more often.

Additionally, for the non-executive directors to be effective and to ensure that independent oversight has meaning, they must have access to important information in advance of board meetings. In the developed countries, board committees have played an important role in performing detailed board work. In these countries, it is common to rely on an audit committee, remuneration committee and a nomination committee staffed either wholly or primarily with non-executive or independent directors.

In view of these observations, the board of directors at Infosys needs to take into account stakeholder concerns in order to ensure effective corporate governance. The former founders may have relinquished control but are still entitled to comment when they are legitimately concerned about the well-being of the companys shareholders.

The Board of Directors must keep in mind that their duty lies, first and foremost, to the shareholders of the company. If questions are being raised about the governance standards they must be addressed in an open and transparent manner. That is the only way to bolster investor confidence in the well-being of the company.

(The author is the founder of Hammurabi & Solomon and a visiting fellow at the Observer Research Foundation)
The Infosys board does not want a war of words with the Indian software services company's former leadership to descend into the kind of damaging row seen at Tata, an Infosys boardroom source said on Friday.

India's second biggest IT services company, based in the southern tech hub of Bengaluru, has been in an escalating public dispute with its founders and former executives this week, who have accused the board of lapses in corporate governance.

The founders own 12.75 percent of the company.

The boardroom tussle at Infosys comes at a time when another iconic Indian firm, Tata Sons, has been hit by allegations of corporate governance lapses following the ouster of former Chairman Cyrus Mistry.

The Tata row has spilled into the courts and has tainted the reputation of one of India's most respected business houses.

"For sure we don't want another Tata happening. We don't want that replay and therefore we will do what it takes to avoid that kind of situation," said the boardroom source, asking not to be named given the sensitivity of the situation.

The strain between Infosys and its founders also comes at a turbulent time for the Indian IT sector in general, which is expecting changes to visa laws in their biggest market, the United States, to raise costs and dent business.

Earlier on Friday, V. Balakrishnan, a former chief financial officer at Infosys, said the company's board had become "lax on corporate governance and was undermining the values on which the company was built".

Balakrishnan said founders including NR Narayana Murthy, Kris Gopalakrishnan and Nandan Nilekani had been engaging with Infosys since last year but the board had not addressed any of the concerns raised.

"They have validly raised certain governance issues," Balakrishnan, who is aware of the exchanges between the founders and the board, told Reuters.

"It is not about performance, or Vishal Sikka," he said declining to give further details.

Infosys Chief Executive Vishal Sikka's pay rise and large severance packages offered to two former executives were among a host of issues that have not sat well with Infosys founders, local media reported this week.

'Big letdown'

Infosys declined to respond to Balakrishnan's comments. The company downplayed talk of governance lapses in a lengthy statement issued on Thursday that backed Sikka's performance.

The company said: "Vishal and the board, while being pleased with the company's resumption of industry leading performance on many parameters, are keen to further accelerate the progress and achieve even more shareholder value increase."

Balakrishnan said he had stopped communicating with the board some two years ago after failing to get a reply on a share buyback suggestion.

"This board is a big letdown," said Balakrishnan, who also criticized the appointment of a law firm to receive and assess input from stakeholders and make recommendations to the board.

"The board has to personally engage with the founders," he said.

The Infosys boardroom source insisted there had been no breakdown in communication breakdown with the founders. "We've been engaging directly with the founders for several months, we'll continue to do so."
Subhash Kapoor's courtroom drama Jolly LLB 2 has seen the light of the day with its title intact. An advocate petitioned in Bombay High Court for the removal of the term 'LLB' from the title as he alleged that the film projects lawyers in objectionable light. Now, Shoojit Sircar's upcoming romantic comedy Runningshaadi.com has found itself in a similar legal trouble and Sircar has conceded to the demands of the complainants.

Mumbai Mirror reports that the matrimonial website Shaadi.com, owned by People Interactive Pvt Ltd, filed a petition in Bombay High Court, alleging that the makers of Runningshaadi.com are cashing in on the goodwill of the website. The company feared that the film could malign its market image since Sircar's film revolves around an eloping couple.

As the company sought a suspension of the release of the film, Sircar conceded to their demands. He agreed to drop every mention of the matrimonial website, from its title, content and even the publicity material. The court has asked Sircar to drop the references to the website in all its publicity material and trailers by Monday, 13 February.

Since the film is slated to release on 17 March, Sircar merely has six days to shoot parts of the film, re-dub and redesign the trailers and publicity material of his next production, directed by Amit Roy. The legal representatives of the makers had argued that Shaadi.com was a generic word and the website had lost a trademark case in the same court.

The legal representatives of the company argued that though there were talks of co-branding three years ago but these never culminated into an agreement. The makers will now fly a reply in the court after which the case will be heard.

Sircar's next production, tentatively titled Runningshaadi.com, stars Taapsee Pannu and Amit Sadh. It is slated to release on 17 March.
Iraqi security forces fired tear gas on Saturday at thousands of supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demonstrating near the heavily fortified Green Zone - a cluster of embassies and government buildings - to press for reforms, witnesses said.

The protest organisers said about two dozen demonstrators had choked on the gas but no one was seriously injured or taken to hospital. Live TV footage showed young men running away as white smoke filled Tahrir Square in downtown Baghdad.

Thousands had gathered in the square to demand an overhaul of the commission that supervises elections ahead of a provincial vote due in September.

Riot police fired tear gas when they tried to move toward the Green Zone which also houses international organisations. Sadr's supporters stormed this district last year after violent clashes with security forces.

Sadr suspects that members of the electoral commission are loyal to his Shia rival, former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, one of the closest allies of Iran in Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called on the demonstrators to remain peaceful and to "abide by the law".

Sadr is openly hostile to American presence and policies in the Middle East and, at the same time, he has a troubled relationship with Iraqi political groups allied with Iran.

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Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan ji is very nice man. He is patriot. He is kind-hearted man with big bicep. I want to be like Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan ji. So I see Hind Ka Napak Ko Jawab: MSG Lion Heart 2. I went to Cinepolis in Thane to watch movie. It is very big. I like this theatre. It has big cushion and comfortable seat. But lift was crowded and I had to take steps to second floor. But gym trainer told me exercise is good. It will give me muscle like Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan ji.

Movie start with National Anthem. India has best National Anthem in world. Unesco name it best. Pakistan has worst National Anthem. Did you know Pakistan is evil place? Pakistani man beat woman. I never beat woman. I once beat my sister but she is bad person. She told mother that I saw dirty magazine, so I beat her. Pakistani man beat many woman. Movie show truth about Pakistani man. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan ji is honest man. He has big big bicep so he very strong. He can kill everybody. In movie, he killed Pakistan prime minister in toilet. He also tell truth about 72 virgins. In Pakistan, everybody thinks there will be 72 virgins. But Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan ji told them this is lie. I am afraid I will become one of 72 virgins. Should ask father if this is possible.

Pakistan also has funny army people. Pakistan army don't know what to do with gun. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Insaan ji kill everybody, and they cannot fire bullet. But Pakistan army get gun from China. China product is very bad. China product will go wrong. Uncle sent me funny WhatsApp message about China cooker cooking itself! Pakistan also get bomb from China. But is very bad. Pakistan afraid bomb will burst on Pakistan. Like it happened at Diwali when watchman tried to light bomb but it bursted before he ran. We laughed very hard that day.

Movie show truth about surgical strike. Some foolish politician ask for proof of surgical strike, but Gurmeet Ram Rahim Insaan ji shoot him bullet in buttock. It is very comedy scene and we laugh too much. Another comedy scene is before interval when sexy girl meets Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan ji and ask him to do sexy time. But he is pious man who loves country only. And it is Pakistani girl. Pakistani girl are very corrupt. So they don't do sexy time. But when girl is killed at the end, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Insaan ji is slightly sad. Like the day I learnt I was adopted.
SEOUL China has expelled 32 South Korean Christian missionaries, a Korean government official said on Saturday, amid diplomatic tension between the two countries over the planned deployment of a U.S. missile defence system in the South.The 32 were based in China's northeastern Yanji region near the border with North Korea, many of whom had worked there more than a decade, South Korean media have reported. South Korea's foreign ministry said on Friday it briefed Christian groups on the case of the missionaries, adding that they were expelled in January.The ministry advised the groups on the importance of complying with the laws and customs of the areas where they work, it said.On Saturday, a South Korean missionary in Seoul who insisted on anonymity told Reuters that four people, including a Korean missionary and a Korean-American pastor, were apprehended by Chinese police in a Yanji hotel on Feb. 9.The South Korean official who talked about the 32 expulsions confirmed that one Korean man, whom he did not identify, had been arrested in China for possible immigration violations."We will provide consular services for him as needed," the official said, without giving details.

The official did not comment on whether three other people had been detained.RETALIATION?

In South Korea, China is widely believed to be retaliating against Seoul's plan to host the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system of the U.S. military, against the threat of the missile attack from North Korea.

But there was no indication of a direct link between the expulsions and tension over THAAD, said the official."There was no official explanation from China," he said. "There is no confirmation that it is related to THAAD." China's Communist Party says it protects freedom of religion, but keeps a tight rein on religious activities and allows only officially recognised religious institutions.

The number of Korean missionaries working in China might top 1,000, South Korean media say. Most are in the northeast, and many help defectors flee North Korea and travel to third countries, including the South.THAAD's radar is capable of penetrating Chinese territory. Beijing has objected to the planned deployment, saying it will destabilise the regional balance of security, threaten China's security and do nothing to ease tension on the Korean peninsula.Many South Koreans believe Beijing is retaliating against THAAD, with measures against some companies and cancellations of performances by Korean artists.On Wednesday, South Korea's Lotte Group said Chinese authorities had halted construction at a multi-billion dollar real estate project after a fire inspection. (Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Rupam Jain and Tom Lasseter

| LUCKNOW, India

LUCKNOW, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces his biggest electoral test since coming to power when the battleground state of Uttar Pradesh, which he swept three years ago, holds an election starting on Saturday.In the biggest democratic exercise on the planet this year, voting will take place in seven stages over a month to elect a new assembly to govern the mostly poor state of nearly 220 million people that lies along the river Ganges.More broadly, voters will deliver a mid-term verdict on Modi and his nationalist party as India recovers from his boldest decision yet: to abolish 86 percent of the cash in circulation.The banknote ban, launched by Modi three months ago to purge the economy of untaxed income and proceeds of crime and corruption, has disrupted daily life and commerce, and caused the economy to slow.On the campaign trail, Modi has said he had the interests of the poor at heart in making the move - the biggest gamble of his prime ministership. A strong showing at the polls would strengthen his chances of a second term in 2019."The results will tell us whether Modi continues to enjoy unquestioned support or if it has started to erode," said R.K. Mishra, an independent political analyst based in the state capital, Lucknow.GODZILLA OF STATES

Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) polled 42 percent of the vote in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 general election, sweeping 71 out of 80 seats on its way to claiming India's biggest national mandate in three decades.Yet voters have shown growing impatience that Modi's campaign promises of development and "better days" to come have failed to deliver new jobs to a state where per capita incomes average less than $750 a year and many communities lack access to power, clean water and basic medical services.

"It is the Godzilla of states," said BJP national spokesman Nalin Kohli, as he looked out over the darkened streets of Lucknow on a recent evening.People tend to vote along traditional caste and religious lines, and successive governments have exploited communal divisions to fire up their base and poach voters from opponents."The situation gets very bad here sometimes  there is fighting between groups, between Hindus and Muslims," said Bhagwati Prasad, who sells materials for Hindu cremation ceremonies outside a temple in Lucknow. "I am a Hindu. If there is a Hindu-Muslim fight I have to stand with the Hindus."The complexity of such "vote-bank" politics makes it hard to predict outcomes in India's first-past-the-post electoral system. Any party polling significantly over 30 percent of the vote can win by a landslide.

Pollsters say it will be tough for the BJP to repeat its general election performance. In not fielding its own candidate for the post of chief minister it also risks repeating a tactical blunder that contributed to a heavy defeat in Bihar, another Hindi-speaking heartland state, in 2015.The Samajwadi Party, which rules in the state, is led by 43-year-old Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. The party won a majority in the last state assembly election, in 2012, with just 29 percent of the vote. Yadav has formed an alliance with Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party that, polls show, will be tough to beat.In the third corner of the contest is Mayawati, who ran the state from 2007 to 2012 and whose Bahujan Samaj Party draws its support from communities on the bottom rung of India's ancient caste hierarchy.

She has fielded a big crop of candidates from the Muslim minority that makes up 19 percent of the state's electorate. Polls show most Muslims siding with the ruling Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance, however.The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, a Delhi-based polling group, projects Samajwadi-Congress to win 35 percent, followed by the BJP on 29 percent and the BSP on 23 percent. Other polls put the BJP ahead.Results from Uttar Pradesh, along with elections in the states of Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur, are due on March 11.For a graphic on Map of Indian state elections, click - hereFor a graphic on Map of Uttar Pradesh elections, click - hereFor a graphic on Wealth, criminal charges and election success, click - here (Writing by Rupam Jain; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Robert Birsel)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Ila Ananya

My friend once eavesdropped on three women at a coffee shop in Bengaluru. One of them had just read the news that a woman who had been in a relationship with a man much older than her, had filed a case of rape against him in a court in Mumbai, stating that he had promised to marry her. My eavesdropping friend says there were five minutes of silence after this. Then, almost simultaneously, one of the women said, Paapa, she must have had so many expectations, while her friend blurted out, What the hell? How can that be rape?

This conversation is perhaps the two most common ways in which we view breach of promise (to marry) cases. They are often reported as 'false rape' cases. Earlier this year, the Bombay High Court commented that the number of such cases had increased, and there has even previously been a petition seeking to prosecute false rape accusers. But why do women choose to file cases of rape when there has been a breach of promise to marry? And is it right to call them 'false rape' cases?

Last year, the Bombay High Court had faced a petition seeking guidelines to ensure that people are not booked under what has been termed as false charges of rape after a relationship ends. On 28 December, 2016, there was a new one  this time from a man and woman who used to be a couple.

Here is the story of this petition. In 2015, a 20-year-old woman, who was in a relationship with a 34-year-old man, filed a case against him, intending to book him under cheating  Section 417 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). She had just found out that he was already married and that his promises to marry her were false. The police, however, also booked him for rape under Section 376 of the IPC (punishment for rape). A petition was filed in the Bombay High Court seeking to quash this FIR.

Now, remarkably, the two have jointly filed a petition in the Bombay High Court, seeking guidelines against this happening again elsewhere. On 9 February, the Bombay High Court heard the case. The petitioners' lawyer, Swapna Kode, tells us that after the hearing, the court directed them to file the petition as a PIL since it was a matter of public interest.

In 2013, the Supreme Court (SC) had heard a similar case in Deepak Gulati versus State of Haryana. The Punjab and Haryana High Court had previously convicted him in a rape case filed by a 19-year-old woman and her family. According to the judgment, the man had induced her to go with him to Kurukshetra to get married, and had sexual intercourse with her against her wishes behind bushes, promising to marry her. When they reached Kurukshetra, they stayed with the mans relatives for a few days, and the man committed rape upon her before he threw her out of his house on the fourth day.

Here, the SC declared that for such cases to be considered rape, the court has to be convinced that the man had clandestine motives from the start. They insisted that there was a distinction between breach of promise (for any reason), and not fulfilling a promise that had been false in the first place. The SC acquitted the man of all charges.

In such cases of breach of promise to marry, there is no separate law, as you might think from fleeting readings of the news. Instead, three sections of the IPC are usually deployed. Strangely, the police, who often make it difficult for women to report sexual violence (more on this in TLFs Ready to Report series), tend to happily file FIRs in these cases. The FIRs are usually filed under Section 375 (rape), Section 376 (punishment for rape), and Section 417 (cheating). Each of these sections are supposed to be considered along with Section 90, which defines consent and states that that if consent is given under a misconception of fact, then it cannot be called consent.

The 2013 SC judgment brings fresh complications to the issue of consent. It demands proof of something as vague and difficult to establish as the accuseds intention, and places consent in this tricky ground  the few cases that make it to high courts have got different kinds of sentences. Lawyers say that most cases end in acquittal or settlements in lower courts, because original intent is so hard to prove. However, in August 2015 the Delhi High Court sentenced a man to 10 years in such a case, while the Bombay High Court in March 2016 granted a man bail stating that when the woman is educated and mature, she can say no.

According to Rebecca John, senior advocate at the Delhi High Court, there has been a rise in the number of such cases being registered in Delhi. In her experience, John says, most of these cases are filed by people who, during the course of their relationship with a man over many years, have had consensual sex. She argues that we need to look at each of these cases more carefully, because, Doesnt anybody, man or a woman, have the right to change their mind about marriage?

Mrinal Satish, associate professor of Law, and executive director of Centre for Constitutional Law, Policy and Governance at the National Law University, Delhi, argues that when women file these cases themselves, it is often because they feel cheated in finding that they have consented to sex only to find that the man doesnt want to marry them.

But are there other reasons  other than feeling cheated  involved? We asked Jayna Kothari, co-founder of Centre for Law and Policy Research, who practices as a counsel in the Karnataka High Court and Supreme Court. In a case that Kothari handled, a woman she was representing had been living with a man for three or four years. They had rented a house in both their names, stating that they were married, and the man had taken out a car loan, naming the woman as his wife and guarantor. When she asked for them to get married, he would constantly put it off, until a day when they went to a temple and had a simple marriage that entailed tying thalis.

Finally, the man left, saying that he was in love with someone else, and denying that they had ever been married.

Most of these cases are usually filed by women coming from lower middle-class to middle-class families. Kothari says there is more than a feeling of being cheated  These are relationships built over years and there are, among emotional complications, even things like financial issues involved, she says. In many other instances, women filing cases said they had been promised marriage but when they got pregnant, had been left by the men.

The media, with an almost too-easy dismissal, has been reporting these cases as a rise in 'false rape' cases being filed against men  something Kothari says doesnt quite seriously engage with the issue, just as the phrase breach of promise to marry doesnt. As Satish says, the dismissal of such cases as 'false rape' cases by the media, and the courts declaring that it is a 'misuse' of the law, only results in pushing the false idea that women are taking advantage of the law.

Is this feeling of being cheated something that can be explained in our laws? How does one begin to explain it? Does it begin to go beyond this? As Rebecca John says, I dont think, as activists, as feminists, we should shirk from the exercise of looking into this. We need to look into whether they fall into the category of rape, and in what circumstances should it be called rape, and whether individual rights are being violated as a consequence of these cases being registered.

The Ladies Finger (TLF) is an online womens magazine delivering fresh and witty perspectives on politics, culture, health, sex, work and everything in between
By Tanya Vasundharan

An uncle who worked on minorities labour rights once mentioned that he wouldnt let his son be around a transgender teacher. Theres scientific proof, he said viciously, that they influence young boys to become feminine. Last month, another uncle, incidentally one who has written extensively about caste bias in education, declared unequivocally that he backed the Republican stance that transgender people shouldnt use girls bathrooms in schools. What if a student is raped?

These arent the only people I know who spend their time advocating the rights of minorities, and yet are utterly repulsed or unnerved by transpeople. But their uneasiness and paranoia are particularly heightened by the prospect of a transpersons presence around children. This is deep-set enough that transpeople are consistently treated with hostility in education  memorably, a British teacher committed suicide in 2013 after unpleasant scrutiny from the media prior to a sex change operation.

This is a problem that has acquired a new urgency in India. In December, the academic Manobi Bandhopadhyay, tried to resign from her position as principal of Krishnagar Womens College because of the animosity and persistent disrespect shown to her by colleagues and students. In an interview, she explained that the majority of people at the institution were against her: I was tired of confronting regular agitations and gheraos by students and teachers. I came to this college with new hopes and dreams. But I have no hesitation to concede defeat.

Bandhopadhyay came into prominence after becoming the first transgender college principal in India, in 2015, and received media coverage from national newspapers that praised her achievements around this time. Although much noise was made about the colleges welcoming approach to her, the responses of many local people interviewed about her success varied from shock to the eagerness to use her as a case study. That should have been a sign.

Published last month, her memoir, A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi, focusses on another time in her life. It recounts in detail her harrowing experiences as a lecturer of Bengali Literature at Vivekananda Satavarshiki Mahavidyalaa in Jhargram, West Bengal. Life had never been a cakewalk for Bandyopadhyay, as she grew up struggling to come to terms with her transgender identity, flanked by conservative and judgmental family members on the one hand, and cousins and neighbours who sexually exploited her, on the other.

But while her time as a student at Jadavpur University had a certain freedom attached to it, as she moved around in privileged and open-minded social circles, things changed drastically after she went into teaching. Vicious catcalls as she entered the campus at Jhargram were followed by physical assault from male colleagues: They would lurk in every nook and corner and pull my hair and clothes They pressed my nipples so hard that I screamed out loud. Things escalated rapidly, and she was eventually accused of being a negative influence, and even sexually harassing students, because she procured a sanitary pad for a female student.

Despite receiving support from certain students, she left with a clear sense of the unanimous opinion of her colleagues, which she summarises in her book. They were naturally stunned by my presence and openly declared war against me, threatening to ruin my career since no hijra had the right to become a professor!  No one as lowly as a hijra should be allowed to teach in a college, share the same staff room, toilet, and facilities.

How would increasing the diversity of our educational institutions ensure that other transgender academics arent forced to navigate countless obstacles, from sexual harassment to unwarranted litigation, and salacious vitriol  all because of their sexual orientation? For one thing, if students saw more trans-people in positions of authority, it could help to shatter misconceptions that are foisted onto them as children. (These include notions about dressing appropriately according to gender. Bandhopadhyay was instructed to wear a sari instead of a salwar kameez by the Students Union in Jhargram.) They could also be effective role models for transgender children. Last year, for instance, a British transgender teacher described how various students had written to him seeking advice about confusions over their gender, and claiming that they were reassured by his presence. In her book, Bandhopadhyay too, recalls hearing similar things from students: Many tell me that I have opened the gates of freedom for them.

Perhaps it would also alleviate the perception, rife at least in India, that the transgender community has to stick together rather than explore multiple professions. At one point in Bandhopadhyays memoir, she recalls visiting a transgender commune in Bengal, and felt like an outlier there too, simply because of her choice of a teaching career. The fact that I was pursuing academia, first by teaching in a school and then in a college, and that I had links to the media and the world of culture was anathema to them. And on the other hand, she felt constantly undermined and labelled as unsuitable by colleagues in her workplace, saying in one interview last December, People might say they are ready to accept us in the mainstream. But deep down, they are just not ready to do so. They'd more comfortable seeing me with a begging bowl at traffic signals and not as a principal.

Bandhopadhyays book ends on a note of elation after she was settled in her job as a principal. But her resignation in December, a year-and-a-half after taking on the post, made waves in the media and puts a different spin on the book, so much of which is focussed on her perseverance against colleagues pressurising her to resign. Ultimately, the college requested her to return, and she resumed her position there on 2 January  apparently to a very warm welcome from students.

Bandhopadhyays story has already inspired visible efforts to encourage transgender people to enter education, with the opening of the first transgender school in Kerala at the end of December as a response to her resignation, and colleges becoming gradually more accepting of transgender students. Increasingly, the widespread discrimination against transgender people in sectors like the corporate world and the police force is being acknowledged, and if the same was done for academia, it could help improve representation of transgender people in higher education institutions. Only then will we see a substantial recognition of transgender rights, and an effective quashing of the neurotic ideas Ive heard from so many people about preventing transgender teachers from interacting with impressionable students.

The Ladies Finger (TLF) is a leading online womens magazine
Worries are mounting for AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala, as P Benjamin, another influential leader and Minister of Rural Industries, switched over to O Panneerselvam's camp. Benjamin represents the Maduravoyal constituency in the Tamil Nadu Assembly.

His exit comes just hours after state Education Minister Ma Foi Pandiarajan shifted his allegiance to Panneerselvam.

The former deputy mayor of Chennai municipal corporation, Benjamin had won the Maduravoyal seat amid tough competition from DMK before he became part of Jayalalithaa's Cabinet last year.

Benjamin is the third minister to join Panneerselvam on Saturday. Apart from Pandiarajan, fisheries minister Jayakumar also left the Sasikala camp on Saturday.

As this report was being written, news agency ANI reported that AIADMK MP V Sathyabama also met Paneerselvam and offered her support to the caretaker chief minister.

With leaders coming under pressure from party cadres and apparent public sentiment against VK Sasikala, two MPs  PR Sundaram and K Ashok Kumar  also switched over to the chief minister's camp in the morning pledging their support.

In the evening, party veteran, spokesman and minister in the MGR cabinet C Ponnaiyan drove to the chief minister's residence and offered his support. A former minister MM Rajendra Prasad also joined the chief minister's camp. "The leadership of the party and government should be in good hands and that is Panneerselvam, who was trusted thrice by Jayalalithaa to be chief minister. All of us should work towards this goal," he told the cadres with Panneerselvam by his side at the chief minister's residence where they received him amid thunderous applause.

Rattled by the desertions, Sasikala, who has been elected the leader of the AIADMK legislature party, drove to the luxury resort, located 100 km from Chennai, in an attempt to prevent the MLAs who have been put up there for the last three days from switching sides.

KA Sengottaiyan, who was appointed the presidium chairman after the removal of Madhusudhanan, told reporters after Sasikala's meeting with the MLAs that all MLAs have taken a pledge that they will back her to the hilt till she becomes chief minister.

Sasikala wrote a letter to Governor Vidyasagar Rao, asking him to take steps immediately to swear her in at the earliest. She said she was ready to parade the party MLAs supporting her before him. She told him she had submitted an "elaborate presentation to invite me to form the government, as I have absolute majority", besides the original letter and true copy of the resolution electing her as the AIADMK legislature party leader.

Sasikala said she believed that the governor would "act immediately to save the sovereignty of the Constitution, democracy and the interest" of Tamil Nadu.

Meeting partymen at her residence, Sasikala also gave a veiled warning over the "delay" in being sworn in and said, "we are being patient because of our belief in fairness and trust in democracy. But we can be patient only to a limit but beyond that we will decide what we will do."

With inputs from PTI
Chennai: Soon after O Panneerselvam supporters thronged his residence in Chennai, AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala warned the rebel factions that there's a limit to the level of peace that can be maintained. Sasikala was addressing a gathering of her supporters at the party's office.

"We're showing patience in the interest of democracy. But will do what is required after a point. Everyone has a limit to maintain peace," she said, asking the party cadres to stay strong and stand to save the party and the state.

With state education minister K Pandiarajan becoming the first AIADMK leader from the Sasikala camp to defect the Panneerselvam camp, the voices of dissent seem to be rising, thus adding to the problems of Sasikala, who was recently elevated to the position of legislature party head of the AIADMK. Pandiarajan earlier in the day visited Panneerselvam's residence to extend his support to the caretaker chief minister.

"We are going through a high trouble. I have all your support, and so, I'm not going to get afraid of anyone. We will do whatever needed to save the party with its 1.5 crore cadres. I have the responsibility to take care of this," she said.

At the time of going to print, the AIADMK leader was headed to the Golden Bay Resorts, some 130 kilometres from Chennai, where all the party MLAs are currently held. Sources revealed that she is likely to bring all the MLAs to the Raj Bhavan to establish her claim on the chief ministerial position.
As the situation surrounding the splintering AIADMK gets increasingly dramatic, there's a new twist: And this one has nothing to do with VK Sasikala, O Panneerselvam, Governor Vidyasagar Rao, Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, the late J Jayalalithaa or even her will.

The twist actually concerns party MLA and fisheries department minister D Jayakumar... or rather his absence.

A concerned member of Royapuram constituency filed a complaint in the Chennai Police commissioner's office reporting Jayakumar's absence. The letter below outlines the writer's concern about the MLA's whereabouts:

It may be recalled that on 3 February, Sasikala appointed Jayakumar to a key party post, so it's possible he could be among her group of 'kidnapped' MLAs that is presently believed to be at the Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur. Or he may have just vanished entirely.

It's now upto the police commissioner's office to get to the bottom of things.

By arrangement with newstodaynet.com

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Six decades after Independence, many Rajasthanis still have royal monikers for their democratically elected chief minister and her democratically elected son. Among followers and darbaris, Vasundhara Raje is deferentially called Maharani Sahab and her son, Dholpur parliamentarian Dushyant Singh, is known as Raja Sahab.

In a state obsessed with royalty and titles, the royalty is obsessed with its history. So much so that the line that exists between facts, fiction, superstition and tea-stall talk often gets blurred, leading to some really interesting insights into history.

A few years ago, for instance, the department of public relations of the Rajasthan state government came up with a unique explanation for Raje's election as chief minister. In a "fan-ticle" published in its official publication, the department said Raje's ancestor Jayappa Scindia, a ruler of Gwalior, was killed in a battle in Rajasthan's Nagaur in 1759. The magazine claimed his dying words were that his soul will get mukti (salvation) only when a Scindia becomes Rajasthan's ruler. Thus the ascension of Maharani Vasundhara Raje Scindia to the democratic throne, even though it took a good three centuries.

If history can be rewritten for the benefit of the winners of electoral battles, imagine how followers of the royalty would be itching to control the narrative around some of their legendary warriors and kings, especially the big three  Prithviraj Chouhan of Ajmer, and Rana Sanga and Maharana Pratap of Mewar.

The Rajasthan government's latest attempt to rewrite history is to announce Maharana Pratap as the winner of the Battle of Haldighati fought in 1576. The post-truth was proposed by a BJP legislator from Jaipur and readily forwarded by the vice-chancellor of the University of Rajasthan for appropriate action. While the verdict on the new winner of the battle is awaited, some Rajput leaders and legislators have joined the chorus for rewriting history and declaring Rana Pratap as the winner.

Rana Pratap is perhaps the greatest pre-Independence hero of Rajasthan. But his heroism doesn't arise from the belief that he won the Battle of Haldighati against Akbar's forces. He became a legend because in spite of losing that war  yes, that is an established fact  and facing numerous hardships, living like a nomad in the inclement hills of Mewar, he did not surrender to Akbar. Unlike the other Rajput kings of the region, he showed exemplary courage, resolve and perseverance in his steadfast refusal to accept the suzerainty of the Mughal emperor.

Because of their myopic view of history, those eager to rewrite the outcome of the 1576 battle are actually doing a great disservice to the Maharana. By declaring him the winner, they are removing the very edifice of Pratap's heroism: his legendary struggle, his steely resolve and his relentless effort to reclaim what he had lost. They do not get a simple fact that Maharana Pratap is revered because even in defeat he remained defiant.

Rajasthan's folklore is full of anecdotes and ballads that recreate Maharana Pratap's struggle. His insistence on sleeping on the floor, renouncing luxuries and comforts and surviving on rotis made of wild grass till he wins back Mewar are the stuff of legends. Those who helped him wage his guerrilla war against Akbar in exile are household names. The absurdity of declaring him a winner, thus obviating the struggle, will turn this rich heritage into a joke.

The problem with the BJP is that it sees history through the blinkers of religion. So, in its narrative, the Battle of Haldighati is a clash of religions  the Mughal army and a Rajput ruler. But, this interpretation of history is completely flawed.

The Battle of Haldighati was fought between Akbar's army led by Man Singh, the Rajput ruler of Amber, Jaipur (several other Rajput chieftains fought in Akbar's army too) and Maharana Pratap's Army. Many historical accounts suggest that Maharana Pratap had a commander called Hakim Khan Sur, who many believe, led the charge after the Maharana had to retreat because of an injury. Maharana Pratap's own brothers Jagmal and Shakti Singh helped the Mughals. So, it is clear that the battle lines were not drawn on the basis of religion or Rajput kinship.

Akbar's role in shaping Indian history was perhaps bigger than any other ruler. Compared to him, Maharana Pratap was just a footnote in the history of Medieval India. But, the BJP and its Hindutva brigade find it difficult to accept the idea of a nation being a work in progress, of India as a heterogeneous entity shaped by Hindus, Mughals, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains and almost everyone who set his foot on this land over several centuries. Thus their efforts to belittle the Mughals, denounce them as "invaders" and look at every battle as a fight between Muslims and Hindus. This, unfortunately, is an insult to the wonder that is India.

The problem is compounded by the inability of many Rajasthanis to accept their ancestors fought among themselves, surrendered to the Mughals and lost almost every war of importance. They were vanquished by Mohammad of Ghazni, Muhammad Ghori, Babar and Akbar before being reduced to minions in the Mughal darbar. Unable to find cause celebre in history, Rajput narratives get embellished with myths and romanticised narratives of local Bhaats and Charans (bards and poets patronised by rulers) preferred as facts. For them, Chand Bardai's Prithviraj Raso becomes established history even when historians call it a fictional account of wars that Prithviraj Chouhan fought against Muhammad Ghori. In Bardai's narrative, Chouhan gets captured, blinded and still kills Ghori with a lethal arrow shot. (However, according to historians Chauhan was defeated, captured and killed in the second battle of Tarain in 1192. Ghori lived on for several years after the second battle of Tarain).

Unfortunately, distorted facts can never lead to realistic assessments of a country's past or understanding of its heritage. Maharana Pratap winning the Battle of Haldighati could be a good story for Amar Chitra Katha. But it can never be serious history.

After reading it, even the Maharana would wonder if he were the winner, why did he wander in the hills of Mewar for years and survive on just ghaas ki roti!
The tide seems to be already turning against AIADMK general secretary Sasikala Natarajan as Tamil Nadu education minister K Pandiarajan on Saturday confirmed his support to the O Panneerselvam faction in the AIADMK.

With this Pandiarajan has become the first minister of the state to join the Panneerselvam faction.

Interestingly, Pandiarajan had assisted Sasikala when she met Tamil Nadu governor Vidyasagar Rao on Thursday.

Pandiarajan, answering questions on the rebellion of Panneerselvam on Thursday, had said it was wrong to say that the "outgoing" Chief Minister was forced to resign from his post.

"There was no pressure. There is no truth in it. Talking of coercion is laughable," he said. He had added, "Panneerselvam was all along with us when all the decisions were taken. No decision was taken by overruling him. Now, if he wants to take a different stand, it is his choice."

He had also said that it was Panneerselvam who had proposed Sasikala's name for the post of party general secretary.

"To claim now that her appointment was not as per law is unadulterated opportunism... it is the height of hypocrisy," he said, adding all the general council members, including Panneerselvam, unanimously chose her.

By arrangement with News Today and inputs from PTI

Follow all the live updates here
The Palestinians condemned as "blatant discrimination" Saturday Washington's decision to block the appointment of their former prime minister Salam Fayyad as UN peace envoy to Libya.

UN chief Antonio Guterres nominated Fayyad to the post on Thursday and the Security Council had been expected to approve his appointment without objections.

But late on Friday, US ambassador Nikki Haley announced she was blocking the appointment because "for too long, the UN has been unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel."

Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi dismissed the "flimsy excuse" for a move she described as "unconscionable."

"Blocking the appointment of Dr. Salam Fayyad is a case of blatant discrimination on the basis of national identity," she said.

Fayyad, 64, was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013, and also served as finance minister twice.

He had been tapped to replace Martin Kobler of Germany, who has been the Libya envoy since November 2015.

US President Donald Trump and Haley have criticised the United Nations for adopting a resolution in December that demanded an end to Israeli settlement building.

"Going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies," Haley said on Friday.

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Lucknow: An estimated 64 per cent voter turnout was witnessed on Saturday in the first of the seven-phased Uttar Pradesh polls which passed off peacefully in 73 Assembly constituencies, barring some stray incidents of violence.

Chief Electoral Officer T Venkatesh said at some places, there were reports of election slips being snatched, leading to pelting of stones and clashes. The turn out was estimated at around 64 percent till the close of polling, he told a news conference here at the end of polling.

The first phase witnessed a three percent rise in voter turnout as in the same phase in 2012, covering these assembly constituencies, it was 61 percent. Etah recorded 73 percent turnout, Muzaffarnagar 65 pc,

Bulandshahr 64 pc, Noida 60 pc and Ghaziabad 57 pc, he said. A total of 2.60 crore voters, including over 1.17 crore women and 1,508 belonging to third gender category were eligible to cast their ballot to decide the fate of 839 candidates.

A report from Baghpat said members of different communities clashed in Baghu colony in the city when one side tried stop the other from casting their votes. Ten persons were injured in the clash and had to be

admitted to hospital, police said. Another incident of violence was reported from Baghpat, where Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) workers obstructed Dalit voters from casting their vote in Looyan

village under Badaut area, leading to clash and FIR being lodged against three party workers.

In Meerut, police detained Gagan Som, brother of controversial BJP leader Sangeet Som, for carrying a pistol inside a polling booth. Gagan had reached the polling booth in Sardhana Assembly seat at 9 AM. The security personnel deployed there frisked him and recovered a pistol from his possession. He was

immediately detained, police said.

Officials said that as per the poll code, those possessing licensed weapons are required to deposit them with the police. The permission to keep arms is granted in special cases only. Sangeet is a sitting MLA from Sardhana and had shot to limelight for his controversial speeches during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.

The first phase of polling will decide the electoral fortunes of son of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Pankaj Singh (from Noida), Congress Legislature Party leader Pradeep Mathur (Mathura) against whom BJP spokesman Srikant Sharma is in the fray, daughter of BJP MP Hukum Singh Mriganka Singh (Kairana), and controversial BJP MLAs Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana from Sardhana and Thanabhawan respectively.

Former BJP state president Lakshmikant Bajpai (Meerut), RJD chief Lalu Prasad's son-in-law Rahul Singh (SP) from Sikandrabad, and Sandeep Singh, grandson of Rajasthan Govenor Kalyan Singh from Atrauli are among other key figures in this phase.

The districts where polling was held are Hapur, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras, Agra, Firozabad, Etah and Kasganj.

In the 73 constituencies where polling was held, SP and BSP had bagged 24 seats each in the 2012 polls, BJP 11, RLD nine and Congress five.
The first phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election in the western region of the state, for 73 seats, is finally underway. The early trend of voting pattern shows that this election is shaping up to be one of the most unique, hyper-competitive, and potentially divisive elections in generations.

Interestingly, the pragmatism of electoral compulsions is seen in full swing when we find that all the parties moderated their competitive needs and entered into the political alignment beyond ideological lines and conventional hostilities. The saddest part is that the dramatic defragmentation of political parties has succeeded in misplacing the priorities of Uttar Pradeshs electorates.

First, the present election has become mechanical and appears more a contest between highly professional poll managers hired by all the political parties than the parties themselves. They are tasked to script a wave in favour of their patron parties through finely cultivated emotional appeals, slogans, rumour, rhetoric along with crafty management of media, campaign, constituencies, candidates, and so on. But, noticeably, majority of the electorates do not appear enthused with clear cut partisan loyalty as they are not able to align with any political party en bloc.

Second, the well-defined notion of vote-bank politics is in terminal decline. The social bases of all the political parties have been seriously challenged. This is perhaps because of the divergent socio-cultural experiences, historical animosity between the dominant and non-dominant social constituencies, unnatural political alliances and the crisis of the transferability of core voters, and the strong local dynamics, issues, leaders, equations and the role of strongmen having a definite impact on the voting behaviour of Uttar Pradeshs electorates.

In other words, the vote-banks of all the political parties are now undergoing the process of fragmentation, defragmentation and re-fragmentation. For instance, the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Congress alliance cannot claim the final consolidation of Muslim voters behind them due to the visible fragmentation of votes between them and BSP.

The articulations of Pasmanda communities (particularly Ansaris, Quraishis, Dhobis and Telis), sectarian and sub-sect groupings (Shias and Wahabi, Ahl-e-Hadith, Deoband and Barelvi among Sunnis) are certain wherever they find the candidates belonging to their caste and sect, contesting from either party.

The fragmentation of Yadav and the Jat vote-bank is also likely in both urban areas as well as in those constituencies from where Congress is contesting the elections. Yadavs and Jats may prefer to transfer their votes in favour of BJP than any other non-SP party due to their nurtured imagination of being identified as proud-Hindus after 2014.

Though, Kisan Jats and those who championed for reservation for Jats, are finally back with Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD)  defying the polarising tactics of BJP. The case is equally true with higher caste vote-bank of BJP as we have already seen the fragmentation and re-fragmentation of Brahmins and Thakurs, either in support of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2007 or SP in 2012 and finally in BJP in 2014.

Two visible patterns emerge here. First, a substantial section of Congress loyalists among high caste voters have shifted towards BJP due to Congresss alliance with SP. Second, surprisingly, BSP is also able to mobilise a section of Brahmin voters with the appeal of Akhil Bhartiya Brahmin Mahasabha.

OBC voters are also no longer a terrain of any political party as could be seen in its fragmentation in Upper OBCs, Middle OBCs and extremely backward OBCs. Individualised assertions of Koeri, Kurmi, Lodhi, Nishad, Rajbhars, Baghels, and Nunias are a case in point.

Interestingly, the dominant strategy of all the political parties is to field candidates from among these groups along with co-option of many low caste leaders from across the party folds (e.g. BJP has fielded more than 35 percent candidates from non-Yadav OBCs). But, ironically, no such caste leaders have universal acceptance in their own groups, and are rather confined to their own electoral constituencies and some adjoining constituencies.

Nonetheless, Dalit voters including Pasi, Dom, Balmiki and Kori, have largely consolidated behind BSP despite the rigorous attempt of BJP and SP-Congress to portray BSP as only a party of Jatavs. This is because of the BSPs revival of its Dalit victimhood politics. At the same time, BSP is able to make dents successfully among Muslim voters in reserved constituencies  in Mukhtar Ansari and his brother's influence areas of 12 Assembly seats in Ballia, Mau and Ghazipur, in Pasmanda groups particularly Qureshis, Bandukchis, Telis and Ansaris in Western UP and in all those constituencies where the possibility of BSP candidates are fairly well placed to defeat BJP.

The voluntary appeal of many Shia and Sunni Ulemas and clerics, All India Ulema and Mashaikh Board (AIUMB), Garib Nawaz Foundation, Muttaheda Milli Majlis, Aligarh Students Union will have a dramatic impact on certain Muslim votes, that too in favour of BSP. Similarly, Gurjar votes appear more in favour of BSP.

Third, in the absence of a state-level wave in favour of either party or leader, except bipolar media hype (i.e. SP-Congress vs BJP), the focus has been shifted to manage the constituency and votes at the local level with multiple strategies like funding dissents in other parties, nominating multiple frivolous/dummy Independent candidates from rival caste and community groups, co-opting disgruntled leaders from across the parties, fuelling local issues and so on. Though anti-incumbency against SP has slowed down, anti-candidate mobilisation is picking up due to unholy popularity of certain candidates among the electorates across the caste and community, due to their past records.

Fourth, both SP-Congress alliance and BJP are acting in consensus to downplay the salience of BSP in this election. It is a well-planned strategy of both the parties to keep not only high-caste politics as mainstream politics, and demoralise the articulations of Dalit voters, but also to support each-others' existential need.

It is clear that the rise of BSP is a death for SP, Congress and BJP. SP cannot survive electorally without Muslims, so there is no chance to allow Dalit-Muslim unity. Congress cannot emerge as politically significant without Brahmin-Dalit-Muslim consolidation and therefore no support to Dalit-Muslim consolidation behind BSP. Similar is the case with BJP as its politics of using Dalits against Muslims in communal riots may fail with Dalit-Muslim bonding with BSP, and thus its case point of Hindutva based right-wing politics will fail forever.

Fifth, this election is lacking democratic content due to the emerging context of competitive dynastic system in the state. The voters are not going to elect their representatives but rather political successors of families as more than 60 percent of candidates from all the parties are from distinct dominant families.

For instance, apart from Yadav family in SP, Azam Khan has also launched his wife and son in UP politics; Ansari brothers, Yaqub Quraishi and his son and many more in BSP; Rajnath Singhs son, Kalyan Singhs grandson, Hukum Singhs daughter, Lalji Tandons son and so on from BJP; and hundreds of other political parties having a family base as well.

Given the background above, it is almost certain that the electoral counting on 11 March will deliver a hung Assembly. All parties of relevance have already calculated this post-election outcome and thus may have encouraged the party cross-over of leaders and candidates (turn-coats) with a possibility to engineer split/defection in other parties to gain support in formation of the government.

Nonetheless, the role of BSP is strategically important post elections. There is a strong possibility that if BSP performs well but lack the magical number to attain majority, then Congress may extend its support to the party. The post-poll alliance of BSP-BJP would be suicidal for BSP, as this is the only opportunity to prove Dalit mantle and thus the party may not take this route. If BSP decides not to enter into a post-poll alliance, then a soon-to-be-held 18 Assembly election in the state is the only outcome. In a word, no government will be formed in UP without BSP.

The author is associate professor and head, Department of Political Science, Maulana Azad National Urdu University.
It was a remarkable spectacle in 2014. While BJP's rivals, especially in the Hindi heartland, were busy slicing and dicing data on caste equations, PM-aspirant Narendra Modi was telling rally after rally of packed audiences how he will bring achhe din. The more his rivals asked the electorate not to trust him, the more Modi talked about development. The opposition called him a 'polarising figure who will usher in riots', Modi said he will usher in vikaas.

The result was stunning. In Uttar Pradesh alone, BJP won 71 out of 80 seats. Dalits abandoned Mayawati and voted in droves for BJP's PM candidate. AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal ran a campaign of anger. Modi defeated him in Varanasi by a huge margin.

Writing for EPW, A K Verma analysed BJP's victory as "it is significant that the party made electoral gains across all castes and communities and across all regions in the state. This victory signalled a paradigm shift in voter behaviour, with a preference for good governance and development pushing out the identity politics of caste and community."

Was it really a paradigm shift in voter behaviour? Was 2014 the year of enlightenment for Indian voters who suddenly realised that they had been taken for a merry ride by politicians in the name of caste and community equations? Were they eschewing identity politics and its trappings?

Unlikely. Subsequent elections have shown a depressing return to 'normalcy'. In Bihar, for instance, mahagathbandhan trounced BJP and a former chief minister who served jail time for corruption bagged the most votes.

The inescapable conclusion seems to be that in 2014 Modi had a better narrative than his opponents. To the electorate, pushed against the wall by a non-performing government at the Centre, Modi's promise of 'better days' made more sense than apocalyptic fear of riots.

BJP's early campaign script for 2017 Assembly polls promised to take off from where Modi had left in 2014. There seemed to be, despite media reports of social engineering and a soft Hindutva line, a renewed and refreshing focus on development. In early January, BJP's campaign language was one of hope, aspiration, fight against black money and a call to rise above caste equations in a mindbogglingly complex demographic.

It appeared that BJP planned to keep it simple. 'Vote for us, and we will bring vikaas'.

As Samajwadi Party, by chance or design, got sucked into the vortex of a family battle, Congress's khatias were up for grabs and Mayawati was busy playing Muslim card, Modi asked the electorate in Lucknow to rise above caste and vote for development.

"We want development of the country, better health facilities and poverty eradication. It will not happen till UP doesnt develop. We have to change the fate of UP, only then the country will develop." In a rhetorical flourish, he added: "I say change notes, they say remove Modi. We say fight against corruption, but these parties say remove Modi. We say end the menace of black money, but these parties want to remove Modi.

Cut to February. BJP's tone has become angry. There are less calls for development. The calls to rise above caste and community equations have lessened. From a positive campaign in early January, it has turned overwhelmingly negative. Leave alone his generals, even Modi seems to have abandoned politics of hope and aspiration for invective rhetoric. Whereas earlier he would mainly ignore rivals and focus on transformative oratory, of late he replaced it with a personalised campaign against Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi. He invented an acronym, S-C-A-M (SP, Congress, Akhilesh and Mayawati) and asked voters to teach them a lesson.

In Bijnor on Friday, he slammed the UP chief minister for clasping Rahul Gandhi's hand. "You sided with the Congress leader who has the largest number of jokes on him in Google."

In Uttarakhand's Haridwar on the same day, he advised Congress to hold their tongue or else risk getting exposed. Mein Congress ke logon se kehta hoon: jabaan sambhaal kar rakho, warna mere paas aapki poori janam patri padi hui hai (hold your tongue, I have your entire horoscope).

Elsewhere, BJP MLA Sangeet Som was caught showing video clips of Muzaffarnagar riots, Amit Shah promised 'anti-Romeo squads', slammed SP and Congress for dynasty politics and held a last-minute mollification meeting with Jats of western UP to address their concerns. The Jats, a crucial BJP vote bank, are widely reported to be disillusioned and angry with BJP.

In short, BJP seems to have faltered on their strength. Instead of presenting the electorate with a simple yet convincing narrative, they are desperately searching for a better story to trump the one told by Akhilesh. They have been reduced to making the same mistake which Modi's rivals did in 2014  run an anti-campaign.

Why? What changed? The answer is very simple: notebandi.

Remarkably, demonetisation reference seems to have vanished from BJP's campaign. Even Modi, whose first few rallies was centred around it, rarely picks up the topic. Party president Amit Shah told Network 18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi in an interview that demonetisation wont be the issue in UP.

BJP's problem is that notebandi happened at a very wrong time for UP. What we are witnessing now is the second stage where the initial euphoria over 'fight against black money' has been replaced by voter anger at the decimation of the informal economy. This will change, for sure. All metrics suggest that India will witness a V-shaped recovery in the third stage. But till that happens, the job losses and contraction of rural economy will have its repercussions and BJP is feeling the heat.

Assuaging the anger of voters, who appear willing to teach BJP a lesson, isn't easy in such a short amount of time. The early campaign language of aspiration of hope has therefore turned into one of desperation for BJP. Modi may still be better placed when the third stage eventually arrives but until then he will have to take the likely reverses on his chin. His body language too reflects that.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has scored a quiet but significant victory in the biennial election for five seats in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council.

Even though the announcement of results on Saturday went largely unnoticed on a day when polling in 73 seats of the Assembly was taking place, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made it a point to mention the result in a public rally in Budayun, saying it reflected the popularity of the party. He added for good measure that it was an indication that things have started to change with these results.

Elections were held for five seats in the Legislative Council seats on 3 February, however the results were declared void because of an error in the ballot paper. The elections were then conducted on 6 February. The votes were counted on Friday, and the results were announced on Saturday despite polling being under way in Western UP for the first phase of the seven-phase Assembly election. The Election Commission had ignored an appeal to delay the result announcement.

The BJP won three seats  Gorakhpur-Faizabad (Graduate Constituency), Bareilly-Moradabad (Graduate Constituency) and Kanpur (Graduate Constituency). The two other seats, Jhansi (Teachers Constituency) and Kanpur (Teachers Constituency) went to independent candidates.

The winner in the Gorakhpur-Faizabad (Graduate seat) was Devendra Pratap Singh who defeated Samajwadi Partys Sanjay Tripathi. Interestingly, Singh was a sitting SP MLC but recently switched to the BJP.

In the Bareilly-Moradabad (Graduate seat), BJPs Jaipal Singh scored a big victory over the Samajwadi Party candidate Renu Mishra. He retained the seat by defeating the SP candidate by around 25,000 first preference votes. In Kanpur (Graduate constituency) Arun Pathak of the BJP defeated Manvendra Swarup of the SP by 9,154 votes.

The winner in the Jhansi (Teachers seat) was Suresh Kumar Tripathi who defeated Ashok Kumar while in Kanpur Raj Bahadur Singh Chandel defeated Hemraj Singh.

The results came as a big shot in the arm for the BJP which has been under an all-round attack by other parties during the campaign for the Assembly election. Modi reflected this feeling when he said the result was a shape of things to come after one month  alluding to 11 March when the results of the Assembly election will be announced.

The BJP was also quick to describe the victory as an indication of peoples support for the party in east and west parts of the state, as the Council results are related to Gorakhpur and Moradabad. State BJP General Secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak said in the Assembly election too, the people will ensure a big victory for the BJP. The Council result will now be mentioned in the partys Assembly election campaign for the next round of polling as an indication of popular support.
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At the same time, this place is also linked to the family of BJP's tallest leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

In fact, BR Ambedkar was the first one to realise the significance of this township where Dalit assertion manifested for the first time after Maharashtra before India's Independence. Since then Agra was symbolised with Dalit assertion. Ambedkar's influence on Agra's social and political life remains enduring till date.

BJP chief, instead, will meet family of businessman shot dead in the area on Thursday night.

Amit Shah cancels his foot march that was to be held in Meerut

The roadshow will then proceed towards Bhagwan Talkies , Deewani chauraha, Sur Sadan and then Wazirpur the only area dominated by Muslims the major factor responsible for a turnaround in UP poll results. From there it moves forward to Hari parvat , Chipitola and finally ending at Bijligarh Chauraha situated in the south of the city.

Dayalbagh also inhabits a large population of Satsanghis, who are followers of the RadhaSwami sect. The followers in general are taken to be mute supporter of the right wing party.

For example the Dayalbagh institute is an educational institution area located at Dayalbagh in the heart of the city. The institute has been given deemed university status by UGC and is one of the most sought out campus among students.

The road map which has been signalled by the district administration for this road show has an interesting mix of both communities, young and old voters and women in general.

Starting point of this roadshow will be Dayal Bagh Engineering college, passing through Bhagwan Talkies, Deewani Chauraha, Sur Sadan, Wazirpur, Hari Parvat Crossing, Chipitola and finally culminating at Bijligarh Chauraha located in the South of the City.

The roadshow will continue for approximately 3 hours and end around 6pm in the evening.

With the choice of their city and preference of safer and urban road map for this show, it seems as if both the leaders are keen to send a strong political message to the people of the state in minimal time. And make out for the losses incurred to their party because of the delay in forming this unprecedented and fresh alliance.

According to Firstpost reporters on the field, Akhilesh and Rahul have taken lessons from their earlier road show in Lucknow where they had a tough time facing the low hanging electric wires. Thus, confining the road show to areas which is comparatively more equipped in terms of basic infrastructure.

He talked of how despite facing difficulties people have supported demonetisation in national interest. The BJP leader targeted the Akhilesh Yadav Government over alleged corruption and mining mafia. He also said it was his party's strategy not to declare its chief ministerial face. "In the UPA government, it was said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is honest but the government is corrupt. Now Akhilesh Yadavji is also saying 'I am honest and removed one minister over allegations of corruption' but he reinstated him again after 15 days," Balyan said.

However, for the upcoming elections, the party seems to have adopted the much-publicised narrative of development. Western UP, where tension had prevailed during the 2014 Lok Sabha election too in the wake of riots, is calm and elections would be held peacefully with development being the major issue, Balyan told PTI.

The BJP had deployed local MP and minister of state for agriculture in Modi government, Sanjeev Balyan, MP Hukum Singh and MLA Suresh Rana for campaigning in February-2016 bypoll, the first after the communal riots. They were all named as accused in cases related to the 2013 riots which left at least 60 dead and thousands displaced.

In 2016, nearly two and a half years after the Muzaffarnagar riots, when bypoll was held in this constituency following the death of the then sitting SP MLA Chitranjan Swaroop, the BJP won the seat battling a sympathy wave in favour of the leader's son. Many analysts had then said the saffron party was able to exploit the communal faultlines through its campaign which was led by riot-accused BJP leaders.

"The family drama of SP is heading towards tragedy from melody and comedy," the senior BJP leader said at a press conference in Lucknow.

"The alliance between Congress and SP is opportunist and immoral. Akhilesh Yadav has made an alliance but did not give space to his father (Mulayam Singh Yadav) even on the carrier of the 'bicycle' (SP symbol) and gave its handle to Congress.

Terming Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance as "opportunist and immoral", Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu today said the family drama of ruling Samajwadi Party is "heading towards tragedy from melody and comedy".

During his roadshow in Meerut few hours earlier he had reeled out statistics on crime to point out that the law and order situation has gone from bad to worse under Akhilesh?

Kaam bolta hai  goes the campaign catch line for Akhilesh's Samajwadi Party. The SP chief would like to believe his government has done enough to receive a repeat mandate, but BJP president Amit Shah surely is not buying that.

Dil mile ya na mile, party toh mil gayi hai, is the current emotion running high in the ruling party of Uttar Pradesh. The mega road show in Agra is a clear message to parties that SP and Congress have decided to bulldoze into minority bastion and claim the Muslim votes.

An hour late from the scheduled time, UP ke ladke have started their road show in Agra. As TV footage showed, the two leaders stood atop the vehicle, instead of being holed up inside their bullet-proof vehicles, and waved to their supporters, giving the feel that everything is well in the recently-formed alliance.

Give it to the man, his claims may not be beyond suspicion, his confidence is.

With Netaji in kabhi haan kabhi naa mode and uncle Shivpal Yadav planning his own party after elections Akhilesh has reason to be worried. Father Mulayam is taking too many quick turns for his comfort. But atop the vehicle in a road show he is a picture of confidence and self-assuredness.

"This government has kept you (farmers) in darkness. The government has bought only 3 percent of its crops in the state," he said.

"Why does the government give opportunities to traders to loot farmers?" the prime minister further said.

"I want to ask Akhilesh ji's government: What is your connection with those from the sugar mills? Why doesn't the government provide money to the sugarcane farmers?" Modi said.

"Has it ever happened that the farmers of Uttar Pradesh got the money they deserve?" Modi said.

Why didn't Akhilesh govt do anything for farmers? says Modi

The Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance has got the buzz right and it's drowning out the BJP and the BSP. Speak to the young men at the venue and they quickly chant Akhilesh Bhai ko jitana hai (We have to ensure Akhilesh's victory). What's the big deal, you might ask. It's after all a Samajwadi Party rally. Step beyond the rather cramped space, the buzz refuses to disappear. Akhilesh has struck a chord, it might carry him all the way.

At Meerut's Nauchandi Chowk, amid batches of placard-carrying Congress and Samajwadi workers who keep streaming in for Akhilesh-Rahul joint rally, you feel the energy of the young.

Akhilesh-Rahul joint rally: The UP CM might have struck a chord with the youngsters

The reference, of course, is to Akhilesh and Rahul. Other placards say, "humko ye saath pasand hai," in a small variation of the alliance slogan "UP ko ye saath pasand hai". Ask the guy carrying the placard what he meant by the filmy comparison  Karan, Arjun are lead characters of a movie played by Shah Rukh Khan and Salman long ago  and he turns away. He is too busy for silly questions.

Of course, some went beyond this and said a victory for Akhilesh-Rahul would be the beginning of the end of Narendra Modi.

Bhaichaara was the word spoken often by the speakers on the dais. "UP had had enough of communal tension. It has suffered a lot. Now it's the time to put a stop to it. 2014 was a mistake. You put power in wrong hands. Let's not repeat it." This was the essence of their speeches.

Victory for Akhilesh-Rahul could be beginning of end for Narendra Modi?

Perhaps one of the negative consequences of the personality cult. There's none in the BJP to attack or discuss in Uttar Pradesh. A loss here, if it happens, would be a loss for Modi, none else.

"You fell for white lies in 2014. Where is the recovered black money in your bank accounts? Where are the jobs? What happened to all those tall promises you made? Liar, liar." The barbs were, of course, directed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The election in Uttar Pradesh is a curious one. T he prime minister is in the direct line of attack in a state election.

"These elections are not about choosing the next government, it is not about which political party will win or not. These elections are about whether development, which has been sent to an exile for the past 14 years, will it come back?" Modi says in Ghaziabad.

The prime minister also lambasted Akhilesh for not generating employment as promised. "Standing today in Ghaziabad, I promise that youths won't have to run around for jobs anymore. And these are not election promises. This is my resolve."

Taking on the ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed Akhilesh and said that when he was elected as the chief minister everyone had great hopes from a young, educated leader. "Bachiyan school jaane se darrti hai. Aapki party (SP) ne gundon ko pal rakha hai or UP ka ye haal kar rakha hai (Girls are afraid to go to school because of the goons owned by you)."

Samajwadi Party is ruled by goons, the govt is making no attempts to enforce law and order

Narendra Modi says he will answer his detractors in 2019

I thought maybe, a young man (Akhilesh Yadav) will be ready in politics in five years. On another side, there was a politician in Congress, whose childish acts (you should see and find out the jokes on him) and manner of talking had kept Congress politicians away. The politician whose even the Congress leaders were running away from, Akhilesh Yadav has joined hands. That's when I began to doubt Akhilesh Yadav's intellegence.

When it comes to the security of women in Uttar Pradesh, they blame the media. Isn't the crime records in Uttar Pradesh a proof of the poor women security situation in Uttar Pradesh?

Why only one family from Safai with so many politicians: asks Narendra Modi

The only way to save Uttar Pradesh is keep these two families from coming back to power.

It's Akhilesh Yadav's government to give the money to sugar cane farmers. I had said, as soon as I come to power, we paid the money to 32 lakh farmers directly in their accounts. We will destroy the five-six mills hoarding your money.

'We started Fasal Bima Yojana for farmers. This scheme insures you even if you couldn't sow seeds till August. If your crop is destroyed by natural disaster, your loss be covered. But against the wishes of the sugarcane farmers, they put it under the insurance. A party which talks of making potatoes in factory, what would they know of farming. But at least Akhilesh Yadav should have known. His family's background is farming. Sugarcane is least affected by natural disasters. Even the richest farmer wouldn't insure sugar cane. But this anti-sugar cane farmers government in Uttar Pradesh.'

We will listen to farmers and decide on insurance: Narendra Modi

We are walking in the footsteps of Chaudhary Charan Singh: Narendra Modi

Citing unutilised funds allocated by the central government, Modi attacked Akhilesh Yadav government of failing the people of Uttar Pradesh.

Akhilesh has given up before election by joining Congress: Amit Shah

'Rahul Gandhi has been asking the BJP government of what we did. The first thing we did is gave a PM who can talk. The Manmohan government of corruption, we have given a government which even the opposition can't make a case of corruption. In your government, they used to behead soldiers. In our government, after they burn our soldiers, within ten days, we beat them in their home.'

BJP will select candidates for Class III and IV jobs on the basis of merit: Amit Shah

"In my tenure as chief minister, when a rape like this had happened, I got this done. Police officials told me that doing this was a violation of human rights. I replied that these 'danavs' (demons) do not have human rights. I also told the woman to watch the rapist being tortured through a lock-up window so that she could get some peace after listening to his screams and cries for help," the BJP leader said.

Addressing an election rally here yesterday, she claimed that during her tenure as chief minister when a rape incident happened, "I also told the woman to watch the rapist being tortured".

Rapists should be tortured "till their skin comes off", Union minister Uma Bharti has said and accused the Samajwadi Party government of failing to provide justice to the victims of the Bulandshahr gangrape case.

Uma Bharti claims to have 'tortured rapists' when she was CM

The BJP's stakes are high in the crucial state as they are being viewed as a mini-referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modis major decisions like demonetisation and the surgical strikes across the border in Pakistan. After a bitter family feud, incumbent Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's future is at stake as he eyes re-election.

The principal protagonists  Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)  are hoping for a strong performance in the communally-charged western UP region, infamous for the murderous riots in 2013, so as to gather enough impetus for the later phases.

After months of campaigning, issues like communal polarisation to development and BJP government's decision to demonetise will be put to test as 73 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh go to the polls today in the first of seven-phase elections. Polling has already begun and is expected to go on till about 5 pm on Saturday.

Amroha has a special significance for Muslims, for the simple reason that around 65 percent of the electorate in this Assembly constituency are Muslims. There couldnt be a better place for leaders and students of politics to understand the communitys political preference. Owaisi was making his political debut in Uttar Pradesh, and Amroha was the most important stopover for him.

Their body language clearly suggested that the sher they were referring to was their hero, both as a leader and as a rock star performer. The announcement that he had finally arrived resulted in a commotion, with everyone pushing, pulling, vying to catch a glimpse of the one man they were waiting for  Assaduddin Owaisi, Hyderabad Lok Sabha MP and chief of AIMIM.

Hours after the Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmad Bukhari, blasted the Samajawadi Party-Congress coalition in Uttar Pradesh, and urged Muslims to vote for Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party instead, a mildly aggressive gathering of hundreds of young men from the community thundered, "Dekho dekho kaun aya, sher aaya, sher aaya (Oh, look who's here, the lion is here)."

Take for example, the current arrangement in both the Houses. The Modi government, enjoying a brute majority in Lok Sabha, has presented a curious and unprecedented tug-of-war between the ruling party and the Opposition. While the BJP-led NDA government can pass any law as it pleases in the Lower House, key legislation often get stuck in the Upper House  where the Congress enjoys a majority  due to Parliament logjams and political bickering. While for the BJP, UP polls will be one chance to wrest free the Rajya Sabha from the controls of the Opposition, ensuring that BJP's strength is limited in Rajya Sabha is the only respite Congress can hope for until the next Lok Sabha Elections.

Uttar Pradesh is called the king-maker state and it's not for nothing. The northern Indian state, with over 14,12,53,172 voters, sends the largest number of Members of Parliament to the Rajya Sabha, where both the ruling party and the Opposition vie to stake control.

Polling delayed in booth no.42 in Mathura's Govardhan, and in booth nos 119 and 120 in Baghpat as EVMs are not working

Thus, it is only natural that all eyes remain on the intense political drama unfolding in the state in these high-stake elections. So Firstpost sifted through the political pandemonium playing out in Uttar Pradesh, and brought together all that you need to know to track the humongous polling exercise.

The state elections also arguably set the precursor to the the 2019 Lok Sabha election as Uttar Pradesh was crucial in BJP's cleansweep in 2014 Lok Sabha elections  the saffron party's one-third parliamentarians come from the state that sends 80 MPs to the Lower House. Besides this, with the 2017 Presidential Election is in the offing, UP's strength will also play up in selecting the Constitutional head of the state.

Total 73 constituencies, including a larger chunk of the politically important, western Uttar Pradesh goes to polls on 11 February. Key constituencies include communally sensitive constituencies of Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Dadri and Meerut, apart from Ghaziabad, Noida, Agra etc.

Ignoring the chill in the air, with the morning temperature being 11 degrees, the residents of Noida Sector 15 and 16, especially the senior citizens are heading towards polling booths. Many are taking a detour from their morning walk to cast their votes. But right now voters are very few in numbers, which is expected to pick up by 9 am.

The only bright point is that it has Hema Malini as MP. As voters start trickling in at booths the question is will BJP will do better this time?

The BJP's record in Mathura, the land of temples and mythology, is rather poor. In the birthplace of Krishna the party has not had its own lawmaker in the assembly for sometime now.

Mathura was in the spotlight last year over the incident at Jawahar Chowk that claimed 24 lives. Two policemen were also killed in attack by encroachers on government land. The BJP raked this issue up during its campaign, citing this as an example of failing law and order under Akhilesh's rule. Will the voters buy it this?

The Bahujan Samaj Party, meanwhile, has been working silently on the ground to regain control on the state by engineering a politically potent but unpredictable amalgamation of two communities, Dalits and Muslims. However, each party has its own Achilles heel to deal with; the nail biting competition can swing any way.

But in Lok Sabha elections 2014, the people of the state voted overwhelmingly in support of the BJP. The saffron party would like to repeat the winning streak for obvious reasons, as it will pave a smooth path for the party in Delhi. However, the current ruling party in state, SP, has barely emerged from a succession war and it is Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's only opportunity to prove his mettle as a leader, after he overthrew his father from the party's helm.

The political scene in the state has been dominated by regional players (SP, BSP, RLD etc) since the 1990's and the so called national parties (BJP and Congress) have been pushed to the sidelines. If at all BJP and Congress managed to stake claim at the throne of Uttar Pradesh it was by cobbling up an alliance with the regional parties.

After overwhelming win in 2014 LS elections, BJP would want a repeat of the mandate in UP

The electoral battle in the state has grabbed all eyeballs, be it the electoral merger between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party or the infighting within the first family of this politically crucial state.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made for smooth polling, especially in sensitive areas of Shamli, Aligarh, Muzaffarnagar, Mathura, Bulandshahr and Agra.

This gives the present BJP candidate Pankaj Singh, who is the son of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh an edge over others. But it's also challenging for him as he is a first timer. He has been given ticket by replacing Vimla Batham Sharma. Initially this led to some confusion and dissent among local party workers. But BJP leadership has ensured that the contesting candidate gets full support. It needs to be seen whether debutant Pankaj Singh is able retain the tradition of BJP of winning Noida seat this time.

After he became an MP, in the 2014 by poll, BJP's Vimla Batham Sharma got elected.

Noida, the assembly constituency was always a bjp stronghold. Mahesh Sharma of BJP held this seat, till the time he became an MP in 2014. In the by-election that followed, the bjp retained the seat.

Rajnath Singh's son Pankaj has edge over others in Noida, thanks to Mahesh Sharma

The Uttar Pradesh (UP) Assembly closes its term by May 2017. Elections to the Assembly are scheduled for February and counting will take place in April 2017. As candidates get ready to file their nominations with the Election Commission, we present our analysis of the current composition of the Assembly (2012-2017) and the participation of the members (MLAs).

As Aligarh goes to elections, appeals for vote consolidation intensify. Messages and appeals being circulated on social media and through word of mouth. To avoid any sort of chaotic situation and to provide more convenience to voters, this time Aligarh has increased the number of booths. To increase voter accessibility the numbers are limited to 1000 votes per booth.

As of 9 am, reports said that Agra recorded 12.8 percent; Muzaffarnagr recorded the highest at 15 percent; Aligarh recorded 9 percent and Ferozabad recorded 11 percent; Bulandshahr 12 percent.

Reports said that EVMs in two polling booths in Mathura malfunctioned. Meanwhile, police have detained Gagan Som, brother of BJP candidate Sangeet Som for carrying a pistol inside poll booth.

Akhilesh added that noone is better to run a state than two youths. "It will be a government of vision," added Rahul.

While announcing the common minimum programme, UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav says that many do not walk the talk, clearly taking a potshot at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Akhilesh says he is confident that the first vote cast in the first phase of Uttar Pradesh election was cast in the name of Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance.

Former BJP state president Lakshmikant Bajpai (Meerut), RJD chief Lalu Prasad's son-in-law Rahul Singh (SP) from Sikandarabad, and Sandeep Singh, grandson of Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh from Atrauli are among other key figures in this phase.

The first phase of polling will decide the electoral fortunes of Pankaj Singh (Noida seat), son of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Congress Legislature Party leader Pradeep Mathur (Mathura) against whom BJP spokesman Srikant Sharma is in fray, Mriganka Singh (Kairana), daughter of BJP MP Hukum Singh and controversial BJP MLAs Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana -Sardhana and Thanabhawan respectively.

A total of 2.60 crore voters, including over 1.17 crore women and 1,508 belonging to third gender category are eligible to cast their ballots in 26,823 polling stations to decide the fate of 839 candidates..

Amid tight security, polling began for the first of the seven phases of the high-stake Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections with voters queueing up to cast their ballots in 73 constituencies spread over 15 districts of western Uttar Pradesgh.

When asked about Shahi Imam Bukhari supported Mayawati and dissed SP-Congress alliance, Akhilesh Yadav said, "Shahi Imam Bukhari saab is a very good and learned man and if you ask him in person he will always give us the blessing and support us."

The positive body language of Akhilesh Yadav during the presentation of SP-Congress vision document on Saturday gives an indication of his confidence in outcome. While tackling provocative questions from media, Akhilesh chose to play down the barbs, trying to drive a distinction between SP's development-oriented campaign and BJP's angry rhetoric. Akhilesh advised BJP to be less angry, his easy confidence rubbing on to even Rahul Gandhi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's strategy is distraction. When he can't answer questions, then he starts distracting. Truth is that in two-and-a-half years, he has failed. He peeps into bathrooms and does nothing else. His threats are empty as well." When asked about seat-sharing issues between Samajwadi Party and Congress, Rahul said, "There are issues on six-seven seats, but these issues are insignificant, things will be worked out soon."

Modi has all the time to do insignificant things, in 2.5 years he has done nothing: Rahul Gandhi

"Modi loves to Google, peep into bathrooms, but he should be more concerned about development. Some clerics are resentful. But we believe they will finally support us. Modi is unable to answer on security, jobs, unemployment and that why he is distracting people," Rahul Gandhi.

"Modi loves to Google, peep into bathrooms, but he should be more concerned about development. Some clerics are resentful. But we believe they will finally support us. Modi is unable to answer on security, jobs, unemployment and that why he is distracting people," Rahul Gandhi.

The major issues of the burgeoning Assembly segment of Gautam Buddh Nagar district are regular supply of power and water, and the alarming crime rate.

This time Congress hasn't fielded any candidate due to its alliance with Samajwadi Party.

The sprawling industrial hub of Noida, which was the brainchild of one-time Congress stalwart and veteran leader ND Tiwari, seems to have nothing to do with the Congress anymore. Tiwari, as old-timers would remember, was the Chief Minister of undivided Uttar Pradesh thrice, and of Uttaranchal once that was carved out of Uttar Pradesh, is credited with substantial work for the development of the big and politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh. Tiwari held important portfolios as a minister at the Centre and also served as the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.

Noida, a brainchild of Congress' ND Tiwari, has nothing to do with the party anymore

BJP wins all three MLC seats in UP where elections were held: Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Bareilly

Besides, the EC has set up a police cell to keep a tab on messages received through social media so that trouble makers do not vitiate social harmony.

The excise department has set up checkposts at inter-state borders as well as along the border with Nepal to check distribution of liquor to voters during elections.

Around 6,000 paramilitary personnel have been deployed in all polling centres in Muzaffarnagar and neighbouring Shamli to instill a sense of security among voters, especially with focus on areas which had witnessed communal riots in 2013.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made in all districts for the polls which are being seen as a litmus test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's nearly three-year rule. Out of 887 polling centres in riot-scarred Muzaffarnagar, around 600 are sensitive where video cameras have been installed to maintain strict vigil.

Elderly voters waiting their turn at the booth at Dhouli Pyayu primary school in Mathura

80 percent voters of 76 vidhan sabha seats in shehar Aligarh belong to the Ansari community, mostly engaged in small scale lock industries. Rest of the 20 percent constitute of Qureshi community, darzi, dhobhi, naai, sabzi farosh, pheri wale etc. All are vouching for SP candidate Zafar Alam.

There are 26,822 polling centres for over two crore voters in the first phase of polling for 73 seats across 15 districts. Fate of 839 candidates will be sealed on Saturday. Prominent faces who cast their votes earlier included Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh who cast his vote in Sahibabad, Shrikant Sharma of BJP and Congress's Pradip Mathur in Mathura, Sangeet Som in Sardhana and Suresh Rana in Shamli.

An EC official informed IANS that these problems were being attended to on a priority basis and EVMs at some places were replaced. Long queues were seen in places like Mathura, Agra, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut (City), Sardhana, Shamli and Noida. The largest constituency in this phase, as per population, is Sahibabad in Ghaziabad and the smallest is Jalesar in Etah.

Voting picked up in the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections within hours of its start at 7 am, poll officials said on Saturday. Kasganj witnessed 13 percent polling in the first two hours, Muzaffarnagar 15, Meerut 10, Mathura 11, Noida seven and Greater Noida nine percent. Technical snags in the electronic voting machines (EVMs) were reported in the first hour in polling booths across Noida, Baghpat, Hathras and Mathura.

Aligarh is actually divided into two parts - old city Aligarh and new civil lines Aligarh. Old city side people feel that civil lines side voters are not fragmented and detached. They feel that civil lines area people might goof up the elections as they won't go for consolidated voting since they are divided among four major candidates - Vivek Bansal(congress), Ajju Ishaq (SP), Haji Aamirullah Khan(independent, previously SP candidate), Ram Kumar Sharma (BSP), Parvez Khan (AIMIM). These candidates are from Kol vidhan sabha (civil lines, Aligarh). BJP candidate from Kol is Anil Parashar.

This statement coming in the backdrop of the Supreme Court ruling directing political parties to refrain from communal or caste appeasement in poll campaigns can be called a remarkable shift.

He also insisted that there was no polarisation amid voters of Kairana.

"Exodus was never a communal matter, it was a law and order problem," Hukum Singh said. He however refused to say that the exodus was a non issue, while adding that it was coincidental that the goons behind rangdaari (extortion) and petty crimes belonged to a specific community.

BJP's MP from Kairana, Hukum Singh, on election did a U-turn on the exodus issue, first raked up by him last year. While Hukum Singh had always maintained that the Hindu community in Kairana district was being singled out and targetted, he told CNN-News18 on Friday that it was never a communal issue.

There are 26,822 polling centres for over two crore voters in the first phase of polling for 73 seats across 15 districts. Fate of 839 candidates will be sealed on Saturday. Prominent faces who cast their votes earlier included Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh who cast his vote in Sahibabad, Shrikant Sharma of BJP and Congress's Pradip Mathur in Mathura, Sangeet Som in Sardhana and Suresh Rana in Shamli.

Long queues were seen in places like Mathura, Agra, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut (City), Sardhana, Shamli and Noida. The largest constituency in this phase, as per population, is Sahibabad in Ghaziabad and the smallest is Jalesar in Etah.

Largest constituency in Phase one is Sahibabad and smallest is Jalesar

Though the Jat-dominated constituencies are witnessing a heavy turnout, their political conduct remains a mystery. Jats may not have numerical strength on many seats but their influence over political economy of the region can hardly be undermined. That is the reason why the BJP seems a little worried in the first phase.

In west UP, there is an impression that the government turned anti-jat after its victory in 2014. As a result MPs like Satypal Singh, former Mumbai police commissioner, who defeated Chaudhary Ajit Singh has also lost relevance in the constituency. Hence this move was planned to rope in Jats who are fence-sitters.

Just as Jat-dominated western UP was going to polls today, BJP president Amit Shah had a group of prominent jat leaders hosted by Union Minister Rao Virendra Singh, a jat leader from Haryana. The obvious reason was to neutralise the anger that Jats felt after their agitation in Haryana.

Most of Aligarh university votes are going to the Congress but a few votes of non-teaching staff are for Samajawadi Party as well. Samajwadi Party has strong appeal among the economically lower sections of the population.

"Badaun is one of those villages in India which are the most backward in India. Samajwadi and BSP have promised so much, delivered nothing."

There is hardly any wave in support of any party. Even at the time of polling, there is hardly signs of any wave.

Ajit Singh, his son Jayant Singh and his wife Charu Singh also attracted huge turnouts. How could one explain this? Asked leaders. Of course, given large population of the state, the turn outs are poor indicators to read political mood of the state. Yet there is no denying the fact that this election is the most deceptive electoral battle Uttar Pradesh had ever seen.

Apparently not only Prime Minister Narendra Modi attracted a good crowd in this region but there was a huge turnout also for Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah and even outsiders like Nitin Gadkari. Similarly Akhilesh, Rahul Gandhi and BSP chief Mayawati also drew good crowds.

As the first round of the polls is underway, there is one confusion that prevails among senior leaders of all parties. This confusion is about how to explain the large turn out at meetings of these leaders.

Modi addresses rally in Badaun which goes to polls on 15 February

But earnings from the auto were irregular, from Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 a month. So, Hussain is about to begin a job designing and fixing uppers (the upper part of a shoe that contains the tongue) at a shoe factory in NOIDA, located in UP but an extension of the metropolitan region of Delhi, Indias richest province, by per capita income.

In the 1990s, Kanpurs leather industry employed a million workers (there are no official data), according to IndiaSpends inquiries with the government and leather-industry representatives. With 176 of 400 leather tanning units shutting over 10 years, according to a joint secretarywho requested anonymity since he is not authorised to talk to the mediain UPs industries department, that number has halved.

According to Firstpost Hindi, voter turnout is heavy in western Uttar Pradesh. Till 1pm, Bulandshahr recorded polling percentage of 41.7 percent, Fatehpur Sikri recorded 45 percent, Aligarh 40 percent and Shamli recorded 43 percent.

The huge turnout in response to communal consolidation of one community in today's polls is indicative of this strategy.

An impression has gained ground here that most of these belong to a particular community. This assessment may not be correct. But the perception is stronger than reality. And the BJP's move has found resonance among voters who are divided on communal lines.

The BJP's promise of launching anti-Romeo squads to check eve-teasing in Western UP is calculated to strike resonance with Hindu constituency. Of late there have been reports of eve-teasing assuming a sociological menace in the entire region. Criminals ruling the roost in west UP in the past five year was nothing new. But criminalisation of governance is given a communal touch by a deft political move by the BJP.

Inputs from the field across western Uttar Pradesh from correspondents of ETV show polarisation trends, to the extent that channels showing Muslims in large numbers in front of polling booths since early morning also played on the minds of the voters. Observers believe that others are turning up now due to that influence. Voting percentage is likely to be very high and reports said that this polarisation helps BJP.

Yet the BJP's move to placate Jats runs the risk of triggering a counter-polarization of non-hat castes. This is a tricky political situation for not only the BJP but also for SP-Congress and the BSP.

"We are not short of fertilizer now as we get it aplenty" said one. They were least affected by demonetisation. What had hit them most is the brazen Yadavaisation of governance by Akhilesh Yadav and increasing criminalization. "We were the worst sufferer of this" said villagers who huddled in a corner to mourn the death of young boy in a road accident. Apparently the village distinctly displays a pro-BJP turn.

In Tappal area adjacent to Aligarh exists a village where non-jat castes live in large number. In a Baghel-caste dominated village not far from the Yamuna expressway, villagers have decided to vote for the BJP. The reason is obvious.

In Aligarh lies a non-Jat, pro-BJP pocket but saffron party runs the risk of losing the edge

Multi-phase polling gives politicians this opportunity  to move to areas which would come in later phases of polling and go out either to make high pitch campaigning or hold press conferences to make a last-ditch attempt to shape minds of voters in areas where voting was on. In this age of 24x7 news channels, social and digital media ensures that the message is communicated live.

It was a strategic decision Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi to hold a joint press conference and slam Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his remarks on their alliance in UP on Saturday morning when first phase of polling in the state was underway.

Voting slow in several booths in Mathura. Polling officials say footfall may increase later in the day. If it doesn't then the guessing game over results begins all over again. For parties the task right now would be to get their core voters to booths.

There was a feeling that momentum has been generated, from the point of view of crowd turn out in Lucknow, Agra and Kanpur for Congress-SP dynasts, needed to be maintained. Can that press conference influence voter mind who are going out to vote today?

There were also reports that on ground level the SP and Congress workers had their own issues and reservation against each other to join hands and fight for common cause. The seat sharing in some constituencies, even as Congress had been allotted 105 seats were there and people, even the party supporters were taking an adverse view. Rahul acknowledged that there were problems in 6-7 seats but underplayed it.

The decision to make Rahul and Akhilesh appear together, days after their joint presence in Kanpur, was guided by emerging circumstances because there was a feeling among sections of Samajwadi-Congress party leaders and supporters that Mayawati had lately become aggressive particularly pitching some influential Muslim religious leaders and groups urging minority community voters to trust and vote for BSP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's high decibel attack against Congress and Samajwadi Party.

Can UP ke ladke sway the voters of Western UP

First, the present election has become mechanical and appears more a contest between highly professional poll managers hired by all the political parties than the parties themselves. Second, the well-defined notion of vote-bank politics is in terminal decline. The social bases of all the political parties have been seriously challenged. Read the full article here

Interestingly, the pragmatism of electoral compulsions is seen in full swing when we find that all the parties moderated their competitive needs and entered into the political alignment beyond ideological lines and conventional hostilities. The saddest part is that the dramatic defragmentation of political parties has succeeded in misplacing the priorities of Uttar Pradeshs electorates.

The first phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election in the western region of the state, for 73 seats, is finally underway. The early trend of voting pattern shows that this election is shaping up to be one of the most unique, hyper-competitive, and potentially divisive elections in generations.

The SP-Congress combine is heavily banking in Muslim voters in the region seeing their combination as sole protector of their interests. This was the region which was affected in 2013 riots.

It is clear that a majority of Jats have shifted their preference from BJP to their very own Ajit Singh's RLD but then many of them are with the BJP. Ajit Singh's RLD is no winner (it can win few seats) but can play spoiler to the BJP's prospects. It thus becomes important for the BJP what percentage of Jats vote for RLD and what percentage of Jats vote for BJP. BSP and SP-Congress combine is talked here in context of a triangular or a quadrangular fight.

Common wisdom would suggest that people or a group or a community would vote to see what suits their interest, who protects their interest and who has the potential to deliver goods for the state and work for popular welfare. Jats are a hugely emotional community and more often than not emotions take priority over prudence. Fellow Jats from adjacent Haryana have been camping in this region to ensure that their brethrens in Western UP got disconnected from the BJP.

The 73 constituencies spread across 15 districts going to the polls in first phase, has an interesting mix of rural areas in western UP. While areas going to the polls includes, two most important cities Noida and Agra, but the centre of attention in this phase is how Jat heartland Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Hapur and Bulandshahar would vote.

From Kol tehsil (civil lines side of Aligarh) Haji Zamirullah, the independent candidate who was previously in Samajwadi Party and belonged to the Shivpal camp was seen as a strong contender till morning but now voting has shifted to the Congress and the SP among Muslims. From Kol seat, both the Congress and SP candidates are getting votes. Zamirullah is also a favourite among Muslims as they are of the view that when an independent Muslim candidate is available then why should Muslim votes go to political parties who only use their votes for vested interests.

As first phase of polling in western UP is underway, the stress in the media and at other chatter points have been on Jat factor, Jats slipping away from BJP and Muslims looking at Akhilesh Yadav-Rahul Gandhi combination with hope. The impression that Mayawati has capitulated is misleading. Her party candidates are strong on the ground and their campaign has been visible but while talking about BSP, we tend to talk only about Dalits and Muslim.

BJP seems to have faltered on their strength. Instead of presenting the electorate with a simple yet convincing narrative, they are desperately searching for a better story to trump the one told by Akhilesh. They have been reduced to making the same mistake which Modi's rivals did in 2014  run an anti-campaign."

Even BJP's early campaign script for 2017 Assembly polls promised to take off from where Modi had left in 2014.

"In 2014 Modi had a better narrative than his opponents. To the electorate, pushed against the wall by a non-performing government at the Centre, Modi's promise of 'better days' made more sense than apocalyptic fear of riots.

How Modi's campaign changed dramatically and what it says about BJP's chances

A total of 121 candidates are in the fray in Agra. Around 30 percent votes were polled till noon in 73 Assembly constituencies, PTI said

In twilight zone of their life them coming out to vote means that the hope that India would change is undying. Hope new rulers of Uttar Pradesh would consider their hopes and aspirations.

It was heartening to see so many senior citizens in their 70s and 80s, even 90s coming out, holding hands of younger members of their family members, some with walking sticks.

Standing in queue to honour my right to vote at a polling station in Kaushambi, Ghaziabad, I realised that polling day is perhaps one day which senior citizens relish the most. They don't complain of queue and hassled walk to polling booth but they like the way its an occasion when the world treats them with respect and dignity they deserve. Its also a day when their preference matters.

We go on talking about India as a young country and its youthful energy. Political leaders speeches and government programs are angled at wooing them.

In an election that's all about the youth, senior citizens inspire by exercising their franchise

The Election Commission has been coming out with unique ideas to encourage women to come out and vote. Earlier in Goa, that went to poll on 4 February, the poll panel gifted soft toys to first-time women voters. Now in Uttar Pradesh, the poll panel is gifting all women voters a red rose, according to The Financial Times

The party retained two of its traditional seat while it bagged another seat previously held by the Samajwadi Party.

Even as polling is underway for the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP won all three graduate MLC seats in Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Bareilly.

Incidentally, in Mathura the BJP has been battling a poll jinx for over fifteen years as it had failed to bag a significant win in this city of temples. Malini remains its only bright spot in this holy town of Western UP.

The actor turned politician had said, "Vrindavan widows have a bank balance, good income, nice beds, but they beg out of habit... There are 40,000 widows in Vrindavan. I think there is no more place in the city. A large population is coming from Bengal... that's not right. Why don't they stay in Bengal?," NDTV reported

BJP's MP Hema Malini ran into a controversy in 2014 when she commented that the aged widows were "unnecesirily crowding" her constituency.

According to Telegraph report, some 40,000 widows  about 25,000 from Bengal  are estimated to live in Vrindavan, Mathura region. They primarily live in various government-run homes and private quarters supported by Sulabh International.

Bengali widows, who have found shelter in large numbers in Mathura, exercised their franchise in the crucial elections in the state.

Whether the high voter turnout in key districts could swing the beeps on EVMs in favour of the BJP particularly in small non-Jat pockets would be known on 11 March. These isolated pockets have traditionally been against the Jat dominance and could appear as a saviour for the BJP.

Besides, the Jats could be the most politically dominating community in the region but their numbers aren't incredible enough to singlehandedly influence the voting pattern in an election.

The Jat leaders have advised the community to collectively defeat BJP, however, the appeal is unlikely to maneouvre a 100% swing against the BJP in a community that overwhelmingly voted for the BJP just two years ago. The undecided voter could still go with the saffron party.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is walking on a tightrope in the Jat majority areas, as the community has openly pledged to vote for a candidate most suited to defeat the saffron party.

Soon, all hell broke loose and the Samajwadi Party (SP) leader was gheraoed by an angry mob of BSP supporters after which police had to resort to cane charge to disperse the unruly crowd.

The incident happened at the Islamia Madarsa poling booth. When he was talking to the voters, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supporters outside took umbrage to his spending a long time inside.

The 61-year-old politician, who is the incumbent legislator from Kithaur constituency, was greeted with slogans and some people also pelted stones at him, after which he beat a hasty retreat, officials said.

Uttar Pradesh Labour and Employment Minister Shahid Manzoor faced a hostile crowd in Meerut's Kithaur constituency on Saturday when he visited a polling both.

Addressing a gathering in Budayun, a Yadav stronghold, the Prime Minister said time has come to reverse the caste and community-based policy making in the state and instead embrace the 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas' policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi renewed his attack on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday and charged him with presiding over chaos and lawlessness in the state in the past five years.

Firstpost spoke to voters coming out after voting in Aligarh to sense the mood on the ground. Our inputs suggest that Khatig (SC) caste from the region has primarily voted for the BJP while Koli, Kumhar castes are going to SP. Among Muslims Abassi community has favoured the BSP as the local candidate fielded by it belongs to the Abassi community. However, the BSP has managed to retain the Jatav votes.

As Firstpost spoke to the voters coming out of the booth, the mood remained inclined towards BJP, except for the Jatav votes which remained hitched to the BSP. However, other SC community voters have chosen to vote for BJP in Modi's name and not in the candidate's name. This area has negligible Muslim population.

At the Nahar Singh Inter College, quarsi polling booth around 60% polling was recoded till 4 pm. The officials their suggested that the peak time at this booth was between 11am to 2pm.

"Give BJP a chance. Within six months, I promise the law-and-order situation here will improve. The knife-wielding gangs will all be sent to jails within six months," says Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur district.

"Women in Uttar Pradesh can't even wear chains in public, because they are afraid it'll be snatched away. The largest state in India is in the hands of criminals," says Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing a rally in Lakhimpur.

"In her tenure, Mayawati gave electricity to 23 villages. In his tenure, Akhilesh gave electricity to just three more villages. But in just the last two years since I became Prime Minister, I have given electricity to 1,364 villages," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, while addressing a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur district.

Modi attacks Mayawati, Akhilesh over UP villages still being without electricity

"The corrupt who I targeted with my demonetisation decision are still unable to sleep well. They stole money from the poor, but I am fighting them. And I will not rest. They are all joining hands against me, because they are afraid their ill-gotten wealth will go away from them," said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Second phase of Uttar Pradesh began at 7 am. Join us for LIVE updates on everything that is happening on the ground in the 67 constituencies of India's most populous state.

Firstpost Hindi brings you a comprehensive explainer as Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand vote. For Uttar Pradesh, this is the second phase of voting.

While Bangli Hindus gradually found the area inhospitable and spread out to other parts while Sikh farmers developed large farmhouses across the area. At the height of Punjab terrorism, a large group of khalistani terrorists found this area as safe haven. But the lush green belt of the region and highly cultivable land is known as paradise for farmers and rice bowl of India.

Sikhs comprise a major population in Terai (Himalayan foothills) that border Nepal. Lakhimpur Kheri, Pilibhit, Bijnor are the core and buffer forest zones of Dudhwa and Jim Corbett forest ranges. After 1947, Sikhs farmers from Punjab and Bangladeshi hindus were settled in this barren land and given cultivable land.

Few know that the area going to polls in the second phase is known as mini Punjab in Uttar Pradesh.

The Ruhailkhand area which comprises Himalayan foothills and forest is socially a diverse land. But it is known for housing a liberal Islamic seminary- called Barelvi school of Islamic though. Adjacent to Deobandi school of Islamic thought that propagates fundamentalist variant of the religion, the Barelvi school is known for promoting a liberal value system among faithfuls. This seminary is quite influential among Muslims of the region. Though they avoid directly to be indulging in politics, their tacit support is critical for parties which vie for Muslim support. This time Ulemmas of the seminary are divided and let the voters take their choice.

In fact, Mulayam's fortune revived from Terai region where Sikhs came out in support of him. This is the precise reason that Samajwadi Party still enjoys considerable clout among sikhs of the area.

He had his legs fractured too. But Mulayam found his spirit soaring following using reception he got in wake of killings of 13 Sikhs in fake encounters by the police in Pilibhit.

Pakaria Gurudwara of Lakhimpur Kheri was the first place where Mulayam Singh Yadav visited after his electoral drubbing in 1991. When the BJP won the election, Mulayam was completely crushed in the election.

Considering Azams controversial, mostly acidic, statements that generate a lot of political heat frequently, one needs no proof. The senior Samajwadi Party leader is contesting from Rampur. Its not about Hindu or Muslim, anyone can be victim of his tongue, says Debendra.

"This man is incorrigible," says driver Debendra Singh, a resident of Etawah and a supporter of the Samajwadi Party, about Azam Khan. "He will do some good work but in the end say something so nasty that it will nullify all the goodwill he might have generated for himself. If only he knew how to control his tongue," he adds.

It's not about Hindu or Muslim, your words can hurt anyone: Voter on SP's Azam Khan

The BJP has none. While the first two are hoping to benefit from the support of minorities, the BJP is banking on reverse polarisation.

With their eyes on the demographic balance, every party has stepped into the fray with a different strategy. The BSP and SP alliance have 26 and 25 Muslim candidates.

The 67 seats that go to polls in Uttar Pradesh second phase are considered the pocket burrough of the Samajwadi Party. In most of the seats, Muslims are a third of the electorate and thus the decisive factor.

"It was a situation that was allowed to escalate and the party in power in the state needs some explaining to do. Making Azam a scapegoat wont work."

Not many in Muzaffarnagar believe Samajwadi Party's Azam Khan was behind the riots of 2013. "No, the perpetrators were other people. But the reputation of this man is such that people would buy anything said about him," says a Jat leader who plays an important role for farmers of the region and who saw the riots from close quarters.

'Azam Khan's reputation is such that anyone would buy theory that he was involved in Muzaffarnagar riots'

The police administration of the district was under pressure to trace the animals. It made national news too. The buffaloes were traced to Moradabad. We dont know what the thief went through after being caught, but the message conveyed was clear: nobody messes with Azam, or his buffaloes, in Rampur.

That Azam is a powerful man in the Samajwadi Party needs no overstating. So when cattle thieves stole seven of his buffaloes from his farm house two years ago, it was an act of great courage. Call it immense stupidity if you please. You cannot run away with Azam Khans buffaloes just like that.

This is one of the few constituencies where the election is principally between SP and BSP. But then candidature and claim of BJP's Lakshmi Saini can't be completely ruled out. In 2014 parliamentary poll pattern gives hope to BJP's supporters - Muslim votes got divided between Azam's candidate from SP Naseer Ahmad Khan and Nawab Kazim Ali Khan to pave victory way BJP's Nepal Singh.

What makes this Khan versus Khan battle even more interesting is the fact that this constituency has 60 percent Muslim population and the way members of the community vote here today could send signals elsewhere. Nawab Khan's family and SP's Azam Khan (who practically lords over this region) political rivalry dates is four decade old. But in this assembly election it has become sharper than ever.

A well educated and well groomed Nawab Kazim Ali Khan is four time MLA from this constituency. A traditional Congressman Nawab (belonging to a family which had been with Congress since Independence until about a year ago) is now BSP candidate. He now hopes that dailts and other sections on margins of social structure would add on to his personal social clout of a royalty. Pitted against him is a young Samajwadi candidate Abdullah Azam Khan. Though the young Khan is a political green horn but has support and legacy of his mighty father.

The battle of second phase is between the erstwhile Nawab of Rampur Nawab Kazim Ali Khan and modern day political Nawab of Rampur Azam Khan's son Abdullah Azam Khan.

UP Second phase battle is between two royalties

The BJP has picked up the topic of Triple Talaq ahead of Uttar Pradesh elections and asked its rivals SP and Congress to clarify their stand on gender justice. The women voters also feel that safety and security of women are of prime concern and they will vote for the party that can ensure it.

Speaking to CNN-News18, Muslim women of Rampur, one of the constituencies that will cast its ballot in the second phase, say Triple Talaq isn't an issue that political parties should discuss and is best left for the community to tackle.

Owasi's rally here drew enthusiastic crowd of under-30 youngsters. Can his AIMIM be a winner or spoiler for SP and BSP candidates? A triangular split in Muslim vote, if it happens, would generate hope for BJP candidate.

This constituency has over 65 percent Muslim electorate. So it's not surprising to find that 10 out of a total of 13 candidates in contention are from Muslim community - SP's candidate Mehboob Ali is a minister in Akhilesh Yadav government. He is facing a stiff challenge from BSP's Naushad Ali. The two were pitted against each other in 2012 also. Then there is AIMIM's Shamim Ahmed, RLD's Salim Khan, and Peace Party's Mohammad Rizwan and the list would go on. BJP's Kunwar Singh Saini is one of only three Hindu candidates from Amroha.

Amroha could be taken as a test case to understand Muslim voters polling preference  whether the Muslims were en-bloc with SP-Congress combine or Mayawati's BSP has own claims in the community and how far Assaduddin's Owaisi AIMIM has made inroads in the community.

In a crowded main bazaar of Amroha, one sees a hoarding "Tandoori Roti Rs 35 per kilo". Tandoori Roti or bread is cheaper than the price of raw atta that sells in any bigger cities. But when it comes to voting and understanding voting pattern, things are far more complicated.

It is precisely for this reason that BJP president Amit Shah said in a media conference that Mayawati's outfit is BJP's main rival in this phase. Shah hopes that BSP, which has given tickets to 99 Muslim candidates this time, would spoil SP's plan and help BJP.

Spread across 11 districts, the 67 constituencies that go to polls today in the second phase of Uttar Pradesh elections are dominated by the Muslim factor. While Muslims are known to vote tactically to keep the BJP away, the SP-Congress alliance would be hoping that the minority votes are not splintered between it and the BSP.

BJP strategises propping up BSP as party's main rival in the second phase so as to benefit from the splinter

Both quotes are attributed to Azam. Abdullah is the Samajwadi Party candidate from Suar. As part of the Rampur Lok Sabha constituency, it comes in the extended political catchment of his father. The latters prestige would as much at stake here as his.

Abdullah Azam, son of Azam Khan, is believed to be a suave man and a temperate speaker unlike his father. He won't certainly be caught saying something like, "RSS volunteers are homosexuals, thats why they never get married"; or "Mobile phones are responsible for the rape of minors."

States with the worst sex ratios have more women members of legislative assemblies (MLAs), as IndiaSpend reported in September 2015. READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

The only exception was for the seats reserved for scheduled caste (SC) candidates. The proportion of women winning SC seats was more than double that of those winning general seats. All this happened over a period when women in Indias most populous state became healthier and better educated, reinforcing the point that there is no correlation between these indicators and better political representation of women.

Poor, populous Uttar Pradesh was the first Indian state to have a female chief minister  Sucheta Kriplani from 1963 to 1967but this pioneering effort has not improved prospects for women in elections. As voter turnout has risen, more competitors have stood against women candidates, fewer women have won and a growing number have lost their deposits, according to an IndiaSpend and Swaniti Initiative analysis of electoral data of the last three state elections in UP since 2002.

Age must give way to youth, says the veteran brass trader.

Some voters though are worried about the succession battle that affected the ruling party in this SP stronghold. One of them tells CNN-News 18 that Mulayam should have understood that he has reached retirement age and should have made it easier for son Akhilesh to succeed him, not tougher.

The brass industry of Moradabad has been hit by notebandi (demonetisation) and the predominantly Muslim electorate are in a mood to teach BJP a lesson.

Moradabad - Brass industry, which has been hit by demonetisation - in a mood to teach BJP a lesson?

Overall, the voter turnout stands at 10.96 percent in Uttar Pradesh. According to reports, Moradabad recorded 11 percent voter turnout till 9 am and Saharanpur recorded 12 percent.

Akhilesh Yadav and Narendra Modi urge voters to go out and cast their vote

In the end, the outcome may not be decided by issues that have been talked about during the campaign  development, demonetisation, dynasty and corruption. It may well boil down to whether a voter thinks of himself as a Muslim or a Hindu before pressing the button or looks dispassionately at the parties in the fray.

A lot had changed between 2012 and 2014. But a lot has changed from 2014 to 2017. So, neither of the two scenarios is an apt pointer to the trend. The outcome would ultimately depend on how the BJP manages to benefit from a possible split in Muslim votes (nearly 33 percent) and capitalises on counter-consolidation of Hindu votes.

There are two ways to look at polling in 67 constituencies of Uttar Pradesh. The first is to see it as a contest that could be shaped by the 2014 General Elections when the BJP polled nearly 42 percent votes and led in 49 seats in the region. The other is to go back to 2012 when the BJP polled just around 17 percent, winning 10 seats.

In 2nd phase, all depends on how BJP manages to split Muslim votes

Maximum voting was reported from Saharanpur and Bareilly at 11 per cent each, followed by Rampur (nine per cent) and Amroha (7.4 per cent).

Excited first time voters, newly weds, elderly, differently-abled and women queued up outside the polling stations to cast their votes at 7 a.m.

Brisk voting is reported in the first two hours of polling in the second phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections on Wednesday.

A confident Azam Khan, the SP minister, tells Aaj Tak in an interview that Muslims will be firmly behind his party. This phase is crucial for Samajwadi Party which won 34 of 67 seats in 2012 and is under pressure to do an encore. The BJP had got 10 seats during last assembly elections and BSP, 11. Till 9 am, 10.69 percent ballots have been cast in Uttar Pradesh.

Azam Khan invokes Gujarat while tackling Narendra Modi's charge that police stations in Rampur, his constituency, have become Samajwadi Party's offices.

Second phase: Tussle between BSP and SP-Congress alliance; Azam Khan confident Muslim voters will back him

Five, the BJP's performance this time wouldn't be as good as 2014. Well, these could be true of the whole of UP as well. In any case, these don't give you an idea on which the way voters are going to swing this time.

Four, local equations will override other considerations in the elections; and

One, Akhilesh Yadav is not someone who is disliked much, both as a person and a politician;

In Bijnor, you dont catch the election mood by speaking to a few people. Most are evasive when they sense a politically-inclined question. The ones who open up are most likely to be sympathisers of one party or the other. However, talking to a cross-section of people here you get to understand a few things:

Facts from Bijnor that holds true for the whole of Uttar Pradesh: SP-Congress alliance a good idea and demonetisation doesn't matter

"My battle is with Azam Khan and not his son. In terms of funding, the chief minister has sent crores worth of funds to the Mohammad Ali Jauhar University, which Azam Khan is the chancellor of. The money hasnt been used for the upliftment of the people of Rampur."

His success, whatever it be, votes or seats, means loss to SP. So far Muslim politics and Muslim voting preference in the state has so far been split between SP and BSP. The BSP has fielded 100 Muslim candidates with SP closely following that number but the fact remains that no party with Muslim leadership at the top, formed with purpose to cater Muslim interests has so far electorally succeeded. Can Owaisi make that exception? His speeches have been fiery, making the crowd lustily cheer for him but can he turn that personal appeal in votes?

For the first time Owasi is trying his luck here and has fielded 40 candidates from AIMIM symbol. Owaisi and erstwhile Congress ally in Andhra Pradesh and also at the centre during UPA regime had surprised all by opening account in Maharastra assembly election and making substantive gains in civic bodies polls. He, however, had failed in Bihar assembly elections because his party was seen as a vote spoiler. Uttar Pradesh is a big test for him. In his public rallies in Uttar Pradesh, he has pulled fierce punches on Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati. BJP is his favourite punching bag.

This round of election spread across electorally Muslim-dominated areas of Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Sambhal, Rampur, Amroha where community presence vary between 30 percent to 65 percent will decide whether Hyderabad based Assaduddin Owasi's AIMIM can spread its political influence outside of Telangana and make a mark in Hindi heartland.

Here is a look at the key electoral issues in Uttar Pradesh.

Is caste the standalone factor that swings the electoral outcome in Uttar Pradesh or the recent tune of development sung by SP-Congress combine and the BJP resonating with the voters.

With a Muslim electorate of over 65 percent all mainstream parties have chosen to field leader from the same community. SP's Iqbal Mehmood is sitting MLA and is considered a very strong candidate. He has for long been a challenger to Barq's dominance in the region. Presence of Mayawati's BSP candidate Rafatulla has further spiced up polls.

He has roped in a hugely influential a four-time MP Shafiqur Rehman Barq to his party. Barq is now 86 and has chosen his young grandson Ziaur Rahman Barq to be AIMIM candidate. If AIMIM has a chance to open an account in UP then Sambhal needs to be watched. It's a tough electoral battle.

Enter Sambhal and you will soon realise Asaduddin Owasi and his men mean business.

Key to Owaisi's expansion plans for UP is an 86-year-old in Sambhal

But that is not the case. The electoral chemistry of the national election is vastly different from the state assembly polls. In 2014 elections, Narendra Modi rode on a wave of high expectation and an outright rejection of a government perceived to be led by a weakest-ever prime minister. The groundswell of support transcended the caste-barriers in a decisive manner for Modi. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

Not let us examine the reasons why this election is one of the rarest political event in the life of the country's most populous state. Conventional wisdom has it that the party which gets overwhelming mandate only two-and-a-half years back in 2014 Lok Sabha election should have edge over others. By this logic, the BJP should have been choice for the electorate in the state assembly election.

Conventional wisdom often guides elections. But rarely does an election turn conventional wisdom on its head. A cursory glance at the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election 2017 would leave no one in doubt that this election would fall into the category of 'rarest of rare' elections.

In 2002, women won 11 of 314 seats (3.5 percent) for general-category candidates, and 15 of 89 seats (16.9 percent) reserved for SCs. By 2012, women won 22 of 318 general seats (6.9 percent) and 13 of 85 reserved seats (15.3 percent). So, women contesting from scheduled-caste seats had a more than double chance of winning.

The BSP chief's move was to tell voters that such a thing will never be repeated in past. She has gone out of her way to attack BJP, calling the debate around triple talaq part of nefarious RSS agenda.

To counter her tactic of fielding an unprecedented 99 Muslim candidates, Akhilesh Yadav therefore has been going around telling voters that Mayawati can't be trusted since her party has allied with "communal" BJP three times in past.

In Kanpur on Tuesday BSP chief Mayawati was at pains to distance herself from BJP, insisting that she will never join hands with the "Dalit basher" party. Mayawati's predicament is understandable. To return to power she must ensure Dalit votes are consolidated and a sizeable portion of Muslim votes are weaned away from the Samajwadi Party.

Mayawati distancing herself from 'Dalit basher BJP': BSP chief's move is most obvious and necessary

Speaking to the media after casting his vote Duniyapur says the foundation of the Ram Rajya in Uttar Pradesh will be laid in Rampur. He adds that all parties in Uttar Pradesh are against the BJP. He is confident that the BJP will come to power in full majority in the state and that people will vote against poor governance and corruption.

Though Lucknow had familiarised itself with Iranian cultural traditions due to Shia's influence, Rampur borrowed its cultural traits from Mughals of Delhi. As this constituency goes for polls, the electorate gets divided on intense communal lines. However in reality Rampur has a rich cultural heritage which has much more to celebrate about than acrimony.

Historically Pathans from Afghanistan found a shelter in picturesque land of Ruhilkhand. Apar from Lucknow, Rampur emerged as another centre of excellence of Nawabi culture of Uttar Pradesh.

Rampur, a township known as bastion of Samajwadi Party's loudmouth Azam khan, is also known as land of khans.

The BJP is expecting benefits from counter pollination which may happen in the second half of the polls.

Similarly, voters registered a significant turnout in Saharanpur and Pilibhit. This round of polls seem to be going in favor of the SP because of demographic profile of the region that comprises Muslim-Yadav as significant social chunk. In certain pockets where scheduled caste voters are higher in number, Muslims are looking for BSP as an option. But that is very rare as the SP-Congress enjoys a solid support base.

Initial turnout in Budaun, Saharanpur, Bareilly and Shahjahanpur do indicate that Muslim voters have come out in large numbers in the morning. For instance in Budaun there are reports of 25 percent polls that suggest large turnout of Mulim-Yadav voters in support of the Samajwadi Party.

Initial turnout indicate Muslim voters have come out in large numbers

As Uttar Pradesh votes to choose its Legislative Assembly, BJP hopes to repeat its 2014 sweep victory riding on a Modi wave once again. The Akhilesh camp on the other hand managed to bag the majority in the 2012 Assembly polls. If a party's past performance tells us anythig, it's that in state elections swing votes ensure that its a close call between the key parties. Here is a look back at the previous performances of all the parties in UP.

UP Polls: A look at the previous performance of key players in the state

If the votes are divided then its advantage BJP, says Satish Prakash, Dalit activist. With as many as 34 of the 67 seats under its belt last time, the SP would expect a better show. It has the Congress votes with it now. The BSP, on the other hand, has announced its candidates much earlier and cultivated the constituencies well. The BJP would be happy if the alliance and the BSP shared the Muslim votes equally.

Which way will the Muslim votes swing? On this question rests the fate of parties in Uttar Pradesh. As voters in the Muslim heavy constituencies queue up at the booths today the suspense would be around whether they have voted for the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance or the BSP.

Why the BJP would like Muslim votes to be shared equally by BSP and the SP-Cong alliance

Official sources said polling was dull initially but picked up as the day wore on. They said till midday there was no report of any untoward incident and polling was going on smoothly.

Over 25 percent of the electorate cast their votes till noon in the second phase polling in Uttar Pradesh. In the second of seven-phase election, 2.28 crore voters, including over 1.04 crore women, are eligible to cast their ballots in 14,771 polling centres and 23,693 polling stations.

It reminds the imams that it is their "special responsibility" to use mosques and make the millat (the global Muslim nation) aware of the current conditions and ensure that Muslims know that voting is a democratic right as well as a shar'i fareeza (Islamic religious duty). While the appeal does not say which party to vote against, it urges the imams and others to go to areas where Muslim candidates are in the fray against other Muslim candidates, and explain the situation to the voters to exercise their vote unitedly, presumably against the BJP.

On the second-phase polling in Uttar Pradesh, the Urdu-language daily Roznama Inquilab carries a frontpage appeal by some Muslims titled: "Respectful appeal to the imams of mosque." The two-column appeal reads: "The country's fascist forces, under their eternal projects, are conspiring to make Muslims second- and third-grade citizens, and are engaged in targeting the dear country's biggest minority by adopting new, new tactics. And surely, you are no less concerned about these situations."

One argument I have not understood but most experts say is that Indian Muslims are voting the BJP, which is correct to some extent within Gujarat but it's not proven elsewhere. Khalid feels that Muslims indeed are voting the BJP but he says that they do not proclaim it publicly. "Within the community, such BJP voters are shamed by clerics and elders and therefore they do not reveal. So, one cannot detect such votes publicly," he explains. Perhaps in times to come, Muslims will vote for the BJP, but the party has not given tickets to any Muslim candidate in UP elections.

A day before the first phase of UP polls on 11 February, Roznama Inquilab had carried a frontpage headline: "UP  First phase polling, Musalmanon ka Imtehan (Test for Muslims)." A few days ago in Aligarh, I asked Urdu journalist Hasan Khalid how will Muslims perceive if Hindi newspapers gave such a headline saying elections are a "test for Hindus." Khalid criticises such headlines in the Urdu media and argues that if one has to be so, it must only be: "voters ka Imtehan."

It also carries some reports expressing concern that the division of Muslim votes, notably in Pratapgarh region, could hurt secular forces. Roznama Sahafat, another Urdu daily, carries a whole front-page report in favour of Azam Khan, and it's not presented as kind of advert. Statements of Muslim elders such as Chaudhary Munawwar Saleem are given on the entire page to ensure Azam Khan's victory, but there have been occasions where his political rallies faced disruptions in Rampur.

To assure Muslims that the BSP will not support the BJP in UP after the elections, Mayawati's statement "Willing to sit in opposition but no alliance with BJP (after the elections)" is a front-page headline in Urdu daily Roznama Akhbar-e-Mashriq on 15 February, as the UP goes to second-phase polling.

Such pure rumours worked against the BJP in Bihar elections. Uttar Pradesh elections have seen mobilisation of Muslim voters against the BJP and in support of the SP-Congress alliance and to some extent for BSP.

During Bihar Assembly elections, I heard actual reports that even rumours played a consequential role in defeating the BJP. In rural areas, poor Muslim women were convinced by Islamic clerics and local opinion makers to offer prayers for the victory of Nitish Kumar. They were told that "Modi will demolish mosques."

Modi was effectively urging the voters to rise above caste, community and identity fault lines with a strong dose of nationalism arising out of the achievements of scientists.

Narendra Modi began his rally in Kannauj by congratulating Isro scientists for launching 104 satellites in one go earlier in the day. Constantly invoking their success during his speech, the Prime Minister asked the sizeable crowd to raise their voice to laud the scientists' effort in which 101 were foreign satellites were launched and only 3 were Indian.

Modi uses Isro success to punch in strong dose of nationalism in Kannauj rally

The sugar mills feel their business is unsustainable in view of falling sugar prices. Some have threatened to die but they cannot do so under the law. Akhilesh has just made things more difficult for them by increasing the State Advisory Price for sugarcane to Rs 305. The BJP promises a loan waiver and payment to farmers within 14 days of delivery. But on the ground, its not a big talking point. Interesting.

In the sugarcane zone of Uttar Pradesh theres not much talk on plight of cane farmers. Not all is hunky-dory with the sugarcane industry here. Farmers have been complaining about rising arrears in payment from the sugar mills.

Was it really a paradigm shift in voter behaviour? Was 2014 the year of enlightenment for Indian voters who suddenly realised that they had been taken for a merry ride by politicians in the name of caste and community equations? Were they eschewing identity politics and its trappings?

Writing for EPW, A K Verma analysed BJP's victory as "it is significant that the party made electoral gains across all castes and communities and across all regions in the state. This victory signalled a paradigm shift in voter behaviour, with a preference for good governance and development pushing out the identity politics of caste and community."

The result was stunning. In Uttar Pradesh alone, BJP won 71 out of 80 seats. Dalits abandoned Mayawati and voted in droves for BJP's PM candidate. AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal ran a campaign of anger. Modi defeated him in Varanasi by a huge margin.

It was a remarkable spectacle in 2014. While BJP's rivals, especially in the Hindi heartland, were busy slicing and dicing data on caste equations, PM-aspirant Narendra Modi was telling rally after rally of packed audiences how he will bring achhe din. The more his rivals asked the electorate not to trust him, the more Modi talked about development. The opposition called him a 'polarising figure who will usher in riots', Modi said he will usher in vikaas.

How Modi's campaign changed dramatically and what it says about BJP's chances

The underlying purpose behind the alliance between Akhilesh Yadav led Samajwadi Party and Sonia-Rahul Gandhi led Congress party was consolidation of Muslim votes for the combine. Akhilesh Yadav on several occasion has said there was a confusion among some people about Samajwadi's prospects to return to power but after a tie-up with Congress that confusion is gone. If SP-Congress has to come to power, it needs to sweep this phase. In 2012 elections SP had won 35 of 67 seats, Congress 3, BSP 18 and BJP had won 10, one seat had gone to Independent. The BJP is banking on some split in Muslim votes between SP-BSP and AIMIM. The BJP is also looking for a situation where aggressive polling by Muslim community members could consolidate Hindutava votes in its favor. Latent Hindutava sentiment is there in sections of Hindu voters but the key question is how much of that is translating into votes. The BSP has fielded some strong candidates on the ground. The party has also got a number of influential Muslim clerics and community groups to issue appeal in its favor. Despite Supreme Court order, Mayawati has been openly talking of importance of Muslim votes. Will that yield dividend to her. As it is she has solid backing of Dalits, particularly Jatavas. Polling by noon has shown that polling percentage could go up in this phase, at least as compared to phase one. There lies the catch for all three mainstream contenders SP-Congress, BJP and BSP.

This phase of election is supremely important for the SP-Congress combine as majority of the 67 seats where the polling process is underway has overwhelming Muslim population.

Sweeping phase two election crucial for SP to justify its alliance with Congerss

Picking up BJP's clean sweep in Uttar Pradesh where the party won all three seats of graduate MLC seats in Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Bareilly this month, Narendra Modi during his election rally in Kannauj on Wednesday taunted the SP-Congress alliance by asking, "UP ko yeh saath pasand kyon nahin aya"? (Why did the UP voters show thumbs down to SP-Congress alliance). The taunt was a spin on the alliance partners' campaign slogan. The PM also mentioned BJP's good result in Odisha panchayat polls and interpreted it as the poor endorsing demonetisation despite Opposition slander.

With elections for the 403-seat Uttar Pradesh assembly underway, even sale of liquor has fallen, partly because of strictures from the Election Commission.

The Excise Department, the cash cow, has also taken a beating in revenue collection. An official said that as against a target of Rs 1,443 crore in December, the collection was down at Rs 1,345 crore.

While it earned Rs 4,494 crore in tax in November, the collection slipped in December and is set to go down further in January and February due to engagement of employees and officials in election duty.

The Sales Tax Department, an official told IANS, has seen a drop in collections in the past three months.

Officials in the concerned departments fear that the revenue targets for the current fiscal might take a knock of 25-30 per cent.

Uttar Pradesh's revenue has taken a big hit  first due to demonetisation and now because most government employees are out on election duty.

Modi says those sitting in Delhi cannot gauge the extent of damage at Barabanki

The once powerful Shivpal Yadav is a pale shadow of himself after the knock-out blow from nephew Akhilesh. Patriarch Mulayam Singh is a much subdued man these days, preferring to be away from the limelight. Some other members of the family are still in the process of adjusting to the generational shift in the party. The Yadav community has stood by Mulayam for over two decades but this time its a bit confused after the coup by Akhilesh which many perceive as an insult to Mulayam.

In Uttar Pradeshs heartland, where the election enters phase three, the debate is not whether the Yadav dominance in their stronghold would continue, its how the bitter power struggle in the Yadav first family would impact the prospect of individual members in the fray.

Akhilesh Yadav. ReutersAkhilesh Yadav. Reuters In the 2012 Assembly polls, SP had won 55 of these 69 seats, while BSP, BJP and Congress secured just 6, 5 and 2 respectively. One seat went to an Independent.

Curtains will come down on Friday on the hectic campaign in 69 Assembly seats spread over 12 districts of Uttar Pradesh that will go to polls in the third phase on 19 February. The districts are Farrukhabad, Hardoi, Kannauj, Mainpuri, Etawah, Auraiya, Kanpur Dehat, Kanpur, Unnao, Lucknow, Barabanki and Sitapur.

Campaign for 3rd phase ends on Friday, 12 districts go to polls on 19 February

"Akhilesh says that their party has changed over the years but the goons are still there within the party. Three people have been engaged in spreading corruption in the country and now these people have tied up in an alliance to loot Uttar Pradesh."

"What has this family given you? There are problems for farmers while law and order machinery in the state has collapsed. There is acute shortage of water and medicines. What has this state government done for you?" he asked.

He asked the voters to shun dynastic and caste-based politics, noting that everything in the state veered around one family.

Two families have entered into an unholy alliance. Initially, people were affected by one shahzada (prince), now it is two. One shahzada is giving pain to his mother, the other to his father," he said, attacking Rahul and Akhilesh, who had a bitter feud with his father Mulayam Singh Yadav over the control over SP.

UP election is a way to end caste and family politics, says Shah at Amethi rally. Congress-SP alliance is immoral, he adds.

Sitting UP minister Vijay Mishra joins Mayawati's party dealing a fresh blow to Akhilesh. Vijay goes on to call Samajwadi Party Anti-Brahmin while Mayawati, all confident, says that Uttar Pradesh will punish Akhilesh for running goonda raj in state.

The killing spree started with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by RSS. We are Gandhians from the core of our heart and firm believer of non-violence," AICC General Secretary and in-charge of party affairs in Uttar Pradesh Ghulam Nabi Azad told a news conference here.

Congress on Thursday dismissed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's charge that the party had made a bid on Mulayam Singh Yadav's life, saying the word 'murder' was synonymous with Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah. "The word 'murder' is synonymous with Modi and (Amit) Shah.

Irani had said on Thursday that Priyanka Gandhi was avoiding canvassing in Amethi because she was afraid of people's questions on their unfulfilled promises.

After Smriti Irani took on Priyanka Gandhi for not addressing a single rally in Amethi, Priyanka has finally entered the poll limelight as she appeared at a Congress rally in Raebareli, flanked by her brother Rahul Gandhi.

The apex court has also sought a status report from the UP police within a period of eight weeks.

The Supreme Court ordered the registration of an FIR against UP minister Gayatri Prajapati in a gang rape and sexual harassment case against him. The bench hearing the case observed that the state machinery could not go slow on a accused just because he was an influential leader in the state.

Poll panel officials said they hope that more and more people will come out to vote this time and that the previous turnout of 59.96 per cent in this region in 2012 will be bettered by the end of the day.

Voting for 69 seats in the third phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections began on Sunday amid tight security. Heavy security deployment has been made across the 12 districts where polling began. Sensitive polling stations marked by the Election Commission (EC) are being monitored online, an official said.

Officials hope third phase turnout will be better than the second phase's 59.96%

In this round, all eyes are on people from the Yadav clan, like Shivpal Singh Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav's cousin Anurag Yadav. The fate of BJP's Rita Bahuguna Joshi will also be decided in this round.

In all, there are 826 candidates in fray whose fate would be decided by 2.41 crore voters. Prominent districts where polling is underway include Lucknow, Kanpur, Etawah, Kannauj, Etah and Mainpuri.

BSP has fielded Yogesh Dixit, who is trying to woo voters by promising good governance by party supremo Mayawati.

The SP candidates include Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav and three ministers, one of whom was recently sacked. BJP has preferred to field turncoats on two seats  Lucknow Central and Lucknow Cantt. Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who had won on Congress ticket last time, has been fielded by BJP from Cantt seat against Aparna.

Ruling Samajwadi Party is facing a tough battle as it tries to retain the seven Assembly seats it had won last time out of nine in Lucknow, while BJP and BSP queer the pitch. The two other seats were shared by BJP and Congress.

Lucknow Central is also witnessing a keen contest, where sitting SP MLA and cabinet minister Ravidas Mehrotra is facing an uphill task with Congress candidate Maroof Khan refusing to withdraw from the field despite a tie-up between the two parties. BJP has given ticket to former MP Brijesh Pathak, a fromer Lucknow University student union president, who switched from BSP.

However, this time the situation for SP is difficult with its MLA Sharda Prasad Shukla contesting on RLD ticket after being spurned by the party.

An interesting contest is on in Sarojini Nagar seat, where BJP's woman face and state women wing chief Swati Singh is in fray. BJP has never won the seat.

The driver gives it a thought, stifles a smile and nods in agreement.

Who would like to be seen in the vicinity of the clinic and be branded a naamard? Its a society where everyone knows everyone. And word spreads fast. Salacious words move faster. I doubt whether even other patients go to the clinic that day.

Do you think these doctors do any business on Tuesdays? I ask the driver, a native of Uttar Pradesh, adding, I dont think so. He is a bit perplexed: Why?

One wise doctor has fixed a weekday for each category of patients for consultation. Naamards on Mangalbar (impotents on Tuesday), reads the information on one wall. Somewhere else Thursday is the day for those with the problem of early ejaculation. Something strikes you as odd.

On the road through the Yadav zone in Uttar Pradesh which goes to polls today, theres no escaping gupt rog. On the ubiquitous long brick walls amid green fields on both sides you find the mention of gupt rog and the doctor in loud white. In fact, this crude advertisement easily outnumbers those of the candidates in the elections.

Most voters are unable to say with confidence which party might form the next government in Lucknow. Will this election result in a hung assembly? This too cannot be said with certainty, as a shift of just about three percent votes could result in a clear majority for a single party.

Except for the Jat voters, the BJP voters have largely stayed with the party. BJP might be enjoying some silent polarisation in its favour. However, talking to people in western UP, it didn't appear that there was any wave in favour of any party. This may change in eastern UP.

During the first two phases of polling which covered western Uttar Pradesh, some division was seen in the Muslim votes. While most Muslim votes went for the Samajwadi Party, the BSP too seems to have received a fair share of Muslim votes. There is effectively a three-cornered contest across Uttar Pradesh.

BJP might have enjoyed silent polarisation in western UP but that changes in eastern UP

The constituency comprises city area considered stronghold of BJP and in 2012 polls BJP's Bora lost by a narrow margin of 2,219 votes to Mishra.

Lucknow North is witnessing a contest between state minister and SP candidate Abhishek Mishra and BJP's Neeraj Bora, while BSP has fielded former NSUI leader Ajay Srivastava this time, making it a three-cornered fight.

The Urdu daily Roznama Inquilab on 17 February also carried a five-column report from Barabanki quoting several Islamic clerics and local elders saying that appeals made by Muslim leaders to vote for a certain party has confused Muslim voters. Muhammad Yunus Khan, who works for educational uplift of Muslims, is quoted in the report as saying that there is awareness among Muslims as to which party to vote for.

Haseeb Ahmad Nizami of the Lucknow-based social organisation Bharatiya Aqaliyat Mahasabha who criticised such appeals for Muslim votes says that Muslims are aware of which party to vote for or not to vote, according to a report in the Urdu daily Akhbar-e-Mashriq on 16 February.

Some resentment is being seen in the Muslim community against appeals made by various leaders for Muslim minority votes. This may not be consequential but there is a realisation that political leaders use Muslims at the time of elections and forget the community after the vote.

"I urge everyone to cast their important vote in the third phase of Uttar Pradesh voting. After the first two phases, I can confidently say that even in third phase BSP will lead all the parties as far as votes are concerned. In fact, in all the remaining phases as well BSP will come out as a winner. And I can positively say that BSP will form a government on its own, without anyone's assistance or any uncomfortable alliance. Uttar Pradesh needs change, it is looking for development. BJP has been tested and the same goes for Samajwadi Party  the voters have decided."

At another place close to Kanpur, you get ghanghor thandi beer. It does not surprise anymore.

Perhaps its a case of overdoing things. The owner of the shop wanted extra emphasis on the chill factor and came up with this adjective. Well, cannot say it does not attract attention. If it didnt, why would one be discussing it in the first place?

We know chilled beer. We can forgive the lapse on the sign board writers part when he mentions it as child beer. After all, beer is what matters in the end. But what, pray, is bhayankar thandi beer? On the road from Meerut to Kanpur one comes across this on a sign board and pauses for a few minutes to grasp the meaning of the words in combination. Thandi is for cold alright and beer needs no explaining. What is bhayankar doing here?

The polling percentage so far, with exception of Noida, has been very good. That is a clear indicator that voters in large numbers from all communities are coming out to vote. READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

An excessive reliance of the SP-Congress coalition to woo Muslims has given rise to latent Hindutva sentiments across the state. The strategists perhaps erred in calculating the Muslims vote but they are not the only ones who vote. Mayawati too has erred on the same count. Scratch a bit and Hindutva sentiments of non-Yadav and non-Jatav community would come out to the fore. The situation may not be that of 2014 but this factor is certainly there on the ground and that could significantly tilt the balance for BJP.

Its true that there are no obvious signs of anti-incumbency against Akhilesh Yadav but the endorsement sentiments to bring the incumbent back to power is clearly missing.

Winds of change could be blowing in Uttar Pradesh. Ahead of the third phase of polling in this most populous and politically crucial Hindi heartland state, there are signs on the ground that Samajwadi Party-Congress coalition, Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadavs pre-poll catchphrase UP ko ye saath pasand hai is not striking the desired cord among the numbers of voters required to catapult them to power.

Long queues have been seen in Lucknow, Kanpur and Etawah where people went early morning to cast their votes. Lucknow, which is generally less excited about exercising franchise, has also witnessed long queues outside polling stations.

The Modi-versus-Akhilesh debate has dominated the election scenario in Awadh, which could turn out to be a make-or-break region for both parties. Modi, who is the BJPs strongest vote-puller in a battle without a chief ministerial face, underlined the fact that he was an MP from the state and described himself as UPs adopted son.

Brisk voting has been reported from most of the 69 assembly seats which are going to polls on Sunday in the third phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections.

Awadh: With Modi vs Akhilesh debate dominating election talk, it could be a make-or-break region

Prominent persons who voted here included Rita Bahuguna Joshi, former state Congress President and currently the BJP candidate from Lucknow Cantt seat.

Large crowds swarmed polling stations in Indiranagar, Gomtinagar, Aliganj Chowk in the old city and Aashiana. Many voters were out early morning so that they do not have to wait in long queues later in the day.

In this region, the competition is between the father and the son. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that Akhilesh Yadav is being seen as tanashah (dictator), as one person told me. However, it seems to be more of a social case. In Indian society, people generally favour the father in any clash with his son.

The third-phase polling today covers Etawah and nearby constituencies which are considered a stronghold of Mulayam Singh Yadav. However, the recent clash between Mulayam Singh and his son Akhilesh Yadav has caused resentment among the voters in this region.

The black patches could well be heartbreaks, externalised and painted in colour for public viewing. These frustrated aspiring candidates could damage the prospect of running candidates in the Samajwadi Party dominated region through silent sabotage acts.

Some of them had started campaigning already anticipating party tickets. The names had to be removed from the walls to avoid confusion among voters about the candidates.

The huge, ugly black patches on many walls in the fields on both sides of the road (from Meerut to Kanpur) tell you that someone has done a shoddy job. Look carefully, and try to find what the dark patches are trying to cover. You get the Congress' campaign theme before it entered into an alliance with the Samajwadi Party: '27 saal UP behaal' and you get names of Congress and Samajwadi Party aspirants who didn't finally get the ticket or lost out due to the alliance.

The Bhojpuri actor, who formally was a Congress candidate and contested election in Uttar Pradesh's Jaunpur in 2014, is all set to join the BJP. The announcement was done by BJP MP Manoj Tiwari.

If rumours are anything to go by he would damage the prospect of the Samajwadi Party in some seats in the Yadav belt. He would ensure that the strike rate of the party goes down by several points. It was 80 percent  and 55 seats  last time. He would not mind playing the BJP's game. Mulayam Singh is still with him but his relationship with Akhilesh remains frosty. Wait for a new episode in the family drama after the results are out.

Never underestimate the man outdone in a power game. He could have been pushed to the fringes of the Samajwadi Party by Akhilesh and ploughing a lonely furrow in his Jaswant Nagar assembly constituency at the moment, but Shivpal Yadav remains a dangerous man for Akhilesh.

Akhilesh's alliance partner Rahul Gandhi's Congress has had no presence in the region. The only seat that Congress had won in 2012 was of Rita Bahuguna Joshi in Lucknow Cantt. But Joshi is now part of the BJP. Heavy voter turnout since morning in this phase could cut both ways, depending on voters mood  pro-incumbency, favouring incumbent or anti-incumbency favouring challenger.

The fact that in last five days Akhilesh Yadav had extensively campaigned in areas which are considered to be family stronghold is indicative of the fact that he can't be complacent about the outcome. His wife Dimple Yadav, after appearing to be a tentative campaigner and reluctant public speaker too is campaigning for the party.

But each election has its own different dynamics. In 2012, Akhilesh Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Shivpal Yadav were one force, in 2017 not so much. The schism within Yadav clan has resulted in emergence of multiple forces. Also, in 2012 Samajwadi Party was a challenger and in 2017 Samajwadi Party is ruling party.

Ideally, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav should have been sitting comfortably ahead of phase three polling which is currently underway in 69 constituencies of Uttar Pradesh. In 2012, Samajwadi Party had swept the polls, winning 54 seats in 12 districts spread over in Yadav bastion of Etawah, Mainpuri, Kannauj, Farrukhabad, Auraiah and so on.

But in 2012 Assembly elections, seven Samajwadi Party legislatures were elected of the nine assembly seats here. The young vote would be pivotal.

A crucial constituency where BJP and SP both see the potential to gain from here. Atal Bihari V
By Makini Brice

| PORT-AU-PRINCE

PORT-AU-PRINCE John Stevens Val borrowed $3,000 from friends and family and trekked through 10 countries to make his way to the United States, where he hoped life would be better than in Haiti, his impoverished homeland.But in the end he landed in a U.S. immigration detention centre and was deported back to Haiti, deep in debt and struggling to integrate, like so many other Haitians. Val, 28, left home after a devastating 2010 earthquake that wrecked the economy of the Caribbean nation, the poorest in the Western hemisphere. He worked in Brazil at a supermarket for about two years until a crash in Latin America's biggest economy led him to pack his bags again.After gathering the cash, he made his way via, plane, boat, three days of walking through forests, and a dozen buses before reaching Arizona.For seven years after the quake, U.S. policy protected Haitians from deportation unless they were convicted of a serious crime or posed a national security threat. Encouraged by the policy, between October 2015 and December 2016, more than 13,500 Haitians like Val made the perilous trip, up from just a few hundred in the previous year.In September, in response to the surge in Haitian immigrants, the United States restarted deportation flights for newly arrived Haitians who do not have a case for seeking asylum.More Haitians arrived late last year, with more than 7,000 crossing the border between October and December alone, creating a backlog that will take months for the new administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to clear.

For Val, who was still en route through South America when the shift occurred, the new policy came as a huge shock."You lose all of your money and now you do not even succeed," said Val, sitting in the library of non-profit organisation, the Jesuit Service for Migrants. Back in a country with 40 percent unemployment, Val was worried."It's not easy to live in Haiti. It's complicated. There is no aid; there is no organisation that can help us in one way or the other. We're here. We live poorly," Val said.To make things worse, shortly after deportations resumed, Category-4 Hurricane Matthew trashed Haitis southwest.

TEARS AND ANGER

After one flight carrying some of the first Haitians to be repatriated arrived a few weeks ago, some of the 60 passengers sobbed, while others looked furious, clinging to grey sweatshirts issued in the U.S. detention centres.They spent a lot of money. It's like a broken dream. They left thinking they would stay 20, 30, 40 years or never return, said Adelson Lorgeat, the technical and research director for Haitis National Office of Migration. They consider it to be a dishonour, a defeat.

Lorgeat advises deportees at Port-au-Prince airport but said the office did not have funds to provide additional support.In November, of some 40,000 people in immigration detention, more than 4,400 were Haitians, according to the then U.S. secretary of homeland security, Jeh Johnson.Between October 2016 and Jan. 16, 2017, 1,513 Haitians were deported, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said. As of Jan. 16, 4,060 were in U.S. detention, an indication more are crossing from Mexico, where even more are massed on the border.Val said he had not ruled out leaving Haiti once more for different shores, if he had the money.If I dont have any opportunities, Ill leave, he said. (Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Leslie Adler)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Combining public bluster with behind-the-scenes diplomacy, China wrested a concession from the United States as the two presidents spoke for the first time this week, but Beijing may not be able to derive much comfort from the win on US policy towards Taiwan.

Several areas of disagreement between the superpowers, including currency, trade, the South China Sea and North Korea, were not mentioned in public statements on Thursday's telephone conversation between Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. In getting Trump to change course on the "one China" policy, Beijing may have overplayed its hand.

Trump had upset Beijing before he took office by taking a call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, then casting doubt on the "one China" policy, under which Washington acknowledges the Chinese position that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of it.

Trump changed tack and agreed to honour the "one China" policy during the call, prompting jubilation in China. Beijing had been working on diplomatic ways to engage Trump's team and largely blaming Taiwan for stirring things up.

Laying the foundation for that call had been the low-key engagement of China's former ambassador to Washington and top diplomat, the urbane and fluent English-speaking Yang Jiechi, with Trump's national security adviser Michael Flynn.

"China was pragmatic and patient. It made every effort to smooth out the relationship, and it paid off," said Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, who has advised the government on foreign policy.

But China also made very clear Taiwan was not up for negotiation, unleashing state media to threaten war and punishment for US firms if that bottom line was breached.

China has long described self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by Beijing as its sacred territory, as the most sensitive issue in Sino-US relations.

Its military had become alarmed after the Trump-Tsai call and was considering strong measures to prevent the island from moving toward independence, sources with ties to senior military officers has said in December.

A source familiar with China's thinking on relations with the United States, speaking last month, said China had actually not been too bothered with Trump's Taiwan comments before he took office as he was not president then and was only expressing his personal view.

"If he continues with this once he becomes president then there's no saying what we'll do," the source said.

Tsai's chilled heart

Despite the US concession, military tensions remain.

On Saturday, the overseas edition of the ruling Communist Party's People's Daily placed a picture on its front page of Chinese warships about to embark on a new round of drills in the South China Sea, right next to an upbeat commentary about the Xi-Trump call.

The paper's WeChat account took a harsher line, saying that with Trump getting back with the programme on "one China", Taiwan had better watch out.

"The heart of that Madame Tsai on the other side of the Taiwan Strait must at this moment be chilled to the core," it said.

One senior Western diplomat said China had been redoubling its efforts to win over the Vatican, one of a handful of countries to retain official ties with Taiwan.

Taiwan says it hopes for continued US support, and one ruling Democratic Progressive Party official told Reuters that the "one China" policy had not affected previous US arms sales to Taiwan, even as US presidents' commitment to the island have waxed and waned.

Xi has put great personal political capital into seeking a solution over Taiwan, an issue that has festered since 1949 when defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island after losing the civil war to the Communists. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.

But in its relations with Washington, the risk for Beijing remains that its diplomatic win over "one China" will be short lived, as Trump will not want to be seen as having caved in.

"What he's shown the Chinese is he's willing to touch the 'third rail' of U.S.-China relations," said Dean Cheng, China expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.

"Beijing can't predict what he'll do next  and he's only been in office three weeks. What is he going to do on trade and other economic issues?"

US officials said the affirmation of the "one China" policy was an effort to get the relationship back on track and moving forward.

But Trump's change of tack may be seen by Beijing as a climbdown, said Tom Rafferty, the China Regional Manager for the Economist Intelligence Unit.

"Mr Trump is erratic and will not appreciate the suggestion that he has been weak."
China has expelled 32 South Korean Christian missionaries, a Korean government official said on Saturday, amid diplomatic tension between the two countries over the planned deployment of a US missile defence system in the South.

The 32 were based in China's north-eastern Yanji region near the border with North Korea, many of whom had worked there more than a decade, South Korean media have reported.

South Korea's foreign ministry said on Friday it briefed Christian groups on the case of the missionaries, adding that they were expelled in January.

The ministry advised the groups on the importance of complying with the laws and customs of the areas where they work, it said.

In South Korea, China is widely believed to be retaliating against Seoul's plan to host the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system of the US military, against the threat of the missile attack from North Korea.

But there was no indication of a direct link between the expulsions and tension over THAAD, said the South Korean government official, who requested anonymity.

"There was no official explanation from China," he said. "There is no confirmation that it is related to THAAD."

China's Communist Party says it protects freedom of religion, but keeps a tight rein on religious activities and allows only officially recognised religious institutions.

The number of Korean missionaries working in China might top 1,000, South Korean media say. Most are in the northeast, and many help defectors flee North Korea and travel to third countries, including the South.

THAAD's radar is capable of penetrating Chinese territory. Beijing has objected to the planned deployment, saying it will destabilise the regional balance of security, threaten China's security and do nothing to ease tension on the Korean peninsula.

Many South Koreans believe Beijing is retaliating against THAAD, with measures against some companies and cancellations of performances by Korean artists.

On Wednesday, South Korea's Lotte Group said Chinese authorities had halted construction at a multi-billion dollar real estate project after a fire inspection.
DUBAI Iranian security forces have arrested eight hardline Sunni Islamists suspected of planning attacks to disrupt celebrations for Iran's Islamic revolution in the past week, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said on Saturday.Alavi said the eight were "Takfiri" foreigners, some of whom were linked to a "Takfiri" leader who had been killed in Iran, IRNA reported. He did not give details of which countries they were from."Takfiri" is a word used by predominantly Shi'ite Muslim Iran to refer to hardline, armed, Sunni Islamist groups."Initial information indicates that Kalashnikovs and other equipment were obtained to carry out terrorist operations ... in Tehran and several other cities under the direct guidance of persons based in neighbouring countries," Alavi was quoted by the state news agency IRNA as saying.In August, Alavi said the leader of a Sunni militant group in southeast Iran responsible for attacks against security forces and civilian targets has been killed, although it was not immediately clear if he was person he suspected those arrested of being linked to.

Although Alavi did not identify which country Iran suspected of guiding the suspects, Iranian officials often accuse regional rival Saudi Arabia of backing ultrahardline Sunni militant group Islamic State. Riyadh denies the charges and says Tehran destabilises the region and sponsors terrorism, an accusation rejected by Iran.

On Friday, Iran's prosecutor-general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said security forces had smashed a cell linked to Islamic State near Tehran that wanted to "sabotage" rallies on Friday marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah.Iranian security forces have repeatedly announced arrests of Islamic State fighters and sympathisers.

(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Alison Williams)

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By Maher Chmaytelli and Saif Hameed

| BAGHDAD

BAGHDAD Iraq won't take part in any regional or international conflicts, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told state TV on Saturday.The comment came after Abadi had spoke in a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump during which tensions with Iran were mentioned. The call was the first between the two leaders. A political commentator close to Abadi, Ihsan al-Shammari, said Abadi's comment addressed the U.S.-Iranian tensions. Iran has close ties with the Shi'ite political elite ruling Iraq while Washington is providing critical military support to Iraqi forces battling Islamic State. "Iraq is very keen to preserve its national interests (..)and does not wish to be part of any regional or international conflict which would lead to disasters for the region and for Iraq," Abadi said, according to state TV.Trump said on Friday that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani "better be careful" after the latter was quoted as saying that anyone who speaks to Iranians with threats would ''regret it.''

The White House on Friday said Trump and Abadi "spoke to the threat Iran presents across the entire region," in their first phone call since the inauguration of the U.S. president.Abadi's office on Friday also gave a readout of the phone call that took place overnight Thursday, without specifically mentioning Iran. Both readouts stressed the importance of their continued cooperation against Islamic State, as the militants are being pushed back in Iraq and losing control over Mosul, the last major city stronghold under their control in the country.The United States has more than 5,000 troops deployed in Iraq and is providing air and ground support in the battle of Mosul.

Iran has also played a major role in the fight against Islamic State by arming and training Iraqi Shi'ite groups collectively known as Popular Mobilization. "The Iraqi prime minister Dr Abadi is stressing once again the policy of neutrality and to steer clear from conflicts,'' political commentator Shammari told state TV.The Iraqi readout said Abadi asked Trump to lift the ban on people from his country traveling to the United States.

U.S. courts suspended the restrictions announced end January on entries from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Trump has said he will keep trying to reinstate them.Abadi resisted calls from influential pro-Iranian Shi'ite politicians to retaliate against the ban, at a meeting held on Jan. 29, citing Iraq's need for U.S. military support.Washington last week ratcheted up pressure on Iran, putting sanctions on 13 individuals and 12 entities days after the White House put Tehran "on notice" over a ballistic missile test.Iran's dominant influence in Iraqi politics was eroded after Islamic State routed the Iraqi army commanded then by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a close ally of Tehran, in 2014. (Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

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Italy and Tunisia on Thursday signed a new partnership agreement that notably calls for stronger joint action against illegal migration.

The deal, which also covers cooperation in the fields of culture, health, transport, energy and security, was signed in Rome by Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano and his Tunisian counterpart, Khemaies Jhinaoui.

It includes a framework accord on migratory fluxes. Alfano said the two countries were "working in harmony to stop the human traffickers in the central Mediterranean."

Italy already has an agreement with Tunisia enabling it to deport nationals of the north African state who arrive as illegal immigrants or breach the terms of their visas.

Rome wants to accelerate the procedures involved in such cases, and pressure over this has increased because of Anis Amri, the Tunisian accused of attacking a Christmas market in Berlin on December 19.

Amri, who was shot dead by police in Milan five days later, is thought to have been radicalised during a near four-year stint in Italian jails.

At the end of his sentence, he was earmarked for deportation to Tunisia but paperwork delays gave him a window of opportunity he used to flee Italy and relocate to Germany.

"We have to reduce the delays in the readmission process. It is not the same thing if the country of origin replies in three months rather than one," Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti told a parliamentary committee this week.

"If Tunisia had got back us to in one month, he (Amri) would have been deported."

More than half a million migrants have arrived in Italy via the Mediterranean over the last three years, the bulk of whom departed from Libya rather than neighbouring Tunisia.

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Iraq won't take part in any regional or international conflicts, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Saturday.

The comment came after Abadi had spoke in a phone call with US President Donald Trump where tensions with Iran were mentioned.

"Iraq is very keen to preserve its national interests and does not wish to be part of any regional or international conflict which would lead to disasters for the region and for Iraq," Abadi told state TV.

The White House on Friday said Trump and Abadi "spoke to the threat Iran presents across the entire region," in their first phone call since the inauguration of the US president.

Abadi's office on Friday also gave a readout of the phone call that took place overnight Thursday, without specifically mentioning Iran.

Abadi had asked Trump to lift the ban on people from his country traveling to the United States.

"Trump stressed the importance of coordination to find a solution to this issue as soon as possible and that he will direct the US State Department in this regard," the government said in a statement, adding that it was the US president who had initiated the call on Thursday.

Trump has said he will keep pushing to reinstate an executive order temporarily banning people from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. A US judge suspended the order last week and a court refused on Thursday an appeal to reinstate it.
By Matt Spetalnick and Steve Holland

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump's acceptance of Beijing's demand that he re-commit to a "one China" policy was heavily influenced by his new top diplomat, who argued behind the scenes that relations would remain on hold until Trump cleared up doubts about a longtime bedrock of U.S.-China ties, officials said.The abrupt course adjustment, made public in a White House statement on Thursday after a phone call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, followed White House meetings this week involving Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.Tillerson joined Trumps national security adviser Michael Flynn and others in what one administration official described as a concerted effort to persuade the president that "this is the right way to go, this is right for the relationships and regional stability - and they won the day."The successful intervention by Tillerson, a former Exxon Mobil chief executive with no previous diplomatic experience who was confirmed just nine days ago, suggests that in a White House-dominated administration, the new secretary of state could help drive decisions on some geopolitical issues. Tillerson's sway on other Trump priorities, such as fighting Islamic State, countering Iran and improving ties with Russia, remains to be seen.Chinese anger toward Trump has simmered since December when he spoke to the president of Taiwan and said the United States did not have to stick to the "one China" policy, under which Washington acknowledges the Chinese position that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of it. Beijing considers self-ruled Taiwan a renegade province.

China had signalled to Washington that there would be no phone call between Trump and Xi and the relationship could not move forward until Trump reaffirmed the "one China" policy, one of the U.S. officials said.U.S.-based China experts said Trumps change of tack should help ease tensions and open the way for discussions across the board. But they cautioned that this does not suggest a softening of Trumps stance over other issues, including the contested South China Sea, his threat of high tariffs on Chinese goods and his pressure on Beijing to rein in North Korea.But Trump's acquiescence on an issue of extreme Chinese nationalist sensitivity also "creates the risk that the Chinese will conclude that Trump is tough in his rhetoric but can be rolled if they apply sufficient pressure," said Bonnie Glaser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.The White House and State Department had no immediate comment.

Speaking at a joint news conference with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump signalled on Friday that he was pleased to have broken the ice with Xi, describing the call as a "very, very warm conversation."But he also noted that he had long complained that Chinas currency was undervalued and predicted that "a level playing field" in terms of trade would be reached between the two countries sooner than many people think.Tillersons emerging role suggests that he could be a moderating influence with both friends and adversaries who have been unnerved at times by Trumps rhetoric and unpredictability.

The secretary of state played a role in crafting the "one China" statement but it was not immediately clear whether he or others met directly with Trump to make the case for issuing it. Another major player on the issue was Flynn, who spoke by phone to Chinas top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, on Feb. 3, the sources said.As an oil executive, Tillerson had a complicated history with China. He had regular dealings with Chinas state-run oil companies over Exxon Mobils longtime business interests there, but also developed oil exploration ties with Vietnam, which has territorial disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea.During his Senate confirmation hearings last month, Tillerson raised Chinese ire when he said China should be denied access to islands it is building in the South China Sea.But in written responses to follow-up questions from lawmakers that surfaced this week after his confirmation, Tillerson softened his language, saying that in the event of an unspecified "contingency" the United States and its allies "must be capable of limiting China's access to and use of" those islands to pose a threat. (Reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Steve Holland; additional reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka in Washington; Editing by Warren Strobel and Grant McCool)

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There is something sublime about an act of defiance. It is an act of bravery that inspires others and strengthens their resolve. Bit by bit, it builds up  and ultimately, your sacrifice is not in vain. This piece is a personal expression of gratitude to my newest hero, Sally Yates. Yates was appointed the acting attorney general of the United States when the Barack Obama administration wrapped up and handed over charge to Donald Trumps team.

But when Trump pulled the brakes on Muslim immigrants, it was Yates who stood up to him. Yates defied the order and directed her team not to follow the directive that put a hold on entry of people from seven Muslim majority countries like Iran, Iraq, Libiya, Somaliya, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. This simple act of defiance cost Yates her job. After firing Yates, the White House issued a statement justifying the termination of her employment stating Yates had betrayed the department by refusing to enforce a legal order that was designed to protect citizens of the United States.

Yates may have lost her job, but ended up inspiring millions of people not just in America, but also around the world. I have become her biggest fan-boy! The message Yates sent out was that Americans wanted to uphold the honour of the American way of life. That America has always been a nation of immigrants and would embrace anyone wanting to start over. Yates showed us that basic human decency was still alive in the USA.

What was also truly heartening though, was how ordinary Americans turned up to support those who had landed in America before the ban, but were being denied entry and were therefore stuck at airports. Many of these people included American citizens who were originally from one of the seven countries mentioned in the ban. Lawyers turned up at airports armed with their laptops to help many such people and immigrants file appeals. Protestors got together and brought with them some of the most hilarious placards along with important messages about humanity and equality. There were also several people who came out to support the protestors by offering free food. Have a look at this video to see what happened at New Yorks JFK airport:

Not to be left out, European countries got together and trolled Donald Trump with videos introducing him to their culture using words and language that The Donald would understand. These include huge, bigly and its great. The Netherlands took the lead and then Germany, Denmark, Portugal, Belgium and others followed. You can catch the Dutch video here:

And while Britain will always hang its head in shame for the calamity called Brexit, even they could not accept what Trump did. Over a million British people signed a petition to cancel Trumps official visit to England that is likely to take place later this year. But it didnt just end at that. Protests took place across 40 British cities. You can catch some of it here:

Luckily a lower court had temporarily suspended the travel ban, but the Trump administration challenged it in the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals. Even here, basic human decency prevailed and a federal judge struck down the appeal to reinstate the ban. The Department of Homeland Security meanwhile suspended all actions to implement the immigration order. While Trump will continue to fight tooth and nail to have his ban reinstated, this was a small yet significant victory.

All this reminds me a bit of Sridevi. You may know about my obsession with Sridevi. Watching Sridevis fight scenes was a coping mechanism for me when I was repeatedly sexually abused as a child. Watching her fight the good fight gave me courage and hope. I like Sridevis fight scenes more than those of Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra put together! I loved how she stood up to bullies and goons in her movies. You can catch her defying the authority of pados ka gundas in this scene.

And as you begin the first day of the rest of your life, I just want you to remember, you are not insignificant. Fight the good fight and your voice will be heard.
Saudi Arabia's relations with the United States are "historic and strategic", Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef said on the occasion of the visit of CIA director Mike Pompeo to Riyadh.

This is the first reported visit by a senior Trump administration appointee to the kingdom.

"Our relationship with the United States is historic and strategic, any attempts to undermine that will falter," Prince Mohammed said, according to state news agency SPA late on Friday.

Prince Mohammed, who is also interior minister, said his country will continue to combat terrorism.

In a recent phone call Saudi Arabia's King Salman invited US President Donald Trump "to lead a Middle East effort to defeat terrorism and to help build a new future, economically and socially," for Saudi Arabia and the region.

Trump, during his presidential campaign last year, had called for Gulf states to pay for establishing safe zones to protect Syrian refugees.

A statement after the phone call said the two leaders agreed on the importance of strengthening joint efforts to fight the spread of Islamic State militants.

"The president requested, and the King agreed, to support safe zones in Syria and Yemen, as well as supporting other ideas to help the many refugees who are displaced by the ongoing conflicts," the statement said.
A member of the Federal Election Commission on Friday called on President Donald Trump to share any evidence he has to support a statement that voter fraud caused him and former Senator Kelly Ayotte to lose in New Hampshire in the 2016 US election.

The scheme the President of the United States alleges would constitute thousands of felony criminal offences under New Hampshire law, FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub said in a statement.

Trump blamed voter fraud for his and Ayotte's losses in New Hampshire in November's election while speaking on Thursday with a bipartisan group of US senators, saying that Ayotte's re-election bid was spoiled by "thousands" of people from neighboring Massachusetts voting in New Hampshire, according to media reports.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton narrowly won New Hampshires four electoral votes by nearly 3,000 votes, while Ayotte, a Republican like Trump, lost by only 743 votes.

Weintraub, who was appointed by former Republican President George W Bush, asked Trump to "immediately share his evidence with the public and with the appropriate law-enforcement authorities so that his allegations may be investigated promptly and thoroughly."

Trump said on Sunday he would put Vice President Mike Pence in charge of a special commission to investigate voter fraud, despite numerous studies showing that such fraud is rare in the United States.

Trump has said that fraud may account for his loss nationwide in the popular vote to Clinton by nearly 3 million votes.
Morgan Stanley rates AMC as Equal-weight Morgan Stanley lowers its target to $17.00 from $17.50 following evidence of softer volumes in Amcor 's key markets and a -4% downgrade to EPS guidance. The Equal-weight rating is maintained. Industry view: In Line. The broker describes 1Q results as solid overall despite a large currency headwind. Net sales increased by 9% on the previous corresponding period with higher raw material costs and US$400m of price increases. While the analyst is wary of volume impacts from channel de-stocking and the economic backdrop, the business is expected to remain relatively resilient.

Credit Suisse rates LLC as Outperform In a recent strategy update Lendlease Group tightened its group return on equity target to 8-10%, but retained segment targets, and updated its earnings mix target, now targeting increased Investment earnings but decreased Construction earnings. Lendlease Group's FY23 outlook is weaker than Credit Suisse had anticipated, but still reflects an improved earnings result. The broker's earnings per share forecasts are updated -20.7%, -2.2% and 1.0% through to FY25. The Outperform rating is retained and the target price decreases to $11.75 from $12.00.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday defended his choice of former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad to be the UN peace envoy to Libya after the United States blocked the appointment.

The decision to put forward his candidacy "was solely based on Mr Fayyad's recognized personal qualities and his competence for that position," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

"United Nations staff serve strictly in their personal capacity. They do not represent any government or country," he said.

Guterres had informed the Security Council earlier this week of his intention to appoint Fayyad and set a deadline of Friday for members to raise objections.

Diplomats had said they expected the appointment to be approved, but US Ambassador Nikki Haley decided to oppose it.

Haley said in a statement that the United States did not "support the signal this appointment would send within the United Nations," where the state of Palestine does not have full membership.

"For too long the UN has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," she said in a statement.

Dujarric said no Israeli and no Palestinian had served in a high-level post at the United Nations and that "this is a situation that the secretary-general feels should be corrected," based on personal merit and competencies of the candidates.

Appointments of the UN special representatives of the secretary-general require the unanimous backing of the 15-member council.

Fayyad, 64, was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013, and also served as finance minister twice.

He had been tapped to replace Martin Kobler of Germany, who has been the Libya envoy since November 2015.

Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi condemned the US decision as "blatant discrimination."

US President Donald Trump and Haley have criticized the United Nations for adopting a resolution in December that demanded an end to Israeli settlement building.

"Going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies," Haley said.

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Just when you thought the relationship between President Trump and big tech couldnt get worse, a petition signed by more than 1,800 IBM (NYSE:IBM) employees calls for CEO Ginni Rometty to withdraw support for the President and his controversial immigration order that has dozens of Silicon Valley companies up in arms.

Rometty sits on the Presidents business advisory council. She previously penned an open letter congratulating Trump on his election victory and offering ideas on job creation. Uncontentious as it was, the letter sparked a mini-revolt at IBMs quiet Armonk, New York headquarters. I bet Rometty didnt see that coming.

IBM joins a growing number of tech companies getting drawn into the anti-Trump fray.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Google parent company Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) are among 120 technology companies that joined legal action against the Presidents temporary travel ban from seven predominantly Muslim nations. And 200 entrepreneurs, startups and venture investors signed a letter denouncing the initiative, as well as a proposal to overhaul the H1-B work visa program.

A federal judge in Washington state has temporarily blocked the executive order.

If were to take these companies at their word, their objections boil down to three things: America and many high-tech companies including Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), Google and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), were founded or built by immigrants; Trumps actions fly in the face of the industrys progressive diversity and inclusivity agenda; and of course, freedom of religion.

The question is, are those criticisms fair?

Trumps supporters would say that every modern president going back to Ronald Reagan has signed several immigration bans under the same section of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that gives broad presidential powers to suspend entry of aliens that pose a security risk.

And the countries sited in Trumps order were actually identified by the Obama administration and affirmed by Congress as the most dangerous because they harbor terrorists and lack internal controls for identifying and vetting travelers, immigrants and refugees.

The criticism that its a religious ban doesnt hold up, since the vast majority of the worlds Muslim population is not affected by the order.

Lastly, they would argue that its just a 90-day travel suspension (120 days for refugees, and indefinitely for those from Syria) until better procedures can be implemented. If a refugee is going to be the next Andy Grove or Sergey Brin, he can wait a few days before starting up the next Intel or Google.

Thats all true. Also true, however, is that similar orders by previous presidents were not as broad. For example, a travel ban from the same seven countries was signed into law by President Obama in 2015, but it did not include those with legitimate visas to visit or work in the United States.

That, I believe, is where Trump went wrong.

Even though his order allows for exceptions on a case-by-case basis, its chaotic implementation blindsided hundreds of companies and stranded many legitimate business travelers at airports and overseas. Even green card holders were initially detained, although that was apparently unintentional.

The order was simply not well thought-out or rolled-out.

Theres one other problem. It was signed by someone named Donald Trump. Not to be cynical, but Barack Obama was Silicon Valleys president. Trump is not. If you live in the Valley and voted for Trump, youre a member of the silent minority  unless your name is Peter Thiel.

If there are potential issues with Trumps policies, the Valley elite will come after him with everything theyve got, and the President gave them legitimate grounds for doing just that. It was an unforced error, which a leader in a new position never wants to do in the early days of his tenure. Certainly not a U.S. President.

This is an important test for Trump. Our foreign worker visa program (H1-B) is broken and needs an overhaul, and the administration has been circulating a draft proposal for weeks. Lets hope Trump learns a lesson and doesnt make the same mistakes. If not, the nations most powerful industry appears ready to fight him every step of the way.
We're now just two years away from the arrival of Star Wars Land on both coasts, and Disney's(NYSE: DIS)domestic theme-park resorts could use a boost. On Tuesday, the media giant announced a 5% year-over-year decline in attendance for its latest quarter, but it also announced that Star Wars Land will begin greeting sci-fi buffs of all ages come 2019.

Incorporating theStar Warsfranchise deeper into its gated attractions was inevitable after Disney acquired Lucasfilm and green-lit the production of several theatrical releases. Disney unveiled plans for Star Wars Land in 2015, but it never offered a timeline for the expansion's debut until Tuesday afternoon's earnings call.

Star Wars Land is going to be transformative, particularly in Florida, where construction is under way at Disney World's least visited park. Disney's Hollywood Studios was already fourth in attendance among the four parks before Disney started shuttering several rides and attractions to pave the way for Star Wars Land and Toy Story Land.

Bob Iger revealed two years ago that Disney's Hollywood Studios will eventually be changing its name. The rumored makeover of what will probably be rebranded as Disney's Hollywood Adventure will probably coincide with the 2019 opening of Star Wars Land. With Disney's theme-park attendance in a rut -- guest counts at Disneyland and Disney World have declined in three of the past four quarters -- Star Wars Land could be "the only hope" for a speedy recovery in two years.

Image source: Disney.

Use the force, Luke

The 14-acre expansion going into Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida and Disneyland in California will be special. Folks love Star Wars. The record-breaking box-office performance of Star Wars: The Force Awakenslast year confirms that consumer appetite remains strong for the intellectual property.

One of the two rides will involve piloting Han Solo's Millennium Falcon. How can that not be a hit? Folks will be able to grab a specialty cocktail in the iconic cantina, meet droids, and immerse themselves in an interactive universe that they've been relishing on the big screen since the 1970s.

Disney's Hollywood Studios needs Star Wars Land, and it needs it soon. The park has beenguttedover the past few years, and near-term patches that include Frozen singalongs, a Muppets-themed pizzeria, and effects-laden fireworks show aren't enough to justify the park's stiff admission prices. The next two years will drag at the incomplete park. Changing the name will be a necessary step in distancing itself from the shell of a park it's become now that chunks of it are walled off as construction zones.

Disney investors will also need Star Wars Land to be a hit, especially if this year's catalysts don't help turn the stubborn attendance trends around. Somewhere out there, a Princess Leia hologram is telling Obi-Wan that he's her only hope. With nothing major announced at Disney for 2018, it's Star Wars Land or bust for the media giant.

3 companies poised to explode when cable dies Cable is dying. And there are 3 stocks that are poised to explode when this faltering $2.2 trillion industry finally bites the dust. Just like newspaper publishers, telephone utilities, stockbrokers, record companies, bookstores, travel agencies, and big box retailers did when the Internet swept away their business models. And when cable falters, you don't want to miss out on these 3 companies that are positioned to benefit. Click herefor their names. Hint: They're not the ones you'd think!

Rick Munarriz owns shares of Walt Disney. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
While oil price have been hovering around the $50-$55 a barrel range for some time, some investors are likely looking to get back into energy stocks again. While many have already seen some sizable gains over the past year, there are still some companies out there worth looking at.

We asked three of our energy contributors to each highlight an oil stock they think should be on investors' radars for February. Here's why they picked ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP), NOW Inc. (NYSE: DNOW), and Holly Energy Partners (NYSE: HEP).

Image source: Getty Images.

A clear catalyst on the horizon

Matt DiLallo (ConocoPhillips): Leading independent oil and gas producer ConocoPhillips' primary goal during the oil market downturn was to push costs down as much as possible. The company has largely accomplished that, and as a result, it can now grow production, fund a growing dividend, and generate free cash flow at current oil prices. It is a remarkable transformation that's only just starting to bear fruit.

However, what's unique about ConocoPhillips' latest strategy is that its focus is not so much on growing production as it is about increasing shareholder returns. To achieve that aim, ConocoPhillips plans to allocate its growing cash flow toward a combination of high-return investments, increasing the dividend, buying back stock, and paying down debt. The company is already well under way with this plan, expecting to increase production 2% this year and already having announced a 6% dividend increase.

That said, the company wants to further jump-start shareholder returns by selling $5 billion to $8 billion of lower-margin North American gas assets in the near term. It intends to use those cash proceeds to buy back as much as $3 billion of stock, with thebalance used to push debt down toward its target level. These assets sales represent a compelling near-term catalyst for the company's stock price because they should unlock hidden value, according to analysts. That's because the market does not give the company much credit for these assets at the moment given their weaker margins and lower growth prospects. However, if ConocoPhillips canrealize the full value of these assets, it could cause the market to assign this stock a much higher value.

Buy this deeply connected distributor on the right side of the industry cycle

Jason Hall(NOW Inc): I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea when oil prices will -- or indeed if they really will -- rise above the current level. But whether oil prices shoot up or not, NOW Inc is an important company that will remain relevant through the current environment and into the next part of the cycle (whenever that is).NOW Inc is one of the biggest distributors to the oil and gas industry, supplying companies in every part of the oil and gas value chain with parts, components, and accessories to keep oil and gas flowing reliably and cheaply.

The company has struggled with falling demand since it was spun out ofNational Oilwell Varcoin 2014, as oil and gas producers cut back on spending. But there's only so far its customers can stretch their existing parts and supply inventories. And we've pretty much reached the point where NOW Inc should see its revenues stabilize, if not start creeping up.

The number of onshore U.S. rigs actively working has increased 28% over the past year. Midstream companies continue to invest in infrastructure projects to connect that new drilling to the energy grid. NOW Inc has generated positive operating cash flows throughout the downturn and is in an excellent position to profit from any level of increased activity.

It's going to take some time yet for oil and gas spending to recover, but NOW Inc is in a perfect position to reap the benefits when it does happen. And if it takes a while yet, the company will continue to do just fine.

The little master limited partnership that could

Tyler Crowe (Holly Energy Partners):A lot of investors looking at energy today are probably looking for either deep value investments or growth stocks. For those few investors looking at this industry for a high-yield stock that can actually continue to pay its investors, Holly Energy Partners is worth a look.

One of the ways oil and gas pipeline companies can protect themselves from the volatility of commodity prices is to work on fee-based contracts. Holly Energy Partners takes this theory to the limit as 100% of its contracts are structured as fee-based, and many of those contracts also have minimum volume commitments that ensure even greater revenue protection. By bringing on a small but steady stream of new projects online under these kinds of contracts, Holly Energy Partners has been able to raise its payout to investors every quarter since its IPO back in 2004. That's a pretty good reputation for a 6.75% distribution yield.

It helps that Holly Energy Partners has strong support from its parent company, HollyFrontier (NYSE: HFC). While HollyFrontier may be running out of current assets to drop down to the subsidiary as of late, the company has a reputation for making strategic acquisitions at decent valuations. With the same team making capital allocation decisions at Holly Energy Partners, we can assume that future growth will be viewed under that same high-return lens that HollyFrontier has used for the rest of its business and find ways to keep this long-standing distribution increase going for much longer.

10 stocks we like better than NOWWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now...and NOW wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

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Jason Hall owns shares of National Oilwell Varco. Matt DiLallo owns shares of ConocoPhillips and National Oilwell Varco. Tyler Crowe owns shares of National Oilwell Varco and NOW. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends National Oilwell Varco and NOW. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
On Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling by Seattle Federal Judge, James Robart to block President Trumps executive order on immigration  which temporarily banned refugees in seven Muslim majority countries from entering the United States. However, Chris Kyle's Iraqi Interpreter, who goes by the name Johnny Walker, believes that Trumps executive order for immigration is crucial for the safety of the United States.

We should, all of us as Americans, support the Trump position because this is everyones security safety issue. We dont need more then 9/11, we dont need San Bernardino. We dont need all of this savage things happen to our people here, Walker said to the FOX Business Networks Liz MacDonald.

Walker went on to add that having an open border would jeopardize the safety of the country. You will hear everything and you will find everything if we open the border. You will see something you will never see in your life, said Walker. The Iraqi Interpreter had trouble understanding why Trumps executive order on immigration sparked so much controversy nationwide, and when it comes to the nations national security, political views shouldnt matter, said Walker.

This is not a game, this is life. You should support not Trump, you should support your country, said Walker.
Turkish troops and Syrian rebels on Saturday entered the town of Al-Bab held by Islamic State (IS) militants in northern Syria, as government forces moved closer to the Islamist militant bastion, a monitor said.

Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency quoted military sources as saying one Turkish soldier was killed and another wounded in clashes with IS fighters in Al-Bab.

Turkish forces and allied rebels have for weeks pressed an operation code-named Euphrates Shield to drive the Islamist militants from the flashpoint town.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Turkish forces and allied militias entered Al-Bab from the west and then took full control of its western suburbs after fierce clashes with the Islamist militants .

The clashes coincided with "Turkish shelling and intensive air strikes" on Al-Bab, the Britain-based monitor said.

Al-Bab is the Islamist militant group's last stronghold in the northern province of Aleppo and is also being targeted by regime forces.

While Turkish-led forces have been advancing from the north, east and west, Syrian government troops are attacking from the south.

On Monday, Syrian troops severed a road leading into the town from the south and by Friday they were just 1.5 kilometres (less then a mile) from the southern outskirts of Al-Bab.

Turkey began an unprecedented campaign inside Syria in August, targeting both IS and Kurdish militia.

After initial rapid progress, the campaign has been mired since December in the deadly fight for Al-Bab.

Turkey's Dogan news agency says 66 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the campaign since it started, mostly in IS attacks.

And on Thursday, three Turkish soldiers were killed when a Russian air strike accidentally hit their position in a strike targeting IS fighters in Al-Bab.

Moscow said the incident was an accident and is under investigation.

Despite backing opposite sides in Syria's conflict -- Moscow is a government ally while Turkey supports the opposition -- the two countries have worked closely in recent months.

They helped broker a nationwide ceasefire in place since December 30, and sponsored a round of peace talks last month in the Kazakh capital, Astana.

Al-Bab has been under IS control since 2014, when the group seized large swathes of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, proclaiming its self-described caliphate.

In recent months, the Islamist militants have been rolled back in large parts of northern Syria, both by the Turkish campaign but also a Kurdish-Arab alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The SDF fights with air support from the US-led coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq, but Turkey regards the Kurdish component of the SDF as "terrorists".

The alliance is pushing towards IS's de facto Syrian capital Raqa in an operation dubbed "Wrath of the Euphrates".

The advance has progressed slowly, in part, SDF officials say, because IS has heavily mined territory around Raqa.

The Observatory said Saturday that SDF fighters had now advanced to around eight kilometres from the eastern outskirts of Raqa, though their forces are further from the north of the city.

Turkey has suggested that it could turn its sights to Raqa after the Al-Bab operation is complete, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussing both Al-Bab and Raqa in a call with US President Donald Trump this week.

Syria's conflict has killed more than 310,000 people since it began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

Successive rounds of peace talks, including discussions organised by Russia and Turkey in Kazakhstan last month, have failed to advance a political solution to the conflict.

A new round of UN-sponsored talks is scheduled to take place in Geneva on February 20, but invitations have yet to be sent out.

On Saturday, Kazakhstan's foreign ministry said Syrian government officials and rebels were being invited to new talks next week in the capital Astana.

"It is planned to hold the latest high-level meeting within the Astana process on resolving the situation in Syria on February 15 and 16," the ministry said in a statement.

It added that UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura and US observers would also be invited to the talks.

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President Donald Trump pushed back early on Saturday on assertions that the wall he wants built on the U.S. border with Mexico would cost more than anticipated and said he would reduce the price.

Trump made his comments in two Twitter posts but did not say how he would bring down the cost of the wall.

Reuters on Thursday published details of an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security that estimated the price of a wall along the entire border at $21.6 billion. During his presidential campaign Trump had cited a $12 billion figure.

"I am reading that the great border WALL will cost more than the government originally thought, but I have not gotten involved in the ... design or negotiations yet," Trump tweeted from his Florida resort, where he is hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"When I do, just like with the F-35 FighterJet or the Air Force One Program, price will come WAY DOWN!"

Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, said in late January that his administration had been able to cut some $600 million from a deal to buy about 90 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from Lockheed Martin. Defense analysts and sources downplayed news of those cuts, saying the discount hailed by Trump was in line with what had been flagged by Lockheed for months and would apply to other countries committed to the program.

A border wall to stem illegal immigration was one of Trump's main campaign promises. He has vowed to make Mexico reimburse the United States for its cost but Mexico has repeatedly said it will not do so.

Trump also tweeted on Saturday about another aspect of his immigration policy - the legal battle over the presidential order banning entry to the United States by refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries.

"Our legal system is broken! '77% of refugees allowed into U.S. since travel reprieve hail from seven suspect countries.' (WT) SO DANGEROUS!" he said.

The tweet was in apparent reaction to a Washington Times story saying 77 percent of the 1,100 refugees who have entered the United States since Feb. 3 are from the countries covered by Trump's ban.

A federal judge in Seattle blocked Trump's executive order on Feb. 3, lifting the ban while litigation proceeds. Trump has been steadily critical of the ruling from Seattle and a subsequent appeals court ruling upholding it. (Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Bill Trott)
A 4-month-old girl from Iran who was temporarily banned from coming into the U.S. by President Trump's immigration order is set to have a life-saving heart surgery in Portland.

Fatameh Reshad was admitted to OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital on Tuesday, where she is undergoing a series of tests in preparation for her surgery, the hospital said in a news release.

The news comes a week after her family's tourist visa was abruptly canceled after Trump announced his executive order banning the entry of people from seven countries with Muslim majorities - including Iran. A waiver was granted to the family for them to travel.

HUGGIES DEBUTS SPECIAL PREEMIE DIAPER FOR BABIES WEIGHING LESS THAN 2 POUNDS

Reshad underwent a procedure called a cardiac catheterization on Friday to determine the extent of injury to her lungs, which went well, according to Dr. Laurie Armsby, interim head of the Division of Pediatric Cardiology at OHSU.

"The results were very encouraging. Despite the excess of blood passing through her lungs we believe we can proceed with surgical correction as planned," she said in the news release.

The girl's heart defects can be repaired by closing the holes in her heart and reconnecting the transposed arteries to the proper pumping chambers of the heart, according to Dr. Irving Shen, head of the Division of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at OHSU, who will perform the surgery.

MOM'S POST THANKING MCDONALD'S EMPLOYEE FOR AUTISTIC SON'S TOY GOES VIRAL

If all goes as planned, Fatemeh's health care team expects her to stay in the hospital for up to three weeks.

The family of the 4-month-old chose Portland because of its proximity to relatives and because of OHSU's expertise in treatment of the heart condition.

The hospital also said the family "expresses their profound gratitude for the expert care their child is receiving and for the constant stream of support from people around the world."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Although President Trump said he is convinced that his travel ban will eventually win in court, he said Friday that he is considering crafting a brand new order."

He said any action would not come until next week, but he stressed that we need speed for reasons of security.

The comments, which were made on Air Force One, suggest that he is going to take bifurcated strategy, according to The Wall Street Journal. In that case, his administration could continue a legal fight for his first order all while crafting another.

I have no doubt that well win that particular case, Trump said at the White House, during a press conference alongside visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The Justice Department is weighing its options, which also include appealing to a broader panel of judges or the Supreme Court.

The decision Thursday was made by a panel of three judges with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco.

In their unanimous decision , the judges refused to reinstate Trump's immigration order and rejected the governments position that such presidential decisions on immigration policy are unreviewable.

There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy, the judges wrote. Although our jurisprudence has long counseled deference to the political branches on matters of immigration and national security, neither the Supreme Court nor our court has ever held that courts lack the authority to review executive action in those arenas for compliance with the Constitution.

The initial order, which was signed Jan. 27, suspended entry for visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries for at least 90 days and froze the entire U.S. refugee program, The Journal reported.

Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston, said the "million-dollar question" is whether the Trump administration would appeal to the Supreme Court.

That could run the risk of having only eight justices to hear the case, which could produce a tie and leave the lower-court ruling in place.

"There's a distinct risk in moving this too quickly," Blackman said. "But we're not in a normal time, and Donald Trump is very rash. He may trump, pardon the figure of speech, the normal rule."

The Associated Press contributed to this report
The United States' decision to try to block the appointment of a former Palestinian prime minister to lead the United Nations political mission in Libya was not supported Saturday by Sweden.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said Friday that the Trump administration was "disappointed" to see that U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had sent a letter to the Security Council indicating his intention to appoint Salam Fayyad as the next U.N. special representative to Libya.

Fayyad served as the Palestinian Authority's prime minister from 2007-2013.

"For too long the U.N. has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," Haley said.

Palestine is a non-member observer state at the United Nations, and its independence has been recognized by 137 of the 193 U.N. member nations. But Haley said the United States doesn't currently recognize a Palestinian state "or support the signal" Fayyad's appointment would send within the United Nations.

On Saturday, Swedish Ambassador Olof Skoog said his country fully trusts Guterres judgment on his appointments.

We believe that Mr. Fayyad has the relevant experience and would be an excellent (special representative of the security general) for the very important work relating to Libya, also said Skoog, who was president of the U.N. Security Council for the month of January.

Sweden's center-left government recognized a state of Palestine in 2014.

U.N. diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private, have said Fayyad is well respected for his work in reforming the Palestinian Authority and spurring its economy and had the support of the 14 other Security Council members to succeed Martin Kobler in the Libya job.

Despite opposition to Fayyad, Haley indicated that the Trump administration wants to see an end to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We encourage the two sides to come together directly on a solution," she said.

Haley's statement came ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump on Feb. 15, and was welcomed by Israelis.

"This is the beginning of a new era at the U.N., an era where the U.S. stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish State," Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said of the U.S. decision to block Fayyad's appointment. "The new administration proved once again that it stands firmly alongside the state of Israel in the international arena and in the U.N. in particular."

The new U.S. ambassador made clear that "going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies."

But Trump also indicated in comments to an Israeli newspaper Friday that there might be some difficult discussions with Netanyahu next week on Israel's settlement expansion. The U.S. leader was quoted as saying that Israel's settlement expansion in land claimed by the Palestinians does not advance peace.

Israel's settlement building has been a key obstacle to the revival of stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Most of the international community considers all Israeli settlements in territory the Palestinians want for a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal and counterproductive to peace.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Immigration arrests across Southern California over the past week were planned before President Trump took office and could be compared to similar operations the occurred last summer, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said.

The Los Angeles Times reported that authorities arrested more than 160 people in the five-day sweep, most of whom have criminal histories.

David Marin, the director, told the paper that most of those arrested had prior felony convictions, but a few were taken in because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He said five people would not have met the Obama administration's enforcement priorities but were arrested because they were found to be in the country illegally.

The rash of these recent reports about ICE checkpoints and random sweeps and the like, its all false, and thats definitely dangerous and irresponsible, Marin told the paper. Reports like that create panic, and they put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger.

He said similar operations took place this week in Atlanta, New York and Chicago.

Immigrant advocates decried a series of arrests that federal deportation agents said aimed to round up criminals in Southern California but they believe mark a shift in enforcement under the Trump administration.

Advocates began fielding calls Thursday from immigrants and their lawyers reporting raids at homes and businesses in the greater Los Angeles area.

In one instance, agents knocked on one door looking for a man and ended up arresting another who is in the country illegally but has no criminal record  something Angelica Salas, the executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said would not likely have happened previously.

"This was not normal," Salas told reporters Friday.

The announcement of the arrests comes days after an Arizona woman was arrested and deported to Mexico after what she thought was a routine check in with immigration officials and amid heightened anxiety among immigrant communities since Trump signed an executive order to expand deportations.

A decade ago, immigration officers searching for specific individuals would often arrest others found along the way, a practice that drew criticism from advocates. Under the Obama administration, agents also carried out arrests but focused more narrowly on specific individuals.

In the suburbs of Los Angeles, 50-year-old house painter Manuel Mosqueda was there when his fiance answered the door, thinking it was police, his 21-year-old daughter Marlene said.

"They were looking for someone else and they took my dad in the process," she said.

Karla Navarrete, a lawyer for CHIRLA, said she sought to stop Mosqueda from being placed on a bus to Mexico and was told by ICE that things had changed. She said another lawyer filed federal court papers to halt his removal.

Salas said the agency provided scant details to lawyers who headed to the detention center in response to the phone calls, and in the past was more forthcoming with information.

She also said there is increased anxiety in the community about immigration enforcement since Trump's order.

Democratic state lawmakers denounced the arrests and urged immigrants to know their rights and what to do if approached by federal authorities.

Even under Obama we had sweeps or big operations where they would go into a particular neighborhood or say that this week were going to do a big operation and arrest people with certain profiles in certain parts of the city, Jennie Pasquarella, a director of immigrant rights for the ACLU, said. The piece of it that is new is some of the reports that we were getting yesterday indicating that there were people [arrested] who did not have any criminal convictions at all.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Washington Republicans this weekend faced more protests at public events -- backlash that appears to be growing against President Trump and the GOP-led Congress for trying to dismantle ObamaCare and against other parts of their agenda.

On Saturday, for the second week in a row, Florida GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis reportedly faced about a hundred people at a town hall meeting upset about Republican plans to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law, without a solid alternative.

The episodes -- like those faced by other House Republicans and by recently confirmed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos -- appear similar to those staged by the Tea Party movement in 2009. Members grassroots opposition to the increasing size of government under then-President Obama led to the 2010 wave election in which Republicans seized control of the House.

DeVos, a supporter of vouchers and other alternatives to pubic education, was temporarily blocked Friday when trying to enter a District of Columbia public school.

Go home, shouted a man holding a Black Lives Matters" sign. Shame, shame, shame.

The concerns raised Saturday in Bilirakis conservative Gulf Coast district were similar to those Utah GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz faced a day earlier.

Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight committee, was met by frequent, deafening boos at a town hall event in which constituents asked a range of questions including ones on environmental and energy policies and whether he would hold Trump, a fellow Republican accountable.

Hold on, Chaffetz, repeatedly said. Give me a second.

My job is not to be a cheerleader for the president, he also said.

House Democrats earlier this week made clear their plans this year to attack Republicans on vows to end ObamaCare, which could leave a project 22 million Americans without insurance.

"We're going to keep stoking the fires," New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone told Fox News on Wednesday in Baltimore, at the caucuss annual retreat.

He made clear that Democrats, in the GOP-controlled Congress, are not encouraging voters to disrupt Republican town halls, saying that is "not actually allowed."

However, others appear ready to continue to disrupt GOP events, while distancing themselves from the Tea Party movement led by fiscal conservatives.

One such group, or movement, is Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Stopping the Trump Agenda, started by former congressional staffers who say they are revealing the best practices for making Congress listen.

The group says its guide started as a tweeted Google document that has now been downloaded more than a million times.

Group organizers also say their funding comes from crowd sourcing and that they are still developing a long-term strategy.

Co-founder Ezra Levin acknowledge Saturday on CNN that the group is indeed similar to the Tea Party movement because it uses the same basic, Civics 101 tactics of going to town hall-style events and making phone calls.

However, he said his group doesnt espouse the Tea Partys 19th Century ideology.

Last weekend, California GOP Rep. Tom McClintock had to be escorted by police from a town hall event as protesters upset about potentially losing their insurance if ObamaCare is dismantled shouted, "Shame on you!"

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has a dire warning about the effects of "fake news."

"We are going through this period of time right here where unfortunately some of the people that are winning are the people that spend their time trying to get the most clicks, not tell the most truth," the technology leader told the Daily Telegraph. He added that these faux reports are "killing people's minds in a way."

The proliferation of fake news is a burgeoning issue, most notably during the 2016 election, thanks in large part to sharing on social media. The phenomenon has led to politicians on both sides of the aisle to complain that these misleading stories have been damaging. Both Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama blamed fake news, in part, for Clinton's loss in the presidential election to President Trump.

Cook pinned the responsibility of curbing fake news on technology companies.

Read more on WashingtonExaminer.com




Relatives of a Minneapolis man shot in Chicago by an Amtrak police officer say he is paralyzed and clinging to life.

Chad Robertson's sister, Nina Robertson, said Friday the 25-year-old father of two has a bullet lodged near his spine and has been in and out of consciousness.

Robertson was shot late Wednesday by one of two Amtrak officers patrolling outside Union Station.

Nina Robertson said officers confronted her brother and his friends and said they had received complaints that Robertson's friend was smoking marijuana. She says her brother panicked and ran when an officer opened fire.

Amtrak said in a statement Friday that Chicago police and the Cook County state's attorney's office are investigating the shooting.

Amtrak says the officers involved in the incident are on administrative assignment.
Amazon, the internet retail giant, disclosed in a filing Thursday that it processed and delivered a variety of consumer products to unidentified groups and individuals outside Iran but controlled or owned by the Iranian government, a Bloomberg report said.

Amazon said the goods sold included a range of products, from pet food to software. Amazon, in a regulatory filing, warned that review could result in penalties, the report said.

The company reportedly said the orders took place for about four years and may have violated U.S. sanctions. The company reportedly alerted the U.S. Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Department of Commerces Bureau of Industry and Security about the dealings, and is cooperating with the review.

The Seattle Times reported that the orders included a $2,400 in consumer products to an entity controlled by Tehran's government, and $1,300 in consumer products to a person subjected to sanctions by an executive order.

Former President Obama signed the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 in hopes of strengthening the sanctions in place against Tehran and compel the country to abandon its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Any violator can face civil penalties, the report said.

ITRA also stipulated, in Section 218, that when it comes to doing business with Iran, foreign subsidiaries of U.S. parent firms shall in all cases be treated exactly the same as U.S. firms: namely, what is prohibited for U.S. parent firms has to be prohibited for foreign subsidiaries, and what is allowed for foreign subsidiaries has to be allowed for U.S. parent firms.

ITRA contains language, in Section 605, requiring that the terms spelled out in Section 218 shall remain in effect until the president of the United States certifies two things to Congress: first, that Iran has been removed from the State Departments list of nations that sponsor terrorism, and second, that Iran has ceased the pursuit, acquisition, and development of weapons of mass destruction.
Anti-abortion activists emboldened by the new administration of President Donald Trump staged rallies around the country Saturday calling for the federal government to cut off payments to Planned Parenthood, but in some cities counter-protests dwarfed the demonstrations.

Thousands of Planned Parenthood supporters, many wearing the pointy-eared pink hats popularized by last month's women's marches, turned out for a rally in St. Paul, Minnesota, separated by barricades from an anti-abortion crowd of a couple hundred people. In Detroit, about 300 people turned up outside a Planned Parenthood office, most of them supporting the organization. In St. Louis, about 150 abortion opponents slightly outnumbered a group carrying pink signs that read, "I stand with Planned Parenthood."

"They do a lot of work to help women with reproductive health -- not just abortions, obviously -- but they help with birth control and cancer screenings and counseling and a whole variety of services, and it seems they're under attack right now, and that concerns me greatly," said Kathy Brown, 58, a supporter of the organization who attended the St. Paul rally.

Andy LaBine, 44, of Ramsey, Minnesota, rallied with abortion opponents in St. Paul. LaBine, who was there with his family, said he believes Planned Parenthood is hiding "under a veil of health care."

"I personally believe that abortion is a profound injustice to the human race," LaBine said.

In one of his first acts as president, Trump last month banned U.S. funding to international groups that perform abortions or even provide information about abortions. Vice President Mike Pence strongly opposes abortion, citing his Catholic beliefs, and the newly confirmed health secretary, Tom Price, has supported cutting off taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood.

Federal dollars don't pay for abortions, but the organization is reimbursed by Medicaid for other services, including birth control and cancer screening. Anti-abortion conservatives have long tried to cut Planned Parenthood funds, arguing that the reimbursements help subsidize abortions. Planned Parenthood says it performed 324,000 abortions in 2014, the most recent year tallied, but the vast majority of women seek out contraception, testing and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, or other services including cancer screenings.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says defunding plans would cut roughly $400 million in Medicaid money from the group in the year after enactment and would result in roughly 400,000 women losing access to care. Republicans would redirect the funding to community health centers, but Planned Parenthood supporters say women denied Medicaid services from Planned Parenthood may not be able to find replacement care.

Outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in the Dallas suburb of Plano, about 20 anti-abortion protesters gathered -- a few more than a typical Saturday, attendees said. They bore signs reading "Abortion Kills Children," "Pray to End Abortion" and "Men Regret Lost Fatherhood."

Maria Nesbitt, 47, participated along with her husband and daughters, ages 5 and 3, and said she was pleased about Trump's election and the prospect of cutting Planned Parenthood's funding. She and the girls held signs saying "Pray to End Abortion," though she said they're too young to understand what it means.

Nearby, Anthony Hodgson, 57, held a sign with the same message.

"I believe it's not right. God told us, `Thou shalt not kill,"' he said.

In Detroit, Jill Byczek, 59, said she felt empowered after attending the recent women's march in Washington. Wearing a pink shirt that said "My Body My Choice," she said Planned Parenthood stands for "so much more" than abortion services.

"This is a way women get educated, get protected," she said. "This shows people are upset about what's happening. ... We are scared. We are worried. We have a person in power who's against us."
Turkish authorities have arrested two foreigners suspected of planning attacks in Europe on behalf of the Islamic State (IS) militant group, the private Dogan news agency reported on Saturday.

The men were identified as Abdullah El Halabi, 35, Danish citizen of Lebanese origin, and Mohammed Tofik Saleh, 38, Swedish citizen of Iraqi origin.

Both men allegedly joined IS three years ago and received weapons training in Syria, Dogan said.

They illegally travelled back into Turkey 12 days ago, it added.

"The two Daesh (IS) members were planning bloody attacks in Europe," it said.

Police then raided a house where the men were hiding in the southern Adana province near the Syrian border and questioned them for 10 days, it said.

Swedish intelligence agency SAPO confirmed the arrest of a Swedish national to the Aftonbladet daily.

"We are now concentrating on getting more information about this arrest and finding out what the Turkish investigation has shown," SAPO spokeswoman Nina Odermalm Schei said.

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President Donald Trump has promised more legal action after a federal appeals court refused to reinstate his ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations. Trump tweeted "SEE YOU IN COURT" after the decision came out Thursday, but what he has in mind remains to be seen.

Trump said Friday that he has "no doubt" he will win the case in court and told reporters he's considering signing a "brand-new order" on immigration.

The 3-0 ruling means that refugees and people from the seven nations  Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  can continue entering the United States for now. The administration has several options on how to proceed.

A look at where the legal fight goes from here.

REHEARING AT THE APPEALS COURT

The Trump administration could decide to ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the three-judge panel's ruling. But the odds of success seem low, said Margo Schlanger, a law professor at the University of Michigan. She noted that the three-judge panel was unanimous and included a judge chosen by a Republican president.

SUPREME COURT APPEAL

The government could file an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court and ask the justices to restore the ban. But it would take at least five justices to overturn the ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and that may be a long shot. The high court still has only eight members since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia  four conservative and four liberal justices.

"There are almost surely four votes to deny an emergency request to reinstate the order," said Peter Spiro, a law professor at Temple University.

The last immigration case to reach the justices ended in a 4-4 deadlock last year. That suggests a similar split over Trump's order, which would let the 9th Circuit ruling stand and keep the freeze in place.

WAITING FOR GORSUCH

If the Supreme Court declines to intervene right away, the case would remain in the 9th Circuit and ultimately be considered on its legal merits. It also could return to U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle, who temporarily blocked the ban after Washington state and Minnesota urged a nationwide hold on the Jan. 27 order.

The lower court action so far is temporary and hasn't resolved broader questions about the legality of Trump's order. It simply halts deportations or other actions until judges can more fully consider whether the order violates legal or constitutional rights.

Allowing the case to play out longer at the appeals court has one advantage: By the time a ruling on the merits comes down, the Senate may have confirmed Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. That may improve Trump's chances to prevail on appeal.

But just how the issue might reach the Supreme Court isn't clear. Several other challenges have been launched in courts around the country, and the court could opt to wait before stepping in.

REVISING THE EXECUTIVE ORDER

The White House could amend the executive order to expressly carve out existing green card holders and other people that already have some ties to the United States. Up to 60,000 visas were initially canceled in the wake of the ban, affecting the lives of students, professors and workers.

White House counsel Donald McGahn had issued guidance days after the executive order saying it didn't apply to legal permanent residents of the U.S., but the appeals court said that was not enough.

"The government has offered no authority establishing that the White House counsel is empowered to issue an amended order superseding the executive order signed by the president," the opinion said.

Revising the order "shifts the legal boundaries so that it becomes a tougher constitutional target," Spiro said.

The appeals court issued a sharp rebuke to the Justice Department's argument that the president has the constitutional power to restrict entry to the United States to prevent terrorism, and that courts cannot second-guess that authority.

"There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy," the opinion said.

Washington state, Minnesota and other states say Trump showed his intent in the presidential campaign when he called for a ban on Muslims entering the country. They also say his order discriminates against Muslims because it provides exceptions for refugees who practice a religion that makes them a minority in their home country. That would favor Christians in the countries affected.

The appeals court said the administration failed to show that the order satisfied constitutional requirements to provide notice or a hearing before restricting travel. But it did not rule on whether the order violated religious protections under the First Amendment.

Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni told a Virginia judge hearing arguments in a similar case on Friday that the administration hasn't decided what to do.
An Orange County woman has been killed while attending a vigil for a man shot to death a day earlier.

The Orange County Register says 27-year-old Trisha Verdugo of Orange was hit by a car in a strip-mall parking lot Thursday night.

She and other mourners had gathered at a makeshift shrine outside a vacant Santa Ana store to remember 23-year-old Joseph Garcia. He was found shot to death Wednesday night in the alley behind the store.

Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna says Verdugo got into an argument with a motorist who hit her with his car, then struck her a second time and drove away.

Police are looking for a dark sedan but have no other details.

Authorities don't know if the two deaths are gang-related.
Emanuel AME may have patched the bullet holes from the massacre nearly two years ago that killed nine worshippers, but the holes in the fabric of life in Charleston remain.

Sharonda Coleman-Singleton is absent from Goose Creek High School, her exhortations still ringing in the ears of girls who ran track for her.

At the library, there's no one to give just the right guidance, to find the right book, as Cynthia Hurd did.

The strong voice of Emanuel's pastor-legislator, Clementa Pinckney, does not resound in his church or the capitol in Columbia.

And Charleston is still dealing with the unfinished case of a white North Charleston police officer charged with murder in the death of a black driver.
The families of the two men who were with Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez when his boat crashed into a Miami Beach jetty  killing all three  are suing the All-Star's estate.

Attorney Christopher Royer, who is representing the families of 25-year-old Eduardo Rivero and 27-year-old Emilio Jesus Macias, told the Sun Sentinel that Rivero's claim was filed Friday, and Macias' will be filed Monday. Each family is seeking $2 million.

Authorities say Fernandez had cocaine and alcohol in his system at the time of the September crash, though it's not clear whether Fernandez was driving.

The attorney representing Fernandez's family, Ralph Fernandez, told the Sun Sentinel a settlement is "highly unlikely," saying the official crash investigation has not been completed, but he expects it to find Jose Fernandez was not driving the boat when it crashed.
A Pennsylvania man has been acquitted of third-degree murder but convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of the son who lived for more than two decades in a vegetative state following a brain injury.

Christopher Barber, 47, who served six years in the 1990s on an aggravated assault conviction in the case, was freed after a time-served term.

Prosecutors said he shook his fussy baby boy and threw him onto a couch so hard that he suffered catastrophic brain damage. The son survived 23 years in a vegetative state, hooked to a breathing machine and fed through a tube, until he died in May 2015.

Jurors in Monroe County deliberated for less than two hours before rendering a verdict Friday, and the judge then imposed a 2 to five-year term, allowing Barber's release due to time served.

Authorities said Barber told police that his son would not stop crying while being fed on New Year's Eve in 1991 in Saylorsburg, about 25 miles north of Bethlehem.

Barber tearfully testified during the trial that he didn't recall much of what happened on that night and also didn't recall what he later told police but clearly remembered "dropping," not "throwing," the infant. He said he was a stressed-out 21-year-old who was new to fatherhood and working long hours to support his family. Asked whether anger played a role in his actions, he said it was exhaustion and frustration, not anger.

Barber apologized for his actions after the verdict and before sentencing, saying he had taken responsibility since the beginning and "It was never my intent to harm my son."

Judge Art Zulick called it "a sad, horrific case" that snatched a child's life away at just two months old and left a father who now "will have to live with the consequences of those actions."

Assistant District Attorney Michael Mancuso called it a "tough, unusual case with a bittersweet conclusion."

"In the end, I don't think any amount of time served could ever be justice for what this victim had to suffer through," he said.
A Mexican citizen living in Texas was sentenced this week to eight years in prison for voting illegally in elections in 2012 and 2014.

Rosa Maria Ortega, 37, was found guilty Wednesday on two counts of illegal voting after she falsely claimed to be a United States citizen and voted at least five times between 2012 and 2014.

A jury sentenced her Thursday to eight years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

'WE'RE GOING TO SEE MORE': SANCTUARY CITIES CAVE IN FACE OF TRUMP'S FUNDING THREATS

The Dallas News reported Ortega voted in the November 2012 election and May 2014 GOP primary runoff in Dallas County.

According to Fox 4 News, Ortegas identity came into question after she tried to register to vote twice in Tarrant County. Both applications were denied.

She had voted in five elections in Dallas before her registration was canceled in April 2015.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton  for whom Ortega voted in 2014  assisted in the prosecution.

This case shows how serious Texas is about keeping its elections secure, and the outcome sends a message that violators of the states election law will be prosecuted to the fullest, he said.

DEPORTED WOMAN BACK IN MEXICO COMPLAINS: I FELT LIKE 'CHAPO' GUZMAN

According to the New York Times, Ortega was born in Monterrey, Mexico and brought to the U.S. by her mother as an infant. More than a decade later, her mother was deported and Ortega became a permanent resident.

In her defense, Ortega testified that she didnt understand the differences between the rights granted to citizens and the rights granted to legal residents.

My mom just used us to get stamps. She never gave us love or guidance. She got deported, she said, according to Fox 4. "All my life since I worked, I always on my knowledge thought I was a U.S. citizen because I never knew the difference of U.S. citizen and U.S. resident. And the point is if I knew, everything would've been the correct way."

The Dallas News reported that prosecutors showed that Ortega has checked a box on her drivers license form indicating she was not a citizen.

However, the Dallas County election administrator said Ortega had filled out a voter application and checked that she was a citizen in 2015.

Voter fraud became a hot topic after President Trump made an unsubstantiated claim that he would have won the popular vote if millions had not voted illegally.

In addition to the long prison sentence, Ortega is likely to be deported, her lawyer Clark Birdsall said.

"She'll do eight years in a Texas prison," he told the Times. "And then she'll be deported, and wake up blinking and scratching in a country she doesn't know."
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A committee uncovering the fate of hundreds of missing Greek and Turkish Cypriots said Saturday it's examining whether past DNA tests on unearthed remains were incorrect, resulting in individuals being misidentified.

The U.N.-led Committee on Missing Persons said the review was prompted after a DNA analysis carried out on remains exhumed in 2015 showed that they belonged to a person whose family had instead received another set of misidentified remains in 2009.

The CMP said the erroneous test was carried out by the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics (CING), while the analysis that discovered the mistake was conducted by the U.S.-based laboratory Bode Cellmark Forensics.

DNA tests conducted by the CING between 2007-2012 are now being reviewed, according to an official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he's not authorized to discuss the case's details.

CMP figures show that 386 identifications took place from 2007 to 2012, but it's unclear how many sets of remains may have to be retested.

The CMP said it expressed sympathy to the family that received the wrong set of remains and were making arrangements to return the correctly identified set.

"The CMP would like to reassure all families of missing persons that it is committed to ensuring that the highest scientific standards are upheld at every stage of its operations," the committee said.

Some 500 Turkish Cypriots and 1,500 Greek Cypriots disappeared during armed clashes in the 1960s and during a 1974 Turkish invasion triggered by a coup aiming to unite Cyprus with Greece. The eastern Mediterranean island has since been divided into a breakaway Turkish-speaking north and an internationally recognized Greek-speaking south.

According to the CMP, the remains of 1,201 missing persons have been exhumed, and the remains of 558 Greek Cypriots and 184 Turkish Cypriots have been identified and returned to their families.
A new pod of 240 whales swam aground at a remote New Zealand beach on Saturday just hours after weary volunteers managed to refloat a different group of whales following an earlier mass stranding.

In total, more than 650 pilot whales have beached themselves along a 5 kilometer (3 mile) stretch of coastline over two days on Farewell Spit at the tip of the South Island. About 335 of the whales are dead, 220 remain stranded, and 100 are back at sea.

Department of Conservation Golden Bay Operations Manager Andrew Lamason said they are sure they're dealing with a new pod because they had tagged all the refloated whales from the first group and none of the new group had tags.

BOOK ADVISING INDIAN STUDENTS TO KILL KITTENS SPARKS OUTRAGE

The news was devastating for hundreds of volunteers who had come from around the country to help with the initial group of 416 stranded whales that was found early Friday, many of them already dead.

Volunteers are planning to return Sunday to help refloat as many healthy whales as they can.

Lamason said about 20 of the new group were euthanized by conservation workers because they were in poor condition and more would likely need to be killed Sunday.

Rescuers had been hopeful earlier Saturday after efforts to refloat the initial group of whales had gone well, following a frustrating day on Friday.

Lamason said improved weather and crystal clear water had helped with the rescue attempt. He said about 100 surviving whales from the initial group were refloated, and dozens of volunteers had formed a human chain in the water to prevent them from beaching again.

He said volunteers were warned about the possibility of stingrays and sharks, after one of the dead whales appeared to have bite marks consistent with a shark. He said there had been no shark sightings.

Officials will soon need to turn to the grim task of disposing of hundreds of carcasses.

Lamason said one option was to tether the carcasses to stakes or a boat in the shallow tidal waters and let them decompose. The problem with towing them out to sea or leaving them was that they could become gaseous and buoyant, and end up causing problems by floating into populated bays.

Farewell Spit, a sliver of sand that arches like a hook into the Tasman Sea, has been the site of previous mass strandings. Sometimes described as a whale trap, the spit's long coastline and gently sloping beaches seem to make it difficult for whales to navigate away from once they get close.

There are different theories as to why whales strand themselves, from chasing prey too far inshore to trying to protect a sick member of the group or escaping a predator.

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of whale strandings in the world, and Friday's event was the nation's third-biggest in recorded history. The largest was in 1918, when about 1,000 pilot whales came ashore on the Chatham Islands. In 1985, about 450 whales stranded in Auckland.

Pilot whales grow to about 7.5 meters (25 feet) and are common around New Zealand's waters.
Police in Sicily have confiscated four olive companies, farmland, villas and other property that anti-Mafia prosecutors contend belong to the business empire of Italy's top Mafia boss, who has been on the run for more than 20 years.

The property, confiscated Saturday in the western part of the island considered to be Matteo Messina Denaro's power base, was estimated to be worth 13 million euros ($14 million). The convicted Cosa Nostra mobster is Italy's most-wanted fugitive. Prosecutors alleged the olive businesses and 108 other properties, plus vehicles and bank accounts, were listed in the name of accomplices to hide their actual ownership by the fugitive.

The farm lobby Coldiretti estimates Italy's various mafias earn billions annually in agriculture, including by using threats to force stores to sell mobster-produced mozzarella or other products.
Edward Snowden, the former National Security contractor who leaked classified material in 2013, is using the report that Russia is considering handing him over to the U.S. as a "gift" as evidence that he is not a spy.

"Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel. No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear theyre next, Snowden tweeted late Friday night.

Snowden linked his tweet to an NBC News report that claimed Russians are weighing a handover to "curry favor" with President Trump. The report cited an unnamed senior U.S. official who said he analyzed intelligence reports detailing the conversations.

'TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT': SNOWDEN AND 'HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS

A government source told Fox News that Russia believes it has exhausted Snowdens value and at this point he is more useful as a bargaining chip for Putin. The source could not speak to the concept of using Snowden as a gift to the U.S.

The Kremlin has long denied that Snowden was a spy. He was, however, granted asylum by Russia and is allowed to stay there for a couple more years.

Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel. No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next. https://t.co/YONqZ1gYqm  Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 10, 2017

Trump has not been shy in his opinion about Snowden.

I said he was a spy and we should get him back. And if Russia respected our country, they would have sent him back immediately, but he was a spy. It didnt take me a long time to figure that one out, he said in a debate back in March.

Ben Wizner, the Snowdens ACLU lawyer, told the network that he was unaware of any plans that would send Snowden back to the U.S.

The House intelligence committee recently released a bipartisan report to provide "a fuller account" of Snowden's crimes and the "reckless disregard he has shown for U.S. national security."

The 33-page unclassified report pointed to statements in June 2016 by the deputy chairman of the defense and security committee in the Russian parliament's upper house, who asserted that "Snowden did share intelligence" with the Russian government.

The report said, "Since Snowden's arrival in Moscow, he has had, and continues to have, contact with Russian intelligence services."

The following sentence was redacted, and there is nothing in the unclassified report that explains why the committee believes Snowden is still sharing intelligence with the Russians.

The committee's top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said Snowden isn't a whistleblower as he and his defenders claim.

"Most of the material he stole had nothing to do with Americans' privacy, and its compromise has been of great value to America's adversaries and those who mean to do America harm," Schiff said.

Wizner, Snowden's lawyer, dismissed the report and insisted that Snowden acted to inform the public.

Juan Zarate, a former deputy national security adviser, told NBC that the Trump administration should be cautious in accepting Snowden from Russia as a sign of good will.

"It would signal warmer relations and some desire for greater cooperation with the new administration, but it would also no doubt stoke controversies and cases in the U.S. around the role of surveillance, the role of the U.S. intelligence community, and the future of privacy and civil liberties in an American context, he said. "All of that would perhaps be music to the ears of Putin.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Union's powerful executive Commission, said Saturday he would not seek a second term when his tenure expires in 2019.

"It was a fine election campaign" in 2014, Juncker told Deutschlandfunk radio, according to extracts of an interview that will be broadcast on Sunday.

"But there won't be a second one, because I won't be putting myself forward as a candidate for a second time."

Juncker, 62, a conservative former prime minister of Luxembourg, took office on November 1 2014 after a long spell at the helm of the Eurogroup, gathering ministers of countries which share the euro.

Presidents of the Commission are appointed for a five-year term, which is renewable.

The post is elected by the European Parliament, on a proposal by the European Council, which comprises heads of state or government.

Juncker was chosen despite fierce objections by Britain, which regarded him as too federalist.

In other comments, Juncker urged the 27 EU countries -- the entire bloc minus Britain, which wants to leave -- to face its challenges with strength and unity, but admitted to "serious doubts" that its members shared the same goals.

"Has the time come for when the European Union of the 27 must show unity, cohesion and coherence?" he asked.

"Yes, I say yes, when it comes to Brexit and (US President Donald) Trump... but I have some justified doubts that it will really happen."

He added: "Do the Hungarians and the Poles want exactly the same thing as the Germans and the French? I have serious doubts."

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Two men suspected of planning Islamic State group attacks in Europe were arrested in Turkey following a 10-day police operation, Turkey's state-run agency reported Saturday.

Mahamad Laban, 45, a Danish citizen, and Mohammed Tefik Saleh, 38, a Swedish citizen, received weapons and explosives training in Syria for the past three months, the Anadolu Agency said.

Pictures published by Anadolu show Laban and others in trenches covered with sandbags. In several pictures, Laban is seen wearing camouflage gear and holding a machine gun.

Anadolu did not provide details on the arrests but said Saleh's wife had informed Swedish authorities that he had crossed from Turkey to Syria and joined ISIS in 2014, along with his two daughters. The agency says the wife didn't go to Syria and returned to Sweden.

The agency said the two men entered Turkey using fake identification with the intention of going to European countries.

In January, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said more than 52,000 people from 145 countries were on a no-entry list and some 4,000 people have been deported. Nearly 750 people with alleged ISIS links were detained in a major police sweep in 29 Turkish provinces last week.

Turkey has been hit by a string of attacks by ISIS, most recently on New Year's Eve in an Istanbul nightclub that left 39 people dead. The gunman, Abdulkadir Masharipov, was caught on Jan. 16 and formally arrested Saturday.

With coalition-backed Iraqi forces fighting ISIS in Mosul and Syrian Democratic Forces closing in on Raqqa, the capital of the so-called caliphate, fears have increased that ISIS fighters leaving Iraq and Syria may carry out attacks elsewhere.

In its 2017 terror threat assessment, Denmark's intelligence agency -- known by its acronym PET -- pointed to an "increased terror threat against Denmark" with foreign fighters potentially heading home.
WHO's Nunez Pena said WHO officials were now focusing on other countries like Egypt and Sri Lanka as worrisome centers of organ harvesting.

The World Health Organization says China has taken steps to end its once-widespread practice of harvesting organs from executed prisoners but that it's impossible to know what is happening across the entire country.

At a Vatican conference on organ trafficking this week, a former top Chinese official said the country had stopped its unethical program, but critics remain unconvinced.

In an interview Thursday, WHO's Jose Ramon Nunez Pena said he personally visited about 20 hospitals in China last year and believes the country has reformed. But he acknowledged that it was still possible "there may still be hidden things going on." China has more than 1 million medical centers, although only 169 are authorized to do transplants.

Nunez Pena said he had seen data including organ transplant registries and was convinced the country was now shifting away from illegally harvesting organs.

"What is clear to me is that they're changing," he said. "But in a country as huge as China, we can't know everything."

Earlier this week, critics questioned China's claims of reform and suggested that WHO should be allowed to conduct surprise investigations and interview donor relatives. The U.N. health agency has no authority to enter countries without their permission.

China's Dr. Haibo Wang responded that China shouldn't be singled out for such treatment while other countries were not. The head of the Chinese delegation, Dr. Huang Jiefu, told the conference there had been an increase in both living and deceased voluntary organ donors following China's crackdown on the illicit organ trade.

"It sounds a little hard to believe that China could have so quickly made this change to its organ donation program," said Vivek Jha, executive director of the George Institute for Global Health in India.

He said China should provide the international transplant community with data to prove that its organs are no longer being illegally procured.

"It could be the case that China has changed," he said. "The problem is we just have not seen the information to prove it."

Nunez Pena said tracking illegal organ activities was inherently difficult and that countries with past problems like India and Costa Rica appeared to have improved practices, but that officials couldn't be absolutely certain that was the case. He said WHO officials were now focusing on other countries like Egypt and Sri Lanka as worrisome centers of organ harvesting.

Campbell Fraser, an organ trafficking researcher at Griffith University in Australia, agreed the trends over the past few years have shown a drop in the number of foreigners going to China for transplants and an increase of organ seekers heading to the Middle East.

At a press conference at the Chinese Embassy in Italy following the two-day Vatican organ conference, Fraser said migrants - including Syrians, Somalis and Eritreans - sometimes resort to selling off a kidney to pay traffickers to get them or their families to Europe.

"Egypt is where the biggest problem is at the moment," he said, adding that it has the best medical facilities in the region and can perform the live donor surgeries.

He estimated as many as 10 such illicit transplants could be happening per week, though he had no statistics and said he based his research largely on anecdotal information from recipients, law enforcement, doctors and even some organ "brokers."

Fraser said he has access to transplant patient "chat boards" because he himself had a kidney transplant in his native Australia in 2003.

Nunez Pena said it was likely that organ trafficking would find its way to conflict-plagued regions.

"We're hearing about a lot of problems in Egypt, Pakistan and the Philippines," he said, predicting that authorities were poised to break up an organ smuggling ring in Egypt in the next few weeks. "Wherever you have vulnerable people, you will see these kinds of problems."

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FREDERICKSBURG

Peace United Methodist Church, 801 Maple Grove Drive, is changing its food pantry days. The food pantry will be in operation only the second and fourth Thursday of each month from 9:3011 a.m. 540/786-8585.

Trinity Bible Church, 6331 Campus Drive, will hold a midweek Bible study beginning Wednesday at 7 p.m. on the Book of Revelation. The church will also continue to host Sunday evening AWANA ministry from 57 p.m. Email admin@tbc.me.

SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY

Resurrection Lutheran Church, 6170 Plank Road. Pastor Heidi Moore will be giving her first sermon as the new pastor of the church on Sunday, Feb. 19, at the 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. services. All are welcome to hear her message. 540/786-7778; resurrectionpeople.org.

The Spotsylvania Sunday School Union will celebrate Black History Month today at 10 a.m. in the auditorium of the John J. Wright Educational and Cultural Center, 7565 Courthouse Road. Guest speaker will be Robinette Cross, African History Ph.D. candidate at New York University, who teaches at the Maggie L. Walker Governors School in Richmond. This event is free; light refreshments will be served following the program. spotsylvaniasundayschoolunion.com.

Craigs Baptist Church, 14123 W. Catharpin Road, holds its AWANA program every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. The church is also accepting early bird applications for vendors and crafters for the Oct. 7 Harvest Festival/Craft Show. Contact the church office if you are interested in any of these activities. 540/854-5284; churchbaptistchurch.org.

Christ Episcopal Church, 8951 Courthouse Road, its Thrift Shop will host a Gigantic Yard Sale, just around the corner from the second annual Food Truck Rodeo, on April 8 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. It will rent out spaces next to the Thrift Shop and in front of the church to individuals and vendors. First come, first served. $10 a space for church members, $15 for non-church members. Proceeds go to the Thrift Shop. 540/582-5503; christchurchspotsy.com.

Goshen Baptist Church, 9800 Gordon Road, hold AWANA classes on Wednesday nights at 6 p.m. Visit Goshen Baptist Church to get connected. 540/786-7500.

New Destiny Baptist Church, 11903 Bowman Drive, will host Word on Wednesday, starting at 7 p.m. weekly. newdestinyva.org.

STAFFORD

Grace United Methodist Church, 13056 Elk Ridge Road, will hold its annual Sweetheart Dinner & Auction today at 4 p.m. The dinner menu will include soup and subs, and the auction will have items donated by local businesses and church members. $8 adults, $4 children. Tickets can be purchased at the door. Funds raised will go toward the churchs mission and ministry. 540/752-5462; office.graceumc@gmail.com.

Mt. Hope Baptist Church, 1653 Brooke Road, will celebrate Black History Month with its annual Black History Program on Sunday at 4 p.m. A play titled " Still Hope Talk TV" written, produced, and presented by Sister Kim Fields. 540/659-4219.

CAROLINE

St. John Baptist Church, 17080 S. River Road. Today at 3 p.m., The Spiritualettes Choir of St. John will sponsor a Valentines Day Pageant. Children ages 2-12 will model valentine fashions with Mattaponi Praise Team and Jericho Baptist Church Choir. 804/448-3866.

Beulah Baptist Church, 9297 Eggbornsville Road, Rixeyville, will be hosting a black history program on Sunday at 2 p.m. Guest speaker will be Sister Linda Thomas, president of the Virginia State Conference NAACP. Dinner will be served. Contact Pastor Kenneth Pitts, emailbbc9297@gmail.com or 540/937-5563. The congregation will also host a call-in Bible study on Wednesday, February 22, from 7:00 -7:30 p.m., with Dr. Kenneth Pitts, Pastor. Studying Gods Word from Genesis to Revelation. Free dial-in 302/202-1118; access code: 862090. Everyone is invited to call-in. 540/937-5563 or bbc9297@gmail.com.

Zion Grove Baptist Church, 9450 Fredericksburg Turnpike, Woodford, will celebrate its annual Ushers Day on Feb. 26 at 3 p.m. The guest minister will be The Rev. Dr. Aaron L. Dobynes Sr., pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Fredericksburg. 804/633-9370.

KING GEORGE COUNTY

ORANGE COUNTY

The Restoration Community Dance Ministry is now accepting new worship dancers for the new season, with rehearsals taking place on Wednesday mornings, 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at Lake of the Woods Church, 1 Church Road, Locust Grove. No audition is necessary, just a love to worship the Lord. restoration23@yahoo.com, restorationcommunitydanceministry.com.

WESTMORELAND COUNTY

New Monrovia Baptist Church, 121 New Monrovia Road, Colonial Beach. The congregation will hold a prayer breakfast and fellowship to honor Black History Month today at 10 a.m. There will be an open tribute session for anyone to sing a spiritual, read a poem or pray. 804/224-0068; NMBCclerk@outlook.com.

CULPEPER COUNTY

Mount Olive Baptist Church, 8412 White Shop Road. MOBC will celebrate its annual Black History Program on Sunday, March 5. This year's presentation will be a musical entitled "Men and Women of the Bible". After the morning service a "Soul Food Sunday" dinner will be served and the program will begin at 3 p.m. 540/547-2909.

St. Stephens Episcopal Church, 115 N. East St., (parking at 120 N. Commerce St.). The Brotherhood of St. Andrew offers men and boys the Discipline of Prayer, Study and Service; to follow Christ and bring others into his kingdom. Newcomers are welcome to join for breakfast every Tuesday at 7 a.m. The congregation offers three Holy Communion Services every week: Sunday at 8 a.m. or 10:30 a.m., child care from 9 a.m. to noon; Wednesday Centering Prayer at 11 a.m. and Healing and Holy Communion at noon. 540/825-8786; ststephensculpeper.net; or Facebook: St-Stephens-Episcopal-Church-Culpeper-VA.

REGIONAL

Mount Zion Baptist Church, 18410 Chapel Drive, Triangle, will celebrate Black History Month on Sunday during the 10 a.m. worship service. The Mt. Zion Baptist Church Sunday School Ministry will sponsor the annual black history program. 703/221-6960; mtzbaptist.org.

Rehoboth United Methodist Church, 18580 Partlow Road, Beaverdam. The United Methodist Men are having a SHROVE pancake supper on Feb. 28 from 5-7 p.m. Donations are accepted. The menu is pancakes, toppings, sausage, orange juice and coffee. The congregation will also have a six-week grief group session on Mondays, March 10, through April 17 from 10 a.m. to noon. Sessions conducted by Bonnie Leiss. 804/448-3619.

Arvonia United Methodist Church, 1160 Bridgeport Road, Scottsville, will hold its annual Ash Wednesday service on March 1 at 7 p.m. 434/286-3812.

Centenary United Methodist Church, Rt. 20 in Scottsville, will be hosting Meager Meals every Friday at 6:30 p.m. beginning March 3 through April 7. It will also host its Annual Maundy Thursday service on April 13 at 7 p.m.
Can I be completely honest with you? Life has been rough the past few months. Our family has been hit by multiple waves of crises and difficult circumstances. Just when we think things cant get any worse, they do.

It has not gone unnoticed by myself or those around us, that life started to fall apart right after I took a bold step of faith in service to God and His church. A few weeks ago, I was talking with one friend in particular who was struggling with the decision to make her own leap of faith.

She shared that part of her hesitancy stemmed from the fear she felt when looking at what has happened in my life recently. If that is what happens when we step out in faith, I am not sure I want to do it, she said.

I struggled to find the right words in response. The truth is, I have shared those same thoughts. I have wrestled with the question, Is this really worth it? Just the other night I said to my husband, If this is what happens when we step out onto the front lines of ministry, I am not sure I want to do it.

I spent the beginning part of this week at a conference for small-group directors. It was a wonderful time of respite and recharging. As the time to travel home approached, I felt the anxieties and worries of life creeping back in. That is when God spoke to me.

Well, I didnt audibly hear His voice, but He used the mornings devotional speaker to give me encouragement and guidance. Ken Braddy, manager of Adult Bible Studies at LifeWay Christian Resources, shared a message titled Three Reasons to be Thankful for Your Problems. I found it so helpful that I knew right away I needed to share it with you, as well.

The first reason we can be thankful for our problems is because they present opportunities. When hard times arise, we have the chance to pray in a new and more fervent way than we do when life is easy. Problems also give God the opportunity to show His strength, might, power and love.

Problems can also precede recommitment to the Lord. In 2 Chronicles 15, we read about how the southern kingdom of Judah recommitted themselves to God after He provided them a great military victory. Jews from the northern kingdom of Israel defected to the south and the entire nation was unified in their commitment to serve the Lord.

Finally, problems prevent drift. When life is going well it can be easy to slowly drift away from the Lord. We forget our need for Him and begin to rely on our own strength. Pride, a dangerous result of success, creeps in and puts a wall between God and us. Our problems remind us that we do not have it all together and keep us from drifting away from the Lord.

I have found all three of these concepts to be true in my life. I have prayed more often and with greater passion over these past few months than I have in years. My commitment to the Lord and to walking in His will is stronger than ever and I have definitely been reminded of my need for God.

Someone once said that people are either coming out of a crisis or heading into one. If you are not facing a problem right now, chances are you will be soon. Bad things happen to people all the time.

Standing on the sidelines does not prevent difficulties in life. When those times do come, we are stronger and more capable of handling them when we know that we are in the center of Gods will. We can be thankful for our problems because we know that, ultimately, they bring us closer to God.
As officials in Virginia report widespread flu activity, Fauquier Hospital announced Friday that its restricting visits to certain areas because of sickness.

No visitors under 18, except siblings, are permitted into the family birthing center, and no visitors who exhibit flu symptoms will be allowed into the center at all.

In the rest of Fauquier Hospital and Fauquier Health Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, visitors with symptoms are asked to stay away until they feel better. Flu symptoms include a fever higher than 100 degrees, cough, sore throat, nasal congestion, chills, muscle pain or headache.

In Planning District 16, which includes the city of Fredericksburg and the counties of Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania and Stafford, it appears to be a typical flu season, said Dr. Brooke Rossheim, health director of the Rappahannock Area Health District.

Statewide, emergency departments and urgent care centers are reporting that 3 percent of visits are for flu-like illnesses. This would not be unexpected for this time of year, he said.

None of the hospitals in the Fredericksburg area is restricting visits. Mary Washington Healthcare officials had a conference call on Tuesday with hospitals in Northern Virginia, and the only facility to restrict visits because of the flu was Inova Fair Oaks in Fairfax, said Lisa Henry, director of corporate marketing and communications.

Flu cases are increasing, said Dr. Jayson Tappan, medical director of emergency services at Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center.

We have seen a small increase in the past month and a large uptick this week, Tappan said. We put masks on those suspected of having an upper respiratory infection or cough.

All hospitals have hand sanitizers and masks at entrances and encourage visitors to use them to reduce the spread of germs.

Rossheim reminds residents that the best preventive measure against influenza is a vaccine, which is recommended for everyone 6 months or older unless theres a medical reason not to get the vaccine.

It is not too late to receive a flu vaccine, he said.

Those who are ill should stay home from school or work to prevent the spread. And people should wash their hands frequently with soap and water and cough into a tissue, sleeve or elbow, Rossheim said.
Las Vegas has odds on everything.

I wonder what the odds are on how long Donald Trump will last as president.

If I were a gambler, I would probably give 31 odds that The Donald will resign before his four-year term is up. I figure there is a 51 chance that he wont last more than one year.

Trump is a rich and important man who is used to things happening when he snaps his fingers. He is not accustomed to being told No!

Well, in this job he is going to be rebuked and smacked in the face repeatedly. I wonder how long he can take itor WILL take it.

It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks and it is obvious that Trump does not want to jump through any political hoops to move his agenda along. He wants to give orders and have them obeyed.

He is already learning that this will not happen as president. The job is not a dictatorship, where all power is vested in one person. There are checks and balances woven into the Constitution and Trump is finding this out.

His first smack in the face came when U.S. District Court Judge James L. Robart issued a temporary restraining order against the presidents executive order regarding immigration. Based on public statements and tweets, Trump is not a happy camper regarding that judicial setback.

Whether Trumps order was right or wrong is not the question here. The question is how the president will handle defeat.

Yes, there are more defeats coming. I have contended from the beginning that Congress will not fund a wall along the 1,951 miles of the Mexican border, a barrier that is likely to have little effect on illegal immigration and one that the next president will almost certainly dismantle.

The president does not appropriate money. Congress does. The president does not make constitutional rulings. The Supreme Court does. Trying to run roughshod over both constitutional entities for four years will often be so frustrating that Trumps blood pressure may continually hover at the boiling point.

Then there is the family pressure. Based on her facial expressions at public events, Melania Trump does not seemed thrilled to be the first lady of the United States. Will she put pressure on the president to get out of the White House?

With few exceptions (like Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan), presidents are usually lifelong politicians who are familiar with the slow and frustrating workings of government. They come into the job knowing what to expect.

I dont think Donald Trump did. In fact, I still think he was the most stunned person in America on election night. He ran for the office on a lark, figuring to have some fun and disrupt the political process.

Now he has the tiger by the tail and is discovering that the beast does not like getting jerked around. Can Trump tame the tiger or will he just let go?

The tweetheart of American politics seems to be getting more and more frustrated, likely wondering why he gave up a lifestyle of the rich and famous to get slapped upside the head on a daily basis.

At some point, I think the man will decide he has had enough and step down, not admitting defeat, but rather accepting the fact that he is not cut out for this job.

Standing in the wings is Vice President Mike Pence, a capable politician who understands the system, a man who would make a good president and hopefully bring the country back together.

Usually we shudder when we ponder the possibility of a vice president assuming the top job, but not in this case.

Now Im not saying that Trump should step down, but I really believe that at some point he will, especially if he keeps butting his head against, pardon the pun, a political brick wall.

If I were 70 years old, had a young, attractive wife and $6 billion, I know I would.

But then, if I were 70 years old, had a young, attractive wife and $6 billion, I would never have run for the job in the first place.
THANK heaven for the indomitable human spirit.

And for parents and mentors who guide children through the rocky shoals of life, and help them believe in themselves.

Those thoughts sprang to mind as we read more about a local fellow, William E. Bailey of Stafford County.

He was recently honored in Richmond by Dominion and the Library of Virginia as one of the states 2017 Strong Men and Women in Virginia Historythe commonwealths most outstanding AfricanAmerican leaders.

We congratulate Bill Bailey on this richly deserved recognition.

He and the other honorees are the sort of people whose life stories should inspire anyone to try harder, do more, respect others and never give up. Just read, at lva.virginia.gov/public/smw, the brief biographies of Bailey and the late Charles Spurgeon Johnson, a sociologist, author and educator from Bristol; the late Benjamin J. Lambert III, an optometrist and Virginia senator from Richmond; Mary Bennett Malveaux, a Virginia Court of Appeals judge from Richmond; Leonard Doc Muse, a pharmacist and community leader from Arlington; the late Stephanie T. RochonMoten, news anchor and cancer awareness advocate from Richmond; and Margaret Ellen Mayo Tolbert, a scientist, educator and author from Suffolk.

But about Bailey: He shines as a sterling example to all of us. This graduate of Accomack Countys then-segregated high school and Virginia State College just wouldnt take no for answer.

Bailey wanted to fly, but kept getting turned down for flight school. The third time, was told he didnt have the mental dexterity to be a pilot.

Yet he eventually got into flight school, becoming a highly respected Army flier who was selected to get dignitaries (including Gen. William Westmoreland and Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey) into and out of combat areas during the Vietnam War. He served his nation for two decades.

Bailey earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses and three Purple Hearts in Vietnam, then spent another 20 years flying jumbo jets for commercial airlines. In the Army and at Continental Airlines, he trained more than a thousand pilots, including about 200 AfricanAmericans.

Bailey retired in 2002. Last December, he was inducted into the Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame. Were grateful to his friend Herman Jones, a retired Army colonel, for nominating him. Bailey contributed to shattering forever the myth that AfricanAmericans were not capable of acquiring technical flying skills, Jones wrote officials in urging his consideration.

When starting his Army career, Bailey told Free LanceStar reporter Cathy Dyson, he knew that the color of his skin kept him out of the cockpit. But once he got a chance to learn how to fly, he said his complexion didnt matter. He was that determined.

He recalls the credo his mother taught her eight children as they grew up in the little town of Boston on Virginias Eastern Shore. Every morning, she would walk into their rooms to wake them and say: If I can help someone along the way, my living has not been in vain.

Just as did his parents, Alma and James, Bailey has long stressed the importance of learning. (Five of his siblings worked in education; his brother James was assistant principal of James Monroe High School.) He has encouraged young people of all kinds to get interested in flying. And since his retirement, Bailey has worked mightily with others in the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity to fund scholarships, helping raise more than $7 million for his alma mater, Virginia State University.

Fredericksburg-area residents are privileged to have such a distinguished American as a member of our community.
It shouldnt matter that supporters call it the Affordable Care Act and detractors call it Obamacare. What matters is that nearly 30 million people stand to lose their health insurance over the next two years, if Congress repeals the law without maintaining its essential provisions.
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The job market in Korea has been tough for some time now and is expected to get even tighter over the next three years as a record number of university graduates look for work.

Men who started university between 2010 and 2012 and women who did so between 2012 and 2014 are expected to bear the brunt. Student numbers had never been higher, exceeding 350,000 for the first time in 2010 and reaching 360,000 three years ago.

And now they are all entering the job market, but just as they do, businesses are cutting back on hiring. Labor Ministry data shows big companies with more than 300 staff plan to hire only 29,792 new workers this year, the fewest in eight years.

That poses another headache for the government, which is already grappling with a sagging economy. Labor Minister Lee Ki-kwon said, "Young jobseekers including this month's graduates could face the toughest job market since the 1997 Asian financial crisis."

Some forecasts point to Korea's youth unemployment rate surpassing 10 percent for the first time ever. One staffer at a major business conglomerate said, "We are bracing for a currency war following the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, while the Choi Soon-sil scandal here has made it extremely difficult to carry on normal management operations. It's customary for businesses to cut back on investment and new hires in times of major uncertainties."


Grain and oilseed prices recovered slightly this week, mainly on new crop and stock statistics although there were currency-related shifts too.

The US Department of Agricultures world agriculture supply and demand estimates (WASDE), released on Thursday (9 February), lowered expectations for the stocks of wheat, maize and soya beans likely to be carried over at the end of the current season.

On the face of it that might seem bullish, but these levels still represent record inventories, said Brenda Mullan, senior analyst with AHDB market intelligence.

See also: Fridays regional ex-farm prices

On the UK wheat futures market, it was only old crop prices which rose on the WASDE report, which showed stronger US wheat exports than anticipated and smaller wheat crops expected in India and Kazakhstan.

The report also predicted higher maize production from Mexico and the Black Sea region would be more than countered by strong demand from the US ethanol industry and higher feed use in China.

Closer to home, the latest Defra statistics show that in 2016, GB millers used the highest amount of wheat on record for the July to December period.

High quality

At 3.65m tonnes, usage was up 10% on that of the previous year, emphasising the high quality of so much of the 2016 UK wheat crop.

French wheat futures rose to a four-week high this week as a weaker euro boosted exports, while low temperatures in parts of Ukraine and Russia raised risks for winter crops.

The Russian crop consultancy IKAR estimated the countrys 2017-18 wheat crop at 67.5m tonnes, down 7.9% year-on-year.
A U.S. Navy P-3 plane and a Chinese military aircraft came close to each other over the South China Sea in an incident the Navy believes was inadvertent, a U.S. official told Reuters on Thursday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the aircraft came within 1,000 feet (305 meters) of each other on Wednesday in the vicinity of the Scarborough Shoal, between the Philippines and the Chinese mainland.

The official added that such incidents involving Chinese and American aircraft are infrequent, with only two having taken place in 2016.

The U.S. aircraft was "on a routine mission operating in accordance with international law," U.S. Pacific Command told Reuters in a statement. "On Feb. 8, an interaction characterized by U.S. Pacific Command as 'unsafe' occurred in international air space above the South China Sea, between a Chinese KJ-200 aircraft and a U.S. Navy P-3C aircraft," it said.

The KJ-200 is a propeller airborne early warning and control aircraft based originally on the old Soviet-designed An-12. "The Department of Defense and U.S. Pacific Command are always concerned about unsafe interactions with Chinese military forces," Pacific Command added. "We will address the issue in appropriate diplomatic and military channels."

In Beijing, China's defense ministry told state media the Chinese pilot responded with "legal and professional measures." "We hope the U.S. side keeps in mind the present condition of relations between the two countries and militaries, adopts practical measures, and eliminates the origin of air and sea mishaps between the two countries," the Global Times cited an unnamed defense ministry official as saying.


Dairy farmers are being forced by milk producers to tackle Johnes disease in their herds, with some milk buyers delisting farmers who dont engage with controlling the disease.

Four dairy farmers attending the Action Johnes Conference in Worcester earlier this week spoke of their commitment to tackling Johnes and detailed how they were going about doing it.

Case studies

John and Sally Banks, Wildon Grange Farm



Focusing on hygiene around calving and improving youngstock rearing is protecting high herd health status in an expanding dairy herd.

See also: Journey to eradicating Johnes disease

At Wildon Grange Farm in Kilburn, Vale of York, John and Sally Banks are expanding their herd of 380 Holsteins, aiming for 600 cows by 2018, by breeding their own replacements.

They are controlling Johnes by improving farm management.

A low-stress calving environment includes a dedicated clean area designed to always be dry.

Calves are immediately removed from the calving pens and cows milked with a mobile milking machine.

All colostrum and milk fed to calves is fully traceable to the cow that produced it.

Dedicated calf rearers have no contact with adult cows and calf accommodation is positioned away from cow housing.

Mr Banks said protecting the herd from Johnes required a team approach. We have regular herd health meetings; all staff need to be involved, he said.

Cows suspected of having Johnes are tested instead of fully screening the herd. We are not being complacent.

Targeted testing has been the approach because performance has been good, but we will be keeping our eyes firmly open through expansion, said Mr Banks vet, Jonathan Statham, of the Bishopton Veterinary Group.

David Hiscock, West Hayes Farm



An aggressive policy of culling Johnes infected animals is paying off at West Hayes Farm, Sherborne, which has seen a reduction in disease prevalence.

Until five years ago, Johnes was the single biggest threat to the dairy enterprise David Hiscock runs with his father.

When he tested for Johnes he discovered that the high cell count cows whose milk was harvested for feed replacements had high levels of infection. Our cows were burning out, it was really bad, said Mr Hiscock.

Cows are now tested before drying off and those that test positive are marked with a red tag and only bred to beef. Unless she is your best cow, move her on, advised Mr Hiscock.

He admitted a weakness of his system is buying-in replacements, but those animals are always treated as Johnes positive.

His latest herd test confirmed just two Johnes positive animals in the 220-cow herd.

Mr Hiscocks vet, Rachel Hayton of Synergy Farm Health, said buying replacements was less of a risk when there was a high prevalence of Johnes in a herd. When prevalence comes down, it is a higher risk, Ms Hayton said.

Kate Lywood, Marshalls Farm



Calving an average of 30 cows a day presents a challenge for controlling the spread of Johnes for spring calver Kate Lywood, but every heifer replacement is treated as high risk and there is a control programme in place based on that assumption.

Ms Lywood and her father run a 650-cow herd at Marshalls Farm, West Sussex, and identified their first Johnes positive cow in March 2014.

That year a strategic programme of milk testing got underway and a further 11 positives were confirmed.

Our weaknesses were that pre-weaned calves were given pooled milk and the calving yard is a high usage area, said Ms Lywood.

There has been a change of policy with calves now fed milk powder and the culling of all animals that test positive. If you are not reducing prevalence of the disease, she needs to be on the lorry the next day, said Ms Lywood.

The farm has a dedicated heifer rearer and there are strict cleanliness protocols around calving.

Cows must have had six clear tests and to have been clear of the disease for two lactations for their colostrum to be fed to calves.

Teat disinfection has been improved and cow tails trimmed.

Chris Gasson, Redlands Farm



A vet who is also a milk producer may in future breed stock bulls from embryos to fully protect his herd from Johnes.

There is no incidence of Johnes in the herd of 450 cows at Redlands Farm, Banbury, and its a situation Chris Gasson and his farm manager, John Peck, want to protect.

Their ambition is to have a fully Johnes accredited herd to put the business in a strong position to sell surplus stock at a premium.

We are not quite a closed herd because we have bought in three stock bulls in the last five years, but buying bull embryos is an option to be fully closed, said Mr Gasson.

The herd is screened annually and every member of staff is involved. It is crucial to make staff aware of why we are doing it, said Mr Gasson.

That test confirmed three Johnes positive animals, but when the blood screens were repeated and faecal samples analysed the animals tested negative.

Mr Gasson said the National Johnes Management Plan is vital. The dairy industry needs to present a united front, a common approach. Time is running out.
Picture sent by Sue Hayman's office reuse OK

Workington MP Sue Hayman has been appointed shadow Defra secretary by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Ms Hayman, who was first elected to parliament in 2015, replaces Rachael Maskell, who resigned from the role before the second reading of the governments Brexit Bill.

Once a councillor on Cumbria County Council, Ms Hayman worked in social services before embarking on her career as an MP.

See also: Shadow Defra secretary Rachael Maskell talks to Farmers Weekly

She served as shadow minister for flooding and coastal communities from October 2016 to February 2017.

Ms Haymans role is one of four new shadow cabinet appointments.

The others are shadow business secretary (Rebecca Long-Bailey), shadow Welsh secretary (Christina Rees) and shadow chief secretary to the Treasury (Peter Dowd).

Mr Corbyn said: Im pleased to announce appointments to Labours shadow cabinet.

We have a wealth of talent in our party and the strength of our shadow team will develop Labours alternative plan to rebuild and transform Britain, so that no one and no community is left behind.

Ms Hayman said she was proud to be part of Labours new shadow cabinet.

It has been really great being part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs team and its great that I get to stay within the same team, she told the Times & Star newspaper.
Abe said he and Trump have reached agreement on a new framework for economic talks and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal will be among the topics of discussions. Trump said any trading relationship between the two countries must be "free, fair and reciprocal."

"We are committed to the security of Japan and all areas under its administrative control and to further strengthening our very crucial alliance," Trump told reporters at a White House news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

President Donald Trump said Friday the friendship between the U.S. and Japan is "very, very deep" and declared an alliance between the two countries is a cornerstone of peace in the East Asian region.

Japan has been concerned about the impact Trump's decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, as well as "America First" strategy, would have on Asia.

Abe expressed hope of developing a joint economic stimulus package that could create thousands of U.S. jobs through private and public investments in infrastructure. The two leaders began two days of talks at the White House Friday morning that provide them with opportunities to reinforce a long-established security treaty and bolster their economic relationship.

Trump, Abe and their wives will fly to Palm Beach, Florida, Friday afternoon for a weekend stay at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. The two-day summit is the most time Trump has spent with a foreign leader since he became president on January 20. It is Trump's second face-to-face meeting with a key ally after hosting British Prime Minister Theresa May in Washington two weeks ago.

The Trump administration set a positive tone for the weekend summit by saying before Abe's arrival at the White House that Trump is committed to resisting any unilateral declarations that would threaten Japan's authority over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

At the news conference, Trump reaffirmed that commitment, as well as one ensuring safety in the region. "We will work together to promote our shared interests... including freedom of navigation and defending against the North Korean missile and nuclear threat, both of which I consider a very, very high priority," he said.

Japan's concerns about Trump's campaign promise to get Japan and other U.S. allies to pay more for their own defense were allayed somewhat by Defense Secretary James Mattis during a visit last week to Japan and South Korea.

Trump's meeting with Japan's prime minister occurs as the new U.S. administration appears to be adopting a more traditional U.S. policy toward Asia that features consolidating alliances and collaboration with China.

Late Thursday, Trump reaffirmed America's long-standing "One China" policy in a telephone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.


Readers, we need your help to prove a merry Christmas for victims of domestic violence.
An Oregon State University anthropologist will discuss coastal migration routes that may have been used by the first humans to populate North America at the next Corvallis Science Pub.

Loren Davis, director of the Keystone Archaeological Research Fund at OSU, will talk about his investigations into the peopling of the Americas at 6 p.m. Monday at the Old World Deli, 341 S.W. Second St. in Corvallis.

There is no charge to attend, and food and drink will be available for purchase.

The event is sponsored by OSUs Terra magazine, the Downtown Corvallis Association and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.
In his "As I See It" piece of Jan. 17, Paul deLespinasse wrote: "But if people were to accept ... a Trump presidency to be illegitimate, it would make democracy impossible."

Actually, Trump was installed as president by 304 "Electors" (1788 Constitution) in the Electoral College process, which disenfranchised roughly 61.4 million citizens who all cast presidential votes last November.

Those millions of votes were dumped in the trash in each of the 49 states (and some in Maine) which gave all its electors to the candidates(s) of just one major political party. This disenfranchisement contributed to the fact that those electors who voted for Trump were directly sent to the Electoral College by just 20.5 percent of all registered voters.

The Electoral College makes a mockery of our equality as citizens. The Slurpee machine operator in Laramie, Wyoming has 4.75 times more representation in the college than the astrophysicist in Palo Alto, California, based on registered voters.

Many Americans need incentives to get out and vote. In the 2016 election 31.5 percent of registered voters did not cast a presidential vote. If those voters lived in a "red state" and were not Republicans, their motivation to vote was certainly diminished. That same reduced motivation affected non-Democrats in "blue states."

The most fundamental essential of democracy is: one woman, one vote; one man, one vote.

There was no democracy in Trump's installation. Instead, there was Electoral College-ocracy, which is one regrettable step toward aristocracy and worse.

Leo Quirk

Corvallis (Feb. 1)
True fact No. 1: President Trump has issued a three- to six-month ban on citizens from seven predominantly Muslim Countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

Big question No. 1: How is this NOT religious discrimination?

True fact No. 2: The 19 men responsible for the atrocities on 9-11 were affiliated with al-Qaida and were from four predominantly Muslim countries: Fifteen were from Saudi Arabia and the remaining four were from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon.

Big Question No. 2: Why are NONE of these four countries included in President Trump's ban, considering that these are the ONLY countries from which the 9-11 terrorists originated?

Carolyn Simmons

Corvallis (Feb. 1)
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.
Cologne tourism : No more big bags allowed in the Cathedral

COLOGNE Its undoubtedly one of the most popular tourist attractions around. In two weeks, the Cologne Cathedral will introduce some new security measures. Big bags and backpacks will be prohibited.

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In just a couple weeks, large suitcases, travel bags and backpacks will be prohibited in the Cologne Cathedral. The new security concept was explained by the provost of the Cologne Cathedral, Gerd Bachner on Friday. We have to do more to ensure security, he said, but the steps they are taking are within proportion.

The change will go into affect on March 1. Already at the press conference, there was discussion about when is a bag too big and what constitutes a backpack. Bachner said visitors will not find any bag measurement stands like the ones at airports, where passengers can put in their bag and see if it fits. And there wont be a scale or yardstick either. The small bag on wheels that many people prefer is viewed as acceptable. Another break from the past will be a private security firm. Security personnel will be in the entryway, doing some inspections from time to time. There will not be a specific security gate or check but security workers will look in purses or the small bags on wheels as deemed necessary.
The annual summer monsoon that drops rain onto East Asia, an area with about a billion people, has shifted dramatically in the distant past, at times moving northward by as much as 400 kilometers and doubling rainfall in that northern reach. The monsoons changes over the past 10,000 years likely altered the course of early human cultures in China, say the authors of a new study.

Researchers from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Xian studied ancient water levels for Lake Dali, a closed-basin lake in Inner Mongolia in the northeast of China. They found that the lake was six times larger and water levels were 60 meters higher than present during the early and middle Holocene  the period beginning about 11,700 years ago, and encompassing the development of human civilization.

I think it is important to emphasize that these spatial fluctuations in the monsoon drive large changes in northern China, said Yonaton Goldsmith, a graduate student at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and lead author of the paper. When the monsoon is strong, it shifts northward and northern China becomes green. When the monsoon is weak, the monsoon stays in the south and northern China dries out. Such large fluctuations must have altered the ecosystems in northern China dramatically.

The study, appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also ties the shifting monsoon to changes in Earths orbit and other periodic changes in the climate system. The study should help scientists understand how the monsoon is affected by those natural cycles, and how a changing climate today might influence the monsoon in the future.

Goldsmith said its still unclear how the monsoon will react to global warming. One view is that the monsoon should grow stronger, but the area studied has been drying out over recent decades, he said, so there is still a lot that needs to be done in that region before we can get definitive answers.

Dali Lake is located near the northwestern limit of the East Asian monsoon, and so would reflect the changes brought about when the monsoon shifted north. The researchers studied outcrops of sediments left behind when the lake was far larger, and used those and other markers to construct a timeline of lake levels, and the fluctuation of rainfall over millennia.

They found that the lake reached peak levels around 123,000 years ago, again around 58,000 years ago, and once more between 11,000 and 5,500 years ago. They tie the periodic increases in rainfall to the range of the monsoon shifting north by as much as 400 kilometers. The lake record is highly correlated with measurements taken earlier from cave deposits in both northern and southern China.

Between 5,500 and 5,000 years ago, the monsoon weakened and rainfall over northern China decreased by 50 percent, the researchers found. They speculate that this drying triggered a major cultural transition in the region. As they describe it, two early Neolithic societies, the Hongshan culture in North China and the Yangshao culture in central China, collapsed around 5,000 years ago. In central China, the following period saw the rise of more stratified and socially and politically complex societies, including the Longshan culture. Previously unoccupied areas on the eastern margin of the Tibetan plateau were populated. Meanwhile, northeast China experienced a sharp population decline, represented by the Xiaoheyan culture.

These findings show that climate change can have dramatic effects on human societies and highlight the necessity to understand the effect of global warming on rainfall patterns in China and all over the world, the authors write.

Intense variations in rainfall may have played a role in the collapse of other civilizations. A study led by Lamont scientist Brendan Buckley, published several years ago, suggested that extended drought coupled with changes in the monsoon could have doomed Cambodias ancient Khmer civilization at Angkor nearly 600 years ago. Drought is thought to have played a role in the decline of the Classic Maya civilization, too, though in that case, another Lamont study suggests that the Maya themselves contributed to the drought by clearing forests for cities and crops.

The Lake Dali papers other authors are Wallace S. Broecker, Pratigya J. Polissar and Peter B. deMenocal of Lamont-Doherty; Hai Xu, Jianghu Lan, Peng Cheng, Weijian Zhou and Zhisheng An of the State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences; and Naomi Porat of the Geological Survey of Israel.

This work was supported by a Gary Comer Science and Education Foundation grant to Yonaton Goldsmith and Pratigya J. Polissar; Columbias Center for Climate and Life; the National Basic Research Program of China Grant 2013CB955900; the External Cooperation Program of Bureau of International Cooperation, Chinese Academy of Sciences Grant 132B61KYSB20130003; and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Contribution no. 8084.

Reference:

Yonaton Goldsmith, Wallace S. Broecker, Hai Xu, Pratigya J. Polissar, Peter B. deMenocal, Naomi Porat, Jianghu Lan, Peng Cheng, Weijian Zhou, Zhisheng An. Northward extent of East Asian monsoon covaries with intensity on orbital and millennial timescales. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017; 201616708 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1616708114

Note: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University.
Apple's 10th anniversary iPhone 8 speculated to come with an iris scanner and OLED display News oi -Vigneshravi Apple's 10th anniversary iPhone 8 is one to keep an eye out for, literally

The iPhone 8 is speculated to come with an iris scanner and an OLED display, which is said to be provided by Samsung. To recollect the iris scanner was first sported by the explosive Samsung Galaxy Note 7. There has been a lot of buzz and rumors surrounding the specification, price and design of the iPhone 8, while most of them are just rumors, some of them do seem to be possibilities.

As this year is a milestone for the iPhone which marks its 10th anniversary, the iPhone 8 is a bit special for the company. The Cupertino-based tech giant definitely seems to be stepping up their game and preparing themselves to deliver an iPhone to impress critics and users alike. Apple is bound to make a comeback, especially after having disappointed critics and users with the iPhone 7.

Apple may not use USB-C for iPhone 8: Ultra Accessory Connector hints

A majority of the rumored specs, wish-list of upgrades and features might actually take shape and be part of the iPhone 8. Further, there are rumors that Apple will be launching three iPhones, one of them could possibly be called the iPhone X which signifies the "10th-anniversary" edition. The upcoming iPhones are said to go back to having a back glass like the ones seen on the iPhone 4 and 4s. In addition, they are believed to support wireless charging, according to a few sources, this may not be a rumor anymore.

Further, there are rumors that the side frame might use forged stainless steel as it is comparatively cheaper compared to the aluminum used on the iPhone 7. It is also rumored that the side buttons might be replaced by touch sensitive points. The iconic physical home key is said to be replaced with a touch sensitive home key on the OLED display, which is coming from Samsung. It is believed to sport curved edges as seen on the Galaxy S7 Edge.

iPhone 8 might be priced over ,000

When it comes to Apple it is hard to make assumptions based on leaks and rumors as they are known to make changes and upgrades to their phones even when they are in the production stage. Further, Apple is said to start manufacturing the iPhones in Bangalore, this should help with keeping the prices lower, hopefully. So as of now, these are the rumors and leaks which we have caught onto, we will update you as and when we get any new updates.

Source

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Phones worth Rs 1 lakh crore to be assembled in India in FY17 News oi -Priyanka Nearly 40 new factories have come up in the country during this period

Nearly Rs. 1 lakh crore worth of mobile phones are likely to be assembled in India by the end of this fiscal, said IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

"India will be producing mobile phones worth Rs 97,000 crore this fiscal, a quantum jump when compared to the Rs 18,900 crore achieved in 2014 15," IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told TOI.

Prasad said that nearly 40 new factories have come up in the country during this period, and these have been joined by nearly three-dozen top ancillary makers. "If you look at the output, India is expected to locally-produce nearly 200 million devices this fiscal against 60 million units two years back."

SEE ALSO:Draft guidelines on digital payments soon, says Ravi Shankar Prasad

As the Government gives 12 per cent incentive to companies on imported product, many companies are setting up their assembling unit in the country. Chinese firms like Huawei, Lenovo Motorola, Xiaomi and Gionee and homegrown brands such as Intex, Lava, Karbonn and Micromax have been assembling products in the country.

For enhancing electronic manufacturing government has also set up dedicated Electronic Manufacturing Clusters (EMC) in different parts in the country.

India is one of the fastest growing smartphone markets globally. During the second quarter of 2016-17, smartphone market in developed countries grew at 4.3 per cent, while that in developing markets (other than India) was up 9.9 per cent. The Indian smartphone market grew 15 per cent.

The Indian smartphone market grew significantly. Helped by various government schemes to promote local manufacturing, many handset makers have started their production in India.

Best Mobiles in India

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Kumar Mangalam Birla may head Vodafone-Idea merged entity News oi -Priyanka The merged entity would likely have 12 directors on its board

If the proposed merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular comes through then there might be chance that Aditya Birla Group, Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla may become the chairman of the merged entity, according to a report in Mint.

"The negotiations between the two mobile phone services companies as saying that the merged entity would likely have 12 directors on its board-three from either side and six independent ones," two sources close to the development said.

According to the two sources, Vodafone's stake in the merged entity will fall below 51 per cent although it would remain higher than the Aditya Birla Group's.

However, there is no official statement from both the companies, but Aditya Birla Group's spokesperson said that any talk of appointments is premature.

SEE ALSO: Vodafone and Idea merger will be favourable, says India Ratings

If the merger happens, then the new entity is likely to use the Vodafone brand under license from Vodafone Group.

After months of speculation, Vodafone had finally confirmed the merger by saying that it is in discussions with the Aditya Birla Group about an all-share merger of Vodafone India(excluding Vodafone's 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers) and Idea and any merger would be effected through the issue of new shares in Idea to Vodafone and would result in Vodafone deconsolidating Vodafone India.

The proposed merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular will create the nation's largest telecom firm with combined revenue of Rs 80,000 crore with a 43 percent market share.

Best Mobiles in India
Overall, dont let the bhoot mislead you, nothing bhootiya about this story. Had the makers tried to push the envelope, the idea could have been outstanding for a bhootiya comedy.
London's Spy Industry Thrives in Private Sector

By Luis Ramirez February 10, 2017

Private intelligence companies are part of a booming business in London and the British government complains it is having trouble retaining talented agents who are being drawn by high salaries and more growth opportunities in a blossoming industry estimated to be worth $19 billion.

"Our mission is to fill a gap of knowledge or information in any situation," said Patrick Grayson, founder and CEO of GPW, a respected mid-sized London intelligence firm. "There's always something people should or could know in addition to what they do know. Our job is to answer that question. To fill that gap in knowledge."

With legal firms as their key clients, Gray's company has set up shop on London's Chancery Lane in the heart of the city's legal district, where solicitors and judges dressed in the traditional court garb that includes white wigs and black robes can be seen walking between the courts and their offices in the medieval Inner Temple area.

The business of private investigations was once regarded as less than respectable and downmarket  that of the stereotypical private eye in a trench coat under a streetlight; but industry observers note the private investigators of today have been pulled from the gutter and into the boardroom, where they take their places next to lawyers and accountants.

The man some in the industry credit as the inventor of the modern private corporate investigations sector is former prosecutor Jules Kroll, a New Yorker who in 1986 started Kroll investigations. The company's revenues now top $1 billion.

It is at Kroll's company that Grayson and other big names in the field learned the trade and brought it to London, where the city's strategic geographic location between the United States and Asia and its long-established history as a center of espionage made it the right locale for the new industry.

Crowded playing field

Industry observers say the playing field has become crowded, mostly with small firms of as few as three people; but the sector continues to grow as big corporations expand operations overseas and seek to minimize risks in environments they do not fully understand.

"Large companies draw on us because they don't have the investigative capacity internally and where that capacity has its work more recently is in the international context. Our firm understands cultural sensitivities," says Nicholas Connon, director of Quintel Intelligence, a London firm.

Clients include companies taking new clients and investing in emerging markets of Africa, eastern Europe, and east Asia that are unfamiliar territory and where things are sometimes not what they appear.

"We're actually getting lots of requests, with the basic question, 'can you tell me what's going on,'" said Alex Bomberg of International Intelligence, which works in faraway places like India. "Even if you look at the books of the company, it's not necessarily going to give you the full picture."

Among their services, companies like Bomberg's provide pattern of life studies that give a picture of the people in a company that can be different from the image portrayed on its website, and insight on how a company is really doing. "A swan might look great above the water line, but how people are living their lifestyle within that company can be a different kind of fish," Bomberg said.

Usually not James Bond stuff

The work of corporate intelligence agents is more often not the exciting stuff of James Bond movies. It can involve combing through individuals' credit histories and analyzing personal habits  work that can include going through people's trash. "We're talking about what car they drive, what's going into their dust bin, where their wives are shopping," said Bomberg.

Although the modern industry had its start in New York, London is a breeding ground for firms, and one where they naturally thrive. The city has for centuries been a center of espionage and the British are credited with being in the spying business perhaps longer than anyone else.

One reason is the nation's history as a great colonial power.

"Britain has been a very fertile place for information, intelligence gathering, and that has to do with our position in the globe, the British tradition of exploring foreign parts and relying on accurate information to expand its interests," said Grayson.

Getting that accurate information requires tools that are reminiscent of the movies. Gear commonly used include jamming equipment to ensure that boardroom discussions are not being recorded and bug-searching devices.

$1,000 an hour

Intelligence company officials and operatives interviewed agreed there is no piece of equipment that beats the human eyeball, and the knowledge and experience to know what to look for.

Observers say the British government faces a brain drain as agents employed by police forces, the military and civilian intelligence agencies leave their jobs for better paying positions in private sector firms that often bill at rates of more than $1,000 an hour.

"If they've been working for a government agency for a long time, the draw is money. There's not a lot of money working for the government. Even the pensions are not great these days. You could quite easily double that overnight," Bomberg said.

It is not only former intelligence officers who seek out firms. Recruits include financial advisers with backgrounds that include things like experience in property or construction, lawyers, and sometimes academics.

When the companies recruit people, they essentially buy experience.

"We recruit among whoever is the best," said Connon. "We draw our expertise across the board to get into the specific situation."

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US Allies Worry About Joint Intel Operations Under President Trump

By Jeff Seldin February 10, 2017

Some U.S. allies are increasingly uneasy about the future of joint intelligence endeavors with Washington as they try to figure out just how much President Donald Trump plans to shake up the existing order.

The concerns are still in the early stages, with most of those willing to share their thoughts expressing a willingness to give the Trump administration more time to get people in place at the various agencies and departments.

But many also admit that the ongoing lack of communication combined with what, at times, appears to be contradictory messages from the White House, key departments and even from President Trump himself, is starting to strain ongoing efforts.

"It's hard to know for sure," one Western diplomatic official told VOA on condition of anonymity, when asked about the future of intelligence cooperation with the U.S.

"So much of the administration is not in place," the official said, cautioning that despite the many remaining vacancies there is already a sense Trump prefers some allies to others.

Perhaps no set of issues has been more emblematic of the dilemmas facing officials from Washington's European allies as the Trump administration's approach to Russia and the NATO alliance.

Starting on the campaign trail, Trump continually talked about his respect for Russian President Vladimir Putin, a view he has clung to even since taking office.

"I do respect him," Trump told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly in an interview that aired this past Sunday. "He's a leader of his country. I say it's better to get along with Russia than not."

At the same time, Trump has criticized NATO repeatedly, calling it "obsolete."

And despite voicing voiced "strong support for NATO" in a phone call Sunday with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Western officials say they are left to wonder how far that support truly goes, given other statements the president has made.

During a visit to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, Monday, for example, Trump repeated criticism of NATO members who have not been making "their full and proper financial contributions."

"Many of them have not been even close," Trump said. "And they have to do that."

"These alliances have been a little too much of a one way street, which is not to say that the alliances have no value," said Kevin Harrington, deputy assistant to the president for strategic planning at the National Security Council, at a forum Monday in Washington.

"It was time for the United States to look harder at a fairer burden sharing on certain fronts," he said of the president's message during the campaign. "This is not being anti-alliance to do that. I think it's simply a question of fairer distribution of burdens."

"It's a wonderful area of opportunity," according to NSC Senior Director for Strategic Assessments Victoria Coates who spoke at the same event regarding the chance to work on Washington's relationships.

But it has been the U.S. president's apparent willingness to work with Russia that has some Western officials most unnerved.

"It's a key concern," said the Western diplomatic official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Russia has been a very disruptive player."

Officials worry Moscow's disruptions of upcoming elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands will only increase.

The fear, the officials say, is Russia will interfere in those elections in much the same way American intelligence officials said it interfered with the recent U.S. presidential election.

"What you're going to see, I'm sure, is a campaign of fake news," the diplomatic official said, warning a softer approach to Russia's activities is only likely to backfire on the West.

"If the most important of these allies, the U.S., decides to forgive, it will be very difficult," the official said.

While Trump's aides have done little to ease creeping anxiety for some U.S. allies, there have been some hints of pragmatism.

"If we've learned anything from the last eight years it's that sort of cuddling up to your opponents and punishing your allies is not a good recipe for a peaceful, stable world," said the NSC's Coates. "We have terrific friends who are willing to help us and if we ask them to do so in a purposeful way, that there's a plan behind it, I actually think we have a great deal of upside."

Western officials hope that thinking ultimately wins out.

"We have something to offer," noted Dutch Ambassador to the U.S.Henne Schuwer, who has been watching developments closely.

The Netherlands has been working with various U.S. agencies to improve security across Europe and to establish a European Union intelligence community in order to better share vital information and combat threats.

"We have a very good relation with the intelligence community [in the U.S.]," Schuwer said. "That will not be broken easily."

Meetings this week with key European Union officials may also go a long way in easing potential anxieties.

Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos sounded an optimistic tone, calling his talks Wednesday with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, "fruitful and friendly."

"The security threats faced by the United States and the European Union are common and so should be our response," Avramopoulos said in a statement.

Kelly, for his part, emphasized Washington's "deep commitment to help the EU fight the terrorist threat" according to a readout from his office.

Yet for every step forward, Western officials say it is difficult to move past nagging doubts caused by tweets, comments or even the administration's executive order pausing immigration from seven Muslim majority countries.

One Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the order caused several days of uncertainty as Western countries struggled to get answers on how it impacted their citizens and what they were supposed to do.

For now, many Western officials seem willing to give the Trump administration more time to get its footing. Still they worry, waiting, as one official put it, for a firm signal to indicate what sort of course the U.S. leadership will ultimately take.

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Trump lashes out at McCain for criticizing deadly Yemen raid

Iran Press TV

Thu Feb 9, 2017 10:55PM

President Donald Trump has lashed out at Republican Senator John McCain for criticizing the recent US raid in Yemen in which an American special forces trooper died.

The White House has characterized the January 28 strike on purported al-Qaeda targets in the central Yemeni province of Bayda as a "huge success," despite the death of multiple civilians and children in an hour-long gunfight in which Navy SEALs and troops from the United Arab Emirates clashed with well-entrenched al-Qaeda militants.

McCain told NBC News on Wednesday that he cannot call it a success "when you lose a $75 million airplane and, more importantly, an American life is lost."

McCain, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who was briefed on the raid, called the mission a failure because one US soldier died and one military aircraft crashed, not because of the death of civilians.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, Trump said that the Arizona senator's negative assessment of the deadly raid on al-Qaeda in Yemen "emboldens the enemy."

"Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy!" Trump tweeted.

"He's been losing so  long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in  bogged down in conflict all over the place. Our hero ... Ryan died on a winning mission (according to General Mattis), not a 'failure.' Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!" he added.

US officials maintain that their commandos killed 14 members of the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the civilian deaths occurred when US aircraft were called for help.

However, medics at the scene said about 30 people, including 10 women and children, were killed.

Human Rights Watch said the United States should compensate the families of those "wrongfully" killed or wounded in the raid.

The attack also took the life of US Navy SEAL Team Chief Special Warfare Operator William "Ryan" Owens and left three other American troops wounded.

The White House has defended the raid as a "success by all standards," and said any criticism of the strike was a "disservice" to Owens.

"The life of Chief Ryan Owens was done in service to his country and we owe him and his family a great debt for the information we received during that raid," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Wednesday said.

He added, "Any suggestion otherwise is a disservice to his courageous life and the actions he took. Full stop."

US Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, has disputed allegations that the mission was poorly planned and had lost the element of surprise. "We have nothing to suggest that this was compromised," Davis said, adding that the allegations "do not match with reality."

The New York Times and Reuters have reported that the Navy SEALs learned that their mission had been compromised after intercepting a transmission that showed the militants were preparing for their arrival.

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Russia trying to 'publicly legitimize the Taliban': US commander

Iran Press TV

Thu Feb 9, 2017 8:55PM

The commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan has accused Russia of trying to undermine the United States in the country by attempting to "publicly legitimize the Taliban."

"The Russian involvement this year has become more difficult," US Army General John Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

"This narrative that they promote is that the Taliban are fighting" Daesh (ISIL) and the Afghan government is not combating the terrorist group "and therefore there can be a spillover of this group into the region," Nicholson added.

"This is a false narrative," he said, claiming that US-trained Afghan forces, along with American troops, have reduced Daesh fighters in Afghanistan by half.

He said the Russian government recently invited the Taliban to Moscow for meetings about the country's future but excluded representatives from the Afghan government.

The top military commander also said he needs a few thousand more troops to properly train the Afghan military.

"In my train-advise-assist mission, however, we have a shortfall of a few thousand. And this is in the NATO train-advise-assist mission, so this could come from the U.S. and its allies," Nicholson said while answering a question from Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Russia has denied providing any aid to the Taliban. Moscow has said its limited contacts with the militants are aimed at bringing the group to the negotiating table.

'We're in a stalemate in Afghanistan'

Is the United States winning or losing in Afghanistan? McCain asked Nicholson.

"Mr. Chairman, I believe we're in a stalemate," Nicholson replied.

The United States -- under Republican George W. Bush's presidency -- and its allies invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 as part of Washington's so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban regime from power, but after more than one and-a-half-decade, the foreign troops are still deployed to the country.

After becoming the president in 2008, President Barack Obama, a Democrat, vowed to end the Afghan war -- one of the longest conflicts in US history  but he failed to keep his promise.

US President Donald Trump, who speaks against the Afghan war, has dubbed the 2001 invasion and following occupation of Afghanistan as "Obama's war".

There are currently about 8,400 US troops in Afghanistan. According to US officials, Washington would also maintain a large counterterrorism capability of terror drones and Special Operations Forces to fight militants in Afghanistan.

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Officials Provide Details of Latest Counter-ISIL Strikes in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, Feb. 10, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Iraq and Syria yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

Attack, bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 14 strikes in 28 engagements in Syria:

-- Near Abu Kamal, two strikes destroyed 23 oil storage tanks, two oil tanker trucks and an oil wellhead.

-- Near Raqqa, 10 strikes engaged two ISIL tactical units; destroyed five tunnels, three vehicles, two mortar systems and a fighting position; and damaged three supply routes.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, a strike destroyed an oil wellhead.

-- Near Palmyra, a strike destroyed a vehicle bomb factory

Strikes in Iraq

Fighter and remotely piloted aircraft and artillery conducted nine strikes in 34 engagements in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:

-- Near Kisik, one strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a supply cache.

-- Near Mosul, four strikes, engaged an ISIL tactical unit and an ISIL mortar team; destroyed a vehicle and a vehicle bomb; damaged eight supply routes; and suppressed 15 mortar teams.

-- Near Qayyarah, two strikes destroyed a weapons cache and damaged four supply routes.

-- Near Qaim, two strikes engaged two ISIL tactical units and destroyed three vehicles.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said.

Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

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U.S., Australian Airmen Team Up During Operation Inherent Resolve

By Air Force Senior Airman Tyler Woodward, 380th Air Expeditionary Wing

SOUTHWEST ASIA, Feb. 10, 2017  Members of the Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force partnered to construct eight 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions in support of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve and Operation Okra here, Feb. 9, 2017.

Partnering nations contribute in the dismantling of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in nearly every aspect. From aerial refueling to armament building to conducting strikes, the coalition provides commanders with decisional advantage daily.

'We Are Fighting the Same War'

"We are fighting the same war," RAAF Leading Aircraftman Stefan said. "Communicating with the Americans has been so easy. They've been able to teach us so much that has helped us with our jobs and vice-versa as well."

Munitions Flight Officer in Charge 1st Lt. Leigh Ann shared why coalition relationships at the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing are so unique.

"Working with coalition partners brings to light the scope of what we are doing out here," Leigh Ann said. "The mission that we are working has a world-wide effect and it is awesome to see how the small day-to-day interactions result in big, strategic missions and accomplishments. I think that is what makes this environment so special -- multiple countries working together for a common goal."

Historic Air Campaign

According to Air Forces Central Command, nearly 99 percent of all weapons employed have been precision guided -- making Operation Inherent Resolve the most precise air campaign in the history of warfare.

As of 2014, both RAAF F/A-18 Hornets and F/A-18 Super Hornets have flown cumulatively over 2,101 sorties and 16,146 hours and dropped in excess of 1,630 munitions during Operation Okra.

"I think it's important to develop coalition relationships," 77 Squadron RAAF Armament Technician Leading Aircraftman Andrew said. "It just makes you feel like a part of a bigger team."

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Remarks by NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller at the International Conference on Children and Armed Conflict

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

10 Feb. 2017

Thank you, Minister Reynders.

It is a distinct honour for me to speak with you today on such an important topic.

I want to begin by thanking the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for hosting this conference.

Let me make clear from the outset: NATO is fully committed to implementation of UNSCR 1612, along with related Resolutions on the protection of children affected by armed conflict.

We commend the United Nations and the Secretary General's Special Representative for their strong leadership on this issue.

Tragically, serious threats to children in war zones are far too numerous today  too often subjecting the most innocent and vulnerable among us to indiscriminate attacks, sexual violence and recruitment as soldiers.

We must remember: These are children. Those who are most in need of protection.

Conferences like this help to call attention to a problem that is still too often overlooked and under-reported.

This attention puts pressure on countries and international organisations to do more. It's imperative that we all do more.

NATO has done a lot to address the protection of children affected by armed conflict. And we are committed to doing even more.

Protection of children in NATO-led operations and missions was first addressed at NATO's Chicago Summit in 2012.

That's when NATO Heads of State and Government decided to develop practical, field-oriented measures to better prepare NATO-led troops when they encounter violations against children.

Following up on that decision, NATO adopted "Military Guidelines on Children and Armed Conflict"  which provided commanders with instructions to equip deployed forces with more training on the issue.

The Assistant Secretary General for Operations was appointed the Senior NATO Focal Point on Children and Armed Conflict.

In 2013, NATO developed  in cooperation with the UN  an e-learning module on child protection. Available to all Allies and partners, this online tool provides an overview of the six grave violations against children identified by the UN Secretary General.

We took additional steps at the Wales Summit in 2014 to ensure we are prepared  whenever and wherever children are impacted by armed conflict.

Again in close cooperation with the UN, NATO prepared a policy document called "The Protection of Children in Armed ConflictWay Forward."

This policy was approved by the North Atlantic Council in March 2015. It provides additional guidance for integrating UNSCR 1612 and related resolutions into the Alliance's military doctrine, education, training and exercises, as well as NATO-led operations and missions.

When training local forces, NATO ensures that the protection of children affected by armed conflict is given the necessary attention it deserves.

NATO-led operations, including in Afghanistan, are taking an active role in preventing, monitoring and responding to violations against children.

Children and Armed Conflict policies are also being incorporated into NATO military exercises. In practice, this means that NATO Commanders receive training in situations where the six grave violations are encountered.

Focal points for Children and Armed Conflict have been appointed throughout the NATO Command Structure.

The focal points support the integration of the Military Guidelines on Children and Armed Conflict into training opportunities, exercises, and mission planning.

A specialized Children and Armed Conflict Adviser, Mr. Swen Dornig, who is participating in this conference and will appear on a panel this afternoon, deployed in April 2016, for the first time in a NATO-led mission, as part of our Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan.

NATO officials continue to raise the issue of protection of children in their political and military engagements with senior Afghan officials  just as we have been doing in other conflict areas.

Over the years, NATO and its operational partners have learned important lessons about how to guard against civilian casualties  and specifically how to mitigate dangers posed to children in conflict areas.

We continue to learn and to adapt. And we remain committed to doing even more.

The global community must do everything possible to protect children  and indeed all civilians  from being victimized in conflict zones  whether inadvertently or otherwise.

NATO will do everything we can  working closely with the UN, NGOs and IOs  to protect the most vulnerable among us  children who through no fault of their own find themselves in areas of armed conflict.

This is a moral imperative for our time. Working together, we can make a world of difference, and a better, safer future for the children.

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Afghanistan supports more foreign troops in advisory mission

Iran Press TV

Fri Feb 10, 2017 3:15PM

Kabul says it supports a call by the commander of US and international forces in Afghanistan for more foreign troops to advise the country's security forces.

US Army General John Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington on Thursday that there was "a shortfall of a few thousand" troops in the advisory mission.

"I have adequate resourcing in my counterterrorism mission," the US military official said.

US President Donald Trump and his Afghan counterpart, Ashraf Ghani, recently discussed security, counterterrorism cooperation and economic development in a phone call, which was the first conversation between the two sides since Trump's inauguration last month.

Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, said on Friday that Nicholson's suggestion was "good step" toward fighting militant groups in Afghanistan.

"The Afghan Defense Ministry supports any decision taken between the Afghan and American governments."

"This is a joint battle against terrorism and we support any possible way to tackle terrorism in the country," the Afghan official added.

The Taliban militant group has reacted to the possibility of more foreign troops in Afghanistan. The group's spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said it was "nothing more than a dream."

"We have experienced large numbers of invader forces in our country. This will be nothing more than suffering and more casualties," the Taliban spokesman said.

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001, triggering a war that has killed thousands and cost tens of billions of dollars.

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Lithuanian President Says Baltics Seek Greater NATO Security Ahead Of Russian Exercises

February 10, 2017

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite says the Baltic states will seek additional security measures from the United States and NATO ahead of a massive Russian military exercise in September.

"We see that risks are increasing, and we are worried about the upcoming Zapad 2017 exercise, which will deploy a very large and aggressive force [on our borders] that will very demonstrably be preparing for a war with the West," Grybauskaite said on February 9 after meeting with the Estonian and Latvian presidents in Riga.

She added: "This means we will be talking with NATO about creating additional standing defense plans, about stationing additional military means, and about creating a faster decision-making process."

NATO has begun deploying four battle units of about 1,000 soldiers each to the Baltic states and Poland as part of agreements made under U.S. President Barack Obama amid an increasingly aggressive posture from Russia.

Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia have felt vulnerable since Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and its backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine.

U.S. President Donald Trump's praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin and seemingly soft take on Russian behavior has added to the Baltic states' security worries.

Russia announced last year plans to stage the Zapad 2017 exercise near its western borders.

The Kremlin has said the NATO deployments to the Baltics and Poland pose a security threat.

Based on reporting by Reuters

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/baltic-state- want-greater-nato-security-ahead- russian-exercises/28301351.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Reports: Flynn Discussed Sanctions With Russian Envoy Before Trump Took Office

February 10, 2017

U.S. media reports say White House national security adviser Michael Flynn privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Moscow's ambassador to the United States during the month before President Donald Trump took office.

The reports on February 9 in The Washington Post and The New York Times cite unnamed current and former U.S. officials.

The Washington Post said some senior U.S. officials interpreted the contacts as a "potentially illegal" signal to Russia that it could expect a reprieve from sanctions imposed by the Obama administration in December.

Trump advisers have said that Flynn spoke to Sergei Kislyak a few days after Christmas merely to arrange a phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin after the inauguration.

But The New York Times report cites current and former U.S. officials as saying that conversation -- which it says took place the day before Obama imposed sanctions on Russia over alleged interference in the U.S. election -- went far beyond discussion of a postinauguration phone call.

According to The New York Times, the officials said that Flynn never explicitly promised relief from sanctions but appeared to give the impression it would be possible.

The New York Times says the accounts of the conversations raise the prospect that Flynn violated a law against private citizens engaging in diplomacy, and directly contradict statements made by Trump advisers.

Flynn initially denied that he had discussed sanctions with Kislyak. Asked in a February 8 interview whether he had ever done so, he twice said, "No."

But on February 9, a spokesman for Flynn said that Flynn "indicated that while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn't be certain that the topic never came up."

Based on reporting by The Washington Post and The New York Times

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/flynn-russia- sanctions-talk-trump/28301561.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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South China Sea: US, Chinese Aircraft Fly Too Close For Comfort

Sputnik News

22:12 10.02.2017(updated 00:13 11.02.2017)

Territories claimed by the Philippines but controlled by China played host to an 'unsafe' encounter between a US Navy P-3C and a Chinese KJ-200, both surveillance aircraft.

The planes reportedly flew within 1,000 feet of one another, according to the US Pacific Command. The Department of Defense and US Pacific Command are "always concerned about unsafe interactions with Chinese military forces," according to the statement. This is the first such incident since Donald Trump was sworn in as President on January 20. The service plans to "address the issue in appropriate diplomatic and military channels."

The Chinese pilot acted "legally and professionally" after flying dangerously close to the US plane, a Chinese defense ministry official told the Global Times. "We hope that the US could take the bilateral military relations into consideration and adopt practical measures to eliminate the root cause of air and sea mishaps," the official said. The Diplomat news outlet has pointed out that the Global Times, one of Beijing's flagship English-language publications, is "more hawkish" than the China Daily publication.

The encounter happened in international airspace, the US Pacific Command said, near the Scarborough Reef. "China asserts sovereignty over Scarborough Reef along with the Philippines and Taiwan," according to the CIA World Factbook, but Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has "sidestepped" China's banning of Filipino fisherman from accessing the waters "in a bid to establish closer ties with Beijing," Stars and Stripes reported.

Philippine Defense Department spokesman Arsenio Andolong told the Beloit Daily News that Filipinos were "worried" about "possible miscalculations" between Chinese and US forces. "It's good to know that nothing untoward happened," Andolong added. If foreign planes cross into Philippine-controlled airspace, "we deserve to be told out of courtesy," he said.

 Sputnik

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Mechanism on Flights in Syria 'Prevented' Incidents Like in al-Bab - Pentagon

Sputnik News

21:01 10.02.2017(updated 21:40 10.02.2017)

The US-Russian mechanism for safety of flights over Syria has been effective in preventing incidents similar to friendly fire by Russian military on Turkish army near al-Bab, US Department of Defense spokesman Jeff Davis told reporters on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Friday that wrong coordinates of Turkish army's locations provided to Russia resulted in a deadly Russian airstrike on Turkish army's positions in al-Bab. However, the Turkish General Staff claimed that Russian military had been warned in advance of the presence of Turkish servicemen in the area targeted by Russian jets in al-Bab.

"That particular incident did not involve us, so I can't pass judgment on it or draw any extensions or analogies to what we have vis-a-vis the Russians," Davis told reporters. "We have a very effective system for deconfliction for our operations with the Russians. It has served us very effectively and has largely prevented any incidents like that."

The spokesperson noted that US personnel are not working with Turkish counterparts near al-Bab at the moment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that poor coordination was the reason for an unintentional Russian airstrike killing Turkish soldiers near Syria's al-Bab, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

On Thursday, the Kremlin spokesman confirmed to Sputnik that Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over an accidental Russian airstrike that had killed Turkish soldiers in Syria. Peskov said that Russia and Turkey will jointly investigate the deadly incident.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian bombers had been on a mission to destroy Daesh terrorists' positions near al-Bab, where Turkish soldiers had been accidentally bombed.

 Sputnik

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Estonian MoD Calls on Baltic States to Boost Defense Spending

Sputnik News

18:58 10.02.2017(updated 19:19 10.02.2017)

The Estonian Defense Minister on Friday called on the Baltic states to boost defense spending.

TALLINN (Sputnik)  Estonian Defense Minister Hannes Hanso on Friday called on the Baltic states to boost defense spending as Tallin was the only one to invest in the area the required by NATO minimum of 2 percent of GDP.

"The Baltic States' defense spending has recently increased but in order to ensure security more funds must be invested. These 2 percent of GDP should not be seen as a ceiling for defense spending. This is the starting point, in other words, the minimum standard," Hanso said speaking at the Security Committee of the Baltic Assembly.

In the 2017 Estonian state budget the defense spending reached a record of 477 million euros ($507 million), which is 28 million euros more than last year, and amounts to 2.18 percent of GDP.

According to the country's Defense Ministry, Estonia is the only Baltic state and one of five EU members to meet the NATO requirement.

The authorities of Latvia and Lithuania have previously stated their intention to fulfill the criteria in 2018.

The Baltic Assembly (BA) is a regional organization established in 1991 to promote intergovernmental cooperation between the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

 Sputnik

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Vietnam to Turn to Russia to Modernize Its Aging Fleet of Soviet-Made Tanks

Sputnik News

18:04 10.02.2017(updated 21:10 10.02.2017)

Vietnam wants to modernize its aging fleet of tanks or replace them with modern ones. Sputnik discussed the issue with editor-in-chief of journal Arsenal of the Motherland and former tank battalion commander Viktor Murakhovsky.

Soviet-made tanks are the backbone of Vietnam's armored forces, but they are old and need to be replaced with new and more advanced fighting vehicles.

The cost of a radical renewal of the country's entire tank fleet is prohibitively high though. Fully aware of this the Vietnamese are now thinking of buying a limited number of modern tanks from Russia and upgrading their old ones to bring them up to speed with the demands of modern warfare.

"Vietnam has about 1,500 medium tanks and around 1,000 light ones. All of them were developed shortly after WWII and are no match for what Vietnam's neighbors, above all China, now have. Keeping them in good shape is not easy as spare parts for them are increasingly hard to get these days," Murakhovsly said.

He added that even in Russia, modernized T-72 and T-72B3 tanks sell at around $1.3 million apiece and even with minimum export overheads the price would climb to $1.5 million.

"As for the T-55 and T-62 tanks, they will cost at least half a million dollars and twice as much with dynamic protection, a modern fire control system, a thermal sight and a system to fire antitank missiles through the cannon," Murakhovsky added.

He noted that the Vietnamese have to choose between repairing their old tanks and buying limited number of modern T-72B3s or their analogues, to deploy on potentially dangerous strategic areas or to radically upgrade what they have now.

"It is up to the Vietnamese side to decide, of course, but I think that buying modern tanks and getting rid of some of their outdated ones would be the right way to go," Viktor Murakhovsky said in conclusion.

 Sputnik

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NATO Ships Merge Into Group to Exercise Anti-Submarine Tasks Amid Drills

Sputnik News

13:57 10.02.2017(updated 14:06 10.02.2017)

NATO ships merged into one group, in which they will exercise joint maneuvering, as well as submarine and air defense tasks under the Sea Shield 2017 maritime drills in the Black sea, a military-diplomatic source told Sputnik on Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  He added that ships of non-Black sea states would head to the Bosporus strait.

"After completing training tasks in two tactical groups, seven ships of the Turkish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Spanish, Canadian, US Navy and a Turkish submarine merged in one group to practice anti-submarine defense tasks at the final stage of the Sea Shield 2017 drills," the source said.

The NATO military exercises with the participation of Ukraine started on February 1. Approximately 2,800 personnel from Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, the United States, Canada, Spain and Ukraine, as well as a total of 16 warships and ten aircraft, were expected to participate in the 10-day exercises. However, the Greek vessel did not arrive.

Before merging, the first tactical group, including two Turkish vessels, operated north of the Romanian port of Constanta, while the second group, which consists of four ships from the United States, Canada, Romania and Spain, operated south of Constanta.

Russia's Black Sea fleet is observing the drills using several intelligence ships, marine aviation and onshore facilities.

The Sea Shield 2016 took place in the Black Sea in July 18-22, 2016.

 Sputnik

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Yemen: As food crisis worsens, UN agencies call for urgent assistance to avert catastrophe

10 February 2017  The number of food insecure people in Yemen has risen by three million in seven months, with an estimated 17.1 million people  more than two-thirds of the entire population of 27.4 million  now struggling to feed themselves, according to a joint assessment by three United Nations agencies.

"The speed at which the situation is deteriorating and the huge jump in food insecure people is extremely worrying," said the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Representative in Yemen, Salah Hajj Hassan, in a news release.

"Bearing in mind that agriculture is the main source of livelihood for the majority of the population, FAO is urgently calling for funds to scale up its agricultural livelihoods support to farmers, herders and fishing communities to improve their access to food in 2017 and prevent the dire food and livelihood security situation from deteriorating further," he added.

Of the 17.1 million food-insecure people, about 7.3 million are considered to be in need of emergency food assistance, according to the preliminary results of the Emergency Food Security and Nutrition Assessment, which attributed the rapid deterioration of the conditions to the ongoing conflict.

The UN and humanitarian partners has recently launched an international appeal for $2.1 billion to provide life-saving assistance to 12 million people in Yemen in 2017  the largest-ever humanitarian response plan for the war-torn country.

The joint assessment was conducted by FAO, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) in cooperation with the authorities in Yemen. It is the first national, household-level survey conducted in the country since the escalation of the conflict in mid-March 2015.

Rates of acute malnutrition were found to have passed the "critical" threshold in four governorates, while agricultural production is falling across the country.

"We are witnessing some of the highest numbers of malnutrition amongst children in Yemen in recent times," said UNICEF's Country Representative, Meritxell Relano.

She warned that children who are severely and acutely malnourished are 11 times more at risk of death as compared to their healthy peers, if not treated on time.

"Even if they survive, these children risk not fulfilling their developmental potentials, posing a serious threat to an entire generation in Yemen and keeping the country mired in the vicious cycle of poverty and under development," she said.

Stephen Anderson, WFP Country Director, also sounded the alarm. "The current level of hunger in Yemen is unprecedented, which is translating into severe hardship and negative humanitarian consequences for millions of Yemenis, particularly affecting vulnerable groups."

"Tragically, we see more and more families skipping meals or going to bed hungry, while children and mothers are slipping away with little to sustain themselves," he said.

WFP is urgently calling for support to provide food for the seven million people who are severely food insecure and may not survive this situation for much longer, he added.

Meanwhile, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that fighting in the coastal districts of Al Mokha and Dhubab in the western governorate of Taizz is spreading to the inland districts of Al Wazi'iyah and Mawza.

"A result is that more than 34,000 people have fled their homes," UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler told reporters in Geneva.

The UN refugee agency has mobilized assessment teams across displacement sites in Hudaydah, Ibb and the district of Maqbanah in Taizz, where recently displaced people are being hosted and began deliveries of emergency assistance, including basic relief items and emergency shelter.

As of 1 February 2017, UNHCR had received only $738,303 of the $99.6 million needed for the refugee agency's operational response in Yemen this year.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that extremely worrying reports have emerged about the impact on civilians of the fighting over the past two weeks, in the southwestern port of Al Mokha in Taizz Governorate. Credible reports indicate that Houthi-affiliated snipers shot at families attempting to flee their homes in Houthi-controlled areas  suggesting the use of civilians as human shields.

"Civilians were trapped and targeted during the Al Mokha fighting. There are real fears that the situation will repeat itself in the port of Al Hudaidah, to the north of Al Mokha, where air strikes are already intensifying," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a news release.

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South Sudan, Africa's largest refugee crisis, needs urgent response - UN agency

10 February 2017  With already more than 3.5 million displaced within and outside the borders of South Sudan and thousands more driven to neighbouring countries every day, the United Nations refugee agency has appealed for an urgent peaceful resolution to what has now become Africa's worst refugee crisis.

"Recent new arrivals report suffering inside South Sudan with intense fighting, kidnappings, rape, fears of armed groups and threats to life, as well as acute food shortage," William Spindler, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told the media at a regular briefing in Geneva.

"More than 60 per cent of the refugees are children, many arriving with alarming levels of malnutrition  enduring devastating impact of the brutalities of the ongoing conflict," he added.

However the crisis, third only to the displacements in Syria and Afghanistan and now in its fourth year, has received less attention and is plagued by chronic levels of underfunding.

UNHCR said that its response capacities are overstretched in the countries hosting the refugees and the lack of funds is affecting critical and life-saving efforts such as providing clean, drinking water, food, health and sanitation.

Last month, the agency revised upwards its funding requirements for 2017 to $781.8 million (some $297.9 million or 61 per cent higher than the earlier budget) in light of new needs of those who have been displaced due to renewed fighting, increased violence and resulting food insecurity since July last year.

The agency's last year funding appeal of $649 million received only 33 per cent of the amount needed.

500,000 displaced in four months  more than 4,000 every day

The period between September and December 2016 saw almost half a million South Sudanese seeking refuge in neighbouring countries  an average of almost 4,100 people every day for four months.

According to Mr. Spindler, as the global displacement trends reflect, those fleeing South Sudan are being hosted by the poorest communities in the neighbouring countries, under immense pressure with scarce resources.

Noting that the welcome South Sudan refugees received in the neighbouring countries "is encouraging" he cautioned that the lack of resources to respond is also extremely worrying.

The majority of the refugees are being hosted by Uganda (about 698,000), followed by Ethiopia (about 342,000), Sudan (305,000), Kenya (89,000), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (68,000) and the Central African Republic (4,900).

"We are working with authorities in South Sudan's neighbouring countries to provide life-saving support and look after the basic needs of those arriving in desperate conditions," the UNHCR spokesperson said, renewing a call on donor countries to step up support to the humanitarian efforts for the South Sudan situation.

South Sudan has faced ongoing challenges since a political face-off between President Salva Kiir and his then former Vice-President Riek Machar erupted into full blown conflict between forces loyal to each in December 2013. The crisis has produced one of the world's worst displacement situations with immense suffering for civilians.

Despite the August 2015 peace agreement that formally ended the war, conflict and instability have also spread to previously unaffected areas.

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South Sudan Now Largest Refugee Crisis in Africa

By Lisa Schlein February 10, 2017

More than three years of civil war in South Sudan has forced 1.5 million people to flee into neighboring countries, creating Africa's largest refugee crisis and the third largest in the world after Syria and Afghanistan, the U.N. refugee agency reports.

Since fighting erupted between the government of President Salva Kiir and rebel forces led by First Vice-President Riek Machar in December 2013, the United Nations estimates more than 3.5 million people have become homeless.

More than 2 million people have been displaced within the country, and the rest  or more than 1.5 million  have taken refuge in six neighboring countries  Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Central African Republic.

Violence prompts people to flee

Intense fighting last July in the capital, Juba, prompted a huge uptick in the number of people fleeing South Sudan in 2016.

UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said more than 760,000 people fled across borders after the collapse of a peace deal between the government and opposition forces.

An average of 63,000 people were forced to leave the country every month. Some half-a-million had to flee in the last four months since September 2016.

"More than 60 percent of the refugees are children, many arriving with alarming levels of malnutrition  enduring devastating impact of the brutalities of the ongoing conflict," he said.

Impact on nearby countries huge

Newly arriving refugees have reported widespread suffering inside South Sudan, including massacres, kidnappings, and rape.

The UNHCR said the refugees told aid workers that "fears of armed groups and threats to life, as well as acute food shortage," forced them to leave their homes and seek asylum.

Spindler told VOA the impact of hundreds of thousands of refugees on neighboring countries has been huge.

"There are refugees in camps," he said, "but there are many who are hosted by the local communities, which are some of the poorest in those countries. That is why it is so important that those countries and those communities continue to receive assistance."

Appeal for funds comes up short

Spindler explained that with so many "large-scale displacements" around the world, UNHCR humanitarian operations are suffering from a lack of attention and chronic underfunding.

He said it was particularly worrisome in the case of South Sudan, given the large size of its refugee crisis. He praised the generosity of the host countries, but noted that his agency's relief efforts were being hampered by a serious lack of money.

Last year's appeal for $649 million, he noted, was funded to only 33 percent, making it extremely difficult to provide critical services, such as clean drinking water, food, health and sanitation facilities.

He said the UNHCR currently was working with authorities in the host countries to provide life-saving support and basic needs for the many South Sudanese arriving in desperate condition.

Uganda's handling of refugees impressive

Uganda is hosting most of the South Sudanese refugees, nearly 700,000. Despite this huge burden, Spindler told VOA that the treatment of the refugees by the Ugandan authorities was exemplary in many ways.

"They are integrated into the community. They are allowed to have access to farming land. So, they are not all in camps," said Spindler.

"So, the UNHCR approach is to help not just the refugees, but the communities hosting them, which are themselves, in some cases, very poor and in great need," he said.

No end to crisis in sight

Spindler noted that no solution to this conflict, which was entering its fourth year, was in sight. As the numbers of refugees grew, so did the needs.

He said it was imperative that the international community responded to his agency's appeal for $782 million so that it could carry out its regional humanitarian operations.

He said millions of people displaced inside Sudan, as well as the refugees and the host communities sheltering them in neighboring countries depended upon a good response to the appeal for their survival.

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Cyprus at Stake in Renewed Turkey-Greece Tensions

By Dorian Jones February 10, 2017

Turkish and Greek warships recently faced off in the Aegean Sea near contested territory that brought them to the brink of war back in 1996.

The recent trouble took place after a Turkish naval vessel carrying Chief of Staff General Hulusi Akar visited the area, prompting Greece to send ships to shadow the Turkish boats. Athens accused Turkish fighter jets of violating its airspace a record 138 times in one day.

The standoff did not result in a military confrontation. As Turkish political columnist Semih Idiz of Al Monitor website says, both sides have experience at containing tensions over territorial disputes.

"We've had many of these storms in teacups; they can be very serious storms in the Aegean," Idiz said. "I am not trying to underestimate them or trying to approach it lightly, and a mishap could lead to a situation that is undesirable; but, generally I think the two sides, after a certain escalation, draw back in incidents like this. This has been the pattern between Turkey and Greece."

The outbreak in high seas tensions was widely seen as a thing of the past, with nearly two decades of rapprochement efforts.

"These events underline the wrong assumption that full normalization still has not been achieved between Turkey and Greece," warned analyst Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar of the Carnegie Institute in Brussels. "These latest events reveal how resolved disputes can erupt again."

Refugee factor

Ulgen suggests the catalyst for the latest outbreak in tensions was a Greek court's refusal last month to extradite eight Turkish soldiers wanted by Ankara for their alleged role in a failed July coup. Following the decision, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned of severe consequences. Ulgen says repercussions are still possible, even if a military showdown is avoided.

"The problems in the Greek-Turkish bilateral relationship have the potential to undermine also the refugee deal, which is of consequence to many European governments including Germany," warned Ulgen. "The other area where a deterioration of this relationship may have a negative impact is Cyprus."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Ankara recently for talks.

One item on her agenda was the assurance over the continuation of Turkey's deal with the European Union to stem the flow of migrants. Analysts predict Ankara will not end the deal because of tensions with Athens, as the issue is one of the few sources of leverage Ankara has over Brussels.

Reunification efforts

United Nations efforts to reunite the island of Cyprus, divided between Greek and Turkish-Cypriot communities, could be hurt.

"The two sides in Cyprus have brought it up to a certain point, now they need their big brothers to iron out differences," noted columnist Idiz, "and any tensions between Turkey and Greece would automatically have a negative effect on any progress being made on Cyprus, so there is that risk."

Last month, United Nations-sponsored reunification talks in Geneva ended in deadlock.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited Istanbul on Friday for two days of discussions, including with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. However, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan campaigning on a platform of nationalism ahead of an April referendum to extend his powers, analysts warn a tough line toward Athens and over Cyprus is likely, at least until the vote.

"We began to hear once more, the same damn arguments, the ones we used to hear before 2004, how strategically important is Cyprus, that Turkey would be surrounded," said international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul's Kadir Has University. "This is not only coming from government circles, or their supporters, but the old nationalists are back, so I think the real problem is going to be Cyprus, which only two months ago everybody thought was going to be resolved."

Cyprus has been divided since Turkish forces invaded in 1974 in response to a short-lived coup by Greek Cypriot militants seeking union with Greece.

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Reports: Trump Adviser Discussed Sanctions with Russian Envoy

By VOA News February 10, 2017

National Security Advisor Michael Flynn reportedly had conversations about U.S. sanctions against Russia with Russia's ambassador to the United State, despite denials from the Trump administration that the talks dealt with that subject, The Washington Post and The New York Times are reporting.

Nine anonymous people described as current and former U.S. officials told the Post that Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak explicitly discussed the sanctions placed on Russia by the Obama administration after the election hacking scandal.

The calls came at the same time as the Obama administration planned to roll out the sanctions, which raised suspicions by U.S. intelligence officials and initiated an investigation.

Flynn denied to the Post on Wednesday that he discussed the sanctions with Kislyak, but he backtracked on Thursday, telling the Post through a spokesperson that "while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn't be certain that the topic never came up."

Vice President Mike Pence also denied the conversation happened during an interview last month with CBS News, calling it one of the "bizarre rumors that have swirled around [Trump's] candidacy."

Those statements are at odds with the Post's new report about the conversation, which was one of several contacts between Flynn and Kislyak that started before the November 8 election and continued through the transition period, according to the newspaper.

Knowledge of the conversation came from reports compiled by intelligence officials who monitor the communications of Russian diplomats.

According to The New York Times, the officials had transcripts of Flynn's phone calls with Kislyak, which are classified. Officials with access to those reports then leaked details to the two newspapers.

The officials told the Post that Flynn's conversation could possibly violate a U.S. law against unauthorized citizens engaging in negotiations with foreign governments.

Under the Logan Act, it is illegal for a U.S. citizen to correspond with any foreign government "with intent to influence the measures or conduct" of that government "in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States."

The officials said it would be difficult to build a case against Flynn, however, because no one has ever been prosecuted under the law.

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President Trump: US-Japan Alliance Is Foundation for Peace in East Asian Region

By VOA News February 10, 2017

President Donald Trump said Friday the friendship between the U.S. and Japan is "very, very deep" and declared an alliance between the two countries is a cornerstone of peace in the East Asian region.

"We are committed to the security of Japan and all areas under its administrative control and to further strengthening our very crucial alliance," Trump told reporters at a White House news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Abe said he and Trump have reached agreement on a new framework for economic talks and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal will be among the topics of discussions. Trump said any trading relationship between the two countries must be "free, fair and reciprocal."

Japan has been concerned about the impact Trump's decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, as well as "America First" strategy, would have on Asia.

Abe expressed hope of developing a joint economic stimulus package that could create thousands of U.S. jobs through private and public investments in infrastructure.

The two leaders began two days of talks at the White House Friday morning that provide them with opportunities to reinforce a long-established security treaty and bolster their economic relationship.

Trump, Abe and their wives will fly to Palm Beach, Florida, Friday afternoon for a weekend stay at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.

The two-day summit is the most time Trump has spent with a foreign leader since he became president on January 20. It is Trump's second face-to-face meeting with a key ally after hosting British Prime Minister Theresa May in Washington two weeks ago.

The Trump administration set a positive tone for the weekend summit by saying before Abe's arrival at the White House that Trump is committed to resisting any unilateral declarations that would threaten Japan's authority over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

At the news conference, Trump reaffirmed that commitment, as well as one ensuring safety in the region.

"We will work together to promote our shared interests ... including freedom of navigation and defending against the North Korean missile and nuclear threat, both of which I consider a very, very high priority," he said.

Japan's concerns about Trump's campaign promise to get Japan and other U.S. allies to pay more for their own defense were allayed somewhat by Defense Secretary James Mattis during a visit last week to Japan and South Korea.

Trump's meeting with Japan's prime minister occurs as the new U.S. administration appears to be adopting a more traditional U.S. policy toward Asia that features consolidating alliances and collaboration with China.

Late Thursday, Trump reaffirmed America's long-standing "One China" policy in a telephone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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US appeals court maintains suspension of Trump's Muslim ban

Iran Press TV

Thu Feb 9, 2017 11:37PM

A US federal appeals court has rejected a request from the Justice Department to restore President Donald Trump's executive order banning citizens of seven Muslim countries from entering the United States, setting up a potential showdown in the Supreme Court.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, California, ruled on Thursday that a nationwide restraining order against the president's travel ban may continue while a federal judge considers a lawsuit over the immigration policy.

"We hold that the government has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal, nor has it shown that failure to enter a stay would cause irreparable injury, and we therefore deny its emergency motion for a stay," the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled.

Trump had said the Justice Department would succeed in appealing District Court Judge James Robart's order which lifted his administration's travel ban last week.

Robart's decision came after Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit to invalidate key provisions of Trump's executive order.

Robart questioned the Trump administration's use of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the US as a justification for the travel ban.

Trump signed an executive order on January 27 that imposed a temporary travel ban on citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and placed an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees. The move also suspended admission of all refugees for 120 days.

"Rather than present evidence to explain the need for the Executive Order, the Government has taken the position that we must not review its decision at all. We disagree," the three-judge panel hearing the case wrote on Thursday.

"In short, although courts owe considerable deference to the President's policy determinations with respect to immigration and national security, it is beyond question that the federal judiciary retains the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges to executive action," they added.

Minutes after the ruling was made public, a visibly angry Trump tweeted his reaction: "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!"

The ruling is a significant political setback to the Trump administration, which can now appeal to the Supreme Court to immediately intervene, or wait until a ruling on the preliminary injunction order.

Trump has also come under considerable pressure from politicians and rights groups to rescind the Muslim ban.

The measure has created a global backlash with an increasing number of countries, including long-standing US allies, criticizing the curbs as discriminatory and divisive.

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Former Army National Guardsman Sentenced to 11 Years for Attempting to Provide Material Support to ISIL

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, February 10, 2017



Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 27, of Sterling, Virginia, and a former member of the Army National Guard, was sentenced today to 11 years in prison and five years supervised release for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary B. McCord, U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente for the Eastern District of Virginia and Assistant Director in Charge Andrew W. Vale of the FBI's Washington Field Office made the announcement after sentencing by U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady.

Jalloh pleaded guilty on Oct. 27, 2016. According to court documents, in March 2016, a now-deceased member of ISIL who was located overseas brokered an introduction between Jalloh and an individual in the U.S. who was actually an FBI confidential human source (CHS). The ISIL member was actively plotting an attack in the U.S. and believed the attack would be carried out with the assistance of Jalloh and the CHS. Jalloh met with the CHS on two occasions and told the CHS he was a former member of the Virginia Army National Guard, but that he decided not to re-enlist after listening to online lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki, a deceased leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Jalloh had recently taken a six-month trip to Africa where he had met with ISIL members in Nigeria and first began communicating online with the ISIL member who later brokered his introduction to the CHS. During their meeting, Jalloh also told the CHS he thought about conducting an attack all the time, and that he was close to doing so at one point.

Jalloh claimed to know how to shoot guns and praised the gunman who killed five U.S. military members in a terrorist attack in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July 2015. Jalloh also stated he had been thinking about conducting an attack similar to the terrorist attack at Ft. Hood, Texas, in November 2009, which killed 13 people and wounded 32 others.

According to the statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, during the May 2016 meeting, Jalloh asked the CHS about the timeline for an operation and commented that it was better to plan an attack operation for the month of Ramadan, and stated that such operations are, "100 percent the right thing." Jalloh also asked if the CHS could assist him in providing a donation to ISIL. Ultimately, Jalloh provided a prepaid cash transfer of $500 to a contact of the CHS that Jalloh believed was a member of ISIL, but who was in fact an undercover FBI employee.

According to the statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, in June 2016, Jalloh travelled to North Carolina and made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain firearms. On July 2, 2016 Jalloh went to a gun dealership in northern Virginia, where he test-fired and purchased an assault rifle. Unbeknownst to Jalloh, the rifle was rendered inoperable before he left the dealership with the weapon. Jalloh was arrested the following day and the FBI seized the rifle.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John T. Gibbs and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon L. Van Grack for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Trial Attorney Jolie Zimmerman of the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section prosecuted the case.

17-173

National Security Division (NSD)

USAO - Virginia, Eastern

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U.S. Appeals Court Upholds Block On Trump Immigration Order

RFE/RL February 10, 2017

A U.S. appeals court has refused to reinstate President Donald Trump's temporary ban on refugees and travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations, dealing a major setback to the new administration.

In a unanimous decision, the panel of three judges from the San Francisco court left in place a lower-court ruling suspending the ban and allowing previously barred travelers to enter the United States.

An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is likely.

Trump quickly responded to the court's ruling on Twitter, saying, "See you in court, the security of our nation is at stake." Trump later dismissed the ruling as "political."

In response, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, the Democratic leader of one of the U.S. states that challenged the ban in court, said: "Mr. President, we just saw you in court, and we beat you."

The appeals court judges said the U.S. government presented no evidence to explain the urgent need for Trump's executive order to take effect immediately, and they rejected the administration's argument that the courts have no authority to review his immigration policies.

The judges noted that U.S. states that oppose the ban have raised "serious allegations" about religious discrimination and presented "significant constitutional questions," while the Trump administration did not present any evidence that public safety was at risk.

Specifically, the judges said the administration has not provided any evidence that anyone from the seven countries named in the executive order -- Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, and Syria -- had committed a "terrorist attack" in the United States.

Moreover, the court said the states and other opponents of the order had presented evidence of "numerous statements" by the president "about his intent to implement a 'Muslim ban'," despite the White House's repeated denials that the order was targeted on those who practice Islam.

"On the one hand, the public has a powerful interest in national security and in the ability of an elected president to enact policies," the ruling said. "And on the other, the public also has an interest in free flow of travel, in avoiding separation of families, and in freedom from discrimination."

Two of the three appeals court judges were appointees of former Democratic Presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, and one was appointed by former Republican President George W. Bush.

The Trump administration has 14 days to appeal the ruling.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/us-appeals-court -upholds-block-trump-immigration -order/28301359.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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India Protests China Move to Keep Islamic Militant Leader Off UN Terror Blacklist

By Anjana Pasricha February 10, 2017

India has lodged a protest with China for its opposition to a proposal at the United Nations to put Maulana Masood Azhar, the chief of Pakistan-based Islamic militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad, on a U.N. terror blacklist.

This is not the first time China has stopped a move at the U.N. to designate Azhar a terrorist. Beijing blocked a similar proposal last year.

Last month, the United States, backed by France and Britain, initiated another move to blacklist Azhar, but China has put the proposal on hold, effectively blocking it.

China has defended its latest move, saying conditions have not yet been met to back the proposal on Azhar, and that it had taken the step to allow a consensus representing the international community.

Bilateral implications

Analysts in New Delhi say the issue has become a huge irritant for India and is casting a shadow on ties between the two Asian nations.

"Obviously it will impact on bilateral relations, that's for sure," said Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese Studies at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup countered by saying that "if there is a change in the Chinese position, there will be consensus also." He added that, "we hope that eventually China will also come around to accepting this view."

India says China is the only country on the 15-member U.N. Security Council holding out on the proposal.

India accuses Jaish-e-Mohammad and its leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, of masterminding several deadly attacks in India, including an assault on an air force base last year. Pakistan says it has found no evidence linking him to the January 2014 attack.

The Jaish-e-Mohammad group that Azhar heads has been blacklisted by the United Nations. If Azhar is blacklisted by the U.N. Security Council, he would face a global travel ban and asset freeze.

India's nuclear desires

Besides the continuing differences on the issue of Azhar, India is also upset by China's opposition to its entry to the main club of countries controlling access to sensitive nuclear technology.

Although India is a not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the United States has been pushing for India to join the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). But China says exceptions should not be made for one country.

Analysts in New Delhi see Beijing's longstanding ties with Pakistan as the reason it's blocking the move on Azhar and on India's entry to the NSG.

"Why are the Chinese dragging their feet on the issue? This move appears quite strange for the Indian side. Of course there is speculation that China is backing Pakistan," Kondapalli said.

He says the promise of improved ties after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power about three years ago has not materialized.

"There is a cooling off that has happened in the last one, one and a half years, now," he said.

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New Somali President Wants His Country Off Immigration Ban

By Falastine Iman, Salem Solomon February 10, 2017

Somalia's new president says he will work to have his country removed from the list of nations whose citizens were -- and may yet be -- barred from entering the United States.

Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, more commonly known as "Farmajo," told VOA of his plans in an phone interview late Thursday, a day after his unexpected victory in the Somali presidential election.

"It is part of my responsibility to talk this issue with the U.S. government by conveying our message to the president and his government that the Somali people are really good, hard working people," Farmajo said. "They raise their families in the United States. So we will see if he can change that policy and excludes Somalis from that list."

The future of the so-called "immigration ban" is in doubt after the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a judge's restraining order against directives that temporarily halted refugee resettlement programs and barred visitors from Somalia and six other Muslim-majority countries.

President Donald Trump has vowed on Twitter to challenge the decision, setting up a possible showdown in the Supreme Court.

Farmajo is a dual U.S. and Somali citizen who has spent much of his adult life in the United States, mostly in the northern city of Buffalo.

That didn't stop Somali parliament members from choosing him Wednesday over incumbent leader Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and 20 other candidates to become the nation's 9th president.

Farmajo told VOA his first priority is to appoint a new prime minister who will be in charge of dealing with Somalia's security problems and a developing humanitarian crisis.

"There is a huge drought everywhere in Somalia which definitely will produce a famine," he said. "We have to appeal to the international community to provide humanitarian assistance to those affected people in Somalia."

Following two seasons of weak rainfall, the country is experiencing severe drought and the United Nations has warned of the potential for a repeat of the 2011 famine that killed more than 250,000 people.

He said he expects that the new prime minister can assemble a new cabinet in 30 days, and said they will roll out a plan of action in the coming 100 days.

The new president admitted Thursday he is still adjusting to his new role.

"My feeling is surreal. My feeling is something I cannot imagine because I have been working hard for the past fifteen, sixteen months and I have been campaigning in Somalia as well as in Nairobi," he said.

Broad public support

Farmajo previously served as prime minister for eight months in 2010 and 2011 and has remained extremely popular since then, said Sakariye Cismaan, a London-based Somali political analyst.

During his time in office, Farmajo was credited with ensuring that government workers and soldiers were paid on time, cracking down on corruption and helping liberate territories from al-Shabab.

"The Somali people really trust him and believe he will put the common good before his own self-interest," Cismaan said. "The whole country is extremely optimistic now."

Wednesday's election was conducted by the 328 members of the two houses of parliament. This is different than previous elections where clan elders played a significant role in choosing the president, Cismaan said. He said it was also more representative of the will of the people.

"It is the most diverse [electorate] in terms of gender and age, and I think they were sick of the corruption that was taking place throughout the election season and decided to vote for the candidate the public actually wanted," he said.

Cismaan said Farmajo's main concern will be the security situation in the country. Although al-Shabab has been driven out of the major population centers and controls less than 10 percent of the country's territory, the Islamist militant group remains a potent threat, bombing hotels in Mogadishu and attacking military bases.

Wednesday's election was moved to Mogadishu's Aden Adde International Airport, one of the few secure places in the country, following threats from al-Shabab and worries about security at the original venue, the Mogadishu police academy.

"Security is going to be his biggest challenge and the main issue that he will ultimately be judged on," Cismaan said. "But he really has a golden opportunity here. He has the entire population behind him who are now feeling more patriotic than ever. He can use that support to delegitimize al-Shabaab."

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In reversal, Trump 'upholds One China policy'

Iran Press TV

Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:46AM

US President Donald Trump has reportedly backed down from threats of not recognizing Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan.

On Thursday night, Trump held a telephone call with President Xi Jinping of China, telling him that the US would continue to honor the so-called One China policy, the White House announced in a statement.

During the call, Presidents Trump and Xi "discussed numerous topics, and President Trump agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor our One China policy," the statement said, describing the lengthy call as "extremely cordial."

It also said the two had invited each other to their respective countries.

Trumpian foreign policy

In remarks made before he took office, Trump had said he did not see why the US would have to continue to honor the "One China" policy unless Beijing offered concessions in trade. Also before his inauguration, Trump had taken an official phone call from Taiwan's leader in a break with years of American diplomatic protocol. Since 1979, the US had been acknowledging Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan, maintaining only unofficial ties with the self-ruled island.

Trump had also repeatedly questioned China's economic and trade policies, even pledging at one point to levy very high tariffs on imported Chinese goods.

While Chinese officials had been largely silent on Trump's criticism of their economic policies, Trump's remarks on Taiwan and the call with the Taiwanese leader proved a breaking point. Authorities in Beijing directed a salvo of criticism at Trump, Chinese state media said Trump was playing with fire over Taiwan, and one media outlet even went as far as to claim that war with the US would be inevitable if the "One China" policy was dropped by Washington.

But then, the US president made his first overture to Beijing when he wrote a letter to Xi, saying he looked forward to close relations between the two countries. As president, Trump had refused to call Xi  until Thursday that is.

The New York Times reported that US officials "concluded that Mr. Xi would take a call only if Mr. Trump publicly committed to upholding" the "One China" policy.

In a separate statement, Xi said he appreciated Trump's upholding of the policy.

"The development of China and the United States absolutely can complement each other and advance together. Both sides absolutely can become very good cooperative partners," Xi said.

Close and unsafe

But, in another incident that tested the cordiality of the two countries, an American Navy plane and a Chinese surveillance aircraft flew close to one another over the South China Sea, according to US officials.

An American official told Reuters that a US Navy P-3 plane and a Chinese KJ-200 surveillance aircraft came close to one another in the vicinity of the Scarborough Shoal on Wednesday.

While the official called the incident "inadvertent," the US Pacific Command called it "unsafe" in a separate statement.

China claims almost all of the strategic and resource-rich South China Sea. The territory is also claimed in part by Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The US, an extra-regional power, routinely sends warplanes and naval vessels to the sea and takes the side of China's rival claimants in the dispute.

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Pakistan claims India has built 'secret nuclear city'

Iran Press TV

Thu Feb 9, 2017 5:26PM

A senior Pakistani official says India has accumulated a stockpile of nuclear weapons which threatens to undermine the balance of power in the troubled South Asian region.

Pakistan's foreign office spokesman, Nafees Zakaria, said during his weekly briefing on Thursday that India has built a "secret nuclear city" where a stockpile of nuclear weapons has been accumulated, Pakistan's English-language newspaper Dawn reported.

The spokesman added that India has been conducting tests on intercontinental missiles, adding that such acts are impacting the existing balance of power in the region.

Zakaria also stressed that the Indian government should reciprocate the steps taken by Pakistan for peace in the region.

"Pakistan remains committed to the principles of peaceful existence with all of its neighbors, including India," he said.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Pakistani official said that India had been "exposed" by the failure of its efforts to isolate Pakistan.

The report in the Pakistani newspaper added that India had technical capacity and sufficient material to build up to 492 nuclear bombs, according to a study published by the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad (ISSI).

Meanwhile, Vikas Swarup, spokesperson of India's Ministry of External Affairs, on Thursday rejected Pakistan's claims as baseless.

"Pakistan's claims of India's secret nuclear city [are] baseless. This aims to deflect attention from real issue of terrorism," said the Indian official.

Director General Disarmament at Pakistani Foreign Office Kamran Akhtar has recently demanded that India bring its entire nuclear program under the safeguard laid out by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"There is a fear that the Indian reactors not mandated by the safeguards might be used clandestinely for plutonium production and the existing stockpiles might be diverted to a military program at a subsequent stage," he said.

In recent years, Pakistan and India have routinely tested ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads since they first became nuclear powers in 1998 and 1974 respectively.

Neither of the neighbors has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or other international regulatory pacts that restrict developing or testing nuclear weapons.

India and Pakistan say the NPT is discriminatory.

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India Increases Defense Minister's Financial Power to Speed Up Modernization

Sputnik News

15:51 10.02.2017(updated 15:58 10.02.2017)

Cabinet Committee on Security, India's apex body to decide on defense matters, has enhanced the financial powers of Defense Minister by four times to speed up the modernization India's defense forces.

NEW DELHI (Sputnik)  Cabinet Committee on Security headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has increased the financial powers of Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar from $ 75.15 million $ 300 million. The decision will fast track the defense deals which is necessary to speed up the process of modernization of armed forces.

Now India's Defense Minister will have the power to clear the defense deals worth $ 300 million at his discretion without taking clearance from the Cabinet Committee of Security.

After the decision, almost 50 percent of the defense deals would be cleared at the Defense Minister level.

"It has been increased to two thousand crores [$ 300 million] so it will take care of smaller projects. It is good but the only thing is that problem is not so much with the smaller projects but the problem is with the bigger projects as these are not within the Defense Minister's power. The issue of bigger platforms will continue to be where it is," Amit Cowshish, former Financial Advisor [Acquisition], Ministry of Defense and presently Distinguished Fellow with the Indian Institute for Defense Studies told Sputnik.

Amit Cowshish is optimistic about the decision but clarifies that it will not be of great help in armed forces modernization process.

"If you buy little things it will not add up to the overall modernization of the armed forces. Across the board you need weapons and platforms and most of which costs more than the said amount. So while some smaller project may go through more easily but the bigger projects such as procurement of aircrafts, submarines, guns etc that is not going to be covered by these powers. It's a good thing, there is no question about it, but it should not be treated as a panacea for all the problems which are besetting modernization," Amit Cowshish added.

But the decision will definitely boost the development of equipment and weapons system in India, he added.

"It will be more helpful under the 'Make Procedure' which is for the indigenous design and development of equipment and weapons system in India. This will help in launching more 'Make Projects' in which the cost of development is funded by the government and cost of development is generally not more that Rs 2000 crores ($ 300 million)," Amit Cowshish, former Financial Advisor (Acquisition), Ministry of Defense told Sputnik.

 Sputnik

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India Rejects Pakistan's Claim of Building Secret Nuclear City

Sputnik News

12:08 10.02.2017(updated 15:00 10.02.2017)

Ministry of External Affairs rubbished Pakistan's claims of that India is building a secret nuclear city in the south of India and developing Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile.

New Delhi (Sputnik)  Reacting on the Pakistan Foreign Office statement, Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson told media that, "These are completely baseless allegations. The so-called secret city appears to be a figment of Pakistan imagination. India has always been in compliance with all its international obligations. This is a very strange statement coming from a country that (a) does not have a separation plan and (b) has a strong record of proliferation which is well known to the world. India has very different credentials. So clearly this shows a lack of comprehension."

"Furthermore, there is no doubt that this is a diversity tactic by Pakistan which aims to deflect attention from the real issue at hand  the continued state sponsorship of terrorism by Pakistan and its harboring of internationally designated terrorists," Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Vikas Swarup added.

Earlier on Thursday, Pakistan claimed that India is building a secret nuclear city in its southern part.

"India is building a secret nuclear city. It has accumulated a stockpile of nuclear weapons which threatens to undermine the strategic balance of power in the region," Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said.

Citing a study published by the Islamabad-based Institute of Strategic Studies, the Director General Disarmament at the Pakistan Foreign, Kamran Akhtar said that, "India has sufficient fissile material and the technical capacity to produce between 356 to 492 nuclear bombs."

"There is fear that the Indian reactors not mandated by the safeguards might be used clandestinely for plutonium production and the existing stockpiles might be diverted to a military program at a subsequent stage," Kamran Akhtar further added.

India is trying to get into the elite club of Nuclear Suppliers Group on the basis of its strong proliferation record.

 Sputnik

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Iran attends Pakistan's multi-national naval drill as 'observer'

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, Feb 10, IRNA -- A five-day multi-national naval exercise, organized by the Pakistan Navy, 'AMAN-17', began in the Arabia Sea with an Iranian delegation attending the event as one of the observers, it was reported on Friday.

The commander of Pakistan Fleet Vice Admiral Arifullah Hussaini who was the chief guest on the occasion, inaugurated the exercise by hoisting national flag at Karachi dockyard.

Navies from Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, UK and the US are participating in the joint exercise.

Over 20 countries including Iran are also attending as the observers.

The vice Admiral speaking at the ceremony said that the exercise will help in competing human trafficking, smuggling of narcotics and terrorism in the region.

He said that Pak Navy has played a vital role in the region to ensure safe passage for cargo ships.

In a message on the occasion, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Pakistan, a major stakeholder in maritime security of Arabian Sea, is fully committed to ensuring freedom of navigation and lawful maritime order.

The Prime Minister extended a very warm welcome to all the participants who have travelled from across the seas to participate in Multinational Exercise AMAN-17.

He emphasized that cooperation between international navies is imperative to counter these emerging threats.

Planned by the Pakistan Navy, AMAN drills are held every alternate year since 2007. The navy drill aims to demonstrate united resolve in the fight against terrorism and maritime threats.

Ships, aircrafts, helicopters, special operations forces, Explosives Ordinance Disposal (EOD), marine teams and observer navies will be present at the event.

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Rouhani: Iran military development for defense purposes

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Feb 10, IRNA -- President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday Iran has shown that it has no intention to interfere in other countries' internal affairs and its military development is solely for defense purposes.

Addressing the ceremony marking the Islamic Republic of Iran's National Day, he added that Iran has never attacked any country and it has no such an intention ever.

Weapons are solely for defending the country and the enemies should not be allowed to make the region and world unsafe through creating illusions, President Rouhani said.

"We believe that the nations should have ties with each other and that's the duty of all governments to bring nations closer to each other in a bid to safeguard their common interests," he said.

The president further noted 38 years ago, the greatest revolution in the region and world clinched victory on such a day thoroughly relying on its nation, despite many countries' support t to the past despotic regime.

In times of cold war and bipolar world, Iran established the new administration without reliance whatsoever on the powers and only through public resistance, he said, noting that the revolution did not appeal to the world powers from the beginning and they started to devise plots against it.

The first problem faced by the Islamic Revolution was terrorism, he said, referring to terror acts committed by the terrorist groups across Iran.

The other conspiracies hatched by the enemies including failed coup as well as the war imposed by the deposed dictator Saddam Hossein were all defused through the national vigilance, Rouhani said.

"We told the world on the first day that Iranophobia propagated by foreigners since the initial days of the Revolution is wrong," the president said, noting that they had created horror in the hearts of the regional states that Iran will split into several small countries and insecurity will engulf the entire region.

Rouhani reiterated that Iranophobia is unfounded and history has proved that such illusions are baseless.

The second issue of Iranophobia was that they publicized that Islamic Revolution of Iran will not remain in its border and Iranians are trying to export the revolution and shake up the regional regimes, he said, noting that this issue also was cleared over the time and all noticed that Iran has no intention to interfere in other countries' internal affairs and it also does not want to attack any country.

"Today, we announce that terrorism is a great risk for all and terrorism originates from a hostile thought that certain countries regrettably promulgate knowingly or unknowingly, and they should know that fighting terrorism is not possible only through military ways," he said.

Iran has always favored peace and security in the region, he said, maintaining that it believes in case of dispute between two countries, there is no way better than negotiating table.

"Through nuclear talks with the world six major powers with the win-win strategy, we proved that world complicated problems can be solved through dialogue," he said.

He called on the diplomats at the event to work for closer ties between their countries and Iran, as it will benefit them, the region and world.

Ceremony marking victory anniversary of the Islamic Revolution attended by 180 Tehran-based ambassadors and diplomats was held in the Summit Hall in the capital Tehran.

At the beginning of the ceremony, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif welcomed foreign guests participating at the event.

Palestinian Ambassador in Tehran Salah al-Zawawi, as the ambassador dean, was the second speaker of the ceremony.

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President: Nation will give decisive response to any threat

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Feb 10, IRNA -- President Hassan Rouhani told ill-wishers and those who threaten Iran on Friday that Iranians will give a decisive response to any threat.

He made the remarks while addressing a huge number of people who gathered at Tehran's Azadi Square to attend a ceremony marking the 38th victory anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Millions of Iranians staged rallies throughout the country to commemorate the occasion.

'We are facing problems in both region and the entire world about the courageous people of Iran are not frightened they rely on the epic of today (Islamic Revolution),' President added.

'Today we face a problem. Amateurs have come to power in the region. In the US, too, some amateurs have taken power. But all should know that they should talk to Iranian nation only with the language of respect. This nation will firmly respond to threats,' President Rouhani stressed.

He added, "One who threatens the Iranian nation and its Armed Forces should know that our nation are vigilant and united and would stand against all ill-wishers."

President Rouhani noted that Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution liberated Iranian people from dependence to foreign countries, including the US, and let them to choose their own destiny.

More in his speech, the President pointed to imports of yellow cake, redesigning of Arak reactor and injection of UF6 to IR8 centrifuges.

He noted that "Iran has achieved great successes in the field of peaceful nuclear activity."

Iran with successful diplomacy has revived its share in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), President noted.

He added that exports of Iran's crud oil and its products have increased to 2.8 million bpd from last year's 1.2 million showing a 2.3 percent growth.

Stressing that the government will spare no efforts to restore rights of the Iranian nation, President Rouhani said, to this end, 'Tehran has retaken 1.7 billion dollars of its assets frozen in the US banks and will purse repossession of the rest of its frozen assets from the US.'

President Rouhani further pointed to achievements of his government noting that for the first time in the post-Revolution era, the trade balance for non-oil exports has become positive last year.

He expressed hope that exports of non-oil commodities will surpass their imports during the current Iranian calendar year (to end on March 20, 2017).

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US will fully implement JCPOA: EU's Mogherini

Iran Press TV

Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:10PM

European Union's foreign policy chief says the administration of US President Donald Trump gave her confidence that Washington will be committed to following through with the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Federica Mogherini made the remarks on Friday during her first visit to Washington since Trump became US President in January.

She said her trip was mainly aimed at discussing the nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, including the US.

It was important that the JCPOA remains an international agreement, the top EU diplomat added.

Mogherini's visit suggests concern from other P5+1 countries, including Russia and China, that the new US administration could withdraw from the nuclear agreement.

"I was reassured by what I heard in the meetings on the intention to stick to the full implementation of the agreement," Mogherini told reporters a day after talks at the White House and State Department.

She noted that she had held talks with US National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Trump's advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The European Union acted as the coordinator for the negotiations in the lead-up to the JCPOA.

Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China plus Germany - started implementing the JCPOA on January 16, 2016.

The deal, which was later enshrined in a legally-binding United Nations Security Council resolution, rolled back nuclear-related sanctions against Iran, which, in turn, put limits on its nuclear program.

However, on his campaign trail, Trump threatened to annul the deal, which he has lambasted as "the worst accord ever negotiated" and "one of the dumbest" ones he has come across.

Trump's controversial comments on the deal, repeated last month, prompted Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to say on January 19 that Washington cannot unilaterally decide to abrogate the agreement as it is an "international agreement," and not a bilateral one between Iran and the US.

Trump's harsh rhetoric against the nuclear deal comes while Washington's partners in the P5+1 have thrown their weight behind the Iran deal. The EU has already said that it is in complete agreement with China and Russia over the necessity to keep the JCPOA alive.

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Iran says Daesh elements arrested in vicinity of capital

Iran Press TV

Fri Feb 10, 2017 3:5PM

Iran says it has identified and arrested in the vicinity of the country's capital a number of Daesh elements planning to carry out acts of sabotage in Tehran.

"These individuals sought to [carry out their] plots during Bahman 22 rituals," Iran's Attorney General Mohammad Ja'far Montazeri said on Friday, referring to celebrations marking the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Millions of Iranians filled the streets countrywide on Friday to relive the day 38 years ago when the nation's hard-fought Islamic Revolution against the former US-backed regime became victorious.

On, February 11, 1979, the Iranian nation's struggles and protests against the tyrannous monarchical Pahlavi regime came to fruition under the leadership of Imam Khomeini, the religious and spiritual leader who is known as the "great architect of the Islamic Republic."

Referring to Iran's support for anti-terrorist operations outside its borders, particularly Syria and Iraq, he said, according to intelligence obtained, the Daesh Takfiri group had had plans to conduct acts of terror inside the country.

He noted that further information on the plots of these nabbed Daesh operatives would be revealed to the Iranian nation within the next few days.

The senior Iranian judicial official emphasized that if the resistance front, supported by Iran, had not stood up against terrorists, Daesh Takfiri terrorists would have reached the country's borders.

"Know that if you do not slap the enemy in the face outside the country and outside the borders, it will arrive at your gates," Montazeri said.

Iran has been providing advisory assistance to Syria and Iraq as per a request by the governments of the two countries in their battle against Daesh terrorists.

An Iranian official said in August 2016 that security forces killed an "instrumental" member of the Takfiri terrorist group of Daesh and busted the terror cell he belonged to during clashes in the country's west.

Governor General of Kermanshah Province Asadollah Razani added that the terror cell had infiltrated the western province, which borders Iraq, and had been tasked with staging suicide strikes against different targets across the country.

Iranian forces have, over the past months, engaged in clashes with terrorist groups, thwarting plots on the border and within the country, arresting several operatives, and confiscating large amounts of explosives and bomb-making materials.

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Bullies will regret threatening Iranian nation: President Rouhani

Iran Press TV

Fri Feb 10, 2017 8:19AM

President Hassan Rouhani has hailed Iranians for turning out in millions on Friday to celebrate the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, saying the rallies are a response to recent threats by new US rulers against Iran.

"This turnout is a response to false remarks of the new White House rulers and the people are telling the world through their presence that the Iranian people must be spoken to with respect and dignity," Rouhani told the rally in Tehran.

"The Iranian nation has shown during the past 38 years that it will make anyone who speaks to Iranians with the language of threats regret it," the president added.

Rouhani's remarks came after US President Donald Trump said he had put Iran "on notice" in reaction to a Jan. 29 missile test and imposed fresh sanctions on individuals and entities.

Both in the region and the US, some inexperienced figures have taken over the helm, said Rouhani, warning that "all should now they have to speak with the language of respect and praise in front of the Iranian nation."

"The nation will respond incisively in the face of threats. The one, who proceeds to threaten our nation and Armed Forces, should know that our nation is united and vigilant, and will stand up to ill-wishers," he added.

'Revolution: A gift of independence'

The president further said the 1979 Revolution freed the country from dependence on foreigners, including the United States, and awarded the people with self-determination.

He went on to enumerate some instances of the country's recent achievements, which the nation has made through its steadfastness in pursuing its rights and economic interests.

"The whole world has accepted our nuclear right," he said. "Today, we are happy to see our nuclear industry offering its products to the international community and moving towards the path of international trade," Rouhani said.

The country now possesses one of the most modern centrifuges at its nuclear facilities, namely IR-8 centrifuge, Rouhani noted.

The Iranian president further praised the country for producing close to three million barrels of oil and condensates over the past year, up by 2.3 percent during the previous year.

He said Iran also managed to repatriate $1.7 billion of its assets frozen in American banks and taken legal proceedings at The Hague to take back more, Rouhani said.

"Our legal experts, politicians, and diplomats will not yield until they have restored the country's rights."

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Iran Marks 1979 Revolution Anniversary With Mass Rallies, Defiant Words

RFE/RL February 10, 2017

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have rallied to mark the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with officials and demonstrators lashing out at the U.S. government but sending a softer message to ordinary Americans.

The rallies commemorate February 11, 1979, when followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ousted a U.S.-backed monarch, Shah Reza Pahlavi.

State television broadcast footage on February 10 of large crowds in Tehran and other cities and towns across the country, many of them in freezing temperatures.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered in the capital's Azadi Square, chanting slogans against the United States and Israel.

Some carried banners reading "Death to America" and effigies of U.S. President Donald Trump. Images of the U.S. flag, Trump, and former U.S. presidents were trampled underfoot.

Addressing the crowds in Azadi Square, President Hassan Rohani called Trump's administration "a problem" and said Iran will "strongly answer any threat."

"Our nation is vigilant and will make those threatening Iran regret it," Rohani said, adding that Iran is "not after tensions in the region and the world."

The anniversary celebrations came a week after Trump and his administration said they were putting Iran "on notice" over a recent ballistic missile test they said defied a UN resolution.

Trump has also sharply criticized a 2015 deal between world powers and Iran that imposed curbs on Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

State television said that millions of people attended rallies across the country, a turnout Rohani said was "a strong response to false remarks by the new leaders of America."

Amid the ire targeting Trump and past U.S. leaders, officials and demonstrators went easier on ordinary Americans.

While U.S. flags were burned, as is traditional on an anniversary steeped in confrontation with the United States, many Iranians on social media used the hashtag #LoveBeyondFlags to urge an end to flag-burning.

The New York Times reported that the rallies featured "far less of the usual burning of United States flags and other anti-American displays" than in the past, and that there were no missiles on display.

Some ralliers thanked those Americans who oppose Trump's executive order to temporarily bar travelers from seven mainly Muslim countries, including Iran, from entering the United States. Trump's travel ban has been blocked for now amid a court challenge.

"Thanks to American people for supporting Muslims," some banners read.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sent a similar signal on Twitter.

"On Revolution Day, Iranians turn out in huge numbers to defy threats & insults by US govt; praise American people for rejecting #MuslimBan," Zarif tweeted.

Senior officials who attended the march in Tehran included Zarif and General Qassem Soleimani, who heads the elite Quds Force unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

Tehran and Washington have not had diplomatic relations since supporters of the Islamic Revolution stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days in 1979-80.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/iran-islamic- revolution-anniversary-tehran- rally-defiant-words/28302181.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Iran Military Reveals New Missiles, Rockets

Sputnik News

23:35 10.02.2017(updated 00:13 11.02.2017)

The Iranian military has claimed that its guided artillery rocket, shoulder-fired missile, and 40mm grenade launcher are state-of-the-art.

Officials recently displayed an upgraded Fajr-5 rocket that can now be guided, according to the Tehran Times. Military officials highlighted a number of new developments at a recent public ceremony in Iran's capital, Tehran, while declaring that mass production for military equipment is on the way.

Hezbollah and Hamas have used the unguided Fajr-5 rocket and could use a guided version to conduct strikes from a range of 75 km into Israel, IHS Jane's reported. The defense intelligence news outlet also noted that the Fajr-5 could be the "most potentially significant" development from the recent showcase in Tehran.

Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqan asserted that production of weapons has jumped 69 percent in the past three years, according to the Tehran Times. The international daily paper did not specify whether this increase was in infantry weapons, naval defense systems, or missile development. Since 2014, "over 115 types of defense systems and new military products have been manufactured and put to use," Dehqan said.

Recent missile and rocket tests have not been directed at the new US presidential administration, according to the Tehran Times. "There is no need to test Mr. Trump as we have heard his views on different issues in recent days," an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said. The spokesman added that Iran knows Trump "quite well."

 Sputnik

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Trump Says Iran's Nuclear Deal Inconceivable, Disastrous For Israel

Sputnik News

19:47 10.02.2017(updated 19:57 10.02.2017)

The Iranian nuclear deal should be carefully considered before signing an agreemenet, US President Donald Trump said Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Iranian nuclear deal was poorly negotiated and should not have been agreed in the first place as it represents a "disaster" for Israel, US President Donald Trump said Friday.

"The deal with Iran was a disaster for Israel. Inconceivable that it was made. It was poorly negotiated and executed," Trump said in an interview with Israel Hayom newspaper.

Trump stressed that as "a deal person" he might say that the nuclear deal had not even been "comprehensible."

The US president pointed out that he was respecting and understanding Israel, adding that the US-Israeli relation would be better under his administration.

"I don't want to be condemning Israel. I understand Israel very well, and I respect Israel a lot, and they have been through a lot. I would like to see peace and beyond that," Trump said.

Iran, the European Union, and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany) group of countries signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to ensure the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program on July 14, 2015. Under this agreement, Iran pledged to refrain from developing or acquiring nuclear weapons in exchange for the lifting of sanctions imposed against Iran. A UN resolution was passed shortly afterwards, reaffirming the nuclear agreement.

Trump has frequently called the Iran nuclear agreement, negotiated by former President Barack Obama's team, as a "disastrous deal" and suggested canceling it.

 Sputnik

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Japan to Play Larger Military Role in Alliance With US

Sputnik News

23:45 10.02.2017

Japan will assume a larger military role in the US-Japanese alliance, US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in a joint statement on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  "[T]he United States will strengthen its presence in the region, and Japan will assume larger roles and responsibilities in the alliance," the statement said. "The United States and Japan will continue to implement and expand defense cooperation as laid out in the 2015 US-Japan defense guidelines."

Abe and Trump also agreed in the statement that the US-Japan Security Treaty covered the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea islands, known in China as the Daioyu Islands.

"The two leaders affirmed that Article 5 of the US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security covers the Senkaku Islands. They oppose any unilateral action that seeks to undermine Japan's administration of these islands," the joint statement said.

The United States and Japan would deepen their cooperation to safeguard the peace and stability of the East China Sea, the statement added.

Trump and Abe also agreed to avoid actions to escalate tensions in the South China Sea.

"The United States and Japan also call on countries concerned to avoid actions that would escalate tensions in the South China Sea, including the militarization of outposts, and to act in accordance with international law," the statement noted.

On 23 November 2013, Beijing set up an East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone which includes the Senkaku Islands. However, in September 2012, the Japanese government purchased three of the islands from an alleged private owner, setting off major protests in China.

 Sputnik

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Senior UN officials call for close cooperation to address migrant, refugee flows in Libya

10 February 2017  The heads of the United Nations agencies for human rights, migrants, and refugees, and the UN envoy for Libya, today met in Geneva calling for international solidarity to address the flows of migrants and refugees in the North African country.

The senior UN officials stressed the need "for a comprehensive approach to address the situation of migrants and refugees in Libya as well as to assist the hundreds of thousands of Libyans displaced and impacted by the crisis," according to a press release.

The meeting was between the Director-General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), William Lacy Swing; the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi; the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein; and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Libya, Martin Kobler.

They called for close cooperation at the regional and international levels, and highlighted the need to protect and rights of migrants and refugees.

"Along with many Libyans, migrants and refugees are heavily impacted by ongoing conflicts and the breakdown in law and order in Libya," the four senior UN officials said.

They noted that untold numbers of people  particularly those smuggled or trafficked, and those in detention outside of any legal process  face "grave human rights abuses and violations."

Migrants and refugees are also exposed to malnutrition, extortion, torture, sexual violence and other abuses, according to the joint press release.

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Italy Seeks Russia's Help to Stabilize Libya, End Migrant Crisis

By Henry Ridgwell February 10, 2017

From a flimsy rubber dinghy drifting 16 kilometers off Tripoli, the Libyan coast guard rescued more than 100 migrants this week, including a baby just a few weeks old. Close to 9,500 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean already this year  putting 2017 on course to be a record year.

The European Union agreed this month to give the Tripoli government $213 million to bolster its security forces and coast guard; however, Italy wants a renewed push for a permanent political solution to the chaos in Libya  and it's looking to Moscow for help.

The might be a wise move, according to Eurasia Group analyst Riccardo Fabiani.

"It's better to invite Russia to the table and have a strategic dialogue with them and establish some sort of connection and communication channel, rather than keep them out of the room so that you might end up one day waking up and suddenly discovering that Russia is now the main leader or power in the region," Fabiani said.

Libya is ruled by splintered factions, with the internationally recognized government in Tripoli, and a rival power base in the eastern city of Tobruk  which backs strongman General Khalifa Haftar, also supported by Russia.

The U.N.'s special envoy to Libya, Martin Kobler, voiced optimism this week that the two sides can be reconciled.

"With bold decisions and actions, we will witness a political breakthrough that can place Libya on the path of peace, prosperity and stability," Kobler said.

Italy wants Russia to help drive the rival factions together. Britain's foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, this week offered his support for a power-sharing deal.

"We need to build on it and to create a genuine partnership between the east and the west of the country," Johnson said. "That's the crucial question, how to make sure that Haftar is in some way integrated into the government of Libya."

However, some EU states fear Moscow is seeking a military base in Libya. Malta  which holds the rotating EU Council Presidency  has warned that Russia's backing for Haftar could trigger a civil war.

"Nobody really knows what Russia wants from Libya," analyst Fabiani said. "They've so far had a very opportunistic approach to foreign policy, and specifically in the Middle East they've basically been trying to fill every vacuum that the U.S. has left in the region."

Fabiani says Europe and Russia are waiting to see if President Donald Trump will change U.S. policy on Libya.

"Right now, it's most likely that the U.S. will just disengage from Libya and will give a sort of implicit green light to Russia, as long as they can still intervene in Libya on an ad hoc basis to fight jihadism," he said.

Even as Italy seeks Russia's cooperation, the EU this month restated its determination to uphold sanctions on Moscow over its support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Italy's foreign minister, Angelino Alfano, is due to meet his Russian counterpart next week in Germany  and Libya is set to top the agenda.

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Russia-US ties need to be restored in interest of both nations: Putin

Iran Press TV

Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:56PM

President Vladimir Putin of Russia has called for the restoration of relations between Moscow and Washington in the interests of both nations, following a five-year period of "degradation."

Putin made the remarks at a news conference on Friday after talks with his Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahor in the Russian capital, Moscow.

"The Russian-US relations have especially strongly degraded over the past five years, and of course they need to be restored in the interests of both the Russian and American people," Putin stated.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Putin said Slovenia's capital, Ljubljana, would be a good place for a first meeting with US President Donald Trump. The Russian president, however, said the choice of venue would not be Moscow's alone.

"As regards Ljubljana, Slovenia in general, it is of course a brilliant place to have a dialogue of such a sort. But it doesn't depend only on us, it depends on a whole series of circumstances," Putin said, adding, "If these meetings ever happen, we don't have anything against Ljubljana."

Slovenia was the venue for the first meeting between former US President George W. Bush and Putin in 2001. The European Union member state is also where Melania Trump, the current US president's wife, grew up.

Trump and Putin have both said they would like to try to mend battered US-Russia relations.

The ties between the two countries fell to their lowest level since the Cold War after Ukraine's Crimea joined the Russian Federation following a referendum in 2014.

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Total Order Volume for Russian Su-30 Aircraft Surpasses 470 - Manufacturer

Sputnik News

12:59 10.02.2017

The demand for Russian-made Sukhoi Su-30 multirole fighter aircraft is high, over 470 planes have been ordered, IRKUT Corporation told Sputnik Friday.

NEW DELHI (Sputnik)  The deliveries under previously signed contracts are underway.

"The Su-30 fighters, developing the concept of the Su-30MKI, have been delivered to Russia, Malaysia, Algeria, Kazakhstan. The total volume of orders is more than 470 aircraft," IRKUT's press service said.

New customers also have been showing interest in purchase, the press service added without specifying the details.

The Su-30 fighter is a two-seat derivative of the earlier Su-27 Flanker with an extended operating range, capable of air-to-air and air-to-ground strikes and equipped with a wide variety of precision-guided munitions.

 Sputnik

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Prospects of New START Treaty Depend on Washington's Stance - Kremlin

Sputnik News

12:58 10.02.2017(updated 15:27 10.02.2017)

The Kremlin cannot comment on its position regarding the New START treaty extension yet, as there is a need to update information on the parties' stance, and the negotiations will depend on the US stance on the issue, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer also refused Thursday to comment on allegations made by anonymous US officials claiming that Trump spoke negatively about the New START treaty during his January 28 phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I would not formulate any positions as of now. We had a certain pause in strategic security dialogue, therefore, of course, so to speak, in terms of the break there is a need for a certain update, a mutual information update on the positions. This [dialogue] depends on our US partners. And we will obviously need contacts on the matter," Peskov told reporters.

Peskov said he would not comment on reports of US President Donald Trump criticizing the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) to Putin.

"I could not confirm this. Everything we felt was needed to report on the results of the telephone conversation we have reported. There is nothing more to add," Peskov told reporters.

The treaty with the formal name Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms was signed between Russia and the United States in April 2010 in Prague, and entered into force on February 5, 2011. The Treaty's duration is ten years  until 2021, unless superseded by a subsequent agreement. Under the Treaty, the United States and Russia must meet the Treaty's central limits on strategic arms by February 5, 2018, that is seven years from the date the Treaty entered into force.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty treaty requires the parties to the contract to reduce and limit the number of deployed and non-deployed strategic offensive arms. It stipulates that the parties may agree to extend the treaty for a period of no more than five years.

Before the end of his tenure, former US President Barack Obama had made a proposal to continue reduction of nuclear arsenals of both Russia and the United States. The Russian side has rejected the proposal citing a number of unresolved issues in bilateral relations, such as extension of the US missile defense system. Washington has also attempted to prolong a treaty, however the Russian Foreign Ministry said that it had not received an official proposal.

 Sputnik

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Turkey gave coordinates for al-Bab airstrikes: Kremlin

Iran Press TV

Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:4PM

Moscow says the Russian air force conducted recent airstrikes that accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers in Syria based on coordinates provided by Turkey.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists in the Russian capital on Friday that the "causes of the incident are clear."

"There is no debate," he said, adding, "The situation is obvious, unfortunately. Our military while launching strikes on terrorists followed coordinates that were given to us by our Turkish partners."

"There should not have been Turkish soldiers within the limits of these coordinates. That's why these strikes took place," the Russian official stated.

Ankara said after the remarks by the Kremlin spokesman that the Turkish military had given the coordinates of the building in Syria where the soldiers were accidentally killed to its Russian counterparts a day before the incident.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim confirmed that the soldiers' death was an "accident."

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to discuss the incident in the Syrian town of al-Bab, where the two countries are conducting military operations.

On Thursday, a Russian warplane, which was targeting Daesh positions in al-Bab, "accidentally hit a building used by Turkish Army units," which led to the death of the three soldiers and injured 11 others, the Turkish army said in a statement.

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Assad dismisses Trump's plan to create 'safe zones' inside Syria

Iran Press TV

Fri Feb 10, 2017 2:21PM

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has rejected his American counterpart's plan to create "safe zones" in Syria allegedly to protect refugees fleeing violence in the war-torn country and to stem the flow of displaced people into other countries.

"It's not a realistic idea at all. This is where you can have natural safe zones, which is our country. They don't need safe zones at all," the 51-year-old Syrian leader said in an interview with Yahoo News released on Friday.

He added that "It's much more viable, much more practical and less costly to have stability than to create safe zones."

Assad further noted that safe zones in Syria would be at risk of attack from foreign-sponsored extremist groups fighting to topple the incumbent Syrian government.

The remarks come as the United Nations also rejects safe zones, saying the status quo in Syria does not allow for the creation of safe havens in northern Syria.

Speaking in an interview with ABC News on January 25, Trump said he "will absolutely do safe zones in Syria," without giving details.

Assad further stated that the Syrian government would welcome cooperation with Washington in the campaign against the Takfiri Daesh terror group only if the United States respects Syria's sovereignty and unity, and takes a "clear political position" on the matter.

He said US troops would be "welcome" in Syria to fight Daesh provided that Washington coordinates with Damascus, and recognizes the Syrian government's sovereignty.

"If the Americans are genuine, of course they are welcome. Like any other country, we want to defeat and to fight the terrorists," he said.

"Troops are part of the cooperation... (but) you cannot talk about sending troops... if you don't have a clear political position toward not only the terrorism, toward the sovereignty of Syria, toward the unity of Syria. It must be through the Syrian government," Assad pointed out.

The Syrian president also warned that there are "definitely" terrorists among millions of Syrians seeking refuge in the West.

He said it does not have to be a "significant" number of terrorists to commit atrocities, stressing that his priority is to "bring Syrian refugees back to their country, not to prompt them to immigrate."

'No evidence' for Amnesty report

Elsewhere in his remarks, Assad dismissed a recent report by Amnesty International alleging that military forces had hanged as many of 13,000 people over the course of five years at the Saydnaya prison near Damascus.

The report "puts into question the credibility of Amnesty International," Assad said, noting, "It's always biased and politicized. And it's shame for such organization to publish a report without a shred of evidence."

Earlier, the Syrian Justice Ministry had strongly dismissed the Amnesty International report as "inaccurate and politically-motivated," stressing that such a bid is meant to ruin the Syrian government's reputation in international bodies.

The ministry, in a statement published on Tuesday, emphasized that writs of execution are issued in Syria only after due process of law.

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Government soldiers, Turkish forces clash in Syria: Group

Iran Press TV

Fri Feb 10, 2017 8:8AM

A monitoring group says Syrian government soldiers and Turkish forces have clashed near Syria's border with Turkey, in a first such confrontation since Turkish forces entered Syrian territory without permission from Damascus.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday that clashes had erupted between the Syrian soldiers and their allies on the one side and the troops enlisted with Operation Euphrates Shield  the code name for Turkey's military operation in Syria  on the other in the northwest of the city of al-Bab in Aleppo Province.

The Syrian military has started a determined push to liberate the city from the Takfiri terrorist group of Daesh and just yesterday flushed the terrorists out of two villages on the city's southwestern edge.

Mohammad Abdullah, a political figure with Turkey-backed militant group known as the Free Syrian Army, said the recent clashes took place after the Turkish troops entered the city. He said the exchange of fire with Syrian soldiers had injured five Turkish forces and destroyed two of their armored vehicles.

Syrian sources, meanwhile, said the army had surrounded town of the Tadif, where Daesh has one of its biggest concentrations to the south of al-Bab.

The situation is tense in the province, whose capital city of the same name was liberated from the control of Takfiri terrorists by the Syrian military last December.

On Thursday, three Turkish forces were mistakenly slain during airstrikes by Russian fighter planes.

Turkey began a major military intervention in Syria in August last year, sending tanks and warplanes across the border in a purported mission to keep away Daesh as well as Kurdish armed groups.

Damascus has denounced the Turkish incursion as a breach of its sovereignty.

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Pentagon Not Providing US MANPADS to 'Any Group in Syria' After Obama's Waiver

Sputnik News

19:22 10.02.2017(updated 19:27 10.02.2017)

The Department of Defense (DoD) has not supplied Syrian rebels with US man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADS, the department's spokesperson Adrian Rankine-Galloway told Sputnik on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  In December, then-US President Barack Obama waived legal restrictions outlined in the US Arms Export Control Act to allow arms supply for the moderate Syrian opposition.

"DoD only provides weapons to the Syrian Arab Coalition, the Arab element of the Syrian Democratic Forces," Rankine-Galloway said.

"DoD has not provided US MANPADS to any group in Syria."

Rankine-Galloway explained that the waiver was introduced because Syria had been listed by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism since December 1979.

"Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism and thus, from time to time, the President must waive restrictions that would otherwise prohibit the US military from providing lethal assistance to our partners conducting counterterrorism operations in Syria," he claimed.

On December 9, then-Department of State spokesman Mark Toner said that the US does not want to see man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) getting into Syria after President Barack Obama lifted restrictions on military aid.

A US administration official told Sputnik in December that Obama lifted restrictions on arming partners in Syria to facilitate the offensive to retake the city of Raqqa from Daesh.

 Sputnik

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Turkish MoD Claims Russia Knew Turkish Army's Coordinates in Al-Bab Strike Area

Sputnik News

18:28 10.02.2017(updated 18:31 10.02.2017)

The Turkish General Staff claimed that Russian military had been warned in advance of the presence of Turkish servicemen in the area targeted by the Russian jets in Syria's al-Bab.

ANKARA (Sputnik)  Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Friday that wrong coordinates of Turkish army's locations provided to Russia resulted in a deadly Russian airstrike on Turkish army's positions in al-Bab.

"We must clarify the situation in connection with a statement by Dmitry Peskov in order to avoid any misinterpretation," the statement said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that poor coordination was the reason for an unintentional Russian airstrike killing Turkish soldiers near Syria's al-Bab, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

According to the Turkish General Staff's statement, the Turkish soldiers were at the same location at the time of the strike as the day before (on February 8) when the Turkish side informed the Russian side of the precise coordinates following an accidental rocket strike from friendly positions in the Russian zone of responsibility.

"We immediately relayed the coordinates to officials at the Hmeymim centerwhile the Russian military attache in Ankara was summoned to the General Staff HQ and given the precise coordinates again," the statement said.

On Thursday, the Kremlin spokesman confirmed to Sputnik that Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over an accidental Russian airstrike that had killed Turkish soldiers in Syria. Peskov said that Russia and Turkey will jointly investigate the deadly incident.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian bombers had been on a mission to destroy Daesh terrorists' positions near al-Bab, where Turkish soldiers had been accidentally bombed.

 Sputnik

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Assad: I Will Step Down if Syrians Want Me to Do So

Sputnik News

14:59 10.02.2017(updated 15:40 10.02.2017)

Syrian President Bashar Assad told the Yahoo News online outlet in an interview released Friday he would step aside as soon as Syrians wanted him to do so.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Syrian President's statement made amid the scandal errupted after the Amnesty International published a report, in which it accused the Syrian government of carrying out mass killings of up to 13,000 people in custody at Syria's Saydnaya military prison.

Assad repulsed the accusations, saying that the human rights group's report was false and questioning the credibility of the organization.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's response to 2015 accusations of prison detainee torture was that Damascus is ready for "unbiased and fair" way to verify the allegations. According to the Syrian leader, there is no verification of any alleged evidence that the Damascus authorities have been involved in the abuse of people in detention.

During the Astana peace talks the Syrian armed opposition insisted on President Bashar Assad stepping down as part of a political settlement for the country's six-year conflict, but the issue was not put on the talks' agenda.

While Russia and Iran maintain that the political landscape of the country should be shaped by the Syrian people, Western countries want Assad to resign.

"Definitely, for me whenever Syrian people don't want me to be in that position I would leave right away," Assad said.

He also did not rule out holding early presidential elections if "the Syrian people think about early presidential elections or any kind of presidential elections."

Earlier in the week, Assad also stated that Syria does not belong to his family and every citizen has the right to the presidency of the Arab republic.

 Sputnik

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Assad Reveals How US Can Defeat Terrorism in Syria

Sputnik News

14:53 10.02.2017(updated 16:22 10.02.2017)

The United States will be able to defeat terrorism in Syria only in cooperation with the Syrian authorities, President Bashar Assad said in an interview with the Yahoo News portal.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The US-led coalition has not been coordinating its actions in Syria with Damascus and has repeatedly called for Assad's resignation.

"If you want to start genuinely, as the United States, to do so, it must be through the Syrian government You cannot defeat the terrorism without cooperation with the people and the government of any country," Assad said.

Assad called US President Donald Trump's idea on establishment of safe zones in Syria absolutely unrealistic. "It's not a realistic idea at all," he said.

He added that "security zones for the Syrians can only happen when you have stability and security, where you don't have terrorists, where you don't have flow and support of those terrorists by the neighboring countries or by Western countries. This is where you can have a natural safe zone, which is our country It is much more valuable, much more practical, and less costly to have stability, than to create a safe zone."

Assad stressed that "a rapprochement" between Russia and the United States is necessary to deal with the conflict in his country.

Recently, US President Donald Trump emphasized that he "will absolutely do safe zones in Syria" for refugees in order to halt the flow of migrants from Syria to other states.

Earlier, Assad said that Trump's attempts to fight terrorism will be impeded by major US media outlets and different companies that have their own financial interest in doing so. Moreover, he said that improved Russia-US relations under the Trump administration will help resolve the Syrian crisis.

 Sputnik

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Assad Says Amnesty International's Report on Alleged Mass Killings 'a Shame'

Sputnik News

14:42 10.02.2017(updated 14:46 10.02.2017)

Amnesty International's report on mass extrajudicial killings in Syria is false, Syrian President Bashar Assad said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  On February 7, Amnesty International accused the Syrian government of killing 13,000 people at the Saydnaya prison.

"That report, like many other reports put into question the credibility of Amnesty International," Assad said in an interview with the US-based Yahoo News online outlet published Friday.

"It's a shame for such an organization to publish a report without a shred of evidence," Assad continued, adding that the report had been based on interviews.

On Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said that the report is a "provocation." She added that the authors of the report "are not ashamed to confess that the enormous numbers of victims they site are a result of calculations based on evidence of unnamed persons."

Amnesty International has been repeatedly criticized by some countries, including Russia, the United States and China, for spreading misleading information and acting as an instrument of propaganda and information wars.

 Sputnik

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Assad Dismisses 'Cosmetic' US Anti-Daesh Campaign, Praises Russian Involvement

Sputnik News

14:27 10.02.2017(updated 14:35 10.02.2017)

The United States conducts a "cosmetic" military campaign against the outlawed Daesh jihadist group, which suffered losses in the wake of Russia's involvement, Syrian President Bashar Assad said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  On September 28, 2015, Putin addressed the UN General Assembly for the first time in over a decade during its anniversary 70th session in New York. The president touched upon the key issues on the international agenda, putting a main focus on the fight against terrorism. During the speech, the Russian leader called for the creation of a broad coalition to fight terrorism for the first time.

Later, he and other Russian officials continued to call for creating a united front against terrorism.

Russia started its aerial campaign against terrorists in Syria in 2015 at the request of the Syrian president.

"This is a cosmetic campaign against IS [Daesh]," Assad said in an interview with the US-based Yahoo News online outlet published Friday.

Assad further asserted that Daesh began losing ground following Russia's involvement in September 2015.

"It started shrinking after the Russian intervention, not the American one," he was quoted as saying.

The US-led coalition of 68 nations is conducting airstrikes against the Daesh in Syria and Iraq. The strikes in Syria are not authorized by the government of President Bashar Assad or the UN Security Council.

 Sputnik

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Phone call shows Trump back on U.S. long-standing policy: DPP

ROC Central News Agency

2017/02/10 21:54:51

Taipei, Feb. 10 (CNA) U.S. President Donald Trump's latest promise to honor the "one China" policy merely represents a return to Washington's long-standing approach, a ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) official said Friday.

According to the White House, Trump had a telephone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping () Thursday, in which Trump "agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor our 'one China' policy."

The move has been seen by some as a backtrack from remarks made by Trump in December, in which he suggested that U.S. support for the policy might be contingent on a trade deal with Beijing.

Under its adherence of the one China policy -- diplomatic acknowledgment that there is only one government of China -- the U.S. has recognized the People's Republic of China rather than the Republic of China (Taiwan) as the legitimate China.

Commenting on the matter, Lo Chih-cheng (), a legislator and director of the DPP's International Affairs Department, said it is crucial to note that Washington's "one China" policy is not the same as Beijing's "one China principle."

Under its one China policy, the U.S. acknowledges and respects China's one China principle that Taiwan is a part of China, but does not accept it. Washington maintains the position that Taiwan's sovereignty is an unresolved issue.

While Trump's December remarks left much room for imagination, his latest statement merely indicates that he is returning to the United States' long-standing "one China" policy, Lo said.

However, it remains unclear what steps Trump will take under such a policy, because every U.S. president has carried out the policy differently in practice, he said.

More important to Taiwan is the Six Assurances, which have been reaffirmed by new U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently, Lo said.

The Six Assurances, issued by former U.S. president Ronald Reagan in 1982, include U.S. pledges not to set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan, not to hold prior consultations with China regarding arms sales to Taiwan, and not to play a mediation role between Taiwan and China.

They also include assurances that the U.S. will not revise the Taiwan Relations Act, will not pressure Taiwan to enter into negotiations with China and will not formally recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan.

(By Sophia Yeh and Y.F. Low)

ENDITEM/cs



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Taiwan in close communication with U.S.: Presidential Office

ROC Central News Agency

2017/02/10 20:59:51

Taipei, Feb. 10 (CNA) Taiwan maintains close contacts and communications with the United States, helping ensure "zero surprises," the Presidential Office said Friday, in response to a telephone conversation between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping () a day earlier.

It was the first conversation between Trump and Xi since Trump took office last month.

According to the White House, the two leaders discussed "numerous topics," and Trump committed to honoring the "one China" policy at Xi's request after having suggested in December that U.S. backing for the policy might be contingent on a trade deal with Beijing.

Under its backing of the one China policy -- diplomatic acknowledgment that there is only one government of China -- the U.S. has recognized the People's Republic of China rather than the Republic of China (Taiwan) as the seat of the Chinese government.

In commenting on the matter, Taiwan's Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang () did not directly mention Trump's apparent pullback from his previous position.

Huang said Taiwan, which sees the U.S. as its most important ally in the international community, clearly understands that the U.S. government attaches great importance to peace and stability in East Asia and is well aware that a good and continued Taiwan-U.S. relationship is crucial to U.S. interests.

Taiwan will continue to develop a stronger partnership with the United States to jointly contribute to regional peace, stability and well-being, Huang said.

Taiwan's core interests are ensuring the sustainability of its freedom and democracy as well as its active participation in the international community, he said, adding that maintaining good relations with the United States and China is consistent with Taiwan's national interests and critical to regional peace and stability.

He expressed the government's appreciation to Washington for having reiterated on many occasions its support for Taiwan and its commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), meanwhile, said the government hopes that Washington will stand firm on its commitment to Taiwan, based on the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances.

Taipei attaches great importance to developing a balanced relationship with Washington and Beijing and has been persevering to maintain peace and stability in the region and across the Taiwan Strait, which is in the interest of all parties involved, the MAC said.

The council said it hopes the United States will continue to support the Republic of China government's policy to maintain cross-strait peace and stability and urged Beijing to resolve its differences with Taiwan in a positive and pragmatic manner to create the biggest possibility for cross-strait cooperation.

Relations between Taiwan and China have been at a virtual standstill since President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party took power in May 2016.

Beijing has frozen official talks between the two sides because Tsai's government has not endorsed the "1992 consensus," which essentially implies that China and Taiwan are part of one China, something many Taiwanese do not agree with.

(By Sophia Yeh, Kao Chao-fen and Y.F. Low)

ENDITEM/ls





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Taiwan Voices Readiness to Maintain Good Relations With Both Washington, Beijing

Sputnik News

13:45 10.02.2017(updated 13:49 10.02.2017)

Taiwanese authorities plan to maintain "positive relations" with both Washington and Beijing to maintain peace and stability in the region, Taiwan's Presidential Office said in a Friday statement.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  On Thursday, US President Donald Trump held his first phone call with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and discussed a number of issues, including bilateral economic relations and different regional problems. Following the talks, the White House said that Washington planned to stick to the "One China" policy.

"Maintaining positive relations with the U.S. and across the Taiwan Strait are both in line with our national interest and key to regional peace and stability, and as such they are goals that this administration will work hard to achieve," Presidential Office Spokesperson Huang Chung-yen was quoted as saying in the statement.

The statement said that the United States was Taiwan's "most important strategic" partner, adding that Taipei would continue to strengthen bilateral ties to further stability and welfare in East Asia.

Following the victory in the US presidential election, Trump received a call from Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen, and became the first US president to speak with Taiwan's leader since 1979. The negotiations have been criticized by Beijing as China does not recognize Taiwan's independence and calls for adherence to the One China approach.

 Sputnik

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CIA chief Pompeo visits Turkey to seek better bilateral relations

Iran Press TV

Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:28PM

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Mike Pompeo is paying an official visit to Turkey to explore avenues for an improvement in relations between Washington and Ankara, which soured under the administration of former US President Barack Obama.

Pompeo made his first overseas visit to the Turkish capital city of Ankara on Thursday, and met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the presidential complex. Head of Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT), Hakan Fidan, was also present at the meeting.

The CIA director held talks with Prime Minister Binali Yildirim the next day, where the senior Turkish official reiterated Turkey's request for the extradition of Pennsylvania-based Fetullah Gulen, whom the Turkish government accuses of having orchestrated the failed coup attempt last year.

During the Friday meeting, Yildirim emphasized the importance of cooperation with the administration of US President Donald Trump, and called upon American authorities to fight the Gulen movement within the United States.

Ankara says it has been successful in significantly diminishing the power of Gulen's supporters in state institutions following the botched July 15, 2016 putsch in Turkey.

Gulen has strongly condemned the coup attempt and denied any involvement in it.

Turkish officials say over 240 people were killed and more than 2,100 others injured in the coup attempt.

Tens of thousands of people, including military personnel, judges and teachers, have been suspended, dismissed or detained as part of the post-coup crackdown.

According to a survey conducted by the official Anadolu news agency, a total of 40,832 suspects have been arrested since the mid-July botched putsch. A total of 2,279 administrative and judicial judges, 104 members of the Appeals Court, 41 members of the Council of State, two members of the Supreme Court, and three members of the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors have been arrested as part of the ongoing investigations.

Additionally, 168 army generals, 7,596 Security Directorate police officers, 17 governors, 74 deputy governors, and 69 district governors under the Interior Ministry have been detained.

International rights groups argue that Ankara's crackdown has gone far beyond the so-called Gulenists and targeted Kurds as well as government critics in general.

The Turkish prime minister and the CIA director also agreed to establish stronger ties on the two countries' alleged war against terrorism and organized crime besides closer intelligence sharing on bilateral and regional issues.

Pompeo's trip to Ankara comes as he had earlier declared Turkey a "totalitarian dictatorship" in a now-deleted tweet.

The visit also took place only two day after Tuesday's phone conversation between Erdogan and Trump, which Turkish officials described as "positive and conducted in a sincere atmosphere."

Erdogan's spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, told Turkey's NTV news network that the Turkish president asked his American counterpart not to back Kurdish forces in neighboring Syria, and even spoke of a plan that would exclude the Kurdish fighters in the battle to retake the Daesh-held northern city of Raqqah.

Ties between Turkey and the US suffered a downturn under the Obama administration. Ankara has expressed deep frustrations over Washington's unwillingness to extradite Gulen and voiced outrage over the US support for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria.

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Erdogan approves bill on constitutional reforms, paving way for referendum

Iran Press TV

Fri Feb 10, 2017 11:11AM

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has approved a bill that would change the country's political system into a presidential one if such a change is approved in a referendum.

Erdogan approved the bill on Friday, paving the way for Turkey's electoral board to arrange the referendum.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus announced that the referendum "is planned to take place on April 16."

"God willing, Turkey will start a new era on the evening of April 16," Kurtulmus said.

The Turkish parliament had ratified the bill on the constitutional reforms last month.

If the constitutional reforms are approved in the referendum, Erdogan will be granted the power to appoint government ministers and senior officials, reassume the leadership of the ruling AK party, and govern until 2029.

Currently, the president is the head of the Turkish state, but executive powers are concentrated in the hands of the country's prime minister.

The president will also be given the authority to dissolve parliament, declare states of emergency, issue decrees, and appoint half of the members in the country's highest judicial body.

Erdogan says the changes will provide stability at a time of turmoil and prevent a return to the fragile coalitions of the past. His opponents, however, say increasing the president's power would slide the country toward authoritarian rule.

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Turkey's Erdogan Approves Constitutional Reform Bill, Paving Way For April Vote

February 10, 2017

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has approved a constitutional reform bill that paves the way for an executive presidential system that would strengthen his powers.

A brief statement on the presidency's website said the bill had been sent to the prime minister's office to be published and submitted to a nationwide referendum.

Erdogan says the reform will provide stability at a time of turmoil. His opponents voiced fears that it will usher in increasingly authoritarian rule.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus suggested that the government wants the referendum to be held in April.

"With the president's approval, eyes are now on the YSK (High Election Board). The YSK will probably announce that April 16 is the appropriate date for a referendum," Kurtulmus told reporters.

Parliament approved the bill last month. If the measure is passed in the referendum, it could pave the way for Erdogan to remain in office until 2029.

Under the reformed constitution, the president would be empowered to issue decrees, declare emergency rule, appoint ministers and top state officials, and dissolve parliament -- powers that the two main opposition parties say strip away balances to Erdogan's power.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/turkey-erdogan -approves-constitutional- reform-bill/28302018.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Turkish Airstrikes, Artillery Target 150 Daesh Positions During Al-Bab Operation

Sputnik News

14:25 10.02.2017(updated 14:26 10.02.2017)

Turkish airstrikes and shelling targeting over 150 Daesh positions and strongholds in Syria's al-Bab have killed a total of 23 IS militants, local media reported Friday, citing a Turkish military statement.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  According to the Daily Sabah newspaper, the Turkish army destroyed 154 Daesh targets, including shelters, defense positions, command centers, weapons, and vehicles, in the town of al-Bab.

Additional airstrikes conducted by the Turkish forces also hit 11 Daesh targets, including seven buildings, three headquarters, and one arsenal, the newspaper added.

The Turkish military operation in Syria's al-Bab has entered the final stage. Turkey's units entered central Al-Bab, the operation is being conducted in coordination with Russia to prevent clashes with Syrian government forces.

Turkey is currently conducting an operation in Syria dubbed Euphrates Shield. On August 24, Turkish forces, supported by Free Syrian Army rebels and US-led coalition aircraft, began a military operation dubbed the Euphrates Shield to clear the Syrian border town of Jarabulus and the surrounding area from Daesh terrorist group. As Jarabulus was retaken, the joint forces of Ankara, the coalition and Syrian rebels continued the operation to gain control over al-Bab in the Aleppo province.

Moreover, Russian and Turkish military jets have repeatedly jointly bombed Daesh targets near al-Bab in Syria. Al-Bab is one of Daesh's last remaining strongholds near the Turkish border. Capturing the city is of strategic importance to Turkey in order to prevent the Syrian Kurds taking it and unifying their own territories.

 Sputnik

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Britain and Cyprus Step Up Defence Co-Operation

10 February 2017

The UK and Cyprus will step up co-operation in areas including maritime security and officer training under a new Defence programme.

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon and Cypriot Defence Minister Christoforos Fokaides signed a Defence Co-operation Programme in the capital Nicosia today, agreeing to closer working.

Building on the agreement signed last year, the Ministers agreed that the key regional partners would now work closely across Special Forces, counter terrorism, Crisis Response, intelligence, Air Defence, hybrid warfare and cyber.

Improved Maritime Search and Rescue co-operation will be a particular focus, and during his visit Sir Michael offered Cyprus the chance to display alongside the international community at Royal International Air Tattoo 2017 and reviewed opportunities for naval personnel exchanges.

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said:

"Britain is stepping up its global role and Cyprus is a key partner in promoting European security and stability."

"We have now committed to strengthen our defence partnership with greater co-operation in areas such as counter terrorism, maritime security, and crisis response."

The Defence Secretary also announced the continuing commitment to train senior Cypriot Officers at the Royal College of Defence Studies together with other training being opened up on the Advanced Command and Staff Course.

While in Cyprus, Sir Michael visited the Zenon Joint Rescue Coordination Centre, on the island's south coast. Extending the Republic of Cyprus' crisis response capability, the centre incorporates modern maritime surveillance and warning systems and is central to Cyprus's efforts to tackle illegal human trafficking.

Sir Michael's visit comes at an important time for Cyprus, following the UN-facilitated talks held in Geneva in January, and as negotiations continue towards a solution to the long-standing Cyprus issue. The Defence Secretary confirmed that as a Guarantor Power, the UK will do whatever necessary to secure a settlement and our priority is for both sides to find an agreement allowing each community to feel secure.

The Defence Secretary also took the opportunity to thank the Cyriot Minister for their support to Op Shader, with British aircraft operating from RAF Akrotiri, and Cyprus' own contribution including to the foreign fighters part of the campaign. Sir Michael visited RAF Akrotiri, meeting with 903 Expeditionary Airwing later in the day. Since Sir Michael's last visit in September last year, the RAF has attacked 330 further terrorist targets in and around Mosul, working in the closest possible cooperation with the brave Iraqi troops.

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Trump denounced nuclear arms treaty with Russia during call with Putin

Iran Press TV

Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:44AM

US President Donald Trump has told Russian leader Vladimir Putin he does not want to renew a 2010 nuclear arms reduction treaty between Washington and Moscow because the deal was bad for the United States.

During his first call as president with Putin on January 28, Trump said the New START treaty favored Russia, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing current and former US officials with knowledge of the call.

When Putin raised the possibility of extending the treaty beyond its expiration date of 2021, Trump paused to ask his aides what the treaty was, these sources said.

Trump also talked about his political accomplishments and popularity with Putin, the sources said.

The hour-long phone call, which was not previously reported, has added to concerns that Trump is not adequately prepared for discussions with foreign leaders.

New START gives both countries until February 2018 to reduce their deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550, the lowest level in decades. However, it does not limit the number of operationally inactive nuclear warheads that remain in the high thousands in both the US and Russian stockpiles.

The White House has declined to comment on the call and says it is probing ongoing leaks of Trump's private conversations with foreign leaders.

"We're looking into the situation, and it's very concerning," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said, deploring "the idea that you can't have a conversation without that information getting out. . . . We're trying to conduct serious business on behalf of the country."

On the same day as the Putin call, Trump reportedly told Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that their conversation was "the worst call by far" and criticized him over a pending refugee agreement negotiated by the administration of former President Barack Obama.

During a call the day before with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, tensions were also reported to be high. In all three phone calls, Trump reportedly touted his political accomplishments and popularity.

Following the Australia and Mexico calls, Trump told Fox News the leaks were "disgraceful" and accused "Obama people" still serving in the White House of providing the media with potentially embarrassing details.

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Once a home for moviegoers, the Chatham Theatre will now trade one kind of reel for another.

Doomsday Tackle Co., a fishing tackle and rod design store, was approved to purchase the building for $50,000 on Monday.

The sale will close on Feb. 28, and renovations are expected to take up to seven months. Danville developer Steve DelGiorno, owner of Doomsday Tackle, said the company has allocated $35,000 to $60,000 for the renovations, due to the state of the interior.

Chatham Theatre was built in the 1940s in a style known as a Quonset Hut. This style was designed at Quonset Point Naval Base in Rhode Island in order to build and quickly house people and protect materiel at far-flung bases in World War II, according to the Rhode Island Seabee Museum and Memorial Park website.

Henry Hurt, a Pittsylvania County native and Chatham resident, said he remembers going to the movies at Chatham Theatre with his African-American neighbors and sitting downstairs while his neighbors sat in the balcony.

Wed walk into town and collect soda pop bottles from the side of the road to turn in to one of the stores downtown, he said.

He would get a few cents per bottle, and it cost 12 cents to see a movie, Hurt said.

Id sometimes try and sneak up to the balcony to sit with my friends, but we never thought anything of it because it was normal.

The movie theater remained in use until the early 1960s.

Pittsylvania County purchased the building on Feb. 8, 1995 for $30,000, and the county has been using the building for storage ever since, according to Assistant County Administrator Otis Hawker.

It was basically for storage. Weve done quite a bit of record retainment in it, though thats changed since, Hawker said. Some maintenance equipment was in there, too, but it was basically storage.

Now the building will be transformed into DTCo Innovation Center, and will include a video studio, a 32-foot long testing tank, product development, testing and retail sales.
TORONTO, Feb. 10, 2017 /CNW/ - Shareholders (the "Requisitioning Shareholders") of Eco Oro Minerals Corp. (TSX: EOM) (the "Company") have today requisitioned the Board of Directors of the Company to call a meeting of shareholders (the "Meeting") for the purpose of reconstituting the Board by removing each of the incumbent directors and electing six new independent directors (the "Shareholder Nominees").

Change is Required

"Minority shareholders of the Company have for several months voiced their objections to the strategic direction pursued by the Board and management, which resulted in a 93.86% vote against the resolutions put forward by the Board at the November 3, 2016 shareholders' meeting. Simply put, the Board has refused to be responsive to shareholders and as such we have lost confidence in the Board and management. The directors engaged in a flawed process to enter into CVRs which are not 'market' and which prejudiced the rights and interests of the Company and its retail shareholders. Adding to a pattern of decisions that are not aligned with shareholder interests, management announced that they have been awarded an incentive plan equivalent to a CVR representing 7% of the GROSS proceeds of the Arbitration. The Board has therefore given away 78% of the gross proceeds of the Arbitration for a small fraction of the value of the Company. In addition, they have provided management with an incentive plan that is not linked to controlling costs. We need to reconstitute the Board in order to ensure that the Company pursues a plan that benefits all its shareholders, not just its largest shareholders and management," stated Courtenay Wolfe, who is expected to become the Chair of the Board of the Company following the successful reconstitution of the Board. "Our independent and highly qualified director nominees will work with all stakeholders (including the Colombian people and government) and participants in the Canadian capital markets to bring about positive change to enhance value for all shareholders."

Our plan for effective leadership and a changed vision is straightforward:

We will introduce a more cost-effective and prudent operational model that works to control costs during this difficult time.

We will work with all stakeholders, on a timely basis, to pursue an outcome that will ensure that the Company's Angostura gold and silver deposit assets are developed or that the Company recovers all the losses to its investment in Colombia.

We will use our relationships to ensure that, if the previously announced oppression remedy claim is successful, sufficient funds can be raised to reimburse Tenor Capital Management Company, L.P. and the Company's insiders for their voided investments in the Company.

Information Concerning the Nominees

As set out in the Requisition, the Shareholder Nominees are Courtenay Wolfe, Prashant Pathak, Morris Prychidny, Peter McRae, Prakash Hariharan and Allan Bezanson. The table below sets out, in respect of each Shareholder Nominee, his or her name, province or state and country of residence, his or her principal occupation, business or employment within the five preceding years, and the number of common shares of the Company beneficially owned, or controlled or directed, directly or indirectly, by such Shareholder Nominee.

Name, Province or State and Country of Residence Present Principal Occupation, Business or Employment and Principal Occupation, Business or Employment During the Preceding Five Years Number of Common Shares Beneficially Owned or Controlled or Directed (Directly or Indirectly) Courtenay Wolfe

Ontario, Canada Executive Chair of Founders Advantage Capital Corp. (October 2013 to February 2016); Principal of Canopy Capital Inc. (2011 to present); Chair of Vital Alert Communication Inc. (2009 to present); Director of FB Sciences, Inc. (September 2016 to present); President and CEO of Salida Capital LP (2008 to 2013). 1,000,000 Prashant Pathak

Ontario, Canada President of Ekagrata Inc. (2008 to present); Director of Quest Rare Minerals Ltd. (March 2015 to January 2017); Managing Partner of ReichmannHauer Capital Partners (2006 to 2012). Nil Morris Prychidny Ontario, Canada Director and Audit Committee Member of Northfield Capital Corporation (June 2008 to present), Nighthawk Gold Corp. (February 2013 to present), Woodbine Downs Limited, Corporate Catalyst Acquisition Inc. (December 2012 to present) and Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. (May 2015 to present); Treasurer/Secretary of Orion Capital Inc. (October 1998 to present). Nil Peter McRae

Ontario, Canada Director of Founders Advantage Capital Corp. (April 2015 to present); Chairman of Freedom International Brokerage Company (December 2015 to present); President and CEO of Freedom International Brokerage Company (1994 to December 2015). Nil Prakash Hariharan

Ontario, Canada CEO (June 2016 to present) and Chairman (July 2013 to present) of AnalytixInsight Inc.; Portfolio Manager for Front Street Capital (March 2005 to February 2013). Nil Allan Bezanson

Alberta, Canada Executive Vice President (February 2016 to present) and Interim CEO (April 2015 to February 2016) of Founders Advantage Capital Corp.; Managing Partner of Cornerstone Capital Partners (February 2010 to October 2014). Nil

A brief biography for each of the Shareholder Nominees is set out below:

Courtenay Wolfe  Ms. Courtenay Wolfe is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of experience with a proven track record of success in various fields, including corporate strategy, turnarounds, restructuring, strategic negotiations, marketing and business development. Courtenay is active in the areas of venture capital and private equity in a diverse range of sectors. She is an accomplished board member with significant experience on for profit and not-for-profit boards, which will be of significant benefit to the Company. For example, from October 2013 to February 2016, Courtenay served as the Executive Chair of the company now called Founders Advantage Capital Corp. (formerly FCF Capital Inc. and prior to June 2015, Brilliant Resources Inc.) (TSXV: FCF), where she undertook a significant restructuring and turnaround by restructuring the board and management, cutting costs, personally directing and leading an arbitration against the government of Equatorial Guinea that led to a very significant cash settlement and then using that settlement to attract and develop a new strategic plan and business. Her efforts resulted in an increase of market capitalization of FCF Capital from approximately $7 million to over $100 million, plus a cash return of capital to shareholders of over $21 million. Also, from 2008 to 2013, during Ms. Wolfe's tenure as the President and CEO of Salida Capital (a Canadian private investment management firm), she led a landmark negotiation, settlement and recovery, after a series of successful lawsuits over 3 years, of $350 million of client assets (100% recovery) caught up in the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Courtenay is also the former President and CEO of SCM Securities (a Canadian investment dealer), and former Senior Vice President at Tricycle Asset Management, a Canadian investment firm with over $1 billion of assets. Courtenay is currently the principal of Canopy Capital Inc., a venture capital company, and sits on the boards of FB Sciences, Inc. and Vital Alert Communication Inc. Courtenay has appeared on BNN, CNBC and Bloomberg Television and has done one-on-one speaking appearances with notable world and business leaders such as Warren Buffet, former President Bill Clinton and Richard Branson.

Prashant Pathak  Mr. Pathak has been the President of Ekagrata Inc., a private investment firm, since 2008. Prior thereto, he held several management and operational positions in the energy services industry at Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) and Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB) and was a Partner of McKinsey & Company where he advised executives of global corporations. He was Managing Partner of ReichmannHauer Capital Partners (a private equity firm) from 2006 to 2012, a business he helped launch. Mr. Pathak has extensive international management and operational experience, having worked in Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and North Asia. In 2008, Mr. Pathak was appointed by the Canadian government to the board of the Business Development Bank of Canada, a Crown corporation. From March 2015 to January 2017, he served as a director of Quest Rare Minerals Ltd. (TSX: QRM). Mr. Pathak was recognized as one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40 in 2008. He is a former member of the board of the North York General Hospital and was a charter member of TiE, the world's largest non-profit network dedicated to the advancement of entrepreneurship. Mr. Pathak holds an MBA with distinction from INSEAD (in France), and a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical Engineering and a diploma in Fuzzy Logic from the Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur, India).

Morris Prychidny  Mr. Prychidny is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and is a Chartered Accountant with more than 35 years of experience in the mining and real estate industries. Mr. Prychidny brings strong portfolio management, accounting and financing expertise through his roles in a number of publicly-listed investment and mining companies. He is currently a director and an audit committee member of several public companies and private investment companies, including, Nighthawk Gold Corp. (TSXV: NHK), Northfield Capital Corporation (TSXV: NFDA), Corporate Catalyst Acquisition Inc. (TSXV: CII.H), Fountain Asset Corp. (formerly GC-Global Capital Corp.) (TSXV: FA), Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. (TSXV: BGM), Orion Capital Inc. and Woodbine Downs Limited.

Peter McRae  Mr. McRae is a Chartered Accountant and a graduate from the Directors Education Program of the Institute of Corporate Directors with an ICD.D designation. He is currently the Chairman, and between 1994 and 2015, was the President and CEO, of Freedom International Brokerage Company, Canada's largest Inter-Dealer Broker. Mr. McRae's earlier career involved four years in Abu Dhabi as a Financial Administrator for an engineering firm before joining the investment dealer Wood Gundy, first in Toronto and subsequently in New York. Mr. McRae has been a director of several public companies and is currently a director and the Chair of the audit committee of Founders Advantage Capital Corp. (formerly FCF Capital Inc.) (TSXV: FCF).

Prakash Hariharan  Mr. Hariharan was formerly one of Canada's leading portfolio managers for Front Street Capital, an investment firm in Toronto, Canada, from March 2005 until February 2013. At Front Street, he focused on agriculture, technology and growth related investments. He is currently the CEO and Chairman of AnalytixInsight Inc. (TSXV: ALY), a big data analytics company. He has also been involved in the restructuring and turnaround of companies, including Radient Technologies Inc. (TSXV: RTI) (a technology company) as CFO and Aguia Resources Ltd. (ASX: AGR) (a phosphate exploration company) as CEO. Mr. Hariharan has also served on the board of Wi2Wi, Inc. (TSXV: YTY) (a technology company). Mr. Hariharan holds a financial engineering degree from York University, a Masters of Business Administration from the Schulich School of Business and an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering.

Allan Bezanson  Mr. Bezanson is currently the Executive Vice President, Capital Markets of Founders Advantage Capital Corp. (formerly FCF Capital Inc.) (TSXV: FCF). From February 2010 until October 2014, Mr. Bezanson was the Managing Partner of Cornerstone Capital Partners, a Toronto-based investment bank specializing in structuring and facilitating investments in energy, resources and early stage technology sectors. He is the Lead Director, Chair of the governance committee and a member of the audit committee of iLOOKABOUT Corp. (TSXV: ILA). Mr. Bezanson is also currently a director and an audit committee member of Range Energy Resources Inc. (CNSX: RGO) and Montana Exploration Corp. (TSXV: MTZ). Previously, Mr. Bezanson was President and Partner of Oballan Capital and Osprey Capital; Chairman of Bluewave Energy; President and a Partner at Phoenix Research and Trading; and President of Protec Trading Inc. Mr. Bezanson has also served in senior roles with Nowsco Well Service Ltd., with significant experience in the Middle and Far East, Europe and North Africa. Mr. Bezanson has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Dalhousie University.

Additional Information

The information contained in this press release does not and is not meant to constitute a solicitation of a proxy within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Although the Requisitioning Shareholders have requisitioned the Meeting, there is currently no record or meeting date set for the Meeting, and shareholders are not being asked at this time to execute a proxy in favour of the Shareholder Nominees or any other resolution set forth in the Requisition. In connection with the Meeting, the Requisitioning Shareholders intend to file a dissident information circular (the "Information Circular") in due course in compliance with applicable securities laws.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Requisitioning Shareholders are voluntarily providing the disclosure required under section 9.2(4) of National Instrument 51-102  Continuous Disclosure Obligations in accordance with securities laws applicable to public broadcast solicitations.

This press release and any solicitation made by the Requisitioning Shareholders in advance of the Meeting is, or will be, as applicable, made by the Requisitioning Shareholders, and not by or on behalf of the management of the Company. All costs incurred for any solicitation will be borne by the Requisitioning Shareholders, provided that, subject to applicable laws, the Requisitioning Shareholders may seek reimbursement from the Company for their out-of-pocket expenses, including proxy solicitation expenses and legal fees, incurred in connection with a successful reconstitution of the Board.

The Requisitioning Shareholders are not soliciting proxies in connection with the Meeting at this time, and shareholders are not being asked at this time to execute proxies in favour of the Shareholder Nominees (in respect of the Meeting) or any other resolution set forth in the Requisition. Any proxies solicited by the Requisitioning Shareholders will be solicited pursuant to the Information Circular sent to shareholders of the Company after which solicitations may be made by or on behalf of the Requisitioning Shareholders, by mail, telephone, fax, email or other electronic means, and in person by the Requisitioning Shareholders or their directors, officers and employees, as applicable, or any proxy advisor that the Requisitioning Shareholders may retain or by the Shareholder Nominees.

Any proxies solicited by the Requisitioning Shareholders in connection with the Meeting may be revoked by instrument in writing by the shareholder giving the proxy or by its duly authorized officer or attorney, or in any other manner permitted by law and the articles of the Company. None of the Requisitioning Shareholders or, to their knowledge, any of their associates or affiliates, has any material interest, direct or indirect, by way of beneficial ownership of securities or otherwise, in any matter proposed to be acted on at the Meeting, other than the election of directors to the Board.

The Requisitioning Shareholders are Courtenay Wolfe and Harrington Global Opportunities Fund Ltd. Ms. Wolfe owns 1,000,000 common shares (or approximately 0.942% of the issued and outstanding common shares) and Harrington Global Opportunities Fund Ltd. owns 9,610,000 common shares (or approximately 9.05% of the issued and outstanding common shares).

The Requisitioning Shareholders have retained McMillan LLP as legal counsel and Kingsdale Advisors as their strategic shareholder advisor and proxy solicitation agent.

The Company's principal business office is 300-1055 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6E 2E9. A copy of this press release may be obtained on the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.

SOURCE Concerned Shareholders of Eco Oro Minerals Corp.
Urbanites generally consider Austin the coolest city in Texas, if not America. It has a great university, great music, hip and trendy restaurants and bars, unique shops and a booming tech economy. It also has god-awful traffic for a city its size.Metro Austin has 2 million people. All of them seem to be driving on Interstate 35 all the time. Getting across town east-west is even worse because theres really no main route. Bus service is just OK, and theres only one light rail line. (Voters shot down an expansion of the rail system a couple of years ago.)No matter how cool it is -- and how urban its core may be -- Austin is really just an overgrown suburb. And its not the only one. Nashville has many of the same problems. Atlantas traffic problems are legendary. And in Southern California, Orange County may be an economic powerhouse, but its also a transportation backwater with the same population as neighboring San Diego but only half as many freeway miles.As the United States becomes both more prosperous and more urban, this is a real problem. Half of Americas population growth is currently going to 20 Sun Belt metro areas. And like Austin, most of them are overgrown suburbs. The urban cores are cool and the exurbs are bucolic, but in between most people are stuck in a kind of endless slurb of congested, high-density suburbia.A couple of generations ago, we would have solved this problem pretty simply, by foolishly spending a lot of money to plow new freeways through existing communities. But attitudes have changed: Nobody wants to spend that much money anymore, and even if they did, most suburban neighborhoods are powerful enough to resist.President Trump is promising to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure, but most of that will be private investment in public-private projects like toll roads. Austin is a case study in the limitations of that approach. The state built a new north-south tollway around Austin a few years ago. But, understandably, most people are not willing to pay money to go the long way around.Which brings us to proximity. One of the few ways around this problem is to build more housing close to the urban cores -- or, at least, close to the dense suburban job centers. Urban planners often argue for locating more housing along high-frequency transit lines, which makes sense because many people can commute by transit.Whats not well understood, however, is that well-located housing can cut down on the amount of driving -- and hence the need for additional road space -- even if people are still tethered to their cars. One famous study in the San Francisco Bay Area found that people living in Berkeley and Oakland drive only half as far as people in the outer suburbs -- not because they take transit more, but because the places they have to go are closer together.This isnt a solution that easily lends itself to traditional government action. Its not something you can do with conventional big-ticket government spending projects. And its not something thats popular with the current residents of their well-located areas. Whats more, because of land prices and availability, this approach makes more sense for flats, townhomes and small-lot single-family homes, rather than sprawling homes. But theres no question that one way out of the traffic box in overgrown suburbs is to figure out how to reduce the distances you have to drive.
(TNS)  Huntsville's partnership with Google Fiber is an example of the "new and exciting partnerships" bringing next-generation Internet service to consumers, a congressional panel heard this week. Joanne Hovis, president of a consulting firm advising the city and others, told a House subcommittee Tuesday that broadband expansion should be part of any infrastructure program developed by Congress and President Trump. High-capacity Internet is the "critical platform and driver of simultaneous progress in economic development and global competitiveness, education, health care, public safety, transportation, and much more," she said.Left to market forces, she said, capital for these networks tends to go to dense population areas with better return on investment. Less-populated and lower-income areas without access "have seen their economies stagnate, their children move to more promising locations, their hopes for a better future ebb away," she said.State and local governments are increasingly offering incentives to lure high-speed Internet, Hovis said. She gave Huntsville as an example."In February 2016, the city of Huntsville, Alabama, the state's northern technology hub, announced that its municipal electric utility will build a fiber network throughout its city limits (presumably, to pass all or most businesses and homes), and that Google Fiber will become the first lessee of some of that fiber in order to provide gigabit services to residences and small businesses."The "Huntsville model puts the city in the business of building infrastructure," Hovis said, "a business it knows well after a century of building roads, bridges, and utilities. The model leaves to the private sector (in this case, Google Fiber, and any other provider that chooses to lease Huntsville fiber) all aspects of network operations, equipment provisioning and service delivery."Hovis also discussed other public-private partnerships in Maryland and Minnesota.
San Francisco has hired Carrie Bishop, director of Londons FutureGov, as its chief digital services officer, a new position heading up San Franciscos recently introduced digital services team.Bishop announced the news Friday, Feb. 10, via Twitter , along with a call for applicants to join her team. The city of San Francisco announced the formation of its digital services team in June 2016, which is when the opening for this position was posted.The posting called for a leader to help lead the city and county of San Francisco into the digital age with the focus on improving the citys customer service experience. The team will continue work implementing San Franciscos Digital Services Strategy , a comprehensive plan aimed at developing digital services and rethinking how municipal government functions in the online space for residents.According to the job posting , the chief digital services officer will report to the city administrator, who oversees a staff or 2,700 and the $750 million budget of the central General Services Administration, which includes 25 departments, divisions and programs.Bishops previous venture, FutureGov , was active in both the UK and Australia. There is some overlap between Bishops new role and that organization, which vows on its website to improve the big bad expensive ways of delivering government and replace them with programs and products that are fit for the future, not held back by the past.
The move is to hand them over to Nigeria, as per reports.
The project will use Genifuel hydrothermal processing technology (HTP) to convert wastewater solids into renewable natural gas as well as liquid fuels. DOE funding is expected to pay for about half of the design and planning of a pilot plant to produce these renewable fuels at a municipal wastewater treatment facility near Oakland, California. SoCalGas will help oversee the projects design and assist in obtaining state and federal regulatory approvals and incentives.

Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) announced a pilot hydrothermal wastewater processing project has been selected by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to receive up to $1.2 million in federal funding. SoCalGas is part of a consortium conducting the pilot, which will be required to share the cost at a minimum of 50% in order to receive federal funds. The consortium is being led by the Water Environment & Reuse Foundation ( WERF ).

The technology, developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) over a 40-year period, converts waste solids from a wastewater treatment plant into biocrude and methane gas using water, heat and pressure. HTP uses subcritical water and pressure (350 C and 207 bar) to convert the wet organics into crude oil and natural gas. The process mimics the way fossil fuels were formedbut takes 45 minutes rather than millions of years. HTP is highly efficient, capturing more than 85% of feedstock energy and using only 15% for process.

At the process conditions, water changes from a polar molecule to a non-polar molecule and becomes an extremely powerful solvent for organics. Lipids, proteins, and carbs are converted to oil. The oil and water become completely soluble until cool; sulfur and phosphorus become highly insoluble, precipitate rapidly, and are recovered as dense ore from the oil stage. All nitrogen is reduced to ammonia in the gas stage, recoverable by membrane or other method.

The biocrude oil, with nearly zero net new carbon emissions, will be refined in an existing refinery, while the methane gas will be sold for transport in the gas pipeline system or used at the pilot plant to offset power needs elsewhere in the plant.

If fully implemented in wastewater treatment operations across the US, the technology will produce more than two billion gallons of gasoline equivalent per year. The system also produces fertilizer byproducts.

The Central Contra Costa Sanitary District, near Oakland, California, will host the pilot system. The consortium includes the Water Environment & Reuse Foundation, which represents many of the 16,000 wastewater systems in the US. The consortium also includes Genifuel Corp. with technology from DOEs Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Merrick & Co., Tesoro Corp., Metro Vancouver, MicroBio Engineering, Brown and Caldwell, and more than a dozen utility partners.

SoCalGas and its partners have demonstrated that this process can very effectively convert wastewater solids into renewable natural gas, using existing infrastructure, to help replace fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The most intriguing question about the Cascade Saloon remains a mystery.

How was it that an African American couple came to operate a cafe in the middle of Greensboros busiest white business district in 1907, when segregation was the norm?

Its the one thing Benjamin Briggs, executive director of Preservation Greensboro, would most like to know about this historic landmark.

But the fact that Wiley and Ida Weaver did own and operate the Cascade Saloon in the Jim Crow era makes it an important part of Greensboros black history.

The buildings place in African American history, as well as its age, was the basis for the saloons 2007 designation as a Guilford County Landmark Property. It was also included in the Downtown Greensboro National Register Historic District in 1982.

Left to deteriorate for decades, the saloon is now being restored by the Christman Company, nationally recognized for its historic preservation work. That company will use the restored building as its regional headquarters in Greensboro.

Briggs has been able to flesh out more of the buildings history, thanks to newspapers.com, a digitized archive of newspapers that is searchable by keyword.

He recently discovered that the building was constructed in 1895, a year earlier than previously thought.

An item in the Greensboro Patriot, dated Aug. 7, 1895, reported that S.J. McCauley had commenced the erection of a brick building on his property between the Southern and the C.F. & Y.V. (Cape Fear & Yadkin Valley) railroad tracks.

This was the era in which Greensboro earned its Gate City moniker, when the convergence of two rail lines sparked a boom in downtown development.

At the time, the government was urging the construction of brick buildings in commercial districts instead of wood to prevent fires from sweeping entire downtown business districts.

This brick building was built around the existing wood structure already there, so business at the saloon could go on uninterrupted.

Saloons were highly regulated at the time, so he probably didnt want to have to close down and potentially lose his place, Briggs said.

Ironically, officials at the Christman Company thought they would have to do the reverse  build a structure within the brick saloon to ensure stability. In recent years, many feared the building might just collapse. Although its roof and inner stories largely had deteriorated, a seismologist from Charleston who recently evaluated the building said it was still solid.

The stars on the sides of the building are the ends of earthquake bolts, which were common nearly a decade after the 1886 Charleston earthquake killed 60 people and destroyed much of the city.

Less is known about Wiley Weaver.

He was born in 1880 to James and Dora Weaver, who moved from Chapel Hill to High Point. Wiley married Ida Heaner in 1903, and they moved to a house on North Macon Street in East Greensboro. According to the 1910 census, Wiley could read and write, which was somewhat unusual for African Americans at the time.

Briggs speculates that Weaver might have been an employee of the eating house who bought it from the previous owner. Weavers occupation was listed as waiter on one census. But no one really knows for sure how he came to own the saloon.

The food served in cafes at the time was simple, and the clientele likely was mixed, Briggs said, because the color line tended to blur more in restaurant operations. The saloon eventually evolved into a billiard parlor, which would have made it a gathering place.

In those days, Elm Street was a chaotic mix of pedestrians, dogs, horses and the manure they left behind. In addition to the saloon, nearby stores included Townsend Buggy Company, Odell Hardware, Vogue Shoe Store and the Hotel Clegg. Building supplies, dry goods, barbershops and even a foundry were among downtown offerings.

Some familiar businesses were also in operation, including Fordhams Drug Store, S.H. Kress and Schiffmans. Where Elm crossed what is now Gate City Boulevard, there was a Jewish synagogue and a Quaker meeting house.

Warnersville, the citys first planned African American neighborhood, was then in its heyday, Briggs said.

While it was unusual in that era to have a black-owned business in the middle of a white business district, the story of Wiley Weaver is one of many examples of how Greensboros history deviated tremendously from other Southern cities of that era, Briggs said. This was largely because of the influence of the Quakers who settled here in the early 1800s.

Quakers banned owning slaves and helped establish stations here for the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. Their influence, and the generally high level of education promoted by Greensboro leaders such as David Caldwell and Gov. John Motley Morehead, gave its early citizens more expansive views.

Tolerance ran much deeper here, Briggs said. We have a different kind of narrative.

Although some of the horrors of that era  lynchings, discrimination, and cruelty to women, children and animals  can be found in reading the newspapers of the day, Briggs said, Greensboro had less racial division and conflict than many Southern cities.

Black and white families lived side by side in College Hill and Westerwood.

Before 1910, it was a checkerboard, Briggs said. It was only after Jim Crow and red-lining that whites and blacks eventually drifted east and west.

Red-lining was the practice of refusing loans in certain neighborhoods based on race and income.

The hardening of Jim Crow laws may have been why the Weavers only owned the building until around 1912, but nobody knows for sure.

Briggs said he hopes the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society of North Carolina will be interested in tracing more of the Weavers roots. He also welcomes any information from descendants of the Weavers who may remain.

The more we know about the city we have been, the more we understand how we came to be the city we are today.

The story behind the Cascade Saloon also might provide inspiration for how great a city we could become.
The continuing comedy/tragedy that is the Trump presidency delivers more disturbing developments every day.

This morning, at 4:12 a.m., Donald Trump told the world that "our legal system is broken!"

Based on what? Other than his legal defeats in the 9th Circuit, his assessment seems no more factually grounded than his recent assertions that the murder rate is highest in 47 years and that millions of people voted illegally.

On that score, he now claims that thousands of people were bused from Massachusetts into New Hampshire to vote illegally ... and that's why he lost that state in November.

I dont have a reason to believe that, New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner told the Manchester Union-Leader Friday. What, "Trump said so" isn't a reason to believe some outlandish nonsense?

Meanwhile, the president's national security adviser is rapidly losing his credibility.

Here's guessing that SNL gets very high ratings again tonight ... and triggers more irrational tweeting soon after.
U.S. House

In addition to roll call votes this week, the House also passed the Fort Frederica National Monument Boundary Expansion Act, to expand the boundary of Fort Frederica National Monument in Georgia; and the Email Privacy Act, to update the privacy protections for electronic communications information that is stored by third-party service providers in order to protect consumer privacy interests while meeting law enforcement needs.

FLARING METHANE FROM FEDERAL OIL WELLS: The House has passed a resolution to state disapproval of a Bureau of Land Management rule restricting the venting and flaring of methane from natural gas and oil wells on federal lands. The vote, on Feb. 3, was 221-191.

YEA: Ted Budd (R-Advance),

NOT VOTING: Mark Walker (R-Greensboro)

RULE FOR USE OF BLM LANDS: The House has passed a resolution to state stating disapproval of an Interior Department rule regarding plans to use land under the Bureau of Land Managements control. The vote, on Feb. 7, was 234-186.

YEAS: Budd, Walker

EDUCATION OVERSIGHT: The House has passed a resolution to state disapproval of an Education Department rule setting out accountability requirements for state education plans. The vote, on Feb. 7, was 234-190.

YEAS: Budd, Walker

OVERSIGHT OF TEACHER PREPARATION: The House has passed a resolution to state disapproval of an Education Department rule that tied agency grants to evaluations of the adequacy of a states teacher preparation program. The vote, on Feb. 7, was 240-181.

YEAS: Budd, Walker

U.S. Senate

RESOURCE COMPANIES AND GOVERNMENT PAYMENTS: The Senate has passed a resolution to void a Securities and Exchange Commission rule requiring fossil fuel, mining, and other resource extraction companies to disclose production-related payments such as taxes they make to foreign governments. The vote, on Feb. 3, was 52-47.

YEAS: Richard Burr (R), Thom Tillis (R)

EDUCATION SECRETARY: The Senate has confirmed the nomination of Elisabeth Prince DeVos to serve as Education Secretary. The vote, on Feb. 7, was 50-50, with a 51st decisive yea vote cast by Vice President Mike Pence.

YEAS: Burr, Tillis

SUSPENDING SPEAKING PRIVILEGES: The Senate suspended the floor speaking privileges of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for violating a Senate rule against impugning the motives and conduct of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) in debating Sessions nomination for Attorney General. The vote to sustain the suspension, on Feb. 7, was 49-43.

YEAS: Burr, Tillis

ATTORNEY GENERAL: The Senate has confirmed the nomination of Jeff Sessions, formerly a Republican senator from Alabama, as Attorney General. The vote, on Feb. 8, was 52-47.

YEAS: Burr, Tillis

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: The Senate has confirmed the nomination of Dr. Tom Price, formerly a Republican representative from Georgia, to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services. The vote, on Feb. 9, was 52-47.

YEAS: Burr, Tillis

DEBATING TREASURY NOMINEE: The Senate has approved a cloture motion to end debate on the nomination of Steven T. Mnuchin to serve as Treasury Secretary. The vote, on Feb. 9, was 53-46.

YEAS: Burr, Tillis

 Targeted News Service
Updated 11:24 p.m.

GREENSBORO  Police tonight said the man who exchanged gunfire with police during a traffic stop has died from his wounds.

Carlos Keith Blackman, 25, was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

At about 4:30 p.m., police stopped a red car on Romaine Street that Blackman was a passenger in, according to a Greensboro police news release. Blackman ran off and one of the two police officers involved in the stop chased after him.

Blackman and the officer struggled before exchanging gunfire, according to the release.

Police did not say who fired first or how many times Blackman was shot.

The officer was shot once but police did not say where he was wounded.

The driver of the vehicle, who has not been identified, is in police custody and is being interviewed.

He and the second officer were not injured.

The injured officer will be placed on administrative duty while the State Bureau of Investigation looks into the incident, according to the release. The police department's Professional Standards Division will also conduct an investigation into whether the officers actions were in order with the department's directives.

Updated 8:51 p.m.

GREENSBORO  A shooting after a traffic stop Friday afternoon left two men hospitalized, one of them a police officer.

The officer, who had not been identified late Friday, was part of a two-person patrol that conducted a traffic stop on a small red sedan about 4:30 p.m. at 5513 Romaine St., Police Chief Wayne Scott said. The female officer who took part in the traffic stop also was not identified late Friday.

Scott did not say why the officers pulled over the car.

After the car stopped a man got out and ran, Scott said. The male officer chased him. Gunfire erupted about 200 or 300 yards from the original stop, Scott said. It was unclear how many weapons were involved in the gunfire.

Both men suffered injuries. The officer was in stable condition early Friday evening, while the condition of the man who ran from the stop was unknown.

The name of the officer, his rank and other details of his service were to be released after his family was notified, Scott said. Those details had not been released by late Friday.

The female officer involved in the stop was shaken up, but uninjured, police said.

No one else was injured.

Another man in the sedan was arrested without incident, Scott said. He did not release the man's name or detail the charges against him.

Investigators found police equipment strewn in the area along the path of the foot chase, Scott said. It was either lost or discarded as the men ran.

The State Bureau of Investigation was on the scene Friday night to assist police in the investigation.

Scott said there is police body camera footage of the incident, but it had not yet been reviewed, and police did not know the length of the footage or how much of the shooting was captured.

Cameras worn by Greensboro police are on continuously, but erase after 30 seconds unless manually switched to continue recording.

Updated at 7:15 p.m.

GREENSBORO  Police will be in a Greensboro neighborhood for the next 12 to 16 hours investigating a crime scene that stretches over as many as four blocks and left two suffering from gunshot wounds.

One police officer was in stable condition early Friday evening, while the condition of a suspect who was shot running from the traffic stop was not known.

Police Chief Wayne Scott told the News & Record Friday that a male and female officer team tried to stop a red sedan occupied by two men at about 4:30 p.m. in the 4200 block of Romaine Street near Hickory Trails public housing.

One of the men in the car got out and ran; the male officer chased him.

The gunfire occurred about 200 to 300 yards away from the car, Scott said. It wasnt immediately known whether the officer fired his weapon.

Both the officer and the man who ran away were shot.

The name of the officer, his rank and other details of his service will be released after his family is notified, Scott said.

The female officer involved in the stop is shaken up, but is uninjured. The other man in the car was arrested without incident, Scott said.

Investigators found police equipment strewn in the area along the path of the chase, Scott said. It was either lost or discarded as the men ran.

The State Bureau of Investigation has been called in to assist police in the investigation.

Scott said there is police body camera footage of the incident, but it has not yet been reviewed, and police do not know the length of the footage or how much of the shooting was captured.

Cameras worn by Greensboro police are on continuously, but erase after 30 seconds unless manually switched to continue recording.

Updated at 5:30 p.m.

GREENSBORO  Police are investigating the shooting of a Greensboro police officer conducting a traffic stop and one other person that happened at about 4:30 p.m.

Investigators have said that the shootings occurred when an officer was conducting a traffic stop at 5513 Romaine St. The other injured person is the suspect, Chief Wayne Scott said.

Police have said it is not known whether the officer fired his weapon.

Guilford County sheriff's deputies and UNC-Greensboro police officers, as part of mutual aid agreements, covered patrol areas vacated by Greensboro officers who responded to the incident.

There is police video of the shootings that is being reviewed, police said.

The names of the injured officer and suspect have not been released, nor has their respective conditions.

GREENSBORO  Two people, including a Greensboro police officer conducting a traffic stop were shot this afternoon.

The incident happened about 4:30 p.m. near Bernau Avenue and Baker Street.

The officer, who has not been identified, was taken to a hospital for treatment. The conditions of the two victims have not been released.

Check back for updates.
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A state law enacted in 2013 encourages more voter challenges  and lots of them were lodged following the November election.

Today voters are fighting back, Allison Riggs, an attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said after filing a lawsuit in federal court in Greensboro Wednesday.

Riggs organization represents four Guilford County residents who were accused of voting illegally by a local Republican Party official. The complaints were dismissed following an investigation, but the plaintiffs contend they were defamed by unfounded allegations.

Similar challenges were filed in dozens of counties by Republican-affiliated individuals following the initial tally of votes on Nov. 8, which showed Democrat Roy Cooper leading Republican Gov. Pat McCrory by a narrow margin. County election boards threw out most of the protests.

The State Board of Elections is still examining some challenged ballots, its general counsel, Josh Lawson, said this week. He did not disclose numbers but said any illegal voting did not affect the outcome of any contest on the state ballot. A full report will be released when the review is completed, Lawson said.

The 2013 law drew more attention for its provision, since struck down in court, requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls. It also sought to reduce the number of early voting days and ended straight-party voting, same-day registration, out-of-precinct voting and preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds.

In addition, it allowed political parties to place more observers at polling places and provided that any voter could challenge the eligibility of any other voter living in the same county. Previously, the challenger had to live in the same precinct.

A bill filed in the state Senate this week would extend that practice to absentee ballots.

The legislature obviously intends to increase opportunities for challenging suspected illegal voters. Does that also give license to make groundless accusations?

Riggs made plain that the lawsuit is a response to that possibility.

We want to send the message loud and clear that it is wrong to intimidate voters by accusing them of committing a crime without having any evidence to support the claim, she said.

Thats a fair warning. Whether its a winning legal point will be for the courts to decide. There should be some leeway allowed. If any person has information to believe someone voted illegally, he or she should lodge a challenge. Yet, the accuser could be honestly mistaken. For example, he may know that a neighbor is a convicted felon but not be aware that North Carolina allows felons to regain voting rights once they fulfill their obligations to the court. An accuser might think an immigrant isnt a citizen, not realizing that the person had recently been naturalized.

At the same time, it would be naive not to think political operatives might use voter challenges for intimidation or to raise doubts about the integrity of an election outcome. It looked like that was happening to some extent after the last election.

Its a serious matter to allege that someone voted illegally. The accused is subjected to a public investigation and potentially embarrassing attention. If challenges are made recklessly, with no evidence to back them up, maybe theres a case for holding the accuser accountable.
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GREENWICH  For Greenwich, Gov. Dannel P. Malloys recent budget proposal could spell a future of difficult decisions and higher taxes.

Greenwich taxpayers could face an additional net burden of $6.6 million in fiscal year 2017-18 under the proposal that Malloy outlined in his budget address to the state House and Senate Wednesday.

Revamping Connecticuts school funding formula was a major focus of Malloys 27-minute speech; the Democrat called for lawmakers to enlist in a regional effort to help the states troubled city schools, giving them more state funding at the expense of wealthier towns.

The education proposal is two-pronged: more grant money would shift to urban schools, while municipalities across Connecticut would pick up one third  approximately $400 million  of teachers pensions costs. The full cost of teachers pensions has traditionally been borne by the state.

In presenting his plan, Malloy singled out Greenwich, making local legislators eyebrows leap.

In the current fiscal year, the state is spending $24 million to cover pension costs of teachers and administrators in our most-affluent community, Greenwich, a school district that enrolls 8,800 students, Malloy said.

In the town that provided 10 percent of the states total income tax revenue last year, the comment chafed.

Once again, hes asking municipalities that have been footing most of the bill to pay even more, said veteran state Rep. Fred Camillo, R-Greenwich.

Jim Lash, former first selectman and current chair of the towns Budget Committee, called Malloys finger pointing at Greenwich bizarre.

Greenwich is not lucky, which is what people like to say about it, he said. Greenwich has processes and plans, and it doesnt spend money it doesnt have.

He called this proposal a way for the state to steal from towns piggy banks.

I think that was very deceptive, he said. Its hard to trust a government that deceives you and thinks so little of you.

But Chris McClure, a spokesman for the state Office of Policy and Management, said no single municipality was targeted by Malloys plan.

The municipal aid calculations were based on the municipalities ability to pay based on ... an analysis of fund balances, debt per capita, and share of teacher pension obligations, he said. This analysis was objective and the outcomes are without prejudice.

Education grants

The new school funding formula would hit Greenwichs state education grants hard.

The towns largest funding source from the state, the Education Cost Sharing Grant, was already slashed in fiscal year 2016-17 from an anticipated $1.4 million to $136,859. For fiscal years 2017-18 and 2018-19, the grant amount is to drop to zero.

Greenwichs second stream of state education funding is the Special Education Excess Cost Grant, which helps towns pay to educate high-need students.

In 2014-15 and 2015-16, Greenwich received $1.4 million and $727,097 in Excess Cost grants, respectively. The school district does not yet know how much it will be awarded in the current fiscal year.

Malloys new budget proposal replaces the Excess Cost grant with a new special education grant in 2017-18. Under his plan, Greenwich would receive nothing in that year or 2018-19.

Revenue reductions were anticipated, said Jim Hricay, managing director of Operations for Greenwich Public Schools. I dont think they were anticipated at this level.

Teachers pensions

Malloys proposal for the sharing of teachers pension costs would land Greenwich with a $10.1 million bill in 2017-18; $10.4 million the following year.

Town officials and legislators panned the idea of municipalities paying for part of a retirement plan that they would not negotiate or control.

The whole notion of shifting the pension burden back to the cities and the towns is one that I find completely unacceptable, said state Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich. What the state is doing or proposing here is, because of their incompetent management of the retirement system in general  not just the teachers pension plan but also the state employees retirement plan ... theyre shifting that burden back to the municipalities.

The state has failed in its duty to fund the teachers pensions, said First Selectman Peter Tesei, and should make changes similar to ones many towns have made to save on retirement benefits.

Before the state saddles municipalities with this epic unfunded liability, it should cap the existing defined benefit pension fund and create a defined contribution fund for our teachers, he said.

Tesei advocated for the state to pass House Bill 5552, proposed by the Greenwich delegation, that would exclude retirement benefits from collective bargaining.

The bill would give municipalities control over pension funding challenges that are being passed on to us by the state, he said.

Lash worries that Greenwichs pension contributions might grow over time if the proposal passes.

If the states financial straits prevent it from fully funding its two-thirds share of the pension cost, Lash said the pension fund will not earn the rate of return it is expected to and the total financial obligation  including towns one-third share  will grow.

Like a cancer, It will metastasize, he said. It will become a bigger and bigger problem for all municipalities. ... I dont want the town to be in a situation where from year to year we have no idea what our obligations are going to be.

Carol Sutton, president of the Greenwich Education Association, worried about the effect of the proposal on teachers ability to access retirement money. In Connecticut, teachers do not receive Social Security.

Suddenly the pension we have been counting on, the only pension we have, could be thrown into question, she said. The potential for a shortfall or a default grows exponentially. At least if the state is not funding the teachers retirement fund properly, the state is the target. If its all municipalities, its a little more complex.

Impact on Greenwich

Total state funding to Greenwich is actually due to tick up slightly in 2017-18, and the town for the first time under Malloys proposal would be able to assess property taxes to Greenwich Hospital, an estimated $2.8 million. But many officials abhor the hospital idea, and even with the small gains, the loss of education funding and the teachers pension payment would add up to a net loss of $6.6 million to Greenwich taxpayers.

The town will have two choices if Malloys proposal passes, officials said: cut services  like the number of police officers, teachers or snow plow operators  or raise property taxes.

Making up for the net loss to Greenwich could mean up to a 4.5 percent property tax increase, if the town were to attempt to compensate solely through tax revenue, Lash said.

Thats not whats going to happen, he said. We will look at all of our options.

Though the losses are in the education category, Lash said the town will not make the school district make up for them alone.

In the end, the school system will surely bear some of the burden for these very large cost increases, but I dont think the town is going to put the problems of the state Legislature on the children of Greenwich, he said.

Board of Education Chairman Peter Sherr called Malloys proposals incendiary.

We need to all be careful. Robin Hood economics is a cynical and dangerous game, he said. It may have the impact of actually undermining public schools, which is contrary to everything the governor has supported over the years.

Malloy, in his speech, characterized the economics of the state and the economics of his proposal in a very different way than did Sherr and other representatives of Greenwich.

You see, we are a small state and our towns are interconnected, the governor said. We can rise together or we can fall together. We can lift one another up, or we can drag one another down. Our future depends on the decisions we make today. This session. This year.

emunson@greenwichtime.com; @emiliemunson
Howard Stern Show producer and Old Greenwich resident Gary DellAbate and Jon Hein, hosts of The Howard Stern Wrap Up Show, broadcast the show live from Super Bowl LI Radio Row last Friday with guests and New England Patriots owners Robert Kraft and Jonathan Kraft. Other guests included sportscaster Joe Buck, actor and retired US Marine Corps Reserve Officer Rob Riggle, Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker, LA Rams running back Todd Gurley and actors Alyssa Milano, Donnie Wahlberg and Jenny McCarthy.

Out there

The Greenwich Alliance for Education is hosting its Second Annual Trivia Challenge on Feb. 25 at the First Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall, West Putnam Avenue, Greenwich. The event, which takes place at 6:30 p.m., will feature trivia games, dinner, drinks and a silent auction. Tickets are $125. For more info and tickets, visit http://greenwichalliance.schoolauction.net/triviachallenge2017/.

Out there...

The annual Greenwich Reunion Florida East Coast takes place on Feb. 25 at Jupiter Beach Parks Jupiter Island Pavilion in Jupiter, Fla., from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The BBQ, chaired by Greenwich natives Frank Zeranski and Ed Van Gordon, will feature lunch by Max Productions Corp., including burgers, dogs, ribs, gorgonzola salad, soft drinks, the famous Hotsys Chili donated by Gary Tex Texiere and a 50/50 raffle. More than 100 attended last years event, including Greenwich High School and St. Marys High School alumni, Greenwich old timers, residents and employees. For more info, contact Frank Zeranski at 203-918-2764 or GrReFIEaCO@aol.com.

Out there

The opening of Street Smart: Photographs of New York City, 1945-1980, takes place at the Bruce Museum Greenwich on Museum Drive on Feb. 18. The new exhibition features the works of photographers Larry Fink, Garry Winogrand, Herman Leonard, Leon Levinstein and John Shearer providing a glimpse at life in NYC post-war period. Also featured are 30 black-and-white works drawn from the Bruce Museums permanent collection. The exhibit will be on view through June 4. For more info, call 203-869-0376 or visit www.brucemuseum.org.

Out there

Storytelling and a book signing with marine scientist and author Marah J. Hardt will take place at the Bruce Museum Seaside Center in Greenwich Point Park, Old Greenwich, at 2 p.m. Feb. 12. Hardt will present highlights and underwater photography from her popular science book Sex in the Sea: Our Intimate Connection with Sex-Changing Fish, Romantic Lobsters, Kinky Squid, and other Salty Erotic of the Deep. The event will also feature marine-themed Valentine activities for all ages from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Admission is free.

Out there

The award-winning Motown band The Commodores will perform at the Ridgefield Playhouse at 8 p.m. Tuesday. To honor Valentines Day, the evening will start with a 6 p.m. reception offering guests dessert by Deborah Anns Sweet Shoppe and Elizabellas Bake Shop, a free glass of Chloe prosecco and a raffle. Tickets are $135. For tickets and more info, call 203-438-5795.

One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.

-Sophocles

Happy Valentines Birthday to my angel mom, Lillian.

And thats all for now.

Later

Got a tip? Seen a celebrity? E-mail Susie Costaregni at thedish2@yahoo.com.
Yesterday a rumor 'confirmed' the fact that the three iPhones launching this year will all have support for wireless charging through their glass backs. Today a new report out of Taiwan reiterates that, along with the fact that one of the three phones will sport an OLED display, which will be provided by Samsung.

This model, tentatively called iPhone 8, will apparently also come with an iris scanner, a feature that debuted in the mobile world on the ill-fated Samsung Galaxy Note7, but which is expected to make a comeback in the Korean company's Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus this spring.

The companies that make up the iPhones' supply chain will allegedly start delivering parts and components for the next-gen devices by the end of the first quarter, earlier than in the past. That said, the new handsets may still be announced in September as usual.

Source | Via
The OnePlus 3T has been facing supply shortages ever since its announcement, but things have been picking up lately.

After OnePlus finally made the 64GB 3T available for immediate dispatch in EU and North America the company is finally ready to bring the large storage version to its online store. OnePlus 3T in 128GB Gunmetal flavor is up for pre-order.

Its not an immediate delivery as the 64GB units - the 128GB device will ship within 13 days of cleared payment of 479.

Source




Haiti - Economy : Another success of the diaspora





This week, Justin Viard, Consul General of Haiti in Montreal, accompanied by representatives of the Commercial and Tourism Business Section and the Communication and Culture Section, welcomed a Haitian entrepreneur working in the food sector (Casse-Croute, Bakery, Delicatessen and Pastry) and owner of the restaurant "Andreamise" serving about 500 dishes of Haitian food daily for low-cost in Montreal North.



Recall that Mr. Noel was part of an economic mission that visited Haiti in June 2014 and that the benefits of this mission allowed him to export to Florida and Montreal containers of fruits and vegetables produced in Haiti in collaboration with peasant associations and local partners.



Currently, steps are underway to open a branch of the restaurant "Andreamise" in the department of Artibonite and export on a larger scale to the international market of fruits and vegetables grown in Haiti. Naud Noel is also planning a processing plant in Gonaives.



The Consul General of Haiti in Montreal applauded these successes and encouraged Naud Noel in his investment projects in Haiti.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - News : Zapping politics...





PM, continuation of consultations

Friday, President Jovenel Moses announced the continuation of consultations with the presidents of the two branches of parliament. A choice who, acording to him, would be made in calm and serenity, he also needs a head of government capable of landing his vision.



"No Witch Hunt"

Friday in the morning, President Jovenel Moise, paid a surprise visit to the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), to inquire about the work of the institution and the financial situation of the country. Jovenel Moise was satisfied with the operation of the Ministry and assured that there will be "No Witch Hunt..."



Jovenel promises light in remote areas

Friday, on the sidelines of the inauguration of a "Epi dOr" to the market "Gwo Mache Mirak" in Fond-Parisien, President Jovenel Moise announced that he will bring light to the remote rural areas of the country, "My team began working on setting up 50,000 350-watt solar electric systems in the most remote communal sections."



Jean-Charles Moise criticizes

Jean-Charles Moise of the Platform "Pitit Dessalin" continues to denounce the final results of the presidential elections of November 20th. Moreover, he is very critical about the disorder he says he observed in the protocol and the organization of the swearing-in ceremony of Jovenel Moise on February 7 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20030-haiti-inauguration-jovenel-moise-58th-president-of-haiti.html



Dominican Consul finds normal to require Visa to Haitians

Ramon de la Rosa, the Dominican Consul in Port-au-Prince, considers it is normal to requires a visa to Haitian citizens to enter the Dominican Republic. According to the consul, the highest visa application is made by Haitian students who want to pursue studies in Dominican universities. He states that visa applications for other activities are stable and that in many cases they are people who want to trade with the Dominican Republic.



Scholars police officers in Chile

Friday, Michel-Ange Gedeon, the Director General of the National Police of Haiti (PNH), received police officers at the "Carabineros" and "Escuela de Investigaciones de Chile" schools. In his statements of circumstances, Gedeon encouraged them to always show discipline and to maintain very high the torch that they inherited because the future of the institution belongs to them.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Number of Seriously Underwater Properties Down 1 Million From Year Ago, Down 7.1 Million From Market Bottom in Q1 2012

Number of Equity Rich U.S. Properties Increases by 1.3 Million Compared to a Year Ago; But Equity Lost During Downturn Helping to Keep Average Homeownership Tenure Elevated at Nearly Twice Pre-Recession Levels;

News Release from ATTOM Data Solutions

IRVINE, Calif.  Feb. 9, 2017  ATTOM Data Solutions, curator of the nations largest fused property database, today released its Year-End 2016 U.S. Home Equity & Underwater Report, which shows that as of the end of 2016 there were 5.4 million (5,408,323) U.S. properties seriously underwater  where the combined loan amount secured by the property was at least 25 percent higher than the propertys estimated market value  a decrease of more than 1 million properties (1,028,058) from a year ago.

The 5.4 million seriously underwater properties at the end of 2016 represented 9.6 percent of all U.S. properties with a mortgage, down from 10.8 percent at the end of Q3 2016 and down from 11.5 percent at the end of 2015 to the lowest level since ATTOM Data Solutions began tracking in Q1 2012.

The report is based on publicly recorded mortgage and deed of trust data collected and licensed by ATTOM Data Solutions nationwide along with an industry standard automated valuation model (AVM) updated monthly in the ATTOM Data Warehouse of more than 150 million U.S. properties (see full methodology below).

Since home prices bottomed out nationwide in the first quarter of 2012, the number of seriously underwater U.S. homeowners has decreased by about 7.1 million, an average decrease of about 1.4 million each year, said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president with ATTOM Data Solutions. Meanwhile, the number of equity rich homeowners has increased by nearly 4.8 million over the past three years, a rate of about 1.6 million each year.

Despite this upward trend over the past five years, the massive loss of home equity during the housing crisis forced many homeowners to stay in their homes longer before selling, effectively disrupting the historical domino effect of move-up buyers that feeds both demand for new homes and supply of inventory for first-time homebuyers, Blomquist noted. Between 2000 and 2008, our data shows the average homeownership tenure nationwide was 4.26 years, but that average tenure has been trending steadily higher since 2009, reaching a new record high of 7.88 years for homeowners who sold in 2016.

Number of equity rich properties increases 1.3 million from year ago

The report also found that as of the end of 2016 there were 13.9 million (13,877,315) U.S. properties that were equity rich  where the combined loan amount secured by the property was 50 percent or less of the propertys estimated market value  an increase of nearly 1.3 million (1,256,041) from a year ago.

The 13.9 million equity rich properties at the end of 2016 represented 24.6 percent of all U.S. properties with a mortgage, up from 23.4 percent at the end of Q3 2016 and up from 22.5 percent at the end of 2015.

Nevada, Illinois, Ohio post highest share of seriously underwater properties

States with highest share of seriously underwater properties were Nevada (19.5 percent); Illinois (16.6 percent); Ohio (16.3 percent); Missouri (14.6 percent); and Louisiana (14.5 percent).

Among 88 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 500,000 and sufficient home value and loan data, those with the highest share of seriously underwater properties were Las Vegas (22.7 percent); Cleveland (21.5 percent); Akron, Ohio (20.1 percent); Dayton, Ohio (20.0 percent); and Toledo, Ohio (19.9 percent).

In the markets HER Realtors serves, there was a substantial reduction in properties underwater as well as an increase in owners who are at less than 50 percent LTV  consistent with rising home prices across Ohio, driven by a strong buyers market and lack of inventory, said Matthew L. Watercutter, senior regional vice president and broker of record for HER Realtors, covering the Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati markets in Ohio. One of the primary reasons we have a shortage of inventory is due to the high number of homeowners who are still underwater, making it difficult to sell and move as they would need to conduct a short sale or bring money to the closing. A high percentage of those homeowners are waiting it out until they are no longer underwater or in a better position to sell, contributing to the shortage of inventory. I expect this dynamic to continue through 2017.

Along with Las Vegas and Cleveland, other metro areas with at least 1 million people and at least 14.5 percent of properties seriously underwater at the end of 2016 were Detroit (17.5 percent); Chicago (16.9 percent); Orlando (15.7 percent); Memphis (14.6 percent); and Jacksonville, Florida (14.5 percent).

Hawaii, Vermont, California post highest share of equity rich properties

States with the highest share of equity rich properties at the end of 2016 were Hawaii (37.8 percent), Vermont (36.9 percent); California (36.0 percent); New York (34.9 percent); and Oregon (32.0 percent).

Among 88 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 500,000 and sufficient home value and loan data, those with the highest share of equity rich properties were San Jose, California (51.6 percent); San Francisco (47.7 percent); Honolulu (39.8 percent); Los Angeles (39.2 percent); and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (35.8 percent).

Clearly the big news here is the rapid drop in the number of seriously underwater homeowners between 2013 and 2016 from 197,000 (23.7 percent) to just 44,000 (4.5 percent), said Matthew Gardner, chief economist with Windermere Real Estate, covering the Seattle market, where 32.5 percent of properties with a mortgage were equity rich as of the end of 2016  ninth highest among all metro areas analyzed for the report. Simultaneously weve seen the number of equity rich homeowners climb from 168,000 to over 322,000. All of this is largely a result of Seattles employment and income growth, which are well above the national average.

While Im happy to see the number of distressed households drop significantly, the increase in equity rich homeowners further compounds the issue of housing affordability that were seeing in Seattle, which will likely get worse with further increases in both home prices and mortgage rates, Gardner added.

Profile of seriously underwater properties

Some characteristics of the 5.4 million seriously underwater U.S. properties as of the end of 2016:

4 percent of non-owner occupied (investment) properties with a mortgage were underwater as of the end of 2016 compared to only 6.8 percent of owner-occupied properties. 6 percent of properties in high-risk flood zones were seriously underwater (above national average of 9.6 percent). Based on years owned range, the highest share of underwater properties is those that have been owned between 10 and 15 years (12.0 percent), followed by those that have been owned five to 10 years (10.6 percent). The lowest share of seriously underwater properties were those owned more than 20 years (7.2 percent) followed by those owned between one and five years (8.6 percent). 9 percent of all properties secured by loans originated in 2006 were seriously underwater at the end of 2016, the highest share of seriously underwater of any loan vintage in the last 20 years, followed by 2007 vintage (23.5 percent seriously underwater) and 2005 vintage (21.5 percent seriously underwater).

Profile of equity rich properties

Some characteristics of the 13.0 million equity rich U.S. properties as of the end of 2016:

5 percent of properties located in high-risk flood zones were equity rich as of the end of 2016, below the national average of 24.6 percent. Based on years owned range, the highest share of equity rich were for properties owned more than 20 years (45.4 percent), followed by those owned 15 to 20 years (32.4 percent). 4 percent of all properties secured by 1998 vintage loans were equity rich at the end of 2016, the highest share of equity rich of any loan vintage in the last 20 years, followed by 1999 vintage (44.7 percent equity rich) and 2000 vintage (40.8 percent equity rich).

Denver, Orlando, Louisville buck trend with decreasing homeownership tenures

Among 316 metropolitan statistical areas analyzed for homeownership tenure, there were 54 (17 percent) where the average homeownership tenure for sellers in 2016 decreased compared to a year ago, including Denver; Orlando; Louisville, Kentucky; Tucson, Arizona; and Fresno, California.

The remaining 262 markets (83 percent) where the average homeownership tenure increased in 2016 compared to 2015 included New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Dallas; and Houston.

Among 52 metro areas with a population of at least 1 million, those with the longest average homeownership tenure for homes sold in 2016 were Hartford, Connecticut (11.57 years); Providence, Rhode Island (10.36 years); Boston (10.04 years); San Francisco (9.92 years); and San Jose, California (9.79 years).

Among those same 52 metro areas with a population of at least 1 million, those with the shortest average homeownership tenure in 2016 were Rochester, New York (4.67 years); New Orleans (4.85 years); Louisville, Kentucky (4.93 years); Virginia Beach (5.37 years); and Atlanta (5.66 years).

Report methodology

The ATTOM Data Solutions U.S. Home Equity & Underwater report provides counts of residential properties based on several categories of equity  or loan to value (LTV)  at the state, metro, county and zip code level, along with the percentage of total residential properties with a mortgage that each equity category represents. The equity/LTV calculation is derived from a combination of record-level open loan data and record-level estimated property value data.

Definitions

Seriously underwater: Loan to value ratio of 125 percent or above, meaning the homeowner owed at least 25 percent more than the estimated market value of the property.

Equity rich: Loan to value ratio of 50 percent or lower, meaning the homeowner had at least 50 percent equity.

Data Licensing and Custom Report Order

Investors, businesses and government institutions can contact ATTOM Data Solutions to purchase the full dataset behind the Year-End U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, including data at the state, metro, county and zip code level. The data is also available via bulk license or in customized reports. For more information contact our Data Solutions Department at 800.462.5193 or datasales@attomdata.com.

About ATTOM Data Solutions

ATTOM Data Solutions is the curator of the ATTOM Data Warehouse, a multi-sourced national property database that blends property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, health hazards, neighborhood characteristics and other property characteristic data for more than 150 million U.S. residential and commercial properties. The ATTOM Data Warehouse delivers actionable data to businesses, consumers, government agencies, universities, policymakers and the media in multiple ways, including bulk file licenses, APIs and customized reports.

ATTOM Data Solutions also powers consumer websites designed to promote real estate transparency: RealtyTrac.com is a property search and research portal for foreclosures and other off-market properties; Homefacts.com is a neighborhood research portal providing hyperlocal risks and amenities information; HomeDisclosure.com produces detailed property pre-diligence reports.

ATTOM Data and its associated brands are cited by thousands of media outlets each month, including frequent mentions on CBS Evening News, The Today Show, CNBC, CNN, FOX News, PBS NewsHour and in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and USA TODAY.
Study Reveals 72 Terrorists Came From Countries Covered by Trump Vetting Order

by Jessica Vaughan, Center for Immigration Studies, February 11, 2017

A review of information compiled by a Senate committee in 2016 reveals that 72 individuals from the seven countries covered in President Trump's vetting executive order have been convicted in terror cases since the 9/11 attacks. These facts stand in stark contrast to the assertions by the Ninth Circuit judges who have blocked the president's order on the basis that there is no evidence showing a risk to the United States in allowing aliens from these seven terror-associated countries to come in.

In June 2016 the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, then chaired by new Attorney General Jeff Sessions, released a report on individuals convicted in terror cases since 9/11. Using open sources (because the Obama administration refused to provide government records), the report found that 380 out of 580 people convicted in terror cases since 9/11 were foreign-born. The report is no longer available on the Senate website, but a summary published by Fox News is available here.

The Center has obtained a copy of the information compiled by the subcommittee. The information compiled includes names of offenders, dates of conviction, terror group affiliation, federal criminal charges, sentence imposed, state of residence, and immigration history.

The Center has extracted information on 72 individuals named in the Senate report whose country of origin is one of the seven terror-associated countries included in the vetting executive order: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The Senate researchers were not able to obtain complete information on each convicted terrorist, so it is possible that more of the convicted terrorists are from these countries.

The United States has admitted terrorists from all of the seven dangerous countries:

Somalia: 20

Yemen: 19

Iraq: 19

Syria: 7

Iran: 4

Libya: 2

Sudan: 1

Total: 72

According to the report, at least 17 individuals entered as refugees from these terror-prone countries. Three came in on student visas and one arrived on a diplomatic visa.

At least 25 of these immigrants eventually became citizens. Ten were lawful permanent residents, and four were illegal aliens.

These immigrant terrorists lived in at least 16 different states, with the largest number from the terror-associated countries living in New York (10), Minnesota (8), California (8), and Michigan (6). Ironically, Minnesota was one of the states suing to block Trump's order to pause entries from the terror-associated countries, claiming it harmed the state. At least two of the terrorists were living in Washington, which joined with Minnesota in the lawsuit to block the order.

Thirty-three of the 72 individuals from the seven terror-associated countries were convicted of very serious terror-related crimes, and were sentenced to at least three years imprisonment. The crimes included use of a weapon of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit a terror act, material support of a terrorist or terror group, international money laundering conspiracy, possession of explosives or missiles, and unlawful possession of a machine gun.

Some opponents of the travel suspension have tried to claim that the Senate report was flawed because it included individuals who were not necessarily terrorists because they were convicted of crimes such as identity fraud and false statements. About a dozen individuals in the group from the seven terror-associated countries are in this category. Some are individuals who were arrested and convicted in the months following 9/11 for involvement in a fraudulent hazardous materials and commercial driver's license scheme that was extremely worrisome to law enforcement and counter-terrorism agencies, although a direct link to the 9/11 plot was never claimed.

The information in this report was compiled by Senate staff from open sources, and certainly could have been found by the judges if they or their clerks had looked for it. Another example that should have come to mind is that of Abdul Razak Ali Artan, who attacked and wounded 11 people on the campus of Ohio State University in November 2016. Artan was a Somalian who arrived in 2007 as a refugee.

President Trump's vetting order is clearly legal under the provisions of section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which says that the president can suspend the entry of any alien or group of aliens if he finds it to be detrimental to the national interest. He should not have to provide any more justification than was already presented in the order, but if judges demand more reasons, here are 72.
Weekly Recap

From Hawaii Family Forum, February 11, 2017

Take Action!

Senate CPH Committee Schedules Assisted Suicide Bill SB1129

The bill, SB1129 is very misleading in its title "relating to health". The bill, if passed, establishes a death with dignity act under which a terminally ill adult resident may obtain a prescription for medication to end the patient's life.

SB1129: Text, Status -- The committee on CPH has scheduled a public hearing on 02-15-17 8:30AM in conference room 229.

1) Please submit online testimony today. Click here for instructions. You must be registered online at the capitol website to submit testimony

2) Call the members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Health and ask them to vote NO ON SB 1129.

3) Show up at the hearing, even if you don't submit testimony to show opposition to assisted suicide.

Why should we oppose assisted suicide?

 Opens the door to abuse of the elderly or infirm. Once a lethal prescription is written, an abusive caregiver or relative who stands to inherit from the patient can pick it up and give it to the patient in food or drink. Since no witness is required at the time of death, who would know if the patient consented?

 Cheapens life. If assisted suicide is made legal, it quickly becomes just another form of treatment. It will always be the cheapest option, especially in a cost-conscious healthcare environment. Barbara Wagner, an Oregon resident, was denied coverage for her cancer treatment but received a letter from the Oregon Health Plan stating the plan would cover assisted suicide. Another Oregon resident, Randy Stroup, received an identical letter, telling him that the Oregon Health Plan would cover the cost of his assisted suicide, but would not pay for medical treatment for his prostate cancer.

 A threat to the most vulnerable. Those living with disabilities or who are in vulnerable healthcare circumstances have justifiable concerns should assisted suicide become an option. Financial pressure, peer pressure, and even pressure from uncaring family members can be placed on these individuals to take the suicide option. In fact, nothing in the Oregon or Washington style laws can protect from explicit or implicit family pressures to commit suicide, or personal fears of "being a burden." There is NO requirement that a doctor evaluate family pressures the patient may be under, nor compel the doctor to encourage a patient to even notify their family.

 Bad data puts patients at risk. Oregon's data on assisted suicide is flawed, incomplete, and tells us very little. The state does not investigate cases of abuse, and has admitted, "We cannot determine whether physician assisted suicide is being practiced outside the framework of the Death with Dignity Act." The state has also acknowledged destroying the underlying data after each annual report.

For more resources visit: www.hpacc.org | www.hawaiiagainstassistedsuicide.org

HFF and HFA sign letter to Trump on Religious Freedom

Yesterday a letter was released to President Donald Trump & Vice President Mike Pence from the Family Policy Alliance and the Family Policy Council Network (of which Hawaii Family Forum and Hawaii Family Advocates are a part) requesting the President to please swiftly sign an Executive Order Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom.

Read the entire letter: CLICK HERE.

Want to send your own letter to President Trump? Click here.

2017 Marriage Gala a Success!

10 Couples were honored at our second annual Marriage Gala. We were blessed to have 5 of our couples honored in 2016 return to celebrate and honor marriage. View some of our images from the evening.
Hawaii needs self-managed pension plan for public-worker retirees

by Joe Kent, Grassroot Institute, Feb 10, 2017

Hawaiis government has a festering problem that has the potential to bankrupt the state and put its retired public employees in real danger.

That problem is its public pension debt, also commonly referred to as its unfunded liabilities.

Hawaii is missing $23 billion that is supposed to pay for the pensions and health benefits of current and future government retirees; lawmakers in recent years have been paying more tax money into the pension fund to help make it solvent, but the debt keeps growing. Indeed, its higher today than its ever been.

The states pension debt has grown to 46 percent of the retirement fund, representing $12 billion that state retirees are missing from their promised retirement nest-eggs.

Debt is also expected to grow for other post employment benefits, such as the State Employer Union Trust Fund, which is underfunded by $11 billion.

Hawaii taxpayers are being soaked for record amounts every year to help bring these funds back into balance, but despite the extra taxes and astronomical payments, in the Legislatures and administrations dire efforts to alleviate the problem, the debt just keeps growing.

Last year, state leaders poured $1.5 billion of taxpayer money toward satisfying the combined debts, which is the highest payment the state ever made, but to no avail.

Now some lawmakers want to pour more tax money into the fund. But theres a better solution.

Instead of focusing on Band-Aids such as raising taxes, lawmakers should address the source of the problem, which is that the pension system is fundamentally broken.

Switching from a broken, government-run pension system to a private, self-managed system would fix the debt problem for good.

This could be done by modeling Hawaii pension plans after other states self-managed pension plans for government workers.

This switch has helped a dozen states, such as Michigan and Oklahoma, roll back their pension debts, ultimately allowing taxpayers in those jurisdictions to keep more money in their pockets.

Hawaiis leaders should pursue responsible, proven alternatives to fix the states potentially disastrous public pension system. Temporary fixes such as raising taxes, retooling payments or trimming benefits will never work. These solutions have only exacerbated the issue.

Its time to adopt reasonable reforms that will ensure government employees the safe and secure retirement they were promised  and that state taxpayers can afford.

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RELATED:
Bernadette Bernie Cash, who died alone and unaided after being attacked by her cousin, Donna OBrien

A reckless female criminal, who killed her 20-year-old cousin in a savage attack in a west Dublin house, was convicted of drink-driving, driving under the influence of substances and dangerous driving while heavily pregnant and on bail for the manslaughter offence.

This week, Donna O'Brien (25) sobbed as Judge Melanie Greally described how her cousin Bernadette 'Bernie' Cash "died alone and unaided" after being left in a critical condition following an attack by O'Brien.

She was sentenced to four-and-a-half years for the unlawful killing of her cousin, whose body was discovered lying in a hallway of a house at Blanchardstown the morning after the assault.

O'Brien, of Cherryfield Lawn, Hartstown, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to manslaughter of Ms Cash at Warrenstown Walk, Blanchardstown, on October 30, 2013.

The Herald can reveal that, after being granted bail in relation to this crime, O'Brien continued to go on a crime spree.

This included a terrifying incident on the M11 motorway near Gorey, Co Wexford, on the night of August 4, 2015, when a heavily pregnant O'Brien was arrested by gardai, who had noticed her driving erratically.

Hiding

She was given a four-month jail sentence for a wide variety of offences, which included driving without insurance and tax.

It can also be revealed that O'Brien went into hiding after the death of Ms Cash and was warned of an active threat against her life by gardai.

O'Brien stayed in hostels in Dublin's north inner city for a time, but also at other locations in Dublin and Wexford.

During her sentencing hearing this week, O'Brien listened as the court heard that three men who were in the house at the time also left the victim in a critical condition.

These men told gardai afterwards that O'Brien was rowing with the victim over comments O'Brien believed the victim had made about her child.

The court heard that O'Brien repeatedly punched Ms Cash in the face after a verbal row.

Ms Cash was knocked to the ground and witnesses said that O'Brien then kicked her repeatedly in the head and body.

One man told gardai that he grabbed O'Brien to try to pull her away but she broke away and kicked Ms Cash again.

O'Brien admitted punching Ms Cash but denied she ever kicked the victim.

The witness told gardai later that the victim "was not fighting back", was "in a bad way" and that "she was in trouble".

Another man said that her arm began moving and he was worried she was having a fit.

The four others all left the house through a window and went to leave in a car.

One man went back into the house to see if she was moving but then left with the others.

A post-mortem found that Ms Cash suffered brain swelling and died from head injuries.

It also found the possibility of a pre-existing clot.
A 24-year-old drug dealer, who has become the new kingpin for the Kinahan cartel in a major patch of north Dublin, has been warned to "back off" by a very close associate of a notorious criminal.

Tensions are high in the suburb of Finglas after the young dealer, who has a penchant for designer clothes, was warned and grabbed by the throat by a pal of convicted criminal Wayne Bradley.

The face-off followed an incident last year, in which the drugs trafficker targeted Bradley, also in the Finglas area.

"We won't be listening to you, we will do what we want and we will go where we want," Bradley's associate is alleged to have told the up-and-coming thug.

Neither man can be named for legal reasons and the incident was not reported to gardai.

Boss

Gardai are aware of an incident before Christmas, in which the Kinahan-aligned dealer threw an object, believed to be a rock, at an SUV vehicle that was occupied by Bradley.

It is not believed that anyone was injured in the incident, but sources say that the dealer's motivation was to show Bradley "who was the boss of the area", even though Bradley is not suspected of involvement in the local drugs trade.

In fact, Bradley (37) "has been keeping his head down" since being released from Portlaoise Prison in December 2015.

He served a five-year jail sentence for his role as a look-out during a 2007 raid on a Tesco store in Celbridge, under the direction of slain gang boss Eamon Dunne, while his older brother Alan - nicknamed 'Fatpuss' - served a six-and-a-half-year sentence and was released last year.

The Bradley vehicle attack is not the only violent incident linked to the drugs trafficker in recent months. He is also suspected of shooting up the car of a woman in Finglas as part of a different dispute.

Sources say that the thug likes to flaunt his wealth and has been regularly observed wearing trainers worth more than 300, as well as expensive designer clothes.

He has a core network of at least 20 loyal associates, all of whom are regularly stopped and searched by gardai.

Bulletproof

The force's heavily armed Emergency Response Unit (ERU) has been involved in a number of raids targeting the gang and has observed bulletproof windows and doors in many of the rented north Dublin properties connected to the mob.

Despite all the garda activity against him in recent months, the major drugs trafficker has so far managed to evade serious charges.

He has taken over a drug dealing patch belonging to one of his closest associates, who fled the country months ago.

The on-the-run thug's home has been raided and he has been arrested and questioned about the murder of Eddie Hutch Snr in Dublin's north inner city last February 8.

Business has been booming in his absence, however, because of the activities of his younger associate.

The 24-year-old criminal is also a close friend of a notorious hitman from Cabra, who is also linked to a number of feud murders.
An Aer Lingus worker arrested in connection with an alleged immigrant-smuggling operation at Dublin Airport has had a further charge brought against him.

Frederick Cham (61) appeared in Cloverhill District Court accused of failing to update immigration gardai with his personal details.

He is already facing more serious human trafficking charges following his arrest along with a co-accused Aer Lingus employee at the airport last month.

Judge Kathryn Hutton again remanded Mr Cham in custody after no bail application was made on his behalf.

Mr Cham, of Railway Cottages, Hazelhatch, Celbridge, Co Kildare, was previously charged with two counts of facilitating the trafficking of a non-national into the State at the airport on January 9 and 22.

The latest alleged offence, failing to provide details under the Immigration Act, is alleged to have happened at the airport on January 22.

Garda Lorcan Tighe, of the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB), told Judge Hutton he charged Mr Cham before the court sitting yesterday and he made no reply after caution.

The accused was handed a copy of the charge sheet.

Bail

Defence solicitor Fiona McNulty said she was not applying for bail, as had been indicated on a previous date.

She said a bail application may be made on Mr Cham's next court appearance and that she would give the prosecution due notice.

Ms McNulty also asked the judge to defer a legal aid application.

Judge Hutton remanded Mr Cham in custody to appear in court again on February 17.

Mr Cham, wearing a red anorak and light grey trousers, did not address the court.

At the same court, the judge further remanded a Chinese national, Xing Wang, in custody for another two weeks.

Mr Wang, of no fixed address, is charged with failing to produce a passport or identification card and failing to present himself to an immigration officer on January 22.

He is also charged with possession of a false Hong Kong passport.

No bail application has yet been made on his behalf.

Previously, Garda Keith Cleary said "ID and status issues" had to be resolved in relation to Mr Wang.

The second Aer Lingus worker, Peter Kernan (56), with an address at The Old Rectory, Celbridge, Co Kildare, is also currently before the courts charged with facilitating the trafficking of a non-national into the State. He was granted bail previously.
A garda has been convicted of assault causing harm to two young women in a row over a 15 fee for a lift home.

Garda Brian Hanrahan (34) had vehemently denied before Nenagh District Court that he punched the two women in an unprovoked attack near an isolated Co Tipperary cemetery last year.

However, Judge Elizabeth MacGrath convicted the young Newcastle West-based garda of assault causing harm after considering her verdict for a week following the day-long trial.

"Having studied the evidence very carefully... the court is satisfied that Mr Hanrahan is guilty of the two charges," she said.

The judge quoted Britain's Alfred Denning when she said it would be "an appalling vista" if the three young women had lied in court, as claimed, over what happened at the cemetery that night.

She also noted that an independent witness, a security guard driving home, had seen a man holding a woman by her hair near Lisboney cemetery.The judge noted inconsistencies in Hanrahan's evidence, including his initial claim in a 999 call made from the scene that he had been confronted by six or eight people.

Psychopaths

"I have found that Mr Hanrahan's account on the night in the 999 call was not accurate," she said.

She also noted that, in his 999 call, Hanrahan said those confronting him were "a f***ing crowd of psychopaths".

As the judge convicted him of the two assaults, Hanrahan bowed his head.

The young women who were assaulted, Aisling King and Emer Kelly, began crying.

The judge adjourned sentencing until April 27 to allow probation and psychological reports to be prepared.

"The attitude [of Mr Hanrahan] on the night... and other issues... does give rise to concern," the judge said.

She noted that the garda had survived being mugged, shot and seriously injured while on holiday in New Orleans in the US in 2015.

"A psychological report would inform the process," she added.

Daniel O'Gorman, solicitor for Hanrahan, said the convictions will have "devastating consequences" for the young garda.

Hanrahan is a married father of two, whose children are aged six months and three years old.

Ms Kelly and Ms King had sobbed while giving evidence about the assaults, which occurred when they had asked the garda for a promised 15 for a lift home.

In victim impact statements, they said they had always respected gardai but, after the assaults, they were now afraid.

"Because of that [evening] I will not drive my car on my own at night," Ms King said.

"I couldn't believe that a guard could do this to me. The gardai are meant to be there to help you," Ms Kelly said.

Hanrahan, who was off duty on the night in question, insisted he only acted in self-defence, claiming that one of the young women "launched herself" at him in a row over the lift fee.

Rude

Michelle O'Connell, for the State, said gardai became aware of an incident in Nenagh at about 4am on March 6 last.

Ms Kelly was in Nenagh with her friends Ms King and Ellen Nyhill in her new car.

Hanrahan approached the young women and agreed to pay them 15 to 20 for a lift to his home at Ballintotty, Nenagh.

None of the women knew him.

"It was a weird situation after a while. He was very rude. He said that Nenagh was full of scumbags," Ms Kelly said.

Mr Hanrahan also described Nenagh as "a sh**hole" and "a kip".

The women asked Hanrahan to get out of their car near Lisboney cemetery.

"Aisling went to drive off but I said I will ask him for the money. He pulled my hair and beat me to the ground," Ms Kelly said.

Ms King said she jumped out of the car when she realised something was happening.

"I said stop, stop, please stop. Please. But he hit me twice in the face. There was blood all over Emer's face," she added.
Garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe has confirmed he plans to seek compensation from the State

A huge payout for damages is expected to be sought by the legal team of Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe as the whistleblower prepares to seek compensation from the State.

Seeking a payment of several hundred thousand euro or even a seven-figure sum cannot be ruled out, as steps are taken to begin suing the State.

He confirmed yesterday that he intends to take a case against the State for the damage done to him.

He has resolutely maintained he has been the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by senior members of An Garda Siochana.

A formal apology to Sgt McCabe by Tusla, the child protection agency, was issued yesterday following the revelation that a false allegation of child sexual abuse was made against him.

His solicitor, Sean Costello, told RTE News yesterday the false sex abuse allegation was profoundly serious.

"The nature of this allegation is probably the worst thing you could say or allege about any individual," said Mr Costello.

Collusion

Earlier, Tusla chief executive Fred McBride had denied that the agency was involved in any sort of collusion with gardai in relation to mistaken and false allegations linked to Sgt McCabe.

Speaking on RTE News at One, Mr McBride said that he "absolutely refuted any suggestion there was collusion between Tusla and the gardai".

A Prime Time investigation revealed on Thursday that a mistaken allegation of digital rape of a child was linked to garda whistleblower Sgt McCabe due to a "clerical error".

Mr McBride said "there is no doubt that mistakes have been made" and a full review of what occurred will take place.

He added that he had issued a letter of apology to the McCabes and has offered to meet the family to apologise in person if necessary.

He said the reason for the delay is that he wanted the apology to come from him personally and he wanted to know the detail of what had occurred.

Tusla has a responsibility to ensure that all information was investigated, Mr McBride said.

"If that information turns out to be inaccurate, and that was the case here... it is incumbent on us to correct that information as quickly as possible and that's where mistakes were made," he added.

Mr McBride said he escalated the matter to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs "within days".

Meanwhile, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) expressed its concerns at the ongoing controversy surrounding the treatment of Sgt McCabe.

It noted that issues arising may be so profound as to require a broader response, engaging institutions beyond the proposed commission of investigation.

The ICCL said the potential involvement of individuals in a range of State agencies in the alleged smear campaign runs to the very heart of Ireland's justice and political systems, even raising issues of public confidence in the State's child protection systems.

Misconduct

The ICCL has consistently called for a commission of investigation to address the treatment of garda whistleblowers.

"Information which has been placed into the public domain in the last 48 hours, including very serious allegations of misconduct in the treatment of Sgt Maurice McCabe, raise very serious questions for accountability and oversight across a range of state agencies, which must be addressed if the public is to retain full confidence in the administration of justice and policing," said ICCL executive director Liam Herrick.

"The Tanaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality [Frances Fitzgerald] must ensure that the proposed commission of inquiry is constituted to 'stop the rot' and that measures to ensure meaningful reform of policing and justice are implemented without delay."
Saturday's Powerball prize is the biggest ever. Here's the top 10 jackpots

Should someone win Saturday's Powerball jackpot of $1.6 billion it would go down as the world's largest lottery prize ever.
HICKORY  The Indivisible Citizens of Catawba Valley hosted a demonstration about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on Saturday morning in front of U.S. Representative Patrick McHenrys Hickory office.

Patrick McHenry is my representative; he is the person that carries my vote, Peg Hites, a member of the Indivisible Citizens, said. It is important to let him know that a great many of his constituents care deeply about the ACA.

According to the most recent enrollment report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, approximately 8.8 million Americans were signed up for 2017 coverage through HealthCare.gov as of Jan. 14.

Some of Patrick McHenrys constituents, their relatives and at least 18 million other people are relying on this health care, Hites said. Repeal is not an option.

The demonstration included about 70 people and a handful of people from the opposing side.

The reason we are here, number one, is because we are a part of the Republican party, Glenn Pinckney said, who opposes the ACA. More importantly, we are out here to stand up for righteousness and for America.

Even though there was an opposing side of the demonstration, people discussed important issues with one another in a peaceful manner.

I am with God Seeker Synagogue; we believe in the equality of all human beings and humans rights is a given right, Kessiah Young, member of the Indivisible Citizens, said. Everyone should have access to health care.

Explaining that the Affordable Care Act is not perfect, Young believes it is still necessary.

We believe that the ACA does not need to be repealed, it just really needs to be repaired, Young said.

Members of the Indivisible Citizens chanted, Heal it, dont repeal it, at passing cars while people who oppose the ACA explained why they made an appearance.

We are here to support President Trump and his programs, Thomas Kern said. The ACA has been the biggest hoax propagated on the American people in my lifetime.

Kern explained his health insurance has skyrocketed under the ACA and he, among others, want a change.

When your health insurance costs more than your mortgage, you have a problem, Kern said.

Aside from health care, Kern and others decided to have their voices heard at the demonstration about other topics as well.

We are totally against bringing refugees into our country, especially from the Middle East, Kern said. We cant even take care of our veterans or homeless, why are we trying to take care of the world?

Kern also explained his concern about the percentage of refugees that have been possibly infiltrated by ISIS.

Were already getting too many positive proofs that they have been infiltrated, Kern said. Under the McCarran Act, President Trump does have authority to keep out refugees.

The McCarran Act has been in effect since December 1952.

Even Jimmy Carter used that and it still applies to today, Kern said.

Young offered a differing opinion on Americas role in accepting refugees.

Its really important for people to realize that we are the people of the United States, and although we have an administration who believe they are the majority  they are not, Young said.

Kern explained why he shows his support for Trump.

The country has had enough of the career politicians that are just serving themselves and not the people, Kern said. Enough is enough.
HICKORY  A new activist group focused on protesting national Republican policies is beginning to flesh out its agenda and purpose, starting with a demonstration at U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenrys Hickory office.

The local group is part of a nationwide movement that is following tips outlined in Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting The Trump Agenda.

The manual, which was compiled by former congressional staffers, offers guidelines for effectively pressuring lawmakers by borrowing tactics used by the Tea Party during the Obama Administration.

The group, called Indivisible Citizens of Catawba Valley, met for the second time Thursday at the Ridgeview Library.

Around 40 people attended the meeting, which dealt with both the groups short-term and long-term goals.

The groups most immediate activity is the demonstration at McHenrys Hickory office Saturday in favor of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

While the ACA will be the focus of Saturdays demonstration, those present at the meeting Thursday gave a variety of different reasons for joining the group.

Some cited specific issues like the environment and womens rights while others spoke of a desire to preserve a future for their children and grandchildren.

Tracey Stracener, the groups co-chair, discussed some ideas for how the group would orient its activism and what purpose the group would serve.

Rather than focusing exclusively on President Donald Trump, the group is looking to hold Republicans accountable with regards to their association with Trump and his policies.

I think we need to be, you know, hold Republicans feet to the fire, and say either stand up and say yeah, we agree with him, or do something against what hes do(ing), Stracener said.

The group also could serve as a support system for Democrats and liberals in the area who might not feel comfortable expressing their views.

We live in a very red county, very red state, but theres blue here. Were here, Stracener said.

And the thing is, weve got to help our other blue friends come out of the closet, because they are scared.

Stracener said she has heard people who said they would face possible retribution in their jobs if they were open about their political views.

Others emphasized the importance of showing that the group welcomes non-Democrats, including Republicans and independents, who object to policies of national Republicans or the Trump administration.

To independents or Republicans who might have reservations about the Trump administration, Stracener urged them to come to meetings to see if there were areas of agreement.

I think I would invite them to come and see if their ideals match ours in that inclusivity, Stracener said in an interview after the meeting.

I would much rather save it.

Indivisible member April Herron said she first became aware of the group online and had friends who were participating in the Indivisible movement elsewhere in the country.

Herron said she has deep concerns with Trump that are rooted in her values.

For me personally, what drives me is my Christ-driven values, and I just did not see that in the campaign, I dont see it in the presidency, and I dont see it in the policies, Herron said.

The subject of Saturdays demonstration also is of deep personal importance to Herron.

Herron said her sister has a long-term illness and receives coverage because of an ACA provision allowing people to stay on their parents insurance until age 26.

Without that provision, and other provisions of the ACA, Herron says she is uncertain how her sister will receive medical care in event of repeal.

I do have savings. I intend to use them if it gets repealed without replacement, but that is only going to go so far, Herron said. I am here for her.

In terms of McHenrys position, Herron says she hopes McHenry has the best interests of his constituents in mind, but that she is concerned about his votes to repeal the ACA.

In the past, McHenrys votes could be seen as a way of making a statement along with his party, Herron said.

Now that McHenrys party is in control of the federal government, however, the matter has become more serious, Herron said.

But now is go time, Herron said. There is a very realistic chancethat they could repeal, and its imperative that, ok, if youre going to repeal, you need a replacement.

Herron said she does not believe the ACA is perfect, and sympathizes with those who must contend with higher premiums.

Instead of getting rid of the law, Herron said she would like to see it improved.

I would much rather save it, Herron said.
Although I shouldn't be, I was surprised by three of the four letters to the editor last weeks edition.

Three people continue to bash Obama for being Kenyan, unconstitutional, a divider of the nation and of course...a national disgrace.

It's amazing to me people will still believe these right wing narratives... that can easily be proven wrong.

Take Democrat/Republican out of the discussion and just look at the record of accomplishments.

That record speaks for itself and will go down as one of the most successful presidencies ever.

Think of the possibilities if the GOP wasn't so determined to "...make Obama a one-term president." The current administration is now running with several of his predecessor's ideas and platforms that couldn't even get to committee during Obama's watch.

I believe it is quite hypocritical to tell Democrats to "get behind Trump or shut up," when the right has never supported a single thing Obama did.

And why are we complaining about Obama anyway? He's gone. Trump didn't beat Obama. Look to the future...right?

While I try to remain cautiously optimistic, every time Trump almost appears to do something remotely presidential, he'll trash it by saying something absolutely absurd or childish or continue to defend his outright lies. Excuse me...alternative facts.

This I promise, I will continue to give Donald J. Trump all of the respect he deserves and the same respect Republicans gave President Obama.

Allan Hodges

Taylorsville

Crony capitalist plunderers must be stopped

The news that the same N.C. General Assembly which had revoked a tax credit for alternative energy companies in 2015 has Assemblymen who now are acting to stop construction of a large wind farm in northeast North Carolina.

This reaffirms their corporate bedmate status as Radical Republicans in Raleigh.

Crony capitalism is once more shown alive and thumping in North Carolina. Follow the slimy trail from these boys right back to big oil, earthquake causing frackers and big money for their re-election.

The swamp is not being drained; it is flowing into our state as sure as the ocean is rising. And we dear citizens are failures as keepers of democracy by submitting to the existence of a professional class of politicians.

A willfully dysfunctional national Congress has had an agenda consisting chiefly of getting re-elected by keeping us divided between two rotten national parties.

We downstream citizens, we wage slaves at the low end of the election chain claim we are too busy to put thought and energy into saving our institutions  which we claim to love above all but God.

Yet freedom, which is a right of birth, has become a commodity for sale on the same television which hucksters us with 20-second sound bites of something they sell as breaking news.

Both sides of the spectrum of a once united America can only generally agree our culture is slip-sliding away. What to do, what to do? The point is that we do have viable political mechanisms available to us.

With the goal of harvesting community capitalism, and rejecting crony capitalism marked by marriage of both government and corporate welfare, local people must arise to invigorate the local county parties, both Democratic and Republican.

Do you see what these are called? Parties! Lets save our community by reinvigorating these local parties with optimistic strength and real American energy.

We must not submit to these crony capitalist plunderers and their conniving politician power-seekers by our failure of recognizing their willful collusion.

Lets talk civics and good government again. And if you talk with a citizen of the other party, ask him how we can work together to solve problems.

Community capitalism means rebuilding from the foundation upwards.

Lawrence Williamson

Morganton
Miguel Corella, a junior at Lenoir-Rhyne University, was selected to receive a Duke Energy Foundation Scholarship in the amount of $3,500 for the 2016-17 academic year.

Duke Energy scholarships are awarded to students studying math or science. The Duke Energy Foundation contributed a total of $80,500 in scholarship aid which was awarded to 23 students studying at private colleges and universities throughout North Carolina. The funds were distributed by The Independent College Fund of North Carolina (ICFNC), a division of North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (NCICU). Over the past 57 years, The Duke Foundation has given more than $3.9 million to the fund.

I am grateful to the Duke Energy Foundation for supporting my education and helping to make it more affordable, Corella said. As a first-generation college student, I recognize what a great opportunity it is to attend Lenoir-Rhyne and achieve my higher education goals.

Corella will graduate in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. He is planning to apply to optometry school after taking some time to travel and gain work experience. Corella serves on the LR Campus Activities Board and as a student convocation staff member. Originally from Lincolnton, he enjoys working out, reading scientific journals, catching up on Netflix episodes, and spending time with family.

Duke Energys support of independent higher education over the past 57 years has been extraordinary, said NCICU president Hope Williams. Their contributions help prepare students who are seeking STEM jobs in fields that are essential to North Carolinas competitiveness in the global marketplace.
SHERRILLS FORD  The North Carolina Lions Inc., Camp Dogwood for the Blind and Visually Impaired hosted the annual Western North Carolina Braille Challenge on Thursday, which promotes Braille skills among students who are blind and visually impaired.

This is part of a national competition by the National Braille Institute, so being part of such an important event is a pleasure and honor for us, Susan King, camp director, said. This is our fifth year as host of the event.

Camp Dogwood has been operating since 1967.

The main mission for NCLI is vision and has been since they started back in the 1910s, King said. We have a summer camp for adults who are visually impaired but having youth here is always a treat.

The Braille competition was not just a competition, but also an opportunity for students to connect with old friends and make new ones.

I serve two completely blind children in Catawba County, Angela Biggerstaff said, who is a teacher for visually impaired students in Catawba County. Since they arent in the same schools and cannot spend time with one another, this gives them a chance to do so.

The different skill levels at the event ranged from freshman (first and second grades) to varsity (10th and 12th grades).

The younger kids take three contests, which are spelling, reading comprehension and proofing, Biggerstaff said. Older students had similar contests with the addition of math and a speed and accuracy test.

Once the contests end, each student's work is scored and sent to the National Braille Institute, where the top 50 finalists nationwide are invited to California to compete nationally in June.

We had one student from last year actually go to nationals and he really enjoyed it, Biggerstaff said. It was great that we had a representative.

The National Braille Institute has been holding the Braille Challenge for 17 years and the Western North Carolina event has been in Catawba County for nine years now.

We had kids from Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Lincoln, Cabarrus, Catawba, Newton-Conover, Caldwell and Burke, Biggerstaff said. Its all about bringing the kids together.

The National Braille Institute only allows students in first grade and older to participate in the challenge, but there were younger children at this years event.

Technically, our Rookie group cannot participate in the challenge, but they were able to practice Braille and play a few games with each other, Biggerstaff said.

In addition to the challenge for students, the Braille challenge also allows parents to come together and learn about other resources available to their children.

We bring in speakers who can provide resources and connect parents, King said. Our speakers present different summer camps and resources in the surrounding area.

After the challenge, there was a unique activity presented by the Winston-Salem Police Departments Bomb Squad for the students.

The Bomb Squad provided us with beeping eggs to use for an egg hunt afterwards, King said. Besides competing, the kids get to have a fun day and really do enjoy themselves.

Jabien Corpening, a student who participated, shared why he enjoys coming to the Braille challenge each year.

Its actually a lot of fun and I think I did pretty well this time, Corpening said. We worked on spelling, contracted and uncontracted.

For more information about Camp Dogwood, call 828-478-2155.
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At the Nauchandi Maidan in the heart of Meerut City earlier this week, Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi smiled and dimpled, respectively, holding their hands aloft on stage. They were campaigning jointly in the heart of western UP, in preparation for the mother of all battles that will span the next few weeks over seven phases, 12 million people choosing 403 candidates for an assembly expected to have major impact on the ruling party at the Centre.

In the good old days, election strategists would often wear as a badge the fact that India voted differently in the states, compared to general elections  perhaps a reflection of the romanticised notion that India still lives in the villages.

While that is still true, at least statistically, the idea of separate impact is being slowly decimated. Fact is, a non-BJP party, either the Congress or AAP, is likely to win Punjab, while in UP the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance has a good chance of preventing the BJP from reaching the stable door.

Video | PM Modi likes peeping into others bathrooms: Rahul Gandhi

Certainly, the stakes are high all around. But they are the highest for young Akhilesh, who must pull off the so-far unthinkable if he wants the people of UP  a state so large that it could be the worlds seventh largest country by population  to retain his confidence in him.

Whatever the result, Akhilesh knows that both victory and defeat will be laid at his door. He has allowed himself to be swayed by the niceties of things  some say Priyanka Gandhi made that call that sealed the alliance and gave 105 seats to the Congress  but the truth is, theres no such thing in politics.

To his credit, Akhilesh has refused to go public with the complexities of the battle. He realises that a good general must make the best of an uneven situation. Rahul Gandhi may not be the perfect ally, but at least hes a nice guy. Akhilesh is keenly aware that he will have to overcome the penchant of nice guys allowing themselves to come second, because in UP today the option doesnt exist. Its either all or nothing.

Read | Can the low-key Akhilesh Yadav win the high-stakes UP battle?

Revolting against his father and his arbitrary ways, Akhilesh showed that his hail-fellow-well-met manner was stiffened with a bit of spine. Many young people have identified with him and would like to follow suit  after all, Indian families are among the most oppressive in the world.

But Akhilesh must shed his good boy image as the election proceeds, phase-by-phase, and get tougher with the Congress. He knows that they are hanging on to him by his coat-tails.

Both he and Rahul know the Congress can only improve as its alliance with the SP gets underway. After all, it has 105 opportunities to prove its mettle  some say the Congress didnt even have enough serious candidates for the 105 seats they fought for.

Read | Akhilesh Yadavs political fortunes in UP polls ride on Agra-Lucknow expressway

At the Meerut City rally, Akhilesh seemed to have an easy enough relationship with the Gandhi scion and searched for ways to draw him into a public conversation with the crowd. But the crowd was only rooting for Akhilesh bhaiyya. Young men had dressed up like him at the Nauchandi Maidan, while elderly Punjabi women felt the young man who wears his development agenda on his sleeve should be given another chance.

Once or twice, he allowed himself a stray sentence or two that captured the upheaval in his mind. He was often asked, Akhilesh said, why he had entered into this alliance with the Congress and given away seats when SP candidates from several of those seats were much better. For example, in Meerut South, he said, the SPs Adil Chaudhary had been forced to stand down in favour of the Congress Azad.

Another time he gloried in the metaphor of youth. When you ride your cycle fast, you can let go your hands from the handle but the cycle continues to race, Akhilesh said, then caught himself short.

Read | Akhilesh, Rahul release Common Minimum Programme

Imagine what you could do if you put your hands back on? Now that the Congress hand is on the cycle, see how fast it can fly! he added.

A poster in the crowd said Karan Arjun aayo/Modi gayo. Now that Karan and Arjun, two brothers, have found each other, it is the end of Modi.

But Akhilesh knows that if he loses, the BJP will make mince-meat of his party. To win he needs special armour, which is why hes banking on his development card and the distress against demonetisation as his political weapons of mass destruction against the BJP. The Congress will merely be the icing on the cake.

The truth is that in UP today, Akhilesh Yadav is both Karan and Arjun.

Jyoti Malhotra is a senior journalist

The views expressed are personal
Elections in Indias most populous state are always a colourful affair with plenty of bizarre shock-and-awe moments for poll watchers. The seven-phase assembly polls that kick off from Saturday are no different. Here are the five craziest stories to come out of vote-swept Uttar Pradesh so far.

Candidate kills brother to win sympathy votes.

People are known to go great distances to win elections in the heartland: Capture poll booths, bribe voters, knock off rivals. Manoj Kumar Gautam kept it straight and simple. On February 8, three days before the first phase of elections in UP, the young Rashtriya Lok Dal candidate from Khurja constituency in Meerut hired a couple of shooters to kill his brother and a friend.

He had very little time to woo the voters, Gautam told the police after the bodies were discovered from a Mango orchard the next day. What right-thinking citizen wouldnt be compelled to vote for the candidate whose brother was killed by his enemies on the eve of the election? Gautam will no longer have a chance to find out.

Read | UP elections: RLDs Khurja candidate Manoj Gautam gets brother killed to win sympathy votes

Candidate beats himself with his shoe to get attention

On January 29, Shujat viral Alam, a Samajwadi Party-Congress candidate from Bulandshahr began to lash himself with his own shoe in the middle of making a speech. There is more drama in the 15-second clip from Alams rally than a mid-1980s Sunny Deol movie. One moment, Alam is holding the edges of kurta above his belly as he begs for votes. The next moment, he is inviting the public to beat him if he has made a mistake. Throughout this madness, his supporters jump up and down the stage as if high on something stronger than their love for their leader. Its all a part of Alams method, it turns out. This is how he explained it to the media: Kya karein sahib, public aaj kal jokers ko pasand karti hai (What to do, the public these days likes only jokers).

Candidate confesses to fighting election for money

One of the best things about UP is that its people dont hold back their thoughts. Its in this spirit of frankness that Gopal Chaudhary, independent candidate from Agra South, told everyone his reason for fighting the election: money. Everyone enters politics to earn money and build their houses. I will do the same, Chaudhary said in a televised interview.

Read | UP election: Independent candidate says hes contesting polls for making money

He also let the whole world know that his political game is inspired by none other than Narendra Modi himself. A man becomes a prime minister by duping a nation of 125 crore people. He must have some talent. I will follow the footsteps.

Husband and wife face off for an assembly seat

Two old rivals are facing off in Shohratgarh assembly seat along UPs border with Nepal: A man from SP-Congress and his wife from the BJP. This is the second time Raveendra Pratap Chaudhary, a two-time former BJP MLA in his happily-married days, and Sadhana Chaudhary, a BJP old-timer, will fight an election against each other. Whatever their differences, the attitude with which they have hit the arena is the same: placid. Stop making it a husband-wife thing, says the husband. Elections are fought between parties not couples, says the wife.

Donkey is denied the right to file nomination for a seat

The chief ministerial candidate of Bahujan Vijay Party, a flower-bedecked donkey by the name of Gardabh Singh Yadav, was stopped from filing his nomination papers for being a donkey. His party did not take the insult lightly. The party president made the compelling argument that if fighting an election in this country doesnt require a candidate to be particularly smart or talented, then why exclude donkeys from the process of democracy.

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In a stinging swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks against his predecessor Manmohan Singh, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said instead of peeping into the bathrooms of others and reading horoscopes, he should look into issues concerning the common man.

Narendra Modiji likes to read horoscopes, search Google and peep into others bathrooms. He should do so in his free time  during the evenings. As a PM, he should address issues concerning the countrys security, farmers and youth, he said while releasing the 10-point common agenda of the Congress-SP alliance with Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav here on Saturday.

The Congress vice-presidents comments came against the backdrop of the Prime Ministers remarks in Parliament earlier this week that one should learn the art of bathing with a raincoat on from Manmohan Singh as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams having taken place during his regime.

And on Friday, Modi had said in an election rally in Haridwar that the BJP had a detailed dossier on the Congress leaders.

Gandhi said the PM had failed to provide jobs to the youth and the number of security personnel who lost their lives in Jammu and Kashmir last year had gone up (90).

The PM has failed on every front. He is realising that the Congress-SP alliance is coming to power in Uttar Pradesh. This will give a severe jolt to the PMs credibility. He has been the Prime Minister for the last two-and-a-half years. He is free to take out the horoscope of anybody he wants to, Gandhi said.

He said the PM was trying to divert peoples attention from crucial issues. The PM is not able to give an explanation of his failures therefore he is resorting to diversionary tactics, he said.

Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said the PM should not play with peoples emotions and should not lose his cool on realising that the SP-Congress alliance was coming to power in UP. The SP chief also took on Modi over the horoscope comment.

This is the age of internet. Horoscopes are available at the click of the mouse. This election is for the prosperity and development of Uttar Pradesh. The PM should travel on Agra-Lucknow Expressway and I am sure he will also vote for the Congress-SP alliance, Akhilesh said.

For live updates on phase 1 of UP elections, click here

Countering the PMs remark that the alliance is kunbon ka gathbandhan (an alliance of two families), Akhilesh said it was his perception. Alliance is not taking anything away from anybody. We only want to bring this government back. This is an alliance of two youths and two parties. The alliance has pulled the rug from under the PMs feet, he said.

The two leaders said the PM should tell the people what he had done for Uttar Pradesh.

When asked about fielding of candidates from Congress as well as SP on a number of seats despite alliance, Rahul Gandhi said there was no problem in 99% of seats. There is perfect coordination in the alliance. If there is any problem on 6-7 seats it will be sorted out, he said.

Asked about the possibility of an alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the two leaders said the tie-up aimed at complete transformation of Uttar Pradesh.

Referring to Muslim clerics extending support to the Bahujan Samaj Party, Akhliesh said the BSP and the BJP had worked together in the past. Are they (clerics) trying to bring them closer again? asked Yadav.

Besides promising free smartphones, skill development of the youth with job guarantee, loan waiver, cheap power and good price of produce to farmers, the alliances 10-point agenda includes Rs 1,000 pension to 1 crore poor families, a days food for Rs 10 in urban areas, and 33% reservation for women in government jobs.

Other promises include 50% quota for women in panchayats, free cycles to girls of class 9 and 10, and modernisation of the police.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked the incumbent Samajwadi Party government at BJPs Parivartan Sankalp rally here on Saturday saying, Kaam nahi, karnama bolta hai.

Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav says kaam bolta hai (works speaks for itself) but everyone in UP knows that SP ke karname bolte hain (SPs exploits speak), he said.

Coming down heavily on political rivals for poor development of the state, he said, Five years of SP government, five years of BSP government and 50 years of Congress rule are responsible for the abysmal condition of Uttar Pradesh.

This was the first public meeting of the Prime Minster in the district. Rooting for local BJP candidates in the UP assembly elections, the PM said that Badaun was among the least developed parts of the country despite being a VIP district.

Badaun has been the base of Mayawati and now it is known to be the base of Samajwadi Party. It is a VIP district. Even then, it is one of the least developed districts, he said.

The Prime Minister also rubbished the development plank of the SP-Congress alliance. All these parties are against each other but when it comes to opposing black money and corruption, they join hands and target me.

Read: Instead of peeping into bathrooms, PM Modi should work for the poor: Rahul

He said that a lot of corruption happened during group C and D job interviews. We removed interviews for the jobs of groups C and D to eliminate corruption. If we are elected in UP, we will do the same for group C and D state government jobs.

In his hour-long speech, Modi also wooed farmers of the district by reiterating the central governments plan for cultivators.

UP government buys only 3% of the total wheat produced in the state. But in Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, where we have BJP governments, 7 to 11% of the wheat is procured by the government at the minimum price, he said, adding that a BJP government in UP will also waive off farmers debts.

Read the full coverage of the UP assembly elections

Making inroads in SP terrain

With its over 80% population dependent on agriculture, Badaun is known as a hub of potato, wheat and sugarcane farming in the region. It is also a known Samajwadi Party base.

The party won four out of the six assembly seats here in the 2012 assembly elections, while the remaining two went to Bahujan Samaj Party. Badaun is also one of the five assembly seats that SP won in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Considering that the district has a considerable population of Hindu voters, the BJP is trying to make inroads here. Apart from the PM, home minister Rajnath Singh, BJP MP Yogi Adityanath and party state president Keshav Prasad Maurya have held rallies in different parts of Badaun in the last week.
Hardcore Hindutva, caste equations, and communal harmony  the BJP has separate, and disparate, narratives to woo voters of Noida, Dadri and Jewar assembly constituencies located within 50km of each other in Gautam Budh Nagar district.

These three are among 73 constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh that will vote on Saturday in the first of the seven-phase staggered elections in the state.

The BJPs campaign is led by party chief Amit Shah, and Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Piyush Goyal and Mahesh Sharma, who represents Gautam Budh Nagar in Parliament. The partys poll plank is development and demonetisation, but the rhetoric boils down to local issues and sentiments in the three seats close to the national capital.

In Noida, party president Shah invoked the cow slaughter narrative for the majority Hindu electorate.

Read | UP election: Whats at stake for BSP, SP, BJP and RLD in crucial make or break phase 1

He announced that a BJP government in the state, if the party wins the polls, will ban all unregulated slaughterhouses. Also, anti-Romeo squads will be set up to fight Samajwadi Party goons and hang them upside down.

Power minister Goyal tried to woo voters belonging to the Vaishya or trader community of Noida. He drew a parallel between the BJPs ideology and that of legendary Vaishya king, Agrasen.

He said traders have been the hardest hit by rising crime in the state under the Samajwadi Party government.

Son of home minister Rajnath Singh and the BJP candidate for Noida - Pankaj Singh. (Sunil Ghosh / HT Photo )

Union home minister Singhs son, Pankaj Singh, is the BJP candidate for Noida.

If caste lines were cast in Noida, a hardline Hindutva plot played out in Dadri  where communal fault-lines continue to fester after a 55-year-old Muslim man, Mohammad Ikhlaq, was lynched on the suspicion of slaughtering a cow for a family feast in September 2015.

At Ikhlaqs village, Bisada, Hindu families are vexed over the arrest of 18 youngsters for the murder. The anger and antagonism increased when one of the suspects died in custody last October. Villagers held a meeting on a public ground and demanded justice. Hate speeches were reportedly heard.

Four months on, the BJP held a rally at the same venue with ministers Singh and Sharma canvassing for party candidate Tejpal Singh Nagar, a Gujjar.

Sharma spoke about the glorious history of Rajputs, saying warriors such as Maharana Pratap are worthy of respect and not Man Singh.

Maharana Pratap fought the battle of Haldighati against Man Singh, commander of the Mughal forces.

The ministers dog-whistle speech was not lost on the audience  Rajputs who fought against the Mughals are respected, not those sided with them.

Those speaking after him seized the narrative, and called Indias Independence in 1947 not only the end to British rule but also freedom from barbaric terrorists who arrived before the European colonialists.

Caste done, Hindutva done; Jewar followed a different storyline.

BJP supporters listening to party president Amit Shah in a rally in Noida on Sunday. (Sunil Ghosh / HT Photo )

When Singh and Sharma landed at Rabupura inter-college public ground on Thursday to campaign for party candidate Dhirendra Singh, a 50,000-strong crowd was waiting to hear them. Seated on the front row were about 60 Muslim men and women.

Their presence is not surprising as Rabupura has a sizeable Muslim population that has been supporting Dhirendra Singh for the past 30 years. In the previous assembly polls, he lost the Jewar seat as a Congress candidate to Ved Ram Bhati of the BSP by a small margin. The Congress veteran recently switched to the BJP.

The BJP leaders recalled in Jewar the joint struggle by Hindu-Muslim brothers in Indias fight for Independence.

Home minister Singh narrated an anecdote about freedom fighter Ashfaqullah Khan, who was hanged alongside Ram Prasad Bismil. When Ashfaqullah was asked his last wish, he told the jailer to inform his mother that he married his bride at the gallows. Then he explained to jailer that the bride is freedom and he will meet her when he is hanged.

For his part, Sharma spoke about king Alexander in high regard  quite a departure from his Dadri speech when he cautioned the voters about outsiders and invaders.

He accused BSP chief Mayawati of dividing Muslim and Dalit voters along religion and caste lines.

Do remember that when Sikander (Alexander) came to India, he refused to sit on an elephant (BSPs poll symbol) and chose a horse as his ride Only the BJP can work towards the welfare of all sections of society, Sharma said.

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Akhilesh Yadavs entire political image-makeover rests on two pillars - clean politics, free of crime; and transcending the caste and communal divide. This, in the narrative of Akhilesh supporters, is what distinguishes him from his father and uncle, and the politics of identity and crime that permeated the Samajwadi Party.

And if this is to be tested, travel to one west UP seat - where Akhilesh has gambled with his choice of candidate.

Welcome to Thanabhawan, a constituency in the Shamli district that goes to polls on Saturday. The BJP candidate here is Suresh Rana, often in the news for his provocative remarks and his role in Muzaffarnagar riots. But the SP candidate is a Lucknow University zoology professor and state Planning Commission member, Sudhir Panwar.

From policy to politics

As he filed his nomination a fortnight ago, Panwar was confident about making the transition from academia to mass politics. He traced his roots to Bhainswal village in the district, he spoke of his family there, and told a group of supporters at home, You dont have to hang your head in shame when you vote this time. District administration officials were surprised when they saw my form - and that there were no criminal charges. This is a new experiment. We need your support

Does he feel odd being in a party known for its image of goondagardi? SP is in transition. There is hardly anyone now with such a background. In fact, it is the party known to be opposed to goondas. Panwar says he first got attracted to Akhilesh when he denied D P Yadav a ticket back in the 2012 polls. And now the CM is in full control.

But there are many candidates without criminal antecedents.

What is interesting in Panwars case is that he has actually worked on policy before entering politics for the CM. He asked me first prepare a report on health services, then on the pollution of the major rivers in this area, on the development of the dairy sector and livestock. I later prepared a blueprint of this areas development. It is only 100 kms from Delhi, yet practice primitive farming; the infrastructure is poor.

Panwar is a Jat, the community are not big supporters of his party, and Muslims may not yet like to vote for a Jat given recent acrimony.

Persistence of identity

But what one cannot escape in the politics of UP is the pull of identity, which is why constituency demographics becomes key.

Thanabhawan has 80,000 Muslims, 45,000 Jats, 35,000 Kashyaps, 30,000 Dalits, 18,000 Thakurs and then others.

Panwar is a Jat. And while he hopes to get the votes of both Jats (because of his own background) and Muslims (because of the party he represents), it is precisely this background which could be a disadvantage. Jats are not big supporters of his party, and Muslims may not yet like to vote for a Jat given recent acrimony. And that is why the candidature is a gamble. An additional challenge for him is that the BSP candidate is a Muslim - and thus minority votes may fragment.

Panwar says, My candidature in a minority dominated area is proof that Akhilesh believes in secular politics, that charges of SP being one sided is not true.

Whether Panwar wins or not will be an interesting test of whether UP is ready for the entry of technocrats in mass politics. It will also give a glimpse into the state of identity-based divisions in west UP. And most importantly, it will show if Akhileshs gamble - in projecting a new face - will work or not.

Follow full coverage of UP election here

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Seventy-three seats spread across 15 districts of Uttar Pradesh will go to vote on Saturday, the first round of poll in countrys most populous state.

It is perceived as a make or break election for all the four coalitions in the fray. Here are four reasons why the first round is the most crucial of all phases:

For Bahujan Samaj Party

Traditionally it was a BSP stronghold, but the party conceded ground to the Samajwadi Party in 2012 assembly polls and to the BJP in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Performance of Mayawatis party in these seats will decide whether or not she gets to become next CM. As election progresses, it will become tougher for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to win seats in SP stronghold areas.

For Samajwadi Party

Akhilesh Yadavs dream run in 2012 saw him picking up seats in these districts.

Social equation in these seats  significant presence of Jat, Dalit and Muslim voters was never favourable for the SP, but a wave in favour of Akhilesh helped his party to do well in this pocket in the last assembly elections.

If Akhilesh fumbles this time in this region, making up for the loss in rest of UP will be an ardent task.

For Bhartiya Janata Party

The BJP swept this region, winning all Lok Sabha seats in 2014. Even otherwise, most of its total tally of 50-odd seats between 2002 and 2012 came from this region. If the BJP fails to keep intact the popular support it got in 2014, forming a government on its own would prove to be a distant dream.

There are many regions, such as Awadh and Bundelkhand, where the BJP is expected to take a hit compared to its 2014 performance.

For Rashtriya Lok Dal

Veteran Jat leader Ajit Singhs RLD of lost its turf to the BJP in 2014. Singh is hoping his community would return to the RLD fold this time. If Singh has to emerge as a kingmaker in Uttar Pradesh, his party will have to regain ground in the area. Otherwise, it will be a serious existential crisis for him and his party.

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An estimated 64.2% voter turnout was recorded in 73 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday in the first phase of polling considered crucial in determining results in the countrys most populous state. (HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DAY)

The Election Commission said the figure was calculated at 5pm.

The high turnout is believed to be because of heavy polling in Jat- and Muslim-dominated areas of the 15 western UP districts, perceived to be a stronghold of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

The region had recorded 59.6% voting in the 2012 assembly elections that witnessed Samajwadi Party (SP) making a dent into the BSP vote base, riding on a surge in support for its young leader Akhilesh Yadav. The party had then won as many as 24 seats.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP bagged all the parliamentary seats in the region with the Jat community voting overwhelmingly for it. But this time around, the Jats are reportedly upset with the party.

The community is demanding reservation in jobs and education in neighbouring Haryana, where the BJP is in power. The stir could have reflection on the UP polls.

Of all the major players, BSP chief Mayawati has the largest stake in the region that has a large presence of Muslim, Jat and Dalit voters. Her party is in a sticky wicket in eastern Uttar Pradesh and has limited presence in the central region.

The BSP will have to make a sweep in the region -- as it did in 2007  to make up for its limitations in areas that will go to the polls in the remaining phases.

If the BSP emerges the first choice of Muslims in this region, it might create a momentum in the partys favour in the next six rounds, political analysts said.

Muslims and Dalits together constitute 40% of the states population. And four-time chief minister Mayawati has been aggressively wooing them, giving 97 seats to Muslim and 87 to Dalit candidates.

There is a pro-BSP wave in the state. We are getting positive response in the first round of polling, Mayawati said in Lucknow.

The region doesnt have a significant population of Yadavs, the mainstay of the ruling SP, which is contesting the elections in alliance with the Congress.

The coalition is eyeing Muslim voters, who constitute 19.26% of the states 200 million population and are numerically stronger in many districts that voted on Saturday. Around 41% in Muzaffarnagar, including Shamli that was separated post-census, 25% in Ghaziabad, and 20% in Aligarh.

Besides, the SP is hoping that chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who have addressed joint rallies, will bring dividend for the party.

The BJP is banking on an assortment of castes and sub-castes among others to do well in the UP elections, also seen as a key test for Narendra Modi halfway into his first term as Prime Minister.

The BJPs best hope, analysts said, lies in a split in Muslim votes between the BSP and the Congress-SP combine and polarisation of Hindu votes in its favour.

Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar, quoting a BJP survey, said the party will win more than 50 seats in the region and will get a big mandate in the state.

Several of these 15 districts witnessed social tension in the past couple of years leading to communal riots in Muzaffarnagar, killing of a man in Dadri on the suspicion of slaughtering a cow for a family feast, and allegations of migration of Hindu families from Muslim-majority Kairana.

Of the 73 seats, the BSP and the SP won 24 each in the 2012 assembly elections. The BJP got 11 seats, the Rashtriya Lok Dal of Ajit Singh took nine and the Congress bagged five.

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As people went to polling booths on Saturday morning to exercise their voting rights in the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections, BJP president Amit Shahs chopper landed on the grounds of Drummond college in Pilibhit.

As he waved, the crowd --- a limited one of a few thousand, for over half the ground was empty --- responded with cheer. MP and minister Maneka Gandhi welcomed him to her constituency, which shares a border with both Uttarakhand and Nepal.

If Shah was nervous about the election, he did not show it. He chatted with the partys four MLA candidates on the stage. He happily allowed Sikhs of the area to tie him a turban --- a concession not given by BJPs top leaders to the skull cap.

But it was when he spoke that the BJPs pitch for the 2017 elections became clear. What was said, and what was unsaid, showed the mood of the party chief.

The attack

Shah spent almost three-fourths of his speech attacking the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance.

He brought back the term used by PM Narendra Modi for Rahul Gandhi in 2014, and said, Two Shahazaadas (princes) have come together - Rahul baba and Akhilesh babu. Ek se ma pareshan hai, ek se baap. Ones mother is fed up of him, the others father is tired of him. This is an alliance of two families, of two corrupt parties.

He attacked the SP government for poor law and order, for not providing electricity, for not creating jobs, and questioned Akhileshs image transformation. Where is Shivpal Yadav? Where is Ateeq Ahmed? Where is Azam Khan? Where is Gayatri Prajapati? If they are all in SP, tell me Akhilesh babu, what has changed?

And then he subtly played the card BJP has been using in west UP. He asked the crowd, Did you get the laptop Akhilesh promised? Without waiting for an answer, Shah replied, You didnt because your caste is not right. You didnt because your religion is not right. The loudest cheer came from a group of young men waving saffron flags in one corner --- who responded with Jai Shri Ram each time Shah turned to them.

The silence

But while Shah spoke of corruption and attacked the ruling SP and the Congress, the one issue that did not crop up was demonetisation. Not once did Shah mention it. This is in line with the general perception that BJP candidates are avoiding the topic.

A local journalist offered an explanation, BJPs trader supporters here are very upset about demonetisation. SP has been reaching out to them and trying to break them away. Mentioning notebandi would have annoyed them further.

And Shah, except for an early reference to the Bahujan Samaj Party misrule, also stayed away from attacking Mayawati. One reason, locals speculated, was because in three out of the four seats, the main competition in Pilibhit district was with the BJP. The other was that the BJP wished to make inroads into Dalits - but attacking Mayawati personally alienated them.

Either way, the silence revealed who the BJP saw as its main rival in the second phase of the UP elections.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday slammed Uttarakhands Congress government, accusing it of lacking political will for development, and urged the electorate to vote for BJP for the states growth.

Addressing a rally here, he said Uttarakhand has huge potential in tourism and industries sectors capable of generating maximum employment and it needs an honest government to tap that.

He again invoked former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee during whose tenure the state was created, saying he had tried to develop the state but he faced difficulties.

I have been there for two-and-a-half years trying to do something for the state but those in power here are interested only in saving their chair. They are not interested in development, Modi said at his election rally here in the states industrial belt.

Reminding people of the grand vision Vajpayee had for the state at the time of its creation 16 years back, he asked people to install a BJP government in the state and give the party a chance to serve them.

He said a double engine, with his government at the Centre and a BJP government in the state, alone can pull the state out of the pit of its woes.

The state would not feel the dearth of anything if BJP comes to power in Uttarakhand, the Prime Minister said.

Exulting over the BJP winning three Council seats of Goarakhpur, Bareilly and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Modi said it is a pointer to what is going to happen in Uttarakhand.

The unimaginably huge crowds at Rudrapur where people from all over the country reside making it a veritable mini- India are an indication which way the winds are blowing, he said to loud cheers from the crowds.

Describing Uttarakhand as the land of brave soldiers, Modi referred to the surgical strikes and made a veiled attack on Congress in that context.

He said, Will you tolerate a party in power which asked for evidence of a rare military operation like the surgical strikes in which our forces inflicted heavy damage after penetrating into enemy territory? Wasnt it an insult to our soldiers? Wasnt it an insult to our countrys strengths?

On the occasion, the Prime Minister shared with people the news about successful testing of an interceptor missile which can hit an incoming ballistic missile at a height of 150 km in the air.

He termed it as a significant milestone and congratulated the scientists for it while noting that it was a feat achieved by only 4-5 countries in the world.

It was an achievement which should make every Indian proud but there are political parties which may once again ask for a proof of this, he said.

Asking people to look upon demonetisation as his campaign against corruption and black money, he said he was fighting for the honest people, the poor and the middle classes.

It is not small businessmen who have looted the country. They would perhaps lead an honest life if they dont have to oil the palms of bureaucrats. It is the babus and the politicians who have looted the country and I will force them to cough up the money they have looted, Modi said.

He asserted that he had waged a battle against the corrupt and no one can stop him from taking the fight to its logical conclusion.

He asked people of the state to extend their co-operation to him in giving them an honest government which determines their future by building the Rs 12000 crore all-weather char dham roads project which will link four major Hindu pilgrimage centres of the state with proper roads.

It will give tourism a big boost besides generating maximum employment for people of the state, he said.

Modi also spoke of the interest generated in yoga all over the world by the Centres promotional efforts and the growing interest of people all over the world to come to Uttarakhand to learn yoga.

He said industrialisation of Rudrapur was a contribution of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and he wanted to give it a further boost.
Bollywood banned Pakistani actors from working in Hindi films following a terror attack in Kashmir last year. However now, Pakistan has lifted the self-imposed ban on Bollywood films starting February 1. The Hrithik Roshan-starrer Kaabil was the first Bollywood film that was released in Pakistan after the ban was lifted. Now, Shoojit Sircars production Runningshaadi.com will also release in Pakistan on February 17, the same day as its release in India.

And now, the Indian film frat debates if Bollywood should lift the ban too. Filmmaker Rakesh Roshan feels that since Pakistan has decided to welcome Indian films, India also must relax its stance and move forward. Amit Roy, director of Runningshaadi.com says, I think its a good way forward because just banning all things that the two nations enjoy about each other is not going to move our relationship forward.

A still from Shoojit Sircar production, RunningShaadi.com that will release in Pakistan on Feb 17, the same day as its release in India.

Actor-producer Sonu Sood agrees that there should not be any sort of creative barrier between the two countries. I feel that only the film industry can get both the countries together and it should set an example for promoting peace between both the nations.

Meanwhile, films such as Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Raees and Akshay Kumar-starrer Jolly LLB 2 still have not been cleared by the Censor Board in Pakistan and are not being screened. Actor Annu Kapoor who plays an important role in Jolly LLB 2, states, Just lifting the ban cannot improve the political relations between the two countries. There must be several socio-political and economical situations, which pushed Pakistan to open the doors to Indian films. So if Pakistan has lifted the ban, it only means more money for us. Even when Pakistan banned our films, our industry didnt face any revenue loss, as we were doing really well globally. (Also) its high time they realise the worth of Hindi films because their artists have made a lot of money here.

Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Raees has not been allowed to screen in Pakistan because of objectionable content.

Actor Nimrat Kaur is in favour of the ban being lifted, but feels the ban should be lifted when the time is right. The ban that India imposed came out of a very serious situation. So, we should decide to lift the ban after considering the present relation between the two countries.

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It has been a customary practice for actor Harshvardhan Rane to host a garage sale called Shirt Off Foundation every year. The 33-year-old, who made his debut with Sanam Teri Kasam on 2016, has now decided to auction his old clothes through the noble fund-raiser initiative to be held in Mumbai and Hyderabad in February.

All proceeds of this garage sale of Harshvardhans fashionable clothes will be given to seven-year-old Swati, who lost her parents at an early age. The actor will sell his shirts and jackets to support her education.

Harshvardhan always wanted to be associated with a cause and when he happened to meet Swati, he got to know she wants to become a doctor and thats when he decided to do this campaign. He was thinking of ideas and then the idea of selling his T-shirts came up, informs a source.

Harshvardhan says, Every t-shirt I ever wore in my movies will be up for grabs and all proceedings from this garage sale will go towards funding her education.

There will also be a photo booth where fans can get a chance to take a photo with the actor. Join me for a fun evening and go home with my t-shirts and the knowledge that youve changed somebodys life, adds the actor.

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Actor Huma Qureshi is a powerhouse of talent and for her Hollywood debut, Viceroys House, she took on the massive challenge of not only getting under the skin of her character but also closely studying the lady, on whom her character is loosely based.

Before shooting the film,Huma flew to London to meet British era interpreter Jaya Thadani, as Huma will essay the character of the interpreter to Indias last British Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten and his wife. Filmmaker Gurinder Chadha organised the whole meeting so that Huma could understand the character she was playing in a much better way.

Ever since this meeting, Huma and Jaya stayed in touch and it was only obvious that the actor wanted Jaya to be one of the first to watch the film on big screen. So Huma will soon be organising a special screening of Viceroys House for her in London.

A source confirms, Huma met Jaya (Thadani) in London to learn how she speaks and hear her stories and absorb how she lived her life during that time. After spending a day together, the two grew close. Huma is set to host a special screening of the film in London, as she is really excited to have Jayas feedback on her performance and the film on a whole.

Also, Viceroys House is an official selection at 67th Berlin International Film Festival, and will have its worldwide premiere at the festival. Huma will join Gurinder and rest of the cast of the film in Berlin, immediately after wrapping up promotions of the promotions of her latest release Jolly LLB 2.

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Kuro is my favourite person in the world. Honest. I cant take long walks with the spouse without arguing about politics, ethics, feminism, family life, progeny, relatives, household economics, national economics, world economics, interstellar expeditions, spirituality, God, phew!

The Book of Indian Dogs

I, however, take long walks with Kuro in companionable silence. She has some habits that are frowned upon in polite society. Like urinating in the street, having no use whatsoever for cutlery, preferring to scarf her food noisily leaving rice grains scattered around her plate, and appreciatively sniffing friends posteriors. She is also given to staring at good looking men, once sitting down outside the glass doors of a gym to watch a shirtless specimen lift weights. This last proclivity is embarrassing since I do not share her dogged interest in pulchritudinous people. Indeed, every day, twice or thrice, I cross the road to avoid beauteous folks. Dog promise.

Memorial of Waghya, Shivajis dog. (Pundalik Dhuri)

Anyway, last night, as part of a new bedtime ritual, I decided to read out selections to her from The Book of Indian Dogs by S Theodore Baskaran. It went really well. Kuro tilted her head to convey her deep interest in the efforts being made to revive beautiful indigenous breeds like the Rajapalayam, the Mudhol, the Chippiparai and the Pashmi. She threw her chew toy aside when I read out the bit about greyhound racing in Faridabad in Punjab; scratched her ear when I pushed the page with the picture of a Himalayan mastiff under her nose; and contemplatively licked herself when she heard that most of the Tibetan spaniels in England are descended from two dogs called Lama and Dolma, who were transported there in the 1940s. Occasionally, she jumped up and clawed my leg in an attempt to get me to tell her again and again about the dog memorial in Eduthanur in Tamil Nadu. This hero stone features a man named Karundhevakathi and his dog Kovivan, who were killed while fighting cattle rustlers back in 614CE during the reign of the Pallava King Mahendravarman I. Its the kind of information that would leave any canine panting with pride.

The Vaghari hound of Gujarat

She was a bit put out, however, on hearing that foreign dogs brought in by the British  those long-departed pestilential fellows responsible for visiting all manner of evils on the subcontinent including the railways and caramel custard  displaced most of the hardy indigenous breeds and messed with their pure bloodlines. Canine miscegenation, what a loss of caste! Oh, the horror, the horror. As a proud desi descended from a robust strain of Haryanvi street dogs expert at waking up the neighbourhood at 2am with blood-curdling howls, she isnt herself a terribly twice-born type. When the time comes, Ill have to place an ad under the cosmopolitan subhead on shaadi.dog  caste, community, language no bar.

Still, her own mixed-upness hasnt stopped her from being disdainful of the lumbering Alsatians, the foolishly good natured Labradors, and the neurotic Spitzes. She thinks they are too westernised. She isnt very articulate in Human but I know she believes the quality of her life would be vastly improved if she hung out with Jonangis, Kombais, Koochees, Alaknooris and Pandikonas  all graceful Indian dogs  instead of the bimbo golden retrievers down the street. Incidentally, Nehru had a golden retriever named Madhu. Appalling. Why couldnt he just call his dog Tommy like everyone else?

The Bakharwal is a mountain dog originating in the Pir Panjal area of the Hindu Kush and the Himalayas.

I spent much of last night reading out loud from The Book of Indian Dogs and Kuros intellect is much improved as a result. She did convey to me, though, that she wished the book had been longer, had more pictures, and been produced in a larger, more sumptuous format. Apparently, this size makes it difficult to ogle at Bhakarwal dudes to ones hearts content.

She also expressed a certain unease with the chapter on stray dogs and the threat they pose both to humans and wildlife. Couldnt feral dog populations be controlled by a combination of sterilization and effective garbage disposal, she wondered. Of course, these are questions that wiser dogs than she have pondered about.

It all reminded me of the scene of the great dog cull in Gabriel Garcia Marquezs The General in His Labyrinth and the protagonists remorse afterwards. I jumped up to read that bit out but Kuro expressed her displeasure by biting her purple cushioned bed. Shes not a fan of magic realism. Few proud desi dogs are. I let it go.

One good book a night really is good enough for a woman and her best friend.

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When the Jawaharlal Nehru (JNU) Campus became the setting for a nationalism debate in the spring of 2016 after a group of students wanted to mark the anniversary of Afzal Gurus hanging, there was one person watching things very, very carefully Sixty-nine-year-old Kobad Ghandy, whoscanned the papers every morning during that period for the fallout of what happened that February night in JNU. And what he read  about three students being sent to jail for organizing this event to commemorate Afzal Guru, about the central university being called anti-national, about pro-Pakistan statements/slogans being made  disturbed him. And while so many across the country jumped in on the debate, no one cared for Kobads thoughts. What they didnt know was that Kobad Ghandy, the man accused of being a member of the banned organization, CPI (Maoist) and arrested in 2009, was perhaps the only one who knew Afzal Guru in his last three years and is also the only one who can describe from inside jail, how his hanging took place.

Behind Bars; Prison Tales of Indias Most Famous

They all kept misrepresenting Afzal Guru, he told me, inside the Cherlapally jail in Hyderabad, at the end of 2016. There was so much talk about Afzal being anti-national. He was not. Kobad should know. Afzal Guru and he became thick friends from the moment he walked into prison until 9 February 2012 when he was hanged. Its not based on any solid, scientific evidence. Its the impression of one prisoner of his co-prisoner of a high-risk ward. One was branded a Maoist ideologue, the other a convicted terrorist who plotted the 2001 Parliament attack...

An extract from the letter that Kobad Gandhy sent the author on September 17,2016

It was September 21st, 2009, when I first entered Tihar, at about 7pm. It was my first entry into and Indian jail. After going through two sets of humiliating searches, I entered the high risk ward of Jail number 3. The inmates had already been locked up in their own cells. And as I entered the ward of Block A ( there are 2 Blocks in this ward), I found Afzal Guru at the gate of his Cell 1, with a huge smile on his face saying- ``Welcome to Tihar, I was expecting you here. 

He said he had been reading about me all over the newspapers and said we will meet in the morning. I was led to cell 4 and kept with three others, including Delhis most famous, Don Kisan Pehlwan.

Khobad Gandhy, who is accused of supporting Maoists, at a court in Delhi on October 18, 2016. (Bharat Bhushan/ HT file photo)

The next morning, I was moved to cell 8 with two Khalistanis. The death sentenced Khalistani, Bhullar, was in cell 2. That morning I had tea with Affzal which was a practice I continued till the day he was hanged on February 9, 2013. It was Afzals standard practice to fill the thermos flask of Tihars watery tea and add to it milk powder and a few tea bags purchased from the canteen to give an excellent brew. For the next three years, each day we would have this, together with the two slices of bread supplied by the jail authorities. This was followed by a walk in the ground adjoining the ward. A regular practice through the years. This was the same ground that adjoined the Phaasi Koti where he was later hanged and buried.

And through the years I found in Afzal a very humane person, warm hearted and simple. A person who had a deep affection for his mother, his school teacher wife and only son. They would regularly visit him every Raksha Bandhan day when the lady family members were allowed into the jail to be with their relatives. His needs were very limited living off the Rs 1000 a month his wife sent from her meagre earnings.

Afzal Guru was exactly the opposite of what the media has portrayed him as- a fundamentalist fanatic. No doubt he was a staunch believer in Islam, and did his namaz 5 times a day, observed roza and other Islamic customs. He also had great faith in the other world - jannat - which gave him his enormous courage to go to the gallows with his head held high and apparently without an iota of fear.

Philosophically Afzal believed in the Sufi tradition of Islam with its emphasis on humanity, love and equality. He was a great admirer of Rumi and Iqbal. He had all the six volumes of Rumi in Urdu which was his regular companion; many of the excellent verses he translated for me over our morning tea.Through Afzal I learnt much of the human essence of Islam, so vulgarised by the dogmatists and fundamentalists.

Sunetra Choudhury

Afzal was not only vehemently opposed to the methods of the fundamentalist of bombing/killing, the innocent public, he also had a deep dislike for the Pakistani/ISI. He would often say they were worse than the RAW and were responsible for the killings/assassinations of a large number of intellectuals who were for Azaadi and not for merger with Pakistan. Particularly during the JKLF upsurge in the 1990s, which was then not pro-Pak. Afzal said large numbers were killed by ISI besides the Indian government. He also gave me a concrete picture here virtually every aspect of Kashmiri life was controlled by the army making the entire valley like an open prison. He would regularly compare the life of Kashmiris to that of the Palestinians. He was under the opinion that the Pakistanis were doing more harm to the Kashmiris struggle than assisting it-Kashmiri people were being used as a mere tool in Pakistanis conflict with India, the sacrificial lamb of the India Pak conflict.

Afzal had also great respect for communism ( unlike the fundamentalists) and even repeated Iqbal who had said: Communism + God= Islam. Afzal was very well read having a nearly equally good grasp over both Urdu and English. He had read people like Naom Chomsky and other progressives from the West. He loved Ghazals. In jail, the prison authorities had no complaint against him, notwithstanding the humiliations he apparently faced during the earlier period of his confinement.

Two days before Afzals hanging we were told to immediately move to the block at the back ( and those in the B Block were temporarily moved out) as white washing had to be done. But when we went to the B Block the gate leading to the ground which over-looked the big compound that housed the Phasi Koti was promptly closed so that we could not see what was going on outside. But we soon gathered hectic work was going on in the Phasi Koti. All sorts of rumours were spread by the staff that a foreign delegation was visiting.; may be Bhullar (who was by now shifted to the mental hospital) was to be hanged, etcetera etcetera.

Afzal would say if anyone was to be hanged, it was not Bhullar but himself. That evening though the fear was there in everyones mind, Afzal seemed as cheerful as ever.

The next morning the staff turned up half an hour late- at 6 am. When they opened Afzals cell-cell 1- he was heard saying that if there was to be any searching, do it later as they will first say their namaz. But after letting Afzal out, they locked his cell and did not open any other. It was then that he and we too realised what was to happen.

He was led away to his original cell in A Block where the law officer met him. He was told that the hanging was to take place at 8:00 am. He requested to speak to his family and son on the phone, which was refused. That all other legal norms had already been flouted by the Congress government are already known. He did his namaz, was given tea and biscuits; he had a bath and did his final namaz.

At 5 minutes to 8, he was led across the same ground we walked everyday, wishing all the staff present. and asking the authorities to treat them well. We were told later much of the staff had tears in their eyes as he wished them all well and fearlessly walked to the gallows. The prison authorities, at the behest of the government, refused to hand over his belongings, diary or even body to his family. He was buried two feet away from where the other Kashmiri Leader, Maqbool Bhat, was buried. Ironically too, Maqbool Bhatt seems to have been anti-Pakistan as well, as recently the books by him were banned by the Pakistani government.

And with this ended my association with the most humane, honest, straightforward and simple person I met during my seven years of incarceration in Tihar. Most Kashmiris were not like Afzal, except one Rafique who had much of the same characteristics as Afzal. But none, were as well-read as him. It is surprising why the Congress government sought to snuff out the life of the more rational voices in Kashmir, pushing the movement into the arms of the fundamentalists and pro-Pak elements...
1 rail worker killed, another injured while working One railway worker was killed and another injured after being struck by a cargo train in Uiwang, just southwest of Seoul, officials said Sunday. The accident occurred at 8:20 p....
Last November, my friend Ash Lilani took me to the Portland Steak House in Bengaluru. Among his other guests was Rezwan Razack, of the Prestige Group, one of the citys largest construction companies. Rezwan has many claims to fame  he must be the worlds biggest collector of Indian banknotes  but I was most interested in his vast knowledge of food.

As we talked, Rezwan mentioned various dishes that I could enjoy if I went to the right places in Bengaluru. All of them sounded fascinating but frankly, I was a little sceptical of his claim that he knew somebody who made outstanding samosas in Bengaluru. You will never have eaten samosas of this quality, he assured me.

Samosas? In Bengaluru? Really?

But Rezwan is a generous and persistent man. So that evening, he had a parcel delivered to my hotel room. It was a package of samosas.

It was a kind gesture but honestly, there was enough to eat and do in Bengaluru. So the parcel remained unopened till the following day when I took it back to Delhi with me.

I have brought some samosas, I told my wife. A friend sent them over. They were made yesterday so Im not sure how fresh they will be. But lets try them anyway. So, we warmed them in the oven and tried a couple.

My first reaction was one of surprise. They did not look like the samosas I was used to. It was partly that unlike the stodgy, solidly cast North Indian samosas, these were so delicate and flaky that they reminded me of fine French pastry. But there was also the difference in shape. They were not triangular; they were almost rectangular in shape. And then, there was the filling: delicious, intensely flavoured keema.

And this was around 30 hours or so after they had been made. My wife and I looked at each other. This was, we agreed, a real discovery.

Last month I was back in Bengaluru briefly, on my way to the Maldives. I texted Rezwan. Where had he got the samosas from? He sent me the number of Anisa, who made them to order. I phoned her from Delhi and asked if I could order some. We started at a dozen pieces and then, my greed got the better of me and I ordered 20.

Anisa Siraj got her samosa recipe from her grandmother

Asif, who looks after me when I am at the ITC Windsor, had them collected from Anisa and soon after we checked in, he served us tea and samosas. Oh my God, I thought to myself as I bit into one, these are even better than I remember!

The next day, we flew to the Maldives and the hellish service on my Air India flight was made bearable because I had packed Anisas samosas to eat on the plane. There were still some left and that evening, at the Taj Exotica, we sat on the beach by the lagoon, drinking bubbly and polishing off the last of Anisas samosas.

When I got back to Delhi, I phoned Anisa. Who had she got her samosa recipe from?

It was her grandmother, she said. This was a traditional Kutchi Memon recipe.

Memons! The penny should have dropped much earlier. Ash, Rezwan and I are all Gujaratis of one sort or another. Ash is a Hindu from Kutch and Rezwan is a Kutchi Memon. And I am a (keema-samosa-loving) Gujarati Jain.

In this era, when India is ruled by Gujaratis, we tend to think of Gujarati identity in one dimensional terms.

But there is actually tremendous cultural and religious diversity in the state: Rezwan, Ash and I are three Gujaratis with three different religions. And the cuisine of each Gujarati community can be exceptional. It was the Bengaluru location that had misled me! These were Gujarati samosas from one of our Muslim communities.

I am not sure what the historical reasons are, but there has been a flourishing Kutchi Memon community in Bengaluru for generations. (If you are tempted by Anisas samosas, you can look up her catering service on the net. It is called Anisas Kitchen.)

When I wrote, some years ago, about the samosa and its Middle Eastern origins, there were howls of outrage and incredulity from readers.

Are you saying that the samosa is not an Indian dish? was the most common response.

In her book, Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India, Colleen Taylor Sen points out that one can find samosa recipes in Arab cookbooks dating back to the 10th century (File photo)

Well, sorry about that. But no, the original samosa is not ours to claim. As Colleen Taylor Sen points out in her authoritative Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India, we can find samosa recipes in Arab cookbooks dating back to the 10th century. The word samosa comes from the Arabic sambusak, which is what they still call the samosa in the Middle East. Arab traders brought it to India around the 12th century.

You can trace the development of most of the Middle Eastern dishes that have become part of the Indian tradition. We have a rough idea of how the open-fire kebabs of the Turks were transformed by Indian cooks. We can see how the pilaffs of West Asia were sophisticated into the biryanis of Lucknow and Hyderabad.

Pilaffs of West Asia were sophisticated into the biryanis of Lucknow and Hyderabad (Getty Images)

But there is an important difference between the samosa and most of these dishes. Even today, we regard biryani as a dish associated with Muslim communities. And even when kebabs are not necessarily Muslim in origin (such as the tandoori cooking of Punjabi cuisine which was popularised by Hindu refugees in Delhi after Partition) we still associate them with foreign cities (Bukhara, Samarkand, Kandahar, etc.)

But the samosa knows no such communal divide. It is one dish that is as Hindu as it is Muslim. Most Hindus dont even know that the Arabs gifted it to India and Muslims are content to share their traditions with all communities.

Which is why I think the Gujarati samosa is a good symbol of Indias syncretic culinary heritage. While we think of the Mughal court in terms of kormas and biryanis, the truth is more complex. Emperor Jahangir had a food-loving Persian wife and a kitchen brigade of hundreds of chefs. But Jahangir had simple tastes. While travelling through Gujarat, he once tried the local bajra khichri. He loved it so much that he recruited Gujarati cooks and took them back to Delhi.

They were put to work in the royal kitchen and their primary job was to make vegetarian Gujarati khichri for the Emperor. Inevitably, other court chefs tried to make more elaborate versions of the khichri, and even the Gujarati original became so popular that Mughal courtiers began eating it every day for breakfast. A breakfast khichri tradition continues, to this day, among Hyderabadi Muslims.

Now, thanks to Jahangir, khichri, an essentially Gujarati Hindu dish, has no communal connotations. They eat it in Pakistan, they make a variation in Bangladesh (kisuri is the Sylheti name, though khichuri is the more common Bengali version), and it has been transformed into kushari in Egypt. That breakfast staple of English country houses, kedgeree, is a version of the khichri that Brits encountered at the Mughal court.

Kedgeree, the breakfast staple of English country houses, is a version of the khichri that Brits encountered at the Mughal court (Getty Images)

The samosa has followed a similar path. It is so tasty and so ubiquitous that none of us could be bothered to see it in Hindu-Muslim terms. All that matters is the flavour.

What could be more representative of todays India than three Gujaratis of three different religions meeting in Bengaluru in South India to eat a dish that was originally created by the Turks?

The best Indian food is like the best parts of Indian life. It rises above religion and focuses instead on the things that really matter: refinement and quality.

From HT Brunch, February 12, 2017

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Trade union leaders at the ailing Hindustan Motors (HM) on Saturday expressed disappointment over the managements decision to sell the iconic Ambassador brand to French auto major Peugeot SA for Rs 80 crore.

They said the intuition of the management is to sell off everything and deprive workers.

The C.K. Birla controlled Hindustan Motors signed an agreement with Peugeot SA on Friday to sell the iconic Ambassador brand, including trademarks, to the French auto maker for Rs 80 crore.

The sale of the Ambassador brand shall be effective upon fulfilment of the terms of conditions as prescribed in the agreement, the company said.

It is disappointing that the management has sold the brand Ambassador while dues to the workers still remain unresolved. They deprive workers, Intuc-affiliated HM Employees Union General Secretary Ajit Chakraborty told IANS.

About 600 workers in the Uttarpara plant, who did not avail VRS scheme are really suffering. Those who opted for the scheme have not yet realised their gratuity, Chakraborty said.

The intuition of the management is to sell of everything. We have moved the High Court protesting various moves of the management, CITU-affiliated HM Workers Union Vice President Manindra Chakrabarty told IANS.

We have demanded that the suspension of work notice at Uttarpara plant in West Bengal be termed illegal. Operation must commence at the unit and payment of dues of all the workers be made, he added.

The Ambassador has been an iconic brand and a surplus asset with us, said a spokesperson from HM.

We were looking for a suitable opportunity and found the right buyer in the PSA Group. We intend to use the proceeds from the sale in clearing dues of employees, lenders and other outstandings, the spokesman said.

In May 2014, the auto maker had suspended operations in Uttarpara plant and stopped manufacturing Ambassadors.

The Ambassador was born in 1957 and was based on the Morris Oxford series III model, which Morris Motors Limited manufactured from 1956 to 1959 at Cowley, Oxford, in UK.

The C.K. Birla group and Peugeot SA signed a partnership deal with an investment close to Rs 700 crore in a vehicle assembly plant and powertrain manufacturing unit in Tamil Nadu.
Telecom operator Idea Cellular on Saturday logged a consolidated net loss of Rs 383.87 crore for the December 2016 quarter compared to a net profit of Rs 659.35 crore in the year-ago period, hurt by newcomer Reliance Jios free voice and data promotions.

Total income also has decreased to Rs 8,706.36 crore for the quarter, from Rs 9,032.43 crore in the same period in the previous year, as per a BSE filing.

The Indian mobile industry witnessed an unprecedented disruption in the quarter of October to December 2016, primarily due to free voice and mobile data promotions by the new entrant in the sector, Idea Cellular said in a statement.

Consequently, revenue KPIs (key performance indicators) and financial parameters for all mobile operators have sharply declined, and for the first time in its history, the flourishing Indian wireless sector is trending towards an annual revenue decline of 3-5% in 2016-17 (vs 2015-16), it added.

The sector can expect to recover revenues only once the new operator starts charging for its pan-India mobile services. As a result of this current industry upheaval, the standalone Idea revenue dropped to an unforeseen level at Rs 8,662.7 crore, a decline of 6.9% on sequential quarterly basis, it said.

Idea, which is in talks with rival Vodafone for a merger, said it was forced to reduce its voice rates on sequential quarterly basis by 10.6% to 29.6 paise per minute (versus 33.1 paise in the second quarter of 2016-17) and drop in mobile data rates by 15.2% q-o-q to 15.9 paise per megabyte (vs 18.7 paise).

Despite an unprecedented outgoing voice rate fall, the lure of free offerings resulted in lower than normal volume elasticity with the quarterly sequential voice minutes growing only by 7.3% to 210 billion minutes (vs 195.5 billion minutes in second quarter of 2016-17), that too led by double digit growth in incoming call volume, Idea said.

Also, the higher blended voice realisation rate fall was also an outcome of the tsunami of minutes terminating on Ideas network from the new operator, resulting in overall higher ratio of subsidised incoming minutes recovered at below cost IUC settlement rates.

Idea, for the first time, witnessed a decline of 5.5 million mobile data customers on sequential quarter basis with overall mobile data subscriber (2G+3G+4G) base receding to 48.6 million (vs 54.1 million in second quarter of 2016-17).

Its net debt stood at Rs 49,140 crore at the end of December 2016, including a larger proportion of this debt from DoT under Deferred payment obligation for spectrum acquired in last four spectrum auctions.

Ideas capex spend was Rs 2,000 crore (excluding forex and interest capitalisation) in the reported quarter, partially funded by cash profit of Rs 1,230 crore.
I guess it was bound to happen. Arun Jaitleys steps to clean up political funding have met with a sharply polarised response. His admirers claim they are a far-reaching first step worthy of praise. His critics believe he is effectively pulling the wool over our eyes.

So where does the truth lie? Perhaps its easier to answer that question if you examine Mr Jaitleys measures in terms of two criteria: Do they make political funding cleaner, in other words with a great proportion of legitimate tax-paid funds? And do they make political funding more transparent, that is to say known to all of us?

The decision to reduce the amount of money a political party can receive in cash from any one source from Rs 20,000 to Rs 2,000 looks like a major step that should make funding cleaner. After all this is what the Election Commission asked for. But think carefully and the answer could be somewhat different.

Read: Cleaning up poll funding should not remain a slogan

Political parties can still receive donations of up to Rs 2,000 and remember they are anonymous. No names need to be declared. So if cash donations above that sum are received all that political parties need to do is claim they came in smaller lots of Rs 2,000 or less.

Because donations in cash have not been made illegal and because the veil of anonymity continues its quite possible, indeed likely, that the amount of money received in cash will remain unchanged, except it will now be claimed it came in donations of no more than Rs 2,000. I dont see much cleaning up here nor any transparency.

The other big step is the decision to create electoral bonds, issued by the Reserve Bank on cheque or digital payment, which can be credited to the authorised accounts of political parties whilst retaining the anonymity of

the donor. Again, at first sight, this sounds like a great idea. But is it?

Read: Cash donation limit, bonds to reform polls fail to impress experts, parties

First, to be honest, Mr Jaitley has ensured a 100% cleaning up. Because the bonds will be bought by cheque or digital payment they can only be bought by tax-paid and not black money.

Alas, the second half of the story is very different. Because the anonymity of donors is guaranteed there will be no transparency. This breaches the principle that in a democracy we have a right to know who is funding political parties and with what amounts.

In fact, the sad truth is by this measure Mr Jaitley has actually diminished the transparency that used to exist. Up till now all donations above 20,000 had to be declared, which means the names of the donors were made public. Now, through these electoral bonds, the names of individuals or companies that make donations  be they Rs 2001, Rs 2 lakh, Rs 20 lakh or Rs 20 crore  will not be disclosed. This is undoubtedly a retrograde outcome.

Read: Not consistent with Indian reality: Govt, Oppn differ on state funding of polls

Perhaps the worst part is this is not something Mr Jaitley accidentally overlooked but, I believe, his actual intention. As his budget speech said: Donors have  expressed reluctance in donating by cheque or other transparent methods as it would disclose their identity. So hes chosen to protect their identity at the cost of transparency.

One last point: Why has the provision by which political parties are exempt from income tax payment not been repealed? Quite simply, why should political parties be treated differently to the rest of us?

The views expressed are personal

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Education is one sector in which the AAP government is trying to make a mark. So much so that education was the main theme at this years Delhi tableau at the Republic Day parade. The government highlighted its model schools and the mega parent-teacher meetings (PTMs).

Hindustan Times takes stock of the AAP governments hits and misses during its two year stint in the field of education and analyses its election promises.

New schools

Unable to find land to build 500 new schools it promised two years ago, the Delhi government is constructing new classrooms in existing schools to increase enrolment.

We constructed 8,000 new classrooms. One school has about 80 classrooms, so effectively there are 100 new schools. Some new schools have been constructed. In 2014-15 there were 1,007 schools and now we have 1,024, said Atishi Marlena, advisor to education minister Manish Sisodia.

She said they found 29 plots for new schools and sanctioned another 10,000 classrooms.

Sisodia said the crux of the promise was that more students would have access to quality education. With the new classrooms, more students will be able to get school education, said Sisodia.

But the government teachers association challenged the claims. General secretary Ajay Veer Yadav said, Rooms have been constructed but in an unplanned way to increase the number of classrooms. Many schools still run from tin sheds, he claimed.

Check on fee hike

Private schools built on DDA land have to seek the governments nod before hiking annual fees. In the coming academic session, only 5 of 410 private schools that applied for fee hike were allowed to do so. The government decides on a fee hike after auditing schools finances.

Schools built on DDA land cannot hike as per their wishes, said Marlena.

The principal of a private school said, The Delhi Education Act says the school managements can hike fees within 10%. Only if they want to hike more, the governments nod is required.

Teacher training

The government had sent a group of principals and teachers to Cambridge University and Indian Institutes of Management. In our first year, we had looked at infrastructure. In the second year we concentrated on teacher training, said Sisodia.

Of the over Rs 10,000 crore the government allocated for education in the 2016 budget, Rs 102 crore was for training.

But experts had a word of caution. Teachers need training in our own context. I am not sure if somebody in Cambridge can understand problems specific to our schools and society. It sounds good but will it actually help students? said Poonam Batra, who teaches at department of education, Delhi University.

Promise of 17,000 new teachers

The government is struggling with hiring of teachers. The Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board (DSSSB) conducted exams to fill 5,000 teaching posts out of which 2,500 joined various schools, said a government official.

Marlena said the government created 9,500 new teaching posts but is yet to induct permanent teachers. We will hire guest teachers till permanent appointment is done, she said.

Sisodia said a proposal to make many of the 17,000 odd guest teachers permanent is awaiting the L-Gs approval.

I have increased the salaries of guest teachers until I can get them made permanent. I cannot hire so many people overnight. It has to be through a legal procedure, he said.



But guest teachers are not happy. Shoaib Rana, a guest teacher at Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya, Jaffrabad, said, For the last two years government has been fooling us. They know they cannot regularise us, it was a false promise.

20 new colleges, extended campuses

Not a single new college has been opened as the government later figured out that Delhi University is the only affiliating university in the capital.

So now the government is expanding Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) and other institutes by increasing the number of seats in educational institutes for undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

We plan to create 17,350 seats for higher education courses (by 2019), said Marlena.

By 2019, it is expected that the Delhi government will start three new campuses of AUD, at Rohini, Dheerpur and Lodhi Road, in addition to the new campus functioning at Karampura.

It will expand Delhi Technological Universitys Rohini campus and open a new campus in East Delhi by next year.

Sisodia said even if one argues that these are just extended campuses, it serves the same purpose. Ultimately people are looking for degrees, he said.

What next?

The government says it has a long way to go but is on the right track.

The initial changes are always slow but now it is gaining momentum. We are openly accepting we have a problem in our school system, which we are trying to fix, said Marlena.

In the next year, Sisodia said, focus will be on teaching methods, especially in school education. We will concentrate on creative learning methods, so that learning becomes interesting, he said.
Childrens rights activist and Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi said on Saturday that he was pained to learn about the theft of his Nobel citation while he was in Latin America to meet the President of Panama.

I felt that the Nobel replica and citation are lying safe with the people of my country at my home, but this unfortunate incident happened. My wife and I came back today from our Latin America trip and we were pained to see the house lying scattered. When I had left, everything was in order and I had never expected this, he told reporters.

A replica of the Nobel Peace Prize, its citation, medals, some jewellery and shawls awarded to Satyarthi as felicitations, were among the valuables stolen from his southeast Delhi residence in his absence on February 7.

Read|India a land of 100 problems, a billion solutions: Satyarthi

He said that it pinched when he found out that the thieves even took the ornaments given to his wife by his mother. My mother had collected her savings and silver jewellery to gift a gold jewellery set to my wife on our wedding. Since I am the youngest in the family, she loved me and my wife. She is no more with us but we had kept the jewellery safe in her memory. We even bought a locker to keep it, he said. These things hold emotional value and were precious for the family, he added.

Satyarthi said that he learnt about the theft when he was dining with the President of Panama, his wife and other dignitaries, including the Indian ambassador to Panama. I was having a very intimate dinner with the president of Panama, his wife and other dignitaries when I got some messages and phone calls. I didnt tell anyone because its not good to say that the national pride was stolen, he said.

He further said that he has not thought of increasing the security at his house after the theft as he has nothing more to lose. The citation was the first citation to someone who has been working for children in their history. I am the only Indian citizen who has got it. I had given my Nobel Prize medal and that is safely kept in Rashtrapati Bhavan museum. I kept the citation with me because I had thought that my grandson, who is now two, will read it when he grows up. My wife thought that its invaluable and we had specially bought a locker for it but it was broken, he said.

He also said that the theft has strengthened his resolve to continue working for the cause of children.

Read|New child labour law has failed kids again, says Kailash Satyarthi
Shabana (22) and Sanjo (30) are sisters who hail from Rajgarh in Madhya Pradesh. They were well dressed, spoke impeccable English and often had no difficulties in mingling with crowds and befriending people using their communication skills.

Little did people know that the suave sisters were also thieves who posed as guests at weddings, generally being hosted at five-star hotels, and decamped with wedding jewellery and cash at the first opportune moment.

The duo, however, ran out of luck on Saturday when they walked into a trap and were nabbed by the Delhi Police, along with their aide Altaf (28), an auto rickshaw driver, from Uttam Nagar.

Police said the sisters were involved in at least four incidents of thefts and had decamped with cash and jewellery from various weddings to date.

The arrests came after a theft at a five-star hotel in Lutyens zone on January 31. A businessman approached the police and complained that a bag of jewellery, cash and 24 silver coins were stolen from his daughters wedding, which was held on January 29. Following his complaint, a case was registered and CCTV footage of the hotel scanned.

In the footage, the two women dressed in smart clothes were seen moving around comfortably in the crowd and talking to all the family members. Around 11:30pm, when the bride was about to sit for the pheras (rituals) and the host was busy attending to guests, one of them is spotted picking up the jewellery bag and swiftly sneaking out, BK Singh, DCP (New Delhi), said.

The police then zeroed down on the women and e identified them with the help of the CCTV footage. It was found that the women belonged to Madhya Pradeshs Rajgarh. Further information regarding the accused was then developed using local intelligence and it was found that they had been involved in such thefts earlier too.

It was found that they had carried out thefts in a hotel in New Delhi district and five other star hotels in the past. Through technical surveillance, we then found that they would be visiting Uttam Nagar, in west Delhi to meet an associate on February 10. Following the tip off, a team was sent to the area and a trap was laid. The women and their associate were arrested from the spot, Singh said.

During questioning the women revealed that they used to visit Delhi and NCR only during the wedding season and used to go to functions at five stars to commit thefts. The women went inside, identified their targets and committed the thefts, while Altaf used to wait for them outside the hotel in an auto in which they made their escape, Singh said.
JNU students continue to occupy the administrative block demanding a meeting with the VC on the amendments in the admission policy even as the administration termed their mode of protest illegal.

The students have been agitating against the recent amendments in the admission policy of the university following certain guidelines by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and remained adamant on preventing the officials from entering office until their demands were met.

The JNU Students Union (JNUSU) said the students have been sitting at the administration block since Friday and will only budge from there after the vice-chancellor meets them.

Top officials of JNU have met agitating students several times to request them to end illegal occupation of admin building but to no avail, JNU VC Jagadesh Kumar tweeted.

Dean of Students Welfare Rana P Singh and Rector Chintamani Mahapatra met the agitating students and urged them to end the blockade assuring that the VC will meet the students on Monday.

The university Registrar Pramod Kumar complained that the protest has also halted disbursal of salaries of the contractual staff.

It is sad that Im unable to sign salary papers for the poor contractual laborers due to illegal occupation of admin building by unruly students, he tweeted.

JNUSU maintained that they will not leave until their demand is met.

We have been demanding a rollback of the universitys acceptance of the University Grants Commissions notification of May 2016, which among other things, stipulates the number of research students a faculty can guide and makes the viva, rather than the written test, the main criterion for intake into the MPhil and PhD programmes, JNUSU General Secretary Satrupa Chakraborty said.

Now it has also emerged that the there will be massive seat cuts in Mphil and PhD programmes. We want to raise all these issues with the VC to get an assurance that all these anti-students decisions will not be implemented, she added.
In their second year in power, AAP government in Delhi focused on the reading ability of students. The government found out that 3.5 lakh students in class 6-8 could not read and launched a campaign to ensure they gained basic reading abilities.The two-month long campaign ended on November 14 last year with the government claiming that 1 lakh students between class 6-8 were able to read their textbooks.

HT takes a look at the challenges that were faced and what lies ahead for the government in this sector.

July 2016: 3.5 lakh students unable to read textbooks

Rahul, a student of Class VI at a West Delhi government school, kept his textbook open, but none of the sentences in it made sense to him. Rahul was among the 3.5 lakh students enrolled in government schools in class VI-VIII, identified by the government in July last year as non-readers or students who were unable to read their own textbooks. Many of them could not even identify letters.

The government soon announced Chunauti Mission and teachers, officials and other authorities pledged on Teachers Day  September 5, 2016  to ensure that every child enrolled in government schools is able to read at their own level by Childrens Day on November 14, 2016.

These students were given special attention and every day two hours were spent teaching them basic reading skills, using different methods such as videos and interactive stories to teach alphabets.

November 2016: Govt claims improvement, critics dismissive

By the end of the campaign, it was reported that 1 lakh students were able to read their textbooks, including Rahul, of West Delhi. The rest also saw some changes. At the start of the campaign, 26% could not identify characters and words, but after the campaign this number came down to 10%.

The figures have been called dubious by many including members of the Government School Teachers Association, who in a statement released in November alleged that the number of non-reader students was inflated in July, as this would then help them show greater change later.

Two years of AAP govt: HTs special

The results have not been uniform over schools. While Shaheed Captain Sandeep Dahiya Sarvodaya School in Rohini was able to give a 100% result with all of its non-readers becoming readers, at the Nandnagiri extension F1/F2 Government Girls Senior Secondary School, only 110 out of the initial 265 non-readers became readers and 155 were still non-readers when re-tested in November 2016.

Students can now recognise words, sentences and paragraphs, but we still need to work on making sure they understand the text they read, said Nisha Verma, a Science teacher at the Nandnagiri school.

Read: Delhis first govt model school has audio-visual aids, swanky classes and a gym

Experts such as Anaki Rajan, a professor in education at the Jamia Milia Islamia have also questioned the effectiveness of such crash courses in language. If they cant read any fresh, unseen texts, then we cant claim that they have made progress. Then it becomes training, not real education, said Rajan, when asked about the campaign in November 2016.

Anita Rampal, professor and former dean faculty of education Delhi University, said segregating students on the basis of their academic performance is discriminatory in nature.

This is not justified. Students will start doubting themselves and their confidence will take a hit. You cant label students as good at studies or not good at studies and segregate them. Learning is not an individual process but a social one. It has been found that a mixed ability group is always better, she said.

*8,471 students were absent and 30,976 did not report by time the results were announced on Nov 22, 2016. Data source DOE, Delhi govt

February 2017: What lies ahead?

Teachers have also said that there needs to be a follow up of the scheme and leaving the students in the present state may undo the efforts. Atishi Marlena, advisor to education minister Manish Sisodia, told HT that they are focusing on making students learn rather than completing syllabus and plan to restart the campaign.

Sisodia also conceded that the campaign needs to continue as there are many students who are yet to improve. I agree that there are many students who still cant read, though we have seen significant improvement in many. So once, the exam period is over, we will resume the programme in the next academic year, said the minister.
MCD Chunav Mein Jhadu Chalao, Delhi Se Gandagi Bhagao (Wield the broom in MCD elections, make Delhi garbage-free).

The slogan defines the overarching theme on which the Aam Aadmi Party election campaign for the upcoming civic polls will be based on.

While broom is the symbol of AAP, the party intends to keep the larger narrative of the civic polls around the performance of BJP-ruled MCDs over the past decade, especially the garbage-crisis that has hit the city over the past few years due to the strike by municipal staff.

The theme will be surrounding the issues related to the MCDs functioning. The municipal corporations under the BJP failed to carry out even its core function of providing sanitation and hygiene in the city. Even the Congress failed as an effective opposition in checking the misgovernance, said senior AAP leader Ashish Talwar, in-charge of Delhi.

The opposition BJP and Congress have been targeting AAP on delivery of its electoral promises in the run up to the election campaign. However, AAP wants the narrative to stick to operational and functional bankruptcy in the MCDs, which is largely due to rampant corruption in the civic bodies.

Municpal elections are likely to be held in the latter half of April. This will be AAPs first full-fledged contest in Delhis three municipal corporations after making an impressive debut in municipal bypolls last year. In the bypolls in 13 wards, AAP won five.

AAP has formed a screening committee to shortlist candidates for upcoming MCD polls. While partys Delhi convenor Dilip Pandey, vice-presidents of the city unit and ministers Satyendar Jain and Kapil Mishra are part of the committee, partys legislators will be overseeing the first round of screening in each ward before recommending names to the screening committee.

The final nod to the candidates will be given by the partys Political Affairs Committee (PAC), the apex decision-making body of the party.

EX-BJP LEADER JOINS AAP

With the municipal elections drawing closer, some political workers have started switching sides. A former president of BJP Yuva Morcha, Shyam Singh, joined the Aam Aadmi Party on Friday in presence of Delhi convenor of AAP, Dilip Pandey.

A former independent candidate from Holambi Khurd municipal ward, Mamata, also joined the AAP. Pandey said while Singh, who teaches Physics in a local college, has been assisting the Narela MLA for a while now, Mamata decided to join AAP recently.

She has a very strong presence in her ward. She lost the last election only by 173 votes to the Congress candidate amid a controversy. Initially, she was declared winner by eight votes. But after the Congress workers created ruckus, recounting was done and she lost by a thin margin. She has now decided to work with AAP, Pandey said.

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A 30-year-old woman has alleged that she was molested by self-styled god man and Bigg Boss 10 fame Swami Om and his associate. She also complained that the duo also attempted to rape her. The incident was reported from central Delhis IP estate area on February 7 and a case was registered.

The woman in her complaint alleged that she had gone to Rajghat Power house for some work, when Swami Om and his associate intercepted her. She alleged that the two men started abusing her and even touched her inappropriately.

Read| The Bigg Boss rogues gallery: Was Swami Om the worst of them all?

The woman alleged that the men then took her to their room in an ashram near ITO, where they attempted to rape her. She said that she begged them to let her go, but they abused her and threatened to ruin her image, a police officer said.

Police said that Swami Om and his associate had allegedly thrashed the womans husband in the past. The woman told us that there was some dispute between her husband and Swami Om and that they had allegedly thrashed him in the past. On February 7, she alleged, that Swami Om and his associate threatened that they would destroy her like they destroyed her husband, a police officer said. She said that she somehow managed to escape and make a PCR call. She also called her mother and sister, he added.

Read: Bigg Boss 10: When the show failed to impress despite stooping low

DCP, Central, MS Randhawa confirmed the incident. Following the womans complaint, we have registered a case of molestation and voluntarily causing hurt against Swami Om and his associate. Teams have been formed to arrest them. Raids are being conducted and the arrest will soon be made. We are also verifying the allegations made by the woman.

The woman reportedly told the police that when she warned Swami Om to report him to the police, he told her that he is a god man and would curse her. She claimed he threatened to ruin generations of her family and also said that he was a big boss contestant and that she should be scared of him, a police officer said.

Read|Bigg Boss 10: Swamiji, Priyanka Jagga and other big fights of the season
We are at the Lakme Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2017 (LFW). As backstages at fashion shows usually are, its chaotic. There are clothing rack trolleys lined with garments, cartons full of shoes and, in the green room, theres an insane amount of cosmetics. Harried-looking people rush about (most in sensible flats).

Were here to meet Anjali Lama  a 32-year-old Nepali transgender model  who recently made news for being the first transgender person to walk the LFW ramp. At the moment, shes in rehearsals. Shes the first in the choreography, and the models who follow her on the runway are nowhere close to the typical model stereotype. Some are short, some plump, some dark-skinned. They are walking for the #TagFree show, which celebrates body diversity. Fitting, then, that Lama should be the first in the line to take the stage.

Off the ramp, Lama is trying to soak in all the adulation. (Pramod Thakur/HT Photo)

We catch hold of Lama between the rehearsal and the costume change. We tell her we want to talk to her about her journey. Shes world-famous, the stylist spraying product on Lamas hair offers. Lama hugs her in return. But she cant stay long and chat  shes pressed for time. I dont want to upset anyone. I want to talk to you as well, she assures us in fluent Hindi before being whisked away.

The early struggle

After the show, we find a quiet-ish place to sit down. Lama was born Nabin Waiba, the fifth of seven siblings in Nuwakot district in rural Nepal. School proved to be difficult for her as she struggled to understand why she felt and behaved like a girl. Her effeminate manner was mocked by her classmates and teachers, even her own father and brothers. Having finished school, she moved to Kathmandu. At age 18, she spotted a group of transgender women wearing make-up and heading to a club. She approached them. When you ask most transgender people, they will immediately deny it and assert their cisgender identity (a person whose identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex). So, when I spoke to the group, they were like, Look how brave this girl is!, Lama recollects.

Lama worked on her modelling skills before applying for LFW for the third time. (Photo courtesy: Lakme Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2017)

They directed her to Blue Diamond Society, a Nepali group that advocates for sexual minorities, and soon, she began her sex reassignment surgery, and began to work at the outreach centre. In 2015, Nepal became one of the few countries to issue passports with a third gender category. Despite the progressive step, the ground reality is far from ideal. Acceptance of transgenders is still not a hundred per cent, Lama says.

Runway dreams

My friends nudged me towards modelling because of my height, she says (shes 59). At 25, she gave it a shot. And although she got a few assignments in Nepal, most of the time, she was rejected for her gender. She auditioned for LFW in Mumbai twice last year, and was rejected both times. I thought modelling wasnt for me. But I couldnt let go of it. Then, she went through the YouTube audition clips put up by LFW and studied her own walk, as well as of those who had been selected, and identified her problem areas. I had low self-confidence, and it showed, she says. Lama focused on that and other nuances of modelling  costume and make-up  by researching online.

Eventually, it worked. And she was picked for the Summer/Resort 2017 show. Initially, not understanding English caused her considerable nervousness. I felt a bit lost as all the instructions were given to us in English. Then I approached models Deepti Gujral and Alesia Raut, who helped me out.

Being a part of LFW has changed her life. Apart from bringing her global fame and boosting her career, it has also led her brothers to come around and treat her well.

Anjali Lama became the first transgender model to walk the ramp at Lakme Fashion Week. (Photo courtesy: Lakme Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2017)

I have never been this busy in my life, she exclaims. Despite everything, she does worry a bit about being a little old for her field. Most people stop modelling at 25, I started at that age. But in the West, you do have supermodels who are 35, even 40, she says, and adds that shes not thinking about the future right now. Soaking in all the adulation, press and the promise of a great career, besides being busy with a fashion show, is enough to keep anyone in the moment.

Lama now lives in Santacruz with a Nepali friend. And, though she likes Mumbai for the work it offers her, she misses the natural beauty of her home town. I like nature, greenery and the hills I wish we could have a place thats a mix of Mumbai and Nepal.

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A French national was allegedly duped by a jeweller of Rs 45.91 lakh (65,000 Euros) by promising to send him ornaments that never received.

The legal advisors to French Embassy in India lodged an FIR with DLF Phase  II police station on Friday, alleging that the jeweller and three other persons duped a French national, Benoit Noras, of 65,000 euros when he visited India in 2014.

The complaint mentioned that Noras visited Dharamshala during his one-month stay in India in 2014 and met a person named Rishi Raj. Soon, they grew friendly and went for walks and dinner. Three days after they met, Rishi introduced him to his boss Ganga and a few other people working at a nearby retreat named Hotel Gitanjali.

Ganga charmed Noras and impressed him with his in-depth knowledge of France and Sweden. At one of their meetings, Ganga proposed to help Noras buy jewellery in India, using his passport and have it sent to France in his name. He said he wanted to help him as was legally entitled, as a tourist, to take some jewellery back to his country.

Noras was then taken to MGF Metropolitan Mall in Gurgaon, where he selected a set of jewellery, which was to be sent to him in a package. Noras was also made to sign some papers, which they said was mandatory for him to produce before customs officials to prove that the purchase was legal.

Being unaware of Indian laws, Noras trusted the words of Ganga and Rishi Raj and signed the papers. At the same time our client (Noras) was also threatened that if he does not show any identity proof, customs officials might have suspicions about him and may even blacklist his passport. Our client was in a foreign country all by himself and started doing whatever Ganga and his fellow persons asked him to do, the complaint read.

Using the same ploy, these persons are said to have duped many foreign nationals earlier, the complainant said, adding that a similar complaint against the accused were registered in Greater Kailash  I police station in 2013 by Melanace Panaget and another was registered at Chankayapuri police station in the same year by Evan Boutin. Both were French nationals.

Noras then flew back to France via Nepal to evade any problem and later discovered that he had been duped of 65,000 Euros.

Based on the complaint, the DLF Phase  II police registered a case under relevant sections of IPC and is on the lookout for the culprits.
Police claimed on Saturday to have cracked in 48 hours the case of a daylight heist at Mannapuram Finance Ltd in Gurgaon, arresting four people and recovering 30kg of gold looted from a company office.

Investigators are looking for the rest of the gang that robbed the gold-loan companys New Railway Road branch of gold valued at Rs 10 crore and Rs 8 lakh in cash on Thursday.

Around 2.5kg of looted gold are still missing. Police suspect the loot is with the fugitives.

An unspecified amount of cash was found on the arrested men.

The accused were in the process of splitting their share and selling the booty. The gold was recovered in 829 sealed packets, so it will be easy to identify the owners, Gurgaon police commissioner Sandep Khirwar said.

Commissioner of Police Sandeep Khirvar Robbery in Manappuram gold loan railway road Gurgaon @HTGurgaon @htTweets pic.twitter.com/ZOyyP1QUh2  Parveen Kumar (@parveenkumar_ht) February 9, 2017

Police are not ruling out the involvement of more people in the heist, though an eight-member gang armed with weapons was caught on surveillance cameras.

The men were not wearing masks  an audacious attempt as they contrived to take away the digital video recorder (DVR) in which the CCTV footage of the branch was stored, an officer said.

DCP (Crime) Sumit Kuhar said the CCTV grabs provided a pile of clues.

We used social media, activated our informers and found leads from analysis of data to catch hold of the culprits. The photos of the accused helped.

Some of the suspects have a criminal record. Superimposition of their latest photos with those available with police and analysis of call records of their girlfriends, identified through social media, helped the investigators track them down.

Police are questioning the girlfriend of an accused, who provided crucial inputs that led to the quartets arrest.

Four of the suspects are from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, while two men are from Haryanas Jind and another one belongs to Farrukh Nagar in Gurgaon.

Devender, who is believed to be the kingpin of the gang, is from Jind and he had escaped to Ahmedabad with the gold. He was arrested from a luxury hotel in the Gujarat city.

The other three arrested men are Hoshiyar Singh, Vikas Gupta, and Bijendra Singh alias Chabila. They were picked up from a guesthouse at Gurgaons U-block in DLF Phase 3.

Their fugitive partners have been identified too, and police announced that they would be caught soon.

An officer said the robbers had carried out a recce at the Laxman Vihar branch of the company in January, but decided to strike at the New Railway Road branch instead.

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Giving his original Aadhaar card to the guard at the branch of Manappuram Finance on New Railway road in Gurgaon to gain entry led the police to the prime accused in the 10-crore gold heist carried out by the seven to eight member gang.

Burgeoning debt and the greed to earn a large sum of money within a short span of time led the gang, comprising educated graduates, to carry out the daring daylight heist, the police said.

Gurgaon: Mannapuram Finance heist case solved; 4 held, 30kg gold recovered

The robbers who had decamped with 32.5 kg gold and 8 lakh in cash on Thursday from the branch were arrested on Saturday from Gurgaon and Ahmedabad.

Police recovered 30 kg gold, some of the cash, two pistols and four rounds from the accused. Two motorcycles, and a car were also seized from them.

What helped the police to crack the case in barely 48 hours was that Devender alias Deva, resident of Jind, who is said to be the kingpin, had given his original Aadhaar card to the guard at the Manappuram branch for entering details, which led the police to his village. (Parveen Kumar/HT Photo)

What helped the police to crack the case in barely 48 hours was that Devender alias Deva, resident of Jind, who is said to be the kingpin, had given his original Aadhaar card to the guard for entering details, which led the police to his village. The police questioned his cousin and obtained crucial details from him.

Police also managed to track the girlfriend of one of the accused, staying in Gurgaon, and questioned her on Friday evening leading to the arrest of the three accused from DLF Phase 3 the next day.

Gurgaon police commissioner Sandeep Khirwar said this case was a major challenge for the police. The CCTV footage from the branch and the surrounding area really helped in unravelling the case. More information about the conspiracy would come out after sustained questioning, Khirwar said.

Hoshiyar Singh alias Manoj Saini and Devender alias Deva have been identified as the main members of the gang, who along with Vikas Gupta had called four youth from Kanpur to assist them in the crime.

After committing the heist, three men from Kanpur returned with some gold and cash.

Deva went to Ahmedabad to dispose of the gold, while the other three remained in Gurgaon.

Hoshyiar Singh is a graduate. He runs a dhaba and also doubles as a bookie. He had a debt of almost 20 lakh.

Devender and his cousin Bijender were running a call centre and did some outsourcing work, the police said.

Vikas Gupta, who hails from Kanpur, worked as real estate agent and he rented out property. He was the one who called accomplices from Kanpur to carry out the heist.

Gurgaon: Armed men loot 33 kg gold worth Rs 10 crore from Manappuram Finance in daylight heist

The police said all men were either under debt or had no regular income, which led them to plan the daring robbery.

On the day of the heist, the accused used an autorickshaw and two motorcycles to reach the crime spot, where Devender entered the branch and posed as a customer.

Soon after, the gang held up the entire branch and, within 25 minutes, wiped out the lockers. They split into three groups after the crime with men from Kanpur returning to the city, Devender flying to Ahmedabad and other three returning to their hideout in DLF Phase 3.

Sumit Kuhar, DCP (crime) said the criminals destroyed all the phones and SIM cards that they had used. They committed some basic mistakes and the police did a lot of homework to nab the accused. Technical, human ,and other modes of surveillance were used to track them, he said.

The police said the other accused will be arrested soon.

We had tracked the families of the accused in Haryana and Kanpur . All other conspirators will be arrested soon, said ACP Sanjeev Balhara.

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Residents of Ansals Sushant Lok-I on Saturday staged a protest against civic apathy and the failure of agencies to build roads and boost power supply to the area.

The demonstration was staged at the Vyapar Kendra market to vent their ire against authorities. The residents have vowed not to cast a single vote till new roads are laid and adequate water and power supply to the upscale colony is ensured. In a statement of intent, the residents raises the slogan, No Road No Vote.

They said they have done enough pleading with the authorities Ansals, the developers, and the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG)  the agency responsible for building roads and providing adequate power and water supply to the colony  and want to send out a clear message this time.

As per the Haryana Apartment Ownership Act, 1983, the developer has to file a completion certificate within a stipulated period of time and hand over the colony to the MCG. But that hasnt happened till date, the residents said.

Lack of road maintenance and street lights irk Sushant Lok-I residents

The residents claimed that the Haryana government failed to live up to its promise of building roads on time and ensure enough motorable roads and adequate provision of water and electricity. They said the developer, too, failed to deliver on one of its basic responsibilities  ensuring proper maintenance of roads.

From the MCG to the chief ministers office, we knocked on every single door. However, the agencies are only indulging in a blame game while we continue to suffer. We wont settle for platitudes or false promises anymore. We wont cast a single vote in the upcoming MCG polls till they deliver on all promised road projects in Sushant Lok-I (the colony is home to 6,000 houses and close to 20,000 voters). We are giving a weeks time to the administration to fix our issues, Sudha Tiwari, executive committee member of the RWA, said.

Not just poor roads, the residents also complained of lack of proper sanitation and garbage disposal system in the area. When we moved in to our house in Sushant Lok-I two years ago, we had high hopes of living in the Millennium City. However, the pathetic condition of roads and lack of basic amenities made us realise that the city is nowhere near what we thought it to be. I have personally written to government agencies, and even the PMO and CMO, highlighting the plight of the residents. However, nothing happened. Perhaps, boycotting the MCG elections will send the message out loud and clear, BN Gupta, a senior resident, said.

The residents claimed their colony has unfettered access to vehicles from all sides due to the one-way routing of traffic from Huda City Centre and it has only resulted in the roads going from bad to worse. The authorities need to wake up and address our problems. We pay for maintenance and dont deserve to be treated like this, Neelu Sharma, a resident, said.

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The Haryana government is seeking legal opinion from the office of the advocate general (AG) on the Supreme Court order banning the sale of liquor within 500 metres of national and state highways, as it is likely to hit the liquor trade across the state.

Haryana finance minister Captain (retd) Abhimanyu Singh, who is also in charge of the excise department, confirmed that his government has sought more clarity from the AG on how to go about implementing the Supreme Court order.

More than 650 liquor vends across Haryana, including 89 in Gurgaon, and 143 restaurants are likely to be affected by the apex court directive.

We are bound to follow the Supreme Court order. However, we are seeking a legal interpretation of the order to know its exact implications. We have also sought a clarification on how to measure the distance from the road or air. The government is examining the judgment and the questions that are on the minds of liquor traders in the wake of the Supreme Court order could only be answered when we have the necessary clarification on the same, Singh said.

Read I SC orders ban on sale of liquor at shops within 500 metres of highways

Singh further said that if the need for relocation of existing liquor vends arises, the government will ensure that traders dont suffer losses. As a responsible government, we cannot challenge or contest the Supreme Court order. However, private liquor vend owners or stakeholders could seek relief, the minister said.

Meanwhile, the representatives of the liquor industry are not satisfied with the assurance of the government and the excise department.

Owners of pubs and bars in Gurgaons Cyber Hub, Sector 29 and Sohna Road have decided to move the Supreme Court, seeking a clarification on its order.

We will approach the Supreme Court for relief as hundreds of people in Gurgaon have invested crores in setting up bars and restaurants. They will be badly hit. Mere relocation will not suffice. This decision could hurt our revenues and the those who have taken loans to set up these establishments will suffer the most, RN Rathi, director of newly launched Ninkasi brewery at Sector 30, said.

In Gurgaon, the national highway, known as Gurgaon-Jaipur Expressway, cuts across Gurgaon and the pubs form a prominent part of the commercial hub that came up here considering its proximity to roads that help them draw plenty of customers from Gurgaon and Delhi. We feel that the ruling should be implemented considering the nature of the location and the roads leading up to them, as they also connect top business houses that pumped in huge amounts of money into these pubs and the local hospitality industry and provided jobs to many people. Hence, their interest should be taken into account, Mrityunjai Tiwary, consultant, Bluefish Hospitality, said.

The 500 metre rule should only apply to liquor shops along the highway and not malls or hotels, as they largely cater to local residents and not people travelling inter-state, Naresh Madan, director, Imperfecto, DLF Cyber Hub, said.

Gurgaons excise department has identified 89 liquor vends and 143 pubs in the red zone. The administration will take a call on whether to shut only liquor vends or cancel the licence of pubs and bars located within 500 metres of the highways.

A survey has shown that of the 89 liquor vends falling in the red zone, 43 cannot be relocated due to space issues, the excise department said.

The excise department has also sought clarification from the AG on the apex court order.

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What ails the health system in India; those interested to know should grab a copy of former health secretary K Sujatha Raos book Do We Care? The book, in a very lucid manner, explains evolution of Indias health system, challenges and constraints it faces, the role governance plays and what lies ahead.

It helps immensely that Rao is an insider, and she does acknowledge that she has a vantage point in the very beginning. Apart from being the health secretary, Rao also worked for two decades in the health sector in various capacities at the central ministry of health and in the state of united Andhra Pradesh.

This book attempts to highlights my understanding of Indias health system from an insiders perspective, having been an active participant in the field of policymaking.

The book is divided into two parts: part 1 has three chapters that talk about the evolution of Indias health system and financing and governance in health. When talking about evolution, not many would know allopathic medical system was introduced in India by the Portuguese.

And in chapter 2, Rao discusses the need to recognise the interface between politics and economics.

While India is often criticised for giving poor share to health in its GDP, Rao painstakingly explains the reasons behind it, and not even once does the reader feel that she is being bombarded with financial jargon.

After the Portuguese, British influence rubbed off on Indian medical system even though health wasnt a priority of them. She provides a glimpse of initial years after independence when the focus was on immediate health challenges reducing the toll of infectious diseases and ensuring maternal and child health.

The book touches upon sensitive topics such as insensitive implementation of family planning during Emergency in 1976. Then there is impact of economic liberalisation in the 1990s, which among other things ceded space to NGOs.

The lack of resources during that period resulted in India turning to the World Bank for funds for its important though limited set of national programmes.

The language is simple, and you do not have to be public health expert to understand core issues affecting Indias health system.

The common questions about healthcare cross the minds of most Indian such as why hospitals were dirty, why children continued to die of diarrhoea or respiratory infections or were left unimmunised, she admits have no simple answers. The book takes the reader on a journey to help in understanding reasons behind these legitimate but complicated questions.

She provides a way forward and divides the solutions into five categories: a) strengthening the process of decentralisation and cooperative federalism, b) revamping the delivery system- both public and private- for achieving the objective of health for all, c) strengthening the peoples sector, d) expanding the use of technology, and e) is acknowledging the value of evidence and knowledge.

DO WE CARE? INDIAS HEALTH SYSTEM

Author: K. Sujatha Rao

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Price: Rs 850
Against the backdrop of the immigration ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries called for by Donald Trump, the film Lion has come up with an ad calling out the new US President.

The advertisement in Los Angeles Times featured Indian child actor, Sunny Pawar who plays young Saroo Brierley in the movie, reported Variety.

Oscar contender Lion denounces Trumps travel ban in full page Los Angeles Times https://t.co/sGL6Okdy9z @TheDrum pic.twitter.com/cspQMWNOH9  Stratos Safioleas (@stratosathens) February 11, 2017

It took an extraordinary effort to get 8-year-old actor Sunny Pawar a visa so that he could come to America for the very first time. Next year, that might not be an option, the advert read.

Nicole Kidman, Sunny Pawar and Dev Patel attend the 6th Annual AACTA International Awards. (AFP)

The Garth-Davis directed film stars other Indian origin actors such as Dev Patel and Priyanka Bose. The advertisement has highlighting that collaborating with international artists will not be an easy job for Hollywood in the coming year.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
No doubt Priyanka Bose is super excited to attend the Oscars this year for her film, Lion. The actor will be walking the red carpet in a sustainable gown, to be designed by British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. The actor plans to fly down to London on February 15 to make sure everything falls in place.

Emma Roberts and I am the face of a campaign that Vivienne Westwood is associated with. Its called Red Carpet Green Dress, which is like wearing sustainable gown on the red carpet. I totally support the cause. A couple of other stylists are also on board to give us an interesting look for the day, says Priyanka. The sustainable fashion design campaign is intended at raising awareness about the impact of fashion on the planet.

Ask her more about the gown and the Guzaarish actor shares, I really dont know much about the colour and cut. I am just ready for a surprise. (Smiles) I guess it will be a wonderful Westwood signature Oscar red carpet gown and I am totally excited about it. Thats the reason I will be reaching early so that we talk through the entire process.

Priyanka is looking forward to uniting with the entire team of Lion and is anxious about her debut appearance. Lion has everything in it to win this year. The story about despair, hope, love and human perseverance connects well with all, she adds.

So whom does she want to bump into at the ceremony and Priyanka laughs before adding, Oh there are so many of them. I am openly crushing on the lead actor of Moonlight. I totally loved the film. I also want to exchange pleasantries with Barry Jenkins (director of Moonlight). If I get to work with him then there is nothing like it. I would also like to say hello to Lupita Nyongo. Emma Stone is also one of my favourites. I enjoyed watching her in La La Land. And the list goes on.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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Amidst the power struggle within Tamil Nadus ruling AIADMK, the O Panneerselvam camp got a boost on Saturday as education minister M Foi Pandiarajan and two Lok Sabha members, Krishnagiri MP Ashok Kumar and Namakkal MP PR Sundaram, joined him, prompting rival Sasikala to urge governor C Vidyasagar Rao to act immediately.

Pandiarajan, who is the first minister to jump ship, said more MLAs would come to Panneerselvam before the assembly opens, indicating that Sasikala will not be able to prove a majority on the floor of the house.

I was handpicked by Amma. I have come here to ensure that the AIADMK does not break. Alll MLAs will come. The two leaves symbol will fly high, he said, addressing Panneerselvam as the AIADMK treasurer at the latters residence in Greenways Road.

The minister ruled out the possibility of AIADMK taking the support of opposition DMK or BJP to form the government, in case the OPS camp fell short of majority.

The spirit of the masses will carry our party through. This trickle will turn into torrent for OPS, he said.

Pandiarajan also said that with Sasikala, he would have been afraid to face the people. But now I am free and can face the electorate.

Welcoming Pandiarajan, Panneerselvam said the moment we have been waiting for has arrived. Truth will prevail and democracy will win. You will know who all will come here on their own, he said.

He said he had taken the decision to stop the party from going into the hands of one familyreferring to Sasikala and her relatives, who are derisively known by her critics as the Mannargudi mafia.

Ashok Kumar also assured that other AIADMK members would come over soon.

Pandiarajan had earlier tweeted that he would take the views of voters before deciding the best way to uphold the dignity of Ammas (Jayalalithaa) memory and the unity of AIADMK.

Rajya Sabha MP V Maitreyan was one of the first to join the revolting chief ministers side, which had former assembly speaker P H Pandian and his son Manoj Pandian. Later, AIADMK presidium chairman E Madhusudanans entry gave the chief ministers camp a boost.

The AIADMK has 37 members in the Lok Sabha and is the third largest party in the lower house of Parliament.

Sasikala has urged the govenor to act in the best interests of Tamil Nadu without wasting time. In a presser invoking Jayalalithaa, she said, As long as 1.5 crore supporters are with us, our fort will remain intact. I will safeguard AIADMK. Amma is with us only. She is exposing bad elements in the party.

Following the death of former chief minister Jayalalithaa in December last year, the party and the government underwent a succession course as per which her long-time aide Sasikala was set to take over power. But this was disrupted by Panneerselvam, who said on Tuesday that he was forced to resign as CM, triggering a power tussle within the party.

The spotlight has shifted to governor C Vidyasagar Rao, whom both the leaders met on Thursday claiming the support of MLAsSasikala of 134 MLAs and OPS of 50.

The governor is learnt to be consulting legal and constitutional experts. He also met leader of opposition MK Stalin on Friday night.

According to sources, the governor is likely to wait for the Supreme Court verdict on the disproportionate assets case against Sasikala, which is likely to come early next week, before deciding on her claim to power.

Rao has also asked the chief secretary and director general of police to investigate allegations about around 120 MLAs being held captive at a luxury resort outside Chennai by the Sasikala camp.

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AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP V. Maitreyan on Saturday urged the President and the central government to take severe action against party General Secretary VK. Sasikala for her threatening statement against the state governor.

She has threatened the Tamil Nadu governor, a constitutional authority. We urge the President of India, Prime Minister, Home Minister to take severe action against her for threatening the state Governor, Maitreyan, who has joined the Panneerselvam camp, told IANS.

He added that Sasikala is trying to create law and order problem in the state and action should be taken against her.

Maitreyan said some more state ministers are expected to join hands with Panneerselvam.

Speaking to party cadres on Saturday, Sasikala said she believes in democracy and justice and maintaining patience.

Only to some extent we can be patient. After that we all together would do what needs to be done, she said.

Her remarks came after she sought an appointment with Governor Rao along with all legislators supporting her.

Sasikala has already submitted documents electing her as the leader of legislature party and staked her claim to form the government.

However, the governor has not called her to form the government.

Panneerselvam revolted against Sasikala on Tuesday night alleging that he was forced to resign as Chief Minister to pave the way for Sasikala to occupy that chair.

Subsequently a state minister, five legislators, one sitting MP, party old-timers, former legislators and others have started expressing their support to Panneerselvam.

The ruling AIADMK now has two clear divisions -- one led by Sasikala and the other under Panneerselvam.
Amid his high-voltage campaigning for the Mumbai civic polls, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday sought to assert his legitimacy in calling the shots in the partys prime political space, invoking the legacy of his late father and party founder Bal Thackeray.

...Yes, I am. I definitely am the boss being (late) Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackerays son. Even they (BJP) have to accept that I am the boss as I also head a powerful organisation. But, these (BJP leaders) are the people who can merely level allegations, but have no worth, Thackeray said in the second part of his interview in Sena mouthpiece Saamana.

He alleged that the BJP-led governments in Maharashtra and at the Centre only tried to constantly pull the Senas leg, instead of supporting it in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

All this is being done with political motives. Only if they stop pulling our leg all the time, it will be a big support to us, Thackeray said.

The strained relations of the Sena and the BJP, despite being partners in governance in the state and at the Centre, have hit a new low after they broke ties for the civic polls in Maharashtra, scheduled for later this month.

Thackeray also said the work on the grand memorial of Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, to be built off the Mumbai coast, will not take off till the required clearances were granted by the Centre for the Coastal Road project.

Chhatrapati Shivaji is revered not only in the state but across the country. Do not deceive him for ulterior political motives. How will you get the stones required for the memorial project unless you give permission for the Coastal Road project? How will you take forward the memorial project which was promised to the people? he asked.

Thackerays assertion, however, drew flak from the Congress, with a state unit leader of the party saying it betrayed an undemocratic mindset.

Reacting to Thackerays boss remark, Maharashtra Congress secretary Al Nasser Zakaria said there was no boss in democracy where the common man was supreme.

This is an example of naked abuse of power. There are no bosses in democracy. Law is equal for everybody but the common man is supreme. How can a party chief talk about forming a government on their own strength? he asked.
Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of rapes in India during Uma Bhartis tenure as chief minister, indicating the BJP leaders supposed diktat of public torture of rapists didnt curb actual crimes against women.

At a rally in Agra on Thursday, Bharti attacked the Uttar Pradesh government for not blocking bail to men suspected of raping two women off a national highway in Bulandshahr last year  a crime that shook the country.

Difference between words and reality Uma Bharti was the Madhya Pradesh CM between December 2003 and August 2004. National Crime Records Bureau show that in 2003, Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of rapes (2,738) in India. In crimes against women, MP had came second to Andhra Pradesh , reported 14,547 cases or 10.3% of the total cases. In 2004, Bharti was CM for eight months, MP again reported the highest number of rapes (2,875) in the country. The state stood third when it came to the crime rate against women at 23.5%. In 2005, when Bharti was not the CM, the state reported the highest number of rape cases (2,921) for the third consecutive year.

In her address, Bharti said, The rapists should be hung upside down and beaten till their skins comes offsalt and chilly should be rubbed on their wounds. That is what I had got done when I was CM.

Bharti  who was Madhya Pradesh CM December 2003 and August 2004 -- added that she let the victims hear the screams of rapists when they were tortured.

But figures from the National Crime Records Bureau show that in 2003, Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of rapes (2,738) in India.

In cases of molestation, the state reported the highest number (6,848). It also had the highest rate of such crimes  number of crimes weighed by population  of 10.8 as compared to the national average of 3.1.

In crimes against women, Madhya Pradesh had dubious distinction of coming second to Andhra Pradesh and reported 14,547 cases or 10.3% of the total cases.

The as crime rate goes, it was 23 per cent, second to Andhra Pradesh that reported 23.6%. Delhi followed with 22.1%.

In 2004, Bharti was chief minister for eight months, Madhya Pradesh again reported the highest number of rapes (2,875) in the country, accounting for 15.8% of the total.

It also topped the molestation list with 6,690 cases, accounting for 19.4% of the cases reported. It reported the highest rate (10.3%) among states as compared to the national average of 3.2%.

The state stood third when it came to the crime rate against women at 23.5%. Only Delhi with 24.1% and Andhra Pradesh at 24% showed higher numbers than Madhya Pradesh.

In 2005, when Bharti was not in power, Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of rape cases (2,921) for the third consecutive year, accounting for 15.9% of the total cases. In case of molestation, the highest of 18.8% (6,426) of the cases were reported from Madhya Pradesh.

In overall cases of crime against women or crime rate, Madhya Pradesh did not figure in the top two, debunking Bhartis claim that her methods made the state a safer place.

Senior police officials of Madhya Pradesh have consistently maintained that easy registration of cases involving crimes against women, when compared to other states, is one of the main reasons for the less-than-flattering figures.

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The courts have no power to enforce punishment against a sitting Judge of the High Court, Justice CS Karnan has said in response to a contempt notice by the Supreme Court for approaching the Prime Minister with a list of judges he considers corrupt.

On February 8, a seven-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar had ordered the registrar general of the Calcutta HC to relieve Karnan of his duties. Justice Karnan was also asked to appear before the bench on February 13 to face contempt charges.

In a letter to the registrar general of the Supreme Court on Friday, a copy of which is available with HT, Karnan wrote: This said order does not conform to logic, therefore is not suitable for execution. The characteristic of this order clearly shows the upper caste judges are taking law into their hands and misusing their judicial power by operating the same against a SC/ST Judge with mala fide intention of getting rid of him. Therefore, the suo motu contempt order dated 08.02.2017 is not sustainable under law.

He also pointed to the instance from last year where he attempted to file a case against Chief Justice JS Khehar under the SC/ST Act and requested that the contempt case against him be heard after Khehar retired.

Justice Karnan has invoked his identity as a Dalit at a time when there isnt a single judge from the SC or ST communities in the Supreme Court. The last Dalit Supreme Court judge was former Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan, who retired on May 11, 2010.

Justice Karnans letter went on to state: I have given a recent allegation that there were 20 corrupt judges in the Madras High Court and the Honble Justice S Kishan Kaul is No. 1 accused. Even this accusation was ignored although my complaint is still on file. It is observed that the 7 judges mentioned above are all out for a contempt case against me, presumably to clear the path for Justice Mr. S K Kauls elevation (to the Supreme Court).

The Suo Motu contempt order against me a Dalit judge and restraining my judicial and administrative assignment is unethical and goes against the SC/ST Atrocities Act. It is certainly a national issue and a wise decision would be to refer the issue to the House of Parliament.

Confirming the authenticity of the letter, Karnan told HT over phone from Kolkata, Yes, it is true that the letter was written by me. And I dont think there is anything more to elaborate on the matter right now.

When requested for an interview, the judge who is set to retire in a few months, said, I shall speak my mind very soon. I will answer all questions.

Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi had termed Karnans allegations disparaging. Rohatgi had said the top court must deal with the sitting judge sternly so that a message was sent across to citizens that judiciary did not dither from acting against one of its own. He had also said the public communications by Karnan were scurrilous and slanderous.

Karnan has gone incommunicado after his defiant letter. He has isolated himself from the outside world and is refusing to meet anybody, Supreme Court lawyer Mathews Nedumpara told HT. Nedumpara, who is the president of the National Lawyers Campaign for Judicial Transparency, said a delegation from his organisation had been trying without success to meet Karnan since the contempt order was issued.

Nedumpara said, Justice Karnan has been discriminated against and socially isolated by the legal fraternity. This has sent him into extreme depression. During a phone conversation with me he also said that he is facing financial constraints because of which he is not able to travel to Delhi and hire a high-profile lawyer. We offered to represent him pro bono but he refused.

Karnan, who was appointed to the Madras HC in 2009, has been at loggerheads with his fellow judges ever since 2011 when he accused them of discriminating him because he was Dalit.

In 2015, he accused then Chief Justice of the Madras high court SK Kaul of harassing him because he was a Dalit and belittling him by giving him insignificant and dummy portfolios while his juniors were given high profile matters.

This escalated further when he accused Kaul of corruption in February 2016. When the Supreme Court transferred him that same month, he surprised everybody by issuing a stay on his own transfer order. When a two-judge bench of the SC comprising JS Khehar and R Banumathi lifted his stay order, he ordered the Chennai police commissioner to book a case against the two judges under the SC/ST (atrocities) Act. He finally backed down and took charge at the Calcutta HC after a closed-door meeting with then CJI TS Thakur.

After remaining silent for a year, he once against raised the banner of revolt by writing letters to the Prime Minister.
Rajesh Pratap Yadav, a constable with the Uttar Pradesh police, has spent the past four years working at a call centre: glowering at a computer screen and grunting into a mouthpiece. Yadav makes around 100 phone calls every day. He begins each with the same line: I am police officer Rajesh Pratap Yadav calling from Woman Power Line. A woman has made a complaint that you have harassed her on the phone.

Yadav is one of 40 constables who make up the male half of Woman Power Line, the Uttar Pradesh polices 24/7 phone line for women in trouble. Launched in October 2012, the call centre, housed in a circular tower in the centre of Lucknow, was supposed to fix common womens problems  eve-teasing, stalking, phone-related abuse  not covered under any existing law.

This is before the case of Nirbhaya gang rape in Delhi and the subsequent amendment to criminal law, says inspector general Navniet Sekera who designed the phone-in system. Sekera describes himself as a trigger-happy cop who had to teach himself to think like a woman to come up with 1090. In 2012, following a young womans breakdown at a public meeting called by Akhilesh Yadav, Sekera was called over and put in charge of womens issues. Four years on, 1090  dus nabbe as everyone calls it in UP  is a phenomenon in the state. The large hoardings in Lucknow helped; so did awareness camps in the smallest of villages.

Read | Mobile numbers of girls for sale in UP recharge shops

Within a year of its inauguration, though, everyone at 1090 knew what they were going to deal with most of their time. Ninety per cent of the 661,129 calls women made to 1090 between 2012 and 2016 were to complain about phone harassment. The calls are received by a set of 40 young women  a mix of college students and constables  who are the face of 1090. The call details are then passed over to Rajesh Pratap Yadav and his colleagues for the second stage of the 1090 routine: calling the numbers reported for abuse. In Uttar Pradesh, as Sekera puts it, its best to let men deal with men.

Yadav dresses like an average call centre operator: well-fitting blue shirt, crisp black trousers, black-rimmed glasses, a pen in left pocket, a dress watch on the wrist, and big black headphones around his head. But once hes speaking into his mouthpiece, Yadav is pure menace. The tone is the sharpest when Yadav gets to the end of his opening monologue: Maan jayiye, nahin mane toh karyavaahi ki jayegi. (Straighten up or we will be taking action).

Forty constables from the Uttar Pradesh police work at the states 24x7 phone line for women in trouble. These officers are tasked with calling the numbers that women report for abuse and harassment.

The men on the other side too have a line they like to open with: I have no idea what you are talking about. I had put my phone to charge and gone to have a bath. Someone may have misused it in the meantime. Some begin to cry right away. Some angle for sympathy. They say I like her or she is my girlfriend who has stopped talking to me, says Yadav. Some claim that they dialled the number by mistake. And some simply say sorry and thank Yadav for opening their eyes. He has done the drill with tens of thousands over the years. These are all kinds of men: young, old, teenagers, rural, urban, working, jobless.

The schoolboy punishment

Most of them drop their game with one call from 1090. Some sit back only for a while before hitting the field again. We track their numbers, says Sekera. If they harass a woman again, we move to the next level. We call the man in along with his parents, ask them to track his habit. We involve his sister if he happens to have one. We make them take an oath on Gita not to harass a woman again. It turns out all it takes to straighten up phone Romeos in UP is the standard schoolboy punishment. Woman Power Line has solved 99 percent of the complaints using the combined might of parents, god, and an old-fashioned earful from a UP police constable.

Not every man buckles, though. Once every few months, Yadav is confronted with a man who refuses to do any of the following: listen to him, come over for a talk, or stop the calling spree. Then we have to arrest them for phone stalking, says Sekera. We have arrested 600 in four years. All of them are over 50 years of age. Most of them are psychopaths.

How do these men find the phone numbers of women? These are men who keep dialling a series of numbers on their cell phones until they hear a womans voice on the other side. The moment they do, they start talking sleazy, says Sekera. Or, he adds, they could buy phone numbers from a mobile recharge shop. The recharge wale bhaiyya, according to Sekera, has a register full of phone numbers, which he sells to men based on the looks of the girl whose number it is: 50 for average, 200 for beautiful.

Read | Twitter reacts to HTs story on sale of womens phone numbers at UPs recharge shops

Anonymity is key to this system, says Sekera. Men usually buy these numbers using fake name and identification.

No one knows how many recharge shops exist in UP. Enough of them, it may appear, to ensure a man doesnt have to leave his neighbourhood to procure a womans phone number. There are two-three recharge shops where we can get numbers of girls. There is one from where my friends and I buy a phone number for Rs 30, says Mohammed, 24, from Shahjahanpur. A father and a son alternately sit in the recharge shop. We go there when its the turn of the son. Once he has the phone number, Mohammed would call a woman he has never met and coax her to accept his friendship.

The call centre is a good place to understand how streets have given way to smartphones as the prime location of everyday harassment women face in the heartland. It doesnt always happen on a phone call. The wide-open field of Facebook and WhatsApp is just as likely a platform. We get 10-15 calls about social media harassment every day, says Sekera. A man will create a profile using the face of a woman, befriend women and use their private information to blackmail them later. Ex-boyfriends will threaten to post intimate photos and videos on Facebook. Men will circulate the DP [display picture] of a woman on WhatsApp. Or sometimes, as Mohammed and his friends are fond of doing in Shahjahanabad, send vulgar pictures over WhatsApp.

Women call to report all sorts of abuse  from stalkers calling to domestic violence  but sometimes, operators say, the callers just want to talk: about a love affair gone sour, a cheating husband or a difficult mother-in-law.

Ulti-seedhi baat

Women call 1090 to report other, more serious, issues too  physical stalking, domestic violence, dowry harassment. But most of these calls are forwarded to 100 for formal  and immediate  police action. Every once in a while, though, the 1090 operators are confronted with women calling to just talk about stuff : a husband they suspect of adultery, a mother-in-law they cant stand, a crazy ex-boyfriend.

Like Yadav, Reema has already received over a 100 calls at her terminal. They have come from everywhere in UP. Kanpur Dehat, Barabanki, Lucknow, Hardoi Shes worked at the Woman Power Line for a year now and spoken to about 200 women every day. A recent college graduate from Lucknow, Reema chose to work at the call centre because it sounded like a decent, well-paying job. Also, once I used to get these calls on my phone, she says. I called 1090, which took care of the matter so I figured it would be nice to step in and help other women.

Read | Meet Aparna Yadav, Mulayams younger daughter-in-law

The majority of women harassed on the phone are between the ages of 15 and 30, says Babita Singh, a police officer who runs the daily operation at 1090. Fifty percent of them are college students. Most women describe the phone harassment as ulti-seedhi/faaltu baat a code word for the whole range of things a woman doesnt expect to hear from a man she does not know: request for friendship, enquiry about her name and address, dirty talk, or abuse.

There are few situations the Woman Power Line isnt prepared to handle, but things get crazy all the time. This evening is no different.

At 7:52 pm, the stressometer a measure for the distress level of a call  on terminal 4 has hit red. A woman is calling from Rae Bareli to say that her ex-boyfriend wont stop calling her. He is threatening to kill her. Its a call that the operator will transfer to 100.

At 8:05 pm, the operator on terminal 6 is trying to explain to a man from Meerut that he has to allow his wife to come on the line and complain about the unsolicited calls on her mobile phone. It ends with the man hanging up cold.

Its a common problem, says Babita Singh, the men insist on talking on their wives behalf. Its less a problem in cities like Lucknow  one out of seven women in the city has called 1090  than the interiors of UP. But things are changing fast, says Sekera. The tolerance limit of women is going down. Earlier they would call if a man had been calling them for a month. Now they call 1090 within an hour of receiving such a call.

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A multi-billion dollar Indian programme to co-develop a stealth fighter with Russia faces an uncertain fate with the government deciding to set up a committee to examine what the country gains from the project.

A top government source said the panel, to be headed by a three-star officer, would look into different aspects of the fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) project and the technology it brings into the country to meet the air forces future requirements.

The two countries have been discussing the project for several years but are yet to sign a $4-billion research and development (R&D) contract for the FGFA. India has already spent Rs 1,500 crore on the preliminary design stage (PDS) of the FGFA project. The PDS was completed in June 2013 on the basis of a contract inked with Russia in December 2010.

Several things have been resolved but it is critical to assess how we benefit from the programme before making the next move. Design issues also have to be looked into, the source said. The Indian Air Force wants the stealth fighter to have a more powerful engine as the existing one doesnt give it super cruise capability.

A prototype called the T-50, built under the PAK-FA (Prospective Airborne Complex of Frontline Aviation) project is undergoing tests in Russia. The first prototype flew its maiden sortie in January 2010.

India has a requirement for 120-130 such swing-role planes with stealth features for increased survivability, advanced avionics, smart weapons, top-end mission computers and 360-degree situational awareness.

The ability to super cruise or sustain supersonic speeds in combat configuration without kicking in fuel-guzzling afterburners is a key Indian requirement.

Former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha told HT that affordability is a key issue and we have to take a call if we want the FGFA.

The IAF does not have sufficient number of warplanes to tackle a combined threat from China and Pakistan. The count of IAFs fighter squadrons has shrunk to 34 compared to a desirable strength of 42, a capability gap the air force is struggling to fill.

The existing fleet consists of 14 squadrons of ageing MiG-21 and MiG-27 fighters that will be retired in phases by 2024. Each fighter squadron consists of about 18 planes.

The IAF hopes to add more muscle with the induction of French-built Rafales, the indigenous light combat aircraft, more Sukhoi-30s, the FGFA and a medium-weight warplane to be built in India in collaboration with a foreign player.
In a major breakthrough, the Gurgaon police on Saturday managed to arrest four accused involved in the daring daylight heist at Mannapuram Finance Ltd in Gurgaon with 48 hours of the incident.

The police also recovered 30 kg of gold and some cash looted from the New Railway road branch on Thursday.

A group of seven to eight men had carried out the robbery and decamped with gold valued at Rs 10 crore and Rs 8 lakh in cash from the branch.

A case was registered at Civil Lines police station under arms act and robbery.

Interestingly, the eight-member gang had carried out a recce of the Laxman vihar branch of Mannapuram Finance around January 26 but later decided to strike at the New Railway road branch, said an official.

Four members of the gang have been identified to be from Kanpur, whereas 2 are from Jind, one from Farrukh Nagar in Gurgaon.

Police is not ruling out the possibility of other conspirators, and involvement of receivers of stolen gold. Around 2.5 kg gold out of the robbed 32.5 Kg is missing, and police is hopeful that it would be recovered from the absconders.

Police is also questioning the girl friend of one of the accused, who provided crucial inputs in nabbing them. While the group of three were picked from a guest house of u-block in DLF phase 3, one was arrested from Ahmedabad, who is being brought back by a police team.

Police said that all the accused have been identified, and the four absconding members of the gang would be arrested soon. The accused were in the process of dividing the looted gold and sell it to receivers. The best part is that gold has been recovered in 829 sealed packets which can be identified easily and returned to owners, said a visibly relieved Sandep Khirwar, Gurgaon police commissioner.

The four were identified as Hoshiyar Singh son of Lakhi Ram, resident of Farrukh Nagar, Vikas Gupta son of Anup Gupta, resident of Kanpur, and Bijendra alias Chabila son of Dilbagh Singh resident of Jind. The fourth accused Devender also hails from Jind and he had flown to Ahmedabad to dispose the stolen gold. He was staying in Lemont Tree hotel from where he was arrested.

Police officials admitted that inability of the robbers to decamp with the DVR recorder proved to be their major undoing as police was able to identify them using CCTV grabs. Some of the accused also have past criminal records, and the superimposition of their pictures in police data, and analysis of call records of their female friends also helped the investigation team in identifying them.

Sumit Kuhar, DCP, Crime said that CCTV grabs of the accused helped them in generating great amount of information of the accused. We used social media feeds, activated the informers and also get leads from analsysis of data to catch hold of the culprits. The photos of the accused helped in getting valuable information, he said.

Police commissioner Sandeep Khirwar appreciated the hard work put in by crime branch team for cracking the case.

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Even as the Shiv Sena builds pressure on the BJP-led government with threats of resignations by its ministers ahead of the crucial Mumbai civic polls, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, in an interview to HT, said there is no danger to his government.

In an interview late on Thursday, the chief minister  just back to the city after conducting five rallies across the state  said, Currently, the Sena is with us in the government. They have not withdrawn support and our government is stable. I will not comment on whether they will pull out. But I can say my government is staying for its full term of five years, for sure. While Fadnavis did not spell it out, he indicated his government would sail with or without the Sena. The CM has also taken resignation threats by Sena ministers on February 18, the last day of campaigning, lightly.

HT had on Friday reported Sena ministers are likely to submit their resignation letters next week to Thackeray to turn up the heat on its friend-turned-foe. There is no pressure on us. This [offering resignation letters] is generally a ploy, especially if we have a big rally on that particular day to divert attention and run some issue for an entire day in the media, said Fadnavis.

Read| Mumbai civic polls: Shiv Sena says BJP out to break Mumbai, praises Congress PMs for Indias growth

Asked whether the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) was his plan B  in case the Sena pulls out of the government  and if a future alliance is possible with the NCP, Fadnavis only said it was very hypothetical at the moment.

Sources close to the CM said he was not worried about his government because he felt the Sena will not pull out. A senior BJP leader said in a worse-case scenario, the party had to only get support of 22-odd legislators, which would not be difficult given that they had as many as 12 ministerial seats (in case the Sena walks out) would be on the offer. The party feels help will be available from many legislators across parties since no one is keen on a mid-term poll.

Elections to civic bodies in 10 cities, including Mumbai and district councils of 25 districts, are being held this month. These elections will cover about 80% of voters in the state and are seen as the mini-assembly polls. With the Fadnavis government approaching its mid-term, the elections are also seen as a referendum on its performance. It is also being held in the backdrop of demonetisation. As such, a lot is at stake for Fadnavis and his party.

It was clear, however, that the chief minister was not keen on antagonising the Sena, which with its 63 legislators is a junior partner to the BJP in the government. The BJP is short of 22 legislators for a clear majority on the floor of the 288-member Assembly.

While the Sena chief has repeatedly ruled out any future alliance with the BJP, including in the 2019 Assembly polls, Fadnavis said it was too early to think about that. Depending on the circumstances a call will be taken. The Sena continues to be our partner at the state level. Even if they say there is no connection, on Hindutva as an ideology we are still on the same plank. Now, what is their Hindutva and ours can be debated.

The CM, however, ruled out a post-poll alliance in the Mumbai civic body, saying he was confident the BJP would come to power on its own.

The Sena broke its alliance with BJP for the Mumbai civic polls after 15 years after feeling threatened by the BJPs alleged move on its citadel. While Sena chief Thackeray is fighting for his partys survival on his home turf, Fadnavis is fighting a bigger battle to expand his partys footprint in the state.

Sources close to both the parties, however, said the governments future and the alliance will be decided only after the results of the states mini-assembly polls as well as results of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. Unofficially, both the parties have not ruled out a post-poll alliance in the Mumbai civic polls.

The strategies of both the parties and their bargaining powers will be decided once all the results and cards are opened.

Read| No one can bring down our government: Maha CM

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Manipur chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh on Saturday asked the Centre to outlaw the United Naga Council (UNC).

In an hour-long meeting on Saturday morning, the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) took the decision to outlaw the UNC.

The UNC is charged with imposing indefinite economic blockade since November 1, 2016 causing hardships to the people. The Centre has been trying to bring about a negotiated settlement between the UNC and the Manipur government by holding tripartite talks.

In its latest stand the UNC said that it will continue the blockade. Quoting Home Ministry sources media reports said that the centre shall not hold talks with the UNC if it continues the blockade.

Briefing reporters on Saturday Congress spokesperson Khumukcham Joykishan said: During the blockade some persons were killed and wounded in ambushes. Some trucks were also torched. People are asking why the UNC should not be declared as an unlawful organisation.

Explaining the inordinate delay Joykishan said that the state government was waiting for the outcome of the tripartite talks. He further said that the ruling Congress is seeking cooperation from all sections of people.

He said, The NDA government has assured of all assistance to end the blockade. We sincerely hope that the Centre shall extend meaningful cooperation now.

The UNC called the blockade to protest against the creation of seven new districts. Both the BJP and the Congress have been passing the buck on the issue with an eye to the upcoming elections.

Minister of state for home affairs Kiren Rijiju said that law and order being a state issue the Centre cannot intervene without initiatives from the state government. He said that adequate security forces had been sent to Manipur.

However state government officials said that though 60 companies of paramilitary forces were sought just 29 companies were sent. The Manipur high court has been issuing directives to the government officials to ensure free traffic of the trucks and oil tankers.

UNC president Gaidon Kamei and publicity secretary S Stephen have been in judicial custody since November 25. During detention they were allowed to take part in the February 3 failed talks in Delhi.
The first meeting of the Nalanda University (NU) governing board, constituted on November 23, 2016, on Friday set the ball rolling for the appointment of vice chancellor (VC) with the formation of a search-cum-selection committee.

The committee will be headed by chancellor Vijay Bhatkar. He was appointed by President Pranab Mukherjee in his capacity as the visitor of the university on January 25 following the resignation of former chancellor George Yeo.

At present, NU is under an interim VC, Pankaj Mohan, who also attended the meeting held in New Delhi. As the senior most dean in NU, Mohan took over the charge after founder-VC Gopa Sabharwal completed her six-year term with one year extension on November 24 last.

The NU was set up by an Act of Parliament with the objective of reviving the glory and academic excellence that the ancient Nalanda epitomised from 413 AD to 1193 AD.

The governing board also set up an executive committee for regular meetings to take up important work.

The governing board would meet soon to take various other decisions, university sources said from New Delhi.

The ongoing construction projects also came up for discussion during the meeting, which was the first interaction among governing board members. The last meeting of NU governing board was held in Rajgir on August 28, a day after the univeristys maiden convocation.

NU awarded the second contract worth Rs435 crore for construction of non-residential buildings on its sprawling 455-acre permanent campus in Rajgir on January 25 last.

The members underlined the need for fast forwarding infrastructure development to accommodate more students and faculty members for the much-needed expansion of university, which started its academic session in 2016.

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A make-or-break showdown lies ahead for Tamil Nadu as AIADMK leader VK Sasikala alleged on Saturday that the delay in making her the chief minister was a deliberate design to split the party.

The long-time confidante of former chief minister and party supremo, the late J Jayalalithaa, is awaiting the governors response to end the political stalemate after she allegedly forced O Panneerselvam to resign from the top post in the southern state.

We have waited long, we will approach this differently tomorrow (Sunday), she said, a remark that appeared to be a veiled threat as well as an indication that patience is running thin.

Governor C Vidyasagar Rao is yet to take a decision and speculation swirled that he might not invite Sasikala to form the government till the Supreme Court pronounced a verdict in a corruption case against her.

The delay is breeding impatience as she struggled to retain her flock, other than the 100-plus party legislators she had corralled into a luxury resort to stop them from switching loyalties. But anxiety was mounting as more leaders crossed sides to acting chief minister Panneerselvams camp.

She was building up her charge about a deliberate attempt to delay her swearing-in through the day.

Sasikala asked her supporters in the afternoon to remain calm, but only to some extent we can be patient  after that we all together would do what needs to be done.

Prior to that, she wrote a letter to the governor.

Its been seven days since Panneerselvam resigned. Taking the urgency of the situation, I would like to seek an appointment with Your Excellency by today with all MLAs who extended their support to me regarding further course of action to form the government, the letter reads.

It was not clear if Raj Bhavan responded to her request.

The Panneerselvam camp was quick to counter Sasikalas statements. She should be charged with threatening the governor and trying to foment violence, parliamentarian V Maitreyan said.

Security was stepped up in and around Chennai landmarks such as the homes of the governor and chief minister and Marina beach, where Jayalalithaa was buried and a memorial erected. Besides pickets and patrols, vehicles are being checked. An alert was sounded throughout Tamil Nadu.

The defections are a blow to the AIADMK general secretary, seeking to take over the reins from Panneerselvam, popular as OPS, who became chief minister after the December death of their mentor, Jayalalithaa.

With both factions trying to garner support, to prove their strength in the event of a floor test in the assembly, OPS got a major boost when education minister MF Pandiarajan and legislator C Ponnaiyan joined his ranks.

We have waited long, we will approach this differently tomorrow--- Sasikala

Pandiarajan, who till Friday was abusing OPS, said: I have come here to protect unity under the man whom Jayalalithaa chose.

Later in the afternoon, four Lok Sabha members  Ashok Kumar, PR Sundaram, V Sathyabama and R Vanaroza  came to the chief ministers home in central Chennai to pledge their support.

Many more MLAs will come. Slowly this trickle will turn into a torrent, Pandiarajan said.

The developments prompted Sasikala to drive down to Golden Bay resort near the beach town of Mahabalipuram, 80km off Chennai, where more than 100 party MLAs are kept to stop them from switching loyalties.

She spent almost three hours with the lawmakers, urging each one of them individually to support her so that Ammas legacy can be carried forward.

Jayalalithaa was endearingly called Amma by her legions of supporters.
Police have sprung into action to probe allegations of more than a hundred MLAs being held captive at a luxury resort outside the city by the Sasikala camp.

Chennai police commissioner has ordered an inquiry into the matter and all the 137 Chennai police stations have been asked to check and verify the identities of guests staying at Golden bay resort, 80km from Chennai.

The police action in Chennai follows a complaint by some MLAs that they were being threatened.

Even as the police started the inquiries, reports said that Sasikala likely to go to the Golden Bay resort and speak to MLAs present there to impress upon them to stay with her.

Governor Vidyasagar had on Thursday asked police to probe the allegations.

More than a hundred AIADMK legislators corralled into a leisure retreat to stop them from running away to the rival camp are in the lap of luxury  swimming, sauna, massage and fine dining at a floating restaurant.

The only luxury they are not allowed is freedom; not even the simple liberty of using their mobile phones.

They are being watched closely and at least five men constantly hovered around a select few MLAs who were allowed to interact with a battery of mediapersons camping outside the locked gates of Golden Bay, a four-star resort at Kuvathur near tourist town Mahabalipuram, 80km from Chennai.

The minders are said to be party toughs ferried from across Tamil Nadu.

Equipped with all material comforts, it boasts of a large swimming pool and a floating restaurant, apart from private fishing beach, fitness centre sauna, spa, water sports (motorised and non-motorised), massage and steam room.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) made the highest cash deposit among political parties during 50 days of demonetisation, reveals data analysis by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Income Tax department (I-T).

The top 15 national and regional political parties deposited Rs 167 crore during demonetisation, data accessed by HT has revealed. Besides Rs 104 crore cash deposit by the BSP, other 14 parties have put Rs 63 crore of banned currencies.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yanked the two bank notes  Rs 1,000 and Rs 500  out of circulation to drain illegal cash from the economy and announced a 50-day window to deposit or exchange the banned currency.

Senior finance ministry sources said nearly all of the Rs 15.44 trillion in circulation returned to the government chest.

A senior official in one of the two agencies cited above said, There are as many as 250 political parties registered in India but most of them are on paper. They will be separately analysed. Our present analysis covered all the six national parties and nine regional parties that are in power in their respective states.

Read: Political class dilemma over mixed reactions of citizens to demonetisation

The official requested anonymity citing the sensitivity of the information. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress deposited Rs 4.75 crore and Rs 3.2 crore from various parts of India, while others ranged between Rs 80 lakh to Rs 3 crore, he said.

The criterion followed by FIU and I-T covered mainstream political parties such as BJP, Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), AIADMK, Samajwadi Party (SP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC).

However, it excluded parties such as AIADMKs rival DMK, Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

Former chief election commissioner TS Krishnamurthy said the information was no indication of cash holding by political parties. He was also critical of the budget announcement of electoral bond, which was introduced to clean up political funding. I have heard one political party in Uttar Pradesh distributed money among candidates to convert, so this is no indication of cash held by parties. The electoral bonds only give anonymity to donors and not bring in transparency. As a nation, we should demand transparency of funding, Krishnamurthy said.

Read: Demonetisation: How govt rules changed as chaos increased

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In a sharp reaction to Prime Minister Narendra Modis warning to Congressmen that he had prepared dossiers on them, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday warned that even he had Modis horoscope.

Everybody who is born has a janam patrika (horoscope). The PM must not forget this. Even we have his janam kundli. Have they forgotten how he survived after the Godhra communal carnage? It was because my late father, Bal Thackeray stood solidly behind him, he said.

Interacting with a select group of senior media persons at his residence Matoshri here, Thackeray spoke on a wide range of issues, including relations with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its ally in both Maharashtra and the centre, though he unilaterally snapped ties on January 26.

Criticising Modi, Thackeray said that never before has any Indian Prime Minster stooped to such levels in politics.

All he does is mock and ridicule leaders of other parties but now people are tired of this. During the 2014 Maharashtra assembly elections, he addressed 27 rallies in this state. So I demanded he should come here even for the BMC elections, he said.

Alleging that they (BJP leaders) are liars, who are not interesting in anything but grabbing power, Thackeray said this was the reason he decided to break the alliance with the BJP for the civic polls and would henceforth fight all elections independently.

Asked how the Shiv Sena continued with the ruling alliance in centre and Maharashtra, he countered: Have they asked us to get out? If they dont like us, they can leave. But they are stuck. We will decide our future course after the civic elections here.

He recalled how, with the blessings of people like his late father Bal Thackeray and late BJP leaders Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Munde, the alliance between the two parties was finalized and it grew from strength to strength.

At that time, my father decided that to prevent a split in the Hindu votes, the BJP would concentrate at the central level and Shiv Sena at the state level. It worked fine. But, now, the BJP wants to grab everything - the centre, state, civic bodiesa and all else, he said.

Looking back at the past few years, it would have been much better if the Shiv Sena had gone alone, as it would have emerged into a major national political force in the past 25 years, he said.

Touching on allegations by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on transparency in administration and a corruption-free government, Thackeray sarcastically said first he should look within and at his own partymen.

All the ministers facing allegations of corruption in Maharashtra belong to the BJP. Not a single Shiv Sena minister is facing similar charges of graft, he said.

On the issue of transparency, he said the Union government has declared last week that the administration of BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation is the countrys most transparent, adding the Sena already has complete transparency in the civic body where all major decisions of the Standing Committee are taken in the presence of officials, opposition leaders and even media.

We are talking of such high levels of transparency. Why cant the BJP do the same at the state or centre? The Leaders of Opposition enjoy a cabinet status, so they should be invited to cabinet meetings along with the media, Thackeray said.

When everything was done so transparently, with the media witness to the decisions, how can the BJP accuse Shiv Sena of corruption or malpractice? he asked.

Asked whether the war with BJP has entered a new dimension with his party praising the Congress, Thackeray said the good work they did cannot be ignored.

Theres no question of praising the Congress. I was only appreciating the good work they have done all these years. Indira Gandhi had the guts to break Pakistan, for instance... What has the BJP done, except the surgical strike on the borders, he said.

Asked to list the achievements of the Modi government in the past 33 months, Thackeray smiled smugly: They have survived for so long on lies... Thats an achievement ! And they will continue doing so for the remaining 27 months.
Police on Saturday detained Gagan Som, brother of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Sardhana candidate Sangeet Som for carrying a pistol inside a polling booth in Faridpur village.

Spotting the pistol, the security personnel whisked Gagan Som away from inside the booth. An official told IANS that the act was in contravention of election rules and hence the action was taken.

Earlier in the day, the BJP MLA Sangeet Som cast his vote as voting began in the first phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

Sangeet Som shot to limelight for his fiery speeches during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.

Voting began on Saturday morning in the first of the staggered seven-phase assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Polling is taking place in 73 of the states 403 assembly constituencies, spread across 15 districts in the western part of the state. A total of 839 candidates are in the fray.

Read| Meet Sangeet Som, BJPs campaigner for Hindu identity in UP election

For live updates on first phase of UP elections, click here
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has called the junking of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes a monumental mismanagement, after months of heaping praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modis decision. Kumar  also the Janata Dal (United) President  has left political observers rather flummoxed with his flip flops of past months.

What explains the chief ministers U-turn on the demonetisation question?

Warming up to the BJP

By intention or design, the Bihar chief minister has made indiscreet hints that he could realign his politics with that of the BJP, if the situation so demanded.

After having worked intensively to launch the JD(U) in Uttar Pradesh politics, Kumar abruptly decided that his party would not contest the state elections - a decision seen as having helped the BJP consolidate its vote bank among the non-Yadav Other Backward Caste OBC voters.

Not too long ago, Kumar was seen as cozying up to his bete noir and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the birth anniversary celebrations of Sikh religious leader, Guru Gobind Singh. More recently, he was seen applying the saffron colour to the design of a lotus (BJPs election symbol) at a book fair at Patna.

Of course, Kumars position on the demonetisation question has changed radically too. After having been the first non-BJP chief minister to have supported the Prime Ministers initiative, he adopted a contrary position on Friday, saying that he did not agree with the manner in which the scheme had been implemented. The move has failed to achieve the desired goals of rooting out black money, he said.

Uneasy relations with Lalu Prasads RJD

Kumar has led an alliance government earlier (with the BJP), but his position as chief minister has never been quite as tentative. The Rashtriya Janata Dal, as a bigger partner, has been aggressive in its political posturing and dismissive of the chief ministers image as a Sushashan (Good governance) man. Crime has galloped, while the state has been hit by a series of scams including the paper leak controversy in recruitments by the Bihar Employees Selection Commission and the Bihar Public Services Commission (BPSC). News reports suggest that transfers and postings of bureaucrats are largely being done at the insistence of the RJD. Under reported pressure from the RJD, the chief minister cancelled the function he has held in past years to present the governments annual report card. Senior RJD leaders such as Raghuvansh Prasad Singh have often been coming out in open defiance of the chief ministers policies. Kumar is clearly not the all-powerful chief minister that he was once considered. He does seem to realise that the tie-up with the RJD will split, sooner or later, a veteran Bihar watcher said.

Read | Modi a dangerous man, says Lalu while campaigning for son-in-law in UP

Kumars future politics

In the absence of a dedicated vote bank (unlike Lalu), Kumars struggle for political relevance in the transformed political scenario is acute. While there is a vacuum in the countrys Opposition space, there are little signs yet that Kumar will become acceptable as the leader of such a grouping. His re-entry into the saffron camp looks tough, although not entirely impossible. In the years or months leading to the 2019 general elections, Kumar will need to walk the talk with the dexterity of a trapeze artiste.

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Increasing human-leopard conflicts have prompted the state forest department to prepare an action plan that includes setting up a relocation centre for captured big cats and increasing the prey base in and around their habitats.

In the last one week, two women were killed in separate leopard attacks in Alwar district. In October-November last year, two people died after a leopard attacked them in Pratapgarh area of Alwar; three were injured.

After the recent incidents, forest officials caught two leopards, but could not verify if they had attacked. Sariska Tiger Foundation experts have suggested that a forensic laboratory be set up to identify the animal behind an attack.

Placed under schedule-I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, leopards are an endangered species.

The leopard population in Rajasthan has fluctuated in the last six years. There were 496 leopards in 2009, 527 in 2010, 565 in 2011, 562 in 2012 and 612 in 2013. The number dipped to 420 in 2014; in 2015, the state recorded 434 leopards.

According to official figures, around 20 leopards were killed in the state between 2014 and 2016 either in road accidents or by villagers.

Looking at increasing man-animal conflicts -- be it leopard and tiger  we are planning to hold stool test immediately after an animal is captured to identify whether it is a man or cattle eater; accordingly it can be declared a problem animal, otherwise can be released in protected areas, said Arindam Tomar, chief conservator of forest (wildlife).

He said a rescue centre will be developed for leopards, which are now sent to zoos.

On conflicts, Tomar said, Ecologically, every place has a carrying capacity; whenever the population of a species increases, they tend to move out. Now the space available -- be it for tiger or leopard -- is less than whats required. We need to improve degraded protected areas for holding more animals, and work on population management.

He said Himachal Pradesh started sterilising monkeys after their population increased. In Rajasthan too, we made attempts to sterilise blue bulls, and have to think it for dogs, especially in Great Indian Bustard areas, Tomar said.

Increasing population of animals -- especially that of blue bull, monkey, leopard and wild boar -- requires management. Habitat has to be improved to increase carrying capacity Sarsika has almost reached its full capacity for leopards.

Under the action plan to curb human-leopard conflicts, the department is working on preemptive measures -- strengthening prey base; involving communities and incentivising them through SHGs for rearing prey species like wild hare and boars; development of waterholes in and around sanctuary/forest areas; filling cavities at mining dump sites to prevent leopards from using them as caves; training youth to act as primary response units; and so on.

Measures for prompt response include trained staff in rescue techniques and dealing with conflict cases; equipment and veterinary doctors.

Sunayan Sharma, former Sariska sanctuary field director, said, We need to adopt scientific methods to identify the animal behind any attack. The forest department should develop a forensic lab like the one in Hyderabad or add a separate wing for animals at the existing forensic laboratory.

He said, At the advisory board meeting of Sariska Tiger Foundation, we have suggested to use DNA testing as a means to identify the animal. Wildlife Institute of India has a specialist wing that works on genetics; their services should be taken.

As a preventive measure to tackle agitated villagers, he called for a team that will patrol the area to create awareness regarding animal movement. They can also identify pugmarks to track animals.

On conflicts, he said, Changing situation is agitating animals; construction and mining are destroying pasture and abandoned land near villages; buffer zone is shrinking.

At a recent workshop in Jaipur, experts called for developing grasslands, increasing prey base and curbing human disturbances to reduce human-leopard conflicts. Wildlife keeps moving to look for food and water. Shortage of prey base is a reason for such incidents, said deputy conservator of forest Naresh Chand Sharma.

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BJP is the only opposition party in Bengal to stay away from the land agitations that are erupting in various spots of the state though Congress, CPI(M) and a host of Naxalite outfits and human rights organisations are rushing to join the aggrieved landlosers. BJP, the only party the vote share of which has consistently risen in the state over the past three years, has remained conspicuous by its absence.

The party has neither sent its representatives to the agitating landlosers nor issued any statement, even as land agitations broke out at four places over the past one month. Talking to HT, BJP state unit chief Dilip Ghosh said they do not intend to join these agitations.

Read: West Bengal: Terror law slapped on Bhangar land agitators

There are grievances among the landlosers for various reasons, primarily due to the state governments mishandling of the situation. However, at every place, the trouble is being fomented by Naxal outfits. These Naxal outfits are stalling major development projects in other parts of the country creating trouble over the land issue. The Congress and the Left are joining these movements hoping to increase their fast-eroding support base, but we do not intend to hamper development for short-time political gain, Ghosh told HT.

Land agitation first broke out in Bhangar of South 24-Parganas district against the setting up of a power grid early in January and finally led to the death of two villagers in firing by persons yet to be identified.

The agitation in Bhangar on the eastern fringes of Kolkata brought together different parties. (HT Photo)

Soon thereafter, agitations broke out against land acquisition for the expansion of NH 34 at Amdanga in North 24-Parganas, for against an airport near Durgapur in Burdwan district and against the state governments decision to use land acquired for industries at Bolpur in Birbhum to set up a university.

While a small Naxalite outfit, CPI(ML)(Red Star), led the agitations in Bhangar, members of such other small outfits as CPI(ML)(SOC) and CPI(ML)(PCC) were seen at Amdanga, Andal and Bolpur. Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), the largest rights organisation in the state, and CPI(ML)(Liberation) has joined the Bhangar movement as well.

Read: Bhangar row: Dont punish farmers, allay their fears

Congress was the first among major opposition parties to reach out to the protesters. State Congress chief and Beherampore MP Adhir Chowdhury had held meetings in Bhangar even before firing claimed two lives on January 17 and paid two more visits later. On February 5, he first went to Amdanga and later to Bolpur to speak to agitators. CPI(M) state secretary Suryakanta Mishra and other leaders also visited Bhangar in the second week of February.

Congress made it clear by enacting the new land acquisition legislation that the party wants to protect the interests of the farmers. We had participated in land agitations in Singur and Nandigram as well. Now that people are agitating against acquisition of land at gun point or for throwaway prices, it is incumbent upon us to stand by them, Chowdhury told HT.

CPI(M) was initially hesitant in joining land agitations because they had always dubbed the Banerjee-led agitations in Singur and Nandigram as anti-development.

Later, as it became clearer that one of major reasons for resentment among farmers at Bhangar, Amdanga and Andal was the involvement of local toughs, allegedly backed by Trinamool Congress, in the process of acquiring land, the CPI(M) has found it a good opportunity to champion their land policy over the one followed by the Banerjee government.

They not only sent delegations to Bhangar but also participated in agitations organised by various Naxalite outfits. Their desperation to be part of the protests became evident, as they decided to tolerate slogans that criticised the role of the Left Front governments role in Singur and Nandigram along with Mamata Banerjee governments role in Bhangar.

Read: The Bhangar land row shows that Mamatas land acquisition model has failed

CPI(M) politburo member and Lok Sabha MP Mohammad Salim made the partys stand clear while speaking to the media. We have been telling from the time of Mamata Banerjee-led agitations in Singur and Nandigram that her policy will pave the path for local toughs and land mafias to get involved in getting land for industrial projects, he said.

While the Left Front government decided to acquire entire stretches of land for industrial private projects in Singur and Nandigram, Mamata Banerjee government decided that they government will not intervene in acquiring land for any private industrial project.

BJP, however, seems to be little bothered about land agitations. We do want the land losers to get a better deal but do not intend to involve ourselves in any kind of destructive agitation that will harm the agenda of development, Ghosh said.

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The suicide of Bengali television actress Disha Ganguly, 23, in April 2015 had caught many by surprise, including her fiance, Vivaan Ghosh, and family and friends. Ghosh and Ganguly had been friends for nearly five years and had co-acted in several soaps including Bou Katha Kao, Adwitiya and Mouchak but Ghosh could never realise how she was being torn apart by her dilemma of choosing between Ghoshs proposal for marriage  which also got her familys support  and allegedly the same-sex relationship she entered a few months back. Following the news of her death, her same-sex lover, also an actor, made unsuccessful attempts at killing self.

Next year, Puja Aich, 32, another aspiring television actor, set herself on fire and died of the burn injuries, allegedly after failing to cope with pressure from her in-laws.

Soon, popular hairdresser Dipa Mallick, 32, who was single and reportedly suffering from depression, killed herself.

Earlier this month, Bitasta Saha, 28, another budding television actor, killed herself in the middle of a relationship with a married man. Her recent posts on the social media indicates she was suffering from depression, police said.

The increasing trend of suicides among Bengali film and television actors, mostly the aspiring ones, has left the industry worried and wondering whether a myriad range of issues contributing to increasing level of stress are forcing them in taking the harshest decision.

Several issues keep people in the industry under stress, especially the aspiring ones. There is no stability in income and there are expenses for maintaining the public image. Many find it difficult to cope with their ambitions, while battling tough competition, and also do not get people around to share their feelings, said veteran actress Locket Chatterjee.

According to actor-turned-Lok Sabha MP Shatabdi Roy, who has acted in a few hundred films, the difficulties in maintaining quickly-achieved stardom is a major reason for growing stress and frustration, while loneliness is a major factor that leads aspiring actors deeper into crisis.

Thanks to television, many newcomers are becoming celebrities overnight but many of them are forgotten barely in a year. The difficulties in staying relevant in the glamour world often increase stress and leads to depression. The struggle with the inner self is intense in this industry, Roy said.

She added that a large number of aspiring actors live alone and lack the support from parents, while true friends in real life are not too many.

Senior psychiatrist Dr. Rima Mukherjee added that the celebrity status itself prevents many from taking medical help when depression sets in.

Budding and aspiring actors suffer from relatively more stress in people in many other profession due to lack of income celebrity and high expenses in maintaining lifestyle. What makes them more vulnerable in taking rash decisions is that most of them avoid taking help from psychologists or psychiatrists, as they fear the news will get public and tarnish their public image, Mukherjee said.

Deepika Padukone is a rare example of a celebrity to make public her struggle with depression. But most of the people in the industry avoid making their illness public. Those who approach for counseling mostly discontinue with the treatment, she added.

Actor Kaushik Chakraborty, who is presently cutting down on small screen offers to focus on the big screen projects, feels that the inability to balance between the stress of professional life and personal life plays a key role behind such measures.

We work under demanding situations but most of us also love the work. It is very important to maintain a balance between professional and personal lives. However, it becomes difficult when stress arising from complexities in personal relations add to work-related stress, Chakraborty added.

Depression among actors is not uncommon, but what is clearly a matter of concern is the rush to end ones own life when things go out of control.

In end May 2014, the city was shocked to learn that actor Swastika Mukherjee attempted suicide. She was admitted to a hospital with wrist injury, but fortunately, she survived.

There are a few individuals like actor Aruna Ghosh who suffered major depression after a relationship failure but managed to emerge out of it. However, her grit now seems to be an exception.

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Communal tension was palpable in Bijnor district of western Uttar Pradesh on Saturday after a 16-year-old boy was killed and his father critically injured in Nayagaon village of the same district on Friday. The district goes to poll in the second phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly election on February 15.

The accused are Muslims.

Union minister and BJP leader Sanjeev Balyan has threatened to stage an indefinite sit-in if the accused are not arrested within 24 hours.

Other leaders and workers of political parties staged a sit-in with the villagers and demanded immediate arrest of the accused.

Angry villagers damaged Rashtriya Lok Dal candidate Rahul Singhs village when he went to the village show his solidarity with them.

Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has released a compensation cheque of Rs 25 lakh for the family but it will be released only after seeking permission from the Election Commission.

Deputy inspector general of police (Moradabad range) Omkar Singh said teams were formed to arrest the accused and raids were on in different locations.

Some unidentified people stabbed a farmer Sanjay and his 16-year-old son Vishal at Nayagaon when the farmer had gone to irrigate his field. Vishal was shot three times and died on the spot. Sanjay is battling for life in hospital.

Iqbal, former head of Penda village, along with seven others has been named the main accused in the murder of the boy. Iqbal is allegedly a close aide of Samajwadi Party MLA Ruchiveera who is pitted against Suchi Chaudhary, the BJP candidate from Bijnor.

The incident comes nearly five months after killing of three Muslims in Penda village on September 16 last year over an eve-teasing incident.

Thirty-two people were named in that case, including BJP leader Mausam Chaudhary, husband of Suchi Chaudhary.

Suchi had delivered an emotional speech at Prime Minister Narendra Modis rally in Bijnor on Friday, claiming that her husband had been framed.

Suchi Choudhary has blamed the chief minister for shifting him to Maharajganj jail during the election without seeking permission from the poll panel.
The governing body of La Martiniere Girls College (LMGC) will meet on February 14 to name the new principal of the institution. The post has been lying vacant since February 12 last year, when the then principal Farida Abraham passed away.

The vacancy was advertised twice and 40 applications were received. Most applicants are either principals or vice principals of educational institutions across the country.

This month, a panel of three principals of top boarding schools of UP and Uttarakhand got together and shortlisted a few candidates for the post who were then interviewed. The name of the selected candidate has been enclosed in an envelope that will be opened on February 14.

HT contacted some members of the governing body who said they were of the view that vice principal LMGC, Aashrita Dass had a slight edge on others due to her understanding of the ethos of the college. However, that alone will not be the criteria for selecting the new lady principal, said a member,adding, We received applications from many principals of institutions of repute.

The post for LMGCs principal was advertised twice in national dailies to attract a higher number of applicants. The second time the vacancy was advertised, certain changes were made in the application criteria. For example, the qualifying age was brought down from 45 to 40 years. Also, according to the first advertisement, only Anglo-Indians were eligible to apply for the position but later, the post was opened to all Christians.

The governing body of the college comprises chairman Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi, senior judge - Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court , member Justice Alok Kumar Singh, and MLA Peter Fanthome, a member of the Anglo Indian community. Then there are ex-officio members - Carlyle McFarland, principal of La Martiniere College, Bhuvnesh Kumar, commissioner (Lucknow division), Gauri Shankar Priyadarshi, district magistrate of Lucknow and General Officer Commanding-In-Chief. The quorum will comprise three members (ie if three or more members turn up for the meeting, the decision will be taken).

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Kishan Lal (57), an ayurvedic doctor, visits his clinic every morning in Hundalkheda to examine patients after which he leaves for nearby localities with a bagful of rakhis.

Adopting a unique way to garner support for election, Lal  an independent candidate from Shahjahanpur assembly seat  visits door to door urging women to tie rakhi on his hand.

Unhesitatingly, women tie rakhi and put a tilak on his forehead. After this, Lal tells them that they are his rakhi sister and their husbands his jijaji (brother-in-law).

After establishing a rakhi bond with women, Lal asks them to press the button next to his election symbol, air-conditioner.

Popularly known as vaidyaraj, Lal says, My mission is to make one lakh rakhi sisters during election campaign. I am aware of the strength of the sacred thread. My rakhi sisters will definitely support me and also ask their husbands and children to vote for me. I will easily defeat my rivals if one lakh rakhis convert into vote.

Cutting across caste and religion, Lal is striving hard to win the support of women.

Read more: Arthi baba arrives on pyre to file nomination

More than 50,000 women from all section of the society have tied rakhi on him. On Thursday, the Muslim community organised a special rakhi programme in which 3,000 women tied rakhi.

Lal campaigns in the lanes of Shahjahanpur on his old scooter. I purchased this second-hand scooter two decades back and converted it into my campaign rath. It gives me a vintage feeling and helps me connect with all the classes, he said.

He has contested local body election in the past. Though I lost the election, I did not lose hope of changing the political discourse. I support clean politics free of muscle and money power. I tell people that after winning election, MLAs do not care for voters but remain busy in making money. It is time for change. People should elect a common man who loves to move on foot, cares for the poor and resides in a shanty, he says.

Lal is pitted against veterans Suresh Kumar Khanna of BJP who has represented the seat for seven consecutive terms in the legislative assembly. SP has fielded Tanvir Khan while BSP has given ticket to Mohammad Aslam Khan. My rivals have resources to fight election but I am depending on the support and contribution of the people, he said.

On the request of migrant labourers, he has also opened a clinic in Chandni Chowk area of Delhi. Every month I visit Delhi for a week and examine patients from Shahjahanpur and neigbouring districts. I only charge for medicine.

The families of migrant labourers have also joined Lals election campaign.

Read more: Amid UPs behemoths, a farmers daughter fights polls using her pocket money

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With regional differences furrowing the public mind, the thought of some very positively oriented Indians from across the Vindhyas comes to the fore.

Longtime social activist Srilatha Swaminathan (1944-2017) of Banswara via Chennai passed away on February 5 and I fell to remembering her and her Rajasthani husband Mahendra Choudhary from long ago.

There was such an air of romance about them. Srilatha was a big-city girl from a privileged, famous family who, from 1978, chose to dedicate her life to working for some of our poorest people. Her husband stood staunchly by her through it all.

Srilatha stayed with me sometimes in Jaipur when I lived there and told me stories in the most amusing way about being in the same jail as Maharani Gayatri Devi during the Emergency. I had just come back from my Europe years and she talked about her own girlhood trips there over dinner and liked the recipes for minestrone soup and pasta sauce that I had learned from a real Italian mamma.

Those days, the gas cylinders for my kitchen came to my gate by camel-cart, which was a novelty for me at which Srilatha chuckled mightily and told me how she herself was taken to meet her in-laws in the village by oonth gaadi. Her cheerful commitment, blithe indifference to hardship and terrifically irreverent humour made her extraordinary.

Another person from over there was in the weeks news. The impact of drought is kicking in in Tamil Nadu, with food prices rising. I have never seen such a pathetic condition in the Delta in 65 years, S Ranganathan, general secretary of the Kaveri Delta Farmers Association, was quoted as saying in a news report.

The Delta reportedly yields an average of 83 lakh tonnes of paddy. But only about 35 lakh tonnes are said to be expected by Delta farmers this year. Given that this is the first time in many years that the southwest monsoon and northeast monsoon were both dismally below par, prospects are indeed bleak for Tamil Nadu.

I met Mr Ranganathan in Mannargudi while filing pre-General Election reports from the Delta for HT in 2008. Curiously, the first red flag anywhere in India was hoisted in Mannargudi in 1918, less than a year after the October Revolution of 1917. It was MGR who changed that affiliation.

Mr Ranganathan, I discovered, was from an old reformist zamindar family of the Delta and had given away much land in public service and built a school. He was chosen many years ago across communities by the Kaveri Delta Farmers Association as their general secretary. Mrs Ranganathan, a gentle, soft-spoken woman, had translated high-lit modern Hindi novels into Tamil. They seemed like something from an idealistic old dream of India in their simplicity of lifestyle and elegance of spirit.

On a visit south some days ago, it was pitiful and horrifying to see the bone-dry channel of the once-queenly Kaveri in its own delta.

Betrayed by politicians, this sturdy old region of India and its quiet, unsung patriots are today like red earth waiting for the rain of concern to pour.

shebaba09@gmail.com

(The views expressed are personal)
A circular issued by Solapur education officer two days back, asking students to observe February 14 to pay gratitude to parents and mark the sacrifice of freedom fighters, has been withdrawn after it triggered a controversy.

Activists alleged that the circular was a move to counter Valentines Day which is celebrated across the world on February 14 and aimed at promoting cultural terrorism being imposed by certain self-proclaimed godmen.

Following the criticism, education officer Tanaji Ghadage withdrew the letter on Thursday.

When we issued the circular, we did not realise that February 14 is a Valentine day. It was mere coincidence, Ghadage said.

The circular claimed that since freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdeo became martyrs on February 14, the day should be observed for their sacrifice by offering floral tributes to their photos. The circular also asked students to pay gratitude to parents by inviting them in the school.

While Valentines Day is celebrated to express love, certain people, including a self-proclaimed godman, has been celebrating it as day of gratitude for parents to oppose what is being celebrated throughout the world. The circular issued by education officer is an attempt to impose the cultural terrorism being spread by these godmen, said Kishor Darak, an activist working in the education field.

Activists also pointed out that Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdeo became martyrs on March 23, while the circular twisted history by claiming that they were hanged to death on February 14.

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A fire broke out in the basement of Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH) in Mumbais Parel area, on Saturday morning. Doctors confirmed that no injuries or fatalities were reported as the fire was brought under control within an hour.

Disaster management officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said they received a call at 9.20 am reporting the fire. Police officials from Bhoiwada police station and fire officials immediately rushed to the spot along other officers from BMCs disaster management cell. Four fire engines and water tankers were dispatched to the hospital.

A hospital spokesperson said that none of the patients were either inconvenienced or injured during the incident. It was only after smoke started coming out of the basement, people raised the alarm about the possibility of a fire break out.

Preliminary reports have revealed that the fire started in the basement where the stock of medicines were store.
Customs seized gold worth Rs63.52 lakh in two separate smuggling incidents early on Saturday.

In the first case, officials of the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) recovered 18 gold bars collectively weighing 2.98kg from Dubai-Mumbai flight AI 984. Acting on a tip-off, they waited till the flight landed at the international airport. A search revealed gold worth Rs54,67,924 hidden below the seats.

The gold was neatly packed into ladies stockings and concealed in a hollow pipe beneath one of the seats. Aircraft seats are usually supported by a hollow pipe, which is open at the end closer to the window. Smugglers hide gold biscuits in these pipes so passengers on the next flight can retrieve them, said Pradnyasheel Jumle, deputy commissioner, Customs, describing the smugglers modus operandi.

The customs department has registered a case. Investigations are on to determine who hid the gold.

In another case, customs took an Indian national identified as Vimlesh Panchal into custody after he flew in from Bangkok carrying undeclared gold ornaments.

According to AIU officials, Panchal was carrying a gold chain, a gold bracelet and other ornaments of about 350g worth Rs8,84,618.

Officials said Panchal evaded the red channel  meant for passengers with goods to declare  and took the green channel without paying customs duty. He was booked.

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Suave sisters who stole jewellery from 5-star hotels, spoke impeccable English

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In a twist to the Laila Khan murder case, a defence lawyer said the startlet and her family may have been killed by her step-father Asif Shaikh, and not by accused Parvez Tak.

Shaikh, second husband of Lailas mother Shelina, was the fifth prosecution witness examined by special public prosecutor Ujwal Nikam. Tak  to whom Shelina, 51, was married after divorcing Shaikh  is facing trial for killing Laila, her mother, elder sister Azmina, twin siblings Zara and Imran and cousin Reshma. The family went missing in February 2011 from Mumbai.

The defence lawyer, Wahab Khan, had cross-examined Shaikh on several issues for days. In his deposition, Shaikh alleged that a jobless Tak wanted to push Laila and his sisters into prostitution in Dubai to earn money.

Last week while concluding his cross-examination, Wahab told the court, There are circumstances which are against Shaikh and he might have killed the family. He also pointed out that a complaint filed by Nadir Shah Patel, said to be the biological father of Laila, had named Shaikh as one of the suspects for the killing spree. However, the prosecution later brought Shaikh as a witness in the case.

According to the prosecution, Tak killed Khan and her family members because Azmina, Rashma and Zara had refused to share money earned while working for a shaikh in Dubai in 2010.

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Jiah Khan case: HC rejects Rabias plea for probe by special investigation team

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The anti-narcotics cell of the Mumbai crime branch arrested a businessman for allegedly possessing one kilogram of mephedrone (MD) drug worth Rs20 lakh in Andheri (West) late on Friday. The accused, Sunil Dhutiya, 42, runs an international courier service and is reportedly a political party worker.

Acting on a tip off that Dhutiya is a drug smuggler, a special team was formed by ANC chief, DCP Shivdeep Lande. The team led by inspector Santosh Bhalekar of the ANC laid a trap near Infinity mall in Andheri (West).

The accused arrived in a Mahindra XUV500, which had the symbol of a political party embossed on the number plates and the windshield. A police source said, Dhutiya used his position as a political party worker and the car with the party symbol to evade suspicion during nakabandis and police patrolling. The accused waited near the mall as the second accused Vicky Nadar, 25, came to take a sample of drugs. When the drugs exchanged hands, the police swooped in and arrested both of them.

The police are now trying to find the owner of the car and investigation is underway to find out if Dhutiya exported the drug. Dhutiya was produced before a magistrate court and remanded in police custody till February 17. If convicted, he may face 20 years in jail.

Two Nigerians get eight years RI for peddling drugs in Mumbai

Customs seize more than 4kg drugs stuffed inside 15 roti-makers

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After serving the country in the Indian Air Force, Indian Army for years, three candidates from Mumbai are contesting the BMC elections this year as independent candidates. The three ex-servicemen from the armed forces said they came together to be part of the system and solve the problems in Mumbai.

Dattaram Naik, 65, joined the Indian Air Force at the age of 17 in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war. After 14 years of service, he retired from the force in 1985. Naik continued to work as a security manager in the private sector and retired in 2012. Even after his arduous career, Naik still has some fight left in him and he wants to use it in making the city a little better.

We have been working for the ex-servicemen, so we thought why not work for the people. The politicians who win the election get work done, but it is not up to standard. We will see to it that the roads that are built should last at least five years, said Naik, the candidate from ward no. 2 (Dahisar).

A father to two daughters  one a fashion designer and another a graphic visualizer  Naik has been an active member of the ex-servicemens group. His wife teaches slum-dwellers basic handiwork like stitching.

Naiks colleague Madhukar Vajantri is contesting from ward no. 40 (Dindoshi). A 55-year-old advocate, Vajantri was with the Air Force as a junior commissioned officer. During his service over two decades, he also got a law degree and now practices law in the Bombay high court.

The corrupt nexus between some corporators and contractors needs to be stopped. It is difficult to change things from outside the system, hence we have decided to contest the civic polls this time, said Vajantri.

Vajantri has also started an English medium school for farmers children free of cost in Vave, a village few kilometres away from Alibaug. The Divine English School run by a trust provides primary education since its inception in 2013 and currently has 150 students.

Alex Joseph, 39, is set to fight from ward no. 178 (Wadala-Dadar). After serving in the Indian Army, Joseph has turned to politics to work for the people. He is currently pursuing a diploma in sanitation inspection.

Their campaign manager Sujit Apte is retired from the Indian Army. Supported by 600 armed forces personnel in the city, the members have been actively campaigning for the three independent candidates, according to Apte.

We are campaigning using the pension that the retired men of the force receive. These men are contesting independently because we dont want to carry any partys agenda, but honestly work for the people. We have decided to work not under any political partys flag, but under the flag of India, said Apte.

Apte has promised that his informal group will not form a political party. We have also kept a condition that after becoming a corporator, they will not contest again. There is discipline among us and using the same, we want to end the dynasty culture in politics.

The group has also launched a number 8976776708  using which they aim to hear citizens issues and address them .

Mumbai BMC polls: Newbie heirs have assets in crores

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Provisional figures indicated that Ghaziabad district registered a turnout of 57.2% during the first phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly polls on Saturday, registering a marginal decline from the actual polling of 57.7% in 2012.

Ghaziabad constituency registered 54.11% (provisional) a negligible increase from 54.08 % in 2012.

Sahibabad recorded an increase from 49.31% in 2012 to 50.10% (provisional) on

Saturday.

Officials expect the final figure to increase by 2% when more numbers are confirmed by late night.

It has been a regular feature that voters in rural segments come out and vote in large numbers. After the provisional figures, we are also expecting an increase of another 2% in the final figures which will arrive by late Saturday night. All electronic voting machines will now be deposited at a central place and secured, Nidhi Kesarwani, district election officer,

Ghaziabad, said.

The biggest Sahibabad assembly segment bettered its 2012 turnout when the polling percentage stood at 49.31%. This time, the segment that has more than 8.65 lakh voters record 51.10% turnout.

This time, RWAs made special efforts with awareness campaigns initiated by the district administration. In high-rises, we deputed four volunteers who went door-to-door and urged residents to vote. Vehicles were arranged for senior citizens and elderly women to go and vote, Alok Kumar, patron, federation of apartment owners association, Indirapuram, said.

In comparison to Ghaziabad and Sahibabad, the other rural and semi-urban segments of Loni, Murad Nagar, Modi Nagar and Dhaulana (part) registered a high provisional polling percentage of 60.22%, 61.26%, 66.07% and 64.24% till 10pm on Saturday. The voters here came out in large numbers and queued up from the morning.

Rural and semi-urban voters often face neglect from politicians and get chance to have their say during elections. Local politics, caste, candidate and party politics are prime considerations here to vote. So, they generally move out to vote, Arun Tyagi from Niwari, Modi Nagar, said.

The Ghaziabad district has a total voter base of more than 26.02 lakh people and a provision of 2,494 polling booths. Several people, however, could not cast their vote as they arrived at booths after 5pm.

I went to the vegetable market early morning for work and slept after I came back home. Then I had my lunch and by the time I arrived, it was already past 5pm. So I could not vote, Sanjay Kumar said at

Seth Mukund Lal College in Ghaziabad.

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Expelled Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Amar Singh came to cast his vote at Surya Nagar with his family members on Saturday. Singh, who was seen as the main cause of rift between UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, said the son disrespected the father and the message has gone to every household in Uttar Pradesh.

In this entire scenario, the son dethroned the father and gained prime place in the party organisation. SP has damaged my image now. I have been ousted from SP twice, once by the father and once by the son, Singh said.

Singh declined to comment about the candidate for whom he voted.

I will not name for whom I voted. But, I voted for people who have maintained their image. But, communal forces are getting defeated in UP. Those who tried to divide Hindu-Muslims, those who gave disputed statements are getting defeated by public in UP. The state, I think, is getting a new political message, he said.

Singh said he will always respect Mulayam Singh ji. I have not lost, my morality has won. I have never left anyone in bad times. He said he never had political relations with Mulayam as their connection is personal.

Speaking about the SP-Congress alliance, Singh said he would be in favour of it only if Mulayam wanted it.

After this alliance, the Congress should have given respect to Mulayam Singh ji. Mulayam Singh ji struggled hard to make the party. But the way he has been disrespected... this is Uttar Pradesh, it is in our culture to respect father and mother, Singh said.

The other politician who came to vote in Ghaziabad was Aam Aadmi Party leader Kumar Vishwas. He cast his vote the polling centre near his house in Vasundhara.

We have a small organisation and we contested only in smaller states like Punjab and Goa. But, some of our leaders are from UP. It is heartening to see that polling percentage has increased over years. Now, dynasty, family and all such politics will move away from UP, he said.

He said it has not become difficult to gauge the undercurrent as voters have become more aware.

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I have given my vote to the party that promised jobs and houses to the poor, Shanti Devi, a 60-year-old voter at a polling centre in Murad Nagar, said.

Devis son died because of a heart ailment in December and his wife is now forced to work as a domestic help. She is not able to feed her two children. We dont have a house or a job to make a living, Devi said.

Rural and urban residents differed in their priorities while voting on Saturday. While the rural voters gave more importance to jobs, houses, growth opportunities and safety in remote towns, the urban voters were more specific about the development requirements for their areas, the need for a better administration and improvement in women security.

In small towns, there is hardly any development and growth opportunity for youngsters. There are ample opportunities in other states, but not here. Women safety is a big issue for us. Forget about evening or night, I dread stepping out even during the day, Shivani Verma, a software engineer from Murad Nagar who works in Noida, said.

I think there have been enough of freebies distributed from public money. All this should stop and funds must be utilised for public works, her sister Priyanka said.

Seventy-year-old Abdul Hafiz stressed on the need to have a sakht hakim (strong administrator) to rule the state.

This time, there were many communal riots in UP. Earlier, no such incidents took place. The demonetisation made us stand in queues and our lives were in pain, he said.

Nearly 28km from Murad Nagar, Ashish Singh and his wife Nisha arrived at a small primary school where residents from Kaushambi high-rises cast

their votes.

There has been a lot of awareness this time among voters. I voted for growth and development. There are lot of pollution related issues in Kaushambi and a case is going on in the National Green Tribunal. I think there has to be a better coordination between the Centre and the state and I have voted keeping that in mind, Singh said. His wife said women security is a major issue that determined her vote.

Far away in Modi Nagar town, which falls under the prime sugarcane belt in western UP, farmer Pawan Kumar from Sikri Khurd narrated his ordeal of pending payment for his sugarcane produce that he supplied to sugar mills.

We are asked to supply daily but payment remains pending for one to two months. How do I run my household? We are fed up with corruption and goonda activities. My priority for voting is not development, it is my pending payment, he said.

However, Mohammad Shahwez from Modi Nagar was happy to vote as his aim was

getting free laptops and a smartphone.

Kaam ko salaam hai sir ji (the one who works will get benefit)... local issues take a back seat when you get facilities in your hand, he said.

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According to the Election Commission, Jewar constituency had a voter turnout of 66.33% of the 3,22,448 voters. Jewar witnessed the highest voter turnout among the three constituencies of Gautam Budh Nagar.

Voting started in the 201 polling booths in the constituency at a slow pace on Saturday morning with 8% turnout by 9am and 19% turnout at 11am. However, by 3pm, the voter turnout increased to 51% and it went up to 66.33% by the end.

In the first phase of elections, 79 constituencies are going to polls.

Scores of men and women were seen queuing at the polling booths from early morning. Jewar is one of the three constituencies of Gautam Budh Nagar, besides Dadri and Noida.

I am the first person from my village to cast my vote. I was standing outside the polling booth since 6am. I believe that in a democracy, exercising ones vote is the biggest right and duty, Sanjiv Singh of Jewar village said.

At Nangla Karauli village in Jewar, villagers were seen encouraging others to cast their vote. Sixty-two-year-old Namdeo, a resident of the village, was serving tea to each voter. A total of 600 voters is registered in the village.

Many labourers were heading towards brick kilns of Rabupura for their morning (work) shift. But, I insisted that they first exercise their voting rights and then head for work, Namdeo said.

At Rabupura, Muslim voters were being wooed by the SP-Congress alliance, Bharatiya Janata Party and Bahujan Samaj Party. The sitting MLA Ved Ram Bhati, of BSP, has a stronghold among Muslim voters, but Thakur Dhirendra Singh, a veteran of Congress leader who recently switched to BJP, also has a following. As Muslims form a sizable population of the constituency, it is expected to be a close contest among the three major contenders.

It is also believed that collective voting by Muslim families resulted in an increased voter turnout

No untoward incident or violence was reported by the security staff and election commission officials. A few people complained that their names were missing from the electoral list but this was denied by the static magistrate of Parsaul village.

The election was conducted in a free and fair manner and no complaints have been registered, CK Sharma, static magistrate, Kisan Inter College polling booth, Parsaul village, Jewar.

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The Gautam Budh Nagar district administration and the Election Commission on Saturday directed Noidas Sector 20 police to lodge an FIR against the Noida candidates of Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance for seeking votes on the polling day.

SP-Congress alliance candidate from Noida, Sunil Chaudhary, and BSP candidate, Ravikant Mishra, allegedly sent bulk messages to voters and also went live on Facebook, seeking votes, on the morning of February 11.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other parties filed a complaint against the two candidates.

I have written to the Sector 20 police station officer to immediately lodge an FIR against the two candidates because they cannot seek votes on the polling day, through any medium. The two posted videos on Facebook and also sent messages in bulk, seeking votes, Amit Kumar, sub-divisional magistrate and returning officer for Noida, said.

Candidates Sunil Chaudhary and Ravikant Mishra, however, feigned ignorance. The video on my Facebook page is an old one and may have been posted by a party worker. I dont know who sent messages in bulk. I am not aware of Election Commission orders against me. I heard that SP candidate Sunil Chaudhary also sought votes, so action should be taken against him too, Ravikant Mishra, who is contesting the elections for the first time, said.

I dont know who posted the video on my Facebook page nor who sent bulk messages. I will look into the issue and reply to the Election Commission, SP candidate Sunil Chaudhary said.

Chaudhary had lost the assembly poll in 2012 to BJPS Dr Mahesh Sharma. Chaudhary is fighting from Noida for the second time.

Police is directed to file FIR under Section 188 of Indian penal code, officials said. Both have disobeyed the commission orders by seeking votes when it is banned. Now, the Election Commission will punish both, Kumar said.

Noida is among 73 assembly constituencies that are going to polls on February 11, in the first phase of elections in Uttar Pradesh. Winning the Noida seat has been made an absolute priority by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that is fielding Pankaj Singh, son of home minister Rajnath, from the constituency.

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Sixty-six-year-old Ajit Rani, a resident of Sector 19, could not vote as she could not find her name in the electoral list at Marigold Public School. Scores of voters across the city complained that their names were missing from the electoral roll, despite other members of their family being listed.

Ranis husband, Naresh Kumar, managed to vote as he had his voter slip. Kumar advised his wife to drop the idea and return home, but Rani was adamant and wanted to cast her vote.

When she asked the booth level officer (BLO) to check the records thoroughly, she was directed to another booth, at the Sector 19 city magistrate office, and asked to contact BLO Prerna.

However, her name was missing from the voter list. I want to cast my vote. Every vote matters. We were motivated to cast our vote, but despite all my efforts, I am unable to do so due to a lapse on the part of the administration, Rani said.

After being told that there was no recourse, she returned home dejected.

BLO Prerna said,Several families are complaining about the deletion of the names of some of their family members. We do not know how some names got deleted. We have not deleted these names.

Similarly, Nikita Malhotra and Rekha Chaurasia of Sector 19 could not cast their votes as their names were missing, though other voters from their families cast their votes.

Amit Kumar Singh, the returning officer for the Noida constituency, said,Voters should have checked that their names are in the electoral rolls before. Now, only those whose names are in electoral rolls can cast their vote.

Similar complaints were reported from across the city. Over 25 voters at the Army Public School polling centre in Sector 37 said their names were missing.

AK Gautam, of Sector 37, said, Some of them were senior citizens. We held a protest at the polling centre. The officials present made us speak to the sub-divisional magistrate. However, he too expressed his inability to help us and advised us to register our complaint with the Election Commission of India.

Some voters at Gandhi Smarak School in Sector 22 gheraoed the sector magistrate as their names were missing from the voter list.

Some families said that their names were divided between the voter list in sectors 119 and 120. Some had to cast their vote at Parthala Khanjarpur and others at Garhi Chokhandi, which are nearly one kilometre apart.

Election observer for Noida, Sanjeev Khirwar, said there was no recourse available to such voters now. Last year, from September to November and this year in mid-January, the district administration had issued the revised electoral rolls and the voters were given time to check their names, he said.

The anomalies of polling stations being away from the voters home and members of the same family having to vote at different polling centres can be rectified in future, Khirwar said.
Urban voters faced inconveniences in reaching polling booths on Saturday as many booths in Noida were located in nearby villages. Voters complained that roads leading to several of these booths were narrow and difficult to access. Voters said the polling percentage would have been higher if the booths had been in urban areas.

Our booth for six apartment complexes in sectors 119 and 120 is located in Parthla Khanjarpur village. Women voters did not want to go to that booth because of safety and other issues. The administration or election commission should shift our booth to an urban area for better turnout in future polls and also for our convenience, Atul Thakur of Prateek Laurel apartment complex in Sector 120 said.

Voters in Sector 37 were annoyed that their booth was shifted from Army Public School in Sector 37 to village Chhalera. Many retired army officers living in sectors 28 and 29 also had to cast their votes in Chhalera village.

Village Chhalera is located far from sectors 28, 29, 30 and 37. A retired army officer or any elderly cannot easily go to cast their vote in the village. It (the booth) should be changed in future as many could not vote today (Saturday), MS Saxena, a retired army officer, said.

Similarly, residents of sectors 72 and 73 were to cast their vote at a polling booth in Sarfabad village but only a few urban voters went there. For voters from sectors 50 and 51, an urban area, the polling booth was in Morna village. For Sector 76 residents, a hub of newly built apartment complexes, the booth was in Sorkha village.

One booth of Noidas Bahlolpur village was located in Greater Noidas Bisrakh village on the other side of Hindon.

We changed the booth of Bahlolpur from Greater Noida to Noida for the convenience of voters. But, we cannot change a booth once election is announced. If voters in any particular area want to change a booth, they should fill form 8A. Before announcement of election, the election commission changes a booth, Amit Kumar sub-divisional magistrate cum returning officer for Noida said.

Before changing a booth, the commission takes a meeting with all parties. Since its a long procedure, voters should complete the procedure well ahead of polling, Kumar said.

The election commission also received dozens of complaints from people who did not find their names in electoral rolls.

I had voted in 2014 parliament elections. But now, my name is missing from the list, Sudha Verma of Sector 30 said.

We had given many opportunities to public for checking their names in the electoral list but many did not spare time then. Now, we cannot do anything on the issue of deletion of names. A name is deleted by following a procedure, including a notice to the respective voter, Vinay Pandey, assistance returning officer of Noida, said.

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Seven years since violence erupted in Bhatta and Parsaul over land acquisition by the state government, an eerie calm prevailed on the polling day. The presence of Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB) armed forces equipped with machine guns added to the graveness of the affair.

However, villagers claim that they have decided to move forward despite their unhealed wounds. Bhatta and Parsaul fall under the Jewar constituency.

CK Sharma, static magistrate, Parsaul village, said, All EC guidelines are being followed. We are trying our best to ensure that elections are held in free and fair manner and there is no sense of fear or intimidation among the voters.

In 2010, four persons, including two policemen, were killed in sporadic violence that emerged after the Mayawati-led government attempted to acquire land of the villagers to set up planned sectors. While few villagers refused to sell their land, many of them were unhappy over the compensation received from the state government.

Though the official records state that four were killed and scores injured, villagers have claimed that the death toll is much higher, around 20.

It has been seven years and since, the villagers have welcomed peace and no incidents of violence have taken place. Yet, the scars still remain and the agitations will still prove to be a decider in the polls, Sudhir Kumar, a resident of Bhatta, said.

The Bhatta-Parsaul agitation has majorly influenced the political scenario in Jewar. Thakur Dhirendra Singh, an erstwhile Congress leader, emerged as a farmer-activist from the agitation, challenging the hegemony of Bahujan Samaj Party candidate, Ved Ram Bhati. Though Singh lost the 2012 legislative polls to Bhati, his loss margin was 9,000 votes. Singh had finished second, and the farmers had put him on a pedestal.

Thakur sahib fought for the rights of the farmers when everyone called us arsonists and terrorists. He made us realise that its not that easy for the government to steal our land. I did not give an inch of my 15 bighas because he stayed with me till the end, Chandrapal Singh, a retired primary school teacher in Bhatta, said.

The Bhatta-Parsaul incident gained national attention when Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi ate a meal at Chandrapals house with Dhirendra Singh. This time, the village is in total support of Thakur sahab. He enjoys the support of the Muslim community as well, Karan, of Parsaul, said.

However, some said that the tides have turned for Singh since he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party a month ago after a 30-year stint with the Congress. Many villagers accused him of capitalising on the agitation to become a politician.

He got what we wanted out of the famer agitation. Today, both Congress and BJP need him and he needs them as well. What he doesnt need are the farmers for whom he agitated to become famous. We will vote for BSP, a farmer from Parsaul said.

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The debate over good terrorist and bad terrorist reignited again when China blocked a move by the US, UK and France this month to designate Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of the banned Pakistani terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) as global terrorist under the UNSC 1267 resolution on Al Qaida and its affiliates.

It becomes amply evident from this that China now believes that it has the muscle to stand up alone to the West when it comes to its core interests like Pakistan, South China Sea or South Tibet. It is another matter that it is rather rich to come out in support of known pan-Islamic jihadist Masood Azhar, while Bejing branded Tibetan leader in exile Dalai Lama as a terrorist for allegedly siding with Xinjiang jihadists in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics.

Rabidly anti-Indian, Azhar single-handedly destroyed the Indo-Pakistan rapprochement by instigating the January 2, 2016 Pathankot airbase attack through Jaish jihadists. The note left by the Pathankot attackers that the attack was given a green signal on December 25, 2015 - the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an impromptu landing in Lahore while en-route to Delhi from Kabul to meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

Following his release in a hostage swap at Kandahar during IC-814 hijack on December 31, 1999 after five years in an Indian jail, Masood Azhar with his blood brothers Athar Ibrahim and Rauf Asgar has time and again put India to jihadist sword - from December 13, 2001 Parliament attack to November 29, 2016 attack at Nagrota. Despite being the main accused in the Pathankot attack and with confirmation on the Jaish involvement from the Pakistani National Security Advisor Naseer Janjua, Beijing has been steadfast in its support for the Bhawalpur cleric turned jihadist. While India understands that China wants to limit its influence only to South Asia, the silence of Russia over Masood Azhar is most intriguing and matter of serious concern to New Delhi, and perhaps a signal of changing alignments and definitions.

In the last week of January, Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval went to Moscow to meet his counterpart Nikolai Patrushev in a mission mode to repair the bilateral relationship and expand it beyond military ties. A close aide of President Vladimir Putin, Patrushev invited India to the Afghanistan conference later this month while confirming participation of China, Pakistan and Iran. There was no word on participation by the US, which has been in Kabul since 2001, and Afghanistan itself. Given that India has invested in stabilization of Afghanistan for the past 15 years, it was conveyed to Moscow that participation of the mother country was important if India were to come on the table. On February 7, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Afghanistan would be one of the participants. However, the congregation of old enemies turned friends over Afghanistan is significant as is the revival of the old good terrorist theory with at least Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan joining hands to engage Taliban in the dialogue for stability in Kabul. The larger argument being that the Taliban should be engaged to keep the growing influence out of Islamic State in so-called Wilayat Khorasan (Afghanistan-Pakistan) in the future. This means that Taliban which ruled Afghanistan with iron hand in 1990s and was responsible for the death of thousands should be brought on the same table as the Ashraf Ghani government to push IS out of South Asia as the latter would destabilize not only Pakistan but already restive Xinjiang province through the famous Wakhan corridor. Rehabilitation of Taliban and protection of Masood Azhar by China takes care of Islamabads interests as both are based and prospering in Pakistan. The formation of new Iran-Pakistan-Russia and China axis which is based both on strategic and economic interests, is a matter of serious concern to India. The Modi government cannot live in denial by harping on erstwhile Soviet Union ties to deal with Russia and needs to expand its relationship to a multi-faceted level on an equal basis.

Sino-Indian ties show no signs of improvement barring the huge drop in incursions by the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) along the 3,488 kilometer Line of Actual Control (LAC) as the latter makes serious inroads into South Asia due to its far better project implementation strategy. The Chinese blocking of Indias entry into NSG and stopping Azhar from being designated as a terrorist are all for Pakistan, which on its part is allowing Beijing to reach mouth of Persian Gulf through the $46 billion economic corridor from Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar port in Balochistan. Pakistan continues to play the jihadist card in Kashmir or in Indian hinterland deep freezing the ties, while relationship with Tehran is currently shrouded with suspicion and uncertainty.

Under the circumstances, India needs to revive its engagement with South-East Asian countries through shared Muslim heritage and the West Asian powers including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Israel as these countries are no longer interested in colour of the passports of the engaging country. With Saudi King Salman scheduled to visit India this year and PM Modi travelling to Israel in the last week of June, India should also go for permanent interests rather than permanent allies.

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The squabble for chief ministership of Tamil Nadu in the post-Jayalalithaa phase of Dravidian politics has pushed the fifth most industrialised state of the country towards the brink of political instability. Without a CM in office the state faces a constitutional crisis on how to decide who the new person would be. The Election Commission of India has reportedly highlighted the impropriety in the election of Sasikala, as an interim AIADMK general secretary, because such a position does not exist in the partys organisational structure.

The Tamil people nurture their cultural nationalism and neither voted for the Congress in the post-Kamaraj phase since 1967 nor did more recently allow the BJP to gain a toe hold in the state. Charismatic leadership and cult following characterises Tamil Nadu politics which has partially deteriorated to dynastic politics. Otherwise the legendary Madhavan Ganeshan Ramachandrans (MGR) wife Janaki lasted only 28 days as CM, but his soul partner Jayalalithaa was a six-term chief minister. Now the late Jayalalithaas niece Deepa Jayakumar has yet to inherit her paternal aunts political office. The absence of a clear line of succession is another feature of Dravidian politics over the last 50 years.

Read: AIADMK crisis: Setback for Sasikala as education minister Pandiarajan, 2 MPs join Panneerselvam camp

The late Jayalalithaa nominally appointed O Paneerselvam (OPS) in her absence to manage the government and administration -- but not the AIADMK. He could never inherit her charisma nor possess her mass appeal that largely evolved through her proximity to MGR. The nonagenarian DMK stalwart M Karunanidhi has appointed his son Stalin working president of the DMK which is not the same as a cult leader. Only Karunanidhi stakes claim to be the DMKs cult leader. Similarly, Bal Thackeray was a cult leader who left the nuts and bolts of administration and party management to his nephew and son Raj and Udhav Thackeray respectively. While Mahatma Gandhi appointed Vinobha Bhave his successor, the latter could never acquire the power of the Mahatmas personality.

Read: Panneerselvam vs Sasikala: 10 points about Tamil Nadus power struggle

In the post-Jayalalithaa phase, OPS enjoys maximum credibility to be CM considering the late Jayalalithaa actually appointed him CM when she was disqualified after the Supreme Court debarred her from holding office in 2001 and subsequently by the Karnataka court in 2014. Even in the aftermath of Cyclone Vardah in December 2016 and the recent Jallikattu protests, his government largely handled the situation effectively. Sections of the media even reported that OPS had significantly earned the respect of the Tamil people for the manner in which he handled the Jallikatu issue.

Read: Sasikalas MLAs: Locked up in luxury, without their freedom

Clearly the fissures within the AIADMK are evident from the fact that a section of MLAs and ministers demanded that Sasikala be made the CM despite OPS doing a good job. This could be attributed to the power dynamics within the AIADMK wherein the proportion of MLAs to ministers suggests that the Thevars, who are dominant in central and southern Tamil Nadu, were given more prominence than the Gounders with a strong presence in western Tamil Nadu. While nine Thevars hold ministerial berths from 20 MLAs, whereas only five Gounders held ministerial positions with 28 MLAs from their community. This was actually cited as a reason why some of the senior Gounder leaders lately raised voices of dissent against OPSs chief ministership.

Whether Sasikala can become the next CM of Tamil Nadu or not revolves largely around the Tamil peoples acceptance of her leadership rather than legal and constitutional considerations. While most MLAs support Sasikalas candidature for chief ministership, whether the grassroot AIADMK workers show the same affection and loyalty towards her is debatable.

Besides, the fledgling entry of Jayalaithaas niece, Deepa Jayaram into the political fray with some level of support from party members only indicates that Sasikala does not necessarily enjoy overwhelming support from all quarters.

OPS staged a dramatic revolt only after he was sure that there was public resentment against Sasikala. He questioned his sacking on moral grounds and how MLAs and ministers could ask Sasikala to replace him as CM. Even during the Jallikattu protest deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha Thambidurai, an MP from the AIADMK, an earlier CM aspirant, had led a contingent of MPs to meet Modi, but could not do so because OPS preempted him.

Read: SWOT analysis: Panneerselvam has the strength to defeat Sasikala, but his weaknesses are many

Evidently the absence of inner party democracy is another feature of Dravidian politics. Dissent within the party surfaced when some MLAs and Ministers asked Sasikala to head the party, but it was silenced swiftly. Another commonality was that legendary Tamil leaders like Annadurai, MGR and Jayalalitha had no heirs, which compounds the complexity to succession in leadership.

Clearly Tamil leaders lack a strategic vision beyond their life time and have never identified a second line of leadership to succeed them. This has proved to be a consistent problem in Tamil politics, which has only contributed to political instability which in turn affects the investment climate and in the long term the economic growth.

Rajesh Aruchamy is an assistant professor with the department of media studies, Christ University, Bangalore
Inspector general (CID-weaker section), Bihar, Anil Kishore Yadav has ordered arrest of Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) principal for allegedly assaulting a junior doctor here on November 16 last year.

Patna police, which initially investigated the case after the victim filed a complaint, had found no ground to act against the principal of the premier government-owned medical college.

Yadavs letter to central range deputy inspector general Shalin and Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manu Mahaaraj late Friday evening held the PMCH principal guilty of provoking the incident and ordered his arrest.

The case pertains to a scuffle between principal Surendra Nath Sinha and PMCH junior doctor Alok Kumar. The trouble began when Sinha saw Kumar riding a motorcycle in the no vehicle zone of the campus. Eyewitnesses said the verbal spat between them turned ugly and Sinha slapped Kumar.

A third year post graduate student of anaesthesia department, Kumar later petitioned the Bihar Human Rights Commission (BHRC) seeking action against Sinha.

In his petition, Kumar alleged that Sinha took the helmet off his head and passed casteist remarks.

He (Sinha) grabbed me by my neck and slapped me causing grievous injury to my eardrum. The security guards accompanying Sinha also beat me up with batons, Kumar said in his complaint.

Kumar also lodged another complaint to the Patna SSP, accusing the investigating officer of diluting the case against Sinha by invoking minor sections in the FIR. The case should have been registered for attempt to murder and under sections of the SC/ST atrocities Act, he said.

Yadav, who reviewed the cases lodged by Sinha and Kumar with Pirbahore police station in the state capital, observed that the principals complaint was promptly dealt with by police, while the one lodged by the junior doctor was dismissed with vague comments.

He also took serious view of central range DIG, Shalins comment that he agreed with the findings of the Patna SSP and the city SP.

Earlier on December 26, 2016, Yadav had directed the DIG to review both cases following instructions of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and informed the weaker section. The DIG sent the progress report on February 2, that too following a reminder.

The IG (CID-weaker section) wondered why supervisory authorities and the IO did not contact independent witnesses and pursue video evidence in their investigation. In the video footage, Kumar neither misbehaves with Sinha, nor threatens him, but punches the principal only in self-defence, Yadav said in his order.

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The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT), Chandigarh, has directed New India Insurance Assurance Company Limited to pay Rs 1.05 crore to two women and a child, all sisters and residents of the city, as compensation for the death of their parents in a July 2015 private bus accident at Rampur (near Shimla) in Himachal Pradesh.

The company was the insurer of the bus and the amount is to be paid with 6% to the children of Prem Raj Kapoor (49) and his wife Himeshwari Devi (44).

Even as the driver had been warned to drive carefully by passengers that day (July 10, 2015) he did not pay heed, and the rash driving meant that the bus went into a deep ditch, killing the couple.

Kapoor and Devi belonged to Mandi, Himachal Pradesh.

Prem Kapoor worked as a technician in SJVNL Hydro Project Jhakhri, Shimla, and was earning Rs 45,000 per month.

He also had an agricultural income of Rs 1.5 lakh per annum. Himeshwari Devi worked as a tailor and earned Rs 15,000 per month.

The police registered a case under Sections 279 (driving or riding on public way), 337 (causing hurt by act endangering personal safety of others) and 304-A (causing death by negligence) of the Indian Penal Code against the driver.

It is not clear if any others passengers were killed that day and of their kin filed the case.

The daughters  Chetna Kapoor (21), Deepika Kapoor (19) and Nitika Kapoor (8)  claimed Rs 80 lakh as compensation for the death of their father and Rs 25 lakh for the death of their mother.

The plea was that they were totally dependent upon the earnings of the deceased.

The compensation will be divided equally among the three sisters.

In its defence, the insurance company had pleaded that the present petition was not maintainable because the alleged accident had not taken place due to rash and negligent driving by the driver of bus.

It also emerged that the driver did not have a valid driving licence at the time of the accident.

The insurance company was given right to recover the same from the owner, Anjali Mishra, who had handed her bus for driving to an unskilled individual not having a valid licence.

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Consume more power and pay less. Thats the mantra set to be at the core of Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC)s 2017-18 industry-friendly power-tariff regime that will be announced after the formation of the new state government.

The PSERC on Saturday indicated that to achieve twin objectives of overcoming Punjabs power surplus problem and to accelerate industrial expansion, the consumers using more power should be rewarded by charging less.

Those who consume more should pay less. The consumer is the king. I favour this policy as it will nudge industrialists to expand their operations, which in turn will lead to more employment and consumption of more power, DS Bains, PSERC chairperson, said in a news conference.

He said as the state is power surplus and to boost power consumption, the tariff should be inversely proportionate to the consumption.

In another first, the power regulator will also determine two years indicative tariff for 2018-19 and 2019-20 while announcing electricity consumption charges of 2017-18 in March-April and after the new government is formed.

A former Punjab-cadre IAS officer, Bains said the objective behind determining two years indicative tariff in advance is to help the industry plan its future expansions.

I am in favour of announcing tariff for one year and indicative tariff for next two years in advance, Bains, who was appointed the PSERC chairman post retirement by deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.

Also, the PSERC will start issuing two-part tariff in each bill for the industry from the next fiscal. The two-part tariff will have fixed amount as per the allotted power load and the second part of the bill will pertain to the power consumption charges.

Reducing cross subsidy

While the industry, including 8,000 spinning mills, consumes around 30% power, another third is consumed by the agriculture sector free of cost while the remaining third goes to domestic power consumers. Last year, the power subsidy bill of the farm sector was 6,463 crore, which is going to rise with Punjab having about 13.5 lakh tubewell connections meant for irrigation. Punjab has 72 lakh power consumers in different categories.

Responding to a question, Bains said free power to farmers was the prerogative of the government, as per the Indian Electricity Act, which the regulator has to honour.

He, however, said people were against the cross subsidy and wanted to curtail this practice. During public hearings, consumers of various categories stated that cross subsidy should be reduced to give a fillip to industries requiring large power supply, which will help in employment generation. We have already reduced the cross subsidy levels, he said.

Cross subsidy is the practice of charging higher prices to one group of consumers to subsidise lower prices for another group.

The Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) has filled tariff petition for multi- year tariff too. The commission will determine annual revenue requirement of the PSPCL and Punjab State Transmission Corporation Limited (PSTCL) for three years, said Bains.
Close on the heels of a shootout at Malerkotla in Sangrur in which a man lost his life on Wednesday, two wanted gangsters and three of their accomplices were arrested by Punjab polices special task force, assisted by local cops, after heavy exchange of fire at Makhu, a rural town in Ferozepur district, on Saturday morning.

Those arrested are Boota Khan alias Bagga, Gahia Khan, Aman, Vishal and Stephen, informed STF officials at a press conference in Amritsar later in the day. Gahia received a bullet injury in his leg and was admitted to a hospital.

For residents of Makhu, the weekend sleep was broken by the noise of firing of bullets as the gunfight near the local police station started around 6.45 am. Gahia and Bagga had taken a room on rent to use as shelter, sources said, after heightening of police operations to nab them. With many of their patrons in jail, the gang was dormant, and Aman, who works for a telecommunication company at Faridkot, facilitated the accommodation in a building owned by a former municipal councillor, officials told HT.

On a tip-off, the area was cordoned off before sunrise by the STF and a team led by superintendent of police (SP) Dharamvir Singh and deputy SP Wariyam Singh. At first light, the cops asked them to surrender, but the gangsters reportedly opened fire, and the police retaliated. Locals said the gunfight went on for around 10 minutes without pause. Outnumbered, the five men were arrested.

A .315-bore pistol and two .32-bore pistols, and more than three dozen cartridges, were seized from them, said Gaurav Garg, senior superintendent of police, Ferozepur. A case of attempt to murder and other sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act was registered.

At the Amritsar press conference, STF inspector general Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh said, This gang belongs to Malerkotla. On February 8, Gahia and Bagga, along with others, fired at a man named Kallimuddin in Malerkotla and injured him. The IG also said that Bagga Khan was involved in the Tarn Taran gangwar that took place in August last year.

The STF had received information that the gang had taken shelter somewhere in Harike or Makhu area. When it was found that they were in Makhu, a police team from Ferozepur was asked to join the STF, the IG said.

(HTC inputs from Amritsar)
Rana Daggubati hopes that The Ghazi Attack, said to be the first-ever Indian film to be based on underwater war, will pave way to more such movies in the future.

According to Rana, The Ghazi Attack, which is Indias first underwater war-at-sea film, will push other filmmakers to explore this genre.

When Baahubali happened, there was never a war film made in decades. Then we had two films that came, in one film Rudramadevi I did a cameo, and other was Gautamiputra Satakarni. Its important that somebody breaks that ice and its important to break it correctly, said Rana.

The actor worked very hard to put everything aesthetically correct in The Ghazi Attack.

With this film we knew its the first underwater war film we were making. We had to make it aesthetically correct as we did not have a reference point, he said.

Not many are aware about the underwater tale of courage and patriotism of the men aboard Indian Submarine S-21 who destroyed the Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi when it ventured into Indian waters to destroy the INS Vikrant.

We consulted so many Navy people before we started shooting. Its the film that glorifies the Navy, giving them the due credit. Its a big incident that has happened in 1971 before the war, the Telugu star said.

Its the first Naval submarine-based film in this country, the West has made so many films like that. We have the fourth largest Navy in the world and we dont have a film on the Navy which is quite surprising. We were happy to make one, he said.

Another challenge for the Dum Maro Dum actor was to get the VFX and CG (computer graphics) correct in the film so that the underwater action sequences look real.

As nobody had done submarine water texturing before in India, it took time for us to work on it. Finally we have got a decent product (referring to film). Many people who have seen the film are happy and they did not expect this kind of visual effects, he said.

The Ghazi Attack is said to be Indias first Naval war-at-sea film.

The film is up for release on February 17 and the makers launched the trailer on January 11. The Baahubali actor took time to release the first look of The Gazi Attack as he wanted everything to be in place.

We were sure we did not want the look of the film to come out till the time we were confident and ready. We finished the film in mid-March (last year), by the time I saw the copy it was January. So it took a long time to get everything correctly, he said.

Also featuring Taapsee Pannu, Kay Kay Menon and Atul Kulkarni in the lead, the film has been made simultaneously in Hindi and Telugu and will be dubbed in Tamil.

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Its not just humans, even Earth expresses its love, sometime too explicitly. From Europe to the Pacific, there are thousands of ideal places to confess your love but theres only a handful of destinations where the landscape provides a natural setting for raising matters of the heart.

The Heart of Voh, New Caledonia

The Heart of Voh in New Caledonia. (Istock)

The natural heart shape which is visible in a mangrove swamp in the North Province of New Caledonia was made famous by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand when he used it on the cover of one of his books. Travellers who want to take their own pictures can climb 400 meters to a vantage point on nearby Mount Kathepaik.

But for the best view of the Heart, take a ride in one of the ultra-light aircraft that regularly fly over the spot. The excursion is not cheap, but the pilots are cooperative, and willing to open their aircraft doors to allow you to take the perfect picture.

Heart-shaped rock near Nakalele blowhole, Hawaii

Nakalele Blowhole heart in Hawaii. (Istock)

It seems hard to believe that such a perfect representation of tenderness is the work of nature without help from humankind. These days the heart-shaped rock on Maui, Hawaii, has become a major attraction for tourists who come to the area to see the Nakalele Blowhole, a spectacular natural geyser that shoots seawater up to 100 feet into the air.

Heart Reef in Queensland, Australia

Heart Reef in Queensland, Australia. (Istock)

Travellers who visit the Whitsunday Islands on snorkeling trips usually take time for an aerial tour of the Great Barrier Reef which offers an opportunity to take pictures of the areas famous coral heart.

Flights take off from the airport on Hamilton Island, which is also the starting point for ferry or light aircraft trips to Airlie Beach, and the rest of the islands. Flights over the reef also offer the perfect vantage point to appreciate the splendour of one of the worlds most beautiful beaches, Whitehaven Beach.

Antelope Canyon, United States

Sunlight shines through the heart of Arizona in Antelope Canyon. (Istock)

Trekkers in Arizona rarely pass up the opportunity for a visit to the Navajo Nation reserve, which is home to the major vacation destination Lake Powell. The Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons carved out by torrential rains that have potential to drown travellers to this area offer an experience of the heart of the American West.

In Lower Antelope Canyon observant visitors will be greeted with the vista of the sunlight shining through a perfectly heart-shaped aperture in the sandstone rock.

Corfu, Greece

A heart-shaped lagoon in Corfu. (Istock)

To find your place in yet another natural heart, head to the Greek island of Corfu in the Ionian Sea. On the western side of the island intrepid travellers may be rewarded with a view of this heart-shaped lagoon, which is not easily seen from the ground. Only the lucky few who have a chance to fly over this destination can be certain of a perfect vantage point from which to observe this symbol of love.

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A 41-year-old man, Devinder Singh alias Michael, belonging to Makauri Kalan near Rupnagar, was shot dead by an unidentified person in Valenzuela town of Philippines on February 3, said his family who held his cremation here on Friday.

Devinders maternal uncle Bhupinder Singh,who also resides in Valenzuela, said that Devinder had gone to Saudi Arab in 1990, and after some years he (Bhupinder) had called him to Valenzuela ,where Devinder married a local woman, Elena, and changed his name to Michael Singh. He was living in his own house along with his family.

Bhupinder said on February 3, around 9 am, Devinder was coming down the stairs from the terrace of his house along with his wife and niece, when an unidentified man who came there on a motorcycle shot at them from a pistol. Devinder was killed while his niece suffered injuries.

He said the Valenzuela police had started investigation. The body was brought here on Thursday night.
At least 60 Taliban insurgents have been killed in a series of air strikes in southern Afghanistans Helmand province.

The insurgents were planning to launch a major attack on Sanging district.

The provincial government officials, including the provincial governor, deputy provincial intelligence chief, and the commander of 215th Corps of the Afghan Army briefed the media about the latest development during a press conference in Helmand on Saturday.

Khaama Press quoted the officials, as saying that hundreds of fighters were called from the other provinces and districts by the Taliban after one their largest attack on Sangin was repulsed nearly two weeks ago.

According to the officials, the security forces was keeping a watch on the Taliban insurgents and thwarted their offensive on Sangin by killing nearly 60 of them.

So far, there has been no comment by the anti-government armed militant groups about the report.
China has expelled 32 South Korean Christian missionaries, a Korean government official said on Saturday, amid diplomatic tension between the two countries over the planned deployment of a US missile defence system in the South.

The 32 were based in Chinas northeastern Yanji region near the border with North Korea, many of whom had worked there more than a decade, South Korean media have reported.

South Koreas foreign ministry said on Friday it briefed Christian groups on the case of the missionaries, adding that they were expelled in January.

The ministry advised the groups on the importance of complying with the laws and customs of the areas where they work, it said.

In South Korea, China is widely believed to be retaliating against Seouls plan to host the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system of the U.S. military, against the threat of the missile attack from North Korea.

But there was no indication of a direct link between the expulsions and tension over THAAD, said the South Korean government official, who requested anonymity.

There was no official explanation from China, he said. There is no confirmation that it is related to THAAD.

Chinas Communist Party says it protects freedom of religion, but keeps a tight rein on religious activities and allows only officially recognised religious institutions.

The number of Korean missionaries working in China might top 1,000, South Korean media say. Most are in the northeast, and many help defectors flee North Korea and travel to third countries, including the South.

THAADs radar is capable of penetrating Chinese territory. Beijing has objected to the planned deployment, saying it will destabilise the regional balance of security, threaten Chinas security and do nothing to ease tension on the Korean peninsula.

Many South Koreans believe Beijing is retaliating against THAAD, with measures against some companies and cancellations of performances by Korean artists.

On Wednesday, South Koreas Lotte Group said Chinese authorities had halted construction at a multi-billion dollar real estate project after a fire inspection.
China has changed quite a bit in 54 years. In between, there was the Cultural Revolution, the economic revolution and a revolution in how people communicate.

For Chinese Peoples Liberation Army surveyor Wang Qi, the five decades also meant the inevitable greying of years and hair. Maybe memories too.

He was 23 when he strayed across the inhospitable and mostly disputed border between India and China, two countries that had once gone to war over it.

On Saturday, at 77, Wang returned home. Along with family: Vishnu Wang, daughter Anita Wankhede, daughter-in-law Neha Wang and grandson Khanak Wang.

Read | Chinese soldier trapped in India despite relentless efforts: Foreign ministry

Online China erupted over Wangs return.

Left home young and return old, the accent has not been changed but the hair has been gray. Welcome the veteran back home, and welcome him to watch the Yellow river and have a bowl of noodles, said one user.

India got both bricks and bouquet.

He is a surveying and mapping soldier. Its humanitarian for Indian that do not kill him at once. Its also reasonable that do not allow him to come back. Now after decades, they finally let him back, said one user.

In 1963, Wang, a Chinese army surveyor, got lost, crossed the border and was captured by Indian authorities. He was moved from one jail to another for nearly seven years when he was finally released in 1969, police escorted him to the remote village of Tirodi in Madhya Pradesh and told him to start a life there. He married a local woman, and they had three children and grandchildren, state-run China Daily said in a widely followed report.

Last week, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Lu Kang subtly indicated that Indian diplomacy and bureaucracy held up Wangs return.

Read | Five decades and counting: A Chinese POW in MP still waits for permit to go home

In recent years, Chinese embassy to India had kept in close touch with Wang Qi and made relentless effort to help him return to China including pushing Indian side on exit and entry procedures for him, Lu said.

In 2013, the Embassy issued a 10-year Chinese passport to him and provided living allowance for him every year since then. I believe that with the joint efforts of China and India, and respecting the will of Wang Qi himself, the case will be properly solved, he said.

The China Daily report said that on February 4, Luo Zhaohui, Chinas ambassador to India, spoke by telephone with Wang and expressed sympathy over his suffering over the years.

Yan Xiaoce, a counselor at the Chinese embassy in India, visited Wangs village on the same day, the report said.

Liu Shurong, another Chinese veteran, underwent the same plight as Wang and lives in the same village. But Liu said he had no intention to return to China because he no longer has family there, the embassy told China Daily.

Wang is eager to taste noodles, a local specialty in Shaanxi, after arriving home. Yes, the bowl of noodles is warm and waiting.

Read | MEA checking details of Chinese soldier who crossed over in 1963
Iran has again allowed Russian planes to use its airspace during recent operations in Syria, a senior Iranian security official was quoted as saying on Saturday.

In August, Russian aircraft for the first time used an Iranian airbase to conduct strikes in Syria. The Russian military said its fighters had completed their tasks, but left open the possibility of using the Hamadan base again if circumstances warranted.

Irans foreign ministry said then that Russia had stopped using the base for strikes in Syria, bringing an abrupt halt to the deployment that was criticised both by the United States and some Iranian lawmakers.

Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Irans National Security Council, on Saturday told the semi-official news agency Fars: Their (Russians) use of Irans air space has continued because we have a fully strategic cooperation with Russia.

He added, In the recent cases, Russian fighter planes have only used Irans airspace and have not had refueling operations.

The agency said Shamkhani was commenting on media reports that Russias Tupolev-22M long-range bombers had used Iranian airspace and a base in the country on their missions in Syria, where both Tehran and Moscow back President Bashar al-Assads government.

It was not immediately clear if the recent missions were linked to Russian air strikes on Thursday that accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers during an operation against Islamic State in Syria, according to the Turkish military.
Iranian security forces have arrested eight hardline Sunni Islamists suspected of planning attacks to disrupt celebrations for Irans Islamic revolution in the past week, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said on Saturday.

Alavi said the eight were Takfiri foreigners, some of whom were linked to a Takfiri leader who had been killed in Iran, IRNA reported. He did not give details of which countries they were from.

Takfiri is a word used by predominantly Shiite Muslim Iran to refer to hardline, armed, Sunni Islamist groups.

Initial information indicates that Kalashnikovs and other equipment were obtained to carry out terrorist operations ... in Tehran and several other cities under the direct guidance of persons based in neighbouring countries, Alavi was quoted by the state news agency IRNA as saying.

In August, Alavi said the leader of a Sunni militant group in southeast Iran responsible for attacks against security forces and civilian targets has been killed, although it was not immediately clear if he was person he suspected those arrested of being linked to.

Although Alavi did not identify which country Iran suspected of guiding the suspects, Iranian officials often accuse regional rival Saudi Arabia of backing ultrahardline Sunni militant group Islamic State.

Riyadh denies the charges and says Tehran destabilises the region and sponsors terrorism, an accusation rejected by Iran.

On Friday, Irans prosecutor-general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said security forces had smashed a cell linked to Islamic State near Tehran that wanted to sabotage rallies on Friday marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah.

Iranian security forces have repeatedly announced arrests of Islamic State fighters and sympathisers.
Pete Souzas term as the chief photographer at White House may have come to an end with Barack Obamas tenure, but it seems Souza has a few thoughts on how presidents should behave.

Souza has taken to his Instagram account to post behind-the-scenes photos taken through Obamas presidency, offering a subtle commentary on US president Donald Trumps actions. In just two weeks, his personal account has garnered over 800,000 followers.

In one of Souzas pictures, Obama is seen laughing with a young school girl who wears a head scarf. This was posted after Trump signed an executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

Talking with a young refugee at a Dignity for Children Foundation classroom in 2015. A photo posted by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Jan 29, 2017 at 5:16am PST

Instagrammers didnt miss the hidden meaning behind his posts, Pete we know what u doing, and we love it! ?? commented user arlene_berlian.

Another powerful picture shows just the legs of four people. While one wears mens shoes  ostensibly Barack Obama  the other three are dressed in long skirts and heels. This was posted after a photo of Trump signing an executive order on abortion, surrounded by an all-male group of advisers, went viral.

A photo posted by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Feb 6, 2017 at 9:29am PST

The post reads Meeting with top advisors. This is a full-frame picture. I guess youd say I was trying to make a point.

Throughout the course of his presidency, Barack Obama made a concerted effort to increase the number of women in top roles in the White House. Trumps cabinet so far, is more white and male than any first cabinet since Reagans, reported The New York Times.

Most photos on Souzas Instagram suggest that he has turned his account into a politically subversive piece of art.

A few days after Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto cancelled his meeting with Trump, after the latter tweeted that Mexico should pay for the wall, Souza posted a photo of Obama chatting with Nieto over glasses of tequila.

A photo posted by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Jan 31, 2017 at 6:18pm PST

If some of Souzas photos are guaranteed to remind people of a better time in the past  hopeful faces at Obamas inauguration, the President chatting amicably with the Australian prime minister  others make you think of what might have been.

Talking with then Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand, left, and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia last September at the ASEAN gala dinner. A photo posted by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Feb 2, 2017 at 2:21pm PST

After Trump nominated conservative judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, overlooking Obamas more liberal pick, Merrick Garland, Souza posted an image of Obama and Garland talking in the Oval Office.

Merrick Garland. Just saying. A photo posted by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Jan 31, 2017 at 5:28pm PST

Another image shows Obama with the family of six-year-old Alex who wrote to the President after looking at the heart-breaking photo of Omran Daqneesh, the five-year-old Syrian boy photographed in an ambulance. The caption reproduces Alexs letter to the President in full, in stark contrast to Trumps views on refugees.

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The Philippine police have sacked nearly 100 policemen since the start of the year because they were found to be drug users, a top official said on Saturday, in a clean-up of the ranks after President Rodrigo Duterte halted police anti-drug operations.

More than 7,700 people have been killed since Duterte unleashed his bloody war on drugs seven months ago, about 2,500 in police operations, while the rest are being investigated.

Duterte had been unwavering in defending the police in the face of international outrage over the toll, but his faith was shaken by the killing of a South Korean businessman late last year by rogue officers.

Ninety police officers have been fired since the start of the year and nine were removed last year, Internal Affairs Service inspector general Alfegar Triambulo said in comments broadcast on ANC TV.

Those caught using illegal drugs, according to the civil service rules, must be dismissed...that is a grave offence, he said, adding he had promised the chief of police that he would quickly resolve outstanding cases.

Triambulo said he would recommend next week the dismissal of 40 more policemen to the chief of police.

Last month, Duterte denounced the police as corrupt to the core and suspended their role in anti-drug operations, although he vowed to forge ahead with the drug campaign.

Human rights groups suspect many of the killings being investigated were committed by vigilantes or hitmen supported by the police.

The Philippine Drugs Enforcement Agency has been put in charge of anti-drug operations and Duterte has raised the possibility of getting the military to help.
Russian warplanes are using Irans airspace to carry out airstrikes in Syria, an Iranian official said on Saturday.

The fact that they (Russian bombers) use Iranian airspace continues because we have total strategic cooperation with Russia, Admiral Ali Shamkhani told the Fars news agency.

Shamkhani is secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and Tehrans coordinator of political, security and military actions with Russia.

The use of Iranian airspace by Russian aircraft is made subject to a joint decision, taking into account the need... to fight terrorism, he told the IRNA news agency.

He said Russian planes had not recently needed to land in Iran for re-supply.

Russian fighter bombers first used an Iranian military base in August 2016 to attack jihadist positions in Syria.

Iran and Russia are closely cooperating in Syria and provide political, financial and military backing to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Tehran has sent military advisors and volunteer fighters to support the Syrian military in its fight against rebel and jihadist groups.
Seven people were killed in clashes that erupted in central Baghdad on Saturday between the security forces and protesters demanding reforms to Iraqs electoral system, police said.

The violence was the deadliest to break out at a protest since a wave of demonstrations demanding better services and accusing Iraqs political class of corruption and nepotism began in 2015.

Police fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at the crowd when some protesters, most of them supporters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, tried to force a cordon and reach Baghdads fortified Green Zone.

There were seven dead as a result of the violence. Two of them are from the security forces and the other five are protesters, a police colonel told AFP on condition of anonymity.

He said more than 200 were hurt in the chaos. Most were protesters suffering from tear gas inhalation, but at least 11 had more serious injuries caused by bullets and tear gas canisters.

Protesters initially gathered peacefully on Tahrir square to demand a change in the electoral law and the replacement of the electoral commission ahead of provincial polls due in September.

The demonstrators tried to cross Jumhuriya bridge, the security forces fired tear gas to stop them but they insisted, a senior police official said.

Sadr supporters accusing Iraqs political class of corruption and nepotism broke into the so-called Green Zone twice in 2016, storming the prime ministers office and the parliament building.

- Pressure on Abadi -

Last years protest movement was halted when tens of thousands of forces launched Iraqs largest military operation in years four months ago to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State group.

However, last months announcement that elections would take place in September has brought the political agenda back to the fore, and Sadrs movement has vowed to increase the pressure again.

Saturdays demonstrators received a de facto green light to escalate their protest in the shape of a statement from the Najaf-based Sadr.

If you want to approach the gates of the Green Zone to affirm your demands and make them heard to those on the other side of the fence... you can, he said.

Sadr encouraged the protesters to remain there until sunset but warned them against attempting to break into the fortified area.

The protesters met fierce resistance from the security forces and never made it across the Tigris River running between Tahrir Square and the Green Zone.

But Sadr, a mercurial Shiite who once led a rebellion against US occupation but has more recently spearheaded an anti-corruption protest movement, urged Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi not to turn a deaf ear.

I urge him to deliver those reforms immediately, listen to the voice of the people and remove the corrupt, the statement said.

He later appealed for restraint and the demonstrators dispersed.

- Partisan commissioners -

Abadi said the violence would be investigated and those responsible for it prosecuted.

Our action will get tougher, even if that involves physically taking over the commission, Abu Haidar, a protester wearing traditional Arab dress, told AFP before the rally turned violent.

The electoral commission issued a statement asking for protection from the premiers office and the international community.

A smaller group of protesters had already demonstrated near the Green Zone on Wednesday, while hundreds also gathered in several southern cities on Friday.

Their two main demands are for the members of the electoral commission to be replaced on the grounds that they are all affiliated to political parties and that the body supervising nationwide ballots was therefore anything but independent.

They also want the electoral law to be amended to give wider representation to smaller parties in the countrys elected bodies.

Sinan al-Azzawi, a popular Iraqi actor, was among those who addressed the protest before the violence broke out.

Politicians are profiteers and their only loyalty is to the countries they used to live in but not to Iraq, he said, referring to the Saddam-era exile of many of the countrys current leaders.

Those politicians, they created an electoral commission based on sectarian quotas. It has nine commissioners who belong to political entities... Its not independent, he said.
Edward Snowdens Russian lawyer on Saturday dismissed a US report that Moscow was considering extraditing the NSA whistleblower as a gift to President Donald Trump.

Anatoly Kucherena, who has represented Snowden since his arrival in Russia in 2013, told Interfax news agency that Russia has no legal basis to hand over Snowden.

US channel NBC on Friday quoted a senior US official with access to highly sensitive intelligence reports as saying Russia was considering the move to curry favour with Trump.

Snowdens US lawyer Ben Wizner told NBC that he was not aware of such plans.

All this talk is just ordinary speculation. Someone is indulging in wishful thinking, Kucherena said, insisting that Snowden lives in Russia absolutely lawfully.

The former National Security Agency contractor shook the American intelligence establishment to its core in 2013 with a series of devastating leaks on mass surveillance in the US and around the world.

He has been living in exile in Russia since the summer of 2013 after spending weeks in the transit zone of Moscows Sheremetyevo airport.

Russias immigration service in January extended Snowdens residency permit to 2020.

Russia doesnt trade in people and human rights, although American secret services constantly try to draw us into various acts of provocation, Kucherena said.

Snowden wrote on Twitter on Friday that the NBC report was irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel.

No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear theyre next, wrote Snowden.

The US has charged him with espionage and theft of state secrets after he released thousands of classified documents in 2013.

Former CIA acting director Michael Morell in an opinion piece in January suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin could hand over Snowden to mark Trumps inauguration that month.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded by condemning what she called a proposal to hand over those who seek protection.
A suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded 20 others outside a bank in the capital city of Afghanistans Helmand province on Saturday, the governors office said.

The bomber detonated an explosives-packed car next to an Afghan army vehicle as soldiers arrived at a bank in Lashkargah to collect their pay, the Helmand governors spokesman, Omar Zwak, said.

Among the dead were four civilians and three soldiers. Sixteen civilians and four soldiers were wounded, he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the Taliban have seized large areas of Helmand and have often threatened Lashkargah.

Hundreds of international troops are stationed in Helmand as part of the NATO-led effort to train and support Afghan security forces, which have struggled to contain a growing insurgency.

At least one American special forces soldier was wounded in fighting there this week.

To the north of Lashkargah, a local official said an American military air strike killed a number of civilians in a recent bombing in Sangin district.

The allegation has not been independently verified.

US military spokesman Capt Bill Salvin said that US jets had conducted strikes in Sangin in the past few weeks.

While US forces had no evidence that civilians were killed in these strikes, Salvin said the command would investigate the claims.

We take every precaution to prevent and mitigate civilian casualties and we take every allegation seriously.
Turkish troops and Syrian rebels on Saturday entered the Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab in northern Syria, as government forces moved closer to the jihadist bastion, a monitor said.

Turkish forces and allied rebels in the Euphrates Shield campaign entered the western edge of the town and took control of a number of areas, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The monitor said heavy clashes were underway with IS in the town, which is the jihadist groups last stronghold in the northern province of Aleppo.

The town is the target of two competing assaults, with the Turkish-led Euphrates Shield campaign advancing from the north, east and west, while Syrian government troops attack from the south.

It has been besieged since Monday, when Syrian troops severed a road leading into the town from the south.

By Friday, government forces were just 1.5 kilometres (less then a mile) from the southern outskirts of Al-Bab.

Turkey began an unprecedented campaign inside Syria in August, targeting both IS and Kurdish militia.

After initial rapid progress, the campaign has been mired since December in the deadly fight for Al-Bab.

66 Turks killed in campaign

Turkeys Dogan news agency says 66 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the campaign since it started, mostly in IS attacks.

And on Thursday, three Turkish soldiers were killed when a Russian air strike accidentally hit their position in a strike targeting IS fighters in Al-Bab.

Moscow said the incident was an accident and is under investigation.

Despite backing opposite sides in Syrias conflict -- Moscow is a government ally while Turkey supports the opposition -- the two countries have worked closely in recent months.

They helped broker a nationwide ceasefire in place since December 30, and sponsored a round of peace talks last month in the Kazakh capital, Astana.

Al-Bab has been under IS control since 2014, when the group seized large swathes of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, proclaiming its self-described caliphate.

In recent months, the jihadists have been rolled back in large parts of northern Syria, both by the Turkish campaign but also a Kurdish-Arab alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The SDF fights with air support from the US-led coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq, but Turkey regards the Kurdish component of the SDF as terrorists.

The alliance is pushing towards ISs de facto Syrian capital Raqa in an operation dubbed Wrath of the Euphrates.

The advance has progressed slowly, in part, SDF officials say, because IS has heavily mined territory around Raqa.

New talks in Astana?

The Observatory said Saturday that SDF fighters had now advanced to around eight kilometres from the eastern outskirts of Raqa, though their forces are further from the north of the city.

Turkey has suggested that it could turn its sights to Raqa after the Al-Bab operation is complete, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussing both Al-Bab and Raqa in a call with US President Donald Trump this week.

Syrias conflict has killed more than 310,000 people since it began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

Successive rounds of peace talks, including discussions organised by Russia and Turkey in Kazakhstan last month, have failed to advance a political solution to the conflict.

A new round of UN-sponsored talks is scheduled to take place in Geneva on February 20, but invitations have yet to be sent out.

On Saturday, Kazakhstans foreign ministry said Syrian government officials and rebels were being invited to new talks next week in the capital Astana.

It is planned to hold the latest high-level meeting within the Astana process on resolving the situation in Syria on February 15 and 16, the ministry said in a statement.

It added that UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura and US observers would also be invited to the talks.
Britain is dismissing hundreds of allegations of misconduct by its soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, the defence ministry said on Friday, following an investigation that uncovered spurious claims.

The Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT), which was set up in 2010 and is dealing with hundreds of cases, will be shut down in the summer and 20 of its cases will be handed over to the Royal Navy police.

This follows an investigation that led to campaigning lawyer Phil Shiner, who had brought many of the claims, being struck off earlier this month.

The announcement was made by defence minister Michael Fallon, who also said that 90 percent of the 675 current misconduct allegations involving British troops in Afghanistan were being dismissed.

This will be a relief for our soldiers who have had allegations hanging over them for too long, Fallon said in televised remarks.

Now we are taking action to stop such abuse of our legal system from happening again, he said.

But Amnesty International criticised the decision to hand over the remaining cases to the Royal Navy police, calling instead for an independent investigation to be conducted.

The UKs military reputation is on the line -- any credible allegations of abuses by UK forces in Iraq and Afghanistan should be independently investigated, which must mean by a body that is separate from the military itself, the rights group said in a statement.

A parliamentary committee report earlier on Friday found that serving and retired troops had been subjected to deeply disturbing treatment by IHAT.

The report said IHAT investigators had used intimidatory tactics and spied on war veterans.

IHAT has operated without any regard to its impact on the UK military which has directly harmed their reputation across the world, the report said.

IHAT was set up by the former Labour government to assess claims of abuse by Iraqi civilians. It started out with 165 claims but the caseload skyrocketed and eventually grew to more than 3,500.
The United States on Friday blocked the appointment of the former Palestinian prime minister to lead the UN political mission in Libya, saying it was acting to support its ally Israel.

US ambassador Nikki Haley said the Trump administration was disappointed to see that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had sent a letter to the Security Council indicating his intention to appoint Salam Fayyad, who served as the Palestinian authoritys prime minister from 2007-2013, as the next UN special representative to Libya.

For too long, the UN has been unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinian authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel, Haley said.

Palestine is a non-member observer state at the United Nations and its independence has been recognised by 137 of the 193 UN member nations. But Haley said the United States doesnt currently recognise a Palestinian state or support the signal Fayyads appointment would send within the United Nations.

UN diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private, said Fayyad is well-respected for his work in reforming the Palestinian authority and spurring its economy and had the support of the 14 other Security Council members to succeed Martin Kobler in the Libya job.

Despite opposition to Fayyad, Haley indicated that the Trump administration wants to see an end to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We encourage the two sides to come together directly on a solution, she said.

Haleys statement came ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus scheduled meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump on February 15, and was welcomed by Israelis.

This is the beginning of a new era at the UN, an era where the US stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish State, Israels UN ambassador Danny Danon said of the US decision to block Fayyads appointment.

The new administration proved once again that it stands firmly alongside the state of Israel in the international arena and in the UN in particular.

The new US ambassador made clear that going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies.

But Trump also indicated in comments to an Israeli newspaper on Friday that there might be some difficult discussions with Netanyahu next week on Israels settlement expansion. The US leader was quoted as saying that Israels settlement expansion in land claimed by the Palestinians does not advance peace.

Israels settlement building has been a key obstacle to the revival of stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Most of the international community considers all Israeli settlements in territory the Palestinians want for a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal and counterproductive to peace.
As Islamabad scrambles to clean up its erratic record on counter-terrorism to pre-empt potentially punitive actions by US President Donald Trump, military leaders, experts and former government officials are urging him to adopt a new and tougher approach to deal with Pakistan.

The top US military commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Nicholson, told lawmakers at a hearing on Thursday of the need for a holistic review of Americas complex relationship with Pakistan, and that it would be a priority in his discussions with his seniors and the White House.

A report published earlier this week recommended a harsher review of ties with Pakistan and said the new administration must be ready to adopt tougher measures toward Islamabad - dont abandon it, but stop treating it as an ally. A member of this working group wrote in a separate piece, The longest war in American history is a proxy war with Pakistan, and it has the fastest-growing nuclear weapons arsenal in the world.

The Trump administration has not yet indicated if it has a plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the latter country may not even be a priority for the moment. But as a candidate, Trump had expressed concerns about the region, specially Pakistans nuclear weapons and the fear of them falling into the wrong hands. He had gone as far as to suggest involving India to take care of the problem.

But as he rolled out his egregious travel ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, which has run into legal challenges, officials indicated the list could be expanded and questions were raised if Pakistan, the worlds leading terror hub, could be next.

Just days later, an anxious Islamabad moved swiftly to put Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed, who carries a US bounty of $10 million on his head, under house arrest. The alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, who has dared the US to arrest him. promptly blamed India and Trump for it, when there was no evidence of either.

But Pakistan may have waited too long. Frustration has been growing with its spotty record on counter-terrorism and many US lawmakers from both parties, experts and officials have long concluded there is a need for a new approach, with extreme options including cutting financial aid  Pakistan has been a major beneficiary for decades  or declaring it a state sponsor of terrorism.

The authors of the report, A new US approach to Pakistan: enforcing aid conditions without cutting ties, dont like that last option but want to keep it on the table. They are suggesting US engagement with Pakistan must be based on a realistic appraisal of Pakistans policies, aspirations, and worldview. The US must stop chasing the mirage of securing change in Pakistans strategic direction by giving it additional aid or military equipment.

It must be acknowledged that Pakistan is unlikely to change its current policies through inducements alone, they added, and proceeded to list some of those measures, including an end to treating Pakistan as an ally, tying military aid and reimbursements to specific counter-terrorism goals and working more with the civilian leadership.

The report was seen by members of Trumps national security team, according to sources, and it has been welcomed by the think-tank fraternity because of, among other reasons, the composition of the task force.

It was co-chaired by Lisa Curtis of the right-leaning Heritage Foundation, who is expected to land a senior position in Trumps foreign policy team, and former Pakistani ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, now with Hudson Institute. Other members were former adviser to President Barack Obama, Bruce Reidel, who is with Brookings, and Anish Goel, a former White House head of the South Asia desk for Presidents George W Bush and Obama.

A leading South Asia analyst, who did not want to be identified, said that though he agreed there is a need for a rethink in US policy because clearly the default policies of recent years havent worked out well at all, he was not sure if taking the drastic step of putting Pakistan on notice that it could soon be declared a state sponsor of terror would yield a better result.

The analyst said: Would this lead Pakistan to do more about its terrorism problem, or would it just make Pakistan double down and tighten its embrace of terrorist groups?
By 2030, multiple changes will occur and will influence the hospitality industry due to global changes, one of them being an increase of vulnerability. The second thesis of the Lausanne Report, EHL - in cooperation with hospitality experts - discuss this trend that may disrupt the industry depending on its ability to cope with external and internal threats.

#2 VULNERABILITY ON THE RISE

One of the main challenges the hospitality industry is facing is the magnitude of hazardous events as well as their unpredictability. The industry is thus confronted to how fast it can react and adapt to such crises and hazard.

Source: EHL

SCENARIO A: FRAGILE HOSPITALITY

The hospitality industry's vulnerability to a variety of events could increase, which might transform hospitality into a fragile business. Among the most dangerous threats to the sector are climate change, safety and security issues, wild card events (e.g. SARS) as well as unprecedented migration streams.

Here are some key rationales regarding a fragile hospitality:

Hazardous events often produce knock-on effects such as climate change which has negative impacts on various areas from polluted water, to health issues and poor living conditions

Climate change also triggers conflicts such as refugee migration and humanitarian crises, which lead to political and social tensions.

Once disruption has occurred, it is difficult and takes time to recover and build up resilience

The evaluation and prediction of future risks relies on data, but hotels lack resources

Hotel stress tests will impact market valuation and brand value of hotels

Vulnerability assessments will highlight a hotel's exposure to threats and its capacity to deal with crises

Source: EHL

SCENARIO B: CREATING RESILIENCE

Vulnerability is based on two dimensions: direct and indirect damages. Direct losses include damage on the building, infrastructure or equipment of a company due to a hazardous event. On the other hand, indirect losses involve a competitive disadvantage of the company over non-affected competitors as well as the overall reputation of the damaged business.

To create resilience, the industry will need to focus on:

Quantifying its vulnerability, keeping in mind that indirect losses can be 3 to 10 times higher than direct losses

Use the results of the assessment in order to develop recovery measures, emergency plans, and vulnerability reduction strategies

Leverage the Internet of Things (IoT) and IT systems to control all relevant infrastructural components

Be capable of disconnecting hotel properties from the public infrastructure in order to not be further damaged or intruded

Master big data to assess the hospitality industry's exposure to threats

Establish an exchange of data between the public and the private sector to manage the risks on the infrastructure

LET'S CO-EXIST

Vulnerability assessments, security planning, stress tests and security infrastructure will push the hospitality industry in becoming more resilient. As guests do not want to feel overwhelmed by clearly visible security measures, hotels have started to use different, less-intrusive precautions.

Although hotels that will choose to be more resilient will be in a more favorable position, it does not guarantee success in case of disruptive events. In such situations, even hotels with top security infrastructures and measures might not be enough to encourage guests to travel.

About EHL Group

EHL Group is the global reference in education, innovation and consulting for the hospitality and service sector.

With expertise dating back to 1893, EHL Group now offers a wide range of leading educational programs from apprenticeships to master's degrees, as well as professional and executive education, on three campuses in Switzerland and Singapore. EHL Group also offers consulting and certification services to companies and learning centers around the world. True to its values and committed to building a sustainable world, EHL Group's purpose is to provide education, services and working environments that are people-centered and open to the world. www.ehlgroup.com

EHL Hospitality Business School

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Chris Charbonnet is a graduate of Johnson & Wales in Providence, Rhode Island - United States

Prism has promoted Chris Charbonnet from regional vice president of operationsa position he has held with the company for three yearsto senior vice president of operations. In his elevated role he will oversee the companys robust property portfolio addressing all operational needs, challenges and opportunities. Formerly regional vice president of operations for GF Management overseeing 60 hotel transitions, Charbonnet has more than three decades of extensive experience in the hospitality industry.
Drake is calling BS on the report he disrespected a Muslim fan at his recent London show, claiming the woman was wearing a winter scarf, not a hijab. Taking to Instagram to explain the situation, Drizzy wrote the following:

I make a point every night to end my shows on tones of unity and love so, to find out that I am being utilized in a fake media story about me disrespecting Muslims is devastating to me. At my show in the 02 in London I was talking to 4 women one of whom was wearing a jacket and a winter scarf, I made a comment about taking off the scarf because I enjoy friendly banter with the fans. I am well aware of what a hijab is and I would never make a disrespectful comment like that in my life towards someone who is wearing one. I am proud that my closest friends and fans come from all different religions and races, perhaps whoever made up this story should spend more time learning about other cultures and less time trying to divide us.

This headscarf debacle comes after the typically apolitical Drake made some very rare comments about President Trump, condemning that man for attempting to divide America.

Check out Drakes IG post below, and let us know your thoughts in the comments section. Do you think Drake is telling the truth here?

Drake
Drake has been rocking a lot of Stone Island gear on his European tour, and hes now got some flashy jewelry to match it. Drake and sought-after jeweler Ben Baller met up in Manchester to do a handoff, debuting a shiny new chain on Instagram today.

From the looks of the chain in the clip, its based on Italian brand Stone Islands compass logo, and also features the words on tour at the bottom. Ben also gave a closer look at the back of the piece, which reads BRINGING THAT CERTY with Drakes 6 God logo just below it.

Drake seems pretty happy with how it turned out. The size is perfect too that is crazy, he says in the clip. UK Town Benny dropped off a classic, he wrote on IG.

In the description of Ballers post, the jeweler shared some words on he and Drakes 9-year history, including their first meeting at an Apple Store, and a hilarious story about an on-stage slip-up in San Jose. Read his caption below.

I met @champagnepapi at the Apple Store in the Beverly center in 2008. From that day on I fucked with The Boy heavy. I was picking him up from the airport, getting him cars, trees and showing him my city like a real big homie does. #SoFarGone dropped and shit hit the fan. Then #ThankMeLater, then #TakeCare and He would take me on tour to be apart of the show giving out chains to random girls in the audience. One time at a sold out show in San Jose, Drake forgot where we were because he screamed out LA whats good???!!!! And that Bay Area crowd bood LOUD. It felt like that southwest commercial, Wanna get away? I back stepped off that stage dumb fast In 2012 I started my family and he became the biggest superstar in the  and we lost communication So 9 years later were here in Manchester U.K. to finally have our full circle moment. More life and more jewels to come bro

Drake is in the middle of his The Boy Meets World Tour. Earlier this week he revealed that his More Life project would be complete in one and a half to two weeks time.

Drake
Meek Mill threw a crazy hometown show at the Wells Fargo Center in Philly last night, billing the sold-out event as Meek Mill & Friends. He certainly wasnt lying about the friends part, as Meek brought out a lot of guests during his set, which included appearances by T.I., DMX, Jadakiss, Rick Ross, Tory Lanez, Jefe (FKA Shy Glizzy), PnB Rock and more.



At one point, Meek gave it up for the excited crowd, which was made up of 20,000 strong. You know me, I like to shine real hard, he said. I be having a lot of nas hating on me, so I need to see my city like this some-motherfucking-times. On Instagram today he wrote, You cant turn my city against me.



Later on, he sent a clear message to Donald Trump, asking the crowd, What yall think about our president?, before bringing out YG and Nispey Hussle to perform their portest anthem FDT, according to Philly.com. When Tory Lanez took the stage, Meek made sure to deem him the hottest na in Toronto.



After the show, Meek took the strip club to make it rain like never before. Check out some highlights from the show and afterparty below. Last we heard, Meek was hard at work on his DC4.5 mixtape, which hes been previewing new music from.

Meek Mill
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Fresh out of Harvard Business School in the early 1980s, Pat O'Connor came back to Houston to work with his father as a commercial real estate broker. But the self-described technology geek quickly realized a sales job wasn't for him.

Having noticed many of the names atop the Fortune 500 list were in publishing, O'Connor shifted his focus from selling apartments to investors - to tracking down data for them instead.

Today, Houston-based O'Connor & Associates provides real estate research and data, appraisals, property tax appeals and cost segregation services to real estate professionals and consumers. Revenue in 2016 is expected to be upward of $20 million, mostly from the property tax appeals business.

O'Connor lately has been spending much of his time building up the data side of the business, a company called Enriched Data, which he hopes one day could help save the country from another financial collapse. For example, it would give more data about residential mortgage-backed securities, one of the causes of the 2008 recession.

He recently spoke with the Chronicle about ways to put massive amounts of data to use. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: How did your penchant for data begin?

A: I started off as an apartment broker selling apartment projects. After about two years, I started doing the Houston Apartment Trends newsletter really as self-promotion. It was a one-page, two-sided newsletter we'd send out monthly. We put out information on apartments that had sold and some economic trends. Then we decided to make it Houston Real Estate Trends, and have it for apartments, office, retail, warehouse, land and the economy. We made it a paid publication.

Up until about 2008, the data was used mostly to support our real estate appraisal business and the real estate property tax appeal business.

Q: And then?

A: In 2008, we expanded to cover Dallas, Austin and San Antonio for apartment, retail, industrial and office. About two years after that, I decided to do deeds and deeds of trust for the same major metro areas.

Now we have a national database for deeds and deeds of trust and tax rolls that covers about 97 percent of the country. We have this large team in Coimbatore, India, to help us write programs to process the data and who also can enhance the data. We have about 40 software engineers doing coding, and then 360 people are involved in either data entry or data processing or research. We do a lot of web research.

Q: Enriched Data is the company you spun off last year to provide real estate information to big commercial property brokerages. How does that business work?

A: Our biggest niches right now, one is giving mortgage bankers information on mortgages that are about to mature. The fees are often for them three-quarters of a point or a point, so on a $5 million mortgage they're looking at $35,000 to $50,000. So having good information on mortgages close to maturing is valuable information. The highest and best use of their time is not doing web research.

The other is real estate investment brokers and other people who want to contact people who are buying real estate. We're processing all the sales of real estate and highly developing the contact data for sales of commercial real estate valued at $2 million and more.

Q: In your wildest dreams, where do you see the company going?

A: We'd like to get to where we're working cooperatively with real estate professionals, especially appraisers, and giving the data to appraisers and getting back in turn enhancements they make. We'd like to get to the point where we're better able to value properties than any other data provider.

Take RMBS, residential mortgage-backed securities, which might consist of a pool of 10,000 mortgages and underlying that is 10,000 houses. The concept with the RMBS is you'd value each house in the pool and then take in information on the mortgage and see if it's under water or there's equity. Then you could look at data on the pay history. Then you could look at Nielsen Psychographics for the people living in the home to understand their level of affluence or not.

So in my craziest dreams, it's providing valuation services to Wall Street for real estate securities or things like bonds or things that are secured by real estate.

Q: How many tax protests does your firm do, and what's the success rate?

A: About 180,000 appeals each year, and hopefully it's about a 65 percent success rate.
On paper, Microsoft's facility in Puerto Rico was wildly profitable. With just 177 workers, the plant recorded $4 billion in earnings in 2011, a Senate investigation found.



The gimmick was entirely legal. According to the Senate's report, the software company's lawyers were channeling its profits from sales all over the country through the Puerto Rican operation, getting Microsoft out of about $1.5 billion in taxes a year.



It was the kind of scheme that designers of the congressional Republican tax proposal hope to eliminate. The vast sums Microsoft saved hint at how much money is at stake for corporations that rely on similar strategies to reduce their taxes, which are especially common among technology firms and other companies with valuable brands, patents and copyrights.



Understanding the uncertain and potentially disruptive consequences of the GOP plan, known as a "border adjustment tax," has become an urgent priority for U.S. firms  not just in Silicon Valley, but throughout the corporate sector, said John Gimigliano, a principal at KPMG in Washington.

"It is a pretty significant departure from the current system of taxation," he said. "It's almost impossible to talk about anything else."



The Senate investigation into Microsoft's taxes in 2012 described this kind of legal strategy in detail. First, Microsoft had sold a share of its brands and copyrights to its subsidiary in Puerto Rico. The U.S. territory's rules for taxes are different from those that apply to businesses in the 50 states.

More for you Microsoft lawsuit vs. secret government searches moves ahead



The Puerto Rican subsidiary made an impressive profit on that investment over the years  profits that would otherwise have accrued to Microsoft's main office in Redmond, Wash., where they would have been subject to ordinary federal taxes.



Microsoft's practices were typical, experts say. Many multinational firms set up subsidiaries in jurisdictions with minimal taxes  whether in Europe, Asia or the Caribbean  and then pay those subsidiaries for goods and services. Those payments come out of the income taxed in the United States.



In 2011, for example, the Puerto Rican entity paid $1.9 billion to the main U.S. company as an installment on its initial purchase of the intellectual property. Microsoft then manufactured copies of its software in Puerto Rico and imported it back onto the mainland for sale.



In 2011, the Puerto Rican subsidiary's $4 billion in earnings were taxed at a rate of 1 percent.

"This structure is not designed to satisfy any specific manufacturing or business need," the committee's report concluded. "Rather, it is designed to minimize tax on sales of products sold in the United States."



Microsoft cooperated with the congressional investigation, according to the Senate report, which presented no evidence of wrongdoing or lawbreaking.



"In conducting our business at home and abroad, we abide by U.S. and foreign tax laws as written," Microsoft vice president William Sample told the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. "That is not to say that the rules cannot be improvedto the contrary, we believe they can and should be."



A spokesman for Microsoft declined to comment on whether the company would support the GOP proposal or on whether the company's practices had changed.



Similar maneuvers are particularly prevalent among firms with patents, trademarks, copyrights and other valuable intellectual property. By signing a few contracts, a chief executive can move these assets across oceans. The profits associated with them go, too.



Firms that avoid taxes this way cost the U.S. government at least $100 billion a year, by one estimate. Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley predicted that the situation will worsen as the economy becomes more reliant on hip brands and lucrative patents.

"Companies with a lot of intellectual property are doing this," he said. "It's one of the main problems of our tax system  especially going forward."



Auerbach is one of the most vocal proponents of the border adjustment tax. Under the proposal, it could be more difficult for these companies to avoid U.S. taxes this way.



The plan would prevent companies from deducting any payments to foreign vendors from their income. Consequently, companies would not be able to reduce the taxes they owe through payments to subsidiaries abroad.



The investigation found that this system allowed Microsoft to shift 47 percent of its U.S. revenues to Puerto Rico in the form of payments for imported software.



A Republican bill could treat Puerto Rico similarly to a foreign jurisdiction for purposes of the tax, in which Microsoft would not be able to shift any of that revenue by paying its subsidiary to import software. It is also possible that Puerto Rico would be treated more like a state, in which case the Puerto Rico subsidiary would presumably have to pay regular federal taxes.



Yet while the GOP proposal could force some companies to pay up, the plan also includes an exemption for exports  so some businesses could pay less. Microsoft, for example, does extensive business overseas. As a result, the company could come out ahead.



Whether companies would pay more or less under the plan would depend on how many customers they have at home and abroad, where their intellectual property is legally located and to what degree exchange rates fluctuated once the plan was implemented.



"It really depends on each company's individual profile," said Kathy Michael, a tax partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.



Microsoft is holding $109 billion in cash and equivalent reserves overseas from its sales in foreign countries. Under the current system, Microsoft would have to pay federal taxes on that money if the firm returns the cash to the United States. Under the Republican proposal, Microsoft's future sales abroad would be free from U.S. taxation  and the company might even get a break on its existing pile of cash in the bargain.



Several multinational technology companies, including Dell, Google, Oracle and IBM, are supporting the Republican plan as part of an industrial coalition called the Alliance for Competitive Taxation.



The group's other members include Abbott and Pfizer, which depend on their patented drugs, and iconic American brands such as Coca-Cola and Walt Disney.

"They basically think this is good for them," said Reuven Avi-Yonah, a legal scholar at the
Now here's a moment to remember. The MCs tell the crowd to put their hands up, and they do.

It doesn't seem like a revolution. After all, this was the premiere of "Syncing Ink," the jubilant ode to old-school hip-hop by NSangou Njikam that is playing at the Alley Theatre through March 5, and the atmosphere of the evening is akin to a celebration, one of music and improvisation at an underground hip-hop club.

Before the play even starts, New York-based DJ Reborn fills the room with nostalgic hip-hop beats - you'll recognize LL Cool J, Biggie Smalls, De La Soul, Slick Rick and more - as actors reference hip-hop ranging from "Rapper's Delight" to Drake. The story, about a boy's odyssey from hip-hip padawan to MC Jedi, in which he strives to discover his potential, defeat his rival and win the girl, is as old as the sky.

So when the crowd gets asked to become interactive and point upward, no, that moment doesn't seem like much of a statement beyond what it appears to be - a gesture of genial participation akin to putting your left foot in while doing the "Hokey Pokey."

At first. But then the true subversion of "Syncing Ink" rears its grinning head. Gordon, the aspiring rapper protagonist played by Njikam, tells us that these are God Hands. What are God Hands? They aren't just the hands used to posture while spitting bars during a rap battle - a hip-hop coat of arms. God Hands first appeared in Egypt and persisted through African rituals. God Hands were what Angela Davis and the Black Panthers wielded when they threw fists in the air.

More Information 'Syncing Ink' When: 2:30 and 7 p.m. Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, through March 5 Where: Alley Theatre, 615 Texas Ave. Tickets: $39; 713-220-5700, alleytheatre.org See More Collapse

God Hands, in other words, are an assertion of black power and black pride. You might say God Hands saw their most recent incarnation in the "Hands Up Don't Shoot" imagery of the "Black Lives Matter" movement. But raising your hands means reaching up toward a divine history that stretches back to African roots though has rarely been told in the European theatrical tradition.

So here we are, in a room filled with several people who look nothing like the actors on stage and yet are participating in the same radical body language as the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.

It's not overt. It's entirely possible to ignore most of the implied racial politics of "Syncing Ink" and enjoy the production simply for its humor, charm and raucous energy. Featuring megawatt performances from Njikam, Kara Young, McKenzie Frye, Nuri Hazzard, Elisha Lawson and Adesola A. Osakalumi, the play imbues its scenes with the bombastic drive and visual dizziness of Baz Luhrmann and Stephen Adly Guirgis' hip-hop-driven Netflix series "The Get Down."

So the differences between "Syncing Ink" and "Black Lives Matter," besides the obvious ones, lie in Njikam's preference for joy over anger, for community over politics and for a youthfulness that borders on juvenility and slapdashery over solemnity.

But that isn't to say the play isn't radical the same way "Hamilton" is with its casting, Qui Nguyen's "Vietgone" and Brandon Jacob-Jenkins' "An Octoroon" are with their postmodernist, unmoored racial aesthetic, or even Spike Lee is with his exaggerated camerawork that belies a cinematic fist in the air.

Or, you could say "Syncing Ink" is radical in the same way hip-hop is. The art form has long been considered an assertion of black pride, a reclamation culture and language, even when it's not overtly political. So, too, is "Syncing Ink" a statement in its mere being. It also suggests rap is more than a purely American invention, instead originating in the rhythms, mythology and call-and-response of African music.

The story is about an introvert at a suburban high school, and then at a historically black college, who has a talent for poetry but is too scared of performing to be the rapper he wants to be. It's a classic male-oriented coming-of-age tale. But its structure draws inspiration from the storytelling tradition of the Yoruba people of Nigeria, featuring vision quests, calls to action from a spirit above and dancing spirits that deliver foresight through incantation.

In other words, read "Syncing Ink" one way, and you see that musical history is black history. Hip-hop is African. The theater doesn't have to be European - the first great playwright wasn't Shakespeare but rather non-Western ancestors who passed down stories through oral tradition. And modern theatergoers, by simply raising their hands in the air, are invoking black power -here, the artist and audience merge not by saying "amen" but the Yoruban "ashe."

This kind of theatrical statement is particularly relevant today, even from a purely artistic standpoint. One scene in the play features apparitions holding mirrors facing our hero, who must look at himself and choose which reflection he will become.

Likewise, the Alley has made a strong choice in programming a piece that reflects the theater of the now, which appears to be gravitating toward plays that reclaim cultural narratives through a mash-up of musical and theatrical tradition (see: the rap-infused "Vietgone").

The ever-so-sly Njikam, in one of his ad-libbed raps, slides in the line, "This play's going to Broadway." It's true this premiere has garnered unusual anticipation and has delivered on its promise of radical delight. The story isn't perfect, slipping too often into territory both nostalgic and juvenile. But its execution, particularly the freestyle rap, bears the mark of a soaring achievement.

Gordon, the quiet kid in class, doesn't speak up much. He has brilliance inside him, but who will hear his poetry if he doesn't raise his hand in class? Never fear. When a fellow student lays down a beat, his body begins to move. He even lets slip a statement about who he is through a haiku. He suggests that words can move worlds, weave history, and you believe it.

But how did someone so invisible, so overlooked a moment ago, all of a sudden begin to command the stage? The answer says as much about hip-hop and theater as it does about humanity's natural inclination to dance and sing together.

Gordon knows this even if he's shy. When the music's playing, after all, he can't help but throw his hands in the air.
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Of all the responses from people who filled out postcards answering the question, "What's your Houston diversity problem?" this one seems especially potent: "Texas is so 'religious' but 5 times a day I feel I have to find a place to hide just to pray."

The art collective Ghana Think Tank distributed the postcards during last year's CounterCurrent festival of experimental art and performance. This year they'll be back with some inventive solutions to the nine largest issues they discovered from hundreds of "problems" they heard.

CounterCurrent 17, which will take place across Houston April 18-23, will include a number of projects that sound even more topical now, given the current political climate, than they did when they were proposed more than a year ago.

"The notion of a festival implies that it's going to be a big party," said University of Houston Mitchell Center for the Arts director Karen Farber, who organizes the event. "We've been working with artists who deal with perceptions about Muslims for three or four years. But this year, especially, we're plugged into what's around us."

Ghana Think Tank's artists, who are based in New York, don't actually invent solutions. They send the postcards they collect to groups of thinkers in developing countries for recommendations, then translate those suggestions into physical projects.

More Information CounterCurrent 17 When: April 18-23 Where: Various venues around Houston Tickets: Free; some events require reservations; countercurrentfestival.org See More Collapse

Syrian and Afghan refugees in Serbia, who have their own heart-wrenching circumstances, suggested a "mobile mosque" for Houstonians afraid to pray in public. Ghana Think Tank is building it now, on a flatbed truck that will appear on Houston streets during the festival.

Three US-based facilitators -- Maria del Carmen Montoya, Christopher Robbins and John Ewing--run Ghana Think Tank. The collective wants to dispel the idea that highly-developed Western countries have superior human resources.

"People all over the world are geniuses about the challenges of everyday life," Montoya said.

The nine Houston "diversity problems" Ghana Think Tank will address this year cover a broad swath. One was expressed by a man who wrote, "I have to work so hard to pay the taxes to support all these immigrants that I don't even have time to make love to my wife."

"I get it," Montoya said. She sympathized, but could also see how that frustration led him to give into political rhetoric. "When you work human-to-human, you get down to what actually is the problem: This person doesn't have enough time for his family."

Montoya, who studied art at the Rhode Island School of Design and now teaches at George Washington University, grew up in Houston, near Northline Mall. Her father was born in rural Texas; her mother, originally from Mexico, operates a small import shop in a Fiesta Mart.

She loves the city's diversity. "I know Houston deeply. It matters to me," she said.

CounterCurrent 17 participants will also be able to sense what it's like to be a Syrian refugee in a German camp. The art collective Dictaphone Group is bringing its "Stories of Refuge" installation, which invites viewers to watch "day in the life" videos from the camp as they sit on bunk beds in a darkened room.

More festival highlights:

* The buzzy artist Kevin Beasley will partner with Project Row Houses to create an immersive, site-specific sculptural and sound installation, "Movement V," at the Eldorado Ballroom.

* The Catastrophic Theatre will present the world premiere of "Snow White," adapted from Donald Barthelme's groundbreaking experimental novel about the risks and rewards of love.

* Lili Taylor will perform Suzanne Bocanegra's "Farmhouse/Whorehouse," which uses text, song, costume, film and photos to tell a family story about living in LaGrange, across the road from the famous Chicken Ranch.

Aurora Picture Show, the Brandon, Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston (MATCH) and University of Houston's College of the Arts also are among the festival's presenting partners.
Two Houston-based lawmakers called on Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan Friday to dismiss an attorney hired to represent county judges in a federal civil rights lawsuit, after that attorney claimed in a hearing that many people jailed in Harris County were there by choice - not because they could not afford to post bond.

Among other statements, the attorney, James G. Munisteri, told a federal judge Wednesday that as few as "zero" defendants are jailed pretrial who can't afford to pay and some choose to stay locked up in one of the nation's largest jails because it's cold outside.

The ongoing civil rights lawsuit challenges Harris County judges and other officials for granting very few no-cost pretrial bonds to misdemeanor offenders - as few as 8 percent in May when the suit was filed, according to county statistics. The lawsuit claims that judges routinely violate the civil rights of the poor by failing to consider the inability to pay before jailing thousands of people annually before trial for minor crimes like marijuana possession and trespassing.

The county argued in a hearing this week that the lawsuit should be tabled because officials have made improvements and that 23 percent of those accused of misdemeanors were released on no-cost bond as of October 2016.

But Chief U.S. District Court Judge Lee H. Rosenthal declined to put the case on hold Wednesday, saying there was not enough evidence to support the county's claims.

Before Rosenthal made her ruling, Munisteri argued on behalf of the county that some individuals "decide they do want to go to jail and stay there" and argued that the number of people in jail because of their inability to pay bond might be "zero."

Rosenthal herself reacted to Munisteri, comparing his argument to a white Southerner's antebellum defense of slavery. Rosenthal said his argument reminded her of the "historical argument that people enjoyed slavery because they were afraid of the alternative."

State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, and Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, a former state senator, both of whom support bail bond reform, challenged Munisteri's remarks as "indefensible." Both argued that "tax dollars should not be used to fund this reprehensible representation."

Robert Soard, First Assistant County Attorney, said that officials planned to review the matter.

"The quote should be placed in the context of presentations being made by both attorneys for plaintiffs and defendants during a hearing that lasted over one hour. We are awaiting a copy of the actual transcript to determine the actual context and an appropriate response," he said via email.

Munisteri was not immediately available for comment.

Munisteri, a partner at Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP who specializes in international energy and corporate governance cases, is described in his law firm's online profile as "extraordinarily tenacious" and "not always conventional in how he approaches cases." It goes on to say, "He effectively balances diplomacy and a warrior nature."

In other developments, two county officials named as defendants in the case have broken away from other judges who have defended the current system, federal court records show.

Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, who has called the county's bail system unconstitutional, said in a filing this week that he hopes the pressure of the lawsuit will "spur the parties to hasten their settlement discussions" and result in improvements that all find acceptable.

Similarly, newly-elected County Court at-law Judge Darrell Jordan has argued that the "current bail bond system is broken and needs reform."

"Jordan has carried out reform in his courtroom, but does not see how the lawsuit is effecting reform in the rest of the bail bond system,'" Jordan's attorney argued on his behalf in a court filing.

Ellis sat in the courtroom gallery during this week's argument, wincing when Munisteri made comments about individuals wishing to stay in jail.

As a county commissioner, Ellis has argued against funding the legal battle.

This week, he expressed a sense of shame that the county is using its resources to fight the lawsuit rather than putting its efforts toward reforming the bail system.

"God knows how much money has been spent already to defend a system that's indefensible. I wish the public could have watched the proceedings today," he said.

Gonzalez and Jordan are now represented by assistant county attorneys.

The county attorney's office has defended the work of two different law firms hired to represent the county, its other criminal court at-law judges and hearing officers. No updated amount of the county's outside legal bills was available Friday.
The new Astrodome Conservancy founded by Phoebe Tudor, Judy Nyquist and Minnette Boesel is looking for ways to redefine the experience of the historic structure even before Harris County begins its $105 million renovation.

Thursday the group shared inspiration from projects in other cities that have repurposed underused spaces, during a slide show by HR&A Advisors, a national consulting firm that's developing a business plan for the conservancy and suggestions for "short-term activations."
GALVESTON  As soon as Vitoria Marchioli was born, doctors in her town in Brazil told her parents that their tiny daughter had only hours to live.

For the first two days of her life she went hungry because doctors decided there was no use feeding an infant who would soon perish. Rolando Marchioli, 39, and his wife, Jocilene, 43, were told to begin making funeral plans.

Vitoria was born with a rare condition, Treacher Collins syndrome, that affects the development of bones and other tissues of the face and caused such severe deformities that she could be fed only through a tube threaded from her mouth to her stomach. Her left eye protruded from its socket and her right eye was obscured by a large lump of tissue. She had no nose, forcing her to breathe through her mouth.

Eight years later, she is still alive, and surgery at Shriners Hospital for Children in Galveston is making life easier and for the girl and her parents. The family arrived in Galveston on Jan. 19 and is staying at the Ronald McDonald House in Galveston, which provides housing for families of children being treated at Shriners and the University of Texas Medical Branch.

Shriners paid for their airline tickets and for the surgery, according to the Marchiolis, but they are struggling to keep up with the expense of Vitoria's day-to-day care. Shriners Galveston failed to respond to repeated requests for comment.

Vitoria was born in Barra de Sao Francisco, a town of about 40,000 some 90 miles from Brazil's Atlantic coast and approximately 450 miles north of Rio de Janeiro.

Shaken by their daughter's birth defects and the grim prognosis, they sought help from a larger hospital 160 miles away in Vitoria, capital of Espirito Santo state. Doctors there told them to return home and wait for Vitoria's death.

Rolando Marchioli was working as a contract chauffeur and Jocilene as an accountant. They already had two daughters: Debora, now 16, and Heloise, now 15.

"We decided to invest as much money as possible to keep the girl alive," Rolando Marchioli, speaking through a translator, said in his native Portuguese.

For a year, they woke up every morning not knowing whether their infant would still be alive. Every three hours they inserted a tube through her mouth and into her stomach and injected a specially prepared concoction with all the necessary nutrients.

They watched their daughter constantly to make sure she did not injure her protruding eye by bumping it with her hands or that her mouth wasn't blocked by a pillow or some other obstruction, cutting off her only airway. Every feeding was fraught with worry; a wrong move could push the feeding tube into her lungs and drown her in milk.

'Never gave up'

Jocilene Marchioli cared for Vitoria during the four months of paid maternity leave allowed under Brazilian law; then, the Marchiolis hired a nurse to care for the children while they worked. Eventually they decided it would be cheaper for Rolando to quit his job, which was intermittent, and rely on Jocilene's steady and higher-paying accounting job.

Their older daughters pitched in to help when they weren't in school. "They help a lot, they love a lot," Jocilene said.

After a year, they traveled more than 600 miles southwest to a hospital in Riberao Preto for an operation to remove the tissue obscuring Vitoria's right eye and also to make it easier to insert the feeding tube. After three operations her left eye was recessed into its socket.

"They never gave up," said Kleber Siqueira, 67, of Houston, who interpreted for the Marchiolis.

In 2013 the couple received a startling phone call from Dr. Leandro Cunha, a phyiscian who had treated Vitoria. Cunha had contacted Shriners and arranged for Vitoria to be seen by doctors in Galveston. "We were very happy," Jocilene said. "This was like a new horizon for our family."

The couple packed up Vitoria and drove 160 miles to the state capital to board a plane for Rio de Janeiro and then Houston.

In Galveston they met Dr. Ted Huang, who has since died. Huang performed an operation that allowed them to feed Victoria directly through her stomach, removing the danger of an accidental insertion of a feeding tube into her lungs. The Marchiolis were relieved to hear Huang tell them, "I will treat this little girl like she was my granddaughter," Jocilene Marchioli said.

Huang envisioned a series of treatments that would eventually end in an operation that would allow Victoria to drink through a straw.

The Marchiolis in 2013 made two trips to Galveston and ever since have returned once a year. They have been supported emotionally and financially on each trip by members of Houston's Brazilian community, which Siqueira estimated at between 5,000 and 10,000. Local Brazilians visit the Marchiolis, take them on outings, provide them with diapers and cash and help them buy the expensive milk concoction that keeps Vitoria alive. The Marchiolis are set to move out of Ronald McDonald House on Sunday and spend their last week in Texas in Houston with two Brazilian families.

Struggling to cover cost

This is the first year they have seen a doctor other than Huang. The new doctor evaluated Vitoria and told the Marchiolis to return to Brazil and every 6 months send reports on the girl's medical condition. In less than two years, when conditions improve, he will perform surgery to allow Vitoria to use a straw to eat.

The treatment provided by Shriners has had a dramatic effect, the Marchiolis said. The couple's lives revolve around their daughter, so any improvement in her life is an improvement in their own.

"This treatment makes all the difference in our lives," Rolando Marchioli said.

Despite the assistance from Shriners, the Marchiolis struggle every day to meet the financial burden to care for their daughter. Her special formula is expensive in Brazil and Jocilene's salary does not cover the cost, they said.

Members of the Houston Brazilian community have started a gofundme page that has raised $3,880 over the last 19 months, far short of the $20,000 goal. Siqueira said members of the Brazilian community are also working on a web page they hope to put up soon.
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In the middle of the night, Eloy Lopez left his trailer home on Hartwick Road, drove to a buddy's house and collapsed on a reclining chair.

As he drifted off to sleep, Lopez became keenly aware of the silence. It felt unnatural, the quiet filling a space in his head that had grown used to the sound of clashing metal and roaring truck engines.

For the past year, noise from the Integrity Ready Mix plant has plagued Lopez and other residents of Lindale Farms, a neighborhood north of Houston where beauty shops and garages are wedged between rows of homes.

"It was so bad at times, my house would shake," Lopez said. "When we complained, we were told that the company had a permit that allowed them to do pretty much what they wanted, and there wasn't anything we could do."

Operations like these - called concrete batch plants - play a vital role in Houston by producing the ready-mix concrete used for new buildings and roads. They are given license, by the state, to operate around-the-clock and, by the city, to locate in residential areas.

But the plants can be a nuisance for people who live next to them, and they tend to cluster in working-class, minority neighborhoods like Lindale Farms. In south Houston, for example, 18 concrete batch plants sit within a 4-mile radius.

More Information By the numbers 188 Concrete batch plants in Harris County, more than any county in Texas. 18 Concrete batch plants within a 4-mile radius in south Houston. $8 billion Amount cementindustries bring in annually in Texas. 40 Concrete batch plants inspected by city of Houston last year, with over 40 violations. See More Collapse

A Houston Chronicle analysis shows that Harris County has 188 concrete batch plants, more than any county in Texas and twice the number in Dallas County. Industry officials predict that number will increase over the coming decade as Houston grows.

Residents and environmental activists worry about air pollution and have unsuccessfully lobbied the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to take a harder look at the plants' cumulative impact on neighborhoods.

"There are certain times of the day that it gets so dusty we don't feel comfortable having our church elders or children being outside for too long," said the Rev. Matthew Davis of the New Beginning Church in South Acres. "We're very concerned about another one being put in this neighborhood. Why not another neighborhood? Why not River Oaks?"

Since 2014, Texas has led the nation in ready-mix concrete production, with roughly 1,700 permitted batch plants. Consequently, it leads the nation in the production of some of concrete's primary ingredients - sand and gravel.

Richard Szecsy, president of the Texas Aggregate and Concrete Association, said the $8 billion-a-year cement industries in Texas have fared pretty well during the recent oil and gas downturn and things only look to improve.

"Our business is directly tied to population increases," he said. "And nothing has stopped people from moving to Texas, to Houston and the state's other large cities."

The plants tend to locate close, usually no more than 30 miles, from a project site.

That's because once water is poured on the ingredients of concrete - sand, gravel and fly ash - the clock starts ticking. If it isn't delivered quickly enough, the material will harden and become unsuitable for construction.

"We are invested in our community and want to have a good relationship with community members," Szecsy said. "We certainly don't want a fight."

But as the number of plants has continued to climb in Harris County, there's been growing opposition, particularly in poorer neighborhoods, where there is also an abundance of metal recyclers, quarries and landfills.

Consider the Minnetex neighborhood in south Houston. There are five plants on Schurmeir Road, which cuts through the heart of the neighborhood, not too far from the intersection of Beltway 8 and Texas 288.

Debbie Hayes is a Realtor who grew up in the neighborhood and still lives there.

"Back then, it was this rural, country area where you could buy a couple of acres and maybe have some horses. It was very much a 'Leave It to Beaver' kind of existence," she said.

But without zoning, nothing stopped concrete batch plants and other facilities from moving in.

Residents say the concrete batch plants create so much dust that sometimes it's hard to breathe. Many refuse to let their children play outside on windy days.

"I don't like washing my car every day, but I have to," Pat Hunter told state environmental regulators in November. "I don't like dust coming in my house, but it does."

The plants release fine particles of dust, which can irritate the eyes, nose and throat. A standard permit allows the facilities to emit about 5 pounds of particulate matter a day, according to industry estimates.

That's a fraction of what other industrial facilities in Houston release, but environmental activists worry about the impact of the dust when combined with other facilities.

"What they (TCEQ) need to do is go out to one of those plants on Schurmeir Road that is absolutely white with dust, conduct on-site monitoring for a few days and plug that into a modeling analysis to address cumulative impacts," said Adrian Shelley, director of the Houston Air Alliance.

TCEQ officials said in a written statement that every permit issued to concrete batch plants is protective of human health and the environment. They also said the models they use tend to overestimate emissions from these facilities and as such, on-site monitoring is not needed.

Plant operators are required to control dust, but some permits are more restrictive than others. One type stipulates the plant's central baghouse must be more than 440 yards from a home, church or school. The majority of plants permitted in Harris County are not required to adhere to that setback.

Jaime E. Armendariz of AARC Environmental Inc., a Houston-based environmental consulting firm, said some plant operators take steps to reduce dust that aren't required.

Such is the case with the Integrity Ready Mix operator, who has installed additional fencing and runs sweep and vacuum equipment on roads around the plant.

"I've seen how this guy has really gone above and beyond to be a good neighbor," he said.

Still, conflicts between plants and nearby residents seem to be a regular occurrence in booming Houston.

"It's gotten out of hand," said state Rep. Alma Allen, whose south Houston district includes 18 concrete batch plants. "The dust, the potholes, the noise. It's too much. We want businesses in our community, but not these businesses."

In December, residents of the Fifth Ward turned out en masse to give state environmental regulators opinions on Cem Tech's plan to build a new concrete batch plant on Jensen Road, across from a school and a new mosque.

"We want quality of life," resident Albert Lyons said. "We want businesses that will bring real jobs. But these are the kinds of businesses we get. The question I have for you is: 'Do you think this is a dump? Do you have no respect for our community?' "

Over the past year, the city of Houston has started pushing back against concrete batch plants, conducting routine inspections, protesting new permit applications and pressing TCEQ to consider more stringent permit conditions.

In 2016, the city's Bureau of Pollution Control and Health Services inspected 40 concrete batch plants. More than 40 permit violations were discovered, including inadequate dust control for traffic areas and visible emissions leaving property lines.

Mayor Sylvester Turner also recently protested a new state rule that reduces the amount of time the public has to comment on permit renewals and applications.

The shorter period would create a burden for citizens, the mayor wrote to Richard Hyde, TCEQ's executive director. "For those in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities who historically have had less of a voice in public processes and who have fewer resources to deploy to protect themselves, the burden will be particularly onerous."

The city's efforts are supported by Harris County.

Bob Allen, the county's director of the pollution control department, said the state "almost never" puts the county's recommendations into a new or revised permit.

"And the things we consistently ask for are just not that complicated," he said.

Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle

State Rep. Armando Walle, whose north Harris County district includes the Lindale Farms neighborhood, is considering filing bills to restrict plants from operating beyond daylight hours, double the distance the facilities are required to be set back from crushers and hot-mix asphalt plants, and put stricter permit requirements on temporary plants. Rep. Allen has filed legislation that would further increase setback requirements.

"From a global perspective, I understand the need for concrete batch plants," Walle said. "But we have to recognize there's a real quality-of-life issue for the people who live next to these facilities."

The people who live near the Integrity Ready Mix plant in Lindale Farms rarely complained about noise from the facility until Integrity purchased the operation from Los Compadres about two years ago.

The company began operating on a longer schedule, though never more than 10 hours a day, according to the owner, Manuel Mopula.

Alberto Garcia, who owns a body shop and lives across the street, said in Spanish through an interpreter that he and others had called police several times, "and they tell us there's not really anything they can do. It's terrible."

In 2014, the city of Austin enacted a temporary ban on overnight concrete pouring in the Central Business District to combat some of the problems that Houston residents have complained about - dust, noise and truck traffic. But that action had unintended consequences, Szecsy said. Crews were forced to work in the hottest part of the day, contractors lost money trying to prevent heat from ruining concrete, and truck traffic exacerbated daytime commutes. Recently, the city dropped the ban.

"It's kind of like squeezing one side of a balloon," Szecsy said. "You start with one problem and end up with a lot more."

***

Some residents of Lindale Farms aren't content to wait for a possible legislative fix. They've retained Houston attorney Jorge L. Gomez and are contemplating legal action.

It's a move they hope ultimately will help them stay in their homes, though some are considering leaving. They aren't sure if they'll be able to sell their homes if the dust and noise problems persist.

Lopez and his family sold their home a few months ago and moved to Tomball.

He said he got tired of buying air filters twice a week to help keep dust out of his home and tired of the sleepless nights.

Lopez said he became convinced that no one could help them - not county law enforcement officials, not state environmental regulators, and not politicians.

"I have to sleep. My family has to sleep," Lopez said. "We just couldn't do it any longer."

Matt Dempsey contributed to this report.
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AUSTIN - Federal immigration officials acknowledged to a Texas congressman Friday that they are conducting a specialized operation in Central and South Texas and beyond to capture unauthorized immigrants with criminal records.

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, confirmed that targeted operations are taking place in Austin and elsewhere in a program that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is calling Operation Cross Check.

Castro, in a news release, said he learned of the operation from ICE's San Antonio office. The operation appears to be targeting unauthorized immigrants with criminal records, according to the Mexican consul general in Austin and a Washington Post report that states such operations are occurring in six states.

Social media was abuzz with rumors, and reports of roundups and immigrant rights groups were poised for increased enforcement promised by President Donald Trump.

Advocacy groups contend Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are rounding up people in large numbers around the country as part of stepped-up enforcement under Trump.

They have cited immigration action in Southern California they believe is especially heavy-handed.

The government says it's simply enforcing the laws and conducting routine enforcement targeting immigrants in the country illegally with criminal records.

Gillian Christensen, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), confirmed to the Washington Post that ICE agents this week had raided homes and workplaces in Atlanta, the Los Angeles area and two other cities she declined to identify, as part of "routine" immigration enforcement actions

But immigration activists said Friday that they had documented ICE raids of unusual intensity in the last 48 hours in Austin, Dallas and Pflugerville; Vista, Pomona and Compton, Calif.; Alexandria and Annandale, Va.; Charlotte and Burlington, N.C.; Plant City, Fla.; the Hudson Valley region of New York; and Wichita, Kan.

Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, Mexico's consul general in Austin, said his office has seen a "clearly visible uptick" in detentions of Mexican immigrants by federal immigration officials across Central Texas in recent days.

The consulate is notified every time a Mexican immigrant is detained in the Austin metro area. In recent years, that has meant about four or five people a day.

On Thursday, the consulate was notified of 14 immigrants in federal custody. On Friday, they learned of 30 more detentions, Gonzalez Gutierrez said.

A spokesman for the Mexican consulate in Houston could not be reached for comment Friday night.

Andrea Guttin, legal director of Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative, said the raids are "certainly a concern" though she has not heard of any in Houston.

"It is something that we are trying to prepare for," she said.

She said next week her group and others plan to launch an immigrant and refugee rights hotline.

Arrest in Austin

The Austin operation appears to have been underway since Thursday. On Friday, agents arrested in northwest Austin at least one person suspected of having entered the country illegally during an incident in which an ICE agent was injured, according to authorities.

According to friends of the detained person, Hugo Baltazar-Ramirez, ICE agents pulled him over at about 6 a.m. near U.S. 183 and Anderson Mill Road while he was driving to work.

The incident was the first solid indication of an ICE operation in Austin after swirling rumors of raids had grown for days among the immigrant community and local activists.

Travis County spotlight

Many of them thought Travis County had become a ripe target for increased immigration enforcement since Sheriff Sally Hernandez ended blanket cooperation with ICE agents Feb. 1.

Armed with proof ICE was conducting a new operation in Austin, some city leaders Friday promised swift action to aid unauthorized immigrants. The aid will take the form of an emergency appropriation for legal assistance for people who might be targeted by immigration authorities.

City Council member Greg Casar announced at a news conference in north Austin that the proposed legal aid would be on the council's agenda next week.

Casar called ICE's actions "reprehensible" acts of "retribution" from Gov. Greg Abbott, President Donald Trump "and their ilk" as part of their efforts to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities.

"These ICE actions are politically motivated and morally bankrupt," Casar said.

Some Austin school district teachers Friday passed out fliers about immigrants' rights and about how to react if ICE agents come knocking on their doors.

ICE officials were forced to acknowledge the enforcement action in Austin in part because one of their agents was injured during the Friday morning detention.

ICE agent injured

Officials described the injuries as minor. The agent was treated and released.

Two women were also arrested in the incident on warrants, Austin police said.

Austin police were called to the scene, but by the time they got there, the situation appeared to be under control and the ICE agent had detained Baltazar-Ramirez, officials said.

It appears Austin police have been kept in the dark about ICE operations in the city. Interim Police Chief Brian Manley said ICE didn't notify police of any new operation in Austin.

"We were not aware that there was an operation going on," Manley said.

He denied comments circulating on social media that Austin police were assisting ICE agents, who have been spotted making arrests across Austin.
WASHINGTON - National security adviser Michael Flynn spoke privately with Vice President Mike Pence on Friday in an apparent attempt to stem the fallout from the disclosure Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with that country's ambassador and then allowed Pence and other White House officials to publicly deny he had done so, an administration official said.

The conversation took place as senior Democrats in Congress called for existing investigations of Russia's interference in the 2016 election to expand in scope to scrutinize Flynn's contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak weeks before the Trump administration took office.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that if the allegations are proved, Flynn should step down.

"If the now-national security adviser was undermining U.S. national security interests, he's unfit to hold that office," Schiff said in an interview with the Washington Post. "Compounding the issue is whether he then misled the country about the nature of his contacts."

New policy with Trump

Current and former U.S. officials said that in his conversation with Kislyak in late December, Flynn urged Moscow to show restraint in its response to punitive sanctions imposed on Russia by former President Barack Obama's administration, signaling the Trump administration would revisit the issue when it took office.

Those contacts were seen by some U.S. officials as potentially illegal interference in the U.S. relationship with Moscow at a time U.S. intelligence agencies were concluding Russia had waged extensive cyber and influence campaigns to upend the 2016 presidential race and help to elect Trump.

The president claimed to be unaware of the Flynn controversy as he traveled to Florida on Friday afternoon as part of a weekend trip with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

In a brief exchange with reporters during the flight south, Trump was asked about the report in the Post that Flynn had discussed sanctions against Russia despite repeated denials.

"I don't know about that, I haven't seen it," Trump said, according to a transcript of the conversation. "What report is that? I haven't seen that. I'll look into that."

Flynn's relationship with Pence was placed under particular strain because the vice president - apparently relying on inaccurate accounts from Flynn - publicly declared Flynn had never discussed sanctions with the Russian diplomat.

Officials declined to discuss the outcome of Flynn's conversation with Pence, which took place by phone Friday morning. The two men could be seen engaging in an awkward handshake before Trump's news conference with Abe.

Flynn under scrutiny

The controversy fanned speculation about Flynn's standing in the White House and whether he would face pressure to resign.

The senior administration official disputed that Flynn was in jeopardy.

"He seems fine," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "He's in every meeting he's supposed to be doing, fulfilling his job as national security adviser. He's seeing the president constantly."

Republicans were quiet on the matter Friday, but senior Democrats called for investigations of Flynn's contacts with Kislyak. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, called for FBI Director James Comey to testify before the committee on the status of the bureau's examination of Flynn's calls.

Schiff said he intends to request the intelligence reports on Flynn's conversations with the Russian ambassador.

Their contacts were captured as part of routine U.S. intelligence surveillance of Russian officials in the United States.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo requesting a review of Flynn's security clearance.
BEIJING - The Pentagon said a close encounter between a Chinese early warning aircraft and a U.S. Navy patrol plane over the South China Sea appeared to be unintentional and both pilots maintained professional radio contact, in the first such incident known to have taken place under President Donald Trump's administration.

A Chinese KJ-200 flew within 1,000 feet of a U.S. Navy P-3C in international airspace over Scarborough Shoal near the Philippines on Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters in Washington.

He said the Chinese aircraft "crossed the nose" of the P-3, forcing it to make an immediate turn.

"We don't see any evidence that it was intentional," Davis said.

He said both pilots were in "normal radio contact" and their communication "professional."

The Chinese Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.

However, the website of the Communist Party newspaper Global Times quoted an unidentified ministry official as saying that the Chinese pilot had responded in a "legal and professional manner."

"We hope the U.S. side will focus on the relationship between the two countries and two militaries in their entirety, adopt concrete measures and eliminate the root causes of accidental incidents between the two countries on sea and in the air," the unidentified official was quoted as saying.

Philippine Defense Department spokesman Arsenio Andolong also expressed concern because the incident happened near Scarborough Shoal, which is located within the Philippines' 200-mile exclusive economic zone but claimed by China, which seized it in 2012 after a tense standoff with Philippine vessels.

"We're worried of possible miscalculation and it's good to know that nothing untoward happened," Andolong said by telephone.

Such incidents have occurred occasionally over and within the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety.

Although China says it respects freedom of navigation in the strategically vital area, it objects to U.S. military activities, especially the collection of signals intelligence by U.S. craft operating near its southern island province of Hainan, home to several military installations.

In recent years, the sides have signed a pair of agreements aimed at preventing such encounters from sparking an international crisis, as happened in April 2001 when a Chinese jet fighter collided with a U.S. surveillance plane over the South China Sea, leading to the death of the Chinese pilot and China's detention of the 24 U.S. crew members for 10 days.
Under the pink Capitol dome with hundreds of eyes upon him, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an ultimatum to lawmakers mulling over how much to invest in the next two years on high-quality early education.

"Do it right," he implored, raising his voice as lawmakers sat silent, "or don't do it at all."

Those words rang out in his State of the State speech last month, accenting criticism of the state's legislative branch whose budget gurus minimized funding for one of his most prized priorities to increase quality learning inside pre-kindergarten classrooms across Texas.

If budgets are a reflection of lawmakers' priorities, both the House and Senate put pre-K on the proverbial back burner in their preliminary spending proposals this session. Both offer around half of the funding needed to make Abbott's ongoing dream of a robust pre-K program a yearly reality. Key figures in neither chamber are talking yet about adding more.

In a legislative session where money is tight and the state's top leaders already are butting heads, appearing to give lawmakers an option to pass on expanding a controversial early education program inherently offered an out.

'Absolutely perplexed'

People working behind the scenes to ensure the state's grant program that has paid for training and in some cases, full-day programs, for pre-kindergarten say they are confident, however, that lawmakers will pony up money to keep Abbott's early education priority well-funded, even if some politics need to be played first.

"This is the session of Republican-on-Republican warfare and chamber-on-chamber warfare," said Jason Sabo, a long-time social issue lobbyist who represents Children at Risk, a non-profit advocacy group. Add in the governor's office and "of course they're going to game one another for advantage on X, Y and Z," he said.

In 2015, Abbott convinced lawmakers to spend $118 million on high quality pre-K grants that school districts could apply for. Although initial proposals pitched larger spending plans, the governor's high-quality pre-K program handed out grants to 573 school districts serving nearly 190,000 pre-K students this school year. The one-time grants doled out $734 per child, which districts report they largely spent on professional development, curriculum, instructional materials, technology and parent engagement, according to Texans Care for Children, a non-profit policy organization that surveyed districts last fall. Some school systems said they used the money to expand to full-day classes.

Texas has a history of low scores for its pre-K program, meeting two of 10 quality standards recommended by the National Institute for Early Education Research for the last four years, losing points for lacking limits on class sizes and staff-child ratios, among other measures.

Advocates saw the initial grants allowing pre-K programs to use the money as a "down payment" to improve quality after years of pressure by children's groups and a growing array of chambers of commerce, individual businesses and law enforcement calling for an investment in early education, Sabo said.

Instead of doubling the funding to $236 million for the new biennium, the Senate's first draft of the budget released this session offered $75 million per year. The House of Representatives said it would give $117 million the first year and nothing the next.

Abbott admonished the chambers in his speech, saying he was "absolutely perplexed" by the House and Senate budgets that "nod in the direction of pre-K, but they really turn a blind eye to the goal of achieving high-quality pre-K."

'Bucket of priorities'

The Legislature is poised to tackle several weighty and expensive issues this year pertaining to children's well-being. Lawmakers have agreed to focus on reforms to the state's overwhelmed Child Protective Services department, its foster care program which is under fire in the courts, and an antiquated education funding formula that has left Houston Independent School District poised to give up millions of dollars to other school districts. These changes, and other demands for state funding, come as Texas needs to trim back its budget amid lower-than-expected tax revenues due in part to the state's weakened oil industry.

Sitting on a long wooden bench in the marbled hallway of the state Capitol, Stephanie Rubin, CEO of Texans Care for Children, said she was confident both chambers ultimately will fund the pre-K program to the tune of $236 million.

"Given the focus this session on kids and the success and well-being of kids, high-quality pre-K should and, we expect, will be included in that bucket of priorities," she said, adding the cuts both chambers have proposed give citizens and the governor an opportunity to get fired up about the program.

Both chambers contend their early drafts of the budget are starting points in a months-long negotiation over how the state should prioritize more than $100 billion in general revenue funds to be spent over the next two years. State officials and advocates say most of the talk about the early education budget is happening behind the scenes and lawmakers are reticent to make waves.

Senate Education Chairman Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, declined to comment for this story and newly appointed House Public Education Chairman Dan Huberty, R-Houston, was not available for comment.

'Getting personal'

Abbott spokesman John Wittman said the governor wants to see funding for his high-quality pre-K plan increased to $236 million, not sidelined.

"Gov. Abbott was clear that when it comes to early education, Texas children must have the tools they need to succeed and that begins with optional, high-quality pre-K, which he expects the legislature to fully fund this session," Wittman said.

Sabo, a longtime political observer, said he found it telling that Abbott stressed pre-K in his state address.

"This is getting personal, this is his thing," Sabo said.
AUSTIN - Despite calls from Senate leaders to give their school choice plan a fair shot this year - a plea directed at the voucher-averse House - their most formidable challenge this session may be getting enough Republican support to get the proposal out of the upper chamber.

As in the last session, state Sen. Larry Taylor's school choice legislation has the forceful backing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who considers it a top priority, but key senators remain undecided on the bill in its current form.

Taylor, a Friendswood Republican, likely has enough votes to pass Senate Bill 3 out of the chamber's Committee on Education, which he chairs and where he serves with several school choice backers. However, he lacks support from a sufficient number of his GOP colleagues to bring the measure to the Senate floor for a vote.

Senate rules require the approval of 19 of the chamber's 31 members before a bill can come up for floor debate and a vote. Even with a 20-11 GOP majority, Taylor presently needs as many as five more Republican votes in the face of solid Democratic opposition to get a floor vote.

"We have more time than we did last time," Taylor said, adding that he has been in talks with several House members. "I'm trying to meet a lot of folks' concerns. We've got some time to work with a number of them and spend some time explaining it."

Some of the earliest negotiations are likely to come from within the Senate GOP caucus, whose 20 members easily can approve their priority bills if they vote as a bloc. However, Sen. Kel Seliger, an Amarillo Republican, said his mostly rural district has only a few private schools.

"There's a question of money, and where the money comes from and what its effect is," Seliger said. "We're going to hold public schools to pretty rigorous assessments, but not private schools or parochial schools, which are going to take the same money."

Accountability concerns

A specific concern of his is a provision in Taylor's bill that would exempt private schools receiving public money from complying with state education laws not already in effect by January 2017.

"Any requirement we make of public schools, in any area, does not apply," Seliger said. "Just exactly what does that mean?"

Taylor's efforts to shepherd his bill through the legislative process also will test whether a majority of lawmakers in the House, where school choice traditionally has been opposed by Democrats and rural Republicans, is willing even to discuss the issue.

"Many of us in the House are concerned about giving taxpayer dollars to schools that are not held accountable for their financial and academic performance," said Rep. Dan Huberty, a Republican from Humble, who chairs the House Committee on Public Education. "If both public and private schools are getting taxpayer funds, why should only public schools be subject to accountability measures? The House Committee on Public Education, and my colleagues in the Texas House of Representatives have a responsibility to do what is best for our constituents and our students, no one else."

Announced last month, Taylor's Senate Bill 3 would allow parents to create education savings accounts to pay for certain expenses related to their child's education. Those expenses would include tuition and fees at private schools, online educational courses and other materials for home-schooled students and private tutoring.

The accounts would be available to families at all income levels. Each year, the state would deposit into their accounts a set amount of funds, adjusted for the total annual income of the household. Students living below the federal poverty level could qualify for 75 percent of Texas' per-student allocation, or an estimated $6,000 per student each year. The rest of the money would go back to the school district where the student otherwise would be enrolled. The bill would allow students with disabilities, regardless of family income, to receive 90 percent of the public school allotment. Students in families who live above the federal poverty level could get 60 percent.

Taylor's bill also would create a tax credit scholarship program that would provide money to parents who move their children from traditional public schools and enroll them in private or home schools.

The measure would give a tax credit to businesses that contribute to the fund, as well.

Taylor's bill differs in many respects from school voucher bills the Legislature considered in past sessions, when Senate Republicans attempted a time-intensive, piecemeal approach. In 2015, for example, the Senate's tax credit proposal passed the chamber with about a month to spare before the session was scheduled to end. It was assigned to a House committee but never got a hearing date.

The Senate also passed a separate bill that would have ordered the Texas Education Agency to conduct a study on implementing educational savings accounts. It died in another House committee.

Taylor's bill could apply to about 15,000 students statewide in its first year of implementation, Patrick said. There are an estimated 5.2 million students in Texas public schools.

"That is one quarter of 1 percent. So, when people say the sky is falling and that we are undermining education, no we are not," he said. "We are providing choice for parents who are not wealthy enough to choose a school for their child."

Lauded by governor

Public education advocates have condemned Taylor's proposal as the latest attempt to pass a wide-ranging voucher program in Texas.

"If Dan Patrick and his followers wanted to give all students and their parents a meaningful educational choice, they would more adequately fund public education, so that children of all economic backgrounds would have a full menu of academic offerings and electives in their neighborhood public schools," said Texas State Teachers Association President Noel Candelaria.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott long has supported school choice. At a rally on the Capitol steps earlier this month, he urged lawmakers to send Taylor's Senate Bill 3 to him and promised to sign it. He lauded charter schools in his State of the State address last week, saying they "do a great job and deserve more funding."

However, the governor did not place Taylor's legislation on his list of emergency items, which would allow lawmakers to vote on the issue promptly. They still can consider the bill in committee to debate the merits of different proposals, but without Abbott's emergency blessing, legislators must wait more than a month before either chamber can vote on passage.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly included charter schools as an option under the tax credit scholarship program.
Over the years, NASA's Juno spacecraft has delivered hundreds of amazing images of Jupiter. With each new high-definition image, the idea of what we think Jupiter looks like is changed.

Most recently, NASA's photo of the gas giant's southern pole is one such example. To a casual observer, the enhanced-color image might not even look like Jupiter, but instead a strange alien planet straight out of Hollywood.
Republicans in both Washington and Austin are making headway on one of their signal issues, punishing so-called sanctuary cities. They're barreling ahead, even though success, if they achieve it, will make those cities less safe and life more difficult for residents even suspected of being undocumented.

President Trump, shortly after taking office, signed a sweeping executive order making good on his trademark campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration. The order included threats to cut billions of dollars in federal funds from cities deemed to provide sanctuary to the undocumented. Although there's no formal definition for a sanctuary city, the label usually means that local law enforcement has decided not to waste time and resources doing the job that the federal government is supposed to do.

Last week, lawmakers in Austin approved Senate Bill 4, which would defund cities that don't comply with detention requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Gov. Greg Abbott has made punishing sanctuary cities an emergency priority this legislative session.

At the moment Abbott is targeting Austin, where Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez has stopped detaining jail inmates while ICE determines their immigration status. The governor has cut some $1.5 million in state grants being used for family violence education, the county's veterans court program and services for crime victims. State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, has warned that ICE has begun retaliating against Travis County by conducting sweeps in the Austin area. ICE denies the charge.

Hernandez isn't backing down, and neither is the governor. He accuses the sheriff of protecting people "who have been convicted of crimes in the past, of heinous crimes like armed robbery. "

Actually, the sheriff has said her office will comply with ICE requests to hold those suspects booked on charges of capital murder, aggravated sexual assault or human smuggling. She's unwilling to hold those booked on lesser crimes after they've posted bond, had charges dropped or are otherwise free to go.

Austin and Travis County won't be Abbott's only targets, as Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is well aware. Choosing his words carefully last week, he told the Chronicle that "the Houston Police Department is not going to be ICE or INS." Noting that one of four residents of Harris County is foreign-born, he emphasized that HPD will not be singling out those who might be undocumented to determine their immigration status.

Newly elected Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez also has a decision to make. Harris County officials have had cooperative agreements with federal immigration officials to detain undocumented immigrants when they are released from jail under what is known as the 287(g) program. As a candidate, Gonzalez promised to end the county's agreement with ICE. His spokesman told the Chronicle recently that he's reviewing the matter; we urge him to do what it takes to keep Harris County residents safe, despite the threats from Austin and Washington.

Like most law-enforcement officials in this state, Gonzalez knows that turning local police officers into immigration enforcers leads to mistrust between the community and law enforcement. Victims and potential witnesses are less likely to come forward to report crimes if they know they're exposing themselves to the threat of deportation or the hassle that results from the inevitable profiling. In addition, local and state law enforcement agencies don't have the resources to enforce immigration laws - or to defend themselves against the lawsuits sure to follow.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of the contentious debate about sanctuary cities is that a solution is at hand, and has been for years. Comprehensive immigration reform along the lines the U.S. Senate passed just a few years ago would resolve the matter. By allowing the undocumented among us to come out of the shadows, by providing them some kind of path toward legal status, we could solve most of our immigration difficulties. Trump and Abbott prefer to punish.
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There were more than 1.3 million empty or temporarily occupied homes in Canada in 2016, according to census data released this week  enough housing to accommodate some 3.2 million people.

Thats an increase of nearly 40 per cent since the 2001 census. As a share of all housing, 8.7 per cent of Canadian homes lacked a permanent resident in 2016, up from 7.6 per cent in 2001.

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In Toronto, the number of empty homes has tripled to 99,000 since 2001, enough housing for some 240,000 people.

In Vancouver, empty homes have more than doubled in that time, to around 66,000.

The rising number of empty homes has got some policymakers in large cities worried. Many market observers have argued that foreign investors and house-flippers are leaving the homes they purchased empty, threatening the economic health of the community in the long-run.

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Vancouvers high-end neighbourhoods "have become just luxury items like Ferraris," Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser Universitys City Program, told Bloomberg News. "Theyre not affordable for most local incomes."

In the condo neighbourhood around Toronto's King Street West, nearly 22 per cent of homes are empty, Better Dwelling reports.

Last fall, Vancouver became the first city in Canada to institute an empty homes tax, adding a one-per-cent surcharge on a homes value annually if its unoccupied for at least six months a year. The tax relies on homeowners self-reporting.

It's not just pricey cities

Yet the census data suggests the problem is much more widespread. In fact, the share of empty homes in Canadas major cities is lower, on the whole, than in small towns and rural communities.

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Despite the large spike in empty homes, Toronto and Vancouver continue to have a lower rate of empty homes than the country as a whole  6.5 per cent for Vancouver, and 4.4 per cent for Toronto.

Percentage-wise, the cities with the most empty homes in Canada are places not known for house-flippers or foreign investors:

St. Johns

Saskatoon

Halifax

St. Catharines, Ont.

In some of these cities, empty homes may simply reflect a lack of demand.

Another cause that has been suggested is Airbnb. Some academic articles have argued the short-term stay booking service is wreaking havoc with housing supply, by effectively turning homes into part of a citys hotel-room stock.

Whatever the reasons, empty houses have become an obsession in Canadas priciest cities, as evidenced by this Vancouver blog dedicated to the citys most beautiful unoccupied homes.

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Francis Ford Coppolas classic Godfather Part II may have been as much fact as fiction.

In the 1974 film, mob boss Vito Corleone travels to Sicily on the pretext that he is an Italian-American olive oil importer looking to buy. He uses his cover to kill the man who killed his father.

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Now, according to reports from Italy, police in Sicily have confiscated four olive oil companies that prosecutors say are part of a business empire belonging to Italys top mafia boss.

Matteo Messina Denaro is Italy's most-wanted fugitive and has been on the run for 24 years. Prosecutors allege he is the head of Italy's Cosa Nostra.

Denaro's power base is said to be on the western part of the island, the location of the olive oil companies that are worth an estimated 13 million euros (C$18.1 million).

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The farm lobby Coldiretti estimates Italy's various mafias earn billions annually in agriculture, including by using threats to force stores to sell mobster-produced mozzarella or other products.

Proving that reality is at least as strange as a 1974 Oscar winner.
AUSTIN, Texas  President Donald Trumps promised crackdown on undocumented immigrants is in full force this week, with increased deportation efforts around the country, activists and elected officials said Friday.

Immigrant rights advocates reported an uptick in Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests  including the detention of people who were considered low priority for removal until Trump signed an order last month making nearly every undocumented immigrant an important target for deportation.

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ICE officials initially said that this weeks actions were routine and nothing outside the ordinary. But in a conference call with reporters Friday evening, an ICE official appeared to contradict that statement, saying that the agencies targeted several cities in an enforcement surge.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said ICEs San Antonio field office told him that South and Central Texas were also targeted as part of an operation called Cross Check.

The idea that these operations will become the new normal is exactly what undocumented immigrants are afraid of.

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In Austin, Angel Velazquez kissed her boyfriend Hugo before he went to work on Friday morning. He said hed text her when he got to his job site, like he normally does.

Instead, she got a text a few minutes later in Spanish saying hed been stopped by immigration authorities. I was like, Babe, dont hang up, Ill be there right away, Velazquez told The Huffington Post.

Velazquez, who is a U.S. citizen of Native American descent, rushed with her sister to the place where her boyfriend had been stopped, telling him on the phone as they drove not to answer questions, especially about his immigration status. When they found him, Velazquez said, she asked ICE agents for a warrant, but they responded that they didnt need one.

Hugo was one of more than a dozen people in the area hauled off to immigrant detention over the last two days. Activists and elected officials in Austin said ICE had stopped undocumented immigrants in traffic, attempted to arrest them in their homes and patrolled the area around an HEB grocery store in the northwestern part of the city.

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A Texas-based spokeswoman for ICE declined to specify why the agency had detained any of these immigrants, but Velazquez said Hugo had a DWI ticket on his record.

The level of ICE enforcement that weve seen in the past few weeks is unprecedented, Stephanie Gharakhanian, an attorney with the Workers Defense Project, told reporters.

Grassroots Leadership, an immigrant rights group, has meanwhile received calls from about 20 different peoples families on its hotline. Im connecting them with attorneys, Alejandro Caceres, one of the activists fielding the calls, told HuffPost. Im telling them not to open their doors.

One caller told Caceres that a police officer had accompanied ICE agents to make an arrest  a seeming contradiction of the sanctuary policy that Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez announced last month. Austin Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The level of ICE enforcement that weve seen in the past few weeks is unprecedented.  Stephanie Gharakhanian, Workers Defense Project

ICEs national office pushed back against the idea that anything was out of the ordinary.

The rash of recent reports about purported ICE checkpoints and random sweeps are false, dangerous, and irresponsible, the agency wrote in a statement about detentions in the Los Angeles area. These reports create panic and put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger. Individuals who falsely report such activities are doing a disservice to those they claim to support. 

Still, the agency acknowledged the enforcement surge in the Los Angeles area. During the five-day operation, ICE agents detained 160 people, all but 10 with criminal histories, according to a statement.

Immigrant rights advocates who keep a close eye on deportations said theyve seen a clear uptick in arrests in multiple cities, including the deportation of Guadalupe Lupita Garcia de Rayos, a mother of two U.S. citizens who came to the country at the age of 14, in Phoenix on Thursday.

In the metro area of Savannah, Georgia, ICE agents picked up 26 people, according to news reports. In Atlanta, an advocate said agents had been knocking on doors in an apartment complex and a trailer park. At least nine men who worked as construction workers were detained at a trailer park in Apple Valley, Minnesota, an activist there said.

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United We Dream, an undocumented youth activist group, also received calls about increased deportation activity in Virginia, New York, Oklahoma and Florida, Cristina Jimenez, the groups executive director, said on a call with reporters.

This is clearly the first wave of attacks under the Trump administration, and we know that this is not going to be the only one, Jimenez said.

Some of the arrests are happening in so-called sanctuary cities, jurisdictions that limit their cooperation with ICE in some way. Trump said he would pressure these jurisdictions into collaborating with deportation efforts.

Austin City Council member Greg Casar, a progressive Democrat, said he believed the vigorous enforcement efforts are an act of retaliation against local leaders for trying to protect undocumented immigrants.

This is a drastic shift in ICE actions in our community, Casar said at a press conference, adding that the city council would respond by considering an emergency appropriation to provide legal services to undocumented immigrants.

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Immigrant rights groups and their allies in public office plan to increase their efforts to protect undocumented immigrants by holding more know your rights presentations and raising funds for legal representation, among other things.

Democratic members of Congress condemned the reported ICE raids and said they would do what they could to fight them.

Democrats call it 'retaliatory'

Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) told HuffPost he doesnt think its a coincidence the crackdown happened this week, as the Trump administration struggled with a roadblock in the courts over its executive order banning refugees and travel from certain Muslim-majority countries.

This is retaliatory and it is a way to provide political cover  Look what were doing, were out there being tough on criminals  when in reality, theyre breaking up families, Grijalva said. Its callous and its very, very dangerous.

Velazquez spent the afternoon in jail herself. When she tried to defend her boyfriend, authorities asked to see her ID. They arrested her on a warrant for an unpaid speeding ticket, she said.

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Its callous and its very, very dangerous.  Rep. Raul M. Grijalva

When she left the downtown courthouse on Friday afternoon, she said she felt guilty. She didnt have to work on Friday. Normally on her days off, she drives Hugo to work. But on Friday, she felt sleepy and asked to stay home and rest.

I just want him out of jail and just home already, Velazquez told HuffPost. I dont think its fair what theyre doing. I dont see the reason for it.

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Last week was #TimetoTalk Day. Mental Health Awareness Week is in May. In the autumn it's World Mental Health Day. Last year at school we used #WMHDay as an opportunity to raise money for mental health charities, talk about mental health and run a mindfulness taster session. So with so many mental health awareness campaigns already, do we really need Children's Mental Health Week too?

In my mind yes, we most definitely do. Recently I asked some of the primary school children I teach mindfulness to how they had been using it to help them. Lots of them spoke about using different techniques like 'finger breathing' to help them when they get worried about assessments. Others talked about friendship issues getting them down at break times. Already, before they hit the teenage years, their language is peppered with words like 'stress', 'anxiety' and 'concerns'.

So it's incredibly important to start these conversations with children before they reach secondary school and continue them at key stages 3, 4 and 5 too. Especially as the survey published in conjunction with 'The Big Assembly' indicated that over 60% of 10 and 11 year olds worry 'all the time'. According to the findings the children's top concerns were their family and friends being okay, and not doing well at school. The Mental Health Foundation identify that 10% of 5 - 16 year olds have a clinically diagnosable mental health problem. An equally alarming statistic that is also commonly bandied about is that it is estimated that 50 per cent of all mental health problems are established by the age of 14 (some research is now suggesting that this has fallen further to 12 years old) and 75 per cent by the age of 24.

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So I welcomed the younger royals' backing of 'children's mental health week' and how they caught the attention of the media with their support for the campaign. On Monday the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge teamed up with the charity Place2Be to kick the campaign off with 'The Big Assembly' at a primary school in northwest London and it seemed an entirely appropriate message to be propagated to help wellbeing - be kind.

This year's focus on kindness is spot on. Cultivating kindness is a key principle of mindfulness and there is robust science behind it. Not only does promoting kindness help lower the number of bullying instances in schools, but research shows that kindness can help the 'agent of kindness' feel a natural "Helper's High". As Catherine Roche, Place2Be's Chief Executive commented on the radio earlier in the week, teaching children coping strategies [of which mindfulness is one] will help to ensure that children's problems 'won't grow with them'.

Wouldn't it be lovely to equip the next generation with skills that help to build their resilience and emotional intelligence and stand them in good stead for the future?

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So yes, we really DO need Children's Mental Health Week.
Belfast at night.

Since the Brexit referendum last summer, there has been no shortage of pundits pedaling an image of a Northern Ireland on the brink of economic calamity.

It's time to dispel some popular fiction with actual facts.

Northern Ireland has evolved dramatically over the past two decades into a modern, thriving region. Far from being the poor cousin of the UK, Northern Ireland is actually outperforming the other UK countries, including England, in many key performance indicators. Take exports - over the past 12 months Northern Ireland was the best-performing region in the UK with 6 percent growth versus overall UK export growth of just 0.2 percent. Since the EU referendum result, the softening of the sterling pound in relation to the USD and Euro has given a further boost to Northern Ireland with exports from the region surging in October at their fastest rate in 12 years.

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Foreign direct investment

Contrary to popular belief, the Brexit vote has not stopped the flow of foreign direct investment into the region either. Invest Northern Ireland has made an inward investment announcement every month since the referendum and the pipeline remains strong.

In fact, in 2016 there were 25 percent more investment announcements from international companies compared to 2015. This past year there were 18 new international companies that set up in Northern Ireland, nearly 40 percent increase from 2015. Of these half are U.S. headquartered. Most tellingly however, 12 of those announcements came after the referendum was held in June.

That growth can also be seen in office rentals with top-end office letting in Belfast increasing by 40 per cent during 2016. The latest end-of-year figures show some 435,000 sq ft of office space rented during the course of 2016 - up 36 per cent based on a five-year average. And 573,527 square feet of new office space will be completed by 2018.

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The reason companies choose Northern Ireland is primarily for its highly skilled workforce and cost competitiveness. Skill sets at a value are the main drivers of investment in the region, not European market access.

This has been a deliberate tactic. Invest Northern Ireland has predominantly targeted cost center opportunities for high knowledge service sectors - mainly offshore service centers for U.S. or Great Britain-based parent operations - so for our foreign investors market access is generally not an issue.

Northern Ireland is a global leader in the knowledge economy

Today, one in 11 people in Northern Ireland are currently employed in the knowledge economy. We are the number one global location for cyber security inward investment - and the top international location for U.S. companies with the UK's national innovation and knowledge centre for cyber security, the Centre for Secure IT, based at Queen's University, Belfast.

Belfast is also the number one destination city globally for financial services technology projects. This is no surprise given Northern Ireland has the highest percentage of qualified IT professionals in the UK and Ireland with more than 77 percent holding a degree level qualification - well ahead of the rest of the UK and Republic of Ireland.

This has led to the region emerging as a Legal Tech center with the UK's First Legal Innovation Centre to be launched at Ulster University later this month.

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U.S. legal firms and companies are here conducting cutting-edge work. For example, Allen & Overy's global IT hub is located in Belfast and Baker & McKenzie's Global Merger Analysis Platform (GMAP) - a new antitrust and merger data control tool - is delivered from Belfast and used by the firm's team of anti-trust and competition lawyers world-wide.

Axiom's Belfast Centre of Excellence leverages the company's IRIS technology to deliver commercial, derivatives and regulatory projects for Fortune 500 clients, while Herbert Smith Freehills' tech-enabled Belfast operation is the central pillar in the firm's global alternative legal services offer.

Northern Ireland has been successful in these high knowledge sectors in part as a result of the region's approach to marrying education and innovation and Invest Northern Ireland's modus operandi of partnering with companies investing in the region for the entire duration of their project. It is no accident.

U.S. companies who come to Northern Ireland stay in Northern Ireland with some 75 per cent of new investors reinvesting in the region over the past decade.

New lower corporate tax rate

We believe the business environment in Northern Ireland is poised to get better as we gear up for the introduction of a new lower corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent - a commitment made by the Northern Ireland Executive - which, when combined with the region's other tax incentives, will make it the lowest anywhere in the G20.

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This move serves to enhance an already very attractive tax environment which includes Patent Box Corporation Tax of 10 per cent, low personal taxation, low social welfare contributions, generous tax allowances, no local taxes on profits or surplus, R&D Tax relief up to 230 per cent and an extensive tax treaty network of over 135 treaties.

Crucially, this new rate of corporate tax is designed to create jobs in the local economy and therefore business must be conducted in the region in order to avail of the 12.5 percent rate. This new rate does not allow profit shifting, is fully BEPS-proof, and is only applicable to genuine economic activity.

Importantly, what it also means is that Northern Ireland can more aggressively target other sectors such as advanced engineering and manufacturing, health and life sciences where the region is already world leaders in niche areas. And, it also allows Invest Northern Ireland to target profit centers for the first time.
It's so important before we say anything about that answer to remember the massive diversity of our community. Why this is so important is that in the last weeks I've seen a lot of rumors flying around about 'Oh there's going to be an anti-LGBTQ order coming out from the White House. Get ready we're next'. We are not next, we are already under attack. Think about who we are: women, trans folks, people of color, people who want to drink clean water. That's all of us. We are already under attack. The Theater Offensive has had Muslim employees and Muslim board members. It's really important that we remember that these members of our community, if we're not standing together like this, how are we calling ourselves a community? We are already under attack and The Theater Offensive the way I see it, we need to be already in action. So we're mobilizing as part of the resistance to this. I think culture plays a vital role in resistance. Culture is part of the problem that created the situation that we're in and it's part of the solution. I heard a joke on Saturday Night Live which I think considers itself you know kind of progressive. There was a joke in the news segment about trans women of color or in other words the reason Trump won the election as if the reason Trump won the election was because of identity politics of LGBTQ folks. I think the opposite is true. The reason Trump won is because white supremacists grabbed on to an identity movement and went with that. And anti-gay forces grabbed on to their identity and went with it and though a minority of people in the country, a minority of voters even identified that way or support that, they organized politically in a way that they could win. I think it's really important for us as a community to make sure we're standing up to that and standing together against that.
Politicians in Europe are howling about President Trump's cruel and inept executive order on refugees, and comparing his scattershot treatment to Europe's which they argue is benign and in line with European values.

Don't be fooled. Europe, if it can be said that there is such a cohesive entity, is full of efforts to curtail refugee and migrant flows in ways that (might even) make Trump blush. But for now, it is easier to take a holier-than-Trump stance than do what is necessary, both in Europe and Washington, to deal with the reality of refugee issues in the age of failed states: migrant flows are not going to end soon from all sorts of places and no one knows how to handle them.

Europe's response is hardly a source of pride. To wit:

Germany, which opened its borders to almost a million refugees in 2015 and a 280,000 last year, is now deporting the newcomers at breakneck speed, especially from Afghanistan, which Berlin has decreed is a safe place to go back to. Sometimes Germany pays migrants money to encourage their exit. Chancellor Angela Merkel worked out a deal in which the European Union paid off Turkey to stop migrants from taking to sea to get to Europe. She has also floated the idea of banning burkas, the full body conservative covering of some ultra-conservative Muslim women. Even Trump hasn't thought that one up.

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France's President Francois Hollande, whose opinion doesn't count much since he'll be out of power this year, has lambasted Trump for his refugee policies. He said Europe "must respond." In the meantime, his government blocked the borders with Italy to keep African migrants form coming north and arrested Frenchmen who have tried to guide them across the Alps. The top candidates who would replace him in this year's election have all taken tough stands on immigration. Conservative candidate Francois Fillon and nationalist firebrand Marine LePen are running on anti-immigration platforms. The socialist candidate Manuel Valls has said Europe should not accept any more refugees. He also suggested that full-body covering women's bathing suits should be banned. Only Emmanuel Macron, head of a new party, has expressed willingness to welcome more refugees.

Poor Theresa May, the British Prime Minister who rose to power atop the Brexit vote. Under public pressure, she had to criticize Trump, forgetting that the Brexit referendum was largely about with blocking immigration. Whoops, I meant controlling borders. Meanwhile, her government just reneged on a promise to accept thousands of unaccompanied minors languishing on the continent.

Denmark's Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen called Trump's decision "to block people from certain countries" extremely "unwise." Wait! Is this the same Denmark that has restricted family visits of immigrants from Syria? That took out ads in Middle Eastern newspapers advising refugees not to come? That limited access of asylum seekers to court? The same Denmark that seized money and valuables from refugees in order to make them pay for the cost of processing their requests?

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Parts of Eastern Europe have been more receptive to Trumpism. Some of their policies and attitudes presaged it. Poland (no refugees allowed), Hungary (pioneer fence-builder), the Czech Republic (keep 'em out), Slovakia (Muslims don't fit in) comprise an anti-migration bloc in Europe that shows no sign of compromise.

In 2015, The European Union pledged to resettle 160,000 refugees marooned in Greece and Italy, the first points of arrival for large numbers of migrants. Latest figure: 12,000 resettled. That didn't stop the Financial Times from lambasting Italy's Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni for not joining in the European chorus to dump on Trump. Gentiloni's quiet approach, the FT intoned, would hinder forging a "common European response" to the US president. Maybe the Italian has seen enough of Europe's common response to things-- like not keeping its promise to resettle refugees across the continent.

The refugee conundrum is not a temporary blip on the screen of global problems. Just look at the longevity of conflict in the the roster of countries that Trump tried to block: Somalia, on and off warfare since the 1980's; Sudan embroiled in intermittent civil conflict plus endless dictatorship; Iraq, civil conflict for the 14 years since the US-led invasion; warfare into its sixth year in Syria, Libya and Yemen. Iran is a kind of outlier in this group, though Trump's ban was aimed at reminding everyone that the US labels the Islamic Republic a sponsor of international terror.
Both Republicans and Democrats agree that health care costs are too high and that there are too many people that are not covered by health care insurance. Both the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed during the Obama administration and several plans being discussed by the Republicans have remarkably similar goals. If the Republicans follow through on their promise to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act, then they must carefully tailor their plan to (1) decrease costs of health care, (2) allow everyone to have access to some form of health insurance, (3) allow patients to have choices in tailoring their individual plans, (4) place an emphasis on preventative care so as to keep more patients out of the hospital, and (5) have some form of medical malpractice tort reform. They should also do what they can to keep the parts of the ACA that garnered good feedback.

There were several good ideas imbedded in the Affordable Care Act. For example, pre-existing conditions could no longer be used to deny a person health care coverage. Small businesses (defined as a business with less than 50 employees) were given tax credits for up to 50% of employee premiums. The cut-off age for young adults to be covered by their parents insurance was raised to 27. This was especially good for recent college graduates who were finding it difficult to get jobs in the depressed economy.

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The ACA also decreased the "donut hole" by 50%. The previous hole limited prescription medication expenditures over $2,700.

Lifetime caps on health insurance expenditures were to be eliminated by the ACA. Previously, insurers could cut off patients whose bills exceeded a certain amount. With the ACA, insurers had to keep paying for health care so long as the patient was not dead. This clause has taken on more importance with the McMath case which I wrote about last month (this case described a patient who was deemed to be dead in California but alive in New Jersey).

Under the ACA, all insurance plans had to include preventative care without co-pays by 2018. Preventative care is important in keeping patients with chronic conditions out of the hospital where the costs are highest.

At this time, it seems clear that the Republicans have the votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act. There are several models being presented as to what they will replace the Act with and it is now worthwhile to look at some of these ideas. Whichever plan they choose, it would be wise for them to keep the good aspects of the ACA in place.

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Here are some thoughts on what a new health plan might incorporate.

Most Republican plans will eliminate the community rating where everyone in a community are charged the same premiums. The community rating was needed to keep premiums down for people with pre-existing conditions but it forced others to pay higher premiums. Also, mandatory benefits in the ACA health plans forced people to pay for benefits they would never use. The Republicans argue that people should not have to pay for plans mandating care for such things as in-vitro fertilization, cosmetic surgery, and abortions. The ACA required this coverage so that the higher premiums could be used to off-set the costs of the patients who needed these benefits and other benefits that few would use.

There are several other ideas that are being discussed to make health care insurance more affordable. For example, vouchers of $5,000 for the purchase of health insurance with tax-free dollars would allow people to shop for policies that would meet their budget and needs. This would not require a large bureaucracy; it would only require people to process the forms and police the system for fraud. People would have a vested interest in their health care policy and, hopefully, the free market would decrease the costs. The use of vouchers would be a good way for those with pre-existing conditions to purchase policies without having everyone else pay higher premiums for coverage for things they would never need.

Currently, the states regulate health care insurance. This leads to large cost disparities. If people could cross state lines to buy insurance, then they could shop for the best deals to meet their needs. I believe the Commerce Clause would allow the Congress to pass a law to allow for this. This would probably lead to an overall decrease in premiums as the insurers would have to compete with more companies in other states.

Another way to cut health care costs is to put people in charge of their own routine care. One way to do this is to let people set up health savings accounts where tax free dollars are used to pay for routine care. Medical providers will have to compete for these dollars by offering the best service for the lowest price. Once the free market is back in play, drug companies, hospitals, and providers will not be able to raise prices without losing patients.

The health savings accounts should not be used for over the counter remedies and there would be tax penalties for those patients who make non-medical withdrawals.

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Premiums for health insurance should be tax deductible. If companies can do it (and they can) then individuals should be allowed to do this also. This would allow most of the 176 million enrolled in company owned plans to buy their own insurance and force the companies to compete by offering supplemental tax free compensation to allow the consumer to buy more insurance if they see the need. This would be another way to allow those with pre-existing conditions to get coverage without having everyone else pay higher premiums.

Health coverage should be portable. Employees should be able to control their own health plans and should be able to take these plans with them from job to job. This would force employers to treat their workers better since the worker would not be locked into the job for fear of losing their health care insurance.

Health care insurance should be like other insurance i.e., auto, life, home, and fire. The plans would be private property and they would allow for maximum choice. They should be flexible and creative allowing the consumer to buy a policy they deem necessary to meet their needs. This would remove big business, labor unions, and politicians from the health insurance business and let the free market control the costs.

Updating Medicare by allowing each senior an actuarial determined $250,000 to purchase some form of elder care insurance would encourage older patients and their care-givers to shop for their own health care. Again, it is hoped that the free market would lead to decreased costs as this patient population would be empowered to look for the best deals.

Allowing the states to cover their own Medicare and Medicaid populations would encourage better management that is state specific. Each state would be given a set amount every year based on their Medicare and Medicaid population. The states could then experiment for better ways to improve care and decrease costs. Successful programs could be emulated by states that are not as successful.

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Unfortunately, under the Affordable Care Act, many providers stopped seeing Medicare and Medicaid patients as the costs exceeded the payments. Costs and payments must be brought into alignment so that the providers will be willing to care for all patients in the system.

If the government would allow charitable care to be tax deductible, health care providers would be more inclined to treat the low income or uninsured patient. This would be much cheaper than having these patients rely on the emergency room for their primary care. It would also lead to a predictable continuity of care which would be beneficial for the patients and the providers. Providers who have patients for the long term are more likely to reap the benefits of managing chronic conditions in the "out of hospital" setting.

The Affordable Care Act had no provisions pertaining to tort reform. Most Republican plans recognize that tort reform is critical if health care costs are to be decreased. Malpractice insurance is costly. For some specialties, premiums can be over $200,000 per year and these costs are transferred to the patients. Defensive medicine as a strategy to defend against potential malpractice claims raises the cost of health care for everyone. Estimated costs for defensive medicine is about $124 billion per year and each year, this estimate is going up.

Some states limit the payment for non-economic damages in a malpractice suit in an effort to control malpractice premiums. Some states may soon try to take malpractice claims out of the hands of juries by using alternative forms of resolution such as Health Courts.

Limiting attorneys' fees is another strategy being looked at to decrease the costs of malpractice premiums but attorneys are lobbying against this; since many legislators are themselves attorneys, this will be an uphill battle.

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The ACA was over 2000 pages long and was very complex. The Republican plan should not try to fix everything at once. They should start with some laws that are understandable and allow some choice for the patients. The providers also need some protection to keep all the cost cuts from falling on their shoulders.

No matter what elements are incorporated in a Republican plan, it looks like they recognize the fundamental fact that optimal health care is a very personal experience between the patient and his provider. This experience must be affordable and patient centered. Patients should be allowed to pick and keep their provider. The constant switching from one plan to another from year to year which often lead to new providers who did not have an on-going relationship with the patient was not good health care. It is no surprise that the ACA was struggling to meet its mission. I look forward to studying the details in the proposed Republican plans. I think everyone should be as interested as me.
On Monday, January 30, 2017, hundreds of patient protectors braved the bitter New York City cold to stand firmly in defiance against the impending appointment of billionaire school-choice crusader Betsy DeVos, 58, for Secretary of Education. The brazen assembly, short on time yet not lacking hope, was among one of many gatherings crisscrossing the nation. Since DeVos's name first surfaced as President Trump's nominee for Secretary of Education, a stubborn, nation-wide procession of feet has emerged in stride to protest what many fear is the beginning of the end of public education in the U.S., as we know.

From the march-worn concrete streets of New York City to the rally-fatigued lawns of the National Mall, the rising chorus of dissent to DeVos's appointment is not without merit. On the eve of the U.S. Senate vote to confirm Devos's nomination as education secretary, Democratic Senators staged a day-long talking protest to convince a least one more Republican Senator to switch her or his vote. In line with Senate Democratic efforts, there have been countless social media campaigns aimed at convincing legislators in the Senate to reject DeVos as Secretary of Education.

Given what we know about her--DeVos's ties to the multibillion dollar Amway Corporation, for which she is heiress--people are well within reason to question and, even worse, fear how she might run the U.S. Department of Education. In this light, it is important to note that DeVos's husband, Richard DeVos, Jr., inherited his billions from Amway, a company known for exploitative business practices, i.e., multilevel marketing--also known as pyramid schemes--to funnel precious resources from the thin pockets of the masses to the greedy bank accounts of the gluttonous few.

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While her record on education appears to be lacking, what DeVos brings to the job of Secretary of Education is an unmatched charisma for fiscal alchemy--the ability to turn other public money into private profit. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the only real educational policy DeVos seems to have durable knowledge of is the Title I provision (the most lucrative provision) under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--better known as No Child Left Behind.

Under No Child Left Behind, in access of $14.5 billion of federal monies were set aside to address education funding inequities by financially bolstering school districts with large proportions of poor children. The stated purpose of the funding was to give poor children greater access to the same types of learning opportunities as wealthier children who reside in affluent districts with schools that benefit from higher property taxes, among other supports.

Further, we know that, as a result of choice policies such as the voucher programs that DeVos champions, 20 percent of all Title I monies earmarked for poor students--roughly $2.6 billion--end up in school districts with a higher proportion of wealthy families. This often overlooked detail could shed light on some of DeVos's intentions as Secretary of Education, while giving us incredible insight into a department of education that, under a DeVos regime, could resemble a Ponzi scheme.

Much of DeVos's past efforts in education, an associated knowledge of educational policy, seem to deal with mechanizations for a massive transfer of wealth from the public sector to the private sector, that is, from taxpaying citizens investing in a public education project crucial for the development of our nation's youth and the maintenance of our democracy to the uber wealthy elites who conceal their money in hidden offshore accounts. Many of such individuals, like President Trump, neither pay taxes nor plan to. Thus, in relationship to her lack of knowledge of policies such as the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), created to serve vulnerable students, Devos's focused knowledge of Title I reads as alarming. According to Nate Malkus, a contributor to U.S. News and World Report, "Given DeVos' long history of advocating for school choice and Trump's proposed $20 billion investment in it, her pointed position deserves a full discussion."



According to New York Times reporter Kate Zernike, DeVos, a former chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, has a passionate record of steering Title I monies away from public schools. For example, the Detroit, Flint and Grand Rapids school districts boast the 10 largest shares of students in U.S. charter schools. The State of Michigan sends $1 billion in education funding to charter schools annually. Of those schools, 80 percent are run by for-profit organizations, a far higher share than anywhere else in the nation. Moreover, the DeVos family, the most prominent name in Republican politics in Michigan, have been the biggest financial and political backers of education resource diversions into the private sector.

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With the selection of DeVos, President Trump seems serious about the $20 billion school voucher plan he rolled out during his campaign. The proposal would redirect huge swaths of the federal education budget away from school districts and toward low-income parents, allowing them to spend a voucher at a public or private school of their choice, including for-profit, virtual, religious, and other predatory systems of schooling.

To be sure, DeVos enters the conversation with enormous conflicts of interest. She and her family have invested millions in divestments schemes, lobbying the federal and State of Michigan governments to open up education markets to opportunistic millionaires. She and her family have also invested in online K-12 education ventures, alternative systems of education that too often prey upon our nation's most vulnerable students to turn a profit.

Indeed, this playbook on exploitation is not without familiarity, particularly for an administration whose leader, Donald Trump, has become the icon for exploitation in private education. Remember President Trump was regularly dogged on the campaign trail for his own failed foray into for-profit education with the now infamous Trump University.

The other part of this story deals with the policy that DeVos doesn't know: IDEA--a policy advancing equity in education, assuring rights of otherly abled students to participate and gain an education equal to that of all other students across a range of abilities. DeVos's ignorance of IDEA could suggest that she isn't interested in educational equity, or is, at best, indifferent to it. Thus, we must question her public rhetoric on education--especially when she pivots to equity claims to conceal her broader history in support of school privatization (even at the expense of educational equity).

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Had she been genuinely concerned about public education, DeVos would have known what IDEA is. Had she been genuinely concerned for the education of all American youth, she would be aware of how disastrous policies that redistribute public funds to the private sector are. If she were really concerned about American youth, she would have regarded her own resume in public education, and pulled herself out the running for Secretary of Education.

All this seems too late now. What matters is this: President Trump did not select Ms. DeVos to be Secretary of Education because of her affect toward the vulnerable, her love of public education, or her knowledge of disability legislation. (Remember he is the only president in my lifetime who has publicly mocked disabled Americans.) President Trump choose Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education because of her record, which is replete with examples of diversions of crucial funding away from the vulnerable and into the pockets of the rich.

Trump, himself, has a rich history of this kind of profiteering. So does DeVos.
Every day in Donald Trump's incompetent, dishonest, kleptocratic administration brings new outrages and absurdities.

As midnight approaches, and the President presumably is safely in his bathrobe, here are some of the highlights just from today, Friday, February 10, 2017:

1. Meeting with 10 senators, mostly Democrats, about the Gorsuch Supreme Court nomination, Trump claimed "thousands" of Massachusetts residents voted illegally in New Hampshire. He then once again called Senator Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas."

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2. A White House official told reporters that Trump wouldn't appeal the 9th Circuit Muslim ban ruling, only to be contradicted soon after.

3. After intelligence officials told CNN they have corroborated some details in the Russia dossier, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said, "We continue to be disgusted by CNN's fake news reporting."

4. CNN reported that Trump ignored the recommendations of Rex Tillerson and Reince Priebus and rejected Elliott Abrams to be Deputy Secretary of State because Abrams criticized Trump during the campaign.

5. Appearing with Japanese Prime Minister Abe, Trump, reading from a prompter, said the US and Japan would advance "freedom from navigation" before correcting himself.

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6. Politico reported that it called Omarosa for comment on the Administration's HBCU initiative. Omarosa "told Politico to email her, then hung up. She did not respond to emails."

7. Trump, talking with reporters Friday afternoon aboard Air Force One, said he was unaware of the reports in several media outlets that in December Michael Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russians but said he would "look into that."
Only Donald Trump would attempt to rescue the phrase "America First" from its slightly discreditable heritage. Unfortunately, his sales job has been incomplete and unconvincing. Now someone needs to rescue the same phrase from his crabbed, negative meaning.

The dominant foreign policy vision animating left and right in recent years has been promiscuous intervention. While elites disagreed on tactics and targets, both major political parties shared a belief that Washington should micro-manage the world. God knows when a single sparrow falls to earth, declared Jesus, and so does Uncle Sam. U.S. presidents are apt to act if a company loses money, an election is stolen, a stock market collapses, a civil disturbance occurs, an aggression is launched, a threat is made, a weapon is tested, or an American value is disregarded.

When the president and his advisers, who came to decide on war even though the Constitution placed that power in Congress, were sufficiently irritated, they turned to economic sanctions, which harnessed the power of the world's largest economy, and military action, against which no other nation could stand, to coerce the recalcitrant.

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Of course, most politicians glibly cite "vital national interests" whenever they act, as if America--the unipower, the essential nation, the hyperpower, the country which saw further, the superpower--could not survive in a world if, say, a random dictatorship in a typical third world nation rose or fell. In the years after the grand U.S. triumph in the Cold War, Americans found themselves fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, the Balkans, Libya, Iraq again, and Syria, conducting large-scale drone campaigns in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, hunting down insurgents in Africa, enabling war in Yemen, and considering action against Iran, North Korea, Russia, and now, it appears from the Trump administration's rhetoric, even China.

Even more inexplicable is Washington's defense of prosperous and populous states well able to protect themselves. The Europeans enjoy a larger economy and population than America, let alone Russia. South Korea vastly outranges the North. Japan has skimped on defense spending despite long possessing the world's second largest economy.

One can justify back-stopping such nations against serious though unlikely crises which could dangerously upset the global balance of power. No one wants to see a hostile, hegemonic power dominate Eurasia. But such a threat doesn't presently exist. And there's no reason highly developed industrial democracies should turn to Washington to solve the slightest problem.

Moreover, when acting America's objective should be security and stability, not perfect harmony. For instance, Russia's aggressive treatment of Ukraine is unjustified, but does not yet, at least, threaten even Ukraine's independence, let alone that of Europe. To the extent that Moscow's misbehavior should be treated as a warning of potential future harms, the Europeans should be spending not just a smidgen more, but a lot more, on the military. Increases of a tenth of a percent of GDP are pathetic responses if the Europeans genuinely believe they face a crisis sufficient to warrant calling on the services of the great power across the Atlantic.

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In his Inaugural Address the president set forth the essence of sensible "America First" foreign policy: "We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world, but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interest first. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow."

Ultimately, the U.S. government is created, funded, staffed, and defended by the American people. Its first and overwhelming obligation is to those it represents--and coerces. It has no cause to squander the wealth and risk the lives of its own citizens unless they have something serious at stake. Just as the highest duty of a family is to its own members, so is too the responsibility of those chosen to lead the American national community.

Washington is at its worst when ivory tower warriors propose grand humanitarian crusades to be paid with other people's blood and money. Military personnel are not gambit pawns to be sacrificed in the latest global chess game. Taxpayers work to pay for the government to act for them, not others. Americans' willingness to sacrifice should not be abused by the social and political elites which dominate the making of foreign policy.

However, national interest is not enough. America's approach should be enlightened, in which a concern for others tempers Washington's role around the globe. A world that is freer and more prosperous is better, not just for Americans, but for others. A good society welcomes those fleeing oppression abroad. While charity might begin at home, it should extend "to all people," wrote the Apostle Paul to the early Galatian church.

That doesn't mean the U.S. government must ignore the economic impact of trade deals on vulnerable people at home, shouldn't deal with authoritarian governments which oppress their peoples, or must accept anyone seeking to cross America's borders. However, concern for "the least of these," as Jesus termed them, should inform Washington's pursuit of its people's interests.

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And the best way to do that is to recognize the power of private action. America's best ambassadors are Americans. The professionals at State and other federal agencies are essential, and work hard at sometimes impossible tasks, such as the sale of fundamentally antagonistic policies to other countries and governments. So long as Washington engages in policies which disproportionately kill Muslims and favor Israel, no amount of PR and spin will salvage Uncle Sam's image in the Middle East. But polls still show that Americans--people, values, and products--are viewed favorably.

NGOs assist with development and aid. Trade and investment spur economic growth and create international bridges. So do immigration and travel. Security is vital, but so is building human relationships, especially with people in dissimilar, even hostile cultures. A wall, whether physical or legal, risks national interests in both very practical and more enlightened ways.

U.S. government officials should put America First. Their failure to do so in recent years has resulted in high costs to the American people: thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of serious injuries, destructive blowback including terrorism, and massive debt.
Envision a scenario where China stationed military forces in Mexico. The recent imprudent actions in international relations by President Trump potentially created a new strategic threat. Worse, it could appear on our doorstep; our southern border with Mexico, and a wall would exacerbate, not alleviate, the problem. In a mere two weeks in control of the White House, with the exception of Russia, Trump has managed to alienate allies and adversaries alike. Members of his myopic support base seem to believe that these impetuous actions and bellicose statements are a show of strength or business acumen. In reality it demonstrates extreme naiveite that rise to a level of incompetence. A concern should be that China might now have access to geographic proximity to the U.S. never before imagined.

Though it began with his campaign rhetoric, in a short amount of time Trump has undone about two decades of friendly relations-building with Mexico. On a call this week with the former president of Mexico, Vincente Fox, I heard him mention that the people of Mexico feel they cannot trust the United States. Fox is not alone and many sources are stating that concern. It is not just President Enrique Pena Nieto and government officials, but the general population of Mexico who feel insulted and maligned by Trump's inexcusable comments and accusations.

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There is a reason that throughout Latin America we are known as the Colossus de Norte. Thanks to a failing education system, few Americans have any idea about how many times we have intervened militarily in Central and South America and the Caribbean. The people of these countries have not forgotten and they have reason to be concerned. There have been over a hundred U.S. troop deployments and covert interventions in internal affairs by the CIA in Latin America.

For the past two decades the United States and Mexico have been working on building stronger ties. While the ill-advised war on drugs brought many hardships on Mexico, one accomplishment was to bring both our governments, and many ordinary people, closer together. Mexico became a major trading partner, with many Mexican people desiring and buying American products. Already calls for boycotts can be heard as policies reflecting possible trade-war tactics reverberate.

Trump's business model has been that of the bully. Just ask the many subcontractors he failed to pay for work they adequately completed. This is now our national policy. Trump no longer speaks for himself. Whatever he says reflects on our country, something he clearly fails to realize. Every word uttered, or tweeted, by a POTUS, is subject to intense scrutiny and analysis. No rational president would threaten to invade another country, and then claim they were joking. Trump did just that on 27 January suggesting he might send U.S. troops to straighten out the border issue with Mexico as there were "a bunch of bad hombres down there." Even his new United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, in her initial talk affirmed bullying tactics stating, we "were taking names" of those countries that did not side with us.

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There are three ways to deal with a bully. One is to capitulate, thus leading to greater problems. Another is to fight back attacking vulnerabilities. That is not always a successful approach for the smaller party. And the third, is to get a friend to assist. Mexico has already initiated option three. Rightfully concerned about viability of trade agreements with the U.S., they have reached out to China and begun to expand interaction with them. Several news agencies reported, "The Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretariat said in a release that the two countries 'agreed to deepen the mutual trust and develop bilateral dialogue on topics of mutual interest through the Mexico-China Strategic Dialogue.'"

Considering what Trump has done regarding China, that is an alliance that makes perfect sense. Before ascending to office, his actions with Taiwan infuriated the Chinese government and countered decades of the standing U.S. One-China policy. After wise intervention by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Trump has just affirmed the previously existing policy. But given his erratic proclivities, that could change at any minute. China is a global power with aspirations for continued growth and a strategic plan to accomplish their mission. They are a major presence in Africa involved in resource extraction and infrastructure development. A comment made to me by an official in East Africa is striking. He indicated they liked Chinese assistance as it "came without strings attached." Similarly, they have been courting most of the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. As reported by CNBC, "according to Americas Society/Council of the Americas, a New York City-based nonprofit organization, trade between China and Latin American countries rose 24-fold between 2000 and 2013." It continues to grow.

The formal withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) was greeted with optimism in China. In November the Wall Street Journal noted, "China is well prepared to step into the vacuum created by any U.S. withdrawal. It has pushed its special brand of global expansion for a decade based around "win-win" projects in emerging markets, such as African countries." Large projects such as plans for a super-port in Brazil, the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite program, a proposed railroad from the Atlantic to Peru's Pacific Coast, or plans for a new trans-isthmus canal through Nicaragua, exemplify their level of interests.

Australia has long been a close ally of the U.S., but Trump's infamous call and egregious behavior toward the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, set those relations back as well. For Australia and New Zealand, the TPP was very important. They too are looking to China for better relations. Trump has been advocating serial bilateral trade agreements while disregarding that it inconsistent with the multipolar world as it exists today.

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As Mexico prepares to deal with an unpredictable neighbor to the north, establishing greater ties with the Chinese military would be a logical step. That could take many forms but would not rule out basing rights for naval and air assets. If a further threat is perceived such an alliance could conceivably include stationing Chinese Army units in the northern areas. That could be done under the pretext of attempting to secure their border with the U.S. stemming illegal immigration and drug trafficking, just as Trump has asked Mexico to do.

Feasible, the potential for such a move should not be taken lightly. Elsewhere in the world China has engaged in provocative behavior. They have taken active measures to advance their claims of disputed territories, even after an international tribunal in The Hague ruled against them. Then too, there is the innovative, yet challenging, approach of creating new lands by dredging the sea.

Traditionally the U.S. Government has dealt with China as an entity that existed mainly in Asia with the Pacific Ocean serving as a barrier. We have acknowledged their expanding influence and done little to counter their moves. But consider having Chinese military units in close proximity. There is no thought that they would defeat American military forces should a confrontation occur. But, as with other dispersed units around the world, they would act as either a deterrent, or a tripwire that could lead to a major conflagration.

Trump repeatedly has stated he likes to be unpredictable. International relations are predicated on predictability. Therefore, being unpredictable equates to being unreliable and untrustworthy. He has already upset NATO. Even though there was backtracking, the NATO members understood the message. If unpredictability becomes an international norm, all participants must assume the worst-case scenarios and plan accordingly.

Also disturbing is Trump's reliance on, and issuance of, demonstrably false data. The election was won convincing voters of a fearful world that did not exist. He has used this fear-based rationale in both the visa ban and executive orders ostensibly supporting law enforcement. In the first case, he raised the notion of imminent danger of terrorism from a body of refugees that has posed no threat to date. To support the law enforcement executive orders, he stated that murder rates that are the highest they have been in four decades. His puppet Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, responded by claiming the recent slight crime increase, "is a dangerous permanent trend that places the health and safety of the American people at risk." Both comments are false and outrageous exaggerations. Such statements usually translate to an attempt to take rights away from individuals.

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In 1964, under President Lyndon Johnson, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution expanded the war in Southeast Asia. At the time the data were classified, but believed by members of Congress. Assuming the U.S. Navy had been attacked twice, the members voted in favor of the resolution. The House voted 416-0 and the Senate 88-2. Only much later did we learn the second attack never happened. Then in 2002, under President George W. Bush, Congress voted to go to war with Iraq. Based again on mostly classified information, the stated reason for the supporting the effort was that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. The House voted 297-133-3 in favor, while the Senate vote was 77-23. Again, we later learned that Saddam did not have the weapons that took us to war nor was he involved with the 9/11 terrorist attack. Yet, by invading Iraq we did manage to further destabilize the Middle East.
The sprawling Bacardi distillery complex in Catano Puerto Rico is nicknamed the Cathedral of Rum

Bacardi has been a dominant player in the rum industry for better than a century. Its founder, Don Facundo Bacardi Masso, was responsible for the development of clear light rums, a type better known today as Cuban style rums. The company distillery in Catano, in the suburbs of San Jose, Puerto Rico, is the largest rum distillery in the world. For much of its history Bacardi was also the world's largest producer of rum. Today, Bacardi is the largest privately owned spirits company in the world, with more than 200 well known liquor brands in its product portfolio.

The story of Bacardi begins in 1830, in the thriving Catalan community of the Cuban city of Santiago de Cuba. Early in the 19th century the four Bacardi brothers, sons of a stonemason from Sitges, a small town southwest of Barcelona, immigrated to Cuba. The Bacardi brothers prospered in Santiago de Cuba before a combination of a devastating earthquake in 1852, followed by a cholera epidemic, decimated the town and their businesses. After returning briefly to Sitges, Facundo Bacardi returned to Santiago de Cuba looking for new opportunities.

His return proved fortuitous. Starting around the mid-19th century, Cuba began to emerge as a leading producer of sugar in the Caribbean. Political unrest in Haiti, previously the largest sugar producer, combined with the elimination of slavery in the French and British Caribbean colonies paved the way for Cuba, where slavery was still legal, to emerge as a major sugar producer. Concurrently, the Spanish government announced a competition to produce a light rum to "satisfy the taste of the court and the elite of the Spanish empire."

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Christopher Columbus had introduced sugar cane into the Caribbean in 1494, during his second voyage to the New World. By 1501, sugar mills in Hispaniola and Cuba were producing sugar. Spain, however, was more interested in exploiting the mineral riches of Mexico and Peru than it was in agricultural development. The Caribbean sugar boom from the mid-17th century through the early 19th century, made the West Indies the most valuable real estate in the world; however, it largely bypassed the Spanish colonies in the New World.

The term aguardiente is a generic term applied to an alcoholic beverage distilled from any fermented must. Arnaud de Villanova, a 13th century physician and alchemist at the University of Montpelier in France's Languedoc, was the first to describe distilled spirit as agua ardens, literally strong water or flaming water. That is the origin of the term aguardiente and its anglicized expression "firewater." Villanova may also have been the first person to add distilled spirit to wine to extend its shelf life.

During the 16th century, Spanish and Portuguese winemakers produced aguardiente both for local consumption and to add to wine that was being shipped by sea over long distances. The bacterium that converts alcohol into vinegar, Acetobacter aceti, cannot tolerate alcoholic solutions above 20 percent. In the hot humid holds of ships, wine would quickly turn to vinegar without the added protection. This was the origin of fortified wines like sherry, port and Madeira.

In places where sugar cane was cultivated, like the Canary Islands or Madeira, aguardiente de cana was typically made from sugar cane juice, as this was a less expensive material than using wine. That practice spread to the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the New World and has continued to this day. In the French West Indies, fermented sugar cane juice was used to make Rhum Agricole as opposed to Rhum Industriel, which was made from molasses.

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Molasses is a byproduct of sugar refining. Initially, it was simply discarded as a waste product. It's not clear when molasses first began to be used as a feedstock to produce rum. The circumstantial evidence suggests that a Dutch immigrant named Pietr Blower, who arrived, via Brazil, to Barbados in 1637, was the first to use molasses to produce rum. The practice of using molasses first took hold in Barbados in the early 17th century and, from there, spread throughout the West Indies.

An early form of rum was called Tafia. Like aguardiente it was harsh, often had off putting aromas and taste, and was sold unaged. In the mid-17th century, it was described as, "a hot vile liquor ... called kill devil." Little is known about the early history of rum, and specifically when the practice of aging rum in wooden oak barrels began.

By the late 18th century, however, rum had evolved from a fiery "rotgut" spirit to a high-quality beverage. At his inauguration in 1789, for example, George Washington insisted that only the finest, Barbados rum should be served to his guests, even though the importation of that rum violated the Continental Congress's embargo on the importation of British goods.

Another reason why rum distillation was slow to develop in Spain's Caribbean colonies was Madrid's prohibitions on the production or export of distilled beverages. To protect Spain's wine and brandy industry, Spanish Emperor Charles II banned the production of rum in Spain's overseas colonies in a Royal Edict dated June 8, 1693. It was revoked in 1788, but restrictions limiting the amount of rum that could be imported into Spain remained. England, on the other hand, encouraged the production of rum, seeing it as a homegrown alternative to importing expensive brandy from France and Spain.

Continuous still at Bacardi's distillery complex in Puerto Rico



By the mid-19th century, small-scale distillation of aguardiente was widespread throughout Spain's Caribbean colonies. Most of what was produced, however, was from small, unlicensed distillers. These bootleggers produced a harsh spirit, usually from sugar cane juice, that was barely drinkable, and then only when mixed with other beverages like juices or coffee. Cuban sugar cane has particularly high levels of sucrose, resulting in a hot, rapid fermentation that often produced many off flavors in the resulting distillate.

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This was the environment in which Facundo Bacardi began his quest to develop a high-quality light rum. It took Bacardi almost 10 years to develop his signature rum, from roughly 1852 to 1862. Bacardi's new rum style was the result of four important innovations. First, Bacardi isolated a strain of yeast from the roots of sugar cane plants growing in Cuba. Little is known about his efforts in identifying this specific strain of yeast - whether it was a chance discovery or the result of a systematic search for a particular yeast that yielded the aroma and taste profile he was looking for.

This specific yeast is now called Levadura Bacardi (the Bacardi yeast). It is one of the factors responsible for the distinctive aroma and taste profile of the company's rums. Stocks of the "Bacardi yeast" are kept under close security at the company's distilleries in Puerto Rico and Mexico, the only two distilleries where rum is currently produced. Yeast tends to mutate over time, a phenomenon that geneticists call genetic drift. The company employs a range of sophisticated techniques, including gas chromatography and genetic testing, to ensure that each batch of yeast used is identical to the original "master strain" first isolated by Facundo Bacardi.

The company considers its proprietary yeast strain so valuable that when the Cuban government seized Bacardi's distillery on October 14, 1960, it discovered that the company had killed the yeast stock at its plant to ensure that it did not fall into the hands of Castro's government. Fortunately, for rum drinkers, samples of Levadura Bacardi were already available at the company's Puerto Rican and Mexican distilleries. It's believed that an additional sample of its proprietary yeast is also kept for safekeeping at the company's international headquarters in Bermuda.

A second innovation was the use of charcoal filtration. The charcoal was made from a combination of tropical woods and coconut shell. Charcoal is a form of carbon that is produced by the heating of wood or other organic substances in the absence of oxygen. When the oxidation of carbon is carried out by high temperature steam, millions of pores between the carbon atoms are created and the charcoal is considered to be "activated." The porous structure of activated charcoal creates a large surface area where many types of organic contaminants in a liquid or gas can bind to the carbon.

Facundo Bacardi was not the first distiller to use charcoal for filtration. The practice was already widespread in the production of Tennessee whiskey. The charring of oak barrels, although not quite the same as "activated charcoal," produces a similar effect. He was, however, the first distiller to use it in the production of rum. Moreover, the source material of the charcoal also affects its filtration properties by determining the range of pore sizes that are produced.

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These typically range from micro-pores of less than four nanometers (nm), (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter), to macro-pores of 500 to 2,000 nm. The greater the proportion of micro-pores, the more effective the absorption of the activated charcoal is. Coconut shell activated carbon typically has 85 to 90 percent of is pores in the micro-pore range, so it is particularly effective at absorbing contaminants.

Charcoal first began to be used as a filtering agent in the de-colorization of sugar at the beginning of the 19th century. British chemists in the mid-1860s first described the use of coconut shells to produce activated carbon. Facundo Bacardi was the first, to explore the properties of coconut shell activated carbon as a filtering agent for distilled spirits.

The specific combination of material used in the production of Bacardi's charcoal is still a closely kept secret. What impact the other tropical woods have on the filtration process is unclear. The charcoal not only absorbed contaminants that gave the rum a harsh taste, it also decolorized it, giving it a clear appearance.

A third innovation was the use of two different distillates, or "marks," that were subsequently blended to produce Bacardi's signature rum. Historically, rum was produced from a pot still in a two-step process that would first produce a "low wine" of typically 25% to 30% alcohol by volume (ABV), and then a second distillation that would capture the "heart cut" of spirit that would be ultimately aged and matured. This is the method used to produce many of the world's better-known spirits, including Jamaican rums, Scotch whisky and Cognac.

A warehouse of aging rum at the Bacardi distillery in Puerto Rico

Bacardi's approach was to distill two different types of distillate, each with a different alcoholic strength and level of congeners (the organic molecules that give spirits their aroma and taste profile). The first distillate was called aguardiente. It had an alcoholic strength of around 65 to 70 percent. The second mark, a much more rectified spirit, called redistillado, had fewer taste and aroma elements and an alcoholic strength of 85 to 95 percent. At the time this was a very unusual approach to the production of rum, although it is much more common today. It was very similar, however, to the process used in the production of Spanish brandy. The two distillates were then blended together to create a consistent aroma and flavor profile.

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The final innovation was the practice of aging the spirit in oak barrels. The use of oak for the aging of distillates wasn't particularly new. It was already a common practice in the aging of rums in Jamaica and Barbados, as well as the aging of Cognac and whisky. He was the first, however, to use to it to age the distillate being produced in Cuba.

The four innovations, proprietary yeast, charcoal filtration, blending different strength distillates and oak cask aging, gave Bacardi's rum a distinctive appearance, aroma and taste profile. This style of rum came to be called Cuban light rum and has become, by volume, the leading style of rum sold worldwide. Over the last century, the company has further refined the process and vastly expanded the scale of its production, but fundamentally still makes rum the way Facundo Bacardi did in the 19th century.

It's unclear why the Spanish government specified the creation of a light rum. It may be that it wanted a product that would be different from the English style rums being produced in Great Britain's Caribbean colonies. It may also have wanted a spirit that would be very different from Spanish brandy. It's unlikely that it had anticipated the emergence of cocktail culture in Europe and America. The emergence of Cuban light rums, however, caught the rise of the cocktail culture perfectly.

The Cuba Libre and the Daiquiri were both created using Bacardi rum, the former by American soldiers in 1900, toasting a free Cuba by adding rum to their Coca Cola, and the latter by an American mining engineer in 1898. The company even trademarked the "Bacardi Cuba Libre" and the "Bacardi Daiquiri" to ensure that they could not be legally made without using Bacardi rum. The light, "mixable rums" were ideal for cocktails. Bacardi's rums haven't looked back since.

Facundo Bacardi bought his first distillery in 1862, and began producing rum in Santiago de Cuba. The company steadily grew, building a worldwide distribution network and a powerful global brand, notwithstanding two world wars, prohibition in the United States and elsewhere, and the expropriation of its operation in Cuba by the Castro government.

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Bacardi's iconic bat logo, Casa Bacardi, Puerto Rico

For most of the last three-quarters of a century it has been the world's largest producer of rum and far and away its best-known rum brand. Over its roughly 150-year history, Bacardi has garnered more than 550 awards, more than any other rum brand, for the quality and innovative marketing of its rums. The company estimates that approximately six million Bacardi Cuba Libras are consumed every day.

Today Bacardi operates in 160 countries and has 30 production facilities. Until 1993, Bacardi's business was limited to producing and distributing rums. Starting that year, the company began to add to its spirit portfolio, beginning with the acquisition of the Martini and Rossi group. All its rum production is at its distilleries in Catano, Puerto Rico (80%) and in Tultitlan just outside of Mexico City (20%).

In 2012, the company sold 19.8 million cases of rum worldwide. Its sales dropped to 19.1 in 2013, and 18.2 million in 2014. McDowell's, a division of Diageo's Indian subsidiary, United Spirits Ltd., sold 18.3 million cases of rum, mostly in India, in 2014 claiming the mantle of world's best-selling rum. In 2015, McDowell's sales dropped to 17.8 million cases, but that still put it ahead of Bacardi's 17.4 million cases allowing it to retain the title of world's best-selling rum brand.

Bacardi rum's U.S. market share peaked at 39.7 percent in 2005, and has dropped steadily since. In 2014, it was 34.3 percent, followed by Diageo's Captain Morgan at 23.2 percent. It fell to about 33 percent in 2015, while Captain Morgan fell to about 21 percent. Although the overall rum market is showing growth, white rums have seen declining volumes, while brown rums and premium brands have shown strength.

No story about Bacardi would be complete without a reference to the company's famous bat logo. Company legend has it that Amalia Bacardi, Facundo's wife, suggested the bat logo. The company's first distillery featured a colony of fruit bats in its attic. Fruit bats were beneficial in sugar cane fields aiding in pollination and in controlling harmful insects. Moreover, in both Cuba and Catalonia, folklore held that bats represented brotherhood, discretion, faithfulness, persistence and determination. The bat logo itself has undergone various redesigns over the years, but it has remained the company's distinctive and unmistakable trademark.

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Bacardi's core rum range consists of 14 different flavored rums and six traditional rums. Three rums from the core range are reviewed below as well as the Casa Bacardi Special Reserve, which is only available at the Puerto Rican Distillery's visitor center.

The Visitor Center at the Bacardi Distillery in Puerto Rico

Bacardi 1783 Solera, no age statement, 40% ABV, 750 ml

The Bacardi 1783 Solera, as the name suggests, is produced by a solera method, a system of fractional blending that progressively mixes newer and older rums over a three-year period. The rum has a light amber color. On the nose, it is dry, with aromas of tropical fruits, including banana and mango, as well as stone fruit and candied citrus, followed by vanilla and cinnamon spice and hints of caramel and toasted coconut. On the palate, the rum is smooth with a silky character, with pronounced tropical and stone fruit flavors and wood spice. The finish is medium length, dry with lingering fruit and vanilla notes.

Appearance: 7/10, Nose: 26/30, Palate: 26/30, Finish 25/30 Final Score: 84/100

Bacardi 8, 8 YO, 40% ABV, 750 ml

The Bacardi 8 is actually a blend of eight to ten-year old rums with a medium amber color. On the nose, there are distinctive brown sugar and caramel aromas, followed by dried fruit aromas of raisin, figs, prunes and dates, as well as some notes of black cherry and candied maraschino cherry. In the background, there is a noticeable vanilla note, as well as marzipan and sweet wood spices. On the palate, the rum is smooth and rich, almost luscious, with distinct dried fruit cake notes and hints of bittersweet chocolate. The oak flavors are noticeable, but well integrated. The finish is long, smooth with distinct dried fruit notes and a lingering vanilla note.

Appearance 8/10, Nose 27/30, Palate 26/30, Finish 28/30 Final Score: 89/100

Bacardi Reserva Limitada, no age statement, 40% ABV, 750 ml

The Bacardi Reserva Limitada was released in 2003 as a visitor center exclusive bottling. It became part of the core range in 2007. The rum has a dark amber color. The expression consists of a blend of rums aged 10 to 16 years of age. On the nose, there is a distinct creme brulee aroma surrounded by notes of vanilla, caramel and butterscotch. The rum exhibits pronounced cinnamon, clove and wood spice notes accompanied by floral elements, candied citrus and toasted almond. On the palate, there is a distinct creamy custard-like texture, with sweet notes accompanied by candied fruit, almond butter, dried fruits and vanilla. The finish is long, creamy with a soft mellow character featuring vanilla custard notes, caramel and fruitcake elements.

Appearance 9/10, Nose 28/30, Palate 28/30, Finish 29/30 Final Score: 94/100

Casa Bacardi Special Reserve, no age statement, 43% ABV, 750 ml

The Casa Bacardi Special Reserve is only available at Bacardi's Puerto Rican visitor center. The expression consists of a blend of rums from 8 to 12 years of age. The rums are selected by Bacardi's master blender, Joe Gomez and, once blended, undergoes an additional "finishing" in an Oloroso sherry cask for one month. The sweet spot for aging aguardiente is four to 12 years, while the lighter redistillado needs 16 to 20 years of aging to reach its sweet spot. Bacardi anticipated that they would sell an average of four bottles of the Special Reserve per day. The actual number has been running closer to 20. The bottling will be available only as long as the supply lasts. Each bottle is numbered and hand filled by the customer from a cask at the time of purchase. The color is a deep rich mahogany.

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On the nose the rum appears sweeter than the Bacardi 8. There are distinctive sherry notes of dried fruit, raisin, walnuts and almonds that are reminiscent of a Spanish Brandy de Jerez. There are notes of candied orange peel with hints of anise, licorice and a bit of pepper. On the palate, there is a distinctive sweet, smooth velvety texture, with a pronounced viscous mouth feel. There are the distinctive fruitcake elements followed by caramel, vanilla and candied orange, and hints of walnuts and almonds. The finish is long, complex with a range of dried fruit flavors, with caramel and vanilla notes.

Appearance 10/10, Nose 28/30, Palate 29/30, Finish 29/30 Final Score: 96/100
I am Pushpa Rani. I live in the Naya Mishri village in South-Central Bangladesh. I am 50 years old, but I have had to spend my life crawling around like a child. Can you imagine? I am physically disabled. I had pneumonia when I was 8 years old, my situation deteriorated drastically, and I became extremely weak. Eventually, I lost all movement in my legs.

I was married when I was only 12 years old. Due to my disability, my father had to give 66 decimals of land to the groom as a dowry. I had my first child when I was 13; my second when I was 15. My husband was a day laborer. Most of the people here struggle to earn a living. They either work in fishing boats or as day laborers, earning around 4 dollars a day. It's also a disaster-prone area. Once there was a huge flood and I had to crawl through knee-deep water to find temporary shelter on high land. We found a tree and my father helped me up. I clung there for 5 hours until the water level dropped. Many other natural disasters, including strong and devastating cyclones, have hit this area. I've seen many people die or also became disabled.

The sufferings I have been through are indescribable. In all seasons, whether winter or rain, I have to crawl to move from one place to another. I crawl to the toilet like a child. Going to the toilet during the rainy season is the most challenging part. I get wet and dirty. I don't have many clothes and so I can't put on dry or clean ones.

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I am dependent on my husband. He would have to collect drinking water from a school far from our home before he went to work. The only water I could access was from a pond near our house. Very often the water was inadequate. My husband would sometimes be away for several nights for work. During those times my sufferings knew no bounds. I couldn't wash clothes; I couldn't wash myself. Now we have a deep tube well for 100 people, but I still feel very sad when I think of those days; I can't resist my tears recalling those griefs.

As a mother, I couldn't give my children what they deserve from me. My disability has deprived them of a normal life. Can you imagine, as a mother, how that makes me feel? They couldn't study. I had to arrange my son's marriage when he was only 14 so that his wife could assist me at home. Can you imagine how selfish that is as a mother to do to your own son? I thought there was no-one like me. I still shed tears recalling those days. My husband and daughter-in-law help me in all aspects. Without their assistance my life could be harder than it is now. However, I am still very weak. Weak in a sense that I can't participate in the decision-making process in my family. My husband, son and daughter-in-law take all the decisions. My opinions are mostly disregarded. Even if I disagree with them I don't oppose their decisions because I am totally dependent on them.

I consider disability as the greatest disaster in my life. I can't take a bath daily, I can't access the water, I can't go to the toilet normally, I can't move from one place to another, I can't raise my voice in my family or make decisions. I am dependent.

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I rarely go out of the house. The social discrimination that surrounds disability excludes me from society and has left me isolated. I had no awareness of social issues or my rights as a person.

With the help of ADD International, I joined a self-help group and then later a disabled person's organization. This engagement with other disabled people has enlightened me. It fills me with a feeling of unity and strength.

My time with ADD International has brought a change in me. I have learned many things about disability rights, water sanitation, government services and facilities, hygienic practices and economic empowerment. Now I speak out in public forums. I don't feel helpless. The unity of our organization gives me the strength and hope for a better life. I have learned that the government is providing various services and facilities for disabled people, including a disability allowance. There is much more that the government and local councils could do to make my life less challenging, like providing a wheel chair so that I can move around easily.

I am one of many in Bangladesh and around the world who does not have equal access to a range of basic rights and resources. Millions are being left behind in an age when no-one should have to go without. As part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, we have an opportunity to tackle the root causes and consequences of poverty, exclusion and marginalization. The 15-year framework can bring improvements to my life. In particular, SDG 6.2 (access to sanitation and hygiene) is very important to me: I would like a sanitary toilet attached to my house so I can go to the toilet with dignity. SDG 16.7 (inclusive decision-making) matters a lot to me too. I want to participate in community and societal matters. I want a voice and to be a partner in ensuring the goals leave no person with disabilities behind.
John de St. Jorre, who first revealed in a 1994 New Yorker article the identity of the author of the erotic French novel, Story of O, has compared his search for that mysterious person to the decades-long search for his mother. His new book, Darling Baby Mine: A Son's Extraordinary Search for His Mother, describes the many obstacles he encountered on his journey to find her.

Speaking in January at the American Library in Paris and then over dinner at Josephine's Restaurant, St. Jorre said his mother vanished when he was four years old, while they were living in London at the beginning of World War II. No explanation was given to him or his younger brother by his father or other family members. Silence prevailed. "It was if she had been swallowed by one of London's fogs, never to be seen again,"

St. Jorre told his audience, "I recalled being held by a young woman whom I believed to be my mother, a shard of memory that, true or false, would remain with me for the rest of my life. I clung to that memory."





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Unable to care properly for his children, St. Jorre's father, who traveled for his work, first placed the two brothers with the Linder sisters, who had not married but liked children. When St. Jorre reached seven years, his father moved the boys to St. Dominics's Priory. After several years of physical punishment, hunger and cold, his father who visited intermittently, returned and took them to their new home to meet Edith, who became their caring step-mother.



"Life definitely improved," he said, "but Edith followed our father's orders and would not discuss the fate of our mother. To avoid questions we told friends she died during the war."



"All of my leads came from women. Male relatives and family friends evaded my inquiries and kept their information to themselves. Especially the bureaucrat in the town Registrar's Office who held my mother's file in his hands but refused to even show it to me."



"He said I should ask my father." When I explained he had been dead for seven years, he responded, 'If your father did not tell you, he must have had a very good reason.' He closed the file.



"I wanted to strangle him. I tried to finagle it from his clerk but was unsuccessful."



"My father was helpful in one instance. I needed information about my mother for my application to MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service for foreign affairs. Reluctantly, I was given my birth certificate. At twenty-four, I learned my mother's name was Grace."



I also learned the date and place of her birth and other background information. Hesitantly, I asked my father if she was still alive. 'I don't know,' he said, shaking his head as he left the room.



After his father's death, St. Jorre renewed his search. At first he moved cautiously. As he acquired bits and pieces of information, such as a photograph or letter, his need to know what happened to her became more obsessive.



Finally, a family friend led him to Olive, his mother's sister. He couldn't believe that after more than thirty-five years, he was going to visit his mother. She was alive.



What followed is revealed in the book, and no spoilers will be printed here.

The next evening at Josephine's (Chez Dumonet) Restaurant, St. Jorre compared the search for his mother to uncovering the real author of the Story of O. Unlike his more personal quest, which had few clues, his journey to uncover the true author of "O", had many leads, some true, some false.

Sipping a glass of red wine on that cold January evening, St. Jorre said, "While writing my book, Venus Bound: The Erotic Voyage of the Olympia Press and Its Writers, a section dealt with the Story of O which was written in 1954 under the pseudonym Pauline Reage. Although the identity of the author had never been revealed, I became convinced that it was Dominique Aury."





John de St. Jorre and Mary Duncan at Josephine's Restaurant



"After several research trips to Paris and numerous interviews, I eliminated a few predominately male candidates including Jean Paulhan, Aury's lover who was a prominent editor at Gallimard, because their writing styles were so different. It clearly wasn't Jean-Jacques Pauvert, her publisher, and he outright laughed when people suggested it."



"I knew that Aury, Paulhan and Pauvert were all very close friends. I concluded it was Aury even though others claimed the credit. She was a writer, editor, a very good translator and also worked for Gallimard. Her concise writing style from her other work was similar to "O".



"Not really expecting much, I wrote Aury a short letter, told her about my book regarding Olympia Press and asked if we could meet to talk about "O". I thought she wouldn't reply or would brush me off. Instead she wrote back and agreed to meet."



"We met in a small, windowless office at Gallimard. She was wearing a navy blue dress with a matching cardigan and a blue cravat that had a discreet red stripe running through it. She wore no makeup, and her only jewelry was a heavy gold ring in the shape of a scarab on her wedding finger." The gold ring had been given to her by Jean Paulhan, her lover. She had the demeanor of a librarian, not an author who had written the banned and scandalous Story of O.



"Aury was ready to talk about her controversial book. Her parents were dead, time had passed since 1954, and she was now eighty-six years old." In 1998, Aury died when she was ninety-one years old.



Aury had written "O" as a series of erotic sado-masochistic love letters to Jean Paulhan, who had a roving eye and was an admirer of the Marquis de Sade's writing. Paulhan told Aury, a woman could never write like Sade. She took up the challenge as a way to keep his interest.

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These letters became the novel Histoire d'O or Story of O, which has never been out-of-print and has been published in more than twenty-eight countries.

Paulhan handed the typed pages to Jean-Jacques Pauvert, the French publisher of the Marquis de Sade. Knowing the book would be provocative and probably prosecuted for being obscene, Pauvert published it anyway and was duly harassed by the police.



Leaning toward me, St. Jorre exclaimed, "After a lengthy interview, she admitted she was the author of "O." I had my story."



"Concerned about accuracy, the New Yorker wanted confirmation directly from her. Anxious that she might say no, I wrote Aury again. She invited me to visit her home near Paris, which Jean Paulhan had given her."



"As she talked I asked if I could tape our conversation. She agreed. She also let me take her photograph. That cinched it."



As we ate dessert, St. Jorre concluded, "The New Yorker was thrilled and we went ahead with the article, "The Unmasking of O," which received worldwide recognition."



St. Jorre's two quests, the one to find his mother, and the other to solve a literary mystery were each successful. If you have ever searched for someone or something, St. Jorre's book will motivate you to continue your quest before time runs out.
A lot of Mormons tell me that I'm not Mormon enough. Criticizing the church or its leaders is reason enough for this boundary maintenance. If I don't wear the right underwear, don't hold a proper temple recommend, didn't pay my tithing, turned down a calling, wore a sleeveless dress (or let my daughter do the same), drank some coffee or alcohol, or anything else against the lost lists of rules that religions tend to proliferate to distinguish the devout from the less devout, I risk being called an apostate, a dissident, a follower of Satan, or an enemy of the Mormon church.

Yet at the same time, when I talk about Mormonism to my non-Mormon friends, I'm "too Mormon." They tell me I should just "quit" and find another church. Or give up on church entirely. Intelligent people don't believe in religion anymore, don't I know that? If I'm a modern woman, how can I accept any of the tenets of any Christian religion, which are clearly sexist? And if I understand even the most basic ideas of science, how can I adhere to religious ideas of an unknowable and unseeable omnipotent being that was clearly created by people who were trying to explain phenomenon, which science now adequately describes without any mystical language?

A couple of years ago, when I was searching for a new agent for my Linda Wallheim books, I discovered quickly that describing my books as "religious fiction" was a quick way to an automatic "no" from most agents. When I tried to explain that they weren't preachy and weren't typical religious fiction books, I realized that I was being as prejudiced against religious fiction as the agents were. Eventually, I stopped describing my mysteries set in Mormon Utah as anything other than "mysteries," and found an agent who wasn't afraid of books with religious content. But this experience opened my eyes to the prejudice against any religion, not just the particular brand that I adhere to.

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I understand that religion is out of fashion among many. I also understand that Mormonism never was in fashion to begin with. I'm neither looking for acceptance among other Mormons nor looking to convert my atheist friends to Mormonism as a "better" religion (even if I believe that it is). I realize that we as human herd animals have a deep need to label ourselves and others into neat boxes that may or may not fit. We are tribal and we like to clearly identify who is in our tribe and who isn't. It makes us feel safe and comfortable to exclude this group or that group from our lists of "smart" or "interesting" people. The same thing happens in politics as does with religion, which is why, I guess, we're told not to have discussions about either at the dinner table.

When I was younger, growing up in New Jersey rather than Utah, I got used to being told that Mormons weren't Christians, usually by Christians who had no idea what Mormons believed. When I tried to explain that The Book of Mormon was all about Jesus, they told me I was wrong. When I tried to explain that Mormons worshiped Christ and that we had communion like other Christians, I was also told I was wrong, that I was involved in a cult, and that the Christ I worshiped wasn't really Christ. This kind of an argument was tiresome and I quickly learned to shrug and move on. I did wonder sometimes if Catholics were told they weren't Christian, if evangelicals were told they were too evangelical to be Christian, and so on. I suspect that this kind of boundary maintenance exists in all religions and in fact in all groups of any kind.

I guess I'm not going to say that I wish people would stop labeling and doing boundary maintenance for their groups (though I could argue that when Christ commanded us to "Judge not that ye be not judged, to not call our brothers fools, to not see the mote in another's eye instead of the beam in our own, he was asking us to stop doing this). I'm not going to say that we shouldn't talk or think about things in terms of "us" and "them," because I suspect that we humans just can't live that way. We need the safety and security of our herds, our tribes. We need to see the world in terms of labels and boxes or else we wouldn't know what to make of it.

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When a political party loses a big election (especially an election they clearly should have won), and finds itself out of power at every level of government, a debate needs to be had about the future of that party. The Democratic party is having such a debate, but when the frame of the debate is as twisted up as it currently is, we aren't going to make much headway in terms of finding the best answers.



Debate framing, bad definitions, and false questions are popular in Washington, DC. For years, I have been bemused by the inside the beltway definition of "centrism", which consists mostly of being pro-trade deals that benefit big business, pro-cutting Social Security and Medicare, and in favor of helping the big banks on Wall Street soften the few regulations that hold them back. None of these positions have any popularity with the actual centrist swing voters that helped decide this election- or any in the last couple of decades- but in DC circles, this kind of "centrism" has for years been all the rage.



The same pundits who define centrism in this manner are now trying to frame the debate over the future of the Democratic party as a debate over whether the party should become more progressive or whether we should reach out to swing voters. The problem with this frame is that the message and issues that have the best chance of appealing to the working class swing voters Democrats lost in 2016 (and 3 of the last 4 elections) is the same one that fires up the Democratic base of young people, people of color, and unmarried women: the economic populism of Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, and Keith Ellison. Those kinds of progressive populist politicians, the Democratic base, and swing working class voters all believe that the system is rigged in favor of the wealthy and big business special interests; they all believe Social Security should be expanded and Medicare should be preserved and strengthened; they all believe in trade and other economic policies that will bring back good paying manufacturing jobs to this country; they all believe in spending a lot more money on infrastructure, creating jobs building and rebuilding roads, bridges, schools, airports, electric grids, as well as adding new jobs in solar and wind energy; they all believe in getting tougher on Wall St, including prosecuting those in the financial industry who commit crimes and breaking up the Too Big To Fail banks; they all believe in taxing the wealthiest Americans and reining in CEO power; they all believe in a higher minimum wage and more rights for workers.



And you know what else (speaking of a false debate): progressive leaders and our fired up Democratic base are all pro-business, too. According to the Washington Post and other traditional media sources, the Democrats are at war with progressives on one side and the "business-friendly" wing of the party on the other. But here's the deal: progressives strongly support all kinds of business-friendly policies. We want for small business and start-ups to be able to compete with corporate conglomerates trying to corner the market, and so we favor vigorous enforcement of anti-trust law; we encourage people to sign up for community based banks and credit unions; we have pushed hard to develop solar, wind, and other energy sources that do not contribute to climate change; we worked with retailers to fight Wall St on swipe fees, and are working with them now on attacking this crazy Border Adjustment Tax idea in the Ryan budget because it is essentially a sales tax that mostly working class and poor people will pay; we are fighting to defend hospitals, especially rural hospitals, from the Medicaid cuts Republicans are trying to do in repealing the ACA; we are working alongside the taxi and hotel industries to keep Uber and Airbnb from destroying millions of jobs, creating major problems in housing markets in big cities, and violating people's ADA and civil rights; and we are standing with family farmers and ranchers as they fight the big food and pipeline companies that are trying to take away their ability to make a good living.



Just because progressives oppose big business from getting sweetheart deals and tax loopholes from government, just because we want to stop overheating the planet with climate change, just because we want highly profitable businesses to pay their fair share of taxes and pay their workers decent wages and benefits, just because we want to safeguard the main street economy from irresponsible speculation by Too Big To Fail banks: none of that makes progressive Democrats "anti-business". Quite the opposite: we are for promoting businesses that are good members of their community, and want to do everything in our power to help them.



Here's another example of a false debate: having to choose between white working class voters in rural and small town America and the urban Democratic base. For starters, note the issues I mentioned in the 3rd paragraph above: as I said, the base and rural voters have very similar views on most of those issues. While there are enough differences and disagreements on some issues to keep Democrats from getting a majority of rural votes anytime soon, there's a big difference between losing them 62-38 as the ultimate urbanite Barack Obama did in 2012 and losing them 71-29 as Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Those Democrats who are arguing we should walk away from rural voters and rural districts because we haven't done well there the last couple of cycles are essentially dooming us to permanent minority status given how rural voters and states are favored disproportionately in terms of their relative power in the House, Senate, and electoral college. And we have plenty of issues we can make a stand on in rural America, including saving rural hospitals from an ACA repeal, saving rural schools from Betsy DeVos' obsession with urban charter and voucher schools, stopping the Border Adjustment Tax which will be a heavier tax on people in rural areas than in urban areas, and making sure roads and highways and schools are built in rural America as well as urban America.



It is worth noting, by the way, that the stereotype of rural areas being all white and conservative is wrong: there are a ton of Democratic base voters and people of color living in rural America. Bernie Sanders did very well in rural America, winning most of the small states outside of the South. Native American reservations are 100% in rural areas. And throughout the Midwest and Southwest are rapidly growing numbers of Latinos in rural America. One example: my home state of Nebraska is now over 10% Latino, with small towns like Scottsbluff, Grand Island, and Lexington being over 25-50% Latino. The percentage of these rural Latinos and Native Americans who did not vote in 2016 was astronomical compared to most other demographic groups, as the Democratic party and Clinton campaign did not spend much money targeting them. I am a big advocate of Democrats doing more to reach out to working class rural swing voters on a populist economic platform, but if all we did was focus on turning out our base voters in rural America, we could cut the margins we lost there dramatically.



Democrats need to stop listening to the beltway pundits telling them they need to make false choices. We don't have to decide between base voters and working class voters: in fact, most of our base are working class people who have been as hard hit by this economy's heavy tilt to the top 1% as anyone, and populist economic messages work for both base and swing voters. We don't have to choose between being populists and being pro-business: progressive populism is very much aligned with the small businesses, start-ups, green energy companies, and good neighbor companies that we ought to be helping. We don't have to choose between rural and urban America, as progressive policies on energy, health care, Wall St, farming, anti-trust, education, the minimum wage, and health care are major assets in both big cities and small towns. Democrats need to stop playing either/or politics and stop having debates between ourselves that don't make any sense.
A musical of outsized passions as only Andrew Lloyd Webber could compose, Sunset Boulevard trades in hyperbole. "The greatest star of all," in the words of Max, her homme d'affaires, Norma Desmond is camp drama queen extraordinaire. With Glenn Close in the role, reprising her Tony-winning performance of 22 years ago at the Palace Theater, Norma is petit as she is large. Need dominates her manipulations so acutely, only the powerhouse chops of the actress who put the word fatal in Fatal Attraction could pull off this tour de force of fragility and grand delusion.

Descending a staircase on a set that also includes a 40 piece orchestra, spare enough to feature projections of old Hollywood, its streets, cars, and populace partying away, Norma Desmond is at home in a mansion of many rooms including one over the garage where Joe Gillis (Michael Xavier), a down on his luck writer comes to reside, entrapped in her web. She wants Joe to help stage a comeback, oops: she prefers return, to stardom. One day, as they visit Cecil B. DeMille's set, a lighting operator trains his spotlight on her. You see instantly the effect of attention on this faded beauty, unable to surrender to age and the vagaries of fame. Close brings to "As If We Never Said Goodbye," an aching glimpse into celebrity culture, once it leaves you in the shadows. Her final moments evoke Blanche Dubois' trust in the kindness of strangers. Set off by that famous readiness for her closeup, Norma Desmond takes the stairs with crumbling majesty, and a light, shattering dance across the stage.

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Webber has the distinction of having four musicals currently on Broadway, Sunset Boulevard, with book by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, joining Phantom of the Opera, Cats, and School of Rock. On opening night this week, a crowd that included Bernadette Peters, Gabriel Byrne, Gayle King, William Ivey Long, Bob Balaban, and Lena Hall, filled the Palace to capacity. Cheers for Norma Desmond never stopped, for each solo, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's operatic music, its repetitions and treacly tropes ripening to crescendo.

The festivities moved on, despite the day's big snow: at Cipriani 42nd Street, Michael Xavier said the most difficult part of playing Joe Gillis was singing "Sunset Boulevard," because he had to pause, talk to the audience, and drink, then go back to the song. Fred Johanson, a bald Max, Norma's enabler said, his greatest challenge was holding back, not taking his fawning indulgence in "The Greatest Star of All," too far. Siobhan Dillon who plays Betty Schaeffer, Joe's writing partner and true love, said, she had to make the most of little stage time. "A performance for the ages," a theater insider enthused of Glenn Close's Norma Desmond: that praise did not feel like hyperbole.
You can't, however, say they'll create more jobs than they destroy, because profits aren't jobs. In fact, they're often the opposite: companies save money by cutting jobs, and in this case, the jobs they cut will be those that pay people to plant trees, restore rivers, and turn soggy, unproductive farms into wetlands that filter water, purify air, and slow climate change.

Those jobs are part of a $25 billion "restoration economy" that directly employs 126,000 people and supports 95,000 other jobs - mostly in small businesses - according to a 2015 survey that environmental economist Todd BenDor conducted through the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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That's more jobs than logging, more than coal mining, and more than iron and steel, as you can see here:

The restoration economy is already providing jobs for loggers across Oregon, and even some coal miners in Virginia, but it could disappear if the GOP environmental rollback continues. Here are 11 things you need to know to understand it.

1. It's not Solar and Wind

The restoration economy is not to be confused with the

that employs 374,000 people in solar parks and 101,738 on wind farms. Like those, however, the restoration economy is part of a burgeoning "green economy" that's transforming forests, farms, and fields around the world.

2. It's Government-Driven

State and federal governments

sectors get off the ground, but both of those sectors are

now because they provide a cost-effective way to produce electricity, which everyone needs.

The demand for restoration, however, isn't as automatic as the demand for electricity is, because most companies and even some landowners won't clean up their messes without an incentive to do so.

Economists call these messes "externalities" because they dump an internal responsibility on the external world, and governments are created in part to deal with them - mostly through "command-and-control" regulation, but also through systems that let polluters either fix their messes or create something as good or better than what they destroy.

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Under the Endangered Species Act, for example, a local government that wants to build a road through sensitive habitat can petition the Fish and Wildlife Service for permission to do so. If permission is granted, it still has to make good by restoring degraded habitat in the same region.

3. It's Often Market-Based

Pioneered in the 1960s, environmental markets offer flexibility in meeting commitments. That local government mentioned above, for example, can either restore the land itself, or it can turn to a "

".

These are usually created by green entrepreneurs who identify marginal land and restore it to a stable state that performs ecosystem services like flood control or water purification. They make money by selling credits to entities - personal, public, or private - that need to offset their environmental impacts on species, wetlands or streams.

At least $2.8 billion per year flows through ecosystem markets in the United States, according to Ecosystem Marketplace research.

4. Infrastructure Also Drives Restoration

The federal government - especially the military -

, as do many states. Government activities alone support thousands of restoration jobs.

Government agencies are big buyers of credits, often to offset damage caused by infrastructure projects, but the link between infrastructure and restoration goes even deeper than that. In Philadelphia, for example, restoration workers are using water fees to restore degraded forests and fields as part of a plan to better manage storm runoff. In California, meadows and streams that control floods are legally treated as green infrastructure, to be funded from that pot of money. "Green infrastructure", it turns out, is prettier than concrete and lasts longer to boot.

Trump wants to "expedite" infrastructure roll-outs, and he can do so without weakening environmental provisions by removing unnecessary delays in the permitting process (see point 11, below).

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5. Markets Can Reduce Regulations

Nature is complex, and rigid regulations often fail to address that complexity, as environmental economist Todd BenDor makes clear when he points to regulations requiring the placement of

in new subdivisions along waterways.

"They're supposed to prevent erosion, but they often fail or are put in the wrong places," he says. "Markets can simply enact a limit on erosion, allowing the landowner the freedom to be creative and efficient in any way they see fit in order to meet that limit."

Done right, environmental markets can replace overly prescriptive regulations, but they still require government oversight and regulation.

"Markets are entirely reliant on strong monitoring, verification, and enforcement of limits," says BenDor. "Provisions must be made to ensure that, but in reality it's often a problem."

6. Restoration Stimulates Rural Economies

In 2015, BenDor published a study called "

", which found restoration businesses in all 50 states. California had the most, but four "Red" states filled out the top five: Virginia, Florida, Texas, and North Carolina. Last place went to North Dakota.

By their very nature, restoration projects are located in rural areas, and a study by Cathy Kellon and Taylor Hesselgrave of EcoTrust found that Oregon alone had more than 7,000 watershed restoration projects, which generated nearly 6,500 jobs from 2001 through 2010. Many of those jobs went to unemployed loggers.

"The jobs created by restoration activities are located mostly in rural areas, in communities hard hit by the economic downturn," report authors wrote. "Restoration also stimulates demand for the products and services of local businesses such as plant nurseries, heavy equipment companies, and rock and gravel companies."

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7. It's been Mapped

Last year, the US Department of Agriculture's Office of Environmental Markets, together with Ecosystem Marketplace publisher Forest Trends and the Environmental Protection Agency, published an online Atlas of Ecosystem Markets, which you can access

.

8. The Jobs are Robot-Proof

Environmental regulations didn't kill coal; natural gas and renewables did. Regulations didn't stifle the western oil boom, either; that was low energy prices. Even if Trump & Co do prop the coal sector, jobs won't go to people; they'll go to machines, which

America lost in the last decade.

BenDor's research shows restoration jobs are evenly divided between white-collar planners, designers, and engineers and the green-collar guys doing the actual earth moving and site construction.

Almost all involve time in the great outdoors, and they can't be exported or done by robots.

9. The Jobs are Cost-Effective

Because restoration work is labor-intensive, the money goes to people instead of machines, and every $1 million invested generates

. Every $1 million invested in oil, on the other hand, generates

million invested. In coal, the figure is

.

10. It Doesn't Stifle Business

Some industry groups claim the Endangered Species Act blocks development, but researchers reviewed 88,000 consultations between 2008 and 2015 and found that

or even changed in a major way to protect habitat.

Even proponents of the system concede, however, that the permitting process is slow and tedious.

11. It Can Be Improved

While the Fish and Wildlife Service administers credits for mitigation of endangered species, the Army Corps of Engineers approves mitigation credits for streams and wetlands, and they're notoriously underfunded. This leads to long and costly delays, according to unpublished research that BenDor conducted with Daniel Spethmann of Working Lands Investment Partners and David Urban of Ecosystem Investment Partners.


Violent history of French Guiana could be one of the factors that explains today's high criminality in the region. Prison of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni , 2009. davric/wikimedia, CC BY-SA

French Guiana's January carnival is normally a fun and festive occasion. But this year, a young man was severely beaten by ten other teenagers during the procession, marring the celebrations. The violence prompted Cayenne's mayor to forbid anyone who was not in costume to participate in the carnival.

Despite lying 7,000km away from Paris on the East coast of South America, French Guiana is classified as a part of France. It is known as an overseas "department" and sends representatives to the French parliament.

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According to the United Nations, in 2009, the annual murder rate of French Guiana was 13.3 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 1.1 in mainland France, and 2.7 and 7.9 in Martinique and Guadeloupe, two other overseas French departments.

These violent episodes have psychological and historical causes, relating to the history of French Guiana and its ongoing identity issues.

Guiana: a genesis of violence?

Violence is familiar to all cultures but it has its own genesis in French Guiana. The history of this region is punctuated by significantly violent episodes.

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A popular outlet par excellence, the annual carnival highlights are the troupes of Neg'marrons who pose as rebel slaves intimidating the spectators. There are also people dressed as convicts and Senegalese riflemen. All appeal to a transgressive collective memory.

Belonging to the French since 1643, French Guiana was born from a singular colonial context. Unlike in the West Indies, the Amerindians of French Guiana survived their encounter with Europeans.

They passed on the memory of colonisation through the myth of the Pailanti'po. In this legend, a monster devouring the Amerindians acts as a personification of the deadly diseases that appeared along with the European colonisers.

French Guiana's history is also one of slavery and racism. For two centuries, mistreatment from slave masters was answered by the resistance of rebel slaves, or Maroons, violence was both physical and spiritual.

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As a response to slavery, characters such as the sorcerer poisoner assumed a major role among the three Indigenous peoples of French Guiana. The position of the sorcerer poisoner, a diviner and witch doctor, which finds its origins in African societies, is known as the Piaye among native Amerindians, the Obeah Man among the Bushinengues of the Maroni, and the Gado among the Creoles.

The end of slavery in 1848 did not end the relationship between masters and slaves - it was instead prolonged through the forced commitment of contract workers.

This meant that violence remained a regular feature in collective memory. It can be seen in the figure of the notorious Gabonese contract worker turned criminal D'Chimbo. D'Chimbo spread terror on the island of Cayenne through his brutal machete attacks from 1860 to 1862, but has been remembered as a hero for fighting the colonial system.

At that time, the plantation economy had already been replaced by slash and burn agriculture. The gold rush led to massive acquisition of rifles, turning Guyanese forests into lawless zones.

Off the coast, the penitentiary nicknamed Devil's Island opened in 1852 and transformed Guiana over the following century into a convict colony, as portrayed in the 1973 film, Papillon. Its most famous resident was Alfred Dreyfus, the victim of the notorious Dreyfus affair.

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Paradoxes of the present

French Guiana's history has been based on conflict between slaves and masters, whites and blacks, the weak and the powerful. To what extent does this explain the current violence?

Periodic eruptions of violence underline the ambiguity of the relationship with the mainland. Cayenne experienced riots in 1928 because of electoral fraud, the 1946 revolt of the Senegalese riflemen who had settled in French Guiana to assist the local forces, and finally the nationalist push in the late 1960s whose proponents claimed more independence from France and rejected its politics.





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Adding to the weight of this tumultuous past are the paradoxes of a South American territory being integrated in the European Union. Since the departmentalisation of 1946, which made French Guiana an overseas territory of France, migration has deeply reshaped Guianese society. Two out of three adults are not born in Guiana: they are from the French continent or other overseas territories, or perhaps Brazilian, Surinamese, Haitian or Chinese.

The population of roughly 250,000 is expected to double again by 2040. At the forefront of the concerns of the Guianese authorities is the future of the 10,000 children aged between six and 16 who are today left out of the educational system. This poses a challenging problem for the President of the Central Office for Cooperation at School of Guiana who has said, "education must be a true lightning rod against this violence".

Community division threatens the society. Creoles and mainlanders monopolise political and economic power in contrast with the more recently arrived groups. Now a minority, some members of Creole society sometimes aggressively reassert their identity.

French Guiana, by its geography, is close to countries where some criminal systems thrive, and in which the violence is trivialised (racket, drug trafficking).

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The challenges posed by this South American settings add to the already tormented Guianese society. Strong economic growth has failed to reduce ever-growing poverty, with unemployment affecting one out of every two young people.

Plush villas and private swimming pools neighbour Haitian slums. The frustration borne from the inequalities associated with the traditional free flow of arms constitute the breeding ground for the daily violence. Added to the illegal gold mining and cocaine trafficking are the ever-present robberies, despite an extensive mobilisation of public authorities.

This all-South American violence threatens the extraordinary dynamism of French Guiana's inhabitants and its rich diversity. As film director Kim Shapiron, who just released a fictional series on French Guiana, put it: "Guiana is France but it's South America first. Everything is fine and then everything collapses."
Donald Trump's worrisomely wacky presidency is proving to be a movable feast of outrageous controversy. To a certain extent, that is a plus for the twitterific master of ADD media. An endless fur ball short-circuits focus on events which could lead to the unraveling of his presidency, especially with him unable so far to deliver on much besides appointments and the stoking of resentment for his vast reactionary base. He won't expand his support, at historic lows for a new president, but he won't lose his support, either.

If he's not able to issue proper executive orders, and the Muslim travel ban on nations which haven't produced terrorist attackers in this country is a predictable clown show, that is a poor omen for his legislative program. But he does have executive authority on national security and geopolitical matters and, thanks in part to the Obama administration, even greater ability than all but a few presidents of the past to use that authority to prosecute matters in secret. (This is what Democrats get for going along with a no-questions-asked secret global strike program with a massive new surveillance apparat in the bargain.)

Trump's backfiring policy in Yemen, site of last month's disastrous special operations raid, points up just how dangerously slipshod his regime is, on top of its already alarming neo-fascist tendencies and trademark known-nothingism.

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Impatience. Ignorance. Insularity. Iran-fixation. Part and parcel of Trump's syndrome as strategy. They are all on prime display in Trump's Yemen policy.

As I suggested at the beginning of the month, the impact of Trump's move was only just beginning to unfold.

The unscathed target of Trump's first special operations raid, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula chief Qassim al-Rimi, is mocking the new president, and America, in media around the world.

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What we've learned since is that Trump ordered the raid the day after he heard of the proposed mission. Which he discussed over dinner with a few advisors including his son-in-law and the notorious Steve Bannon, the ex-Navy lieutenant Trump had replace the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and director of national intelligence on the Principals Committee of the National Security Council. There were a couple legit folks there at the dinner, too, but as you'll see Trump clearly had the the bit between his teeth.

For its target was not the "more intelligence," yawn, which Trump's sad sack flack Sean Spicer touted as evidence of its "great success," but the head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

A big swing and an even bigger miss, as Qassim al-Rimi issued an 11-minute video message to global media mocking our new president. He's laughing at us all over the world.

Why would Trump be so reckless as to shoot from the hip to try to score a big win right off the bat .. Oh, right, with this guy the question answers itself.

He knows nothing about Yemen, like most geopolitical matters, and as someone who consistently dodged military service during the Vietnam War he strongly supported, he has no military experience.

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But Trump rolled the big raid out there anyway, like it was another one of his half-baked executive orders or provocative pronouncements.

The result was a debacle, with a dead Navy SEAL, three more wounded, an expensive aircraft downed and dozens of civilians, including many children, killed when the elite operators embarrassingly had to call on heavy air attacks to make good their escape.

We even had the spectacle of the government we are there to supposedly help, Yemen's rump state -- the rebels hold the capital now and much of the country, despite more than a year of Saudi and Gulf Arab attacks -- forbidding new US operations in Yemen. That embarrassment to Saudi Arabia got rolled back, of course, to a demand for mutual advance agreement on any operations. But the point was made. Even the client government was angry.

Trump seems to have given just as slipshod a review to his escalation of American bombardment on behalf of the Saudi side in the long-stalled civil war. He has bought into the spin of his new Saudi friends (if in fact they are new), whose oil minister is absolutely thrilled to have a fossil fuel enthusiast in the White House.

Trump is enthusiastically buying in to the notion that the civil war between the now ousted government aligned with America and the Houthi group now aligned with the former president we backed for decades before he was dumped in the Arab Spring, is really just a war against Iranian proxies. But it just ain't that simplistic.

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While a naval blockade to keep any Iranian supplies out might be appropriate, that doesn't seem to interest Trump. Not dramatic enough. Now Trump wants to increase direct US military intervention inside Yemen.

Of course he does. He just screwed up but, since he is never wrong, he wants to double down.

That's part of Trump's syndrome.

Which will just get more people killed, inevitably including more kids to go along with the nine who were killed in our name last month to correct Trump's mistake.

New National Security Advisor Mike Flynn has his problems, but I think he deserves tremendous credit for being right very early on with regard to the rise of Isis. That's something invariably left out of media profiles, which focus on reported management issues around Flynn's directorship of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama.

But if the Obama National Security Council, a highly problematic institution in its own right, had listened to Flynn instead of allowing Obama to conclude that Isis was "the junior varsity" of jihadism, things would be going very differently now.

However, Flynn seems something of a loose cannon on the subject of Iran. He goes beyond an appropriate suspicion to a knee-jerk stance.

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I have a theory about Flynn's radicalization on Iran and in general, which concerns the co-author of Flynn's deeply alarmist book, 'The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies,' Michael Ledeen. A longtime neocon, he's an acquaintance of mine who was a figure in the Iran/Contra scandal. More to say another time, but suffice for now to recall that Ledeen reported a decade ago that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, had suddenly died.

I did not, let's say, buy that, so made a couple of calls into the intelligence archipelago to inquire about this striking development. Which of course had not occurred, as it is Khamenei who is today riling up his nation against Trump. Where did Ledeen get his, ah, intel about the ayatollah's death? From a janitor in a Tehran hospital. Heh.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the ayatollah erroneously reported as dead by National Security Advisor Mike Flynn's co-author a decade ago, tore into President Donald Trump in a speech on Tuesday.

Flynn's, and Trump's, Iran-fixation is certainly out of phase with their admiration for Russia's geopolitical savvy. Moscow has a dispassionate view of Tehran and works with the Islamic Republic when it suits its purposes.

Meanwhile, Trump's impatience, ignorance, insularity, Iran-fixation -- leading elements, in other words, of his syndrome -- have produced an early disaster, a disaster which Trump shows signs of wanting to further develop by expanding US intervention as part of "pushing back" against Iran.

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Instead of pushing the Saudis to settle the civil war, replete with potential war crimes using our weapons on their part, and respectfully acting to keep Iran honest in the matter by closing the door on potential Iranian supply, Trump is taking one side in a losing civil war and trying to turn it around. Which is exactly the sort of thing he criticized Hillary Clinton for in the nearby Syrian civil war.

Millions demonstrated against the US Friday across Iran, answering the call of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the anniversary of the Iranian revolution which overthrew the Shah not long after I backpacked through the country.

"We are thankful to Trump for making our life easy, as he showed the real face of America," declared Khamenei -- who is still not dead 10 years after the exclusive report of his death by National Security Advisor Flynn's co-author -- in a fiery speech on Tuesday when he urged mass mobilization. "During his election campaign and after that, he confirmed what we have been saying for more than 30 years about the political, economic, moral and social corruption in the U.S. ruling system.

"Trump has said we should be scared and frightened of him. We will show on the anniversary of our revolution how we respond to his threats. No enemy can paralyze Iran."

Can things get worse in the wake of Trump's Yemen special ops debacle?

Oh, yeah.
Bill Self, Kurtis Townsend won't be on sidelines for KU's first four games
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

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A film hailing from Uzbekistan has been prevented from release in its native due to the inclusion of Morgan Freeman in its promotional trail despite the actor not appearing in the film.

Titled Daydi (Rogue), the film was set to be released in cinemas this week until the Uzbekistan film licensing body made the decision to pull it from cinemas.

Freeman was present on both the poster of the film as well as the trailer - however, he made no appearance whatsoever in the finished feature.

The licensing body has since accused production studio Timur Film's promise of a Hollywood A-list actor of breaching consumer's rights.

The poster for Uzbek film Daydi (Rogue)

After a spot of research, Podrobno news agency found that Freeman's appearance in Daydi's promo trail was taken from his role in 2015 film Last Knights, the trailer of which you can watch below.

 Last Knights - Trailer

Daydi stars Mirolim Quilchev as a police officer who must protect the country from a group of assassins. The film's release now depends on the verdict of two government bodies meaning the film won't be permitted to be shown in the meantime.

10 most pirated films of 2016 Show all 10 1 /10 10 most pirated films of 2016 10 most pirated films of 2016 10. The Revenant Worldwide gross: $533 million 10 most pirated films of 2016 9. Finding Dory Worldwide gross: $1,028 billion 10 most pirated films of 2016 8. Suicide Squad Worldwide gross: $745.6 million 10 most pirated films of 2016 7. Independence Day: Resurgence Worldwide gross: $389.7 million 10 most pirated films of 2016 6. Warcraft Worldwide gross: $433.5 million 10 most pirated films of 2016 5. X-Men: Apocalypse Worldwide gross in 2016: $543.9 million 10 most pirated films of 2016 4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens Worldwide gross: $2.068 billion 10 most pirated films of 2016 3. Captain America: Civil War Worldwide gross: $1.153 billion 10 most pirated films of 2016 2. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Worldwide gross: $873.3 million 10 most pirated films of 2016 1. Deadpool Worldwide gross: $783.1 million

The studio is yet to comment on the ruling.
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In the run up to his presidency, Donald Trump made it very clear that he was not a fan of Alec Baldwin's impersonations in which he famously mimicked the Republican candidate on Saturday Night Live.

It's emerged, however, that so effective is the impression, a newspaper has mistakenly used a picture of Baldwin's version of Trump in place of actual Donald Trump.

The newspaper in question is the Dominican Republic's El Nacional with the gaffe arriving in a story about the President's policies in the Middle East.

As far as reports are concerned, the piece was not intended to be satirical or tongue-in-cheek which makes the entire error more hilarious.

See for yourself below.

Baldwin's not the only one to have jumped on the impression bandwagon; Melissa McCarthy impersonated White House press secretary Sean Spicer while Rosie O'Donnell threw her name into the ring to take on Trump's assistant, Steve Bannon.

This week, Australian comedian Jim Jefferies tore into Piers Morgan on a US talk show after the British broadcaster refused to brand Trump's travel ruling a Muslim ban.
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J.K. Rowling has engaged in a Twitter feud with British broadcaster Piers Morgan following his appearance on a US talk show which saw him exchange a war of words with Australian comedian Jim Jefferies following his defence of President Donald Trump.

In last night's (10 February) episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, Jefferies lashed out at Morgan for refusing to refer to Trump's travel ruling as a Muslim ban.

Rowling immediately vented her fury on Twitter - as well as comedian Patton Oswalt and Star Trek actor George Takei.



Morgan refused to take this lying down, responding to the Harry Potter author saying that's why he's never read a word of her globally-successful book series - but Rowling had the comebacks lined up.

UPDATE: JK Rowling has delivered one last eviscerating Tweet aimed at Piers Morgan.

You can watch the full heated exchange between Morgan and Jefferies below.

It emerged today that a newspaper from the Dominican Republic mistakenly used a picture of Alec Baldwin impersonating Donald Trump in place of the actual President in a serious article about his policies in the Middle East.

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Donald Trumps biggest crime has been to merge the meanings of refugee and terrorist, according to Hollywood actor Richard Gere.

The star criticised the Presidents use of semantics at the Berlin Film Festival.

He said Mr Trump had been successful in turning a large proportion of US citizens against refugees.

"The most horrible thing that Trump has done is conflated two words: 'refugee' and 'terrorist'," Mr Gere said.

It means the same thing in the US now. That's what he's accomplished to a large segment of our population."

Mr Gere, who has a long history of liberal political activism, continued: "A 'refugee' used to be someone that we had empathy for ...someone we wanted to help who we wanted to give refuge to.

"Now we're afraid of them and this ...is the biggest crime in itself: conflating these two ideas."

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

In January, Mr Trump signed an executive order banning the entry of all refugees for 120 days, and banned refugees from Syria indefinitely.

Mr Trump also signed a travel ban aimed at banning people from seven majority Muslim countries. It has been blocked in the courts, but the President has said he will sign another order with similar intentions.

Critics said the bans violated a number of basic human rights, including the right of non-discrimination based on race, religion, or country of origin, and the right to life for asylum seekers.

Reuters contributed to this report
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Debenhams is set to become the first major UK department store to sell hijabs as part of a new range of Muslim clothing.

The chain store will introduce the new line in its flagship Oxford Street branch, before being rolled out to its Birminghams Bullring, Westfield in Shepherds Bush, Manchesters Trafford Centre and Leicesters Highcross Shopping Centre outlets.

The selection will offer tops, dresses, jumpsuits, kimono wraps, caps, hijab pins and headscarves.

An outlet of clothing brand Aab, which specialises in conservative clothing, it describes itself as selling contemporary modest wear for women.

The Aab roll-out with coincide with the launch of the clothing rage at Debenhams international stores in Dubai, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iran, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Jeanette Whithear, of Debenhams, said: Adding the high quality fashion range to our product mix enables us to offer collections that are highly relevant in both international markets and to our domestic customers.

This is a step closer to creating a product offer that caters for broader customer needs.

 UN-sponsored German ad encourages non-Muslims to wear the hijab

Nazmin Alim, founder and creative director at Aab, said: We started Aab almost a decade ago as a label that redefined modest fashion and one that caters for everyday modern wardrobe staples.

The partnership with Debenhams opens up some very exciting opportunities for us.

The hijab is a form of covering worn by Muslim women, and covers the head and neck.

It differs from the niqab which covers the face leaving only the eyes visible, and the burqa which covers the entire face.

Muslim fashion designer features hijabs at New York Fashion Week Show all 8 1 /8 Muslim fashion designer features hijabs at New York Fashion Week Muslim fashion designer features hijabs at New York Fashion Week Anniesa Hasibuan show, runway, Spring Summer 2017, New York Fashion Week Rex Muslim fashion designer features hijabs at New York Fashion Week Anniesa Hasibuan show, runway, Spring Summer 2017, New York Fashion Week Rex Features Muslim fashion designer features hijabs at New York Fashion Week Anniesa Hasibuan show, runway, Spring Summer 2017, New York Fashion Week Rex Muslim fashion designer features hijabs at New York Fashion Week Anniesa Hasibuan show, runway, Spring Summer 2017, New York Fashion Week Rex Muslim fashion designer features hijabs at New York Fashion Week Anniesa Hasibuan show, runway, Spring Summer 2017, New York Fashion Week Rex Features Muslim fashion designer features hijabs at New York Fashion Week Anniesa Hasibuan show, runway, Spring Summer 2017, New York Fashion Week Rex Features Muslim fashion designer features hijabs at New York Fashion Week Anniesa Hasibuan show, runway, Spring Summer 2017, New York Fashion Week Rex Features Muslim fashion designer features hijabs at New York Fashion Week Anniesa Hasibuan show, runway, Spring Summer 2017, New York Fashion Week Rex Features

The move has been met with horror by some, but praised for its inclusiveness by others.

Randolph Eaton-Howe wrote: They already have their own private retail outlets for these items is there any need for a national chain to start socking them?

But Emce posted: It's clothes that is all. Each to their own.

Some people wear bikinis some don't I'm sure they will sell well in cities with a high Muslim population.

If you want to ban Islam then you must ban religion full stop.

In 2014 John Lewis stocked headscarves as part of school uniforms for the first time, selling the item in its London and Liverpool branches.

Last March fellow department store Marks & Spencer stocked burkinis for the first time, retailing at 49.50.

The swimwear was described as a covering for the whole body with the exception of the face, hands and feet, without compromising on style.

There has been controversy in recent years over Muslim dress, with several European countries moving to ban burqas in public spaces.

The Netherlands, France, Belgium and Bulgaria have all introduced burqa bans in some form.

France also enforced a burkini ban on beaches, particularly in the Riviera, leading to an outcry last summer.
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Theresa May has come under renewed pressure to keep open a scheme providing sanctuary to unaccompanied child refugees as Labour peer Alf Dubs delivered a mass petition to Downing Street.

Around 50,000 people signed the petition against the Dubs closure, amid widespread outrage at the decision branded shameful by Labours refugee taskforce spokesperson Yvette Cooper.

MPs believed they were welcoming 3,000 children when they passed the Dubs Amendment to the Immigration Act in 2016, but a low-key ministerial statement on Thursday revealed it would come to an end having welcomed just 350.

 Yvette Cooper calls backtrack on Dubs amendment 'shameful'

Lord Dubs was accompanied by a group of young children as he carried the petition to the door of No 10.

He later told reporters: I was shocked and in disbelief. I couldn't believe the Government could back off in quite that way.

We want the Government to change their minds. The Government have said they dont want to take more than 350 in total under the amendment. I think that's a very shabby cop-out.

I believe that there are thousands of unaccompanied child refugees suffering greatly in Greece, Italy and some in France. The Government has said no more, and I think that is an abdication of their responsibilities. It goes against public opinion and it goes against parliamentary opinion.

The Labour peer was joined opposite No 10 by campaigners, local politicians and faith leaders who gave a series of speeches.

The petition follows a bruising intervention by the the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said he was saddened and shocked by the Dubs closure and appeared to compare the Governments position with that of Donald Trump.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images

He warned that halting the initiative would see more children being trafficked, exploited and killed and said it would be deeply unjust to leave the burden of caring for such children on Italy and Greece.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd was forced to defend the Dubs closure, but faced criticism for saying that the programme encouraged people traffickers.

Recommended Government blocks entry to disabled child refugees

A High Court challenge to the ending of the Dubs scheme has been scheduled in early May.

The legal challenge, which is being brought by the charity Help Refugees, claims the consultation process with local authorities that led to the scheme's closure was fundamentally flawed.

The crisis affecting the Governments refugee programmes deepened on Friday when it emerged that another programme for child refugees  called the Vulnerable Childrens Resettlement Scheme  is not accepting young people with disabilities because it cannot accommodate their needs.
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Fake news is killing peoples minds according to Apple boss Tim Cook, who is urging the Government to launch a public information campaign to counteract the problem.

Mr Cook called for a an awareness campaign similar to those which alerted people to health epidemics such as AIDS in the 1980s and environmental issues including the ozone layer in the 1990s.

The CEO of the worlds largest company said fake news is a big problem in a lot of the world following recent concerns about the role of fabricated news stories widely shared during the US Presidential election race and the EU referendum campaign.

It has to be ingrained in the schools, it has to be ingrained in the public, said Mr Cook. There has to be a massive campaign. We have to think through every demographic.

We need the modern version of a public-service announcement campaign. It can be done quickly if there is a will.

He told The Daily Telegraph that in the "clickbait" era, the rise of fake news was being driven by companies determined to get readers at any cost, with truth being the first casualty.

We are going through this period of time right here where unfortunately some of the people that are winning are the people that spend their time trying to get the most clicks, not tell the most truth, he said. Its killing peoples minds in a way.

Mr Cooke said that companies including Apple had to step up and do more to try and counteract the problem.

All of us technology companies need to create some tools that help diminish the volume of fake news.

We must try to squeeze this without stepping on freedom of speech and of the press, but we must also help the reader. Too many of us are just in the complain category right now and havent figured out what to do.

And he said schools had to do more to educate children on how to tell the difference between reliable and unreliable news sources.

Its almost as if a new course is required for the modern kid, for the digital kid.

But he said in some ways, children should be the easiest to educate and they could then share their increased awareness with their parents.

We saw this with environmental issues: kids learning at school and coming home and saying, 'Why do you have this plastic bottle? Why are you throwing it away?' 

Recommended Evidence for one of the most bizarre theories about Trump is mounting

Mr Cook believes the war on fake news can be won in the long-term, and that peoples appetite for in-depth, investigative journalism remains stronger than the apparent public hunger for clickbait.

The outcome of that is that truthful, reliable, non-sensational, deep news outlets will win.

The [rise of fake news] is a short-term thing - I dont believe that people want that at the end of the day.

Alabama- born Mr Cook met with President Donald Trump in December as part of a round-table discussion with other technology and social media giants, including Facebook, Google and Amazon.

Mr Trump has repeatedly accused the mainstream media, including well respected publications such as the New York Times, of peddling fake news.

Recommended Under Trump journalists must hold themselves to higher standards

Some believe this is fuelling a culture where any story which is critical of an individual or organisation can simply be dismissed as fake news even when it is from a reliable and well researched source  making it all the more vital that people are educated to be able to spot the difference.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport has launched a Government enquiry into fake news chaired by Damian Collins MP.

Launching the enquiry, Mr Collins said: The growing phenomenon of fake news is a threat to democracy and undermines confidence in the media in general.

Just as major tech companies have accepted they have a social responsibility to combat piracy online and the illegal sharing of content, they also need to help address the spreading of fake news on social media platforms.

Consumers should also be given new tools to help them assess the origin and likely veracity of news stories they read online.

Mr Collins said a select committee will investigate the sources of "fake news", what motivates people to spread it, and how it has been used around elections and other important political debates.

The public is invited to submit their views to the committee before 3 March .
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A man has had his charity donations frozen after his surname, Islam, was flagged on a US Treasury restriction list.

Mamunul Islam, who is a British citizen, raised 400 for a UK food bank and Eventbrite, a website which facilitates fundraising, said the name M Islam featured on a list created by the US Office for Foreign Assets and Control.

All the donations were made in sterling and all donors were from the United Kingdom.

Mr Islam, who is an accountant from Bedford, said the laws had restricted his economic freedom.

This is beyond discrimination. I honestly dont know how to explain in words. Just because of my name I am treated differently, he told The Independent.

This was blackmail. They kept the money and they kept asking me to provide additional information even though they had my details.

This was the eighth event with this organisation and I have never had a problem. This is just another government restricting my economic freedom, Mr Islam said.

The money was released by Evenbrite after Mr Islam sent several letters and threatened to take legal action.

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

A spokesperson for Eventbrite said: We are dedicated to providing the highest level of service to every single one of our customers. We continually monitor and screen our event listings to ensure compliance with our legal obligations, and if issues arise, we work directly with the organiser to come to a resolution.

As a US company, Eventbrite customers agree to comply with US law through the Eventbrite Merchant Agreement. As part of compliance with the law, Eventbrite and its subsidiaries are subject to OFAC. In this instance, a payment to the organiser was temporarily held because of a potential OFAC name match.

The payment to the organiser was released after we clarified some questions with him to make sure we comply with our legal obligations.
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A refugee who went onto advise a foreign minister has urged the government to live up to the British tradition of giving refuge to the most vulnerable people.

Baroness Arminka Helic, 48, fled to the UK from war torn Bosnia when she was 23, but went onto study at the London School of Economics and work for William Hague when he was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

She is best known for being the driving influence behind Mr Hague's Global Sexual Violence initiative, along with Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie.

The Baroness, made a peer by David Cameron, was speaking in light of the governments decision to scrap the Dubs Amendment, designed to provide sanctuary to child refugees.

While 3,000 children were supposed to have benefited from the scheme, only 350 have been helped by the British government.

 Yvette Cooper calls backtrack on Dubs amendment 'shameful'

The governments decision was widely criticised and Baroness Helic has now added her voice to the chorus.

Britain has a long and proud history of giving refuge to the most vulnerable people, she told The Times. I hope that our government will find a way to live up to that ideal, even amid current challenges.

Of course we have to ensure that the local authorities have the means of meeting this task ... but as they say, where there is a will theres a way. I hope this is not the end of it and that there is more we can do.

The government justified its closure of the Dubs Amendment by saying it was incentivising migration. Home Secretary Amber Rudd told MPs the scheme was a magnet for people traffickers.

A lack of funding and implementation problems in local authorities has also been cited by the government as a reason to end the scheme, though some councils have argued against this.

A total of 294 politicians voted against the Dubs Amendment last week. Five Conservative MPs rebelled, including Will Quincy, who said he was sad and disappointed by the response.

Another, Dr Tania Mathias, suggested in the Commons that Britain should be leading the way, there should be more resources for local authorities. She also called for the creation of a Minister for Refugees.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images

Baroness Helic has extensive personal experience with war. She came to the UK after ethnic cleansing in her native country targeted Muslim communities in Bosnia, of which she was a member.

People were being killed, women were separated and they were being put into camps, she told the Times. It was too dangerous so my sisters, their children and my mother fled to Croatia.

Her family had to walk to the border and cross it on a raft, all while trying to avoid an artillery barrage. After brief respite in Croatia, the country also became embroiled in conflict and Baroness Helic made her way to England with the help of a family she had worked for as an au pair.

One of the family, Lady Jane Nott, put a ticket to England inside a book she asked for.

Recalling the episode, Baroness Helic said: That is what I want to explain to people about this country, Britain is not Farage, its Jane. People who do amazing things.
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A woman is hoping to track down a wedding dress that has been in her family for generations after the dry cleaner she left it with went bankrupt, leaving no trace of the outfit.

Tess Newall wore the dress at her wedding last year and it was made by her great, great grandmother in 1870. She handed it to Kleen cleaners in Edinburgh but the firm soon went into administration.

She posted on Facebook asking for help locating the dress and her plea has received more than 155,000 shares.

Because of the antique design of the dress, Ms Newall believes it could be on sale at a vintage wedding fair or shop.

Her plea on social media attracted the attention of Bridebook, a wedding planning website, who are coordinating a search on her behalf and have offered to buy a replacement dress for whoever has the dress.

I'm overwhelmed by the heart-warming response and how kind everyone has been in helping to search for the dress - ordinary people, the press and the wedding industry Ms Newall told The Independent.

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

I really believe we will find the dress thanks to the enormous support I'm getting and I'm so grateful!

"My great-great-granny would be overwhelmed by this global attention of her beautiful dress I am sure," she added.
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Dozens of Conservative MPs have signed up to a plan to give citizens of the 52 Commonwealth countries fast-track visas to the UK after Brexit.

A letter to the Home Secretary, published in The Daily Telegraph newspaper, says loosening visa control on Commonwealth nations would extend the hand of friendship to our Commonwealth partners.

If the MPs plan goes ahead citizens from countries including Pakistan, India, Australia, Canada, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Ghana could find it easier to come to Britain.

Recommended New immigration controls may not be imposed straight after Brexit

The idea, which also proposes faster passport control queuing at UK border points for Commonwealth citizens, is due to be debated in Parliament on 26 February.

The MPs say it is unfair that EU and EEA citizens should get to join the UK queue while Commonwealth countries are lumped in with others.

In the previous century, Commonwealth countries stood with Britain as we faced existential threats from abroad, but as we pivoted to Europe, increasingly, our Commonwealth allies were left in the cold, the letter says.

The lack of consideration for Commonwealth citizens is at its starkest at our border. In 2015, the last year for which figures are readily available, from Australia, Canada and India alone, Britain welcomed 2.2 million visitors who spent more than 2bn.

It continues: We must be clear about the importance we place on our relationship with the Commonwealth and start the process of strengthening ties for crucial future trade negotiations.

A key starting point in the renewal of our ties with our Commonwealth partners should be a reconfiguring of our border control system.

The letter was organised by Conservative MP Jake Berry.

The Governments Brexit White Paper, released last month, suggested that EU freedom of movement controls could last after Brexit and that any new border system could be phased in gradually.

Qualifying Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK can already vote in British national elections, unlike those of EU member states who are limited to local elections.

A Home Office spokesperson said: Once we have left the European Union it will be the Government that sets our immigration rules.

Brexit racism and the fightback Show all 9 1 /9 Brexit racism and the fightback Brexit racism and the fightback Demonstrators protest against an increase in post-ref racism at London's March for Europe in July 2016 PA Brexit racism and the fightback These cards were found near a school in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, the day after the EU referendum Twitter/@howgilb Brexit racism and the fightback Getty Brexit racism and the fightback Romford, Essex, June 25 @diamondgeezer Brexit racism and the fightback A worker at this Romanian food shop was asleep upstairs at the time of this arson attack in Norwich on July 8, but escaped unharmed. Hundreds later participated in a love bombing rally outside the shop to express their opposition to racism and their support of the shop owners. JustGiving/Helen Linehan Brexit racism and the fightback This neo-Nazi sticker was spotted in Glasgow on June 26 Courtesy of Eoin Palmer Brexit racism and the fightback But after news emerged of neo-Nazi stickers appearing in Glasgow, some in the city struck back with slogans of their own. Courtesy of Eoin Palmer Brexit racism and the fightback Getty Brexit racism and the fightback More signs began to appear in some parts of the UK, created by people who wanted to show their opposition to post-referendum racism Courtesy of Bernadette Russell

Voters made it clear during the referendum that they wanted the country to take back control of immigration.

This Government will deliver on that by building an immigration system that works for everyone.
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Cabinet ministers are suspicious that John Bercow may have orchestrated a row over Donald Trumps state visit in order to rally support for his continuation of Speaker, it has been reported.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper reports that multiple anonymous Cabinet ministers think the Speakers intervention this week saying he was strongly opposed to the US president speaking in Westminster Hall or the Royal Gallery was political maneuvering.

Though formerly a Conservative MP Mr Bercow was elected as Commons speaker with the support of Labour MPs. He has long had a persistent group of critics on the traditionalist wing of the Conservative party.

He fought off a bid to remove him as Speaker just before the 2015 general election. This week Conservative MP James Duddridge tabled an early day motion calling for no confidence in Mr Bercow, though as yet he is the only MP to sign it.

Bercow did this to win Labour, SNP and Lib Dem support for staying on, a senior member of Theresa Mays Government repotedly told the Daily Telegraph.

He has orchestrated the whole thing.

On Monday, responding to a point of order about Mr Trumps state visit, Mr Bercow cited racism, sexism and support for an independent judiciary as among reasons why he would not invite Mr Trump

We value our relationship with the United States. However, as far as this place is concerned I feel very strongly that our opposition to racism and to sexism and our support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary are hugely important considerations in the House of Commons, he told MPs at the time.

In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Show all 32 1 /32 In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London An image of President Donald Trump is seen on a placard during the Women's March in London, England Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A view of the skywriting word reading 'Trump' as thousands rally in support of equal rights in Sydney, New South Wales EPA In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Rome People shout and hold signs during a rally against US newly sworn-in President Donald Trump in Rome Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A protester holds a placard during the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille A placard ready 'Pussy grabs back' is attached to the handle bar of a bike during a 'Women's March' organized by Feminist and human rights groups in solidarity with women marching in Washington and around the world for their rights and against the reactionary politics of the newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok A young Thai girl holds a "women's rights are human rights" sign at Roadhouse BBQ restaurant where many of the Bangkok Womens March participants gathered in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok A Thai woman takes a photo of a "hate is not great" sign at the women's solidarity gathering in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok American expats and travellers gather with the international community in Bangkok at the Roadhouse BBQ restaurant to stand in solidarity in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protetesters gather outside The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille Women's March at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille Protestors hold placards reading 'My body my choice, my vote my voice' during a 'Women's March' organized by Feminist and human rights groups in solidarity with women marching in Washington and around the world for their rights and against the reactionary politics of the newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Rome A person holds a sign during a rally against US newly sworn-in President Donald Trump in Rome Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Kolkata Activist Sarah Annay Williamson holds a placard and shouts slogan during the Women's March rally in Kolkata, India AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Kolkata Activists participate in the Women's March rally in Kolkata, India AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A Women's March placards are rested on a bench outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A women carries her placard ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Manila Women protesters shout slogans while displaying placards during a rally in solidarity against the inauguration of President Donald Trump, in suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Melbourne Protesters take part in the Melbourne rally to protest against the Trump Inauguration in Melbourne, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters take part in the Women's March rally in Macau Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Melbourne Womens march on Melbourne protestors marching during a rally where rights groups marched in solidarity with Americans to speak out against misogyny, bigotry and hatred Rex In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters hold placards as they take part at the Women's March rally in Macau Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters hold placards as they take part at the Women's March rally in Macau, Macau. The Women's March originated in Washington DC but soon spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognised around the world as human rights Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Manila A mother carries her son as they join a rally in solidarity against the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States in suburban Quezon city northeast of Manila, Philippines AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney An infant is held up at a demonstration against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A woman attends a demonstration against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A woman expresses her Anti-Trump views in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydeney Protesters demonstrate against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia. The marches in Australia were organised to show solidarity with those marching on Washington DC and around the world in defense of women's rights and human rights Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protesters march from The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square towards Trafalgar Square during the Women's March in London, England Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protesters carrying banners take part in the Women's March on London, as they stand in Trafalgar Square, in central London Reuters

Before the imposition of the migrant ban I would myself have been strongly opposed to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall. After the imposition of the migrant ban by President Trump I am even more strongly opposed to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall.

Mr Bercow has received strong support from many Labour, SNP, and Liberal Democrat MPs for his stance.

MPs elect the Speaker from among their own ranks at the start of each parliamentary term. The Speaker is bound to be politically impartial and renounces all party allegiance upon their appointment.

Mr Trump was invited to the UK on a state visit by Theresa May while she was in the US.
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The public is broadly split on the subject of Donald Trumps forthcoming state visit to the UK, a new poll for The Independent has found.

Forty-five per cent of the public agree that Commons Speaker John Bercow was right to block Mr Trump from speaking in Parliament, compared with a smaller 39 per cent who disagree.

However, 47 per cent say that when he comes he should meet the Queen  despite widespread opposition to his policies.

A majority of people disagree with the Presidents Muslim ban, which was cited by Mr Bercow when he said he would be strongly opposed to a visit by Mr Trump to the House of Commons.

A minority of the public does support the policy, however  with 29 per cent backing a similar travel ban for the UK. The figure rises dramatically to three-quarters when polling just Ukip voters.

Older members of the public are also rather more likely to agree that the UK should introduce its own such ban than younger members  just 15 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds agree with the policy against 35 per cent of over-65s.

It was reported as Parliament went into recess that government officials had abandoned an plan for Mr Trump to speak in Parliament, a decision that would avoid a showdown with Mr Bercow and in effect hand him a perceived public victory.

It was not clear whether Mr Trump would ever address Parliament, as not all state visits include a parliamentary address.

Some cabinet ministers are also said to be suspicious of Mr Bercows motives for intervening on the issue  a highly unusual topic for the politically neutral Speaker to pontificate on.

One told The Daily Telegraph newspaper this weekend that they believed Mr Bercow orchestrated the episode to secure his backing for a further term as Speaker.

Mr Bercow, a former Conservative MP who was elected to the speakership with the support of Labour MPs, has long been the target of a persistent group of Tory traditionalists who dislike his modernising approach and accuse him of bias against them.

In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump President-elect Donald Trump acknowledges guests as he arrives on the platform at the US Capitol in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States by Chief Justice John Roberts as Melania Trump looks on during the 58th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington AP In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump President Donald Trump shakes hands with Justice John Roberts after taking the oath at inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump President Donald Trump raises his fists after his inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol Getty In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump U.S. President-elect Donald Trump greets outgoing President Barack Obama before Trump is inaugurated during ceremonies on the Capitol in Washington Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump resident-elect Donald Trump arrives on the platform of the US Capitol in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Attendees partake in the inauguration ceremonies to swear in Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump US President Donald Trump delivers his inaugural address during ceremonies at the US Capitol in Washington DC Getty In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump U.S. President Donald Trump waves with wife Melania during the Inaugural Parade in Washington DC Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Protesters registered their rage against the new president Friday in a chaotic confrontation with police who used pepper spray and stun grenades in a melee just blocks from Donald Trump's inaugural parade route. Scores were arrested for trashing property and attacking officers AP In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Demonstrators protest against US President Donald Trump in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump A woman holds a sign before the start of the Presidential Inauguration of Donald Trump at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Anti-Trump protesters prepare banners for a protest against the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, in Berlin REUTERS In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Demonstrators shout slogans against US President-elect Donald Trump in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Demonstrators march, block foot traffic and clash with U.S. Capitol Police at the entry checkpoints for the Inauguration of Donald Trump Alamy Live News In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Demonstrators display a banner as people arrive for US President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump A man displays a placard as people lineup to get into the National Mall for the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump in Washington DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Protesters demonstrating against U.S. President Donald Trump raise their hands as they are surrounded by police on the sidelines of the inauguration in Washington DC Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump A demonstrator wearing a mask depicting Donald Trump protests outside the US Embassy in London Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Demonstrators hold placards as they protest outside the US Embassy in London Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Former US President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush arrive for the Presidential Inauguration at the US Capitol Rex In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden share an umbrella as President Donald Trump delivers his inaugural address at the inauguration in Washington DC Rex In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton arrive on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump U.S. Vice President Mike Pence takes the oath of office on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC Getty Images In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Advisors to President-elect Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon depart from services at St. John's Church during the Presidential Inauguration in Washington Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Protesters demonstrating against U.S. President Donald Trump take cover as they are hit by pepper spray by police on the sidelines of the inauguration in Washington DC Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump An activist demonstrating against U.S. President Donald Trump is helped after being hit by pepper spray on the sidelines of the inauguration in Washington DC Reuters In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump A police officer tries to tackle a protester demonstrating against U.S. President Donald Trump Reuters/Adrees Latif In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump Police arrest and detain a protester in the street in Washington DC Rex In pictures: Protests, pomp and Donald Trump A police officer falls to the ground as another shoots pepper spray at protesters demonstrating against U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the inauguration in Washington DC Reuters

Conservative MP James Duddridge has tabled an early-day motion  in effect a petition  calling for Mr Bercow to be ousted, but as yet only he has signed it.

The Prime Minister invited Mr Trump to come to the UK on a state visit while she met him in Washington DC. The visit is understood to be in June when Parliament is not sitting, though this has not yet been officially confirmed.

ComRes interviewed 2,021 GB adults online between 8 and 10 February 2017. Data were weighted to be demographically representative of all GB adults. Data were also weighted by past vote recall. Voting intention figures are calculated using the ComRes Voter Turnout Model. ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.
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Almost half of Labour's voters do not want the party to try and block Brexit, a new poll for The Independent has found.

Though two-thirds of Labour supporters voted to Remain, the new ComRes study found that this does not necessarily translate into wanting to stop Article 50 being triggered.

48 per cent of the partys voters now say the Opposition shouldnt try and overturn the referendum result.

Recommended Clive Lewis dismisses leadership challenge speculation

The finding is likely to take some pressure off Jeremy Corbyn, who has come in for criticism from some supporters for whipping his MPs not to block Article 50.

Mr Corbyn suffered several frontbench resignations over the Article 50 vote, which took place at the end of an all-hours debate about Brexit which ran late into the night for several days last week.

The most high-profile resignation was Clive Lewis, the shadow business secretary.

Multiple whips also voted Remain, though frontbenchers outside the shadow cabinet have been let off with a written warning and will not be forced to resign.

The public at large also broadly agree with Labours stance of not standing in the way of leaving the EU  with 64 per cent saying the party should not try to obstruct the process.

What experts have said about Brexit Show all 11 1 /11 What experts have said about Brexit What experts have said about Brexit Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond The Chancellor claims London can still be a world financial hub despite Brexit One of Britains great strengths is the ability to offer and aggregate all of the services the global financial services industry needs This has not changed as a result of the EU referendum and I will do everything I can to ensure the City of London retains its position as the worlds leading international financial centre. Reuters What experts have said about Brexit Yanis Varoufakis Greece's former finance minister compared the UK relations with the EU bloc with a well-known song by the Eagles: You can check out any time you like, as the Hotel California song says, but you can't really leave. The proof is Theresa May has not even dared to trigger Article 50. It's like Harrison Ford going into Indiana Jones' castle and the path behind him fragmenting. You can get in, but getting out is not at all clear Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Michael OLeary Ryanair boss says UK will be screwed by EU in Brexit trade deals: I have no faith in the politicians in London going on about how the world will want to trade with us. The world will want to screw you  that's what happens in trade talks, he said. They have no interest in giving the UK a deal on trade Getty What experts have said about Brexit Tim Martin JD Wetherspoon's chairman has said claims that the UK would see serious economic consequences from a Brexit vote were "lurid" and wrong: We were told it would be Armageddon from the OECD, from the IMF, David Cameron, the chancellor and President Obama who were predicting locusts in the fields and tidal waves in the North Sea" PA What experts have said about Brexit Mark Carney Governor of Bank of England is 'serene' about Bank of England's Brexit stance: I am absolutely serene about the  judgments made both by the MPC and the FPC Reuters What experts have said about Brexit Christine Lagarde IMF chief urges quick Brexit to reduce economic uncertainty: We want to see clarity sooner rather than later because we think that a lack of clarity feeds uncertainty, which itself undermines investment appetites and decision making Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Inga Beale Lloyds chief executive says Brexit is a major issue: "Clearly the UK's referendum on its EU membership is a major issue for us to deal with and we are now focusing our attention on having in place the plans that will ensure Lloyd's continues trading across Europe EPA What experts have said about Brexit Colm Kelleher President of US bank Morgan Stanley says City of London will suffer as result of the EU referendum: I do believe, and I said prior to the referendum, that the City of London will suffer as result of Brexit. The issue is how much What experts have said about Brexit Richard Branson Virgin founder believes we've lost a THIRD of our value because of Brexit and cancelled a deal worth 3,000 jobs: We're not any worse than anybody else, but I suspect we've lost a third of our value which is dreadful for people in the workplace.' He continued: "We were about to do a very big deal, we cancelled that deal, that would have involved 3,000 jobs, and thats happening all over the country" Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Barack Obama US President believes Britain was wrong to vote to leave the EU: "It is absolutely true that I believed pre-Brexit vote and continue to believe post-Brexit vote that the world benefited enormously from the United Kingdom's participation in the EU. We are fully supportive of a process that is as little disruptive as possible so that people around the world can continue to benefit from economic growth" Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Kristin Forbes American economist and an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England argues that the economy had been less stormy than many expected following the shock referendum result: For nowthe economy is experiencing some chop, but no tsunami. The adverse winds could quickly pick up  and merit a stronger policy response. But recently they have shifted to a more favourable direction Getty

Labour will have to continue to walk a tightrope on Brexit, however, as a significant minority of Labour voters  39 per cent  do want the result resisted. The remainder said they did not know.

The polls voting intention figures show that the Conservatives still enjoy a significant lead over Labour on 41 per cent compared to 26 per cent.

The Liberal Democrats and Ukip are level on 11 per cent, while the SNP is on 5 per cent, and the Green Party on 4 per cent.

ComRes interviewed 2,021 GB adults online between 8th and 10th February 2017. Data were weighted to be demographically representative of all GB adults. Data were also weighted by past vote recall. Voting intention figures are calculated using the ComRes Voter Turnout Model. ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.
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As Leen Baaj straddled the side of the speeding pickup truck, she held a rope around her three young children so they wouldnt fall out. There were 21 other people in the vehicle  seven of them children  making the treacherous desert journey from Sudan to Egypt.

At just 25-years-old  and with her husband still trapped in Syria  Leen made the trip with Hala, 10, Abdullah, nine, and Omar, four.

Coming to Egypt from Sudan was a bad experience, Leen told The Independent from the offices of the Mustaqbalna school in Cairo, where she now works as a teacher. I think I would have stayed in Syria if I had known, and dealt with the bombs.

She left her hometown of Homs to join her parents in Egypt after she decided she had nothing left to stay for. Communicating with a smuggling network through WhatsApp, her father arranged for her to make the trip from Sudan  there are no visa requirements for Syrians entering the country.

 Refugees rescued and brought to shore in the Mediterranean

Her journey highlights a little-known route that is increasingly popular for Syrians escaping the war. According to the UNs refugee agency (UNHCR), there are nearly 117,000 Syrian refugees registered in Egypt, though some estimates place their number at over double that.

And of the 15,740 Syrians who registered with the UNHCR in Egypt in 2016, 60 per cent of them came overland from Sudan irregularly. The route is also used by numerous migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Eritreans.

After flying from Damascus to the Sudanese capital Khartoum, Leen and her children rendezvoused with the smuggling gang and other refugees and migrants, a mix of old and young people. They travelled north east to Port Sudan, making it past three checkpoints.

It was so scary, the smuggler was shouting at us, Leen said. He told us not to open the curtains [of the minibus] because of the police.

The group was dropped off in a house in Port Sudan, where they were joined by more refugees and migrants. At nightfall, they were put in a pickup truck and driven into the desert.

Leen continued: We were terrified. Its so dangerous. They are travelling so fast its easy for the children to fall. I was sat with my legs over the side, I thought I was going to fall out. And if you do, there is no one to rescue you.

But theres also the authorities or bandits who could catch you and we risked being fired on. We could hear the gun shots at one point.

Leen plays with children at the EU-funded Mustaqbalna school in Cairo where she teaches (Hannah Maule-ffinch)

The desert areas of northern Sudan are notoriously lawless. Migrants not only have to cope with their hostile and unpredictable smugglers, but also roaming gangs of bandits and corrupt officials. Another family who made the journey told The Independent they feared the gangs of organ harvesters who are said to stalk the trail.

While this is impossible to verify, black market organ sales are strongly suspected to be a feature of the refugee and migrant trade. In December, the Egyptian authorities arrested 45 people in connection with it.

No one should make this journey, said Leen. Its a death road.

After two days in the truck, Leen and her children were forced out near the Egyptian border. When we had to get out and walk my little one said lets run, lets race, but I was so tired, she said.

They met another driver on the Egyptian side. The smuggler was hurrying because he was scared of the police, Leen said. He was driving crazily, we were bumping up and down and screaming. But he came out with a stick, and told us to shut up.

By this time, Leen had gone well over a day without water, let alone shade. The group met a second driver, who sold them bottles at an extortionate price. They continued until the police came across the driver. He left Leen, her children and the other migrants in the desert without explanation and drove off.

In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Show all 7 1 /7 In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby being taken on to MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos all images by Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby among refugees on a boat carrying 185 people off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Migrants and refugees sleeping after being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos ship Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A crew from MSF's Bourbon Argos ship rescuing a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya, at sunrise Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A woman in a stretcher being lifted onto MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden

Nearly two hours later, the driver returned and the group moved from the desert to a normal road. On safely reaching the southern Egyptian town of Aswan, they were told to disperse. Leen and her children spent the night in a mosque, before going to the railway station and catching a 15 hour train to Cairo.

Leen was traumatised by her journey, replaying it over in her head for a week. Her son Omar wants to forget it too, but recoils every time he sees a pickup truck in the street.

But her children have been receiving psychosocial support, thanks to a joint Unicef and EU project at the Mustaqbalna school to help refugee children deal with the trauma of war and displacement.

And just weeks after her arrival, Leen took up her position teaching other Syrian children who have sought a new home in Cairo.

Now, the family is now hoping to build a life in peace. I can stand a lot because I am strong, said Leen, with an air of defiance. I played with my kids and had fun with them in the chaos.
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There has been a record number of Americans renouncing their citizenship and Boris Johnson is one of them.

The latest government data shows a new record of 5,411 individuals gave up their American citizenship last year, up 26 per cent from 2015.

Boris Johnson appeared in the list of names of people who renounced their American citizenship released by the US Treasury.

The Foreign Secretary, who was born in New York but has not lived there since he was five-years-old , has said his goodbye to his American passport seemingly to avoid having to report his earnings to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

In 2014, Mr Johnson inisted he would not pay a large sum in capital gains tax to US authorities on the basis that he didn't live there.

He was caught up in a US law, according to which all citizens, regardless of whether they live and work in the country, are required to report their income.

In 2010 and 2014, a new law was passed in an effort to crack down on tax evasion, which obliged foreign institutions and banks, which hold assets for US citizens, to report the accounts or pay a 30 per cent tax on those who dont share the information with the IRS.

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. 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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. 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Speaking to National Public Radio in the US in 2014, Mr Johnson said renouncing his American citizenship was very hard.

You may not believe this but if youre an American citizen, America exercises this incredible doctrine of global taxation, so that even though tax rates in the UK are far higher and Im Mayor of London, I pay all my tax in the UK and so I pay a much higher proportion of my income in tax than I would if I lived in America.

The United States comes after me, would you believe it, for capital gains tax on the sale of your first residence which is not taxable in Britain. Theyre trying to hit me with some bill, can you believe it?

Mr Johnson later said he had settled the tax demand with the US authorities.

Other people, who have previously renounced their American citizenship include, actor Yul Brynner, soprano Maria Callas, businessmen Kenneth and Robert Dart, investor Mark Mobius, and Eduardo Saverin, a co-founder of Facebook, Bloomberg reports.
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Bernie Sanders has said Donald Trump is delusional and could move the United States into authoritarian mode.

The Vermont senator said he did not feel good about using harsh words to describe the President, but felt, given Mr Trump's behaviour, his terminology was accurate.

Speaking to CNN presenter Erin Burnett, he said that although he is considerably to the left of most of his fellow senators, he has never just attacked people because their views are different than mine.

But Mr Sanders said Mr Trump, who he described as a total hypocrite and a "pathological liar", had put everyone in a new era.

I use the term 'delusional' with regard to Trump when he said there were 3 to 5 million 'illegals' who voted in the last election ... That is delusional, Mr Sanders said.

Nobody in the world believes that is the case. There is zero evidence to back it up. But he makes that statement. So I think the word 'delusional' is correct.

Mr Sanders, who challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democrat leadership, also criticised Mr Trump for attacks on the media and the judiciary.

He said Mr Trump did not grasp the Constitution, which as President he swore to uphold.

Clearly, we have a President who does not understand what our Constitution is about, what democracy is about. And I think there is a fear in this country of this nation under Trump moving into a more authoritarian mode, Mr Sanders said.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Mr Sanders said he did not feel good using such harsh terms, but "ordinary people, working people, middle class people, are understanding that this guy is not delivering what he promised".

Although he disagrees with them, he said he considers a lot of Republicans decent, honest people  just not the President.

I disagreed with George Bush all the time  never called him a pathological liar, because he was not. Just a conservative president. But this guy lies all of the time, Mr Sanders said of Mr Trump.
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Eight prisoners on death row have had their executions stayed amid a legal challenge over how condemned prisoners should be put to death in the state of Ohio.

A judge ruled a proposed new three-drug method for lethal injection was unconstitutional after prisoners issued a legal challenge saying it would be too painful, causing Governor John Kasich to halt executions for the second successive year.

Prisoner Ronald Phillips was scheduled to die on February 15 for the 1993 rape and murder of his girlfriends three-year-old daughter, Sheila Marie Evan, but this has now been postponed until May 10.

Ohio became the first state to adopt a single drug, pentobarbital, for lethal injections in 2009 after three executions were botched in a three year period using the three drug procedure.

In 2011, the Danish company which manufactures pentobarbital announced its distributors would not supply the drug to prisons which carry out the death penalty, leading to new combinations of drugs being tested by Ohio.

The last man to be executed by Ohio was convicted rapist and murderer Dennis McGuire in 2014, sparking controversy after he took an unusually long 25 minutes to die with a new two-drug procedure.

Ohio state law says that drugs used during executions must quickly and painlessly cause death.

Recommended Ohio delays executions because of lethal injection drugs shortage

Critics say proposed anti-anxiety drug midazolam does not render prisoners deeply unconscious which may lead to pain from the other two drugs that stop the heart.

Lawyers argue the proposed method could be in violation of the constitutional protection from cruel and unusual punishments.

A lawyer for Ohio said the state has asked seven other states to supply it with the single-dose drug pentobarbital but all had refused.

Ohio is among several states that have had problems obtaining drugs used in lethal injections.

Mr Kasich said he is confident the state will win an appeal based on a prior ruling in the Supreme Court that upheld the use of midazolam in a three-drug process.

These delays are necessary to allow the judicial process to come to a full resolution and ensure that the state can move forward with the executions, he said.

The US Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati will hear the case on February 21.

Ohio was the second state to adopt the electric chair as its preferred method of capital punishment in 1897, and reinstated the death penalty in 1974 after a hiatus  although it did not resume executions until 1999.

The death penalty remains a legal punishment in 31 out of 50 US states, with 2095 inmates on death row in July 2016.

The use of capital punishment has declined steadily in the US since 1999, when 98 were carried out nationwide, to just 20 instances last year.
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Campaigners opposed to Donald Trump's travel ban are celebrating after the White House said it would not challenge an appeals court ruling in the Supreme Court.

The President had said he was confident that his lawyers would win the argument before the countrys highest court  saying on twitter 'see you in court'. But against the risk that he could suffer his fourth legal setback over the ban on travel to the US for people from seven Muslim-majority countries, the White House announced it would not for now pursue the legal battle any further.

It came as Mr Trump said he would likely introduce another, or reworked executive order, to address the issue of immigration to the US from certain countries.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on his way to Florida, he said he was confident that he could win any legal battles. But he indicated he was also thinking about alternative strategies.

We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order, he said, according to the Associated Press.

 Donald Trump's biggest Twitter feuds

We need speed for reasons of security. So it could very well be that we do that.

He said that could happen as early as Monday or Tuesday of next week. I'd like to surprise you, he said.

Asked as to what a new order may contain, he said: "New security measures. We have very, very strong vetting. I call it extreme vetting and we're going very strong on security. We're going to have people coming to our country that want to be here for good reasons."

A day after a federal appeals court rejected his executive order to ban travel from seven majority-Muslim countries, Mr Trump said on Friday he would introduce something new to replace the controversial order.

Mr Trump suffered the embarrassing defeat after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' unanimous decision to pause the president's executive order. In response to his second federal court loss in less than a week, Mr Trump furiously told the court he would SEE YOU IN COURT, via Twitter.

During a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Mr Trump said he would announce new security measures as soon as next week. It remains unclear if the new measures would be separate from the controversial executive order that currently hangs in limbo, or a reworking of it.

Safety is one of the reasons Im standing here today, the security of our country, Mr Trump said.

So, we'll be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country. Youll be seeing that sometime next week.

He added: We will continue to go through the court process, and ultimately I have no doubt that we'll win that particular case.
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Donald Trump has said he will lower the cost of building a wall along the US-Mexico border by negotiating a bargain and using a cheap design.

Mr Trump said the price would drop "way down" once he became involved in the planning process, apparently suggesting the US would foot at least part of the bill.

The President has previously insisted Mexico will pay for work on the 2,000-mile-long "impassable physical barrier". Mexico has refused to fund it.

Fact checkers and engineers have estimated the cost of building the wall will far exceed the $12bn (9.6bn) estimate given by Mr Trump.

According to a leaked Department of Homeland Security report, the barrier could cost as much as $21bn and take more than three years to construct.

Some 650 miles of fencing already in place has come at an expense of $7bn and Mr Trump's plans require extending the barrier into increasingly remote and mountainous regions, which raises the building costs significantly.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Repeating his promise that Mexico would pay for it, the President signed an executive order directing construction of the wall in early February, .

The next day, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the wall would be funded through placing a 20 per cent tax on all imports from Mexico, a move that would likely hit US consumers.

Yet White House chief of staff Reince Priebus later said the tax was only one of a "buffet of options", adding to a statement made the previous evening by House Speaker Paul Ryan, who said there were "various ways" Mexico could reimburse the US.

On Friday there were reports that hundreds of undocumented immigrants were arrested in at least four states over the course of five days, sparking concern among immigration advocates and families.

David Marin, director of enforcement and removal for the Los Angeles field office of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, described the operation as an "enforcement surge".

Mr Trump has expanded the powers of immigration agents since entering office. Some analysts say that up to eight million illegal immigrants now face deportation.
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Panic and terror is said to be running through immigrant communities in the US following raids carried out across at least six states as part of Donald Trumps pledge to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Authorities arrested hundreds of undocumented migrants in the first large-scale enforcement of Mr Trumps executive order to take action against the estimated 11 million people living illegally in the US.

Raids took place this week in and around New York, Los Angeles, North Carolina, South Carolina, Atlanta and Chicago, immigration officials confirmed  with more than a third of those detained in the Los Angeles area being deported to Mexico.

Recommended Donald Trump to publish weekly list of crimes committed by immigrants

Officials said the raids targeted known criminals but reports from immigrant rights groups claim that law-abiding citizens were also targeted in a departure from Obama-era crackdowns which focused solely on law-breaking illegal aliens.

Mr Trump has pledged to deport as many as three million illegal immigrants, substantially broadening the remit of the Department of Homeland Security to include those with minor convictions as well as those known to have committed serious crimes.

Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said the raids were part of routine immigration enforcement actions.

Ms Christensen said officers found undocumented migrants from a dozen Latin American countries and some of those detained had convictions for murder and domestic violence.

Were talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system.

But immigration activists claimed the raids extended to Florida, Kansas, Texas and Virginia and that otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants were also targeted.

This is clearly the first wave of attacks under the Trump administration, and we know this isnt going to be the only one, said Cristina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream, an immigrant youth organisation.

Spanish language radio stations in Los Angeles have been running public service announcements regarding the Know Your Rights seminars the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles have scheduled.

Immigrant rights groups have protests planned in response to the raids in New York and Los Angeles  both cities with large numbers of illegal immigrants.

President Obama offered an amnesty to illegal immigrants who were primary carers of children, regardless of the immigration status of the minors.

Despite his amnesty, the Obama administration deported around 2.4 million illegal immigrants  more than any other Presidency in US history.

Around 1.4 million people signed up for Obamas amnesty  but Mr Trump is determined to overturn this, pledging a zero tolerance policy on illegal aliens during his election campaign.

Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation  that is what it means to have laws and to have a country, Mr Trump said in Phoenix, Arizona, last August.

One million of those who signed up for the temporary amnesty are from Mexico, and over half live in Texas or California.

Having signed up to the Obama amnesty, many illegal immigrants who had been left alone by the authorities for years  perhaps decades - have now effectively handed over their last known address details to the Trump administration, fuelling a climate of anxiety.

We cannot understate the level of panic and terror that is running through many immigrant communities, said Walter Barrientos of Make the Road New York in New York City.

Susannah Volpe, a lawyer for an immigrant legal services group in Washington DC, told the New York Times there was a definite change in tactics with the latest raids.

These are agents going into apartment buildings or agents going to work sites, said Ms. Volpe, who had a client arrested, along with five others, at a construction site in Washington last week. This is new.

New York and Los Angeles have long been regarded as sanctuaries for immigrants where police and other law enforcement agents do not automatically co-operate with immigration officials.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he called ICE's regional deputy director to demand greater transparency about on-going operations and the status of those arrested.

Angelenos should not have to fear raids that are disruptive to their peace of mind and bring unnecessary anxiety to our homes, schools, and workplaces, Mr Garcetti said.

The Administration should take a just, humane, and sensible approach that does not cause pain for people who only want to live their lives and raise their families in the communities they call home.

David Martin, ICEs field director in the Los Angeles area, denied the raids were as a direct result of Mr Trump's instructions.

"These operations take weeks and sometimes months of planning, so this operation was in the planning stages before the current administration came out with the executive orders."

He said 75 per cent of the approximately 160 people detained in the LA operation had serious convictions - meaning the other 25 per cent had minor convictions or were undocumented.

Officials said 37 of those detained in Los Angeles have now been deported to Mexico.
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New York Citys police department  the largest in the US  is aiming to put body cameras on all of its patrol officers by 2019 in an attempt to try and build trust with local communities.

Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio said his body camera plan, which will affect all 23,000 of the NYPDs patrol officers, would create an atmosphere of transparency and accountability for the good of all.

A federal judge ordered the NYPD to try out body cameras as part of a 2013 ruling that found the department was wrongly targeting minorities with its stop and frisk tactic.

The NYPD has been the focus of repeated controversy (AP)

The 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and other deaths at the hands of police around the US, including the killing of Eric Garner in New York in July 2014, led to increased demands that officers be issued wearable cameras to deter misconduct. Across the US, body cameras have proved a vital source of evidence over officers encounters with members of the public.

 USA: Everybody could be Eric Garner - Eric Garner s daughter

The Associated Press said that the NYPD had fallen behind other cities.

Chicago officials have said they will finish a deployment of about 7,000 cameras by the end of this year. San Franciscos police force, which had no cameras last year, now has at least 250 in use.

Baltimore, which erupted in riots following the 2015 death of Freddie Gray from a spinal injury suffered in police custody, has about 600 officers with cameras.
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The heads of the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers scandal have been denied bail, following their arrests in Panama last week.

The two founders of Mossack Fonseca were detained following allegations they played a part in a Brazilian corruption scandal known as Lava Jato, which involved the laundering of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of political bribes.

Defence lawyers for Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca confirmed they will remain in custody. Two other employees of the firm, lawyer Edison Teano and legal director Sara Montenegro, are also believed to be under investigation.

Mr Fonseca's lawyer, Elias Solano, dismissed evidence against his client as weak, according to a report in The Guardian. He said: It does not seem too difficult to show the lack of foundation to these allegations.

Mr Mossacks lawyer Marlene Guerra told reporters he had been refused bail because there is a risk of flight from the country, due to the financial means of our clients.

She said the indictment process was ongoing. The Panamanian newspaper La Prensa reported that they were being charged with alleged economic crime, in the form of money laundering.

Panama Papers: Miami named in leaked documents

The two men were arrested following what appeared to be a coordinated swoop by police across Latin America, capturing people involved in the enormous Lava Jato  "Operation Car Wash"  scandal.

The ongoing investigation, which began in mid-2014, was initially a money laundering investigation but was expanded to cover allegations of corruption at the state-controlled oil company Petrobras, where executives allegedly accepted bribes in return for awarding contracts to construction firms at inflated prices.

In a press conference, Kenia Porcell, Panamas attorney general, said she had information that identified Mossack Fonseca allegedly as a criminal organisation that is dedicated to hiding money assets from suspicious origins.

Recommended Investigation into 22 people for suspected Panama Papers tax evasion

She said the firms Brazilian representative had allegedly been instructed to conceal documents and to remove evidence of illegal activities related to the Lava Jato case.

Put simply, the money comes from bribes, circulated via certain corporate entities to return bleached or washed to Panama, said Ms Porcell. She confirmed charges had been formulated against four individuals, including the Mossack Fonseca partners.

Among the web of companies used to transfer bribes are a number of entities represented by Mossack Fonseca.

Gabriel Fonseca, Ramons son, told reporters outside the justice ministry: They are wasting time putting pressure on my father ... They already have all the electronic information, its in the ministry.

Mossack Fonseca rebutted the charges on Twitter, describing the proofs gathered by the justice ministry as documents taken from the internet that are the proceeds of a theft.

World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Show all 15 1 /15 World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Petro Poroshenko President of Ukraine World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Ayad Allawi Allawi Iraqs Vice-President between 2014 and 2015, and the countrys interim prime minister from 2004 to 2005 World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud King of Saudi Arabia World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan President of the United Arab Emirates, Emir of Abu Dhabi World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Sigmundur Davi Gunnlaugsson Prime Minister of Iceland World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Sergey Roldugin Close friend of Vladimir Putin World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Emir of Qatar 1995-2013 World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Li Xiaolin Daughter of Li Peng, the former Premier of China (The current vice-president of state-owned power company China Datang Gorporation and former CEO of China Power International Development, she has been nicknamed Chinas Power Queen World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Rami Makhlouf Cousin of Bashar Assad, the President of Syria World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Hafez Makhlouf Cousin of Bashar Assad, the President of Syria World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Clive Khulubuse Zuma Nephew of Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Maryam Nawaz Sharif Safdar Daughter of Nawaz Sharif, prime minister of Pakistan World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Hasan Nawaz Sharif Son of Nawaz Sharif, prime minister of Pakistan World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Hussain Nawaz Sharif Son of Nawaz Sharif, prime minister of Pakistan World leaders linked to 'Panama Papers' Alaa Mubarak The eldest son of ousted former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Read more here

The offshore law firm, which is the fourth biggest in the world, became notorious last year after an unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files from their database, which implicated some of the world's richest people, including public officials and celebrities, in financial crimes including tax evasion, money laundering and fraud.

The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

The ICIJ then shared them with a large network of international partners, including the Guardian and the BBC.
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Peru has offered a reward of 24,000 for the capture of its former president, Alejandro Toledo.

A judge issued an international arrest warrant after accusations that he took $20 million (16 million) in bribes.

The bribes were apparently given so a company could win a contract to build a highway from Peru to Brazil.

The reward is being given to anyone in the world who may be able to provide information on Mr Toledo.

Prosecutors believe there was a high probability Mr Toledo received the bribes - something Mr Toledo denies.

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

Peru's government it has information that Mr Toledo, who led the country from 2001 to 2006, is in San Francisco.

Authorities have also reached out to Israel because they believe Mr Toledo may take advantage of his wife's dual Belgian-Israeli citizenship in an attempt to seek refuge in the country, which doesn't have an extradition treaty with Peru.

Agencies contributed to this report
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Russia is reportedly considering returning Edward Snowden to the US to curry favour with Donald Trump.

Mr Trump previously called Mr Snowden a spy and a traitor, who deserved to be executed.

Senior US officials have analysed a series of sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations, which state handing over the whistleblower as a gift is one tactic to curry favour with the US President, NBC News reports.

Mr Snowden has used the report of him being a gift from the Russians to the US President as evidence that he is not a spy.

Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russia intel. No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear theyre next, he tweeted.

The report by US intelligence has been confirmed by two sources in the intelligence community with notes and conversations being gathered since the inauguration, according to NBC.

Mr Snowden's ACLU lawyer, Ben Wizner, told NBC News they are unaware of any plans that would send him back to the United States.

"Team Snowden has received no such signals and has no new reason for concern," Mr Wizner said.

Mr Snowden he leaked thousands of classified documents in 2013 revealing the vast US surveillance of private data put in place after the September 11, 2001 attacks. He later found asylum in Russia.

He has been living in exile in Moscow since 2013 and is still wanted in the United States to face trial on charges brought under the tough Espionage Act of 1917.

The White House did not comment on the US intelligence report but the Justice Department said it would welcome the return of Mr Snowden.

The Kremlin has denied the allegations and said the possibility of Mr Snowdens handover was nonsense.

Last December, in an interview with Yahoo News, Mr Snowden responded to rumours of his handover to the Trump administration.

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

It wasnt so many years ago that people were saying this guy is a Russian spy. But countries dont give up their spies and if my recent criticism of the Russian Government internet policies, criticism of their human rights record have been so severe that even my greatest critics in the intelligence community are now saying oh yeah, he is a liability they want to get him out of there - thats a vindication.

[A vindication that] the fact that Im independent, the fact that I have always worked on behalf of the United States and the fact that Russia doesnt owe me, he said.

The former National Security Agency contractor also said being returned to the US would be a threat to my liberty and to my life.

In April 2014, Mr Trump tweeted: Snowden is a spy who has caused great damage to the US. A spy in the old days, when our country was respected and strong, would be executed.
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Donald Trump mocked Democrats by telling them Pocahontas is now the face of your party - an insult he regularly uses for Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Reports said the president made the taunt during a meeting with ten senators at the White House, an event scheduled to explain his selection of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.

He also repeated unfounded allegations about voter fraud during the 2016 presidential election, claiming he would have won the state of New Hampshire if thousands of Massachusetts residents had not been bused in to vote against him - an allegation for which there is no proof.

 The Senate silenced Elizabeth Warren when she tried to read a letter by Coretta Scott King. #ShePersisted was the response

Politico said that Mr Trump made the comment about Ms Warren as he launched into an unscheduled analysis of the state of the Democratic Party. Last week, Ms Warren was rebuked by the Senate under a little used rule, for reading a 1986 letter from Martin Luther Kings widow that was critical of Mr Trumps pick for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions.

During the election campaign, Ms Warren was one of the most strident supporters of Hillary Clinton and frequently denounced Mr Trumps racist and sexist rhetoric.

He responded by calling her Pocahontas, a reference to her claim to have some native American ancestry.

Mr Trump apparently said the only reason Ms Warren claimed Native American heritage was because she has high cheekbones.

Shes got less Native American blood in her than I have, OK, Mr Trump said during a rally last July in North Carolina. Believe me....She goes, Well look at my cheekbones.

During an event in Washington state rally in May, he called Ms Warren a total phony.

Ms Warren has yet to respond to the Mr Trumps comment.

Native American activist Tara Houska condemned Mr Trump's comments. "Native American women are not your punchline," she wrote on Twitter. "Stop reducing millions of women to 'Pocahontas'."
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A US electoral commissioner has called on Donald Trump to share evidence of the voter fraud he alleged took place in New Hampshire.

Commissioner Ellen Weintraub of the Federal Electoral Commission said the President had made issued an "astonishing" claim which cannot be ignored.

The previous day, Mr Trump reportedly told a room full of politicians that thousands of illegal voters had been driven into New Hampshire to cast ballots, denying him and the state former Senator, Kelly Ayotte, a victory.

Despite winning the Electoral College vote, the President has made a number of allegations of election voter fraud, but without ever providing evidence.

 Jim Jefferies slams Piers Morgan's defence of Donald Trump live on US talk show

His remarks about alleged New Hampshire voter fraud were therefore covered in the US press, with MSNBC host Christopher Hayes calling them deranged.

Commissioner Weintraub, appointed by George W Bush in 2002, quickly responded and released a statement calling for further investigation into the claims.

President Trump has alleged an astonishing voter-fraud scheme that he claims denied him and former Sen. Kelly Ayotte victory in the state of New Hampshire in the 2016 elections, Commissioner Weintraub said.

The details Mr Trump related would amount to thousands of felony criminal offenses under New Hampshire law, she added.

Commissioner Weintraub continued: As a Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, I am acutely aware that our democracy rests on the faith of the American people in the integrity of their elections.

The President has issued an extraordinarily serious and specific charge. Allegations of this magnitude cannot be ignored.

I therefore call upon President Trump to immediately share his evidence with the public and with the appropriate law-enforcement authorities so that his allegations may be investigated promptly and thoroughly.

Reports surfaced of Mr Trumps comments at a private lunch meeting with Senators.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

As soon as journalists exited the room, Politico reported, Mr Trump noticed former New Hampshire Senator Ms Ayotte and began speaking about the election in that state.

The President lost the vote in New Hampshire but reportedly said he and Ms Ayotte would have won if were not for thousands of people brought in on buses from neighbouring states to illegally vote.

An uncomfortable silence followed, according to one person at the meeting.

Earlier in the month, President Trump told Fox that Vice President Mike Pence would be charged with leading a commission into voter fraud.

According to Mr Trump, people registering and voting in more than one state are the main problem. However, he has not produced any evidence to verify his claim.
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An Indian politician has claimed rapists should be hung upside down and tortured until their skin comes off  punishment she says she has previously ordered police to use similar methods.

Uma Bharti, the water resources minister, made the shocking statement to crowds at a political rally in Agra, in Uttar Pradesh state, where she was campaigning for a local politician.

She said: "Rapists should be tortured in front of victims until they beg for forgiveness.

"The rapists should be hung upside down and beaten till their skin comes off.

"Salt and chilli should be rubbed on their wounds until they scream.

Mothers and sisters should watch so they can get closure," the BBC report.

She referenced a case from last July, where a mother and her daughter were gang-raped in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh.

The minister criticised the states government, saying they had failed to serve justice for the victims.

Contrasting with her own time in office, when she was the Chief Minister of Madya Pradesh state from 2003 to 2004, she claims to have ordered punishments for suspected rapists.

She claimed: "I would tell the cops to hang the rapists upside down and beat them so hard that they would cry out.

"I would tell women to watch through windows of the police station.

And recalling the objections of a policeman, she continued: I told him people who behave like 'danav' (demons) cannot have Manavadhikar (human rights).

In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' Show all 13 1 /13 In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape Sohan, father and uncle of Murti and Pushpa, the two girls who were raped and hanged in Katra Sadatganj in Uttar Pradesh, is comforted by his mother (Photo Simon de Trey-White) Simon de Trey-White In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape Murti's mother is briefed by the local Senior Superintendant of Police Atul Saxena (Photo Simon de Trey-White) Simon de Trey-White In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape Sohan (55) holds passport sized images in his hands of his daughter Murti (right) and niece Pushpa (left) in Katra village, Ushait near Baduan, Uttar Pradesh (Photo Simon de Trey-White) Simon de Trey-White In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape Murtis brother Veerendar (Photo Simon de Trey-White) Simon de Trey-White In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape Villagers stand by the mango tree from which the two girls were hanged (Photo Simon de Trey-White) In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape Villagers and media throng the home of the murdered teenage girls (Photo Simon de Trey-White) In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape Congress party Vice President Rahul Gandhi interacts with women during his visit to the village of the two girls In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape Demonstrators from All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) hold placards and shout slogans during a protest in New Delhi against the recent killings In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape Members of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) shout slogans during the protest In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape Members of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union shout slogans as they participate in a protest against the gang rape In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape A member of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union shouts slogans In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape An activist places a candle on a pavement during a candle lit vigil to protest against the gang rape of two teenage girls In pictures: India in shock after teenage girls 'gang raped and hanged' India gang rape Activists hold candles during a vigil

Their heads should be cut off like Ravana's".

Ravana is an evil demon king in Hindu mythology, one of the main religions in India.

Reports from the Hindustan Times, citing figures from the National Crime Records Bureau, show that in 2003 when Ms Bharti was Madya Pradesh reported the highest number of rapes in India, at 2,738.

And in the case of molestation the state also had the highest statistic, reporting 6,848.

Ms Bharti is a member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India.

Sexual violence in India is increasing overall, according to figures from the Indian government, and several high profile cases have shocked the world.

The gang rape and murder of student on a school bus in Delhi hit the headlines world wide in 2012, and received international condemnation, forcing the issue into the spotlight.

In response tough new anti-rape laws was passed the following year, which introduced new crimes such as stalking and voyeurism.
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At least 13 people have been killed and thousands more made homeless after devastating floods swept across Indonesia.

The idyllic tourist hotspot of Bali was partially submerged after five days of torrential rain triggered deadly landslides.

Rivers on Sumbawa Island burst their banks following rainfall of 12 to 28 inches, flooding seven sub-districts.

The countrys Disaster Mitigation Agency confirmed 12 people were killed, with young children among the dead.

Recommended Bangladesh resurrects plan to move Rohingya refugees to flooded island

The agency's spokesman, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, said three villages had been hit in the mountainous region of Bangli.

Members from two families lost their lives in the Songan village, including a mother, her one-year-old son and her seven-year-old daughter.

In the neighbouring Awan village four people died, and one person was killed from the Sukwana village which saw five homes buried beneath the debris.

Some two people were rushed to hospital with severe injuries, and a further two suffered minor wounds in Sukwana.

A further landslide in the Subaya village on Friday killed one person, bringing the total to 13.

Thailand Flood Show all 13 1 /13 Thailand Flood Thailand Flood Thai soldiers in a boat approach a flooded village road in the Chaiya district of Thailand's southern province of Surat Thani Getty Thailand Flood Thai soldiers in boats inspect the water depth in front of a flooded village in the Chaiya district of Thailand's southern province of Surat Thani ge Thailand Flood People stand by the edge of a flooded field after Thai soldiers drop emergency supplies to their village in the Chaiya district of Thailand's southern province of Surat Thani. Overland routes to Thailand's flood-hit south were severed after two bridges collapsed following days of torrential rain that has killed at least 25 people, including a five-year-old girl Getty Thailand Flood A bridge damaged by floods is pictured at Chai Buri District, Surat Thani province, southern Thailand Reuters Thailand Flood A bridge damaged by floods is pictured at Chai Buri District, Surat Thani province, southern Thailand Reuters Thailand Flood A rescue boat and a helicopter moving towards a group of stranded people in the Srinakarin district of the southern Thai province of Phattalung Getty Thailand Flood A Thai villager rows a boat past a flooded Buddhist temple in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, southern Thailand EPA Thailand Flood Thai villagers wade through floodwaters at a village in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, southern Thailand EPA Thailand Flood An aerial view of a residential area that is submerged by floodwaters in a southern province of Thailand EPA Thailand Flood People inspecting the damage of a collapsed road due to heavy flooding in the Sichon district of the southern Thai province of Nakhon Si Thammarat Getty Thailand Flood Residents stand in floodwaters in the southern Thai village of Chauat Getty Thailand Flood Women look out from a flooded house in the southern Thai village of Chauat Getty Thailand Flood A man rides his motorbike on the rear wheel in floodwater at Tumpat district, near the Thailand border, Kelantan, Malaysia EPA

Mr Nugroho said in total 40,291 villagers had been affected by the flooding, with many taking refuge in mosques and government buildings.

He stressed survivors were in desperate need of clean water, food and medicine.

But he added some 8,000 were stranded in their villages in two sub-districts which are now only accessible by boat.

The agency warned more heavy rains could be on the way, bringing with it further flooding and landslides adding to the misery of remaining residents, many of whom live in stilt houses.

Millions of people live in mountainous areas or on flood plains, with heavy rainfall regularly causing landslides and floods on the archipelago.

Last year at least five people were killed and 100,000 were forced to flee their homes after floods swept through Balis neighbouring island West Nusa Tenggara, and the Belitung region to the east of Bali and Sulawesi in the north.

And at the end of last month severe rainfall affected North Sulawesi and Bangka-Belitung Province, north of Bali, affecting around 7,000 people.
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Most winter mornings, Setevdorj Myagmartsogt wakes up to a cloud of toxic smog blanketing his neighbourhood in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator, where the air quality is among the worst in the world. The air, far worse than Beijing's infamous smog, has become even more polluted from the smoke of thousands of chimneys as poor residents burn wood and coal trying to keep warm.

Because of the air pollution, our health is getting worse, Myagmartsogt said. When my two youngest kids go to kindergarten, they get ill every week and they have to stay away ... It's because of the air pollution.

The capital's total emissions of harmful breathable particles known as PM2.5 surged to 855 micrograms per cubic metre late last month. In comparison, Beijing's air on the same day, measured 70 micrograms. The acceptable standard, according to the World Health Organisation, is 20-25 micrograms. The reading in Ulan Bator has been known to hit 1,000 micrograms. About 80 per cent of the city's smog comes from poor ger districts, a sprawl of traditional tents that have sprung up on the edge of the city, said Tsogtbaatar Byamba, director of Mongolia's Institute of Public Health.

Many residents are former herders who migrated to the city after their livestock was wiped out by recent extremely harsh winters.

Life in the Ulan Bator smog Show all 11 1 /11 Life in the Ulan Bator smog Life in the Ulan Bator smog Cars driving through the thick haze on a cold polluted morning Reuters Life in the Ulan Bator smog REUTERS Life in the Ulan Bator smog An anti-pollution protest in front of a government building in central Ulan Bator Reuters Life in the Ulan Bator smog Emissions from a power plant chimney rise over the city Reuters Life in the Ulan Bator smog Workers enter the shaft of a primitive coal mine outside the city Reuters Life in the Ulan Bator smog People queue for the bus on a cold polluted morning Reuters Life in the Ulan Bator smog Protesters wear face masks to guard against the toxic fumes Reuters Life in the Ulan Bator smog A smoke break at one of the coal mine outside the city Reuters Life in the Ulan Bator smog Setevdorj Myagmartsogt's wife and children gather around their coal-burning stove in their 'ger' home Reuters Life in the Ulan Bator smog Bags of coal and wood are offered for sale in Ulan Bator Reuters Life in the Ulan Bator smog Power plant chimneys billow in the distance. The neighbourhood is covered in a thick haze on the outskirts town Reuters

As temperatures plunge to -40C, ger residents with no access to the state heating grid burn whatever they can to keep warm. To combat this, the government last month bolstered restrictions on migrants to the capital, allowing in ly those in need of long-term help and people who own homes. But the pollution persists. Hundreds of residents gathered recently in the city's Chinggis Square to protest against the government's inability to tackle the smog. The air pollution has had real consequences in my life, said protester Otgontuya Baldandorj. I was pregnant three times, but I lost all of them. With my fourth child, I had to go to the countryside to get fresh air to give birth.

Reuters
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A super-pod of 200 whales has become stranded on a remote beach in New Zealand - hours after volunteers had managed to refloat dozens of the creatures who had already become beached.

The country witnessed one of the worst beachings in its history on Thursday when a pod of 416 pilot whales washed up on a shore on Farewell Spit in Golden Bay.

Located on the remote beach at tip of the South Island, around 300 were already dead. On Saturday rescuers managed to refloat the remaining survivors at high tide, but adding to the crisis a further 200 whales from a super-pod had gathered off-shore and joined up with the group.

Recommended Hundreds of whales stranded on New Zealand beach

In a last ditch attempt to save the whales volunteers formed a human chain to guide the initial group back out to sea and to prevent the new pod from facing a similar fate.

More than 100 volunteers waded into neck-deep water to form a barrier, braving predators and the elements, in the hope of encouraging what is left of the group to swim into deeper water.

DOC spokesman Herb Christophers said: In spite of best efforts by everyone to prevent further losses, the large pod of approximately 200 pilot whales that were free-swimming, have stranded.

"We may salvage some of the stranded whales.

A human chain stops Pilot whales from returning to shore during a mass stranding at Farewell Spit (GETTY)

"Even when some whales are saved, they may still restrand as has happened in this instance and prolongs the effort and reduces the chances of success."

He added that 20 whales from the initial group had ben euthanised "out of concern for their welfare.

The super-pod of pilot whales, the most common species in New Zealand waters, was spotted less than two miles away from where the initial group became stranded.

Daren Grover, the general manager of environmental group Project Jonah which is assisting with the rescue, said: "We don't know why the super pod came in.

Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast Show all 8 1 /8 Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast Two dead sperm whales are seen washed up on a beach near Skegness in northeast England. Four sperm whales believed to be from the same pod washed up on beaches in northeast England. Three whales were found on a beach near Skegness and one died on Hunstanton beach AFP Getty Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast 50ft sperm whale beached in Norfolk The dead 50ft (14.5m) young adult male sperm whale beached in Norfolk, which was was part of a group of six spotted in the Wash at Hunstanton, is believed to have been part of a pod that stranded and died in the Netherlands PA Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast 50ft sperm whale beached in Norfolk The dead 50ft (14.5m) young adult male sperm whale beached in Norfolk, which was was part of a group of six spotted in the Wash at Hunstanton, is believed to have been part of a pod that stranded and died in the Netherlands PA Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast 50ft sperm whale beached in Norfolk The dead 50ft (14.5m) young adult male sperm whale beached in Norfolk, which was was part of a group of six spotted in the Wash at Hunstanton, is believed to have been part of a pod that stranded and died in the Netherlands PA Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast 50ft sperm whale beached in Norfolk The dead 50ft (14.5m) young adult male sperm whale beached in Norfolk, which was was part of a group of six spotted in the Wash at Hunstanton, is believed to have been part of a pod that stranded and died in the Netherlands PA Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast 50ft sperm whale beached in Norfolk Two of three dead sperm whales that have washed up on a beach in Lincolnshire, just a day after another was beached in Norfolk PA Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast One of three dead sperm whales that have washed up on a beach in Lincolnshire, just a day after another was beached in Norfolk PA Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast Photo taken from the Twitter feed of the @RNLIskegness of one of three dead sperm whales that have washed up on a beach in Lincolnshire, just a day after another was beached in Norfolk PA

"They may have been picking up some calls from the whales here and come in to respond.

"It's very unusual, not something we have seen before," RTE reported.

There are several theories as to why the whales beached in the first place along the shore, which has been described as a whale trap.

Its long coastline means the creatures often find it difficult to navigate away from, but whales often end up stranded when they chase prey too far inland, try to protect a sick member of their pod or when they are fleeing enemies.

One of dead whales appears to have bite marks consistent with a shark bite.

DOC ranger, Mike Ogle, also indicated a shark may have the cause of the mass beaching.

He told local radio: "There's one carcass out there with some shark bites in it - but not a big one, just a small one, but quite fresh bites so yeah, there's something out there."

The town now faces the arduous task of disposing of hundreds of whale carcasses, which now litter the beach.

The tragedy is the third largest beaching in the countrys history, but the bay has seen at least nine mass beachings in the past decade alone.

The highest ever recorded was in 1918 when around 1,000 became stranded on Chatham Islands.
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The UK could remain subject to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for years as part of a transitional deal with the EU, Europes top Brexit negotiator has warned.

A transitional deal - favoured by Theresa May - would follow the invocation of Article 50 until the withdrawal process has been completed, but could be in place a long time after 2019.

But Guy Verhofstadt, former Prime Minister of Belgium, said to the Guardian: The starting point from the European side would be to keep the UK part of the ECJ, as part of any transitional deal.

If true, this position would be extremely frustrating to the Prime Minister, who has been known for her opposition to the European Courts since her days at the Home Office.

 SNP MPs sing Ode To Joy during Brexit Bill vote

It would also be met with dismay from the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative party and other Brexiteers, who are likely to view it as the EU continuing to prevent the UK from controlling its own affairs.

By the Prime Ministers timetable, Article 50 will be triggered by the end of March. A Great Repeal Bill will also be passed, which is intended to end the primacy of EU laws in Britain.

But the UK will not have full control over its legal system if it remains part of the ECJ.

Mr Verhofstadt also insisted the UK would not be allowed to negotiate its exit from the EU at the same time as settling its future trade relations with the bloc.

"That is not possible. Technically (it is not possible) in the time we have, 14 or 15 months, let's be honest," he told the newspaper.

The negotiator said claims that any negative Brexit impacts on the City of London would hit the EU harder than the UK were part of a "psychological war".

How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Show all 8 1 /8 How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Weetabix Chief executive of Weetabix Giles Turrell has warned that the price of one of the nations favourite breakfast are likely to go up this year by low-single digits in percentage terms. Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Nescafe The cost of a 100g jar of Nescafe Original at Sainsburys has gone up 40p from 2.75 to 3.15  a 14 per cent risesince the Brexit vote. PA How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Freddo When contacted by The Independent this month, a Mondelez spokesperson declined to discuss specific brands but confirmed that there would be "selective" price increases across its range despite the American multi-national confectionery giant reporting profits of $548m (450m) in its last three-month financial period. Mondelez, which bought Cadbury in 2010, said rising commodity costs combined with the slump in the value of the pound had made its products more expensive to make. Cadbury How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Mr Kipling cakes Premier Foods, the maker of Mr Kipling and Bisto gravy, said that it was considering price rises on a case-by-case basis Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Walkers Crisps Walkers, owned by US giant PepsiCo, said "the weakened value of the pound" is affecting the import cost of some of its materials. A Walkers spokesman told the Press Association that a 32g standard bag was set to increase from 50p to 55p, and the larger grab bag from 75p to 80p. Getty How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Marmite Tesco removed Marmite and other Unilever household brand from its website last October, after the manufacturer tried to raise its prices by about 10 per cent owing to sterlings slump. Tesco and Unilever resolved their argument, but the price of Marmite has increased in UK supermarkets with the grocer reporting a 250g jar of Marmite will now cost Morrisons customers 2.64 - an increase of 12.5 per cent. Rex How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Toblerone Toblerone came under fire in November after it increased the space between the distinctive triangles of its bars. Mondelez International, the company which makes the product, said the change was made due to price rises in recent months. Pixabay How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Maltesers Maltesers, billed as the lighter way to enjoy chocolate, have also shrunk in size. Mars, which owns the brand, has reduced its pouch weight by 15 per cent. Mars said rising costs mean it had to make the unenviable decision between increasing its prices or reducing the weight of its Malteser packs. iStockphoto

"I don't believe in this catastrophic scenario: without the City of London the whole thing collapses. I think this is completely, well, (much) of what you hear today is the building up of the muscles in the negotiation. Fine, it is good. But that is more creating the environment of psychological war."

Mr Verhofstadt also expressed concern about the effects of Brexit on the Northern Irish peace process.

"Everybody is anxious and saying we don't want to return to the past, he said. If you take Brexit as it is then, yes, you create a hard border again. Nobody thinks that is a good solution.

"How to have a Brexit and no hard border? That is the question and it is not only through some technical innovations, cameras and sensors ([on a customs border). That's a real concern."

Additional reporting by PA.
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Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, will not seek re-election and will stand down in 2019, it has been reported.

Mr Junker said he will not seek a second term, despite becoming president in 2014 with the support of 26 of the 28 EU member states.

The former Prime Minister of Luxembourg also raised concerns that Britain will divide other member states by making different promises to each country during the negotiations.

The 62-year-old said looking back at 2014, when he became president, he had a good campaign but added "there will not be a second (campaign), because I will not run again".

"The other EU 27 don't know it yet, but the Brits know very well how they can tackle this," Juncker told German public radio Deutschlandfunk.

"They could promise country A this, country B that and country C something else and the end game is that there is not a united European front."

Brexit Concerns Show all 26 1 /26 Brexit Concerns Brexit Concerns Brexit will put British patients at 'back of the queue' for new drugs Brexit will put British patients at the back of the queue for vital new drugs, the Government has been warned  forcing them to wait up to two years longer A medicines regulator has raised the alarm over a likely decision to pull out of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as the EU itself. ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt dropped the bombshell , when he said he expected the UK would quit the EMA  because it is subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice. Getty Images Brexit Concerns London to lose status as 'gateway to Europe' for banks One of Germanys top banking regulators has warned that London could lose its status as gateway to Europe for the banking sector after Britain quits the European trading bloc. Andreas Dombret, who is an executive board member for the BundesbankGermanys central banktold a private meeting of German businesses and banks earlier this week in Frankfurt that even if banking rules were equivalent between the UK and the rest of the EU, that was still miles away from [Britain having] access to the single market, the BBC reports. Jason Hawkes Brexit Concerns Exodus The number of financial sector professionals in Britain and continental Europe looking for jobs in Ireland rocketed in the months after the UK voted to leave the European Union Shutterstock Brexit Concerns Brexit is making FTSE 100 executives richer Pay packages of many FTSE 100 chief executive officers are partly tied to how well share prices are doing rather than the CEOs performance -- and some stocks are soaring. ritish equities got a boost since the June vote because the likes of Rio Tinto, Smiths Group and WPP generate most sales abroad and earn a fortune when they convert these revenues back into the weakened pound. Sterlings fall also made UK stocks more affordable for overseas investors. Rex Brexit Concerns Theresa May: UK to leave single market Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". Getty Brexit Concerns Lead campaigner Gina Miller and her team outside the High Court Getty Brexit Concerns Raymond McCord holds up his newly issued Irish passport alongside his British passport outside the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns SDLP leader Colum Eastwood leaving the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns Migrants with luggage walk past a graffiti on a wall as they leave the 'Jungle' migrant camp, as part of a major three-day operation planned to clear the camp in Calais Getty Brexit Concerns Migrants leave messages on their tents in the Jungle migrant camp Getty Brexit Concerns The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) which distributes approximately 700 meals daily in the northern Paris camp states that it is noticing a spike in new migrant arrivals this week, potentially linked the the Calais 'jungle' camp closure - with around 1000 meals distributed today EPA Brexit Concerns Migrant workers pick apples at Stocks Farm in Suckley, Britain Reuters Brexit Concerns Many farmers across the country are voicing concerns that Brexit could be a dangerous step into the unknown for the farming industry Getty Brexit Concerns Bank of England governor Mark Carney who said the long-term outlook for the UK economy is positive, but growth was slowing in the wake of the Brexit vote PA Brexit Concerns The Dow Jones industrial average closed down over 600 points on the news with markets around the globe pluninging Getty Brexit Concerns Immigration officers deal with each member of the public seeking entry into the United Kingdom but on average, 10 a day are refused entry at this London airport and between 2008 and 2009, 33,100 people were detained at the airport for mainly passport irregularities Getty Brexit Concerns A number of global investment giants have threatened to move their European operations out of London if Brexit proves to have a negative impact on their businesses Getty Brexit Concerns Following the possibility of a Brexit the UK would be released from its renewable energy targets under the EU Renewable Energy Directive and from EU state aid restrictions, potentially giving the government more freedom both in the design and phasing out of renewable energy support regimes Getty Brexit Concerns A woman looking at a chart showing the drop in the pound (Sterling) against the US Dollar in London after Britain voted to leave the EU Getty Brexit Concerns Young protesters outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to protest against the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU following the referendum Getty Brexit Concerns Applications from Northern Ireland citizens for Irish Passports has soared to a record high after the UK Voted in favour of Leaving the EU Getty Brexit Concerns NFU Vice President Minette Batters with Secretary of State, Andrea Leadsome at the National Farmers Union (NFU) took machinery, produce, farmers and staff to Westminster to encourage Members of Parliament to back British farming, post Brexit Getty Brexit Concerns The latest reports released by the UK Cabinet Office warn that expats would lose a range of specific rights to live, to work and to access pensions, healthcare and public services. The same reports added that UK citizens abroad would not be able to assume that these rights will be guaranteed in the future Getty Brexit Concerns A British resident living in Spain asks questions during an informative Brexit talk by the "Brexpats in Spain" group, about Spanish legal issues to become Spanish citizens, at the town hall in Benalmadena, Spain Reuters Brexit Concerns The collapse of Great Britain appears to have been greatly exaggerated given the late summer crowds visiting city museums, hotels, and other important tourist attractions Getty Brexit Concerns The U.K. should maintain European Union regulations covering everything from working hours to chemicals until after the government sets out its plans for Brexit, said British manufacturers anxious to avoid a policy vacuum and safeguard access to their biggest export market Getty

Britain is hoping to trigger Article 50 by the end of March, which will certainly provide substantial pressure for the European Union.

Three major countries in the bloc, France, Germany and the Netherlands, are all holding general elections this year, and anti-EU parties are expected to perform well.
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Refugees sleeping on the streets in freezing conditions in Paris are having their blankets and sleeping bags stolen by police while being violently forced to move on, a report has found.

Research exclusively published by The Independent shows that men, women and children are being beaten and tear gassed by officers in the French capital, despite government pledges to shelter vulnerable people.

Eritrean families said they were told to get out of France as police tore away childrens blankets, leaving them without protection as the bitter temperatures plummeted to -7C.

Men around a bonfire at the makeshift refugee camp set up near Porte de la Chapelle, Paris, on 8 December (AFP/Getty) (AFP/Getty Images)

Natalie Stanton, deputy director of the Refugee Rights Data Project, said researchers were confronted by alarming scenes in the La Chapelle area, where authorities have launched numerous clearance operations in recent months.

While we were there we witnessed the police taking peoples belongings  some in the night, some in the daytime  its quite a visible phenomenon, she added.

The same night the government announced a plan to keep everyone warm, we witnessed police picking up blankets and putting them in a big rubbish bin on the back of a truck, then driving away.

Almost two thirds of homeless refugees interviewed said they had been woken up and forced to move, with 54 per cent describing the experience as violent and saying they were afraid, having been given no reason for the intervention.

One 45-year-old man told researchers an officer kicked him so hard in the shoulder that he was admitted to hospital for the next 20 days for treatment, while others described being tear gassed if they did not move quickly enough.

According to one young Afghan man: If we question them or say we have nowhere to go, they bring out the tear gas.

Around 37 per cent of respondents said they had experienced other forms of police violence in Paris, including physical beatings and verbal abuse, while a third had sleeping bags, tents, blankets, clothes and other belongings taken by police or other rough sleepers.

Some people had such horrendous experiences during their journeys that its just another problem, Ms Stanton said.

Refugee crisis - in pictures Show all 27 1 /27 Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugee crisis - in pictures A child looks through the fence at the Moria detention camp for migrants and refugees at the island of Lesbos on May 24, 2016. AFP/Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Ahmad Zarour, 32, from Syria, reacts after his rescue by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) while attempting to reach the Greek island of Agathonisi, Dodecanese, southeastern Agean Sea Refugee crisis - in pictures Syrian migrants holding life vests gather onto a pebble beach in the Yesil liman district of Canakkale, northwestern Turkey, after being stopped by Turkish police in their attempt to reach the Greek island of Lesbos on 29 January 2016. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees flash the 'V for victory' sign during a demonstration as they block the Greek-Macedonian border Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants have been braving sub zero temperatures as they cross the border from Macedonia into Serbia. Refugee crisis - in pictures A sinking boat is seen behind a Turkish gendarme off the coast of Canakkale's Bademli district on January 30, 2016. At least 33 migrants drowned on January 30 when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea while trying to cross from Turkey to Greece. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A general view of a shelter for migrants inside a hangar of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, Germany Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees protest behind a fence against restrictions limiting passage at the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Since last week, Macedonia has restricted passage to northern Europe to only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who are considered war refugees. All other nationalities are deemed economic migrants and told to turn back. Macedonia has finished building a fence on its frontier with Greece becoming the latest country in Europe to build a border barrier aimed at checking the flow of refugees Refugee crisis - in pictures A father and his child wait after being caught by Turkish gendarme on 27 January 2016 at Canakkale's Kucukkuyu district Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants make hand signals as they arrive into the southern Spanish port of Malaga on 27 January, 2016 after an inflatable boat carrying 55 Africans, seven of them women and six chidren, was rescued by the Spanish coast guard off the Spanish coast. Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee holds two children as dozens arrive on an overcrowded boat on the Greek island of Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures A child, covered by emergency blankets, reacts as she arrives, with other refugees and migrants, on the Greek island of Lesbos, At least five migrants including three children, died after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece, as rescue workers searched the sea for dozens more, the Greek coastguard said Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants wait under outside the Moria registration camp on the Lesbos. Over 400,000 people have landed on Greek islands from neighbouring Turkey since the beginning of the year Refugee crisis - in pictures The bodies of Christian refugees are buried separately from Muslim refugees at the Agios Panteleimonas cemetery in Mytilene, Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures Macedonian police officers control a crowd of refugees as they prepare to enter a camp after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee tries to force the entry to a camp as Macedonian police officers control a crowd after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees are seen aboard a Turkish fishing boat as they arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast to Lesbos Reuters Refugee crisis - in pictures An elderly woman sings a lullaby to baby on a beach after arriving with other refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A man collapses as refugees make land from an overloaded rubber dinghy after crossing the Aegean see from Turkey, at the island of Lesbos EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures A girl reacts as refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees make a show of hands as they queue after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures People help a wheelchair user board a train with others, heading towards Serbia, at the transit camp for refugees near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija AP Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees board a train, after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU, with thousands of asylum seekers - many of them from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia - entering the country every day Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures An aerial picture shows the "New Jungle" refugee camp where some 3,500 people live while they attempt to enter Britain, near the port of Calais, northern France Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A Syrian girl reacts as she helped by a volunteer upon her arrival from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean Sea EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Beds ready for use for migrants and refugees are prepared at a processing center on January 27, 2016 in Passau, Germany. The flow of migrants arriving in Passau has dropped to between 500 and 1,000 per day, down significantly from last November, when in the same region up to 6,000 migrants were arriving daily.

But some people were very shocked  in Europe they feel that human rights should be upheld and they didnt expect to be treated like this.

They were thinking they would have somewhere safe to sleep.

Their experience is far from the impression projected by the French government, which unveiled a nationwide plan to get homeless people off the streets for their own health and safety while the research was being carried out.

Bruno Le Roux, the interior minister, admitted it was difficult to find all migrants shelter but refuted reports of police brutality and harassment.

I absolutely do not share this vision, he said in January. What the police force is doing today is providing shelter for vulnerable people.

Homeless people and concerned members of the public were directed to call the 115 hotline to be given shelter, but only a handful of migrants interviewed by the Refugee Rights Data Project were able to get through.

A woman who had been in Paris for a month on her own said: I live on the streets and have no protection at all. I called 115 three times and they never showed up.

It is so dangerous on the streets. I have no one here, and I am afraid to sleep with so many men around.

 France's Hollande says Calais 'Jungle' to be dismantled

More than half of the refugees interviewed said they were suffering from health problems  including a man who was back on the streets just a day after having his appendix removed  and others suffering from diabetes and mental illness.

Some had heard of other refugees dying in Paris, either of the cold, health problems or in violent attacks. Several refugees reported that a man had been run over crossing the road, while there were unconfirmed claims another had killed himself after despairing of the situation in Paris.

He went to the top of a building and jumped off, a migrant told researchers.

Some of those interviewed had been living in the French capital for several months, including around a quarter who previously spent time in the Calais Jungle and camps in Dunkirk, which were forcibly cleared by authorities.

Paris opened its first humanitarian centre in November after the closure of a large makeshift camp displaced thousands of migrants, but the facility has been overwhelmed and authorities ploughed ahead with a zero tolerance policy for roadside shelters.

Around three quarters of all migrants interviewed wanted to stay in France, and under 30 per cent were hoping to reach the UK.

However, the figure rocketed for children aged 17 and under, with just over half saying they wanted to journey onwards to Britain.

Police dismantling a makeshift camp set up by migrants in Saint-Denis, Paris, on 16 December (AFP/Getty) (AFP/Getty Images)

They included a 16-year-old boy who had applied to be reunited with his four siblings living in the UK but never received a response.

Researchers said almost all minors interviewed were unaccompanied, meaning they may have been eligible for Government transfer under the Dubs Amendment.

But after taking just 350 children the commitment was quietly scrapped by the Home Office last week, sparking outrage from humanitarian groups.

The Refugee Rights Data Project is calling for sustainable efforts by the French government to help get migrants off the streets and combat the chronic absence of asylum information that leaves the majority unaware of their rights or obligations.

The charity also called for the British Government to step up and fulfil its moral obligations.

Researchers interviewed more than 340 refugees and displaced people sleeping rough in the La Chapelle district of Paris between the 18 and 22 January for the report.

The majority of respondents were from Afghanistan, followed by Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and other mainly African countries.

The Paris Prefecture de Police declined to comment.
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Nato has accused Sputnik News of being part of a Kremlin propaganda machine distributing biased articles and misinformation to influence political opinion around the world.

Oana Lungescu, the military alliances spokesperson, said the website was exploiting news coverage for political and military needs.

It is a way, not to convince people, but to confuse them, not to provide an alternative viewpoint, but to divide public opinions and to ultimately undermine our ability to understand what is going on and therefore take decisions if decisions need to be made, she told the BBC.

 DNI Chief describes current Russian cyber threat

Her claims came after a speech by Michael Fallon at St Andrews University earlier this month, where he called for Nato and the West to do more to tackle the false reality promoted through Soviet-style misinformation.

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting its boots on, the Defence Secretary added. We need to call out messengers like RT and Sputnik.

The website and the Russian embassy in London denied the allegations, which come amid increasing tensions between Nato and the Kremlin over the Ukrainian and Syrian wars and military exercises across Europe.

Sputnik, which publishes online stories as well as podcasts, radio shows and videos, was established in 2014 by the Russian state-owned and operated news agency Rossiya Segodnya, which was itself created by an executive order by Vladimir Putin.

It produces editions in more than 30 languages, including Arabic and Chinese, and has international offices in London, Edinburgh, Washington, Cairo and Beijing.

Telling the untold is Sputniks motto, but critics have accused it of spreading warped and false coverage on issues including the refugee crisis and Syrian civil war.

The website helped spread malicious social media posts falsely accusing Angela Merkel of appearing in a selfie with an Isis militant last year, with a headline asking: Did Merkel take a selfie with Brussels attack suspect?

Sputnik helped spread false claims about Anas Modamani, a teenage Syrian refugee (Anas Modamani)

The suspect was later named as Mohamed Abrini, while the innocent man in the picture  a Syrian refugee called Anas Modamani - is now suing Facebook for failing to take down defamatory fake news posts accusing him of terrorism and attempted murder.

Sputnik also spread false claims that a 13-year-old Russian girl had been gang raped by asylum seekers in Berlin, sparking a diplomatic row and waves of far-right protests in Germany.

Russian media reported that she had been imprisoned for 30 hours and raped by migrants, quoting relatives claims of a cover-up by German authorities.

But police disproved the allegations, saying Lisa had absconded from school to visit her 19-year-old boyfriend and admitted lying to her family when she returned home.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, accused Germany of covering up the reality for some domestic politically-correct reason, causing his counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier to hit Russia for exploiting the case for political propaganda.

In an article for Natos Review magazine, Stefan Meister from the German Council on Foreign Relations said the saga exposed links between Russian domestic and foreign media campaigns against Germany and Russian politics at the highest level.

His article named Sputnik, Russia Today and other state-owned media as one of three areas of Russian influence in Germany.

Debunked myths and fake news stories Show all 25 1 /25 Debunked myths and fake news stories Debunked myths and fake news stories Nasa releases statement over rumours that asteroid will destroy Earth Nasa has just debunked a recent rumour of a giant asteroid due to crash into the Earth in September. Internet conspiracy theorists have been saying that an asteroid will hit our planet sometime between September 15 and 28, destroying the American continents. Acting in its role as space-news fact-checker, Nasa has issued a statement refuting the lot of it. "Thats the rumor that has gone viral  now here are the facts," it said in a press release entitled 'NASA: There is No Asteroid Threatening Earth' Alamy Debunked myths and fake news stories Video of scorned lover who cut ex's belongings in half was actually an advert for a law firm Revenge is a dish best served cold, or viral on YouTube as seemed to be the case for one German ex-husband who uploaded a video of himself using power tools to saw his possessions in half so he could literally give his former wife half of everything owned. The video, titled For Laura, quickly went viral reaching nearly 5.8 million views with the description Thank you for 12 'beautiful' years, Laura! You've really earned half. Although the course of true love never did run smooth, it did seem that the jilted lover was taking revenge to a whole new level with the angst-ridden video. Now, however, all has been explained. The video was not created by a jealous ex, but filmed by a media-savvy legal company looking to expand its customer base Youtube Debunked myths and fake news stories McDonald's claims the 'secret menu' is fake The rebuttal comes following an amusing spoof article, published by the Lucky Peach, seemingly offering a smorgasbord of hidden options for the discerning customer. Among the delights apparently on offer are the Mommie Dearest (five burgers speared through with coat hangers) and the Burmese Python (complete with sock). Other options include the the Derrida  a postmodern confection consisting of a raw potato and the remains of a few chips and a partially eaten bun PA Debunked myths and fake news stories Dead shark pictures might be fake Photographs of an enormous Tiger shark fished off the eastern Australian coast have emerged on social media. NSW newspaper The Northern Star claims the four metre catch was made by a local fisherman known only as Matthew. The images first emerged after Byron Bay resident Geoff Brooks posted them to his Facebook timeline. However, Mr Brooks has subsequently admitted he did not take the images  but continued to claim that the photographs are real. Social media users have criticised the images, with some claiming they are fake Geoff Brooks, via Facebook Debunked myths and fake news stories A fried rat had been served in KFC Facebook went into full "wtfffffffffffff" mode after a man posted a picture of what he claims was a fried rat he had been served in KFC. As news of the supposed Kentucky Fried rat was reported and spread, the incident took a dramatic turn with Dixon sealing it in a bag and freezing it as evidence. KFC has denied it is in the business of plunging rats into boiling hot oil however, and claims the whole thing is a 'hoax'. A DNA test followed, and shows that the nugget, although distinctly rodent-shaped, was just chicken all along. Devorise Dixon/Facebook Debunked myths and fake news stories British scientists clone dinosaur An extraordinary story of the worlds first cloned dinosaur got a lot of traction on Twitter and inspired alarmist comparisons to Jurassic Park in March this year. It was also, not unexpectedly, a complete fake, including completely fabricated quotations from 'experts' and a picture that is actually of a very young kangaroo. Debunked myths and fake news stories Mohammed Islam - A boy who 'made $72m' in his lunch break A New York schoolboy who reportedly made $72 million (46 million) by trading stocks during his lunch breaks has admitted making the whole story up. Mohammed Islam, from Queens, originally told the New York Magazine he started dabbling in penny stocks aged just nine and developed a life-long passion for trading that was paying off. But in a later interview with the New York Observer, he said the whole story was fake and he had not made any money at all. Debunked myths and fake news stories Worlds oldest tree has been accidentally chopped down by loggers in Peru Several websites carried the news, seemingly without realising the entire story appears to be a hoax. It first appeared on the World News Daily Report  a fake news website carrying articles including Isis launches satellite and Pterodactyl sighting in New Guinea terrorises villagers. Debunked myths and fake news stories Alex from Target has teenage girls swooning Alex from Target went from being a cute, Bieber-esque cashier to an Internet sensation in less than 24 hours with a little help from social media. The internet memes featuring the Texas teenager in his Target uniform flooded Twitter and the hashtag #AlexFromTarget, a reference to his employee tag, began trending as teen girls swooned over the 16-year old. The "cute checkout guy" photograph earned him 500,000 new Twitter followers and landed him an interview with the popular talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. Alex from Target, his full name is actually Alex Laboeuf, said he was overwhelmed and was surprised by his new found fame. But a Los Angeles start-up known as Breakr has claimed responsibility for the Alex from Target phenomenon that has taken the internet by storm - insisting it was part of an intricate marketing experiment. Debunked myths and fake news stories Ryan Gosling adopted a baby A Father's Day Facebook post from "Ryan Gosling" detailing how he adopted an orphaned baby for a year attracted Likes from almost one million users. This was despite it having all the hallmarks of a hoax, including a link for users to "save thousands of children and meet me while doing it" actually redirecting to the purchase page for a Gosling t-shirt. Facebook Debunked myths and fake news stories Macaulay Culkin dead hoax How to reassure the world youre still alive after the internet reports that youre dead? Fake your own murder on Instagram, like Macaulay Culkin. The actor posted the above image via his band Pizza Undergrounds account yesterday, following several false rumours that hed passed away. One particularly misleading story, originally posted on MSNBC.website (not to be confused with the real MSNBC), read: Sources are reporting that Macaulay Culkin, best known for his role as Kevin McCallister in Home Alone and sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, has been found dead at the age of 34. Debunked myths and fake news stories 'Crabzilla' - A fifty-foot crab dwelling somewhere off the English coast A satellite picture of the so-called crab, aptly dubbed Crabzilla, has gone viral after first surfacing on Weird Whitstable, a website for the supernatural curated by illustrator Quinton Winter, which deals in phantoms, mysteries, tall tales, and artefacts. The shadowy figure of a colossal crustacean, apparently spotted in the murky waters of Whistable, in Kent, dwarfs boats and cars on the pier it lurks besides. The invertebrate expert Paul Clark at the Natural History Museum in London has branded the photo a hoax. Photo courtesy of Weird Whitstable http://www.weirdwhitstable.co.uk Debunked myths and fake news stories Ebola 'risen from the dead' zombie story The story of dead Ebola victims rising from the dead, with the first "picture" of one of the zombies that has gone viral, (if it weren't glaringly obvious) is a hoax. The image on the article, while impressive, is in fact doctored picture of a zombie from the film World War Z. It appears to have taken an image of one of the films lab-zombies, and merged it with this picture of a realistic movie sculpture from Schell Studios, which the messageboard 8chan pointed out. Debunked myths and fake news stories 'Nasa Confirms Six Days of Darkness in December 2014' Satirical news site Huzlers.com has been spreading fake story about upcoming six days of darkness, far and wide on the web, taking in numerous Facebook and Twitter users and encouraging them to post about what theyre going to be up to during the six days of darkness. The story on the vaguely official looking website titled Nasa Confirms Earth Will Experience 6 Days of Total Darkness in December 2014! claims that an incoming solar storm is to blame, causing "dust and space debris to become plentiful and thus block 90% sunlight. This is false. Although solar storms certainly are real phenomena (they occur due to fluctuations in the Suns magnetic field) theyre not like terrestrial storms that can blow up dust and dirt. Reuters Debunked myths and fake news stories Meet Thea, Norway's 12-year-old child bride A Norwegian campaign highlighting the issue of child marriage has gained global attention after a blog seemingly written by a child bride-to-be went viral. The blog, apparently written by 12-year-old girl 'Thea', charts her thoughts and feelings towards her impending marriage to 37-year-old Geir. However, the blog was carefully created by Plan, an international aid organisation working on strengthening the girls rights, to bring home the issue of child brides. Courtesy of Plan Debunked myths and fake news stories Obsessive selfie-taking classified as a mental disorder An article claimed that the American Psychiatric Association (a real body) had classified new mental disorder selfitis as the obsessive compulsive desire to take photos of ones self and post them on social media. 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Reuters Debunked myths and fake news stories Chayson Basinio, 2, snatched from French supermarket Police in France investigated a report in April that a two-year-old boy had been kidnapped in the French town of Moulins. But they later called off their search operation after they discovered he only existed on social media. The 'aunt' who reported the disappearance of 'Chayson Basinio' was arrested for 'reporting an imaginary crime or offence'. AFP/Getty Images Debunked myths and fake news stories Morrissey joined Twitter Morrissey fans rejoiced earlier this week when the verified Twitter account @itsmorrissey posted its first tweet since joining in 2009, saying: 'Hello. Testing, 1, 2, 3. Planet Earth, are you there? One can only hope...' It seems that the Twitter blue tick seal of approval doesnt mean as much as it used to, after Morrissey confirmed in a statement that he does not have an account on the social media site. Getty Images Debunked myths and fake news stories Chinese people ate doves at wedding, sued ugly wives and only sing numbers from takeaway menus In November last year, the western media was bombarded by a host of stories involving Chinese misrepresentations. One involved a Chinese man suing his wife 'because he was ugly' and winning - but was later debunked by an expat magazine in Shanghai. Here, Nyima Pratten writes about how our media depict Chinese people in an unreasonably negative way Getty Images

But references to the Sputniks links to the Russian government are hard to find on its website.

Sputniks official Twitter account describes it as is a global wire, radio and digital news service, while its website omits to mention its owner Rossiya Segodnya or predecessor RIA Novosti.

The about us section describes it as a major new media brand launched in 2014, which is supposedly uniquely positioned as a provider of alternative news content.

Sputnik is capitalising on growing anti mainstream media sentiment, pushing divisive issues like Brexit, the refugee crisis and the Syrian civil war to the fore.

Its Twitter banner is stamped with the claim not recommended by the European Parliament.

Its pro-Russian stance was evident on Saturday mornings homepage, which displayed reports critical of Nato alongside others calling Ukrainian military exercises near Russian Crimea a provocation, and reporting Russias delivery of aid in former rebel strongholds in Syria.

Russias annexation of the Crimean Peninsula at the start of the Ukrainian war in 2014 is considered illegal under international law, while its military stands accused of indiscriminately killing civilians and committing war crimes while backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Sputniks stories are also generally pro-Donald Trump, who has refuted allegations of Russia interference in the US election and repeatedly praised Mr Putin while pledging to improve ties with Russia.

US President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin from the Oval Office of the White House on January 28, 2017 (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

A poll on its site asks readers for their opinion on a recent phone call between the two world leaders. Out of three offered answers, there is no negative choice.

The coverage of Mr Putin and his government is also uncritical, with a gushing comment piece calling the Russian President as relevant as ever on Friday.

Sputnik has not yet responded to The Independents request for comment but its UK editor, Nikolai Gorshkov, strongly denied Natos claims in an interview with the BBC.

It's extremely unfair but we've been on the receiving end of other similar accusations in the past, without any substantive evidence being provided, he said, claiming the Western establishment sees Sputnik as a threat to their view of the world.

We prefer to leave those inclined towards this kind of conspiratorial thinking to it.

The Russian embassy also denied the allegations, claiming Russian media was being "hounded" in Britain.

"Sputnik, like the taxpayer-funded BBC, is independent and has its own editorial policy," a spokesperson said.

"In our view, the claims of perceived 'Russian misinformation campaign to undermine the West' are a way to avoid an open and reasoned debate of the issues raised in British and American societies. Obviously, sticking labels of 'fake news' and 'misinformation' testifies to the lack of positive agenda. By the way, that is why our bilateral relationships suffer."
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Clashes that erupted during protests in the Iraqi capital have left a policeman dead, according to police and hospital officials who said seven other policemen were injured along with dozens of protesters. The violent outbreak prompted the government to call for a full investigation.

Demonstrators loyal to influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr protested in Baghdad's downtown Tahrir Square demanding an overhaul of the commission overseeing local elections scheduled this year.

Shots rang out in central Baghdad as security forces used live fire and tear gas to disperse the crowds. An Associated Press team at the scene witnessed ambulances rushing away protesters suffering from breathing difficulties. Hospital officials said the policeman died of a gunshot wound.

While at times the crowds advanced towards Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, by afternoon they began to disperse after a statement from Mr Sadr's office called on his followers to refrain from trying to enter the compound.

Mr Sadr accused the elections commission of being corrupt and called for the commission's members to be changed, according to a statement from his office.

The prime minister ordered a full investigation into the injuries among security forces and protesters during the demonstration today in Tahrir Square, read a statement from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office.

We will not give in to threats, said the head of the electoral commission, Serbat Mustafa, in an interview with a local Iraqi television channel Saturday afternoon. Mr Mustafa said he would not offer his resignation and accused Mr Sadr of using the commission as a political scapegoat.

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. 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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

Mr Sadr has been a vocal critic of Mr Abadi, and last year protests that included many of his followers breached the highly fortified Green Zone twice.

Mr Abadi has said that he respects the rights of all Iraqis to peacefully demonstrate but called on the protesters to obey the law and respect public and private property.

The Green Zone is home to most of Iraq's foreign embassies and the seats of Iraq's government.

AP
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The Secretary-General of the United Nations has said the fight against extremists in Syria needs a political solution.

Antonio Guterres also said any solution in the battle against terrorists in the region will need the support of the Syrian people.

The comments were made in Istanbul, where Mr Guterres is having meetings with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his office said in a statement.

Mr Guterres said he was grateful that a peace conference for Syria was held in support of negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition.

The conference was endorsed by Turkey, Iran and Russia and took place in Kazakhstan.

A Syrian opposition official said both rebels and political groups were preparing to appoint a 20-member delegation to United Nations-brokered talks with the government planned for later in February in Geneva.

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

Mr Guterres is currently touring Turkey, five Middle East countries and Germany on his first major trip since taking the helm of the United Nations.

The former Prime Minister of Portugal took over from Ban Ki-moon and has pledged to make 2017 a year for peace.

Agencies contributed to this report
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Donald Trumps envoy to the United Nations is moving to block the appointment of the former Palestinian Prime Minister to lead a mission to Libya.

Nikki Haley, the new American ambassador to the UN, said the US administration was very disappointed at Salam Fayyads selection for the role.

For too long the UN has been unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel, Ms Haley said.

 Barack Obama uses final interview as President to slam Israeli policy on settlements

Palestine is a non-member observer state at the UN and its independence has been recognised by 137 of the 193 member nations, but Ms Haley said the US does not recognise a Palestinian state or support the signal Mr Fayyad's appointment would send.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had sent a letter to the Security Council indicating his intention to appoint him as the next special representative to Libya, where a fragile unity government is struggling to end the civil war amid growing pressure to stop hundreds of thousands of refugees departing the countrys shores for Europe.

Mr Fayyad, who served as the Palestinian Authority's Prime Minister from 2007 to 2013, studied in Texas and was formerly a university professor in Jordan and worked for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

UN diplomats told the Associated Press he is well-respected for his work in reforming the Palestinian Authority and spurring its economy, and had the support of the 14 other Security Council members for the new role.

Salam Fayyad speaks with Hillary Clinton in 2012 (EPA)

Mr Guterres office issued a statement on Saturday morning saying the proposal for Mr Fayyad to become the Secretary-Generals special representative in Libya was solely based on his recognised personal qualities and his competence for that position.

United Nations staff serve strictly in their personal capacity, a spokesperson added. They do not represent any government or country.

The Secretary-General reiterates his pledge to recruit qualified individuals, respecting regional diversity, and notes that, among others no Israeli and no Palestinian have served in a post of high responsibility at the United Nations.

This is a situation that the Secretary-General feels should be corrected, always based on personal merit and competencies of potential candidates for specific posts.

It was unclear whether the objection by the US, which holds huge influence within the UN and is a permanent member of the Security Council, had ended Mr Fayyads candidacy.

World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Show all 29 1 /29 World reaction to President Trump: In pictures World reaction to President Trump: In pictures London, England AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures London, England Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines Getty Images World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mosul , Iraq Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Manila, Philippines AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures New Delhi, India Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Karachi, Pakistan EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jakarta, Indonesia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Lagos, Nigeria AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Kabul, Afghanistan AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jerusalem. Israel Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Moscow, Russia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Seoul, South Korea AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Lagos, Nigeria AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Peshawar, Pakistan EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jakarta, Indonesia Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Hyderabad, India AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Kolkata, India AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Sydney, Australia Getty World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Sydney, Australia AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Aleppo, Syria Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mexico City, Mexico AP World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Reuters World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Jerusalem, Israel EPA World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Baghdad, Iraq Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Tokyo, Japan Rex World reaction to President Trump: In pictures Mexico City, Mexico Getty

Ms Haley claimed the Trump administration wants to see an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in her letter, writing: We encourage the two sides to come together directly on a solution.

Israels ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, hailed Americas move to block Mr Fayyad as the beginning of a new era at the UN, an era where the U.S. stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish State".

He added: "The new administration proved once again that it stands firmly alongside the state of Israel in the international arena and in the UN in particular."

It came ahead of a meeting between Mr Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the White House next week.

The Israeli government has hailed the President as a true friend after he appointed several pro-Israel figures to prominent posts and pledged to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which is claimed as a capital by both Israelis and Palestinians.

But Mr Trump has sent mixed signals on the key issue of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, inviting a settler group to his inauguration but later saying the planned construction of 5,500 new housing units in the West Bank may not be helpful to peace.
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Britains airports are cashing in on families obliged to travel during school holidays and the summer peak, with some car-park charges more than doubling overnight, The Independent understands.

The revelations come as flight and holiday prices soar for families making a half-term getaway.

The Independent researched rates for a weeks parking at Britains top 10 airports on a range of dates over the coming year.

The UKs two leading holiday airports, Manchester and Gatwick, raise their charges by as much as half. Birmingham airport charges 57 per cent more during April, which includes the Easter holidays, than in March.

But the most extreme case is Edinburgh, where surface parking close to the terminal more than doubles in summer. The standard off-peak 43 price rises at the start of June to 87. On some dates in summer it costs more to park at the Scottish capitals airport than to fly 1,800 miles from Edinburgh to Milan and back.

Edmund King, president of the AA, said: This really is outrageous profiteering and will be a kick in the teeth for many parents of younger children who need the car to get to the airport and then get stung twice with hiked parking and holiday charges.

A spokesperson for Edinburgh airport said: Our car parking price fluctuations are driven by demand, particularly for the terminal car park in the summer. We could not accommodate the demand at 43 for a week.

Manchester airports spokesperson said rates vary across the year to balance demand with the availability of spaces: In the quieter months there will often be sales, offers and discounts available when demand is lower.

A spokesperson for Gatwick said: At peak times throughout the year the demand for our car parks varies and, as a result, prices can fluctuate. The Sussex airport gives a 10 per cent discount for passengers who enrol in the myGatwick scheme.

At Birmingham airport, the sharp rise was explained by unprecedented low rates this winter: As the peak season approaches the airport cannot continue to discount as we need to allow the balance of demand versus available capacity to be maintained, said a spokesperson.

At several airports, no holiday price hike was evident: rates at Stansted, Glasgow and Newcastle remain constant. Heathrow has a weekly rate of 73 for the Terminal 5 long-stay car park almost year-round.

Airports have been attacked for the increasing range of fees they levy. Norwich charges a 10 Airport Development Fee, which it says is to help fund further development of the airports infrastructure and passenger facilities and to maintain and develop the airports route network. Critics say it is simply a device to make air fares look cheaper than they actually are.

While many airports give away plastic bags to hold liquids for the security check, a 1 charge for four bags is levied at Bristol. The airport, which is the busiest in southern England outside London, also show a 39 per cent rise in car-park prices between April and October. A spokesperson for Bristol airport said: "The advanced pre-book car park product tariff does change, and this reflects the increase in demand and managing the capacity available."

 Chris Woodrofe discusses the changes at Gatwick airport

Many airports have also introduced fees for dropping off passengers.

The Ryanair boss, Michael OLeary, this week called airports the highway robbers of aviation.

But Tim Jeans, chairman of Cornwall airport, said: This is the flip side of lower and lower airfares.

Airports business models are adapting to a lower proportion of their income coming from aeronautical charges. The Ryanairs and easyJets demand lower charges in return for more passengers, and so those passengers make up the shortfall.

Drop-off charges, fees for baggage trolleys, fast-track security and sometimes eye-watering car park rates are the price you may pay for getting to Spain for 14.99.

Additional research by Katie Garrett

Park life: how rates for parking a car at an airport can surge during the Easter school holidays and the summer peak

All rates are for official car parks booked online for one weeks parking starting at 8am on a Saturday

Birmingham: 18 March, 37; 1 April, 58; increase 57 per cent

Bristol: 18 March, 46; 1 April, 64; increase 39 per cent

Edinburgh: 27 May, 43; 3 June, 87; increase 102 per cent

Gatwick: 18 March, 46; 1 April, 69; increase 50 per cent

Luton: 18 March, 38; 1 April, 53; increase 39 per cent

Manchester: 18 March, 51; 1 July, 76; increase 49 per cent
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Whenever a party splits, look for the politicians who position themselves on the join. In 1981, Neil Kinnock, with a history as a left-winger, abstained in the deputy leadership contest between Denis Healey and Tony Benn. Two years later Benn was out of Parliament and Kinnock was leader.

Last week Clive Lewis, with a history as a left-winger, voted for the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill at second reading and this week he resigned from the shadow Cabinet to vote against it at third reading. His argument was that he respected the result of the referendum, but when Labour failed to secure its amendments to the Bill, he voted against what he regards as a Tory Brexit.

Inevitably, he says nothing could be further from my mind than a leadership challenge. Someone who knows him well tells me he wants the leadership but is not stupid enough to push for it now. He recognises that it is too early for anyone from the 2015 intake, and thinks youve got to serve your time. He claims to be frustrated at being pushed forward by others.

How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Show all 8 1 /8 How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Weetabix Chief executive of Weetabix Giles Turrell has warned that the price of one of the nations favourite breakfast are likely to go up this year by low-single digits in percentage terms. Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Nescafe The cost of a 100g jar of Nescafe Original at Sainsburys has gone up 40p from 2.75 to 3.15  a 14 per cent risesince the Brexit vote. PA How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Freddo When contacted by The Independent this month, a Mondelez spokesperson declined to discuss specific brands but confirmed that there would be "selective" price increases across its range despite the American multi-national confectionery giant reporting profits of $548m (450m) in its last three-month financial period. Mondelez, which bought Cadbury in 2010, said rising commodity costs combined with the slump in the value of the pound had made its products more expensive to make. Cadbury How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Mr Kipling cakes Premier Foods, the maker of Mr Kipling and Bisto gravy, said that it was considering price rises on a case-by-case basis Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Walkers Crisps Walkers, owned by US giant PepsiCo, said "the weakened value of the pound" is affecting the import cost of some of its materials. A Walkers spokesman told the Press Association that a 32g standard bag was set to increase from 50p to 55p, and the larger grab bag from 75p to 80p. Getty How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Marmite Tesco removed Marmite and other Unilever household brand from its website last October, after the manufacturer tried to raise its prices by about 10 per cent owing to sterlings slump. Tesco and Unilever resolved their argument, but the price of Marmite has increased in UK supermarkets with the grocer reporting a 250g jar of Marmite will now cost Morrisons customers 2.64 - an increase of 12.5 per cent. Rex How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Toblerone Toblerone came under fire in November after it increased the space between the distinctive triangles of its bars. Mondelez International, the company which makes the product, said the change was made due to price rises in recent months. Pixabay How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Maltesers Maltesers, billed as the lighter way to enjoy chocolate, have also shrunk in size. Mars, which owns the brand, has reduced its pouch weight by 15 per cent. Mars said rising costs mean it had to make the unenviable decision between increasing its prices or reducing the weight of its Malteser packs. iStockphoto

On the great question of this Parliament, however, he has positioned himself astutely. Labour Party members have noticed him. There is a wave of disappointment with Jeremy Corbyn among the 313,000 who voted for him just five months ago. The social media citadels of Corbynism have fallen silent. In local parties a lot of the new members have melted away. It is dawning on them not just that Corbyn is a hopeless leader but that he asked Labour MPs to vote with the Conservatives to let Theresa May get on with leaving the European Union.

Neither of these should have come as a revelation, and Corbyn was with the majority of Labour MPs who thought it was right to let the Government invoke Article 50. Indeed, Labour voters tend to agree with them, but it is likely that most party members do not. They wanted Corbyn to try to block Brexit. They cannot understand Diane Abbott, the shadow Home Secretary, who said, I think a Tory Brexit is going be quite disastrous, and yet voted for it.

Lewis, by opposing it in the final vote, is in a good position to say I told you so if the Brexit negotiations go badly over the next two years and  looking even further ahead  if life outside the EU turns out to be as disastrous as Abbott and most Labour members think it will be.

 Clive Lewis hints he could resign from Labours Shadow Cabinet over partys Article 50 stance

I am not sure that they are right. I think it is quite likely that the talks about the terms of our departure will go horribly wrong. Contrary to the perception that May has not been forthcoming about her negotiating objectives, I think she has been recklessly ambitious in saying that she wants not just tariff-free access to the EU single market but frictionless access. There is no guarantee that the other 27 countries will give that to us.

On the other hand, that may not be such a political opportunity for the anti-Brexit irreconcilables as they think. The Prime Minister will blame the perfidious foreigners for being unreasonable and the national mood will be all plucky Brits and very well, alone.

In the internal politics of the Labour Party, however, having stood against Brexit could be a powerful message. And that is probably true whenever the contest comes and whatever happens in Britains relationship with the EU.

It was notable this week that Corbyns denials that he had considered stepping down followed the Charlie Whelan handbook. Whelan, Gordon Browns press secretary from 1992 to 1999, used to dismiss true reports of friction between his boss and Tony Blair as complete b****cks, meaning that the precise words had not been used and he didnt like the story. On BBC Breakfast, Corbyn said the reports were fake news and absolute nonsense.

He wants out, then. He is human, after all. What human could read the opinion polls, in which he has a net unfavourable rating among all ages, sexes and classes, and not wish to be elsewhere? But John McDonnell, the shadow Chancellor, and Seumas Milne, Corbyns own Charlie Whelan, still exploit another of the leaders weaknesses  namely, his sense of duty to the cause of sub-Marxist so-called leftism.

Recommended Clive Lewis dismisses leadership challenge speculation

Even so, it is alleged  no doubt fake news and nonsense  that McDonnell is preparing to run Rebecca Long-Bailey for the leadership should a vacancy arise. She was his deputy as shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and was promoted this week to fill Lewiss post as shadow Business Secretary. McDonnell is said to realise that he could not secure the 38 nominations needed to be a candidate himself (not 35, as many people seem to think: the inclusion of MEPs in the nominating pool means a candidate needs 38 nominations if there is a vacancy and 50 if they want to challenge an incumbent leader). I doubt if Long-Bailey could make it to the ballot paper either. Simply being known as the Corbyn-McDonnell candidate should keep her support below the hardest core of 20 or so.

Whenever the contest comes, Labour MPs will be looking for a candidate who might be able to bridge the gap between the party members and the millions of voters the party needs in order to survive as a viable political force at the next election.

They know very little about Clive Lewis, but this weeks vote looks like a potentially significant moment in Labours long road back from oblivion.
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The best moment Donald Trump has had in his tumultuous first three weeks in the White House was the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. The roll-out was pitch perfect. Trump for once was not over the top. And by common consent, Gorsuch is admirably qualified and a great guy. Now the President risks messing it all up.

Part of the problem is the almost vertical learning curve to which this most ignorant and least experienced president in history has inevitably been subjected. Mastery of Twitter is fine but it doesnt cut the mustard. But the biggest problem, and the biggest lesson, is another: you cant run the government like a business.

If theres one thing Trump adores, its sitting in at his desk in the Oval Office, with those spanking new gold curtains behind him and the portrait of that earlier populist chief executive Andrew Jackson over his shoulder, signing presidential orders that are down payments on his campaign promises. Obamacare is to be subjected to slow death by government agencies. Wham. An order decreeing that a continuous physical wall be constructed along the border with Mexico. Wham. An order taking aim at organised crime, drug cartels and the like. Wham.

New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Show all 27 1 /27 New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Ethnic Yemenis and supporters protest against President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Men pray during a protest by ethnic Yemenis and supporters over President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Ethnic Yemenis and supporters protest against President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Men pray during a protest by ethnic Yemenis and supporters over President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People gather for evening prayer at a rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner places a sign on the gate of his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner places a sign on the gate of his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 02: Yemeni business owner Musa closes the gate to his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner closes the gate to his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty

Trump is above all image-conscious and PR-super-savvy. And the image he wanted to send was that of the CEO taking government by the scruff of its neck. And any underling who defied him? Fired. At least thats the way it worked for him in corporate America. But not in government, divided by the Constitution into three equal branches, with its deliberately calibrated system of checks and balances. For proof, look no further than fiasco of the travel ban on citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries, and Trumps reaction to the court decisions against it.

Now you cant blame Trump for being furious at the judiciary. Many presidents have felt the same. Back in the 1930s FDR threatened to pack the Supreme Court with new liberal justices when it blocked his New Deal initiatives. More recently Barack Obama, usually a model of urbane civility, vented his anger at the courts Citizens United decision of 2010 that opened the floodgates to corporate spending on political campaigns.

In normal times, the notion of the judiciary overruling the president on a matter of national security gives many people pause for thought. Now, here comes some federal district judge, at the very start of the new presidency, putting a temporary halt to a ban purporting to make Americans safer, followed by a panel of three appeal court judges unanimously agreeing that, at the very least, the judge had a legitimate case to make.

 Trump considers "brand new" travel ban

But as usual with Trump, the problem wasnt so much his hostility to the verdict but the crudely ad hominem manner in which he expressed it  deriding the author of his misfortunes as a so-called judge, lambasting the court decisions as disgraceful and suggesting that a half-witted high school student knew better than the gentlemen in robes.

The result is a mess entirely of his own making. The judicial rulings have yet to deal with the substance of the issue: whether the President exceeded his constitutional powers. And it may yet be that the appeals court subsequently decides that in fact he hasnt. But his options are not promising.

If he takes his case on an emergency basis to the Supreme Court, the one body that can overturn a decision by federal appeals court judges, Trump could lose. There are currently just eight justices, rather than the full complement of nine. The four liberal ones, all appointed by a Democratic president, seem bound to vote to maintain the stay, meaning the best he can hope for is a 4-4 split that would leave the lower court ruling intact.

Or the White House can go a slower route, waiting for the lower courts to pronounce on the merits of the case. It could win, but a decision might take months, by which time whatever political impact the original ban contained would be lost. But most damaging of all, now Trump is talking about some new  and presumably district court judge-proof  travel curb order next week. But whatever happens, Judge Gorsuch has now been sucked into the mess as well.

At first Gorsuch seemed to be moving adroitly to allay the fears of Democrats still outraged by the Republicans year-long refusal to even consider Obamas choice to fill the vacant seat on the court, Merrick Garland. In meetings with Democratic Senators  some of whose support he will need if he is to assemble a filibuster-proof majority of 60 for confirmation  Gorsuch reportedly referred to Trumps onslaught against the judiciary over the travel ban as both disheartening and demoralising.

It seemed like a clever attempt to prove he wouldnt be Trumps poodle on the court. But within hours the White House had pulled the rug from under him, declaring that Gorsuch had been talking not about Trumps latest histrionics, but about attacks on the court system in general. That was all the Democrats needed. Gorsuch meanwhile refused to repeat in public his private criticism of the man who nominated him  confirming their suspicions the nominee was not to be trusted and would tolerate Trumps attacks on the independence of the judiciary.

A few days ago, some were cautiously hoping that a really bruising confirmation battle over Gorsuch could be avoided. Now one seems a dead certainty. Once again the CEO might not have his way. But how many times must it be said? You cant run a government like you run a business.
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Reading the tabloids, one could easily be forgiven for thinking that a few Nigerian mothers were to blame for the current crisis in the NHS.

Last month the Sun splashed with "Tragedy of Nigerian health tourist who lost two of her newborn quatruplets after going into labour on plane to Heathrow". Rather than leaving it there, no prizes for guessing how the headline ended..."at 500k cost to Brit taxpayers".

The Mail also sang in tune emotively talking about this coming at the same time as another winter funding crisis in the NHS.

I am sure that the NHS's financial problems were not exactly top of the worry list of the mother who had just lost two children but of course the editors could not resist.

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This rhetoric never gets properly challenged by the government, and given the recent appointment of former Daily Mail Political editor James Slack to be Theresa May's spokesman, I guess we should not be entirely surprised. It is a convenient foil with all of the other headlines on the NHS being in a state of crisis.

The cost of health tourism has never been accurately calculated. Government figures estimated the costs of treating deliberate health tourism in the UK at between 100m and 300m a year back in 2013. Yet somehow the Daily Mail maths genuises somehow turned this into 2biliion a year.

However much we argue about the accuracy of these costs the most striking thing is actually the hypocrisy in the debate about health tourism.

In the same way as those close to Trump dismissed his remarks about women as locker room banter, the right wing tabloids refer to Brits who get drunk in Europe and end up in hospital as "Brits abroad".

 Jeremy Hunt left red-faced after being called out by Corbyn in PMQs

Interestingly neither these papers nor the government ever reveal the cost of some of their more dangerous and irresponsible antics such as the recent trend of jumping from balconies in Spanish hotels. This paper wrote last year about how this new trend was costing one hospital alone over 1m (with 60 per cent of the cases being Brits).

One could also cite the case of a British man gored after running with the bulls in Spain back in 2015.

Brits abroad die or are seriously injured in tragic accidents of their own making but because it happens in the EU there is no need to tell tabloid readers of how much our citizens are costing other countries health care systems.

The Express regularly rails against the cost of educating the children of EU nationals. Yet when was the last time it investigated the cost to the NHS when a Spanish man is beaten up on the streets of Bournemouth for speaking his own language with his girlfriend ? It is not hard to make the link between the two stories.

Imagine in 2020 if a British youth who has been on a drunken night out in Majorca goes to the local hospital which then refuses to give them a stomach pump without up front payment. The young person then dies after choking on their own vomit. This may be the reality when we leave the EU and we end reciprocal arrangements for free health care. I can visualise already the screaming headlines of "British youth left to die by greedy Spanish hospital".

It is time for our government and sections of our media to heed the mantra of "do as you would be done by". Health tourism has always made for useful cheap headlines to deflect from the real story. But given it is represents just 0.3 per cent of the annual NHS bill, Jeremy Hunt needs to stop playing that card if he wants to maintain a shred of credibility.

For when a patient's cancer operation is cancelled for the third time or they have just driven 200 miles to see their child in a mental hospital they will be blaming Jeremy Hunt, not a bereaved Nigerian mother, next time they come to vote.
Here in the east of Ireland, we have been enjoying an unusually dry winter with relatively high temperatures.

This is the well-predicted result of climate change and whether you live in the dry east or the wet west, all the while the topic of water won't go away.

Leaving aside the thorny issue of whether water should be supplied for free or not, we still hear farmers and homeowners campaigning for the river Shannon to be dredged and others suggesting water be channelled from the Shannon system to Dublin to make up an existing deficit.

Apart from the enormous cost of such projects, the consequences of carrying out these works seem to be widely misunderstood.

Our politicians will inevitably support whatever action produces the most votes and a short-term gain rather than what is in the long-term national interest.

In recent years, throughout Ireland, rivers have been drained and their banks raised while adjoining flood plains have been filled in and even built on.

These actions delivered the inevitable result of speeding up the flow of water in times of heavy rainfall rather than slowing it by using nature's system of reed beds and boulders, and allowing it filter on to natural flood plains.

Many years ago, the River Boyne was drained and on a number of sections, it was turned into little more than a lifeless canal.

Now work is taking place to bring it back to its former state and recreate its natural functions by reintroducing boulders and reinstating natural areas that will break up the flow of water and slow its passage to the sea.

Not only does this help the river once again support wildlife and aquatic plants, but it also provides extra time for flood waters to disperse more gradually and prevent erosion of the banks.

I wrote on this topic last year following the severe flooding around Ardrahan in Galway, where the Turloughs overflowed, causing great local hardship.

There is still wide disagreement on what, if anything, should be done and it appears that, in general, our winters are becoming increasingly wetter.

Rather than taking a local view on flooding, we need to examine it from a national viewpoint. There is little doubt that the more we interfere with nature, the more problems we create. Demanding ever more drainage in individual districts is not the solution.

We cannot prevent rain falling, so perhaps we need to accept a degree of occasional flooding as inevitable and assist people in relocating from areas that repeatedly suffer. We could then restore at least some of the flood plains of the past, as is currently taking place in Holland.

The Dutch have led the world for centuries in providing solutions to flooding and we could well benefit from adopting some of the systems they use. Water has mysterious properties that are still not fully understood.

There are many claims made for the healing and health-giving qualities of 'energised' water for example, which is produced through creating a vortex.

This occurs naturally in unaltered winding river courses and was investigated in the mid-1900s by Viktor Schauberger, an Austrian forester and scientist.

His work was taken so seriously that after the war, the Russians destroyed his laboratories as they considered his discoveries too dangerous to allow them into the hands of others.

In 1957, the Americans became interested and he and his son were flown to Texas for what was to be a three-month visit to investigate his findings. His documents, models and equipment were also dispatched to the USA.

The Schaubergers were kept in isolation in the Texan desert and their research papers were then sent to an expert in atom technology for analysis, who verified their results 100pc.

Schauberger was then ordered to sign a document swearing he would not share any of his research with others. Much of what he preached makes sense and there is no doubt that, in nature, water is improved and energised by its natural spiral movement in rivers rather than just drawing it up from an underground well.

There is insufficient space here to properly describe his research but check him out on the internet or read some of the books on his life.

It just might change our national attitude of viewing water as something that can be wasted, polluted and abused. It is a precious natural resource that must be carefully tended and protected. Without it, we die.

Viktor learned to understand nature

Viktor Schauberger was born in Austria in 1885 into a family who had been foresters for many generations.

He wrote: "From my earliest childhood, it was my greatest ambition to become a forest warden like my ancestors." From this background he learnt to trust his observations and intuition and he learnt that water, when in shaded mountain areas, produced plants and vegetation at their richest, and that fields irrigated by water transported at night yielded greater harvests than neighbouring meadows and fields irrigated in daylight.

Viktor was able to explain the significance of water's properties and devise various methods for maintaining it at its optimum level of purity and vitality. He later used these observations to initiate designs for generating power and motion that worked in harmony with nature and did not produce toxic emissions.

Viktor believed nature was the foremost teacher and the task of technology is not to correct nature but to imitate it, a principle that guided him throughout his life: "First understand nature and then copy it."

Also check out Callum Coats.
Last week, the Taoiseach launched 'Ireland 2040', variously described as a report, consultation or plan.

I turned on the live link to the launch. No matter how I moved the volume sliders, I couldn't raise Enda's voice above a murmur. Undeterred, I logged on to the website ireland2040.ie.

There, a number of documents revealed the start of a process whereby individuals, groups and agencies can make suggestions about how Ireland might deal with present and emerging social, economic and environmental challenges. The intention is that they will feed into a plan.

I live in rural Ireland and could make no connection with many of the challenges: things like urban sprawl, congestion and the housing crisis.

That is not to dismiss these, because I know they are a reality for a great many people.

But it really is ironic.

Expand Close Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the launch of 'Ireland 2040 Our Plan' Photo: Damien Eagers / Facebook

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Dublin is feeling the problems of having too many people, while many rural areas are feeling those associated with having too few. Both are bearing the brunt of infrastructural shortcomings. What wouldn't we give for a bit of congestion!

What did make a connection with me last week is news of the imminent closure of our local shop, in Ballacolla. It's a traditional village grocery, selling newspapers to locals, ice creams to kids, the odd ham sandwich to a passing tourist.

When I came to Ballacolla some 15 years ago, there were three pubs, a farm co-op, the shop, a Garda station and a post office.

The Garda station closure in 2013 made us feel less safe, less important. A year later, the post office closed on the retirement of its postmistress. Then, in 2015, a new service station opened a couple of miles away, at M8 junction 3.

When the post office went, local man Michael G Phelan said it would "close the shop across the road". "The G" is not a prophet but that is what's coming to pass.

East of here, Durrow village is doing fairly well, thanks to a couple of vibrant committees and the luck of having some natural and built attractions. Closer to Portlaoise, the heritage town of Abbeyleix is also tipping along, but head off in any other direction and there is a pattern of decay.

People are sick of plans, sick of talk. If politicians really want to know what rural people want, why do they not listen to what they are already saying?

Post offices are at the heart of rural Ireland. Mail volumes have dropped by 40pc since their peak in 2007.

I accept post offices shouldn't be kept open just for the sake of it. But surely there are ways to make them more relevant.

If something isn't done, when those who are alive now die out, there won't be others to replace them because they will have left. Many of those with the drive necessary to set up a business and sustain a vibrant society are already gone.

I also recognise that communities need to help themselves. But morale is low and, on the ground, there is no real sense of support for turning things around.

The other issue that rural dwellers have long been agitating about is broadband, but it barely gets a mention in the report. Rather, there is aspirational talk about things like 're-energising'.

Still, at least this is a start. Notwithstanding some echoes of FF's 2002 election slogan, 'A Lot Done - More to Do', it shows a certain maturity to acknowledge that all is not well. Hopefully, it is a foundation stone on which to build a good Ireland for the next generation.

The closing date for submissions is March 16.
Consultancy firm Accenture is to add 300 jobs to its Dublin operation in a move that will increase the size of the company's headcount in the capital to 2,500.

The new positions are in areas including design and technology. A third of the jobs will specifically focus on the internet of things (IOT), analytics and artificial intelligence in the areas of financial services, retail, consumer goods, life sciences and utilities.

"Accenture continues to make significant investments in Ireland, and we are delighted the company has made the country its centre of innovation, which further cements Ireland's position globally as a technology hub," said Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

"Accenture is a committed, long-term resident of these shores and we look forward to continued partnership as the company further enhances its presence in Ireland," Mr Kenny added.

The new jobs will be located at Accenture's new technology facility at Grand Canal Dock, which will be known as 'The Dock'. The building was officially opened by the Taoiseach yesterday.

"The Dock showcases Accenture's depth of technology expertise in Ireland," said IDA ceo Martin Shanahan.

"The company's continued investment in innovation and in its team of talented professionals greatly enhances Ireland's position as a compelling location for global professional service firms," he added.

Located in Dublin's Grand Canal Basin, close to the city-centre, the company says The Dock is one of the world's most connected and intelligent buildings. It uses sensors to learn from occupant behaviour and to react to user feedback.

"Our talented professionals across Ireland are imagining the future every day to solve some of the biggest challenges facing businesses, governments and consumers," said Pierre Nanterme, Accenture's chairman and ceo.

"We are proud to build on our long history in Ireland with today's official opening of The Dock and investment in new jobs to drive innovation that helps our clients meet the demands of a rapidly evolving digital world," Mr Nanterme added. Accenture is one of the world's largest consultancy firms with operations in 120 countries that serve clients 394,000 clients.

The company also launched a "Welcome Home, Stay Home" campaign in Christmas 2015 that aimed to persuade people coming home for a holiday to consider returning to Ireland.

In 2016, the company was rated as the best place to work for members of the LGBT community.

Accenture is also committed to gender equality, with women representing 43pc of the firm's Irish workforce.
KBC Bank's suits hit Dublin this week, after the lender confirmed the decision to stick with the Irish market and target growth here.

If the Belgians thought the news would draw a line under months of will-they-won't-they speculation about KBC's plans here they were mistaken.

KBC Group ceo Johan Thijs explicitly left the door open to Irish M&A, the kind of thing that gets analysts and journalists into paroxysms of speculation. Thijs is adamant no deal is currently in the works, saying repeatedly he's "not looking at any file," at a press conference on Friday.

But he also said he wants KBC Ireland to eventually match the banking and insurance model of the parent group. If KBC is an acquiror, insurance is where it is likely to strike. The obvious target is FBD, not least because its shares have been in the doldrums. FBD's rural weighted insurance customers would complement nicely KBC's more urban mortgages base.

Would farmer-backed FBD's agricultural base cleave as loyally to a Belgian blow-in though?

The gaps might not be so great. One of KBC's core shareholders is, and has always been, the Belgian Farmers' Union, the Punt learned this week.
US stocks extended to all-time highs as crude rallied, while Treasuries slipped with gold after a White House promise to overhaul business taxes rejuvenated reflation trades.

The S&P 500 Index padded an all-time high, with energy producer pacing gains after oil retook $54 a barrel amid Opec output cuts. Copper surged the most since 2013 as China stepped up exports and a workers went on strike at a major mine. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index pared its first weekly gain of the year after sentiment among American consumers cooled from a 13-year high. European stocks capped a weekly advance.

While the confidence report broke a streak of rising sentiment indicators among consumers and businesses that've shown optimism that Donald Trump will deliver on pro-growth policy promises, his comment Thursday that he'll outline a "phenomenal" tax plan within weeks lifted trades that had stalled while the administration focused on immigration and protectionist policies. Former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn is leading the tax effort, a White House official said.

"The obvious implication is that bond yields go higher," Michael Bell, a global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, said on Friday.

"We don't really buy the rally in government bonds that you've seen in recent weeks. Bond yields in the US will head to about 3pc."

The tone didn't translate to Ireland, however. The ISEQ index closed the day down slightly at 6472.68.

Among bigger shares, Ryanair was down 2.25pc at 14.115 a share, still under pressure after it missed quarterly earnings targets earlier in the week. Ferry operator ICG led the main risers, up 4.899pc to 2.66pc. The Stoxx Europe 600 index was little changed as it headed for an advance of 0.8pc in the five days.
A real dead ringer for love - Linda Martin and Al Porter opening The Late Late Show Valentine's Special. Picture Andres Poveda

Linda Martin and Al Porter opening The Late Late Show Valentine's special last night Photo: Andres Poveda

2FM failed to secure Al Porter as part of its on-air line-up because it couldn't provide him with the money or "the prime-time slot he wanted".

Station head Dan Healy described Porter as a "brilliant and dynamic broadcaster" but said it could not compete with Today FM.

He said the station had access to "deeper pockets" than RTE.

"They can write cheques," he said.

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"And we couldn't provide him with the prime-time slot he wanted."

Last year, Porter co-hosted 'Drive' with Colm Hayes on 2FM until Hayes left the station in the summer of 2016.

Porter had been in talks with producers at 2FM last year regarding a new radio show but a programme failed to materialise.

The 24-year-old comedian said at the time: "I was willing and ready to be able to make something happen with 2FM but it just didn't happen."

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Last month it was announced Porter would take over the lunchtime slot on Today FM.

Talking about his new gig, he said: "I am looking forward to being in their homes every day, not as a comedian but as a friend."

Mr Healy said it was disappointing Porter is not with 2FM, but he is happy with the current line-up.

"We are sticking with the schedule," he said. "We have fantastic presenters and great shows. We unapologetically lost a lot of people over the age of 45 so we could become a young station and that's the direction we are moving in."

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Porter has a good relationship with RTE and is developing TV ideas with the broadcaster.

A spokesperson for Porter said money had not been a deciding factor. They said Today FM had offered Porter a primetime slot, which 2FM had been unable to do.

His show on Today FM is on Monday from noon to 2.30pm.
An Australian comedian told tv personality Piers Morgan to "f**k off" when he defended Donald Trump's immigration ban.

During a particularly heated segment on Real Time With Bill Maher, the host asked Piers if he still thought Hillary Clinton was the "lesser of two evils" and questioned Trump's White House appointments in his first few weeks in office.

Piers responded: "Calm down Bill, there is no Muslim ban..." before Jim Jeffries chimes in "Oh f**k off. It's a f***ing Muslim ban. He said there was a Muslim ban. There's a Muslim ban.

The rest of the exchange is here. And it's something.

PM: "This is the hysteria I'm talking about. 85% of the world is Muslim, they're allowed into the country."

JJ: "This is what you do Piers - you say, 'He hasn't done this, he hasn't done that, he's not going to do all these things'. Give him a f***ing chance mate. Hitler didn't kill the Jews on the first day. He worked up to it."

PM: "That is the exact ridiculous, hysterical, over the top nonsense that is making people like you look ridiculous."

JJ: "If people got hysterical in Germany right away..."

PM: "He's not he new Hitler."

That's when Maher makes this face.

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JJ: "You just like that you won The Apprentice and you have a famous friend, mate. That's all you f***king like."

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PM: "You're losing your audience because you're sounding unpleasant..."

That's when Jeffries interrupts and gives him the finger.

You watch the whole clip here.

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The new Central Bank building in the Docklands Photo: Frank Mc Grath

It started life as the planned new headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank but 140m later it will house the Central Bank.

The building was for long the symbol of Ireland's catastrophic financial sector collapse as it lay half completed on the quays.

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Now, the building which for years stood as a naked shell on Dublin's North Wall Quay, is just months away from opening the new HQ for Ireland's banking regulatory body.

Yesterday, it swung open its doors for a preview - and there wasn't a note or coin in sight because this is a 'cashless' building.

One of its most striking features are the golden panels across the windows, which were designed as an expression of strength.

Chief architect on the project, Peter McGovern, said the building on the banks of the River Liffey was designed with a maritime theme in mind.

"The outward expression is a reflection of the maritime environment," Mr McGovern said.

"They were designed to look like the sales of tall ships."

Designers claimed this feature was a nod to the trade that has happened along the River Liffey for centuries.

"They are made of triangles, which is a representation of strength," the architect said.

He explained the gold colour of the panels was a feature of the aluminium used to make them.

The building was purchased in 2013, with a price tag of 7m.

The design, planning application process and appointment of facade contractor was completed in 2014.

By 2015, the main contractor, Walls Construction, had been commissioned and works began at the site.

The Central Bank has estimated the total cost of the project to be 140m.

It is moving from the iconic building on Dublin's Dame Street.

While works are still under way on the building, around 30 bank staff have already transferred to the site, from their previous home on Dame Street.

Paul Molumby, director of currency and facilities management at the Central Bank, was its lead man on the project.

While showing off the new restaurant facility, he pointed out it was "a cashless building" and workers would pay for meals with cards.

"Just to burst a myth - there's no vaults," he said.

"It's a building with no money."

Much was made of the environmentally friendly nature of the building - which will have an A2 efficiency rating.

Mr Molumby also explained how senior members of the bank - directors, governor and deputy governors - would not be on the top floors.

The plan is for these officials to work among the general staff.
A Garda who survived a holiday shooting in the US was convicted of assault causing harm to two young women in a row over a 15 fee for a lift home.

Garda Brian Hanrahan (34) had vehemently denied before Nenagh District Court that he punched the two women in an unprovoked attack near an isolated Tipperary cemetery last year.

However, Judge Elizabeth MacGrath convicted the young Newcastle West-based garda of assault causing harm.

"Having studied the evidence very carefully... the court is satisfied that Mr Hanrahan is guilty of the two charges," she said.

Judge MacGrath noted that an independent witness, a security guard driving home, had seen a man holding a woman by her hair near Lisboney cemetery.

Judge MacGrath noted inconsistencies in Hanrahan's evidence, including his initial claim in a 999 call made from the scene, that he had been confronted by some six or eight people.

"I have found that Mr Hanrahan's account on the night in the 999 call was not accurate," she said.

Judge MacGrath also noted that, in his 999 call, Hanrahan said those confronting him were "a f***ing crowd of psychopaths".

When Judge MacGrath convicted him of the two assaults, Hanrahan bowed his head.

The young women assaulted, Aisling King and Emer Kelly, began crying.

Judge MacGrath adjourned sentencing until April 27 to allow probation and psychological reports to be prepared.

"The attitude (of Hanrahan) on the night ... and other issues ... does give rise to concern," she said.

Judge MacGrath noted that the garda had been mugged, shot and seriously injured while he was on holiday in New Orleans in the US in 2015.

Daniel O'Gorman, solicitor for Hanrahan, said the convictions would have "devastating consequences" for the young garda.

Hanrahan is a married father of two whose children are aged just six months and three years.

Ms Kelly and Ms King had sobbed while giving evidence about the assaults, which occurred when they had asked the young garda for a promised 15 payment for a lift home.

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In victim impact statements, they said that they had always respected gardai but, after the assaults, they were now afraid.

"I couldn't believe that a guard could do this to me.

"The gardai are meant to be there to help you," Ms Kelly said.

Hanrahan, who was off duty at the time of the incident last March, insisted he only acted in self-defence after he claimed one of the young women "launched herself" at him in a row over the lift fee.

Michelle O'Connell, for the State, said gardai became aware of an incident in Nenagh at around 4am on March 6.

Ms Kelly was in Nenagh with her friends Aisling King and Ellen Nyhill in her new car.

Hanrahan had been out socialising, and then approached them and agreed to pay 15 for a lift.

"He was rude. He said that Nenagh was full of scumbags," Ms Kelly said.

The women asked Hanrahan to get out of their car at Lisboney cemetery.

"Aisling went to drive off but I said I will ask him for the money," Ms Kelly said.

"He pulled my hair and beat me to the ground."
'While in prison awaiting trial, he has been taken off protective custody and wants it reinstated, his lawyer told a court today' (stock photo)

A student accused of murdering mother-of-three Irene White has asked to be put back under "vulnerable care" while he is in custody.

Anthony Lambe (34) is charged with murdering Ms White (43), who was stabbed to death in Dundalk in 2005.

While in prison awaiting trial, he has been taken off protective custody and wants it reinstated, his lawyer told a court today.

However, Judge Kathryn Hutton ruled it was a matter for the prison authorities and further adjourned the case at Cloverhill District Court, for the preparation of a book of evidence.

Mr Lambe, from Annadrumman, Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, first appeared in court when he was arrested and charged last month.

He is charged with the murder of Irene White on the April 6, 2005, at Ice House, Demesne Road, Dundalk, Co Louth.

Sgt Stephen Nalty told the court the prosecution was applying for a further remand in custody, for the DPP's directions to be made available.
Helena McDonnell was working at Tayto Park at the time of the incident Photo: Collins

A woman who broke her ankle on a ride at Tayto Park in Co Meath has sued for damages in the High Court.

Helena McDonnell (25) was working as a tour guide at the amusement park at the time of the accident five years ago, and went down the 60-foot 'Tayto Twister' slide with friends.

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Ms McDonnell, of Newbrook Avenue, Donaghmede, Dublin, claimed her right ankle became trapped twice in the loops on the slide and she broke it. "I heard a popping noise in my ankle as I went down the slide. At the second loop, I heard a cracking noise. I was terrified," she said.

When she got to the bottom, "my foot was out of shape and turned to the right-hand side," she said.

Ms McDonnell told Mr Justice Kevin Cross she now has pain every day and had to abandon her dream of being a make-up artist, as that would require a lot of standing.

She told the court the Twister ride was not open to the public at the time and she said she and other employees were told to try it. She has sued Ashbourne Visitor Centre Ltd, trading as Tayto Park, Ashbourne, Co Meath, of which Tayto boss Ray Coyle is a director, over the accident on June 11, 2012.

She has also sued the manufacturer of the ride, Hags Aneby AB of Sweden, and the suppliers of the ride, Spraoi Linn Ltd of Kilmuckridge, Co Wexford.

She has claimed the defendants were negligent in that they manufactured, designed, supplied and installed a slide which was allegedly dangerous. She further claimed there was an alleged failure to alter the slide to reduce acceleration.

The court was told the case was before the court for assessment of damages only. Her counsel said that after the accident, the ride was altered in relation to how steep it was and at the turns.

It was also contended that a sign warning that the ride was not appropriate for anybody over 15 years of age had been removed. The case continues on Tuesday.
A 350m new Cork hospital is being proposed as the answer to Ireland's chronic shortage of acute hospital beds.

Ireland has not commissioned a major new acute hospital for 19 years and Health Minister Simon Harris admitted that is something the Government and Department of Health must urgently review.

Mr Harris also confirmed that, for the first time, Ireland is to undertake a strategic long-term health study to determine future hospital bed needs, funding models and staffing targets.

Cork is now to campaign for a new 350m hospital to fulfil a strategic development plan unveiled more than 50 years ago.

Campaigners warned that pressure on Cork University Hospital (CUH), the emergency referral hospital for the entire south, is now at acute levels.

Cork has also seen six hospitals either closed or downgraded since 1970. Two proposals are now under consideration - a massive upgrade of the Mercy University Hospital's existing facilities or a new greenfield development of MUH.

The upgrade proposal will involve an increase in bed capacity by 45pc from 332 to 484. An alternative plan is to abandon its historic city centre base for a new greenfield site.
On the day that the hospital waiting list scandal emerged members of the HSE communications team went on an overnight team building trip in Kildare.

On February 6, it was revealed the number of patients waiting for medical procedures was much higher than those on official lists.

Some 49,000 were found to be on separate lists, not released by the National Treatment Purchase Fund. The figures had increased by January, meaning in total 632,185 public patients were on some form of waiting list for hospital care.

But on the same day as the RTE Investigates expose 'Living on the List' aired, the HSE communications team was at the Barretstown campus, in Naas, Co Kildare. Members were attending a two-day event, including a "delicious" two-course meal and outdoor exercise.

According to an itinerary for the trip, obtained by the Irish Independent, the communications team was greeted by a welcome address from HSE director general Tony O'Brien at 10.30am in the main dining hall. This was followed by a 'welcome activity', listed as indoor.

Outdoor activities were also lined up for the following day at 9am. In a note sent to the official attendees, they were advised to bring appropriate clothing.

"Please bring warm clothing (remember the snow!) and runners for outdoor exercise - this will be a fun exercise and not physically challenging," they were told. "We have a number of team building exercises planned - some will consist of four teams, others three teams."

The communications team was also told about the dinner arrangements for the first night of the trip.

"You may want to bring a change of clothes for our meal out in Ballymore on Monday night," the note said. "There will be a two-course menu to choose from which promises to be delicious."

According to the itinerary, the meal was at the Ballymore Inn. A set two-course dinner at the restaurant would cost 31.95, with main course choices including beef stir fry with black bean sauce and Duncannon salmon with crispy courgettes, butter sauce and smoky relish. It is understood the HSE told attendees that if they went for dinner, the HSE would not pay for any alcohol.

In a statement the HSE said: "In relation to the RTE Investigates programme, the training taking place in Barretstown did not in any way impact on the HSE's response to the programme. Some staff were in Dublin on both Monday and Tuesday as part of our response to the programme.

"Furthermore, the press office continued to run during the two days with staff working remotely from Barretstown to ensure that it was 'business as usual' in dealing with the many media queries we received relating the programme.

"You will note that we had spokespeople on radio and television on Monday in response to the programme.

"The HSE deeply regrets, and has apologised for, those waiting unacceptable times for hospital treatment."
Vera Twomey and her daughter Ava (7), who has been taking cannabis oil Photo: David Conachy

A Cork mother who has led the campaign for access to medicinal cannabis said it has transformed the health of her daughter who used to suffer 20 epileptic seizures a day.

Vera Twomey's daughter Ava (7) is now thriving and has seen a 90pc drop in seizures since she started taking cannabis oil, which she buys in a herbal store in Dublin.

Responding to the pledge by Health Minister Simon Harris to bring in legislation to allow it be used by patients with certain conditions, including the kind of epilepsy suffered by Ava, she said it had the potential to bring relief from debilitating symptoms blighting people's lives due to illness.

"It is a big step forward and I hope it can be extended to people with other illnesses over time as well," she said.

She urged the minister to push through the legislation and regulations on foot of the expert report which gave it the go-ahead despite the limitations they faced in relation to scientific data.

Ava suffers from Dravet Syndrome which involves intractable epilepsy that cannot be controlled by normal medications.

With this syndrome, a sufferer can initially have their seizures treated by normal epilepsy medicines.

However, over a short period of time, the seizures become immune to the medications and increase both in their frequency and severity.

Vera said she was particularly heartened by a report on Ava by her school, which said she had progressed dramatically in recent months.

This coincided with her taking the cannabis oil which had improved her sleep and appetite, said Vera.

It means she has not been missing school as her overall health has improved.

Some of the very powerful prescribed medication put her in a coma, leaving her family desperate for some other treatment.

Ava continues to suffer some seizures and her condition must remain monitored, Vera added.
Patients lying on trollies in the corridors. Overworked nurses. Spiralling waiting lists. Rising stress levels and frustration.

Up until recently, the health system in New Zealand was in the same boat as Ireland, remembers Lynn Everett from Co Offaly, living in Auckland for the past 20 years and a clinical charge nurse at Auckland City Hospital.

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Everything changed in 2009 when they "threw money at it" and authorities brought in new standards modelled on the UK's ideal NHS guidelines whereby no patient should be waiting longer than six hours for treatment.

It worked - helped largely by the opening of admission and planning units which handle all patients admitted for short stays to treat ailments such as cellulitis, asthma attacks and pneumonia.

"Ireland needs some of these units to take the pressure off," said Ms Everett.

With a similar population to Ireland size-wise, she admits she constantly wonders why, instead of trying to 'reinvent the wheel', the Irish authorities don't take a look at what's happening down under.

"It's very nurse driven here. Doctors do as they're told and they involve us in everything. You feel very involved and very needed. You put out your hand and you have the equipment you need," she said.

"I'll never come home. It's a much better quality of life here. I enjoy my job."

Her experience is a world away from the daily life of a 31-year-old Donegal nurse working in one of Dublin's busiest teaching hospitals and who doesn't wish to be named. Some days, she admits, she feels the stress rising the moment she walks in the door of the hospital and sees "all the people lying around".

"It's absolutely heartbreaking to see the suffering. Where I work, I see patients suffering all the time. It's so hard and so demoralising," she said.

She went into nursing because her father was severely ill when she was six years old and the experience stayed with her.

"I wanted to help people," she said. "And I still love my job but it's getting harder and harder."

Even walking out the door at the end of a harrowing shift is tough because she feels she is leaving her colleagues "in the lurch".

"You've a heavy heart leaving because you know they're going to have a rough night."

Can she see herself doing the same job into her 50s or 60s if nothing changes?

"Janey Mac, no way," she laughed.

Filipino nurse Maria Hernandez (42) arrived in Ireland during the boom and liked it here. She found the Irish people friendly and life was good - but things have drastically deteriorated.

"It's quite sad," she said.

On one particular day, she found herself simultaneously feeding 12 patients. "Yes it's a choking hazard but patients have to be fed," she said.

Ms Hernandez says she enjoys nursing - or would do if she was allowed to do it correctly, rather than being forced to take care of 10 patients when she should be nursing six or "maximum eight" patients.

Many of her peers who arrived at the same time as she did have left long ago for better lives in America.

Ms Hernandez thinks she will have to go too if the industrial action doesn't bring about the change urgently needed.

"My patients make me happy - but this is when we're not pressured. Normally, we can't even have a proper conversation unless it's the middle of the night."
President Michael D Higgins has said border closures and rhetoric on issues such as climate change is concerning but would not be drawn to comment directly on Donald Trump.

US President Trump has made attempts to close US borders to migrants from a number of countries in recent weeks, while his views on climate change have also raised serious concern.

Speaking to journalists in Lima last night after he received Perus highest honour - the Gran Collar - President Higgins referred to the recent flooding in Peru and recent climate change meetings he has attended where "no one contests the science that we have real problems".

The President also reiterated that the United States is a country built on migrants in reference to the recent border closures by Donald Trump.

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Its entirely up to the people of the United States to elect their President and their President to have views, but equally it is only responsible for others to take account of what is being said. For example there are contrasts between some of the recent rhetoric and what we know, President Higgins said.

Remember, you are interviewing me in a country that has a problem with floods, no one denies that. So therefore you must naturally be concerned if someone suggests that the science is now contestable.

Equally you must be concerned if someone suggests that migration in itself is something that must be resisted by closing borders, he added.
President Michael D Higgins was given the red carpet treatment at Peru's Presidential Palace, as he was awarded the country's top honour - the 'Gran Collar' of the Order of the Sun.

In searing temperatures in old town Lima, the uniformed Presidential Guard stood in unison to perform renditions of Amhran na bhFiann and the Peruvian national anthem, as both nations looked to build a new political relationship.

The president was presented with the award for his promotion of peace, human rights and democracy, while also taking into account the friendship of the two States.

Within the Palace, President Higgins was brought to the bust of liberator Bernardo O'Higgins by Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. The bust of Sligo descendant O'Higgins was located mere yards from Jose de San Martin - founder of the freedom of Peru, indicating the esteem he was held in.

In return for the impressive welcome, the multilingual president was also capable of delivering his speech in three languages - Spanish, Irish and English. He thanked the Peruvians for their warm welcome and hailed a new friendship between both countries.

"It is with the greatest pleasure that Peru is to open an embassy in Ireland. The embassy in Dublin provides us with an opportunity for holding meetings," President Higgins said. "There are so many areas of cooperation that could be of benefit to Ireland and Peru."

The speech followed some more serious business as UCC President Michael Murphy signed a scholarship agreement with the Peruvian Ministry of Education, and Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar signed a Memorandum of Understanding on political consultations between both countries.

New Peruvian Ambassador to Ireland, Claudio Julio De La Puente, told the Irish Independent Ireland is looking at other trade avenues in Latin America.

"I think Brexit means there is a need for Ireland to look in other directions, in Latin America and the visit of President Higgins is a clear sign of a deepening interest," he said. "We can work together to promote new avenues of trade."
The 5km run will be held in DCU

Health experts SpunOut are hosting a special 5km run on Valentine's day to help promote students to live happy, healthy and active lives.

The 5km run and walk will be held at Dublin City University on February 13 at 6pm to help raise funds for SpunOut.

The fundraiser encourages both couples and singles to participate in the 5km challenge, where there will be Valentines themed giveaway and low-hanging lights.

To register to run visit Eventgen.ie. The minimum price is 5.82 or a suggested price of 11.15.

SpunOut.ie is Ireland's leading youth information website, for young people by young people. Reaching 90,000 users every month, they empower young people with information they need to live happy, healthy and active lives.

Your fundraising efforts will allow SpunOut.ie reach more young people through its online content. It could help to run outreach programmes around health topics, run youth leadership programmes and health promotion campaigns.
January 2006: Sergeant Maurice McCabe made a complaint about a colleague which led to the officer being disciplined.

December 2006

The girl made a complaint about Sgt McCabe. In the complaint she alleged he had tickled and behaved inappropriately towards her while she played hide and seek with his children a decade earlier.

A file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions in which gardai said there was no ground for prosecution.

January 2012

Sgt McCabe became a whistleblower alleging Garda misconduct.

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Later in 2012 more allegations surface including that a number of well-known individuals had their penalty points wiped.

August 2013

The fallout from Sgt McCabe's case was again dominating news headlines but in the background rumours about the garda had surfaced.

During this time, a counsellor notified Tusla that a client had disclosed to her that she had been sexually abused in childhood. The client was mistakenly stated to be the same woman who had made the previous allegation in 2006.

May 2014

The counsellor contacted Tusla to say she had made an administrative error which meant the allegation was "pasted in error".

December 2015

A child protection social worker wrote to Maurice McCabe informing him an investigation was taking place into allegations he had sexually abused a child, allegedly involving digital penetration. This was the first time the garda had heard about the allegation.

June 2016

A social worker from Tusla said the agency was obliged to investigate the allegations - but said a mistake had been made in previous correspondence.

"I can confirm to you that no allegation of digital penetration has been made in relation to your client," the social worker said. Sgt McCabe requested of Tusla all copies of records made on him and his family be released to him.

January 18

Children's Minister Katherine Zappone's private secretary phones Maurice McCabe's wife on foot of inquiries she made to the Department of Health.

January 25

Ms Zappone meets with Sgt McCabe and his wife.

January 27

Department of Children officials meet Tusla and a review of the case is initiated.

February 7

Cabinet set up Commission of Investigation into an alleged smear campaign against Sgt McCabe.

February 8

Brendan Howlin alleges Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan was directly involved in a smear campaign - but the Government continues to stand by her.

February 9

Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald says she was unaware of any Tusla link.

February 10

Ms Zappone says she informed "relevant Government colleagues" about the Tusla error. However, Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald later denied having any knowledge of the Tusla case before it was reported in the media.
Socialite Tamara Ecclestone has hit out at the "hatred" of "bitter people" after she was criticised for posting photos on social media of herself breastfeeding her daughter.

The heiress sparked comment after she shared the photograph of herself sitting on a plush sofa, in luxurious surroundings, nursing her daughter, who turns three next month.

Many of her fans called the image, by fine art photographer Ivette Ivens, "stunning" and said that they had breastfed their own children until they were older than Ecclestone's daughter, Sophia.

But the 32-year-old said she could not believe how much "hatred" she had ignited as she shared another image on Instagram of herself wearing a flowing gown while breastfeeding her daughter, who looks towards the camera.

The daughter of billionaire Bernie Ecclestone wrote: "Find it a very sad and surprising sign of the times and the world we live in that the act of breastfeeding your child evokes such hatred in so many bitter people.

"I am astonished that breastfeeding mums get such a hard time as there is no reason why we should.

"I would never ask someone 'when they will take away their toddler's bottle or follow on formula or cow's milk or dummy or comforter' nor do I judge those who choose to formula feed their children or give them cow's milk.

"I support and empower all mums and I personally believe hatred is so heavy and bad for the soul.

Thank you @ivetteivens for capturing this beautiful moment this is by far my favourite photograph but mainly thank you for spreading this message. Breastfeeding is a powerful demonstration of love and nurturing yet it has become so normal to hide. I want to take that normal and toss it. A photo posted by Tamara Ecclestone Rutland (@tamaraecclestoneofficial) on Feb 8, 2017 at 9:54am PST

"I hope by the time Fifi is a mumma people who have chosen to be open about their breast feeding journey will mean that seeing a picture of a mum feeding their child won't evoke any reaction and that it is seen only for what it is, a mum doing her best."

She added: "To me there is nothing but love in this photograph and I find is such a shame that it brings out anger in some of you.

"It's sad for you that that's how you choose to live particularly those that have made comments trying to sexualise breastfeeding are particularly unwell.

"I chose love. I want my daughter to grow up in a better world where this is nothing but normal in a better world."

Ecclestone recently suggested that she could continue to breastfeed Sophia, her daughter with former City trader Jay Rutland, until she is four years old.

S he told Fabulous magazine in October: "When there are people walking around the streets these days in thongs and bras, I'm like: 'Really? Can anyone say anything?'. I find it bizarre what people's priorities are."

Meanwhile photographer Ivens also shared a black and white image on her own Instagram page of Ecclestone breastfeeding her daughter, writing: "W hen I see hatery (sic) towards the second most miraculous thing in the world after having a human growing inside you - I can't keep quiet.

"This child is loved. And no, that does not mean other children are not loved because their mothers chose not to nurse.

"It simply means that there are many ways to express love, and let me just say - Tamara Ecclestone has them all figured out. I have never seen such a strong bond in a family.

"The support she has from hubby Jay Rutland and how devoted she is in her motherhood journey is truly inspiring."
Have you played by the rules with Ryanair's second cabin bag? Or are you ruining the free ride for everybody else?

Threats to ban that free second cabin bag are growing.

They come as increasing numbers of passengers are abusing the policy, Robin Kiely, Ryanair's Head of Communications, told Independent.ie Travel.

"We're seeing rucksacks, people with two wheelie cases, and it's slowing down the boarding process in some cases. Cabin crew are also having to move bags around the aircraft so that everything fits in."

The free second cabin bag has been one of the most popular changes introduced under Ryanair's Always Getting Better programme, Kiely says, but it is getting to the point where the airline is looking at reviewing the policy.

"We don't want to [ban the bag]... but if you abuse it you lose it".

Ryanair aims to turn its planes around in 25 minutes, and each can fit around 90 cabin bags into the overhead bins, Kiely says.

As it stands, passengers are permitted to take one free cabin bag weighing up to 10kg and measuring a maximum of 55 x 40 x 20cm on board, along with a second "small" bag - such as a laptop or handbag - designed to fit under seats.

Expand Close Frankfurt-Hahn Airport. Passengers board a Ryanair passenger plane. Photo by Ulrich Baumgarrten via Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Frankfurt-Hahn Airport. Passengers board a Ryanair passenger plane. Photo by Ulrich Baumgarrten via Getty Images

The second bag policy has been a victim of its own success in some regards, however, leading to delays as passengers play loose with the rules.

It's one of the reasons, along with adverse weather, Air Traffic Controller strikes and slot delays, that the airline's punctuality rates have fallen from 90pc to 88pc in recent months - although those figures are still industry-leading.

"We are looking at new initiatives to address this problem," Ryanair has said, "including a review of our service policies such as the two free carry-on bags which are the cause of increasing boarding gate delays."

In separate interviews recently, Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary has said "far too many passengers are turning up with half the contents of their homes", while the airline's Chief Financial Officer, Neil Sorohan, told The Independent this week that the airline was becoming "victims of our own niceness".

"People aren't playing by the rules," he said. "We're seeing very large bags coming onboard, which is leading to delays at the gate, and indeed on the aricraft."

Second bag policies vary from airline to airline, with Aer Lingus, Norwegian and Ryanair all currently permitting an extra personal bag for free.

WOW air, however, allows one small personal item up to 42 x 32 x 25cm which "must fit under the seat in front of you", but charges for regular carry-on bags - with online rates starting from 16.99 for short flights.

In a separate announcement, Ryanair this week launched a new European multi-trip annual travel insurance product for sale on its website.

Launched in partnership with Europ Assistance, it follows the addition of car hire, accommodation and package holiday services ( since suspended) that the airline says will ultimately help it to become the Amazon of travel.

One day, Michael O'Leary has said, you could even fly for free.

Read more:
This time last year, only a few of us were suggesting that Brexit was likely. The mainstream view was that it couldn't possibly happen. But it did. And so too did Trump. When this column argued in June that "we should prepare for President Trump", one or two local talk shows chuckled and sneered at the mere suggestion that such a creature could inhabit the White House. But he is there.

In December, the Italian electorate revolted against its government - again the view of 'sensible' people was that bolshie Italians would see reason. But they didn't.

Back home, this time last year, it was widely considered Fine Gael had done enough to return more muscularly to power. Instead, badly mauled, Fine Gael limped over the line, propped up by Independents.

Are all these phenomena in very different countries - miles away from each other with profoundly different electoral systems and deeply contrasting social models - in any way related?

Do ideas - as much as people, goods and capital - move freely across borders? Does the election of a new leader with radical views in one country embolden the electorate in another country? Does the rise of a different sort of politician in one country give the electorate of another country the 'permission' to vote for a radical politician even if conditions on the ground or solutions offered are not quite the same?

The next stop on this political whirlwind will be the Netherlands next month; and the big one, of course, is France. In less than 70 days, France goes to the polls and only an idiot would rule out Marine Le Pen's chances.

It was the great French romantic poet and novelist Victor Hugo who declared: "You can resist an invading army; you cannot resist an idea whose time has come."

Do you get the feeling that we are living through epochal change, where one great idea is about to be replaced by another? Are we experiencing the irresistible force of an idea whose time has come?

The big idea whose time has come is nationalism and a desire to insulate a population that is threatened by globalisation. The big idea is not fixed or immutable, but rather is a scorecard of legitimate grievances that working people feel. This means immigration to some, job insecurity to others. It means cultural dilution to some and capacity pressure on the welfare state to others. It means a fall in living standards to some and a rise in inequality to others. Although it's unlikely to be a universal panacea, electorates are looking for the state to protect them from these forces, which are generally being blamed on globalisation.

People want to be protected by a strong sovereign state from the threats that they feel are now ubiquitous, so protectionism replaces free trade, localism replaces globalism, borders replace openness, and nationalism and the heartland replace multinational and one-world solutions.

Ms Le Pen represents the alternative and she is a powerful political force, articulate, reasonable and highly electable. She wants France to leave the euro the day after she gets elected, she wants to tell the EU Commission to back off and she wants to kick-start French industry by allowing the French government to explicitly buy French manufacturing goods and to subsidise French industry. Both EU competition law and EU state-aid provisions prohibit such policies.

For Ms Le Pen, it is up to the EU to change, not France.

For Ireland, the most immediate consequence of a Le Pen victory would be the euro. She believes - and rightly so - that the euro has been a disaster for France and a boon for Germany. If she sticks to her commitment to print French Francs, the euro is over. The euro without France is not the euro because it ceases even to satisfy the basic pretence that it is a pan-European currency. Without France, there is no political point to the euro because remember, the currency was conceived as the monetary facilitator of political integration.

A decade ago, the elites of southern European countries calculated that if the prize was European political integration (the big idea at the time), that the price of German economic and monetary domination would have been worth it. If France now heads off on a nationalistic path, the whole EU integration plan is in tatters. Remember, this could all come to pass before June.

What happens then?

The first thing to happen in the case of a Le Pen victory is that money will flood out of all non-German members of the euro. Italy will face a massive bond crisis, presaging default fears. Greece will be gone. Spain and Portugal will experience similar bond crises, and so too will Ireland.

The reason for this is that a bond is a 10- or 20-year IOU. For Ireland, the bond states that the Irish State will pay the investor back a certain amount in euro. But if the euro itself is breaking up from the centre, why would anyone bet on an English-speaking periphery country where ties to the UK and the US - two countries where the administrations are implacably opposed to the EU - are extremely strong?

The ECB will try to keep the entire enterprise together by buying all the bonds that scared investors are dumping. But liquidity in the non-German eurozone will dry up. There will be a run, not on the banks, but on the remaining countries of the euro. This flight of capital will be most violent in southern Europe, but it will be dramatic here too. In this case, there are two options.

The first is a lurch towards a deeper political union in the remaining euro countries around Germany. This will be done in an effort to staunch the financial haemorrhaging by stating clearly that Germany will backstop a smaller European Union of countries like the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria, without France.

Is Anglo/American Atlantic Ireland a likely candidate for that Teutonic League? Not really. And anyway, why would Germany bother with this when, after all, it is really interested in a single market of 350 million to sell its goods. German voters didn't abandon the Deutsche Mark for the promise of some shrunken political union. Meanwhile, the Latin countries will protest their faith in the euro, but no one will believe them or at least no one will risk money and bet on them remaining within the euro.

The second option is that central banks get busy printing new currencies, just in case. With France already out of the euro and Britain out of the EU, the question would be, who's next? What do we do in this case? Well, we'd certainly need to have new Punts printed.

You may think this scenario fanciful. I wish it was and ultimately it will be if Ms Le Pen doesn't win.

But look at the odds. Today, Paddy Power is offering 9/4 on Ms Le Pen. Neither Brexit nor Donald Trump had such short odds this far out from polling day.

Granted, it might not happen, but it could easily. Ireland's monetary future and our financial security is now down to the whims of angry French voters. Surely we should be prepared or have a plan, don't you think?

Maybe we should start by letting them win at the Aviva in two weeks' time.
A couple of weeks back Taoiseach Enda Kenny allowed two media cycles to go by before he clarified his position on going into government with Sinn Fein.

The Taoiseach had dropped the ball by opening the door to Sinn Fein in light of its change of position on not having to be the majority party in an administration.

After a backlash within his own party, Mr Kenny eventually issued an embarrassing apology. Why it took so long can be put down to a combination of naivety and belligerence. Everybody else, bar the Taoiseach and his handlers, could see the matter could have been cleaned up a lot sooner.

Besides, it was largely a political process story from within the Leinster House bubble with little impact on the daily lives of ordinary people.

Damaging to the Taoiseach: yes. Life or death: no.

The latest controversy besetting the Coalition Government is vastly more serious and won't be cleared away by any one statement.

The false allegations of sexual abuse against Garda whistleblower, Sergeant Maurice McCabe, are of the utmost gravity. Tusla, the child and family agency, has issued a written apology to Sgt McCabe after it emerged the false allegation was blamed on a clerical error.

The contradictory statements being issued by senior Cabinet ministers on their knowledge of this affair does not instil confidence in the Government's handling of this issue or indeed the state of relations and communications within the Government.

The Taoiseach and Tanaiste say they were informed by Children's Minister Katherine Zappone that she intended to meet Sgt McCabe, but she did not inform them about details of the discussions.

A spokesperson for the Children's Minister says she informed "relevant Government colleagues" of the circumstances of the case involving Sgt McCabe and Tusla since she first heard about it last month.

Ms Zappone became aware of the circumstances when Sgt McCabe's wife, Lorraine, contacted the Office of the Minister for Health in January.

Now questions are arising over how much the Cabinet knew about the false allegation, especially as it discussed the terms of reference for the Charleton Commission of Investigation into a smear campaign against Sgt McCabe.

The vague nature of Ms Zappone's statement means further clarity is required. There is a logical explanation that she didn't want to divulge the contents of a confidential conversation about a private and sensitive matter to all her Cabinet colleagues. However, this doesn't excuse not informing the Taoiseach and Tanaiste.

This failure points to a dysfunction within the operation of Government and relations between ministers.

The furore over the false sex abuse accusations against Sgt McCabe ought not distract from the central tenet of the Commission of Investigation; the accusation that senior Garda management ran a dirty tricks campaign against Sgt McCabe.

The force has fundamental questions to answer around the treatment of Sgt McCabe. The response to date implies little has been learned from the entire whistleblower affair, and the cultural change required within the organisation is still a long way off.
The seaside village of Blackrock is getting a new shop, The Crafty Rock, which will appeal to local crafters and visitors alike.

The shop is the brainwave of local woman Brenda Leary and Drogheda resident Rita Alves who got to know each other through a shared interest in crafting.

Brenda, who has been President of the local ICA guild for the last three years, and Rita came up with the idea of the shop after they had both attended markets and craft events.

'We have both been crafting for a while and had our own small businesses,' explains Brenda. 'Rita has Craft Opki, which stocks craft supplies and materials from her native Portugal and other European countries, while I set up Scrumbly Creations which makes crochet and patchwork bags last year.'

The two ladies, who have sold their work in local markets, met up in Belles Tearooms to discuss their plans to set up shop together. And as luck would have it, the premises next door to where they were having coffee would become the location for their venture.

'Rita's husband Gerry Bailey grew up in Blackrock so she knows the village well,' says Brenda,

'I knew that the premises next door to Belles was vacant as 'After Sybil' was moving, so we approached Conor Hughes and told him about our idea,' recalls Brenda. 'He had a number of offers but he liked our idea as he thought it would be something good for the village,'

They are now putting the final touches on The Crafty Rock, which opens its doors on Saturday morning at 11am.

'We wanted to give the shop a warm cosy appearance,' says Brenda. 'We are getting lots of help from local people who have given us furniture to up cycle and are helping us with the painting and decorating.'

'We will have work by various local crafters on display in the front part and will also be selling a wide range craft materials and supplies.'

'The Crafty Rock' will be stocking Garnstudio DROPS wool from Norway, die cuts and materials from Drogheda-based Crafty Cutting, as well as lots of craft essentials including buttons, beads, threads, jewellery findings, handbag clasps and handles and much, much more.

'We are planning to run workshops and classes in the back room,' says Brenda, adding that there has been a lot of interest in the shop from local crafters.

They will also host 'Happy Hookers' and 'Nit and Natter' groups for crocheters and knitters during the week and to hold workshops on a regular basis.

'Having both worked markets and craft collectives we are familiar with the factors which can influence the crafter in the selling of their products,' she continues. 'An obvious one is to do with foot fall. The Crafty Rock is lucky to have one of the best locations in Blackrock, beside two well established businesses who have regular customers.'

The village of Blackrock has long been a destination for tourists to the north east, and Brenda says they are lucky to have such a stunning location, with beautiful views from the shop.

'We feel we are bringing something positive to the village and we have got great support from the local community and Tidy Towns Committee,' says Brenda.

Brenda and Rita will be welcomning customers to their shop with coffee and cake on Saturday morning from 11am.

The Crafty Rock will be open daily from 10am to 5pm, including Sundays, with later opening during the summer.
A woman who spat at a Garda sergeant during a public order incident in Dundalk has been given a suspended sentence.

Tara Bird, (27), 100 Castle Ross, admitted offences arising out of the incident at Bridge Street, shortly before 5pm on October 18. Gardai were called to the area and Bird was 'shouting and being argumentative towards another person on the street'.

Gardai said she was 'moving in a fanatic manner' and officers tried to calm her down because 'there was a woman with a child in a pram' and Bird 'continued shouting obscenities'.

Gardai said the defendant was drunk and during her arrest, she spat at a sergeant.

She has a number of previous convictions, Judge Flann Brennan was told, including for knife possession, theft and criminal damage. She had previously been placed on probation for nine months.

Solicitor Niall Breen said Bird is a mum of five children and is living on social welfare. He said: 'She's had a very difficult life with prescription medication and street drugs but she is due to go into Cuan Mhuire (treatment centre) shortly'.

Mr Breen added that the defendant is 'very sorry for her actions and for spitting at the Gardai, as well as for the abuse she gave him on the day.

She has been trying to get her life back on track by securing a place at Cuan Mhuire where she will be going in the coming weeks'.

But Judge Brennan said the matters before him were 'serious' and noted that Bird had previously been placed on a probation bond. He imposed sentences totalling nine months, but suspended them for nine months.

He said: 'She is due to go into Cuan Mhuire, but if she gets into trouble in the next nine months, she will serve that sentence'.
One of the men behind a new blog on Brexit believes that the full impact of the British decision will have profound and lasting effects on Dundalk.

In an interview with the Argus, former financial journalist, Seamus Murphy, said it is the aim of his colleague, former UTV presenter and MLA, Ferghal McKinney, and him, to bring proper and independent analysis to the issues around the Brexit decision.

Mr Murphy and Mr McKinney's blog, at brexitborder.com provides insights for businesses and those in the community who feel, at times, overwhelmed, by the various permutations that the British decision to leave the EU will have.

Naturally, the effect of Brexit will be most keenly felt in Dundalk and around the border area and over the last couple of months, Mr Murphy has been speaking to retailers and small business owners on the Southern side of the border to gauge their readiness for what Brexit will bring.

His background in financial journalism - he's a former editor of European Banker - is proving crucial in helping the wider public begin to understand the massive impact that Brexit will have in all our lives.

Mr Murphy and his colleague decided to set up the blog in October as they realised that 'a lot of the information coming out about what will happen when Britain leaves the EU was, quite frankly, rubbish'.

And while other journalists provided the bare reportage of what was happening, there was very little analysis of the facts presented.

He said: 'No-one wants a hard border, but sometimes you get things you don't want', Mr Murphy said. 'There are borders for people and there are borders for goods and there is a big difference.

'Dublin and London can make an agreement over the border for people, but the movement of goods is a very different thing.

'If the UK is out of the Customs Union and the Single Market, the sort of border that will exist will be decided by Brussels and thinking it will be any other way is wishful thinking'.

Mr Murphy pointed to the fact that a massive 54% of the cross border trade done in Ireland every year is in the agri-food sector, an area which will attract tariffs when Britain leaves. Those tariffs, he warns, range between 42% and 67%.

There will be 'massive disruption' caused by the imposition of tariffs in this sector in particular.

Added to this is the alarming statistic, from InterTrade Ireland, which shows that 97% of businesses have no Brexit plan.

A number of government agencies are responding to the uncertainty created by Brexit, particularly Bord Bia and the Ecomonic Social Research Institute (ESRI), but far more analysis needs to be done and it is because of this need the brexitborder blog was set up.

There are other little-thought-about consequences of Brexit mentioned by Mr Murphy including the problems that UK headquartered supermarkets like Tesco and Marks and Spencer will face when they have to break up their British-based supply chains to cover their Irish market.

Already, the blog has attracted the interest of the Chambers of Commerce Ireland organisation who have funded a research project where Mr Murphy is travelling around the border areas, from Dundalk to Letterkenny, speaking to small companies and retailers about Brexit and how they view it, what they need to happen.

Already, he is about halfway through. 'The common theme is uncertainty', he said. 'There's a lot of uncertainty about the effect it's going to have on business.

'The other thing that border businesspeople are saying to me is that they are putting off investment plans until things are clearer.

'The Brexit impact has already been felt in the border areas, with firms reporting a drop of between 5% and 12% in turnover from July to December last year'.

Currency fluctuation of around 18% has also buffeted businesses here, while retailers believe that the euro being worth 85 cents is the 'trigger for consumers' to head North.

Mr Murphy said that despite the many difficulties presented to retailers in Dundalk in the second half of last year, many had a better than expected Christmas.

This was, he believes, down to a combination of factors, including Dundalk Chamber of Commerce's Shop Local voucher scheme, but also the fact that the town has been learning lessons from the recession and putting value for money and improved shopping experience, including in the town centre, to the fore.

Mr Murphy said: 'Dundalk has been working at this for five years'.

Mr Murphy would like to hear from anyone interested in Brexit and its effects. As for a time-line from Brexit theory to Brexit reality, it could be ten years, he says.

The blog is at brexitborder.com and the email address is seamus@brexitborder.com.

One of the men behind a new blog on Brexit believes that the full impact of the British decision will have profound and lasting effects on Dundalk.

In an interview with the Argus, former financial journalist, Seamus Murphy, said it is the aim of his colleague, former UTV presenter and MLA, Ferghal McKinney, and him, to bring proper and independent analysis to the issues around the Brexit decision.

Mr Murphy and Mr McKinney's blog, at brexitborder.com provides insights for businesses and those in the community who feel, at times, overwhelmed, by the various permutations that the British decision to leave the EU will have.

Naturally, the effect of Brexit will be most keenly felt in Dundalk and around the border area and over the last couple of months, Mr Murphy has been speaking to retailers and small business owners on the Southern side of the border to gauge their readiness for what Brexit will bring.

His background in financial journalism - he's a former editor of European Banker - is proving crucial in helping the wider public begin to understand the massive impact that Brexit will have in all our lives.

Mr Murphy and his colleague decided to set up the blog in October as they realised that 'a lot of the information coming out about what will happen when Britain leaves the EU was, quite frankly, rubbish'.

And while other journalists provided the bare reportage of what was happening, there was very little analysis of the facts presented.

He said: 'No-one wants a hard border, but sometimes you get things you don't want', Mr Murphy said. 'There are borders for people and there are borders for goods and there is a big difference.

'Dublin and London can make an agreement over the border for people, but the movement of goods is a very different thing.

'If the UK is out of the Customs Union and the Single Market, the sort of border that will exist will be decided by Brussels and thinking it will be any other way is wishful thinking'.

Mr Murphy pointed to the fact that a massive 54% of the cross border trade done in Ireland every year is in the agri-food sector, an area which will attract tariffs when Britain leaves. Those tariffs, he warns, range between 42% and 67%.

There will be 'massive disruption' caused by the imposition of tariffs in this sector in particular.

Added to this is the alarming statistic, from InterTrade Ireland, which shows that 97% of businesses have no Brexit plan.

A number of government agencies are responding to the uncertainty created by Brexit, particularly Bord Bia and the Ecomonic Social Research Institute (ESRI), but far more analysis needs to be done and it is because of this need the brexitborder blog was set up.

There are other little-thought-about consequences of Brexit mentioned by Mr Murphy including the problems that UK headquartered supermarkets like Tesco and Marks and Spencer will face when they have to break up their British-based supply chains to cover their Irish market.

Already, the blog has attracted the interest of the Chambers of Commerce Ireland organisation who have funded a research project where Mr Murphy is travelling around the border areas, from Dundalk to Letterkenny, speaking to small companies and retailers about Brexit and how they view it, what they need to happen.

Already, he is about halfway through. 'The common theme is uncertainty', he said. 'There's a lot of uncertainty about the effect it's going to have on business.

'The other thing that border businesspeople are saying to me is that they are putting off investment plans until things are clearer.

'The Brexit impact has already been felt in the border areas, with firms reporting a drop of between 5% and 12% in turnover from July to December last year'.

Currency fluctuation of around 18% has also buffeted businesses here, while retailers believe that the euro being worth 85 cents is the 'trigger for consumers' to head North.

Mr Murphy said that despite the many difficulties presented to retailers in Dundalk in the second half of last year, many had a better than expected Christmas.

This was, he believes, down to a combination of factors, including Dundalk Chamber of Commerce's Shop Local voucher scheme, but also the fact that the town has been learning lessons from the recession and putting value for money and improved shopping experience, including in the town centre, to the fore.

Mr Murphy said: 'Dundalk has been working at this for five years'.

Mr Murphy would like to hear from anyone interested in Brexit and its effects. As for a time-line from Brexit theory to Brexit reality, it could be ten years, he says.

The blog is at brexitborder.com and the email address is seamus@brexitborder.com.
Thomas 'Slab' Murphy has withdrawn an appeal against his 18 month prison sentence for tax evasion and the judges who refused it have outlined their reasons for not granting the appeal.

The 67-year-old, whose farm at Ballybinaby, Hackballscross, straddles the border, had pleaded not guilty at the non-jury Special Criminal Court to nine charges of failing to comply with tax laws for the years 1996/97 to 2004.

The three-judge Special Criminal Court found Murphy guilty on all counts and he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment on February 26 last.

In an unsuccessful appeal against conviction, Murphy's lawyers told the Court of Appeal that their client had 'nothing to do with cattle farming' and that the authorities 'went after' Thomas Murphy for tax his brother, Patrick, had already paid. On Monday last, his conviction appeal was dismissed on all grounds.

After his appeal was dismissed, Murphy's barrister, Tony McGillicuddy BL, asked the court for time to allow instructions be taken to see whether an appeal against sentence was being pursued.

Mr McGillicuddy told the court that Murphy's appeal against sentence 'is being withdrawn'.

Mr Justice George Birmingham thanked Mr McGillicuddy for the 'clarification'. Murphy was not in court for the matter.

In a 94 page judgment dismissing Murphy's conviction appeal on all grounds, President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice Sean Ryan said the written submissions in the appeal were 'daunting' extending to over 350 pages.

He said some of Murphy's 53 grounds of appeal were general and 'repetitious'.

Mr Justice Ryan said the appeal was not a 'reconsideration of the entire trial'.

Rather, the Court of Appeal approached the case on the basis of asking whether the Special Criminal Court was entitled to come to the conclusions it did and find Murphy guilty.

Whether the defence established reasonable doubt generally or on any of the elements that the prosecution relied on; and whether the judgment of the Special Criminal Court was a satisfactory one which complied with obligations to explain its reasoning.

Mr Justice Ryan said the evidence included a herd number registered to Murphy; evidence from a vet of Murphy's involvement in cattle farming; Evidence that a farmer rented land to Murphy 'for cattle farming'; sales and purchases of cattle in relation to the herd; a bank account in Thomas Murphy's name; payment orders by the Paymaster General in respect of the herd made payable to Thomas Murphy lodged into the Thomas Murphy bank account; evidence from an accountant in the Criminal Assets Bureau in respect of books and records showing Thomas Murphy's involvement in a farming business and evidence from an Inspector of Taxes that Murphy was a chargeable person and that he had not made returns.

The prosecution submitted that the case was a 'straightforward one', Mr Justice Ryan said, that it was not disputed that a substantial cattle trade was carried out in the name of Thomas Murphy; that monies generated from that trade went into a bank account in Murphy's name and that a pension policy 'personally incepted by him' was funded from that bank account.

Ultimately the case came down to whether or not the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Murphy was a chargeable person in respect of that trade, Mr Justice Ryan said.

The defence case was that 'forgery was afoot' - that documents in Thomas Murphy's name were created by others, particularly, his brother, Patrick Murphy.

Counsel for Murphy, John Kearney QC, submitted that the trial court had to have reasonable doubt because of the documentary material they put forward and their 'hypothesis' which placed Patrick Murphy as the 'mastermind behind the entire affair'.

Much of that was based on the evidence of a defence handwriting expert whose evidence in respect of certain documents 'actually tends to confirm the prosecution evidence and the presumptions'. Mr Justice Ryan said.

The defence submissions contained a 'serious misunderstanding' of the effect of his evidence, Mr Justice Ryan said. It was 'mistaken' to say his opinion mandated a finding of reasonable doubt in respect of certain documents.

Taking the hand-writing experts evidence at face value, he established that a number of documents purportedly signed by Thomas Murphy were not signed by him. However, 'that is just was the Special Criminal Court said in its judgement'.

His evidence alone was insufficient to raise a reasonable doubt as to the authenticity of all the documents on which the prosecution relied to make its case. His testimony was restricted to a 'limited number of documents'. It "validated some" and 'expressed neutrality about a large number of others'.

It was worth noting that the defence hand-writing expert was of the opinion that 'on the balance of probabilities' the signature on the application for a herd number was that of Thomas Murphy, Mr Justice Ryan said.

The evidence of the operation of the bank account, as accepted by the Special Criminal Court, was evidence that Thomas Murphy was a chargeable person, Mr Justice Ryan said. The Court noted that the defence hand-writing expert did not give evidence questioning the authenticity of those signatures.

Furthermore, Mr Justice Ryan said there was no basis for contending that the trial court did not give reasons for its verdict.

He said the Special Criminal Court's verdict reflected the 'fundamental simplicity of the issue before the court in regard to the counts on the indictment, the strength of the prosecution case and the essentially hypothetical nature of the defence'.

The particular criticism of the brevity of the court's judgment 'perhaps is that the court did not engage in a detailed analysis of the hand-writing evidence on which the defence based so much of its case'.

However, that evidence, as already mentioned, 'fall far short of undermining the prosecution case'.

Mr Justice Ryan, who sat with Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan and Mr Justice John Edwards, said the court accordingly dismissed the appeal on all grounds.
Oliver McConnon the winning player; Fergus Roche, Head of Technology at the National Lottery and Marty Whelan, Winning Streak game show co-host. The winning ticket was bought from Londis, Castletown Road, Dundalk

One Dundalk street has enjoyed a 'lotto' luck on national gameshow 'Winning Streak' with the third person to take home a prize confirmed last weekend.

Fr. Murray Park has had more than its fair share of success over the years as another local woman also scooped a lotto win.

But it was 42 year old Oliver McConnon's chance to shine on Winning Streak as he won a 15,000 prize.

Oliver, who works as an electronic technician in Xerox in Dundalk bought his winning ticket at the Londis, Castletown Road

Oliver was thrilled with his big win and celebrated with his mother, Kathleen who he lives with in their family home.

He has two older sisters, Elaine and Fiona and two nephews and a niece.

Oliver is a Dundalk FC and Liverpool fan

He loves to travel especially to the US. He loves the theme parks in Florida and the beaches of the west and east coast.

Asked what he planned to do with the winnings, Oliver said has never been to New York City and would consider going there with his Winning Streak prize. He would also like to take his family away on holiday.

Oliver's whole family were in the audience of Winning Streak studio last weekend with his godparents, Gerard and Ann, his friends and some colleagues from work.
Greystones Toastmasters held an open night in the Glenview Hotel to showcase everything the organisation has to offer.

Four speakers featured on the night, including two long-term Toastmasters members.

A 'Table Topics' session was also held whereby members ability at impromptu speaking was put to the test, with four evaluations taking place as well.

This Thursday, February 9, Greystones Toastmasters will be holding its 'Tall Tales' competition, which starts at 8 p.m. in the Glenview Hotel.

Anyone is allowed to attend Toastmasters meetings for free as a guest of one of the members. Greystones Toastmasters meet on the second and fourth Thursday of each month in the Glenview at 8 p.m.. The club will also host the 'Tall Tales' final on February 23, which will also feature clubs from Wicklow town and Bray.
The Wicklow Fianna Fail constituency unit has officially welcomed Stephen Donnelly, calling the move a 'road to Damascus-like conversion'.

Cathaoirleach of the unit Malachai Duddy assured voters in a statement 'that their social democratic principles are secure with Fianna Fail'.

He said that in the words of former Fianna Fail taoiseach Jack Lynch, 'the soul of Fianna Fail is anti-partition. To be in Fianna Fail you must have a republican outlook in its broadest conception. One must also have a very strong social sense, the desire to represent the broadest political spectrum of the Irish people.'

The party said in their statement that 'Fianna Fail membership demands a complete commitment to the national interest, full subscription to the aims of Fianna Fail, the Republican Party, and dedication to the Fianna Fail electorate. This requires Deputy Donnelly to eschew all ties so that he is in a position to come to Fianna Fail unencumbered politically and with clean hands.'
District Manager Des O'Brien (centre) and District Administrator David Forde (to his right) accept the award from the organisers

'Bray.ie' has won 'Best Connected Community' in the 2017 Community and Council Awards.

The awards recognise and celebrate community and councils working together. The awards which are presented by IPB Insurance and LAMA took place at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Dublin last Saturday.

'It's an honour and privilege to receive this award,' said District Administrator David Forde. 'For Bray.ie to be recognised like this is a true testament to our hard work. It shows that our online community engagement is having a real impact.'The Bray.ie team have worked hard over the past 12 months to produce effective campaigns.

'Our community engagement strategy is a team effort but we would like to thank Paul Carney for his invaluable contribution over the past number of years. It's a testament to his hard work and dedication.

'We look forward to increasing our connections with the local community now and into the future.'

Bray.ie was launched back in 2011. It was part of the Bray Town's Economy Think Tank outputs. BETT (Bray Economic Think Tank) was an economic forum established in 2009. Its aim was to create a sense of local pride, community spirit and to promote Bray as an ideal place to live, work and do business.

Since the new look bray.ie website was launched back in February 2015, it has had over 300,000 visits and close to a million page views.

Bray.ie's total social engagement reach was over 1.53 million for the full year 2016. The 'Best Connected Community' award recognises the community that is connected to councils, businesses and each other, can access services easily and quickly
Cathaoirleach of Wicklow Council and Fianna Fail member Pat Fitzgerald said that while he was surprised to learn of the addition of Stephen Donnelly to the party, he believes it will be a good move for all.

Cllr Fitzgerald said: 'While the arrival of Stephen Donnelly into the Fianna Fail ranks had been the subject of some discussion upon his defection from the Social Democrats, I had no prior knowledge of the move. I was informed by a family member some time before the official announcement. I was slightly surprise I suppose.

'I had thought that if he was to join a new party, it would be directly after leaving the Social Democrats but he must have needed some time to reflect.

He said that as a member of a larger party like Fianna Fail, Deputy Donnelly will have increased administrative support from the party.

'He will have great support from the staff in Dublin and will be kept up to speed on what's happening. He has been appointed as the party spokesperson on Brexit and I have no difficulty with that. In fact, I would think that he will be quite effective in that role. He is a very intelligent and articulate person,' he added.

Cllr Fitzgerald said that while he believes that Deputy Donnelly will 'fit very well into the party' the reaction on the streets has been to the contrary at times.

'The reaction I have got is mixed. Some say that it is a bad step for Stephen Donnelly. Others say that it won't benefit Fianna Fail but I think it is a good move for everyone.

'Plenty of people have jumped ship in this county over the past 50 years and it doesn't make you any worse of a person. If a person feels that they can contribute more by joining a different party, then they are entitled to change.'

'We have a very strong team now in Wicklow with Deputy Pat Casey very active and working hard since his election and the addition of Stephen is most welcome,' he added.
A Bray man was one of two individuals arrested on Monday in connection with alleged investment fraud and money laundering offences. David Peile (40) from Rectory Way in Bray was before Dun Laoghaire District Court yesterday charged in relation to the investigation.

The UK native was accused of deceiving a person to invest over 50,000 (58,000) in Forestry Ireland. Peile was granted bail with the matter adjourned to a date in March. Peile was arrested at his Bray home by gardai from the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB). He is accused of deceiving a Swedish man, Kari Wahlstrom, out of 52,000. The court heard that the complainant alleged that he invested in forestry believing he would own the land and get Government grants.

A second male in his 40s detained at Dun Laoghaire in relation to alleged investment fraud and money laundering offences involving up to 5 million was due to appear before The Criminal Courts of Justice yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon charged in connection with this investigation.
A woman in her 40s was sexually assaulted at Bayview, in the Shankill area, on the evening of Friday, January 30.

The incident occurred at around 5.45 p.m. She managed to fight him off and she hit the man a number of times. The woman suffered minor injuries. A lone male approached the woman and an assault took place.

Gardai in Shankill have set up an incident room at the station.

A number of statements have been taken and numerous lines of inquiry are currently being conducted. CCTV is being examined and gardai are making house-to-house inquiries.

Gardai would like to speak with anyone who was in the area between 5 p.m. and 6.30 p.m., either on foot or in vehicles with dash camera footage.

This comes a year since a number of attacks around Shankill Dart Station and nearby. At the end of December 2015, during January and February 2016, there were four attacks in the area.

It is understood that in this instance, a man who was around six feet tall made his escape up Killiney Hill Road.
Deputy Stephen Donnelly's move to Fianna Fail has attracted attention from the public, even from those for whom politics is a dirty word.

While it's surprising to some and shocking to others, Donnelly has historically made no bones about his opinion that very little can be done to effect change from the independent benches.

The party announced last Thursday that Deputy Donnelly would join their ranks, with a front-bench Brexit position.

The next day, Stephen took to Facebook to make his own announcement on the matter. 'There's been a generally positive reaction in Wicklow but also understandable frustration and surprise,' he said.

He said that the easiest thing would be to stay independent and try to influence things from the margins. 'Given what we're facing, that would be too little, in my view, and so wasn't an option. The best way to have impact is as part of a strong team. So that's what I'm doing.'

He said that the party is a good policy fit, with comparable election manifestos between FF and Social Democrats, the party Deputy Donnelly part-founded and subsequently left.

'Didn't I criticise them at length? I did,' said Deputy Donnelly. 'And I stand by those views. I've equally criticised Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Fein.'

While his now party-colleague, Deputy Pat Casey, has extended a warm welcome to the new arrival, he acknowledges that it will be more difficult to retain a seat.

'It is a challenged that can be achieved if we work together,' said Pat.

The question remains - is there a second seat to be had for Fianna Fail in Wicklow and East Carlow? And if not will it be Donnelly's or Casey's?

Fianna Fail were annihilated nationally in the 2011 election. Dick Roche lost his seat and the party was unrepresented in Wicklow. Pat Casey filled that void last year. With perhaps four years left to another election, can this duo deliver?

In terms of his reasons, Donnelly has staunchly defended his position. 'If the objective was pay or other compensations, I can assure you that I wouldn't be in politics,' he said.

'It's pretty clear from the online feedback that what I've done is make it much harder to get re-elected than had I stayed popular, and largely irrelevant, as an independent.'

He added that he has hurt people he cares about and incurred a deluge of abuse, including from within his home town of Greystones.

'I am acutely aware that what I have done has caused a lot of people hurt, and disappointment, and cynicism, and even betrayal. I am acutely aware that that includes some people who have canvassed for me, and voted for me. It includes people who trusted me to be a voice that would speak truth to power. It includes people who canvassed for me and people who voted for me. It includes people who despise Fianna Fail,' he said.

'You go into politics to help people, to make things better, in whatever way you think better is. And so it's even harder to see that disappointment and anger, when it's coming from the very people you're trying to make things better for, and the very people who've helped and supported you. It's not something you do remotely lightly, and it feels truly awful.

'Sitting on the independent benches has been like being a stretcher bearer in someone else's war. You can see the incoming fire, you can see who it's going to hit, but you can't do anything about it. You just try to help the wounded.'

Cllr Tom Fortune of Greystones Municipal District said that the role of independents is important. 'Don't in making this political career move try and destroy the independent politician to try and justify what you are doing,' he said. 'The politics is evolving, independents are more important than ever. If there are no independents, who is in political terms going to say when it is needed that "the Emperor has no clothes"? The party whip will ensure it will not be you."

Cllr Joe Behan of Bray Municipal District said that the people of Wicklow and East Carlow have been left without an independent voice. 'While I wish Stephen Donnelly well in the future, in the next election, voters will have a clear choice between politicians who must obey the party whips or independents who speak for the people.

'I will be offering a clear independent voice whenever that election comes,' he said, confirming his intention to run again.

While this week may be given over to fielding questions and criticisms, Donnelly appears to be set on getting back to work. Writing in this week's Sunday Independent, he said 'Now, it's on to Brexit - ensuring that the rights of the citizens of Northern Ireland are protected, that our Irish companies are given every possible support, that Ireland's voice is heard clearly in the upcoming negotiations, and much more.'
Cork County Mayor, Cllr Seamus McGrath, will host a coffee morning in the foyer of the County Hall on Friday, February 17.

Cllr McGrath has issued an open invitation to members of the public to come along on the morning and join him for a cuppa.

Proceeds from the coffee morning, which will run for two hours from 10am until noon, will go to The Friends of Marymount.
Speeding drivers and parking outside Kilmurry National School was discussed at the Blarney Macroom municipal district meeting.

Cllr Gobnait Moynihan (FF) said the school is worried about both issues.

James Dwyer, senior executive engineer said he had spoken with the principal before Christmas who outlined their concerns. He said the council will look at the road design and that hopefully it can be improved. He also said a light will be moved closer to the school.

Mr Dwyer also told councillors that Gardai have also been monitoring the speed of drivers in that region.
The site of the former Duhallow Park Hotel could be in line to become the location for Cork's second crematorium.

The owners of the site, Whitegate-based Classic Lodges (Ireland) Ltd, have made a submission to Cork County Council seeking the proposal to be incorporated into the draft Kanturk/Mallow Municipal District Local Area Plan (LAP). It is understood the proposal has been given the backing of local county councillors when it came up for discussion at a recent district meeting.

In their submission the company said the draft plan should be amended to give "general support" to the provision of crematoria on brownfield sites in rural areas and to "identify the former Duhallow Park Hotel as a suitable location."

The submission went on to list a number of reasons as to why the site would be suitable for a crematorium, among them being the growing demand for such a facility, which it said had only been addressed in urban areas. It said a crematorium was a "particularly suitable" use for a brownfield site in a rural area and that the proposed site at Dromcummer Beg would be "ideally suited" to provide cremation services over a wide area of North Cork and Kerry.

The company pointed out there was extant planning permission for a substantial commercial development on the site and that its proposed use as a crematorium would "generate a lower level of traffic than the established and permitted uses."

"A crematorium at this location would improve the range of social and community facilities in North Cork while providing new employment and an economic benefit for the area," the submission concluded.

Officials from Cork County Council's planning department are currently in the process of meeting Municipal District Committees across the county to discuss the finalisation of their draft LAPs in April.

Once these have been compiled they will be submitted to the council's CEO, Tim Lucey who will compile a report commenting on each of the submissions included.

These will then be sent back to each committee for discussion ahead of the adoption of the final Local Area Plan's next July.

Commenting on the crematorium submission Kanturk/Mallow independent county councillor John Paul O'Shea pointed out the proposal was at a very early stage. "There is no doubt but that this proposal will provoke a lot of discussion and I personally believe that the idea has considerable merit," said Cllr O'Shea.

He added that the only existing crematorium in Cork is in Ringaskiddy and this location means access is relatively difficult for people from North Cork and further afield. "There is an increasing demand for crematoria across the whole of Ireland. In my opinion Dromcummer Beg would be an ideal location for such a facility given the size of the site and its central location," said Cllr O'Shea.

"While this is at a very early stage and there is no guarantee that it will go ahead, in my opinion this is a very good idea and one that has my full backing," he added.

Much loved hotel closed down in 2004

The Duhallow Park Hotel was purchased from Kanturk native Frank Healy in late 2004 by billionaire Englishman Trevor Hemmings for an undisclosed sum.

It closed its doors six-weeks later with the loss of 20 staff.

In 2009 Classic Lodges (Ireland) successfully applied for planning permission to demolish the premises and replace it with a 36 bedroom hotel and 13 dwellings. However, this coincided with the collapse of the Irish economy and the plan was shelved.

In 2013 the company sought and was granted an extension of duration for planning permission..

However, a spokesman for Trevor Hemmings subsequently told The Corkman that there were "no plans at present" to act on the plan to revamp the hotel. He said the dilapidated hotel was categorised as being "a danger" and it would be more economically feasible to demolish it.

In August 2014 planning was granted for the completion of the hotel's demolition and the construction of four, two-storey houses on the 7.2 acre site was subsequently shot down on appeal by An Bord Pleanala.
Dairygold Chief Executive Jim Woulfe has paid tribute to the co-op's staff and its suppliers who have helped grow the business by achieving a near 50pc increase in milk production in six years as he accepted the Cork Chamber Company of the Year Award 2017.

Mr Woulfe said that Dairygold was faced with an opportunity six years ago to expand its production significantly with the ending of the milk quota system and thanks to hard work of its staff and the support of its 7,300 members, it had fully capitalised on the opportunity.

He said he was delighted to accept the Cork Chamber Company of the Year Award 2017 for Dairygold but he was "merely the captain accepting the cup on behalf of the Dairygold team" as he went on to thank the co-op's banks as well as various state agencies for their support.

"We wouldn't be where we are without the efforts of the entire Dairygold team and I'm really proud to lead such a focused group. The passion and pride created a sense of determination within the organisation and gave the business the energy to progress and succeed," he said.

"I'm really proud that the Dairygold team rose to the challenge and our suppliers, some 2,900 milk producers upped their output from 800 million litres of milk to over 1.2 billion litres of milk- a 44pc increase - all of which is being processed here in Co Cork," he added.

"It all starts on the farms with our suppliers, the business owners. Without their confidence in and support for growth it wouldn't be possible. Four years ago more than 2,000 members voted to pursue the plan which meant members signing up to Milk Supply Contracts and providing funding."

Mr Woulfe said that this proved the impetus for the co-op's lenders to row in behind the venture and provide funding for the overall plan and with support from various state agencies including the Dept of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Enterprise Ireland, the plan became a reality.

He said the regeneration and redevelopment of its dairy sites at Mitchelstown and Mallow could not have been achieved without the support of Cork County Council and various contractors which saw it invest more in milk processing infrastructure in the past five years than in the preceding 30 years.

"It was the confidence that these developments demonstrated that led to us securing significant external investment by Ornua in establishing the Kerrygold Butter Centre of Excellence at our site in Mitchelstown.

And now Tine - Norway's largest dairy processor is doing the same with Jarlsberg Cheese at our site in Mogeely in East Cork" said Mr Woulfe before paying tribute to the co-op's 1,204 employees who worked harder and longer to deliver on the expansion plan.Dairygold won the Large Company of the Year Award in addition to the Overall Company Award while Emerging Company of the Year Award went to medical device company, OrthoXel and the SME Company of the year went hardware wholesalers, Irish International Trading Corporation. Cork Chamber President, Barrie O'Connell paid tribute to all the finalists and said it had been another highly successful year for the Cork Company of the Year Awards, presented in conjunction with Vodafone Ireland, which were now in their 20th year.

"The Awards shine a spotlight on the exceptional businesses in the Cork region and give us great confidence in Corks ability to deliver business excellence. ..... The Awards show the vibrancy of businesses that our region hosts and have demonstrated that Cork is a hub for business excellence."
A 71 year old North Corkman has been sent forward for trial by judge and jury on a charge of impeding the prosecution of his son on a charge of dangerous driving causing the death of a Kerry father of four.

Dan Joe Fitzgerald is charged with acting to impede the prosecution of his son Shane on a charge of dangerous driving causing the death of Paud O'Leary (42) on July 1, 2012.

Mr O'Leary was out for a training cycle at 5am on the day in question when he was struck and knocked off his bike at Scrahanfada near Gneeveguilla by a Toyota Landcruiser that failed to stop.

His body was later found by relatives searching for him and gardai began an investigation to try and identify the hit and run driver who fatally injured Mr O'Leary but failed to stop or report the matter.

Gardai never recovered the Toyota Landcruiser Shane Fitzgerald was driving that day.

In March 2015, Shane Fitzgerald, who had denied any involvement in the incident, was convicted of dangerous driving causing the death of Mr O'Leary after a trial at Tralee Circuit Criminal Court.

Fitzgerald was sentenced to six and a half years in jail for the offence by Judge Thomas O'Donnell who suspended the final 18 months of the jail sentence.

This Wednesday at Cork District Court, Insp Fergal Foley confirmed to Judge Olann Kelleher that the book of evidence had been served on Dan Joe Fitzgerald of Knockeen, Meelin, Newmarket, Co Cork.

Insp Foley said that the DPP had directed trial by indictment and Judge Kelleher sent Mr Fitzgerald forward for trial at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on February 16. However, it is anticipated that Daniel Fitzgerald's trial may not occur until later in the year.

The state alleges Mr Fitzgerald acted on a date unknown between July 1 and July 16, 2012 both inside and outside the state, to impede the prosecution of his son. Mr Fitzgerald has applied for free legal aid. A pensioner, he had worked as a machinery dealer.
Children from the Convent of Mercy and St. Colman's National Schools in Kanturk joined forces to celebrate Grandparents Day, beginning with 10am Mass celebrated by Fr. Brian Boyle in the Church of the Immaculate Conception.

Fr. Brian also prayed for Grandparents who were not able to attend and those who have passed away.

As the event took place on St. Bridget's Day, pupils from both Schools had made St. Bridget's Crosses which they distributed to everyone attending Mass.

Proud Grandparents accompanied their Grandchildren back to the Girl's School for refreshments, where they also got the chance to have some photographs taken together.

"Our pupils are really proud to have their Grandparents with them on this special day and love showing them around our School" Girls National School Principal Derval Vaughan said.

"The Grandparents day was a fantastic opportunity for both the children and grandparents to connect with each other, we had a lovely mass and a friendly cuppa and chat afterwards" Eilis Finnegan, St. Colman's Principal said.

Some of the children shared their thoughts on Grandparents Day with the Corkman;

"It was great that my Nana came to Mass with me and afterwards had tea at my school" (Kerri Carroll, age 10, 4th Class).

"My Nana and Grandie travelled from Cork to come to Mass with us, and visited my class and my sisters class afterwards. They really enjoyed it and didn't want to leave afterwards". (Ciara Lenihan Age 11, 6th Class).

"I was very happy when my Grandad visited my school".

(Gabriella Holland , Age 6 , Ist class).

"My Nana came to school on Grandparents Day and I got my photo taken with her and it was fun" (Michaela Winkle age 9, 3rd class)

On Grandparents Day I went to the girls school to take a photo with my Nana, she is very special" (Rhys Carroll).
Abbeyswell, in the parish of Kilshannig will celebrate the feast day of St Abbey on Saturday.

St Abbey, Abigail, or Gobnait was born in the Aran Island of Inisheer where her father was a chieftain named O' Conaire Mor.

In the 6th century, she left Inisheer and travelled 'deiseal' (southwards) or clockwise to Munster. She rested at several places on her way where she saw white deer grazing at wells and one such place is Abbeyswell, in the parish of Kilshannig in North Cork where the traditional rounds are still made on February 11 each year, which is her feast day.

Many of these places associated with her have Gobnait in their place names, for example, Kilgobnet or Kilgobban. The most famous of these is Ballyvourney where she finally settled and founded a convent. She is also buried in Ballyvourney where her grave is easily identified today.

There are many stories and legends associated with St. Abbey such as expelling plagues and putting curses on robbers. She was also highly regarded by farmers for curing diseases in animals such as ringworm, lameness, infertility and other such diseases. People always retained water from Abbeyswell in their houses after the pattern day.

A graveyard 'evolved' around the holy well as people wanted to be buried in this holy ground. Abbeyswell or Kilgobnet graveyard is one of the oldest in the country and contains some of the most decorative headstones as well as the traditional stone slabs of earlier times. Many of these are now legible, thanks to the voluntary work done by the members of the Laharn Community Action Group and more recently by local volunteers who in consultation with IRD Duhallow and Historic Graves have placed all inscriptions on the headstones in the graveyard online.

The well was covered with a beehive like masonry construction in 1874 by a local pious man, John O' Callaghan of Lackandarra who was better known as 'Johnny The Prayers'.

He did this in thanksgiving to St. Abbey for expelling the plague. Over the well is a carving in stone of St. Abigail expelling the plague which reads: St, Abigal Expelling The Plague A.D. 1872. 'Johnny The Prayers" is buried near the well'.

At the left inside the gate is an uneven mound of earth "The Famine Mound". During the famine of 1845, 1846 what is known as 'black 1847' - the victims of the famine were buried without a coffin and corpses were covered with earth.

In olden times, the feast day or the "well day" as it is locally known was a three day event comprising of porter tents and hawker's stalls which lined the roads around the well. Pedlars, beggars, cake women and music makers came to celebrate the feast day which was also regarded as a local holiday for the then local Laharn National School.

The prayers and rounds at Abbeyswell graveyard will take place at 3pm this Saturday, February 11.
A 31 year old Mid-Cork man has been remanded in custody after he appeared in court last Thursday where he was charged with the robbery of Blarney Post Office late last month.

Gary Walsh, a native of Ballincollig, but with an address at Apartment 3, Retail Park, Kilmallock, Co Limerick, was charged with robbery at Blarney Post Office on January 24.

Det Garda Maurice Leahy gave evidence of arrest, charge and caution and told Cork District Court that Walsh made no reply to the single charge when it was put to him after caution.

Gardai objected to bail and Det Garda Leahy said they were objecting because of the seriousness of the charge and the strength of the evidence, including CCTV footage, in the case against Walsh.

He said they were also basing their objection on the maximum sentence of life the offence carried if Walsh was convicted and they feared he would abscond and evade justice if granted bail.

Walsh took the stand and said that he had no intention of absconding and would stand trial if granted bail, and he was willing to sign on at his local garda station daily and abide by a curfew.

However, Judge Olann Kelleher refused bail and remanded Walsh in custody to appear at Court 4 at Cork District Court again on February 9. He also granted Walsh free legal aid.
Macroom boxer Noely Murphy will make his Irish professional debut at the National Stadium in Dublin on February 25, and the New York-based fighter will face Spanish opposition.

Murphy, who has made an unbeaten start to his professional career, will take on Avelino Vazquez (4-2) as part of Red Corner Promotions 'Unfinished Business' Card.

The Macroom pugilist (22) has etched out a sparkling record since first donning gloves. He won two national titles before moving to New York in 2014 to pursue a career in the sport, and under the tutelage of another Corkman, Kevin Crowley, he has won all eight of his professional bouts.

"Noel is only after a fight on the DeGale-Jack undercard a couple of weeks ago, so he's in prime condition," Crowley told The Corkman.

"He'll be back in Ireland a week before the fight, so he'll be well set." Vazquez is regarded as a solid all-rounder. He has lost twice on his travels, but one of those defeats came via a controversial judges' decision.

"He's a tough, aggressive boxer so it should be a good fight," Crowley said. "He has a winning record, and one of his losses was regarded as debatable, so he's another quality opponent for Noely."

As Vazguez is Galician, it is hoped his bout with Murphy could be installed as a BUI Celtic Title fight. At the time of print, this had not yet been confirmed. Murphy recorded the best win of his career last month, inflicting a first defeat on American fighter Maxito Sainvil in New York's Barclay's Centre. The comfortable points win moved the Macroom fighter's impressive record to 8-0. The fight was part of the undercard to a Floyd Mayweather-promoted fight between James DeGale and Badou Jack.

Doors for the February 25 card open at 6pm. Ringside tickets cost 60, with gallery tickets priced at 45. Tickets are available from Kevin by phoning (083) 857 7681.
Three Louth breweries and distilleries have been confirmed in the final line-up for the Alltech Craft Brews & Food Fair, Ireland's largest craft brews festival, which returns to the Convention Centre Dublin from Thursday 23rd - Saturday 25th February.

Drogheda based Listoke Distillery, Dan Kelly's Cider and Jack Cody's Beer will all exhibit at the event which has become a key feature in the Irish craft calendar and provides a benchmark for tracking trends in the craft brewing and distilling industry.

Listoke is the latest to join the grouping, founded in January 2016 by Bronagh Conlon, James McKenna and Raymond and Juliet Gogan.

Bronagh Conlon had spent 20 years working in the food and drink industry, before launching this new venture. In August 2016, they opened a Gin school and launched their own gin, Listoke 1777 in October. They currently employ four people and plan to recruit a further three in 2017.

Bronagh Conlon said, "I believe the biggest opportunity with the incoming year regarding Gin is the expansion and variety of new Irish gin onto the market. Gin has become the newest trend, especially in the UK and Europe, with America following very close behind. The more gins we have, the more we'll be seen. We have the only Gin School in Ireland, where people can come and make their own bottle of gin, with their own recipe, in an afternoon and bring it home with them."
Ireland's most famous quartet will give their very last performance in Drogheda, it has been revealed.

Following a truly memorable weekend of music in a packed St Peter's Church of Ireland last week, the Drogheda International Classical Music Series presents one of the final performances by the famous Vanbrugh Quartet.

The group will give their last performance on Friday, February 17th before first violinist Gregory Ellis leaves to concentrate on teaching and exploring new activities.

Regarded as one of Europe's most successful quartets, they will perform a programme of short works including Zhou Long's sprightly Song of the Ch'in and Barber's haunting Adagio for Strings, made famous by the film "Platoon". In the second half, they will be joined by guest cellist Bill Butt to perform Schubert's epic Cello Quintet. Often referred to as the greatest piece of chamber music ever written, it is loved by many for its sublime and romantic second movement.

Formed over 30 years ago, the Vanbrugh Quartet was appointed the RTE Quartet in residence in 1986, two years before they went on to win the prestigious London International String Quartet Competition. The concert begins at 7.30pm and take place in St Peter's Church of Ireland. Tickets are 18 / 16 conc. / 5 children & students. Booking through Droichead Arts Centre on 041 9833946 or www.droichead.com
St Peter's Male Voice Choir were given an official seal of approval to mark their 60th anniversary by Minister for Arts, Culture, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Heather Humphreys T.D.

She invited the group to Leinster House to congratulate the choir on its contribution to the arts for 60 years. The Minister also officially unveiled the choir's new plaque which was commissioned by Archdeacon James Carroll on behalf of St. Peter's Parish to celebrate the choir's 60th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee Year 2016.

During the unveiling the Minister congratulated the choir on its recent concert in St. Peter's Church of Ireland with world-renowned Soprano Celine Byrne and praised the choir members who performed to an audience of 13,000 in the 3Arena with Andrea Bocelli. The Minister said it was a privilege for her to unveil the plaque in recognition of the dedicated members of choir.

The travelling party included the four founder members Jim Balfe, Christy Collins, Peter Judge and Oliver Plunkett as well as daughters, Pauline and Elizabeth, of the late Peter Hughes who was also a founder member of the choir, founded by Eugene Mooney in 1956. Chairman Paul Delaney, Donal Black, Tony O'Donovan, Oliver Synott and Musical Director Edward Holly were also present for this memorable event in the choir's history.

St. Peter's Male Voice Choir, Drogheda and Edward Holly will be performing their next concerts in the Droichead Arts Centre on Thursday 16th and Saturday 18th March. The show titled 'My Heart is in Ireland' features a selection of beautiful and heart-warming Irish songs for St. Patrick's Day. The choir is also recording its third CD in the world famous Windmill Lane Recording studios, Dublin with renowned producer Brian Masterson.
Ballapousta NS celebrated Mrs Colette Green's teaching career and retirement with a special day of celebration last Friday.

She has been a teacher in Ballapousta since September 1982 and she has fulfilled many roles during that time: classroom teacher, Acting Principal, Deputy Principal and Learning Support teacher, leaving her footprint in each of those areas.

'She was a very dedicated and talented teacher and she always brought a wealth of knowledge, creativity and fun to her teaching,' Peter Dooley stated. 'Mrs Green had a special relationship with the students and her caring and considerate nature were always to the forefront.'

Her retirement was marked with a special mass, celebrated by Fr O'Leary. The children brought up gifts which represented Mrs Green's teaching career in Ballapousta.

After the mass, the Board of Management and Parents' Association made a presentation to her followed by refreshments being served in the school hall.

'Staff, parents and pupils wish her every best health and happiness in her retirement,' Mr Dooley added.

Pictured: Mrs Green accepts gifts from , clockwise, Kitty Reilly, the parents and Catherine Dempsey on behalf of the staff.
The team in the Local Enterprise Office Louth celebrated last week as one of the counties young entrepreneurs made it through to the national final of Ireland's Best Young Entrepreneur (IBYE).

Roisin Hogan from HIRO by Rosin in Drogheda beat off stiff competition in the Start-Up category from other young entrepreneurs in Cavan, Meath and Monaghan to secure her place in the final. She will represent Louth at this highly competitive event in Google HQ on Sunday 5th March.

She has developed a healthy food product based on noodles made from the flour of the Asian Konjac vegetable. The noodle based meals are low in sugar, fat free, practically carb free and very low in calories and are stocked in outlets throughout Ireland and will be moving into the UK market very soon.

Roisin will be joined in the final by two young entrepreneurs from Meath: Alvin Hunt from Hexafly in the Best Idea Category and Barry Goulding BSG Design in the Best Established Business Category.

Minister Damien English was guest of honour at the Regional Final last week. He explained "Young entrepreneurs are Ireland's job creators and innovators." He continued by encouraging young entrepreneurs to reach out to their Local Enterprise Office who are "on hand to help all businesses start-up, grow and expand."

Thomas McEvoy, the Head of Enterprise in Louth, congratulated Roisin, saying: "Our search to find and support Ireland's best young entrepreneurs has turned up some incredible business talent. It's important to find, recognise and support them in their work because our local entrepreneurs are the business leaders of the future. We are so proud to see Louth represented in the IBYE National Final and we are backing Roisin all the way."

Aimed at 18 to 35-year-olds, the IBYE initiative is run by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) nationwide, and supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Enterprise Ireland.
Collette Farrell has been named as the new director of the Droichead Arts Centre.

She returns to Drogheda from her role as director of the Dublin Theatre Festival.

As she settles into her new role, Collette said she is looking forward to welcoming new visitors to the arts centre and to building on the existing pillars of the programme, including the DICMS programme, the Film Club, our Family Seasons, the community drama groups and the Traditional Music Weekend.

'I want to look at future audiences, how we can engage with them, and what we can programme for them. I want to see a centre that can make a difference to the town and that is visible on a local, national and international level,' she said.

Collette started her career as an actress and stage manager, working initially int eh community and outreach department in the Abbey Theatre in the late 80s where she set up her own Children's Theatre Company and performed in the Peacock Theatre.

She was also General Manager of the City Arts Centre, Dublin, a multi displinary arts centre in the heart of the inner city, and subsequently became Programme Manager for the Centre, where her programmes included: the Jamie Reid Exhibition (Designer of the Sex Pistols Albums), Stiryfry - a weekly comedy club, which saw the likes of Jason Byrne, and Tommy Tiernan begin their headline gigs, and of course Calipo.

In 2002, she became Company Manager/Producer for Calipo Theatre and Picture Company and she is also part of the programming team for Drogheda Arts Festival and managed the marketing of the festival up to 2015.

Collette spent 2016 in Dublin as General Manager of Dublin Theatre Festival, and is delighted to be back in Droichead for the foreseeable future.

She added: 'I look forward to working with all of our funders including Louth Local Authorities and the Arts Council, and linking in with the Creative Ireland Programme (Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs) and Making Great Art Work (Arts Council Strategy 2016 - 2015). I also forward to engaging with all our supporters, friends and sponsors, and to working with the dedicated staff of the Centre "

Speaking on behalf of the board of the Droichead Arts Centre, its chairperson, Mr Nick Reilly paid tribute to the outgoing director, Ms Marcella Bannon and thanked her for her contribution over an 11 year period to the Centre. He added: 'Collette Farrell as the new Director brings a wealth of experience to the Droichead Arts Centre based on her solid career in major organisations such as the Abbey Theatre and the Dublin Theatre Festival not to mention her strong track record in young peoples theatre and film.' 'Droichead Arts Centre like so many local businesses and organisations has come through a very challenging decade but looks forward to the future continuing to serve the local community as well as expanding its range of cultural and artistic services as well as seeking to renew itself at all levels.
Drogheda's case to be declared a city reached Japan recently when Dr Brian Hughes delivered a paper on Spatial Direction for Ireland at an Irish-Japanese presentation in Dublin .

Aimed at showing the links between both countries, Dr Hughes, who has long championed Drogheda's elevation to city status, said the need for the town to grow into a city was paramount for a successful future.

He has been promoting the title Drogheda-LBM (Laytown, Bettystown, Mornington) and feels the forthcoming census figures will only further the case for such a move.

Mr Hughes has been supporting the Drogheda City Status group for some years and his detailed reports into the area have drawn a lot of comments.

The group have also met with Minister Simon Coveney and emphasised Drogheda's case 'as a future growth hub and city.'

The Drogheda group will be making their own case for city status shortly, with Dr Hughes backing up their claim.
A 29-year-old man who drove without insurance for the sixth time has avoided a prison sentence after he was deemed suitable for community service work.

Ian O'Driscoll, who has five previous no insurance convictions, one previous driving while disqualified and one conviction for drink driving, drove while he was under a driving ban, Drogheda District Court heard.

O'Driscoll, of Rathmullen Park in Drogheda pleaded guilty to driving without insurance on December 10th, 2016 at Main Street in Duleek. He further pleaded guilty to driving without a driving licence on the same date.

He received a five month suspended sentence and was disqualified from driving for five years in March 2015.

Defence solicitor Paul Moore said O'Driscoll acknowledges he has a 'bad record.'

'He was in the latter end of the disqualification and he couldn't get insurance. He knows he shouldn't have been behind the wheel,' said Mr Moore.

'He holds out hope for getting work but could find himself in jail today. But he is hoping community service could be an alternative,' said Mr Moore.

After O'Driscoll was deemed suitable for community service work by the Probation Services, Judge Flann Brennan convicted and sentenced him to 120 hours work in lieu of six months in prison for having no insurance. He also imposed a three year driving ban.
Projects in Louth are to benefit from the launch of the Local Development Strategy, in which 6.1 million has been made available under the new LEADER programme. The launch took place in Blackrock Community Centre with members of the Local Community Development Committee (LCDC), Local Authorities and Louth Leader Partnership in attendance.

Chairman of the LCDC, Councillor Colm Markey expressed his delight that the new LEADER programme in County Louth was now open. He thanked all who worked to develop the strategy and in particular the members of the LCDC for their direction and focus.

In the same week as the launch of the Action Plan for Rural Development, Cllr Markey highlighted the importance of rural development in a stable economy.

He said: "As in the past LEADER programmes, there is potential for a number of excellent projects that will benefit from this funding, which will be available until 2020.''

Chairman of Louth Leader Partnership Company, Frank O'Brien outlined all the good work that had been previously delivered in County Louth through LEADER.

The Programme opens on 1st February 2017 and anyone interested in discussing potential projects should contact Louth Leader Partnership Ardee office on 041-6857375.
Tributes have been paid to two political legends and two women who lost their lives in a road traffic accident at Hunterstown.

Speaking at the municipal district meeting in Ardee, Cathaoirleach Dolores Minogue said the deaths of Josie Duff and Kathy McDonald had shocked the town and they were 'two great ladies' who were well known and loved in the area. She said the sympathy of the council went out to all those involved in the tragic incident.

She also recognised the sadness left with the deaths of Jim Lennon and Eddie Filgate, Cllr Colm Markey going on to say that Jim was a 'great man to get issues aired' and 'he knew a house in every street where he'd get a cup of tea!'

He said he was 'old style politics' and a larger than life character.

Pearse McGeough said he served with him for 10 years on the council and he was a great character.

Cllr Jim Tenanty said he was a great stalwart of the area while Tom Cunningham recalled meeting Jim when he was a referee - and getting his name taken!

There was also a vote of thanks to former firefighter Liam McCormack who retired from the service recently in Ardee.
A woman who reversed her car and crashed into the front of a taxi has been disqualified from driving for two years for dangerous driving.

Siobhan Conaty (25) was also disqualified for two years for driving without insurance and fined a total of 350 for the motoring offences which she committed on October 18th, 2015.

Drogheda District Court heard a taxi driver turned onto St Mary's Bridge from Shop Street in the early hours of the morning.

The defendant then reversed from Shop Street into the front of the taxi driver's car and drove off.

She stopped a short distance later.

Conaty, of Killian's Court in Mullagh, Cavan and formerly of Mauldrin's Street in Kells, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, driving without insurance and having no tax and no NCT on her vehicle at St Mary's Bridge on October 18th, 2015.

Judge Flann Brennan imposed the driving bans for having no insurance and for dangerous driving.
Clonroche residents have confirmed that a legal challenge is under way against An Bord Pleanala's decision to grant planning permission for a wind farm development on Ballinclay Hill.

A public meeting will be held in Clonroche Community Centre on Thursday, February 9, at 8 p.m. to appraise residents about the challenge. An application was made to the High Court for permission to review the legality of the way An Bord Pleanala came to its decision to grant planning permission for this wind farm by developers Ballinclay Windfarms Ltd, whose directors is Edward Murphy, who lives in Thomastown.

On January 16 last, the High Court accepted that there were substantial legal grounds for bringing this case and the court gave permission to proceed to seek a full judicial review at a future date, which has yet to be fixed.

Despite Wexford County Council opposing the proposed development by refusing to grant planning permission, An Bord Pleanala overturned the Council's ruling and granted planning on November 16th 2016.

A spokesperson for the resident's group said: 'Our legal representatives have identified a number of grounds which they will ask the court to examine. We are very pleased that the court has given the green light for these grounds to be pursued, albeit coming at a high financial cost to the community. We have received fantastic support from the local community in opposing this proposed development. Residents are unhappy about being forced into having industrial wind turbines imposed on their community so that a select few can profit from the misery, property devaluation and adverse health implications associated with these wind farms.'
The New Year message at Enniscorthy Library is all about financial planning for 2017 and last week local solicitor John G Murphy advised the 65-strong audience on matters of Inheritance & Succession Rights, proving to be a worthy follow-up to the practical advice from the Money Doctor John Lowe the previous Thursday.

Both men adopted a down to earth approach, and their common theme was planning, planning, planning. John Lowe stressed the importance of a budget and committing to it saying 'It's not about waiting for the storm to pass, but rather learning how to dance in the rain'. Personal finance, he went on, is 20% knowledge and 80% behaviour. Be aware of the costs of running your current account while he surprised the attendance by revealing it takes 20 years to pay off credit card debt making the minimum repayment every month. Do your budget for the month he said and if your debts exceed 35% of your net monthly income then you could have a problem.

70% of stress in employees is financial and one in four will have a mental health issue. One in two adults with debt have a mental health issue, he stated, and this man knows what he is talking about being the brother of Joan Freeman the founder of Pieta House and Darkness Into Light.

John G Murphy, solicitor with John A Sinnott, Enniscorthy, told the large attendance last week that they had a choice - they could 'let things happen or make a plan. Take control of the present and the future by making provision for your loved ones,' he said. List what you own and what you owe, he went on, and then take the best possible financial advice. Don't wait to see who you should leave everything to, make that choice now - you can always change it in the future as often as you like. If you don't then the law will decide for you.

Following John's guidelines on wills, inheritance and succession rights he was bombarded with questions from the floor due to the huge interest in the topic, answering each in depth and to the satisfaction of the enquirer. John also had an information booklet for everyone in the audience.

These were two most worthwhile and beneficial evenings and well done to Jarlath Glynn and the Library services for this latest innovative programme completely free to the general public.

Coming next on February 9 is a masterclass on smartphones and Mary O'Rourke will speak on her latest book, Letters of My Life, on February 23 and not as previously stated on February 16.
Minister of State Paul Kehoe visited Our Lady of Lourdes Transition Year students recently to see first hand their Young Social Innovators water safety project.

YSI aims to bring about a change for good in society.

Laura Dempsey, Sinead Lanign, Eimear O`Shea, on behalf of WaterWise, Transition Year 1, class group, said: 'All the tragic accidents that have occurred in Irish waters today have come to our attention. We strongly believe in trying to reduce these numbers of accidents and help save innocent lives. We are currently trying to introduce a mandatory course for all boat users to complete before taking a boat out on the water.'

The students are also trying to promote the importance of wearing a lifejacket while out on the water.

'At present we are working on a memorial service to remember those lost at sea. We are putting together an education pack for primary schools and we are also creating an advertisement to promote water safety. From our research we have discovered that many people have little or no knowledge on this matter.'
Prepare to be mashing the R1 button to oblivion throughout the course of Nioh, especially if you wish to have any hope of beating this maddeningly difficult game

Touted as the hellish lovechild of the Ninja Gaiden and Dark Souls series, Team Ninja's latest action RPG unashamedly borrows from two of the most famously difficult games ever made.

Nioh tells a highly embellished tale of western samurai William Adams, a real-life historical figure who arrived on Japanese shores sometime in the 17th century. The folklore-heavy plot is not particularly well told, although it does provide some memorable moments. Nioh's bread and butter is its incredibly deep and outrageously complex combat system.

The move list in Nioh is far more complicated than anything Dark Souls has to offer. Nioh offers a complex skill tree offering many unlockable manoeuvres that give each weapon a huge depth and great flexibility.

Prepare to be mashing the R1 button to oblivion throughout the course of Nioh, as it serves two extremely important purposes. One, it serves as a way to trigger a very unique mechanic called 'Ki Pulse'. Ki is your stamina and unlike other action RPG games, your stamina expends at a rather alarming rate. To recharge your meter faster, you need to press the R1 button following an attack to trigger a Ki Pulse.

It takes some getting used to but it is a critical feature, especially if you wish to have any hope of beating this maddeningly difficult game. R1 also doubles as a way to change your stance. There's high, medium, low, and sheathed stances, all of which modify the amount of Ki you spend and the direction or strength of your attacks. If the actual gameplay itself wasn't difficult enough, you also have to deal with the convoluted item management system, which is the only real major gripe I have with Nioh.

Although Team Ninja toned the equipment system down a little bit after the first beta, items still drop like hotcakes, and while selling them for Amrita currency to level-up is nice, you're going to sift through a lot of junk too.

Nioh would greatly benefit from a western style RPG 'trash" system, where you can easily mark items as junk and sell in bulk upon reaching a vendor. Nioh is an absolutely fabulous Action RPG, but not one for the faint of heart. It is possibly even more difficult than From's legendary Dark Souls games and that should be an indicator of just how frustrating this game can be.

Saying that, once you have it 'figured out', it is one of the most rewarding games I have played in recent memory.
Having spent many years starting novels but never completing them, award-winning journalist Joan Brady has finally cracked the fiction market as her first novel 'The Cinderella Reflex' has been published.

Joan, who lives in Portmarnock, told the Fingal Independent her 'big dream has finally come true,' becoming a published author and ticking off one of the many achievements on her Bucket List.

And since her first book has now reached book shelves, Joan has already completed her second book 'Re-inventing Suzanne' which is at the proof stage and due to be released in the summer.

Currently working on her third book, Joan explained how a course called 'Finish Your Book' at the Irish Writer's Centre, finally helped her to accomplish her dream.

'I had started to write lot of books down through the years but I never got around to finish them,' said Joan, who has always wanted to write fiction.

'I'd start them with great guns, but they'd never get finished. I'd have an idea, start writing but then I'd go down cul-de-sacs.

'I was always doing Fiction writing courses but what changed for me was the 'Finish Your Book' course and that completely changed things for me. I met other people at the group who wanted to finish their books and they were full of determination to get them finished. So that made me think if they can do it then so can I.'

While attending the writing group, Joan made new friends and they are all now in their own Writing Group, helping each other along.

During the course, Joan learnt to add a discipline of writing 2,000 new words a week to her work.

'This helped stop me going back over what I had already written to try and perfect it. I was always trying to get the perfect first three chapters and apparently this is a big rookie mistake when writing fiction that I didn't know at the time.'

Joan, who is originally from Cabra but has been living in Portmarnock for a long time with her husband Dave O'Connor and daughter Jane (34), who is newly married, set her book 'The Cinderella Reflex', published by Poolbeg, within the media world - as that's a world she knows about.

Joan worked as a features writer for many years with Independent News & Media group before later working as a radio producer in RTE, where she worked on current affairs and lifestyle programmes, including the Gay Byrne Show, Today with Pat Kenny, Liveline, Drivetime and Late Debate.

Already receiving great reviews such as it being a 'Funny, fast-paced and light as a breeze, this is an ideal beach read,' to 'Unusually the reader actually feels sympathy for the anti-heroine' and 'hard to put down novel,' 'The Cinderella Reflex' is set in a local radio station in a fictional Irish village.

The main characters are Tess and her bad boss Helene and it's about their struggles to make sense of their jobs and their lives.

'Tess is 30 when we meet her and she spent her 20s floating around freelancing as a journalist and travelling,' explained Joan.

'Her milestone birthday sends her into a panic and she feels she has to get her foot on the career ladder and all her friends are getting engaged or having babies or getting promotions. She's a bit of a late starter while Helene is an opposite. She is very career orientated and she is a decade older but also facing a milestone birthday.

'She's going to be 40 so that's causing her to question her life and the choices she's made. She's in a difficult relationship that's not going the way she wants it and then the radio station is taking over and everyone is scrambling to keep their jobs and gets more tense than ever,' said Joan.

Joan explained both women, who have inner five year olds who stubbornly believe that one day their Prince will come along, find out the men in their lives are too busy looking after themselves to worry about staging elaborate rescues for their damsels in distress.

'When things are wrong for them they look to the men in their lives for solutions - but they are all involved in the radio centre too, trying to save their own skin.

So they have to figure things out for themselves and then find out they are the only ones who can do that,' she said.

'When I started working in journalism I was always writing about how women had to juggle work, family and romance. Today I see my daughter and my friends' daughters struggling with the same dilemmas. It's interesting that three decades later, there has been no change in that. I started to wonder whether it's because women still subconsciously believe, like Tess and Helene, in the myth of Prince Charming. That's where I got the idea for The Cinderella Reflex.'

She said she really enjoyed writing her first novel and seeing it finally published.

'It was a great fun to write and a big dream come true for me and a great achievement,' said Joan. But, she said, it was bitter-sweet as the book is dedicated to her sister Vera, who passed away last year.

'The book was always going to be dedicated to Vera as when I was a child, she got me interested in writing. I was in a panic one day with my homework and she said all I have to do to get good marks in English is to make things up! So saying that to me opened up a whole new world to me.'

The Cinderella Reflex is on sale now in all good book stores.
Free English classes for those learning it as a second language will be available soon in Balbriggan thanks to a new initiative from Balbriggan Integration Forum.

Balbriggan Integration Forum are beginning free English classes from February the 6 in the Old St George's School on Hampton Street in the town just a hundred yards away from the Carnegie Library.

Head Tutor Peter O'Neill has been teaching English to students of other languages since 2002.

After completing an initial teacher training course at the English Language Centre, in Dublin, he went on to graduate in philosophy 2007, before completing a Masters in Comparative Literature in 2013, both at DCU.

He has recently just returned to teaching after taking a career break to pursue his writing and is the author of six collections of poetry and has edited an anthology of contemporary Irish poetry.

The classes are for those looking to learn the English language as beginners or intermediate learners.

The classes will run from Monday to Thursday, both mornings and afternoons and if you are interested in taking part, please ring 01-8020785.

Balbriggan Integration Forum is a voluntary body that believes in developing positive intercultural relationships by respecting and sharing the richness, beauty and potential of all people and their cultures.
An early Metro delivery has the potential to deliver 50,000 jobs to the region, according to a Fingal senator.

Senator James Reilly welcomed 'confirmation from Minister Pascal Donohue today that the Government will positively consider bringing forward the delivery of Metro North To Fingal and North Dublin'.

Senator Reilly said: 'A study by reputable Economic Consultants in 2008 forecast Metro North could deliver 37,000 to Fingal. It's my opinion now in 2017, Metro North would deliver more than 37,000 jobs - possibly north of 50,000 Jobs -if the key strategic land bank at Dublin Airport was developed with connectivity to Dublin City and connectivity north to Swords.'

The Fingal senator added: 'Now is the time to be bold and invest in this area (Fingal), which has the capital airport of Ireland and is very attractive to Foreign Direct Investors as a base for Europe and Brexit companies from the UK seeking a new base to continue their business operations in Europe. Brexit offers a key opportunity for Ireland to make a case for derogation and mitigation measures in the transition period to help Ireland alleviate the negative economic consequences of Brexit.

'What that means in plain English is Ireland as part of its negotiating strategy must seek exemptions, derogations from the current strait jacket fiscal controls imposed by the EU and agree extra capital investment in commercial projects like Metro North, motorways, and social investment in hospitals, schools and housing to drive new economic activity into Ireland and Fingal.

'There are precedents for measures like this, for example when Germany was reunited special transition measures, mitigation measures, exemptions and investment were put in place over a period of time to assist East Germany to adapt to the new economic reality.'

He concluded: 'Fingal has a great future if the right investment is made now -build Metro now and the jobs will come.'
Former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm has been granted free legal aid for his upcoming conspiracy to defraud trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Judge Karen O'Connor granted legal aid to pay for four barristers after hearing Mr Drumm was in a 'catch 22 situation' regarding his finances. She also noted he is an undischarged bankrupt.

The judge said her ruling is for the criminal matters only and that it has no bearing on any civil matters which may be in the pipeline.

Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions did not object to the application and said her main priority was a fair trial that was not delayed.

Documents to support the legal aid application were handed into court last Monday. Prosecuting counsel Mary Rose Gearty SC said the details in these documents have been verified by gardai 'as much as possible'.

Ms Gearty said she realises the court might have concerns about the amount of assets Mr Drumm possesses. She said his assets are 'roughly what one would expect them to be'.

Ms Gearty said she doesn't know what will happen to Mr Drumm's pension but that there are 'related civil actions' in progress concerning the accused.

'If his pension is drawn down there are people waiting,' she said.

In support of the application Mr Drumm's solicitor Michael Staines said his client has been 'totally' co-operative with gardai. He said it will be an 'extremely lengthy trial' which could last for three months.

Judge O'Connor, who considered the issue overnight, said the law states someone is entitled to legal aid if they have insufficient means to pay for representation and if the interests of justice demand it.

In granting the request, she noted Mr Drumm is facing allegations which carry a maximum of 10 years in prison on conviction.

The accused was granted legal aid for four barristers including a 'documents counsel' to handle the paperwork in the case. The defence requested this so it would have 'parity' with the State's four prosecution barristers.

Judge O'Connor denied a request from the DPP for reporting restrictions to be imposed on the media regarding the application. She noted the constitutional requirement that justice be done in public and said she was 'not satisfied the court is at the stage yet for reporting restrictions'.

However she urged the media to exercise caution in its reporting.

Mr Drumm (50), with an address in Skerries, will appear again on March 24 for a pre-trial hearing ahead of the trial which is expected to start in April.

He faces two charges of conspiring to defraud depositors and investors at Anglo by 'dishonestly' creating the impression that deposits in 2008 were 7.2 billion larger than they were. He faces one additional charge in relation to the EU transparency directive. He has yet to enter a plea to the charges.
A Rush man has been jailed for eight months for sexually assaulting a girl on a public bus by touching her inappropriately on the breast and leg.

Murad Khandokar (43) was also jailed for a further four months for harassing the girl on different occasions prior to sexually assaulting her.

Judge Dermot Dempsey said he has no option but to jail the defendant as he put the victim through hell for a period of time and has shown no remorse.

A Probation Report handed into Swords District Court court stated the defendant pleaded guilty but denied responsibility for his actions.

The Probation Report said Khandokar claimed it was 'all accidental and the injured party facilitated it.'

Judge Dempsey said the defendant has shown no remorse, offered no apology to the victim and has shown a complete disregard.

'Not only does he deny responsibility but everyone is to blame bar himself. He can't say sorry now when the report reeks of denial,' said Judge Dempsey.

Addressing the court Khandokar claimed his 'English is not very good so maybe I did not explain it properly' to the Probation Services and accepted what he has done to her.

The court heard that while the teen was travelling home on a public bus in October 2015 she felt Khandokar's fingers touch her thigh while they were standing near the luggage shelf.

As she moved away from him, he edged closer to her and then touched his elbow off her chest.

The injured party alerted the bus driver to what had happened and he phoned gardai, the court heard.

She then sat down on a seat and Khandokar walked past a number of empty seats before sitting down beside her before gardai arrived on board.

The court also heard the injured party was harassed by the defendant on several different occasions prior to sexually assaulting her.

Gardai examined CCTV footage from the bus which showed the defendant sexually assaulting the injured party.

Khandokar, of Glenn Ribh in Rush pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the injured party on the bus in October 2015.

He further pleaded guilty to harassing her on dates unknown between January 1 and October 7, 2015.

Defence barrister Bernard Stobie said the defendant was 'confused about what happened.'

'But on seeing the CCTV he accepts it,' said Mr Stobie.

He said the 43-year-old, who is originally from Bangladesh, came to Ireland with his wife in 2006 and is currently unemployed.

'He suffers depression and has fought drink and cannabis problems,' he said, asking Judge Dempsey to consider the view of the Probation Services that they want to continue to work with him in an effort for him to really understand what happened.

Addressing the court the injured party said the defendant has 'changed me and my life' in the space of a year.

'I am now afraid of using public transport. I am extremely anxious and I had to bring my mother with me to court today as I am scared of him,' she said.

She said she is continuing to get counselling and now has to take private transport when she is going anywhere due to her fears.

The defendant told the court he does not understand why he did it. 'I accept what I did. I came here for my punishment and I can't sleep at night. I feel really bad and I am not drinking anymore,' he told Judge Dempsey.

Judge Dempsey imposed an eight month sentence for the sexual assault charge and imposed a four month sentence to run consecutively for the harassment charge and directed Khandokar be listed on the Sex Offenders Register.
The work required to transfer control to the council of the former marketing suite at Racecourse Park in Baldoyle is frustratingly slow and is delaying efforts to turn the building into a community facility for the people of Baldoyle and nearby Portmarnock.

Cllr Cian O'Callaghan (SD) asked for a report on the long-running saga to see ownership of the building transferred from private hands to the council, but the local authority did not have much good news to report.

In a written report on the issue, the council explained: 'It should be noted that the Community Development Officers are in contact with a number of groups from the Baldoyle area that have expressed interest in using the property. However, until such time as an assessment of the condition of the building is completed and the cost and time line for w orks is available consultation and community planning is premature and could raise undeliverable expectations.'

The council added: 'Property Services Division and the council's Law Department are making every effort to complete this acquisition; however the delay lies with the property owner.

'The council will continue to pursue the acquisition with a view to completing same as soon as possible. As soon as the acquisition is complete and the required inform ation available the Community Department will undertake a community consultation, planning and an expression of interest process.'

Cllr O'Callaghan said he was 'very concerned this is taking such a long number of years' and added: 'There doesn't seem to be any progress on this at all, that I can see.' He said that children in the area that could have benefited from a community use for the site are 'beginning to grow old and we will see them moving out before these facilities are in place'. He pushed the council to do more to complete the deal.

The progress report on the project was presented on foot of a motion proposed by Cllr Brian McDonagh (Lab) back in October. Cllr McDonagh said he shared Cllr O'Callaghan's concerns on the lengthy delays in getting this project off the ground. Cllr David Healy (GP) agreed and said it was time for the council to go in and assess the building and start engaging with the community on its future use.

Senior council official, Paul Smyth assured councillors that the local authority was doing all it could to complete the transfer but needed 'a willing partner on the other side'.
Over 100 concerned local residents in the River Valley and Rathingle area of Swords showed up for a crime prevention meeting following a spike in burglaries on local estates in recent weeks.

The local Neighbourhood Watch invited gardai to address local residents concerns and give advice on crime prevention at the packed meeting in Swords.

Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Darragh Butler, attended the meeting and told the Fingal Independent: 'There were over 100 local residents at a Crime Prevention meeting organised by River Valley Rathingle Neighbourhood Watch, organised for residents who were concerned about the extraordinary high number of break-ins that were occurring in the area.

'Garda Sergeant Vincent Connolly from the Blanchardstown Community Policing Unit gave a detailed crime prevention presentation that was welcomed by all.

'Local Community Garda Rebecca McGowan spoke about a recent crime spike on the western side of Swords and that additional check points had been set up in the area. She also informed residents about a recent arrest.'

The Mayor of Fingal added: 'From local Facebook groups, I could see evidence of this spike in crime in the Rivervalley and Brookdale area over the last month or so and I was very thankful that the Garda set up these additional checkpoints all over Swords over the last few weeks, giving out crime prevention sheets to Swords residents.

'Despite the arrests being made, break-ins are still happening. I believe the local Garda and doing everything they can, they just need more resources, We need more gardai allocated to Swords and to north County Dublin, in general.'

In late January, following a particularly bad week for burglaries in the area, the Mayor of Fingal called for increased patrols in the River Valley area.

The call followed reports in the Fingal Independent that three burglaries had happened on the same afternoon in the Brookdale area of River Valley and the following week, there had been a further two successful break-ins with residents alleging that there were several more attempted burglaries in the area.

In response to the residents' concerns at that time, the Mayor said: 'I rang Swords Garda station earlier today and they wish they had more resources. They told me to get anything suspicious reported to them immediately.'

Addressing residents in the area, Cllr Butler said: 'Please can everyone remain vigilant and immediately report anything suspicious to Swords Garda Station (01) 666 4700.

'I have also emailed Coolock (the district HQ) and requested that more resources be allocated to Swords and River Valley. I've asked if they could move checkpoints into the area.'

Local gardai have since mounted checkpoints in the area and handed out crime prevention leaflets. Their attendance at this latest crime prevention meeting in River Valley is the next step in making the area more secure and better prepared to thwart the would-be burglars, targeting homes on local estates.
Balbriggan gardai have issued a warning to local schools to be vigilant after the attempted abduction of a 13-year-old boy as he walked to school, last week.

On the morning of January 30 at 7.45am a thirteen-year-old boy was walking to his school on the Naul Road when a black car stopped beside him on the link road at Castleland Park in Balbriggan.

The male driver of the car asked the boy to get in the car and offered him a lift to school but when the young teenager refused, the driver got out of the car and approached him.

The driver grabbed the 13-year-old on the shoulder and attempted to drag him towards the car but the quick-thinking teenager kicked out and resisted and managed to break free of his attacker's grasp. The 13-year-old ran away and later reported the incident to his teachers in school who, in turn, reported the shocking attack to local gardai in Balbriggan.

There is currently no description of the boy's attacker but the Fingal Independent understands a specialist Garda interviewer is being drafted in to talk to the boy about the traumatic incident.
The Government should press ahead with using an additional available 2.6 billion in capital funding to 'fast-track' Metro North.

The Minister for Public Expenditure, Paschal Donohoe announced that the Government would consider moving the delivery date for the long-awaited light rail project forward and Deputy Alan Farrell TD (FG) has encouraged the Minister for Transport to get on board and push the project forward to an early conclusion.

Deputy Farrell called for the additional 2.6 billion available in capital funding to be used to fast-track Metro North in order to provide a light-rail link between the city centre, Dublin Airport, and Swords, as a matter of priority.

He said: 'With up to 2.6 billion available for capital funding, I am calling on the Government to utilise this funding to fast-track the delivery of Metro North.

'This funding could, potentially, bring forward the delivery of Metro North, which would be undoubtedly beneficial, not only to the local community it will serve in the North County, but also in terms of attracting inward investment and trade.'

The local Fine Gael TD added: 'With Swords moving towards becoming a city in its own right, and with passenger numbers at Dublin Airport continuing to grow, the development of a rail based link to connect these communities with the city centre is essential. Bringing forward the delivery of Metro North must be viewed as a matter of priority by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, and by the Government as a whole.

'I believe Metro North should be fast-tracked, particularly in light of Brexit. Ensuring we have adequate public infrastructure to attract jobs and investment into Ireland is essential, and must be prioritised in order to further protect local communities in Dublin Fingal from any adverse impact Brexit may have.'

Deputy Farrell said: 'This is an issue of both local, and national, importance and must be treated as such by the Minister, and every member of this Government. 'When I last raised the need to prioritise the delivery of new Metro North with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross TD, the Minister stated 'if additional funding becomes available in the next few years - I am not saying whether it will - the preparatory work being done will position us to make progress with the project in line with the available funding'.

'Now that capital funding is becoming available, I have communicated my view to the Minister that he must make a submission at Cabinet level seeking the allocation of this funding to the Metro North project, with a view to fast-tracking the delivery of a light-rail link between Swords, Dublin Airport, and the city centre.'
Dublin Chamber of Commerce has welcomed the news that the Government is looking to speed up the construction of the Metro North rail link.

The Chamber said that the building of the line, which will run from the city centre to Dublin Airport and on to Swords, is 'urgently needed to address ever-worsening congestion in Dublin'.

The Chamber said that Metro North will provide a transport solution for Dublin Airport, but also the fast-growing North County Dublin region.

According to Dublin Chamber CEO Mary Rose Burke: 'A new rail link is needed not only to serve Dublin Airport, but also to cater for the additional 40,000-plus people who will be commuting into Dublin city centre from north county Dublin by 2023.'

Local councillor, Cllr Justin Sinnott (NP) also welcomed the news but said 'the residents of North County Dublin have heard similar promises before so a degree of caution and scepticism is understandable'.

Commenting on the announcement Cllr Justin Sinnott stated: 'Swords needs Metro North to happen in the short term.

'The area is projected to grow substantially over the next decade.

'We need a permanent sustainable transport infrastructure and Metro North gives us that.

'It has to be the priority infrastructure project for Dublin. We need more than just announcements. We need a start date for the project.'
The Taoiseach has ordered a review of how pre-clearance US customs facilities at Dublin Airport are operating but says his Cabinet are 'fully in favour' of retaining the facility, seen as vitally important to the airport's business model.

Speaking in the Dail after announcing the review, Taoiseach, Enda Kenny said: 'This morning, the Cabinet was fully in favour of retaining our pre-clearance facility and the Attorney General has confirmed that the issue in so far as the legality is concerned is a matter for the United States courts.

'In so far as Ireland is concerned, we are in compliance with human rights legislation and in accordance with our own Constitution.

'Pre-clearance is an important element for Ireland and it is available in Shannon and Dublin. Many other airports have sought it. I have already condemned torture and breaches of human rights in any country around the world and will continue to do so very vociferously.'

The Taoiseach told the Dail that a single passenger at Dublin Airport had fallen foul of US President Trump's Executive Order that imposed new travel restrictions on people from seven majority Muslim countries in the Middle East.

He explained: 'On Saturday morning I understand that a foreign national was refused US pre-clearance at Dublin Airport and was returned to the Irish immigration authorities. I can inform the House that the person in question is lawfully resident and working here in Ireland and therefore was able to leave Dublin Airport as he was entitled to remain here.'

The Taoiseach added: 'The US authorities are very conscious of the good relationship that has existed between Ireland and the US for very many reasons and for very many years. They are fully aware of the preclearance facilities and their value and they are anxious that they would be continued for the future, as are we.

'We want to be perfectly clear, however, that we are fully compliant with human rights legislation. There is no infringement in that regard and the issues that are arising now legally are strictly a matter for the American courts.'

Pre-clearance facilities at Dubin Airport have been under political pressure in the last week since President Trump's controversial Executive Order was enforced and a number of TDs have called for its closure while the new travel restrictions are in place, to avoid Ireland's complicity in the new measures.

DAA chief executive, Kevin Toland, speaking at the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin, last week said he was 'very confident' that the pre-clearance facilities at Dublin Airport would be maintained and said that 'US business is critically important for our airport and for the country'.

Locally, Green Party representative, Joe O'Brien called for the suspension of pre-clearance at Dublin Airport saying that Trump's new travel restrictions 'have now gone way beyond what is acceptable'. He said the order was 'deplorable'.

Alan Farrell TD (FG), voiced his 'concern' and said deciding whether a person can be admitted to a country based on their nationality alone is 'unacceptable'.
Gorey Active Retirement Association held its Annual General Meeting at The Loch Garman Arms Gorey recently.

There were almost 100 members in attendance.

Frances Shaffery the outgoing chairperson welcomed all with a special welcome to new members. In her address Frances reviewed a very successful year of activities for the club.

The Treasurers report was presented by Sydney O'Reilly which showed the club was in a sound financial position.

The members discussed a wide range of issues affecting them one of which was the need for a community hall in Gorey where more activities could be pursued.

The new chairperson is Kevin Molloy.
The Construction Industry Federation has set up a Regional Development Sub Committee with the goal of ensuring that all of Ireland's regions, including the South East, benefit from the economic upturn nationally.

The committee will monitor the National Planning Framework and ensure the regions are represented as the construction industry slowly returns to 'normal levels'.

The Chairman of the South East Branch of the CIF is Brian Byrne, Managing Director of Cleary Doyle Construction based in Clonard.

In the South East, the federation said there is a more positive outlook for construction projects.

'The New Ross & Enniscorthy Bypass projects are two major infrastructural projects which will benefit the whole region. The new West Pharmaceutical project and the 10m Waterford City Centre Urban Renewal are also ongoing.

'CIF members have also been involved in other projects throughout the region including the GIY HQ.'

The federation said the said the gradual increase in construction levels will lead to more job opportunities in the South East. Four South East members of the Construction Industry Federations recently came together to set up an Apprentice Sharing Scheme.

If work quietens down for one of the companies in an area, the apprentice can be temporarily transferred to one of the other companies in it so as to ensure the apprentice has continuous work and can complete his apprenticeship.

The CIF have set up the www.apprentices.ie website. CIF members can advertise available apprenticeships in their company free of charge on the website. While potential apprentices can also post up their profiles on the site seeking an apprenticeship.

In an effort to attract skilled Irish workers abroad, back to work in Ireland the CIF has recently launched www.cifjobs.ie. The website is the first port of call for employers who wish to promote their available construction jobs to the Irish abroad

South East CIF members said they want to see the South East region prosper and actively encouraging and supporting development in the region. The Construction Industry Federation will be hosting their first major social event in the South East in several years early this month. The South East Construction Ball will be held in Faithlegg House hotel, Waterford on Friday February, 10. Anyone interested in attending should contact the CIF South East Executive Ronan O'Brien on robrien@cif.ie or 087-2043766.
Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Heather Humphreys TD, met with Wexford Chief Executive Tom Enright last week to discuss the roll out of Creative Ireland Programme in Wexford.

Creative Ireland is a five-year all-of-government initiative which aims to improve access to cultural and creative activity in every county across the country. In preparation, Minister Humphreys met with Mr Enright last week.

Creative Ireland will prioritise children's access to art, music, drama and coding; enhance the provision of culture and creativity in every community; further develop Ireland as a global hub for film and TV production; empower and support our artists and drive investment in our cultural institutions; further enhance our global reputation abroad. From 2018, an annual County of Culture will also be held each year.

Speaking after the meeting Minister Humphreys said: 'I met with Tom Enright to discuss how we will maximise the impact of the programme in Wexford.

'I have asked him to establish a Culture Team bringing together relevant personnel to develop a Culture and Creativity Plan for Wexford to drive public participation in creative cultural activity in Wexford.

'I have also asked the national Creative Ireland team to conduct workshops around the country . I view these workshops as a two-way learning process from which best practice can emerge.'
There are no immediate plans to reinstate the Gorey Garda District following its merger with Enniscorthy in 2013.

Deputy Michael D'Arcy raised the matter in the Dail during Leaders Questions last week and asked Minister for Justice, Frances Fitzgerald, to 'make a statement on the reinstatement of the Gorey Garda District in line with the Programme for Government 2016 following the merger of the Gorey Garda District with the Enniscorthy Garda District'.

However Minister Fitzgerald wasn't in the Dail and the matter was addressed by Minister of State, David Stanton who said that the merger of the Gorey and Enniscorthy Garda districts came about following a nationwide Garda rationalisation programme.

'That review was undertaken with the objective of identifying opportunities to introduce strategic reforms to enhance service delivery, increase efficiency and streamline practices within the organisation and concluded that a revised district and station network commensurate with the organisation's resource base would best meet public demand.

'The Tanaiste has been informed by the Garda authorities that the closures have allowed front line Gardai to be managed and deployed with greater mobility, greater flexibility and in a more focused fashion, particularly with regard to various targeted police operations.

'In November 2013, the Gorey District was amalgamated with the Enniscorthy District resulting in an enlarged Enniscorthy District and I understand that no station within the former Gorey District was closed.

'The Garda authorities have confirmed to the Tanaiste that the District Officer at Enniscorthy, in conjunction with the Inspector at Gorey, ensures that the policing arrangements within the Gorey area are effectively managed on an ongoing basis and that there is no diminution in the policing service provided within the context of existing available resources in the area.'

Minister Staunton said that the local garda management 'continues to closely monitor the allocation of resources to ensure that optimum use is made of Garda resources and the best possible policing service continues to be provided to the public and this situation will be kept under review.'

He went on to say that 'the Government has, in its Programme for a Partnership Government, recognised community policing as the embodiment of An Garda Siochana, providing a means of recognising that every community, both urban and rural, has its own concerns and expectations. It commits the Government to ensuring visible, effective and responsive policing in every community, including the most minimal response times possible.

'In support of this objective the Policing Authority has been asked to oversee a review of, among other things, the dispersement of Garda stations in rural areas, and in developing urban and suburban areas, with a view to ensuring both an efficient and optimum geographical distribution of stations and minimal response times, including taking account of station closures since 2012.'
Mercy Mounthawk Secondary School made a successful stab at the classic love story "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare.

The play was performed at Siamsa Tire and directed by Tony Behan. Every actor threw themselves into their parts with dedication, conviction and gumption and delivered a realistic and enjoyable experience.

The leading roles Romeo and Juliet were played by Hugo Wells and Dakotah Carter O' Flynn.

Both of them connecting to their characters and each other to successfully portray the star crossed lovers.

Other leading roles included The Nurse - Amy Roche - and Mercutio - Sean Gannon - who added great humour, comic relief and pathos to the overall performance.

The Fiery Tybalt -Darragh Clark - added tension with his dramatic death scene which captured the atmosphere to the warring families.

Other notable characters were Capulet - Sean Trant - who gave a powerful performance as Juliet's Father and the Friar Laurence - Matthew Dineen - who played Romeo's wise fatherly advisor .

The fight scenes were choreographed extremely well making them look very realistic and believable.

Each death scene was also carefully thought out particularly the deaths of Romeo and Juliet which sent a wave of emotion through the audience at the play's finale.

The brilliant set was carefully made by the fourth year art students and the fabulous costume designer, Ms Mary Barry designed each costume so the cast looked like they stepped straight out of Renaissance Italy.
Debbie tells her mum, that she wants nothing more to do with her

Fair City: Niamh continues to toy with Paul, paying her `client' to turn down his offer in the most humiliating way possible. Meanwhile, Ciaran decides Heather needs to be silenced - for good.

Orla is shocked to discover her home has been put on the market, and Niamh considers further humiliation for a broken Paul. Plus, Ciaran crosses a line with Farrah.

Eastenders

As the pressure on the Carters continues thanks to Babe's secret bad behaviour, she faces the music when Shirley and Johnny angrily confront her.

Later, Babe tries to make amends with the Carter family yet again. Can she worm her way back in?

Meanwhile, Whitney is so desperate to cheer Lee up that she resorts to drastic lengths to find some money, wanting them both to enjoy a night out with his friend Beanbag.

When Lee asks where the money has come from, Whitney lies by claiming that she got it from Bianca.

Emmerdale

Sarah continues to grow closer to the Dingles' mystery visitor.

Concerned for the woman, Sarah steals money from the cafe's collection box to help her.

Meanwhile, Lawrence tries to call a halt to hostilities between Charity and Chrissie, even agreeing to reimburse Chrissie for the stolen cash so they can draw a line under it.

Elsewhere, Charity tries to tempt Frank into teaming up again, but Debbie wants nothing more to do with her mum.

Also today, Frank gives Tracy cash for David's charity - claiming he won the money on a horse.

When Sarah's stealing gets exposed, she's forced to come clean to Debbie about the mystery woman in the barn. Debbie goes to investigate but she's already gone.

Later, it's revealed that the woman is now staying at the B&B. When confronted, the woman collapses and paramedics have to be called. Amid the chaos, the woman's identity is finally revealed - but who is she and what does she want?

Coronation Street

Following her unexpected tryst with Daniel, Sinead realises she needs to talk to Chesney. At the same time, Adam revels in winding up Daniel.

Later, when Daniel discovers that Adam is cheating at his legal exams, he sees a way of getting back at him. Is Daniel playing with fire by winding up Adam?

Meanwhile, determined to save the business, Kevin takes on too much work. Rosie and Sophie ponder over their options. When Rosie finds out from Sally that Tim has an allotment, she forms a plan. Clutching the biscuit tin, Rosie drags Sophie to the allotment and suggests they bury the drugs there.

Elsewhere, in the cafe, Bethany shows Todd her latest online hair video. Todd is impressed. Having bunked off school, Bethany discusses her next online video project with Nathan in the salon.
Lixnaw's talented young musicians getting ready for the 2017 Feile Feabhra starting on Saturday, February 11 at the village's famous Coelann

All-Ireland champion talent Katie McNamara will host a music workshop at the outset of Lixnaw's Feile Feabhra 2017 this weekend.

Katie will lead the mixed-instrument workshop from 11am until 1pm on Saturday, February 11, at the famous Ceolann music centre in the village. Her fellow All-Ireland champion Ranog Ni Ghriofa Townsend will meanwhile give the sean-nos dancing workshop on the day from 1.30pm to 3pm in another not-to-be-missed learning opportunity for young talents from all over.

Lixnaw Comhaltas is delighted to welcome everyone to the village once more for the 27th-ever Feile, culminating as always in the Saturday-night concert from 8pm that gives all the local young talents the chance to showcase their abilities. Competitions in everything from trad music to comhra Ghaeilge take place on the Sunday.
Nobody in their right mind can argue that smoke isn't an issue in small half-covered areas which are a fixture in many cafes and bars in Ireland

A move is on to ban smoking in outdoor premises which serve food and it cannot come quickly enough.

While out smoking ban was controversial at the time, it really was a progressive move and has completely enhanced the comfort of customers in restaurants, pubs and clubs.

It took a while for smokers to get used to moving to a designated smoking area to indulge, but very quickly, it became the new normal.

However, there is no way that anyone should be permitted to smoke in any area where food is served.

Picture, the scene...it's a rare sunny summer day in Ireland and you decide to head out for a spot of lunch. You are seated in a comfortable terrace and just about to tuck into your meal when your neighbour lights up a cigarette and blows second hand smoke in your direction as you eat. Disgusting.

I'm aware that smoking is not illegal, and those who wish to do so are perfectly entitled, but why, oh why must they be allowed where people are trying to eat.

There is nothing worse than being surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke when enjoying a coffee or a meal.

We get so few fine days in this country where we can actually sit outside any establishment comfortably, that these areas shouldn't be the preserve of the smoking population, but because these areas are not used all year round, they are unofficially claimed by smokers.

The argument for smoke free outdoor seating areas is not being made simply to deprive smokers of their indulgence, but because their habit is so antisocial, it cannot be prioritised over the comfort of customers who are there to eat.

The second hand smoke is also health concern and is makes no sense that non-smokers should be made to put up with somebody smoking right beside them just because they choose to sit outdoors.

Nobody in their right mind can argue that smoke isn't an issue in small half-covered areas which are a fixture in many cafes and bars in Ireland.

Because it is outside the main premises, doesn't necessarily mean that it is suitable for smokers, and certainly permitting customers to smoke right beside dining tables shows a lack of regard for those who prefer to eat in a smoke-free environment.
A 17-acre site in Listowel on which it was intended to develop over 200 houses at the height of the boom and which is now back on the market, could solve the town's housing needs at a stroke if the Council was to buy it, as some are now urging.

Dun Alainn - comprising up to seven occupied homes, three partially-completed units and four 'sub-structure' units at foundation level - is back on the market at a fraction of its boom-time value on a guide price of 325,000.

The Nama-controlled site is being sold by the receiver through Limerick-based agents Cushman and Wakefield who believe it represents an attractive proposition for an investor committed to developing it in phases.

While planning has lapsed for the units not yet developed, the site exists on residential zoned land, which is at a premium in the town following the widescale dezoning carried out after the crash. Fianna Fail Cllr Jimmy Moloney has urged the authority to consider buying the site: "They should look at it. There are 550 on the housing list and I know the council is seeking residential property across town. It could also alleviate demand in the private rental sector."
After an agonising wait for a connection to the public sewerage mains that stymied development and contributed to the deterioration of roads, Kilcummin finally got solid word of a positive development this week.

Irish Water is now applying for planning permission for a pumping station and sewer to bring waste into the Killarney mains.

But it's not before time and a world of pain for locals.

It also spells an end in sight to grave concerns over the state of the Kilcummin to Killarney road, the bane of motorists' lives in a job shelved for technical reasons until sewer works get underway.

News was widely welcomed by local councillors this week, but such are some perceptions locally of their record on the issue that Mayor of Killarney Brendan Cronin felt honour-bound to offer a robust defence of elected members' efforts to secure the infrastructure.

News of Irish Water's intention to apply for planning was flagged in an ad in last week's Kerryman, with senior water engineer Colm Mangan telling councillors at a meeting in Killarney last Wednesday he expected the company to lodge the application in the coming weeks.

"It's dangerous to presume anything but the contract documents are being prepared now and the hope is it will go to tender by the end of the year," Mr Mangan said.

Mr Mangan added that the funding commitment is in place, saying: 'We've no reason to believe it's not going ahead'.

Cllr Cronin described it as 'very welcome, but long, long overdue news', launching into a stinging rebuke to recent comments criticising the apparent lack of effort by politicians over fixing the main road from the community.

He said he felt councillors had not been given a chance to defend their record: "All eight councillors were castigated for not doing anything...as far as I'm concerned I give 110 per cent to anything. ..I can understand the frustration of the people of Kilcummin with that section of road."

It's a section of road that would have to be excavated to get the sewer down and Cllr Cronin said the chamber would have been a 'laughing stock' if it had imprudently paid for a complete resurfacing only to tear the new road up again months later for the sewerage work.

The delay in delivering the pipeline was not of the councillors' making but due to a legal quagmire following the collapse of a combined Kilcummin, Milltown and Barraduff sewerage scheme, he added.

"We got the funding and the contract documents were in place...but it went pear-shaped...since 2008 there has been 46 council meetings with an average of five to seven motions per meeting on Kilcummin. Everyone of us saw fit to repeatedly fight for it.

"When your integrity and credibility is taken from you it hurts because you can't buy it."

It's expected the roadworks will get underway as the public mains is laid.
A convoy of UN armoured troop carriers, patrol vehicles and supply trucks makes its way through Liberian capital Monrovia in 2003. Photos courtesy of Alan Hanafin and Joe Hanley

In April 1981 - aged just 18 and having never strayed too far from his native Tralee - Alan Hanafin found himself at the heart of the conflict in Lebanon when he joined the UN peacekeeping mission in the strife ridden middle eastern nation.

It was a defining moment in the young Kerry man's life but within days Hanafin and his Irish comrades in the UNIFIL force received a rude awakening about the danger that faced them around every corner.

Less than a week into Hanafin's first tour, on April 27 1981, Irish soldiers Private Hugh Doherty and Private Kevin Joyce were killed during an attack on their observation post at Dyar Ntar in southern Lebanon.

Doherty was aged 20 and, like Hanafin, he was just days into his first tour.

His body was found near the observation post but the remains of Private Joyce - then only 19 and due to return home to Ireland a few days later - have never been found.

Now, almost 36 years on, he remains 'missing presumed dead' and the Irish Defence Forces are still trying to locate his remains.

The tragic fate of Privates Doherty and Joyce was a sobering event for Alan Hanafin but it didn't deter him from the call of duty and he would spend the next 30 years in the armed forces.

Stationed first at Collins Barracks in Cork and Later at the Curragh and Sarsfield Barracks in Limerick Hanafin took part in eight UN and NATO peacekeeping operations.

These included three tours in the Lebanon, two tours in Bosnia and tours in Kosavo, Liberia and Cyprus.

He witnessed first hand the horrors of Sarajevo; the plight of Kosovan refugees fleeing Serbia's ethnic cleansing programme and the torment of the drug addicted child soldiers who had been forced to fight by Liberia's warlords.

Alan Hanafin's long and dedicated service came to an end in 2011 when he retired from the armed forces and returned to live in his hometown.

Now, six years into his retirement he has just been elected the new Chairman of the Kerry Post 32 branch of the Irish UN Veterans Association.

The nationwide organisation - which acts as both a social network and a support group for former and serving soldiers - has 26 members in Kerry and the local branch are hoping to bring new members into the fold.

While the IUNVA helps bring old comrades together Hanafin says its main purpose is far more important.

"There is a social side, and that's a big part of it, but the association also exists to help former soldiers. We do a lot of fundraising and that money is used to help soldiers who may have fallen on hard times or others who might find themselves with post traumatic stress and who could benefit from counselling," he says.

The social aspect of the Association helps keep the sense of camaraderie alive among the veterans and, to that end, the Kerry Post 32 branch have taken part in numerous trips oversees.

These have included celebrations like St Patrick's Day in Boston and more sombre occasions like a visit to the graves in Normandy of fallen Irish troops who perished on D-Day.

Like Alan the IUNVA's Kerry members served across the globe and many of them saw action side by side.

"We have members who were in the Lebanon, Bosnia, Kosovo, Liberia, Cyprus, Somalia, East Timor, Chad and Eritrea. Right now two of our members are serving in New York protecting the UN headquarters," he said.

"Our members have been all over the world and in some tough situations."

"We Irish are lucky. We have the gift of the gab and you'd be surprised how good that can be when you need to talk yourself out of a dangerous spot."

"We always had tremendous support from our families back home which was also very important."

Alan Hanafin has fond memories of his time in uniform but, as one would expect, not all of them are pleasant.

"I think the toughest place I served was Bosnia. That was tough. We were peacekeeping and there was a lot of humanitarian work to be done and we saw a lot of suffering."

"Liberia was hard too but that was more to do with the conditions. I'll never forget the heat. It was like working in an oven all day, every day."

The tours were often tough but the Irish troops also made firm friends with their foreign comrades, although sometimes there was some tension.

"Everyone always got along. Though I remember in Cyprus we were serving with the British and Argentinians and, given the history there, that did get a little awkward at times," he laughs.

The IUNVA is hugely important to Alan but, he admits, he still misses day to day life in the service

"I miss it every day. You never forget the comradeship and the trust that develops between you and those you serve with."

Anyone interested in joining the Kerry IUNVA, or learning more about it, can call PRO Joe Hanley at (087) 2376061.
Billy Keane meets the young and elders of the tribe on his 2014 visit with the Medical Missionaries of Mary

Getting ready to travel to rural Tanzania for the opening of the life-saving Kostal Water Project were, front from left, Don, Willie and Billy Keane and back, from left, Mike Herlihy, Seamus Heffernan, John Keane, Maurice Kelly and Des Martin. Billy and Don's brother Patrick is also travelling out with the group

Kostal's 1,000-strong workforce between its Abbeyfeale and Mallow plants are being warmly thanked by one African community from the bottom of its heart this week.

Thanks to the support of the car-electronic manufacturer the Maasai people of an expansive rural community will no longer be forced to undertake pain-staking journeys for hours to collect noxious water.

The Kostal Water Project 2017 will instead see scores of villages equipped with their own water tanks, each complete with its own filtration unit and bathing area in what's set to transform their lives. And it's all thanks to Kostal Abbeyfeale employee Billy Keane and his father Willie; Listowel men who have been actively raising funds for the work of the Medical Missionaries of Mary in the area for over ten years.

"I'm a trainer with Kostal and through my work have gotten to know many of the Mallow workers as well and the support of everyone, including the company has been nothing short of amazing the last few years for the work in Tanzania," Billy said.

It's a charity link that was initially forged by Willie after he became friendly with the now deceased cleric Fr Louis Sisti, a native of the community who had travelled to Ireland petitioning the government here for help for his people. That help was proferred and so, too, was Willie's as the Listowel man launched into an incredible charity drive that has to date raised over 250,000 and built an entire hospital and school in Arusha.

Billy became impassioned by his father's work when he travelled out with him for the opening of the clinic and school in 2013. "That's when we got the idea for the water project. I met one woman who used to leave her home at 4.30am to collect water. She wouldn't get back until 6.30 in the evening, with filthy water at that," Billy explained.

He lost no time when he got back galvanising co-workers to action. Now, on March 9, he heads back with five Kostal colleagues - his brothers Paddy and Don, Tralee man Des Martin and Abbeyfeale men Michael Herlihy and Seamus Heffernan - to represent the company at the opening of the Water Project.

"A drill attempted before never got a drop and while we considered running a pipeline hundreds of miles from a nearest source felt this would only be tapped into by others before it ever got to the people. That's why we came up with the water tank idea.

"It only rains once or twice a year there, but when it does it rains hard. It helps grow the corn they farm but most is lost. These 5,000 litre tanks will help catch it so it can be used over months and the design is such that there will be a bathing area around each of the 20 tanks we're establishing in the area so people can bathe in clean water too," Billy said.
A large quantity of cannabis plants and cannabis herb were seized at a growhouse in Clonard last week.

Members of the Wexford drugs unit searched the house in Clonard last Tuesday afternoon, and found plants worth 1,600 and cannabis herb worth 6,000. The plants were being grown under artificial conditions and some items of growing paraphernalia were also seized.

A man in his 30s was questioned in connection with the haul.

In an unrelated incident, a man in his 20s was arrested after being stopped and searched in Ferndale last Thursday. Cannabis herb worth 600, a grinder and a set of scales were found in his possession and a file is being sent to the DPP.
An application is to be lodged with the Commission of Energy Regulator (CER) for the introduction of a gas spur to the New Ross area.

Fianna Fail Councillor Michael Sheehan welcomed the pending application describing it as a positive step forward for the town and area.

'I have been pursuing this with Bord Gas Eireann and being supported by the local chamber. My understanding is that the New Ross spur application is nearing the final internal evaluation and stress checks for lodgement with the CER towards the end of the month. It will take several months for the CER to evaluate the business case for accessing the pipeline,' Cllr Sheehan said.

Once lodged with the CER is it up to the regulator to adjudicate on the application and then to permit Bord Gas to progress with the final stages of the process in terms of connections, business and ultimately residential consumers.

'Having a regular constant supply of good cheap energy is a staple requirement of modern industry and a modern economy and New Ross is in need of investment both of infrastructure and of industry. If we are successful in obtaining this spur, we will remove another obstacle of attracting employment to town and allow the IDA to market the area easily. It makes New Ross cheaper and easier to invest in and combined with Broadband, retains a competitive edge. Something we need to maintain. I want to congratulate all involved so far and to wish them well with the lodgement when its ready. I'm optimistic that we will be approved, and that by the middle of 2019, we can see industry people connecting to natural gas in the area.'
In 2015 the New Houghton Hospital in New Ross was threatened with closure following two Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) inspections, but today it has bounced back and is compliant with nine out of ten HIQA requirements.

In September 2015 a 30 day closure notice was placed on the hospital, leading to shock and concern among residents, as it had major non compliances which were uncovered when HIQA inspected the facility on Hospital Road for the renewal of its three year licence.

The inspectors refused registration in autumn of that year and an immediate action plan was put in place.

On the registration inspection of March 2015 and subsequent follow up inspection in June 2015 there was still significant non compliance in relation to some fundamental and essential components of the requirements of the Health Act (Care and Welfare of Residents in Designated Centres for Older People) Regulations 2013 (as amended) including core aspects of governance which included, medication management, healthcare needs, risk management and reviewing quality and safety of care. Subsequent to the follow up inspection the provider was given written notice that the Chief Inspector proposed to cancel the registration of New Houghton as a designated centre.

In November 2015 a third inspection was conducted as a follow up on two previous inspections that year.

The HIQA inspectors found that improvements had been made at the hospital and registration was approved.

Furthermore a report on an unannounced monitoring inspection by HIQA inspectors in November 2016, which was published in late January, has spoken of the hospital in glowing terms. The inspection followed on from matters arising from a monitoring inspection carried out on November 11, 2015.

As part of the inspection, the inspector met with residents, relatives and staff members. The inspector noted significant improvement in quality of care and management systems. There was evidence of progress in many areas by Barbara Murphy and Ann Roche, who were in charge in implementing the required improvements identified in the previous inspection.

Healthcare support staff, nursing and ancillary staff were well informed and were observed to have friendly relationships with residents. Staff who spoke with the inspector conveyed a comprehensive understanding of individual residents' wishes and preferences.

Quality of life and wellbeing was promoted by supporting residents to continue to do as much as possible for themselves and by encouraging residents to remain stimulated by actively engaging in their care programmes and in social activity. The varied programme of activities and the presence of a dedicated activities coordinator was welcomed. Overall the inspector was satisfied that the person in charge, provider and management team were committed to ensuring the centre was in substantial compliance with current legislation and that residents were safe and well cared for. A total of ten outcomes were inspected. The inspector found nine outcomes were compliant and one outcome was substantially compliant with the regulations. Effective management systems were seen to be in place in the centre during the inspection. The hospital manager was described as being suitably qualified and demonstrated a satisfactory knowledge of the regulations.

The inspector observed that the action for quality improvement initiatives for 2016 had been completed. Ms Murphy was found to have provided a good standard of governance and clinical leadership to the staff team in all aspects of care delivery.

She was suitably qualified as a registered nurse and had the authority, accountability and responsibility for the provision of the service. The inspector found that she was well informed about residents and person centred in her approach. Additionally the use of restraint had decreased since the last inspection. The inspector found that the health and safety of residents, staff and visitors in the centre was promoted and protected and that falls were currently at a minimum level in the centre, and all staff had been trained. The inspector reviewed a sample of residents' care plans and certain aspects within other care plans such as wound management, residents with compromised nutritional status and care plans related to residents with dementia.

There was evidence that the care plans were updated at the required intervals or in a timely manner in response to a change in a resident's health condition. There was also evidence of consultation with residents or their representative in care plans. The inspector reviewed in detail a care plan of a resident receiving wound management. There was evidence that the wound had been assessed and dressed in accordance with good practice guidance. There was a wound management policy which guided the staff in the prevention and management of wounds. The inspector saw that records outlined the size and extent of the tissue damage, the dressings in use and progress each time the dressing was changed.

Staff were well informed on wound care practice. Expert advice was available from nursing staff in the acute services and externally that had specialist expertise in this area. On this inspection the inspector saw that there was a dedicated end of life room on each floor which were decorated to a high standard. Residents now had the option of a single room if required and these rooms also facilitated family and friends to stay overnight.
The farm of a south Kilkenny man who owes 4,000,000 to the Revenue was raided by gardai on Tuesday last, and 125 cattle were seized.

The action by the Sheriff on behalf of the Criminal Assets Bureau arises from a High Court judgment obtained by the Bureau against Thomas McDonnell of Pollough, Skeoughvosteen, Graiguenamanagh, County Kilkenny, for unpaid taxes. The Bureau commenced its investigation relating to Mr McDonnell in 2006. Mr McDonnell's tax liability covers the years 1991/1992 to 2006 (a total of 16 tax years) based on assessments made in 2008 giving rise to a tax liability of 1.2 million (tax only).

Mr McDonnell failed to discharge his tax liability and accordingly the Bureau commenced High Court Revenue proceedings for the collection of the unpaid taxes in November 2009. Mr McDonnell defended these proceedings with the assistance of solicitor and counsel. Ultimately, the Bureau obtained judgment in May 2013 and has in the intervening period sought to collect the sums outstanding. With accrued interest, the tax liability inclusive of interest is in excess of 4 million.

Last Tuesday's action, which has been one of a number of actions by the Bureau since obtaining judgment in the High Court, has resulted in approximately 125 cattle being seized. A vet was on hand to ensure the cattle were safely removed from the farm. A Criminal Assets Bureau spokesperson said: 'The work of the Bureau will continue its work in a hope to engage fully with Mr McDonnell to discharge his tax obligations.'
The spreading of treated sewage sludge in Adamstown - which is causing a stink locally - has been defended by the company.

Enva Ireland has been storing Biosolids in a farmyard near Adamstown, County Wexford since early 2015, having obtained the necessary Certificate of Registration from Wexford County Council to do so.

An Enva spokesperson said: 'Land-spreading of Biosolids (treated sewage sludge) is the Environmental Protection Agency's recommended best environmental practice. It is a valuable and sustainable source of nutrient rich fertiliser and is in high demand among productive farmers. We soil sample and prepare a nutrient management plan for each field, which is submitted to the local authority for approval prior to any application of Biosolids. We are fully in compliance with all legislation and codes of good practice.'

The company declined to comment on the smell from the sludge which is being stored and spread in Oldcourt, Adamstown.

Having been contacted by local residents Labour Cllr George Lawlor visited the area last week and was horrified by the smell.

He is calling on Wexford County Council to consider local residents when deciding on the company's applications for approval to spread the sludge. 'It was the worst slurry smell you could ever imagine. It was dreadful!'

He said the sludge is imported from around County Wexford and other counties into Adamstown.

'Planning permission wasn't previously required by the Environmental Protection Agency for these plants but now it is.'

He described the smell from the sludge as follows: 'It's the most offensive, obnoxious smell. Nobody has any objection to slurry smells and farmyards. They can be slightly unpleasant but that is the nature of living in the country but the smell local residents are complaining about is the strongest smell. It was greater than any other offensive smell I have ever experienced. It's not something that you could live alongside for even a short period of time. Days after the smell was still in my nostrils and in my van.'

'In my view if Wexford County Council grant planning permission they will be greatly failing the people of Adamstown.'
With just over a month to go until St Patrick's Day preparations are well under way for the annual parade in New Ross.

The parade is kicking off at 2.30 p.m. this year and will begin in the Irishtown. The theme is 'Festival Celebration'.

Cllr Anthony Connick, chairperson of the parade committee, said that this theme gives all participating groups the chance to celebrate what is important to them. He went on to say that this year the committee are trying to encourage more groups to enter floats.

Cllr Connick said: 'There are new prizes been given for "Most Original Costume" and "Best Topical Costume".' He can be contacted on 087 2338350 for more information. As always the committee are looking for volunteers to help out on the day.
Gorey Ballygarrett CCE will host an evening of music and traditional sean nos dancing in Gorey Little Theatre on February 11.

Cuig are an new Irish trad band and have just returned from the Irish Heartbeat Tour in Germany. Renowned sean nos dancer Irene Cummingham will also perform as will students from Bunscoil Loreto. Tickets on sale from the Gwalia Stores and Making Music.
Another of the photos taken from Ferrycarrig Bridge

A rare photo of an otter at Ferrycarrig, snapped by local wildlife photographer John Holden

Otters aren't rare in Ireland, but they are difficult to photograph.

Which makes these rare day time pictures taken from Ferrycarrig Bridge by Wexford wildlife photographer John Holden really special.

John, who captured this stunning image of the otter after it caught a Scorpion Fish, said the animal was probably four feet from tail to nose.

'They are generally nocturnal, so sighting tends to be rare and near impossible to photograph,' said John, whose shots prove the exception to the rule.

John, from Rosslare Harbour, said he had a tip off that the otter had been seeing feeding near the bridge, 'so I spent an hour or more hanging around'.

'I spotted a seal feeding under the bridge, so I knew there were fish about.

'After about an hour I spotted him under the bridge and he just hunted his way towards me, I must have seen him eat four or five sand dabs in as many minutes.

'He then appeared in front of me with the Scorpion Fish, and that was this shot!' John told this newspaper.
Sean MacManus was hailed as an "outstanding" leader for Sligo, one never afraid to speak his mind on his last day in Sligo County Council chamber.

He was thanked for his integrity, vision, professionalism and leadership by fellow councillors and Chief Executive Ciaran Hayes in an emotional afternoon of tributes as he officially stood down as Councillor after over two decades as a public representative.

His farewell speech was full of humour, wistfulness and passion.

"I know you all and thank from the bottom of my heart for your kindness to me. If I had known you thought this well of me I'd have gone years ago," he said to laughter and applause.

Chief Executive Ciaran Hayes recalled the first time he met Sean - he was meeting all the councillors shortly after his appointment. "There was a leader in the room and that was Sean.

"Notable for me was the confidentiality we shared. As regards the sharp end of hot tongue, it was always interesting because it was always easy to rise Sean depending on the results of the GAA the day before. I always enjoyed that banter. On a professional front, can I pay tribute to you."

Cathaoirleach Hubert Keaney said: "Even on your last day you have given us points to think about."

He was presented with a cross pen to record his memoirs on his retirement.
A powerful show of farming, community, environmental groups and local and national politicians have warned the government there can no delays in bringing a bill to ban fracking into law.

Representatives were speaking at a press conference in Dublin last week about the public consultation process regrading on the bill to ban fracking which has been brought forward by Deputy Tony McLoughlin.

The consultation was called in late December and organisations and individuals are being asked to send in their submissions with the closing date extended untill Feb 10th. The bill was voted unanimously through the Dail on October 27th but subsequent to that decision, the public consultation was announced.

Submissions were delivered on the day from Love Leitrim, Leitrim Co Co, and GEAI as well as 250 petitions gathered by local farmer Michael Gallagher. Love Leitrims' submission stressed the need for the bill proceed to the next stage without delay and no watering it down.

Submissions were presented to Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, Chair of the committee scrutinising the bill. A hand made St Brigid's cross from Leitrim to commemorate the day, and to warn off danger and protect from harm was also presented to her. Friends of the Earth also delivered a petition with 7,500 names that the group and Uplift had gathered online.

A recurring theme at the press conference was concern the bill was being delayed.

Deputy Mcloughlin reminded those present that the bill was only part of the way there. He said they could not afford delays of any kind. He urged that the bill get clear passage with "no ifs or buts."

Eddie Mitchell of Love Leitrim said: "The only thing that can stop this bill is if people want to hold it back'

Deputy Martin Kenny reiterated that sentiment. He said that even though a ban in fracking was voted for unanimously through the Dail, there were still forces behind the scenes promoting fracking.

He claimed: "There are vested interests pulling strings."

Deputy Brid Smith said that she was "worried they were dragging it out, to make the bill fall." Increased public pressure to ensure the bill continued without needless delays was now the priority, she said. To that end the crowd was reminded that the Friends of the Earth and Uplift petition was still online for people to sign. A vision of a frack free country was one that was in sight.

Kate Ruddock of Friends of the Earth said fracking played "no part in our future" .
Two so-called charity premises have been closed and its operator given a five month suspended jail term by Judge Kevin Kilrane at Sligo District Court. He said there were a number of worrying features about how the Twist charity clothes shop at Quay Street and a Twist charity soup kitchen at High Street were being run by Oliver Williams (50).

"It's important that he is stopped in his tracks," said the Judge about Williams who had failed to register with the Charities Regulatory Authority.

The case had been adjourned from the previous week but Williams had sent in an incomplete application to register, didn't put his own name to the document and had named two men as trustees of his proposed charity, one of whom was the landlord of the premises. The names of the two trustees were entered on the document in Irish and the defendant had difficulty in reading the names to the court when asked to do so by the Judge.

Williams, a father of four from Loughrea, Galway and who has previous convictions under the Theft and Fraud Offences Act and for possession of stolen property, told the court the previous week that the clothes shop made no money, only enough to cover the 100 a week rent on both premises.The court was told that anyone buying clothes or other items at the shop at Quay Street weren't given any receipts and Williams said there was nothing in the bank account.

Williams admitted nine offences brought by the Charities Regulatory Authority with regard to the Twist premises in November and December 2016.

Letters were sent to Williams requesting him to cease and desist from trading towards the end of last year but these were ignored. Last week, Williams was ordered to close the premises and Judge Kilrane was told this had been done and while a ledger book had been handed over to defence solicitor Tom MacSharry which had also been directed, cash on the premises amounting to 132 wasn't, with the defendant saying this had gone to paying the rent.

Gerry Coller, a licensed investigator with the authority said he went to the Twist charity clothes shop at 14 Quay Street on various dates last November. It sold bric-a-brac, small toys, clothes and second hand goods generally. The shop took in donations and made cash sales. There was no cash register and no receipts were issued for sales. The witness bought two books on November 22nd and he didn't see sales being recorded in any book. He said he believed the defendant was a mechanic by trade and also referred to a 1916 calendar produced by the Twist charity which had a number attached but which was not a registered charity number. Mr Coller also referred to a mobile number which was on two signs above the premises and which was the same as one on a garage called Williams Car Care in Loughrea. Mr MacSharry said this business had closed last September. The man had paid 1.50 for the two books he bought. He agreed that the food being served at the soup kitchen on High Street was free of charge.

CEO of the Charities Regulatory Authority, John Farrelly told Mr MacSharry that once the body received a complete application its processing took about three months. An application can be done online and then the authority would interview nominated trustees, look at the proposed constitution and how the charity was to be governed. The application submitted by the defendant in the past week was deemed incomplete. "The financial records are missing for instance," he said.

Mr MacSharry said the defendant had been working around the clock over the previous week on the application.

Mr Farrelly said his modus operandi was to help people become charities. There was a call centre in place where applicants queries were dealt with in order to get to the complete and full stage of an application.

"The application process is not that serious to be honest," said witness. He said the authority was very cognisant of the beneficiaries in this matter and they had been in touch with Sligo Social Services who would be capable of addressing these needs and also St Vincent De Paul Society locally in regards to the gifts. He said they had tried to work with the defendant and they didn't want this situation.

"We have done everything we can," he said, adding: "We have to ensure that donations including those online are for a charitable purpose. We don't take this kind of action lightly," he said. Judge Kilrane said he noted that he was concerned the defandant's name was not on the application. Asked who the trustees were, the defendant replied after some hesitation that they were a Mr McCarrick and a Thomas Gormally from Kilcolgan. The witness paid rent to Mr McCarrick for both premises. He was asked why the men's names were in Irish on the form and the defendant replied he didn't know if they went by their Irish names all the time and that they may use both.

Mr Keane BL, for the authority, said it was the most unusual spelling of names in Irish he had come across. Williams said the number on the calendar was got from Revenue when they were in charge of regulating charities. He said he had shops in Galway, Athlone and Loughrea but Sligo was the only one he had left.

Judge Kilrane said the entire charity business had come under scrutiny in recent years and breaches that have come to light could be put down to well meaning and naive people or downright criminality, the latter being a feature of some high profile cases with many decent charities suffering as a result. It was essential that the public had confidence in charities. They must be registered, operated by people of good standing and there had to be day to day governance.

The Judge said the defendant didn't seem to understand the seriousness of the situation and thought he could get away with matters. He rushed a last minute application and rather than impressing the court he had done the opposite. His own name was absent and one of the proposed trustees was his landlord. He also didn't appear to know much about the application. "Why is his name not on it? Presumably to conceal his identity" - Judge. He said the 1916 calendar was completely misleading and downright fraudulent. "The good thing is that he has been stopped and that the operation was dealing in relatively small sums of money. "One can only say that I hope that is the case. No one will know what he received from this shop," said the Judge. He imposed a five month jail term, suspended on condition he does not engage in any charitable business for two years. He must also not apply for charitable registration in his own name or that of another. The stock currently at the shop is to go to St. Vincent De Paul and he is also to close his Facebook and cease online donations.
The widow of a man who was killed in a landslide on Kilronan mountain last December has helped to raise funds for Sligo Leitrim Mountain Rescue.

Following the tragic death of Paddy McCaffrey, of Rossinver, in a landslide his family and friends have come together to express their appreciation to the Mountain Rescue Team for their role in the search and recovery operation.

Team spokeswoman Fiona Gallagher described the donation received as "the most substantial sum we have received from individual doners, in at least the last 15 years".

She said: "Paddy McCafferty lost his life in tragic circumstances during a landslide on a windfarm site at Kilronan Mountain above Ballyfarnon.

"Sligo Leitrim Mountain Rescue were tasked by the Gardai in assisting with a search and rescue operation at the site in Derrysallagh alongside the Fire Service, paramedics and site workers.

"This was a difficult and challenging operation and was carried out in poor weather and visibility. As a rescue team our desire is always to preserve life; sadly that was not possible on this occasion, however it was of huge importance for the family to recover the remains of the deceased in a dignified and respectful manner.

Fiona added: "We are extremely grateful and humbled by the huge gesture of acknowledgement by Paddy's wife Helen, the extended family, co-workers, friends and local community in establishing a memorial fund and subsequently collecting over 1,700 for mountain rescue.

"We are a voluntary service and this donation is probably the single largest bequest we have ever received. It is a true testament to the family that they have thought of others in the midst of their own grief.

"This donation will be utilised to purchase a single piece of rescue equipment such as a stretcher, which will be used in Paddy McCaffrey's memory, to save lives on the hills of Sligo and Leitrim, thus ensuring that something positive will come from this tragic loss."

We would like to express our deepest appreciation to all who contributed to this fund and to thank the family for taking the time to meet with us and thank us personally. It makes our work all the more worthwhile".

For confirmation contact Fiona Gallagher @087-980-7410
The succession and transfer of farms from one generation to another was one of the main talking points at the Irish Farmers Journal/Macra na Feirme CAP 2020 consultation meeting in the Radisson Hotel, Sligo last Wednesday night.

Macra na Feirme are the first organisation to hold public meetings on the new CAP. Promoting generational renewal has been identified as a challenge and will be a key EU Commission priority for the new CAP post 2020 and part of the upcoming EU Commission consultation.

Almost one hundred farmers turned out on the night to have their say and the other main talking points focused on agriculture finance for young farmers such as low interest loans and crop failure insurance as well as how an active farmer should be defined by the EU.

Speaking afterwards Deirdre Kennedy Sligo Macra na Feirme Country Chair said: "Tonight was a very important event for our young farmers so their voice will be heard in Europe in negotiations.

Young people want a future in rural Ireland and the distribution of the CAP payments post 2020 is vital to ensure that rural Ireland remains vibrant with young people."

Macra na Feirme President Sean Finan said: "Macra na Feirme is the first organisation to engage in a consultation process and it was great to hear the views of young farmers and what they would like to see in CAP post 2020."
"Parting is such sweet sorrow" - Sinn Fein County Councillor Sean MacManus evoked Shakespeare in his farewell to Sligo County Council yesterday after almost 23 years as a public representative.

17 Councillors paid tribute to their colleague, as his wife Helen, son Chris, and Council officials past and present watched on from the public gallery.

In a magnanimous and emotional speech, Cllr MacManus took the opportunity to thank his colleagues and council staff for their support and help over the past two decades, spoke about his proudest moments and modestly played down his role in the Peace Process.

"When I first entered politics it was with some reluctance. I never saw myself as serving over 23 years. I thought I might get two terms but that morphed into five terms into what is now a full time job," he told the chamber.

He said the reason he has decided to retire was to spend more time with his family and friends but stressed that he would still be working behind the scenes with Sinn Fein.

"I have been involved in Republican politics for the past 45 years, serving as National Chairman of Sinn Fein twice,

"I've had the opportunity to visit parts of the world I might not have otherwise seen, although most of the time it was in meetings, taxis or airports.

"I've met Presidents, Prime Ministers, Ambassadors and various hues of revolutionaries and many other great humble people.

"My input into the negotiations of the Peace Process, while it's still slow and much is outstanding, we'd all agree that serious progress has been made and I'm proud to say I've played a small part of that," he said.

"I remain an undaunted Republican, looking for a more equitable society for our people. I pride myself that I did not force these views on anybody over the course of my time as a public representative," he said.

Cllr MacManus decried the way the profession of politician has come under fire in recent years.

He said politicians are "denigrated, attacked and undermined" by sections of the national media who have "heaped vitriol on elected politicians and politics in general".

"Blame is heaped on them, every ill of society is laid at the door of politicians. It's all our fault," he said.

He admitted there was an insignificant minority of people who brought the profession into disrepute but added that there were hundreds of "conscientious and diligent" politicians doing their utmost to help those they were elected to serve."

He had words of support for his former colleagues: "We do our best and we do make a difference. We should never hesitate to remember that reality.

"We are proud of the work that we do."

Cllr MacManus recalled his time as Mayor of Sligo twice as among the highlights of his career.

"To become First Citizen of this beautiful place is something I'll always treasure."

"It's my hope to continue to play a role in my party. I don't intend to ride of into the sunset just yet.

"Amid the excitement and possibility, I do feel a wistfulness about leaving this chamber. Despite all my soul-searching nothing has prepared me for it.

"Parting is such sweet sorrow" - for me, the sweet part is Strandhill, the beach, Knocknarea and the freedom. The sorrow is the farewells.

Slan agaibh but I'm not saying goodbye, as I'll see you all again," he said to a standing ovation.
As IT Sligo's RAG week gets underway, the Students' Union (SU) has a number of measures in place to ensure students are safe at all times.

While the purpose of RAG week initially was to raise money for charity, it has long been associated with heavy drinking.

But the SU at IT Sligo is conscious of the disruption such a week can often cause, and have arrangements in place to ensure housing estates and student areas are well tidied up each morning and at the end of the week.

"The SU like to meet with the college and make sure it's at a time where there's not too many assignments for students. We also meet with residents and local garda to discuss the week," said Cillian Folan, SU President.

"We work very closely with the local residents associations. We also meet with the licensed premises for the week, although only two turned up this year which was a bit disappointing," he added.

Each morning, two groups of four volunteers will go out and clean up the remnants of the night before.

Groups will also do a major clean up of the student areas at the conclusion of the week.

Cillian says this is crucial to a successful RAG week: "We have eight people cleaning up every morning from 8am until 11am in consultation with the Residents Associations, from the Mall up as far as Yeats Heights, Glencarrig, Ashbury and Mulberry.

"We really do want to have a good relationship with residents so this is important."

Money raised from this year's instalment will go towards the Ronan Sweeney Rehabilitation Fund - a student who was injured in an accidental fall last year.

Throughout the course of RAG week, two cars full of volunteers will be patrolling student areas from 8pm - 6am each night to ensure students are safe, and everyone gets home safely. The emergency contact numbers 087 096 8742 or 071 91 41887 can be used should students be concerned for their safety or that of their friends.

The emergency lines will be open 24/7 throughout the course of RAG week.

"It takes a good bit of preparation. But safety is the main thing for us," added Mr. Folan.

"We want everyone to have a great time and it's an opportunity for students to unwind after finishing their exams," he said.

Last year RAG week at IT Sligo raised 6,000 for charity.
Head of Bank of Ireland Sligo, Leitrim and and Roscommon Joann Hosey and Tubbercurry Branch Manager Sheila Lenehan and staff in the banks newly renovated project centre. Pic: Sinead Healy

If new jobs are key to saving rural Ireland from decline, then the people to do those jobs must either be here or be persuaded to move here to fulfil those jobs.

It's a chicken and egg situation. A perceived lack of skilled workers in the North West is often cited as the reason a large multi-national won't open a new factory here.

Sligo, Donegal and Mayo are the only three counties which experienced a drop in population in the past decade.

How do rural businesses in Sligo address this?

That Tubbercurry, a once thriving market town 40 years ago, has been badly hit by the downturn there is no doubt. But there are also businesses here not just surviving but thriving.

Bank of Ireland has brought 25 extra jobs to the town in an internal initiative to spread employment around the country.

Recently appointed Head of Bank of Ireland for Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon Joann Hosey met The Sligo Champion in the Tubbercurry branch.

She believes attracting back the diaspora is one way to reverse the population decline: "If you look at the population I'm managing I've about 136,000. We have probably the most aged population in the country, about 15% are over 65 years compared to a 12% national average. We need to attract back our youth after they finish college," she said. "Sligo IT would play a critical role to encouraging their students to stay in Sligo but also working with other universities where Sligo people have gone to attract them back. It's really important we attract people back early in their career so they can develop a strong career in Sligo," she said.

"We have everything in Sligo: fabulous coastlines, plenty of housing, excellent schools - what we need is employment to make it the full package," said Joann, a Tubbercurry native herself.

She is involved with Sligo LEADER programmes and also realises the potential of supporting start-ups, especially as "there are only so many FDI companies out there."

"There's significant leader funding for those groups and start-up labs. It's actually mind-blowing the extent of supports available."

Joanna and Tubbercurry Branch Manager Sheila Lenehan lobbied to bring extra bank staff to their newly refurbished premises above the branch.

They succeeded and now 25 new people are carrying out bank project work upstairs.

"We're absolutely delighted to get them upstairs," said Sheila. "They're doing their shopping in the local supermarket, they're buying their lunches here so they're spending here." Joann says there's evidence of a knock-on effect already: "You walk down the town and the shops would comment on the increased footfall. Marian in the local shoe shop can see the women upstairs are coming down and buying their shoes locally so it is having a lovely positive impact on the town," she added.

They say they have evidence that business "did happen" on the back of their Tubbercurry South Sligo Enterprise Town exhibition event before Christmas.

Another successful business owner in Tubbercurry would like to see the Government cut some of the red tape for state assistance.

Brothers Brendan and Enda Feely have been running their highly specialised toolmaking business Alpha Precision for the past 20 years and currently employ ten highly-skilled staff.

As contract builders making high-value custom parts (costing anything from 10,000 up to 100,000) for the likes of Abbotts and other plastic and metal companies, they work 8-10 weeks ahead of themselves.

"In 12 weeks, we're on the dole. But we're carrying bank leases, staff costs, very high expenditure and you've no real safety net," said Brendan.

"We would certainly like to see breaks for business like grants for capital equipment, grants for training," he said. "What we find is that by the time you go and apply for the grants, it's such a huge effort - we'd nearly have to hire a secretary there's that much paperwork for a 2,000 grant - we'd be thinking we'll do without it. We just couldn't be bothered," he said.

The standard of local accommodation is another issue he raised: "It'd be nice to see some of the tourism money mentioned in the report helping the local accommodation to lift their game for our clients," he said.

Have our politicians done enough?

"No, I wouldn't see that at all. In terms of job creation, we were working with a company on a valid ceramic water filtration project. Nobody showed any initiative to do that. We were knocking on the door asking for help. They might see toolmaking and water filtration as not worth the money. I don't know but they didn't seem too interested in us anyway," said Brendan.
Contest chairwoman Sarah Colfer (second from right) with contestants Will Doyle, Ashleigh Tobin, Caroline Murphy and Jonathan Wallace

Ashleigh Tobin was the winner of Wicklow Toastmaster's 'tall tales' competition held last Thursday night in the Grand Hotel, Wicklow.

It was Ashleigh's first foray into this competition and she had the audience spellbound with her speech about 'almost getting away with murder'. Runner up was Will Doyle and both will represent Wicklow in the Area final being held on February 23 and hosted by Greystones Toastmasters. The final will also include speakers from Dun Laoghaire, Bray and Greystones Clubs.

Four great speeches were adjudicated by Contest Chair, Sarah Colfer, providing a hugely enjoyable evening for all who attended.

'The standard was so good it was difficult to separate the speakers,' said Head Judge, John Conlon.
The Wicklow Hospice Strictly Come Dancing fundraising initiative drew to a conclusion in recent days as the proceeds totalling 23,000 were presented to the charity.

The presentation took place at the Arklow Bay Hotel and Wicklow Hospice representatives outlined their gratitude to everyone who helped to make the three-night event a roaring success.

Wicklow Hospice would like to say a heartfelt thank you to everybody who took part in the Wicklow Hospice Strictly especially choreographer Tara Ann Byrne, the dancers, the volunteers and the supporters. Thanks are also extended to prize sponsors Arklow Bay, Campus Oil, Macreddin and the Bridgewater Centre.

Thank you to Avril and Marie Dempsey for doing the hair and to Sharon Kavanagh for doing the makeup for the three nights, HD Electrical who sponsored the hair accessories and to the CBS who allowed the dancers to practice in their school hall. Wicklow Hospice paid tribute also to the judges who had the difficult task of rating the dancers - Mary Moules, MJ O'Neill, Tina Koumarianous, Gary Stephens and Shane Byrne. The night wouldn't have been the same without Vincent Doran and Adrian O'Brien Photography who captured the moments on camera and MC Bill Porter.

Strictly will return in December so if you feel like you would like to take a turn on the dance floor, contact Sinead on 0402 91310. The dream of opening a much needed 15 bed hospice will soon be a reality through the wonderful support of the people of Wicklow for which Wicklow Hospice is very grateful.
Two people have been arrested in connection with a high-speed car chase involving the Garda Air Support Unit which ended with the recovery of an assortment of stolen jewellery.

Initially Gardai attempted to stop a suspect car on Friday night in Newrath, Rathnew. However, the vehicle failed to pull over and a chase ensued.

The pursuit continued through Bollarney and the Rocky Road, with the driver of the car being pursued committing numerous dangerous driving offences, including breaking red lights, speeding on the wrong side of the road and clipping the side mirrors of parked cars.

The Garda Air Support Unit was also contacted and offered assistance during the pursuit, which continued into Wicklow town.

The vehicle, a silver Audi, eventually came to a halt at the cul-de-sac on Wentworth Place and three people attempted to flee the scene.

One of the suspects was spotted discarding a sock as they tried to make their escape. After a chase on foot, a teenager was arrested and brought to Wicklow Garda Station to be interviewed.

Several items of jewellery were discovered inside the discarded rolled-up sock. A subsequent search of the abandoned car unearthed further amounts of jewellery, including necklaces, watches, rings and bracelets. A large jar of loose change was also found.

Gardai believe most of the jewellery was stolen from addresses in Dublin and are currently trying to return the items to their rightful owners.

On Saturday, as part of a follow-up investigation into the previous nights incident, Gardai focused on Arklow during their search efforts for the two remaining suspects.

Another car chase ensued after a vehicle flagged by the Gardai to stop failed to do so. The Garda Air Support Unit was again involved. A man living locally in Arklow and known to the Gardai was later arrested and questioned at Arklow Garda Station. The recovery of the jewellery items was part of Operation Thor, which was established to tackle burglaries and house break-ins, especially those carried out by criminal gangs targeting different homes.
A male suspect has been arrested following the attempted robbery of a shop in Wicklow town.

On Tuesday, January 31, at 6.30 p.m., a lone male entered Tom Doran's Shop in Ballyguile wearing a balaclava and sunglasses to try and protect his identity. He was holding a knife and threatened a member of staff, demanding they hand over money from the till.

He fled the scene empty-handed and a suspect was apprehended a short time later by Gardai. He was arrested and brought to Wicklow Garda Station for questioning.

He hasn't been charged yet and is still helping Gardai with their enquiries.
An Arklow resident has issued a warning to the community to be on the lookout for bogus callers after she was targeted by three men on Friday.

The incident occurred at a house in South Green after 3.30 p.m. when the resident who lives alone heard a knock at the door.

'There were three of them and they told me that they had read my electricity metre and that I owed a certain amount of money to ESB. I told them that I didn't owe any money and that I had a pay and go metre but they said they would come back and cut me off,' the resident explained. 'They offered no identification and drove a large white van,' she added. After the callers had gone, the woman called ESB who verified that they had not authorised any such call-outs and that it was not a company representative.

'I knew I didn't owe any money but I called ESB to make sure and they told me that these men were not from their company. One of them wore an old style oilskin jacket and a hat and was aged in his late twenties or early thirties,' she said.

The woman quickly reported the incident to the Gardai and has warned neighbours of what happened. 'I really want to get the word out because they people are preying on vulnerable people. Some people night believe them and give them money. It's a terrible thing to happen,' she said.
Actor David Tennant has said he would back Scottish independence in a second referendum.

The 45-year-old Dr Who and Broadchurch star, who previously kept quiet on the issue, branded everything Brexit-related "depressing", but said he did not expect people to listen to what he said.

Speaking to The Times Magazine, he said: "And I'm now at the point where I think if Scotland goes again for a referendum, they should go independent.

Tennant added: "Politically, I think we're in for quite a dark time."

The former actor explained that while it was inevitable his personal views would surface during interviews, they were no more important than someone else's.

Around the time of the last vote for independence, Tennant, who was born in Bathgate, West Lothian, reportedly said it was not for him to have an opinion as he no longer considered himself to be Scottish.

In the September 2014 Scottish independence referendum the country voted by a margin of around 55%-45% to stay part of the United Kingdom.

But there have been calls for a second referendum after Scots voted to remain in the EU last year, contrary to the popular vote across the rest of Britain.
White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump walk along the colonnade ahead of a joint press conference by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and her father, U.S. President Donald Trump, at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 10, 2017. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump prepare to step off of Air Force One as they arrive in West Palm Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

US President Donald Trump speaks to the press with First Lady Melania Trump aboard Air Force One on February 10, 2017 during a flight Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida where they will spend the weekend Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe. / AFP PHOTO / Nicholas KammNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

US President Donald Trump speaks to the press with First Lady Melania Trump aboard Air Force One on February 10, 2017 during a flight Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida where they will spend the weekend Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe. / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMMNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

US President Donald Trump speaks to the press with First Lady Melania Trump aboard Air Force One on February 10, 2017 during a flight Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida where they will spend the weekend Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe. / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMMNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

US President Donald Trump speaks to the press with First Lady Melania Trump aboard Air Force One on February 10, 2017 during a flight Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida where they will spend the weekend Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe. / AFP PHOTO / Nicholas KammNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump arrive with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Air Force One at the Palm Beach International Airport as they prepare to spend part of the weekend together at Mar-a-Lago resort on February 10, 2017 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump walk down the stairs as they arrive with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe on Air Force One at the Palm Beach International airport as they prepare to spend part of the weekend together at Mar-a-Lago resort on February 10, 2017 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump walk down the stairs as they arrive with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe on Air Force One at the Palm Beach International airport as they prepare to spend part of the weekend together at Mar-a-Lago resort on February 10, 2017 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

US President Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka walking to board Marine One at the White House in Washington. Photo: GETTY

White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump walk along the colonnade ahead of a joint press conference by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and her father, U.S. President Donald Trump, at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 10, 2017. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

Senior Adviser to the President Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump follow Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Donald Trump aboard Marine One before departing the White House in Washington, U.S., February 10, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Ivanka Trump watches as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe U.S. and President Donald Trump speak during their joint news conference at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 10, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Ivanka Trump and Senior advisor and son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner arrive with their children Theodore (R), Arabella (C) and Joseph (L) during Japanese's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to West Palm Beach, Florida U.S., February 10, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump walk along the colonnade ahead of a joint press conference by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and her father, U.S. President Donald Trump, at the White House

(L to R) Senior adviser Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Steve Bannon, chief strategist for U.S. President Donald Trump, look on as Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hold a joint press conference at the White House on February 10, 2017 in Washington, DC. Tama/Getty Images)

(L to R) Senior adviser Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump enter before U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hold a joint press conference at the White House on February 10, 2017 in Washington, DC.

Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump walk off Air Force One with their children at Palm Beach International airport as they prepare to spend part of the weekend together with her father President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago resort on February 10, 2017 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Jared Kushner (L), White House senior adviser, and his wife Ivanka Trump arrive for a joint press conference by US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on February 10, 2017, at the White House in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / MANDEL NGANMANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

Ivanka Trump walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House February 10, 2017 in Washington, DC. Photo: Getty

Jared Kushner (L), White House senior adviser, and his wife Ivanka Trump, make their way to board Marine One before departing from the White House on February 10, 2017, in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / MANDEL NGANMANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

Ivanka Trump, daughter of US President Donald Trump, her husband Jared Kushner, senior adviser to Trump, and their children walk off Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida as they arrive to spend the weekend at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort on February 10, 2017 with Japanese Peime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie. / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMMNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

Ivanka Trump, daughter of US President Donald Trump, her husband Jared Kushner, senior adviser to Trump, and their children walk off Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida as they arrive to spend the weekend at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort on February 10, 2017 with Japanese Peime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie. / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMMNICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump walk off Air Force One with their children at Palm Beach International airport as they prepare to spend part of the weekend together with her father President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago resort on February 10, 2017 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Ivanka Trump and her young family took their first trip on Air Force One as they travelled to the President's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.

They joined First Lady Melania Trump and Donald Trump on the plane, and welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife, Akie, as they jetted off for a weekend away at the holiday home.

Ivanka Trump was wearing her fashion line, as reports emerged that the brand has faced struggles.

Her father has caused controversy by using his Twitter account to support the brand and lash out at Nordstrom.

Expand Close Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump walk off Air Force One with their children at Palm Beach International airport as they prepare to spend part of the weekend together with her father President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago resort on February 10, 2017 in West Palm Beach, Florida. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump walk off Air Force One with their children at Palm Beach International airport as they prepare to spend part of the weekend together with her father President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago resort on February 10, 2017 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The president slammed the store on Twitter, describing his daughter as a "great person" who was "always pushing me to do the right thing" and did not deserve to see her business suffer.

Ms Trump's fashion line includes clothing, jewellery, handbags and other products. Nordstrom's decision to drop the line came amid the "#GrabYourWallet" boycott of Trump-branded products.

Expand Close Ivanka Trump and Senior advisor and son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner arrive with their children Theodore (R), Arabella (C) and Joseph (L) during Japanese's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to West Palm Beach, Florida U.S., February 10, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria / Facebook

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Nordstrom has denied the move was motivated by anything other than poor sales.

We've said all along we make buying decisions based on performance," the company said last week in a statement. "We've got thousands of brands, more than 2,000 offered on the site alone. Reviewing their merit and making edits is part of the regular rhythm of our business."

Expand Close Jared Kushner (L), White House senior adviser, and his wife Ivanka Trump, make their way to board Marine One before departing from the White House on February 10, 2017, in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / MANDEL NGANMANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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But the announcement came just three days after the company issued an internal memo in support of any employees affected by Mr Trump's executive order on refugees and immigration, leading to speculation that Nordstrom could have been influenced by opposition to Mr Trump's policies.

Expand Close Jared Kushner (L), White House senior adviser, and his wife Ivanka Trump arrive for a joint press conference by US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on February 10, 2017, at the White House in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / MANDEL NGANMANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
A woman is hoping to track down a wedding dress that has been in her family for generations after the dry cleaner she left it with went bankrupt, leaving no trace of the outfit.

Tess Newall wore the dress at her wedding last year and it was made by her great, great grandmother in 1870. She handed it to Kleen cleaners in Edinburgh but the firm soon went into administration.

She posted on Facebook asking for help locating the dress and her plea has received more than 155,000 shares.

Because of the antique design of the dress, Ms Newall believes it could be on sale at a vintage wedding fair or shop.

Her plea on social media attracted the attention of Bridebook, a wedding planning website, who are coordinating a search on her behalf and have offered to buy a replacement dress for whoever has the dress.

"I'm overwhelmed by the heart-warming response and how kind everyone has been in helping to search for the dress - ordinary people, the press and the wedding industry," Ms Newall told The Independent.

"I really believe we will find the dress thanks to the enormous support I'm getting and I'm so grateful!

"My great-great-granny would be overwhelmed by this global attention of her beautiful dress I am sure," she added.
For more than four years now the Rohingya minority of Burma has been subjected to a campaign of persecution and violence that has seen more than 100,000 displaced from their homes. The Rohingya, who number around 1.3 million, are Muslims living in a predominantly Buddhist nation.

The Burmese government refuses to recognise the Rohingya as citizens and has subjected them to restrictions on marriage, employment, healthcare and education.

Their plight casts a considerable pall over the record of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who is now the country's de facto civilian leader. Once feted for her bravery and activism, Ms Suu Kyi is now criticised for her mealy-mouthed approach to gross violations against the Muslim minority that human rights groups say may amount to crimes against humanity. Hopes Ms Suu Kyi would bring an end to the repression of the Rohingya when she was elected in 2015 have come to nothing.

Such is the recent escalation of violence against the Rohingya that this week Pope Francis drew attention to their plight.

"They have been suffering, they are being tortured and killed, simply because they uphold their Muslim faith," he said at his weekly audience at the Vatican, going on to ask those present to pray "for our Rohingya brothers and sisters who are being chased from Myanmar and are fleeing from one place to another because no one wants them".

In summer 2012, communal tensions that had long simmered, flared into deadly violence when Buddhist mobs rampaged after rumours spread that a Buddhist woman had been raped by a Muslim man. More than 200 people - most of them Rohingya - were killed, some hacked to death with machetes. Thousands more were driven from their homes. Since then anti-Muslim sentiment has been stoked by hardline Buddhist monks at the forefront of an extremist nationalism movement that has grown as Burma emerged from a decades-old military junta.

Earlier this month a UN report documented a litany of abuses exacted on hundreds of men, women and children by security forces in a "campaign of terror".

The report, based on the testimony of 200 Rohingya who fled Burma to Bangladesh, makes for harrowing reading.

Witnesses described how soldiers and police officers, assisted by local villagers, carried out "the killing of babies, toddlers, children, women and elderly; opening fire at people fleeing; burning of entire villages; massive detention; massive and systematic rape and sexual violence; deliberate destruction of food and sources of food".

In one case, an entire family, including elderly and disabled individuals, was locked inside a house and set on fire. Security forces sometimes beat, raped or killed people in front of relatives with the intention of "humiliating and instilling fear".

A 14-year-old girl told how soldiers had raped her, bludgeoned her mother to death and killed her two younger sisters.

"They were not shot dead but slaughtered with knives," she told UN investigators.

An 18-year-old girl said that her 60-year-old mother tried to escape but was seized by soldiers. "She could not run very well so we saw them catch her and cut her throat with a long knife."

After the report was published, the United Nations' high commissioner for human rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein said Ms Suu Kyi had promised to investigate the allegations but many observers are sceptical that much will be done.

The plight of the Rohingya may have become a stain on the image Burma seeks to present to the world as it transforms itself from military dictatorship to fledgling democracy, but inside the country many ordinary Burmese condone what is happening.

Many Burmese refer to the Rohingya pejoratively as Bengalis, an insult that aims to give the impression they don't really belong to Buddhist-majority Burma, though most have been there for generations.

I visited Burma in 2014, travelling to Rakhine state where the worst persecution of the Rohingya has occurred. Not surprisingly, the Burmese authorities are not keen on journalists visiting the miserable camps of Rakhine where thousands of displaced Rohingya languish. Not only had they lost everything when they were driven from their homes, the conditions they lived in were atrocious.

"The government is keeping us here like chickens under a net," one man told me. "It is like living in a prison."

Even more shocking were the conversations I had with Buddhists in Rakhine and other parts of Burma who either supported what the Rohingya had been subjected to or made excuses for it.

Until serious efforts are made by Ms Suu Kyi and others to counter such prejudice and bigotry, the horrific persecution of the Rohingya will continue.
The girlfriend of a British backpacker murdered in Australia has returned to the Outback for the first time in 15 years in the hope of finding his body.

Joanne Lees, 43, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, said she wanted to "bring him home" as she returned to the scene of the shooting of Peter Falconio for an Australian television show special.

She said she had "no choice" but to run from his killer, who had also attacked her, because "it was either run or be raped and killed".

Bradley Murdoch was convicted in 2005 of murdering Mr Falconio, 28, and assaulting Ms Lees, then 27, on a remote stretch of highway near Barrow Creek, about 200 miles north of Alice Springs, on July 14 2001.

The pair were travelling when Murdoch waved down their camper van and shot Mr Falconio in the head.

Ms Lees was threatened with a gun, punched in the head and bound with cable-tie restraints before she managed to escape, hiding in bushes for hours while her attacker stalked her with a dog.

Murdoch is believed to have hidden Mr Falconio's body, which has never been found despite extensive searches.

In trailers for current affairs show 60 Minutes, Ms Lees is seen in a helicopter flying over the murder scene saying: "Pete's still missing. I know that he's somewhere here."

When asked by reporter Liz Hayes if she was "stepping inside your attacker's mind", she said: "I guess it is a very alien thing for me to do because I'm not a violent person.

"I'm not a murderer but if that's what I have to do and that's how I'm gong to find Pete then that's what I'm prepared to do."

She fought back tears as she added: "It's because I love Pete so much and I want to bring him home and I need to bring him home."

The interview, which is billed as a "major television event", will be screened at 8.40pm local time (9.40pm UK time) on Sunday.
Criminal charges have finally been handed down to those who oversaw the Hillsborough disaster and subsequent cover-up

Liverpool FC has banned 'The Sun' newspaper from its premises and stopped reporters from attending matches and press conferences, due to the hostility directed at the paper following its insidious coverage of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989.

The decision was taken by the Merseyside club on Thursday night and enforced for the first time yesterday, as the newspaper was told they could not head to Melwood for Jurgen Klopp's weekly press conference. Reporters from 'The Sun' will not be granted access to today's Premier League fixture with Tottenham Hotspur, or any future games at Anfield.

It follows a year-long consultation with the Hillsborough Family Support Group after last year's fresh inquests, which ruled 96 Liverpool fans were unlawfully killed.

In the aftermath of the inquest verdict, the families approached Liverpool requesting a more thorough boycott, triggering extended negotiations during which the club had to establish the legality of enforcing a ban.
Germany is to press for radical changes to the way it pays child benefit to workers from other EU countries in an attempt to curb benefits tourism.

The reforms, aimed at those who work in Germany but claim benefits for children living in their home countries, are inspired by the deal David Cameron was offered in the run-up to the Brexit vote.

Under a draft law being prepared, the level of benefit would be linked to the cost of living where the children live. A Polish citizen living and working in Germany but claiming benefit for a child in Poland would see his payments halved from 192 a month to 96.

But Angela Merkel's government may have a fight on its hands to implement the reforms, which are illegal under EU law. Germany is lobbying to have the rules changed but is facing opposition from the European Commission.

The German finance ministry believes the reforms could save 159m a year. The country pays benefits for more than 184,000 children living in other EU member states, mainly Poland, Romania and Croatia.

Under current EU rules, member states must pay child benefits at the same level regardless of where the child actually lives. The reforms are essentially the same as the deal the EU offered Mr Cameron last year. But the deal was quietly dropped after the referendum result and the EC now opposes Germany's plans.

"In February 2016, European leaders agreed to allow differentiation of child benefits for citizens of another member state in the event of Britain remaining in the EU. The European Commission was supposed to present a proposal to amend EU law accordingly. But after the results of the referendum, the Commission has regrettably refrained from doing so," a spokesman for the German finance ministry said.

Germany is lobbying the Commission to follow through with the reforms proposed under the Cameron deal. But that deal was only agreed in order to avert Brexit under strong protest from several Eastern European countries.
A journalist films the debris of an explosion in front of an apartment building after a raid by French police in Clapiers, near Montpellier, southern France, yesterday. Photo: Jean-Paul Pelissier

A notorious terrorist recruiter linked to a string of Isil-inspired attacks in France has been killed in an American drone strike in Iraq, French police sources said yesterday.

The report came as French police thwarted an "imminent" suicide attack, possibly on a Paris tourist site, with the arrests of four suspected Isil recruits, including a 16-year-old girl, who were manufacturing explosives.

Rachid Kassim is believed to have been killed on Wednesday near Mosul, an Isil stronghold in northern Iraq. He was linked to the Brussels terror attacks and is believed to have masterminded the murders last year of a French police couple and that of an elderly priest whose throat was slit in a Normandy church.

French sources said the information had come from the US military and French intelligence was checking that it was Kassim who died, according to BFM television. Kassim, a 29-year-old Frenchman, was a leading online Isil recruiter who was also linked to a failed attempt to set off explosions near Notre-Dame cathedral in the heart of Paris.

After the Nice lorry attack last July, video footage appeared online showing Kassim beheading captives and threatening similar attacks on the streets of France by French citizens.

He directly threatened President Francois Hollande and warned that Isil was planning more attacks in France.

The arrests were made yesterday near Montpellier, in southern France, after intelligence agents monitored social media postings by the teenage girl, named locally as Sara, in which she said she wanted to attack France and go to Syria or Iraq.

Her boyfriend (20), named as Thomas, was also arrested along with another two men, aged 26 and 33. Thomas is suspected of planning to blow himself up at an unspecified Paris tourist attraction.

The couple, believed to be converts to Islam, were planning an Islamic marriage before Thomas carried out the suicide bombing. Sara was then to have travelled to Syria to join Isil as a "martyr's widow", judicial sources said.

Explosives and bomb-making equipment were found during a dawn raid on the apartment where they were living. According to the landlord, named as Mohammed, they moved in recently after he agreed to shelter them because they claimed they had nowhere else to go.

The 33-year-old man in custody is suspected of putting them in contact with jihadists in Syria and helping the teenage girl obtain a fake passport.

Bruno Le Roux, the interior minister, said the arrests in Clapiers, on the outskirts of Montpellier, and in Marseillan, about 50km away, "foiled an imminent plan to carry out an attack on French territory."

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Security officers guard a rescue helicopter as Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo is transported to it after a car accident in Oswiecim, Poland (AP Photo)

Police and fire brigade officers inspect Polish Prime Minister's Beata Szydlo's car after an accident in Oswiecim, Poland (AP Photo)

Poland's prime minister is in a stable condition and can carry out her government duties as "nothing serious happened to her" during a car crash, her spokesman has said.

Beata Szydlo's limousine was involved in a car crash on Friday shortly before 7pm in the southern town of Oswiecim.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo arrives at a press conference (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz ) Polish Prime Minister's Beata Szydlo's car after an accident in Oswiecim, Poland (AP Photo) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo arrives at a press conference (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz )

The 53-year-old is undergoing tests, including X-rays, and will remain "for some time" in a government hospital in Warsaw, Rafal Bochenek said.

She was in a convoy on the town's main road, where she is from, when another car drove into her limousine, causing it to hit a tree.

Two security officers in Ms Szydlo's car, including the driver, were also taken to hospital. One was also brought to Warsaw, where the prime minister was taken at her own request.

Mr Bochenek could not immediately confirm whether she will attend the weekly government meeting on Tuesday.

Dr Andrzej Jakubowski, who first examined Ms Szydlo after the crash, said she suffered some slight injuries but that the prognosis was good.
An aerial view of the first atomic explosion at the Trinity Test site in New Mexico in 1945 (AP)

The world's first atomic bomb test caused generations of southern New Mexico families to suffer from cancer and economic hardship, according to surveys gathered by an advocacy group seeking compensation for their descendants.

The surveys tell people's stories from areas around the 1945 Trinity Test and argue that many Hispanic families later struggled to keep up with cancer-related illnesses.

The health effects of the test have long been debated in New Mexico.

"It's the first ever study done on the Tularosa Downwinders," said Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium.

"We wanted people to tell their stories in the fashion because it's never been done before."

Members of the consortium have long atgued that those living near the site of the world's first atomic bomb test in 1945 were not told about the dangers, or compensated for their resulting health problems.

Since then they say, descendants have been plagued with cancer and other illnesses while the US government ignored their plight.

Chuck Wiggins, director of the New Mexico Tumour Registry, has said data shows cancer rates in Tularosa are around the same as other parts of the state.

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death all over New Mexico, he said.

On Friday, Mr Wiggins said he had not yet gone through the report.

"It is detailed and lengthy," he said. "I have not had a chance to systematically review the entire document."

Around 800 community health surveys and two community focus groups were used to collect data for the report in conjunction with the New Mexico Health Equity Partnership, an initiative of the Santa Fe Community Foundation.

Ms Cordova said the report was not a scientific epidemiology study but an attempt to gather information from residents who have complained about various forms of cancers in families who had limited access to health insurance.

The surveys involved residents of the historic Hispanic village of Tularosa and four New Mexico counties.

They want politicians to include New Mexico in a law that compensates residents near atomic tests.

The Trinity Test took place as part of the Manhattan Project, a top-secret wartime nuclear development programme run out of the then-secret city of Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Residents did not learn that the test had involved an atomic weapon until the US dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war ended.

In 2015 New Mexico Democratic senator Tom Udall pressed the upper house to include state residents in the law after meeting Tularosa Downwinders.

"The Consortium's Health Impact Assessment Report is important work," he said in a letter to the group on Friday.

"It adds to the body of evidence that people in this area were injured as a result of radioactive fallout and should be compensated by the federal government."

AP
Bus cannibal Vince Li, now known as Will Baker, pictured in 2008 (The Canadian Press/AP)

A Canadian found not criminally responsible for beheading and cannibalising a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus has been granted his freedom.

Manitoba's Criminal Code Review Board announced it had given Will Baker, formerly known as Vince Li, an absolute discharge, meaning he is longer subject to monitoring.

Baker, a diagnosed schizophrenic, killed Tim McLean, 22, a carnival worker who was a complete stranger to him, in 2008.

A year later he was found not criminally responsible due to mental illness.

Mr McLean's mother, Carol de Delley, has been outspoken against granting Baker freedom, saying there would be no way to ensure he continued to take his medication.

In a post on Facebook she said: "I have no words."

Baker was initially kept in a secure wing of a psychiatric hospital but was given more freedom every year.

He has been living on his own in a Winnipeg apartment since November, but was still subject to monitoring to ensure he took his medication.

Baker's doctor, Jeffrey Waldman, told the board earlier this week that he is confident Baker would remain on his medication and continue to work with his treatment team if released.

Dr Waldman said Baker knew it was the medication that kept his illness at bay.

In a written decision, the review board said it "is of the opinion that the weight of evidence does not substantiate that Mr Baker poses a significant threat to the safety of the public".

Dr Waldman said Baker planned to visit his native China if released, but would live in Winnipeg for the next two to three years.

He is on the waiting list for a post-secondary training programme and wants to establish a career in the city.

Baker emigrated to Canada from China in 2001 and later became a Canadian citizen.

He sat next to Mr McLean on the bus after Mr McLean smiled at him and asked how he was doing.

Baker said he heard the voice of God telling him to kill him or "die immediately".

He repeatedly stabbed Mr McLean as he fought for his life and as passengers fled the bus, continued mutilating the body before he was arrested.

He severed McLean's head, displaying it to some of the passengers outside the bus, witnesses said.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1999 that a review board must order an absolute discharge if a person does not pose a significant threat to public safety.

The ruling added there must be clear evidence of a significant risk to the public for the review board to continue imposing conditions after a person is found not criminally responsible.

Conservative opposition MP James Bezan also criticised Baker's release.

He said earlier in the week it would be an insult to Ms de Delley and Mr McLean's other relatives.

Baker's supporters include Chris Summerville, executive director of the Manitoba Schizophrenia Society, who has met and worked with him over the years.

"He is no longer a violent person," Mr Summerville said.

"I will say, yes, he absolutely understands that he has to (take his medication) and has a desire to live a responsible, moral life and never succumb to psychotic episodes and not to hurt anybody ever again."

AP
Activists burn a US flag and an image of President Donald Trump during a protest in front of the US embassy in Manila, Philippines. Photo: Noel Celis/Getty

Less than a month into the Trump administration Washington is aswirl. Journalists and old political operators alike are astonished at what they've seen. The president is still on Twitter, critiquing TV programmes and blasting department stores that once sold his daughter's clothing line.

The first major policy to come from Donald Trump's desk, a ban on visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the US, was hastily implemented, and is now under review by the federal courts. Mr Trump has been casual, even brusque, with foreign leaders. Leaks abound, and there are rumours that the president's advisers are losing faith in him.

Everything suggests chaos. But suggestions and appearances are not always reliable where Mr Trump is concerned. Last year, the same pundits who are sure the White House is in crisis were equally certain he could never win the election. Two years ago, few believed he would even become the Republican Party's candidate. All the while, from candidate to president, Mr Trump has behaved in an outrageously unorthodox fashion. But there was method in what seemed like madness on the campaign trail, and now he may once again be miles ahead of the media's seers. The possibility is at least worth examining.

To begin with, he has picked as his closest White House aides two individuals with very clear ideas of what the administration should be doing and how it can be done. Reince Priebus, chief of staff, was formerly chairman of the Republican National Committee. He is a seasoned political insider who knows his party's traditional policies better than anyone. He represents conservative orthodoxy within the administration.

Steve Bannon, on the other hand, the president's chief strategist, represents the right-wing populism that lifted Mr Trump to victory.

Mr Trump's first moves as president have been more systematic than they might appear: he has faithfully implemented policies, or at least set down markers, that advance both the orthodox conservative Republican programme and the agenda of the new nationalist spirit on the right.

The latter has attracted much more attention - indeed, so much that his achievements in terms of free markets and deregulation have been widely overlooked.

The "Muslim ban" monopolised the US media's attention for a week. In fact, the 90-day moratorium on most visitors applies only to six countries with active Islamist insurgencies - Syria, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen - and one country, Iran, with a revolutionary Islamist government.

The policy is understood to be Mr Bannon's, and it has a clear logic: to pause immigration from those few countries while the vetting procedures put in place by earlier presidents are re-examined.

They believe, with reason, that neither the Bush approach to Islamic radicalism nor Mr Obama's has worked, and so every facet of relevant policy must be looked at anew.

That reasoning might be right or wrong, but it is far from irrational. It is also far from impolitic: while the ban has been met with protests in the street, polls indicate that Mr Trump's own voters support what he's done.

That is doubly true where traditional conservative policies are concerned. For many Republican voters, the most important question of last year's campaign was who would appoint the next Supreme Court justice.

Read more:

Mr Trump has selected an appointee, Neil Gorsuch, who appears to be everything conservatives could have hoped for: a judge who will apply a strict reading to the Constitution and prevent judicial or regulatory overreach.

Mr Trump has taken direct steps of his own to curb excessive regulation as well, for example with an executive order to require that at least two existing bureaucratic rules be repealed for every new rule imposed.

Is the order more symbolic than substantial? It is taken seriously enough by environmentalists and other opponents that they have sued to stop its implementation. Whatever the outcome of that fight, the signal that Mr Trump is sending is clear - the regulatory state is in his crosshairs. Other executive orders have begun the process of dismantling Obamacare and have put oil pipelines derailed by Mr Obama back on track.

Republican orthodoxy may also be well served by Mr Trump's proposed fiscal policy - depending on what one means by Republican orthodoxy. The party likes to present itself as favouring both lower taxes and less government spending. In practice, Republicans like George W Bush have only increased spending.

Mr Trump has been quite frank about his intentions: he favours deep tax cuts as well as higher spending for infrastructure and defence. This risks exacerbating budget deficits, unless the growth fostered by tax cuts and regulatory reform outstrips the cost of more spending with less revenue. This gamble is not out of character for Republican presidents. Ronald Reagan prioritised economic growth over balanced budgets.

Trade is one area where Mr Trump's populism and conservatism come together in surprising ways. While he has scrapped the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal with Europe looks similarly doomed, new bilateral trade agreements may be in the offing, not least with the UK.

It's in the broader realm of international relations, however, that Mr Trump's method, if he has one, appears most unfathomable. Even before he was sworn in, Mr Trump shocked diplomats by taking a call with the president of Taiwan.

As president, he is said to have hung up on Australia's prime minister and may have mused or joked to Mexico's president about sending US troops into his country.

Asked how he could respect the Russian president when "Putin's a killer", Mr Trump replied: "We've got a lot of killers. What do you think - our country's so innocent?"

Surely none of this could be deliberate, could it? Yet here too, there is a consistency between how Mr Trump has conducted himself and how he has said a president should conduct foreign affairs.

During the campaign he said a president should be unpredictable, and his negotiating strategy throughout his career in real estate seems to fit the pattern. That is not to say that every informal remark of his is part of a deliberate strategy, but he does seem to believe that his way of doing business will work on the international stage as well.

Setting aside the way he speaks to, and about, other leaders, Mr Trump's foreign policy appears coherent enough, if not without its risks. He and his advisers envision a world of more assertive nation-states, one in which America's allies in Europe and Asia invest more in their own defence.

He finds Russia less threatening than Islamist radicalism. After two decades of idealism in US foreign policy, of attempts to spread liberalism and democracy by force or by sermons, Mr Trump represents a return to power politics.

He is the first president to come after the End of History.

So far he has been more shocking in word than in deed. Most of his executive orders promote goals American conservatives have pursued for decades.

But the urgency he places on the nation-state is new, and that novelty makes his immigration and foreign policies seem more abrupt and spontaneous than they may be.

To reorient the way the most powerful of nations thinks of itself is a task that could hardly be undertaken without provoking amazement and horror. Yet restoring the principle of the nation-state is less a revolution than the undoing of one: a return to the frank realities of history after decades spent dreaming of universal democracy.

Then again, taking the right measure of Mr Trump has never been easy. His political success has been so uncanny it may well encourage flights of fancy about just how brilliantly he can pull off his new task.

Yet the pundits, to a one, underestimated him last year. He did what they said was impossible. That fact alone is reason enough to consider that he might be doing it again.

Daniel McCarthy is editor at large of 'The American Conservative'

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
The White House has been forced to deny claims it has been interviewing for a new press secretary to replace Sean Spicer.

This is despite the fact Fox News contributor Carl Higbie claims he has offered his services and had unofficial talks with the White House about working in a communications role.

According to disputed reports, Mr Higbie, a close associate of President Trumps family and a former Navy SEAL, interviewed for the position Thursday.

He tweeted: "FOR THE RECORD: in last few weeks I spoke to some in admin regarding communications or spox positions, NO formal interviews."

Mr Higibie also told the Washingtonian: "Well, I can say I offered my services.

I havent heard back from the administration yet."

A White House spokesperson has told media outlets that there is no truth to the speculation.

Read More

Sean Spicer, the current press secretary, has been dogged by controversy since he began the role.

Many journalists have held him in derision because of his combative style and controversial statements.

He has been the subject of an unfortunate parody on Saturday Night Live, where Melissa McCarthy spoofed his aggressive style.

He said the show had "crossed over to mean" after the performance.

Spicer also said on Sunday that the exaggerated performance could have been "dialed back".

The press secretary told Extra the show had once been funny but has turned mean, and drew attention to Alec Baldwin's impressions of Donald Trump.

He said: "Alec has gone from funny to mean and that's unfortunate. SNL used to be really funny. There's a streak of meanness now that they've crossed over to mean."

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Russia is reportedly considering returning Edward Snowden to the US to curry favour with Donald Trump.

Mr Trump previously called Mr Snowden a spy and a traitor, who deserved to be executed.

Senior US officials have analysed a series of sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations, which state handing over the whistleblower as a gift is one tactic to curry favour with the US President, NBC News reports.

Mr Snowden has used the report of him being a gift from the Russians to the US President as evidence that he is not a spy.

Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russia intel. No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear theyre next, he tweeted.

The report by US intelligence has been confirmed by two sources in the intelligence community with notes and conversations being gathered since the inauguration, according to NBC.

Mr Snowden's ACLU lawyer, Ben Wizner, told NBC News they are unaware of any plans that would send him back to the United States.

"Team Snowden has received no such signals and has no new reason for concern," Mr Wizner said.

Mr Snowden he leaked thousands of classified documents in 2013 revealing the vast US surveillance of private data put in place after the September 11, 2001 attacks. He later found asylum in Russia.

He has been living in exile in Moscow since 2013 and is still wanted in the United States to face trial on charges brought under the tough Espionage Act of 1917.

The White House did not comment on the US intelligence report but the Justice Department said it would welcome the return of Mr Snowden.

The Kremlin has denied the allegations and said the possibility of Mr Snowdens handover was nonsense.

Last December, in an interview with Yahoo News, Mr Snowden responded to rumours of his handover to the Trump administration.

It wasnt so many years ago that people were saying this guy is a Russian spy. But countries dont give up their spies and if my recent criticism of the Russian Government internet policies, criticism of their human rights record have been so severe that even my greatest critics in the intelligence community are now saying oh yeah, he is a liability they want to get him out of there - thats a vindication.

[A vindication that] the fact that Im independent, the fact that I have always worked on behalf of the United States and the fact that Russia doesnt owe me, he said.

The former National Security Agency contractor also said being returned to the US would be a threat to my liberty and to my life.

In April 2014, Mr Trump tweeted: Snowden is a spy who has caused great damage to the US. A spy in the old days, when our country was respected and strong, would be executed.
Ivanka Trump walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House February 10, 2017 in Washington, DC. Photo: Getty

Nordstrom's sales of Ivanka Trump's line of clothing and shoes fell by nearly one-third in the past fiscal year, with sharp drops in sales weeks before her father Donald Trump was elected US President, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

Nordstrom announced this week it had decided to stop carrying Ivanka Trump's apparel, prompting US President Trump to take to Twitter to defend her. "My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom," he said on Wednesday.

The Wall Street Journal cited internal Nordstrom data as showing sales of Ivanka Trump's products were more than 70 percent lower in the second, third and fourth week of October compared to the same weeks the previous year. The election was on November 8.

Nordstrom had $14.3 million in sales in the fiscal year that ended in January, down from $20.9 million in the previous year, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Nordstrom spokeswoman Tara Darrow said that the retailer did not provide the Wall Street Journal with data on Ivanka Trump's sales. "We have not and will not share specific sales results numbers related to this brand or any other brand," Darrow said in an email.

In addition to the president, others in the administration expressed support for Ivanka Trump's business. Senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway was accused of violating ethics rules after she went on television to urge people to buy Ivanka Trump's products in what she called "a free commercial."

Republican Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House of Representatives Oversight committee, said on Thursday he had asked the Office of Government Ethics to review Conway's comments and recommend disciplinary action against her if warranted.
A 29-year-old woman plunged 30ft to her death off an escalator at the World Trade Centre Oculus.

Police said she was apparently trying to retrieve a hat while on the escalator with her twin sister at about 5.30am on Saturday in the New York transit hub. She fell to the main concourse floor.

Port Authority police spokesman Joseph Pentangelo said the woman was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Police are investigating the incident. Her name has not been released.

The 3.9 billion dollar transportation hub was designed by architect Santiago Calatrava and provides connections between New Jersey's PATH trains and New York City's subways and contains a shopping mall. It is also a major tourist attraction.
Protesters run from tear gas fired by security forces during protests for followers of Iraq's influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr in Tahrir square, Baghdad (AP/Karim Kadim)

Two rockets have landed in Baghdad's Green Zone following clashes at anti-government protests that left five people dead, according to Iraqi officials.

The rocket attack caused no casualties as the munitions landed on the parade grounds in the centre of the highly fortified compound that is home to Iraq's government and most foreign embassies.

It was not immediately clear who fired the projectiles.

Saturday's protests were called for by influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and clashes that erupted as crowds pushed towards the Green Zone left two policemen and three protesters dead, according to police and hospital officials.

The officials said six other policemen were injured along with dozens of protesters.

The violent outbreak prompted the government to call for a "full investigation".

The demonstrators loyal to Mr al-Sadr gathered in Baghdad's Tahrir square to demand an overhaul of the commission overseeing local elections scheduled for this year.

Mr al-Sadr has accused the commission of being riddled with corruption and has called for its overhaul.

Shots rang out in central Baghdad as security forces used live fire and tear gas to disperse the crowds.

An Associated Press team at the scene witnessed ambulances rushing away protesters suffering from breathing difficulties.

Hospital officials said the policemen died of gunshot wounds. They gave no details as to the cause of death of the protesters.

While at times the crowds advanced towards the Green Zone, by afternoon they began to disperse after a statement from Mr al-Sadr's office called on his followers to refrain from trying to enter the compound.

Meanwhile, Iraq's prime minister ordered an investigation into the violence.

"The prime minister ordered a full investigation into the injuries among security forces and protesters during the demonstration today in Tahrir square," read a statement from Haider al-Abadi's office on Saturday evening.

Mr al-Sadr's office issued another statement on Saturday night following news of protester casualties claiming that "excessive force" was used against the demonstrators and threatened greater protests.

"The next time the blood of our martyrs will not go in vain," the statement read.

"We will not give in to threats," said the head of the electoral commission, Serbat Mustafa, in an interview with a local Iraqi television channel on Saturday afternoon.

Mr Mustafa said he would not offer his resignation and accused Mr al-Sadr of using the commission as a political "scapegoat".

Mr al-Sadr has been a vocal critic of Mr al-Abadi, and last year protests that included many of his followers breached the Green Zone twice.

Attention in Iraq is generally focused on the war against Islamic State, with Iraqi forces currently fighting the militants in Mosul, but Mr al-Abadi is also facing a serious power struggle in Baghdad.

A deepening economic crisis and persistent insurgent attacks in the Iraqi capital have fuelled support for powerful political opponents of Mr al-Abadi like Mr al-Sadr.

Mr al-Abadi has said that he respects the rights of all Iraqis to peacefully demonstrate but called on the protesters to obey the law and respect public and private property.

AP
South Sudan's president Salva Kiir has been attacked in the resignation letter of a general (AP/Jason Patinkin)

A South Sudan general has resigned and told President Salva Kiir he has "disgraced" himself by subjecting the country to ethnic bias and "unacceptable cycles of violence".

The resignation letter came from Lieutenant General Thomas Cirillo Swaka, the deputy chief of general staff for logistics.

Warnings of genocide hang over South Sudan, where a 2015 peace deal has failed to stop the three-year civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people and forced 1.5 million to flee.

Lt Gen Swaka's letter accuses the president of a "policy of ethnic domination and subjugation" in which Mr Kiir's ethnic Dinka group "has come to be hated by their own brothers and sisters from other communities".

The general says he is convinced the "tribally engineered war" had been planned and the government orchestrated violations of the peace deal that led to deadly fighting in the capital, Juba, in July.

The violence forced Mr Kiir's rival and then-vice president Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer, to flee the country. He remains in exile.

Non-Dinka tribes in South Sudan are being neglected, Lt Gen Swaka writes, and "soldiers from the Dinka ethnic group have been strategically deployed and posted in non-Dinka areas to support the policy of land occupation and enforcing the agenda of forceful Dinkanisation and domination of the country".

In April, South Sudan's military denied tensions between it and Lt Gen Swaka over land issues.

The United Nations has warned that South Sudan is witnessing ethnic cleansing.

"The risk that mass atrocities will be committed remains ever-present," the UN secretary-general's adviser on genocide prevention, Adama Dieng, said this week.

A US-led effort to have the UN Security Council impose an arms embargo on South Sudan failed late last year.

AP
Donald Trump is considering other alternatives, including changes to his executive order (AP)

Donald Trump is considering signing a "brand new order" after his refugee and immigration travel ban was halted in court.

The US president, speaking to reporters on Air Force One, said he expected his administration to win the legal battle over his original directive.

But he said the White House was also considering other alternatives, including making unspecified changes to the order, which could address some of the legal issues.

As Mr Trump flew to Florida for the weekend, his advisers debated their next steps after the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a restraining order on the original travel ban.

The White House directive had suspended the nation's refugee programme and barred all entries from seven Muslim-majority countries.

A White House official initially suggested the administration would not ask the Supreme Court to overturn that order, but chief of staff Reince Priebus scrambled to clarify that "every single court option is on the table", including a high court appeal or "fighting out this case on the merits" in a lower court.

Mr Trump's executive order was hastily unveiled at the end of his first week in office.

While the White House boasted that he was fulfilling a campaign promise to toughen vetting procedures for people coming from countries with terror ties, the order caused chaos at airports in the US and sparked protests across the country.

The president has cast the order as crucial for national security.

Earlier, he promised to take action "very rapidly" to protect the US and its citizens in the wake of the appeal court decision, but he did not specify what steps he planned to take.

"We'll be doing things to continue to make our country safe," Mr Trump pledged at a news conference with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

"It will happen rapidly. We will not allow people into our country who are looking to do harm to our people."

The president's comments were far more restrained than his angry reaction to last week's initial court ruling blocking the travel ban when he attacked both the "so-called judge" in that case and the ruling, which he called "ridiculous".

But Mr Trump continued to conjure images of unspecified danger, saying he had "learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely president".

"And there are tremendous threats to our country. We will not allow that to happen, I can tell you that. We will not allow that to happen," he said.

The 9th Circuit ruling represented a significant setback for Mr Trump in just his third week in office.

The appellate decision brushed aside arguments by the Justice Department that the president has the constitutional power to restrict entry to the United States and that the courts cannot second-guess his determination that such a step was needed to prevent terrorism.

Senate minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted that Mr Trump "ought to see the writing on the wall" and abandon the proposal and called on the president to "roll up his sleeves" and come up with "a real, bipartisan plan to keep us safe".

House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi promised: "Democrats will continue to press for President Trump's dangerous and unconstitutional ban to be withdrawn."

And Mr Trump's former presidential rival Hillary Clinton offered a terse response on Twitter, noting the unanimous appeal court vote: "3-0."

Congress' Republican leaders, House speaker Paul Ryan and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, declined to comment.

US District Judge James Robart issued the temporary restraining order halting the ban after Washington state and Minnesota sued, leading to the government's appeal.

The Trump administration has said the seven nations - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - have raised terrorism concerns.

The states have argued that the executive order unconstitutionally blocked entry based on religion and the travel ban harmed individuals, businesses and universities.

Mr Trump and his aides frequently refer to a ruling by a federal judge in Boston who declined last week to extend a temporary injunction against Mr Trump's travel ban.

In a separate federal ruling in Seattle, a different federal judge put the ban on hold nationwide and it is that judge's decision that the White House has challenged.

"It's a decision that we'll win, in my opinion, very easily and, by the way, we won that decision in Boston," Mr Trump said.

AP
Two men have been arrested in Turkey on suspicion of planning Islamic State attacks in Europe, an agency says

Two men suspected of planning Islamic State group attacks in Europe have been arrested in Turkey, the state-run news agency says.

Mahamad Laban, 45, a Danish citizen of Lebanese origin, and Mohammed Tefik Saleh, 38, a Swedish citizen of Iraqi origin, had received weapons and explosives training in Syria for the past three months, Anadolu said.

Police questioned the suspects for 10 days in the southern province of Adana, it said.

Saleh's wife reportedly informed Swedish authorities that he crossed from Turkey to Syria and joined IS in 2014, along with his two daughters.

She did not go to Syria and returned to Sweden, Anadolu says.

It says pictures found on Laban showed him in trenches, wearing camouflage uniform and holding a machine gun.

AP
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"Real talk: Daniel Rubin has a great little piece up wherein he chats with The Field Negro, the Philly-based blogger who sharply ponders all things black on a daily basis. (Seriously, if youve never checked in with TFN, you should: Its author, Wayne Bennett, is a fantastic read who can cut through bullshit like a hot knife through butter, which is a far grosser analogy than I wanted to make, but there you have it.)"

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"..While most of what he writes is tongue-in-cheek, his space is a safe house for candid discussions about race, especially in the comments section, where people of all colors meet."



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"To white people, Bennett's musings are like kitchen-table talk from a kitchen they may otherwise never set foot in. To African Americans, he is part of a growing army of black Internet amateurs who have taken up the work once reserved for ministers and professional activists: the work of setting a black agenda, shaping black opinion and calling attention to the state of the nation's racial affairs."



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"That's why I love the blog " Field Negro " so much. Field, as he's known to his fans, has the sense of reality that it takes to call out the ( CowPuckey ) of blame beating by those who are in positions of power and their lackeys. Because of his handle and his unabashed way of writing about racial issues, Field is often cited as a "Black blogger." What he is, however, is a first-class detector of blame deflection and an excellent student of history. If you want to write about the past and future of repression there's really no other perspective to take - which is why everyone should read Field."~Erik Hare, "The Twin Cities Daily Planet"~





411 On The Field field negro Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Raised in the house, but field certified. Jamaica is the land of my birth, but I consider myself a citizen of the world. I currently practice law in the city of "brotherly love". View my complete profile



"Half a century after Little Rock, the Montgomery bus boycott and the tumultuous dawn of the modern civil rights era, the new face of the movement is Facebook, MySpace and some 150 black blogs united in an Internet alliance they call the

AfroSpear.



Older, familiar leaders such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, are under challenge by a younger generation of bloggers known by such provocative screen names as Field Negro, thefreeslave

and African American Political Pundit. And many of the newest struggles are being waged online."



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"I had no idea, for example, of the extent of the African-American blogging world out there and its collective powers of dissemination.But now, after reading thousands of anguished, thoughtful comments posted on these blogs reflecting on issues of persistent racial discrimination in the nation's schools and courtrooms, what's clear to me is that there's a new, "virtual" civil rights movement out there on the Internet that can reach more people in a few hours than all the protest marches, sit-ins and boycotts of the 1950s and 60s put together." ~Chicago Tribune Reporter, Howard Witt~

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Director Rathindhran Prasad of 'Kodaikanal Won't' music video will be entering Kollywood as a director and one of the producers of 'Idhu Vedhalam Sollum Kadhai'. The film is being produced by Prasad along with B.Ganesh of Common Man Pictures banner. The makers reveal that this will be be a fast paced travel adventure flick based on Indian mythological characters.

The film stars Ashwin Kakamanu Aishwarya Rajesh and Guru Somasundaram in lead roles. Wrestler and Hollywood actor Greg Burridge will be playing an important role in the film. The film's star cast also includes a popular Tamil actor whose name has been retained as a suspense.

Music director Ghibran has started composing tracks for the film. An Italian cinematographer Roberto Zazzara` who has earlier won many international awards for his cinematography shoots the film. He is known for his skills in shooting landscapes and terrains.

A Bangkok based company has started their initial prep for the VFX of this film. Pobsant Roockarangsarith from Thailand will be handling the animation of the film and he is one best anime artists in Asia.

After successfully finishing a schedule in Rajasthan the crew is right now set to start their second schedule in Hyderabad following a schedule in Chennai.
Actor and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan, who is touring the US, a while ago visited the Seabrook Atomic Power Plant on the shore of New Hampshire. The experts there explained to Pawan the process of power production from nuclear fuel. Powerstar learnt that thousands had protested against the commissioning of the nuke plant for about twenty years and resorted to migration before it was finally set-up in 1990.

Pawan later participated in a round-table meeting at a state house. Issues like the US' atomic energy policy, nuclear safety and environmental safety were discussed in the meet.

Pawan visited the nuke plant to study about nuke energy in the context of ongoing protests against the setting up of nuke plants in Srikakulam and Nellore. He asked the experts various doubts about nuclear production.

It has to be seen as to how his approach toward the protests will be shaped by the knowledge he must have gained.
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When Yvette McCoins mother, Janice McCoin, lost her vision after undergoing brain surgery, doctors suggested moving Janice to a nursing home for 24-hour care. McCoin felt that family would be better apt to provide assistance, so she took it upon herself to become her mothers full-time caregiver. When McCoin made that decision, she knew a lot of new responsibilities were going to be added to her plate, so she decided to work together with her siblings to offer Janice the attention needed.

One day, McCoin took her mother to a routine doctors visit and was informed by a social worker that there was a program available to help people talking care of aging or disabled family members. At first, McCoin was hesitant to let anyone else get involved in the situation.

I said, Im OK, I dont need any help. I told them that my siblings help me out. She insisted they could help me take care of my mother. I put it off at first, but two months later I gave them a call, and they told me about Caregiver Homes, said McCoin.

Caregiver Homes of Indiana is an organization that assists families in providing 24-hour care for elders and disabled individuals by offering professional support and financial assistance. In order to qualify, a caregiver must be over the age of 18 and cannot be the spouse or guardian of the person receiving care. The designated caregiver, who is typically a relative of the one receiving care, is assigned a nurse and care manager to help solve day-to-day challenges. Because being a caregiver is a full-time commitment that many people such as McCoin quit their jobs to take on, Caregiver Homes of Indiana provides a modest cash stipend to help with expenses.

Emily Arent, a branch manager with Caregiver Homes of Indiana, feels the organization often assists people who are out of options.

I feel very proud to do what I do, because we are very mission-driven. It can be so powerful to be that support of guiding force when someone doesnt know where to turn, said Arent.

She thinks the program helps keep caregivers in good spirits during difficult times.

Caregiving is really hard work, and I think so often it can be really isolating, said Arent. Our main goal is to support them so they feel like they are not alone. We are the people in their corner rooting for them as they make the best of the situation.

McCoin feels being her mothers caregiver helps to keep her mothers spirits high, as well.

You know mothers and daughters, every now and again we have a disagreement, but she would definitely rather be at home. My mother can do for herself but just needs help from time to time, said McCoin. The team that I have is awesome. They can help you out with medical things like issues with meds. If you dont want to call the doctor, they are there. You can call, and they call right back.

Caregiver Homes of Indianas main office is located in Indianapolis, but families statewide can take advantage of the program. They have branches throughout the state in Anderson, Bloomington, Evansville, Fort Wayne, Jeffersonville, Merrillville and South Bend.

For more information on Caregiver Homes of Indiana, visit caregiverhomes.com or call (866) 797-2333.
Meet Dan Grec, an avid traveller, who's planning to tour the entire continent of Africa for two years and 80,000 miles in his modified Jeep Wrangler.

But, it's not until you see the brilliant transformation of this little off-roader will you start to appreciate the ambition, strategy and dream that drove the project.

Dan Grec

What helped were the miles he covered from Alaska to Argentina - this helped shape his dream to own such a vehicle one day.

Grec explains how after much planning and saving, he finally purchased a 2007 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited (4 door) Rubicon. He modified this into a pleasant and solid 4X4 living space that would 'fit inside a standard 20-foot shipping container.'

A photo posted by The Road Chose Me (@theroadchoseme) on Dec 22, 2016 at 5:49pm PST

Here's a glimpse of the process.

1. First, he stripped the car interiors and got a friend to remove the stock roll bar.

Dan Grec

2. Created a new roll bar that opened up space in the back.

Dan Grec

3. Mapped a plan.

Dan Grec

4. Started on the interior design: "Dad and I designed this interior cabinet layout without having the Jeep in front of us. I built it exactly, mirrored so the fridge is behind the passenger, not the driver. It doesn't allow the seat to go all the way back, which I need to drive."

Dan Grec

5. Line the back with plywood cabinets

Dan Grec

6. Paid to have a Mercedes 6 cylinder, 3.0 L turbo-diesel installed.

Dan Grec

7. Another engine: It turned out to be massively more time, money and effort than ever imagined..... Then the engine blew up the week after I got it back :(

It sucked diesel from a leaking return line and ran away (google it) pegging at 10k rpm + for 10 seconds or so. Melted pistons, valves, injectors and glow plugs.

It was scary as hell and completed devastating. Years of planning & saving and then months of working on the Jeep down the drain :(

At this point I didn't know what to do, I almost gave up.

8. Another jeep

Dan Grec

Dan finally bought a 2011 Unlimited Rubicon, a welcome replacement that came at a heavy price. "This one has a 3.8L gas engine, and 6-speed transmission. I'm leaving the entire drivetrain stock. A gas engine is not ideal for Africa, but so be it."

9. He moved the cabinets again this time, but they more or less fit, and that fit the plan.

Dan Grec

10. " I'm expecting severe dust in Africa, so I installed a snorkel with dust per-filter to remove dust before it goes down into the air cleaner. It's more for dust than deep water, though that can't hurt either.

Dan Grec

You can trace the rest of the gruelling process here and follow him here and here.

This is what the jeep looks like right now:

Dan Grec

Dan Grec

Dan Grec

(Source)
Reverse racism or just racism, you decide.

The recently released trailer of Netflix's Dear White People doesn't leave much to the imagination and dives straight into the sticky debate about race.

Youtube

It opens with caucasian stereotypes - the college jocks, the ivy league overachievers with exclusive sororities, you name it - while an African American woman takes to the mike at a radio station to spell out:

Youtube

"Dear white people. Here's a list of acceptable Halloween costumes."

The trailer also shows the controversial 'black face' some sported for past Halloween celebrations.

Youtube

At this point too, it's not hard to see why this would kick off some outrage the trailer's experiencing. One user wrote, "Not reverse racism, it's just plain racism. Bye Netflix!' while another added: 'Amazon Prime is the new Netflix, and it's better. Goodbye Netflix, enjoy your racism."

While another tweeted this:

Life comes at you fast. pic.twitter.com/6qGM6b2u7p  Scott Rising (@rising) February 8, 2017

It managed to collect 2,50,000 'dislikes' in just 24 hours.

Also, did anyone notice the timing? Trump comes to power, race becomes a thorn in America's backside again, and Netflix slyly releases a series that's unapologetic and in your face.

Dailymail reports that Netflix had to delete over a million and views and at least 100,000 negative comments.

The trailer released ahead of the series that is set to premier on April 24, possibly with fewer subscriptions considering most cancelled theirs after the trailer aired. Here's the trailer:
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Bihar exam scandal has arrested Avdhesh Rai, the absconding father of Class 12 examination 'topper' in Arts, Ruby Rai.

BCCL

Rai was arrested from his home in Bhagwanpur area of Vaishali district.

Also Read: 'Prodigal Science' Student Ruby Rai Didn't Even Write The Paper She Topped, Forensic Lab Finds!

Ruby had earlier claimed that she had asked her father to ensure she just passes in the exams, but he managed to make her the topper in the state. This admission immediately put Ruby's parents under the scanner, following which her father was summoned to join the probe.

Rai came to limelight after a video went viral in which she described political science as "prodigal science" and stated that political science, a subject she virtually aced, teaches cooking.

BCCL

Soon, a seven-member expert committee was constituted and Rai was asked to appear before the committee. The panel cancelled her result after the review.

Also Read: 'I Told Papa To Get Me Passed But He Made Me Topper' Says Bihar Prodigal Scientist Girl

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.

The girl, from the controversial Bishun Roy college of Vaishali district, was taken into custody by the SIT on the basis of arrest warrant issued by a Patna district court against her and three other rank-holders in the examination racket case.

BCCL

Rai was earlier sent to judicial custody till July 8 after her arrest on June 25 in connection with this case, following which she was shifted from Beur jail to a remand home on grounds that she was a minor.
Dubai attracted 1.8 million overnight visitors from India in 2016, recording a 12 per cent growth over the previous year to become the number one source market in South Asia.

The country hosted 1.6 million Indian travellers in 2015, according to data from Dubai Tourism.

AFP

Data also revealed that overall worldwide, Dubai attracted 14.9 million overnight visitors in 2016, recording 5 per cent increase over 2015. Overall Dubai attracted more than 14.2 million overnight visitors in 2015.

"Expectations on tourism growth from India remain high for 2017 with even stronger bilateral ties being forged between the UAE and India," a release issued here said.

The strong performance of the Emirate's tourism industry amid turbulent year across the world indicates that progress towards the annual target of 20 million visitors by 2020, is on track, it added.

AFP

With our international overnight traffic reaching 14.9 million, Dubai has cemented its ranking as the fourth most visited city in the world, critically delivering the highest value to the domestic economy with the country getting number one ranking in terms of spend per tourist compared to any other competitor destination, Dubai Tourism Director General Helal Saeed Almarri said.

Highlights of 2016, also include the massive 20 per cent boost in Chinese visitors, crossing the half million mark for the first time with 5,40,000 tourists arriving in Dubai and the definitive resurgence of Russian inbound tourism recording a 14 per cent growth in overnight traffic, he said.

AFP

"Our traditional core markets spanning the GCC, India, UK and Germany, continue to deliver over 40 per cent of our tourism traffic and we remain committed to investing further in driving greater penetration and frequency from these bases where we have built a credible recognition of the Dubai destination offering," he said.
Ambassador Car, the once iconic symbol of the high and mighty in power corridors of India has a new owner, French carmaker Peugeot.

BCCL/ File

The brand owned by Hindustan Motors, which is a part of C K Birla Group has sold the legendary brand for Rs 80 crore.

Hindustan Motors has executed an agreement with Peugeot SA for the sale of the Ambassador brand, including the trademarks, for a consideration of Rs 80 crore.

Once the go-to vehicle of ministers and bureaucrats, the Kolkata-based HM had stopped production of Ambassador cars almost three years ago.

PTI/ File

The car which until a decade ago carried the Prime Minister ran out of production citing weak demand and lack of funds.

Ambassador cars which sold nearly 24,000 units a year in the mid-1980s, saw its sale plummeting to less than 2,500 units in 2013-14 before the production at HM's Uttarpara factory was suspended.

Modelled based on the Morris Oxford series, the Birla Group began production of Ambassador cars in 1958.

PTI/ File

It quickly became a national icon and continued to dominate Indian roads till the 1980s, before the advent of Maruti 800.

BCCL

Lost out to more modern competitors, today the once king of the Indian roads is mostly used as cabs in cities like Mumbai and Kolkata.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the decision to de-legitimise the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8.

BCCL/ Representative Image

Just two days after that, from November 10th the public was allowed to deposit their old currency notes in banks. There was a window of almost 50 days, until December 31 for the public to submit their old notes.

It has been well over a month since that window expired and the Reserve Bank of India still doesn't know how much of the demonetised notes are back with them.

BCCL/ Representative Image

RBI Governor Urjit Patel who had come under criticism from various corners for the poor implementation of the entire exercise said the bank will only divulge verified figures.

"The window is still open up to March 31, and at a lower level until June 30. We need to be careful and try as hard as possible that this is a number thats not a mere estimate, but a verifiable number both physically and in an accounting sense".

BCCL/ Representative Image

The RBI had earlier said that notes worth Rs 12.44 lakh crore have been deposited till December 10, 2016.

Last month Bloomberg had reported that 97 per cent of scrapped currency notes in the form of Rs 500 and Rs 100 with an estimated worth of Rs 14.97 has come back to the banks.

While the government did not acknowledge the figures, it was seen as a failure of the policy which was aimed at cracking down on black money.

BCCL/ Representative Image

When the decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes which valued around Rs 15.44 lakh crore, and accounted for 86% of all currency in circulation was announced the government had estimated anywhere between Rs 10 lakh crore and Rs 12 lakh crore to come back in the form of deposit in banks.

The remaining nearly Rs 3 lakhs crore was believed to be black money held in the form of currency notes.

This doesn't mean that there was no black money in the system or that only Rs 3 lakh crore was the unaccounted cash in circulation.

This is because during the 50-day window a number of cases had come up where banks and bank employees were caught illegally converting black money.
RBI Governor Urjit Patel who had come under criticism from various corners for the poor implementation of the entire exercise said the bank will only divulge verified figures.

"The window is still open up to March 31, and at a lower level until June 30. We need to be careful and try as hard as possible that this is a number thats not a mere estimate, but a verifiable number both physically and in an accounting sense". Read more

1. Rahul Gandhi Hits Back At Modi's Raincoat Remark, Says PM Likes Peeping In Bathrooms

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi ridiculed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "peeping into others' bathrooms" and said he was a complete failure at the job.

"The Prime Minister is fond of Google searching, peeping into others' bathrooms. Let him do that in his free time but his main job is that of a Prime Minister in which he has been a cent per cent failure." Read more

2. Rajasthan Police Arrest 'Monster' Paedophile Teacher Who Raped 200 Children In Last 10 Years

For over 10 years, a paedophile teacher, Rameez, from Ramganj, Rajasthan raped, abused and blackmailed numerous schoolboys for money. Despite several complaints from students, the school administration didn't inform the police by simply asking Rameez to resign.

The shocking details emerged on Friday when parents of a 20-year-old boy filed a FIR at Ramganj police station, alleging their son was raped by Rameez for over six years. Read more

3. CBSE To Allow Students With Type -1 Diabetics To Take Snack-Break During Class X And XII Exams

The Central Board of Secondary Education has decided, in principle, to allow students appearing for Class X and XII board exams in March and April this year to take a break for a mid-exam snack.

CBSE will soon notify that diabetic students will be allowed a snack break during exams, an hour or 90 minutes from the commencement of the test. It is also likely to advise school principals to start a similar practice in their institutions, as is done in the United States. Read more

4. India Successfully Test-Fires Interceptor Missile Off Odisha Coast, Gets A Step Closer To Two-Layered Ballistic Missile

Adding another shot in the arm, India today successfully test-fired its interceptor missile off the Odisha coast. This is said to be a significant milestone in the direction of developing a two-layered Ballistic Missile Defence system.

The interceptor was launched from Abdul Kalam Island (Wheeler Island) of ITR at about 7.45 AM. This mission, termed as "PDV mission is for engaging the targets in the exo-atmosphere region at an altitude of 50 km of earth's atmosphere", said a Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) official. Read more

5. India Might Face Yet Another Round Of El Nino In 2017, Warns Meteorological Department

The India Meteorological Department's latest El Nino/La Nina update has indicated a gradual transition to an El Nino-like condition around September  the last month of monsoon.

Met officials, however, stressed that a lot of uncertainty prevailed on the possibility of another El Nino during the latter part of 2017. A clearer picture would emerge only in April. Read more
What might be strange to you, is another person's normal.

Whether or not 58-year-old man Li Chen from Huishui in Chinas Guizhou Province has considered this, we'll not know. He anyway seems unfazed by what someone might say or think.

Screengrab

While the dad to 18-year-old Yang Yang, Chen, lives under a pseudonym, he didn't shy away from a camera.

Screengrab

And with this move, he's introduced us to his seven silicon sex dolls. That said, he doesn't sleep with them but keeps them as one would a family - by grooming them and taking care of their plastic needs, in case any were to arise.

Screengrab

His fascination with the dolls started in 2004 when his son was only five and his wife had divorced him.

Screengrab

While he may not do so himself, he encourages his son Yang Yang use the dolls to satisfy his biological needs.

Watch the video below:
Iran Hawks Take the White House



Inspired by fringe theories about Islamic civilization, Michael Flynn is leading Trump down a dangerous path.



By Philip Giraldi

February 10/11, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " American Conservative " - The United States is adding new sanctions on Iran over that countrys alleged misdeeds, and nearly all of those allegations are either out-and-out lies or half-truths. It has a familiar ring to it, as demonizing Tehran has been rather more the norm than not since 1979, a phenomenon that has included fabricated claims that the Iranians killed American soldiers after the U.S.s armed interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. This time around, the administration focused on the perfectly legal Iranian test of a non-nuclear-capable, medium-range ballistic missile and the reported attack on what was initially claimed to be a U.S. warship by allegedly Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi fighters. The ship was later revealed to be a Saudi frigate.

Donald Trumps national-security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, officially put Iran on notice while declaring that The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate Irans provocations that threaten our interests. The days of turning a blind eye to Irans hostile and belligerent actions toward the United States and the world community are over.

Ignoring the fact that Iran cannot actually threaten the United States or any genuine vital national interests, the warning and follow-up action from the White House also contradict Donald Trumps campaign pledge to avoid yet another war in the Middle East, which appears to have escaped Flynns notice. The increase in tension and the lack of any diplomatic dialogue mean that an actual shooting war might now be a false flag, false intelligence report, or accidental naval encounter away.

If it all sounds like a reprise of the baseless allegations and intentionally unproductive negotiations that led to the catastrophic Iraq War, it should. What belligerent actions against the United States Flynn was referring to, generally speaking, were not completely clear, but that lack of precision may have been intentional, to permit instant vilification of anything Tehran attempts to do to counter the hostility coming out of Washington.

Hating Iran has a considerable pedigree. I must confess to being of a generation in the federal government, like Flynn and others, where saying something derogatory about Iran was in the DNA, welcomed by all and sundry. I nursed a personal and specific grudge relating to the mullahs, as an Iranian government agent tried to kill me in Turkey in the 1980s. But more often the animosity was generic, sometimes expressed humorously at CIA Station staff meetings. I recall how one fellow officer who was undercover at a consular office would positively gloat as he described how many Iranian visa applicants he had turned down in the past week and everyone would bang their fists on the conference table, signifying their approval. Of course, we all felt fully justified in our Iranophobia due to the 1979-80 embassy hostage crisis, which was still very fresh in our minds.

But my rancor toward Iran has long since faded. I have Iranian friends and have come around to the view that Iran has much more been sinned against than sinned in its relationship with the United States. With the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in July 2015, I even began to believe that the two nations might well be able to resume something like normal diplomatic relations, which would benefit everyone involved. Alas, such hopes appear to be scuppered by a recent wave of Iran hysteria that bids fair to eclipse the Russian panic that has consumed the media and chattering class during the past six months.

I should have seen it coming. In December 2015, I was present at a conference in Moscow where General Flynn explained his concept of 21st-century geo-economic-political strategy. At least I think that was what he was talking about , though one can understand the frustration of the interviewer, Sophie Shevdernadze, as she tried to get him to explain what he meant during a largely incoherent presentation.

At the time I knew little about Flynn and his views, but I was particularly taken aback by a random shot he took at the Iranians , stating very clearly that they were responsible for fueling four proxy wars in the Middle East. He was presumably referring to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen. The audience, which included a number of international journalists and genuine foreign-policy experts, became somewhat restless and began to mutter. I was standing in the back of the room and witnessed Flynns son, Michael G. Flynn, responding to the expressions of disbelief, waving his arms around and shouting Right! Right! Check the intel!

Two minutes later, the elder Flynn returned to the theme, mentioning the terrible nuclear deal with Iran. Now, I am accustomed to hearing nasty things about Iran, but they usually come from Israeli partisans who persist in falsely describing the Iranians as a global threat. It is in their interest to do so, and many pliable American politicians and media talking heads have picked up the refrain, so much so that a U.S. attack on Iran would likely be endorsed overwhelmingly by Congress and applauded in the media.

But I believed that Flynn was not particularly in with that group, consisting largely of neoconservatives, and his disdain for Iran seemed to be at least somewhat sincere in that it appeared to be rooted in his own experience as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). But I was wrong and should have paid more attention to the people Flynn was talking to.

Sources of Flynns Worldview

A long-time foe of Iran, Michael Ledeen believed that invading the country should have been the first priority in 2003 rather than Iraq. He believes that everything traces back to Tehran and that Iran manipulates both sides of the Shiite-Sunni conflict, leading reviewer Peter Beinart to note that his effort to lay virtually every attack by Muslims against Americans at Tehrans feet takes him into rather bizarre territory.

Even as Flynn was speaking in Moscow he was collaborating with Ledeen on a book called The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies, which appeared in July 2016. The book has two basic premises. First, the entire civilized world is engaged in a life-and-death struggle with a perverted form of Islam that has produced the phenomenon referred to as radical Islamic terrorism, a phrase that may have been embraced by the Trump administration largely thanks to Flynn. Flynn insists on the tag including the Islamic part because of his belief that the Muslim religion is itself intrinsic to the very nature of the conflict. In fact, he prefers to call Islam a political ideology rather than a religion and even describes it as a political ideology that has metastasized into malignant cancer. He once tweeted that Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL, linking to a false claim that Islam wants 80 percent of humanity enslaved or exterminated.

Second, Ledeens book views Iran as both the source and lynchpin of the massive disorder prevailing in the Middle East, with tentacles reaching throughout the region and beyond. It is itself a radical Islamic regime that uses terror as a weapon, a state sponsor of terrorism according to the State Department, and it also is an ally of movements like ISIS and the various al-Qaeda affiliates that it only pretends to be fighting. Flynn and Ledeen also assert that Iran is intent on developing a nuclear weapon and has a secret program to do so in spite of the 2015 agreement. It would use such a weapon to threaten Israel and other U.S. interests in the Middle East and beyond, and is simultaneously developing ballistic missiles that could be used to deliver the weapons on target.

In addition to Ledeen, Flynns conspiratorial mindset goes back further, to his days with DIA, where he was well known for what his staff referred to as Flynn facts, things he would say that were demonstrably untrue. He once insisted that three-quarters of all new cell phones were bought by Africans and maintained that Iran has killed more Americans than al-Qaeda. Few dared to disagree. When he took over DIA, Flynn said to his senior staff that everyone needed to know was that he was always right. His subordinates would only be right when their views became the same as his.

DIA Director Flynn considered the Benghazi attack in September 2012 to be an incident in the global war against Islam. His initial reaction was to  prove Iranian involvement , and he pressured his analysts to come up with the evidence, including shouting at them when they couldnt support his conclusions. He told the analysts that Benghazi was a black swan event that needed more creative analysis to unravel.

Later, in testimony before the House of Representatives in June 2015, Flynn stated that

Iran represents a clear and present danger to the region, and eventually to the world. Irans stated desire to destroy Israel is very real. Iran has not once contributed to the greater good of the security of the region. Nor has Iran contributed to the protection of security for the people of the region. Instead, and for decades, they have contributed to the severe insecurity and instability of the region, especially the sub-region of the Levant surrounding Israel.  It is clear that the nuclear deal is not a permanent fix but merely a placeholder.

Flynn was eventually fired from DIA over his hardline views, in part because of his demonization of Iran and Islam. It would be easy to suggest that Flynn has only a tenuous grasp on what is really going on in the Middle East. Consider his assertion that Shiite Iran is in league with groups like al-Qaedawhich consider Shia to be a heresy and are willing to kill its followers on that basis alone. But the situation is actually much more dangerous than the usual Washington groupthink: Flynn and Ledeen have constructed a narrative in which the world is at war with a great evil and Iran is the central player on the enemy side. It is a viewpoint that is, unfortunately, shared at least in part by the new secretaries of defense and state and endorsed by many in Congress. This has consequently developed into a new sensibility about U.S. national security that is apparently driving the Trump administrations responses to Iranian behavior.

The Danger of Escalation

Iran certainly exhibits assertive behavior regionally. But much of its maneuvering is defensive in nature; it is surrounded by a sea of enemies, most of whom are better armed and funded than it is. The nuclear agreement with Iran has considerably delayed any possible development of a nuclear weapon and is in everyones interest. It is not plausibly a delaying tactic to acquire a weapon somewhere down the road, as Flynn and Ledeen would have us believe.

Iran will be a very tough nut to crack if Flynn has his way and the Trump White House employs military force. Iran is roughly the same size as Alaska and has three times the population of Iraq, and the Iranian people have a strong national identity. They would fight hard, and using their sophisticated Russian-provided air defenses and Chinese missiles they could inflict major damage on U.S. air and naval units in the Persian Gulf region. They would also be able to unleash limited but nevertheless lethal terrorist resources. It would not be a cakewalk, and even if there were a military victory of some sorts, the world would be left with yet another power vacuum in the heart of Asia.

I believe that Flynn is a dangerous man, possibly even mentally unhinged on some issues. He thinks that the United States has the preemptive right to tell countries in the Middle East what is acceptable and what is not and is willing to exercise various repressive measures to compel good behavior. Iran, as a designated problem state, is consequently not allowed to act in support of its own national-security interests. Flynn justifies his hostility by claiming that Iran is the worlds leading sponsor of terrorism and instability, which is a self-serving lie. Absent diplomacy to resolve differences, the only interaction with Tehran from Washington has become the threat of economic sanctions backed up by military force. As Iran responds in kind this will become an escalatory cycle with no easy way out.

A better policy would allow Iran to diversify naturally without a constant stream of provocations that only serve to embolden hardliners. Irans young people, the majority of the population, are very pro-Western and even pro-American in their cultural affinities and sentiments. The Iranian population is closely tied to a large Iranian diaspora, with an estimated 1.5 million Iranians living in the U.S. alone. Threats of military action will strengthen the grip of the government in Tehran, producing hard responses and piling threat upon threat that will ultimately lead nowhere. Hopefully some adults in the White House cabinet room will at some to point tell Michael Flynn that it is time to sit down and listen to the facts.
President Trump Holds a Joint Press Conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

Trump thanked Japan for "hosting" the U.S. military, though he did not mention making them pay more for U.S. defense as he mentioned while campaigning for the presidency.

Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe conducted a press conference at the White House on Friday in which all liberal three networks were not chosen to ask questions. ABC didnt even bother to cover the event live. Only CBS and NBC broke in. Instead, Trump called on Daniel Halper of the New York Post and Blake Burman of Fox Business. Prime Minister Abe took questions from Japanese reporters. Japanese reporters.

Posted January 10/11, 2017
UN's $2Bln Yemen Appeal? Send the Bill to Washington, London and Riyadh By Finian Cunningham February 10/11, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Sputnik " - The United Nations this week launched an emergency appeal to raise $2 billion for humanitarian aid to Yemen  the Arabian Peninsula country where war has been raging for nearly two years.The UN says some 12 million people  half the population  are facing starvation unless the international community urgently comes to their aid. UN officials are making dramatic statements urging nations around the world to dig deep and come up with the necessary funds. Stephen O'Brien, head of UN relief operations, called for "immediate action." Another official, Jan Egeland, put the dire situation like this: "In Yemen, if the bombs dont kill you, a slow and painful death by starvation is now an increasing threat." These UN officials are the same shameless people who have been distorting the nature of the conflict in Syria. They are now doing the same in Yemen. Their so-called "humanitarian" appeals are carefully disguised distortion about who the real culprits and causes of the crisis are. As in Syria, the violence and humanitarian crisis in Yemen is the result of external, criminal aggression against the country. In both cases it is the United States, Britain and Saudi Arabia who are largely driving the war, either covertly as in Syria through sponsoring proxy terror groups, or openly in Yemen through the aerial bombardment of that country. Since March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states have been bombing Yemen relentlessly on a daily basis. Ceasefires have been routinely broken and not even the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan has been spared from the Saudi bombs. Before the war erupted, Yemen was already one of the poorest countries in the world. Saudi Arabia is fully supported by the United States and Britain to carry out this aggression on Yemen. Washington and London sell to the Saudi regime the F-16 and Typhoon warplanes and the bombs that they drop. The munitions include internationally banned cluster bombs, as documented by various rights groups. Just one measure of how much the US and Britain are making a financial killing from the Saudi aggression on Yemen is this: since March 2015, Britain alone has sold $4 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia. This week, US president Donald Trump is reportedly lifting a temporary freeze on American weapons exports to Saudi Arabia that his predecessor Barack Obama latterly imposed. The Obama administration flogged a total of $115 billion in arms to Saudi over eight years. Due to pressure from humanitarian critics over Yemen, Obama moved to curtail future sales to the Saudis. Now Trump is going ahead to resume the deadly business. It's not just military hardware that the Americans and British are supplying. They also provide the logistics and refueling of Saudi air operations over Yemen. In other words, the Saudis would not be able to drop one bomb were it not for their American and British handlers. Mainstream Western media, like they also do in Syria, indulge in the official lies and distortions over Yemen. Britain's Independent tells its readers that Yemen "descended into full-scale civil war in March 2015." Like all Western news media, the Independent peddles claims by Washington, London and Riyadh that they are supporting the "internationally recognized government of Yemen". The truth is that the Western and Saudi-backed puppet regime of Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi was kicked out by a popular uprising that was underway since 2011. The so-called "international recognized government" is more accurately described as a "Western-backed" corrupt cabal which is sheltered in luxury palaces while exiled to Saudi Arabia. When Hadi and his cronies fled Yemen, his Saudi and Western patrons immediately began bombing the country in an attempt to reverse the popular uprising led by the Houthi rebels. (Western claims that the Houthis are Iranian proxies is another load of propaganda lies.) No target in that forsaken country is off limits, in brazen violation of the Geneva Convention. Family homes, schools, hospitals, farms, markets and mosques have been blasted with American and British weapons. Over and over again. In many instances, whole families of parents and children have been obliterated in the raids. Even funerals have been hit. Last October, some 140 people were killed when a mourning ceremony in the Yemeni capital Sanaa was bombed from the skies. The total death toll is estimated at 10,000. That is most likely a flagrant underestimate to distract from the real carnage. Most of the dead are civilians, mostly from air strikes, according to the UN. In addition to the merciless bombing, Yemen is blockaded by air and sea. That blockade is imposed by Saudi and American warships patrolling the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The UN even admits that the embargo on the entire country is restricting what little flow of aid is being sent. Shipping ports have also been bombed for despicable good measure. The UN and the mainstream Western media are now calling upon people of the world to respond with an emergency relief effort to Yemen. They show videos of skeletal children so weak that they can hardly cry from the pain of starvation. But what the so-called humanitarian agencies and mainstream Western media don't tell is that this abomination is being caused by American and British governments who are making billions of dollars from weaponizing a barbaric Saudi regime. This is the same triumvirate of evil that weaponized head-chopping terrorist mercenaries to wage war on Syria for regime change over the past six years. Only Russia's military intervention in Syria from the end of 2015 salvaged that country from the disaster that befell others like Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya and which is befalling Yemen, where the West pursues similar regime-change machinations. And yet the mainstream Western media have the audacity to accuse Russia of "killing civilians in Syria." This week, American media were full of unfounded claims about Russian President Vladimir Putin being a "killer". In the same week that news emerged of a US military raid ordered by Trump in Yemen that resulted in over 20 civilians being slaughtered. The Western double-think and hypocrisy are stupendous. What is happening in Yemen is heartrending beyond words. Children are dying from thirst, hunger and shrapnel wounds that go untreated. And still the Saudi, American and British bombs continue to rain down on them. No doubt the $2 billion fund that the UN is appealing for on behalf of Yemen is a gross fraction of the actual damage to the people and their country. The real figure could be as high as $200 billion considering two years of wholesale destruction. But that bill of damage should not be spread over the world for responsibility. It should be presented precisely to Washington, London and Riyadh for them to pay alone. And then after the financial reparations are made, the UN should stop sanitizing the criminals and facilitate an international court to prosecute American, British and Saudi leaders for war crimes. Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Masters graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Trump Won't Wont Accept Calls Or Meet With Palestinian Leaders



"We have sent them letters, written messages; they don't even bother to respond to us." In contrast, Trump spoke twice with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone, on Nov. 9 and Jan. 22, and will receive him at the White House on Feb. 15.



By KARIN LAUB and MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH



February 10/11, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " AP " - RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP)  Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who spent hundreds of hours on the phone and in meetings with U.S. presidents and secretaries of state in the past 12 years, has tried unsuccessfully to reach out to President Donald Trump. RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP)  Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who spent hundreds of hours on the phone and in meetings with U.S. presidents and secretaries of state in the past 12 years, has tried unsuccessfully to reach out to President Donald Trump. Abbas and his aides are alarmed by the possibility of being sidelined at a time when the administration is embracing Israel's prime minister who heads to the White House next week. Here's a look at what's at stake for Abbas and Palestinian hopes for statehood. ARE THE PALESTINIANS REALLY BEING IGNORED? In December, the Trump transition team refused to meet with Palestinian officials visiting Washington, putting them off until after the Jan. 20 inauguration, according to senior Abbas aide Saeb Erekat, the main point man for official contacts with the United States. Other advisers say Abbas tried to arrange a phone call with Trump after the November election and again after the inauguration, but received no response to his requests. The White House did not respond to a January letter in which Abbas expressed concerns about possibly moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to contested Jerusalem. Erekat, whose contacts are now limited to the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, has been quoted as saying that "we have sent them letters, written messages; they don't even bother to respond to us." In contrast, Trump spoke twice with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone, on Nov. 9 and Jan. 22, and will receive him at the White House on Feb. 15. WHAT HAS THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SAID? The White House earlier this week denied an Israeli newspaper report, based on a secondhand quote from a Trump aide, that the administration does not intend to have a relationship with the Palestinian Authority, Abbas' self-rule government, at this point. However, the statement did not say what kind of relationship the White House envisions with the Palestinians. A U.S. official said he was given the impression that everything is on hold because Trump hasn't decided how to deal with the Palestinians. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue with reporters. WHY DOES IT MATTER? A strong relationship with the U.S. has been the centerpiece of the Palestinian strategy for winning statehood. The U.S. served as sole broker in two decades of intermittent negotiations on how to set up a Palestinian state on lands captured by Israel in 1967. Many Palestinians are disillusioned with a process they say effectively provided diplomatic cover for Israeli settlement expansion and distanced statehood prospects. However, Abbas has not come up with a strategy that could circumvent Washington. The Palestinian leadership is in uncharted waters with the Trump administration and "not having a relationship with Washington is cutting off their air supply, essentially," said Khaled Elgindy, an analyst at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. HOW HAS THE PALESTINIAN LEADERSHIP RESPONDED? Abbas and his advisers have been careful not to antagonize Trump with public statements, other than urging him to rein in Israel's latest settlement escalation. They hope he'll eventually get in touch, arguing that Trump needs to involve them if he's serious about negotiating a Middle East peace deal. "The foreign policy of the U.S. administration is not clear yet, aside from its clear support of Israel, but the administration knows nothing can be done without the Palestinians," said Abbas adviser Mohammed Ishtayeh. Despite alarm over Israel's recent measures, including legislation retroactively legalizing settler homes built on private Palestinian land, Palestinian officials have drawn some hope from recent U.S. policy tweaks. The White House has shifted to a mildly critical position on settlements, saying they "may not be helpful" to peace. There also are signs Trump will not rush to relocate the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, a move that could inflame the Muslim and Arab worlds. "We do not know what is going on between Netanyahu and President Trump's administration, but at the end of the day we say that whoever wants to achieve a just and historical peace in the region between the Israelis and the Palestinians cannot be silent on settlement activity," Erekat told Palestinian radio on Wednesday. "It's time for President Trump to tell Netanyahu, 'enough' if we really want to achieve peace and to maintain the two-state option." ARE THE PALESTINIANS LOSING ACCESS TEMPORARILY OR BEING SIDELINED FOR GOOD? It's not clear if the Trump administration wants to coordinate with Netanyahu next week before approaching Abbas or sideline him for good. Jordan and Egypt could mediate between the Palestinians and Washington. Jordan's King Abdullah II rushed to the U.S. capital last week to present his views to administration officials before Netanyahu's arrival and appears to have had an impact on issues of concern to the Palestinians, such as settlements and the embassy move. On Tuesday, Jordan condemned Israel's latest settlement legislation. Interests don't always converge, however, and Abbas has clashed with Arab states in the past. WHAT IS EUROPE'S VIEW? The EU has reiterated its support for a two-state solution  of Palestine arising alongside Israel, with the pre-1967 frontier as a baseline for border talks. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Monday that Europe will keep promoting this message, including in talks with Vice President Mike Pence, who will attend an international security conference in Munich later this month, followed by a visit to EU headquarters in Brussels. Last month, representatives from 70 countries and organizations said at a one-day conference in Paris that a two-state deal is the only way to achieve enduring peace. But Europe was never a key player, with Washington protecting its role as sole mediator. If the situation deteriorates, the Palestinian leadership hopes more countries in Western Europe will follow Sweden's lead and recognize a state of Palestine; the U.N. General Assembly accepted Palestine in the pre-1967 lines as a non-member observer state in 2012. ARE THERE OTHER OPTIONS FOR THE PALESTINIANS? Abbas could take a more confrontational approach toward Israel, something he has been reluctant to do, in part because it could also undermine his hold over autonomous enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Such steps could include cutting security ties with Israel, a mutually beneficial arrangement because their shared foe is the Islamic militant group Hamas, Abbas' main Palestinian rival. Abbas could also seek further international recognition for a state of Palestine. Or he could submit more material to the International Criminal Court, where a preliminary investigation is underway concerning possible war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas. The Trump administration says it strongly opposes any actions against Israel at the ICC as counterproductive to the cause of peace. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Assad Says US Welcome to Join Fight Against Terrorism By President Bashar al-Assad February 10/11, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " SANA " - Damascus, SANA  President Bashar al-Assad gave interview to Yahoo News in which he stressed that the US needs to be genuine regarding the fight against terrorism if its wants to really defeat terrorism in Syria, adding that this aim requires a clear political position on the part of the US towards the sovereignty and unity of Syria and cooperation with its government and people. The following is the full text of the interview: Question 1: Mr. President, thanks for giving us the opportunity. This is your first interview with American media since President Trump has taken office. Have you had any communications with President Trump directly or indirectly, or anybody in his administration? President Assad: No, not yet. Question 2: This is an opportunity for you to convey a message to President Trump, if you have one. What would you like to say to him? President Assad: I wouldnt convey the message through the media, I would send it through a different channel, maybe diplomatic channels. But any message for us is the public one, we dont have two messages; we have one stand, one position toward whats happening in Syria, and its about fighting terrorism. Question 3: You said yesterday, I believe, that what you have heard from the new administration is promising. Explain what you meant. President Assad: The position of President Trump since he started his campaign for presidency till this moment is that the priority is to fight terrorism, and we agree about this priority, thats our position in Syria, the priority is to fight terrorism, and thats what I meant by promising. Question 4: You indicated that you thought there was some way for cooperation between the United States and Syria, but you didnt explain what that would be. What sort of cooperation can you envision? President Assad: Against terrorists, and against terrorism. Thats self-evident for us. This is beside having cooperation between any two nations, but in the meantime, in these circumstances, the priority is to have cooperation in fighting terrorism between the different nations, including Russia, Iran and Syria, of course. Question 5: The President has tasked his Secretary of Defense with developing plans for defeating ISIS or Daesh. Among the proposals they are reportedly considering is using more special forces and even military assets such as Apache helicopters inside Syria, and arming Kurdish fighters who are fighting Daesh in the north. If such moves would defeat ISIS, would you welcome them? Americans only way to defeat terrorism in Syria is through cooperation with Syrias government and people President Assad: Could the American prowess defeat the terrorists in Afghanistan or in other places? No, you cannot its not enough to have this Apache or F-16 or F-35, whatever you want to label it, to defeat terrorists. There has to be a more comprehensive way of dealing with that complicated issue. So, if you want to start genuinely, as United States, to do so, it must be through the Syrian government. We are here, we are the Syrians, we own this country as Syrians, nobody else, nobody would understand it like us. So, you cannot defeat the terrorism without cooperation with the people and the government of any country. Question 6: But you have welcomed Russian troops into your country. Would you welcome American troops into your country? President Assad: We invited the Russians, and the Russians were genuine regarding this issue. If the Americans are genuine, of course they are welcome, like any other country that wants to defeat and to fight with the terrorists. Of course, with no hesitation we can say that. Question 7: So, you want American troops to come into Syria to help fight ISIS? Sending troops is not enough for fighting terrorism, a genuine political position on respecting Syrias sovereignty and unity is needed President Assad: Troops is part of the cooperation. Again, lets go back to the comprehensive, you cannot talk about sending troops if youre not genuine, if you dont have a clear political position toward not only the terrorism; toward the sovereignty of Syria, toward the unity of Syria. All these factors would lead to trust, where you can send your troops. Thats what happened with the Russians; they didnt only send their troops. First of all, theres a clear political position regarding those factors. This is where the Russians could come and succeed in fighting the terrorists in Syria. Question 8: Do you see cooperation between the United States and Russia to attack ISIS in Syria? Any cooperation in any conflict around the world needs rapprochement between the Russians and the Americans President Assad: It is essential. Any cooperation in any conflict around the world, it needs the, lets say, the rapprochement, between the Russians and the Americans. Its very essential, not only for Syria. Question 9: Well, you talk to the Russians all the time, dont you? President Assad: Of course. Question 10: Yeah? Whens the last time you spoke to President Putin. President Assad: A few weeks ago. Question 11: Whatd you talk about? President Assad: About the problem in Syria, about the advancement of the Syrian Army in Syria. Question 12: Right. Are you going to try to broker some sort of arrangement between the United States and Russia in this fight? President Assad: Theres direct contact between them, and President Putin had a telephone call with President Trump a week or so, and they talked about different issues including Syria, so they dont need my role to do so, and we dont have any contact with the Americans to help the Russians make contact or improve their relation. Were not in that position. Question 13: President Trump recently said he absolutely wants to create safe zones inside Syria to protect refugees, and possibly allow many of them to return. If such a move would help protect your countrys endangered citizens, would you support that? The idea of safe zones is not realistic.Its much more viable, practical and less costly to have stability than to create safe zones President Assad: But actually, it wont. It wont. Safe zones for the Syrians could only happen when you have stability and security, where you dont have terrorists, where you dont have flow and support of those terrorists by the neighboring countries or by Western countries. This is where you can have a natural safe zone, which is our country. They dont need safe zones at all. Its much more viable, much more practical and less costly to have stability than to create safe zones. Its not a realistic idea at all. Question 14: Upwards of half of your countrys population has been displaced. How can you say that safe zones to protect them from bombardment would not be helpful? President Assad: The first thing you have to ask: why were they displaced? If you dont answer that question, you cannot answer the rest. They were displaced for two reasons: first of all, the terrorist acts and the support from the outside. Second, the embargo on Syria. Many people didnt only leave Syria because of the security issues. As you see, Damascus is safe today, its nearly normal life, not completely. But they dont find a way for life in Syria, so they have to travel abroad in order to find their living. So, if you lift the embargo, and if you stop supporting the terrorists  Im not talking about the United States, Im talking about everyone who supported terrorists including the United States during Obamas administration  if you stop all these acts, most of those people will go back to their country. Question 15: There are, what, 4.8 million Syrian refugees since this crisis began. Just as way of comparison, that is more than 4 times the total number of Palestinian refugees from the events of 1947 and 48. Do you accept that this is a humanitarian disaster? The refugee crisis was created due to Western, Turkish, Qatari and Saudi support to terrorists President Assad: It is a humanitarian disaster created by the Western support of those terrorists, of course, and the regional support by Turkey and Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It didnt happen just like this. Question 16: And you bear any responsibility at all for this disaster? President Assad: As president? Journalist: Yes. President Assad: Regarding the policies that I undertake since the beginning of the crisis, they were supporting the dialogue between the Syrians, fighting terrorists, and supporting reconciliation, and they succeeded. So, no, regarding these policies, I think we were correct, and we are continuing on these pillars for the future of Syria regarding this crisis. Question 17: As you know, President Trump has signed a very controversial executive order barring refugees, immigrants, from predominantly Muslim countries, but specifically all Syrian refugees, saying that their entry into the country would be detrimental to the interests of the United States. The premise is that some of them are terrorists. President Assad: Yeah. Journalist: Do you agree with President Trump on this? US ban of refugee entry is an American issue..my responsibility as Syrias President ti to restore stability to help Syrian refugees go back home President Assad: This question has two aspects: the first one is American, this is an American issue and its related to the sovereignty of the American nation. Every country has the right to put any regulations to enter their country. We can disagree or agree, but if you ask me as president, as official in the Syrian state, my responsibility is not to go and ask any president to allow the Syrians to go there and to have refuge in that country. My responsibility is to restore the stability, in order to bring them back to Syria and find refuge in their country. So, Im not going to discuss that this is right or wrong; this is American issue. Question 18: But the question was: are some of these refugees, in your view, aligned with terrorists? President Assad: Oh, definitely. Journalist: Definitely? President Assad: Definitely. You can find it on the net; the same picture that you saw them  in some cases, of course  in some instances, those terrorists in Syria, holding the machinegun or killing people, they are peaceful refugees in Europe or in the West in general. Yeah, thats true. Question 19: So, how many terrorists do you believe are among the 4.8 million Syrian refugees? President Assad: No one has any number, nobody knows, because nobody knows all the terrorists to give a percentage, no one at all.

Question 20: Do you believe its a significant number? President Assad: Its not about significant, because you dont need a significant number to commit atrocities. 11th of September, it happened by only 15 terrorists out of maybe millions of immigrants in the United States, so its not about the number; its about the quality, its about the intentions. Question 21: So, if what youre saying is correct, then President Trump would be justified in keeping them out of the United States? President Assad: Im not American to justify it; only American people would say this is against the interests of the United States or with the interests. From the outside, we can discuss it as value; this is with the values of the humanitarian situation in the world or not, thats how we can discuss it. But again, I can only speak as president; for me the priority is to bring those citizens to their country, not to help them immigrate. Thats the natural duty according to the constitution and to the law. Question 22: Would you welcome all of Syrias refugees back into your country? President Assad: Definitely, definitely. Journalist: Definitely? Even the terrorists? President Assad: I dont have to welcome them as president; I dont own the country, its not my house, its not my company, its not my farm. This is country to every Syrian. Question 23: But if you believe that some of them are terrorists, what would you do with them when they return to Syria? President Assad: It doesnt matter what I believe, what matters is what the law would say about every person who committed any act against his country, taking into consideration that we gave amnesty in Syria to thousands of people who committed actions or acts against their country as part of the reconciliation. Question 24: How do you expect them to return? What is your vision or plan for bringing Syrias refugees back into Syria? President Assad: Already many of them, not a huge number, but many of them came back to Syria, many of them, in spite of the security issues and the embargo. So, the majority of Syrians would like to come back to their country. This is natural for every citizen. They will come back when theres security and when theres no embargo. Question 25: Your military, just last month, drove the rebels from eastern Aleppo. Do you see this as a turning point in Syrias civil war, and do you believe youve now won this war? Aleppo is an important step in the fight against terrorism, but the turning point was taking the decision to fight terrorism in spite of propaganda President Assad: No, its not a turning point. The turning point was when we took the decision to fight terrorism in spite all the propaganda against us abroad, especially in the West, and against every pressure. That was the turning point. Aleppo is an important step against terrorists, in the fight against terrorism, but I cannot say it is a turning point, because were still going in the same way, in the same direction, we havent changed our direction. Maybe for the terrorists its a turning point? They better answer. Maybe for their masters in the West and in the region, it could be, but they have to answer, I cannot answer on their behalf. Question 26: I was asking you before about potential cooperation between the United States and Syria, but the problem that many would have with that is the continued allegations of human rights abuses by your government. Now, just today, we have a new report from Amnesty International about Sednaya prison, human slaughterhouse they call it, 5,000 to 13,000 detainees hanged in mass hangings there, horrific conditions, trials of blindfolded prisoners, one to three minutes in length, no lawyers, secret, all in secret. This would, on its face, be contrary to every aspect of international law. What do you know about whats going on in that prison? President Assad: Lets first of all talk about the first part of your question, which is the problem how to  for the United States  to open relations with Syria, regarding the human rights. I will ask you: how could you have this close, very close relation, intimate relation, with Saudi Arabia? Do you consider beheading as human right criteria? Journalist: But Im not interviewing the King of Saudi Arabia right, Im interviewing you. President Assad: Yeah, I know. Yeah, of course. Journalist: Im asking you about reports of human rights abuses in your prison, in your country. The US is in no position to say I dont open relations [with Syria] because of human rights, as it has killed millions of civilians since Vietnam war till this moment President Assad: You own the question, I own the answers, so thats my answer. So, when you answer about Saudi Arabia and your relation, you can put yourself in that position. Second, the United States is in no position to talk about human rights; since Vietnam war till this moment, they killed millions of civilians, if you dont want to talk about 1.5 million in Iraq, without any assignment by the Security Council. So, the United States is in no position to say I dont open relations because of human rights, and they have to use one standard. This is first. The second part now. Now I can move to the other part, that report, like many other reports published by Amnesty International, put into question the credibility of Amnesty International, and we never look at it as unbiased. Its always biased and politicized, and its a shame for such an organization to publish a report without a shred of evidence. They said its based on interviews, on interviews. Journalist: Yes. President Assad: What about the documents? What about the concrete evidence? Not a single concrete Journalist: Interviews with four former prison officials and guards, three former Syrian judges, three doctors President Assad: It means nothing. Journalist: It means nothing? President Assad: Its interview no, no, when you need to make a report, you need concrete evidence. You can make any report, you can pay money to anyone like Qatar did last year. They paid money for such a report, and they brought their own witnesses, and they made a report. Question 27: I wanna just read you something from the report the process of hanging is authorized by officials at the highest levels of the government. Death sentences are approved by the Grand Mufti of Syria, and by either the Minister of Defense or the Chief of Staff of the Army, who are deputized to act on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad. President Assad: First of all, whats the evidence? This is first. Second Journalist: Is it true or not? President Assad: No, no, its not true, definitely not true. Journalist: How do you know? Do you know what goes on in that prison? Have you been there? President Assad: No, I havent been, Ive been in the Presidential Palace, not in the prison. Journalist: So here you have a very disturbing report about something going on in one of your prisons, are you going to investigate? President Assad: So, Amnesty International knows more about Syria than me, according to you. No, thats not true. No, they havent been to Syria, they only base their reports on allegation, they can bring anyone, doesnt matter whats his title, you can forge anything these days, and were living in a fake news era, as you know, everybody knows this. So, we dont have to depend on this. Second, you have to talk about the reality, they said in their report that we made serial executions, is that correct? Journalist: Yes. Mass hangings. President Assad: First of all, execution is part of the Syrian law. If the Syrian government or institution wants to do it, they can make it legally, because its been there for decades. Journalist: Secret trials, no lawyers? President Assad: Why do they need it, if they can make it legally? They dont need anything secret. Journalist: Is that legal, in your country? President Assad: Yeah, yeah, of course, its legal, for decades, since the independence. The execution, according to the law, after trial, is a legal action, like any other court in many countries in this region. Question 28: Will you allow international monitors to visit that prison and inspect and investigate these reports? President Assad: It depends on the credibility of that organization, not anyone, because theyre going to use this visit just to demonize the Syrian government more and more and more, like whats happening. Question 29: This is not the first time that very serious human rights allegations have been made. Just last week, a woman in Spain, Syrian, filed a lawsuit accusing nine of your senior government intelligence and security officials of human rights abuses. Her brother had disappeared in one of your prisons. You asked about documents, the lawyers who have filed this, accusing your government of human rights abuses, have collected 3,000 pages of evidence and over 50,000 photographs taken by one of your former governments photographers showing emaciated, tortured bodies in your prisons. President Assad: Who verified the pictures? Who verified that theyre not edited and photoshopped and so on? Journalist: Have you seen the photos? President Assad: No, I didnt. Journalist: Have you seen the photos? President Assad: No, no, I saw some photos in previous reports. But its not about the photo. How can you verify the photo? Journalist: You have said that the President Assad: Do you have a photo? Journalist: I do have the photos. President Assad: Can you show it to me? Journalist: Yes, Ill be happy to. here. President Assad: This photo have you verified who are those? Journalist: I can tell you President Assad: Because you have it, and because you mention it in front of your audience Journalist: Theres a number of photos President Assad: You have to convince your audiences, you cannot mention such a picture without verifying who are those and where and everything about, just to put it in front of the audience, tell them theyve been killed by the Syrian soldiers. Journalist: The woman who filed the lawsuit, the Syrian woman who filed the lawsuit said she saw her brother in those photographs. President Assad: At the end, these are allegations. We have to talk about concrete evidence, at the end. Thats how you can base your judgment. Anyone can say whatever he wants. Question 30: The US State Department gave these photos to the American FBI crime lab, digital lab. They examined these photos, and said the bodies and scenes depicted  these are 242 of these images  the bodies and scenes depicted exhibit no artifacts or inconsistencies that would indicate they have manipulated. As a result of the above observations, all of these 242 images appear to depict real people and events. President Assad: Who said that? Journalist: The FBI. Have you seen their report? President Assad: No. When was that? Journalist: That was 2015. President Assad: The question is when your institutions were honest about whats happening in Syria? Thats the question. Never. For us, never, so we dont have to rely on what they say, if the FBI say something, its not evidence for anyone, especially for us. The most important thing: if you take these photos to any court in your country, could they convict any criminal regarding this? Could they tell you what this crime is, who committed it? If you dont have this full picture, you cannot make judgement, its just propaganda, its just fake news, they want to demonize the Syrian government. In every war, you can have any individual crime, it happened here, all over the world, anywhere, but its not a policy. Question 31: But let me just If I hear what youre saying, the FBI is just forwarding propagating propaganda, Amnesty International is propagating propaganda, everybody is conspiring against the Syrian government. Why? President Assad: Ask them, were not Journalist: Youre the one making the allegation. President Assad: No, no, Im not making an allegation, they supported the terrorists, and you go back to what they said John Kerry, a few months ago, said and by his voice that we were watching ISIS advancing, and we expected the Syrian president to make concessions. What does it mean? Obama said it in one of his speeches, that the war on Iraq created ISIS. So, who supported ISIS? We didnt create it, you created it, the United States created all this mess. Who supported the rebels and called them moderate rebels while they became ISIS and al-Nusra in Syria? We didnt. So, its not a conspiracy, these are facts, this is reality. We didnt give money, we didnt support these terrorists. Your country supported them, UK, France, publicly, and they said they sent armaments, we didnt. So, its not my allegation, its your official allegation, including Joe Biden, the Vice President of Obama. He said, about Saudi Arabia and other countries supporting the extremists Journalist: Thats Saudi Arabia, but the United States President Assad: So, this allegation is their allegation, its American allegation before its been Syrian allegation. Question 32: The United States and its coalition partners have been bombing ISIS in Iraq and Syria, its supporting the Iraqi army in its efforts to liberate Mosul from ISIS. How can you say that the United States is supporting ISIS? President Assad: Can you explain to me how could they defeat ISIS in Iraq, and ISIS was expanding since the American coalition started attacking in Syria? Journalist: Is it expanding now? President Assad: Its been expanding, no, its Journalist: Is it expanding now? ISIS started shrinking after Russian intervention not the American intervention President Assad: It started shrinking after the Russian intervention, not the American one. How could they use our oil fields and export with thousands of barrel trucks to Turkey without being seen by your drones and by your satellites while the Russians could be able to do so and attack them and destroy them. destroy all their facilities? How? This is cosmetic campaign against ISIS. Question 33: Just to be clear; I have shown you the FBI report, I have shown the photographs, I have shown you the Amnesty International report. Will you cooperate in investigations to determine if these very serious reports are in fact true?

President Assad: You showed me many things, but you didnt show me a single evidence. Journalist: I showed you an FBI report. President Assad: No, no, its not evidence at all. Its actually the contrary; any American institution for us during the Syrian crisis was against the reality, it was the opposite of the truth. Thats how we look at it. So, its not a Syrian institution, we dont care about what they say. For me, what I care about is what reports I have from Syrian people, and we had investigations, because we have many claims regarding not mass crimes, actually, more individual acts and weve been investigating many, and many people were punished, but that happened in every war. Question 34: Do you are you disturbed enough about any of this to try to determine the truth yourself? President Assad: I think you should show it to Western officials to ask them that question: are they disturbed to see whats happening since they started supporting the terrorists in Syria? This killing and this destruction? Thats the question. Of course Im disturbed; I am Syrian. Journalist: You are disturbed about this? About these reports? President Assad: About whats happening in Syria. No, no, not about the report. I dont care about the report. Journalist: Not about this. President Assad: No, no, Im disturbed about whats happening in Syria. Its my country, its being destroyed by proxy terrorists, of course. Question 35: You have acknowledged that your troops in this war have committed mistakes in its prosecution against the rebels, and that anyone could be punished. So, how many mistakes are we talking about? President Assad: No, I didnt say that. I never said that. I said there are always mistakes in any action; thats a human Journalist: How many mistakes are we talking about? How many innocent civilians have been killed by your governments mistakes? President Assad: Nobody knows, because thousands and thousands of those are missing people; nobody knows anything about their fate, nobody at all. So, you cannot tell till the end of this war. Question 36: Was it a mistake to bomb hospitals in Aleppo? President Assad: We never bombed hospitals in Aleppo. Why to bomb a hospital? Can you convince your audience that we have interest in bombing hospitals? Actually, this is against our interest. This is against our interest to bomb a hospital if its used as hospital, and the proof that it was a lie, every time they talk about bombing hospitals, every time they say this is the last hospital in eastern part of Aleppo, and the second time they talk about another hospital and they say the same; they bombed the last hospital. So, its lies and lies and lies. We can spend the whole interview talking about lies, and we can talk about the truth and reality. I have to talk about the reality. Question 37: Is it a mistake to use barrel bombs and chlorine gas? President Assad: You have to choose which part of the narrative is correct. Once they said we are using indiscriminate bombs and they called it barrel bombs. The other day, they said we targeted hospitals and schools and convoys. We either have precise armaments or we have indiscriminate armaments. So, which one do you choose? Question 38: Well, you do acknowledge though that innocent civilians there have been civilian casualties in this war? President Assad: Of course, every war is a bad war, every war is a bad war. You cannot talk about good war. Lets agree about this. Every war has causalities; every war has innocent people to pay the price. This is the bad thing about war. Thats why we need to end that war, but having casualties doesnt mean not to defend our country against the terrorists and against the invasion from abroad through those proxies by foreign countries like the Western countries and the regional ones. This is self-evident. Question 39: President Obama gave a speech in 2013 about US counter-terrorism efforts, including drone strikes, and he says while defending those strikes, nevertheless it is a hard fact that US strikes have resulted in civilian casualties from me and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live. Are you haunted by the deaths of innocent civilians caused by your governments military actions? President Assad: Thats an important example about the armament, its not about what bomb do you use, whether you call it barrel or any other name; its not about that. Its about the way you use and your intentions. Thats why the state of the art drones with their missiles, the American ones, killed much more civilians than terrorists. So, its not about the drone, its not about the armaments; its about your intentions. In our case in Syria, of course we have to avoid the civilians, not only because they are our people and this is a moral issue; its actually because its going to play into the hands of the terrorists. If we kill the civilians intentionally, it means we are helping the terrorists. So, why would we do it, why we are defending the civilians and killing the civilians? It doesnt work; this is contradiction. If we are killing the civilians, who are we defending in Syria? Against who and for who? Question 40: You were asked just yesterday: are all means justified in this war, and you said, your answer was yes, its a duty. So, you can use every mean in order to defend the Syrian people. President Assad: Exactly. Journalist: Every mean? President Assad: Every mean. Journalist: Including torture? President Assad: No, its not a defense; torture is not a defense. Why to use torture? Whats the relation between torture and defending your country? Journalist: So, where you draw the line? President Assad: You have rules, you have very clear rules like any army; when you want to defend your country, you use your armaments against the terrorists. This is the only rule that Im talking about. This is all the means that you can use in order to defend your country militarily, if Im talking about military. Of course, you have to defend it politically, economically, in every sense of the word. But if you talk militarily, torture is not part of defending your country. Question 41: Last question: can you just give us your vision of a settlement of this conflict, and can it under any circumstances, will you be willing to step aside if it can end this disaster of a war for the Syrian people? President Assad: Definitely, for me, whenever the Syrian people dont want me to be in that position, I will leave right away, this is a very simple answer for me and I dont have to think about it, and Im not worried about this. What I would worry about is if Im in that position and I dont have the public support; this is going to be a big problem for me and I cant bear it, and I cannot produce anyway. Regarding the first part, how would I see the solution, two pillars: the first one is fighting terrorism; without fighting terrorism and defeating the terrorists, no other solution would be fruitful at all, at all, any kind of solution. In parallel, dialogue between the Syrians about the future of Syria, that will include anything, everything, regarding the whole political system, the whole Syria in every sense of the word, then when we can get elections, and you can have national unity government, then you can have parliamentarian elections, then if the Syrian people think about early presidential elections or any kind of presidential elections, that will be viable. Journalist: So, earlier than the completion of your term, which I believe, is in 2021? President Assad: If there is public consensus about this. Question 42: How would you determine whether theres public consensus or not? President Assad: We can discuss it at that time; its still early to talk about it. We havent finished any of the stages that Im talking about. So, we never thought about how because we dont know what circumstances are we going to face that time. But at the end, when you live in a country, you can sense; Syria is not a continent, its a small country, we can deal with each other, we can know each other as society. You can sense, you can feel if there is public consensus, and then if you want to do something documented, you can have referendum, thats very clear. Question 43: Do you have any cause for optimism? President Assad: Of course, without that optimism we wouldnt fight for six years. The only the main optimism that weve had is that were going to defeat those terrorists and their masters, and were going to restore stability in Syria, and more important than my optimism is the determination of the Syrian people; this is very important source for optimism. Without that determination, you wouldnt see Syria in these very difficult and exceptional circumstances still living the minimum life, lets say, if not the normal life, but the minimum life, to survive, and for the government to offer different services and subsidies, and so on. Journalist: Thank you Mr. President. President Assad: Thank you very much. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Trump, Erdogan agree Syria cooperation, CIA chief visit: Ankara : In their eagerly awaited phone call late Tuesday, the presidents discussed acting together in Turkey's battle to capture the Syrian town of Al-Bab from Islamic State jihadists and taking the main IS stronghold of Raqa.
Trump's Desperate Search For a 'Reichstag Fire'



Given his serious unpopularity, an incident for illegal power grab is increasingly a dangerous possibility.



By Hamid Dabashi February 10/11, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Al Jazeera " - Donald Trump and his top Islamophobe nomenklatura gathered at the White House, now led by the militant crusader Stephen Bannon, are on a desperate lookout for their "Reichstag Fire" and their favourite propaganda outlet, Fox News, is franticly searching for it - even in Canada. "Reichstag Fire" was an arson attack on the Reichstag, the German parliament, in Berlin on February 27, 1933. The incident was soon abused by Adolf Hitler and his gang to demand a suspension of civil liberties in systematic preparation for his putsch for total fascist power. Ever since, the term "Reichstag Fire" is used metaphorically to mark a dreadful event abused by any proto-fascist movement to blame an amorphous internal enemy, to be coupled with an external enemy, and rapidly from there rapidly move towards a total control of the state apparatus by criminalising and crushing public dissent. Given the fact of Trump's serious unpopularity with a significant portion of American society, this "Reichstag Fire" incident is increasingly a dangerous possibility. From the historic Women's March in Washington to widespread airport rallies against his Muslim ban, Trump and his handlers know only too well his loss of the presidential popular vote by about three million nationwide is now growing into widespread public discontent, state-level gubernatorial opposition, and systematic resistance by the judiciary branch. Fake news and Fox News Soon after the executive order late in January banning Muslims from seven countries for 90 days to enter the United States, the Trump administration was given what it thought was its "Reichstag Fire" moment to justify its draconian measures and push for even more. The incident presented itself when reports emerged that a gunman had attacked a Muslim centre in Quebec, Canada. Fox News, Trump's most trusted source of fake news, instantly came forward and reported the perpetrator was a Moroccan Muslim. This, however, like most other things on Fox News, was a case of bogus reporting. The suspect of the mass murder in Quebec was, in fact, a violent "white nationalist" named Alexandre Bissonnette, who is a notorious character known to the local authorities for his racist Islamophobic views. Not only was the perpetrator of this crime no Muslim, but, in fact, Muslims were his direct targets. None of this, however, prevented Fox News from jumping to the conclusion that the act of terror was perpetrated by a Moroccan Muslim and, on the basis of this false news, the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer instantly jumped the gun, declaring it a vindication of Trump's Muslim ban. Demonisation and official persecution of Muslims, just as Jews were in Nazi Germany, will progress apace until he manufactures his 'Reichstag Fire'. But the proverbial cake in this desperate search for a "Reichstag Fire" goes to the notorious Kellyanne Conway, Trump's top chatterbox consigliere, who, in an interview soon after the Muslim ban, referred to two Iraqi refugees as "masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre" with baldfaced charlatanism. There is no such thing as a "Bowling Green massacre." She just made it up - and the dimwitted interviewer just stared at her and did not object to this fiction. Yes, two Iraqis were arrested in that city for allegedly having ties to an explosive device used against US troops in Iraq. But there was no "Bowling Green massacre", except in the viciously demented mind of Conway, the flowering achievement of American charlatanism. State of emergency Trump and his handlers are desperate to find a Muslim "Reichstag Fire" and they will use the incident to further demonise Islam in the US and push for a Muslim registry or even worse. The illegal and unconstitutional Muslim ban is only the first salvo. Trump has a longer spectrum in mind. Demonisation and official persecution of Muslims, just as Jews were in Nazi Germany, will progress apace until he manufactures his "Reichstag Fire". In addition to a domestic threat, Trump and his gang will need a foreign war to safeguard his presidency for this and the next terms. He never stopped campaigning after his win. He knows for a fact he is a vastly unpopular president. His entire first term will be spent campaigning for the second. "Donald Trump needs a war," Bradley Burston correctly diagnoses and further adds, "But not just any war. He needs just the right global non-Christian, all-powerful, all-frightening, non-white, non-negotiable enemy. He needs a Holy War." The only "Holy War" Trump can wage is of course against Muslims. Standing next to him is one Steve Bannon, an obsessed crusader you have to go back all the way to characters such as Raynald of Chatillon or Guy of Lusignan of the Crusaders period to find the likes of him: vicious, malignant, hatred of Muslims and Jews definitive to who and what he is. Bannon has a malignantly illiterate conception of a perpetual war between Islam and Christianity that he has picked up off some lunatic website like his own Breitbart, fully on display in a vile speech he gave via Skype to a gang of like-minded militant Christians in 2014. At one crucial point in this speech he says: "I believe you should take a very, very, very aggressive stance against radical Islam," and if you thought he means "radical Islam" and not "Islam", he immediately corrects you by adding: "If you look back at the long history of the Judeo-Christian West struggle against Islam, I believe that our forefathers kept their stance, and I think they did the right thing. I think they kept it out of the world, whether it was at Vienna, or Tours, or other places  It bequeathed to us the great institution that is the church of the West." From Samuel Huntington to New Atheists to Benjamin Netanyahu to Bannon's Christian zealotry have been pointing to an all-out war with one final standing Muslim country not entirely subservient to the US Christian militarism: Iran. Trump's National Security Adviser - and Bannon's fellow militant Islamophobe - Michael Flynn just came out putting Iran on notice. Consistently raising public awareness and mobilising civil disobedience against Trump's policies have now become the hallmarks of a whole new generation of anti-war civil rights movement in the US. Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Its Foreign Greed And Delusion That Kills Yemeni Children By Moon Of Alabama February 10/11, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Moon Of Alabama " - Ten-thousands, and soon hundred-thousands die in Yemen as result of zealotry, greed and bureaucratic infighting of foreign countries. The Wahhabi Saudis fight in Yemen against Iranian Shia that ain't there. Under the eyes of the CIA they nurture local al-Qaeda forces to do their bidding. The UAE seeks new ports in Yemen thereby disturbing Saudi pipeline dreams. The Pentagon tussles with the CIA over budgets of special operations. The minor local Yemeni conflicts between the various tribes develop into a war due to foreign interference and financing. Bombing campaigns have replaced tribal mediation. The executive branch of the United Nations is under pressure from the U.S.-Saudi coalition. It is not allowed to report on the real consequences of the devastating war on Yemen. The leads to rather comical assertions. On August 31 2016 the UN coordinator on Yemen Jamie McGoldrick said that 10,000 people had died due to the war on Yemen: Speaking from the capital Sanaa on Tuesday, Jamie McGoldrick, the UN humanitarian coordinator said the new figure was based on official information from medical facilities in Yemen. The number could rise further, McGoldrick said, as some areas had no medical facilities, and people were often buried without any official record being made. "We know the numbers are much higher but we can't tell you by how much," McGoldrick told reporters On January 17 2017 the UN coordinator on Yemen Jamie McGoldrick said that 10,000 people had died due to the war on Yemen: "[T]he estimates are that over 10,000 people have been killed in this conflict and almost 40,000 people injured", UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Yemen Jamie McGoldrick told reporters in the capital Sanaa on Monday. He did not provide a breakdown between civilians and combatants. The UN numbers did not change from August 2016 to January 2017. Despite intense bombing and ravaging famine no one seems to have died. But those numbers are of course mere fantasies. The real death toll due to the war on Yemen is at least ten times higher. The numbers the UN envoy claims are political. He is not allowed to reveal the real ones. In mid 2016 the Saudis pressured the then UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon to take it off a list of countries that are harming children: Muslim allies of Saudi Arabia piled pressure on UN chief Ban Ki-moon over the blacklisting of a Saudi-led coalition for killing children in Yemen, with Riyadh threatening to cut Palestinian aid and funds to other UN programs, according to diplomatic sources. A UN Secretary General with some backbone would not have relented but would have publicly shamed the Saudis and their allies at each possible occasion. Not so Ban Ki-moon: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday he temporarily removed the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen from a U.N. blacklist for violating child rights because its supporters threatened to stop funding many U.N. programs. Ban said he had to consider "the very real prospect" that millions of other children in the Palestinian territories, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen and many other places "would suffer grievously" if U.N. programs were defunded. The United States and Britain actively supported Saudi Arabia in getting its way at the UN and within the UN Security Council. But the UN giving in to blackmail did not save any children. UNICEF, somewhat independent from the General Secretary, reports much higher (though still incomplete) numbers that come nearer to the truth: Yemen has lost a decade's worth of gains in public health as a result of war and economic crisis, with an estimated 63,000 children dying last year of preventable causes often linked to malnutrition, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.

...

A decade has been lost in health gains," she said, with 63 out of every 1,000 live births now dying before their fifth birthday, against 53 children in 2014.

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Releno later told a news briefing that the rate of severe acute malnutrition had "tripled" between 2014 and 2016 to 460,000 children. "The under-5 mortality rate has increased to the point that we estimate that in 2016 at least 10,000 more children died of preventable diseases," she said. In medical statistic terms these are "excess death". They would not have occurred without the war waged on the country. It is unlikely that these UNICEF numbers are complete. The mountainous north-west of Yemen is the core area of the Zaidi Shia population from which the Houthi militia fighting the Saudis and their proxies derive. It is now mostly cut off from communication and supply channels. Hospitals and schools in the area have been heavily bombed and its main northern city Sadah has been completely destroyed by Saudi air attacks. The Zaidi comprise about 45% of Yemen's 24 million people and up to 1962 Zaidi caliph ruled the country for over 1,000 years. For the Saudi Wahhabi zealots the Zaidi are not real Muslims and deserve to die. Many people in the north west have fled to Yemen's capital Sanaa. But even there food is running out. Hungry children roam the streets begging for food. The Yemenis, and especially the Zaidi, have always been independent minded. They will not give in to Saudi pressure. The Saudis can not defeat them. Together with their U.S. and British allies they have therefore decided on a follow a genocidal strategy. They cut off the country, which usually imports up to 90% of its basic food needs, from the outside world. Saudi ships patrol the coast and the land borders are mostly under Saudi control. Only smugglers and the few official UN convoys provide some relief. But this is obviously far from enough. The ten-thousands "excess death" are a direct consequence of the U.S.-Saudi blockade. Besides the war on the Zaidi, geo-political conflicts are waged in Yemen. The Saudis accuse the Zaidi of being proxy forces of Iran. But there is no evidence for this. No Iranian weapons or Iranian advisor have been seen in Yemen. Iran had warned the Houthi not to expend their rule. Contacts between the Houthi and Iran are now few and superficial. The U.S. navy caught a few smuggling Dau on the way from maybe Iran to Somalia. It claims that the old and few weapons they carried were destined for Yemen which is already overflowing with weapons. No evidence for this claim has been provided. The real geo-political fight is taking place within the U.S.-Saudi coalition. The United Arab Emirates is nominally part of the coalition. They have provided forces and hired mercenaries to fight the Houthi in Yemen. But it is mainly interested in the southern ports of Aden (containers and general cargo) and Mukalla (oil and gas) and supports a southern independence movement. The UAE owned port management company DP World had its exclusive concessions for the ports canceled when the Houthi kicked out the former government. First the Houthi, then al-Qaeda took control over the ports. The UAE now occupies the port cities with the help of south-Yemeni mercenaries and again manages and controls the ports. The Saudis have their own interest in those ports. They have plans for pipelines from their main oilfields up north to Mukalla. The pipelines would allow the Saudi oil exports to circumvent the vulnerable sea lane through the street of Hormuz. But for that they need a port on the Yemeni coast. The Saudis have supported and allied themselves with radical Salafi groups in Yemen. One of these runs under the name al-Qaeda but it is not as tightly joined to the global al-Qaeda organization as it seems. The Saudi supported al-Qaeda groups, originally hired to fight the Houthi, "liberated" the southern ports. They were ordered out when UAE supported forces arrived but intermittently attacks the UAE occupied Aden and, as Yemeni sources claim, also attacks Mukalla under the label ISIS or Islamic State. This murky conflict is again coming to the fore because UAE special forces took part in a recent U.S. raid on an alleged al-Qaeda camp in Yemen. It has been confirmed that 25 civilians, at least 9 of them children, were killed in the raid. The main U.S. target, an alleged al-Qaeda big wig, escaped. The Saudi proxy government in Yemen protested against the raid. It banned further U.S. ground operation in the country (later taken back). Its ambassador explained that al-Qaeda is part of its fight against the Houthi and not a priority enemy. He repeatedly said that the "highest levels" of the U.S. government were informed of this. The raid in Yemen was carried out by the Pentagon, not by the CIA. The U.S. special forces were accompanied by UAE forces. After the raid al-Qaeda in Yemen retook three southern towns and is again threatening the UAE controlled port cities. My recent discussions with Yemeni sources developed around the following speculative picture. In the war on Yemen the Pentagon is mainly allied with UAE and supports its plans for southern Yemen. The CIA is mainly allied with the Saudis, supports their plans and condones their alliance with al-Qaeda. The main target of the U.S. military raid was warned by the Saudis and escaped. The necessary information came from CIA channels. A similar split between the CIA which supports Jihadis like al-Qaeda and the Pentagon which has to fight them occurred in Syria. The CIA provided weapons, paid by the Saudis, to various militant Islamist groups which the Pentagon knows it will later have to fight. The Pentagon tried to sabotage those CIA operations. This conflict is between U.S. Budget Title 10 (the Pentagon) and U.S. Budget Title 50 (the Intelligence Services/the CIA) which has been waged for years. The responsibilities and authorities under these titles are disputed and discussed (pdf) over and over again. Has the CIA the lead in special operations or the Pentagon? Who will be able to claim the victories and who can be blamed for the losses? The Yemeni children, dying of hunger, are the sorry victims of such idiotic fights. Bureaucracy infighting in the U.S. and pissing contests of Arab sheiks over transports routes around the Gulf are deciding their fates. Yesterday the New York Times editors, again drunk on cool aid, revealed their self-delusions to the world: At least in recent decades, American presidents who took military action have been driven by the desire to promote freedom and democracy, ... That lie will surely be solace for the relatives of the kids killed in the special force raid in Yemen which was planned and ordered by two U.S. presidents. It will nourish the millions of children who hunger and ten-thousands who die in Yemen due to lack of food. Freedom and democracy will be valued by those dying from U.S. bombs dropped from U.S. build planes by U.S. trained Saudi pilots with the help of U.S. intelligence. The new U.S. administration plans to double down on such support. As so often in such conflicts the locals are mere pawns in games played by foreign countries. If the foreign powers stayed out, the local conflicts would be solved within weeks and the healing could begin. It would, in the end, be the best solution for all. At the end of the 30 year war in Europe that insight was enshrined in international law. But the valuable experience, paid with blood and devastation, has been discarded. How can it be regained? The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Stop Millions of Western Immigrants!

By Andre Vltchek

Ed Note: Item was originally published in October, 2015

February 10/11, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Tens of millions of European and North American immigrants, legal and illegal, have been flooding both the cities and countryside in Asia, Latin America, and even Africa.

Western migrants are charging like bulls and the ground is shaking under their feet; they are fleeing Europe and North America in hordes. Deep down they cannot stand their own lifestyle, their own societies, but you would hardly hear them pronounce it. They are too proud and too arrogant! But, after recognizing innumerable areas of the world as suitable for their personal needs - as safe, attractive and cheap  they simply pack and go!

We are told that some few hundred thousand African and Asian exiles are now causing a great refugee crises all over Europe! Governments and media are spreading panic, borders are being re-erected and armed forces are interrupting the free movement of people. But the number of foreigners illegally entering Europe is incomparably smaller than the number of Western migrants that are inundating, often illegally, virtually all corners of the world.

No secret paradise can be hidden any longer and no country can maintain its reasonable price structure. Potential European, North American and Australian immigrants are determined to enrich themselves by any means, at the expense of local populations. They are constantly searching for bargains: monitoring prices everywhere, ready to move at the spur of the moment, as long as the place offers some great bargains, has lax immigration laws, and a weak legal framework.

Everything pure and untapped gets corrupted. With lightning speed, Western immigrants are snatching reasonably priced real estate and land. Then, they impose their lifestyle on all those newly conquered territories. As a result, entire cultures are collapsing or changing beyond recognition.

Overall, Western immigrants are arrogant and stubborn; they feel no pity for the countries they are inundating. What surrounds them is only some colorful background to their precious lives. They are unable and unwilling to adopt local customs, because they are used to the fact that theirs is the leading culture - the culture that controls the world.

They come, they demand, and they take whatever they can - often by force. If unchecked, they take everything. After, when there is almost nothing left to loot, they simply move on. After them, no grass can grow; everything is burned, ruined and corrupted. Like Bali, Phuket, Southern Sri Lanka, great parts of the Caribbean, Mexico and East African coast, just to name a few places.

Who represents the greater menace: some 300,000 illegal refugees escaping from the countries destabilized or outright destroyed by the West, or those millions of Westerners who are annually fleeing their depressing lifestyles and selfishly over-imposing themselves on so many economically weaker and therefore more vulnerable parts of the world?

I believe the answer is obvious.

People from devastated countries are often left with no choice: many are coming to their tormentors, forced by circumstances to accept totally unreasonable conditions, humiliation and marginalization. They have to work extremely hard. They have to accept jobs Westerners think themselves too good for, and they are expected, even ordered, to adapt culturally. They go through horrific screenings and interviews, and almost all of them have to degrade themselves just in order to survive and feed their children. Only a minority is allowed to stay. Those who do stay greatly contribute to local economies.

Of course, this is a part of the dirty trick: the West needs foreigners; it cannot survive without immigrants, without their cheap labor. But it would never admit it openly. Before accepting them, it has to first humiliate and break even those whom it desperately needs. It has to further demean those whose nations were already robbed of everything, and even thrown into war by the Wests imperialist foreign policy and by corporate terrorism.

The Wests migrants are encountering totally different treatment in most of the countries they are inundating.

To begin with, Western immigrants do not even need visas to enter most countries. Decades ago, the Empire opened by force almost all developing states. Westerners are treated preferentially, and generally promoted as a source of income by local regimes.

It is mainly the Western multi-nationals that are dividing the loot from Asian, African and the Middle Eastern countries, but some part of booty always ends up in the pockets of those ordinary European and North American citizens, mainly in the form of retirement plans or other social benefits. Then, annually, tens of millions of Westerners, armed with funds that have been stolen from the developing world are hitting the road, trying to make their money go further in those places where their funds actually originated!

It is no secret that Western migrants are taking advantage of poverty, low prices, and corrupts legal systems. Their arrival raises prices for housing and land. It leaves millions of local people literally homeless, and it raises the prices of food and basic services for the local population.

In a way, people in many poor countries get robbed twice: by Western corporations, and then again, by Western migrants.

But damaged countries are not sending coast guard ships to intercept Western migrants. And there are hardly any deportations. Only those who dare to criticize the system get expelled.

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I saw entire islands being eaten alive by Western immigrants. Almost no coastal areas are left for local people on the Indonesian islands of Lombok and Bali. The Scandinavian mafias, the Central European mafias, Australian mafias... The theft had reached unimaginable proportions. Even when it is illegal to purchase land, the Europeans and the North Americans are teaming up with local gangs, or forging schemes that include marriages to local women. Western migrants are tremendously canny! There is always some way how to get around the laws and screw poor people in the most miserable countries on earth.

The Italian takeover of the Kenyan coast... the child prostitution there.

Thailands islands are all gone. No culture remains, almost no houses belonging to the local people... almost no coastal stretch is left untouched. There is just some banal, horrid tourist infrastructure, and millions of Western migrants baking on the sun, all year round, with their pot bellies exposed, wearing flip-flops, downing beer, hand in hand with their culturally uprooted Thai companions. What did these people bring to Thailand? Freedom? Prosperity? High culture? Seriously! Or honestly, isnt it just a moral corruption and total cultural ruin?

There are literally millions - maybe even tens of millions - of Western (mainly European) migrants living all over Southeast Asia. Exact numbers are unknown; there are no reliable studies and statistics. Many Western immigrants in Southeast Asia are actually illegal. Some are semi-legal, with their constant visa runs, false marriages and shady investments.

Cambodia is one of the places that has been attracting the most depraved migrants from the West. Their sex sprees and 2 dollars per shag bargains have been described in detail in several colorful books.

I encountered many expats and migrants when I was first investigating and then helping to close down one of the most notorious child-prostitution centers on earth, so-called Kilometer 11, located just outside the capital city of Phnom Penh. There, thousands of kidnapped girls, many of them minors, were forced to serve predominantly European clientele. Some of them were kidnapped and gang-raped on the way by traffickers; dragged here from all over Cambodia and neighboring Vietnam. The girls lived in captivity, guarded by vicious gangsters. And all over the place, flashing their proverbial beer bellies, were cheerful middle-aged European migrants, who just moved here, as I was told, shagging a minor is much cheaper than downing a pint of shitty beer.

A local Reuters correspondent and I managed to interview several 14-years old girls, some of them clearly dying from AIDS. Later on, when we began photographing the scene from the car, the entire crowd of men began charging, beer bottles in their hands, shorts falling off from their backsides, ready to kill. A great gain for the country of Cambodia, those European migrants!

I fought with all my might those venomous German immigrants at Colonia Dignidad in Southern Chile. There, many European Christian religious fanatics set up their entire state inside the Chilean state, closely collaborating with the US-backed Pinochet dictatorship. At one point, Bormann was there, as well as other prominent Nazis. After settling in their new fatherland, the German immigrants went busily to work, raping children, performing medical experiments on local orphans, and mercilessly torturing opponents of the fascist dictatorship. Of course, they did not immigrate only to Chile; there were millions of European fascist emigres pouring into all corners of South America. The most prominent of them were shipped there with care by US and British intelligence services.

While Western propaganda keeps talking about illegal immigrants crossing into the US from Mexico, there is very little talk about those tens of millions of people who are continuously immigrating to Latin America from all over Europe, settling in Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and elsewhere. Before the latest wave of Latin American revolutions finally guaranteed equality and respect for the indigenous people of the continent, most European immigrants managed to implant deep racial and social segregation. In some places like Peru and Bolivia, the situation closely resembled that of South African apartheid. Until recently, European immigrants had been pushing the native population to extreme margins, stealing their land and making their cultures irrelevant. It was done all over Latin America and is still done in many other parts of the world.

So, what are we going to do with those millions of Western immigrants?

Can we really afford having them in our countries? Can we accommodate them? Can we pay for their needs, for their aggressiveness and their wild and violent cultural and behavioral patterns? Can we allow them to take everything from those who have very little left?

*

Look left and right: the entire planet is full of Western immigrants. They are controlling diamond mines in South Africa as well as conservancy areas in Kenya. They are holding huge land expanses in Asia, and virtually all profitable commercial land and industry in Latin America.

And they are coming and coming! They are unstoppable. Most of them are sick of their gray lives in Europe and North America. They are full of superiority complexes, but in reality, they would do anything to escape their loneliness, depression and emptiness at home.

In order to be able to stay legally in Southeast Asia, millions of Western male immigrants are marrying maids, go-go dancers, or even sex workers. But then they treat them with spite (as many of them dont really know how else to behave towards people from other cultures). There are tens of thousands of former US GIs, living in the villages of Northern Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. After bombing Southeast Asia into the stone age, they could not cope with the treatment they received after coming back home. And so they immigrated; they returned to the land that they had already so thoroughly destroyed, poisoned and raped.

I met many of them, as I was writing about this part of the world for many years. Some former GI immigrants were now totally broke, trying to borrow money from me, and coming up with bizarre stories and schemes. Almost all of them felt spite for the local people, but were unable to return to their homeland, because they lost all contacts and skills that could allow them to live there. Some overstayed their visas, owing huge amounts of money in fines to the local authorities.

*

I heard countless desperate stories. But, unlike those profound and heartbreaking stories told by the migrants from the countries destroyed by the West, the stories of the Western immigrants were mainly selfish, centered on the desire to improve their lives, or yearning to escape unpleasant conditions in their countries of origin. Most of the time, their presence brought nothing positive to the countries where they managed to relocate.

In her iconic book Karma Cola, an Indian writer Gita Mehta described, already a quarter of century ago, those millions of Westerners who have been flooding Sub-Continent in search of enlightenment, alternative lifestyles and other mass-produced, Westernized cultural and religious trends. Many ended up as illegal migrants, rotting in ashrams and in bizarre communes, some even selling their passports in order to survive.

*

The world has been patient - Id say too patient - with the Western immigrants!

This patience should end, because of the brutality, even savagery, that Europe has been recently demonstrating towards those desperate men, women and children who have been trying to escape from their countries resembling sinking ships; ships that were torpedoed by Western imperialism.

The world owes nothing to the West, to the contrary! Therefore, visa and immigration policies should be reciprocal, which is exactly the approach of several Latin American countries.

Practically speaking, there are many more legal and illegal Western immigrants living in Indonesia or Thailand, than the other way around. The same goes for countries like Chile.

After horrible centuries during which Western colonialism and imperialism managed to destroy billions of human lives in all corners of the world, Europe still dares to treat its desperate victims as worse than animals. I recently witnessed its spite towards refugees arriving in Greece, France, Germany and the Czech Republic.

And after what I saw, I feel indignant and appalled.

Enough is enough!

With its wars, destabilization campaigns, economic terror, and its plunder of the planet, the West continues to demonstrate how low and brutal its culture really is. The refugee crises is just the latest chapter of the never-ending neo-colonialist horror show.

While European ships keep intercepting pitiful boats crammed with wrecked people who are fighting for their lives, while European armies are re-erecting border controls, several Latin American countries which are now governed by progressive governments, including Argentina and Chile, have been demonstrating tremendous moral superiority, solidarity and internationalism, by inviting and taking care of thousands of Syrian and Palestinian refugees, and on top of that, treating them with great dignity and kindness!

*

In one of the hotels in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in a bar late at night, I overheard a conversation between a visiting Swiss businessman and his Chilean counterpart:

You know, those immigrants that we call paperless, lamented Swiss man. Its too many of them... too many! We should just throw them directly to the sea; we should drown them! We dont need such scum in Europe.

A few days earlier, my friend, an Ecuadorian government official based in Quito, told me a story:

Lately, many Europeans keep coming to Ecuador and to other Latin American countries, searching for jobs, trying to migrate. Their economies are collapsing, but there is no humility when they come here, only arrogance. Another day, a Spaniard came to me, applying for a job. I asked him for his CV. He looked at me with total outrage: But I am a Spaniard! he shouted. So what? I replied. These days are over, comrade; days when just being a white European man would be enough to land you a job anywhere in Latin America!

*

The non-Western world simply cannot afford to tolerate an annual influx of the millions of Western immigrants! First, it gets attacked by the West, and then robbed, and at the end, is expected to tolerate enormous hordes of ruthless, locust-like, self-centered migrants who are trying to swallow what little is left behind by the Western corporations and governments.

Reciprocal visa regimes should be introduced. Legal frameworks should be strengthened to prevent corruption and speculation with land and real estate. Potential Western immigrants should be forced to prove that their presence would benefit the country where they want to settle, that their skills are really needed, just as all African and Asian immigrants are obliged to prove when they want to settle in Europe, in North America or in Australia.

And once again: let us not forget that there are many more Western immigrants trying to settle abroad, than there are people from poor countries applying for residency in the West.

Immigration crises? Yes of course! But not really crises for the West!

Those who do not realize it should check the numbers!

Certainly, many of us understand how depressed many Westerners really are; how their lives in Europe and in North America are disagreeable, gray and confusing. We really understand how much they want to immigrate to a warmer (in terms of weather and in terms of human relationships) part of the world. And if they would humbly admit what they feel, instead of demonstrating arrogance and superiority... if we could have it all in open... if the same rules would apply for everyone... if they would be the same for those who want to immigrate to Europe, to the US, to Asia, Africa or Latin America... then I am sure that at least some people would be willing to show their sympathy and consider accepting at least some of the most desperate Western migrants.

But there can be no sympathy if there is no justice. While Westerners are freely immigrating wherever they desire, Europe is now deploying its military in order to intimidate, humiliate and to stop those mugged and tortured victims of Empire!
The World According to Bannon



Steve Bannons vision of civilizational crisis and violent renewal has deep roots in the American political tradition.



By Alexander Livingston February 10/11, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Jacobin " - T he chaos unleashed by President Trumps executive order selectively barring Muslim entry into the United States has stoked an urgent debate about the man behind it, Stephen K. Bannon. Bannon, we now know, had a direct hand in both drafting the travel ban and directing the Department of Homeland Security to bar lawful residents and green card holders from entering the country. Some commentators see the indifference to legal procedure and mass protest as evidence of Bannons gross incompetence; others divine incipient signs of a full-scale coup. Often overlooked, however, is the broader vision of politics informing Bannons new experiment with state power. Behind the chaos hes let loose stands a prophetic theory of civilizational crisis and violent renewal  one with deep roots in the American political tradition. Bannons Vision B annons political vision finds its clearest expression in his 2010 documentary, Generation Zero. The film presents the financial meltdown and bailout as the product of a corrupt and incompetent political class beholden to global financial elites. The party of Davos, Bannon argues, ruthlessly plundered the wealth of the nations working men and women. But the documentary, of course, is no leftist polemic. Underpinning Generation Zeros melodramatic, right-populist discourse  which suffused President Trumps carnage-filled inaugural address  is a strange theory of historical change proposed by Neil Howe and William Strauss. Writing in the 1990s , Howe and Strauss asserted that American history could be understood as an orderly system of generational change. Every four generations constitutes a saeculum that passes through four predictable stages of development, each lasting approximately twenty years. A saeculum begins in the wake of a great crisis. Conformity and self-denial reign, and energy is channeled into building and protecting stable institutions. This first generation, or turning, eventually gives way to a subsequent generation where the social order begins to erode. Stultifying conformity is thrown off in pursuit of spiritual discovery and individual freedom. The second turning leads to a third, where corroding skepticism unravels stable institutions and social trust breaks down. Society atomizes and identities fracture, while speculation and elite power break free of traditional constraints. This cycle of unraveling is followed by a cataclysmic fourth turning into the new saeculum. The complete collapse of social institutions plunges society into chaos, and individuals are forced to embrace a common purpose in order to rebuild society. As Howe explains in Bannons Generation Zero, fourth turnings are tragic but necessary stages in the consolidation of national unity. Howe and Strauss identified three great cycles of climactic crisis in American history: the revolutionary war, the Civil War, and the Second World War. In each case the nation faced existential annihilation from internal division or external dangers. And in each case, the nation emerged stronger than before because of citizens heroism and sacrifice. Generation Zero positions the 2008 financial crisis as the nations latest fourth turning, the byproduct and successor to the counter-culture of the 1960s and 70s. As Bannon tells it, the socialism and black power politics of the 1960s laid siege to both the institutional stability of the 1950s and the cultural values that had traditionally sustained American free enterprise, unleashing a torrent of greed that ultimately sparked the financial crisis. Generation Zero traces the convergence of these lines of crisis back to the Clinton presidency, when crony capitalism and welfare socialism ostensibly conspired to gut the American economy and abandon the forgotten men. Bannon sees the current cycle of crisis as the most perilous yet, for the United States lacks the Judeo-Christian values that sustained American exceptionalism in prior eras of crisis. Will the United States and its tradition of liberty and free enterprise endure the coming convulsion? Or will this turning be the end of American civilization as we know it? Does the zero that numbers this generation denote being first or last? All Trumps chief adviser knows is that the Right must gird itself for a twenty-year battle to see the fourth cycle through. Bannons cyclical theory of crisis sheds additional light on his heavily circulated 2014 speech at the Human Dignity Institute. Speaking before a Catholic audience at the Vatican via Skype, Bannon presented his theory of national crises in global terms. At one time, Bannon argued, an enlightened form of capitalism prevailed, alongside peace and prosperity. But secularization destroyed the Judeo-Christian values that animated this order and detached the profit motive from its moral foundations. The result? The current era of corporate or state-controlled capitalism, which funnels national wealth into the pockets of a global Davos elite and looks to make people commodities, further hollowing out civilizational values. The crony capitalism fueling the populist rage across the advanced capitalist world is a symptom of the decline of the Judeo-Christian values that once kept the free market in check. For Bannon, these economic and spiritual crises are compounded by yet a third: the rise of jihadist Islamic fascism. Western civilization, he insists, is fracturing from within and being terrorized by barbarians from without. Echoing his prophecy in Generation Zero of a fourth turning, he warned the assembled right-wing Catholics: were at the very beginning stages of a global conflict, and if we do not bind together as partners with others in other countries . . . this conflict is only going to metastasize. Bannons Predecessors B annons vision of a coming clash of civilizations is a terrifying one, particularly since he now sits on the National Security Council. But however nightmarish and bizarre, his speculative theory of civilizational decline and crisis has plenty of precedents in American political thinking. In particular, it would have struck a chord with American intellectuals and politicians at the close of the nineteenth century. As the historian T. J. Jackson Lears argues in his classic study of Gilded Age America, turn-of-the-century elite discourse was marked by a reactionary antimodernism that lamented civilizational decline and looked to violence and danger as experiential wellsprings of renewal. Historian Brooks Adams, for example, predicted that the coming century would see the exhaustion of American civilization. In his 1896 book The Laws of Civilization and Decay, Adams offered a theory of history as the dissipation of energy, whereby the very forces that drive civilizational development ultimately leave it spiritually enervated and ripe for collapse and revitalization through a period of social breakdown. Adams thought that the expenditure of power required to industrialize the economy and centralize the state had rendered America inert until supplied with fresh energetic material by the infusion of barbarian blood. In 1885, Josiah Strong infused national decline with millennial significance in his hugely popular Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis. Prophesying the imminent final competition of the races for global supremacy, the Social Gospel leader advocated global imperial expansion as the sole way to save the Anglo-Saxon race in America. Unfortunately, Strong lamented, the forces of secularization, immigration, and Mammonism had weakened the national character and left the Anglo-Saxon unfit to confront this urgent challenge. Our Country was a jeremiad calling the nation back to its Christian values, which could combat the forces of domestic corruption and rise to a higher level of sacrifice demanded by the coming race apocalypse. But no figure better captured the republican melancholia of Gilded Age political thought  handwringing about civic virtue lost, criticism of corrupting greed, fear of immigration and race contamination, fantasies of global empire, romanticization of sacrificial renewal  than the promulgator of Big Stick diplomacy, Theodore Roosevelt. In Roosevelts eyes, the United States was a global representative of Anglo-Saxon civilization. But it was threatened from abroad (by competing imperial powers and cultural contamination) and decaying from within (thanks to commercialism, immigration, race mixing, and humanitarian sentimentalism). Warfare was the answer. He promoted military conflict as a training ground for American men who lacked the courage and public spirit that citizenship demanded. As he told an audience at Chicagos Hamilton Club in the spring of 1899: When men fear work or fear righteous war, when women fear motherhood, they tremble on the brink of doom; and when it is that they should vanish from the earth, where they are fit subjects for the scorn of all men and women who are themselves and strong and brave and high-minded. To Roosevelt, the fate of the Anglo-Saxon civilization depended on whether the strenuous life of the American soldier  who was fighting to expand the nations empire of liberty across the Western Hemisphere  would be embraced. Bannons War W hat can we glean about Bannons political vision from examining his intellectual antecedents and his alleged obsession with Strauss and Howe? For one, it shows that Bannons apocalyptic vision is indebted to what Richard Slotkin diagnosed as the American mythology of regeneration through violence: a celebration of violence as an expiating ritual that can renew both the individual and the nation. Bannon and Breitbart Newss fixation on gore, violence, and sacrifice is well-documented. His co-writer on a hip-hop adaptation of Coriolanus set in the 1992 Los Angeles riots told the New York Times that Bannon was drawn to Shakespeares Roman plays because of their heroic military violence. Bannons fascination with violence is not merely provocation. Like Roosevelt, he sees in war a transformative experience of moral regeneration that serves as a bulwark against civilizational decline. One of the biggest open questions in this country, Bannon declared on Breitbart Radio this past summer, is whether the United States is willing to embrace the strenuous life. Is that grit still there, that tenacity, that weve seen on the battlefields . . . fighting for something greater than themselves? Plumbing the past also demonstrates that we have to take seriously Bannons insistence that the USs corruption and decadence will be expunged through apocalyptic war. David Kaiser, who appears in Generation Zero, reports Bannons alarming fascination with the implications of great wars in Strauss and Howes theory. He expected a new and even bigger war as part of the current crisis, Kaiser said, and he did not seem at all fazed by the prospect. The cycle of crisis needs military conflict  it is only the threat of total annihilation that can summon a nation back to a common purpose and inspire mutual sacrifice to confront its collective danger. For Bannon, this war has already begun. As he explained in his Vatican lecture: [T]here is a major war brewing, a war thats already global. Its going global in scale, and todays technology, todays media, todays access to weapons of mass destruction, its going to lead to a global conflict that I believe has to be confronted today. The war in Bannons mind is the war radical Islam is waging on the West. It involves the calling of the church militant to fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity thats starting, that will completely eradicate everything that weve been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years. Understood in prophetic terms, the gruesome detail with which Bannon recounts ISIS atrocities on Breitbart Radio and his warnings of a Muslim fifth column inside the US are not simply calls to prepare for the coming war. Theyre incitations meant to accelerate the coming catastrophe, which will purge the nation and bring about the coming saeculum of order and stability. Total war is both the challenge facing American civilization and its salvation. As Bannon announced on Breitbart Radio in 2015, Its war. Its war. Every day, we put up: America at war, Americas at war. Were at war. Note to self, beloved commander in chief: were at war. Indeed we are. With Steve Bannon. Alexander Livingston is assistant professor of political theory at Cornell University and the author of Damn Great Empires! William James and the Politics of Pragmatism . Ed Note: Video embedded in this article by ICH and did not appear in the original item. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Trumps Refugee Ban  Made in Israel?

By Allison Weir

February 10/11, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - President Trump has issued an executive order suspending entry to the U.S for people from Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, and Yemen (the order is called Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States). These same countries were the focus of the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 under President Obama.

While reports on Trumps ban emphasize that these are Muslim majority countries, analysts seem to have ignored another significant characteristic that these countries share.

With just a single exception, all of these countries were targeted for attack by certain top U.S. officials in 2001. In fact, that policy had roots that went back to 1996, 1991, 1980, and even the 1950s. Below, we will trace this policy back in time and examine its goals and proponents.

The fact is that Trumps action continues policies influenced by people working on behalf of a foreign country, whose goal has been to destabilize and reshape an entire region. This kind of aggressive interventionism focused on regime change launches cascading effects that include escalating violence.

Already weve seen devastating wars, massive refugee movement that is uprooting entire peoples and reshaping parts of Europe, desperate and horrific terrorism, and now the horror that is ISIS. If this decades-long effort is not halted, it will be increasingly devastating for the region, our country, and the entire world.

2001 Policy Coup

Four-star general Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander, has described what he called a 2001 policy coup by a small group of people intent on destabilizing and taking over the Middle East, targeting six of the seven countries mentioned by Obama and Trump.

Clark gave the details in 2007 in an interview broadcast by Democracy Now and in a lecture at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco.

Clark described a chance meeting in the Pentagon in 2001 ten days after 911 in which he learned about the plan to take down these countries.

After meeting with then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Clark went downstairs to say hello to people on the Joint Staff who had worked for him in the past. One of the generals called him in.

Sir, youve got to come in and talk to me a second. He told Clark, Weve made the decision were going to war with Iraq.

Clark was shocked. He said, Were going to war against Iraq? Why? The officer said he didnt know. Clark asked if they had found information connecting Saddam to Al-Qaeda. The man said, No, no, theres nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.

A few weeks later, Clark went back to the Pentagon and spoke to the general again. He asked whether the U.S. was still planning to go to war against Iraq.

The general replied: Oh, its worse than that. Clark says that the general picked up a piece of paper and said, I just got this down from upstairs today. This is a memo that describes how were going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.

Clark asked, Is it classified? He said, Yes, sir.

Clark said he was stunned: I couldnt believe it would really be true. But thats actually what happened. These people took control of the policy of the United States.

1991

Clark says he then remembered a 1991 meeting he had with Paul Wolfowitz. In 2001 Wolfowitz was Deputy Secretary of Defense, and in 1991 he was Under Secretary of Defense of Policy, the number three position at the Pentagon.

Wolfowitz is a pro-Israel neoconservative who an associate has called over the top when it comes to Israel.

Clark describes going to Wolfowitzs office in March of 1991. Clark said to Wolfowitz, You must be pretty happy with the performance of the troops in Desert Storm. Clark says Wolfowitz replied, Not really, because the truth is we should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, and we didnt.

Wolfowitz declared the U.S. had an opportunity to clean up Syria, Iran, Iraq, before the next super power came on to challenge us.

Clark says he was shocked at Wolfowitzs proposal that the military should initiate wars and change governments, and that Wolfowitz believed that the U.S. should invade countries whose governments it disliked. My mind was spinning.

Clark says Scooter Libby was at that meeting. Libby is another pro-Israel neoconservative. In 2001 He was Vice President Cheneys chief of staff, and worked closely with the Office of Special Plans, which manufactured anti-Iraq talking points.

This country was taken over by a group of people with a policy coup, Clark said in his 2007 lecture. Wolfowitz, Rumsfield, Cheney, and you could name a half dozen other collaborators from the Project for a New American Century. They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.

(The Project for a New American Century was a think tank that operated from 1997-2006, and was replaced by the Foreign Policy Initiative.)

Clark continued: Did they ever tell you this? Was there a national dialogue on this? Did Senators and Congressmen stand up and denounce this plan? Was there a full-fledged American debate on it? Absolutely not. And there still isnt.

Clark noted that Iran and Syria know about the plan. All you have to do is read the Weekly Standard and listen to Bill Kristol, and he blabbermouths it all over the world  Richard Perle is the same way. They could hardly wait to finish Iraq so they could move into Syria.

Clark says that Americans did not vote George Bush into office to do this. Bush, Clark pointed out, had campaigned on a humble foreign policy, no peace keeping, no nation building.

Others have described this group, their responsibility for pushing the invasion of Iraq, and their pro-Israel motivation.

Neoconservatives, Israel, and Iraq

A 2003 article in Haaretz, one of Israels main newspapers, reported bluntly: The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. (Haaretz often highlights the Jewish affiliation of important players due to its role as a top newspaper of the self-declared Jewish State.)

It gave what it termed a partial list of these neoconservatives: U.S. government officials Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, and Eliot Abrams, and journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer. The article described them as mutual friends who cultivate one another.

The article included an interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who was quoted as saying:

Its the war the neoconservatives wanted. Its the war the neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite.

The article continued:

Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.

Another Haaretz article described how some of these individuals, high American officials, gave Israeli leaders tips on how to manage American actions and influence US Congressmen, concluding: Perle, Feith, and their fellow strategists are walking a fine line between their loyalty to American governments and Israeli interests.

Haaretz reported that the goal was far more than just an invasion of Iraq: at a deeper level it is a greater war, for the shaping of a new Middle East. The article said that the war was being fought to consolidate a new world order.

The Iraq war is really the beginning of a gigantic historical experiment

Were now seeing the tragic and violent result of that regime-change experiment.

American author, peace activist, and former CIA analyst Kathleen Christison discussed the neoconservatives who promoted war against Iraq in a 2002 article. She wrote: Although much has been written about the neo-cons who dot the Bush administration, their ties to Israel have generally been treated very gingerly.

The Bush administration, she wrote, was peppered with people who have long records of activism on behalf of Israel in the United States, of policy advocacy in Israel, and of promoting an agenda for Israel often at odds with existing U.S. policy.

These people, she wrote, who can fairly be called Israeli loyalists, are now at all levels of government, from desk officers at the Defense Department to the deputy secretary level at both State and Defense, as well as on the National Security Council staff and in the vice presidents office.

Author Stephen Green wrote a meticulously researched 2004 expose describing how some of these individuals, including Perle and Wolfowitz, had been investigated through the years by U.S. intelligence agencies for security lapses benefiting Israel.

Yet, despite a pattern of highly questionable actions suggestive of treason, they continued to procure top security clearances for themselves and cronies. The neocon agenda also became influential in Britain.

(During the recent U.S. presidential election, neoconservatives were extremely hostile to Trump, and have been perturbed to have less influence in his administration they they expected to have with Hillary Clinton. They may be relieved to see him targeting their pet punching bags in the Middle East. Its unclear whether neoconservatives will remain outside the White Houses inner circle for long: neocon Michael Ledeen is quite close to Trumps recently named White House National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. And there is talk that Trump may appoint Elliott Abrams as Deputy Secretary of State.)

1996 plan against Iraq and Syria

The neocon regime-change strategy had been laid out in a 1996 document called A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm . It was written for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a study group led by Richard Perle. Although Perle and the other authors were American citizens, the realm in question was Israel.

Perle was chairman of the United States Defense Policy Board at that time. He had previously been U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy.

The report stated that in the past, Israels strategy was to get the U.S. to use its money and weaponry to lure Arabs to negotiate. This strategy, the plan stated, required funneling American money to repressive and aggressive regimes.

The report recommended, however, that Israel go beyond a strategy just focused on Israel-Palestine, and address the larger region  that it shape its strategic environment.

It called for weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria and removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. The paper also listed Iran and Lebanon as countries to be dealt with (and Turkey and Jordan as nations to be used in the strategy).

The plan stressed that it was necessary to obtain U.S. support for the strategy, and advised that Israel use language familiar to the Americans by tapping into themes of American administrations during the cold war  .

Perle, Douglas Feith (who would be Deputy Under Secretary of Defense by 2001) and the other signatories of the report framed their proposal as a new concept, but the idea for Israel to reshape the political landscape of the Middle East had been discussed for years. (Lest we be unclear, reshape the political landscape means to change governments, something that has never been accomplished without massive loss of life and far-reaching repercussions.)

In 1992 Israeli leaders were already working to indoctrinate the public about an alleged need to attack Iran. Israeli analyst Israel Shahak wrote in his book Open Secrets that the goal would be to bring about Irans total military and political defeat.

Shahak reported: In one version, Israel would attack Iran alone, in another it would persuade the West to do the job. The indoctrination campaign to this effect is gaining in intensity. It is accompanied by what could be called semi-official horror scenarios purporting to detail what Iran could do to Israel, the West and the entire world when it acquires nuclear weapons as it is expected to a few years hence.

1982 & 1950s Israeli plans to fragment the Middle East

A document called A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties, proposed by Israeli analyst Oded Yinon, was published by the World Zionist Organization in 1982.

The document, translated by Israel Shahak, called for the dissolution of existing Arab states into smaller states which would, in effect, become Israels satellites.

In an analysis of the plan, Shahak pointed out: [W]hile lip service is paid to the idea of the defense of the West from Soviet power, the real aim of the author, and of the present Israeli establishment is clear: To make an Imperial Israel into a world power.

Shahak noted that Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon planned to deceive the Americans after he has deceived all the rest.

Shahak wrote that reshaping the Middle East on behalf of Israel had been discussed since the 1950s: This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking. Indeed, fragmenting all Arab states into smaller units has been a recurrent theme.

As Shahak pointed out, this strategy was documented in a book called Israels Sacred Terrorism (1980), by Livia Rokach. Drawing on the memoirs of the second Prime Minister of Israel, Rokachs book described, among other things, a 1954 proposal to execute regime change in Lebanon.

The result

Returning to the present, lets examine the situation in the countries of concern named by President Trump last week, by President Obama in 2015, and targeted by Wolfowitz et al in 2001.

Several years ago, journalist Glenn Greenwald commented on General Clarks statement about the 2001 policy coup: If you go down that list of seven countries that he said the neocons had planned to basically change the governments of, you pretty much see that vision being fulfilled.

Greenwald noted that the governments of Iraq, Libya, and Lebanon had been changed; the U.S. had escalated its proxy fighting and drone attacks in Somalia; U.S. troops were deployed in Sudan; and the most important countries on that list, Iran and Syria, are clearly the target of all sorts of covert regime change efforts on the part of the United States and Israel.

Below are sketches of whats happened:

Iraq was invaded and the country destroyed. According to a 2015 NGO report, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq had led to the deaths of approximately 1 million Iraqis  5 percent of the total population of the country  by 2011. More than three million Iraqis are internally displaced, and the carnage continues. The destruction of Iraq and impoverishment of its people is at the root of much of todays extremism and its been demonstrated that it led to the rise of ISIS, as admitted by former British Prime Minister and Iraq war co-perpetrator Tony Blair.

Libya was invaded in 2011 and its leader violently overthrown; in the post-Gaddafi power vacuum, a 2011 UN report revealed torture, lynchings and abuse. Five years on, the country was still torn by civil war and ISIS is reportedly expanding into the chaos. A 2016 Human Rights Watch report stated: Libyas political and security crisis deepened  the country edged towards a humanitarian crisis, with almost 400,000 people internally displaced. Warring forces continued with impunity to arbitrarily detain, torture, unlawfully kill, indiscriminately attack, abduct and disappear, and forcefully displace people from their homes. The domestic criminal justice system collapsed in most parts of the country, exacerbating the human rights crisis. [Photos here]

Sudan : The U.S. engaged in so-called nation-building in Sudan, advanced the claim in 2005 that the government was perpetrating a genocide, and some U.S. players ultimately organized the secession of South Sudan from Sudan in 2011. (Neocon Israel partisan Elliott Abrams was one of these players.) One journalist reported the result: [A]n abyss of unspeakable misery and bloodshed  . Tens of thousands have been killed, 1.5 million have been displaced, and 5 million are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

Somalia : There have been a number of U.S. interventions in Somalia, most recently a clandestine war under Obama using Special Operations troops, airstrikes, private contractors and African allies; Somali extremists, like others, repeatedly cite Israels crimes against Palestinians, enabled by the U.S., as motivators of their violent extremism.

Iran: Iran has long been targeted by Israel, and Israel partisans have driven the anti-Iran campaign in the U.S. Most recently there has been a public relations effort claiming that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, despite the fact that U.S. intelligence agencies and other experts do not support these accusations. Israel and the U.S. deployed a computer virus against Iran in what has been called the worlds first digital weapon. Young Iranian nuclear physicists have been assassinated by U.S. ally Israel, and the U.S. instituted a blockade against Iran that caused food insecurity and mass suffering among the countrys civilians. (Such a blockade can be seen as an act of war.) Democratic Congressman and Israel partisan Brad Sherman admitted the objective of the Iran sanctions: Critics of sanctions argue that these measures will hurt the Iranian people. Quite frankly, we need to do just that.

Yemen : The US has launched drone strikes against Yemen for years, killing numerous Yemeni civilians and even some Americans. In 2010, a few weeks after Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, he had the military use cluster bombs that killed 35 Yemeni women and children. The Obama administration killed a 16-year-old American in 2011, and a few days ago U.S. forces under Trump killed the boys sister. In 2014 American forces attacked a wedding procession, and in 2015 the Obama administration admitted it was making war on Yemen. Today over two million Yemeni children suffer from malnutrition. The Yemeni regime that were attacking became politically active in 2003 as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Syria : In an email revealed by Wikileaks, Hillary Clinton wrote that the best way to help Israel was to overthrow the Syrian regime.

Syria seems to be a poster child for the destruction recommended by Israeli strategists. As the UK Guardian reported in 2002: Disorder and chaos sweeping through the region would not be an unfortunate side-effect of war with Iraq, but a sign that everything is going according to plan.

Half the Syrian population is displaced  5 million have fled the country and another 6 million are internally displaced  and over 300,000 are dead from the violence. Major cities and ancient sites are in ruins and the countryside devastated. Amnesty International calls it the worst humanitarian crisis of our time.

While the uprising against a ruthless dictator was no doubt begun by authentic Syrian rebels, others with questionable agendas flowed in, some supported by the U.S. and Israel. Israels military intelligence chief said Israel does not want ISIS defeated. Israels defense minister has admitted that Israel has provided aid to ISIS fighters.

ISIS

A major factor in Syrias chaos and the rise of ISIS was the destruction of Iraq, as revealed by in-depth interviews with ISIS fighters by researchers for Artis International, a consortium for scientific study in the service of conflict resolution:

Many assume that these fighters are motivated by a belief in the Islamic State but this just doesnt hold for the prisoners we are interviewing. They are woefully ignorant about Islam and have difficulty answering questions about Sharia law, militant jihad, and the caliphate.

More pertinent than Islamic theology is that there are other, much more convincing, explanations as to why theyve fought for the side they did.

One interviewee said: The Americans came. They took away Saddam, but they also took away our security. I didnt like Saddam, we were starving then, but at least we didnt have war. When you came here, the civil war started.

The report noted that the fighters came of age under the disastrous American occupation after 2003.

They are children of the occupation, many with missing fathers at crucial periods (through jail, death from execution, or fighting in the insurgency), filled with rage against America and their own government. They are not fueled by the idea of an Islamic caliphate without borders; rather, ISIS is the first group since the crushed Al Qaeda to offer these humiliated and enraged young men a way to defend their dignity, family, and tribe.

The leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was imprisoned for eight months in the infamous Abu Ghraib, a U.S.-run Iraqi prison known for grotesque torture of prisoners. Photos published at that time show U.S. soldiers smiling next to piles of naked prisoners and a hooded detainee standing on a narrow box with electrical wires attached to his outstretched hands.

An Abu Ghraib interrogator later revealed that Israelis trained them in the use of techniques used against Palestinians. General Janis Karpinski (in charge of the unit that ran the prison) and others say that Israelis were involved in interrogations. It was reported that the head of the defense contracting firm implicated in the torture at Abu Ghraib prison had close ties to Israel and had visited an Israeli training camp in the West Bank.

Another major factor in the rise of anti-Western extremism is the largely unconditional support for Israels violent oppression of Palestinians. As a UN report documented, The scale of human loss and destruction in Gaza during the 2014 conflict was catastrophic and has  shocked and shamed the world.

Professor John Mearsheimer of and Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard have written that U.S. policies promoted by the Israel lobby have given extremists a powerful recruiting tool, increases the pool of potential terrorists and sympathizers, and contributes to Islamic radicalism around the world. Osama Bin Laden cited U.S. support for Israeli crimes against Palestinians among his reasons for fighting the U.S. The U.S. gives Israel over $10 million per day.

Reaction to the Trump executive order

Thousands of people across the U.S. have opposed Trumps order for the extreme hardship it imposes on multitudes of refugees. The focus on Muslims (Trump has said that Christians might be exempted) has caused outrage at such religious discrimination and unfair profiling (the large majority of Muslims strongly oppose extremism).

Individuals across the political spectrum from Code Pink to the Koch brothers have decried the order. The Kochs issued a strong statement against it:

We believe it is possible to keep Americans safe without excluding people who wish to come here to contribute and pursue a better life for their families. The travel ban is the wrong approach and will likely be counterproductive. Our country has benefited tremendously from a history of welcoming people from all cultures and backgrounds. This is a hallmark of free and open societies.

New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, who supported the Iraq War and suggests God sent him to guard Israel, choked back tears at a press conference and called the order mean-spirited and un-American.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), known for its fervent pro-Israel advocacy (and history of smearing criticism of Israeli policy as anti-Semitism), has vowed a relentless fight against the ban.

Some are concerned that Trumps action will stoke terrorism, rather than defend against it. Many others support the order in the belief it makes them safer from extremist violence. (As mentioned above, the Obama administration undertook a similar, though milder, action for a similar reason.)

I suggest that everyone  both those who deplore the order for humanitarian reasons, and those who defend it out of concern for Americans safety  examine the historic context outlined above and the U.S. policies that led to this order.

For decades, Democratic and Republican administrations have enacted largely parallel policies regarding the Middle East and Israel-Palestine. We are seeing the results, and most of us are deeply displeased.

I would submit that both for humanitarian obligations and for security necessities, it is urgent that we find a different way forward.

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel. Article Source.
Three hundred and fifty Imams led Thousands of Muslims in prayers across Borno State Friday to offer special prayers for the full recovery of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is currently vacationing in the UK.

The special prayers at the Jummat service were at the instance of the Chief Imam of the state, Alhaji Liasu Ahmed following a letter from Governor Kashim Shettima.

The 350 mosques are those allowed by the security challenge in the state to function from the 542 Jummaat mosques in the state. Ahmed reportedly mobilised his colleagues after receiving the governors letter.

William Naga, chairman of the Christians Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Borno, received a similar letter entitled, Request for Intensification of prayers for the complete recovery of Mr President.

The governor in the letter requested the Chief Imam and the CAN to kindly request Imams of all Jummaat mosques and leading pastors in all churches across Borno state to lead Muslim and Christian worshipers today (Friday) and coming Sunday, to intensify prayers for the quick and full recovery of our dear President, Muhammadu Buhari.

We believe any good Nigerian living in Borno is already praying for the president, this is why we requested for the prayers to be intensified. It was signed by Religious Affairs Commissioner Mustapha Fannarambe.

Fannarambe, in a separate statement said: The prayers started today (yesterday) with Jummaat mosques and we have monitored some here in Maiduguri and Jere and I was informed there were similar prayers in other Jummaat mosques in Biu, Bayo, Shani, Kwaya-Kusar were residents were never internally displaced and places like Gwoza, Konduga, Monguno, Damboa, Dikwa, Askira, Kaga and many other parts of the state, Fannarambe said in a statement.

Prayers were offered in IDP camps where Jummaat services take place because all the camps have citizens that include existing Imams of Jummaat Mosques in different parts of the state affected by the insurgency. From our estimation, not less than 350 Jummaat Mosques are currently functional out of 542 that we have across the state.

I actually attended one of the Friday prayers in Maiduguri while Governor Shettima went to Bama with the visiting minister of environment.
At least seven newly recruited soldiers were killed while 20 others injured in a battle on Thursday night when members of the dreaded Boko Haram terrorists ambushed convoy of the Nigerian Army in Borno State.

The gunfire which started at about 7:30 pm occurred along the Maiduguri-Dikwa road as military convoys traveled in army trucks and buses owned by the Borno State Government.

According to reports, the terrorists were said to have suddenly emerged in large numbers from surrounding bushes and opened fire on the travelling troops, most of whom were said to be young soldiers fresh from training.

The terrorists were said to be in a surprisingly large number and armed with sophisticated weapons and did a lot of damage before the soldiers could alight from their buses to fight back.

After the soldiers emerged from their vehicles, a prolonged fire-fight ensued, with seven of them falling in battle, and 20 others suffering varying degrees of injuries.

The army then sent reinforcement to the scene, but by the time those soldiers arrived, the Boko terrorists had fled into surrounding bushes and villages, making away with a gun truck, a mine detector, some AK 47 rifles, explosives and other weapons.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Army on Friday confirmed the attack in a statement signed by Kingsley Samuel, a Lieutenant Colonel and Deputy Director Army Public Relations at the 7 Division.

Troops of Operation LAFIYA DOLE gallantly fought their way through Boko Haram Terrorists ambush along Ajiri-Dikwa road, Borno State.

Elements of troops affected encountered the ambush while conducting routine rotation of troops last night. The gallant troops fought their way through, killing many of the terrorists.

Unfortunately 7 soldiers paid the supreme price in the incident while 19 soldiers sustained various degree of injuries. The soldiers who sustained injuries during the fierce encounter have been evacuated and are currently receiving treatment at Military hospital in Maiduguri. The troops recovered an AK-47 rifle and ammunition from the insurgents. Additional troops have been mobilised and are still on aggressive pursuit of the fleeing Boko Haram terrorists, the statement reads.
The Nigerian Army has demoted two soldiers, Cpl. Bature Samuel and Cpl. Abdulazeez Usman of 82 Provost Company in Onitsha, Anambra, to Private for manhandling a physically challenged Nigerian, Chijioke Orakwu.

The Nigerian Army spokesman, Brig.-Gen. Sani Usman, made this known in a statement in Abuja on Friday.

Usman said the demoted soldiers on Feb. 7, maltreated a physically challenged person, Mr Chijioke Orakwu, on the street of Onitsha, Anambra, for allegedly wearing Army camouflage uniform,

Usman said they were arrested, summarily tried on two-count charge and found guilty.

Consequently, both have been sentenced to reduction in rank from Corporal to Private Soldiers and 21 days imprisonment with Hard Labour, respectively.

It includes forfeiture of 21 days pay to the Federal Government of Nigeria.

The Nigerian Army has also reached out to the victim of their unjustifiable assault, Mr Chijioke Uraku (alias CJ), as widely reported by the media.

We wish to reiterate our avowed determination to ensure that troops conduct themselves in the most orderly and professional manner at all times.

Any act of indiscipline would not be tolerated, he said.

Earlier on Friday, the Nigerian Army offered clothing and an undisclosed amount of money as succour to Mr Chijioke Orakwu, a physically challenged person, assaulted by two military police officers in Onitsha for allegedly wearing army camouflage.

Orakwu was manhandled by two soldiers on Feb. 7, at New Market Road,

Col. Sagir Musa, the Deputy Director, Public Relations, 82 Division of the Nigerian Army, presented the item and cash on Friday. The video went viral, with the military authorities promptly arresting the culprits.

Musa said that the Army would not condone acts of indiscipline or gross misconduct by any member.

He said that the action of the soldiers did not reflect the attitude of todays soldiers under the leadership of Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai.

Already, those who perpetrated the act have been arrested and tried, and because of the seriousness of the offence, they have been referred to higher authorities for further action.

The Nigerian Army is seriously concerned about the incident.

We want to assure Nigerians, particularly the international community that the Nigerian Army has core values and respect for the rights of people, Musa said.

The army spokesman urged the public to view the case as an isolated one, assuring that future assault similar to the Onitsha incident would be treated with serious action.

He said the army volunteered to take Orakwu to hospital but that he refused orthodox medication.

Musa added that the doctors, who examined him physically, confirmed him to be physically fit.

The army spokesman emphasised that the items given to Orakwu were not to compensate him but to show that the Nigerian Army cares and respect rights of individuals.

All we did was not an issue of compensation but to show Nigerians and the international public that the Nigerian Army is disciplined, responsive and responsible, and that we care, he said.
A doctor in China removed a cockroach that crawled deep into a mans ear and remained stuck inside his head for three days.

A video filmed Friday at a hospital in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, shows the doctor removing the dead roach from deep inside the mans ear.

The man said the cockroach had apparently crawled into his ear while he was sleeping. He said he sprayed insecticide into his ear, which was effective in killing the roach, but he was unable to get the dead insect out.

The man said the roach had been inside his head for about three days before he sought help from the doctor, who only needed about a minute to remove it.
Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has decried the destruction of the foundation and structure laid for the proposed Nigerian Army Battalion in Southern Kaduna.

The structure was laid last week by the Nigeria Army in readiness for the establishment of the Battalion to tackle the lingering problem of insecurity in the area.

El-Rufai expressed worries in a statement on Saturday by Mr. Samuel Aruwan, the Special Assistant to the Governor on Media and Publicity.

The governor said it was unfortunate that conflict entrepreneurs are determined to create obstacles and setback to our stabilization and peace building efforts.

I received the news with shock over the unfortunate destruction of foundation laying structure of the proposed Nigerian Army battalion in Southern Kaduna.

The very structure we erected to establish the long-awaited Army Barracks to assist in the promotion of peace and end decades of senseless bloodletting in Southern part of Kaduna State.

The situation is unfortunate, condemnable and a setback to governments communal stabilization and peace building efforts, but we will not be deterred, said the governor.

He urged the people to cherish peaceful coexistence, continue to be resilient, focused and resolute in overcoming antics of forces of darkness and evil.

Those that did this are determined to derail the contributions of security agencies, having failed to spread their tentacles of hate, bigotry and penchant for divisiveness.

I want to use this medium to appeal to all men and women of conscience, to remain firm and optimistic, while government in collaboration with security agencies, civil society, religious and traditional institutions will continue to work for peace and security of lives and property.

Finally, all those that have their hands in the destruction of this structure will not go free, he said.

According to him, the security agencies will fish out the perpetrators and those found to be involved, or engaged in omissions that led to the destruction of public property, will be brought to justice.

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai and Gov. El-Rufai last week, laid the foundation for the establishment of the battalion at Ungwan Yashi area of Zangon Kataf Local Government, as a response to incessant killings occurring in Southern Kaduna since 1980.

Source: NAN
Wife of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, Mrs Uchechi Nnamdi Kanu, in an exclusive interview with ThisDay, have said her husband is so obsessed with the Biafra that the he would gladly sacrifice her, their children and other family members for the struggle.

Read excerpts from the interview below:

Its a year since your husband was detained by the federal government, how has your family been fairing without him?

My husbands absence is being felt in the family as would any family without the head, but we are holding up alright under the circumstance we find ourselves.

Under this circumstance, would you advise him to dump the struggle and return to you, if you had the opportunity?

No. I will not advise my husband to jettison the struggle come what may. Anybody advising him to jettison the struggle, he will despise. That is his personality. To him, freedom from oppression is the holy grail. All he thinks about is Biafra and he would always say that he can only be regarded as a complete man when hes able to rise up in the morning as a free man with Biafran flag flying on top of our house. That is what he always told me.

Okay, your husbands insistence on the struggle makes him come across as a stubborn man. Can you tell us about him, how he lived in the house and the fond memories you have of him?

My husband is indomitably obstinate when it comes to fighting a good cause  he abhors oppression. My husband is a kind-hearted and very intelligent man, whose witticism can crack your ribs for a very long time. When he is at home, you will know. He is a man that is obsessed with Biafra to the point of insanity and many times he has said publicly that he would gladly sacrifice me, the children and the wider family, if that is what it would take for Biafra to be free. That is the type of man Nigeria is facing, and that is the kind of man my husband is.

How did you meet him, and what has marrying him been like?

I met my husband in my hometown but that will be a story for another time.

Why not now?

It wont be now. I can only tell you that being married to my husband has been ethereal even though as with every marriage it has its ups and downs. This period especially, encapsulates this feeling more than any other period. I feel down because he is not here with us but at the time I feel elated because he is fighting a noble cause  the contradictions of life.

When you first met him, did he come across to you as a freedom fighter?

Not at first, because he probably didnt want to frighten me with it. As it turned out he kept it very close to his chest. You wouldnt think he is because he is a softly-spoken gentleman and sometimes very reserved. The one thing that stood out from day one was that he abhors injustice against all peoples and was always complaining about how poor people were treated anytime he visited home from the UK.

He would complain about everything that is wrong with the society from poor electricity supply to inadequate housing, bad roads, check points, general poverty and every other social problem plaguing the people. It never occurred to me at the time that he would regard the liberation of Biafra as that all-encompassing solution to effect those improvements in our lives that he talked endlessly about.

What do you tell your kids about their father, do they know what he is passing through?

I tell them daddy is home making sure our people are set free so we can all go home to Biafra and live because England is not our home. Though our children are born in England, they are not English or British. They know they are Biafran and that is their identity and Biafra is our home and their father is making sure that its as good a place as England, so they and all kids in Biafraland can have all the things that children have where we are now in England when we finally move back to where we come from.

Source: Naijaloaded
The decision was taken by the Merseyside club on Thursday night and enforced for the first time yesterday, as the newspaper was told they could not head to Melwood for Jurgen Klopps weekly press conference. Reporters from The Sun will not be granted access to todays Premier League fixture with Tottenham Hotspur, or any future games at Anfield.

It follows a year-long consultation with the Hillsborough Family Support Group after last years fresh inquests, which ruled 96 Liverpool fans were unlawfully killed.

In the aftermath of the inquest verdict, the families approached Liverpool requesting a more thorough boycott, triggering extended negotiations during which the club had to establish the legality of enforcing a ban.
Nigerian newspaper headlines February 11, 2017.

Punch

The National President, Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce, Chief Bintan Famutimi, has announced Mrs. Joyce Akpata as the new Director-General of the chamber.

Guardian

Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has lamented the abandonment of critical infrastructural projects after investing huge amounts of money on them.

Vanguard

Living grandmaster of highlife music, Dr Victor Abimbola has retired from active musicianship due to his failing health and doctors standing instruction to desist from performances henceforth.

The Nation

The Police Service Commission (PSC) has promoted six senior police officers for rejecting huge sums of money offered as bribe to compromise them in the course of doing their duties.

Thisday

The federal government yesterday issued a warning to Nigerians of the subterranean plan by Muslim Brotherhood Cell in the country to launch terrorist attack.

Premium Times

The king had barely made it into his palace when the deadly gunshots rang out.

The Sun

Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike says the lot fell on him to lead the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after the then governor Rotimi Amaechi dumped the ruling party for the newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC) and created a leadership vacuum in the state.

Leadership

The British high commissioner, Paul Arkwright has urged that Nigeria should prohibit death penalty.
A special operation conducted by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on February 3 on a building belonging to a former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Andrew Yakubu, in Kaduna, yielded the recovery of $9,772,800 (Nine Million, Seven Hundred and Seven Two Thousand, Eight Hundred United States Dollars) and another sum of 74,000 (Seventy Four Thousand Pound Sterling) cash.

The huge cash was hidden in a fire proof safe.

The spokesperson for the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, said in a statement that the surprise raid of the facility was sequel to an intelligence which the commission received about suspected proceeds of crime believed to be hidden in the slums of Sabon Tasha area of Kaduna.

On arrival at the facility, the caretaker of the house, one Bitrus Yakubu, a younger brother to Andrew Yakubu, disclosed that both the house and the safe where the money was found belong to his brother, Andrew Yakubu.

When the safe was opened it was discovered that it contained the sum of $9,772,800 (Nine Million, Seven Hundred and Seventy Two Thousand, Eight Hundred United States Dollars) and another sum of 74,000 (Seventy Four Thousand Pound Sterling).

On February 8, 2017, Mr. Yakubu reported to the Commissions Zonal office in Kano and made statement wherein he admitted ownership of the recovered money, claiming it was gift from unnamed persons.

He is currently assisting the investigation, Mr. Uwujaren said.
The national leader of the ruling APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has described President Muhammadu Buhari as fit as fiddle after he met the President at Abuja House in the UK yesterday.

A source revealed that Buhari told Tinubu that hes not happy with the hardship in the country and how many Nigerians are suffering, hence he needs help from everyone.

Mr President is aware that hes losing supporters due to the troubling economic situation and wants his friends and associates to help come up with solutions that could assist government navigate the challenges and get Nigeria out of recession and improve the lives of Nigerians.

Another source revealed Buhari will likely return to Nigeria in a matter of days to have an enlarged meeting with several stakeholders on the way forward for the economy.

Source: Naijaloaded
US Customs officers in Pittsburgh said they found about 110 pounds of narcotic khat hidden inside a shipment of wigs and hair extensions.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said officers at Pittsburgh International Airport examined a shipment from Kenya that was bound for an address in McKees, Pa., and discovered the wigs and hair extensions were hiding more than hair loss  they were hiding about 110 pounds of dried khat, an African plant that contains an amphetamine-like stimulant.

The shipment arrived at the airport Friday and was searched Monday, the agency said. The khat shipment was worth an estimated $30,000.

It is uncommon for Customs and Border Protection officers to encounter any sizable narcotics in Pittsburgh, so this was a great khat identification and interception by our CBP officers, said Susan Anderson, CBP Port Director for the Port of Pittsburgh. This khat interception is another example of how CBPs border search authority and inspections expertise contributes to keeping our communities safe.

The investigation is ongoing.
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State on Friday held a reception for visiting acting President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa.

Osinbajo who visited the Niger Delta for a peace talk over crisis going on in the region landed at the airport on his way to Bayelsa State

Present at the reception were dignitaries from the region including the River State Deputy Governor, Ipalibo Banigo, Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Agriculture, Heineken Lokpobiri, former Bayelsa State Governor, Timipre Sylva, and service commanders.

Others include former acting National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, Uche Secondus; Lee Maeba, a senator; former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Austin Opara; and former Nigerian Ambassador to South Korea, Desmond Akawor.

After the reception formalities, the Acting President and Mr. Wike held a brief meeting at the sidelines.

Mr. Osinbajo thereafter departed to Bayelsa State in a presidential helicopter for a meeting with stakeholders in that state.

He is expected to visit Rivers State on Monday in continuation of his consultation with stakeholders in the Niger Delta.
@MotoramaShow @ProstateCancerC TORONTO, ON // FEBRUARY 10, 2017  A perennial supporter of the Motorama Custom Car & Motorsports Expo presented by Mothers, Prostate Cancer Canada (PCC) has been named as the official charity of the biggest car show of its kind, in Canada.

For the 2017 edition of Motorama  which runs March 10, 11 & 12 at Torontos International Centre  Prostate Cancer Canada will again have a booth staffed by PCC representatives, many of them cancer survivors, prepared to discuss and inform show visitors about this most commonly diagnosed cancer among Canadian men.

Our support group has long targeted the car hobby, finding places where we can connect with the boys and their toys, explained Prostate Cancer Canada spokesman Jim Dorsey. The best place to find men, and the ladies who care about them, is around cars. Weve found that the wives and girlfriends are often the best sales people we have.

One in eight Canadian men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime. Although the mortality rate has noticeably decreased over the past 15 years due to improved testing and better treatment options, an estimated 4,000 Canadian men succumbed to prostate cancer last year alone.

The key to surviving prostate cancer is early detection. Getting tested on a regular basis can save your life, continued Dorsey. Thats the message that were trying to get across at Motorama.

David Weber, one of the principal partners of Motorama echoes a similar message. As a prostate cancer survivor myself, I know firsthand how devastating a positive diagnosis can be. I also know firsthand that early detection can mean the difference between life and death, and in my case I was very lucky to find my cancer early. Motorama is pleased to be able to partner with Prostate Cancer Canada at this years show.

Although the primary objective of the appearance of Prostate Cancer Canada is to increase awareness of this painful disease and to encourage regular testing, Motorama and PCC organizers will also be making efforts to race funds for cancer research. Prostate Cancer Canada pledge forms and a donation box will be available to exhibitors and sponsors in the show office, with other donation locations for show visitors spread throughout the Motorama show area.

Prostate Cancer Canada will be located in Booth # 136, in the northwest portion of Hall 1.

ABOUT PROSTATE CANCER CANADA: Prostate Cancer Canadas vision is to be a global leader in the fight against prostate cancer, earning the enthusiasm and support of Canadians through integrity, compassion, and innovation. PCC is the leading national foundation dedicated to the elimination of the most common cancer in men through research, advocacy, education, support and awareness. For more information, visit www.prostatecancer.ca or see them on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/prostatecancercanada.

ABOUT THE MOTORAMA CUSTOM CAR & MOTORSPORTS EXPO: The third annual Motorama Custom Car & Motorsports Expo Presented by Mothers takes place March 10, 11 & 12, 2017 at The International Centre, across from Torontos Pearson International Airport. The show features more than 300,000 square feet of custom cars, hot rods, racing vehicles of all kinds, tuners, displays and exhibitors. Motorama is Canadas biggest late-winter celebration of automobiles and motorsports. For information about the show, including tickets, sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities, and more, call (416) 962-7223, email info@MotoramaShow.com or visit www.MotoramaShow.com.
Houstons mid-January flooding was only the latest episode in the citys long running saga of submersion, in which widespread, arguably avoidable, damage is commonplace.With the city borrowing $43 million to assist in relief efforts, its an exceptional time in the flood insurance market.The indebted National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is up for review by Congress in September and calls for further privatization of the market are growing louder as technological solutions to flood prevention become more evident.But whats the alternative?Poulton Associates runs the privately underwritten Natural Catastrophe Insurance Program (NCIP) and advertises itself as the only web based natural disaster insurance in America.The CEO of Poulton Associates, Craig Poulton argues that the (public) NFIP doesnt incentivize risk mitigation but instead spreads the pricing so thin it encourages building on flood plains.When you segregate risk, when you stratify risk, you incentivise better behaviour. In this (Houstons) case, you build buildings with flood vents in the crawl spaces, Poulton said.As long as the NFIP doesnt incentivize flood vents, no-ones going to pay to put them in.Poulton described the NFIP as incentivizing a perverse behaviour, citing parishes affected by Hurricane Katrina being put in the same pricing bracket as properties with much lower risk.We (the private NCIP) can look at your home and we can make certain determinations about your home without you even talking to us, Poulton said.Then we can offer those a lower rate who deserve a lower rate, and those a higher rate who deserve a higher rate on a granular level.The founder of the (private) NCIP made the point that, 50 years ago, most Americans paid similar auto insurance premiums, spreading the risk evenly among a large pool.But State Farm changed that and incentivized safer driving with lower premiums and more stringent applications, something that should happen to flood insurance according to Poulton.When you stratify, you have to have an insurer of last resort, and our belief is the perfect insurer of last resort is the NFIP, Poulton said.And if it were to begin to act like an insurer of last resort instead of a monopoly trying to maintain its position, then private insurers would flood in (pardon the pun) and fill in that stratification one element at a time.
President Donald Trump has reassured Japan's leader that the US will defend its close ally after meeting him with a hug at the White House.

The president said on Friday after meeting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he wants to bring the post-Second World War alliance with Japan "even closer".

He has recently also patched up ties with China and together the pronouncements illustrate a shift to a more mainstream stance on policy towards Asia.

While such statements are ritual after these types of meetings, from Mr Trump they are sure to calm anxieties that he has stoked by demanding that America's partners pay more for their own defence.

Mr Abe, a nationalist adept at forging relationships with self-styled strongmen overseas, was the only world leader to meet the Republican before his inauguration. He is now the second to do so since he took office.

Flattering the billionaire businessman, Mr Abe said he would welcome the United States becoming "even greater".

He also invited Mr Trump to visit Japan this year and the president accepted, according to a joint statement.

Other leaders of America's closest neighbours and allies, such as Mexico, Britain and Australia, have been singed by their encounters with Mr Trump. But the appearances here were positive.

After a working lunch on economic issues, the two boarded Air Force One with their wives for a trip to Mr Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. The pair are scheduled to play golf.

Their Oval Office meeting came hours after Mr Trump reaffirmed Washington's long-standing "one China" policy in a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

That statement will similarly ease anxieties in East Asia after earlier suggestions that Mr Trump might use Taiwan as leverage in trade, security and other negotiations.

Here's Japan's Shinzo Abe meeting Donald Trump at the White House at the start of their two-day summit. https://t.co/kIwyvwJWbc pic.twitter.com/f9AXT2RneU  Financial Times (@FT) February 10, 2017

Although Japan is a historic rival of China, Mr Trump said that his long and "warm" conversation with Mr Xi was good for Tokyo.

"I believe that will all work out very well for everybody, China, Japan, the United States and everybody in the region," he said at a joint news conference with Mr Abe.

Stepping carefully into Japan's longstanding territorial dispute with China over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, Mr Trump said the US is committed to the security of Japan and all areas under its administrative control.

The implication was that the US-Japan defence treaty covers the disputed islands, which Japan calls the Senkaku but China the Diaoyu.

Beijing opposes such statements, but Mr Trump's wording allowed for some diplomatic wiggle room. The joint statement released later was more explicit in spelling out the US commitment.

Mr Trump thanked Japan for hosting nearly 50,000 American troops, which also serve as a counterweight to China's increased regional influence.

He said freedom of navigation and dealing with North Korea's missile and nuclear threats are a "very high priority".

There was less agreement on economics.

One of Trump's first actions as president was to withdraw the US from a 12-nation, trans-Pacific trade agreement that was negotiated by the previous administration and strongly supported by Tokyo.

Diverting from his stance that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is bad for America, Mr Abe stressed the importance of a "free and fair common set of rules" for trade among the world's most dynamic economies.

"That was the purpose of TPP. That importance has not changed," he said through an interpreter.

Both leaders held out the possibility of a future bilateral US-Japanese deal.

AP
The man suspected of killing 39 people in a nightclub attack in Istanbul on New Years Day has been formally arrested.

Abdulkadir Masharipov, an Uzbek citizen born in 1983, was caught at a hide-out in the city on January 16 after evading police for more than two weeks.
Earlier this week, the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) led a protest at Yaras facility in Ringaskiddy, Co Cork, to highlight price rises imposed by the company since last June. Wholesale EU calcium ammonium nitrate fertiliser prices have risen by c.48%, while ammonium nitrate prices are up by 34%.

Peter Smith, Yaras UK and Ireland commercial director, said: I understand the farmers concerns. Fertilisers make up a significant part of their operating costs. The price rises are due to international commodity price rises, which have risen globally and throughout Europe.

Currency fluctuations since June 2016 have also had a big impact in the UK, leading to a significant increase in the cost of raw materials. Yara is a relatively new company in southern Ireland. Were hoping that the terminal we opened in Ringaskiddy will increase the opportunity and choice for farmers.

Mr Smith invited Irish farmers to contact Yara or to visit its website, and to use its advice on spreading and other programmes to optimise their use of fertiliser.

IFA president Joe Healy said: Yara, one of Europes leading manufacturers, has hit farmers with seven price increases since last June. This level of price increase is unjustified.

It clearly demonstrates that increased concentration of the industry and anti-dumping duties and customs tariffs have resulted in a lack of real competition in the EU fertiliser market.

Meanwhile, the IFA and the European-wide farmer and co-op umbrella group Copa-Cogeca are lobbying the EU to remove all anti-dumping duties and tariffs on fertiliser prices  introduced in 1994.

Copa president Martin Merrild said: The IFA has taken a stance on this issue and has been very effective in highlighting farmer concerns. Copa-Cogeca has adopted a strong position paper on this issue and we will be pursuing this with the EU Commission.
Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who heads the meetings of his eurozone counterparts, along with Klaus Regling, who runs the eurozones crisis fund, were set to present the offer to Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos in Brussels.

Greece and its creditors are scrambling to complete a review of the nations bailout, which would pave the way for additional aid before about 6bn of bonds come due in July. The new proposal would require Greece to legislate additional fiscal cuts equal to about 2% of its GDP, which would be triggered if the country failed to meet certain budget targets, a source said.
Speaking to Bloomberg at an event in Brussels, Ryanair boss Michael OLeary was yesterday quoted as saying that the company has not completely given up on offering its own transatlantic flights. However, he noted the plan is low on the list of priorities, partly due to Boeing and Airbus being booked up on orders for relevant-sized planes out to the early 2020s.

When Boeing and Airbus have 80 or 100 spare slots for long-haul aircraft that they desperately want to shift at a low cost, well jump on it, he said. But were not going to kill ourselves at the moment when their order books are full out to 2020-2021.

Ryanair has been heavily linked with a long-haul service for years, but seemed finally to end all such talk at its September 2015 AGM when chairman David Bonderman said: We have no intention in flying trans- atlantic.

Meanwhile, Mr OLeary told Bloomberg that Ryanairs more immediate plans to connect with long-haul carriers should help clear away more competition for the Irish carrier on its European routes.

Last month, Mr OLeary said Ryanair is relatively close to signing a feeder flight/connectivity deal with a transatlantic carrier whereby passengers can use Ryanair to link with long haul connections and have their baggage seamlessly moved between the two planes. Ryanair has been talking to Aer Lingus owner IAG, Norwegian Air, Alitalia and Lufthansa about a connectivity deal and could have one in place by the summer.

The upside for us is in persuading the legacy carriers to stop trying to compete with us on short-haul because it feeds their long-haul, he said. Work with us on short-haul, you lose less money, Ill have less competition.

Theres nothing but upside for the legacy carriers in this, except youve got to persuade them its not some scam.

Meanwhile, new data from global trade body the International Air Transport Association shows that premium air fares continue to hold up better than economy fares, which is helping to support airline financial performance. The association said the fourth quarter of 2016 saw a solid performance for the airline industry.

However, it said global airline share prices only increased by 1.5% in January, underperforming the broader global equity market, which rose by 2.6%.

Easyjet recently warned that a weak sterling would eat into its profits this year while Ryanair earlier this week maintained forecasts for its current financial year but said it missed earnings targets for its third quarter.

Last Monday, Ryanair reported revenues of 1.34bn for the three months to the end of December.

While these were up by 1% year-on-year, net profits for the quarter fell by 8% to 95m, driven down by average fares falling by 17%. Analysts had expected revenues of 1.36bn and profits of closer to 100m.

Ryanairs financial year runs to the end of March and management has kept to its full-year net profit guidance of between 1.3bn and 1.35bn, although it said it remains cautious on its outlook. The companys shares were down over 2.2% yesterday.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Yesterday he was jailed for four years.

Judge Sean O Donnabhain said 17-year-old Kevin Buckley of 5C Shanakiel Place, Blarney Rd, Cork, can be identified in the public interest even though he is still a juvenile. The judge said that if the accused does not deal with his deep-rooted issues, he will end up killing someone.

The judge praised the intelligence and resourcefulness of the woman, who is in her 30s, in how she did everything she possibly could to defend herself: she tried to calm her attacker down by talking to him; and she defended herself physically by biting his hand so hard she broke a tooth.

The jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court decided the teenager did not carry out a sex assault on the woman in the lift of her apartment on the morning after St Stephens Day 2015.

Buckley admitted falsely imprisoning the woman in the lift and assault causing harm to her.

The judge imposed a total sentence of seven years on him and suspended the last three years on condition that he comes under the supervision of the probation service for three years following his release from jail.

Judge O Donnabhain said: There is a complete lack of empathy for the victim. I am not really sure what is going on in the accuseds head. I think there is genuine risk to the public.

The judge was deeply concerned about the calculation used by the accused to carry out the vicious attack in the building  out of sight of the security camera outside the apartments. He said it was cold and calculated: You terrified the life and soul out of her. This was not the behaviour of a wayward youth. There is something much more fundamentally disturbed in your behaviour.

The accused was suspended from primary school in sixth class for his behaviour and within two days of going to secondary school his behaviour there saw him being suspended too.

The victim said the attack damaged her self-confidence and left her with mistrust and fear when she walked down the street in Cork.

The woman testified in the trial that she was staying in an apartment in Cork City on St Stephens Day and went out to meet some friends in a city centre pub and later went to a house party. On her way home she said a man asked her the time and later kept asking for a kiss. He followed her home and forced his way into the building despite her efforts to hold him back.

He repeatedly tried to lift me up putting his hand under my bum. It was just, Can I have a kiss? on constant. I tried to push him away at this stage. I was very afraid of the violence, she told the court.

She said that one stage, as she tried to fend him off, she bit his hand and lost a bit of a tooth as a result: I started screaming for help. He took my glasses and threw them on the ground. I sat down against the wall crying and was completely shaking.

Eventually, she fled the building and got to the safety of a nearby hotel where the alarm was raised.
Kevin Mulcahy, aged 57, of Creggan, Lombardstown, Mallow, Co Cork, pleaded not guilty to a single charge of indecently assaulting the girl while on call to her family home on December 23, 1989.

He was found guilty by a jury after a retrial at Cork Circuit Criminal Court following 39 minutes of deliberations and was jailed for two years by Judge Sean O Donnabhain on November 25, 2015. Mulcahy had an appeal against conviction dismissed last October but was resentenced to 12 months imprisonment following a sentence appeal.

During case management procedures in the Court of Appeal yesterday, Mr Justice George Birmingham directed there be a legal aid certificate to cover the hearing of a Supreme Court appeal.

Giving judgment on Mulcahys unsuccessful appeal against conviction in October, Mr Justice John Edwards said the doctor had regularly attended the home of the complainant to treat her mother, who had terminal cancer. On one of these visits, the complainant was suffering from a head cold of sorts and while examining her, Mulcahy touched her vagina on the outside of her clothing for some minutes.

Mulcahy was arrested and interviewed in 2011 on foot of a complaint of indecent assault. When asked if he recalled the girl being a patient of his, Mulcahy said he had a pre-prepared, typed statement in which he said the allegations were blatantly false.

Following the signing of the statement, he was asked questions and in reply said I have nothing to say other than whats written in my statement, the judge said. These additional questions and answers were put before the jury, which Mulcahys barrister, Blaise OCarroll SC, submitted breached his right to silence and irretrievably tainted his credibility in the minds of the jury.

Mr Justice Edwards said it was clear Mulcahy did not elect to say nothing but to reiterate that he was relying on his statement.

In relation to the second ground of appeal, that the trial judge failed to warn the jury about the danger of convicting in the absence of corroboration, Mr Justice Edwards said the trial judge was not asked to give a corroboration warning.

Mr Justice Edwards, who sat with Mr Justice George Birmingham and Mr Justice Alan Mahon, said the appeal must be dismissed. The Court of Appeal heard that Mulcahy is no longer practising.
A senior Garda spokesman confirmed last night that they are aware of page which was set up in recent days, and which has posted several threats of direct action against dealers and users in the Mahon suburb.

Its first post read: Time to clear the heroin scum out of Mahon.

Photos of several men have been posted on the page since, alleging their involvement in drug dealing.

The threats come days after two men, who are understood to be known to each other, were attacked in the Mahon area. One of the men suffered a number of broken bones and spent several days in hospital.

Gardai are now trying to establish if there is a connection between the assaults. Supt John Quilter said there is no place in society for this kind of vigilante activity.

It can have very serious consequences for a lot of people, he said. I would appeal to people to let the gardai do their work. We are tackling the drugs issue in Mahon and I would appeal to anyone with information to contact the gardai in the first place.

One of the alleged assault victims told 96FMs Opinion Line yesterday that he is a recovering heroin addict and was confronted at the door of his home on Wednesday night by two men armed with baseball bats.

He said the men called him a scumbag and warned him to leave the area, then began to beat him on his back and legs. He managed to run back into his house before his attackers fled.

It could have been much, much worse. I dont know what their game is, he said.

The man said he was caring for his father, who has a serious illness, and does not know why he was targeted.

One post on the Facebook page insists they are not just keyboard warriors and have posted threats against named individuals.

Sinn Fein councillor Chris OLeary urged people to desist from vigilante activity and called for the Garda authorities to given local gardai adequate resources to tackle such issues.
Vera Twomey of Aghabullogue, Co Cork, says she is very excited that the Cannabis for Medical Use Report recommends that cannabis be available for use in coping with severe, refractory or treatment-resistant epilepsy.

Her daughter Ava Barry has Dravet Syndrome and can experience multiple seizures every day. In recent months her condition has improved as she has started taking cannabis oil.

However, Mrs Twomeys fear is that eventually, Ava will need a stronger form of cannabis which is not legal in Ireland. She hopes Ava will be able to get the more potent THC form of cannabis if it is needed: We are so excited. It is a great step forward and we are looking forward to the legislation. Based on the report Ava meets the conditions.

Ava has been taking cannabis oil legally-sourced from a shop in Dublin since last October.

Asked about the first ever review of medicinal cannabis, Minister for Health, Simon Harris said: I would like to see this up and running within a matter of months. I believe I can do that. By putting a pilot project in place it enables this country to carry out clinical trials which will provide data that not just Ireland can benefit from but, in fact, the EU and beyond.

Mr Harris said he is not softening the cannabis law: Cannabis still remains an absolutely illegal substance to use. What I am doing is following in full the advice of the Health Products Regulatory Authority.

Lets remember, these are people who have tried everything else to alleviate the suffering of themselves or their loved one. So this is being done on compassionate grounds. And I think it is a humane and compassionate thing to do, he said.
There were daffodils already in bloom as they drove to Dublin for the launch of the Irish Cancer Societys Daffodil Day in Croke Park yesterday.

The two long-time friends have been raising funds on Daffodil Day for 29 years and will be on the square in Mountmellick shaking their buckets on March 24.

The two volunteers admitted being a bit concerned that the daffodils have appeared earlier this year because the weather has been so mild. We are hoping we will still have loads on March 24, said Mary.

Bridie and Mary are from Tullamore, Co Offaly where they went to school together and became firm friends.

Marys mother died from cancer in 1982 and when she was ill there were no services of any kind to make her comfortable and ease her suffering.

We just had the public health nurse who came whenever she was available, said Mary. The local GP was the main point of call. My mother had a very hard time of it because she had no pain relief.

The first Irish Daffodil Day was organised by the national charitys founder, Prof Austin Darragh, and its chief executive, Tom Hudson, in 1988.

The day quickly became a March tradition, and in 2001 the daffodil was adopted as the primary logo.

When I first heard of Daffodil Day, I did not give it an awful lot of thought, other than it seemed like a good idea, said Mary.

On the first Daffodil Day, Mary went out to buy some daffodils, but found that there were none available so she contacted the society and she agreed to become a volunteer.

The first year we raised 1,000, which we thought was huge money, she said.

Over the past decade, the two women have helped raise around 8,000 every year.

Mary and Bridie expect that people will be asking about the societys new hard-hitting Get Cancer campaign to highlight the cancer epidemic in Ireland.

Mary said that some people did not get what the campaign was about and she expected to be doing a lot of explaining on Daffodil Day.

Bridie and Mary know first-hand how cancer can strike out of the blue.

A lot of volunteers who joined us over the years died from cancer, said Mary. They were great volunteers.

They did not have cancer when they started. They just wanted to help out. We miss them.
Thursdays dramatic developments exposed how the garda whistleblower found himself receiving a letter from Tusla in January last year about the allegation which stated: We will have to decide if you pose a risk to children. There are two key questions: who made the clerical error which set off the false allegation, and when?

In August 2013, abuse allegations were made by a young woman to a counsellor, who then contacted Tusla and the gardai. According to one senior social worker who spoke to the Irish Examiner yesterday, the error  the attaching of a false accusation of serious abuse against Sgt McCabe  could have been made at this point.

It could have been something as simple as the counsellor making more than one referral at the same time. Or typing up notes from a pad incorrectly. Or cutting and pasting an allegation from a different case under the name of Sgt McCabe.

What seems less likely, according to the social worker, is that the error was input later after the initial referral to Tusla, mainly because if a standardised referral form was used, it tends to not be changed once received by Tusla.

Another social worker Joe Mooney, who is now based at the Unesco Child & Family Research Centre at NUI Galway, said even a phone referral would have resulted in the counsellor subsequently sending in a written referral. While everything is speculation until the gaps are filled in, he proposed that the initial error might have been made by a counsellor and that the second error was made by Tusla in not completely closing off the file when it deemed in 2014 that the false accusation was due to a clerical error.

It seems like this is a complete coincidence but it exposes a monumental failure, he said. Given the huge caseloads faced by social workers, those involving retrospective allegations can go to the bottom of the pile. Despite seeming to draw a line under the allegation in 2014, the file still found its way to a social worker who then sent Mr McCabe the letter just over 12 months ago.

And he asked: How many other cases are being fumbled like this?
"OH yeah? my husband of nearly 30 years inquired sarcastically when I mentioned the concept of happy wife, happy life.

In other words, Im supposed to give in to you all the time?

Harry Benson has heard that dismissive tone countless times  most recently from outraged TV host and This Morning presenter Eamon Holmes  since he first began to explain to men that they needed to be nicer to, kinder to and more interested in, their wives.

Twenty-two years ago and in a state of desperation about a marriage which had stealthily slipped its moorings and was heading for the rocks, the former Royal Navy Commando helicopter pilot stuck a post-it note on his computer.

The post-it had one word scribbled on it. That word was compliments.

Bensons wife Kate laughed when she saw the little note  but it helped save the couples eight-year-old marriage. The post-it was to remind Harry to be nicer to his wife.

If he hadnt, he quips, now, his two eldest children would have had completely different childhood experiences and the four younger ones probably wouldnt even exist.

Two years after he stuck that note to his computer, he says, giving his wife compliments had become a habit.

Now Harry Benson and his wife Kate have a happy and successful 30-year marriage and have co-written a book, What Mums Want (and Dads Need to Know).

Harry believes, as he has repeated numerous times to the dismay of countless men, that it really is a case of happy wife, happy life.

Someone has to take responsibility for the marriage when a woman is busy focusing on the children, he points out  and that role and responsibility, Benson believes, falls  yes  on the shoulders of the man.

If men could realise that what mums want is friendship, kindness and interest, there would be a lot less family breakdown, he declares.

Happy couple: The Bensons on their wedding day.

Its not rocket science, agrees therapist of 25 years experience, and a relationships expert with Relationships Ireland, Tony Moore.

He says hes been telling Irish people for years that although kindness, courtesy and generosity often tend to be discounted as old-fashioned and unimportant, they are crucial to a relationship.

People forget, says Moore, about what he calls the very basic importance of showing kindness and tenderness towards each other.

He often realises, he says, that the problem in a failing relationship is not necessarily a lack of communication but the deeply disrespectful and contemptuous way partners talk to each other.

Being nice is actually the absolute centre of everything  its not a soft thing, it is about being courteous, respectful and well mannered.

And thats essentially where Harry Benson is at.

He was a 23-year-old navy helicopter pilot when he met 19-year-old cookery student  and his wife-to-be, Kate  at a party. Some two and a half years later they got married.

Harry left the navy and went into the finance sector, Kate became a food stylist and they moved to Asia.

Five years after their wedding they had their first child  and that was when the cracks began to show: Until the children were born we had lots of time and space, he says.

His wife gave up her work as a magazine editor when the babies started to arrive and, like many mothers, became, quite naturally, child-orientated.

Meanwhile, like many a Dad before him, Harry immersed himself in his job as a partner in a brokerage firm, and in what he believed was the all-consuming role as family breadwinner.

We just drifted apart, he recalls. His wife, he says was a brilliant mum, and gradually he took a back seat.

Kate ended up making all the major decisions about the children.

It just happened. It was very subtle. I focused on work and paying the bills. The problem was that Kate was constantly asking me to do things. That was fine for a while  then it began to grate.

She was micro-managing because he wasnt involved  and he was withdrawing because he was always being given jobs.

Our conversation tended to revolve around could you do this or that  she became frustrated. I neglected her and withdrew because I felt I was being asked to do things.

After eight years of marriage  they now had two children  Kate realised shed lost her best friend: She confronted me. She said that unless things changed, our marriage would be in trouble within 12 months.

I never saw it coming. I knew we had occasional differences but I never realised our marriage was in trouble, says Harry.

Chastened by his wifes warning  he describes it as a bolt from the blue which shocked him to the core, he realised that he was about to lose his children.

I loved my children desperately and I knew that I needed to do whatever it took to avoid losing them.

Now he sees that his initial motivation was not to save his relationship with Kate or to rescue the marriage, but simply fear of losing the kids.

He made some changes, but not nearly enough.

A few months later, Kate wrote him a letter in which she outlined her role as his wife and explained that what she really wanted was a friend. Will I ever get it? Who knows? Who cares? she asked.

Those last two sentences really shocked me, Harry recalls. A veteran of the Falklands war, Harry wasnt the kind of guy who was comfortable with girl-talk. He didnt tend to wear his heart on his sleeve and he didnt need compliments or chat sessions.

But he says, he realised that: I had neglected my wife. In that moment a switch flicked and I realised I had to make my marriage work.

Sticking the post-it note on his computer was the first of the seismic changes he implemented in the way he interacted with his wife.

That small mental shift had a huge effect on our marriage and gave us a chance.

There were ups and downs in the years that followed, but he stuck to his guns, spending time with his wife, giving her compliments and in advance of birthdays and other special occasions, remembering to ask her advice on what shed like for a present: Before that, I used to panic. Presents were always difficult. I dreaded Valentines Day and Christmas. Also now, asking her showed her I was thinking ahead of time.

I learned that if I wanted my marriage to work, I had to hang out with Kate and chat to her and if I didnt do that, it was very easy to slip into a bad pattern  it was all part of noticing my wife and prioritising my marriage.

When he and his family returned to England, Harry earned a degree in psychology and spent 10 years running the relationships charity he later founded.

During this time he counselled couples of all kinds on establishing and maintaining strong healthy marriages before leaving to work as research director with the Marriage Foundation, which he co-founded with former High Court judge, Sir Paul Coleridge.

I began to realise that the key change that happens to all couples is when they have children. The women automatically become child-oriented. Someone has to look after the relationship.

Husbands need to step up to the plate and take responsibility for the state of their marriage, he believes.

A number of studies show that a happy mum tends to have happy children and a happy husband, he says.

Happy Wife, Happy Life is for real. But oddly enough, when a husband is happy it doesnt necessarily percolate outwards, he observes.

Kindness was one of the things missing from Bensons marriage all those years ago, and it is one of the things, which, according to his own research, that wives value most in a partnership - above even financial security or sex.

But will men listen?

Men will listen to this. The men come back to me and say its unfair, but I say that all I can tell you is that if you love your wife, if you are kind to her, have interest in her, notice her and be a friend to her, she will love you right back.

You will not be in trouble. You will get all the freedom you want and all the love you want and what more can a man want?

What Mums Want (and Dads Need to Know), by Harry and Kate Benson, published by Lion Hudson in paperback (8,99)

MAKING IT WORK

1. Men should understand, says Harry Benson, that the only real difference between men and women is that women have babies and men dont.

The experience of having a child tends to make mums child-centred and child-focused, he says, which in turn means that someone else  the male partner  has to look after the relationship. Step up to the plate, guys.

2. What mums really, really want is friendship, kindness and interest from their male partner. If men accepted this, Benson believes, it could revolutionise family life and there would be far less family breakdown.

3. Manners, courtesy and sheer old-fashioned niceness are crucial to a healthy relationship, says Tony Moore. Say please and dont forget to say thank you, he advises.

4. Appreciate the fact that someone loves you.

People think everyone finds someone, so why should I be so grateful? But thats not the case, Moore explains.

If you find someone who loves you warts and all, you should appreciate how valuable that is.

Dont take it for granted with perfunctory kisses he warns: If a person is kind and gentle and kisses us in a lovely way, we feel much closer to that person. Thats fundamental to relationships and marriage.
If sun, sea and sand are what you require for your romantic getaway then there are plenty of luxurious getaways on offer this month.

Falcon has February departures from Cork to Gran Canaria, staying at the Hotel Riu Stratosphere Hotel Maspalomas.

This super fancy hotel is separated from the sea by the famous Maspalomas sand dunes  a 10-minute walk will bring you directly to the beach.

As well as two large pools, this resort has a range of dining options, great Wi-Fi and spacious rooms that overlook the sea.

A week at the Riu Palace comes in at 1,178 per person on a half board basis.

Sunway fly to Cyprus throughout February, staying at the Capo Bay Hotel in Protaras.

This modern hotel has all the features that romantic couples require, from canopied day beds around the pool to full service sun loungers on its beachfront.

It has a spa and scuba school for those of us who need action while on holiday and is a short walk from the centre of Protaras, which boasts a huge range of fantastic restaurants.

A week at Capo Bay with Sunway on a bed and breakfast basis costs from 849 per person sharing.

Tenerife offers year-round sunshine with a welcome sea breeze and the Hotel Barcelo Santiago is ideally situated fifteen minutes from Playa de Arena and a five-minute stroll to the beach.

Built into a cliff, the resort affords panoramic views over the ocean, as well as three pools and enough dining options to keep a couple on a love trip satisfied.

Book into a superior room and enjoy the added space and a guaranteed balcony or terrace that takes in the incredible view.

Sunway flies to Tenerife in February for 629 per person, on a half board basis.

Love Is In The (Mountain) Air

Should action be the fruit of love for you and yours, then consider a ski trip to celebrate Valentines this year.

There are still a few great deals to be had, and Topflight have two trips departing just after Valentines Day that are guaranteed to fan the flames of romance.

Hotel Austria in Soll offers fantastic value for money in a lively location.

The hotel is situated just off the main thoroughfare, a short walk to the many shops and restaurants in the resort and a 10-minute walk to the nearest gondola.

Hotel rooms are spacious and offer mountain views, and the cosy hotel bar has a fire lighting for those who need a warming apres ski drink.

Topflight depart on February 18 for Austria staying at Hotel Austria for one week on a half board basis for 899 per person.

Hotel Euro Ski in Andorra sits at the shores of Gran Valira and is only a stones throw away from the ski slope.

Ideal for those of us who take skiing very seriously, the hotel has an extensive spa area which features a beautiful indoor heated swimming pool, a jacuzzi, a sauna and a Turkish bath  perfect for resting wearing muscles after a hard day on the slopes.

Topflight depart on February 19 for a seven night stay at the Hotel Euro Ski on a half board basis, at 719 per person sharing.

City Romance

Paris is the obvious choice when it comes to a mini break, and its easy to see why, it truly is the last word in romance.

Cork airport offers direct flights to lots of Europes most romantic cities, so why not book a last minute flight and check into hotels to whom love is always the answer?

Paris is the obvious choice when it comes to a mini break, and its easy to see why. From enjoying a glass of wine and a steak-frites to wandering around after dark, it truly is the last word in romance.

Book into Hotel Raphael, a hotel built in 1925 for travellers who were coming to Paris for the season, rather than a mini break.

It is super discreet, has a rooftop terrace from which to take in the city lights and rooms have rooms with claw-foot baths and deep pile rugs.

www.leshotelsbaverez.com

With a mild climate and a city centre that is exceptionally easy to navigate on foot, Amsterdam is a fantastic mini-break destination for those in love.

With a mild climate and a city centre that is exceptionally easy to navigate on foot, Amsterdam is a fantastic mini-break destination for those in love.

The Dylan hotel combines luxury with location, situated right on the canal.

With a Michelin-starred restaurant and individually designed rooms, it would be entirely possible to spend your entire stay within the walls of The Dylan, but be sure to make time for an afternoon stroll through the winding streets of this wonderful city.

www.dylanamsterdam.com

Short Hop

Brexit notwithstanding, the UK offers a huge amount to love birds who want to get on a plane, but not necessarily go very far.

Aer Lingus will be launching twice-weekly flights from Cork to Newquay in early May, so if you want to get your Valentine a gift of a future trip, this might be just the ticket.

With flights costing from 34.99 each way, put your money towards a fabulous hotel in nearby Cornwall and embrace some of the most epic scenery this area has to offer.

A trip to Cornwall is not complete without an homage to Rick Stein, we believe, so we would book into The Seafood Restaurant, Steins flagship restaurant that also offers accommodation.

www.rickstein.com

Flybe operate flights from Cork to Cardiff year round, and The St Davids Hotel & Spa is the height of luxury, situated right on Cardiff Bay.

Modern and fancy, this hotel boasts all the mod cons city slickers need when travelling, as well as a location that lends itself to sampling all the dining and nightlife that Cardiff has to offer.

Be sure to book a treatment in the Marine Spa, which is regularly voted one of the top spas in the UK.

www.thestdavidshotel.com

America Calling

Sunway depart the whole of February on a four-night break to Vegas, staying at the Stratosphere Hotel, which is situated right on the main drag.

For some, there is nothing as romantic like seeing the bright lights of New York or Las Vegas, and Sunway has come up trumps with short trips departing during February.

Should you wish to combine your Valentines getaway with a trip to the Little Chapel Of Love, then look to Las Vegas for your break.

Sunway depart the whole of February on a four-night break, staying at the Stratosphere Hotel, which is situated right on the main drag.

Use this as your base to take in some of the best shows in the world (Britney Spears notwithstanding) and make your millions on the slot machines.

This break will cost from 645 per person.

New York truly is the city of dreams, and if you want to make yours a reality, you can, this month.

Staying at The Beacon Hotel, which is situated on the Upper West Side and boasts the ultimate in New York hotel requirements  soundproof windows.

Rooms are slightly bigger than the average NY hotel room  that is, slightly bigger than a walk-in wardrobe, but The Beacon is super luxe, and comes with the service to show it.

Sunway travel depart during February on a three-night jaunt to New York from 682 per person.
Business Business Roundup (February 11)

Staff prepare to sell meals at a KFC branch in Rangoon in 2015. The food, beverage and tobacco sectors account for a large proportion of Burmas businesses, according to a new report. / Reuters

Survey Sheds Light on Business Sector

A wealth of new data about Burmas business sector was made available this week with the publication of the Myanmar Business Survey.

The report produced by the Central Statistics Office and the United Nations Development Program sheds light on the characteristics of the private sector in Burma and on constraints faced by businesses.

Almost 15,000 businesses across the country were surveyed in 2015, making the report the most comprehensive survey of private businesses to date.

There is little diversification still in Burmas private sector, the reportwhich is available hereshows.

In the manufacturing sector, the vast majority of businesses produce food products, beverages and tobacco products.

In the services arena, more than half of businesses are similarly engaged in food and beverage activities.

The economy is dominated by businesses with fewer than 10 workers, the survey reveals.

The survey also shows that food and beverage services sector has the lowest salaries and the highest amount of hours worked. Jobs in professional, scientific and technical activities garner the highest salaries.

Labor productivity remains low in Burma compared to other Asian countries, the survey says, with the highest per worker value found in the trade sector, followed by manufacturing.

The report said that it was hoped that the data would enhance knowledge of Burmas private business sector and its contribution to economic growth and development. The report could also help with the design of evidence-based policies for improved private sector development, it said.

US Tech Firm Opens Office in Rangoon

US tech firm Diebold Nixdorf announced the opening of an office in Rangoon this week,

The Nation in Bangkok reported.

The firm has operated through partners in Burma to supply ATMs to banks for some years, but the opening of a dedicated office would allow it to serve customers better, said Neil Emerson, senior vice president and managing director for Asia Pacific.

Our local office will enable us to build a closer relationship with our customers, he said.

The firm would cater to the needs of banks in Burma as they expanded services within and beyond major cities, he said. It could also supply new retailers coming into the market, he added.

Diebold Nixdorf has about 70 percent of the market share in ATM machines in Burma, the firms country manager Piers Leach said.

Customers include leading banks such as KBZ, Aya, CB, AGD and UAB.

The firm could also supply new retailers coming into the market, including shopping malls, convenience stores, grocery shops and gas stations, Leach added.

The firm employs 30 staff in Burma.

Burma Teams Up With Thailand on Tourism Promotion

Burma and Thailand have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to promote the two countries as one destination as part of an upcoming tourism marketing campaign.

The campaign will be launched at the International Tourism Bourse, the worlds top travel trade show, in Berlin in Germany from March 8-12.

The agreement was co-signed this week by Daw May Myat Mon Win, Vice Chairperson of the Myanmar Tourism Federation, and Srisuda Wanapinyosak, Deputy Governor for International Marketing (Asia & Pacific) of Thailand.

Myanmar Start Group Signs MoU With Thai Firm

The Myanmar Start Group has signed an MoU with plastic packaging manufacturer TPBI Plc from Thailand with an eye to building a factory geared towards exports, The Bangkok Post reported.

The two firms will carry out a feasibility study to expand the plastic packaging sector in Burma and to produce environmentally friendly products, according to TPBIs chief finance officer Kamol Borrisuttanakul.

The study would cover appropriate machinery, the regulatory environment and potential partners to start or expand production facilities, Kamol said.

This MoU will enhance our ability to work together with our partner to analyze business opportunities, production costs and plastic packaging trends in Myanmar and look into the possibility of creating a production base to export to other countries across the world, Kamol said.

The study is due to be completed by March.

SMI Signs Deal Qith Shiseido

Singapore Myanmar Investco (SMI) has signed an agreement to be the exclusive distributor of Shiseido cosmetic and skin care products in Burma, Dealstreet Asia reported.

The Singapore-listed SMI has mainly invested in the duty-free retail, food and beverage and auto services in Burma. Its partners the Crystal Jade Group, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and Japanese ramen chain IPPUDO.

Last year SMI divested its telecom tower operations to Shining Star International Holdings in Hong Kong.
Dateline Dateline Irrawaddy: The Govt Must Reform State-Run Media

This week, The Irrawaddy discusses the development of private media and necessary reforms to state-run media.

Kyaw Kha: Welcome to Dateline Irrawaddy! This week, well discuss the development of private media. Director U Sein Win of the Myanmar Journalism Institute and editor Ko Zeyar Hlaing of Mawkun Magazine will join me for the discussion. Im Irrawaddy Burmese reporter Kyaw Kha.

Lawmaker U Pe Than of Myebon Township argued in the Lower House on Monday that private media would fade away because state-run media enjoys a monopoly over advertisements. Union minister of information U Pe Myint responded that it was unlikely that private media would die off because of state-run media. U Sein Win, what do you think?

Sein Win: We call Union minister U Pe Myint Saya Pe. After a person like Saya Pe became the information minister, we expected that he would introduce reforms in the information ministry and changes to state-run media. We had high hopes for media development in the country. But we were disappointed to hear that he said state-run media did not need to be changed. We had believed that Saya Pe understood that state-run media needed to be changed.

KK: He spoke in favor of state-run media in Parliament.

SS: Yes, he said state-run media did not need to be changed and spoke defensively about its existence. I didnt expect that and I was upset by it.

KK: What do you think, Ko Zeyar Hlaing?

Zeyar Hlaing: Even under the previous government and in the time of previous information minister U Ye Htut, we publicly said that state-run newspapers should stop publishing. I still cling to that belief today. The government should not run newspapers because those newspapers are published with public funds, and their distribution network uses government assets like vehicles and trains. It is difficult for private media to compete with them.

Another thing private media complains about is advertisements. Most of the advertisements in print media go to state-run media. Our magazine does not get those advertisements. State-run newspapers have a wide distribution network, printers located almost everywhere, and they can sell at a competitive price. Private media is not as financially strong and cannot compete in terms of price.

What are worse are things like name changing announcements. Some government departments do not recognize those changes unless they are announced in state-run newspapers. State-run newspapers therefore basically enjoy a monopoly. I have said before that state-run newspapers should no longer exist and I repeat it now.

KK: U Pe Myint said state-run newspapers should exist for the elected government to inform the public about what it is doing. What is your view on that?

SW: My understanding is that state-run newspapers are not government newspapers. No matter which government is in office in the country, it has nothing to do with newspapers. If the state-run newspaper only reports government news, then the country no longer needs it. The public can be informed through other means. The government can set up another information mechanism that is not a newspaper.

For example, other countries have communications departments in their ministries to inform the public. We could have a communications unit that is not the information ministry. The information ministry is no longer needed.

At present there are 39 newspapers. Most of them are local newspapers [published regionally] and departmental newspapers published by various departments. Im afraid the number of departmental newspapers is more than that of local newspapers.

Of the nationwide newspapers, three are state-run and the rest are private newspapersapproximately less than 10. Two state-run papersKyemon and Myanma Alinnreap profits every year. As far as I understand, the profit is a seven-digit amount in US dollars.

But other newspapers are struggling. Except one or two, all of the other newspapers operate at a loss. Publishers of those newspapers have to cover operational costs with profits from other businesses.

A democratic society can be defined by ideological pluralism. In a democratic society, the government has the responsibility to support media diversity. Only then can it be a functioning democracy. If it suppresses it [media diversity], then we assume that the government is bad. So, the government has to think about what it can do to strengthen mainstream media.

In the case of our country, the government cannot afford to provide funding for it. But it has to find other ways to help strengthen it. Regarding the media, the weakest point of the current government is that it does not have a media development strategy. Even the previous government had one, although it did not or could not materialize it in its entirety.

The current government does not have a media development strategy and must design one. Saya Pes strong point is literature. He worked to develop literature in the country by creating streets where books are sold. I like this. But as for media development, he gets poor marks. I mention him because he is the ministerthe most responsible person in the information ministry. I am sorry to have to single him out. But, he earns very low marks in regards to his media development work and he needs to fix this as quickly as possible.

KK: The presentation of current state-run newspapers is not much different from previously. For example, there is not balanced reporting about ethnic armed groups. They just publish statements from one side [the army]. When [prominent lawyer] U Ko Ni was assassinated recently, private papers published the news on the front page because it was in the interest of the people. But state-run newspapers published news about the State Counselor growing trees on front page, which drew criticism. Ko Zeyar Hlaing, what do you have to say regarding this?

ZYH: The views of people change according to their positions. What we should understand is government is government. Newspapers that are published by the government will only be government newspapers.

[State-run newspapers failure to report about] U Ko Ni was noticeable, but there was a case before that went unnoticedthe Bagan earthquake. People were also interested in that. Private media had cover stories about it, about how our cultural heritage [was damaged]. People wanted to know about it, but state-run newspapers did not report on it.

Saya Pe has said that state-run newspapers are needed to publish news about the government. So, we can only expect news about the government from them. But I have a question. Can people get the information that they want from those newspapers?

I usually say in interviews with journalists that those newspapers remain a propaganda machine. And if you ask me if the quality of the newspapers has improved, my frank answer is that only the players have changed. Policy hasnt and news stories are still published according to protocolnews of the top decision-makers appears on the front page of state-run papers. This upsets me.

I thought that even if state-run newspapers were not shut down that they would be transformed into public service media. But this didnt happen. Whats worse is that there are still many departments that refuse to answer questions from private journalists who interview them in line with media by-laws. The current government in some cases has turned a blind eye to existing laws.

Government media has an advantage in covering events. This is not fair play. They are not even competing with us on equal ground; they are taking the upper hand. This is more obvious for broadcast media, as they get better positions to shoot pictures from. And we have to cover Parliament via them. This is proof that they are killing private media. Thats why we have called for shutting down state-run newspapers.

If we divide the country into estates, we are called the fourth estate. But why is the government, the administrative power, entering into the fourth estate? If they want to inform the public, they should inform them through communication officers. And private media could provide balanced reporting based on the information.

People have more trust in such reports. It is quite rare that people trust state-run newspapers. In the past, it was difficult to interview government departments. International news agencies such as AP, AFP, Reuters and local private media referred to state-run newspapers only when we were not able to interview departments. Because we assume that the state-run newspapers are a government mouthpiece, we dont expect that they will be able to provide the information that people want to know. Why should those newspapers, which are published with public funds, be used only for spreading government propaganda? This is our point of view.

KK: Currently, as far as I know, state-run newspapers Myanma Alinn and Kyemon have a daily circulation around 320,000. There is quite a large gap between them and private media. Frankly speaking, private media are really at risk. Both private dailies and weeklies are at risk. Under these circumstances, what should be done to strengthen private media?

SW: Printing costs need to be addressed for private media, and problems with distribution. In countries, there are distribution mechanisms. For example, in Thailand, private media can put their publications at 7-11 stores. But there is no such thing here. We have to create on our own mechanism or put our publications at bookstores.

Transportation costs are very high. Private media have to distribute primarily by car, as they cant afford to use air transport. Here, the government could provide subsidies. It could help arrange distribution.

The government has many printers and it could offer printing at lower prices in order to reduce the cost. And it could streamline the procedures for importing newsprint to reduce spending. The government could do these things without spending its funds.

As Ko Zeyar has pointed out, because there were only state-run newspapers for many years, people have put advertisements only in them. They were gradually convinced that advertisements were not legal unless they were in state-run papers. The government has to abolish that policy. Only then will advertisements go to private media.

We are exercising a market economy but if the government wants to compete, it should compete with its own money, not with public funds. Isnt that right? Currently, the government uses the states assets. The government must reform state-run media and downsize some of their operations. Yes, it will be difficult to downsize the staff. But it must be done, even if it is difficult. The government came to power saying that it would make changes, but not defending [the changes].

KK: Thank you for your contributions!
Politics This Week in Parliament (Feb. 6-Feb.10)

Members of Parliament arrive at a meeting at the Lower House in Naypyidaw on March 10, 2016. / Reuters

Monday (Feb. 6)

In the Lower House, lawmaker U Thaung Aye of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) representing Pyawbwe Township, asked if the Parliament had a plan to enact a law to recall lawmakers. U Aung Myint of the Union Election Commission (UEC) replied that the commission had been taking steps to soon submit the draft law on the right to recall.

According to Article 396 of the 2008 Constitution, to file a complaint to recall a lawmaker only needs signatures from a minimum of one percent of the electorate of the concerned constituency. During the first Parliament session, lawmakers discussed the introduction of changes to the right to recall, but it has since been suspended because of differing views among lawmakers on the percentage of voters required for a recall election.

Lawmaker U Pe Than of Myebon Constituency argued that private media could potentially die off in Burma because of the dominance of state-run media, which operates with public funds and enjoys a near monopoly over advertisements. Union Minister for Information U Pe Myint however justified the existence of state-run newspapers, arguing that they create no risk for private dailies.

In the Upper House, U Kyaw Swe of Magwe Division (11) asked the government about its procedures to eliminate biased practices in the appointment, transfer and promotion of civil servants. The chairman of the Union Civil Service Board in response mentioned a number of laws that are applied to fight against biased practices.

Tuesday (Feb. 7)

In the Lower House, lawmaker U Tun Tun of Pwintbyu Township asked a question about taxation on planes of international airlines that cross the countrys air territory. Deputy Minister for Transport and Communications U Kyaw Myo said that the number of airplanes that crossed the countrys air territory is a maximum of 600 flights per day. He added that the ministry had earned nearly US$58.5 million as of Dec. 13, 2016 in the 2016-17 fiscal year; and that the ministry handed over the money to the government weekly.

U Win Aung of Moemauk Township urged the Union government to increase the winnings in the countrys lottery system by imposing less tax on the money brought in from such schemes. Currently, the government imposes a 40 percent tax on these sums, giving the remaining 60 percent as prizes.

In the Upper House, lawmakers voted to abolish the Myanmar International Cooperation Agency, a quasi-governmental agency established in 2012, after lawmaker Dr. Akar Moe of Karen State Constituency (7) accused the agency directors of lining their own pockets with the agencys profits.

Wednesday (Feb. 8)

In Union Parliament, lawmakers discussed the Presidents proposal to spend 3.6 billion kyats (US$2.6 million) from the governments reserve funds for socio-economic development projects in Arakan State, and to obtain a loan of nearly 10.8 billion yen from the Japan International Cooperation Agency for the major overhaul of hydropower plants.

Thursday (Feb. 9)

In the Lower House, U Maung Myint of Minkin Township asked if the government had a plan to control the killing of cows and buffaloes while the country shifts from conventional farming methods to more mechanized agriculture. But after the lawmaker mentioned the number of cows slaughtered for the Muslim Festival of Sacrifice known as Eid-al-Adha, the Lower House speaker stopped him from continuing his question, citing a parliamentary rule that inquiries muddled with religious matters are prohibited from being asked in the legislature.

In the Upper House, U Sai Htun Aung of Shan State Constituency (2) asked if the Ministry of Defense would return sections of a road in Laikha Township of Loilem District in southern Shan State taken over by the Light Infantry Battalion No. 515 for its cantonment. The deputy minister for defense replied that the area had been under military ownership since 1994, and that civilians are allowed to use the road, though the battalion makes security checks, and that the ministry would not give up the area because of security reasons.

Friday (Feb. 10)

In the Lower House, lawmaker U Maung Maung Oo of Insein Township alleged that the government had been conducting surveillance on lawmakers. Though the deputy minister for Home Affairs, Maj-Gen Aung Soe, denied the allegation, Lower House speaker U Win Myint urged the Bill Committee to enact a bill to prevent citizens from being subjected to state surveillance and intrusion by the end of the fourth regular session of the Parliament.

In the Upper House, lawmaker U Saw Moe Myint of Karen State (1) asked if environmental and social impact assessment reports had yet been submitted to Ministry of Resources and Environmental Conservation for the operation of Myaing Galay cement plant in Karen States Hpa-an with coal instead of natural gas. Minister U Ohn Win replied that his ministry had not yet received an environmental assessment report or an environmental management plan from the cement plant. Other cement plants operating with coal in Kyaukse, Tikyit and Nawngkhio townships also have yet to submit reports. U Ohn Win said that his ministry would ask them to submit them.
When a person feels down or just plain hungry, chocolates always fill the yearning for sweets. What more if you get paid to eat chocolates? That would be more than just a sweet escape.

But that is a fact: Mondelez International, the company that owns iconic chocolate brands such as Oreo and Cadbury, is looking for a part-time taste tester. In this job, a taste tester will help develop flavors for the companys new products. He will also be part of an 11-person panel.

Aside from the task of creating new varieties of flavors, the taste tester must also have the ability to raise ethical and compliance issues with regards to the production of their chocolates. The job description will be formally titled Chocolate and Cocoa Beverage Taster. Applicants are required to work 7.5 hours per week between 12:15 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. from Tuesday through Thursday. The position is based at the companys Reading office in England, Fox 59 reports.

According to MSN, a chocolate taste tester must have the palate to distinguish and discern tastes. He must also have the ability to describe and use a well-defined dictionary to provide an objective feedback. Furthermore, he must be able to have some knowledge when it comes to chocolate-related concerns.

Ten years ago, Cadbury faced a major controversy. Authorities from the Food Standards Agency investigated the company after it withdrew more than a million bars which is predicted to be contaminated with a rare kind of salmonella. Cadbury immediately released a statement saying that the recall is precautionary. However, a bacteriologist claimed that there is no such thing as a safe level for salmonella in chocolates.

The possible contamination was traced from a leak at the Cadburys Marlbrook plant in Herefordshire. After the investigation, experts verified that the chocolate bars were indeed contaminated with montevideo strain of salmonella. One of its best-selling products is the Cadbury Dark Chocolate bar. Experts have proven that dark chocolate is highly-beneficial for our bodies.
Last Wednesday, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple delivered a message to a group of young college students at Scotland's University of Glasgow, where he was awarded an honorary degree. His speech was about not to pursue careers based on paychecks alone, but for something they are passionate about and is in the service of other people.

The Career And Life Advice

On his statement, he told the students, "Don't work for money." According to him, being driven by money will only wear people out fast or will never make enough which in the end will only leave people unhappy. Instead, it is better to find an intersection between what would be something that they are passionate about and at the same time is also something that is in the service of other people, because if not, they are never going to be happy in life.

The Apple CEO Being Thankful For Being Fortunate

After the ceremony, Cook joined the students for what the school dubbed as a "fireside chat." And while encouraging the students to find work that they are passionate about instead of pursuing a job purely for profit, the Apple CEO also acknowledge that he had been quite fortunate in landing in his career, which is not to mention has earned him around $8.5 million last year.

During a question and answer session, Cook also reiterated his opposition to Pres. Donald Trump's immigration policy. The Apple CEO reminded the audience that Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, who happens to be a son of a Syrian immigrant, and said that the ban had an immediate effect on the international tech times.

It was also mentioned that a number of Apple employees were initially denied of entry to the U.S. when the order (which has been temporarily halted by a legal battle), was first implemented. He believes that it is very important to speak out, because if people will stand and say nothing, it is as if they are agreeing and will become a part of it.
A United Nations report, released on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, declared an increase in the number of women graduating with life science degrees. However, the report also underlined the need for more women in engineering and computer science. This need is evident in countries with developing economies.

The agencys report, entitled UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization found in its UNESCO Science Report: Towards 2030, says that a steady decrease in females who obtain degrees in computer science is at a steady decrease since 2000 in high-income nations. Furthermore, female graduates in computer science have slipped in the United States, Latin America, Australia, Caribbean, and New Zealand between 2000 and 2012. However, there is also a notable increase in women engineers in developing countries, which include Arab and sub-Saharan territories. For instance, the United Arab Emirates created national policies to promote employment and trainings that would benefit women in science.

UN News Centre reports that UNESCO released the report to serve as wake-up call to encourage higher participation among women in the field of sciences which is expanding globally. It also serves as a foundation for the growth of national economies. Moreover, it affects the everyday life of our people regardless of gender, race and beliefs.

According to Geekdad, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science was adopted by the General Assembly as a resolution to recognize the critical role of women and girls in science and technology communities. This endeavor is pursued by various organizations like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). They support and promote the access of women and girls and their participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, training and research activities at all levels. The International Day of Women and Girls in Science is celebrated every February 11th of each year.

One female scientist, who has garnered attention from the global media, is Dr. Shawna Pandya, a former intern at NASA. She recently denied rumors that she will be a part of any space mission organized by the international space agency. She could have been the third female astronaut of Indian origin to fly in space.


The brand Nokia came back into action with the beginning of the year 2017, unveiling its first fully Android smartphone Nokia 6 last January. Presently, under the management of HMD Global, it is said to release at least half a dozen Nokia Android smartphones in 2017. With just a few weeks left for Mobile World Congress 2017 to kick off, leaks of details have surfaced regarding Nokia's next powerful Android, the Nokia P1 smartphone.

The Nokia P1: Design, Specs And Battery Life

The Nokia P1 appears to have an all-metal body and a 5.3inch display covered in Gorilla Glass 5, making it hopefully resistant to splashes and spills, and to come with the IP57 dust and waterproof protection. Nokia's exciting features look set to include a Carl Zeiss-made 22.6MP rear camera, under the hood is a massive 3,500mAh battery and to powered by Qualcomm's latest processor. The Nokia P1 will reportedly come with roomier space of 128GB, also a 256GB version will be offered, according to a source. Though, there's no word as to whether it'll pack a microSD slot.

The Nokia P1: OS And VR Compatibility

The Nokia P1, is said to come with the latest Android Nougat out of the run and it will support Google's Daydream VR platform something some Samsung fans are still waiting for. This new operating system means that users will be able to get all the newest features of Google's Android software and that will include multi-windows apps, a longer capacity of battery life with security, and a whole host of new emoji.

The Nokia P1: Price And Release Date

The Nokia P1 won't be cheap when it goes on sale, according to rumors at least. Reports suggest that the 128GB model will be priced around $779. Nokia P1 is likely to be revealed in February at MWC 2017 at a press conference in Barcelona.
Health authorities say that black lung disease, a feared coal industry disease, has reemerged after a new case of the disease have been reported. The patient, a retired New South Wales (NSW) northern districts coal miner, has been diagnosed with the lung condition. Also know as coal workers pneumoconiosis, it is the first reported case in Australia since the 1970s.

A potentially fatal respiratory disease in which patients cough up balls of black mucus, it kills 1000 miners a year in the US, and more than 6000 in China. However, it has barely been heard of in Australia since the 1960s. But since May 2015, at least 15 cases have been diagnosed in Queensland, confirming the disease had reemerged, putting the coal mining industry on high alert.

Even though this insidious disease has not been confirmed in NSW for decades, one case of pneumoconiosis is one case too many, Resources Regulatory compliance officer, Lee Shearer says. She adds that the agency is now investigating how the black lung disease case originated. They're also looking for breaches of any work health and safety laws by the mining company, The Herald reports.

A spokesman for the NSW Department of Industry comments that the NSW had one of the worlds most stringent coal regulatory regimes. He assures that an industry compensation fund was already in place. He adds that the department would be carefully monitoring the health condition of coal mine workers in Queensland, the News.com.au reports.

Since his diagnosis, the stricken miner said life was a struggle. He explains that he was devastated about being affected by a disease that should have no longer existed. He also worries about his workmates who might also be affected by the black lung disease as more of them spit up black mucus when they come up from the mine.
The government in 1945 tested the first atomic bomb in southern New Mexico during World War I, now residents of Tularosa and four other New Mexico counties demand compensation from the government because health records show the atomic bomb test caused untold hardships and cancer-related illnesses down the generations of several families living near the test site area.

Statistics from the New Mexico Tumor Registry indicate cancer patients and cancer-related illnesses in Tularosa equals the rest of the state, while more people die from cancer in New Mexico than they do from other illnesses. Residents blame the government for turning the other eye to their plight while generations of families die from complications of radio-active exposures, ABC News reports.

This revelation came to the fore when the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC) together with the New Mexico Health Equity Partnership conducted series of surveys where descendants of people that were exposed to radiations from the 1945 Trinity Test told their cancer-related illness stories.

Government never warned the people of any atomic bomb tests

According to Tina Cordova, co-founder of TBDC, this survey would be the first conducted by the group with a view to knowing the truth of what happened during the world's first atomic bomb test and how it has impacted generations of people down the line. Cordova said the survey aimed for people tell their stories as plainly as they could in a way that would make the government transparently attend to their pervading health problems, Fox 6 Now wrote.

The descendants of the people exposed to radiations from the world's first atomic bomb test contend that their ancestors never knew the government was testing atomic bombs near their villages; and the government of the day never deemed it fit to warn the people of the dangers of exposure to radio-active substances or even compensated them for health problems that resulted and continued till date from the incidents.

Residents of Tularosa and its environs demand for compensations

Considering the fact that the people continue to be plagued with cancer and other resultant illness, the descendants of original dwellers of Tularosa want the government to compensate them while also providing aids for their continual health problems.

This is becoming more necessary since many families plagued with cancer and other related illnesses in these parts are poor with no direct access to basic healthcare or insurance. US Senator Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) said the over 800 community health surveys add to the body of evidence that the people were seriously harmed by the atomic bomb test and should be compensated by the government to make life a little worth living for them.
Now that the Android Nougat update has already rolled out to many devices, users are starting to see how much their phones' system have changed with the new Android version. While the Android team's goal is to bring in improvements, it's quite inevitable to get some disadvantages as well. According to recent reports, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge have seen a decline in battery life once upgraded to Android Nougat.

Samsung Galaxy S7 And S7 Edge's Battery Life On Android Nougat

As per IB Times, there are users who have reported to have seen a drop in battery life when they updated their Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge to Nougat. Phone Arena also investigated the matter and the tech blog has confirmed that there is indeed a battery life decline with the S7 and S7 Edge's Nougat update. It was said that when the Galaxy phones were updated, a 10 percent drop in battery life was spotted.

According to the test performed, the Marshmallow system on the S7 allowed for up to 397 minutes of usage while the Nougat system only reached 360 minutes. The S7 Edge, on the other hand, went from 403 minutes on Marshmallow to 395 minutes on Nougat. With that said, it's safe to assume that the new update has brought in new features that could have affected the phones' battery lives. However, since this is simply a software-related issue, a software fixing update may be able to resolve this as well.

Android Nougat On Samsung Galaxy S7 Series

Needless to say, there are also great things that were added on the S7 phones when the Nougat update rolled in. As per Phone Arena, there were some apparent changes in the quick settings and notifications part of their S7 device. There were also tweaks in what the carousel app drawer looks like. The change in the "Close All" button also makes its appearance a little more mature, which is a good thing as well. Additionally, the phone's settings page has become easier to work with and a little more pleasant to look at than past versions.
Considering that NASA has long been tagged as protector of UFOs or aliens for that matter, there has been a sudden turning of tables as they have recently revealed that they are convinced where aliens might be hiding. A significant number of experts believe that Jupiter's frozen moon, Europa, is more than just a totally inhospitable and barren as it may be the key to an amazing discovery. NASA experts have revealed that they are now convinced that there's a gigantic ocean locked beneath its frozen surface and is now said to be on the move to send a robotic craft in order to see if aliens are swimming in it.

Could Europa Be The Hideout Of Aliens?

In one of their statements reported by News Online, the space agency has revealed that there are three goals for the upcoming mission of searching for life possibilities. Authorities have said that the main goal of the mission is to search for evidence of life on Europa. On the other hand, the other goal is said to be focused on having the access to the potential habitability of Europa by directly analyzing material from the surface while the other one is to allegedly characterize the surface and subsurface of Europa in order to support future robotic exploration of Europa and its ocean.

As of the press time, NASA experts are said to be in the process of conceptualizing the sort of craft it could possibly use to find aliens in the extraterrestrial ocean. It was also found that the space agency will also create underwater robotic explorers that will apparently use artificial intelligence in searching for probable signs of life. In line with the said mission, Europa has been tagged as one of the most interesting and mysterious bodies in the solar system since its more likely to show traces of life as compared to the other heavenly bodies.

NASA's Mission To Europa

According To Tech Crunch, in NASA's list of instruments that are essential for the said mission, it was found that some of which don't technically exist but have analogs in systems already or about to be deployed. NASA adds that unlike Curiosity, as well as in other long-term surface explorers, the said lander to be used in the upcoming mission will probably last a few weeks before getting fried by the immense amount of radiation coming off Jupiter. Ultimately, other than Saturn's moon Enceladus, Europa is one of only two places where the ocean is understood to be in contact with a rocky seafloor which also makes scientists be more convinced than before that it is one of the highest priority targets in the search for present-day life beyond Earth.
Sony's latest upcoming 4K panels boast powerful processors that will improve the look of just about any video that you play onto the screen. However, the chips inside these high-end TVs don't stop at making movies looking better: Similar to giant Pixel phones, the TVs will (eventually) also have Google's voice-controlled Assistant built into them. According to Sony, the Google Assistant will be added to their new TV sets via a firmware update later this year.

The Sooner, The Better

According to Wired, millions of people are expected to finally decide that it's finally time to buy a 4K TV this year, and the numerous deals are very much enticing at every point of the pricing spectrum. Variety is also going to be a factor, as the industry's big brands attempt to solve different pieces of the picture-quality puzzle.

The Wide Field Of High-End TVs

Samsung is leaning towards the power of quantum dots, Vizio is all about value, and LG is officially team OLED. While Sony finally has an OLED TV of its own, the company strongly believes that its competitive advantage comes from two areas: Having a TV with the best image processing capability, as well as having a TV with a great voice recognition platform.

Google Will Be Sony's X-Factor

According to TechTimes, Sony's sets have already come with Android TV, but this year's models are going to be the first television sets that will come along with a Google Assistant on board. The sets won't always be listening for that "OK Google" cue, which means that you need to hit a button on the included remote for the Assistant to register your sound queries.

You can also opt towards using a Google Home speaker to communicate with the TV without even hitting a button. With that being said, if Sony's concept would be successful, it would ultimately be the future of all 4K TVs.
Xiaomi is planning to make its own processors and will be ditching Qualcomm in the process.

Qualcomm has long been the company of choice when it comes to processors. But with the recent controversy surrounding it, some companies are considering looking elsewhere for their processor needs. Xiaomi, for one, is reportedly looking at the prospect of manufacturing its own chips.

Slash Gear reported that the prolific Chinese company has a chipset currently in development which is codenamed "Pinecone." Reports also said that the Xiaomi processor will be available real soon, within a month to be a bit more precise. In fact, one rumor stated that the new chipset will be used in the next smartphone from the Xiaomi stable.

Engadget pointed out the many possible benefits of the move. For one, the smartphones will be cheaper. Production of smartphones will cost less since the chipset will not be outsourced. On the other hand, if something goes wrong with the processor, they only have themselves to blame.

Having its own chipset will also allow the Chinese company to be more creative with its handsets. The Huawei Mate 9, for example, uses its own Kirin processor. This allowed the company to include support for artificial intelligence in the phablet.

Xiaomi and Huawei are not the only companies that have started or are about to start using their own CPU. Samsung also has the Exynos processor. One thing common with Huawei and the Korean conglomerate is that the road to chipset independence was not a paved one. Both companies took their time in developing and later manufacturing their own chipsets to ensure that they will be better or at least at par with those currently in the market. That said, Xiaomi is surely doing everything in its power to do the same despite the aforementioned rumor that its chipset is set for release real soon.
The world of smartphones is ever changing. A few of these might be pushed to 2017 as well. We have included some really interesting smartphones in this list. We've got Samsung Galaxy S8, Apple iPhone 8, LG G6, HTC 11, Google Pixel 2, Xiaomi Mi6 and Nokia P1. Let us hop right in and check the launch dates of the much-awaited, most interesting and the best upcoming smartphones to come in 2017.

Samsung Galaxy S8

Samsung's powerhouse flagship is much awaited by many. Unfortunately, it won't come at the upcoming MWC 2017 this month. According to a source, Samsung might unveil the Samsung Galaxy s8 at Samsung's next "Unpacked" event on March 29th. While the latter said that it would actually go on sale "on or around" April 21st.

Apple iPhone 8

Apple traditionally launches its latest iPhone in the first two weeks of September. A perfect time for the start of the Christmas shopping season. Also set for a 2017 release to celebrate the iPhone's 10th anniversary is the powerful iPhone 8.

LG G6

Last year's LG G5 announcement took place one day before Barcelona's Mobile World Congress technology tradeshow started. Rumors suggest that LG will unveil The LG G6 later this month. The MWC show will run from February 27 to March 2, so we'd expect the LG G6 to be announced on Sunday and that would be February 26, 2017.

HTC 11

Everyone is predicting a 12-month cycle for HTC's new phones which puts the HTC 11 launch date in April 2017. Traditionally launched every March, we expect that HTC 11 will come next month of this year.

Google Pixel 2

The Google Pixel and Pixel XL were both announced in October 2016, so we'd expect to see the Pixel 2 roughly a year later, in or around October 2017. However, the Pixel line is new, it's building on the now defunct Nexus range, which also tended to have a new handset in around September or October of each year.

Xiaomi Mi6

The Xiaomi Mi6 will be the successor to the Xiaomi Mi5 which was unveiled last year on 31st March 2016. We might expect some fireworks from Xiaomi's camp at the MWC 2017. It will kick off in February last week.

Nokia P1

After making a splash with the Nokia 6 at CES last year, HMD Global is expected to showcase a new smartphone at Mobile World Congress. The Nokia P1 will likely be announced on Feb. 26 at a press conference in Barcelona. Nokia P1 could be Nokia's successful comeback.
The whole idea of IoT is to connect more things, including devices far from a companys data centers or maintenance crews. For enterprises that have things all over the world, vendors and service providers are starting to look at the big picture.

At Mobile World Congress later this month, Nokia will show off what it calls WING (worldwide IoT network grid), a virtual global infrastructure that may include multiple private and carrier networks and satellite systems, depending on what an enterprise needs to connect and how it intends to use the data thats collected.

A global enterprise can actually have what they think is their own virtual network of global connectivity for their IoT devices, said Phil Twist, vice president of mobile networks marketing & communications, in a briefing this week. WING will be commercially available in the second half of this year.

Nokia announced WING on Friday, just days after Inmarsat started talking about its own foray into global IoT. The venerable satellite operator is linking low-power, unlicensed LoRaWAN networks with its worldwide fleet of spacecraft. Real-world use cases for that setup, including cattle-tracking in Australia and water monitoring on a remote plantation in Malaysia, hint at whats possible with that combination.

WING is a broader vision of a managed service that may include low-power networks, cellular, Wi-Fi and wired infrastructure in addition to satellites. It doesnt rely on Nokia hardware, so it can run on networks built by competing vendors. Nokia can virtually string together a set of networks for a service provider or for a multinational enterprise.

Companies could use WING to stay connected to networked cars or freight containers as they move around the world, automatically getting handed off from satellite to cellular and other networks as they come into range, Nokia says.

Nokias Impact IoT platform will manage all the devices and the subscriptions to various service providers. It can use eSIMs, a software-defined form of the Subscriber Identity Modules in cellphones, to shift devices from one carrier to another as they move across borders.

Impact will also analyze data coming from IoT devices, primarily for operational purposes like optimizing security and customer experience, but also for some vertical applications. The vertical-markets focus will be on the energy, health care, public safety, transportation and auto industries, plus smart cities. Impact already includes an analytics platform for streaming video, designed for things like monitoring traffic patterns.
Ford announced today it's investing $1 billion over the next five years in an artificial intelligence (A.I.) startup founded by former Google and Uber employees to further the development of autonomous vehicle technology.

The massive investment will make Ford the majority stakeholder in Argo AI, but the automaker said the software company has been structured to operate with "substantial independence."

Ford said its relationship with Argo AI, which was founded last year in Pittsburgh, will combine its existing autonomous vehicle development program with Argo AI's robotics and "startup speed" on artificial intelligence software.

Ford Ford CEO Mark Fields poses with the autonomous Fusion at the company's research lab in Palo Alto, Calif.

Argo AI founders CEO Bryan Salesky, and COO Peter Rander are alumni of Carnegie Mellon National Robotics Engineering Center and former leaders on the self-driving car teams of Google and Uber, respectively.

Argo AI's team will include roboticists and engineers from inside and outside of Ford working to develop a new software platform for Ford's fully autonomous vehicle, expected in 2021. Ford said it could also license the software to other carmakers.

Fords model is similar to what was announced a few months earlier by Volvo and Autoliv (a huge auto supplier) to develop autonomous vehicle software that would be used by Volvo but also sold to other companies, according to Michael Ramsey, a research director at Gartner.

"In the end, the car companies dont want to license anything from another company unless they have to. In a few years, theres going to be some big consolidation because there are more makers than buyers," Ramsey said.

Ford's acquisition of Argo AI should be viewed more of as an organizational structure move and not an investment in this company.

"The company and its leaders have been acquired to run Fords driver-control module for autonomous vehicles. The investment is plugged in over five years, and designed to give an equity reward to employees," Ramsey stated in an email to Computerworld. "Ford is trying to create a system where they can effectively hire top talent and reward it, outside of the bureaucracy that exists inside the company. It shouldnt be seen as a $1 billion gift to two guys."

The current team developing Fords virtual driver system  the machine-learning software that acts as the brain of autonomous vehicles  will be combined with the robotics talent and expertise of Argo AI. This partnership, Ford said, will work to deliver the virtual driver system for Fords SAE level 4 self-driving vehicles.

SAE The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International, a U.S.-based industry standards organization, has established six autonomous driving categories where Level 0 represents no automation and Level 5 is a fully autonomous vehicle that controls all aspects of driving previously performed by humans.

While Ford already has a substantial in-house autonomous vehicle program, Ramsey said the carmaker needs leadership and the ability to attract and retain more talent.

"Argo will act somewhat independently and hopefully be able to ramp up talent," Ramsey said.

Ford will become a majority stakeholder in Argo, and John Casesa, Ford's group vice president of global strategy, and Raj Nair, the automaker's product chief and chief technical officer, will sit on Argo's five-person board.

By the end of this year, Argo will have offices in southeastern Michigan and California, according to Ford, along with its Pittsburgh headquarters. It will employ more than 200 workers at those three sites combined.

Ford Last year, Ford purchased Chariot, a San Francisco-based on-demand shuttle service, which also operates in Austin, Texas and is planning to expand to eight other cities.

Another subsidiary created last March, Ford Smart Mobility LLC, will take the lead on the commercialization of Ford's self-driving vehicles, which includes options for using autonomous vehicles to move goods and people, such as ride sharing, ride hailing or package delivery fleets.

Ford Smart Mobility also purchased Chariot, a San Francisco-based on-demand shuttle service, which also operates in Austin, Texas and is planning to expand to eight other cities.

"The next decade will be defined by the automation of the automobile, and autonomous vehicles will have as significant an impact on society as Ford's moving assembly line did 100 years ago," Ford CEO Mark Fields said in a statement. "As Ford expands to be an auto and a mobility company, we believe that investing in Argo AI will create significant value for our shareholders by strengthening Ford's leadership in bringing self-driving vehicles to market in the near term."

Ford A Ford self-driving prototype being tested at the University of Michigan's Mcity prvoing grounds.

Software is the key differentiator in the functionality of semi-autonomous and fully autonomous vehicles. The average vehicle today has about 50 computer processors that control everything from engine control units (ECUs) to Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) such as parking assist and adaptive cruise control.

ADAS and fully autonomous vehicle technology are the sweet spots for Silicon Valley software developers, whose code can tie together the myriad cameras and sensors needed for a car to drive itself.

Ford has already made significant investments in autonomous driving technology, including opening an R&D center in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Ford is only one in a long list of carmakers that have invested in the area. Since 2011, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan-Renault and Toyota have all opened R&D centers in Silicon Valley.

IDG, Wall Street Journal, Carmaker data Automakers who've set up shop or invested in Silicon Valley software companies to develop self-driving car technology.

General Motors opened its Advanced Technology Silicon Valley Office in Palo Alto to develop an HTML browser for its Cadillac CUE in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system.

Nissan is focused on developing autonomous vehicles at its Silicon Valley facility, while Honda's operations there are working on human-machine interface technology, big data, connected vehicles and cybersecurity.

Not only are the companies opening up R&D facilities, they're also recruiting rock star security and system engineers from the mecca of computer development, Jon Allen, a principal at management and tech consulting service Booz Allen Hamilton, said in an earlier interview with Computerworld.

Meanwhile, a former mid-level Apple engineer heads Ford's new Palo Alto R&D center, just down the street from electric-car maker Tesla Motors.

General Motors GM opened its Advanced Technology Silicon Valley Office in Palo Alto to develop an HTML browser for its Cadillac CUE in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system.

"This isn't your grandfather's automotive company any more. The [car makers] are moving away from simply being hardware manufacturers to becoming software developers," Allen said. "Fundamentally, the auto industry cannot be seen as just automakers any more. They're mobile developers."

"And, look at who Apple is hiring. They're hiring auto executives," Allen added.
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Airport lounges can provide a haven of quiet amid evermore crowded airports, but they dont come cheap.

Lounges are privately operated hospitality clubs that typically cater to frequent flyers and passengers with business- or first-class tickets. Most are operated by airlines, such as Deltas Sky Club, and are discretely tucked away in airport terminals.

Annual passes can set you back about $500 for individuals, but there are several less expensive ways to gain access, such as buying day passes or through credit card perks.

It might seem as if airport lounges are only for the rich, but they could be worth the money even if you fly just a few times per year or if you end up with long layovers. Airports are growing more crowded due to lower airfares and the stronger U.S. dollar. As a result, more travelers are turning to lounges to get away from congested terminals and tap amenities such as secure WiFi and comfier seating.

Its about creating a space that allows travelers to break away from the chaotic sense of the terminal, says Fern Fernandez, vice president of marketing for American Airlines, which saw a 12 percent increase in memberships last year. People are looking for spaces to be productive while on their trips.

Aside from offering more space and quiet than the terminal, airport lounges usually provide services that can make a trip flow more smoothly. Because lounges are geared to business travelers, they are often equipped with plenty of charging stations for laptops and other devices, as well as secure WiFi thats often faster than the terminals network.

The entry price also includes food and beverages as well as private bathrooms and showers. On top of that, airline lounge staff can help with reservations, such as rebooking tickets or finding new seats for travelers.

If you're flying economy, the ticket doesn't include access to the airlines lounge. Below are several ways to gain access without paying too much.

Story continues

Join a lounge network. For a more economical option, consider joining a lounge network such as Priority Pass or LoungeBuddy. Priority Pass least expensive membership costs $99 per year, and then you pay $27 each time you enter a lounge. Its most expensive plan costs $399 per year. With that plan, there are no additional charges to enter a lounge.

Priority Pass then offers you access to a network of more than 1,000 lounges across the world that include those run by Virgin, Air Canada, and Air France.

LoungeBuddy doesnt require a membership; instead its app allows customers to buy lounge passes when they need them. Day passes cost about $50 each.

Another benefit: These networks typically have a much broader geographic reach than an individual airline's club. American Airlines has about 90 Admirals lounges around the world, but LoungeBuddy can give you access to more than 200 lounges in places like Brisbane, Australia and Anchorage, Alaska.

Buy a day pass. If you get hit by a long layover or unexpected delay, go to a lounge and ask to buy a day pass. Most lounges sell them for about $50 each. It generally doesnt matter if youre not flying on the airline that operates the lounge.

To find out which lounges are available at an airport, check the airport's website or do a search on LoungeBuddy, PriorityPass, or The Guide to Sleeping in Airports. LoungeBuddy and Sleeping in Airports even let you buy a pass on their websites.

Use credit card perks. Premium credit cards, such as the American Express Platinum card, include access to some airport lounges. Because these cards usually have a annual membership fee of at least $400, they appeal to consumers who want to pay more for such perks. Not all cards provide the same level of access, so read the fine print before signing up.

Splurge on a club membership. If you tend to fly on one particular airline, it might be worth buying access to its club network. These annual memberships usually cost about $500 for an individual and more than $900 for a family.

Do research before buying. Because of the rise in lounge use, there are more reports of crowded spaces, with some travelers reporting that it can be difficult to find seats. Travel websites such as One Mile at a Time and The Points Guy can give you a general idea ahead of time whether a lounge is likely to be crowded.





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El Chapo Joaquin Guzman

The brewing conflict between aspirants to the Sinaloa cartel throne apparently reached a new stage earlier this month when gunmen aligned with one cartel leader attacked the sons and a longtime associate of the jailed kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

According to a letter purportedly handwritten by Jesus Alfredo and Ivan Archivaldo Guzman, the attack occurred when they arrived with Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada at a meeting on February 4 called by longtime cartel member Damaso Lopez "on the issue of having evidence that Damaso Lopez ordered the kidnapping of the sons of 'El Chapo'" in August.

When they arrived at the meeting site  reportedly in Badiraguato, the Sinaloa municipality where "El Chapo" was born  gunmen opened fire on them. According to the letter, which was originally published by the Mexican journalist Ciro Gomez Leyva, some of the bodyguards were killed instantly.

The brothers "realized they were betrayed by el licenciado Damaso Lopez, trying to kill them so as to end" the Guzman family at the root, the letter says, referring to Lopez as "licenciado" because he has a law degree.

"This, in fact, did happen," Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, told Business Insider, citing conversations he had with Mexican security officials.

Mexico Sinaloa state Culiacan shooting killings violence

"Apparently, [Lopez] called for an important meeting, and when they showed up they ran into a barrage of bullets from at least five or six or individuals," Vigil said. "They killed some of their bodyguards, but they were able to [get] away."

Guzman's sons and Zambada fled, but they encountered other armed men, who had orders from Lopez to kill them. The letter says they traveled several kilometers before finding a small town, where their wounds were treated  though it's unclear if "El Mayo" Zambada was wounded.

Story continues

"Apparently, [the gunmen] didn't wait for these guys to get out of the vehicle when they started shooting," said Vigil, the author of "Metal Coffins: The Blood Alliance Cartel."

"Had they waited until they got out of the vehicle, they would've probably killed them," he added.

Jesus Alfredo Guzman El Chapo Guzman son Sinaloa cartel

Jose Refugio, a Mexican lawyer who represents "El Chapo," acknowledged the letter in an interview with Mexico's Radio Formula.

"I had knowledge of this. I knew of that letter, and I knew they made that letter," he said. "But it did not arrive through me."

The Damaso Lopez referenced in the letter appears to be Damaso Lopez Nunez, a high-level leader of the Sinaloa cartel who was rumored to be Guzman's successor after Guzman's arrest in February 2014.

Lopez Nunez, originally from Sinaloa state, was a police officer in that state and later deputy director for security at Puente Grande prison in Jalisco state when "El Chapo" was there in the 1990s. He aided the kingpin in his escape in 2001.

"He's a former police officer, and he's also an attorney, and he's got a son that ... they call him 'Mini Lic,' or 'Mini Licenciado,' or 'Mini Attorney,' who apparently also is tied to the Sinaloa cartel [and] apparently works out of Baja California Sur," Vigil said.

In 2013, the US Treasury identified Lopez Nunez as a principal lieutenant of the Sinaloa cartel because of his alleged role in the cartel's drug trafficking and money laundering activities.

OFAC chart Sinaloa cartel chart

Because of his law degree, Lopez Nunez is nicknamed "El Licenciado."

The letter refers to him as such, suggesting he was in fact behind the attack. However, some reports of the incident say "El Mini Lic"  Lopez Nunez's son, Damaso Lopez Serrano  was the culprit. The younger Lopez, 37, is reportedly the founder of Los Antrax, an armed wing of the Sinaloa cartel.

Lopez Nunez is the son of Damaso Lopez Garcia, who was a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Sinaloa. The PRI is also the party of Mexico's current president, Enrique Pena Nieto.

pena nieto

The link between the Lopez family and the PRI has added to suspicions that the party is currently tied to drug trafficking  a belief bolstered by the party's involvement with the drug trade in the latter half of the 20th century, when it governed Mexico as a de facto one-party state.

The attack on Guzman's sons and Zambada comes amid a spike in violence in Sinaloa state, which has picked up in the weeks since Guzman's extradition in late January.

Twelve people were killed in the state over the weekend, with four people killed in Culiacan, the state capital, in two shootings 40 minutes apart.

In 72 hours between Sunday and Tuesday, 13 more people were slain in five shootouts between criminal groups.

The state's public security secretary, Gen. Genaro Robles Casillas, told the news agency EFE that the wave of violence was the result of fighting between factions of the Sinaloa cartel for control of the territory.

Culiacan Sinaloa attack narco violence cartel Mexico

"There's been a rash of killings in Culiacan," Vigil told Business Insider on Thursday. "I think there were quite a few murders. They estimate about 30 to 60 murders that have happened there in the last couple of days."

"El Chapo" Guzman's sons also distributed a letter in October denying their involvement in a roadside ambush in Culiacan in which five soldiers were killed and several others were injured.

That attack was initially thought to be an effort to liberate a captured cartel member, but it is now suspected that one cartel faction launched it to attract law-enforcement attention to territory controlled by a rival faction.

NOW WATCH: Forget 'El Chapo'  this is Mexico's most powerful drug lord





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Since Donald Trumps election, the major media have been trying to figure out what they did wrong, given their fawning coverage of Hillary Clinton and their anti-Donald Trump stories. Didnt they help twice elect Barack Obama? Why didnt the formula work this time?

Mostly the media blame voters, talk radio and Fox News, never themselves. One might say they are in denial, a condition that has a medical definition.

Psychology.wikia.com defines it: Denial is a defense mechanism postulated by Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.

While the major media seek to apply that definition to President Trump  Scott Pelley opened a recent broadcast of the CBS Evening News claiming that the presidents statement Monday about unreported terrorist attacks were part of a growing list of comments that prove he is divorced from reality  they ought to spend some time looking in the mirror.

Overnight, it seems, major media have become interested in facts following eight years of ignoring lies and dissembling by Democrats and members of the Obama administration, including the president. The list is long and includes former Sen. Harry Reids lies about Mitt Romney, who Reid falsely accused of not paying his taxes. When asked about it in an interview, Reid said, I did what was necessary to defeat Romney in the 2012 presidential race. Then there were the numerous lies about Obamacare, the glossing over of anti-Semitic statements by Obamas pastor, Jeremiah Wright and the influence of radical leftist thinker Saul Alinsky on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

How deep into denial the media have gone and how they refuse to consider what the public thinks of them was again revealed in a Washington Post column by former ABC News Nightline host and current CBS News contributor Ted Koppel.

Koppel, who was always fair and friendly to me when I appeared on his program, correctly states: democracy depends on facts. The problem is that too many of us cant agree on the facts because the standard by which truth was once measured has disappeared in our age of relativity. It is an Alice in Wonderland age in which Humpty Dumpty is the prophet: When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean  neither more nor less.

This is the medias fault line. Koppel writes: There may be some temporary political advantage to be gained by tearing down public confidence in critical, nonpartisan journalism, but it is only temporary. At some point or another, everyone needs professional finders of facts.

The liberal commentator and former CNN host, Piers Morgan, is no fan of Donald Trump, or of modern American journalism. Appearing Monday night on Tucker Carlson Tonight on the Fox News Channel, Morgan said he recently went through 11 pages of The New York Times. Every story, every editorial and ever column was anti-Trump. Even four letters to the editor were anti-Trump, he said.

Thats not nonpartisan journalism, thats bias. The public gets it, even if reporters and anchors dont, or deny their biases.

The notion that the public needs professional finders of facts goes beyond bias to hubris. It pretends these professionals dont have a point of view and that they are evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. I defy any mainstream network to name one conservative Republican on their staff with the power to make decisions on what stories are covered and how they are covered. I once asked Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes if she could name a single conservative at CBS News. She couldnt.

The publics trust in major media continues to decline. Their denial ensures that decline will continue. If it is a threat to democracy, as Koppel claims, it is a threat of the medias own making.
SAM FERGUSON, Lewisville

Unregulated practices

Is this just the start?

Your article Congress scraps Obama rules on coal (Feb. 3) made me stop and think. Does anyone remember studying the American Industrial Revolution? While a time of tremendous growth, it was also a time of unregulated business practices. Companies thought nothing of dumping toxic waste into rivers and streams, and factory smokestacks emitted smoke, dust and grit into the atmosphere.

While I am not a Luddite, we must do something to protect the environment.

The Senate approving measures to eliminate rules preventing coal-mining debris from being dumped into streams seems to be just the first step in allowing businesses to be free of any regulations.

Do we want to end up like Beijing, wearing masks when we go outside because of the smog? I understand that President Trump wants to grow our economy, but giving industry no regulation is not the way to do it, if we in any way want to protect our environment.

******

STEPHANIE EMERY, Clemmons

Repealing Obamacare

There may soon be another vote on Obamacare. I hope our representatives in Congress assure their constituents that they will vote with the majority to repeal Obamacare, whether or not it can be replaced at this time. Nowhere was it promised that Obamacare would be repaired and we dont want to now be told that is the best choice available.

In November, we the people rose up in massive numbers to say we were sick and tired of business as usual in Washington and we wanted our voices heard. One of the promises made was to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which proved to be a misnomer, as it cost the taxpayers $1.5 trillion to implement, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and now it is imploding of its own accord.

The number of people added to the rolls of insured through ACA can be reduced by the numbers who lost their insurance because they can no longer afford the rising premiums and high deductibles. Add to this the fact that catastrophic insurance could not be purchased, when in many cases, that might be all a younger person would need. After all, auto insurance is purchased for times like big repairs after an accident  not for gas, oil or tires.

Our representatives and senators, along with President Trump, ran on certain promises. Members of the GOP should show us they have spines, after all.

Agree with him or not, the president is doing what he promised. Will Congress?

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Q. Can you comment on the differences that led to the Protestant split from the Roman Catholic Church?

Answer: What started as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church turned into a movement that was fueled by religious and political factors.

The struggle occurred in many European countries. Jan Hus, John Wycliffe and Peter Waldo prepared the way for the Reformation, but the Protestant Reformation is usually traced to Martin Luthers posting of the 95 theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517.

To mention just a few of the problems that the reformers had with the Catholic Church, I would include doctrinal differences, authority of the Pope, and the issuing of indulgences for past and future sins. The debates resulted in the contentious exchange of letters which eventually led to Luthers final condemnation and excommunication. His statements stressed the idea that Scripture alone is the source of divine knowledge and that the Pope is not infallible. He also stressed original sin and justification by faith alone. He insisted that the Pope might forgive sins against the Church, but he could not forgive sins against God.

Reformers across Europe served as leaders in this struggle.

John Calvin was one of the leaders who was noted for his emphasis on Gods sovereignty and predestination. Calvin declared that even before God created the world, He decreed who would be saved and who would be damned. This was termed double predestination. Objectors argued that this belief characterized God as unjust for damning some before birth. Calvins answer was that we cannot make that judgment against God. Whatever God does is, by definition, just. Catholic opposition forced Calvin to move to Geneva where his group established a theocracy, a state based on Gods law.

One of Calvins students, John Knox of Edinburgh is credited with being the Father of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

When the reformers taught election and predestination, they were often asked how individuals would know if they were of the Elect. In general, it involves the affirmation of the basic beliefs of the Christian faith and consideration for doctrine and practice. Another answer that was occasionally given was in terms of Old Testament retributive justice. If one prospered, it was a sign of Gods pleasure. Suffering was an indication of divine judgment. Thus, emerged the so called protestant work ethic. Work hard, prosper, and prove your election.

Another split from the Roman Catholic Church happened in England. King Henry VIII, in 1528, declared himself head of the Church of England in order to secure an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In time the Anglican Church spread to many countries. The first Book of Common Prayer was compiled by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1549. It connected the different Anglican churches with a common liturgy.

The counter-reformation by the Roman Catholic Church took place at the Council of Trent (1543-63) which was assembled by Pope Paul III. Its purpose was to answer the charges of the reformers and reaffirm certain Catholic doctrines. The council reaffirmed the authority of scripture, Latin Vulgate, and the infallible authority of the Pope when speaking Ex Cathedra, as head of the Church in matters of faith and morals. It declared that there are seven sacraments  means of grace  which include baptism, confirmation, confessions, holy orders, marriage, the Eucharist and last rites. Luther had argued that there were only two sacraments commanded by Christ, baptism and the Eucharist. In opposition to the Reformations justification by faith, the Roman Church insisted that justification is by faith and obedience. It also rejected the Protestant emphasis on total human depravity and, while accepting original sin, insisted that it did not destroy human freedom to respond to Gods grace.

In summary, Protestant reformers believed in predestination, original total depravity, justification by faith alone, sola scripture, and two sacraments. Sola scripture means that scripture is the only infallible rule for issues of faith and practice and contains all knowledge necessary for salvation. The Roman Catholic Church taught limited depravity, free will, the authority of the Pope as well as scripture, and seven sacraments.

In John 17:21, Jesus prayed, That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us. It is unfortunate that His Church experienced such divisions. Certainly, people think differently, worship differently, prefer different music and ritual, but such differences should not divide us or keep us from communing.
Fans of the namaste bow or tree pose will soon have a new studio to practice their regular stretching and breathing techniques, as Essential Yoga recently held its soft opening at 140 West Richardson Street (upstairs from Katie Mae's) in Summerville's historic downtown area. Read moreEssential Yoga debuts in Summerville
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn (Ret.) is the National Security Adviser of President Trump. Very serious questions continue to swirl around his relationship with the government of the Russian Federation. These questions take on special significance given the alleged Russian role in interfering in the 2016 presidential election. By now, two possible criminal charges could be lodged against Flynn, both related to Russia. The first is that he took money from the Russian government, a violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. The other is that he called the Russian Embassy on Christmas Day last year and discussed the sanctions imposed on that country by President Obama over the hacking of the RNC and DNC during the election. Such a conversation would be a violation of the Logan Act.

The Washington Post reports that conversations with no less than nine intelligence officials confirm that Flynn did talk with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about Obamas sanctions on the Russian Federation. Flynn apparently urged the Russians not to be too upset about the new sanctions suggesting that the Trump administration would revisit them. Flynn at the time was not in any government office and had no right to negotiate with a foreign power, an act prohibited to civilians by the Logan Act. Flynn must have known that the Russian ambassadors telephone is under NSA surveillance and so it is weird to the extreme that he would risk breaking the law in public, so to speak.

Wall Street Journal:  Michael Flynns Ties to Russia Under Investigation

It is bad enough that Flynn may have committed this breach of the law. On top of that, when questioned about these allegations he lied and said he had not discussed sanctions with Kislyak. He not only lied himself but he told Vice President Mike Pence this lie and so arranged for Pence to go on television and repeat Flynns lie. Flynn wasnt under oath, so I suppose this is just a lie and not perjury. But surely lying to your boss and embarrassing him would be a firing offense?

Wochit News: Aides Claim Flynn Told Pence He Didnt Discuss Russia Sanctions

In 2015, retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, having been fired by the Obama administration as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and then having retired from the military, flew to Moscow and attended a banquet in celebration of the Russia Today network, the Russian state-owned television channel. RT does some good work, but you have to keep in mind that its editorial line is set by the Kremlin. The connection to the state is even closer than in the case of the Voice of America. Flynn appears to have been paid for his appearance in Moscow, and it is possible that he was paid quite a lot.

Trump Security Adviser Mike Flynn Gives Putin Standing Ovation at Celebration of Propaganda Network

Retired officers can be recalled and are cautioned when they retire that they should avoid such payments by a foreign government, since it violates the Emoluments clause of the Constitution (1.9:)

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

Retired officers of the US military, inasmuch as they are subject to recall to service, are considered to be a person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States. Ranking Democratic members of six Congressional committees have asked the Pentagon for an explanation. So far none has been forthcoming.

Flynn is widely thought to be somewhat unbalanced, inasmuch has he has retweeted bizarre conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and has said that it is rational to be afraid of Islam. (Islam is the religion of 1/5 of humankind, so this is like being afraid of Chinese food or of Indian languages). Note that Flynn served alongside Afghan and Pakistani Muslim officers and if anything appears to have been overly cozy with them (he leaked classified intelligence on terrorists in Afghanistan to Pakistani officers), so the fear-mongering is for political and maybe financial benefit. If you thought the Muslim Pakistani officers were people you should be afraid of or that they were intent on killing 80% of the world, as Flynn has alleged in other contexts, then why would you give them classified intelligence on Afghan terrorists? Flynns private consulting firm also took a contract from a business in Turkey with links to President Tayyip Erdogan; no rational fear there.

Surely this is the first time since the Reagan Iran-Contra scandal that National Security Council personnel have been on such legal thin ice, such that criminal charges could be filed.
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By Rebecca Gordon | ( Tomdispatch.com ) |  

You know youre living in a looking-glass world when former Vice President Dick Cheney speaks out against one of Donald Trumps executive orders. Hes a good example of how past adversaries of movements for peace and justice are lining up against our current adversary, the new president.

The United States, Cheney told radio host Hugh Hewitt, should not exclude people from our territory on the basis of religion. That was just a few days after Trump had signed an executive order entitled Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States. Such a move, said Cheney, goes against everything we stand for and believe in.

In the same interview, Cheney revealed the origins of his personal affinity for Muslim refugees. His own ancestors, he said, arrived on this continent to escape religious persecution. They were Puritans, he explained, adding, There wasnt anybody here then when they came. No one? It was a sparkling display of precisely the European-American solipsism that so deeply marked the Cheney years in power.

Refugees, he acknowledged, do represent a serious problem. To begin to solve it, however, You gotta go back and look at why theyre here. Theyre here because of whats happening in the Middle East.

The refugees Cheney refers to arent here, of course, or what would be the point of Trumps entrance ban? Otherwise, Id have to agree with the former vice president: you do need to look at whats happening but also  something he didnt mention  what happened in the Middle East to explain their need for refuge. Refugees from Iraq and Syria (among other places) have indeed lost their homes and homelands by the millions, in significant part because of the very invasions and occupations that Cheney and his president, George W. Bush, launched in the Greater Middle East, radically destabilizing that part of the world.

The Enemy of My Enemy?

What should it mean for those of us hoping to resist the grim presidency of Donald Trump to find Dick Cheney, even momentarily and on a single issue, on our side? One thing it certainly cant mean is that Cheney stands for the same everything that moved thousands of people to rush to U.S. airports, demanding the release of visitors, immigrants, and green card holders detained under Trumps new order. Although in the Muslim refugees of today he may indeed recognize a reflection of his Puritan ancestors, Cheneys disagreement with Donald Trump does not, in fact, make him a friend of the cause of compassion, justice, or the rule of law.

Few of us who spent eight years opposing Bush and Cheney or who remember their record of invasions, occupations, torture, black sites, and so much more are likely to imagine that his opposition to the ban on refugees makes him our friend. But that doesnt mean that we cant take some satisfaction from where hes landed on this issue.

Its been harder, however, for many of us to find clarity when it comes to certain of the other war hawks who, for their own reasons, dont trust Trump.

Its a trap most of us avoided last summer when 50 members of the national security establishment, including former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and one of George W. Bushs CIA directors, Michael Hayden, wrote an open letter warning the world that Trump lacked the character, values, and experience to be president. We recognized that the letter signers themselves lacked the character, values, and experience to comment. After all, in the Middle East and elsewhere, this bunch had helped to pave the way for Trumps rise.

In recent months, as the Russian hacking scandal hit and Trumps feud with the CIA gained ever more media attention, that Agency has proven another matter. Here is a real danger to avoid: in our efforts to delegitimize Donald Trump, its important not to inadvertently legitimize an outfit that most of us have long opposed for its vicious campaigns around the world. Just because Donald Trump all but called its operatives Nazis shouldnt lead the rest of us to forget its long history of deceit or accept its pronouncements at face value because they happen to fit what we would like to believe.

When Barack Obama said that there was convincing evidence Russia had used its hacking efforts to throw the U.S. election to Trump, the president-elect not surprisingly labeled the claim ridiculous. But theres also been a bit of sympathy for the CIA in some odd places. For example, long-time CIA critic and Hullabaloo founder Heather Digby Parton (generally known as Digby) wrote at Salon that the CIA understandably felt there was something a tad unfair about the Trump transition team calling the Agency the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. After all, they were under a lot of pressure from the White House back then. As Digby wrote, Its now known that Vice President Dick Cheney went out to [CIA headquarters in] Langley [Virginia] in order to personally twist arms and stovepipe the intelligence report on Iraq.

Thats certainly true, but its also true that the CIA director of that moment, George Tenet, assured President Bush that there was a slam dunk case that Saddam Hussein had such weaponry. The fact is that the CIA caved in to pressure from top administration officials for the intel they so desperately wanted for the invasion they already knew they were going to launch in Iraq. That is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the agencys integrity or political independence. An independent CIA is bad enough, but the CIAs vulnerability to political pressure from the White House is another reason we should be cautious about using Agency pronouncements as an instrument against Donald Trump. Thats the slippery terrain we find ourselves on now.

Digby is certainly no admirer of the CIA, and her article wasnt primarily focused on the quality of its intelligence under Bush, but on a far more recent turf war between the Agency and the FBI. She rightly calls out FBI Director James Comey for his 11th hour intervention in the election, the way he alerted Congress to the (vanishingly tiny) possibility that the hard drive on the computer that Anthony Weiner shared with his wife, Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, might have contained evidence of Clintons failure to protect State Department emails. Nevertheless, the reader is left to infer that  at least when it comes to intelligence rather than clandestine operations  the CIAs pronouncements might prove a reliable instrument against Donald Trump, an urge that was relatively commonplace among opponents of the new president.

For example, the Atlantic, which has carried excellent reporting about CIA deceptions, published a piece by Kelly Magsamen, who served on the National Security Council (NSC) under both Bush and Obama, expressing alarm at Trumps plan to exclude the CIA director from his version of the NSC. (In fact, the new president reversed himself on the matter almost immediately.) Its not surprising that Magsamen would have this view. For those of us who would like to dismantle the entire national security edifice, however, it would be shortsighted indeed to attack Trump by shoring up the reputation of an agency  the CIA  that, as former counterintelligence officer John Kiriakou has suggested, the country and the world do not need. Kariakou, you may remember, was jailed for discussing the CIAs torture program with a journalist.

Support for Americas spooks has continued to resound in odd places. For example, theres been much outrage expressed at President Trumps bizarre behavior on a visit to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In a performance that was indeed shocking, he used the occasion to complain about the way the media underestimated the size of the crowd at his inauguration, after which he asserted that God had stopped the rain during his Inaugural Address.

What many commentators found far more bizarre and disturbing, however, was that Trump gave his performance in front of a memorial wall commemorating CIA agents who had died on the job. Writing for the not-exactly-right-wing Huffington Post, Neil McCarthy claimed that the wall honors un-named heroes who have died in our service. In a New Yorker article headlined Trumps Vainglorious Affront to the CIA, former Washington Post diplomatic correspondent Robin Wright chided the new president for his lack of respect for the Agencys martyrs. Trump, she suggested, should have followed the example of President Ronald Reagan, who on his first visit to the CIA told the assembled staff:

The work you do each day is essential to the survival and to the spread of human freedom. You remain the eyes and ears of the free world. You are the trip wire over which totalitarian rule must stumble in their quest for global domination

While I would never applaud anyones untimely, violent death, the fact that Donald Trump (despite his denials) has been feuding with the CIA shouldnt erase that agencys history or just what those agents died defending. Trumps annoyance shouldnt magically transform an agency responsible for decades of violent and bloody coups against democratic governments in places like Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile into an organization essential to the survival and spread of human freedom. Whatever pleasure we may take in Trumps irritation, it doesnt vindicate the murder of between 26,000 and 41,000 Vietnamese, many of then tortured to death, in the CIAs notorious Phoenix program during the Vietnam War. It doesnt erase the training in torture and repression its agents provided to dictatorships around the world. And it certainly doesnt make the CIAs use of terror and torture in its black sites as part of the Bush administrations war on terror any less horrific or illegal.

Nor does the CIAs future look much more promising than its past. When it comes to torture, its new head Mike Pompeo has clearly wanted to have it both ways. During his confirmation hearing, he proved unwilling to call waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation methods torture, but did acknowledge that they are illegal under a 2015 law, which limits interrogation techniques to those described in the U.S. Army Field Manual.

There are two problems with reliance on that law. The present Field Manual contains a classified annex, which permits among other things repeated 12-hour bouts of sensory deprivation and solitary confinement for up to 30 days at a time. Both of these are forms of the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment prohibited by the U.N. Convention against Torture. In addition, the manual itself is up for revision in two years. A new version might provide very different guidance.

But its not clear that Pompeo is actually wedded to the manual anyway. As Human Rights Watch (HRW) points out, in his written testimony for his confirmation hearing he indicated that he would consult with CIA staff to determine whether the application of the Army Field Manual was an impediment to intelligence-gathering, and whether it needed to be rewritten. Note as well that Gina Haspel, Pompeos newly appointed deputy director at the Agency, is notorious for her involvement in its black sites and torture practices in the Bush years (as well as the destruction of video tapes of waterboarding sessions  evidence, that is, of those criminal activities).

Trump himself supports such torture practices. On January 25th, he told ABC News that he still clings to his belief that torture works. His evidence? The testimony of people at the highest level of intelligence who as recently as twenty-four hours ago told him that it works absolutely. It seems likely one of those people was Gina Haspel, who has a good reason to cling to that same belief.

In reporting ABCs interview with Trump, CNN, like most mainstream media, allowed itself to be distracted by the question of whether or not torture is an effective way of getting information from someone. It isnt, as the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in its landmark 2014 report. However, the question really shouldnt be whether torture works. The question should be: Is it either moral or legal? And Donald Trump notwithstanding, the answer in both cases is no.

Pompeo is also a big fan of NSA-style mass surveillance and has called for the reinstatement of the NSAs massive secret collection of telephone, Internet, and social media metadata. The telephone data part of the program officially expired in November 2015 as a result of the USA Freedom Act, passed earlier that year. Under the new arrangement, metadata is held by the phone companies, rather than directly by the NSA, which now needs a FISA warrant to get access to those records. Internet and social media records are still directly available to the NSA, however.

But thats not enough for Pompeo. Human Rights Watch points to a 2016 Wall Street Journal op-ed, in which Pompeo urged Congress to pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata  that is, records of communications, such as their dates, parties, and durations  and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database.

HRW observes that, in spite of repeated written and oral questions in the context of the hearing, Pompeo remained vague on what he meant by the potentially expansive and discriminatory term lifestyle information. As one devoted to the lesbian lifestyle, I dont find this particularly encouraging.

Fortunately for those of us who hope to see the national security state dismantled someday, as recent events have indicated, that edifice and its friends in both parties are not a seamless whole. There are runs and tears throughout its fabric, and part of our job is to help open those gaps wider  always keeping in mind that while politics may make strange bedfellows, there are some people you dont ever want to sleep with. Even in the Trump era, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, at least not when that enemy is the CIA.

Enemies of Enemies of Enemies

If the CIA is the enemy of my enemy, then Vladimir Putins government in Russia must be the enemy of the enemy of my enemy. Is it therefore my friend?

This is a complicated and delicate question. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has just set its doomsday clock forward to two-and-a-half minutes to midnight, 30 seconds closer to catastrophe.

In the shadow of nuclear war, who wouldnt be eager to see tensions between Russia and the United States defused? At the same time, I become uncomfortable when some of my colleagues on the left appear to believe that any adversary of U.S. hegemony may represent a potential ally for us.

For example, the Nations Stephen Cohen, whose many years of writing on the Soviet Union served as an important corrective to the official narrative of the time, characterizes those who today are wary of Putin as enemies of detente. He points to a New York Times editorial whose descriptions of Putins leadership over the years were so distorted they seemed more like Saturday Night Lives ongoing parodies and calls out Times columnist Paul Krugmans neo-McCarthyite baiting of Trump for his admiration of Putin.

I can agree with Cohen that Krugman goes over the top when he refers to the present administration as the Putin-Trump regime. But its a mistake to equate legitimate suspicion of Russia and Putin with the efforts of Senator Joe McCarthy to discredit the U.S. left (and liberals) during the Cold War. The Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union, and distrust of Vladimir Putin is not McCarthyism.

Cohen is certainly correct that Putin has good reason to be wary of what he calls NATOs highly provocative buildup on Russias Western border. But even if Russia quite rightly objects to the way NATO has moved east, it doesnt prove that Putins government didnt try to influence the U.S. election. Such things are hardly beyond the realm of possibility. After all, the United States has a long history of doing just that to countries around the world (as did the Soviet Union in its day).

That the Washington establishment opposes Russian challenges to the U.S. urge for global dominance doesnt make Vladimir Putin any less an autocrat, or Russia under his rule any more a country to emulate. Indeed, on January 27th, the Russian parliament voted 380-3 to decriminalize domestic violence. A week later, Putin signed the bill into law. Which way, I wonder, would Donald Trump go if similar legislation were on the table here?

What About Friends?

When the thieves who run our government fall out, we should be glad  and find ways to drive the wedge deeper. When John McCain does something we approve of, like objecting to Trumps executive order on immigration, we can agree with him, but notice as well that, in the next breath, he says he supports Trumps commitment to rebuilding our (already vast and unprecedentedly powerful) military.

Theres a difference between people who find themselves sharing the same adversary and people who can be, to use an old-fashioned term, in solidarity with each other. Those of us who oppose U.S. military adventurism abroad and inequality, racism, and sexism at home need to remember who our friends are. The next few years must be a time of building broad coalitions and tightening the bonds among organizations and people who believe that, even now, a better world is still possible.

In the mixed-up looking-glass universe that is Trumplandia, we are going to need our friends more than ever. This is true domestically, which means, for instance, that tenants rights groups will need to keep jumping into struggles for immigrant rights (as is already happening in many places), and veterans organizations will need to keep on supporting fights to preserve Native land and water rights as in the struggle over the Dakota Access pipeline. Its true on the international level, as well. We will need to build strong ties with people in Europe fighting the rise of the far right there, and to continue our solidarity with the victims of U.S. military actions around the world.

But its also true at the level of our individual lives. Now especially we need contact with the people we love to keep us strong and hopeful. Now is a good time to remind your friends that you love them, and that you will have their backs. Its a time to march together, but also to eat together. To strategize and organize, but also to make each other laugh. Its a time to remember who our adversaries are, but also to cherish our friends.

Rebecca Gordon, a TomDispatch regular, teaches in the philosophy department at the University of San Francisco. She is the author of American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes. Her previous books include Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States and Letters from Nicaragua.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, John Feffers dystopian novel Splinterlands, as well as Nick Turses Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardts latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Copyright 2017 Rebecca Gordon

Via Tomdispatch.com
According to an Amnesty International report (AI) [press release] on Friday, the ongoing political persecution of Anwar Ibrahim is symbolic of Malaysias crackdown on human rights. According to Josef Benedict, AIs Deputy Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Anwar has spent two years in prison on politically-motivated charges. Since Anwars conviction, Malaysian government attacks on civil society have reportedly increased. The Malaysian government has strengthened its attack on citizens rights to freedom of expression and assembly through harassment, intimidation, arrest, and prosecution of activists favoring Anwars immediate release, says AI. Benedict said:

The longer Anwar Ibrahim and other prisoners of conscience remain behind bars, the clearer it becomes that the government has no interest in upholding its international human rights obligations and commitments and instead wishes to use its power to silence anyone it disagrees with.

A clear indication of this, according to the AI report, is Prime Minister Najib Razak strengthening of the Malaysias Sedition laws [press release].

Anwar was convicted of sodomy in 2014 less than a year after he led a three-party opposition alliance [JURIST report] to massive electoral gains in 2013. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined [JURIST report] that Anwars imprisonment was political and urged his immediate release. The Kuala Lumpur High Court acquitted Anwar in January 2012, but an appeals court overturned the acquittal [JURIST reports] and sentenced Anwar to five years in prison. The opposition leader was arrested in July 2008 after he filed a lawsuit against his accuser [JURIST report] a month earlier. In January the Malaysian court of appeal ruled that Anwar Ibrahim can continue to challenge the rejection of his petition for a royal pardon [JURIST report]. Following his conviction others have faced persecution. In April 2015 a Malaysian cartoonist known for his political caricatures was charged with nine counts of sedition [JURIST report] over a series of tweets criticizing the countrys judiciary. In March of that year Anwar Ibrahims daughter was arrested for acts of sedition [JURIST report]. September 2014 a Malaysian professor was charged with sedition [JURIST report] for his opinion on a political crisis that occurred five years prior.
A government complaint database that helps consumers resolve grievances with financial institutions is one of several services that could soon be eliminated, according to a memo by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex), which was leaked to the press yesterday.

According to individuals familiar with its workings, the Consumer Complaint Database, sponsored by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), has provided useful information and assistance not only to consumers, but to businesses as well.

The fate of the database was first mentioned yesterday when Bloomberg reported on a memo by Hensarling, an outspoken critic of the CFPB. The memo outlined a new version of the Financial CHOICE Act (Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs), a bill originally advanced by the House Financial Services Committee in September.

The new bill would lead to the repeal of the Consumer Complaint Database. It would also eliminate the CFPB's authority to punish unfair, deceptive or abusive practices among banks and other lenders, and it would allow the President to handpickand firethe bureau's director at will.



Since the database went live in late 2012, consumers have been able to report their complaints and get a company response, and in some instances redress. About 25,000 complaints are filed each month from consumers about their dealings with banks, credit card issuers, mortgage lenders, student-loan servicers and other financial products and services.



When a complaint is filed by a consumer, the CFPB alerts financial institutions to the complaint and the company must provide a response to the consumer through the Consumer Complaint Database, usually within 15 days. The CFPB logs the complaints in the database showing not only the name of the company the consumer is complaining about, but also how quickly the company responded and whether the consumer was satisfied with the resolution of the complaint.

Story continues

The CFPB says restitution from database complaints has contributed to its providing nearly $12 billion in relief to 29 million aggrieved consumers in the past five years.

CR's recent Consumer Voices survey shows that Americans have concerns about the accountability of the banking industry. Almost two-thirds of respondents said they are either only slightly or not at all confident that banks and investment companies are acting transparently and responsibly to charge reasonable fees and protect their investments.

Ongoing Controversy

The Consumer Complaint Database has had its critics. Banks and other financial institutions have expressed concern that it allows consumers to report complaints anonymously, and that the CFPB doesn't not fully vet the complaints for accuracy.

We have long objected to the public disclosure of unverified consumer complaints and repeatedly called on the Bureau to make improvements, says John Mechem, vice president of public affairs for the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Ruth Susswein, deputy director of national priorities for Consumer Action, an advocacy group based Washington, D.C., defended the way the database works.

"A company has every right to come back and say, that's not what happened," she says. Susswein noted that in many cases, consumers resort to complaining to the CFPB when they've exhausted their efforts working directly with companies. "This may be their last, best hope for resolution, she says. It's an effective and unique, first-class complaint system.

A Tool for Businesses

Consumers are not the only beneficiaries of the database. Steven Ramirez, CEO of Beyond the Arc, a consumer-experience consulting firm based in Berkeley, Ca., says his company has mined it for insights to present to financial-industry clients.

"It can be useful to financial services companies because it is the one source of data that is comparative across institutions," he says. Ramirez points out that businesses can see complaints filed against other companies as well, and that by reviewing the complaints a business can better understand its strengths and weaknesses.

While Hensarlings office did not return a call requesting comment for this article, the Congressman has previously maintained that his bill will benefit consumers.



The Financial CHOICE Act will help grow the economy for all Americans, not just those at the top," Hensarling's office wrote in a press release about the original bill last September. "It promotes strong and transparent markets to revitalize job creation in our poorest communities and ensures every American has the opportunity to achieve financial independence, no matter where they start out in life.

Consumer advocates, though, do not share that opinion.

"All of the strides and changes, the safeguards, the protections that were put into place to avoid another financial crisis will disappear," says Pamela Banks, staff attorney for Consumers Union, the policy and mobilization arm of Consumer Reports. "It's like back to the wild, wild west."





More from Consumer Reports:

Top pick tires for 2016

Best used cars for $25,000 and less

7 best mattresses for couples





Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright  2006-2017 Consumers Union of U.S.
The state of Georgia has settled [NAACP press release, PDF] a lawsuit against Secretary of State Brian Kemp over a voter registration law that would reject any application that did not exactly match personal identification information in state and federal databases. As part of the settlement, Georgia will no longer reject voter applications for not exactly matching the databases. Advocacy groups have criticized the law, stating that it disproportionally impacted minority voters. Between 2013 and 2016, a total of 34,874 voter applications were denied for having mismatched information. Of those, black applicants were eight times more likely to fail the states verification process than white applicants, and Latinos and Asian-Americans were six times more likely to fail, according to the suit. Candice Broce, Brian Kemps spokeswoman, had stated that the settlement was done at the advice of the Attorney Generals office in order to avoid further expenses due to litigation. The lawsuit was originally filed by the Georgia NAACP, the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples Agenda, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice  Atlanta.

The lawsuit was originally filed [JURIST report] in September. It is one of many legal challenges to voter registration throughout the United States. In November the NAACP filed [JURIST report] a lawsuit in North Carolina over the cancellation of thousands of voter registrations prior to the presidential election. In October the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] granted a stay [JURIST report] on the preliminary injunction that had halted Michigans ban on taking ballot selfies. Also in October, a New York law prohibiting a person from showing the contents of her prepared voting ballot was challenged as unconstitutional [JURIST report] by state voters for violating their First Amendment rights. The complaint alleges that the law infringes on voters freedom of speech and freedom of expression under the US Constitution as well as the New York state Constitution. In September similar laws banning the ballot selfie have been rejected in Michigan and New Hampshire [JURIST report].
(Adds Abadi adviser comment, context)

By Maher Chmaytelli and Saif Hameed

BAGHDAD, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Iraq won't take part in any regional or international conflicts, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told state TV on Saturday.

The comment came after Abadi had spoke in a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump during which tensions with Iran were mentioned. The call was the first between the two leaders.

A political commentator close to Abadi, Ihsan al-Shammari, said Abadi's comment addressed the U.S.-Iranian tensions.

Iran has close ties with the Shi'ite political elite ruling Iraq while Washington is providing critical military support to Iraqi forces battling Islamic State.

"Iraq is very keen to preserve its national interests (..)and does not wish to be part of any regional or international conflict which would lead to disasters for the region and for Iraq," Abadi said, according to state TV.

Trump said on Friday that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani "better be careful" after the latter was quoted as saying that anyone who speaks to Iranians with threats would ''regret it.''

The White House on Friday said Trump and Abadi "spoke to the threat Iran presents across the entire region," in their first phone call since the inauguration of the U.S. president.

Abadi's office on Friday also gave a readout of the phone call that took place overnight Thursday, without specifically mentioning Iran.

Both readouts stressed the importance of their continued cooperation against Islamic State, as the militants are being pushed back in Iraq and losing control over Mosul, the last major city stronghold under their control in the country.

The United States has more than 5,000 troops deployed in Iraq and is providing air and ground support in the battle of Mosul.

Iran has also played a major role in the fight against Islamic State by arming and training Iraqi Shi'ite groups collectively known as Popular Mobilization.

"The Iraqi prime minister Dr Abadi is stressing once again the policy of neutrality and to steer clear from conflicts,'' political commentator Shammari told state TV.

Story continues

The Iraqi readout said Abadi asked Trump to lift the ban on people from his country traveling to the United States.

U.S. courts suspended the restrictions announced end January on entries from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Trump has said he will keep trying to reinstate them.

Abadi resisted calls from influential pro-Iranian Shi'ite politicians to retaliate against the ban, at a meeting held on Jan. 29, citing Iraq's need for U.S. military support.

Washington last week ratcheted up pressure on Iran, putting sanctions on 13 individuals and 12 entities days after the White House put Tehran "on notice" over a ballistic missile test.

Iran's dominant influence in Iraqi politics was eroded after Islamic State routed the Iraqi army commanded then by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a close ally of Tehran, in 2014.

(Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
* Sadr wants overhaul of elections body ahead of vote

* Katyusha rockets fired on Green Zone from Sadr-held district

* Protests ill-timed for Abadi plan to focus on Mosul battle (Adds Katyusha rockets hitting Baghdad's Green Zone)

By Maher Chmaytelli and Saif Hameed

BAGHDAD, Feb 11 (Reuters) - An Iraqi policeman was killed and seven others wounded in clashes with protesters loyal to prominent Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who had gathered in Baghdad on Saturday to demand political reforms, the interior ministry said.

Thousands had gathered in the central Tahrir Square to demand an overhaul of a commission that supervises elections ahead of a provincial poll due in September.

Police tried to disperse them as they attempted to cross the bridge that links the square and the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings, embassies and international organisations.

The interior ministry didn't confirm tolls given by pro-Sadr sources reporting up five killed among demonstrators and as much as 320 wounded. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered an investigation into these claims.

Several Katyusha rockets hit the Green Zone on Saturday evening, but there were no casualties, a military spokesman said. The rockets seem to have been fired from Baladiyat, a district where Sadr has a lot of followers, he said in a statement.

The escalation of problems with Sadr comes at the wrong time for Abadi who wants to keep the focus on dislodging Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul.

Police fired tear gas to prevent protesters from getting too close to the Green Zone, witnesses said, choking about two dozen demonstrators, according to the organisers of the protest.

Bursts of gunfire were also heard but it was not clear where they came from.

Sadr followers held several demonstrations last year to press for anti-corruption reforms and stormed the Green Zone after violent clashes with security forces.

GUNS AND KNIVES

An interior ministry statement said guns and knives were found on some protesters.

Story continues

Sadr issued a statement saying the demonstration was peaceful and accused the police of using excessive force.

He said his supporters wanted to get near the Green Zone to make their voices heard by decision makers, and had no intention of storming it again. Sadr asked the protesters to "withdraw until further notice".

Television footage showed young men, many holding Iraqi flags and covering their faces, running away as smoke filled Tahrir Square.

Sadr suspects that members of the electoral commission are loyal to his Shi'ite rival, former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, one of the closest allies of Iran in Iraq.

Sadr is openly hostile to American presence and policies in the Middle East and, at the same time, he has a troubled relationship with Iraqi political groups allied with Iran.

A political commentator close to Abadi, Ihsan al-Shammari, told Reuters the protests were ill-timed but would not affect the U.S.-backed military campaign on Mosul.

"The protests don't affect the ongoing military preparations to retake Mosul, but the problem is that, at this time, they are disturbing the security situation," he said.

Iraqi forces last month completed the first phase of the Mosul offensive that started in October, by removing the militants from the eastern side of the city. They are now preparing to attack the part that lies west of the Tigris river.

(Additional reporting by Kareem Raheem; Editing by Clelia Oziel)
CHICO, Calif.  Ruth Marilyn Wendell Lundberg, 90, of Chico died Saturday, Feb. 4, 2017, in Chico.

Memorial services were today (Saturday) at Richvale Evangelical Free Church.



Ruth Lundberg, our dear Swedish-American mother, went to be with her Lord on Feb. 4, 2017, surrounded by her family.

Ruth Marilyn Wendell was born to Vera and Joseph Wendell on Feb. 21, 1926. She joined siblings Dwight and Elizabeth Ann, and later, J. Rodney, to make a family of six on the family farm near Keene in Kearney County, Neb.

From the family home, Ruth could see prairie farms and churches to the horizon in all directions and watch the thunderstorms and blizzards approach from more than 20 miles away. The sense of the prairie never left Ruth, instilling a love of the land and its creatures.

Ruth loved to tell tales of growing up on a farm and the fun and mischief available to a farm child. Hypnotizing chickens, sliding down barn roofs, cleaning the cream separator, surreptitiously sharing cookies with little brother under the bed, or sampling mud (yes, mud) from the running board of the family sedan were some of the stories she loved to tell.

After she graduated from Axtell (Neb.) High School in 1942, Ruth enrolled in Kearney (Neb.) State College to study home economics. At college, Ruth seemed to be involved in every club. She was a musician, playing trumpet and singing with the a cappella choir.

She also competed with the Naiads synchronized-swimming team and became the first homecoming queen for the college. Her grandchildren sometimes called her Hardcore Grandma for competing with the Naiads without wearing a nose-plug underwater. After college, Ruth taught home economics in Nebraska for six years.

Ruth first met Eldon Lundberg, her future husband, in Nebraska when he visited family who attended her home church, Keene Evangelical Free Church. They were later married in the same church on Dec. 4, 1953, in the midst of a blizzard.

After a honeymoon in New Orleans, they returned home to Richvale. Here, they began to build the home where they would live for the rest of their married lives. It was in this home that they raised their three children, Jennifer, Grant and Julianne.

Ruth was a partner with Eldon, supporting their rice-farming life in Richvale by creating an inviting home and meals for the family, in the busy times of spring work and harvest, and driving with him during irrigation time or making sure all was secure at the end of the day.

She partnered with Eldon and his brothers and their wives in the founding of Lundberg Family Farms, too. She enjoyed taking driving trips with Eldon and stopping to visit natural foods stores throughout the country to promote the product.

Ruth was a longtime member and very involved in the life of the Richvale Evangelical Free Church. She sang with The Womens Trio with Marge Rystrom and Irene High for radio broadcast of services there. She participated in and often led the WMS there and taught Sunday school, served on the board and played her trumpet there until her 70s. She regularly prepared food for events at the church.

Ruth loved to travel with husband Eldon and the children, instilling in them her love of experiencing new places. They joined the California Flying Farmers and attended monthly fly-ins together throughout California.

They made frequent trips back to Nebraska by car, train or plane to visit family. They traveled to Europe and the Holy Lands of the Middle East with a group from Richvale Evangelical Free Church. They visited Sweden and the United Kingdom and many European, Asian and South American countries, benefiting from Ruths excellent travel planning.

Ruth treasured attending Family Camp with Eldon and their children and grandchildren at Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center in Felton. The family love to trade stories about the adventures, songs, food and love of Jesus shared in those summer retreats.

Ruth enjoyed exploring gourmet cooking as well. Her children and friends remember many a memorable breakfast, lunch or dinner around her festive table. She loved making a Swedish Christmas Eve dinner of Swedish foods or teaching her family to enjoy smoked oysters or sill, pickled herring.

We are especially thankful for friends and family who took the time to visit as Ruth became less mobile. We are thankful for Andrea Lewis, Moms companion, and the gentle staff at Prestige Assisted Living in Chico for their generous, kind care and friendship in the final years of her life. These folks helped us make Moms life happy and healthy right up to the end.

Ruth is survived by her children and their spouses, Jennifer and Kevin Parrish, Grant and Susie Lundberg and Julianne and Blake Stafford; and her grandchildren, Emma, Madeline, Grace, Ansel, Georgia Mae and Nelson. Ruths surviving brother, J. Rodney and wife Delores Wendell in Nebraska, were favored daily conversation partners through her life.

We will miss Ruths love and gentle nurturing ways now that she is gone. Our sweet memories of her will live on as we share stories of her life.

Memorials are suggested to the Lundberg Family Foundation, Richvale Evangelical Free Church or Keene Evangelical Free Church.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

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LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwired - February 09, 2017) - ITUS Corporation ("ITUS") (ITUS), a company using the power of the immune system to diagnose cancer, today announced that its President & CEO, Robert Berman, will present at the Biotech Capital Conference in London, England on February 21, 2017 at 10:30 am.

Biotech Capital is the largest healthcare investor conference in the U.K., which includes asset managers, private client brokers, family offices, analysts, and wealth managers. The conference is being held at The Brewery (Chiswell Street, EC1Y 4SD).

ITUS Corporation

ITUS funds, develops, acquires, and licenses emerging technologies in areas such as biotechnology. The Company is developing a platform called Cchek, a series of non-invasive, blood tests for the early detection of solid tumor based cancers, which is based on the body's immunological response to the presence of a malignancy. Additional information is available at www.ITUScorp.com.

Forward-Looking Statements: Statements that are not historical fact may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not statements of historical facts, but rather reflect ITUS Corporation's current expectations concerning future events and results. We generally use the words "believes," "expects," "intends," "plans," "anticipates," "likely," "will" and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements, including those concerning our expectations, involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond our control, which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and factors include, but are not limited to, those factors set forth in "Item 1A - Risk Factors" and other sections of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2016 as well as in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. You are cautioned not to unduly rely on such forward-looking statements when evaluating the information presented in this press release.

ITUS Corporation: FOCUSED ON INNOVATION
By Venus Wu and Julie Zhu HONG KONG (Reuters) - Missing China-born billionaire Xiao Jianhua was whisked in a wheelchair from a luxury Hong Kong hotel in the early hours of Jan 27 with his head covered, a source close to the businessman told Reuters. Xiao was carried into his own car at the entrance to the Four Seasons serviced apartments in the heart of the Asian financial hub in what appeared to be a "smooth operation", another source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The comments from the sources confirmed a report in the New York Times on the disappearance of Xiao, who has close ties to senior Chinese officials and their families. Despite a statement issued in Xiao's name over 10 days ago that he was seeking medical treatment overseas and had not been abducted, his disappearance has rekindled fears over Hong Kong's status as an independent judicial entity of China. "It is uncertain if Xiao was conscious when he left," the second source said, adding that it took at least a few people to carry the billionaire into the car. "There was no struggle in the whole process. You could even say it was efficient. It was a smooth operation." Reuters could not independently verify the circumstances at the time Xiao was taken out of the hotel or the condition of his health. Assistants of Xiao were waiting in the lobby of the hotel's serviced apartments when at least five people, dressed in casual attire, came in, said the second source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue. The group, which some media have reported were mainland Chinese agents, were escorted to Xiao's room by his assistants and they left shortly after with the businessman and some luggage, the second source said. The source close to Xiao who said the billionaire left the hotel in a wheelchair said his head was covered with some cloth, but it was not clear what the material was. The source added that as far as he knew Xiao did not use a wheelchair and there was nothing wrong with his legs. A Hong Kong police source who was briefed on the probe into Xiao's disappearance had previously told Reuters the case was initially treated as a "kidnapping" following a complaint from someone connected to Xiao. But after a review of CCTV footage at the Four Seasons and at the border checkpoint, police concluded that Xiao had voluntarily left Hong Kong. They said Xiao had entered mainland China through a border checkpoint on Jan 27 and that they were seeking more information on the case from Chinese authorities. Police and the Four Seasons did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday. China's Ministry of State Security, Foreign Ministry and Public Security Bureau have so far not responded to Reuters requests for comment on whether Chinese agents were involved in Xiao's disappearance. CORRUPTION CRACKDOWN Xiao's disappearance has sparked widespread media speculation that he has been drawn into Chinese President Xi Jinping's crackdown on corruption, which has ensnared a string of Chinese executives. Any indication that Xiao may have been forcibly removed from the former British colony would be a breach of the "one country, two systems" framework under which it has been governed since its return to mainland Chinese rule in 1997. Xiao's case has already spooked many mainland Chinese working in the city, with some already making contingency plans and seeking advice on moving assets overseas. Another source close to Xiao said his immediate family and the company's senior executives witnessed nothing unusual ahead of his disappearance. Xiao's wife and brother were not in Hong Kong when he left the Four Seasons, the third source said, declining to say where they were at the time. They immediately rushed back to Hong Kong, the source said. "Everybody freaked out," the source said. "Nobody knew where he went, nobody knew what was happening." Xiao's wife and brother have already "fled" Hong Kong to Canada, according to the third source. Xiao's family, company executives and lawyers wrote a statement in Xiao's name "in a rush" to quell speculation that the billionaire had been kidnapped, the source said. The statement, published on the front page of Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper five days after he went missing, said he was seeking medical treatment "outside the country" and "had not been abducted to the mainland." It is uncertain if the family had been in touch with Xiao when the statement was drafted. Outside law enforcement agencies, including those from mainland China, are not authorized to operate in Hong Kong, which enjoys wide-ranging freedoms not allowed on the mainland, including a separate legal system. Police commissioner Lo Wai-chung said in a radio talk show last Saturday that there was no sign of mainland authorities enforcing the law in Hong Kong. Xiao, who runs Tomorrow Holdings, a financial group headquartered in Beijing, was ranked 32nd on the 2016 Hurun China rich list, China's equivalent of the Forbes list, with an estimated net worth of $5.97 billion. At least two of Tomorrow Group's statements posted after Xiao's disappearance on their social media account were deleted, pointing to what appears to be heightened sensitivity in Beijing over the case. (Reporting by Venus Wu and Julie Zhu, Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Feb 10 (Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Friday:

JAPAN

Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe open a new chapter in U.S.-Japan relations with Trump abruptly setting aside campaign pledges to force Tokyo to pay more for U.S. defense aid. IMMIGRATION

Trump says he is considering issuing a new travel ban executive order, while White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus says the administration could still escalate a legal dispute over Trump's original travel ban order to the U.S. Supreme Court. Several Democratic U.S. senators and a Republican congressman whose district includes a section of the U.S.-Mexico border express skepticism about Trump's proposed wall there after learning the project's estimated cost is $21.6 billion. CHINA

Trump changes tack and agrees to honor the "One China" policy during a phone call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a major diplomatic boost for Beijing, which brooks no criticism of its claim to self-ruled Taiwan. RUSSIA-UKRAINE

The Washington Post reports White House national security adviser Michael Flynn privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Moscow's ambassador during the month before Trump took office. Flynn had previously denied discussing sanctions. Russian President Vladimir Putin proposes Slovenia, the birthplace of Trump's wife, Melania, as a good place for a meeting with Trump, but says the decision on a location is not Moscow's alone. Trump expresses support for an undivided Ukraine in a letter to Lithuania's president, using language similar to that of his predecessor Barack Obama, and seen as likely to be welcomed by Kiev and North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies. IRAN

Trump says Iran President Hassan Rouhani "better be careful" after Rouhani was quoted as saying that anyone who speaks to Iranians with threats would regret it. ADMINISTRATION

Trump pulls Elliott Abrams as a contender for the No. 2 position at the State Department after learning that the Republican foreign policy veteran criticized him during the 2016 election campaign, sources say. Tom Price is sworn in as U.S. secretary of health, which Trump says will allow his administration to fulfill his pledge to dismantle Obamacare and reshape the healthcare system. BANKING

The Federal Reserve Board's top bank regulator says he will resign, giving a boost to Trump's plans to ease reforms put in place after the 2007-09 financial crisis. (Compiled by Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis; editing by Andrew Hay, Grant McCool and G Crosse)
FRANKFURT, Feb 11 (Reuters) - German lighting group Osram has received approval from a U.S. agency for the 400 million euro ($425.52 million) sale of its LEDvance lamps unit to a consortium of Chinese bidders, a spokesman said, bringing the deal closer to completion.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a government panel that scrutinizes transactions over possible security concerns, gave its backing for the deal late on Friday, the spokesman said on Saturday.

A U.S. approval was needed as parts of the business of LEDvance, Osram's largest unit, are based in the United States, a company spokesman said.

The approval from CFIUS comes days after the U.S. agency told German chipmaker Infineon Technologies and U.S. LED lighting maker Cree Inc that Cree's $850 million sale of its Wolfspeed Power unit to Infineon might not go ahead because of security concerns. Osram agreed last July to sell the renamed LEDvance unit with 2 billion euros in sales and about 9,000 staff, to IDG Capital Partners, Chinese lighting company MLS Co and financial investor Yiwu State-Owned Assets Operation Center.

The Munich-based firm, listed on Germany's mid-cap index MDAX , is still awaiting approval from the Chinese State Administration for Foreign Exchange (SAFE), the last authority to back the deal. It expects closing of the transaction in fiscal 2017, the spokesman said.

($1 = 0.9400 euros)

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Writing by Andreas Cremer; Editing by Clelia Oziel)
The Blaze reports:

Scott Adams, creator the famed Dilbert comic strip, has been capturing attention over the last year or so with his observations about President Donald Trump and the publics reaction to him. 

But in the wake of the riots at the University of California, Berkeley, over an appearance by alt-right firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos, Adams gloves appear to be completely off.

Adams said hes ending his support of Berkeley, where he received an MBA years ago. I have been a big supporter lately, with both my time and money, but that ends today, he wrote in his blog post last Friday. I wish them well, but I wouldnt feel safe or welcome on the campus. A Berkeley professor made that clear to me recently. He seems smart, so Ill take his word for it.

Referring to Yiannopoulos, Adams said he decided to side with the Jewish gay immigrant who has an African-American boyfriend, not the hypnotized zombie-boys in black masks who were clubbing people who hold different points of view. I feel thats reasonable, but I know many will disagree, and possibly try to club me to death if I walk on campus.
You can now donate to Kiwiblog
The Herald reports:

It was the feature that Netflix users had been waiting for, but it could prove to be a costly headache for the streaming giant.

Late last year, Netflix introduced a feature that allowed users to download content and watch it while theyre offline. Its a fairly standard concept but Netflix took its time in rolling out the feature, perhaps because it was preparing its defences.

A company known solely for its work as a patent troll has now filed a lawsuit against the streaming giant claiming it owns the patent over the basic idea of downloading video from the internet for offline consumption.

A patent troll is a company whose business model is based primarily, if not entirely, on buying up patents and suing other companies for potential infringements in an effort to gouge money out of large businesses.

And that is exactly what Blackbird Technologies hopes to achieve at the expense of Netflix.

The company was founded by two former corporate patent lawyers, Wendy Verlander and Chris Freeman, and last week they filed a complaint against Netflix, as well as separate suits against Soundcloud, Vimeo and a few other online services for breaching their patent. 

The patent pertains to a system that allows website content to be downloaded and burned to a writeable CD and automatically sent to someone, without any human interaction.
Steam is emitted from a oil refinery in Sodegaura, Japan February 8, 2017. Picture taken February 8, 2017. REUTERS/Issei Kato

By Devika Krishna Kumar

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Friday after reports that OPEC members delivered more than 90 percent of the output cuts they pledged in a landmark deal that took effect in January.

Supply from the 11 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries with production targets under the deal fell to 29.92 million barrels per day, according to the average assessments of the six secondary sources OPEC uses to monitor output, or 92 percent compliance.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) - one of OPEC's six sources - said the cuts in January equated to 90 percent of the agreed reductions in output, far higher than the initial 60 percent compliance with a 2009 OPEC deal.

"Some producers, notably Saudi Arabia, (are) appearing to cut by more than required," the agency said in a report.

Global benchmark Brent crude (LCOc1) settled up $1.07, or 1.9 percent, at $56.70 a barrel. It touched a session high of $56.88.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures (CLc1) settled up 86 cents, or 1.6 percent, at $53.86 a barrel.

Another increase in U.S. oil rigs limited gains in the afternoon. Drillers added eight oil rigs in the week to Feb. 10, bringing the total count up to 591, the most since October 2015, energy services firm Baker Hughes Inc (BHI.N) said. [RIG/U]

"From a psychological viewpoint, a big number to close above would be $54, and the rig count probably made that a little less likely," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago, speaking about U.S. crude.

Crude has benefited from recent strength in gasoline prices (RBC1) as a glut seems to be gradually eroding. [EIA/S]

Gasoline futures (1RBc1) rose 1.3 percent on Friday to $1.59 a gallon.

The IEA, which advises industrial nations on energy policy, said if current compliance levels hold, the global oil stocks overhang that has weighed on prices should fall by about 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the next six months.

Story continues

The agency also raised global oil demand growth expectations for 2017 to 1.4 million bpd, up 100,000 bpd from its previous estimate.

Nevertheless, producers will probably have to extend the production cuts beyond six months if they want to achieve their goal of balancing the oil market.

(Additional reporting by David Gaffen in New York, Karolin Schaps in London, Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and David Gregorio)
Tracy Watkins writes:

Two things happened after Bill English named the election date that should worry his opponents. National used its advantage to hit the ground running  promising more cops, whacking petrol companies about the head with an inquiry into pricing, and wiping historic homosexuality convictions. Meanwhile, Labour squandered its good start to the year.

Add to that Englishs good call on Waitangi and Littles bad calls. And the liberalisation of medicinal cannabis.

One of Littles MPs even hired a PR firm to publicly call him out on it. MPs have been expelled for less.

Again, extraordinary.

Only one of these parties looks like its ready for an election.

The other looks like a candidate for euthanasia.

Kiwis have an insatiable appetite for Donald Trump. The world stops, even when Trump mouthpiece Sean Spicer speaks. For the political junkies among us, its overwhelming  and strangely gratifying  to be surrounded by so many new sufferers of our disorder. But this is a new, extreme-tourism style of politics; loud, dangerous and frenetic. And its sucking up the political oxygen here. The same day that English announced nearly 1000 new cops, the story broke about Trumps worst call by far abuse of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. No contest. The Opposition is finding it even harder to get traction. But what happens when exhaustion sets in and Trumps power to shock is diminished? Will a politics-weary public switch off? That could be fatal for Labour and the Greens. When the phone is off the hook its hard for opposition parties to get cut through.

Dirty Politics and Dot Com sucked up all the media last time, which helped National. Will Trump do the same? Who cares about the new housing policy announced by Labour, have you seen Donald Trumps latest outraegous tweet!

But there is another scenario. One in which we get swept along by the same forces of extreme anti-establishment-ism, a deep cynicism with the political system and a rejection of the status quo. The things that were broken that drove change in Britain and the United States are not so broken here. There is still a high level of trust in the integrity of our institutions, immigration has not produced the same pressures as in Britain (and the rest of Europe) and we are untouched by terrorism. But Brexit and the US election were notable for the willingness of some deliberately to erode public confidence in the system and not always by telling the truth. Will the rules also be thrown out the window here?

Hopefully not, but Winston will try. He has a Trump like connection to telling the truth.

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Union workers protest corruption outside the Public Ministry in Panama City, Friday, Feb. 10, 2017. Panama's Attorney General's Office ordered a search of offices belonging to law firm Ramon Fonseca Mora, a partner at Mossack-Fonseca, accusing the firm of setting up offshore accounts that allowed Brazilian construction company Odebrecht to funnel bribes to various countries. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)

PANAMA CITY (AP)  Panamanian anti-corruption prosecutors have searched the homes of the partners of a law firm accused of setting up offshore accounts that allowed a Brazilian construction company to funnel bribes to multiple countries.

Public Ministry agents arrived Friday at the homes of Ramon Fonseca Mora and Jurgen Mossack of the Mossack-Fonseca firm.

The two men have been in custody for questioning since Thursday, when the law firm's offices were searched.

Fonseca claims the case is about seeking a "scapegoat" to avoid a true investigation of who accepted bribes from the company.

Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht has admitted to paying some $800 million in bribes across Latin America.
BAGHDAD (AP)  Two rockets landed in Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone on Saturday night following clashes at anti-government protests that left five dead, according to Iraqi security and hospital officials.

The rocket attack left no casualties as the munitions landed on the parade grounds in the center of the highly fortified Baghdad compound that is home to Iraq's government and most foreign embassies. It was not immediately clear who fired the projectiles.

Saturday's protests were called for by influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and clashes that erupted as crowds pushed toward the Green Zone left two policeman and three protesters dead, according to police and hospital officials.

The officials said six other policemen were injured along with dozens of protesters. The violent outbreak prompted the government to call for a "full investigation."

The demonstrators loyal to al-Sadr gathered in Baghdad's downtown Tahrir square demanded an overhaul of the commission overseeing local elections scheduled this year. Al-Sadr has accused the commission of being riddled with corruption and has called for its overhaul.

Shots rang out in central Baghdad as security forces used live fire and tear gas to disperse the crowds. An Associated Press team at the scene witnessed ambulances rushing away protesters suffering from breathing difficulties.

Hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not allowed to brief journalists said the policemen died of gunshot wounds. They gave no details as to the cause of death of the protesters.

While at times the crowds advanced toward Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, by afternoon they began to disperse after a statement from al-Sadr's office called on his followers to refrain from trying to enter the compound.

Meanwhile, Iraq's prime minister ordered an investigation into the violence.

"The prime minister ordered a full investigation into the injuries among security forces and protesters during the demonstration today in Tahrir square," read a statement from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office Saturday evening.

Story continues

Al-Sadr's office issued another statement Saturday night following news of protester casualties claiming that "excessive force" was used against the demonstrators and threatened greater protests. "The next time the blood of our martyrs will not go in vain," the statement read.

"We will not give in to threats," said the head of the electoral commission, Serbat Mustafa, in an interview with a local Iraqi television channel Saturday afternoon. Mustafa said he would not offer his resignation and accused al-Sadr of using the commission as a political "scapegoat."

Al-Sadr has been a vocal critic of al-Abadi, and last year protests that included many of his followers breached the highly fortified Green Zone twice.

Attention in Iraq is generally focused on the war against the Islamic State group, with Iraqi forces currently fighting the militants in Mosul, but al-Abadi is also facing a serious power struggle in Baghdad. A deepening economic crisis and persistent insurgent attacks in the Iraqi capital have fueled support for powerful political opponents of al-Abadi like al-Sadr.

Al-Abadi has said that he respects the rights of all Iraqis to peacefully demonstrate but called on the protesters Saturday to obey the law and respect public and private property.

The Green Zone is home to most of Iraq's foreign embassies and is the seat of the Iraqi government.

___

Associated Press writer Murtada Faraj contributed to this report.
By Park Hyong-ki





NPS chief Moon Hyung-pyo is escorted by police to appear at the Constitutional Court as a witness in the impeachment case against President Park Geun-hye on Thursday. / Yonhap

Korea's National Pension Service (NPS) is facing a management crisis due its alleged involvement in Samsung's affiliate merger and the scandal involving President Park Geun-hye.



With more employees seeking to leave Korea's pension fund manager and global institutional fund managers keeping their distance amid the NPS's tarnished image, there are growing calls for the fund to launch an independent investment management unit.



More than 50 NPS employees reportedly left the company over the past year due to the latest scandal involving the Samsung affiliate merger, President Park and Choi Soon-sil, Park's longtime friend, and the planned relocation of the fund's headquarters to Jeonju in southern Korea later this month.



The presidential scandal is casting doubts over the NPS's ability to manage over 500 trillion won to provide for people's retirement.

Kim Sang-jo, an economist at Hansung University, and Jang Ha-sung, a business professor at Korea University - two of the most outspoken critics of the NPS - have called for fundamental change in the way the fund manages public money.



Kim said the fund should carry out "its responsibility in addressing governance and investment concerns and problems over companies it invested in for the people."



Jang said during a recent television program that there is a huge misconception here that the NPS's owner is the government, and that the owners of conglomerates are chaebol, even though they do not have any shares in the companies.



"We commonly think that Lee Boo-jin is the owner of Hotel Shilla. She does not own any shares in the company. Its biggest shareholder is the NPS and, therefore, the public is the major investor in the hotel," Jang said, adding that the NPS and the hotel have to answer to people's calls.



The NPS has an 11.6 percent stake in the hotel, according to an audit filing. Lee Boo-jin, the chief executive of Hotel Shilla who is the daughter of Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee, has no shares in the hotel, but Samsung Group subsidiaries, including Samsung Electronics and Samsung Life Insurance, hold a combined 17.4 percent.



This misperception over chaebol ownership and NPS management is mostly due to poor governance, which is still plaguing the Korean economy.



Politicians with no experience in investment management mostly ran the NPS over the years under the influence of the government, with key decisions made by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.



The presidential scandal is a case in point that fully exposed a broken system in operating and governing the fund.
Clockwise from top left, Donald Trump, An Hee-jung, Xi Jinping and Shinzo Abe



By Oh Young-jin

We need a Korea-first president.

None is in sight among presidential candidates in the forthcoming election.

They are by and large reactionary specialists, lacking a global view and direction to make Korea great again. They have dawdled on the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery to counter North Korea's missile threat, which is being vehemently opposed by China.

Their stances on the United States under President Donald Trump are similar to each other  hoping for the best when there is little hope.

On the North, one leading candidate talked about going to Pyongyang ahead of the U.S., if he became president. He faced a backlash and backtracked. All of them have little idea about how to handle the ever-bellicose Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

For the emerging hegemonic war that is set to repeat the clash of powers at the turn of the 20th century, none of the candidates has shown any vision about what the nation will be like for the next five years, or in 10 years' time.

Why cannot anybody plug a "Korea first" policy or use the catchphrase, "Make Korea great again"?

Is it because they want to shy away from the stigma Trump got from the use of these phrases?

If so, it is a mistake. True, Trump alternated between the two phrases and used them both. Now, pandemonium is breaking loose  his ban on Muslims entering the U.S.; the killing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade pact; unraveling the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); forcing U.S. firms to invest in their country and create more jobs for Americans; and pushing for an encirclement policy, asking Korea to pay for U.S. troops stationed on its soil.

All these Trumpian initiatives are the opposite of globalism, the world order that has been in place for the past century. We are entering into an age of representative isolationism, unilateralism, protectionism and nationalism.

However upset one may feel about Trump, he is not responsible for the changing of world order. Rather, he just like the rest of us is a piece that is being influenced by the approaching tsunami of change. The writing has been on the wall  Brexit., Trump's election and the emergence of extreme populists in the immediate past and the Occupy Wall Street movement and anti-globalist protests before.

Trump is not the first person who has turned nationalistic.

Abe is a revivalist with his catchphrase, "New Japan," a different phrase with the same Trumpian connotation, refashioning his country after the imperial one that his grandfather served. Abe's Japan has taken off the yoke of its pacifist Constitution and is now capable of waging war. Making it even scarier is a collective case of amnesia of the past misdeeds it committed during and in the lead-up to World War II.

China's Xi Jinping has also declared his version of China-first policy.

In a speech marking the 70th anniversary of victory over Japan on Sept. 3, 2017, Xi told the world that he vowed never to allow a repetition of the humiliating history of being trampled on by Japan and imperial Western powers. That was taken as a challenge to the United States for the control of the region and, by extension, dominance of the world. The world has officially got caught in the Thucydides Trap with one of Damocles' daggers pointing at the heart of Korea as well.

Even North Korea is riding this global trend  developing its own nuclear and missile arsenal, which it sees as a survival kit but can trigger its own demise.

Now, why are we the exception rather than the rule?

One may say that the slogan is not important because any nation is bound to seek a "first policy," while others argue that we as a middle power caught between bigger ones should accept a given fate not as first mover but fast follower. Some say calling for a "Korea-first" policy will only raise the suspicions of our bigger neighbors.

That very acquiescent attitude is responsible for our inward-looking self-view that turns a blind eye to what is happening outside and settling for a Schadenfreude-based constant internal struggle. Whenever this myopic case of intra-tribal battle peaked, the nation, with few exceptions, got into big trouble.

Japan robbed us of our country, when we were divided. The no-holds-barred internal strife preceded the invasion by the North of the South in the 1950-53 Korean War. Further into the past, it was not the small size of the country but the internal division that invited Japan's 1592-1598 Hideyoshi Invasion. More than its geography of being sandwiched between big powers was responsible for the 17th-century Manchu Invasions of Korea.

For those who are vying to become president and the voters who will choose him, it is time to get enlightened. In the heat of an ideological strife, one may feel the change of power  liberals taking over from progressives  is the zeitgeist. Conservatives may equally be adamant about how to minimize the damage done by its corrupt representative, Park Geun-hye, who is waiting for a verdict in the impeachment case against her. Park was brought down by allegations of a titanic case of corruption but at the core of people's wrath is her incompetence in the field of foreign affairs.

It's time for all of us to open our eyes and see the maelstrom threatening to engulf the world; and select a leader who is capable of not only unifying the nation across a wide ideological spectrum but also leading it through the upcoming period of turbulence. Do you see one in the field? I see one.



Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times' chief editorial writer. Contact foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com.
Former three-term lawmaker Park Jin, left, new chairman of the Korean-American Association, poses with his predecessor Han Sung-joo, a former foreign minister, after being elected to the position at the association's general meeting in Seoul, Friday. Park will serve as head of the fraternity group, established in 1963 to boost friendship between Korea and the United States, for three years.



/ Yonhap
Employees of British American Tobacco (BAT) Korea and members of seven civic groups in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, gather after signing a cooperation agreement on Thursday to support more marginalized residents. BAT Korea, which operates a plant in the southeastern city, has decided to increase its contributions by fourfold this year.



/ Courtesy of BAT Korea
An anti-Trump activist protests outside the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals building in San Francisco, Thursday. A federal appeals court refused Thursday to reinstate President Donald Trump's ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations, dealing another legal setback to Trump's immigration policy.



/ AP-Yonhap
Members of Quintessentially pay from 15,000 a year to avail of its concierge service and members-only benefits; from 2019 they will also be given exclusive access to Quintessentially One - a new cruise ship that is set to be one of the most exclusive and luxurious to ever sail.

Costing some 250 million to build, the vessel will travel between some of the worlds most prestigious events to serve as a waterborne base for big-spending travellers who wish to attend the likes of the Monaco Yacht Show and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. When not attending these high-profile occasions ashore, its occupants will have access to what Quintessentially calls a cornucopia of delights on board. As Quintessentially co-founder Aaron Simpson explains it: Where the traditional cruise model is to go somewhere, dock and get off, we will dock and people will want to get on.

Likely to be the focal point for boisterous get-togethers, a rooftop beach club will host all-night sessions by visiting DJs and offer an open-air pool encircled by cabanas. More abstemious types can instead nest in the library; consult personal trainers in a modern gym; visit a restaurant operated by London's The Wolseley; peruse the boutiques in an onboard shopping emporium; or attend to work matters at the business centre. A kids club with childminders and regularly scheduled activities will serve the families on board.

Impressive though the ship will likely be, Quintessentially has disingenuously billed the Quintessentially One the worlds largest superyacht. The 180m (590ft) Azzam is currently the worlds largest and though Quintessentially One at 220m (722ft) will be substantially larger, it will carry significantly more passengers than an exclusive-use superyacht and will include various services and amenities that would see it far more accurately described as a cruise ship.

Among those features is some 508 boutique hotel-style cabins (to be managed by an as-yet-undisclosed hotel brand) and a crew of 490. The 12-deck ship will also house a number of private residences, available for leaseholds to last for the life of the ship and with prices ranging from 8 million to 12 million. Owners of those abodes will also be provided with membership of Club One, an elite club within a club with benefits including a private restaurant, private bar and complimentary beauty treatments.

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Rooms on board will cost from 2,000 a night and Quintessentially members will be permitted to invite a limited number of guests to join them. Though the members-only restriction should ensure Quintessentially Ones exclusivity, it wont be the only cruise vessel aimed squarely at wealthy travellers.

Described as the worlds first discovery yacht, Scenic Eclipse is set to launch in 2018 and will sail to the Arctic and Antarctica as well as more conventional Caribbean and European destinations. Accommodating no more than 200 passengers when travelling to polar regions, the ship will provide accommodation in suites only, with each cabin featuring cabins and butler service. Prices as yet are unconfirmed.

Crystal Cruises, meanwhile, is launching a fleet of ships equipped with a two-passenger submarine as part of a full-scale expansion into expedition, river and yacht cruising. These Crystal Yacht Cruises will sail initially in the Seychelles, UAE and Europe. The company is also launching Crystal Aircruises in autumn. This ultra-luxurious plane - a retrofitted Boeing 777-200LR which normally would accommodate 314 to 451 passengers - will take just 84 passengers on round-the-world trips. On-board surprises will include a standalone restaurant.
edward snowden

Russia could return Edward Snowden to the US as a "gift" to President Donald Trump, according to two US intelligence sources cited by NBC News on Friday.

One unnamed official, who NBC said gleaned information from "a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports," said such a move could be an attempt to "curry favor" with the Trump administration.

Snowden is a former US National Security Agency contractor who stole top-secret documents in 2013 that revealed mass surveillance efforts by the US government. He shared those documents with journalists. Russia has been sheltering Snowden since 2013, and recently granted him permission to stay through 2020.

Trump has in the past called Snowden a traitor and a spy, and suggested Snowden may have given US secrets to other countries. Snowden denied those allegations on Friday, saying on Twitter, "I never cooperated with Russian intel. No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next."

Snowden also tweeted an interview he gave to Yahoo News' Katie Couric, in which he again declared, "I'm independent ... I have always worked on behalf of the United States ... Russia doesn't own me."

The notion that Russia could send Snowden back to the US as a gift to Trump is buoyed in part by Trump's stated desire for warmer relations with the Kremlin.

Trump

Trump, throughout the presidential election, expressed an affinity for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those intimations were often echoed by Trump surrogates, including national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Those moves were regularly condemned by both Republican and Democratic leaders who have warned that Putin cannot be trusted.

In an interview with NBC News, former deputy national security adviser Juan Zarate said, "I think at the end of the day, Moscow holds the cards here."

NOW WATCH: MITCH McCONNELL: Snowden 'did not perform a public service, he was a traitor'





More From Business Insider


trump

President Donald Trump and several associates continue to draw intense scrutiny for their ties to the Russian government.

A dossier of unverified claims alleges serious conspiracy and misconduct in the final months of the 2016 presidential campaign. The White House has dismissed the dossier as fiction, and most of the claims remain unverified. The timeline of major events, however, lines up.

The document includes one particularly explosive allegation  that the Trump campaign agreed to minimize US opposition to Russia's incursions into Ukraine in exchange for the Kremlin releasing negative information about Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton. The timing of events supporting this allegation also lines up.

The timeline of claims made in an unsubstantiated dossier presented by top US intelligence officials to President Donald Trump and senior lawmakers last month has increased scrutiny of events that unfolded in the final months of the Trump campaign.

The dossier alleges serious misconduct and conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia's government. The White House has dismissed the dossier as fiction, and some of the facts and assertions it includes have indeed been proven wrong.

Other allegations in the dossier, however, are still being investigated. According to a recent CNN report, moreover, US intelligence officials have now corroborated some of the dossier's material. And this corroboration has reportedly led US intelligence officials to regard other information in the dossier as more credible.

Importantly, the timeline of known events fits with some of the more serious alleged Trump-Russia misconduct described in the dossier. And questions about these events have not been fully answered, including the sudden distancing of Trump associates from the campaign and administration as the events and Russia ties became public.

Related:

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

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The dossier's allegations of Trump-Russia ties and conspiracy

The dossier was compiled by veteran British spy Christopher Steele, who was hired to investigate Trump's ties to Russia by the Washington, DC-based opposition research firm Fusion GPS. Steele developed a network of sources while working on the Moscow desk of UK intelligence agency MI6.

Steele, citing these sources heavily, wrote a series of memos detailing alleged coordination between the Kremlin and Trump's campaign team. Fusion then compiled the information into a 35-page dossier that has been circulated among lawmakers, journalists, and the US intelligence community since last year. The dossier was published in January by BuzzFeed.

Fusion was initially hired by anti-Trump Republicans to conduct opposition research on Trump in late 2015, and Democrats took over funding for the project after the Republicans pulled out. Fusion's cofounder, Glenn Simpson, a former investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, continued the project with Steele even after Democrats pulled funding when Trump won the election.

Trump and his inner circle have condemned the dossier as "fake and fictitious."

But US investigators, who have opened investigations into several members of Trump's inner circle and their ties to Russia over the past year, say they have been able to corroborate some of the details in the dossier by intercepting some of the conversations between some senior Russian officials and other Russians, CNN reported on Friday.

That has given the investigators "greater confidence" in the credibility of the some aspects of the memos, CNN's sources said.

Events that unfolded in the final months of the election  especially as they related to key players linked to and within Trump's inner circle  are illuminated by some of the allegations contained in the dossier. Four of these players and their role in these events warrant closer examination.

trump russia dossier

Paul Manafort: A language change on Ukraine, and a resignation

An American consultant named Paul Manafort, who was mentioned throughout Steele's dossier, served as Donald Trump's campaign manager until August 2016. He is said to have close ties to Ukraine and Russia.

What the dossier says

The dossier alleges that the Trump campaign made a secret deal with Russia in which Trump "agreed to sideline" the issue of Russian intervention in Ukraine. In return, the document claims, Russia promised to feed the emails it stole from prominent Democrats' inboxes to WikiLeaks to damage Hillary Clinton's candidacy.

The "well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between [the Trump campaign] and the Russian leadership was managed on the Trump side by the Republican candidate's campaign manager, Paul Manafort," the dossier says.

Manafort had advised Russia-friendly Ukraine leader Viktor Yanukovych, who he helped win the Ukrainian presidency in 2010. The dossier alleges that Manafort was still receiving "kickback payments" from the former Ukrainian leader last year, a charge Manafort has denied.

What happened

In July 2016, while Manafort was still Donald Trump's campaign manager, a change was made to the Republican Party's policy on Ukraine. The change fits with the dossier's assertion that the Trump campaign agreed to soften US support for Ukraine in exchange for the Kremlin releasing damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

The Republican National Committee's original draft language on Ukraine proposed sending "lethal weapons" to the Ukrainian army to fend off Russian aggression. But after a sub-committee meeting at the convention, the "lethal weapons" line was softened significantly and changed to "provide appropriate assistance."

Paul Manafort

As Business Insider has previously reported, the circumstances around this language change are controversial. The reason for the language change has also not been well explained.

The Ukraine language change was orchestrated by two national-security experts sent to sit in on the subcommittee meeting on behalf of the Trump campaign, according to the original amendment's author, Diana Denman, who was also in the meeting.

One of the Trump campaign representatives present at the meeting, JD Gordon, has since denied intervening in the platform hearing. Gordon has also denied that Trump or Manafort were involved in the language change and that there was anything nefarious about it.

A member of the Republican National Committee present at the meeting, however, confirmed to Business Insider that the change "definitely came from Trump staffers."

The altered Ukraine policy amendment, with the softer language, ultimately was included in the new GOP platform. A few days later, WikiLeaks began publishing the emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign. The timing coincided with the start of the Democratic National Convention the following week.

A month after the Republican convention, on August 14, The New York Times reported new details about Trump campaign manager Manafort's involvement with Ukraine. The paper reported that Ukraine leader Yanukovych's pro-Russia political party had earmarked $12.7 million for Manafort for his work between 2007-2012. Manafort has said he never collected the payments.

The New York Times story thrust the Trump campaign's connections with Russia into the international spotlight. Five days later, on August 19, for reasons that are still unclear, Manafort resigned as Trump's campaign manager.

The dossier further alleges that Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, became concerned when Yanukovych informed him on August 16  two days after the Times report was published  of "kickback payments" being funneled to Manafort. This was three days before Manafort resigned from the Trump campaign.

Michael Flynn: A trip to Moscow, a distraction from Ukraine, and secret phone calls

Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, is now Trump's national security adviser. Flynn was paid by the Kremlin to speak at a gala in December 2015, and is believed to have regularly communicated with the Russian ambassador to the US before Trump was sworn in.

What the dossier says

According to the dossier, a Kremlin official involved in US relations said that Russia attempted to cultivate US political figures by "funding indirectly their recent visits to Moscow."

These political figures, the dossier alleges, included "a delegation from Lyndon LaRouche, presidential candidate Jill Stein of the Green Party, Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page, and former DIA director Michael Flynn." The dossier went on to say that the effort to cultivate these figures had been "successful in terms of perceived outcomes."

flynn putin

The dossier alleges that the Trump campaign pledged to "raise defense commitments in the Baltics and Eastern Europe to deflect attention away from Ukraine." Recent reporting indicates that Flynn, now Trump's national security advisor, is poised to make good on that pledge.

What happened

In December 2015, Flynn, then recently retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency, traveled to Moscow to speak at a gala celebrating the 10th anniversary of state-sponsored news agency Russia Today.

Flynn later told The Washington Post that he had been paid to speak at the gala, where he was photographed sitting next to Putin at dinner.

Top Democratic lawmakers are now calling on the Defense Department to investigate whether Flynn ran afoul of the US Constitution by accepting money from the Kremlin.

Since the dinner in Moscow, Flynn has toed a Russia-friendly line that's out of line with his more hawkish former US defense colleagues. He has appeared on Russia Today (RT) several times as a commentator. He also suggested last year that he saw no difference between the state-run RT and other news networks like CNN, MSNBC, and Al Jazeera.

One of Flynn's appearances on RT in October 2015 ran under the headline: "Former DIA Chief Michael Flynn Says Rise Of ISIS Was A 'Willful Decision' Of US Government."

Michael Flynn

Last Tuesday, Politico reported that Flynn will recommend that Trump support the ascension of Montenegro, a small Balkan nation, into NATO. Russia officially opposes such a move. But it aligns with the dossier's suggestion that the Trump White House would support raising commitments "in the Baltics and Eastern Europe to deflect attention away from Ukraine."

Last Thursday, moreover, both The Washington Post and The New York Times reported that Flynn had spoken with Russia's ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, about the US economic sanctions on Russia before Trump was sworn in  including at least one call on the day President Barack Obama imposed new penalties on Russia for its election-related meddling.

Both Flynn and Vice President Mike Pence initially denied that Flynn and Kislyak discussed US sanctions during these calls. But counterintelligence officials told the Times that they have transcripts of the conversations and that the sanctions were discussed. Flynn has since backtracked on his denial, saying that he doesn't recall exactly what they spoke about.

Carter Page: Two trips to Moscow, and a 'leave of absence'

Carter Page, a former investment banker with Merrill Lynch, was an early foreign policy adviser to Trump. Page also served as an adviser "on key transactions" for Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom before setting up his own energy investment fund, Global Energy Capital, with former Gazprom executive Sergei Yatesenko.

What the dossier says

The dossier claims that Carter Page was used by Manafort as an "intermediary" between the campaign and high-level Kremlin officials.

Specifically, the dossier alleges that Page traveled to Moscow in July 2016, where he met with the president of Russia's state oil company Rosneft, Igor Sechin. An associate of Sechin's, the dossier claims, "said that the Rosneft President was so keen to lift personal and corporate Western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered Page and his associates the brokerage of up to a 19 percent (privatised) stake in Rosneft."

The dossier says that Page "expressed interest" in the offer but was "noncommittal." It also says that Page promised that "sanctions on Russia would be lifted" if Trump were elected.

What happened

The timing of the alleged meeting between Page and Sechin aligns with a Page trip to Moscow in July 2016, where he delivered the commencement speech for the New Economic School.

"Washington and other Western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change," Page said in the speech, which was heavily critical of NATO, the US, and other Western countries.

carter page

Page has criticized the US sanctions on Russia as "sanctimonious expressions of moral superiority," and he praised Rosneft CEO Sechin in May 2014 for his "accomplishments" in advancing US-Russia relations.

Page was in Moscow for three days in mid-July. It's unclear what he did or who he met with before and after giving the speech, but Yahoo's Michael Isikoff, citing a Western intelligence source, reported in September that Page met with Igor Sechin during his trip.

As happened with Paul Manafort, Page's role within the Trump campaign changed after news of his Russia connections became public. Page, who denied meeting with any sanctioned officials while he was in Russia, took "a leave of absence" from the Trump campaign shortly after the Yahoo report. The Trump campaign subsequently distanced itself from Page.

Rosneft, meanwhile, ultimately signed a deal that was similar to the one the dossier described: On December 7, the oil company sold 19.5% of shares, worth roughly $11 billion, to the multinational commodity trader Glencore Plc and Qatar's state-owned wealth fund. Page was back in Moscow on December 8, one day after the deal was signed, to "meet with some of the top managers" of Rosneft, he told reporters at the time.

Page's extensive business ties to state-owned Russian companies were investigated by a counterintelligence task force set up last year by the CIA, according to several media reports. The investigation, which is reportedly ongoing, has examined whether Russia was funneling money into Trump's presidential campaign  and, if it was, who was serving as the liaison between the Trump team and the Kremlin.

Sergei Millian: From touting Trump to downplaying ties

Sergei Millian, a Belarus-born businessman who is now a US citizen, founded the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in 2006. He has described himself as an exclusive broker for Trump's family business, the Trump Organization, with respect to real-estate dealings in Russia.

What the dossier says

One of the dossier's sources, "Source E," told a compatriot in July 2016 that the "conspiracy of cooperation between Russia and Trump involved hacking prominent Democrats. The hacking campaign "depended on key people in the US Russian emigre community for its success," the dossier states.

The Kremlin recruited "hundreds of agents" both in Russia and in the US who were either "consciously cooperating with the FSB or whose personal and professional IT systems had been compromised," the dossier says, citing "a number of Russian figures with a detailed knowledge of national cyber crime."

"Many were people who had ethnic and family ties to Russia and/or had been incentivized financially to cooperate," the dossier says. Source E allegedly told his compatriot that agents were compensated by "consular officials in New York, DC, and Miami," who issued "pension disbursements to Russian emigres living in the US as cover...tens of thousands of dollars were involved."

In return for this effort, the dossier says, Putin wanted information from Trump on Russian oligarchs living in the US, Source E said. The same source is quoted in the dossier as saying the Trump campaign was "relatively relaxed" about the attention on Trump's reported ties to Russia "because it deflected media and the Democrats' attention away from Trump's business dealings in China."

"Unlike in Russia, these [dealings] were substantial and involved the payment of large bribes and kickbacks which, were they to become public, would be potentially very damaging to their campaign."

What happened

The CIA established a US counterintelligence task force last spring to investigate whether the Trump campaign received funds from Russia. John Brennan, the former director of the CIA, also received a recording of a conversation last year from one of the Baltic states' intelligence agencies suggesting that money from the Kremlin had gone to the Trump campaign, the BBC reported.

"Source E," according to recent reports by the Wall Street Journal and ABC, is Sergei Millian.

Millian, who attended several black-tie events at Trump's inauguration last month, denies this. Following the now-common Trump White House communications strategy, he told Business Insider that the author of the Wall Street Journal report "is the mastermind behind fake news."

Millian described himself as an "exclusive" broker for the Trump Organization's real-estate dealings in Russia in an interview with Russian news agency RIA Novosti last April. I think partnership is based on friendship, mutual respect and mutual understanding, and business is based on buyer-seller relationships, he said of his work with the Trump Organization.

But Millian appears to have begun downplaying his ties to the Trump Organization after Western reporters started digging into Trump's Russia ties last summer.

Whereas Millian told RIA that he had been in touch with the Trump Organization as late as April 2016, he said in an email to Business Insider that the last time he worked on a Trump brand project was "in Florida around 2008." He did not respond to a request to clarify the discrepancy.

Millian, on his LinkedIn page, says he is the Vice President of the World Chinese Merchants Union Association. He wrote last April that he traveled to Beijing to meet with a Chinese official and the Russian ambassador to the Republic of San Marino. The dossier claims Source E  allegedly Millian  had knowledge of Trump's business dealings in China.

Millian has also worked with Rossotrudnichestvo, a Russian government organization whose "fundamental" goal is to familiarize "young people from different countries" with Russian culture through exchange trips to Moscow. The FBI has investigated whether Rossotrudnichestvo is a front for the Russian government to cultivate "young, up-and-coming Americans as Russian intelligence assets"  a theory Rossotrudnichestvo has strongly denied.

In December 2011, Millian wrote to Dmitry Medvedev, then the Russian president, to thank him "on behalf of the fifty American entrepreneurs invited by Rossotrudnichestvo to attend the first edition of the Russian-American Business Forum in Moscow."

Last month, however, Millian told Mother Jones he "never got any business with Rossotrudnichestvo." He did not respond to requests from Business Insider to clarify that discrepancy, either.

Millian told ABC last July that he is "one of those very few people who have insider knowledge of Kremlin politics who has the ability to understand the Russian mentality and who has been able to successfully integrate in American society."

"American citizens voted for President Trump and thus performed Gods will," Millian told Business Insider in an email on Thursday. "Your salvation is to pray for good health for the US President Trump and give your best efforts to help him make our country great again."

NOW WATCH: Watch protesters and Trump supporters get into a fiery argument on the National Mall right after the new president was sworn in





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donald trump

Building a "big, beautiful wall" on the US border with Mexico was a cornerstone of President Donald Trump's campaign.

When supporters cheered on the prospect at Trump's raucous rallies, he would ask who was going to pay for it, and the crowd would shout, "Mexico!"

Now that he's in office, Trump has conceded that Mexico may not pay for the wall, at least at first, instead footing American taxpayers with the bill. Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto has said his country will not pay for it.

On Saturday, Trump acknowledged reading reports of ballooning cost estimates for the border wall. A US Department of Homeland Security internal report this week pegged the potential cost at around $21.6 billion. But Trump qualified those estimates by saying he hasn't gotten involved in the negotiations to date.

"I am reading that the great border WALL will cost more than the government originally thought, but I have not gotten involved in the design or negotiations yet," the president tweeted on Saturday. "When I do, just like with the F-35 FighterJet or the Air Force One Program, price will come WAY DOWN!"

Trump was referring to the $600 million he said he knocked off Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, although experts agree the price was already coming down by that amount as the production cycle matured.

In his first week in office, Trump signed an executive order signaling his intention to build the Mexico border wall. It's still unclear exactly when construction may start or how it will be financed.

NOW WATCH: Here's how President Obama starts every morning





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President Donald Trump may have long promoted his reputation as a deal-maker, but the chances of landing a bilateral trade deal with Japan appear slim at best, analysts said.

Trade is likely to be on the agenda as Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meet on Friday and Saturday at the White House and at the president's Florida country club, Mar-a-Lago.

Abe's visit follows Trump's decision last month to formally pull the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would have created a 12-country Pacific rim free-trade bloc, including Japan. The TPP, which was negotiated during President Barack Obama's term in office, hadn't yet been voted on or ratified by Congress.

Trump has also recently claimed, with little evidence, that Japan has been manipulating its currency for trade advantage. The U.S. leader has also complained about his country's trade deficit with Japan, pointing particularly to an imbalance in auto sales: Japan exports more than a million cars to the U.S. annually, while the U.S. sells a little more than 10,000 vehicles a year in Japan.

But while the multilateral TPP may never be revived, Trump's stated preference for bilateral deals will struggle to gain too much traction with Japan.

Some analysts were skeptical that Abe would be quick to enter talks on a bilateral deal.

Tobias Harris, an analyst at Teneo Intelligence, told CNBC's "The Rundown" on Friday that Abe was more likely to try to "contain" trade issues.

"[Abe] can't just give and give and give a blank check to Trump," Harris said.

Abe needs to know "just how different a Trump vision for a bilateral free-trade agreement would be from the agreement the U.S. and Japan reached within TPP," Harris said. "I think Abe needs to get much more information on these issues before he can commit to really throwing Japan into bilateral negotiations."

Other analysts agreed.

"Abe will work on convincing Trump that continued corporate cooperation will promise greater employment opportunities for Americans in the U.S.," said Shawlin Chaw, a senior analyst at Control Risks, a global risk consultancy.

Story continues

"There's a lot of uncertainty in U.S.-Japan relations right now. Abe wants to ensure a sound footing for the future of bilateral relations to see how much he can push and prod the U.S. for something larger," she said.

There's another reason a bilateral deal may be tough: History.

Terada Takashi, a visiting professor specializing in international relations at National University of Singapore, said that in the 1980s and 1990s, Japan made a lot of concessions to the U.S., while the U.S. ignored many of Japan's requests, creating a "poor" relationship.

The difficulties of negotiating a trade deal with a much-larger partner may have spurred some of Japan's enthusiasm for TPP.

"In a multilateral [deal], smaller nations can create a bloc to negotiate," countering "powerful leverage," noted Takashi.

Trump's walking away from TPP also damaged at least some of Abe's structural reform drives, which may sour the outlook for a bilateral deal.

"There will be an impact on Abe's ability to push through some reforms," particularly in the agriculture and health care sectors, Control Risks' Chaw said. "Without the promise of a bigger export market, it's more difficult."

One example is that Abe's administration managed to push through some liberalizing measures for the tightly controlled agriculture sector with the promise of more to come to comply with TPP, in part by dangling the prospect of access to large export markets such as the U.S.

Reforming the agriculture sector has long been politically unpalatable in Japan, even though it's widely believed to be necessary in a country where food prices are considered relatively high because of the segment's inefficiencies.

Without reform, agriculture in Japan may become even more inefficient.

Outside of Hokkaido, the majority of farms are less than 3 hectares (7.4 acres) in size, with the average size less than 1 ha, according to data cited in a 2009 OECD report. In Hokkaido, the average farm size is still only 16.45 ha (40.6 acres), the data show.

Government data indicate that the average age of the nation's farmers is over 66 years, with many lacking successors.

But without TPP, further liberalization may be off the table, and Japan media have reported recently that Abe said that even in a bilateral deal, Japan would protect key agricultural products, such as rice, beef and wheat.

"Probably, Japanese farmers are not necessarily so much encouraging the more liberalized movement," noted Terada Takashi, a visiting professor specializing in international relations at National University of Singapore.

Takashi noted that without TPP, Australian and American rice farmers will likely now need to pay higher tariffs to access the Japanese market.

That was also noted by other analysts.

"It's difficult for Japan to open the agriculture market without reciprocity from the U.S. on other sectors," Control Risks' Chaw said. "U.S. agriculture companies will face resistance and limitations."

By CNBC.Com's Leslie Shaffer; Follow her on Twitter @LeslieShaffer1



Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.


PRESS RELEASE

Homeland Security Chief Kelly Urges Regional Cooperation To Combat Drug Trade; Mexico a Key Ally

Feb. 10, 2017 (EIRNS)In Feb. 7 testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee to discuss the Administrations border security policy, Homeland Security Secretary Gen. (Ret.) John Kelly underscored the importance of a

"layered approach that extends far beyond our shores, throughout the hemisphere, in partnership with our neighbors to the South and North."

Building "partner capacity" is crucial, he said, because illegal immigration and transnational organized crime not only threaten U.S. security, "but also the stability and prosperity of our Latin American neighbors." Kelly pointed to Plan Colombia, the U.S.-Colombian anti-drug cooperation program that began in the late 1990s, and included a strong U.S. military component, as a successful model to follow.

Answering a question as to whether securing the border would stop the flow of dangerous drugs, particularly heroin, across the border, Kelly responded that "if the drugs are in the Untied States, weve lost." He estimated that 99% of the heroin that enters the U.S. is produced in Mexico; poppies used to manufacture heroin are grown in Mexico and Guatemala, and then the drug is shipped to the U.S.

Kelly emphasized the importance of a partnership with Mexico, saying the United States would like

"to help them get after the poppy production...after the production labs...after the heroin, methamphetamine ... before it gets to the border. ...Youre never going to get to zero,"

he said, "but we know how to do this. Weve done it before with other drugs and other things that were bad for our society. Were not even trying."

The issue of U.S. "help" for Mexico, particularly if it involves U.S. military participation, is a very touchy one, however, as, for historical and political reasons, Mexico would never allow deployment of U.S. troops into the country. Thus, the nature of U.S.-Mexico cooperation from here forward remains to be determined. Plans to do so are already underway. On Feb. 7, Kelly spoke by phone with Mexican Government Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, which Osorio described as very constructive, and reported that Kelly planned to come to Mexico City very soon to meet with him and map out the bilateral security agenda in greater detail. Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson both met with Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray in Washington yesterday, and Tillerson announced that he, too, would travel to Mexico soon.

In an interview with Mexicos Grupo Imagen, as reported by Milenio Feb. 9, Osorio said Mexico has been working "as never before," in an "effective, complex and difficult job, that we must continue with a comprehensive strategy." He said that Mexico should in fact adopt "even bolder actions" than Plan Colombia, given that the global transport and production of drugs has become increasingly sophisticated.
PRESS RELEASE

NATO Military Buildup In the Baltics Continues

Feb. 10, 2017 (EIRNS)The U.S./NATO military buildup, set into motion under the presidency of Barak Obama, is continuing to run on autopilot. On Feb. 7, hundreds of German troops were welcomed to Lithuania by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite. The Germans are to form the core of the NATO battlegroup for Lithuania. On Feb. 10, they were followed by an armored company of 120 U.S. troops who brought with them ten M1 tanks and five Bradley fighting vehicles. The Baltic states are demanding even more from NATO, however, and are using the Russian Zapad 2017 exercise scheduled for next September as the pretext.

"We see that risks are increasing, and we are worried about the upcoming Zapad 2017 exercise, which will deploy a very large and aggressive force (on our borders) that will very demonstrably be preparing for a war with the West,"

Grybauskaite said after talks with her counterparts from Latvia and Estonia in Riga, according toa report in Reuters.

"This means that we will be talking with NATO about creating additional standing defense plans, about stationing additional military means and about creating a faster decision- making process",

she said. Reuters added that the three Baltic leaders will be lobbying U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis for additional U.S. troops during the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 17-19.

The Russians, not surprisingly, are responding to the continued NATO buildup.

"The alliance is known to have deployed hundreds of military bases along the rather big perimeter around Russia. The real increase of the number of NATO troops in countries neighboring Russia through permanent rotation of contingents as well as lack of the constructive dialogue with us urge Russia to take serious retaliatory steps,"

Russias ambassador to Lithuania, Alexander Udaltsov, told Sputnik, this morning. At the same time, however, he kept open the door to Russian-Lithuanian cooperation on matters of mutual interest.

"Russia, by the way, can cooperate closer with Lithuania in terms of curtailing terrorism threats, promoting safety of the borders. We have such proposals, so it is possible to go ahead with their realization,"

Udaltsov said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also addressed the NATO buildup, today. "The ongoing activities of the alliance in the regions adjoining Russian borders are certainly provocative and destabilizing," he told Izvestiya in an interview. Lavrov said Russia would shape its response to emerging risks accordingly and "is taking steps to neutralize potential and real threats."

"Russia is a peaceful country. But our peacefulness is based on the capability to ensure the countrys security in any situation. We continue to advocate a soonest deescalation of the military-political situation in Europe,"

he added.
PRESS RELEASE

President Trump and Prime Minister Abe Hold Cordial Meeting; Japan Prepared To Build U.S. Infrastructure

Feb. 10, 2017 (EIRNS)President Donald Trump and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a press conference today before traveling together to Mar-a-Lago, Florida, as part of a three-day visit between the two leaders. Abe was one of the first leaders to meet with President Trump after the election, and the two have obviously struck up a very close personal and political relationship. "The chemistry between us is very good," Trump said, "and thats not going to change." Trump called Japan an "important and steadfast ally" and called the U.S.-Japan alliance "the basis of peace in the Pacific region. The United States is Japans "fully engaged partner" and they will work together on maintaining freedom of navigation.

Abe, for his part, said that Japan has built infrastructure all over the world. "We have built factories in the U.S. and can build infrastructure all over the country including high-speed rail." He said Japan could build a maglev between Washington and New York which would get President Trump from his D.C. office to Trump Tower in New York City in one hour! "We will be able to contribute to President Trumps [infrastructure] program," he said, noting that there would be a "cross-technology dialogue" to be held between the two countries, a "New Framework," to be headed buy Vice President Mike Pence and Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso.

Abe said:

"With the Trump Administration there will be a new genesis of the U.S.-Japan relationship. The Vice President and the Prime Minister will discuss developing relations between the two countries. Treasury and the Finance Ministry will coordinate issues of financial cooperation, in a policy which would contribute to the prosperity of the world."

Abe made several comments aimed at confrontation with China, including a call for "freedom of navigation," a criticism of "state backed industries" interfering in "free trade," and concern over "intellectual property rights."

However, when a Japanese reporter asked Trump a question which challenged Trumps reversal of Obamas "pivot to Asia," implying that Trump would not defend Asia from "Chinese aggression," Trump did not take the bait. Instead he rep[lied:
PRESS RELEASE

Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping Have a Win-Win Telephone Call

Feb. 10, 2017 (EIRNS)Following up his letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Donald Trump had what can clearly be described as a win-win telephone discussion with his Chinese counterpart today. While the Western media seem to be fixated on reporting Trumps agreement with the One China policy, the Chinese side puts this further down in its reporting, in order to concentrate on the prospects for bringing China-U.S. relations to an historic high.

Both sides described the telephone call as "lengthy" and "extremely cordial," with both leaders expressing best wishes to each others peoples. "They also extended invitations to meet in their respective countries. President Trump and President Xi look forward to further talks with very successful outcomes," the White house statement said.

"President Trump agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor Chinas One China policy," a Chinese statement said. The two sides also signaled that with the "One China" issue resolved, they could concentrate on enhancing bilateral relations. "Representatives of the United States and China will engage in discussions and negotiations on various issues of mutual interest," the statement said. .

Xi responded that he appreciated President upholding the one China policy. "The development of China-U.S. relations can be complementary," he told Trump. "Both sides can become good partners," Xi said. President Trump said that maintaining high-level cooperation was important and that both nations should promote bilateral relations to an historic high level. They also extended invitations to meet in their respective countries. "President Trump and President Xi look forward to further talks with very successful outcomes," the White House statement said.

Unlike the wild media coverage, Xi noted that both countries have maintained close communication on issues of common concern since Trumps inauguration and noted the necessity and urgency of strengthening China-U.S. cooperation in the face of the current complicated international situation and various challenges.

Xi said China is committed to coexisting peacefully with other countries in the world, as well as conducting win-win cooperation with them and is ready to boost mutually beneficial cooperation with the United States in various fields such as trade and economy, investment, science and technology, energy, culture and infrastructure. He also said China will strengthen coordination and communication with the United States in international and regional affairs to jointly safeguard world peace and stability.

Xinhua reported that Trump said he was glad to speak by phone with Xi, and said that it is very important for both countries to maintain high-level communication. He expressed admiration toward the Chinese people for the historic accomplishment they have achieved in developing their country.

Trump said developing U.S.-China ties has won wide support from the U.S. people and that the two countries, as cooperative partners, can make joint efforts to help the bilateral relationship reach an unprecedented level. The United States is committed to enhancing win-win cooperation with China in economy, trade, investment and international affairs, Trump said.
If you have saved all year to strap on your mouse ears and go crazy on the tea cup ride at Disneyland, you are going to need to save a bit more.

Starting Sunday, the admission prices for Disneyland and the adjacent California Adventure Park in Anaheim are going up $2 for daily passes and as much as $20 for some multi-day tickets and annual passes.

Similar price hikes have been announced for Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.

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Daily tickets for the Anaheim theme parks vary in price, depending on daily demand. On peak-demand days, a one-day adult ticket to Disneyland or California Adventure climbs to $124, up from $119. On low-demand days, a one-day adult ticket jump to $97, from $95.

The biggest price increase will be for a three-day ticket to both parks, which climbs to $315 for adults, from $295.

Our pricing provides guests a range of options that allow us to better manage demand to maximize the guest experience and is reflective of the distinctly Disney offerings at all of our parks, Disneyland spokeswoman Suzi Brown said.

The prices increase despite the closure of several attractions in Frontierland to make way for construction of the $1-billion, 14-acre Star Wars expansion, which wont be open until 2019.

Starting in January of last year, the park permanently closed Big Thunder Ranch in Frontierland, Big Thunder Ranch Barbecue, Big Thunder Ranch petting zoo and Big Thunder Ranch Jamboree. Disneyland also temporarily closed nearby attractions on the Rivers of America  mainly Fantasmic, the Mark Twain Riverboat, the Sailing Ship Columbia, the Pirates Lair on Tom Sawyer Island, the Disneyland Railroad and the Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes.

Still, Disney has offered something new to go with the higher prices.

In January, Disneyland relaunched the classic Main Street Electrical Parade, the cavalcade of blinking lights and relentlessly cheery electronic music that was born in 1972. The parade returned to its home park after running for several years in Disney parks in Florida, Paris, Tokyo and at California Adventure Park. The nightly parade runs until June.

At California Adventure Park, Disney is remodeling its popular elevator-drop ride, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, to become an attraction based on Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy superheroes. The new ride is expected to open this summer.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.

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When the Obama administration announced an agreement last year to allow regularly scheduled flights into Cuba for the first time in more than 50 years, major U.S. airlines stumbled over each other to get access to the island nation.

But now JetBlue says it is reducing its service to Cuba, becoming the second U.S. carrier to cut back.

In December, American Airlines said it would drop one of the two daily flights between Miami and the cities of Holguin, Santa Clara and Varadero. The company cited weak demand in reducing its schedule to 10 daily round-trip flights from 13, starting in mid-February.

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As of May 3, New York-based JetBlue will fly aircraft with fewer seats to Havana, Santa Clara, Camaguey and Holguin. In total, JetBlue will fly 300 fewer seats a day to the Cuban destinations.

JetBlue would not attribute the cut in capacity to a decline in demand.

Its common practice to adjust schedules and  routes based on customer preferences, especially routes that are new to the network, said JetBlue spokesman Philip Stewart.

Meanwhile, Alaska Airlines, which flies to Cuba from Los Angeles, said it has not cut capacity or routes to Cuba. But a spokeswoman said it is common for new routes to take years to develop consistent demand.

Leisure markets tend to take a little longer to mature than business markets, particularly markets like Havana that havent had commercial air service for many decades, Alaska spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.

ALSO

Trump travel ban has already hurt industry, two studies say

Delta Air Lines calls for diversity training following onboard incidents

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Al Pacino takes to the stage at the famed Pasadena Playhouse. A pair of new paintings by Diego Rivera arrive at LACMA. And Netflix launches a new design series. This is Carolina A. Miranda, culture writer for the Los Angeles Times, delivering your weekly newsletter from Mexico City, where I am sustaining myself with very large sandwiches. Herewith, the weeks top culture stories:

Pacino at the Playhouse

Playwright Dotson Raders God Looked Away captures the life of Tennessee Williams in his later years, struggling with drug addiction and the specter of his success. In the title role is Al Pacino; playing his friend Estelle is Judith Light  and it all takes place on a stage that was key to Williams career. The production is nothing if not meta, writes The Times Deborah Vankin, a play about a playwright in a playhouse where, it turns out, Williams premiered early work. Los Angeles Times

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Vankin also sat down for an interview with artist Ooldouz Alaei Novin, an Iranian artist who currently has work on view at L.A.s Craft & Folk Art Museum, and has been personally affected by President Trumps travel ban. We are watching the news all the time, she says. You just dont know what is going to happen tomorrow. Los Angeles Times

Audience participation

Every Brilliant Thing, the unusual solo performance piece by Jonny Donahoe, currently on view at the Broad Stage through Sunday, requires the audience to act out small roles in a story about family and mortality. Times theater critic Charles McNulty says it is utterly charming. The audience enters the Edye, the intimate venue at Santa Monicas Broad Stage, as an anonymous crowd, he writes, and leaves a friendly troupe, theatrical comrades, an ad hoc ensemble united by a total strangers story. Los Angeles Times

Riveras land at LACMA

Two striking paintings by legendary Mexican painter Diego Rivera have landed at the L.A. County Museum of Art for the exhibition Picasso and Rivera: Conversations Across Time. Times art critic Christopher Knight writes about how Zapatista Landscape (1915) and Flowered Canoe (1931) combined iconic Mexican imagery with Western tradition. Los Angeles Times

Pacific Standard Time in Mexico

Discussing PST in Mexico City are, from left, Joan Weinstein, Michael Govan, Philippe Vergne, Chad Smith and Julieta Gonzalez. (Carolina A. Miranda / Los Angeles Times)

Cultural leaders from various Los Angeles institutions were in Mexico City this week to announce programming for the upcoming Pacific Standard Time series of exhibitions, which will focus on Latin America. The event, which I attended, turned into a cultural salvo in favor of exchange between the U.S. and Mexico. There is no us and them, LACMA director Michael Govan told me after the event had concluded. There is just us and us. Los Angeles Times

Design on Netflix

Netflix is kicking off a new design documentary series this week, Abstract the Art of Design, which features a lineup of prominent figures, including Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, illustrator Christoph Niemann and graphic designer Paula Scher. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne binge-watched all eight episodes. His conclusion: It is impressive enough to leave you wishing it might have dug deeper and been a shade less boosterish. Los Angeles Times

Documenting Mr. Gaga

Speaking of documentaries, director Tomer Heymann spent eight years chronicling the life and work of choreographer Ohad Naharin, the artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company, for the film Mr. Gaga: A True Story of Love and Dance. Times film critic Kenneth Turan says it makes for enjoyable viewing. If you are familiar with his mesmerizing work, nothing more need be said, he writes, if youre not, this feast of dance illustrates why others are. Los Angeles Times

Violins and a British organist

Violinist Lisa Batiashvili performs Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto on Thursday at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

A series of performances by the Los Angeles Philharmonic last week brought together favorite ballet scores as well as a classic work by Tchaikovsky  the much-recorded Violin Concerto, that was performed, in this case, by Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili. It was a memorable show, writes Times classical music critic Mark Swed: She dreamed with Tchaikovsky and escaped with Tchaikovsky and threw it all to the wind when that seemed a thrilling thing to do. Los Angeles Times

Swed also took in an unusual performance downtown by violinist Mark Menzies at Art Share LA  a composition by Luigi Nono, in which the musician moves among stands scattered around the space. This complex composition, Swed writes, is like an anatomical, physiological and spiritual examination of the violin. Los Angeles Times

Chris Thompson on marimba, Liam Byrne on viola da gamba and organist James McVinnie perform Nico Muhlys Slow Twitchy Organs at Walt Disney Concert Hall. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Swed also attended a performance by British organist James McVinnie, who took on the imposing instrument at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Though he has played at Westminster Abbey and at the 2011 wedding of Prince William, he remained unassuming. He avoided gaudy colors on an organ that certainly can produce them, states Swed. But he didnt shy away from occasionally power pedaling or letting out all the stops. Los Angeles Times

Not quite a play

Puppets, the D-Day invasion and a jump-rope contest featuring Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill. The play 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips is no ordinary work of theater. Produced by the British Kneehigh company, and directed by Emma Rice, 946 features music, but isnt a musical, and its a play, but it didnt begin with a script. Times contributor Christopher Smith looks at how this unusual work of theater, on view at the Wallis Annenberg Center through March 5, was very creatively hatched. Los Angeles Times

Jimmie Durham and Trump Tower

Art writer William Poundstone has zeroed in on a fascinating piece at the Jimmie Durham retrospective at the Hammer Museum that connects to Trump. Namely, the time the artist created a deed in which he claimed ownership of Trump Tower as an exclusive representative of all of the Native American Red Indigenous Indians in the land, then sold it to Cuban artist Jose Bedia for a string of santeria beads. Los Angeles County Museum on Fire

In other news...

Demonstrators hold up posters reading hypocrisy before an installation of upturned buses by Syrian-born artist Manaf Halbouni in Dresden (Sebastian Kahnert / AFP/Getty Images)

 Right-wing populists protested an installation in Dresden by Syrian-born artist Manaf Halbouni, which consists of three upturned buses that serve as a monument to the victims of war in Aleppo. The Art Newspaper

 Art critic Jen Graves has left Seattles The Stranger. This is a huge loss for art criticism. ARTnews

 Gentlepeople, start your wallets: Christies auction house is opening a flagship in Beverly Hills. The Art Newspaper

 The Parker Centers connection to some dark chapters in Los Angeles history may be what leads to its eventual demolition. Curbed

 Go, opera! The L.A. Opera is up for two Grammy Awards this weekend. Los Angeles Times

 The Pantages has announced its 2017-18 season, which will include stagings of Waitress and The Color Purple. Los Angeles Times

 A little-known comedic ballet by Martha Graham is revived in New York. New York Times

 Tony Brown, director of the nonprofit cultural organization Heart of Los Angeles, serving the Rampart community, is the winner of a $200,000 James Irvine Foundation leadership award. Los Angeles Times

 A cache of late 19th century photos that likely show Paul Gaugin cavorting in Tahiti was recently discovered. The Art Newspaper

 The 17th century Paris building where Pablo Picasso once kept his studio, may soon become a luxury hotel. Im sure the gift shop will be wondrously curated. Artforum

 As the Great Salt Lake dries up, Robert Smithsons famed land art work Spiral Jetty may find itself marooned. Hyperallergic

 Why Frederick Douglass was the most photographed American of the 19th century. Hyperallergic

 Jake Romm has a critical analysis of Time magazines cover image of Steve Bannon. Forward

 The Metropolitan Museum of Art has made 375,000 images available for free. In the mix: 10 very cool images of California. New York Times, LAist

 A collection of artful album covers. Los Angeles Times

And last but not least

Because we could all be a little more present: A techno show at a Buddhist temple. Electronic Beats (via @jmcolberg)

Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter 

carolina.miranda@latimes.com

@cmonstah
Months before anyone knows about Sarah Dunns book, her publisher Little, Brown is wining and dining the booksellers of Los Angeles. Im Carolyn Kellogg, books editor, and this is the news in books this week.

THE BIG STORY

Agatha French goes to a publishers dinner in Culver City to celebrate Sarah Dunn and her novel The Arrangement. The book wont be out until March, but Little, Brown is doing what many New York publishers do  throwing a Los Angeles meet and greet with a great spread for booksellers. Its special treatment only a few books will get, one way that a bestseller  or even a mediocre-seller  is made.

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At a publishers dinner, an author is both debutante and not. (Loris Lora / For The Times)

BIG FICTION

George Saunders is known for striking a near-impossible balance in his writing: Dark satire thats also deeply empathetic. Up until now, hes focused his talents on short stories, but that changes Tuesday with the publication of Lincoln in the Bardo, his first novel. The Lincoln of the title is, of course, our 16th president, and his sorrow is for his favorite son, Willie, who died of typhus at age 11 in February 1862, explains David L. Ulin in our review. The book, he writes, is remarkable.

And then theres Steve Erickson, the Los Angeles writer whose challenging fiction was post-millennial long before the millennium ever got here, writes Scott Bradfield in our review. Ericksons new novel, Shadowbahn, imagines a vision of the twin towers emerging over the Badlands, creating a kind of vortex in a fracturing America that splits around its myths, political and cultural. Its navigated by siblings on a long car trip, accompanied by a classic American soundtrack.

Steve Erickson (Stefano Paltera/For The Times)

NOT JUST THE MOUNTAIN GOATS

The indie rock band the Mountain Goats is mostly John Darnielle (he leads or performs solo), but hes not just a musician. His first novel, Wolf in White Van, was longlisted for the National Book Award in 2014; his second is Universal Harvester, set in and around an Iowa video store in the 1990s. What appears to be a chilling horror tale is also a perfectly rendered story about family and loss, writes Michael Schaub in our review.

BESTSELLERS

Readers across the Southland are intrigued by The Lost City of the Monkey God, which is in its third week on our nonfiction bestseller list. In it author Douglas Preston  also known as half of the novelist team behind the bestselling Preston & Child thrillers  joins a team of scientists to search for a legendary, pre-Columbian ruin in Honduras. Technology can help them find it  but it may not be able to protect them from its ancient curse.

BOOK NEWS

Sen. Elizabeth Warren was in the news this week after she was silenced during the confirmation hearings for Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions. Also this week, Metropolitan Books announced that it will be publishing This Fight Is Our Fight, Warrens new nonfiction book, in April. And coming later this year  in September  is The Golden House, a new novel from Salman Rushdie, which is described as a modern-day bildungsroman set against the panorama of American culture and politics since the inauguration of Barack Obama that will deal with the rise of the Tea Party, Gamergate and identity politics; the backlash against political correctness; and the insurgence of a ruthlessly ambitious, narcissistic, media-savvy villain sporting make-up and colored hair.

carolyn.kellogg@latimes.com

@paperhaus
Some of the students arrived early.

As much as 30 minutes early.

This was a big deal, and you could tell the eighth-graders shuffling into the Doubletree Hotel in Ontario were proud and maybe a little nervous, because the price of success was having to make a speech.

They came with their parents, who left work to be a part of this.

Welcome, folks. Come on in, and thanks for coming today, Ontario Rotarian Don Driftmier said to Daniela Balvaneda, 13, of Oaks Middle School. She was with her parents, Carlos and Blanca, and her grandmother, Gloria, all of them spiffed up for the occasion.

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One of the important things for us is that we didnt finish school, but we support our daughters, Carlos said of himself and his wife. Theyre both really into school, and I give all the credit to them.

Daniela told me she was pulled out of class one day and told to go to Principal D. Foleys office. She couldnt think of anything shed done that might have landed her in trouble, but she was nervous.

I didnt know what was going on, Daniela recalled, and Mr. Foley told me I won the award from the Rotary Club. I said, Whats that?

The Ontario Rotary Club is in its 95th year, and supporting local youth is at the core of its mission. Driftmier emailed me one day to invite me to the luncheon. He said he served his country in Vietnam, and he enjoys serving his community by honoring the impressive, well-spoken students who do themselves, their parents, and the Ontario-Montclair School District proud.

To hear the national conversation about the state of public education, you wouldnt know these kids existed. The narrative is one of failure, and for sure, public school districts  including the Ontario-Montclair district  have huge challenges and plenty of room for improvement.

President Trumps new education secretary thinks charter schools and vouchers are the way to go. But at the luncheon, Ontario-Montclair School District Superintendent James Hammond and board President Elvia Rivas said there may be no better strategy than investing sufficiently in traditional schools and giving them enough autonomy. And letting them put children before adult-centered politics, as Hammond put it.

They said theres been no clamor for charters in their pre-K-through-8 district, in which the majority of the 21,000 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches because theyre from low-income families. The 34 campuses include language and music academies, magnets and international baccalaureate schools. Attendance is at 97%, Hammond said, parents are involved, suspension rates are down. And theres big support from the Rotary Club.

Avaram Iraheta, one of the honored students, led the Pledge of Allegiance at Thursdays luncheon.

Rotarian Dick Gerety led the singing of God Bless America.

Rotary President John Andrews acknowledged the business leaders who sat with the families of the winning students.

Wiltsey Middle School Principal Henry Romero reminded students that success is no reason to coast, and college is not a dream; its a plan.

I want to do something unique that will make an impact and inspire others to do great things.  Tamiya Curtis, Wiltsey Middle School student

And then it was time for the students, chosen by their teachers on the basis of academic achievement, to step to the podium.

I was bullied, said Olivia Sanchez of Central Language Academy. I was bullied over three years.

But her teachers and principal put an end to it, she said, thanking them.

They stood up for me when no one else would.

Daniel Onwuegbuzie of De Anza Middle School said he moved to Ontario two years ago from Nigeria. He likes math, and his plan is to get all As in school.

So far, so good, he said, adding that he plans to go to Harvard University and become a doctor. J.K. Rowling said it is our choices that show what we truly are. It is my goal to make the right choices, to get to where I want to go in life.

Courtney Pederson of Edison GATE said she used to fake illness because she dreaded school. She thanked her parents for helping her turn that around. Shes worn glasses for years, Courtney said, and one day, shes going to be an eye surgeon.

Daniela Balvaneda didnt seem nearly as nervous as she had told me she was.

I happen to like every single class I take, she said. Shes already done the research and wants to attend Penn State, Syracuse University or UC Davis to study forensic science as an undergrad, then study law at a bigger school like Yale. One day, she might become a forensic investigator.

Avaram, the pledge leader from Serrano Middle School, said he was honored to win the Rotary award. He read his speech on his iPhone and told the audience hes a tech guy all the way.

For instance, I know a lot about iPhones, he said, and when hes done with college, hes going to work for Apple.

Raylene Pulido of Vernon Middle School thanked her parents for making sacrifices to support her and her siblings. She said when she got back to campus, she was going to tell all her friends to work harder, so they can get invited to the Rotary luncheon.

I might have made some mistakes in the past, said Wenzel Gonzalez of Vina Danks Middle School, but I will focus on the now, and making my future better.

Hes going to be a firefighter or an architect.

Ariana Escalante of Vineyard STEM said shes going to UCLA one day, and she wants to be a pediatrician. She might have her own practice, or she might work at a hospital. But either way, shes going to help children.

Tamiya Curtis of Wiltsey Middle School doesnt know what she wants to be.

I dont want to be a math teacher, she said. I dont want to be a doctor. I dont want to be a veterinarian, or anything as common as that. I want to do something unique that will make an impact and inspire others to do great things.

When they were done, Rotary President Andrews said hes a pretty upbeat guy. But he always walks away from these luncheons more optimistic, and I know what he means.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

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Every time Nicole Hockley and Mark Barden talk to students, they have to remind themselves: Compartmentalize. Inspire. Dont cry.

The stakes are personal and painful, life and death. Hockley and Barden each lost a child nearly five years ago in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.

The speeches they give at schools nationwide  including one this week at Eagle Rock Junior/Senior High School in Los Angeles  are an effort to prevent gun violence by working to end social isolation and address mental health.

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The more the Sandy Hook parents learned about the shooter who devastated their lives, the more they thought the violence was preventable. If students knew how to befriend an outcast, if they knew to report signs of loneliness and withdrawal, maybe their tragedy and others might not have happened.

Maybe Dylan Hockley, who was 6, and Daniel Barden, who was 7, would be alive.

One more gesture of outreach to the guy who killed our little children may have been all it took to change that story, Barden said. We dont know. But isnt it worth it?

Spreading that message can feel agonizing.

There are times I cant talk about Dylan, Hockley, who has a background in marketing, said in an interview. At a recent Texas appearance, just as grief welled up inside her, a child asked her if she was about to cry.

She had to stop talking for a bit.

One more gesture of outreach to the guy who killed our little children may have been all it took to change that story.  Mark Barden, who lost his son in the Sandy Hook massacre

Mark Barden and Nicole Hockley, founders of the Sandy Hook Promise, talk to students at Eagle Rock Junior/Senior High School about how to prevent school violence. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

The students gathered at Eagle Rock on Thursday to learn about Sandy Hook Promise, the nonprofit organization Hockley, Barden and other parents created to advance their mission after they became discouraged trying to solve gun violence through legislation.

Raise your hands if youve ever felt lonely, asked Anthony Owliaie, a therapist and presenter for Sandy Hook Promise.

Several hundred hands went up. Me! I do! All the time! broke the silence.

One thing that can help, he told them: knowing a few ice breakers. Kids can walk up to a new student and ask where he or she came from. They can welcome the newcomer to hang out with them. Or talk about favorite movies or emojis.

He taught them three steps, using call and repeat, to get through to others: See someone alone, reach out and help, start with hello. The last step is the name of one of Sandy Hook Promises campaigns, and the students all wore T-shirts bearing that message.

The program teaches students how to spot loneliness and potential signs of violence, both in person and on social media. It also asks them to monitor their own feelings regularly. No one is a superhero who cannot be defeated by loneliness or vulnerability, Owliaie said.

School districts nationwide are trying the program  so far, 1.5 million adults and kids have been trained. Its directors say they get regular feedback. Hockley said they believe a school shooting was prevented in Ohio last spring when a student trained by Sandy Hook Promise overheard a threat and notified a counselor.

But its partnership with L.A. Unified will be the first time the program uses data to track its effects.

If someone had reached out and said hello to him [the shooter], perhaps we wouldnt be standing here, Hockley told the students.

**

The mission felt particularly relevant to some Eagle Rock students. Brittney Velt, 16, stood up and told her peers about Know Your Right, an anti-discrimination group she started. She offered herself up to anyone in need of a friend.

I myself am a lesbian. Im out of the closet, she said.

She said after the event that she has sometimes felt depressed. The person who did the shooting was alone, she said. Thats something I can relate to.

Brittney pointed to a friend, Argenis Hurtado, also 16, co-founder of Know Your Right. When I feel that way, he helps me, she said.

Argenis said he doesnt feel close to his family, so he leans on Brittney. When he was bullied for being gay, Brittney helped him. Im afraid of being alone, he said, patting her shoulder. Shes with me.

Brittney described her own fears in slightly different terms: Im scared of being in the dark by myself, she said. When Im stuck in the dark, I make sure hes there too.

Sophomore Jade Phong immediately took to Twitter to offer help.

yayyo i'm a person who won't bite, so if you ever want to talk im here for you  #startwithhello #sandyhookpromise  jade (@hellyeahb_) February 9, 2017

Los Angeles School Police Department Chief Steven Zipperman thanked the students for being a part of change, the necessary change to prevent any future horrific incidents.

**

Barden, a musician, tries to keep his presentations short. Im going to be more effective and inspirational to kids if they see me as a sign of hope, he said. If Im up there blubbering and crying, its hard to look like a sign of hope.

He and Hockley have chosen a path that forces them to constantly share the most searing memories with strangers.

At Eagle Rock, Hockley told the students about her children: Dylan, who died, had autism. Jake, who was his protector, was in third grade at the time of the shooting and survived.

Like many kids with autism, Dylan would flap his arms up and down so intensely that Hockley said she thought he might take off. Once, she asked him why he did it. Because of his speech delay, she didnt expect an answer.

But he looked at her, she said, and told her: Because I am a beautiful butterfly.

When she thinks about Dylans wings, she told the rapt students, she thinks about the butterfly effect  the scientific concept that a tiny shift, like an insect fluttering, can influence a significant outcome, like a tornado on the other side of the world.

As she explained this, she moved her arms up and down.

She asked the students to join her in behaving like butterflies.

While you all call yourselves eagles, Im looking at you, and I see butterflies, she said. With your eagle wings, you can make huge changes.

Changes, in other words, that might start with saying hello.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

Joy.Resmovits@LATimes.com

@Joy_Resmovits

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The alarm sounded a few minutes past 3. A leading advocacy group for immigrant rights blasted out an email alert Thursday afternoon, warning that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were sweeping up immigrants in raids throughout Los Angeles and nearby counties.

As many as 100 people had been detained, the alert said, and were being transported to a federal facility.

The email made no mention of President Trump or his plan to target for deportation a wide swath of the millions of people in the country illegally, but to many people already on edge, a connection seemed clear. Within the hour, scores of protesters had gathered downtown, blocking traffic while angrily denouncing the president. Elected officials followed suit, expressing outrage at Trump and demanding answers about the raids. Authorities in Mexico put out a warning to their citizens living in the U.S.

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The reality was far less clear.

After initially declining to release details, ICE officials on Friday announced that the agency had, in fact, concluded a weeklong operation throughout Southern California that resulted in the arrest of more than 150 people. The agency insisted, however, that the sweep targeted people with criminal records and was no different in size or scope from operations carried out in years past under previous administrations.

In immigrant communities across Southern California, the arrests capped a week of anxiety as they waited for Trumps promised crackdown. In addition to the federal immigration action, the communities were rattled by widespread false reports on social media of nonexistent raids and police checkpoints aimed at deporting non-citizens.

The situation also left police, politicians and immigration advocates trying to calibrate the right response. For elected officials in the state, who are largely opposed to Trump, its been about finding a middle ground that allows them to condemn both the presidents hard-line stance on immigration and criminals in the country illegally.

Meanwhile, local law enforcement scrambled to tamp down the hysteria, with some blaming the immigration rights advocates for crying wolf and heightening fears.

Stop scaring my community, said Santa Paula Police Chief Steven McLean, who described activist claims of a raid in his city as false. Now Ive got to go ahead and calm peoples fears.

The group that first sounded the alarm, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, or CHIRLA, doubled down on its account Friday, saying the arrests portend a new reality under Trump for immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

Other civil liberties groups took a less strident tack, expressing concerns about the lack of information surrounding the arrests while also noting that they had criticized the Obama administration, which deported large numbers of people, usually focusing on those with criminal histories.

Although ICE had been carrying out its operation in the region since Monday, it was not until Thursday that family members and attorneys alerted CHIRLA of arrests being made.

There was nothing new to the idea of a concentrated push by ICE to find and apprehend large numbers of people who had been identified as being in the country illegally. In July, for example, ICE publicized a similar effort that caught 112 people.

But the lack of official information about the ICE operation this week allowed unchecked allegations and rumors to swirl. In light of an executive order Trump signed into effect last month, which dramatically broadened the scope of who should be targeted for deportation, the arrests were assumed to signal something new.

People called us. Attorneys called us, that this was happening, that this was not normal, said CHIRLA Executive Director Angelica Salas. There is a heightened level of anxiety. Theres a heightened level of fear because of everything that is happening.

People protested at a CHIRLA organized rally outside the Metropolitan Detention Center on Thursday seeking answers about arrests by federal immigration officers. Authorities said the arrests were planned before President Trumps election. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Democratic politicians aligned against Trump jumped into the information vacuum.

Its outrageous that ICE would go into the homes of hardworking people and tear them away from their children, U.S. Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement Thursday evening.

Cardenas spokeswoman, Francesca Amodeo, said Friday that the congressman thought it was important to speak out on behalf of immigrants at risk, though she said Cardenas agrees that residents here illegally who commit violent crimes should face federal enforcement action.

On Friday, at the end of the operation, ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said that 161 people had been arrested and that 37, all from Mexico, were deported. All but 10 of the people arrested, she said, had criminal convictions, although she did not provide details or the identities of those apprehended.

David Marin, the director of enforcement and removal operations for ICE in Los Angeles, said the actions taken this week were planned before Trump took office. A few people, he said, were swept up because they were found to be in the country illegally while other arrests were being carried out. But roughly 75% of those arrested, he said, had prior felony convictions for crimes that included sex offenses, assault, robbery and weapons violations.

The rash of these recent reports about ICE checkpoints and random sweeps and the like, its all false, and thats definitely dangerous and irresponsible, Marin said. Reports like that create panic and they put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he also was trying to get answers.

Angelenos should not have to fear raids that are disruptive to their peace of mind and bring unnecessary anxiety to our homes, schools, and workplaces, he said in a statement.

It was difficult, however, to tell fact from fiction in the regions immigrant communities.

The scent of cooked eggs lingered inside Rositas Pupuseria restaurant in Downey, one of the cities in which CHIRLA said ICE made arrests. The radio played Spanish disco music. Sitting next to a jukebox, Elizabeth Mendoza, 42, drank an orange soda.

Theres always rumors, Mendoza said. One time, my sons friend sent him a picture of a white bus and told him there was an immigration sweep going on. He showed me, but I couldnt tell if that was true.

The talk of immigration sweeps, she said, has further frayed already worn nerves among immigrants. A friend living in the country illegally asked Mendoza and her husband to sign a letter stating that if she is deported, they would take custody of her 2-year-old daughter. Thats horrible, to even have to consider that, she said.

One of the people arrested in the ICE operation was Jose Isidro Mares, 38, who was picked up by immigration officials at his job at a tire shop in Lancaster, said his 18-year-old daughter, Desiree Mares.

Her father was brought to the United States as a child and has lived most his life in the U.S., she said, adding that he had been deported once, before she was born.

Court records show Mares has a recent conviction for providing a false identification to law enforcement officials in the Antelope Valley. He also has convictions more than a decade old for felony evasion and possession of methamphetamine.

A single dad, Mares raised his daughter after her mother left them years ago. I dont know why they took the only person I had. They took my life, she said.

Mares said shes worried about how her father will get by in Mexico, adding that hes currently in a motel in Tijuana.

His English is perfect, she said. He knows some Spanish.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

Times staff writer Cindy Carcamo contributed to this report.

joel.rubin@latimes.com

brittny.mejia@latimes.com

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ruben.vives@latimes.com

Follow us on Twitter: @joelrubin, @brittny_mejia, @JamesQueallyLAT and @LATvives

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11:10 a.m.: This article was updated with comments from L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti.

This article was originally published at 3 a.m.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of illicit ivory was seized from shops in Los Angeles County this week as part of authorities effort to enforce a law that bans the sale of the precious material.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife agents on Wednesday and Thursday inspected 10 shops for illegal ivory in the Los Angeles County area, including sites in Beverly Hills, Pomona and Long Beach.

The enforcement marked a step forward for the agency in halting the serious issue of wildlife trafficking, said Lt. Chris Stoots, a spokesman for the California Fish and Wildlifes law enforcement division.

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This is our active approach to enforcing this law and making it clear that illegal trafficking of animals in California wont be tolerated, he said.

Officials found dozens of illegal ivory items such as combs, brushes and knife handles. Larger pieces included marble and bronze sculptures with ivory inlays.

Ivory has long been lauded by some as an exotic status symbol, and California legislators in 2015 enacted a law making it more difficult to sell and purchase the illicit material.

Assembly Bill 96 closed a loophole in state law that allowed some elephant ivory to be bought and sold in California as long as it was originally obtained before 1977. The law, which became effective in July 2016, imposed a near-total ban on the commercial trading of African elephant ivory, as well as teeth or tusks from hippopotamuses, mammoths, mastodons, walruses, warthogs, whales and narwhals.

Fish and Wildlife officials gave business owners about six months to adjust to the new rules, and now theyre beginning to crack down, Stoots said.

The grace time has seen its light, he said. Most people know or should now know about the law.

The more stringent regulations mean that people caught selling, buying, importing or possessing ivory with an intent to sell face a misdemeanor charge with fines that range between $1,000 and $40,000 for a first offense depending on the value of the ivory. They also can face jail time, according to the law.

Fish and Wildlife officials plan to compile reports on the businesses where they found ivory this week and forward them to each shops local district attorneys office, which will determine whether to file charges, Stoots said.

He declined to name the businesses inspected.

Animal poaching is a global issue that officials have been working for decades to combat as populations of elephants and other mammals targeted for their teeth and tusks decline. Despite public awareness campaigns and international enforcement, it continues to be a critical problem, officials say.

A 2015 report commissioned by the National Resources Defense Council, which investigated illegal African ivory trafficking, found that as much as 90% of the ivory examined in Los Angeles markets and stores was illegal under state law.

Daniel Stiles, who wrote the report, investigated more than 100 vendors in Los Angeles and the Bay Area in March and April 2015 and examined more than 1,250 items.

Stiles concluded that illegal ivory trade remains a prevalent problem statewide and must be addressed.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials agree.

The big issue for us is were taking a stand against wildlife trafficking on a global perspective, Stoots said. What we can control is whats going on here in California.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @HannahFryTCN on Twitter.
Long Beach police arrested a 39-year old man Friday who is suspected of knocking on doors in a senior housing center and then robbing and assaulting the elderly women who answered.

In at least one case, the robber sexually assaulted his victim before fleeing with her cash.

Melvin Earl Farmer Jr., of Lynwood, was taken into custody on suspicion of residential robbery, rape, oral copulation by force or fear, issuing a death threat and assault with a deadly weapon.

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An unnamed 31-year old woman, also of Lynwood, was arrested as a possible accomplice, police said.

We hope our community can rest a little easier tonight, said Long Beach Police Chief Robert G. Luna said at a 6 p.m. press conference.

The string of five robberies, four of which occurred at a senior housing center near Atlantic Avenue and Via Carmelitos, began on Feb. 2 and ended Thursday, according to police.

In the final incident, in the 3700 block of Pacific Avenue, the robber knocked on a 90-year-old womans door at around 7:24 a.m. When she answered, the man forced his way into her residence, robbed her and attempted to sexually assault her, police said.

The woman fought back, and during the struggle a panic alarm at the residence was activated. The woman was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Investigators found video images of the suspect captured by security cameras.

After the images were made public, a tipster identified the man as Farmer. A day later, he was in custody, Luna said.

In most of the incidents, the assailant physically assaulted the women before making off with purses, cell phones or cash. One of them was raped, police said.

The victims were between the ages of 63 and 95 years old.

jack.dolan@latimes.com

Follow on Twitter at @JackDolanLAT

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Friday afternoon the sun peaked through the clouds above Lake Oroville and a rainbow arched over the Feather River.

It was a welcome sight for state engineers who were battling the lakes worrisome rise with torrential releases down the reservoirs broken concrete spillway.

The break in storms and a drop in the volume of water pouring into the huge reservoir gave dam operators hope that they could keep lake levels from hitting an elevation of 901 feet  the point at which uncontrolled flows would start washing down an unpaved emergency spillway that has never been used in Orovilles 48-year history.

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UPDATE: Oroville Dam operators open emergency spillway amid rising waters; officials say public safe>>

The sun is coming out. The rain has stopped. The inflow has peaked, said Eric See, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources. We still dont expect to use the auxiliary spillway.

For much of Friday, managers were pushing water down the damaged spillway at the rate of 65,000 cubic feet per second, or more than 29 million gallons a minute. In the evening, they reduced it to 55,000 cfs.

The flows exploded into the air as they hit the deep gash that opened in the spillway this week. From there, the water carved into the sloping earth beside and beneath the chute, turning the ground the color of heavily creamed coffee and washing mud, rock and pieces of concrete into the Feather River below.

Its pretty impressive. Ive never seen anything like it, said Elberta Portman, 63, as she watched the clouds of mist rising from the spillway.

She had driven up from the Sacramento area with her husband, Dennis, 66. They hadnt been to the lake for about 15 years, when they stayed on a houseboat.

Though optimistic that dam operators wont have to use the emergency spillway over the weekend, crews continued to prepare the area  just in case.

Workers with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection used heavy equipment to clear trees and brush from the hillside route the water would take if it overflowed the 1,700-foot-long top of the emergency spillway.

Utility workers were preparing to move transmission poles out of the way. Booms and boats were brought in to collect debris and keep it from clogging the pool at the base of the dam and downstream diversion gates.

A gaping hole  some 250 feet long and 45 feet deep  appeared Tuesday in the lower part of the spillway, which sits on dirt. The state shut down releases for a time but then restarted them to counter inflows from the weeks storms.

Its a balancing act, said water resources spokesman Doug Carlson.

Even if the emergency releases are triggered, department officials said it would not flood the Feather River.

A team of hydrologists, meteorologists and engineers concluded that the river channel can accommodate whatever we throw at it today and over the weekend, Carlson added.

State engineers repeated that Orovilles earthen dam  a separate structure from the spillway  was not in any danger.

Theres no erosion going on at Oroville Dam, See said. Orovilles dam is completely intact. It is not in jeopardy in any way.

State engineers dont know what caused the collapse of the spillway section, which has further eroded from the pounding dam releases.

The structure is annually inspected by several agencies and was last repaired in 2013.

We made repairs and everything checked out, said water resources engineer Kevin Dossey. Obviously, something has happened that we didnt expect.

He added that it was common for spillways to require repairs after drainage creates voids in the underlying soil.

In an interview, Dusty Myers, president of the Assn. of State Dam Safety Officials, agreed.

Its not uncommon to have an issue like this, he said of the spillway hole  though he added he was not aware of any as large as the one that developed at Oroville.

It is also not unusual, Myers said, to have an unpaved emergency spillway that would erode if used.

At 770 feet high, Oroville is the tallest dam in the U.S. It was completed during the administration of Gov. Ronald Reagan and serves as the keystone for the State Water Project, which sends Northern California supplies south to the southern San Joaquin Valley and the urban Southland.

In January 1997, downstream towns were evacuated when the reservoir came within a foot of pouring down the emergency spillway into the swollen Feather River.

People were told to pack up their stuff and get out, recalled Mike Ramsey, the longtime Butte County district attorney.

Oroville didnt flood then, but this week, Ramsey said, residents have been wondering: Are we going to have to evacuate again? Are we going to have to start pulling stuff out?

Still, with no evacuation order and the lake inflow dropping, locals were calm enough to go about their usual business Friday.

In a sign of confidence that things will be OK, Ramsey said the local rotary club hadnt canceled a planned Saturday night dinner in the municipal auditorium, which sits on the river levee.

chris.megerian@latimes.com

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

joseph.serna@latimes.com

Megerian reported from Oroville, Serna and Boxall from Los Angeles.

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Sweeping raids by U.S. immigration officials in recent days nabbed hundreds of individuals believed to be in the country illegally, spreading alarm among immigrant rights groups as they scrambled to gather information and warn people in communities nationwide.

Through social media and pop-up legal clinics, immigrant rights groups have doled out around-the-clock assistance, even as federal officials pushed back against the notion that the detentions reflected a vast overhaul of immigration law enforcement ordered by President Trump.

Officials with the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had conducted targeted enforcement operations focused on detaining people with criminal backgrounds in cities across the country. Officials described the operations as routine.

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Nearly 200 people throughout Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina were arrested last week during raids, according to a preliminary tally provided by ICEs Atlanta field office. In the Los Angeles area, more than 150 arrests were made in a weeklong operation, ICE officials said.

And in Austin, Texas, ICE officials did not provide a total number of arrests but did notify the Mexican Consulate General of the number of Mexican nationals. A spokesman from the consulate said Saturday that nearly 50 arrests of Mexican nationals had been recorded since Thursday. On average, the consulate is notified of about three each day. (The Mexican government last week urged its nationals in the U.S. to take precautions amid a new reality for the immigrant community.)

ICE conducts targeted immigration enforcement in compliance with federal law and agency policy. ICE does not conduct sweeps or raids that target aliens indiscriminately, Bryan Cox, ICEs Southern region communications director, said in a statement Saturday.

Last month, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to prioritize the removal of people in the U.S. illegally who have criminal convictions. In addition to speeding up the deportation of convicts, Trumps orders also call for quick removal of people in the country illegally who are charged with crimes and waiting for adjudication, as well as those who have not been charged but are believed to have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense.

There really is a lot of confusion as to who theyre targeting, said Faye Kolly, an immigration attorney based in Austin. A lot of people are scared.

A video circulating on social media appeared to show ICE agents in Austin detaining several people in a shopping center parking lot.

Austin City Councilman Greg Casar, who represents part of the city that is home to many immigrants, said constituents were hanging dark sheets on windows and refusing to open their front doors, even for immigrant rights advocates.

And these are constituents of mine who have no criminal records  nothing. But theyre being targeted and are really concerned, Casar said.

Jessica Foulke teaches at a charter middle school in Casars district that is 90% Latino. On Saturday, she fielded dozens of texts and phone calls from students who were concerned about news coverage of ICE sweeps in Austin and nationwide.

Theyre asking, Will my mom be OK? Will my dad be OK? Foulke said. Theres heartbreak and I just dont have all the answers for them.

Sarah Owings, an immigration attorney in Atlanta and chairwoman of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn.s Georgia-Alabama Chapter, said attorneys had heard of multiple detentions last week in Atlanta and Savannah, Ga.

Were hearing that theyre using their powers in a very broad manner, she said. Its not that theyre targeting people who have criminal records. Theyre targeting anyone whos undocumented that they happen to come into contact with. So theyre looking for someone specific, but theyre also asking everyone for their IDs.

Under President Obama, ICE prioritized violent criminals, such as those convicted of terrorism or aggravated felonies. Now, Owings said, the department seems to be sweeping up immigrants who fall outside that target list.

Now theres no difference between someone whos a terrorist and someone whos picking their kids up from school, she said. Its very chilling for the community. No one knows whats going on.

Fear among the immigrant community grew last week when an Arizona woman, Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, 36, who had been in the country illegally since the age of 14, was deported back to Mexico. She was previously considered a low priority for deportation.

What we are seeing is Trumps executive actions on immigration being made real, and millions of people in immigrant communities are terrified. We know of moms being deported who have lived in the U.S. for over 20 years, even U.S. citizens being asked for their papers at checkpoints on the road, said Julieta Garibay, deputy advocacy director of United We Dream, an immigrant rights group based in Washington, D.C.

Some advocates have hinted that the raids could be in retaliation for so-called sanctuary cities across the U.S.

Trump also signed an executive order that designates sanctuary cities  municipalities that protect people in the U.S. illegally  as ineligible to receive federal grants should they continue to ignore immigration laws. Those cities include, among others, Austin and Los Angeles.

With the new administration, we continue to be concerned, said Kolly, the Austin-based immigration attorney. I think this will become the new normal for a while.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

kurtis.lee@latimes.com

Twitter: @kurtisalee

Times staff writer Lee reported from Los Angeles and special correspondent Jarvie from Atlanta.

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UPDATES:

7:20 p.m.: This article was updated to include comments from Julieta Garibay.

4 p.m.: This article was updated with additional background and comments from Jessica Foulke and Sarah Owings.

This article was originally published at 1:55 p.m.
Donald Trump

The Department of Justice is weighing whether or not to appeal a decision issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to deny reinstating President Donald Trump's immigration order while its legality is established, according to multiple reports Friday.

That's because the White House is apparently rewriting the controversial executive order  which temporarily bans immigration from six predominantly Muslim countries and permanently from Syria  so that it has a better chance of withstanding legal challenges.

Trump tweeted on Thursday night that he intends to appeal the Ninth Circuit's decision: "SEE YOU IN COURT," he wrote shortly after the judges issued their 29-page opinion. But he wavered on that pronouncement Friday, saying he "very well could" issue a "brand new order" next week.

Legal experts say rewriting the order is likely a much better option for the Trump administration than sticking with the "extreme vetting" order in its current form, which would likely result in more litigation.

"There are a variety of things the government could do to help their case. It's just a matter of how much they're willing to change the executive order," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law at Cornell University.

Yale-Loehr said that the order's most controversial sections  3(c) and the near entirety of section 5, which were the subject of a lawsuit brought by Washington and Minnesota against the government that ultimately resulted in the temporary restraining order (TRO) placed on the ban  would either have to be changed significantly or removed entirely if the administration wanted to shield itself from further litigation.

The key section

Section 3(c) of the immigration order stipulates that "immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from" Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya and Yemen "would be detrimental to the interests of the United States," and that Trump would "hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order."

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The original order did not list the countries specifically but referred to those targeted in an Obama-era visa-waiver policy, the Department of Homeland Security later clarified.

dulles

The nationwide enforcement of Section 3(c) was restrained "in its entirety" last week by US District Judge James Robart, who sided with the states' argument that the order caused "significant and ongoing harm" to "substantial numbers of people, to the detriment of the States."

When Robart asked the government lawyer, Michelle Bennett, if there had been any terrorist attacks by people from the seven counties listed in Trump's order since 9/11, Bennett said she didn't know.

"The answer is none," Robart said, according to Reuters. "You're here arguing we have to protect from these individuals from these countries, and there's no support for that."

Even after appealing the restraining order to the Ninth Circuit, the government still had difficulty proving that citizens from the seven countries posed an elevated terror risk above others.

"The proceedings have been moving very fast," the Department of Justice lawyer, August Flentje, told Ninth Circuit Judge Michelle Friedland when she asked whether the government had any evidence connecting the seven nations targeted by the order to terrorism.

Fuad Sharef Suleman and his son Bnyad Fuad Sharef arrive at Terminal 1 at JFK airport in Queens, New York City, New York, U.S. February 5, 2017. The Iraqi family were previously prevented from boarding a plane to the U.S. following U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to temporarily bar travelers from seven countries, including Iraq.

Another option  rather than gutting Section 3(c) altogether  would be to stipulate that people from those countries have to go through greater screening procedures to get a visa, Yale-Loehr said.

"But they'd need to outline what those new procedures are in a revised executive order to make them comply with due-process requirements," she said.

The due-process clauses in the Constitution safeguard people from arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property by the government outside of the sanction of law. The government had argued before the Ninth Circuit that the TRO should apply only to lawful permanent residents, because as it stands it "covers aliens who cannot assert cognizable liberty interests."

But the judges determined Thursday that limiting the scope of the TRO, as the government requested, would "on its face omit aliens who are in the United States unlawfully, and those individuals have due process rights as well."

"The government has not met its burden of showing likelihood of success on appeal on its arguments with respect to the due process claim," the judges wrote.

In need of 'an adequate factual basis'

Critics of the order have said that the countries it targets seem arbitrary, since it does not include countries that have posed serious terror threats in the past, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. The immigration order cites the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks three times as justification, but the 9/11 hijackers were from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon.

Lyman Stone put it bluntly in an article for The Federalist: "Most reasonable people would agree that banning people who have never been associated with any terrorist attack in our country (say, Bhutanese Hindus) doesnt make much sense."

Litigation over the order will likely continue until the government provides "an adequate factual basis for singling out these specific countries as distinct sources of risk," Richard Pildes, a professor of Constitutional Law at New York University, told Business Insider in an email.

Obama Trump

Trump has argued that the seven countries named in the executive order "are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror." The DOJ similarly claimed in its filing to the US Court of Appeals that the listed countries had "a previously identified link to an increased risk of terrorist activity."

Yet the Ninth Circuit judges expressed skepticism of Trump's use of Obama's policy to justify his immigration ban.

"Although the Government points to the fact that Congress and the Executive identified the seven countries named in the Executive Order as countries of concern in 2015 and 2016, the Government has not offered any evidence or even an explanation of how the national security concerns that justified those designations, which triggered visa requirements, can be extrapolated to justify an urgent need for the Executive Order to be immediately reinstated," the judges wrote.

"We cannot conclude that the Government has shown that it is 'absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur,'" they added.

Section 5

Section 5 of the immigration order  which stipulates a "realignment of the US Refugee Admissions Program for Fiscal Year 2017" and a suspension of the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for 120 days  has also proved controversial.

The nationwide enforcement of sections 5(a), 5(b), 5(c), and 5(e)  along with 3(c)  was blocked by the Seattle judge's retraining order, which was upheld by the Ninth Circuit on Thursday.

"In a best-case scenario, in terms of their chances of winning in court, they would not completely suspend the refugee-admissions program but require some kind of additional screening procedures for refugees and start rolling those out," Yale-Loehr said.

syrian refugees children kids reuters RTX2V5VY

"Section 5(c), which bars anyone from Syria from entering the US, would also have to go," he added. "Any argument they make for keeping that in would result in the same kinds of legal challenges presented by Section 3(c), which poses the question of, 'Why have people from these countries been deemed more dangerous than others?'"

'The States' claims present significant constitutional questions'

Sections 5(b) and 5(e)  which indicate that the US will "prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality"  have also been blocked, pursuant to the TRO, to the extent that it "purports to prioritize refugee claims of certain religious minorities."

The TRO also prohibits the government from "proceeding with any action that prioritizes the refugee claims of certain religious minorities."

Civil-rights organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, had cited the order's prioritization of religious minorities as evidence of discrimination in favor of Christians, who are minorities in the seven countries that the order targets.

aclu legal observer protest

Their arguments were bolstered last month by Trump's interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, during which he said that Syrian Christians would be given priority when applying for refugee status.

"The States argue that the Executive Order violates the Establishment and Equal Protection Clauses because it was intended to disfavor Muslims," the Ninth Circuit judges wrote on Thursday.

"In support of this argument, the States have offered evidence of numerous statements by the President about his intent to implement a 'Muslim ban' as well as evidence they claim suggests that the Executive Order was intended to be that ban, including sections 5(b) and 5(e) of the Order," the judges continued.

"The States' claims raise serious allegations and present significant constitutional questions ... we reserve consideration of these claims until the merits of this appeal have been fully briefed."

NOW WATCH: Merriam-Webster cant stop trolling the Trump administration on Twitter





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Donald Trump is certainly no stranger to the legal system. Hes been sued thousands of times during his career as a real-estate developer, and that trend appears to be continuing now that hes president  a job that already draws its fair share of litigation.

More than 60 lawsuits have been filed against Trump in federal court in the three weeks since he became president on Jan. 20. Here is a list of the cases pending against him as of Friday. It doesnt include lawsuits filed against Trump in state courts or lawsuits filed against him before he became president.

Most of the federal lawsuits challenge Trumps temporary ban on travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries. On Thursday an appeals court declined to lift a hold a federal judge placed on the ban.

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Some of the lawsuits reflect not so much on Trumps actions as the responsibilities of his office. In almost every instance, Trump was sued in his role as president along with other federal officials; in the case titles, et al means that there is more than one plaintiff or defendant. A few were filed without the help of an attorney and have little chance of success.

Abou Asali et al vs. U.S. Department of Homeland Security et al: A challenge of the travel ban filed on behalf of Syrians who were deported after arriving in the U.S. to join their brothers in Pennsylvania.

Albaldawi vs. Trump et al: A lawsuit filed in Texas federal court on behalf of travelers who were detained due to Trumps executive order banning travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Ali et al vs. Trump et al: A nationwide class-action lawsuit filed by immigrant groups in the state of Washington over Trumps travel ban.

Ali Khoshbakhti Vayeghan vs. John F. Kelly et al.: This suit, which names the Homeland Security secretary, was filed against the travel ban on behalf of an Iranian traveler who was set to be deported back to Iran after arriving at LAX.

Al-Mowafak et al vs. Trump et al: The ACLU of Northern California filed this lawsuit on behalf of three California university students who are citizens of the banned countries.

Arab American Civil Rights League et al vs. Donald Trump et al: A lawsuit filed against the travel ban on behalf of foreign-born Detroit residents.

Asgari vs. Trump et al: An Iranian genetic researcher living in Switzerland filed this lawsuit after the travel ban blocked her from joining a lab in Boston, where she planned to study tuberculosis.

Aziz et al vs. Trump et al: A lawsuit filed against the travel ban on behalf of Yemeni brothers who were detained when they arrived in the U.S. to join their father, an American citizen, in Michigan.

Badr Dhaifallah Ahmed Mohammed et al vs. United States of America et al: Another challenge of Trumps travel ban, this one filed on behalf of foreign travelers seeking to fly to LAX.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington vs. Trump: A group of liberal-leaning watchdogs allege Trump violated the Constitutions emoluments clause, which prohibits gifts from foreign governments, due to his companys international dealings.

Cobble vs. Trump et al: A Sumter County, Ga., jail inmate asks the federal government to deport him to England.

County of Santa Clara vs. Donald J. Trump et al: Santa Clara County officials sued Trump over an executive order that cuts funds to sanctuary cities, calling it unconstitutional. (Santa Clara County contains the city of San Jose.)

Darweesh et al vs. Trump et al: The ACLUs lawsuit against Trumps travel ban on behalf of two Iraqi travelers, which led to Trumps first legal defeat at an emergency federal court hearing in Brooklyn.

Doe vs. Trump et al: A lawsuit filed against Trumps travel ban by an Iranian-born Chicago businessman who is permanent resident of the U.S., filed under the pseudonym John Doe, who said he was stranded after traveling to Iran to care for his ailing mother.

Fatema Farmad et al vs. Donald Trump et al: The ACLU of Southern California filed suit on behalf of two U.S. residents from Iran who flew into LAX and were detained.

Garcia vs. President of the United States of America: An immigrant in New Hampshire resident alleged the government unlawfully failed to renew his work visa.

Hagig vs. Trump et al: A Denver community college student from Libya sued over the travel ban, saying it prevented him from seeing his family in Libya and then returning.

International Refugee Assistance Project et al vs. Trump et al: Refugee-assistance nonprofits sued Trump over the travel ban, saying it unconstitutionally discriminates against Muslims.

Louhghalam et al vs. Trump et al: Two Iranian professors at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth sued over the travel ban after both men were detained at an airport while returning from an academic conference.

McLaren vs. Trump: A rambling, handwritten lawsuit filed by an Anchorage, Alaska, man accusing Trump of rampant corruption.

McNair vs. Trump et al: An Oregon inmate sued Trump, alleging he was illegally elected and that his businesses have violated the Constitutions emoluments clause.

Muslin [sic], Jews and Christians Against Terrorism et al vs. United States of America et al: A self-filed lawsuit in favor of the travel ban. It asks Trump to issue an executive order implementing extreme vetting on foreign travelers and to punish American sanctuary cities.

Nanney vs. Bank of America: A North Carolina man self-filed a suit against Bank of America, alleging that it refused to pay him $4 billion, and said Trump used the phrase Make America Great Again without permission.

Olson vs. Trump: A Minnesota man self-filed a handwritten lawsuit asking to challenge the constitutionality by which federal judges are appointed to the bench.

Pars Equality Center et al vs. Trump et al: Iranian nationals and Iranian American groups sued in Washington, D.C., federal court over the travel ban.

People of the United States of America vs. Trump et al: A lawsuit against Trumps travel ban by an Albany, Calif., attorney who says he is acting on behalf of the people of California and the United States.

Public Citizen, Inc. et al vs. Trump et al: Watchdog groups sued to block Trumps executive order requiring that federal agencies to repeal two federal regulations for every new rule they issue.

Sarsour et al vs. Trump et al: Muslim American civil-rights activists sued over the travel ban, saying it unconstitutionally targets Muslims.

State of Hawaii vs. Trump: The state of Hawaiis lawsuit against the travel ban.

State of Washington vs. Trump et al: The lawsuit against the travel ban filed by Washington and Minnesota, which led to the travel bans first appellate hearing in front of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled against Trump.

Suh vs. Trump et al: An Illinois state inmate filed an almost unintelligible lawsuit suing the government, including Trump, over his conviction.

Suh vs. Unknown Parties et al: A second lawsuit filed by the Illinois inmate, also incomprehensible.

Unite Oregon vs. Trump et al: A lawsuit against the travel ban filed on behalf of Oregon immigrants and refugees seeking to enter the state.

Wagafe et al vs. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services et al: A class-action lawsuit filed in Washington state against Trumps travel ban on behalf of Muslims seeking to become U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

Withall vs. Warden, FCI Otisville, NY et al: An inmate in a federal prison sued his warden and Trump to force officials to let him appear in court.

Zadeh et al vs. Trump et al: A lawsuit against the travel ban filed on behalf of Iranian and Somali travelers who had obtained visas to enter the U.S.

matt.pearce@latimes.com

@mattdpearce

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The most important decision Los Angeles voters will make on March 7 is whether to support or oppose Measure S, a slow-growth, anti-development ballot measure cloaked in the language of government reform. It may be tempting to vote yes because the measure is superficially appealing and speaks to many real problems facing Los Angeles. But in fact its not a solution; its just a way for voters to give a big middle finger to the pols at City Hall and the powerful, high-rolling real estate developers who bankroll them. And while that might feel good on election day, it will unleash a series of consequences  intended and unintended  that will hurt Los Angeles in the long run by worsening the citys housing crisis and stifling economic development.

Measure S is aimed at the many Angelenos who are concerned that L.A. is becoming too tall and too dense and who blame elected officials for ignoring the impacts new development could have on traffic, parks and neighborhood character. In many cases, they worry, the politicians are simply doing the bidding of wealthy developers in return for campaign contributions.

These are legitimate concerns. City leaders have consistently failed to modernize the General Plan, the citys master planning document that hasnt been updated in 20 years, and have stalled efforts to update the citys 35 community plans, which set the goals and rules for development in a neighborhood. Because the plans are too old to reflect what neighborhoods currently want and need, or what the housing market demands, building projects are too often considered on a case-by-case basis, with individual council members dictating whats appropriate on a particular site and granting zoning changes and General Plan amendments.

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While it might feel good to vote for S on election day, it will unleash a series of consequences  intended and unintended  that will hurt Los Angeles.

If Measure S had simply mandated that the City Council and mayor finally update the General Plan and the community plans, and if it had required regular updates going forward, The Times Editorial Board would have wholeheartedly endorsed it. If the measure had also barred developers from hiring their own consultants to produce traffic studies and environmental impact reports, wed have said, Sure, that sounds like a way to ensure unbiased analysis. If the measure had aimed to put some reasonable constraints on the City Councils ability to engage in spot zoning or to change the land use of a single piece of property at a developers request, we would have been open to that, too.

Measure S does all those things. But its proponents were not content to stop there. Instead, they added an unreasonable and irresponsible two-year moratorium on all real estate projects that require a General Plan amendment, zone change or increase in allowable height. In addition, Measure S would enact a permanent ban on General Plan amendments for any property less than 15 acres.

Why is that unreasonable? Because the existing citys land-use plans are so out of date and so riddled with inconsistencies that its not unusual to need a zone change to build a simple apartment building in a row of existing apartment buildings. Of course, updating the plans will help but that will take at least six years and possibly more. In the meantime, Measure S would block the construction of new and much-needed housing  both market rate and affordable.

Los Angeles is in the midst of a severe housing crisis because over decades, housing construction has not kept up with population growth. Thats why the city currently has an apartment vacancy rate of less than 3%, a record low, and why rents have skyrocketed. Roughly one in three renters spends more than half their income on rent, leaving little money for food, healthcare, education or savings. Measure S would worsen the housing shortage.

Some proponents of Measure S have said it will discourage gentrification and protect residents threatened with displacement. But thats not true. The measure would do nothing to create more affordable housing or to protect existing affordable housing. In fact, Measure S will make it nearly impossible to convert a parking lot, a defunct public building or a strip mall into housing  those are all changes that would require a General Plan amendment, zone change or height increase.

Building on underused sites is the best way to create more housing without displacing existing residents. One analysis of General Plan amendments proposed in 2015 found that the projects would create 6,000 units of housing while displacing just six existing units. Without the ability to seek land-use changes, real estate investors will likely turn to existing residential properties. That means small, often rent-stabilized apartments could be converted to condominiums (a trend that led to thousands of evictions a decade ago) or could be demolished to make way for larger projects. That means more displacement. Not less.

In addition, Measure S would make it harder to address homelessness. Just three months ago, L.A. voters passed Measure HHH to build 10,000 units of low-income and permanent supportive housing for the homeless. But the citys first plans under the bond measure  to build several hundred units of housing on the sites of old fire stations, an animal shelter and other city-owned properties  would be blocked by Measure S because the projects would require General Plan amendments. Future proposals would no doubt face similar obstacles.

Measure S would also stifle economic development in communities that want the investment. In the Exposition Park neighborhood, for instance, residents were promised that the old Bethune Library site would be turned into an affordable housing complex with a grocery store. The city began looking for a new partner to develop the land last year, but the project would be blocked by Measure S because it requires a General Plan amendment.

In Panorama City, community leaders want to revitalize their commercial corridor, but the Measure S moratorium would block efforts to convert vast surface parking lots into shops and apartments. And an ambitious plan to turn the struggling Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza into an urban village with new shops, condominiums, apartments, offices and a hotel could be stalled by the moratorium because the project needs a zone change.

To their credit, the proponents of Measure S have already forced the City Council and Mayor Eric Garcetti to get serious about reforming the citys broken land-use process. Last week, the council voted to develop an ordinance mandating community plan updates every six years. Thats stricter than Measure S, which calls for a review every five years along with possible updating of the community plans.

Many residents are understandably anxious about increasing urbanization, about gentrification and displacement, about the crisis of homelessness, about development and livability and traffic  and what it will be like to live in Los Angeles 25 or 50 years from now. These are challenges that cant be fixed by ballot box planning. It will take work on the part of residents, builders, businesses and the citys elected leaders to develop and implement a plan for how to add more housing while preserving neighborhood character, including ethnic and income diversity.

Dont be swayed by the misleading promises of Measure S. Dont hold hostage badly needed housing with this overly broad ballot measure.

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In its opinion refusing to reinstate President Trumps executive order limiting travel and immigration, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals didnt find it necessary to rule  even in the context of an application for a stay of a restraining order  on whether the order amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of religion in violation of the 1st Amendment. The claim that the order violated due process was enough to justify preventing it from going into effect.

But the three-judge panel nevertheless suggested that the executive order might be vulnerable to a religious discrimination claim based on Trumps statements on the campaign trail. As is well known, in December 2015 Trump advocated a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our countrys representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.

Later Trump replaced that blatant religious test with a proposal for extreme vetting of immigrants, refugees and visitors from areas with a history of terrorism. His Jan. 27 executive order suspended for 90 days the entry of persons from seven majority-Muslim countries: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The order also gave priority to refugees fleeing religious persecution if they belonged to a minority religion  a preference that would benefit Christians in predominantly Muslim nations.

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This, Trumps critics say, is the campaigns Muslim ban in disguise. And the 9th Circuit seemed to suggest that, when the judiciary reached the merits of the lawsuit, it might agree. The court said:

The states [of Washington and Minnesota] argue that the executive order violates the Establishment and Equal Protection Clauses because it was intended to disfavor Muslims. In support of this argument, the states have offered evidence of numerous statements by the president about his intent to implement a Muslim ban as well as evidence they claim suggests that the executive order was intended to be that ban . . . It is well established that evidence of purpose beyond the face of the challenged law may be considered in evaluating Establishment and Equal Protection Clause claims.

Trumps executive order is unjustified and ought to be rescinded, and his original proposal for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims was outrageous.

But it would be a mistake for the courts to equate the executive order with the original Muslim ban, and not only for the obvious reason that its literally not a ban on Muslims. (It applies to non-Muslim citizens of the seven countries and doesnt apply to citizens of other predominantly Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.)

The bigger problem is that the 9th Circuit seems to float the idea that Trumps original intent was to go after Muslims because they were Muslims  that is, that he was animated by religious hatred.

Its far more likely that Trump was engaging in what lawyers would call over-inclusive thinking: The terrorists he was concerned about were Muslims, so he decided to err on the safe side and ban all Muslims. It was an idiotic as well an offensive impulse. After smarter people pointed that out to him, he backed down and adopted a more targeted strategy. (That the strategy wasnt targeted enough doesnt mean that it was a violation of the 1st Amendment.)

If the Jan. 27 executive order is no different from a total and complete shutdown of Muslims because we know what Trump really intended, the same would be true of any revised executive order, even if were justified by the sort of evidence that wasnt adduced to justify this order. That would mean that Trump would be held hostage by his own careless campaign rhetoric, prevented from imposing any restrictions on immigration from predominantly Muslim countries for the rest of his term.

Finally, although Trump is unique among modern presidential candidates in openly promising to bar every member of an entire religion from an entering the United States, other politicians also make outlandish statements on the campaign trail that judges might use to deconstruct the more prudent policies the politicians pursued once they were in office.

As Eugene Kontorovich pointed out in the Washington Post: The 9th Circuits ruling throws open a huge door to examinations of the entire lives of political officials whose motives may be relevant to legal questions. This introduces more uncertainty and judicial power into legal interpretation than even the most robust use of legislative/administrative history. Without a clear cutoff at assumption of office, attacks on statutes will become deep dives into politicians histories.

The words of Trumps executive orders will give courts enough work to puzzle over; they dont have to sift through his campaign speeches.

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To the editor: Thank you so much for the moving article about foster father Mohamed Bzeek and his tireless, compassionate care for the babies and children suffering from terminal diseases and disabilities. I am humbled. (I know they are going to die. This foster father takes in only terminally ill children, Feb. 8)

How I wish our current self-proclaimed Christian president, cabinet members and Republican-dominated Congress would read his story and rethink their current actions to take away healthcare from millions; meditate on their zeal to rip away environmental, food and animal welfare protections; cogitate upon their haste to shut out the suffering; and regret their decisions to put the greediest denizens of Wall Street in charge of our nations financial security.

This is Christianity in name only. Meanwhile, a Muslim man from Libya gives everything he has for the neediest beings of all. Mr. Bzeek, you are the definition of courage and compassion.

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Cathy Goldberg, Seal Beach

..

What courage, what sacrifice, what devotion this lovely man exhibits as he cares for those who would otherwise suffer and die alone.  Lisa Schmitt, Bell Canyon

To the editor: Growing up in a family that also provided emergency foster care to children, I have experienced the power of loving these kids as your own. Reading about the binders of medical information Bzeek carries to doctor appointments brought back memories.

Sleepless nights with sick kids, surprise arrivals and emotional departures were part of the journey. Keeping in touch over the years with many of the children I knew showed me how important that unconditional love was to their young lives.

Bzeek reminds us of how love becomes even more meaningful when it is given freely. Even though his young charges may never know the gift of time or perspective, I have no doubt they feel his love.

The world needs more Mohamed Bzeeks.

Jim Garfield, Santa Monica

..

To the editor: I am not religious. But I was introduced to an angel in your article as I cried my way through it. Bzeek is perhaps the most selfless, loving human being I have ever encountered. It is not surprising his young son is as loving as his father.

Bzeek deserves all our esteem and heartfelt thanks for taking care of the little girl referenced in the article and all the children he has fostered. What courage, what sacrifice, what devotion this lovely man exhibits as he cares for those who would otherwise suffer and die alone.

This story will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Lisa Schmitt, Bell Canyon

..

To the editor: There were tears in my eyes as I read the article about Bzeek, a very bright spot among all of the unpleasant business of todays world. This lovely man devoting his life to caring for these helpless children is an example to all of us.

Then I realized that as a Muslim from Libya, he would not be allowed to enter our country now. He would be banned because of his religion and country of origin  a ban ordered by a president who as far as I can tell has never done a kind thing for anyone.

Patricia L. Moore, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: Thank you for bringing Bzeeks dedication to light. He and his deceased wife are the very embodiment of compassion and an inspiration to all who work to reduce the suffering of the most vulnerable.

Debbie Elliott, Pacific Palisades

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To the editor: I recall warnings that if the San Onofre nuclear plant was not allowed to restart, Southern California would likely experience rolling blackouts. (Californians are paying billions for power they dont need, Feb. 5)

Those dire predictions never did come to pass because California had an excess of power. Electricity demand has fallen due to energy efficiency and conservation measures as well as distributed energy sources like rooftop solar.

I suggest that utility companies travel into the 21st century and obtain excess power capacity from renewable, distributed sources. If utilities worry about a glut of green electricity, my electric car and thousands more will help to address that problem.

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We dont need more behemoth, antiquated power plants.

Linda Nicholes, Huntington Beach

..

To the editor: TURN, The Utility Reform Network, is the consumer advocate alluded to in your article that challenged an unneeded power plant in Contra Costa County. We actually took the Public Utilities Commission to court twice over its votes to authorize customer funding for the unneeded Oakley plant, the first time in our more than 40 years of representing consumers that weve been forced into two appeals of almost identical, blatantly illegal commission decisions.

Part of the reason for continued approval of unneeded plants is the mistaken idea that our energy crisis was a crisis of need. It was in fact a crisis of greed, fed by the deregulation fervor that allowed companies to withhold power as a way to push prices upward.

Having the governors support can also boost a power plants chances. Commissioners are chosen by the governor and often remain in lockstep with whoever has appointed them.

Mindy Spatt, San Francisco

The writer is communications director for TURN.

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To the editor: I very seldom agreed with Jonah Goldberg, but I must give him kudos for the several columns hes written taking President Trump to task. In his latest piece, Goldberg laments how Trump defended Russian President Vladimir Putin by telling Fox News Bill OReilly that the United States has killed people. (According to Trump, the U.S. is no better than Russia, Opinion, Feb. 6)

It is really beyond a reasonable persons understanding how Trump is willing to denigrate Hispanics, Muslims, disabled individuals, judges and others and also insist that millions of people voted illegally, but he is unwilling to say anything negative about Putin.

More disgraceful is that the Republican leadership goes along with this behavior. This is not how you make America great again.

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George Poitou, Ontario

..

To the editor: While Putins killing may be on the level of a mafia hit man, Trump is right that the U.S. is also responsible for a great deal of death.

President Kennedy approved a coup to depose South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, who was killed after being toppled. President Johnson declared in August 1964 an unprovoked attack occurred in Vietmans Gulf of Tonkin, something he all but admitted later was a lie. President George W. Bush got us involved in Iraq, a conflict that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Thousands worldwide have been killed by drone strikes, most of which occurred during the Obama administration.

Were these killings justified? It is hard to say.

Nathan Post , Santa Barbara

..

To the editor: Goldberg laments Trumps contempt for American values. What he seems not to realize is that Trump holds to no universal ideals, American or otherwise. He separates ethical considerations from politics, as he embraces or discards ideals as a situation dictates.

Trump did not seek the presidency to put forward deeply held ideals, but rather for the opportunity that office gives him to wield power for its own sake.

Sam La Sala, Monrovia

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When other presidents were dealt the kind of jolting setback that President Trump received from the courts this week, they learned from those moments to alter their approaches to the job.

Trump, however, has a history of stubbornness and a self-proclaimed mission to upend almost everything his predecessors have done. That could color how he confronts the new limits on his power as he tries to make the kind of sweeping change he expected to deliver on his own.

Signs of struggle inside the White House have emerged between those who want Trump to keep his hyper-aggressive style and those who would like to see him seek more consensus.

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So far, those who like new policies to land with the clatter of breaking glass have had the most sway. But Thursdays ruling that blocked Trump from suspending the countrys refugee program and travel from seven Muslim-majority countries capped a week that saw his authority under assault on several new fronts.

Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who leads the House oversight committee, joined Democrats in calling for an ethics rebuke against senior White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who promoted the fashion line of Trumps daughter during a televised interview from the White House.

National Security Advisor Michael Flynn discussed U.S. sanctions with a Russian diplomat during the transition, when President Obama was still in office, the Washington Post and others reported, despite prior denials from Flynn and Trump administration officials. The discussions were viewed by experts as inappropriate and perhaps illegal, given the timing.

And Trump, in what many saw as weakness on the foreign stage, publicly acceded to Chinese President Xi Jinpings demand that he reaffirm the one China policy that Trump flouted during the transition when he took a congratulatory call from Taiwan.

Despite historically low popularity ratings and an outward sense of tumult, Trump and those inside the administration continued to express confidence, shaded with defiance, blaming the news media for distorting a fast-moving period that has been popular among Trumps core supporters.

When you look at the totality  weve issued 25, plus or minus, executive actions, nominated a Supreme Court justice, said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, in an interview. When people actually take the time to look at what has happened, it is a pretty amazing first 21 days, amazing and successful 21 days.

There are indications that Trumps team is making adjustments on the fly. After the legal setbacks on his travel ban, senior advisors huddled to brainstorm alternate paths that might accomplish similar goals without a drawn-out court battle.

On Friday, they scrambled over a plan to issue new, more narrowly tailored travel restrictions while they considered whether and how to pursue appeals. While Trump was speaking publicly about his next steps aboard Air Force One on Friday afternoon, top policy and communications advisors back at the White House were still debating how far they should take the appellate process.

Presidents eventually figure out they need to shift power away from campaign aides who helped them win election in favor of the experts in government who can craft policy and manage the bureaucracy more effectively, said Elaine Kamarck, a former aide in the Clinton White House who writes about the office of the presidency.

What hes now seeing is that a court order actually stops executive action, she said of Trump. It doesnt matter what he says or what he tweets.

She compared the courts slapdown of Trumps travel bans to a shock Clinton faced early in his presidency, when he bungled an attempt to fulfill a campaign promise to allow gays to serve openly in the military.

It was a failure to consult with the government before taking action, she said.

Clintons advisors urged him to pick his political battles more selectively and seek more input from those who had spent careers navigating the federal government.

Trump has shown hints that he is willing to accept advice, especially as members of his Cabinet win congressional approval and begin offering it. And though he does not sound humbled, Trump has allowed that the stakes are greater than others could grasp.

Ive learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely president, he said Friday during a news conference while speaking about the threat of terrorism.

Kamarck saw Trumps outreach to China as evidence that he is willing to defer to experts and curb some of his more provocative behavior. Yet hours after he moderated on China, Trump refreshed his attack on the judiciary in unusually personal terms that broke presidential norms, calling the appeals court ruling disgraceful on Twitter.

The dual signals match divisions within Trumps inner circle.

One side is led by nationalist ideologues including Stephen Bannon, the former publisher of the far-right Breitbart News website who serves as Trumps chief strategist. The more traditional conservative side is led by Reince Priebus, former chairman of the Republican National Committee who is Trumps chief of staff.

Bannon had a strong hand in drafting the overturned immigration order that was issued with little input from others only a week into Trumps presidency. Though it was temporarily blocked by the appeals court, Trump and his aides said they would keep fighting for the goal.

One Trump aide, who requested anonymity to reveal internal deliberations, insisted the administration would wage a stronger fight with help from the new secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, and the new attorney general, Jeff Sessions. The official said that Trumps executive action  framed by the president as a matter of security  is a better issue to debate than fending off attacks over ethics relating to Trumps family businesses or about Flynns contacts with Russia.

Trumps advisors who pushed for the ban said they were not deterred by Thursdays court decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which some expected to lose. The court, in their view, is stacked with liberal, activist judges who want to act in solidarity with the judicial branch. One of the three judges who sided against them was appointed by President George W. Bush.

If they chose to continue the court fight, they believe the courts will uphold the basic intent of the order, which is to stop people from entering the U.S. who might pose a risk. Even if they prevailed in court, though, it could take months, effectively stalling their agenda.

Those crafting Trumps immigration policies share a broader, long-term goal of shrinking the foreign-born population in the U.S. and transforming the immigrant makeup of the country by limiting the number of people coming to the country who, in their view, wont assimilate.

The Trump administration is under no obligation to admit any particular person and we have a right to develop a system in which were selecting immigrants that we think will be able to make positive contributions to U.S. society, a senior administration official told reporters in the White House two days after the travel ban order was signed.

Despite aides confidence, one longtime Trump associate, the political consultant Roger Stone, said Trump is deeply worried about a string of leaks to the media  including a report depicting the president as wandering the White House at night in a bathrobe and others suggesting he is naive.

Hes unhappy about the leaks, Stone said.

Stone, a provocateur in his own right, said Trump has a loyalty problem in that the White House is stocked with people who were not early campaign supporters. He named only three people  Bannon, Conway and policy director Stephen Miller  as loyalists, and Conway was allied with rival Ted Cruz before joining Trumps campaign last summer.

He needs to make some wholesale changes, said Stone, who has given Trump political advice for decades.

Appeals court ruling was the biggest warning to Trump yet on how hes approaching the presidency 

Stone attacked Priebus for, in his view, spending too much time with Trump and not enough time running daily White House operations.

A White House official said Trump does not speak with Stone.

Trumps court setback emboldened Democrats, who are still seeking a way to emerge from a devastating election that saw them surrender complete control to the GOP.

Its a major, major, major defeat for this administration in just the [first] few weeks, said Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), the No. 4 House Democrat. He promised more resistance because theyll continue to overstep.

Trump may also face new friction from Republican members of Congress. Several conservatives faced hostile crowds Thursday night as they held town meetings with constituents, most notably Chaffetz, whose district is one of the most conservative in the country. Many demanded more oversight of Trump.

Still, even as Trumps busy presidency has already generated enough news for a lifetime, it is early. And many Republicans who weathered the tumult of his presidential campaign are equipped to deal with further stumbles.

They point to the loyalty of Trumps strongest supporters, who believe that most of the resistance he faces is a byproduct of his willingness to shake up the status quo. And they view public demonstrations against the new administration skeptically, believing most are the work of organized Democratic special interest groups.

The real test for Trump, Republicans believe, will come when he begins negotiating with Congress on the tax code, healthcare and the size of the federal budget. Trump himself has been in touch with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) regularly, if not daily. McConnell met with Trump in the Oval Office on Friday.

As Trump and his administration have wobbled, Republicans leaders have proceeded cautiously  in some cases gently distancing themselves from controversy, in other cases avoiding it altogether. They are laying the groundwork for moving their shared agenda forward in Congress, and in the case of the Senate, working to confirm the remaining members of the presidents Cabinet and preparing to consider his Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch.

Theyve seen this movie for six months. Theyve had to answer for it for six months, said one Republican strategist, requesting anonymity to share thinking of senior Washington Republicans. I really dont get the sense that theres a panic button in the near future.

Staff writers Lisa Mascaro and Michael A. Memoli contributed to this report.

noah.bierman@latimes.com

Twitter: @noahbierman

brian.bennett@latimes.com

Twitter: @bybrianbennett

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As the healthcare vote looms, Trump sees opposition from conservatives, both on Capitol Hill and in the media By Kurtis Lee Its a really important vote in President Trumps fledgling first term. Will House Republicans pass a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act  a promise from Trump on the campaign trail  or reject it? (House Speaker Paul D. Ryan rushed to the White House on Friday morning for a last-minute meeting with Trump as both attempted to corral enough votes.) Trump spent much of the week trying to win support from members of the Freedom Caucus, among the most conservative lawmakers, some of whom are holdouts because they believe the bill does not go far enough. After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan! Trump tweeted Friday. But even some in conservative media arent all that thrilled about the bill. Here are some of Fridays headlines: Polls: Ryancare even more unpopular than Obamacare and Hillarycare (Breitbart) So, its been clear in recent weeks that the right-wing website Breitbart does not like the new healthcare proposal. The news site has dubbed the current bill Obamacare-lite or Ryancare  an homage of sorts to Ryan, who helped craft the legislation  and argued it does not go far enough in its overhaul. Most conservatives want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, nicknamed Obamacare, they just differ on what the replacement should look like. For example, some on the far right want to see so-called essential health benefits, such as maternity and newborn care, stripped from the bill.) This piece highlights several of the dismal polls the legislation has received. Among them: A recent Fox News survey that showed 54% oppose the bill, compared with 34% who support it. The article also references an analysis of polling and data by FiveThirtyEight.com, which shows the GOP legislation is more unpopular than Obamacare and President Bill Clintons healthcare reform bill were when they were first introduced. A modest immigration proposal (Weekly Standard) Trumps recent immigration orders have left many immigrants on edge. Through social media and pop-up legal clinics, immigrant rights groups have doled out around-the-clock assistance, as families fear being separated. In this piece, Irwin Stelzer notes that at some point, our border will be secure, resistance to deporting felons will collapse, and we will have accepted the fact that Dreamers will be allowed to stay in this country, probably on a path to citizenship. He lays out his views of immigration reform, citing, among other things, setting an annual immigration limit and adopting a system that has the effect of enriching our citizens by filling that annual quota with immigrants who are likely to increase the well-being of the existing citizenry. Jeff Sessions is Rip Van Winkle on drug policy (American Conservative) Its clear from polls that most Republicans oppose marijuana legalization, while Democrats support it. However, libertarian-leaning Republicans often tend to support legalization. This piece highlights Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions recent comments in opposition to states legalizing pot. The attorney general regurgitates simplistic cliches right out of the 1970s and 1980s about marijuana use. I dont think America is going to be a better place when people of all ages, and particularly young people, are smoking pot, Sessions told reporters on February 26, the author, Ted Galen Carpenter, writes. He adds, Such comments confirm that critics may be right when they label him a drug war dinosaur. He seems either oblivious or scornful about the trend in public opinion regarding marijuana. Facebook

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FCC Chairman Pai wants to halt Internet privacy rules before they begin taking effect this week By Jim Puzzanghera (Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images) The nations new top telecommunications regulator wants to halt tough Internet privacy rules before they begin taking effect this week, arguing they would unfairly impose tougher requirements on broadband providers than on websites and social networks. Privacy advocates and a key Senate Democrat vowed Monday to fight the move as well as a separate effort in Congress to overturn the regulations, which were approved in October on a party-line vote by the Federal Communications Commission when it was controlled by Democrats under President Obama. Following President Trumps inauguration, control of the commission passed to Republicans and Ajit Pai took over as chairman. All actors in the online space should be subject to the same rules, and the federal government shouldnt favor one set of companies over another, a spokesman for Pai said Friday. Read More Facebook

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Trump says Hollywoods obsession with him led to best picture Oscar gaffe By Michael A. Memoli (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) President Trump is often loath to accept responsibility when things go wrong, but in the case of Sundays Oscars broadcast, he made an exception. As he explained it Monday, it was Hollywoods obsession with attacking him that contributed to the botched best picture announcement, calling the embarrassing episode sad, of course. Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has apologized for the mix-up that led Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway to announce La La Land as the winner of the top Academy Award prize, instead of Moonlight. But in Trumps eyes, the blame falls more broadly on an entertainment industry so preoccupied with politics that they didnt get the act together, he told Breitbart News. It took away from the glamour of the Oscars, Trump told a reporter from the website, which was once led by his chief White House strategist, Stephen K. Bannon. It didnt feel like a very glamorous evening. Ive been to the Oscars. There was something very special missing, and then to end that way was sad, he added. The ceremony did contain a number of slights at Trump during its telecast, some more subtle than others. Host Jimmy Kimmel openly at one point begged the president to weigh in by tweeting at him. Trump spent part of Sunday night hosting a black-tie dinner at the White House honoring the nations governors, who were visiting Washington for their annual winter meeting. But it appears from excerpts of the Breitbart interview that he may have spent at least part of the evening watching. Facebook

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Justice Department shifts course in closely watched Texas voter ID case By Del Quentin Wilber The Trump administration has scaled back its assault on a strict Texas voter identification law that federal courts have ruled discriminated against minorities, portending a shift in how the Justice Department plans to pursue allegations of voter suppression. The government revealed its decision in court papers filed in federal court Monday, dealing a blow to civil rights advocates who have relied on federal support to help them knock down the controversial Texas statute. Its a very concerning signal to American voters about the Department of Justices commitment to enforcing the Voting Rights Act, said Danielle Lang, deputy director of the voting rights unit of the Campaign Legal Center, which is suing Texas in the case. The administrations partial retreat in the dispute highlights how Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, a conservative Republican who has championed voter identification measures, is expected to handle such cases. The Obama administration had joined civil rights groups in aggressively challenging the Texas law and other such measures around the country. At issue in the case was how the Justice Department would proceed in a federal lawsuit that alleged the Texas legislature discriminated against minority voters when it enacted the strict voter identification law in 2011. Known as SB 14, the measure requires voters to present a specific form of government-issued photo identification - such as a drivers license, military ID card, U.S. passport or citizenship certificate - to be permitted to cast a ballot. The Obama administration and civil rights groups argued the state pushed the law, in part, to suppress the power of the states minority voters, who frequently dont drive or have a passport. State officials and lawmakers countered that the law was aimed at preventing voter fraud, though there is scant evidence that the problem exists. The law was challenged in court by civil rights groups and the Justice Department under provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was intended to help overcome legal barriers erected at the local and state level to keep African-Americans from the polls. Last July, a federal appeals court ruled that the Texas law had a discriminatory impact on minority voters. It told U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos to craft a temporary remedy in time for the November elections. Ramos subsequently ordered Texas to permit voters to present other forms of documentation to verify their identities. The judges order is expected to remain in force until she imposes a permanent remedy or Texas addresses the judges concerns. According to the court papers filed Monday, the Justice Department will continue to work with civil rights groups to address those issues but will seek to withdraw from another important aspect of the suit. In the same decision that found the Texas law had a discriminatory impact, the appeals court reversed Ramos finding that Texas legislators had intended to harm minority voters. It ordered Ramos to reconsider the evidence of that finding. If the judge determines discriminatory intent in crafting the voter ID requirements, she could throw out the entire law. Civil rights groups will continue to press that claim. In its court filing, the Justice Department asked Ramos to permit it to withdraw its claim that Texas acted with intent, arguing that it is best to give the Texas legislature time to address the matter. With the loss of their key ally in court, civil rights groups will argue on their own in an effort to prove that Texas acted with a discriminatory purpose in passing the law. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. Voting advocates complained that the Trump administration was backing away from a key safeguard of voting rights. The Justice Department decision defies rationality and stands diametrically opposed to positions they have taken at every stage of this litigation, Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement. This reversal of position was taken despite years of work and effort that the government has invested in fighting the Texas Voter ID law, one of the most discriminatory voting restriction of its kind. Facebook

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House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes warns against witch hunt over Trump-Russia ties By Sarah D. Wire House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) talks to reporters about his committees Russia investigation. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes said on Monday he has seen no evidence from the intelligence community that there was contact between Russia and the Trump campaign. I want to be very careful, we cant just go on a witch hunt against Americans because they appear in a news story, said Nunes (R-Tulare). We still dont have any evidence of them talking to Russia. He said the committee has been briefed on the highlights of what the intelligence community has found, but is still collecting evidence. The committees ranking Democrat, Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), quickly responded, saying the committees investigation is in its infancy and its too soon to reach conclusions about the evidence. We havent obtained any of the evidence yet, so its premature for us to be saying weve reached any conclusion about the issue of collusion, Schiff said. The most that weve had are private conversations, the chair and I with intelligence officials. Thats not a substitute for an investigation. The House and Senate Select Intelligence Committees are conducting separate investigations into Russias reported attempts to influence voters in 2016 in an effort to curtail Hillary Clintons chances and boost Donald Trumps. A leaked U.S. intelligence report on the attempts did not look at whether the effort succeeded. The House committee has expanded a previous ongoing investigation of Russia cyberhacking to include a look at efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, Nunes told reporters Monday. Though it is still in its early stages  the leaders of the committee are still discussing the investigations scope  Nunes said he expects the findings to be made public. Schiff and Nunes spoke separately to reporters Monday. Schiff said the two agreed privately that they would jointly address reporters about the investigation going forward. Nunes, who served as a member of Trumps transition team, said he continues to be concerned about leaks of classified and sensitive information from the White House and intelligence communities. The leaks  one of which resulted in a report about the FBI investigating Trump campaign officials  will be part of the committees investigation. A government cant function with massive leaks at the highest level, Nunes said. Facebook

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Appeals court denies Justice Department request to put appeal of travel ban on hold By Jaweed Kaleem (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the

Justice Departments request to pause proceedings in an appeal of President Trumps travel ban. The court in a filing Monday said its schedule for the governments appeal of a lower courts halt on the travel ban will proceed, with the first brief due to the appeals court on March 10. In early February, the Justice Department appealed a Seattle-based federal district judges order blocking enforcement of Trumps executive action. which established a series of immigration and refugee restrictions aimed at preventing potential terrorists from entering the country. Last week, government lawyers asked the appeals court to stop proceedings in the case because the president planned to issue a new executive order and rescind the original one. A three-judge panel of the court previously denied a request from the government to reverse a nationwide stay on the travel ban. The same panel on Monday ruled that the appeal will proceed. Trump has said he will sign a new executive order tailored to deal with court decisions that have largely gone against him. On Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said he expected the order to be issued mid-week. Spicer has said Trump wants to fight for the current order while also issuing a new one, but the Justice Department has said in multiple court filings that the the current order will be undone after a new one is issued. The states of Washington and Minnesota, which brought the case in Seattle now under review, have pushed for courts to move forward on a review of the constitutional issues. Facebook

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No random ICE stops on streets of America, Homeland Security chief tells governor By Lisa Mascaro Gov holds closing media briefing on Capitol Hill to wrap up @NatlGovsAssoc Winter Meeting. pic.twitter.com/3mZMBA4S0o  Ralph Northam (@GovernorVA) February 27, 2017 President Trump received some unsolicited advice at dinner with the nations governors when Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe told him he needs to do a better job explaining his policies regarding deportations. McAuliffe, a Democrat and chairman of the National Governors Assn., told the president that there has been a chilling effect going on as businesses stay away from his state and as immigrants fear being rounded up. If theyre not going to be deported, we need to hear that from the president, McAuliffe said, recounting his conversation from the governors Sunday night dinner with Trump. What I told the president is these actions are hurting us. McAuliffe, a longtime ally of Hillary Clinton, said Trump agreed in large part. McAuliffe also met privately with Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, and said the secretary assured him during an hourlong talk that Trumps enforcement actions were only targeting criminals -- despite widespread reports of otherwise law-abiding immigrants being detained for being in the U.S. illegally. He assured me there will be no random ICE stops on the streets of the United States of America, McAuliffe said, referring to the raids being conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. If thats the case, McAuliffe said, Trumps policy does not sound much different than the operations under former President Obama, whose administration deported more immigrants than its predecessors. Obama, however, explicitly put a priority on deportations of criminals, a distinction the Trump administration has done away with as part of the presidents executive action. My advice to him was he needs to let the American public know what theyre doing, McAuliffe said. Facebook

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Trump: I havent called Russia in 10 years By Brian Bennett President Trump rejected calls for an independent investigation of his ties to Russia, telling a group of business leaders Monday that he hasnt called Russia in a decade. At the start of a White House meeting with healthcare executives, a reporter asked Trump whether a special prosecutor should be assigned to investigate allegations of Russian meddling during the election. In response, Trump mouthed the word no to the executives. As reporters were led out of the room, Trump said: I havent called Russia in 10 years. Democratic lawmakers have ramped up their calls for additional investigations into allegations that Trump allies had been in contact with Russian officials during the election and inappropriately discussed U.S. sanctions against the Moscow regime during the transition. White House officials have denied reports that Trump associates were frequently in touch with senior Russian intelligence officials during the election. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded last year that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had authorized an operation to damage Hillary Clintons campaign and tilt the 2016 election in Trumps favor. Facebook

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Trump: Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated By Michael A. Memoli View Twitter post President Trump promised the nations governors Monday that his yet-to-be-revealed replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act would give states greater flexibility and thanked some Republicans in the room who advised him on healthcare. Its an unbelievably complex subject, he said. Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated. The remark likely surprised state leaders; spending on Medicaid alone was the second-biggest driver of increased state general fund spending, according to the 2016 Fiscal Survey of States conducted by the National Assn. of State Budget Officers. And it was just eight years ago that Washington dove head-first into a raging debate over healthcare reform under President Obama, which simmered long after his signature health law was enacted. But the finer points of healthcare policy are likely new to Trump, who is immersed in discussions with Republican leaders and his senior staff on that and other subjects ahead of his high-profile address Tuesday to a joint session of Congress. Trump offered no hint as to the details. Republicans have vowed to repeal and replace Obamacare, but their effort has stalled as they debate how to do so and await word from the White House on what Trump wants to do. The president seemed keenly aware of the political ramifications of whatever steps he takes. As soon as we touch it, if we do the most minute thing, just a tiny little change, whats going to happen? Theyre going to say its the Republicans problem, Trump said after telling the governors the easiest thing for him to do would be nothing, and, in his view, watch Obamacare collapse. But we have to do whats right because Obamacare is a failed disaster. Facebook

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Trump wants to add $54 billion to defense budget while slashing domestic spending and foreign aid By Brian Bennett President Trump is proposing a massive increase in defense spending of $54 billion while cutting domestic spending and foreign aid by the same amount, the White House said Monday. Trumps spending blueprint previewed a major address that he will give Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress, laying out his vision for what he called a public safety and national security budget with a nearly 10% increase in defense spending. We never win a war. We never win. And we dont fight to win. We dont fight to win, Trump said Monday in remarks to the nations governors. So we either got to win or dont fight it at all. Trump noted that the U.S. has spent nearly $6 trillion on fighting wars since the Sept. 11 attacks but said that cutting military spending was not the answer. Instead, the increase he is proposing would be offset by cuts to unspecified domestic programs and to foreign aid, which would in turn be made up for in part by demanding that other countries pay more for security alliances that have historically been underwritten by the U.S. This budget expects the rest of the world to step up in some of the programs that this country has been so generous in funding in the past, an official from the Office of Management and Budget said, demanding anonymity to discuss the presidents spending plans. Foreign aid makes up about 1% of the budget. This budget speaks for itself, the official said. I dont think this budget has anything to do other than putting Americans first. Trumps call for deep cuts to spending at home is likely to set up major battles on Capitol Hill, where Democrats and even House Republicans will likely be reluctant to pass a spending bill that includes such major reductions in programs for their constituents. Facebook

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Trump says businesses cant borrow because of Dodd-Frank. The numbers tell another story By Jim Puzzanghera President Trump was preparing the first step in a key campaign promise  dismantling the 2010 DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act  when he repeated a frequent criticism of the law. We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank because, frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine that had nice businesses, they cant borrow money, Trump told leading corporate chief executives, including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Larry Fink of money management giant BlackRock Inc., meeting at the White House earlier this month They just cant get any money because the banks just wont let them borrow it because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank, Trump said. Shortly afterward, he ordered a wholesale review of the landmark act, which was passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But a main reason for dismantling Dodd-Frank often cited by Trump and critics of the law  that its slew of tougher financial regulations have significantly restricted bank lending  isnt borne out by the data. Read More Facebook

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Another Trump nominee withdraws nomination to top national security post due to business interests By W.J. Hennigan Philip M. Bilden, President Trumps pick for Navy secretary, withdrew from consideration late Sunday, becoming the second White House nominee to bail on a top Pentagon position due to problems untangling his financial investments. After an extensive review process, I have determined that I will not be able to satisfy the Office of Government Ethics requirements without undue disruption and materially adverse divestment of my familys private financial interests, Bilden said in a statement. He did not detail the issues but he said he fully supported the presidents agenda  to modernize and rebuild our Navy and Marine Corps. Bildens withdrawal comes after billionaire investor Vincent Viola dropped out from becoming Army secretary after he decided his extensive financial holdings would hamper his ability to win Senate confirmation. The White House shot down reports that surfaced two weeks ago that Bilden was considering stepping down. Just spoke with him and he is 100% commited [sic] to being the next SECNAV pending Senate confirm, White House spokesman Sean Spicer tweeted on Feb. 18. Bilden, a venture capitalist and Army veteran, was a surprise selection from Trump but had the backing of Defense Secretary James N. Mattis. This was a personal decision driven by privacy concerns and significant challenges he faced in separating himself from his business interests, Mattis said in a statement. While I am disappointed, I understand and his respect his decision, and know that he will continue to support our nation in other ways. Bilden served ten years in the U.S. Army Reserve as a military intelligence officer from 1986 to 1996. He then co-founded private equity firm HarbourVest Partners LLC and spent 25 years there, mainly in the companys Hong Kong headquarters. He also serves on the board of directors of the United States Naval Academy Foundation and the board of trustees of the Naval War College Foundation. Mattis said he intends on recommending a replacement nominee to Trump in the coming days. The withdrawal marks another setback for Trumps national security team, which has struggled to find its footing since the fledgling administration began. Earlier this month, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was forced to resign after it became public that he held secret talks with a Russian ambassador and then misled Vice President Mike Pence about it. Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster took the job last week after Trumps first choice to replace Flynn, retired Navy Vice Adm. Robert Harward, passed on the opportunity. Facebook

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New DNC chairman Tom Perez ridicules Trump tweet over rigged vote By Laura King Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez was chosen to lead the Democratic Party over a congressman backed by the progressive wing. (Branden Camp / Associated Press) President Trump claimed Sunday that the race for Democratic National Committee chairman had been rigged -- drawing a quick riposte from Tom Perez, who narrowly won the partys leadership race. Trump insinuated that Perezs DNC victory on the second ballot at a party conference in Atlanta on Saturday was because Hillary Clinton had backed Perez, a former Labor secretary in the Obama administration who was seen as representing the partys establishment forces. Clinton did not make a formal endorsement, but Perezs rival, Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, was backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the partys more liberal wing. Bernies guy, like Bernie himself, never had a chance, Trump tweeted early Sunday morning. Clinton demanded Perez! Perez, appearing on CNNs State of the Union on Sunday, told host Jake Tapper that he and Ellison got a good kick out of that, adding: Donald Trump, up in the morning tweeting about us. Sanders, appearing on the same show, said Trump doesnt have a point about the DNC vote. Moments after Perez beat Ellison by 35 votes out of 435 cast, he named Ellison as the deputy chairman of the party, leading to widespread applause. Perez is the first Latino to lead the Democratic Party, and he faces the challenge of trying to rebuild a party that suffered devastating losses in the 2016 election. Republicans now control not only the White House and Congress, but 33 governorships and dozens of state legislatures. In his CNN interview, Perez sarcastically suggested that Trump should address questions about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign rather than concerning himself with the DNC leadership battle. Frankly, what we need to be looking at is whether this election was rigged by Donald Trump and his buddy Vladimir Putin, he said. Facebook

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White House again bats away call for special prosecutor on Russia By Laura King A White House spokeswoman said Sunday that it was too soon to say whether a special prosecutor should look into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, while President Trump again inveighed against coverage of Russia-related queries as FAKE NEWS. Calls have grown louder from Democrats in Congress for U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from the issue because of his role as a prominent Trump supporter during the campaign, and to appoint an independent special prosecutor to carry out a Russia probe. A few Republicans have joined in that chorus  some reluctantly. Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista, appearing on HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher, voiced support Friday for naming of a special prosecutor to probe the Russian connection, though he also said congressional intelligence committees should continue their work. He also said he considered Sessions a friend, but pointed to his role as a political appointee who had worked on the Trump campaign. Issa, who narrowly won reelection, was a vociferous critic of the Obama administration during his former tenure as head of the House Oversight Committee. In that post, he spearheaded an array of investigations on topics from Benghazi to bank bailouts. Some Republicans pushed back against the notion of Sessions needing to recuse himself. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said on NBCs Meet the Press that he had seen no credible information about contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians  and no allegations that rose to the level of criminal activity. If we get down that road, thats a decision that Attorney General Sessions can make at the time, said Cotton, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian intelligence agencies hacked Democratic Party computers and used other tactics last year to interfere with the election. The FBI is separately investigating whether anyone on Trumps campaign had improper contacts with Russian authorities during the campaign. On Sunday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said congressional investigations on Russia and the campaign should be allowed to go forward before a special prosecutor appointment was considered. I dont think were there yet, Sanders said on ABCs This Week. Lets work through this process. Echoing the previously stated White House stance, Sanders said the Trump campaign had not colluded in any Russian meddling. We had no involvement in this, she said. The president is known to keep a close eye on surrogates performances on the talk shows, and Sanders repeated a prime administration talking point: that questions about possible Trump campaign contacts with Russia amounted to Democratic excuses for losing the election. If Democrats want to continue to relive their loss every single day, by doing an investigation or review after review, thats fine by us, she said. We know why we won this race. Its because we had the better candidate with the better message. Trump himself underscored that notion with an afternoon tweet denouncing media coverage of the ongoing Russia investigations as FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks! Facebook

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Whose news is fake? Heres the latest in Trumps war with the press By Kurtis Lee Every president since 1981 has attended the annual White House Correspondents Assn. dinner. That year, President Reagan missed out. The reason? He needed to recover after a would-be assassin fired a bullet into his chest a few weeks earlier. On Saturday, President Trump announced he will not be attending the annual dinner in April, long considered the premier social event of the Washington press corps and typically an evening of good-natured bantering between presidents and the Fourth Estate. Trumps announcement added to the ratcheting tensions between his administration and the media. Almost daily, in speeches or on Twitter, he calls particular news outlets fake, disgusting or dishonest  and news organizations have responded by digging in, standing united and devoting more resources to covering a president who has branded the press the enemy. Read More Facebook

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Crucial group of Americans like Trumps stands, not him, poll finds By David Lauter Trump still gets dismal ratings on temperament but is above water on economy, decision-making, promises of change. pic.twitter.com/Md0H096n9m  Carrie Dann (@CarrieNBCNews) February 26, 2017 With the public deeply split in its views of President Trump, one potentially key group stands out -- those who dislike the man, but approve of the direction in which hes moving. Thats a central finding of a new nationwide survey by NBC News and the Wall St. Journal. The new poll confirms what other major surveys have shown: Trump starts his administration with less support than any president in the seven decades of presidential polling. Asked if they approve or disapprove of the job Trump is doing, 44% approve, 48% disapprove. No previous president has begun his tenure with a net negative job approval. Trump has held onto the support of his ardent backers. At the other end of the spectrum, he gets almost no approval from Democrats. In the middle, the poll found, are many Americans -- just over a third of those polled -- who either voted for Trump with reservations, voted for a third party candidate or did not vote at all in 2016. Just over half of that group gives Trump positive marks, the poll found. Their support is enough, currently, to keep Trumps standing from collapsing, and holding them is likely key to his future. Just under one third of Americans say they like Trump and approve of his policies, the poll found. Another one in six approve of most of his policies even though they dislike him. Well over half, 59%, said they did not like him personally. On a separate question, only 43% of those surveyed have a positive view of Trump -- up from the low points of the campaign, but still far below the standing of most new presidents. By contrast, 86% agreed with one of the central lines of Trumps inaugural speech, that government insiders had reaped the rewards of government, while the people have borne the cost. On other issues, the public is more closely divided. The public splits evenly, for example, on Trumps proposed temporary ban on travel from seven mostly Muslim countries. Just over half of those surveyed, 52%, said that the problems Trump has encountered in his first month were unique to this administration and suggest real problems; 43% said they were growing pains similar to those other administrations have had. And by 51%-41%, the public thinks the press has been too hard on the new administration. The NBC/WSJ poll, run by a bipartisan team of two polling firms, was taken by phone, using cell phones and landlines, Feb. 18-22 among 1,000 American adults. It has a margin of error for the full sample of 3.1 percentage points in either direction. Facebook

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Trump appears to think Perez at head of Democratic National Committee is good news for Republicans By Evan Halper Congratulations to Thomas Perez, who has just been named Chairman of the DNC. I could not be happier for him, or for the Republican Party!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017 The Democratic Party put its faith in its old guard Saturday to guide it out of the political wilderness, choosing as its new leader an Obama-era Cabinet secretary over the charismatic congressman backed by the progressive wing of the party. Tom Perez, a former secretary of Labor with strong ties to unions, persuaded the spirited assembly of party delegates in Atlanta that he can best help harness a grass-roots outpouring of anti-Trump protest and anger into a Democratic resurgence at the ballot box. Read More Facebook

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Trump to Washington reporters: Not going to your dinner By Kurtis Lee I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017 The annual White House Correspondents Assn. dinner will be missing a key guest this year: President Trump. On Saturday, Trump tweeted he will not attend the April 29 dinner, considered the premier social event of the Washington press corps -- and typically an evening of good-natured bantering between presidents and reporters with a mix of celebrities watching. His announcement comes amid growing tensions between his administration and the media. Trump has decried stories he doesnt like as fake news, and described unnamed news groups as an enemy of the people. A day earlier, the White House barred reporters from several major news organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, CNN and Politico, from attending an off-camera press briefing. In a sign of the growing rift, several media organizations that traditionally sponsor lavish parties around the black-tie dinner had announced they would not do so this year. At the annual dinner, the president usually delivers self-deprecating jokes and often is roasted by a high-profile comedian. The president also greets students who win journalism scholarships and awards, a major part of the evening. Trump has been a frequent guest of media organizations at the dinner in the past, but he always sat at a table in the crowded ballroom, not up at the front dias. President Obama singled Trump out during the dinner several years ago, mocking Trump for raising doubts about whether Obama was born in the United States. This year, as we do every year, we will celebrate the First Amendment and the role an independent press plays in a healthy republic, the White House Correspondents Assn. said in a statement earlier this month about the upcoming dinner. Facebook

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Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez named Democratic Party leader By Evan Halper Newly elected Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez (Branden Camp/Associated Press) The Democratic Party put its faith in its old guard Saturday to guide it out of the political wilderness, choosing as its new leader an Obama-era Cabinet secretary over the charismatic congressman backed by the progressive wing of the party. Tom Perez, a former secretary of Labor with strong ties to labor unions, persuaded the spirited assembly of party delegates in Atlanta that he can best help harness a grass-roots outpouring of anti-Trump protest and anger into a Democratic resurgence at the ballot box. We are suffering from a crisis of confidence, a crisis of relevance, Perez told delegates before they chose him in a down-to-the-wire contest with Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, whom the Bernie Sanders wing of the party had rallied round. We need a chair who can not only take the fight to Donald Trump.  We also need a chair who can lead a turnaround and change the culture of the Democratic Party, Perez said. The ascendance of an establishment liberal is certain to renew tension between veteran party stalwarts and the unruly progressive movement aligned with Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, both of whom backed Ellison. Some Ellison supporters erupted in protest as the final vote was announced. Perez quickly sought to unite the party by naming Ellison his deputy chair, a move unanimously approved by the 435 assembled delegates, who had supported Perez 235-200. Read More Facebook

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Trump chastises media for not reporting minor dip in national debt By Del Quentin Wilber President Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning to blast the news media for not highlighting a minor dip in the national debt. The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo., he tweeted at 8:19 a.m. The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017 Trumps tweet came shortly after Herman Cain, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, made a similar comment on Fox News. While the numbers are accurate, Trumps tweet suggests he deserves credit for something that is largely beyond his control, especially since he hasnt yet given Congress any proposals to change tax laws or the financial industry. Considering that Trump hasnt enacted any fiscal legislation, its a bit of a stretch for him to take credit for any changes in debt levels, Dan Mitchell, a libertarian economist at the Cato Institute, told the fact-checking website Politifact. President Obamas first month in office in 2009 was largely taken up with spending bills aimed at easing the massive recession that he had inherited. Trump inherited an economy with low inflation, low unemployment and a booming stock market. The national debt, which stands at just under $20 trillion, is expected to rise by more than $500 billion in the fiscal year ending in September. Facebook

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Mexico rejects U.S. plan to deport Central Americans to Mexico By Patrick J. McDonnell Mexico has informed the Trump administration that it cannot accept non-Mexican nationals whom U.S. authorities arrest along the border and seek to remove from U.S. territory, the nations internal security chief said Friday. Earlier this week, the Trump administration rolled out a broad immigration crackdown that included a proposal to send non-Mexican detainees apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border back to Mexico while their immigration cases were pending in the United States. The vast majority of non-Mexican nationals detained along the U.S.-Mexico border are Central Americans. They often travel overland through Mexico to reach the United States. In a fact sheet released Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security said that releasing detained, third-country nationals to the foreign contiguous territory from which they arrived would save on detention and adjudication resources. The idea would be to keep them out pending their hearings on deportation, the fact sheet said. However, Mexican authorities have reacted coolly from the outset to the notion. Now, they appear to have formally nixed the idea. On Friday, Mexicos interior secretary, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, told a radio interviewer than Mexican authorities had informed a pair of visiting U.S. Cabinet officers  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly  that Mexico could not oblige the U.S. request. We told them that our legal framework doesnt allow this, Osorio Chong told Radio Formula, referring to the visit this week of the two Trump Cabinet officials.  We told them it is impossible. There is no way, legally, nor is there capacity. In recent years, non-Mexicans, mostly Central Americans, have become a larger proportion of illegal immigrants apprehended along the Southwest border as the relative number of Mexican nationals has declined. In fiscal year 2016, according to U.S. Border Patrol statistics, agents recorded apprehensions of almost 191,000 undocumented Mexican citizens along the Southwest frontier. In the same fiscal year, the Border Patrol said it registered 218,000 detentions of non-Mexican nationals, most of them Central Americans. Cecilia Sanchez of The Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report. An earlier version of this blog post misspelled Miguel Angel Osorio Chongs name as Osorio Chung. Facebook

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Trump blasts FBI over Russia leaks after a brief Twitter hiatus By Kurtis Lee (Alex Wong / Getty Images ) After several days of relative silence on Twitter, President Trumps feed came alive Friday with a direct attack on the FBI. Yes, hes done this before. But recent news reports that suggest his administration pressed the FBI to quell claims that members of his campaign had contact with Russians throughout the 2016 election appear to have inspired a response. The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security leakers that have permeated our government for a long time, he tweeted. And conservative news was all over it. Here are some of todays headlines: Trump blasts FBI leakers (Fox News) Trump has assailed everyone from Democrats to intelligence officials for the leaks  which he often refers to as fake news  about his ties to Russia. Reports from several news outlets this week, citing anonymous sources, claim Trumps chief of staff, Reince Priebus, asked FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to publicly dispute media reports that Trumps campaign advisors frequently were in touch with Russian intelligence agents during the election. While some reports made it appear Priebus had contacted McCabe, this piece disputes that. Fox News has learned that McCabe indeed had initiated the conversation, asking to speak with Priebus for a few minutes at the end of an intelligence meeting last week, their article reports. Ed Schultz at CPAC: Trump promised Americas heartland a deal (Daily Caller) He was once among the top liberal voices in the country. Now, Ed Schultz, the former MSNBC anchor, is speaking glowingly about President Trump. Between covering high-profile speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference from Trump and his aides, the Daily Caller popped into a panel at which Schultz provided commentary. Shultz, who now works with the Russian government-funded RT television network, blasted the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, asserting that Trumps claim that it would cost U.S. jobs was a game changer in the 2016 election. Trump went into Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin and he took down the progressive firewall, because he talked to the American people about a deal, Schultz said. It was a Wall Street deal, it was not a Main Street deal, he said, referring to the TPP. Trump is about blowing up Washington as it exists (Rush Limbaugh) Remember when Trump talked about draining the swamp? Since he entered the White House, some conservatives have wondered if Trump means business. Many members of his cabinet  including Priebus and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions  are the ultimate Washington insiders. Still, Rush Limbaugh, one of the firebrand conservatives out there, is certain the president will blow up traditional Washington. Whats Trumps No. 1 obstacle? I have concluded that the media is the No. 1 obstacle because of the success they have, he said on his radio show this week. The people in Washington, media is every bit as big a part of the establishment as anybody else is. He added: The media is creating this narrative, if you will, and this picture  this series of pictures, this overall image  that Trump is stalled, that everybodys opposing him, that his agenda is backlogged. Facebook

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After Trump calls media an enemy of the people, White House bars many news outlets from briefing By Noah Bierman Fridays White House press briefing, normally an on-camera affair open to all reporters with press credentials, was turned into an exclusive event for certain outlets hand-picked by the administration. The action came after President Trump on Friday described the media and what he terms fake news as the enemy of the people."On the list were Trump-friendly outlets such as Breitbart News, the Washington Times and OANN, a conservative television network that employs former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a commentator. Off the list were some of Trumps favorite targets, including the New York Times and CNN. The Los Angeles Times was also excluded. The off-camera briefing with Sean Spicer, the press secretary, was not solely for conservative outlets. Several mainstream reporters were also allowed in, including the three major broadcast networks and wire services, such as Bloomberg News. Also allowed in were pool representatives who transmit news events to a far larger group of reporters. The Associated Press and Time magazine were also invited but declined to participate in solidarity with other news organizations that were denied entry. The White House Correspondents Assn. protested, as did editors at several of the organizations that were excluded. In a statement, Times editor Davan Maharaj said that it was unfortunate that the Los Angeles Times has been excluded from a White House press briefing today. The public has a right to know, and that means being informed by a variety of news sources, not just those filtered by the White House press office in hopes of getting friendly coverage, Maharaj said. Regardless of access, The Times will continue to report on the Trump administration without fear or favor, he added. 12:30 p.m.: This post was updated with a statement from Times editor Davan Maharaj. Facebook

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Its a Russian flag! Trickster strikes CPAC before Trumps speech By Matt Pearce Crowd at CPAC waving these little pro-Trump flags that look exactly like the Russian flag. Staffers quickly come around to confiscate them. pic.twitter.com/YhPpkwFCNc  Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) February 24, 2017 As the crowd waited to hear President Trump speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, little red-white-and-blue flags appeared without warning, handed down the aisles by a man with a green bag, according to a witness. The flags said Trump. They also happened to be the flag of the Russian Federation. He was dressed like any one of us, said Tyler Dever, 20, a student at the University of South Florida in Tampa, who was wearing a suit. He passed them to me and was like, Pass them down, pass them down.  Dever, caught up in the moment, passed them down, before someone sitting next to him said, Oh, its a Russian flag! CPAC staff quickly recollected the flags. If it was just a red-white-and-blue flag, I would have picked it out, Dever said. He said it was his first time attending an event like CPAC and was surprised to see a provocateur in the audience, especially beyond the cordon set up by the Secret Service. Someone tried to victimize me, Dever said. You have Secret Service out here, and Id expect it to be fully screened. ... Thank God someone noticed. Facebook

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Trump still loves the USC/L.A. Times poll: What it got right and what it got wrong By David Lauter Throughout the fall campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump and his allies loved the USC/L.A. Times Daybreak poll -- the only major survey that consistently showed him winning. A couple polls got it right. I must say Los Angeles Times did a great job, shocking because, you know, they did a great job, Trump declared in his speech this morning at CPAC, the annual gathering of conservative activists. But did the poll get it right? In the simplest terms, no, and after considerble analysis, we know why. Read More Facebook

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A celebration, and wake, for a campaign legend and a Republican Party that is no more By Mark Z. Barabak (Steve Lopez/Los Angeles Times) It was a cool and rainy day when elders of the Republican tribe recently gathered to honor one of their own. The honoree, Stuart K. Spencer, was unmistakable in his white duck pants and a lime-green sport coat so bright it almost hurt to see. A reformed chain-smoker, he snapped merrily away on a wad of chewing gum. The event marked Spencers 90th birthday, but the mood beneath the surface conviviality was unsettled and gray, like the clouds fringing the mountains outside. If the occasion was intended as a personal celebration, it also had the feel of a wake for a time in politics long passed. Along with former Vice President Dick Cheney and former California Gov. Pete Wilson, veterans of the Reagan years turned out in force. It was Spencer, more than anyone, who took a political long shot and washed-up B-movie actor and helped transform him into the Reagan of legend. Read More Facebook

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CPACs reaction to President Trumps speech: Two thumbs up By Matt Pearce Supporters cheer President Trump as he speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., on Friday. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) President Trump loves CPAC, and CPAC loves Trump. As hundreds of Conservative Political Action Conference attendees spilled out into the hallways Friday after Trumps speech to the group, they had glowing reviews of the man who has been tormenting Democrats and the media and transforming the Republican Party. It was fantastic, unbelievable, absolute truth, said Shia L. Lome, 84, a retired Air Force colonel from Deerfield Beach, Fla., appraising Trumps remarks. If he carries through [his promises], this will be the greatest country ever. Lome added that there is no question about it, Trump is his own type of Republican. Whether its conservative or whatever you want to call it, Lome said he is happy as long as [Trump] causes the Democrats heartaches. Kayne Robinson, 73, a former chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, said Trump was simply taking the party in the direction that people want it to go. I think the party is every bit as united behind him as it was behind either of the Bushes, Robinson said. Trump led a revolution in the party, very much like Reagan. ... I think Trump is doing just fine. Frank March, a 50-year-old Army retiree from Fairfax County, Va., emerged from the ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center wearing a red Make America Great Again cap, which carried Trumps jagged signature on the bill. Marchs daughter had gotten the hat signed when she previously met Trump, and he proudly showed off photos of that event. I recognize the signature! a woman exclaimed as she saw the hat. March praised Trumps follow-through and his commitment to workers as incredible. Hes bringing in new people to the party, March said. The hope is, by his follow-through, doing what he said he was going to do, then the non-Republicans who voted for Trump will stick. Helping workers will be one of the ways Trump can make that happen, he said. In politics, youre supposed to help people, March said. Workers are the people. Theyre people who earn money to take care of their families. Republicans should support those people because theyre the ones who make America run. Facebook

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Donald Trump shows up at conservatives most prominent gathering and defines a new GOP By Noah Bierman  President Trump shows up at conservatives most prominent gathering and defines a new GOP. President Trump made one of his strongest pitches Friday to unite the Republican Party and the conservative movement behind a nationalist, anti-globalist ideology that until recently would have been unthinkable for many Republicans. There is no such thing as a global anthem, a global currency or a global flag, Trump said to great applause from thousands of conservatives. Im not representing the globe. Im representing your country. He echoed ideas he has espoused in the past -- denouncing trade deals as the antithesis of economic freedom, warning that the great cities of Europe have been ruined by mass immigration, denouncing intervention in the Middle East by both parties. But while many of the words were familiar, the venue and the passion made Fridays speech remarkable. The comments came at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, just outside of Washington, D.C., the most prominent gathering of right-leaning groups and activists in the country. Such a speech would have been shocking from a conservative, much less the president, at almost any other time in the conferences history. Trump has been popular at CPAC in the past. He credits a speech there with launching his political career. But he snubbed last years event amid a heated primary in which many conservatives rejected his tone and the direction he was trying to move the GOP. I would have come last year, but I was worried that I would be at that time too controversial, Trump said in his speech, which lasted nearly an hour. Trump, the first president since Ronald Reagan to address the group during his first year in office, made clear that he is moving those once controversial ideas to the movements center. In addition to his usual critiques of the media and frequent references to his electoral success, Trump spoke directly of his ambition for reshaping the Republican Party to attract blue-collar voters, the forgotten men and women who helped propel his electoral victory. Im here today to tell you what this movement means for the future of the Republican Party and for the future of America, Trump said. The core conviction of our movement is that we are a nation that [must] put and will put its own citizens first. Later, he added that the GOP will be from now on also the party of the American worker. While Trump tried to unite conservatives, the speech made little effort to bridge the countrys larger political divide. For example, Trump dismissed people who have shown up at town halls around the country to protest reversal of Obamacare. Theyre not you, he said. Theyre the side that lost. Facebook

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Justice Department rescinds order phasing out use of private prisons By Del Quentin Wilber Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions has jettisoned an Obama administration order to phase out the use of private prisons to hold federal inmates. The new order reverses one issued by former Deputy Atty. Gen. Sally Yates in August that sought to eliminate the departments use of private for-profit prisons, which hold just over 10% of the current prison population. The Obama administration order changed long-standing policy and practice, and impaired the bureaus ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system, Sessions wrote Thursday to announce the reversal. Civil rights and prisoner rights groups decried the Sessions decision, saying private prisons are not as cost-effective or as safe as government-run facilities, citing numerous abuses in the past. The Bureau of Prisons houses about 21,000 of its 190,000 inmates in a dozen private prisons, including one near Bakersfield. Atty. Gen. Sessions has shown that he is not taking the mass incarceration crisis seriously, said Wade Henderson, who heads the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Continuing to rely on private prisons for federal inmates is neither humane nor budget conscious, Henderson added. We need a justice system that can work better for all people. Yates order did not affect facilities used to detain people in the country illegally. The use of private prisons is expected to surge under President Trumps promised crackdown on illegal immigration. Trump has signed an executive order calling for expansion of immigrant detention facilities and authorized the use of private contractors to construct, operate, or control facilities. Stocks in private prison companies have jumped on Wall Street since Trump won the presidential election, and they continued their rise on news of Sessions order. Facebook

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CPAC and conservative media prepare for Trump By Kurtis Lee The future path of the Republican Party is being debated in the halls of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland this week. Will it be the party of Donald Trump, an outsider of the GOP establishment, or House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, the definition of establishment? Or, perhaps, of Richard Spencer, a white nationalist leader of the so-called alt-right movement? (Spencer was kicked out of CPAC on Thursday.) Trump is set to address the conference on Friday, and the conservative media are ready for the much-anticipated address. Tomorrow it will be TPAC when hes here, Kellyanne Conway, a senior advisor to Trump told reporters Thursday. Here are some of todays headlines: Go Big, Go Bold: Walker, at CPAC, pushes GOP to carry out agenda as party controls Congress, White House (Fox News) Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, once a Trump foe, is urging conservatives to use the November election as a mandate. Do what you said you were going to do, Walker said to attendees. In the Fox News piece, which leads its website, it notes that leaders at the conference are hoping to use it to strategize about what they can accomplish and to better articulate their values at a time when the very definition of conservatism has seemed to waver. Sweden Democrats: Trump was right (Fox News) Remember last weekend when everyone  including many Swedish politicians  were really confused about Trumps comments at a recent rally? You look at whats happening last night in Sweden, Trump, at a rally in Florida on Saturday, said about the Scandinavian country that has accepted large numbers of refugees. Sweden. They took in large numbers. Theyre having problems like they never thought possible. Actually, not much happened in Sweden on Friday night. Trump said later that he had been referring to a broadcast on Fox News on that night. Still, recent riots in the country were covered extensively by conservative media. This post notes a recent op-ed penned by Jimmie Akesson and Mattias Karlsson, both leaders of the Sweden Democrats, in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday supporting Trumps characterization of a Muslim immigrant-led crime crisis in Sweden. In it they write, Trump did not exaggerate Swedens current problems.  If anything, he understated them. Trump Is Letting DREAMers Stay, And Rush Is Fine With That (Daily Caller) Hes an immigration hard liner, and, apparently, hes OK with Trump allowing DREAMERs to remain in the country. This piece highlights comments by Rush Limbaugh this week. A lot of people think that Trumps caving because if you allow the DREAMers to stay, were talking 750,000 DREAMers, kids, who each have two parents who could come in. Look, this is a-no-win, Limbaugh said this week. Nobodys gonna win anything by deporting a bunch of kids that we let in. Facebook

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Trump advisor Steve Bannon rails at corporatist, globalist media By Noah Bierman Steve Bannon to the #CPAC crowd: "If you think they're going to give you your country back without a fight, you're sadly mistaken" pic.twitter.com/ryw7iO0Snr  POLITICO (@politico) February 23, 2017 The two men with the most heavily dissected relationship in President Trumps White House held a rare public appearance together Thursday and agreed on one common enemy: the media. Reince Priebus, the chief of staff who is often described as embattled, said he has grown conditioned to the media counting Trump out: during the presidential campaign, the transition and the first month of the presidency. The biggest misconception is everything that youre reading, Priebus said. Steve Bannon, Trumps chief strategist, framed his complaint as an ideological war. He consistently called the media the opposition party throughout a 20-minute joint interview on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside of Washington. Its not only not going to get better, it gets worse every day, Bannon said. Theyre corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda like Donald Trump has. If you think theyre going to give you your country back without a fight, he added. You are sadly mistaken. Bannon, former executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News, seldom speaks in public. His nationalist rendering of Republican ideology is often seen in contrast to Priebus, the former chairman of the GOP, who is viewed as the more mainstream conservative advocate within the White House. The two men said the tension between them portrayed in the media is inaccurate. But as they praised each other, the men made clear that Bannon sees his role as dominant in shaping Trumps policy. Bannon praised Priebus for doggedly keeping the trains running -- one of the toughest jobs Ive ever seen in my life. Bannon talked about being in the first inning of shaping a new political order and beginning the deconstruction of the administrative state. Priebus used more prosaic language and spoke of Bannon as the one who pushes Trump to maintain his bold vision. He is very dogged in making sure that every day the promises that President Trump made are the promises were working on, Priebus said of Bannon. Facebook

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In Mexico, Homeland Security chief says there will be no mass deportations of people in U.S. illegally By Patrick J. McDonnell Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, left, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Mexico City on Thursday. (Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP/Getty Images) Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, on a visit to Mexico, said Thursday that there will be no mass deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally. Kelly also said U.S. military forces would not be used in deportation efforts and that any deportation cases would go through the U.S. legal system. No. Repeat, no use of military force in immigration operations, Kelly said at a news conference at the Foreign Relations Ministry in Mexico City. None. Well approach this operation systematically, in an organized way, in a results-oriented way, in an operation and and in a human dignity way. Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are in Mexico City to discuss a wide variety of issues, including immigration and security, with Mexican government officials. Kellys remarks came the same day President Trump called recent raids in the U.S. an unprecedented enforcement effort. You see whats happening at the border. All of a sudden for the first time, were getting gang members out, he said. Were getting really bad dudes out of this country, and at a rate that nobodys ever seen before. Read More Facebook

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Mexico bracing for long battle with Trump administration, foreign minister tells lawmakers By Patrick J. McDonnell Mexico Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray (Brian Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images) Mexico is preparing for a long battle with the administration of President Trump, its foreign minister reportedly told lawmakers in private comments, adding that the country was prepared to retaliate with new tariffs if necessary. We are here preparing for a battle that is going to be long, Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray told federal deputies Wednesday, according to the newspaper La Jornada, which said it had obtained a copy of the comments. This is not going to be resolved in three days. In the reported remarks, Videgaray said Mexico was prepared to retaliate with new tariffs on U.S.-made goods should the Trump administration follow up on its threats to slap an export tax of 20% or more of goods imported from Mexico to the United States. There was no official response from the Mexican Foreign Ministry on Videgarays reported remarks. Videgaray was among the Mexican officials, including President Enrique Pena Nieto, who met this week with a pair of visiting White House Cabinet members, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly. The private remarks were apparently made on Wednesday, when the two Trump envoys were scheduled to arrive in Mexico City. Read More Facebook

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Homeland Security tried to downplay immigration raids as routine. Now Trump says theyre unprecedented By Michael A. Memoli (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) After nationwide immigration raids this month in which more than 680 people were arrested, the Department of Homeland Security issued a nothing-to-see-here statement downplaying the sweeps as strictly ordinary. ICE conducts these kind of targeted enforcement operations regularly and has for many years, the agency said last week, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But President Trump had a different take Thursday, labeling the raids an unprecedented enforcement effort. You see whats happening at the border. All of a sudden for the first time, were getting gang members out, he said before a roundtable on manufacturing. Were getting really bad dudes out of this country, and at a rate that nobodys ever seen before. Under President Obama, deportations peaked at 400,000 people in 2012, touching off widespread criticism from immigration advocates, which prompted Homeland Security to scale back deportations. Last year, deportations fell to 240,000 as the Obama administration focused on targets similar to what Trump described in the raids conducted under his authority: criminals, repeat immigration violators and recent arrivals. Trump also called the sweeps this month a military operation, even though no military resources were involved and the White House has pushed back aggressively on reports that the administration was considering seeking National Guard forces to assist in deportations. Homeland Security said the raids were conducted by ICE agents, U.S. marshals and state and local law enforcement agencies. What has been allowed to come into our country, when you see gang violence that youve read about like never before, and all of the things  much of that is people that are here illegally, Trump said. Theyre rough and theyre tough, but theyre not tough like our people. So were getting them out. Of the 680 arrests last week, 161 occurred in Los Angeles and surrounding counties. Three-quarters of those detained in the Los Angeles-area sweeps were from Mexico. Trump noted that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly traveled to Mexico this week on a tough trip. We have to be treated fairly by Mexico, Trump said. Facebook

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White nationalist leader Richard Spencer booted from Conservative Political Action Conference By Matt Pearce Reporters surround white supremacist Richard Spencer during the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 23, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) One of Americas most prominent white nationalists, Richard Spencer, was kicked out of the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday after conference organizers gave him credentials to attend and then wavered on whether to let him stay. Spencer, who coined the term alternative right to describe his far-right views on separating the races, came to CPAC to attend a speech that was critical of the alt-right. CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp took pains to distance CPAC from the fringe Spencer represents. The alt-right does not have a legitimate voice in the conservative movement, said Schlapp, adding that nobody from that movement is speaking at CPAC. Read More Just talked to CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp. Said he didn't endorse Richard Spencer's ideas but won't kick him out of the conference.  Matt Pearce  (@mattdpearce) February 23, 2017 Basically their line on this is, if they actually agreed with his ideas, they'd put him on stage, but they don't, and it's a free country.  Matt Pearce  (@mattdpearce) February 23, 2017 Change of plans. Richard Spencer just got kicked out of CPAC.  Matt Pearce  (@mattdpearce) February 23, 2017 Facebook

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Obamacare 101: Are health insurance marketplaces in a death spiral? By Noam N. Levey (Don Ryan / Associated Press) Its been a rocky few months for the health insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. Even if youre not one of the roughly 11 million Americans who rely on these online markets to get your health insurance, youve probably seen the headlines about rising premiums and insurance companies pulling out of the system. Last week, national insurance giant Humana announced it would stop selling plans on the marketplace. Aetnas chief executive claimed the marketplaces are in a death spiral. Republicans say the marketplaces are Exhibit A that Obamacare is collapsing. So whats the real story? Are these things really kaput or can they be fixed? Heres a rundown of where things stand. Read More Facebook

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Trump administration wants tax reform done by August, Mnuchin says By Jim Puzzanghera The Trump administration wants to overhaul the tax code by August, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday, laying out an aggressive timetable in his first significant public comments since taking office last week. Our economic agenda, the No. 1 issue is growth, and the first most important thing that will impact growth is a tax plan, Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC. So we are committed to pass tax reform, he said. We want to get this done by the August recess. Read More Facebook

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Loud and angry, protesters turn congressional town halls into must-see political TV By Mark Z. Barabak (Bill Pugliano / Getty Images) They came by the hundreds, in big cities and rural hamlets, to heckle, plead, badger and, in some instances, to protest the protests themselves. Congress is in recess this week, and a citizenry suddenly spurred to action used the opportunity to let their returning lawmakers know just how they feel about the tempestuous last month in Washington. Winners make policy and losers go home, a taunting Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, told an invitation-only gathering in his home state of Kentucky, as about 1,000 protesters gathered outside. Not exactly. The town hall meeting, a throwback to a time of more intimate connection, has become a political organizing tool in the social media age  a piece of performance theater and a worldwide stage. Obamacare, immigration, environmental regulation, Social Security, Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Trump, Trump, Trump  all poured forth this week in the form of questions, loudly and heatedly. Read More Facebook

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Trump administration rescinds guidelines on protections for transgender students By Michael A. Memoli The Trump administration rescinded an Obama-era directive Wednesday aimed at protecting transgender students rights, questioning its legal grounding. Under the guidelines, schools had been required to treat transgender students according to their stated gender identity, and either allow access to restrooms and locker rooms for the gender they identify with or provide private facilities if requested. The Obama administration had said that students gender identities were protected under Title IX requirements, which prohibit federally funded schools from discriminating on the basis of sex. But officials in the Education and Justice departments said that their predecessors failed to make their case, citing significant litigation spurred by the policy. Read More Facebook

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Americans in Mexico protest Trumps inflammatory rhetoric during Tillerson visit By Kate Linthicum A group of Americans living in Mexico is planning a protest Thursday to send a message to visiting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Their gripe? President Trumps inflammatory rhetoric. Thats according to a draft of a letter that several groups organizing the protest hope to deliver to Tillerson, who is in town along with Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly for talks with top Mexican officials. The letter, which will be cosigned by the Mexican chapter of Democrats Abroad, as well as other groups, complains about Trumps hostile attitude toward Mexico, which it says is engendering nationalistic sentiments in Mexico. Among Trumps hostile acts, the letter says, is Trumps vow to build a border wall and force Mexico to pay for it. The idea of building a wall ... frames Mexico and Mexicans as foreign invaders, the letter says. It also criticizes Trump for pledging to renegotiate NAFTA, saying, The U.S. and Mexico are deeply connected economies and it is in the interest of the United States to strengthen the regional production network to boost manufacturing employment in the U.S. and ensure the long-run competitiveness of manufacturing in the region. There are more than a million U.S. citizens living in Mexico, and many have been vocal since Trumps election. Last month, thousands turned out for a womens march outside the American Embassy that saw crowds chanting anti-Trump slogans. Facebook

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Mexico will never accept unilateral American immigration rules, foreign secretary says By Patrick McDonnell Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray said defending the rights of Mexican immigrants is the first point in the agenda for talks with U.S. officials. (Christian Palma / Associated Press) Mexico will reject any unilateral effort from the United States to impose immigration or other policies on the Mexican government, the countrys foreign secretary said Wednesday. I want to make clear, in the most emphatic way, that the government of Mexico and the Mexican people do not have to accept measures that, in a unilateral way, one government wants to impose on another, Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray said in public comments. That we are not going to accept. He spoke a day after the Trump administration unveiled tough new measures to enforce immigration laws and deport people who are in the country illegally  proposals that were widely portrayed in the Mexican media as a prelude to massive deportations. On Wednesday, two top Trump administration cabinet members  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly  were arriving in Mexico for talks with that nations officials, including Videgaray. Immigration, trade and law enforcement issues were expected to be discussed at a tense moment in U.S.-Mexican relations. In his reported comments, the Mexican secretary did not single out any specific U.S. proposal as objectionable. Mexican officials have acknowledged there is little they can do to counter U.S. immigration policies. Among other things, the Trump administration has proposed sending non-Mexican citizens detained along the U.S.-Mexico border back to Mexico. Mexican officials would presumably have to sign off on such a plan. Mexico already detains and deports thousands of Central Americans annually who cross Mexican territory with the hope of entering the United States illegally via the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. authorities have worked with their Mexican counterparts to halt the Central American influx. The Mexican foreign secretary made it clear that immigration would be at the top of the list of items to be discussed during meetings with the U.S. Cabinet secretaries. Defending the rights of Mexican immigrants is the first point in the agenda, said Videgaray. He also said Mexico could take the issue of the rights of Mexican immigrants to the United Nations and other international agencies. Facebook

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Both in power and in turmoil, conservatives head to Conservative Political Action Conference to see whats next By Matt Pearce Josh Platillero (Matt Pearce / Los Angeles Times) The eyes of men in crisp blazers darted toward passing faces and identification badges, looking for a familiar face, a famous name. As Fox News host Sean Hannity prepared to broadcast a live show from a ballroom, a brief chant burst out from the audience: U-S-A! U-S-A! Its that time of year again: Hundreds of Republicans began arriving Wednesday at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Md., just south of Washington, for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. CPAC, as its best known, is a place for conservative political figures and activists to gather, schmooze, hammer out new ideas and audition for starring roles in the Republican Party. And this year, CPAC attendees have a lot to talk about. Their party is in control of Congress, the White House and dozens of state governments across America, and yet not at all at peace with itself. President Trump is expected to address the conference later in the week after winning on a platform of populist nationalism that some conservatives have accused of not being conservative at all. Breitbart News, the brash rising star of right-wing media, is one of the conferences top promoters, but one of its staffers, Milo Yiannopoulos, lost his speaking slot at CPAC and resigned from the news organization after video circulated showing him appearing to promote pedophilia. Some conservatives had backed Yiannopoulos and cried censorship when the provocateur offended liberals at college speaking events, but now they had become offended themselves. Still, as CPAC began on Wednesday, the mood was upbeat. This was a victorious movement, after all. Many new guests were greeted by the sight of Josh Platillero, 23, wearing a cartoonishly large stovepipe hat and a suit the colors of the American flag. I love networking, said Platillero, who recently lived in Knoxville, Tenn., before moving to the D.C. area to work with a conservative nonprofit, the Leadership Institute. Its his second year attending CPAC, and he was excited about the lineup of speakers, which include some of the White House staff. I think our new president is not perfect, but I think hes doing good things, he said. Ariel Kohane, 45, who came from the Upper West Side in Manhattan, stood in the lobby holding signs that read, Jews for Trump, in both English and Hebrew. I love the fact that I can get together with many of my fellow conservative friends and colleagues and we can all be very proud of ourselves with all our accomplishments and the fact that we get to strategize and plan ways to further expand conservatism across America and across the whole world, Kohane said. Facebook

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Pence condemns Jewish center bomb threats and visits desecrated cemetery in Missouri By Jaweed Kaleem (Michael Conroy / Associated Press) Visiting Fenton, Mo., on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence condemned a string of bomb threats against Jewish community centers around the nation and the desecration of a St. Louis-area Jewish cemetery over the weekend. Speaking just yesterday, President Trump called this a horrible and painful act. And so it was. That along with other recent threats to the Jewish community centers around the country, said Pence, who was visiting the headquarters of the Fabick Cat machinery company. He declared it all a sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil. We condemn this vile act of vandalism and those who perpetuate it in the strongest possible terms. The vice president said it was inspiring how the people of Missouri have rallied around the Jewish community with compassion and support. Among those showing solidarity with the Jewish community is a group of Muslims who launched an online fundraising campaign to help repair the cemetery. Donors had pledged more than $90,000 by Wednesday afternoon. Pence later visited the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City, Mo., where nearly 200 tombstones had been toppled over the weekend. Facebook

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Trumps move on transgender bathroom access sparks interest By Kurtis Lee (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) For President Trump, commenting on social issues  such as same-sex marriage and abortion  has never seemed much of a priority. Indeed, throughout the campaign, Trump hardly discussed the topics. When asked about transgender bathroom access at a town hall in April 2016, Trump said people should be able to use whichever bathroom they choose. He then moved on from the question, offering little else. Now it appears his administration is set to wade into the controversy. Its a topic the conservative media loves to explore. Here are some of todays headlines: Return to normalcy: Trump readies reversal of transgender bathroom lunacy in public schools (Daily Caller) What will the Trump administration do about transgender bathroom access? The Caller highlights White House Press Secretary Sean Spicers pronouncement on the issue: This is a states rights issue and not one for the federal government, Spicer told reporters. The lunacy referred to is the federal guidance President Obama issued prior to leaving office directing schools that receive federal funding to allow transgender students to use restrooms and other facilities that match their gender identities. Several states filed suit to overturn the directive, and a federal judge issued a temporary injunction barring its enforcement, which remains in place. Several states, following the lead of North Carolina, are seeking to implement legislation that bans transgender people from using the bathrooms of the gender with which they identify. 66 percent of Trump voters change the channel when awards shows get too political (Daily Caller) When Meryl Streep criticized President Trump last month in her Golden Globes speech, he replied quickly. Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesnt know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes, Trump tweeted. Well, Trump can probably expect more barbs as actors (in overwhelmingly liberal Hollywood) take the stage at the Oscars on Sunday. Lots of Trump voters can be expected to change the channel, according to this piece, which highlights a new poll on the subject. The Hollywood Reporter says that 66% of Trump voters said they have stopped watching an awards show because a celebrity started talking about politics while accepting an award. By contrast, only 19% of Hillary Clintons supporters have done so. Trump talks tolerance, decries anti-Semitism, but media remain skeptical (Fox News) Well, Trump finally did say something to condemn the anti-Semitic vandalism and threats that have taken place since his presidential victory. Anti-Semitism is horrible, Trump said in an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday. In the Fox News piece, Howard Kurtz argues the media should give the president more credit for speaking out. I always think its unfair to blame a political leader for violence or vandalism carried out by people who support him, he writes. I felt the same way about critics who blamed Barack Obama for urban riots or shootings of police officers. Facebook

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Among Republicans, Trump is more popular than congressional leaders By David Lauter Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) walk together. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press) Amid strain between the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress, the White House holds the high ground, a new survey indicates. Among Republicans, President Trump has greater popularity than the partys congressional leaders. Asked specifically who they would trust if the two sides disagreed, most Republicans chose Trump over their partys leadership. The findings, from a new survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center underscore Trumps continued sway with the Republican congressional majority. Although the president has historically low job approval ratings among the public at large, he remains highly popular among Republican partisans and in Republican districts. As for Democrats, theyre strongly in an oppositional mood. Asked if they were more worried that Democrats in Congress would go too far in opposing Trump or not go far enough, more than 70% of Democrats said they feared their party would not go far enough. Only 20% said they worried the party would go too far. Republicans in Congress have eyed Trump warily on several fronts. His positions on trade and entitlement reform break with years of the partys positions. His reluctance to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin has generated tension. And the administrations lack of clarity on healthcare and tax policy have Republican leaders guessing which way to turn on major issues. But Republican partisans have fewer reservations than their elected representatives. Eighty-six percent to 13%, those who identify as Republicans or as independents who lean Republican have a favorable view of Trump, the Pew survey found. By comparison, 57% have a favorable view of Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, with 22% unfavorable and 21% having no opinion. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is slightly better known, with 65% of Republicans holding a favorable view, 23% an unfavorable view and 13% having no opinion. Asked who they would trust if the two sides disagreed, 52% of Republicans said they would side with Trump and 34% with the Republicans in Congress. Republicans younger than 40 were the only major exception; 52% to 36%, they said they would side with Congress. At the same time, Republican partisans now have a warmer opinion of their party leadership than they had during most of President Obamas tenure. Republicans' approval of their congressional leaders has more than doubled since 2015 https://t.co/KSo1hRMhJj pic.twitter.com/WHTHxCNEFq  Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) February 22, 2017 During the Obama years, GOP partisans tended to be frustrated that their side could not reverse the presidents initiatives, even with a majority in the House, starting in 2010, and then in the Senate for Obamas last two years. Their view of the GOP leadership has rebounded strongly since the election. Democrats view of their congressional leadership has been more stable. And both sides widely dislike the other partys leaders. Facebook

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Supreme Court rejects use of racial stereotypes in death penalty cases By David Savage The Supreme Court rejected the use of racial stereotypes in death penalty cases Wednesday, reopening the case of a black man in Texas who was sentenced to die after his jury was told African Americans are more likely than whites to commit crimes. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said this testimony had no place in a sentencing hearing and appealed to the racial stereotype that black men are prone to violence. Our laws punish people for what they do, not for who they are, the chief justice said in the courtroom. The 6-2 decision faults Texas authorities for refusing to give a new sentencing hearing to Duane Buck, a Houston man who was convicted of shooting and killing his ex-girlfriend and seriously injuring her new boyfriend in 1995. Buck was found guilty of murder, but when his jury was debating his fate, his court-appointed defense attorney put on the witness stand an expert who cited statistics showing blacks are more likely to commit future crimes than whites. After hearing this testimony, the jury decided to sentence Buck to death. Years later, Texas state attorneys set aside the death sentences for six other black defendants whose juries heard similar testimony, but they refused to reopen Bucks case. In Buck vs. Davis, the high court said that was a mistake. The jury was deciding the question of life or death, and this is no place for the introduction of a particularly noxious strain of racial prejudice, Roberts said. The court sent the case back to judges in Texas to reconsider the death sentence. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, along with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Thomas said Buck was properly sentenced to die for a brutal murder, and he insisted the court should not have heard the case for procedural reasons. Having settled on a desired outcome, the court bulldozes procedural obstacles and misapplies settled law to justify it, he wrote. Facebook

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At Rep. Tony Cardenas town hall, Democrats worry about what Donald Trump may do By Kurtis Lee (Kurtis Lee/Los Angeles Times ) They arrived with soggy jackets, hats and umbrellas. The topic was supposed to be the Affordable Care Act. But many who attended Democratic Rep. Tony Cardenas town hall meeting Tuesday night in a crammed auditorium at the Cesar E. Chavez Learning Academies came with a question: What can we -- as Democrats -- do to help you? Show up and vote, said Cardenas, who represents a slice of the staunchly liberal San Fernando Valley. (Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in this district by nearly 60-percentage points in the fall election.) Sign people up, get people involved, he said. At times the meeting had the feel of a therapy session for Democrats, wondering aloud how to function under a Trump administration. Where is the anger among Democrats? asked one man. I want to see more anger. Cardenas, standing at a lectern on an elevated stage, offered a stern look and nodded in agreement as rain could be heard splattering on the roof above. The complaints included Republicans efforts to repeal Obamacare and Trumps new immigration mandates. Trust me, Im pissed. Im upset, Cardenas said. But we have to act constructively. We have to be responsible. Last month, Trump signed executive orders directing the Department of Homeland Security to prioritize the removal of people in the U.S. illegally who have criminal convictions. In addition to speeding up the deportation of convicts, Trumps orders also call for quick removal of people in the country illegally who are charged with crimes and waiting for adjudication. And in recent days, a handful of people who have received protection under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents nationwide. Cardenas said that for him, the issue is personal. His parents were immigrants from Mexico, who lived in the San Fernando Valley for decades, raising 11 children, he said. Today his district is nearly 70% Latino. Im going to fight for you, he said. Im going to fight for the people who are my immigrant father. When a young man, a DACA recipient, asked him, via Twitter, if hell be safe in the weeks ahead, Cardenas seemed at a loss. I pray that [Trump] doesnt go after you, he said. Facebook

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Killing with kindness, GOPs McClintock faces down hostile questioners as town hall goes into overti
Climate change and overfishing off Africas southern tip have set a trap for endangered African penguins leaving their nests.

The young penguins swim thousands of miles from where they hatched, following biological signposts advertising a buffet of anchovies and sardines. What they dont realize is the buffet seems to have closed.

When the birds arrive, their favorite food is almost gone, replaced by less nutritious gobies and jellyfish. This is what scientists call an ecological trap, in which animals mistakenly settle in habitats degraded by environmental changes.

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A new study in Current Biology describes a recently discovered trap off the coast of South Africa and Namibia that has likely reduced local penguin populations by 50% and hurt juvenile birds chances of survival.

The research team, led by ecologist Richard Sherley of the University of Exeter, attached satellite trackers to 54 young penguins from colonies across the species breeding range in Namibia and South Africa. When the birds are old enough, they tend to disperse westward and northward.

The penguins follow the sure signs of edible fish: low ocean temperatures and the scent of plankton.

These were once reliable cues for prey-rich waters, but climate change and industrial fishing have depleted forage fish stocks in this system, the study authors wrote.

In Namibia, penguins are instead finding more gobies and jellyfish. Though these substitutes are edible, they dont provide as many calories.

In recent decades, warming ocean temperatures and changes in salinity have also pushed traditional prey east, out of range for penguins living west of Cape Agulhas, Africas southernmost tip. This has triggered an 80% decline in the western penguin population.

Losing the fish has essentially broken a link in the middle of the food chain. This causes a mismatch in the ecosystem, in which penguins get faked out when they find lots of plankton but no fish.

Young penguins must learn to forage for themselves, and it may take them years to fully get the hang of finding their food. During this vulnerable period, theyre at risk of choosing the wrong habitat or falling into an ecological trap.

This is exactly what seems to be happening. Between 1978 and 2015, Namibias penguin population declined from more than 12,000 breeding pairs to about 5,800. In South Africa, the population shrank from 70,000 to 19,300 in the same time period, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

To ease the burden on the birds, Sherley and colleagues suggest limiting fishing in penguin areas when fish populations fall below critical thresholds.

sean.greene@latimes.com

@seangreene89

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The students email arrived early on Jan. 28.

It was addressed to Rafael Reif, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The undergraduate didnt want to bother him, she wrote, but she was stuck overseas and unable to return to campus because of the White Houses newly imposed travel ban.

It was 6:37 a.m., but Reif didnt hesitate. He immediately contacted three of his top aides to help her and two other students in similar straits.

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These people worked around the clock to make sure these kids made it home, he said. They didnt sleep.

One week later, the students were safely back in Cambridge, but in the midst of the ordeal, Reif wrote a letter to the MIT community expressing his thoughts on the situation.

He wrote that the research university, founded in 1861, was at once uniquely American and profoundly global.

Like the United States, and thanks to the United States, MIT gains tremendous strength by being a magnet for talent from around the world, he wrote. In that light, he said, the executive order appeared to him a stunning violation of our deepest American values, the values of a nation of immigrants: fairness, equality, openness, generosity, courage.

Reif is an immigrant himself. Born and educated in Venezuela, he came to the U.S. as a graduate student, earning his doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He joined the MIT faculty in 1980 and became its president in 2012.

Reif stopped by the Los Angeles Times this week to discuss science in the age of Trump and MITs plan for the next four years.

Why do you think the scientific community has been so vocal in its opposition to the travel ban?

I believe the reasons are obvious. Scientists love to collaborate and work with people who see things from a different perspective. When people work together to address big challenges  whether its climate change or fresh water access or Alzheimers  you start recognizing people for what they can contribute to the big mission. It doesnt matter where you came from. It is irrelevant.

We have students from Turkey being supervised by faculty from Greece. Culturally they hate each other, but that doesnt come up at MIT because they are dealing with bigger issues than themselves.

Last week Trump threatened on Twitter to cut off federal funding for UC Berkeley because violent protests prompted the university to cancel a talk by provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. What are your thoughts on that?

I dont have all the details, but I understand that somebody whose views that are not politically acceptable to some members of the community was not allowed to speak. That doesnt help universities. We should allow everyone to say whatever they want. But I think having the U.S. president make a statement like that feels like an overreaction.

Are you concerned Trump might continue to threaten universities with the loss of federal funds when they do something he doesnt agree with?

There are reasons to be concerned, but I would not panic.

I like to think the administration is not fully staffed yet, and that we will get to a more stable and predictable situation sometime soon. Just like I wish the president did not overreact in the tweet, I dont want to overreact either. Lets just give him a chance to settle in, get the team together, and figure out in which direction they really want to take the country.

Might federal agencies like the Department of Defense or the National Institutes of Health decide on their own to withhold funding if they think thats what the president wants?

Im having a wait-and-see attitude. I am trying to speak as best I can for the need for us to understand each others point of view. Lets recognize that we live in a democratic country and there are people who believe that what he tweeted was the right thing to say.

The last thing we need right now is to start a war between us and them, whoever them are. We just have to figure out how to continue to build bridges and understand each other.

The election showed us that we are not all hearing the same information. Do you have any thoughts on how to break through peoples bubbles and communicate with them?

The exercise Im practicing, and it seems to be working, is to find somewhere that we agree and once we establish that, extrapolate. If we start by not agreeing, we will never get anywhere.

Whats your plan for the next four years?

The big picture for MIT is to keep doing basic research because that is the mother of all knowledge. But we dont want to stop there. We also need to identify big problems and have people working on those. To me, the health of the planet and human health are the two critical ones that drive everything.

So we have a lot to do. Every day counts. We cannot stop what we are doing and get distracted. The last thing I want is for us to get distracted by him.

Political upheaval to me is like waves on the beach. Underneath that we just have to keep going.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

deborah.netburn@latimes.com

Do you love science? I do! Follow me @DeborahNetburn and like Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook.

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WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump lobs verbal bombshells on Twitter and fiercely criticizes federal judges overseeing his court cases. He openly discusses pending legal matters on which lawyers usually advise their clients to stay mum.

That freewheeling style, uncharacteristic for an American president, is sure to complicate efforts of Justice Department attorneys tasked with defending his executive actions in court. Federal lawyers, invariably inclined to speak through technical legal pleadings instead of on social media, are likely to be asked time and again to account for public statements from the president, including comments that seem to contradict or harm their arguments.

"This is what's so surprising about Trump's statements and his use of Twitter: He says all kinds of things that undermine the claims that the government is making in litigation," said Eric Posner, a University of Chicago law professor. People challenging the government will bring tweets and other statements to the attention of the courts, Posner said, "and courts will pay attention to them."

That showed up prominently in the legal fight over Trump's ban on refugees and immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations, which federal courts have put on hold.

Even as Justice Department attorneys worked to convince courts that the policy was not motivated by religious prejudice, Trump himself was quoted in a news interview as saying he wanted to prioritize refugee admissions for Christians. "We are going to help them," Trump told the Christian Broadcasting Network. "They've been horribly treated."

Those comments were said to have helped persuade acting Attorney General Sally Yates  fired by Trump last week after she declined to defend his executive order  that the policy was meant to disadvantage Muslims. Lawyers for Washington state and Minnesota cited Trump's public statements about Christian refugees in court filings and noted his campaign pledge to block Muslims from entering the U.S.

Story continues

And in the opinion Thursday that refused to reinstate the travel ban, a panel of judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that remarks made outside the courtroom were fair game for them to consider.

"If the president says 'x,' it's hard for his own lawyer to credibly walk that back and say 'not x,'" said Andrew Schilling, the former civil division chief of the United States Attorney's office in Manhattan. Just as a criminal defense attorney would advise a client to remain silent for fear his statements could be used against him, "that's no less true when your client is the president."

In just the past week, Trump referred to the jurist who suspended his temporary travel ban as a "so-called judge" and later wrote "Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!"

He was more restrained Friday morning, saying he had "no doubt" he would eventually win in court on the ban. Later in the day, Trump told reporters he was considering signing a "brand new order."

It's not unique for Justice Department attorneys to have the words of the commander in chief or other top administration officials quoted back to them in uncomfortable ways.

Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees, for instance, have used President Barack Obama's declaration that the war in Afghanistan is over as grounds to challenge their clients' continued detention.

When the Justice Department argued against the release of information about the government's drone program to kill suspected terrorists, a federal appeals court noted in its ruling that Obama himself had already publicly acknowledged the use of remote strikes against members of al-Qaida.

And in 2012, a judge on the conservative-leaning 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals grilled a Justice Department lawyer about Obama's reprimand that "unelected" judges had the potential to overturn his signature health care law.

Yet Trump's statements in the past week alone have up set an extraordinary clash between the executive and judicial branches and have been widely criticized as disrespecting the courts' authority. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said Trump's Supreme Court pick Neil Gorsuch had expressed misgivings about attacks on the judiciary in a personal conversation.

Stuart Gerson, who was the Justice Department's civil division chief under President George H.W. Bush and was the acting attorney general in the early days of the Clinton administration, said although Trump's comments haven't been helpful, federal lawyers still have strong legal arguments for the scope of presidential authorities  arguments that can outweigh Trump's public comments in importance and relevance.

"They have a job in representing the United States and giving a fair argument to whatever issues are involved, and I think that'll be the case here," Gerson said.

What remains unclear in light of Trump's public statements, said law professor Posner, is whether the Trump administration will continue to enjoy the same deference that courts generally afford to executive branch decision-making.

"This particular president has been so reckless in his remarks," he said. "My sense is that the courts are going to be less deferential and more demanding, less willing to just look at a document and more interested in what's the real motivation."

___

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
After hearing concerns from dozens of residents and their children about a local business owners plans to install a paint booth on his property, the Burbank City Council decided it was better if such a service was not installed so close to homes and an elementary school.

Council members unanimously voted on Tuesday to approve an appeal to deny Harout Karaians application to have a paint booth at Studio Autoworks, a vehicle repair shop he owns at 2300 W. Burbank Blvd.

A resolution to outright deny the project will come before the City Council during a future meeting.

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Council members agreed that, although the site is compatible to have a paint booth, having such an operation there increases the intensity of this fundamentally incompatible operation with sensitive receptors  children, elderly [and] infirmed, Councilman David Gordon said.

Studio Autoworks is in proximity to a residential neighborhood, a Montessori school, the Burbank Dance Academy and Edison Elementary School.

For about a year, Burbank residents and parents whose children attend Edison have fought against Karaians request to install a paint booth at his automotive repair business.

Patrick Panzarello, a paid speaker who was hired by Karaian to speak on his behalf, said that the business owner wanted to add another level of service at his shop, which primarily attaches new bumpers and fenders to vehicles after they have been involved in collisions.

Were not an auto body center, and we dont do auto body paint, per se, Panzarello said. We just want to paint that part to match the car thats inside of our system. A spray booth doesnt work daily. It doesnt work all-day long taking in cars for painting.

The repair shop received a permit from the Southern California Air Quality Management District to spray paint cars and bumpers at the facility, and Karaian was waiting for a permit from the city to start painting at his business.

However, several residents in the surrounding neighborhood and parents whose children attend Edison said that Karaians business has already been painting cars, and they could smell the fumes emanating from the site.

Stacey Wright, a health assistant from Providencia Elementary School whose husband was one of the appellants, said the fumes from the paint would have negative effects on children and adults in that area should the paint booth be permitted.

Children are outdoors for physical education, running and breathing heavily and playing outside both schools, she said. People are walking, running, biking daily on the [Chandler] Bike Path in efforts to stay fit.

--

Anthony Clark Carpio, anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio
The long-term fate of the Fairview Developmental Center site is still years from being decided, but already some are urging that at least a portion be set aside for mental health services.

Among them is state Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa), who recently introduced a bill pertaining to the future of the 114-acre, state-owned property in Costa Mesa.

Moorlachs Senate Bill 59 doesnt outline specific plans  only the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation focusing on the disposition of the property  but he said his goal is to ensure that local leaders have a say in determining the future of the site at 2501 Harbor Blvd.

I just want to make sure that property doesnt slip away, Moorlach said this week. Id rather it be available for dealing with a growing epidemic in this state, and thats mental illness.

Moorlach said he plans to continue meeting with area officials and residents to get their thoughts on the future of the property.

I think this could be such a win-win for everybody, because you cant just complain about some of these subjects that are becoming more predominant  weve got to provide a solution, he said.

Fairview Developmental Center, first opened in 1959, is a state-run facility that provides services and housing to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

A handful of people turned out to Tuesdays Costa Mesa City Council meeting to encourage development of resources on the site for those who are homeless or mentally ill.

SB 59 is a placeholder right now and theres no language for it, but if we dont say anything, then we lose the opportunity to say anything, said Matt Holzmann, government relations chairman for the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Orange County.

If we do nothing, then the state is free to do as they please, he added.

Facilities like Fairview are slated to close in coming years as part of an effort to transition people out of institutional-style centers and into smaller accommodations that are more integrated into communities.

Fairview is scheduled to transition the remaining residents to community living options by 2019, and all centers planned for closure are scheduled to close in 2021, Nancy Lungren, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Developmental Services, said in an email this week.

The department has held extensive meetings with parents, stakeholders, including the city of Costa Mesa and Orange County, and local regional centers while it is developing housing and programs in the community for individuals transitioning from Fairview, Lungren said.

As of this week, 194 people are living at Fairview, according to Lungren. Its population peaked in 1967 with 2,700 residents.

Once Fairview is officially closed, another state agency, the Department of General Services, will step in to determine whether the state can use the land in some other way.

The property will first be made available to other state departments and then to local jurisdictions to see if they have any interest, according to Department of General Services spokesman Brian Ferguson.

If no one bites, the land could be put up for auction.

Ferguson said its too soon to tell what might happen with the Fairview site, since the disposition process could take years.

Our role is to find a good use of that property thats going to benefit the taxpayers and residents of California, he said.

To Moorlach, the closure of Fairview could create something of a rarity in Orange County  a significant amount of available open land.

The site could be used to provide services and housing for the homeless, developmentally disabled and mentally ill, he said.

Its just a matter of how you allocate space  how many acres for which program, he said. But I dont think youre going to find another piece of property like this anywhere in the county.

Should the state sell the site to a private buyer, the property would come under zoning laws established as part of the recent update to Costa Mesas general plan.

The plan specifies that at least 25% of the property be set aside for parks and open space. It caps the number of possible residential units at 582. Institutional and recreational uses also are permitted.

Those rules wouldnt come into play if the state holds onto the land for its use.

luke.money@latimes.com

Twitter: @LukeMMoney
Costa Mesa City Councilman Allan Mansoor filed a lawsuit in federal court this week seeking to retake control of his online domain name, which he alleges was hijacked and re-purposed to advertise pornography.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, claims that an unknown party took control of a website bearing Mansoors name after Mansoors domain registration expired in 2015.

The site featured explicit appraisals of porn sites. There also were links to those sites.

The site with Mansoors name appeared to have been taken down Friday afternoon.

Pornography is taboo in our society, and a reasonable person would object to being associated with pornography in the manner depicted, the lawsuit states.

Whoever hijacked the site has caused Mansoor to suffer embarrassment, humiliation, shame, mortification and other forms of mental and emotional distress, the suit says.

Were just trying to get to the bottom of this and trying to get my website back, Mansoor wrote in an email Friday.

The lawsuit, which was first reported by OC Weekly, seeks unspecified financial damages and return of the domain name.

The review site was live since early 2016, but the lawsuit states Mansoor didnt notice the change until last spring, when he prepared to run for City Council. He was elected in November to return to the council, where he also served from 2002 to 2010.

Mansoor established the website in 2002, ahead of his first council bid. He maintained the domain during his stints on the council and in the state Assembly.

Throughout this time, Mansoor used the domain ... to communicate and build relationships with his constituents, the lawsuit states.

An archived version of the site from December 2015 shows information related to Mansoors unsuccessful 2014 bid for Orange County supervisor.

That same month, the sites domain registration expired. Mansoor claims in the lawsuit that he didnt receive a renewal notice and the domain lapsed without his knowledge.

After that, someone acquired the domain and remade the website. The first adult review was published there in January 2016.

Its unclear who took over the domain. A Whois Lookup search lists the owner as Domains by Proxy LLC, a company in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The lawsuit doesnt name anyone who might have taken over the site, but it alleges that whoever did may be a political opponent of Mansoors.

Mansoor, a Republican, has waged a series of contentious campaigns and has been outspoken on many controversial public issues, the lawsuit states. There are many people, known or unknown, who would like to embarrass him as retribution for his public actions.

In his first go-round on the City Council, Mansoor drew criticism, praise and widespread media attention for his efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants working and living in Costa Mesa.

As mayor in 2010, he led a council action to declare Costa Mesa a rule-of-law city when it comes to support for upholding immigration laws.

He also pushed the city to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check the immigration status of crime suspects and was named an honorary Minuteman by members of the Minuteman Project, a group that opposes illegal immigration.

Politics and domain names have intersected in Costa Mesa before.

During the heated 2010 council campaign, a Costa Mesa Police Assn. political committee used the domain Righeimer.com to list information critical of then-candidate and now-Councilman Jim Righeimer.

Righeimer told the Daily Pilot at the time that he lost the domain name after missing a payment.

luke.money@latimes.com

Twitter: @LukeMMoney
After more than a year of steering the Anteater Express diesel-fueled buses, driver Raul Lopez-Gallo says he can feel and hear the difference in operating the UC Irvine campus zero-emission hydrogen fuel-cell bus.

Its smoother ... and quieter, said Lopez-Gallo, who like all of the campus bus drivers is also a student. Because its powered by an electric motor, the power delivery is smoother compared to an internal combustion engine.

The vehicle, which can travel more than 200 miles on one 50-kilogram tank of gaseous hydrogen, will be joined by 20 plug-in electric buses later this year, making it possible for UCI to become the first college in the country to convert to an all-electric bus fleet, according to a university release.

The school will stop using its 29 diesel-fueled buses in favor of the new eco-friendly vehicles, which are all expected to arrive at the school by August, said Anteater Express General Manager Tim Rudek.

The entire electric fleet should be in use by September at the latest, he said.

A spokesman with the schools Advanced Power & Energy Program said he believes the electric buses will have greater capacity, allowing the routes and service to operate the same despite fewer buses.

The college decided after acquiring the hydrogen vehicle to go with the plug-ins. For one thing, the fuel cost for the electric vehicles, at 67 cents per mile, would be much lower than for the hydrogen vehicle.

The 20 buses will be charged using UCIs self-generating microgrid, which includes solar panels.

Battery electric buses operate on being charged with electricity from the grid, and they have a limited range, but still have approximately 100 miles on a charge of electricity, said Scott Samuelsen, director of the Advanced Power & Energy Program. A hydrogen electric bus runs on hydrogen, which is transformed on board to electricity using a fuel cell. Its advantage is a longer range to support longer routes of transit.

The Anteater shuttle service will enter a lease-to-purchase deal for the electric buses with BYD America, based in Los Angeles, for $15 million to be paid over 12 years.

---------

For the Record: The original version of this story incorrectly identified BYD America as Build Your Dreams and incorrectly stated that it is a Chinese company.

----------

The cost of the new buses, being built at BYDs Lancaster plant, will be covered by a student referendum, passed by undergraduates in the 2012-13 school year, that put into effect a quarterly bus fee that would increase by $8 annually until it reaches $40.

Lower operational cost savings associated with the e-fleet will free up money as well.

In 2016, responses in a student survey regarding Anteater Express services reflected a favorable stance toward electric buses over conventional ones, according to Tracy La, president of the Associated Students of UCI.

Based on what Ive seen on social media and the students who talk to us, a lot of them are joining in on supporting this, and we see that its important to students, La said.

The Anteater Express currently has around 100 student drivers, who log 80 hours of training before operating the regular buses and commit at least 13 and a half hours each week to driving.

Rudek said driver training on the electric buses will begin as soon as the vehicles arrive on campus.

Its a whole different world driving a diesel bus and then going to an electric bus, Lopez-Gallo said. But its something that Im excited to share with co-workers and the whole UCI community.

alexandra.chan@latimes.com

Twitter: @AlexandraChan10
Theres an old Chinese blessing, or maybe its a curse, that goes, May you live in interesting times. That sure applies to modern-day politics, on the federal, state and local levels.

Our new president, Donald Trump, has initiated several controversial moves, including a travel ban applied to seven countries, a border wall and plans to deport up to 8 million undocumented residents who have been convicted or accused of crimes.

These new immigration policies have drawn fire from human-rights activists and the American Civil Liberties Union. The travel ban sparked intense protests and is now under judicial review.

In response to Trumps actions, the California Legislature has taken steps to fast-track a law (Senate Bill 54) prohibiting local law enforcement agencies from using resources to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect, report, or arrest persons for immigration enforcement purposes.

So where does all this leave Costa Mesa?

In Costa Mesa, we have a large Latino population, including many undocumented residents. The atmosphere in that community is tense to say the least.

Although the presidents policies do not target victims of crimes for deportation (as opposed to those accused of crimes), undocumented residents are hesitant to engage the government in any way out of fear that contact with the police could lead to deportation.

While some applaud Trumps efforts to curtail illegal immigration, an unintended consequence of his polices could result in increased crime against our entire community as criminals prey with impunity upon a vulnerable group  undocumented residents.

I see this as a matter of public safety for our community, not just undocumented residents. Leaving one segment of the population gripped in fear of authority undermines our efforts to keep our city safe.

Instead, all victims of crime should be reassured that the Costa Mesa Police Department will not initiate immigration action if they call for service. It is not Costa Mesas policy to do so, nor do I expect that it ever will be.

All Costa Mesa residents should feel it is safe to seek help from our police officers; that includes U.S. citizens, green card and visa holders and undocumented residents. This is a matter of public safety, fundamental human rights and social justice that should not be subject to debate.

JOHN STEPHENS is a Costa Mesa city councilman.
In his final remarks at the White House in 1974, President Nixon said, Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

With this past election, California bucked the national trend and became bluer, allowing Democrats to gain seats in the state Legislature and deepening the valley in which the California Republican Party resides.

However, it is in this hour that the opportunity for California Republicans is the greatest. This is the time for expansion, not retreat. This is the time for optimism, not remorse. This is the time for action, not promises. This is the time to start climbing the mountain.

Our fellow citizens that self-identify as Democrat or Decline to State have never been more concerned about the overreach of the federal government, nor have they been bigger supporters of states rights contained in the10th Amendment. The Republican Partys message of small government, personal freedom, accountability and financial restraint has never been more timely or needed. The time of Ronald Reagans big tent party has arrived, again. This is the time we invite our fellow Californians to join or rejoin our party.

We invite membership with sincerity and respect, we invite without a litmus test, because our beliefs are strong enough to withstand questioning. We shed our exclusivity for inclusiveness. We celebrate diversity of thought, knowing that we do not have a monopoly on good ideas. We admit our faults, where they exist. We champion our kindness and compassion, because we are a party made up of good, caring people.

We celebrate and love our country, and we help others to see a strong America not as a source of guilt, but as a source of pride. We reject the divisions created by the left to keep communities fractured, we promote assimilation. We welcome people from diverse backgrounds, recognizing the strength of our culture is based upon the contributions of many.

We engage in sincere and open conversation with people who do not look like us, or live in our neighborhoods, but who are part of our American community. We do not pander to people, instead, we speak intelligently and respectfully to them. We do not change our message for political expediency or for the sake of populism, but we also do not entrench our thoughts to the point of being unmovable. We evolve. We grow.

Now is the time to get out of our comfort zones, to meet new people, reconnect with old friends, spread our message, and grow our party. We are the party of tomorrow, we are the Party of economic prosperity, we are the party of freedom. Our time on the mountain top is approaching, we just need to seize the opportunity and get to work.

Michael Torres

Corona de Mar

Give your teacher a Valentine

As Valentines Day approaches, I am reminded of the ways I celebrated this holiday with my elementary school students. At that time, it was fairly customary for kids to exchange Valentine cards with their classmates, followed by a party of candy, music and games. For many students, it was also a time to find the perfect card for their teachers. It had to say enough nice things, without being mushy. So, for those of you who are currently on the hunt for such a card, let me give you a few thoughts to consider.

Enough has been written about the virtues of teachers and their strengths. But let me tell you about what a teacher is not.

A teacher is not in this profession to become wealthy. Most teachers are grossly underpaid for the enormity of their job  to educate future generations and prepare the leaders of tomorrow. More than likely, the majority will use their own money to supplement class supplies.

A teacher is not in this profession for the short school day hours. This is an illusion, as their day extends well beyond the final bell. There are lessons to compose, papers to correct, grades to post, and students with whom they confer. Their responsibilities go well into the evenings and weekends.

A teacher is not in this profession for a stress-free job. It is impossible to understand the demands put upon a teacher unless you walk in his or her shoes. I often thought how helpful it would be for every parent to assist or observe in a classroom for just one day. It would be eye-opening, to say the least. Often, your child spends more time with the teacher than with you. She knows about your family, the struggles, and the challenges. Your childs stress becomes the teachers stress. She leaves a piece of her soul with each student.

So, when you are looking for that special Valentines Day card, you wont find it in a store. Write a note from the heart. These are the ones the teacher keeps, and rereads during the really hard days.

These are the ones she cherishes!

Terri Goldstein

Newport Coast

Porta-potty in H.B. needs to go

For three weeks now, weve had the pleasure of having an outdoor toilet in front of our homes in beautiful Huntington Harbour. If this is to be a permanent structure, please, at least, paint it pink.

Pat Hickey

Huntington Harbour
The city of Newport Beach was grateful to join the County of Orange and our community partners just about a year ago in announcing the extension and amendment of the John Wayne Airport (JWA) settlement agreement.

The agreement addresses limits on activities on the ground at JWA for 15 to 20 more years, including annual passenger limits. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has complete jurisdiction over the nations airspace and has authority once an airplane leaves the ground.

Our agreement is acknowledged by the FAA, and we are one of very few communities to have an agreement like we do. That agreement is essential to protecting the quality of life for thousands of Newport Beach residents.

We now have a new and different JWA noise-related issue to try to wrangle, one somewhat outside of the settlement agreement. Its the result of something called NextGen. This is an FAA endeavor nationwide  not just in Orange County  to improve the safety and efficiency of airspace by optimizing flight paths.

The FAA proposes to do so by containing flights in more narrow tracks. The FAAs goal is to implement the departure tracks from November 2016 to March 2017. I respect the FAAs mission and, in terms of airspace control, can understand why the FAA thinks NextGen is a good idea.

Its a bad idea, however, for those that live or work under the narrowed flight path.

As proposed, flights departing from JWA would follow a regular and repeatable path along the Upper Bay and across to the ocean. The path would be nearly identical to a path that about half of the departing flights follow today, called the STREL.

As we understand it, new areas of town should not be affected by NextGen. Instead, current flight paths (there are generally three that are used today) would be narrowed onto one. As a result, certain Newport Beach neighborhoods are likely to see an increase in the number of flights that go overhead. It would be similar to closing a number of side streets around town and directing all traffic onto one major street.

I know many of our residents are deeply concerned about this. So are we.

If the city of Newport Beach had its druthers, the FAA would not be doing any of this. We had our attorneys send a 23-page letter to the FAA detailing concerns about inadequate environmental review of these proposed changes. We also reached out to Phoenix and other cities and counties that have concerns.

Weve worked with the County of Orange, as operators of the airport, and have met with the FAA in person. Our colleagues at the County  the JWA staff and Supervisor Michelle Steel  hear your concerns and are standing with us on the NextGen issue.

Protecting Newport Beach from the impacts of JWAs commercial aircraft operations is the City Councils priority and we will once again lead efforts to bring our citizens concerns to the attention of the FAA. I will be working with my City Council colleagues on a way to get the FAAs attention and not add to our communitys current burden of noise and pollution.

We know many of you want to take action too. First, make sure you comment on the FAAs Draft Environmental Assessment of the Southern California Metroplex project, the local plan for NextGen.

You can find the document at www.metroplexenvironmental.com/socal_metroplex/socal_docs.html and can provide your comments by emailing 9-ANM-SoCalOAPM@faa.gov no later than midnight Oct. 8, 2015. Noise impacts are an important element of that assessment.

Next, if you would like to read our letter to the FAA or learn more about the citys JWA-related work, please visit www.newportbeachca.gov/jwa.

Finally, let us know who you are and that you want to stay informed. Please email soborny@newportbeachca.gov to be added to our email list. I will communicate with those that sign up and help mobilize our efforts for the maximum effect.

I understand the skeptics that say one community just cant have an impact on a nationwide project. I, however, see an opportunity to have our collective voice heard by the FAA and I say we take it.

TONY PETROS is a Newport Beach councilman.
Actress Gloria Talbott, who gained fame as Queen of the Bs, for her roles in sci-fi and horror films, was born into an illustrious Glendale family.

Thanks to reader John Hammell Jr., who emailed me with a tip that Talbotts great-grandfather was one of our city founders, I went searching in Carroll Parchers Glendale Area History, and found several references to Benjamin F. Patterson, an Ohio native who brought his family here in 1882. (He was one of many who came west during a population boom).

He first bought 52 acres and then began adding more parcels, all in what was to become the city of Glendale.

There were about a dozen families living here then and each fall they gathered to observe Thanksgiving. Parcher recounts one such gathering at the home of Everett Chase.

The dinner was served outdoors, on long tables under the pepper trees, Parcher wrote.

Patterson was active in the Verdugo Water Co., supported the building of the Glendale Hotel and the development of a narrow gauge railroad to Los Angeles and helped establish the Bank of Glendale in 1905.

He was one of six men who recorded the plat for the town of Glendale in 1887. When the city was established on Feb. 7, 1906, Pattersons son, Orrin E., was elected as marshal, the first to serve in that post.

The next year, the pioneering families gathered for a picnic, calling themselves the Old Settlers Assn., the beginning of an annual tradition that lasted until recent years.

Get-togethers among the early settlers were the rule rather than the exception, Parcher noted. People were far from former homes and together were building an entirely new community. They liked to meet with each other and talk about how far they had come.

The Pattersons were members of the local Presbyterian Church, founded by 12 charter members two years after they arrived. A church was built in Tropico, but with so many people coming to town, they soon moved the building to two lots at Fourth (now Broadway) and C (now Cedar Street). Patterson donated one of the lots.

Orrin Patterson married and had a daughter, Dorothy. She married Charley Talbott, who operated a dry cleaning establishment. Their daughter Gloria was born in 1931.

Gloria Talbott attended Glendale High, sang in an a cappella group and with Girls Glee, was a song leader and in the honor society; plus, she appeared in the school plays.

According to IMDb, she also landed small parts in films such as Maytime in 1937, Sweet and Lowdown in 1943 and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in 1945. After finishing school, she started her own dramatic group.

She wore the crown of Miss Glendale and married an aspiring young actor named Parrish before she turned 18 years old, according to a website, glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com. After giving birth to a son and then divorcing, she returned to film, appearing in three movies in 1955, including a Humphrey Bogart comedy Were No Angels.

Talbott later became known as a Scream Queen, through a number of horror films including The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll in 1957 and I Married a Monster from Outer Space in 1958, according to Wikipedia, which also lists multiple television credits including roles in The Adventures of Superman, Gunsmoke, Zorro, Perry Mason and Death Valley Days.

She married Patrick Mullally, a dentist, in Los Angeles in 1970. They were married for 30 years.

Talbott, who died in 2000, is interred in the mausoleum at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery. Her plaque reads Beloved Wife, Mother and Grandmama, Gloria Talbott Mullally.

To the Readers:

A B-movie is a low-budget commercial movie that is not an art house film, according to Wikipedia. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature.

--

KATHERINE YAMADA can be reached at katherineyamada@gmail.com. or by mail at Verdugo Views, c/o News-Press, 202 W. First St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Please include your name, address and phone number.


The chimes at St. Lukes of the Mountains Episcopal Church in La Crescenta should be heard more often, according to church officials.

Since 1926, the sounds of the Deagan chimes atop the stone church  donated by the Watchorn family in honor of their son, a World War I pilot  used to be heard playing every 15 minutes for most of the day.

Today, if Crescenta Valley residents want to hear the roughly 6,000 pounds of tubular bells playing, theyll have to attend one of two Sunday services at St. Lukes, where they are played manually using a small keyboard beside an organ.

This is why the churchs volunteer junior warden, Steve Fox, started crowdsourcing funds to help repair and maintain the chimes to as close as original as possible. His niece helped set up a GoFundMe page last week, asking for donations with a goal of $10,000.

Join the conversation on Facebook >>

Im doing it for one  love of the property, and because I just appreciate the history and historic meaning behind [the chimes], Fox said.

Getting the chimes to play automatically, and thus more frequently, is an expensive endeavor because it operates mostly on ancient mechanics and requires a specific type of care. Its so specialized that the technician, who lives in Tennessee, stops by only once every two years.

Last time technician Bill Pope visited St. Lukes for a tune-up, he replaced pistons at the bottom of the chimes. Their rhythm could again be heard like clockwork, until six months later, when the internal clock itself stopped running.

If we wanted to restore it 100%, to where its going to run [functionally] and not worry about it for another 30 years, it would probably cost us $30,000 to $40,000, Fox said.

Fox estimates that the GoFundMe goal is enough to keep the chimes running for another five to 10 years, acknowledging that the chimes are not a top priority for the services attended by about 110 churchgoers.

Still, when asked if the church would opt for a cheaper, more contemporary replacement for the chimes, Fox said it would ruin the historical meaning.

I would be devastated if that would happen and a lot of people in the church would be devastated if you tried to put something new and modern in, Fox said.

--

Jeff Landa, jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda

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In a sign of the spreading violence in Mexico, 11 decapitated bodies were found late Thursday near the colonial city of Merida on the Yucatan peninsula, officials said.

The bodies bore signs of torture and some were unclothed. Yucatan state officials said a 12th decapitated body was found later about 120 miles south of Merida, a city that is often used as a tourist gateway to the famed Maya ruins at Chichen Itza.

Warring drug gangs have routinely decapitated rivals during the last two years as they battle for coveted routes for smuggling drugs into the United States.

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Four decapitated bodies were found in Tijuana this week, killings that appeared to be linked to fighting among traffickers over control of the corridor into San Diego.

Headless bodies also have turned up in other corners of Mexico as violence has spread beyond traditional battlegrounds along the U.S. border.

The website of the newspaper El Universal said the bodies found in Yucatan were handcuffed and showed signs that they had been beaten. Reuters news agency, citing unnamed police officials, reported that the bodies were marked with star signs and tattooed with the letter Z.

State authorities said they were alerted to the bodies by an anonymous phone call. The discovery prompted an emergency meeting of the states governor, Ivonne Ortega, and top security officials.

The Yucatan peninsula has seen scattered violence but had not been a scene of severe fighting between drug-trafficking groups.

Drug-related violence in Mexico has grown more savage amid a crackdown on traffickers by the government of President Felipe Calderon.

This year, more than 2,500 people have died in drug violence, according to unofficial tallies by Mexican news organizations.

The governments campaign has disrupted traditional smuggling arrangements and aggravated rivalries among gangs seeking to keep their piece of the lucrative U.S. drug market.

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com
Two rockets landed in Baghdads highly fortified Green Zone on Saturday night following clashes at anti-government protests that left five people dead, according to Iraqi security and hospital officials.

There were no injuries from the rockets, which landed on the parade grounds in the center of the highly fortified Baghdad compound that is home to Iraqs government offices and most foreign embassies. It was not immediately clear who fired the projectiles.

Saturdays protests were instigated by influential cleric Muqtada Sadr and clashes that erupted as crowds pushed toward the Green Zone left two policeman and three protesters dead, according to police and hospital officials.

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The officials said six other policemen were injured along with dozens of protesters.

The demonstrators loyal to Sadr gathered in Baghdads downtown Tahrir Square to demand an overhaul of the commission overseeing local elections scheduled this year. Sadr has accused the commission of being riddled with corruption and has called for its overhaul.

Shots rang out in central Baghdad as security forces used live fire and tear gas to disperse the crowds.

Hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief journalists said the policemen died of gunshot wounds. They gave no details as to the cause of death of the protesters.

While at times the crowds advanced toward the Green Zone, by afternoon they began to disperse after a statement from Sadrs office called on his followers to refrain from trying to enter the compound.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi ordered an investigation into the violence.

The prime minister ordered a full investigation into the injuries among security forces and protesters during the demonstration today in Tahrir Square, read a statement from Abadis office Saturday evening.

Sadrs office issued another statement Saturday night following news of protester casualties claiming that excessive force was used against the demonstrators and threatened greater protests. The next time the blood of our martyrs will not go in vain, the statement read.

We will not give in to threats, said the head of the electoral commission, Serbat Mustafa, in an interview with a local Iraqi television channel Saturday afternoon. Mustafa said he would not offer his resignation and accused Sadr of using the commission as a political scapegoat.

Sadr has been a vocal critic of Abadi, and last year protests that included many of his followers breached the Green Zone twice.

Attention in Iraq is generally focused on the war against the Islamic State group, with Iraqi forces currently fighting the militants in Mosul, but Abadi is also facing a serious power struggle in Baghdad. A deepening economic crisis and persistent insurgent attacks in the capital have fueled support for powerful political opponents of Abadi like Sadr.

Abadi has said that he respects the rights of all Iraqis to peacefully demonstrate but called on the protesters Saturday to obey the law and respect public and private property.

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A Mexican military helicopter gunship fired on the alleged hideout of a drug kingpin in one of a pair of raids that left 12 suspects dead, including the cartel capo, Mexican authorities said Friday.

Spectacular footage of the helicopter firing late Thursday on an urban district in the city of Tepic, capital of western Nayarit state, appeared on social media and Mexican television.

The video, apparently shot by a witness, shows the low-flying helicopter, its spotlight occasionally illuminating the area, pouring gunfire toward a target in the citys Lindavista district.

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Shootouts between authorities and heavily armed gangs are relatively common in Mexico, where criminal syndicates wield immense power and influence. But images of a military helicopter pumping rounds into a heavily populated city are unusual.

In a statement, the Mexican Navy said federal forces mounting an operation against drug traffickers in Tepic were met by high-powered weapons. Commanders summoned the aircraft to reduce the danger of injuries to civilians and officers, the statement said. Use of the helicopter was in accordance with military guidelines, the Navy said.

Eight suspects were killed in the raid, authorities said, including the suspected gang leader, identified as Juan Francisco Patron Sanchez, known as H2. He allegedly headed regional operations for Mexicos powerful Beltran Leyva drug cartel.

A second shootout between authorities and alleged drug gang accomplices near the city airport killed four other suspects from the same criminal syndicate, the military said.

Some press accounts linked Patron Sanchez to an attack on Army troops last September in the state of Sinaloa that left five soldiers dead and ten injured.

On Friday, Roberto Sandoval Castaneda, the governor of Nayarit state, told reporters the state was at peace despite a number of recent violent episodes involving criminal gangs.

In Nayarit, the governor said, there is only room for the state of law, respect for the law and peace.

patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com

twitter: @mcdneville

Cecilia Sanchez in The Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.
All material is subject to strictly enforced copyright terms & conditions and cannot be repurposed or reproduced.  19882022 Latin American Financial Publications Inc.
Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan Hire Scientists To Cure, Prevent, Fight Diseases

There are a lot of diseases that, until today, still have no cure, and some illnesses still don't have enough vaccinations developed. Thankfully, billionaires across the globe are working towards a goal that could change that.

Fortune reported that one of those generous billionaires is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who aims to cure all diseases. Along with his beautiful wife, Priscilla Chan the couple then launched a $3 billion Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative.

The couple then established another entity with the aid of the CZ Initiative named under Chan-Zuckerberg Hub to be made possible to be established in California. It was then noted that the CZ Biohub is aided by top medical institutions namely, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and the University of California at San Francisco.

The CZ Biohub program is then funded with another $50 million in order to hire 22 junior investigators, 25 senior investigators, in which there are 21 women and 26 men totaling to 47 scientists. These scientists who are identified to receive grants of up to $1.5 million each are then assigned to freely give their riskiest and most exciting ideas.

The CZ Biohub program with the vision of curing, preventing or managing every disease aims to accomplish the goal by 2100. In order to achieve that goal, it was described in the CZ Biohub official site that many of these high-risk projects will involve the invention of new tools and new techniques that accelerate the pace of scientific discovery.

With that said, renowned Microsoft founder slash billionaire, Bill Gates also wants to work toward the same goal. Yahoo wrote that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched since 2000 was the largest privately funded organizations in the world. Funding over $108 million they launched the Global Health Investment Fund to develop drugs, vaccinations and diagnostics.

Alongside the Gate Foundation are partners JPMorgan Chase & Co., GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and the Pfizer Foundation. It was also noted that Bill Gates had also invited fellow billionaires, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Bridgewater Associates Chairman Ray Dalio to eradicate other diseases such as polio. In which this partnership raised an additional $70 million to accomplish such goal.

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Search giant Google has won its first city Wi-Fi deal in collaboration with companies like IBM, RailTel, and Larsen and Toubro from Pune Smart City Development Corporation, a special purpose vehicle organised for the smart city mission in the city.

However the latest contract was at Rs 150 crore which also includes capital expenditure, operating expenditure and revenue sharing elements.

According to EconomicTimes Pune Municipal Commissioner Kunal Kumar told that 15-20 percent revenue will be generated through this citywide Wi-Fi network will be shared with the authority.

As per Digit Google will help for monetization the city's Wi-Fi network and deploy Google Station platform. This special platform has both monetization and Wi-Fi network management capabilities. And as far as last mile fiber connectivity's concern RailTel will give Wi-Fi hotspots in 200 place across the city of Pune.

The Google Station platform was basically meant for railway stations only, but it seems that Google is now extending it to other areas as well. Areas which are frequented by larger number of population which can be handled by the platform very easily.

This would also include places like malls, big shopping areas in the cities and many more. Google and RailTel is eventually working together to give Wi-Fi at 400 railway stations in the country.

Besides Wi-Fi, Google is also working with RailTel and L&T for variable message displays (VMD) that will be use to deliver important information and messages across 161 locations in the city.

IBM is also helping L&T set up a Smart City Operation Centre (SCOC) to integrate all the services and applications on a single platform, which will accommodate all future needs through integration of various citizen-centric applications. It will integrate 49 applications.

For more updates keep visiting Latinpost.com and share your views in the comment section below.
Nokia 6 will be the first Android smartphone built by HMD Global in license with Nokia, has reportedly been a big hit in China smartphone market. The smartphone has gone out for sale on JD.com and the most interesting point is whenever the device was made available, it went out of stock in what appeared as flash sales. HMD has clarified that it's not following a flash sale model, but can't keep up the demand.

According to Digit the most popular method of online in China is a flash sale. It has been used by popular smartphone vendors like Xiaomi, Oppo, Honor, Vivo, and many other brands to keep the demand of the smartphone high. Looking at the crazy demand of the Nokia 6, HDM says that they are unable to keep up with the demand so far, and replenishing the stock has been a major challenge for the company.

As per Gadgets, the number of Nokia 6 units that HMD Global made available for the first flash sale was unknown, but the new Nokia Android phone was lapped in few minutes only. If Nokia 6 was a litmus test for checking the audience loyalty for the age-old brand then this response would surely make HMD Global very happy. Nokia 6 has made 250,000 registration in the first twenty-four hours.

HMD officials said that they keep on updating the inventory on JD.com that to more than 3 times but those were usually gone within minutes or hours, that's why the company is doing a flash sale. Moreover, the company will keep the supply to JD for sure and now the Chinese New Year holidays are mostly over, so fans can expect more supplies in the coming day and weeks.

Soon Nokia 6 units will be back in stock in China, and the company is also launching the smartphone in the Philippines, with Germany on the list as well. HMD is also expected to launch a few more Nokia-branded Android smartphone at MWC later this month, it remains to be seen by when company's device will make to India. So for more updates keep visiting Latinpost.com and share your views in the comment section.
Samsung's Lithium-Ion batteries remain to be the company's ultimate culprit, as it sets its own factory on fire in China, Wednesday morning. The factory, Samsung SDI in China is believed to be where the defective battery of Galaxy Note 7 has originated, making a whopping loss of $17 billion worldwide due to massive recall procedures. The malefactors of the fire are discarded lithium-ion batteries and some half-finished products in the waste depository, luckily the fire did not damage the production area.

The fire which alarmed the fire emergency services in Tianjin's Wuqing District happened around 6 a.m. at the waste depository area of Samsung SDI. Wccftech reported that nineteen emergency vehicles with 110 trained professionals immediately responded to prevent further damage to nearby areas. Fortunately, there were no casualties nor seriously injured due to the fire outbreak.

Further investigations are already on its way as announced by Linksus Digiwork, a public relations agency representing Samsung in China. In this way, a more detailed conclusion to the case will be documented.

According to reports from The Telegraph, Samsung SDI factory provided the defected lithium-ion batteries of Samsung Galaxy Note 7, along with another Samsung factory. These batteries when charged had numerous reports of catching fire and overheating, prompting the South Korean company to recall the product, while buyers were subjected to return policies. With this incident, Samsung has committed to provide safe products by investing 104 million, which they will finally introduce on Samsung Galaxy S8, their newest flagship model.

It is great to take note that Samsung has already appointed, once again, Samsung SDI on their next promising model, the Galaxy S8. But, this time, their 8-point battery safety check which involves handsets going through an X-ray scan will make sure that they are safe to use. With Samsung's losses in operating profit, the company is definitely determined to make it right this time.
A White House statement confirmed a Thursday night report that President Donald Trump had agreed to honor China's "One China" policy in his first call with the country's president.

"President Donald J. Trump and President Xi Jinping of China had a lengthy telephone conversation on Thursday evening. The two leaders discussed numerous topics and President Trump agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor our 'one China' policy," The White House said in a statement.

"Representatives of the United States and China will engage in discussions and negotiations on various issues of mutual interest. The phone call between President Trump and President Xi was extremely cordial, and both leaders extended best wishes to the people of each other's countries. They also extended invitations to meet in their respective countries. President Trump and President Xi look forward to further talks with very successful outcomes."

China state-run news agency Xinhua reported in Chinese that Trump told Xi he believed that the two nations could promote bilateral relationships to a "historical high level."

Earlier, Trump had attracted criticism from China for saying that the U.S. did not necessarily have to stick to the "One China" policy .

China's foreign ministry responded at the time that it was extremely concerned with Trump's comments, with spokesman Geng Shuang telling reporters that the policy was the basis of relations between the world's two largest economies.

The government's official response came after the Communist Party-owned paper, Global Times, published an opinion piece with the headline: "Trump, please listen clearly, the One China policy cannot be traded" as it warned Trump that China cannot "be easily bullied."

"If Trump abandons the one-China principle, why should China need to be U.S.' partner in most international affairs?" said the paper, which is known for its extreme nationalistic views.

Most would think Trump is "ignorant like a child" in handling diplomacy, the paper added.

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Reuters and CNBC's Huileng Tan contributed to this report.
DS 7 crossover spied ahead of Geneva debut

Feb 11, 2017, 5:20am ET

The Citroen-owned brand is trying to reach a bigger chunk of the premium segment.

Low-resolution amateur spy shots have given us an early look at the DS 7 Crossback. The Peugeot-Citroen-owned brand will present its next crossover in a few short weeks during the annual Geneva Auto Show.

The soft-roader was spotted without any camouflage on the streets of Paris, France. Up front, it gets a hexagonal grille flanked by sharp headlights, design cues that give it an Audi-esque look. Two vertical strips of LED daytime running lights emphasize the 7's width.

The 7 could pass as virtually anything when viewed from the side. There are no defining styling cues that help it stand out as a DS, which is disappointing considering the head-turning concepts we've seen from the brand since it was spun off from Citroen. The photographer who captured the pictures and sent them to website Citronfeng didn't shoot the crossover's back end.

Under the predictable sheet metal lies Peugeot's modular EMP2 platform. Expect the DS 7 to offer turbocharged four-cylinder gasoline- and diesel-powered engines, as well as manual and automatic transmissions. Front-wheel drive will come standard, but it's too early to tell whether all-wheel drive will be offered at an extra cost.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, we imagine DS will introduce the 7 Sportback online before the Geneva show opens its doors. The crossover will arrive in showrooms across Europe and in China in the coming months.
Feb 10, 2017, 4:37pm ET

Korean court rules Nissan Qashqai used emissions defeat device

Officials have upheld South Korea\'s sales ban on the crossover.

A South Korean court has reportedly ruled that Nissan used an emissions 'defeat' device in the locally sold Qashqai crossover.

The government early last year accused Nissan of manipulating diesel emissions regulations. The company faced a sales ban, a mandatory recall and a seemingly minor fine worth around $280,000 USD at the time.

Nissan denied the charges and attempted to appeal the decision via the Seoul Administrative Court. Judges recently ruled in the government's favor, however, upholding the sales ban, according to The Korean Herald.

In a follow-up statement, the Japanese automaker said "we regret the ruling" and that "our stance that we have complied with all existing regulations remains unchanged."

The automaker is said to be considering other options until the courts hand down a final ruling. The company still has time to fight the case before the sales ban goes into effect.

Image by Ronan Glon.
In a bid to save its residents' money, Bethlehem Township is switching up the schedule of improvements at its Janet Johnston Housenick & William D. Housenick Memorial Park.

Township commissioners on Monday approved work estimated at $270,000, set to start in August and finish up by year's end at the 55-acre park.

Commissioners agreed with township Manager Melissa Shafer on shuffling the order of the work that is planned. Grant money approved from the Northampton County Open Space Program and Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources is enough to cover Phases 3 and 4 in 2017, but not Phase 2, which is projected to be more costly.

Phases of work at the Janet Johnston Housenick & William D. Housenick Memorial Park owned by Bethlehem Township, Pennsylvania, are outlined on this map. Township officials agreed to do Phases 3 and 4 in 2017 ahead of Phase 2, due to funding. (Courtesy image | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Phases 3 and 4 includes trails on the northern part of the property, adjacent to Natural Lands Trust acreage; repaving of existing driveways; and the creation of a viewing/sitting area where an old garage foundation is found -- now fenced off for safety -- near the 1920s Archibald Johnston Mansion that is a focal point of the park.

"It's right on the side of a cliff really," Shafer told commissioners.

Phase 1 included a new parking lot off Christian Springs Road and stormwater management, as well as park and trail signage.

For this year's work, the township will also look at widening existing roads to accommodate vehicles ahead of the potential reuse of the abandoned mansion. Commissioners in August approved moving ahead with a nearly $700,000 exterior stabilization at the home spanning about 6,000 square feet and 22 rooms.

The township has no money budgeted this year in its general fund for the Housenick park, Shafer said.

Phase 2, estimated at $427,222, is on hold, for now. The township had applied for $213,61 to be matched by the county money, but received $200,000, requiring additional funds for this second round of work, Shafer said.

"Just keeping the project moving forward," commissions' Chairman Michael Hudak said of the reshuffling.

The township will see how far the $400,000 in grant money that is in hand can take Phases 3 and 4, with additional work possible as funding allows, Shafer said. Bidding and construction consultant fees are estimated at $55,000 on top of the $255,000 for the new northern trails and $15,000 for the seating area.

Shafer needs to secure approval from the state DCNR to reprogram the funds in time for the August start. The timeline is specific to avoid the nesting of a bald eagle on site.

The mansion and land for the park were left to the township after Janet Johnston Housenick's death in an August 2005 fire in her nearby home on Santee Mill Road.

Johnston Housenick was a granddaughter of Archibald Johnston, a vice president of the former Bethlehem Steel Corp. and the City of Bethlehem's first mayor. Completed in 1923, the mansion was built on land Johnston began acquiring in 1919.

Archibald Johnston died at the estate in 1948, and Johnston Housenick and her husband later took ownership of the mansion and surrounding 91-acre property. In 1986 the couple donated 36 acres to Northampton County for creation of the Archibald Johnston Conservation Area, and the remainder of the 55 acres was donated along with the mansion upon her death.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Albert Boscov

Albert Boscov looks on during a grand-reopening ceremony for his Boscov's Department Stores in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on June 4, 2016. In a letter to employees on Feb. 1, 2017, Boscov died Feb. 10, 2017, after a battle with pancreatic cancer (Christopher Dolan | The Citizens' Voice, via AP)

MORE: The fascinating life of Albert Boscov

Legendary department store chairman Albert Boscov died Friday of pancreatic cancer. He was 87.

Boscov's CEO Jim Boscov, Albert's nephew, announced his passing Friday night and described him as a giant of the retail industry.

"He was a man of vision and passion and he had a profound influence on the retail business community and the community at large," said Jim Boscov, the third generation of his family to lead Reading, Pa.-based Boscov's Department Stores.

"We are committed to continue on the strong foundation he has created and to carry on in the spirit and philosophy he's instilled. Building on his legacy we will remain the largest family owned department store in the country."

Albert Boscov last week told employees in a letter that he had been diagnosed with late-stage cancer and didn't have long to live.

Surrounded by his wife Eunice and their three daughters, he died at home in Reading, where his father founded the business in 1914.

Albert Boscov took over the company from his father in 1950 and became known for his attention to detail and involvement in every facet of the company.

After a long and successful career, he rescued the business when he came out of retirement in 2008 to buy it back amid bankruptcy.

Boscov's employs about 7,500 people and has 25 stores in Pennsylvania and 25 others spread across New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Connecticut and Ohio, according to its website.

Locally, it has stores at the Palmer Park Mall in Palmer Township and the Lehigh Valley Mall in Whitehall.

Boscov's Department Stores today has sales in excess of $1 billion dollars. The company employs over 7,500 people.

"Like his father, Albert Boscov maintained the principles of hard work, honesty and treating customers fairly and with respect," the company said in a statement.

"He treated his co-workers like family and made shopping fun. A dynamic retailer and philanthropist, Mr. Boscov has been recognized for his considerable achievements both locally and nationally."

That spirit of philanthropy was recalled by Kevin Murphy, president of the Berks County Community Foundation.

"While Albert was well-known as a retailer and a driving force behind several projects in downtown Reading, he should be equally remembered for his work as a humanitarian," Murphy said in a statement.

"He helped - actually helped, and not just allowed - organizations to hold food and clothing drives, bake sales, and other events at his stores."

Jim Deegan may be reached at jdeegan@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @jim_deegan. Find lehighvalleylive on Facebook.
TRENTON -- A corrections officer accused of sexually abusing an inmate at New Jersey's only women's prison has pleaded guilty to official misconduct, authorities said Friday.

Thomas Seguine, 34, of Phillipsburg, was one of four officers at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women indicted last month on charges of official misconduct and sexual assault.

Under a plea deal, Seguine pleaded guilty to the second-degree misconduct charge and is barred from public employment, according to Hunterdon County Prosecutor Anthony Kearns.

According to a copy of the indictment, Seguine was accused of having sex with an inmate, identified only as "J. Doe," which is considered sexual assault under state law.

Seguine is scheduled for sentencing on April 21. His attorney could not be reached for comment.

Three other former corrections officers -- Brian Ambroise, 33, Jason Mays, 43, and Ahnwar Dixon, 38 -- were arraigned last week, authorities said.

The prosecutor's office is now working with internal investigators at the prison after a spike in allegations against staff last year.

An NJ Advance Media investigation published in January found a history of abuse claims at the Clinton facility, including a 2010 case in which an officer was fired after internal investigators found more than a dozen women said they were victims of his abuse.

That officer, Erick Melgar, has denied any wrongdoing and was never criminally charged. But a civil lawsuit filed against him by six inmates is scheduled to go to trial in March, and the prosecutor's office may be reviewing the case as part of their ongoing investigation.

Experts also told NJ Advance Media that state Department of Corrections data showing few substantiated claims of abuse in recent years suggests New Jersey is underreporting abuse behind bars.

State lawmakers have called on the Attorney General's Office to step in and investigate conditions at the women's prison.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Jacob Morrow won't be intimidated.

"Obviously, the people who put these up don't want to see black men and women graduating," the Kutztown University senior said Friday, days after recruitment fliers for a white nationalist group were posted around campus.

"I'm going to get my education and graduate," he continued. "This doesn't change a thing for me."

The posters are photographs of Greek statues with slogans such as "let's become great again," "protect your heritage" and "serve your people." They are part of an effort by an alt-right group called Identity Evropa, an "American-based identitarian organization dedicated to promoting the interests of People of European Heritage," according to the group's Facebook page.

Morrow, an African-American electronic media major, said the fliers are disturbing to see on college campuses. Such messages serve not only to recruit, but can also to drive minorities away from higher education, he said, calling on others to stand up against it.

"These are people that are out to hurt others that are different from them," Morrow said. "I hope that as a university we can come together and stand strong. ... This (doesn't) have to be a black-white thing. This can be an everybody thing."

The posters' presence was reported by The Reading Eagle and the Raging Chicken Press, a left-leaning independent news blog by a Kutztown English professor, and was the subject of discussion on social media where at least one professor was said to be offering extra credit to students who turned the missives into origami.

So proud of my colleague Vicki Meloney and her thoughtful solution to the ugliness on campus. I am jumping on this... Posted by Karen Kresge on Thursday, February 9, 2017

Identity Evropa's "Project Siege" involves posting flyers on college campuses around the country. The effort is described on the group's website as "the beginning of a long term cultural war of attrition against the academia's Cultural Marxist narrative that is maintained and propagated into society through the indoctrination of the future managerial class."

The California-based group sells the posters and stickers on its website and posts on social media when they appear on a new campus.

The posters also appeared on the Penn State campus in Berks County this week, according to the Identity Evropa Twitter feed. The two appear to be the only schools in the area so far where the fliers have been spotted.

Kutztown became aware of the posters Tuesday night, university spokesman Matt Santos said. President Kenneth S. Hawkson sent a message to students the following day.

"While we must keep in mind that all individuals have the right to free speech on our campus, our university rejects all forms of racism, bigotry and discrimination," Hawkson said in the message on the university's website. "Kutztown University highly values and respects all campus constituents and celebrates diversity. We will continue to advocate for an environment wherein all those associated with our university can feel valued and safe."

Another Kutztown senior, Kevin Kaminski, said the white nationalistic ideology doesn't fit on campus.

"Personally, I'm not a fan of any sort of ideology like that. ... We're all people," he said. "It looks like they're trying to quote-unquote protect their heritage. ... I don't want anything like that around my campus."

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
TROPHIES

is taking the "act locally" part of gobal stewardship seriously. This week the council voted to establish a climate action group, which will put together a climate change plan for council's consideration.

Bethlehem Council President J. William Reynolds.

Council members said they were besieged by phone calls and emails supporting a local climate action approach, which was proposed by Council President J. William Reynolds. Noting that President Trump has written off global warming as a hoax, Reynolds said it's critical for other levels of government to step up. Since 2006, when the mayors of the Lehigh Valley's three cities endorsed the U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement, Bethlehem has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 28 percent and implemented $5 million in energy conservation measures.

a nurse in Easton Hospital's telemetry unit, was honored as employee of the year for going beyond his job description in assisting and comforting patients. Lashley is responsible for assessing, planning, implementing and evaluating patients, and has gone out of his way to make the hospital experience easier for people -- such as paying the cab fare for a discharged patient whose ride home to New Jersey fell through. "Kelvin's patients love him because he takes the time to chat with them and makes them feel comfortable being in the hospital," said his supervisor, JoAnn Garrett.

Cops have a soft spot for dogs, and it isn't limited to the K-9 partners that work alongside them. Palmer Township

said he was moved by a 4-month-old German Shepherd that had been abandoned in a parking lot near Stones Crossing. A passing motorist dropped it off to Bethlehem Township police, who turned it over to Kuronya. The dog, which had no tags or ID chip, was held in the township's holding pound. Palmer police posted photos on the township's website and department's Facebook page. After no one claimed the puppy, Kuronya and his wife Devin received permission to adopt him. Police Det. Jim Alercia said Kuronya is among several officers who have provided homes to stray animals through the township's adoption program.

TURKEYS

President Trump went on the offensive against Nordstrom, claiming the retailer was retaliating against him and his daughter Ivanka with its decision to stop carrying her endorsed line of products. Press Secretary Sean Spicer followed up Trump's tweet on the subject, saying, "there's clearly efforts to undermine that name based on her father's positions on particular policies that he's taken. This is a direct attack on his policies and her name." Trump adviser

then advised viewers of a news show to "go buy Ivanka's stuff" -- an apparent violation of an ethics rule prohibiting federal employees from using their office to endorse products. On Thursday, the White House said Conway had been "counseled on the subject" but wouldn't say whether she had been disciplined. Conway said she still enjoys the president's "100 percent support."

Police in South Whitehall and Lower Saucon townships are looking for a

who pulled over female motorists. After South Whitehall police released a composite sketch of a man who stopped a woman Jan. 28 on Mauch Chunk Road, another woman recognized him as the one who stopped her two days earlier in Lower Saucon. The man was described as in his early to mid-30s with a mustache and goatee, wearing a long-sleeve dark shirt with a badge on his chest, driving a white, unmarked SUV with a red and blue emergency light on the dash and a Pennsylvania plate. The driver's side headlight was out. Anyone with information is asked to call South Whitehall police at 610-398-0337 or Lower Saucon police at 610-317-6110.
A working tornado, and a new social network without the negativity of bullying, were among the 82 projects completed by 2nd year and Transition year boys at St Mary's CBS Portlaoise at SciFest.

With 215 students taking part, the science fair is truly embraced at the school, and this year they went further by inviting primary schools in Portlaoise to visit the stands.

"We were delighted at the level of interest, the excitement on their faces," said science teacher Helen Felle, who thanked the 21 judges, who included engineers, teachers, pharmacists, accountants and local business figures.

SciFest founder, retired teacher Sheila Porter, was impressed at the range of thought provoking projects, which were being marked by 21 judges all morning.

"The standard is always very good, they are all very enthusiastic and confident in their presentations," she said.

She founded SciFest in 2008 to give every Irish student a chance to exhibit at science fairs at no fee.

"Everybody gets a chance, it's inclusive and accessible, we expect up to 10,000 entries nationwide this year, and the winners go to a regional and perhaps national finals, with winners there exhibiting at the Intel International Science and Engineering fair in America," she explained.

Three 2nd years had created the mini tornado using dry ice, hot water and a vortex creating fan, and it attracted lots of spectators.

Jeff Leong, Tom Gbenoba and Oscar Ganly are concerned that Ireland will get more real tornados as the climate changes.

"It's not just tornados, there will be more extreme weather with erosion of our coastline and higher temperatures," said Oscar.

"We need to reduce greenhouse gasses and burn less fossil fuels," said Tom.

TY students Caolan Fleming and Matthew Cotter are behind 'Eva' a social network with the emphasis on content rather than users.

"You chose what topics you are interested in, and content is refreshed on your page every day, which users can comment on.

Everyone is anonymous so it filters out a lot of negativity that happens on other social network sites," explained Caolan.

The pair hope to make money on their fledgling idea.

"We have an account with Google ad sense, so we can get a steady flow of income, depending on clicks, and advertisers can target customers more effectively," explained Matthew.

Six to eight projects will be selected to go on to the regional SciFest at Carlow IT.
Creative Connections is a regional development programme for the creative sector in Counties Leitrim, Roscommon, Longford and Cavan.



Creative people are invited to take part in a specially designed training programme focusing on product development, branding and marketing. The course will look at the online and offline marketplace, explore collaborative marketing/selling opportunities and possibilities. The event can assess what your professional development needs are.



This is a FREE programme developed under the umbrella of the local enterprise offices in the region. Delivered by the Leitrim Design House, the programme will both investigate the challenges and needs of the creative sector in the region and provide business and product development training for the craft, art and design sector.



It is open to all makers, designers and artists based in Counties Leitrim, Roscommon, Longford and Cavan.

Creative Connections will be delivered by the Leitrim Design House in association with Eddie Shanahan who is renowned for his expertise in business, brand and new product development for the fashion, craft and homewares industries.



Training will take place on March 7 & 21 and April 4 & 21. The venue is the Bush Hotel in Carrick-on-Shannon from 10.30am-4.30pm.



To launch the programme, LDH would like to invite all makers, designers and artists to a creative sector meeting in the Dock Arts Centre in Carrick-on-Shannon on Tuesday morning February 21 at 10.30am to 1pm.

To register for the programme please email info@leitrimdesignhouse.ie
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Six years ago, Nick Clegg was not the most popular politician amongst students. Now, things have changed as many young people find that he speaks for them as the Government hurtles towards a hard Brexit which will blight their future and opportunities. The Guardians Patrick Wintour watched him speak to a crowd of students last night:

Heard Nick Clegg speak on Europe at a very large student event in London last night. No question on tuition fees. Huge applause at close.  Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) February 10, 2017

In his Standard column this week, Nick described another student debate, in his Sheffield constituency, where he had a few words to say to the Labour MP on the panel:

I was on a platform with other politicians taking questions from a student audience. A local Labour MP was having the normal go at me about tuition fees. Fair enough  though I noticed he omitted to mention Labours own role in introducing tuition fees, and then trebling them on its own watch. No, the moment Labours malaise really struck me was when this MP started speaking about the vote last week in the Commons on Article 50. He displayed none of the intelligence or humility of Keir Starmer, the shadow secretary for exiting the EU, who disarmingly confessed to the gathered MPs how difficult the issue is for Labour. Instead, in Sheffield this MP started to deliver a sanctimonious lecture to the Ukip and Conservative panellists, berating them for placing immigration above the economy in the Brexit talks. I couldnt contain myself. Irascibly, I interrupted his pro-European sermon to remind him that hed just got off a train from London having voted with Douglas Carswell, Michael Gove, John Redwood and other zealous Brexiteers. How could he claim he was representing the interests of the youngsters in the audience having given his support to Theresa Mays uncompromisingly hard Brexit, yanking the UK out of the single market altogether? I dont believe that it would have been a betrayal of democracy if MPs had voted against the Government last week. All that would have happened, once the splenetic outrage of the Brexit-supporting press had passed, is that the Government would have been forced to come back to MPs with a more moderate, workable approach to Brexit which would then have received their support. MPs would not have blocked Brexit but they would have blocked hard Brexit. So it is pretty rich for Labour MPs to deliver pious homilies to other parties about the dangers of hard Brexit.

Nick then went on to talk about catching up with new Liberal Democrat Councillor for Brinsworth Dr Adam Carter, who won with a colossal 2000 votes  more than the Lib Dems managed in 2015 in the entire Rotherham constituency:

When I asked the jubilant Lib-Dem councillor what his explanation was for his victory, his answer was simple: People round here just feel totally taken for granted by Labour.

This is absolutely nothing new. I worked on by-elections in the 90s in places like Chesterfield, where Labour had taken people for granted for decades and lost their seats to the Lib Dems. In 2015 in Scotland, places where Labour didnt think they needed to bother working saw massive majorities melt away in an SNP surge.

In places like Stoke-on-Trent Central, Labour now faces an electorate it has been neglecting for decades. They have learned nothing about serving the people in the last 30 years. Their fiefdoms look like they are about to crumble around them. Its up to us to make sure that they crumble in our favour rather than the scapegoating nationalistic populism of the far right. Brinsworth shows that we can do it.

Young people and working class communities like Orgreave and Brinsworth are now turning to the Liberal Democrats to fight for them. They like what we have to say. The party now has the colossal job of developing a strategy that puts us in a position where we can seriously challenge in terms of numbers of MPs. We cant afford to fail.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
Well, if youre Welsh Conservative Leader Andrew R T Davies, you point out to anyone who will listen that Liberal Democrat Welsh Education Secretary voted in accordance with Liberal Democrat policy in the Article 50 debate in the Senedd as if this should be some sort of issue.

Labour AMs were whipped to vote for Article 50 to be invoked.

Davies argues that this broke cabinet responsibility. The BBC has the story:

The Liberal Democrat AM voted with Plaid Cymru against Article 50 despite the Labour group opposing the motion. Mr Davies suggested some Labour AMs were sore over the Senedd vote. Mr Joness spokesman said it was recognised the Lib Dems were in a different position on the matter. Article 50 of the European Union Lisbon treaty is the trigger that would allow UK ministers to start the process to leave the EU. The UK government wants to set Article 50 in motion by the end of March. Mr Davies himself campaigned for Vote Leave at the referendum last year  his group joined Labour and UKIP in voting against the Plaid Cymru proposal in the Senedd on Tuesday. Only 10 AMs supported the motion to oppose Article 50 being triggered without assurances over the single market, versus 46 against. The vote if passed would have been advisory and would not have affected the process.

Apart from anything else, this was an opposition motion, not binding on the government and not covering any of its areas of responsibility.

This means, of course, that no Liberal Democrat parliamentarian has voted for the invocation of Article 50. All 5 MSPs voted with all but 3 Labour, the SNP and Greens a motion opposing Article 50.

Andrew R T Davies, a brexiteer, was clearly trying to deflect attention from the fact that his party is driving the entire country over the edge of a cliff with not so much as a crash helmet. Its also an opportunity to stir up trouble in the Welsh Labour but that doesnt really seem to have worked.

The Tories produced this bizarre raphic to illustrate their point. Can you imagine them pulling that stunt if Kirsty had been a man.

But then they have form for producing rubbish that is demeaning to female leaders. Once could be seen as unfortunate, twice is a definite sign of issues with women in positions of power.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
A LIMERICK car dealer who has sold hundreds of cars was left red in the face and out of pocket to the tune of 600 after he was forced to put a car through an NCT three times.

Adrian Filojek, from Poland, of First Class Motors on the Ennis Road, has filed a complaint with the NCTs national offices in Dublin, after being caused great embarrassment in front of a purchaser, when he was driven around the bend by the local NCT centre.

Before selling on the Toyota Avensis, he brought the car for a full test at 8am one day, where it failed due to a handbrake cable.

He rebooked the test for 5.45pm the same day, as he had a customer travelling by bus from Cork that evening to purchase the car.

In the meantime, he brought the car to a mechanic on the Dock Road, who fixed the cable.

Returning to the NCT centre, he was informed that they couldn't do a retest on just the cable alone, as data from that morning's test had been lost.

He was informed it would have to put it through a full NCT test again, even though he had a print-out with the full details of that cars results from that morning, which he said the office did not accept.

On the second attempt, the vehicle was failed on a corroded brake line and a rear light lens, which had not transpired as issues in the earlier test.

Mr Filojek, who has been living here for two years, also observed a major discrepancy in the suspension results between the morning and evening tests, appearing as if the car had another 100,000 miles on the clock.

They then offered him a third test  this time for free.

Due to the inconvenience posed to the purchaser, he later delivered the car to him in Cork, offered to pay for the vehicles next NCT test, and reduced the price of the car by hundreds of euro as a goodwill gesture.

It just wasnt acceptable, and it made me look bad in front of a customer, he told the Limerick Leader.

He said the body had acknowledged his letter of complaint, and detailed that it would look into the matter, and revert to him with its findings shortly.

The NCT office in Dublin told this newspaper this it is investigating that matter, which should take a number of days.
LIT president Dr Vincent Cunnane has warned the 14m funding for the colleges new Coonagh campus may be lost if it cannot be developed there.

It comes after An Taisce formally referred the Limerick Institute of Technologys multi-million project to develop at the northside site to An Bord Pleanala.

The college was planning to open in a vacant building once earmarked for a cinema, and had hoped to have the first tranche of what would be up to 550 articulated engineering students, and 134 workers there by September.

But the appeal now places a major doubt on that timeframe, and Dr Cunnane has warned that the money from the Department of Education could go elsewhere.

In a strongly worded statement, Dr Cunnane said: If we cannot develop Coonagh, the money will go elsewhere. Nobody should be under any illusions over that. Make no mistake. Our funding is conditional on our ability to develop the site.

Central to An Taisces appeal to An Bord Pleanala is the fact the northside development is not in line with the City Development Plan, and in particular to a number of goals set out by the Limerick 2030 plan.

The heritage groups Limerick branch also outlined concerns over public transport access to the site.

But Dr Cunnane has hit back, and pointed out the type of activities planned for the site are not things which can go in the city centre.

Just as you would not locate a factory on OConnell Street, so too the Coonagh Campus is a place where students will work on articulated vehicles and on industrial machines, where businesses will research industrial automation. Coonagh allows us this space and provides the infrastructural connectivity to do this, he told the Limerick Leader, We are not developing flat teaching space, it is something very different and is explicitly related to the location.

He insisted LIT remains committed to the urban area  and the Limerick 2030 plan, pointing out the college has 1,000 students in the city already.

But there are certain things we do that we just cant bring to the heart of the city core.

Strategically by locating certain space-hungry, low population density engineering activities in Coonagh, we can then move more intensive high population density activities into the city centre, Dr Cunnane explained. The college boss said he is disappointed, but not surprised by An Taisces objection to An Bord Pleanala, which will decide on the application by May 25.
A MOTORIST who was prosecuted for careless driving after he was detected travelling at high speed in the Limerick Tunnel was fined 750.

Sergeant Kevin Bourke of the divisional traffic corps told Limerick District Court he was conducting a speed check at Coonagh West on the Clare side of the Tunnel at 12.44am on September 19, 2015 when he detected a 141 D-registered Nissan Qashqai travelling at 139kph  59kph above the limit.

The vehicle, he said, was exiting the tunnel and was travelling in the direction of the toll plaza when stopped.

Judge Mary Larkin was told the driver of the Qashqai  Paul Curran, aged 48, of Lisroe, Kilmaley, Ennis, County Clare  said he was returning home as he had flown into Dublin Airport from Switzerland earlier in the night.

Sgt Bourke  a qualified forensic collision investigator  said the offence happened in a 80kph zone and that the defendant offered no excuse to him on the night.

Addressing the court from the witness box, he said a vehicle travelling at 139kph requires a braking distance of 89 metres if the brakes are fully applied by the driver.

This, he said, compares to 29 metres in the case of a vehicle which is travelling at 80kph.

The difference is the same as four articulated trucks, he explained.

Solicitor John Herbert said his client was not disputing the evidence of Sgt Bourke but he asked the court to take into account that traffic in the area was light at the time of the offence.

The road conditions were good, the conditions of the vehicle were good, traffic was light given the time of night, he said.

Notingthe evidence of Sgt Bourke, Judge Larkin commented it was a delightful situation which could have been a lot worse.

If if hits anything (while travelling) at 139kph somebody is dead of seriously injured.

However, using her discretion the judge said she was willing to reduce the charge from careless driving to the lesser charge of driving without reasonable consideration for other road users.

While that offence attracts four penalty points upon conviction in court, there is no mandatory disqualification.

Noting that Mr Curran is working, Judge Larkin fined him 750.

She did not impose a driving ban.
The family of a County Limerick man who has not been seen for more than 24 hours are appealing for help in finding him.

Dick Phillips, 50, from Newcastle West was last seen at a commercial premises in Annacotty on the outskirts of the city at around 10.45am on Friday.

Members of his family have appealed for information on his whereabouts on social media and gardai at Newcastle West have also been informed.

Dicks brother, Bill, says concerned family members and friends spent most of last night searching for him across West Limerick.

Bill is appealing for information on the location of a wine-coloured Skoda Fabia (reg 11d11096) which his brother was driving when last seen.

He is also appealing to farmers and landowners to check their outhouses and sheds as searches continue.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Newcastle West garda station.
Congressman Henry Cuellar announced Friday the allocation of $560,000 in federal funding to fight the Zika virus on the border.

I fought for these federal funds, along with the City of Laredo, so our community can invest in proven prevention methods, Cuellar said. Zika virus infections have been reported here in our border communities, so vigilance is more important than ever. Now, our local officials have the resources they need to protect Laredo and Zapata families. I thank the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Dr. John Hellerstedt, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, for their help in securing these funds.

When Federal, state and local authorities work together, we get results. This announcement today is evidence that Congressman Henry Cuellar is working hard for Laredo to get federal reinvestment dollars channeled into our city, said Mayor (Pete) Saenz. And when Laredo goes to make its story known in Austin and Washington, D.C., there are people that hear us and take us into account. Recently, during our advocacy trip to Austin in January, we met with ... Hellerstedt ... about releasing these federal funds administered by the state; these monies will go a long way in assisting our Health Department to test for and prevent the spread of Zika.

These funds will assist with local testing for Zika virus and other infectious diseases, mosquito control, disease surveillance and education, said Dr. Hector F. Gonzalez, City of Laredo health director. It will also allow us to spend more time in prevention assuring that women access health care early to prevent infection during pregnancy and to prevent birth defects.

Congress provided $394 million to the CDC as part of the Zika supplemental funding bill. These funds were part of a $25 million federal allocation for Zika preparedness to the Texas Department of State Health Services, about $10 million of which is flagged for local jurisdictions including 16 health departments.

Those jurisdictions, including Laredo and Zapata County, were selected for their higher risk of Zika cases: mainly border, gulf coast and urban areas. The City of Laredo will also conduct mosquito control operations in Zapata County with these funds.

Cuellar has worked to protect the people of his district from Zika since the epidemic began.

In April 2016, he hosted an international meeting at Texas A&M International University to discuss Zika prevention in Texas, bringing together experts from American and Mexican academia, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Homeland Security, medical centers and Texas state government.

In July 2016, in response to a request from Cuellar, the CDC established an office in Laredo and contracted a team of public health professionals to work on the border from Laredo to Brownsville, focusing on increasing surveillance, prevention, preparation and education to combat the Zika virus.
The US-led coalition targeted Rachid Kassim, an aspiring rapper turned Islamic State operative, near Mosul, Iraq earlier this week. Kassim, who is pictured above, has been involved in several terror plots in the West.

The airstrike was announced yesterday by Pentagon spokesman Major Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway. We are currently assessing the results of that strike and will provide more information when it becomes available, Major Rankine-Galloway told the press. Some French media reports are already claiming that Kassim was killed, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). But American officials remain uncertain.

French officials have tied Kassim to a string of plots in their country. They found that Kassim was part of a network of online operatives who remote-control attacks via social media applications. This network has coordinated small-scale attacks around the globe, including in European nations and the US. [For an overview of how these plots work, see FDDs Long War Journal report: Terror plots in Germany, France were remote-controlled by Islamic State operatives.]

In June 2016, Amaq News Agency, one of the Islamic States chief propaganda arms, promoted a video from an Islamic State loyalist named Larossi Abballa. The video was recorded at the scene of a brutal double murder in Magnanville, France, which is less than 40 miles north of Paris. Abballa stabbed a police officer and his partner to death, recounting the horror show for the Islamic States audience and the rest of the world. Abballa was a member of Kassims Telegram group, according to AFP. Authorities concluded that Kassim had encouraged Abballa.

In July 2016, a pair of Islamic State supporters killed a priest at a church in Normandy. The two young men recorded a video in which they pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the head of the so-called caliphate. Amaq quickly edited and disseminated the footage online. A screen shot from the video can be seen on the right.

As FDDs Long War Journal noted at the time, Amaqs release of the clip required at least some level of coordination, even if only over the internet. Investigators discovered in the weeks that followed that Kassim provided the two jihadis with guidance online.

Then, in Sept. 2016, French authorities broke up an Islamic State plot near the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. According to Reuters and France 24, Kassim remotely guided some members of the group, which included several women.

Kassim has been tied to other plots in Europe as well.

Kassim raised his profile by claiming responsibility, on behalf of the Islamic State, for the Bastille Day attack in Nice, France last year. He beheaded a captive in the same video.

The US and its allies have repeatedly targeted Islamic State operatives responsible for remote-controlling terrorists abroad. These same operatives are located in Iraq and Syria, but guide jihadis throughout the West and elsewhere.

Two British nationals, Reyaad Khan and Junaid Hussain, were killed in a pair of airstrikes in Raqqa, Syria in Sept. 2015. Hussain has been tied to jihadis around the globe, including terrorists inside the US. Hussain apparently communicated with the two gunmen who opened fire at a May 2015 event in Garland, Texas that was dedicated to drawing images of the Prophet Mohammed. The Department of Justice and the FBI have connected Hussain to a number of other would-be plotters as well.

Hussains wife, Sally Jones, has been involved in the Islamic States online efforts, too. In Sept. 2015, the State Department added Jones to the US governments list of designated terrorists. Jones and Hussain targeted American military personnel through publication of a hit list online to encourage lone offender attacks, Foggy Bottoms announcement read. Jones has used social media to recruit women to join the Islamic State and, in Aug. 2015, encouraged individuals aspiring to conduct attacks in Britain by offering guidance on how to construct homemade bombs.

A jihadi known as Abu Isa Al Amriki and his wife, Umm Isa Amriki, were killed in an American airstrike near Al Bab, Syria on Apr. 22, 2016. According to the Pentagon, Abu Isa was involved in planning attacks against the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Like Hussain, he has been tied to a number of jihadis inside the US. His wife was also involved in online recruiting efforts.

FDDs Long War Journal has reported on the Islamic States digital network, including remote-controlled plots, since 2015. A list of some of these reports is below:

Sept. 7, 2015: Prime Minister says 2 British nationals killed in airstrikes were plotting attacks

Sept. 29, 2015: US government targets Islamic States foreign fighters in new designations

July 7, 2016: Ohio man conspired with Islamic State recruiter, Justice Department says

July 19, 2016: Teenager who terrorized German train appears in Islamic State video

July 26, 2016: Attacks in France and Germany claimed by Islamic State propaganda arm

July 27, 2016: Terrorists in Normandy swore allegiance to Baghdadi before attacking church

Aug. 18, 2016: Jihadists who attacked Russian police appear in Islamic State video

Sept. 24, 2016: Terror plots in Germany, France were remote-controlled by Islamic State operatives

Nov. 8, 2016: Ohio man allegedly communicated with an Islamic State external attack planner

Nov. 29, 2016: North Carolina man pleads guilty to conspiring with Islamic State recruiter

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
Now ladies, I have to start this feature by admitting a major girl crush on todays bride. This lady is simultaneously softly feminine and oh-so-edgy-cool; teaming a delicate lace and tulle ballgown with a pair of kickass Dr. Martens and sweet ruffle socks. And she married her love in one of the most naturally beautiful countries in the world, Norway. Its no secret that I am obsessed with Scandinavia and Im sure youre about to see why.

Kari Ann, an artist, tied the knot with her husband, Espen, an aircraft mechanic on 25th June 2016 in the stunning surroundings of Sola in the south of Norway. Himmel og Hav (which translates as Heaven and Sea,) a hotel, conference and mission centre, played host to their whimsically bohemian celebrations, inspired by the glorious landscape all around them.

We wanted to have a relaxed wedding in beautiful natural surroundings. Therefore we chose to celebrate our special day by the sea and we had the perfect venue. We wanted a relaxed wedding with a vintage/bohemian look and we did the planning ourselves. I love to decorate and to create beauty out of simple things.

Photography by Green Antlers

Kari Anns gorgeous, natural blooms are a continuation of the bohemian vibe she and Espen had in mind when planning their wedding. Ive previously waxed lyrical about the wonderfully meaningful significance of flower crowns; stretching from Ancient Greece, when they were wrought and worn to honour the Gods, to their modern-day bohemian incarnation. So as a Scandinavian bride, I love that Kari Ann chose to crown her lusciously dark locks with one of these floral circlets, thought to be a way of harnessing natures power to ensure good health.

My floral crown was from the flower shop Floriss in Bryne. We also picked lots of flowers ourselves  we wanted a natural, wildflower look.

I adore Kari Anns low-top White Dr. Martens paired with those girly ruffle socks, such a cool contrast with her full-skirted Cosmobella gown and its sweet open back. She accessorised with simple and meaningful jewellery borrowed from friends and family and her best girls crafted her the perfectly pretty up-do.

I bought a Cosmobella dress from a Norwegian salon called Miranda. I love lace and this dress was both classy and relaxed, and it had a vintage look.

The salon only imported one of these gowns so it was a rare dress. It was perfect for me. I got the veil as a gift from one of my maids of honour.

The lovely bridesmaids wore dresses from Modcloth and BHLDN, while the very handsome groom wore a suit, shoes and bow tie, all bought from Eikhi in Bryne.

I also wore pearl earrings, which I borrowed from one of my maids of honor. My dear grandmother gave me a bracelet, which she got when she was fourteen. My sister and my maids of honor did my hair and I did the make-up myself. I barely use make-up on a daily basis, so I wanted it to look natural.

Espen proposed to me when we were in New York with my art school. We had an evening to ourselves and he got down on one knee right under the Brooklyn bridge. We were engaged for fifteen months before we got married.

We ordered the engagement ring online in the middle of the night outside our hostel In New York, then bought our wedding rings in Ethiopia and got them engraved in Norway.

Karin Anns father walked her down the aisle to Forever by Kari Jobe, performed by a live instrumental band. Their religious ceremony space has to be one of the most beautiful settings Ive seen; minimal and bright with soaring high ceilings and a soft, ethereal light flooding through from behind the altar. This is why I love Scandinavia  that simple, clean, pure aesthetic thats full of care, detail and beauty.

Kari Ann hung flocks of white origami cranes from the ceilings, echoing her walk down the aisle towards her fiance.

The couple were joined in matrimony before their loved ones; a gifted and creative bunch who performed in a range of styles at the ceremony and later at the reception.

Kari Ann and Espen chose husband and wife team, Sam and Diana, to document all the precious moments of their day. Weve featured a number of beautiful weddings captured by Green Antlers Photography, a duo who specialise in creating sublimely raw, light-filled images.

We were so happy to have Sam and Diana of Green Antlers Photography photographing our wedding. They not only take amazing photos and make you feel relaxed and comfortable, but they are helpful and interested, full of joy, humor and love. We are grateful to now call them our friends. We also had friends to film our special day.

Before sitting down to a wedding breakfast with their guests (including my all time favourite cinnamon rolls), the newly married Kari Ann and Espen slipped away to spend some very precious time together in the surrounding forest and on the shore of the steely-blue North Sea.

I love the contrast of the shots captured against this incredible natural scenery, with the images of the couple in front of crumbling brick and weathered concrete.

We did the decor ourselves, with kraft paper and lace ribbons. For the ceremony Id made hundreds of white origami cranes to follow us down the aisle and we also had lots of flowers.

For the reception we decorated the tables with wine bottles in different colours, using them as vases and candlesticks. My best friend made us garlands of laces, and I also made garlands of feathers. We had fairy lights, origami cranes and lots of flowers and we also used vintage items to get the look we wanted. Outside we had an arch made of wood, flowers and delicate white fabric from Ethiopia.

That gorgeously natural outdoor arch, swathed in softest white is so enchanting, as are the pure white feathers strung over the dinner tables  a whimsically bohemian addition to traditional bunting.

Soft fairy lights, pretty pastel blooms and a number of pieces of beautiful vintage furniture added to the cosy atmosphere of the reception.

The catering was by Himmel og Hav and we got our beautiful cake as a wedding gift from a dear friend.

I was so delighted to see so many women making speeches when I first set eyes on these images  equality is such an important and integral part of Scandinavian life and one of the very many wonderful things I love about this part of the world. Im also a tiny bit obsessed with the candy floss pink hue of one the female guests hair against her sugar sweet pink frock!

Our friends and family surprised us with lots of showbiz. There were jokes, choreographed routines, videos and musical performances. Wed only planned to have three songs played by live band, but we got a whole evening with great things happening, it was wonderful!

Our first dance was not planned at all, so it was kind of a spontaneous move. We danced to Ho Hey, by The Lumineers. Its a song that we like a lot and its playful, relaxed and joyful. One of my best friends performed it live, and everyone was singing along and having a good time.

Words of Wedded Wisdom

Relax. Breathe slowly. Enjoy both the planning part and the wedding day; the wedding itself is only one day, so make sure that you use the planning time well. Enjoy it to the full, dont stress, and take care of yourself and the love of your life. Its more important to enjoy this time and do fun things together than using lots of energy for every detail to be perfect. Make the wedding your own.

Im so grateful to Kari Ann for these lovely, calming words of bridal advice, words Ill be sure to remind myself of over the next few months. Happily, writing this feature led me to find this gorgeous Norwegian celebration in London, featured many moons ago on Love My Dress, and if youre leaving the UK behind for your big day, we have heaps of stunning destination weddings stored in our fabulous archives, just waiting to inspire you.

That just leaves me to say a huge thank you to Espen and Kari Ann for sharing their beautiful day with us all, and of course a mighty big thanks goes to Green Antlers Photography for these sublime captures.

Love, Em x
Greece Debt Crisis Outrageous Malevolence

Earlier this week I was talking in Athens to a guy from Holland, who incidentally with a group of friends runs a great project on Lesbos taking care of some 1000 refugees in one of the camps there. But thats another topic for another day. I was wondering in our conversation how it is possible that, as we both painfully acknowledged, people in Holland and Germany dont know what has really happened in the Greek debt crisis. Or, rather, dont know how it started.

That certainly is a big ugly stain on their media. And it threatens to lead to things even uglier than what weve seen so far. People there in Northern Europe really think the Greeks are taking them for a ride, that the hard-working and saving Dutch and Germans pay through the teeth for Greek extravaganza. Its all one big lie, but one that suits the local politicians just fine.

By accident(?!), I saw two different references to what really happened, both yesterday in the UK press. So lets reiterate this one more time, and hope that perhaps this time someone in Berlin or Amsterdam picks it up and does something with it. There must be a few actual journalists left?! Or just ordinary people curious enough, and with some intact active neurons, to go check if their politicians are not perhaps lying to them as much as their peers are all over the planet.

What Im talking about in this instance is the first Greek bailout in 2010. While there are still discussions about the question whether the Greek deficit was artificially inflated by the countrys own statisticians, in order to force the bailout down the throats of the then government led by George Papandreou, there are far fewer doubts that the EU set up Greece for a major league fall just because it could, and because Dutch, French, German politicians could use that fall for their own benefit.

The reason to do all this would have been -should we say ostensibly or allegedly?-, to get Greece in a situation where the Germans and the French could abuse the emergency they themselves thus created, to transfer the Greece-related bad debts of their banks to the EU public at large, and subsequently to the Greek public, instead of forcing the banks to write these debts down. That is still the core of the Greek problem to this day. Its also the core problem with the IMFs involvement: the funds statutes prescribe it should have insisted on writedowns long ago, from the very first moment it got involved.

The bailout, as Yanis Varoufakis repeats below, was not -and never- meant to help Greece. Instead, it was meant to do the exact opposite, to enable Europes richer countries -and their banks- to escape the only just punishment for reckless lending practices, by unloading their debt onto the Greek people.

Varoufakis Accuses Creditors Of Going After Greeces Little People

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis [..] said that the country has been put on a fiscal path which makes everyday life unsustainable in Greece. The German finance minister agrees that no Greek government, however reformist it might be, can sustain the current debt obligations of Greece, he said. Earlier in the day, Wolfgang Schauble told German broadcaster ARD that Greece must reform or quit the euro. A country in desperate need of reform has been made unreformable by unsustainable macroeconomic policies, Mr Varoufakis said. He said that instead of attacking the worst cases of corruption, for six years now the creditors have been after the little people, the small pharmacists, the very poor pensioners instead of going for the oligarchies. Greece in 2010 was given a huge loan that Mr Varoufakis said was not designed to save the bankrupt country but to cynically transfer huge banking losses from the books of the Franco German banks onto the shoulders of the weakest taxpayers in Europe.

The Financial Times, in a rare moment of lucidity, and with an unintentionally hilarious headline, puts its fingers on that same issue, as well as a few additional sore spots, and with admirable vengeance and clarity:

Conflict Over Athens Surplus Needles The IMF

First of all, to put Greece and sustainable growth together in one sentence is as preposterous as it is to do the same with Greece and surplus. But more importantly, the FT is right in just about every word here. Europe de facto decides what the IMF does. So despite all the recent conflicts between the Troika members (though they reportedly just announced they agreed on what to dictate to Greece over the weekend), its really all EU (i.e. Germany, France) all the time. Greece never stood a chance, and neither did justice.

The point about upcoming elections in Holland, France and Germany gets more important by the day. Since former EU parliament chief Martin Schulz left that post to head the socialist SPD in Germanys elections, hes seen his poll numbers soar so much that Merkel and Schaeuble are getting seriously nervous about their chances of re-election. Like in all countries these days, certainly also in Europe, their knee-jerk reaction is to pull further to the right. Which is the opposite of setting the record straight with regards to.

As for Dijsselbloem, Schaeubles counterpart as finance minister for Holland, his Labor Party (PVDA) -yes, that twit claims to be a leftie- is down so much in the polls that you have to wonder where he gets the guts -let alone the authority- to even open his mouth. PVDA has 38 seats in the Dutch parliament right now and are predicted to lose 27 of them and have just 11 left after the March 15 vote, taking them from 2nd largest party to 7th largest. And out of power.

And he still heads the eurogroup, including in the negotiations with Greece and the IMF?! Its a strange world. Dijsselbloem proudly proclaimed this week that without the IMF being involved in the next bailout, Holland wouldnt give Greece another penny anymore. Think Dijsselbloem and Schaeuble dont know what happened in 2010? Of course they do. They know better than anyone.

Its simply better for their careers -or so they think- to further impoverish the entire Greek nation and the poorest of its citizens than it is to come clean, to tell their people the whole story has been based on dirty tricks from the start. And since their media refuse to tell the truth, too, the story will last until at least after their respective elections. Thing is, Dijsselbloem will be out of a political job by March 16, so whats he doing, setting himself up for a juicy job at one of the banks whose debts were transferred to Greek pensioners in 2010? No conscience?

Perhaps Greeces best hope is, of all people, Donald Trump. Yeah, a long shot if ever you saw one. But Trump can overrule the IMF board simply because the US is the biggest party involved in the fund. He can tell that divided board to get its act together and stop harassing a valuable NATO member. At least he has the business sense to understand that a country with 23% unemployment -and thats just the official number- and 50-60% youth unemployment cannot recover no matter what happens, and that sustainable growth, any kind of growth, is an impossibility once you take peoples spending power away.

Meanwhile, elite and incumbent Europe seems to think that publicly agitating against Trump is the way to go (they may come to regret that stance, and a stance it all it is). Trumps apparent choice for EU ambassador, economist Ted Malloch, was accused by European Parliament hotshots Weber and Verhofstadt -in a letter, no less- of outrageous malevolence towards the values that define this European Union, for saying the Union needs a little taming. For some reason, they dont seem to like that kind of thing. Outrageous malevolence, were talking Nobel literature material here.

Malloch also said EU president Juncker was a very adequate mayor, I think, of some city in Luxembourg. And that he should go back and do that again. And Malloch said on Greek TV this week that Greece should have left the eurozone four years ago. Why is Greece again on the brink? It seems like a deja vu. Will it ever end? I think this time I would have to say that the odds are higher that Greece itself will break out of the euro.

Why would he say that? How about because of the numbers in this by now infamous graph, straight out of the IMF itself, which shows EU countries have conspired to plunge one of their fellow Union member states into a situation far worse than the US was in during the Great Depression? Would that do it?

And we havent even touched on the role that Goldman Sachs plays in the entire kerfuffle, with its fake loans and derivatives, yet another sordid tale in this Cruella De Vil web of power plays spun by incompetent petty men. And Americans think they got it bad Guess that Goldman role makes it less likely for Trump to interfere in Greeces favor. Which would seem a bad idea, for everyone involved, not least of all because of rising tensions with Turkey over islands and islets and rocks (I kid you not) in the Aegean Sea.

It would be much better and safer for Trump, and for all of Europe, to make sure Greece is a strong nation, not a depressed and demoralized penal colony for homeless and refugees. That is asking for even more trouble. But nary a soul seems to be tuned in to that, its all narrow windows, short term concerns and upcoming elections. No vision.

Or perhaps Merkel will do something unexpected. Word has it that Greek finance minister Tsakalotos is meeting with Angela this weekend, a move that would seem to bypass Schaeuble, who once again said yesterday that Greece can only get a debt writedown if it leaves the eurozone. And thats something Merkel is not exactly keen on. If only because it means unpredictability, volatility, not a great thing if your popularity as leader is already on shaky ground.

But to summarize, the Greek people didnt do this. Of course plenty of Greek citizens borrowed more money than they should have in the first decade of the millenium, stories about credit cards in peoples mailboxes with a free 5000 credit on them are well known in Athens. But they were by no means the ones who profited most. And the country has a long history of corruption and tax evasion. Which is what the French and German banks cleverly played into as their politicians acted like they had no idea. Still, none of that comes even close to a reason or an excuse for completely eviscerating a fellow member of both the EU and NATO.

And it makes little sense. Do these people really want to risk peace in the eastern Mediterranean, or inside Greece itself (which will inevitably explode if this continues), just in order to keep Commerzbank or BNP Paribas out of the trouble they rightfully deserve to be in?

No, its not Tim Mallochs statements that reveal outrageous malevolence towards the values that define this European Union. Its the actions of the European Union itself that do.

By Raul Ilargi Meijer

Website: http://theautomaticearth.com (provides unique analysis of economics, finance, politics and social dynamics in the context of Complexity Theory) 2017 Copyright Raul I Meijer - 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.

Raul Ilargi Meijer Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




The New Retirement  Big Pill To Swallow!

President Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States to preside over the largest debt collapse ever in U.S. history. During this four-year term, he and his administration will be most feared and hated president there ever was. The odds are stacked high against his ideology of Making America Great Again during his term in office.

Debt deflation is a concept that was first introduced in 1933 by the economist Irving Fisher. Debt deflation is a concept whereby the combination of high levels of debt and falling prices cause a downward spiral in the economy. When there is deflation in an economy, those who are in debt become significantly worse off financially. Deflation causes prices and wages to fall and the value of money to rise which increases the real value of debts thereby causing it to become more difficult for people to pay off their debts, i.e.: people holding mortgages would be forced into selling their homes. However, the selling of assets only served to worsen the situation by causing prices to fall even further  creating more deflation. This affects all those people who are in debt and the cycle repeats itself exponentially. Hence, the beginning of the Next Great Reset of 2017-2020 which should start June/July of this year.

As many Americans enter retirement, they are realizing one unfortunate fact. The fact is that the new retirement plan means no retirement, at all, and is called the Retirement Myth.

One of the promises of the American Dream was the idea of a comfortable retirement, however, this will NOT materialize due to financial swindling and a real estate bubble. Most Americans have incurred massive debt and have consumed their future nest egg by making purchases beyond their budgets and are living beyond their means. We are now left with over 75,000,000 baby boomers which a large portion of them are entering retirement with very little and/or no savings. DEBT has enslaved them!

The stock market collapse of 2008 resulted from a class of subprime mortgage bonds going into default. Today, the triggers for our financial crisis in the U.S. are still there to cause a hiccup in a Treasury bond auction, trouble in the settlements of derivatives contracts held by major banks or default on leveraged finance loans or high-yield junk bonds. Apparently, we cannot live without debt as it has become the American Way! Your next pension check or social security check could soon be cut back or eliminated altogether, regardless of legal government guarantees. A loss such as this could be both debilitating and devastating for retirees. Global Central Banks have destroyed the financial markets.

Timing Is Everything!

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Followers of my work locked in 112% profit this week in a swing trade with NUGT, and another 7.7% in 24 hours with ERX, which we are still long a portion and expecting further gains. All the trades are based on my Momentum Reversal Method (MRM) trading system. There are two key components of this trading strategy.



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Chris Vermeulen

www.TheGoldAndOilGuy.com

Chris Vermeulen is Founder of the popular trading site TheGoldAndOilGuy.com. There he shares his highly successful, low-risk trading method. For 7 years Chris has been a leader in teaching others to skillfully trade in gold, oil, and silver in both bull and bear markets. Subscribers to his service depend on Chris' uniquely consistent investment opportunities that carry exceptionally low risk and high return.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect.

Chris Vermeulen Archive

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Nicholas Young and John Kelly

South Hadley School Superintendent Nicholas Young, shown at left, with School Committee Chairman John Kelly during a meeting on Feb. 7, 2017 with the Selectboard

(Jim Russell photo)

SOUTH HADLEY -- The Selectboard took no action this week on a school department request to pursue a state grant that, if approved, would subsidize the replacement or renovation of Mosier Elementary School, which was built in 1969.

A consultant has estimated building a new school would cost $43 million, while major renovations would be about half that amount.

"If we replace the building, it is $43 million," Selectman Ira Brezinsky told members of the South Hadley School Committee and Superintendent Nicholas Young during Tuesday's meeting of the two boards.

Selectmen John Hine and Bruce Forcier asked if the school project could be accomplished without a tax increase.

"All the options are not off the table," Young responded.

He said a grant from the Massachusetts School Building Authority could pay up to 57 percent of the costs.

Young listed numerous safety and costly infrastructure repairs needed at Mosier. He said there is no room in any of the district schools to relocate children from Mosier, and said that school's library has no computer space.

"We don't have an empty classroom" to relocate students, Young said. "We literally have every square inch ... allocated for instruction."

In response to a question from the Selectboard on the deadline to submit a "statement of interest" to the School Building Authority, Young said it is in April, and said he would prefer that the Selectboard approve the school committee's request by next month.

The Selectboard did not say when it would make a decision.

According to the School Building Authority, submittal of a statement of interesting from a municipality "is the critical first step in the MSBA's program to partially fund the construction, renovation, addition or repair of municipally or regionally owned school facilities located in cities, towns and regional school districts. The SOI allows districts to inform us about deficiencies that may exist in a local school facility and how those deficiencies inhibit the delivery of the district's educational program."

During the Feb. 7 meeting, Christine Phillips, the school board's vice chairwoman, said district enrollment had increased by nearly 50 students in the past year.
josh swift.jpg

Joshua Swift, 32, of Easthampton

(West Springfield Police Department)

SPRINGFIELD -- For second time in two months, a man charged with performing a sex act with his dog has failed to show up for his arraignment in Springfield District Court.

Joshua Swift, 32, of Easthampton, was due in court Friday to enter a plea to one count of bestiality.

But Swift, who is being held at the Hampshire County House of Correction in an unrelated case, did not appear for his arraignment. A court official said his absence was weather-related and the arraignment has been rescheduled for March 1.

When Swift missed his initial court date on Dec. 13, an arrest warrant was issued. By then, Swift was already in police custody, having been arrested Dec. 12 on a warrant out of Northampton District Court, according to court records.

Swift, a self-employed roofer, allegedly made a video of his dog performing a sex act on him and sent it to a woman he met on a Boston Bruins' fan website, according to a complaint filed by Easthampton police.

Questioned by investigators, Swift admitted to making the video, but said the woman encouraged him to do it. When Swift broke off their relationship, the woman sent the video to Blandford police, the complaint said.

Swift claimed he was "wasted, lonely and in a bad state of mind" when the video was filmed, and assured officers it was "not something he would normally do," the complaint said.

Investigators determined the video had been made in October at the Bel Air Inn in West Springfield.

While speaking to police, Swift complained that someone had sent a copy of the tape to his current girlfriend. "Mr. Swift is angry that the video is being spread," the complaint said.

Under state law, the maximum punishment for bestiality is 20 years in state prison. There is no minimum sentence.

Six domestic restraining orders were filed against Swift between 2007 and 2011, according to court records.

Between 2001 and 2010, fifteen criminal charges were also filed against him, including assault and battery, driving with a suspended license, trespassing, malicious damage, leaving the scene of a property damage accident and marijuana possession.

While most charges were dismissed or continued without a finding, Swift was ordered to serve two six-month jail terms in separate assault cases and six more months in a domestic abuse case.
bacardi151.jpg

((Wikimedia Commons))

SPRINGFIELD -- Before buying a bottle of Bacardi 151 rum at Worthington Discount Liquors on Nov. 29, Terrence Vaughan had a question for the clerk, according to the arrest report.

Is it flammable?

When the clerk said yes, Vaughan paid $22.09 and left.

Minutes later, a red Saab parked around the corner from the store was set on fire, and then a second fire was reported in the hallway of a nearby Nursery Street apartment building, according to the arrest report.

Vaughan, 30, pleaded not guilty in Springfield District Court on Jan. 25 to arson charges from both fires following an investigation by the Springfield Police and Fire Departments.

Nobody was injured in the fires and both were extinguished quickly. Still, the investigation leading to Vaughan's arrest illustrates the prevalence of video surveillance cameras and their potential value in criminal prosecutions.

As Assistant District Attorney Mary Simeoli explained it, the defendant was captured on video three times -- buying the rum at the package store, setting fire to the Saab parked on Federal Court and driving away from the Nursery Street apartment building moments after the fire was set there.

The targets of both fires were not chosen randomly, according to the prosecutor and the arrest report: The Saab belonged a woman whose boyfriend had fought with Vaughan the night before and the hallway fire was set outside the apartment of Vaughan's ex-girlfriend.

In addition to interviewing witnesses at both locations, investigators obtained video from nearby surveillance cameras, plus audio and video of Vaughan purchasing the liquor allegedly used as an accelerant, the prosecutor said.

At the package store, Vaughan could be seen walking up to the counter with a bottle of Bacardi 151 rum, the arrest report said. "You can clearly hear Vaughn asking if the liquor he is buying is flammable," Springfield Detective Eugene Dean wrote in a request for an arrest warrant.

The two fires were still under investigation when Vaughan was arrested in December on unrelated charges. When the arson charges were filed, he was being held at the Hampden County Correctional Center. By then, Vaughan's ex-girlfriend had obtained a restraining order barring him from having any contact with her.

At the arraignment, the prosecutor requested $50,000 bail, citing the new charges and Vaughan's extensive criminal record.

Judge William Boyle granted the bail request and scheduled a pretrial hearing for Feb. 27.
WEST SPRINGFIELD - The first-ever Mayor's Winter Ball was held at the Carriage House at Storrowton Village located on the grounds of the Big-E in West Springfield Friday evening with an estimated 175 guests.

The party, which doubled as a fundraiser, was hosted by West Springfield Mayor Reichelt as part of a kick-off to the West Springfield Winter Carnival.

The business-attire setting featured a cash bar, hors d'oeuvres, and music by DJ Dan Cavanaugh.

Reichelt said it was an exciting and exhilarating night, all about having fun.

Despite the 16-inches of snow from winter storm Niko with more possibly on the way, the annual Mayoral Winter Carnival is scheduled to begin at noon Saturday at Mittineague Park and will feature crafts, games, hot chocolate, horse-drawn sleigh rides, and more.
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Taipei, Feb. 11 (CNA) The number of Chinese tourists arrivals in Taiwan reached 2.73 million in 2016, down 18 percent compared to the previous year, but dropping a more severe 33 percent since May, when Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen () came into power, according to the Ministry of the Interior, which released the latest statistics Saturday.
This is an update of a story originally posted at 1:43 p.m. Friday.

CHICOPEE -- Two Springfield residents, arrested Friday in connection with the 1 a.m. shooting death of a 39-year-old man at his Chicopee home, entered not guilty pleas at their separate arraignments in Chicopee District Court Friday afternoon.

Michael Brawner, 29, and Sorheyddi Colondres, 33, both of 1215 Carew St., Springfield, were charged in connection with the shooting death of Kevin Blanton on Ann Street.

Judge Bethzaida Sanabria-Vega ordered Brawner held without the right to bail. Colondres, who was identified in court as Brawner's girlfriend, was ordered held in lieu of $250,000 cash bail or a $2.5 million personal surety.

Each is due back in court on March 13.

The victim was identified as Colondres' former boyfriend, but no motive for the shooting was discussed in court.

Police were summoned to a reported shooting at 74 Ann St. shortly after 1 a.m. Arriving officers found Blanton suffering from a gunshot wound. Police began first aid and paramedics were sent to the scene.

Blanton was taken to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield and was pronounced dead a short time later.

It's not clear whether the shooting occurred inside the home at 74 Ann St. Blanton, however, was inside when police arrived, investigators said.

Brawner is charged with murder, misleading police, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, possession of a firearm and ammunition without a firearm identification card, and discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a building.

Colondres is charged with being an accessory to murder after the fact and misleading a police investigator.

According to Assistant District Attorney Colleen Martin, Brawner shot Blanton and then Colondres drove Brawner from the scene to their Carew Street residence in Springfield. Each was arrested there by Springfield police.

Martin, in requesting that Brawner be denied bail, cited the seriousness of the charges. She also cited his criminal record, saying that he is awaiting trial in Hampden Superior Court on charges related to drug trafficking, and has spent time in prison. She did not elaborate on his prison record.

Colondres is not charged with murder, but is charged with being an accessory after the fact by driving Brawner from the scene. She is also charged with giving a false statement to police and attempting to conceal Brawner's whereabouts when police came to their Springfield home, Martin said.

"Based on the seriousness of this crime, and that the crime is still under investigation and there may be other charges, the commonwealth requests that the right to bail be withheld," she said.

Both Brawner and Colondres requested and were granted public defenders.

Brawner was represented by lawyer Alan Black. Colondres was represented for the arraignment by lawyer Mark Leclair, but she will be provided another defender for her trial.

Leclair told the court that Colondres's only involvement "is that she was found in the Carew Street apartment when police came to arrest Mr. Brawner."

He also said it is unsubstantiated whether Colondres knowingly drove Brawner from the scene of the homicide or if she simply gave him a ride from somewhere else.

He said Colodres is the single mother of two daughters, ages 16 and 12, and works as a home health aide and a nail technician.

He also said she has a limited criminal history and few assets. He asked that bail for her be set at $1,000.

Following the arrests, Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni expressed his sympathies for Blanton's family and friends. He also thanked police for making speedy arrests.

"I would like to thank the Chicopee Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit assigned to my office for their quick action and skill that led to this arrest."

Chicopee Police Chief William Jebb issued a statement that said, "Working together, two suspects were identified, and arrested less than 12 hours after this crime. I would also like to offer my department's condolences to the family of the victim."

The latest homicide is the fourth in Chicopee since 2010.

Dylan Francisco of Springfield was entering his sophomore year at Comprehensive High School when he was shot to death at a home in the Fairview section of Chicopee in July 2016. He and two other teens were knocking on the door of a home when the homeowner, Jeffrey Lovell, 42, allegedly shot him through the door. The teens reportedly thought they were at a friend's home, but the address was incorrect. Lovell was charged with manslaughter.

The others are the Aug. 11, 2010, stabbing death of Eammon Gallagher, 48, at the B Bar on Bolduc Lane, and the Aug. 26, 2011, stabbing death of 20-year-old Amanda Plasse during a robbery at her home on School Street.

Each of those cases were closed with the arrest and conviction of suspects.

Derek Fish, a B Bar bartender, was sentenced to nine to 11 years in prison in 2011 after being found guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Gallagher, and Dennis Rosa-Roman was convicted of first-degree murder in 2016 and sentenced to life in prison for the death of Plasse.
Donald Trump, Reince Priebus

The Trump administration will not take the legal fight over its controversial travel ban to the Supreme Court, according to a senior official. In this photo, President Donald Trump, accompanied by Chief of Staff Reince Priebus speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington.

( (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik))

UPDATE: An earlier version of this article quoted a senior Trump administration official who said the White House would not be taking the travel ban fight to the Supreme Court. However, moments later a statement was put out by White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus stating that the President's team is "reviewing all of our options in the court system," including possibly taking the case to the Supreme Court.

The Trump administration sent mixed signals Friday over whether it would be taking its fight over the President's controversial travel ban to the Supreme Court.

According to CNBC and a number of other news sources, a senior administration official disclosed on Friday that instead of taking the fight to the Supreme Court, the President plans to defend the order's merits in front of a federal district court.

However, moments later White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus released a statement saying that the administration is "reviewing all of our options in the court system," including possibly taking the case to the Supreme Court.

The legal turmoil caused by President Donald Trump's executive order banning nationals from seven predominantly Muslim nations from entry into the U.S. has been extensive.

The "Protection of the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States" order, signed January 27th, had banned nationals from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan from entering the U.S. for a period of 90 days, and banned nationals from Syria "indefinitely."

However, a temporary, nationwide restraining order was filed against Trump's directive by U.S. District Judge James Robart, of Seattle, on February 3rd.

The Trump administration vowed to reinstate the ban--and filed an appeal of Robart's order.

However, on Thursday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled unanimously to uphold Judge Robart's freeze on the President's travel ban.

The President and his team also are apparently considering re-writing the travel ban, or instituting a new one.

On Friday, President Trump told reporters he is considering signing a "brand new order" that would deal with the U.S.'s immigration system.

"We'll be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country," Trump apparently told reporters during a press conference Friday.
A day celebrating the hard work of Worcester police officers was even more special Friday night as the first Latino in department history was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant.

It was not the first time Miguel Lopez made history in the department. When he rose to the rank of sergeant, he was the first Latino promoted to that title as well.

Lopez was one of five to be promoted Friday by Police Chief Steven Sargent and city officials.

Family members and friends filled City Hall's Levi Lincoln Jr. chamber to congratulate the accomplished officers.

Promoted were:

Lt. Matthew D'Andrea to rank of Captain

Sgt. Miguel Lopez to rank of Lieutenant

Sgt. Gary Quitadamo to rank of Lieutenant

Sgt. Mark Sawyer to rank of Lieutenant

Sgt. Carl Supernor to rank of Lieutenant

"These promotions come with new titles, but they also come with crucial responsibilities," City Manager Edward Augustus Jr. said. "I want you to know that as you climb the ranks within the Worcester Police Department, we hold you to a higher standard."
business link 7.jpg

5/20/16-Springfield-State Rep Aaron Vega chats with UMass Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy during the Bay State Business Link forum held at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) in Springfield on Friday. (Dave Roback / The Republican)

(dave roback)

BOSTON -- With thousands of bills filed for the 2017 legislative session, Western Massachusetts lawmakers have been busy advancing their priorities. The bills will now go through a committee hearing process and some will be considered by the full House and Senate. An even smaller number will make it into law.

Here's a look at a few of the bills that have been filed by local lawmakers.

Tax breaks for college grads in Gateway Cities

State Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow, has proposed a bill, SD.1241, to create "Gateway City Opportunity Zones." This would establish a student loan repayment program for recent college graduates who both live and work in a Gateway City.

Gateway Cities are those like Springfield and Holyoke, which are struggling cities that have the potential to anchor regional economies.

"This is specifically targeted at a real need, which is we're losing our young people," Lesser said. "We know there's a chronic need for young people to move back, especially young folks with college degrees and young professionals."

There is not yet a cost analysis associated with the bill. The bill envisions a program that pays back loans at a rate of up to $250 a month for up to 60 months, as long as the person is both living and working in a Gateway City.

Tax breaks for businesses that hire ex-prisoners

State Rep. Aaron Vega, D-Holyoke, has sponsored a bill, HD. 3100, "An Act to Reduce Recidivism," which would create tax credits for small businesses that hire former prisoners.

The tax credits would be around $5,000 for a business that creates a new job for an ex-prisoner and half of that for someone who hires a former prisoner into an existing job.

Vega said Western Massachusetts houses correctional facilities in Chicopee and Ludlow and also has a large number of ex-prisoners moving into the region. "We're not talking about hardened criminals necessarily," Vega said. "We're talking about people who are doing drug crimes, maybe they've had an illegal gun possession ... breaking and entering."

Vega said the biggest barriers people face after leaving jail are finding housing and getting a job. In Hampden County, many inmates get job training while in jail.

Vega said his bill "tries to bring just a little bit of recognition to companies that are willing to work with people who were recently incarcerated."

Municipal foreclosure ordinances

When Springfield was hit hard during the foreclosure crisis, the city established two ordinances to cut down on blight from foreclosed properties. It established a mandatory mediation program to help homeowners facing foreclosure, and required banks to pay a $10,000 bond, which could be used by the city to maintain foreclosed properties if the bank failed to do so.

The banks challenged the ordinances, and the Supreme Judicial Court ruled against Springfield.

State Rep. Jose Tosado, D-Springfield, has filed a bill, HD.987, "An Act to Minimize Foreclosures and Their Harm," that would allow cities like Springfield to establish their own ordinances related to foreclosures.

Tosado said Springfield has one of the highest rates of foreclosure in Massachusetts. "Municipal leaders at the local level basically know what the needs of cities are," Tosado said. "So they should have the opportunity to develop laws, policies and ordinances."

A similar bill was introduced last session but did not pass. Banks oppose the measure, which they say would incentivize lenders to pull out of communities with burdensome regulations and would make it difficult for banks to comply with each municipality's rules.

Firefighters with Parkinson's disease

Studies have shown that firefighters are more likely to get Parkinson's Disease than the general public is, by a margin of eight to one.

A bill introduced by state Rep. John Velis, D-Westfield, HD.1670, "An Act Relative to Parkinson's Disease Disability and Death in Firefighters," would extend accidental disability benefits to firefighters with Parkinson's disease by creating a presumption that the disease was caused by their job.

Massachusetts would be the second state, after Indiana, to have this policy.

According to the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts, which is pushing for the bill, firefighters are regularly exposed to toxic substances while fighting fires that attack the nervous system and are linked to Parkinson's disease.

"Firefighters are some of the bravest men and women in the commonwealth," Velis said in a statement. "They risk their lives daily, and in the process, put themselves at risk for all kinds of long-term health effects. We already extend these benefits to firefighters who suffer from heart disease, lung disease and cancer. With all of the research coming out, it only makes sense that we get proactive and extend these benefits to those suffering from Parkinson's, as well."

Velis was asked to introduce the bill by Westfield firefighter Greg Heath, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's at age 41. Heath started an online petition to support legislation allowing firefighters with Parkinson's to retire with full accidental disability benefits. The petition has gotten 52,000 signatures.
Ledition du mois de septembre 2022 de la lettre dinformation mensuelle du Bureau du Directeur de Poursuites Publiques est disponible et met en avant a la liste de feu Elisabeth II dans le pays avec photo a lappui.

Attrayant, vous allez connaitre levolution du drot penal a Maurice sur trois pages et sur le Prosecutors  Network Forum in Kenya qtu a eu lieu au Kenya du 29 aout jusquau 1er septembre 2022..

Il sera aussi question dInsanity dans un article et aussi dIndecent act in public et loo indique :

Any person who commits a grossly indecent act in public shall commit an offence under Section 248 of the Criminal Code Upon conviction by a court of law, such person is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years and to a fine not exceeding Rs 10 000

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WASHINGTON - The White House is considering rewriting the executive order barring refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the country, according to officials, indicating the administration may try to restore some aspects of the now-frozen travel ban or replace it with other face-saving measures.

The deliberations come after a panel with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit declined Thursday to immediately reinstate President Donald Trump's controversial directive. Officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions, said the White House and Justice Department are also mulling whether to ask the full 9th Circuit or the Supreme Court to intervene. Government lawyers could alternatively wage a legal battle in the lower courts to address more squarely whether Trump's directive violates the Constitution.

Still, the White House's options appear increasingly limited. The 9th Circuit judges indicated some of the administration's proposed concessions - which presumably could turn into rewrites - don't go far enough. Government lawyers also cannot undo Trump's own campaign trail comments about wanting to stop all Muslims from entering the country and his assertion after taking office that Christians would be given priority. That is potentially compelling evidence that even a watered-down order might be intended to discriminate, said Leon Fresco, the deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Immigration Litigation in President Barack Obama's Justice Department.

"The problem is this is such a bad case for the government to be making these arguments," Fresco said.

It is not clear exactly in what ways the White House might rewrite the order, and doing so would not automatically render moot the various lawsuits across the country.

If judges fear the government will revert to its original position once the litigation has stopped, "the court won't usually dismiss those matters, because they say, 'Look, it's likely to come up again,' " said Fresco.

Appearing with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Friday, President Trump hinted at action that would happen outside the court process, though he did not indicate he would back down from the court battle.

"We'll be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country," Trump said. "You'll be seeing that sometime next week. In addition, we will continue to go through the court process and ultimately I have no doubt that we'll win that particular case."

For now, the ruling from the three-judge panel with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals keeps Trump's travel ban on hold, meaning those once barred from entering the U.S. can continue to do so freely. The court ruled that the government had not provided evidence of a national security crisis sufficient to overcome the harms two states alleged the ban was causing for businesses, universities and travelers in their states.

In a separate case in federal court in Virginia, a judge on Friday pressed the government to produce any evidence that a ban on travel was necessary on national security grounds. Judge Leonie Brinkema said the presidential order "has all kinds of defects" and "clearly is overreaching" when it comes to long-term residents of the United States. She said there was "startling evidence" from national security professionals that the order "may be counterproductive to its stated goal" of keeping the nation safe.

The 9th Circuit judges also had rejected the Justice Department's request to merely narrow a lower judge's freeze of the ban, saying - even if that freeze was too broad - it was "not our role to try, in effect, to rewrite the Executive Order." They broadly asserted their authority to serve as a check on the president's power, though they noted their ruling was limited to whether the ban should be temporarily suspended. It did not address the ultimate question of whether it could pass constitutional muster.

The president has forcefully asserted all week that judges were wrong in their decisions on his order, and that immigration law gave him broad authority to restrict foreigners from entering the United States. He posted on Friday a quote from a Lawfare article, which noted the 9th Circuit judges had not cited in their opinion the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives him such powers.

There seemed to be a growing view from commentators on the right, though, that the Trump administration might be better off to abandon this fight, rewrite portions the executive order, and be on more solid ground for future legal fights.

Dan McLaughlin, a contributor to the National Review, urged the administration to "moot and reboot."

Edward Whelan, an influential voice in the conservative legal world who writes for the National Review Online, indicated on Twitter that he had doubts about the 9th Circuit's ruling, but also concerns about whether the Supreme Court would reinstate an executive order he viewed as flawed.

He tweeted: "2 modest propositions: (1) Courts are getting it wrong on EO; and (2) this is not the right legal battle to fight. Do the EO right this time." EO is a common acronym for "executive order."

In the court battle before the 9th Circuit, Justice Department lawyers had offered a possible concession. The court, they said, could permit travel for those "previously admitted aliens who are temporarily abroad now or who wish to travel and return to the United States in the future," but not, perhaps, for those without visas already.

The judges rejected that argument, arguing that such relief would not help U.S. citizens who "have an interest in specific non-citizens' ability to travel to the United States," nor would it allay concerns about the due process rights of people in the U.S. illegally.

Justice Department lawyers also argued that the ban no longer applied to green-card holders - citing guidance from the White House counsel issued after the ban took effect - and challenges on those grounds should thus be invalidated. On that, too, the judges disagreed.

"The White House counsel is not the President, and he is not known to be in the chain of command for any of the Executive Departments," the judges wrote. "Moreover, in light of the Government's shifting interpretations of the Executive Order, we cannot say that the current interpretation by White House counsel, even if authoritative and binding, will persist past the immediate stage of these proceedings."

The White House could adjust the order in other ways - such as by exempting students or other particular types of people. That would be significant in that it might impact the ability of states such as Washington and Minnesota to have adequate standing to sue.
by Josh Engroff , Op-Ed Contributor, February 10, 2017

This post was previously published in an earlier edition of Online Spin.

Remember the smartphone platform wars? Back when you actually had to think for more than five minutes when choosing which new phone to buy, because there was a whole bunch of options -- Blackberry, Nokia, Microsoft, Android, iPhone -- each with its own platform and handsets?

For a period, that abundance of choice created a real conundrum for app developers, since, unlike on the Web where you could write once, run anywhere, on smartphones it was write once, run on only one OS. And so, rather than creating OS-specific versions of the same app for Blackberry OS, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android, iOS, most developers just focused on the last two.

And the rest, as they say, is history. We know who won that particular platform war. When it comes to simplifying consumer choice, duopolies can be quite convenient.

As young as it is, the VR hardware industry seems headed into similar territory. The Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, and Sony Playstation VR are separate systems with their own specs, and there is no guarantee that applications and content developed for one platform will run on another. Not to mention AR platforms like Magic Leap and Microsoft HoloLens.

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This creates a major distribution challenge for VR app developers, and content creators, and brands seeking marketing opportunities within these new experiences.

To be clear, by VR I do not mean 360 video. The two are not the same. Done well, true VR (Toy Box as experienced on Oculus, say) is so completely immersive that the human brain perceives itself to be physically present in this new world. The experience can be sublimely awe-inspiring, highly personal, and deeply emotional.

With its ability to transport you to worlds you wouldnt otherwise visit (war-torn Syria, for example), VR has been called the ultimate empathy machine. At this point, anyone who still believes VR to be a gimmick probably hasnt tried it.

But these experiences come at a cost, because VR is rewriting the rules of video game design and movie-making. Pre-VR, content was all designed for screens that are some distance away from our faces  whether movie, TV or smartphone  and dont port well to VR. In fact, bad VR experiences can easily make you vomit, as Josh Lovison wrote recently in VR insider.

And so companies large and small are rushing to create new content specific to the platform. Media companies currently developing content for VR, or investing in it, include The New York Times, Conde Nast, Vice Media, Discovery Communications, HBO (invested in Otoy), Disney (Jaunt), and Comcast (NextVR). And to the extent this new content is advertising-supported, marketers will follow.

Which brings us back to the problem of distribution. No company wants to spend millions of dollars on VR content to find that it only works on one of many possible devices. Many companies, and not just content creators, cite their biggest barrier to doing VR as having to choose which piece of hardware to distribute on.

This suggests that, over the next couple of years, individual media companies and marketers will end up taking one of three avenues when it comes to VR:

1. Invest heavily in VR content for a year or two, without full awareness of the challenges around distribution, user adoption, and specific creative parameters native to the device. In this scenario, proving ROI becomes difficult, frustration mounts, and budgets get cut.

2. Forego VR for now, and focus on developing AR experiences instead, where the smartphone is the platform and Android and iOS are already well understood. This means a lot of 360 video, but also some truly innovative new experiences, as weve seen with Pokemon Go.

3. Invest in VR now -- after all, which marketer doesnt want access to consumers inside an ultimate empathy machine? -- but with eyes wide open, clearly cognizant of the challenges. Take the long view on ROI and find partners, like EntryPoint and Immersv, to help with distribution and monetization.

As an investor, Im very focused on avenue 3, particularly those startups developing infrastructure to help big media companies and brands clear the structural hurdles of VR.

As a media strategist, I think avenue 2 contains more near-term opportunity for most brands, especially since great marketing opportunities within great AR experiences already exist (Snapchat).

Avenue 1, as you might imagine, is one path Id advise against.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, February 10, 2017

Bill Tucker, the former Starcom MediaVest Group executive and more recently EVP-media relations at the 4As, has left the agency trade organization and will be joining the Association of National Advertisers shortly, the marketer trade group has confirmed.

Tucker will have a dual focus in his new EVP role at the ANA. He will oversee the groups efforts concerning the industrys digital media supply chain, focusing on issues such as ad blocking, viewability and fraud as well as the overall adequacy of the supply chain.

Tuckers remit also includes oversight of the groups B2B activities. The ANA acquired the B2B-focused Business Marketing Association in 2014 and 25% of its membership is now composed of pure B2B players, according to ANA president and CEO Bob Liodice.

Tuckers appointment comes during a time of strained relations between the agency trade group he recently left and the marketer group he is about to join.

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The main area of contention is so-called media transparency, and the relationship between marketers and their roster agencies that plan and buy their media. Its been an issue on and off for years, but gained new traction in 2015 when former MediaCom CEO Jon Mandel made a presentation at an ANA conference alleging that rebates and kickbacks from media companies to agencies are a fairly common occurrence in the U.S., often without the knowledge of agency clients.

That led the ANA to commission an investigation by K2 Intelligence, which issued its widely reported findings last June, essentially confirming Mandels assertions. The 4As rejected the report as well as follow-up recommendations developed by Ebiquity.

That said, Liodice stressed that Tuckers remit does not officially include the media transparency issues covered by the report. That area has been and will continue to be overseen by Group EVP Bill Duggan, who also has oversight of a separate but related Production Transparency Task force that the ANA created last year to explore commercial production practices.

That task force was put together after findings by K2 Intelligence that some agencies were pressuring production houses to submit bids for work with inflated pricing  known as check bids  so that the agencies could submit lower bids to clients while presenting the higher priced offers and suggesting that due diligence had been carried out.

Given Duggans ongoing focus on the media transparency issues, it just made sense for him to continue oversight, said Liodice. Of course, Tucker, given his background, has insights into those issues that can be tapped by Duggan and others at the organization as needed, Liodice added.

The Production Task Force is still gathering information and will determine at a later date what conclusions to release publicly or whether a third party should be retained to conduct a broader probe.

The U.S. Department of Justice launched its own probe into commercial production practices last year. Liodice said the ANA Task Force is not working with the DOJ, although the latter has obtained K2s findings on the matter.

Before joining the 4As in late 2013, Tucker served as president of global client operations for Publicis Groupe's Starcom MediaVest Group. Before that he was CEO of MediaVest for five years.

According to Liodice, Tucker had indicated to him that he was interested in returning to a client side-focused role like he had at MediaVest. The timing was right because the ANA has been growing  its staff has climbed from 28 in 2003 to 115 currently.

Weve expanded into a range of marketing, media and measurement activities, said Liodice. As weve grown, so have our executive leadership needs. Tuckers expertise in media made him right for the role, he added. With Tuckers addition it will be the first time that the ANA has had one executive singularly focused on the digital supply-chain issues that are part of his remit.

And B2B marketing has become a strategic imperative for the industry and the ANA, said Liodice. Its no longer a stepchild.


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In most of the patients, amyloidosis is unrecognized. Diagnosis of ATTR amyloidosis can be challenging for doctors. Recent studies have suggested that as many as 10 percent of the older patients with certain types of congestive heart failure may have cardiac amyloidosis.A research team led by Frederick L. Ruberg, MD, director of advanced imaging at Boston Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, looked out for ways to develop new testing strategies to improve diagnosis.A specific blood protein calledwas identified by the research team. RBP4 was used to determine the likelihood of ATTR amyloidosis in a patient with congestive heart failure.In addition, in work guided by Marios Arvanitis, MD, an internal medicine resident at BMC, the research team developed a mathematical calculator that incorporates RBP4 and other commonly ordered clinical tests that can be used to estimate the probability of ATTR amyloidosis in a given patient. An important advantage of this algorithm is that it can be used in the context of a doctor's office visit at the point-of-care.This discovery could guide clinical decision making and increase recognition of this disease. Since many new drug therapies are in various stages of development now for ATTR amyloidosis, recognition and accurate diagnosis is essential to get a patient on the correct treatment."Given that new targeted pharmacologic therapies are being developed that specifically treat ATTR, identifying patients with this disease and providing an early and accurate diagnosis is crucial to treatment," explained Ruberg, the study's corresponding author.Ruberg believes there is also potential for this blood test or the entire algorithm to be used in ATTR cardiac amyloidosis monitoring as a marker of disease progression and prognosis.The findings appear in the journalSource: Medindia
Donald Trump has been shaking the international community by changing a lot of United States foreign policy that directly affects many states that have a history of terrorist activities. US authorities have hinted that there will be a possible shift in USAs policy towards Pakistan too. John Nicholson, Army Chief who leads the US and international forces in Afghanistan, wants to implement a harsher policy towards Pakistan. For many years, US considered Pakistan as a trusted and close ally in its war against terror. However, it seems like their opinion might be changing very soon.

Source: Reuters

This sudden change in attitude might be catastrophic for the region as it might affect the stability of the area. Afghanistan and its neighbouring regions are considered to be one of the unstable areas in the world and the US needs all the help it requires in order to maintain stability. Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee, Our complex relationship with Pakistan is best assessed through a holistic review."

Source: Reuters

In the recent past, the US has reduced the number of soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and in tandem reduced economic aid to Pakistan as well.

Moeed Yusuf, the associate vice president of the Asia Center at the United States Institute of Peace, told Reuters "The tools that will get Pakistan to hurt so badly, that it would want to do what the U.S. is asking, is a very high-risk proposition in terms of what happens within Pakistan."

According to Yusuf, the decision for a harsher policy towards Pakistan will result in reducing the level of economic and military aid, which in turn will lead to increasing number of drone strikes along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan."US policy makers, deep down inside, they realise Pakistan is more important than Afghanistan in the long term," Yusuf said.
Plus pipelines can be routed around town while trains rumble right through the center of many towns. That being said it would revive the call for small towns but some elevators would hold petroleum products.

Should hemp ever become a viable crop the need for gasoline will decrease while the consumption of NG will be be the growth sector of that industry. small gas turbine engines would create the demand for ceramics and it would be a boom to Canada if the best material happened to wet clay that is most often called 'gumbo'. Anybody know the boiling point of NG and the flashpoint temp tot it past that point??



Pipelines also don't go right through the middle of town either. Perhaps the solution is to build a new freight line where the pipe is buried on each side of rails. The old route can be used for passenger service just because they do run to even the smallest towns, some are almost deserted. Ready for even the hardest refugee as it would not be hard to make it an open prison where where the criminal gets his whole immediate family thrown in with them and if the crime is bad enough, or 5rd time.

Most of those places are between two Reservations so you can imagine how the 3rd or 4th generation will be like. To get a good mix you don't let them bunch up to where they don't can get along speaking a language that would be foreign to their neighbors. The old prejudices are the part that won't be missed.

Spanish should be our 2nd language if we are from the Americas.
Camp Lejeune Town Halls Aim to Help Those Exposed to Toxic Water. Heres How You Can Go.

Retired Marine Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger made it his mission to tell the world that if they lived or served on Camp Lejeune...
A professional pilot has been stripped of his security clearance at a Montreal airport over threatening emails and comments, including one in which he said he would slit your throat and do something that would land him a life prison sentence.Transport Canada revoked Julius Varadis security clearance on the grounds he might commit an act that would unlawfully interfere with civil aviation. A civil aircraft pilot since the 1980s, Varadi required the clearance to work at Trudeau airport in Montreal.He had appealed to the Federal Court of Canada but lost in a ruling delivered Wednesday by Justice Denis Gascon. I cannot conclude that the decision cancelling Mr. Varadis TSC (Transportation Security Clearance) was unreasonable, the judge wrote.The revocation was in response to four incidents involving life-threatening messages Varadi had sent, among them a 2011 email to the president of aircraft manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, whom he wrote should be hung, shot by a firing squad or better yet decapitated.In October 2013, he wrote on the Air Canada Pilots Association forum that the next time I see an Air Canada moron who sts on me I will most probably explode and will most probably do something that will give me a life in prison sentence  You st on me, I slit your throat.He had also sent an email to the Surete du Quebec that began, Oh by the way, froggie and said to fk off and die. Through the Service Canada website he wrote about having killed a big fking bitch from the government of Canada, according to the ruling.No charges were ever laid but the RCMP brought the incidents to the attention of Transport Canada, which said that while Varadi had said his emails were sarcastic in nature and that he got mad on occasion, they were graphic and that they should be taken seriously, Gascon wrote.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Michigan's largest St. Patrick's Day street party is fast approaching.

Irish on Ionia 2017 will take place in downtown Grand Rapids from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday, March 18. Hosted by BarFly Events and the Waldron Public House, tickets go on sale at 11 a.m. on Saturday.

Tickets for the 7th annual event will be available online for $15 for a limited time beginning on Feb. 11. Tickets can also be purchased at Stella's Lounge, HopCat, and Grand Rapids Brewing Company for $15 until Feb. 18.

After Feb 18, general admission tickets will be available at those locations for $20. Tickets will also be available at the gates the day of event, while supplies last, for $25.

Irish on Ionia is one of Grand Rapids' biggest parties each year, attracting people from throughout the state looking to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. The event stretches three blocks of Ionia Avenue from Fulton Street to Oakes Street.

This year's festival will feature additional mobile credit/debit card stations for purchasing tickets, helping alleviate congestion and lines for drink tickets. BarFly will continue its zero-waste policy that was implemented in 2014. For complete information, visit www.irishonionia.com.
Berwick and Berwick.PNG

A screenshot of a Google Map shows the location in Ypsilanti Township where an 11-year-old boy was reportedly approached by an unknown man offering candy and a ride about 3:07 p.m. Feb. 8.

(Courtesy)

YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP, MI - Police are investigating after a Lincoln Middle School student reported a suspicious incident with an unknown man who offered him candy on Wednesday, Feb. 8.

Police were called about 3:07 p.m. Feb. 8 for the incident, which occurred as the 11-year-old boy walked home from a bus stop near Berwick Drive and Berwick Court in Ypsilanti Township, according to the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office. The location is a little more than a mile north of Lincoln Middle School

The boy told police he was approached by a newer, "shiny" four-door sedan driven by a white male in his mid-40s who had spiked hair and was wearing a black shirt.

The man offered the boy a ride home and candy, police said. The boy, however, refused to get in the vehicle and ran home.

Police said no other similar incidents have been reported, and no other information has been found yet in the investigation.

Those with information regarding the incident are asked to contact Washtenaw County Sheriff's Detective Mark Neumann at 734-323-0436 or the tip line at 734-973-7711.
Churchill has been sailing his entire life, it was about a 700-nautical-mile trip and because the conditions were so favorable, he expected no trouble at all.On day four of the trip, things changed when the boat's rudder suddenly broke off.When you lose a rudder, the boat becomes largely uncontrollable, he explained.At that point, Churchill and his family were about 400 miles from the coast of the United States, they were closer to Mexico, but decided to call the Coast Guard for help.If your life is at stake, the Coast Guard will come and rescue you, he said. Like, pick you out of the water.But Churchill's and his familys lives werent at stake, they simply had a broken boat and needed help.The U.S. Coast Guard doesnt generally provide tows, he said. They tell you to call a towing company, but the U.S. Coast (Guard) did arrange or call the Mexican navy.And the Mexican navy came, no questions asked.We were disabled at sea and the Mexican navy came and looked after us, said Churchill. I cannot emphasize how difficult it is to maneuver a 280-foot steel ship around a 40-foot yacht without breaking the yacht. This was an exceptionally well-handled vessel.It took more than a day to tow the sailboat the 170 nautical miles to Mexico, and when they arrived the Mexican government wouldnt accept a single dollar.All of the people were nothing but wonderful to us, he said. Id like to see us recognize them for the good neighbors that they are.Churchill didnt want to get political, but said he hopes America can remain on good terms with our neighbors to the south and continue to be strong allies and friends.pics
ANN ARBOR TOWNSHIP, MI - Washtenaw County Sheriff's deputies have arrested a 19-year-old man suspected of committing an armed robbery at Washtenaw Community College.

At 2:40 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, Washtenaw Community College reported an armed robbery in Lot 4, located off Huron River Drive on the north side of campus.

The suspect was a masked white man driving a gray, four-door sedan, according to the WCC alert.

Deputies arrested a suspect Friday afternoon, and he remains lodged in the Washtenaw County Jail pending charges, said Lt. Jim Anuszkiewicz.

"I want to thank the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office for its quick action in apprehending the suspect allegedly involved in the armed robbery on our campus Thursday afternoon," said Rose B. Bellanca, Washtenaw Community College president, in a statement.

Bellanca said she was proud of the Washtenaw Community College team for handling the crime alert to students and staff and how it worked with law enforcement.

"We continue to take security at our campus very seriously. It is a top priority," she said.

The investigation into the incident is ongoing.

Anyone with information about the incident should contact Detective Tom Boivin at 734-973-4625.
ANN ARBOR, MI - On a sidewalk near Planned Parenthood in Ann Arbor, 300 people marched with signs and pink hats chanting "my body, my choice."

Off to one side, about 30 people quietly held "Defund Planned Parenthood" signs on the sidewalk in front of Planet Fitness.

There were two rallies about abortion and the women's health care clinic Saturday, Feb. 11 at 2370 W. Stadium Blvd in Ann Arbor. Both were part of hundreds of rallies across Michigan and the United States.

"We're a little outnumbered," said Paul Dobrowolski of Saline, a campaign organizer for Sidewalk Advocates for Life. "I think they are desperate."

While pro-choice advocates said they are worried about what could happen to women's health in the future, they believe the social movement to defend safe and legal abortion services will work.

"As long as the resistance is going, we won't be silenced," said Emmy McAtamney of West Bloomfield.

She stood with more than 300 people who marched up and down the sidewalk along Stadium Boulevard, cheering when cars honked in support.

The protests started with a national pro-life plan to host events across the nation to protest Planned Parenthood and advocate for Congress to defund it.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has said Republicans will attempt to remove federal funding through Medicaid for Planned Parenthood.

The nonprofit offers reproductive health services such as birth control, abortions and sexually transmitted infection testing, among other services. The federal Hyde Amendment, however, does not allow any federal funding to cover abortion services except in rare cases.

Jaclyn Blausey of Dexter said she came to the protest for many reasons, but the most personal one is that she was adopted.

"I'm grateful my birth mother chose life," she said. "Pro-life is a real choice. There's a lot of support there."

Blausey also feels taxpayer money should not support birth control, and added pregnancy isn't a medical problem.

Dobrowolski said he hopes Congress will remove about $500 million in funding from going to Planned Parenthood, which he called a corrupt and racist organization.

He said a 2015 video that allegedly showed Planned Parenthood selling baby parts is true, although a judge ruled there was no evidence to support that claim.

Women who need health care can get them at other federally-qualified centers, he said.

Defending the nonprofit is a concern of the pro-choice advocates who responded to the pro-life rally with one of their own.

"Planned Parenthood has saved the lives of many women. It allows us to do what we want with our lives, and it's now on the front line of attack," said protest organizer Jessica Prozinksi of Ann Arbor.

She said she was thrilled with the turnout at the event.

The protest was integrated and in support of women's rights, gay rights, immigration rights, public education and the Black Lives Matter movement, she said.

McAtamney said she's worried about her generation's future right to choose given the Republican's statements about wanting to restrict it, but she believes the power of love will overcome.

Wearing a pink hat, Elan Lange of Ann Arbor came out to support Planned Parenthood. She said the clinic was her source of health care during her first job in Chicago.

"They took care of me for years when I couldn't afford to go to a doctor," she said.

Planned Parenthood also helped Lange find a obstetrician when she was pregnant, she said, and she now has a healthy 18-year-old son.

"I want that for everybody, an opportunity for a happy future with a healthy child, or not, if that's their choice," she said.
HAMPTON TOWNSHIP, MI -- After nearly succumbing to lead poisoning, a bald eagle is healthy and soaring the Michigan skies again.

The afternoon of Friday, Feb. 10, a cluster of people gathered at the Consumers Energy Karn Generating Complex, 2742 N. Weadock Highway in Bay County's Hampton Township, to see an eagle named Lucky venture skyward. The eagle, estimated to be less than a year old, had been rehabilitated from near death after feeding on a deer carcass in Gladwin County, from which it ingested lead.

Among those gathered were Sandy Miner and Paty Huddy of the Tri-County Wildlife Support Team, veterinarian Dr. Caitlin Pohlit, and five students from the Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Second-year student Alex Schenk held Lucky before he took off.

The Department of Natural Resources officers picked up the eagle in November and it was subsequently transported to Michigan State University. Veterinarians there determined it was suffering from acute lead poisoning causing seizures. The bird endured a three-hour procedure during which veterinary staff removed most of the ingested lead from its stomach.

Once it was healthy enough, the eagle was transferred to the Wildlife Support Team and recuperated in their raptor rehabilitation pen, one of the largest such pens in the country, located at the Karn Generating Complex.

More than 500 birds of prey have been released from the pen since 1993, when the effort first began.

In December 2014, for example, the Wildlife Support Team released three bald eagles on the same day at the Consumers Energy property in Bay County. One of the birds suffered from West Nile virus, while the other two were emaciated due to not being able to capture their prey.
New and unique residential developments in Detroit are luring in people from

far and wide to live and work in the Motor City, and one particularly unconventional collection of homes is getting national attention.

True North, a Core City neighborhood block of half-moon shaped steel structures known as Quonset huts, caught the eye of Architect Magazine.

The magazine featured the development on the cover of its February issue, and gave the project an honorable mention in its 2017 Progressive Architecture Awards.

"When it comes to rebuilding Detroit, there's no lack of energy and ideas, both from locals and from designers around the country," the magazine wrote.

"... And while the focus on creative solutions is certainly a plus, there's also no guarantee that the outsiders coming to town to help lead the push today will still be around tomorrow. Los Angeles-based EC3 understands those complexities, which is why its design for True North - a 7,000-square-foot mixed use project 2.5 miles away from downtown - is centered around an easily constructible and decidedly cost-friendly vernacular: the Quonset hut."

The magazine is published by the American Institute of Architects, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

The $850,000 project under construction on Grand River Avenue near 16th Street is expected to be completed in the next few months with nine 600 to 1,100-square-foot units.

The units are intended to be affordable live-work spaces offered to residents in a raw form to design to their liking.



John Patrick, a spokesperson for the project, said the recognition from the magazine "solidifies the fact that True North is a nationally recognized project for innovative architecture and design."

"This is a complete stamp of approval," he said.

Patrick's Detroit-based firm ABOVE THE FOLD, which a connects architects and developers, brought together True North developer Philip Kafka and architect Edwin Chan of EC3.

"It's exciting to be working in Detroit at this particular time," Chan said about the project last year. "... It provides an opportunity that's like an open canvass to do something transformative. For me, it's very much about public space-making and how to engage communities in arts and culture."
ADA, MI -- Amway recently announced plans to open 50 shops in India by the end of 2018.

Some might be surprised to learn the Michigan company that sells its products through distributors rather than retailers has a global network of more than 750 brick-and-mortar locations -- which are mostly storefronts.

Amway leaders don't like to call the locations "stores" but rather "experience centers."

"They are more than a store where you get something on a shelf, so to speak, but they are an experience center," said Amway Chairman Steve Van Andel, who recently traveled to Russia for the opening of a center in Krasnoyarsk, in the country's Siberia region.

The Amway leaders sat down with MLive and The Grand Press this week to talk about what drove the company's 2016 revenues, and what's ahead for 2017. More brick-and-mortar shops are part of the company's strategy for growing marketshare.

The facilities are designed to provide a place where distributors, known as Amway Business Owners, or ABOs, can bring people interested in buying or selling the company's products.

The newly opened Russian center, for example, has a coffee shop area for distributors to gather for casual meetings.

Most offer programming, from cooking classes incorporating Amway cookware to cosmetologist-led makeup sessions using the company's Artistry cosmetics line.

Often, these events are streamed online, which means tens of thousands of people can be watching, President Doug DeVos said. He was recently featured on one in India, showing how to make a smoothie using the company's Nutrilite supplements.

"With these facilities, they are their own little media centers, even to extend the training and keep the conversation going with our sales forces and our companies," DeVos said.

Technology is an important aspect of the facilities. In India, Amway has partnered with Microsoft to incorporate its technology in 10 centers. They will feature virtual reality elements that let people "try on" different shades of lipstick, without doing so, for example, said Nick Wasmiller, an Amway spokesman.

China, Amway's biggest market, has 300 facilities -- more than any other country. Amway first began opening the shops there in the late 1990s when China was emerging from a seven-year ban of direct sales companies, in response to complaints about fraud in the industry.



The growing number of facilities shouldn't be taken as a sign Amway is moving away from the multi-level marketing model developed by co-founders Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos.

The facilities are another tool or channel for distributors. The company is still selling exclusively through its distributors, DeVos says.

"We are still Amway," said DeVos. "We are different from the other retailers when they go online. They are getting it direct from the customers, when they go online. When we go online, we are giving that tool to our ABOs. Then we are adding to it with the physical locations."
The US constitution absolutely demands that only the Congress & President make the laws of the USA.When Federal courts and/or Justices fail to follow those constitutional laws, the remedy must not be political gamesmanship or Court hearings. The Congress may impeach any Judge/Lawyer or Circuit including members of the SCOTUS.1.The Republicans MUST immediately create the 12th circuit. This option has been sitting in the Senate for more than 30 years.2. The Senate must cite the remaining 9th circuit for impeachment. Constitutional Justice is not available when 90% of the 9th circuit Judgements that are taken up are overturned by SCOTUS. The rule of law is corrupt. The 9th circuit have a right to defend themselves in Congress, the peoples court.3. It is my guess that the Ninth circuit wanted to set a precedent... for the rights of a STATE to sue.When you have a corrupt Court Circuit in a Nation of Laws... the Congress must take action to protect every individual American from injustice or loss of life.anyway...now is the time...get 'er done.As judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals weigh the legality of President Trumps immigration executive order, a Republican push to split up the controversial court -- and shrink its clout -- is gaining steam on Capitol Hill.Republican Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona introduced legislation last month to carve six states out of the San Francisco-based court circuit and create a brand new 12th Circuit.They argue that the 9th is too big, too liberal and too slow resolving cases. If they succeed, only California, Oregon, Hawaii and two island districts would remain in the 9th's judicial fiefdom.Right now, Flake said, the circuit is far too sprawling.It represents 20 percent of the population -- and 40 percent of the land mass is in that jurisdiction. Its just too big, Flake told Fox News on Wednesday. We have a bedrock principle of swift justice and if you live in Arizona or anywhere in the 9th Circuit, you just dont have it.Flake says it typically takes the court 15 months to hand down a decision.Its far too long, he added.Conservatives have mocked the 9th Circuit for years, often calling it the Nutty 9th or the 9th Circus, in part because so many of its rulings have been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.The court has a reputation as one of the most liberal in the country, in large part because of its makeup. Eighteen of the courts 25 active judges have been appointed by Democrats. Former President George W. Bush appointed six justices, while former President Barack Obama appointed seven.Under Flakes bill, the new circuit would cover Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Arizona and Alaska, leaving the 9th with three Pacific states as well as the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.A separate House version introduced by Rep. Andy Biggs and four other Arizona Republicans would leave Washington state in the 9th Circuit.Congressional efforts to split the circuit go back to 1941.The problem is the judges in the 9th Circuit, particularly the liberal judges, dont want to give up any of their jurisdiction, Flake said.Congress created the court in 1891. At the time, the area was sparsely inhabited  only four percent of the U.S. population lived in the area compared to todays 20 percent.In 1998, Congress appointed a commission to reexamine the federal appeals courts structure. The commission ultimately recommended against splitting the 9th Circuit.But carving up the large circuit isnt out of the realm of possibility. In 1929, Congress split the 8th Circuit to accommodate a population boom and increased caseloads.Democratic strategist Joe Lestingi pushed back on accusations the court leans left.We dont complain about courts being too conservative, he told Fox News. The truth is the liberal side of that court provides the conflict we need to settle our most basic disagreements.He added that the 9th Circuits track record of rulings being overturned -- sometimes unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court -- is all part of the judicial process.If the Supreme Court wasnt going to overturn lower courts' decisions, then we dont need a Supreme Court anymore, Lestingi argued.
[February 10, 2017] Huawei Canada selects Polytechnique Montreal for Industrial Research Chair in Future Wireless Technologies, a first for both Montreal and Huawei

MONTREAL, Feb. 10, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., one of the world's largest manufacturers of ICT and telecommunications equipment, has launched an innovative multi-year joint research venture with Polytechnique Montreal: the NSERC-Huawei Industrial Research Chair in Future Wireless Technologies, or Future Wireless Chair (FuWiC). The investment in Polytechnique Montreal represents a significant milestone for Huawei in Canada. This partnership will be the first academic chair partnership for Huawei's Canada Research Centre, and reflects Huawei's ongoing commitment as one of Canada's largest investors in advanced communications R&D. "We are proud to be working with the talented research team at Polytechnique Montreal," said Christian Chua, President of the Huawei Canada Research Centre. "The partnership with Poly - one of Canada's largest applied-research universities, and the flagship of a large group of renowned and established world-class research facilities engaged in both theoretical and experimental work - is one that will help our Canadian team continue to lead our global advanced communications research." With the establishment of the FuWiC, Polytechnique Montreal will receive investments totalling more than $5 million over a five-year period, including $2.45 million from the Huawei Canada Research Centre and an equal amount from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Huawei will also add a significant amount of in-kind contributions. These investments will help Polytechnique grow its current research and education efforts in the field of information and communications technologies (ICT) with an emphasis on wireless technologies and smart interconnectivity, including the Internet of things (IoT). 5G technology  and beyond

The FuWiC will enable Polytechnique to expand its current research and education program. Research will venture into fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks or wireless systems, as well as diversified wireless applications beyond the traditional ICT sectors. "The most interesting aspect of the program is that it allows me to bring the research to the next level, not only for 5G, but for the entire portfolio of future wireless technology concepts and systems," said Professor Ke Wu (bio below), holder of the FuWiC Chair. These advanced communications technologies, including 5G, will serve as the mobile standard that will be in use until 2030 and beyond, and will be the catalyst for transformative change and innovation. Concepts like automated vehicles and the IoT will all leverage the power of 5G. "From cellphones to GPS, interconnectivity is omnipresent, and at different speeds," added Professor Wu. "Our research is directed at accelerating data and signal transmission toward architecture systems that will deliver faster and smart responses in communication and sensing with integrated powering technique."

The FuWiC program will contribute by laying a broad foundation for humanity's wireless future, affecting how societies will be connected and the impact on daily life. The Chair's wireless technologies research will foray into much-publicized concepts like machine-to-machine (M2M) communication and the IoT, and issues such as the development of smart cities, green ICT, efficient healthcare and clean energy. Professor Wu also foresees future humanitarian applications, perhaps assisting disaster relief or alleviating water distribution problems through the creation of smart villages in remote rural areas in Africa and India. win-win partnership





"Dr. Ke Wu is pioneering the next generation wireless technology," said Dr. Bettina Hamelin, Vice-President of Research Partnerships, NSERC. "His knowledge, ideas and discoveries will help Huawei remain at the cutting edge of a constantly evolving industry. NSERC is proud to support this Chair, which produces ideas essential to innovation, and provides invaluable training that will arm students with the industry experience and skills needed to thrive in the technology sector." Acting as a catalyst, the FuWiC will help create an unprecedented and reciprocally beneficial partnership between Polytechnique and Huawei, the technological giant from the world's most important emerging economy. This Chair-enabled synergy will stimulate fresh collaborations and dynamic exchanges. Such interactions are expected to promote significant expansion and development of wireless technology-related knowledge, education, industry and products in Quebec and Canada. The creation of the Chair will also inject a very positive force in the bilateral business and trade between Quebec/Canada and China, as well as with the rest of the world.

International recognition for FuWiC incumbent Professor Ke Wu

Professor Wu is one of the most active and prolific researchers, authors, educators and leaders in the field of radiofrequency, microwave and millimetre-wave sciences and engineering. His wide-ranging multidisciplinary research interests and achievements relate to both fundamental and applied aspects of theoretical and experimental works. A professor of electrical engineering at Polytechnique Montreal, Ke Wu has also developed a series of high-profile research programs and is Director of the Poly-Grames (Groupe de recherche avancee en micro-ondes et electronique spatiale) Research Centre. In addition, he has successfully led many government and industry-sponsored research and development projects with funding of more than $70 million. He has headed many international programs and initiatives involving several universities, institutions, agencies and corporations on five continents. He is President of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S), which is the leading professional and international organization in the field. His research achievements have been recognized with national and international research awards and prizes, including the 2014 Prix Marie-Victorin (Prix du Quebec), the highest distinction in the natural sciences and engineering issued by the Government of Quebec. A hotbed of specialized research

The FuWiC will be housed at the Poly-Grames Research Centre at Polytechnique Montreal. This centre offers highly-organized collective facilities for both fundamental and application-oriented research projects. "Poly-Grames will serve as a dynamic, inspiring and stimulating environment for the FuWiC," said Christophe Guy, Chief Executive Officer of Polytechnique Montreal. "The Centre has a long history of excellence in research and education in the fields of radiofrequency, microwave, millimetre-wave and microwave photonics engineering. It will make available to the Chair a wide range of facilities and equipment for projects." Created in 1992, Poly-Grames acquired research centrestatus within Polytechnique Montreal two years later. A new research infrastructure called the Facility for Advanced Millimetre-Wave Engineering (FAME) was established within the Centre in 2000, and it has a long tradition of collaboration with numerous industry partners and government agencies. With the largest concentration of researchers and facilities in the area of microwave technologies among Canadian universities, Poly-Grames is home to three Canada Research Chairs and also headquarters Quebec's Centre de recherche en electronique radiofrequence (CREER), founded by Professor Wu, which provides a unique research platform for government-endowed and industry-supported projects. Ke Wu heads a team of 10 faculty members, seven technical support personnel and about 100 graduate and post-doctoral students, and fellows. About the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)

NSERC invests over $1 billion each year in natural sciences and engineering research in Canada. Our investments deliver discoveries - valuable world-firsts in knowledge claimed by a brain trust of over 11,000 professors. Our investments enable partnerships and collaborations that connect industry with discoveries and the people behind them. Researcher-industry partnerships established by NSERC help inform R&D, solve scale-up challenges, and reduce the risks of developing high-potential technology. NSERC also provides scholarships and hands-on training experience for more than 30,000 post-secondary students and post-doctoral fellows. These young researchers will be the next generation of science and engineering leaders in Canada. About Huawei Technologies

Huawei is one of the world's largest manufacturer of ICT and telecommunications equipment, and employs more than 175,000 people in over 170 countries. Huawei has been operating in Canada since 2008, working with all of Canada's major telecommunications operators. The Huawei Canada Research Centre employs over 400 engineers and researchers, and will invest over $500 million in advanced communications and 5G research in Canada over the next five years. Huawei is recognized as one the Top 10 ICT companies investing in R&D in Canada, and ranks amongst the Top 30 of companies across all business sectors. About Polytechnique Montreal

Founded in 1873, Polytechnique Montreal is one of Canada's leading engineering teaching and research institutions. It is the largest engineering university in Quebec for the size of its graduate student body and the scope of its research activities. With over 45,700 graduates, Polytechnique Montreal has educated nearly one-quarter of the current members of the Ordre des ingenieurs du Quebec. The institution offers more than 120 programs. Polytechnique has 250 professors and more than 8,200 students. It has an annual operating budget of more than $210 million, including a research budget exceeding $70 million. Photos of the facilities and equipment are available upon request. Media kit: http://bit.ly/ChaireFuWiC Available for interviews: Ke Wu , professor and Chair holder of the NSERC-Huawei Industrial Research Chair in Future Wireless Technologies (FuWiC).

, professor and Chair holder of the NSERC-Huawei Industrial Research Chair in Future Wireless Technologies Scott Bradley , Vice-President, Corporate and Government Affairs, Huawei Canada

Vice-President, Corporate and Government Affairs, Bettina Hamelin , Vice-President of Research Partnerships, NSERC

, Vice-President of Research Partnerships, NSERC Francois Bertrand, Head of Research, Innovation and International Affairs, Polytechnique Montreal SOURCE Polytechnique Montreal

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business Tulsian positive on SBI, enthused with Hindustan Zinc In an interview to CNBC-TV18 SP Tulsian, sptulsian.com spoke on stocks like Triveni Engineering, SBI, Bosch, Hindustan Zinc etc.
Education

Montgomery County Community College will present the spring installment of the interview/talk show program Issues and Insights April 20 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Science Center room 214, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The programs will be simulcast to the Colleges West Campus in South Hall room 216, 101 College Drive, Pottstown. Dr. Kolsky will offer a humorous presentation, Carrots, Sticks and Politics: A State of the Nation and the World Message. In this speech, he will provide his interpretation of domestic and international politics and then welcome questions from the audience for discussion. Issues and Insights, is free and open to the public. For information, contact Dr. Thomas Kolsky, professor of political science, at 215-641-6380 or tkolsky@mc3.edu.

Montgomery County Community Colleges STEM Scholars Program will host a STEM Jam! open house April 25 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Advanced Technology Center at the Colleges Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The drop-in event is designed for students interested in learning more about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Activities will include STEM program information and career advising, STEM speakers throughout the day from industry and academia, micro-helicopter and robotics competitive obstacle courses and demonstrations and static models of STEM student and faculty work. For more information about STEM Jam! or STEM programs at MCCC, contact William Brownlowe at wbrownlowe@mc3.edu or 215-641-6644, or Robin Zuhlke at 215-619-7440 or rzuhlke@mc3.edu.

Temple Ambler, located at 580 Meetinghouse Road, presents the following events:

International Club Global Bazaar April 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. The Ambler Campus International Club invites all students, faculty, staff and the community to celebrate a multitude of diverse cultures, which will be showcased at the organizations Global Bazaar. This family friendly event will highlight cultural traditions and celebrations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South American, North America and Africa through music, entertainment, food and informative displays developed and presented by students at the Ambler Campus. Young visitors will be provided with passports, which they may get stamped at each country they visit. Prizes will be awarded to world travelers who talk to cultural representatives, answer questions about the countries theyve visited and take part in fun-filled activities designed to help them learn about the rich diversity of cultures found throughout the world. Refreshments will be served. The event is free. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail tuc36466@temple.edu.

EarthFest 2011 April 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 75 exhibitors, including the Philadelphia Zoo, The Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Elmwood Park Zoo and the Insectarium, will take part in EarthFest 2011. School students of all ages are invited to attend and develop displays of their own. EarthFest partner the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society also offers its Kids Grow Expo, featuring the Junior Flower Show, as part of the event. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail duffyj@temple.edu.

Annual Spring Plant Sale May 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The plant sale  an Ambler Campus tradition dating back to the early 1900s  will feature woody plants and perennials in portable sizes, hardy trees, shrubs, and vines, native plants that are attractive to wildlife, herbs, and hanging baskets. There will also be numerous special plants for sale to highlight Amblers special anniversary year. Garden books and garden tools will also be available for sale. Students, staff, and volunteers from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and the Ambler Arboretum Advisory Committee will be available to answer questions. All proceeds from the Spring Plant Sale will support the Ambler Arboretum Fund and the Pi Alpha Xi National Honor Society. Information: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

June Homecoming/Louise Bush-Brown Garden Dedication June 5 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. (June Homecoming), Bright Hall Lounge; 2 p.m. (Garden Dedication), Ambler Campus Formal Perennial Gardens. Tickets  June Homecoming: Participant  $18 per person; Sustainer  $25 per person; Benefactor  $40 per person. The 2011 June Homecoming, sponsored by the School of Environmental Design Alumni Association, will include the Alumni Association annual meeting and luncheon. June Homecoming will be followed by the formal dedication of Temple University Amblers Formal Perennial Gardens as the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Gardens. During this 100th anniversary of the campus, Temple University Ambler and the Ambler Arboretum of the Temple University is honoring Louise Bush-Browns many contributions to the history of the campus by formally dedicating the gardens in her honor. During the program, campus Executive William Parshall will welcome guests, Ambler Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey will speak about the Bush-Browns and the history of the garden, and an official ribbon cutting will be held for the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Garden. Following the ribbon cutting, guests are invited to take a tour of the gardens, which will wend their way to the Campus Greenhouse for the School of Environmental Designs annual Plant Auction. Information (Garden Dedication): 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Information (June Homecoming): 215-482-0722. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

Northview Garden Tour and Fundraiser for the Ambler Arboretum June 12 from noon to 5 p.m. Call for reservations. Tickets: $15 per person or $20 at the door. In addition to the gardens of the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University, Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey has a garden oasis all her own right in Ambler  Northview. Visitors will have the opportunity to take self-guided tours throughout the many gardens, where garden experts will be available to answer questions about the various designs. The Ambler Keystone Chapter of the Womans National Farm and Garden Association will also provide tea and refreshments. All proceeds from the tours will support the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University. Information or to register: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

The Senior Adult Activities Center of Montgomery County, 536 George Street, Norristown, will hold the following events:

SAAC Adult Day Care, an alternative to Nursing Home Care is available  for information call 610-275-1960

Volunteers are needed for Meals on Wheels Program (call the number above)

SAACs Fifth Avenue Boutique opens Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Exercise with Theresa will be held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 1 p.m.

Dance class is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Tai Chi is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Yoga is held every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m.

Line Dancing is held every Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

Dancing with Joan is held every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.

Sculpture Class is held Wednesdays from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Why Should I Learn Spanish? will be held Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m.

Generations On-Line computer classes for seniors will be held Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.  4 p.m.  computers are available during those hours.

Health Living will be held every Tuesday at 1 p.m.

Boomer U will hold the following events. Boomer U is located at 45 Forest Avenue, Ambler. Registration & payment is required for all events: 215-619-8863.

Pilates Class is held Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:30 a.m. First class is free; please bring a mat. For information call 610-291-5376.

Blue Bell School of Dance, 921 Penllyn Blue Bell Pike, Blue Bell, hosts Argentine Tango Classes and a Milonga dance party every Friday evening. Lessons start at 8:30 p.m. followed by dancing at 9:30 p.m. Andrew Conway, master Argentine Tango dancer, instructor and performer and his partner Linda Chase will instruct. All levels welcome and no partner is needed. Refreshments will be served. Fee is $12 per person and includes lesson and dancing. Information: 215-634-1101 or www.amoretango.com.

The Montgomery Hospital Medical Center will offer the following classes:

Childbirth Education Class- all parents are invited to participate, including those who are delivering at

other hospitals. For more information on maternity services or classes, call 610-270-2020.

CPR and First Aid Courses are offered for beginners to experiences health care providers. Call 610-270-2313.

The Ambler SAAC (Senior Adult Activities Center), located at 45 Forest Ave in Ambler will hold the following events:

Tai Chi every Monday and Thursday at 11 a.m.

Yoga is every Tuesday at 1 p.m. and Friday at 10:30 a.m.

Strength and balance training every Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Armchair Aerobics is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Gourmet Weight Wise every Thursday at 12:30.

Fitness Center and Pool Room open daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

The Diabetes Education Center will offer day and evening classes each month. Health insurance pays for diabetes education classes. Preregistration is required. Call 610-270-2301.

For Kids & Families

The Ambler Kiwanis Club will host its annual Easter Egg Hunt April 26 at 10 a.m. in Ambler Borough Park, located just off of the intersection of Hendricks Street and Valley Brook Road. Members of the Wissahickon Key Club will assist Kiwanians in hiding thousands of wrapped chocolate eggs in a designated area of the park. Also hidden will be plastic colored eggs, which are redeemed for prizes. Elementary school children are separated by age.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation will hold its 21st annual Storybook Egg-Stravaganza April 15 fom 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Upper Dublin Township Building. Toddlers and preschoolers love this annual event where photo opportunities with favorite friends abound! Treasures are collected from UDP&Rs assortment of lifesize cutouts of favorite cartoon characters from Disney, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and other well-known animation. Children can have their picture taken with Bugsy OHare; bring your own camera. And dont forget a basket for goodies! $7 for UD residents; $12 for non-residents. Pre-register at 215-643-1600 ext. 3443.

Splash Week is a free week-long program that teaches children and families basic swimming skills and water safety practices. All YMCA branches will host multiple classes each day from April 11 to 15. For more information, contact the Ambler Area YMCA at 215-628-9950.

Healthy Kids Day is April 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The day is filled with fun, engaging and artistic activities that cultivate healthy living as part of the YMCAs larger efforts to help more kids and families become physically active. All activities are free and open to the community. For more information, contact the Ambler YMCA at 215-628-9950. No reservation is required.

The Ambler Area YMCA has added several new programs for area youngsters. Classes are held late afternoons or evenings on various weekdays. For more information, visit philaymca.org or call 215-628-9950.

Basic Beading: Ages: 10+. Wednesdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. This class will teach you the fundamentals of wiring and stringing along with how color can be used to create unique and vibrant beadwork design. You will create various jewelry including earrings, bracelets, charm pendants and much more! Supplies will be provided. Bringing your own jewelry pliers or tools would be a plus.

Messin with the Masters: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. Learn about some of the worlds greatest artists. You will be inspired to create your own Starry Night with oil pastels and tempera paints, a tissue paper painted Monet garden, a Picasso head using scraps of paper, a Georgia OKeeffe clay flower bowl and a Rousseau jungle collage.

Super Scientist: Ages: 5-7. Mondays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Well be concocting chemistry experiments such as making slime, mixing potions and having fun with magnet magic. Your budding little scientist will enhance his/her creative thinking and motor skills and to top it off will learn that science can be serious fun.

Wacky Junk Art: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 6 to 6:45 p.m. Why throw it away! Instead join us to make household junk into aliens from outer space, wacky specs, crazy hats, body masks or a recycled train.

Globe Trotters: Ages: 4-6. Tuesdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Youre never too young to start thinking globally. Each week, we explore a new country through crafts, games, music, stories and even some taste-testing. A perfect introduction to our great big world!

Crazy about Crafts: Ages: 5-7, Thursdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Let your childs creative juices flow with our fun arts and crafts projects each week. Fine motor skills and creative thinking skills will be enhanced with this crafty class.

Come out and join the Ambler Area YMCAs Teen and Junior Leaders Club. Participants are given the freedom to plan community service projects year round and truly make a difference in the lives of people in need. Those in Teen and Junior Leaders also attend leadership retreats all along the East Coast three times a year and meet other leaders who are doing the same great work in their respective areas. Dont miss out on this inspiring opportunity. Teen Leaders, ages 13-17, meet every Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Junior Leaders, ages 10-12, will begin in the spring and will meet every Monday. For more information, contact Mike Miles, Teen Director, 215- 628-9950 x 1540 or mmiles@philaymca.org.

Did you know that the new Ambler Area YMCA holds childrens birthday parties at its site for members and non members as well. The Ambler Y does all the work from start to finish and birthday parties include a personalized cake, ice cream, beverage and paper products. Parties are held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and include two party hosts to lead activities, set-up, clean-up and assist with serving. You can have a Splash Party for children ages six to 12 in the new zero depth entry pool with water slide and spray fountains. Up to 25 children have exclusive use of the pool area with 30 minutes in the party room. Sports Parties are offered for kids ages four to 12 with age appropriate activities and games, and sports such as floor hockey, soccer, basketball or dodge ball. Children ages three to five years of age will enjoy parties in the Family Active Center with use of the Moon Bounce and organized activities, such as parachute play and songs. For information, 215-628-9950 ext. 1583.

Community Events at the Ambler Y:

-YAchievers YMCA Achievers is a developmentally based, extracurricular, educational and team mentoring program designed to help students in grades five through 12 prepare for fulfilled livelihoods in college and beyond. Participation is free and all students in this program receive a free YMCA membership. Registration for the 2009 program begins now. You do not need to be a YMCA member to utilize these special services. Call 215-628-9950 to register.

Greater Norristown Art Leagues Childrens Weeklong Summer Art Camps will be held at 800 West Germantown Pike in East Norriton, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday throughout the summer. The cost per session is $125 per student for ages 6 and up. Jo Ann Cooksey Bono teaches an introduction to basic drawing skills and techniques from 10 a.m. until the lunch break each day. In the afternoon sessions, Mary Vogel Lozinak involves the students in hands on projects such as collage, papermaking, T-shirt printing, 3D design and sculpy clay. Fridays Graduation Day includes an art show, awards ceremony and reception for parents, siblings, grandparents and friends. All supplies are included. Students provide their own lunch. A refrigerator is available and the building is air-conditioned. This is the 15th year to run this successful program. Both instructors are professional artists with State Police and Child Abuse Clearances. To register, call Jo Ann at 610-279-1008, or register on-line at www.gnal.org.

Health

Dresher Physical Therapy is hosting an interactive seminar discussing its Golf Assessment Progam April 30 from 10 a.m. to noon at Dresher Physical Therapy, 1075 Virginia Drive, Suite 200, Fort Washington. Physical therapist Chris Miller, certified through the Titleist Performance Institute, will discuss why your body may be the most important piece of golf equipment you invest in and how this can drastically improve your game. $10 in advance; $15 at the door. Call 215-619-4545 to reserve your spot.

The Chestnut Hill Center for Enrichment, Center on the Hill and Chestnut Hill Hospital will host a Senior Health and Resource Fair April 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, 8855 Germantown Ave. The event is free. For more information, call 215-248-0180 or e-mail chseniors@cavtel.net.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is hosting Help Yourself to Health, a new six-week workshop for older adults with ongoing health conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, heart disease and others. The free workshop will take place at the Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center, 45 Forest Ave. on six Thursdays, May 12 through June 16 from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Although there is no charge to participate, registration is required. To register, call 215-619-8863.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is sponsoring an eight-week program called A Matter of Balance: Managing Concerns About Falls. Presented by the Montgomery County Health Department, this workshop will be held on Tuesdays, May 3 to June 21 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ambler Center, 45 Forest Ave. If you pre-register by April 27, the fee is only $5! Registration at the first class is $10. (Checks should be payable to SAAC and will benefit our Meals on Wheels program that serves homebound seniors.) A workbook will be provided and refreshments will be served. Call 215-619-8863 to register or for more information.

Fort Washington Wellness Center classes are ongoing. There are several offered during lunch or right after work, for your convenience: Boot Camp from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday; Zumba is MWF from 11 a.m. to noon and Friday at 4 p.m.; there are 25 cycling classes; Ashtanga and Vinyasana Yoga and Pilates; and a group Womens Strength Training class M-F from 10 to 11 a.m. Questions, call Cathy DeMarco at 215-641-1245.

Following the success of other local area programs, Impact Sports and Upper Dublin Parks and Recreation are delighted to team up again to offer a spring program for the 2011 season! Upper Dublin area children ages 3-5 years old can attend a Sports Program featuring their favorite sports games; soccer, rugby, hockey, track and field, basketball, and more. The program will start on April 27 and run through June 1. Cost for the program is $85 for the six weeks. The classes will be running 12- 1 p.m.; 1- 2 p.m.; 2- 3 p.m. For more info or to register, call Upper Dublin Township on 215 643 1600 or visit their website a http://www.upperdublin.net.

Spring Aquatic Programs  UDHS Pool:

-Summer is just around the corner  Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool can help get you into shape! Programs begin in March; preregistration is required.

 Shallow Water Aerobics  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 8-8:45 p.m., $40R/$50NR.

 Adult Swim Instructions  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 7-8 p.m., $50R/$60NR

-Open Rec Swims are fun for the whole family! Come out on Fridays from 7-9 p.m. or Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. and enjoy use of the pool and diving area. Fridays are offered through June 17; Saturdays are offered March 12-May 21.

-Join a growing group of adult lap swimmers and water walkers. Lanes are set aside evenings and weekends for use; lanes are shared. Monday  Thursday from 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Fridays from 7-9 p.m. and Saturdays (March 12-May 21) from 1-4 p.m.

-Private Swimming & Diving Lessons for ages 3-adult are offered at the UDHS Pool through a partnership with the Upper Dublin Aquatic Club (UDAC). Visit the UDAC website for more information, www.udac.us, and click the link to UDHS Private Lessons.

-Looking for local programs for US Masters Swimming (adults) or Water Polo (all ages)? UDAC and UDSD are working together to develop programs that will be offered at the UDHS Pool. Add your name to Interest Lists by emailing slohoefer@upperdublin.net. emails will be sent about clinics and program start dates.

Questions about Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool, group use of the pool or pool rental? Contact Susan Lohoefer, Facility & Community Affairs Manager at slohoefer@upperdublin.net or call 215-643-8800 x8994.

SilverSneakers Fitness Program. The Healthyways SilverSneakers Fitness Program is a result-oriented program that enables older adults to take charge of their health. The program is an innovative blend of physical activity, healthy lifestyle and socially oriented programing. Members of the program are eligible for a free YMCA membership, with use of the pool and exercise equipment, along with customized classes designed for older adults who want to improve their strength, flexibility, balance and endurance. If you are a subscriber to Independence Blue Cross (Personal Choice 65 PPO) or Keystone 65 HMO, Bravo Health, or Health Options Programs (HOP), call the Ambler Area YMCA, 215-628-9950 or Hatboro Area YMCA, 215-674-4545. You can also visit www.silversneakers.com.

Zumba Fitness offers Zumba dance/fitness classes at Academy of Dance and Music/BBAD Studio located at 1524 DeKalb Pike in Blue Bell (behind Sherwin Williams). Classes are offered three times a week: Tuesdays at 6 p.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8 a.m. For a free trial pass for your first class, email us at info@danceandmusic.biz or call 610-277-2557. For more info, visit our site at www.academyofdanceandmusic.org.

Chestnut Hill Health Systems presents the following Health Education Programs:

FITNESS CLASSES

Golden Yoga: A Breathing, Stretching and Relaxation Class. Fridays, 2:30-3:30 p.m. Lea Auditorium, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. Registration for four classes at a time required. Golden Yoga is Classical Yoga, adapted by the SKY Foundation, to accommodate those who have difficulty getting up and down from the floor. The program includes postures, breathing, relaxation and meditation techniques, all performed while sitting in a chair and standing. Registration required. Call 215-247-3029. Cost: $20 for 4 classes per month.

Tai Chi: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8:30  9:30 a.m. Springfield Residence, 8601 Stenton Ave. Classes, for the novice or beginner/intermediate student, are designed to improve balance, power, posture, coordination, flexibility and mental focus. Slow, gentle movements are modified to most everyones abilities. For more information or to sign up for a free introductory class, call 215-882-2804. Cost: $8 per class/paid monthly.

SUPPORT GROUPS

Weight Loss Surgery Support Group: Fourth Wednesday of the month, 7-8 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. Join us for a monthly get-together where well share information for those interested in weight loss surgery, learn from guest speakers discussing current news on issues including lifestyle modification, nutrition and exercise and provide ongoing support for those who have completed surgery. Registration required. Call 215-753-2000.

Breast Cancer Networking Group: Fourth Tuesday of the month 5:30  7 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. A free, confidential support group for women living with a diagnosis of breast cancer designed to provide a forum for sharing information, feelings and concerns associated with breast cancer. Facilitated by Tish Wakefield, LCSW, Oncology Social Worker. Registration required. To register or for more information, call 215-248-8047.

New Moms Support Groups Tuesdays 10:30 a.m.  12 p.m.; contact Jeanine ORourke, MSW or 2:30  4 p.m.; contact Susan Schack, Ph.D Volunteer Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. The Center for Postpartum Depression at Chestnut Hill Hospital is pleased to offer two new support groups to support new moms. Both groups will be run by experienced mental health professionals who really get it when it comes to new motherhood and juggling relationships, extended family, work/family balance and self-care. If you are experiencing new mom challenges that often heighten anxiety and involve hormonally driven depression, join us for an informative and supportive forum to connect with other moms. Infants are welcome. $30 per session (flexible based on need). Registration is required. Call Dr. Schack, 646-265-2484, or Ms. ORourke, 215-206-2931.

Man to Man Prostate Cancer Support Group Third Thursday of the month 8-9 a.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. A networking group for men diagnosed with prostate cancer designed to provide education, support and encouragement. Spouses and partners welcome. Harry M. Baer, MD, Chief, Urology Division, will host Ask the Doctor. Registration required. Call 215-248-8325.

Contact the Senior Center by phone 215-248-0180 or email (chseniors@cavtel.net) with your questions about these programs or any of our on-going activities and classes.

Holy Redeemer HomeCare and Hospice seeks compassionate and emotionally mature volunteers to provide support to local hospice patients and their families in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Volunteers may also assist with pet therapy and administrative work within the hospice department and are requested to have daytime availability. Hospice patient care volunteers visit with patients in their homes or nursing facilities once a week for two to three hours. They provide emotional support and companionship to patients and family members, assist with errands or provide respite for caregivers. Bereavement volunteers support the families of hospice patients following the loss of a loved one, while administrative volunteers assist with typing, mailings and/or filing. Hospice care workers provide a great service to families and loved ones of hospice patients. Many volunteers also report a great deal of personal satisfaction as a result of their services. Patient care and bereavement volunteers complete an application and attend an 18-hour volunteer training program that covers the medical, psychological and spiritual aspects of hospice volunteering. Day and evening training programs are offered. To sign up for volunteer opportunities in Pennsylvania, contact Holy Redeemer Volunteer Coordinator Jean Francis at 215-698-3737 or email jfrancis@holyredeemer.com.

Librarytalk

Upper Dublin Public Library, 805 Loch Alsh Avenue, Ft. Washington, 215-628-8744

www.upperdublinlibrary.org

APRIL CHILDRENS PROGRAMS:

Storytimes: Please register in the library.

o Wee Ones: 0 to 23 months Thursdays and Fridays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m.

o Tiny Tots: age 2. Wednesdays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. and Fridays 11 to 11:20 a.m.

o Jr. Book Lovers: ages 3 to 6. Tuesdays 10:30 to 11 a.m.

o Bedtime Storytimes: 7 to 7:30 p.m. April 20 and 27. Wear your jammies, bring your teddy & hear Miss Barbara read bedtime stories! For ages 3 to 6.

APRIL TEEN PROGRAMS:

North Hills Library Teens April 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. Movie Matinee

APRIL UDPL ADULT PROGRAMS:

NEW! ESL Conversation Group. Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. Interested in practicing your English in a safe and caring environment? Come to our conversation group and improve your skills! Please register with Kay Klocko at 215-628-8744 or kklocko@mclinc.org.

One-on-One Computer Mentoring. Get personalized assistance from experienced computer volunteers! Sign-up for a one-hour session. Limit one session per month. Please register  contact info above.

Book Groups Please register with Kay Klocko 215-628-8744.

o Daytimers: April 21 at 1:30 p.m. Tired of book groups where you all read the same book? Read any fiction or non-fiction book on this months theme: Explorers. Please register.

Meetings:

Annual Meeting of the Friends of UDPL: April 14 at 1 p.m.

Board of Directors: April 20 at 7 p.m.

Blue Bell Library www.wvpl.org Upcoming Events: The Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 650 Skippack Pike (Route 73) in Blue Bell, is diagonally across from the Blue Bell Inn. Call 215-643-1320 or visit their website at www.wvpl.org.

For children and teens at Blue Bell:

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Mondays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* Fridays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Family Movies, new releases, second Saturdays of the month at 1:30 p.m.

* May 14  Despicable Me

* June 11  Alpha and Omega

* Special Events

* April  watch for date of spring/Easter events

* April 14 at 4:30 p.m.  Junior Lego Club for children ages 3 through 5. Parents and caregivers need to stay with children.

* April 14 at 7 p.m.  Jeopardy for ages 11 to 18. Test your book and library knowledge for prizes. Sign up to be a contestant. No sign up to be in the audience. Snacks provided.

* April 16 at 1 p.m.  Adult Mystery Book Group discussing The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie King.

* April 16 at 1:30 p.m.  Childrens event for One Book, Every Young Child celebration. Story and craft for book Whose Shoes?

* April 19 at 7 p.m. and April 26 at 1:30 p.m.- Adult book group discusses The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. Group led by Adam Button.

* April 30 through May 3  Friends book sale with about 10,000 items for sale for children, teens and adults.

* May  sign up for Science in the Summer

* June  sign up for Enrichment Programs for Elementary-Age children

* June  sign up for Summer Reading, all ages

For adults at Blue Bell:

* Daytime Book Discussion Group  fourth Tuesday, Jan  April at 1:30 p.m.

* April 26  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Night-time Book Discussion Group  third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m.

o April 19  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Art Series with Dr. Sheldon Weintraub, docent at The Barnes and speaker at local colleges

o April 27 at 2 p.m. The Art of Looking at Art-Is She Nude or Is She Naked?

*Mystery Book Discussion Group, third Saturday of the month at 1 p.m.; new mystery theme each month; www.wvpl.org/programs

* Yoga on Mondays at 1:30 p.m. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop-in class.

* Tai Chi on Mondays at 3 p.m. with Dr. Kurt Findeisen. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop in class.

* Philadelphia Museum of Art presents class on their Marc Chagall exhibit, April 13 at 2 p.m.

* Giant Book Sale, April 29  May 3

o Starts with almost 10,000 items for children and adults!

o Held during library hours.

o Preview for members of the Friends of the Library, April 28 at 7 p.m.

o Join the Friends and attend the preview sale. Modest fee to join.

* Blooms at Blue Bell Gardening Series

o May 11 at 1 p.m.  Summer Bulbs by PA Horticultural Society

* Knitting group Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Work on your project or observe and learn. The groups continue year-round in the community room.

* Socrates Cafe discussion group every Monday at 7 p.m. You pick the topic to discuss each week. No sign-up, nothing to read.

* Bridge every Friday at 12:30 p.m. New players welcome.

* Mah Jong every Wednesday at 1 p.m. New players welcome.

*Chess every Wednesday at 7p.m. for adults and teens 14 and older.

* Movie Matinee showing recent releases every Thursday at 2 p.m. April 14: Maos Last Dancer; April 21: Welcome to the Rileys; April 28: Conviction; May 5: Inception; May 12: Inside Job; May 19 The Kings Speech; May 26 The Fighter; June 2 Rabbit Hole; June 9 Black Swan; June 16 127 Hours

* Ongoing like-new, year-round book sale for adults & children during library hours

* Library opening at 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday!

Ambler Library, a branch of the Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 209 Race St., 215-646-1072. www.wvpl.org. All the following events occur at the Ambler Library.

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* For adults:

* Beading Group meets the first and third Monday of every month at 1 p.m. Work on your own projects or come to watch and learn.

* Free Family History Lookup with Connie Briggs. Email Connie for an appointment at the Ambler Library. conniebriggs@comcast.net

* Special Events:

* April 14 at 1:30 p.m.  Book Group discusses Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian.

* April 19 at 7 p.m.  Travel to Paris with world traveler Harry Balin. Tea and scones at 6:30 p.m.

* April 21 at 7 p.m.  Art with Sara for children in fourth through seventh grades.

*May 2 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Lone Star with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

*May 10  Robert Capucci discusses Art into Fashion. Tea and scones served at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*May 12 at 1:30p.m.  Book Group discusses The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman.

*May 17  Tour the gardens of Devon and Southwest England with Lois McMullen. Tea and Scones at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*June 13 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Blade Runner with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

Meetings and Lectures

The Unisys Blue Bell Retiree Group will meet in the Church on the Mall in the Plymouth Meeting Mall April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Kathy Sacket Young, director/trainer with the North Penn YMCA, will speak on Keeping Fit in Retirement. For more information, contact Membership Committee Chairperson Jerry Feldscher at 610-275-3538 or President Al Rollin at 215-368-4833.

The next FWBA meeting will be April 28 at the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m.; meeting from noon to 1 p.m. Leon Singletary, Principal, First Contact HR and FWBA Executive Board, will present: Social Media: How to Use It To Get More Business. Lunch is provided courtesy of the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Members are welcome to bring a guest. An RSVP is requested by return email or 215-628-0313.

Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern PA is hosting a information sessions over the next few weeks on how to become a Big Brother. The information sessions will take place: April 16 at noon, April 19 at 8 a.m. and April 28 at 6 p.m. All sessions will be held at the groups Norristown Office,t 530 DeKalb St., Norristown. For more information, call 610-277-2200.

The North Penn Chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) normally meets on the third Tuesday of each month from now until May. Meetings are held at the William Penn Inn on Route 202 and Sumneytown Pike, Upper Gwynedd, PA. Social hour starts at 5:30 p.m., dinner is served at 6:30 p.m., and the technical program begins at 7 p.m. Cost with reservation is $28 for members. Members without reservations and guests pay $30. Students with reservations pay $15. Reservations may be made by noon on the Monday preceding the meeting by phoning 215-371-1854 or emailing the reservation to northpennima@yahoo.com northpennima@yahoo.com. Information about the North Penn Chapter is available at http://northpenn.imanet.org/.

LeTip, a professional organization of men and women who are dedicated to the highest standards of competence and service meets every Tuesday at Cedar Brook Country Club, 180 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell at 7 a.m. -meeting officially starts at 7:16 a.m. and ends at 8:31 a.m. Our purpose is the exchange of business tips, leads, and referrals. Each business category is represented by one member and conflicts of interest are disallowed. Guests are welcome to visit any of our breakfast meetings.

Every third Thursday of month, Sunrise Assisted Living of Blue Bell (795 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422, 215-619-2777) serves as a satellite site to 148th Legislative district PA congressman Mike Gerber from 10 a.m. to noon. Stop by for help needed with things such as disability placards and license plates, vehicle registration, utilities issues, birth/death certificates,property tax/rent rebates, etc. Notary services arranged by appointment.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce is an action-oriented organization dedicated to promoting its members and the economic health of eastern Montgomery county. The Chamber is committed to serving as a catalyst by uniting business, community agencies, government and education to make our county a great place to live and work. For information, call 215-887-5122 or visit www.emccc.org.

Do you have a fear of public speaking? Blue Bell Toastmasters Club can help. We meet from 7 to 9 p.m., on the second and fourth Tuesday at the Marriott Courtyard, located on Route 202, directly across from the Montgomeryville Mall. Learn how to improve communication and leadership skills in a friendly and supportive environment. Guests are welcome. Admission fee: $5. For more info, visit www.bbtoast.org.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will hold the following meetings (for reservations to any of the following, email info@PennSuburban.org)

-Breakfast News Network, 7:30-8:45 a.m. at Normandy Farm Hotel (1401 Morris Road, Blue Bell, PA 19422) $15 members, includes full buffet breakfast. Join us for a networking program at Normandy Farm Hotel every Thursday morning for breakfast, business news, informative speakers, and plenty of networking. The cost includes a full breakfast buffet. Copies of the business cards will be made available to those who would like them.

The BNI, Fort Washington Chapter meets every Monday at The Hilton Garden Inn, 520 Pennsylvania Ave., Fort Washington for a networking meeting. Meetings are from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Visitors are welcome. The only cost to attend is the cost of your meal. For information or a reservation to attend, please call Luanne Cram at 215-947-7784, or visit our Internet site at: http://www.BNIDVR.Com and click on the menu item Find a Chapter.

For the past seven years, people have enjoyed participating in WVWAs Adopt-a-Tree program. Individuals can support the Association in its reforestation efforts by purchasing native trees to be planted. Supporters can plant their adopted tree or have WVWA volunteers will plant it. Trees cost $30 each. If you would like to volunteer or purchase a tree(s), please contact: Bob Adams at Bob@wvwa.org or call: 215-646-8866 for more information. Check www.WVWA.org for directions and maps.

Sustainable Upper Dublin, http://sustainableupperdublin.org, meets the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m., at the Upper Dublin Township Building, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington, PA 19034. Please send any questions to suec@sustainableupperdublin.org or call 610-996-6316. To learn more about Sustainable Upper Dublin, view or join the discussion at http://googlegroups.com/group/sustainableupperdublin.

Special Events

The Mattie N. Dixon Community Cupboard will hold its first nutrition class April 19 at 10 a.m. at the Community Cupboard, 150 N. Main St., Ambler. Lynne Sinclair, a nutritionist from Abington Memorial Hospital specializing in diabetic nutrition, will conduct the class. Topics will include healthy eating, beneficial foods, recipes, making meals with every day foods, and how to use unfamiliar produce. A healthy snack will be provided.The class is is open to all residents in Montgomery County.

The Historical Society of Fort Washington presents The History of Conshohocken April 19 at 8 p.m. at the Clifton House, 473 Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington. Jack Coll will present an illustrated program on the history of the Borough of Conshohocken. Coll is a longtime resident of Conshohocken and a member of the Conshohocken Historical Society. He is co-author with his son, Brian, of the Arcadia Then and Now Series book Conshohocken. He has also done books Conshohocken and West Conshohocken Sports and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Italian Feast. He has taken many photos for the Conshohocken Record and the Norristown Times Herald. This program is free. Refreshments will be served. For additional information, call 215-646-6065.

Taste of the White House Soiree featuring former White House Chef Walter Scheib will take place April 29 at 6 p.m. at Manufacturers Golf & Country Club in Fort Washington to celebrate HealthLinks 10th anniversary and honor its founders, the Eugene Jackson Family. The evening will heat up with a Chef Meet & Greet, followed by a specially selected presidential menu. Gala tickets are $150 per person. Proceeds benefit HealthLink, a free clinic providing compassionate, quality medical and dental care to uninsured, working adults in Bucks and Montgomery counties who fall in between the health care cracks. Go to http://tasteofthewhitehouse.charityhappenings.org to make reservations online or lend support through sponsorship. For event information, call 267-699-0124 or email jmarushak@healthlinkmedical.org.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association will hold an open house at the Evans-Mumbower Mill April 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. The Mill is at the corner of Swedesford and Township Line Roads in Upper Gwynedd. The open house is free but donations are welcome. For more information, call 215-646-8866 o email info@wvwa.org.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce will host Breakfast With Your County Commissioners and State Representatives April 21 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Fort Washington, 432 W. Pennasylvania Ave. Commissioners: James R. Matthews (Chairman), Joseph M. Hoeffel (Vice Chair), State Representatives: Todd Stephens (District 151) and Josh Shapiro (District 153). Register onlineat www.emccc.org. $10 for EMCCC member; $20 for non-members.

Upper Dublins Districtwide Allied Art Show will be held April 27 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in the Upper Dublin High School Athletic Complex.

The Rev. Alfred Muli, chaplain at Fort Washington Estates, will be the featured speaker at the Kiwanis sponsored breakfast observing the National Day of Prayer May 5 at 7 a.m. at the William Penn Inn. The breakfast is open to the public ($15). Reservations can be made by calling 215-646-4356 or by emailing georgesaurman@Juno.com.

The Upper Dublin Shade Tree Commission invites people to participate in its spring bare root planting events, sponsored in part by Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Friends of Robbins Park. On April 9, zix trees will be planted at the Evelyn B. Wright Park & Community Pool, 401 Logan Ave., North Hills, at 9 a.m., followed by the planting of 10 trees at Sheeleigh Park, Loch Alsh Avenue and Douglas Street, Ambler, at 10:15 a.m. On April 29, students from Upper Dublin High School will join the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to plant 16 trees in Robbins Park, Butler Pike and Meetinghouse Road, Ambler, to help launch the societys Million Trees campaign. This event will occur in conjunction with Temple Amblers EarthFest. Experienced tree-tenders are sought to assist the students. For more information,contact Ron Ayres at 215-653-0421 or 215-483-4348.

The Friends of the Wissahickon and the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association are teaming up once again to clean the Wissahickon Creek from top to bottom April 30 from 9 a.m. to noon. This spring marks the 41st anniversary of Wissahickon Valley Watershed Associations annual Creek Clean Up, and the second year that FOW has teamed up with WVWA. Volunteers of all ages will clean the creek, the surrounding trails and the many tributaries of the Wissahickon Creek. Armed with bags, volunteers will be assigned to sections of the creek. Following the clean up, all volunteers are invited to WVWAs Talkin Trash picnic in Fort Washington State Park, with food provided by Whole Foods Market of North Wales. The pavilion is located on Mill Road in Flourtown. To help out in Montgomery County, all volunteers must be pre-assigned a section of the Wissahickon Creek to clean. Please contact Bob Adams, WVWA director of stewardship, at 215-646-8866 ext. 14 or bob@wvwa.org. To work with the Friends of the Wissahickon in Philadelphia, meet at the pavilion along Forbidden Drive, a short distance south of the intersection of Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. Limited parking is available along Northwestern Avenue and other nearby streets. Volunteers are encouraged to bike or carpool to the event. To participate, register at www.fow.org. Contact Kevin Groves with questions at 215-247-0417 ext. 105 or groves@fow.org.

Montgomery County Community Colleges International Club invites the community to the second annual International Festival April 20 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The rain date is April 26. The International Club will transform the outside quad area into multicultural celebration with various performances by dancers, singers and musicians. Artists will share their artwork at various display tables. Activities include games, raffles, Easter egg decorating and henna tattoos. Students will have samples of international cuisine at tables representing different countries and will serve food from various local ethnic restaurants. Throughout the evening, volunteers will accept donations and will raffle gift baskets and prizes to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. Donations of food, international clothes and prizes are needed. Volunteers, including artists and performers, are welcome. For more information or to sponsor an activity, contact Gillian Nel, International Club president, at gnel9277@students.mc3.edu or 267-974-0163.

The Arts and Humanities Division at Montgomery County Community College is partnering with the Philadelphia Writers Conference to host Memoirs Matter: How Life Stories (Including Yours) Can Transform Your Relationship to Literature April 23 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Advanced Technology Center room 101, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The event is free and open to the public. In the first part of this two-hour seminar, professor and author Robert Waxler will explain how writing his two memoirs affected his life as well as his relationship to literature. In the second part, blogger and workshop leader Jerry Waxler will present a sequence of steps to help writers find their own story. For information, contact Dana Resente at dresente@mc3.edu.

The Maple Glen Garden Club will hold its fourth annual Plant Sale on May 7 from 8 to 11 a.m. Perennials, shrubs, vegetables and native plants grown by the club members will be sold. The club uses the plant sale proceeds to fund community projects, a college scholarship and community plantings. The sale will be held in the 500 block of Coach Road, Horsham, as part of a neighborhood garage sale. Plants will be sold at bargain prices. For more information, email MapleGlenGardenClub@gmail.com.

The Relay for Life Craft Show is looking for local crafters to participate in show, which will be May 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Wissahickon High School track, 521 Houston Road, Ambler. There is a $10 entry fee, and 20 percent of sales are donated to the American Cancer Society. Participants will receive a 6-foot table under a tent. For information, contact Joanne at joannescoles@comcast.net or Mindy at mcamsilver@comcast.net.

Spring House Estates is hosting its annual book fair on April 18 from 4 to 7 p.m. and April 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Included will be hardback and paperback used books. Spring House Estates is located at 728 Norristown Road, Lower Gwynedd.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will present the Penn Suburban/Hatfield Joint Business Card Exchange April 20 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Univest Bank Lansdale Area Financial Service Center, 120 Forty Foot Road, Hatfield. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. Join Univest National Bank and Trust Co. for a spring-inspired Business Card Exchange at its newest office in the Hatfield Pointe Shopping Center. Come out and meet members of Univests executive management team while enjoying fine food and beverages.

13th Annual Community Reading Day Kick-off Breakfast Get Together April 26 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the North Wales Area Library, 233 Swartley St., North Wales. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. For more information, contact the chamber office at 215-362-9200 or info@pennsuburban.org. Join presenting sponsor Verizon, chamber staff and fellow members for the Community Reading Day volunteer get together. The Community Reading Day program allows volunteers to read a designated book to second-grade students throughout 38 area public and private schools and present the book as a gift to each class. Even if you are not a volunteer, you are cordially invited to stop by to network, enjoy coffee and pastries.

Ambler Mennonite Church is hosting a Spring Craft Show and Flea Market May 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Rain date will be May 28. The community is invited to shop the great craft booths, find some gifts and deals, as well as enjoy home baked goods and tasty lunch specials. Childrens activities are planned. All vendors are encouraged to contact the church at 215-643-4876 or AmblerMennonite@verizon.net. Advertising, signage, customer parking and a shuttle to auxiliary parking at nearby lots for vendors will be provided. 10 foot by 10 foot spaces can be rented for $5 each and tables for an additional $5 each. All proceeds from space and table rentals go toward school kits for children around the world. The church is located at the corner of East Mt. Pleasant Avenue and North Spring Garden Street, Ambler.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association presents The Life & Times of Aquatic Insects in the Wissahickon Creek April 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. Join WVWA for a hands-on program. RSVP required: www.wvwa.org or 215-646-8866. WVWA member fee: $5 per person / $15 per family. Non-WVWA member fee: $10 per person / $20 per family.

The photography exhibition Natures Palette by photo-artist Judy Miller will run March 18 to May 19 at the Art in the Storefront gallery, 41 E. Butler Pike, Ambler.

JPRN  Networking For People in Transition & People Who Can Help Them  Unemployment remains high. JPRN, the Jarrettown Professional Relationship Network can help. Are you trying to network your way to a new job? Do you have expertise or contacts that can help people in transition? Is your company or organization looking for people in the area? This is a free outreach program to support those seeking work, involve people with contacts and networking know how, and involve local companies. Meetings held monthly at Jarrettown United Methodist Church, Limekiln Pike.

Pennsylvanias Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) grant program is now open for the 2010-11 heating season. Grants are based on income, family size, type of heating fuel and region. Additional information, such as specific income limits, and applications for LIHEAP grants are available online via the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Access to Social Services (COMPASS) website at www.compass.state.pa.us. Applications are available at most public officals district offices, county assistance offices, local utility companies and community service agencies, such as Area Agencies on Aging or community action agencies.

Begin your holiday shopping at Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation! Entertainment books for 2011, Philadelphia North, are now on sale at $30 each. Regal/United Artists movie tickets are on sale for just $7.50 each, and tickets to the Adventure Aquarium, Baltimore Aquarium, and the Philadelphia Zoo are also available. Discounted ski vouchers to area mountains will be arriving in December; call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

RSVP of Montgomery County and the Wissahickon Valley Public Library have partnered again to offer the public their popular free mock interview sessions. The mock interviews are conducted by RSVP volunteers who are retired professionals, some of whom were in hiring positions themselves. Packets of information which include a sample employment application and interviewing tips with mock interview questions are available at the library to pick up prior to a scheduled mock interview or will be sent via email once the interview is scheduled. To schedule your interview, please contact Janis Glusman at RSVP 610-834-1040, ext. 16. The library is also offering a free resume review service. Bring in your current resume and the professional reference staff will assist you with hints and tips on capturing your work history accurately.

Registration for Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation summer playgrounds, Camp B.I.G. and Small Folks, X-Zone, and sports camps has began. Register online at www.upperdublin.net/store, or at the UDP&R office, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington. Call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Danielles Espresso Cafe presents Mornings at Mondaug Bark Park April 16 and May 21 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Meet fellow dog lovers. These events include complimentary coffee, treats for people and pups and raffles/giveaways.

Upper Dublins Annual Spring Flea Market will be held June 4 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reserve a table, or come and shop. Tables are $15 for UD residents, $20 for non-residents. This successful event occurs rain or shine. Refreshments available. Call 215-643-1600 ext. 3443 to register for a table.

Regal movie tickets available for purchase at Upper Dublin Township Parks & Recreation. Reduced rate: $7.50 per ticket. Some restrictions apply. Call 215-643-1600 x3443.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation movie tickets $7.50 Regal Cinemas, United Artist & Edwards Cinemas on sale throughout the year Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation Camp Sign-ups for Stony Creek Day Camp  Stony Creek Tracers and Park n Tots. Register on-line at www.whitpaintownship.org OrCome to Township Building with check or Visa MasterCard Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m. For additional information call 610.277-2400 ext. 374

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation offers exciting new programs for the fall:

-Returning favorites include UK Elite Petite Soccer, Tiny Dancers, Kiddie Tennis, Fun-nastics, Messy Playtime, Little Chefs, and more. Babysitters Training will be offered in November and December. Continuing Adult Fitness Classes include Cardio Circuit, Core & More, Yoga, Boxing, and Adult G.Y.M. For more information call 215-643-1600 x3443. Register for programs online at www.upperdublin.net/store.

Music and Theater

The community is invited to a Cantors Concert April 16 at 8 p.m. Congregation Beth Or, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen. Listen and hum-along to the Yiddish, pop tunes and classical music performed by Congregation Beth Ors own Cantor David Green and his special guest, Cantor Irvin Bell, from Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Fla. The cantors will be accompanied by Mark Sobol and his Klezmer musicians. Tickets are $18 in advance and $25 at the door. RSVP with payment to Barb Murtha, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen, PA 19002, or call 215-646-5806 ext. 220.

Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse will host the Jameson Sisters May 14. Doors open at 7:30 pm, performance at 8:00 pm. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse is located at the corner of Rte. 202 & Sumneytown Pike, Gwynedd. $5 suggested donation. Light refreshment available at a modest cost. For further information, call 215-393-9576 or visit gwyneddmeeting.org/coffeehouse.html.

Celebrate patriotism through song with Gwynedd-Mercy Colleges choir, the Voices of Gwynedd, as it presents Hear America Singing April 15 at 8 p.m. The choir will perform song selections from all over the country, including Georgia on My Mind, New York State of Mind, and a medley including Philadelphia Freedom and Allentown. The performance will end with When the Saints Go Marching In to acknowledge the choirs upcoming tour in New Orleans. Hear America Singing will take place in the Julia Ball Auditorium, located in St. Bernard Hall. Parking is available in lots A, C and D. Admission is free.

The Choristers will present Anton Dvoraks Stabat Mater April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church in Ambler. The choir will be accompanied by a 41-piece orchestra. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for senior citizens, $10 for students and children are free. Tickets will be sold in advance or at the door. For more information, call 215-542-7871 or visit TheChoristers.org

Religious News

The Staircase Gallery at Or Hadash: A Reconstructionist Congregation in Fort Washington will feature the work of Emily Ennuat-Lustine. The artist will be showing paintings and graphics inspired by her own personal spiritual journey and quest for meaning. Some of the works to be shown have been inspired by Biblical Psalms and writings. Her work has been shown at Abington Art Center, Cheltenham Arts Center and Old City Gallery of Jewish Art among others. The exhibition is open Friday evenings starting Feb. 18 after Shabbat services. Gallery hours are: Mondays through Thursdays 10-4:30, Fridays 10-3 and following Shabbat Services and Sundays 10-1. The synagogue is located at 190 Camp Hill Road in Fort Washington. For additional information contact the synagogue office at 215-283-0276.

Reunions

St. Matthews High School Conshohocken Class of 1961 is looking for classmates. For details, contact Greg Marincola at 215-646-2239, 215-740-1296 or gregcola@comcast.net.

Olney High School Class of 1971 is Lloking for classmates for a 40th reunion Oct. 28. For details, contact Judy at ohsclassof71@yahoo.com or 215-870-7572.

Abington High School Class of 1961 is seeking classmates for a 50-year reunion to be held Oct. 14-15, 2011.Visit the website, www.abington61.com, for details or call 215-947-1779.

Overbrook High School class of January 1956 is having a 55 year reunion on May 22, 2011 at the Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia. For information please contact overbrookreunion56@comcast.net

Germantown High School Class Of January 1961 is looking for classmates for 50th year reunion to take place in May of 2011. Please contact: 215-362-9148, 856-577-0659 or samdelcomo@comcast.net

The June 1961 class of Germantown High School is holding their 50th reunion on May 15, which will be a brunch. For further details please contact Linda Dorfman Alten at lindaalten@yahoo.com or call 215-441-8411.

Support

New Life Presbyterian Church in Dresher, will host GriefShare, a special seminar and support group which will run on Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m., from March 7 through June 6. At each meeting there will be a DVD about the grief process, discussion and reference to a grief workbook. Preregistration is required to secure a place in the group and to purchase a GriefShare notebook (for a one-time fee of $15). The notebook goes along with the 13-week schedule covering such topics as: living with grief, the effects of grief, and stuck in grief. For more information or to register, call: Sandy Elder at 215-884-5149.

PUPS (People Understanding Parkinsons) A self-help group for those adjusting to a new diagnosis or dealing with the early stages of Parkinsons Disease. Meets fourth Tuesday of the month from 1 to 2:30 p.m., at Abington Health Center, Schilling Campus, Willowood Building, 2510 Maryland Road, Suite 251, Willow Grove. For more information or to RSVP, contact Lorna at 215-542-2931.

The North Penn Visiting Nurse Associations Meals on Wheels program is looking for volunteers to pack or deliver meals to the elderly and infirmed. Meals are packed and delivered mornings, Monday through Friday. You can volunteer for as many days per week or month as you would like. Packaging meals requires approximately 2-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves making sandwiches, packaging food into individual serving containers and packing coolers with the meals. Delivering meals requires approximately 1-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves loading coolers into your car and delivering a route of approximately 10 to 15 stops. The Meals on Wheels program is also in need of emergency, winter-weather volunteers to pack and deliver meals in bad weather. North Penn VNA is located at 51 Medical Campus Drive in Lansdale and delivers meals in the Lansdale, North Wales and Blue Bell areas. For more information or to volunteer, please call Bridget, North Penn VNA Meals on Wheels coordinator at 215-855-8296.

Elkins Park Area CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) meets the first Tuesday of every month, 7- 8:30 p.m., at Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital in Elkins Park. For information on CHADD or ADHD, please see our website www.chadd.net/249 or call Claire Noyes at: 215-779-6656.

Center for Loss and Bereavement, 3847 Skippack Pike, Skippack (610-222-4110) www.bereavementcenter.org Offers professional counseling for individuals, couples, children and families dealing with issues of loss and bereavement. Six-week adult support groups: Newly forming young adult grief support group  every other Wednesday, 7  8:15 p.m. (free of charge); Monthly loss of child support  second Mondays, 7-8:15 p.m.; Six-week young loss of spouse/partner  Thursdays, 10-11:15 a.m.; Other groups scheduled as interest is shown for suicide loss support, adult loss of parent, motherless daughters, adult loss of sibling, coping with chronic illness and disability and mens loss of spouse. Nellos Corner Family Bereavement program offers peer grief support groups for ages 4 through teen and their caregivers  Every other Tuesday or Wednesday (free of charge) Local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children also meets at the Center. Registration required. Call for further information.

CHADD is a national organization for children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, providing education, advocacy and support for individuals and their families with AD/HD. Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital, 60 Township Line Road, Elkins Park, PA 19027, will host children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder on the First Tuesday of each month 7  8:30 p.m. Free, no childcare provided.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphias Kehillah of Old York Road is sponsoring a free Caregiver Support Group for individuals who care for an elderly person with cognitive and/or physical impairments. The group meets at SarahCare Adult Day Care Center, 101 Washington Lane, Suite G-6, Jenkintown, Pa., on the first Wednesday of each month. Patty Rich,
Today

HomeStore, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., 701 E. Dodge St., Fremont. The HomeStore sells donated items at discounted prices. Proceeds support the mission of Fremont Area Habitat for Humanity.

Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, 10 a.m., Chapter 5 Club, 136 N. Main St., Fremont.

American Red Cross blood drive, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Fremont Mall. To make an appointment to give blood, download the Red Cross Blood Donor App, visit www.redcrossblood.org or call 800-733-2767.

Cudly Massage & Wellness open house, 10 a.m. to noon, 830 N. Bell St., Fremont.

Free Family Flicks featuring Ice Age: Collision Course, 10:30 a.m., Main Street 7 Theatres at Fremont Mall. Doors will open at 10 a.m. Seating is first-come, first-served. No advance ticketing is available. Admission is free. The theatre will be collecting new or gently used children books. (Suggested donation is one book per person.) The books will be donated to a local organization.

Storytime, 11-11:30 a.m., Keene Memorial Library auditorium, Fremont.

Alcoholics Anonymous womens heart to heart group, noon, Chapter 5 Club, Fremont.

Jayne Gustafson Benefit, 3-11:30 p.m., Fremont City Auditorium. A silent auction, bake sale and 50/50 raffle will be from 3-7 p.m. Food will be available at 4:30 p.m. ($7 a plate or free will donation). A live auction will be from 7-8:30 p.m. with DJ Brad Scott and dancing to follow from 8:30-11:30 p.m. Jayne (Cunningham) Gustafson is a breast cancer survivor, but in August of 2016 her cancer returned as Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer. She is currently taking treatments that will last indefinitely.

Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, 5:15 p.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont.

Narcotics Anonymous open meeting, 7:30 p.m., United Faith Church, 218 W. Gardiner St., Valley.

Narcotics Anonymous Lie Is Dead Group, 8 p.m., Care Corps, 723 N. Broad St., Fremont.

Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, 10:30 p.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont.

Sunday

Alcoholics Anonymous Happy Sober Sunday Group, 9 a.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont.

Psalm 150 instrumentals rehearsal, 9:30 a.m., Redeemer Lutheran Church, Hooper. Students in grades 7-12 are invited to rehearse. For more information, call Redeemer at 402-654-3835.

Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, 10 a.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont.

Free Family Flicks featuring Ice Age: Collision Course, 10:30 a.m., Main Street 7 Theatres at Fremont Mall. Doors will open at 10 a.m. Seating is first-come, first-served. No advance ticketing is available. Admission is free. The theatre will be collecting new or gently used children books. (Suggested donation is one book per person.) The books will be donated to a local organization.

Narcotics Anonymous Seekers of Serenity Group, 10:30 a.m., Care Corps, 723 N. Broad St., Fremont.

Valentines Day dinner, 5 p.m., St. Benedict Center, Schuyler. Married couples are invited for Mass at the chapel of St. Benedict Center, followed by a four-course Valentines Day dinner at 6 p.m. Advance reservations and pre-payment is required. For more information, call 402-352-8819.

Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, 5:15 p.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont.

Narcotics Anonymous Point of Freedom Group, 7 p.m., Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Education Building, west of the church, 1440 E. Military Ave., Fremont. Enter through the rear door.

Alcoholics Anonymous Sunday speaker, 7:30 p.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont.

Monday

TOPS Club (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), 9 a.m., First United Methodist Church, 850 N. Broad St., Fremont. Weigh-ins begin at 8 a.m. Visitors (preteens, teens and adults  male and female) are welcome. The first meeting is free. For more information, call Janet Bloemker at 402-721-8952.

Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, 10 a.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont.

Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, noon, Chapter 5 Club, Fremont.

Breast Cancer Support Group, noon-1 p.m., Dunklau Conference Room, Fremont Health Medical Center.

Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, 5:15 p.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont.

Fremont Board of Education, 6:30 p.m., Main Street Education and Administration Building, 130 E. Ninth St., Fremont.

Narcotics Anonymous basic text study, 6:30 p.m., Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Education Building, west of the church, 1440 E. Military Ave., Fremont. Enter through the rear door.

Platte Valley Civil War Round Table, 6:30 p.m., Keene Memorial Library, Fremont. The public is invited.

Fremont After 5 Christian Womens Club, 6:45 p.m., Midland University dining hall, Fremont.

Celebrate Recovery, 7-9 p.m., Sanctuary Church, 1640 W. Military Ave., Fremont. Childcare is available.

Celebrate Recovery, 7 p.m., Fremont Church of the Nazarene, 960 Johnson Road.

Alcoholics Anonymous 12x12 meeting, 8 p.m., Chapter 5 Club, Fremont.
February 11, 2017 Open Thread 2017-06 News, views & whatever ... Posted by b on February 11, 2017 at 14:35 UTC | Permalink Comments
CLAREMONT  A Catawba County woman was killed after colliding with a school bus Friday afternoon.

Terri Lasher, 31, was killed when she crossed the center line in her Dodge Caliber and crashed into a Catawba County Schools bus on Bethany Church Road.

She crossed the center line, and hit the bus head-on, N.C. State Highway Patrol trooper Bobby Lineberger said. It was a very violent crash. With the slow speed of the bus, and the dynamics of the bus being a lot heavier than the car, it is going to push the car off the road.

No one in the bus, which held three students, a driver and a student aide, was injured. Catawba County Schools did not release the name of the school the students attend.

Lineberger said the bus was heading south at a slow rate of speed. He said they did not know how fast the other vehicle was going at the moment of impact.

He tried to avoid her. He saw her crossing the centerline and he ran off the road to try to avoid her, Linberger said.

The SHP will investigate the crash further, and an autopsy is pending. Lineberger said they had not yet identified what caused Lasher to cross the centerline, but investigators do plan to download Lashers cellphone record to determine if she was using the device prior to the crash.

Lineberger said the SHP has received several speeding complaints along the road.

At the present, we work this road on a regular basis, Lineberger said. We encourage people to pay attention to what theyre doing because our children are our main concern.

Traveling in the afternoons and in the mornings, we want to make sure they can go home from school safely.
I save things. One of these days, I really must pare all the stuff I have accumulated, but I have a penchant for connecting memories with things, or I convince myself that somebody other than me thinks all these items are important or collectible.

I have a fairly large window sticker, oval, that states: NATO Your Best Bet For Peace. I have no idea where I got it, but it may have been at the Knoxville Worlds Fair.

NATO was formed in 1949 as the counterpoint to the Soviet Unions Iron Curtain. The basic premise is that an attack by an enemy on any member nation is considered an attack on all and the members must support each other. However, that doesnt mean everybody goes to war.

NATO members may judge for themselves what kind of aid to give and how to deliver it.

Fine-tuning the NATO military command structure was overseen by the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces from World War II, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. That was in 1951. Ike got the job done just in time to become our president in 1952.

There is another article of the NATO charter that mandates consultation if a member nation feels threatened. Turkey has invoked that article four times, Poland once  the only instances of official come-help-us military consultation in NATO history.

NATO was the right thing to do when the Iron Curtain appeared impenetrable. The Iron Curtain is gone, but plenty more curtains  some without catchy nicknames  persist. I have my window sticker, just for reassurance.

I must say Ronald Reagans Trust but verify sounds better every day.

Then theres the USS North Carolina. Its an awesome battlewagon. Ive visited the ship and I have collected several trinkets over the years. But rummaging through some stuff looking for other stuff, I came across a fact sheet that jogged my memory about just how important the North Carolina was in WWII.

It was the only American battleship to engage in all of the 12 major naval offensives in the Pacific. It was the first U.S. battleship to fire into Japanese territory. The ship traveled more than 300,000 miles during the war and consumed approximately 2 million gallons of fuel.

Thats slightly more than 6.5 gallons per statute mile. Well, the ship displaces 35,000 tons and carried an active-duty crew of 2,000.

If you havent been to Wilmington to see the battleship memorial, you should. After all, its not that far north from the Grand Strand, and lots of us go there when we can.

And in the good riddance department, an item that was saved from an 1888 copy of the Newton Enterprise newspaper that I am now saving. I redact last names, you know, just in case.

On Sunday, the thirteenth day of May 1988, William, aged eighteen years and my wife, Sarah, aged forty years, ran away from my home in Lincoln County. William is about five feet and six inches high, has dark hair, fair complexion, and black eyes, short black beard on his face and weighs about 165 pounds.

Sarah is a small spare-made woman with light red hair, fair complexion with warts on the back of the left hands, weighs about 112 pounds, and uses eyeglasses in reading or sewing. I think they have gone to South Carolina. Probably to some cotton factory.

I publish this not to bring them back to this county again, but to let the good people know who they are, wherever they may be. The announcement was signed by husband Joseph.

Ol Joe didnt leave much to the imagination, making sure people knew without a doubt Williams beard was on his face. I do wonder how many left hands, warts and all, Sarah had.

The irony is I found this forgotten item not long after hearing Rod Stewart sing on the radio about a woman named Maggie. It appears William was not as indecisive as Rod.

Reach Larry Clark at wryturlc@yahoo.com.
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Schlumberger has donated software valued at $44 million to the University of Texas of the Permian Basin geology program.

The donation is a three-year license for the Petrel and Techlog E&P software platform, which allows geologists and geophysicists to interpret well log and seismic data to locate oil and gas reservoirs.
Selena Gomez will always last Fred Armissen close to her heart. When the Murders Under Construction star had a kidney transplant in 2017, she knew she wanted to give her new organ a special name. "I named it after Fred Armisen because I
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 []
Republican legislation to make prosecutors prove a defendant did not fire a gun in self-defense under the state's controversial "stand your ground" law is on a fast track to passage.

The bill passed a key Senate committee this week.

SB 128 shifts burden of proof in 'stand your ground' law to prosecutors

Right now, a person must prove they shot in self-defense under SYG

Bill is on a fast track through Legislature by Republican leaders

The measure, SB 128, would shift the burden of proof in stand-your-ground cases to prosecutors. The Supreme Court in 2015 ruled that defendants must prove their use of lethal force was a legitimate means of self-defense, entitling them to immunity from prosecution under the law.

"All this bill does is put the burden of proof back on the state, where it belongs, so that once again a person who uses self-defense is innocent until proven guilty," United Sportsmen of Florida President Marion Hammer testified Thursday before the Senate Rules Committee. "Anytime the state charges you with a crime, they have the burden to prove you committed the crime."

The proposal failed to pass the legislature in 2016, with gun control advocates warning it would effectively diminish the threat of prosecution in shooting incidents, leading more gun-wielding Floridians to make rash life-and-death decisions. The same arguments are being made this year, despite the gun lobby's improved post-election standing.

"This is not something that we need," said Sen. Perry Thurston (D-Fort Lauderdale). "You know, in the medical field, they say, 'first do no harm.' This bill is going to do substantial harm. I would urge my colleagues not to vote for this."

The Senate bill, as well as its companion bill in the House, have been fast-tracked by the legislature's Republican leaders. Florida's annual legislative session begins March 7.
Hale County commissioners and Plainview City Council members are expected to consider an interlocal agreement in meetings this week to allow the two governmental entities to work together on two joint road resurfacing projects.

Commissioners meet in regular session Monday while the council meets Tuesday night. Both discussed the projects during work sessions last week -- the city met Thursday and the county on Friday.

The joint roadway projects involve resurfacing Andy Taylor Road and Westridge Road. Different stretches of both heavily-traveled thoroughfares are maintained by the city and county, with part of Westridge Road also maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation.

The Westridge Road portion of the project is expected to be resurfaced as part of the citys 2017 Seal Coat Project. On Tuesday, the council is expected to approve a $471,030 bid from G&G Operations of Dalhart for the city seal coating project covering 211,500 square-yards, at a cost of $2.22 per square-yard. The cost of the Westridge Road project  from US 70 to Southwest Third, and on to the overpass -- is set at $16,650.

The work on Andy Taylor Road is expected to be done in-house by city and county road crews, with the city furnishing the necessary oil and the county furnishing rock. It will go from US 70 to 24th Street and cost to the county is expected to be $10,910.

By the city and county working together, it will benefit all concerned and the cost is much less than if we did our part individually, Precinct 1 Commissioner Harold King said. Its just good business.

In other action Monday, commissioners are scheduled to:

--Consider reappointing five members of the Hale County Hospital Authority Board whose current two-year terms expire March 31. They include Donald Ebeling Jr., Dr. Bobby Hall, Frances Barrera, Danny Glenn and Jim Mock.

--Review and approve the Lower Runningwater Draw Site 4 Inspection Report.

--Consider a request to join the Plainview Downtown Association. Dues are $100.

--Consider a request to join the Association of Rural Communities in Texas, with a membership fee of $395.

--Consider converting the private ownership of hangers at the Plainview/Hale County Airport to public ownership, as suggested in the facilitys master plan. While the property is jointly owned the City of Plainview and Hale County, the hangers are privately owned which disqualifies the airport for some state and federal grants.

--Take action on a request to name Brent Bass as Precinct 1 road foreman.

--Authorize Precinct 4 Commissioner Benny Cantwell to begin the process of assembling an internet auction of surplus county equipment, including used pickups from the sheriffs office and Ollie Liner Center and surplus office furniture.

--Consider hiring Jessie Canalez as 64th District Court administrator.

--Approve 2016 activity reports from the Abernathy and Halfway volunteer fire departments and release their 2017 stipends.

--Consider a personnel request from the sheriffs department and review its racial profiling report for 2016.

--Approve current accounts payable, including $599,923 from the 2016 budget and $324,753 from the 2017 budget.

The meeting begins at 9 a.m. Monday in the courthouse at 500 Broadway and is open to the public.
Californias second-largest reservoir filled with so much water Saturday, thanks to extraordinary winter storms and unexpected damage to a release channel, that officials at Oroville Dam took the unprecedented step of opening the lakes emergency spillway.

Dam operators said the maneuver posed no risk of flooding or dam failure on the Feather River, about 75 miles north of Sacramento. But the untested move sent lake water cascading down a muddy hillside where boulders and brush in the unpaved spill route threatened to wash into the river and create hazards for fish and levees downstream.

The lakes power plant and electrical transmission towers at the foot of the dam, the nations tallest at 770 feet, were also being monitored for damage.

Officials said the emergency spillway, activated at 8 a.m. Saturday, would remain in use through at least Sunday night as mountain runoff from recent storms continued to swell the lake.

The event that we never wanted to happen, and didnt expect to happen, has happened, said Doug Carlson, spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources, which owns and operates the dam and reservoir. But it has performed as we hoped it would, even though it was the first time.

Problems for the reservoir began Tuesday when a section of the lakes primary spillway  a concrete channel to the Feather River below that is 180 feet wide and more than 3,000 feet long  collapsed amid high-volume water releases.

The resulting craterlike hole has grown dramatically, prompting officials to ease the amount of water released out the main spillway and ultimately use the emergency channel to keep the lake from flowing over the top of the dam. The emergency spillway, which is nothing more than an open hill that drains toward the river, has not been used since the dam was built in 1968, when Ronald Reagan was governor.

Lake Oroville is a key state water-storage plant, second in carrying capacity to only Lake Shasta. It supplies water to Central Valley farms as well as several urban water agencies, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

The reservoir also provides flood control for downstream communities and helps regulate salinity in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

State officials had hoped to avoid using the emergency spillway and, as late as Friday afternoon, remained optimistic that necessary releases could be handled by the main spillway. Crews, however, took the precautionary measure of clearing the emergency channel of brush, trees and other debris, which served them well when they realized Saturday morning that more water needed to be liberated from the lake.

Once Lake Oroville reaches 901 feet above sea level, which is 21 feet below the top of the dam, water begins to flow automatically into the emergency corridor.

The spillway was expected to release up to 12,000 cubic feet of water per second, a relatively small amount compared with the roughly 90,000 cubic feet of water per second that was pouring into the reservoir Saturday. But it was still enough to send a steady stream of water into a diversion pool below and ultimately into the Feather River.

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection teams were running boats downriver, where they deployed floating traps to catch debris.

It doesnt sound like theyre retrieving a whole lot, said Cal Fire Capt. Dan Olson. What little they are getting theyre moving to the shoreline.

Dam operators continued to release water out of the main spillway, too, despite its damage. About 55,000 cubic feet of water per second was being released Saturday afternoon, well short of the 270,000 cubic feet the channel was built to handle.

The total outflow from the lake, anticipated to be as much as 67,000 cubic feet per second, was not likely to create flooding problems, officials said.

The rated capacity of Feather River is much bigger than that, much larger, Carlson said. So there is no public danger. There is no expected evacuation.

The cost of repairing the channel rose from previous estimates Saturday, to as much as $200 million, but the fix cant be made until winter rains end and water releases are no longer necessary. An alternative option presented by state officials is to build a new spillway at another point on the lake.

Continuing to use the impaired spillway not only risks more damage to the structure, but also was posing a threat to the Hyatt Powerplant, officials said. Concrete chunks from the spillways tear were piling up beneath the dam, causing water to pool up behind the debris and flow toward the utility station.

The water in the pool creates a certain amount of back pressure, said Eric See with the Department of Water Resources. That can lead to damage. We definitely dont want to damage our power plant.

The station was shut down late Friday, and as of Saturday afternoon, no damage had been reported.

Besides being unable to generate electricity when its closed, the power house also is unable to serve as a third release point on the reservoir. When its in service, the power house discharges as much as 14,000 cubic feet of water per second downriver.

Two sets of transmission towers along the emergency spillway were also at risk of collapsing as water releases softened the ground and destabilized the soil, officials said.

Water releases earlier last week on the main spillway already have turned the Feather Rivers normally clear water brown with silt and debris, a problem for fish.

At the Feather River Fish Hatchery about 4 miles downstream, where endangered salmon are reared, the cloudiness of the water was running off the charts, said a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

With the turbidity threatening to asphyxiate the salmon, hatchery workers had been frantically collecting fish all week and trucking them to a nearby holding pond. By Saturday afternoon, 10 million salmon had been moved, officials said.

The hatchery is very important to California salmon production, said John McManus, executive director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association.

It provides a lot of the fish that are caught in the ocean, McManus said. The loss of those fish would indeed be a blow to the salmon fishery.

The cause of the spillway rupture remained unknown Saturday.

The dam and spillway passed a routine safety review in 2015, but inspectors did not specifically examine the sloped surface of the chute, doing only a visual evaluation from above. State officials did not say why a closer inspection wasnt performed.

Improvements had been made to the the spillway in 2013, officials said, though it was not immediately clear if the work was in the same area as the recent tear.

In 2010, dam managers were reprimanded by state safety officials for operating without a critical piece of equipment a year earlier, which caused a wall to collapse at the power plant and five employees to be nearly sucked out of the facility by a powerful vacuum.

Downstream Saturday, Oroville residents had no doubt that everything was under control at the lake.

Im not worried, said Cooper Davis, 15, who was working an evening shift at the Boss Burger, where he could see the river rushing below. But you can tell that something is wrong. The water is real milky.

The height of the river, though, remained nothing out of the ordinary.

Many residents remembered the flows in 1997, when nearly twice as much water was being released from the dam during an unusually stormy winter. The season brought widespread flooding to the region.

This year is also on track to be an usually wet one. Seasonal precipitation in the northern Sierra measured 228 percent of average for the date, as of Saturday, while snowpack across the range was at 180 percent of normal.

The forecast is for sun over the next few days. State officials hope dry weather will help lower water levels at Lake Oroville and eliminate the need for continued emergency releases.
A road crew employee killed in the Santa Cruz Mountains on Thursday while clearing a mudslide on Highway 17, which continued to be plagued by sliding debris Friday, was working alongside his son when he was fatally struck by a dump truck, a colleague said Friday.

Bobby Gill, a 54-year-old Los Banos resident, was part of the best paving crew at Graniterock, a construction company in Watsonville, said Keith Severson, a spokesman for the company.

He was just good people. This is simply a devastating tragedy, Severson said. He cared about the people he worked with and cared about doing a good job and cared about his family.

More slides caused problems on the highway Friday as boulders and mud broke loose on hillsides and covered the road. The thoroughfare was closed again in both directions Friday afternoon in a 7-mile stretch between Granite Creek Road in Santa Cruz County and Summit Road in Santa Clara County. There was no estimate for when the road would be reopened, according to Jim Shivers, a Caltrans spokesman. The southbound lanes re-opened in the evening, but the northbound lanes were still closed, trapped under piles of debris.

Gills death happened around noon on Thursday near Scotts Valley, and left a co-worker, 33-year-old Stephen Whittier of San Jose, in a hospital with major injuries.

Work on clearing the road was halted following the fatality, and conditions worsened on the road overnight.

During the overnight hours, the additional rain caused more mud and rocks to fall into the northbound lane, which is the existing closure area. There was concern this debris could spread into the southbound lanes, so we decided to shut down the southbound lanes in the interest of public safety while we perform slide removal, Shivers said.

Caltrans engineers determined Friday that the site was not yet completely safe for workers and suspended the debris removal until it is, according to CHP Officer Trista Drake.

Graniterock had been contracted by Caltrans to clear the massive mudslide, which struck Tuesday and completely closed Highway 17 in Scotts Valley for hours. At the time of the fatality, only one lane of traffic was open in each direction of the busy highway.

CHP officials identified the driver of the dump truck as Daniel Harrington, 39, of Salinas, who worked for Hildebrand Trucking in Watsonville.

Obviously, when we have a job like Highway 17, that takes the best of the best. He was on that crew, Severson said of Gill.

And working right beside Gill that day was his son.

Theres lots of family here at Graniterock, Severson said. His son was on the crew with him that day.

Gill had been working for the construction company for 15 years and was known not just for being good at his job, but also for caring for the people around him, Severson said.

Hes just a super guy, Severson said.

Graniterock organized an online fundraising campaign to raise money for Gills family.

After days of stormy weather, the weekend is expected to be sunny and dry in the Bay Area before another bout of rain moves in late next week, said Steve Anderson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Meanwhile, Northern California residents were busy mopping up Friday from major rainstorms on Tuesday and Thursday that triggered numerous mudslides, toppled trees and flooded streets and homes.

Even as the cleanup was under way, more flooding and landslides occurred throughout Northern California on Friday. The Russian River in Guerneville swelled to a little over 34 feet, 2 feet above flood stage, Friday, causing minimal to moderate flooding, said Sgt. Spencer Crum with the Sonoma County Sheriffs Office.

Most homes in that area are built on stilts or raised in some fashion, Crum said. Theres usually very little damage at that level of river flooding.

A mudslide along Interstate 80 in Truckee closed a section of the road in both directions Friday, officials said. A report came in around 9:38 a.m. of mud and trees across all lanes of Interstate 80, said Officer Peter Mann, a California Highway Patrol spokesman. No injuries were reported.

Westbound I-80 was closed at State Route 20, while eastbound lanes of the interstate were closed at Colfax, Mann said. It was unclear when the interstate would be reopened.

And on Highway 35 near Las Cumbres Road near Los Gatos, a chunk of roadway collapsed into the mountainside, leaving a gaping hole where the road used to be. It was closed indefinitely, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Sarah Ravani, Jenna Lyons and Filipa A. Ioannou are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com, jlyons@sfchronicle.com, fioannou@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani, @JennaJourno, @obioannoukenobi
Tuesday

Sharpen Your Marketing Message and Harness the Power of Mobile Marketing: Hosted by SCORE. 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., United Way Community Resource Center, 50 Waugh Drive. Information: www.scorehouston.org.

Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization: 9:30 a.m.-noon, UH Bauer College SBDC, 2302 Fannin, Suite 200. Cost: $29. Information: www.sbdc.uh.edu.

Secrets to Advertising Online: 10 a.m.-1 p.m., UH Bauer College SBDC, 2302 Fannin, Suite 200. Cost: $39. Information: www.sbdc.uh.edu.

Wednesday

Protecting Your Business from Cybercrime: 911:30 a.m., UH Bauer College SBDC, 2302 Fannin, Suite 200. Cost: $29. Information: www.sbdc.uh.edu.

Understanding How to Use the SBA Dynamic Small Business Search System for Marketing and Partnering: 9 a.m.-noon, UH Bauer College SBDC, 2302 Fannin, Suite 200. Cost: $19. Information: www.sbdc.uh.edu.

Thursday

Starting Your Business: Conducted in Spanish. 9 a.m.-noon, UH Bauer College SBDC, 2302 Fannin, Suite 200. Cost: $39. Information: www.sbdc.uh.edu.

Small Business Marketing: 10 a.m.-1 p.m., UH Bauer College SBDC, 2302 Fannin, Suite 200. Cost: $25. Information: www.sbdc.uh.edu.

Business Requirements for Operating a Business in the City of Houston: 1-3 p.m., UH Bauer College SBDC, 2302 Fannin, Suite 200. Cost: Free. Information: www.sbdc.uh.edu.

Friday

Starting a Real Estate Business: Four-part series hosted by SCORE. Fridays through March 31, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Palm Center, Technology Center, 5330 Griggs. Information: www.scorehouston.org.

E-Z Business Plan: 10:30 a.m.-noon, Woodlands Chamber of Commerce, 9320 Lakeside Blvd., suite 200, The Woodlands. Information: www.scorehouston.org.

Saturday

Know Your Intellectual Property Rights: Hosted by SCORE. 10:30 a.m.-noon, Clear Lake City-County Freeman Library, 16616 Diana Lane. Information: www.scorehouston.org.
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A Fairfield man suspected of trying to lure a 15-year-old girl into his car two days in a row has been taken into custody, officials said Friday.

Ausencio Rosales-Ramos, 35, was arrested on suspicion of annoying and molesting a child under 18 years old, officials said. Rosales-Ramos had apparently been driving without a license, so he also faces charges of being an unlicensed driver, police said.

Fairfield police officers arrested Rosales-Ramos while conducting a surveillance operation around Beck Avenue near Cadenasso Drive, where the victim said the back-to-back incidents occurred.

Rosales-Ramos was driving a car matching the victims description in a nearby neighborhood when officers contacted him and pulled him over at Burgundy Way near Sunhaven Drive around 7 a.m. on Friday. Rosales-Ramos toddler son was in the car at the time the arrest was made, police said.

Rosales-Ramos was later positively identified as the suspect who tried to lure the teenage girl into his car.

He allegedly attempted to offer the teen victim a ride both Wednesday and Thursday about 7:15 a.m, according to Fairfield police. He approached her as she was walking around the same spot on Beck Avenue near Cadenasso Drive both days.

The victim declined both ride offers from the suspect, who was reportedly wearing a blue hoodie with the hood pulled over his head. On Wednesday, the suspect pulled into a parking lot, then made a circle so he could drive past the victim again when she reached Cadenasso Drive, police said.

The victim reported she thought she was being followed. After the second nearly identical incident Thursday, she contacted police.

An investigator found nearby security camera footage of the suspect vehicle, described as a light-colored early 2000s Lincoln Navigator, and police circulated the video Thursday evening.

Sgt. Jeff Osgood, a Fairfield Police Department spokesman, said authorities had no evidence there were other girls the man was trying to lure into his car.

Rosales-Ramos was booked into Solano County Jail.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno
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WASHINGTON  Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy will be on the Senate panel that grills President Donald Trumps controversial nominee for secretary of labor, Andy Puzder, at his confirmation hearing Feb. 16.

Murphy and other Democrats have expressed opposition to Puzder, the chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants Inc., the parent company of fast-food giants Hardees and Carls Jr.

Murphy, a member of the Senate Health, Education and Pensions Committee, said he will not support Puzder because it's hard to imagine a worse nominee for the Department of Labor.

But Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the committee chairman, has rallied behind Puzder, calling him a business leader who understands how excessive regulation can destroy jobs and make it harder for family incomes to rise.

Murphy said he believed Trump looked for the business owner with the worst record of violating federal labor laws and put him in charge of those laws, adding that 50 percent of Puzders restaurants have been found to violate federal labor laws.

After the announcement of Puzders nomination, workers at CKE Restaurants protested in more than 20 cities. At a panel held by Democrats in Washington last month, several workers said they werent paid for overtime and struggled to survive earning the minimum wage.

Controversy also emerged after Puzder admitted he hired an undocumented woman as his housekeeper.

Puzder said he had no idea she was illegal and immediately ended her employment when he found out. Despite this, Puzder failed to pay taxes for her until Trump nominated him. In past confirmations, nominees have withdrawn under similar circumstances.

Democrats, including Murphy, have said they will try to block Puzder. But unless they gain Republican support, their efforts are unlikely to bear fruit.

Other controversial nominees, including Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, won narrow victories with votes mostly along party lines.

laura.lindarte@hearstdc.com
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NISKAYUNA  Sarah Tishler's legal education began at age 2, sitting on the lap of her father, appellate attorney Nicholas Tishler, who combined reading trial transcripts with baby-sitting duty in a converted backyard shed that doubles as his home law office.

"I've still got my little Playskool plastic kids' desk in there," she said. "I learned everything from my dad. He's my inspiration. I love being an attorney."
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Taste buds soared during the 31st Annual Taste of the Town Thursday at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott, where 105 vendors from across Montgomery County offered a variety of food and beverage samples for roughly 6,000 guests.

The ballroom of Waterway Marriott was packed with eager guests filing in and lining up at the vendor tables.

Taste of the Town is one of The Woodlands Area Chamber of Commerce's largest fundraisers of the year. Proceeds will go toward Chamber events throughout the year for local businesses and community members.

Taste of the Town also featured a live DJ for the first time. Additionally, the event raffled off numerous prizes, such as a mini wine refrigerator, gift cards and Valentine's Day couple packages.

Guests weaved through the booths, hands full of multiple samples, eyes perhaps bigger than their stomachs. The event was so busy that Spindletop Brewery ran out of beer and many other vendors ran out of merchandise only two hours into the five-hour event.

Kevin and Jennifer Napier said it is their first year attending Taste of the Town, and their favorite sample of the event was the lobster bisque at Brio Tuscan Grille.

Russell Kalousek was the team leader of this year's event. After volunteering with the Chamber of Commerce for nine years, Kalousek was ready to take on more responsibility.

"This year, we have about 15-20 different restaurants that weren't here last year," Kalousek said. "We definitely have a lot more current and up-to-date restaurants people may not have tried. We have people get a little taste of something they may not be able to normally."

One popular newcomer of the event was La Cantina Mexican Grill, which opened at the end of January. General Manager Rodrigo Bravo said he is happy to have been invited to Taste of the Town by the Chamber of Commerce. Bravo said guests at the event were especially raving the Pollo Loco (chicken wrapped in bacon with a jalapeno and oaxaca cheese) and the fried tamales.

"It's a great event to promote ourselves with the community; that's why we decided to join and help out," Bravo said. "We've been in business for about 17 years and took over the old Rico's on Woodlands Parkway and Kuykendall."

Some of the other new restaurants included Goode Co. Kitchen & Cantina and Johnny's Italian Steakhouse. Steak appeared to be the most popular sample of the evening, with Johnny's Italian Steakhouse and Bob's Steak & Chop House maintaining a long and steady line throughout the event.

Johnny's Italian Steakhouse Managing Director Thomas Mohr said the restaurant was looking for more visibility because of its surreptitious location in Shenandoah's new Holiday Inn. The booth offered Johnny's Steak Deburgo, which is a filet with an herb, garlic cream sauce and a white wine reduction, as well as the Betta Bruschetta that comes on grilled focaccia bread with soft goat cheese.

"It is incredible, it's more than we could have hoped for," Mohr said excitedly. "We're asking all these people, 'Have you been here before? Have you heard of us?' And we're getting a lot of no's, so we definitely made the right choice in coming here."
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Now that former County Judge and retired U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Jimmie Edwards III has the official green light from the City of Conroe and Montgomery County, he is busy working to find the Montgomery County War Memorial Park a new resting place.

The Conroe City Council on Thursday approved a resolution supporting the decommissioning of the memorial in downtown Conroe near the Montgomery County Tax Office. Montgomery County commissioners approved a similar resolution last month.

Edwards, a Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient who served in Vietnam from 1968-69 before losing his legs in a bombing, said those fallen warriors deserve more. He began his quest to move and expand the park last month.

And the best location, he said, is at the Lone Star Monument and Historical Flag Park near Interstate 45 and FM 2854.

"We have done a lot of work, a lot of veterans have done a lot of work on this, and we know we are just starting down the path," Edwards said.

The memorial originally was built in 1976 and dedicated by President Gerald Ford. Edwards, who after his service went on to serve Texas as a state representative during the 1970s before leading Montgomery County as county judge from 1983-87, led the effort to rebuild the park in the late 1980s.

At that time, Commissioners Court members, including Edwards as county judge, all donated $5,000 to rebuild the park and constructed a fountain to bear the names of the fallen military members.

Today, the memorial features the names of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to the country from World War I to present.

"There are 166 names there," Edwards said. "The sad part is there will probably be more names on it in time. I hope not, but it probably will."

Edwards said the vision of the park is endless. He said many would like to have the memorial include all those who have served from Montgomery County and a tribute to the many women who were left to handle duties such as firefighting while many of the men were at war.

A committee, Edwards said, would be put together to help manage the names and application process to have names put on the memorial.

"We are working on our 501(c)(3). We have money coming in now," he said. "It will be an outstanding place."

Floyd Stewart, post commander with the Conroe VFW Post 4709, said he hopes to make the area around the ponds at the corner of Interstate 45 and Texas 105 more of an outdoor museum.

"I would like to place military equipment and a bench along the walkway and pond," Stewart said. "It would be an eye-catcher coming down the freeway. It would be an asset to the city."

Edwards said he would work with the Texas Department of Transportation regarding the use of the property since TxDOT owns it and the city only maintains it.

"We can't do enough for our veterans," Powell said. "There needs to be a designated place for all to visit to read the history of our fallen and our veterans who have served. Y'all are doing a wonderful job."

Mayor Pro Tem Duke Coon agrees with Powell.

"Thank you, guys, for never giving up the fight," he said.
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OROVILLE, Butte County  A foaming mass of whitewater cascaded down the badly damaged Oroville Dam spillway Friday after state officials upped the flow in an attempt to avoid what would be an even more disastrous overflowing of Californias second-largest reservoir.

By increasing the flow, dam operators were conceding they were likely to lose a big portion of the spillway to erosion  perhaps the entire bottom half, or about 150 yards of concrete that will have to be painstakingly rebuilt during the dry months. The cost, state officials said Friday, will likely top $100 million.

As they spoke, the gaping hole in the spillway  which first cracked open Tuesday  got bigger as 65,000 cubic feet of water per second ripped into it, causing a rain-like mist to fall throughout the area just as the real rains that had caused the debacle ceased.

Were going to lose a lot of the spillway, said Chris Orrock, a spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources, which manages the nations tallest dam, about 75 miles north of Sacramento. The director has said we are willing to lose the bottom of that spillway to make sure we maintain flood control for the downstream communities.

The torrent was crashing over the side of the spillway onto a bed of rocks, scouring the hillside clear of vegetation and taking with it so much dirt that the Feather River turned into a soup full of debris, endangering millions of hatchery fish downstream.

As of Friday afternoon, Orrock said, more water was still flowing into the reservoir  which can hold 3.5 million acre-feet of water and helps supply farms and million of people  than was coming out.

If the water rose about 10 more feet, he said, it would begin gushing over the dams emergency spillway, a dirt channel 21 feet below the brim that has never been used in the structures 48-year existence.

That spillway has been criticized as deficient and dangerous by environmental groups. A 2002 analysis by the Yuba County Water Agency said use of the auxiliary spillway would cause severe erosion and deposit so much debris in the river that downstream structures could be damaged.

Although officials didnt expect to have to use the emergency spillway, forestry workers were clearing trees and other debris from the channel just in case.

The good news, Orrock said, is that the larger spillway, made of reinforced concrete, was peeling downward and not threatening the integrity of the 770-foot-high dam itself. If the erosion was moving up toward the dam, they would stop the flow, he said.

Nearby Oroville residents were still worried. Dan Rogers and several of his friends were so afraid of flooding Thursday that they left town and spent the night miles away in Chico.

Its pretty crazy, said Rogers, who returned after the rain stopped.

Although officials said the area wouldnt flood, the frothing Feather River had picked up so much muck that it was threatening to asphyxiate millions of salmon 4 miles downstream at the Feather River Fish Hatchery, forcing workers to frantically collect 8 million hatchlings and truck them 10 miles to a holding pond that uses well water.

The water flowing into the hatchery was measured to be 20 times as muddy as normal, said Harry Morse, a spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game. He said 6 million fish had been moved and that hatchery staffers would work through the day and night moving 2 million more. As many as 2 million of the 2-inch-long juvenile fish, though, will have no place to go.

You can only put so many fish in one place without them lacking oxygen, he said. We hope to get the silt settled. If we cant do that, we may have to let the last 2 million loose in the Feather River floodplain.

The Feather River hatchery produces more than half of all the salmon caught in the ocean and rivers, the most of any hatchery in California, which boasts a multimillion-dollar salmon industry.

Were in an emergency situation, Morse said. This is stuff that has never happened in the 48 years of the dam, so we are really scrambling. Were bringing staff, engineers, trucks in. Its a full-court press.

The forecast called for a five-day window of clear weather, and engineers plan to use the time to assess the situation and figure out what fixes need to be made. Clearly, though, the destruction is extensive.

Kevin Dossey, a civil engineer for the Department of Water Resources office in Oroville, said repairs to the spillway would likely take four to five months and cost more than $100 million.

On the hook for payment, state officials said, are beneficiaries of the California State Water Project  29 urban and agricultural water agencies that include the mammoth Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

It wouldnt be surprising that state water contractors would be paying the bill, said Jim Fiedler, the chief operating officer for the Santa Clara Valley Water District. But we would certainly hope that they would seek emergency funding to help pay for it.

While the cause of the break in the spillway is not yet known, officials said repairs were made on the chute in 2013 after it was used during storms in 2011 and 2012. Dossey said he wasnt sure whether the fixes were made in the same area as the new damage.

I dont think anybody on the inspection team or repair team would say more should be done because there wasnt any evidence more needed to be done, Dossey said. The repairs were smooth.

An inspection of the dam and spillway in July 2015 deemed it safe, but experts did not walk the sloped surface to look for cracks and other potential problems, state records show. A visual inspection from some distance indicated no visible signs of concrete deficiencies, said the report compiled by the Division of Safety of Dams, a branch of the Department of Water Resources.

It wasnt clear why inspectors didnt walk the spillways discharge chute, and a spokesperson for the agency didnt respond to a request for comment. The dam also passed an inspection earlier in 2015.

Dam operators first noticed an eroded section of the spillway Tuesday as they attempted to increase the flow down the chute during a rainstorm. They shut it down to take stock of the damage, but as the rain increased, they had no choice but to increase flows, causing the fissure to balloon outward.

The dams spillway  and valves in the Edward Hyatt Power Plant at the bottom of the reservoir  were releasing 79,000 cubic feet per second of water Friday, but the flow was reduced overnight. About 130,000 cubic feet per second was flowing into the dam from the surrounding mountains.

If it were not damaged, the spillway could usher out up to 200,000 cubic feet per second of water, though that flow would be too much for the Feather River, which can handle 150,000 cubic feet per second without flooding.

Oroville Dam operators previously came under scrutiny in 2009 after a wall collapsed at the Hyatt Power Plant and five employees were nearly sucked out of the building by a powerful vacuum, causing one man to suffer broken bones and other serious injuries and spend four days in a hospital.

State workplace safety regulators found the Department of Water Resources was at fault for ordering the workers to open valves that were missing a critical part and couldnt handle the pressure.

Melody Gutierrez, Peter Fimrite and Michael Bodley are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com, pfimrite@sfchronicle.com, mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @melodygutierrez @pfimrite @michael_bodley
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Phoenix

An immigrant mother in Phoenix granted leniency during the Obama administration was deported to Mexico on Thursday in what activists said was an early example of how President Donald Trump plans to carry through on his vow to crack down on illegal immigration.

The case of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos became a rallying cry for immigrant groups who believe Trump's approach to immigration will unfairly tear apart countless families.

Her arrest prompted a raucous demonstration in downtown Phoenix late Wednesday as protesters blocked enforcement vans from leaving a U.S. immigration office. Seven people were arrested.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer referred questions on the matter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which said in a statement on Twitter on Thursday that the agency "will remove illegal aliens convicted of felony offenses as ordered by an immigration judge."

Garcia de Rayos was deported about 10 a.m. from a Nogales border crossing and ICE worked with Mexican consular officials to repatriate her, agency spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe said in a statement. She said her case underwent a thorough review that determined the 35-year-old mother of two with U.S. citizenship had no "legal basis to remain in the U.S."

Garcia de Rayos was among workers arrested years ago in one of then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio's first investigations into Phoenix-area businesses suspected of hiring immigrants who had used fraudulent IDs to get jobs.

She was accused of using a Social Security number belonging to another person to get a job at the Waterworld amusement park in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale.

Garcia de Rayos was not arrested in a raid of the park, but was taken into custody six months later when investigators found discrepancies in her employment documents. She was denied bail in January 2009 under an Arizona law that prohibited it for immigrants who are in the country illegally and charged with felonies.

Garcia de Rayos pleaded guilty in March 2009 to a reduced charge of criminal impersonation and was sentenced to two years of probation.

On Wednesday, she showed up with her lawyer for a routine check-in with ICE officials and was detained.

"ICE will continue to focus on identifying and removing individuals with felony convictions who have final orders of removal issued by the nation's immigration courts," Pitts O'Keefe said.

Advocates denounced the deportation as heartless.

"ICE has done what President Trump wanted to do, which is deport and separate our families," said Marisa Franco, director of the Phoenix-based advocacy group Mijente. "We are going to stand strong with the family."

Immigration activists who anticipated she could be arrested rallied in front of ICE offices, and advocacy groups who took Arpaio to court over his immigration enforcement say they now face the same struggle.

Garcia de Rayos' lawyer, Ray Ybarra Maldonado, said Arizona's identity theft laws are the reason his client was put on the radar of immigration authorities. He said the Arpaio raids terrorized the community.

Arizona's ID theft laws were amended in 2007 and 2008 as part of a package of laws aimed at confronting businesses that hired people in the country illegally. Maldonado said his client's deportation could push immigrants deeper into the shadows and to avoid checking in with authorities like Garcia de Rayos always did.

"My advice is, let's look for a sanctuary, a church that might want to take you in if you want to do that. It's not fun walking someone to the slaughter. It's not fun walking in and then walking out without them," he said.

Ahead of Garcia de Rayos' deportation, dozens of immigration activists Wednesday night blocked the gates of ICE's Phoenix office.

Police took positions around the building and confronted the demonstrators, many of them chanting "Justice!" in English and Spanish.

Garcia de Rayos' deportation came days after the Trump administration broadened regulations under which some people will be deported. She came to the U.S. from the Mexican state of Guanajuato when she was 14 and has two children who are U.S. citizens, said the Puente Arizona immigrant advocacy group in Phoenix.
UPPER THUMB  With millions of dollars in local revenue at stake, the long-time controversy over the way wind turbines are taxed will be heading to court this summer.

Carl Osentoski, who coordinates the Michigan Renewable Energy Collaborative (MREC), said the dispute connected to the NextEra Energy Resources LLC project in Tuscola Countys Gilford Township will he heard mid-to-late summer.

After several years of waiting, the issue of changing the taxable rate of wind turbines in the Tuscola Bay Wind Farm will be heard.

Contention over wind development started in 2011 when the Michigan Tax Commission (STC) arbitrarily changed the taxing methodology and depreciation on wind turbines. The change lowered taxable values on turbines along with a faster depreciation rate.

Because the change meant millions of dollars in lost revenue, the counties and some townships that were impacted joined together to form MREC. It includes the counties of Gratiot, Huron, Mason, Sanilac and Tuscola, as well as some townships in those counties.

Ron Wruble, Huron County commissioner and finance chair, said that there are numerous decisions at various levels of the appeals process.

The collaborative hired attorney Clark Hill to represent them in challenging STCs decision.

Millions of dollars in revenue for counties and local governments is contingent on the outcome of the legal action.

Under the state tax commissions 2011 ruling, wind turbines went from a 100 percent assessment in the first year, with a scheduled depreciation to 30 percent value in 15 years where it would level out, to an 80 percent initial assessment, with a depreciation to 30 percent value in six years.

Although the state changed the tax schedule, local assessors and boards of review could still use the old depreciation schedule if they felt it was an accurate cash value of turbines, which they did. That prompted energy companies to challenge the decision to use the original rate rather than the new one.

As MREC entities wait for their day in court, they have escrowed the difference between the STC rate and the Appraisal Economic (AE) rate assessors used.

And the amount of revenue at stake is increasing.

The first wind farm in Tuscola County started in 2012, and more wind development is on the horizon as NextEra and Consumers Energy are each in the process of developing wind farms.

Although future projects in Huron County are currently under a moratorium on wind development, voters will go to the polls in May to determine whether projects by DTE Energy and NextEra will go forward in Dwight, Sigel, Bloomfield, Lincoln and Sherman Townships.

NextEra has pledged to use the AE tax schedule for its upcoming Sherman and Sigel township project.

Energy company officials contend the value of a multi-million dollar wind turbine should be 30 percent less than the original cost from the start because a federal grant that helped pay for it  and therefore their cost is lower.

MRECs position is that the full value of the turbine is taxable no matter how it is funded.

Both parties will most likely appeal the Tax Tribunal ruling and it could take up to two years for the court of appeals to hear the case, said Mike Hoagland, Tuscola County controller, noting the issue could go to the Michigan Supreme Court.

MREC is hoping the STC will adopt the AE table because it is the most advantageous economically to governmental entities.
Provincial officials in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand say a child and five members of Afghanistan's national security forces were killed on February 11 by a Taliban suicide car bomber in the provincial capital of Helmand.

According to the office of Helmand Province's governor, 20 people were injured in the attack.

Five of the injured were Afghan soldiers and 15 were civilians -- including four women, three children, and eight men.

Omar Zwak, a spokesman for Helmand's governor, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that the suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car near a branch of Kabul Bank in Lashkar Gah and detonated the explosives.



Zwak said the attack occurred next to an Afghan army vehicle as soldiers arrived at the bank to collect their pay.



The Taliban declared responsibility for the suicide bombing and claimed the casualty toll was higher than the official statements from Helmand officials.



Taliban spokesman Qari Yosuf Ahmadi claimed on Twitter that the total number of dead and would was 39 soldiers and officers.

With additional reporting by by middleastpress.com, Reuters, dpa, and Tolo News
As reports of raids on undocumented immigrants seem to ramp up across the country, local activists and community members expressed fear and concern of similar incidents in Houston.

Texas Organizing Project members and United We Dream activists gathered at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in downtown Saturday for a police and community relations forum asked local officials about what would be done concerning recent immigration raids.

"Our members at the Texas Organizing Project knocked on doors to have you elected," said Silvia Chicas, immigration services coordinator. "How will you actively protect undocumented immigrants when ICE comes knocking on our door and when will you do it?"

ICE officials said in a statement Friday that the agency had been conducting routine "enforcement actions" that resulted in 160 arrests in Southern Califonia. Many had serious criminal histories, authorities said.

"The rash of recent reports about purported ICE checkpoints and random sweeps are false, dangerous and irresponsible," ICE said in a statement Friday. "These reports create panic and put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger."

On Saturday, the agency added that it would not confirm any operation prior to its completion and would not speculate on future operational activities.

"ICE regularly conducts targeted enforcement operations during which additional resources and personnel are dedicated to apprehending deportable foreign nationals," ICE said, adding that the operational focus is "no different than the routine, targeted arrests carried out by ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis."

No confirmed reports of raids or detained immigrants have come from Houston, but immigrant groups have seen them in other Texas cities, including Austin and Dallas.

Dianna Alexander, an educator in Spring Branch ISD, discussed during the community forum how she knew of teachers in Austin who were riding the school bus home with students to make sure their parents were at home and not captured by ICE.

Even though Alexander is a U.S. citizen, she worries she will now get stopped by immigration officials or police.

"Are we going to be racially profiled because we're brown?" Alexander wondered. "How do you know that someone's a citizen just looking at them, so are people going to be checked?"

In a phone interview Sunday, local activist Dr. David Michael Smith said that, like Alexander, he'd heard unconfirmed reports of immigration activity on Gessner within the last week.

But so far, those reports have remained just rumors.

"There's nothing concrete in the city," he said, adding that ICE regularly picks up people in the Houston area, one or two at a time.

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said that her office does not enforce immigration raids or deportation and that her staff members do not ask the documentation status of any victim or witness.

However, she said there's only so much protection the local government can offer immigrants.

"We worked with the police department to make sure that the protesters both at the Super Bowl and in the airport got the right to exercise your first amendment freedoms," Ogg said. "But beyond talking about it, we have to vote. We're here because people did not vote."

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said that he does not want to enforce excessive arrests of undocumented immigrants, but still wants to keep the city safe.

"If somebody enters our custody that's been a violent offender of some kind, there will be some level of accountability because undocumented and documented communities need safety as well," Gonzalez said.

A spokesperson with the Harris County Sheriff's Office said in an email late Friday that they have not participated in any street-level immigration enforcement efforts.

HELPING OUT: Texas teachers assisting students about immigration rights

"As has always been the case, the HCSO's cooperation with ICE is limited to screenings in the Harris County Jail for offenders arrested and charged with state crimes," the statement said.

Mary Moreno, a spokesperson for Texas Organizing Project, said she received a text message from an undocumented immigrant on Friday claiming they saw a border patrol car pulling someone over in Sugar Land. The person also stated they witnessed a border patrol car driving in the parking lot of an area gym.

Doug Adolph, a spokesperson with Sugar Land police, said Saturday they were not participating in immigration raids or detainment.

IN PRISON: Lawyer: Pro-Trump mindset led to long prison sentence in immigration case

"We are not aware of any activity that's occurring within our jurisdiction," he said.

Andrea Guttin, the legal director of Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative, said even though there were no confirmed cases, she was concerned and they were trying to prepare for it.

An immigrant and refugee rights' hotline will be set up next week in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Elizabeth Theiss, president of Stop the Magnet, a political action committee that supports the enforcement of deporting undocumented immigrants, said she was happy to hear the news of the raids.

"We're thrilled to see that our laws are being enforced," Theiss said. "We feel like finally after a decade of screaming, we are seeing some action. It's just an unusual thing to see politicians do what they promised to do."

She believes that removing undocumented immigrants from the country will make the country safer for future generations.

"I hope that it continues and we get to see it in the Houston area, so that those jobs begin to go to legal American citizens who do not have jobs," Theiss said.

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, spoke about the community's fears at a meet-and-greet event with constituents Saturday in Austin, a day after he confirmed claims of ICE rounding up undocumented immigrants.

"President Trump, when he was campaigning for office, showed clear hostility towards immigrants," Castro said. "When you display that kind of utter disrespect and hostility towards a group of people, of course your actions and the actions of the federal agencies are going to instill fear in communities."

The Congressman said he believes immigrants with violent criminal backgrounds should not be allowed to stay in the U.S., but thinks there are many others who deserve the right to stay.

"There are millions and millions of more people who don't fit in that category, who are peaceful people, who are here raising their families and paying their taxes, staying out of trouble, who have made a life here," Castro said.

>>>Scroll through the above gallery to see how immigrants and immigration has impacted Texas
In 1989, then Vice President Dan Quayle called for the government of El Salvador to put Arnoldo Antonio Vasquez in jail for his part in the massacre of 10 civilians during that country's bloody civil war.

Instead, Vasquez moved to Plano and became an American citizen.

Now, the U.S. government wants to send the 54-year-old back to El Salvador. On Friday, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas in Sherman filed a civil case against Vasquez to revoke his citizenship.

"The first step in protecting our borders begins with enforcing our immigration laws," Acting U.S. Attorney Brit Featherston said. "Vasquez should never have been allowed in our country because of his reprehensible acts and his effort to conceal them."

The incident that prompted the U.S. government's actions occurred in September 1988 in San Sebastian, a village about 30 miles east of San Salvador, the country's capital. At the time, Vasquez was a lieutenant in El Salvador's army. Along with other soldiers in that army's Jilboa Battalion, Vasquez was told to detain civilians in the village who were deemed to be "subversive," according to the indictment filed against him.

The commander of the unit ordered their execution and said to make the killings look as if the detainees had ambushed the troops. Vasquez complied and had explosives detonated near the prisoners. Any who survived the blast were killed, according to the court documents.

The Washington Post at the time reported that seven of the 10 who were killed "had powder burns showing they were shot at very close range, and the other three had multiple bullet and shrapnel wounds."

Word of the massacre got out and about six months later, during a visit to El Salvador, Vice President Quayle pressed for the arrest of Vasquez and the other soldiers who took part. He was charged with murder and admitted taking part in the killings but said he was just following orders. Vasquez was found not guilty by the Salvadorian court, according to the document.

His arrest and first degree murder charge would have barred him from becoming a U.S. citizen. But, U.S. officials said, Vasquez misrepresented his criminal history. In 1999, he was allowed to immigrate to the U.S. because his wife was the daughter of a American citizen.

In 2005, Vasquez applied for naturalization. Federal prosecutors said he lied on the application. When asked if he had ever been arrested or detained, Vasquez claimed under oath that his only run-in with the law were three traffic tickets from Dallas. He "did not disclose his prior arrest and detention for the crime of first degree homicide for the murder of 10 residents of San Sebastian," the court document states.

If his U.S. citizenship is revoked, officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Sherman on Friday said they would seek to have Vasquez deported.

"He certainly should not have been granted U.S. citizenship. This action to revoke his unlawfully obtained U.S. citizenship is the first step toward removing him from the United States," Featherston said.
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After prosecution witnesses portrayed malnourished 7-month-old Naeem Busby with sepsis and meningitis that would have likely shown symptoms for many weeks, four Busby family members testifying Friday for the babys parents said the child appeared healthy and playful in the months before his death in December 2015.

Naeems father, Qwalion Busby, 36, and his wife, Marquita Johnson, 33, who live near Converse, were charged with medical neglect or injury to a child by omission, a first degree felony punishable by 5 to 99 years in prison.

He looked healthy and well-fed, said Ernest Busby, 57, the childs grandfather, who said he held Naeem on four visits to the home, including the first week of December 2015. The child died on the 23rd in septic shock.

RELATED: Texas sees recent rash of prominent child abuse, child killing cases

In October, said Ernest Busby, the baby appeared chubby, lighter than honey brown and had eyes that were bright and sparkling. The jury chuckled when the 5-foot-5, gray-haired man said he didnt think Naeem, who died weighing about 11.6 pounds, appeared small in photos. My fathers 5-foot-5. My mothers 4-foot-10, he said. Were not small, just a little short.

Naeems grandmother, Elaine Busby, testified she saw the baby happily breastfeed on numerous occasions and that in the first week of December Naeems skin was pure and beautiful. Throughout the trial prosecutors have projected photos from the day of Naeems death that showed bright red rashes and flaky, mottled skin.

Both grandparents said under questioning by their sons attorney, Sean Keane-Dawes, that they would not lie in court to protect their son.

RELATED: Trio arrested in 'horrific' child abuse case now face up to life in prison, Bexar DA says

Qwalions sister, Tiffany King, a mother who lives in Houston, said she visited Naeem around December 15th of 2015 and was shocked when she learned on the 23rd that the baby had died after being rushed to the hospital by ambulance unresponsive and barely breathing.

My mouth just dropped, said King, adding that she had seen no symptoms that would have prompted a call to a doctor. He had been playing in my arms and seemed completely fine.

Earlier in the week prosecutors put on the stand a medical examiner and pediatric critical care specialist who portrayed the child as having died from an untreated middle ear infection that developed into sepsis, a massive infection of the blood stream.

They said the bacteria would have been easily treated and killed by at least five common antibiotics. The parents did not believe in using traditional medicine, and instead treated Naeems rashes and hair loss with essential oils and neem oil.

The defense teams first witness Friday, Dr. Ralph Faville, a pediatric disease specialist from St. Paul, Minnesota, took issue with the prosecution witnesses who said Naeems medical crisis would have been obvious for weeks or months to any responsible parent.

By evaluating only the autopsy, Faville testified that it was just a short time (Naeem) was profoundly ill. Naeems immune system was unable to fight the infection, Faville said, and it could have all happened very quickly, in about 24 to 36 hours.

The trial will continue next week in Judge Melisa Skinners 290th state district court.

bselcraig@express-news.net
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Dustin Lee Osborne, convicted of murder in the 2014 shooting death of his friend, was handed a sentence of 80 years in prison and a $10,000 fine Friday.

Earlier in the day, his new wife wept in the courtroom as prosecutor Josh Somers told the jury that the 20-year-old killer is a drug dealer, liar and manipulator.

With the murder weapon sitting in front of the jury, Somers said: When you carry guns, threaten people and murder someone, it's not a mistake. It's who you are. Today you get a chance to protect us from him by sending him to prison for life.

RELATED: Witness testifies of drinking, drug use and sex before San Antonio man shot to death

Osborne, now 20 and an admitted drug dealer, was convicted this week of shooting Ralph Michael Lopez, 34, on Aug. 11, 2014, in the driveway of Lopez's South Side home, after what witnesses testified was a brief argument.

State District Judge Jefferson Moore instructed the jury that they could consider whether sudden passion was a mitigating factor in the murder, which would have reduced the crime to a second degree felony that carries a 2- to 20-year range of sentence.

But the jury issued no finding of sudden passion, which left the crime as a first degree felony, punishable by a term of 5 to 99 years in prison.

RELATED: 10 things to know about gangs operating in San Antonio

Court-appointed defense attorney Patrick Hancock told the jury his client had acted in self-defense and was so neglected as a child that he was destined to be a criminal.

Dustin never had a chance, Hancock said. He never had nurturing parents. His dad was in and out of prison. He dropped out of high school in 2014. He's a product of this street culture.

He's going to prison. He knows that, Hancock said. But he should be punished in a fair and just manner.

After listening to both sides, the jury began deliberated about six hours before deciding on the sentence.

bselcraig@express-news.net
Though she had not worked outside the home since marrying in 1948, Olivia S. Gomez didnt hesitate to get a job after her husband died in the early 1970s.

She wanted to stay busy, her son Steven Gomez said. It was good therapy for her to work.

Hired at Twain Junior High School as a pastry maker, Gomez worked hard, Steven Gomez said. At that time  everything was made by hand.

After her workday ended in the afternoon, Gomez returned to her home in Beacon Hill to be home when her youngest son got home from high school.

She saw to it that I went through school and didnt get into any trouble, Steven Gomez said. She always put her kids first, and the same thing happened with her grandkids as she became involved with their lives.

Gomez, 89, died Feb. 6 after breaking her hip in a fall.

Gomez, a younger child among 13, was raised on acreage that is now the Oakwell Farms Dairy parking lot on Fredericksburg Road.

Her father worked at the now-defunct Prassel Manufacturing Co. building staircases for homes in Monte Vista, but still times were hard.

Gomez began collecting dolls as an adult because she never got to have one as a little girl, Steven Gomez said. She told me the little girl across the street used to get a doll every Christmas, but they were lucky if they got a few tamales.

More Information Olivia S. Gomez Born: Oct. 31, 1927, San Antonio Died: Feb. 6, 2017, San Antonio Preceded by: Husband Charles Mario Gomez; parents Enrique and Suzanna Sanchez; three granddaughters; 11 siblings. Survived by: Sons Charles M. Gomez Jr., Edward R. Gomez and daughter-in-law Irma, Steven G. Gomez and daughter-in-law Barbara; daughter Beatrice I. Penn and son-in-law Monty; 12 grandchildren; 21 great-grandchildren; and a sister. Services: Visitation at 8:30 a.m., service at 9:30 a.m. today at Porter Loring Mortuaries, 1101 McCullough Ave., followed by burial in San Fernando Cemetery No. 2, 746 Castroville Road. See More Collapse

Attending what was then San Antonio Vocational and Technical High School, Gomez studied cosmetology and was working to save up to attend cosmetology school after graduation when she met her future husband.

When they began talking about marriage, she quit her job, Steven Gomez said. My dad  believed my mom should stay at home.

Though her husband had handled the bills, money and maintenance matters while alive, Gomez had no trouble transitioning to the head of the household after his death.

My mom handled everything like a champ, Steven Gomez recalled.

Caring for her grandchildren whenever possible, Gomez was especially thrilled when her son and his wife had twin boys.

You could see the glow on her face, Steven Gomez recalled.

Retiring from Twain in 1988, Gomez continued caring for her grandchildren into her 70s.

She also enjoyed gardening.

She cut her own grass  would often plant roses and shrubbery, Steven Gomez said.

mheidbrink@express-news.net
I used to host a radio show with Steve Bannon. Yes, that Steve Bannon.

It was a Catholic radio show, and we talked about life and faith and how you integrate the two. It aired weekly over the course of a number of months in 2012, and I do remember we had one political show around Election Day, in which we talked with Steve's friend Pat Caddell (formerly of the Jimmy Carter White House) about Catholics and the political culture of both parties.

"Surreal" would seem the appropriate word as I've watched an array of successive news stories and commentaries about Bannon, who has become the "Darth Vader" figure of the Donald Trump administration. As one young editor in the National Review office observed to me, it seems as if Bannon couldn't do anything at this point that wouldn't be viewed as sinister.

The most pernicious development in this narrative is an idea recently presented in the New York Times that he's coordinating with conservatives in the Vatican to thwart Pope Francis.

I think to take an honest look at both the American political scene and the Catholic Church is to see decades of disarray. Scandal. Confusion. Something less than courage and clarity. The good works, solid faith and stories of self-sacrificial love tend to get overshadowed by all of this.

When everything seems broken to a whole lot of people, anything but the status quo seems a very attractive alternative. And so Donald Trump was elected. Before that, a pope resigned and something new -- a South American with radical ideas about love and duty to God -- came on the scene. Pope Francis repeatedly talks about mercy and forgiveness, and I hope his message is resonating with people who wouldn't otherwise give organized religion a second glance.

When I sat down in studio with Bannon, we would talk about some of the methods of living the Catholic faith in the world as it is today. My memory of the time is that it was book-heavy -- we interviewed many authors and discussed heady ideas. I consciously wanted to help convey that the Church is made up of every baptized member and we're called to show our faithfulness in the world, not just by going to Mass on Sundays. As many have noted, Bannon is concerned about a radical secularism that has become a rival religion, and small practical things play no small role in providing an alternative to it.

Before doing the show, Bannon and myself had met a few times over the course of a decade, including around a documentary he did about Sarah Palin. Like Bannon has now, Palin had become a caricature in the news. He saw a human being and tried to show a more than one-dimensional look at her and the politics she stood for. He was also ridiculously loyal to me when I wanted to name our show "Silent Radio," a hat-tip to a Pope Benedict XVI message about the need for silent contemplation and listening in the noise of the world.

Life, the dynamics of American politics and whatever the Trump administration is up to are more complicated than my memory of pleasant radio-studio hours, I certainly know. But there may also be imperfect people trying to make things work. And we should disagree with them and protest when appropriate, but also consider saying a prayer for the common good and the human beings at the center of news stories and in the halls of power.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review Online and founding director of Catholic Voices USA. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.
Tami Gerdom has been promoted to wire transfer/funds management officer at Clear Lake Bank & Trust. A Rockwell-Swaledale graduate, Tami joined CLB&T in 1996 with 10 years of banking experience. She has served in several capacities during her 21 years at CLB&T.

A native of Newton and University of Iowa graduate, Stephanie Hassebroek has been promoted to trust officer. She joined Edgar Financial Group/Clear Lake Bank & Trust in 2011 with four years of financial services experience. She is currently attending the Cannon Trust School.

Aimee Kern has been promoted to vice president of human resources. Aimee joined the bank in 2012 with 11 years of human resources experience. A native of Clear Lake, Aimee is a graduate of NIACC, has a bachelors degree from Drake University, and a MBA from Ashford University. Aimee is SHRM-SCP and PHR certified.

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River City Morning Kiwanis Club members David Bergan, Gary Farman, Gary Lindgren, Bob Mason, Jodee OBrien, Jim Paape and Gary Wattnem attended the Nebraska-Iowa District Mid-Year Kiwanis Conference Rally on Feb. 3-4 in Council Bluffs.

The local club received a check for $2,040 from the District as a contribution to the Kiwanis signature project," Kiwanis Park being built at 622 14th St. NE in Mason City.

River City Morning Kiwanis was also recognized as a Distinguished Club. Kim Pang was recognized as an Outstanding Secretary, and Gary Lindgren was recognized as a Distinguished Lt. Governor for District 1.

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Clint Thomas is celebrating his 20-year anniversary with State Farm Insurance. He spent his first three years in the auto claim department with the company, and has been an agent with State Farm in Mason City for the last 17 years.

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Travis Meisgeier recently joined Farm Credit Services of America as a financial officer, working with area farmers and ranchers.

Meisgeier is a Manchester native and graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in agricultural business in December 2016.

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Tom Hurd, disaster assistance chairman of the American Institute of Architects, presented on Dec. 8 an overview of disasters since 2005 in the U.S. at the Louisiana Symposium on Recovery and Resilience in Lafayette, Louisiana. Hurd is the owner of Spatial Designs in Mason City.

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The North Iowa Landlords Association will meet at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 14, at the First Presbyterian Church, 100 S. Pierce Ave, Mason City.

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Brett Torkelson, Luke Hejlik, and Travis Harms, of Forest City's Lichtsinn RV, recently earned their Recreation Vehicle Dealers Association RV technician registration. The certification requires specialized training and establishes that each technician is proficient in core RV knowledge areas and technical skills.

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Hoover's Hatchery presented a matching donation Feb. 3 to the Rudd Community Betterment project for local fundraising efforts to aid the Rudd Community Center. Twenty-five donations totaled $9,070, making the Betterment's final tally $18,140.

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Forest City's MBT Insurance was named one of the highest performing IMT Group and Wadena Insurance properties among Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The 2017 Gem Too agencies account for the top 95 agencies among 980 that are eligible, and is based on rank, growth, loss ratio and profitability.

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Iowa Learning Farms and the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach will host a cover crop workshop from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 22 at the Borlaug Learning Center in Nashua. The workshop is free, open to the public, and includes a complimentary lunch. Contact Liz Juchems (515-294-5429 or ilf@iastate.edu) to RSVP.

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North Iowa wants to know about your company's awards, promotions and news. Email your information, along with high-resolution photos, to: news@globegazette.com.
To the editor:

While Donald Trump was campaigning to become our president, he made several promises to the American people. He promised to create jobs and to protect America.

He is moving at a pace that is making our heads spin. Jobs are happening and he is trying to protect our country. He was doing just what Obama, Bush, Clinton and Carter had done previously when they put a pause on people from certain countries coming in to the United States.

This has sent the liberals into a huge, unbelievable hissy fit. Now a federal appeals court has ruled that refugees and immigrants can continue entering the United States. Not all of these people who are coming into our country are planning to do harm, but we need a system to protect us from those who have evil in their hearts.

Many of the large newspapers, including The Houston Chronicle, have page after page of columns and articles from The New York Times and other liberal newspapers that constantly bash Trump, his family and everyone who has a different opinion from their own. This only makes America look weak and promotes unrest and violence.

Donald Trump is our president, and it is time to come together and work to make America greater, to ease the anger in the protesters and to welcome God back into USA.

Linda Anderson

The Woodlands

Tax reform makes headlines, nothing else

To the editor:

Regarding the front page headline "Support for tax reform legislation grows," who doesn't support tax reform in this state? But let me be more specific as I don't think our Legislature quite gets it yet.

Senate Bill 2 sounds good with a rollback from 8 percent to 4 percent, but that only applies if your property is in a federal disaster area. Not much help for most of us.

It also calls for appraisal district boards to be elected. This might arrest some cronyism, but provides little help in dollars to homeowners. There are other provisions that are essentially meaningless for counties larger than 120,000 people as those provisions already exist for us.

HB 538's rebate is great for businesses, but again what about homeowners? House Bill 44 caps the allowable annual increases in a home's appraised value to 5 percent from the current 110 percent. Nice, but 5 percent compounded over 10 years still means many people including seniors will be taxed out of their home. Do we support these initiatives? Sure, but they are nothing more than lipstick on a pig. The Legislature needs to address what Dan Patrick has promised us in the form of an overhaul of our state tax code.

If these are the only bills being presented during this session, it will be another two years before anything better is addressed. Not good enough! We voted for you; you work for us. Implement what you have promised rather than this smoke and mirrors stuff, which permits you to say you held to your promise of tax relief.

If you can't design a new tax code in this session, at least 1) fund a nonpolitical panel from all income levels to design a new code for the next session in two years; and 2) implement further exemption increases for classes of citizens (seniors, low income, disabled, etc.) during this session that will provide immediate benefit. This would be a true show of commitment to your promise of tax reform.

Arron Angle

The Woodlands
For three decades and through four Texas Supreme Court chief justices, the judge at the top of the states judicial pyramid has supported judicial selection reform.

In his State of the Judiciary address to the Legislature this month, Chief Justice Nathan Hecht continued the tradition, stating, I will say only a word about judicial selection, but it is a word of warning.

In November, many good judges lost solely because voters in their districts preferred a presidential candidate in the other party. These kinds of partisan sweeps are common, with judicial candidates at the mercy of the top of the ticket.

He added, Such partisan sweeps are demoralizing to judges and disruptive to the legal system. But worse than that, when partisan politics is the driving force, and the political climate is as harsh as ours has become, judicial elections make judges more political, and judicial independence is the casualty.

Hechts warning follows those of predecessors Wallace Jefferson, Thomas Phillips and John Hill, who was chief justice from 1985-88 and the last Democrat to hold the post.

Typically, some legislators agree with the call for reform, but legislation to move the effort forward seldom gets out of committee. And if it does well in one legislative body, it has no chance in the other.

For years, reformers labored mightily to win approval of a proposed constitutional amendment to institute a merit selection system that would feature the gubernatorial appointment of judges, followed by an up-or-down retention election for succeeding terms. Voter approval would be required to make the change.

Frankly, that push has lost steam after numerous unsuccessful tries, and lawmakers have become more interested in less ambitious adjustments to judicial selection.

Hecht tacitly acknowledged that reality with a nod to the latest reform push.

There is no perfect alternative to judicial elections. But removing judges from straight-ticket voting would help some, the chief justice said, and merit selection followed by nonpartisan retention elections would help more.

House Speaker Joe Straus, a San Antonio Republican, quickly followed Hechts speech with the release of a statement supporting an effort to eliminate straight-ticket voting in all elections.

I agree with Chief Justice Hecht that we should end straight-ticket voting in judicial elections, but we shouldnt stop there. Texas should join 40 other states and end straight-ticket voting in all elections, Straus said in the statement.

In Bexar Countys 2016 election, a Democratic partisan sweep ousted Republican District Judge Laura Parker, a highly respected juvenile court judge who had bipartisan backing among officials with knowledge of the criminal justice system.

Parkers defeat was just the latest example of high-performing, qualified judges being tossed out of office on the basis of partisanship. The trend has claimed first-tier judges from both parties.

Straus said the straight-ticket ban would encourage voters to learn more about individual candidates, their platforms and their qualifications.

Too often, good men and women are swept out of down-ballot offices due to the political winds at the moment, he said. It has happened in San Antonio and across Texas. I look forward to working with my colleagues to address this issue.

Rep. Ron Simmons, R-Carrollton, has filed a bill that would ban straight-ticket voting in all elections.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in previous sessions has backed prohibiting straight-ticket voting in judicial elections, and that gives hope to some reform advocates.

But legislative leaders have bigger issues on the front burner, including a tight budget and pending battles over controversial social issues.

This could be the year that election reform gets enough traction to get through the process, but it more likely will get lost in the legislative fray.

Judges are supposed to be above partisan considerations, and every step taken to move them away from partisan pressure will improve Texas justice system.

In the meantime, more and more talented lawyers are likely to forgo judicial candidacies because they know partisanship matters more than qualifications.

bwdavidson75@gmail.com
If President Donald Trump is a budding authoritarian, as his critics allege, one of the safeguards is Judge Neil Gorsuch.

For all that Trump has flouted norms and gotten off to an at-times amateurish start in the White House, his pick of Gorsuch was extremely normal and highly professional. The Gorsuch nomination is exactly what everyone should want from a President Trump, especially those who most fear and loathe him. Yet Trumps fiercest opponents began denouncing Gorsuch immediately.

This is the dilemma for Democrats: Either Trump is a threat to the republic because he doesnt appreciate the Constitution and is bound to violate it with excessive assertions of executive power, or Gorsuch is a threat to the republic because he has an overly punctilious view of the Constitution that entails, among other things, a dim view of executive overreach. Both cant be true.

The knee-jerk opposition to Gorsuch is a sign that Democrats either havent thought through what they believe about Trump or are seriously conflicted. Do they want to throw out the rule book because Trump is a potential dictator, or do they want to play by the conventional rules stipulating that they should fight a constitutionalist jurist because he wont impose their progressive social agenda from the bench?

If they really believe that Trump is as dangerous as they say, they should think of Gorsuch as the equivalent of Gen. James Mattis. He is a responsible choice from what they consider an irresponsible president, and they should embrace him on those grounds. Gorsuch is the opposite of Trump in every way that should matter to the presidents enemies.

If they hate Trump because hes anti-intellectual, Gorsuch is a Harvard-educated lawyer who is widely admired for his acute analysis and writing.

If they worry that Trump has shown little regard for the Bill of Rights, Gorsuch is a stickler for it, including the Fourth Amendment that will be the foremost obstacle if Trumps law-and-order agenda goes too far.

If they fear federal power under Trump overawing the prerogatives of states and localities, Gorsuch is a devoted friend of federalism.

If they are anxious about the Trump executive branch trampling on the other branches of government, Gorsuch calls the separation of powers among the most important liberty-protecting devices of the constitutional design.

Why wont Democrats follow the logic of their anti-Trump reasoning and support Gorsuch?

First, there is sheer partisanship. They believe the Antonin Scalia seat has been stolen from them because Senate Republicans refused to act on the nomination of Merrick Garland. It was entirely in their power to reverse this act of alleged theft by winning the presidential election or the Senate majority last fall, but they came up empty.

Second, there is the fact that Democrats dont truly oppose Trump on procedural or constitutional grounds, and so have no use for the likes of Gorsuch. Liberals didnt object to President Barack Obamas executive orders unilaterally rewriting immigration law, or recoil when he was repeatedly shot down 9-0 by the Supreme Court. There is no principle about the limits of the government at stake here, only the question whether it is liberal or populist/conservative policies being imposed.

Third, the left cares about social issues more than anything else, particularly the judicial imposition of the current abortion regime. If Gorsuch isnt on board, it doesnt make a difference whether he will be a presumptive check on the president or not.

Finally, Democrats are getting sucked into the politics of the primal scream. They are heading toward all-out war against Trump. The best way for Trump to overcome this unhinged opposition is to make choices as sound as he did with Judge Neil Gorsuch  an unassailable pick being assailed by people who profess to yearn for sobriety and traditional norms, even as they reject both themselves.

comments.lowry@nationalreview.com
For far too long, Child Protective Services has languished as a fetid morass, often endangering our most vulnerable kids.

Readers know the stories.

Hundreds of kids sleeping in CPS offices.

Botched cases that lead to child deaths.

Endangered children going weeks or months without CPS workers seeing them.

The high caseloads and turnover.

A foster care system so broken a federal judge has said it damages the kids it is supposed to serve and heal.

This is a crisis. Gov. Greg Abbott was right to call on state lawmakers to be bold in their efforts to fix this vital but troubled agency.

If you do anything else this session, cast a vote to save the life of a child, Abbott said during his State of the State speech.

Texas is staring at a lean budget, but Abbott has proposed an additional $500 million for Child Protective Services.

The money is needed to address disparities in foster care, as well as improve technology and training.

Abbotts call for additional funds follows emergency action from lawmakers late last year that gave significant raises to CPS workers and should lead to additional hiring.

Importantly, Abbott has exempted the Department of Family and Protective Services from his state hiring freeze.

The $500 million Abbott is seeking isnt arbitrary. Its what DFPS had requested for exceptional items in its 2018-19 Legislative budget request. Lawmakers had responded by following typical Texas tradition: underfunding the agency. Both the House and Senate initially budgeted about half of what DFPS requested.

Abbott is pushing, and giving lawmakers cover, to adequately fund the agency.

Beyond addressing funding, there are a number of ideas swirling at the Legislature that merit support.

One idea is addressing pay disparity in foster care. The states kinship program pays foster families a base of $693 a month to house a child in the system but pays extended family members who take in a child  say, a niece or a grandson  $500 a year. This makes no sense. An unexpected mouth to feed is unexpected, even if its family.

Rep. Cindy Burkett, R-Sunnyvale, has proposed paying families 50 to 75 percent of what traditional foster families receive. Why not go to 100 percent if fraud can be mitigated?

Rep. James Frank, R-Wichita Falls, has discussed making the Department of Family and Protective Services its own agency as opposed to just part of the massive Texas Health and Human Services. Such a change would lead to more scrutiny and accountability.

The push to better involve churches and other places of worship in the foster care system is commendable. Faith organizations are already interwoven with the agency, but they could be crucial in the effort to find more foster placements for kids, and provide increased donations such as clothing, diapers and school supplies.

Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, has been a real leader in improving Child Protective Services. His legislation, Senate Bill 11, could improve access to services, strengthen investigations and encourage nonprofit collaboration.

As these ideas are discussed, debated and changed, we encourage state lawmakers to follow Abbotts call and put these vulnerable Texans first.

Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this editorial incorrectly stated that Gov. Abbott failed to make fixing Child Protective Services one of his emergency items.
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, said it is better to get your news directly from the President. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway spoke of the Trump teams trustworthy alternative facts.

Chief White House strategist Stephen Bannon said, The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while.

And Donald Trump, as president and candidate, has spoken of a dishonest and crooked media out to get him.

This is more than the usual pique coming from the powerful and directed at a perpetually favorite whipping boy  the news media. This is something that threatens vital cogs in the workings of our democracy.

Those cogs are facts and truth.

These are friends of the informed  of those actively engaged and interested in current affairs  and they are the enemies of those who, with intent to deceive or not, misinform. There really are no alternative facts or truths.

The president and his team would have Americans believe that the press is at war with the president.

There is no war.

There is only the press doing what it has done since the advent of modern journalism  watching, listening and reporting as factually as it can. And, so, if the president or any person in power speaks an untruth, distorts or misleads, Journalism 101 demands fact and clarity. When obfuscation occurs, the antidote is explanation.

And where there are deliberate attempts to mislead, the press has an obligation to report.

To suggest that the press role in such matters is merely to report what is said  balancing that out in he-said, she-said fashion  is to misunderstand the journalists job. And the meaning of balance.

Professional journalism demands reporting the accuracy and effect of what is being said and done. Reputable  yes, mainstream  journalists do this by tapping a variety of knowledgeable sources. They dont make it up from whole cloth. They get fired for doing so.

In this case, the press real crime is not lying; it is reporting precisely what the president says and then explaining how that is either correct or not. Yes, the press can get facts wrong, can make mistakes, which is why the correction has long had a place of honor in modern journalism.

But we see very little of this type of self-correcting apparatus in this administration to date. Instead, we see a penchant for shooting the messenger.

And it is easy to detect a purpose in this.

If truthful hyperbole is your chosen method of expression, if facts dont play a meaningful role in your truth, if your alternative facts are demonstrably untrue and if balanced and accurate coverage thwart your agenda  your truth  then, of course, fact-checkers are your sworn enemy. And then there is advantage in convincing readers and viewers that the fact-checkers are, in fact, liars.

There was a commentary in this newspaper recently by Richard Cherwitz, a professor of communications at the University of Texas at Austin, on the continuing need for accountability when untruths are spoken by the president. He explained that Trump has tapped into the publics lack of trust in the believability of the media, that the constant barrage of these charges desensitizes the reading and viewing public to lies and that there are simply those who dismiss the lying as speaking boldly and decisively. For these latter people, facts dont matter. But they will matter, Cherwitz credibly asserts, when the falsehoods begin to materially affect their believers.

This is indeed the landscape confronting the modern news media, along with other headwinds offered by changing reading habits and waning interest in public affairs generally  low voter turnout being yet another symptom. But, the antidote to these is not abandoning what modern journalists do  reporting as accurately as possible and performing the public watchdog role democracy demands of a free press.

The new world brought on by the Trump presidency merely demonstrates the need for journalists to adhere to the old values theyve long practiced. Whatever the platform  digital, broadcast or print  these values are what allow journalists to do their jobs. They are why many of us come to work every day.

And it is a certainty that it is to the advantage of some that journalists not do these jobs, not do them well or that journalists be labeled as lacking credibility when they do that job according to established norms. There is no war, but when those salvos happen, there are casualties  fact, truth, accountability and the ability for the governed to govern, foremost among them.
BETTENDORF | The proposed overhaul of Iowa's collective bargaining law is moving swiftly toward a vote in Des Moines, but labor leaders who face an uphill battle to try to stop it are hopeful this weekend will make a difference.

Lawmakers are back in their districts, and at public forums or through email and other connections, critics of the proposal to revamp Iowa's 43-year-old collective bargaining law are hoping they'll be able to make some headway with Republicans who control the state Legislature.

That was evident Friday morning at the Hy-Vee on Devils Glen Road in Bettendorf, where more than 50 people packed into a small upstairs meeting room to implore Rep. Gary Mohr, R-Bettendorf, to oppose the legislation  or at least help slow it down.

Some in the audience called the bill an attack on unions and working people. They said it would drive down wages and put public safety workers at risk by changing work rules. Others just said the proposal was moving too fast.

"Don't push something through just because you can't be stopped," said Richard Lynch of Bettendorf, an adjunct professor and translator.

Eric Griffin, first vice president of the union representing Davenport firefighters, echoed that.

"To rush this through is really hard for me," he said.

Former state Sen. Maggie Tinsman, a Republican from Bettendorf, also urged that more time be taken and that unions be allowed to bargain on more than just wages.

Most who spoke at the meeting about the legislation were critical of the bill, but some weren't. Don Kincaid of Bettendorf told Mohr that he backed the Republican plan and that, as a taxpayer, he wanted "a seat at the table."

He also had a different perspective on how fast the proposal was moving.

"How about the people on the other side of the bill ... who have been waiting 40 years for a change in this policy?" he asked. "What about those people? What about me?"

Proponents of the change say that public-sector unions have too much power and that benefits and wages are too generous, a claim union officials reject.

The proposed overhaul, which was introduced last Tuesday, would limit unions whose members aren't predominantly public safety workers to bargaining on wages. And even then, the bill would restrict arbitrators' wage awards.

Unions that mostly represent public safety workers, such as police, firefighters and state troopers, would continue to be able to bargain on such things as wages, health insurance, vacations and a list of other matters. However, the bill does make changes in civil service rules, and some public safety union officials say those changes impinge on current employee rights.

Supporters of the law say that the changes maintain basic protections and that they're similar to what private-sector workers have.

The bill also changes how bargaining units are funded and certified.

Across the state, critics are hoping that by showing up at forums held by lawmakers this weekend they'll have an impact. The Iowa State Education Association said it would have thousands of members at meetings across the state.

When Wisconsin curtailed its bargaining laws in 2011, tens of thousands of people, including union members from Iowa, flooded the state Capitol to oppose the changes. And while there have been sizable crowds in Des Moines opposing the bill this week, a top union official in the state said they're banking on constituents in cities and towns around the state to have an impact, rather than a show of force at the Capitol.

"If were going to change anything, its going to be in the community. The Wisconsin experiment did not work," Danny Homan, president of AFSCME Council 61, said this week. "I was in Wisconsin. I was at some of the largest rallies Ive been to in my life. I was in the Capitol when they took it over. That didnt change anybodys minds."

The unions and their supporters won't be alone this weekend.

Drew Klein, Iowa state director of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group that supports the bill, said it is working with its activist base to encourage people to attend meetings, too. He acknowledged, however, they won't be able to match the number of opponents of the bill who will attend. And he said lawmakers are expecting that, too.

"Im sure this will be a tough weekend for legislative forums," he said. Still, he added, "I think lawmakers are pretty firm in their approach to this.

The group has sent out a mail piece in support of the bill and is doing digital advertising, too.

If Mohr's meeting on Friday was any indication, the turnout will be lopsided.

Mohr said that he was listening to his everybody in the room, including the pleas to slow the legislation. But, he said, "I don't control the calendar."

Mohr told the crowd he intends to vote how he thinks the majority of his district would want. Afterward, he said he hadn't made a judgment yet on what that would be.

The first-term Republican will get another chance to hear from people on the subject this weekend. An AFSCME official who was in attendance Friday said he had booked a meeting room for 1 p.m. Saturday at Davenport's Eastern Avenue Library, 6000 Eastern Ave., and asked whether Mohr would attend.

Mohr said that he would be there.
DES MOINES | Iowa GOP chairman Jeff Kaufmann on Friday assailed as shocking and inexcusable a leaked email advising union members how to prank call lawmakers  who were labeled in various offensive ways to oppose a proposed collective bargaining rewrite that would limit workers rights.

The email  reportedly forwarded by a teacher disgusted with the contents and made public by GOP officials  contained instructions for calling state legislators with labels by their names of "douche", super duper douche, "gentle/persuadable", "cop" or other terms to describe their responsiveness or lack thereof.

Frankly, I am dismayed that Iowans would stoop this low and act in this manner, said Kaufmann, who referred to the comments as sexist and thuggish said in a statement. The collective bargaining bill  which is the subject of a public hearing at the Capitol building and expected floor debate next week  makes significant changes that would limit public employees rights in negotiating future contracts.

BISHOPS WEIGH IN: The Iowa Catholic Conference re-released a Labor and the Common Good statement Friday regarding the Iowa Legislatures debate on changes to the collective bargaining law for public employees.

Conference officials said they are neutral on the 68-page bill majority Republicans have proposed but was sending a statement  available at the www.iowacatholicconference.org web site  to all legislators and Gov. Terry Branstad that reflected the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding the common good and the rights of workers.

In the statement, the diocesan bishops of Iowa  Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque; Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City; Bishop Martin Amos of Davenport, and Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines  express concern about provisions which limit the items that can be bargained as well as what an arbitrator can award for a pay raise. The bishops also affirm the role of labor unions in helping workers receive fair pay and benefits and improved working conditions that can help set standards for workers in other situations.

ADVOCACY DAY CANCELLED: Officials with the Brain Injury Alliance of Iowa announced Friday that they have cancelled their annual advocacy day at the Iowa Capitol building next week due to the expectation of large crowds at the Statehouse.

Alliance official Geoff Lauer said Wednesdays planned event was called off due to a high probability of large crowds and possible protests over proposed Republican legislation to revamp Iowas collective bargaining law.

I regret to share that concerns for safety of our constituents have resulted in our decision to cancel next weeks annual Brain Injury Advocacy Day at the Iowa Statehouse, Lauer said in an email to alliance advocates.

A very crowded Statehouse would result in significant safety and evacuation concerns for many of our attendees. That is in addition to the challenges of noise, navigation and seating. We are currently working with the Statehouse schedulers to see if we can identify another time to gather later in the year, he added. Stay tuned for options.
AN inmate who is on death sentence after killing four people believes he should be given a second chance in the society.

Doesmatter Vhore who was convicted for killing four commercial farmers in Mashonaland Central Province said he feels like he is still suitable to stay in the society just like other people who did not commit crimes.

The murderer committed the crime with his other two accomplices who were also slapped with the capital punishment.

Capital punishment also known as the death penalty, is a government sanction practice whereby a person is killed by the State as a punishment for a crime.

They were sent to the gallows after the court found them guilty of murder with actual intent.

In an interview during the recent tour of actors, musicians and soccer legends tour of the Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison, Vhore said:

I still think we should be given an opportunity to have a second chance.

The crime was committed in 2011 and we were sentenced to death last year.

We have been writing appealing letters but to no avail.

I am living in fear because I dont know when I will be hanged.

When the gates are opened I always think they have come to take me.

The condemned inmate also told this publication that he wishes to eat one more proper meal before his death.

I miss good food my brother, here we are starving.

I pray one day I will get a chance to eat good food.

Being on death sentence mwana wamai zvakaoma, he said.

Zimbabwe has not had an execution for over a decade and President Emmerson Mnangagwa has indicated that nobody will be hanged under his watch.

He is a strong campaigner against capital punishment.

 HMetro

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UNDER fire musician, Fungisai Mashavave Zvakavapano, who jokingly smuggled a 400ml bottle of Mahewu into an aeroplane and applauded herself for seemingly violating aviation rules on carrying liquids as she posted a picture on social media, claims the bottle was empty and intended to entertain her followers.

Taking to her Facebook account at the weekend, Fungisai  who had been lambasted by followers for her actions  said she did not mean to harm anyone by boarding the plane with the bottle.

Its amazing how light moments are exaggerated. Please note that no ones life was put in danger. I was just drinking my Premier Plus Maheu at the Airport before boarding and I carried the empty bottle onto the plane for fun with my fans.

I do share jokes too and its very human to do so. Its sad how others capitalise on such to demonise this gift.

To further justify her actions, Fungisai claimed that there was no way she could have bypassed aviation security systems and smuggled liquids as part of her hand luggage.

Aviation security systems are so mechanised that no excess liquid can go through and I assumed it was common knowledge hence making it an obvious joke. My sincere apologies to those who felt threatened by my joke.

Capitalising on the incident, the musician has come up with a challenge where she has urged followers to join in on the fun and post pictures of themselves enjoying their favourite Mahewu.

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SPENCER | Most people probably have never thought to stop and consider: Where do firefighters get their gear from?

The general lack of awareness from the public is something Bill Van Lent encounters a lot when he talks to strangers about his company, Veridian Limited.

The light manufacturing firm, based in Spencer in northwest Iowa, produces protective gear for firefighters and other emergency personnel, which allows them to safely enter burning buildings, fight forest fires and perform other duties in extremely hazardous conditions.

"A lot of local people really aren't even aware the Veridian exists and that it's here," Van Lent said.

Veridian was started 25 years ago in Kentucky, but relocated to the Clay County seat community of 11,150 in 1997, which was a year after Van Lent purchased the company.

Its been a great move since then, he said. Weve continued to grow.

The business was initially a joint venture between International EMC of Iowa, a company that specialized in selling American made fire protective goods overseas, and Bullard of Kentucky, a manufacturer of firefighter helmets and other protective headgear.

Veridians original purpose was to develop custom made-to-measure protective gear for international firefighters that was compliant with the guidelines of the National Fire Protection Association, a global nonprofit that develops most of the codes and standards fire departments abide by.

Van Lent, who previously worked as an investment banker for Norwest Corp. prior to its merger with Wells Fargo, had no experience in manufacturing, but nevertheless he risked his life savings to buy Veridian  as well as EMC International  from a casual acquaintance from the Des Moines area.

It was a real challenge, Van Lent said. So much manufacturing was moving off shore if you think back to that time  the middle to late 90s  and it was really intriguing to me to try and find a tangible manufacturing business that we could locate and grow in the United States.

The 57-year-old executive said it took a lot of work for him to make the transition from banking to manufacturing. He noted in his former line of work, he dealt more with intangible assets such as bonds and investment securities, whereas with Veridian he was dealing with a number of tangible products.

At the time of the purchase, Van Lent said 100 percent of Veridians sales were international, which he thought was kind of odd since America holds the largest market for firefighter protective gear.

So we bought the company and began marketing the product more aggressively here in the United States, Van Lent said. We started to have some success.

The success was spurred by what Van Lent describes as a three-legged stool approach, which consists of having a high-quality well manufactured custom product with a good design, reasonable prices and a four to six week turnaround period per suit ordered.

At the time, there was kind of a pretty big backlog in the fire services as far as firefighters getting their protective clothing, Van Lent said. A firefighter, in order to do their job, they have to have their gear.

The three-legged stool approach to business and aggressive marketing tactics allowed Veridian to grab a slice of the American fire protective gear market; however, the increased demand for products was more than the original factory in Kentucky could handle.

Van Lent, who commuted from Iowa to Kentucky to oversee his investment, began looking at sights in Iowa to relocate Veridian to. Around the same time, Aalfs Manufacturing Co., a Sioux City-based garment manufacturer, was closing production facilities in Northwest Iowa, including one in Spencer.

Van Lent thought the 25,000-square-foot site in Spencer was perfect since it was already tailored to be a cut-and-sew facility. Additionally, the city already had a built in base of now unemployed people who were familiar with heavy textile production.

It was a really easy fit for me to be able to bring our manufacturing operation to this facility, Van Lent said.

These days, about 45 people work out of the Spencer location and Van Lent said they are always looking for more. He noted it is a challenge to find people domestically with experience in light industrial cut-and-sew facilities, but Veridian will provide on-the-job training to any hire.

Veridian ships out about 50 customer protective suits per working day. Each suit is created using mailed-in measurements from firefighters, who also fill out a comprehensive checklist so customizable that a firefighter can dictate where everything is placed on a protective suit down to the size, location and type of pockets used.

Customers can order four types of protective suits: Structural, typically worn by community firefighters; proximity gear, which would be worn during an aircraft type of rescue; Wildland, a line developed for forest firefighters, and another suit that offers the qualities of the Wildland brand, but also doubles for technical rescue situations.

Presenting such diverse product line has allowed Veridian to supply more than just firefighters. The U.S. Naval Supply Systems Command Fleet Logistics Center recently agreed to a $13,018.70 contract with Veridian to supply it with flash hoods and proximity suits.

Strong and steady sales allowed Veridian to purchase Glove Crafters, a former protective glove manufacturer based in Quitman, Arkansas, in 2015. Glover Crafters was rebranded under the Veridian name and continues to operate from Arkansas.

Even with the growth in domestic sales, Van Lent noted Veridian also continued to expand its international business, which makes up about 25 percent of total sales on average and boasts clientele in Asia, Central America, the Middle East and South America.

For a person who had no experience in the manufacturing sector, much less in owning a company that creates protective gear for firefighters, Van Lent thinks he has done well at Veridian. He noted maintaining the wave of success is a challenge, but thinks he has the formula down pat.

By being able to stay focused on our core customer base and our three-legged stool, trying to continue to right-size the company so we can meet those expectations has really been the secret to our success, Van Lent said.
Woman Adopts A Pitbull, And The Dog Cant Stop Hugging Her Bored Panda

First Gene Drive in Mammals Could Aid Vast New Zealand Eradication Plan MIT Technology Review (Dan K)

These vertical forests could transform a Brussels wasteland into luxury apartments Business Insider (David L)

Measles Outbreak Traced to Unvaccinated Border Staffers NBC (Dan K)

Excessive Radiation Inside Fukushima Fries Clean-up Robot Gizmodo

China?

Brexit

The US concern for the rise of the Leftist forces inside the UK Labor Party during the Thatcherian era failed evolution

Martin Schulz, the veteran MEP challenging for Merkels crown Financial Times

Russia Today Is Expanding In France And Preparing To Launch A French TV Channel BuzzFeed (furzy)

Greece hopeful of imminent EU debt deal despite German warning Guardian (Sid S)

Greek debt crisis: an existentialist drama with no good end in sight Guardian. From last week, still germane.

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Trump Transition

2016 Post Mortem

Behind the Internets Anti-Democracy Movement Atlantic (furzy). Important.

Dont Like the Ballot Measure Voters Approved? Just Ignore It, Some Lawmakers Say. Governing (Dan K)

Exclusive: Labor Department to delay, revisit fiduciary rule  sources Reuters (UserFriendly)

State lawmakers solution for pregnant workers: You can quit Think Progress (Chuck L)

Fake News

Daniel Tarullo, Federal Reserve Regulatory Point Man, to Resign Wall Street Journal. This is a huge loss Tarullo almost singledhandedly got some serious reforms through.

Republicans Boost Wall Street Donors, Help Finance Industry Stop States From Offering Retirement Assistance To Workers David Sirota, International Business Times. Tony James of Blackstone, one of Clintons top picks for Treasury Secretary, was pushing a similar idea; it was clearly a key element in a plan to turn Social Security over time into a welfare program rather than a universal benefit. Now that the Republicans are in the fore, will the Democrats oppose it or show their continued fealty to their Wall Street paymasters?

Class Warfare

Antidote du jour. Wayne W: Our role model

And a bonus video. Furzy sent this version of the story; its confirmed by a report at the local news station WCMH:

Officer James Givens has served with the Cincinnati Police Department for over 26 years, but has never quite experienced anything like this before.

He was sitting in his patrol car in a parking lot when he got an unexpected visitor.

A goose came up to his car and started pecking on the side of it.

He threw food out for her, thinking thats what she wanted, but she didnt take it.

She continued to peck and quack, then walked away, stopped, and looked back at Officer Givens.

Then she came back to his car and pecked at it again. She made it very obvious that she wanted Officer Givens to follow her, so he finally got out of his car and did just that.

The goose led him 100 yard away to a grassy area near a creek. Sitting there was one of her babies, tangled up in a balloon string. The baby was kicking its feet, desperate for help.

Being wary of helping the baby on his own, and worried that the goose might attack him, Givens called for help from the SPCA, but no wildlife rescuers were available at the moment.

Luckily, Givens colleague, Officer Cecilia Charron, came to help. She began to untangle the baby, and the mother goose just stood there and watched, quacking. She didnt become aggressive, and just let Officer Charron do what she had to do to set the baby free.

It was like the mother goose knew they were helping. Once Charron untangled the baby, she put it down and it ran right to her mom, and they went right to swimming in the creek.

It seems like something made up. It was just incredible, Givens said. I honestly dont know why I decided to follow her, but I did. It makes me wonder  do they know to turn to humans when they need help?

Charron teared up and said it was the highlight of her 24 years on the force.

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
The Los Angeles Times Michael Hiltzik published a hard-hitting column on Friday, criticizing the campaign by two CalPERS board members to strip board member JJ Jelincic of his authority by denying his participation in board closed session meetings, where they discuss confidential matters.

Hiltzik picked up on a story we broke, namely, how the two CalPERS board members, Bill Slaton and his apparent fellow traveller, board president Rob Feckner, moved forward with the aforementioned plan that other board members depicted as a trial of Jelincic. Were that the proposed process was that fair. Even though Jelincic was far-sighted enough to ask that the board meeting at which board members review each others performance be held in an open session, it was held in an offsite in Monterey, where public attendance was guaranteed to be thin. And the session was not taped by CalPERS, nor was an official transcript made. But we obtained and published a bootleg video and a transcript. And as we and Hiltzik stressed, Jelincic has been accused of serious yet unspecified violations, and as of this date has yet to be told exactly what his accusers think he did wrong. In other words, his opponents are smearing him by stating conclusions while not giving Jelincic the opportunity to rebut them.

As weve discussed regularly, Jelincic is the one CalPERS board member who regularly challenges staff, with the result that he has repeatedly and unintentionally caught them out making obvious false statements and appearing to be seriously out of their depth. That appears to be the real foundation of the ire against him.

It would have been nice if Hiltzik had given credit for relying on the video and transcript we published. He did at least quote us in the article, but that was on an earlier story that we had also broken. [Update, 6:00 PM EST: Mike Hiltzik sent a very gracious note as of 10:00 AM to tell us he had edited the story to credit Naked Capitalism, so thanks for his speedy action.]

But perhaps more important for the long haul, Hiltzik independently confirmed our reading, that CalPERS is out to quash independent views and badly-needed inquiries because they are seen as socially uncomfortable. That is a lousy excuse for punting on the staffs and boards fiduciary duties to CalPERS beneficiaries and California taxpayers who ultimately backstop the giant fund. CalPERS lives in a bubble and routinely denies well-warranted criticism. Hopefully the Hiltzik article will serve as a wake-up call.

Key sections from his column:

Workers and retirees dependent on CalPERS benefits, as well as public officials whose agency and municipal budgets hinge on the success of CalPERS investments, should be mightily concerned about an attack on the boards most outspoken and inquisitive member. Jelincics real offense is that his determined questioning has uncovered flaws in the CalPERS staffs abilities to manage a $300-billion investment portfolio and in the boards ability to understand its investment choices If youre going to clean up CalPERS, [University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor Bill] Black told me, you need very forceful directors. California should appoint more people like Jelincic. Jelincic has roiled the placid waters of board meetings, and some board members dont care for that. The board members virtually never oppose the staff or board consensus, says Michael Flaherman, a former board member who is now a visiting scholar in public policy at UC Berkeley. By attacking Jelincic, he says, theyre venting their pique at a member whose dissent has sometimes gained him national press The real danger of the campaign against Jelincic is that it might silence not only his voice, but that of others. My fear is that its going to have a chilling effect on people on the board, but also on the staff, says Andrew Silton, a former chief investment advisor to the state treasurer of North Carolina. If youre going to pay a price for raising questions, thats not a good prescription for running a large investment organization. Disagreement is good for the investment process.

Another fierce criticism of the attack on Jelincic came from former state official Tony Butka in his most recent column at LA City Watch, Urgent Memo to the Governor: Stop the Witch Hunts at CalPERS, which I also urge you to read in full. It offers some important observations on the politics, such as:

If somebody tried this stuff in the legislature, theyd be laughed out of the building.Trying to muzzle an elected Board member whose only crime lies in openness and transparency, just gives the funds opponents ammunition. The Board needs reminding that theirs is not a private club that can hold secret meetings and do as they will.

If you havent had a chance to do so yet, please give the state officials who can and should rein in this fiasco a piece of your mind. Please write or call. It never hurts to crib from press reports.

Please also circulate the Los Angeles Times column as well as this post to your friends and colleagues in California. Stress to them that contacting state officials, ideally in writing, is effective. Recall that our readers 2015 efforts led State Treasurer John Chiang to sponsor path-breaking private equity transparency legislation.

Bill Slaton was appointed by the Governor. Please write or call Governor Jerry Browns office and tell him that governance at CalPERS has become a travesty, with his appointee Slaton as a prime example. Describe how Slaton is trying to implement a legally impermissible sanction against an effective trustee voted in twice by members. Tell him that he needs to ask Slaton to resign. Be sure to cc Slaton.

Governor Jerry Brown

c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173

Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone: (916) 445-2841

Fax: (916) 558-3160 E-mail contact form: https://govnews.gov.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php Send a cc to: Mr. Bill Slaton

Board of Administration

CalPERS

Lincoln Plaza North

400 Q Street

Sacramento, CA 95811 E-mail: wjslaton@gmail.com

Please also contact the two elected officials on CalPERS board, John Chiang and Betty Yee. Betty Yee was present at the board session that Slaton led and did not object. Her silence implies consent.

Mr. John Chiang

California State Treasurer

Post Office Box 942809

Sacramento, CA 94209-0001

(916) 653-2995

E-mail: john@sco.ca.gov Ms. Betty Yee

California State Controller

P.O. Box 942850

Sacramento, California 94250-5872

(916) 445-2636

E-mail: b.t.yee@sco.ca.gov

In addition, if you are a California citizen, please alert your state Assemblyman and Senator, and demand that they look into this serious lapse of governance. You can find your Senate and Assembly representatives here.

Thanks again for your help.
Former Tokyo club scene doyenne, PANTI is Ireland's foremost gender illusionist  and now she is bringing her stage show to Tipperary!

The Queen of Ireland has run some of Dublin's most seminal club nights, and hosted and produced the legendary Alternative Miss Ireland pageant, which raised money over 18 years for HIV/AIDS charities in Ireland.

She is landlady of Pantibar in Dublin, where she performs a weekly drag show -The Pantishow.

Now she is bringing her latest show  High Heels in Low Places  to The Source Arts Centre in Thurles, on Thursday, April 20, at 8pm.

Tickerts from The Source box office on 0504 90204.

Panti made her theatrical debut in 2007 with the critically acclaimed, sold-out In These Shoes? From there, she was invited to create All Dolled Up for The Dublin Fringe Festival. As a direct result, Panti was commissioned by Project Arts Centre and THISISPOPBABY to create a new piece for the Dublin Theatre Festival called A Woman in Progress.

In July 2013 All Dolled Up Restitched was created, a reimagining of her three hit shows, which played at the Peacock Theatre in the Abbey, and went on to tour Australia.

Pantis latest collaboration with THISISPOPBABY  High Heels in Low Places is a response to the social, political and media maelstrom that erupted earlier this year known as Pantigate and the ensuing Marriage Equality Referendum in Ireland.

The show has played to packed houses throughout Ireland and the UK, as well as Sydney, Paris, New York and Sarejevo. High Heels in Low Places is not about Pantigate, it is more about life after Pantigate, making movies and making history along with other brushes with infamy that Panti has had in a life well lived. Its a comedy.
Nonbank mortgage company Cornerstone Home Lending has launched a new mortgage company as a joint venture with homebuilder Oakwood Homes.

The company, Nest Home Lending, has started operations in Colorado, with plans for Utah next. Nest is operating as a separate company with its own Nationwide Multistate Licensing System number.

Nest will function as a full-service mortgage banker and handle all pieces of the origination process, including underwriting and closing. The company will also fund loans in house.

Oakwood Homes Chief Operating Officer Scott Thorson said in a news release Nest would offer buyers of Oakwood properties "an even better one-stop shopping experience from contract to close."

"With our new home counselors and lending officers working side-by-side, they know our buyers, their concerns and the stage of their home's construction every step of the way," Thorson said. "It's truly a seamless experience."

This is not Cornerstone's first attempt at a joint venture. In 2011, the company partnered with Move Inc. to launch the mortgage origination website Mortgagematch.com. At the time, Move had a licensing deal to run realtor.com for the National Association of Realtors and cross-promoted the two sites. This drew the ire of real estate agents who said it interfered with their own mortgage referral relationships.

With MortgageMatch.com, Move ran the website, while a Cornerstone subsidiary actually funded and underwrote the loans. Within months of bringing the site to market though, Cornerstone exited the venture.

Oakwood finds itself in good company as it enters the mortgage market with Nest. Real estate brokerage Redfin said in January that it was forming a mortgage banking subsidiary. And Remax launched a franchising model for mortgage brokering with Motto Mortgage in October.
JOHNSTON  The states top Republican said Friday he sides with GOP legislators on issues of state preemption of some local decisions and collective bargaining changes that may impact his other roles as a county supervisor and member of a community college employees union.

Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa who also is a Cedar County supervisor and instructor at Muscatine Community College, said his partys platform is very clear about we believe in local control but he there also are appropriate times for the state to set uniform polices in areas like the minimum wage and local siting of livestock confinement operations.

I think there is an appropriate time for preemption, but I would rather it be the exception than the rule, Kaufmann said in an interview at Fridays taping of Iowa Public Televisions Iowa Press show where he appeared jointly with Iowa Democratic Party chairman Derek Eadon.

I think the Legislature is going to have to make the decision as to when preemption is appropriate. But theyve got to make their case to county supervisors, the Iowa GOP chief said. We have a ton of new Republican county supervisors. There are a lot more Republican supervisors than Democratic supervisors  overwhelming, and so theyre going to have to make their case.

A bill that would preempt cities and counties from going beyond the state standard in areas of minimum wage, civil rights, consumer product restrictions and other employment areas has cleared the committee level and is awaiting floor debate in the Iowa House. Republicans who control the Legislature also are moving ahead with a sweeping rewrite of Iowas collective bargaining law.

Kaufmann, a former negotiator for his community colleges bargaining unit, said he welcomed the requirement that unions periodically recertify and the effort to include taxpayers in the discussion by revamping a binding arbitration process that pressures local officials to raise taxes to pay for contract awards.

Were still going to bargain salaries, he said and just because health insurance and other issues will no longer be mandatory items for bargaining that doesnt say you cant bargain those items. What it says is they have to be agreed upon. Since when is it a bad idea for both bodies involved in negotiations to talk about something?

Kaufmann said he liked Branstads idea of creating a statewide health insurance pool but was unaware that GOP legislators had scrapped that idea and did not include it in the collective bargaining bill working its way on parallel tracks through the House and Senate.

He said he expected that will still be a topic of conversation given the governors support even if it meant schools, counties or other local units banding together to create health insurance pools presuming they would not run afoul of state preemption rules. Common sense will tell you that its numbers that drive down costs, he said.

During the IPTV taping, Eadon said voter backlash over GOP efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, revamp collective bargaining and make other changes that werent part of their 2016 campaign messages could give Democrats an opening in 2018 when Republicans wont have Branstad or U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley at the top of the ticket.

I think we're optimistic that there's an opportunity to be able to show some of these folks that we have their back and that Republicans are not proposing anything that's going to help the middle class or job growth with this agenda. But obviously our base is going to be reeling from a lot of these bills, Eadon said.

I think we're already seeing this restlessness and this fear of some very dangerous policies being proposed at the federal level and at the state level and I think we're going to see more and more of this, the Democratic leader added. I don't think these rallies are going to stop with this disastrous union-busting bill that the Republicans are proposing.

Kaufmann conceded that having Branstad resign as governor to become President Trumps ambassador to China is a loss. I cant sugarcoat that. But he said Republicans have a strong bench with Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds waiting in the wings and while he conceded Republicans have to guard against overplaying their hand the same is true of Democrats.

We're going to fight complacency, Kaufmann said. That would be an easy trap to fall into, and I didn't do a victory dance. I moved right into 2018.

Eadon said Democrats also have a strong bench and Branstads departure is absolutely an opening, but he conceded the party is starting from scratch without high profile candidates like Tom Harkin and Tom Vilsack. We still have a lot of time before that June primary of next year, he noted.
What if there is a way to skip the time needed to prepare alcohol? Beverages like brandies take years to achieve what some call an "optimum" taste. This is why cognac are very expensive, the right one is hard to find. However, scientists from Spain have found a way to reduce the time needed to create these alcohol from years to merely days.

The maturity of the brandies depend on the time they spend inside their casks and the environment where they settle. This means that as brandies grow older, the chemical reactions between the alcohol and the wood of the casks differ as well. This results in varying colors and tastes that allow people to choose their "preferred" brand. However, these reactions take time -- which is why high-quality products need years and even decades to be made.

However, the time of waiting has come to an end. Ultrasound -- the waves that cause tissues to release compounds at a higher rate -- can actually help extract chemicals from plant tissues. A little tinkering of ultrasound may allow the same chemicals to be released in the form of alcohol, and scientists want to check if the same effect can happen to brandy.

In the newer study, the researchers applied ultrasound waves to distilled wine that is undergoing its aging process. As wine passes through oak chips, they are affected by the waves. The chemicals they released were similar to brandies that were kept for years.

The study, led by Valme Garcia of the University of Cadiz, Spain, had eight judges taste the chemicals. They all conceded that the products were almost as good as brandies in the market. This means an entirely new brand of brandies can be made with the help of ultrasound.

Unfortunately, the ultrasound-based alcohol cannot be considered brandies. European law states that only spirits aged in oak casks can be called brandies.

For a bit of a background, Discovery Magazine explains that brandies or "burned wine" as powerful alcoholic spirits. Like other alcohol, they are made from fermented fruit juices and are distilled from wines. In fact, poet Samuel Johnson once said that heroes drink brandy while boys and men drink liquor and port, respectively.

This reputation of brandies meant they are really expensive to buy. According to tech firm Technavio, the market for brandy is expected to go beyond a whopping $63 billion by 2020. Just last 2011, there is a new world record in Shanghai for an 1858 cognac called the Cuvee Leonie that was sold for 1 million Chinese Yuan.
A team of scientists at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii has discovered what seems to be a remnant of a massive object that was torn apart by a white dwarf star some 170 light-years from Earth.

According to a report from Gizmodo, the discovery was made using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Initially, the researchers wanted to observe the stellar atmosphere of the white dwarf WD 1425+540. However, they were surprised when they found a massive object being ripped apart and scattered in the atmosphere of the white dwarf.

The massive object appears to be icy and has the makeup of a comet. This is the first time that astronomers detected debris from comet-like objects to be orbiting around a white dwarf star. White dwarfs are known to rip apart rocky, asteroid-like objects. Due to this, about 25 to 50 percent of white dwarfs are polluted with debris from asteroid.

Using ultraviolet vision of Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), the researchers were able to make measurements that are very challenging to do from the ground. Hubble measured the nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, sulfur, silicon, iron, nickel and hydrogen of the white dwarf's stellar atmosphere, while the Keck observatory provided the measurements for hydrogen, calcium and magnesium.

The researchers found that the debris of the comet were rich in elements that are essential for life including carbon, oxygen, sulfur and nitrogen. It is the first time that nitrogen was detected in the planetary debris that surrounds a white dwarf.

"Nitrogen is a very important element for life as we know it," said lead investigator Siyi Xu of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany, in a press release. "This particular object is quite rich in nitrogen, more so than any object observed in our solar system."

Despite having similar composition with the Halley's Comet, the researchers noted that the comet torn apart by WD 1425+540 is 100,000 times more massive and holds more water.

The white dwarf WD 1425+540 was first recorded in 1974 in the constellation Bootes. It belongs to a binary system, with the distance of its companion star equivalent to 2,000 times the distance of Earth from our Sun.
NASA is moving further into its deep space exploration programs that aim to reach the outskirts of the Solar System. Part of the mission is to explore Venus but in order to do that, engineers have to design devices that could withstand the harsh and hot environment on Venus.

Unlike Mars, Venus is considered as the hottest planet in the Solar System, making it more difficult to explore compared to the red planet. The extreme conditions made it impossible for computers to survive. But scientists are about to change that as a new kind of chip that can withstand the heat and a new type of lander/rover that could land safely and operate on Venus are being developed. The pressure on the surface of the planet is about 92 times more compared to Earth with an average temperature of 450 degrees Celsius (842 F), according to Forbes.

"If you look at Mars missions, there've been rovers on the surface getting all sorts of scientific data," Philip Neudeck, an electronics engineer from the NASA Glenn Research Center said in an interview with Gizmodo. "That dataset is totally missing from Venus, and that's because the electronics don't function on Venus."

The new chips are made of silicon carbide to enable it to keep its semiconductor attributes. This material ensures that electricity will flow and the device will function and won't get fried due to the harsh environment,

A mission to Venus is slated to occur in 2023, but that will depend on the mechanism that is being developed in order for the devices to survive on the planet that has above 800 degrees Fahrenheit. NASA has been working on the mission especially in the process of developing high-endurance devices.

"Any mission you do requires functioning electronics, communications, and power," Rodger Dyson, principal investigator for the mission in Venus said in a press release. "Just a few years ago, we didn't have the technology that could survive on the surface very long. We've made advancements in the last three years, but it all needs to be tested."

Researchers are using the NASA Glenn Extreme Environments Rig (GEER) that can recreate a Venus-like environment to test the chips. After testing, the chip survived the tests and managed to function for 21 days. The tests will help determine the successful design of Venus landers and rovers that are vital for a successful planetary exploration.




Immigrant advocates on Friday decried a series of arrests that federal deportation agents said aimed to round up criminals in Southern California but they believe mark a shift in enforcement under the Trump administration.

Immigration authorities launched a series of raids, which appeared to target scores of undocumented immigrants, including those without criminal records, in several states across the country Thursday and Friday.

Advocates began fielding calls Thursday from immigrants and their lawyers reporting raids at homes and businesses in the greater Los Angeles area.

In one instance, agents knocked on one door looking for a man and ended up arresting another who is in the country illegally but has no criminal record  something Angelica Salas, the executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said would not likely have happened previously.

"This was not normal," Salas told reporters Friday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested about 160 people during a five-day sweep in Southern California aimed at immigrants with criminal histories and deportation orders, including a Salvadoran gang member wanted in his country and a Brazilian drug trafficker.

The arrests were part of a planned, targeted operation, and anyone else encountered during the process who lacks legal status is evaluated on an individual basis, the agency said in a statement.

According to the Washington Post, immigration activists said Friday that they had documented ICE raids of unusual intensity in the last 48 hours in Vista, Pomona and Compton, Calif.; Austin, Dallas, and Pflugerville, Texas; Alexandria and Annandale, Va.; Charlotte and Burlington, N.C.; Plant City, Fla.; the Hudson Valley region of New York; and Wichita, Kan.

The announcement of the arrests comes days after an Arizona woman was arrested and deported to Mexico after what she thought was a routine check in with immigration officials and amid heightened anxiety among immigrant communities since Trump signed an executive order to expand deportations.

A decade ago, immigration officers searching for specific individuals would often arrest others found along the way, a practice that drew criticism from advocates. Under the Obama administration, agents also carried out arrests but focused more narrowly on specific individuals.

In the suburbs of Los Angeles, 50-year-old house painter Manuel Mosqueda was there when his fiance answered the door, thinking it was police, his 21-year-old daughter Marlene said.

"They were looking for someone else and they took my dad in the process," she said.

Karla Navarrete, a lawyer for CHIRLA, said she sought to stop Mosqueda from being placed on a bus to Mexico and was told by ICE that things had changed. She said another lawyer filed federal court papers to halt his removal.

Salas said the agency provided scant details to lawyers who headed to the detention center in response to the phone calls, and in the past was more forthcoming with information about their operations.

She also said there is increased anxiety in the community about immigration enforcement since Trump's order.

Democratic state lawmakers denounced the arrests and urged immigrants to know their rights and what to do if approached by federal authorities.

California State President pro Tempore Kevin de Leon said in a statement Friday that he's asked federal officials to disclose how many children, men, and women have been detained, what the processing time will be and what the rationale is for their detention.

"I asked that everyone be offered access to an attorney," he said. "We will continue to work aggressively to protect law-abiding immigrants because you and your families are a great value to our society."

He continued, "It is now clear the Trump Administration is not concerned with public safety, they are only focused on ripping hard-working men, women, and children from their families and communities. Mass deportations will not make us safer, instead they will simply undermine our states economy."

Former Los Angeles mayor and California gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa called the recent reports of ICE raids "justifiably disturbing."

"Particularly given President Trump's rhetoric targeting immigrants, it is critically important that we stand together to protect each other," Villaraigosa said in a statement. "No one should be ripped away from their family for the 'crime' of wanting to work, study and participate in our great democracy."

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, also voiced concerns about Operation Cross Check raids in South and Central Texas in a tweet, saying he has asked "ICE to clarify whether these individuals are in fact dangerous,violent threats to our communities, and not people who are here peacefully raising families and contributing to our state. I will continue to monitor this situation."
Car owners around the Bay Area are paying thousands of dollars in traffic fines when they could be paying nothing.

It all comes down to your smartphone and a consumer protection law that many people dont know exists.

THE ROLLING STOP

Photographer Mark Lilly often spends his mornings in Santa Cruz, capturing the sunrise.

Last winter, an early morning excursion started off all wrong, when a police officer stopped him.

I made a rolling stop and he pulled me over, Lilly said.

Lilly wasnt ticketed for the rolling stop. But he was cited for something else: not having his insurance card with him.

He was nice about, Lilly explained. And said, Hey, Im going to give you a fix-it ticket.

A fix-it ticket allows you to pay a $25 fine later, if you can show proof of insurance to the court.

Lilly says he tried to do that, but ran into roadblocks.

His story gets messy here because his ticket had the wrong address and the court had computer problems. Lilly admits that after several weeks of trying to pay the ticket, he just gave up.

It didnt even cross my mind anymore. I thought well, its a fix-it ticket, its minor  $25," he said.

But months later, that "minor" amount ballooned into a $1,200 fine. The court sent Lillys case to a debt collector. It demanded a $900 fine for not having insurance plus a $300 collections fee.

I was sort of shocked and didnt know what to say, Lilly said.

Lilly asked us if we could help. We tried. But Lilly is still being told he has to pay.

AN APP THAT GETS OUT OF A TICKET

We learned that there was something Lilly could have done to prevent this fix-it ticket mess at the time he was pulled over. He could have pulled out his cellphone.

Since 2013, California law has allowed drivers to show proof of insurance electronically on their smart phones  using either the insurance companys app or an image of the paper card on the screen.

Lilly says he had no idea that was an option and the police officer didnt suggest it.

He didnt tell me that, Lilly said.

Lillys case triggered our curiosity. We wondered: how many other drivers have been issued fix-it tickets when they could have just pulled out a phone and paid nothing at all?

That data proved difficult to get. Many courts cant extract it from the records.

But we did get numbers from San Mateo and Marin counties.

THOUSANDS OF TICKETS

In the four years since this law has been in effect, Redwood City has issued 1,156; San Carlos issued 540; and San Rafael issued 1,098.

Drivers in San Mateo and Marin counties alone paid $320,000 in fines when they could have paid zero if they had a smartphone to show proof of insurance.

California, in my opinion, is a little behind in the electronic communications, said Armand Feliciano, of the Association of California Insurance Companies, which supported the law that now allows drivers to show proof of insurance electronically.

Hed like to see police officers encouraging drivers to pull out their phone and do away with fix it tickets.

This is not even the way of the future. This is it, he said. This is whats happening now. Everybody that has a smartphone understands this is how it works.

DONT ASK, DONT TELL

State law does not require law enforcement officers to ask you about your smartphone or tell you that an insurance company app could get you out of a ticket for not having your insurance card.

We asked 16 police departments what they do. Many said theres no protocol within their departments requiring officers to tell drivers about the law. But some said they try to do it anyway. The California Highway Patrol said it does let drivers know.

As for your vehicle registration, electronic copies of that are not allowed. Only paper copies are accepted.
Union City police officers reached for their own wallets after a teenager, whose picture was released Friday, allegedly robbed a 12-year-old's Girl Scout cookie stand at gunpoint.

The theft occurred Wednesday outside a Safeway store at 1790 Decato Road where a mother and her daughter were selling cookies at a booth, according to police.

"This is very, very scary. I never thought this would actually happen to me," said Rosa Bennett, the child's mother.

The suspect first approached the pair and asked about buying cookies, but returned soon thereafter  angry. He jumped behind the table, holding a gun, said Bennett, who froze. Her daughter had just stepped away to the car to replenish her cookies.

He stole an unknown amount of money from the mother and fled, police said.

The girl, whose identity was not disclosed at the request of her mother, said she knew something was terribly wrong as soon she got back to the stand.

"I felt so bad for my mom. I just started crying and crying," she said.

The teenager, who remains at large as of Friday, is believed to be between 16 and 19 years old and about 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 6 inches tall. He was described as having a thin build and clad in dark clothing, including a hooded sweatshirt.

Police say many officers involved in the investigation have children involved in scouting. So they donated to cover the cost of the robbery. In two hours, they had raised almost $600.

Then the Union City Police Officers Association purchased all of the girl's remaining boxes of cookies. In all, the officers and the union donated more than $1,100 to the girl.

On Thursday, the girl's mother dropped off the cookies to the police department.

Sgt. Steve Mendez says officers are glad neither the girl nor her mother was injured in the robbery. He says he's glad officers were able to donate and turn the robbery into a happy story.

But for Bennett, the robbery was a frightening lesson.

"Were probably going to be way more cautious next time," she admitted. "You never know whats going to happen."

People with information are asked to call Investigations at (510) 675-5275 or contact Detective Dejong at (510) 675-5227. Tip information may be left anonymously at (510) 675-5207 or at tips@unioncity.org
MASON CITY | Approximately 330 people participated in Cupid's Undie Run in Mason City Saturday.

In this event, people run through the streets in their skivvies to raise money for neurofibromatosis (NF).

Mason City is one of nearly 40 cities in the United States and Canada hosting a Cupid's Undie Run.

This was the fourth annual Cupid's Undie Run in Mason City. Last year the event raised $67,000.

As of Saturday, the event had raised $39,895, according to event coordinator Loni Dirksen.

NF is a genetic illness that causes different kinds of tumors. It occurs once in every 3,000 births.

The money raised by the one-mile run goes to the Children's Tumor Foundation.
Hate mail and the defacing of a religious statue. Its happening at the Catholic Diocese of San Jose. And it started after a meeting with the Muslim community.

Somebody chopped off the fingers off the statue of St. Joseph and the left hand off the statue of Jesus outside the office of the diocese. The vandalism happened right after the Martin Luther King holiday in January.

Thats the day the bishop of San Jose met with Muslim leaders in a show of solidarity.

NBC Bay Area has learned the defacing of the statue outside the diocese was accompanied by hundreds of pieces of hate mail aimed at the diocese over the meeting. Members from the Council on American Islamic Relations were among those at the MLK solidarity gathering.

Its heart wrenching to see another faith community in our community being treated this way, said Zahra Billoo, a spokesperson for CAIR.

The San Jose diocese declined a request for an interview on the vandalism.

CAIR said the gesture of solidarity by the bishop on MLK Day will not be forgotten.

Weve been really appreciative of how supportive our Catholic leadership has been of our community, and many other targeted communities, Billoo said.

Some believe its that support that has now made the diocese a target.

While there is no way to know why someone cut the hands and fingers off the statue, at least one source believes it was an attempt to mimic a punishment in some Muslim majority countries.

Thats bothersome, said David Cortese, president of the Board of Supervisors in San Jose.

Cortese was also at the solidarity meeting, and preached tolerance and compassion at his state of the county address.

If theres any silver lining in this, it wakes people up and I think it would actually ignite a counter movement of compassion, and thats what were calling for here in Santa Clara County, he said.
Anti-abortion activists emboldened by the new administration of President Donald Trump staged rallies around the country Saturday calling for the federal government to cut off payments to Planned Parenthood, but in some cities counter-protests dwarfed the demonstrations.

Thousands of Planned Parenthood supporters, many wearing the pointy-eared pink hats popularized by last month's women's marches, turned out for a rally in St. Paul, Minnesota, separated by barricades from an anti-abortion crowd of a couple hundred people. In Detroit, about 300 people turned up outside a Planned Parenthood office, most of them supporting the organization. In St. Louis, thousands marched, many carrying pink signs that read, "I stand with Planned Parenthood."

"They do a lot of work to help women with reproductive health  not just abortions, obviously  but they help with birth control and cancer screenings and counseling and a whole variety of services, and it seems they're under attack right now, and that concerns me greatly," said Kathy Brown, 58, a supporter of the organization who attended the St. Paul rally.

Andy LaBine, 44, of Ramsey, Minnesota, rallied with abortion opponents in St. Paul. LaBine, who was there with his family, said he believes Planned Parenthood is hiding "under a veil of health care."

"I personally believe that abortion is a profound injustice to the human race," LaBine said.

In one of his first acts as president, Trump last month banned U.S. funding to international groups that perform abortions or even provide information about abortions. Vice President Mike Pence strongly opposes abortion, citing his Catholic beliefs, and the newly confirmed health secretary, Tom Price, has supported cutting off taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood.

Federal dollars don't pay for abortions, but the organization is reimbursed by Medicaid for other services, including birth control and cancer screening. Anti-abortion conservatives have long tried to cut Planned Parenthood funds, arguing that the reimbursements help subsidize abortions. Planned Parenthood says it performed 324,000 abortions in 2014, the most recent year tallied, but the vast majority of women seek out contraception, testing and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, or other services including cancer screenings.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says defunding plans would cut roughly $400 million in Medicaid money from the group in the year after enactment and would result in roughly 400,000 women losing access to care. Republicans would redirect the funding to community health centers, but Planned Parenthood supporters say women denied Medicaid services from Planned Parenthood may not be able to find replacement care.

At the nonprofit's New York headquarters, supporters outnumbered a group of 50 abortion rights opponents by a ratio of 3-to-1, and thousands rallied separately at Washington Square Park to support Planned Parenthood. In the Seattle suburb of Kent, 300 supporters turned out, as opposed to a couple dozen opponents, KOMO-TV reported. By contrast, in the deeply conservative western Iowa city of Council Bluffs, two dozen anti-abortion demonstrators drew no counter-rally.

Outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in the Dallas suburb of Plano, about 20 anti-abortion protesters gathered  a few more than a typical Saturday, attendees said. They bore signs reading "Abortion Kills Children," ''Pray to End Abortion" and "Men Regret Lost Fatherhood."

Maria Nesbitt, 47, participated along with her husband and daughters, ages 5 and 3, and said she was pleased about Trump's election and the prospect of cutting Planned Parenthood's funding. She and the girls held signs saying "Pray to End Abortion," though she said they're too young to understand what it means.

Nearby, Anthony Hodgson, 57, held a sign with the same message.

"I believe it's not right. God told us, 'Thou shalt not kill,'" he said.

In Detroit, Jill Byczek, 59, said she felt empowered after attending the recent women's march in Washington. Wearing a pink shirt that said "My Body My Choice," she said Planned Parenthood stands for "so much more" than abortion services.

"This is a way women get educated, get protected," she said. "This shows people are upset about what's happening. ... We are scared. We are worried. We have a person in power who's against us."
U.S. intelligence has collected information that Russia is considering turning over Edward Snowden as a "gift" to President Donald Trump  who has called the NSA leaker a "spy" and a "traitor" who deserves to be executed.

That's according to a senior U.S. official who has analyzed a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations and who says a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to "curry favor" with Trump.

Snowden's ACLU lawyer, Ben Wizner, told NBC News they are unaware of any plans that would send him back to the United States.

The White House had no comment, but the Justice Department told NBC News it would welcome the return of Snowden, who currently faces federal charges that carry a minimum of 30 years in prison. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said talk about returning Snowden is "nonsense."

Snowden tweeted in response to the NBC News report:
Why wait until next week to get your "One Chicago" TV fix when you can meet the stars of the shows this weekend?



Fans of "Chicago Med," "Chicago P.D." and "Chicago Fire can take photos with some of the shows' cast members on Sunday at AT&Ts Michigan Avenue Flagship Store.



LaRoyce Hawkins of "Chicago P.D", Kara Killmer of "Chicago Fire" and YaYa DaCosta of "Chicago Med" will be on hand to meet fans.

The meet-and-greet runs from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. at 600 N. Michigan Ave.

Don't miss NBC's special crossover event on March 1 featuring cast members from all three shows on NBC 5. "Chicago Justice" premieres Sunday, March 5.
Lawyers for the family of a 12-year-old boy who suffered a nearly fatal beating last week at his suburban middle school filed a petition in court Thursday seeking information about the attack they say was kept from them by the school district.

Henry Sembdner, a seventh-grader at Kenyon Woods Middle School in South Elgin, was in a coma over the weekend after being beaten by another student at the school Friday.

He suffered severe injuries and was taken to Presence St. Joseph Hospital in Elgin before being transferred to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.

Attorneys for the boy's family released a statement Friday saying the family holds no ill will toward the student who attacked the boy but noted they still struggle to find answers from school officials who kept them in the dark following the attack.

School District U-46 official Mary Fergus said the district's counsel has been in contact with the Sembdner's attorneys and will continue to do so.

"We have responded to requests for information pursuant to the rules of civil law procedure," she said in an email. "It's important to note the district already has policies in place to support our obligation as a government body to preserve records."

"This filing is not a lawsuit for damages," the Goldberg Weisman Cairo Law Firm said in the statement, "but rather a petition filed under Illinois Supreme Court rules that allows for civil discovery to take place to identify what, if any, claims may exist and who the responsible parties might be."

The law firm said it "intends to take all necessary steps to seek the truth about Henrys attack and will hold District officials accountable in providing this information."

The attorneys said the boy was slammed headfirst onto the floor, which caused him to bleed profusely and become nauseous. They said school officials sent him to the nurse and called his parents to say he suffered a bloody nose and broken tooth.

The school called emergency crews only after the boys eye began to bulge, the attorneys said. At the hospital, the attorneys said, a school official told the family the school had not experienced behavior problems with the student who attacked the boy.

Since that time, Henrys parents have tried to sift through a maze of rumors and second-hand information as to whether that representation was in fact true and have struggled to understand why a child who allegedly had no behavioral issues would suddenly turn violent, the attorneys said.

In a letter to parents last week, Kenyon Woods Middle School Principal Lisa Olsem said the young boy was assaulted by another student just before noon on Friday.

I spent time with the family of the injured student at the hospital this afternoon and will remain in close contact with them, Olsem wrote. The alleged attacker, [sic] was arrested and transported to South Elgin Police Department.

At the Elgin school district meeting Monday night, the student board member wore green, a symbol officials say is meant to represent hope. Others throughout the district wore the color in support after the brutal beating. That support, the districts CEO says, is not one-sided.

Not only do we support Henry, but we also support the student who allegedly caused thiswe support him through counseling, Tony Sanders said.

A school official also touched on what might have caused the incident.

The student was bumped, or somehow bumped into the other student, that student then became aggressive in a very short couple of seconds and injured the young man, said John Heiderscheidt, the districts director of safety.

Chief Jerry Krawczyk said the alleged suspect is in middle school but did not give an age.

"This case makes me sad as a dad," he said. "I've never seen a case like this involving children resulting in such severe injuries."

Two GoFundMepages were set up to help the Sembdner family with medical costs.

Chicago Cubs star Anthony Rizzo took to Twitter Monday to lend Henry some support and make him an offer.

The familys attorneys said Friday the Sembdners are cooperating fully with the South Elgin Police Department and Kane County States Attorneys Office conducting an ongoing investigation into the matter.
More than seven decades after Pearl Harbor, George Sternisha of suburban Crest Hill has finally received the news he has waited for his entire life.



Sternishas uncle, Michael Galajdik died in Pearl Harbor aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma in December of 1941. But his body was never identified, one of nearly 400 from the Oklahoma buried in mass graves in Honolulu.



Its a heartbreaking part of the 69-year-old Sternishas family lore which has spanned decades, births and deaths. But on a recent phone call he got the news his family had been waiting for.



His uncle was finally coming home.



"I came out and said, 'Do you have a positive identification of my uncle?' And they said, 'Yes I do!' And at that point, I got goose bumps!



After the attack, the bodies of the sailors and marines had been entombed in the capsized Oklahoma for some two years. When their remains were finally recovered they would eventually be buried in 45 mass graves in a Honolulu cemetery. Two years ago the Department of Defense launched a major effort to disinter all of the unidentified crew from the Oklahoma to apply modern science in hopes of getting positive IDs.



"They were separated to like body parts, for the most part," says Rear Admiral Michael Franken, director of the Defense Departments POW/MIA Accounting Agency told NBC5 at the time the project was launched. "Our task will be to disinter about five graves a week over the course of the next six months, then in the span of five years, make those identifications."



After the torpedoed Oklahoma rolled over in Pearl Harbor, a few dozen crew members were rescued by workers who were able to cut holes in the hull. But the giant ships story is one of the most haunting in the annals of the Navy. Taps on the hull gave clues to where other crew members were trapped. But those taps ceased after three days.



In all, 429 sailors and marines died. Of the 388 unidentified crew from the Oklahoma, 18 were from Illinois. Sternisha and his sister both submitted samples to the Navy lab to help in the efforts to identify their uncle.



"I mean, they had like 60,000 bones that they had to get DNA on, each one separately," Sternisha says. "Its just hard to comprehend!"



In early 1942, Sternishas mother, Galajdiks sister, received a telegram informing her that his body could not be positively identified, but that he had most certainly perished. It was his mothers dream, he said, that her brothers body would somehow be found.

"She always prayed, and talked a little bit about it," he said. "This is her wish come true."



Sternisha says he hopes to travel to Honolulu and personally bring his uncle home. The family already has a plot and headstone at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Will County.



So far, the Navy says, 68 crew members from the Oklahoma have been identified. And the work continues.



"I would just tell other families, just keep praying," said Sternisha. "You know, dont give up the faith!"
The United States on Friday blocked the appointment of the former Palestinian prime minister to lead the U.N. political mission in Libya, saying it was acting to support its ally Israel.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the Trump administration "was disappointed" to see that U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had sent a letter to the Security Council indicating his intention to appoint Salam Fayyad, who served as the Palestinian Authority's prime minister from 2007-2013, as the next U.N. special representative to Libya.

"For too long the U.N. has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," Haley said.

Palestine is a non-member observer state at the United Nations and its independence has been recognized by 137 of the 193 U.N. member nations. But Haley said the United States doesn't currently recognize a Palestinian state "or support the signal" Fayyad's appointment would send within the United Nations.

U.N. diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private, said Fayyad is well-respected for his work in reforming the Palestinian Authority and spurring its economy and had the support of the 14 other Security Council members to succeed Martin Kobler in the Libya job.

Despite opposition to Fayyad, Haley indicated that the Trump administration wants to see an end to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We encourage the two sides to come together directly on a solution," she said.

Haley's statement came ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump on Feb. 15, and was welcomed by Israelis.

"This is the beginning of a new era at the U.N., an era where the U.S. stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish State," Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said of the U.S. decision to block Fayyad's appointment. "The new administration proved once again that it stands firmly alongside the state of Israel in the international arena and in the U.N. in particular."

The new U.S. ambassador made clear that "going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies."

But Trump also indicated in comments to an Israeli newspaper Friday that there might be some difficult discussions with Netanyahu next week on Israel's settlement expansion. The U.S. leader was quoted as saying that Israel's settlement expansion in land claimed by the Palestinians does not advance peace.

Israel's settlement building has been a key obstacle to the revival of stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Most of the international community considers all Israeli settlements in territory the Palestinians want for a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal and counterproductive to peace.
The Image Company, a local hair salon that spans two generations, suddenly closed all four locationstwo in Glastonbury and one in Cheshire, along with a fourth salon called Family Haircut in Bristol.

Three of its employees told NBC Connecticut they learned they were out of work via text message, sent by one of The Image Companys owners, Matt Gibbons.

One employee, Stephanie Dufour, said working at one of the Glastonbury locations hardly felt like work at all.

"They all seemed to really care and enjoy everything," said Dufour. "And you know, little by little, you just start to notice from above, they didnt care so much."

For her, a Feb. 7 text message solidified that notion:

It is with great sorrow to announce that we are temporarily closing the stores effective immediately. You have every right to seek unemployment benefits. Please respect our privacy. From Matt," the text message read.

Thats how, Dufour said, owners Carolyn and Matt Gibbons notified her and several other employees that they no longer work there.

"We get things happen," said Dufour. "But you know, youve got to follow through, and if you're going to end something, end it the right way."

"The right way," according to Dufour, wouldve included some assurance that theyd receive their final pay, and a few intangibles.

"Some information from our clients," said Dufour. "We werent able to tell them where were going, and in this industry thats how we make our money."

And clients like Glastonburys Patricia Johnson are out of luck, too.

"Very surprised," said Johnson. "They dont even have a sign up."

Several phone calls and text messages also went unanswered, both from employees and NBC Connecticut, providing little solace for The Image Companys staff just one silver lining for Dufour.

"I saw this place spiraling out of control a couple of months ago and thankfully I got another job to accommodate," said Dufour. "But there were people there, that was their lifeline."

Any employees who do not receive the full pay theyre owed can contact the State Department of Labor to file a complaint.
NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters learned about a town where a pair of vehicles valued at roughly $10,000 sold for 100 bucks- without any public bid- to a police officer in that same town.

There have been three recent investigations in Rocky Hill that include these vehicles. To this day, there remains confusion on how their ownership was transferred. Rocky Hill police officer Tony Miceli paid Rocky Hill in 2011 for a Humvee with less than 19,000 miles on it that needed new brakes and a battery. He also got a tractor truck not in running condition. Theres no bill of sale for that vehicle.

The Humvee was a fire department brush truck. The tractor truck is barely used. A warehouse record from the 1990s indicates the town paid the state $15,000 for the Humvee. An appraisal more recently valued it at $9000. During Rocky Hills internal affairs investigation of Miceli last year, he said he flipped the tractor truck for $1500.

The sale of the Humvee, renovated and now in Micelis driveway, became part of separate state, and FBI investigations two years ago when the town requested the agencies review possible violations involving stewardship and distribution of public funds and public assets.

Town councilor Henry Vasel was mayor when the FBI and state investigations were launched. Both concluded without any charges, but Vasel said Democrats now in power on the town council have shared little, What the status is at this time I don't know because as the minority leader I've asked repeatedly for updates and I've received nothing.

The only other elected leader uttering a word about the vehicles is Democratic deputy mayor Joe Kochanek. He said via phone, you know more about it than I do.

In February 2011 town council voted to auction off the vehicles. A town employee was told to post an ad.

However, one month earlier, the fire chief emailed then town manager Barbara Gilbert, saying Miceli had come to the fire department to take the Humvee and tractor truck. Miceli denied doing that to the internal affairs investigator. Neither Miceli nor the chief will comment, but the FBI report reveals the chief told agents he thought to himself This thing stinks, and said he was told by Gilbert to, let it go. She denies she said this, and told the chief not to give Miceli the vehicles.

In August 2011 Gilbert signed a $100 bill of sale for the Humvee to Miceli. Via phone she said a town employee misled her into believing Miceli made the only bid in a silent auction, when in fact, no auction ever took place. That employee told the internal affairs investigator he does not recall a conversation about the Miceli transaction with Gilbert, and he never auctioned off the vehicles. He would not talk with NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters.

The vehicles played a role in Micelis firing last year following his internal affairs investigation. It concluded his statements he bought the vehicles for $50 each in a town auction didnt add up. Meanwhile Micelis attorney tells us Officer Miceli has filed a wrongful termination case," alleging systemic discrimination, a hostile work environment, and dubious allegations against him.

Quinnipiac law professor John Thomas reviewed the report on Micelis internal affairs investigation, in particular the vehicle transactions. He said, At the very least it looks to me like extreme disorganization that is probably way too charitable."

One town leader told the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters it is possible Rocky Hill may still try to recover these funds.
Yale University has announced it will rename Calhoun College to honor Yale graduate and computer science revolutionary Grace Murray Hopper, according to a press release from the school on Saturday.

Students and community activists have been calling on the university to change the name of the building, which is an undergraduate residential college, because John C. Calhoun, who the building is named for, was a supporter of slavery.

University President Peter Salovey and the board of trustees voted to change the name at their most recent meeting.

"The decision to change a colleges name is not one we take lightly, but John C. Calhouns legacy as a white supremacist and a national leader who passionately promoted slavery as a positive good fundamentally conflicts with Yales mission and values, Salovey said in Saturdays press release announcing the news.

Back in April, Salovey responded to controversy and protest surrounding the schools name and announced it would not be changed, in an effort to to confront, teach and learn from the history of slavery in the United States.

However, the debate continued and in August the university created a committee to establish principles on renaming. Another group was tasked with applying what the first committee came up with to Calhoun College. Their reports are available here.

Students who oppose keeping the name of the school have launched protests, and a university employee in 2016 smashed a stained glass window that depicted slaves in the Calhoun College dining hall. He was charged, but those charges were later dropped and Yale rehired the employee in a new role.

Grace Murray Hopper attended Yale in the 1930s and received a masters degree in mathematics (1930) and a Ph.D. in mathematics and mathematical physics (1934).

Much of her work was in computer science and she was considered a trailblazer in the field. In 1952 she and her team created the first computer language compiler, which made it possible to write programs for multiple machines. She was also a leader in development of word-based computer languages and worked to make computers more accessible. She was honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

Hopper was a naval reservist for 20 years and retired as a rear admiral at 79, making her the oldest serving officer in the U.S. armed forces at the time. She also taught at Vassar College.

Students and activists celebrated the rebranding as a major victory.

People are happy with this name. A woman who really did a lot for women in the United States, said John Lugo of the Change the Name Coalition.
HAMPTON | After 34 years, the Korner Bakery in Hampton will close its doors if the business isnt purchased soon.

Owners Clifford and Jane Huff are looking to retire and would like to sell.

I hope someone turns it into a bakery, Jane said. I dont know how theyll get that mixer out!

The couple have been in the baking business for more than 50 years and just celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary. The decision to close is bittersweet, Jane said.

People dont shop at bakeries like they used to, Jane said. Its time for us.

The building holds many memories.

I think Ive broken the oven 3 or 4 times since we came here, Jane said, laughing.

Local visitors to the shop have brought in many trinkets over the years that Jane puts on a display shelf, including an antique butter slicer and a hand saw with a covered bridge landscape painted on it.

You accumulate a lot of stuff over the years, Jane said.

Most of the baking and kitchen equipment came with the building when they purchased it. Several can be considered antique including one that dates back to 1925.

Back then, they made things to last, Jane said.

Theyre still in use each night into the early morning hours when Clifford, Jane and other workers bake for the next day.

I come in at 9 p.m., Clifford, 81, said. I run the oven.

Jane goes to work at 3:30 a.m. to ice the orders and more. The routine is getting to be a bit much for the couple.

We do almost everything by hand, we dont have a lot of automatic machines to do it, Jane said.

The bakery will remain open through the end of the month at least, Jane said, unsure of when they will officially close their doors.

Clifford, a Mason City native, found himself in the baking business along with several of his seven brothers when he returned from military service in Korea and Japan in 1958.

He likes it all, Jane said. Well definitely miss the people.

The couple moved several times  Iowa Falls, Ames and elsewhere where Clifford baked  before settling in Hampton.

Im still hoping someone will come in and want to buy it so it doesnt have to close, Jane said.

Once the bakery closes, Clifford and Jane look forward to spending more time together.
Investigators have determined a North Central Texas man fatally shot his wife and their daughter and then killed himself.

The Navarro County Sheriff's Office identified the victims as 43-year-old Penny Stovall and 8-year-old McKenzie Stovall on Friday.

Sheriff Elmer Tanner said authorities are trying to determine why 46-year-old Jefferson Stovall shot his wife and daughter, then turned the gun on himself.

The bodies were discovered Thursday at the family's Corsicana home as officers responded to a request from another relative who was unable to reach the Stovall family.

According to a statement issued by the Navarro County Sheriff's Office, detectives recovered a 44 magnum rifle inside the house they believe to be the weapon used in the murder suicide.

Tanner said Friday that the sheriff's office has no record of any prior criminal incidents at the home or calls for service to the residence.
No injuries are reported after a small plane made an emergency landing in a field in southeast Oak Cliff on Saturday morning.

Police told NBCDFW's Brian Scott that the plane departed from Dallas Executive Airport.

The two people aboard reported engine trouble shortly after takeoff.

The plane landed near the 1700 block of Wagon Wheels Trail around 9:20 a.m.

The field is five miles east of the airport.

The plane landed right side up and the people inside walked out without injury.

Their identities have not been released.
A driver is charged with intoxication assault after a crash that sent a utility pole and wires to the ground in Dallas early Saturday.

Dallas police said it happened around 10:30 p.m. on Friday.

Officers said a Chevy HHR driven by 27-year-old Maria Sanchez ran a red light at eastbound Kiest Blvd. at Hampton Road. The Chevy HHR collided with a Ford Flex.

The Chevy HHR flipped over and knocked down a utility pole at the intersection. The utility pole fell onto Hampton Road and then was struck by a Nissan Titan.

Police charged Sanchez, the driver of the Chevy HHR, with intoxication assault. A passenger in her car was transported to the hospital with a scratch above the eye and a fractured neck bone.

Police did not release any information about the people inside of the Ford Flex and the Nissan Titan.
Inside one of the most academically competitive schools in Dallas, students are taking high school and college courses at the same time.

Finding success at Dr. Wright L. Lassiter Jr. Early College High School takes perseverance. Madai Ochoa, a senior, knows that all too well.

At just 17 years old, Ochoa is on pace to receive her associates degree in science before she receives her high school diploma.

And she's doing all of it while raising her 3-year-old son, Ethan.

"My primary motivation is my son," Ochoa said. "I remember seeing my first sonogram, and I said, 'I am going to take care of you.'"

Ochoa considered dropping out of school, which would not have been surprising.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, teenage moms have just a 50-percent chance of finishing high school. In 2013, the National Association of State Legislatures found that teenage mothers have a less than two-percent chance of finishing college by age 30.

Ochoa feared that the baby would put her education on hold because she needed a job to support him.

"At that point I just felt my future was over," she said. "I had no hope left. I didn't want to be a statistic."

That's when Ochoa's family and Dallas ISD stepped in. She enrolled at Maya Angelou High School.

The student body there is solely made up of teen mothers or mothers-to-be. Just like she's done at Lassiter, Madai excelled at Maya Angelou High School -- where her coursework included parenting classes.

"She was scared of what was going to happen, and we tried to help mold her and get her through that situation," said Shantell Alford, a parenting teacher. "She's our model student now."

Ochoa's nights consist of a mixture of playtime with her son and studying. The two activities often overlap.

"I do my homework, and he's usually on my lap. He draws on my books and highlights stuff," she said.

Raising a child while being put through rigorous academic work makes for some strange story time.

"Ethan, do you want to read mama's psychology book," Ochoa asked her son, whose enthusiasm about the crayons scattered around him indicates that he would rather color.

"No," Ethan said, grabbing his coloring book.

Three years after facing the toughest challenge of her life Ochoa is on her way to college. She wants to get a Masters in business from Southern Methodist University.

It's a goal that she set for herself, but achieving it will have a much bigger impact on Ethan's future.

"Whenever he has difficult times he can think about me," she said. "I want him to know that he has a strong mother."
State Senator Van Taylor of Plano has filed a bill to verify the citizen of someone allying to vote in Texas.

NBC 5 looked into the process this week, after a Tarrant County woman was found guilty of voting illegally.

NBC 5 Political Reporter Julie Fine reached out to the Secretary of States office.

A spokesperson sent the safeguards they use to prevent illegal voting.

The first step is that a voter must confirm on the application that he or she is a citizen.

From there, voters are required to provide their drivers license, or the last four digits of their Social Security number.

The information is then cross-referenced with the Department of Public Safety. DPS then verifies the identification.

In addition, jury clerks send information to voter registrars and the Secretary of State, about a person who claims exemption from jury duty.

So, while the Secretary of State checks the ID, Taylor points out that this does not confirm citizenship. He also says there is a very easy way to do so: information from a DPS database contacting license information.

We reached out to the DPS. A DPS spokesman said, according to the transportation code, anyone applying for a drivers license or ID must show information regarding citizenship. That information is stored in the Drivers License System database. But he said right now, a law is needed to get the Secretary of States office access to it. He has filed a bill, and there is a companion bill in the house as well.

The Secretary of State does not have statutory authority. The legislature has not passed a law allowing the Secretary of State to verify the citizenship using the database that we already have, said Taylor.

The bill calls for more than just usage of the database. It also calls to amend the election code, saying a person who applies to vote in person must show a valid passport, a birth certificate or citizenship papers.

Taylor has tried to get this bill passed four times.
Calvin Philips was wracked with laughter when he watched comedienne Melissa McCarthy play Sean Spicer on Saturday Night Live last week.

So, the 20-year-old former San Francisco resident, who now attends Oberlin College and Conservatory in Ohio, went on Twitter to chat about her performance.

He joined an online conversation where Stephanie Thompson of San Diego, who listed herself as a publicist, writer and copy editor, tweeted: "Quick, who can we get to play T***p on SNL instead? Ooh..maybe Rosie."

Then Staley Sharples, a digital media manager in Chicago, jumped in.

"Anyone else realizing the opportunity that Lorne Michaels has here in casting the drag version of #SteveBannon...?" Sharples also tweeted a side-by-side of Rosie O'Donnel and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. She has a pinned Feb. 7 tweet saying, "Ya'll I was the one who suggested" the idea.

Courtesy Calvin Philips

But it was Philips, a graduate of San Francisco University High School, who connected the players together (even though he had originally thought O'Donnell should play Trump.)

"Trump, @Rosie, was upset that a staffer was played by a woman, and you do a great impression of him. Willing to take one for the team?" Philips tweeted.

In a phone interview on Friday, Philips thought his comment would just disappear into the "Twitter ether."

It did no such thing.

His comment has gotten 230 retweets and 1,255 likes.

And the best part of all? O'Donnell tweeted him back. "i am here to serve - alec has trump - melissa has spice- i would need a few days to prepare - so if called-i will be ready," O'Donnell tweeted on Monday.

On Thursday, O'Donnell changed her Twitter profile, which looks like she photoshopped her face on Bannon's. Tweeps across the globe put side-by-side photos of the two together showing a striking, and eerie, resemblance.

The only thing that could make Philips happier is if O'Donnell actually played Bannon on SNL.

As of Friday, the Today Show reported there was no announcement that O'Donnell will appear on this week's "Saturday Night Live."



The show will be hosted for a record 17th time by Alec Baldwin on Feb. 11.

But the Internet sure wants it to happen.
Outrage over President Donald Trump's travel ban has prompted a spring fundraising concert for the American Civil Liberties Union that will feature a diverse lineup, including Macklemore, Imagine Dragons, Incubus, Miguel and Skrillex.

DJ and producer Zedd, a Russian-born immigrant, organized the April 3 concert called "Welcome!" at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Other performers include Bebe Rexha, Camila Cabello, Machine Gun Kelly, Mija, Daya, Halsey and Tinashe.

"All of us artists have a huge responsibility, whether we want it or not," said Zedd, whose real name is Anton Zaslavski. "I was really surprised how above and beyond people were willing to go to be part of this show."

Ticket prices range from $49.50 to $249.40 and more for VIP experiences. The ACLU was chosen as the beneficiary because the organization has been fighting Trump's executive order on immigration, which included a temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Zedd won a Grammy Award for "Clarity," which appeared on his 2012 debut album of the same name. His sophomore album, "True Colors," was released in 2015, and features "I Want You to Know" with Selena Gomez.

He was born in Russia and raised in Germany before coming to America and said he has never a politically outspoken person, until now. The travel ban struck a raw nerve and he reached out to all the music acts he could.

"This is something very personal and important to me," he said. "It felt natural and it felt like I had to use my voice to say what is on my mind. Whether people agree with it or not is up to them. Everybody should have their own opinion. But this is my opinion."

The concert's lineup includes musicians from a multitude of genres: rap, EDM, rock, pop and R&B. "For me, it was really important to try to get somebody from each market," said Zedd. "I mean, it's called 'Welcome!' Everything and everybody is welcome."

He said he hopes the artists collaborate, in the spirit of inclusion: "Hopefully there's some sort of natural swing where people will be interested in performing with somebody else that has nothing to do with their type of music," he said.

"It may be metaphorical but this still speaks for the same cause: Everybody comes together, no matter who you are, no matter what you do, we are all here together doing this for a good reason."
Jamie Lynn Spears' 8-year-old daughter, Maddie, was released from the hospital Friday after being treated following a serious accident involving an ATV in Louisiana earlier in the week.

Maddie's aunt, Britney Spears, took to social media to share the good news.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQV

"So grateful that Maddie was able to go home from the hospital today," Spears wrote. "It's truly a miracle."

Earlier in the week, a Spears family representative (through the hospital treating Maddie) released a statement saying the 8-year-old was "awake and talking" to her family members.

"With her father, mother and stepfather by her side, Maddie regained consciousness mid-day Tuesday, February 7. The 8-year-old daughter of entertainer Jamie Lynn Spears was involved in an ATV accident at a family home Sunday in Kentwood, La. Paramedics resuscitated her and she was airlifted to a local hospital. She is aware of her surroundings and recognizes those family members who have kept a round-the-clock vigil since the accident."

The statement continued, "Doctors were able to remove the ventilator today and she is awake and talking. Maddie continues to receive oxygen and is being monitored closely but it appears that she was not suffered any neurological consequences from the accident."
Police in Central Florida busted drug suspects who are apparently big fans of the AMC hit television show Breaking Bad.

News outlets report that law enforcement arrested two men, Theron Greer and Douglas Williams, in Volusia County after a mobile meth lab was discovered inside a Winnebago parked under a bridge.

Volusia County Sheriffs Office posted photos of the recreational vehicle with its windows covered and taking up several spaces in a parking lot.

They later searched the vehicle wearing hazardous-materials suits and found chemicals used to make crystal meth.

Greer and Williams are being held at the Volusia County Jail on $37,000 bond each.

In season 1 of the AMC hit with actor Bryan Cranston, a recreational vehicle was used to cook meth.

This story is courtesy of our news partner WPTV.
MASON CITY | More than 200 people rallied Saturday in Mason City against proposed legislation to that cuts collective bargaining rights for public workers.

Waving pro-worker signs and sayings, they filled the middle of Central Park for about an hour of speeches  all aimed at Republican-backed legislation critics say guts collective bargaining in Iowa.

Roger Hunt, of Nora Springs, said the changes attack laws that have been working for 40 years.

"They're creating problems that don't need to solved, because it's working," said Hunt, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Introduced last week, the 68-page bill limits what workers  with the exception of some public-safety workers  can bring to the bargaining table, changes arbitration rules and alters how unions are certified.

Other than police officers and firefighters, collective bargaining for public workers would be restricted to only base wages.

Public workers would no longer be able to bargain for insurance, hours, vacations, holidays or overtime compensation.

It also eliminates the ability for unions to collect dues via payroll deduction.

"What we would be allowed to bargain for is so miniscule compared to what we are now," said Central Springs teacher Dawn Haacke, a rally goer.

She was one of several at the rally who told a Globe Gazette reporter they were a teacher or in an education-related field.

In addition to union representatives, the crowd  which overflowed the center gathering spot in the park  also included a number of firefighters, ambulance crew members and state transportation workers.

The rally was organized by Rep. Sharon Steckman, D-Mason City; Rep. Todd Prichard, D-Charles City and Sen. Amanda Ragan, D-Mason City.

Supporters of the changes say the bill gives employers more ability to reward good workers and fire bad ones, as well as giving more control to local officials and government boards.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has said the changes make the law favorable to all Iowans.

Rally-goer Bonnie Burnett, of Mason City, had a different perspective.

Burnett, who isn't in a union, believes the restrictions would be a step backward for the state.

"It's discouraging and it's detrimental to our state," Burnett said. "And, it's scary."

A public hearing on the legislation will be held at 6 p.m. Monday at the State Capital in Des Moines.

It will be livestreamed in the Capitol rotunda and online.
Two Miami men were arrested Friday for allegedly rolling back odometers at a South Florida car dealership.

Felipe Manay and Miguel Reategui appear in bond court on odometer altering charges.

The alleged crime happened at Citgo Financial located on Northwest 55th Street and 74th Avenue in Miami. The dealership sells used vehicles.

Manay owns the dealership and Reategui is his business partner.

In September of 2016, the U.S. Department of Transportation began investigating the car dealership. They met with Manay and Reategui.

The investigators identified several vehicles that they believed were tampered with.

A 2004 Toyota Corolla had a previous mileage of almost 200,000 miles but, now the odometer showed less than 130,000 miles.

Another car, a 2005 Mazda had almost 130,000 miles but investigators say it was changed to less than 90.

The judge gave each defendant a $5,000 dollars bond.

Both men have private attorneys

Federal investigators estimated that since 2011 the industry of odometer tampering has grown by 30-percent nationwide.
Amid growing concerns regarding immigration policy under President Donald Trump, hundreds of legal residents in South Florida attended a free citizenship class Saturday in Lauderhill.

The event, hosted by several organizations including SEIU Florida and the Florida Immigrant Coalition, included attorneys and trained volunteers who helped applicants in determining their eligibility and filling out the needed forms  as well as providing legal assistance to some.

Events like these are a powerful empowerment tool for individuals and their families, said FLIC Citizenship Manager Ivan Parra. Even people who have been here for decades are looking to become citizens because they know that it gives them a more powerful voice in their community, as well as open up new opportunities for employment.

Last years event helped over 1,500 residents in Broward County complete the paperwork needed to start the process to become an American citizen. According to the even, less than 10 percent of those eligible for citizenship actually apply.

Ive been here for over 30 years, and Ive never thought about going through this process, said Yves Darbouze, who applied for citizenship at the clinic. Now theyre sending people home. I have family here. I have my kids, who were born here. Even though Im a permanent resident, Im afraid that they might send me back. Thats why Im here. I dont want to be separated from my family.
An alleged regional leader of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel and 11 accomplices have been killed in clashes with Mexican marines who poured gunfire into a house from a helicopter-mounted machine gun.

The federal Interior Department said via Twitter that Juan Francisco Patron Sanchez headed the cartel's operations in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit and in the southern part of Jalisco state. The Navy official identified the dead capo by the criminal nickname "H2."

A Mexican Navy official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said Friday that Patron and seven accomplices had opened fire on marines and had barricaded themselves in the upper part of a house in the Nayarit state capital of Tepic.

The official said that a helicopter gunship had been called in to provide "dissuasive fire," to suppress outgoing gunfire from the structure on Thursday.

Use of such "minigun" weapons from a helicopter gunship is extremely rare in urban areas. They apparently have been used before by Mexican police, but usually only in rural areas.

The Navy said the helicopter gunship was used in accordance with its rules of engagement, "with the aim of reducing the level of aggression and reducing the risk of civilian or federal casualties."

The Navy said that a grenade launcher and several rifles and pistols were found at the scene.

The governor of Nayarit state praised the armed forces' "surgical" precision in the gunbattle, and said there had been no civilian casualties. He called the gun battle "proof that Nayarit is, and will remain, at peace."

"Yesterday's events were done to protect and safeguard the citizenry," Sandoval said. "We had zero civilian losses."

The Navy said a second gunbattle occurred soon afterward near the Tepic airport, when federal forces came under attack from gunmen. They returned fire, killing four members of the same cartel.

The Beltran Leyva cartel has been active in the northern state of Sinaloa and the southern state of Guerrero. It has since purportedly expanded into other states, and may have allied itself with Mexico's fastest-growing gang, the Jalisco New Generation cartel.
Three ninth graders were injured in a reported drive-by shooting near Carol City Middle School Friday afternoon.

School board officials said two 15-year-olds and a 14-year-old were hit by gunfire off-campus.

The shooting happened near the school, which is located in the area of Northwest 188th Street and 37th Avenue.

School police said the three teens left Carol City High School when a person jumped out of a small, white SUV and began shooting. One of the 9th graders shot went to Carol City Middle to get help.

The other two students were treated near 187th Street and 35th Avenue.

A woman who did not want to be identified said the two freshmen ended up in her yard. She's a mother and a nurse, so her first instinct was to help.

"One is bleeding. She said put some pressure on the leg. I got back inside, got a towel, sat here put some pressure on the leg. When I got back, there was a second one laying in the grass. He was bleeding in the hip," said the woman.

The three ninth graders were taken to Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital with non life-threatening.

A brother of one of the victims said he'll be okay.

"He's good. He's great and that's all that matters," he said.

Police are searching for the shooter.

Carol City Middle School and Barbara Hawkins Elementary School and Carol City High School were put on lockdown as a precaution.

The shooting happened just hours after a van carrying school children was struck by gunfire in northwest Miami-Dade. Police say a BBs from a pellet gun was shattered the van's windows.

Hours after the afternoon shooting, shots were fired near Toussaint L'Overture Elementary School in Little Haiti. School Board officials said the gunfire happend at 6 p.m. No one was injured in the shooting.

Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho spoke against the gun violence at the scene of the shooting.

"Our spirits, our souls are certainly bruised today. Within seven hours, two shootings three ninth grade students shot," said Carvalho.

2 shootings, just hours apart, a block away from schools. We must stand together to stop this violence. Our children deserve better. #Enough  Alberto M. Carvalho (@MiamiSup) February 10, 2017

No other information was immediately known.
Stephanie Blossom is grateful that she and her one-year-old son, Ethan, are alive. That's because a violent crash on I-95 near the Express Lanes, while she was 29 weeks pregnant with Ethan, could have cost them both their lives.

She recalls the frightening moments.

There was smoke and I was trying to fight my way out of the car, said Blossom.

She believes the accident could have been prevented if it weren't for the Express Lanes.

When its just so easy for people to cross over, lives are in danger and it's a safety issue, said Blossom.

About 15 months after the incident the mom has hired attorney David Heffernan.

They have filed a lawsuit claiming the Florida Department of Transportation and its road contractors were negligent when they constructed the Express Lanes, which Heffernan says causes serious driving hazards.

The barriers that they initially put up were 20 feet, now theyre 10 feet. Now, theyre claiming they put them at five feet. They're not a deterrent, said Heffernan.

Blossom knows first-hand what happens when a driver doesn't stay in their lane. She was traveling north on I-95 next to the Express Lanes when a vehicle abruptly exited the Express Lanes.

In an effort to avoid hitting the car, Blossom took a hard left and crashed into the retaining wall.

She suffered a shattered calcaneus and 12 to 15 broken bones. Blossom is recovering well but, has some permanent nerve damage.

She lost her job as a former IT manager. She is now a single mother attending school and hoping that he story will bring about change on our highways.

NBC 6 reached out to FDOT for a comment and a representative for the agency said they do not comment on pending litigation.
What to Know Civilian Rafael Laureano Sr. helped NYPD bust down a door in a Brooklyn apartment building when officers responded to a 911 call in 2014

As Laureano burst into the aprtment, he got into a fight with the suspect and ended up getting shot in the back by NYPD during the struggle

Laureano died, and his family now says the police should never have allowed him to be put in danger

Should police allow a civilian to help them in a potentially life-threatening situation?

The family of 51-year-old Rafael Laureano Jr. don't think so. Laureano was shot dead by NYPD officers in 2014 when he tried to help kick in a door, according to a copy of the NYPD firearms discharge report dated December 2016. The report reviewed the actions of police officers who responded to a 911 call in the Midwood section of Brooklyn on Sept. 29, 2014.

Laureanos children say they dont understand why it took so long for the NYPD to complete its internal investigation and why he was used by cops "as a human battering ram," as they called it.

Laureano, a competitive bodybuilder, tried to help police kick in the front door of a seventh-floor apartment on Ocean Parkway. By all accounts, he was a good Samaritan trying to rescue a woman inside who was screaming that an ex-boyfriend was trying to kill her and her two children with a knife.

The NYPD report quotes one police officer as stating, "Mr. Laureano, being significantly larger than the officers on the scene, began kicking in the door and succeeded."

Laureanos son, Rafael Jr., said the NYPD gave conflicting accounts as to what happened inside the apartment: "They told me my father had passed from stab wounds. And they never mentioned that he was shot or anything like that.

His sister, Justica Laureano, said, "It bothers me that they lied. It bothers me that anytime we try and get anything from them, they dont want to give us anything."

The internal NYPD report quotes officers as saying that Laureano burst into the door and got into an altercation with the suspect, who "attacked Mr. Laureano and began swinging the knife at him, and stabbed him."

The autopsy showed that Laureano died from a single gunshot wound to the back. There was no mention of any stab wounds.

Private investigator Eddie Dowd said the evidence shows that Laureano was shot in the back.

"He was never stabbed and died instantly from that shooting," said Dowd.

The familys representatives said that the NYPD should never have allowed Laureano to be put into danger.

Attorney Abe George, who has filed a $25 million lawsuit on behalf of the family, said, "What went wrong is you cant use a civilian to break down a door. Thats the bottom line. They essentially blame Laureano for what happened to him."

The lawsuit accuses several officers of attempting to cover up the shooting by fabricating police reports and falsely claiming Laureano was stabbed by the suspect.

Police officers fired 18 rounds, saying they fatally shot the suspect when he tried to attack them with the knife. The woman and her two children were unhurt.

NYPD officials found no violation of policy but recommended tactics retraining for five officers. The report noted, "Even though the officers were dealing with a rapidly evolving situation, their efforts, especially with the supervisory oversight present on the scene, should have been more assertive to limit the involvement of Mr. Laureano during the incident."

Jon Shane, a police tactics expert and Professor at John Jay College, reviewed the report for the I-Team.

He said he believed there was no violation of policy.

"Theres not a policy for every conceivable situation a police officer is going to encounter," he said. "This person was willing to help, he enabled the police to get into the apartment, and it was either risk his safety or risk the safety of the other person behind the door. Thats the catch-22."

Shane said he believes the Laureano case, now that its publicized, will be used as a training scenario for police departments around the country.

The Laureano children said thats little comfort to them.

"It just seems like a slap on the wrist, and go about your business, and that just leaves room for more officers to make mistakes like that," said Laureano Jr.

The NYPD said it doesnt comment on ongoing litigation. The New York City Corporation Counsel, which is representing the officers named in the lawsuit, has filed a response denying the allegations in the complaint.

A spokesman for the Law Department added the incident was unfortunate but maintains the city was not negligent.
Getting arrested was the best thing to happen to a burglar who was frozen underneath a pile of snow at a New Jersey mall.

George Pesavage Jr. of Flemington had just broken into the Viking Buy-Rite liquor store in Monmouth Junction at around 1:45 a.m. Friday before he hid in a snowbank when officers arrived, officials from the South Brunswick Police Department said.

Upon arrival officers noticed that the front door of the liquor store was smashed open and numerous items were stolen. Authorities said police searched the store for Pesavage but weren't able to find him.

The liquor store proprietor then showed officers surveillance video of Pesavage allegedly breaking into the store, police said. The video also showed him allegedly stealing liquor, cigarettes, a lighter and lottery tickets.

Half an hour after the alarm sounded, Officer Mike Urstadt was driving around the strip mall when he noticed the 47-year-old's head peeking from behind an eight foot high pile of snow.

LaGuardia Traffic Is So Bad, People Are Walking on the Grand Central Parkway

Police said Urstadt approached him and saw that he had frostbitten hands and was bleeding from cuts, authorities said. Pesavage's clothes were wet from hiding in the snowbank. At his feet were two bags full of liquor, cigarettes, a lighter and lottery tickets.

He then explained to the officer that he was freezing and he'd just blown his chances of winning the lotto before he was arrested by police for burglary and criminal mischief.

"The man was saved by being arrested. The freezing temperatures had already started to lower his body temperature when officers located him," said South Brunswick Police Chief Raymond Hayducka. "The officer's fast response and detailed search resulted in locating the stolen items and saving this man's life."

Authorities said Pesavage was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, where he was treated for hypothermia and several cuts from breaking the glass door. Following his release, he was taken to police headquarters and processed.

The brazen thief stole over $650 worth of merchandise and created $2,000 in damage to the door.

Top Tri-State News Photos
New York state's overall four-year graduation rate continued its slow climb, reaching 79.4 percent for the class of 2016, according to data the state released Friday.

The 1.3 percent increase extended a streak of gains that has pushed the rate up 12 percent in last decade.

Black and Hispanic students, those in large urban districts and students with disabilities were among those gaining ground on the statewide numbers, though gaps remained.

"Overall, we are seeing progress in an environment of more difficult standards," Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said on a conference call with reporters.

New York City saw a 2.4 percent increase in the overall graduation rate, to just under 70 percent, leading Mayor Bill de Blasio to call the public schools "unquestionably the strongest they've ever been."

But the nation's largest district also was the driver behind a 7.2 percent decline in the statewide graduation rate for English language learners, the data showed. Just 27 percent of current New York City ELLs who started high school in 2012 graduated on time, and the same percentage dropped out, according to the data.

The New York State United Teachers union called for "urgent action" to support those students, including increased state funding for their school districts.

"This is an area that we are all very concerned about," Elia said.

New York City education officials attributed the ELL decline to many students shedding their ELL status by the time they reached senior year, leaving a larger percentage of needier students in the group. Students who are no longer considered ELLs posted a graduation rate of more than 80 percent, better than the statewide rate.

[NATL] Unbelievable Animal Stories: Dog Befriends Abandoned Baby Giraffe

Among large urban districts, Syracuse led in gains, increasing its overall graduation rate by 6.4 percent, to 61 percent. The other so-called Big Five school districts of Buffalo, Rochester and Yonkers had graduation rates of 61.7 percent, 47.5 percent and 77.5 percent, respectively.

"We have worked diligently to improve the conditions in our schools," Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner said, "improving school buildings ... increasing career and technical education options and cultivating a culture of success."

New York state has 2.6 million students in public schools. The class of 2016 had about 208,000 students.
What to Know Sargento Foods is recalling its colby and colby jack cheese products due to listeria contamination concerns.

Listeria can cause fever, diarrhea, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions in addition to muscle aches.

Seven other products processed on the same line as the affected cheese have also been recalled.

Cheese manufacturer Sargento Foods Inc. has recalled several of its colby cheese products due to a potential listeria contamination.

Sargento Foods said they were notified by supplier Deutsch Kase Hause that a specialty longhorn colby cheese used in their products may have been contaminated with listeria.

The affected products are the 6.84-ounce packages of Sargento's Ultra Thin Sliced Longhorn Colby with sell-by dates of April 12, 2017, and May 20, 2017, and the 8-ounce Chef Blends Shredded Nacho & Taco Cheese with sell-by dates of June 14, 2017, and July 12, 2017. The products were packaged at the company's Plymouth, Wisconsin, facility.

No illnesses have been reported.

Sargento is also recalling the following retail products because they were packaged on the same line as the affected cheese:

Sargento Sliced Colby-Jack Cheese, 12 ounces, UPC 4610000109, with sell-by date of June 11, 2017

Sargento Sliced Pepper Jack Cheese, 12 ounces, UPC 4610000108, with sell-by dates of "12JUN17B", "09JUL17B" and "10JUL17B"

Sargento Chef Blends Shredded Taco Cheese 8 ounces, UPC 4610040002, with sell-by dates of "H14JUN17", "F28JUN17" and "D28JUN17"

Sargento Off The Block Shredded Fine Cut Colby-Jack Cheese, 8 ounces, UPC 4610040014, with sell-by date of "F05JUL17"

Sargento Off The Block Shredded Fine Cut Cheddar Jack Cheese, 8 ounces, UPC 4610040076, with sell-by date of "F05JUL17"

No other branded products are affected by the recall. The company encourages consumers to use the "Search Product" tool on its website to determine if your cheese is affected and if so, what to do.

"Food safety is our number one priority at Sargento," the company said in a statement. "We are vigilantly monitoring this issue to ensure the situation will be resolved in a timely manner."

Consumers can also call Sargento Foods Inc. at 1-800-243-3737 between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Central Time, or visit the Sargento.com Contact Us page.

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story used a photo of a Sargento product that was not affected by the recall.
President Donald Trump's new health secretary took office Friday after becoming the latest Cabinet nominee to eke out a confirmation victory in the bitterly divided Senate.

Vice President Mike Pence administered the oath of office to Tom Price, of Georgia, at the White House hours after the Senate confirmed him 52-47 in a party-line vote. That roll call came in the dead of night, thanks to Democrats' tactic of forcing prolonged debates to broadcast their opposition to Trump and his team.

Pence said Price, an orthopedic surgeon, is "uniquely qualified" for the job and playing a leading role in helping the Republican-controlled Congress achieve its top priority of repealing and replacing the Obama-era Affordable Care Act.

Pence called Price "the most principled expert on health care policy" in Congress. Price served seven terms in the House.

As head of the Health and Human Services Department, Price will take center stage as the administration and congressional Republicans try delivering on their pledge to scrap President Barack Obama's health care law and substitute their own programs. After years of trying, they finally command both the White House and Congress but have so far struggled to craft a plan with enough votes to win approval.

Price is likely to play a lead role both in shaping health care legislation and issuing department regulations aimed at weakening Obama's statute.

"Having Dr. Tom Price at the helm of HHS gives us a committed ally in our work to repeal and replace Obamacare," House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Friday.

Democrats focused on the legislation Price once sponsored, including efforts to kill Obama's law. He's also sought to reshape Medicare's guarantee of health coverage for seniors into a voucher-like program, cut Medicaid, which helps poor people afford care, and halt federal payments to Planned Parenthood because it provides abortions.

Sen Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., conceded that Price had experience but added, "It's the kind of experience that should horrify you."

That battle won, Republicans were preparing to next win Senate confirmation for financier Steven Mnuchin to be Treasury secretary. He was expected to get the chamber's approval Monday, along with Trump's choice to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, physician David Shulkin.

Republicans have lauded Mnuchin's long career in the finance and banking worlds.

As they did with Price, Democrats are attacking Mnuchin's background, such as criticizing OneWest bank, which he led, for not protecting thousands of homeowners from unnecessary foreclosures. They also said he failed to disclose nearly $100 million in assets on forms he filed with the Senate.

Price's nomination is part of a larger clash in which Republicans want to quickly enact priorities long blocked by Obama. Democrats, with few tools as Congress' minority, are making a show of resistance, stretching some floor debates to the maximum 30 hours Senate rules allow.

The high stakes plus Trump's belligerent style have fed the combativeness. They've also produced remarkable scenes, including Democratic boycotts of hearings, Republicans suspending committee rules to approve nominees and GOP senators voting to bar Warren from joining one debate.

Democrats have accused Price of lying about his acquisition of discounted shares of an Australian biotech company and benefiting from insider information. They've also asserted he pushed legislation to help a medical implant maker whose stock he'd purchased.

Price has said he's done nothing wrong. It's illegal for members of Congress to engage in insider trading.

His close confirmation was the fourth consecutive Senate clash over a Cabinet nominee that closely followed party lines.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions was confirmed 52-47, after Warren was punished for reading a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King criticizing him. Betsy DeVos became Education secretary by 51-50, thanks to a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence.

And Former Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson became secretary of state by 56-43.

Those close tallies are a departure from most Cabinet votes, in which the Senate usually grants overwhelming approval in a show of deference to letting presidents choose their teams.

Just four of 31 votes for then-President Barack Obama's Cabinet vacancies drew at least 40 "no" votes, as did only two of 34 votes for Cabinet positions under President George W. Bush.

During that period, the closest tally for health secretary before Price was the 65-31 roll call for Obama's 2009 pick, Kathleen Sibelius.
A few thousand more troops are needed to help end the stalemate in Afghanistan, according to a senior U.S. military commander who also told lawmakers Thursday that Russian meddling is complicating the counterterrorism fight.

Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, didn't provide the Senate Armed Services Committee with an exact number of additional forces. But he said they could come from the United States or other countries in the American-led coalition in Afghanistan, where the war is now in its 16th year.

He said they are necessary to properly train and advise the Afghan military and perform work now handled at greater cost by contractors. There are currently about 8,400 U.S. troops conducting counterterrorism operations against insurgents and training the Afghan army.

Nicholson said he had discussed troop levels with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Nicholson said he believes the Trump administration will be open to a level based on requirements, rather than a predetermined figure. Republicans criticized President Barack Obama for trying, in their view, to cut the number too sharply before he left office Jan. 20.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee chairman, said after the hearing he will back Nicholson's request and called the boost a "penalty" to be paid for former President Barack Obama's refusal to commit enough forces.

"When the general says we're not winning? And the Russians are increasing their influence? And al-Qaida is increasing? We really have no choice," McCain told reporters.

But the idea of sending more Americans to the war zone may not go over well with a public frustrated by the length and cost of the conflict.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., citing figures from the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said the war is costing U.S. taxpayers $13 million a day.

Nicholson also disclosed that a U.S. special forces soldier was "severely wounded" in fighting Thursday in Sangin, the Taliban heartland in southern Afghanistan.

He gave an example of how additional forces would be used. Nicholson said that because of troop level limits, the aviation brigade that deployed to Afghanistan was able to bring its helicopters, pilots and staff, but had to leave its mechanics behind at Fort Riley in Kansas. Contractors were hired instead at a cost of "tens of millions of dollars," forcing the soldier mechanics to sit at home, he said, and affecting the Army unit's readiness.

Nicholson said there is a 2-1 ratio of contractors to troops in Afghanistan.

In response to a question from Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Nicholson said he doesn't have enough troops to provide proper oversight of all those contractors.

Nicholson contended that Russia has been publicly legitimizing the Taliban by claiming that the militants are fighting Islamic terrorists while the Afghan government is not. He called that a "false narrative" and argued that Moscow's goal is to undermine the United States and NATO in Afghanistan.

Afghan security forces have reduced by one-half the number of IS fighters and by two-thirds the amount of territory the extremists hold, according to the commander.

He said declined to say in the open hearing whether Russia is providing support for the Taliban and in what way. Afterward, Nicholson told The Associated Press he was referring to classified intelligence. He would not discuss the matter further.

The Russians recently invited representatives from the Taliban, China, Pakistan and other countries in the region to Moscow for meetings about Afghanistan's future, but did not include officials from the Kabul government, Nicholson said.

"A peace and reconciliation process should be Afghan-led," the general said.

Despite Moscow's overtures, Nicholson said many Afghans don't view Russia favorably, dating to the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989.

Several Republican senators on Thursday urged President Donald Trump to pursue a "tough-minded and principled policy toward" Russia. They want Trump to maintain current U.S. sanctions against Russia, rebuke Moscow for its continued aggression in Ukraine, and not enter into any military or diplomatic agreement with Russia on Syria's future until Moscow ends its "support for the murderous regime" of President Bashar Assad.

Nicholson described the security situation in Afghanistan as a "stalemate."

"Can we win?" asked Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Yes, Nicholson said. He described victory as a stable, centralized Afghan government and destruction of al-Qaida and IS.

Leaving before then means it's "just a matter of time" before terrorists launch another attack on the United States from safe havens in Afghanistan, he said.
A funeral was held Saturday for the Delaware prison guard killed during an inmate uprising.

Visitations were held Friday and Saturday for Lt. Steven Floyd at Delaware State University Memorial Hall. Saturday's visitation was followed by a funeral service and interment at a cemetery in Frederica.

Floyd, 47, was found dead on February 2 after a hostage standoff at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center near Smyrna. A medical examiner ruled his death a homicide by trauma. No further details were released. The president of the prison guards union called Floyd a dedicated officer with a wife, children and grandchildren who worked overtime to help put his children through college.

A fundraiser cookout was held at the Cabela's store at the Christiana Mall in Floyd's honor. All proceeds from the event are going towards a fund set up by Floyd's family.
A police-involved shooting in Bridgeton, New Jersey claimed a man's life Friday evening.

The man was shot around 3:45 p.m. in an alley near the 200 block of South Avenue, police said.

A police source told NBC10 officers opened fire because the man pulled out a gun during the chase. He died a short time later. The police were not injured.

Witnesses said the man, who lived in the neighborhood, was being chased by police when the shooting happened.

"I seen somebody running across the street and next thing I knew I heard some gunshots," neighbor Otis Bennett said.

Police would not say what started the chase. The Cumberland County Prosecutor's Office is leading the investigation as is protocol when there is a police-involved shooting.

Investigators will be following a newly enacted set of guidelines for handling the probe. The statewide rules were put in place after a 2014 police-involved shooting death in Bridgeton.

In that case, Jerame Reid was shot and killed during a traffic stop. Months of controversy followed with a grand jury eventually declining to file charges against the officers. The town agreed to a $2 million settlement with Reid's family in the case.

Still, distrust of the police remains in the Cumberland County town. One resident questioned whether shooting was justified.

"They killed him for nothing, that's not the first time...the cops killing blacks and stuff like that," Trevion Scarborough said.
From Mexico's foreign minister to local Mexican diplomats at the consulate in Philadelphia, officials urged their fellow citizens living in the United States to be on alert for a crackdown by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The warnings, including a letter from Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, come one day after reports spread of the deportation of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, a longtime undocumented immigrant in Arizona and mother of two U.S.-born children.

Garcia de Rayos was reportedly "removed" by ICE agents Thursday during an annual check-in with authorities and deported to Mexico.

Videgaray, in his letter, told Mexican citizens that "this is the new reality that is experienced by our community with the most severe application of immigration control measures."

He added that they "keep in touch with local consulates," including the one in Philadelphia, which provide legal advice and guidance during deportation and other immigration issues.

The Mexican Assistance Information Center (CIAM) in Philadelphia is aiding the region's consulate.

"Mexicans can call us so we can provide them with guidance. It is important that this message reach all Mexicans," CAIM spokesman Carlos Torres-Corona said.

He said that CIAM traditionally offers legal help to Mexicans, but its reach may broaden.

"We have campaigned on social networks so that Mexicans do not sign documents that they do not know, or open the doors of their homes. After the deportation of this lady (Garcia de Rayos), our campaigns are now more aggressive," he said.

Torres-Corona added that "the most important thing that Mexican parents have to do is to register their children as Mexican citizens, even if they were born in the United States. That gives them double citizenship and is much better in case they have to travel to Mexico to do paperwork. For example, they do not have to apply for tourist visas."

Those interested in obtaining advice through the consulate can contact CIAM 24 hours a day at (855) 463-6395.
The death of a teen inside a now-shuttered alternative school in Philadelphia has been ruled a homicide, city officials said Friday.

David Hess, 17, suffocated during an October altercation with staff at Wordsworth Academy, a school for students with special needs and behavioral health issues, according to the city's Health and Human Services department.

A state report said Hess, a student at the school's Residential Treatment Facility in Wynnefield Heights, became aggressive after he was accused of stealing an iPod.

Witnesses said the teen was held down and punched in the chest by staff, the report said.

The teen apparently teased staff saying "I can take this. That's all you got? Give me more." He was last heard saying "Get off me. I can't breathe," according to the report.

Wordsworth officials said first aid was immediately administered after Hess was discovered to be unresponsive. Paramedics were also called.

An autopsy determined Hess died by asphyxiation and the manner of death was ruled a homicide, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner said.

The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office will now determine whether charges will be filed in Hess' death. They did not offer comment Friday.

Wordsworth's Wynnfield residential program, which had been in operation since 1952, was shut down four days after Hess' death when state regulators revoked its license. The organization still operates schools in East Falls and in Fort Washington.

In a statement, Wordsworth Board Chairman Tom Johnson called Hess' death tragic and said the company continues to cooperate with authorities.

"Everyone at Wordsworth Academy is deeply saddened by the loss of this young man and the medical examiner's finding underscores the tragic nature of this situation," Johnson said in part.

The company recently hired a new CEO in the wake of the death.
Hollywood actor Gary Sinise, a longtime supporter of U.S. military veterans and their families, visited San Diego Saturday to put on a show with his band, the Lt. Dan Band.

Sinise, who runs The Gary Sinise Foundation, dropped into Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) for his organization's 5th annual Invincible Spirit Festival, an event that aims to show appreciation for veterans and their families, and the sacrifices they've made.

The fest included food created by celebrity chef Robert Irvine, special prize giveaways, face painting for kids and an eclectic car show.

The headliner was a performance by Sinise's band, whose namesake is inspired by the actor's iconic role as wounded U.S. military veteran Lt. Dan in the film, "Forrest Gump."

The Invincible Spirit Festivals are one of the many causes organized by the Gary Sinise Foundation to honor the organization's mission to support veterans and their families.

Im inspired each and every day by the men and women who serve our country, Sinse told NBC 7 on Saturday. This is a full time thing for me  I started the foundation so that we could be an effective resource for our fellow citizens, too, who want to support the military.

The advocate for veterans also makes sure that those working for his foundation can relate to the men and women they help support.

Ambassador to the Gary Sinise Foundation and retired U.S. Marine Core Colonel Jay Vargas understands the importance of having veterans who served in the military work for the foundation. Col. Vargas helps counsel and provides resources for families and vets on suicide prevention measures, and understands the struggle of having PTSD.

The troops like that. They like to hear from somebody whos been through it, he tells NBC 7.

For the staff that work at NMCSD, this event reminds them of how important the work is that they do on a daily basis.

"[It] feels like we are supported," NMCSD staffer Teresa Miller said. "I think that a lot of people are under the impression that warriors are not getting wounded. We still have people out on the front lines and they are still getting wounded, and thats our job to take care of them. Were excited to see people coming out and supporting our troops.

Fellow employee Natasha Wooden shares the same passion for helping those recovering at NMCSD.

Every day I wake up and Im excited to come here to work. I know that the patients are going to be here waiting and were here to help them get better and continuing the legacy of what we do here as military and civilian employees.

For Chief Petty Officer Larry Deleon, the sense of community that the Invincible Spirit Fest invokes reminds him of the importance of helping those who strengthen this community.

As a fellow active duty, were here to help out each other -- retirees, and veterans. It puts a little notch in your heat knowing that everybody is here for the cause, taking care of everybody, he said.
An armed robbery at a Metro PCS store was reported Friday in San Marcos, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department (SDSO) confirmed.

The robbery was reported around 3:51 p.m. on the 200 block of San Marcos Boulevard.

It is the eighth Metro PCS store robbed at gunpoint in the San Diego area.

But San Diego Police told NBC 7, it is still too early to say if this incident is connected to the string of robberies targeting other Metro PCS stores.

Employees told NBC 7 that the stolen cell phones cannot be used because they have not been activated.
San Ysidro residents are questioning whether their water is safe to drink after learning dangerous levels of lead and bacteria were found in the drinking water at La Mirada elementary school.

Homeowner Benjamin Rocha said hes extremely worried about the health of his two young boys.

He lives just a few hundred yards from La Mirada where lab results revealed high levels of lead, copper and bacteria in the drinking water.

I dont drink the water from the faucet, Rocha told NBC 7 in Spanish. I buy our drinking water.

Rocha said about a year ago a company selling water filters came by his home to test the water. He told NBC 7 the company found a lot of lead and high levels of contaminants in the water coming from his tap.

District officials shut off the drinking water at La Mirada, Smythe elementary and San Ysidro Middle School. Tests have not revealed lead or other contaminants in the water at Smythe or San Ysidro Middle, but administrators shut the water off out of an abundance of caution pending further testing.

Many residents have told NBC 7 they are very concerned about the health of their children in finding out the news, but some feared sharing those concerns on camera and few showed up to a meeting last night to discuss the issue.

City Councilman David Alvarez hes not surprised about the lack of apparent community involvement on the issue, but said residents are definitely discussing the issue.

I think unfortunately in San Ysidro, there has been a history over the last couple years of just not listening to the community and I think you are probably starting to see the results of that, Alvarez said.

Alvarez said the poor drinking water is yet another example of a community neglected for decades. Other examples include the area having the oldest library in the system and San Ysidro High students walking to school on a narrow dirt trail after being promised a sidewalk since the 1990s.

I think the sense I have from the community members is that people have really forgotten about San Ysidro, Alvarez said.

NBC 7 has requested results of water quality testing near the schools conducted by the City of San Diego, which provides the water to the San Ysidro school.

Senior Chemist Doug Campbell said the city tests the water weekly in the area.

We have an extensive monitoring program for contaminants and for corrosivity, Campbell said.

NBC 7 requested results from last weeks test, but we are still waiting on the documentation.

Rocha said he feels that he must speak out about his concern not just for his kids but for the entire community.

The school doesnt have any reason to get mad and the authorities with the city of San Diego dont have any reason to get mad if we are asking for something that they have an obligation to provide to the citizens: that they check the water. Thats an obligacion of the school and of the city, he said.
Signs in hand, demonstrators on both sides of the abortion debate marched Saturday at Moonlight State Beach in Encinitas.

Spearheaded by pro-choice activists, a group gathered for the Defend Planned Parenthood march, a peaceful demonstration that made its way from Moonlight State Beach down Pacific Coast Highway to K Street, then back to the beach via Third Street.

Encinitas resident Karen Abrams was among the many demonstrators fighting for Planned Parenthood. She was there with her family and friends and told NBC 7 the event was peaceful and positive. Abrams said the march was organized by two young women but attended by men, women and children of all ages.

"It gives me hope for the future," Abrams told NBC 7.

At the march, many people shared stories of how Planned Parenthood has helped them -- in some cases even saving their lives with their services.

"It gave me the chills," Abrams added.

HPV screenings, mammograms, birth control: There are so many services Planned Parenthood offers. It would really be a hit to womens health, demonstrator Alyssa Martindale said.

Martindale said she credits Planned Parenthood with helping to decrease the number of abortions.

We actually have the lowest abortion rates since Roe v. Wade because so many women have access to safe birth control, she said.

Oceanside resident Carmen Cook participated in the march with his entire family: his grandchildren, wife and children. He said it was difficult not to be impacted by the stories of women who have counted on Planned Parenthood for help over the years.

"The work Planned Parenthood does is so important," he said, adding that the organization does much more than just provide abortion services.

The march was also attended by some pro-life activists; with megaphones in hand, some voiced their opinions in support of President Donald Trump's stance on the hot-button topic.

Last month, Trump banned U.S. funding to international groups that perform abortions or provide information about the procedure.

The decision was met with both support from those on the pro-life side, as well as resistance from those on the pro-choice side.

The march in San Diegos North County was one of many happening Saturday around the country.

Nationwide, anti-abortion activists planned to rally around President Trumps call for the federal government to cut off payments to Planned Parenthood. However, in some cities, counter-protests dwarfed the demonstrations.
Iowa has the largest "pay gap" in the nation. The figure is calculated using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which gives the average annual wage of a state-government worker and the average annual wage of a private-sector worker for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Our study uses these figures to determine the pay gap between the average state-government worker and the average private-sector worker in each state. In 2015, Iowas state government workers received an average wage that was 149.76 percent of what the average private-sector worker in Iowa was paid. Iowas pay gap was larger than that of any other state or the District of Columbia. That is, state-government employees in Iowa earned relatively more than private-sector workers anywhere in the United States.

One of the reasons for this persistent pay gap is that Iowa taxpayers often do not have a seat at the table when unions negotiate contracts on behalf of state government workers. Iowas collective bargaining laws have stacked the deck against taxpayers. Iowa law states that if negotiations break down, arbitrators shall take into consideration the states ability to raise taxes in order to pay for an increase in pay for state government employees. Arbitration in 1991 resulted in a 9 percent raise for state government employees, despite the state being in the midst of a budget crunch.

Unions representing state government workers often find themselves sitting across the negotiating table from a friend rather than a representative of Iowas taxpayers. Following his defeat in the November 2010 election, then-Gov. Chet Culver agreed to a salary increase for the next two fiscal years proposed by the unions representing many state government employees. Culver simply agreed to the unions' proposed two-year contract on his way out the door with no negotiations, binding the hands of incoming Gov. Terry Branstad and caring little about the taxpayers who would foot the bill.

Then there is the slight-of-hand that results from government double-speak. In fiscal year 2010, the Des Moines Register reported that unions representing Iowas state government employees agreed to a 0 percent across-the-board salary increase. This allowed union reps to crow to the press about the sacrifices made by state government workers. However, under Iowa law, state government workers were still eligible for merit raises and step increases, an automatic increase in pay based on performance and longevity. State government workers, who sacrificed their raises, ended up receiving an average increase of 4.3 percent in salary that year.

Some may say, particularly those working for the state government, that it is not state government wages that are too high, but rather private sector wages that are too low. While those of us working in the private sector would always appreciate higher wages, the difference is that in the private sector, a business cannot raise the prices of its goods and services and compel its customers to pay the higher prices. Consumers have the choice to shop elsewhere or not to pay the price at all by not buying that product. However, if the state government needs additional funds to pay its employees, it has the option of raising taxes, and its customers  the taxpayers of the state  must pay those higher taxes.

Iowa lawmakers need to reform Iowas collective bargaining laws to give Iowa taxpayers a seat at the negotiating table.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly paid San Diego a visit on Friday, in his first tour since he's taken office to address border security.

Kelly took a tour of security operations at the U.S.-Mexico border crossing in San Ysidro, the last stop on his week-long tour. He also spent some time speaking with several state and federal law enforcement agencies about improving border security.

San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman and San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore were also present.

"What I saw today, the professionalism that I observed in a very potentially dangerous environment, gave me great pride," Kelly said.

During the conference, he spoke of the individuals taken into custody by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), saying that they were illegal immigrants. He added that border authorities are only "executing the law."

If there are laws on the books that are bad laws, then change them, but people like me, like CBP, local law enforcement, we have no alternative but to enforce the law. We cant ignore the law," Kelly said.

His visit came on the same day a drug tunnel was discovered near the border in a Tijuana parking lot.

"The face that they are tunneling under it, goes to the effectiveness of not just the wall, the physical barrier that already exists here in San Diego, but goes to the effectiveness of the men and women that back that wall, that patrol that wall," he said.

He added: "I would argue that the fact that they're spending huge amounts of money to tunnel underneath the wall tells you that they can't get through it."

Although Kelly has told lawmakers in the past he would like to see the construction of wall within the next two years, he did not address the issue on Friday.

On his tour, he previously visited Rio Grande, Texas and Nogales, Arizona.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have arrested 160 undocumented immigrants in Southern California this week.

According to ICE, the majority of those arrested had a criminal history.

Although none of those 160 arrests happened in San Diego, it still raises concerns for local migrants and undocumented immigrants. Many had sought help from local advocacy groups moments after the presidential election in November, wanting to know their rights.

But others told NBC 7, deportations need to be respected and enforced even more in California.

Roger Ogden has called San Diego home for more than 30 years and has always held true to his stance on immigration and deportation.

"I want them to do more of it. I want them to enforce the immigration law," he said.

Ogden told NBC 7 that he feels California is a constant hub for undocumented immigrants, which in turn is hurting our economy and the safety of our country.

He added, If we need workers from outside the U.S., they should come here legally and there should be a well-regulated program to allow that."

California has by far the largest number of undocumented immigrants. Many are seeking refuge from non-profit, Border Angels.

"Right now, there's absolutely no trust because of the words and the actions of a man named Donald Trump," said Border Angels Founder, Enrique Morones.

Morones told NBC 7 since the November election, there's been an increase in migrants wanting to know what their fate holds.

"We're telling people to be very careful, to be prepared, to have documents," he said.

Border Angels offers legal advice and "know your rights" cards to help answer questions for individuals.

NBC 7 reached out to ICE to see if there's been an increase in enforcements in the recent weeks. A spokesperson responded, saying they regularly conduct operations, but nothing in policy has changed.
San Diegans awakened to a gloomy, rainy Saturday with showers across the county.

NBC 7 weather anchor Liberty Zabala said sprinkles trickled in early to kick off the weekend, and the chance of showers remains through the afternoon.

Keep that umbrella handy, she added.

Zabala said the coast will see an 80 percent chance of rain throughout Saturday, with temperatures in the low 60s. The same conditions are expected for San Diegos valleys. In the mountains, fog is in the forecast, plus wind up to 40 mph and a 90 percent chance of shower with temperatures in the upper 40s. In the deserts, expect clouds to linger, with a 30 percent chance of showers.

Waking up to sprinkles this morning but I'll tell you when we'll see the sunshine back again in San Diego's Only 10 Day Forecast #NBC7 pic.twitter.com/7AgGdXBDcb  Liberty Zabala (@LibertyNBC7SD) February 11, 2017

The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued two advisories for this weekend: a high surf advisory, in effect through 8 p.m. Saturday, and a wind advisory in effect from 4 a.m. Sunday until 10 a.m. Monday.

The high surf advisory is expected to bring waves and surf between 5 to 7 feet, with the highest surf rolling in just south of Carlsbad. Zabala said the conditions will make it too dangerous to swim in the ocean, as strong rip currents are expected.

As for the wind advisory, the NWS said parts of the county  primarily the coastal foothills and the Cajon Pass  could experience north to northeast winds 20 to 30 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph. The winds will likely gain strength late Saturday, with the strongest gusts sweeping in Sunday morning. Drivers should use extra caution in these conditions, and keep their eyes peeled for trees or power lines possibly toppled by the winds.

For weather updates from NBC 7 throughout the weekend, click here.
Detectives and agents from the Narcotics Task Force, Oceanside Police Department and other agencies indicted 11 gang members and one hotel manager from Oceanside on Friday with a racketeering conspiracy.

Five of the defendants were already in custody, but five were arrested in North County and another caught in Mexico. One defendant is still at large, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

The suspects were indicted with a racketeering conspiracy for trafficking narcotics and prostitution, as well as assaults, robberies and attempted murder.

They are all allegedly associated with the Westside Crips, a street gang that primarily operates in Oceanside.

The hotel manager was in charge of two national brand hotels in Oceanside, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office. He allegedly allowed the gang members and associates to pursue their activities on his property.

This is not the first time an Oceanside hotel has been involved with gang activities.

In 2011, 38 individuals were indicted for racketeering conspiracy in association with the Oceanside Crip enterprise and one hotel.

Racketeering conspiracy is typically a crime statute for crime organizations and mobsters, and the groups collaboration allows them to be charged this way, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

In the past, San Diegos Regional Task Forces have worked with hotel communities to track and stop illicit activities such as drug and human trafficking, but this incident is not expected to damage hotel and police relations, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Alessandra Serano.

I suspect that folks who want to be aware of human trafficking will continue to do so, said Serano, and I hope that this will bring to their attention this is still an important issue.

This is the fourth time the Southern California U.S. Attorneys Office has used the racketeering statute to charge gang members, associates and facilitators.

Todays enforcement actions mark the beginning of the end for the Westside Crip street gang, said IRS Criminal Investigations Agent Anthony Orlando to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

The maximum sentence for racketeering conspiracy is 20 years.
More than $60,000 was seized at Washington Dulles International Airport this week after travelers failed to accurately report how much money they were carrying, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Two travelers to Ethiopia and three travelers to Vietnam were found to be carrying more money than they said they were carrying. There is no limit to how much currency travelers can import or export. However, federal law requires travelers to report amounts exceeding $10,000 in U.S. dollars or equivalent foreign currency.

The travelers to Ethiopia said they were carrying $10,000, but Customs and Border Protection officials discovered another $20,000 in a carry-on bag and $14,315 in the mans jacket. All of the currency was seized, but $3,000 was returned for humanitarian relief.

On a different day, three Vietnam nationals, who are U.S. lawful permanent residents, were traveling to Vietnam through South Korea. They said they had $9,000 but produced $9,526 when asked. Officials also found an additional $6,965 in three bank envelops and a wallet, all of which was seized.

These seizures illustrate the importance of travelers complying with all U.S. laws during their Customs and Border Protection arrivals inspection, and the consequences for violating our nations laws and regulations, said Wayne Biondi, CBP port director for the area port of Washington Dulles.

None of the travelers were criminally charged, and all were permitted to continue on their journeys. On a typical day, CBP seizes $289,609 in undeclared or illicit currency along the U.S. borders.
A former day-care provider in Maryland's Eastern Shore is going back to prison after a jury found her guilty of murder in the death of a 9-month-old boy for the second time.

Gail Pinder Dobson, 59, was convicted Thursday of second-degree murder in the 2009 death of Trevor Ulrich.

Sept. 2, 2009 was Trevor's second day in day-care.

"He was smiling, happy, chubby cheeks, bright blue eyes. He had no health problems," Trevor's mother, Kelly Ulrich, said.

Dobson had provided licensed daycare in her Trappe, Maryland, home for decades.

Police were called to Dobson's home after she said the infant was having trouble breathing. He died the next day at Children's Hospital in Washington.

Trevor had contusions on his scalp and bleeding on the surface of his swollen brain, the Washington Post reported.

In 2010, Dobson was convicted of second-degree murder in Trevor's death. She was granted a new trial after a judge ruled her lawyer provided ineffective assistance.

Trevor's death became part of an international debate over the diagnosis of "Shaken Baby Syndrome." Doctors of the prosecution argued he was a victim of Shaken Baby Syndrome, in which a child has swelling of the brain, bleeding on the surface of the brain and bleeding in the back of the eyes. However, two doctors working on Dobsons appeal argued that the scientific testimony used against her was fundamentally flawed, the Post reported.

"Testing has been unable to show whether violent shaking can produce the bleeding and swelling long attributed to the diagnosis, and doctors have found that accidents and diseases can trigger identical conditions in babies," Post reporter Debbie Cenziper wrote.

But Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy told News4 the defense was citing "junk science."

"The same experts that supposedly should have been called in the first trial were not even allowed to testify in this last trial because they did not meet the legal standard," Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy told News4.

Due to a conflict of interest, Dobson's retrial was moved to Kent County and prosecution was given to Montgomery County.

Dobson was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Friday.

"When I think of the force that she had to use to inflict the injuries to his head and brain and - to my son, she was a monster, absolutely," Kelly Ulrich said.

The Ulrichs now have another child, who is 3, but they say not a day goes by when they don't think about Trevor.
A man has been shot and killed outside a townhouse in Montgomery Village, Maryland.

Several shots were fired in the 8500 block of Hawk Run Terrace about 2 p.m. Friday, Montgomery County police said. When officers and medics arrived to the scene, they found a man suffering from a gunshot wound in the parking lot. He died from his injuries at the scene.

Officers could be seen detaining a man and woman that they said live near where the body was found. Police said they are interviewing them as witnesses.

Police have taped off the scene and are still investigating.

There is no threat to the public, police said.

No further information was immediately available.

Police are asking anyone with more information to call (240) 773-5070 or the tip hotline at 1 (866) 411-8477. Crime Solvers of Montgomery County is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information that leads to an arrest.

Stay with News4 and NBCWashington.com for more information.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated from a previous version that reported the suspect was connected to a shooting in D.C. Police now say the suspect arrested at Maryland Live! was not involved in the shooting.

Police arrested a man inside Maryland Live! Casino Friday night after a police chase in D.C. -- but the suspect arrested was not involved in the police chase, authorities said Saturday.

According to a D.C. police report, a man was shot during a carjacking about 9:45 p.m. in the 800 block of Division Ave. NE. The suspects then took off in the man's SUV. The victim was conscious and breathing when police arrived, WTOP reported.

D.C. police described the carjacked vehicle as a black Jeep Cherokee with unknown Maryland tags. At some point, police followed a vehicle matching that description. When they tried to pull the driver over, the driver took off and ended up at a parking garage at the casino.

The driver then walked inside the casino about 11 p.m. and Anne Arundel County police found him talking on the phone near a slot machine, police said. He was arrested and Anne Arundel officers found more than 40 grams of marijuana when they searched him, police said.

After questioning the suspect, identified as 43-year-old Larry Browne, officers determined he was not involved in the shooting. They charged him with possession of marijuana and disorderly conduct.

During Browne's arrest, some people inside the casino in Hanover, Maryland, rushed out when they saw the commotion. Police said they did not order an evacuation of the casino.

Six people at the casino sustained minor injuries during the incident and three were taken to the hospital, the Anne Arundel County Fire Department said.
What to Know Complaint includes photos of black training mannequin, license plates seemingly offensive about Obama and insensitive graffiti on a locker.

The county executive said he supports the panel the chief created to look at internal practices and ensure fairness.

Up to 90 officers signed the complaint sent to DOJ alleging discrimination within the department.

Prince Georges County Executive Rushern Baker supports the police chiefs panel to review the departments internal practices to ensure fairness.

Baker released a statement Friday, a day after Chief Hank Stawinski addressed some racially charged photos filed in a complaint about department discrimination filed with the Department of Justice.

I support Chief Stawinskis formation of an outside panel to review alleged acts of racial discrimination within our police department, Baker said in his statement. I believe the only way to improve race relations in any organization is to acknowledge and address the issues head on.

One photo showed the locker of a black officer in the special operations division. The word color in color guard was crossed out and replaced with African-American.

Another photo shows the face of a black man taped to a training mannequin at a police training facility. An Afro wig rests at its foot.

Both of those incidents are under investigation, Stawinski said.

He also addressed an internal affairs sergeants personal license plates that seemed to stand for go f--- yourself Obama. The chief said the plates were unacceptable and were dealt with last year as soon as he became aware of them.

Prince Georges County States Attorney Angela Alsobrooks addressed the complaint, signed by as many as 90 officers, on WAMU radio's Kojo Nnamdi Show.

Unfairness anywhere is a problem for all of us, and the reality is that I have confidence that it will be addressed, she said.

She said she has not been presented with anything criminal for her office to investigate.

The Justice Department reviewed the complaint Wednesday, meeting with officers who filed the complaint and the leadership of the Prince Georges County branch of the NAACP. There is still no word on whether the Justice Department will officially investigate the filing.

Last week, Stawinski announced the creation of the panel to review internal practices and ensure fairness. The panel was not created in reaction to the complaint, police said.

The departments independent Inspector General and a representative from Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 89 are co-chairing the panel, which will include union representatives and members of institutions outside the police department.

The officers who signed the complaint are members of the local chapters of the National Hispanic Law Enforcement Association and the United Black Police Officers Association.
Lawyers for the state of Virginia challenged President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration Friday, arguing in federal court that its seven-nation travel ban violates the Constitution and is the result of "animus toward Muslims."

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema repeatedly pressed a government lawyer to provide evidence that supports a national security need for the ban. The judge did not rule on Friday but had stern words about the executive order, which she said is "full of all sorts of weaknesses."

Virginia's challenge comes after a federal appeals court in San Francisco refused Thursday to reinstate the ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations. The case in Virginia is further ahead. In it, the judge is asked to grant a permanent injunction to block the travel ban until a trial can be held.

Virginia's Democratic attorney general, Mark Herring, called the case "monumental." He argued that the ban discriminates against Muslims.

"If the plan is to discriminate against Muslims, this is a pretty good way to start," he said.

Herring said students from outside the United States are withdrawing applications to Virginia universities, at a possible cost of $20 million in lost tuition.

The Commonwealth argued that the ban violated the due process and equal protection rights of Virginia residents.

A Justice Department lawyer argued that Virginia failed to show any immediate harm from the ban. He accused Virginia of suing simply over a policy dispute with the Trump administration.

Brinkema pressed the attorney several times to explain the national security reason for the ban.

"The court has been begging you to give us some information ... You haven't given us any evidence whatsoever."

George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf explained why he believes government lawyers did not respond to the judge's demand.

"The government is taking a very extreme position -- interestingly, the same extreme one that Obama took -- and that is that their orders in this area are completely unreviewable. They don't have to tell anyone anything," he said via FaceTime. "But if they would step down from that high horse, there are very ample justifications."

Virginia continues to stake its challenge on the claim that the travel ban is causing "irreparable" harm to students and faculty from the seven countries who no longer feel free to travel home or do scholarly work abroad.

"There are hundreds and perhaps thousands in Virginia right now who are negatively impacted by the travel ban because if they leave, their visas will be revoked, and it is creating real, concrete, tangible harm right now," Herring said.

Brinkema said she will issue a written ruling in the case "as soon as possible."
True story.

Years ago, two men who developed a new theory on business management traveled across the country giving workshops and seminars on it. They traveled from one town to the next on a hectic schedule.

On a late afternoon, they arrived in Natchitoches, Louisiana, where they were to speak that night. As they passed the city limits sign, they realized that neither of them knew how to pronounce the name of the town they were in and how that might cause some embarrassment that night.

When they stopped to get a bite to eat, they decided to ask someone. When a woman came to wait on them, one of the men said, "We're new here, and we need some help. Can you tell us where we are -- and say it real slow."

"Sure," said the waitress. "BUR-GER-KING!"

Mason City, Clear Lake and North Iowa in general are on a quest to determine where they are -- and where they want to be.

It's not that they're lost, you understand, but they need to decide where they want to go and what's the best way to get there.

And sometimes the best way to do that is to ask somebody.

The Mason City and Clear Lake chambers and the North Iowa Corridor EDC are working with TIP Strategies, a professional consulting firm headquartered in Austin, Texas, to help lead the way.

But here's the important point. They all say they want the public involved from the start. That's a promise.

There will be several opportunities in the months ahead for residents to participate in various activities and have their voices heard.

That's something that people in Mason City have been wanting for a long time.

The public can get involved right away by filling out a survey that can be found at visionnorthiowa.com.

It has questions about what we like best about North Iowa, what we like least, what we'd like to see done, and what our vision is for the future -- those kinds of things.

Tim Coffey, executive director of the Clear Lake Chamber, said the survey results are going to have life; they're going to have legs to them.

It's not going to be acceptable to just say, "Hey, we did a survey," he said.

So where do we go from here? How do we make sure the surveys have legs and not just empty words?

The answer is, first, for all of us to complete the survey. Take a look at it. It couldn't be easier.

The next thing is accountability and implementation, and that's where TIP Strategies comes in. TIP, incidentally, stands for Theory Into Practice.

I will want to know the results of the surveys. Don't you? I want to know what the majority of those surveyed like best and like least about our communities and what their vision of the future is.

If we don't know that, we have no basis to evaluate the implementation of the ideas that spring from the surveys. We're talking about accountability here.

But it starts with us. Fill out that survey.

There is a passage in Alice in Wonderland that comes to mind. It goes like this:

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.

"Which road do I take?'' she asked.

His response was a question: "Where do you want to go?''

"I don't know,'' Alice answered.

"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter.''
One of the two men convicted in the slayings of a mother and her two daughters during a home invasion in Cheshire is seeking a new trial and a brief was filed with the appellate clerk, according to court officials.

Thirty-six-year-old Joshua Komisarjevsky and 52-year-old Steven Hayes were sentenced to death for killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley and Michaela Petit, but their sentences were changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole after the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty violated the state constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Komisarjevsky and Hayes were serving their sentences in Connecticut, but they were transferred to maximum security prisons run by the Pennsylvania Department of Correction.

Both were sentenced to serve six consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of release and will be housed out of state for an indefinite period of time, according to state officials.
A Massachusetts man is facing charges in connection with a crash Saturday morning in New Hampton, New Hampshire.

State Police said speeds on Interstate 93 had been lowered by the Department of Transportation to 45 miles per hour due to the snow storm.

While a trooper was patrolling the interstate at 11:20 a.m., he saw a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed. The vehicle passed the trooper in the left lane while coming up on another vehicle and nearly striking it. The driver then slammed on his brakes, lost control on the snow covered roadway, careened to the right directly in front of trooper's cruiser and struck a snowbank  sending the driver into the left travel lane.

Police said the driver regained control and sped off reaching speeds of 98 miles per hour.

The trooper was eventually able to catch up with the driver who continued north for nearly two miles. After finally stopping the driver, police said the trooper determined the driver was under the influence of alcohol and his license had been suspended.

The driver, identified as William Mullen, 58, of Peabody, Massachusetts, was taken into custody.

Mullen was charged with disobeying a police officer, driving while intoxicated  subsequent offense, reckless operation, operating after suspension and open container. Mullen is scheduled to appear in the Laconia Circuit Court on March 9 to answer to the charges.
A man suspected in a homicide remains under police watch in the hospital after he was shot by Providence Police following a car chase.

Officials say Raymond Paiva was being chased after officers spotted a vehicle matching the description of one used by two suspects wanted in Bristol. Police had been looking for suspects after a person was found dead Friday in Bristol.

The Providence Journal reports Paiva crashed his car during the chase. When he exited the car, he was shot multiple times by police. It happened around 10 p.m. Friday.

A passenger in the car, Selena Martinez, was also shot. She was released and is in police custody. The Journal reports Paiva has serious injuries.

Providence Police Chief Hugh Clements Jr. said the officers acted within protocol.
A New Hampshire landlord is receiving thanks from the Rochester Fire Department for playing a key role in helping put out a building fire.

Firefighters first responded to fire the at an 8-unit apartment building on Bridge Street Saturday afternoon. When they arrived, the firefighters entered what they call Fast Attack Mode, quickly identifying the bathroom as the source of the blaze and extinguishing the flames.

Officials say the blaring smoke detectors in the building helped get everyone out safely. The building was inspected in December and the fire department discovered a number of disabled smoke detectors in the building. However, after the issue was addressed the landlord took action, making sure all the detectors were in working condition.

Working with the landlord, the lack of working smoke detectors and other deficiencies were quickly addressed, and just in time as it appears, Chief Sanborn said. We depend on progressive, responsible landlords to be our partners in the life safety business. In this case, the Rochester Fire Department demonstrated once again that smoke detectors save lives.

One resident, an adult male, was taken the hospital for smoke inhalation. The remaining residents were able to exit the building safely without any injuries.


Norfolk Police get first-ever Catholic chaplain

A first-ever official Catholic chaplain has been appointed to Norfolk Constabulary. Rev Nick Greef, who is a permanent deacon at St Georges Parish in Norwich, has recently joined the existing multi-faith Norfolk Police chaplaincy team.

He will be engaged in this supportive role within the Great Yarmouth area which consists of three operational stations.



Nick, who is employed by French construction company Vinci as a Health Safety and Environmental Advisor, said: I am very much looking forward to working with Norfolk Constabulary. I feel privileged to support the police service in this manner. Many Police staff work in a highly stressful conditions and anything I can do to help will be great.



Nick joins the existing team which meets at the Force headquarters in Wymondham.



Richard Whall, Lead Chaplain, said: "I am pleased to welcome Nick to the Norfolk Constabulary chaplaincy team. We are a multi-faith team seeking to provide personal, practical support for all officers and staff irrespective of their faith or none, and spiritual care where required.



Police work has become increasingly complex and demanding, and is often daunting and dangerous. The majority of UK police forces now have chaplains whose aim is to provide independent pastoral care and an additional resource where faith and operational issues interact. Chaplains can also be valuable in developing links between churches, communities and the police."



PC Andrew Nattrass, a former chair of the Catholic Police Guild, was instrumental in the appointment of a first Catholic chaplain to the force.



Pictured above is Rev Nick Greef, new Catholic chaplain to Norfolk Police.






Aniruddha M Godbole By

Express News Service

Bulk of the black money that exists today is due to non-payment of tax on money earned through legal activities. The quantum of black money in the form of cash, according to the Economic Survey 2017, is between `3 lakh crore and `7.3 lakh crore.

Incentivising Digital Payments: To incentivise adoption of the BHIM app, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced in his Budget speech a referral bonus and cashback for customers and merchants, respectively. The FM said recovery of money in the case of dishonoured cheques needs to be strengthened and the Negotiable Instruments Act amended. Given the legal equivalence between dishonoured cheques and failed ECS (electronic clearing service) debits, this is a favourable development for digital payments as this could help recoveryin the case of loan defaultby the lenders. The FM also announced that Sidbi would refinance lenders uncollateralised loans based on borrowers transaction history.

Aniruddha M Godbole

The Economic Survey expects the real estate sector to become a more unviable avenue for undisclosed income. With the emphasis on affordable housing, the FM is supporting capacity expansion in real estate so that this sector grows without being an avenue for undisclosed income.

Need for Digital Payments Ecosystem Reform: The Ratan Watal Committees recommendation on a more independent payments regulatory board (PRB) within the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been accepted by the government. But, more needs to be done. In his book The Curse of Cash American economist Kenneth Rogoff says that incumbent banks are resistant to innovations in digital payments.

The Watal Committee hints at a similar assessment. The Survey, too, points out that the decline rate for certain types of digital payment transactions, where payer and payee are customers of different banks, is 56 per cent. It notes that banks are declining transactions involving smaller remitting banks while ensuring that transactions involving themselves are honoured.

Work-in-progress: The Watal Committee recommendations on reforming the National Payments Corporation of India, central eKYC, and more entities having access to credit history ought to be accepted. Allowing regulatory sandboxes for testing innovations will help find the optimum three-way trade-off between cost, security and convenience for 350 million feature phone users (and also the 250 million smartphone users).

The finance minister has sent positive signals by accepting one recommendation of the Watal Committee and saying other recommendations would be considered. Additionally, the government ought to consider releasing anonymised data related to the demonetisation exercise in the public domain through its Digital India Open Government Data platform. This would make it possible for researchers across the country and the rest of the world to analyse the data. omist Jeffrey Sachs, is the price of civilisation.

Aniruddha M Godbole, senior industry expert (financial services) at Persistent Systems, Pune

Bulk of the black money that exists today is due to non-payment of tax on money earned through legal activities. The quantum of black money in the form of cash, according to the Economic Survey 2017, is between `3 lakh crore and `7.3 lakh crore. Incentivising Digital Payments: To incentivise adoption of the BHIM app, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced in his Budget speech a referral bonus and cashback for customers and merchants, respectively. The FM said recovery of money in the case of dishonoured cheques needs to be strengthened and the Negotiable Instruments Act amended. Given the legal equivalence between dishonoured cheques and failed ECS (electronic clearing service) debits, this is a favourable development for digital payments as this could help recoveryin the case of loan defaultby the lenders. The FM also announced that Sidbi would refinance lenders uncollateralised loans based on borrowers transaction history. Aniruddha M GodboleThe Economic Survey expects the real estate sector to become a more unviable avenue for undisclosed income. With the emphasis on affordable housing, the FM is supporting capacity expansion in real estate so that this sector grows without being an avenue for undisclosed income. Need for Digital Payments Ecosystem Reform: The Ratan Watal Committees recommendation on a more independent payments regulatory board (PRB) within the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been accepted by the government. But, more needs to be done. In his book The Curse of Cash American economist Kenneth Rogoff says that incumbent banks are resistant to innovations in digital payments. The Watal Committee hints at a similar assessment. The Survey, too, points out that the decline rate for certain types of digital payment transactions, where payer and payee are customers of different banks, is 56 per cent. It notes that banks are declining transactions involving smaller remitting banks while ensuring that transactions involving themselves are honoured. Work-in-progress: The Watal Committee recommendations on reforming the National Payments Corporation of India, central eKYC, and more entities having access to credit history ought to be accepted. Allowing regulatory sandboxes for testing innovations will help find the optimum three-way trade-off between cost, security and convenience for 350 million feature phone users (and also the 250 million smartphone users). The finance minister has sent positive signals by accepting one recommendation of the Watal Committee and saying other recommendations would be considered. Additionally, the government ought to consider releasing anonymised data related to the demonetisation exercise in the public domain through its Digital India Open Government Data platform. This would make it possible for researchers across the country and the rest of the world to analyse the data. omist Jeffrey Sachs, is the price of civilisation. Aniruddha M Godbole, senior industry expert (financial services) at Persistent Systems, Pune
By Reuters

MUMBAI: Idea Cellular Ltd, India's third-biggest telecommunications operator, reported its first quarterly loss after a new rival forced carriers to cut prices in the highly competitive market.

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, controlled by India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, opened for business in September and has shaken the Indian telecoms market with its free voice and cut-price data plans spurring a flurry of similar offers from incumbents led by Bharti Airtel Ltd.

That has increased costs, eroded margins and even forced Vodafone Group Plc's Indian unit to talk to Idea about combining their businesses, potentially creating the market's biggest carrier.

Idea, part of the Aditya Birla Conglomerate, on Saturday said it had a consolidated net loss of 3.84 billion rupees ($57.47 million) in its fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with a net profit of 6.59 billion a year earlier.

The loss was slightly bigger than analysts' expectations of 3.71 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The core telecom operations loss, without including its stake in a telecom tower joint venture, was even higher at 4.79 billion rupees on a standalone basis, Idea said, and was the first-ever quarterly loss since June 2006, Thomson Reuters data.

Idea said in a statement it cut mobile voice rates by 10.6 percent and data prices by about 15 percent in the December quarter to retain its customers.

Revenue declined 3.8 percent from a year earlier to 86.63 billion rupees in the December quarter, while expenditure rose 10.3 percent to 84.63 billion, Idea said.

Smaller rival Reliance Communications also reported on Saturday a consolidated net loss of 5.31 billion rupees for the third quarter ended December. It also blamed competition among other factors for the loss. http://bit.ly/2kwmGaa

Bharti Airtel, the top Indian telecommunication carrier, reported its lowest quarterly profit for four years last month, hit by the price war.

MUMBAI: Idea Cellular Ltd, India's third-biggest telecommunications operator, reported its first quarterly loss after a new rival forced carriers to cut prices in the highly competitive market. Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, controlled by India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, opened for business in September and has shaken the Indian telecoms market with its free voice and cut-price data plans spurring a flurry of similar offers from incumbents led by Bharti Airtel Ltd. That has increased costs, eroded margins and even forced Vodafone Group Plc's Indian unit to talk to Idea about combining their businesses, potentially creating the market's biggest carrier. Idea, part of the Aditya Birla Conglomerate, on Saturday said it had a consolidated net loss of 3.84 billion rupees ($57.47 million) in its fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with a net profit of 6.59 billion a year earlier. The loss was slightly bigger than analysts' expectations of 3.71 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data. The core telecom operations loss, without including its stake in a telecom tower joint venture, was even higher at 4.79 billion rupees on a standalone basis, Idea said, and was the first-ever quarterly loss since June 2006, Thomson Reuters data. Idea said in a statement it cut mobile voice rates by 10.6 percent and data prices by about 15 percent in the December quarter to retain its customers. Revenue declined 3.8 percent from a year earlier to 86.63 billion rupees in the December quarter, while expenditure rose 10.3 percent to 84.63 billion, Idea said. Smaller rival Reliance Communications also reported on Saturday a consolidated net loss of 5.31 billion rupees for the third quarter ended December. It also blamed competition among other factors for the loss. http://bit.ly/2kwmGaa Bharti Airtel, the top Indian telecommunication carrier, reported its lowest quarterly profit for four years last month, hit by the price war.
By PTI

BENGALURU: Amid founders' outcry over alleged corporate governance lapses at Infosys, CEO Vishal Sikka has talked to the senior management team to assuage their concerns and advised them not to get distracted by the ongoing tussle.

Confirming this, an official familiar with the development told PTI, "Sikka called the senior management team of the company and spoke to them last night."

The official, however, declined to divulge more details.

Sikka has reportedly advised senior management officials not to get distracted by the ongoing spat between the board and the founders, and instead focus on company's business and strategy.

Sikka's interaction with key senior management comes ahead of his scheduled meeting with investors in Mumbai on February 13.

The rift between the founders and the board became public after co-founder N R Narayana Murthy flagged concerns on corporate governance lapses and hefty compensation to Sikka as well as severance packages doled out to former key executives like Rajiv Bansal and David Kennedy.

The founders hold 13 per cent in the company.

BENGALURU: Amid founders' outcry over alleged corporate governance lapses at Infosys, CEO Vishal Sikka has talked to the senior management team to assuage their concerns and advised them not to get distracted by the ongoing tussle. Confirming this, an official familiar with the development told PTI, "Sikka called the senior management team of the company and spoke to them last night." The official, however, declined to divulge more details. Sikka has reportedly advised senior management officials not to get distracted by the ongoing spat between the board and the founders, and instead focus on company's business and strategy. Sikka's interaction with key senior management comes ahead of his scheduled meeting with investors in Mumbai on February 13. The rift between the founders and the board became public after co-founder N R Narayana Murthy flagged concerns on corporate governance lapses and hefty compensation to Sikka as well as severance packages doled out to former key executives like Rajiv Bansal and David Kennedy. The founders hold 13 per cent in the company.
By AFP

SAN FRANCISCO: A feud between Elon Musk and the United Auto Workers revved up on Friday as the group denied his accusation they planted a mole to unionize Tesla employees.

The UAW statement was the latest twist in a saga triggered by an online post by a man who claimed to work at Tesla's plant in California for four years and decried conditions faced by employees there.

Tesla co-founder and chief Musk was quoted at gadget review website Gizmodo this week as calling the accusations "morally outrageous" and saying it was his understanding the man was paid by the UAW to join Tesla and agitate for a union.

In a brief statement Friday, the UAW said the man "is not and has not been paid by the UAW" and called on Musk to apologize for spreading "fake news" about him.

The UAW confirmed that the post's author, who identified himself as Jose Moran, and others at Tesla have approached the union.

Moran contended that many Tesla workers put in more than 40 hours weekly of hard, manual labor, some of it "excessive mandatory overtime."

Machinery is not ergonomically designed to minimize risk of injuries, he maintained.

"I often feel like I am working for a company of the future under working conditions of the past," Moran said in a post at medium.com.

He also argued for a raise in pay, citing the high cost of living in the Silicon Valley area and contending that Tesla plant workers make a few dollars less hourly than peers in the automotive industry.

"In a company of our size, an 'open-door policy' simply isnt a solution," Moran said.

"We need better organization in the plant, and I, along with many of my coworkers, believe we can achieve that by coming together and forming a union."

Tesla did not respond to an AFP request for comment. Musk rejected Moran's claims about working conditions, according to Gizmodo.

The company's site in the Northern California city of Fremont is the only car factory in the US where workers are not organized into unions.

SAN FRANCISCO: A feud between Elon Musk and the United Auto Workers revved up on Friday as the group denied his accusation they planted a mole to unionize Tesla employees. The UAW statement was the latest twist in a saga triggered by an online post by a man who claimed to work at Tesla's plant in California for four years and decried conditions faced by employees there. Tesla co-founder and chief Musk was quoted at gadget review website Gizmodo this week as calling the accusations "morally outrageous" and saying it was his understanding the man was paid by the UAW to join Tesla and agitate for a union. In a brief statement Friday, the UAW said the man "is not and has not been paid by the UAW" and called on Musk to apologize for spreading "fake news" about him. The UAW confirmed that the post's author, who identified himself as Jose Moran, and others at Tesla have approached the union. Moran contended that many Tesla workers put in more than 40 hours weekly of hard, manual labor, some of it "excessive mandatory overtime." Machinery is not ergonomically designed to minimize risk of injuries, he maintained. "I often feel like I am working for a company of the future under working conditions of the past," Moran said in a post at medium.com. He also argued for a raise in pay, citing the high cost of living in the Silicon Valley area and contending that Tesla plant workers make a few dollars less hourly than peers in the automotive industry. "In a company of our size, an 'open-door policy' simply isnt a solution," Moran said. "We need better organization in the plant, and I, along with many of my coworkers, believe we can achieve that by coming together and forming a union." Tesla did not respond to an AFP request for comment. Musk rejected Moran's claims about working conditions, according to Gizmodo. The company's site in the Northern California city of Fremont is the only car factory in the US where workers are not organized into unions.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad will have a clean air authority soon on the lines of the Clean Authority of Tokyo. It will be headed by the chief secretary and include the heads of all departments.



Since his recent visit to Japan, municipal administration minister KT Rama Rao has been contemplating setting up of a similar authority for Hyderabad and even said so in the Assembly recently. A preliminary meeting to work out the modalities of the proposed authority was held at the Secretariat here on Friday. It was presided over by secretary in the department of municipal administration Navin Mittal.

Commissioner of municipal administration TK Sridevi, GHMC commissioner Janardhan Reddy, Pollution Control Board (PCB) member-secretary Satyanarayana Reddy, Warangal municipal commissioner Sruthi Ojha, Karimnagar municipal commissioner K.Shashank and other officials attended the meeting.



Mittal said that while the PCB would function as a regulatory and enforcement agency, the proposed authority would look after planning, coordination and implementation.

The PCB member-secretary briefed the officials on the Tokyo clean air authority which was set up for the management of solid waste and generation of power from waste.

The attendees felt that the proposed authority should have statutory powers and should not confine itself to air pollution but deal with noise and water pollution as well.



A committee was constituted to prepare a concept note and submit it by Feb 15. It will prepare a note on the formulation of a model Act, define the structure and jurisdiction of the proposed authority. The contributory factors of pollution, rules of solid waste management and the guidelines of the Tokyo clean air authority will also be studied for preparing the concept note.

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad will have a clean air authority soon on the lines of the Clean Authority of Tokyo. It will be headed by the chief secretary and include the heads of all departments. Since his recent visit to Japan, municipal administration minister KT Rama Rao has been contemplating setting up of a similar authority for Hyderabad and even said so in the Assembly recently. A preliminary meeting to work out the modalities of the proposed authority was held at the Secretariat here on Friday. It was presided over by secretary in the department of municipal administration Navin Mittal. Commissioner of municipal administration TK Sridevi, GHMC commissioner Janardhan Reddy, Pollution Control Board (PCB) member-secretary Satyanarayana Reddy, Warangal municipal commissioner Sruthi Ojha, Karimnagar municipal commissioner K.Shashank and other officials attended the meeting. Mittal said that while the PCB would function as a regulatory and enforcement agency, the proposed authority would look after planning, coordination and implementation. The PCB member-secretary briefed the officials on the Tokyo clean air authority which was set up for the management of solid waste and generation of power from waste. The attendees felt that the proposed authority should have statutory powers and should not confine itself to air pollution but deal with noise and water pollution as well. A committee was constituted to prepare a concept note and submit it by Feb 15. It will prepare a note on the formulation of a model Act, define the structure and jurisdiction of the proposed authority. The contributory factors of pollution, rules of solid waste management and the guidelines of the Tokyo clean air authority will also be studied for preparing the concept note.
Abhijit Mulye By

Express News Service

MUMBAI: Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray is confident that his party would be in the majority in the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) yet again despite severing ties with its ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, more than winning the local body elections in Mumbai and Maharashtra, distancing itself from the BJP has a greater degree of importance for the Shiv Sena, he said.



Im happy not to be there with the transformed BJP, the BJP that has started sporting goons on their posters instead of stalwarts like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, Thackeray told The New Indian Express.



The BJP had been inducting goons and the most corrupt politicians on one hand and alleging us with charges of corruption under the pretext of transparency. This is unacceptable. Im happy today that Im not there with the BJP. Otherwise my photo would have been published along with Shah, Modi and (Pappu) Kalani, Thackeray said pointing at a photograph of a campaign poster in neighbouring Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation where the BJP has tied up with political outfit floated by former National Congress Party (NCP) leader Pappu Kalani, who is serving life sentence in a murder case.



Does this mean that he is otherwise happy with the way the BJP government is working and unhappy with the way the party is trying to spread? Uddhav Thackerays answer is a firm No.



What are the achievements of the governments (at centre and in the state) in the past two and a half years? Did they promise demonetisation in their manifesto? If not, why did they take such a big decision in a haphazard way? Thackeray asked, adding In fact, that was the trigger point that drifted us away from them.



We dont doubt the motives of the government. But, the act unnecessarily troubled the innocents, which is just like previous governments. Then where is the difference, Uddhav Thackeray added.



The BJP was really a party with a difference in the days when we joined hands with them. But, they have transformed. Have they fulfilled their promises to abolish article 370, to build the Ram Temple at Ayodhya, of bringing Dawood Ibrahim back to India? How can we be comfortable with a party that is going back on their words, Thackeray asked.



Sometimes I feel now there is an easy way for Dawood to come to India, that would be to join BJP, he added sarcastically.



Speaking on whether the Shiv Sena will withdraw support of the BJP government in Maharashtra owing to the recent divide, Uddhav Thackeray says We are in the government for the people. We are there to keep them under control. We are there like what a goad is to an elephant.



We have to play this balancing act of being in power and acting like an opposition to keep tab on the BJP. We shall keep criticizing their policies and decisions which we feel are going wrong, Thackeray added.



Shiv Sena is also contesting elections in Goa and Uttar Pradesh. While speaking about the party of spreading into other states, Thackeray said We have been receiving invitations from all across the country ever since the 90s. However, post 92 (Babri Masjid) we took a conscious decision to concentrate only on Maharashtra and let BJP look after the other states. But, now Ive started honouring all invitations. My idea is that there needs to be a grand alliance of regional parties that would honour regional sentiments.



Look at Goa. The local regional party Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) is contesting maximum seats there. Their leader has been projected as our Chief Ministerial candidate, Thackeray added.



Elaborating on what he thinks of Shiv Senas future role in this context, Uddhav Thackeray said, Ive just started mooting this idea of an alliance of regional parties. That does not mean tomorrow I will be a Prime Minister (PM) of front of regional parties. But, this is the need of the hour. The regional sentiments need to be honoured and

MUMBAI: Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray is confident that his party would be in the majority in the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) yet again despite severing ties with its ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, more than winning the local body elections in Mumbai and Maharashtra, distancing itself from the BJP has a greater degree of importance for the Shiv Sena, he said. Im happy not to be there with the transformed BJP, the BJP that has started sporting goons on their posters instead of stalwarts like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, Thackeray told The New Indian Express. The BJP had been inducting goons and the most corrupt politicians on one hand and alleging us with charges of corruption under the pretext of transparency. This is unacceptable. Im happy today that Im not there with the BJP. Otherwise my photo would have been published along with Shah, Modi and (Pappu) Kalani, Thackeray said pointing at a photograph of a campaign poster in neighbouring Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation where the BJP has tied up with political outfit floated by former National Congress Party (NCP) leader Pappu Kalani, who is serving life sentence in a murder case. Does this mean that he is otherwise happy with the way the BJP government is working and unhappy with the way the party is trying to spread? Uddhav Thackerays answer is a firm No. What are the achievements of the governments (at centre and in the state) in the past two and a half years? Did they promise demonetisation in their manifesto? If not, why did they take such a big decision in a haphazard way? Thackeray asked, adding In fact, that was the trigger point that drifted us away from them. We dont doubt the motives of the government. But, the act unnecessarily troubled the innocents, which is just like previous governments. Then where is the difference, Uddhav Thackeray added. The BJP was really a party with a difference in the days when we joined hands with them. But, they have transformed. Have they fulfilled their promises to abolish article 370, to build the Ram Temple at Ayodhya, of bringing Dawood Ibrahim back to India? How can we be comfortable with a party that is going back on their words, Thackeray asked. Sometimes I feel now there is an easy way for Dawood to come to India, that would be to join BJP, he added sarcastically. Speaking on whether the Shiv Sena will withdraw support of the BJP government in Maharashtra owing to the recent divide, Uddhav Thackeray says We are in the government for the people. We are there to keep them under control. We are there like what a goad is to an elephant. We have to play this balancing act of being in power and acting like an opposition to keep tab on the BJP. We shall keep criticizing their policies and decisions which we feel are going wrong, Thackeray added. Shiv Sena is also contesting elections in Goa and Uttar Pradesh. While speaking about the party of spreading into other states, Thackeray said We have been receiving invitations from all across the country ever since the 90s. However, post 92 (Babri Masjid) we took a conscious decision to concentrate only on Maharashtra and let BJP look after the other states. But, now Ive started honouring all invitations. My idea is that there needs to be a grand alliance of regional parties that would honour regional sentiments. Look at Goa. The local regional party Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) is contesting maximum seats there. Their leader has been projected as our Chief Ministerial candidate, Thackeray added. Elaborating on what he thinks of Shiv Senas future role in this context, Uddhav Thackeray said, Ive just started mooting this idea of an alliance of regional parties. That does not mean tomorrow I will be a Prime Minister (PM) of front of regional parties. But, this is the need of the hour. The regional sentiments need to be honoured and
Nidhi Raj Singh By

Express News Service

Zidd positive ho to abaad kar deti hai, negative ho to barbad kar deti hai (positive stubborness can make you rich, but if its negative it destroys you), Inaamulhaq says, reminiscing about when he was asked why he was so ziddi (stubborn). He asked me, kya kha ke aaye ho (what are you having)? I told him, dhakke (shoves).



The cheeky actor, who has worked with Akshay Kumar in Airlift (2016) and the recent Jolly LLB 2, is adamant to make his acting graph look as varied as it gets, even if it means waiting for roles that satisfy his stubbornnes. Isnt he scared of the gap? we ask. No. There are two reasons for it. I dont have any doubts about myself, nor am I in any kind of hurry.

Inaamulhaq

Inaamulhaq tells us that he does not desire or hope to lap up conventional hero roles. Nor do I have a bucket list of awards. Id like to stay away from brackets. (Yet he won five awards for Filmistaan). I have learnt from other peoples mistakes. Short-term goals and materialism make people desperate. The gaps help me hold on to my day job, writing for films and TV.

He has written for Karamchand, Comedy Circus and the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Bbuddha Hoga Terra Baap. The only thing that is in my hands is working honestly. His honest efforts were rightly appreciated in Firaaq (2008), Filmistaan (2013) and for his portrayal of the dreadful Iraqi

officer in Airlift.

I was 11 years old during the Kuwait-Iraq war. So, I had zero reference to draw from. But that was least of my concerns, he says. Inaamulhaq wanted the audience to believe in the character, in its wickedness. Years of training at National School of Drama and some heavy-duty research helped him prep for the character of Major Khalaf Bin Zayd. He devised his own set of words, replaced the missing ones from a script alien to him with sounds, and trained to speak with a heavy accent. He got under the skin of the perpetrator so well that his editor took 45 minutes to recognise him, even after editing his previous film. It makes me happy as an actor.



The Iraqi major was nothing like Aftab, the man with a goofy smile in the National Award winning Filmistaan. Variations are exciting. I dont want to get into a comfort zone, he says.

Doesnt he look less of a villain, given his likeable personality and infectious smile? I dont let my looks affect my psyche, Inaamulhaq says. Today the child from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, who was not allowed to watch TV, is the lone actor in his family, working with the biggest names in the industry. His upcoming release list is impressive too: Lucknow Central, Chidiya and DNA Mein Gandhiji. It is Inaamulhaqs perseverance that helps him stay strong in the maxim city. As for film release jitters, the gaps keep him excited.

Zidd positive ho to abaad kar deti hai, negative ho to barbad kar deti hai (positive stubborness can make you rich, but if its negative it destroys you), Inaamulhaq says, reminiscing about when he was asked why he was so ziddi (stubborn). He asked me, kya kha ke aaye ho (what are you having)? I told him, dhakke (shoves). The cheeky actor, who has worked with Akshay Kumar in Airlift (2016) and the recent Jolly LLB 2, is adamant to make his acting graph look as varied as it gets, even if it means waiting for roles that satisfy his stubbornnes. Isnt he scared of the gap? we ask. No. There are two reasons for it. I dont have any doubts about myself, nor am I in any kind of hurry. InaamulhaqInaamulhaq tells us that he does not desire or hope to lap up conventional hero roles. Nor do I have a bucket list of awards. Id like to stay away from brackets. (Yet he won five awards for Filmistaan). I have learnt from other peoples mistakes. Short-term goals and materialism make people desperate. The gaps help me hold on to my day job, writing for films and TV. He has written for Karamchand, Comedy Circus and the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Bbuddha Hoga Terra Baap. The only thing that is in my hands is working honestly. His honest efforts were rightly appreciated in Firaaq (2008), Filmistaan (2013) and for his portrayal of the dreadful Iraqi officer in Airlift. I was 11 years old during the Kuwait-Iraq war. So, I had zero reference to draw from. But that was least of my concerns, he says. Inaamulhaq wanted the audience to believe in the character, in its wickedness. Years of training at National School of Drama and some heavy-duty research helped him prep for the character of Major Khalaf Bin Zayd. He devised his own set of words, replaced the missing ones from a script alien to him with sounds, and trained to speak with a heavy accent. He got under the skin of the perpetrator so well that his editor took 45 minutes to recognise him, even after editing his previous film. It makes me happy as an actor.  The Iraqi major was nothing like Aftab, the man with a goofy smile in the National Award winning Filmistaan. Variations are exciting. I dont want to get into a comfort zone, he says. Doesnt he look less of a villain, given his likeable personality and infectious smile? I dont let my looks affect my psyche, Inaamulhaq says. Today the child from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, who was not allowed to watch TV, is the lone actor in his family, working with the biggest names in the industry. His upcoming release list is impressive too: Lucknow Central, Chidiya and DNA Mein Gandhiji. It is Inaamulhaqs perseverance that helps him stay strong in the maxim city. As for film release jitters, the gaps keep him excited.
The Republican-controlled Legislature and our governor are seeking to make sweeping changes to Chapter 20 of our state law. Chapter 20 involves bargaining rights for public employees.

Public employees are vital to our communities, and collective bargaining for them has worked well in Iowa. Taking away the voice of workers on the job should alarm all Iowans. This past election cycle, Iowans didn't vote to attack public employees, as Republicans seek to do, and the collective bargaining system is certainly not broken. This legislation will affect teachers, law enforcement, firemen and even our veterans. Public employees are our friends, neighbors, and family members, not the adversary of taxpayers.

This is not about giving the "taxpayers a place at the table," as Republican Linda Upmeyer falsely likes to claim. This is about emasculating public employee unions, and limiting their political power, similar to what was done in Wisconsin, where morale has plummeted and public employees now feel like second-class citizens. And let's not forget that is was a Republican governor, Robert Ray, who signed Chapter 20 into law. He understood the benefits of Chapter 20 for workers, management and taxpayers. Any effort to dismantle Chapter 20 should be viewed as an affront to all workers and Iowans.

Phillip Sanchez, Teamsters Local 238, Mason City
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Member of the Rajya Sabha, has introduced a bill entitled Declaration of States as Sponsor of Terrorism Bill, 2016. Inter alia, it seeks to call out states, like Pakistan, that continue to associate, promote, patronise and sponsor terrorism against our nation. It provides for withdrawing economic and trade relations with such a country and creating legal, economic and travel sanctions for its citizens. In specific, it includes prohibition of trade, receiving and making grants, financial remittances, instruments and assets, along with maritime activity and overflights. It seeks to revoke the immunity of Pakistani officials and take away immunity from legal cases in India. It also seeks to repeal Pakistans Most Favoured Nation status.

This private members bill was largely inspired by the American legislation 6069, Pakistan State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act, which was introduced last year in the US Senate by Ted Poe and Dana Rohrabacher, two Republican senators. The bill in the Rajya Sabha cites that from 1998 to 2017, Pak-sponsored terrorists have killed 14,741 civilians and 6,274 security personnel in India. This totalled to over 21,015 Indian citizens being killed in one decade. Some 23,146 terrorists were eliminated during this period. Actually, Pak-sponsored terror began in India in 1980s in Punjab. Since then, our cumulative toll of casualties has crossed the astounding figure of 80,000.

One would have expected massive bipartisan support for this bill. Yet, the moment it was announced, we heard a chorus of pusillanimous voices from most political parties who questioned the need for such a bill. This was Indias moment to walk the talk. We have been bleating before the US to take action against Pakistan and declare it a state-sponsor of terrorism. We appeal every now and then to the UN to take action under the ambit of UNSC resolution number 1267. We have been making fervent appeals to Pakistani courts to take action against these terrorists and mass murderers. All we have got in return is contempt and derision. How can we expect the world to act if we refuse to take action ourselves? The problem is that the peaceniks in India are so obsessed with the vision of the Noble Peace Prize or the Magsaysay award that they couldnt care less about the loss of ordinary Indian lives.

After 30 years of taking it on the chin, the Indian state had reacted to Pakistani terrorism with a surgical strike across the LoC on terror launch pads. This led to a spiral of escalations. Pakistan initially denied the raids had taken place. It had to. General Raheel Sharifs name and reputation would have been in the mud otherwise. A month later, he reacted with a fire assault with small arms and mortars. India retaliated strongly. Pakistan now beheaded some Indian soldiers at Machail. India reacted and used medium guns in a concerted fire assault across the LoC. Pakistan got the message. By that very evening, the Pakistani DGMO implored for a cease fire. Since then, there has been a deafening silence on the LoC.

There was understandable satisfaction and euphoria in our official and party circles. The air was rife with self-congratulation. The silence on the LoC was deafening and emphatic. Pakistan had been taught a lesson. Or so we thought? It now transpires that Pakistans ISI had drawn inferences and shifted gears. From October last year onwards, the ISI paid Maoists and criminals to attack Indian rail infrastructure and cause mass casualties. Let us not forget that in January last year, IEDs were discovered on railway tracks near Pathankot (in tandem with attack on our air base). In October, another train was derailed in Ghorasahan. Then Maoists were caught laying IEDs on rail tracks in October-end. It was found that these individuals had contacts with an ISI handler through an agent in Nepal. They were paid `3 lakh by the ISI to sabotage Indian trains. November 16s rail sabotage at Kanpur saw 150 Indians dead and 200 wounded that is the equivalent of 26/11 all over again. In January this year, sabotage near Visakhapatnam killed 41 Indians. Another disaster was recently averted near Mumbai.

The eagerness of the Indian foreign establishment to resume talks with Pakistan is understandable. What has been shocking is an attempt on the part of our media to obfuscate issues and completely play down these attacks. The keenness for talks is laudable. The question is at what cost? How long will we tamely put up with the loss of Indian lives in their hundreds each year? Will that become the new normal? The time has come for us to walk the talk on terror. Chandrasekhars bill is a new starting point. We need a bipartisan consensus on so vital an issue. We cannot implore the world to act against Pakistan and then do absolutely nothing about it ourselves. We are the primary victims of Pakistani terror. We also happen to be a big and mighty country of 1.3 billion people. Dont we have any options apart from bleating before Donald Trump? After all, Trump did not include Pakistan in the list of seven nations that were to be denied entry visas. If we are not prepared to act against Pakistan, why should Trump or anyone else, for that matter, carry the can for us?

Maj. Gen. (Retd) G D Bakshi

War veteran and strategic analyst

gagandeep.bakshi@yahoo.com

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Member of the Rajya Sabha, has introduced a bill entitled Declaration of States as Sponsor of Terrorism Bill, 2016. Inter alia, it seeks to call out states, like Pakistan, that continue to associate, promote, patronise and sponsor terrorism against our nation. It provides for withdrawing economic and trade relations with such a country and creating legal, economic and travel sanctions for its citizens. In specific, it includes prohibition of trade, receiving and making grants, financial remittances, instruments and assets, along with maritime activity and overflights. It seeks to revoke the immunity of Pakistani officials and take away immunity from legal cases in India. It also seeks to repeal Pakistans Most Favoured Nation status. This private members bill was largely inspired by the American legislation 6069, Pakistan State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act, which was introduced last year in the US Senate by Ted Poe and Dana Rohrabacher, two Republican senators. The bill in the Rajya Sabha cites that from 1998 to 2017, Pak-sponsored terrorists have killed 14,741 civilians and 6,274 security personnel in India. This totalled to over 21,015 Indian citizens being killed in one decade. Some 23,146 terrorists were eliminated during this period. Actually, Pak-sponsored terror began in India in 1980s in Punjab. Since then, our cumulative toll of casualties has crossed the astounding figure of 80,000. One would have expected massive bipartisan support for this bill. Yet, the moment it was announced, we heard a chorus of pusillanimous voices from most political parties who questioned the need for such a bill. This was Indias moment to walk the talk. We have been bleating before the US to take action against Pakistan and declare it a state-sponsor of terrorism. We appeal every now and then to the UN to take action under the ambit of UNSC resolution number 1267. We have been making fervent appeals to Pakistani courts to take action against these terrorists and mass murderers. All we have got in return is contempt and derision. How can we expect the world to act if we refuse to take action ourselves? The problem is that the peaceniks in India are so obsessed with the vision of the Noble Peace Prize or the Magsaysay award that they couldnt care less about the loss of ordinary Indian lives. After 30 years of taking it on the chin, the Indian state had reacted to Pakistani terrorism with a surgical strike across the LoC on terror launch pads. This led to a spiral of escalations. Pakistan initially denied the raids had taken place. It had to. General Raheel Sharifs name and reputation would have been in the mud otherwise. A month later, he reacted with a fire assault with small arms and mortars. India retaliated strongly. Pakistan now beheaded some Indian soldiers at Machail. India reacted and used medium guns in a concerted fire assault across the LoC. Pakistan got the message. By that very evening, the Pakistani DGMO implored for a cease fire. Since then, there has been a deafening silence on the LoC. There was understandable satisfaction and euphoria in our official and party circles. The air was rife with self-congratulation. The silence on the LoC was deafening and emphatic. Pakistan had been taught a lesson. Or so we thought? It now transpires that Pakistans ISI had drawn inferences and shifted gears. From October last year onwards, the ISI paid Maoists and criminals to attack Indian rail infrastructure and cause mass casualties. Let us not forget that in January last year, IEDs were discovered on railway tracks near Pathankot (in tandem with attack on our air base). In October, another train was derailed in Ghorasahan. Then Maoists were caught laying IEDs on rail tracks in October-end. It was found that these individuals had contacts with an ISI handler through an agent in Nepal. They were paid `3 lakh by the ISI to sabotage Indian trains. November 16s rail sabotage at Kanpur saw 150 Indians dead and 200 wounded that is the equivalent of 26/11 all over again. In January this year, sabotage near Visakhapatnam killed 41 Indians. Another disaster was recently averted near Mumbai. The eagerness of the Indian foreign establishment to resume talks with Pakistan is understandable. What has been shocking is an attempt on the part of our media to obfuscate issues and completely play down these attacks. The keenness for talks is laudable. The question is at what cost? How long will we tamely put up with the loss of Indian lives in their hundreds each year? Will that become the new normal? The time has come for us to walk the talk on terror. Chandrasekhars bill is a new starting point. We need a bipartisan consensus on so vital an issue. We cannot implore the world to act against Pakistan and then do absolutely nothing about it ourselves. We are the primary victims of Pakistani terror. We also happen to be a big and mighty country of 1.3 billion people. Dont we have any options apart from bleating before Donald Trump? After all, Trump did not include Pakistan in the list of seven nations that were to be denied entry visas. If we are not prepared to act against Pakistan, why should Trump or anyone else, for that matter, carry the can for us? Maj. Gen. (Retd) G D Bakshi War veteran and strategic analyst gagandeep.bakshi@yahoo.com
Sanjay Singh By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Britain has urged India for more flight slots at Delhi and Mumbai airports while its state-run carrier British Airways (BA) is now moving ahead for a tie-up with Indian carriers to fly to more international airports in the country.

The two countries on February 9 signed an open sky pact to ease restrictions on the number of scheduled flights between the two countries and scrap limits on flights from key Indian cities including Chennai and Kolkata, Express had reported.

Top government sources said that the British Airways is exploring with Indian carriers for a profitable routes to link London with few potential international airports in India, where it does not fly now.

There are 23 international airports in the country, of which BA currently flies to cities like Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai.

A senior airline official who did not wished to be named said that the British Airways is in talks with carriers to explore a business model where they can fly beyond the five international airports in India where they currently have services.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has stated that British carriers can also operate code share flights to any international airport in India, through domestic code share arrangements under the newly signed open sky pact between the two countries.

The pact has opened up all destinations in the Britain for Indian carriers for code share flights, and on reciprocally basis.

Foreign airlines are all out to grab more flying slots at Indian airports to get a bigger share in Indias civil aviation sector market, that is growing at over 20 per cent annually.

The Indian aviation sector is all set to develop as third largest globally by 2020, according to international aviation bodies like International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO and Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation.

On the other hand, The United Kingdom government also wants Indian carriers to fly beyond the slot-constrained London Heathrow airport and add flights to other cities like Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester.

Currently Air India and Jet Airways operate to Londons Heathrow airport and has been asking for more flight slots but due to slot constraints, their demand has not been met. Air India also flies to Birmingham at present.

NEW DELHI: Britain has urged India for more flight slots at Delhi and Mumbai airports while its state-run carrier British Airways (BA) is now moving ahead for a tie-up with Indian carriers to fly to more international airports in the country. The two countries on February 9 signed an open sky pact to ease restrictions on the number of scheduled flights between the two countries and scrap limits on flights from key Indian cities including Chennai and Kolkata, Express had reported. Top government sources said that the British Airways is exploring with Indian carriers for a profitable routes to link London with few potential international airports in India, where it does not fly now. There are 23 international airports in the country, of which BA currently flies to cities like Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai. A senior airline official who did not wished to be named said that the British Airways is in talks with carriers to explore a business model where they can fly beyond the five international airports in India where they currently have services. The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has stated that British carriers can also operate code share flights to any international airport in India, through domestic code share arrangements under the newly signed open sky pact between the two countries. The pact has opened up all destinations in the Britain for Indian carriers for code share flights, and on reciprocally basis. Foreign airlines are all out to grab more flying slots at Indian airports to get a bigger share in Indias civil aviation sector market, that is growing at over 20 per cent annually. The Indian aviation sector is all set to develop as third largest globally by 2020, according to international aviation bodies like International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO and Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. On the other hand, The United Kingdom government also wants Indian carriers to fly beyond the slot-constrained London Heathrow airport and add flights to other cities like Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester. Currently Air India and Jet Airways operate to Londons Heathrow airport and has been asking for more flight slots but due to slot constraints, their demand has not been met. Air India also flies to Birmingham at present.
By ANI

LUCKNOW: As voting in the first phase of Uttar Pradesh elections begins, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday urged the voters to use their voting right appropriately and choose a government which would free the state from corruption and hooliganism.

Choose a government which can free UP from corruption, hooliganism, BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak told ANI.

Posing faith in the people of Uttar Pradesh, Pathak said the voters will make lotus bloom here.

Today is the first phase of voting. People have made up their minds to make lotus (BJP party symbol) bloom in Uttar Pradesh.

He also appealed the voters to bring an end to bad governance and corruption prevalent in the state.

Voting began in the first phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections here on Saturday morning.

The election process will be held in 73 assembly constituencies spread across 15 districts of the state.

The most populous state of the country will today vote for 839 candidates at 26,823 polling stations.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made for smooth polling, especially in sensitive areas of Shamli, Aligarh, Muzaffarnagar, Mathura, Bulandshahr and Agra.

Voting in Uttar Pradesh will be done in seven phases - February 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, March 4 and 8.

The counting of votes will take place on March 11.

LUCKNOW: As voting in the first phase of Uttar Pradesh elections begins, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday urged the voters to use their voting right appropriately and choose a government which would free the state from corruption and hooliganism. Choose a government which can free UP from corruption, hooliganism, BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak told ANI. Posing faith in the people of Uttar Pradesh, Pathak said the voters will make lotus bloom here. Today is the first phase of voting. People have made up their minds to make lotus (BJP party symbol) bloom in Uttar Pradesh. He also appealed the voters to bring an end to bad governance and corruption prevalent in the state. Voting began in the first phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections here on Saturday morning. The election process will be held in 73 assembly constituencies spread across 15 districts of the state. The most populous state of the country will today vote for 839 candidates at 26,823 polling stations. Elaborate security arrangements have been made for smooth polling, especially in sensitive areas of Shamli, Aligarh, Muzaffarnagar, Mathura, Bulandshahr and Agra. Voting in Uttar Pradesh will be done in seven phases - February 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, March 4 and 8. The counting of votes will take place on March 11.
Ritu Sharma By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The lassitude of SAARC has been booster for another regional grouping BIMSTEC, that has finally taken off after two decades. Exhausted for failing to make any significant progress through SAARC, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has moved to even merge the divisions looking after SAARC and BIMSTEC.

Earlier this month, two meetings of officials took place  one under the auspices of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and another under Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) in Kathmandu. The programming committee of SAARC has met to decide on the agenda, but no dates could be finalized for the SAARC Summit. But BIMSTEC was marked with positivity.

The Government expects that regional cooperation would advance under both BIMSTEC and BBIN. We hope that these examples would also impact positively, on SAARC and encourage an atmosphere free of terror and violence that is conducive for regional cooperation, Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj told the Lok Sabha in a written reply recently.

India has sought cessation of state-sponsored terrorism before SAARC summit can be held. But BIMSTEC (Bangladesh, Myanmar, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Thailand as members) have made great progress in connectivity and trade in the region. The work has been overlapping. Many member countries of SAARC are also part of BIMSTEC, so it makes sense to have one division for both, MEA sources told the Express. Earlier Joint Secretary Soumen Bagchi has been heading the BIMSTEC division that has now moved under Joint Secretary Prashant Aggarwal heading the SAARC division.

But the diplomats do not want to write off SAARC completely. Every grouping has a takeoff time and it is invigorating to see how decisions are made and executed in BIMSTEC. But that does not mean SAARC is not necessary, MEA officials added. According to officials BIMSTEC is evolving into a model of cooperation with all members taking lead in implementing the decisions taken.

NEW DELHI: The lassitude of SAARC has been booster for another regional grouping BIMSTEC, that has finally taken off after two decades. Exhausted for failing to make any significant progress through SAARC, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has moved to even merge the divisions looking after SAARC and BIMSTEC. Earlier this month, two meetings of officials took place  one under the auspices of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and another under Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) in Kathmandu. The programming committee of SAARC has met to decide on the agenda, but no dates could be finalized for the SAARC Summit. But BIMSTEC was marked with positivity. The Government expects that regional cooperation would advance under both BIMSTEC and BBIN. We hope that these examples would also impact positively, on SAARC and encourage an atmosphere free of terror and violence that is conducive for regional cooperation, Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj told the Lok Sabha in a written reply recently. India has sought cessation of state-sponsored terrorism before SAARC summit can be held. But BIMSTEC (Bangladesh, Myanmar, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Thailand as members) have made great progress in connectivity and trade in the region. The work has been overlapping. Many member countries of SAARC are also part of BIMSTEC, so it makes sense to have one division for both, MEA sources told the Express. Earlier Joint Secretary Soumen Bagchi has been heading the BIMSTEC division that has now moved under Joint Secretary Prashant Aggarwal heading the SAARC division. But the diplomats do not want to write off SAARC completely. Every grouping has a takeoff time and it is invigorating to see how decisions are made and executed in BIMSTEC. But that does not mean SAARC is not necessary, MEA officials added. According to officials BIMSTEC is evolving into a model of cooperation with all members taking lead in implementing the decisions taken.
By IANS

LUCKNOW: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday ridiculed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "peeping into others' bathrooms" and said he was a complete failure at the job.



"The Prime Minister is fond of Google searching, peeping into others' bathrooms. Let him do that in his free time but his main job is that of a Prime Minister in which he has been a cent per cent failure," Gandhi said while addressing a joint press conference here with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.



Gandhi's jibe come a day after Modi, while campaigning in the poll bound state, mocked the Congress leader for being the "most joked about politician".



The Prime Minister had earlier attracted the wrath of the Congress over his "bathing wearing a raincoat" barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh.



"The country's biggest problem is lack of jobs. Modi promised two crore jobs but has not fulfilled even one per cent of his promise. Modi talks a lot about security, terrorism and surgical strikes."



"But the result is we have suffered most number of casualties in the last seven years. Over 90 of our security personnel have been killed," said Gandhi while referring to the Indian Army's September 29 surgical strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan occupied territory.



"The Prime Minister is apprehensive of Uttar Pradesh polls result. The result will give him a big shock, will put a question mark on his credibility. That is why he is saying such things," he added.

LUCKNOW: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday ridiculed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "peeping into others' bathrooms" and said he was a complete failure at the job. "The Prime Minister is fond of Google searching, peeping into others' bathrooms. Let him do that in his free time but his main job is that of a Prime Minister in which he has been a cent per cent failure," Gandhi said while addressing a joint press conference here with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. Gandhi's jibe come a day after Modi, while campaigning in the poll bound state, mocked the Congress leader for being the "most joked about politician". The Prime Minister had earlier attracted the wrath of the Congress over his "bathing wearing a raincoat" barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh. "The country's biggest problem is lack of jobs. Modi promised two crore jobs but has not fulfilled even one per cent of his promise. Modi talks a lot about security, terrorism and surgical strikes." "But the result is we have suffered most number of casualties in the last seven years. Over 90 of our security personnel have been killed," said Gandhi while referring to the Indian Army's September 29 surgical strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan occupied territory. "The Prime Minister is apprehensive of Uttar Pradesh polls result. The result will give him a big shock, will put a question mark on his credibility. That is why he is saying such things," he added.
By IANS

INDORE: The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Mumbai has arrested a suspected SIMI aligned terrorist in Khajrana here, officials said.



Superintendent of Police Harinarayan Chari Misra confirmed to IANS on Saturday that the ATS has arrested a suspected Students Islamic Movement of India terrorist named Parvez.



According to sources, a team of at least 10 ATS officers late on Friday night raided a house and arrested him.



Parvez has been accused of sharing intelligence related information on social media.



Sources said that Parvez's brother is also involved in SIMI related activities and is presently in jail.

INDORE: The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Mumbai has arrested a suspected SIMI aligned terrorist in Khajrana here, officials said. Superintendent of Police Harinarayan Chari Misra confirmed to IANS on Saturday that the ATS has arrested a suspected Students Islamic Movement of India terrorist named Parvez. According to sources, a team of at least 10 ATS officers late on Friday night raided a house and arrested him. Parvez has been accused of sharing intelligence related information on social media. Sources said that Parvez's brother is also involved in SIMI related activities and is presently in jail.
By IANS

NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday assured help to the family of an Indian national who was shot dead during an armed robbery in Jamaica earlier this week.

"Talreja family - I am sorry to know about this tragedy. My heartfelt condolences," Sushma Swaraj tweeted.

"Indian High Commission in Jamaica will follow up this case with the police and help you in all possible manner," she said.

According to reports, armed robbers entered the home of 25-year-old Rakesh Talreja, hailing from Vasai in Maharashtra, which he shared with two other Indians, in Jamaica's capital Kingston on Thursday evening.

After snatching cash and cellphones from his roommates at gunpoint, they entered Talreja's bedroom on the first floor of the house.

After snatching his cellphone, they shot Talreja in the back three times. They also shot at his roommates before fleeing from the house.

Talreja was rushed to a hospital but was declared dead before admission. His two roommates, who sustained injuries on their legs, are undergoing treatment at the hospital.

Talreja worked as a salesperson at Caribbean Jewellers in Kingston and his employer used to ask his employees to take some amount of cash home everyday to avoid theft in the shop, according to the reports.

Seeking a detailed report about the incident, Sushma Swaraj directed the High Commission to "ensure best possible treatment to the injured Indian nationals and coordinate with the affected families".



NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday assured help to the family of an Indian national who was shot dead during an armed robbery in Jamaica earlier this week. "Talreja family - I am sorry to know about this tragedy. My heartfelt condolences," Sushma Swaraj tweeted. "Indian High Commission in Jamaica will follow up this case with the police and help you in all possible manner," she said. According to reports, armed robbers entered the home of 25-year-old Rakesh Talreja, hailing from Vasai in Maharashtra, which he shared with two other Indians, in Jamaica's capital Kingston on Thursday evening. After snatching cash and cellphones from his roommates at gunpoint, they entered Talreja's bedroom on the first floor of the house. After snatching his cellphone, they shot Talreja in the back three times. They also shot at his roommates before fleeing from the house. Talreja was rushed to a hospital but was declared dead before admission. His two roommates, who sustained injuries on their legs, are undergoing treatment at the hospital. Talreja worked as a salesperson at Caribbean Jewellers in Kingston and his employer used to ask his employees to take some amount of cash home everyday to avoid theft in the shop, according to the reports. Seeking a detailed report about the incident, Sushma Swaraj directed the High Commission to "ensure best possible treatment to the injured Indian nationals and coordinate with the affected families".
Aishik Chanda By

Express News Service

KOLKATA: Bhopal police handed over the post mortem report of Akansha Sharma, the 28-year-old Bankura native who was murdered and entombed by her boyfriend Udayan Das, to Bankura police in West Bengal on Saturday.

The report was handed over by Inspector Pradeep Meena of Govindpura Police Station in Bhopal to Bankura police. Though the findings of the report have not yet been made public, the exact cause of death may help the police in the investigation into the murder mystery.

Meanwhile, an investigation has revealed that accused Udayan Das, who had duped Akansha by promising her a job in UNESCO in the United States, always met Akansha in Delhi at Indira Gandhi International Airport posing as a returne from the North American nation.

"Udayan had told Akansha that he was a non-resident Indian (NRI) while in reality, he lived in Bhopal. Accordingly, he made great efforts to ensure that Akansha believed he was indeed an NRI. For this, he took help of an app called Flight Tracker, though which he could track New Delhi-bound flights from US," a Bankura police official said.

"Udayan would track a New Delhi-bound flight from any particular city of the United States, mostly New York. He would mention the time of arrival of the flight at IGI airport to Akansha and ask her to be present at the airport and then he would turn his phone onto flight mode. After that, he would take a train from Bhopal and reach New Delhi railway station. From there he would straight to the airport, freshen up and change into a suit and meet Akansha outside the airport," the officer added.

The train journey from Bhopal to Delhi takes around 11 hours, while a flight from New York to New Delhi takes around 14 hours. So, Udayan always got a few extra hours keeping in mind of the train delays and around 45 min taken to reach IGI airport from New Delhi railway station.

Meanwhile, the post-mortem report of the skeletal remains alleged to be that of Akansha Sharma's said she died of strangulation, a senior police officer said.

"On Saturday, we received the post-mortem report of skeletal remains and it states that the cause of death was strangulation," Superintendent of Police, Bankura, Sukhendu Hira said.

KOLKATA: Bhopal police handed over the post mortem report of Akansha Sharma, the 28-year-old Bankura native who was murdered and entombed by her boyfriend Udayan Das, to Bankura police in West Bengal on Saturday. The report was handed over by Inspector Pradeep Meena of Govindpura Police Station in Bhopal to Bankura police. Though the findings of the report have not yet been made public, the exact cause of death may help the police in the investigation into the murder mystery. Meanwhile, an investigation has revealed that accused Udayan Das, who had duped Akansha by promising her a job in UNESCO in the United States, always met Akansha in Delhi at Indira Gandhi International Airport posing as a returne from the North American nation. "Udayan had told Akansha that he was a non-resident Indian (NRI) while in reality, he lived in Bhopal. Accordingly, he made great efforts to ensure that Akansha believed he was indeed an NRI. For this, he took help of an app called Flight Tracker, though which he could track New Delhi-bound flights from US," a Bankura police official said. "Udayan would track a New Delhi-bound flight from any particular city of the United States, mostly New York. He would mention the time of arrival of the flight at IGI airport to Akansha and ask her to be present at the airport and then he would turn his phone onto flight mode. After that, he would take a train from Bhopal and reach New Delhi railway station. From there he would straight to the airport, freshen up and change into a suit and meet Akansha outside the airport," the officer added. The train journey from Bhopal to Delhi takes around 11 hours, while a flight from New York to New Delhi takes around 14 hours. So, Udayan always got a few extra hours keeping in mind of the train delays and around 45 min taken to reach IGI airport from New Delhi railway station. Meanwhile, the post-mortem report of the skeletal remains alleged to be that of Akansha Sharma's said she died of strangulation, a senior police officer said. "On Saturday, we received the post-mortem report of skeletal remains and it states that the cause of death was strangulation," Superintendent of Police, Bankura, Sukhendu Hira said.
By Express News Service

MEERUT : The voter turnout in the first of the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, at 64 per cent on Saturday, is a significant figure. The turnout is higher than the overall 59.4 per cent turnout during the 2012 polls that saw Akhilesh Yadav lead the Samajwadi Party into powaer.

The next highest voter turnout since the 1990s was in the 1993 polls, held soon after the Babri Masjid demolition, which dislodged the BJP government in favor of an SP-BSP coalition. It would thus appear that a high voter turnout could be good news for the SP-Congress coalition, though the Mayawati-led BSP could still emerge the dark horse.

Even as the first phase of polling concluded, by and large, peacefully, the campaign carnival had already moved on. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing rallies at Badaun, continued his attack on Akhilesh, claiming it was the Chief Ministers fault that if the people of UP had yet to see any achche din.

Pointing to the backwardness of Badaun, Modi said despite being a VIP district -- being BSP chief Mayawatis karyakshetra and stronghold of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav -- it figured among the 100 least developed districts of the country. Targeting the SP-Congress alliance, Modi charged that the two families had come together to hide their failures.

Modi claimed that while all political parties stood together on the issue of corruption, both Mayawati and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav were both angered by his note ban decision. Mayawati and Mulayam Singh who were opposed to each other, came together on one issue when I waged a war on black money as they found that the ground was slipping under their feet, Modi said.

The scions of the two families, meanwhile, lost no time in striking back. In Lucknow with Akhilesh to release the alliances Common Minimum Programme, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi warned that the PM would get a jolt once the UP poll results came out.

Pointing to the issue of unemployment, Gandhi claimed that while Modi had promised to provide two lakh jobs every year, only one lakh youths were given jobs last year. He also took the opportunity to attack the PMs jibe against former PM Manmohan Singh saying, Modi likes to read janampatri (horoscope), search Google and peep into the bathrooms of people but he is a failure as a Prime Minister, he said.

MEERUT : The voter turnout in the first of the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, at 64 per cent on Saturday, is a significant figure. The turnout is higher than the overall 59.4 per cent turnout during the 2012 polls that saw Akhilesh Yadav lead the Samajwadi Party into powaer. The next highest voter turnout since the 1990s was in the 1993 polls, held soon after the Babri Masjid demolition, which dislodged the BJP government in favor of an SP-BSP coalition. It would thus appear that a high voter turnout could be good news for the SP-Congress coalition, though the Mayawati-led BSP could still emerge the dark horse. Even as the first phase of polling concluded, by and large, peacefully, the campaign carnival had already moved on. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing rallies at Badaun, continued his attack on Akhilesh, claiming it was the Chief Ministers fault that if the people of UP had yet to see any achche din. Pointing to the backwardness of Badaun, Modi said despite being a VIP district -- being BSP chief Mayawatis karyakshetra and stronghold of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav -- it figured among the 100 least developed districts of the country. Targeting the SP-Congress alliance, Modi charged that the two families had come together to hide their failures. Modi claimed that while all political parties stood together on the issue of corruption, both Mayawati and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav were both angered by his note ban decision. Mayawati and Mulayam Singh who were opposed to each other, came together on one issue when I waged a war on black money as they found that the ground was slipping under their feet, Modi said. The scions of the two families, meanwhile, lost no time in striking back. In Lucknow with Akhilesh to release the alliances Common Minimum Programme, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi warned that the PM would get a jolt once the UP poll results came out. Pointing to the issue of unemployment, Gandhi claimed that while Modi had promised to provide two lakh jobs every year, only one lakh youths were given jobs last year. He also took the opportunity to attack the PMs jibe against former PM Manmohan Singh saying, Modi likes to read janampatri (horoscope), search Google and peep into the bathrooms of people but he is a failure as a Prime Minister, he said.
I attended a rally at the state capitol in support of our public workers on Feb. 7, the same day that House Study Bill 84 came out of committee. The bill as written, guts collective bargaining for our public workers.

HSB84 is a comprehensive bill aimed at destroying public sector collective bargaining and dividing the labor movement. It does this by attacking Chapter 20 of the Iowa Code wish governs bargaining rights for public workers. It also establishes two bargaining regimes, public safety employees, which are our law enforcement, and fire fighters, and the other regime would be all the rest.

The public safety employees retain most of their bargaining rights, the other public employees (including teachers) retain only wages as the one mandatory topic for negotiation.

These public employees have faces, and places in our communities. They are family, friends, and neighbors. These individuals are seeking security and stability in the workplace, not wealth. When the governor says the scale has been tilted in labor's favor, it actually means a neutral arbitrator has determined that based on comparison, labor has not been adequately compensated.

Polls say that 50 percent of Iowa labor voted Republican this year. I never heard any campaign promise of gutting collective bargaining. The slogan was Make America Great Again, not Make Americans Beg Again. An attack on one worker, is an attack on all. Contact your state representatives and tell them to vote no on HSB84.

Herb Copley, vice president, Iowa State Association of Letter Carriers, Clear Lake
By PTI

DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat today objected to the checking of his helicopter for unaccounted cash during campaigning in Haldwani and alleged he was being harassed at the behest of the Centre.

In a complaint to the Chief Election Commissioner, Rawat said why only his helicopter was being checked "when BJP leaders from New Delhi were bringing money in their choppers to distribute it among party candidates".

Taking exception to the "special treatment" being meted out by the Commission to BJP central leaders, Rawat alleged he was being harassed on the direction of his influential political adversaries based in Delhi.

Rawat's chopper was checked in Haldwani yesterday by the administration apparently to find out if unaccounted cash was being carried in it.

Accusing BJP of having pumped Rs 2,000 crore into the elections so far, Rawat said the poll panel should subject everyone to equal treatment howsoever important they may be.



DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat today objected to the checking of his helicopter for unaccounted cash during campaigning in Haldwani and alleged he was being harassed at the behest of the Centre. In a complaint to the Chief Election Commissioner, Rawat said why only his helicopter was being checked "when BJP leaders from New Delhi were bringing money in their choppers to distribute it among party candidates". Taking exception to the "special treatment" being meted out by the Commission to BJP central leaders, Rawat alleged he was being harassed on the direction of his influential political adversaries based in Delhi. Rawat's chopper was checked in Haldwani yesterday by the administration apparently to find out if unaccounted cash was being carried in it. Accusing BJP of having pumped Rs 2,000 crore into the elections so far, Rawat said the poll panel should subject everyone to equal treatment howsoever important they may be.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: Controversial Andhra Pradesh MLA and former film star Roja was back in the eye of a storm as she was detained at the Gannavaram airport in Vijayawada after she arrived to attend the National Women's Parliament in Vijayawada.

The motormouth MLA, who belongs to the YSR Congress (YSRC) party, is just coming off a year-long suspension from the Andhra Pradesh Assembly for unparliamentary behaviour. On Saturday, she landed in Vijayawada as an invitee to the National Women's Parliament events. Not long after landing, a storm was kicked up.

Roja claimed she was detained by the police and confined to a room in the airport for about an hour because Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama was scheduled to catch a flight at the Gannavaram airport and passenger movement was restricted. She put out a cell phone video from a vehicle, purportedly under police escort, claiming that she was being moved to Ongole in Prakasam district, 100 km away. The video went viral on social media.

Police in Vijayawada did not confirm these events. In her video, former actress Roja alleged that she was misled by the police.

She demanded to know if the State government under Chandrababu Naidu was scared to let her attend the National Women's Parliament. "They are spending over Rs 11 crore for the event and invited many legislators and parliamentarians from across the country. But they do not want me at the venue. If they were scared, they should not have invited me," she claimed.

Speaking to the media, YSR Congress MLA Giddi Eeswari observed that it was wrong on part of the State government to detain an elected legislator especially after having invited her to the National Women's Parliament.

"It seemed like Roja was being kidnapped to prevent her from participating in the event. We demand an explanation from Andhra Pradesh Assembly speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao and chief minister Chandrababu Naidu," she said.

However, TDP leader Sobha Hymavati rubbished the allegations that Roja was kidnapped. She said

Roja was coming to the National Women's Parliament not to participate as a delegate, but to create a ruckus. She pointed out that several YSRC legislators and parliamentarians have already attended the Women's Parliament. "If we had any other motive, we would not have invited Roja," she said.

VIJAYAWADA: Controversial Andhra Pradesh MLA and former film star Roja was back in the eye of a storm as she was detained at the Gannavaram airport in Vijayawada after she arrived to attend the National Women's Parliament in Vijayawada. The motormouth MLA, who belongs to the YSR Congress (YSRC) party, is just coming off a year-long suspension from the Andhra Pradesh Assembly for unparliamentary behaviour. On Saturday, she landed in Vijayawada as an invitee to the National Women's Parliament events. Not long after landing, a storm was kicked up. Roja claimed she was detained by the police and confined to a room in the airport for about an hour because Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama was scheduled to catch a flight at the Gannavaram airport and passenger movement was restricted. She put out a cell phone video from a vehicle, purportedly under police escort, claiming that she was being moved to Ongole in Prakasam district, 100 km away. The video went viral on social media. Police in Vijayawada did not confirm these events. In her video, former actress Roja alleged that she was misled by the police. She demanded to know if the State government under Chandrababu Naidu was scared to let her attend the National Women's Parliament. "They are spending over Rs 11 crore for the event and invited many legislators and parliamentarians from across the country. But they do not want me at the venue. If they were scared, they should not have invited me," she claimed. Speaking to the media, YSR Congress MLA Giddi Eeswari observed that it was wrong on part of the State government to detain an elected legislator especially after having invited her to the National Women's Parliament. "It seemed like Roja was being kidnapped to prevent her from participating in the event. We demand an explanation from Andhra Pradesh Assembly speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao and chief minister Chandrababu Naidu," she said. However, TDP leader Sobha Hymavati rubbished the allegations that Roja was kidnapped. She said Roja was coming to the National Women's Parliament not to participate as a delegate, but to create a ruckus. She pointed out that several YSRC legislators and parliamentarians have already attended the Women's Parliament. "If we had any other motive, we would not have invited Roja," she said.
T J S George By

Is war coming? Americas activities vis-a-vis Iran lend substance to the scary prospect. Indications began surfacing within days of Donald Trump assuming office. He rubbished the nuclear treaty Obama had worked out with Iran and, instead, described Iran as the greatest state sponsor of terrorism. Among the first world leaders he phoned were those of Israel and Saudi Arabia, sworn enemies of Iran. Saudi Arabia astounded the world by calling Trumps Muslim ban a firm and correct decision, a typical argument being that among 57 Muslim countries of the world, only seven were blacklisted. That Iran headed the list was the point.

More ominous developments followed. On January 29, Iran conducted a missile test claiming that it was not in violation of the UN resolution barring ballistic missile tests. America called the Iranian action unacceptable and said we are not going to stand [idly] by. Two days later the US conducted a three-day naval exercise close to Iranian waters. This was followed by a warning. Charging that Iran continues to threaten US friends and allies in the region, US National Security Advisor declared: As of today we are officially putting Iran on notice.

Donald Trump is no clown though he provides comic relief now and again with his mannerisms, his grammar-defying language, even his more outrageous executive orders. (When he dismissed his Attorney-General for not supporting his illegal order blocking refugees, satirist Borowitz wrote in the New Yorker magazine that she was fired because a copy of the American Constitution was found in her computer).



For all that, Trump is a shrewd businessman. He is now President of the United States and commander of the worlds most powerful military forces. His decisions can make or unmake nations. When such a person announces decisions that seem temperamental and unpredictable, the world has cause to worry.

His moves against Iran are puzzlingly in conflict with several ongoing political-military-diplomatic exercises aimed at achieving peace in Syria and ending ISIS terrorism. America itself has been a participant in many of these operations. In the military putsch that has brought the war to what looks like a possible conclusion, the lead player has been Russia to which Trump is believed to be well disposed. To sound the gongs of war against Iran at such a time is equivalent to encouraging the terrorists who seek to establish a worldwide caliphate. Russia has publicly rejected Trumps moves against Iran, saying it values its friendly partner-like relations with Tehran.

Adding to this convoluted mess of crisscrossing policy pursuits is the supreme contradiction of Trump, a White American traditionalist and therefore a hater of Jews, coordinating action with Israel. The belief is that he is trying to consolidate his position by playing to the powerful Jewish lobby in America, which controls the US Congress and the US media. This may be good domestic politics, but toeing the Israeli line in the Middle East could lead directly to a showdown no one wants (except Israel which at one point was on the verge of launching a nuclear attack on Iran).

Iran is no longer the weak polity that America needled in the George Bush years. It is recognised today as the most effective force in the battle against ISIS terrorists in Iraq and it is a prime mover, with Russia alongside Turkey, in the efforts to bring normalcy to war-ravaged Syria. No strategy against Islamist terror will be workable without Iranian participation. Nor can peace be sustained in the devastated area without Irans cooperation.



Trump had asked the Pentagon to prepare within 30 days a blueprint to destroy the ISIS forever. There is irony in the same Trump boosting ties with Saudi Arabia, which has been exporting Wahabi extremism for decades, backed with liberal finance. From extremism to terrorism is not a long haul as shown by ISIS successes in attracting radicalised youth in previously tolerant Islamic societies in South and Southeast Asia. For Saudi Arabia, Sunni Wahabi terrorism is acceptable. Should that be Trumps position as well?



Iran will not be an easy target for the US. A top military commander in Teheran said last week that it would take Iranian missiles only seven minutes to pulverise Tel Aviv. For good measure, he added they could also raze to the ground the US military base in Bahrain. Part of the boast may be rhetoric, but only the foolish will dismiss such warnings completely.



So, is war coming? As of today Yes seems more likely than No.

Is war coming? Americas activities vis-a-vis Iran lend substance to the scary prospect. Indications began surfacing within days of Donald Trump assuming office. He rubbished the nuclear treaty Obama had worked out with Iran and, instead, described Iran as the greatest state sponsor of terrorism. Among the first world leaders he phoned were those of Israel and Saudi Arabia, sworn enemies of Iran. Saudi Arabia astounded the world by calling Trumps Muslim ban a firm and correct decision, a typical argument being that among 57 Muslim countries of the world, only seven were blacklisted. That Iran headed the list was the point. More ominous developments followed. On January 29, Iran conducted a missile test claiming that it was not in violation of the UN resolution barring ballistic missile tests. America called the Iranian action unacceptable and said we are not going to stand [idly] by. Two days later the US conducted a three-day naval exercise close to Iranian waters. This was followed by a warning. Charging that Iran continues to threaten US friends and allies in the region, US National Security Advisor declared: As of today we are officially putting Iran on notice. Donald Trump is no clown though he provides comic relief now and again with his mannerisms, his grammar-defying language, even his more outrageous executive orders. (When he dismissed his Attorney-General for not supporting his illegal order blocking refugees, satirist Borowitz wrote in the New Yorker magazine that she was fired because a copy of the American Constitution was found in her computer). For all that, Trump is a shrewd businessman. He is now President of the United States and commander of the worlds most powerful military forces. His decisions can make or unmake nations. When such a person announces decisions that seem temperamental and unpredictable, the world has cause to worry. His moves against Iran are puzzlingly in conflict with several ongoing political-military-diplomatic exercises aimed at achieving peace in Syria and ending ISIS terrorism. America itself has been a participant in many of these operations. In the military putsch that has brought the war to what looks like a possible conclusion, the lead player has been Russia to which Trump is believed to be well disposed. To sound the gongs of war against Iran at such a time is equivalent to encouraging the terrorists who seek to establish a worldwide caliphate. Russia has publicly rejected Trumps moves against Iran, saying it values its friendly partner-like relations with Tehran. Adding to this convoluted mess of crisscrossing policy pursuits is the supreme contradiction of Trump, a White American traditionalist and therefore a hater of Jews, coordinating action with Israel. The belief is that he is trying to consolidate his position by playing to the powerful Jewish lobby in America, which controls the US Congress and the US media. This may be good domestic politics, but toeing the Israeli line in the Middle East could lead directly to a showdown no one wants (except Israel which at one point was on the verge of launching a nuclear attack on Iran). Iran is no longer the weak polity that America needled in the George Bush years. It is recognised today as the most effective force in the battle against ISIS terrorists in Iraq and it is a prime mover, with Russia alongside Turkey, in the efforts to bring normalcy to war-ravaged Syria. No strategy against Islamist terror will be workable without Iranian participation. Nor can peace be sustained in the devastated area without Irans cooperation. Trump had asked the Pentagon to prepare within 30 days a blueprint to destroy the ISIS forever. There is irony in the same Trump boosting ties with Saudi Arabia, which has been exporting Wahabi extremism for decades, backed with liberal finance. From extremism to terrorism is not a long haul as shown by ISIS successes in attracting radicalised youth in previously tolerant Islamic societies in South and Southeast Asia. For Saudi Arabia, Sunni Wahabi terrorism is acceptable. Should that be Trumps position as well? Iran will not be an easy target for the US. A top military commander in Teheran said last week that it would take Iranian missiles only seven minutes to pulverise Tel Aviv. For good measure, he added they could also raze to the ground the US military base in Bahrain. Part of the boast may be rhetoric, but only the foolish will dismiss such warnings completely. So, is war coming? As of today Yes seems more likely than No.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is keen to invest in development of rural areas in the State.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation deputy director Katherine Hay has explained about the investments the organisation has made in India. The foundation is also investing a huge amount for development of Jharkhand.

Katherine Hay said that Gates Foundation is expanding their reach to the southern part of the country by mid-2017. Our focus is on rural development, women empowerment, women and child issues like sanitation, education and nutrition," she added.

VIJAYAWADA: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is keen to invest in development of rural areas in the State. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation deputy director Katherine Hay has explained about the investments the organisation has made in India. The foundation is also investing a huge amount for development of Jharkhand. Katherine Hay said that Gates Foundation is expanding their reach to the southern part of the country by mid-2017. Our focus is on rural development, women empowerment, women and child issues like sanitation, education and nutrition," she added.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: Senator of Maryland Aruna Katragadda Miller, an Indian-born American politician, on Friday, praised immigrants for paying a vital role in development of the US during the last three decades. The recent decision of President Donald Trump is unacceptable to immigrants and would also mar the future of the country. We would appreciate if he reviews his decisions, she said, in a brief interaction with Express.

Earlier, addressing the delegates at National Womens Parliament which began here on Friday, she said that being a woman politician in the US was a tough job.

The member of Maryland House of Delegates said: Policy making is the change agent which I have found to be effective in improvement of conditions of women in every country. In 2010, I made it to be part of policy making after my election to Maryland Assembly. I feel proud that I have come to India, my home place and representing the country, which owns me and made me to stand in front of you. India has had woman Chief Ministers, Prime Minister and President too, but this not in the case of United States.

She further said that people of the US have come across a wonderful opportunity in choosing the most qualifying women as US President, but unfortunately they missed out. We are sure that US President Donald Trump would work for women-friendly initiatives and strive for the development of it. We would increase women's role in public space and we are going to elect more women for public offices. Women have to come out of their comfort zones to reach the heights of success, she said.

VIJAYAWADA: Senator of Maryland Aruna Katragadda Miller, an Indian-born American politician, on Friday, praised immigrants for paying a vital role in development of the US during the last three decades. The recent decision of President Donald Trump is unacceptable to immigrants and would also mar the future of the country. We would appreciate if he reviews his decisions, she said, in a brief interaction with Express. Earlier, addressing the delegates at National Womens Parliament which began here on Friday, she said that being a woman politician in the US was a tough job. The member of Maryland House of Delegates said: Policy making is the change agent which I have found to be effective in improvement of conditions of women in every country. In 2010, I made it to be part of policy making after my election to Maryland Assembly. I feel proud that I have come to India, my home place and representing the country, which owns me and made me to stand in front of you. India has had woman Chief Ministers, Prime Minister and President too, but this not in the case of United States. She further said that people of the US have come across a wonderful opportunity in choosing the most qualifying women as US President, but unfortunately they missed out. We are sure that US President Donald Trump would work for women-friendly initiatives and strive for the development of it. We would increase women's role in public space and we are going to elect more women for public offices. Women have to come out of their comfort zones to reach the heights of success, she said.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: Backing the demand for special category status for AP, Nizamabad MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha described it as just and said she would join the people of AP for securing it.

In an interview with Express, Kavitha, the only woman MP from the State of Telangana, expressed happiness over her visit to Amaravati region for the first time after the division of the State. "I like the city, especially Prakasam Barrage, and the clean riverfront where I clicked few pictures. The city is growing rapidly and its visible. The traffic, too, has multiplied in the recent times," she added.

She said she supported the Special Category Status demand of AP and advised the State leaders to not to compromise on the demand. During the elections, BJP promised Special Status to AP. Venkaiah Naidu, Chandrababu Naidu and even Pawan Kalyan assured it. Now, it is their responsibility to make sure that the State gets it, she said.

Referring to the road map for Telangana development, she said nothing was more important to her and the TRS than ensuring a Telangana where people lived with dignity and comfort. Development of Telangana is more important to me than anything else. To achieve the same, we will support any person, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As of now, we are happy with the welfare schemes being implemented in our State and everything is going in right direction, she said.

Regarding the National Womens Parliament, Kavitha said that more meetings and events like this would bring about a change in the society and also give moral boost to women. As we have a woman Speaker, we are having ease in discussing

TRS MP K Kavitha interacting with AP Assembly

Speaker Kodela Siva Prasad Rao during National

Womens Parliament near Vijayawada | express photo

women empowerment in Parliament. Women should have decision-making powers to bring about reforms in society. Women constitute only 11 per cent of MPs and we want the number to go up substantially. I strongly believe we need 50 per cent reservation rather than 33 per cent for women.

When asked about women safety, she stated that it is the prime concern in the country and felt that the governments should implement safety policies for them.

Earlier, Kavitha at Women's Parliament began her speech with slogan Jai Andhra Pradesh and ended it with Jai Telangana, Jai Andhra Pradesh and Jai Hind, drawing a huge applause from the audience.

She pointed out that women from south India enjoyed more freedom than those in the north. We are much better off in development, education and safety when compared to women in north India. Only six per cent of the startups are owned by women in India and the governments should come up with new taxation policies and schemes to encourage women entrepreneurs, she summed up.

VIJAYAWADA: Backing the demand for special category status for AP, Nizamabad MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha described it as just and said she would join the people of AP for securing it. In an interview with Express, Kavitha, the only woman MP from the State of Telangana, expressed happiness over her visit to Amaravati region for the first time after the division of the State. "I like the city, especially Prakasam Barrage, and the clean riverfront where I clicked few pictures. The city is growing rapidly and its visible. The traffic, too, has multiplied in the recent times," she added. She said she supported the Special Category Status demand of AP and advised the State leaders to not to compromise on the demand. During the elections, BJP promised Special Status to AP. Venkaiah Naidu, Chandrababu Naidu and even Pawan Kalyan assured it. Now, it is their responsibility to make sure that the State gets it, she said. Referring to the road map for Telangana development, she said nothing was more important to her and the TRS than ensuring a Telangana where people lived with dignity and comfort. Development of Telangana is more important to me than anything else. To achieve the same, we will support any person, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As of now, we are happy with the welfare schemes being implemented in our State and everything is going in right direction, she said. Regarding the National Womens Parliament, Kavitha said that more meetings and events like this would bring about a change in the society and also give moral boost to women. As we have a woman Speaker, we are having ease in discussing TRS MP K Kavitha interacting with AP Assembly Speaker Kodela Siva Prasad Rao during National Womens Parliament near Vijayawada | express photowomen empowerment in Parliament. Women should have decision-making powers to bring about reforms in society. Women constitute only 11 per cent of MPs and we want the number to go up substantially. I strongly believe we need 50 per cent reservation rather than 33 per cent for women. When asked about women safety, she stated that it is the prime concern in the country and felt that the governments should implement safety policies for them. Earlier, Kavitha at Women's Parliament began her speech with slogan Jai Andhra Pradesh and ended it with Jai Telangana, Jai Andhra Pradesh and Jai Hind, drawing a huge applause from the audience. She pointed out that women from south India enjoyed more freedom than those in the north. We are much better off in development, education and safety when compared to women in north India. Only six per cent of the startups are owned by women in India and the governments should come up with new taxation policies and schemes to encourage women entrepreneurs, she summed up.
By Express News Service

PALAKKAD: Tit-for-tat attacks between suspected RSS supporters and CPM supporters convulse this town in Kerala on Saturday.

Just a bit after dawn, two headload workers owing allegiance to the trade union CITU were attacked with sharp weapons by men suspected to be RSS supporters in the Kizhakencherry area of Palakkad.

The attack was said to be retaliation for Friday evenings attack on a local BJP leader named Shibu by CPM activists.

Later in the day, CITU workers hit back by attacking three members of the family of a BJP leader in the same locality, Kizhakencherry.

In the attack on trade union supporters just after dawn, R Vasu, secretary of the Kundukad unit of the Head Load and General Workers Union, and another headload worker, Sudevan, 40, received stab wounds and were admitted in a private hospital in Thrissur.

Vasu was reading a newspaper at his unions office in Kizhakencherry when the assailants rode up on a motorbike and pounced on him with swords.

There were only three headload workers in the office at that time.

As they left, the assailants flourished their swords to scare away the witnesses.

CPM district secretary C.K.Rajendran and area secretary T Kannan visited the injured men in the hospital. A strong police contingent was camping in the area.

In the reprisal incident later in the day, BMS Vadakkencherry zonal president Ponmala, his wife and son were injured when suspected CPM activists attacked them in their house.

Palakkad superintendent of police Pradesh Kumar visited the spot and took stock of the situation.

PALAKKAD: Tit-for-tat attacks between suspected RSS supporters and CPM supporters convulse this town in Kerala on Saturday. Just a bit after dawn, two headload workers owing allegiance to the trade union CITU were attacked with sharp weapons by men suspected to be RSS supporters in the Kizhakencherry area of Palakkad. The attack was said to be retaliation for Friday evenings attack on a local BJP leader named Shibu by CPM activists. Later in the day, CITU workers hit back by attacking three members of the family of a BJP leader in the same locality, Kizhakencherry. In the attack on trade union supporters just after dawn, R Vasu, secretary of the Kundukad unit of the Head Load and General Workers Union, and another headload worker, Sudevan, 40, received stab wounds and were admitted in a private hospital in Thrissur. Vasu was reading a newspaper at his unions office in Kizhakencherry when the assailants rode up on a motorbike and pounced on him with swords. There were only three headload workers in the office at that time. As they left, the assailants flourished their swords to scare away the witnesses. CPM district secretary C.K.Rajendran and area secretary T Kannan visited the injured men in the hospital. A strong police contingent was camping in the area. In the reprisal incident later in the day, BMS Vadakkencherry zonal president Ponmala, his wife and son were injured when suspected CPM activists attacked them in their house. Palakkad superintendent of police Pradesh Kumar visited the spot and took stock of the situation.
By Express News Service

TALCHER:Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), the largest coal company in India, is unlikely to achieve its targeted annual production of coal due to multiple problems in its major coalfield at Talcher.

According to MCL source, as against the annual target of 167 million tonne (MT), the company as on February 9 has produced 116.9 MT, 48 MT short of target. In the remaining 50 days, the asking rate is above 10 lakh tonne per day, which is impossible to meet. Sources say that at present, the daily production attains a maximum level of 5.6 lakh tonne. The MCL is learnt to have revised its target to 145 MT.

MCL record says Talcher coalfield has produced 66.97 MT while Ib Valley field produced 49.93 MT coal till February 9 last. Talcher, which accounts for 60 per cent production of the company, has fallen short of its target. Its growth is calculated at minus 1.4 per cent, while Ib Valley registered a growth of 6.37 per cent. Both the coalfields, however, have fallen behind their target till date.

There are eight mega open cast coalmines at Talcher coalfield of MCL. The MCL authorities hoped to achieve a target of 100 MT in the current financial year, but it has been able to produce about 67 million tonne till now. It seems to be impossible to achieve the target by the end of the current financial year, MCL sources say.

Among the coalmines which recorded negative growth are Jaganath, Bhubaneswari Bharatpur, Ananta and Kaniha. Coalmines such as Hingula, Balaram and Lingaraj have been doing well till now though they have fallen behind their targets. The authorities, however, do not assess the growth of Bhubaneswari as negative as it had slowed down production, but they are hopeful of achieving the target of 25 MT, one of the highest in India. As the production of coalfields does not pick up, consumers like JSPL and JITPL have been facing problems due to shortage of coal in their power plants.

Under the circumstances, the MCL authorities are understood to have revised their target to 145 MT instead of 167 MT. MCL Chairman-cum-Managing Director Anil Kumar Jha attributed the setback in production in Talcher to land problems, law and order situation and of lack forest clearance on time. He said his team is doing its best to increase MCL production.

TALCHER:Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), the largest coal company in India, is unlikely to achieve its targeted annual production of coal due to multiple problems in its major coalfield at Talcher. According to MCL source, as against the annual target of 167 million tonne (MT), the company as on February 9 has produced 116.9 MT, 48 MT short of target. In the remaining 50 days, the asking rate is above 10 lakh tonne per day, which is impossible to meet. Sources say that at present, the daily production attains a maximum level of 5.6 lakh tonne. The MCL is learnt to have revised its target to 145 MT. MCL record says Talcher coalfield has produced 66.97 MT while Ib Valley field produced 49.93 MT coal till February 9 last. Talcher, which accounts for 60 per cent production of the company, has fallen short of its target. Its growth is calculated at minus 1.4 per cent, while Ib Valley registered a growth of 6.37 per cent. Both the coalfields, however, have fallen behind their target till date. There are eight mega open cast coalmines at Talcher coalfield of MCL. The MCL authorities hoped to achieve a target of 100 MT in the current financial year, but it has been able to produce about 67 million tonne till now. It seems to be impossible to achieve the target by the end of the current financial year, MCL sources say. Among the coalmines which recorded negative growth are Jaganath, Bhubaneswari Bharatpur, Ananta and Kaniha. Coalmines such as Hingula, Balaram and Lingaraj have been doing well till now though they have fallen behind their targets. The authorities, however, do not assess the growth of Bhubaneswari as negative as it had slowed down production, but they are hopeful of achieving the target of 25 MT, one of the highest in India. As the production of coalfields does not pick up, consumers like JSPL and JITPL have been facing problems due to shortage of coal in their power plants. Under the circumstances, the MCL authorities are understood to have revised their target to 145 MT instead of 167 MT. MCL Chairman-cum-Managing Director Anil Kumar Jha attributed the setback in production in Talcher to land problems, law and order situation and of lack forest clearance on time. He said his team is doing its best to increase MCL production.
By Express News Service

VELLORE: An eight-year-old girl died under mysterious circumstances near Ambur on Friday, days after she was administered Measles-Rubella (MR) vaccine. Though it was not established that the death was due to the vaccine, it added fuel to the fears of parents, who were already apprehensive about the Measles-Rubella vaccine following negative reports about it on social media platforms.

The deceased, Haripriya, who was studying in Panchayat Union Elementary School in Nacharkuppam village near Ambur, was given the MR vaccination shots on February 7 at her school. Two days later, she started experiencing fever and cough, and soon developed pneumonia and epilepsy. She was rushed to Government Ambur Hospital on Thursday night, and later shifted to Government Vellore Medical College Hospital. However, she was believed to have died on the way as sources at the Government Vellore Medical College Hospital said she was declared dead on arrival.

While the girls family members and relatives suspected that the death was associated with the MR vaccine, they refused to get a postmortem done to confirm the cause of death.

Meanwhile, the health officials claimed that inquiries with the girls family revealed that Haripriya used to have on and off episodes of fever and epilepsy. However, they were not able to ascertain whether the physical fitness of the girl was ensured before the MR vaccine was administered.

Meanwhile, a private paediatrician, who did not wish to be named, said, Under such circumstances, the best way to rule out whether the death is due to vaccination is to conduct a postmortem. Since the family members did not give their nod for the autopsy, it would be difficult to link the death to vaccination.

Following the news of the girls demise, the Tirupattur health department officials rushed to the village on Friday and conducted a screening test for all the children, who received vaccination at the school.

Officials confirmed that all students were fit and none showed any adverse reaction to the vaccine.

VELLORE: An eight-year-old girl died under mysterious circumstances near Ambur on Friday, days after she was administered Measles-Rubella (MR) vaccine. Though it was not established that the death was due to the vaccine, it added fuel to the fears of parents, who were already apprehensive about the Measles-Rubella vaccine following negative reports about it on social media platforms. The deceased, Haripriya, who was studying in Panchayat Union Elementary School in Nacharkuppam village near Ambur, was given the MR vaccination shots on February 7 at her school. Two days later, she started experiencing fever and cough, and soon developed pneumonia and epilepsy. She was rushed to Government Ambur Hospital on Thursday night, and later shifted to Government Vellore Medical College Hospital. However, she was believed to have died on the way as sources at the Government Vellore Medical College Hospital said she was declared dead on arrival. While the girls family members and relatives suspected that the death was associated with the MR vaccine, they refused to get a postmortem done to confirm the cause of death. Meanwhile, the health officials claimed that inquiries with the girls family revealed that Haripriya used to have on and off episodes of fever and epilepsy. However, they were not able to ascertain whether the physical fitness of the girl was ensured before the MR vaccine was administered. Meanwhile, a private paediatrician, who did not wish to be named, said, Under such circumstances, the best way to rule out whether the death is due to vaccination is to conduct a postmortem. Since the family members did not give their nod for the autopsy, it would be difficult to link the death to vaccination. Following the news of the girls demise, the Tirupattur health department officials rushed to the village on Friday and conducted a screening test for all the children, who received vaccination at the school. Officials confirmed that all students were fit and none showed any adverse reaction to the vaccine.
C Shivakumar By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority is working on staff pattern for manning the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) which is likely to come into being by April this year.

Work is also apace to design the layout of the proposed website of RERA, which is mandatory under the provisions of the draft of Real Estate Bill to usher in transparency. The move comes as the state is preparing to implement Tamil Nadu Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act. As per the draft, the RERA should have a chairman who would be selected through a search committee. The search committee has to suggest a panel of names possessing the requisite qualification and experience and suitability for being considered for appointment as chairperson or member of the authority.

Once the two members are selected, then the Government looks into the recommendations and appoints one of the two persons recommended by the selection committee for the vacancy of the chairperson or member. The chairperson will then decide on the total strength of the authority as well as matter pertaining to appointments, promotions and confirmation for all posts. Under RERA, the developer has to provide details on commercial and residential projects online.

Sources said that features of the proposed website of RERA detailing its main features are also being planned.

As per the draft, the developer has to get himself registered on website before starting a project as well as list all project clearances and details of it. The website will also provide updates about the project.

The website will have details of developers enterprise including its name, registered address, type of enterprise (proprietorship, limited liability partnership, society, partnership, company, competent authority) and the particulars of registration. The website will have the sanctioned plan, layout plan and specifications of the project or the phase thereof, and the whole project as sanctioned by the competent authority.

It will also have details of past or ongoing projects of the developer, the number, type and carpet area of apartments for sale in the project. Sources said that the CMDA was also assessing requirement of funds to operationalise the authority and its website.

CHENNAI: The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority is working on staff pattern for manning the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) which is likely to come into being by April this year. Work is also apace to design the layout of the proposed website of RERA, which is mandatory under the provisions of the draft of Real Estate Bill to usher in transparency. The move comes as the state is preparing to implement Tamil Nadu Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act. As per the draft, the RERA should have a chairman who would be selected through a search committee. The search committee has to suggest a panel of names possessing the requisite qualification and experience and suitability for being considered for appointment as chairperson or member of the authority. Once the two members are selected, then the Government looks into the recommendations and appoints one of the two persons recommended by the selection committee for the vacancy of the chairperson or member. The chairperson will then decide on the total strength of the authority as well as matter pertaining to appointments, promotions and confirmation for all posts. Under RERA, the developer has to provide details on commercial and residential projects online. Sources said that features of the proposed website of RERA detailing its main features are also being planned. As per the draft, the developer has to get himself registered on website before starting a project as well as list all project clearances and details of it. The website will also provide updates about the project. The website will have details of developers enterprise including its name, registered address, type of enterprise (proprietorship, limited liability partnership, society, partnership, company, competent authority) and the particulars of registration. The website will have the sanctioned plan, layout plan and specifications of the project or the phase thereof, and the whole project as sanctioned by the competent authority. It will also have details of past or ongoing projects of the developer, the number, type and carpet area of apartments for sale in the project. Sources said that the CMDA was also assessing requirement of funds to operationalise the authority and its website.
By PTI

BEIJING: A Chinese soldier, who was stuck in India for over 50 years after he crossed over the border post 1962 war, today arrived in Beijing with his Indian family members to an emotional reunion with his Chinese kin.

Wang Qi, 77, was received by his close Chinese relatives, besides officials of the China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Indian embassy when he arrived here along with his son, daughter-in-law and grand daughter from Delhi-Beijing flight.

Wang became emotional as he hugged his relatives, their first reunion after he crossed into Indian side over five decades ago. "It was an emotional reunion," an official present at the airport told PTI here.

Wang was accompanied by his son Vishnu Wang, 35, daughter-in-law Neha and grand daughter, Khanak Wang. His Indian wife Shushila, however, stayed back. Indian officials said Wang and family members will be later flown to Xian, the provincial capital in Shaanxi province from where he will be taken to his native village Xue Zhai Nan Cun in the province.

His return became a possibility after India and China worked out modalities for both Wang and his Indian family to travel together to China and later return as per their wish.

Wang was caught when he entered the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962. After his release from prison in 1969, he settled in Tirodi village of Balaghat district in Madhya Pradesh. Though his story has been published by Indian media several times in the past, a recent BBC TV feature on him was widely picked by the Chinese social media highlighting his plight, prompting the Chinese government to initiate action in coordination with India to facilitate his return.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on February 6 that he was provided a passport to travel to China in 2013 and he was also paid a living allowance.

Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui recently spoke to him. While the Chinese government has provided visas for his family to visit China, India has provided a re-entry visa for Wang to return back if he chooses to. Indian officials terms the facilitation of the travel of Wang and his family by both sides s positive development, specially at a time when India-China relations were stuck with differences over issues like China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China blocking India's entry into Nuclear Suppliers Group and listing of JeM leader Masood Azhar as terrorist by UN.

Before leaving for Beijing, Vishnu told media in India yesterday that "my father joined the Chinese Army in 1960 and he entered India through the eastern frontier after losing his way in the darkness one night." He landed in Assam where an Indian Red Cross team handed him over to the Indian Army on January 1, 1963.

"My father spent six years in prisons in Assam, Ajmer, Delhi before the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered his release in March 1969," Vishnu said. "The Indian government had promised to the court that it will rehabilitate my father.

He was taken to Delhi, Bhopal, Jabalpur and then finally handed over to Balaghat police," said his son. Wang started working as a watchman with a mill and soon his colleagues named him Raj Bahadur, apparently due to his Nepali features, Vishnu said. Wang's mother died in 2006 but he could not be with his dear ones in the time of grief, Vishnu said.

Three years later he met his nephew Yun Chun, who had come to India as a tourist and narrated his ordeal to him. After returning home, Chun got in touch with Chinese politicians and authorities to bring his uncle home. Finally, he met then Chinese Foreign Minister who helped Wang to get a Chinese passport in March 2013.

BEIJING: A Chinese soldier, who was stuck in India for over 50 years after he crossed over the border post 1962 war, today arrived in Beijing with his Indian family members to an emotional reunion with his Chinese kin. Wang Qi, 77, was received by his close Chinese relatives, besides officials of the China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Indian embassy when he arrived here along with his son, daughter-in-law and grand daughter from Delhi-Beijing flight. Wang became emotional as he hugged his relatives, their first reunion after he crossed into Indian side over five decades ago. "It was an emotional reunion," an official present at the airport told PTI here. Wang was accompanied by his son Vishnu Wang, 35, daughter-in-law Neha and grand daughter, Khanak Wang. His Indian wife Shushila, however, stayed back. Indian officials said Wang and family members will be later flown to Xian, the provincial capital in Shaanxi province from where he will be taken to his native village Xue Zhai Nan Cun in the province. His return became a possibility after India and China worked out modalities for both Wang and his Indian family to travel together to China and later return as per their wish. Wang was caught when he entered the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962. After his release from prison in 1969, he settled in Tirodi village of Balaghat district in Madhya Pradesh. Though his story has been published by Indian media several times in the past, a recent BBC TV feature on him was widely picked by the Chinese social media highlighting his plight, prompting the Chinese government to initiate action in coordination with India to facilitate his return. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on February 6 that he was provided a passport to travel to China in 2013 and he was also paid a living allowance. Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui recently spoke to him. While the Chinese government has provided visas for his family to visit China, India has provided a re-entry visa for Wang to return back if he chooses to. Indian officials terms the facilitation of the travel of Wang and his family by both sides s positive development, specially at a time when India-China relations were stuck with differences over issues like China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China blocking India's entry into Nuclear Suppliers Group and listing of JeM leader Masood Azhar as terrorist by UN. Before leaving for Beijing, Vishnu told media in India yesterday that "my father joined the Chinese Army in 1960 and he entered India through the eastern frontier after losing his way in the darkness one night." He landed in Assam where an Indian Red Cross team handed him over to the Indian Army on January 1, 1963. "My father spent six years in prisons in Assam, Ajmer, Delhi before the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered his release in March 1969," Vishnu said. "The Indian government had promised to the court that it will rehabilitate my father. He was taken to Delhi, Bhopal, Jabalpur and then finally handed over to Balaghat police," said his son. Wang started working as a watchman with a mill and soon his colleagues named him Raj Bahadur, apparently due to his Nepali features, Vishnu said. Wang's mother died in 2006 but he could not be with his dear ones in the time of grief, Vishnu said. Three years later he met his nephew Yun Chun, who had come to India as a tourist and narrated his ordeal to him. After returning home, Chun got in touch with Chinese politicians and authorities to bring his uncle home. Finally, he met then Chinese Foreign Minister who helped Wang to get a Chinese passport in March 2013.
By AFP

MOSCOW: Edward Snowden's Russian lawyer on Saturday dismissed a US report that Moscow was considering extraditing the NSA whistleblower as a "gift" to President Donald Trump.

Anatoly Kucherena, who has represented Snowden since his arrival in Russia in 2013, told Interfax news agency that "Russia has no legal basis to hand over Snowden."

US channel NBC on Friday quoted a senior US official with access to highly sensitive intelligence reports as saying Russia was considering the move "to curry favour" with Trump.

Snowden's US lawyer Ben Wizner told NBC that he was not aware of such plans.

"All this talk is just ordinary speculation. Someone is indulging in wishful thinking," Kucherena said, insisting that Snowden "lives in Russia absolutely lawfully."

The former National Security Agency contractor shook the American intelligence establishment to its core in 2013 with a series of devastating leaks on mass surveillance in the US and around the world.

He has been living in exile in Russia since the summer of 2013 after spending weeks in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

Russia's immigration service in January extended Snowden's residency permit to 2020.

"Russia doesn't trade in people and human rights, although American secret services constantly try to draw us into various acts of provocation," Kucherena said.

Snowden wrote on Twitter on Friday that the NBC report was "irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel."

"No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next," wrote Snowden.

The US has charged him with espionage and theft of state secrets after he released thousands of classified documents in 2013.

Former CIA acting director Michael Morell in an opinion piece in January suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin could hand over Snowden to mark Trump's inauguration that month.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded by condemning what she called a proposal to "hand over those who seek protection."

MOSCOW: Edward Snowden's Russian lawyer on Saturday dismissed a US report that Moscow was considering extraditing the NSA whistleblower as a "gift" to President Donald Trump. Anatoly Kucherena, who has represented Snowden since his arrival in Russia in 2013, told Interfax news agency that "Russia has no legal basis to hand over Snowden." US channel NBC on Friday quoted a senior US official with access to highly sensitive intelligence reports as saying Russia was considering the move "to curry favour" with Trump. Snowden's US lawyer Ben Wizner told NBC that he was not aware of such plans. "All this talk is just ordinary speculation. Someone is indulging in wishful thinking," Kucherena said, insisting that Snowden "lives in Russia absolutely lawfully." The former National Security Agency contractor shook the American intelligence establishment to its core in 2013 with a series of devastating leaks on mass surveillance in the US and around the world. He has been living in exile in Russia since the summer of 2013 after spending weeks in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. Russia's immigration service in January extended Snowden's residency permit to 2020. "Russia doesn't trade in people and human rights, although American secret services constantly try to draw us into various acts of provocation," Kucherena said. Snowden wrote on Twitter on Friday that the NBC report was "irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel." "No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next," wrote Snowden. The US has charged him with espionage and theft of state secrets after he released thousands of classified documents in 2013. Former CIA acting director Michael Morell in an opinion piece in January suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin could hand over Snowden to mark Trump's inauguration that month. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded by condemning what she called a proposal to "hand over those who seek protection."
By IANS

WASHINGTON: A US Federal Elections Commission (FEC) official called on President Donald Trump to give proof of voter fraud, after he reportedly made claims in a meeting with senators, the media reported.



Trump reportedly blamed voter fraud for why both he and former Senator Kelly Ayotte lost in New Hampshire in November during the meeting on Thursday with a bipartisan group of senators, The Hill magazine reported.



"The scheme the President of the US alleges would constitute thousands of felony criminal offences under New Hampshire law," Commissioner Ellen Weintraub said in a statement on Friday.



"The President has issued an extraordinarily serious and specific charge," added Weintraub, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush.



"Allegations of this magnitude cannot be ignored."



"I therefore call upon President Trump to immediately share his evidence with the public and with the appropriate law-enforcement authorities so that his allegations may be investigated promptly and thoroughly."



Last week, Trump said that he will have Vice President Mike Pence to oversee a special commission for voter fraud.



The president maintains voter fraud may explain why 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton defeated him in the popular vote by nearly three million ballots.

WASHINGTON: A US Federal Elections Commission (FEC) official called on President Donald Trump to give proof of voter fraud, after he reportedly made claims in a meeting with senators, the media reported. Trump reportedly blamed voter fraud for why both he and former Senator Kelly Ayotte lost in New Hampshire in November during the meeting on Thursday with a bipartisan group of senators, The Hill magazine reported. "The scheme the President of the US alleges would constitute thousands of felony criminal offences under New Hampshire law," Commissioner Ellen Weintraub said in a statement on Friday. "The President has issued an extraordinarily serious and specific charge," added Weintraub, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush. "Allegations of this magnitude cannot be ignored." "I therefore call upon President Trump to immediately share his evidence with the public and with the appropriate law-enforcement authorities so that his allegations may be investigated promptly and thoroughly." Last week, Trump said that he will have Vice President Mike Pence to oversee a special commission for voter fraud. The president maintains voter fraud may explain why 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton defeated him in the popular vote by nearly three million ballots.
By AFP

CAIRO: The Islamic State group in Egypt claims to have executed five men it accused of working for the army, which is battling the jihadists in the Sinai Peninsula.

In a series of photos published on Friday on the secure messaging app Telegram, five men presented as army "elements" are seen lying face down on the ground before a militant shoots them in the back of their heads with an assault rifle, the SITE intelligence group said.

Jihadists have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 unleashed a bloody crackdown on his supporters.

The crackdown decimated the Islamist movement and killed hundreds of his followers, and set off a jihadist insurgency that has killed hundreds of security personnel.

Most of the attacks have taken place in the Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip, but attacks have also been carried out in other areas including Cairo.

The Egyptian army announced on Friday that it had killed "500 terrorists" since it launched a wide-ranging security operation in the Sinai in September 2015.

In October 2015, IS claimed the downing of a plane carrying Russian tourists home from the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which killed all 224 people on board.

CAIRO: The Islamic State group in Egypt claims to have executed five men it accused of working for the army, which is battling the jihadists in the Sinai Peninsula. In a series of photos published on Friday on the secure messaging app Telegram, five men presented as army "elements" are seen lying face down on the ground before a militant shoots them in the back of their heads with an assault rifle, the SITE intelligence group said. Jihadists have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 unleashed a bloody crackdown on his supporters. The crackdown decimated the Islamist movement and killed hundreds of his followers, and set off a jihadist insurgency that has killed hundreds of security personnel. Most of the attacks have taken place in the Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip, but attacks have also been carried out in other areas including Cairo. The Egyptian army announced on Friday that it had killed "500 terrorists" since it launched a wide-ranging security operation in the Sinai in September 2015. In October 2015, IS claimed the downing of a plane carrying Russian tourists home from the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which killed all 224 people on board.
By AFP

RAMALLAH: The Palestinians condemned as "blatant discrimination" Washington's decision to block the appointment of their former prime minister Salam Fayyad as UN peace envoy to Libya.

UN chief Antonio Guterres nominated Fayyad to the post on Thursday and the Security Council had been expected to approve his appointment without objections.

But late on Friday, US ambassador Nikki Haley announced she was blocking the appointment because "for too long, the UN has been unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel."

Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi dismissed the "flimsy excuse" for a move she described as "unconscionable."

"Blocking the appointment of Dr. Salam Fayyad is a case of blatant discrimination on the basis of national identity," she said.

Fayyad, 64, was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013, and also served as finance minister twice.

He had been tapped to replace Martin Kobler of Germany, who has been the Libya envoy since November 2015.

US President Donald Trump and Haley have criticised the United Nations for adopting a resolution in December that demanded an end to Israeli settlement building.

"Going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies," Haley said on Friday.

RAMALLAH: The Palestinians condemned as "blatant discrimination" Washington's decision to block the appointment of their former prime minister Salam Fayyad as UN peace envoy to Libya. UN chief Antonio Guterres nominated Fayyad to the post on Thursday and the Security Council had been expected to approve his appointment without objections. But late on Friday, US ambassador Nikki Haley announced she was blocking the appointment because "for too long, the UN has been unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel." Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi dismissed the "flimsy excuse" for a move she described as "unconscionable." "Blocking the appointment of Dr. Salam Fayyad is a case of blatant discrimination on the basis of national identity," she said. Fayyad, 64, was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013, and also served as finance minister twice. He had been tapped to replace Martin Kobler of Germany, who has been the Libya envoy since November 2015. US President Donald Trump and Haley have criticised the United Nations for adopting a resolution in December that demanded an end to Israeli settlement building. "Going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies," Haley said on Friday.
By IANS

WASHINGTON: Russia is considering turning over Edward Snowden as a "gift" to US President Donald Trump who had said the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower deserves to be executed for being a spy, according to a senior American intelligence official.



The official made the remark after analysing a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations and who said a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to "curry favour" with Trump, NBC News reported.



However, Snowden's American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer, Ben Wizner, said that they were unaware of any plans that would send him back to the US.



"Team Snowden has received no such signals and has no new reason for concern," Wizner said.



Snowden responded to NBC's report on Twitter and said it shows that he did not work with the Russian government.



"Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intelligence," Snowden said, adding "No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next".



The White House had no comment, but the Justice Department told NBC News that it would welcome the return of Snowden, who currently faces federal charges that carry a minimum of 30 years in prison.



Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said talks about returning Snowden is "nonsense".



If he were returned to the US, Snowden - a divisive figure in America who is seen by some as a hero and others as treasonous - would face an administration that has condemned him in the strongest terms.



"I think he's a total traitor and I would deal with him harshly," Trump said in July. "And if I were President, Putin would give him over."



In October 2013, Trump tweeted: "Snowden is a spy who should be executed".



Snowden was working as a contractor at an NSA facility in Hawaii when he began stealing top-secret documents that he gave to journalists in 2013, exposing details of US domestic surveillance programmes.



After Snowden fled to Hong Kong and was charged with violating the US Espionage Act, he ended up in Russia. Moscow granted him refuge and his residency permit was extended until 2020.

WASHINGTON: Russia is considering turning over Edward Snowden as a "gift" to US President Donald Trump who had said the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower deserves to be executed for being a spy, according to a senior American intelligence official. The official made the remark after analysing a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations and who said a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to "curry favour" with Trump, NBC News reported. However, Snowden's American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer, Ben Wizner, said that they were unaware of any plans that would send him back to the US. "Team Snowden has received no such signals and has no new reason for concern," Wizner said. Snowden responded to NBC's report on Twitter and said it shows that he did not work with the Russian government. "Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intelligence," Snowden said, adding "No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next". The White House had no comment, but the Justice Department told NBC News that it would welcome the return of Snowden, who currently faces federal charges that carry a minimum of 30 years in prison. Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said talks about returning Snowden is "nonsense". If he were returned to the US, Snowden - a divisive figure in America who is seen by some as a hero and others as treasonous - would face an administration that has condemned him in the strongest terms. "I think he's a total traitor and I would deal with him harshly," Trump said in July. "And if I were President, Putin would give him over." In October 2013, Trump tweeted: "Snowden is a spy who should be executed". Snowden was working as a contractor at an NSA facility in Hawaii when he began stealing top-secret documents that he gave to journalists in 2013, exposing details of US domestic surveillance programmes. After Snowden fled to Hong Kong and was charged with violating the US Espionage Act, he ended up in Russia. Moscow granted him refuge and his residency permit was extended until 2020.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has said he is considering issuing a "brand new" executive order on immigration by next week, even though he expressed confidence that he will win the legal battle over the immigration ban on nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries.

"We will win that battle. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order," Trump told reporters travelling with him on Air Force One from Andrews Air Force Base to Florida. Asked if his plan might be to issue a new executive order, Trump said: "It very well could be. We need speed for reasons of security, so it very well could be." Trump said that "in honour of the (9th US Circuit court) decision" he will likely wait until next week to respond with any action. "Perhaps Monday or Tuesday," he said.

The new executive order on immigration would include security measures, Trump said. "New security measures. We have very, very strong vetting. I call it extreme vetting and we're going very strong on security. We are going to have people coming to our country that want to be here for good reason," he said.

Speaking at the White House Trump said: "We will be doing something very rapidly to do with the additional security for our country. You'll be seeing that sometime next week," "In addition, we will continue to go through the court process and ultimately, I have no doubt we will win that particular case," Trump told reporters during a joint news conference yesterday with the visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"We are going to keep our country safe. We are going to do whatever is necessary to keep our country safe. We have had decision which we think will be very successful with, it shouldn't have taken this much time because safety is a primary reason," Trump said. "One of the reasons I am standing here today, the security of our country, the voters felt I would give it the best security," he said indicating that, despite the court setback, he would continue with his efforts for the safety and security of the US.

"While I've been President, which is just for a very short period of time, I've learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely President," he said. Trump said there are tremendous threats to the country. "We will not allow that to happen, I can tell you that right now. So we'll be going forward and we'll be doing things to continue to make our country safe. It will happen rapidly and we will not allow people into our country who are looking to do harm to our people," he said.

Meanwhile Trump declined to respond to a report in Washington Post that his National Security Advisor General (rtd) Flynn discussed sanctions with Russia's Ambassador to the US before he was sworn in as National Security Advisor. Trump said he was not aware of the report. "I don't know about that. I haven't seen it. What report is that? I haven't seen that. I'll look into that," the President said. He cautioned Iran when he was asked how he plans to respond to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who had earlier said that any nation that threatens Iran will "regret" it. "He better be careful," Trump said.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has said he is considering issuing a "brand new" executive order on immigration by next week, even though he expressed confidence that he will win the legal battle over the immigration ban on nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries. "We will win that battle. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order," Trump told reporters travelling with him on Air Force One from Andrews Air Force Base to Florida. Asked if his plan might be to issue a new executive order, Trump said: "It very well could be. We need speed for reasons of security, so it very well could be." Trump said that "in honour of the (9th US Circuit court) decision" he will likely wait until next week to respond with any action. "Perhaps Monday or Tuesday," he said. The new executive order on immigration would include security measures, Trump said. "New security measures. We have very, very strong vetting. I call it extreme vetting and we're going very strong on security. We are going to have people coming to our country that want to be here for good reason," he said. Speaking at the White House Trump said: "We will be doing something very rapidly to do with the additional security for our country. You'll be seeing that sometime next week," "In addition, we will continue to go through the court process and ultimately, I have no doubt we will win that particular case," Trump told reporters during a joint news conference yesterday with the visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. "We are going to keep our country safe. We are going to do whatever is necessary to keep our country safe. We have had decision which we think will be very successful with, it shouldn't have taken this much time because safety is a primary reason," Trump said. "One of the reasons I am standing here today, the security of our country, the voters felt I would give it the best security," he said indicating that, despite the court setback, he would continue with his efforts for the safety and security of the US. "While I've been President, which is just for a very short period of time, I've learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely President," he said. Trump said there are tremendous threats to the country. "We will not allow that to happen, I can tell you that right now. So we'll be going forward and we'll be doing things to continue to make our country safe. It will happen rapidly and we will not allow people into our country who are looking to do harm to our people," he said. Meanwhile Trump declined to respond to a report in Washington Post that his National Security Advisor General (rtd) Flynn discussed sanctions with Russia's Ambassador to the US before he was sworn in as National Security Advisor. Trump said he was not aware of the report. "I don't know about that. I haven't seen it. What report is that? I haven't seen that. I'll look into that," the President said. He cautioned Iran when he was asked how he plans to respond to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who had earlier said that any nation that threatens Iran will "regret" it. "He better be careful," Trump said.
By AFP

LEBANON: Turkish troops and Syrian rebels on Saturday entered the Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab in northern Syria, as government forces also approached the jihadist bastion, a monitor said.

"Turkish forces and allied rebels in the Euphrates Shield campaign entered the western edge of the town and took control of a number of areas," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The monitor said heavy clashes were underway with IS in the town, which is the jihadist group's last stronghold in the northern province of Aleppo.

The town has been seen as a key prize and Syrian government troops and allied forces have also been advancing towards it in a bid to wrest it from IS.

Al-Bab was besieged since Monday, when government forces advancing from the south cut off a road leading into the town.

By Friday, government forces were just 1.5 kilometres (less then a mile) from the southern outskirts of Al-Bab, while Turkish troops and allied rebels advanced from the north, east and west.

Turkey began an unprecedented campaign inside Syria on August 24, targeting both IS and Kurdish militia.

After initial rapid progress, the campaign became mired in the deadly fight for Al-Bab since December.

Turkey's Dogan news agency says 66 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the campaign since it started, mostly in IS attacks.

Al-Bab has been under IS control since 2014, when the group seized large swathes of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, proclaiming its self-described caliphate.

LEBANON: Turkish troops and Syrian rebels on Saturday entered the Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab in northern Syria, as government forces also approached the jihadist bastion, a monitor said. "Turkish forces and allied rebels in the Euphrates Shield campaign entered the western edge of the town and took control of a number of areas," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The monitor said heavy clashes were underway with IS in the town, which is the jihadist group's last stronghold in the northern province of Aleppo. The town has been seen as a key prize and Syrian government troops and allied forces have also been advancing towards it in a bid to wrest it from IS. Al-Bab was besieged since Monday, when government forces advancing from the south cut off a road leading into the town. By Friday, government forces were just 1.5 kilometres (less then a mile) from the southern outskirts of Al-Bab, while Turkish troops and allied rebels advanced from the north, east and west. Turkey began an unprecedented campaign inside Syria on August 24, targeting both IS and Kurdish militia. After initial rapid progress, the campaign became mired in the deadly fight for Al-Bab since December. Turkey's Dogan news agency says 66 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the campaign since it started, mostly in IS attacks. Al-Bab has been under IS control since 2014, when the group seized large swathes of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, proclaiming its self-described caliphate.
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NEW YORK, Feb. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against BT Group plc (BT Group or the Company) (NYSE:BT) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, and docketed under 17-cv-00558, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired BT Group American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) between May 23, 2013 and January 23, 2017, inclusive (the Class Period), seeking to recover compensable damages caused by defendants violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.



If you are a shareholder who purchased BT Group securities during the Class Period, you have until March 27, 2017 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll free, ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]



BT Group is a multinational telecommunications services company that offers fixed-line services, broadband, mobile and TV products and services, and networked IT services in the United Kingdom and across the world. The Company also sells wholesale products and services to communications providers around the world. Globally, BT Group supplies managed networked IT services to multinational corporations, domestic businesses, and national and local government organizations.

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Companys business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) the Companys Italian division had for years engaged in improper accounting practices; (ii) as a result, BT Group significantly overstated its earnings throughout the Class Period; (iii) the foregoing facts, when they became known, would foreseeably cause BT Group to cut its revenue, earnings, and free cash flow forecasts; and (iv) as a result of the foregoing, BT Groups public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On October 27, 2016, BT Group announced that the Company had uncovered inappropriate management behavior at its Italian division. BT Group advised investors that the Company had conducted an initial internal investigation which included a review of accounting practices during which we have identified certain historical accounting errors and reassessed certain areas of management judgment. Consequently, the Company announced that it had written down the value of items on the balance sheet by 145 [million]. On this news, BT Groups ADR price fell $0.57, or 2.39%, to close at $23.25 on October 27, 2016.

On January 24, 2017, BT Group issued a news release entitled Update on investigation into BTs Italian business and on BT Group outlook. On this news, BT Groups ADR price fell $5.05, or 20.67%, to close at $19.38 on January 24, 2017.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com
Researchers from the University of Liverpool have found that the annual number of estimated number of norovirus cases annually in the UK is approximately 800,000 greater than previously estimated.

Norovirus is the commonest cause of gastrointestinal disease across all age groups worldwide. The majority of cases experience a mild, self-limiting illness and few cases tend to consult primary healthcare. Those that do might not be sampled, leading to huge under-diagnosis and under-reporting.

The low infectious dose of norovirus means that people not exhibiting symptoms (asymptomatic) can potentially contribute to ongoing transmission.

3.7 million

The Second Study of Infectious Intestinal Disease in the community (IID2 study) in the UK estimated the community incidence of norovirus to be 47/1000 population, which equates to around three million cases a year, at a cost to cases and the health service of up to 106million.

The IID2 study estimated the number of cases who were symptomatic. Using a modified measure of estimating positivity for norovirus, researchers from the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Gastrointestinal Infections at the University of Liverpool increases the estimation of the population burden of norovirus infection by around 26%, equating to 3.7 million norovirus infections annually.

The results of this study, which have been published in the journal Vaccine, also suggests that around 6% of the population and around 18% of children aged less than five years are affected by norovirus each year.

Vaccination

Dr John Harris, said: "With possible vaccines on the horizon for norovirus, having a good estimate of the total burden of norovirus infection, as well as symptomatic disease will be useful in helping to guide vaccination policy when candidate vaccines become available."
Beijing: A Chinese soldier, who was stuck in India for over 50 years after he crossed over the border post 1962 war, today arrived in Beijing with his Indian family members to an emotional reunion with his Chinese kin.



Wang Qi, 77, was received by his close Chinese relatives, besides officials of the China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Indian embassy when he arrived here along with his son, daughter-in-law and grand daughter from Delhi-Beijing flight.



Wang became emotional as he hugged his relatives, their first reunion after he crossed into Indian side over five decades ago.



"It was an emotional reunion," an official present at the airport told PTI here.



Wang was accompanied by his son Vishnu Wang, 35, daughter-in-law Neha and grand daughter, Khanak Wang.



His Indian wife Shushila, however, stayed back. Indian officials said Wang and family members will be

later flown to Xian, the provincial capital in Shaanxi province from where he will be taken to his native village Xue Zhai Nan Cun in the province.



His return became a possibility after India and China worked out modalities for both Wang and his Indian family to travel together to China and later return as per their wish.



Wang was caught when he entered the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962. After his release from prison in 1969, he settled in Tirodi village of Balaghat district in Madhya Pradesh.



Though his story has been published by Indian media several times in the past, a recent BBCTV feature on him was widely picked by the Chinese social media highlighting his plight, prompting the Chinese government to initiate action in coordination with India to facilitate his return.



The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on February 6 that he was provided a passport to travel to China in 2013 and he was also paid a living allowance.



Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui recently spoke to him.



While the Chinese government has provided visas for his family to visit China, India has provided a re-entry visa for Wang to return back if he chooses to.



Indian officials terms the facilitation of the travel of Wang and his family by both sides s positive development, specially at a time when India-China relations were stuck with differences over issues like China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China blocking India's entry into Nuclear Suppliers Group and listing of JeM leader Masood Azhar as terrorist by UN.



Before leaving for Beijing, Vishnu told media in India yesterday that"my father joined the Chinese Army in 1960 and he entered India through the eastern frontier after losing his way in the darkness one night."

He landed in Assam where an Indian Red Cross team handed him over to the Indian Army on January 1, 1963.
Baluni: No one lives in Baluni village of Uttarakhands Pauri Garwhal district. Except, Naik (retd) Shyam Prasad Baluni, a 1971 war veteran from the Bengal Sappers.



In the last 18 years everyone has left him. One by one. First his neighbours. And then his own family members.



Shyam's wife passed away before Uttarakhand was carved out of UP in 2000. Over the years, his daughters have got married. His only son joined Bengal Engineers five years back.



But Shyam refuses to move out of his double-storied house in the middle of the village, 35 km from district headquarters in Pauri, Uttarakhand.



Here, wild animals are frequent visitors at night. From Himalayan bear to wild boars, they all come for Baluni's pumpkins and fruits.



This wall was damaged by a bear who sought dinner in a bee hive next door. He had his feast, but brought down this wall, he says.



The nearest hamlet and habitation from Baluni village is a steep 3 km climb up a ridge. Through terraced fields, the village path is hardly discernible through brambles and nettles. A fertile land that would have once fed and sustained over a dozen families is a fallow stretch of lantanas.



Welcome to the ghost villages of Uttarakhand. Where no one lives anymore.



The problem started two decades back, when the water spring near our village dried up. The piped water is still not available here after all these years. And slowly people started to migrate. In search of employment or some for a better living conditions, Shyam said.



Five years back, he wrote to the then President Pratibha Patil seeking access to potable water. Or else he threatened to take his own life. But nothing came of it. Nothing in all these years. His plea was reduced to a few columns in the local newspapers.



There are 331 such ghost villages in Pauri District alone where the entire population has migrated to the tarai plains or big cities far off in search of employment.



Similarly in Kumaon, Almora is the worst affected district. The proponents of the statehood movement in mid-ninetees saw the hill state as some sort of a panacea. The argument then was that the hill divisions of the undivided UP lagged behind in development for the powers that be in faraway Lucknow did not care for the region.



Uma Charan Barthwal, an activist since his school days recalls the euphoria. "We shouted slogans on the streets and insisted we want the state today and we want it now," Barthwal said.



In retrospect, he concurs with what his grandfather told him then that" Uttarakhand for some years should have been a union territory".



Since its formation, BJP and Congress have in turn ruled Uttarakhand. The state has had seven chief ministers in 16 years. That's one every two and a half years. Only veteran ND Tiwari could complete his full five year tenure.



The demographic shift got reflected in the last delimitation. Hills were left poorer by seven seats. "At this rate after the next delimitation, the tarai plains and bhabhar will have more constituencies than hills, says Rattan Singh Aswal who is associated with a non-government organization, Palayan Ek Chintan.



Even netas from both Kumaon and Gharwal have followed the people to the tarai plains. Tiwari contested and won from Ramnagar. B C Khanduri chose to contest Kotdwar in 2012. Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishak shifted to Doiwala in Dehradun. And Harish Rawat this time is contesting from two seats, Kicha and Haridwar Rural. Both are in the tarai plains.



"I have even contested and won from Dharchula in remote Pithoragarh district. As the CM I can contest and seek mandate from other constituencies as well, says Rawat.



Both parties in these elections are trying to lure the youth. Congress has promised Rs 2500 unemployment dole. BJP in its manifesto makes promises to generate resources to curb migration.



On my way back, I ask Shyam about these promises. He points out at a soil remover cutting a road to his village that would connect him to the main highway to Pauri.



This is how we have developed the hills, he says.



A road has been sanctioned to a ghost village when all Shyam has sought all these years is access to potable water.
Tehran: Iranians on Friday marked the anniversary of the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution with nationwide celebrations and mass rallies that saw people step on large U.S. flags laid out on the streets while President Hassan Rouhani called the new American administration "a problem."



This year, the anniversary came against the backdrop of remarks by President Donald Trump, who has already engaged in a war of words with Iran's leadership and put Tehran "on notice" over its recent ballistic missile test.



At the Tehran rallies Friday, demonstrators chanted traditional slogans against the United States and Israel, and later, hundreds of thousands marched toward the city's central Azadi Square, where Rouhani addressed the crowds, telling them that Iran will strongly answer any threat from its enemies.



"All of them should know that they must talk to the Iranian nation with respect and dignity," Rouhani declared. "Our nation will strongly answer to any threat. (Iranians) will resist before enemies until the end."



Rouhani called Iran the home of "lions" but said the country does not seek hostility. "We are not after tensions in the region and the world. We are united in the face of bullying and any threat."



Many of the marchers carried the Iranian flag, others had banners and posters with revolutionary slogans. Printed U.S. flags and pictures of current and former U.S. presidents lay scattered on the streets  so they could be trampled by the marchers.



Iran and the U.S. have not had diplomatic relations since 1979, when Iranian students stormed the American Embassy and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.



Friday's rallies commemorated Feb. 11 of that year, when followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ousted the U.S.-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi. The United States helped orchestrate the 1953 coup that overthrew Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, which brought Pahlavi to power and set the stage for decades of mistrust between the countries.



Some of the posters distributed in English on Friday read: "Thanks to American people for supporting Muslims."
: RSS Sarsangchalak Mohan Bhagwat has sought to distance himself from the patriotism brigade and said no one has the right to judge the patriotism of others, not even those who think they are running the country."Doosron ki deshbhakti naapne ka adhikaar kisi ko bhi nahi. Koi apne aapko desh ka karta dharta kuch bhi maane, to bhi kisi ki deshbhakti naap nahi sakta aur naap kar bol nahi sakta (Nobody has the right to judge anyone else's patriotism. Even those who may feel they are running the show in this country, cannot measure anyone else's patriotism and pass judgements)".Speaking here at a book launch, Bhagwat said patriotism doesn't have an existence of its own. "For it we may mortally perish or just not exist. Patriotism doesn't have an ego of its own," he said.The statement comes just days after another controversial remark by the RSS chief at Viraat Hindu Sammelan at Baitul in MP earlier this week. At this event, Bhagwat had said that every person born in India is a Hindu.While praising the book, 'Bharat ki khoj mein mere paanch saal' [My five years of discovering India) - written by a local journalist Vijay Manohar Tiwari, Bhagwat said that everyone should work with honesty but give a little extra that the country demands today."Also, journalists should work without bias and place the truth, founded on facts, before the society," he said.The views of RSS sarsanghchalak come across as starkly different to those of many rabble-rousers within the Sangh Parivar. The Opposition has time and again accused the ruling BJP-regime at Centre of attempting to tie the nationalist plank around itself, and connect all decisions made by the government to patriotism.
Police detained the brother of BJP leader and MLA from Sardhana, Sangeet Som, for carrying a weapon into a polling booth on Saturday.



Gagan Som was arrested in Faridpur by an officer on special duty after he was found carrying a pistol while he was inside a polling booth.



Large parts of western Uttar Pradesh went to the polls on Saturday. Spotting the pistol, the security personnel whisked Gagan away from inside the booth.



Sangeet shot to limelight for his fiery speeches during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots and was one of those named for inciting violence.


Chennai: AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP V. Maitreyan on Saturday urged the President and the central government to take "severe action" against party General Secretary V.K. Sasikala for her "threatening" statement against the state Governor.



"She has threatened the Tamil Nadu Governor, a constitutional authority. We urge the President of India, Prime Minister, Home Minister to take severe action against her for threatening the state Governor," Maitreyan, who has joined the Panneerselvam camp, told IANS.



He added that Sasikala is trying to create law and order problem in the state and action should be taken against her.



Maitreyan said some more state ministers are expected to join hands with Panneerselvam.



Speaking to party cadres on Saturday, Sasikala said she believes in democracy and justice and maintaining patience.



"Only to some extent we can be patient. After that we all together would do what needs to be done," she said.



Her remarks came after she sought an appointment with Governor Rao along with all legislators supporting her.



Sasikala has already submitted documents electing her as the leader of legislature party and staked her claim to form the government.



However, the Governor has not called her to form the government.



Panneerselvam revolted against Sasikala on Tuesday night alleging that he was forced to resign as Chief Minister to pave the way for Sasikala to occupy that chair.



Subsequently a state minister, five legislators, one sitting MP, party old-timers, former legislators and others have started expressing their support to Panneerselvam.



The ruling AIADMK now has two clear divisions -- one led by Sasikala and the other under Panneerselvam.
Bengaluru: A five-year-old girl studying in Bengaluru was stripped and body shamed by her class teacher.



This came to light when her mother took to Facebook seeking help from others in confronting the issue.



She said that ever since she admitted her girl in the East Wood School, she started crying and requesting her not to send her to school.



At first I ignored her as I thought maybe she needs time to adjust in her new school. But later when I ask her the reason of her daily crying, she told me that her class teacher used to beat her regularly, she said, requesting anonymity.



I requested her class teacher not to beat her. But after giving her three more chances to stop beating, she continued to beat my child as as well as other children, she added.



She said she brought this issue to the notice of the principal of the school who denied it, saying corporal punishment is banned in school. But her last sentence was that a teacher doesn't have any other way to instill discipline other than beating," the mother said on Facebook.



After that, instead of stopping the beating, they came up with a new way of punishment, she alleged.



The class teacher started pulling down the pant of her daughter forcefully but also made the rest of the class taunt her, she said.



The next part is threatening them that they will be taken to a dark room where a dog is kept and it will attack their private parts, she added.



"I was left with no option but to change the school," she said.



She said other parents are also concerned and do not approve of the methods of the school. However, they do not want to come forward as that would incur further wrath from the school authorities.



The parents have already paid a donation of Rs 50,000 to the school authorities and any steps in addressing it through legally would mean losing that amount and the other headache of finding another school as final exams are just round the corner, she said.



The accused teacher and the principal of the school were unavailable for comment.
AS the Raj Bhawan continues with its wait-and-watch approach, the momentum in the struggle for power in Tamil Nadu seemed titling towards caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam on Saturday with three top party leaders and two MPs switching over to his side from rival VK Sasikala camp.There were reports that Sasikala may not be averse to relinquishing her claim to the CMs post and instead nominate senior leaders Edapady Palaniswami or KA Sengottiyan to the post. Sasikala drove into the Golden Bay resorts on the outskirts of Chennai, where around 129 MLAs of the party are being kept.However, Sengottiyan himself came out of the resort on Saturday evening after a meeting of Sasikala and the MLAs, and clarified there was no such move. Only Chinamma Sasikala can be the chief minster, and no one else, he said.Political commentators interpreted the move as a last-ditch effort to arrest the steady flow of leaders from her camp to that of Panneerselvam.Education minister Mafoi Pandyarajan who until Friday was spearheading the Sasikala camp strategy set the theme for Saturday when he drove into the residence of Panneerselvam on Saturday afternoon pledging his support. AIADMK founding member C Ponnaiyan followed him and there were reports that fisheries minister D Jayapal too has pledged his support.Pandirajan addressed the media and cadre at Panneerselvams residence. As a CM, Panneerselvam has performed well and he has a lot of ground support. All MLAs will vote for him, he said, demanding a floor test in the assembly. We have support of 135 MLAs, he claimed.Earlier, two AIADMK Lok Sabha MPs PR Sundaram and K Ashok Kumar extended their support to Panneerselvam.The Sasikala camp has written another letter to the Governor seeking an appointment saying she would like to meet Rao along with part MLAs regarding further course of action to form the government.At the Golden Bay resort she went into a huddle with her MLAs even as supporters raised slogans outside.The power struggle simmering inside AIADMK after the passing away of J Jayalalithaa came into the open early this week when Panneerlvam dramatically revolted against Chinnamma Sasikala who had been elected as the legislature party leader.
Meerut: Ajit Singh, the patriarch of the Rahstriya Lok Dal (RLD), has been a busy man these past few weeks. Around 3 pm on Wednesday, his helicopter landed near sugarcane fields in Rohta, a Jat-dominated town in western UP, where the 77-year-old is set to address a rally.



After all, he has a lot to make up for. In the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, which were conducted in the aftermath of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, RLD failed to win even a single seat. Ajit Singh lost his own seat of Baghpat, a seat once represented by his father Chaudhary Charan Singh  the only Jat leader to ever hold the office of Prime Minister. The main reason for RLDs poll debacle was that Jats, the partys core vote base, deserted their Chaudhary and voted in droves for the BJP. Less than three years after the Lok Sabha polls, the political landscape of western UP is shifting and Ajit Singh, a veteran from this region, has sensed the shift.



In 2014, BJP would not have lost the election had the Muzaffarnagar riots not broke out. They came to power on the back of broken promises and polarisation! The riots were planned and executed by the BJP. Their only job is to divide the people he roars as his supporters break into thunderous applause.



Ajit Singh is only taking advantage of the discontent that has been brewing against the BJP for over a year now, ever since the Jat Reservation stir broke out in neighboring Haryana. Yashpal Malik, the Jat leader who spearheaded the agitation, recently organized a Jat Sankalp Rally in Muzaffarnagars Kharad village and urged Jats to vote for the strongest non-BJP candidate in the polls.



Last year, after the agitation, I met Prime Minister Narendra Modi who assured us that reservations would be given to Jats but the government never fulfilled its promise. They will now learn that Jats across the country stand in solidarity with each other. If they oppress Jats in Haryana, their brothers in western UP will not stay silent. Jats here will vote against the BJP en mass, Malik told News 18.



The quota agitation, however, is only the last straw for Jats. For a community that produced not only Chief Ministers but also a Prime Minister, the political marginalization after the Charan Singhs death has not gone down well. Sandeep Chaudhary, a Jat resident of Rohta, says, Jats made a big mistake in 2014. We voted for a party for whom we were nothing more than a vote bank.



There is no connection with the BJP. The old ties between the leader and his people are not there with BJP leaders. When we voted for Ajit Singh and he became a Union minister in Manmohan Singhs cabinet, at least we had some leverage at the top. Now nobody listens to us. We will support RLD this time and bring them to the position of a kingmaker. The key to Lucknow will be in the hands of Jats again. RLD alone will ensure who becomes CM.



Gajendra Singh Neelkanth, who joined the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) after the Muzaffarnagar riots, said he came back to the RLD fold in less than four years. I joined VHP after the Muzaffarnagar riots because I thought it was a social organization that would work for the benefit of society at large. However, as a member, I noticed that they would only talk of polarizing issues. Jats were never communal. It is because of the BJP that we are being painted as such. We are a peace-loving farming community.



Western UP is one of the highest sugar-producing regions in the country. Over the last three years, the sugar industry had faced a serious crisis of overproduction. The supply of sugar in the market had far outstripped the demand. According to sources in the UP Sugar Mills Association, mills have only managed to pay around 63% of the arrears they owe to farmers. All this has made sugarcane farming, the Jat communitys main trade, an unviable profession. This has only added to the communitys frustrations. The Muzaffarnagar riots ruptured the relationship between Jats, traditionally land owners, and Muslims, who traditionally worked as farm hands on Jats land.



On the morning of September 7, 2013, people returning from a BJP Mahapanchayat were allegedly ambushed and attacked by an "armed mob". News of the "massacre" of Jauli Canal in Muzaffarnagar spread like wildfire and soon fires were raging across the strife-torn district.



Yoginder Singh, a farmer in Jauli village, used to consider himself prosperous before the riots. Now, he said, things arent so good. The canal cuts across the centre of the village and divides the Jat and Muslim areas. Most land owners here are Jats and agricultural laborers are Muslims. Till 2013, there was no bad blood between the two communities. In fact, we were all very good friends and worked together. After the riots, everything changed, he said.



I own about 50 bighas of land and used to employ 5-6 boys to work on my farm but finding Muslims to work on my farm is virtually impossible. Even if I find them, I cannot scold them for not working properly since that could lead to a communal flare up. They have also started charging much more. The result is that my yield has gone down significantly and I earn much less. My son is studying in the city. I want to sell off all my land and live with him but who will buy land in such a tense area, he asks.



Officially, the BJP says it will retain most of its support from 2014. Muzaffarnagar MP and union minister Sanjeev Balyan, a Jat himself, said, Those who say the BJP has backstabbed a certain community are wrong. The BJP has supported Jat reservations for a long time but the issue is with the courts. The government has nothing to do with denying anybody their rights. I dont think people will vote along caste lines this time. They will vote for development and the BJP is the only party that can assure that. They will vote for change.



Behind closed doors, however, BJP leaders admit that its gains are slipping away. BJP president Amit Shah reportedly held a meeting with Jat leaders and presented the BJP as the communitys best bet. On the ground, too, BJP leaders have been trying to woo the community.



Vinod Jatoli, a Meerut-based Jat farmer, attended one such meeting. BJP leaders addressed the community on Thursday. Sanjeev Balyan said that we should vote for whoever we want but stop spreading rumors that BJP is losing support among Jats. We told him that these so-called rumors are based in reality. Jats are angry with the BJP. They will not even win one seat in Meerut district. In other parts of western UP, too, they will lose big.



According to Ajatshatru Panwar, the western UP president of the Jat Mahasabha, they will continue to campaign against the BJP. Jat ke bina Muslim kuch nahi hai aur Muslim ke bina Jat kuch nahi hai. (Muslims here are nothing without Jats and Jats here are nothing without Muslims). Our region was prosperous because Jats and Muslims worked together and had a deep relationship. BJP ruined that relationship and that has caused irreparable damage to agriculture in western UP. They have isolated Jats from all communities. We will punish them for this.
New Delhi: Distancing himself from the controversy - over the exodus of Hindu families - which he exclusively created, BJP MP from Kairana Hukum Singh on Saturday claimed that he never raised the issue of exodus of any particular community.



Talking to a news channel on the morning of the first phase of polls, in which voters in Kairana are also casting their ballots, Singh denied every having raised this issue.



I never raised the issue of exodus of any particular community. The issue I had raised was just of exodus generally, which was caused because of rising levels of crime in this area. This is a law and order issue and is clearly the fault of the ruling Samajwadi Party government, Singh told a channel.



After Singh issued a list of 340 Hindu families that he claimed had fled Kairana last year, almost all senior BJP leaders began talking about the exodus. Investigations carried out by independent agencies, like the National Minority Commission and the local police, had had trashed Singhs claims.



But in their poll rallies throughout the state, everyone from the party president Amit Shah - who has often talked about the "exodus of people of a particular religion", to the state party chief KP Maurya - who claimed the exodus happened because of a particular community - almost every BJP leader kept bringing up exodus in the last one year.



Though Singh has been softening his stand on the exodus since he first brought it up, by talking about welfare of everybody, and even actively pursuing Muslim votes, Saturdays U turn is bound to surprise many whove observed the this controversy unfold in the last one year.



According to local Muslims, the "change of heart" is aimed at wooing Muslims and secular Hindu votes.



Speaking to News 18 Kashif Usmani, former SP district president said, Hukum Singh has been the MLA from here in the past. He wouldnt have served seven terms without getting the Muslim votes. This last moment U-turn is to placate them.



Which may be understandable considering that over 80% of the voters in Kairana are Muslims.



Speaking on why some Muslims have been voting for Singh, Mohammad Shakeb, who works in a consultancy and migrated to Mumbai for better opportunities said, He has done lot of development work in Kairana. But just before elections Hukum Singh always does something to polarize votes. He had tried to polarise votes in the 2012 assembly elections also.



Shakeb added that polarisation and exodus story had worried members of Hindu community as well.  Some members of Hindu samaj visited him from Lucknow last year and expressed their displeasure on this campaign.



According to a political observer, Nadeem Hasnain, professor, Lucknow University, Singh has dropped the exodus poll plank because he understands that polarisation as a political tool is not working this time.



There are a lot of Hindus in the area who, after Muzaffarnagar and this recent exodus episode, are angry and dissatisfied with the BJP has played polarisation card. All the Muslim labourers from the area have fled and theres nobody to do their jobs. Hes clearly backtracking because he understands that BJP isnt going to get as many seats here as they did last time by pitching people against each other.



Does Hukum Singhs last minute backtracking from the exodus issue indicate a mounting pressure from West UPs farmers and Muslims? How much of an effect will it have on voters? These are some questions we may find out answers to only on March 11.
Chennai: K. Pandiarajan, son of a matchbox factory worker, an astute businessman and politician who quickly rose up the political ranks across parties, is now making arguably the most significant jump in his career.



Pandiarajan, who accompanied VK Sasikala to meet the Governor to stake claim to form the new government, on Saturday extended support to caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam. Even in his political career, he proved to be a true businessman knowing when to make the right moves.



In many ways, Pandiarajan is an outlier in Tamil Nadu politics. Dressed in white, suave, and conversant in both English and Tamil, Pandiarajan proved to be an effective communication machine during the last few months of Jayalalithaas life. He was the party spokesperson within a short while of entering the AIADMK. He was also given an Assembly seat in the May 2016 elections; he won the Avadi constituency and has already announced a few schemes that, if gets implemented, would benefit the people of his constituency.



Pandiarajan was also a key interlocutor for Tamil Nadu in the Goods and Services Tax discussions. A member of the GST council, Pandiarajan is said to have astutely put forward the states demand and also ensured the state did not become a stumbling block in the monumental tax reforms progress. Impressed with his enterprising abilities, Jayalalithaa also made him the state education minister. In a party like AIADMK that had stalwart politicians much senior to Pandiarajan, his ascent was eyebrow-raising.



But behind his political facade, Pandiarajan has the aspect of a businessman who turns challenges into opportunities. An XLRI-Human Resources graduate, Pandiarajan cut his teeth in business through a talent spotting and recruitment firm, the Ma Foi. Even now, he is referred to, sometimes, as Ma Foi Annan. His deal-making abilities, surprising many now with the way he is jumping ship, would be no big deal for those who knew him from his businessman days. His company was taken over by Vedior, which was acquired by Dutch HR giant Randstad for sterling valuations.



Pandiarajan, after that, was known to have struck the iron when its hot.



He started his political career with the BJP in the early 2000s but took to the DMDK, led by Vijayakanth. He was known to have been a key negotiator in 2011 that brought his party with the AIADMK. He also won a seat from the Virudhunagar constituency. In 2013, he along with 10 MLAs moved to AIADMK.



With Saturdays move, Pandiarajan makes his third jump. On Twitter, for the last few days, he had been posting opinions that sent the message that he stood by Sasikala; the comments for such tweets, though, were not very friendly. With his tweet signaling at a move to the OPS camp, he is again back in favour with the Twitterati.



Pandiarajan, true to his image of converting challenges into opportunities, appears to be going by the people's pulse.
AIADMK chief VK Sasikala met MLAs at the Golden Bay resort for a second day today. Addressing a press conference at the luxury getaway, she accused defectors and opposition parties of spreading false news. No MLA has been held captive. They all have access to phones and are in touch with their families, she said. Soon after, Panneerselvam addressed reporters at his Chennai residence, saying the process to probe Jayalalithaas death had been set in motion.

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Chennai: Tamil Nadu education minister K Pandiarajan on Saturday switched sides and joined the Panneerselvam camp in a public briefing presided by interim chief minister O Panneerselvam.



Pandiarajan who until Friday had backed AIADMK general secretary Sasikala and had even accompanied her to the Governor's house to prove her majority switched sides giving the OPS camp a major shot in the arm.



Earlier, two Lok Sabha members have extended support to acting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O.Panneerselvam and joined his camp on Saturday.



The two members -- Ashok Kumar representing Krishnagiri constituency and Sundaram representing Namakkal -- visited Panneerselvam at his residence here.



Earlier, sitting Rajya Sabha member V.Maitreyan too joined Panneerselvam camp.



The two MPs have joined Panneerselvam a day after AIADMK spokesperson Vaigaichelvan said people joining Panneerselvam's camp are "beyond their expiry date".



Speaking to reporters here, Ashok Kumar said other AIADMK MPs will also start joining hands with Panneerselvam.



The AIADMK has 37 members in Lok Sabha.



Panneerselvam revolted against AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala on Tuesday night alleging that he was forced to resign as Chief Minister to pave the way for Sasikala to occupy that chair.



Subsequently, around five legislators, one sitting MP, party old-timers, former legislators and others have started expressing their support to Panneerselvam.



(With inputs from IANS)
Kairana has become a household name this time. The attempt to polarise Western UP hinges on the BJP campaign which claims hundreds of Hindu families had to flee the town, to prevent themselves from being persecuted by 'another community'.The architect of the 'exodus' narrative, local BJP MP Hukum Singh though had a change of heart on the vote day morning. He told News18 that exodus is because of the poor law and order situation of the state and does not target 'a particular community'. This when a number of voters dismissed any exodus, blaming urban migration for those families who have moved away from Kairana to the urban centres in the last two decades.But there is another side of the Kairana narrative, a colony in Daberi Kurd. This one is about those whose marginalisation is near complete. This is a colony of the victims of Muzaffarnagar riots, over 280 families stay there. But inspite of getting Aadhaar card and ration card on this address, they have not yet been registered for vote.Simply told, 900 citizens of this constituency have been robbed of their right to universal franchise. Shabbir Ahmed, the Hakim of the township blames the fight between two pradhans behind this.There are others, like Yunis, who suspect the local MP could be behind this. Akram Akhtar, a local social activist who has been working here with the locals to get them the most basic of the facilities, feels 'this is red tapism at its best. Some of the Block Level Officers just don't do their job.' He and others did try to take up the issue with the District Magistrate but nothing materialised.Roughly 19,000 voters were displaced by the 2013 riots in Muzaffarnagar and nearby districts. Most of them have settled in Kairana and Shamli. An unofficial estimate says atleast 35 of them still remain disenfranchised. A fact which puts up a serious question mark on the credibility of both the state administration and the election commission.The Daberi Kurd colony doesn't have any sewage system, a local Hakim is all they have for their medical needs, every picture clicked is a story of apathy and neglect. A story which was aptly summed up by a young mother of three, Sabra, who said,"No one comes here for survey, we have nothing, not even the voting right. We live in India but it seems India doesn't want us to vote."
Voting ends for the first phase of Uttar Pradesh elections on Saturday. 63 per cent voters exercised their franchise in 73 assembly constituencies in the first of the seven-phase UP polls, with some stray incidents reported from Baghpat and Meerut.

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The first phase of the 2017 UP assembly elections were concluded at 5pm on Saturday with 64.22% of the electorate in western UP coming out to vote.The first phase of the elections saw polling in 15 districts, 73 Assembly constituencies and 839 candidates in the fray. Over 26,000 polling booths had been set up across the 15 districts for over 2.60 crore people who came out to vote on Saturday.The turnout in the first phase was more than that in 2012, when 61.5% turnout was recorded. The highest turnout was recorded in Shamli district at 67.12% and the lowest was in Ghaziabad at 58.1%. The constituency with the highest turnout, however, was Fatehabad in Agra district.Several heavyweights, including former UP BJP chief Laxmikant Bajpai, riot-accused BJP MLA Sangeet Som, riot-accused UP BJP vice president Suresh Rana, state cabinet minister Shahid Manzoor, senior BSP leader Yaqub Qureshi, Home Minister Rajnath Singhs son Pankaj Singh and Congress Legislative Party leader Pradeep Mathur, were in the fray in the first phase of polling.As the most communally sensitive belt of Uttar Pradesh, the first phase was believed to be BJPs game to lose. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the influential Jat community in western UP came out to support the BJP in droves.This time, however, the dynamic seems to be shifting as since the last year, several Jat outfits have protested against the BJP claiming that the party had betrayed the Jat community.Polling, which was slow in the morning, picked up around noon. The first phase was also not devoid of problems.In the early hours, there were reports of an EVM malfunction in Bulandshahr district, which led to a slight delay in voting.Gagan Som, the brother of riot-accused Sardhana MLA Sangeet Som, was detained by the police after he was caught carrying a gun inside a polling booth. The firebrand BJP lawmaker got into an altercation himself when later in the day, some voters, reportedly supporters of BSP and SP, tried to stop Som from entering a polling booth in Sardhana.Samajwadi Party veteran and State Cabinet Minister Shahid Manzoor also got into an argument with a group of voters who were reportedly BSP supporters. This reportedly led to minor clashes between BSP and SP workers in a village in Khithore, which is Manzoors Assembly constituency.Among the 15 districts that went to polls on Saturday, western UPs Jat belt reported higher turnout than the region-wide average. The Jat-dominated district of Shamli, which also houses the hot seat of Kairana, polled 67.12% of the vote.Mathura, the district with the highest concentration of Jats in western UP, polled 65.39% of the votes. Baghpat, which is the home-district of Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Ajit Singh, recorded a turnout of 64.99%.Muzaffarnagar district, which was the flashpoint of the 2013 Jat-Muslim riots, recorded a turnout of 66.50%.An incident that threatened to polarise western UP further was the murder in Bijnor the night before polls. While Bijnor doesnt go to polls till February 15, the second phase of the elections, its proximity to districts such as Meerut and Muzaffarnagar is likely to influence voters.On late Friday evening, a farmer and his son had gone to water the fields when a dozen men, allegedly belonging to another community, attacked them with knives and guns. The son, 17-year-old Vishal Kumar, was killed in the attack.Communal tensions in Bijnor were high as BJP workers on Saturday blocked traffic on one of Bijnors main crossings for around five hours. Traders also downed shutters in protest of the murder.Police have been deployed all across Bijnor to prevent the situation from worsening any further.According to political analysts, while it is hard to tell who has the edge based on turnout alone, the first phase is crucial for all parties in determining who will end up maintaining the momentum in later phases.The first few phases, especially phase 1, are crucial if a party wants to maintain momentum going further into the elections. By around phase 3, word will start travelling to the eastern corners of the state about who is doing well in the elections.The BJP swept UP in 2014 on the back of its performance in western UP and since the phases moved from west to east, they ended up doing well in the other areas as well.
Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) warned that government actions to bolster domestic companies against foreign competition could hurt its business, in a possible reference to U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda.



In a routine description of regulatory risks in its 2016 annual filing, the world's largest online retailer said "trade and protectionist measures" might hinder its ability to grow.



That language has not appeared in Amazon's warning about government regulation in at least the past five annual filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. However, the Seattle-based company has cited trade protection in those filings as a risk to its international sales and operations specifically.



The new Republican president has made job creation a cornerstone of his policies, threatening to impose tariffs on imports so companies produce and hire within the United States. Republicans in Congress also have a plan to target imports while excluding export revenue from U.S. corporate income tax, known as a border adjustment tax.



The proposal in the U.S. House of Representatives has divided corporate America. Major exporters like Boeing Co (BA.N) have thrown their weight behind it, but a retail association has said it would raise prices for shoppers.



It was not clear what kinds of protectionist measures - whether tariffs or other actions - concerned Amazon the most, or from which countries Amazon saw the greatest risk.



Amazon so far has declined to comment on Republican lawmakers' border tax plan. It declined comment on the new language in its annual filing, which appeared under the header, "Government Regulation Is Evolving and Unfavorable Changes Could Harm Our Business." The filing did not mention the change in leadership of the White House.



Separately, Amazon said in the filing that it may face penalties for having delivered consumer products to entities covered by the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act, between 2012 and 2016.



Products included apparel, consumer electronics, software and books. Amazon said it processed goods worth about $2,400 for an entity controlled or owned by Iran's government, for example.



"We do not plan to continue selling to these accounts in the future," Amazon said. "Our review is ongoing and we are enhancing our processes designed to identify transactions associated with individuals and entities covered by the (act)."
Canada's flagship carrier Air Canada is undergoing a sweeping head to toe makeover that includes a new livery for its entire fleet, new uniforms and onboard menu offerings.



At events held simultaneously across Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, the airline unveiled its new redesign, a move meant to freshen up its image in a year when Canada fetes its 150th birthday.



The fleet makeover was led by Canadian entrepreneur Tyler Brule, who decided on a black and white design that highlights a red maple leaf rondelle which will be painted on the aircraft's tail. All 300 mainline and regional aircraft will be repainted with the new design.



For the uniforms, the carrier tapped Canadian designer Christopher Bates, who used a color palette of charcoal greys, natural tones and red accents reflected in the new cabin interior of the carrier's international fleet.



The airline also unveiled new onboard menu choices that will launch in April, including Lavazza Italian coffee, cakes from Dufflet Pastries, Quebec cheeses, and Canadian wines.
Update: Lynchburg prosecutor Bethany Harrison will run for the GOP nomination this year for the city commonwealths attorney seat.

Harrison, 37, serves as deputy commonwealths attorney for Lynchburg. She announced her plan to run for the top prosecutors job at a news conference Friday morning.

Her campaign sets up a contest for the Republican nomination with Timothy Griffin, a Bedford County prosecutor and resident of Lynchburg who announced his candidacy just more than two weeks ago.

Michael Doucette, the incumbent commonwealths attorney, said last month he would not seek re-election this year. He endorsed Harrison at Fridays news conference.

Harrison also drew the support of Chuck Felmlee, Lynchburgs chief deputy commonwealths attorney. Felmlee earlier was expected to enter the race but said this week he instead would enter private practice as a defense lawyer this summer.

Harrison has served almost 11 years in the Lynchburg Commonwealths Attorney Office, and her caseload has included many types of crimes, according to her biography. Offenses she has prosecuted include sexual assault, child abuse, domestic violence, violent felonies and murder.

Announcing her bid, Harrison put an emphasis on experience, competence and what she described as her tough approach to crime and criminals.

She said Doucette and Felmlee have a combined 50 years of prosecutorial experience, and the only way to fill a void of that magnitude is with someone of her capability.

Im respected by law enforcement, Im respected by members of my office and Im respected in the community in general, she said.

Harrison also stressed she is known for taking on tough, complicated prosecutions.

In an interview with The News & Advance, Harrison said she would place emphasis on working within the community to fight crime in Lynchburg.

One issue we have is where, perhaps there is a violent offense in the community, and people feel that it is not popular to cooperate with law enforcement in order to bring the offender to justice, and we want to turn that tide around, she said. Theres no shame in supporting your community and trying to make it a safe place to live.

Doucette said at the news conference the job of commonwealths attorney requires a calling to fulfill the role, a quality he believes Harrison has.

One has to have the calling to fill this particular position because its not something that one just does and says, well, let me go on and do this on-the-job training sort of thing. It requires experience. It requires knowing what is involved, he said.

Harrison has the experience to make the many difficult calls that are required of the top prosecutor, Doucette said.

Felmlee called Harrison a seasoned and passionate prosecutor who has earned the respect of fellow prosecutors and law enforcement across the Central Virginia area over the past 10 years.

Bethany has supervisory experience and a breadth of prosecution that no other candidate for this position comes close to possessing, he said Friday.

Clerk of Circuit Court Eugene Wingfield also was on hand to back Harrisons campaign.

She touted a variety of career and civic achievements in support of her bid.

Harrison has served as a guest lecturer before local college classes and civic groups on a range of court and law enforcement-related subjects.

She has been a member of the 24th Judicial District Domestic Violence Coalition since 2006 and served as first vice chair of the group for several years.

Harrison also is a board member of the Court Appointed Special Advocates of Central Virginia, serving as president and chair of the fundraising committee.

She also has completed courses in trial advocacy and juvenile competency; computer forensics; and advanced trial advocacy for child abuse prosecutors.

Harrison was busy Friday collecting petition signatures for a spot on the GOP primary ballot, which will go before primary voters June 13.

Earlier: Lynchburg prosecutor Bethany Harrison will run for the GOP nomination this year for the city commonwealths attorney seat.

Harrison serves as deputy commonwealths attorney for Lynchburg. She announced her plan to run for the top prosecutors job at a press conference Friday morning.

Her campaign sets up a contest for the Republican nomination with Timothy Griffin, a Bedford County prosecutor and resident of Lynchburg, who announced his candidacy just over two weeks ago.

Doucette said last month he would not seek re-election this year. He endorsed Harrison at Fridays news conference.
Thumbs up to students in the Nelson County High School building trades program for putting the skills they learn in teacher Paul Connells classes each day to use in the real world to help those in need.

This year, as always for more than two decades, the students are working on constructing a Habitat for Humanity house for the Nelson County Habitat for Humanity chapter. Theyll be building their 24th house as part of this school years course.

Under Connells tutelage, the students put into use all the skills they learn from him into building the house from ground up. They construct the frame and flooring, install shingles and insulation and rough in the electrical and plumbing fixtures. The students work on different jobs so they can pick up skills related to all of the different aspects of building a house.

Officials with the Nelson Habitat chapter select the residents of the new home. Over the course of two and a half decades of NCHS students building their Habitat house, families with barely inhabitable houses or no home at all of their own have benefited. And its all been thanks to Connell and the students he inspires each year.

Thanks from a grateful community.

* * *

Thumbs up, perhaps a tad early, to Lynchburg Commonwealths Attorney Michael Doucette whos announced he wont be seeking re-election this November to the post hes held for the past 11 years.

All told, Doucette has served Lynchburg for 33 years in the prosecutors office. He started out in the office under former Commonwealths Attorney William G. Petty, who first took office in 1978. In 2006, the General Assembly elected Petty to a spot on the Virginia Court of Appeals where he still serves to this day.

Doucettes been honored over the course of his prosecutorial career by a number of legal and law enforcement associations. Locally, the Lynchburg Police Department awarded him its Honorable Service Award in 2005 and 2011. And two years ago, the Virginia Association of Commonwealths Attorneys honored him with the Robert F. Horan Jr. Award, given annually to Virginias top prosecutor; that same year the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police bestowed on him the 2014 Presidents Award.

The list of Doucettes professional accomplishments and honors underscores one thing: Residents of Lynchburg have been fortunate to have him in office. Whoever voters elect as his successor in November will have some mighty big shoes to fill.

Congratulations, and best of wishes in the next stage of life.
Top Cop calls for divine intervention in the fight against crime

Williams said no amount of police presence could have an impact on such crimes and the county now more than ever needs divine intervention in the fight against crime.

At the time, Williams was addressing police at the TTPS South Western Division Interfaith Service at the La Divina Pastora Roman Catholic Church in Siparia yesterday.

There is nothing the police can do about these crimes. We are seeing a series of killings for which no amout of police presence on the streets can have an impact, but God is in control as always and we are asking God to continue to be in control, Williams said.

The latest killing of a violent nature recorded was the murder of a woman whose throat was slit by a man whom she knew at MovieTowne, Port-of-Spain on Sunday.

The Ag Police Commissioner said with an increase in violent crime, there is now a perception in the public that the nation is in a crime crisis, which he said bears no truth.

We are faced with a problem of violent crimes, but serious crimes are down and the public is not seeing that, he stressed.

Giving example, Williams said the type of crimes that occur of a violent nature today are a brother stabbing another brother for $30 or a daughter stabbing a father in their home, which he said the police cannot prevent or control.

We are asking God to continue to be in control and to pay a special kind of attention to what is happening in Trinidad and Tobago as we police officers who are faced with the responsibility can continue to focus on fulfilling our roles, he said.

He said the time had come to merge religion with policing within the communities as violent crimes have traumatised the nation.

He said these crimes do not occur in the public domain, which poses a challenge for the TTPS.

The levels of crime is not from a practical purpose at the stage people are perceiving it, but we are saying there is a need for the citizens of this land to start to act responsibly because we are seeing a lot of irresponsible behaviour, he said. Also addressing the audience, Dr Oval Steale advised young police to take care of their physical health.

He said that too often police neglect their health and suffer from long term health problems.
Tourism Ministry launches Lime 365 and GoTrinbago app

The free, bilingual, app forms part of Destination Trinidad and Tobagos digital marketing strategy.

Available in the Google Play Store for Android and the Apple Store, GoTrinbago is 100 percent offline and allows users to develop a personal itinerary, search for, and find a room, a tour, or a taxi at their fingertips.

Other notable features include: 1) The ability for users to review local places of interest; 2) Rate their experiences and read other user reviews; 3) Recommend new places to those who share similar interests; and 4) Capture and posts photographs.

In the coming months, GoTrinbago will allow users to tap into the area of online sales; with the ability to book tours and accommodation from the touch of a button on your phone, the ministry said.

The app is part of the ministrys LIME 365 campaign which promotes the myriad authentic events and festivals that dot the landscape of TT while placing this countrys overflowing events calendar within a message that is easily digestible to both local and international audiences. The ministry noted that a survey of consumer travel trends conducted by Travelport, 66 percent of leisure travellers and 59 percent of business travellers used digital means to research travel in 2015. Smartphones, too, are transforming travel industry trends; with 60 percent of travel searches starting on a mobile device. Travellers increasingly rely on mobile phones when they arrive in a new destination.

According to Think with Google, the market research arm of search engine giant, Google Inc, smartphone searches for hotels increased by 30 percent in 2015.

Furthermore, 85 percent of leisure travellers decide on activities only after arrival at a destination, the ministry stated.
Here Are the Most Overrated

Tourist Spots in the US
Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydlo is in stable condition after her limousine was involved in a car crash Friday night, but she can carry out her government duties as "nothing serious happened to her," a spokesman says. Rafal Bochenek told reporters that Szydlo, 53, is undergoing tests, including X-rays, and will remain "for some time" in a government hospital in Warsaw, where she was brought on her own request, the AP reports. He could not immediately confirm whether she will attend the weekly government meeting on Tuesday.

Dr. Andrzej Jakubowski, who first examined Szydlo after the crash, said she suffered some slight injuries and was in some pain, but that the prognosis was good. The accident occurred shortly before 7pm Friday in the southern town of Oswiecim, Szydlo's hometown, where she was arriving for the weekend. Her car was in the middle of a three-car convoy going 30mph on the town's main road when a small Fiat car they were overtaking suddenly turned left and into her limousine, causing it to hit a tree, police say. The 21-year-old driver of the Fiat has been questioned and has admitted causing the accident, which also injured Szydlo's driver and her bodyguard. He could face up to three years in prison if convicted of causing the accident. (Read more Poland stories.)
In 1963, a 23-year-old surveyor for the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army accidentally crossed the border into India. He remained stuck there for 54 years, making it back to his homeland only last week, reports the BBC. The strange tale of Wang Qi starts with a nighttime stroll away from camp. He told the BBC in a previous interview that he got lost and was "tired and hungry." He found a Red Cross vehicle and asked for help, only to be turned over to the Indian army. After nearly seven years in various jails, authorities relocated Wang to a remote village, the Hindustan Times reports. He was not allowed to return to China, however, but nor was he given Indian citizenship. He lived in a kind of limbo.

"I cried in the night," Wang says of those first years in India. "I missed my mother." He eventually married, worked at a flour mill, and had children and grandchildren, but he never stopped hoping to return home. A spokesperson for the Chinese government blames Indian bureaucracy for preventing Wang's return over the past half-century. But after being visited by a delegation from the Chinese embassy in recent weeks, visas were procured for Wang and his relatives. His wife was too sick to travel, but Wang arrived in Beijing on Friday with his adult children, where they were met by his surviving relatives. This is only a visit, however. "My family is (in India)," he says. "Where would I go?" (For this soldier, WWII didn't end until 1974.)
Russia is considering handing over Edward Snowden as a "gift" to "curry favor" with President Trump, an intelligence source tells NBC. The source claims the handover was discussed in intercepted Russian conversations. Trump has repeatedly described the NSA leaker as a "traitor" who deserves harsh punishment, tweeting in 2013 that Snowden is a "spy who should be executed." In July last year, Trump said that if he became president, Putin would return Snowden to the US. Snowden, however, says the report is proof that he isn't a spy, the Guardian reports. "Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel," he tweeted Friday. "No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next."

A Putin spokesman says reports of a Snowden handover are "nonsense," though former deputy national security adviser Juan Zarate tells NBC that such a move would be a "win-win" for Russia. "They've already extracted what they needed from Edward Snowden in terms of information and they've certainly used him to beat the United States over the head in terms of its surveillance and cyber activity," he says. Intelligence sources tell CNN and CBS that intercepted conversations also suggest reports of an explosive Russian dossier on Trump should be taken seriously, though they stress that no proof of "the more salacious things" in the dossier has surfaced. (Last month, Snowden moved a step closer to Russian citizenship.)
A man was arrested in Hong Kong Friday night for allegedly lighting a firebomb in a subway car during rush hour, injuring 18 people, two of them critically. Police said there was no evidence to indicate the fire was a terror attack. Police District Commander Kwok Pak-chung said the 60-year-old man told rescuers as he was being taken to a hospital that he was the one who set the fire, and that he had done so for an unspecified personal reason. "He was incoherent," Kwok said, adding that police believe he used a flammable liquid, the AP reports. Hundreds of police and firefighters responded to the fire, which shut down the busy Tsim Sha Tsui station in Kowloon.

Videos circulating on social media showed a chaotic scene of a fire inside the subway car and a man lying on the platform as people frantically used clothing to try to put out flames on his pants. Passenger Ray Chau tells the South China Morning Post that there was screaming as smoke rapidly filled the train. "When the train reached Tsim Sha Tsui, people immediately dashed out from the carriages. It was chaotic, like a scene out of Train to Busan," Chau says, referring to a South Korean zombie thriller. "The train journey felt particularly long," he says. "There was nothing we could do but inhale the smoke." (Read more Hong Kong stories.)
"People are panicking." That's the message from one immigration lawyer after hundreds of undocumented immigrants were rounded up this week by ICE agents in raids in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and the Carolinas, the Washington Post reports. According to NPR, the raids were the first since President Trump signed a Jan. 26 executive order on undocumented immigrants. That order redefined "criminal alien," expanding the definition beyond the couple million "bad hombres" the president mentioned during the campaign to include undocumented immigrants who are only suspected of a crime or those who've committed low-level offenses, such as using a fake Social Security number to get a job, the Hill reports.

All last week, homes and businesses were raided in broad daylighta change in tactic from the Obama administration that one government aide says is possibly meant to "send a message" under Trump. Immigrant advocates are also reporting that ICE agents are stopping immigrants at random or going door to door in minority-heavy neighborhoods to ask for IDs, though ICE denies these tactics. There have also reportedly been major raids in Kansas, Texas, Florida, and Virginia. Many advocates see this week as punishment for sanctuary cities and an attempt to "instill fear" in immigrants. And while officials maintain they're targeting undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records, advocates say it doesn't help their case that the first deportation under Trump was a "working mom with two US kids." (Read more undocumented immigrant stories.)
Yale University announced Saturday it will be renaming a residential college named for a former US vice president and virulent white supremacist, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to CBS News, John C. Calhoun graduated from Yale in 1804 and went on to become a South Carolina senator. Calhoun College was named in his honor in 1931, and Yale president Peter Salovey says there's evidencesuch as stained-glass windows depicting scenes of slaverythat Calhoun was recognized as much for his vehement support of slavery as in spite of it. Despite ongoing demonstrationsprotesters were being arrested as recently as FridayYale trustees voted to keep the name last April.

In a statement on the reversal of that decision, Salovey says Calhoun's values "fundamentally conflict" with those of Yale. Starting next fall, Calhoun College will be renamed for Grace Murray Hopper. The computer scientist and Yale graduate helped develop the COBOL computer language. She foresaw the future widespread use of computers, coined the word "bug" for computer glitches, and retired from the US Navy as a rear admiral at the age of 79, the New Haven Register reports. Hopper died in 1992 but received a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama. Salovey says she was a "visionary." Calhoun will not be entirely erased from Yale; a statue of him will remain elsewhere on campus. (Read more Yale University stories.)
"Leslie's passing proves that evil does in fact die." So reads an obituary that KHOU calls "harsh" and CW39 describes as "brutally honest." Leslie Ray Charping, known as "Popeye," died in January. The Texas man was battling cancer but died of being a "horse's a--." His obituary states he lived "29 years longer than expected" but "much longer than he deserved." Charping's "life served no obvious purpose," and he "possessed no redeeming qualities." His problems stemmed from mental illness and "drinking, drugs, and womanizing." Charping leaves behind "two relieved children ... and countless other victims."

Charping's daughter tells KTRK she wanted to be honest in his obituary to "bring closure." She says Charping was guilty of domestic violence, and she apologizes to everyone he hurt during his life. She says some people won't get why she wrote such an apparently mean obituary but that just means they had better parents than she did. (Read more obituary stories.)
A convicted sex offender released from prison in November has been charged in the shooting death of a 21-year-old Ohio State University student, the AP reports. Police say 29-year-old Brian Golsby was arrested early Saturday and charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping, and aggravated robbery in the slaying of Reagan Tokes. Her nude body was found Thursday near a park entrance in Grove City. She was last seen leaving work at a Columbus restaurant Wednesday night and was reported missing by her roommates and co-workers when she never made it home. Grove City Police Sgt. Chris White said at a news conference Saturday that Tokes was shot twice in the head. A coroner didn't find any other visible injuries but would be testing a rape kit, White said.

Golsby was arrested around 4am Saturday after being identified as a suspect through DNA evidence gathered in and around Tokes' car, which was found not far from where Golsby was living in Columbus, White said. Police believe Tokes encountered Golsby not long after she left the restaurant shortly before 10pm Wednesday. The charges against Golsby also were based on statements he gave to police, White said. Asked if Golsby had confessed, White said: "He gave us details of these events of that night that closely match what we're finding." Golsby registered as a sex offender after being released from prison. He pleaded guilty in Franklin County Common Pleas Court in Columbus to aggravated robbery and attempted rape charges in May 2011 and received a six-year sentence. (Read more murder stories.)
The Daily News-Miner encourages residents to make themselves heard through the Opinion pages. Readers' letters and columns also appear online at newsminer.com. Contact the editor with questions at letters@newsminer.com or call 459-7574.
New Delhi:

A total of 558 crorepati candidates are in the fray for the upcoming first and second phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections to be held on February 11 and February 15 while 275 have declared that they have criminal cases against them, says a report by think-tank Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).



Here are the phase-wise details of the candidates contesting assembly polls in the upcoming first phase and second phase in Uttar Pradesh -



First phase (Feb 11)



# Crorepati candidates

Total Candidates: 836 (First phase)

Crorepati candidates: 302



# Party-wise details



BSP: Total candidates - 73

Crorepati candidates - 66

BJP: Total candidates - 73

Crorepati candidates - 61



SP: Total candidates - 51

Crorepati candidates - 40

Congress: Total candidates - 24

Crorepati candidates - 18

RLD: Total candidates - 57

Crorepati candidates - 41

# 43 of 293 independent candidates have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore.



# The average asset per candidate contesting in the first phase of the UP poll is Rs 2.81 crore.



# Crinminal charge: Out of 836 candidates analysed, 168 have declared criminal cases against themselves.



# 143 candidates have declared serious criminal cases, including ones related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, crimes against women and the like.



# 186 candidates have not declared their PAN details.





# Education details



- 402 candidates have declared their qualification to be between 5th and 12th.

- 336 have declared having a qualification of graduate or above.



- 64 have declared themselves to be just literate.



- 15 have declared themselves to be illiterate.



The Uttar Pradesh Election Watch and ADR have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 836 out of 839 candidates from 98 political parties, including 5 national, 8 state, 85 unrecognised parties and 293 independent candidates, who are contesting in the first phase of the poll.

Full Coverage: Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections 2017





Second Phase (Feb 15)



# Crorepati candidates

- Total candidates: 721 (Second Phase)

- Crorepati candidates: 256





# Party-wise details



BSP: Crorepati candidates - 58



BJP: Crorepati candidates - 50



SP: Crorepati candidates - 45



Congress: Crorepati candidates - 13



RLD: Crorepati candidates - 15



- Total 719 candidates have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore.



- The average asset per candidate contesting in the second phase of UP elections is Rs 2.01 crore.





# Criminal cases

- 107 candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.



- 16 out of 67 candidates from BJP have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.



- 25 of 67 from BSP have declared criminal cases against themselves.



- 6 of 52 from RLD have declared criminal cases against themselves.



- 21 of 51 from SP have declared criminal cases against themselves.



- 6 of 18 from Congress have declared criminal cases against themselves.



- 13 of 206 independent candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.



- 84 candidates have declared serious criminal cases, including cases related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, crimes against women.



# 174 candidates have not declared their PAN details.





# Education details:



- 277 have declared their qualification to be between 5th and 12th.



- 310 have declared having a qualification of graduate or above.



- 93 candidates have declared themselves to be just literates.



- 11 candidates are illiterate.



Uttar Pradesh Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 719 of 721 candidates from 92 political parties, including 6 national parties, 6 state parties, 80 unrecognised parties and 206 independent candidates who are contesting in the second phase of polls.



(With inputs from PTI)

Full Coverage: Assembly Elections 2017

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New Delhi:

The political turmoil in Tamil Nadu entered the fourth day on Friday as new developments kept political leaders, police officials and the mediapersons on their toes in the last three days in Chennai.



The power struggle followed the December 5 death of Jayalalithaa after almost two months of hospitalisation.



After Ms Jayalalithaa's death, the AIADMK said that Sasikala will be Amma's natural replacement as leader of the party. Later, the party decided decided that Sasikala would take over from Mr Panneerselvam as chief minister of Tamil Nadu.



For two days, Mr Panneerlsevam seemed to have no problem. Then, on Tuesday night, he appeared dramatically at Jayalalithaa's grave to declare that he had been forced to resign and now willing to keep his job.



Panneerselvam had an explanation behind his decision change in 48 hours saying Jayalalithaa's "spirit had appeared before me and urged me to fight."

Also Read | Panel will be set up to probe Jayalalithaas death; wasnt allowed to meet her in hospital, says Panneerselvam



Sasikala, who is trying to become Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, had declared in writing to Jayalalithaa a few years ago that she had "no interest in politics," as claimed by Panneerselvam.



Sasikala is awaiting a Supreme Court verdict on a case of disproportionate assets.



Later, the political battle began in the party and attacks and counterattacks from both sides started coming in media from both faction of the party.



The power struggle reached at new peak on Thursday when governor Vidyasagar Rao returned to Chennai and met both claimants to the legacy of late chief minister Jayalalithaa.



Now, the ball is in the court of the governor, who has sent a report on the political situation in the state to the Centre after hearing out Sasikala and Panneerselvam.



Rao gave no hint of the course of action after accepting Sasikalas claim in writing, with the names of lawmakers supporting her.



After meeting the governor, Panneerselvam briefed him about the present situation in the state and said that he was forced to uit as chief minister.



He told media after meeting with the Governor: "Im confident justice will prevail."



The AIADMK has 135 members in the 234-member Tamil Nadu assembly. The Sasikala faction claims to have the support of at least 130 MLAs.



With AIADMK party set for a vertical split, here are few options before Governor Rao now-



1. Pannerselvam has said he will withdraw his resignation, but if he realises he doesnt have the majority, he can recommend to the Governor to dissolve the assembly.



But, why would the MLAs go for fresh election with almost four years of their term remaining?



2. The Governor may ask Panneerselvam to prove his majority in the state assembly.

If the Governor gives more time to OPS, he would emerge stronger in case the SC ends up convicting Sasikala in the disproportionate assets case next week.



3. The Governor can also put the House in suspended animation if neither Sasikala nor Panneerselvam are able to prove their majority.

Also Read | V K Sasikala unacceptable to most people of Tamil Nadu: Chidambaram



4. If Panneerselvam proves his majority, Governor Rao may refer to provisions of Anti-Defection Law to check if the expelled leader enjoys support of two-third of AIADMK MLAs.



5. If Sasikala, in case the Governor asks her to take oath, proves majority in House but gets convicted in the disproportionate assets case next week, the state will become leaderless. In that scenario, the Governor may impose Presidents rule in the state.



6. The Governor may revoke Panneerselvam's resignation letter and reinstate him as a caretaker CM till a new leader is elected. But, then Panneerselvam will have to prove his the majority on the floor of the house.

Also Read | Don't break Tamil Nadu into a country, I promise, all India will fight for TN in a civil war of Ahinsa: Kamal Haasan



A week ago Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a meeting with Panneerselvam and the PM, at the end of the meeting, is said to have had a conversation with OPS alone for a short while.



According to reports, Union minister Venkaiah Naidu has said that the Centre will back OPS as "he was chosen by Jayalalithaa." It is also being said that not just the BJP, the PM himself has been monitoring the situation in Tamil Nadu.



The Governor has the discretion to appoint as chief minister anyone who, in his opinion, is in a position to command a majority in the legislature.



However, in the light of conflicting claims, he may wait for the suggestions coming from the Union Home Ministry on the report he sent after his meeting with both Sasikala and Panneerselvam on Thursday.



Also Read | Panneerselvam-Sasikala battle brings back the memories of Jayalalithaa-Janki split after MGR demise



Also Read | Profile: Who is Sasikala



Also Read | Profile: Who is Panneerselvam



(With inputs from Agencies, PTI)

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Jaipur:

A 27-year-old teacher has been arrested in Jaipur in case of allegedly sexually abusing and raping numerous schoolboys over the past several years.

The paedophile, Rameez, would also make video clips of the acts, with around 76 such clips recovered from his mobile phone after his arrest two days ago.

Two of his victims have registered an FIR against the unmarried teacher who is now under police custody and will be produced in a court on Monday.

76 clips were found in his mobile phone. He used to abuse and rape his students and would film the videos with the help of other victim students, SHO Ramganj police station Ashok Chauhan said.

It is suspected that he sexually abused and raped numerous students over the past several years. The students alleged that he would threaten to fail them in examinations and blackmailed them for money on the basis of the clips.

Rameez was the English teacher in a private school where he pressurized the students to take tuition with him.

The school administration had terminated his job in January after getting wind of his proclivities.

A police complaint, however, was filed only a few days ago by the victims themselves, after a video clip he forwarded on a WhatsApp group was seen by the parents of one of the minor boys.
New Delhi:

A major fire broke out in basement of Tata Cancer hospital of Mumbai on Saturday. Four fire engines and another four water tankers were rushed on the spot.

The fire has been doused now but the cause of it remains unknown yet. Fire tenders and police officials rushed to the spot after receiving a call from Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) disaster management cell.

According to Initial reports, there has been damage to stock of medicines that is dispensed to cancer patients on a daily basis at the hospital. No casualties or fatalities were reported.

More details are awaited.
New Delhi:

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar's recent release 'Jolly LLB 2' has minted Rs 13.2 crore on its day of release. Interestingly, with such amazing collections, the movie has become the second highest opener of 2017 after Shah Rukh Khan's 'Raees', who minted Rs 20.42 crore on its day of release.



Earlier, Hrithik Roshan's 'Kaabil' was holding this place with first day collection of Rs 10.43 crore.

According to Bollywood trade analyst Taran Adarsh, 'Jolly LLB 2' is expected to mint higher collections in its opening weekend, given the positive reviews it has got.

He wrote, "JollyLLB2 Fri a 13.20 cr. India biz... Merits coupled with +ve word of mouth should help garner a lucrative total on Sat and Sun."

#JollyLLB2 Fri a 13.20 cr. India biz... Merits coupled with +ve word of mouth should help garner a lucrative total on Sat and Sun.  taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) February 11, 2017

Adarsh had earlier lauded Akshay's performance in the movie and even cited 'Jolly LLB 2' as one of Kumar's best movies.

Powerful writing+dialogue. Commendable performances. Skilful direction... #JollyLLB2 is a THOROUGH ENTERTAINER. Amongst @akshaykumar's best!  taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) February 10, 2017

If the media reports are to be believed, the movie, which was made with a budget of Rs 45 crore (Cost of production: 30 crore, P&A: 15 crore, excluding fee of Akshay Kumar), is expected to recover its cost of production in its first week.

Also Read | 'Jolly LLB 2': Akshay Kumar reveals his biggest success secret

Talking about the storyline of 'Jolly LLB 2', Akshay Kumar will be seen playing the role of an advocate in this satirical courtroom drama.

Helmed by Subhash Kapoor, the movie also stars Annu Kapoor, Huma Qureshi and Saurabh Shukla.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

About two Kilogrammes of gold on Saturday was confiscated from Air India flight returning from Dubai in Mumbai International Airport. The AIU intercepted one passenger and seized 18 gold bars worth Rs. 54,67,924. The case is registered and probe is underway.

There were as many as 18 biscuits of gold worth Rs 55 lakhs seized from AI-984 flight returning from Dubai to Mumbai.

According to action taken by Air Intelligence unit, the gold bars were found put by an unknown person under passenger seat of the flight.

Later on, that unknown person was intercepted by Air intelligence unit.

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Ahmedabad:

As many as 29 students of premier design institute National Institute of Design (NID), including 14 females and a foreign national, were arrested on Saturday in connection with a liquor party, police said.

We arrested 29 students of National Institute of Design after conducting raid on a private apartment based on a complain to police control room late last night that a liquor party was being organised there, said ACP (N Division) Kalpesh Chavda.

Among the arrested students, 14 are women, he said, adding that one of the students is a foreign national from Johannesburg in South Africa.

The liquor party was organised at one Pushkar Apartments located in Paldi area of the city near the NID campus, following which police conducted raid at around 3 AM, Chavda said.

Six bottles of liquor were also seized from the apartment. We have taken all students into custody and are investigating as to where they sourced liquor from, among other things, he said.

An FIR was lodged at Paldi police station under various sections Bombay Prohibition (Gujarat Amendment) Act, he said. Consumption of liquor is prohibited in Gujarat.

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New Delhi:

After five decades since he crossed over to India post the 1962 war and raised a family in Madhya Pradesh's Balaghat district, a Chinese soldier returned home safely in Beijing.

77-year-old Wang Qi was caught while entering the Indian territory after Sino-India War of 1962. Qi was later released from jail.

Wang with his wife Sushila, and their son Vishnu and two other family members will be flying to China, Balaghat Collector Bharat Yadav told PTI.

Wang and his four family members got visa on Saturday. MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup made it clear that Wang Qi and his family members arrived in Beijing a short while ago. Two of the Mission officials also accompanied Wang Qi and family to their hometown.

Qi mentioned that this became possible with the help of Ministry of Home and External Affairs.

After his arrival in Beijing, the family are expected to travel to his native place in Shaanxi Province to meet Wang's relatives, reportedly.

The Ministry of External Affairs on Friday had said that it was following up the case and helping Wang and his family members to visit China to meet his extended family.

Three officials from Chinese Embassy in India met my father and talked to him for more than an hour. They assured him all possible help to visit China, according to his son Vishnu (35).

Qi joined the Chinese Army in 1960 and he entered India through the eastern frontier after losing his way in the darkness one night.

He landed in Assam where an Indian Red Cross team handed him over to the Indian Army on January 1, 1963.

With PTI Inputs

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Dehradun:

Congress on Saturday hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his horoscopes (dossiers) remarks, saying it was not afraid of such threats.

Terming the party a lion which is not afraid of such full of arrogance threats, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, the horoscopes also indicate BJPs days are numbered.

The Congress leader was in Dehradun to campaign for February 15 Uttarakhand Assembly polls.

Quoting a couplet, Andhiyon ko zid hai jahan bijliyan girane ki, Mujhe bhi zid hain wahin ashiyan basane ki (I insist on making my abode where lightning is to strike).

Politics of dossiers existed in Stalinist Russia and countries in East Europe not in democratic countries, he told reporters.

Accusing Modi of weakening the democratic institutions, he said, why Lokpal had not been constituted despite UPA passing the bill wayback in 2013?

Under fire from the Opposition over his raincoat barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh in Parliament, Modi at a poll rally in Haridwar yesterday asked the Congress to hold its tongue and show regard to the dignity of language.

I tell Congress leaders to hold their tongue or else I have their entire horoscope. I do not want to give up dignity of words and conduct but if you speak nonsense, your past will chase you, your misdeeds, your sins will chase you, Modi had said.

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New Delhi:

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has sought a report from the Indian High Commission in Jamaica about an Indian youth shot dead in Jamaica.

aIndian High Commission in Jamaica - Please send me a detailed report of this unfortunate incident. Also, pl ensure best possible treatment to the injured Indian nationals and coordinate with the affected families,a Swaraj tweeted when her attention was drawn to a news report that a Vasai youth was shot dead by four unidentified men in his Kingston home in Jamaica in a case of suspected armed robbery.

Indian High Commission in Jamaica - Please send me a detailed report of this unfortunate incident./1 @hcikingston pic.twitter.com/7FIzfgPhWz a Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 11, 2017

According to the report, two of his Indian roommates suffered bullet injuries in their legs.

aTalreja family - I am sorry to know about this tragedy. My heartfelt condolences. aIndian High Commission in Jamaica will follow up this case with the Police and help you in all possible manner,a she further tweeted.A

Indian High Commission in Jamaica will follow up this case with the Police and help you in all possible manner. /2 @hcikingston a Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 11, 2017

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New Delhi:

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday released Common ten Point Program in Lucknow. PM's strategy is distraction, when he can't answer questions, then he starts distracting; truth is that in two and a half years, he has failed, said Rahul Gandhi.

Modi failed to fulfill his employment promise. He promised that 2 crore youth should be given employment, but only 1 lakhs were given job opportunity, Rahul added.

Here are the Live updates:

#Loan waivers to farmers.

#Rs 1,000 monthly pension to over 1 crore poor families.

#33 per cent reservation to women candidates in government jobs and 50 per cent reservations to woman in panchayat and state elections.

#Free cycle to all meritorious students of class 9th and 12th

#Smart phones, skill development, free cycles and homes for the poor among key points in SP-Cong joint programme.

#Skill development to over 20 lakhs students

Dont be emotional in these Election days. If PM drive on Agra-Lucknow Expressway then he will too vote for Samajwadi party, said Akhilesh Yadav.

ALSO READ | Uttar Pradesh Elections 2017 Live: 10.56% voting in first phase of UP polls till 9 am

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New Delhi:

AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala on wrote a letter to Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao seeking appointment to meet him along with her MLAs.



As it Happened:

#Another MP leaves Sasikala camp; Tiruvannamalai MP Vanaroja extends support to Panneerselvam

#Please wait and watch: VK Sasikala on question if she will look for legal remedies. (9:00PM)

#Sasikala -Needed measures will be taken

#We were waiting patiently till this moment for a reply from the honourable Governor

#Sasikala - We were waiting patiently till this moment for a reply from the honourable Governor

#Sasikala - All the party MLAS are fine and happy



#Sasikala - After meeting the party MLAs,I feel happy

#Sasikala - I feel all of this is being done to create a rift in the party

#Sasikala- Tomorrow we will approach the situation differently

#List of MLAs has already been submitted, but governor is calm, he should come out & call our 'Amma' to form the govt: Anwar Raja, AIADMK MP (8:35PM)

#BJP MP Subramanian Swamy meets Governor Vidyasagar Rao, discusses current political scenario in Tamil Nadu (7:45PM)

#AIADMK MP V Sathyabama meets O Paneerselvam, offers support (7:30PM)

#In present situation person who has been with the party for so many years & assumed duty of CM for 2 times is only OPS: C. Ponnaiyan, AIADMK

#Ponnaiyan - OPS is favourite child of Tamil people. (6:10PM)

#Ponnaiyan - Leadership of the party and govt should be only as per cadres wishes. (6:10PM)

#Ponnaiyan refers to Sasikala as Chinnamma. Cadre at OPS house protest. He corrects and calls her Sasikala Amma. (6:10PM)

#Ponnaiyan - Except for Sasikala no one was allowed to see Jaya in Hospital. (6:10PM)



#Ponnaiyan - Only 1.5crore cadre can elect the General secretary of AIADMK. No one else can be GS as per party bylaws (6:10PM)



#AIADMK Interim General Secretary VK Sasikala concludes discussions with party MLAs at Kuvathoor (5:20PM)

#Party Organization Secretary Ponnaiyan extends support to OPS (5:20PM)



#Tamil Nadu Political crisis: Inside visuals of the Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur, VK Sasikala present along with MLAs. (5:15PM)

#Tamil Nadu Political crisis: Security tightened at Raj Bhavan, heavy police deployment. (5:15PM)

#TamilNadu: Police force deployment outside Golden Bay Resort in Kuvathur where MLAs are lodged, VK Sasikala inside. (5:15PM)

#WATCH: Sasikala surrounded by supporters at Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur where MLAs are present,slogans raised in her support #TamilNadu pic.twitter.com/bSWb66ZaJl  ANI (@ANI_news) February 11, 2017

#TamilNadu: Police force deployment outside Golden Bay Resort in Kuvathur where MLAs are lodged, VK Sasikala inside. pic.twitter.com/nPBPZHHMLz  ANI (@ANI_news) February 11, 2017

Tamil Nadu Political crisis: Security tightened at Raj Bhavan, heavy police deployment. pic.twitter.com/Jo8BXSlDqD  ANI (@ANI_news) February 11, 2017

Tamil Nadu Political crisis: Inside visuals of the Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur, VK Sasikala present along with MLAs pic.twitter.com/jPJZ2DAcgc  ANI (@ANI_news)

#Drama is coming to a close soon. I'm at least in touch with 20 of them (MLAs) so I don't think phones are switched off: K Pandiarajan (4:45PM) (Read full story here)

#Our number will be more than what it is today & it will land at 135:TN Education Min K Pandiarajan, extending support to O Panneerselvam (4:45PM)

#TN Police tightens security at Raj Bhawan in anticipation of drama by AIADMK MLAs drama at Raj Bhavan: Sources (4:15PM) (Read full story here)

#Sasikala holds meeting with over 120 MLAs of AIADMK at Kuvathur resort (4:10PM)

#Tamil Nadu: Sasikala reaches Golden Bay Resort in Kuvathur where MLAs are lodged (3:54PM)

#Sasikala Natarajan going to meet party MLAs: AIADMK

#Chennai V K Sasikala leaves Poes Garden for Jayalalithaa's memorial at Marina Beach,'later she'll go to Koovathur resort where MLAs are lodged

#We urge PM &HM to safeguard TN from forces which are all out against us & can take law & order into their hands: AIADMK MP V Maithreyan

#Sasikala Natarajan leaves Poes Garden.

#Panneerselvam welcomes state minister K Pandiarajan who has extended his support to him TamilNadu.

# We are not depending on any party dmk or bjp. Spirit of mass will carry AIADMK, he added. Governor is assessing the situation.

#Saw support of people for Ops that helped me to decide. I will strengthen hands of ops.Ops is chosen by amma and I moved here because of positive pull from ops, says Mafoi.

#Amma is showing us betrayers of our party;Ppl who think they can separate our party that has 1.5 cr ppl will only face defeat: Sasikala

#Amma is confident that I'll look after AIADMK; Relentless work by Amma has made AIADMK 3rd largest party. Amma is with us now: V K Sasikala

#Amma has given me 1.5 crore party brothers and sisters. When they are with me,the sinister intentions of many will not harm me: V K Sasikala

#TN School Education Minister K Pandiarajan joins Chief Minister O Panneerselvam's camp

# In the letter written to Governor, Sasikala has questioned the delay in her oath ceremony stating that seven days have passed since Panneerselvam resigned as the chief minister.



# Earlier, Tamil Nadu state minister K Pandiarajan met Panneerselvam and offered support to him.



# "I am confident all leaders who care about Tamil people will come and join us," said Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam on .



Panneerselvam reacts

In hard-hitting remarks against Sasikala without naming her, Panneerselvam on said the "dream of those to capture power" will end as a "daydream" and asserted that his camp would not allow the party to go into the hands of "a family".



Addressing party workers, Panneerselvam, who has revolted against Sasikala, dubbed her aspiration to helm both AIADMK and the government as "selfishness and family hegemony".



"The dream of those who want to capture the party and government will end as a daydream. We will not allow anybody, any selfish forces to capture the party which was built by Amma (former AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa)," he said.



The party was the asset of the AIADMK cadre, he said, adding, "we will never allow this to become the property of a family", an apparent reference to Sasikala and her extended family.

ALSO READ | Power struggle in Tamil Nadu | Sasikala vs Pannerselvam: What options are available before Governor Vidyasagar Rao



The Crisis deepens



The wait for chief ministership in Tamil Nadu prolonged with Governor still undecided on the issue as the feud in the ruling AIADMK escalated on with Sasikala sacking party presidium chairman E Madusudanan who wrote to the Election Commission not to recognise her as General Secretary.



The Governor was said to be still evaluating legal opinion on Sasikala's claim to having an overwhelming support of party MLAs while the judgement of Supreme Court on disproportionate assets case against her was imminent next week.



On his part, Chief Minister O Panneerselvam on night asserted that his camp would not allow the party to go into hands of 'a family' and that the "dream of those to capture power" will end as a "day dream".



Sending a strong message to her detractors, Sasikala sacked Madusudanan from the primary membership of the party, a day after he switched over to the rebel camp led by caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, and appointed former minister K A Sengottaiyan in his place.



Sengottaiyan was relieved as the party's Organisation Secretary, a post to which he was appointed last week.



Sasikala urged the party workers not to have any truck with Madusudanan and said they should extend their cooperation to Sengottaiyan.



Giving a major boost to the rival camp, Madusudanan on extended his support to Panneerselvam, saying he wanted to "safeguard" the party.



"To protect AIADMK, everybody should join hands with OPS (Panneerselvam)," he had said.



Sasikala had removed Panneerselvam from the Treasurer post immediately after his revolt, but he has maintained that being a temporary general secretary, she does not have the powers to appoint or remove party functionaries. Insisting that he continues to be the treasurer, Panneerselvam has written to banks not to allow anybody else to operate the party accounts without his consent.



Sasikala had appointed another senior leader Dindigul C Srinivasan as the treasurer.



Hitting back at Sasikala, Madusudanan has written to the poll panel urging it to not to recognise her as AIADMK general secretary, saying she was not elected to the post as per party by-laws.



Madusudanan told reporters about the letter shortly before he was sacked from AIADMK by Sasikala for "acting against the party".



Asserting that only cadres can elect a general secretary as per party rules, Madusudanan said he had asked the EC not to recognise Sasikala as party chief.

ALSO READ | OPS vs Chinnamma: Sasikala and Panneerselvam in bitter battle over Jaya's legacy in Tamil Nadu. What's next? An explainer



Expelled AIADMK Rajya Sabha member Sasikala Pushpa has already petitioned the EC against the election of V K Sasikala, saying it was not done as per procedure and the EC has sought the party's response to it.

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New Delhi:

Virali Modi has been a fighter ever since she met with a near-death accident a decade ago. She battled with death and bounced back to life beautifully and gracefully. She has been on wheelchair since then. Such incidents in life often leave a person scattered. But even after the heart-wrenching incident, there was no looking back for Virali, who came back to life with double strength and became an inspiration for many.



She turned out to be a motivational speaker, disability rights activist, a writer and a runner-up at the Miss Wheelchair India pageant in 2014.



But what is most unfortunate is the fact that the woman who is so strong and independent despite being dependent on wheelchair, once became helpless. She was groped and harassed by coolies in three separate incidents when she sought their help in order to board the train. She took help because the Indian railways are not disabled-friendly and are not wheelchairs accessible.



After all the humiliation she faced while travelling from Mumbai to New Delhi on Indian Railways for medical purposes, she is now trying to get Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Railway Minister Suresh Prabhus attention to fix this issue faced by the disabled in the country.



For this, she has started an online petition at change.org, and is getting tremendous support.



Sharing her ordeal with News Nation in an exclusive interview, she says, Upon reaching the train station, where the ramps were broken and bumpy, I finally reached the platform from where I was to board my train. I kept looking around thinking that there would be a ramp to board the train, but there wasn't. My mom went and called two porters that were middle aged men. She asked them to carry me into the train for a fixed amount of money. The porters looked at me as if I was a piece of meat. I was looked up and down a couple of times, before they decided who would carry me by my upper body and lower body.



ALSO READ | 'Molested' by porters, woman wants Indian Railways to be disabled friendly; Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu takes note



She went on to add, One porter was holding me from my knees while the other had his arms underneath my armpits and his hands placed underneath my breasts. While boarding the compartment, his hands started to roam. At first, I thought it was by accident, but his repetitive movements confirmed my doubts that I was being groped and molested by a man who was my fathers age.



I felt shame and embarrassment because other passengers were watching as I was being groped, but they failed to utter a single word. They were staring and there were whispers about me being a helpless girl, because I was only 17 at that time. I felt shame because I truly was helpless at that point, I let the porter grope me because I was scared to fall. I was scared that hed drop me if I said anything. The lack of a lift or ramp was the reason I was sexually assaulted. The worst part is that this has happened three separate times, said Virali.



This has happened between the years 2008-2014. I've been scared, nervous, and embarrassed to travel in trains because like any other woman, I do not like being manhandled by grown men. It's a shame that this happens in our day and age, she added.



On asking if PM Modi's 'divyang' term for persons with disability has brought any change, she said, I do not believe in the term Divyang. I consider this terminology to be hypocritical. Why? We celebrate World Disability Day, not World Differently-Abled, Physically Challenged, or Divyang Day. These terms do not affect me because I don't consider myself to be disabled, I'm just as abled as the next person. I would rather not be categorized.



As for change, I don't really think there has been change, at least not in terms of society. The society is just as rude and horrendous to us as it was before the term Divyang came out. As for the government, it's great seeing them acknowledge those with disabilities. I cannot say it's because of the term Divyang, she added.



She also shared about her work and efforts she has been making as a disability rights activist.



I try to bring awareness about disability through my writing. I'm a prominent writer on Quora where I share my harrowing personal stories as well as stories of how I've been treated as a disabled woman. I'm also a writer with an NGO called Sexuality and Disability where I write about my personal experiences as a disabled woman. My main goal is to work with the government in providing accessibility to all in India. 



Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has taken note of her change.org petition. On asking whether she thinks some concrete action will be taken to make Indian Railways disabled-friendly, she said:



I would like to hope so. The change.org petition has become viral, to say the least. People are constantly tweeting out to him to provide accessible trains and he finally responded after a week since the petition started. I would like to hope that the government will work tirelessly to implement facilities for those with disabilities. I will work tirelessly to make sure that it is implemented, with the power and support of the people and of course the media. 



On asking about her decision to start the "Implement disabled friendly measures in Indian railways" petition, she said:



She says unlike the previous government, the Narendra Modi government is at least making efforts to provide proper infrastructure for the welfare of the disabled.



I have noticed that the previous government didn't really say much about disability. The Disability Rights Bill was present during their time as well, and nothing was done about it. This time though, the PM actively spoke to disability and has made an effort to provide proper infrastructure and is mostly working tirelessly to make this come true, said Virali.



The main thing is that the government is now listening, The Disability Rights Bill was passed, Arun Jaitley has confirmed that 500 stations will be made accessible. It's a start, but it isn't enough. It's high time that the government listened and stopped treating us like minorities. Which is why I started this petition now, she added.



Virali is fighting for the human dignity for the disabled and has demanded some basic things in Indian Railways in order to make it disabled-friendly. When asked whether the government will take note of it and implement those measures, she said:



Like I said before, I would like to think that these measures would be implemented. But then, you never know. Sometimes other priorities arise and things are halted. That is why I want to work along side of the government to make sure these things are implemented. An able-bodied person shouldn't be allowed to decide what's right and wrong for me. I feel that a disabled person should be introducing ideas to them instead. Which is why I want to meet the PM and Mr Prabhu so I can share my ideas, because accessible India doesn't just stop at making trains accessible  there are many things that need to be done.



Sign her petition HERE

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Chennai:

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam on Saturday drew more blood from the Sasikala camp in the battle for power with a minister, two Lok Sabha MPs and the AIADMK spokesperson joining him while she issued a veiled warning that patience was wearing thin on not being sworn in.

With leaders coming under pressure from party cadres and apparent public sentiment against V K Sasikala, School Education Minister K Pandiarajan, P R Sundaram and K Ashok Kumar, both MPs, switched over to the chief ministers camp in the morning pledging their support.

In the evening, party veteran, spokesman and minister in the MGR Cabinet C Ponnaiyan drove to the chief ministers residence and offered his support. A former minister M M Rajendra Prasad also joined the chief ministers camp.

The leadership of the party and government should be in good hands and that is Panneerselvam who was trusted thrice by Jayalalithaa to be chief minister. All of us should work towards this goal, he told the cadres with Panneerselvam by his side at the chief ministers residence where they received him amid thunderous applause.

Also read: OPS vs Chinnamma: Sasikala and Panneerselvam in bitter battle over Jaya's legacy in Tamil Nadu. What's next? An explainer

Rattled by the desertions, Sasikala, who has been elected the leader of the AIADMK legislature party, drove to the luxury resort, 100 km from here, in an attempt to prevent the MLAs who have been put up there for the last three days from switching sides.

K A Sengottaiyan, who was appointed the presidium chairman after the removal of Madhusudhanan, told reporters after Sasikalas meeting with the MLAs that all the MLAs have taken a pledge that they will back her to the hilt till she becomes chief minister.

Kept on wait, Sasikala wrote a letter to Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, asking him to take steps immediately to swear her in at the earliest. She said she was ready to parade the party MLAs supporting her before him.

She told him she had on Thursday submitted an elaborate presentation to invite me to form the government as I have absolute majority, besides the original letter and true copy of the resolution electing her as the AIADMK Legislature party leader.

Sasikala said she believed that the Governor would act immediately to save the sovereignty of the Constitution, democracy and the interest of Tamil Nadu.

Also read: OPS vs Chinnamma: Guv Vidyasagar Rao denies sending report to Centre on current political situation in Tamil Nadu

Meeting partymen at her residence, Sasikala also gave a veiled warning over the delay in being sworn in and said, we are being patient because of our belief in fairness and trust in democracy. But we can be patient only to a limit but beyond that we will decide what we will do.

Attacking Sasikala for her remarks, Rajya Sabha MP Dr V Maitreyan said attempts were being made to create law and order problems in Tamil Nadu and urged the union home minister to take steps to ensure peace.

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New Delhi:

Showing no signs of abatement, the power struggle took an ugly turn on Saturday morning when stones were pelted at media persons by alleged AIADMK workers.

Media personnel were reportedly trying to get access to MLAs lodged in a resort by VK Sasikala near Mahabalipuram.

The power struggle between Pannerselvam and Sasikala raised many concerns regarding the state and constitutional call of Governor Vidyasagar Rao.

After OPS turned rebellious stating that he was forced to resign owing to pressure, the AIADMK has been divided into two factions.

However, this seems to be a bitter fight involving same party candidates for the chief ministerial post.

ALSO READ | OPS vs Chinnamma: Sasikala and Panneerselvam in bitter battle over Jaya's legacy in Tamil Nadu. What's next? An explainer

Governor Rao returned to Chennai on Thursday and met both claimants to the legacy of late chief minister Jayalalithaa.

AIADMK has 135 members in the 234-member Tamil Nadu assembly. The Sasikala faction claims to have the support of at least 130 MLAs.

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New Delhi:

Twitter is buzzing with news alerts from India and rest of the world. Here are the latest updates from the world of Twitter in one scroll:

#11:23 PM

Japanese manga legend Jiro Taniguchi dies at 69- AFP

#11:00 PM

Earthquake tremors felt in Srinagar, Garhwal Uttarakhand - ANI

#9:54 PM

Two brothers murdered in Mori Gate area of Delhi. Police present at the spot - ANI

#9:44 PM

Naxal-hit village Kokawada in Chhattisgarh gets electricity for the first time, locals express happiness - ANI

#9:30 PM

Customs IGI busted a group 2 kg Gold & misc. electronic items, memory cards etc. valued at approx 2.5 crores recovered. - ANI

#9:00 PM

SHIATS university assault matter: Allahabad Police arrests SP leader Atiq Ahmad, earlier today - ANI

#8:45 PM

AIADMK tweets: After meeting the party MLAs,I feel happy says VK Sasikala - ANI

#8:24 PM

List of MLAs has already been submitted, but governor is calm, he should come out & call our 'Amma' to form the govt: Anwar Raja, AIADMK MP - ANI



#8:00 PM

Seven killed in Baghdad protest clashes says police- AFP

#7:44 PM

Himachal Pradesh: One dead, three injured as car falls off cliff in Nerwa, Chopal - ANI

#7:22 PM

AIADMK MP V Sathyabama meets O Paneerselvam, offers support - ANI



#6:44 PM

63% voter turnout (tentative) in first phase of Uttar Pradesh election: Election commission- ANI

#5:50 PM

Bihar Topper Scam: SIT arrests Ruby Rai's father Avdesh Rai from Bhagwanpur, Bihar - ANI

#5:23 PM

V K Sasikala leaves Golden Bay resort after holding a meet with MLAs in Kuvathur Tamil Nadu - ANI

#5:01 PM

New Birds Species, called Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush (Monticola saxitilis), discovered in Nepal - PTI

#4:12 PM

Ultra-low dose 4-in-1 pill found to be 100 pc effective at tackling high BP, new study in The Lancet journal claims - PTI

#4:09 PM

UP Elections 2017: Overall Poll percentage till 3:00 PM is 52.9% - Muzaffarnagar-54%, A Meerut-54%, A Aligarh-52.71%, A Shamli-52%, Firozabad-52%

#4:05 PM

UP Elections 2017, First phase: Voting till 3 pm in Agra 51%, Aligarh 52%, Mathura 55%, Meerut 56%, Muzaffarnagar 53% and Shamli 55

#3:57 PM

I congratulate our scientists for successful testing of a missile that can destroy other missiles 50 km above in air: PM Modi in Rudrapur - ANI

#3:34 PM

PM lauds successful test-firing of interceptor missile from Balasore in Odisha - PTI

#3:10 PM

Death toll in car accident that took place yesterday near Barot in Kangra valley rises to 5 - ANI

#2:13 PM

Another 200 whales get stranded on a New Zealand coastline - AFP

#1:57 PM

Why is the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh sheltering criminals?: PM Modi - PTI

#1:41 PM

Police arrest wanted Manvendra Mistry in Rs 500 Crore hawala case in Katni, MP - PTI

#1:37 PM

TN School Education Minister K Pandiarajan joins Chief Minister O Panneerselvam's camp - PTI

#1:29 PM

Had heard about Budaun even when I was in Gujarat; What is the reason that fruits of development could not reach this land under SP, BSP?: PM Modi - PTI

#1:17 PM

Sasikala writes to TN Governor C Vidyasagar Rao, seeks appointment today to meet him along with her MLAs-ANI

#12:55 PM

All finance ministers have perpetual desire for cut in interest rate but respect decision taken by RBI: FM Arun Jaitley

#12:52 PM

There is some scope for further reduction in bank lending rate: RBI Governor Urjit Patel

#12:44 PM

Delhi: Crime branch busted 2 drug trafficking modules & arrested 3 drug traffickers. 170gm cocaine & 590 gm heroin recovered-ANI

#12:32 PM

AIADMK supporters reached Poes Garden to meet Sasikala Natarajan in Chennai

#12:20 PM

65-year-old Japanese man found dead at a hotel in New Town, Kolkata

#11:55 AM

Discussed future agenda of Sebi and budget announcements related to capital market: FM Arun Jaitley after meeting market regulator's board

#11:35 AM

It is a big responsibility and I look forward to handling it: New SEBI Chief Ajay Tyagi-ANI

#11:08 AM

AIADMK MPs PR Sundaram and Ashok Kumar offer support to O Panneerselvam

#11:15 AM

The three seats won by BJP are graduate MLC seats inA Uttar Pradesh-ANI

#11:08 AM

BJP wins all three MLC seats in UP where elections were held: Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Bareilly

#10:57 AM

Wang Qi and his family members arrived in Beijing a short while ago: Vikas Swarup, MEA

#10:32 AM

Lucknow: CM Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi launch alliance's common minimum program-ANI

#10:30 AM

Jalaun (UP): Crack detected on the railway track in Orai; Restoration work underway.-ANI

#10:23 AM

Sardhana(Meerut): Police detain Gagan Som, brother of BJP candidate Sangeet Som for carrying a pistol inside poll booth #uppolls2017-ANI

#10:09 AM

10.56% voting in first phase of Uttar Pradesh elections till 9 am-ANI

#9:55 AM

Fire breaks out in basement of Tata Cancer hospital in Mumbai. 4 fire engines and 4 water tankers rushed to the spot-ANI

#9:05 AM

500-kg Egyptian woman reaches Mumbai for weight loss treatment-PTI

#8:38 AM

Baghpat: Voters in Baraut given roses by EC officialsA

Baghpat: Voters in Baraut given roses by EC officials #uppolls2017 pic.twitter.com/xJquZT2WVn a ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

#8:30 AM

Chinese soldier Wang Qi, who crossed over to India in 1962 leaves for China with family after more than 50 years

#7:33 AM

Polling delayed in booth no.42 in Mathura's Govardhan, and in booth nos 119 and 120 in Baghpat as EVMs are not working-ANI

#7:15 AM

Trump says he is considering a new order to ban migrants from majority-Muslim nations, reports AFP

#7:14 AM

Stones pelted at media persons allegedly by AIADMK workers outside resort where AIADMK MLAs are lodged inA Tamil Nadu

#7:12 AM

Dadri: Polling underway in Bishada, people cast their votes-ANI

#6:56 AM

Mathura: People queue up outside a polling station in Govardhan. Voting to begin shortly-ANI

#6:50 AM

Voting for first phase of UP elections to begin shortly

6:46 AM

New Delhi-Bhubaneswar Indigo flight diverted to Kolkata due to heavy fog in Bhubaneshwar



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Kathua (J&K):

Union minister Jitendra Singh on Saturday called for a thorough probe into the antecedents of Rohingya Muslims and Bangladeshi settlers in Jammu and Kashmir.There is a need for a probe into the antecedents of these settlers in Jammu and Kashmir, he told reporters after a function in Kathua.



The Union Minister of State in the PMO also pointed towards the habitations of Bangladeshis and migrants from Myanmar in Jammu and said there was a need to inquire the reason behind their stay here.



Why some people, who have vested interests, have not objected to their stay in Jammu while continuously raising questions on the issuance of identity cards to West Pakistani refugees, Singh said, adding, I think, they want a demographic change in the state by supporting these foreigners staying here.



Addressing a public meeting, the Union minister said all the major road projects for Kathua, Udhampur districts and the erstwhile Doda district have been cleared to receive Central funds under the Central Road Fund (CRF), Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and Union Ministry of Defence/Border Road Organisation (BRO) fund.



He also laid foundation stones for road projects under PMGSY in Kathua and Hiranagar Assembly segments.

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Chennai:

In a boost to O Panneerselvam camp, an MLA and three MPs of AIADMK on Saturday joined him after deserting V K Sasikala who met the legislators supporting her and threatened to hold protests on Sunday against the delay in swearing her in as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

MLA and School Education Minister K Pandiarajan as also MPs P R Sundaram, K Ashok Kumar and Satyabama switched over to the Chief Ministers camp, pledging their support to him, amid mounting pressure from the party cadres and apparent public sentiment.

In the evening, party veteran, spokesman and minister in the MGR Cabinet C Ponnaiyan also drove to Panneerselvams residence and offered his support.

After these switchovers, Panneerselvam camp now has seven MLAs, including him. In the 235-member Tamil Nadu Assembly, AIADMK has 135 MLAs.

A former minister M M Rajendra Prasad also joined the Chief Ministers camp.

Rattled by the desertions, Sasikala, who has been elected the Leader of the AIADMK Legislature Party on February 5, drove to the luxury resort, 100 km from Chennai, in an attempt to prevent the MLAs who have been put up there for the last three days from switching sides.

K A Sengottaiyan, who was appointed the presidium chairman after the removal of Madhusudhanan, told reporters after Sasikalas meeting with the MLAs that all of them have taken a pledge that they will back her to the hilt till she becomes Chief Minister.

Kept on wait, Sasikala on Saturday night said, We were patient, tomorrow we will protest.

Earlier in the day, she wrote a letter to Governor Vidyasagar Rao, asking him to take steps immediately to swear her in at the earliest. She said she was ready to parade the party MLAs supporting her before him.

She told him she had on Thursday submitted an elaborate presentation to invite me to form the government as I have absolute majority, besides the original letter and true copy of the resolution electing her as the AIADMK Legislature party leader.

Sasikala said she believed that the Governor would act immediately to save the sovereignty of the Constitution, democracy and the interest of Tamil Nadu.

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New Delhi:

World's heaviest women has arrived in India for weight reduction treatment at a local facility. The 36-year-old Eman Ahmed will be under observation for a month before she undergoes surgery.



Eman is currently under the observation of a city-based bariatric surgeon Muffazal Lakdawala, and his team of doctors. Eman has mot moved out of her house for 25 years.

For almost three months all the necessary treatment and precautions have been taken for the transportation of bed-bound Eman from Egypt's Alexandria city, an aide to Lakdawala said.

"Even though transporting Eman to Mumbai was a challenging task keeping in mind the complexities of her case as she is a high-risk patient who has not been able to move or leave the house for the past 25 years," doctors said.

Also Read: Eman Ahmed, World's heaviest woman passes away in Abu Dhabi's Burjeel Hospital

Eman was accompanied by Aparna Govil Bhasker, an Advanced Laparoscopic and Bariatric Surgeon at Centre of Obesity and Digestive Surgery and Head of Department of Bariatric surgery at Saifee hospital, and Kamlesh Bohra, Senior Intensivist, Department of Critical and Intensive Care at Saifee Hospital in Mumbai.

"She, along with her sister Shaimaa Ahmed, arrived in Mumbai early on Saturday. To prepare her for the flight, the team of doctors have been in Egypt for the last 10 days to optimise the conditions for her travel; given the fact that she is so heavy and not moved for the last 25 years she is at a high risk for a pulmonary embolism and hence has been put on blood thinners to try and minimise the chances of such an eventuality during her transfer," doctors said.

A special bed was created by local Egyptian artisans in requirements with the safety precautions as laid out by the Egypt Air for her safe transport on ground and in the plane. As a precautionary measure, the flight was furnished with all the equipment required in case of an emergency such as a portable ventilator, portable defibrillator, oxygen cylinders, intubating laryngoscopes and other safety drugs.

Eman is being transported by a fully equipped truck, which will be followed by an ambulance and a police escort toSaifee Hospital where a special room has been created for her.

(With PTI Input)
New Delhi:

NASAs New Horizons spacecraft which was sent to observe dwarf planet Pluto, faced a glitch. It then went into automatic safe mode to protect itself and suspended its operations. NASA had confirmed that they will be able to restore it to normalcy with the help of signals coming from Mission Operations Centre as the antenna which was facing the Earth was alive.

The New Horizons is now healthy and directing towards its next target as confirmed by the US space agency. Its next target is Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69. The agency has also confirmed that its operations have been restored to full and will resume its scientific data collection. The team hopes to restore New Horizons spacecraft back to normalcy by Sunday.

The New Horizons spacecraft mission is quite beneficial to scientists as it is helping them to understand the edge of our solar system by exploring the small planet Pluto and also the study of distant Kuiper Belt that may be of help in providing information about the formation of solar system. It was launched on January 19, 2006.

New Horizons completed a short propulsive maneuver on February 1, 2017 in order to clarify its track toward New Years Day flyby past 2014 MU69, a Kuiper Belt object (KBO) some 4 billion miles from Earth. But on Thursday, February 9, 2017, NASAs New Horizons spacecraft underwent into a protective safe mode, due to a command-loading error that occurred early Thursday.

It returned back to normalcy after it followed instructions from the Mission Operations Center at the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.

Our rapid recovery was supported by other NASA missions that provided New Horizons with some of their valuable Deep Space Network antenna time, said Alice Bowman, New Horizons mission operations manager at APL.

For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Leading Power: A Look at Japan vs. China

One of Geopolitical Futures most controversial forecasts is that by 2040, Japan will rise as East Asias leading power. Many readers often ask for an explanation of the logic in this forecast.

They understand that GPF is bearish on China . And while some readers may disagree on that point, they usually see that the reasoning is sound and that China will face serious problems in coming years problems that will strain the Communist Partys rule.

Japan, however, seems a bridge too far. Its population is less than a tenth of Chinas size (and its not just aging but shrinking). Japan also has a debt-to-GDP ratio over 229%. So, how is it that Japan will emerge in the next 25 years as East Asias most powerful country?

A full answer would require more space than we have in this article. But a good place to start is a broad comparison of the structure of China and Japans economies (the second and third largest economies in the world, respectively). This analysis will reveal strengths and weaknesses for both and will aim to bring our forecast into sharper relief.

Chinas Economic Weaknesses

The map above divides China into four geographic regions by contribution to Chinas national GDP. These regions do not have any official administrative function, but Chinas National Bureau of Statistics sometimes uses these divisions to understand how Chinas economy is performing at a regional level. It also must be noted that these figures are likely manipulated for political purposes.

The data are taken from the annual yearbook of Chinas National Bureau of Statistics but contain notable discrepancies. For example, the regional figures do not add up to the national figureadding the regional numbers yields a GDP that is roughly 5% (approximately $54 billion) greater than Chinas reported national figure.

Accepting that some of these figures may be inflated or downplayed for various reasons, they still reveal much about Chinas economic weaknesses. The coastal Eastern Region accounts for more than half of all economic activity in China. Stated another way, nine of Chinas 34 provincial administrative units produce more than half of the countrys total wealth.

The Central and Western regions, in turn, each produce about 20% of Chinas economic wealth.

But that is somewhat misleading. The Western Region accounts for more than half of Chinas total land area. When compared to other regions, it produces less than half the economic activity of the Eastern Region and produces the same amount as the Central Region, which is less than half its size.

The Northeastern Region appears to be an outlier. It accounts for just 8% of Chinas GDP.

Most of this regions economic activity is heavy industry and has been under severe pressure as China attempts to increase internal demand and decrease dependence on exports.

In practical terms, this means that Chinas biggest economic weakness and its most potent enemy is poverty. Regional economic disparities exist in many countries in the world. But in China, they have always been particularly acute, causing massive wealth disparity between Chinas coastal provinces and its other regions.

Chinas sheer size magnifies this problem. According to the World Bank, in 1981, roughly 1 billion Chinese people lived on less than $3.10 a day (at 2011 purchasing power parity).

The World Banks latest data (from 2010) show that the number dropped to 360 million that year.

That is an awesome accomplishmentnot in the present-day colloquial sense of the word awesome, but in the sense that it is worthy of awe and wonder. The problem is that it is also insufficient. China has been growing at a remarkable rate for the past 30 years, but that growth is slowing down, and 360 million people still live in abject poverty.

Most of Chinas economic success is enjoyed by the coast not the rest of the country.

China is the most populous country in the world and the fourth largest in terms of area.

This is a source of great power for China, but it is also a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it means there are great advantages. China can deploy huge armies. It is buffered from enemies by vast territory or harsh geography on all sides. It can also mobilize human capital like no other country. (India possesses a similar population, but its government is far weaker and less centralized than Chinas.)

On the other hand, it means that China often spends more on internal security than it does on the much-vaunted Peoples Liberation Army. It also rules over many regions that are not ethnically Han Chinese and that want greater autonomy (if not independence). And China must maintain a robust capability to guard its borders.

China is a formidable land-based power, but China has never been a global maritime power in its long history. It has always been susceptible to internal revolution and, at times, external conquest.

Size is not always the most important part of power. In this case, distribution of wealth may not be sexy, but it is more important.

Wealth Concentration in Japan

At first glance, this map of Japan would seem to imply a similar level of wealth concentration in certain regions. Like China, Japan is informally divided into regions and sometimes reports data at the regional level. Japan is made up of four main islands: KyAshA, Shikoku, Honshu, and Hokkaido (there are other small islands, but these four mainly compose the Japanese nation-state).

KyAshA, Shikoku, and Hokkaido constitute regions of their own. Honshu, by far the largest and most populous of the Japanese islands, is subdivided into five additional regions. Together, these five Honshu regions account for 87% of the Japanese economy.

A bout 43% of that economic activity comes from the KantA Regions seven prefectures. Stated another way, seven prefectures of a total of 47 generate 37.6% of Japans economy.

This map also separates Tokyo prefecture from the others to provide a sense of how much of Japans GDP comes from its capital city. Tokyo prefecture (by itself) accounts for just over 18% of Japans total GDP. (For reference, Russia is a significantly imbalanced economy, and Moscow accounts for over 21% of its economy.)

Factoring in the Tokyo greater metropolitan area increases this figure. According to the latest available data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (from 2012), Tokyo had the largest GDP of any city in the world at $1.48 trillion. (Seoul was second with a GDP of less than half of that.) That means that greater Tokyo accounts for almost a third of Japans total GDP.

The disparity of wealth between Chinas coast and interior is striking, but arguably it is even more pronounced at first glance when looking at this map of Japan.

Japans Advantage

Appearances, however, can be deceiving. Unlike China, Japans wealth is spread much more evenly among its population. On the simplest level, this is easier to accomplish with a population of 127.3 million than with a population of 1.3 billion.

It is not strictly about size: The diversity resulting from size is what holds China back. Japan does not have to deal with the type of coastal versus interior diversity that China does. There is, for example, a wide gulf in per capita income at both the rural and urban level in China. A rural household in Shanghai, for example, makes two times less than a rural household in Tibet, while an urban household in Tibet makes less than half of what an urban household in Shanghai does.

The latest per capita GDP data available at the prefectural level in Japan is from 2013, but it paints a different picture. The gulf between the prefectures with the highest and lowest per capita income is stark. Tokyos GDP per capita is 4.5 million yen ($40,000), while Okinawas is 2.1 million yen. But Tokyo is a significant outlier in this regard. In the China example, almost every coastal province could be compared with an interior province and a similar gulf would exist. In Japan, only Tokyo is significantly above the mean per capita income of 3.1 million yen for the entire country, and that is due, in part, to the higher cost of living in the city. There is wealth disparity in Japan to be sure, but the disparity is not on the same scale as that which exists at the provincial level in China.

Japans greatest challenge has little to do with regional wealth disparity or poverty.

Japans great weakness is its dependence on imports for food and raw materials.

According to Japans Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the countrys total food self-sufficiency ratio based on calorie supply was just 39% in 2015. Based on production value, it was just 66%.

According to last months import data released by the same ministry, Japan imported 24.3 million tons of cereals, of which Japan was self-sufficient only in rice. Japan relies almost entirely on imports for staples like wheat, barley, corn, and soy.

Energy is another example of this dependence on imports. One of the main reasons Japan entered World War II was to protect its access to oil. Today, Japan remains reliant on foreign sources of energy. Even before the Fukushima nuclear reactor accident in 2011, Japan relied on foreign sources for close to 80% of its energy supply. Since 2012, that number has risen to almost 91% (according to the US Energy Information Administration). For mineral resources like copper, lead, zinc, and others that are important for an industrialized economy, Japan is also highly dependent on imports.

Some will argue that Japans bigger problem is demographics. It is true that Japan has a rapidly aging population. But so does China: The number of working-age Chinese has been declining since 2013. Most European countries also face this issue Germany most prominent among them. Demographics are notoriously hard to predict, as are the effects of demographic changes.

What can be said is this: Japan is one of the top investors in the world in artificial intelligence research, automation, and robotics technology in order to maintain productivity. And while Japanese society is homogenous and relatively unfriendly to outsiders, desperate circumstances could call for desperate measures and necessitate changing policies on immigration. The broader Asia-Pacific region also offers opportunities for Japan to find workers if it needed.

The point here is that Japan is facing a demographic problem, but so is much of the industrialized world. There are tangible things Japan can do to improve the situation. The same is not true of Japans lack of natural resourcesthere is no magic solution to not having enough copper at home.

A Comparison

Japan is the 62nd largest country in terms of area. Countries like Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Botswana are all bigger in size. It is the 11th largest in terms of populationIndonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh all have much larger populations than Japan. Neither of these facts disqualify Japan from rising as a regional power. The United Kingdom ruled the world with a small population and a country slightly smaller in area than Japan. Japans ability to dominate the region, therefore, cannot be ruled out based on size and demographics alone.

Unlike China, Japan has no land-based enemiesit is an island nation. Unlike China, the Japanese government has no concern about its ability to impose its writ throughout the entire country. Nor does it have to contend with a huge gulf in wealth disparity between different parts of the country. Japan has already managed a transition from a high-growth economy to a low-growth economy without revolution.

One mans stagnation is another mans stability. One mans Lost Decade is another mans Stable Decade. Japans weaknesses have manifested in the development of a strong navy able to guard maritime supply lines. It has also cultivated a tight alliance with a country that will guard those supply lines, the United States.

To be clear, China is still an immensely powerful country relative to most in the world. In addition, much of GPFs writing remains focused on understanding how economic problems in China are manifesting in political challenges. For now, Japan is less dynamic and important though it will become more so and our writing will increase as it does.

For now, what happens in China has a major impact on the global economy, and a great deal is happening. China is also pouring money into developing its military capabilitiesespecially its navyto be better prepared to assert Chinese power at a global scale, and these capabilities must be constantly tracked. The problem for China is that it is unclear if the country can pull off the kind of politically stable economic transition that Japan managed when its high-growth miracle ended in the early 1990s.
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A crowd of nearly 100 New Yorkers gathered outside the Crown Heights office of State Senator Jesse Hamilton Friday to demand that he withdraw from the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of eight rogue Democrats who caucus with Senate Republicans.

Huddled close in the frigid weather, the protesters chanted "Shut down the IDC/Democrat majority" while educating confused passers-by about the complex inner-workings of Albany politics.

"This is just the beginning of a sustained calling out and shining a harsh light on what the bland-sounding IDC really stands for," said Tim Murphy, a journalist and activist. "It stands for blocking progressive change for their own selfish, power-brokering interests."

Though Hamilton typically meets with constituents on Friday afternoon, the senator's office announced on Wednesday night that he'd be spending Friday delivering Valentine's Day cardsa move many interpreted as intentional evasion. "The target of the protest is too scared to be here and actually listen to constituents who voted for him," said Murphy, to loud cheers. Hamilton's office did not immediately respond to Gothamist's request for comment.

Friday's demonstration was the latest event in what's become a burgeoning grassroots movement to push the IDC members back into caucusing with mainline Democrats. During a raucous town hall meeting in Jackson Heights last week, hundreds of protesters confronted Senator Jose Peralta about his surprise defection to the IDC, accusing him of quietly betraying the progressive platform on which he ran. At the town hall, Peralta spoke at length about the ineffectiveness of the Senate Democrats, and accused them of provoking the protests.

In recent weeks, the IDC, which now counts eight members and has served as a bulwark for the Republican majority in Albany, has come under intense scrutiny from activists seeking progressive policy changes on the state level.

"I take for granted that New York City is this safe, progressive place, but progressivism is fragile," said Patrick Horrigan, an East Village resident who said he only became aware of the IDC last month. "Now, I just feel like it's so important that we in this country try to create strongholds that can resist the Trump administration."

Lizzie Scott, a Crown Heights resident who voted for Hamilton in the most recent election, said she has been following the IDC for some time, but was only recently driven to take action. "I've been working with a lot of other public school parents organizing against Betsy DeVos, and so now that whole fight is going to have to shift to the state level," Scott said. "With Hamilton in the IDCvouchers and privatization, they'll be supporting all of that. And we really need to be protecting public schools at the state level." (Hamilton has been vocal in his support for public schools, though state Republicans have long pushed for forms of privatization.)

According to Harris Doran, a Washington Heights-based organizer with Rise & Resist, one of the groups that organized the protest, another demonstration will take place in two weeks at the Bayside office of state Senator Tony Avella, who began caucusing with the Republicans in 2014. Doran expects that all eight IDC members will face similar opposition in the coming months, and that the protests will only grow as more people learn about the IDCs power-sharing arrangement with the GOP. Already, he said, Rise & Resist is in talks with potential primary challengers for Democrats who refuse to leave the IDC.

"We need a majority and we're no longer waiting around for someone else to do it," Doran said. "Just like all across the country, New Yorkers are taking back our state."


See the list of academic institutions that collude with the weapons, biotech, and medical industries to enslave humanity

The system. The machine. The man. The powers that be. Whatever you choose to call the hidden power structure that pulls many of the strings in our country and world, its function is still the same: to enslave the people of our planet with agenda-driven propaganda, fake fiat currencies, endless war, toxins and disease, chemical medicine and biotechnology, and various other mechanisms of nefarious control that, for all intents and purposes, ultimately lead to misery and death.

But who or what are the entities behind all this destruction, and is there anything we can do to stop them? Exposing them is the first step. The following 10 institutions represent some of the most influential players in the compartmentalized system of warfare that continues to be waged against free humanity:

1) Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

This global research university is a product of the infamous industrialist and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, whose legacy is marked by American subversion and globalism. C.M.U. churns out human assets to benefit not only the United States war machine, but also its various illegal spying and subversion apparatuses such as the National Security Agency (N.S.A.), which operates in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

It is common for C.M.U. to receive large grants from private entities to produce various technologies for the military-industrial complex, which is responsible for spreading chaos, destruction, and death throughout the world.

2) Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT)

This technical college works closely with the militarys mad science division known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (D.A.R.P.A.), which is essentially what produces war technology for the Pentagon. D.A.R.P.A. is responsible for developing big data entities like the N.S.A., as well as other advanced technologies for use in war. G.I.T. is also closely intertwined with defense contractor Northrop Grumman.

3) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

M.I.T. is widely recognized as one of the worlds most reputable technical schools, but the institute is said to be where evil technologies such as weather manipulation and chemtrails were first developed. So-called geoengineering and its ties to M.I.T. Are well-documented in such works as Peter Kirbys Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project.

4) Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)

When it comes to the reengineering of food, W.P.I. has played an integral role in the development of gene-modification techniques and biotechnology that have changed the nature of the foods we eat. W.P.I. is heavily entrenched in the pro-GMO narrative, claiming that genetically-modified organisms are completely safe and pose no risks to human health or the environment.

5) Michigan State University (MSU)

Another GMO cheerleader is M.S.U., which was exposed for accepting a government grant to develop a transgenic potato for use in Bangladesh and India. Both of these countries, and the latter in particular, have been devastated by the GMO invasion. Tens of thousands of Indian farmers have committed suicide because of failed biotechnology tools that were forced upon them by greedy multinationals like Monsanto.

6) Purdue University

A major player in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, Purdue University actually claims that GMOs help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, even when the chemicals used to grow them have been shown to absolutely devastate the environment, including soils that, in an otherwise healthy state, are meant to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) and sequester to prevent so-called global warming.

7) The Modern War Institute.

As its name suggests, this think tank organization self-identifies as a national resource within the Dept. of Military Instruction that studies recent and on-going conflicts. Part of the United States Military Academy at West Point (U.S.M.A.), the Modern War Institute functions similarly to the Council on Foreign Relations (C.F.R.), a known globalist group that pushes war to advance certain agendas, particularly in the Middle East.

8) Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (at Harvard University)

This school is another geoengineering cheerleader that works closely with the U.S. government to develop technologies that it says are meant to block out the sun and prevent climate change. In truth, what this institution is doing is developing advanced methods of producting chemtrails that are harming people and the planet.

9) Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech)

This hotbed of government and military activity is another D.A.R.P.A. ally that develops robots for the military-industrial complex, including so-called humanoid robots that are the type of thing one might imagine would possess enough artificial intelligence to take on humanity and possibly destroy it.

10) Israel Institute of Technology (Technion)

This institutional arm of Big Pharma and Big Biotech has been a major catalyst in the conversion of our natural world into a synthetic one. Its first president, Alfred Mond, was a Jewish industrialist and active Zionist who steered the schools research focus towards chemicals and synthetics. Technion was founded at a time before the westernmost segment of the formerly Ottoman Palestine became what we now know as modern-day Israel.

Sources for this article include:

TheMindUnleashed.com

GlobalResearch.ca

NPR.org

TomDispatch.com

Submit a correction >>
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It's that time of year again. The Knot released its annual report on wedding trends, and the average cost for 2016 comes to ... drum roll please ... $35,329. This is an 8 percent increase from the 2015 average of $32,641.

That's a national average, with a lot of variation across the country. According to the Knot's study of 13,000 heterosexual couples who married in the United States last year, the most expensive place to get hitched is Manhattan, with the average wedding there costing $78,464; and the most affordable spot is Arkansas, at an average of $19,522. The survey found that, on average, a bride's parents cover 44 percent of the overall wedding budget; the couple contribute 42 percent; and a groom's parents' pay for 13 percent. However, 10 percent of couples pay for their weddings entirely on their own.

Last year, we brainstormed five things you could get for about the same price as a wedding: a boat, a trip around the world, two years of graduate school tuition, one year of college for 10 women in Africa or 82,000 meals for people in the Washington, D.C., area. We're keeping that tradition alive with six new ideas of how to spend $35,000 if you were to forgo a wedding altogether.

More Living Here's how much people are spending to get married in San Francisco

1) Food truck: $34,000

Some couples rent food trucks as a low-cost catering option at their weddings. However, an entrepreneurial couple could buy their own food truck for the price of a wedding - Craigslist recently had a posting in the D.C. area for a food truck with a 14-foot kitchen includes a griddle, deep fryer, stove, salad bar unit, freezer and more for $34,000. Parking permits and taco shells sold separately.

2) Model 3 Tesla: $35,000

Let's say you're in the market for a less-clunky vehicle than a food truck. There's the "Tesla for the masses," available at just $35,000 (compared to their other models, which range from $68,000 to $140,000). After the electric-vehicle tax credit, you'll have $7,000 or so left over to fund your honeymoon.

3) Feed 350 school children, on weekends, for an entire school year: $35,000

The average amount spent on catering at a wedding in 2016 was $71 per guest. Now, the full price of a wedding could provide food for 350 school children on the weekends. According to its website, the nonprofit organization Blessings in a Backpack provides food to 89,000 children who get free meals at school but can't always count on being fed over the weekends.

4) Tiny home: $35,000

In a tiny home (typically 300 square feet), you'd have no room for wedding gifts anyway, so good thing you're skipping the nuptials. The Tiny House Blog puts the average contractor-built tiny house at $35,000, though there's quite a range out there.

5) Go on $35,000 worth of extravagant dinner dates

Let's see: For about $16,000, two people can dine at the world's 12 most expensive restaurants -- according to this list from Forbes - in New York, Spain, France, Japan, Beverly Hills and more. That leaves about $20,000 left over for airfare and hotels, which should do just fine as long as you're not flying first-class and staying at the world's most expensive hotels.

6) Four tickets on the 50-yard line at the Super Bowl: $36,000

According to TicketCity, around $9,000 will get you a club-level premium ticket to this year's Super Bowl on the 50-yard line. For $36,000, you and your significant other can go - and bring your best friends along.
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Western Greenwich

The Welcome to Greenwich, Gateway to New England sign from Port Chester into Greenwich along Route 1 is hardly in prime condition.

The First Selectmans Youth Commission is aiming to do something about it.

The group of students from the towns public and private schools are seeking permission from the state to revitalize the sign.

According to Jenny Byxbee, who oversees the commission in her role at the Greenwich Youth Services Bureau, the goal is to make Greenwich proud.

The current youth commission members are envisioning this as their spring project and they hope it will be their end of year gift to Greenwich, Byxbee said.

The idea to give the sign a fresh look originated by former youth commission member Holly Roth, who is a graduate of the Convent of the Sacred Hearts Greenwich campus, and her fellow student Grace Thompson.

First Selectman Peter Tesei said he was happy to see the kids take the initiative.

This project exemplifies what the Youth Commission is all about, community involvement and the development of our future community leaders, Tesei said. I wholeheartedly endorse the refurbishment of the welcome sign as it will have a positive impact on the Towns aesthetics.

People interested in helping with the project can email Byxbee at Jennifer.Byxbee@greenwichct.org.

Old Greenwich

The towns wireless technology needs an upgrade, its administrators said.

Town Information Technology Director Tom Klein appeared before the Board of Estimate and Taxations Budget Committee last week to seek approval for $35,000 in the 2017-18 budget to improve the system. The towns wide-area network has dedicated fiber in place for all areas of town except Greenwich Point.

What we have is a small dish that sits on top of Town Hall and points to the Chimes Building (at Greenwich Point), Klein said. It carries point-to-point data and lets us extend the town network to that location. Its an old and slow system and the tree line has grown in such a way that it now interferes.

According to Klein, a company needs to realign the system  either by pushing up the dish or relocating it. Klein said he was eyeing the Sound Beach Fire House in Old Greenwich as a new site, since there is already a large antenna in place.

We havent checked it completely yet, but we have reasonable confidence there would be a line-of-sight either to the Chimes Building or the Old Greenwich Yacht Club, where we have a small dish as well, Klein told the Budget Committee during the review for his departments capital requests.

The data lines are needed for use at the gatehouse leading into Greenwich Point so beach passes can be verified through the towns system in the Parks and Recreation Department.

Klein admitted the system was a little Rube Goldberg-ish as it goes from the gatehouse to the yacht club to the Chimes Building to Town Hall. Klein told the committee the $35,000 would be a one-time cost and the upgrade would last another 10 years.

Cos Cob

River House Adult Day Center says it will be able to benefit more local seniors thanks to a grant it received from the Robie and Scott Spector Fund at Fairfield Countys Community Foundation.

The 3:1 Challenge Grant provided a three dollar match for every one dollar contributed up to a $20,000 match. The grant money will be used for scholarships to allow seniors to take part in River House programs.

The facility, which is lat the site of the old pump house near the Mianus River in Cos Cob, is designed to give older adults a place during the day so their families and caregivers can have a rest with peace of mind. Programs include activities that stress socialization and recreation to family support and bathing and personal hygiene.

Since River Houses policy is never to turn away anyone based on ability to pay, the donations are a big assist, administrators said.

We are overjoyed by the generosity and support of the Robie and Scott Spector Foundation, River Houses Executive Director Donna Spellman said. Robie saw the benefits of our program the minute she walked through our doors and she immediately offered to help.

And for Spector, it was a connection to her own family that inspired her.

I loved my grandparents and I think of them when I look in the faces of the clients at River House, Spector said. I am grateful that these seniors can partake in this essential program. Senior assistance is one of the most underfunded needs in our community.

Spector said the staffs kind, respectful and professional care was heartwarming.

They need funding to provide services for the most vulnerable, and I hope the community will join us in this effort to bring much needed funds to River House, Spector said.

More information about River House is online at www.theRiverHouse.org .

Backcountry

Residents from the Porchuck and North Porchuck Road area who were concerned about drivers going too fast on the sometimes tricky curves of the neighborhood may soon see some relief.

Town Deputy Commissioner of Public Works James Michel said signs will be installed in the next few months to urge traffic to slow down for curves ahead.

While praising the efforts of the Department of Public Works and Greenwich Police Department, First Selectman Peter Tesei said the new could not mandate a reduced speed.

We receive these requests routinely, but the town must conform with the uniform traffic manual from the state of Connecticut, Tesei said. We cant just arbitrarily say, Gee ... we want to lower the speed limit on their road. Theres clear guidance and based upon the technical assessment the request (for a speed limit) did not meet it.

Tesei said he hoped improved signage would help and that further work could be done through a program with the University of Connecticut that pairs students and the DPW for traffic studies that could lead to state grant money for improvements.

Tesei said the issue was a reflection of a modern challenge.

One of the things that has, I think, exacerbated the situation is that, with the advancement of GPS technologies, it routes drives through secondary and tertiary roads to get to a point of interest like Westchester County Airport, Tesei said. So as you exit Round Hill Road and Route 15, it takes you to Porchuck onto Riversville Road probably over to John Street to King Street. They would like us to put no left turn signs in, and were going to look into it.
And so it begins...like a car crash that noone wants to look at, but all are irrresistably drawn to, we are all going to be transfixed by th...
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DANBURY - The states fastest-growing city is expected to continue its steady growth through the end of the decade, challenging public schools to accommodate hundreds of new students without building new classrooms.

A new demographers report predicts that public school enrollment will increase 5 to 8 percent over the next decade. Danbury High School - already the states largest, with enrollment exceeding 3,100  could be home to as many as 560 additional students.

The good news is that an ongoing $50 million expansion, which will add 24 classrooms to the high school by 2018, is expected to absorb the increase, school officials said last week.

But there may be another issue with enrollment in Danburys three middle schools, which is expected to jump 8.6 percent over the next four years, according to the report.

"We have some pressures there, Superintendent Sal Pascarella said Friday. We may have to add some modular classrooms.

Mayor Mark Boughton said the school system will also try to make better use of existing space, but he added that more construction is not in the cards.

We are done expanding our schools, the mayor said. We are not going to do any more building.

Danburys annual enrollment growth of 2 percent is in contrast to declining public school enrollment in surrounding towns and across the state - a trend attributed to the lingering effects of the Great Recession. The enrollment crisis in places such as Newtown, New Milford, Ridgefield and the three Litchfield County towns that make up Region 12 is forcing districts to debate the best uses for empty rooms and to consider closing schools.

But Danbury, which has a low crime rate, a low unemployment rate and relatively inexpensive housing, continues to attract new families.

There are some blocks in the city where you would never see kids before, because they had grown up and the parents would sell the house and move south, Boughton said. Now those streets have three or four families in each house, and you see 30 kids waiting for the bus in the morning.

The enrollment growth comes at a time when Danbury and other urban districts are fighting for a greater share of state education aid to serve their needier students - often poorer and less school-ready than their peers in affluent suburban districts.

The city and its urban allies won a partial victory in court last year, when a judge ruled that Connecticuts education funding formula was irrational and unconstitutional. The state is appealing the decision,

Last week Gov. Dannel P. Malloy proposed a budget for 2017-18 that shifts state education aid away from wealthier towns toward city districts, including Danbury.

Getting more state aid is important if Danbury is going to hire the teachers it needs to keep pace with its enrollment, administrators said.

We are growing from 700 students per grade to 900 students per grade, Pascarella said, so hopefully we are having an impact on the states thinking.

Keeping pace

Just two years ago, the city built 18 classrooms at its elementary schools - including five classrooms at Shelter Rock School. By the fall, space was so tight at Shelter Rock that the city had to buy four temporary classrooms. Next year, the city might have to add more.

Joseph Martino, the districts finance director, said the temperature-controlled classrooms are ideal because they are modern and economical.

It would have cost us $3 or $4 million to build those classrooms, Martino said, adding that the modular classrooms cost a total of $440,000.

The situation at Shelter Rock illustrates the difficulty of keeping up with growth in Danbury, which has a substantial immigrant population that has been estimated at 40 percent.

Planning is very hard, because families will move around the city, Martino said. So it is always hard to peg growth at individual elementary schools.

Another difficulty is that growth projections dont always tell the whole story.

For example, in 2014, the city had been working with a demographer to understand space needs for the high school. The demographer projected the schools would have 11,150 students enrolled by 2024.

Today, the district already has 11,375 students enrolled.

We knew we were growing and that is why we wanted this study, Pascarella said of the new demographers report, prepared by Milone & MacBroom and presented to the Danbury Board of Education earlier this month. It told us that our growth is going to be sustained, and its not a blip.

The study also identified larger trends in Danbury, which at 84,000 is Connecticuts 7th-largest city. The report says:

The city population will reach 100,000 by 2040

Growth has been unevenly distributed, with the most growth on the periphery of City Center - the downtown neighborhood that encompasses Main Street

Housing sales are climbing after a precipitous decline in 2006

One finding that caught Boughtons attention was that three blocks of what were once single-family homes on Osborne Street are now home to more students than the 470-unit rental development known as Abbey Woods.

The mayor has launched several initiatives to keep single-family neighborhoods from becoming too dense with multi-family apartments. Among the initiatives is a proposal to assess multi-family homes at a commercial rate.

If you have four families living in a single-family home and they each have two kids, thats $12,000 (to educate) each student, which adds up to $100,000 in services theyre eating up, Boughton said. A house like that ought to be moved into a commercial rate, because it is a commercial enterprise.

The good news from the demographers study is that elementary school enrollment is flattening out, city leaders said.

We have to manage our growth, and I think well be able to do it, Boughton said. We plan for the plan for the worst, and hope for the best.
U.S. immigration authorities arrested hundreds of undocumented immigrants in at least a half-dozen states this week in a series of raids that marked the first large-scale enforcement of President Donald Trump's Jan. 26 order to crack down on the estimated 11 million immigrants living here illegally.

The raids, which officials said targeted known criminals, also netted some immigrants who did not have criminal records, an apparent departure from similar enforcement waves during former President Barack Obama's administration that aimed to just corral and deport those who had committed crimes.

Trump has pledged to deport up to 3 million undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Last month he also made a change to the Obama administration's policy of prioritizing deportation for convicted criminals, substantially broadening the scope of who the Department of Homeland Security can target, to include those with only minor offenses or those with no convictions at all.

Immigration officials confirmed that agents this week raided homes and workplaces in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, the Los Angeles area, North Carolina and South Carolina, netting hundreds of people. But Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said they were part of "routine" immigration enforcement actions. ICE dislikes the term "raids," and prefers to say authorities are conducting "targeted enforcement actions."

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Christensen said the raids, which began Monday and ended Friday at noon, found undocumented immigrants from a dozen Latin American countries. "We're talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system," she said, noting that the majority of those detained were serious criminals, including some who had been convicted of murder and domestic violence.

Immigration activists said the crackdown went beyond the six states DHS identified, and said they had also documented ICE raids of unusual intensity during the past two days in Florida, Kansas, Texas and Northern Virginia.

That undocumented immigrants with no criminal records were arrested and could potentially be deported sent a shock through immigrant communities nationwide amid concerns that the U.S. government could start going after law-abiding people.

"This is clearly the first wave of attacks under the Trump administration, and we know this isn't going to be the only one," Cristina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream, an immigrant youth organization, said Friday during a conference call with immigration advocates.

ICE agents in the Los Angeles area Thursday swept a number of individuals into custody over the course of an hour, seizing them from their homes and on their way to work in daytime operations, activists said.

David Marin, ICE's field director in the Los Angeles area, said in a conference call with reporters Friday that 75 percent of the approximately 160 people detained in the operation this week had felony convictions; the rest had misdemeanors or were in the U.S. illegally. Officials said Friday night that 37 of those detained in Los Angeles have been deported to Mexico.

"Dangerous criminals who should be deported are being released into our communities," Marin said.

A video that circulated on social media Friday appeared to show ICE agents detaining people in an Austin shopping center parking lot. Immigration advocates also reported roadway checkpoints, where ICE appeared to be targeting immigrants for random ID checks, in North Carolina and in Austin. ICE officials denied that authorities used checkpoints during the operations.

"I'm getting lots of reports from my constituents about seeing ICE on the streets. Teachers in my district have contacted me - certain students didn't come to school today because they're afraid," said Greg Cesar, an Austin city council member. "I talked to a constituent, a single mother, who had her door knocked on this morning by ICE."

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said he confirmed with ICE's San Antonio office that the agency "has launched a targeted operation in South and Central Texas as part of Operation Cross Check."

"I am asking ICE to clarify whether these individuals are in fact dangerous, violent threats to our communities, and not people who are here peacefully raising families and contributing to our state," Castro said in a statement Friday night.

Hiba Ghalib, an immigration lawyer in Atlanta, said the ICE detentions were causing "mass confusion" in the immigrant community. She said she had heard reports of ICE agents going door-to-door in one largely Hispanic neighborhood, asking people to present their papers.

"People are panicking," Ghalib said. "People are really, really scared."

Immigration officials acknowledged that authorities had cast a wider net than they would have last year, as the result of Trump's executive order.

The Trump administration is facing a series of legal challenges to that order, and on Thursday lost a court battle over a separate executive order to temporarily ban entry to the U.S. by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries, as well as by refugees. The administration said Friday that it is considering raising the case to the Supreme Court.

Some activists in Austin and Los Angeles suggested that the raids might be retaliation for those cities' so-called "sanctuary city" policies. A government aide familiar with the raids said it is possible the predominantly daytime operations - a departure from the Obama administration's night raids - meant to "send a message to the community that the Trump deportation force is in effect."

Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a pro-immigrant advocacy group, said the wave of detentions harks back to the George W. Bush administration, when workplace raids to sweep up all undocumented workers were common.

The Obama administration conducted a spate of raids, and also pursued a more aggressive deportation policy than any previous president, sending more than 400,000 people back to their birth countries at the height of his deportations in 2012. The public outcry over the lengthy detentions and deportations of women, children and people with minor offenses led Obama in his second term to prioritize convicted criminals for deportation.

A DHS official confirmed that while immigration agents were targeting criminals, given the broader range defined by Trump's executive order they also were sweeping up non-criminals in the vicinity who were found to be lacking documentation. It was unclear how many of the people detained would have been excluded under Obama's policy.

Federal immigration officials, as well as activists, said that the majority of those detained were adult men,and that no children were taken into custody.

"Big cities tend to have a lot of illegal immigrants," said one immigration official who was not authorized to speak publicly because of the sensitive nature of the operation. "They're going to a target-rich environment."

Immigrant rights groups said they were planning protests in response to the raids, including one Friday evening in Federal Plaza in New York City, and a vigil in Los Angeles.

"We cannot understate the level of panic and terror that is running through many immigrant communities," said Walter Barrientos of Make the Road in New York City, who spoke on a conference call with immigration advocates.

"We're trying to make sure that families who have been impacted are getting legal services as quickly as possible. We're trying to do some legal triage," said Bob Libal, the executive director of Grassroots Leadership, which provides assistance and advocacy work to immigrants in Austin. "It's chaotic," he said. The organization's hotline, he said, had been overwhelmed with calls.

Jeanette Vizguerra, 35, a Mexican house cleaner whose permit to stay in the country expired this week, said Friday during the conference call that she was newly apprehensive about her scheduled meeting with ICE next week.

Fearing deportation, Vizguerra, a Denver mother of four including three who are U.S. citizens, said through an interpreter that she had called on activists and supporters to accompany her to the meeting.

"I know I need to mobilize my community, but I know my freedom is at risk here," Vizguerra said through an interpreter.

- - -

Janell Ross in Los Angeles and Camille Pendley in Atlanta contributed to this report.
TORONTO, Feb. 10, 2017 /CNW/ - Redknee Solutions Inc. (TSX: RKN), a leading provider of real-time monetization and subscriber management software, is pleased to announce that it has signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal with WOM Chile. This BSS transformation project comes at a time when WOM is experiencing rapid growth and needs an agile business support solution to meet the company's ambitious growth plans and roadmap. Redknee's real-time monetization and subscriber management solution, including the full Redknee Unified stack, will improve WOM's innovation and creativity by allowing it to launch new offerings that differentiate itself in the market, improve operational efficiency, and create greater business value.

As one of the fastest growing operators in Latin America, and the trend for Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to adapt their revenue and business models to maximize the value of new technologies, WOM quickly realized it needed an agile and scalable solution to support its growing, dynamic and evolving business. Redknee Unified allows service providers to scale to their business needs and use one single platform to manage multiple services to improve efficiency and to support the creation and launch of multi-play and digital services. This project highlights the ability of Redknee to offer scalable and agile solutions that can transform an organization by supporting the creation and deployment of new and innovative service offerings and revenue streams, improve time to market, and create a more consistent omni-channel customer experience.

Stefan Evergad, WOM CTO commented:

"We are confident in our decision to choose Redknee as partner in this critical transformation. We are looking forward to working together with Redknee for joint success."

Lucas Skoczkowski, Redknee's CEO commented:

"We are pleased to support one of the fastest growing companies in the Americas. Redknee's agile and flexible real-time monetization and customer care solution allows WOM to turn its creativity into market differentiation. Redknee's solutions can support any type of service, allowing our customers to easily create new services, revenue streams and support a consistent omni-channel customer experience."

About WOM:

WOM is a new telecommunications and mobile broadband company, belonging to the international investment fund, Novator Partners LLP. WOM has positioned itself as an innovative and challenging company, changing the Chilean market with its attractive offer and communication style. Since its launch in July 2015, WOM has been leading the portability numbers, achieving 2 million customers in 16 months. Its aim is to be the preferred company of all Chileans, being a communication channel to say and discuss what really matters to the people, revolutionizing the industry with a good service at fair prices.

About Redknee:

Redknee monetizes today's digital world. We provide a complete portfolio of mission-critical monetization and subscriber management solutions and services that allow communications service providers, utility companies, auto makers and enterprise businesses of all types to charge for things in new and innovative ways. Redknee's real-time billing, charging, policy and customer care offerings provide the agility and scalability to drive a unique user experience, increase profitability and support any new product or business model. Available on premise, cloud-based, or as a Software-as-a-Service, Redknee's low-risk, flexible solutions power more than 250 businesses across the globe. Established in 1999, Redknee Solutions Inc. (TSX: RKN) is the parent of the wholly-owned operating subsidiary Redknee Inc. and its various subsidiaries. References to Redknee refer to the combined operations of those entities. For more information about Redknee and its solutions, please go to www.redknee.com.

SOURCE Redknee Solutions Inc.

For further information: Redknee Solutions: Michaela Radman, Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications, [email protected], +1 905 625 2190; Investor Relations: Lawrence Chamberlain, NATIONAL | Equicom, T: (416) 848-1457, [email protected]
According to the US Navy, 53 percent of all Navy aircraft cant fly  about 1,700 combat aircraft, patrol, and transport planes and helicopters. Not all are due to budget problems  at any given time, about one-fourth to one-third of aircraft are out of service for regular maintenance. But the 53 percent figure represents about twice the historic norm.

The strike fighter situation is even more acute and more remarkable since the aircraft are vitally important to projecting the fleets combat power. Sixty-two percent of F/A-18s are out of service; 27 percent in major depot work; and 35 percent simply awaiting maintenance or parts, the Navy said.

With training and flying hour funds cut, the Navys aircrews are struggling to maintain even minimum flying requirements, the senior Navy source said. Retention is becoming a problem, too. In 2013, 17 percent of flying officers declined department head tours after being selected. The percentage grew to 29 percent in 2016.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has laid out a measured and cautious spending plan that puts near-term readiness needs first in his first budget guidance memo. The memo, out this morning, largely defers major equipment modernization until 2019 and limits increases in the size of the force to the maximum responsible rate So, while Trump may yet launch a Reaganesque build-up of the military, the memo makes clear that it wont start right away. Its also explicit that, alongside straight additions to the budget, there will be efficiencies and cuts.

According to testimony, the Navy is the smallest and least prepared its been in 99 years.

The Navy has requested an additional $12 billion for 24 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters, one San Antonio-class amphibious landing dock ship, and dozens more Sidewinder missiles.

Gen. Daniel Allyn, the Armys vice chief of staff, said that only three of the Armys more than 50 brigade combat teams have all the troops, training and equipment needed to fight at a moments notice.

The Marine Corps, which wants an additional $4.2 billion added to its 2017 budget, warned that the nations force in readiness will have to continue shifting money intended for new weapons to pay current bills.

The Air Force is the branch of the military that arguably is in the most dire straits, with aircraft numbers falling from 8,600 in 1991 to 5,500 today. There are 55 fighter squadrons, down from 134, and less than 50 percent of its combat forces are sufficiently ready for a highly contested fight against peer adversaries, Air Force Vice Chief Gen. Stephen W. Wilson said in reference to countries like Russia and China.

Pro-defense lawmakers still want the build-up, but they acknowledge its going to take years, if not decades. For example, legislators have asked the Congressional Budget Office to study alternative spending plans to build a 355-ship Navy over 15, 20, 25, or 30 years, the new House seapower subcommittee chairman.
By www.wrc.com 10 February 2017 - 18:31





Thierry Neuville led Rally Sweden on Friday night after a thrilling duel with Jari-Matti Latvala in which the lead changed hands several times.

He completed the longest leg of the four-day snow and ice encounter with a 28.1sec advantage in his Hyundai i20 Coupe after distancing the Finn with a hat-trick of afternoon speed test victories. Ott Tanak was third, a further 21.6sec behind.

Neuville won the opening two tests across the border in Norway to demote Latvala, who led after last nights short curtain-raiser. However, Latvala fought back to lead at the midpoint in his Toyota Yaris as the pair pulled clear.

Neuville edged ahead again by winning all three repeated stages, delivering a crushing blow as he outgunned Latvala by almost 18sec in the penultimate test. The Belgian extended his lead in the final stage, despite hanging on to his door which refused to stay closed.

Snow flurries made the roads slippery this afternoon and drivers fought to keep their cars in the ruts where traction was best.

Jari-Matti had the advantage of the conditions this morning, but this afternoon was better for me as the driving line was cleaner and I tried to take the benefit, said Neuville. The last stage was tricky in the dark and my door was opening which disturbed me.

Tanak [pictured below] was the only other driver to win a stage. The Estonian bounced back into the top three after his Ford Fiestas gearbox was replaced when it started jumping out of gear.

Kris Meeke was 2.1sec behind in fourth. The Ulsterman yielded the final podium place to the recovering Tanak after a last stage mistake, after earlier losing 10sec when a bump threw his Citroen C3 off line and into a snowbank.

Road opener Sebastien Ogier endured the worst of the conditions but persevered to hold fifth, 3.9sec behind Meeke. Hayden Paddon was next, the Kiwi revitalised this afternoon after set-up changes to his i20 Coupe offset a disappointing morning.

Dani Sordo was seventh after overshooting a hairpin when loose netting in his car disturbed his concentration. Craig Breen twice plunged his C3 into snowbanks en route to eighth, with Elfyn Evans ninth after losing more than 90sec with a puncture. Stephane Lefebvre completed the leaderboard.

Juho Hanninen retired his Yaris with a damaged radiator after hitting a tree, while Mads stberg withdrew before the final stage after losing his Fiestas aerodynamic rear wing.

Saturday blends two classic Swedish stages near Hagfors with the more northerly Knon test. The highlight is Vargasen, which features the famous Colins Crest, named after the late Colin McRae. They are repeated before a short blast around Karlstad trotting track, adding up to 125.38km of action.
Dr Nancy Oghenetega Appih,

the first child of Chief Efe Appih, the Chairman of Delta State branch of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers ( NIESV) was laid to rest on February, 6th, at the

Mother of the Redeemer Catholic Church, Effurun,

Delta State.

Born July 6, 1992, Dr. Appih graduated from the prestigious Ivana-- Frankivsk National Medical University, Ukraine. Upon her return to Nigeria, she did her House Job in Zaria, Kaduna State. She fell sick shortly after her return to Warri and never recovered. Tega passed away on January 31, 2017.

In his homily, Rev. Fr. Anthony Ewherido, who officiated the funeral service with 14 other Catholic priest, said:

"Since January 31, 2017, when she passed on, people have been asking same question of why her and why now? Only God can answer this question. But we pray that the good Lord will take good care of her for us".

"There was nothing Dr Nancy Oghenetega Appih left undone on earth. We thank God that she was a wonderful person. The Holy Spirit will keep her parents and those close to her", Rev. Fr Ewherido said.

He also stated;

" Dr Nancy Oghenetega Appih had the best of medical and spiritual care when she was sick. But it pleases the Lord to take her away from us. We will never get use to her death. May God give us long life. May God remove the death of our children from us; we shall never bury our children again. But weep no more for our departed Dr Nancy Oghenetega Appih, we are going to meet her again in heaven".

Her father, Chief (Sir) Efe Appih said;

"The death of my daughter is a painful one. God knows the best. I have to be strong because there is nothing that I can do over her death. But I will do everything to keep her memory alive. My daughter lives on".

Speaking in tears after the burial, Mrs Felicia Appih described the death of her first child and the only female as a big blow and promised to do everything to immortalise her name.

Source: Dennis Otu
Bid to rally support for ailing President Muhammadu Buhari received a major boost yesterday as Imams in about 350 Jummaat mosques in Maiduguri, Jere, Biu and other parts of Borno State led thousands of worshipers to offer special prayers for the speedy and full recovery of the President.It was gathered that the plan to offer the special prayers was at the request of Governor Kashim Shettima in appreciation of President Buharis commitment to the fight against the Boko Haram insurgency which had resulted in the liberation of many communities and relative peace being enjoyed by residents across the state.The prayers occurred on a day former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar also called on Nigerians of all faiths to lift up President Buhari in prayers.There are 542 Jummaat mosques in the state but about 350 were estimated to be operating due to present state of populated towns like Bama and many others were Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are yet to return to liberated communities.The prayers were based on a request conveyed by the Chief Imam, Imam Laisu Ibrahim Ahmed, who communicated with all Imams of functional Jummaat mosques through their different forums which is a long standing procedure of communication between the Chief Imam and Imams of Jummaat mosques and other Imams in the state.The Chief Imam mobilised fellow Imams based on letters addressed to him and the state chairman of the Christians Association of Nigeria (CAN), Bishop William Naga, on the orders of Shettima.Speaking on the development, the states Commissioner for Religious Affairs, Mustapha Fannarambe, who signed the two letters titled: Request for Intensification of prayers for the complete recovery of Mr. President, requested the Chief Imam to communicate the request to Imams of all Jummaat (Friday) mosques, while the CAN did same with pastors for similar prayers in all churches across the state for tomorrow services.The commissioner, who spoke to journalists in Maiduguri, said he was mandated by Shettima to monitor compliance with the request through interactions with the Chief Imam and CAN chairman.Last night (Friday), Shettima directed me to write and sign letters requesting the Chief Imam and the CAN to kindly request Imams of all Jummaat mosques and leading pastors in all churches across Borno State to lead Muslim and Christian worshipers yesterday (Friday) and coming Sunday, to intensify prayers for the quick and full recovery of our dear President Buhari.We believe any good Nigerian living in Borno is already praying for the President this is why we requested for the prayers to be intensified. The governor emphasised that I ensure the Chief Imam and CAN chairman felt in communicating with Imams and Pastors of all Jummaat mosques and all churches were Sunday services are held. The letters were delivered early today (yesterday) and I have been in touch with both leaders.I can assure you that the Chief Imam communicated the request to Imams of all the Jummaat mosques across Borno State.All the Imams belong to different forums based on their denominations and areas of residence while the pastors are expected to be reached by the CAN chairman through a very efficient system.The prayers started today (yesterday) with Jummaat mosques and we have monitored some here in Maiduguri and Jere and I was informed there were similar prayers in other Jummaat Mosques in Biu, Bayo, Shani, Kwaya-Kusar were residents were never internally displaced and places like Gwoza, Konduga, Monguno, Damboa, Dikwa, Askira, Kaga and many other parts of the State where residents have returned after liberation of their communities by the military under President Buharis administration.Prayers were offered in IDP camps were Jummaat services take place because all the camps have citizens that include existing Imams of Jummaat mosques in different parts of the state affected by the insurgency.From our estimation, not less than 350 Jummaat mosques are currently functional out of 542 that we have across the state. I actually attended one of the Friday prayers in Maiduguri while Shettima went to Bama with the visiting Minister of Environment.To us in Borno State, President Buhari means so much because we know how much we suffered before he became President and we know there is overwhelming difference between now and before and this is why Shettima said we owe the President an obligation to prayer over his health and we owe our gallant military an obligation to pray for the health of their Commander In Chief, this is what Governor Shettima said to me last night and we have acted accordingly.We are now awaiting prayers in Churches on Sunday, we are sure it will be done by the garce of God and our President will be healthier than he ever was to conclude his victorious fight against Boko Haram insurgents which is our topmost priority in Borno State.Meanwhile, Atiku in a statement issued by his Media Office in Abuja, said each and every one us was a mere mortal, irrespective of how great or highly accomplished we are.
A frontline social commentator, Dr Peregrino Brimah, has advised Nigerians to focus their attention on President Muhammadu Buharis health status describing $9.8 million loot recovered from ex-NNPC GMD Andrew Yakubu as a distraction planted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to divert attention from Buhari.Brimah, who made the comment in a statement he signed and issued, said going by the multi-faceted nature of the challenges rocking the nations economy, the most pressing challenge facing the country is health status of the president whom he previously described as the Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria.He also berated the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as being a tool in the hands of the APC and distracting Nigerians whenever public attention is focused on the perceived weakness of the Buhari administration.According to him, the anti-graft agency has been a political machine for persecuting perceived political foes, leaving out similarly indicted Presidency officers, ministers, heads of security agencies, and other ruling party men.He said: Its gotten quite noticeable that whenever Buhari or his government is down the Economic Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC is up.Once there are major headlines that cast the Buhari government in bad light, the EFCC takes over the headlines with updates on its activities against the corruption of the Jonathan past administration with predilection for PDP party members, their families and associates who did not switch to the ruling APC party.Interestingly a Vanguard article exposed the time-staging of the EFCC releases that September. The September 24, 2016 article was captioned, $31.4m Cash Deposit: How Patience Jonathan forced EFCC to expose matter, and had highlights EFFC had knowledge of fund since July and Why action was not taken earlier.And now again as the scandal over president Muhammadu Buharis sickness or hale-and-hearty lack of it, in-spite-of his absconding to the UK, makes headlines and as Nigerians begin to protest against the government, the EFCC is Up again.3 days after Buhari failed to resume work following his 18-day vacation to the Queens England, February 9th, 2016 saw headlines: EFCC raids home of former NNPC GMD, Andrew Yakubu, recovers $9.2m.These have rapidly been followed up with more headlines in the same class; February 11, 2017: EFCC in another breakthrough discovers $37.5m in Diezanis Lagos mansion, and we can expect many more to come, back-to-back with the EFCC reliably keeping Nigerians conveniently distracted as the economy is wrecked and the Commander in chief absconds.Perhaps its just a coincidence; but most importantly, we will not be distracted by headlines of the EFCC doing its job the way Obasanjo set it up to: as a political machine against foe and the perceived opposition, leaving out similarly indicted Presidency officers, ministers, heads of security agencies, and other ruling party men.
Some Nigerians in the United Kingdom, UK have denied protesting against President Muhammadu Buhari.This is coming days after news made the rounds that some Nigerians, under the aegis of the UK chapter of the Nigerians in Diaspora Monitoring Group, NDMG, stormed the Nigerian High Commission, demanding to see President Buhari, who they said must addresses them in person.But the group in a statement dismissed the report, saying some mischievous Nigerians in the UK were working towards recruiting uniformed persons who would embarrass the Nigerian government.In the statement signed by the UK coordinator of the group, Adeka Onyilo, NDMG said these individuals were aimed at tainting the image of the anti-corruption fight of President Buhari in Nigeria.Some mischievous Nigerians in the UK are working towards recruiting uniformed persons who would embarrass the Nigerian government.These Nigerians also hope to use the recruits gathered for anti-corruption crusade that could help corrupt individuals escape justice in Nigeria.No member of the NDMG or any other group to the best of his knowledge staged a protest in the UK.The group has confirmed that Mr. President is not in any critical condition and that calls for Nigerians not to worry.The NDMG believes in and will continue to identify with the laudable achievements of President Buhari especially in the areas of fighting corruption and defeating Boko Haram terrorism and routing the group from Nigerias soil.
Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, has said the Federal Governments plan to secure a $1bn Eurobond might prolong the nations ec...

Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, has said the Federal Governments plan to secure a $1bn Eurobond might prolong the nations economic crisis.The governor, who is also the Chairman, Peoples Democratic Partys Governors Forum, challenged the Federal Government to clarify who the beneficiaries of the bond would be as its repayment would last till 2032.The governor, in a statement issued on Friday, by his Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi, threatened to sue the Federal Government if it fails to do so.He said, What Im even worried about and which they must explain to us is that you cannot get a bond without committing it to the source.Is the repayment going to be made by direct deductions from Nigerias crude oil sales or from Federal Governments share from the federation account?If it is going to be made directly from proceeds of crude oil accruing to Nigeria as a country, then the bond belongs to the federal, state and local governments and not the Federal Government alone.The Federal Government is just one of the federating units making up Nigeria and revenues accruing to the country cannot be used to repay bond taken by the Federal Government for its own use alone.Fayose said the Federal Government must therefore tell Nigerians how it would repay the facility from now till 2032.He said, So, we have to find out and take steps. The Federal Government should bring the money and we share it; we take our percentage and it takes its own. The Federal Government cannot take that money and deduct from source and tell us that the money, which belongs to all of the federating units, is for it alone.Lamenting a lack of fiscal federalism in the current government, the governor noted that Federal Governments affairs were shrouded in secrecy.We will definitely go to court and ask questions, he said.Expressing the fear that the $1 billion Eurobond might plunge the nation into more serious economic woes as its repayment was scheduled to last till 2032, Fayose said, the APC-led government is behaving like the prodigal son who asked for his inheritance and spent it lavishly.It is a prodigal government who wants to destroy this country. The rate at which it is taking loans, which would keep this country indebted till 2032, is quite unfortunate.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has quoted a former Group Managing Director, GMD, of the Nigerian National Petroleum C...

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has quoted a former Group Managing Director, GMD, of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Andrew Yakubu, as saying the $9.8m and 74, 000 found in his house were gifts.Recall that operatives of the EFCC, had on Thursday raided the home of Yakubu in Kaduna city where it discovered the huge sum.In a statement by its spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren, the anti-graft agency disclosed that the money was found in a hidden fire-proof safe.The spokesman noted that the raid of Yakubus house was sequel to an intelligence which the commission received, about suspected proceeds of crime believed to be hidden in the slums of Sabon Tasha area of Kaduna.Uwajaren said,A special operation conducted by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on 3rd February, 2017 on a building belonging to a former group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr Andrew Yakubu in Kaduna yielded the recovery of a staggering sum of $9,772,800 and another sum of 74,000 cash.The huge cash was hidden in a fire proof safe.On arrival at the facility, the caretaker of the house, one Bitrus Yakubu, a younger brother to Andrew Yakubu, disclosed that both the house and the safe where the money was found belong to his brother, Andrew Yakubu.When the safe was opened it was discovered that it contained the sum of $9,772,800 (Nine Million, Seven Hundred and Seventy Two Thousand, Eight Hundred United States Dollars) and another sum of 74,000 (Seventy Four Thousand Pound Sterling).On February 8, 2017, Andrew Yakubu reported to the commissions Zonal office in Kano and made statement wherein he admitted ownership of the recovered money, claiming it was gift from unnamed persons. He is currently assisting the investigation.
Anthony Martial scored on his return to the Manchester United lineup as Jose Mourinho's men moved to within a point of neighbours Manchester City with a 2-0 win over Watford at Old Trafford.Zlatan Ibrahimovic had a chance to give United the lead in the opening moments when a deflected Antonio Valencia cross fell for him, but the Swedish striker miscued his volley and saw the effort bobble wide of the post.Ibrahimovic was denied by a fine save from Heurelho Gomes, but United broke through after 32 minutes when a low cross from Martial eluded the striker but fell for Juan Mata to sidefoot home and give Jose Mourinho's side a deserved advantage.Martial was in the thick of the action again when his low cross just failed to find either Henrikh Mkhitaryan or Ibrahimovic and Watford were able to scrape it away.United keeper David De Gea was forced into action early in the second half when Mauro Zarate curled a free kick towards the top corner in what was a rare attempt for the Hornets -- and that spurred United into action as Martial cut back onto his right foot and fired low past Gomes to put the home side firmly in control with an hour gone.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is linking a new $37.5m property to former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Di...

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is linking a new $37.5m property to former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.The exquisite 15-storey building which is located on the highbrow Banana Island in Lagos is the latest on the list of choice properties said to have been acquired by the ex-minister with alleged stolen public funds.It is an 18 flat edifice.A reliable EFCC source said yesterday that the ownership of the building was discovered this week in the course of the investigation of the former minister.The source said: The property Building 3, Block B, is a 15 storey edifice comprising 18 flats and 6 penthouses, Bella Vista at Plot 1, Zone N, Federal Government Layout, Banana Island Layout, Foreshore Estate, Off Onikoyi Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.The property was acquired by the former minister between 2011 and 2012 at a total cost of $37,500,000USD from the developers, YF Construction Development and Real Estate.It was acquired in the name of a Shell company, Rusimpex Limited under the control of a certain Mr. Afamefuna Nwokedi in Lagos.The investigation continues.The EFCC source said the agency might seize the property.His words: We will do this after the completion of investigation and obtaining of all title documents.Sections 28 and 34 of the EFCC (Establishment Act) 2004 and Section 13(1) of the Federal High Court Act, 2004 empower the anti-graft agency to invoke Interim Assets Forfeiture Clause.Section 28 of the EFCC Act reads: Where a person is arrested for an offence under this Act, the Commission shall immediately trace and attach all the assets and properties of the person acquired as a result of such economic or financial crime and shall thereafter cause to be obtained an interim attachment order from the Court.Section 13 of the Federal High Court Act reads in part : The Court may grant an injunction or appoint a receiver by an interlocutory order in all cases in which it appears to the Court to be just or convenient so to do.(2) Any such order may be made either unconditionally or on such terms and conditions as the Court thinks just.Properties which EFCC records show as belonging to Mrs.Alison-Madueke are:A block of 6 unit service apartments at Awolowo Road, Ikoyi*Six unit terrace flats in Yaba, LagosTwin four-bedroom duplexes in Lekki Phase ITwo duplexes in Banana IslandA duplex in Asokoro. District, AbujaA mini-estate in Mabushi, AbujaA set of 12 terrace duplexes at Omaremi Street in Port HarcourtLarge expanse of land at Oniru, Victoria Island in Lagos* A multi-billion Naira estate in Yenagoa* Two apartments in Dubai marked as J5 Emirates Hills (30million Dirham) and E146 Emirates Hills valued at 44million Dirham* A hotel in Port Harcourt under investigation.The former minister in a January 21 2017 lengthy statement in London denied being a thief.She accused the EFCC of taking advantage of her silence all this while to put her on media trial and cited the $153million which she was accused of withdrawing from the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation( NNPC) while in office.She said that as the petroleum minister, the operation and management of NNPC finances were outside my purview as outlined in both the Petroleum Act and the NNPC Act.She added:The only involvement I had in NNPC finances was in terms of statutory matters, where the Petroleum Act prescribed that as Minister, there were certain duties or actions which I had to perform or take in relation to NNPC.On the alleged $700million found in her house and some mansions traced to her, Diezani accused EFCC of witch-hunt,saying: On the 13th of June 2016, the EFCC once again took their well-trodden path to the media. This time claiming that they had discovered a mansion in Asokoro, Abuja, worth $18million (approx. N9billion) which they purported to belong to me. The EFCC went to the extent of bringing in Aljazeera, an international TV station, to air a damaging documentary against me in this regard, showing a particular residential building in Asokoro, Abuja, which they told Aljazeera belonged to meThe EFCC Chairman Ibrahim Magu, personally took the Aljazeera reporter to the building, alleging that it belonged to me. It has since become apparent that the house belongs to a company owned by Mr Kola Aluko.If this is not a witch-hunt or a personal vendetta against me, how is it that one of our countrys premier investigative agencies were unable to avail themselves of facts that are freely available in the public domain.Since the EFCC claims that the alleged $18million Asokoro property belongs to me, then they should kindly produce the Authentic Certificate of Occupancy and Land Registry information and any other relevant information, as proof of my ownership of the property.On the 9th November 2016, the EFCC visited our family home in Yenagoa (Bayelsa State) as pre-agreed and they were escorted around the premises. I was therefore completely shocked to once again see my name sensationally splashed across the front pages of newspapers and widely circulated on the internet, with blaring headlines such as EFCC UNCOVERS DIEZANIS MULTI-BILLION NAIRA ESTATE  Nation Newspaper, January 8, 2017 (Annex- 4A). There was absolutely nothing Hidden or Concealed about the home.I had declared it openly as required by Law, in my Asset declaration forms (Annex-4B). Yet the EFCC have announced that they Just Discovered my Hidden Estate! And labelled it a Multi-Billion Naira Estate! Even though they had been given the Bill of Quantities, showing actual amount spent.It is an accepted tradition across the length and breadth of Nigeria, for people to own country/village homes. Given the size of the land and the location of the compound, the buildings thereon cannot by any stretch of the imagination be a Multi-Billion Naira palatial estate, as the news mongers would want to portray.
The Federal Government yesterday raised the alarm that a Boko Haram affiliate, Muslim Brotherhood, is planning m...

The Federal Government yesterday raised the alarm that a Boko Haram affiliate, Muslim Brotherhood, is planning massive attacks on banks, arms depots and prisons.It said the group through its cell in Kogi State was trying to acquire bomb-making chemicals and high-calibre weapons to perpetrate acts of terror.The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the alert followed intelligence made available to the government.The statement said: The cell is making frantic efforts to advance its IED-making capability through the acquisition of such chemicals as Sodium Azide (for producing improvised detonators), Potassium Chlorate (alternative to ammonium nitrate used for producing IEDs) and Aluminium Powder (a fuel source for amplifying explosions).One Usman, an IED apprentice, left the cell some time back to joinIslamic State in Libya. The new desire to acquire IED precursor chemicals could suggest that Usman or other persons may have returned from Libya and have acquired IED-making skills intended to increase the activities of the group.Intelligence also revealed that the group is making serious efforts to acquire sophisticated arms, including shoulder-fired rocket launchers.Further intelligence monitoring has revealed that members of the Muslim Brotherhood are planning to forcefully free their members who are in detention in Kogi, Abuja and Kaduna,. including one Bilyaminu, an IED expert for the group who is now at Kuje prison.Mohammed appealed to Nigerians to be vigilant and to report any suspicious persons or movements to the appropriate authorities.Boko Haram and some of its affiliates have established cells in some parts of Kogi State.On January 10, the Department of State Security Service( DSS) arrested a kingpin of the sect in Okene town, Adavi Local Government Area of Kogi State.Identified as Abdullahi Mohammed, he was said to be the leader of the Boko Haram sect in Okene and was responsible for the coordination of Boko Haram activities in Okene axis of Kogi State.On October 13, about 10 suspected Islamic fundamentalists were killed near Lokoja in Kogi State during a bloody encounter between an Islamic sect and men of the Nigerian Army.
The Federal Government is seeking protection for 65,000 Nigerian refugees in Cameroun, the Minister of Interior, Lt Gen Abdulrahman Danb...

The Federal Government is seeking protection for 65,000 Nigerian refugees in Cameroun, the Minister of Interior, Lt Gen Abdulrahman Danbazzau, has said.The minister said yesterday in Abuja that the refugees who are mainly women and children are in various camps in Cameroun, while others are in Niger and Chad republics.Besides food items, they need the support of individuals, government institutions and the private sector, especially in the areas of education and health care, the minister added.He said to secure the protection of the refugees, a tripartite agreement would soon be signed in Cameroun between Nigeria and Cameroun and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCFR).The minister, who made the remarks while receiving relief materials donated to the Federal Government by Huawei Technology Company, said there were over two million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in various camps in the country and over 65,000 refugees outside the country.He said majority of them were victims of insurgent activities of Boko Haram in the North-eastern part of the country, adding that the conditions of the refugees and the IDPs were so pathetic that they should not be left to the Federal Government alone.The Federal Government is making efforts to resettle the IDPs back in their various homes and communities. We are also taking measures to ensure that Nigerian refugees are protected outside the country. But we need the support of all well-meaning Nigerians to adequately address the challenges, the minister stated.In his remarks at the function, the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Zhou Pingjian, said Huawei Technology company was leveraging on the cordial relationship between Nigeria and China to provide succour for victims of insurgents in the North-east, stating that it was a gesture of China being a friend indeed to Nigeria at the period of its needs.He said the International Community appreciates government efforts to restore peace and stability to the troubled north-east, promising that all necessary support would be accorded the government by the community to enable it succeeds.The Deputy Managing Director of Huawei Technology Company, Mr Martin Zhong said the relief materials- 2,300 bags of rice, 200 cartoons of spaghetti, 200 cartoons of Macaroni, 60 bags of 50 kg beans and 50 jerrican of 20 litre vegetable oil- was a token of the companys support for government efforts to address the problems of the IDPs.
Former Militant leader, Asari Dokubo has once again announced that he's not a Nigerian.

Former Militant leader, Asari Dokubo has once again announced that he's not a Nigerian.Dokubo who spoke on a live London radio on Tuesday, February 7, said it is wrong for anyone to ask him whether he is Nigerian or Biafra.It is wrong for anybody to ask me whether I am a Biafran; its like asking me whether I am Dokubo Asari. I have said it over and over again and Ill continue to say it that Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo Asari is a Biafran, Dokubo said.I have no apology to give to anybody. I have no explanation to give to anybody. I dont want to curry favours from anybody. I dont want anything from anybody.I am a Biafran and thats what I am. I have proclaimed up to the Supreme Court of the Nigerian state that I am not a Nigerian, he said.
MMM Nigeria has announced the lifting of all limits on Mavros (participants) acquired in 2017, while those of 2016 remain under restrictio...

MMM Nigeria has announced the lifting of all limits on Mavros (participants) acquired in 2017, while those of 2016 remain under restriction.As of December when the ponzi scheme placed ban on withdrawal, there were about three million investors.But in a new statement, MMM said 2017 members can actively develop the community and create new requests to provide help.Dear members, MMM Nigeria lifts all the limits for Mavro, acquired in 2017. So, MMM Nigeria is coming back to normal, the statement read.And now the members can actively develop the community and create new requests to provide help. For these requests orders will soon arrive, and after Mavros confirmation it will be possible to withdraw these Mavro without any restrictions or limits.Only Mavros acquired in 2016 remain under restriction. But we are actively working on new measures to make it possible for the members to withdraw Mavro 2016 in a larger amount without undermining the sustainability of the community.We have collected the screenshots of personal offices of members who received orders for their GH requests. Spread the screenshots via chats, social media and messengers. Let everyone know that MMM Nigeria is working. Every Nigerian should be aware that MMM is functioning well. It is very important.Many of the previous investors lost hope in the scheme after they were unable to access their money.Gloria Samson, a Benue-based woman, who invested in the scheme, was said to have taken her life after the scheme crashed in December.She reportedly invested a N400,000 loan she procured into the ponzi scheme.According to reports, the deceased left her house on December 28, after she bade her children bye and apologised for any wrongdoing she might have committed against them.
Thousands of Muslims from about 350 Jummaat mosques across Borno State yesterday offered special prayers for the full recovery of Presi...

Thousands of Muslims from about 350 Jummaat mosques across Borno State yesterday offered special prayers for the full recovery of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is currently vacationing in the UK. The special prayers which were led by the Imams of the mosques were at the instance of the Chief Imam of the state ,Alhaji Laisu Ahmed following a letter from Governor Kashim Shettima.The 350 mosques are those allowed by the security challenge in the state to function from the 542 Jummaat mosques in the state. Ahmed reportedly mobilised his colleagues after receiving the governors letter. William Naga, chairman of the Christians Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Borno, received a similar letter entitled, Request for Intensification of prayers for the complete recovery of Mr President.The governor in the letter requested the Chief Imam and the CAN to kindly request Imams of all Jummaat mosques and leading pastors in all churches across Borno state to lead Muslim and Christian worshipers today (Friday) and coming Sunday, to intensify prayers for the quick and full recovery of our dear President, Muhammadu Buhari.We believe any good Nigerian living in Borno is already praying for the president, this is why we requested for the prayers to be intensified. It was signed by Religious Affairs Commissioner Mustapha Fannarambe who, in a separate statement yesterday said: The prayers started today (yesterday) with Jummaat mosques and we have monitored some here in Maiduguri and Jere and I was informed there were similar prayers in other Jummaat mosques in Biu, Bayo, Shani, Kwaya-Kusar were residents were never internally displaced and places like Gwoza, Konduga, Monguno, Damboa, Dikwa, Askira, Kaga and many other parts of the state, Fannarambe said in a statement.Prayers were offered in IDP camps where Jummaat services take place because all the camps have citizens that include existing Imams of Jummaat Mosques in different parts of the state affected by the insurgency. From our estimation, not less than 350 Jummaat Mosques are currently functional out of 542 that we have across the state. I actually attended one of the Friday prayers in Maiduguri while Governor Shettima went to Bama with the visiting minister of environment.
The Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, on Friday said Nigeria is losing at least $80 billion annually to oil facilities van...

The Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, on Friday said Nigeria is losing at least $80 billion annually to oil facilities vandalism in the Niger Delta.Kachikwu stated this on in Yenagoa, Bayelsa, during the resumed dialogue with Niger Delta stakeholders as part of Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajos visit to Bayelsa.He said at least 10,000 sabotage incidents were recorded annually at oilfields across the region.Kachikwu urged people of the area to contribute ideas toward the resolution of crises in the Niger Delta.He said the challenges of the region could be turned into opportunities when peace was achieved and urged Niger Delta people to give peace a chance for the growth of the region.The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Kachikwu, Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Usani Nguru Usani, and Minister of State for Agriculture, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, accompanied Osinbajo on the trip.
The Defence Headquarters, Abuja, has denied that the Nigerian Army was planning to use surrendered Boko Haram terrorists to spy and atta...

The Defence Headquarters, Abuja, has denied that the Nigerian Army was planning to use surrendered Boko Haram terrorists to spy and attack a particular region of the country.The Director, Defence Information, Brig. -Gen. Rabe Abubakar, said this to counter a report on social media that military troops were using surrendered Boko Haram terrorists as spies to go after members of a particular religion in the North-East.The DDI described the statement as false and baseless, saying that the military would not take sides with any religion in exterminating terrorism from the country.He said, We are not out to exterminate the adherents of a particular religion in a particular region using surrendered Boko Haram terrorists. That information is mischievous, mendacious and it is a calculated attempt to cause apprehension in the country and create division in the military.The Nigerian Armed Forces is constituted by Nigerians of all tribes and religious affiliation. It is therefore callous and outrageous for anybody to think the military is taking sides with one religious group against another. More so, the Boko Haram is an enemy to all Nigerians. Therefore, religion and politics should not be mixed up with security affairs. The Nigerian Armed Forces is a symbol of national unity and cohesion and should not be a subject of smear campaign by unpatriotic elements using the social media platforms.
The Police Service Commission has promoted an Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions operative, CSP Sulaiman Abdul, to the rank of A...

The Police Service Commission has promoted an Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions operative, CSP Sulaiman Abdul, to the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police for recovering N42bn for the Federal Government.The commission said Abdul had earlier been commended by a former Inspector-General of Police and recommended for consideration by the Chairman of the EFCC.Rising from its 19th Plenary Meeting on Friday in Abuja, the commission said it approved the promotion of the officer for his outstanding performance in the fight against corruption.The commission, in a statement by its spokesperson, Ikechukwu Ani, said it also approved the promotion of CSP Olusoji Akinbayo to the next rank of ACP and Inspector Sunday Idowu to the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police for outstanding performance while serving at the Force Criminal Investigation Department, Abuja.Both officers (Akinbayo and Idowu) were said to have rejected a bribe of $21m and another $12,900 from one Samuel Wilberforce. The officers, despite this huge inducement, defied the temptation and arrested the pipeline vandals, it stated.Their action, the PSC added, portrayed the Nigeria Police Force in good light as they exhibited professionalism, fearlessness and incorruptibility in the conduct of their assignment.The police also promoted DSP Muawuyya Abubakar of the Kano State Command to the rank of Superintendent of Police.Abubakar was in 2014 awarded the best Crime Bursting Police Officer by the African Leadership Awards and Security Watch Africa.He had earlier received a commendation letter from President Muhammadu Buhari for exceptional display of courage and gallantry in counter-insurgency operation in Kano State.The commission also approved the promotion of Inspector Ezekaih Abiona and Sergeant Ogunbiyi Agbabu to their next ranks.The officers, who are attached to the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation and Special Offences Unit (Task Force), were said to have recovered the sum of N5m that fell off a bullion van in November/December 2015.The special promotions take immediate effect.The Chairman of the commission, Dr. Mike Okiro, said that the special promotions were meant to spark off a new wave of integrity in the conduct of police officers.
Presidential aides were on Friday put on standby over the imminent return of President Muhammadu Buhari from London, United Kingdom.

Presidential aides were on Friday put on standby over the imminent return of President Muhammadu Buhari from London, United Kingdom.Buhari, who left Nigeria on January 19, was initially scheduled to return to the country last Sunday in preparation for resumption to office last Monday.However, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, later issued a statement announcing that Buhari had notified the National Assembly of his decision to extend his vacation.Adesina had attributed the extension to the need for the President to wait behind and receive the results of medical tests which he had undergone on the advice of his doctors.Sources at the Presidential Villa, Abuja revealed that Buhari was being expected very soon. The sources said that presidential aides and officials of the Protocol Unit, as well as security operatives, had been put on the alert over the Presidents imminent arrival.Another official said if the President would return by Saturday afternoon, his arrival time would be clear by the (Saturday) morning.Amidst growing concern that Buhari had extended his vacation indefinitely as his new resumption date was not included in his latest letter to the National Assembly, Adesina had during the week, said the President would return sooner than expected.In a communication to the National Assembly, the President did not disclose when he is coming back but the President may be coming back sooner than people think, the presidential spokesman had told a television station.
The Police Service Commission (PSC) has promoted six senior police officers for rejecting huge sums of money offered as bribe to compro...

The Police Service Commission (PSC) has promoted six senior police officers for rejecting huge sums of money offered as bribe to compromise them in the course of doing their duties.The Commission in a statement in Abuja by the Head of Press and Public Relations Unit, Ikechukwu Ani, explained that the promotion was imperative because the officers displayed rare and exemplary courage to resist corruption.The decision was reached by the Commission after its 19th Plenary Meeting in Abuja.Those affected by the promotion are: CSP Sulaiman Muhammad Abdul, CSP. Olusoji Akinbayo, Inspector Sunday Idowu, DSP Muawuyya A. Abubakar, Inspector Eheziekia Abiona and Sergeant Ogunbiyi Agbabu.The statement reads: The Police Service Commission has promoted six senior police officers who have shown rare and exemplary courage to resist corruption.The Commission approved the promotion of CSP Sulaiman Muhammad Abdul to the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police for his outstanding performance in the fight against corruption.CSP Abdul currently with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in the course of his duty recovered a whopping sum of #42billion for the federal government. He had earlier been commended by the former Inspector General of Police and recommended for consideration by the Chairman of the EFCC.The Commission also approved the promotion of CSP. Olusoji Akinbayo to the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police and Inspector Sunday Idowu to the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police for outstanding performance while serving at the Force Criminal Investigation Department, Abuja.Both officers were said to have rejected a bribe of $21 and another $12,900 from one Samuel Wilberforce. The officers, despite this huge inducement defied the temptation and arrested the pipeline vandals.The statement added: Their action has portrayed the Nigeria Police Force in good light as they exhibited professionalism, fearlessness and incorruptibility in the conduct of their assignment.DSP Muawuyya A. Abubakar of the Kano State Command was also promoted to the rank of Superintendent of Police. DSP Abubakar was in 2014 awarded the best Crime Bursting Police Officer by the African Leadership Awards and Security Watch Africa.He had earlier received a commendation letter from Mr. President for exceptional display of courage and gallantry in counter insurgency operation in Kano State.The PSC also approved the promotion of Inspector Eheziekia Abiona and Sergeant Ogunbiyi Agbabu to their next ranks. The officers who are attached to the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation and Special Offences Unit (Task Force) were said to have recovered the sum of #5million that fell off a bullion van in November/December 2015.The Chairman of the Commission, Mike Okiro, said the Commission is poised to enthrone honesty, responsibility and fear of God in the Nigeria Police Force.Okiro who noted that the special promotions was meant to spark off a new wave of integrity in the conduct of police officers added that the promotion is another way of motivating the honest and disciplined and a wakeup call to the few disgruntled elements still in service.He warned that officers who are unable to turn a new leaf and embrace the new disposition of the Commission will be shown the way out of the force in the interest of the larger society.
Former Vice President and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has urged Nigerians to desist ...

Former Vice President and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has urged Nigerians to desist from spreading rumours about the health condition of President Muhammadu Buhari and spend time to pray for his safe return to continue to pilot the affairs of the country.In a statement by his media office in Abuja, Atiku said: Every human being is a mere mortal irrespective of how great or highly accomplished we are. We deserve the care and support of one another in trying times. President Buhari needs all the prayers and goodwill he can get at this time, to enable him return from his medical vacation in the UK and continue with his God-ordained assignment of steering Nigeria to her next level of greatness.Each of us go through times when we are not feeling in top form. The last thing we need in those times is mockery or ill will.
No fewer than nineteen (19) students of the Polytechnic of Ibadan including their Students Union Government (SUG), President Oluwadamilola...

No fewer than nineteen (19) students of the Polytechnic of Ibadan including their Students Union Government (SUG), President Oluwadamilola Peter Edema were arrested on Friday for assaulting policemen on duty at the Oyo State Police Commands headquarters, Eleyele, Ibadan.Edema, eight other executive members and their colleagues according to an Higher National Diploma (HND), student of the institution had gone to the police headquarters to bail two of their colleagues who were arrested by the police on Wednesday.But the police said there was no record of such arrest as claimed by the students.While confirming the Fridays arrest of 19 students Saturday morning, Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Adekunle Ajisebutu said the SUG President and his colleagues who are still in their custody were misled because there was no record of arrest of the students they claimed they came to bail.He said the DPO in charge of Apete Police Station and that of Eleyele had informed him that there was no record of such arrest as claimed by the students.Ajisebutu said the SUG President and 18 others were arrested for assaulting policemen on duty, breaching of public peace and invading of the police headquarters on Friday.
Super Eagles midfielder, Ogenyi Onazi, has said he is not interested in a move to China, as he is still very young and is keen on playing in Europe for many more years.Onazis international team-mates, John Obi Mikel and Odion Ighalo, have already swapped the Premier League for the Chinese Super League, but he is not ready to join them in the Far East.China has provided a platform for tempting offers that it will be difficult for you to say no, Onazi, who currently plays for Trabzonspor in Turkey, said.It will be a strong league soon because some of the top stars are there now.But at this point in time, I am still very young and China wont be an option.I still want to remain and play in Europe, Im enjoying my time in Turkey and I have the ambition to go to a bigger league in Europe.
Seven-year-old Hammond resident Rosalyn Baldwin has her mind set on hugging police officers in every U.S. state. She began her journey of respect and appreciation by visiting the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office. Now, with three states already under her belt -- Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama -- Baldwin is setting out to dispense hugs in Florida. Once school is out for Mardi Gras break, she'll have time to visit even more southern states. (photo provided by Angie Baldwin)
Streetcar No. 921 of New Orleans' Regional Transit Authority was tagged with the spray-painted handle 'Reznor' by several suspects wearing dark hoodies around 6 a.m. on Feb. 3, according to the streetcar's operator.
Teen accused in killing of Domino's driver in Mid-City asks to sever from co-defendant
Original Caption: Sinking to knees, Mrs Mamie Bradley weeps as body of slain son, Emmett Louis Till, 14, arrives at Chicago Rail Station. The youth was found dead in a Mississippi creek with a bullet hole behind the ear. Being sought in connection with the slaying is Mrs. Roy Bryant, at whom the youth is supposed to have whistled a "wolf call". Held also are store keeper Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam. With the bereaved woman are left to right, Bishop Louis J. Ford; Gene Mabley; and Bishop Isiak Roberts, of St. Paul's Church of Christ and God.
In this file photo from April 2016 Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks to Jewish community leaders at the Jewish Center of Brighton Beach during a campaign event in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)(Mary Altaffer)
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.
Happy Valentines Day! Our two little sweethearts, Snoopy and Eden, were adopted this week. They will be celebrating the holiday of love and affection with their new families.

Our last event at Tractor Supply Co. will be cancelled, as all of our dogs have been adopted. We thank the store managers and employees for their support over the years.

We have received very generous donations in the memory of Michael Oehme. We will be doing something special to honor this kind man, his dog Charlie, his family and friends. Watch our articles for more information.

County dog licenses are due on Tuesday. Licenses can be purchased or renewed at the Pottawattamie County Treasurers office at the courthouse in Council Bluffs or at any of the local clerks offices that we contract with.

As we prepare for our shelter to close on March 1, we are looking back at how it became not just a safe haven for animals, but also a way of life for the people that work and volunteer with us. This was not an effort by one, but many.

While it was always about the animals, it was also about having the support of other pet lovers. Every little thing matters in shelter and rescue.

Perhaps you deposited your loose change in a container at the gas station for us, attended a bake sale, or made a donation of towels, blankets, toys, treats, laundry items, anything at all, to the shelter. Maybe you adopted a pet from us or shared one of our many social media posts about our available dogs. It all mattered.

We have had, and so appreciate, the support of many local businesses and organizations, such as Heartland Properties, Struyk Turf, Inspired Images Photography, RailsWest Museum, Westfair, Petsmart, Petco, Tractor Supply, local 4-H and Girl Scout troops, TelMar, Bomgaars, the Iowa Hunting and Fishing and Home Expo/Pheasants Forever, Mid-America Center, Woodmen of the World, Harrahs and Ameristar casinos, Treynor, Lewis Central and Council Bluffs School districts and so many more.

All have allowed us to have adoption and/or fundraising events at their locations, came into the shelter to learn more about what we do and why, or made substantial donations to our shelter pets. It all made a difference.

We appreciate the expertise of our area veterinarians who provided the medical care for our shelter animals over the years. Dr. Kelly Turner, Emily Whitehouse, Dr. Barbara Lee and her wonderful staff at Valley View Vet clinic, Dr. Strohbehn, Council Bluffs Vet Clinic, Avoca and Shelby Vet Clinics, Urgent Pet Care Animal Hospital, Omaha Spay and Neuter Clinic  they all were there for us when our animals needed care, and performed the countless spays and neuters for us.

Our media partners  The Daily Nonpareil writers, Jon Leu, Sophia John at 89.7 The River and John Knicely from Channel 6 WOWT news  all helped us spread the word about our shelter, our adoptable pets, adoption events and helped educate the public on the importance of adoption, spaying and neutering. We thank you for helping us reach so many people.

Animal sheltering and rescue is a group effort, and we are proud and thankful to have had you all on our team.
Mineola will celebrate its German heritage with a feast.

St. John Lutheran Church will host its 35th annual German Heritage Dinner from 4:30 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 18.

Its a good time for fellowship. We all work together, said Susan Carnahan, a Mineola native and lifelong St. John congregant.

Mineola was founded in 1879 as a stop along the Council Bluffs & St. Louis Wabash train line, which later became the Wabash line, according to local historian Ryan Roenfeld. The village, which was never incorporated, was surrounded by German immigrant farmers, most of whom came from the state of Holstein in Germany in the late 1850s and 1860s. The first Germans were part of the Plumer Settlement in the early 1850s.

As early as 1879 the Mills County Republican (newspaper) called it a German town, Roenfeld said. Other than the railroad employees, everyone spoke German.

The town was later named Lewis City.

But that name didnt last, Roenfeld said. Neither did the German spelling of Minneola.

Mineola native Gloria Ross, whos helped with the heritage dinner since its founding, said the menu dinner will feature mettwurst  or mettvuss  a German sausage. A group of around 40 to 50 church volunteers will get together on Tuesday to cut up 1,200 pounds of pork shoulder, then season it with a special, secret German recipe, Carnahan said.

The Germans in the community have been doing it for years, Carnahan said.

From there, the filling is stuffed at Stoysich House of Sausage in Omaha. Organizers formerly cased the sausages themselves. A local farmer will smoke the sausage.

The menu also includes homemade sauerkraut and rye bread. Carnahan and Ross explained that a local farmer grinds the fresh rye, which is distributed to a group of volunteers.

Of course, everyone has a different recipe from their grandmother that they use and they all are good, Ross said.

We all bring a couple loaves, Carnahan said, adding about the preparation for the dinner: Its a whole weeks worth of activities.

Fried potatoes, yellow salad, desserts, coffee and tea round out the meal. Organizers said about 400 to 500 people attend annually.

Its a lot of fun, Carnahan said. A good time to get together.

The event started in 1983 as the St. John congregation celebrated its centennial.

It grew from there, Carnahan said. Its our big fundraiser for the year.

The 35th annual German Heritage Dinner will be held from 4:30 to 7 p.m. on Feb. 18 at St. John Lutheran Church, 620 Main St. in Mineola. The cost is $12 for adults, $6 for children age 5 to 12 and free for children 4 and younger. Takeout will be available, while raw sausage links will also be on sale.
SHENANDOAH  The Iowa Court of Appeals has affirmed a Farragut mans conviction and sentence for third-degree sexual abuse, assault and lascivious acts with a child following a 2015 Fremont County jury trial.

Thomas Ingram argued that the district court abused its discretion by admitting the child victims diary into evidence. Additionally, he claimed his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to object to impermissible vouching testimony by an expert witness.

According to court documents, the state charged Ingram in September 2014 after an allegation from a 12-year-old girl.

Roughly a year later, the jury convicted Ingram and sentenced him to a maximum of 10 years in prison for the sexual abuse charge, a maximum of five years on the charge of lascivious acts with a child and a maximum of 30 days in jail for the assault charge, with credit for time served. The sentences are being served concurrently.

Ingram claims the girls diary, which was used in the trial, was hearsay and unfairly prejudicial.

A portion of the diary read: Well I dont know how to put it but here it goes, (Ingram) has been raping me. ... I want to tell (an adult) but ... she probably thinks Im lying.

The victim, who also testifed in court, said she was scared to report the abuse because Ingram had threatened to kill her family.

In the appeal, Ingram also claimed that Meghan Jones testimony about child sexual abuse, indirectly commented on (the victims) credibility because the examples she gave were close to the facts in this case.

Jones is a mental-health therapist employed by Project Harmony.

The Appeals Court ruled the use of the girls diary was not prejudicial because it showed her dislike of the abuse and her desire for the abuse to end. This allowed the jury to conclude Ingram sexually abused her by force or against her will.

The court added the testimony of Jones may arguably have walked the thin line between proper expert testimony and vouching for the credibility of the victim but did not cross the line.
A Loves Travel Stop is coming to Mills County.

The center will be located on the west side of the Interstate 29-U.S. Highway 34 interchange, according to Kealey Dorian with Loves. The facility will feature an approximately 10,000-square-foot facility with a convenience store, section with small tools, motor oil and other items for professional drivers and other travels, a Subway restaurant and five to seven showers for drivers.

The complex will also include a semi truck tire care center and more than 50 parking spaces for semi truck drivers  and, of course, gas and diesel pumps.

Were very excited, Dorian said. Weve been growing our presence in Iowa.

The new Loves location will employ about 60 people, the majority of which will have full-time jobs with benefits, Dorian said.

Dorian said the interchange was an ideal area. The center will fill a roughly 230-mile void on I-29  the nearest Loves are in St. Joseph, Missouri, to the south and Sioux City to the north. It fills in our network, the spokeswoman said. It was a really perfect fit for us.

According to Linda Washburn with the Glenwood Area Chamber of Commerce, a groundbreaking ceremony for the facility will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 22. Dorian mentioned factors, including weather, could affect the timeline, but Loves hope to complete work by mid- or late fall.

The facility is part of the ongoing growth of the U.S. Highway 34 corridor.

A bridge connecting the Glenwood area to U.S. Highway 75 and Bellevue, Nebraska, opened in 2014 and opened up a whole new opportunity for that entire area and all of Mills County, southwest Iowa and the Omaha metro, according to Rick Allely, director of the Mills County Economic Development Foundation.

Mills County has an ongoing 5,600-acre master plan that includes water, sewer, road and electrical infrastructure work at the interchange. Part of it includes roadwork that will pave 190th Street from the interchange to the Pacific Junction exit on I-29, which is the interchange with old Highway 34.

Bid letting is planned for the spring, with work slated to take 12 to 18 months. Allely said the project will provide ease of access to the interstate and businesses in the area.

Those businesses include Loess Hills Harley-Davidson and Agrivision, which Allely credited as catalysts to the development of the area. Allely said the foundation is working to bring in a variety of logistics companies to the area.

The Loves facility is very much a positive, he said, noting one helpful factor: So many of your logistics companies have contracts with Loves. That can be a determining factor in recruiting businesses to the area.

The Glenwood location would be southwest Iowas second Loves, joining one that opened in 2014 at the Shelby interchange along Interstate 80. Oklahoma City-based Loves has more than 400 locations in 40 states.

We look for communities that will be able to support us in terms of business and people to work for us, Dorian said.

Allely said hes thankful Loves chose its site in Mills County and looks forward to continued development in the area.

I think its a great opportunity for the entire area to the have potential for sites that large that can accommodate new jobs and investment, he said.
The Helena Regional Airport Authority is asking the city of Helena and Lewis and Clark County to again pledge their financial support toward a grant to help expand local air service.

Jeff Wadekamper and members of the airport authority met with the city and county commission during a joint meeting to explain plans for linking Helena with Portland, Oregon, a Pacific Northwest hub, through Alaska Airlines.

While Wadekamper didnt ask during the meeting for a specific amount he would hope the city and county might pledge, he said afterward that he had discussed a $10,000 contribution with each of them.

The rationale for the amount, he explained, was that the airport authority is hoping to raise $100,000 and at least a 20 percent local match is required for a to the U.S. Department of Transportation Small Community Air Service Development Program.

The city and county had each pledged $5,000 prior to the airports grant application last year, Wadekamper said.

A decision by the city commission could come on Feb. 8 while a decision by the county commission is anticipated in mid-February.

The airport authority wants to conclude its fund-raising effort by March 1 so it will know whether to apply for the grant.

Grant funds are used to help an airline guarantee that it will have sufficient revenue from adding service to a community. The money is held by the federal program and an airline can apply for funds based on revenues and the goal it had set, Wadekamper said.

The funds are available to be tapped by an airline for three years after a grant is awarded.

Airport authority commissioners also want to raise $25,000 toward marketing efforts should the grant application be successful.

As of late last week, pledges amounting to about $45,000 had been received toward the grant while $10,000 had been offered in support of the marketing plan.

Commitments from additional donors are anticipated by the airport authority as it continues its solicitation for financial support.

Airports arent legally able to allocate funds for revenue guarantees, Wadekamper said previously, but noted that airports can assist with marketing efforts.

Portland is the second-most popular destination for those on flights from Helena. Having service to that city would also provide travelers from Helena with additional access to Seattle through Alaska Airlines flights between the two cities, Wadekamper has said.

Specifics on what days and at what times a Portland flight could operate from Helena, should Alaska Airlines be agreeable and both local fundraising and the grant application be successful, have yet to be discussed.

Service could begin with flights on only a few days each week to better gauge interest, Wadekamper explained previously.

Helena had a second daily Alaska Airlines flight until it was discontinued in August 2015. The flight arrived from Seattle late at night and returned early the next morning providing a convenient link for commuters and travelers who were connecting to other flights from Seattle.

The late night return flight allowed those who commuted to Seattle for work to return home the same day.

In last years grant application, the airport had hoped the federal funds, when matched with more than $50,000 in local pledges, would have allowed Alaska Airlines to restore its second daily flight linking Helena with Seattle.

Although the airport failed in that bid, it saw that grants were awarded to airports seeking new routes, according to Wadekamper.

In his presentation to the city and county commissions, he noted that Helena Regional Airport obtained a $450,000 grant in 2008 with $62,000 in local funds to court service by United Airlines.

That effort won service to Denver that continues today he continued and added that on average 89 percent of the seats on that flight were filled in 2016. Passenger numbers in 2016 reflected a 4.8 percent increase from those in 2015.

Funding through the federal program helped allowed Bozeman to obtain American Airlines service to Dallas in 2015 although the $750,000 federal grant was matched by $1,665,000 in community funding, Wadekamper said.

His success stories included Missoula that raised $600,000 to match a grant of equal amount allowing the community to obtain an American Airlines service to Dallas.

And a $185,000 community fund raising effort by Great Falls helped it obtain a $385,000 grant that brought summer only service to Chicago by United Airlines.

According to the 2016 economic impact study of Montana airports by the Montana Department of Transportation that Wadekamper mentioned in his presentation to the city and county commissioners, the airport here contributes toward 2,000 jobs, a payroll of $79,543,000 with an economic impact of $284,656,000.
MISSOULA -- Missoulas International Rescue Committee office welcomed four new refugees to town Friday, a day after a federal appeals court refused to reinstate the Trump administrations travel ban on refugees as well as visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The new arrivals brings to 12 the number of refugees sent to Missoula since President Donald Trump issued an executive order with the bans on Jan. 27. Eight Eritreans arrived on Feb. 1, two days before U.S. Judge James Robart of Federal District Court in Seattle blocked Trumps immigration order.

The nationality of the newcomers Friday could not be immediately determined. Missoula IRC interim director Patrick Poulin didnt return a request for comment.

According to a U.S. State Departments Refugee Processing Center website, theyre not from any of the seven countries targeted in Trumps order, nor from Eritrea or the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Those two nations are represented by 47 of the 67 newcomers to Missoula through the refugee program.

Nine Syrians and five Iraqis have landed in Missoula since October. Those two nationalities are on Trumps list of seven, along with those originally from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

I wouldnt say its been business as usual under these very fluid weeks, but arrivals are now coming, and from all countries, said Mireille Cronin Mather, who directs Pacific Region offices for the IRC. We have had no indication that we will not continue to get arrivals, albeit under the new 50,000 Presidential Determination.

That number is less than half the 110,000 requested by President Obama last fall.

In an email Friday afternoon, Mather said there have been close to 40,000 arrivals to the United States in the federal fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

So the balance is not very much for the remainder of the fiscal year. It is also of course unknown what action the administration may take since the suspension of the EO was upheld.

The Associated Press reported that Trump's chief of staff said he expects new executive orders to be "enacted soon" in response to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision Thursday to block the immigration ban.

Reince Priebus told reporters Friday that "every single court option" is on the table as the administration contests the action.

A White House official said the new order could be a modified version of the one signed last month or a new version altogether. The official spoke anonymously because the issue is still under review.

Priebus says the White House is "fighting out this case on the merits, which will be proven ultimately 100 percent correct and vindicated on the merits."

The IRCs president and CEO hailed the appeals court decision.

David Miliband said he is heartened the three-judge court, which included one George W. Bush appointee, showed that care for refugees and commitment to American security go together.

The confusion and chaos that resulted from the Administrations hasty and harmful executive order should be a lesson to keep intact carefully developed procedures that have kept America safe, Miliband said in a statement on the IRC website. We are grateful that we can get back to work resettling refugees who have fled the terrors of war and violence, while also caring for those who remain trapped in conflict zones.

As this ruling will almost certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, in the meantime, the IRC remains committed to serving our refugee clients here in the U.S. and in more than 40 countries around the world.

Mather, whose office is in San Diego, said the IRC in Missoula will continue to see arrivals and to work to integrate refugees into the very welcoming community there. But now we need more citizen support than ever to inform elected officials that the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program works extremely well as it is. The chaos and confusion that happened after the Executive Order is proof of what happens when you upset a very balanced system.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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Five people have been arrested for selling 'fully loaded' Kodi boxes  but are the TV streaming devices actually legal to use?

Sales of the set-top boxes pre-loaded with Kodi streaming software  which allows people to watch premium pay TV channels without forking out for costly subscription packages  have skyrocketed in the UK.

While Kodi boxes are not themselves illegal, they can enable users to illegally stream content to their TV.

This week five people were taken to police stations in Bolton, Bootle, Cheadle, Manchester and Rhyl for questioning as part of a major crackdown on sales of the devices.

The suspects, who are believed to have made in the region of 250,000 selling the Kodi boxes online, have since been released on bail.

Copyright protection agency The UK Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) instigated the crackdown on behalf of the Premier League, Sky, BT Sport and Virgin Media.

Director general Kieron Sharp said: "Set-top boxes loaded with apps and add-ons allowing access to copyright infringing material are very much illegal and anyone involved in selling these boxes should not be surprised to receive a knock on the door."

Here's what you need to know about the boxes.

What is Kodi?

Kodi is a free software application that can run on a computer, smartphone, tablet or set-top box, allowing users to stream films and TV programmes over the internet.

Is it legal?

The software itself is not illegal, nor is it illegal to sell devices with Kodi pre-installed on them.

However, many of these Kodi devices come pre-loaded with third party plug-ins and add-ons that allow users to stream pirated content to their TV.

Selling these "fully-loaded" TV set-top devices is a breach of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Individuals involved in this crime may also be breaking the Fraud Act and be charged with Money Laundering offences, according to FACT.

What are the penalties?

The penalties for sellers are high and it could result in time behind bars.

Are these the first arrests?

In December 2016, Terry O'Reilly 53, of Turriff Road, Liverpool, was sentenced to four years imprisonment for selling illegal set-top TV boxes - a prosecution brought by the Premier League with support from FACT - after the first trial of its kind in the UK, held at Nottingham Crown Court.

Co-accused William O'Leary, 43, of Claricoates Drive, Coddington, Notts, had already admitted one charge of conspiracy to defraud. He was sentenced to two years, suspended for one year.

What does the Government have to say?

Jo Johnson, minister of state for universities, science, research and Innovation, praised the crackdown on the sale and distribution of illegal TV set-top devices.

"Profiting from illegal streaming is completely unacceptable. The UK's creative industries are a national asset that must be protected," he said.

"Today's efforts have shown that partnership works. I wish to congratulate FACT and the police for ending these criminal operations."

What does this mean for me?

FACT claims that "if you are accessing premium pay-for content, like Sky, BT Sport and Virgin Media, and you do not have a subscription with an official provider then this is unlawful access".

However, it is unclear exactly what law you would be breaking.

If you were to download an illegally copied file, that would constitute copyright infringement.

However, when you stream something online, the file is stored only temporarily on your computer  and temporary copies are exempt from copyright laws.

Morally, of course, it is a completely different matter. Anyone accessing content from a pirate site is involving themselves in unlawful behaviour, often putting money into the hands of criminals.

They are also undermining the legitimate sale of subscription TV services, which employ tens of thousands of people in the UK, and whose contributions are key to the creative and sporting industries.

Furthermore, accessing illegal sites can leave your computer vulnerable to viruses and other harmful content
The Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art has extended its deadline for artist submissions for the exhibition: 150 Artists, 150 Artworks, 150 Years of Nebraska in Miniature. Applications will now be accepted until Feb. 25. Submissions can be made at bonecreek.org.

The project is structured to ideally exhibit one piece of agrarian art by 150 artists. Artists are invited to submit one piece of artwork. Agrarian art is art that relates to the land. All artist mediums and skill levels are encouraged to participate. There is even a special section for high school and collegiate artists.

The original deadline was Feb. 1, but the museum had not yet reached its goal of 150 artists so the deadline has been extended with the hope to spread the word and encourage more participation.

The Nebraska Sesquicentennial Commission has endorsed this project as a Signature Event of the 2017 Sesquicentennial. The museum was looking for a way to honor the state. This project is a way to connect the museums mission  to connect people to the land through art  with the larger overall theme of the states anniversary.

I know there are many artists in Nebraska. I thought this would be a way to celebrate the great artists we have in the state and bring more exposure to those artists as well as Bone Creek, said curator Amanda Mobley Guenther.

The exhibition will run at Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art from May 3 through July 30. All of the artworks will be for sale and a portion of the proceeds will support the work of the museum in the local community. An online version of the exhibition will also be made available to reach the museums national audience.

More information about the exhibition and how to participate is available at bonecreek.org. Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art, 575 E St., David City, NE, 68632, is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday and from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sunday. For more information, call the museum at 402-367-4488.
The Sutherland Village Board has hired North Platte attorney Kent Florom to represent the village in pending litigation.

A special meeting was called Friday morning to address the issue.

Village Attorney Rory Roundtree informed the board of a conflict of interest in a letter dated Jan. 10. The letter indicated that Roundtree could not represent the board on some specific matters.

The law firm of Lindemeier, Gillette and Dawson was contacted, and Florom informed board Chairman John Lutz that he would like to meet with the board.

We were contacted the latter part of January regarding Mr. Roundtrees letter to this board, Florom said. My first point of order at that point was to advise Mr. Lutz that I felt it necessary that this board convene to make sure that it was done above board, openly and appropriately.

Florom said he recommended a meeting to establish the parameters of any representation the board thought would be needed from his firm.

Florom said his understanding was that the board received a letter from the Nebraska Attorney Generals Office requesting a reply by Feb. 7.

When Mr. Lutz advised me the meeting was going to be held today, Feb. 10, I took it upon myself to contact the attorney generals office and spoke to the author of the letter that was faxed to the board, Florom said.

Florom said the deadline was extended to Feb. 24 for reply.

Board members voted to hire Florom to represent them on the specific pending litigation.
The Raiders have received some initial reports on Jarrod Croker's knee injury, which he sustained in last nights All-Stars match.

Initial diagnosis following scans today forecast a six week recovery for Croker, as a result of a disloacted knee cap.

Raiders medical staff will reassess the injury when he returns to Canberra from Newcastle on Monday.
SCHERERVILLE  Leah Konrady recently returned to her roots in Northwest Indiana after living in Colorado, Washington D.C., and California. Now the Michigan City resident focuses on determining priorities and strategies for future advancement in Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties as One Region president & CEO.

At Fridays Lake County Advancement Committee monthly meeting at Teibels Restaurant, Konrady outlined the challenges facing Northwest Indiana and how One Regions civic action platform and other programs help stimulate discussions.

Lake and LaPorte counties continue to decline in population while Porter County has seen some increase, she said. Part of the problem can be attributed to what's often called the brain drain.

"Were losing our talent, said Konrady, who has been head of One Region for nine months.

Goals driving the nonprofit organization include growing population and attracting and retaining talent to improve quality of place, she told those attending the luncheon. One Region needs to take action  Lets think differently.

One Region has an initiative that undertakes a benchmark study and then visits an area where that benchmark has been achieved, Konrady said.

Another called New Voices focuses on the age group known as millennials, many of whom leave the area after high school and college.

Millenials jump ship like that, she said, snapping her fingers.

Were brainstorming what people here really want to see in the future, Konrady said. I think its great to be from Northwest Indiana. Were close to Chicago. We have Lake Michigan. We have to stop being down on ourselves.

The South Shore railroad system will play a major role in growing Northwest Indiana, she said.

A project to double track the South Shore commuter rail line from Gary to Michigan City would reduce commute times to Chicago drastically, she said. For example it would reduce the commute from Michigan City to Chicago from the current 1 hour and 45 minutes to just a flat hour.

"That would change this area drastically, Konrady said.

The West Lake Corridor that would extend the South Shore line nine miles south from Hammond to Munster and Dyer is a game-changing project for the Region, she said

Rail lines are important to Northwest Indiana for several reasons, she added.

There are 490 miles of (commuter) rail lines in the Chicago area. There are 30 miles of rail in Lake and Porter counties. The population in Illinois has grown 225 percent. We grew 4 percent in Porter County, she said.

The household incomes in those Illinois communities with transit-oriented developments around train stations have also increased, Konrady said.

We need to do what brings in talent and grows household income, said the fifth-generation Northwest Indiana resident. The Region hasnt seen this since the steel mills.
With policing practices under the microscope and mounting criticism in the face of high-profile police killings of minority men and women across the U.S., Griffith Police Chief Greg Mance said he wants to face these issues head on.

That's why Mance helped organize a three-day training course this past week for his officers to learn about implicit bias, or the notion that most everyone experiences some degree of subconscious stereotypes  even the police.

Every police department in the United States is one (incident) away from making the evening news, Mance said.

Mance said he believes the agencies participating  Griffith, Munster and Highland  have good reputations already, but its important to train officers to be aware of bias that may exist.

The three-day training course, held at the Highland Police Department, was led by Bob Stewart, a police practices expert who spent much of his law enforcement career with the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department, in partnership with Indiana University Northwests Center for Urban and Regional Excellence.

Stewart said he is serving as a monitor in two U.S. Department of Justice consent decrees involving police departments in Newark, New Jersey, and the Virgin Islands.

This is about having a realistic conversation with law enforcement about bias, Stewart said.

On Saturday, Stewart highlighted how law enforcement in affluent neighborhoods, in particular, can end up profiling by proxy  or relying on information from a biased caller instead of independently assessing a call for service.

Some discussed how residents call 911 to report suspicious activity and expect an officer on scene  even if the person isnt doing anything illegal that would warrant a traffic stop or contact with police.

The interesting question is why do you have to violate his rights? Stewart said.

Nobody wants push-back from the caller. So this is tricky stuff, because command staff doesnt want that person calling in to say Well, I wanted the police at my house and they wouldnt come. So you go.

Officers should take on a guardian mindset, with a focus on protecting their community, versus a warrior mindset, Stewart said, citing the President's Task Force Report on 21st Century Policing, released in 2014 under President Barack Obamas administration.

Highland patrol officer Daniel Ponce said while implicit bias exists, his 12 years in law enforcement, including eight-plus years in East Chicago, taught him professionalism and mutual respect can go along way in policing.

"I'm always professional, no matter who I'm dealing with. (During stops) I always tell them 'Hey, I got called out here and I had to come. I know you're not doing anything but I got to ask you what's going on.' And nine times out of 10, there's nothing going on."
CROWN POINT  A criminal court judge ruled Friday that a single trial will be held for 39-year-old David Johnson IV, who faces murder charges in the deaths of three men.

The state had requested that Judge Diane Boswell rule that Johnson face one trial in the killings of Arreon T. Lackey, 18; Antonio D. Lackey, 16; and Alfred Wiley, 46.

Johnson, 39, and six co-defendants are charged with murder and kidnapping in the fatal shooting of the Lackey brothers in June 2015.

Johnson and co-defendant Jeri L. Woods, aka Jeri McCoy, are further charged in Wiley's murder in April 2015.

The state alleged at a hearing Tuesday Johnson murdered the brothers because they stole the .38-caliber revolver used in the Wiley killing.

Therefore, similar facts and evidence intertwined the two murders, the state argued.

Defense attorney Roseann Ivanovich argued Tuesday the cases were too complex to present at one trial.

Ivanovich said at Friday's hearing Johnson had a possible alibi defense in Wiley's killing.

A trial is scheduled for July 31.
HAMMOND  A federal jury convicted two women Friday afternoon of promoting prostitution at a chain of local massage spas.

Jurors heard three weeks of evidence and deliberated about four hours Friday before finding Rita Law, 58, of Chicago, who ran the spas, guilty of human trafficking and involuntary servitude and Crystal Wireman, 32, of Lake Station, guilty of promoting prostitution while working for Law.

They and Edward Olszewski, of Hobart, who pleaded guilty in 2015 to transporting prostitutes, await sentencing at a later date.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jill Koster and Abizer Zanzi presented evidence Law recruited two Asian women to the United States to work in her massage spas in Gary and Hobart and expected them to perform sex acts for customers.

The case began with a Gary Police Department raid Sept. 3, 2013, of the Duneland Spa, 3549 Broadway, in Gary's Glen Park section. They arrested an Asian masseuse who told investigators through a translator that her employers were holding her passport.

Philip Coduti, a special agent of Homeland Security, traced property records of the spa to Olszewski who admitted he rented the building, did accounting for the spa and helped transport prostitutes from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to work in the local spas.

He said Law also ran a Duneland Spa in Lake Station and the Fun Fun Feet spa in Hobart.

Olszewski told authorities he first met Law when he was a customer of the Duneland Spa when it was in business from 2007 to 2010 in Lake Station and had received sexual favors there.

Olszewski said he had to work for Law without pay, because she had threatened to expose his participation in prostitution otherwise

The government said Law would recruit foreign women on promises they would receive citizenship, marry and have employment.

Once in the United States, Law is accused of forcing them into prostitution in exchange for money from their largely male clientele. They said the women felt isolated, were physically restrained and would suffer harm if they didn't obey Law.

Law's defense team argued she never forced the women to perform sex.

The government said the day they charged Law in U.S. District Court on Dec. 16, 2013, she flew on a one-way airplane ticket to Hong Kong.

Authorities arrested her there before she could escape to Taiwan or Macau and returned her to Indiana, where she has remained in federal detention since.

They arrested Wireman in March 2014. The government said she worked as a masseuse at Law's Gary and Hobart spas and assisted Law in their operation.

The U.S. attorney credited the FBI; Gary, Hobart and Lake Station police; the county Sheriff's Department; and Oak Forest, Illinois, police with assisting the investigation.
HAMMOND  A Chicago man scuffled with an Indiana State Police officer Friday night and then fled, with the resulting chase leading to the officer pulling his gun, scuffling again, tackling and eventually handcuffing the suspect with the assistance of two good Samaritans, according to police.

Marques J. Bates, 30, of Chicago was subsequently charged with battery of a law enforcement officer, a felony, as well as the misdemeanors of resisting law enforcement, operating while intoxicated refusal and operating while intoxicated endangering, according to Indiana State Police.

Events started at 9:29 p.m. when Trooper Alaa Hamed had just exited the Indiana Toll Road onto Indianapolis Boulevard and a 2001 Buick Century sped by and went through a red light, according to a state police news release. The vehicle then stopped in the area of 110th and 108th streets.

Hamed pulled up behind with his squad car's flashing lights on, walked up to the vehicle and smelled alcohol, the release stated. Bates took a field sobriety test and a portable breath test but became combative and attempted to walk away when Hamed tried to put handcuffs on him.

Hamed grabbed Bates but the suspect pulled free and ran into a field with the officer giving chase, the release stated. Bates fled north on Indianapolis Boulevard and Hamed returned to his car, drove north, and headed him off. Bates then turned around and fled south with Hamed again chasing on foot, according to police.

At one point, Bates turned around and Hamed ordered him to get on the ground at gunpoint, but Bates again fled, this time north on Indianapolis Boulevard, the release stated. With traffic coming at them, Hamed tackled Bates and after a couple of minutes of struggle started to get handcuffs on him.

Two passersby eventually helped hold Bates down and the officer finished handcuffing him, according to state police.

Trooper George Hornsby, Hammond police, and Hammond fire emergency medical personnel arrived. Both Bates and Hamed were medically cleared.

Bates again became combative, according to police, and was transported to the Lake County Jail in Crown Point.

Bates' passenger, who was sober, was released.
DECATUR  Jikime Wilson, a 23-year-old Decatur man who was convicted on a felony burglary charge in January, was arraigned Thursday on 10 more felony counts after police connected him to three more burglaries involving elderly or middle-age victims.

On Sept. 23, a 53-year-old woman's house was burglarized on East Drive, shortly after she left home. She told police Wilson had called her that morning, to make sure she was not at home. Wilson is a cousin of teens she mentored.

When she returned home, a glass door was shattered, and her TV set, other electronics and jewelry were missing. Detectives found her jewelry at a pawn shop and arrested Wilson on Oct. 19. Wilson pleaded guilty to one count of burglary Nov. 13 and was sentenced to 24 months of probation.

On Oct. 1, a 52-year-old woman told police the locked rear door of her house in the 2100 block of North Water Street had been kicked in, and she was missing an iPhone, laptop computer and jewelry. Two 16-year-old male juveniles were arrested the following day, including one who resided with Wilson in the 2000 block of North Main Street.

Latent fingerprints lifted from the door of the residence "were found to be made by Jikime Wilson," said an affidavit by Decatur police detective Eric Matthews.

When Wilson was arrested Jan. 31, he told police he was inside the Water Street house with four juveniles when the juveniles stole items from the residence. Wilson also admitted to being with the juveniles when they committed another burglary Oct. 1 in his neighborhood.

On Oct. 2, officers responding to a traffic crash found an unoccupied 2004 Buick which had crashed into a parked car and a tree. When the Buick's owner was located, the 89-year-old man said his residence in the 300 block of East Pierson Avenue had been burglarized the previous day. He was missing his car keys and six watches, including a 100-year-old pocket watch.

On Oct. 6, a 65-year-old woman reported that her house on East Drive had been burglarized. Her stolen Apple iPad was located Nov. 6 in the basement of Wilson's house, about a foot away from his Illinois ID card.

Police were called to North Main Street on Nov. 6 on the report of a male impersonating a police officer. Wilson lived in the same residence as the juvenile arrested in that case. When the house was searched, the iPad was found. A resident related to the juvenile identified Wilson as the iPad's owner.

Wilson, who is being held in jail on $50,000 bond, is facing charges of residential burglary, burglary, possession of a stolen motor vehicle and theft. He is due in court March 1 for a preliminary hearing.
As we celebrate Black History Month, NY1 Criminal Justice Reporter Dean Meminger sits down with African-American commanding officers in the NYPD. In his latest report, he introduces us to a police officer known as Uncle Rodney by some in the community.

Assistant Chief Rodney Harrison says he's the man in charge of making sure Police Commissioner James O'Neill's neighborhood policing initiative is on-track.

Right now, neighborhood coordinating officers, known as NCOs, are in 35 precincts and all of the housing police services areas.

"In the next month or so, we are going to hit up another four commands, and then in three months we are going to hit up another four commands," Harrison said. "So by the end of 2017, we should be done with three-quarters of the commands throughout the city.

"It is all about getting the right manpower and the right police officers, the right amount of police officers in the precincts to have the philosophy work in every single precinct," Harrison continued.

The NCOs are supposed to repair the relationship between community and officers, but Harrison says those NCOs are crime fighters first.

That can be a delicate balancing act, especially in the African-American community.

"One of the things that I benefit from is being able to relate with them. I grew up in Jamaica, Queens. It's not Harlem or Brooklyn, but growing up in a minority community, you kind of understand some of the demands or concerns that are there," Harrison said. "So they were receptive to my ideas, as well as I was able to understand some of their concerns and find a way to make things better regarding some of the gaps in communication."

NY1 caught up with the two-star chief at Denny Moe's Superstar Barbershop in Harlem, a community where he served six years as a precinct commander.

Some viewed him as a community asset, others as an advocate for stop-and-frisk. Harrison closed off 129th St. in 2012 and demanded residents show I.D. after multiple people were shot.

"I got information that the rival gang was going to go up and shoot anybody on the block and they didn't care who was out there," Harrison reflected.

"And the only thing I could think of, to remedy that, was kind of shut down the block temporarily and make sure that only residents that resided on 129 St. were able to walk down that block," he continued.

As an African-American chief, Harrison says he believes he's made a difference and he's very proud of his work with young people.

"I put my best foot forward to really show some of these kids that being a part of this department is not a bad thing," he said. "We're here to help at the end of the day, and they really appreciate it, and they're receptive to it."
Immigration advocates will be speaking out again against ramped up efforts from the Trump Administration on immigration.

Hundreds are expected to attend a rally in Washington Square Park this afternoon to denounce the raids taking place across the country.

Protesters gathered yesterday in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Lower Manhattan.

Sources tell NY1 officers began cracking down on immigrant communities nationwide.

A Department of Justice source says it will be actively targeting sanctuary cities like New York in so-called "enforcement surges."

"New York City is built on immigrants," one protester said Friday. "It's a country built on immigrants. And we're here to say we won't stand for these raids and attacks."

"Anyone can be vulnerable," said another protester outside the ICE office in Lower Manhattan. "And at this moment, folks have to come out, get information, to start having emergency plan in place, to make sure their family have a plan in case something happens."

Last month, the President issued an order that targets undocumented immigrants convicted of a crime or charged with a crime that has not been resolved.

He also wants to cut off federal funding to sanctuary cities who do not comply with his Executive Orders.
Police are investigating a fatal shooting in Brooklyn.

It happened a little before 5 a.m. Saturday, at a home on Alabama Avenue near Riverdale Avenue in East New York.

Investigators say the 41-year-old man found in the building's basement.

He was shot once in the head.

His identity has not been released.

A neighbor we spoke with says he's shocked by the news.

"It's unusual for something to happen like this around here," the neighbor said. "It's not a bad neighborhood."

There have been no arrests.

Anyone with information on the case should contact the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS, or text CRIMES and then enter TIP577, or visit www.nypdcrimestoppers.com.
The NYPD is looking for a woman who has gone missing with her son.

Investigators say the two were last seen around 6 p.m. Friday.

52-year-old Diane Simpson was visiting her son Shajabar McRae and his grandmother at a McDonald's on Southern Boulevard in the Longwood section of the Bronx.

Police say Simpson, who doesnt have custody of the 10-year-old, forced him to leave with her.

McRae was last seen wearing a Puma jacket.

Police say Simpson lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Authorities say they did not issue an Amber Alert because they determined the child was not in immediate danger.

Anyone with information on the case should contact the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS, or text CRIMES and then enter TIP577, or visit www.nypdcrimestoppers.com.
Responding to President Donald Trump's travel ban and a call for tighter border, state lawmakers are considering legislation to declare New York a "sanctuary state." Zack Fink filed the following report.

On Monday, the Democratic-controlled state Assembly held a press conference to announce it would pass a series of bills in support of undocumented New Yorkers. The goal was to push back against a Trump White House, which many crtics says has has taken on a xenophobic and anti-immigration tone.

One of the bills Assembly Democrats promised to pass is the Liberty Act, which has the effect of making New York a "sanctuary state." But when it came time to tally the votes, the Democrats could barely muster enough to pass it.

"Some of these votes are tough," said Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. "That's one of the reasons we love to have such a big majority. We are able to get tough votes passed. We wanted to send a message to the world about where we stand and where our hearts are when it comes to dealing with immigrants."

The sanctuary state bill ended up passing by just two votes in the Assembly, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two to one. In some cases, Democrats were asked to change their "no" votes to "yes."

"Yeah, it seemed that once we debated the bill and actually showed what was in it, many Democrats got cold feet and didn't necessarily want to vote for it," said Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, whose district covers parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island. "It is a really bad bill."

Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, who is opposed to the bill, was even more critical of the Assembly vote.

"Small? 77 to 58, that is virtually no margin," Flanagan said. "It's OK. I think that is an indication of the significant number of problems associated with the bill."

The sanctuary state bill would prevent law enforcement at the state and local level from inquiring about a person's immigration status or sharing that information with federal authorities, something that already is the case in New York City, as well as roughly 300 other cities and counties and four other states.

"The Assembly passed a bill that said that. We have to review that because exactly what a sanctuary state is is a little ambiguous, right? The Senate has said the bill is unconstitutional," Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

State Democrats have been eager this session to send a message in the Trump era, but critics say it's highly unsual for the Assembly speaker to bring any bill to the floor without first taking a head count to determine how many votes he actually has.
Two weeks ago, a senior commander with the U.S. Armys 1st Cavalry Division, serving in battle-hardened Afghanistan, sent a letter to Auburn, Alabama.

It was addressed to a national hero.

You are a true legendand continue to inspire the troops of today, all across the globe, he wrote. We hold one of your edicts close to our hearts  No second-place trophies. The winning spirit is alive and well.

A few months earlier, movie stars Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn made a special trip to Auburn for the sole purpose of seeing this same hero.

He and Gibson had met several times before and had become good friends. Gibson portrayed him in the lead role of the film, We Were Soldiers.

Retired Lt. Gen. Hal Moore passed away late Friday night. He would have turned 95 years old on Monday, and the Army hero known for saving most of his men and surviving a fierce standoff despite being outnumbered 10-to-1 in the first major battle of the Vietnam War proved to be a ferocious fighter to the very end.

He had another stroke last week, one of his children said Thursday evening. Hes still hanging tough.

Moores family already was in town this weekend to celebrate his 95th birthday with a reunion of all five children here at their Auburn home that has been in the extended family since 1950.

Hal Moore known as "Captain Fun" by his family Hal Moores children remember their father as a man who took time out to make their childhoo

They held a private family celebration with birthday cake Thursday evening, with longtime family friend Mayor Bill Ham invited to join them.

Ham brought with him a framed proclamation that he presented to Moore and his children soon after the traditional singing of Happy Birthday and the siblings united effort in blowing out two candles carved into waxed infantrymen.

Ham later pondered, however, where it might hang as he surveyed the memorabilia-covered walls in Moores study, including another proclamation or two Ham had presented Moore in years past.

It mattered little. Any mayor anywhere would be honored to have him as a cherished resident and cherished member of the community, Ham said of his friend.

Tensions in Vietnam

Americas military involvement in Vietnam began by sending advisers.

Then, more combat troops.

We intend to convince the communists that we cannot be defeated by a force of arms, then President Lyndon B. Johnson told the world while trying to convince an American public frightened of communism that such an evil must be stopped from spreading.

The escalation of the U.S military role in Southeast Asia came in the early 1960s not long after a threat of nuclear war with the Cuban Missile Crisis and less than two decades since World War II and the Korean War.

Much of the nation was skeptical about fighting another so soon, but American soldiers nonetheless trained and prepared in the proud tradition of those who fought before them.

Moore, a colonel at the time, began training elements of the famous 7th Cavalry at nearby Fort Benning, Georgia, in a new concept of warfare that involved helicopters flying deep into enemy territory and finding landing zones to deploy troops.

It would be one such landing zone where a battle soon would erupt and cast striking parallels between Moore and another commander of the 7th Cavalry less than a century earlier  Gen. George Armstrong Custer, infamously known for Custers Last Stand before he and his men were all killed.

Fort Bennings role

The North Vietnamese Army, referred to as NVA, wanted to engage and kill Americans to demonstrate its determination in evicting yet another invader, as it had done years earlier with the French.

However, it knew it would be costly to engage the American military where it was strongest, so it tried to lure the fight into jungle warfare far from central bases. The U.S. Army, on the other hand, issued orders to Moore and his troops to seek and destroy the enemy.

A small open field was found near where enemy activity was suspected, and it was designated Landing Zone X-ray, or LZ X-ray for short. However, only a few helicopters at a time could land in the LZ.

Moore was the first to step foot on what quickly would become a bloody battlefield.

When I took command of that battalion, I stood in front of my troops and made a short speech, Moore recalled in later interviews, referring to the units training at Fort Benning. Get rid of second-place trophies, because were going to be the best.

And I promise you, when we go into combat, and I think we shall because the Vietnam War is heating up, he said, When we go into combat, I will be the first man on the ground, and the last man out, and I will leave no man behind.

That day came on Nov. 14, 1965.

The Battle of la Drang Valley

During a 1993 documentary feature filmed by ABC television, Moore was asked if he had any idea what awaited him and his men when they first arrived at LZ X-ray.

No, none whatsoever, Moore replied.

What neither Moore nor any of the senior officers who ordered him on the mission knew was: On the mountain overlooking the valley and LZ was a base camp for the NVA  and three enemy battalions.

Moore and his first small group of helicopters had landed right in the enemys lap.

Before Moore had accumulated about 150 men and while waiting for more to come, the North Vietnamese immediately attacked with a force of about 1,600 troops, which later would grow into thousands more.

Gunfire and mortar fire began ripping the ground and the men to shreds. The small and vastly outnumbered American force returned fire with devastating effect, slowing the enemy advance.

Moore, however, made an early tactical move that would carry him into military textbook lore and no doubt saved his command.

Instead of following natural instincts and gathering all his force within a tight perimeter to defend itself, as Custer had done in fighting American Indians in his last stand, Moore immediately recognized that he had to protect his landing zone, or there would be no hope of re-enforcements making it to the ground to join the fight.

Thinking about how his enemy might approach the battle, he quickly ordered a portion of his troops to hustle across the field under fire and establish a defense line on the other side of it.

Almost exactly as Moore had predetermined, the enemy attacked the skirmish line, while also pouring troops into the fight against Moore from all sides.

The battle quickly grew and raged into a bloody fight, much of it hand-to-hand combat.

Helicopters flown by brave pilots did what they could to deliver help, but they were easy pickings for the snipers and machine gunners surrounding Moore and his men, who protected the LZ as long as they could.

Eventually, NVA troops broke through the lines and into the clearing. It was a desperate situation for the outmanned Americans who now had enemy soldiers fighting them within the ranks. There were few options left.

Moore sounded the call of Broken arrow!

That was the command given when an American unit was overrun, and it meant that all available air power was to respond and attack the position with everything it could drop.

Immediately fighter jets, helicopters and even heavy bombers joined the fight.

It was the saving grace for Moore and his men, and although Moore knew that the close air support likely killed some of his own soldiers, it also is what saved the American unit from being wiped out.

The air strikes inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy and helped even the fight, as Moores men never let up and continued a fierce resistance. The battle dragged on for three days and two nights, non-stop.

Finally, silence.

The enemy, at least for the moment, withdrew. And Moore along with most of his command still stood.

When the 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry departed the battlefield, Col. Hal Moore was the last to leave.

A place called home

In 32 years, we moved 27 times, daughter Julie said with a smile. Such was life growing up in a military family.

But Auburn was different.

This was what we called the port in the storm, she said, pointing to her fathers home around her. Mom and Dad said we could always come home. Auburn is special to all of us.

She is here this weekend from Arkansas; Steve from North Carolina; Greg from Dallas; Cecile from Colorado.

Dave Moore lives here and remains an Auburn resident.

Its clear theyre all proud of their father and his role in American history, but also evident was a family togetherness reunited as they sang to him as he sat quietly in his wheelchair. They broke bread with a chocolate cake they cut and shared.

When questioned, they smiled and recalled Mel Gibsons recent visit. He came here just to see Dad, one of them said. They wanted to know where was a good place to eat after their visit, so we suggested Hamiltons.

Gibson and Vaughn soon made social media and newspaper headlines for being seen at the restaurant, but few knew what their real reason was for coming to Auburn.

Gibson, during his intense work in preparing for and filming We Were Soldiers, had gained great respect for retired Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, the man. Auburns mayor understood why.

Without doubt, he is one of the finest men Ive ever known, Ham said during a quiet walk down the driveway as he left the home.

Judging by the signatures of battlefield survivors on a banner of the 7th Cavalry, 1st Battalion, there are many men who owe their lives to Moore and who no doubt agree.

Likewise for countless others serving today and inspired by his courage under fire, including those in harms way in Afghanistan.

God bless as you turn 95 years young, the officer concluded his recent letter, adding:

Live the Legend.

That he did. To the very end.

Editors note: Services will be announced for later next week, as the family will plan a local service in Auburn, and there will be a military graveside service at Fort Benning. Troy Turner is editor of the Opelika-Auburn News and may be reached at tturner@oanow.com.
DECATUR  As Thomas L. Jones allegedly strangled and battered a woman, she was afraid that she would lose consciousness.

As she struggled to breathe, he called her a derogatory name and threatened to snap her neck.

I have nothing to lose, I'm already on parole, Jones, a 42-year-old Decatur man allegedly told the 45-year-old woman, according to police.

Jones, who is being held on $40,000 bond in the Macon County Jail, was arraigned Thursday on four felony counts, including aggravated domestic battery, unlawful restraint and two counts of domestic battery conviction with a prior domestic battery conviction.

Police were sent to the victim's residence on the city's southern edge about 1:45 a.m. Feb. 3 on a domestic violence report. The woman told police she and Jones were involved in an argument, which led to the attack.

When she returned to the bedroom from the kitchen, Thomas threw her on the bed and put his arm around her neck, placing her in a headlock, said an affidavit by Decatur patrol officer Nichole Morgan.

While he held her by her neck Jones punched her on the left side of her face three or four times with a closed fist, she told police.

When Jones released her, she went outside and called 911.

The reddened appearance of the woman's neck was consistent with the account she gave to police, Morgan wrote in her statement.

During a police interview, Jones said he and the woman were arguing, when she entered the bedroom with a small kitchen knife. He said she cut him several times with the knife.

The woman said she was not aware of any knife in the bedroom.

She believed Thomas cut himself after she went outside, the affidavit said.

Morgan noted that there were several superficial scratches on Jones's chest.

The woman was not arrested.

Jones was released from prison Sept. 19, after serving 15 months of a 30-month sentence for a conviction on a felony stalking charge. The victim in that case was a 40 year-old Decatur woman, who Jones threatened to kill in June 2015 after their three-month relationship ended.

Text messages Jones sent to that victim were obscene, lewd, filthy or indecent, said a police affidavit. The woman told police she felt alarmed and disturbed and felt the threats were real.

Jones has six convictions in criminal cases since 1998, for crimes, including domestic battery/bodily harm, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and theft. He has served four terms in the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Jones is due in court for his preliminary hearing March 1.
REGGIO CALABRIA, Italy  Fighting the Mafia at the very toe of Italy, Roberto Di Bella has seen a lot: children as young as 11 or 12 serving as lookouts during murders, attending drug deals and mob strategy sessions, or learning how to handle a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

But it was the day he charged the younger brother of a minor he had jailed years before that he decided to take a drastic step: separating children from their mob families and moving them to a different part of Italy to break a generational cycle of criminality.

I am not taking them away for nothing, said Di Bella, a 53-year-old magistrate, president of the Reggio Calabria minors court.

Sons follow their fathers, he said. But the state cant allow that children are educated to be criminals.

Since he began taking children away from parents convicted of mob association in 2012, Di Bella has separated about 40 boys and girls, ages 12 to 16, from their families, in an approach that has proved as controversial as it has been effective.

About a quarter of the time, mothers looking to flee the mafias tentacles go with them. The rest of the children are put into foster care, but Di Bella said that none of the children he had separated from their families had since committed a crime.

The Italian Justice Ministry has just codified statutes so Di Bellas innovation, so far limited to his corner of Calabria, can be applied to fight mafias nationwide.

Some are appalled by the strategy in a country where family bonds are so cherished. Critics have called it a Nazi-like method that overlooks the environmental factors that have made Calabria one of Italys poorest and most violent regions.

If Calabria stays Italys most underdeveloped region, itll keep having the most potent mafia, said Isaia Sales, an expert and author of books on criminal organizations. Regardless of the families.

Even Di Bella admits to losing more than an occasional nights sleep over taking children away from their parents. Still, he says, since he started separating the children, fathers have written to him to thank him for it. Children have told him they feel liberated. Mothers ask if he will do it for their children.

The success of the approach says everything about the bonds that have made the Ndrangheta, a strictly family-run business, one of Italys hardest Mafia networks to penetrate.

From its base in the south, the Ndrangheta has infiltrated communities even in northern Italy and abroad, becoming one of the most powerful criminal syndications in the world, spanning Italy to South America and Australia. Specialized in international drug and weapons smuggling, it is the No. 1 cocaine supplier into Europe.

The methods that keep the network tightly knit and functioning are both intimate and brutal, and for those caught up in the Ndranghetas web, difficult to escape.

We hear things that are much worse than Gomorrah, Di Bella said, referring to an award-winning book and movie that recounted gruesome lives inside another of Italys notorious mob networks, the Neapolitan Camorra.

Di Bella and others are convinced that severing familial links is not only one of the most effective ways to defeat the Ndrangheta, but that it also restores to the children of the mob families the possibility of a normal life.

Some minors end up in the program after committing symptomatic crimes, like gang violence or setting police cars on fire. Others become full-blown Mafiosos at a young age.

The Reggio Calabria juvenile court has sentenced about 100 minors for Mafia association and 50 for murder or attempted murder since the 1990s.

Teenagers who come from Ndrangheta families have access to unlimited, if illicit, wealth, walk around with Rolex watches on their wrists, and are encouraged to neglect their education and spend time only within the family circle.

Emotionally, they are very alone, said Enrico Interdonato, a 32-year-old psychologist who has volunteered to work with Di Bella. My job is mostly to relate to them humanly.

We dont want to change anyone, he added. But we can help them be free to build their own conscience.

After the children are moved to a different Italian region, the authorities can try to create the conditions for an ordinary childhood.

In the last two years, mothers have started to turn to Di Bella, in the hope of saving their children from an inescapable destiny of death or prison, and sometimes to escape Mafia ties themselves.

Psychologists and social workers work with the children constantly. After they turn 18, the children can then choose whether to go back to Calabria. Most stay in touch with the judges and their social workers even after the program ends.

But authorities can remove a child only if they can prove he or she is physically or psychologically endangered by their families Mafioso behavior. Separating a child from his or her family is always a wrenching decision, and one Di Bella does not take lightly.

In one case, Di Bella considered revoking the decision for a 12-year-old girl whose parents were both in jail for Mafia association.

Her departure was so excruciating that even the policeman who accompanied her cried, Di Bella recalled at a recent afternoon in his guarded office.

But a few days later, she called me and thanked me, he said. The girl told him that she was finally free to be herself. She was no longer the daughter of, he recounted.

One father, under a strict prison regime, wrote to Di Bella to thank him for the chance you gave to my children to live in a taintless environment and to live in legality, he said in a letter.

I am proud to grant my children a different future, he wrote.

Di Bella says he sees the project as the future of the fight against mafias. But he is the first to admit it is embryonic and underfunded.

We need specialists, he said referring to psychologists, host families and specialized judges. We need norms, funds and training, so that we can enlarge the scope of this project.

After years of work with Di Bella and other prosecutors, the Justice Ministry is now ready to standardize the procedure so it can be applied first regionally, then nationally.

We try to start a process to provide them education and psychological help to show them that a different world is possible, Francesco Cascini, director of the department for juvenile justice at the Justice Ministry, said. But we need funds for that.

In the Reggio Calabria province, 81 towns out of 83 do not have a social worker, a significant hurdle to the process, he said.

But talk of expansion alarms some. Critics say that context is more crucial than the family in the fight against the Mafia, and consider the project as an admission of inability of the state to change the social and economic environment of Calabria.

Sales, the author, argues that in the 19th century Italys southern cities were not much different from Paris or London, overrun with poor people who were trying to survive through crime. In Northern Europe, though, the economic and social context improved, he said.

Its a defeat to me, Sales said of the program. Because it implies not believing that the context can be cleaned up.

But those like Interdonato, the psychologist who collaborates with Di Bella, are of a different mind.

He recalled his experience working with a 15-year-old boy who came from a Ndrangheta family who had been relocated.

The first message is, No one knows you here, just live, he said. Then we start showing them how being honest doesnt imply being a loser.

Di Bella and others say their mission is to give the young people freedom, against long odds.

We are a bit like David against Goliath, Di Bella said. But the Ndrangheta infiltrates our community, and we try to infiltrate them culturally, making their children free to choose.
To get Orange Countys homeless population on a path toward self-sufficiency, homeless advocates are proposing the Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa be repurposed as a mental health center that provides long-term recovery.

Several homeless advocates voiced their concerns to the City Council Tuesday, saying they would like to see some of the 114-acre property used to provide long-term recovery to the countys burgeoning homeless.

Fairview, a state institution for people with cerebral palsy, epilepsy and other developmental and intellectual disabilities, is set to close by 2021. The property could be either be repurposed or sold to a private party.

The facility, located at 2501 Harbor Blvd., currently houses 194 developmentally disabled adults who require 24-hour care.

The advocates said they envision a mental health center where those experiencing a crisis can receive psychiatric evaluations, follow-up care and temporary housing.

In an ideal world, we would like a 250-bed wrap-around mental health facility, said Matt Holzmann, chair of government relations for the Orange County chapter of the National Alliance of Mental Illness. What we would like is where we could have people with mental illness check in, get their acute care and then get post-acute care.

The population at Fairview has rapidly declined since it opened in 1959, when state institutions were options for families who could not care for their children with developmental and intellectual disabilities. In the 1960s, the population peaked with 2,700 residents.

In December, State Senator John Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa, introduced Senate Bill 59, which would ask the legislature to state its intentions for the property.

Theres an infinite number of opportunities for that property, Moorlach said. We want to work with the county, the community, the city of Costa Mesa to protect the city, the residents and those that are in need.

Holzmann said he would like the center to resemble the Haven for Hope center in San Antonio, which has won accolades for its success in providing low-income housing and psychiatric and medical care.

Getting them three-square meals and a roof over their head and making sure they stay on their meds and therapy if they need it that could be part of it as well, Holzmann said.

Once Fairview closes, the state Department of General Services will determine if the state can find another use for the property or sell it. If the property is sold to a private entity, the owner would be subject to Costa Mesas zoning laws.

The citys general plan designates 25 percent of the propertys acreage for public institutional uses, said Mayor Katrina Foley.

Its a combination of public institutional, single-family housing and a community open space, she said. We are willing to work with the groups, the county to come up with a plan for that 25 percent area that can serve the community in need with regard to support service, mental health and other disabled services.

Councilman Jim Righeimer said he cares about the mental health and homeless issues in the city, but had concerns the city would become a magnet for homeless people should Fairview expand its homeless services.

Were willing to take more than our fair share, but were not willing to take the whole countys, he said.

A recently-approved growth initiative, known as Measure Y, which is retroactive to the time the property was zoned, may raise issues about the current zoning of Fairview.

In the ongoing struggle to address mental health concerns, county officials have made some progress.

In September, the Childrens Hospital of Orange County broke ground on a mental health facility that will supply 18 beds for children under 12. The facility is slated to open next year.

County officials accepted a $3.1 million grant last year to help pay for emergency medical centers dedicated to treating those suffering from psychiatric episodes.

The county has suffered from a shortage of psychiatric hospital beds in recent years, resulting in long waits for one to open up in hospital emergency rooms. A 2014 Register investigation found there were 32 psychiatric beds in all of Orange County for its roughly 725,000 residents under age 18.

Last year, more than 200 homeless people died  the deadliest year for homeless people in the county. They died as a result of drugs, mental illness, violence and years of neglect, according to the Orange County Coroners Office.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2478 or lcasiano@scng.com
Veterinarian Matthew Wheaton has seen too many homeless animals. To help limit the number in the future, he wants to encourage people to spay and neuter their pets.

On Feb. 19, Wheaton, founder of the Alicia Pet Care Center, will hold the fifth annual free spay and neuter day in memory of Ford Petersen, an employee who died Feb. 11, 2013, at age 21, from a congenital heart condition. Petersen had spent four summers working at the Mission Viejo center and had planned to attend veterinary school at UC Davis.

During the events four years, Wheaton and his staff have spayed and neutered 175 dogs and cats.

Pet owners who want to get their dogs and cats spayed or neutered can sign up for a free lottery, through which 50 animals will be randomly selected on Friday.

Spays will not be done on pregnant dogs or dogs in heat. Neuter procedures will not be performed on cryptorchid dogs  a condition in which one or both testicles have fail to descend.

Wheaton said he most admired Petersens dedication to the center, his love of veterinary medicine and his big heart.

Using this creative way of giving back to the community in Fords name just made sense, as he would have been so behind this idea. He would have been the first to arrive and the last to leave, said Wheaton, a Laguna Beach resident. The pets in this world lost something huge in Ford, so we ensured that at least once a year, his legacy and his unfulfilled promise will live on through us.

Wheaton, who established the Pet Rescue Center  a nonprofit group that rescues dogs and cats from high-kill shelters in Southern California  said the number of stray and abandoned animals remains high. The PRC has rescued 1,400 dogs and cats since opening in 2008.

Still, national numbers show that 7.6 million animals each year end up in shelters, according to the ASPCA.

People have many reasons for not spaying or neutering their pets, and many of them we cant change, Wheaton said. One thing we can change is the cost. I have always said that some people will need to be paid to finally bring their own pets in for a spay or neuter, and this is likely as close as any veterinary hospital will get to paying people.

Anyone choosing to make a donation in Petersens name can do so. All funds will go to rescue and rehabilitation of pets saved from euthanasia at local pet shelters.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2254 or eritchie@oscng.com or on Twitter:@lagunaini
PLACENTIA  Tears welled up in Jorge Garcias eyes as he watched his two-year-old daughter, Faith, dash through their newly furnished apartment.

She bounded onto the linen-colored sofa and climbed atop a dining room chair. She ran to her brand-new white wooden bed and pointed at its matching nightstand. She flung herself onto a magenta bedspread and stared in amazement at colorful decals adorning the walls.

Opposite her bed was a simple white crib for her new baby brother, Isaiah, born Feb. 3.

The expression on her face was so amazing, said Garcia, a retired U.S. Army corporal.

Garcia, his wife, Ramona Ivan, and their kids previously had only an old mattress, a taped-up chair and a plastic box holding toys.

Im not used to people helping me, Garcia, 34, said. Im used to just grinding it out, sucking it up and dealing with what I have. To have this all given to us is just so touching.

On Wednesday, Beth Phillips helped set up the Garcia home. Phillips is the founder of Furnishing Hope, a Santa Ana-based organization that gifts fully redecorated homes to wounded and sick military service members.

Thirty percent of candidate referrals come from the Army Wounded Warrior Project at the VA; 5 percent come from the Hope and Care Center Camp Pendleton, Naval Military Center in San Diego and Wounded Warrior Safe Harbor; and 65 percent come from nonprofit referrals such as Homes For Our Troops, Semper Fi Fund and Wounded Heroes of America.

Since 2010, Furnishing Hope has created 255 home installations. From 2010-2013, most were for veterans returning from Afghanistan  many were amputees, burn victims or had traumatic brain injuries. Now many, including Garcia, suffer from PTSD and need long-term care.

In January, Phillips had 15 applicants  the most ever to start out a year. In just the last week, she has done installations in San Diego, Ontario and Placentia.

On Wednesday, Phillips and six volunteers brought in a sofa, cocktail table, TV console, and an ottoman for the living room of the Garcia familys new apartment. The organization has dozens of volunteers. Many come from south Orange County, especially from Laguna Beach and Dana Point.

In the dining room, they placed a table, tableware and four chairs. For the master bedroom: a bed, headboard and night stands.

They supplied fluffy towels for the bathroom and a full set of cooking utensils for the kitchen, along with baskets of groceries to make pizza or pasta and a fresh plate of cookies that they placed on the kitchen counter to give that multisensory feeling of home.

The homes decor, including color themes and artwork, is coordinated long before the new occupants arrive.

Phillips, with 40-plus years designing home interiors, collaborates with vendors such as Living Spaces, Home Depot and HD Maintenance Supply. She submits bios to furniture and home suppliers detailing color preferences and favorite hobbies of the future residents. She personalizes the color palette and decorations to the family.

Living Spaces donates $2,600 of furnishings to each home. Funding comes from the retailers and private donations.

Seeing Jorges reaction was heartwarming, said Phillips, a mother of three. He seemed very touched. Its wonderful knowing you have lessened a burden. I was able to make a wounded hero and his family comfortable at home. That feels very good.

Designing luxury homes in Orange County

As a 10-year-old growing up near Temecula, Phillips already knew what she would be as an adult. Her mother worked for an interior designer and Phillips would sometimes accompany her to work.

One day the designer pulled out a variety of white fabrics and asked what colors I saw. I could see pink whites, blue whites and green whites. She was impressed, Phillips said. I just loved it. I loved putting together colors and textures.

She studied home economics and graphic design at Riverside College. Her first project was designing a friends daughters bedroom. She painted the bed orange.

She got her professional start as a designer in a furniture store in Fallbrook and then moved to Orange County starting at Martha Grisham Interior Design in Tustin.

In 1982, Phillips set out on her own, teaming up with Brian Jeanette Architects and Planners, which specialized in high-end homes. Through the home builder, she began designing for 11,000-square-foot homes.

It was a challenge to understand my clientele and what they needed, she said. I designed for the personality of the client. I was drawn to the most beautiful and expensive things. I looked for impeccable manufacturing and gorgeous fabrics.

She got her general contractors license and designed tilework and cabinetry. She worked on vacation homes for clients and created interiors for the County of Orange Library system, at branches in Aliso Viejo, Laguna Niguel and Rancho Santa Margarita.

Life-changing trips to India

In 1998 and 2000, on ashram retreats to India, Phillips saw some of the regions most impoverished areas.

I could never get over it, she said. I knew I couldnt make a difference there but when I came back to the U.S., I began looking at ways I could make a difference here utilizing my career.

She formed a nonprofit in 2003 with the idea of using furniture no longer wanted and furnishing homes for low-income families.

While redoing homes in Corona Del Mar and Lemon Heights in Santa Ana, in 2004, Phillips was asked to clear everything out and start fresh. She told the homeowners about her nonprofit and asked them to donate their furnishings. They were thrilled with the idea.

She stored everything in her garage. In 2004, she did her first project  partnering with Habitat for Humanity  and furnished six homes. By 2010, she had furnished 60 homes through Habitat for Humanity.

But it was hearing about the need of military service members that particularly touched her heart.

I remember one young man who was burned over 80 percent of his body, Phillips said. He was sleeping on a mattress on the floor. His wife was his caregiver. If you dont have a table to sit the children down to eat or do homework or a sofa to sit, I wanted to take that burden away. I decided thats the group I want to help.

A precious family

Phillips was overwhelmed meeting Garcia and his family.

They had a two-year-old and were living in their car for half a year, she said. How does that happen to a hero?

Garcia joined the U.S. Army in 2010, at age 26, after being inspired by a Vietnam veteran who became a family friend.

He took me and my brother camping for the first time, Garcia said. He taught us to hunt and how to start fires like in Boy Scouts. I liked the stories he would tell about the military and how he loved America.

Garcia grew up in Anaheim, after arriving in the U.S. from Mexico with his undocumented parents at age 6.

In 2010, Garcia was based in Germany with the 1/72nd Infantry. There he met Ramona Ivan, whose family had fled communism in Romania when the borders opened in 2007.

In 2011, Garcia was deployed to East Paktika in Afghanistan and served at Combat Outpost Margah with two platoons. On Oct. 7, 2011, on the 10th anniversary of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, the Taliban attacked the outpost with a truck loaded with explosives.

Garcia said he and another soldier killed the driver and stopped what could have been a deadly attack. Garcia was given the Army Commendation Medal, awarded to Army service members who distinguish themselves by heroism, meritorious achievement or meritorious service.

Garcia returned to Germany and married Ivan. They will celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary on Valentines Day.

He was sent to Joint Base LewisMcChord in Washington state and served until Dec. 13, 2015. Ivan said Garcia was different upon returning from Afghanistan.

I had to learn about PTSD, she said. He had a lot of bad nightmares. I started playing Call of Duty with him just to communicate.

In addition to PTSD, Garcia suffered injuries to his spine, hip and leg in Afghanistan. He has difficulty getting around and uses a cane.

The couple arrived in Anaheim but learned Garcias first pay and full benefits wouldnt start for months.

With Faith, then 1, they stayed in a motel for a month before their money ran out and they moved into their car. In April, they applied to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program. In June, they were given an apartment.

With mounting debt, they couldnt afford furnishings. They got an old mattress from Garcias parents and all three slept on it.

Ivan, 32, got him set up with weekly visits with a psychiatrist and therapy for his mobility issues at the VA hospital in Long Beach. She contacted Bratpack11  an organization helping the children of fallen or wounded military  to get Christmas gifts for Faith and supplies for the birth of Isaiah. They put Ivan in touch with Phillips and Furnishing Hope.

On Wednesday, Ivan was ecstatic with how Phillips and Furnishing Hope transformed their apartment.

It was an incredibly happy moment and humbling experience, she said. This only happens on TV. It was like out of a catalog.

For the first time in weeks, Garcia woke up Thursday after a full nights sleep. Now, thanks to Phillips and Furnishing Hope, hes a step closer to a chance for recovery.

Despite his personal battles and family hardships, Garcia said joining the Army was the best thing he has done in his life.

I learned so many things, went so many places and met so many people, he said. Yeah, I sustained injuries. War is hell and evil but war is also a teacher. Even though I have disabilities and my buddies have died, my wife and kids have a chance to speak their minds and walk down the streets freely. Being illegal, I couldnt do that. My wife came from a communist background  we know what freedom means.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2254 or eritchie@scng.com or on Twitter:@lagunaini
TEHRAN, Iran  Iran marked its national holiday Friday with countrywide rallies with far less of the usual vitriol for the United States, in what seemed a move calculated to avoid further inciting President Donald Trump.

Many observers had expected Iranian leaders to take aim at Trump during rallies celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The stacks of posters handed out by state organizations largely avoided mentions of Trump. Anti-American slogans, usually printed in English in the past for the international news media to see, were mostly in Persian. Most notably, there were no missiles on display, as had been customary in previous years, to show off Irans military capabilities.

Tensions between the United States and Iran have surged in recent weeks, after Trump blocked citizens of Iran and six other predominantly Muslim nations from visiting the United States, and he called Iran (hash)1 in terror. His national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, put the country on notice after it conducted a missile test late last month.

There were examples of anti-American sentiment on view, however: A large plastic copy of the U.S. flag was rolled out at the main rally, as was an Israeli flag, forcing people marching to walk over them. One man handed out posters showing Trump being beaten in the face by an arm with an Iranian flag around it. Down with USA, the accompanying text read.

On social media, an image of an Iranian carrying an effigy of Trump hanging from a rope made the rounds. Another showed U.S. and Israeli flags being burned.

But given the size of the rally in Tehran, the usual anti-Americanism appeared less noticeable than in previous years.

Todays rally shows that the government does not want any confrontation with the U.S., said Farshad Ghorbanpour, an analyst who is close to the government of President Hassan Rouhani. Dont be surprised, we have no interest with tensions.

Throughout the week, Iranians on social media had asked people not to burn flags, but instead to thank U.S. protesters for standing up to Trumps targeted travel ban and for defending refugees, students, tourists and others affected by the executive order. Others said they had underestimated the new president at first, but now worried about new sanctions on Iran, or even military strikes.

Most of the hundreds of thousands at the rallies carried signs handed to them at the starting points of the rally. Several people carried black and white signs with text in English calling on Americans to visit Iran.

American people are welcome and invited to visit Iran, one read. Thanks to American people for supporting Muslims, said another. Down with American regime, long live U.S. people, another exclaimed.

Lets face it, we didnt like Obama much, but he was much better than Mr. Trump, said Manoucher Ashtiari, a retiree who carried a sign lauding the Islamic Revolution. I come every year. This year, there are no missiles on display. I dont care, what matters is that we support our revolution.

Speaking to crowds gathered in Azadi Square in Tehran, Rouhani said leaders of other nations must talk to the Iranian nation with respect and dignity, adding that Iran would meet any threat.

We are not after tensions in the region and the world, he said. We are united in the face of bullying and any threat.

The anniversary of the Islamic Revolution is mainly celebrated as a political event. When Iranians ousted the shah in 1979, one of their demands was independence from the dominant powers of the time, the United States and the Soviet Union. While many Iranians have criticized how their country is managed today, even more point to a long list of historical grievances they have with the United States.

The good thing about Trump is that he exposes to the world what is wrong with the U.S., said Mousa Aghababaei, a retired math teacher who attended the rally with his family. They watched others walking by, pushing strollers and chatting. I like to be here; its important for me.

Along the route, which ended at the Azadi, or Freedom, monument in Tehran, dozens of Iranian organizations, including the Telecommunications Ministry, joined the rally. So did television personality Amoo Rouhani, or Uncle Cleric, who spoke loudly into a microphone, asking children to recite poetry. Next to him stood Afghan fighters of the Fatemiyoun brigade, an Iranian-led militia active in Syria, who showed off their taekwondo skills.

This is a glorious day, said Ali Mir Talebani, a Shiite Muslim cleric wearing a black turban, who was at the rally with two friends.

He didnt care about Trump, he said. To me, all U.S. presidents are bad.
Its no secret that tax-and-spend interests have hated Proposition 13 since its adoption by the voters in 1978. Immediately after passage, Prop. 13 was the target of numerous lawsuits and legislative proposals seeking to create loopholes that would allow government to grab more tax dollars from California citizens.

These constant attacks compelled taxpayer advocates to go back to the voters with multiple initiatives to preserve the letter and spirit of Prop. 13. These included Prop. 62 in 1986 (voter approval for local taxes); Prop. 218 (closing loopholes for local fees and so-called benefit assessments); and Prop. 26 (requiring fees to have some nexus to the benefits conferred on the fee payers).

However, the latest tax-grabber to treat homeowners as ATMs is state Senator Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys. If he gets his way, Californians will be spending a lot more on water and sewer service. He seeks to do away with the critical cost of service requirements for water rates as well as treat stormwater runoff (the rain that runs down street gutters) the same as sewer service, opening the door to virtually unlimited  and unvoted  sewer rates.

As to the latter proposal, Hertzberg has introduced Senate Bill 231. This proposal would attempt to rewrite Prop. 218 with a statute to allow for stormwater to be included under the definition of sewer, meaning that it would no longer be subject to a Prop. 218 election. This is not a minor issue and, in fact, when the city of Salinas attempted to charge residents for storm water runoff as part of their sewer bill, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association sued and won. The published decision inHJTA v. City of Salinaswas a significant victory for homeowners as the city was attempting to load up its sewer service with all kinds of costs unrelated to sewer service including street sweeping.

Of course, the real problem with SB231 is that it attempts to rewrite part of the California Constitution with a mere statute. This is a big no-no. The city of Salinas decision was an interpretation of Prop. 218 which added Articles XIIIC and XIIID to the California Constitution. Courts are likely to take a dim view of a legislative override of their interpretation of the state constitution.

To add insult to injury, Hertzberg has also introduced Senate Constitutional Amendment 4. While this bill is basically intent language and needs to be refined, the point of this bill will be to undermine Prop. 218s proportionality and cost of service requirements. Under the state Constitution, rates for property related fees (water/sewer/refuse) need to be equivalent to the cost of providing the service. Taxpayers fear that SCA 4 will ultimately overrule another taxpayer court victory in the city of San Juan Capistrano which upheld the concept of cost of service. This decision has been misinterpreted by Gov. Brown and the media as prohibiting the ability of water districts to create tiered water rates. In truth, tiered water rates  charging more for higher levels of water use  can be legal if the municipality can demonstrate that the extra water costs more.

What Hertzberg and big government bureaucrats want to do, however, is to use water rates as another opportunity to engage in social engineering. They wish to charge those water users they perceive as bad more per gallon than those users they perceive as good. The beauty of cost of service rates, however, is that they are fair for everyone: You pay for what you use.

More importantly, when government deviates from cost of service requirements, it expands the opportunity for them to do what they do best  extract more money from citizens.

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
Orange Coast College students returning from winter break were greeted with new signs in their classrooms, warning them not to record teachers unless they said it was OK.

The signs  prompted by secretly recorded video clips of an instructors anti-Trump comments that recently went viral  are not shy, making it clear that doing so IS PROHIBITED.

In our cellphone world, where particularly the young feel compelled to document every move on social media, is it so bad if a student just wants to record an instructors lesson as a study tool?

Or to show others when a teacher, in the students view, is getting too political?

Of the 20-plus colleges and large school districts contacted across Southern California, all said students may not record in the classroom without the teachers permission.

That stance is backed by state law, with one exception: Instructors must permit students with a disability to record if that helps them learn. Any violator could be disciplined by the school.

My view is that anyone can record any one of my classes if a student thinks it will help, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UCI Law School and an expert in constitutional law. Other faculty members feel differently.

Indeed.

Nate Thomas, a film professor and president of the faculty union at Cal State Northridge, doesnt want distractions or the privacy of anyone in the classroom invaded.

When someone is recording you, the dynamic is different, he said. I bring in industry guests and some have big names. So I also ask students to not tweet it out or put on social media what they say.

Christopher Zotea is an 18-year-old student at Norco College in Riverside County and doesnt record  at least not video.

Of the seven teachers Ive had so far, only one has said, Dont record me at all, he said. Ive personally never done it, because Im probably not going to go back and listen to it.

But Ive taken photos of the board to record assignments and due dates. If I take pictures, I can look at it. If I write it down, Ill forget it. But if its in my phone, and its in my gallery, Ill see it.

Discussion about students secretly recording in classrooms gained national attention in December, when an Orange Coast College instructor told a human sexuality class that the election of Donald Trump was an act of terrorism.

The schools College Republicans posted the video clips, and instructor Olga Perez Stable Cox received an onslaught of hate mail that prompted her to temporarily leave her home.

At the Costa Mesa campus, administrators continue to consider the appropriateness of Coxs comments, while also recently expanding their investigation from one to four students from the College Republicans and an adviser, said Shawn Steel, one of five attorneys representing them.

The recording ban is a big problem not just as an accountability measure for teachers, but also as a tool for students, Vincent Wetzel, a student at Orange Coast and president of the campuss Republican club, said in an email. (He is not one of those being investigated.)

Ive had a number of students that have voiced their frustration with the ban to me, because they say that they want to record lectures but are now unable to, he said.

That hoopla is in stark contrast to an incident at UC Irvine a year earlier.

Peter Van Voorhis secretly videotaped his biology teacher who for nearly six minutes encouraged students to actively support gun control. Van Voorhis, now a UCI senior studying finance, said he felt compelled to record his teacher to show the crazy stuff that happens in classrooms across America every day.

Nobody tried to reprimand me for my actions, at least to my face, Van Voorhis said.

At UCLA, some professors, especially teaching in larger halls, have their lectures recorded so students can access them via Bruincast, which streams regularly scheduled undergraduate lectures, said Daniel Siegel, the schools student body president.

Of course, it is more difficult to record if phones cant even be seen. And high school districts take wide-ranging approaches as to whether they are even allowed in classrooms.

In Los Angeles Unified, students can bring phones to school but they must be turned off and stored in a locker, a backpack, a purse or other place where not visible. Even on school buses, they can be used only for emergencies.

At Santa Ana Unified, students must ask permission before recording anyone, but cellphones certainly are allowed on campus. Deputy Superintendent David Haglund said the district aims to create good digital citizens.

Teachers establish the rules for the classroom, he said. If your teacher says, Put your phone in your backpack today, then thats what you should do. On the other hand, if the teacher says, I want you all to do research today, students should be able to use whatever technology they have access to.

Steel, the attorney who represents the Orange Coast College Republicans and serves as a GOP California national committeeman, said state law on classroom recordings is antiquated and, in todays modern age, probably unconstitutional. It could be challenged. 

Theyre using the cloak of law to continue their efforts to not let taxpayers know they have lunatics running the asylum, said Steel, who added that he wants to see conservative students everywhere pulling out their cellphones to record teachers who engage in what he says is political indoctrination.

There cant be an expectation of privacy in a lecture hall with over 200 students, he said.

Rebecca Lonergan, a USC law professor, sees it differently, saying state law is based not on privacy concerns but on educational ones.

I can think of things Ive said in a classroom where Im having a discussion with them and defending things I dont think are defensible but I want them to think critically; I want them to answer me back, said the professor.

Somebody can post a snippet and its not at all what I believe and it could subject me to cyberbullying, she said.

Back at Orange Coast College, where signs warn students to ask before recording, a few instructors are feeling nervous, said Rob Schneiderman, president of the union that represents the faculty.

So those instructors, since their fellow teacher became national news, have changed course on recording in the classroom.

They now ban it.

Contact the writer: rkopetman@ocregister.com and Twitter@roxanakopetman
DECATUR  A hair dryer is a typical oft-used appliance in most homes, and probably most of us never give a second thought to how much energy it uses.

Prabhat Das tested one on Friday at Mount Zion Intermediate School as part of a project his sixth-grade class is doing on energy, thanks to a loan of smart grid models from Illinois State University's Center for Math, Science and Technology.

This uses 50 percent less power, Prabhat said of the dryer, which he had just finished checking.

Students learned how electricity is made, starting from a hand-cranked generator and moving to the way Ameren gets power to their homes. They learned about renewable energy, too.

Half the class worked on running miniature power lines from a power plant through a transformer station and strung from tiny power poles to tiny homes, while the other half worked on tasks on dollhouse-size homes.

This is a smart grid lab, said Stephanie Marshall, the teacher. We've been learning about renewable and nonrenewable resources. I went to a workshop, and they actually have a grant. They sent these smart home and grids, and we get to keep it for a week at no charge.

The energy sources include water, solar and coal.

We're having to basically make electricity, from how to get it to one house to how to get it to an entire village, Marshall said.

One lesson she wants the kids to retain is how to save power at home, which is part of what Prabhat's group was doing in testing the power drain of various appliances. They also experimented to find out which kinds of power sources worked best with those appliances.

Having a hands-on activity like this will help the students remember how the power grid works, said Morgan Perkins.

In the model village, the tiny houses had lights on the backs that lit up when the power was reaching that house, and matching lights on a control box so that their model power company could see that somebody's power wa out, and work to fix it, just like in real life.

At one point, they had to repair a wire and run a new one all the way from the transformer station to the little house.

This is better than you read it, you look at a picture and forget it all by the next day, said Andie Valdez.
WASHINGTON  Despite President Donald Trumps dire warnings about imminent foreign threats, the White House said Friday that it did not plan to appeal a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals order halting his travel ban on citizens from seven Muslim nations directly to the Supreme Court.

A senior administration official said White House lawyers would likely instead argue the case before the same Seattle court run by the man Trump denounced as a so-called judge, and Trump told reporters on Air Force One that options other than a Supreme Court appeal were being considered. While predicting an eventual victory, Trump acknowledged it may take time.

We will win that battle, he said. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle.

Trump also said he was considering issuing a new order that presumably would change aspects of the original order that an appeals court found objectionable.

The senior administration official said the White House might eventually take the case to the high court, but that would depend on how it fared in lower courts.

All options are on the table, the official said.

The White House statement came 24 hours after Thursdays unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals not to reinstate Trumps executive order temporarily banning entry by citizens of seven majority-Muslim nations.

Trump could have quickly requested an emergency stay of that ruling from the Supreme Court in hopes of putting his temporary immigration ban back into effect. But such emergency orders are rarely granted, and the prospects were poor that the high court, divided 4-4 between liberal and conservatives, could muster the five votes needed to grant one.

The shorthanded Supreme Court will almost certainly catch the case at some point. But when, how often and under what circumstances require tough tactical and strategic choices from a Trump team that so far has lost its legal arguments repeatedly.

Underscoring the complicated, multifront nature of the legal conflict, a Virginia-based federal judge on Friday morning heard oral argument on other challengers request for a separate injunction blocking Trumps executive order.

All of us welcome and benefit from immigration, tourism and international student travel, California and more than a dozen other states said in a brief filed Thursday, and all of us face concrete, immediate and irreparable harms caused by the executive order.

The oral argument Friday morning before U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, a Democratic appointee, came about 15 hours after the 9th Circuit had repudiated Trump with its ruling.

On Friday, Trump promised to do whatever is necessary to keep the country safe. During a visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump deflected questions about possibly rewriting the executive order. But he promised he will be taking steps to provide additional security.

Youll be seeing that sometime next week, he said.

Trump tweeted earlier in the day that the 9th Circuit panel had made a disgraceful decision! Hed posed a more ominous scenario following U.S. District Judge James Robarts Feb. 3 decision imposing a temporary restraining order on the travel ban, tweeting that he just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril and that the judge opens up our country to potential terrorists.

Going to the Supreme Court right away would have stretched out decision-making for several days, as legal briefs would have to be filed and considered. Another immediate loss for Trump, while it wouldnt have fully addressed the case for and against the executive order, would also simply have looked bad for the president.

They dont want a bad precedent on their side, said Polly Price, an Emory University law professor. If it looks like they would get a definitive ruling really limiting the presidents power here, this might not be the kind of case they want to risk that. . I dont think they want to risk it on an issue like this, which seems so easy to lose.

Once back at Robarts Seattle courtroom, the legal challenge to the executive order by the states of Washington and Minnesota will be judged on its merits. This, too, will take some time.

The Justice Departments brief opposing the states request for an injunction is due next Wednesday, with the states response to it due two days later. That schedule might change. After whats likely to be further oral argument, Robart would rule.

We are fully confident that now that we will get our day in court and have an opportunity to argue this on the merits, that we will prevail, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News.

In its 29-page decision Thursday upholding Robarts earlier temporary restraining order, the 9th Circuits three-judge panel said it thought the White House ultimately would lose the case. The government has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal, nor has it shown that failure to enter a stay would cause irreparable injury, the panel ruled.

While this does not mandate Robarts ultimate decision, it does predict it.

You dont have to read between the lines very much to infer they think that the federal government is likely to lose, said Michael Dorf, professor of constitutional law at Cornell Law School.

Robarts decision will lead to another appeal to the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit, though it would be heard by a different three-judge panel from the one that ruled Thursday. Whichever side loses at that stage can then choose either to request a so-called en banc review by all active 9th Circuit judges or, perhaps more likely if its the government that loses, they can head to the Supreme Court.

Four justices would be required for the Supreme Court to hear the appeal. Given the stakes, thats all but guaranteed, but then would come the actual consideration and a decision.


As white mist blew in off a steel-gray ocean, Rep. Darrell Issa led one of his congressional colleaguesto the tomb where millions of pounds of nuclear waste soon will be buried, just yards from roiling waves breaking on shore.

He got to see how close the beach is to the edge of the facility. And we made the case that San Onofre should be, if not the first one to have its nuclear waste taken out, then one of the first, said Issa, R-Vista, on Friday.

The worst place to have these spent rods is on a site near a populated area, the ocean, earthquake faults, railroad tracks and Interstate 5, he added. I believe almost anyplace would be better than where they are.

About 8 million people in Southern California live within 50 miles of the shuttered San Onofre reactors, which generated radioactive waste for some 40 years. The federal government is contractually required to dispose of the waste but has been paralyzed over what to do with it for decades.

Some lay the blame on those who insisted on pushing forward with a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain despite fierce opposition in Nevada; others blame former President Barack Obama, who pulled the plug on Yucca and started looking for alternatives.

Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committees Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, was Issas guest and is firmly in the blame-Obama camp. That subcommittee has jurisdiction over nuclear waste management, and Shimkus has been pushing for revival of Yucca for years. Still, he was sympathetic to Issas arguments for adding temporary sites to the mix.

The federal governments failure to take possession of spent nuclear fuel has nearly doubled the costs borne by American taxpayers and now totals nearly $30 billion, Shimkus said in a prepared statement.

This unnecessary burden weighs even more heavily on communities where used fuel continues to linger in short-term, temporary storage.

Shimkus added that he would continue to push Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository for spent fuel.

Issa and many others, however, dont want all their eggs in the Yucca basket.

We need multiple sites, Issa said. Chairman Shimkus started off saying, No, its Yucca or nothing. Ive said Ill support that. But what if Nevada continues to be reluctant? What do we do? We need to have multiple sites, including some states and some areas where they are actually asking for the material.

Issa and colleagues introduced the Interim Consolidated Storage Act of 2017 in the House in January. It would allow the Department of Energy to use interest from the $36 billion Nuclear Waste Fund to contract with private vendors for temporary storage. Waste could start moving away from the likes of San Onofre in as little as five years.

We will only get this waste out of California, Issa said, if it has somewhere else to go.

Contact the writer: tsforza@scng.com
SANTA ANA  Detectives arrested three people on suspicion of human trafficking Friday during an investigation into prostitution activity on North Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana.

At about 5:30 a.m., detectives watched a woman walking away from two cars in a parking lot at 820 N. Harbor Blvd. As she walked up and down in an area well-known for prostitution, two men were seen getting out of the cars to supervise the activities and safety of the woman, Santa Ana police said in a bulletin.

A third man was later found in one of the cars. The woman got into a car of a prospective customer and detectives moved in.

Through statements made by the woman and the suspects, they found out that a 17-year-old girl was being used for prostitution. She was rescued in the investigation.

Two men and one woman, who had traveled from the Bay area, were arrested on suspicion of human trafficking. They were identified by police as Hakeem Lipscomb, Gregory Wayne Warren III and Aleah Harris.

Two customers were arrested for solicitation and four women were arrested for prostitution during the investigation.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or afausto@scng.com
Green lights for both sections of a 73km mountain bike trail planned by Coillte

The first two obstacles have been cleared smoothly for Coillte's proposed mountain bike trail in the Slieve Blooms, and excitement is growing that the trail may become a reality in the next year.

Planning applications have now both approved by Laois and Offaly County councils. Offaly gave the green light last Friday February 3, days after Laois planners gave their approval.

The trail will be 72.8km long, around the mountains.

When lodging the applications, Daithi De Forge from Coillte Recreation said that the first stage of the trail will be ready for use by summer 2017.

The development of these trails will have a major impact on tourism numbers in the Slieve Blooms and surrounding area. We are very excited about this major tourism project for the economic and recreational benefit it will bring not just to the midland region but the wider Irish community, said Coillte.

The project is expected to cost 4 million, with funding not yet announced by the government.

However Coillte has been approved for a 90 million loan from the European Investment Bank to plant new forests over the next 20 years, and part of that money is for forest walks and mountain bike trails.

The project is in the pipeline since 2010, widely welcomed by local businesses, hostelries, and tourism groups. A similar trail in the Ballyhoura Mountains in Limerick brings in about 40,000 visitors a year.

Laois has 40.6km of the Slieve Bloom bike trail, starting from a trailhead with bike facilities in Baunreagh, going through Monicknew, Bockagh, Baunrush, Bordowin, and Castleconnor.

The proposed development includes the renovation and extension of a building to include a cafe, bicycle hire facilities and carpark.

The trail on the Offaly side is 32.2km long, from Castletown, Kinnitty, Pigeonstown, Coolcreen, Glinsk, Glenletter, Forelacka, Glenregan and Glendossaun, linking to the Laois side along the R440 road.

A temporary building is proposed at Castletown, Kinnitty for bicycle hire, with parking, a bike wash, a wastewater treatment plant and percolation area with associated works, boundary treatment, signage, and water connection from a group water scheme. Phase 2 will be a permanent building for bicycle hire and associated services.

The bike trail, approximately 0.6m wide (within a corridor width of 100m), will include boundary treatments, signs, and structures for river and road crossings.
Agricultural News

Former OSU Ag Economist Jody Campiche Offers 2017 Cotton Market Outlook at National Cotton Council Meeting in Dallas

National Cotton Council economists point to a number of key questions that will shape the 2017 economic outlook for the U.S. cotton industry. In recent months, cotton prices have maintained a stronger appearance despite: 1) concerns about world demand, 2) Chinese imports below historical levels, 3) weakness in other commodity markets and 4) a stronger dollar. Although several bearish indicators are still in place, a lack of exportable supplies in Central Asia and West Africa coupled with India's reduced exports is helping to support current prices. In addition, unfixed on-call sales are providing support to futures prices. However, the struggling global economy and man-made fiber competition underscore the challenging landscape facing cotton demand.





Dr. Jody Campiche, the NCC's vice president, Economics & Policy Analysis, told delegates at the NCC's 79th Annual Meeting in Dallas, Texas today that, "World mill use is expected to exceed world production in 2017, and global cotton stocks are projected to decline by 7.7 million bales in the 2017 balance sheet." World production is projected to be 105.6 million bales in 2017. World mill use is projected to increase by 1.5 percent in 2017 to 113.4 million bales with most of the growth from China, Vietnam and Bangladesh.





While projections of global consumption exceeding production normally would be supportive of prices, the implications for the coming year may not be as clear cut as stocks outside of China are projected to increase by 3.0 million bales for the 2017 marketing year. The majority of the global stocks decline is due to China's reduced inventories. While China's increased consumption of reserve stocks has bolstered mill use in 2016, it also has curbed China's demand for imported cotton fiber and cotton yarn.





Regarding domestic cotton mill use, USDA estimates 2016 U.S. mill use at 3.3 million bales, down 150,000 bales from 2015. The Economic Adjustment Assistance Program continues to be an important source of stability allowing mills to invest in new facilities and equipment, but the strength of the U.S. dollar is creating challenges for yarn exports. For 2017, the NCC is projecting a modest increase in U.S. mill use to 3.4 million bales.





Campiche noted that export markets continue to be the primary outlet for U.S. raw fiber. In recent years, U.S. export customers have changed with a significant reduction in exports to China. However, reduced exports to China have been partially offset by increased U.S. exports to Vietnam. For 2016, the NCC estimates U.S. exports at 12.8 million bales, up 39.3 percent from 2015. If the current pace of sales and shipments is maintained, the strong demand for high quality cotton could push the U.S. export number even higher. The U.S. will remain the largest cotton exporter with a market share of 35.8 percent as compared to 26.0 percent in 2015. While world trade increased slightly in 2016, the gain in U.S. market share largely is attributed to supply issues in other major cotton exporting countries.





Looking ahead to 2017, increased competition from other cotton-producing countries is expected to reduce both U.S. exports and U.S. market share. With exports pegged at 12.4 million bales, Campiche projects total U.S. offtake of 15.8 million bales in 2017, leading to an increase in ending stocks of 898,000 bales.





In China, cotton mill use is again exhibiting signs of growth, but competition from lower-priced man-made fiber remains a limiting factor for the growth of cotton fiber use. Campiche said that China's internal cotton price is still almost twice the level of polyester prices. While China's reserve auction sales have led to increased consumption by mills, this also has limited China's imports of raw cotton fiber and cotton yarn. In the current projections, China's cotton imports are not projected to increase until the reserve stocks are reduced to what they consider a "more reasonable level." For the 2016 crop year, the latest estimate includes a reduction of 9.9 million bales in ending stocks. In the 2017 marketing year, an additional 10.8 million bale reduction in stocks is expected. A successful auction series over the next two years easily could place China in a position to again become a larger cotton importer.





In her analysis of the NCC Annual Planting Intentions survey results, Campiche said the NCC projects 2017 U.S. cotton acreage to be 11.0 million acres, about 9.4 percent more than 2016. With abandonment assumed at 12 percent for the United States, Cotton Belt harvested area totals 9.7 million acres. Using an average U.S. yield per harvested acre of 830 pounds generates a cotton crop of 16.8 million bales, with 16.0 million upland bales and 760,000 extra-long staple bales.





However, it is important to note that although the survey results suggest an increase in acreage, the increase in cotton acreage is largely the result of weaker prices of competing crops and improved expectations for water.





For the past three years, U.S. cotton producers have struggled with low cotton prices, high production costs and the resulting financial hardships. While current futures markets have increased since last year, many producers continue to face economic challenges.





Additional details of the 2017 Cotton Economic Outlook are on the NCC's website- click here for the full report.

















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The Nebraska track and field team opened competition at two meets as the Iowa State Classic and Tyson Invitational both kicked off on Friday.

At the Iowa State Classic, Wyatt McGuire led the Huskers with a personal-best 5,000-meter time of 14:11.76. Its the third-fastest time in the Big Ten this year and the fifth-fastest time in NU history. Despite falling during the race, McGuires time was fast enough to win the afternoon section of the event.

Lakayla Harris also won the 200 meters for Nebraska with a time of 23.90.

At the Tyson Invitational hosted by Arkansas, Tierra Williams finished fifth in the long jump with a season-best mark of 20-6 12 feet. Elijah Lucy was fifth in the unseeded long jump with a season-best 24-2 12.
The start of a new year is a good time to review your insurance.

A consumer alert posted by the Nebraska Department of Insurance gives these tips to avoid being surprised by inadequate or absent insurance in 2017:

 Changes in circumstances may require changes in insurance. Those includes marriage, divorce, parenthood and a new car, home or job.

 Insurance agents can review what you have and spot missing or out-of-date policies and potential savings, or tell you about new insurance products.

 A life insurance review can include premiums, benefits, cash value and alternatives, such as converting one life insurance policy into a different type suited to your family situation.

 Updating your home inventory helps if you make a claim on your homeowners or renters policy. Photos and videos of your possessions are easy to do and invaluable in case of disaster. Talk with your agent about valuables such as antiques or jewelry.

 The National Association of Insurance Commissioners offers a free smartphone app, myHOME Scr.APP.book, and the state departments website has a printable inventory checklist at doi.nebraska.gov.

 Your agent will know whether your home is in a flood zone, which may require special coverage.

 Check your auto policys liability insurance, which covers damage to others caused by you, as well as the premiums you pay and deductibles for damage to your own car.

 Make sure you have a health insurance card and read through the documents so you know whats covered and whats not covered, and whether your doctor is in-network.

 Keep copies of your insurance agreements.

 When youre shopping for insurance, dont give out personal information unless you verify the company and agent are legitimate. The department can supply verification at 402-471-4913.
Read about Adam Lee Malnove, 41, the great star lord.

Read about his kids, Aidan, 12, Shnee the invincible, Anna, 10, queen of the mermaids and Oliver, 7, L.B. the junior star lord.

Read about what Malnove enjoyed: listening to Pink Floyd and owning at least one of their T-shirts ... walking around a box factory and listening to the hum of the machines ... treating a cab driver or bus boy the same as you would a celebrity.

Read about all this, and you may have the same thought that many did on Friday: Man, I wish I knew this guy.

Malnove died unexpectedly on Monday. On Thursday and Friday (and again today), his 700-word obituary appeared in the newspaper, capturing the attention of many who read it and shared it on social media.

The obituary was written by the other half of his heart little sister, Kitty OKane, who wanted to give Malnove a memorial as unique as the man himself.

There wasnt a single day where I didnt laugh until I cried hanging out with him, OKane said of her brother. His obituary, she said, is to tell people to wake up, pull your heads up and enjoy every moment that were here together.

On Friday, OKane sat on Malnoves bed, wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt, clutching a Guardians of the Galaxy necklace that read We are Groot, and told his story.

As a kid, she said, her brother loved comic books and superheroes, especially Star Lord from Guardians. He wanted to be like his grandpa, she said, who started the family packaging company, Malnove, with plants in Nebraska, Florida and Utah. As a child, he wore fake glasses and carried a Snoopy briefcase when he joined his grandpa at business meetings.

OKane and Malnove were half-siblings, she said, and they didnt know each other until they were already grown. In early 2015, Malnove, who worked at his familys company, moved to Omaha from Boca Raton, Florida. He came, OKane said, to meet the family members hed never known while he still had time.

OKane said her brother suffered from chronic, life-threatening pancreatic problems. His prognosis was bleak.

But once here, doctors at Nebraska Medical Center performed a procedure which, OKane said, saved Malnoves life. It gave the siblings two years to make the lifetime of memories they had missed out on.

OKanes husband, Christopher, called them Kadam. They were inseparable. Malnove eventually moved in with the OKanes and their three children. When Malnoves children came to visit from Florida, she said, it was a full house.

She smiles now when she tells story after story about the familys time together: Carving watermelon jack-o-lanterns on Summerween, their own holiday in July, or visiting their favorite shops in the Old Market.

But to really get a sense of who Malnove was, and how he spent his time with his loved ones, you need only read his obituary. Her brother, OKane wrote, was love in motion, all good things personified, a devoted and fiercely loyal father and friend... It mentions numerous family members and says there will be a private celebration.

It also has advice for the living.

Adam greatly enjoyed and highly recommends: ... running ahead to open doors for the elderly ... always supporting your favorite local restaurants and stores, being a room mom, giving people your undivided attention, talking to and treating a cab driver or bus boy the same as you would a celebrity, getting dressed up and eating a reasonable amount of candy on his birthday aka Halloween...

For Valentines Day, OKane bought her brother a Snoopy briefcase just like the one he used to carry when he was young.

It arrived the day after he died.

Early that morning, OKane couldnt sleep. She walked around the house, feeling lost, caught up in countless memories  the movies and the songs, the nicknames and the inside jokes. The little things that made her brothers life  and every life  special.

So she sat at her keyboard and began to write them all down.
The beak-nosed, supersonic Concorde was once described by a British ambassador as the flower of the aerospace industry.

But while the sleek plane cut travel times in half, it was ultimately doomed by a combination of high maintenance expenses; a slower market for air travel after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; and high ticket prices. A round-trip flight from London to New York could cost as much as $18,260 in todays dollars.

Now, almost 14 years after the Concordes last flight, a handful of companies and entrepreneurs are betting that technological advances in materials and computing, as well as the boom in global business travel, could power a resurgence in economically viable supersonic passenger jets.

Were benefiting from 50 years of progress in fundamental aerospace technology, said Blake Scholl, chief executive of Boom Technology Inc., a Centennial, Colorado, startup thats aiming to build a supersonic airliner called the Boom. Since the Concorde was developed, the amount of international business and international travel has skyrocketed. You can find a huge market.

New supersonic planes, if they get off the ground, will still be comparatively pricey. Analysts predict the technology would be best suited, at least initially, to business jets.

Thats the market companies like Aerion Corp. are aiming for. The Reno, Nevada, company and European aviation giant Airbus Group have been developing the AS2, a supersonic business jet that would shoot through the air at a maximum speed of Mach 1.5, or 1 1/2 times the speed of sound.

A flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo would take about five hours, compared with almost 12 hours today.

I think its main customers would be very wealthy individuals who would look at it as the ultimate prestige aircraft, said Ray Jaworowski, senior aerospace analyst at market research company Forecast International, discussing supersonic jets in general. It very much would have its own specific niche.

Scholl sees promise in several advances, including a primary aircraft structure built with carbon fiber composites  such as those in the Boeing 787 Dreamliners frame  which should be stronger and lighter than the aluminum exterior of the Concorde.

The engines for the supersonic planes, though, wont be all that different from those of conventional airliners. Advances in computing power and speed also help develop more efficient supersonic jets.

Engineers can now test prototypes through computer models and make tweaks immediately based on those results. Previously they had to build a plane, test it in a wind tunnel and then tweak the design.
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP)  Bourbons economic potency is getting stronger with age, increasing its impact on Kentucky by $1 billion in the past two years as global demand for American whiskeys continues to grow.

Other whiskeys are sharing in the good times, too. And pricier spirits are in strong demand.

Two reports released this week  one in Kentucky, the other in New York  showcased continued growth for whiskey makers.

Combined U.S. revenues for bourbon, Tennessee whiskey and rye whiskey shot up 7.7 percent to $3.1 billion in 2016, the Distilled Spirits Council said in the report released in New York. Domestic volumes rose 6.8 percent last year to 21.8 million cases.

U.S. sales of all American whiskeys are blazing hot, said Frank Coleman, a spokesman for the distilled spirits trade group. The more expensive products are actually flying off the shelves the fastest.

Bourbon, Tennessee whiskey and rye whiskey revenues and volumes continued to outpace the overall distilled spirits industry, the council said in its annual report. Rye whiskey is a small portion of those overall figures, but its volumes surged 17 percent last year.

U.S. volumes for the categorys super-premium products rose 11.8 percent last year, while revenues were up 13.5 percent, the council said.

At the other end of the price spectrum, volumes were up 11.4 percent in the value category and revenues increased 13.1 percent.

The industry has cashed in on the growing popularity of cocktails.

Spirits makers continue to develop new innovations to appeal to a growing audience of adult millennials, and they are responding, said Distilled Spirits Council President and CEO Kraig R. Naasz.

Export volumes for bourbon, Tennessee whiskey and rye whiskey products surged by 10.2 percent last year despite challenges posed by a strong dollar, which makes U.S. goods more expensive in foreign markets.

But export revenues for the trio of products fell just short of $1 billion for the first time in recent years, as overseas consumers increasingly chose less expensive whiskeys from the U.S., the council said.

In Kentucky, meanwhile, state officials celebrated bourbons increasing economic clout.

Distilling contributes $8.5 billion annually to the states economy, up $3 billion since 2008 and a $1 billion increase in two years, according to a report by the University of Louisvilles Urban Studies Institute.

Kentucky is home to about 95 percent of the worlds bourbon production, with such brands as Jim Beam, Evan Williams, Wild Turkey, Makers Mark, Woodford Reserve and Four Roses.

Kentucky bourbon isnt just a drink, its the new fuel for the states economy, said Kentucky Distillers Association President Eric Gregory.

Up to 17,500 people in Kentucky owe their paychecks to the spirits industry, an increase of 2,000 jobs since 2014, the report said.

Total payroll now tops $800 million, compared to $707 million in 2014. The average salary for distillery workers is $95,089.

The bourbon industry is betting on continued strong demand.

Some 6.7 million barrels of bourbon are maturing in Kentucky, the highest inventory since 1974, the report said.

Meanwhile, the number of Kentucky distilleries has grown to 52, the most since Prohibition ended, and the industry is in the midst of a $1.2 billion building boom.

There really doesnt seem to be any immediate end in sight, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin said.

In recent years, state lawmakers looked to fuel more growth in bourbon production and tourism. They gave tax relief with an income tax credit for property taxes paid on aging barrels of bourbon.

Distilleries have to invest the tax credit back in their operations. Lawmakers also allowed distillery visitors to sip cocktails and purchase more whiskey during tours.

Bevin and top legislators promised Tuesday to look for more ways to assist the spirits industry, and they pointed to one looming issue  a potential overhaul of the states tax code  as one way to give a boost.
A Bellevue police officer shot a threatening dog Friday afternoon, the Police Department reported.

The officer, whose name was not released, was in a neighborhood south of Old Towne Bellevue on an unrelated call about 4:05 p.m. when a group of children walking home from school told the officer that a dog had growled at them, said Laurie Synowiecki, the departments spokeswoman. The children said the dog is often out of its yard and they are afraid of it.

The officer went to the house, located on the 2500 block of Franklin Street, to speak to its owner. There he found the dog, a 1 year-old German shepherd, unrestrained in the driveway, Synowiecki said.

The dog snarled and growled at the officer. The officer moved quickly backward, and the dog continued to approach.

The dog came after (the officer) aggressively and the officer then shot the dog, she said.

The dog died at the scene.

The Nebraska Humane Society cited the owner, 22-year-old Matthew Kemp, on suspicion of having a dog at large and menacing behavior by the dog, Synowiecki said.

The dog, named Mowgley, was not licensed or registered, she said. Kemp said he had just moved to the area, and he told authorities the dog sometimes gets out of its fenced-in yard.

Synowiecki said dog owners should remember that as the weather gets warmer and pets are outside more, they need to take care to make sure their dogs are secure, particularly if the animal is easily agitated.

Dogs need to be secured within a fence or on a leash, she said. We have city ordinance to reflect that.

Police officers are authorized to shoot aggressive animals if they feel threatened. The incident will be investigated by the department but the officer will not be placed on administrative leave.
The arrest of a guidance counselor at Marrs Magnet Middle School on suspicion of second-degree sexual assault of a minor had no connection to Marrs students or activities, the schools principal said Saturday.

Jeffrey Ruzicka, 45, was arrested Friday afternoon at the school. He is listed on the Omaha Public Schools website as a fifth-grade guidance counselor at Marrs.

In a letter sent Saturday to parents of students at Marrs, Principal Bryan Dunne wrote that he could not share details of what led to the arrest but wanted to assure families that the arrest was not related to any of our students or any school-related activities.

He urged parents who had questions to call the school on Monday.

His letter also said Ruzicka is on administrative leave and the school is cooperating in the investigation.

A police report on the arrest was not yet available Saturday evening, according to the Omaha Police Department.
A rancher in Scotts Bluff County is missing 23 cattle and is hoping a $10,000 reward will help find them.

The cattle producer reported to the Nebraska Brand Committee that 20 black heifers and 3 black bulls are missing from pasture land in northwest Nebraska near Crawford. After an extensive search, no sign of the cattle was found, which may indicate that they were stolen, according to a press release from Scotts Bluff County Crime Stoppers. The theft could have occurred anytime during the 2016 grazing season.

The black heifers, weighing half a ton each, were branded with a 100 on the right rib and tagged in the left ear with a turquoise numbered tag. The 2-year-old black angus bulls were branded with a 44 on the left rib and were tagged on the left ear with orange numbered tags.

The owner of the missing cattle is offering a $10,000 reward for information that results in the arrest and conviction of any person or persons responsible for theft of the missing cattle.

Any information regarding the missing cattle should be reported to the Scotts Bluff County Crime Stoppers at 308-632-STOP (7867), the Nebraska Brand Commission at 308-641-8318, or the Nebraska State Patrol at 308-632-1211.
LINCOLN  Members of the Omaha Police Department recently arrested a man who was driving around with a rifle leaning between his right leg and the center console.

The man posted photos of an AR-15 on social media as he drove. The rifle was loaded. And he is a member of the 38th Street Bloods.

Under state law, he had committed no crime.

But an Omaha ordinance that prohibits transporting loaded rifles allowed police to take a known gang member off the streets, at least temporarily.

Its the kind of situation that explains why the Omaha Police Officers Association opposes a bill in the Nebraska Legislature that would force cities, villages and counties to repeal their local gun ordinances in favor of less-restrictive state gun regulations.

Omaha City Councilman Garry Gernandt also testified against the measure Friday during a three-hour public hearing before the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.

Legislative Bill 68 has been identified as the top priority of firearms organizations and many gun owners, who say the assortment of regulations in Omaha and Lincoln is confusing and too easy to violate.

In the past, Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert testified in support of a similar version of the bill, saying she doubts the local restrictions reduce gun violence. The mayor did not appear at Fridays hearing, but said in an email that her position on the issue has not changed.

Heath Mello, who is running for mayor against Stothert, led the fight against the similar bill last year when he was in the Legislature. That bill came within a single vote of breaking a filibuster.

Fridays hearing drew passionate testimony from people on both sides of the gun divide.

State Sen. Mike Hilgers of Lincoln, a committee member who sponsored the bill, said Friday that he believes the local codes infringe upon gun rights in both the Nebraska and U.S. Constitutions. Nebraska is one of six states where state gun laws do not pre-empt municipal codes.

Because many gun owners from rural Nebraska are unaware of the tougher restrictions, they can unknowingly commit violations while transporting guns into Omahas city limits, Hilgers said.

Gun rights advocates particularly dislike an Omaha ordinance that requires handgun owners to register their firearms. They also oppose ordinances that allow local authorities to deny handgun ownership to anyone convicted of certain misdemeanor offenses or possession of a small amount of marijuana, an infraction.

Hilgers said he has reviewed multiple research papers and has yet to find a correlation between handgun registries and lower rates of gun violence. Lawmakers should not allow a constitutional right to be impeded without clear and compelling justification, he added.

We have the right to bear arms. We have the right to own guns. Thats not the question before us, he told his fellow committee members.

Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner testified in support of the bill, saying it would help resolve ambiguity that exists between ordinances in different jurisdictions. He added, however, that he would like to see an amendment to prevent firearms from being brought into courthouses or other county offices.

Patricia Harrold of Papillion, a member of the Nebraska Firearms Owners Association, said she inadvertently violated one of Omahas gun ordinances while teaching a class that instructs women how to shoot. As a Defense Department contractor with a security clearance, she was required to self report the violation to her employer. Although it did not cost her the job, she said she feared it could have.

Many opponents accused supporters of the measure of doing the bidding of the National Rifle Association, which backs the bill. They also argued that it would be wrong for the state to usurp the ability of local elected officials to adopt gun regulations intended to make their communities safer.

Opponents also were concerned about a provision of the bill that would allow gun owners and their organizations to sue cities that continued to enforce local ordinances after the law was adopted. Thats one reason the League of Nebraska Municipalities opposed the measure.

Omaha Police Sgt. Aaron Hanson, testifying on behalf of the police union, said the ordinances give authorities another tool to combat gun violence. In addition to the registry, he said officers highly value a rule that prohibits people under 21 from possessing a handgun in Omaha. (State law sets the minimum age at 18.)

Its one thing to allow a farmer to keep a loaded rifle in his pickup to shoot coyotes, but police dont want to allow armed teenagers to legally cruise through Omaha, Hanson added.

The transportation of a loaded handgun might not raise an eyebrow in Albion, Nebraska, which hasnt experienced a homicide in almost 20 years, Hanson said. But it could raise a huge red flag for an Omaha police officer giving special attention to a west Omaha bar parking lot with a history of gang violence.

Gun control advocates at the hearing also were critical of Hilgers for introducing the measure after accepting a $1,000 campaign contribution from the NRAs political action committee.

After the hearing, Hilgers said he has long been a supporter of the Second Amendment and decided he wanted to introduce the bill last year, well before he won his legislative seat.

The committee took no action on the bill Friday.
The whiteboard at Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska is a mix of frowning and smiling faces, each representing a roller coaster moment during the past two tumultuous weeks of refugee resettlement.

A sad face drawn when refugee arrivals were canceled.

A happy face when resettlement workers got word that new families were coming.

Now that a federal appeals court has upheld a court decision that halted President Donald Trumps controversial travel ban, agency officials are optimistic that the drawings will be more positive.

Maybe we can finally erase the sad faces, Lacey Studnicka said after the court ruling, which kept on hold Trumps Jan. 27 order that suspended all refugee resettlement in the United States for 120 days.

The whiteboard sketches might have to go simply to make room for information on the 40 refugees scheduled to arrive in Omaha over the next week. With just a weeks notice for those arrivals, staffers in the refugee resettlement office, at 42nd and Center Streets, scrambled to find housing and make arrangements for the incoming families.

Thats why we need you guys, Studnicka, the refugee programs development officer, said to a group of 20 new volunteers during an orientation session. The group was just a fraction of the people who had reached out to the office in the days following the presidents executive order.

A normal week for the office brings about five volunteer inquiries. The past two weeks have brought in more than 200 emails and phone calls  each with some version of the question, How can I help refugees?

To accommodate the flood of requests, Lutheran Family Services is hosting volunteer sessions each week in February. Those are normally held just once a month and have about five attendees. The first session this month filled the room with 35 people; the next week brought 30.

Brittany Steigner, an outreach specialist with the organization, said that in the past, national and international news stories have led to an uptick in volunteer numbers.

But its never been like this, she said.

Studnicka said theres opportunity in crisis. This is no different.

This is a real chance to educate and to grow in our mission, she said.

With the influx of volunteers comes a new goal for Lutheran Family Services in Nebraska: Matching 100 percent of refugees with a mentor. Less than a third have a mentor to help them learn English or develop life skills in a new country  sometimes as simple as learning to use a dishwasher or make a budget.

Those mentor relationships are what change lives  for both the client and the volunteer, Steigner said in the orientation session. She encouraged volunteers to spend a few hours a week in a mentorship role. When you meet with them and hear their stories, you cry and laugh, and you just see humans as humans.

Cody Brookhouser, who attended the session, said the news in recent weeks opened her eyes to ways she could get involved. She wouldnt have known about opportunities to volunteer with refugees had someone not posted about it in a social media group she joined after the Womens March in Omaha.

I didnt want to continue feeling helpless, said Brookhouser, 27. It makes me feel warm inside to see so many people showing up, wanting to help refugees feel welcome in this community.

Diane Marshall, 67, agreed. She attended the orientation session with Brookhouser and wants to volunteer to set up apartments for incoming families.

I feel like there have been several times in my life when I wanted to get involved or protest something, but I held back, she said. But Im motivated now. So here I am, ready to help.
Threatening to do what Nikko did has earned an inmate in Lincoln another few decades behind bars.

That threat, a reference to the self-mutilating facially tattooed spree-killer Nikko Jenkins, led to a sentence of 30 to 50 years Friday.

Jenkins killed four people in Omaha within days of being released from prison in 2013.

Like Jenkins, Gage M. Capone, 55, was a prisoner who threatened before his release to harm others when he was let out. Unlike Jenkins, he didnt have a chance to kill anybody. As soon as he was released last March, authorities arrested him on suspicion of making terroristic threats.

According to an arrest warrant, issued the day before he finished his previous prison sentence, Capone made 11 threats against several people from July 2010 to February 2016. They included specific threats against family members of prison staff. Some were overheard by others, and some were written in forms and letters to prison officials and doctors.

On Dec. 5, 2015, Capone was heard saying that when he got out he would go to Walmart, buy guns and ammunition, and start killing people, an affidavit in support of an arrest warrant said. Im going to do what Nikko did, the document quotes Capone as saying.

Before his latest arrest, Capone had been serving 12 years in prison for two theft charges and the possession of a firearm by a felon. He also has previous burglary and marijuana convictions out of Douglas County, according to court documents.

A jury found him guilty in December of terroristic threats, which usually carries a maximum of three years in prison. But because of his prior record, District Court Judge Darla S. Ideus sentenced Capone as a habitual criminal. Capone received credit for 331 days of time served. Hell be eligible for parole on March 15, 2036, when hes 74 years old.

Court documents indicate Capone changed his name from James Don Walker to Gage Magnum Capone in 2013. A previous attempt to change it to Jessie James Capone was unsuccessful.

In court documents requesting the name change, Capone said he had two honorable discharges from the military and had filed for compensation due to PTSD.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos struck a unifying tone in a speech to department employees this week, urging them to set aside preconceived notions, find common ground and put students needs first.

To everyone on this team, my challenge to you is simple: Be bold, think big, and act to serve students.

Critics of the controversial appointee are not looking to make up and play nice. Demonstrations were held nationwide, including outside Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischers Omaha office, before the Senate approved her appointment by the narrowest 51-50 margin this week. On Friday, when DeVos tried to visit a Washington, D.C., public school, she was greeted by protesters.

The World-Herald interviewed a dozen Midlands education leaders and found mixed reviews for DeVos.

Some are concerned about her lack of experience with public education and fear that she will advocate for school-choice options that could divert money from public schools  particularly those with large numbers of low-income kids.

School choice advocates, however, welcome her support for vouchers and charter schools.

* * * * *

Troy Unzicker, superintendent Alliance Public Schools

He said he hopes Nebraskas U.S. senators who voted for her did their homework.

He is concerned about her support for charter schools and vouchers.

I think they could probably be done in a correct manner, but I struggle with anything thats going to divert our limited educational funding away from public education right now, he said.

He said Nebraska ranks 49th in the country in state funding to schools for public education, and any diversion of funds just degradates our system.

Some voucher and charter designs dont work as intended. Its pretty tough, he said, to create a voucher system that doesnt discriminate against low-income kids. He said hes concerned that public education could turn into an elite system, where those that can pay go, and those that cant dont.

DeVos deserves support, but people need to be vigilant for what they want education to look like in Nebraska, he said.

When you get out here into these rural areas, it sounds all well and good to provide vouchers so kids can go to better schools, he said. Its an awful long ways to another school, let alone a better school.

If theres money for charters and vouchers, then why not use it to aid public schools, he said.

The educators deserve a lot of praise for what theyre trying to do, and our hands are tied in a lot of ways, Unzicker said. We take every kid who walks through the door. We have to make it work.

* * * * *

Maddie Fennell, executive director, Nebraska State Education Association

If Republicans continue to call for a limited federal role in education, that could positively impact the state, she said.

Congress was so upset with Arne Duncan, President Obamas first education secretary, that it stripped away some power from the position, she said.

It will be interesting to see which powers they choose to stay stripped and which they choose to give back to Betsy DeVos, she said.

Her guess is that Congress will reopen the federal education law known as Every Child Succeeds Act. Some officials in higher education are not pleased with the law, she said.

Fennell said it will take a while for DeVos, who lacks public education experience, to get up to speed running a big department.

The thing that bothers me about all of it is there are an awful lot of really great Republican education leaders that they could have put in office, who would have hit the ground running, Fennell said. Shes got a large learning curve about public education, and about the systems of public education and about the systems of the department itself . . . before she can get a lot done.

DeVos will have the bully pulpit and shell be well-received by pro-school choice groups, but shell have to win over her critics, she said.

Fennell said Duncan had money to work with because Congress made a huge drop of cash into education during the economic recession.

He told the states if you want some of this money, these are some of the things youre going to have to do, she said.

President Trump doesnt have a big pot of money to work with, she said.

* * * * *

Pat Timm, president Nebraska State Board of Education

I cant be angry about it. This is what we have to work with. And we need to find the best way to work with it that continues to help us do what we do best and thats educate kids.

She said Nebraska has fought hard to do education the Nebraska way. She said Nebraska is doing a lot of things right, and she doesnt like when the state gets lumped in with other states as needing to be fixed.

The states accountability system aligns quite well with the requirements of the new federal education law that replaced the much-criticized No Child Left Behind law, she said.

I dont know whether thats going to stay or not, Timm said of the law called Every Student Succeeds Act. Thats the thing thats so difficult right now, the unknown. Because we have a new secretary of education, are we going to scrap everything and do something else? We dont know. And thats really hard to plan. And you cant really put your whole education system on hold for six months or a year or whatever it takes to decide what theyre going to do.

She said she hopes DeVos will take the time to learn how public education is being done today. She is hoping the administration wont rush to change the new education law.

If the administration wants to make changes, I think well do our best to be a part of the conversation, she said.

She said Nebraska has pretty liberal school choice statutes. When it comes to charters and vouchers, the main issue is funding, she said.

I dont think its that we dont think parents should have some say in where their children go to school. But its how is it going to be funded.

* * * * *

Andy Rikli, superintendent Papillion La Vista Community Schools

DeVos confirmation was disappointing but not surprising.

The main concern many of us had revolved around her background, in that her children didnt attend public schools, she didnt attend public schools, and has spent much of her professional life advocating for alternatives to public schools, he said.

He said he might have a different opinion if during her confirmation hearing DeVos had expressed unequivocal support for public schools and shown a grasp of the fundamental laws that govern public education.

Educators in public schools will be closely watching how she handles the relationship between federal and local control, specifically as it relates to school choice, he said.

The secretary couldnt unilaterally introduce charters or vouchers, he said.

But many public school educators are concerned she could change the rules governing federal education funding, such as Title I money that supports education poor kids, he said.

I think the concern is what types of strings might she attach to these dollars to incentivize the privatization of our schools, he said.

One way thats been speculated is allowing kids at a struggling public school to use federal money to attend a private school, he said.

School choice is alive and well in Nebraska through option enrollment, home schools and private and parochial schools, he

said. He said Nebraskas public schools are performing exceptionally well, he said.

We have one of the highest graduation rates in the country. We typically score in the top 10, top 15 on the NAEP tests. Our ACT scores are consistently among the highest in the country, he said. My advice to the new secretary would be, If its not broke, dont fix it.

* * * * *

Patrick Slattery, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Omaha

In a statement, Slattery said he will be interested to see how the U.S. Department of Education might empower families with choice to find the best educational fit for their child, while at the same time ensuring strong public schools.

The two notions need not be in contradiction to each other, he said.

He said its crucial to remember that the primary beneficiary of school choice is not the school but the parent.

Choice is about empowering parents to find the appropriate educational fit for their child, public or non-public, Slattery said. Forty-five states have already embraced some form of parental choice program, and research shows parents overwhelmingly approve such options, he said.

He said the archdiocese also welcomes the notion of local control in education, whether public or non-public.

* * * * *

Matt Blomstedt, Nebraska commissioner of education

As arbiter between the federal and state governments, Blomstedt said that while theres been opposition to her confirmation, the Nebraska Department of Education must work effectively with her.

When Congress debated the new education law, there was interest in making federal funds portable  allowing students to take the money with them to a private school  but that provision didnt make it into the law.

I just cant imagine theyll have an immediate shift to reopen ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act), he said.

Nor does he see the administration having an aggressive legislative program, but they could defund certain programs, he said.

ESSA put clearer boundaries on the authority of the federal government regarding education, he said.

He expects that if the administration writes new rules, they may shift even more responsibilities to the states.

One positive could be that federal funding becomes more flexible rather than prescriptive, he said.

He said that as commissioner he will remain concerned about civil rights, closing achievement gaps and improving schools.

While the federal government has certain responsibilities like equity in schools, he said, Really the design and support of schools is still our responsibility, and it always has been.

* * * * *

Kevin Riley, superintendent Gretna Public Schools

Riley said educators are concerned she lacks experience in public education. That showed in the confirmation hearing, Riley said.

We wouldnt put someone in charge of the Department of Defense, or the department of anything, that didnt have extensive experience in the area, he said.

Public school officials will watch for whether she can see the whole big picture or not and lead the department in a way that improves education, he said. Public schools educate the vast majority of American kids, he said.

A big concern is that she will allow tax dollars to go to schooling that does not have to abide by the same federal and state laws that public schools do. I dont think any business would be all that excited about that sort of unlevel playing field.

The concern rests not so much with her mandating vouchers or charters, but rather incentivizing them, he said.

Under No Child Left Behind, he said, the federal government grabbed authority for public education and centralized it in Washington, he said.

Theyre not good at this, he said.

The federal government should fulfill its responsibility for special education and other duties, and restore authority for education back to the states.

I think thats really what the administration has said, he said.

* * * * *

Kathleen Lenzen, from the Nebraska Christian Home Educators Association

Lenzen home-schooled her three children. Like DeVos, she wasnt trained as a teacher, and she doesnt think a non-traditional background is a deal-breaker for the education secretary.

Personally, Im very excited to see her confirmed, Lenzen said. I think she will be a breath of fresh air. Im excited she thinks outside the box and that she is a champion of school choice.

True school choice encompasses the many options available to parents, she said.

Theres obviously a place for public schools in our country, there is a place for private schools, a place for parochial schools and a place for home schools, she said.

Shes hopeful DeVos will steer clear of policies that increase regulation for homeschool parents and homeschool groups. The strong opposition to DeVos baffles her.

Im not understanding why the teachers union is upset about somebody that is passionate about education, that has a passion for education and students, that wants to help students, that wants to be in charge of the Department of Education, she said.

* * * * *

Susan Toohey, principal of Nelson Mandela Elementary School

As the head of a private school in north Omaha, Toohey said some people are surprised to learn shes opposed to charter schools.

So shes extremely disappointed over DeVos confirmation, and the possibility that she could push for the expansion of charter schools or vouchers. Her school, funded by the Lozier Foundation, offers free tuition and year-round schooling. But Toohey, whos also worked in OPS and at Marian High School, said it is her stance and the Lozier Foundations stance that traditional public schools are still a vital part of the community.

We absolutely dont think taking money away from public school systems is the right decision, Toohey said. Were adamant that public school systems need those dollars to educate all students.

If charter schools or voucher programs expanded under DeVos, shes not sure Nelson Mandela would be affected  school staff have forged strong relationships with parents and tuition is already free. But the private school doesnt have the resources to accept, for example, special education students who would require a full-time aid or personal nurse.

We want to make sure theres a quality public education for them, she said.

One silver lining to the controversy over DeVos? People are actually talking about the politics and policies of education, she said. I think education is at the forefront of peoples minds and this will maybe open some good discussions of whats the role of the government in education, whats the role of the taxpayer in education, she said. This actually got people talking.

* * * * *

Clarice Jackson, executive director of the LEARN Coalition (Liberate, Educate and Reform Nebraska) and Voice Advocacy Center

Jackson wears two hats: Shes a supporter of charter schools, and works with students and families struggling with dyslexia.

So while shes pleased that DeVos shares her passion for school choice, she said the education secretary still needs to brush up on special education issues.

Im definitely encouraged by the fact that she understands that school reform is needed, that school choice is a parents right, and shouldnt be dictated by economic class or ZIP code, Jackson said. Im happy about that. I do have some concerns about her level of understanding and awareness as it pertains to special education issues and IDEA, the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

The conversation around DeVos and her support for school choice means more parents are talking about concepts such as charter schools and vouchers, which arent currently authorized in Nebraska.

Jackson hopes DeVos confirmation will push Nebraska to embrace more education options.

We have models that we know work, and models we know dont work, she said. We can provide successful, high-quality charter schools without all the backlash that opponents have given for not wanting them, especially some of the schools that are perpetually failing our children in urban communities.

* * * * *

Ruben Cano, principal of Omaha South High School

Cano, who leads the states largest high schools, said theres been a lot of chatter in the education field over DeVos education background  or lack thereof  and her support of charter schools and vouchers.

I just hope she has an open mind about public education, he said.

He wants to see where DeVos falls on other policies that will impact urban, high-poverty schools like South High, where nearly 89 percent of students qualified for free or reduced lunch during the 2015-16 school year.

Hed like to hear more from her on whether she supports the expansion of early childhood education programs, which have helped kids in South Omaha.

Diverting money toward charter schools or voucher programs could limit the programs schools like South can offer, Cano said. North High has a prestigious engineering magnet program, Bryan High has a growing urban agriculture academy and South offers specialty programs for performing arts and information technology.

I believe theres a lot of public schools out there that provide a non-traditional curriculum that kids can participate in, he said. I hope thats something she understands  a family doesnt have to take their child out of a public school for them to get a quality education.

* * * * *

Mark Evans, Superintendent, Omaha Public Schools

Evans, the superintendent of the state's largest school district, said in a statement that DeVos's confirmation "is a real concern for public education supporters across the country."

"We're encouraging our educators, families and our community to keep up with federal and state level education policy discussions so that they are well-informed about any proposed changes that could negatively impact our students," he said.
LINCOLN  A new effort was announced Saturday to try to end the alcohol-related woes associated with Whiteclay, Nebraska: buy out the liquor stores.

Bruce BonFleur, the head of a Whiteclay street ministry called Lakota Hope, said he is launching an effort to raise at least $6.3 million to buy the four beer-only liquor stores.

The stores sell the equivalent of 3.5 million cans of beer a year. Almost all sales are to residents of the adjacent Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where alcohol is officially banned, but alcoholism and fetal alcohol syndrome are rampant.

BonFleur said his effort is called BOBS Plan, for buy out the beer stores, and is being launched because other efforts to halt alcohol sales there have failed.

Its time for Gods people to stand up, he said, during a presentation at an annual legislative forum at Christ United Methodist Church in Lincoln.

BonFleur and his wife, Marsha, have worked in the Whiteclay area for nearly two decades. He said they have met four times already with the owners of the beer stores, and that they are ready to sell due to the increased political and legal pressure.

Its not just wishful thinking. Were in negotiations. If someone wanted to give us $6 million we could end it tomorrow, BonFleur said.

If the four stores close, its unclear if others could successfully apply for new liquor licenses to open new stores.

Many Native American activists and advocates for children have called for the closing of the Whiteclay stores.

On March 7, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission will take testimony on whether the stores should be shuttered due to a lack of law enforcement in Whiteclay, an unincorporated town of less than a dozen residents. Vagrants openly drink, urinate and often are seen passed out on the street, earning the town the nickname, Skid Row of the Plains.

BonFleur said he has set up a nonprofit corporation and a website, whiteclayredo.com, to take donations.

The plan, he said, is to close down the stores, burn the liquor licenses and use the buildings to create jobs.

Were going to give people hope, he said.

Those who oppose closing the beer stores say they are legal businesses with a right to operate and shutting them down would just move problems to other communities.

State Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon, who attended Saturdays announcement and is part Oglala Sioux, said he senses growing support in the Legislature to clean up Whiteclay and buying out the beer stores is an opportunity that might not occur again.

This is probably our best solution, Brewer said.

If the right people are found, the money could be raised, he added.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe has talked about legalizing alcohol on its reservation and taxing the sales to finance alcohol-treatment programs, but it has never moved forward on such ideas.
U.S. presidents come and go, but sound principles for our countrys national security are enduring.

Here are three examples of important guideposts for our country, regardless of which party holds political power in Washington:

 Strength through alliances. The United States cant go it alone. True, weve had a superpower role since World War II, and our military remains the largest on the planet. But economic and military power is increasingly distributed among various nations.

Nurturing strong alliances, based on pledges for mutual support, is imperative in buttressing our interests around the globe.

In Europe, that means NATO, as the new secretary of defense, retired Gen. James Mattis, stated to lawmakers during his confirmation hearing. In the Pacific, that means close partnerships with nations such as Japan, South Korea and Australia.

Among the problems the Trump administration faces in Asia is rebuilding relations with the Philippines in the face of reckless behavior, and occasional anti-American rhetoric, by that countrys president.

The United States should work energetically to strengthen our countrys alliances, not raise doubts about our commitment to them. It was encouraging that President Donald Trump, in his inaugural address, said our country will reinforce old alliances. His earlier description of NATO as obsolete was peculiar and, above all, inaccurate.

 Stability in trade relations. The new administration has made clear it intends to set a new path on U.S. trade policy, and thats the presidents right, given that he won the election. But the new administration should be careful in throwing up tariff barriers.

It would be hard to exaggerate how much the modern economy relies on the efficient operation of global supply chains. Imposing tariffs, especially on all the imports from individual countries, can set off disruptive ripple effects.

Tariffs by definition send the wrongheaded message that purchasing decisions in the marketplace should be decided not by choices made by consumers and businesses but by directives from politicians and bureaucrats.

 Risks of overpromising. When then-President George W. Bush sent U.S. troops into Iraq in 2003, he failed to prepare the American people for the scale and difficulty of the challenge ahead. Barack Obama came into office in 2009 with inflated expectations among many supporters about how much he could achieve on the global stage.

Trump, in his inaugural address, said his administration will unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth.

Stepping up the fight against terrorism is a sensible goal; Mattis, for one, has a background that prepares him for the task. But the president should avoid boosting public expectations to unrealistic levels.

If experience over the past decade or so has shown anything, its the Middle Easts capacity for frustrating hopes for stability and progress  as well as the American publics wariness of renewed military involvement on a large scale.
OSCEOLA, Iowa  State Conservation Officer Michael Miller was on routine patrol late Friday morning when he saw two men setting up an ice fishing shelter on West Lake Osceola, in southern Iowa.

I saw them out there and yelled how much ice are you on? and they said three inches. I told them to get off the ice immediately, he said.

Miller said one angler made it safely off the ice, but the other broke through about 10 yards from shore.

Miller grabbed his throw bag from his vehicle, threw it to the man in the lake and with the help of the other angler, pulled him to shore.

It all happened in about five minutes.

He said he was losing feeling in his hands and his hands were hurting, Miller said. At this point I was more worried about the threat from exposure than from drowning.

Paramedics arrived and examined the angler who was then released from the scene.

Miller, who covers Clarke and Decatur counties for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, has seen anglers break through the ice before, but has never pulled one out.

I told them next time they want to go ice fishing this time of year, to go north, Miller said. Its 48 degrees here with a south wind. Our ice conditions have been deteriorating quickly for some time.

Ice fishing is not recommended over about the southern third of Iowa. Anglers should use extreme caution during the latter part of the winter as the longer days, thaw-freeze cycles and warmer winds begin to weaken the ice.
P Chidambaram accuses BJP of using 7 phase poll in UP to polarise voters

How the numbers add up in UP: This is what BJP's win percentage was

64.2 % polling in first phase of UP elections

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, Feb 11: The Election Commission of India on Saturday said that 64.2 per cent of voting was recorded by the end of the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

Elaborate security arrangements were made in all districts that went to polls on Saturday.

63% voter turnout (tentative) in first phase of Uttar Pradesh election: Election commission pic.twitter.com/J174QYgEFn  ANI (@ANI_news) February 11, 2017

"3888 digital and video cameras were used, webcasting was done in 2857 places for first phase of UP elections. 2,96,906 troublemakers were identified and preventive actions were taken against them in first phase of UP elections," EC officials said.

"19.56 crore cash, 4.44 lakh litre liquor worth Rs 14 crore, drugs worth Rs 96.93 lakh, gold and silver worth Rs 14 crores were seized in first phase of polls. 13 cases of paid news were identified, out of which 10 have been confirmed in first phase of UP elections," ECI officials said.

Uttar Pradesh assembly elections is being keenly watched by the political pundits as Samajwadi Party and Congress joined hands ahead of the elections. While BJP is trying to knock the SP-Congress alliance, BSP is looking to come back to power in the state.

OneIndia News
BJP hits back at Rahul Gandhi's 'bathroom' jibe at PM Modi

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Feb 11: Hitting back at Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi for his remarks that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was "fond of peeping into others' bathrooms", the BJP said on Saturday that the Congress leader "behaves as per his standards" and it does not expect anything better from him.

"Everybody behaves according to his standard and BJP never expect anything better from the Congress leader," Union Minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters here.

In a strong attack, Gandhi said the Prime Minister was "fond of peeping into others' bathrooms" and Googling and was a "complete failure".

"The Prime Minister is fond of Google searching, peeping into others' bathrooms, and reading others' horoscopes. Let him do that in his free time but his main job is that of a Prime Minister in which he has been a cent per cent failure," Gandhi said at the joint media conference with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow.

Javadekar also took on Akhilesh Yadav, who attacked Modi, saying rather "getting emotional" or angry, he should have walk on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, which would compel even the Prime Minister to vote for the alliance.

"Neither the SP and nor the BSP are the options for the people people of Uttar Pradesh. Only BJP can do overall development of the state," Javadekar said.

The Prime Minister had earlier attracted the wrath of the Congress for attacking his predecessor Manmohan Singh in Parliament, accusing him of "bathing wearing a raincoat".

IANS
Why PM Modi has urged everyone to visit Nadabet, the 'Wagah of Gujarat'

Boys make mistakes, Modi attacks SP with Mulayams old rape shocker

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Lucknow, Feb 11: On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's government in Samajwadi Party's stronghold Budaun in Uttar Pradesh. At an election rally, PM Modi told the voters that Budaun was among the 100 most backward districts in the country.

"SP MLA from Budaun had levelled serious allegations against SP MP and if asked about it, Mulayam Ji would've said that 'boys make mistakes'," PM Modi said while taking a jibe at SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.

In 2014, Mulayam shocked the entire nation when he said that boys make mistakes to express his protest against anti-rape law.

"I had heard about Budaun even when I was in Gujarat (as the state's CM). What is the reason that fruits of development could not reach this land under the SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party?" he asked.

Budaun is considered as the SP's stronghold. Even during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when the Bharatiya Janata Party swept the elections, the SP candidate won his seat from Budaun.

Taking a jibe at SP patriarch Mulayam and BSP supremo Mayawati, the Prime Minister said that in spite of Budaun being a 'VIP' constituency from where MLAs and MPs from the SP and the BSP had won elections, the district was yet to see 'vikaas'.

"The entire UP knows that it is not Akhilesh's work, but his misdeed speaks." "Why is it that even after 70 years of independence, 18,000 villages did not get electricity?" PM questioned.

Addressing the residents of Budaun, the PM said that his government was dedicated to serve the poor, marginalised and farmers. "We are initiating several steps to uplift the underprivileged."

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, February 11, 2017, 14:33 [IST]
Assembly Bypolls: Voting concludes for 7 seats in six States; Counting on Nov 6

Election Commission's 'third eye' smartly monitors UP polls

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Lucknow, Feb 11: As voting got underway in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, the Election Commission is extensively using information technology to ensure free and fair polling, an official said.

The 'third eye' of the poll panel was keeping a close tab on each and every movement at 14,514 polling centres through 2,362 digital cameras, 1,526 video cameras and 2,857 web cameras, the official added.

"Our commitment is to ensure free and fair polling and we are doing everything in this direction," the official told IANS.

There have so far been no reports of any poll violence as 2.60 crore voters venture out to cast their franchise in the first phase.

There are 839 candidates, including 77 women, in fray for 73 seats across 15 districts in the western part of the state.

The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have fielded candidates on all the 73 seats while the ruling Samajwadi Party is contesting on 51 with its alliance partner Congress on 25 seats.

Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal is fighting on 57 seats.

IANS


Pastor Vijay Masih arrested in UP for illegally converting Hindus to Christianity

UP ATS picks up two more accused in Al-Qaeda radicalisation case

Hours before UP elections, 2 youths die in violent clash

India

oi-PTI

Meerut (UP), Feb 11: Two youths were killed and four others were injured in a violent clash between two groups over a land dispute in Ghosipur village in Meerut on Friday, police said.

According to Senior Superintendent of Police J Ravinder, the clash took place late night between the groups where firearms were used.

The injured youths were admitted to a hospital where they died during treatment, he said.

Eight persons have been arrested in the incident, he said. Security has been tightened in the area, police added.

The incident took place few hours before the first phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections on Saturday.

PTI
In UP, the real battle is between Chaiwallah and Cyclewallah

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Lucknow, Feb 11: In the high-stake Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, ultimately it's a fight between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. The contest is clearly between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance, as the state voted for the first phase of UP polls on Saturday.

After completion of more than two years of governance at the Centre, the elections in the northern state, is seen as a referendum to PM Modi's popularity across the country. The incumbent CM of India's biggest state-- in terms of number of legislators--is looking forward to repeat his party's success story of UP assembly elections of 2012.

On one hand, it is PM Modi, who is also known as country's most popular chaiwallah (tea seller). Modi, during his childhood days sold tea at railway platforms of Gujarat, to financially assist his family. On the other is Akhilesh, who is UP's famous cyclewallah (cycle man). The cyclewallah avatar of the CM has become popular after Akhilesh was seen riding a cycle (party symbol of Samajwadi Party) during his poll rallies.

On Saturday, while urging people of UP to cast their vote for development, Akhilesh tweeted a cartoon of himself, riding a cycle.

Prime Minister also asked voters of the state to participate in the democratic process of election in a big way.

                         Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 11, 2017

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Story first published: Saturday, February 11, 2017, 10:54 [IST]
ISI hand in train derailment case? Nepal has doubts

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Shamshul Huda, the alleged mastermind behind the train derailments in India was arrested in Nepal.While the investigations in India have confirmed his role in the incidents, Nepal is yet to confirm the same. His arrest last week was considered to be a major breakthrough, but dramatically India did not seek his extradition. A team of the National Investigation Agency which was scheduled to visit Nepal and question Huda too has deferred its visit.

It was the Bihar police which had claimed to have cracked the case. The police said following the arrest of three persons that they had a hand to play in the Kanpur Express derailment incident of November in which 150 persons had died. There have been contradictory reports from Nepal about Huda's interrogation. He claimed that he had indeed masterminded the incident, but in some quarters investigators believe that he may be bragging.

Nepal says that it doubts Huda's role and hence wants more concrete information from India before talk of an extradition can even begin. The other confusion is with regard to the Kanpur derailment case. Huda allegedly confessed that he had directed planting pressure cooker bombs on the railway tracks in Ghorasahan and Nakardehi. He however denied having anything to do with the derailment.

An extradition from Nepal has never been a problem for India, but in this case it appears to be stuck in a loop. Sources say that the investigation in India is still going on and once more concrete links are established, Huda's extradition would be sought.

NIA officials say that they are probing the Kanpur incident. Once more information comes out, a team would visit Nepal to question Huda. The first priority would be to question him and then seek his extradition, the officer also added.

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Story first published: Saturday, February 11, 2017, 12:36 [IST]
PM likes to peep into others' bathrooms; search on google: Rahul attacks Modi

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Lucknow, Feb 11: In a reply to Prime Minister Narendra Modi 'raincoat' jibe against his predecessor Manmohan Singh, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said that the PM likes to peep into others' bathrooms.

While addressing a press meet, Rahul added that PM Modi also likes to search information on google. This again was a reply to what PM Modi said at a rally on Friday. Taking a dig at the Congress VP, Prime Minister said that most of the jokes on google are about Rahul.

PM ko sirf google pe search karna accha lagta hai, logon ke bathroom mein jhaankna accha lagta hai: Rahul Gandhi pic.twitter.com/AOTBW6vTGe  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

"There is not a single black mark against him despite all the corruption. Only Doctor Saab (Manmohan Singh) knows how to bathe with a raincoat in the bathroom," PM Modi said at the Rajya Sabha to attack the previous United Progressive Alliance's regime at the Centre for its alleged role in various corruption cases.

Rahul attended the press meet with his alliance partner and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav. The Samajwadi Party and the Congress have forged an alliance to fight the assembly elections in UP. On Saturday, polling for the first phase took place in the state.

Both Akhilesh and Rahul launched the alliance's common minimum programme in front of the reporters. Akhilesh had an advice for the PM. The UP CM asked Modi not to get too angry.

Bohot ghussa hona acchi baat nahi hai, is se pata chalta hai pairon ke neeche se zameen sarak rahi hai: Akhilesh Yadav  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

"Prime Minister's strategy is distraction. When he can't answer questions, then he starts distracting. Truth is that in two-and-a-half years, he has failed," added Rahul.

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Story first published: Saturday, February 11, 2017, 12:19 [IST]
RBI to soon launch e-rupee on pilot basis for specific use cases

RBI rate hikes to contain price rise; inflation to fall below 6 pc next year

RBI to declare 'verified' figure on post-demonetisation deposits

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Feb 11: The Reserve Bank of India on Saturday said it needs to be careful on divulging the post-demonetisation deposit amount as the figure needs to be verified first and should not be just an estimate.

"The number that we should now divulge should be a verified number and congruent with the complex accounting," Governor Urjit Patel said here post the RBI Board meet with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

"There are tens of thousands of bank branches and 4,000 currency chests. We need to be careful and try that this is a number which is not a mere estimate but a verified number both physically and in the accounting sense," Patel added when asked about the estimated amount of old currency notes that have come back.

RBI had earlier said that notes worth Rs 12.44 lakh crore have been deposited till December 10, 2016.

There were 17,165 million pieces of Rs 500 notes and 6,858 million pieces of Rs 1,000 notes in circulation on November 8, 2016, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the announcement of demonetising the two high denomination notes.

The total amount of high denomination currency circulating in the system on that day was, thus, Rs 15.44 lakh crore (Rs 8.58 lakh crore in Rs 500 notes and Rs 6.86 lakh crore in Rs 1,000).

Jaitley said the meeting with the RBI was to discuss the various Budget suggestions and the current economic situation.

When asked about RBI not going for a rate cut in its latest monetary policy review on February 8, he said: "All Finance Ministers have the perpetual desire, but at the end we all respect the decision that the RBI takes."

--IANS

mm/in/rn
Why is the DMK continuing to oppose the imposition of Hindi? - 50 years of struggle and the truth!

REVEALED: Conspiracy to recruit into the IS hatched in Chennai

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The National Investigation Agency have revealed that the criminal conspiracy to recruit youth into the Islamic State was hatched in Chennai. Some youth in Chennai were in touch with a module in Abu Dhabi to recruit youth into the IS as well as collect funds, probe papers say.

The entire modus operandi came to light after three Indians from the United Arab Emirates were deported to India. Those deported were Adnan Hussaini from Bhatkal in Karnataka, Mohammad Farhan from Maharashtra and Sheikh Azhar from Kashmir. It was found during the probe that Hussaini had transferred funds to India. Investigators say that these funds were meant for recruitment purposes.

Investigations show that this module had managed to recruit eight persons from Tamil Nadu and one from Telangana. The module members in Abu Dhabi were in touch with youth in Chennai and Telangana to recruit, NIA investigations also show.

The probe also found that apart from recruiting into the IS, the module also planned on carrying out attacks in India. All the members were being managed by Shafi Armar who is the alleged boss for the IS activities in India. Armar is believed to be in Syria and controls the module, Intelligence Bureau officials say.

The module apart from planning attacks is also said to have facilitated the travel of several youth to Syria who showed interest in joining the IS. NIA officials say that this probe has a very wide ambit. The NIA had busted a India wide module last year in which it was found youth from across the country had been recruited into the IS which calls itself the Junood ul Khilafa Hind.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Saturday, February 11, 2017, 11:33 [IST]
Siachen braveheart: A year on Hanumanthappa Koppad awaits a memorial, wife a job

India

oi-Anusha

His was a story of disaster, hope and ultimately tragedy, Lance Naik Hanumantappa Koppad was one of the soldiers who was killed in the aftermath of an avalanche in siachen in 2016. A year after his death, promises made to the martyr's family remain unfulfilled.

The Karnataka government had promised a memorial for the martyr at his home town but a year on, the memorial is still stuck in red-tapism. Officials from the Karnataka chief minister's office said that the funds for the memorial has been been released but estimate that the inauguration of the same is unlikely to happen before two long months. The memorial was supposed to mark his death anniversary. His final resting place awaits the memorial.

The soldier was awarded a service medal posthumously on Januray 26, 2017 that his widow received. What she didn't receive was the government job that was promised. However, the government has honoured the family with four acres of land and a site. Sources from the government suggest that the family has asked for a sainik school to be built at Hanumantappa Koppad's home town and the same is under consideration. The government will only recommend the same since army schools come under the Centre government.

Hanumantappa Koppad survived the avalanche and was rescued alive but succumbed on February 11.
TN crisis: Police at resort to question AIADMK MLAs

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Chennai, Feb 11: There has been hectic activity at the Golden Bay resort near Chennai where AIADMK MLAs loyal to Sasikala Natarajan have been kept. The police has reached the resort to find out if the MLAs are staying there on their own will or being held captive. Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu O Panneerselvam had alleged before the governor that the MLAs are being kept at the resort forcibly.

The governor had assured that he would look into these allegations. The police is currently at the resort to verify the allegations. Police officials would speak with the MLAs individually to get a correct picture.

Earlier there were incidents of stone pelting reported at the resort. Some persons were angry with the prying media which has been stationed at the resort since the past three days to track the MLAs who are alleged to be held captive by Sasikala who is trying to become the next chief minister of Tamil Nadu.

A petition too had been filed in the Madras high court seeking to know where the MLAs were. On Thursday the high court was told by the government that the MLAs were in the MLA hostel and not at any resort. However investigations done by journalists tracked the MLAs to the resort.

The petition was taken up on Friday and the court sought an affidavit from the government on the status of the MLAs.

OneIndia News
What is Anti-doping bill? Does India really have a doping crisis?

Two Lok Sabha MPs join Panneerselvam camp

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Chennai, Feb 11: Two Lok Sabha members on Saturday extended support to acting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O.Panneerselvam by joining his camp. The two members -- Ashok Kumar representing Krishnagiri constituency and Sundaram representing Namakkal -- visited Panneerselvam at his residence here.

Earlier, sitting Rajya Sabha member V.Maitreyan had joined Panneerselvam camp. The two MPs have joined Panneerselvam a day after AIADMK spokesperson Vaigaichelvan said people joining Panneerselvam's camp are "beyond their expiry date".

Speaking to reporters here, Ashok Kumar said other AIADMK MPs will also start joining hands with Panneerselvam. The AIADMK has 37 members in Lok Sabha. Panneerselvam revolted against AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala on Tuesday night alleging that he was forced to resign as Chief Minister to pave the way for Sasikala to occupy that chair.

Subsequently around five legislators, one sitting MP, party old-timers, former legislators and others have started expressing their support to Panneerselvam.

IANS
UP elections: People have rejected the SP-Congress alliance

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

In a bid to stay in power the ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, party entered into an alliance with the Congress. However Western Uttar Pradesh which polled on Saturday in the first phase of the UP elections has rejected this alliance and this clearly shows that the move by the SP has backfired.

The reason for this alliance backfiring is because the people view the Congress as a party of scams and corruption. The people are not ready to accept this fact at any cost and this is the primary reason why the SP-Congress alliance has failed.

Akhilesh Yadav's position has been clearly weak during the elections and this is largely to do with the failure of his government. People are upset with the increasing crime rate, handling of women related issues, farmer problems and corruption are the primary reasons the people have been citing against the SP. To add to the woes of the SP is the alliance with the Congress which has only made the people even more upset.

The voters in Western UP have categorically rejected the SP-Congress alliance. The ruling SP has not been able to address the farmer problems, increase in crime, corruption and issues such as exodus. In addition to this, the corruption of the Congress party too has been an issue as to why the people have rejected this alliance. The SP-Congress have also relied on vote bank politics to such an extent that it has ended up appeasing one particular community.

Taking all these factors into account, the people have favoured the BJP as it does not favour one particular community. The party believes in the development of all. The BJP has assured that it would work towards the development of farmers, poor, women and youth. This has had an impact on the elections and a large number of people have made up their mind to go with the BJP. The impact of all these factors will be seen in the first phase of the elections which is polling in 73 constituencies. A majority of the people would vote for the BJP in this phase.

[The NaMo wave 2.0 sweeps Uttar Pradesh]

OneIndia News
Hundreds of undocumented immigrants arrested in US

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Washington, Feb 12: Hundreds of undocumented immigrants from a dozen Latin American countries have been arrested in at least six US states this week, following President Donald Trump's executive order to broaden the scope of immigration enforcement targets.

The Immigrants were netted in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina, Xinhua news agency quoted US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials as saying on Saturday. Among them 161 arrests were made in Los Angeles and some 200 in Atlanta, said local media reports. The authorities didn't reveal the total number of the arrests.

Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said the crackdown was part of "routine" immigration enforcement actions. A majority of those detained were serious criminals, including some who were convicted of murder and domestic violence, she said.

"We're talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system," she said. However, a Washington Post report said some of the detained are without criminal records, calling it the first large-scale crackdown under the Trump administration.

On January 25, Trump issued an executive order ending the previous "catch and release" policy. Under the new order, the immigration enforcement are allowed to target undocumented immigrants with minor offences or no convictions.

Immigration officials acknowledged that as a result of Trump's executive order, authorities had cast a wider net than they would have last year, said the report.

The Obama administration has also pursued a more aggressive deportation policy than any previous Presidents, sending over 400,000 people back to their birth countries in 2012. However, in his second term, Obama prioritised convicted criminals for deportation.

On the 2016 campaign trail, Trump pledged to deport two to three million undocumented immigrants with criminal records.

There are estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living across the United States.

IANS
Qatar's food security crisis and what India is doing about it

World's longest flight from Doha to Auckland

International

oi-PTI

Doha, Feb 5: Qatar Airways launched the world's longest scheduled commercial service with its inaugural flight from Doha to Auckland taking off eight minutes early today, a company spokeswoman said.

Flight QR920 left the Qatari capital at 05:02 (local time) and is set to land in New Zealand at 07:30 (local time on Monday. The Boeing 777 flight will take 16 hours and 20 minutes, pass over 10 time zones, five countries and travel 14,535 kilometres before reaching Auckland.

But even that flying time may be looked on jealously by passengers on the return flight which, due to high-altitude winds, will take 17 hours and 30 minutes, according to the company website. This will make it the world's longest passenger service in terms of flying time, according to tracking website flightradar24.

Qatar Airways did not immediately have a figure for the number of passengers who boarded today, but it is believed there are four pilots and 15 crew on the plane. In March last year, Emirates airline launched what was then thought to be the world's longest non-stop scheduled commercial flight, with a service from Dubai to Auckland, spanning 14,200 kilometres.

PTI
Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan and U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills discussed possible ways to fight corruption in Armenia during a meeting in Yerevan on February 10.

Karapetyan gave details of several draft laws aimed at improving the effectiveness of anticorruption actions and mechanisms, introducing new procedures, which may help reduce corruption risks in all areas.

In terms of achieving consistency in the fight against corruption, I believe it crucial to ensure the publics proactive civil position, provide a stronger Government-society feedback and build on constructive cooperation with partner organizations. I would like to emphasize once again that my government is open to discussion and proposals, Karen Karapetyan said.

The discussion follows a February 6 vote by Armenias parliament to deny debate on a bill that would require top government officials to specify the sources of income in their annual financial disclosures.

According to a government press release, the U.S. Ambassador welcomed the Prime Ministers public statements and actions in this regard. Noting that there is still much to be done in this field, Richard Mills said his countrys authorities ready to support the Government's anticorruption effort through their own resources.

You may rest assured of the United States commitment to supporting Armenias anti-corruption program. We are prepared to work with all those state structures firmly determined to combat corruption, the ambassador said.

At Richard Mills request, Karen Karapetyan briefed the ambassador on the goals and targets set before the independent preventive anticorruption body to be established under the Senior Officials Ethics Committee.
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New Report Predicts Slowed Growth for NJ Online Gambling in 2017

Published February 11, 2017 by Elana K

A new report on New Jerseys online gambling industry has predicted a small increase in overall revenue in 2017, a decrease in online poker revenue, and describes how online gambling in New York and Pennsylvania could boost New Jerseys numbers.

A new report on New Jerseys online gambling industry has predicted a small increase in overall revenue in 2017, a decrease in online poker revenue, and describes how online gambling in New York and Pennsylvania could boost New Jerseys numbers.

2017 Predictions

New Jerseys online gambling enterprise closed out 2016 on a high note - with a record-breaking $196.7 million, a 32 percent annual increase. Gaming analysts Adam Krejcik and Chris Grove from Eilers and Krejcik Gaming, an independent gaming firm, are predicting that the industry will continue to grow in 2017, but only by 17 percent, something of a disappointment after a record-breaking year.

The growth factor has taken into account an estimated 6 percent decrease in online poker earnings, which even in 2016, was showing poorer numbers than New Jerseys online casino offerings. According to the report, online poker is in a quandary, since there are already 7 million people playing, and not much more of an audience.

Krejcik and Grove pointed out that the overall increase in online gaming has not come at the expense of brick-and-mortar casinos as Atlantic City casinos had feared; quite the opposite, in fact. Atlantic City casinos have benefited hand-in-hand with online casinos. Krejcik and Grove wrote, "Increased integration between the online and live casino appears to be driving additional play and visitation at land-based properties."

Neighbors with Benefits

Krejcik and Grove noted the potential benefits for New Jersey should New York and Pennsylvania move ahead with legalizing online gambling. If this happens, they wrote, New Jersey could enter into a multi-state agreement with the two states, which would create a much larger, more fluid gambling audience. And much like the Powerball revenue increased exponentially when it opened itself up to dozens of states, New Jerseys revenue could also increase exponentially when partnered with other states. Another reason for optimism: should New York and Pennsylvania legalize online gambling, it might help the suffering online poker industry, which thrives on player-to-player interaction.
This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.



Syrian refugee crisis: We're failing to do our part - ABC News ...

(Image by abc.net.au) Details DMCA



Recently, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote on Facebook and twitter,

To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith " Diversity is our strength.

The rhetoric obscures the fact that whereas Canada seeks to present itself as a Saviour to refugees, the reality is that Canada's criminal foreign policies are creating the refugees in the first place.

Canada and its allies have stuck a knife into Syria, and they are vainly trying to decapitate its leadership -- using proxy terrorists -- and as cover they are cleaning up the blood from the wounded target, and pretending that they are saviours.

No, accepting refugees is not the solution. Ending the war and the illegal sanctions are the answer.

A study by The Lancet titled "Syria: end sanctions and find a political solution to peace" indicates that by the end of 2014, the cost of illegal sanctions imposed on Syria stood at US $143.8 billion and that 80 per cent of the population was living in poverty.

Moreover, in "National Agenda for the Future of Syria", Dr. Justine Walker explains that "the combined effect of comprehensive, unilateral sanctions, terrorist concerns and the ongoing security environment have created immense hurdles for those engaged in delivering immediate humanitarian aid and wider stabilization programmes."

But of course Canada is currently interesting in destabilizing Syria rather than stabilizing Syria, so the "hurdles" mentioned by Walker are intentional. Canada's publicly announced goal is to impose illegal "government change" on Syria, and to do so it is part of an orchestrated plan to "destabilize" Syria. Destabilization means "destroy". Canada is actively trying to destroy Syria with its support for terrorists and its support for illegal sanctions.

Syrian Hospital Director, Dr. Munir Rothman explained the on-the-ground results of unilateral illegal sanctions against Syria:

"We have seen the photos of Omran. It is sad, but there are many more Omrans. We have seen the maggots under the skin of injured children simply because of a lack of basic medical supplies. Children are dying from simple milk shortages in certain areas "." Importantly , he added that,

MSF (Doctors without Borders) supply nothing at all for government hospitals. I have colleagues in Europe who tried to raise funds for our hospital. They are not allowed to do so, yet doctors who support the so-called "rebels" have no such restrictions imposed on them.

Sanctions are so comprehensive, that they even restrict Syrian hospital attempts to replace equipment. Investigative reporter Vanessa Beeley explained in a Facebook commentary that, "Thanks to the US/EU sanctions it is becoming almost impossible to replace equipment. Research facilities have stopped altogether. Banks in France that worked with the hospital (University Hospital, Latakia) prior to 2011 will be sanctioned by the US if any medical equipment is allowed into Syria from France."

If Canada were to lift its criminal sanctions against Syria, then Canada would be taking a first step towards being part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Instead of furthering the causes of peace and justice, however, criminal Western mainstream media outlets will likely continue to accept the government's degenerate lies and distortions, Canada's fake "left/progressives" will continue to embrace the toxic narratives, and the only one's providing a real solution to the on-going tragedy will continue to be Syria and its allies.

Tulsi Gabbard Video:

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Congratulations: as of today, it's almost official; Jeff Sessions is to be reunited with his competent, even more amoral buddy, Chuck Cooper, newly elevated to the position of U.S. Solicitor General. Up to now President S.Trumpet has been dismissing qualified attorneys for telling him their honest legal opinions, planning to replace them with a battalion of the "walking dead." Amazingly, the other night, I watched President Bannon, no, Cheney, no, sorry, S.Trumpet's choice for bungling DOJ attorney almost totally destroy a can't-miss national-security case, "The Ban." However the potentially legal but incompetently designed plan had been crafted, it was still the president's own guy who single-handedly managed to turn the security issue into a "Muslim Ban." S.Trumpet, being Ivy League-educated and smarter than Einstein and even able to read one or two sentences before losing interest (although he does watch videos and twitter feed), of course, blamed the poor performance on biased questions by the crooked judges . If he loses the case, it will be their fault. If he wins, it's because they're such good judges. To S.Trumpet the actual law is totally unimportant.

Everything this Schmendrick does is like "hit me, go ahead, hit me," and when some poor soul hits him, he goes crying to Mommy Kellyanne Conway like the little baby that he seems to be under all the bluster. How long will it take for the rest of the world to see him as he really is? S.Trumpet pretends to be a narcissist, but for some reason, with all of his education, business success and, yes, native intelligence, he seems to have the worst inferiority complex I have ever seen in a seemingly successful human being.

I believe that his inability to construe any criticism, even purely constructive, as anything but an affront, together with his microscopic attention span regarding anything not related to himself, will be his undoing. Thus far, his administration has been the most incompetent that I have seen in my lifetime. From his appointments, few of whom can pass even the simplest ethics tests, to the incompetent roll-out of his amateur seven-country ban to his dinner meeting where he casually okayed the incompletely vetted and failed foray into Yemen, with his callous attitude toward the lives of U.S. soldiers as well as women and children civilian casualties, S.Trumpet has shown an inability to properly delegate authority that is truly alarming.

It's scary when our president, with five military deferments, "knows more than the generals" and the intelligence agencies combined. It's even more scary when he dismisses qualified military and intelligence personnel from his National Security meeting at the behest of his admittedly schizophrenic Leninist/Fascist advisor, Steve Bannon, and substitutes the fellow sociopath in their stead, leading directly to the fiasco in Yemen. Let's keep track of how many people are killed and how many millions of lives are ruined in the next four years. Only tonight S.Trumpet's best friend Sheriff Joe "Moishe Pipick" Opayo's "men" began purposely separating heretofore registered "illegal" mothers from their children, sending the mothers back to Mexico.

Postscript: As much as I may believe that Jeff Sessions may be operating at times on the wrong side of federal prison bars, I don't believe that we Democrats know how to fight the way the Republicans do. I think. Senator Warren, that you have every right to say what you did, quoting Coretta King and Bobby Kennedy; however, where were you when Hillary was coronated before she ever won the nomination as queen of the Democratic Party? Why didn't you run? Why the heck were you not drafted as V.P. at least? What does the Democratic Party have against winners?

What no one seems to understand is that we cannot complain about a Jeff Sessions or even a moral slacker like Chuck Cooper (check his record and you won't complain about Sessions!) after Mr. Obama committed the crime of nepotism, hiring his "Uncle Tom" Holder. Remember Holder, the double-dipping traitor responsible for the illegal election of W in 2000 as well as ensuring that it is perfectly legal for police and prosecutors to frame American citizens for bogus crimes and that in order to advance in the DOJ, illicit political prosecutions such as that of Don Siegelman must be "judiciously" ignored? Don't forget, Republicans are not the only ones who live in glass houses.

The upshot of the matter is that Hillary lost because she was beaten by a better panderer. If one pays attention to the real problems and one is consistent on the "bully pulpit," sooner or later the message resonates with the public whether Democrat, Republican, or Independent. Pandering is not necessary. Understand that John McCain and especially Mitt Romney, a really talented candidate, did not lose to Barack Obama; both lost to George W. Bush! Similarly, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, or Chaim Yankel are all Democrats who could have beaten S.Trumpet, but the Democratic deck was purposely and foolishly stacked against them.

Part of the problem was President Obama being forced by Democratic colleagues to treat gay marriage and abortion as even more important than the economy, but just as important was the party not taking the long view on healthcare, infrastructure, and jobs and not hammering away at these issues from the bully pulpit. Instead of presenting the Affordable Care Act as a "temporary solution," it was soon heralded as "the solution." Instead of promoting jobs programs and infrastructure programs as the answers to urban redevelopment and crime, relentlessly challenging the Republican obstruction of these movements, Democrats reverted to the more comfortable visceral social issues and sulked, much as President S.Trumpet does whenever he doesn't receive immediate gratification or when his wet nurse is late getting him his binky.

Al Finkelstein 2/8/17
From Smirking Chimp

The Clash asked. Now I am too: Should I stay or should I go?

Celebrity liberals always threaten to head for the exits if a presidential election doesn't go their way. Then they renege.

This year is different: some Americans really are leaving.

An early indicator of Trump-inspired flight came on Election Night, when Canada's immigration website crashed due to visitors from the lower 48. Whether these scaredy-cats are motivated by Trump's come-from-behind victory -- so this is America? -- or by the grim reality of Trump's cabinet picks and executive orders -- so he's keeping his fascist campaign promises? -- this is the first time I've seen people actually up and go in response to an election.

"Trumping out" is far too tiny of a phenomenon to qualify as an official Thing. By mid-December, only 28 Americans had applied for asylum. But my instincts tell me that's about to change. And my instincts are pretty sharp: counting yard signs in my swing state/swing county hometown of Dayton, Ohio gave me an early indication that Trump had a strong chance of winning.

If you've got some money, college degrees and speak a second language (ahem, French), it's pretty easy to get into Canada, which has served as our go-to exile since the Vietnam draft dodgers. With help from a lawyer, a friend of mine who said he didn't want his children to grow up in a fascist country scored residency documents for himself, his wife and kids in just a few months. Canadian colleges and universities are reporting a surge in U.S. applicants -- many of whom would likely stay up there after graduation.

I think most people who are eyeing the door are like me, in wait-and-see mode.

Let's be clear: this isn't about voting with our feet. If I moved out of the country every time I didn't like the election results, I'd be gone after every single election, and that includes the local ones. I hate both parties; I hate the entire system. This is about self-preservation: what if some Trump nut takes it upon himself to shoot me over a cartoon? It wouldn't be unprecedented.

It's also about practicality. Fleeing Trumpistan would be much easier for me than for most people. I have dual French/EU citizenship through my mom, a status I have maintained in the belief that economies and societies can collapse quickly so it's good to have an exit strategy. My French is passable. Thanks to the Internet, my career is portable. I could draw cartoons and write columns and publish books from anywhere on earth.

I talk almost every day with a colleague, a conservative journalist, about how we will know it's time to leave the United States. Not to express disapproval -- honestly, who would care? -- but to save our skins.

You know that Martin Niemoller "first they came for the..." quote? Political cartoonists know that here, in the U.S. under Trump in 2017, we could easily be the first. So we're watching closely.

When your government turns psycho, you don't want to wait until it's too late to get out. When you ask Jewish Americans what year their family fled Europe to come to the United States, it's striking how most left before, say, 1936. The Holocaust didn't technically begin until 1941, but earlier departures were easier -- and impossible after World War II began in 1939. On the other hand, moving is expensive. And I'm American. I don't want to leave. I like it here. Why jump the gun?

I've been reading Volker Ullrich's superb biography Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939. Trumpism isn't Nazism but 20th century fascism provides some useful tips for America's descent into whatever the hell this psychotic real estate honcho has in store for us.

As Ullrich reminds us, the machinery of state repression moved quickly after Hitler's 1933 seizure of power. Censorship, then arrests of left-wing politicians were an early canary in the coalmine. This week we watched Trump's Republicans silence the unfailingly polite Elizabeth Warren on the floor of the U.S. senate. The president himself personally joke-threatened to "destroy" the career of a Texas state senator as a favor to police, because the lawmaker wants to reform civil asset forfeiture (when cops steal your property and never give it back, even when you're found not guilty of a crime).

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Two #israeli #soldiers walk down #Shuhada street- also known as apartheid street- in #Hebron. This street has been closed for #Palestinians since the American-born Jewish settler Barauch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians in the Ibrahimi #mosque whilst t

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Al-Khalil [Hebron, Palestine] is unique from other villages, towns, and cities in the West Bank. Illegal Zionist colonial settlements are situated right in the center of the Old City. Whereas, elsewhere the illegal settlements are outside of the Palestinian towns and cities. This makes life here extremely difficult for the Palestinians. Freedom of movement is extremely limited and it is difficult to put it mildly.

The city is divided into H1, administered by the Palestinian Authority, and H2, controlled by the illegally occupying Israeli military forces. There are scores of roadblocks and around 20 checkpoints. At the checkpoints Palestinians are subjected routinely to having to present their ID, go thru metal detectors, have their bag searched, and body searches by heavily armed Israeli Occupation Forces. They are also frequently detained if the soldiers don't believe the ID is in order, and denied access, preventing them from going to work, getting home or carrying on their normal daily lives. Entire streets are closed to the Palestinians, such as Shuhada Street which was the main market place until 1997. Nearly 500 shops and most homes, and all Palestinian foot traffic as well as vehicles were shut down and shut out by the Israeli forces . Approximately 4,000 school children must pass the checkpoints daily on their way to and from school and are often subjected to tear gas being fired at them for being accused of or suspected of throwing stones at the checkpoints. Ambulances and other emergency vehicles are also denied access as well.

Israel says it is all for "security reasons". In reality it is all about harassment and intimidation of the Palestinians and to make their lives more difficult than it already is living under the illegal colonial Occupation. If a Palestinian is denied access thru a checkpoint they can generally walk (often some distance however) to another checkpoint and get thru. Soldiers may just check women's hand bags and not ID cards and a man who sets off the alarm walking thru the metal detector may not be stopped. Two hours later or the next day every ID is checked or sometimes none are checked. The same holds true with International Volunteers. Some days we are denied access if we do not give the soldiers our passports so they can photograph them, which is illegal under their own Israeli law. Only a member of the Border Police can legally, physically take our passport or arrest us. Other days they don't even ask to see our passports. Sometime the soldiers make up their own rules as they go along. When we were confronting soldiers regarding the arrest of a youth, their commander told us he would arrest us if we talked to his soldiers because he said so and he was the law. Another time it was no photographs because he is the law and makes the rules and says so. Unfortunately, he is partially right. The soldiers are the law. They have all the loaded guns and tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets and the rest of their equipment. They can even get away with outright murder of Palestinians. Most of the soldiers are barely out of high school and drafted into the military, heavily armed and look scared to death because they truly believe that every Palestinian wants to kill them and their family. The vast majority of Palestinians just want the illegal Occupation to end and be able to have some peace in their lives.

The Old City market place once full of shops, shoppers and tourist now only see a small percentage of the business it once had. Many of the shop owners cannot afford to stay in business but stay open because it is the only form of resistance to the illegal Colonial Occupation.

Twenty Palestinians were murdered by the Israeli military forces between October 2015 and February 2016. Amnesty International called these killings extra-judicial executions and the Tel Rumeida [agricultural and residential area in Hebron] area was declared a "closed military zone" by the Israelis in 2015 with further restrictions on the Palestinians who live in this area.

As Internationals Volunteers our day starts at about 6:45 A.M. we head out to various checkpoints for the morning school runs. We have to walk a little over 100 meters to the nearest check point. Wait to go thru the turnstile gate, then into the small concrete bunker and thru metal detector, sometime we don't even empty our pockets and just ignore the soldiers behind their 2-3 inch bulletproof glass and try to continue out the next door back into the caged area and exit thru another turnstile. Some days we win. Some days we don't and have to empty pockets, remove belt, sometimes shoes, show our passport, etc. before we can continue on our way. If we refuse to give them our passport they can turn us back which means a taxi ride to another checkpoint to get thru. Sometimes we can argue with them and they let us pass. But this gets more and more difficult as time passes. The repression by the illegal Occupation forces increases bit by bit daily. Palestinians aren't so lucky, they have no choice. They must comply or risk being detained, arrested, or even shot for non-compliance.

After we get thru the first check point it is on to a second open-air checkpoint where we monitor numbers of men, women, children, and teachers passing thru and the amount of difficulty they have, numbers of people denied. The female teachers more often than not refuse to go thru the metal detector. Sometimes they win-sometimes they don't. But all are subjected to ID checks, bag and or body searches depending on the will of the soldiers. Again, so much for "security concerns". There are about 10 checkpoints that are monitored by three of the International groups mornings and afternoon when school is in session. Most of the Palestinians are glad we are here and greet us. Some of the kids may stop for a few minutes and practice their English. One teacher even stops occasionally and gives us an apple.

This afternoon we were asked to come to the South Hebron Hills to meet with one of the local village committees about what they need. There are home demolitions, as well as night raids by the illegal colonizing Israeli Occupation Forces, and farmers being attacked by settlers from the nearby illegal colonial settlements. They are working with other International organizations to get tents for families when homes are destroyed but need protective presence in homes at night and in the fields during the day. This is only one of hundreds of villages in the same or similar situation and it is near impossible to do it all. We offer what help we can.

Meeting with a family who had a home invasion several nights ago by the soldiers and hearing the story of the trauma and terrorization of this family because of the Occupation, I couldn't help but wonder what was going thru the mind of the five year old sitting in his living room where 14 people had (also invaded, in a sense) gathered to hear the family story. He has to pass thru two check points to get to and from Kindergarten, his home is invaded in the middle of the night and family locked in one room while the Occupation forces ransacked the home for no good reason. He lives right next to a settlement and is not safe to be able to play in his own yard. This is only one child, one family in one city in all of illegally occupied Palestine.

Afternoon and evening patrols of the Souk (marketplace in the Old City) and around some of the residential areas near the checkpoints can be calm (some of the time) except for the armed Isreali forces asking to see your passport or what you religion is. Al Khalil is a beautiful city built on a group of hills and the views can be spectacular and can sometimes make you forget (for a minute)you are in the middle of the longest illegal military occupation in history by a Country that is committing genocide on an entire group of people.

Afternoon patrol last week was spent walking thru the Souk and visiting with several of the merchants. You are invited in (with no expectation to buy anything) and make your presence known and talk about how bad business is because very few tourists come to Khalil anymore. Toward the end of this patrol (there were 3 of us) we encountered a Palestinian girl of about 10 years old. She was extremely frightened and distressed to put it mildly. She was talking so fast we couldn't figure out what she was saying and even a phone call to an Arabic teacher couldn't figure out what the problem was. She was all but in tears. There were a half dozen Israeli soldiers close by working on installing another barrier near a school we just walked by. Then she said something about "settlers". She thought we were settlers. We had removed our Kafeyas earlier to avoid problems on Shuhada Street with settler youth. As soon as we took out our Kafeyas and put them on and said "we love Palestine", she almost melted into relaxation and wanted to walk with us to the checkpoint on our way home. But since we had to walk down Shuhada Street and Palestinians are not allowed there we had no choice but to send her in the opposite direction. Never saw her again or what happened to her.

Last night before we even began our night patrol we received a call about soldiers in the Souk. When we arrived along with a team of Internationals from another organization. Soldiers were arresting a 14 year old boy for allegedly throwing stones. At least three soldiers wrestled him to the ground and tried to put plastic ties on his wrists behind his back while other soldiers approached us and prevented us from photographing the incident and took cameras and deleted the photos already taken. They also threatened us with arrest if we continued to photograph or even talk to them. We followed the soldiers to the army base where the child was held, to be held until let go or charged him.

Some of these stories are unfinished simple because the illegal Israeli Occupation isn't over and the stories will continue. And for every story you see, hear about, participate in you are pretty much guaranteed that there are probably another 100 or 500 or thousand you don't hear about that are far worse than these.

This is not a story about Internationals Volunteers. It is the story of some of the people of Al Khalil. Every once in a while it turns out we end up being a small part their story. But we are here to support them in their struggle, because our struggle is directly connected to theirs.

Last words. The other day visiting a shop keeper in the Souk she said, " You come, you go, we live, we die, you still come, and we still here living and dying. Inshallah!"
From Consortium News



White House adviser Jared Kushner, who is also President Trump's son-in-law.

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President Trump's foreign policy is sliding toward neoconservative orthodoxy on the Middle East because White House insiders are aligning with Israeli-Saudi interests and vowing undying hostility toward Iran, which they falsely insist is the chief sponsor of terrorism.

I'm told that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, privately at least, recognizes that Saudi Arabia and its Sunni-led Gulf state allies are the prime backers of Al Qaeda and Islamic State -- with Iran actually fighting these major terror groups -- but close advisers to President Trump, including son-in-law Jared Kushner and National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, appear wedded to Official Washington's "group think" blaming Iran for pretty much everything that's gone wrong in the region.

This "group think" requires that everyone who wants to be taken seriously in Official Washington must repeat the mantra that "Iran is the principal sponsor of terrorism." The reason is that Washington's establishment is locked into saying just about whatever the extremely rich Saudis and the extremely influential Israelis tell it to say.

Ironically, Flynn -- when he was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency -- oversaw an insightful 2012 analysis that accurately traced the rise of the vicious Sunni jihadist movement in Syria to support from the Gulf states and to the Obama administration's policies. The report explicitly warned of the possibility of "an Islamic State," which indeed emerged in 2014 with high-profile decapitations of U.S. hostages.

In a 2015 interview, Flynn expanded on the analysis, saying that the Obama administration and its allies made a "willful decision" to back what the report called the creation of "a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria" with the goal of pressuring or overthrowing the Syrian government. Flynn said the intelligence on this extraordinary point "was very clear."

Yet, now Flynn -- like almost everyone else in Official Washington -- focuses his rage at Iran for the mess in the Middle East.

This blame-Iran "group think" has remarkable similarities to the one that rationalized the disastrous war in Iraq, i.e., that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Al Qaeda and was likely to give the terrorists his hidden WMDs. That fake analysis ignored the fact that the secular Hussein was a sworn enemy of Al Qaeda's fundamentalists and they hated him, too.

So, although the Saddam-allied-with-Al-Qaeda lie was obvious to anyone who knew anything about Middle East politics, it was repeated endlessly by supposedly in-the-know Washington insiders to justify President George W. Bush's bloody invasion of Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis along with nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers and spread chaos across the strategic region.

The Iran-Terror Deception

Now, we see a similar self-deception about which country is the principal sponsor for terrorism and other troubles. The truth is that Iran as a Shiite-governed nation is on the opposite side of the region's sectarian divide from Al Qaeda and Islamic State, the two major Sunni terror groups that have taken aim at the United States and Europe.



Journalist James Foley shortly before he was executed by an Islamic State operative in August 2014.

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Indeed, Iran has committed troops to neighboring Iraq and Syria to help fight Al Qaeda and Islamic State. Yet, the misguided consensus citing Iran as the principal sponsor of terrorism continues, leading the Trump administration off into a new round of misjudgments.

For instance, Trump received an embarrassing slap-down from the U.S. judiciary because he excluded Saudi Arabia and other countries that actually have produced terrorists who have struck the United States, including the 9/11 hijackers, from his seven-Muslim-nation travel ban.

Some Trump officials may realize the ugly reality about these left-off-the-list "allies" and their support for Al Qaeda and Islamic State but still lie anyway for political convenience. Others may have repeated the lie so often that they have come to believe it.

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From Robert Reich Blog

Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway charges that media coverage of Donald Trump lacks "respect for and recognition of the dignity for the office of the president."

No, Kellyanne, it's Donald Trump who lacks respect for and recognition of the dignity of the office of the president.

A small sampling of Trump's words and actions from recent days:

1. After being told of a Texas state senator who wants to require convictions before the state can forfeit property, Trump asks for the senator's name and says "we'll destroy his career."

2. In response to criticism by Senator John McCain that his Yemen operation wasn't successful, Trump says McCain "only emboldens the enemy! He's been losing so long he doesn't know how to win anymore."

3. After Senator Richard Blumenthal relates that his Supreme Court nominee finds Trump's criticisms of the courts "demoralizing," Trump blasts Blumenthal "who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him."

4. Trump tells the press that "daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom," after Nordstrom dropped her line due to declining sales.

5. Trump tells military officials that America's "very dishonest press doesn't want to report" acts of terrorism.

6. Trump threatens to "end the sanctuary cities that have resulted in so many needless deaths," when there's no evidence of "needless deaths" in sanctuary cities.

7. When his ban on entry to the United States from seven Muslim countries, which exempts Christians, is stayed by a federal judge, Trump attacks the "so-called judge," saying "if something happens blame him and court system."

8. He tells a meeting of senators that he would have won New Hampshire in the presidential election if not for the "thousands" of people who were "brought in on buses" from neighboring Massachusetts to "illegally" vote in New Hampshire -- despite not one iota of evidence this occurred.

9. In that same meeting Trump taunts Democrats by telling them "Pocahontas is now the face of your party," his insult of choice for Senator Elizabeth Warren.

10. Trump warns Mexican President Pena Nieto that he's ready to send U.S. troops to Mexico to stop "bad hombres down there" if Mexico's military can't control them.

11. He berates Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for assuming the U.S. would follow through on its deal to take some refugees that had come to Australia.

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Global Bovine Respiratory Disease Treatment Market: Valuation to Nearly Double by 2024, predicts TMR

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The global market for bovine respiratory disease treatment features a highly consolidated competitive landscape despite the presence of a large number of regional players, observes a recent report by Transparency Market Research. Owing to the small duration of product exclusivity in the animal health care industry  about three to five years - competition from generics and over-the-counter (OTC) products is a big threat.The rising consumption of bovine products in emerging economies such as India, China, and Brazil, the demand for effective treatment methods for respiratory disease has considerably increased. To exploit the vast growth potential, an increasing number of companies are establishing operations in these countries. A recent example is the 2016 collaboration between Merial and Zoetis, Inc., which is expected to allow the former to effectively market and distribute its product in India. Some of the other key companies in the market are Merck & Co., Inc., Bayer AG, Elanco, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, and Virbac Group.TMR estimates that the global bovine respiratory disease treatment market will exhibit a promising 7.6% CAGR from 2016 through 2024. At this rate, the market, which had a valuation of US$805.9 mn in 2015 is projected to reach US$1,543.9 mn by 2024.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :Asia Pacific to Lead to Lucrative Growth OpportunitiesIn terms of distribution channel, the segment of veterinary hospitals dominated, accounting for nearly 35% of the global market in terms of revenue in 2015. From a geographic perspective, North America which held nearly 37% of the market in 2015, dominated the global market and is expected to easily retain its dominance over the forecast period as well. However, owing to the rising population of cattle and the rising incidences of bovine respiratory diseases, the Asia Pacific market will emerge as one of the most lucrative regional markets for bovine respiratory disease treatment methods.Rising Consumption of Animal Protein to Remain High-impact DriverOf the key factors driving the market, the rising consumption of beef is expected to have a prominent impact on the overall development of the market over the forecast period. According to a World Bank Group survey (2016), global human population is estimated to be 7.4 billion in 2016 and is growing at a rate of 1.8% per year. To sustain the ever rising demand for beef as well as other animal products from this mounting global population, there would be a vast rise in the worlds cattle population in the near future. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the global cattle population will increase by 73% between 2015 and 2050, from nearly 936 mn in 2015 to nearly 2.6 bn in 2050.As bovine respiratory diseases account for 65% to 80% of morbidity and 45% to 75% mortality rate in livestock animals, the rising cattle population will also intensify the need for effective treatment modalities for these diseases. This will have a significant positive impact on the global bovine respiratory disease treatment market.Strict Government Regulations to Restrain MarketSeveral studies have demonstrated that bovine antibiotics can have a highly negative impact on human health. Issues such as induction of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria and disruption of normal human intestinal flora are commonly observed in individuals who consume animal products with excessive amount of antibiotics. According to The New York Times, around 2 million people in the U.S. fall sick every year and about 23,000 of them die from antibiotic-resistant infections induced due to consumption of such products.These factors have urged government bodies to regulate the use of antibiotic therapeutics in animals too. In December 2013, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enforced a new policy related to the limited use of antibiotics in production animals. This is likely to hamper the growth of the bovine respiratory disease treatment market over the forecast period.Browse Global Strategic Business Report:This review of the market is based on a recent market research report published by TMR, titled Bovine Respiratory Disease Treatment Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2016 - 2024.For the study, the market has been segmented as follows:Global Bovine Respiratory Disease Treatment Market, by Treatment TypeVaccinesAntibioticsNSAIDsImmunomodulatorsOthersGlobal Bovine Respiratory Disease Treatment Market, by Disease TypeUpper Respiratory Tract InfectionsDiphtheriaPneumonia (lower respiratory tract infection)Global Bovine Respiratory Disease Treatment Market, by Distribution ChannelVeterinary HospitalsVeterinary ClinicsPrivate Veterinary PharmaciesVeterinary Research InstitutesOthersGlobal Bovine Respiratory Disease Treatment Market, by GeographyNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeGermanyU.K.FranceSpainItalyRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaAustralia & New ZealandRest of APACMiddle East & AfricaSaudi ArabiaUAESouth AfricaNorth AfricaRest of MEALatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin AmericaAbout UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Radiopharmaceutical Market: Rise in Demand for Diagnostic Procedures and Devices Bolsters Need for Radioisotopes, finds TMR

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The radiopharmaceutical market is highly consolidated, wherein the top two players  Siemens Healthineers and GE Healthcare  jointly accounted for over 70% of the global market in 2015. Transparency Market Research has observed that the degree of competition is rather high in the market owing to the presence of key players with the availability of advanced technologies and potential productive sources and a high product manufacturing capacity.Acquisitions play an important role among established organizations because they support sales, product development, and new methods of production, the author of the report finds. An excellent example would be AAA. The company acquired GE Healthcare S.r.Ls FDG-PET business as well as the 100% shares of Imaging Equipment Ltd. (IEL) in 2014. These moves have enabled the company in strengthening its presence across Italy, the U.K., and Ireland.The global radiopharmaceutical market was valued at US$4.7 bn in 2015 and is estimated to reach US$7.4 bn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 5.3% from 2016 to 2024.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :Nuclear Reactors Emerge as Key Source of RadiopharmaceuticalsBy radioisotope, technetium-99 held the major share in the global radiopharmaceuticals market, accounting for 50.3% in 2016. The 18F segment, on the other hand, is projected to expand at a 5.5% CAGR from 2016 to 2024, higher than any other radioisotope.Based on source, nuclear reactors lead the overall market in terms of revenue and the segment is also poised to exhibit a strong growth rate through 2024. Accounting for the dominant share in the radiopharmaceuticals market by end use, hospitals are likely to contribute significantly toward the growth of this market in the coming years. The others segment, which covers laboratories and universities, is anticipated to expand at the fastest pace despite being restricted to only the MEA and Asia Pacific regions.Based on application, oncology took the lead owing to the growing use of various radioisotopes in the treatment of different cancers. On the basis of geography, North America is the clear leader and is slated to achieve a 60.3% share in the global radiopharmaceuticals market by 2024. Asia Pacific, on the other hand, will register a 6.3% CAGR from 2016 to 2024, emerging as the fastest expanding regional market in terms of revenue.Rising Incidence of Chronic Diseases Propelling Demand for RadiopharmaceuticalsThe growing incidence of cancer and cardiovascular diseases  brought on by the rise in aging population, unhealthy food habits, prevalence of obesity  is one of the primary factors driving the radiopharmaceuticals market.The rising incidence of chronic diseases translates into the demand for diagnostic tests such as SPECT and PET, two of the latest systems used for the treatment of various cardiovascular and neurological diseases as well as cancer, the TMR analyst states. According to the American Nuclear Society, 90% of the radioisotopes produced is used in gamma cameras or PET scan nuclear diagnostics. The remaining 10% is used in radioactive therapeutics drugs. This growing demand for diagnostic tests has a positive impact on the demand for radioisotopes and radiopharmaceuticals.In addition to this, the rapid advancement in radiotracers and surging awareness regarding the effectiveness of radiopharmaceuticals will support the growth of the global market. On the other hand, stringent regulatory guidelines, a shortage in the supply of radioisotopes, and a shorter half-life of radiopharmaceuticals acts as impediments for the market.This review is based on the findings of a TMR report titled Radiopharmaceutical Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024.Browse Global Strategic Business Report:Global Radiopharmaceutical Market, by RadioisotopeTechnetium-99Gallium-67Iodine-12318FRubidium-82Yttrium-90Lutetium-177Global Radiopharmaceutical Market, by SourceNuclear ReactorsCyclotronsGlobal Radiopharmaceutical Market, by End UserHospitalsAmbulatory Surgical CentersDiagnostic CentersOthersGlobal Radiopharmaceutical Market, by ApplicationCardiologyGastroenterologyOncologyBrachytherapyOthersNephrologyNeurologyImmunologyOthersGlobal Radiopharmaceutical Market, by RegionNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeGermanyU.K.FranceItalySpainRest of EuropeAsia PacificIndiaChinaJapanAustraliaRest of Asia PacificLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin AmericaMiddle East & AfricaSaudi ArabiaSouth AfricaRest of Middle East & AfricaAbout UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Biologics Market: Highly Profitable Returns through Premium Prices to Drive Increased Investments

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The global market for biologics features a fragmented competitive landscape with stakeholders being some of the worlds most influential pharmaceutical companies and several domestic companies, which are vying for a share in the highly profitable market, observes Transparency Market Research (TMR) in a recent report. A popular trend in the market is strategic mergers and acquisitions, with big companies wanting to expand their services and manufacturing units globally and enhancing product portfolios by co-development activities and licensing deals, states a TMR analyst.Pharmaceutical giants such as Eli Lilly and Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis, AstraZenca, and GlaxoSmithKline Plc. have invested billions of dollars in the field of biologics, which have translated into capacity expansion and focused research and development. With an aim of gaining a quick hold on the vast growth opportunities, established players are entering into strategic collaborations and investing in local manufacturers in emerging economies for product developments and manufacturing activities.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :Point in case is the investment of US$500 mn by Novartis for building cell-culture based manufacturing facility in Asia in collaboration with its Asia Pacific HQ in Singapore. In the near future, the global market for biologics is expected to witness considerable traction and tread along a healthy growth path.Monoclonal Antibodies to Emerge as Leading Product SegmentTransparency Market Research states that the global biologics market will expand at a healthy 10.9% CAGR from 2016 to 2024. If the number holds true, the market, which is expected to value at US$209, 779 mn in 2016, is expected to rise to US$479, 752 mn by 2024. In terms of product variety, the segment of monoclonal antibodies is expected to dominate the market, with an annual share of 43% in 2016 and a CAGR of 11.9% from 2016 through 2024. Geographically, the global biologics market will be led by North America, which is expected to account for a 44.89% share in the global market in 2016 and expand at a 9.6% CAGR from 2016 through 2024.Promise of Profitable Returns to Drive More Investments in MarketThe vast funds directed by pharmaceutical companies towards research and development activities, manufacturing, and the process of trial and approval of new product varieties often reflect on the high costs of products upon approval. It has been observed that drug companies charge premium prices for innovative biologics, with profit margins as high as 20-40%. Biologics have been noted to provide effective treatment for many complex diseases, which have mostly lacked notable treatment options so far. As a result, despite the high prices, demand for biologics usually witnesses an upward trend.According to a pharmacy management service provider Express Scripts, only about 2% of people in the U.S. used biologic drugs. Regardless of this, biologics account for as much as 40% of prescription drug spending in the country. In general, biologics treatment costs about 22 times more in comparison to small molecule drugs. Owing to such profitable returns, the market has witnessed a vast influx of investment from notable pharmaceutical companies in the past few years. The trend is expected to remain strong in the next few years as well, making highly profitable returns one of the key factors bringing in more investments and driving the overall development of the market.High Initial Capital Requirement and Complex Regulatory Approval Process to Hinder Market GrowthBiologics have demonstrated a relatively higher success rate of approval compared to traditional drugs. However, the total time required for clinical trials and approvals is much longer owing to stringent manufacturing processes, regulatory pathways, and a variety of product parameters. This leads to a significant increase in the cost of capital required for R&D and marketing of biologics as compared to traditional drugs. The scenario has deterred many small vendors from venturing into the global biologics market and is considered a key restraint for the markets overall development.Browse Global Strategic Business Report:This review of the market is based on a recent report published by TMR, titled Biologics Market (Product - Monoclonal Antibodies, Vaccines, Cell Therapy, Recombinant Hormones/Proteins, and Gene Therapy; Applications - Infectious Diseases, Oncology, Immunology, and Autoimmune Diseases) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024.For the study, the market has been segmented as follows:Global Biologics Market  By ProductMonoclonal AntibodiesVaccinesRecombinant Hormones/ProteinsCell TherapyGene TherapyOthersGlobal Biologics Market  By ApplicationsOncologyInfectious DiseasesImmunologyAutoimmune DiseasesOthersGlobal Biologics Market  By RegionNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaLatin AmericaBrazilArgentinaRest of Latin AmericaEuropeGermanyUKItalySpainFranceRest of EuropeAsia Pacific (APAC)ChinaIndiaJapanAustraliaNew ZealandRest of Asia PacificMiddle East and Africa (MEA)Saudi ArabiaUAERSARest of MEAAbout UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Microsoft Secret Searches

A federal judge in Seattle declined to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Microsoft that claims a law that prohibits technology companies from telling customers when the government demands their electronic data is unconstitutional.

(The Associated Press)

SEATTLE -- A judge refused the U.S. government's request to throw out a lawsuit from Microsoft that claims a federal law is unconstitutional because it prohibits technology companies from telling customers when the government demands their electronic data.

U.S. District Judge James Robart, who temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's travel ban last week, agreed with Microsoft that the law violates the company's First Amendment right to speak to its customers when their private information is collected during criminal investigations.

But Robart denied its claim that the law violates customers' rights against unreasonable searches and seizures, saying a third party like Microsoft can't assert constitutional rights for someone else.

The case will now head to trial, where Microsoft will argue that "people need to get notice when the government comes knocking at the door to seize all that stuff that historically would have been stored in a file cabinet," Microsoft lawyer Stephen Rummage said during a recent hearing.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act compels companies to divulge data stored in "third-party computers," such as Microsoft's Cloud, and keep the move secret. Microsoft successfully argued that the law harms the company by eroding customer confidence in its cloud services, Robart said in the ruling published Thursday.

"Government surveillance aided by service providers creates unique considerations because of the vast amount of data service providers have about their customers," Robart said.

The service providers know the websites we visit, Google keeps records of our searches and Facebook keeps records of our friends and what we "like," he said. Several court cases have found that material deserves constitutional protection, he said.

Microsoft President Brad Smith said the company is pleased with the order.

"This ruling enables our case to move forward toward a reasonable solution that works for law enforcement and ensures secrecy is used only when necessary," Smith said.

Nicole Navas, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said the agency is reviewing the decision and declined to comment.

Microsoft sued last year saying the government has increasingly sought to obtain information from providers instead of customers. Federal courts have issued more than 3,250 secret orders for data over a 20-month period ending May 2016 and more than 450 of those orders had no end dates, the company said.

One magistrate judge in southern Texas reported that the Electronic Privacy Act docket "handles tens of thousands of secret cases every year," Robart's order said.

Companies including Apple, Twitter and Amazon as well as media outlets such as The Associated Press, the Seattle Times and Washington Post filed court briefs supporting Microsoft.

The Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the government has an interest in keeping criminal investigations confidential and customers often eventually learn about the data demands when charges are filed.

-The Associated Press
The longtime friend of a Gladstone police sergeant pleaded guilty Friday for helping the officer kill his wife and was sentenced to life in prison.

Susan Campbell's plea marks the third and final conviction in the 2011 murder of Debbie Higbee Benton, who was found shot, beaten and strangled in the Gladstone beauty salon she owned for at least 20 years. Campbell will be eligible for parole after serving 30 years.

Lynn Edward Benton, an officer in Gladstone for more than two decades, was sentenced last October to life in prison without parole for aggravated murder, criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and attempted murder. Jason Jaynes, Campbell's son, was sentenced last week to nearly 12 years in prison for his role in the killing.

Investigators say Benton, 54, offered $2,000 to Campbell, 59, and Jaynes, 36, to kill Higbee Benton.

Standing between her two attorneys in a Clackamas County Circuit Court room, Campbell denied receiving any money, claimed she wasn't convinced the prosecution could prove her guilt if the case had gone to trial and cried as she apologized to Higbee Benton's family for contributing to the woman's death.

While Judge Kathie Steele was questioning Campbell about understanding what her plea meant, Campbell interjected, "Can we please just get it done?"

"No, we cannot," Steele replied. The judge said she had to make sure no one was pressuring her into admitting guilt.

Clackamas County Chief Deputy District Attorney Greg Horner told the judge that Campbell had confessed at length to investigators that she shot Higbee Benton in her salon. The evidence against her was "overwhelming," he said.

The twists in the murder case and the suspicions that immediately focused on Higbee Benton's husband - a well-known police officer who was transitioning from female to male at the time -- rocked the small town of Gladstone.

The investigation uncovered at least one earlier attempt to kill Higbee Benton orchestrated by Benton, an alleged cover-up by Benton of a 1999 sex abuse case against Jaynes and pornography on Benton's police computer. Detectives also discovered child pornography on the laptop of Benton's father.

Tony Stephens, Higbee Benton's brother, told Campbell that she and her son were cowards for helping Benton kill his sister. The former cop played them "like puppets," Stephens said, and they took advantage of Higbee Benton's kind nature.

"Debbie was just too trusting," he said. "In the end, it was her trust that got her killed."

Campbell said she never intended to hurt Higbee Benton and didn't mean for her actions to have such a devastating consequence.

"I'm a coward," she said, "and there's nothing I can say to make it better."

Of the trio, Campbell is the only one who admitted to investigators that she harmed Higbee Benton on the evening May 28, 2011. With his guilty plea, Jaynes admitted that he agreed with his mother to kill Higbee Benton for money, but offered no details.

Benton has never admitted to any role in his wife's death.

Campbell told police that she shot the salon owner in the back with the lone bullet she had in her gun. But Higbee Benton didn't immediately die, so Campbell said she called Benton while he was on duty and left the salon.

Police arrested Campbell about a week after Higbee Benton's death. It would be more than a year later before Benton and Jaynes were arrested. Benton and Jaynes were charged in November 2012 after Campbell testified to a grand jury.

Campbell had agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the homicide investigation in July 2012. She later agreed to plead guilty to attempted aggravated murder and testify against her friend and son about the killing in exchange for a 10-year sentence. If she failed to live up to the deal, she would be tried for aggravated murder.

Campbell was sentenced to 30 months in prison in November 2012 after pleading guilty in a separate drug case. She was also sentenced to 13 months in prison in July 2015 for witness tampering. In that case, she tried to pressure one of her son's victims -- who was serving time at the same prison -- to lie during his trial on sex abuse charges.

She was serve the remainder of those sentences at the same time as her life sentence.

By last September, prosecutors had revoked the initial plea deal and a judge revoked the guilty plea because she violated the terms at least three times. The final straw came when prosecutors received a letter Campbell had written to her son claiming she intended to change her account of events related to Higbee Benton's death to minimize their roles in the killing and any past attempts.

She gave the letter to her husband, who gave in to his wife's legal investigator, who then gave the letter to prosecutors.

The judge found the letter was proof that Campbell either lied to the grand jury or wasn't cooperating with the prosecution. Campbell was again accused of aggravated murder.

During Benton's trial last fall, an inmate who had a cell next to Benton at the Multnomah County Detention Center testified that Benton confessed to the killing and implicated Campbell and Jaynes.

According to inmate Travis Layman, Benton claimed he left the police department about a block away from the salon, picked up Jaynes from work, then drove to the salon and watched Jaynes kill his wife.

No physical evidence was found linking Benton and Jaynes to the killing.

Benton and Higbee Benton had met in 2008 and married in October 2010. Benton began transitioning from female to male that same year. Their relationship began to deteriorate over the transition and Higbee Benton accused Benton of domestic abuse, according to witness testimony during trial. Benton moved out of their Gladstone home a month before his wife's killing.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey
harriet-adair.jpg

Harriet Adair, a Portland Public Schools assistant superintendent, protected a manager who bullied his staff.

Portland Public Schools' human resources director and an assistant superintendent were deeply involved in making the call not to fire, suspend or demote an $85,000-a-year manager who bullied his staff, made offensive remarks and gestures to colleagues, was called out for poor management and directly disobeyed his supervisor.

The case, documented in records obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive through public records requests, shows in vivid detail the way a culture of poor accountability and lack of performance standards hampered the state's largest school district from making inroads with students and gaining parents' trust.

Human Resources Director Sean Murray and Assistant Superintendent Harriet Adair told school-family partnerships director Richard Gilliam he had to undergo training and would no longer be allowed to supervise anyone. But they kept him employed, with the same title and salary -- just less responsibility.

Interim Superintendent Bob McKean made clear in a scathing Nov. 21 letter (.pdf) to Adair that she utterly botched the handling of Gilliam's discipline. The district turned over that letter Friday in response to a public records request. In it, McKean said Murray gave Adair a clear recommendation that Gilliam be fired before McKean took the interim post in August but she didn't agree and didn't do it.

Gilliam resigned last month after Willamette Week revealed he'd been convicted in 1997 of patronizing a prostitute.

Adair, who earns $149,000 as one of three assistant superintendents, announced last month she will retire in June. Her decision came after McKean said he would move most of her power and responsibility elsewhere. Adair is the most senior member of the district's leadership team, having worked for Portland schools for nearly five decades.

That Portland Public Schools made Gilliam a manager who managed no one was first reported by Willamette Week in November 2016.

Alerted by parent Kim Sordyl that Gilliam's conduct in a community meeting she attended seemed to frighten his own staff, The Oregonian in mid-October asked for records of investigations into Gilliam. The district acknowledged it had some but refused to release them.

This month, the Multnomah County district attorney's office forced Portland Public Schools to release those records after Sordyl filed an appeal.

The records include two damning investigations, including one done by an outside workplace investigator, that conclude Gilliam was an inept manager of his multicultural and bilingual staffers, bullied colleagues and subordinates, was untruthful and alienated parents representing diverse Portland families.

Murray and Adair talked to Gilliam about those problems, stopped him from coming into contact with most of those employees and ordered him to undergo training on decision-making, cross-cultural communication and managerial skills. But they kept him in his well-paying position.

McKean said in his letter to Adair that he felt he was personally forced in October to get her to follow through on removing Gilliam from managing employees. Even after he gave her those orders face to face, she did not inform Gilliam in person or in writing for weeks, he wrote.

Adair did not respond to requests for comment. Murray said he was not inclined to discuss personnel matters but noted the district secured Gilliam's departure without a lawsuit.

Neither Gilliam nor a lawyer who represented him could be reached for comment.

Richard Gilliam

Gilliam got his foot in the door with Portland Public Schools working as community engagement director on the district's successful 2012 bond campaign. The district then hired him as an outreach coordinator to families around Jefferson High. Adair quickly promoted him, without evidence of robust qualifications, to serve as director of school and family partnerships, leading outreach to parents of minority, refugee and second-language students.

Records show in that role he harassed and intimidated his staffers, including mocking their English skills, poking them and physically invading their space in a threatening way.



McKean told The Oregonian/OregonLive in an email that he would not tolerate the kind of behavior described in the investigations into Gilliam.

He said that structural changes he's made, including eliminating Adair's role as assistant superintendent, and her subsequent retirement effective in June are unrelated to Gilliam.



McKean's letter to Adair reflects this. In it he praised her longtime service to the district, thanked her for her dedication, and noted she had "mentored more students and staff than can be counted."

The Oregonian/OregonLive has been unable to reach Gilliam. An attorney who has represented Gilliam has not responded to email or phone messages. That attorney, Beth Creighton, told Willamette Week in November that Gilliam's staff made up allegations of mistreatment because they were angry he'd been holding them accountable. She also said the district's investigations into Gilliam, who is black, had been racially motivated.

The district mothballed him after the internal and external investigations, involving interviews with multiple district employees, found Gilliam lacked competence and credibility and created a hostile, fearful workplace for his staff.

The district launched an internal investigation in June 2015 after an employee complained about Gilliam.



The internal investigator, whose report (.pdf) contains numerous misspellings and grammar mistakes, recommended an outside investigator be called in after three more of Gilliam's employees said their boss bullied and blamed them for his own forgetfulness.

All of the employees had been with the district longer than Gilliam; two of them have more than 20 years of experience in Portland Public Schools.

Around that time a community member also filed a formal complaint about Gilliam's conduct with employees and members of the public. In the complaint, she said she'd put off writing the district about her concerns in the hope that someone would take action, but that after more than a year and a half the situation had only escalated.

Marta Guembes, an advocate for second-language students and employees who has served on district committees, said she'd seen Gilliam berate staff and added that he'd treated her and other community members unprofessionally.

When called out, Gilliam would invoke Adair's name and that of certain human resources employees to justify his behavior, she said.

"It is documented that abuse and bullying continues to occur and that Richard Gilliam's supervisor and other district administrators, including individuals in Human Resources fail to take action," Guembes wrote. "A number of complaints have been made regarding Mr. Gilliam's behavior. One would expect the unacceptable behavior would diminish: however, a recent blow-up has the community buzzing about the ways in which Mr. Gilliam interacts with his staff."

The outside investigation (.pdf) by Workplace Solutions Northwest didn't probe whether Gilliam had been protected by Adair and Murray, but did implicate a senior human resources employee, who was paid to leave the district last year.

Investigator Jill Goldsmith found a flashpoint in the department tumult when Gilliam accused three employees in August 2015 of not working days he thought they should have in the summer. He and Mary-Elizabeth Harper, then Portland Public Schools senior manager of employee and labor relations, brought the employees in for interviews.

One of the employees characterized those meetings this way: The interviews were akin to the interrogations he faced leaving the Soviet Union because he was a Jewish refugee.

Two employees felt so anxious about these meetings they tried to have coworkers attend as witnesses, which incensed Gilliam and Harper, Goldsmith wrote.

One employee asked a manager from another department to come to her meeting. Harper told The Oregonian/OregonLive she felt it was unprofessional for a manager from another department to observe how Gilliam managed his own staff, so she asked her to leave.

According to the report, the nervous employee and the department manager knew each other through a professional group for the district's Latino employees. The two explained that connection as the reason Gilliam's employee wanted the manager there for support.

Harper, who is black, told the investigator she believed the manager would lie about the meeting because "Latinos are interested in discrediting African American employees." She told Goldsmith this was "the Latino hook up," according to the investigation report.

"What I told her was in my experience at (Portland Public Schools) there seems to have been some tension between African Americans and Latinos. That's what I said to her," Harper told The Oregonian/OregonLive. "(Portland Public Schools) spends lots of money on equity, they spend lots of money on diversity and inclusive programs, and it's wasted money because there isn't any real buy-in."

Another employee summoned by Gilliam to explain herself also felt anxious and tried to have a coworker sit in. She asked if she could reschedule the session so her lawyer could attend. Harper yelled at her for the suggestion and Gilliam then yelled at the coworker to leave, the investigator concluded. Afterward, the coworker made a report to human resources that Harper had been heated and Gilliam had been physically domineering.

Asked by Goldsmith about these employees' allegations, Gilliam accused them of bribing an investigator for the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights while there was an ongoing complaint against the district. This allegation did not make sense, Goldsmith concluded, because the investigator he named did not work for Department of Education.

Other employees overheard Gilliam and Harper's sessions with subordinates and corroborated that the pair had yelled. Gilliam and Harper insisted they'd been professional.

Goldsmith concluded Harper and Gilliam "behaved in an unprofessional and hostile manner" and Gilliam's failings at management basics such as clear communication and attention to staff caused the entire drama.

In response to the investigation, Adair and Murray sent Gilliam a letter in January 2016 proposing he be stripped of supervisory duties and undergo management training.

Still, problems persisted.

Gilliam went on medical leave for a time and after he returned later in 2016, tensions with his staff and the community had not healed.

In light of this, Adair told him not to go to a community committee meeting and he told her he agreed with her call. Gilliam went anyway and his presence deeply upset community members and staff.

Adair admonished Gilliam in an email for a defying a direct order but agreed with his point that this had been the first time he'd disobeyed her.

Interim Portland Superintendent Bob McKean, shown during a November visit to Scott School in Northeast Portland, felt he had to take extra steps to get Assistant Superintendent Harriet Adair to discipline family partnership director Richard Gilliam.

In October 2016, after McKean ordered them to do so, Adair and Murray permanently revoked his supervisory duties. He was also ordered in writing to undergo more training and warned him to be professional.

Days later, yet another employee reported Gilliam to human resources, records show. An employee from another department reported he was worried because Gilliam had chastised him for turning on lights in the cafeteria so he could see while he ate lunch. The employee said he wanted to document the incident in case he had a more serious run-in with Gilliam.

That report set off a flurry of emails involving Murray and Adair. Ultimately, Adair learned from the lunchroom user that Gilliam hadn't been hostile, according to Adair's notes.

It was Gilliam's 1997 prostitution conviction surfacing in December, not his job performance, that proved his undoing.

When hired in 2013, Gilliam lied on forms asking him to disclose prior convictions. He wrote he had none and somehow also cleared a background check, records show.

Gilliam falsely told Willamette Week he disclosed his conviction to the district. He told the news outlet he had been a victim of racist policing and felt he had to plead no contest to a crime he did not commit.

When Murray learned of the conviction from Willamette Week, he asked Gilliam about the falsehood. He told Murray he thought the conviction had been expunged and had therefore assumed he could answer no when asked about prior arrests. The conviction had not been expunged.

District spokeswoman Courtney Westling told Willamette Week in December and The Oregonian in January it was impossible to know if Gilliam had disclosed his conviction because the relevant paperwork had been destroyed. But the release of Gilliam's personnel file, which came on Feb. 3 in response to a Jan. 6 Oregonian/OregonLive public records request, revealed both that the document had not been destroyed and that Gilliam lied.

Gilliam resigned on Jan. 19.

The ordeal is a black eye on the district's human resources department, which is working to fill dozens of managerial vacancies. Murray, who has helmed human resources since 2012, wrote to The Oregonian/OregonLive that "it is the role of the Human Resources Department to provide support and advice to all our supervisors and administrators on making their performance management decisions when employees' conduct does not meet the high expectations that we hold for our staff."

For almost three years, Harper had been part of that mission in a senior-level role.

According to the posting for Harper's job, which is still open, she was tasked with handling personnel investigations, which could be "highly complex," resolving employee issues, advising administrators on how to handle employee issues, and was expected to "lead and participate in developing and implementing programs which sustain a richly diverse, inclusionary workforce and supports the district's education and equity initiatives."

Murray declined to discuss how he responded to Harper's mismanagement as revealed in the outside investigation. He noted the district secured her departure "without prolonged or costly litigation."

A settlement agreement obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive shows, however, that the district paid her $24,000 to resign. Under terms of that agreement, Murray cannot speak negatively of her.

Harper said in an interview she felt Goldsmith's report was exaggerated and questioned its integrity. She said the district threatened her with a five-day suspension, but that never happened and she wasn't disciplined.

Harper said Gilliam's employees were retaliating against investigations she and Gilliam had done into their conduct. Goldsmith's report notes none of the employees had been disciplined.

She went on medical leave in January 2016 and quit in September, she said. A condition of the settlement was that she not disparage the district.

She's now looking for work. Her doctor, she said, forbid her from going back because Portland Public Schools was too toxic.

"It was toxic because of the lack of leadership there. Why do you think all of these people have left the district? They're just boom, boom, boom -- gone. Haven't you seen that trend? Don't you think there's got to be something going on there?" Harper said. "The district is not well-run. That's all I can say."

-- Bethany Barnes



Got a tip about Portland Public Schools?

Email Bethany here: bbarnes@oregonian.com
Doug Ericksen

Washington Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, talks to reporters, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017, at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash. Ericksen, who is currently serving as both a state senator and a member of President Donald Trump's transition team, said that the Republican majority in the state Senate can rely on him, and that he's able to do both jobs. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

(Ted S. Warren)

The man interested in the job of protecting the Northwest's air and water under President Donald Trump makes quick work of some bedrock tenets of the modern-day environmental movement.

The scientific consensus on human-caused climate change? "There definitely could be an impact from humans on climate," said Washington state Sen. Doug Ericksen. "Is it as big as people say? We'll find out."

The environmental campaign to keep oil in the ground? "Not a realistic thing to talk about."

The work of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency? It raises "the cost of operations so high that too many businesses are closing and too few new businesses are opening up."

Ericksen, a long-time Republican legislator from Ferndale and early Trump supporter, is now poised to run the federal environmental agency's 525-employee Seattle office.

Nothing has been offered, he said, but Ericksen has a 120-day job with the agency during the transition and has publicly acknowledged that he's willing to become regional administrator if Trump asks.

If he does, a climate change skeptic strongly supported by the oil industry would be in charge of overseeing the Northwest's most prominent environmental watchdog, setting up a showdown between career scientists and a politician who's attacked their work.

In his brief time at EPA headquarters, he has stoked nationwide concerns about the agency's integrity, telling NPR that scientists' work will be internally vetted on a case-by-case basis before being released. The agency's internal policies, adopted during the Obama administration, prohibit its leaders from altering, suppressing or impeding the timely release of scientific papers.

"New science will be allowed in," he said in a recent press conference. "More people will have a voice when it comes to debating the science of issues at the EPA."

Ericksen is eyeing a position that matters for the environment in Oregon and the Northwest. Employees in the agency's Seattle headquarters and Portland field office have overseen the agreement on the $1 billion Portland Harbor Superfund cleanup. They have studied the risks of building the Pebble Mine, what would be North America's largest open-pit mine, in an Alaska watershed home to the world's largest sockeye salmon run.

Jared Blumenfeld, a former EPA regional administrator in California who is still in touch with people inside the agency, said Ericksen has been delivering a clear message within the agency.

"Doug's point to staff is, 'Everything is on the chopping block,'" Blumenfeld said.

In a brief interview this week, Ericksen dodged most questions about how he thinks the EPA needs to change - after acknowledging up front that he didn't plan to address them.

"You're not going to like my answers," Ericksen told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

The agency made at least one cut this week, halving the number of employees it planned to send to an Alaskan environmental conference this week.

Ericksen described the move to a newspaper there as a small example of how EPA "will be working cooperatively with our staff" to save taxpayer money.

For a sense of how dramatically Ericksen's appointment could alter the EPA's role in the Pacific Northwest, consider the position Ericksen currently occupies in the agency's office in Washington, D.C.

He is one of 10 members of what the Trump administration calls a "beachhead team." A beachhead is a position established by invading troops on an enemy shore.

Blumenfeld said the transition Ericksen is helping to steer is not ordinary. Agency employees have told Blumenfeld they haven't just been ordered to stop using Twitter and Facebook, but also to halt publications as innocuous as community newsletters updating residents about work on nearby Superfund cleanups.

"Some of the stuff they're telling me they stopped sending out I didn't even know we did send out," Blumenfeld said.

Ericksen's salary is unclear. He said he doesn't know how much he's being paid. "I'll get paid eventually I hope," he said.

In Washington state, where the legislature is in session, Ericksen remains the senate's tie-breaking vote. In the other Washington, he's the temporary communications director at the EPA at a time when the agency has halted most communication, going silent on social media.

The legal boundaries of his work in the nation's capital are murky.

Ericksen said he's been approved by the EPA's ethics office to work on communication, not policy. But he wouldn't release their written opinion saying so. "We can release that at some point," he said. "Not today."

Holding down both his legislative job and one at EPA has brought intense criticism. Washington state Democrats say he's hampering the legislative session because the Republican majority doesn't want to vote without him. He missed 75 percent of committee meetings, according to a Bellingham Herald analysis.

Ericksen has pledged to immediately resign his legislative seat if he's offered a full-time role with any federal government agency. He said he's interested not just in the possibility of working at the EPA but also the Agriculture Department or Interior Department.

What's he doing on a daily basis at EPA headquarters? "It's a lot of work with the people who are currently there," he told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Can you be more specific?

"We're working with career professionals to keep the lights on."

Ericksen, 48, is a self-described advocate of states' rights and limited government "without the burden of the bureaucracy placed upon you," he said in 2014. He worked in state government before being elected to the Washington House of Representatives in 1998.

He represents rural Whatcom County, on the Canadian border, home to two oil refineries (BP and Phillips 66) and an aluminum smelter (Alcoa). He is an unapologetic supporter of those industries, describing his role as protecting their well-paying jobs. A 2015 Sightline Institute analysis found that Ericksen was the legislature's No. 3 recipient of donations from coal, oil and gas companies.

He proposes legislation that would benefit those industries. This session, Ericksen has attracted attention for a bill that would make it a felony to impede any economic activity while protesting.

Ericksen said in a radio interview that the bill is also designed to target people who support protesters like those that have blocked oil trains. He singled out billionaire hedge fund managers George Soros and Tom Steyer, both funders of climate change advocacy, as well as progressive public policy groups including Move On and Fuse Washington. Steyer helped fund a 2014 effort to unseat Ericksen that failed by a wide 59-41 margin.

Ericksen is savvy about the way he sows doubt about climate change. The Cornell graduate isn't a soapbox preacher, cherry-picking data to rail against the overwhelming scientific consensus that humans are warming the planet. Instead, he gives a public platform to people who deny humans are causing climate change. He repeatedly has invited them to testify in the environment committee he leads, while avoiding definitive statements about his own opinions.

When he brought a Western Washington University professor to testify before his committee in 2013, Ericksen called it "a learning opportunity." The geologist, Don Easterbrook, told lawmakers that global warming ended in 1998. (It didn't. Last year was the hottest on record, surpassing the record set a year earlier.)

When Ericksen invited a blogger who denies the existence of climate change to testify Feb. 7 at a Washington senate hearing, Ericksen joined in briefly by phone from Washington, D.C., saying the testimony was "extremely timely."

The man who previously led the office Ericksen is eyeing, Dennis McLerran, came from the local agency that regulates air pollution in Seattle, where he earned acclaim for his work in cleaning up dirty diesel.

The next leader will inherit wide authority over a $300 million budget that funds work in Oregon, Alaska, Idaho and Washington as well as with 271 federally recognized tribes. While the agency sets national priorities from Washington, D.C., its regional offices operate largely with the autonomy to apply them locally.

"They may say - Portland's not a priority for us, let's do our work in Idaho and Alaska," Blumenfeld said, the former EPA administrator for California.

Regardless of how at odds Ericksen is with Obama-era environmental policy, the EPA's biggest project in Oregon seems likely to stay on track.

Both Ericksen and Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general nominated to run the EPA, have said they want to prioritize cleanups of contaminated sites.

Pruitt, answering a question about the Portland Harbor site posed by Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, said he's "interested in hearing the views of the Congressional delegation and other stakeholders on the issues raised by this cleanup plan."

Ericksen has lauded the benefits of environmental cleanups. "We create jobs when we clean up sites, and we create more jobs when the land goes back into productive use," he said in 2016.

Those signals have left local environmental groups hopeful that the Portland Harbor toxic sediment cleanup will stay on track.

"If they believe what they're saying, that's an important thing for the Willamette River," said Travis Williams, executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper.

-- Rob Davis

rdavis@oregonian.com

503.294.7657
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Portland State University students joined other protesters following the inauguration of President Donald Trump on Jan. 20.

(Randy L. Rasmussen/Staff/File)

Liela Forbes, Quinn Haaga, Rachel Grisham and Adam Fractor

Since Election Day, we, as student leaders at higher education institutions here in Oregon, have stepped up to support our communities through uncertain political times. We have pushed our schools to declare themselves as sanctuary campuses so that we are not aiding immigration forces in destroying the lives and families of many of our fellow students. We have built places where students can come together, share their thoughts and concerns, and plan for the future.

We have done these things to prepare for the hatred we see brewing across the nation. This isn't a new kind of hatred; we have seen it for decades, some of it even right here in the Northwest.

While funding many worthy causes, the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, based in Vancouver, Washington, also funds some groups that hold extreme views fomenting hate.

Here are a few of the extreme groups that have received funding from the trust:

--Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization supporting North Carolina's notorious "bathroom bill" and Indiana's religious discrimination bill, has supported gay conversion therapy. Co-founder James Dobson has suggested that AIDS is one manner in which God punishes the LGBTQ community.

--The Portland Fellowship, which has practiced the discredited practice of gay conversion therapy on hundreds of people, including children.

--Several so-called "crisis pregnancy centers." The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League argues such centers are a threat to women's health and scare women away from choosing legal abortions.

--The Olympia-based Freedom Foundation, which fights against workers' rights to organize, increases in the minimum wage and paid sick days.

The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust has given many grants over the years for research at our universities, and we certainly appreciate their support. But we are concerned that their funding of divisive groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Portland Fellowship and the Freedom Foundation may obscure the good work done by other trust recipients.

We encourage Oregonians to be attentive to those organizations pushing extreme politics that counter our values of inclusiveness and respect. If we want to take on the hate we see nationally, we have to start with what is happening right here in the Northwest. Please sign the petition asking the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust to stop funding hate: http://nwaccountabilityproject.com/petition/

Liela Forbes is president of Associated Students of Portland State University in Portland. Quinn Haaga is president of the Associated Students of the University of Oregon in Eugene. Rachel Grisham is president of the Associated Students of Oregon State University in Corvallis. Adam Fractor is president of Associated Students of Lewis & Clark in Portland.
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A group of retired friends play a table top game at the beach in San Juan, Puerto Rico, last Thursday. The group meets at the beach meet twice a week as they enjoy their retirement.

(AP Photo)

Tobias Read

The multitrillion-dollar retirement savings gap in America is a financial crisis of mind-boggling scope.

It is also a moral one.

That became clearer this week when a fast-track resolution was introduced in Congress to undermine Oregon and a handful of other states that are trying to make retirement saving easier for lower-income workers, many of them women and minorities.

This cynical effort ought to be defeated, and soundly. Congress should protect states' rights and make it easier to save - not harder.

In July, the State Treasury will begin the pilot phase of OregonSaves, which will be the nation's first state-based retirement savings plan for private-sector workers. OregonSaves is being developed in public meetings based on investment best practices, feedback and support from large and small businesses.

The important bottom line: It will help as many as 1 million Oregonian workers to start saving at their jobs.

That's vital, because research by the AARP shows that people are 15 times more likely to save - and will save more - via payroll deductions.

As state treasurer, one of my priorities is empowering Oregonians to invest in themselves. Personal responsibility is a key component to long-term financial health.

Today, the average retirement savings is an anemic $3,000. For those nearing retirement, it's $12,000. Social Security alone isn't enough to meet all of a retiree's long-term needs. The National Institute on Retirement Security estimates that the savings gap nationwide is at least $7 trillion.

A key reason for that lack of savings: About half the workforce today lacks access to a savings option at work.

That's why the 2015 Legislature authorized OregonSaves, which I was proud to help sponsor. As OregonSaves phases in, those without a work-based plan will automatically be enrolled and will invest their own money into their own accounts, unless they opt out.

The accounts will be professionally managed and will not be connected to the Public Employees Retirement System in any way.

Market research predicts that by the fifteenth year, more than 500,000 Oregonians will collectively be saving billions. Reducing retirement poverty will boost the economy and reduce the pressure for already strained tax-financed government programs.

The Asher Community Health Center in Fossil, the only medical provider in rural Wheeler County, is excited about OregonSaves.

The small business doesn't have the capacity to offer a 401(k). OregonSaves will facilitate access to a savings option without legal confusion, the costs of launching a plan, or fiduciary risk. And research shows that employees are more productive when they are more financially secure.

To underscore that there is no fiduciary risk for businesses that enroll workers, Oregon joined with other states to support a "safe harbor" rule that was approved by the U.S. Department of Labor last year. This week's congressional resolution seeks to eliminate that safe harbor at the behest of interests like financial advisors and the U.S. Chambers of Commerce.

It's puzzling that anybody would try to undercut a strategy that will help create a new culture of saving. We need more options, not less. (Some thoughtful leaders in the investment sector do believe in pro-savings ideas like OregonSaves.)

While OregonSaves won't be derailed by the resolution, removal of the safe harbor would be a step backward and add an unnecessary layer of uncertainty. That's chilling, and it's the wrong direction for Oregon and America.

The retirement crisis will not solve itself. At a time when we ought to be encouraging more saving, it is disappointing that Congress may instead prioritize the failed status quo and undercut states' abilities to forge solutions.

I'm calling on Oregon's congressional delegation to stand for the 1 million working Oregonians who don't have access to retirement savings plans and to stand for small businesses -- and to stand against this cynical resolution. I encourage every Oregonian to contact Congress and express similar alarm.

(Footnote: Our goal is to make OregonSaves simple for everyone, and we are asking for feedback to draft rules to make sure we get them right. Learn more at www.Oregon.gov/retire.)

Tobias Read, of Beaverton, is Oregon's treasurer and chair of the Oregon Retirement Savings Board.
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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (C) poses for photographs with employees during her first day on the job at the Department of Education February 8, 2017 in Washington, DC.

(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Let me get this straight. An attorney general must have a law background in order to be an effective law enforcer. Surgeon generals must be medical professionals. It goes without saying that anyone heading up the Department of Defense has a military background. Funny, how experience seems to matter in those cabinet positions. But education is one of the "feminized" professions, historically underpaid, under-empowered and, largely, without respect. Easy low-hanging fruit.

President Trump appointed Betsy DeVos, a non-educator, to the position of secretary of education. Republicans colluded (with the exception of Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) in this mockery of public education and this disservice to American citizens.

Public education is our commons. DeVos has staked her career on destroying that commons via vouchers and other defunding mechanisms. At her confirmation hearings she revealed her abysmal ignorance of both pedagogy and education statutes. In confirming DeVos, her supporters have revealed not only their ignorance of the education profession, but their contempt for it as well.

Laura Paxson Kluthe, Northwest Portland
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Oregon Secretary of State Dennis Richardson is one of three State Land Board members who will decide the fate of the Elliott State Forest, near Coos Bay.

(Stephanie Yao Long/Staff)

As lawmakers knuckle down to balance a state budget with a $1.8 billion hole in it, a tiny meeting occurs in Salem Tuesday that could have huge outcomes for present and future generations. The State Land Board will meet to discuss the fate of the Elliott State Forest. One possibility includes selling it outright.

Hardly a magnet for sustained public attention, the Elliott is one of the last great amalgamations of citizen-owned forests in Oregon. Its 82,500 acres of rugged terrain, near Coos Bay, is coursed by fish-bearing streams and trails, and its steep slopes feature prolific stands of trees that are prime seabird habitat and the prize of loggers from surrounding communities. Over the last decade and a half, things got complicated. Environmental and species protections forced limits on logging, driving the state's logging revenue down and firing up protesters who at the sight of a harvest would tree-sit and bring work to a halt. Lawsuits mired forward motion. Schools across Oregon, historically the beneficiary of the Elliott's revenues, have scraped about for the lost money.

The land board tried but failed to fix things. In 2012 it approved a new management plan for the Elliott that would restore logging revenues - essential if the forest were to comply with its constitutional mandate to generate money for public schools. But a lawsuit followed, and the Elliott continues to fail to generate sufficient revenue. In 2014 the board initiated the Elliott Alternatives Project to examine possible land transfers and a renewed effort to win federal clearance for a habitat conservation plan that would protect species while boosting logging. No go. Facing the Elliott's bleak revenue projections for the years ahead, the board in 2015 pulled the plug and set terms for a sale of the forest.

Oregonian editorials

Editorials reflect the collective opinion of The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board, which operates independently of the newsroom.

Members of the editorial board are Laura Gunderson, John Maher, Helen Jung, Mark Katches and Len Reed.

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Selling the Elliott would do three things right away: bring in $202.8 million in cash, whose earnings from investment would go to schools; release the state once and for all from Common School Fund burdens; and allow state officials to meet their constitutional obligation of ensuring the Elliott benefits public schools.

But a sale of the Elliott would hurt over the long term by robbing Oregonians of their rich, biodiverse forest in a time when logging, recreation and environmental values must be brought into balance for lasting public benefit. Taking the Elliott out of public ownership would be short-sighted. The forest should instead be a model of resource and recreational management as population and economic expansion, not to mention climate change, challenge policymakers.

Tuesday's meeting will be complicated by the land board's new membership. Gov. Kate Brown is its only senior member. She will be joined by first-timers Tobias Read, the new state treasurer; and Dennis Richardson, the new secretary of state.

Significantly, Read proposed a bill in the 2015 Legislature that would have provided for land transfers of the sort that might save the Elliott from mandated timber production while allowing it or most of it to remain in public ownership. His spokesperson told The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board last week that Read had not yet taken a position on the Elliott's destiny.

Richardson toured the Elliott on Friday and in a telephone interview said he is undecided about the forest's fate. But he made clear he wants to know what has changed since 2015, when the board, which included Brown, decided selling was the best solution. He expressed concern about the state's "integrity" in putting the forest out to bid and then, after receiving an earnest proposal, changing direction.

Brown last December suggested the state could bond $100 million to purchase some of the forest while partnering, perhaps, with Oregon tribes and environmental nonprofits. She also put out a call for other imaginative solutions. But as of last week, there were none. That leaves the Elliott staring down the one bid for it by Lone Rock Timber Management Company, whose minority financial partner is the landless Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians.

Yet on Friday afternoon, Brown converted her December suggestion into an announced plan whereby the state would commit $100 million to "decouple a portion of the forest from the Common School trust lands" while ensuring the Elliott "would remain in public ownership, with either the state or tribes owning the land." It's clear Brown opposes privatization of the forest - a good thing - though she could find challenge in Read and Richardson.

Former state Treasurer Ted Wheeler had it right when he said in December that the newly configured land board should take the time it takes to get things right. That, above all else, will be the board's test on Tuesday.

Unimagined future values are at stake. Let's keep the Elliott in public ownership.

-The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board
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Oregon Governor Kate Brown is sworn in, January 9, 2017

(Beth Nakamura/Staff)

Katy Durant couldn't have been more articulate in her Dec. 5 letter to Gov. Kate Brown last December about the financial disaster awaiting Oregon. The outgoing chair of the Oregon Investment Council warned that if leaders continue to ignore the colossal imbalance between public employers' pension obligations and the money available to pay it, the state is headed for a "train wreck."

Without some kind of structural change, "this 'house of cards' will quickly collapse, leaving Oregon in a fiscal crisis," wrote Durant, a 12-year member of the council responsible for investing Oregon's pension fund. She then listed ideas to help lessen the state's pension woes and beseeched Brown to show "bold leadership."

That's not going to happen, though. The governor took nearly eight weeks to respond. When she did, she characterized the $22 billion unfunded liability as "concerning." A better word would be alarming. She seemed unfazed by the big increases in contributions to the Public Employees Retirement System that school districts, state agencies and other public employers will have to make starting in July - or that it is the first of a parade of such increases projected for the next several biennia. And she deflected talk of what the state can do by offering puzzling platitudes about the dependence of the investment fund on strong markets, analysis as insightful as "buy low, sell high."

Editorial Agenda 2017

Boost student success

Get Oregon's financial house in order

Help our homeless

Honor our diverse values

Make Portland a city that works

Expand access to public records

________________________

Read more about the editorial board's priorities for Oregon.

If anything, Brown's letter revealed how deeply dedicated she is to living in a state of denial. Her lone solution is a thrice-proposed, thrice-failed idea to reduce fees associated with investing the PERS fund by bringing some of the activities handled by outside management firms in-house. Her spokesman said she is also "tracking" proposals with an eye to their legal viability, potential savings and fairness. In other words, not a whole lot.

Here's why Oregonians can't afford to waste any more time. Starting in July, public employers will see their contributions to PERS jump from a system-wide average of 10.6 percent of payroll to 14.2 percent. (Individual school districts and other employers could see higher amounts depending on how underfunded their pension funds are). That average is expected to go up to 18.9 percent and 25.2 percent in the biennia after. That's a lot of taxpayer dollars going not to education or health care or social services but rather to benefits to employees who are long gone.

Here's what those increases translate into. The Gresham-Barlow School District will have to pay $2.5 million more in the coming year for PERS. That's roughly 25 teachers. For Hillsboro, it's even bigger - a $5.3 million jump in required PERS contribution, about 53 teachers. The Salem-Keizer School District is looking at a $6.5 million increase next year, about 65 teachers. And the state as a whole isn't in a position to give a lot more money than it did last biennium to K-12 education. Despite record general fund and lottery revenue, the state is facing a $1.8 billion deficit due to its Medicaid expansion, personnel costs and, of course, PERS.

Oregonian editorials

Editorials reflect the collective opinion of The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board, which operates independently of the newsroom.

Members of the editorial board are Laura Gunderson, Helen Jung, Mark Katches, John Maher and Len Reed.

To respond to this editorial:

Post your comment below, submit

, or

.

If you have questions about the opinion section, contact Laura Gunderson, editorial and commentary editor, at 503-221-8378 or lgunderson@oregonian.com.

Oregonians' best hope is in pressuring the Democratic legislative leadership to work with Republicans on a plan to ease the PERS burden and bring down future obligations. While Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, and House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, have shown little enthusiasm for PERS reform, an issue that riles their public-employee union base, they at least appear to recognize the offensive incongruity of teacher layoffs at a time when the economy is booming and revenue is at an all-time high.

The difficulty ahead cannot be overstated. Certainly, Oregon is stuck with an enormous bill thanks to short-sighted and self-serving decisions made by policymakers in the past. The Oregon Supreme Court has made abundantly clear that those commitments for benefits already earned cannot be undone.

But the court was also clear that legislators can make changes in its pension plan for benefits that have yet to be earned. Legislators and others have proposed ideas that can ease employer contributions so that more taxpayer dollars are going to serve students, families and the public without shorting the pension fund. But this can only get done if our elected leaders live in our state of crisis and act with the urgency that it requires.

- The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board
A 30-year-old man from Sutherlin has been arrested after making plans for a sexual encounter with a Douglas County sheriff's deputy who posed as a 14-year-old girl, according to court records.

Marvin Shoemaker

A deputy arrested Marvin Thomas Shoemaker II on Thursday with accusations of luring a minor and online sexual corruption after several exchanges through social media beginning Feb. 2, 2017, according to court records.

According to the probable cause affidavit, the deputy said Shoemaker when arrested replied, "I know what this is all about and this in (sic) entrapment."

The deputy created a fake social media page claiming to be a 14-year-old girl. Shoemaker contacted the undercover deputy asking the girl to party, according to the document.

The court record claims Shoemaker later wrote, "I'd love to hookup with you I want to spend all day with you I can come pick you up if you want to hookup today."

The deputy then told Shoemaker if he was OK with seeing a 14-year-old girl.

According to the court record, Shoemaker replied, "Yes sexy send me a picture of you what your wearing so I'll know it's you when I come get you ... I'm 30."

The deputy then told Shoemaker the girl was inexperienced with physical intimacy and had only kissed her "immature" boyfriend.

According to the affidavit, Shoemaker replied, "That's fine baby. I'll make time to teach you." He then offered to take her virginity, according to the affidavit.

Shoemaker then invited the undercover deputy to stay the night at his house, and they were to meet at a grocery store in Roseburg on Tuesday, according to the affidavit. Shoemaker later postponed after claiming he had to help a family member with car problems, according to the affidavit.

On Thursday, Shoemaker again made contact with the deputy and they agreed to meet, according to the affidavit. Once deputies confirmed the suspect, Shoemaker was arrested near the Douglas County Fairgrounds exit on Interstate 5.

He was booked into the Douglas County Sheriff's Office where he is being held on $15,000 bail, according to the agency's website.

-- Tony Hernandez

thernandez@oregonian.com

503-294-5928

@tonyhreports
Kate Brown

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has called for a $100 million bond payment to protect high-value portions of the Elliott State Forest, while allowing logging elsewhere. (AP Photo/Don Ryan, file)

Gov. Kate Brown on Friday unveiled a plan meant to keep the Elliott State Forest in public ownership.

Brown's plan calls for a $100 million bond payment to the state's Common School Fund, which holds the land in trust and uses revenue from the land to pay for public education. That payment would be used to withdraw the forest's high-value habitat, like steep slopes, old growth stands and riparian areas, from the school fund trust.

The rest of the land would have a blueprint developed outlining which land could be logged sustainably or set off-limits to protect endangered species, Brown said.

The governor said she expected the timber harvest to average 20 million board feet a year for the next 100 years.

State officials have long pondered selling the 82,500-acre forest to raise money for Oregon schools. The state received a $221 million bid for the forest in December.

The Elliott forest spans Coos and Douglas counties and is home to such threatened species as coastal coho salmon, marbled murrelet and the northern spotted owl. Long a workhorse for the Common School Fund, the forest has in recent years become a money loser for the state. Logging plunged in 2012 amid lawsuits from environmental groups.

Brown said she also wanted to help tribes regain ownership of ancestral lands in the forest.

Previously, Brown asked the Department of State Lands to explore options beyond selling the forest to Lone Rock Timber Resources and the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribes of Indians.

Robin Meacher, a Cascadia Wildlands spokeswoman, said the group was encouraged by the governor's plan. "There are still a number of details that need to be worked out," she said.

Toby Luther, Lone Rock's president, called the governor's plan a disappointment.

"We met every criteria they laid down before us over a very public and transparent two and a half year process," he said. "To have all of that work undermined with a last-minute reversal makes a mockery of the entire effort."

Brown is one of three officials on the State Land Board, which will ultimately decide the fate of the forest.

The other members are Secretary of State Dennis Richardson and State Treasurer Tobias Read. The Board will discuss the forest in its upcoming Feb. 14 meeting.

-- Anna Marum and Rob Davis

amarum@oregonian.com

rdavis@oregonian.com
Secretary of State Dennis Richardson

Secretary of State Dennis Richardson takes the oath of office on Dec. 30, 2016. Gordon Friedman/Staff

(Gordon Friedman/Staff)

SALEM - Oregon's new secretary of state, Dennis Richardson, ran on a platform that emphasized he'd be a tough auditor-in-chief. Now in office and in charge of the Audits Division, he has a tall order: Learn a lot about audits in short time, as he had not read one before taking office.

"I don't recall having read a performance audit from cover to cover," Richardson told The Oregonian/OregonLive last week. "I had only been in this office twice before I had been elected. You don't know what you don't know."

Richardson, a Republican, is the first statewide elected official to take over an agency run by a leader from the other party in more than a decade. Some of his first actions have been to reorganize key staff - letting go of one division head, hiring a controversial deputy and elections chief and launching a national search for a new audits director.

Richardson, who served in the Legislature for a dozen years before being elected secretary of state, said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive that he's still in a "learning phase" of how to run the agency. "I've been doing all that I can to learn and to catch up," he said.

He is paring back staff in his elections division, eliminating one of two deputy director positions and laying off another worker. But he said that is to save money and because one-time federal grant funds that pay for the positions are dwindling, not because he is less committed to helping voters.

"There would have been no changes in personnel if there was going to be any problem with maintaining or improving services," he said. "The public will not notice any difference."

Emails from outgoing Deputy Secretary of State Robert Taylor, obtained via a records request, show Richardson told Taylor shortly after being elected that he had never read a performance audit produced by the state. Often dense, lengthy documents, audits evaluate state agency programs and recommend ways to improve services or save money. Having read an audit is not a qualification to hold the office of secretary of state.

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During Richardson's years as the powerful co-chairman of the Legislature's budget-writing committee, the Secretary of State's Office released dozens of audits including on the state's overall financial health, university administration and public employee pension system.

In an interview, Taylor, a Democrat, said he was surprised by Richardson's admission that he had not read an audit.

"It was stunning that he said it," Taylor said. "Just the whole thing was surprising."

Sen. Richard Devlin, D-Tualatin, who's co-chairman of the budget-writing committee and ran for secretary of state last year, said he has "actively reviewed" state audits as part of his budget-writing role.

Richardson campaigned heavily on reforming how the state audits its agencies. While a candidate, he called for audits of the failed health care enrollment website Cover Oregon, Columbia River Crossing bridge project and the embattled and now-defunct Business Energy Tax Credit program.

Richardson said he has read a performance audit all the way through since taking office, and hopes to change how they're written to make them more valuable for legislators and the public.

The Audits Division is currently run by an interim director, so Richardson is conducting a national search for a permanent director. There are three candidates, he said.

Richardson already hired a replacement for Taylor. His new deputy, Leslie Cummings, left her IT manager job at the Employment Department after being caught up in accusations of nepotism and wasting public funds. Cummings was one of several officials that oversaw a failed database project that wasted up to $30 million, according to an earlier Oregonian/OregonLive investigation.

Richardson is also searching for a permanent Human Resources Division director after he laid off Jackie Steffens from that job in January.

As head of human resources, Steffens was in charge of hiring and firing in 2013 when then-Secretary of State Kate Brown asked her elections director, Steve Trout, to resign for mismanaging election scheduling. Trout later asked Brown for his job back and Steffens drafted the letter telling Trout he wouldn't be rehired, records show.

After being elected last year, Richardson brought Trout on as a paid member of his transition team and then hired him as elections director. Richardson denied that Steffens' earlier role in ousting Trout was a factor in deciding to let her go.

"Steve Trout's involvement in this office has nothing to do with what happened with Jackie," Richardson said. "As far as I'm concerned everybody gets a fair shot. Whatever happened years ago - I had no involvement with that. Everybody that I work with gets to be evaluated on their own merits."

When asked to explain why Steffens was let go, Richardson said he wanted to take the human resources division in a different direction and declined to comment further, citing advice from Oregon Department of Justice attorneys not to speak about personnel matters.

The Oregonian/OregonLive has obtained an email Steffens sent Richardson after she was fired, in which she expressed concern that her termination may be a reprisal for Trout's ousting. Steffens wrote that Richardson "drew a connection" between the firings in a termination meeting and that he said he found it ironic that Steffens' and Trout's dismissal letters used similar language.

"It appears to me from your words and actions that somehow my dismissal was done for 'political' reasons and was connected in some way to the termination of Mr. Trout by a prior administration and/or my working relationships to prior administrations," Steffens wrote.

The email shows Steffens also raised concerns about "unusual" requests Richardson made, including directing her to send employee compensation information to his wife's private email address, disregarding Steffens' recommendations for "appropriate classification and compensation" of his executive-level staff and asking her to offer a job to someone who had emailed Richardson their resume - without publicly posting the jobs or conducting interviews and a background check.

Steffens wrote that although she objected to Richardson's approach, she never disobeyed him.

"During your time in office, you never once shared with me your direction for the division or the agency, and I'm unaware that any of my actions didn't support your direction for the division or the agency," she wrote. "I did everything in my ability to provide you expertise and advice to protect not only you, but the agency while still achieving the results you wanted."

An agency spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Steffens' email.

As a division head, Steffens worked at-will and had no guarantee of holding onto her job as Richardson's administration transitioned into the Capitol. But Steffens, who served in a relatively nonpartisan position, was also highly respected by previous agency officials.

Taylor, the outgoing deputy, told Richardson in transition memos that Steffens and the Human Resources Division is "the single strongest voice in the agency for accountability" in terms of fair treatment of employees.

"I could not have done this job without a positive working relationship with Jackie Steffens in HR," Taylor wrote in the memos, which were obtained by The Oregon/OregonLive via public records request. "She is a true professional and an asset to the agency."

Richardson said Cheryl Miller, a retired head of HR for the Oregon Health Authority, has been brought in to lead the agency's HR Division until a permanent director is found.

Within the Elections Division, Richardson has decided to lay off Codi Trudell, a deputy elections director, and Russell Terry, a voter registration official. Richardson said the two were given 30-day notices that they would lose their jobs after Trout advised him that their positions could be eliminated.

Elections Director Steve Trout.

Trudell and Terry are paid via grants given through the federal Help America Vote Act, which requires states to provide access to ballots for the disabled. Grant funds are running out, Richardson said, and he would prefer to spend the remaining balance on badly-needed technology upgrades.

"It's one-time money that's supposed to be used to promote Americans voting," he said of the grant funds. "That means software, hardware. I'm not one that promotes using one-time money to pay salaries. That was an area where I said, 'Take a look at that.' Because when that money's gone, it's gone."

Although Help America Vote Act funds are declining, positions similar to those held by Trudell and Terry were eliminated by Trout the first time he headed the Elections Division.

Gene Newton and Dave Franks - high-level employees who both handled compliance with the federal voter laws and voter registration programs - were fired shortly after Trout took over 2010, Newton said in an email. Newton said he only met Trout once, when what was supposed to be an in-depth briefing on ballot compliance turned into Trout telling them their jobs were eliminated.

"After pouring my heart and soul into Help America Vote Act implementation in Oregon it was quite a slap in the face as well as a shocking decision," Newton said. Trout seemed "totally disinterested" in those efforts, Newton said, "even given the fact that Oregon was seen nationally as quite a pioneer in helping to make voting more accessible to people with disabilities."

An Oregonian/OregonLive reporter visited the Elections Division office on the state Capitol Mall in an effort to speak with Trout, but was turned away. Afterwards, a Secretary of State's Office spokesman granted a lengthy interview with Richardson.

Richardson said that going forward, he has no concerns that his agency will be able to fully comply with federal election laws in Trudell and Terry's absence. The agency will simply have to make due with less resources, Richardson said.

Linn County Clerk Steve Druckenmiller agreed that voter services would likely be unaffected by the staff adjustments, since those programs are largely carried out by counties. "The secretary of state is going to have to set some internal priorities with using the staff that they have," Druckenmiller said. "Find out what they can and can't accomplish."

Kate Titus, executive director of accountable government group Common Cause Oregon, said she doesn't see how voter services would go unaffected. "If you lose staff that have been performing functions it raises the question, 'How are those functions going to happen?'" Titus said.

Titus said she's willing to give Richardson the benefit of the doubt, but is cautious.

"Compliance with the Help America Vote Act is critical. It's not optional," she said.

Jim Moore, political science professor at Pacific University, said Richardson's cuts to the Elections Division come at an awkward time. The state has been expanding access to the ballot through the Motor Voter program, which registers eligible voters at the DMV, so it would follow that more resources are needed, not less, he said.

"The optics are bad because it looks like he is chopping the very people who have helped that expansion happen," Moore said.

Oregon's special election in May will be the first test of Richardson's reorganization of the Elections Division, Moore said.

Titus views the situation more warily: "I think we need to be watching this unfold continually," she said.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

gfriedman@oregonian.com; 503-221-8209
Anti-abortion protesters and abortion rights advocates clashed verbally yet peacefully Saturday morning outside the Planned Parenthood office in Northeast Portland.

The Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette office at 3727 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. was the site of one of 224 "Defund Planned Parenthood" demonstrations in 45 states that were planned to take place Saturday.

Organizers of the Portland event set up a table and loudspeakers for a series of speeches near the doorway of the building at the northwest corner of Northeast Beech Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The Defund Planned Parenthood participants formed a semicircle near the speakers. Abortion rights advocates stood on the periphery. Perhaps a total of 250 people were at the event when it started at 10 a.m. It was scheduled to end at 11:30 a.m.

Both sides held posters expressing their viewpoints, often standing side by side and sometimes shouting slogans. Elsewhere, people with differing points of view on the subject talked to each other.

Two Portland police officers walked among the crowd. When someone suggested at about 10:30 a.m. that the crowd had been peaceful, the officers nodded.

-- Mike Zacchino contributed reporting.

--Allan Brettman

503-294-5900

@allanbrettman
Of the 19 protesters arrested after Trump's inauguration in January in downtown Portland, prosecutors have dropped their pursuit of criminal charges against 15.

As of arraignment hearings held earlier this week, criminal misdemeanor or felony cases are proceeding against three protesters: one because he's accused of spitting on detectives and two others because they previously had been arrested during a first round of protests after Trump's election in November. A fourth person's case is still under review for possible prosecution.

The 15 whose criminal cases have been dismissed have been given $260 citations, similar to traffic tickets. They can either pay them or contest them to trial. The trials are expected to last less than an hour and up to a few hours, and they represent a significant time saver for prosecutors, judges, clerks and the police officers who would be called to testify.

All 19 protesters who were arrested on Jan. 20 or Jan. 25 were demonstrating against Trump's inauguration or police treatment of them during the Trump protests.

Haley Rayburn, Multnomah County deputy district attorney, said her office decided to pursue citations against most of the arrested -- under allegations of failing to obey police or blocking traffic in downtown -- because they didn't have a history of lawless conduct at protests or didn't act out extreme ways, such as spitting on police.

"From a sheer resources perspective, we can't prosecute each one of these cases," Rayburn said.

Rayburn said police remedied a problem that arose after they arrested 120 people during six nights of Portland protests immediately after the November election. Within two months, prosecutors had dropped criminal charges against at least 100 of them. That's in large part because officers wrote incomplete police reports about a range of alleged behavior, from protesters refusing to disperse or marching on freeways to anarchists who shattered windows, vandalized cars, threw bottles and set fires, the DA's office said.

As a result, prosecutors weren't able to determine which officers saw specific protesters violating the law, said Kirsten Snowden, chief deputy district attorney in Multnomah County.

Prosecutors then spoke with police, and at the January protests, vague police reports weren't a problem, Rayburn said.

Rayburn stressed that in the future her office will treat people with a history arrest at past protests more seriously than those who've been arrested for their first offense.

"If you continue to do so, we will prosecute you at a criminal level," Rayburn said.

-- Aimee Green

o_aimee
Drink

A cocktail is shown in this 2012 Oregonian/OregonLive file photo.

(Jamie Francis/The Oregonian)

A state investigator is looking into reports of drugs getting slipped into customers' drinks at a North Portland bar, according to an Oregon Liquor Control Commission spokeswoman.

Killingsworth Dynasty has received two recent reports of someone spiking drinks, a bar manager told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Friday.

The bar contacted the liquor control commission shortly after receiving the first report in late January, said Kaetlin Kennedy, one of two managers at the bar.

Kennedy said the bar has since upgraded a security camera system and taken other steps to improve safety. She said Killingsworth Dynasty workers weren't involved in the alleged druggings.

The bar's No. 1 priority is safety, she said, and it's committed to listening to its patrons. None of those who told the bar that they were drugged report being assaulted, she said.

The bar learned of one of the allegations Jan. 23, Kennedy said. In that case, a third party messaged the bar on Facebook to say a woman and two men believed they were drugged two days earlier, she said.

Dear friends, family and concerned patrons, We would like to address your concerns regarding recent drugging incidents... Posted by Killingsworth Dynasty on Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Staff spoke with the three people, and two maintained they thought they had been drugged, Kennedy said. She didn't know whether any filed police reports and said they didn't discuss how specifically they thought they had been drugged.

Another patron contacted the bar Wednesday to say she thought she had her drink spiked in November, Kennedy said. The woman had a drink, set it down, didn't feel well and left the bar shortly after, Kennedy said.

The woman didn't indicate she would file a police report, Kennedy said. It appeared she came forward out of concern of a pattern of possible druggings at Killingsworth Dynasty, Kennedy said.

Sgt. Pete Simpson, a Portland police spokesman, said police haven't taken any recent reports about spiked drinks at the bar's Killingsworth Street address.

A 2015 report referencing a drugging and sexual assault remains open, he said, but it's unlikely police will ever be able to figure out if the alleged victim was drugged, Simpson said in an email. A witness reported the woman's injuries could have been from her falling on a sidewalk, he said.

Fliers posted around the neighborhood claim, in part, that the bar isn't a safe place. The fliers "strongly advise" people, especially women, to avoid the bar.

Kennedy declined to comment on the fliers, which are only signed by "victims & concerned neighbors."

Kennedy said the bar's security staff is certified by the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training and that the bar is hiring additional security guards.

It's also holding a safety meeting Saturday with promoters that host events there, has a training with the liquor control commission next week and is looking into more staff training.

Kennedy said the neighborhood bar, which has been open almost two years, has vegan drinks and food. It has a lot of regulars, she said, and a capacity of about 100.

She said the bar hosts weekend dance parties and that about half of its programming caters to the LGBT community.

-- Jim Ryan

jryan@oregonian.com

503-221-8005; @Jimryan015
The base of the eponymous dish at Morris Ramen is pork broth that's simmered for 10 hours.
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Over the years, the Daily News has printed several photo features during Michigan Nurses Week to draw attention to the profession of nursing.

Many of these photos are from those features.
Gov. Rick Snyders 2018 proposed $56.3 billion state budget calls for increases in education spending, which would afford schools an extra $50 in per-pupil funding.

Highlights related to education in the 2018 proposed budget, outlined by State Superintendent Brain Whiston:

 An increase in per-pupil spending of $128 million, providing an additional $50 to $100 per pupil to K-12 schools, and an additional $50 per pupil beyond that for high school students.

 An increase of $150 million, to a total of $529 million, to ensure that children in difficult financial situations are getting the help they need. All districts and public school academies will now be eligible to receive an additional $778 per pupil to assist at-risk students.

 Snyder recommends a change in the definition of an at-risk student that will increase by 130,000 more students (a total of 679,709 children) who would be eligible for at-risk programs and services (24 percent increase).

 At-Risk funding will be targeted to be used to:

Ensure pupils are proficient in reading by the end of 3rd grade

Ensure pupils are proficient in mathematics by the end of 8th grade

Decrease chronic absenteeism

Increase at-risk students participation in enriched academic opportunities (dual enrollment, early/middle college, CTE coursework, Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate)

 An $8.8 million investment in the MiSTEM Network that focuses on science, technology, engineering and math studies by Michigan students.

 A one-time investment of $20 million is recommended for career and technical education (CTE) equipment upgrades.

Overall the governors proposed school aid budget is promising, Michael Sharrow, Midland Public Schools superintendent, said in an email. Of course the proof is in the details and we know it will change once the Senate and House weigh in. It is a long process.

The MPS district has about 7,750 students. Per-pupil funding from the state has fallen from $8,904 in 2008-09 to $8,291 in 2015-16.

In 2015, MPS had 1,800 at-risk students, which doesnt meet the state requirement of 50 percent to receive certain funding. The MPS district also receives $50 per student from a hold harmless millage, which prevents the district from receiving money under Section 31a of Proposal A.

The governors proposal of $50 increase for MPS is a bit confusing  is it $50 increase from $8,300 or $8,350? Sharrow said. Worst case scenario it is no increase for MPS and best case a $50 increase per student. In the details it appears to be the worst case scenario of just a replacement for districts like MPS.

But gaining at-risk funding would be beneficial.

We presently do not receive at-risk funding when other districts do. Receiving these funds would be a real big lift for our at-risk kids, Sharrow said.

The combined $28.8 million in STEM and CTE upgrades would have little effect on MPS, according to Sharrow, as it will amount to very few dollars once spread among all districts.

We would prefer these dollars in the foundation allowance, he said.

Read more on Snyders proposed budget at http://bit.ly/2k8yaoi

Related: Photos show Central Park Elementary School under construction: http://bit.ly/2kNwldl
Air Force Gen. Terrence J. OShaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander, and Chief Master Sgt. Anthony Johnson, PACAF command chief, visited Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Feb. 5 to 7, to thank Airmen for their dedication to the commands mission, and learn about operations and readiness at the base.

During the visit, the PACAF leaders toured facilities throughout the installation to meet Airmen and get a first-hand look at the broad spectrum of JBER mission sets.

They received briefings on Alaskan Commands Mission Assurance, Homeland Defense and Civil Support mission sets, and the Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command Region. The Air Defense Squadron commander also discussed the units task to surveil, identify and track aircraft in the ANR and to provide tactical battle management of air assets.

OShaughnessy explained how the Indo-Asia-Pacific region is undergoing a dynamic shift that drives the importance of operationalizing PACAF to be ready to provide rapid airpower across the theater at a moments notice.

PACAF is first and foremost a warfighting command, OShaughnessy said. The dynamic change in the region has forced us to be ready to fight at a moments notice.

Furthering the fight tonight mentality, O Shaughnessy spoke with F-22 Raptor pilots and took part in a simulation that demonstrated the aircrafts 5th-generation capabilities. He also spoke of the value of bringing the F-35 Lightning II to U.S. Pacific Command, which will further expand allied 5th-generation capabilities in the region.

Were excited to bring the F-35 to the theater, OShaughnessy said. Now its not just the U.S. Air Force flying, but also our allies, partners and joint brethren. Flying with our F-22s and fourth generation aircraft, this new fighter will ensure air superiority against potential adversaries for years to come.

OShaughnessy also held an all-call to speak to Airmen about several topics including leadership philosophies, command priorities, and what Airmen can expect from him as well as what he expects from Airmen.

Our Airmen are by far the most important thing that we as PACAF bring to our combatant commander, he said. Our leadership at all levels is what separates us and makes us the best air force on the planet.

During the all-call, Johnson also emphasized the importance of leadership and innovative ideas.

We have to lead by example in all areas and take care of each other, he stressed. At the end of the day we may spend more time with one another in uniform than we sometimes do with our families in order to complete the mission.

The general concluded his visit by thanking the Airmen of JBER for their continued hard work and effort to deliver airpower in support of the combatant command.

I truly want to thank you for what you do and your contributions to the mission, he said. You have a huge impact within the area of responsibility and beyond.
Male Lawmakers in Oklahoma Write Law Requiring Written Consent of the Father for Women to Have Abortions

By Kylie Cheung | Politics | February 10, 2017 |

Last week, in the latest segment of we live in a patriarchal society where men will always presume to know best, Oklahoma state Rep. Justin Humphrey introduced a bill that would require anyone seeking an abortion to first receive express permission from the fetus father. To be precise, the bill would require written consent of the fetus father.

If a man claims to be the father of the fetus, he can demand a paternity test, which would in itself delay the abortion by at least three to five days. The bill is maniacally elaborate, allowing exceptions only if the father of the fetus is dead.

As Mics Marie Solis notes, essentially, as if its not enough that male legislators already make decisions about what women do with their bodies, if Humphreys bill gets passed then the men in womens lives will have the power to make those decisions too.

The state of Oklahoma has a rough relationship where abortion is concerned, with its lawmakers last year presenting an eerily named plan to create an abortion-free society, by pushing anti-abortion, abstinence-only sexual education programs for public schools. The state additionally pushed for TRAP laws to purposefully shut clinics down, on top of mandatory counseling, required parental consent, and heavy restrictions for second-trimester abortions. All of this amounts to unconstitutional undue burden placed on women seeking the procedure.

A similar bill was also presented earlier this year in Arkansas, and was just recently signed off on by Gov. Asa Hutchinson who is, unsurprisingly, a Republican.

But this law currently being considered by Oklahomas legislators was found unconstitutional long ago in 1976, in the case of Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danfort, when the Supreme Court ruled against spousal consent requirements. On the optimistic side of things, its relatively likely that if passed, this bill could be struck down in federal courts, but that it was introduced at all  and is currently the law in Arkansas  speaks volumes about how conservatives perceive women and their disregard for our autonomy over our bodies.

Its scary.




Corriandrum, which is one plant but two products, cilantro or coriander, has been named 2017 Herb of the Year by the International Herb Association. It is a unique herb in that the leaves are harvested and eaten fresh and the fruits are dried and made into the spice known as coriander.

To be chosen as Herb of the Year, an herb must be deemed outstanding in two out of three categories  medicinal, culinary and decorative  by the IHA. The IHA is an organization that has been naming the herb of the year for the last 22 years. Favorites such as basil, rosemary, lavender and fennel have won the title in past years. Last year it was peppers.

Many associate cilantro with salsa, which now ranks as Americas No. 1 condiment. A testament to the growing popularity of this strong-flavored herb, a shopper may not have even found salsa in stores 30 years ago. Still, some people find this herb unappetizing and thinks it tastes like soap. A study University of Chicago study found that DNA shapes our judgment of cilantro. Most of us would say it tastes fresh and lemony or lime-like flavor.

Cilantro is a cool-weather tender perennial that can be planted after the first frost-free date. It produces leaves in a rosette about 6 to 12 inches long. When temperatures rise, the plant will bolt, producing flowering stalks 2 to 3 feet tall. What you do at this point depends on whether you want to produce more cilantro leaves or use the seed as spice.

Coriander seeds may need to be soaked for 3 to 4 days before planting to break open the seed coat. They should be planted in rich and well-drained soil, with exposure in full sun to partial shade about an inch deep and 6 inches apart. Plants may endure a light frost, but a heavy frost would kill them. It is best not to over fertilize herbs; doing so may dull the taste. Be sure to weed, as they do not compete very well and keep planting new plants until the middle of spring and again in the fall when the day length shortens. At a recent conference, Chuck Voigt, retired research specialist in agriculture from the University of Illinois, suggested Leaf, Long-Standing, Slo-Bolt, Calypso, and Santos for their delay in bolting and staying vegetative longer. He stated that using these cultivars might extend harvest of cilantro leaves an extra two weeks.

Coriander fruits are harvested when they turn tan. Left uncut, they will fall to the ground and become welcome or unwelcome volunteers the following year. Store in a sealed container in a cool dark spot and use in many culinary dishes.
BLOOMINGTON  For nearly a year, the city has been preparing to widen Linden Street from Locust to Empire streets from 26 feet wide to 30 feet.

Some neighborhood opponents have suggested leaving the width at 26 feet, but gaining more traffic lane space by eliminating the parking lane on the west side of the street that has a mix of businesses, rentals and owner-occupied homes.

But that "would be very, very detrimental. It would be ruinous to our business," said Doug Rinkenberger, who for 41 years has been operating Decorator's Grocery out of a converted house at 1010 N. Linden St.

"Because our lot is a narrow lot and doesn't afford much off-street parking at all, we've relied on the on-street parking all of these years," he said.

The City Council will consider whether or not to widen the street Monday night. The council will meet at 7 p.m. at City Hall.

Public Works Director Jim Karch said his staff prepared three options for consideration: leave the existing width at 26 feet; widen it to 30 feet; or widen it more to accommodate bicycle lanes.

The option staff is recommending is widening the street to 30 feet to produce two 10-foot traffic lanes, a 7-foot parking lane and leaving space to add new curb and gutter. The cost is estimated at $625,000.

Those three blocks of Linden were scheduled for resurfacing last summer, but the project was delayed when several residents came forward with objections to the widening plan.

Public Works hosted a public meeting in September and only one of the 11 people who attended spoke in favor of widening, said Karch. All others either spoke against it or did not express an opinion. Many lived near the project area, but not on that stretch of Linden.

The department followed up by sending a mail-in survey to owners of properties that abut the street.

People from nine addresses favored widening the street to 30 feet; people from four addresses objected to widening the street and removing all on-street parking; and four addresses did not return the survey.

"I am very happy that the street is going to be replaced," said Debbie Adkins, who lives across Linden Street from the the cake decorating and candy-making supplies business.

"However I do have concerns about widening it," she said. "We have a lot of traffic going through here now, and it's just going to bring more traffic. We are near the (Bloomington) junior and senior high schools and have a lot of children who walk in this area."

Adkins also is concerned that a wider street could change the neighborhood's character, pointing out that some trees are being removed to make enough space.

"The road needs to be fixed; resurfacing is an imminent need for that neighborhood," said Ward 4 Alderman Amelia Buragas, who represents the area on the council.

"At the same time, there is a concern that the integrity of the area be protected. That is is why we took more time to study whether this would be an intrusion on the neighborhood."

To lessen the impact on properties along the street, the city did not opt to make the traffic lanes 11 or 12 feet wide, which were earlier considerations proposed, noted Buragas.

Linden is designated as a collector street because of its traffic volume of about 4,000 vehicles a day. The Illinois Department of Transportation standard lane width for a collector street is 12 feet, staff noted.
When Dan Bawden teaches contractors and builders about aging-in-place, he has them get into a wheelchair. See what it's like to try to do things from this perspective, he tells them.

That's when previously unappreciated obstacles snap into focus.

Bathroom doorways are too narrow to get through. Hallways don't allow enough room to turn around. Light switches are too high and electrical outlets too low to reach easily. Cabinets beneath a kitchen sink prevent someone from rolling up close and doing the dishes.

It's an "aha moment" for most of his students, who've never actually experienced these kinds of limitations or realized so keenly how home design can interfere with -- or promote -- an individual's functioning.

About 2 million older adults in the U.S. use wheelchairs, according to the U.S. Census Bureau; another 7 million use canes, crutches or walkers.

That number is set to swell with the aging population: Twenty years from now, 17 million U.S. households will include at least one mobility-challenged older adult, according to a December report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

How well has the housing industry accommodated this population?

"Very poorly," said Bawden, chair of the remodelers division at the National Association of Home Builders and president of Legal Eagle Contractors in Bellaire, Texas. "I give them a D."

Researchers at the Harvard center found that fewer than 10 percent of seniors live in homes or apartments outfitted with basic features that enhance accessibility  notably, entrances without steps, extra-wide hallways or doors needed for people with wheelchairs or walkers.

Even less common are features that promote "usability"  carrying out the activities of daily life with a measure of ease and independence.

Laws that guarantee accessibility for people with disabilities go only so far. The Americans with Disabilities Act applies only to public buildings. And while the Fair Housing Act covers apartments and condominiums built after March 1991, its requirements aren't comprehensive and enforcement is spotty.

We asked several experts to describe some common issues mobility-challenged seniors encounter at home, and how they can be addressed. The list below is what they suggested may need attention and has suggested alterations, but is not comprehensive.

Getting inside. A ramp will be needed for homes with steps leading up to the front or back door when someone uses a wheelchair, either permanently or temporarily. The estimated price for a five- to-six foot portable nonslip version: $500 to $600.

You'll want to take out the weather strip at the bottom of the front door and replace it with an automatic door bottom. "You want the threshold to be as flat as the floor is," Bawden said. Consider installing an electronic lock that prevents the need to lean in and insert a key.

Doors. Getting through doorways easily is a problem for people who use walkers or wheelchairs. They should be 34 to 36 inches wide to allow easy access, but almost never are.

Widening a doorway structurally is expensive, with an estimated cost of about $2,500. A reasonable alternative: swing-free hinges, which wrap around the door trim and add about 2 inches of clearance to a door.

Clearance. Ideally, people using wheelchairs need a five-foot-wide path in which to move and turn around, Bawden said. Often that requires getting rid of furniture in the living room, dining room and bedroom.

Another rule of thumb: People in wheelchairs have a reach of 24 to 48 inches. That means they won't be able to reach items in cabinets above kitchen counters or bathroom sinks.

Also, light switches on walls will need to be placed no more than 48 inches from the floor and electrical outlets raised to 18 inches from their usual 14-inch height.

Lighting. Older eyes need more light and distinct contrasts to see well. A single light fixture hanging from the center of the dining room or kitchen probably won't offer enough illumination.

You'll want to distribute lighting throughout each room and consider repainting walls so their colors contrast sharply with your floor materials.

"If someone can afford it, I put in recessed LED lights in all four corners of the bedroom and the living room and install closet rods with LED lights on them," Bawden said. LED lights don't need to be changed as often as regular bulbs.

Kitchen. Mark Lichter, director of the architecture program for Paralyzed Veterans of America, recommends that seniors who use walkers or wheelchairs take time in the kitchen of a unit they're thinking of moving into and imagine preparing a meal.

Typically, cabinets need to be taken out from under the sink, to allow someone with a wheelchair to get up close, Lichter said. The same is true for the stovetop: The area underneath needs to be opened and control panels need to be in front.

Refrigerators with side-by-side doors are preferable to those with freezer areas on the bottom or on top. Slide out full-extension drawers maximize storage space, as can lazy Susans in the corner of bottom cabinets.

Laundry. Get a side-by-side front-loading washer and drier to allow for easy access, instead of machines that are stacked on top of each other.

Bathroom. When Jon Pynoos' frail father-in-law, Harry, who was in his 80s, came to live in a small cottage in back of his house, Pynoos put in a curbless shower with grab bars and a shower seat and a handheld shower head that slid up and down on a pole.

Even a relatively small lip at the edge of the shower can be a fall risk for someone whose balance or movement is compromised.

Also, Pynoos, a professor of gerontology, public policy and urban planning at the University of Southern California, installed nonslip floor tile and grab bars around a "comfort height" toilet.

Cabinets under the sink will need to be removed, and storage space for toiletries moved lower. A moveable toilet paper holder will be better than a wall-based unit for someone with arthritis who has trouble extending an arm sideways.
BLOOMINGTON  The pediatrician who exposed the Flint water crisis will be the Founders Day speaker on Wednesday at Illinois Wesleyan University.

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha will give her talk, The Flint Water Crisis: A Journey for Justice, at 11 a.m. in Presser Hall's Westbrook Auditorium, 1210 N. Park St. The talk is free and open to the public.

Hanna-Attisha, director of the Pediatric Residency Program at Hurley Children's Hospital in Flint, was alerted that Marc Edwards, a water engineer and Virginia Tech University professor, had found high lead levels in the water of Flint residents' homes.

Checking hospital medical records, she found significant increases in children's blood lead levels after the city switched water sources. Flint had been buying Lake Huron water from Detroit, but a cost-cutting switch to the Flint River led to corrosion of pipes and leaching of lead into the water.

High lead levels in children's blood can result in physical and mental harm, including behavioral and learning problems.

When Hanna-Attisha announced her findings at a press conference, state officials initially disputed them. But a little more than a week later, the results were confirmed.

Hanna-Attisha was named a Health Care Hero by Crain's Detroit Business. She also was named one of the Best Physicians of the Year for 2016 by Medscape. She has testified before Congress about the ongoing Flint water crisis.

She directs the Pediatric Public Health Initiative, a joint effort of the Hurley Medical Center and Michigan State University, to research, monitor and mitigate the impact of Flint's water lead crisis.
Tackling mental health and providing affordable housing options were among the priorities identified by candidates vying for McLean County Board seats in the three districts that encompass a majority of the town of Normal.
Gov. Bruce Rauner presents his annual budget address to the Illinois General Assembly on Wednesday. Chances are he will complicate an already complex situation beset by reckless politics, a recently-lowered credit rating, mountains of unpaid bills, underfunded pensions, red ink spending and a possibility the state will stop paying its workers.

Rauner could avoid that by doing what the state constitution says hes supposed to do: Present a truly balanced budget for lawmakers to consider, thereby bringing a sense of order to state government. That wont happen, of course, because, wanting to be re-elected next year, he sure doesnt want only his name attached to the kind of program cuts and tax and fee increases it will take to balance the budget.

Still, the states fiscal hole gets deeper every day and the task of setting things right becomes increasingly difficult as a grand bargain negotiated in the state senate appears ready to unravel.

The governor needs to do something to get the ball rolling in the right direction  something dramatic. Heres what I suggest he says Wednesday:

Members of the General Assembly, my fellow servants of the people of Illinois who are justifiably frustrated  even outraged  that their state government has been without a budget for nearly two years now: Its time for us to end the fiscal bleeding and uncertainty that has put our state and its citizens at risk.

As you know, I have insisted certain changes in state government be attached to any new spending plan. Today I am setting those demands aside and make this offer: I will sign any budget plan sent to me by the General Assembly covering the rest of this fiscal year. You pass it, I will sign it.

I have only two conditions. First, it must be a strictly balanced budget, meaning it contains truly realistic revenue projections and, as necessary, clearly identified cuts in spending. I will share full ownership of that budget. My signature will be on it.

Second, once I have signed the budget, legislative leaders must join me in non-stop negotiations to map out a spending plan for the next fiscal year that begins July 1. These negotiations will occur 12 hours a day, seven days a week until we have an agreement we are all prepared to wholly recommend to legislators from our respective parties.

Speaker Madigan, President Cullerton, I pledge to enter those talks with no pre-conditions. Hopes and desires? Yes. But there can be no hope, no desire greater than to end this deadlock, to set Illinois on a better path and to ensure we have a lot to celebrate next year when our great state observes its 200th birthday.

Go for it, governor. Be a leader. End the stare-down.

A friend now gone

Don Newberg was news director when I joined WJBC Radio long ago. In those days, over-the-air broadcasting was tightly regulated by the federal government to ensure communities were well-served by those given a license to use the publics airwaves.

WJBC was locally-owned back then, and with unending encouragement and support from those owners, Newberg demonstrated how a local radio station could thrive by going far beyond regulatory minimums involving public service and fairness.

As his successful Bloomington Broadcasting career advanced to larger cities, he was many things to many people, returning here in retirement with his lovely wife, Carolyn. He died this week at the age of 84.

Ill most remember Don as a resourceful journalist with a shrewd eye for political mischief, a terrific family man and community servant. We shall miss him and were blessed to know him as a wonderful friend and mentor.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has organized to write and send a letter to United States President Donald Trump, reiterating their support for the continued use of vaccines. The letter was signed by over 300 groups engaged in health and medical care. The pro-vaccine advocates are bent on meeting Trump so they could discuss their stand on the effectiveness and safety of vaccines.

It can be recalled that Trump recently met with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who known for his anti-vaccine stand. The president already showed his anti-vaccine leanings particularly his belief that there is a link between vaccines and autism.

In their letter, the vaccine advocates attested to the safety of vaccines when properly administered, according to The Hill. It added that delaying the administration of vaccines to children will leave them at risk of acquiring diseases. For them, vaccines are still the safest way of preventing disability and even death.

Trump has made anti-vaccine statements prior and during the campaign trail last year, as per Education Week. He signified that he is in favor of the use of vaccines but he wants them administered in small doses over time. Pro-vaccine advocates, however, got worried after Kennedy announced he would be chairing a vaccine safety commission to investigate its integrity scientifically.

The eradication of smallpox in 1977 was attributed to massive vaccinations all over the world, according to Daily Mail. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center showed the overwhelming support of Americans for the administration of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to public school children.

Despite the decline in specific diseases due to vaccines, the U.S. has not been exempted from disease outbreaks that could have been prevented by vaccination. Take for example the Disneyland measles outbreak in 2014.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also reported 48,277 cases of whooping cough or pertussis in 2012, the most number of reported cases since 1955.
A 12-year old boy, who was beaten in the hallway of his school just last week, is now back home. Henry Sembdner went into a coma after the beating but has awake after five days according to a Twitter post by his family.

The school bullying had not received much interest in the media until Sembdner's story got viral. Thanks to the students and the community, the boy's story got passed on online until it got the attention of Anthony Rizzo of the Chicago Cubs. Rizzo publicly declared his support for the boy's plight with the #HenryStrong hashtag.

"Heard you are a big Cubs fan Henry. When you are better I have a couple tickets and BP passes waiting for you at Wrigley. #StayStrong," Rizzo's tweet read.

Heard you are a big @Cubs fan Henry. When you are better I have a couple tickets and BP passes waiting for you at Wrigley. #StayStrong https://t.co/VYDFPE9rY0  Anthony Rizzo (@ARizzo44) February 7, 2017

Reports showed Sembdner got slammed to the ground by a fellow student at South Elgin's Kenyon Woods Middle School in Illinois, according to CBS News. The unfortunate incident happened after Sembdner bumped into the student.

Sembdner suffered injuries, which doctors claimed were very serious. Aside from getting multiple fractures in the face, he was also diagnosed with brain bleeding, as per Daily Mail. The boy was brought to the Advocate Lutheran General Hospital after the incident, and according to this mom, showed daily improvements in his condition.

Through a blog post, his mom Karen informed his followers that the boy was awake and his intubation was already removed by doctors. Sembdner got home Tuesday night and Rizzo tweeted his happiness about the news and said he would be seeing Sembdner at Wrigley come summertime.

Glad you are home Buddy. Keep staying #HenryStrong. See you at Wrigley this summer. https://t.co/hJ8etgpgwE  Anthony Rizzo (@ARizzo44) February 8, 2017

A GoFundMe account opened by the father of one of Sembdner's friends was able to raise $21,270, according to the GoFundMe website. Another account at the funding site was able to raise $24,951 out of the $25,000 target. The money raised by the two accounts would all go to Sembdner's family as they still have to worry about his medical condition due to the extent of his injuries.
Nap clubs in schools are gaining more attention. Sleep-deprived and weary students meet regularly in quiet rooms to catch up on sleep and their teachers are encouraging this.

Some schools even sponsor the clubs with comfortable sleep facilities and consultations with experts. Lack of sleep is not only affecting school performance and students' focus as the kids also develop health problems.

Teen students, as it is, are not getting the recommended hours of sleep. The academic demands of completing school works and projects, over-scheduling activities, the early school start times and the distraction on the internet are some of the reasons why kids averagely get less than six hours of shut-eye.

The Las Cruces Public Schools in New Mexico has invested in four EnergyPods for students and teachers. Boston Community Leadership Academy has the Path Program, where students are allowed one period daily for sleeping, resting or de-stressing without gadgets, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Chicago Public Schools are working with the University of Chicago Crime Lab on a study that lets students sleep or meditate for 20 minutes. In other schools across America, kids who make good grades are allowed to sleep in for their first period.

"It is not a substitute for getting eight to ten hours of nightly sleep, but it does recharge the batteries," teacher Anton Anderson told Education World. He has established the Power Napping Club at the Greenwich High School in Connecticut since 1998.

The students in this club meet in an empty classroom to slump on a chair or sleep on the floor as soothing music plays. The club meetings have become a routine, which many members said they can't do at home because there are too many distractions.

Some parents might not approve of allowing kids to snooze in school. Some might think this system coddles the students. Experts, however, have long been saying teen students are sleep-deprived, according to Science News. It's high time schools are addressing this.
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Peter Witucki and David Allen: What democracy could look like
Saturday Link Love is a new feature where I collect and post links to various articles Ive come upon over the past week. Feel free to share any interesting articles youve come along as well! The more the merrier.

Jackie Rayos-Garcia Tells About the Deportation of Her Mother, Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, on Teen VogueOn Wednesday, immigration authorities detained her mom, Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, who goes by Lupita. By Thursday morning, Lupita was deported to Mexico.

Why Sanctuary Cities Are Safer, on NPRBut the available data on crime, immigration, and safety in cities does not support the premise for the presidents actions.

Reactionary Homeschooling, on Coalition for Responsible Home EducationAt CRHE, we sometimes receive questions from individuals planning in advance to homeschool. Sometimes  they plan to homeschool because  they disagree with the education policies of the state or nation.

Shoker! Rediculous chocker Trump attaks and dishoners English with ever-dimmer spellings, on Washington PostThe English language was unprepared for the attak. It was destined to loose. And, inevitably, it chocked.

And Then the Breitbart Lynch Mob Came for Me, on Foreign PolicySometimes I wonder who they are, these people who spend their free time sending vitriolic messages to strangers.

The TSAs Bad Science Revealed, on SkepchickNot only was there no convincing scientific evidence to be found in the TSAs files, but the ACLU found that the TSA has been lying to Congress claiming the opposite in order to continue getting funding.

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News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
Intel realizes there will be a post-Moores Law era and is already investing in technologies to drive computing beyond todays PCs and servers.

The chipmaker is investing heavily in quantum and neuromorphic computing, said Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel, during a question-and-answer session at the companys investor day on Thursday.

We are investing in those edge type things that are way out there, Krzanich said.

To give an idea of how far out these technologies are, Krzanich said his daughter would perhaps be running the company by then.

Researching in these technologies, which are still in their infancy, is something Intel has to do to survive for many more decades. Shrinking silicon chips and cramming more features into them is becoming difficult, and Intel is already having trouble in manufacturing smaller chips.

Smartphones, PCs, and other devices are getting smaller, faster and more power efficient thanks to Moores Law, a 1965 observation loosely stating that the number of transistors in a die area would double every two years, causing performance to double while driving down the cost of making chips.

Intel has been using Moores Law as a guiding star to make faster and smaller chips and reducing the price of devices. However, it is widely agreed that Moores Law is slowly dying, and Intels manufacturing struggles are growing.

For decades, Intels business has been heavily reliant on its ability to make and deliver chips. But the process is slowing down. Intel used to advance manufacturing processes every two years, and that has now changed to three to four years.

One way to resolve that crisiswhich all chipmakers faceis to completely change the current computing model in PCs, smartphones, and servers. The current modelknown as the Von Neumann approachinvolves data being pushed to a processor, calculated, and sent back to memory. But storage and memory are becoming bottlenecks.

The answer is to adopt new models of computing, which is where quantum computers and neuromorphic chips fit in. Quantum computers have the potential to be powerful computers harnessing the unique quality of a large number of qubits to perform multiple calculations in parallel. Neuromorphic chips are modeled after the human brain, which could help computers make decisions based on patterns and associations.

Intel has made some advances in quantum computing and neuromorphic chips. But Krzanichs comments lend more credibility to the companys push to look at a future beyond todays computing models.

Some short-term answers can resolve the bottlenecks based on Von Neumann model, including Optane, Intels new form of super-fast memory and storage. It could unite SSDs and DRAM in systems, cutting one bottleneck. Intel is also embracing silicon photonics, which could resolve throughput issues in data centers. Both technologies have researched for more than a decade and are now practical.

The chipmaker has lived off the PC industry for decades but is now looking to grow in markets like data centers, the internet of things, automotive and high-performance computing. The new focus is bringing a gradual change to the way Intel makes chips. Its similar to the 1970s, when different types of chips like vector processors and floating point arrays were crammed together for complex calculations.

For example, Intel is slapping together two separate functional blocks for applications like machine learning and autonomous cars. Intel envisions FPGAs combining with CPUs in autonomous cars. Later this year, the company will release a chip called Lake Crest, which combines a Xeon server CPU with deep-learning chip technology it picked up through its Nervana Systems acquisition. Intel is also merging an FPGA inside an Intel Xeon chip to carry out machine learning tasks.

Intel is expecting a lot of data to be generated by sources like autonomous cars, which will need edge processing for tasks like image recognition, analysis, and map updates. Intel is pushing its wide roster of co-processors to the edge, and that is where the quantum and neuromorphic chips may fit.

Quantum computer research is also being done by other companies. D-Wave recently released a 2,000-qubit quantum computer based on quantum annealing, while IBM has a 5-bit quantum computer accessible via the cloud. IBM is also playing with brain-like chips and has benchmarked its TrueNorth chip, which has a million neurons and 256 million synapses.

Academic institutions like the University of Heidelberg in Germany, Stanford University, and the University of Manchester in the U.K. are also working on neuromorphic chips. HPE has shown a computer that emulates the human brain, and it intends to adapt ideas from that for servers.
REACH Air Medical Services is hoping the old real estate maxim  location, location, location  helps it become the go-to air ambulance company for southwest Riverside Countys hospitals.

In April, the Santa Rosa-based company will be opening a base at French Valley Airport, its first in western Riverside County. It will include office space and crew quarters inside Hangar 51 and a dedicated parking spot for its Airbus EC-135 helicopter near the runway.

Matthew McLuckie, a former pilot who is the company spokesman, said the French Valley airport is about 10-15 minutes closer by air than the facility in Hemet, where Mercy Air, REACHs main competition, has a base.

We just felt that the volume of traffic and the rising need for air ambulance service, in specifically the French Valley area, would make for a successful program for us, he said.

Hospitals typically call an air ambulance to transport a patient who needs specialized care, with insurance generally picking up the cost of a flight. Hospitals also call on behalf of patients who request a specific carrier, which could give REACH another entry point into the market.

In touch-and-go situations, every minute counts, and McLuckie said hospitals generally call the service that is closer to make sure the patient is getting to the trauma center or childrens hospital, for instance, in the shortest amount of time.

The addition of the base in French Valley also should help area residents, he said, if Mercys air ambulance is not available for some reason or already is engaged in a flight.

More helicopters are better, he said.

Ken Engelman, owner of Hangar 51, said he could have leased the space to a private jet owner or some other type of business, but he liked the idea of having an ambulance base under his roof.

Its a community thing, he said Thursday. Its not just a client.

There is a significant cost associated with the use of an air ambulance if a flight is not covered by insurance  some companies charge tens of thousands of dollars  but people can sign up for a membership with AirMedCare Network, which covers out-of-pocket expenses for members in the event of an emergency transport. A membership runs around $65 a year and helps prevent cases in which an insurer will cover only a portion of the cost, which is called balance billing.

The flight crew on a REACH helicopter includes a critical care nurse and a paramedic, or two nurses, and a pilot.

The company uses an Airbus EC-135 with dual engines that can fly at air speeds of up to 150 mph, according to a release.

The helicopters (instrument flight rules) capability allows it to fly when other aircraft may be grounded due to weather, said Anna Blair, vice president of strategy for REACH. It has the capacity to transport the patient, flight crew and whenever possible a family member.

The French Valley facility will be REACHs eighth in Southern California and will serve as a backup resource for bases serving Imperial, Riverside and San Diego counties. Other bases are in Thermal and Upland.

Officials at Temecula Valley Hospital and Southwest Healthcare System, which runs two hospitals in the region, said Friday they are aware of REACHs move into the market and said they would talk with the company about working with it in the future.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9698 or aclaverie@scng.com
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos nomination and approval certainly riled up teachers unions across the country, causing panic that their power over education policy may finally be challenged.

DeVos has made clear that advocating for school choice will be a central part of how she approaches her job, something that evidently unnerves the education establishment.

DeVos shows an antipathy for public schools; a full-throttled embrace of private, for-profit alternatives and a lack of basic understanding of what children need to succeed in school, said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, upon DeVos confirmation. Similarly, the National Education Association took the occasion to call for resistance to the Trump-DeVos agenda.

What precisely constitutes this agenda isnt clear, but most of the rhetoric flung around involves fear-mongering that public education is suddenly at risk, that corporate profiteers will be let loose to exploit students and that poor and minority students are at risk of not getting the sort of education they need.

The panicked rhetoric seems to stem from DeVos long history of advocacy for charter schools and school vouchers. In her home state of Michigan, DeVos and her husband have championed charter schools  to positive effect.

According to studies conducted by Stanford Universitys Center for Research on Education Outcomes, Michigan charter school students, on average, make larger learning gains in both reading and mathematics than Michigan students in traditional public schools. Similar findings were identified in Detroit charter schools, with African American, Hispanic, low-income and special education students making larger gains in both reading and mathematics than students in traditional schools.

With respect to vouchers, the experience of the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program has demonstrated that voucher programs can yield positive educational outcomes, including higher graduation rates.

Notably, DeVos has repeatedly stressed that education policy is better made at the state and local level, which, if she sticks to her word, should allay any rational concern that what well see is expansive federal overreach into education, which certainly should be avoided.

Of course, the hyperpoliticized teachers unions cant resist appealing to manufactured fear over DeVos to advance their own agenda. The California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers, for example, are asking Californians to take a pledge in support of the public education all Californias students deserve. According to the unions, attaining public education that students deserve requires one to support sanctuary cities and the belief that social justice for all begins with a quality, free public education, whatever that means.

Are California students receiving a quality public education today? Less than half of California students met statewide reading and math standards last year, with just 48 percent meeting or exceeding reading standards and only 37 percent doing the same in mathematics. Minority and low-income students fare even worse under a status quo that has seen consistent growth in school budgets, bond funding and teacher pension obligations, but abysmal educational outcomes.

Perhaps what threatens teachers unions the most is the prospect of a renewed focus on accountability, competition and choice in education. Parents want the best education for their students. Whether education is made available via traditional public schools, charter schools or private schools, what ultimately matters is whether students actually receive the best education they can get.
On Friday, Feb. 10, Colton police arrested a man suspected in a rash of recent burglaries that plagued businesses.

Daniel Warn, 29, was arrested on suspicion of burglary and possession of stolen property, San Bernardino County sheriffs booking records show. He was booked into West Valley Detention Center, where his bail was set at $25,000.

According to a Colton police news release, officers have responded to a rash of window smash type burglaries in recent weeks.

Shortly after 8 a.m. Friday, an employee at one of the burglarized businesses recognized the suspect. The news release did not state how or where the suspect was recognized or whether the suspect had previously been identified as Warn.

Warn reportedly ran away when officers arrived at the location in the 1400 block East Washington Street and tried to hide.

The suspect was found to have property in his possession linking him to other area burglaries, the news release states.

Police ask anyone with information that might help their investigation to call the department at 909-370-5000.
In 1994, debate over immigration, especially of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, nearly tore California apart.

Back then, the state had an estimated 1.3 million undocumented immigrants and was already facing economic challenges as the federal government shut down military bases as part of the Clinton administrations Reinventing Government initiative.

There was really a perfect storm going on in the 1990s, between the base closures, businesses going to other states and the immigrant population coming into the state, said Marcia Godwin, an associate professor of Public Administration at the University of La Verne.

That year, former Monrovia assemblyman Dick Mountjoy introduced Proposition 187, the Save Our State initiative, proposing to create a state-run immigration system and deny most public benefits, including K-12 education, to undocumented immigrants.

Nearly six out of 10 Californians voted in favor of it.

Now, after President Donald Trump temporarily blocked the entry of most residents of seven predominantly Muslim countries  an executive order halted in the courts  issued another order to deny federal funds to sanctuary cities that refuse to aid federal immigration officials, and talks about making good on his campaign promise of building a big beautiful wall along the Mexican border, experts say Californias experience 23 years ago may foreshadow the national discussion today.

Given the size of the immigrant community in California, were on the leading edge of the debate, said Jack Pitney, a professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College. Many communities in the United States are now seeing large numbers of immigrants where they didnt see them before, and that tends to change attitudes.

Between 2007 and 2014, the nations Hispanic population only grew by about 2.8 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. But the fastest growth was in regions not traditionally thought of as Hispanic centers, including the South and North Dakota.

What you have in other states is definitely an increase in diversity and, through the recession, an increase in the number of undocumented workers, as well, Godwin said. The number of undocumented workers in North Carolina went from 25,000 in 1990 to something over 300,000 today.

Nationally, there are about 8 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center, a number thats been stable since about 2009.

The kind of demographic changes we saw in California are not going to occur in the United States for at least a few more decades, said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of Political Science at University of California, Riverside. The baseline Hispanic population of California was much higher by the 1980s than it is today in Georgia or parts of the Midwest.

Proposition 187 was met with legal challenges almost immediately after it passed. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against its implementation just three days after Election Day 1994. In 1999, Democratic Gov. Gray Davis withdrew the states appeals to the legal challenges, and Proposition 187 was dead.

Californians attitude toward immigration has softened. Today, more than 80 percent of them support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Over time, its likely there will be larger acceptance, because immigrants tend to assimilate, Pitney said, in part, because they tend to marry native-born residents.

Immigration debates arent new.

Over the course of American history, many immigrant groups that were considered alien in the nasty sense are just now part of the American fabric. Italians, for instance, were long considered an other, Pitney said. But thats going to take quite a while.

Whether Americans attitudes will follow Californians remains to be seen.

We might see a similar shift where you see a peak of polarization and then some kind of tipping point, politically, Godwin said. But its really hard to project that onto every state in the union.

Godwin thinks some swing states, and even some GOP strongholds, are likely to follow Californias path as their demographics shift.

Texas and Florida are the ones to watch, politically, because their demographic shift comes closest to what California has experienced, she said.

In the meantime, Godwin cautions the Republican Party not to overplay its hand. She pointed to a 1994 gubernatorial campaign ad by Republican governor Pete Wilson, which showed people crossing the border from Mexico, and touted Wilsons sending the California National Guard to the border to combat illegal immigration.

It really created lasting hostility to the Republican Party. It was not just seen as being negative to illegal immigrants but as being racist against Hispanics, she said.

The 1994 California GOP approach didnt just turn off Hispanic voters, it alienated not only Latino voters but white moderate voters as well, Ramakrishnan said.

John Husing, chief economist for the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, thinks lasting damage may have already been done to the Republican Party, similar to the effect Barry Goldwaters 1964 presidential campaign had on the black vote. Goldwater, who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, is often blamed for black voters turning against the Republican Party, despite more than 80 percent of Republicans in Congress voting in favor of it. Fifty-two years later, 80 percent of black voters voted Democratic in the November 2016 presidential election.

Its pretty clear to me that what the Republican Party is doing is pretty much guaranteeing an overwhelming anti-Republican vote out of a community that the Republicans have clearly decided to alienate, Husing said. And once you lose it, you dont get it back. Thats very clear in California.

As of Oct. 24, 2016, only 26 percent of the 19.4 million Californians registered to vote declared themselves to be Republicans, according to California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. In 1994, 37.2 percent of the states 14.3 million voters were registered Republicans.

The party has almost been destroyed in the state, Husing said.

Republican strategists have been aware of this problem for a while. In 2013, GOP leaders, including current White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, created an autopsy report after the losing 2012 presidential election. It called on the party to become more inclusive toward minorities. Trump was not a fan, asking on Twitter if the GOP had a death wish.

Trump proved you could win the nomination without moderating his tone, Ramakrishnan said. Trump not only ignored that playbook, but he used the antithesis of that playbook and won.

Husing thinks its now too late for the GOP, even if they win the current battles.

Realistically, I think for the Republican Party, the war is over, he said.

In the meantime, those national demographic changes didnt happen fast enough to swing the 2016 presidential election to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, as some had predicted.

America has changed enormously since the early 90s and the changes are going to keep going on, Pitney said. Its not going to go as fast as Democrats read into it. They were expecting a thrill ride on a glacier, but glaciers are powerful in the long run.

Contact the writer: byarbrough@scng.com@LBY3 on Twitter
A few days after scores of residents gave impassioned comments on whether Riverside should become a sanctuary city, the City Council doesnt appear likely to take action on the topic.

So what happens next?

Only the mayor, council members and city officials can place items on the councils agenda. But the sanctuary proposal, made by resident Rafael Elizalde and the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, soon could get a hearing in another forum.

Monrow Mabon, a pastor at Riversides Allen Chapel, said hes trying to get the issue on the agenda for a Thursday meeting of the citys Human Relations Commission, which Mabon chairs. However, the commission only advises the council and doesnt make city policy.

Sanctuary cities, immigration concerns, President Donald Trumps travel ban and his earlier suggestion of a Muslim registry are expected to be discussed March 4 at Riverside Standing Together, a public forum being organized by the citys faith community, Mabon said.

In sanctuary cities, law enforcement does not cooperate with federal immigration officials to identify immigrants here illegally. Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities, leading California state legislators to pursue creating a so-called sanctuary state.

In Riverside, Police Chief Sergio Diaz said, police cooperate with federal immigration officials when appropriate but do not routinely ask people for documents or initiate investigations into their immigration status.

Elizaldes proposal asked the council to declare that immigration law is a federal responsibility and that the city would not collect or share data such as religion or citizenship status to help create a national registry or enforce immigration law.

On Tuesday, residents addressed the council for more than three hours on the issue. Sanctuary supporters also staged a rally outside City Hall.

Riverside officials typically have not taken positions on big legal and social issues that the city has no real authority over, Councilman Mike Gardner said.

City Councilman Mike Soubirous said all but two of nearly 40 emails he got from constituents opposed a sanctuary city declaration.

Mabon said city leaders say Riverside is inclusive and accepting, so its time for them to step up and show it.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9461 orarobinson@scng.comTwitter: @arobinson_pe
North Etiwanda Preserve in Rancho Cucamonga was closed about 9:30 a.m. Friday morning, Feb. 10, while authorities searched for a suicidal male who went missing from his home Thursday night, police reported.

His body was later found by a search and rescue team, San Bernardino County Sheriffs Deputy Jacob Bailey said. He did not know the persons age or when and where his body was found.

Authorities searched the preserve because the missing person was known to frequent it, Bailey said.
At the eastern base of the Bernasconi Hills, just above Lakeview, lie some sloping plains that are barren today.

But in the late 1890s, they sprang forth with a small settlement called Colony Heights.

Colony Heights was the dream of the Rev. John T. Davis, a Seventh Day Baptist minister whose intention was to found a colony of like-minded people in Southern California. By fall 1894, he had enough families and cash to arrive in Southern California and buy a tract of about 2,000 acres and form the Colony Heights Land and Water Co. The next January, a map was filed subdividing the 2,000 acres into various-sized lots.

The word was out among the Seventh Day Baptist community throughout the United States that this new colony was open for settlement to any who came.

Improvements soon began to be seen at Colony Heights. Fruit trees and alfalfa were planted. Wells were dug to provide irrigation and domestic water. Settlers built houses and, of course, a church that also served as a community center. The little community began to thrive.

One family that heard the call to Colony Heights was that of John Furrow.

Furrow and his three children left their home in Calhan, Colo., in October 1895 and went on a four-month journey to Colony Heights. When they arrived, they were greeted heartily by the Davis family and Furrow immediately began to go to work.

A later retrospective on the venture, titled Furrows of the Land and written by Furrows daughter Nellie Furrow Daland, indicated that, for most of the people who settled in Colony Heights, there never was enough water to accomplish all that they wanted.

Many of the people put a lot of money into a concrete irrigation system. Many wells were dug, usually by hand and always deeper than previous ones. Food was scarce, but one thing was readily available  oranges from Riverside and Redlands.

Furrow Daland recalled that oranges of inferior size or color were culled from the harvest and dumped out in the country. They availed themselves of these free oranges often and feasted on them while they waited for their own water and crops.

As 1896 became 1897, it became obvious to more than one of the families at Colony Heights that the venture was not going to work.

Water was not forthcoming, so residents began looking for work in San Jacinto and Moreno to get by. Eventually, the Furrows and other families packed up their belongings and moved to Moreno and Riverside. Several of the houses and other buildings were moved into those towns.

Rosa Davis, the daughter of Rev. Davis and the towns schoolteacher, moved the schoolhouse into Riverside, where it was put on a lot on Date Street. Research into that lot shows that it is now where the 91 freeway is located, so the schoolhouse is long gone.

By the turn of the 20th century, Colony Heights had joined the ranks of many towns that had come and gone during the countys formative years. Once in a while, an old map will appear showing the location of Colony Heights, but anymore, the little town only helps to date those old maps.

If you have an idea for a future Back in the Day column, contact Steve Lech and Kim Jarrell Johnson at backinthedaype@gmail.com.
Sam Peeples smiled as he communicated with Diane Cook using a video phone and sign language.

Cook, a 59-year-old Desert Hot Springs resident who has cerebral palsy, is looking forward to moving into her new home for deaf people with disabilities in the next few weeks.

I need to get out of here, she told Peeples, the administrator of California Home for the Adult Deaf. Where Im at right now isnt deaf-friendly.

The nonprofit recently received its license from the California Department of Social Services to open a six-bedroom assisted living home for deaf people near California Baptist University. It mostly serves people who are 55 and older but allows residents as young as 35 or 40 who have multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, autism or other conditions, Peeples said.

Residents will start arriving in mid-March, he said.

The group, which started as the California Home for the Aged Deaf, had been in Arcadia since it opened in 1964. Financial problems led to the decision to sell the property in November 2015.

Peeples was hired a month later to direct the move to the Riverside home, which is under a five-year lease.

The proximity to California School for the Deaf, Riverside, and the citys large deaf population made Riverside an ideal spot, he said.

The city has one of the regions few open-caption movie theaters with subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing, he said.

Six residents who lived in Arcadia were moved to another assisted living home in Desert Hot Springs more than a year ago. It took the group longer than expected to get state approval to operate in Riverside.

Three residents plan to move to Riverside, and the other tenants will come from a waiting list, Peeples said.

For many years, the nonprofit relied on donations from deaf people, charities and service clubs to stay afloat, but the money slowly dried up, he said.

Peeples seeks the Riverside communitys help to make ends meet.

He hopes to break even by charging each resident $3,500 per month for rent. Thats the cost for three meals and two snacks a day, plus laundry, housekeeping, transportation, utilities, help with medicine, bathing and other expenses, Peeples said.

Most residents are on fixed incomes and receive about $1,000 a month in Social Security checks.

We need financial assistance to subsidize the deaf people who cant afford to live in a place like this, he said.

The home, which has a video telephone, audible alarm and strobe light in each room, features a craft and game room as well as a solarium with views of backyard citrus trees.

Nine employees, including Peeples, will work there, he said.

His goal is to have at least five other homes for the deaf in the Riverside area.

I love it, said Cook, who recently toured the new home. Im very happy to move there.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9292 orstwall@scng.comTwitter: @pe_swall
Riverside was among three counties added Friday, Feb. 10, by Gov. Jerry Brown to his Presidential Major Disaster Declaration, allowing Caltrans to request federal dollars to repair state highways in the county.

Brown issued two proclamations Jan. 23 to bolster ongoing state and local recovery efforts after January storms that caused flooding, mudslides, erosion, power outages and damage to critical infrastructure across California.

Browns order Friday added Riverside, Mono and Amador counties to the list of 49 counties in the declaration.

Fridays order also authorized state funding through the California Disaster Assistance Act for 34 counties affected by the storms and directed Caltrans to formally request immediate assistance through the Federal Highway Administrations Emergency Relief Program for Riverside and Amador counties.
A Riverside County sheriffs deputy shot an armed man early Friday afternoon, Feb. 10, in the Rubidoux area of Jurupa Valley after the man advanced on the deputy, the Sheriffs Department said.

The man, whose name was not announced Friday, was in stable condition at a hospital, Sgt. Chris Durham said.

About 12:50 p.m., a deputy pulled over a white GMC Yukon on Canal Street west of La Rue Street because of a vehicle code violation, a news release said. The deputy asked the driver to get out, and when he did, the driver immediately became combative, the release said.

The man, carrying a weapon, advanced on the deputy and was shot when he ignored commands to drop it. The release did not describe the weapon.

The deputy, whose name was not released Friday, was placed on administrative leave per department policy.

Neighbors said they heard two gunshots.

Canal runs parallel to the 60 Freeway to the south and railroad tracks and La Canada Drive to the north.

Canal and La Canada were blocked at different points between Pacific Avenue and La Rue by yellow police tape well into the afternoon. The tape also blocked railroad tracks, which residents say are occasionally used by freight trains hauling lumber.

About a dozen investigators remained at the scene in the late afternoon, looking for forensic evidence and going door-to-door seeking witnesses.

At the home nearest the shooting, about 40 yards away, a man swept a driveway and a young child scooted about in a mini ATV, neither one of them paying attention to the gaggle of detectives conferring nearby.

The Sheriffs Department asked anyone with information on the incident to cal Central Homicide Investigator Moody at 760-393-3525 or Investigator Boyd at 951-955-2600.
Deputies Thursday, Feb. 9, arrested a Crest Park man for allegedly supplying drugs to minors, according to a San Bernardino County sheriffs news release.

Michael Shane Oberdick, 35, was arrested on suspicion of furnishing drugs to minors and child endangerment, the news release states. He was booked into the West Valley Detention Center where his bail was set at $200,000, sheriffs booking records show.

A deputy was dispatched 8:07 a.m. Thursday to the 27500 block of Meadow Drive in Crest Park, near Lake Arrowhead, after a report of a runaway juvenile at a home, the news release states. The deputy found Oberdick at the home, as well as a 14-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl hiding in a bedroom.

Deputies discovered Oberdick had been supplying illegal controlled substances to the victims, as well as other high school students, the news release states. A search warrant was authored for Oberdicks residence and during the search, deputies located methamphetamine, heroin and drug paraphernalia.

The Sheriffs Department believes Oberdick may have supplied drugs to other students from a nearby high school and asks anyone with information to call 909-336-0600 or the anonymous WeTip hotline at 800-782-7463.
A Fontana man made his first appearance in federal court Friday, Feb. 10 accused of striking an in-flight Ontario police helicopter with a hand-held laser in 2015.

Asarel Felix Lombera, 28, was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles accused of pointing the laser at the police helicopter, according to a U.S. Attorneys news release.

Lombera negotiated a plea agreement with prosecutors in December.

On Feb. 21, 2015, tactical flight officers with the Ontario Police Department were patrolling overhead near John Galvin Park in Ontario, when the laser beam struck the helicopter, creating a prism effect in the cockpit and causing a member of the flight crew to become momentarily dazed, according to the statement.

In his plea agreement, Lombera admitted that he knew that it was dangerous and distracting to shoot the laser at the helicopter, according to the dispatch.

As lasers and drones become more affordable and available, members of the public must be extremely conscious of the dangers these technologies pose to aircraft and law enforcement, United States Attorney Eileen M. Decker said in a statement. In this case, the defendant targeted a helicopter in flight, endangering the flight crew and, potentially, civilians on the ground.

Once he pleads guilty, the defendant will face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison, the statement reads. Lombera will also be subject to potential civil penalties by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Reports of laser attacks have increased dramatically in recent years, with 1,238 laser strikes reported in California last year, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
San Gorgonio Memorial Hospital is in a dispute with Beaver Medical Group over the transfer of patients from the hospitals emergency room to Redlands Community Hospital and elsewhere that Banning hospital officials say they are qualified to treat.

Redlands-based Beaver Medical Group, which has offices near the Highland Springs Avenue hospital, is denying the Jan. 9 change in its patient admitting protocol is linked to San Gorgonios cancellation of a management agreement with EPIC Management LP, which continues to serve the Beaver group. The contract was canceled by mutual agreement last year.

In the first month, San Gorgonio officials say at least 45 managed care patients were identified for transfer from the Banning emergency room, with most sent to Redlands Community Hospital.

When Beaver Medical Group patients arrive at the San Gorgonio emergency room, they are seen by an ER physician. At some point, calls are made to a Beaver Medical Group case manager or physician, and a determination is made to admit or transfer the patient.

Some waits for the decision have taken two to three hours and in one complex case more than a day, according to a report prepared for the Banning hospitals board.

San Gorgonio has 23 rooms for patients in the emergency room, a five-bed rapid care unit for people who arrive with complaints like a cough, cold or some fevers and 79 licensed inpatient beds, including the intensive care unit.

During the wait for decisions, The patient is being cared for but also its backing us up in the emergency department, said Dr. Jerilynn Kaibel, chairwoman of the San Gorgonio Memorial Hospital board of directors. In some cases, that leaves patients on gurneys in the hallways.

The transfers are only being made where its appropriate for patients and care, said Dr. Richard Hill, president of Beaver Medical Group board who has a family medicine practice in Yucaipa and Redlands.

He contends any delays have been on the San Gorgonio administration side, but he declined to elaborate. Hill said he had seen a report that only 40 out of 100 patients were transferred and that Beaver is not going to abandon using the Banning hospital.

After the change last month, San Gorgonio posted letters in the hospital to alert the community that Beavers decision was done without consulting SGMH and with very little notice to us, and it appears, no notice to their members, San Gorgonio Chief Executive Officer Mark Turner wrote in a letter posted at the hospital.

Hill said Beaver discussed the change with San Gorgonio officials in December. It was not something that caught them by surprise, he said.

San Gorgonio received the notice about five days before the change, Turner said by phone.

Beaver doctors have admitted patients to San Gorgonio for more than two decades, and transfers did occur previously. For example, San Gorgonio does not have a pediatrics unit, treatment for certain stroke cases or cardiovascular surgery.

Under the new practice, at least two or three patients left the Banning emergency room against medical advice, not wanting to be transferred, Turner said. From talking to the nursing staff, he said, Most often these transfers are for care we can safely provide at our hospital.

San Gorgonio officials say nonphysicians are making transfer decisions. Turner said Beaver transfers are taking longer than the norm for other care providers like Kaiser Permanente.

Hill of Beaver said, This has to do with the change occurring in health care now and is related to patients served by health management organizations where there is a contract for services with physicians groups and hospitals.

Turner wrote in the notice to the community that if these transfers are being done for financial or other reasons, and patient care is not being given top priority, we will pursue all legal and regulatory means to ensure timely and appropriate patient care.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9075 or gwesson@scng.com
Lawful permanent residents who for years thought they were safe in the United States are now seeking citizenship in the wake of President Donald Trumps immigration actions.

Theres so much speculation about possible immigration changes that could harm even us, as legal permanent residents, said Austreberta Ayon, 66, who received a green card in 1975 after being sponsored by her then-husband.

Ayon often travels to Tijuana to visit her sister or see a dentist. Its something that she, as a permanent resident, has felt safe doing for years.

But now, shes taking extra precautions. Shes aiming to become a U.S. citizen after a number of green card holders were affected by Trumps travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

http://cdn.thinglink.me/jse/embed.js

Areej Ali, a green card holder, was one of those affected. The Fontana woman was coming home from the Sudan when she was detained for 12 hours in Saudi Arabia while attempting to board a connecting flight.

The travel ban, though, is on hold after a federal appeals court Feb. 9 declined to reinstate it, upholding a Seattle judges Feb. 3 ruling.

What immigrants are realizing is that a green card is no longer enough, especially under the new White House administration, said Luz Gallegos with TODEC Legal Center, an pro-immigrant organization serving the Inland area.

RELATED: ICE calls surge of SoCal immigrant arrests routine but some fear its the new normal

Trump has also moved to cut federal grants for sanctuary cities protecting immigrants. In prioritizing who gets to be deported, Trump is broadening the definition of criminal immigrants. For example, any unauthorized immigrant who has committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense, can be deported. This can include anyone who law enforcement believes has violated a law.

All this has worried many green card holders.

They want to apply for citizenship as soon as possible  just to make sure they secure their stay in the United States, Gallegos said. Were used to seeing the fear from the undocumented community, but now we also see it with legal permanent residents.

Lawful permanent residents  more commonly referred to as green card holders  can live, work, study, and own property in the United States. Having this status means they were lawfully admitted for permanent residency in this country. They can apply for U.S. citizenship if their green card has been valid for five years, or after three years if theyre married to an American citizen.

RELATED: More undocumented immigrants live in Southern California than anywhere else in U.S.

Immigrants earn green cards through four main avenues: family sponsorship, a job offer from a U.S. employer, humanitarian reasons, and annual green card lotteries, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.

In 2015, more than one million people received green cards, according to the most recent figures from the Department of Homeland Securitys Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.

An analysis by the Migration Policy Institute showed that from 2003 to 2013, between 60 and 70 percent of immigrants obtained green cards through family sponsorship.

And immigrant rights organizers estimate that more than 2.2 million in California qualify for citizenship. Across the nation, about 8.8 million are eligible.

Thats why the Los Angeles-based Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights on Jan. 31 announced it was offering 100 days of free naturalization help for legal residents.

The group is providing this service three days a week, and about 30 show up per day. Thats unprecedented, given that in a normal week, only a couple of people go in for these kind of services, said Jose-Mario Cabrera, the coalitions spokesman.

This underscores the uncertainty of living as an immigrant, documented or not in the Trump administration, Cabrera said. Lawful permanent residents know, or they should know, that citizenship is the one immigration status that no one can take away.

Not a lifetime pass

Cabrera said theres a misconception that the word permanent directly translates into a lifelong stay for green card holders.

Thats not the case.

Green card holders can be deported and typically because of criminal offenses, said immigration attorney Hadley Bajramovic. A controlled substance conviction, for example, can cause a green card holder to be deported, she said.

Lawful permanent residents who are away from the U.S. for a certain amount of time are also at risk, Bajramovic said. When attempting to re-enter the U.S., they may go through an added layer of inspection or may even undergo removal proceedings, she said.

Theres a presumption of abandonment (of their green card), Bajramovic said.

Because of this, Gallegos, from TODEC Legal Center, said they stress citizenship year-round.

But obstacles remain.

The naturalization process is not cheap. Applicants must pay a $640 citizenship application fee and $85 for a background check.

Language can be another barrier. Immigrants must take a civics test in English, however, people who are 50 or older and who have lived as lawful permanent residents for 20 years are exempt from the English language component.

Lastly, Gallegos said there are still many immigrants, particularly Mexican nationals, who as she put it, Dont want to leave la patria (the homeland).

They feel like they are turning their backs on their country, she said. Gallegos stresses the importance of their dual citizenship.

Of course we love our country, but we also migrated from our country to be here for a better life, Gallegos said. The reality is that were living now as immigrants, either legally, documented, or as U.S. citizens and we have to accommodate ourselves here, especially with our new administration.

Ayon, a native of the Mexican state of Jalisco, passed her civics test on Tuesday, Feb. 7. She was told to wait for a written decision on whether her citizenship application was approved.

In the U.S., shes made a living working as a cashier for grocery stores. She has a U.S. citizen son who lives in San Diego. And shes planning on taking classes to perfect her English. She lives with her partner who is a Vietnam war veteran.

If they dont grant me citizenship, Oh well, she said. Im already here.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9462, amolina@scng.com, or on Twitter @alemolina
The day after reports of immigration sweeps spread through six Southern California counties, federal authorities acknowledged Friday that there was a surge in the number of people detained but almost all were convicted felons or those with multiple misdemeanors living in the country illegally, they said.

Officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement clarified a previous statement that had been sent out Thursday, which called the sweeps ordinary. But they also pushed back on activists reports of widespread random raids  reports that officials called dangerous and irresponsible.

While this weeks operation was an enforcement surge, the focus was no different than the routine, targeted arrests carried out by ICEs Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said in a statement Friday.

RELATED: Legal residents seek citizenship when green cards are not enough

In their statement, ICE officials said 160 foreign nationals were arrested from 55 communities in Southern California, including in Van Nuys, San Bernardino, Downey, Santa Paula and Oxnard.

The five-day targeted enforcement operation began on Monday throughout Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, among others, and was aimed at undocumented criminals, illegal re-entrants, and immigration fugitives, ICE officials said. Of those detained, 151 had criminal histories ranging from child sex crimes, to weapons charges to assaults. Those arrested  95 percent of whom were men  were from a dozen countries. ICE officials said Friday they did not know how many of those detained had been reported.

Among those they listed was a Salvadoran national who was an MS-13 gang member arrested in Huntington Park and wanted in his native country for aggravated extortion; a Brazilian national wanted for cocaine trafficking; and an Australian in West Hollywood who was previously convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child.

It was unclear if the sweep was part of President Donald Trumps hard-line stance on illegal immigration, but similar raids occurred in Atlanta, New York, Chicago and other cities, ICE officials acknowledged.

David Marin, field office director for ICE, said he could not comment on Trumps executive order, but said it takes weeks, even months, to coordinate such enforcement operations. A similar operation took place last summer, Marin said, adding that Californias policies make it difficult to deport criminals who are in the country illegally.

RELATED: More undocumented immigrants live in Southern California than anywhere else in U.S.

Dangerous criminals who should be swiftly deported are being released in our community, he said. This operation is on par with similar operations. We do this two or three times a year.

The sweep seemed atypical when compared to those under the Obama Administration, officials with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, said during a Friday morning news conference at their office in the Westlake area. Under President Obama, 3 million people were deported, but there was more transparency in the process, CHIRLA officials said.

Angelica Salas, executive director for CHIRLA, disputed ICEs assertion that criminals were the focus on the sweeps, adding that ICE had not been forthright with the community, attorneys, and organizations and she vowed her organization would continue to press them.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. There is a deficit of trust on DHS officials who insisted for hours on hours that nothing out of the ordinary had taken place in Southern California during the past few days, Salas said in a statement.

Make no mistake about it: these sweeps are directly linked to President Trumps new normal where criminalizing and dehumanizing immigrants is convenient to violate their due process and facilitate their deportation, she said.

CHIRLA attorney Karla Navarrete said when she went Thursday to help a client held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, she was given no information on how many people had been detained, even when she pressed officials.

They said, things have changed now, she said. This is not the way it goes anymore.

She said the officers told her: This is the law, and we have our orders from the President.

State Senate Pro Tem Kevin de Leon said he was pleased ICE released more information, but said there was a disconnect between information provided by the agency ICE on Thursday and what was disclosed Friday and called on the Trump Administration to explain it.

Let me be clear, we want to work together to get violent felons out of our neighborhoods; however, we remain deeply concerned with the new Administrations recent decision to prioritize nearly every undocumented resident in California for deportation, and their apparent inability to accurately inform the public of their operations in a timely manner, he said.

In their statement, ICE officials said those who have outstanding orders of deportation, or who returned to the United States illegally after being deported, are subject to immediate removal from the country.

Others who were not being criminally prosecuted will be processed administratively for removal from the United States, according to the statement. The remaining individuals are in ICE custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, or pending travel arrangements for removal in the near future.

That the sweeps were conducted at all were unusual in and of itself, said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform or FAIR, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that backs immigration reform and laws.

Its different in that in the last eight years, the law hasnt been enforced, Mehlman said. Theres nothing in the law that says you have to be a felon to be deported. Based on (the ICE statement), they were targeting people with criminal records. The government has a perfect right to enforce the law.

He said the Trump administration is prioritizing criminals in the country illegally, but added if immigration reform had been in place, less people would be hurt or misled.

We probably could have discouraged people coming here illegally in the first place, he said.

Still, some families reported confusion during the sweeps, adding that the wrong people had been detained.

At least one Pomona man was arrested and deported to Mexico in Thursdaysoperations, said Emilio Garcia, executive director of San Bernardino Community Service Center, Inc. a nonprofit, organization that provides immigration services in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

While Garcia has already been able to corroborate the information himself, there are two other incidents from Thursday  in San Bernardino and Riverside  that he is still trying to verify.

He still believes Thursdays incident with ICE was part of their normal operations and not a raid. If it were, then ICE would have had to obtained warrants, he said.

Thats not what happened in Pomona where a man without legal residence was arrested only after ICE agents werent able to detain the person they originally sought, Garcia said.

That was a collateral arrest, he said.

The Pomona man called his family at 9 p.m. to tell them he was in Tijuana, Mexico, Garcia said.

Under the Obama administration, he said, the Pomona man would been protected by legal practice of prosecutorial discretion, in which ICE would have declined to pursue arrest.

The priority for enforcement was placed on those who placed a significant threat to the community, had significant criminal record, Garcia said. Under the new administration thats no longer the case, they can arrest anybody.

Marlene Mosqueda wiped away tears during the news conference at CHIRLAs office as she described how her father Manuel Mosqueda was whisked away by ICE officials from their San Fernando Valley home. She said ICE officials took the wrong person away. Navarrete, the CHIRLA attorney, confirmed that Manuel Mosqueda was taken off the bus to Mexico.

They were looking for someone else and they got my dad in the process, Marlene Mosqueda said. My dad got (taken) away from me.

Mosqueda said she has become troubled by recent reports and focus on immigrant communities since Trumps presidency.

We need to be together. We need to support each other, because in the United States, were united, she pleaded in front of a throng of media microphones. Were all breaking it a part one by one with Donald Trump being president.

Staff writer Liset Marquez contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: sabram@scng.com@sabramLA on Twitter
A Texas man suffered major injuries Thursday, Feb. 9 when he crashed his motorcycle and was ejected into a guardrail on Highway 330 south of Lower Fredalba Road in Running Springs, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The crash occurred about 3:40 p.m. Thursday, when Robert Thompson, 34, of El Paso, Texas, lost control of his motorcycle while riding south on 330, a news release states. The motorcycle overturned on its left side, throwing Thompson into an adjacent guardrail.

Thompson was transported to Loma Linda University Medical Center with an altered level of consciousness and lacerations to his upper and lower extremities, the news release states.
Collaborations for two local biotech companies; a new name for a health IT business; and a new role for a key StartingBlock champion top the tech and biotech news this week.

Propeller Health

and Novartis

Propeller Health is working with Swiss health care giant Novartis Pharma to develop a sensor that will be added to the Breezhaler, an inhaler used with Novartis medications for COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).

It is the fifth major pharmaceutical company to collaborate with Propeller on inhaler sensors.

Madison-based Propeller makes sensors that help record when and where patients with asthma and COPD use their rescue inhalers so they can better control their symptoms.

Propeller, founded in 2010, says it is now involved in 45 programs around the U.S. The company received $21.5 million from investors last fall. Propeller has 60 employees, including 45 in Madison.

The company received the American Telemedicine Associations Presidents Award for Innovation in Remote Healthcare in 2016.

NeuroPointDX

and Ovid Therapeutics

NeuroPointDX, the diagnostics division of Stemina Biomarker Discovery, of Madison, is collaborating with Ovid Therapeutics to identify biomarkers of Angelman syndrome.

Angelman syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that involves delayed development, problems with movement and balance, seizures and other symptoms. It affects one-in-12,000 to one-in-20,000 people, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Ovid, a privately owned New York biopharmaceutical company, is developing a treatment for Angelman syndrome. NeuroPointDX uses its technology to identify differences in the body chemistry of children with autism spectrum disorder.

The joint study is aimed at finding biomarkers associated with Angelman syndrome and potentially identifying people most likely to respond to Ovids treatment.

Catalyze becomes Datica

Founded in 2013, the health info-tech company developed technology to help digital health care companies comply with federal privacy rules and to help them integrate into larger health care software systems.

Catalyze was the right name to demonstrate the vision and impact the company was having on health care, CEO and co-founder Travis Good said, in a blog explaining its name change.

But after a three-year struggle with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Catalyzes application for a trademark on its name was rejected. Patent officials said the name is too generic in the health care and technology industries to get a trademark.

So the company is now called Datica, reflecting the protected health data it handles.

Health care is in a transformational period, and as a trusted partner to the industry we plan to be well in front of where the puck is headed, and that includes the evolution of our company brand, Good said.

StartingBlock executive director steps down

Scott Resnick, who was one of the initiators of the StartingBlock Madison idea and has shepherded it through the final fundraising efforts, has stepped down as executive director and will be the entrepreneur-in-residence at the planned East Side entrepreneurial hub.

Resnick, who is also chief operating officer of Hardin Design & Development, said he will continue to work with entrepreneurs seeking resources and to serve as a StartingBlock ambassador to organizations outside Madison. He will also work on big-idea projects that move the needle for the city and state, Resnick said, in a blog post.

Resnick is a former Madison alderman and was a 2015 mayoral candidate.

Chandra Miller Fienen will head StartingBlocks interim efforts as director of operations as a search is conducted for a new executive director, Resnick said.

StartingBlock will be part of The Spark, an eight-story building planned by American Family Insurance Group in the 800 block of East Washington Ave. A groundbreaking ceremony was held in January, and American Family said construction of the building is expected to be completed in mid-2018.
As the Inland Regional Center works to move past the December 2015 San Bernardino massacre and the August 2016 deaths of four of its clients in a caregivers home in Temecula, the agency still begins 2017 as an organization with troubles.

The IRC, a private nonprofit organization, serves 32,605 clients in the Inland Empire who have developmental disabilities, providing their caregivers with services and reimbursement for expenses and, when necessary, placing them in facilities. The state will pay the IRC $64.7 million in taxpayer money during fiscal 2016-17  a 14 percent increase over the previous year.

The IRC is on probation with the state for inappropriately spending almost $10 million between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2010. And it is still trying to catch up with a state mandate to improve its ratio of caseworkers to clients.

While IRC is still on probation, much progress has been made to resolve the issues that resulted in IRCs probationary status, CJ Cook, a program manager, wrote in an email Nov. 16, two days after IRC officials were scheduled to meet with the state Department of Developmental Services about the spending audit.

Cook did not respond to a request for elaboration.

For the past five months, IRC officials have declined all requests for interviews on topics ranging from the number of caseworkers and frequency of client visits to the audit.

That appears to conflict with a statement on the IRC website.

We believe in openness and in providing timely, accurate and comprehensive information to our clients, families, service providers, board, staff and the general public, the website says.

The Developmental Services department, which oversees the 21 regional centers in California, also declined to comment on the status of IRCs probation, citing ongoing discussions to determine how much money the IRC must repay.

In October 2011, the department released a highly critical audit that found widespread problems and said the IRC needed to repay the $10 million. Money was misspent on housing, transportation and salaries, according to the audit. One of the violations cited said that IRC agreed to pay a transportation company 40 percent more than the previous transportation provider at a time the state had instituted a rate freeze  resulting in an overpayment of more than $3 million.

The Developmental Services audit came a year after a Bureau of State audits report described what auditors said was a culture of employee intimidation.

Developmental Services put the IRC on probation in January 2011. At the time, the department said the IRC could lose its contract with the state if it did not resolve the issues.

A new Developmental Services audit is scheduled to be conducted in April.

The IRC has hired independent auditor Windes, a company with offices in Long Beach, Los Angeles and Irvine, to examine the books each year since 2012.

In the most recent report posted on the IRCs website, for fiscal 2014-15, the auditors wrote that The ultimate outcome of the administrative appeal process cannot presently be determined, but (IRC) management is of the opinion that it will not have a material impact on the organizations financial position.  Nevertheless, due to uncertainties with the appeal process, it is at least reasonably possible that managements view of the outcome will change in the near term.

Windes also noted that the IRC still owes a former employee $1 million out of a $2 million settlement, with payments scheduled for 2017 and 2018.

Too few caseworkers

In a May 2016 letter, the Developmental Services department told IRC officials to write a correction plan because the centers caseworker-to-client ratio was out of compliance for two consecutive reporting periods in two categories. In one, the ratio was 1-to-73 when it should have been 1-to-62; in the other, it was 1-to-77 instead of the required 1-to-66.

IRC sought comment on how to fix the situation at two public meetings in 2016, at a vendor meeting and in a phone conference with the State Council on Developmental Disabilities.

The IRC had 16 openings for caseworkers  called consumer services coordinators  as of Feb. 10, according to its website.

State law requires caseworkers to meet with their clients at least four times a year. At least two of the meetings must take place at the care facility. The caseworker deficit would theoretically add to each employees workload. For example, for caseworkers in the category who have 11 more clients than they should have, that equates to 44 more meetings per year.

The IRC would not say whether the staff shortage led to a lack of oversight at the Renee Jennex Small Family Home near Temecula.

The residential adult care facility burned down Aug. 29, and five bodies were found inside: the four clients and administrator James Jennex, 50. Riverside County sheriffs investigators said four people were shot in what they described as a murder-suicide and arson but have not disclosed the causes of death or who fired the shots or set the fire.

The IRC referred questions about the deaths to the Sheriffs Department and would not discuss its interaction with the Jennex operators, whether caseworkers observed any problems or what the procedure is for caretakers to give up their role, if they desire.

The IRC did say in an email that its caseworkers do monitor the facilities as well as the clients.

The Department of Developmental Services, which declined to make officials available for an interview, said in an email that it monitors the regional centers but does not monitor the caretaking facilities.

The health and safety of our consumers is our top priority at DDS; as such, we monitor the performance of the 21 nonprofit regional centers in providing services and supports for persons with developmental disabilities, the agency wrote. DDS does not always have knowledge of the status of a regional center vendor, given the relationship is between the regional center and their vendors, not DDS and the vendors.

A vendor can be anyone who provides a service to a regional center or receives money from a regional center to assist clients.

The state reimbursed the Renee Jennex Small Family home $1,855,840.35 since it was licensed, which the state said happened in 2003, through November 2016, according to the email.

Pressing forward

The IRC is still dealing with the aftermath of the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack on San Bernardino County Division of Health Services employees who were enjoying a holiday party inside a rented IRC conference room. Fourteen people were killed and 22 others were wounded. That conference room remains closed.

But the IRC presses forward with its work.

The IRC provides money to the Carolyn E. Wylie Center in Riverside for its infant home and autism programs. Melody Amaral, the Wylie Centers chief executive officer, said that despite any financial or caseworker issues, the IRC is not performing like an organization in distress.

One of our concerns was, would they be able to give us funding without interruption. We never had any interruption in spite of the shooting, which probably took a big effort on their part, said Amaral, who said that the IRC moved its accounting department after the shooting.

IRC caseworkers continue to meet with Wylie Center clients and attend meetings on schedule, and IRC officials keep Wylie Center administrators informed in a timely manner, Amaral said.

I was surprised after the shooting that they were able to hold things together on all those fronts, she said.

Katie Hornberger is director of the Office of Clients Rights Advocacy for Disability Rights California. Her organization helps make sure people with disabilities have access to services and know their rights.

Hornberger said that she has dealt with the IRC many times and has found officials there responsive and willing to change practices as needed.

RELATED

Inland Regional Center employees take time for healing

2016: Inland Regional Center reopens with security tight, emotions high

2016: Will centers terrorism insurance policy cover damage?

SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING: All the latest developments

Contact the writer: brokos@scng.com or 951-368-9569
A motorcyclist was killed Thursday, Feb. 9, in a head-on collision with a pickup in the High Desert community of Twentynine Palms, the California Highway Patrol reported.

The collision happened on Amboy Road, north of Joshua Tree National Park.

The 43-year-old man, whose name has not been announced, was driving a red Honda motorcycle west at an unknown rate of speed at 6:11 p.m. without proper protective gear, proper lighting equipment, and was wearing dark clothing, the CHP news release said.

A man driving a white Ford F-350 east on Amboy about 60 mph was passing a vehicle where the yellow line was broken, indicating that safe passing was allowed, the release said. The Ford was even with the other car when the collision occurred.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation, the CHP said.
A San Bernardino man who worked as a federal correctional officer at the United States Penitentiary in Victorville has agreed to plead guilty to a federal bribery charge, the United States Attorneys Office announced Thursday.

Ignacio Adrian Sobers Jr., 31, agreed to plead guilty to one count of acceptance of a bribe by a public official for taking a $1,000 bribe to smuggle contraband to a prisoner inside the facility, a news release states.

Federal authorities arrested Sobers Jan. 21 after receiving a $1,000 payment and a gift-wrapped package filled with contraband in a parking lot of a fast food restaurant in San Bernardino, according to the news release. The contraband included MP3 players and pornography.

According to a criminal complaint filed when Sobers was arrested last month, prison officials were investigating the inmate for suspected illegal activity inside the prison, the news release states. The inmate provided information that Sobers had agreed to provide him with contraband in exchange for bribes.

The inmates contact outside the prison cooperated with law enforcement during the January 21 incident in which Sobers accepted $1,000 in cash to smuggle the package to the inmate, the news release continues.

Sobers is scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 22. After pleading guilty, he faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in federal prison, the news release states. He first appeared in court Jan. 23 and was released after posting $10,000 bail.
Efforts to recharge the San Jacinto Groundwater Basin appear to be working  thanks to recent rains.

Under the terms of a federal judgment related to water rights for the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians, the four water providers in the San Jacinto Valley are responsible for sustaining the amount of water in the basin. And, after years of drought, they easily exceeded minimum levels in the last year.

The agencies  Eastern Municipal Water District, Lake Hemet Municipal Water District, and the cities of Hemet and San Jacinto  combined to put more than 12,000 acre-feet of water into the basin.

That is well in excess of the 7,500 acre-feet required under the terms of the Soboba Settlement Agreement.

The reason for the increase is simple.

Mainly because now we have water, said Hemet Mayor Linda Krupa, chair of the Hemet-San Jacinto Watermaster Board, which oversees the program. We didnt have water last year.

In 2006, the Soboba tribe, the Metropolitan Water District, Eastern, Lake Hemet and the Bureau of Indian Affairs signed the agreement, which led to the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians Settlement Act of 2007, ending decades of conflict between the tribe, the government and the water districts.

Soboba sued MWD seeking damages for seepage of water from the Soboba Reservation into MWDs nearby San Jacinto Tunnel, which was constructed in the 1930s.

The agreement requires active management of the groundwater basins, which led to the formation of the Hemet-San Jacinto Watermaster.

Water delivery slowed as Californias extended drought resulted in MWD suspending water available for recharge from 2013 until 2016. But when deliveries from the State Water Project were increased last year, imported water became available and efforts resumed to store more water within the groundwater basin.

The Watermaster program purchases the water and bills the agencies based on usage patterns.

Three of the agencies wrap the costs into water bills while San Jacinto charges its customers $1.07 per billing unit to cover costs.

Councilman Andrew Kotyuk, who represents San Jacinto on the Watermaster board, said hes pleased more water is available.

My goal is to reduce our cost however we can for our residents, he said.

The agencies have adopted a goal of recharging more than 23,000 acre-feet of water in 2017. If those figures are met, the agencies would be ahead of their average annual recharge rate and be credited with having put surplus water into the groundwater basin.

It looks like were going to have an overabundance, Krupa said. Its a good sign.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9086 cshultz@scng.comTwitter: @PE_CraigShultz
The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has indicated to investors that Ghana is open for business, assuring of the creation of a conducive business environment which will ensure that businesses flourish, thereby creating prosperity for the Ghanaian people.



The President made this known on Friday, February 10, 2017,when the Chairman of the Al Serkal Group, Mr. Eisa Bin Nasser Alserkal, together with a delegation of investors from the United Arab Emirates, paid a courtesy call on him at the presidency.



In the presence of the Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen, President Akufo-Addo noted that the topmost priority of his government is to create jobs for the people of Ghana, and, thereby return the country onto the path of progress and prosperity.



The President told the delegation that the industrialization of the economy, with the aim of moving the country away from being dependent on raw material exports to an economy of value-added activities, and the revival of Ghanaian agriculture will be his main focus.



It is for this reason, the President indicated, that his government is determined to partner with investors and the private sector to set up strategic industries, with the aim of helping create jobs for the youth.



These strategic industries, he revealed, include an iron and steel industry, which will exploit Ghanas iron ore deposits at OpponManso and Sheini, near Tamale, and facilitate the manufacture of machine parts and equipment.



Additionally, President Akufo-Addo indicated that his government, in partnership with the private sector, aims to establish an integrated aluminium industry, which will exploit the countrys bauxite deposits at Kyebi and Nyinahin; and also petrochemical industries from our oil and gas deposits from the Jubilee, TEN and Sankofa fields.



On his part, Mr. Eisa Bin Nasser Alserkal, told President Akufo-Addo that the decision to invest in Ghana stemmed from his companys belief that Ghana offered the right opportunities for investors in Africa, and they, in turn, will help develop the country.



Al Serkal is a business conglomerate based in Dubai, with a bouquet of companies in the fields of healthcare, manufacturing, petrochemicals, commercial and residential real estate, banking, mobile telephony and construction services.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Former President John Dramani Mahama has stated that democracy and politics in Africa must not be a do or die affair as many would want it to appear to be.



In his view, it should rather be about serving the citizenry and country adding that during his tenure as president of the republic, he took decisions that were tough but necessary- which included the removal subsidies on fuel and many others. He expressed hope that the new government stay the course and have policy consistency.



Interacting with private sector players of Kenya, Organised by the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), the former president observed that the tendency of new governments in Africa to cancel agreements signed by a former government does not auger well for business growth.



See Full Tweets of his interaction



Took decisions that were tough but necessary- Removed subsidies on fuel & many others. We must stay the course & have policy consistency.



 John Dramani Mahama (@JDMahama) February 10, 2017





Democratic & Politics should be about serving your people & country, not a do or die affair. There's real life after the presidency.



 John Dramani Mahama (@JDMahama) February 10, 2017





Private sector will grow with democratic consolidation & right policies. They then develop capacity to employ 10s of 1000s of young people.



 John Dramani Mahama (@JDMahama) February 10, 2017





The tendency of new govts in Africa to cancel agreements signed by a former government does not auger well for business growth.



 John Dramani Mahama (@JDMahama) February 10, 2017





Interacting with private sector players of Kenya, Organised by the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA). pic.twitter.com/Gkn1KNvldZ



 John Dramani Mahama (@JDMahama) February 10, 2017

Source: mynewsgh.com









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The Vice President of the Republic, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, left Ghana on Friday February 10, 2017 to attend the fifth annual World Government Summit to be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from February 12 to 14, 2017.



Under the theme Shaping Future Governments, the World Government Summit will explore the future of government in the coming decades.

The Vice President would take part in discussions on The development and Future of Africa and deliberate on the future of the African continent.

The World Government Summit is a global platform dedicated to the enhancement of government around the world. It convenes over 3,000 government leaders and policy makers, private sector executives and renowned experts from worldwide.

The Vice President will return to Ghana on Wednesday February 15, 2017.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Chris Rickert | Wisconsin State Journal Urban affairs, investigations, consumer help ("SOS") Follow Chris Rickert | Wisconsin State Journal Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

Its fitting that the Madison School District is among the handful of districts that would suffer under a proposal in Gov. Scott Walkers 2017-19 budget.

The districts School Board has made a habit of blaming Walkers administration for the school districts budget woes; one of its members ran against him for governor; and its close ally (some would say puppet master), the local teachers union, sued to block Walkers signature 2011 achievement, the union-killing Act 10.

But what matters is not the petty animosity between a highly politicized School Board and highly politicized governors office. What matters is whether Walkers idea is good for schoolchildren and taxpayers.

Under Act 10, local governments that offered a state health insurance plan to their employees were barred from paying more than 88 percent of the cost of premiums. The point was to shift more of the rising cost of health insurance onto the employee  as has long been the trend in the private sector  and give taxpayers a break.

Now, Walker wants to apply that requirement to school districts for all kinds of insurance plans, and Madison is one of those not in compliance. In fact, the School Board only reluctantly embraced Act 10s employee-punishing tools for saving money, and only last year started charging teachers anything at all for their health insurance premiums.

Fail to fully implement Act 10, the Walker administration warns, and Madison would lose out on some $16 million in funding over two years.

For context, Wisconsin employees who get health insurance through their work pay about 22 percent of the annual premium, on average, or about $1,345 a year for single coverage, according to 2015 data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The average salary for a private- sector worker in Wisconsin was $45,230 in 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Madison teachers made, on average, $55,600 a year last school year and contribute 3 percent of premium costs, or about $205 a year for single coverage. Bringing that contribution up to 12 percent would mean the average teacher contributing about $600 more per year for single coverage.

Which raises the question of whether the district could simply comply with Walkers mandate, and then use some of that $16 million to boost teacher pay and offset the hit they take on health insurance. As of Friday, a Walker spokesman hadnt answered that question for me.

School Board member TJ Mertz has complained that Walkers plan erodes local control and would hinder the districts ability to compete for teachers by limiting the kinds of benefits it can offer. Hes right about the first, but not the second.

The competition for talent is fair if all districts are held to the same 88 percent standard. Districts just have to compete based on other factors, such as salary, other benefits or district location.

Local control, though, is one of those things state and federal politicians like to preach but not practice, probably because when theyre in the majority, local control means giving power to the locals.

And rare is the politician interested in giving up power.
Highly aggressive handshakes are very on-brand for Donald Trump, and overnight, he laid one of these on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was in Washington to meet with the new US President.

Its standard for world leaders in these situations to hold hands for a while so that photographers can capture the moment, but Trump took it to the next level, deploying his favoured, vigorous clamp-and-yank manoeuvre.

Abe went ahead and tried to grin through it as Trump gripped his paw, but his face at the end likely betrayed his true feelings:

Trump and Japanese PM Shinz? Abes EPIC handshake. pic.twitter.com/NdFY2qFhqr  The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) February 10, 2017

The Prime Ministers wife Akie Abe toured a local Washington school as the two met. While first ladies traditionally host the wives of visiting heads of state, Melania Trump was not present for the tour.

During the press conference, Trump said that his administration would continue to dispute the disgraceful decision by an appeals court to block his travel ban, and suggested that he also plans to unveil new security measures some time soon.

Well be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country, he told reporters at the press conference. Youll be seeing that some time next week.

We are going to do whatever is necessary to keep our country safe, he continued. Safety is a primary reason Im standing here today. The voters felt I would give the best security.

Trump stood by his controversial order to temporarily ban travel from seven predominantly-Muslim countries, hinting that he is aware of threats you could only learn of if you were in a certain position, namely President.

He said that he would not allow that to happen to our country, and added in addition we will continue to go through the court process and, ultimately, I have no doubt well win that particular case.

With Trumps Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch yet to be confirmed, the bench is currently split four-four into liberal and conservative-leaning judges.

Trump would need the support of five of these to secure his travel ban, however, The White House is said to be looking at all the options, another of which would be rewriting his original executive order.

On the word of a senior White House official, Sky News claim that Trump is not planning to escalate the matter to the Supreme Court, so the second option may be more likely.

U.S. media reports senior White House official says Donald Trump is not planning to escalate the travel ban suspension to the Supreme Court  Sky News Newsdesk (@SkyNewsBreak) February 10, 2017

Source: UK Telegraph.

Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty.
Months after they split, Mariah Careys brief but beautiful engagement to James Packer is still producing hugely entertaining tabloid fodder, the latest of which is an extremely shady feature in celebrity rag Vanity Fair.

The piece, entitled James Packers Long, Strange Ride from Scientology to Mariah Carey is part-profile, part-character assassination, featuring reams and reams of juicy quotes from Mimis friends and hangers-on.

One such friend told Vanity Fair that Carey and Packers engagement  it was to be the third marriage for both of them  was more about companionship than chemistry. According to this person:

It was what you call a third act. You know, in your third act youre not necessarily looking for chemistry. Youre looking for love and laughter and companionship, someone who is like-minded, who you can spend time with, and you can have conversations and raise your kids together.

The pairs infamous pre-nuptial agreement, which was said to offer Mariah $6 million per year for each year of marriage, capping out at $30 million after five years, was another sticking point. Said the associate:

When you give a woman a 37-page pre-nup that reads as a business agreement with a five-year term, that means that you have a five-year plan and youre using Mariah for your five-year plan. It was a business arrangement rather than love. [But] I think Mariah  was hoping. She understood the business piece of it. Shes a sharp cookie, but she wanted it to be love.

An unnamed friend of Packers also chimed in to suggest that the whole engagement was just a PR stunt:

James got the better of that. It was for him a publicity stunt  Its made him a household name.

Said Careys mate:

Mariah really added class to the equation. No matter what you say, Mariah is still the highest-selling female artist of all time. Her range goes from Jay Z to Pavarotti  [James] gets to stand next to her on the red carpet at the GLAAD awards, alongside other high-profile celebrities. Or shes singing for UNICEF, and hes there on the red carpet. Its a big deal. And all of the events that he had her accompany him to  political events, whether it was in Israel or Australia or China or London  and dragging her around  really did help elevate his business status. And I was saying to her, What are you doing all this shit for? Youre not even married. Wait til youre married. Youre helping the guy make money. What do you get out of it?'

Finally, the kicker:

Why does anyone in Hollywood care about James, other than the fact that he was engaged to Mariah and hes a partner in RatPac? Nobody knew who he was until Mariah.

Theres no word yet on who Mariahs unnamed friend might be, but we have some vague theories:

As we speak, James Packer may or may not be looking into purchasing Conde Nast and shutting the whole thing down. You can read the entire, savage profile here if you wish.

Source: Vanity Fair.

Photo: Brent N Clarke / Getty.
A platter from Byblos Mediterranean Grill at 421 Friendship Road, at the TecPort Business Center in Swatara Township, Friday, January 20, 2017. Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com

Nothing travels faster in central Pennsylvania than news of a good restaurant. Byblos, a new Lebanese/Greek restaurant nestled at the TecPort Business center, is garnering accolades on both shores of the Susquehanna for its made in house authentic Mediterranean recipes featuring outstanding falafel and mouthwatering citrus and spice shawarma. (In this case, marinated certified organic chicken thighs are scraped from vertical broiler).

Ironically, owner Richard Hanna had retired from the restaurant business after selling long-running Roxy's Cafe in 2014.

"I was worn out and tired but then this place opened up. The space didn't need a lot of work, and it was perfectly situated for a lunch and early supper place," Hanna said.

The no-frills space is located at the former Heather's Cupcakes N Things. Austere and simply furnished, globe lighting dangles over red chairs and shiny metal patterned tabletops seating about 25 inside and when the weather warms up another 30 places outside.

Herbaceous Mediterranean fare, served cafeteria-style, consists of tried-and-tasty recipes passed down from generations. Although garlic, lemon and olive oil are Lebanese influences and lemon and oregano are bountiful in Greek cooking, Hanna jokes "it's basically Turkish food, since both Lebanon and Greece were once conquered by the Turks." Catering to the surrounding office crowd, meals are spooned into plastic takeout containers that can easily be snapped shut, if you're on a quick lunch break.

Customers can customize orders featuring crunchy, best-selling falafel, shawarma, (marinated chicken thighs) gyro (marinated Greek spiced beef and lamb slices), grilled chicken breast and USDA choice ground shoulder of beef mixed with 7 spices and garlic, rolled into a chargrilled log. These items can be served rolled into pita, laffa (thin Lebanese bread wrap), served in bowls or as platters. Fabulous, house cut fresh fries top everything.

"They are made from a special low water content potato," says Hanna. All toppings are made in-house such as tabbouleh, garlicky baba ganoush, hummus made from reconstituted chickpeas, tahini, customer favorite, fried, deep golden brown eggplant slices, stuffed grape leaves, Israeli salad and beet salad. Toppings choices include lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, red cabbage, Feta, olives, hot peppers and pickles. And according to Hanna, people love pita packed gyro topped with luscious, creamy tzaziki sauce.

The key ingredient to freshly made menu items is Hanna's father's distinctive extra virgin olive oil sent over from Kousa, Lebanon. "Olive oil has to be chalky on the throat."

Daily soups include vastly popular, lentil soup (especially for vegans or vegetarians) and Hanna is just starting to introduce specials such as organic split chicken seasoned in lemon juice and orange zest, then chargrilled ($12.50).

Don't leave without tasting crisply, golden brown spanakopita ($2.95) and Lebanese style pizza, hot from the oven, and topped with lemon juice, olive oil roasted sesame seeds, ground thyme and Hanna's mother's homegrown oregano. This individual "pizza" is delicious topped with mint, Feta and citrusy tasting sumac (an old Mediterranean spice).

Baklava is made on the premises. Try a triangle of this not too sweet honey-nut phyllo dessert with cup of strong, black coffee.

This place may be simple and stark in appearance but very freshly made salads, marinated meats, sides and desserts standout with color and quality flavor. Stop by and pick up dips and menu items to go too.

As far as this restaurant goes, business is going well. "I was very surprised at supper time. We've been having early rushes beginning at 5:30p.m. There has been no place to sit down and that's a good thing," says Hanna.

Not only is Hanna back 100 percent in the restaurant business, he'd like to franchise this trendy, healthy fast-food idea perhaps with a second location in Lancaster and, then who knows, open a tapas and barbecue place with a liquor license down the road.
WITF tower

(Provided photo)

As Washington politicians once again enter the budget process and renew conversations on funding for public media, local PBS affiliate WITF is planning how to best use $25 million they will receive through a recent agreement with the Federal Communication Commission.

The money is part of a transaction between several television stations and the FCC in an attempt to make more of the broadcast spectrum available. Signals from radios, televisions, satellites and mobile phones all use this segment of the electromagnetic spectrum, and with the boom in mobile technology and broadband service, available space in this limited range of frequencies is at a premium.

"Back in 2012, Congress directed the FCC to see if some TV stations would be interested in giving up or sharing some of their spectrum in order for the FCC to re-sell it to wireless companies," said Kathleen Pavelko, CEO of WITF.

According to Pavelko, the part of the spectrum occupied by TV stations is the "beachfront property" of the broadcast spectrum, in that their position makes them extremely valuable.

"In the case of WITF, our board, after much consideration and consultation, decided to reach a channel-sharing agreement," Pavelko said. "Our proceeds from that channel-sharing agreement add up to 25 million dollars."

The technical details

Through digital compression, WITF and a partner station will soon share the same bandwidth on the broadcast spectrum, with the surplus being sold back to the FCC. The $25 million earned by WITF will be placed in a board-designated endowment, which will earn roughly $1 million annually.

The terms of the agreement did not permit WITF to reveal their partner station, though the technical demands require it to be one in the same broadcast market. The details will eventually be released by the FCC, most likely some time in March.

Pavelko said the signal quality of WITF-TV will not be impacted in any way -- test runs of channel-sharing between other stations have already been done.

"A TV signal can be delivered by using much less of the spectrum than they used to [require]," Pavelko said. "With a digital signal, either you get it perfectly, or you don't get it at all."

Three new initiatives

WITF will be using this money in order to fund three new initiatives, including a new, 24-hour PBS Kids channel, Pavelko said. The channel will be both broadcast as well as a digital-streaming simulcast, carried on cable as well as simulcast streaming online via PBSKids.org or the PBS Kids Video App.

The second new initiative will be a media literacy program. The goal will be to help students from elementary school through high school in navigating media, including social media and how to discern trustworthy sources of information.

"We're in the planning phases of this," Pavelko said. "It might be after-school programs, it might be summer programs, it might be in the classrooms."

The third and largest undertaking will be the launching of a new state-wide news organization, focusing on political and state issues.

"There are fewer boots on the ground, fewer eyes on the prize," Pavelko said, hoping to help counteract the decline of traditional media. "We want to help to fill that void."

Funding sources

Regarding the federal budget process and public media funding, Pavelko said "we take these discussions very seriously," but that this deal was an example of one of the many income sources on which WITF relies.



"This is earned revenue," she said. "It represents our ongoing business acumen to generate diverse revenue for our station. I can look [a member of Congress] in the eye an say, 'look at what our station has traditionally done.' But that doesn't mean that public funds aren't necessary. Remember, we are prohibited from advertising. It's a restraint I welcome, as a non-profit organization. But part of the mission of being an educational public media station is that there's a small amount of federal funding."
Retail industry titan Albert Boscov died Friday following a battle with pancreatic cancer.

The chairman of Boscov's Department Stores died at the age of 87, Boscov's nephew Jim Boscov, CEO and Vice Chairman of his uncle's department store chain, said in a statement Friday evening.

"Albert Boscov was truly one of the giants in the retail industry," Jim Boscov said. "He was a man of vision and passion and he had a profound influence on the retail business community and the community at large."

"And we are committed to continue on the strong foundation he has created and to carry on in the spirit and philosophy he's instilled," he continued. "Building on his legacy we will remain the largest family owned department store in the country."

The family said that Al was at home, surrounded by his loving wife and three daughters, when he died. The store's website immediately afterward posted this tribute on its home page.

There was no word as of Saturday night on any public service. The Inquirer reported in its obituary that the family will hold a private funeral, and that a memorial service for Boscov's employees and the public will take place at a later date.

Boscov ran his business with indefatigable energy, for more than six decades clocking 12-hour days with equal enthusiasm for employees and customers. When he walked the floor of his stores -- and he always did -- sales associates and customers swarmed around him as if he was a celebrity.

Al Boscov, CEO of Bosco' department store chain, in his Reading, Pa. office and store, is celebrating the stores 100th anniversary this year.Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com

His passion for his work and business could not be contained. Even up to his last few weeks, as he endured the last stages of pancreatic cancer, Albert Boscov continued working from home.

Boscov shepherd his namesake business, Boscov's, into one of the most successful retail franchises in Pennsylvania, rescuing it from bankruptcy then growing it into a $1 billion annual sales venture that for decades was an iconic fixture of urban downtowns across the state.

Boscov ran his business with a no-nonsense flare, poring over financial and sales reports at an expansive table in the middle of his crowded corporate office, which was tucked away in the basement executive management corridor of the Reading store.

He was known for having an amazing mind that committed to memory the price of almost every item in the store.

Boscov also won the heart of just about everyone he met.

"He just had an incredible ability to make friends everywhere he went," said Lennie Okoskin, who enjoyed a 50-year friendship with Boscov. "If you met Albert, you would never forget Albert. In the business world he was loved by all his vendors. Just by being with him was an incredible experience. Every just fell in love with him."

Asked in 2014 what motivated him, Boscov quipped: "Money. Money to eat. You must have money to eat. You go in, they say, 'No money? No bananas.' It's too bad, but that's how it is."

His unwavering sense of humor rivaled his passion and energy for work.

"It's hard to give up," he told PennLive in 2014 as he prepared to mark the store's centennial anniversary. "I've always been involved with the merchandising and the advertising. To me that's the lifeblood of the store. It's easy to give up accounting and have somebody worry about a lot of other things...anything that is fun I can be involved with."

Son of a Jewish Russian immigrant, Boscov entered the family business in his 20s. He was the only one of his siblings to do enter their father Solomon's business, which he had started as a mom-and-pop shop in 1911 on the lower level of the family's home in Reading.

The young Boscov seized the economic prosperity of post-war America, and, in time, had expanded the retail franchise across the state with 43 stores and more than 7,000 employees. Boscov once said he knew about 500 of them personally.

"Al Boscov was truly an amazing man," said former Gov. Ed Rendell. "His business success was almost completely attributable to his drive, personality and innate marketing skills. He built Boscov's from virtually nothing into a retailing giant."

Boscov's became the country's largest privately owned retail outlet and was at times the catalyst for urban revitalization. Boscov did so by applying creativity, drive, a refusal to take no for an answer and a willingness to put his money where his mouth was, Rendell said.

In 2002, in the midst of Rendell's campaign for governor, Boscov took the candidate around Reading and laid out his plans for its revival.

"I thought it was an impossible dream but over the next decade almost everything he envisioned came true," Rendell said.

Boscov, he said, gave him ideas for revitalization programs that his administration developed not just for Reading but for cities across the state.

By the time Boscov had expanded his retail empire into Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Ohio, the company had fostered a long history of civic and charitable works.

In the early 1980s, Boscov led the charge to save the F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts, a historic landmark in Wilkes-Barre once destined for demolition. The center last year marked its 30th anniversary since having reopened.

Rep. Lou Barletta, R-15th, called Boscov an innovator, a business leader, and a civic-minded citizen.

"When I was mayor of Hazleton, I met with him to talk about revitalizing our downtown, which shows how much he cared about helping other people. Even today, his store, which was one of his first, is still doing business in our community. He will be sorely missed," Barletta said.

Boscov and Eunice, his wife of nearly 70 years, traveled the world extensively with friends and their three daughters, their spouses and five grandchildren. Trips often included business associates.

Boscov earned the respect of industry giants and met and dined with presidents, governors and celebrities. He once described Sophia Loren as shy.

"Al was a good and generous person who used his accomplished career in business to support his community and be a strong champion of cities," said Gov. Tom Wolf. "He did a lot to help people in his community and far beyond. He was a remarkable man who shared a mutual appreciation for Reading."

To be sure, Boscov faced challenges.

In 2009, his business in bankruptcy, Boscov came out of retirement to rescue -- and ultimately advance -- the family business. The chapter put him under scrutiny and criticism from those who charged that Boscov had the advantage of having friends in high places. Former Gov. Ed Rendell ponied up $35 million toward the $100 million that Boscov raised and used to pay off the debt that nearly crushed his franchise. Boscov later said he made good on the loan from Rendell.

Boscov credited the dedication of his staff for his success.

"We had good people," he said in 2014, one year after the Pennsylvania Retailers' Association Hall of Fame inducted him into its roll call.

No doubt, Boscov had a keen sense of business and his place in the marketplace. Boscov's had long been the retail mainstay for Pennsylvania's "moderate shopper," and over the decades, even though he added some higher-priced lines, he never lost sight of the customers, he said, could only afford the $39 dress.

"We can't really cater for the very affluent customer," he told PennLIve. "She's not concerned about prices. She's concerned about image. She'll pay $600 or $6,000 for a dress. Well that's not us."

Amid the explosive online shopping market, Boscov continued to foster a connection with his customers - whom he said prefered the brick-and-mortar experience. Online sales account for a small percentage of Boscov's annual sales, and half of those order are placed out of state, he said in 2014.

Boscov liked to swim and spend time with his grandchildren. He could often be spotted at the store's candy counter.

Said Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., remembered him as a

pioneer in the retail industry. He said Boscov's achievements are among the most significant in Pennsylvania's history.

"He prided himself on customer service, treating employees like family, and being involved in all aspects of the business he loved," Casey said. "His contributions to northeastern and central Pennsylvania are incalculable. Governor Casey and I were blessed by his friendship and good counsel. He will be greatly missed."

In recounting his childhood, Boscov used to share fond memories of living upstairs above his father's store and playing with the tall ladders that ran along rails of the store.

He reminisced: "It was a fun thing, the whole experience, growing up in the store."
WILLIAMSPORT - A former state representative who was known as the father of the Pennsylvania College of Technology has died.

Alvin C. Bush

Alvin C. Bush, 93, of Williamsport, a Republican who served in the House between 1961 and 1970 and again from 1984 to 1994 representing the rural part of Lycoming County, died Wednesday.

In 1989, Bush introduced a bill that created Penn College as a special mission affiliate of Penn State. It passed, Gov. Casey signed it and on July 1, 1989, the school was established.

At the time, the future of the Williamsport Area Community College was in doubt because 18 of 20 regional school districts had dropped their sponsorship in 1985.

Williamsport became the sponsor after efforts to get Lycoming County to do so failed, but that marriage was tedious at times.

Since WACC became Penn College it has grown to offer four-year degrees. Its first master's degree program was approved in October.

Bush was elected first board chairman of the new college. He held the honorary title of chairman emeritus at the time of his death, and a campus building is named for him.

His relationship with Casey, then Penn State President Bryce Jordan and his other connections saved WACC, Penn College President Davie Jane Gilmour said Saturday.

He was determined the school was part of the community and needed to be saved, she said.

Without Bush, "Penn College likely would not exist in its present form," said state Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming, current chair of the school's board of trustees.

"Al was the primary mover," he said. "He made sure meetings happened."

Like Gilmour, he credited Bush with getting Gov. Casey to support the Penn State takeover of WACC. They developed a friendship during his first years in the House, Yaw said.

Robert L. Breuder, the first Penn College president, called Bush a respected public servant, a devoted family man and a person with high moral character and integrity.

He considered him one of his closest friends and mentors, he said. Bush was honored to be known as the father of Penn College, he said.

He was a religious man who read the Bible daily and called it his road map for life, Brueder said. He referred to his late wife Betty as his "soulmate," he said.

Bush, a World War II Navy veteran was a true politician, but not in a bad way, said former Rep. Thomas H. Dempsey, a Republican who represented the rest of Lycoming County during part of Bush's tenure.

"He knew Harrisburg very well," he said. "He was able to cross party lines. He picked his battles and won them."

He took hold of the WACC issue and ran with it, Dempsey said.

While a House member, Bush served as majority caucus secretary in 1967 and 1968 and minority caucus secretary the following two years.

In the period between his stints in the Legislature, Bush served as director of the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau in 1972-73, staff administrator of the Senate Republican Caucus from 1976 to 1980 and executive assistant to the Senate President Pro Temp Henry G Hager from 1980 to 1984.

He chose not to seek re-election in 1994, but in 1997 was appointed to the Independent Regulatory Review Commission and served until 2009.

Bush followed in his father's footsteps when it came to politics. Alvin R. Bush served in Congress from 1951 until his death on Nov. 5, 1959.

Also a Republican, he represented the 17th District, which at the time included the Williamsport area.

Bush's survivors include two sons and two daughters.

His funeral will be held at noon Wednesday in Williamsport at the Pine Street United Methodist Church, of which he was a member. Visitation will take place at the church from 11 a.m. until the time of the service.
HARRISBURG--The Market Street Bridge in Harrisburg has served as a way to connect the East and West shores for nearly 200 years, but a proposal by a state senator to rename the historic bridge has proven divisive.

The Senate Transportation Committee this week approved a proposal to change the name of the Market Street Bridge to the "Senator Harold Mowery Market Street Bridge." The bill introduced by Sen. Mike Regan would require action by the full Senate, House and Governor before becoming law.

Mowery, who died two years ago, represented a portion of Cumberland County as a House representative for 14 years and then as a senator for 12 more. But his connection to the bridge and city, which are both in Dauphin County, is tenuous, city officials said.

"There would need to be much more of local ties if we were to go through a naming process," said City Councilman Cornelius Johnson. "It would be nice if a lot of local leaders, people who have contributed directly to the city, all that should be considered before just naming a bridge."

City Councilman Jeff Baltimore said he could not get behind the proposal.

"Given that the river has been viewed by some as a symbol of division, the bridge should be named after a person who has a record of bringing the two communities together," Baltimore said. "If there's no one who fits that bill, then my opinion is to leave it the same."

Another bridge to the north, the Harvey Taylor Bridge, that carries traffic over the Susquehanna River from Forster Street, was named after another local senator. But Taylor was from Harrisburg, served on Harrisburg city council for three terms and contributed major legislation to his home district while in the Senate.

The Market Street bridge is even more special to city residents than the steel-girder Harvey Taylor Bridge, Johnson said.

"It ties into our City Island," he said. "I don't think people should take away from this that there is some dispute between Cumberland and Dauphin counties. But there are people within this county who should be considered if we're talking about renaming the bridge."

Beyond the proposal's disconnect with Harrisburg, city leaders also object to the process behind the state's proposal, which didn't seek the opinions of city leaders or residents even though the bridge is located in the heart of the city.

Only a small part of the bridge is in Cumberland County, the portion beyond the West Shore water line. The bridge is owned by PennDOT, which is why legislators can seek to rename it.

"The bridge is extremely important to the city," said Mayor Eric Papenfuse. "It did unite the shores. It became part of the City Beautiful movement and the dam and steps along the river. The process is important and should include public input of residents."

In addition, the new signage and designations for a renamed bridge would represent additional expenses for a city already struggling financially, Papenfuse said.

"We do not want to offend our friends in Cumberland County," he said "But we do not think renaming the bridge is a good use of resources."

Jeb Stuart, a Harrisburg native and noted historian, said a name change for the bridge also would involve changing the name that is currently registered with the National Register of Historic Places.

"I would think that would be a hot issue," he said, "especially when the new name has no pertinence or relevance. I remember Mowery, and he was well-liked, but I have no idea what the tie-in would be with the Market Street Bridge. That's curious."

The Senate Transportation Committee Chairman John Rafferty, R-Montgomery County, discussed the proposal Wednesday and said Mowery was a "quintessential senator" who had the look and mannerisms of a senator and was a "real terrific gentleman" who helped the Senate Republican Caucus reached consensus.

Regan responded to some of the criticism Saturday in a written statement by noting Mowery's work benefitted people across Central Pennsylvania and the entire state.

"Throughout his acclaimed public service career, Senator Mowery authored and advanced meaningful laws and programs, the benefits of which are still felt to this day," Regan said in the statement. "Before manufacturing unneeded controversy and divisiveness, others should first take time to educate themselves on Senator Mowery's admirable legacy of service."

Regan also noted roadways and bridges are routinely renamed to honor distinguished community figures, servicemen and women, and public servants.

Regan's chief of staff, Noah Karn, defended the bridge proposal as a smaller piece of Regan's larger agenda, which includes the upcoming budget, and legislation to rein in welfare fraud and reform unemployment compensation.

"There are a lot of things we're working on," Karn said. "Nothing had been done to commemorate Sen. Mowery's decades of public service, so Sen. Regan, as a gesture of respect, not only to him but his family, felt it was an appropriate tribute."

Harrisburg officials suggested that people interested in honoring Mowery could find a location more suitable in Cumberland County that would tie in better with his life's work.

"It's true, the legislators can do this," Papenfuse said of renaming the bridge in Harrisburg. "But I do not think it is in keeping with the historic nature and its place in Harrisburg."

City officials weren't the only ones who found the proposal objectionable. PennLive wrote a story about the bill Wednesday, which elicited 38 comments that all mocked or opposed the proposal.

"The Erford Road Bridge over Routes 11 and 15 is going to be rebuilt in a few months," one commenter wrote. "That bridge is right next to Mowery's old office on Mumma Road and it's in CUMBERLAND County. Wouldn't this be simpler and more appropriate for Senator Mowery?"

Some commenters called the proposal pointless, saying people would simply refer to the bridge as "the Market Street Bridge" anyway. Others objected in principle to naming bridges or buildings after any politician.

"He got paid. He got a pension," a commentor wrote. "This is not service work that deserves anything."

If the renaming bill becomes law, it would be the third name assigned to this storied span that first opened in 1816 as the Camel Back Bridge. It has been destroyed and rebuilt several times.

UPDATE: This article was corrected to note that the Harvey Taylor bridge carries traffic from Forster Street and to remove a reference that a dormitory at Shippensburg was named after Mowery. Comments from Regan were also added.
By Tom Herman

As state lawmakers begin debating Gov. Tom Wolf's 2017-18 budget proposal - and a $1.7 billion deficit - they'd do well to follow a principle first noted and popularized by some very smart people working for the U.S. Navy in 1960: KISS - Keep it Simple, Stupid.

Tom Herma (SEIU photo)

The "stupid" person was a brilliant engineer so, no, I am not being disrespectful to lawmakers.

Quite the contrary: if this principle can guide a bunch of engineers building Navy jets, it certainly can work for our elected officials. There is no doubt that fashioning a $33 billion plan, give or take, is not necessarily easy and lawmakers have some tough choices to make.

But the governor has provided the basic building blocks for a reasonable budget that protects key investments and lifts the incomes of more than 1 million Pennsylvanians. And there is overwhelming public support for the governor's most important proposals.

Pennsylvanians support raising the minimum wage. They support a tax on the Marcellus shale drillers and they support funding for our public schools. And they clearly are frustrated with their elected officials and the same old politics.

It's time for consensus and for common sense ideas and that starts with raising the minimum wage to $12 per hour with a path to improving it like our more productive States.

Millions of working and middle class Pennsylvanians have lost ground already in 2017 compared to workers in 19 other states that raised the minimum wage effective Jan. 1.

Leaders in these states, including our border states of New Jersey, New York and Ohio, have recognized that raising the minimum wage is smart public policy that pays dividends to all citizens.

Wages for families will rise with a minimum wage increase. That is important. But the benefits go far beyond that.

The higher spending that would result from increasing the minimum wage would generate thousands of new jobs statewide.

It would also bring a much-needed boost to the state budget by increasing revenues and producing savings in the Medical Assistance (Medicaid) program because people would be earning more, needing less assistance and our public workers would have time to actually help those in need.

Basic math and sound public policy make it clear that raising the minimum wage must be a component of the 2017-18 state budget. The politics of raising the wage doesn't hurt, either: polling shows that 62 percent of PA citizens support a $15/hour minimum wage.

Raising the minimum wage would immediately boost the income of at least 1.2 million Pennsylvanians.

Close to 90 percent of these Pennsylvanians are over 20 years old, and 60 percent of them are women.

A higher wage delivers higher wages for all working Pennsylvanians, not just those earning the minimum; raising the basement pushes up the ceiling providing a path to improved wages for all.

Finally, a minimum wage increase would also generate at least $225 million in savings a year for the state Medicaid program. This is not pocket change, and lawmakers confronting a potential $1.7 billion budget deficit cannot afford to ignore this math.

A higher minimum wage is the first step in making our state economy work for all Pennsylvanians. A statewide excise tax on the Marcellus shale drillers and closing corporate tax loopholes are long overdue and necessary as well.

Pennsylvania remains the only major gas producing state that does not impose such a tax.

The opponents continue to argue that a shale tax would only "punish" the huge corporations making money with our natural resource but they fail to explain why other states can manage to collect this tax - without the industry pulling up stakes.

This tax would generate $293 million in its first year. Industry pulling up stakes is a lame excuse. The natural gas is here in Pennsylvania. It is not going to move folks.

Lawmakers can also close the gaping corporate tax loopholes that cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

Modest steps have been taken in recent years to close the Delaware loophole but more work needs to be done.

This step would generate up to $200 million. It is important to understand that every $1 that a corporation saves through a loophole has to be made up by the rest of us. I'm tired of taxes shifting to me. Big business can afford to pay their fair share and it's long past due.

Finally, the governor has called for merging agencies and forcing the state government to work more efficiently.

Our union is part of the CLEAR Coalition (www.clearforpa.org), which has identified more than $2.5 billion in savings, efficiencies, and revenue enhancements that we believe are long overdue, and will prevent a fiscal crash.

These recommendations include right-sizing the management-worker ratio in state government, reforming state contract bidding and procurement rules, eliminating Medicaid fraud and abuse by providers, and ending charter and cyber school giveaways, among others.

The state, like any other business, can always operate more efficiently and we welcome the scrutiny and the effort to find savings. We need to guard against wholesale cuts and reductions that threaten core services or

put

cost hardworking Pennsylvanians their jobs. We will support real "reforms" that produce real, sustainable savings.

These are tough calls that must be made. But, boiled down to basics, the governor has provided a relatively simple blueprint to follow.

Wolf has done his part, hard working public employees do their part quietly safeguarding what we Pennsylvanians take for granted twenty-four hours a day, every day. It's time State Lawmakers step up and do their part and pass the common sense budget proposed.

Tom Herman is the president of Local 668 of SEIU. He writes from Harrisburg.
TOP 5 LETTERS ART.jpg

As you might imagine, we get more letters to the editor here at PennLive Opinion than we could ever hope to run. Some are turned down because they're too long. Some don't make the cut because they just don't have that something that makes them worthy of publication.

So we're trying something a bit new: Once a week, we'll run the Top 5 Letters of the Week.

None of these have run on PennLive before. It's a nice way to clear the decks on a Sunday morning before another busy week of news devours our collective attention.

Ready? Here we go.

5. Maybe it's time to decrease the size of the federal government:

With the recent protests and marches taking place all over the nation, it seems a majority of these acts are aimed strictly at President Donald Trump. Whether the collective message is a refusal of a Trump presidency or a criticism of his policy agenda, the end result is strictly symbolic.

Trump does not make legislation and his sphere of influence is limited by both the Legislature and the Supreme Court. If citizens want to make an actual impact on legislation it is most effective to target their representatives, instead of providing representatives with the cover to blame the president for legislation that is their responsibility.

If citizens are afraid of government led by an individual you do not agree with, maybe it would be worth the time to consider decreasing the size and scope of the federal government. This would ensure that in the future, regardless of party, there is much less power given to one man or woman.

STEPHANIE DEMARCO, Lower Paxton Township

4. There are better places for a casino than on the footsteps of Gettysburg:

It is an ironic coincidence that, this Thursday, twice-failed casinomeister David LeVan will attempt yet another effort to bring gaming to Gettysburg's doorstep. This time, his proposed fiefdom would be located in Freedom Township, an extraordinarily rural area with a population of significantly less than 1000 vulnerable residents.

He plans to drag PA's Horse Racing Commission and Gaming Control Board through another ugly conflict, sure to incite a national outpouring of shock and protest from millions who consider any potential threat to Gettysburg's iconic status to be abhorrent.

LeVan has been down this road twice before in both Straban and Cumberland Townships. He will make his pitch again, using "Memoranda of Understandings," hollow promises and exaggerated revenue projections. This time, however, the casino market is even more saturated than when Gaming Control Board members could not see fit to cast even one vote for either of his previous proposals.

We can only hope that those who oversee PA's racing and casino trade will find another more suitable location for their one remaining license. Otherwise, by giving credence to LeVan's pathological quest, they will focus national attention once more on our state's alarming willingness to put precious historic locations at risk from inappropriate development.

WILLIAM H. SCHNEIDER, Hampden Township

3. A growing national debt? Thanks, Obama:

When you raise spending and cut taxes, you increase the debt, and when you increase the number of people getting food stamps and all the other kinds of welfare programs this country has, like the Obama administration did for the past eight years it was in power, doesn't that also increase the national debt?

What about some of the wasteful spending programs that both political parties continue to fund? Will Medicare ever be reimbursed for the billions of dollars taken out of it to initially fund Obamacare when the Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and the White House and rammed Obamacare down the Republicans' throats?

Just because the Republicans controlled the House and Senate the last few years of the Obama administration's rein of power, and were responsible for approving budgets, doesn't necessarily mean the Republicans are to blame for the national debt being what it currently is.

Our generation won't be paying off the national debt, but our children and grandchildren will be the ones who will have to pay for it for years to come.

If our elected politicians in Washington, Republicans and Democrats, continue to put off doing anything about the growing national debt as they have for years, it will eventually be a financial disaster for the citizens of this country.

Socialism is great until the money runs out. Do you think the money will ever run out?

JOHN HOLLENBACK, Greenfield Township, Lackawanna County

2. Why, yes, hacking is stealing:

I was dismayed but not surprised at how our then-president-to-be and his spineless lackeys embraced the hacker Julian Assange whom President Donald Trump previously said should be executed.

This is consistent with his admiration for his fellow autocrat, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he encouraged to hack into American e-mails. Hacking is stealing. It is unethical, immoral and illegal. Yet it is completely acceptable if it serves his self-interest.

Is this the sort of person we want to lead our country? Some feckless congressmen would have you believe that Trump meant almost nothing of what he said during his campaign. In other words, they would have us rally behind a liar, an amoral opportunist and a hypocritical fraud.

I hope there are enough ethical people in the media and Congress to oppose and expose Trump's underhanded and sleazy activities. He is tarnishing the ideals and integrity that make America great.

JERRY MARTIN, East Pennsboro Township

1. Donald Trump isn't my President:

I never thought I would write a letter on my opinion of the president of the United States. Donald trump is not my president. Trump is a liar. He has no morals or ethics. He is a racist and has no respect for women.

Trump is the only president-elect that was backed by the Ku Klux Klan and a Russian president. Trump refuses to release his tax returns. What is he hiding from the American public?

If he does not agree with something or someone, he rants and raves at the media. They are wrong, he is right. I call it" Trump's Truth".

The TV coverage showed the two comparison between Trump's inauguration and former President Barack Obama's inauguration. Is he blind?

Every time, I turn on the TV, Trump is saying something totally stupid or unbelievable. He is a chronic liar.

Is there anyone in Congress or in authority or anyone out there that recognizes the fact that Trump needs a psychiatric evaluation. He is not mentally and emotionally capable of being president of the United States of America.

Millions of men, women and children marched all over the world. The Women's March was in protest of everything Trump.

SHIRLEY L. KYLE, Mechanicsburg
Paul Ryan,Virginia Foxx

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., joined by Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, takes questions during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, following a GOP strategy session at the Republican National Committee offices. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

(J. Scott Applewhite)

By Eugene Robinson

Imagine how Republicans would have reacted if President Barack Obama had attacked a retailer for dropping his daughter's product line. Or asked senators to confirm a Cabinet pick who said guns are needed in schools to defend against grizzly bears.

Eugene Robinson (PennLive file)

Or tried to undermine the independence of the federal judiciary. Or equated the United States' moral standing with that of Vladimir Putin's Russia.

There would have been howls of outrage, of course, and multiple investigations, and even calls for impeachment.

But it's President Donald Trump doing all those things, so Republicans in Congress are as meek and quiet as mice.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the chaotic and exhausting first three weeks of the Trump administration is the degree to which Republicans have held together, placing loyalty above all else. The party of Lincoln has sold its soul -- and like all Faustian bargains, this one will not end well.

Trump looks likely to get every one of his Cabinet nominees approved. Billionaire Betsy DeVos gave the worst performance in memory, surely one of the worst in history, at her confirmation hearing, displaying a level of ignorance that was truly shocking.

Only two Republican senators -- Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska -- had the integrity to vote against her.

Vice Mike President Pence had to break a 50-50 tie, but DeVos is now the secretary of education.

And that was the closest thing we've seen to a GOP revolt in these confirmations. Not one Republican voted against confirming Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as attorney general, despite his ugly history on civil rights. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went so far as to formally squelch Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) so she could not read aloud a letter criticizing Sessions written decades ago by Coretta Scott King.

Trump's pick for the Labor Department, fast-food magnate Andrew Puzder, has conflicts of interest and a nanny problem; he may face some pushback. Ben Carson has zero qualifications to lead Housing and Urban Development. But if DeVos got through, it's hard to imagine who would be deemed unacceptable by the GOP majority.

Over in the House, meanwhile, all the zeal for holding the executive branch accountable has gone poof. Remember how eager House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was to investigate every real or imagined question about the Obama administration? Remember how he went after Hillary Clinton over her emails? Suddenly -- and this is rich -- he declines to launch any probe that might be seen as a "fishing expedition."

Trump's attack on a private company, Nordstrom, for no longer carrying his daughter Ivanka's line of merchandise? Not a "big deal," Chaffetz said. Trump's hotel lease for the Old Post Office building, which makes him both landlord and tenant? Chaffetz is "curious" but wants to wait for an opinion by the General Services Administration, which now reports to Trump. The many potential conflicts of interest posed by Trump's worldwide business interests? Chaffetz stifles a yawn.

And only a few Republicans, including Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), have shown any interest in investigating the biggest question hanging over the Trump administration: What role did Russia play in the election? This abdication of duty is cynicism of the highest order, or perhaps I should say the lowest.

The GOP's lockstep unity has been impressive, and it may eventually allow the party to achieve some of its long-held policy goals: cutting taxes, eliminating regulations, repealing the Affordable Care Act. But there are enormous risks.

The dawn of the Trump presidency has inspired a groundswell of progressive activism around the country. The energy generated by the massive Women's March on Washington and its satellite marches last month has been sustained. Republican members of Congress have been deluged by phone calls at their offices and confronted by protesters in their home districts. "The women are in my grill no matter where I go," said Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.).

If opposition to Trump unites and motivates Democrats the way that opposition to Obama did for Republicans, GOP strategists should be very worried.

Beyond the political risk, there is the existential risk of blindly following a man who continues to demonstrate his unfitness for the presidency. Trump shows no respect for American institutions or traditions. He sees those who disagree with him as "haters" and dismisses inconvenient facts as "fake news." He deliberately stokes fear. He bristles at constitutional checks on his power.

And to think, there once was a Republican president who summoned "the better angels of our nature."

Eugene Robinson is a columnist for The Washington Post. His work appears on Saturdays on PennLive.
A Madison religious school that has grown quickly as part of the states private school voucher program is eyeing a major expansion.

Lighthouse Christian School, 5202 Regent St., is proposing to relocate to a building with more than double the number of classrooms.

The school has grown beyond our capacity to meet the demand, said the Rev. Marcio Sierra Jr., a co-pastor of Lighthouse Church.

The West Side school currently operates out of the church. Under the expansion plan, the school would move to its own building at 6400 Schroeder Road on the citys Southwest Side, a distance of about three miles. The church and an early childhood center would remain at the Regent Street site.

The Schroeder Road building most recently was the national office for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. The nonprofit organization moved to new quarters in University Research Park in May 2015.

The building, still owned by InterVarsity, has sat empty since then. The school has an accepted offer to purchase it and hopes to close in April, with the goal of opening the school at the site this fall, Sierra said.

Lighthouse has applied for a city conditional use permit to operate a school at the site. The item is tentatively set for discussion at the March 20 Plan Commission meeting.

Rapid growth





The school has 93 students in grades 4K through 6, of which 57 participate in the taxpayer-funded Wisconsin Parental Choice Program. The controversial program allows students who meet income-eligibility guidelines to attend private schools on a voucher paid for with public money.

The private school receives a state aid payment for each eligible voucher student. The current amount is $7,323 for each student in grades K-8.

Lighthouse Christian School is the first and so far only private school in Dane County to participate in the voucher program. When it first joined the program in 2013-14, the school had an enrollment of 42 students, of which 10 were voucher students.

The school has more than doubled in size in four years and hopes to grow to 260 students by 2022-23, Sierra said. The school wants to add grades 7 and 8 by the 2018-19 school year.

Under current and future state rules, a lot of those additional students could be part of the voucher program.

For the current school year, enrollment in the voucher program is capped at 1 percent of a given school districts student population. The Madison School Districts enrollment of 27,942 means 279 students could be on vouchers. Because Lighthouse Christian School is the only voucher school in the district, it could have all 279 of them.

Voucher schools also can draw students from nearby districts, as long as those districts dont go over the 1 percent cap. And for the 2017-18 school year, the state Legislature has upped the cap to 2 percent of a given school districts student population. So theoretically, Lighthouse Christian School could add many more voucher students.

With Lighthouse faring so well with vouchers, why havent other Dane County schools signed up?

Sharon Schmeling, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Religious & Independent Schools, said the voucher program is heavily regulated, bringing with it lots of paperwork and requirements surrounding audits and state testing. A school needs a considerable number of voucher students to offset the cost of the paperwork alone, she said.

A lot of schools are weighing whether access to the program is worth the headaches of the bureaucracy that come along with it, Schmeling said.

So far, the Madison Catholic Diocese, which operates numerous religious schools in Dane County, has decided not to be part of the voucher program.

Schools appeal

Sierra attributes his schools appeal to academic excellence, individual attention, and small class sizes. He said the voucher program has created a demand for high-quality education where all children can succeed, regardless of race, ethnicity or income status.

Almost 70 percent of the schools students are from low-income families, Sierra said. Almost half are Hispanic, 28 percent are black and 10 percent are Asian, he said.

The new site will be closer to neighborhoods where many of the schools low-income students live, he said. The new building will have 18 classrooms, up from the current eight, as well as a bigger gym and a new library with a computer lab, he said.

Critics of the state choice program say vouchers drain needed money and support from public schools and that taxpayer money should not be used to support parochial schools.

Lighthouse Christian School faced criticism four years ago after it was reported that its fifth-grade science curriculum rejected evolution. The schools textbooks at the time, published by Alpha Omega Publications, endorsed Young Earth creationism, which posits that the Earth is only several thousand years old, not millions.

The school no longer uses the Alpha Omega textbooks, said the Rev. Tia Sierra, the schools principal and co-pastor of the church with her husband. The new science curriculum studied by fifth- and sixth-graders does not address evolution, she said.

Measuring the value of private voucher schools should become easier for consumers in the years ahead.

Starting with the 2015-16 school year, the state Department of Public Instruction began collecting test scores and other data from voucher schools to include them in the annual issuance of school report cards.

However, because the report cards rely on multiple years of data, schools such as Lighthouse Christian have not yet been scored by the state.

The school has grown beyond our capacity to meet the demand. the Rev. Marcio Sierra Jr.,

co-pastor of Lighthouse Church
Gov. Tom Wolf released a report Friday that his administration commissioned at a cost of $1.8 million and used to develop a 2017 budget proposal high on cuts and light on new taxes.

The governor followed many of the recommendations contained in the report, such as a major consolidation of several departments and offering early retirement to state workers.

Here's a look at several highlights from the New York City-based McKinsey and Co.'s 79-page report, including several cost-saving recommendations that haven't yet or haven't fully materialized.

The report is available in its entirety on the state Office of the Budget website.

1. Shutter state police barracks. One of the noteworthy recommendations that hasn't apparently been followed--at least not yet--is the consolidation of the Pennsylvania State Police's 81 stations. Scaling back to 67, or one station per county, could save the state $440,000 in the first year and $620,000 per year in operating and lease expenses. The report suggests transitioning to a model where each patrol trooper is assigned a vehicle that allows them to operate from the road without checking into a station.

Gov. Tom Wolf did, however, take the consultants' advice by closing a state prison and, more generally, vowing to "divest unused property." Just as it did with the announced state prison closing and with 2011 closing of the state police's aviation unit in Montoursville, any move to shutter barracks would probably face strong resistance from local lawmakers and their constituents.

2. Wolf chose one of the least costly municipal policing options. The report cites a 2014 study that estimated the cost for the state police to extend coverage to municipalities without full-time local law enforcement is $540 million. It outlined a number of options for how to recoup those costs. The one Wolf ultimately went with--charging municipalities the equivalent of $25 per resident--was among the least costly, with expected revenue of about $63 million. Charging a $100 per resident fee would have netted $252 million. Adjusting that charge based on median income and ramping it up over three years would have generated between $49 million and $149 million.

3. Scale back veterans' homes operations. On average, it costs Pennsylvania 9 percent more than similar states to run its six veterans' homes. The consultants make several recommendations to reduce that: Contracting for food and housekeeping services would save about $3.6 million; closing a wing to consolidate 236 empty beds would save about $4 million and could allow the state to lease the space out; and selling extra land at one of the homes could net the state between $5.3 million and $16 million in revenue.

It's clear from budget documents that at least the last two recommendations were not factored into Wolf's 2017 budget proposal. Facilities maintenance costs remained the same from year to year.

4. Cull the state's real estate holdings and vehicle fleet. The commonwealth owns or leases 2,400 facilities and 5,000 non-police passenger vehicles. According to the consultants, much of that space is poorly and under-utilized. For example, government leases in Harrisburg that are up for renewal in the next fiscal year account for about 220,000 square feet of space. At the same time, there are 264,000 square feet of unutilized space in buildings the state owns or has a long-term lease on. Consolidating those spaces alone could save a half million dollars. Divesting of unused property, meanwhile, could net the state nearly $3 million for the General Fund from their sale and save another $6.7 million in operating expenses. Changes to the vehicle fleet, meanwhile, could save $1.1 million in the next fiscal year.

It's not clear how much Wolf plans to scale back both the fleet and real estate holdings but he has vowed to sell off unused property.

5. Overhaul inspection services. One of the consultants' more creative ideas involves an overhaul of inspection services provided by the departments of agriculture, environmental protection and labor and industry. First, they urged the state to cross-train inspectors so they could perform the work of all three departments in a single visit. They also recommended rolling out mobile technology to eliminate cumbersome paper records and reexamining the geographic spread of inspectors to ensure they do their work more efficiently. Given the cost to upgrade equipment and train staff, those measures would have saved a paltry sum, between $100,000 and $300,000, in the first year but could eventually save $1.4 million per year in the long-term.

Wolf emphasized the streamlining government services--such as the consolidation of four social service departments, which was another of the consultants' recommendations--but he hasn't explicitly discussed these changes to inspections. Since this is more of a policy change and one that would likely have to be rolled out across several years, it may not have earned its place among the more sweeping changes Wolf proposed. It's worth noting that one of the priorities of former Environmental Secretary John Quigley, who left the post last year, was to supply inspectors with tablets. Mobile apps have already been developed for PennDOT, the DEP and the Department of Agriculture, according to the administration's budget briefing.
U.S. President George W. Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin look in opposite directions during a photo opportunity upon Bush's arrival at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Tuesday Nov 30, 2004. Canada's prime minister has to go see the U.S. president, and he's not especially thrilled. The president is deeply unpopular in Canada, and elsewhere, since campaigning on protectionism and tariffs. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tom Hanson
In this Friday, Feb 10, 2017 photo, volunteers pour water over beached whales at the remote Farewell Spit on the tip of the South Island of New Zealand. Volunteers in New Zealand managed to refloat about 100 surviving pilot whales on Saturday, Feb. 11 and are hoping they will swim back out to sea after more than 400 of the creatures swam aground at a remote beach. (Tim Cuff/New Zealand Herald via AP)
Harbor Springs women reflect on Ukraine war after time with refugees

Julie Bacon and Sujo Offield of Harbor Springs went to Poland in March to help refugees fleeing the conflict in Ukraine.
Historic preservationists are preparing for another fight with Gov. Scott Walker over his proposed capping of a popular tax credit program used to restore and maintain historic properties.

Walker proposed in his state budget released this week to limit the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit program to no more than $10 million a year. He called for the same limit two years ago, but was brushed back by the Legislature after a forceful lobbying effort by a coalition of development, municipal and historic preservation groups.

The same coalition is regrouping for another fight this year. Wisconsin Realtors Association lobbyist Tom Larson said Friday he was surprised Walker was trying again given the broad support shown for the tax breaks.

We demonstrated our case very well last session and showed this program is an important economic development program throughout the state, especially in more urban areas, Larson said.

Larson and other advocates of the program say its vital to maintaining the integrity of historic neighborhoods and buildings by providing needed capital to undertake often expensive projects. The coalition two years ago commissioned a study to show that the tax credits helped increase revenue to the state and spur other economic development.

Walker argues, in the budget he submitted to the Legislature on Wednesday, that the program needs to be limited to ensure that its rapidly growing expenditures do not crowd out other economic development priorities.

In just the first three months of the current fiscal year, $11.6 million has been promised to 12 projects in the program, based on data on the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. website. Last year, $51.6 million was awarded to 34 projects. And in 2015, 48 projects were granted $80.4 million in credits.

Just because a project has been awarded a certain amount in credits doesnt mean thats how much will ultimately be claimed once the work is completed.

Projects throughout state

The awards have been spread throughout the state. This year alone, projects in Appleton, Watertown, Kenosha, La Crosse, Stevens Point, Racine and Milwaukee have been awarded money. Similarly, last years projects were located in Madison, Oshkosh, Sheboygan, Janesville, Green Bay and Milwaukee.

Capping this program will hurt local communities and prevent companies from hiring and retaining skilled Wisconsin workers, said Democratic Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling. And Assembly Democratic Minority Leader Peter Barca called the tax credit program an excellent investment in local communities.

The Legislatures budget-writing Joint Finance Committee rejected Walkers call for a cap on credits in 2015. Bob Delaporte, spokesman for committee co-chair Republican Sen. Alberta Darling, had no comment on the proposal.

Were still digging into the budget, he said.

Rep. John Nygren, the other co-chair, said the tax credit had successfully revitalized local businesses, but that the program has potential to become costly. He didnt say whether he would support the governors proposal.

Only property built before 1936 that is on the state or national register of historic places or identified by the Wisconsin Historical Society is eligible. Other property that is in a historic district that is on the state or national registers and determined by the state to be historically significant or connected to a building can also qualify.

Job creation key criteria

Walkers budget proposal would require the money to be competitively awarded on the basis of job creation potential, benefit to the state, projected impact on the local economy, likelihood the project would happen without the credits and number of credits given out in the area in prior years. If the promised jobs arent created, the tax credit awarded could be retrieved by the state.

The change is projected to save the state $3 million in the first year of the budget and $14 million in the second.

Ironically, it was Walker who in 2013 increased the tax credits from 10 percent to 20 percent of a projects cost. That is on top of a 20 percent federal credit. There is no limit on how much can be awarded.
A New Jersey state trooper dispatched to the wrong home was justified in shooting the owner, who had grabbed his own weapons because he feared intruders were outside, authorities said Friday.

Gerald Sykes, 76 at the time of the incident, was shot twice in the chest and once in the upper groin at his home in Upper Deerfield Township, Cumberland County, just before midnight on July 29, 2016.

Miscommunications among emergency dispatchers caused two troopers to respond to Sykes' home, where dispatchers believed someone had dialed 911 and hung up.

Sykes' attorney, Rich Kaser, said Friday that the family was considering a lawsuit. He said the state's decision was disappointing but not surprising.

"The state was investigating themselves," he said.

Sykes, whose wife awakened him after she saw shadowy figures on the back deck, grabbed a shotgun and a revolver and walked into the living room, the state Attorney General's Office said.

His wife, Margot, later told investigators she saw two men on the back deck with flashlights, and heard them saying they were police officers and asking whether anyone had called 911. Knowing she and her husband had been asleep and had not called 911, she did not believe the men were police officers, the Attorney General's Office said.

The troopers, who were standing outside a sliding-glass door that leads into the living room, saw Gerald Sykes on the other side of the door. The troopers pulled their guns and yelled, "State police," upon seeing Sykes point his shotgun at one of them, authorities said.

Sykes then aimed his shotgun and revolver toward the other trooper, who fired four shots from his 9mm service handgun, authorities said. That trooper moved back toward the garage, while the second trooper remained near the deck.

Sykes then fired once with his shotgun, grazing the left elbow of the second trooper, the Attorney General's Office said. Both troopers ran to a patrol car and drove away to wait for backup.

Inside the home, Sykes called 911 and said he had been shot by "prowlers." He then placed his shotgun on the front porch and walked to the front lawn, where other troopers who had responded handcuffed him until paramedics arrived.

The Attorney General's Office said the troopers, before encountering Sykes, had rung the doorbell, knocked on the front door, and yelled that they were responding to a 911 hangup. One of the troopers also shined a flashlight on the other trooper's uniform to show they were state police, authorities said.

The series of miscommunications that sent state police to the home began with a 911 call made elsewhere in the county that night, by a man who wanted police to remove a cousin from his home to prevent a fight.

Cumberland County's emergency dispatch center answered the call and tried to transfer it to the state police. But the county dispatcher hit the wrong button and accidentally transferred the call to Vineland, which has its own dispatch center.

The transfer was quickly canceled but came through to Vineland as a call that lasted two seconds, the Attorney General's Office said. A Vineland dispatcher interpreted the call as a 911 hangup, looked up the location  which came up as the cell tower next to Sykes' home  and alerted state police.

It is standard procedure in New Jersey for the Attorney General's Office to investigate whether a police officer was justified in using deadly force. In a statement Friday, the office said, "Mr. Sykes was armed, did not comply with troopers' commands, and approached to within a few feet of the troopers with his shotgun and revolver."

Sykes could not be reached Friday. He said after the shooting that he still supported police "100 percent," but that "incidents like this really shouldn't happen."
The green giants, all dressed up for the evening.

It's not just the bikes that are drifting about in the dust. The small army of 4x4's used to shuttle riders up some of the massive Adean peaks like to get loose as well.

If it wasn't for all that #lightbro, you might just be able to make out Santiago in the distance.

Not one to be on the fence about things, Jerome Clementz dropped the hammer on day three to extend his lead to almost a full minute.

Francois Bailly-Maitre focused before dropping in.

Smiling and enjoying herself, Tracy Moseley is one day away from winning her second Andes Pacifico in a row.

The 2400 meter drive to access the fresh terrain on day three was never short on epic views.

So epic that this bunch stopped at least five times for group selfies.

The sun began to set as racers dropped in for the final two stages of the day en route to Chicureo.

Neil Donoghue holding steady in 15th.

Blind racing means that sometimes you get it right, and some times you get it wrong. In this corner it's pretty obvious which side of the coin Allan Cooke landed on.

Despite some setbacks and a flat tire, Casey Brown is still smiling and enjoying the variety of wild tracks here in Chile.

The dirt in Nido De Condores is so slippery that even the slightest off camber becomes a sketchy challenge.

Birds of prey always on the lookout at Andes Pacifico.

Antonia Wurth slipped back to 5th at the close of day four.

Nico Prudencio between a rock and a sharp place.

Francois Bailly-Maitre finished 5th and 8th on each of the last two days but still keeps his 3rd place in the overall with one day to go.

Anti-grip claims another victim. Cedric Gracia had more bad luck on day three, slashing open his shin on a sharp rock that required stitches trackside.

The mid day heat is intense in central Chile, and racers take all the shade they can get at the feed zones.

There's nothing like a trail lined with one inch thorns to keep you floating as much as possible.

Pedro Ferreira would go second on day four to move up to 4th in the overall.

Yoann Barelli has run into more trees and bushes than he can count this week, but is hanging tight in 7th.

Flat tires pushed Marco Osborne down in the order, where he now occupies 11th.

Fastest on day 4, Milciades Jaque is now firmly in 2nd place in the overall and within striking distance of the win if Jerome should falter.

Pauline Dieffenthaler took advantage of a crash and flat tire by Casey Brown to move up a spot to 4th.

Felipe Vasquez once again dominating the Masters with a time good enough to be 19 in the Pro field.

Antonio Ovalle kept it consistent to stay inside the top 10.

You know the final stage of day 4 was a rough one when Jerome Clementz is exhausted.

Post empanada stress faces.

Abby Strigel amidst the cactus lands.

The last glimmers of light marking the end of a long day on the bike. Casey Brown just about to drop into the shadows of the final stage of day 3.

Iago Garay coming up for air at the finish of day 4.

It's been a hot one here in Chile.

Beat up and taped up, riders have one more day until they can relax at the beach.

A room with a view... Of thirsty riders.

Not exactly roughing it at this evening's campsite.

Which way to the beach?

In past years the third and fourth days of the Andes Pacifico traditionally head westward toward the coast and away from the rugged trails of the Andes. In this year's running wild fires south of Santiago along the coastal range forced organizers to scramble at the last minute for new trails and new regions as the race moved closer to the Pacific Ocean. And while racers were not treated to the wine tours of the Santa Cruz region as they have in the past, they were instead rewarded with a third day in the Andes and some remote trails seldom ever ridden my mountain bikes.The trails high above Chicureo can only be accessed by 4x4 or moto on rugged steep roads that snake 2400 meters up and across multiple peaks. The trails back down are usually only ridden by dirt bikes due to their remote nature, which have created trails full of whoops, berms, and ruts. Essentially a motocross track on singletrack and with speeds in excess of 50kph. It would be on these trails that Jerome Clementz would stretch his lead to almost a full minute as he thrives on stages longer than 10 minutes in length, exploiting his power on the multiple small climbs scattered throughout. The same could be said for Tracy Moseley, who once again dominated the day in the women's race.Day 4 saw a change of camp and a relocation about one hour from the coast in a town called La Ligua. And while the hills surrounding the region may not be as intimidating and tall as the Andes, they were no less challenging. Here riders would find more mellow grades both out in the open and through the forest, as well as steep and deeply rutted trails that have evolved over time with erosion from the rain that is far more common here than at the higher elevations. While the surface wasn't as slick and unpredictable as that in the Andes, it's still loose and mixed full of sand and rocks of all sizes. Additionally, the vegetation lining the track takes on a much more prickly demeanor, made up of various species of cactus. Racers going off track had more to worry about that just jagged boulders.With just one day off racing to go before racers can celebrate on the beaches of Cachagua, Tracey Moseley has a commanding lead in the women's race while Jerome Clementz holds the top spot for the men. It's safe to say Tracy has things locked up barring disaster, but Jerome has been put under pressure by Chilean, Milciades Jaque, who was fastest on day 4.Next stop... La playa.Overall standings here
K-9 Ranger with his handler, Officer Nick Kent (Photo: Forest Lake PD)

A K-9 with the Forest Lake (MN) Police Department suffered a medical emergency and died following the apprehension of a suspect late Tuesday.

Forest Lake Police officers were helping the Minnesota State Patrol with a high-risk stop just after 11:30 p.m. when a suspect refused to cooperate, reports KARE.

Ranger, a Forest Lake K-9, was deployed by Officer Nick Kent and managed to get the suspect under control. Moments later the dog collapsed after suffering some sort of medical emergency and was rushed to University of Minnesota Veterinary Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A preliminary autopsy found Ranger died of a "cardiac event."

Ranger served the City of Forest Lake for seven years.
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Last week it was Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demanding an apology from the Fox News Channel. This week its Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has nuclear weapons at his disposal. Hes demanding an apology after Bill OReilly, during his softball of an interview with Emperor Trump, accidentally blurted out the truth. Loofah called Putin a killer. Then Trump accidentally blurted out the truth FALSE EQUIVALENCY: Merkas not so innocent either.

Heres the exchange that could spark the next World War:

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

fFriday Fox Follies looks forward to the upcoming vanilla milkshake summit, not dissimilar to the beer summit  the last time a POTUS blurted out the truth. Remember how the Reich Wing went nuts? Milkshake diplomacy will resemble Potsdam or Yalta. The Big 3 will carve up the world. The election proved Russia is allied with Trumpistan and vice versa. Yet, Emperor Trump counts on the support of the Mayor of Loofahville and its citizens. Surely these parties can be brought together so we can have peace in our time.

Maybe not. The Falafel King says, essentially, dont hold your breath, Russia:

Apparently the Putin administration in Moscow demanding that I, your humble correspondent, apologize for saying old Vlad is a killer, he said. So Im working on that apology but it may take a little time. Might want to check in with me around 2023.

The Kremlin seems cool with that and, so far, has had the last word:

On Tuesday, Peskov reacted to OReillys comment, saying that Russia has a different understanding of the rules of etiquette and manners than this gentleman [OReilly]. But we are very kind and very patient. We will put a note in the calendar for the year 2023 and return to him with this question, Peskov added.

[]

According to Putins spokesman, the incident is even more unpleasant for Fox News Channel than for Russia. We are not inclined to exaggerate this or to blow this out of proportion, he said, suggesting the Kremlin would not pursue the incident further. But in any case the insult that is voiced by a correspondent of a media outlet and subsequently passed over in silence by its chief editorial office characterizes these media negatively.

Oh, snappity, snap snap!!!

Meanwhile, the Falafel King still holds a grudge from being bested by then-comedian Al Franken years ago. Thats why he never passes up the chance to smear Senator Al Franken, especially if it helps his friend Trump.

Filling the rest of the pita:

What Trump Wants Bill OReilly, and All of Us, to Forget

OReilly: Liberal Sports Press Turned

Brady-Trump Friendship Into Controversy

Twitter reminds critics Tom Brady

skipped Obama White House visit

Krauthammer to OReilly: Uproar Over Russia

Remarks Isnt About People Out to Get Trump

Its somehow reassuring that both Trump & Putin waste their time watching the Fox News Channel.

KOMEDY KAVALCADE KORNER:

Its funny because its true  and angry  and Samantha Bee:

IRONY ALERT!!! Bully Boy Bolling spent 9 years trashing President Obama, but now thinks John McCain Is Trying to Undercut Trump.

https://youtu.be/kXhwBlkk_e4

McCain is 2 years too late, if you ask me.

MC CAIN FAMILY VALUES: While were on the subject, this reporter has absolutely no sympathy for Meghan McCain, owner of two of the 8 legs appearing regularly on #Outlandish, the show at noon EST. First she calls Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas because she was opposed to Edumacation Czar Betsy DeVos. Then two years too late  like father, like daughter  condemns Emperor Trump. And, the internet let her have it on this Twitter thread:

Trump has never served. My father can't bend one of his knees or lift one of his arms above his head. I am done with this today. DONE.  Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) February 9, 2017

Also from Outlasted:

Fox News Spends Nearly 10 Minutes Attacking

Elizabeth Warren For Quoting Coretta Scott King

(No Time Defending Mitch McConnells Censure)

Foxs Outnumbered Gives Trump A Pass For Attacking Nordstrom

Thats why #Outbuilding is such a fun show.

AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR:

Foxs Chris Wallace Blasts The Trump

Administration For Its Ivanka Trump Shilling

Sean Spicer: Kellyanne Conway

Counseled After Telling Fox News

Channel Viewers Go Buy Ivankas Stuff

Former ethics czar: Kellyanne

Conway broke the law on Fox News

SHILLS & FRIENDS: It was, after all, on Fox & Friends that Kellyanne Conjob plugged Ivankas schmatas. Those Foxy Friends also went after Elizabeth Warren hard. Its hard to know whether theres any sexism there, but Sexist Fox & Friends Segment Hosts Author Claiming Womens Natural State In Marriage Is To Be The Beta. Meanwhile, no less a political authority than Joe Theismann [says]: Donald Trump banning Muslims is just like Tom Brady winning the Super Bowl:

Youre a guy that watches the news a lot, Fox News host Steve Doocy noted. What do you make over the brouhaha  the liberal left is aflame over this travel restriction, which the court of appeals now out in California now says, forget about it, those people can come into the country.

Surrealer and surrealer.

STARNES STAINS: While FFF will expand on this in weeks to come, be warned that Todd Starnes is back with a vengeance. Todds American Dispatch are demented editorials delivered almost daily on Fox & Friends. Since there are so many things that scare Toddles feces-less, future Starnes Stains will focus on whats got him soiling his tidy whities.

TUCKER TRIES TOO HARD: First, credit where credits due. For a change Tucker Carlson decides to debate someone who isnt a hapless outlier. Secondly, Michael Eric Dyson can hold his own. Thirdly, its an important discussion on White Privilege and Reparations. Fourthly, Carlson treated Dyson with respect and didnt laugh or belittle him once during the interview.

However, Carlson gets no points for missing the entire point. Watch:



Is it obliviousness, or stupidity? I vote stupidity because of things like:

Fox News Tries to Prove Steve Bannon Isnt as Bad as ISIS

Sir Eel or not?

TRUMPET SECTION: The Muslim Ban Thats Not A Ban Edition.

Hannity Blames The Democrats For Trump

Administrations Poor Performance

Defending Muslim Ban To Appeals Court

Fox Host Echoes Trump, Saying That If A

Terrorist Attack Occurs, Its On The Courts Now

Foxs Judge Napolitano: Court Ruling

Was Intellectually Dishonest Piece of Work

Fox News Hosts Professional Muslim Basher

To Attack Ninth Circuits Stay On The Muslim Ban

Headly Westerfield adopted a new cat this week and wants the entire world to know.
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The dossier that wouldnt go away. Some got distracted by the urine aspects, but the real issue is whether or not Donald Trump has been compromised by Russia. Its been reported Friday evening that the intel compiled by the former British spy has gained credibility among law enforcement.

In January, reports said the intel community was investigating claims that Russia had compromised Trump, and had damaging personal and financial information on then President-elect. Those reports havent gone away, and unlike accusations that they were false, they are gaining credibility among the law enforcement according to CBS and CNN.

CNN reported Friday evening, For the first time, US investigators say they have corroborated some of the communications detailed in a 35-page dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent, multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials tell CNN.

The salacious aspects of the dossier havent been corroborated, but other aspects of the dossier have been corroborated. The corroboration, based on intercepted communications, has given US intelligence and law enforcement greater confidence in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents, these sources say.

In response, the Trump White House accused CNN of being fake news.

However, CBS Newss sources concurred with CNNs report:

@CBSNews has learned that the 35-page dossier compiled by a former British spy is gaining credibility among law enforcement.  Robert Gifford (@giff18) February 10, 2017

CBS News Senior Producer Robert Gifford continued, Before he was sworn in as POTUS, Trump dismissed the dossier, but sources tell @CBSNews that investigators continue to vet it.

At issue is whether Russian govt gathered compromising info on POTUS during his years of doing biz in country as a private citizen.

FBI is leading probe, but several intel agencies also involved. Typically a probe of this scale would involve sources/methods of CIA, NSA.

Add this in with NBCs report Friday evening that Russia is considering returning Snowden to the U.S. to curry favor with Trump and the bombshell report that Trumps National Security Adviser has possibly committed a crime violating the Logan Act, when he repeatedly during the campaign and transition, undermined President Obamas sanctions on Russia.

On Air Force One heading to his resort with the Japanese Prime Minister, Trump was asked to respond to the Washington Post report that Gen. Flynn possibly violated the Logan Act by discussing sanctions with Russias Ambassador to the U.S. multiple times during the campaign and the transition.

I dont know about that. I havent seen it. What report is that? I havent seen that. Ill look into that, President Trump said according to a pool report sent to PoliticusUSA, denying that he has any knowledge that his own National Security adviser might have conspired with a hostile, aggressive actor against Americas goals.

Meanwhile:

Sen. Claire McCaskill has just sent a letter to FBI Dir. Comey asking for an immediate briefing on the Mike Flynn findings. pic.twitter.com/MZFVoKDGSv  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 10, 2017

Theres a lot of Russian smoke coming from the Trump White House today, and it has the potential to devastate his presidency. This possibly explosive dossier just took another step toward being solidly reliable information.
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*The following is an opinion column by R Muse*

The many and varied oral reactions to Trump have been, besides primarily rife with pejoratives, fairly imaginative for people in a state of shock that their nation is being led by a moron many professionals claim is a functional illiterate suffering severe narcissistic personality disorder; what this column labeled a petulant brat. It is almost certain that many of the reactions to Trump and his tyrannical style of leadership are of the spicier obscenity-laced type and can hardly be put into print or uttered in mixed or polite company; nasty people just invite those kinds of responses.

Now, whatever comity or respect for the office usually afforded a fellow politician was trumped by a nasty remark by Trump and it drove one Pennsylvania state senator to abandon proper decorum and lash out at Trump and dare him to seek vengeance. Pennsylvania state Senator, Daylin Leach, took umbrage over a threat from Trump to destroy a Texas state senators career for proposing a reform that Trump doesnt like.

The issue began when Rockwall County Sheriff, Harold Eavenson, told Trump that a state senator in Texas wanted to change the states civil asset forfeiture law to require that a person be convicted of a crime before their assets could be seized. Trumps response was, Who is the state senator? Do you want to give his name? Well destroy his career.

That was a bit much for any American to hear from the leader of the Executive branch, but for Mr. Leach it was an affront too far and he let loose with a few clever names for Trump along with an invitation to try to destroy my career. Mr. Leach was particularly clever to use Trumps primary means of communication, the Twitter to assail him saying:

Hey @realdDonaldTrump I oppose civil asset forfeiture too! Why dont you try to destroy my career you fascist, loofa-faced shit-gibbon.

For the record, a gibbon is a member of the ape family, but combining it with feces in the Scottish originated shitgibbon means A toad who thinks he is a prince, devoid of any self-awareness as to what an asshole he looks like to everyone around him.

A spokesman for Senator Leach, Steve Hoenstine told PhillyVoice:

Trump blithely talked about destroying the career of a man who disagreed with Trump on a policy issue. Then Trump laughed about it, which is just what youd expect from someone who gets his kicks firing people on national television. He continues to undermine democratic norms, Americas system of checks and balances, and the general principle of human decency. Senator Leach is mad as hell about it, as you can see from his tweet.

It is likely that Mr. Leach is mad as Hell about everything connected to Trump; who in their right mind can blame him? However, it turns out that this abominable civil asset forfeiture issue is near and dear to Leachs heart. He co-sponsored legislation aimed at reforming asset forfeiture laws in Pennsylvania. Watch Senator Leach explain, in his own words, why he really is mad as Hell.

Law enforcement agencies use civil asset forfeiture laws to seize cash and property from individuals based on a suspicion that the property was involved in a crime. It is a nifty way to legally steal money and property from American citizens who in many cases do not need to be arrested, charged, or convicted for law enforcement to legally and permanently seize their belongings, according to the ACLU.

As an example of what is happening across the nation, the Chicago Police Department used a civil asset forfeiture program to obtain nearly $72 million in cash and assets since 2009. The Chicago police then used the stolen $72 million to maintain a secret slush fund.

Obviously, since Trump supports any means of robbing Americans, and with a special program available for law enforcement shenanigans, it is little wonder the Trump wants to destroy the career of a politician trying to reform the system to better protect citizens from criminal justice system thieves.

This particular incident isnt about civil asset forfeiture abominations, although it is an issue that must be addressed to protect the innocent from the all-powerful law enforcement system. What it does reveal is that no-one in America is safe from Trump including federal judges and the federal appellate courts. No-one alive doubts that Trump would attempt to destroy a politicians career simply because they disagreed with him; he did call a Washington state federal judge so-called as in fake, and then claimed the federal judicial system is a disgrace for even hearing challenges to his unconstitutional religious order against Muslims.

The event also indicates that barely three weeks into his administration, Trumps bullying and complete disregard for the Constitution have incensed nearly half the population that likely agrees whole-heartedly with Senator Daylin Leach. Trump is a fascist, loofa-faced shit-gibbon that nearly half the population supports impeaching; and who on the planet could possibly blame them? Certainly not this author and assuredly not Senator Leach either.

**The above commentary is the opinion of R Muse**
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A stellar day, really, for the Trump White House.

President Trump was asked by Gabby Morrongiello of the Washington Examiner how he plans to respond to Iranian President Rouhani, who said earlier today that any nation that threatens Iran will regret it.

Trump responded on Air Force One Friday evening on the way to Mar-a-Lago with a threat according to a pool report sent to PoliticusUSA, He better be careful.

Some inexperienced figures in the region and America are threatening Iran, Reuters reported the Iranian President saying earlier. They should know the language of threats has never worked with Iran. We are not seeking tension but we are united before bullying and any threat.

Naturally Trump responded to this with more threatening language, because when it comes to nuclear war, its all about who can be the biggest thug in Trump world.

The man who carelessly left a classified bag out on his desk with the key in it as non-cleared people traipsed through his office has just threatened the Iranian President.

We are so close to Making America Great Again, no?

Oh, and the man giving Trump all of his national security advice was busted for working behind then President Obamas back with Moscow to possibly undermine American sanctions against Russia. You know, Moscow, who influenced our election in Trumps favor.

So sure, all is well here. Nothing to see. Trump mad at Iranian President.
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Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are planning to land a massive blow against the Republican effort to take away health care from tens of millions of Americans with a day of Senate led nationwide protests on February 25.

In the letter, Sanders and Schumer wrote to their Senate colleagues:

Sanders and Schumer wrote, We are encouraging Democratic senators to lead rallies in their states. This is not a Democratic issue, a Republican issue or an Independent issue. The overwhelming majority of Americans, regardless of political persuasion, understand that we have to go forward on health care, not backwards.

The organization of rallies is something that did not occur under the leadership in the previous Congress. As Democratic Leader, Sen. Schumer (D-NY) has adopted a more grassroots approach to building popular support.

There is no better person to have handling Democratic outreach than Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Sanders demonstrated during his 2016 presidential campaign that he understands better than anyone outside of former President Obama how to build a powerful people based political operation.

Senate Republicans are getting zero leadership from the Trump administration and are in chaos over Obamacare repeal. The Republicans are terrified of the political consequences of taking health care away from 20-30 million people. They have no replacement plan and no clue what they are doing.

A series of national rallies led by Democratic Senators in their home states could provide a knockout blow to the Republican repeal efforts. Already skittish Senate Republicans are going to panic even more if they see hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans fighting to keep their health care.

On February 25, the Senate will be leading the charge as the rebellion against the GOP agenda is extending to the Senate thanks to the tactics of Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer.
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All of that Russia Trump smoke is gathering steam.

The CIA denied a top aide to President Trumps National Security adviser security clearance, Politico reported.

The CIA freezes out top (Michael) Flynn aide. The agency denied a security clearance for a key aide to the National Security Adviser  ratcheting up tensions between Flynn and the intel community, Kenneth P. Vogel and Josh Dawsey reported about top deputy to Flynn on the National Security Council, senior director for Africa Robin Townley.

The report is even more frightening in the response by sources within the Trump administration, suggesting that Trump and Flynn see treachery everywhere they go, as allegations were made that the CIA did this as a hit job.

They believe this is a hit job from inside the CIA on Flynn and the people close to him, one source told Politico, trying to make the argument that the intelligence community is retaliating because they feel threatened.

One of the sources said that the rejection was approved by Trumps CIA director Mike Pompeo and that it infuriated Flynn and his allies, the report continues.

These accusations infer a failure to recognize that in reality, this was actually done to Trumps opponent, Hillary Clinton, during the campaign by both the FBI and Russia, and no one in the Trump camp found it objectionable. In fact, Trump himself egged it on, asking Russia to hack Clinton.

Within the last 48 hours, President Trumps National Security adviser Michael Flynn was busted for having repeated talks with Russias Ambassador about President Obamas sanctions against Russia both during the campaign and the transition.

Friday, top Democrats demanded that President Trump fire Michael Flynn immediately, seeing as Flynn appeared to be in violation of the Logan Act by negotiating with Russia about American policy.

As has been noted by many experienced professionals in D.C., perhaps the scariest thing about all of this is that these people are so dumb they think they can do these things and not be caught.

This might explain the brutally ignorant mentality behind Trump threatening the Iranian President Friday evening.

Flynn is Trumps National Security adviser. He has a long history of believing in debunked conspiracies. This man thinks hes above the intelligence communities, as President Trump has suggested he also sees things.

There is absolutely no evidence that Donald Trump or Michael Flynn know more than our intelligence communities. Both men have claimed to have seen things that never happened and are debunked conspiracy theories.

Flynn denied that he spoke about the sanctions during his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Donald Trump then denied Friday evening even knowing about the reports that suggested Flynn did exactly that.

Donald Trump denied the report based on intelligence of a British spy that suggested he had been compromised by Russia, but this report has gained steam with corroboration of parts of it.

There is growing evidence that the intelligence communities know more than either man thinks they do. Only a fool goes into battle with organizations that have access to all of their communications by waging a rhetorical war on that organizations credibility.

These people are going to force the CIA and others to start leaking on the Presidents men if they dont shape up and get with a reality based program, because our national security depends on them doing just this.

Note: The mindset that they are revealing in their battle with our intelligence communities is the same mindset they bring to their engagements with Moscow and other foreign entities.

They think they are the smart guys, but in reality they are the fools.
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The intrigue, fighting, scheming and backstabbing within the Trump administration just three weeks in is starting to smell like the war of the roses.

After causing Vice President Pence to lie to the press and public about Flynns contact with Russia, Trumps National Security Adviser Michael Flynn seems to be trying rather desperately to repair his relationship Pence.

A senior administration official said Flynn and Pence spoke in person Friday morning and by phone in the evening, the Washington Post. National security adviser Michael Flynn spoke privately with Vice President Pence on Friday in an apparent attempt to contain the fallout from the disclosure that Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with that countrys ambassador and then allowed Pence and other White House officials to publicly deny that he had done so, an administration official said.

So thats awkward.

Within hours of a top aide to President Trumps National Security adviser (NSA) being denied security clearance by the CIA, reports surfaced contradicting the Trump administrations denials that Trumps NSA Michael Flynn had discussed Russian sanctions during the campaign or transition.

Vice President Pences comments denying that Flynn had done exactly what intelligence reports say Flynn did were based on Pences conversations with General Flynn, according to an administration official quoted in a report sent to PoliticusUSA Friday morning.

Flynn cant possibly make things right with Pence after causing the Vice President to lie to the American public, especially over such an explosive charge. This could be seen as the war between the establishment and the anarchist conspiracy wing of the Republican Party, but the establishment isnt exactly denouncing Trumps Russia smoke so perhaps that is too generous.

Jostling for power and position is normal in new administrations, but in the Trump administration theres an added component of Trumps ignorance of how things should be done and indeed what he is actually doing. Trump is also known for lashing out in anger after his own ignorance gets the better of him. If youve ever worked for someone like this, you know how demoralizing this might be for Trumps staff.

The Trump power vacuum from the top had led to even more chaotic upheaval, exemplified by Donald Trump not even realizing that he signed an executive order appointing alt-right Leninist Steve Bannon to the National Security Council. Upon discovering what he had signed, Trump then became angry at Bannon and asked Preibus (establishment, ostensibly opposite of the burn the state to the ground Bannon although its fair to wonder now if Republicans now stand for chaos, anarchy and undermining and destruction of law and order) to fix things so that they were done as previous administrations had done them.

This begs the question, if Donald Trump is not going to reinvent the wheel as he promised his base, why are we paying him to learn one grievous and costly error at a time what has long been taken for granted as common knowledge.

This must be what Making America Great Again looks like, Republican style.

Dont let anyone tell you this is all normal. It is not normal. All new administrations have issues and a big learning curve, but they werent trying to disrupt the status quo to the extent of not believing it had anything to offer. What we have here are teenage boys who think they know more than their parents.

They dont.

Trump sold himself as a tough guy in charge, but hes more of a puppet right now. The only question is whose puppet.

We are paying in many ways for Trumps Presidency 101 class, as the people beneath him claw and fight to fill the power vacuum left by Trumps ignorance of the job and unwillingness to learn.
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Democratic Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray want answers after a vital educational rights resource for disabled students and their families vanished after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos took office.

The website for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has disappeared and now redirects to a website that provides inadequate information, and the Senators from Washington want to know why.

In a statement, Cantwell and Murray said, The Departments failure to keep this critical resource operational makes it harder for parents, educators, and administrators to find the resources they need to implement this federal law and protect the rights of children with disabilities. The website has provided accessible and informative summaries of the law, training materials, sample educational forms, presentations for the public, and so many other user-friendly resources.

The website was created by former President George W. Bushs Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. It served as a one-stop resource for parents and students to know their rights and protections under federal law. The website was a valuable asset to parents who have to navigate the often confusing and frustrating world of getting aid assistance for a special needs child.

DeVoss troubling answer at her confirmation hearing about how educational rights for students with disabilities should be left up the states was the first alarm bell to signal the Trump administrations intention to roll back federal protections for people with disabilities. The removal of the website was a second concrete step that is cause for concern among every disabled student and their family members.

In 2000, now Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions argued in a Senate floor speech that giving disabled children federal protections in the education system was what was causing public education fail. Sessions was arguing against the IDEA act, and DeVos thinks that those protections should be handled by the states.

It is clear that the Trump White House is gearing up to take away federal education protections from disabled children.

The Trump administration is going to gut federal protections from discrimination across the board, and this clearly includes members of the differently abled community.

As a candidate, Trumps mocking of a reporter with a disability revealed his contempt for the one-quarter of Americans who are differently abled. As president, the Trump administration is translating their contempt into policies that enable discrimination against disabled children.

Nothing is safe. Not even the right for children with disabilities to a free public education.
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Vice President Pence and Trumps NSA Michael Flynn talked Friday morning and Friday evening in an attempt to repair the damage done by Flynn lying to Pence about his contact with Russia, as revealed in the Flynn report.

But President Trump denied any knowledge of the Flynn report Friday evening, while on a plane with Michael Flynn, heading to Trumps Florida Mar-a-Lago resort.

I dont know about that. I havent seen it. What report is that? I havent seen that. Ill look into that, President Trump said aboard Air Force One Friday evening.

If President Trump was being honest with the press, he kept Flynn in his current position as National Security adviser without even inquiring about the report.

On Friday, Senator Claire McCaskill, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, sent a letter to FBI Director Comey demanding an immediate briefing on Flynns communications with the Russian government. (A hypocrisy prize of the year award if Comey dodges this by claiming he doesnt release information on ongoing investigations.)

Top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, called for Flynn to step down if he misled the American people and secretly discussed with Russia undermining US sanctions.

And Ranking Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Eliot Engel (D-NY) demanded that Trump fire General Flynn.

So all of these elected officials knew of this report about Trumps National Security adviser, but the President claimed Friday evening that he was unaware of it.

Is he also unaware that Flynn was forced out of his position in Intelligence Community?

This is the same Trump who didnt know he had signed an executive order putting Steve Bannon on the National Security Council, and who on Friday left a classified bag with the key in it on his desk as non-cleared people traipsed through his office.

Is anyone at the wheel in this White House?

There is no excuse for Trump not knowing about the Flynn report, which is what he claimed. If he did know about it and hes lying to the press, that is also problematic.

Either way, we need to know why Trump left Flynn in position after finding out that Flynn probably undermined America in talks to Russia. Flynns top aide has already been denied security clearance, though the reasons for this werent given.

The Flynn debacle is worse than simply lying to the Vice President, who then seemingly unknowingly carried that lie to the press. Flynns discussions with Russias U.S. Ambassador were not a one-time contact. This contact began before the election and continued through the transition, according to the Washington Post and the New York Times.

If Trump enabled a person who was working with an enemy of the United States by naming him his National Security adviser that is a high crime. If Trump ignored all of the public information available about the Flynn/Russia connection and moved forward anyway, that is a high crime. The Flynn scandal is worthy of presidential impeachment, because of Trumps own actions.

This isnt hyperbole. We are talking about a President who put a person who already had been accused of championing problematic, anti-American interests with pro-Russian friendliness in the West Wing.

On November 21, Douglas E. Schoen wrote for Fox News about Flynn and not just about his dinner with Putin and troubling RT propaganda appearances, While Flynn is certainly a patriot who has served his country, he is also dangerously pro-Russia, and dramatically underestimates the threat that Putin poses to American values, interests, and allies around the world.

Flynn is either willfully ignorant of Russias outright hostility towards NATO, or he is simply opposed to defending American interests and allies in Europe. Neither option inspires confidence in his role as National Security Adviser.

Flynn had been talking to Russia and possibly undermining America by selling Russia on the idea that the Trump administration would be easier regarding the sanctions President Obama issued as retaliation for Russian interference with our election.

The NSA also chairs meetings that the president does not attend, with the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense. So if Trump isnt Russia inclined, but his NSA is, Trump is allowing a person who worked to undermine America lead meetings with the SOS and SOD.

This is impeachable level incompetence, as Trumps (at best) poor decision making abilities are endangering our national security. At worst, Trump knew of Flynns talks with Russia and he knew Flynn lied to Pence.
Taking cues from such predecessors as Madonna and Britney Spears, Katy Perry is undeniably the reigning Queen of Pop who has taken our eardrums and iTunes change purses captive with juicy anthems about young love, living each day as your most authentic self and getting wasted on Friday nights. When she made her commercial pop debut in 2008 with One of the Boys, it was quite evident a new era of pop was unfolding before our eyes--and she would become a force to be reckoned with. In the years that followed, she issued two more full lengths, including her defining LP, 2010's Teenage Dream (perhaps, the most important pop record of the millennium). Her 2013 follow-up Prism was a mixed bag of saccharine cliches and overwrought melodies, but it did contain some of her best work in "Ghost," "Walking on Air" and "By the Grace of God," all of which were not radio singles (utterly tragic).

But now, she reclaims her throne this week with the potent and poignant "Chained to the Rhythm," featuring Bob Marley's grandson Skip. The disco-fueled anthem samples her forthcoming, yet-untitled, new studio album, which is likely to be the year's biggest and most anticipated pop release. To celebrate her new single, we here at Popdust have revisited her five lead singles and ranked them according to lyrical content, overall message and production values.*

Read on for our leaderboard:

5. "Roar" (from 2013's Prism)

The message of empowerment and resilience has long been a suitable template for music's finest storytellers, but Perry's jumbled entry doesn't add anything especially inventive or refreshing to the lyrical narrative. "I am the champion, and you're gonna hear me roa-oa-oar," she wails over a tribal-doused arrangement. The melody is infectious, however, and really does get the blood pumping. For that alone, this song is a below-average asset to her songbook.

4. "Part of Me" (from 2012's Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection reissue)



A power-pop anthem of reclaiming her life post-break-up, it features heavy house influence and a driving rhythmic base. Initially, she had not intent of releasing it (as it was a leftover from her previous album cycle), but when putting together a reissue of her previous collection, the song could not be denied. "You took my light and drained me down, but that was then and this is now," she declares. Maybe not her most revolutionary single to-date, but that chorus is one helluva slithering earworm.

3. "California Gurls," featuring Snoop Dogg (from 2010's Teenage Dream)



We love whipped cream. We love California. We love cotton candy. And we love CandyLand. So, why not pack all that into one music video? Well, that's what Perry did, and it is forever one of the most vibrant music videos ever. This blockbuster No. 1 hit led to Perry having the biggest era of her career (so far) and matching Michael Jackson's record of most chart-toppers from a single album. "Gurls" is Perry at her most sugary, enough to satisfy even the most outrageously throbbing sweet tooth.

2. "Chained to the Rhythm," featuring Skip Marley (from a yet-untitled release)



She made a splashy comeback this week with her new fiery club banger, "Chained to the Rhythm," dressed up as a bold and unifying political statement. "Thought we could do better than that. I hope we can," she coos over a provocative '80s blanket of R&B lusciousness and a dance-bent melody. "We think we are free," she later addresses. The play of being chained to Top 40 hooks is a neon-fused backdrop to the deeper meaning, of being chained to a troubling "democratic" system. Perry was more than a little vocal during the 2016 Presidential election and remains a stalwart pillar for justice in the community. Skip Marley's feature in the latter half of the song is equally as explosive and important. It reads: "It is my desire, break down the walls to connect, inspire. Ay, up in your high place, liars, time is ticking for the empire. The truth they feed is feeble, as so many times before. They greed over the people. They stumbling and fumbling, and we're about to riot. They woke up, they woke up the lions." Clunky "wasted zombie" lyric (which makes more and more sense upon repeat listens) aside, this is the anthem of 2017.

1. "I Kissed a Girl" (from 2008's One of the Boys)



Fortunately for her and us, Perry did not become a one-hit wonder with this slow-burning pop number. Thematically, it was controversial at the time; the preachers' daughter spent a night drinking too much and making out with other women--provoking even her evangelical Christian parents to dub it "shameful and disgusting." On the other hand, it came under fire by the LGBT community at which it was clearly aimed. Despite claims she was "homophobic" for promoting such lyrics as "it's not what good girls do, not how they should behave" and "it felt so wrong, it felt so right, don't mean I'm in love tonight," it remains as one of the defining pop hits of the late '00s. From the hook and heavy rock influence to Perry's tantalizing phrasing, the song is a classic.

*ranking does not include her 2001 eponymous bow on Red Hill Records, a primarily Christian rock/contemporary Christian album

What does YOUR ranking look like? Leave us a comment below.

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A huge derrick crane prepares to place the first steam generator within one of two Westinghouse reactors being added to the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville. The 80-foot-long component weighs about 1.5 million pounds, measures 20 feet in diameter and is more than 80 feet long. File/Provided/SCANA Corp.
Watchdog and Public Service reporter

Thad Moore is a reporter on The Post and Couriers Watchdog and Public Service team and a graduate of the University of South Carolina. To share tips securely, reach Moore via ProtonMail at thadmoore@protonmail.com or on Signal at 843-214-6576.
Boeing Co. production workers in North Charleston voted Wednesday on whether they want to join the International Association of Machinists. File/Grace Beahm/Staff
The massive amount is unusual for a local school board race  and thousands more than any of the other 31 candidates have managed to raise. Read moreA CCSD board candidate has raised almost $100K in campaign funds
As winter  or colder weather at least  slowly approaches, start thinking about how to the best take care of your plants to ensure they make it to spring. Read moreTips for taking care of your plants as winter approaches in the SC Lowcountry
As Laffittes case has moved toward trial, it has helped shed new light on Alex Murdaughs alleged financial crimes. His trial is poised to unpack them in the finest detail yet. Read moreEx-SC banker Russell Laffitte set to face trial in first Murdaugh case to be heard by jury
Promise Mufuta, 6, adjusts her sandals as she takes a break from coloring and drawing at her home on Feb. 2. The Mufutas are refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo. They left Zambia in mid-January and arrived in the United States one day before President Donald Trump signed his refugee ban. File/Michael Pronzato/Staff
Community banks and small businesses are optimistic about changes the Trump administration and Congress have promised to laws that tightened supervision of the banking industry after the 2008 financial crisis.

The number of small, local banks has declined since the Great Recession, a change that advocates feel was intensified by the paperwork the increased oversight entails. That's disappointing to many small business owners, who find it easier to form relationships with community bank branch managers and bankers than with those at regional or international banks. A community banker can advise them and steer business their way, for example, connecting a company owner with a new accountant.

"I need someone I can talk to who can understand the dynamics of a small business," says Ken Yager, who owns Newpoint Advisors, a Schaumburg, Ill.-based consulting firm. "With a big bank, you just disappear into an account number."

Jeff Bridgman remembers when his community bank would cover an overdraft for his antiques business, knowing he'd have funds in the account within a few days. He had a close relationship with the employees even as the bank went through several mergers in 15 years. But a staff turnover at the bank, now one of the more than 200 branches of Northwest Bank, left him without the attention and support he had in the past.

"I don't know how a bank could help me today, so I don't even consider them as a tool for growth," says Bridgman, whose eponymous company is located in York, Pa. "The bank for me today is just a place for money to sit for a couple of days while I write checks."

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The U.S. had 5,521 community banks as of Sept. 30, down more than 25 percent from 7,442 at the end of 2008, when the banking crisis still was in its early days, according to the Independent Community Bankers of America, an industry group. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has reported nearly 500 bank failures since 2009, most of them small banks. Others have merged to cut costs and stay in business, but many have struggled even as the economy has recovered.

Industry groups blame increased regulation, including the Dodd-Frank bill passed by Congress in 2010. Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Treasury secretary to review Dodd-Frank and its thousands of regulations. Changes in the law would have to be made by Congress, and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, of Texas, has proposed modifying portions that affect smaller banks.

Dodd-Frank has created additional procedures and paperwork for all banks, but community banks have a harder time meeting the requirements because they have far smaller staffs than regional or national financial institutions, says Paul Merski, the ICBA's chief economist.

"You can't say which provision it is that's causing you concern. It's more like death by a thousand cuts," says Tim Zimmerman, president of Standard Bank, a Pittsburgh-area community bank with nine branches. "It's exhausting management and staff of community banks around the country."

The ICBA is advocating for several banking laws to be repealed or modified. Among them:

 Rules under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act that sharply increased the amount of data banks must report to the government on each home mortgage application.

 Regulations still to take effect under Dodd-Frank that would require banks to collect and report information to the government about each small business loan application.

 Requirements on the amount of money community banks must hold in reserve to protect against losses from bad loans. Those requirements were put into effect after losses at the nation's biggest financial institutions threatened the world banking system.

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The changes were intended to protect against failures similar to Lehman Brothers in 2008, and community banks don't pose a similar threat, the ICBA says. Community banks are likely to have several billions of dollars in assets each, according to the FDIC, while regional banks may have assets in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and international banks such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo have assets into the trillions. Small business advocates say they're feeling the reverberations.

"The overregulation has caused costs to go through the roof; many banks have been shut down and that has hit small businesses," says Javier Palomarez, president of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Yager, whose firm specializes in helping financially troubled small businesses, uses larger banks for tasks such as money transfers but depends on his community bank for most of his needs. He finds community bankers more willing than larger ones to try to help companies succeed.

"They'll ask questions like, what collateral do you have? Do you have a plan? What have you missed in your business that could do to help make things better?" he says.

In the meantime, struggling community banks are expected to continue merging. Standard, the Pittsburgh-area bank, is in the process of consolidating with another area community bank, Allegheny Valley Bancorp, which has eight branches.

"We can't afford to keep going the way we're going," Zimmerman says.
This fall, Andrew Arend and Natalie Johnson went for a hiking trip at Tettegouche State Park.

The couple, who have dated for six years, love the outdoors, taking trips up north whenever they can. Natalie works as a naturalist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. It seemed like the ideal setting to pop the question.

As the couple were walking amid the flora and fauna, plants and mushrooms, Andrew fell back a bit and placed a box in some weeds off to the side of the trail. Then acting as if he had observed some exotic species of plant, Andrew called Natalie over

"I said, 'Hey, Natalie, what's this over here, and check this out," Andrew said. "At first, she was like what is that? And then she realized what was going on."

That's when Andrew proposed and she said yes.

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"She was completely stunned and caught off-guard and then tears of joy and the usual female reaction to something like that," Andrew said.

The couple, both from Rochester, have known each other since sixth grade at Friedell Middle School. They went their separate ways in high school and college. She went to the University of WisconsinStevens Point and he attended North Dakota State University.

Both moved back to Rochester after graduation, reconnected and have hit it off ever since. Natalie is a naturalist at Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park, and Andrew is self-employed and owns a property management company.

The couple plan to get married Sept. 9.

Andrew said the moment went off just as he had hoped.

"We're not huge romantics, but I think the way it went down was just perfect for the kind of people we are," Andrew said. "It went off really well."
Travis Meyer's proposal to Pam Nason involved a cross-country journey, ending in the mountains of California, overlooking a setting sun.

Travis and Pam are Rochester environmental educators. Having completed naturalist work at Martha's Vineyard, they made a brief layover in Minnesota en route to California. Pam was staying at her parents' house in Plymouth when Travis called. He said he was coming over so they could get some ice cream. He was coming from Rochester, a hundred miles away, to get ice cream. It seemed odd.

It got odder. After he arrived at Pam's parents' house, Travis told Pam he had left something in the car. He asked if she would go out and get it. Inside was a bouquet of roses, but the ulterior motive was to get Pam out of the house so Travis could ask her parents for her hand.

Then the couple drove west, heading for California.

Pam sensed something was up. There was a backpack in the car, but Travis, maintaining his mysterious ways, told her she wasn't to go into it. They stopped at a hotel, but Travis never brought the backpack into the hotel. Odder still.

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"I remember thinking, 'Gosh, if there's something valuable in there, you shouldn't be leaving it in the car,'" Pam said.

The couple drove to a school in California. It was a long, tiring drive, covering thousands of miles. When they arrived, Travis suggested a hike up the mountains so they could watch the sunset at a mountain lookout. So up the mountain they hiked.

Travis asked Pam to close her eyes. Behind her, Pam could hear Travis scratching something in the dirt. When she opened them, the words, "Will you marry me?" were written in it. Travis produced an engagement ring and a bottle of Champagne, which he had kept in the backpack.

The couple have been married for 12 years and have two children. Pam works as the director of Quarry Hill Nature Park, and Travis is a part-time naturalist and raises their two children.

"It was very sweet and just perfect for us," Pam said of the moment in the mountains. "That's him in a nutshell. He's a very thoughtful guy, which was why I was lucky to say, 'yes.'"
PRESTON  Craig Mensink took on his first batch of feeder pigs as a sophomore in high school to support his college fund, at his father's advice.

It was the first step toward his decades of service to the industry, which earned him the Distinguished Service award at the Minnesota Pork Congress in January.

Mensink and his wife, Pam, are the third generation of pig farmers on their rural Preston land. They're known in the community for their giving spirit, volunteering at their church, the county fair and many pork advocacy groups.

If you shop at Cub Foods, you might have seen their photo in the meat department .

"We ended up doing a deal for Cub Foods because we sell pretty much exclusively to Hormel," Mensink said. "We didn't say anything to our kids, and pretty soon they're shopping in the Cities at Cub and call and say, 'Hey, did you know you're up in the store with your pictures?'"

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The promotion was an effort to help customers see where their food comes from. It's one of many efforts Mensink has initiated to raise awareness about the industry and give back.

The Mensinks, who sell about 9,500 pigs to Hormel each year and grow corn and soybeans, have served pork burgers at the Fillmore County Fair and funded ground pork at the county food shelf for four years.

That's just the beginning of it.

Craig Mensink has been president of the Minnesota Pork Board and is a member of state pork committees. His most eventful work, however, has been with the Pork Checkoff, which he did from 2012-15.

"We were gone 60 days a year, all volunteer," he said. "If you want to know where a good barbecue place is in the United States, we've probably been to it."

Minnesota is third in the nation for hogs, next to Iowa and North Carolina, and Mensink has been a strong voice for the state. He's traveled to Russia, China, Brazil, Japan and Colombia.

Most notably, he did a media blitz in New York City once with former Food Network show "Chopped" champion Madison Cowan.

In all that he does, Mensink's goal is to help people understand what goes into the industry. He acknowledged sometimes there is a stigma about how pigs are grown. Things such as the recent Mercy for Animals video that caused Hormel to stop accepting hogs from a farm in Oklahoma contribute to "bad vibes." Mensink said it's very few who treat their animals in this way.

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"Our son-in-law (Chad Persons) is out there taking such good care of (our pigs) right now," Pam Mensink said. "They're all warm and safe."

The Mensinks start early with making the inner workings of the pork industry clear. They've opened up their farm to elementary school students as part of a program called Provider Pals. A school in the Twin Cities sends classes to them every May.

"It was very rewarding but also kind of sad because all these kids have this concept of the grocery store as being where their food comes from," Craig Mensink said. "That's what we were trying to connect. We're trying to get it into the kids a little early."

To make it more fun, Mensink made a diagram of a pig to show them where the different cuts of meat come from, including the favorite pizza topping: pepperoni.

The Mensinks also have been part of Operation Main Street, a project that started in 2005 to connect civic groups to farming. Mensink spoke to several Lions Clubs and the Austin Chamber of Commerce, explaining how they raise pigs and how meat has become healthier during the last 50 years.

Going forward, a challenge is growing more advocates such as Mensink. He pointed to social media as an opportunity for the younger generation.

"They thought we were their voice, and it's so much easier for them to stay at home and work and expand their operations, but now they're realizing that it's their time to step up and come to the forefront," he said. "Which is great, because I'm the older generation, and I'm not the Facebook type, where all these kids now have that to offer. They can go on social media and get right to that now. We had to do it all with meetings and stuff, and they can do it in an instant."

Mensink sees the shift happen on his own farm, where daughter Megan and son-in-law Chad Persons help out more and more. But there's no question his service to the pork industry is as distinguished as you'll find.
RED WING  Mayo Clinic's ongoing issues in Lake City now have entered the legal system thanks to a civil lawsuit filed last week in Goodhue County District Court by former Mayo doctor John Renelt.

Renelt's Feb. 2 lawsuit accuses Mayo Clinic Health System of retaliation and defamation, while detailing a resignation of protest as "Mayo Clinic Lake City embarked on this course of action to lower costs at its hospital and clinics  to boost revenue."

He also alleges Mayo threatened his employment, paid him less and denied him a promotion after he raised concerns that internal changes would "expose patients to preventable risk of harm."

He's seeking more than $50,000 in damages while seeking a jury trial to resolve Mayo's "intentional or reckless disregard of (Renelt's) legal rights."

Mayo has 20 days to file its formal response, but spokeswoman Asia Zmuda issued a brief statement Friday.

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"Mayo Clinic Health System denies the allegations in the lawsuit and will mount a vigorous defense," Zmuda wrote.

Renelt, who now works at Crossing Rivers Health in Prairie du Chien, Wis., was one of four employees who resigned or retired simultaneously last summer from Mayo Clinic Health System-Cannon Falls/Red Wing/Lake City as the community and some city officials expressed concerns about the changing care model and ongoing reduction of services. The departures included three of the four on-site physicians.

"We all left because we felt like we were being forced out," Renelt said Friday in a phone interview, noting no other lawsuits are expected. "In fact, one of the administrators bragged about 'blowing up' Cannon Falls and said they might have to do that at Lake City next. That mindset has to be stopped."

Mayo issued a news release at the time thanking those employees for their service and has since hired replacements, but Renelt's 11-page lawsuit provides an inside look at the drama that's been swirling behind the scenes.

'Substandard patient care'

The lawsuit alleges Renelt and other physicians have objected privately to Mayo's plans in Lake City since 2014, though the public didn't become aware of the issues until February 2015 when Mayo shifted all labor-delivery services away from Lake City and Wabasha to Red Wing.

"The entire medical staff was against (that decision)," Renelt said in the phone interview.

That was the first of many changes that were opposed by staff members who felt it would "result in substandard patient care," according to the lawsuit. Renelt reported his concerns to Mayo management and Mayo's community Board of Trustees, which he says led to retaliation that included lower pay, denial of a promotion and reduced hours, in addition to threatening his employment status.

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While Mayo has released numerous statements affirming its commitment to serving Lake City, Renelt's lawsuit alleges the following changes either were announced or imposed between 2014 and 2016:

 No longer staffing Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists for "Code Blue" situations on nights and weekends. A Code Blue involves patients in cardiac or respiratory arrest who need immediate, life-saving care.

 No longer performing surgeries on nights and weekends.

 Replacing physicians in the emergency room with "relatively inexperienced" nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants.

 Assigning physicians to multiday blocks as "hospitalists," creating on-call situations that would "have the effect of reducing physician availability for patient care."

According to the lawsuit, an unnamed Mayo administrator admitted the change involving CRNAs would make patients "less safe" in Code Blue situations, but "I guess we'll have to accept some losses then."

Multiple administrators are referred to in the lawsuit, but none are named. Renelt said Friday that Dr. Thomas Witt is one who will be identified during the upcoming legal process. Witt served as Mayo's regional CEO since 2012 until recently being relieved of his leadership role.

Mayo has described Witt's departure as a routine leadership transition but declined to make him available for comment when criticism surfaced . Witt remains on staff, coordinating and integrating health system hospitals across the Southeast Minnesota region.

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Balking background

Renelt's lawsuit is the latest public criticism of Mayo's Lake City plans.

When Mayo announced it would be changing its governance and care model s, former Lake City attorney Phil Gartner, who drafted the 1998 contract between Mayo and the city, was an outspoken critic. He was elected to the Lake City City Council last fall as the top vote-getter in the revamped council.

Russell Boe, another council member, also criticized the plan last summer by saying "what's best for Lake City isn't what's best for Mayo Clinic."

The new governance model is slated to begin in January 2018. It will center around creation of an "integrated regional board working in concert with local community boards" in Rochester, Lake City, Cannon Falls, Red Wing, Owatonna, Faribault, Austin and Albert Lea. Lake City was the only city to oppose the plan.

The new care model  a team-based approach, which is standard across Mayo Clinic Health System  has been roundly criticized by citizens and physicians, according to the lawsuit. Renelt claims in the lawsuit that "disrupting physician follow-up care in the clinic by requiring multiday hospitalist assignments exposes patients to an increased risk of mistakes in medications and treatment because each physician handoff carries with it the potential for such a mistake."

Mayo rejected that criticism in its brief response Friday, but did not provide specifics.

"While we cannot discuss the details of this pending litigation or respond to specific allegations, we want to assure our patients and the Lake City community that they have and continue to receive safe, high-quality care at Mayo Clinic Health System in Lake City," Zmuda wrote.
CLAREMONT  After a 2 a.m. vote in Washington, Sen. Amy Klobuchar flew to her home state Friday for a two-day, 10-county tour.

Her purpose is to visit rural areas in southern and western Minnesota, as she looks ahead to discussions for the next farm bill and the Renewable Fuel Standard. Her first stop was a place where these things matter quite a bit: the Al-Corn Clean Fuel ethanol plant in Claremont, which is undergoing a $146 million expansion.

Klobuchar was impressed with the work being done there.

"Even with the fuel prices low, you're still able to expand," she told Al-Corn chief executive officer Randy Doyal and his staff and board members.

Klobuchar has been part of bipartisan efforts recently to strengthen the RFS. The Obama administration put in a higher standard in November, which will require a record amount of biofuel to be mixed into the country's transportation fuel supply in 2017.

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"It gives this company and others some promise that we're going to keep using ethanol," she said. "It's 10 percent of our fuel supply and an important part of energy for the country."

Minnesota is the fourth-largest ethanol producer in the United States, and Al-Corn is helping that effort with its expansion from 50 million gallons to 120 million.

The senator met with former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, President Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of Agriculture, on Thursday and expressed optimism that he will work for biofuel producers.

"We had an excellent meeting for about 45 minutes in my office," Klobuchar said. "He seemed informed about our Midwest agriculture issues and eager to get to work. I talked to (Rep.) Collin Peterson as well about him, and we both are very hopeful about his nomination. We specifically talked about ethanol, and he was supportive of the renewable fuels standard."

Klobuchar said she believed Perdue had a great chance of being confirmed.

"We'll have to work with him on the Midwestern issues, but he seemed pretty well-schooled," she said.

While meeting with Doyal, Al-Corn staff and board members and Claremont city officials, Klobuchar toured the plant, seeing where it is being expanded. Along with adding two silos to increase capacity, the plant is adding railroad tracks to transport its products.

"Our ethanol right now is primarily in the Twin Cities," Doyal said. "We're the closest ethanol plant to the Cities. We also participate in things like barge shipment out of Winona or container freight."

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Also of concern for Claremont is the completion of U.S. Highway 14, which Klobuchar said would be aided by the federal FAST Act, which will provide the state money for the next five years. The state Legislature still must do its part to contribute money for the project to get it done, however.

Still, Klobuchar said she is committed to helping rural areas get the funding they need.

"If we do an additional thing, it shouldn't just be for big projects on the East Coast, but rural areas should get a significant carve out of it," she said.

Also on Friday, Klobuchar visited Cybex International in Owatonna and Guardian Energy in Janesville. Today, she will visit St. Peter Food Co-op in St. Peter; Le Sueur County Environmental Services in Le Center; Greater Mankato Growth in Mankato; the Madelia Chamber of Commerce; New Ulm City Hall; the Willmar Convention Center; and meet with residents of Renville County in Olivia.
WABASHA  Tim Hunter is used to the call.

As the social services supervisor for Wabasha County with 10 years of experience in family and child social services, Hunter has fielded his share of late-night and weekend requests to come evaluate a family situation and see if a child is in danger.

On those unfortunate times when the child is in a dangerous situation, Hunter or one of his colleagues takes that last resort step to place a child in foster care. The term is out-of-home placement, and it is one of the most costly mandates counties face.

Starting in 2017, counties are facing a new cost with out-of-home placements: Making sure social workers are available to respond and evaluate within 24 hours. In a county like Wabasha, where Hunter supervises three social workers focused on child protection plus an intake specialist, that means spreading the resources thin.

"I don't think safety was that much of an issue," Hunter said. While the state had not mandated 24/7 availability for social workers, the county's social services department worked with law enforcement to make sure cases that required immediate assistance were covered.

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"Our law enforcement officers here have been responsive to the child's safety. That piece hasn't changed. What's changed is how quickly we will assess the family."

Rising Cost of Care

In 2016, out-of-home placements represented 54 percent of the social service levy in Wabasha County, or $951,245 out of $1,745,591, said Social Service Director John Dahlstrom. That cost has risen over the years as the state requires more and more from the counties but has not added funds to help cover those services.

Statewide, local government picks up about 40 percent of all costs related to out-of-home placements, said Matt Hilgart, general government policy analyst with the Association of Minnesota Counties. "Nationwide, most child protection is funded through state and federal agencies," he said. "It's an imperative service. Minnesota is one of few states where there's a significant local share."

The problem with mandating service through the counties, Hilgart said, is that the state's portion of funding, county program aid, often gets cut as more funding requirements come out. "In times of deficit, the state cuts its share to balance the budget."

The result, Hilgart said, is counties saying enough is enough.

Historically, Dahlstrom said Wabasha County might have had a year where out-of-home placements cost as much as $800,000, but it was generally closer to $400,000. So when costs hit nearly $1 million in 2013, "We thought it was a blip and would go down. But it hasn't gone down," he said. "It has definitely slowly crept up."

The blip, in fact, was 2015 when placement costs dropped to $636,025, said County Administrator Michael Plante. "We continue to need to project $950,000 of levy impact for out-of-home placements," he said. "A big driver is a lack of cost-effective solutions for children with higher care needs."

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Winona County Commissioner Marcia Ward said her county has noticed the same problem. "Part of it is the cost keeps increasing at a number of places where these kids can be sent," she said. "Part of it is getting new foster parents licensed."

Like Wabasha County, Winona County is facing the cost increase of having a staff member on call during nights and weekends. "They've changed the rules as far as having to respond," Ward said. "All our people are pretty much union so, yes, it does add something to the cost."

Like Wabasha County, Winona County is looking at close to $1 million in the budget for the program, Ward said.

Chipping In

All of this and more is covered by the state through county program aid, the state's way of chipping in for unfunded or underfunded programs mandated by the state. For Wabasha County, that means $830,252 to pay for out-of-home placements, mental health hospital stays, costs associated with MNsure, the state's health insurance marketplace, and much more.

The rising cost of care  Dahlstrom said it's not the number of cases that's increasing, it's the cost of care facilities or the increased time in foster care that is being required that has driven up costs through 2016 -- made Wabasha County the 10th-highest average cost per placement in the state.

And with the 24-hour coverage rule in place, small counties like Wabasha face the task of spreading limited staff resources across the calendar.

"We can't have someone fully staffed," Dahlstrom said. In the last three years, there have been maybe a half a dozen calls on the weekends that would require that extra person. "If we get a call after hours or on weekends, it goes through dispatch and we pay overtime."

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To meet the mandate, the county will set up an on-call system where staff are paid around $2.25 an hour on weekends to be available if needed, Dahlstrom said. If a social worker is needed on the scene, that person is reached and paid overtime for taking the call. "We're relying on a call tree, but people have lives."

"It puts a little more pressure on our county social workers to be available in those hours," Hunter said. "It's a staffing issue and a staff-retention issue."

And that, he said, will cost the county more money.
BYRON  All growth comes with pain. For cities in Minnesota, part of that pain comes in the form of the many mandates from the state concerning water that must be followed whenever there is growth.

"Whenever we have a new subdivision," said Mary Blair-Hoeft, city administrator for Byron, "we have to get the developer to put in the ponds, or the city will have to put them in."

Those would be the retention ponds designed to hold runoff every time it rains on concrete, rooftops and turf lawns. Thanks to state regulations and the federal Clean Water Act, Byron, like any city, needs to accommodate that flowing water. It is one of the biggest hidden expenses cities face.

"It's not all things we oppose," said Gary Carlson, director of intergovernmental relations for the League of Minnesota Cities. "But it's things that impact city government."

Cities in Minnesota face a long list of mandates, many of which can become sources of frustration in compliance, reporting and, of course, funding. The state's property tax alleviation mechanism  local government aid  never seems to pay for all the programs that come from the state.

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"We always try to tell these cities, talk to your legislators about all these ancillary costs," Carlson said. "They might be great programs, well intentioned, but local governments in Minnesota definitely provide most of the services to constituents." And those constituents do not always understand, he said, those services are being mandated by the state.

To meet the requirements on retention ponds, it's not as simple as digging a hole and walking away, Blair-Hoeft said. Who digs the pond and who is responsible for its upkeep is negotiated between the developer and the city. If the developer does not like the deal, it might take its subdivision  and the future tax base  to another community.

As for pond upkeep, cleaning a contaminated pond can cost upwards of $60,000, she said. That's a big chunk of the $281,579 the city will get in LGA  which is formulated primarily for infrastructure upgrades, not water retention  from the state.

"When the state considers new mandates they say, 'Well, we give you LGA,'" Carlson said. "We have 853 cities in the state of Minnesota, and 81 or 82 cites get no LGA."

In Byron, figuring out how to deal with retention ponds as the city grows is something that costs the city big money.

"The size of the ponds or the number you have is based on the amount of water that runs off the development," Carlson said. Byron's strategy is more, bigger regional ponds in town instead of many smaller ponds. "We have to pay people a lot of money to determine it."

Then there are the state's wetland rules, which require development of two wetland acres for every acre that gets torn up for a development, she said. "A couple of years ago, we disrupted two-thirds of an acre, so we had to buy an acre and a half (of wetland credit)," she said.

On the open market in Minnesota, an acre of wetland credit cost $35,000 last June, she said. That's a price likely only to rise.

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Buffer Brouhaha

It's not just cities that get hit with dollar-less directives from the state. Counties across Southeast Minnesota are looking at the state's new buffer law and wondering how enforcement of the new law requiring perennial vegetation strips ranging from 16.5 feet wide (private land) to 50 feet wide (public land) along waterways will be paid for.

In Goodhue County, staff members from the county and the Goodhue County Soil and Water Conservation District have spent considerable time complying with state regulations to identify parcels that are in violation of the rules, updating the state's database, and communicating the new requirements to residents, said Lisa Hanni, the county's land use management director.

"Many landowners have already taken steps to come into compliance," she said. "We are hoping that the state will provide financial incentives to landowners so we can limit enforcement actions."

However, the reality, Hanni said, is the county expects enforcement actions will be "time consuming, costly and proceed through the county ordinance enforcement procedures." That means the county will foot the bill without, thus far, any help from the state.

Enforcement in Winona County consists of sending letters to buffer strip violators, said Commissioner Marcia Ward. The biggest cost to the county thus far as been a program of sending letters to property owners to educate them on the regulations and let them know their responsibilities.

Still, sending letters and, potentially, sending staff to engage landowners or inspect buffer strips, costs money. "People cost money. Paperwork costs money," she said. We're minimal staff now in our planning and zoning department."

State Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, said the buffer law is unconstitutional and should be repealed because it does not compensate landowners for the state use of their land. "If government is going to take land from people, the government should pay landowners for it," he said. "Big government is expensive. There's big government right there."

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If fact, Ward said, buffer strips are a hot topic in the Legislature this winter. Winona County, while complying with the law as it stands, is watching to see if changes on the rules or enforcement are coming.

"It's been pretty low key as far as enforcement," said Winona County Commissioner Marcia Ward. "There needs to be more guidance from state agencies on this."
The Manhattan Institutes Heather Mac Donald must recently have visited the Berkeley campus of the University of California. In her Winter 2017 City Journal essay From culture to cupcakes, Heather takes note of two long quotations in Bauhaus-era typography that adorn the facade of Berkeley Law, as the law school now calls itself. On the left is a passage by Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo, from a 1925 speech at the Albany Law School:

You will study the wisdom of the past, for in a wilderness of conflicting counsels, a trail has there been blazed. You will study the life of mankind, for this is the life you must order, and, to order with wisdom, must know. You will study the precepts of justice, for these are the truths that through you shall come to their hour of triumph. Here is the high emprise, the fine endeavor, the splendid possibility of achievement, to which I summon you and bid you welcome.

On the right are somewhat enigmatic words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose seat on the Supreme Court Cardozo filled in 1932. The passage comes from an 1885 address to the Suffolk Bar Association:

When I think thus of the law, I see a princess mightier than she who once wrought at Bayeux, eternally weaving into her web dim figures of the ever lengthening pastfigures too dim to be noticed by the idle, too symbolic to be interpreted except by her pupils, but to the discerning eye disclosing every painful step and every world-shaking contest by which mankind has worked and fought its way from savage isolation to organic social life.

Both Cardozo and Holmes are Progressive heroes of ages past, yet Heather observes:

No law school today, if erecting itself from scratch, would think of parading such sentiments on its exterior. They are as alien to the reigning academic ideology as the names of the great thinkers, virtually all male, carved into the friezes of late-nineteenth-century American campus buildings. Cardozos and Holmess invocation of mankind is alone cause for removal, of course, but equally transgressive is their belief that there is wisdom in the past and not just discrimination. They present learning as a heroic enterprise focused not on the self and its imagined victimization but on the vast world beyond the self, both past and present. Education is the search for objective knowledge that takes the learner into a grander universe of thought and achievement. Stylistically, Cardozos elevated tone is as old-fashioned as his complicated syntactical cadences; his exhortation to intellectual mastery is too masculinist and triumphal for todays identity-obsessed university.

Before attending Stanford Law School Heather took a graduate degree in English literature. In the City Journal essay she brings her skills in literary analysis to bear in measuring Berkeleys descent. Read the whole thing here.
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Maryam Booth is a sensation in Kannywood for her dexterity in playing a wide range of roles in movies. She is the daughter of Zainab Booth, the popular Kannywood veteran actress.

She spoke with PREMIUM TIMES Mohammed Lere in Abuja about her plan to start a film school, and her new clothing line and beauty parlor.

She also addressed the rumour of a bitter relationship with banned Kannywood actress, Rahama Sadau; and her intimacy with Nafeesat Abdullahi and getting married to a Kannywood actor.

PT: You are among the top three Kannywood actresses with the largest following on Instagram. How did you achieve that?

Maryam: Actually, one thing I know is that I do not take myself as a celebrity all the time. I am very happy meeting new people. I appreciate you in whatever capacity I meet you. I love to hang out with even people one would less expect I will have anything to do with. I am a very social person and I love that.

My mother is still an actress and one thing she taught me was how to always be nice to people even outside my career. All of these could have contributed to my fame, especially on the social media. I like meeting people and I use the social media a lot to get to those people.

PT: When did you start acting in Kannywood?

Maryam: I am 23 years old now and I started acting since I was eight years old.

Like I told you, my mother is still an actress and that contributed to my early introduction into acting and of course my passion for it.

PT: You have not been very frequent on screen since last year, are you planning to drop acting anytime soon?

Maryam: Not at all. I have a couple of films that will soon hit the screen. However, I would like to tell you that I was away too so I could finish my schooling.

PT: Have you finished now?

Maryam: Yes. I am about to complete my thesis for my Masters. I graduated with a Bachelors degree in Business administration from the Mantissa College in Malaysia. I am also working on my final thesis for my Masters in Project Management and Cinematography.

I also had a diploma from Bayero University, Kano.

PT: Dont you think you should start working instead of just acting with all these qualifications?

Maryam: Like I told you, I am not going to drop acting for anything. I love acting. However, I do other businesses.

I own a beauty parlor in Kano (MBooth Beauty Palour). I also own a clothing line, all in Kano. In fact, I am planning to start a film school soon.

PT: Film school?

Maryam: Ye.s I will do that to help my colleagues and new generation actors. I am capable and InShaAllah I will just do that.

PT: People say you are not in good terms with Rahama Sadau; that you hardly see eye to eye. Is that true?

Maryam: That is not true. It was just a mere gossip. Let me tell you Mohammed, I was very happy when Ali Nuhu introduced Rahama Sadau to me for the first time during a film shooting. I was very excited to have somebody who is close to my age or at my age in the industry at that time. She was as young as I was; so it was like, yeah we are now two very young actresses in Kannywood.

I never had any issues with her and we are kicking just well.

PT: Is she your best friend?

Maryam: I dont have a best friend in the Kannywood film industry. I only have good friends. Although Nafeesat Abdullahi is getting too close. I like her and we are very close.

PT: Can she become your best friend in Kannywood?

Maryam: Yes, I think so because her tonic is working on me. (Laughs)

PT: Rahama Sadau is not acting in the Kannywood, are you worried about that?

Maryam: It is actually not a good idea for somebody to be sanctioned in a place where she works and earns a living. I never was happy about it. But sometimes we just have to pay the price for some of our mistakes, especially that we operate in a society and region where we have to abide by some rules.

That is all I can say here.

PT: Are you likely to marry a Kannywood actor?

Maryam: No. But I wouldnt mind anyway.

PT: If at gunpoint you were asked to pick one actor to marry who would you choose?

Maryam: None for now. That is just the truth. None.

PT: How does it feel acting besides your mother?

Maryam: I have done that a lot and anytime I acted besides her, I feel we were not acting but real life, so I watch my lines. (Laughs)

PT: Is actor Ramadan Booth you brother?

Maryam: He is my cousin.

PT: What do you do if you are not acting?

Maryam: I do fashion.

PT: Who is your favourite actor in Kannywood?

Maryam: I dont have any again. My favourite actor in Kannywood is dead and he was Rabilu Musa Ibro. May his soul rest in peace. Amin.

PT: What other thing do you want to say?

Maryam: This is one of my favourite interviews; it is not the normal questions I am familiar with. Thank you PREMIUM TIMES.

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The ECOWAS Commission says it has saved about $12 million as part of efforts to cut operational costs of running its institutions in 2016.

Marcel de Souza, President of the commission, said this at the opening of the first Extraordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament in Abuja on Friday.

Mr. De Souza, who was represented by Edward Singhatey, Vice President of the commission, said the efficient cost control measures had been implemented to make the organisation more effective and credible.

The cost cutting measures were put in place by the new management when we took over office in March 2016.

There was an urgent need for those cost cutting measures to be put in place because when we assumed the role of management of the ECOWAS Commission, we found out that the commission was in a precarious financial situation.

We had to look at the financing that was available vis a vis the projects and activities we were supposed to implement and rationalise them; we had to prioritise them and then rationalise our expenditure.

We took a number of measures by cutting out unnecessary expenditure, streamlining delegations for meetings and cutting out certain activities that we felt we could do without in 2016.

As a result, we saved somewhere between eight to 12 million US dollars. We did manage to save quite a bit of money on the costs cutting measures.

He added that the measure led to savings in all community institutions and resulted in the resumption of the institutional reform and operations of the Task Force on free movement.

The commission president added that the cost cutting was to implement programmes and projects that would facilitate the ECOWAS Vision 2020.

In December 2016, Chairperson of the Authority of ECOWAS Heads of State and Governments, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, called for a cut in administrative costs and a focus on programmes that would enhance regional development.

(NAN)

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U.S. President Donald Trump called on Israel to be reasonable with respect to peace, saying in his administrations stance on new settlements on Palestinian land may not be helpful.

Mr. Trump stated this on Friday in an interview with an Israeli newspaper.

Mr. Trumps comments to Israel Today come as he tones down his pro-Israel bravado ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus trip to the White House on Feb. 15.

I want Israel to be reasonable with respect to peace. I want to see peace happen, Mr. Trump said in the interview published on Friday.

I would like to see a level of reasonableness of both parties, and I think we have a good chance of doing that.

During his 2016 election campaign, Mr. Trump signalled his presidency would be a boon for Israel and tough on Palestinians.

He talked of moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, naming an ambassador who backs Israels settlement programme and exerting no pressure on Israel for peace talks.

Now, Mr. Trump is adopting a more measured stance.

Even though the White House did not join the widespread criticism this week of a new Israeli law which retroactively legalises about 4,000 existing settler homes, its pro-Israel approach shows signs of being more nuanced.

They [settlements] dont help the process. I can say that, Mr. Trump told the Israeli daily owned by U.S. casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, a Netanyahu supporter and Republican Party donor.

Every time you take land for settlements, there is less land left. I am not somebody that believes that going forward with these settlements is a good thing for peace, he said.

The president said his administration was looking at some other options regarding the settlements.

He also said he was still studying the case for relocating the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

(Reuters/NAN)

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The king had barely made it into his palace when the deadly gunshots rang out.

It was the Eid-el-Fitri celebration of 2016 and Abdulkadir Adebara, the traditional ruler of Jebba in Moro local council of Kwara State, had just returned from the prayer ground and was hosting a crowd that accompanied him home.

Suddenly, an 18-seater bus and two motorcycles pulled up outside the crowded palace. Men armed with guns and machetes spilled out, and opened fire, according to witnesses and police records.

Commotion arose, with everyone running for dear life, Yakubu Ekundayo and Emmanuel Tytler, two local chiefs in Jebba said in a joint press conference on July 11, five days after the incident.

HRH the Oba of Jebba was ferried out of the venue by a courageous human shield formed around him.

The assailants eventually beat a retreat leaving behind their bus and the two motorcycles.

When the smoke from the guns cleared, three people lay dead, and 12 others sustained injuries, witnesses and police said.

MURDER WAS THE CASE

After the Eid el Fitri attack outside Mr. Adebaras palace, the police declared 10 people wanted for the killings.

The suspects included Kayode Okedare, Yahaya Seriki, Olarongbe Kolawole, Tunji Moses, Oluwasegun Okedare, Maigari Marafa, Ibrahim Aremu Olopoodo, Bolaji Driver, Tunde Osie and Isiaka Atanda Masun.

Kayode Okedare, a school principal whose family is at the forefront of the opposition to Mr. Adebaras kingship, was declared alleged mastermind of the attack.

According to Ajayi Okasanmi, the Kwara police spokesperson, the suspects disappeared after actively participating in criminal conspiracy, illegal possession of firearms, and culpable homicide among others.

In the polices First Information Report on July 6, it was stated that the Jebba police station received information from good-spirited people that two rival factions of Adebara and Okebara family clashed over a lingering chieftaincy tussle in the community after Eid-el-fitr prayers in which three people were shot to death and others sustained various degrees of injuries.

On August 16, the police charged eight suspects  Adetunji Okedare, Bolaji Akanbi, Babatunde Osie, Usman Wada, Adebayo Aweda, Garuba Zomo, Sunday Mose, and Fatai Ishola  before an Ilorin Magistrate Court for criminal conspiracy, culpable homicide, and illegal possession of firearms.

Kayode Okedare remained at large.

The State Criminal Investigation Department report stated that on the day of the attack, Kayode Okedare and some vigilante from Onikpako village, Jebba, loaded themselves into a bus with registration number XA 152 SHA and two motorcycles armed with guns and other dangerous weapons with which they used to perpetrate the attack.

You thereby committed the above offences, said the report by Jibrin Mahmud, an inspector, and dated August 14, 2016.

Meanwhile, investigation is still in progress towards arresting other fleeing suspects, it added.

In her ruling on September 2, chief magistrate I.O Olawoyin declined to grant a bail application for the suspects filed by the defence lawyer.

I have carefully considered issues as raised by the defence counsel as well as the response of the prosecution to all the issues as raised and hold by Section 341(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, a person accused of homicide shall not be granted or released on bail, said the magistrate.

However, the court in Section 341(3) is enjoined to grant bail upon consideration of reasonable ground that there are sufficient ground for further inquiry and pending such inquiry  the accused may be released on bail.

The magistrate said the defence lawyer had not provided enough grounds to justify granting bail to his clients.

It is also trite that the court has discretionary power to grant bail. However, while exercising this discretion, the court is enjoined to be guided by these principles  the serious nature of the offence, the gravity of the punishment in the court of conviction, and the nature of the evidence available against the applicants.

These factors though not exhaustive but considering the serious nature of the offence before the court  can it be truly said without any other extraneous factor that accused persons had placed before the court cogent and compellable reasons to suave the mind of the court on why the court should exercise his discretionary power in their favour?

I will answer this in the negative and I so hold.

Therefore the application for the bail of all the accused persons is therefore not granted.

But two weeks later, a legal advice from the states Ministry of Justice recommended the discharge of all the accused persons.

We therefore apply that the court should terminate the First Information Report against them, Al-Hassan Jubril, the police prosecutor, told the magistrate.

The court immediately terminated the suit and discharged all the accused persons.

A copy of the legal advice seen by PREMIUM TIMES showed a state governments account of events of the July 6 event entirely opposite from the police and witnesses versions.

For instance, the advice stated that the attack happened in Kayode Okedares house and was perpetrated by some thugs believed to be from Adebaras side and his house was to (sic) set ablaze but for the timely intervention of the police.

Some of the suspects were arrested at Jebba police station after being identified to be part of the suspects at the crime scene, obviously by a member of the Adebara family.

Some of the suspects (sic) was arrested while paying homage to Alhaji Kayode Okedare at his house as a community leader in Jebba.

Mr. Okasanmi, the police spokesperson, told PREMIUM TIMES that the police had concluded its assignment in the matter.

You know when a case happens and it is reported to the police, it is our duty as policemen to arrest and investigate and possibly prosecute if the case is worthy of going to court. And thats exactly what we did, Mr. Okasanmi said.

You should also remember that we have separation of powers, where our duty ends is where another persons starts. So our own primary duty is to arrest, investigate, and possibly charge to court.

Whatever happens in court is at the complete discretion of the court. Thats what happened. The court will not have recourse to us before giving judgment or telling us the aftermath of their judgment. We have done our own and thats just that.

Mr. Okasanmi said since the Kwara State Ministry of Justice (Department of Public Prosecution) had said the arrested suspects had no case to answer, the matter is now beyond police control.

As far as the case has been properly investigated, charged to court, and if the Kwara State Ministry of Justice (Department of Public Prosecution) says there is no case to answer, as policemen we have done our own duty by charging the case to court, he said.

If there are other evidence that were not gotten before, we can still re-arrest the suspects and charge them to the same court. All in all, all our duties end at the court, and thats what happened.

Asked if Kayode Okedare is still wanted by the police, Mr. Okasanmi said he does not know.

If there is any suspect declared wanted, if we see him, we are going to pick him up.

TUSSLE FOR THE THRONE

For years, the Adebaras and the Okedares, two prominent families in Jebba, had engaged in a tussle over the control as well as land ownership in the community.

The clash came to a head in 2006 when Mr. Adebara, after his coronation as the Oba of Jebba, was arraigned in court for impersonation. He subsequently spent 19 days in Ilorin prison before he was granted bail.

In the suit (No. KWS/2c/2006), Kayode Okedare served as the principal witness for the Kwara State government which was opposed to Mr. Adebaras ascension to the throne.

Eight years later, the high court in Ilorin affirmed Mr. Adebara the legitimate traditional ruler of Jebba with a third class status.

He was discharged and acquitted.

The Kwara State government is still challenging the courts decision and has refused to pay Mr. Adebara his entitlements as a traditional ruler since 2003 when he was crowned king.

And the Adebaras have continued to accuse the Okedares of conniving with the state government in an attempt to remove the Oba from the throne.

For instance, following last years violence at the palace, the state government did not issue a statement to condemn the incident; rather they sent a tersely worded query  five months later  to the King demanding an explanation of the cause of the attack.

It has come to the attention of the Kwara State Government that during the last Eid-il-Fitri Sallah celebration on 6th July, 2016, the public peace of the people of Jebba and environs was disturbed, read the later dated December 19 and signed by H.T Muhammad, Commissioner of Local Government, Chieftaincy Affairs, and Community Development.

It is on record that before the intervention of the law enforcement agencies, some people had lost their dear lives and many others sustained varied degree of injury. It is to be stressed also that the dastard act took place in front of your palace and before your very eyes.

I therefore have the directive of His Excellency, the Governor of Kwara State, to demand for an explanation from you on the cause of the incident and the role played by your personage.

Your response is expected to reach this office within 48 hours of the receipt of this letter.

Ibrahim Adebara, a member of the royal family, told PREMIUM TIMES the letter was so disrespectful to the throne that it referred to the king merely as Alhaji Adebara AbdulKadiri.

He added that the letter was delivered to the palace on December 29 unconventionally  through a commercial motorcyclist.

The palace responded to the governments query on December 30.

The traditional ruler said the police had arrested some suspected masterminds of the Sallah day violence before they were obviously embarrassed by the Department of Public Prosecutions advice.

He added that the case had been taken over by the Inspector General of Polices office for further investigation.

I wish to emphasize that my loyal subjects and I were in a celebratory mood, the attack was a surprise, carried out in cold blood and unprovoked, the traditional ruler said.

It was particularly a surprise (because) such had never happened in Jebba. We are doing our best to ensure that justice is done, and we are confident this is also the interest of government.

Ibrahim Adebara described the entire incident as shameful.

You can imagine that the state government did not issue a statement to condemn the attack on the Oba, Ibrahim Adebara told PREMIUM TIMES.

We wrote to the Speaker of the House as well as various committees in the House after the attack, we did not get any response.

The latest move now is that they are planning to make an announcement to banish the Oba from the community.

Babatunde Ajeigbe, the Kwara State Commissioner for Information, did not respond to repeated phone calls and text messages.

THEY ATTACKED OUR PEOPLE

Weeks after the incident, Bukola Saraki, the Senate president, mandated Abdulraheem Adisa, a former commissioner in the state, to brief him on what transpired in Jebba on July 6th.

In his report obtained by PREMIUM TIMES, Mr. Adisa, who served as commissioner when Mr. Saraki was the state governor, noted that from all available records, the Adebara family had always been favoured as the authentic group that has the right of claim over the land in Jebba town as well as the ownership of the traditional throne.

The report accused the Okedare family of being used by external agents to foment trouble with the Adebara family in an effort to forcefully depose Oba Adebara from office.

It may interest Your Excellency to note that the suit filed by the State Government in 2006 against the Oba of Jebba saw him being railroaded to Oke-Kura Prison Yard in Ilorin for 19 days before he was eventually accepted to bail, the report, dated August 4, 2016, stated.

That unprecedented episode has since created some wounds in not only the mind of the affected Oba but also members of his enlarged family and the diverse peoples of Jebba, who are not up till this moment convinced that the act perpetrated then was not the handiwork of members of the Okedare family

I may wish at this juncture to draw Your Excellencys attention to the fact that both the Oba of Jebba and the Ohoro of Shao have suffered the same fate of the withdrawal of their grading as Third Class Chiefs twice (1984 and 2003) by past administrations in Kwara State for no just cause or good reason other than what might be described as sentimental.

Mr. Adisa confirmed he authored the report but declined to go into details over the phone.

PREMIUM TIMES was unable to reach Mr. Saraki and Kayode Okedare.

Phone calls and text messages were not responded or replied to.

But Kayode Okedares brother, Matthew Okedare, the Deputy Speaker of the Kwara State House of Assembly, who was also accused of being behind the attack at the palace, described the Adebara familys account of the incident as well as the Saraki committees report as lies.

They are the people (sic) initiated the attack against our people, although Im not there, Mr. Okedare told PREMIUM TIMES.

Jebba is under Emirate. We have five local governments  Ilorin East, Ilorin West, Ilorin South, Moro, and Asa. All these are emirates, there is nothing like Oba in emirate. This man is claiming that he is Oba, whoever is following Okedare, they take them as enemy.

They started attacking people who they see as friends of Okedare or Emir of Ilorin. The same people who accompanied the so-called man who call himself Oba, the same vigilantebecause on Sallah days they do engage vigilantes accompanying the emir.

So when the fracas started they are the people shooting. They are just claiming Okedare up till this time what is their achievement? Can they name anybody?

Mr. Okedare said the bus and motorcycles torched during the fracas were conveying supporters of his elder brother back from the prayer ground.

So is it Okedare that burn the vehicle conveying themselves again? They burn the vehicle, they shot the vehicle, they burn two motorcycles. The Adebara children did that. The vehicle is at Jebba police station now. Youll see 25 points on the vehicle. So they are just formulating lies about, Mr. Okedare said.

The lawmakers claim addresses what observers say is the root cause of the crisis in Jebba. The state government and several prominent personalities in the state refuse to recognise Mr. Adebara as a monarch despite a court pronouncement.

The lawmaker also said the court judgment affirming Mr. Adebaras legitimacy as the traditional ruler of Jebba with a third class status is among the lies being spread by the family.

Whoever challenged them in court? Nobody ever challenged them. What happened in the court ruling, the case against the state government and the man who claim himself to be Oba, there was a gazette that said nobody. because during the Lawal time, you know politicians when they are looking for election, so he created many posts, he created that of Jebba, that of Shao, he created even his own father at Ilorin, unceremonial Grade One Oba.

All those have been cancelled. That is the time he denied that hes not calling himself Oba. Which court ruling they are saying about telling people lies?

An Ilorin High court did, indeed, pronounce that the Kwara State government was unable to prove their accusation of impersonation against Mr. Adebara, according to a copy of the 82-page court judgment seen by PREMIUM TIMES.

Judge H.O Ajayi said the state government failed to prove its accusation of impersonation against the traditional ruler beyond reasonable doubt as required in a criminal matter.

Mr. Okedare also denied his elder brother was ever declared wanted by the police, despite evidence to the contrary.

Is it Okedare that shot the vehicle, burn the vehicle, burn the motorcycles that accompanied them? Police have done investigations.

He (Kayode Okedare) was never declared wanted, Mr. Okedare insisted.

When the thing happened that very day, those people they sent soldiers, those soldiers at the bridge entrance to Jebba, those people some of them are friends to the Adebara family, they used soldiers to go and bombard his house.

But he was able to escape from that house, because DPO was there, he left him. The following day, he reported to the state CID. He passed all the due process of police scrutiny.

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The return of James Ibori, former governor of Delta State, from the United Kingdom, has raised concerns about his post-prison and political life.

The former governor, who last December left a London prison where he spent five and half years, flew into Nigeria last Saturday morning.

He was driven straight to the office of the Director General of the State Security Service, SSS, Lawal Daura, with whom he held talks before proceeding to his home town, Oghara, where he received a huge crowd of relatives and political associates.

Mr. Iboris visit to the SSS instead of the EFCC immediately raised questions. What could the Buhari administration be doing with a member of the opposition PDP who had just concluded a jail term for corruption?

Mr. Dauras refusal to disclose the reasons fueled those speculations. The DG merely confirmed he met with the former governor.

He (Ibori) met me for a short debriefing session and way forward; also, to welcome him back to his fatherland. We are also meeting soon to discuss issues of interest affecting the nation, the chief spymaster said.

Mr. Iboris spokesperson, Tony Eluemunor, told PREMIUM TIMES he was not aware of what his principal discussed with Mr. Daura. He however ruled out politics.

But government sources have however told PREMIUM TIMES one of the main national issues Mr. Daura referred to was the tension in the Niger Delta region from where Mr. Ibori hails.

Renewed tension in the oil-rich region has in the recent past given the Nigerian government sleepless nights.

The region has been on the boil since last year with restive youth blowing up pipelines and other oil and gas installations thereby threatening the nations major source of revenue.

A new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers, which declared its goal to cripple Nigerias economy, has claimed responsibility for several attacks that directly cut oil production and revenue for the government.

The Nigerian governments effort to contain the hostilities failed. Peace talks initiated by the Nigerian government suffered setbacks.

Revenue to a government plummeted as production decreased from about 2. 2 million barrel per day to about 1.3m bpd. At some point, Angola surpassed Nigeria as the largest producer of oil in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria also had the falling prices of oil in the international market to contend with.

In November, as part of the moves aimed at resolving renewed militancy, the Niger Delta leaders led by a former Federal Commissioner for Information, Edwin Clark, met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa during which they presented a 16-point demand.

Some of the demands presented by the leaders of the region where Mr. Buharis predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan comes from, were the need for the enforcement of zero gas flaring deadline, immediate relocation of the administrative and operational headquarters of the International Oil Companies to the Niger Delta, resolution of a number of pending laws and justice issues regarding some aggrieved groups and individuals.

They also asked for the restructuring and funding of the Niger Delta Development Authority, the approval of the maritime university in Delta State and award of pipeline surveillance contracts to the communities.

Mr. Buhari had earlier announced an interventionist programme by his administration to launch a $10 billion infrastructural investment programme in the oil-bearing region. This is besides implementing the UNEP clean-up programme in Ogoni, Rivers State and retaining the Amnesty Programme for former former militants.

Last month, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo began an official tour of the region with a visit first to Delta State during which he assured that the maritime university had come to stay.

According to his itinerary, the vice president is billed to visit other parts of the region, comprising Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Cross River, Edo and Rivers States, all of which make up the South-South geo-political zone.

Peacemaker for a troubled region?

The jubilation and excitement that greeted Mr. Iboris release last December and eventual return to Nigeria could have convinced the ruling All Progressive Congress-led federal administration that he could be a figure to work with to ensure peace in the region and ultimately allow money flow into the troubled national economy.

Since the former governors return, his political associates have been thronging his country home in Oghara in Ethiope West Local Government Area of the state to pay him their respect. Among them was the incumbent governor of the state, Ifeanyi Okowa, who served as commissioner in his government.

Mr. Ibori, an Urhobo, the largest single ethnic group in Delta State, ranks among the most influential political leaders in the oil-bearing region. He is seen in the class of the late governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who was known as the Governor General of the Ijaw nation.

Mr. Alamieyeiseigha, who was also convicted for corruption, died in October 2015. He was also a member of the PDP.

Although it is not clear yet if Mr. Daura made commitment to Mr. Ibori not to pursue any corruption case against him, the belief among some members of the federal administration is that he (Ibori) could influence the Niger Delta militants to lay down their arms against their fatherland.

Mr. Ibori was jailed by the Southwack Crown Court on April 17, 2012 for laundering 50 million pounds believed to have been stolen from the coffers of the oil-rich state while he was governor between 1999 and 2007.

He pleaded guilty to a 10-count charge of money laundering and conspiracy. His wife and mistress were also jailed for their involvement in the offence.

Mr. Iboris conviction in the United Kingdom was hailed by many anti-corruption campaigners, especially because a High Court in Asaba, the Delta Sate capital, presided over by Justice Idowu Awokulehin, had earlier struck out 170 corruption charges brought against the former governor by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The Commission appealed to the Court of Appeal, Benin Division, which on May 15, 2014, ruled that the former governor, who was already in prison, had a case to answer.

The appellate court also ordered that the case be reassigned to another judge of the Federal High Court for continuation of trial.

But before that could be done, Mr. Ibori, who had become a political leper following the demise of former President Umaru YarAdua, his political ally, fled Nigeria to Dubai where he was picked up by Interpol and extradited to the United Kingdom.

There was no love lost between the former governor and President Goodluck Jonathan who succeeded Mr. YarAdua.

Mr. Iboris return last Saturday came as a surprise to many for a number of reasons.

First, he was still pursuing a case in London to establish his innocence in the corruption case for which he was jailed for 13 years, out of which he served about six years, taking into account his pre-trial detention.

Only last week, the former governor was in court to appeal against his conviction on the grounds that British police and lawyers involved in his case were also corrupt.

A police officer involved in the investigation of Mr. Ibori allegedly paid bribes to obtain information from a firm of private detectives working on behalf of the former governor.

At the time, Mr. Ibori had not been arrested but was aware that his finances were being investigated.

Besides, Stephen Kamlish, counsel to Mr. Iboris associate, Bhadresh Gohil, also a convicted money launderer, had claimed that documents available to him showed that the police were corrupt.

Secondly, at the time he returned Mr. Ibori was still wanted by the EFCC to answer corruption allegations against him.

The commission had declared the former governor wanted over alleged official corruption and money laundering.

In 2014, two years after Mr. Ibori was jailed in London, the anti-graft agency had vowed in a statement that the former governor would be re-arrested upon the completion of his prison sentence.

With this judgement, the coast is clear for Ibori to face trial in Nigeria upon the completion of his jail term in London, the commission had said in a statement.

At the time the former governor known in his political camp as Odidigborigbo returned, the anti-graft agency had not withdrawn its statement.

The EFCC spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren, when contacted by this newspaper on Wednesday, declined to comment.

He said he was yet to be briefed on the matter.

Can Ibori do the job?

A Niger Delta activist, Joseph Evah, said Mr. Ibori is the proper Niger Deltan that can help to bring peace to the trouble region and attract infrastructure because of his experience.

Ibori can do it and he can join others to bring peace and development to the Nigeria Delta region, Mr. Evah told PREMIUM TIMES in a telephone interview Wednesday.

He can play that role because of his experience as governor and his connection. He is a man loved by his people and he meant well for his people, not minding the reason for which he was imprisoned.

Go and see what he did in Delta. The only bridge linking upland and riverine Ijaw nation was built by Ibori.

Mr. Evah, who is the coordinator of the Ijaw Monitoring Group, dismissed claims that Mr. Ibori may not have the moral rectitude to engage the government in the quest to develop the Niger Delta region.

But Ledum Mitee, a former President of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, said Mr. Iboris contact while he was away would determine the role he would play to douse tension in the region.

I wouldnt know the contact he maintained while he was away. So, I dont know whether he can play a part, but every indigene of the Niger Delta region should play a part, Mr. Mitee told this newspaper Wednesday.

Eric Omare of Ijaw Youths Council, said though Mr. Ibori remains influential in the region, it could not be determined if that alone could make him play that role.

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President Muhammadu Buhari has said he would only return to Nigeria when his London doctors certify him well enough to do so.

 I am extending my leave until the doctors are satisfied that certain factors are ruled out, Mr. Buhari said in a February 5 letter to the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, informing the National Assembly of the extension of his vacation.

The letter was exclusively obtained by PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday.

Although snippets of the letter were publicised by the presidency and the Senate on February 5 and 6 respectively, this is the first time the entire text and copy of the correspondence would be made available.

The President wrote, Further to my letter dated 18th January 2017 in which I notified the Distinguished Senate of taking part of my annual leave.

During my leave, I took the opportunity to have routine check-ups and consult my long standing doctors in London.

In the course of the routine examinations, certain test result indicated the need for a course of medications and further appointments have been scheduled for next week.

I am therefore notifying the Distinguished Senate that I am extending my leave until the doctors are satisfied that certain factors are ruled out. In the circumstances, the vice president will continue to act on my behalf.

Please accept, Distinguished Senate President, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Mr. Buhari had on January 18 written the National Assembly, notifying the legislature that he was proceeding on a 10-day leave and temporarily transferring presidential power to Vice-president Yemi Osinbajo.

The leave was supposed to last 10 work days, between January 23 and February 6, according to the letter transmitted to both chambers of the National Assembly.

The President, whose real medical condition remained unknown, was expected to arrive the country on February 5 for resumption of work on February 6.

But the extension of his vacation means Mr. Osinbajo will continue to exercise presidential powers for days or weeks to come.

This is the third time Mr. Buhari has transferred power to Mr. Osinbajo since the two leaders were inaugurated in May 2015.

The first time was on February 5, 2016 when the President embarked on a five-day vacation; and the second was in June 2016 when Mr. Buhari travelled to the United Kingdom for treatment of what the Presidency described as ear infection.

A formal notice to both chambers of the National Assembly on the presidents intention to proceed on leave and hand over power temporarily to the vice-president is in compliance with Section 145 (1) of the Nigerian Constitution.

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The 2017 Murtala Muhammed Memorial Lecture will hold in Abuja on Monday, February 13.

The Murtala Muhammed Foundation is an organization founded on the ideals of late Murtala Muhammed and committed to improving the lives of Nigerians and Africans and has led efforts to develop innovative approaches to dealing with the challenges facing the country.

According to a press release from the Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation (MMF), Aisha Oyebode,  This lecture celebrates and sustains the good governance initiatives of our fallen hero whose inclination for humanitarian ideals we continue to uphold.

The Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, has confirmed that he will attend the event as the Special Guest of Honour, according to the organisers.

Expected to chair the event is former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, who succeeded Mr. Muhammed in office and is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Murtala Muhammed Foundation.

The keynote address will be delivered by Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno state with the theme Managing the Boko Haram Crisis in Borno State; Experiences and lessons for a multi-party, multi-ethnic and multi-religious Nigeria.

This years lecture will focus on humanitarian crisis and response in a pluralistic society and the role of leadership in the face of a multi-ethnic population.

Nigeria is contending with tensions arising from the activities of micro-nationalistic agitators, threatening to compound existing security challenges occasioned by the Boko Haram insurgency that has caused fatalities in excesses of 14,000 people and displaced over 1 million people said Ms. Oyebode.

More worrisome are the implications these issues have on an already fragile security environment in the region, characterized by unmitigated small arms proliferation, weak state and security institutions in the component countries and a large number of out of school children and unemployed youth with dire economic prospects who are vulnerable targets for radicalization.

This public lecture will also draw attention to the legacy created by the late General in office, in a period that is still described today as Nigerias finest period in international diplomacy.

He was a foremost Pan-African who placed Africa at the centre of Nigerias foreign policy and mobilized support for the liberation of other African countries from apartheid, colonialism and neo-Colonialism.

In Nigeria, his administration fought corruption and indiscipline, while pursuing peace and security within our borders  he was a firm believer in a peaceful and united Nigeria within an integrated and prosperous Africa.

Key stakeholders in the humanitarian sector have been invited as the leadership challenge in humanitarian response has necessitated a collective and holistic approach by citizens, organizations, state actors and the civil society towards developing a framework for effective response in the face of the current humanitarian needs in Nigeria.

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Members of the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), have threatened to withdraw their services at Kaduna airport should the Federal Government fail to prioritise their welfare.

NUATEs General Secretary, Olayinka Abioye, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Abuja that government had not said anything about the staff of workers that would be deployed.

Mr. Abioye said that NUATE members in various aviation parastatals under the Ministry of Transportation, who had been engaged in ad hoc assignments in the past, had not been fairly treated in term of welfare.

He added that the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), currently owed their members millions of naira in allowances.

Now, in 2016, we were being told that the Abuja airport will be closed for six weeks by March 8.

The government, through the parastatals, have not said anything about the staff welfare, in all the discussions that have been going on.

We have been talking about this and our position as a labour movement is that the government must come out to tell us specifically what it has in stock for the workers.

We believe in the growth of the industry, we believe in this operation and have also aligned ourselves that truly Abuja airport is due for comprehensive rehabilitation.

As I speak with you, in NAMA, FAAN and NCAA, there are millions of naira that are being owed these esteemed members of staff in these organisations.

If at the end of February nothing concrete is shown to the workers that they are going to get paid before they embark on that journey, we will ask our people to withdraw their services, he said.

NUATE scribe said that the unions were not involved in all the discussions on how the operation in Kaduna would succeed during the six weeks.

He added that Kaduna airport lacked the required manpower for the operation, which according to him, makes it imperative that staff would be moved from Abuja airport.

Another executive of the union in Abuja Airport, who pleaded anonymity, told NAN that some of the members of staff that would be deployed for the operation were strangers to Kaduna.

He added that considering the bad security situation in the state, workers that would be moved from Abuja to boost the operation needed to be adequately mobilised.

The official told NAN that the union has had experience where its members were deployed for such emergency operation and were not taken care of.

He said that during the closure of Port Harcourt airport for one and half year, members of staff that were deployed to Owerri airport were denied their entitlements.

We are not ready to go to Kaduna and suffer because from the budget for the six weeks operation, no provision was made for airport staff.

What we want is that whatever is due to us should be paid before we can go to Kaduna because we are not comfortable with the attitude of the management of our parastatals, he said.

Meanwhile, Henrietta Yakubu, FAANs Acting General Manager, Corporate Affairs, in her response, assured workers that adequate arrangement had been made for the staff welfare during the period.

Mrs. Yakubu said that FAAN was not unaware that the workers were going to outstation, adding that the authority would not move any of its staff out of his or her station without being paid allowances.

According to her, even though there is no provision for them in the governments budget, it is the responsibility of the agencies to take care of their workers.

If they have been short changed in the past, I can assure you that it will not happen this time around, especially with the public awareness in this case, she said. (NAN)

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The acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, has commended Adamu Dan Musa, the Commissions head of operations in Kano Zonal Office, who led a team that recovered over $9.8 million from the residence of a former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Andrew Yakubu, in Kaduna.

He said the officer and his team demonstrated courage, professionalism and integrity in executing the raid that yielded the astounding discovery.

He called on staff of the Commission to emulate the team as the EFCC is poised to take the fight against corruption to new heights.

The EFCC boss also used the opportunity to clarify the misleading information in a release by the Police Service Commission, PSC, concerning the promotion of six policemen for outstanding performance.

One of the newly promoted officers, Suleiman Abdul, who is currently on secondment at the EFCC, was purportedly promoted to the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police because he recently recovered N42 billion for the Federal Government.

Mr. Magu said he was unaware of any recent recovery by the officer.

He may have made recovery in the past. But in the last six years I am not aware of any recovery by the officer to warrant commendation by the Commission, he said.

Mr. Magu, who spoke after the Commissions monthly keep fit programme on February 11, urged all staff of the Commission to be dedicated to their jobs as only diligence, professionalism and uncommon courage would be rewarded with promotion.

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Nigerians have continued to react to the recovery of N3.04 billion from the residence of Andrew Yakubu, a former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, in Kaduna.

An operation by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on February 3 on a building belonging to a Mr. Yakubu yielded $9,772,800 and 74,000 cash.

Nigerians, Friday, took to Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms to express their outrage at the discovery. Others lampooned the ruling APC on its stance when the ex-GMD was sacked by former president Goodluck Jonathan.

A Facebook user, Ita Ndifreke, said, Yet we complain that there is recession. Naira has no value. When these volume of US dollars is stacked by only one Nigerian. Imagine the volume of US dollars hidden by our politicians. I keep on telling Nigerians that our politicians are responsible for the mess we find ourselves today. The former GMD would have been satisfied with his salary which was enough for him.

Commenting on the development, Stephen Osazuwa, another Facebook user, said, I keep saying it that Nigerians are incapable of ruling themselves. This is just another example where someone would be appointed to an office, only for him to loot the entire place clean. If it were possible, i would have loved that we be recolonized!

On Twitter, a popular user who tweets via @Mr Aydee, lampooned the APC over its stance when former president Goodluck Jonathan sacked Mr. Yakubu.

Before you blame GEJ for Yakubus criminality. So theres NO ambiguity, this was APCs position when GEJ fired Andrew Yakubu as NNPC GMD, @MrAydee tweeted, refering to the APCs description of Mr. Yakubus removal by Mr. Jonathan in 2014 as unceremonious.

Another twitter user, Juliet Kego, tweeting via @JulietKego, said, So many Yakubus in Aso Rock, NASS, Govt lodges, State HoAs, some with their bunkers in banks in Panama, UK, America, Dubai, Swiss.. #Justice!

Paul Irumundomon, a Facebook user, however, expressed pessimism about the hoopla the news generated, adding that Mr. Yakubu would soon be allowed to travel overseas.

This man will apply to travel overseas tomorrow and they will grant him a waver on medical ground. Confused country, no shame anymore. This man is not ibori; you can see that Ibori is just an icy on the cake, he said.

Joe Biden, a former president, took a train back home, while Obama took a chopper home, after Trumps inauguration. In Nigeria, where we import tooth picks, politicians buy cars (and) mechanics have to be imported for tune up services.

Rasaq Gbolahan, a poet and culture enthusiast, expressed deep outrage at the discovery, noting that treasury looters do not deserve to live in peace.

Brethren, Andrew Yakubu is a national disgrace, a portrait of shame that hangs on the wall of our dying country. Take it to the bank! The man has portrayed the main ideology behind mans inhumanity to man. He has depicted what Robert Burns says in his poem, he wrote.

Where we have countless people suffering, wandering the streets, feasting on leftovers,

sweating under the sun, many gone to rest in undisclosed cemeteries, many lamenting with tears streaking their faces.

And we have Andrew Yakubu sitting on bags of money. And you want me to continue to write poems about this country. You want me moisten this land with my sweat. You want my children to experience the tragedy that bears the name of our country. Tell Andrew Yakubu, that may they not find peace. They who loot and pillage our land.

A commenter, Mukhtar Umar, expressed surprise over the fact that the former NNPC boss was caught. He also claimed to know him personally and advised the government to bring him to justice in order to serve as deterrent to others.

I did not expect Yakubu would be (caught) in corruption cases. I know the man personally; he used to address me about life and career matters. Im confused there is no public office holder or political leader to trust again since Yakubu was caught red-handed. Please, EFCC, bring him on board and show examples to (other) Nigerians.

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The Nigerian Army has announced that two soldiers who assaulted a physically challenged man have been disciplined.

The Army spokesperson, Sani Usman, in a statement on Friday said Bature Samuel and Abdulazeez Usman, who were both corporals have been demoted to privates and imprisoned for 21 days for the assault whose video clip went viral on social media.

Mr. Usman, a brigadier general, also said the army has reached out to the victim, Chijoke Uraku.

Read Mr. Usmans full statement below.

Sequel to the video clip of two soldiers maltreating a physically challenged man on the streets of Onitsha, Anambra State, last Tuesday, in line with our zero tolerance of infringement of human rights by troops, those involved; Corporal Bature Samuel and Corporal Abdulazeez Usman of 82 Provost Company, have been arrested, summarily tried based on 2 count charges and found guilty.

Consequently, both have been sentenced to reduction in rank; from Corporal to Private Soldiers and 21 days Imprisonment with Hard Labour (IHL) respectively, which includes forfeiture of 21 days pay to the Federal Government of Nigeria.

The Nigerian Army has also reached out to the victim of their unjustifiable assault, Chijoke Uraku (alias CJ), as widely reported by the media.

We wish to reiterate our avowed determination to ensure that troops conduct themselves in the most orderly and professional manner at all times. Any act of indiscipline would not be tolerated.

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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission recently raided a building in Kaduna where millions of hard currencies were allegedly hidden in fire-proof safe.

The money  $9.8million and 74,000 pounds  belongs to a former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Andrew Yakubu, the EFCC said.

Mr. Yakubu is currently standing trial for corruption and money laundering.

Civic technology group, BuDgit has now constructed a visual narrative to demonstrate what development projects the looted funds could have been used to execute for the benefit of Nigerians.

See infographic below:

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Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has said that there is no provision for the repair of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport runway, in the 2016 and 2017 budgets.

He stated this while speaking with the Governor of Niger State, Sani Bello.

In a statement released on Friday by his media aide, Bamikole Omisore, Mr. Saraki said the non-completion of the Minna Airport re-modelling project was the reason why the Federal Government has no choice but to divert flights to Kaduna.

It makes a lot of sense to have an option. It is the lack of option that brings us to where we are that we cannot make a good choice, Mr. Saraki said.

No provision was made, in either the 2016 or 2017 budget, for the rehabilitation of the Abuja airport runaway one will be wondering how such kind of decisions are arrived at.

Mr. Saraki, however, promised that provision will be made for the completion of the Suleja-Minna road.

When contacted on Saturday, Mr. Omisore added that although the executive did not include the repair of the runway in the budget proposition, but since it is an appropriation, the legislature would look into it.

(The) executive did not include it but since it is just an appropriation, the National Assembly will consider including it, he told PREMIUM TIMES.

The Abuja airport has been subject of controversies in the past weeks, following the resolve of the Nigerian government to close the airport for repairs.

The arrangement by the Nigerian government during the repairs is that airlines would land at the Kaduna airport and passengers would be transported in secure buses from Kaduna to Abuja.

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Changing her sons nappy, a wry smile flickered across Aishas face as she recalled the power she wielded as the wife of a leading Boko Haram commander, living in the jihadists forest stronghold in northeast Nigeria.

I had many slaves  they did everything for me, the 25-year-old said, explaining how women and girls kidnapped by the Islamist militants washed, cooked and babysat for her during the three years she spent in their base in the vast Sambisa forest.

Even the men respected me because I was Mamman Nurs wife. They could not look me in the eye, Aisha said in a state safe house in Maiduguri, where she has lived for almost a year since being captured by the Nigerian army in a raid in Sambisa.

Aisha is among around 70 women and children undergoing a deradicalisation programme  led by psychologists and Islamic teachers  designed to challenge the teachings they received and beliefs they adopted while under the control of Boko Haram.

Thousands of girls and women have been abducted by the group since it began its insurgency in 2009  most notably the more than 200 Chibok girls snatched from their school in April 2014  with many used as cooks, sex slaves, and even suicide bombers.

Yet some of these women, like Aisha, gained respect, influence and standing within Boko Haram, which has waged a bloody campaign to create an Islamic state in the northeast.

Seduced by this power, and relieved to escape the domestic drudgery of their everyday lives, these women can prove tougher than men to deradicalise and reintegrate into their communities, according to the Neem Foundation, which runs the programme.

With more women likely to be freed from Boko Haram or widowed as Nigerias military strives to defeat the militants, experts say insults, rejection and even violence towards them as they return to their communities could hinder efforts to repair the social fabric of a region splintered by Boko Haram.

There is a possibility of violence (when these women go home) because they were married to Boko Haram militants, Fatima Akilu, the head of Neem, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

There is still a lot of anger and resentment from communities that have been traumatised for years, and subjected to atrocities by the group, she added.

NEWFOUND POWER

While other women huddled around the communal television in the safe house in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, 22-year-old Halima recalled the beautiful home built by her Boko Haram husband in the Sambisa, and the easy life she enjoyed.

Trucks arrived regularly with food and clothes, a hospital staffed with doctors and nurses tended to the ill, and Halima was given her own room in the house she shared with her husband.

Anything I requested, I got, said Halima, sitting under a tree in the yard and lazily picking her toenails.

Life in the Sambisa for women like Halima was a far cry from the deep-rooted patriarchy in the mainly Muslim northeast, where rates of child marriage, literacy among girls, and women in positions of power are far worse than in the rest of Nigeria.

The escape from reality, and taste of freedom and autonomy afforded to the wives of Boko Haram militants, highlights the challenge facing Neem to deradicalise the women.

Many are not ready to relinquish their newfound power.

Despite being kidnapped by Boko Haram when they attacked her town of Banki four years ago, Aisha was not forced to marry Nur, the suspected mastermind of a suicide bomb attack on U.N. headquarters in Abuja in 2011 that killed 23 people.

Aisha was courted for months and showered with gifts by Nur, who has a $160,000 state bounty on his head, before agreeing to become his fourth wife. When she told Nur to divorce his second wife  because she did not like her  he did so right away.

After arriving at the safe house, Aisha complained about being separated from Nur, and asked the staff how they would feel if they were suddenly deprived after years of regular sex.

Thats when she threatened that she would soon rape one of the male staff, said one of the support staff. For almost two weeks, the men didnt come to work  they were all afraid.

GOING HOME

The aim of Neems programme is to change the mindset of the women and girls, make them think more rationally, and challenge the beliefs instilled in them over several years by Boko Haram.

Neem employs psychologists who treat trauma and provide counselling, while Islamic teachers discuss religious and ideological beliefs, and challenge interpretations of the Koran.

The women and girls in the safe house were subjected to nine straight hours of Koranic teaching a day by Boko Haram during their time in captivity in the Sambisa forest, Akilu said.

You can treat a persons emotional state  but if you dont change the way they think and just release them into society, you perpetrate a vicious cycle, said Akilu, who used to run a state deradicalisation program for Boko Haram members.

Akilu said she had seen huge improvements over the past nine months in the women and girls in the safe house, with most now believing that the actions of their former husbands were wrong.

I laugh at what he (Nur) was saying, said Aisha. I now realise that he is not doing the right thing.

However, with the nine-month-long deradicalisation programme drawing to a close, the staff at Neem were anxious about how the women and girls would be received upon their return home.

Female former Boko Haram captives, and their children born to the militants, often face mistrust and persecution from their communities, who fear they will radicalise others or carry out violence, said the U.N. childrens agency (UNICEF).

But Aisha is not worried about rejection or stigma. Her only fear is returning to an ordinary life  one without power.

Only when you get married to a rich man, or a man of authority, can you get that kind of power, she said. But if I am single yet have plenty of money of my own, I will be fine.

This story was first published by Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, womens rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience.

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The Ebonyi State government says it has taken steps to rehabilitate a physically-challenged man who was brutally assaulted by soldiers in Onitsha, Anambra State, for wearing military uniform.

Chijioke Oratu, crippled in both legs, was viciously beaten and kicked by two armed soldiers after being dragged off his wheel chair, as shocked onlookers stood by helplessly.

The video of the attack, apparently captured by a bystander, went viral on social media, sparking outrage.

The Nigerian Army announced on Friday that the assailants had been identified and arrested.

Spokesperson Sani Usman, a Brigadier General, said in a statement the culprits, Bature Samuel and Abdulazeez Usman, who were both corporals, had been demoted to privates and imprisoned for 21 days with hard labour.

They are to also forfeit their pay for the 21 days.

The Ebonyi government said the victim, Mr. Oratu, a native of state, would be given medical attention and rehabilitated.

A statement by Secretary to Ebonyi State Government, Bernard Odoh, said the attack was regrettable.

Two errant soldiers, acting outside orders, evidently took laws and liberty into their hands and assaulted the said Mr. Oratu on the pretext that he was dressed in military fatigues, the statement said.

The statement said the government was deeply dismayed and disappointed by such reprehensible and needless physical and psychological humiliation of a hapless citizen and regrets the trauma caused his family and government of Ebonyi state and onlookers in a society that he has laboured to clear of such inhumanities and violence.

The state government has contacted the victim with a view to rehabilitating him in line with the governors policy to evacuate Ebonyians hawking and engaging in less dignifying businesses across the country, it said.

The governor, according to the statement, has directed that immediate medical attention and social welfare be provided for Mr. Oratu.

He also directed that the welfare package of empowerment rolled out by the state government be extended to him.

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The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Akwa Ibom State, says it remains resolute in its expulsion of a former minister of state for the Federal Capital Territory, John Udoedehe, from the party.

Mr. Udoedehe, who is also a former senator, has been in a longstanding feud with other party leaders in the state since he was beaten by Umana Umana at the partys governorship primaries in 2015.

Mr. Udoedehe is insisting that he was rigged out of the primaries.

He has refused to accept a former minister of petroleum, Don Etiebet, as the leader of the party caucus in the state, and has also put up adverts in local papers proclaiming the dissolution of the party leadership in the state.

The APC Chairman in the state, Amadu Attai, told journalists, Friday, in Uyo that Mr. Udoedehe stands expelled and excommunicated from the party.

Mr. Attai, surrounded by the 17 members of the party Exco in the state, accused Mr. Udoedehe of sponsoring media attacks against the APC and its leaders in the state, so as to hurt the partyS image and put the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in an advantage ahead of the 2019 governorship election.

As the majority of you here may undoubtedly be aware of, there have been of late attempts by some riff-raffs and characters unknown to our Party to mislead the general public to think that there is (a) crisis in the Akwa Ibom State chapter of our great Party, Mr. Attai said.

The Amadu Attai-led State Executive of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Akwa Ibom State with its secretariat at No.4 Atiku Abubakar Avenue, Uyo, is intact. Indeed, it remains the one and only Exco of our Party that has been carrying out its official functions.

We call on all our members and teeming supporters of our great Party in the State, and, indeed, the general public to totally disregard the false reports and the rumours peddled by some uninformed rascals and disgruntled elements who call themselves forum of state officers, chapter executives and ward executives. There is no such body known to the Constitution of the All Progressives Congress, APC.

As the APC press briefing was going on at about 2.30 p.m. at the party secretariat, Atiku Abubakar Avenue, Mr. Udoedehe was being driven in a long convoy into the city from the Akwa Ibom International Airport where he had just landed.

Those who witnessed Mr. Udoedehes entry into the city told PREMIUM TIMES that the atmosphere was similar to that of a political rally.

Mr. Udoedehes expulsion was first carried out at the ward and then the Uyo local government chapter of the APC before it was ratified on January 26 by the state executive of the party.

The sins of the former minister, the party says, is that he sponsored some thugs to attack the executive members of the party at the party secretariat.

The former senator told PREMIUM TIMES that the APC at his ward, Ward 6, Uyo, did not expel him.

Those names and signatures are completely fake, he said.

He accused the MD, Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Nsima Ekere, of manipulating the party against him because he (Mr. Ekere) wants to contest for the governorship in 2019.

He (Mr. Ekere) bribed the party members to sign documents against me, Mr. Udoedehe said. I am not accusing Umana this time around. Im saying it is Nsima that did it. Let him come out and defend himself.

My ward chairmans name is Monday Utuk. My chapter chairman is Emmanuel Andy. Everybody knows that.

I have told the party at the national that its like you are tying my hands to allow my enemies to box me.

If people were in the PDP when we formed the party, and because they have money they throw their morals into the gutter.

Mr. Ekere did not respond to telephone calls and text message from PREMIUM TIMES.

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The Rivers State government on Saturday announced the sealing off of Chinese Govt Company, CGC, in Aluu, over aggravated air pollution, and breach of environmental laws in the state.

Two other companies  H & H Engineering Company and AUC Asphalt Company  located in Aluu have also been sealed off.

Port Harcourt residents of late have been complaining of emission of toxic soot into the atmosphere by unknown persons or companies, which prompted the state government to set up a task force to investigate the issue.

The Commissioner for Information in the state, Austin Tam-George, who announced the sealing off of the three companies, said their directors would face prosecution according to the law.

The Task Force wishes to warn all individuals and companies that engage in practices that pollute the air and ruin the environment to desist immediately, or face the full consequences of their actions, Mr. Tam-George said.

While Rivers State remains open for business, the State Government is fully committed to the implementation of the United Nations (UN) declarations on the importance of fresh air, and the creation of sustainable livelihoods in our communities.

We urge members of the public to join the drive for a healthy Rivers State.

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President Muhammadu Buharis wife, Aisha, has returned to Nigeria from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia where she performed Umrah or Lesser Hajj.

Mrs. Buhari arrived the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, at about 3:15.

She was received by Toyin Saraki, wife of Senate president, Bukola Saraki, wives of the governors of Kebbi and Kogi States, wives of the service chiefs as well as the former deputy governor of Plateau State, Pauline Tallen.

I thank God for journey mercies, I prayed for Nigeria and Nigerian leaders and we should not relent in prayers and good deeds, she said.

She urged Nigerians not to relent in their prayers and good deeds for Nigeria to prosper among the comity of nations.

She expressed her gratitude to God for her successful trip, and prayed for Nigerians and her leaders.

Mrs. Buhari also expressed her gratitude to all Nigerians for the support for President Muhammadu Buharis administration and also urged them to sustain the tempo.

I want to use this opportunity to thank all Nigerians for the goodwill and support for my husband and Nigeria in general, she said.

Mrs. Buhari also said that she prayed for the peace, stability and progress of Nigeria.

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Jigawa Police Command said on Friday that it had apprehended one Sawudi Abdusamad, who, along with others, allegedly kidnapped a village head and his brother.

The spokesperson of the command, Abdu Jinjiri, told the News Agency of Nigeria that Mr. Abdusamad was arrested after the police received a tip-off on their hideout.

The spokesperson said the suspect and others , now at large, had allegedly kidnapped the village head of Kijin ward in Gwaram Local Government Area , Mamuda Dauda, and his brother, the ward head, Wada Dauda.

Mr. Jinjiri said that when the police got some useful information, they were traced to a thick forest in Gwaram, adding that about seven other culprits escaped.

He stated that the police were intensifying efforts to apprehend the remaining suspects at large.

Fielding questions from NAN, the suspect, aged 50, confessed to committing the act, but sought for forgiveness, promising never to engage in such unwholesome act.

Mr. Abdussamad said that two of his friends called Ilu and Mairaliya influenced him into kidnapping, which they told him was the quickest way of making fast money.

He said that when police officers raided their hideout in the forest, his friends escaped with the N2 million ransom they collected before they releasing the village head and his brother.

The suspect said this was the first time he was engaging in the act and therefore begged for leniency as he had two wives and two children to look after.

(NAN)

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Gov. Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State has assented to the states 2017 appropriation bill of N204.3 billion.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the state legislature passed the bill on Wednesday.

Speaking at the event in Sokoto, Mr. Tambuwal said while there were some serious economic challenges facing the state, yet payment of salaries has remained prompt.

Also, prompt payment of pensions and gratuities to state governments retirees had been sustained.

The Auditor-General for Local Governments is also working on the records to effect the payment of outstanding pensions and gratuities of the Local Governments, he added.

Mr. Tambuwal also promised to ensure the implementation of the budget, well above that of 2016, while even distribution of resources will be ensured.

Several projects will now begin to spring across the state, while emphasis would be on the rural areas, he said.

The governor said the state government had been restructured to boost the states internally generated revenue.

He said the former leadership of the States Board of Internal Revenue (BIR) performed below expectations, hence the restructuring became imperative.

However, we are not going to introduce new unbearable taxes, yet the residents of the state should strive to pay all due revenues and taxes as at when due.

We are assuring our people of the judicious utilisation of all revenues in the best interest of the people, the governor said.

Mr. Tambuwal commended the state legislators for the speedy passage of the budget.

He promised that the cordial relationship between them, the executive and the judiciary would be sustained.

The Speaker, Salihu Maidaji, had earlier extolled the existing cordial relationship between the legislative and executive arms of government in the state.

Mr. Maidaji, however, stressed the need to improve on the internal revenue generations sequel to the dwindling oil revenues.

Mr. Tambuwal had on December 29, 2016 presented the budget estimate of N204.3 billion to the House of Assembly.

NAN also recalls that over 27.3 per cent of the budget was allocated to the education sector occasioned by the declaration of the state of emergency on the education sector. (NAN)

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Department chain chairman Albert Boscov died of pancreatic cancer on Friday.

In a letter Wednesday to employees of Boscovs Department Stores, 87-year-old Boscov said I have pancreatic cancer and there is no cure. I dont have a lot of time.

His nephew, Jim Boscov, CEO and company vice chairman, announced the news at about 10 p.m. Friday night. Jim Boscov said the chain would continue to operate as usual  and he said his uncle was still at work Wednesday morning, reviewing proposed advertisement layouts and copy.

Albert Boscov expressed confidence in the companys leadership. He said earlier this week that as other retailers have had losses and store closures, Boscovs plans to open two new stores.

He said he wanted this year to be our best possible year and wished his co-workers good luck, saying I love you all.

Since taking the reins of the family business begun by his father in 1914, Albert Boscov drove the growth of Boscovs Department stores. Under his leadership, Boscovs has grown to become the largest family owned department store chain in the country, with sales in excess of $1 billion dollars. The company employs over 7,500.

Albert Boscov was truly one of the giants in the retail industry, Jim Boscov CEO, said in a statement. He was a man of vision and passion and he had a profound influence on the retail business community and the community at large. We are committed to continue on the strong foundation he has created and to carry on in the spirit and philosophy hes instilled. Building on his legacy we will remain the largest family owned department store in the country.

Jim Boscov is the third generation of the Boscov family to head the company.
The red berries of a weed found in the southern United States contain a compound that can disarm a deadly superbug, according to research published Friday.

Researchers from Emory University and the University of Iowa found that extracts from the Brazilian peppertree, which traditional healers in the Amazon have used for hundreds of years to treat skin and soft-tissue infections, have the power to stop methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in mice. The study was published in Natures Scientific Reports.

Cassandra Quave, an Emory University scientist who studies how indigenous people use plants in healing practices, said researchers pulled apart the chemical ingredients of the berries and tested them in mice infected with these superbug strains. The mice developed skin lesions where the bacteria were injected. The researchers then injected some mice with the pepper extracts, and their lesions shrunk. Instead of destroying the bacteria, the ingredients in the fruit weakened the bacteria by preventing them from producing the toxins it uses as weapons to damage tissue. The extracts from the fruit repress a gene that allows the bacterial cells to communicate with one another.

It weakens the bacteria so the mouses own defenses work better to clear the infection, she said. The plant extracts prevented the formation of skin lesions in mice injected with MRSA but didnt harm the skin tissues or the normal, healthy bacteria found on skin.

The discovery may hold the potential for new ways to treat and prevent antimicrobial-resistant infections, an enormous global problem that was the focus of a rare high-level United Nations summit last fall.

MRSA has become a serious threat to human health. In 2011, it was responsible for more than 80,000 invasive infections and more than 11,000 deaths in the United States, according to federal statistics.

Antimicrobial resistance refers to infections that have evolved the ability to withstand drugs that ought to stop them. The medicines include antibiotics, which act on bacteria, as well as drugs to fight fungal, viral or parasitic infections. Fighting bacteria with drugs designed to kill them helps fuel the problem of antibiotic resistance if stronger bacteria can survive and evolve to become superbugs.

But instead of always setting a bomb off to kill an infection, there are situations where using an anti-virulence method may be just as effective, while also helping to restore balance to the health of the patient, said Quave.

Plants have been used repeatedly in traditional medicine over the centuries, and knowledge about their use is passed down from generation to generation, which points to their efficacy, she said.

People dont save that knowledge over centuries if something doesnt work, she said. Were trying to answer the question: does this work against bacteria, and how does it work, and is it safe to use?

The Brazilian peppertree, a shrubby tree native to South America, is an invasive species throughout the southern United States, and particularly in Florida, where its sometimes called the Florida holly or broad leaf peppertree and is considered a noxious weed. The woody plant has long been a staple in Brazilian traditional medicine. Its leaves and bark are used to treat wounds, ulcers, burns and skin infections, Quave said.

Less is known about the plants fruit, which was used traditionally as topical poultices for infected wounds and ulcers.

From an ecological standpoint, Quave said it makes sense that invasive weeds have a chemical advantage that may help protect them from diseases so they can spread more easily in a new environment.

But she said the average person shouldnt try to use the weed to make their own medicine. Not everything that is natural is safe, she said.

Her lab at Emory is doing additional research to confirm the safest and most effective way of using the plant extract. Researchers would still need to conduct preclinical trials to test its medicinal benefits.
BRIDGETON  The Cumberland County Prosecutors Office identified the person shot by city police Friday as Darryl L. Fuqua, 23.

Mayor Albert Kelly is calling for calm in the wake of the Ramblewood Drive residents death, as Fuqua is the second black man killed by city police in a little more than two years.

Kelly said he has contacted clergy and community leaders, asking them to work with residents to ensure the investigation proceeds without incident.

Kelly said he will again visit residents living around the 200 block of South Avenue, where the shooting occurred. Kelly said he already has visited those residents to ease their concerns.

I want to make sure everyone stays calm, he said.

Police Chief Michael Gaimari identified the officer who allegedly shot Fuqua only as a five-year veteran of the Police Department and who is assigned to the departments Criminal Investigation Bureau. The officer is now on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, he said.

Gaimari said the officer was one of three officers taken to Inspira Health Center Bridgeton for observation and treatment of undisclosed injuries after the shooting. They were released late Friday night, he said.

At the scene Friday, two onlookers called police murderers. Some others in the all-black crowd were angry, alleging the officers investigating the shooting were all white.

Saturday morning, Walter Hudson, chairman of the National Awareness Alliance, said the victims friends and family contacted his organization. He said he will meet with the victims family, including Fuquas mother, Gwen Benson.

Benson could not be reached for comment.

Hudson organized protests after Jerame Reid was fatally shot by city police during a vehicle stop Dec. 28, 2014. Reid was black.

I am deeply troubled by the actions of the Bridgeton Police Department, Hudson said in a statement. We have marched against the city of Bridgeton two years ago for the murder of Jerame Reid. (The) Bridgeton Police Department and their elected officials do not value the lives of black people in the Bridgeton community.

Fridays shooting is under investigation by the Prosecutors Office, with assistance from the State Police Crime Scene Unit.

Hudson, as he did with Reids shooting, said the Prosecutors Office cannot be trusted with investigating.

I am calling for the New Jersey state Attorney General to immediately intervene in this investigation, Hudson said.

Fridays shooting occurred at about 4 p.m., the Prosecutors Office said.

Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae provided no information about what prompted the shooting, but said it followed an apparent foot chase. At least one officer is believed to have shot at Fuqua, she said.

Webb-McRae didnt say whether Fuqua shot at police. A gun was recovered where Fuqua was taken into custody, she said.

Saturday morning, two South Avenue residents, who wouldnt identify themselves, said they saw a pair of police officers running along South Avenue around 4 p.m. Friday. They said one officer ran between two houses, while the other ran between two other houses.

Both residents said they heard four shots. The victim wound up on the ground in front of a small building in an alley between two houses linking South Avenue with Grove Street, they said. The alley is near the houses the officers ran between.

One of the residents said she had just walked her two children home from their bus stop when the shots were fired. She said her children were in the house when the shooting occurred and they didnt see anything.

On Friday, South Avenue resident Trevion Scarborough, 14, said he was in his house at 4 p.m. when he heard four gunshots. He said he left his house and ran down the street to see what happened.

Kelly said the victim was taken to Inspira Medical Center Vineland. Clergy met with the victims family at the hospital.

Kelly said the shooting occurred a day after he met with the Bridgeton Christian Ministers Association to discuss ways of curbing violence in the city.

Most recently, city police said a 23-year-old local man walked into a Church Street grocery store around 4 p.m. on Feb. 6, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest. The man was flown to Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware, from which he was eventually released.
BRIDGETON  The Cumberland County Prosecutors Office is investigating the death of a man who was shot by police Friday afternoon.

The shooting happened about 4 p.m. near the 200 block of South Avenue. The mans identity was withheld until a positive identification can be made, according to the Prosecutors Office. The only description officials gave was that he was black.

There was no information on what led to the shooting, but officials said they believed there was a foot chase and at least one officer fired at the man who was killed.

They did not say whether he fired at police.

A gun was later recovered in the area where the man was taken into custody.

Trevion Scarborough, 14, who lives in the 200 block of South Avenue, was in his house about 4 p.m when he heard four gunshots, he said.

He said he ran from his house and down the street.

Police cordoned off the road for several blocks Friday evening.

This is the second fatal police shooting in Bridgeton in the past three years. On Dec. 28, 2014, Jerame Reid was shot as he exited a vehicle during a traffic stop. The officers actions were ruled lawful by the state Attorney Generals Office.

Anyone with information on Fridays shooting can contact Sgt. Detective Ronald Henry at 609-381-2047 or the Cumberland County Prosecutors Office at 856-453-0486. Information can also be submitted through the Prosecutors Offices CCPOTIP app. All tips are anonymous.
MAURICE RIVER TOWNSHIP  Theres a hole in one of the freshly repaired walls in the living room of the East Point Lighthouse.

But Maurice River Historical Society President Nancy Patterson isnt upset and said the hole, which shows part of the buildings original 1849 construction, is something to be highlighted.

It will give an image of what was here, she said.

What was here was a lighthouse desperately in need of renovation  a project now approaching completion after decades of effort.

The brick exterior of the lighthouse is covered in a bright whitewash, which makes the green shutters stand out. The roof is a bright red.

Inside, the walls are painted in original colors, including a sort of tan that was matched by examining old paint chips. The floors, including some thought to be original to the lighthouse, are clean and smooth.

A final price for the refurbishment is estimated at about $800,000. About $600,000 comes from the New Jersey Historic Trust and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

For Patterson, the work was necessary to preserve a structure whose light continues to guide mariners to and from the Maurice River.

This is a piece of history, she said.

But by 1970, the lighthouse was a neglected piece of history. The building suffered from lack of maintenance and damage from vandalism. A fire in 1971 heavily damaged the roof.

The roof and other parts of the building were repaired enough to prevent its loss.

It was spaghetti dinners and cupcake sales, Patterson said. I dont know how they did it.

The current restoration project began last year, and theres still some work to be done, Patterson said.

The lantern room, which houses the buildings ship-guiding light, still needs to be painted, Patterson said. The discovery of lead paint slowed that portion of the work, which should now be done in the spring, she said.

Fishermen say sanctuary status a risky proposition for them Some fishermen are relieved Baltimore Canyon is not being considered as a national marine sa

The historical society also needs to put furniture in the kitchen, living room, dining room and two bedrooms, she said. The goal is to find furniture similar to that used in 1915, she said.

But not everything about the lighthouse renovations involves old things.

Patterson said plans include installing cameras on the light cupola so visitors who cant climb the stairs to the lantern room can see the view on monitors on the first floor. A camera will be placed in the surrounding wetlands so visitors can watch ospreys and other birds, she said.

The ultimate goal, Patterson said, is to hold as many events at the lighthouse as possible, something that will keep interest in the old building alive for years to come.
The recent killing of a corrections officer at a Delaware prison by inmates has New Jersey corrections officers and their state employer disagreeing over cooperation on safety measures.

The state Department of Corrections said in a statement Friday that it works with corrections officers unions on issues involving safety, security and virtually all areas in the realm of corrections at New Jersey facilities.

But Brian Renshaw, president of PBA Local 105, which represents several thousand New Jersey corrections officers, thinks otherwise.

The department is more concerned about fiscal responsibility than safety and security of our facilities, he said. There are procedures and policies in place to keep officers safe, but there can always be improvements. All designated posts must be staffed ... to ensure the safety and security of officers, civilian staffing and inmates.

And Edward Sullivan, president of the New Jersey Superior Officers Association, indicated theres a tenuous cooperative effort on behalf of the state in regards to improving prison safety.

We disagree with a lot of things when it comes to safety, said Sullivan, whose association represents lieutenants at state prisons. When we identify issues that could result in an officer being assaulted, unsafe conditions for staff or inmates, or a potential breach of security, we speak out.

They also know that if they ignore us, that will be put our ducks in a row and if something happens, we throw it right back on them, he said.

Authorities said 47-year-old corrections Lt. Steven Floyd was killed during a 24-hour standoff at the all-male, 2,500-prisoner James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna, Delaware. The standoff ended Feb. 2.

Authorities havent explained how Floyd died. The head of his union said Floyd was forced into a closet and killed by captors at some point.

Cumberland County has three state prisons: South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton, and Bayside State Prison and Southern State Correctional Facility in Maurice River Township. Those facilities house about 7,000 inmates, or about one-third of the states inmate population.

Fred Baker Jr., 35, of Middle Township, was killed by an inmate in 1997 at Bayside State Prison. He died after he was stabbed in the back with a shank by inmate Steven Beverly. Beverly was sentenced in 1998 to life in prison with no parole for the killing.

No information was immediately available from the state corrections officials about the number of corrections officers who are assaulted or injured while on the job.

Renshaw said numerous corrections offices are injured each year. Their injuries range from contusions and fractures to orthopedic and neurological damage, he said.

Some officers within the last couple years have sustained severe head trauma and career-ending injuries, Renshaw said.

While the most common inmate-corrections officer confrontation is verbal, those confrontations can develop into physical assaults, Renshaw said. Other physical confrontations result from a inmates desire to challenge a corrections officers lawful authority, he said.

According to the department, its facilities undergo security checks on a continual basis. Any deficiency that could potentially disrupt the safe, secure and orderly operation of the facility ... will be addressed immediately, the department said.

The department also said its Correctional Staff Training Academy provides corrections officers with basic training in arrest, search and seizure, use of force, criminal law, first aid, weaponry, unarmed defensive tactics, intensive physical conditioning, security concepts, human relations and professional development.

Regardless of the training, Renshaw said, Floyds death touches all corrections officers.

This is a very sad day, with the loss of one of our fellow correctional officers, Renshaw said. Our thoughts and prayers go out to ... Floyds family during this extremely difficult time.
Mike McGaffney, of Pleasantville, woke up confused in an Atlantic City hospital one month after overdosing from heroin.

At 43 years old, he had injected too much of the drug in 2004, causing his body to stop breathing on its own and quickly shut down.

While McGaffney was unconscious, a friend called 911 and an ambulance took him from Brigantine to the hospital, where medics injected him with naloxone, the opioid-reversal drug. He woke a month later from a coma. Experts were unsure if he was going to make it, he said.

McGaffney said while it didnt immediately cure his addiction, the drug and actions of the first responders are the only reasons he is alive and sober and helping other addicts get into treatment and recovery from opioid addiction.

Its a miracle that Im here, he said. And I think the reason that Im here and not my brother or my friends that have died is because Im meant to help.

Demand for naloxone has soared across communities in New Jersey as the opioid epidemic intensifies, and the drug has saved thousands of lives. The drug is not the long-term answer to addiction or achieving sobriety, and critics say the drugs life-saving qualities often just leads an addict to abuse drugs again.

But those who advocate its use say it provides a lifeline to a second chance.

Anytime someone prevents an overdose death, thats just one more chance at recovery, Babette Richter, registered nurse at the South Jersey AIDS Alliances Oasis center in Atlantic City. Its about seeing people not die.

Law enforcement had 156 deployments of Narcan, a brand of naloxone, in January, according to data from State Police. State officials said there have been more than 22,000 total deployments of Narcan and naloxone since 2014.

Those numbers dont include naloxone use for unreported overdose reversals.

Naloxone works by blocking and even reversing the sedative and respiratory-inhibiting effects caused by opioids. Used for decades, it was typically given by licensed medical professionals to patients coming out of surgery. Paramedics and emergency medical services also have carried the drug in its earlier form as a vial and needle combo.

Alliance members saw an opportunity in 2013 to get the drug into citizens hands to help prevent overdose deaths. They received a grant to buy hundreds of needle injection antidotes, then sold at a cheap price. The alliance was among the first agencies in the state to give out the drug to residents.

Richter now teaches people how to administer the drug using a newer model that still uses vials of naloxone that are then attached to an atomizer, which allows people to administer the drug into a victims nose. She sometimes uses it to save lives herself, running to save a collapsed person in the parking lot across the street.

With his county leading the state in heroin use and overdose deaths, Ocean County Prosecutor Joe Coronato championed a more widespread use of naloxone by police officers and other law enforcement officials starting in 2013.

I just became the new prosecutor. I was having spikes in overdose deaths, and I thought, I have to do something, Coronato said.

Narcan kits of nasal spray injectors eventually made it to the majority of police departments in Ocean County within a year. A team of people sat downstairs in the basement of the prosecutors building assembling the kits day after day, a task to fill a never-ending order.

Narcan and other versions of nalaxone may have been cheaper four years ago, but drug manufacturers have since raised prices significantly. Naloxone given through a needle was as cheap as $1, but prices for syringes, nasal sprays and a thigh auto-injector now range from about $40 to $750.

EMTs at Exceptional Medical Transport ambulatory company in Atlantic City say theyre constantly on alert for calls of overdoses. Each EMT carries two doses of syringe nasal spray naloxone in hard plastic cases, which they keep on them at all times.

The company absorbs the cost of each dose at about $50. They administered 141 of those doses in 2016, said John Wolfram, general manager and EMT. Not every first-response department can afford to carry the drug without significant price discounts or an ongoing rebate program through the state.

Were seeing and treating people of all walks of life, he said. And when its fentanyl, which is way more potent than heroin, it may take a couple doses for it to work and then the police and paramedics get involved.

First responders have rescued people overdosing in abandoned buildings, private homes, bus stations, fast food restaurant bathrooms, public parks and elsewhere.

The people they save wake up vomiting due to immediate withdrawal effects, sometimes walking away and refusing additional medical care. They may become angry and aggressive.

But the toughest times are when they dont wake up at all, the EMTs said. Or victims become deprived of oxygen for too long so that even as naloxone keeps the body alive, the brain is dead.

When you do it so much, we learn to put up an emotional, mental guard, because it gets hard, said Joel Sanders, an EMT with Exceptional Medical Transport. We try and do our best to save who we can, but sometimes its just not in the cards.

There were 1,587 drug-related deaths in 2015, according to state officials.

Statistics show naloxone, in all its different brands, has prevented thousands of opioid-related deaths in New Jersey. But it is still limited as an immediate, short term solution to the problem.

We have to get better at treatment alternatives and treatment options, Sanders said. People need help.
OCEAN CITY  City Council awarded a $6.6 million contract Thursday for a drainage project to alleviate flooding in the citys most flood-prone area, an increase of more than $2 million over the citys original estimate.

The work, which was anticipated to begin in December, includes the installation of four pump stations between 26th and 34th streets, as well as drainage pipes and paving. Council approved a $4 million bond ordinance for the work in August.

Ocean City residents cautious on flood reduction work OCEAN CITY  For residents in certain areas of the city, flooding is not just an aggravation

The contract went to A.E. Stone Inc., of Egg Harbor Township, the second low bidder. The apparent low bidder, Pillari Brothers of Farming-dale, was disqualified for failing to list subcontractors on its bid, according to a memo attached to the resolution.

Were cautiously optimistic that this plan will alleviate our flooding  however, the proof is in the pudding, said Suzanne Hornick, who chairs the citizen group Ocean City Flooding Committee and who lives in the project area.

Ocean City mayor proposes major increase in capital spending OCEAN CITY  What can $112 million buy? Local officials hope it can take care of a majority 

She said the citizens group of more than 650 members has worked tirelessly to bring more attention to flooding in the area.

Fourth Ward Councilman Bob Barr said he was excited to finally put a contract in place for the work.

Ocean City flood-reduction work to begin in February OCEAN CITY  A $4 million infrastructure project designed to reduce flooding near the center

The residents of that area have been suffering a long time. Its a long time coming for them to get some relief and theyre going to get it, thankfully, he said. Barr couldnt provide an exact start date but anticipated work to begin within a week or two.
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that four of the casinos that have been closed in the city have, or had deed restrictions barring gambling there.

But that doesn't make it right, or a good thing for a city trying to rebuild its Boardwalk. Does it?

This week, for our second podcast on Atlantic City, Nicholas Huba and I drilled into the issue a bit.

It turns out, Nick and I don't see eye to eye on whether deed restrictions are killing Atlantic City's boardwalk, saving it, or whether they even matter.

But we did agree that a poor perception of the resort still persists. That view was reinforced when Jeffrey Gural, the Meadowlands developer who supported last November's public vote on casino expansion, came down to talk our editor board about gaming.

Gural still wants a casino and believes he'll get on, he just has to wait six more years. That's when New York's casinos will be so close to the state's border New Jersey will have no choice but to open one up in the north (You can find that at the 6:00 mark of the podcast).

Gural, at 74, is a pretty patient and optimistic guy.

We were also finally able to pull Christian Hetrick out of his stacks of documents and spreadsheets long enough to get him to come over and talk about the Atlantic City takeover.

Christian's been reporting on the state takeover of Atlantic City government, including point man Jeff Chiesa's bid to cut 100 jobs from the fire department (starts at 8:24). Firefighters are suing and there's a ton of documents online. Christian claims he's read all 1,000 pages of filings.

I put him to the test.

Thanks for the listen and the comments last week.
After a wild few days that brought record warmth, thunderstorms, snow and tropical-storm force wind gusts, our weekend weather looks much more tranquil. A short-lived shot of cold will be replaced by milder air, with temperatures rebounding to the plus side of 50 once again. Its not quite the 70-degree record warmth we soaked up Wednesday, but 50 is still quite nice for the middle of February.

Saturday gets the nod as the pick day of the weekend with a mix of clouds and a little sunshine, then clouds return with some rain showers expected Sunday. Those Sunday showers will be the humble beginnings of what could turn into another strong ocean storm, but not for us. New England may get raked by strong winds and heavy snow for the second time in less than a week as that storm explodes offshore Monday, but too far away to give us anything but some gusty winds.

As a snow-loving meteorologist, I am about to throw in the towel on a largely disappointing winter for area flake fanatics. In that spirit, I booked a weeklong vacation in Florida starting Thursday.

I say that not to brag but rather to warn. Ive had six vacations canceled or postponed in the past seven years due to major weather events, from Hurricanes Sandy and Irene to the derecho and Winter Storm Jonas. Youd think a meteorologist would have the inside scoop on great vacation weather, but my recent track record proves otherwise.

Sure enough, there are signals in the longer range for storms around next Wednesday and Thursday, and then again one week later. Of course, its just speculation at this point, but I will start monitoring that first storm potential for the middle of next week. Right now, Ill keep it simple with just a chance of rain and snow in the forecast for that time, and well see if the pieces come together as it draws closer.

Theres only 37 days until spring officially arrives March 20, and one thing I dont see happening this year is a repeat of the unusually frequent March and April snows weve seen over the past four years.
SHANGHAI, Feb. 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The 31st China Wedding Expo, sponsored by the China Portrait Photography Society (CPPS) and the Council for the Promotion of International Trade Shanghai, will be held concurrently with China Baby Photo Expo 2017 at the Shanghai New International Expo Center from February 22 to February 25, 2017. The event is hosted by Shanghai International Exhibition Service Co., Ltd.

The highly professional event has become the trendsetter for China's wedding photography industry

The China Wedding Expo is being held for the 16th consecutive year. The solid 16 years of experience that the organizers have under their belt speaks to the event's many achievements over the years and today. The China Baby Photo Expo is the nationwide event for the gathering of the leading players in China's portrait photography industry, while serving as the international expo for Asia's leading association across the sector, United Asian Professional Photography (UAPP). The expo is the place where the latest frontier technologies and innovations across the portrait photography industry are unveiled. As the trendsetter and leader for China's wedding photography industry, the China Wedding Expo has become the sector's largest professional and international expo in Asia and across the globe, and has consistently drawn wide attention from industry insiders.

The largest expo of its kind worldwide, with more than 1,000 new products being debuted

The 31st China Wedding Expo, housing over 1,000 domestic and international exhibitors across a 120,000-square meter space, maintains the event's role as one of the world's largest bridal and wedding exhibitions. More than 100,000 visitors are expected to pass through the entrance doors during the 4-day event. The venue will be host to four exhibition platforms - the China International Wedding Dress & Fashion Accessories Expo, the China Wedding Theme Photography Expo, the China Wedding Photo Album, Frame & Supplies Expo and the China Wedding Supplies and Honeymoon Photography Expo - in addition to 12 themed pavilions. It will house the leading brands throughout the industry and the most comprehensive range of wedding dress themes. More than 1,000 new products from domestic and international exhibitors will be on display for the first time, with the expectation of drawing the attention of industry watchers worldwide.

The increasingly international focus of the event has translated into an unprecedented number of leading Chinese and foreign brands contending on the same stage

Some of the most influential high-end wedding dress brands from the United States, Italy, Malaysia and Japan will stand side by side with China's leading brands as they vie for attention from buyers and reviewers. South Korea's top wedding dress brands favored by Korean celebrities and consumers are expected to have a major footprint at the expo. Joining hands with high-cost designers, these brands will showcase new luxury wedding dresses featuring fashion elements that are currently trending in China. Leading brands for a wide array of premier cosmetics, accessories, albums, frames and props for the taking and exhibiting of photographs plan to exhibit stunning new products at the event, setting the direction for the next fashion trends across the industry.

Cutting-edge portrait photography combines with the latest Internet technology, redefining wedding photography as they meet expections from consumers for a higher level of customization

The China Wedding Expo has continually and successfully executed on its self-appointed mission of "highlighting new products and leading the trends across the wedding industry", keeping the event at the forefront of industry and fashion trends as well as a serving as a driver for innovation. Top theme photography brands from China and abroad will gather in the well-defined exhibition zones, where they will showcase how new technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), virtual reality (VR) and live photography are applied in the theme, outdoor, honeymoon and destination wedding photography segments, resulting in incomparable and personalized photography experiences for new couples.

A wide variety of concurrent events create platforms for exchanges and cooperation

During the 31st China Wedding Expo, the CPPS Executive Representative Assembly, the Inauguration Ceremony of the CPPS Professional Committee for Post-Production, and the "Thesis" Seminar for Secretaries General of Wedding Photography Industry Associations in China will be held concurrently. The sponsors of the event have also organized a variety of lectures and events, including an exhibition of the works that will be entered into the competition for the World Photographic Cup, the 2017 China Wedding Dress and Gown Procurement and Exchange Salon, makeup training courses, lectures on color and quality control in post-production, the Internet + Mater Forum, and seminars on score system management.

People-oriented services that create a healthy trade environment

The China Wedding Expo plans to continue focusing on further enhancements to the brand as well as on innovations in services. For this year's event, a special lounge section for the directors of the China Portrait Photography Society as well as a separate section for consultations concerning legal matters will be set up, creating a comfortable environment for business discussions.

Multiple pre-registration channels, including the official website, the downloadable app and the event's WeChat presence, are easily accessible to anyone wishing to attend. By completing the pre-registration form available on any of the channels and showing the provided pass upon arrival at the event, visitors will be able to gain entry to the exhibition site without needing to wait in line and go through any check-in procedure.

China Baby Photo Expo: the children's photography market is expected to take off thanks to favorable government policies

Stimulated by the change in the Chinese government's policy which now allows couples to have a second child, the children's photography market has entered into a period of explosive development. China Baby Photo Expo 2017 will be held concurrently and the 20,000+ square-meter exhibition is expected to attract 50,000 attendees. The event will showcase a full range of products and services from the leading brands at affordable prices in the W4 and W5 halls. It is an event not to be missed.

Information for dining, accommodations and transportation

Transportation

Shanghai Pudong International Airport to Shanghai New International Expo Center

Taxi: About 40 minutes. Subway: Take Subway Line 2 to Longyang Road, then take Exit 3. About 45 minutes. Maglev train: Take the maglev train to Longyang Road. About 7 minutes.

Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport / Railway Station to Shanghai New International Expo Center

Taxi: About 40 minutes. Subway: Take Subway Line 2 to Longyang Road, then take Exit 3. About 50 minutes.

Shanghai Railway Station

Taxi: About 35 minutes Subway: Take Subway Line 1 to People's Square, transfer to Subway Line 2 to Longyang Road, then take Exit 3. About 40 minutes.

Shanghai South Railway Station

Taxi: About 35 minutes Subway: Take Subway Line 1 to People's Square, transfer to Subway Line 2 to Longyang Road, then take Exit 3. About 50 minutes.

Parking at Shanghai New International Expo Center

4,600 parking spaces are available for visitors and exhibitors.

Dining

The Shanghai New International Expo Center has highly developed support facilities, including many food and beverage options for exhibitors and visitors:

Food and convenience outlets are located on both the left and right sides of each exhibition hall as well as on the second floor;

Casual style Western restaurants can be found on both the first and second floors near the entrance to South Hall (adjacent to E1 and W1);

In addition, Pudong Kerry Parkside at the north gate of the exhibition center (Near N1 and W5) has some excellent dining facilities as well.

Hotels

Kerry Hotel Pudong Shanghai , 1388 Huamu Road, is the nearest luxury hotel, in close proximity to the north gate of the exhibition center (near W5 and N1);

, 1388 Huamu Road, is the nearest luxury hotel, in close proximity to the north gate of the exhibition center (near W5 and N1); Jumeirah Himalayas Hotel Shanghai , 1108 Meihua Road, is located on the west side of and just across the road from the exhibition center;

, 1108 Meihua Road, is located on the west side of and just across the road from the exhibition center; Crowne Plaza Century Park Shanghai, 1433 Minsheng Road, is a 5-minute drive from the exhibition center;

Exhibitors and visitors can also choose budget hotels such as Jinjiang Inn, Hanting and Ibis, which are located along nearby Meihua, Yinghua, Lanhua and Yinxiao Roads.

Jinjiang Inn (Lujiazui), 57 Pudian Road, Pudong New Area, is a 10-minute drive from the exhibition center;

Jinjiang Inn (Pusan Road), 208 Pusan Road (Near Linyi Road), Pudong New Area, is a 15-minute drive from the exhibition center;

Ibis Shanghai Lianyang, 300 Fangdian Road, Pudong New Area, is a 3-minute drive from the exhibition center

Contact:

Shanghai International Exhibition Service Co., Ltd.,

8/F, OOCL Plaza, 841 Yan'an Middle Road, Shanghai 200040

Tel: (86-21) 62472387 / 62792828

Fax: (86-21) 63866972

QQ: 800028850

WeChat: china_weddingexpo

SOURCE Shanghai International Exhibition Co., Ltd.
NEW YORK, Feb. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against DaVita Inc. ("DaVita" or the "Company") (NYSE: DVA) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, District of Colorado, is on behalf of a class consisting of investors who purchased or otherwise acquired DaVita securities, seeking to recover compensable damages caused by defendants' violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

If you are a shareholder who purchased DaVita securities between August 5, 2015 and October 21, 2016, both dates inclusive, you have until April 3, 2017 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll free, ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

DaVita provides kidney dialysis services for patients suffering from chronic kidney failure or end-stage renal disease ("ESRD").

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company's business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) the Company and its senior executives purposefully steered patients into unnecessary insurance plans in order to maximize profits; (2) the Company was using AKF as a vehicle to facilitate these improper practices; (3) as a result, DaVita's revenues and profits were illegally obtained; (4) in turn, DaVita lacked effective internal controls over financial reporting; and (5) as a result of the foregoing, DaVita's business, operations, and prospects were false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.

On August 18, 2016, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ("CMS") issued a public request for information regarding alleged steering of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries into other plans in order to earn higher reimbursement rates. As part of this request, CMS sent letters to all Medicare-enrolled dialysis centers (including DaVita) informing them of its announcement.

In reaction to the disclosure about the CMS inquiry into the industry and the potential rule changes, DaVita's stock price dropped $3.17 per share, or 4.69%, on unusually heavy trading volume from $67.65 per share on August 18, 2016 to $64.48 per share on August 19, 2016.

On Sunday, October 23, 2016, the St. Louis Post published an article entitled "DaVita encouraged some low-income patients to enroll in commercial plans" that accused DaVita directly of steering clients to private insurers and utilizing its own money to pay for health insurance premiums through the AKF.

In reaction to the disclosures in the St. Louis Post article, DaVita's stock price dropped $2.86 per share, or another 4.69%, from $60.96 per share on Friday, October 21, 2016 to $58.10 per share on Monday, October 24, 2016.

On October 31, 2016, DaVita issued a press release announcing that it was suspending support for applications to the AKF for charitable premium assistance by patients enrolled in minimum essential Medicaid coverage effective immediately.

Then, on January 6, 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that investigators from the U.S. Department of Justice "are probing a controversial arrangement under which kidney-care companies support charitable efforts to help patients pay health-insurance premiums, according to disclosures from major dialysis providers." As part of the investigation, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts had subpoenaed DaVita and the AKF seeking information relating to its charitable premium assistance.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

[email protected]

SOURCE Pomerantz LLP

Related Links

http://www.pomerantzlaw.com


Panaji, Feb 7 : Around 80 per cent voters cast their ballot on Tuesday in the re-poll ordered by the Election Commission at a polling booth in the Margao legislative assembly constituency in South Goa, officials said.

Poll authorities here said that polling booth number 8 in Margao, located 35 km from the state capital, saw 79.89 per cent voting through Tuesday.

"632 out of the eligible 791 voters in the polling booth area cast votes," a spokesperson for the Chief Electoral Officer, Goa said.

Polling at polling station 8 at the government primary school in Aquem, Margao, was cancelled on February 4, after election officials posted at the booth failed to delete the sample votes, which were logged in the electronic voting machine, before the actual voting.

The Election Commission had on Sunday ordered the re-polling at the booth.

Former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat is contesting against the BJP's Sharmad Raiturkar and the Aam Aadmi Party's Santosh Raiturkar from the constituency.

Excluding the vote tally during the re-poll, 82.23 per cent voters had exercised their franchise in the February 4 state assembly elections, the results of which will be declared on March 11.
Mexico City, Feb 9 : Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray is to meet with US President Donald Trump's cabinet members in Washington to discuss bilateral relations, the ministry said in a statement.

"This visit continues the dialogue and communication that the presidents of both countries agreed to in recent days," Xinhua news agency quoted ministry's statement as saying on Wednesday.

Videgaray is to hold talks with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of National Security John Kelly on "topics of the bilateral agenda billed as a priority by President Enrique Pena Nieto," including protecting the rights of Mexican immigrants in the US, migration, border security and infrastructure.

The term "border infrastructure" is taken to mean the controversial wall Trump wants to build along the shared border of the two countries.

Mexico is against the wall and has refused to pay for the project as requested by Trump. It remains to be seen what mechanism the US will put in place to recoup the expense.
Rohtak (Haryana), Feb 9 : Unable to rob an ATM, miscreants set the machine on fire in Haryana's Rohtak town on Thursday, police said.

The State Bank of India (SBI) ATM in Gandhi Camp area was targetted by robbers, who held the guard hostage and tried to break into the it.

"Having failed to take the money out, the thieves set it on fire in frustration," police officials said.
Chennai, Feb 10 : Former Union Minister E. Ponnusamy on Friday joined the camp of Tamil Nadu acting Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam.

However, AIADMK spokesperson Vaigaichelvan said people joining Panneerselvam's camp are "beyond their expiry date" .

Panneerselvam revolted against AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala on Tuesday night alleging that he was forced to resign as Chief Minister to pave the way for Sasikala to occupy that chair.

Subsequently around five legislators, one sitting Member of Parliament (MP), party old timers, former legislators and others have started expressing their support to Panneerselvam.

Supporters of Sasikala continued their attack on Panneerselvam and charged him of betraying the party.
Rome, Feb 11 : Italy's cabinet on Friday approved an emergency decree to accelerate asylum requests and expedite deportations to reduce pressure on the country's courts and asylum centres as the migrant crush continues.

"The measures equip Italy for new challenges and aim to speed up the process of recognition of refugees' rights...and the deportation of migrants who are not entitled to asylum," said Italy's premier Paolo Gentiloni after the cabinet meeting.

The emergency decree cut to two from three the number of possible appeals to an asylum ruling in a bid to cut the average two-year waiting time, Interior Minister Marco Minniti said.

The interior ministry will hire 250 immigration specialists to staff the committees that examine asylum requests, Minniti said.

The committee interviews with asylum seekers will be video-recorded so that judges do not have to conduct a new interview during the appeals process, justice minister Andrea Orlando said.

Twelve 12 special tribunals will be set up to exclusively handle asylum appeals, he said.

"The process will be much more streamlined but people's rights will not be diminished," Orlando claimed.

The decree distributes migrants more evenly across the country and allocates 100 million euros ($106 million) to councils that take more migrants in what Minniti called "a new model of integration".

Asylum-seekers will also be offered unpaid voluntary work while their applications are being considered, Minniti said.
Berlin, Feb 11 : An Italian woman has claimed that Anis Amri, the Tunisian Islamic State (IS) supporter who allegedly drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin killing 12 people, lived with her for several months.

The woman, called Jessica told German tabloid Bild that she recognised Amri on TV and "began shaking all over" when she saw his face.

Police searched Jessica's home the day after Amri was killed by police in a shoot-out in the northern city of Milan on December 23 during a routine check.

Jessica's Tunisian husband, who is in jail for a drugs conviction, met Amri at a Lampedusa refugee camp in 2011.

A few weeks after he arrived at Jessica's home in the summer of 2015, Amri moved to Germany "for a job", she told Bild.

She claimed Amri had never said anything to her about IS other than that "it has nothing to do with the Koran".

But Jessica said she had noticed he had Facebook friends who used the IS flag as their profile picture.

Police searched two apartments in the towns of Latina and Aprilia south of Rome in late December where they believe Amri stayed in 2015.

They seized several mobile phones during the operation.
London, Feb 11 : Five extremists with links to hate preacher Anjem Choudary were jailed after being infiltrated by an undercover police officer, a media report said.

One of the men spoke of "40 trucks driving down Oxford Street full of explosives", Sky News quoted the Old Bailey as saying on Friday.

Each was jailed for between two-and-a-half years and six years for drumming up support for the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.

They were arrested after an officer infiltrated the Luton chapter of the banned group Al-Muhajiroun (ALM).

During the operation, the police officer recorded hate-filled speeches over 20 months, delivered to up to 80 people, including young children.

They urged people to support the terror group and travel to Syria to fight.

Group leader Mohammed Istiak Alamgir, 37, who hailed the Tunisia terror attack as a "victory", was handed six years of jail term.

Rajib Khan, 38, was dubbed as an "important and influential" member of the group and was jailed for five years.

He hailed the Charlie Hebdo atrocity in Paris as "excellent news".

Yousaf Bashir, 36, gave a speech for which he was given four years and six months in prison.
Washington, Feb 11 : US President Donald Trump on Friday lauded the "very, very good conversation" he had with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday night.

"I had a very, very good conversation ... yesterday with the president of China. It was a very, very warm conversation," Xinhua quoted Trump as saying at a joint news conference with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House.

Trump said that he and President Xi discussed "a lot of subjects" during the long phone talk, the first since his inauguration on January 20.

Trump said China and the US are "on the process of getting along very well," which he said will also be very much beneficial to every country in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan.

The US is currently holding talks with various representatives of China on the issues concerned, he added.

The White House said on Thursday night that Trump and Xi held an "extremely cordial" phone talk, during which they both extended best wishes to the people of each other's countries.

They also extended invitations to meet in their respective countries as the two sides will engage in discussions and negotiations on various issues of mutual interest.

Most importantly, Trump agreed to honour the one-China policy, the political foundation of the China-US ties in the past decades, which only recognises Beijing as the sole legal representative of China.
New Delhi : The tradition of hero worship has queered the pitch for the succession battle in Tamil Nadu. In normal circumstances, it should have been up to the MLAs to choose the next Chief Minister.

But the shadow of Jayalalithaa, who is revered as Amma (mother) and Puratchi Thalaivi (revolutionary leader) even after her death by the AIADMK cadres, has ensured that the contestants for the post will have to depend on her memory to acquire legitimacy.

Therefore, the support among the legislators for Jayalalithaa's former aide, Sasikala, is based not on any political calculation but on her earlier proximity to Amma, which is why Sasikala is called Chinnamma or younger sister. But for this fortuitous closeness, Sasikala would have been nowhere in the picture.

On the other hand, the outgoing Chief Minister, O. Panneerselvam, has based his claim for the position on the fact that he was twice chosen by Jayalalithaa to act in her absence -- once when she was incarcerated in 2014 and again during her last fatal illness.

Moreover, Panneerselvam has said that Amma's "soul" has told him to remain as the Chief Minister. Evidently, he did not receive the message before he resigned. But, now, he has alleged that the resignation was submitted under duress.

What seems to have happened is that the uneasiness expressed in the social media over Sasikala's possible elevation, and the protests by the opposition parties, with the DMK predictably describing Sasikala's choice by a section of the AIADMK legislators as "murder of democracy", have convinced Panneerselvam that he had acted hastily in resigning.

At that time, he had apparently been under the spell of the overpowering cult of personality surrounding Jayalalithaa in the party, which meant that anyone who had been her companion would be the automatic choice for replacement.

But the reservations voiced on the social media and the political protests clearly helped Panneerselvam to come out of his trance and throw his hat into the ring.

None of this shows Tamil Nadu in a favourable light. If anything, the melodramatic events militate against the very practice of politics, which is supposed to be a hard-nosed affair.

Even if Sasikala has shown the tell-tale signs of an ambitious politician, silently biding her time till she felt that she could now come out in the open, the invocation of Jayalalithaa's memory by her as well as by a section of the AIADMK legislators harks back to a pre-modern, feudal age.

It is a trait which is not suitable for a democracy, where reverence for a person should not be allowed to derail the routine process of the transfer of power in accordance with the existing rules. In this case, it would be best for the two contenders to submit themselves to the will of the legislators in the absence of a claim based merely on companionship or amidst allegations of coercion or directives from beyond the grave.

It is not surprising, however, that AIADMK politics has taken such a theatrical turn because from its inception in 1972, the party has been led by larger-than-life figures like its founder, M.G. Ramachandran, and his protege and successor, Jayalalithaa.

The result was that the cadres, as well as the followers, became imbued with feelings of awe and veneration for their heroes, leading them even to take their own lives in the event of a leader's death.

About 30 people committed suicide after MGR's death. There were also violent riots which made the police issue shoot-at-sight orders. After Jayalalithaa's death, too, more than 70 people died of shock, according to the AIADMK.

Given such adulation, it is understandable why Sasikala should have thought along with a section of the party's MLAs that it was only a question of time before she became the Chief Minister.

But for the first time in more than four decades, the AIADMK is having to come to terms with unsentimental, bare-knuckled politics where a leader is judged by his or her ability to influence the followers as well as the masses and also to govern.

In this respect, while Sasikala may benefit from the remnants of Jayalalithaa's charisma, Panneerselvam has the advantage of having been in the seat of power more than once and being conversant with the art of governance.

Sasikala's disadvantage, however, is that she lacks both popular appeal and political experience. Besides, the disproportionate assets case hangs like the sword of Damocles over her head.

Irrespective of who comes out on top, the AIADMK will undergo a reality check about politics without a mesmerising figure at the helm. The experience is likely to affect its primary rival, the DMK, as well because it, too, has been banking on the nonagenarian M. Karunanidhi's popularity in striving for power.

It is clear, therefore, that a phase in Dravidian politics which began with the Congress's defeat in Tamil Nadu in 1967 is coming to an end. It remains to be seen to what extent the main ingredients of that politics -- atheism and an anti-Hindi, anti-Aryan, anti-North Indian outlook -- survives the entry of non-charismatic rulers.

(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)
Thiruvananthapuram, February 11 : CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has alleged that the BJP and the Congress turned the students agitation at the Kerala law academy law college in the city into a farce to destabilise and malign the CPI(M)-led LDF government.

Kodiyeri made the remarks in an article he penned for CPI(M) mouthpiece Desabhimani.

The Marxist strongman argued in the article that in the backdrop of the agitation by the students of the law academy, the BJP had been paving the way for a Congress-IUML-BJP alliance in the future.

The other parties (Congress and IUML) fell in the trap laid by the BJP, he wrote.

KPCC president V M Sudheeran, and other Congress and IUML leaders had objected to a joint protest with the LDF against the centres note ban but they had no qualms in banding together with the BJP in the law academy stir, Kodiyeri argued.

The soft approach of the Congress and the IUML towards the BJP had been visible during the stir at the college, he added.

They (Congress, IUML, and BJP) had turned the law academy stir into a political agitation against the LDF government, Kodiyeri wrote.

The differences between the CPI(M) and its biggest alliance partner CPI had come to the fore during the law academy stir.

Addressing the issue, Kodiyeri wrote that a section of the media had speculated that relation between the CPI(M) and the CPI had become strained to such an extent that the stability of the LDF coalition was in question.

Scotching such speculation, the article states that even though the two parties have their individual identities, they are joined together in the LDF by virtue of their commitment to the ideals of Marxism-Leninism and class struggles.

The agitation at the Kerala law academy law college was started by the students of the college demanding the resignation of the college principal.

The student agitation assumed new dimensions once political parties entered the scene in solidarity with the striking students.

All through the stir, which lasted 29 days, the CPI(M), its student outfit SFI, and the government it leads had drawn severe flak for what was generally perceived as the soft stance adopted by the government and the party towards the law academy management.

The CPI had also come out against the state governments soft-pedalling in the issue.
Lucknow, Feb 11 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received a major boost in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh on Saturday when it won legislative council elections in three seats.

BJP candidates won the Graduate constituencies of Kanpur, Gorakhpur-Faizabad and Bareilly-Moradabad, of elections held to five seats.

Unlike the other elections, to vote as part of the Graduate Constituency, apart from being a citizen of India and a resident in the constituency, the main requirement is that the person must have a Graduate degree from a recognized Indian University, or an equivalent qualification.

BJP's Arun Pathak defeated his nearest Samajwadi Party (SP) rival in the Kanpur graduate constituency by 9,000 votes.

In the Gorakhpur-Faizabad graduate constituency, BJP's Devendra Pratap Singh defeated his nearest Secondary Education Federation Sharma Group's Sanjayan Tripathi.

In the Bareilly-Moradabad MLC graduate seat, BJP's Jaypal Singh Vyast defeat his nearest SP-supported candidate Renu Mishra, while the Congress candidate Kumud Gangwar stood third.
Rudrapur/Badaun, Feb 11 : While hailing the successful test-firing of an interceptor missile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday took pot shots at the Congress party saying they would ask for proof of the test.

Addressing an election rally in Uttarakhand, he also said that more than the business class, the corrupt ways of politicians have harmed the country. He asserted his government's war against corruption will continue.

Addressing another rally in Uttar Pradesh's Badaun, Modi lashed out at the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government for sheltering criminals.

"You hear news about some country developing missiles with range of 5,000 km or 8,000 km. Last month, you must have heard the news of Pakistan developing a missile that can destroy the Andaman Islands.

"But let me tell you, India has no dearth of missiles. And today, our scientists have achieved a feat which has made the entire country proud," Modi said hours after India successfully test-fired its interceptor missile off the Odisha coast.

"The missile test fired today can intercept incoming missiles and destroy them 150 km into the sky. Only four or five countries so far have achieved this feat," said Modi.

Referring to opposition calls for proof of the Indian Army's September 29 surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC), Modi ridiculed the Congress saying they might even demand proof of the missile test.

"I don't know what new demand our opponent Congress will come out with. They will say give us proof that the missile went up to 150 km into the sky. They will ask for proof of the missile hitting the incoming missile," said Modi, evoking laughter among the crowd.

"The surgical strike was such a big achievement for the country. The enemy is still to come to grips and the whole world is raving about India's might. But there are few leaders who questioned the surgical strikes, demanded its proof.

"Isn't this an insult of our brave soldiers, an insult to the country's achievements and self esteem," added Modi.

He also accused the state's ruling Congress of undermining development of Uttarakhand and called upon the people of the state to vote the Bharatiya Janata party to power to ensure 'Vikas' (progress), Vidyut (Electricity), Kanoon Vyavastha (Law & order) and Sadak (roads).

"A business man may charge Rs 25 for a Rs 20 thing, or may pay just Rs 80 instead of Rs 100 payable to government. But it is not the businessmen but corruption by politicians and babus that has hurt the country most.

"My fight is against these politicians who using their power looted the country's wealth. I know there will be difficulties in the fight against who have looted the country for 70 years. But our fight will continue," he said.

Addressing a rally in in Badaun he accused the Samajwadi Party and Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party of playing with the aspiration of the people for their political gains and asserted the BJP would usher in development if voted to power in the state.
Agartala, Feb 11 : With the opening of the 35th Agartala book fair on Saturday, bibliomania gripped the people of the erstwhile princely northeastern state.

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, accompanied by Bangladesh's eminent writer Abul Memon, inaugurated the 12-day-long Agartala book fair at the famous 127-year-old Umakanta Academy school, which was established by the state's former kings.

Publishers and book sellers from New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati besides Tripura have set up 121 stalls in the fair. For the first time no publishers and book sellers from Bangladesh were seen at the fair.

Tripura Information and Cultural Affairs Minister Bhanulal Saha said that like previous years, seminars on various themes, cultural programmes and assembly of poets would be organised during the annual carnival.

"In view of the demonetisation of high value currencies, arrangements of cashless transactions would be made by the book sellers and publishers. A bank counter would be set up to help both book sellers and buyers," he added.

"The Agartala book fair was launched in 1981. Except for two years, it has been held annually. After New Delhi and Kolkata book fairs, Agartala book fair is the most popular book fair in India," Tripura Publishers' Guild Secretary Raghunath Sarkar told IANS.

He said that the annual book fair has given a big boost to local publishing business with an average of 150 to 200 titles being published every year on the eve of the book fair. However, this year a record number of 400 titles are expected to be published.

"In the first year in 1981 there were only three local publishers in Tripura, but now the number has reached more than 38," Sarkar said.

The Chief Minister said that due to the massive growth of various electronic mediums, the habit of reading books is rapidly declining.

He urged the writers and publishers to write and publish more and more books for children.

Bangladesh's renowned writer Abul Memon said that in the changing era, children are just taking exams and not becoming educated. "Not many people are going to the libraries to read or borrow books."

The fair will end on February 22.
Kabul, Feb 11 : Unknown armed men on Saturday shot dead a counter-terrorism officer and his bodyguard in Afghanistan's Badakhshan province, an official said.

"Mohammad Adil was on routine patrol around Faizabad city when unknown men opened fire killing him along with one of his bodyguards," Xinhua news agency quoted the official as saying.

No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Badakhshan province has been the scene of Taliban-led insurgency over the past a few years.
Beijing : Beijing , Feb 11 (IANS) China plans to relocate 3.4 million people from poverty-stricken communities to more developed areas this year as part of its poverty reduction drive.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's economic planner, said 2.49 million people living in poverty had been relocated in 2016, meeting the target for the year, Xinhua news agency reported.

By the end of 2016, there were relocation projects in 22 provinces, which include housing, infrastructure and public services, Yang Qian, an official with the NDRC said.

Local authorities are also exploring supportive industries, employment and social security for the relocated people.

China has vowed to lift all of its poor out of poverty by 2020. Alleviating poverty through relocation is one aspect of the strategy.

By the end of 2016, there were 45 million people living in poverty, many in areas without roads, clean drinking water or power.
Mumbai, Feb 11 : Three Indian sailors of a Singaporean bulk carrier died while one was injured when they inhaled toxic fumes from a sludge leakage in a cargo barge off the harbour here on Saturday morning, an official said here.

MV Thor Endevour, anchored some 10 kms west of Mumbai, reported the incident on the cargo barge, Orion II, around 10.45 p.m. on Friday night to the Indian Coast Guard Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (ICG-MRCC) here.

While three sailors were brought dead to the shore, one was injured and the master of Orion II, Mohammed Daud Ibrahim Kurey, 50, was saved after he was administered first aid by the ICG team.

The Orion II was engaged in unloading a cargo of wheat from MV Thor Endevour at the time of the incident late on Friday, an ICG spokesperson said.
Chennai, Feb 11 : Former Minister and AIADMK spokesperson C. Ponnaiyan on Saturday joined the group of old timers to join acting Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam's camp - in another jolt to party General Secretary V.K. Sasikala.

The development came as Tamil Nadu School Education Minister K. Pandiarajan too joined the Panneerselvam camp earlier in the day.

Besides them, two sitting Lok Sabha members -- Ashok Kumar representing Krishnagiri constituency and Sundaram representing Namakkal - have also joined the group.

Till Friday Pandiarajan, Ponnaiyan, Ashok Kumar and Sundaram were with Sasikala and were defending her in a staunch manner.

Earlier, sitting Rajya Sabha member V. Maitreyan joined Panneerselvam's camp.

The four new joinees to Panneerselvam's camp comes a day after AIADMK spokesperson Vaigaichelvan said people joining Panneerselvam's camp are "beyond their expiry date".

Speaking to reporters here, Ashok Kumar said other AIADMK MPs will also start joining hands with the acting Chief Minister.

The AIADMK has 37 members in the Lok Sabha.

Panneerselvam revolted against AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala on Tuesday night alleging that he was forced to resign as Chief Minister to pave the way for her to occupy that chair.

As of now seven legislators (including Panneerselvam), three sitting MPs - two Lok Sabha and one Rajya Sabha - several office bearers, old timers, former legislators and most of the party's grass root workers are in support of Panneerselvam.

According to V. Maitreyan, more ministers and legislators are likely to join the Panneerselvam camp.
Dhaka, Feb 11 : Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's son Sajeeb Wazed Joy on Saturday said those who raised allegations of graft in the ambitious Padma Bridge project should apologise to the government after a Canadian court debunked graft allegations in the case.

Joy took to Facebook to lash out at those raising the allegations, bdnews24.com reported.

Joy, who is also the Prime Minister's ICT adviser, blamed the World Bank for raising a controversy over graft and bribery in the $2.9-billion Padma Bridge project. "The evidence was fabricated by the World Bank. I had seen the evidence myself during the whole episode."

"It was quite clearly made up as there were no concrete details, just one anonymous source who was never revealed, even to the Canadian court." said Joy.

"The World Bank came up with this plot against my mother, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government in an attempt to discredit her."

Hasina has maintained that the Padma bridge graft-bribery allegations were aimed at undermining the image of her government and that some Bangladeshis were also involved with it.

She has alleged that Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus had tried to influence then US secretary of state to cut off World Bank funding for the Padma Bridge.

Joy hit out at 'a section of our civil society' who had joined the World Bank in raising the stink over alleged graft. "They dragged the reputation of several highly respected, qualified and hardworking people through the mud..." he wrote, according to bdnews24.

His comments came after two former top executives of engineering giant SNC-Lavalin and a Bangladeshi-Canadian businessman were acquitted in an international bribery case linked to the construction of Padma bridge.

Justice Ian Nordheimer of the Ontario Superior Court threw out all wiretap evidence on Friday and rebuked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for its conduct in the investigation, the Dhaka Tribune reported.

The alleged bribery scheme is related to the $2.9-billion Padma Bridge project in Bangladesh. As part of that project, the Bangladeshi government was looking to award a $50-million construction supervision contract. SNC-Lavalin was one of the five companies short-listed for the contract.

In June 2012, the World Bank -- a primary lender in the project -- cancelled its $1.2 billion credit for the Padma bridge project, saying it had proof of a "corruption conspiracy".

The three accused are Kevin Wallace, former vice-president of energy and infrastructure, his subordinate Ramesh Shah and Bangladeshi-Canadian businessman Zulfiquar Ali Bhuiyan all pleaded not guilty in the case.

After the suspension of the project, the Bangladesh government, which had been refuting the allegation of bribery attempts, decided to build the bridge with domestic funding.

The main construction of the bridge began in December 2016 and is continuing smoothly.

The project was initiated in 1998 when the Awami League was in power, but it went into limbo when the party lost the general election in 2001.

When the AL returned to power in 2009, it revived the initiative.

Once completed, the 6.15 km bridge will establish direct road communication between Dhaka and 21 southern districts of the country. It will have a railroad as well.

The Taka 230 billion project is the largest ever self-financed project taken up by Bangladesh.
Bengaluru, Feb 11 : India will showcase its aerospace technologies and products for military applications on Sunday ahead of the Aero India 2017 air show starting here from Tuesday, said an official on Saturday.

"A three-day international seminar on 'Aerospace: Technology Collaboration and Self-reliance' is being held as a prelude to the 11th edition of the biennial air show where we will showcase technologies and products developed by our defence labs and the aerospace industry," DRDO Chairman S. Christopher told reporters here.

The state-run Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and its various aerospace arms like ADA, ADE and GTRE have developed technologies and applications for aircraft systems, unmanned platforms, C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance), avionics, space and missile systems, propulsion, materials and manufacturing.

Speakers from Airbus, CIAM, Eurojet, GE, Honeywell, Opal-RT, Pulse Electronics, Rolls Royce, Siemens, SAAB and UAC will address the gathering while specialists from Britain, Canada, Germany, India, Russia, Sweden and the US participate in the seminar.

The Indian delegates will represent the state-run research and development centres and organisations such as ISRO, NAL, HAL, BEL, IAF, Navy, Army, DIAT and IISc.

Organised by the DRDO in association with the Aeronautical Society of India, the brain-storming event has attracted about 900 delegates, including 73 speakers from global aerospace majors, technocrats, policy makers, defence experts and students.

"The seminar will provide opportunities for synergetic interaction among aerospace experts from the world over, including scientists, designers, manufacturers, operators and academia.

"We expect the event to result in collaborative programmes in research, development and manufacture in view of the government's aMake in India' flagship programme for greater indigenisation and self reliance," added Christopher.

Niti Ayog member and senior defence scientist V.K. Saraswat will inaugurate the seminar on Sunday while Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman A. S. Kiran Kumar will address the delegates on Monday.
Bengaluru, Feb 11 : The first indigenous Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&C) will be handed over to the Indian Air Force (IAF) on February 14 during the Aero India 2017 here, DRDO Chairman S. Christopher said on Saturday.

He made the announcement during the curtain raiser on DRDO's participation in Aero India 2017 here.

"The Airborne Surveillance System is a game changer in air warfare," an official statement said.

The AEW&C System is a system of systems populated with state-of-the art Active Electronically Scanned Radar, Secondary Surveillance Radar, Electronic and Communication Counter Measures, LOS (Line of Sight) and beyond LOS data link, voice communication system and self protection suite, built on an Emb-145 platform, having an air to air refueling capability to enhance surveillance time.

A complex tactical software has been developed for fusion of information from the sensors, to provide the air situation picture along with intelligence to handle identification/classification threat assessment.

It has battle management functions, built in house, to work as a network centric system of Integrated Air Command & Control System (IACCS) node.

This system has been developed and evaluated through collaborative efforts between DRDO and the Indian Air Force.

"The AEW&C system has undergone all weather and environmental trials and has been accepted by the IAF for induction," the statement added.
New Delhi, Feb 11 : Delhi police on Saturday arrested a woman for murdering her husband here with the help of paramour, police said.

Locals on February 6 informed police about an unidentified body of a male laying in a drain in Khajuri village.

"The body was identified of Krishan Kumar Sharma, a resident of Karawal Nagar. Sharma was a taxi driver.

"After examining the CCTV footage installed in Sharma's neighbourhood, police found a suspect covered with blanket and a car which belonged to his wife," Deputy Commissioner of Police Ajit Kumar Singla said.

"On questioning, the deceased's wife confessed of having an affair with Praveen Verma and that she took her lover's help to get rid of Sharma. She and Verma hatched a plan to kill the husband," Singla said.

"After Sharma had gone to Uttar Pradesh to attend a marriage, Verma told his wife to keep the main gate of the house open so that he can eliminate Sharma.

"Verma along with his one more associates, entered the house and killed Sharma," Singla added.

His wife gave Verma a woollen cover to hide the body following which they threw it in a drain.

She also threw his shoes and burnt his trousers so that police investigate it as a missing person case, the officer said.

Verma is on run since the incident. A manhunt is on to nab him.
Los Angeles, Feb 11 : A suspicious package was found on the train tracks of the Hollywood Metro station, just days before Hollywood stars grace the nearby Dolby Theatre for the Academy Awards on February 26.

The package, found on Friday, was later deemed safe by bomb experts on the field, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department told people.com.

The spokesman said a black backpack was reported leaning on the train tracks of the Hollywood/Highland station.

The El Captain Theatre and TCL Chinese Theatre were also evacuated as a result of the bomb scare, the spokesman said.

The metro rail subway service was shut down, as well as several major streets including Hollywood Boulevard.

The street will reportedly be closed beginning on February 19, between Highland Avenue and Orange Drive.
Bhopal, Feb 11 : Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Saturday said that nobody has the right to judge anyone's patriotism.

Speaking at the launch of journalist Vijay Manohar Tiwari's book "Bharat ki khoj mein mere paanch saal" (My five years of discovering India), Bhagwat said: "No one has the right to judge others on the basis of patriotism. Even those who may feel they are running the show in this country, cannot measure anyone else's patriotism and pass judgements."

The statement came days after Bhagwat said that all the people who live in India and have respect for its traditions are Hindus and all the Hindus should remain alert for the honour of the country.

The RSS chief is on a eight-day visit to Madhya Pradesh. On Tuesday, he met with Sangh officials in Bhopal and on Wednesday, he visited Betul jail to pay a tribute to Sangh ideologue Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar.

Bhagwat also participated in the Silver Jubilee celebrations of the Bhausaab Bhuskute Samiti in Bankheri area of Hoshangabad on Thursday. He will address a labour rally in the capital city on Friday.
Jaipur, Feb 11 : Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje will on Sunday inaugurate a Vipra Business Summit here, attended by over 1,000 industrialists, entrepreneurs, professionals and experts.

The summit will also see the establishment of the Vipra Chamber of Commerce and Industries (VCCI), which is aimed at strengthening the Brahmans in business, industrial and economic front, said a media statement.

The Vipra Foundation said that the Vipra Business Summit, "Sarv Utkarsh", will see workshops on several contemporary issues including those related to start ups.

"The VCCI is being established to strengthen Brahmans in business, industrial and economic front, which will not only bring the budding entrepreneurs on one platform and work towards community uplift, but also seek guidance and help from the top industrialist and businessmen for enhancing the employment opportunity for the youth," the foundation said.

It said that VCCI mobile app will also be launched to provide business connectivity and networking among the members.

Vipra foundation is an NGO working towards national integrity, social harmony and uplift of the community.
Mumbai, Feb 11 : Dubai's Tourism on Saturday said 1.8 million Indian tourists visited Dubai in 2016, reflecting a 12 per cent growth over 2015.

Overall, Dubai attracted 14.9 million overnight visitors in 2016, recording a five per cent increase over 2015.

"Overall the South Asian markets across the Indian sub-continent continued to deliver impressive volumes of both first time and repeat traffic demonstrating the ability of Dubai to retain its appeal through a diverse range of evolving destination offerings," an official statement said.

The statement added that expectations on tourism growth from India remain high for 2017 with even stronger bilateral ties being forged between the UAE and India, highlighted by the recent presence of Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan as the chief guest at India's 68th Republic Day celebrations.

"The global performance trajectory which reflects twice the global travel industry growth of circa four per cent over the same period as forecasted by the United Nations World Travel Organisation (UNWTO), cements the foundation for Dubai Tourism to maintain stable momentum over the next three years and attain its 2020 goals," it said.

"The strong performance of the emirate's tourism industry amidst a particularly turbulent year across the world assures progress towards not only the annual target of 20 million visitors by 2020, but also the increased sector-driven economic contribution to Dubai's GDP," it said.

"The effectiveness of our three-pronged approach is evidenced by the encouraging thirteen per cent growth in volumes from South Asia led by India, despite the demonetisation and cash pressures facing the market," Director General of Dubai Tourism Helal Saeed Almarri said.
Islamabad, Feb 11 : As many as 108 Turkish employees of the Pakistan Turkey Schools (Pak-Turk), along with their families, have been in the United Nations' protection after Islamabad denied them an extension in their visas to work in the country, media reported on Saturday.

Documents available with Dawn News reveal that the individuals had urged UN refugee agency UNHCR that they be resettled in a country other than Turkey after Pakistan ordered their deportation.

The applicants had told UNHCR they feared arrest, coercion and torture by the Erdogan government in Turkey in case the Pakistani government forcibly deported them to Istanbul.

The Pak-Turk schools used to be administered by a foundation linked to Fethullah Gulen, once an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. However, after an abortive military coup in July 2016, the Turkish leadership blamed Gulen for sponsoring the overthrow attempt, resulting in a global crackdown on the religious and educational network led by him.

The Turkish government, in the wake of the attempted coup, jailed over 120,000 individuals on charges of facilitating rebels.

The Turkish Foreign Minister had in August asked Pakistan to close the institutions. In the second week of August, the management of the chain removed the Turkish principals of their 28 schools and colleges and also dissolved the board of directors which had representation from Turkish nationals.
Chennai, Feb 11 : It was a successful day on Saturday for Tamil Nadu's acting Chief Minister O.Panneerselvam's camp with three sitting Lok Sabha MPs, one state minister, a senior party leader and a former Finance Minister joining him.

On Saturday, three sitting Lok Sabha members - Sathyabama representing Tirupur, Ashok Kumar representing Krishnagiri constituency and Sundaram representing Namakkal - joined his camp.

Tamil Nadu School Education Minister K. Pandiarajan, former Minister and AIADMK spokesperson C. Ponnaiyan jumped on to Panneerselvam's ship, jolting party General Secretary V.K.Sasikala's camp.

Till Friday, Sathyabama, Pandiarajan, Ponnaiyan, Ashok Kumar and Sundaram were with Sasikala and were defending her in a staunch manner.

Sitting Rajya Sabha member V. Maitreyan was the first MP to join Panneerselvam's group.

The five new joinees to Panneerselvam's camp came a day after AIADMK spokesperson Vaigaichelvan said people joining him are "beyond their expiry date".

Speaking to reporters here, Ashok Kumar said other AIADMK MPs will also start joining hands with the acting Chief Minister.

The AIADMK has 37 members in the Lok Sabha.

Panneerselvam revolted against Sasikala on Tuesday night alleging that he was forced to resign as Chief Minister to pave the way for her to occupy that chair.

As of now seven legislators (including Panneerselvam), three sitting MPs - two Lok Sabha and one Rajya Sabha, several office bearers, old timers, former legislators and most of the party's grass root workers are in support of Panneerselvam.

According to Maitreyan, more ministers and legislators are likely to join the Panneerselvam camp.
Islamabad, Feb 11 : Adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said on Saturday that Pakistan desired good, friendly and lasting ties with the new US administration.

Aziz said that Sharif's first contact with US President Donald Trump was a "very pleasant one".

Pakistan and US have some common objectives mainly the situation in Afghanistan, eradication of terrorism and enhancement in trade.

He further pointed out that Pakistan would continue to raise the Kashmir issue at every forum and platform and "I have given a policy statement on the floor of the parliament as well".

The Adviser said that for the resolution of this outstanding issue, a number of letters had already been written to the United Nations Secretary General and the UN Security Council.

Sartaj Aziz also spoke of the "blatant violations" of the Line of Control by India and pointed out that Pakistan gave a befitting reply to the "unprovoked" Indian firing.

To a question regarding the detention of Hafiz Saeed, the Adviser said that he had been detained under the National Action Plan and this matter pertains to the Ministry of Interior.

To another question, he said that there was no plan under consideration for placing travel restrictions on the Pakistanis by the US. -
Riyadh, Feb 11 : Saudi Arabian security forces arrested more than 10 terror suspects on Saturday during raids in Jeddah and Madinah, local media reported.

The raids took place as part of the preemptive operations to prevent terror plots. No official confirmation was made by the Interior Ministry yet, although the portal confirmed the confiscations of guns and sharp objects with the arrestees, Xinhua reported.

Last month, Saudi Arabia arrested 16 terrorists, including three Saudis and 10 Pakistanis during similar raids in Jeddah, while two extremists were killed by the police.

Saudi Arabia has been engaged in a war against terrorism for years, especially the Islamic State militant group.
Washington, Feb 12 : US President Donald Trump tweeted on Saturday that the media was wrong to say the cost of his promised wall along the United States' border with Mexico would be steeper than initially projected, promising that his negotiating skills will bring the price down sharply.

"I am reading that the great border WALL will cost more than the government originally thought, but I have not gotten involved in the design or negotiations yet. When I do, just like with the F-35 FighterJet or the Air Force One Program, price will come WAY DOWN!" EFE news quoted Trump as saying in a tweet.

The Twitter post about the wall was the President's first since January 26, when he reiterated that Mexico should pay for the barrier considering the US's large trade deficits with its southern neighbour stemming from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he has repeatedly criticised as a one-sided deal.

Trump, who says the wall is necessary to thwart illegal immigration, also has accused Mexico of not doing enough to prevent undocumented migrants from crossing the border.

Mexican President Enrique PeAa Nieto, who has vowed that his country will never pay for the wall, cancelled a scheduled visit to the US amid the flap, although he and Trump spoke by phone on January 27 and agreed not to publicly discuss funding for the border barrier.

The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Republican Paul Ryan, pledged in late January that the GOP-controlled Congress would approve funds for the wall and estimated it would cost between $13 billion and $15 billion.

But analysts at Bernstein, a research and brokerage firm, have put the wall's price tag at as high as $25 billion, or double the cost of a new highway linking the US's east and west coasts.

Since his surprise victory in the November 8 elections, the former real-estate mogul has secured commitments from Lockheed Martin and Boeing to lower the cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme and Air Force One programme, respectively.

He had criticised the costs of those programmes and threatened to cancel the orders.
London, Feb 12 : A clear majority of the British public oppose Theresa Mays uncompromising Brexit negotiating position and are not prepared for Britain to crash out of the EU if the Prime Minister cannot negotiate a reasonable exit deal, a new poll has found.

In a sign that public support for the government's push for a hard Brexit is increasingly precarious, just 35 per cent of the public said they backed Britain leaving the EU without an agreement with other states. Britain would then fall back on to World Trade Organisation (WTO) tariffs, which MPs and business leaders have claimed would devastate the economy, the Guardian reported on Saturday.

The survey -- conducted by ICM for the online campaigning organisation Avaaz on the day the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to trigger article 50 -- suggests May would face a considerable backlash if Britain crashed out of the EU on WTO terms.

In a welcome boost for soft Brexit campaigners, over half (54 per cent) of those surveyed backed either extending negotiations if a satisfactory deal could not be reached, or halting the process altogether while the public was consulted for a second time.

The Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesman, Tom Brake, said the findings proved the government's position was indefensible.

Of the 54 per cent of people who opposed the government's position, 34 per cent said May should continue negotiating.

A further 20 per cent backed halting the process pending a second referendum on the terms of the deal, an option backed by the Liberal Democrats and a cross-party group of MPs including the Labour MPs David Lammy, Heidi Alexander and Ben Bradshaw, as well as the Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas.

Brake said: "Our best hope of stopping a ruinous hard Brexit that nobody voted for and few want is if the public rally round to fight it, as Brexit grows more unpopular. That means uniting many who voted leave but now want to avoid the economic catastrophe of quitting the single market, and who want to protect those European citizens who contribute so much to Britain's economy and society."

Bert Wander, Avaaz's campaign director, said the results showed May was at odds with the public over Brexit, and called for the House of Lords to ensure that Britons had the right to force May to continue negotiating.

"Two-thirds of the public don't want Theresa May dangling us over the Brexit cliff without a safety net and the Lords can intervene and save us from that fate. We need the right to send May back to Brussels if all she brings us is a bad deal for Britain."
"We are pleased that we were able to resolve our patent dispute with Nexxfield, says Dan Sawyer, Brock USAs CEO. We wish Nexxfield well, and we encourage fair competition in the marketplace."

Brock USA, LLC and Nexxfield, Inc. settled their lawsuit that was pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in which Brock asserted that Nexxfields Original NexxPAD product infringes six U.S. Patents on Brocks PowerBase and PowerBase YSR products (Case No. 1:16-cv-07135 (N.D. Ill.). The Original NexxPAD that is the subject of the settlement is shown here.

Under the terms of the settlement:



Nexxfield will no longer make, have made, use, market, advertise, promote, sell, provide or install the Original NexxPad in the United States and Canada, or import the Original NexxPad into the United States, during the term of the Brock patents; and

Nexxfield will no longer assist any third party to make, have made, use, market, advertise, promote, sell, provide or install the Original NexxPAD in the United States and Canada, or import the Original NexxPad into the United States, during the term of the Brock Patent Rights.

All other terms and conditions of the settlement are confidential.

We are pleased that we were able to resolve our patent dispute with Nexxfield, says Dan Sawyer, Brock USAs CEO. We wish Nexxfield well, and we encourage fair competition in the marketplace. Brock will continue to enforce its patent rights to protect its innovations.
Sticky Fingers Ribhouse, with 12 barbecue restaurants in the Southeast, is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year. While the past 25 years have brought many ups and downs for the company, Sticky Fingers focus this year is to return to its roots with one of the founders, Chad Walldorf back at the helm. By reintroducing the original emphasis, legendary service and incredible barbecue, and by bringing back some of the old Sticky culture, Walldorf hopes to return the restaurants to their glory days.

It all started in 1992 with three high school friends, Walldorf, Jeff Goldstein and Todd Eischeid, who all moved from Tennessee to Charleston, South Carolina to open a rib restaurant they named Sticky Fingers. They knew a good bit about cooking Memphis style-barbecue, but not much else. Over the next fifteen years, Sticky Fingers Ribhouse grew to 16 restaurants in 5 Southeastern states and was regularly featured in local and national publications for having some of the best ribs, wings and barbecue in the country. They credited the success to the help of some incredible team members and great customers along with a focus on providing legendary service and preparing authentic, Memphis-style barbecue.

About a decade ago, the trio sold their company in order to focus on their young families. During the following ten years, Sticky Fingers drifted away from its roots in almost every way  from the menu to the staff to the atmosphere. The companys headquarters was moved to various cities around the Southeast that didnt have Sticky Fingers restaurants.

At one point, it was even owned by a group of lenders. Banks arent usually known for their incredible hospitality, said Walldorf in discussing the decline of his former company. Many of Stickys long-time employees left as did some of their loyal customers. It was extremely hard to watch the decline of the brand we built, the culture we helped create and the people we cared about, explains Walldorf.

Last year, Sticky Fingers Operating Partner Robert Patterson convinced Walldorf to return and help him in his efforts to turn the brand around. After visiting some of the restaurants, I realized the Sticky spirit was still there, Walldorf comments. The brand was somewhat tarnished but spirit was still alive amongst Robert, many long-time team members and loyal customers so I agreed to help Sticky Fingers get its mojo back.

Going into their 25th year with a new (old) focus, a new (old) management philosophy, a new (old) home office in South Carolina and a rejuvenated spirit, Walldorf, Patterson and their team are ready to bring Sticky back. Weve retooled our atmosphere, our menu and our culture. Its been like one of those restaurant make-over shows - but in real time over many months rather than just in an hour-long show. Our focus has returned to doing what we do best  providing legendary service with incredible ribs, wings and barbecue.

In celebration of their 25th anniversary, Sticky Fingers Ribhouse will offer specials throughout the year featuring barbecue combinations you cant find on their regular menu and highlighting their signature barbecue sauces.

For more information about Sticky Fingers Ribhouse and to read the full Sticky story from founder and co-owner, Chad Walldorf, please visit http://www.StickyFingers.com/25-Sticky-Story.
Kim Ouellette, managing broker of Premier Sothebys International Realty Vanderbilt Beach office today announced that Craig Jones was named the 2016 Top Associate for that office.

Jones performance in 2016 ranked her as the top single agent in the firms prominent Vanderbilt Beach office and placed her in the top one percent of all 13,000 real estate licensees in the greater Naples region according to BrokerMetrics, the real estate industrys recognized expert in analyzing market share.

This recognition reflects Craigs commitment to proving exemplary service to every client every day, said Kim Ouellette, managing broker for Premier Sothebys International Realtys Vanderbilt Beach office. Experienced, skilled and responsive  this is how she is described by the clients she serves as a buyers agent, listing agent or real estate consultant.

It is satisfying to have attained this goal again, said Craig Jones, broker associate for Premier Sothebys International Realtys Vanderbilt Beach office. My thanks to the clients who have entrusted their real estate transactions to me and referred their friends and family to me; they made this achievement possible.

A featured Realtor on HGTV, Jones is a multi-year recipient of Gulfshore Life Magazines Five-Star Agent Award and a two-time recipient of both the Distinctive Women of Naples and the Faces of Naples recognitions. She has held principal positions in advertising and management consulting firms in New York and St. Louis. She is a member of Leadership Collier, a graduate of Leadership NABOR and a recipient of the NABOR Rising Star Award. Her education includes degrees and certifications from Smith College, Washington University and Columbia Universitys School of Journalism. Jones maintains multiple licenses and accreditations in the field of real estate.

To reach Craig Jones please call 239.552.5522 or email her at craig.jones(at)premiersir(dot)com.

About Premier Sothebys International Realty

Headquartered in Naples, Florida, Premier Sothebys International Realty has over 1,078 associates and employees in 40 locations throughout Florida and North Carolina. In 2016, the annual REAL Trends 500 survey ranked the firm number 31 in its survey of the top U.S. residential sellers by volume, the highest ranking for a Florida-based brokerage. Premier Sotheby's International Realty also benefits from an association with the storied Sotheby's auction house, established in 1744. For more information, visit premiersothebysrealty.com.
The invitation by Allergan to serve on this Advisory Board is not only an honor but also a great example of Allergan's commitment to innovation and research

Sara Shikhman, Practice Manager of Juvly Aesthetics in Ohio and New York City was selected as one of few aesthetic professionals in the country to sit on the 2017 National Advisory Board for Allergans Brilliant Distinctions consumer loyalty program.

As Practice Manager of Juvly Aesthetics, in just 2 years Sara helped propel the clinic from a small start-up to number 78 in the country based on sales volume of Allergan cosmetic products, while earning 5 star ratings from Juvly clients. Juvlys motto is fair prices and fantastic results, and all prices are posted online at http://www.juvly.com/pricing.

"The invitation by Allergan to serve on this Advisory Board is not only an honor but also a great example of Allergan's commitment to innovation and research," she said. "I am hopeful that our Board's contributions will enrich the Brilliant Distinctions Program so that Botox clients all over the United States will realize even more savings. The Advisory Board is meeting in February 2017 in Dana Point, CA.

About Juvly Aesthetics

Founded by Dr. Justin Harper in 2014, Juvly Aesthetics has grown to one of the largest and most highly acclaimed aesthetic practices in the country. Juvly has offices in Columbus, OH, New York, NY, Cincinnati, OH and Polaris, OH. The clinic specializes in non-surgical aesthetic procedures including Allergans portfolio of injectable products. In addition, Juvly offers anti-aging laser procedures, non-surgical fat reduction with Coolsculpting and Cellfina cellulite reduction treatments.

About Allergan

Allergan is the global multi-specialty health care corporation that produces cosmetic products such as Botox, Juvederm, Juvederm Voluma, Kybella, Juvederm Volbella, Latisse and SkinMedica. Brilliant Distinctions is Allergan's customer loyalty program.

Contact Information

Juvly Aesthetics

40 West Gay Street

Columbus, OH 43215

(614) 686-3627

http://www.juvly.com

info(at)juvly(dot)com
StevenDouglas is proud to announce that recruiting manager, Amanda Gisler, has been selected as a finalist for the 2017 HYPE Awards, sponsored by the Great Miami Chamber of Commerce.

Amanda is a finalist in the Difference Maker category for her notable contributions in the community. We are very pleased to see Amanda receive this well-deserved recognition, said Matt Shore, President of StevenDouglas. Among her other commitments, Amanda was Chair of one of our communitys biggest fundraisers, benefitting Joe DiMaggios Childrens Hospital. She and her team were highly instrumental in raising $320,000 in just one night for this great cause. Amanda truly represents what this award is all about.

The Hype Awards recognize young professionals who are dedicated to community service and who volunteer for a non-profit organization outside of their primary employment. The Chambers HYPE Miami (Helping Young Professionals Engage) Committee was created to provide opportunities that connect young professionals with prominent business leaders throughout the Greater Miami community. This years awards ceremony will be held on March 1st at Jungle Island. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/2kJhi4i.

StevenDouglas, a leading boutique search and interim resources firms, has been a recognized leader in identifying and providing access to top talent for corporate clients since 1984. Our client base is industry agnostic and ranges from start-ups and emerging middle-market to Fortune 500 companies and public, private and private equity owned firms.

Our Search Division is focused on placing professional staff to executive level management in the areas of Finance and Accounting, Information Technology, Sales, Marketing, Operations, Human Resources, Financial Services, Healthcare and Pharmacy, Life Sciences and Latin America. The Interim Resources Division helps businesses effectively manage change by providing them access to experienced and talented professionals on an as-needed and variable basis in the areas of Finance and Accounting, Information Technology, and Human Resources.
South Florida entrepreneur & spray tan expert Melissa Weinberg continues to successfully expand her brand in the Sunless tanning industry. Both of her brands Perfect Glow Sunless and Melissa Weinberg Tanning & Beauty  have quickly become leaders for their unmatched quality and customer service.

She is the top South Florida spray tan expert since 2009 providing custom airbrush tanning in the Palm Beach area. Weinberg had researched for years to successfully develop her professional Sunless beauty line which launched in the beauty industry in 2014. Since then Perfect Glow Sunless has quickly risen to great success to become one of the top leading companies in Sunless. Used by salons and spas worldwide, her paraben free and vegan proprietary spray tan solutions continue to receive 5 star accolades.

All products are formulated with organic & natural based ingredients sans the harsh ingredients & typical spray tan odor that is found in many other products to produce a flawless and superior spray tanning experience. Salon and spa owners worldwide have turned to the outstanding quality of Perfect Glow Sunless to provide their clients with the best airbrush tan color.

Recent 2016 achievements:

Her successful entrepreneurial journey was recently highlighted in Learnvest.com and featured in Forbes.com and Money magazine. (Turning a side gig into a 9-5 business).

Perfect Glow Sunless was voted as a top 3 finalist for favorite spray tan solution by IST magazine readers. Her luxury brand beat out most other longer established & well-known beauty brands in the industry. She is the only newer company to receive this honor.

Both product lines are proudly featured at the luxurious Nspa Delray Beach Marriott, an Opal resort property.

Her retail line (Melissa Weinberg tanning & Beauty ) products continue to earn top reviews by both consumers and beauty bloggers and are now also available on Amazon for retail shoppers. This luxury line of self-tanning and body care products last longer and are superior color compared to others on the market.

Formulated with top shelf ingredients such as Moroccan Argan Oil, Coconut Oil, Hemp Seed oil & Marine extracts to name a few & without the nasty chemicals used in other products in the market, such as parabens, formaldehyde, sulfates, mineral oils, glycols, glutens or petrochemicals. They are also certified vegan & Cruelty free by PETA as part of their Beauty Without Bunnies Program. Now consumers can get a healthier, top quality salon grade tan in the comfort of their own home.

Weinberg was invited as to be a guest speaker at the annual ASTP Sunless Summit convention held in Las Vegas Nevada.

Her Perfect Glow Sunless Spray Tan Academy has expanded to include instructors in various states. The academy offers various spray tan training and consulting courses for individuals looking to start a spray tan business or for beauty professionals looking to add it to their menu of services. Her spray tan classes have earned top reviews in the industry.

Weinberg published her first successful eBook Ready..Set..Glow which features marketing tips for beauty professionals.

Melissa is also is an avid blogger providing the beauty industry with top sunless tips.

About Melissa Weinberg Tanning & Beauty

Since facing skin cancer, Melissa has become a strong believer in well-being and an advocate for health. Melissa is passionate about offering the world a luxurious beauty product that is safe to use and a product that will offer that perfect glow without the perils of natural sun bathing or the hassles of mainstream tanning products.

Her beauty brands have provided salon owners & retail consumers worldwide with the highest quality of sunless tanning solutions and aftercare products, earning rave reviews in the process. The company's mission is to provide top quality products, consumer education and excellent customer service. Ms. Weinberg also provides sunless education, training and mentoring to industry professionals worldwide.

Retail consumers wishing to find out more about Melissa Weinberg Tanning & Beauty  and its products can discover more at the company website, located at https://mwmelissaweinberg.com.

Salon owners can visit the professional division Perfect Glow Sunless website, found at https://perfectglowsunless.com

For more information on the Spray Tan Academy please visit https://learntoairbrushtan.com
We...want to continue to provide the best for our partners, our community and our people.

Vendasta, the #1 platform for selling digital solutions to local businesses, was honored by the SABEX program, taking home hardware for Growth & Expansion, and receiving the prestigious Business of the Year award at last nights SABEX Awards Gala. The program, which celebrates the success of local enterprises, provides recognition for achievements in a number of business categories, with winners being determined by a panel of anonymous judges.

While this is the first nod Vendasta has received for Business of the Year, this is the second year in a row that they have received top marks in the Growth and Expansion category. They attribute a big part of their success to their culture of excellence, investment in their employees and their sustainable growth model.

Despite some slow-downs being experienced in other areas of the economy, Vendasta expects to continue to grow at a rapid clip in 2017. In addition to steady revenue growth, they project to add an impressive 90 new employees to their team.

The company values cultivating a positive work environment for its employees, and they invest significantly in their people and infrastructure across all areas of the organization. This is exemplified by their focus on continuing education for employees, providing them with the opportunity for coverage of University classes, certifications and other training to advance their skills and move into new roles in the company. They also have several dedicated programs for giving back to the community, with one of their flagship partnerships being with St. Marks Community School -- providing mentorship, fostering a passion for learning and supporting a variety of programs for youth that are offered to them.

The SABEX wins come on the heels of several major platform announcements, and CEO, Brendan King, is pleased with the sustained momentum that the company has seen, saying We are honored to be recognized in this way. Our mission is to be number one in everything we do -- not just in the platform that we develop -- but we also want to create an environment of innovation and passion for our employees to contribute to every day. We are proud of our accomplishments and want to continue to provide the best for our partners, our community and our people.

Vendasta was recognized as the Best Place to Work in Saskatoon by Flow Magazine in 2015, and were awarded the SABEX Growth & Expansion award in 2016. They were also recognized nationally by the Profit 500 program, ranking #42, from the Branham 300 program at #176, and from Deloitte as #42 on the Technology Fast 50. Internationally, Vendasta was ranked #386 on the North American Deloitte Technology Fast 500 program as one of the fastest growing technology companies in North America and received recognition for their approach to local marketing at the Street Fight Summit in New York, receiving the Local Visionary Award for the Best Marketing Campaign.

Find out more about the company by watching Vendastas Superbowl Ad, and for further information visit https://www.vendasta.com.

About Vendasta

Vendasta is a digital solutions platform that connects agencies and software vendors with local businesses that need them. It offers agencies a marketplace of rebrandable products and leverages big data, automation and intent-mining to identify hot leads and empowers them to acquire, retain and grow customers. Vendasta turns salespeople into experts on local digital marketing, offering the power to show local businesses how they're doing and how they can do better. For more information, visit http://www.vendasta.com.

Media Contact:

Bonnie Clark

Director of Brand & Buzz

306.955.5512

bclark(at)vendasta(dot)com
uBiome has been involved in this work for several years, including our project with the CDC... SmartBiome ID is another step in this evolution, enabling broader understanding of pathogens in a variety of sample types in the clinical setting.

Microbial genomics leader uBiome announces SmartBiome ID -- the first application on its SmartBiome platform, announced in 2016. Using uBiomes precision sequencing technology, SmartBiome ID allows hypothesis-free detection of hundreds of bacterial, viral, fungal, and eukaryotic targets from a single sample of a variety of types, including blood, stool, and urine, among others.

uBiomes clinical laboratory received accreditation from the College of American Pathologists (CAP) in 2016 after a rigorous process of inspection and qualification. uBiomes clinical laboratory is also certified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) under CLIA. Only the top 2.75 percent of laboratories are CAP-accredited.

Dr. Jessica Richman, CEO and co-founder of uBiome, says: uBiome has been involved in this work for several years, including our continuing project with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, publicly announced in December 2015, and other studies on related topics such as sepsis since 2014. SmartBiome ID is another step in this evolution, enabling broader understanding of pathogens in a variety of sample types in the clinical setting.

Hospitals, physicians, and other partners interested in partnering with uBiome to pilot SmartBiome ID in their clinics and institutions can sign up for more information here: ubome.com/go/smartbiomeidform

Dr. Zachary Apte, CTO and co-founder of uBiome, and Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco adds: One of the most exciting aspects of this assay is that our microbial genomics techniques allow us to interrogate both cell-free DNA and lysates. Im excited about the inventions our team has created over the past several years that have enabled the development of SmartBiome ID and the tools it allows us to offer in terms of pathogen detection.

Interested physician and hospital partners can sign up for more information here: https://ubiome.com/go/smartbiomeidform

Founded in 2012, uBiome is the worlds leading microbial genomics company. uBiome is funded by Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, and other leading investors. uBiomes mission is to explore important research questions about the microbiome and to develop reliable, accurate products and services focused on the microbiome.

Contact:

Julie Taylor

julie(at)ubiome(dot)com

Ph: +1 (415) 212-9214
Classy portable building with redwood vinyl siding In 2017, we would like to expand our company by about 30%.

Eshs Utility Buildings of KY & TN is looking forward to an outstanding year in 2017 in their storage building production. Where they sold three buildings before, they want to sell four. Where they were decently efficient in the past, they want improve their efficiency this year. And where they offered nine outdoor shed options before they want to offer twelve in 2017. Esh aims to look back in a year from now and say that 2017 stands out from the previous thirty years.

Over the last thirty years this storage building company based in Burkesville, KY has grown to what Eshs Utility Buildings is today. Some years have been in survival, while others have been steps forward. The few years following The Great Recession of 2008, this outdoor sheds company was in survival mode. A few years thereafter, starting in 2012 or 2013, the company started seeing steady growth each year. However, the expansion has not yet met Eshs goals. Esh says, In 2017, we would like to expand our company by about 30%.

Within the last year or two, Esh has cleared the path to take these new steps. A big part of this was the increase in partnerships and strengthening the leadership team. On January 1st of 2016 the business shifted things around and put people in place to improve their leadership team. This new setup has equipped them to take the outdoor shed and prefab garage company forward and reach their goals of producing more quality portable storage buildings.

One of the notable 2017 goals is to set up a few more manufacturing facilities and storage shed sales lots. Currently they are doing some training to prepare for this new venture. They plan to open new facilities in Morrison, TN and Fountain Run, KY. The Morrison storage building facility will focus on building wooden sheds, while Fountain Run will focus on vinyl buildings. Esh is excited to see how these new facilities will grow their business.

Esh is also looking at ramping up their advertising South and east of Nashville, TN. They plan to focus on areas like Murfreesboro, Lebanon and beyond. With a stronger advertising presence, this growing and ambitious company will be able to take strides in reaching their 30% expansion goal. The purpose is to increase production and thereby serve more people with quality outdoor sheds in the KY and TN area.

This new push for expansion is more than higher quantities. It is also about more quality options. In the past Esh offered the more conventional and neutral vinyl shed colors such as grey, clay, and white. However recently they added red and blue colors to their vinyl siding options. These modern and premium colors bring more pizazz and style. The new redwood siding color seems to be taking off quickly. Amos Esh says that after the redwood sided storage shed arrived at the lot, even before it was removed from the trailer, the storage building was sold.

To make outdoor shed purchases easier for the customer, Esh is working on improving their rent-to-own process. They want it to be more efficient and streamlined. This will save office time and make the customer experience more pleasant. One of the goals is to go more paperless. Rather than space consuming paper receipts they want to set things up so that they can be automatic and electronic. This also includes better automated credit card payment and direct deposit options. Life is about to get simpler and easier for Eshs Utility Buildings and their customers.

Esh is on a quest to expand their reach, offer more appealing options, and become more efficient. Where they can serve more customers better with outdoor sheds in KY and TN, they are all ready to go. They hope 2017 will be marked as a year of noticeable progress and a year that stands out in their 30-year history.
The British author Margaret Drabble, at 77, has bought herself a microscope. Shes begun writing a new novel, which includes a character who is an entomologist. I thought the microscopic view would be interesting, rather than the long view, Drabble says. I used to love exploring, but I cant walk around as fast as I used to. Now Ill just have to explore what is near. She doesnt really know where this new story, set in Oxford, will go. If you know where youre going, why bother? Its an adventure.

Drabbles latest book, The Dark Flood Rises, will be published Stateside by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February. She calls it thematic. It is true theres not much of a plotshe forgets her plots anywaybut the novel, like all 19 of her others, arguably takes the long view, even though the story takes place within two months. At the age her characters have reached, every month is a gift, since they are, for all practical purposes, old. But Drabble reminds us with an epigraph from a D.H. Lawrence poem: We are all of us dying/ and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us.

At least one reviewer has suggested that the novel is apocalyptic. At one point I thought of ending with an actual earthquakelets just have a Margaret Atwood ending, Drabble says. [But] its the little thingsAuden called it cracking the teacup. I think as you get older your sense of fragility increases, your sense of not quite having a grip on the earth. Thats my apocalyptic view.

I visited Drabble at her house in Ladbroke Grove, near Portobello Road in London. Her front door is red, flanked by a narrow window obscured by a stack, tall as the door itself, of galleys and manuscripts. It had been one week since the American presidential election, and we were both a bit unnerved, which led to talk of a writers role in difficult times.

As writers, Drabble warns, we cannot kid ourselves that were going to make a huge alteration to the world. Nevertheless, what we do is part of a greater whole. If you do your work so that you think youre pushing slightly the right way, then thats the best you can do, she says. Drabble is moved by phrases like he who saves one life saves the world. She sees truth in that, that each life is of value. Its important that we live well, even if the result is not to be measured, she says. And of Trump, she says, No manners!

Ive tried to reflect the world around me in what I write, to be a sort of sensor, feeling whats going on around me, and reporting it, Drabble says. I do believe that if you report faithfully and watch very closely, you actually do see some answers. Witnessing, the writer bears witness.

But Drabble is mindful of concerns regarding cultural appropriation. She brings up manners again: You cant just barge in there and assume you have got the right to tell other peoples stories. You have to react sensitively to other people. In addition, she declares, you havent got the right to walk out on somebody elses talk. You have to listen to what theyve got to say.

Drabble is transported by just about anything she reads, and remembers reading some pretty incomprehensible novels as a child. I was very fond of The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reed, set in the time of Erasmusall about torture and Lutheranism, she says. The heroine was called Margaret. I read this book again and again. She doesnt read that much historical fiction now, preferring to read about the world she inhabits, which is also what she writes about. Though she admits to having reread Trollope recently, in which the most important thing in the world is that youve got your bonnet on when you go out. She says she finds comfort, in the face of Brexit and the American election, in these little rules of life.

Drabble mentions that her husband, the biographer Michael Holroyd, is just finishing reading a new book by Lee Child, whose writing, she says, is also very comforting, rather like Trollope. She adds, Everything is violent in Lee Child, and in Trollope nothing is violent, but they have this narrative skill that keeps you going along without too much effort.

Drabble also loves the writer Tessa Hadley, whose books about family relationships, as the Guardian put it, map the crosscurrents of familial love and spite. And shes discovered Sarah Moss, who she says writes about maternal anxiety, and who is, by the way, a very good historical novelist. One can draw a pretty distinct line of literary descent connecting these two British novelists to Drabbles own oeuvre.

Drabbles biographer, Joanne Creighton, has suggested that, as a writer, Drabble occupies an important mediating position between the traditional and the modern. I suppose [my books] are quite traditional but at the same time theyre sometimes quite experimental, Drabble says. Its interesting that editors dont really like you to experiment, even copy editors. Why cant I do that? I do what I want and I dont want anyone telling me what I cant do.

Drabble has served tea, but weve both forgotten to drink it. We are in the sitting room, what Drabble refers to as the common ground, a room that could be nowhere but Englandtimeless, and without a doubt inhabited by bookish people for whom history and the life of the mind prevail. Uneven wood-planked floors are covered with Oriental rugs, their once-vivid colors and those of the furniture and drapery still beautiful, though probably never making claim to any rhyme or reason.

This house is too big, Drabble says, but I do write here. She laughs. Ive got a study one floor down, and my husbands study is one floor up.

Drabble says that she used to write fast, but shes slowed up. Now some days she doesnt write at all, some days she answers emails and does the crossword. Some days she does a very nice paragraph, and some days I run along a bit and do 2,000 words.

Our conversation ranges over a multitude of subjects. On feminism, Drabble is perhaps less strident than she once was. The Peppered Moth is all about that, about how Bessies life was frustrated by her not being able to work. But there are characters strewn all about her fiction frustrated by the strictures of being female, so perhaps shes said what she had to say. Things are much, much better, she proclaims.

Later, Drabble remembers to tell me that shes learning German. She realized it was really annoying not to be able to read German poetry, which sounded so wonderful in English. What did the German sound like? She didnt wish to speak German, particularlyshe just wanted to be able to read a few German poems.

Drabble is also fascinated by human migration, which routes people took to the New World, how they got to South America. Well never know all the answers, she says. If I were granted a wish, Id go back to the early Stone Age to sit there with the family by the fire, and just see what they were doing. Id just love to know.

Drabbles favorite time of year is high spring, but then comes autumn, she muses sadly, and we are back to the subject of The Dark Flood Rises, back to the issues facing her aging characters, and indeed all of us. Fran is the novels abiding septuagenarian spirit, the character most determined to hold on to her identity, desperate to keep living a meaningful life. But Drabbles thoughts turn to her friend Bernadine Bishop, on whom the character Teresa is based, and to whom the novel is dedicated. She was a birth Catholic who went off on all directions, but in late middle age became a believer again. The two friends used to talk a lot about faith and the afterlife. Drabble recalls that in Bishops last lecture, she spoke of reconciling being a believer with her profession as a psychotherapist. She said its the same map that youre working with. We just give different names to the islands and inlets. It is the map of the spirit.

Annasue McCleave Wilson is a writer living in San Diego, Calif., and a frequent contributor to Publishers Weekly.
Bestselling author Kat Martin loves what happens when she intertwines romance with other forms of fiction, creating characters with layers of emotion and motivation. Lately, shes been particularly interested in incorporating aspects of suspense and thrillers into romantic situationsshe finds the extra dimensions fruitfully intriguing. And in Beyond Reason, the first installment of a new three-part series about tough women who must fight their way through a mans world, Martin doesnt hold back on the page-turning thrills or steamy love scenes.

Beyond Reason is the story of Carly Drake, who must face grave danger to save her family trucking business after the deaths of her father and a top driver. Throughout the book, Drake struggles to succeed, balancing self-reliance with the lure of protection from a rugged alpha male named Lincoln Cain. In any novel, conflict is the key to keeping readers turning the pages, Martin says. In Beyond Reason, Carly must conquer her inner demons, as well as her external problems, in order to find the happiness she deserves. She explains: From the start, I envisioned the book being as much about the developing relationship between the hero and heroine as solving the mystery. How will the protagonists extricate themselves from danger? Will the hero and heroine overcome their emotional problems and be able to forge a future together? And though the reader may be able to figure out the answer, the idea is to make the journey worth the read.

In addition to dishing up Martins signature high-stakes action and romance, Beyond Reason represents a new direction for Martin. This story deals with regular, average people instead of detectives, bodyguards, or security professionals. Beyond Reason is a slightly different book for me, a bigger novel in some ways, Martin reveals. Trouble doesnt start when a client with a problem walks through the front door. The characters have to develop. The stage has to be set. The peril has to build. Its a big, bold adventure, and once it gets rolling, its high-action, fast-paced danger I hope will keep readers turning the pages.

Martin has set her booksshes written more than 65, with more than 16 million copies in printin places and periods as far-flung as the rugged West, the antebellum South, and medieval England. But Beyond Reason is set in contemporary Iron Springs, Tex.a setting where the former Houston resident felt right at home. Since Martin is an obsessive researcher and often visits her books locations during the writing process, this time she went to trucking school to get some hands-on experience in the books environment. I got to sit in the cab of an 18-wheeler while one of the drivers gave me a lesson in shifting gears, she says. We talked about fuel capacity and other practical information. One of my favorite action scenes in the novel came from a story the driver told me about what a truck could do racing backward at high speeds. I couldnt wait to get that sequence into the book!

Martin chose the trucking business because there was a personal connectionher father was a truck driver, so she was familiar with the colorful characters in the industry and wanted to explore howa woman could succeed and would be challenged in such a tough domain.

As is always the case in Martins work, the plot of Beyond Reason is chock-full of twists and turns. She says that she tends to work out plots in her head before she writes them down, which, she admits, accounts for many sleepless nights. I do a mental outline of the story, then a brief written synopsis, she describes. I know the ending, key scenes, and relationship problems, but the story develops as it goes along. Each problem sends the characters in different directions. They must find a way to overcome the dilemma and continue toward the ultimate resolution. The trick is to fit it all together.
Youre Hired

Two books on the 45th president of the United States debut this week in hardcover nonfiction. At #15, Big Agenda by David Horowitz has garnered praise from Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Peter Schweizer, Dinesh DSouza, and Milo Yiannopoulis. Two notches below: The Making of the President 2016 by Roger Stone. Breitbart has called Stone one of the best knownand best dressedpolitical insiders in New York. President Trump has described him this way: Rogers a good guy. He is a patriot and believes in a strong nation, and a lot of the things that I believe in.

(See all of this week's bestselling books.)

Proof of Concept

The weeks biggest hardcover nonfiction debut, at #7, is the faith-based Nothing to Prove by Jennie Allen. Its her first new trade title since launching If:Gathering, a Christian womens conference, in 2014, and her strongest first-week showing yet. More than a million women in more than 120 countries viewed the live webcast of the 2016 If:Gathering, according to her publisher; this years conference was held February 3 and 4, the weekend after her new book published.

Staying Psyched

The reading publics appetite for books with keep-em-guessing plots a la Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train remains unsated, with two such titles debuting on our hardcover fiction list. At #18, British author Jane Corrys U.S. debut, My Husbands Wife, is devilishly devious, according to our review. We also praised Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough, #22, calling it a twisty psychological thriller. These follow The Girl Before by J.P. Delaney, which in its second week on our list is up 21% and one position, to #4.

Under Her Spell

BEA 2016 YA buzz pick Caraval by Stephanie Garber, which our starred review called magnificent, lands at #8 in childrens frontlist fiction; 20th Century Fox nabbed film rights to the fantasy novel in 2015. Its the debut list appearance for the author and for Flatirons YA program, which launched last year with two titles.

The Book Thats Sweeping Oceania

For the second week in a row, George Orwells 1984 is the #1 book in the country. Print unit sales for the mass market edition are up 34% from the previous week, and the book not only claims the top spot nationwide but was also the bestselling title in each of BookScans eight geographic regions.

Top 10 Overall

Rank Title Author Imprint Units 1 1984 George Orwell Signet Classics 34,793 2 Hidden Figures (movie tie-in) Margot Lee Shetterly Morrow 22,738 3 A Man Called Ove Fredrik Backman Washington Square 21,463 4 The Apartment Danielle Steel Dell 19,363 5 A Dogs Purpose (movie tie-in) W. Bruce Cameron Forge 19,163 6 Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance Harper 18,786 7 Double Down (Wimpy Kid #11) Jeff Kinney Amulet 17,139 8 Killing the Rising Sun OReilly/Dugard Holt 16,153 9 Milk and Honey Rupi Kaur Andrews McMeel 15,760 10 Never Never Patterson/Fox Little, Brown 14,841

All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.
In what may have been the biggest team-building program ever in publishing, more than 1,400 Penguin Random House employees took part in PRHs first Company Week (January 913) at the publishers two New York City offices as well as at sites around the city.

The event featured dozens of presentations from company employees that highlighted either some aspect of the publishers business or an area of personal interest. Jeff Weber, v-p and director of online and digital sales, for instance, gave a well-attended talk on what Amazon may have in mind for its bookstores.

Authors were also on hand to elaborate on the topics of their books. For example, at Brooklyns Museum of Food and Drink (MoFaD), Deb Perelman, author of Smitten Kitchen, gave a one-hour cooking demonstration and Ballantine author Jenny Rosenstrach signed copies of her cookbook How to Celebrate Everything after her presentation.

Company Week was first conceived by executive v-p of corporate communications Claire Von Schilling, who quickly got the support of CEO Markus Dohle. A team drawn from Dohles office, corporate communications, and human resources put together the program, which also featured a company-wide party at Pier 60 on January 12. January 13 was a day of service in which PRH employees were encouraged to volunteer to help out with a project of their choosing or to sign up for a PRH-organized project.

For me, this Penguin Random House Company Week was a terrific opportunity for us to bring our company even closer together, to build even more and deeper relationships among colleagues, and to recognize and celebrate all the talent under our roof, Dohle told PW. Von Schilling said that, due to the amount of positive feedback she received, PRH is committed to holding the event again sometime in 2018.
Early Friday afternoon, more than 300 AWP attendees met in the lobby of the Marriott Marquis Hotel and marched together almost two miles to the U.S. Capitol grounds, while others took cabs or public transit. Disclosing that the Washington, D.C. metro police had been unresponsive to the group's request for a march permit, an organizer of the march, the poet D.A. Powell, told the marchers that they were simply going to take a walk through the streets of downtown Washington, D.C. The Capitol Police had issued a permit for the group to assemble and hold a rally at their destination, on the Capitol grounds

"We as writers must get behind these [Constitutional] principles and let our legislators know we will not accept this infringement of these principles," Powell said as the marchers gathered inside the hotel, "We are Americans after all."

The marchers walked through Penn Quarter and down Constitution Avenue carrying signs and chanting. When the crowd arrived at a park that separates the Capitol Building from the buildings housing the legislators' offices, Powell told the crowd, "This is a time when we need to be visible and make our voices heard with our legislators." Powell said that he and the other planners of the event has organized it "to make good use of this time in Washington, D.C., to get people to use their words. We're writers, goddamn it!" Powell also read a letter of support signed by a dozen British poets and said he'd received another letter of support signed by 40 British and Irish poets.

After the rally, during which the organizers took turns speaking, many in the crowd visited the offices of their elected representatives, following up on the plans we reported on Thursday, while others returned to the Convention Center.

In addition to protests from attendees, the AWP organization itself has made a statement in opposition to Trump's travel ban and expressed approval over the various protests and actions taking place at the conference. David Haynes, Chair of the AWP board of Trustees, told PW that, "The AWP Board of Trustees and Staff are on record with our opposition to the executive order of January 27, 2017 banning entry into the United States from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. We encourage writers and teachers whose lives have been impacted by these policies to share their stories with us so we can do our part to put a face on this atrocity. We have already begun sharing these stories on our social media platforms."

"We are aware of at least a half dozen organized events during the AWP conference where attendees will be gathering to stand up in support of truth and of the values that have made this country great," continued Haynes. "This passion and energy are a large part of what has always made the conference an exciting place to be."

AWP's second day ended on a high note, with the day's final onsite event drawing a record crowd of approximately 3,600 people filling two large convention center ballrooms to hear Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie (Americanah) and Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me) take turns reading from their latest work. The reading was followed by a discussion moderated by writer and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller that touched upon the African versus the African-American experience, the legacy of slavery in the U.S., and how Michelle Obama's relationship with Barack Obama caused Adichie to support him from the beginning of his Presidential campaign, "because if she married him, he must be okay."

AWP continues through tomorrow, with a candlelight vigil sponsored by Split This Rock taking place in front of the White House following the conference's end.

This story originally under-estimated the crowd count at the Adichie/Coates evening program and has been corrected.
The AWP book fair, always the centerpiece of the conference experience, was as politically charged as this year's panels and protests. The fate of the National Endowment for the Arts was unsurprisingly on the minds of many at AWP, with the conference taking place only a couple of weeks after rumors started circulating that the Trump administration intends to slash the budget of the NEA. Many small and independent publishers and literary journals at AWP receive significant funding from the NEA and are rallying around the social media campaign #ThankYouNEA, through which attendeesincluding staff for Indiana Review, the Rumpus, Four Way Books, Nightboat Books, Graywolf Press, and many otherswere photographed on the main book fair floor holding a whiteboard on which they'd written thank you messages to the NEA.

The campaign was brought to AWP by Kelly Forsythe, director of publicity for Copper Canyon Press, and poets Ben Purkert and Corey Van Landingham, with the help of literary journal Bodega, which printed "#ThankYouNEA" on postcards for attendees to fill out at the booth and which will be mailed to Rep. Ken Calvert, chair of the Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, who oversees the budget of the NEA.

Politically focused publishers such as Verso and Haymarket reported experiencing significant foot traffic at the fair. John McDonald of Haymarket, who last attended the conference in Chicago in 2012, said there was "a notable difference" in terms of how politically-minded attendees who stopped by the booth were. McDonald said many people stopped by just to express their thanks. For Haymarket, hot-selling books included Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things To Me, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor's From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, and the anthology The BreakBeat Poets.



"There's a new sense of urgency," said Mandy Medley of Coffee House Press, noting that a number of conference attendees who came to the Coffee House booth brought up the topic of how publishers can continue to support diverse voices on a day-to-day basis. Medley noted that some of the Coffee House's big sellers included Camanchaca by Diego Zuniga, Fish in Exile by Vi Khi Nao, books by Brian Evenson books, and titles by Valeria Luiselli, who was in attendance for a conversation on Friday afternoon with author Alexander Chee (The Queen of the Night) and Lisa Lucas, executive director of the National Book Foundation.



At the Tin House booth, another attending author's book sold well: Morgan Parker's new poetry collection There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce. Thomas Ross of Tin House said that poetry always does well for the press at AWP, noting how last year Melissa Broder's Last Sext was a big seller for them.
DES MOINES  College-bound Iowa youth active in 4-H and/or FFA livestock projects and current undergraduate students may apply for $178,500 in scholarships available from the Iowa Foundation for Agricultural Advancement.

There are 67 scholarships available to freshmen entering any Iowa two or four-year, post-secondary institution this fall, 26 scholarships available to current undergraduates attending Iowa State University, one scholarship available to a graduate student in animal nutrition, plus an additional four scholarships available to either incoming freshman or undergraduates.

Applicants must major in animal science or a curriculum in agriculture or human sciences that is related to the agriculture industry.

For applications and additional details visit iowastatefair.org or call Harold Hodson at 515-290-8875 or Linda Weldon at 515-291-3941. Applications for current undergraduate students must be postmarked by April 1; applications for incoming freshmen must be postmarked by May 1.

All materials should be sent to IFAA Winner's Circle Scholarship, c/o Iowa Foundation for Agricultural Advancement, 1440 NW 134th Ave., Slater, IA 50244. Winners will be announced during the 2017 Iowa State Fair annual 4-H/FFA Sale of Champions on Aug. 19.
MOLINE  Western Illinois University Quad Cities is hosting Math on the Mississippi, an educational program July 10-14 for students in grades 5-8.

The fun, interactive weeklong enrichment camp will present students with new concepts and ideas to expand their education. Students will begin their day with brainteasers or an outing in the area. Along with using WIU's 3-D printing lab and Global Positioning System resources, students will create a blog of the day detailing what they have learned.

Program topics include buoyancy, pressure, mapping/measurement and force/structure. Students will be able to socialize with professors of the math and physics departments and ask questions about the fields they are interested in.

Enrollment is limited to only 24 participants. Students are admitted on a first-come, first-serve basis. The registration fee of $274 includes classroom instruction, supplies, lunch and field trips. A $100 deposit is due at registration with the balance of $175 due by June 9.

Sponsors for Math on the Mississippi include WIU's School of Distance Learning, International Studies and Outreach, The College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Mathematics.

To register and for more details, contact the WIU-QC Distance Learning International Studies and Outreach at 309-762-9481, ext. 62357. To view the 2016 math camp blog, visit mathmississppilogin.wordpress.com.
The Illinois law requiring a firearms ID card for all gun owners  enacted in 1968, a year of nationwide violence  is outdated, redundant and should be repealed, according to state Sen. Neil Anderson, R-Rock Island.

Sen. Anderson on Thursday filed legislation to repeal Illinois' Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) Act. The card, issued by the Illinois State Police after a background check, is required for anyone buying or owning a firearm or ammunition, as well as Tasers or stun guns.

Illinois is the only state with a firearms ID requirement, although some other states and municipalities have varying requirements on registration and firearm purchases.

Nonresidents in Illinois are not required to have a FOID card to own a firearm. The FOID card is separate from documents required for a concealed carry permit.

Sen. Anderson said the act's requirements have become outdated with the creation of instant background checks and web-based criminal databases.

The FOID Act is nearly 50 years old," he said. "Advancements in technology and changes in the law over the last 50 years have made it a redundant, unnecessary burden on the citizens of Illinois."

Colleen Daley, executive director of the Chicago-based Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said Friday her group is against the bill. She said the FOID card requirement is "necessary to have as another layer of protection so that only people who should have (firearms) are able to get them.

"We don't need to make is easier for felons and mentally unstable people to have access to them," she said.

The FOID card was created as part of a public safety initiative in Illinois, according to the Illinois State Police website. It was designed to meet the requirements of the federal Gun Control Act of 1968.

"Currently the Illinois State Police Firearms Services Bureau is experiencing a record number of Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) card applications each month," according to the website's application page.

Sen. Anderson said his legislation would not expand concealed carry or change any of the current restrictions against felons possessing firearms. It also would not affect required federal background checks, he said.

This bill doesnt expand concealed carry or make it easier for criminals to buy guns, said Sen. Anderson. It is simply common-sense legislation that repeals a law that has outlived its necessity.
ROCK ISLAND  The former corporate headquarters of Bituminous Insurance Cos. sold Thursday for $244,750 during an online auction.

Vance Luksetich, executive vice president at Tranzon Auction, which was in charge of the proceedings, said the property at 320 18th St. had a high bid of $222,500 plus a $22,250 buyer's premium added on.

"It will move from the auction to a purchase contract and close in 35 days," Mr. Luksetich said. "There were 57 bids and six bidders." Bidding opened at 7 a.m. Monday.

Mr. Luksetich said most of the bidding occurred within the last hour, the process actually going an hour and 15 minutes beyond Thursday's 2 p.m. close. He said if somebody places a bid within the last four minutes of the bidding process, it automatically extends the bidding.

He would not reveal the winning bidder.

The property was vacated last spring after BITCO moved into a new $7.2 million building in Davenport, taking 150 employees out of Rock Island's downtown.

In December, a group under the name BBC 2016 LLC, with a billing address in Davenport, purchased the property from BITCO for $200,000, according to Larry Wilson, Rock Island County supervisor of assessments.

Mr. Wilson said last month the property's market value is $2.2 million. The last tax bill was $72,844, which was paid in 2016, Mr. Wilson said.

According to Tranzon Auction, the property was appraised at $1 million.

Rock Island Mayor Dennis Pauley said Friday he is waiting to see who purchased the building and what the plans are for it.

In January, Rock Island County administrator Dave Ross said the county had been interested in the property but did not have the funds to retrofit the facility to accommodate ADA requirements.

County records indicate the four-story building is 74,394 square feet and was built in 1920.
What am I missing?

One might be more supportive of Donald Trump's executive order, "Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorists Entry Into The United States," if it actually listed countries which committed terrorist attacks on us! Trump has banned travel from seven Middle Eastern, Muslim countries.

The problem is though, that no terrorists from these Muslim countries have committed a terrorist attack in the U.S. between 1975-2015! In fact, the terrorist attacks within the U.S. have come from homegrown, radicalized individuals.

What is most interesting are the countries that are missing from this list that have committed terrorist attacks around the world. Why, at a minimum, aren't Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Turkey, with a combined total of 2,800-plus murders, not on this list? Most of the conspirators of 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia.

One answer to consider is that the Trump conglomerate conducts businesses in these countries, but none in the banned countries. He has hotels, luxury towers, malls, Trump brand home furnishing businesses and financial investment interests. Thought provoking people would be considering this hypocritical position as a conflict of interest, at the least!

There is a saying, "perception is reality," and there are many Americans who believe that Trump's ban on the Muslim nations that have not committed a terrorist attack on the United States between 1975-2015 and the omission of those countries that have committed terrorist attacks around the world is just business as usual!

Am I missing something?

Jennifer Reed,

Coal Valley
President Trump's executive order restricting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries won't shield the United States from terrorism. America's jihadist terrorists are not imported from abroad. They are mostly homegrown.

The principal terrorist threat faced by the United States comes from residents who radicalize themselves and plot to carry out local attacks. Fortunately, their numbers have been relatively few. Despite constant exhortations from jihadist organizations abroad, their violent extremist ideology has gained little traction among America's Muslims.

The president's executive order is intended to protect the United States against spillover from the violent conflicts going on in six countries engulfed in blood civil wars: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Sudan. Washington has long considered Iran, the seventh country on the list, to be a top state sponsor of terrorism.

It's not unreasonable to seek a review of immigration, and refugee-vetting procedures make sense. Jihadist terrorists pose a multilayered threat. Improved intelligence, greater international cooperation and continuing military operations have made it more difficult to carry out ambitious, centrally directed strategic terrorist strikes like the 9/11 attacks.

But jihadist terrorist organizations have demonstrated their continued determination to attack commercial airliners on their way to the United States. And as we have seen in France and Belgium, terrorist volunteers who have joined the ranks of al Qaeda's affiliates or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) may receive assistance in returning to link up with local jihadists and carry out attacks at home.

With thousands of nationals who have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq, Europe faces a much greater threat from returning fighters than the U.S., where, according to the FBI, more than 200 jihadist volunteers have tried to join jihadist fronts abroad.

We have no way of predicting how many future terrorist attacks or how many American lives may be saved by halting entries from the seven countries named in the recent executive order.

However, we do have a historical record with numbers that are informative.

Since 9/11, terrorists inspired by jihadist ideology have carried out 16 attacks in the United States: Seven involved fatalities and eight of them injured people. In the remaining case  the would-be Times Square bomber in 2010  the device failed to detonate.

This is a low number, especially when considering it encompasses a period of more than 15 years. In the 1970s, the U.S. experienced 50 to 60 terrorist bombings a year, although most of the attacks were not intended to kill but were meant to be symbolic violence.

Some analyses might add a few more attacks to this list. The differences reflect judgments about motives, which can be murky.

In addition to the attacks, there have been almost 80 jihadist terrorist plots over these same 15 years. Working together, FBI agents and local police have been able to uncover and disrupt more than 80 percent of these  a remarkable record. In many cases, investigations began with tips from the Muslim community.

A total of 147 people in the United States participated in attacks or plotted others that were thwarted by the authorities. Again, this is a low number  an average of fewer than nine people a year since 9/11.

Most of these plots and attacks  105 out of 147  were planned by U.S. citizens. Another 20 of the plotters were legal permanent residents, most of whom arrived in the United States as children. In other words, 85 percent of the terrorists lived in the U.S a long time before carrying out an attack  they radicalized within the nation's borders.

A total of 89 people died in the jihadist attacks. Every one of these deaths was needless and tragic. However, the added risk to public safety in a country that averages 15,000 homicides a year was statistically minuscule.

The republic is not in peril.

What is at work here is terrorism  acts of violence calculated to create fear and alarm. It is often effective. Terrorism can also act as a condenser of society's broader anxieties. Illegal immigration has caused widespread concern, which amplifies the perceived terrorist threat.

Had this temporary prohibition been in effect since 9/11, how many lives would have been saved? Not one.

Had this temporary prohibition been in effect since 9/11, how many lives would have been saved? Not one. None of the fatalities resulted from attacks by individuals from the seven countries named in the directive. The directive also would not have prevented the 9/11 attacks. This is not an argument for adding to the list of proscribed countries.

The directive would have prevented the entry of two refugees involved in terrorism after their arrival in the U.S. One was an Iraqi refugee arrested in 2016 while plotting an attack in Houston. He had arrived in the United States as a teenager in 2009, seven years before his arrest. He had become a legal permanent resident in 2011.

The other was a Somali refugee who carried out a car-ramming and stabbing attack in November at Ohio State University, injuring 13 people. He had been in the country for two years.

Some of those arrested in terrorist attacks in the U.S. have been the sons of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries. The failure to identify these individuals before they entered the United States is not a flaw in the vetting process; it is our inability to predict human behavior years into the future.

And no one can forecast whose offspring will grow up to be a terrorist. There is no terrorism gene.

The terrorist threat is real and likely to persist. The campaign against al Qaeda and ISIS must continue. The U.S. needs to control its borders and know who is trying to enter, but any measures imposed should reflect actual terrorist risk, not terror.

Brian Michael Jenkins is a senior adviser to the president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and an author of numerous books, reports and articles on terrorism-related topics.

This commentary originally appeared on The Hill on February 10, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Liberty Globals Chilean subsidiary, VTR, will be producing and sending worldwide a live streaming signal during the total eclipse of the sun on 26 February.

From the city of Coyhaique, VTR will be launching a live over-the-top (OTT) feed which will include a telescope video signal and a TV signal from a 360-degree camera placed in the town. The stream will be available free through Fundacion VIVEChiles website , managed by VTR, as well as Liberty Global and VTRs Facebook and YouTube sites.Chiles scientific potential has to be part of Chiles identity, and its VTRs task to serve this goal with its communication platforms, said Guillermo Ponce, general manager, VTR. Through our technology, we are connecting a unique astronomical event with thousands of homes around the world.The project, for which VTR has installed a new fibre network between the filming points and the broadcasting centre, is also supported by Chiles government and the city of Coyhaique.Liberty Globals company is the largest broadband and cable TV provider in Chile , leading the market ahead of Movistar, DirecTV and Claro.
Televisa, Pol-ka Producciones and Federation Kids & Family have closed the sale of premium teen series Love, Divina to leading French public broadcaster France Televisions.

The 60 x 45 series features Hispanic TV and pop star Laura Esquivel came to fame in PATITO FEO, a Televisa co-production broadcast in more than 40 countries. It tells the story of a teenager who grew up without a family who has a deep understanding of life on the streets, and then takes a group of homeless kids under her wing.The new deal follows its acquisition by Super! in Italy. Commenting on the win, Tiphaine de Raguenel, France Televisions executive director and director of youth programming at France 4, said: We are delighted to welcome Love, Divina exclusively on France 4, France Televisions family channel. Love, Divina, and her friends, offer our viewers a positive portrait of a modern, supportive and united family. These values to which France Televisions aspires contribute to an aspirational story that will resonate with kids and parents alike.Our partnership with France Televisions is a cornerstone of our pan-European strategy, securing key channels one by one, while filling a needed gap in the market, added David Michel, MD of Federation Kids & Family. Love Divina has a unique creative angle in that it is a drama that works for both tweens/teens and parents audiences, which is a hard genre to find right now.Love, Divina will launch on Argentinas eltrece and Televisas digital platform BLIM in Mexico and Latin America in the first quarter of 2017, with broadcast on Super! and all Televisas other platforms including Mexicos Free TV to follow. European rights are managed by Federation and Televisa, and ROW by Televisa.
The global economic value of counterfeiting and video piracy could reach $2.3 trillion (2.15tn) by 2022, new research has shown.

The report from Frontier Economics  dubbed Economic Impacts of Counterfeiting and Piracy  also provides estimates on the wider social and economic impact on displaced economic activity, investment, public fiscal losses and criminal enforcement, and concludes that these costs could reach an additional estimated $1.9 trillion by 2022.Taken together, the negative impacts of counterfeiting and piracy are projected to drain $4.2 trillion from the global economy and put 5.4 million legitimate jobs at risk by 2022.The underpinnings of the pirate economy are myriad. Typically, consumer pay-TV choice comes down to content, value and convenience when selecting a service. Pirates exploit those three needs by offering services and devices that rival their legal counterparts, but, without the costs of legally acquiring the rights and content, pirates are able to take valuable market share in the process with lower prices.So perhaps its no wonder that content security specialist Irdeto recently found that there are more than 2.7 million advertisements on e-commerce websites, including Amazon, eBay and Alibaba for illicit streaming devices, indicating that content theft by pirates has become a fully-fledged business and a formidable competitor to established pay-TV operators.According to Irdeto , its a true cross-channel effort, with advertisements found on social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and other prominent social media platforms. Pirates are becoming more business savvy and expanding their product marketing of illicit streaming devices. Citing data from SimilarWeb, the Irdeto report shows that the growth in global traffic resulted in more than 16.5 million visits per month to the top 100 pirate IPTV supplier websites. The US and UK led all countries with more than 3.7 million and one million site visits per month, respectively.The report also shows that a typical pirate supplier offers an average of 174 channels, with some pirate suppliers offering more than 1,000 channels. This content comes in at an average subscription cost of $194.40 per year or a staggeringly low $16.20 per month - much lower than the average US cable cost of $103.10 per month. In some cases, despite the illegal nature of the offering, these low costs and the compelling content provided sway consumers to choose a pirate device over legal cable, satellite or OTT services.The good guys are cracking down: Europol in late November, for instance, went after a host of online piracy and counterfeit sites, taking more than 4,500 domain names offline. Law enforcement authorities from 27 countries, anti-counterfeiting associations and brand owner representatives participated in this huge action, which was co-ordinated and facilitated by Europols Intellectual Property Crime Coordinated Coalition (IPC), the US National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center and Interpol.Spanish police also just busted a pirate IPTV subscription business offering unauthorised English Premier League matches and 100+ international pay-TV channels. They raided a store in a Calahonda shopping centre in Malaga, Spain, owned by Y Internet. Owned by two UK citizens, Y-Internet was selling illegal IPTV service packages with annual contracts to hotels, pubs, neighborhoods and individuals. This included reception devices that were adapted to receive decrypted pay TV signals without authorisation and providing unauthorised online subscription services.An investigator from Irdeto told the police that he went to the store posing as a customer; the employees showed him the decryption device, and the services available. The representative supplied as evidence the reception device and a premium subscription purchased for 450.The investigation was initiated by the Premier League as part of a global crackdown on illegal online redistribution of its live broadcasts.The situation affects bystanders too. For instance, in November, some bars in the UK were using imported, illegally installed decoders from Polands Canal+s pay-television channel NC Plus. The types of decoders can be purchased for as little as $30, from hundreds of websites, mostly in China.NC Plus typically shows Premier League matches in Poland on Saturday afternoons at 4pm local time; but, because of the piracy, the Premier League prohibited the channel from showing them going forward.
As is noted on the back cover of Algers book:

For nearly 100 years the federal government left education almost entirely in the hands of the citizenry and state and local governments, but in 1979, with the creation of the US Department of Education a sprawling bureaucracy with 153 programs, 5,000 employees, and an annual budget of approximately $70 billion, the federal government intruded itself into almost every area of education.

Accordingly, Alger reveals in her book that 1) federal involvement in education has been a failure, and 2) assesses, identifies, and articulates the best strategy for success.

Alger further explains how and why U.S. students are mediocre achievers in math, science, and other subjects when compared to many other nations  despite Americas schools being the most costly in the world. In her presentation, Alger debunked the common misconception that this nation was once a world leader in elementary and secondary education. We never ranked at the top. America cant get back to the head of the class because we never were at the head of the class. In fact, we have always scored at, or near, the bottom of the rankings. But with effective educational reforms, the academic performance of American students could improve significantly.

For those who are advocates of school choice, Alger presents strong arguments for giving more power to parents and students.

Evolution of Department of Education

The original Department of Education was created in 1867  and downsized to an office the following year  to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems. While the agencys name and location within the executive branch have changed over the past 130 years, this early emphasis on getting information on what works in education to teachers and education policymakers continues down to the present day .

When debate opened in the House on June 5, 1866 about a national channel of communication among school officers of different states and the federal government, there was neither mention nor desire to utilize the federal treasury to fund any educational programs. There was no hint that the department would do anything other than collect statistics. In short, the department was to be an educational statistical service located in Washington, D.C. The department, which started out with four employees, acted as a clearing house of data for educators and policymakers.

Democratic Rep. Samuel Moulto from Illinois had this to say about his version of a Department of Education  which has come to pass in America today, but which was never sanctioned by our Constitution:

Now, sir, in order to make education universal, what do we want? What is the crying necessity of this nation today? Why, sir, we want a head. We want a pure fountain from which a pure stream can be poured upon all the States. We want a controlling head by which the various conflicting systems in the different States can be harmonized, by which there can be uniformity, by which all mischievous errors that have crept in may be pointed out and eradicated.

Present-day Department of Education

There is no traditional or historical basis for The Department of Education. The department represents a political agenda administered from Washington DC. The department was moved here and there during its history, and went through some name changes, but in whatever form it has taken it has failed to improve education  such as in 2016, when the department spent $200 billion.

In 1976, presidential candidate Jimmy Carter promised to create a Department of Education, and is immediately endorsed by the National Education Association. This is first time the NEA endorsed a presidential candidate in more than a century of existence.

In 1979, after much opposition, Congress narrowly passed legislation to split off a new Department of Education from the existing Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The NEA and the American Federation of Teachers provided powerful lobbying support for the creation of the new department. The Department of Education began operations in 1980 with 6,400 employees. When campaigning for president in 1980, Ronald Reagan calls the Department of Education President Carters new bureaucratic boondoggle and promised to abolish it  a promise, obviously, he could not keep.

The Department of Education was created to improve management and efficiency, but as Alger noted in her talk at Heartland, the department represents just one more piece of government with lots of bureaucrats. By her count, Alger said just 6 percent of Education Department programs are effective. Although the department is getting more expensive to operate, children have not been better-educated after three decades of massive funding.

The theme that ran throughout Algers book presentation was that its time to eliminate the Department of Education. As she remarked: Education doesnt get any better like a fine wine.

According Alger, student achievement has been flat since the late 60s up to today. It is fair to ask how can this is so when American schools are among the most costly in the world? Yet American students experience only mediocre achievements in math and science, in contrast to students who excel in countries that spend far less per student. Alger puts some of the blame on the resistance to school choice and competition.

Concern about the achievement gap in America versus other countries in the world led to the school-reform movement of the 1980s. Improving student achievement became all-important, so reforms began exploring how the federal government count partner with the states  a tactic that went against how education policy had been viewed in the past, one driven primarily by the states.

Standard-based Education Reform explored in the 1980s

Standard-based education reform began with the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983 which eventually led to Common Core.

During the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, two standards-based programs were set in motion: No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Both program failed. Nevertheless, the Obama administration was able to sneak Common Core State Standards beneath the radar of the American people by peddling the program to states, sight unseen, through the offer of money to cash-strapped states.

Zeev Wurman, former U.S. Department of Education official , called Common Core standards mediocre . In no way were they to be considered a proper preparation for college.

Alger ascribes the failure of Common Core to Obama Secretary of Education Arne Duncan , who was plucked from Chicago, where he served as superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools from 2001 to 2009. It was Duncans mission to eliminate the extreme variation in standards across America so this nation had only one system of learning.

Strategic Dismantling of the Department of Education

Algers two-step process to eliminate the Department of Education follows:

Shutter up. Eliminate 19 program offices to reduce and overhaul cost. This would save $14 billion.

Return control of managing programs back to the states, citizens, and school districts. This would save $216 billion. (Programs remain operable from three to five years. As programs expire, discontinue them.)

As related by Alger:

Schools rely on federal funding to the amount of 10 cents on a dollar. The new mandate for Common Core required more money for schools to implement than did No Child Left Behind, yet schools were told to rip up the No Child Left Behind mandate to replace with Common Core."

Arizona, a Leader in Charter Schools

Alger was instrumental in her home state of Arizona in approving charter schools, an achievement that is now celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Charters faced steep opposition in Arizona, with critics predicting doom. But the sky did not fall in Arizona because of charter schools, nor were public schools starved. Instead, Arizona has more top high schools than any other state, yet Arizona spends $5,000 less on the average than the average state. (Illinois has no top high school, other than possibly some of Chicagos magnet schools.) Black students in Arizona, meanwhile, have made the highest math gains on the nations latest report card. Why should children be kept in schools that dont work for them?

Alger supports publicly funded vouchers, and particularly Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), because every dollar follows the child. Algar said she has helped five states implement ESA programs directed by the state, not the federal government.

Q&A with Vicki Alger

Concerning Betsy DeVos? Vicki Alger believes Betsy DeVos, even though she endured a tough nomination fight, will be a strong leader for Trump. Hopefully, Alger said, DeVos will do away with the disaster of Common Core, which in the process will demolish the ESSA Act  through which parents are bullied and threatened about their childs graduation unless the test associated with Common Core is taken.

Concerning budget of U.S. Department of Education established in 1979? Out of the $200 billion spent to operate the department, only about 10 percent is sent back to the states. That means it takes $130 billion just to administer the distribution of money back to the states, certainly a massive political boondoggle.

Mustnt some standards exist to measure how students are progressing in subject matter, although Common Core is a failure? California , Alger said, has little else going for it, but it does have a good state testing program. There is no shortage of basic state skill tests if a parent wants to know where there kids are on basic skills, but dont trust the state to administer the test.

Dont parents want to know what their child knows at the beginning of a school year and at the end? Vicki Alger believes t he focus should be more on parents having choices rather than testing standards.

In closing

So often the battle seems insurmountable, but those of us who are sick of top-down federal control of education on both sides of the aisle outnumber those who wish to keep the status quo.

Thirty-seven years after the modern Department of Education was established under Jimmy Carter, students are not better off. Now is the time to sever the partnership of education with the federal government by abolishing the Department of Education. Let President Trump and your legislators hear from you as a necessary component toward Draining the Swamp.

Upcoming Free Events at The Heartland Institute

Wednesday, Feb. 8th

5:30 PM - 7:30 PM Arlington Heights, Illinois

Wednesday . Feb. 22

5:30 PM - 7:30 PM Arlington Heights, Illinois

Wednesday, March 1

5:30 PM - 7:30 PM Arlington Heights, Illinois

Wednesday, March 8
The Royal Navy's Operation Deadlight, which was the executive action which led to the sinking of 116 German U-Boats off Northern Ireland between 27 November 1945 and 12 February 1946, was the culmination of the long-held determination of the British Government to ensure the total elimination of the German Navy's submarine fleet after the end of WW2.

UK Planning for German Naval Disarmament

UK planning for the end of the war assumed that Britain would occupy the north west zone of Germany, and that the Royal Navy would be responsible for the main German naval bases. Thus, at the cessation of hostilities, all German U-Boats would immediately be moved to the UK prior to Allied agreement about their destruction.

The Royal Navy therefore pressed ahead in the first half of 1944 with the detailed planning for the post-war transfer of all remaining German U-Boats to British ports. It was intended that the U-Boats would be moved to the naval port at Lisahally in Northern Ireland, and to the naval anchorage in Loch Ryan in south-west Scotland. The proposed transfer arrangements were code-named Operation Pledge.
Have you ever seen a boxer get knocked out in a fight before the bell even rang?

If you follow the rush-to-judgement analysis coming out of some outlets when it comes to U.S. President Donald Trumps Friday-night chat with Chinese President Xi Jinping, you might believe Trump just signed away Hawaii. You might think the new U.S. administration has been completely crushed before the first punches are even thrown in what will be a historic, great power struggle over the next few years.

We should be clear: In fact, Trump did not change tack," as said in a report by Reuters, or back down to Beijing, as judged by the New York Times, implying that the new administration made some major concession to China in acknowledging the reality that is the One China policy.

What Trump did was simple and quite expected -- he followed a standard line of thinking that dates back to the Nixon administration. Clearly no ground was ceded.

Indeed, lets recall for a moment what most in Washington consider the One China policy to be, setting aside Beijings fantasy version of it. From the Shanghai Communique, the foundation of the U.S.-China relations:

The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China

To me that is no game-changer. Its just admitting the obvious. No knockout punch here.

But from that simple statement the plot thickens. As many commentators have pointed out (hat tip to my colleagues over at Global Taiwan Institute for pointing this out) -- to acknowledge does not mean that the United States accepts such a position.

So now that Trump has simply followed decades of standard U.S. policy when it comes to China and Taiwan, we move on to the harder questions. The real question is where do U.S.-China ties go from here? There is no bigger open question in foreign policy facing the Trump Administration today than what it will do about Chinas rising power and its coercive policies throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Will China rise peacefully, as the esteemed John Mearsheimer loves to ask, or will we spring Graham Allisons Thucydides Trap?

Unfortunately, the future looks quite bleak. Step back for a second and take the 30,000-foot view of where U.S.-China relations are today. The scope and sheer amount of problems both nations have between them is nothing short of historic. In fact, Washington and Beijing face four possible pathways towards a major crisis: territorial tension in the East and South China Seas, Taiwan, and now a growing squabble over trillions of dollars in bilateral trade. Any of these could lead to a major showdown between the worlds two biggest economic and military giants. Combine that with their own unique types of nationalism budding at home, and neither America nor China seem like they will back down anytime soon.

And it is quite obvious that the Trump administration, stacked with Asia wonks itching to push back against years of Chinese coercion, has many options on the table. The new team in the White House could, for example, look at quite a few policy options, such as:

- Beginning the process of helping Taiwan rebuild its aging military, which is currently armed with submarines better suited to fighting World War II than the technologically sophisticated wars of the future. Some have argued to turn the island nation into the military equivalent of a porcupine -- ensuring any military action by China would be costly and hopefully not worth the trouble of an attack.

- Following through with a pledge to rebuild the U.S. military into a fighting force that China would not want to mess with in any possible combat domain. With specific focus on naval, air, and cyber capabilities, Beijing would need to think long and hard about any sort of kinetic conflict with America. In fact, the Trump team should study the recent report published by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments that details in the most comprehensive terms how to restore American seapower -- an area of weakness Washington must shore up soon.

- It could conclude bilateral trade agreements with Japan, Vietnam and many others, replacing the Trans-Pacific Partnership slowly but surely, and ensuring that Washington is tied economically to the Asia-Pacific for generations to come.

- Forge a real partnership with India, with the goal of an eventual alliance of some sort. Washington and New Delhi have shared interests in growing their economic ties. Now with Chinas dangerous actions in recent years, the two sides must shed any apprehension and form a more robust and committed partnership.

- Trump also wants to warm ties with Russia, and if somehow successful, this would leave China alone without a great-power partner to rely on.

Trumps admitting the obvious gives no advantage to Beijing. It just means the bell just rang in what is likely to be a 12-round slugfest that could go on for decades.

Ding. Ding.
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Imagine wakening to a pastel ocean-view sunrise laced with a fresh salt-air breeze of Cape Cod and accompanied by the calming sounds of lazy seagulls drifting effortlessly on a harbor breeze with Marthas Vineyard glistening on the horizon. What a spectacular beginning to the new day! Activities abound in nearby Falmouth Harbor and the neighboring villages awaiting our venturesome vacationers. Historic Woods Hole is only a short trip down the pleasant Shining Sea Bike Path to water front...

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By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 02/10/2017



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

of Orange County is reportedly welcoming back Shannon Beador.Beador is set to return to of Orange County for Season 12, Us Weekly reported Beador joined the cast as a regular Housewife back in Season 9 in 2014, so this will be her fourth edition on the Bravo reality series.Beador's storylines on the show are laced with drama, as her husband David Beador's affair was revealed on Season 10 and then the couple struggled to work things out the following season.Beador also didn't get along with newcomer Kelly Dodd and her ex-friend Vicki Gunvalson. At one point, Gunvalson reportedly claimed David hit his wife, which Beador denied.The news of Beador's involvement with the show follows numerous reports of Housewives either leaving or joining for Season 12.Lydia McLaughlin and Tamra Judge will both reportedly reprise their roles on of Orange County, while Heather Dubrow and Meghan King Edmonds are leaving Dubrow confirmed her show departure after five seasons late last month, although she suggested she'd be open to occasional cameos."After a lot of careful thought and deliberation, I have decided not to return to RHOC this season. These past 5 years have been an incredible journey and I'm so proud to have been a part of such an iconic piece of pop culture," Dubrow told Bravo in a statement."I am so grateful to Evolution Media, Bravo and the whole NBCU family for all of the incredible experiences and the opportunities RHOC has afforded me and my family. However, at this point in my life, I have decided to go in another direction and do what's best for my family and career."Judge all but confirmed her return to the show when she posted a photo of herself on social media wearing a trucker hat that read "#HOUSEWIFE" with the following hashtags in the caption: "#yes #stillahousewife."The rest of the lineup has yet to be determined, according to Us, and Bravo declines comment on all casting rumors.
During the Return Of The Jedi 65 back releases, the image on this figure's card was replaced with a new image and stayed as such on every card printed until the Droids card, where again a new image this time a drawing- replaced the previous image. Though known examples indicate that the switch took place during the 65C production run, It is possible that earlier examples could exist. The original photo made its last appearance on the Return Of The Jedi 65C back. Note that the distinction of 65D and 65E cards is the Anakin figure offer stickers, the 65C was the last printed 65 back variation. Comments: Hard to believe that ten years ago this bad boy would only have cost a collector a few hundred dollars to own carded. It seems that everyone who has joined the vintage collecting community in the last decade insists on owning Boba Fett. Dude may have only had twenty-seven spoken words in the original Star Wars Trilogy, but clearly, considering the fact that up until May 19, 2002 no one knew he was a little clone boy so terribly scarred by the brutal death of his father that he was left with little choice but to become him (talk about denial!), they must have been the right twenty-seven words Does that justify the popularity of the bounty hunter? Who cares, he looks cool! Major Variations: Though all vintage figures have minor variations, the Boba Fett figure has one major variation that is highly sought after, that being the Tri-logo version. The sculpt itself is basically the same, minus the lack of a COO* stamp, but it is molded in a very light blue plastic and often this figure is mistaken to be white. There are four minor variations in the Tri-logo Boba Fett but none is too significant for the casual collector. Thus far the Tri-logo version of Boba Fett has only been documented on European cards. The common version of Boba Fett, which also has a few minor variations in sculpt and spray opts, is not rare in the least, having been available for virtually the entire vintage run, including the Droids line. Boba Fett the A-wing Pilot were the only two figures that made the leap from the basic Star Wars line to the animated line; neither figure was altered in anyway save packaging. This figure was originally intended to feature a rocket-firing action, but due to excessive safety measures, Kenner decided to drop the feature, but only after many months of development. The first version was a kit-bashed figure using parts from other Star Wars action figures and was used in the original photography for the send away figure on the 20 back cards and for the photo insert card of the first release of the Star Wars vinyl collectors case. Interestingly enough, while the kit-bashed Fett was replaced quickly with an image of the production figure, the 20 back cards featuring the send away offer used simple black stickers or a yellow sticker with a black starburst to cover over the incorrect image. The Canadian version of the Boba Fett offer, on the other hand, did sport a sticker with a photo of what would become the mass-released figure. Kenner was still working on the Rocket Firing feature when they resculpted the figure into the well-known form released, and as such, there are a couple differnet versions of prototypes out there. The first, and hardest to fake (though it is still known to be done), is the L slot Fett (pictured above), which does not have COO* or date stamps anywhere on it, and in almost every case, was completely unpainted. The rocket that came with this figure (not shown) is unique to this version in that it only had four risen ridges going up it as opposed to the eight sculpted on the production rocket. Kenners second attempt was the J hook version, which unlike the L slot figure, did have both COO and date stamps and most examples found were painted exactly like the production version. It was designed to have the eight-ridged rocket that was later used in (and sonic welded into) the production figure. Because of all this, the J hook Fett is all too easy to fabricate. *COO is the commonly used term for Country Of Origin, which refers to the stamp usually spotted on a figures leg that states which country it was manufactured in.



Text by D. Martin Myatt. Photography by D. Martin Myatt & Philip Wise.
University of Georgia students werent the only ones checking email and weather apps for signs of snow on Thursday night. 11Alive Chief Meteorologist Chris Holcomb received a text from his 18 year old daughter who was worried that her dads predictions might not come true.
Members of the pro-life movement gathered from across the nation at the 44th annual March fo
Regardless of who youre with on Valentines Day, its a day about love. You can enjoy the holiday even if youre spending it without a signif
Experimentique Night at Cine provided community and networking between artists while anyone in Athens was welcome to attend on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017. Flicker Theatre will host Experimentique Night next week on Wednesday, July 24, 2019.
Investors also appreciate the role being played by the founders; analysts, too, remain unperturbed.

Image: CEO Vishal Sikka with Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy.

Large investors of Infosys, both in India and abroad, have come out in support of Chief Executive Officer Vishal Sikka, and said the promoters and board of directors should back him to execute his strategy.

They have also asked for clarification on the role of founders not associated with the company in an executive role, while appreciating what theyd done to improve corporate governance. They said they were hopeful the current imbroglio would be resolved easily.

An official at Life Insurance Corporation, which owns 6.6% stake in the company, said it would seek comments from the management on the charges made by founder N R Narayana Murthy on governance issues. Especially on the high severance package to former chief financial officer Rajiv Bansal of 24 months salary (Rs 17.38 crore) as compared to three months salary.

The auditors report for 2015-16 does not contain any qualifications, reservations or adverse remarks against this payment, the LIC official said.

Adding that according to the State-owned insurers policy, it would not unsettle the present management, led by Sikka, unless nudged by the government to do so.

Infosys founders, led by Murthy, have said they were concerned about the large payment and other actions of the board.

The LIC official declined to comment on whether or not it would support R Seshasayee. Former directors Mohandas Pai and V Balakrishnan have called for his resignation, over alleged governance issues and disclosure lapses.

Among foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), the OppenheimerFunds, which owns a little more than 2% in the company, said in the past 10 years, it had witnessed patches of unusual turmoil in management and vision at Infosys, with share price performance signalling shareholder exhaustion with internal dissonance, management volatility and internal intrigue.

We have been enormously pleased to see the stabilising hands of Vishal Sikka, who has improved underlying operating performance and begun to articulate a coherent strategy to a firm beset by a host of structural challenges to the aging offshore information technology service industry, Justin Leverenz, portfolio manager of Oppenheimer Developing Markets Fund, said in a letter to the Infosys board.

Managers of Indias equity mutual funds (MFs), who own shares of Infosys worth Rs 16,500 crore, have taken a neutral stand on the events unfolding at the company as far as their investments in the stock are concerned.

Prima facie, I do not see any alarm at the recent developments. The issue is not big and can be easily resolved. The CEO has to be given more time. We had been adding Infosys shares in our portfolios over the past few months, since it slipped below the Rs 1,000 mark, said a chief investment officer, who did not wish to be named.

Investors also appreciate the role being played by the founders.

According to a senior MF executive, Murthy has made it clear that he would not interfere with the Infosys management but will pinpoint if there is any issue in the corporate governance. I think it is clear that the founders respect the current CEO and are acting as watchdogs if something is not up to the mark. What more clarity would investors like us want? Problems in corporate governance have been brought into the limelight and will be addressed well. There is no reason for us to be concerned. There is no question of liquidating Infosys at this stage. The company is good and we have no alternative for it in our holdings.

Investors have reasons to be happy, as the shares have gone up by 14% as compared to the BSE Sensex, up 11%, since Sikka became CEO in August 1, 2014.

According to regulatory filings on stock exchanges as on December 31, the top investors of Infosys include LIC, followed by the Government of Singapore (2.4%) and Oppenheimer Developing (2.13%).

Among domestic institutional investors, HDFC Mutual Fund, ICICI Mutual Fund and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance are the major shareholders, owning between 1.2% and 1.5% stake.

While the founders own 12.7% stake in the company, FPIs own 39%, domestic insurance companies own 11.3% and Indian MFs own 7.4% in Infosys. American depository receipt (ADR) holders accounted for 16.8% of the equity, and BlackRock owns 5% stake through by ADRs.

Analysts, too, remain unperturbed.

We believe, this (controversy) should not weigh on the stock. Sikka wrote to employees that the company is performing in line with the industry despite challenges and given its new strategy led by IP creation and non-linear growth it will come out a winner in the long run. Sikka has led Infosys back to its lost glory after his appointment, said a report by Maybank Kim Eng Securities giving a buy rating on the stock to its institutional clients.

Ex-directors want Infy chairman to resign

Ayan Pramanik & Raghu Krishnan

Infosys Chairman R Seshasayee came under fire on Friday with two former directors, T V Mohandas Pai and V Balakrishnan, publicly asking him to step down over alleged governance issues and disclosure lapses. The company remained silent on the charges.

The pressure intensified with founder N R Narayana Murthy pointing a finger at Seshasayee. Murthy also criticised the high compensation package of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Vishal Sikka (Rs 49 crore annually), and high severance packages of former chief financial and chief compliance officers Rajiv Bansal and David Kennedy, respectively. The company has claimed it followed governance norms in these decisions.

Pai and Balakrishnan also supported Murthys choice of naming Marti Subrahmanyam, Charles E Merrill Professor of Finance at the New York University Stern School of Business, as co-chairman of the company. He served as independent director on the company board for 13 years till 2011.

Both former Infosys directors, Murthy and proxy advisory firms such as InGovern have complained about the dilution of corporate governance norms in the company, since Sikka took over as CEO in August 2014.

In Kannada there is a saying: If you sit under a toddy tree and drink milk, people will think you are drinking toddy. Therefore, it is very important for us not only to do the right thing, but also to be seen doing the right thing. That is the whole issue, Murthy told television channel CNN News18.

Murthy first raised the red flag on the severance package to Bansal a year ago. On Friday, he said Bansal had been given 30 months salary of Rs 24 crore, but the company on Thursday had claimed Bansal was given Rs 17.38 crore, amounting to 24 months of his pay.

One board member, who wished not to be named, said the situation is explosive and board is alive to issues. The company is in process of communicating with stake-holders including investors.

The member declined to elaborate on issues of compensation.

The company got a clean chit from an independent investigation done by Mumbai-headquartered law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. The same law firm has been hired to engage with shareholders, including the founders, on governance lapses. Infosys has maintained that it complied with fiduciary duties and adopted good governance norms.

There is no need to bring in a legal firm to intermediate between the founders and the board. It is the boards job to directly engage with the large investors, whenever there is a concern, said Balakrishnan. My advice as a shareholder will be that the chairman should step down and they should have an interim chairman who engages effectively with the founders and addresses all the concerns.

Murthy did not respond to repeated emails and calls for comment. Infosys did not comment on the charge by the former directors. An email sent to Seshasayee remained unanswered.

The report of the nomination and remuneration committee, in the companys 2016 annual report, does not say anything about the severance package given to the former CFO. It is a very important matter, the company should write about it. When a CFO leaves, the audit committee has an obligation to meet him individually and ask if there is anything wrong, said Pai.

The board, headed by Seshasayee, had treated me and V Balakrishnan shabbily, he added, when they wrote to the company for a share buyback.
Image: Rows of Ambassador cars are seen at the Hindustan Motors plant in Hindmotors. Photograph: Jayanta Shaw/Reuters.

This is the second deal between Peugeot and the C K Birla group. Last month, the two groups entered a long-term partnership, with an initial investment in capital expenditure of close to 700 crore, for vehicle and power-train manufacturing in Tamil Nadu.

The iconic Ambassador brand, once ubiquitous in official use, will now belong to Peugeot SA (PSA) -- for 80 crore.

In an intimation to stock exchanges, the C K Birla-controlled Hindustan Motors said it had entered a deal that included the sale of the Ambassador brand trademarks.

It later said, in a statement, Ambassador has been an iconic brand and a surplus asset with us. We were looking for a suitable opportunity and found the right buyer in the PSA group. We intend to use the proceeds from the sale in clearing dues of employees, lenders and others.

This is the second deal between Peugeot and the C K Birla group. Last month, the two groups entered a long-term partnership, with an initial investment in capital expenditure of close to 700 crore, for vehicle and power-train manufacturing in Tamil Nadu.

According to the arrangement, the partnership entails two joint venture agreements with the C K Birla group. In the first, PSA would hold a majority stake in a joint venture with Hindustan Motors Finance Corporation (HMFC) for assembly and distribution of PSA passenger cars in India. HMFC was formed after the Chennai plant was hived off. It assembles Mitsubishi cars and Isuzu commercial vehicles.

Also, PSA will set up an equal joint venture with AVTEC, formerly part of Hindustan Motors, for manufacture and supply of power-trains. The sites for both vehicle assembly and power-trains will be Tamil Nadu.

PSAs statement, last month, had said the partnership was a keystone in the groups journey in the country.

Sector observers said the deal with Peugeot for the Ambassador brand could give it the much-required push. The Ambassador used to be manufactured at the companys Uttarpara plant in West Bengal. But, low productivity, growing indiscipline [among labourers], shortage of funds and lack of demand for the products made the management suspend production on May 24, 2014, said the companys latest annual report.

In 2015, the company announced a voluntary retirement scheme for all permanent grade-scale staff and technicians. Till now, 645 employees have opted for it, said the annual report.

The Ambassador had been on a steady decline for long.

According to former company executives, adequate investments in plants or design were not made, leading to the demise of the brand.

The car, fashioned on the Morris Oxford, has had its share of glory.

Hindustan Motors, established in 1942 by C K Birlas grandfather, B M Birla, was the first indigenous carmaker. The first 40 years of the Ambassadors journey were terrific. By the end of the 1970s, the Ambassador had a market share of 75 per cent.

The slide started when Maruti Suzuki launched Maruti 800 in 1983. Between 1984 and 1991, reports suggested that the Ambassadors market share tumbled to 20 per cent. That marked the beginning of the end of the road for the iconic car.
I agree he is honest, but what is the use of such honesty if he couldn't crack a whip and expel those who plundered the wealth of the country, asks Sudhir Bisht.

After Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's 'earthquake' didn't create any tremors, his party is now riding on the coattails of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'raincoat' remark against his predecessor Manmohan Singh to shake Parliament up during the Budget session.

The grand old party has threatened that it will not allow the prime minister to speak in the Rajya Sabha unless he apologises for his jibe.

The Congress had been itching to stall the Budget session even before the first word was spoken by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on February 1.

It tried to rake up the issue of the unfortunate death of the affable and endearing member of Parliament, E Ahamed, to postpone the Budget presentation by a day.

But finding itself isolated in the Lok Sabha, where it has a strength of just 45, it waited for an opportune moment to create some sensation in the Rajya Sabha where its members number 115.

Not finding anything substantive to protest against the Bharatiya Janata Party government in terms of the merits and demerits of the Budget, the Congress has now latched on to PM Modi's remarks in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, February 8.

Modi, on the floor of the House, had said, 'Bathroom mein raincoat pehan karke nahaana, yeh kala toh Doctor Sahab hi jaantey hain, aur koi nahi jaanta (to take bath in the bathroom while wearing a raincoat is an art which only Dr Sahab knows. Nobody else knows this art)'

Elaborating, the PM said his predecessor, Dr Singh, has been a part of the Indian political and administrative system for over 30 years.

Still, during his time as PM, many scams and financial wrongdoings were committed, but he didn't have a single charge of corruption or financial irregularity against him personally.

As someone who has been following Modi on Twitter, I know that he is generous with his praise. But in this case I am sure that he didn't utter these words with the intent of praising Dr Singh.

He definitely aimed at making the Congress party squirm and squeal and he did succeed in his intent.

What Modi said was at worst a below-the-belt jab at the Congress party's cleanest mascot and at best banter at his predecessor who in the winter session of Parliament had called the PM's demonetisation move 'a case of organised loot and legalised plunder of the common people.'

The ferocity and nastiness in the choice of Dr Singh's words were far, far greater in magnitude when compared to Modi's 'raincoat in the bathroom' analogy.

Modi was humorous even though the humour itself may have a tinge of black in it. But it wasn't an assault on Dr Singh's integrity.

It was rather a subtle mocking, a reproach that he sat quietly when some of his ministerial colleagues indulged in loot and plunder.

Such is Manmohan Singh's image that anyone mocking him or taking a swipe at his exaggerated honesty gets panned.

I call his honesty exaggerated as any honest leader who shuts his eyes when his friends and their relatives indulge in corrupt practices cannot be a saint.

Let me give an analogy here to explain my point of view.

Imagine that you hired a CEO to look after your profitably running business enterprise and gave him a free hand to manage its affairs.

The CEO was hired by you based upon the recommendation of your trusted friend to whom the manager is obviously grateful.

You leave the enterprise and immerse yourself in your other activities.

Your newly appointed CEO has a great reputation and has been a successful finance manager in the past. His integrity is impeccable and he has several academic achievements to his credit.

You discuss the top-line and the bottom-line expectations with him and agree to review his performance on a periodic basis.

After a few months your firm's suppliers start writing to you that all is not well in your company.

The procurement managers have been asking for bribes and the commercial department has been cheating on taxes.

You confront the new CEO who confesses that there have been serious lapses, but they were committed by the managers under him who too owed their jobs to the same friend of yours who recommended the hiring of the CEO.

He says he did his best to stem the rot.

He even noted on the files that procurement should be more transparent and all tax compliances must be made, but the managers didn't pay heed to him.

The CEO then affirms under oath that he personally didn't gain anything from the misdeeds of his managers.

He then says your friend who recommended him to the job protected the corrupt managers even though he had no stake in the enterprise.

What would be your feelings towards such a CEO?

Will you let him off saying that he himself has been honest at a personal level and was just a victim of loyalty to his benefactor's compulsions?

Not at all. You would sack the CEO without demur and may even accuse him of being a co-conspirator in harming your company's interests.

Under no circumstances would you have the feelings of 'Oh! But at a personal level he is a saint.'

Just replace your company with our nation and put Dr Singh in place of the CEO.

It is widely alleged and believed by many that the country lost Rs 30,984 crores in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

Under Manmohan Singh, the country would have lost an estimated 1.86 lakh crores of rupees due to the coal scam, as per the figures of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

I have my straightforward views on Dr Singh's character and reputation.

His honest reputation is sky-high, but this is reflective more of the abysmal depths the collective reputation of our politicians has fallen into.

I concede that Dr Singh is a reputed economist but such economists are aplenty, teaching the theories of Keynes, Adam Smith and Amartya Sen at the Delhi School of Economics.

I agree that he is honest, but what is the use of such honesty if he couldn't crack a whip and expel those who plundered the wealth of the country?

Singh certainly didn't enrich his own coffers, but his exaggerated sense of honesty and the fig leaf of being personally incorruptible were swept away in the first squall of politics of coalition compulsions.

It is time to take the sainthood away from Dr Manmohan Singh.

Is he not the same former prime minister who claimed in writing in his election affidavit that he was ordinarily a resident of Assam when the whole world knows that his claim doesn't match up with reality?

Narendra Modi is the most followed leader in India, but we must also end our obsession with exaggerating Modi's jibes into a war cry, as if he is a trigger-happy combatant ever ready to heap indignity on his opponents.

There has to be space for lampoon and burlesque in the gory world of power politics.

I wonder why there is no uproar when the leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, made an appalling dog analogy when he said that the Nehru Gandhi family made supreme sacrifices for the country whereas not even a dog from the BJP side made any sacrifice for the nation.

Was Kharge being civil in his speech?

I conclude by noting that while Congress members staged a walkout at the perceived insult of its brand ambassador of honesty, the former PM himself kept sitting.

It took another saint of the party, former defence minister A K Antony, to urge Dr Singh to join the walkout.

Sudhir Bisht, author and columnist, tweets at @sudhir_bisht
Fencing the border between Myanmar and Nagaland is expected to adversely affect the Naga tribals whose lives straddle both sides of the border.

Gautam Sen, an expert on Nagaland, explains why the Indian government needs a more comprehensive and long-term perspective on this issue and why it must take local tribal sensitivities and customs into account.

IMAGE: The fencing of the India-Myanmar border in Tuensang district of Nagaland has led to resentment among the Khiamniungan people, many of whose land and personal immovable assets spread across the border.

Photograph: Kind courtesy Tuensang.nic.in

India's frontier with Myanmar stretches over nearly 1,643 km, of which 215 km involve Nagaland.

At short notice, the Myanmar government of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy recently intimated to the Government of India that it desires to fence this Nagaland portion of the border on their side.

The Indian authorities were apparently surprised at Myanmar's decision. New Delhi, however, consented to Naypyidaw's request.

In early December, the Myanmar authorities started preliminary reconnaissance survey adjacent to the Noklak sub-division of Tuensang district, before eventually erecting a fence beyond the stipulated 500 metre line on their side of the India-Myanmar border.

As a result, in this area of Tuensang district of eastern Nagaland, resentment has built up among the eastern Nagaland tribesman, the Khiamniungan people, many of whose land and personal immovable assets straddle both sides of the border.

There are many Khiamniungan families whose members have been residing on both sides of this portion of the border for ages.

As a consequence of the decision to fence the border, the daily life and livelihood activities of the Naga Khianmiugan people are expected to be adversely affected.

The matter has been raised consequently at the administrative level by the chief secretary of the Nagaland Ggovernment with the Union home secretary and also politically by the former chief minister and lone Lok Sabha member of Parliament from the state with the prime minister on January 16.

There are security implications of a 'soft border' or an 'open border regime' (a border control system that permits movement without passport and visa clearance) with Myanmar.

Given that the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagalim (Khaplang group) (NSCN-K), which opted out of the ceasefire with the GoI in March 2015, have camps in Myanmar and had subsequently launched hostile armed action against the Indian Army and other security forces deployed in the India-Myanmar border regions, an 'open border regime' may be deemed to apparently work against India's security interests.

Notwithstanding this backdrop, the border, and particularly the Indian contiguous zone, cannot be secure, if peace and tranquility does not prevail there.

Peace and tranquillity can be possible in a milieu in which the local people are happy and able to perform their normal socio-economic activities as per their customs, needs and choice.

Viewed from these perspectives, there is a need to strike a balance between the two factors -- security requirement against hostile anti-India elements, which operate from their camps and hideouts across the border, and maintaining an environment harmonious to the customs and pattern of life of the tribal persons who have been inhabiting the border region spread over the cartographic boundary.

IMAGE: A Naga man hunts in the Naga Self-Administered Zone in the Sagaing division of Myanmar.

These people of Naga stock have enjoyed a large degree of autonomy from Myanmar, a fact that anti-India elements like the NSCN(K) have exploited.

Photograph: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters.

It appears that, there is need for a more integrated and harmonious approach on such border management issues.

The state government, in this case, does not seem to have been in the loop of New Delhi's decision-making process with regard to conveying a 'no objection' to Naypyidaw on the Myanmar government's border fencing proposal.

Though cognisant of the security backdrop, the GoI obviously had not anticipated the timing of the Myanmar government's move, and also failed to visualize the local political repercussions on the border fence issue.

There were repeated references to New Delhi from the Assam Rifles' authorities covering the India-Myanmar border, on the likely security-related implications of the 'free border regime' and the advantage being taken of the existing arrangements by anti-India elements who moved in and out of Myanmar and mingled with the local people.

An effective India-Myanmar joint management of the prevalent 'free border regime' seems to be lacking in the Nagaland segment --n between boundary pillars number 145 and 146 of the India-Myanmar boundary.

The GOI should have taken the state government into confidence, and instituted a suitable oversight mechanism in this border region in concert with the Myanmar authorities, before conveying clearance to Naypyidaw for reconnaissance and erection of the proposed boundary fencing.

However, it is understood from authoritative sources, that the boundary fencing survey and other associated activities, have been temporarily halted by the Myanmar government authorities at the end of December 2016.

The matter has also been deliberated upon during Myanmar's mational security adviser's visit to India earlier this month.

The Government of India has a respite because the border fencing activity has been suspended for some time.

The India-Myanmar border is well delineated.

There are no major contentious issues in this respect. However, the writ of the governments, particularly on the Myanmar side in its Sagaing administrative division, has not extended substantively to these areas.

A void has consequently arisen over the years, in the exercising of control over movement of persons and material across the border.

The issue seems to have got accentuated owing to deterioration in the situation in Myanmar's Rakhine state of this western administrative division, and some fringe elements of the ethnically persecuted Rohingyas attempting to resort to armed action against Myanmar State interests.

The NSCN(K) has also exploited this void, to disturb peace and security on the Indian side.

The GoI will have to strike a balance between its overall security interests and need for strategic control in this region, with maintenance of tribal harmony and retaining the affiliation of the Naga people of the border areas.

There has already been strong resentment on what is being viewed as obstruction by the government authorities on the Indian side, on observance of tribal customs, way of life and fulfilment of economic needs of the people who are ethnically similar and spread across the international boundary line.

This has led to a situation where a de facto border as a defined interrupting obstacle does not exist in the psyche of the local residents.

Complementarities in economic needs of the ethnic communities across the border, is also a determining factor towards this free movement.

Attempts to impose a physical obstacle in the form of a fence is, therefore, creating tension for the affected tribal people of Nagaland as well as our civil administrators and those concerned with border management like the Assam Rifles and other central police forces and the Indian Army, which remain responsible for ultimate strategic control of the international border.

IMAGE: NSCN rebels at their headquarters in Hebron, Nagaland in 2004.

Photograph: Utpal Baruah/Reuters

Myanmar has been having its problem of integrating its ethnic sub-national groups over a considerable period of time.

There has been some progress in the recent years, particularly since October 2015, towards the central government of Myanmar trying to arrive at a political modus vivendi with its ethnic non-Burman minorities and resorting to a low-key military posture vis-a-vis the ethnic minority armed groups.

In the process, the people of Naga stock in the areas bordering India, in the western Sagaing division of the country, have been enjoying a large degree of de facto autonomy, from Myanmar's central government in management of their own affairs.

Though this has not contributed to measurable economic benefits for the community, the anti-India elements like the NSCN(K) exploited the situation to politically influence some the ethnic groups residing in western Myanmar and eastern Nagaland.

Notwithstanding the cross-border Indian Army operation conducted against the NSCN(K) and its allied elements, the GoI has to do more to ensure that the NSCN(K) and its supportive elements are effectively neutralised and compelled to remain within Myanmar's political adjustment-cum-understanding framework, the ambit of its polity and constitutional processes.

After all, Khaplang is a Myanmar citizen and cannot avoid remaining beyond the pale of that country's administrative control and legal regime.

The civilian Myanmar government led by Htin Kyaw (of Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD) and its military establishment, have also to be persuaded not to leave the NSCN(K) out of their country's political and administrative control.

New Delhi has to be more assertive and effective to obtain a favourable political outcome for India.

Such an outcome will enable a 'free border regime' to prevail on the above referred part of the India-Myanmar border, which may be deemed an inescapable necessity for harmonious Centre-State relations in India apropos Nagaland, as well as political contentment of India's ethnic groups within the architecture of the country's accommodative constitutional framework, legal regime and subordinate laws.

Since 2013, a demand for effective financial devolution and faster development of the eastern Nagaland districts of Tuensang, Mon, Longleng and Kiphire has arisen along with the accompanying ENPO (Eastern Nagaland Peoples' Organisation) movement.

The demand has some merit if socio-economic factors are reckoned vis-a-vis these districts as compared to the relatively advanced districts like Dimapur, Kohima, Mokukchung and Zhuneboto.

Though the ENPO has not become a major political factor in the state, it is undeniable that such political ferment will only induce the backward tribes like the Khiamniungam to seek more trade and intercourse with fellow ethnic groups across the border in Myanmar, and a 'free border regime'.

The GoI should not ignore such economic disparities, which are not an insignificant factor behind the local public outcry for maintaining a status quo in respect of the border regime.

A more comprehensive and long-term perspective of border management, instead of a simply security-oriented view related to circumstances of the immediate past and the present, is required, without being oblivious of local tribal sensitivities and customs.

On both counts, there is much to be done by the GoI and the state government in a spirit of cooperative federalism.

Gautam Sen is a retired Indian Defence Accounts Service officer, who has served in senior positions with the Government of India and was a former adviser to the chief minister of Nagaland. The views expressed are the author's own.
'It behoves us in India to watch how the US is pushing back.'

'It's a lesson in rising to the defence of Constitutional values when the administration won't,' says Mitali Saran.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

So the USA did actually go there -- The Donald is in The House.

He's scaling back the Affordable Care Act.

He has pissed off the CIA.

He's planning to start building the wall in a month.

He's into bringing back torture.

And, true to his female-rating, daughter-checking-out self, he has blocked federal funding to organisations that help women access information on abortion.

He told ABC News that he 'can be the most presidential person ever, other than possibly the great Abe Lincoln, all right? But I can be the most presidential person. But I may not be able to do the job nearly as well if I do that.'

You have to presume that compulsive tweeting about how he won the popular vote, not Hillary Clinton, falls under doing the job well.

The popular vote, gigantic women-led protest marches following Trump's inauguration, and 'resistance' twitter handles from the US National Park Service, NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, give one heart that today's White House, led by billionaires, racists, misogynists, obscurantists, and anti-intellectuals, does not represent new American constitutional values.

That the American press has decided -- albeit belatedly -- to unitedly fact-check every statement, and call out every official infraction of data, law, and civil rights, instead of just chase TRPs, is heartening.

But that is cold comfort to those who have to watch a cabinet of under-educated rich people take an axe to, say, arts funding and Planned Parenthood.

How does a Trump end up in the Oval Office?

According to a recent Oxfam study, the richest one per cent of humans own more wealth than the rest of the planet.

You would think the dispossessed would be looking warily at a narcissistic billionaire who, as president, refuses to divest himself of his personal business interests.

But no: Almost as many people who recoil from him, love him, because at the end of the day, Americans still worship power, celebrity and wealth.

Trump paints himself as an outsider to the rotten politics of Washington, a change maker, a guy who shares your contempt and resentment of oligarchy.

We have some of the same problems in India, where we are today led by anti-intellectual, misogynist, Hindu chauvinists and ultra-nationalists, and equally hobbled by our fetishisation of power, social and caste status, celebrity and wealth.

It makes sense that we elected a man who does not come from a privileged background, and promises increased prosperity and an end to the corruption that has hollowed this country out.

He does have very rich friends, but Narendra Modi, too, is an outsider to the discredited politics of Delhi, a man projecting himself as a change maker who shares your contempt and resentment of oligarchy.

But while that makes sense in a country understandably sick of institutionalised corruption and ostentatious sycophancy, Mr Modi's election has also revealed a country more majoritarian-minded than ever before, empowering those who see the Constitution as an inconvenience.

Assuming that we believe our wallets are fuller -- according to the Oxfam study, 57 individuals own the same amount of wealth as the bottom 70 per cent of the population -- we seem much less interested than we should be in holding power to account.

It behoves us in India to watch how the US is pushing back.

It's a lesson in rising to the defence of Constitutional values when the administration won't.

The pro-Modi argument, that a person who won a large electoral mandate should 'be respected', that is, not challenged, is as popular as it is nuts: It is exactly when great power is accorded that great watchfulness is needed.

We have come to the point, on this planet, where large sections of people see the well educated, the reasonable, and the inclusive, as a snotty, out of touch enemy that breeds and dominates a nebulous 'system' that works exclusively for itself.

To the extent that liberals have a hard time understanding other ways of being, it is.

But the idea that you have to be privileged and rich to worry about the environment and the arts and gay rights and minorities and human rights, is utter nonsense.

It's one thing to say that everyone should have access to a good education and the chance to stand with pluralism or agnosticism or universal human rights.

But to say that those things are irrelevant, or a luxury, or out of touch, is the same as declaring oneself to be, at best, uninvested in one's country, and at worst, outright racist, misogynistic, bigoted, chauvinistic, and casteist.

Understanding where someone comes from is not the same as agreeing with where they are going.

To say this is not to be out of touch. It is to call something out that needs calling out.

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A Chinese soldier, who was stuck in India for over 50 years after he crossed over the border following the 1962 war, on Saturday arrived in Beijing with his Indian family members to an emotional reunion with his Chinese kin.

Wang Qi, 77, was received by his close Chinese relatives, besides officials of the China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Indian embassy when he arrived in Beijing along with his son, daughter-in-law and grand daughter from Delhi-Beijing flight.

Wang became emotional as he hugged his relatives, their first reunion after he crossed into Indian side over five decades ago.

"It was an emotional reunion," an official present at the Beijing airport said.

Wang was accompanied by his son Vishnu Wang, 35, daughter-in-law Neha and grand daughter, Khanak Wang. His Indian wife Shushila, however, stayed back.

Indian officials said Wang and family members will be later flown to Xian, the provincial capital in Shaanxi province from where he will be taken to his native village Xue Zhai Nan Cun in the province.

His return became a possibility after India and China worked out modalities for both Wang and his Indian family to travel together to China and later return as per their wish.

Wang was caught when he entered the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962.

After his release from prison in 1969, he settled in Tirodi village of Balaghat district in Madhya Pradesh.

Though his story has been published by Indian media several times in the past, a recent BBC TV feature on him was widely picked by the Chinese social media highlighting his plight, prompting the Chinese government to initiate action in coordination with India to facilitate his return.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on February 6 that he was provided a passport to travel to China in 2013 and he was also paid a living allowance.

Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui recently spoke to him.

While the Chinese government has provided visas for his family to visit China, India has provided a re-entry visa for Wang to return back if he chooses to.

Indian officials terms the facilitation of the travel of Wang and his family by both sides s positive development, specially at a time when India-China relations were stuck with differences over issues like China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China blocking India's entry into Nuclear Suppliers Group and listing of JeM leader Masood Azhar as terrorist by the United Nations.

Before leaving for Beijing, Vishnu told media in India on Friday: "My father joined the Chinese Army in 1960 and he entered India through the eastern frontier after losing his way in the darkness one night."

He landed in Assam where an Indian Red Cross team handed him over to the Indian Army on January 1, 1963.

"My father spent six years in prisons in Assam, Ajmer, Delhi before the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered his release in March 1969," Vishnu said.

"The Indian government had promised to the court that it will rehabilitate my father. He was taken to Delhi, Bhopal, Jabalpur and then finally handed over to Balaghat police," said his son.

Wang started working as a watchman with a mill and soon his colleagues named him Raj Bahadur, apparently due to his Nepali features, Vishnu said.

Wang's mother died in 2006 but he could not be with his dear ones in the time of grief, Vishnu said.

Three years later he met his nephew Yun Chun, who had come to India as a tourist and narrated his ordeal to him.

After returning home, Chun got in touch with Chinese politicians and authorities to bring his uncle home.

Finally, he met then Chinese foreign minister who helped Wang to get a Chinese passport in March 2013.
The first phase of UP polls in 73 assembly constituencies on Saturday witnessed an "exemplary" 64.22 per cent voter turnout.

IMAGE: Muslim girls show their inked fingers after casting votes during the first phase of UP assembly polls in Aligarh on Saturday. Photograph: PTI Photo

The Election Commission did not give the figures of voter turnout on the corresponding seats in the 2012 assembly polls, but said the percentage recorded on Saturday was higher than the 58.62 overall turnout recorded in the state then.

The overall turnout in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls was 59.12 per cent.

IMAGE: A woman leaves after casting her vote at a polling booth in Hapur. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Deputy Election Commissioner in charge of Uttar Pradesh Vijay Dev termed the turnout as "exemplary" and said it will "set the tone for the remaining six phases" to be held between February 15 and March 8.

Etah recorded 73 per cent turnout, Muzaffarnagar 65 pc, Bulandshahr 64 pc, Noida 60 pc and Ghaziabad 57 pc, Chief Electoral Officer T Venkatesh said.

A total of 2.60 crore voters, including over 1.17 crore women and 1,508 belonging to third gender category were eligible to cast their ballot to decide the fate of 839 candidates.

IMAGE: People queue to cast their vote in the town of Shamli. Photograph: Cathal McNaughton/Reuters

A report from Baghpat said members of different communities clashed in Baghu colony in the city when one side tried stop the other from casting their votes. Ten persons were injured in the clash and had to be admitted to hospital, police said.

Another incident of violence was reported from Baghpat, where Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal workers obstructed Dalit voters from casting their vote in Looyan village under Badaut area, leading to clash and FIR being lodged against three party workers.

IMAGE: A man (right) casts his vote as polling officers look on at a polling booth in Hapur. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

In Meerut, police detained Gagan Som, brother of controversial BJP leader Sangeet Som, for carrying a pistol inside a polling booth.

Gagan had reached the polling booth in Sardhana Assembly seat at 9am. The security personnel deployed there frisked him and recovered a pistol from his possession. He was immediately detained, police said.

IMAGE: People queue to cast their vote as a security personnel stands guard at a polling station in Hapur. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Officials said that as per the poll code, those possessing licensed weapons are required to deposit them with the police. The permission to keep arms is granted in special cases only.

Sangeet is a sitting MLA from Sardhana and had shot to limelight for his controversial speeches during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.

The first phase of polling will decide the electoral fortunes of son of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Pankaj Singh (from Noida), Congress Legislature Party leader Pradeep Mathur (Mathura) against whom BJP spokesman Srikant Sharma is in the fray, daughter of BJP MP Hukum Singh Mriganka Singh (Kairana), and controversial BJP MLAs Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana from Sardhana and Thanabhawan respectively.

IMAGE: A woman looks at the Electronic Voting Machine before casting her vote inside a booth at a polling station. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Former BJP state president Lakshmikant Bajpai (Meerut), RJD chief Lalu Prasad's son-in-law Rahul Singh (SP) from Sikandrabad, and Sandeep Singh, grandson of Rajasthan Govenor Kalyan Singh from Atrauli are among other key figures in this phase.

The districts where polling was held are Hapur, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras, Agra, Firozabad, Etah and Kasganj.

In the 73 constituencies where polling was held, SP and BSP had bagged 24 seats each in the 2012 polls, BJP 11, RLD nine and Congress five.

Election Coverage

Uttar Pradesh ' Punjab ' Goa ' Uttarakhand ' Manipur
A look back on all of our reporting of the Delphi murders since 2017
Members of a Myanmar investigation commission looking into recent violence in Rakhine states Maungdaw township set out on a six-day fact-finding mission on Friday to investigate United Nations allegations of human rights violations of Rohingya Muslims by security forces.

A 43-page report issued on Feb. 3 by the U.N.s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that killings, rapes, and other abuses committed against Rohingya Muslims allegedly by soldiers and police after coordinated attacks on three border guard posts in early October indicate the very likely commission of crimes against humanity.

The U.N. issued this report on Maungdaw, and we decided to find out the truth regarding the allegations, said commission member Saw Thalay Saw, a member of parliament from Shwegyin in Bago region. We will be there until the 16th of the month.

Vice president Myint Swe, who chairs the commission, will not accompany the bodys other members because he is preoccupied with preparations for the countrys Union Day celebrations on Feb. 12, which commemorates the day in 1947 that independence hero General Aung San, father of leader Aung San Suu Kyi, helped to unify the country after the end of British colonial rule.

On Wednesday, Myanmars foreign affairs ministry issued a statement in response to OHCHRs report, saying the government commission will look into the U.N.s accusations and determine whether there is clear evidence that security forces abused and committed human rights violations in northern Rakhine.

The ministry also said the government will take action against those found guilty of such abuses.

The national-level commission has been investigating reports of murder, torture, arson, and rape in northern Rakhine state since December and has made two other trips to the areas affected by violence.

In January, the commission issued an interim report, saying it had found no cases of genocide or religious persecution of Rohingya Muslims living in the region in the wake of deadly border guard attacks last October and a subsequent security lockdown.

It also said its interviews of local residents about rape allegations by Rohingya women and girls who fled to Bangladesh had yielded insufficient evidence to take legal action, and that its investigations into accusations of arson, torture, and illegal arrests were ongoing.

Protests against radio station

Meanwhile, demonstrators in seven townships in Rakhine on Friday staged protests against a new government-run community radio station that broadcasts in the Rohingya language for Muslims in northern Rakhine state.

May Yu FM radio began broadcasting on Feb. 1 in Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung townships in what ethnic Rakhine people refer to as the Bengali language. It also broadcasts in the Burmese and Arakanese languages.

Myanmar, which views the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, has denied members of the minority group citizenship and access to basic services, though many have lived in the country for generations.

Ethnic Rakhine people believe the broadcasts will legitimize the Rohingya, who are not included among the countrys officially recognized ethnicities.

Even we Rakhines are not fully getting our citizens rights, and now they are giving special rights to these Bengali people, Ko Maung Win Naing, a protest organizer from Buthidaung, told RFAs Myanmar Service, using a derogatory term for the Rohingya.

It is like a total disregard for local people, he said, adding that the protesters will accept the broadcasts only if they are in Burmese. The radio program began on Feb 1.

Myanmars information ministry said the radio service will provide news and information to keep up with the times and to dispel rumors that emerge in the areas affected by violence.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Tran Thi Lua (C), facing trial for trying to flee Vietnam by boat, in court, Sept. 1, 2016.

Three Vietnamese families returned by Australian authorities last year after they tried to illegally migrate there are now being held in Indonesia after fleeing Vietnam a second time by boat, a woman in the group said.

"Our boat engine was broken after 12 days at sea when we were still in Indonesias waters. Indonesian police and local people helped us," Tran Thi Lua told RFA's Vietnamese Service in a brief interview on Friday. She did not identify where in the archipelago nation the families were staying.



"I asked them not to return us to Vietnam. I showed them proof of our imprisonment and they told us that they would not return us to Vietnam. But they said they have to wait for their bosss decision," she said. There was no immediate comment from Indonesia on the case.



The families of Lua , Tran Thi Thanh Loan and Tran Thi Phuc, six adults and 12 children, left Vietnam on Aug. 31, Lua's lawyer said last week.



All three families fled to Australia in 2015 but were returned to Vietnam the same year where some of them were sentenced to a total of six years in prison by a court in Binh Thuan province on Vietnams southeast coast, Attorney Vo An Don wrote on social media on Feb. 3



This time Loan left with her four children because her husband is still in prison, Don said. She was sentenced to 36 months in prison, and her husband who was sentenced to 24 years is still serving his term, Don said last week.

"I am looking for a refugee status in Australia because the Vietnamese communists, the government of Vietnam, imprisoned my husband and me," Lua told RFA. ""After he is released I will have to serve my sentence. That is why I myself and Loan, whose husband is now in prison, are very worried."

Lua was sentenced to 30 months in prison, but her and Loans prison sentences have been put on hold for one year and will resume in July, Don said last week.

"Our children may not be able to go to school. I asked them to let my children go to school but they refused," Lua said.

She told RFA that she learned from her lawyer, Don, that "Vietnam has issued a national arrest warrant for us."

Vietnam and Australia signed a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) on human smuggling last year to counter irregular migration by Vietnamese boat people who try to enter the country illegally in search of work.

The Australian government takes a zero-tolerance stance on boat people under its Operation Sovereign Borders policy.

Other Vietnamese boat people who were caught and returned to the country by Australian authorities last year are serving longer sentences under Article 349 of a new penal code approved by Vietnam in July 2016, which pertains to organizing for others to flee the country illegally.

Reported by RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
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Thousands of Pakistani tribesmen set off for Islamabad to demand major administrative reforms. These men joined a convoy in Peshawar, before heading to the capital to call for a merger of the tribal areas into Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. (RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal)
Ljubisa Beara, a former Bosnian Serb officer convicted of genocide by a United Nations war crimes court for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, has died in a German prison, authorities said.

Beara, 77, a security chief in the wartime Bosnian Serb Army headquarters, died on February 8, authorities said on February 10.

Beara was convicted in 2010 of genocide for his role in the slaughter of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern enclave of Srebrenica -- Europe's worst massacre since World War II.

Appeals judges at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague largely upheld the convictions in 2015, after which Beara was sent to Berlin's Tegel prison to serve his life sentence. The ruling was the first final judgment of genocide by the UN court.

Bosnian Serb troops overran Muslim forces and thinly armed UN troops in Srebrenica in July 1995 following a yearslong siege. They separated the men and the boys from the women and girls, killed most of the males, and buried their bodies in hastily dug mass graves.

Forensic experts in Bosnia have identified more than 6,100 of the victims so far and their remains have been reburied at a memorial center near Srebrenica.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP
European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker says the European Union will give Ukraine 600 million euros ($640 million) to bolster government finances.

Juncker, speaking on February 10 after talks with Ukraine Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman, said the country had pressed ahead with reforms despite difficult conditions and that the EU should now make good on its aid pledges.



"We have a strategic partnership with Ukraine and our future relations will develop along these lines," he told reporters after the meeting.

Hroysman said it was very important to send a strong signal to Ukrainians that ties with the EU were "a positive result and would improve their lives."

Juncker also said he expects that visa liberalization for citizens of Ukraine, long sought by Kyiv, would be in place by the middle of the year.

The EU and Ukraine have signed an Association Agreement and a free-trade deal to bolster Ukraine's struggling economy, with Brussels offering 3.4 billion euros in loans to help Kyiv balance public spending.

The EU has so far handed over 2.2 billion euros, with disbursements tied to progress on political and economic reforms.

Western governments and analysts say that swifter, more thorough reforms would reduce the influence of Russia, which seized the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and backs separatists in a war that has killed more than 9,750 people since April 2014.

Based on reporting by Reuters and kyivpost.com
Russian and Ukrainian forces exchanged heavy artillery fire in multiple locations, officials in both countries said, as Russian-appointed officials continued evacuating people from the west bank of the Dnieper River amid a mounting Ukrainian counteroffensive.

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, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Ukraine's national grid operator, meanwhile, said on November 5 that it would increase rolling blackouts in Kyiv and seven other regions as the countrys national grid remained severely damaged by weeks of Russian air strikes.

Electricity consumption is rising across Ukraine as the weather turns colder, and energy providers have raced to do repairs, ordering planned power cuts to avoid overloads.

Ukraines General Staff said that its troops thwarted Russian attacks a day earlier in the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The military also claimed that Ukrainian air defenses shot down multiple Russian and Iranian drones and two Kalibr cruise missiles. The claim could not be immediately verified.

The head of the Vynnytsya region, Serhiy Borzov, said the central region was hit overnight by Russian kamikaze drones.

Russian troops have been actively using Iranian drones in recent weeks to attack critical civilian and infrastructure objectives.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the fiercest fighting over the last week had taken place around Bakhmut and Soledar in Donetsk and that Ukrainian forces are holding their positions there and elsewhere.

He also spoke of "good gains" in the south, praising infantry and artillery brigades for destroying enemy equipment, Russian manpower.

The claims of battlefield success could not be independently verified.

Ukrainian forces have been mounting a slow, incremental counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region for weeks now, moving closer to directly threatening the Dnieper River port of Kherson, which was captured early after Russias February invasion.

In response, Russian authorities have been evacuating civilians and military troops to the opposite bank of the Dnieper.

Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russia-installed administration in the Kherson region, announced a 24-hour curfew on November 4, saying it was necessary to defend it from an expected Ukrainian attack.

The Russian military said "more than 5,000 civilians" were being evacuated daily to the east bank of the river. And Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 4 called for civilians to be moved out from Kherson.

Those who live in Kherson must now be removed from the zone of the most dangerous hostilities, Putin said in remarks broadcast on state television. The civilian population should not suffer from shelling, from the offensive, counteroffensive, and other measures related to military operations.

Russias Defense Ministry said on November 5 that troops had repelled Ukrainian attacks in in the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson regions. In the Kherson region, which the Kremlin last month declared had been annexed, authorities reported the heaviest artillery fire in days.

Ukrainian officials have likened the departures of Kherson residents to Soviet-style deportations, though its unclear to what extent the departures are forced or voluntary. Russian officials said people were being moved to safety from the path of the Ukrainian advance.

Ukraines counteroffensives in Kherson and the northern Kharkiv region have been powered in large part by powerful Western weaponry. On November 4, the U.S. Defense Department announced another $400 million shipment of weapons and other equipment, including refurbished tanks, surface-to-air missiles, new coastal defense boats, and other items.

The announcement came around the same time that the U.S. national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, made an unannounced visit to Kyiv to meet with top Ukrainian officials.

At a news conference later, Sullivan sought again to calm Ukrainian jitters about whether U.S. weapons would continue after the upcoming midterm U.S. congressional elections.

Polls show that Republicans are poised to take control of one, or possibly both, chambers of Congress, and a small but vocal number of Republicans have voiced misgivings about the amount and duration of U.S. aid for Ukraine.

There will be no wavering, Sullivan said at a news conference. Im confident U.S. support for Ukraine will be unwavering and unflinching.

Asked about the prospect of peace talks with Russia, Sullivan repeated what U.S. officials have said in the past: "Nothing is discussed about Ukraine without Ukraine."

"For me, the main question about these negotiations is what a just peace looks like and how it can be achieved, Sullivan said. If you look at Russian accusations, Russian actions, in particular regarding the annexation of [Ukrainian] territories, it does not really encourage negotiations.

With reporting by RFE/RLs Ukrainian Service, Reuters, dpa, and AP
Over the past five years, Iranian officials and state media have touted the "indigenous" ingenuity in the Islamic republic's mass-produced Mohajer-6 combat drone, which Russia has deployed in its war against Ukraine.

But a new investigation by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, has found that electronic components underpinning Tehran's production of the Mohajer-6 are far from homegrown.



The Mohajer-6 drones contain components produced by companies from the United States and the European Union, both of which have sanctions restricting the export to Iran of such technology that can be used for both civilian and military purposes  dual-use technology.

The presence of these components in the Mohajer-6 does not mean their producers are in violation of U.S. or EU sanctions, and RFE/RL does not have evidence that this is the case.

The investigation also found Mohajer-6 components produced in China, including a real-time mini-camera made by a Hong Kong firm that said it was "very sorry" that its products were being used in war.

At least one major foreign-produced component of the Mohajer-6 has previously been identified by reporters in a Mohajer-6 recovered from the battlefield by the Ukrainian military: an engine made by the Austrian manufacturer BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Bombardier Recreational Products.

But Ukrainian intelligence assesses that the Iranian combat drone contains components from nearly three dozen different technology companies based in North America, the EU, Japan, and Taiwan, the Schemes investigation has found. A majority of these companies are based in the United States.



A Schemes reporter who personally inspected the foreign-made drone parts identified components produced by at least 15 of these manufacturers.

These include parts made by the U.S. technology firm Texas Instruments, which said in a statement that it does not sell into Russia or Iran and complies with applicable laws and regulations.

To identify these components, Schemes reporters examined parts of the Mohajer-6 drone that the Ukrainian military shot down over the Black Sea near the Mykolayiv region coastal town of Ochakiv. They also reviewed Ukrainian intelligence records on the sources of these components.

The drone also contains a microchip bearing the logo of a California technology company and a thermal-imaging camera that Ukrainian intelligence says may have been produced by a firm based in Oregon or China.

Both Western officials and experts on illicit technology transfers say Iran has built a broad, global procurement network using front companies and other proxies in third countries to obtain dual-use technology from the United States and the EU.

"Exporters will look at the request coming from the [United Arab Emirates] or another third country, and they'll think that they're selling to an end user based there, when really the end user is in Iran," Daniel Salisbury, a senior research fellow with the Department of War Studies at King's College London, told RFE/RL.

In September, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions specifically targeting Iranian companies that Washington links to the production and transfer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Russia for deployment in its war on Ukraine. Fighting rages with no sign of an end more than eight months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an unprovoked invasion on February 24.

"Non-Iranian, non-Russian entities should also exercise great caution to avoid supporting either the development of Iranian UAVs or their transfer, or sale of any military equipment to Russia for use against Ukraine," U.S. Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement announcing the sanctions.

Chinese Cameras, California Chips

Development of the Mohajer-6, the latest model in a series of drones Tehran has used since the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, began in 2017, while mass production began the following year. During a ceremony commemorating the Islamic Revolution, then-Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami said that the new tactical drone could perform surveillance, reconnaissance, as well as help destroy targets.

Hatami extolled what he described as the drones domestic design, a portrayal echoed in later reports by Iranian media.

"The homegrown drone was made through cooperation among the army, Defense Ministry, and Quds Aviation Industries," the English-language Tehran Times quoted an Iranian military official as saying in July 2019.

The dismantling of the Mohajer-6 drone recovered by the Ukrainian military shows that the UAV is packed with foreign components.

One of these parts is a bright-orange real-time mini-camera produced by the Hong Kong-based company RunCam Technology. Documents seen by Schemes show that Ukrainian intelligence has also identified RunCam as the producer of the camera, which likely assists in remote guidance of the drone.

Founded in 2013, RunCam is involved in the development and production of so-called "first-person-view" real-time cameras. "Our users are our friends," the company's website states. The site says that RunCam has two authorized Iranian dealers.

Reached by Schemes for comment about the use of its camera in the Iranian drone deployed by Russia in its war on Ukraine, RunCam said in an e-mailed response: "We are very sorry to know that RunCam's products were used in warfare. RunCam is specialized in producing products for model aircraft hobby. We never contact any customer related to military."

The provenance of the Mohajer-6 drone-s thermal-imaging camera is more difficult to determine. A Ukrainian intelligence assessment reviewed by Schemes indicates it could be the Ventus Hot model produced by Sierra-Olympic Technologies, based in the U.S. state of Oregon, but that it also resembles a cheaper analog available for sale by the Chinese company Qingdao Thundsea Marine Technology.

Qingdao Thundsea Marine Technology said in an e-mailed statement that the company did not "have any business with Iran," because "it will affect our business." The company said it specializes in marine services and is not involved in manufacturing. It also said that it did not have a single successful order for its online advertisement of the thermal-imaging camera resembling the one recovered from the Iranian drone.

Sierra-Olympic Technologies did not respond to a request for comment on the possible use of its thermal-imaging cameras in Iranian combat drones in time for publication.

Microchips recovered from the drone also featured the logos of the California-based company Linear Technology Corporation and its parent company, the Massachusetts-based semiconductor company Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI). ADI did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment on the possible use of its technology in the Iranian combat drone.

Schemes reporters also observed among the components of the Iranian drone a voltage step-down converter produced by Texas Instruments. The company said in an e-mailed statement that it "does not sell into Russia, Belarus, or Iran."

"TI complies with applicable laws and regulations in the countries where we operate, and does not support or condone the use of our products in applications they weren't designed for," Texas Instruments said.

Schemes reporters also saw several components produced by the California-based technology manufacturer Xilinx, whose parent company is the multinational semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), also based in California.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, one of these Xilinx components was integrated into a video data-link module located in the wing of the Mohajer-6 that helped carry out attack missions.

"This module transmits information from the board to the missile head. That is, guidance for the missile. With the help of this module, it was possible to guide the missile to the target," a Ukrainian military intelligence representative told Schemes.

AMD did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

'No Authorization'

Previous media reports about the components of the Mohajer-6 drone, including by CNN, have shown evidence that its engine was produced by the Austrian manufacturer BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG, whose parent company is the Quebec-based Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP).

The Canadian company responded to the reports on October 21, saying in a statement that it "has not authorized and has not given any authorization to its distributors to supply military UAV manufacturers in Iran or Russia."

"As soon as we were made aware of this situation, we started an investigation to determine the source of the engines," BRP said. .

But Schemes reporters found that the authorized Rotax distributor listed on the Austrian manufacturer's website advertised itself as a Rotax aircraft engines distributor for Iran as recently as December 2020.

The distributor, the Italian company Luciano Sorlini S.p.a., has posted multiple magazine advertisements on its websites in which it describes itself as a Rotax distributor for numerous countries. Prior to January 2021, Iran was listed among these countries.

The Rotax website also lists a Tehran-based company -- MahtaWing -- as an official service center for its engines. The company, known in Persian as Mahtabal, conducts repairs of Rotax engines, including the Rotax 912 iS, the engine that was found in the Mohajer-6 combat drone recovered in Ukraine.

BRP said in an e-mailed statement on November 4 that while Luciano Sorlini S.p.a. is the appointed distributor of Rotax aircraft engines in Iran, "since 2019, no Rotax engines have been sold in Iran, and we will not sell any engines to Iran moving forward."

The Canadian company said it had "internal controls" that "significantly" restrict the sale of its products for military purposes.

"For example, the sale of any BRP product to operators with any military activity in Iran, Turkey, and Russia is strictly prohibited," BRP said. "We conduct our business in compliance with all EU, Canadian, and U.S. applicable regulations."

BRP described the Iranian company MahtaWing as a "local service center" that "offers maintenance services for previously sold aircraft engines."

Shahriar Siami of RFE/RL's Radio Farda contributed to this report.
Iraq won't take part in any regional or international conflicts, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi pledged on February 11.

The comment came after Abadi spoke by telephone with U.S. President Donald Trump.

"Iraq is very keen to preserve its national interests and does not wish to be part of any regional or international conflict which would lead to disasters for the region and for Iraq," Abadi told state TV.

The White House on February 10 said Trump and Abadi "spoke about the threat Iran presents across the entire region," in their first phone call since the inauguration of the U.S. president.

Abadi's office on February 10 also gave a readout of the phone call that took place overnight on February 9, without specifically mentioning Iran.

The readout said Abadi had asked Trump to remove his country from a travel ban list.

"The prime minister stressed the importance of a review of the decision on the right of Iraqis to travel to the United States," Abadi's office said.

Iraq is one of seven Muslim-majority countries whose citizens are barred from entering the United States for 90 days under an executive order Trump signed last month.

The ban was suspended by a lower court a week later and a federal appeals court on February 9 refused to reinstate it, but Trump has vowed to either continue the legal battle for his order to stand or to draft a new order.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
The Iraqi Interior Ministry says a policeman was killed and seven other wounded during clashes in Baghdad with protesters loyal to the prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.



But supporters of Sadr gave a higher casualty toll from the February 11 clashes, saying at least five people were killed and as many as 320 wounded.



Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered an investigation into those claims.



Thousands of Sadrs supporters gathered in Baghdads central Tahrir Square on February 11 to demand changes to an electoral supervisory commission ahead of a provincial election in September.



Correspondents say the clashes broke out when police tried to disperse protesters who tried to cross a bridge that links Tahrir Square with Baghdads heavily fortified Green Zone, a part of the city that houses government buildings, embassies, and international organizations.



During the evening on February 11, Iraqi military officials said several Katyusha rockets were fired into the Green Zone from Baladiyat, a district of Baghdad with many Sadr supporters. There were no reports of casualties in those incidents.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
Turkmenistan is holding a presidential election on February 12. Incumbent Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov is seeking to be elected president for the third time, and there is every reason to believe he will succeed.

While the result seems guaranteed, the reasons for holding the election are not as immediately obvious. But there are reasons.

RFE/RL assembled a Majlis, or panel, to discuss Turkmenistans presidential election: Who the competitors are, how the so-called campaign has progressed, and most importantly, what is at stake for Berdymukhammedov and what, if anything, can we expect from him after he wins a third term in office.

Moderating the podcast was RFE/RL Media Relations Manager Muhammad Tahir. From Washington, Victoria Clement, a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, who lived in Turkmenistan and is writing a book on the country, joined the Majlis. Our friend Dr. Luca Anceschi, lecturer in Central Asian studies at Glasgow University in Scotland and author of the book Turkmenistans Foreign Policy: Positive Neutrality And The Consolidation Of The Turkmen Regime, participated. From Prague, Farruh Yusupov, the director of RFE/RLs Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, took part. I had to have my say on this topic, also.

There are a few new things about this presidential election. Berdymukhammedov faced five competitors when he was first elected in 2007, seven in 2012, and this time is running against eight opponents. For the first time, two political parties -- the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and the Agrarian Party -- are participating, though both parties were created precisely so Turkmenistans government could claim it was a multiparty race. And this time the candidates are running for a seven-year term, not five years, as was previously the case.

WATCH: Vote-Buying In Turkmenistan?

As Yusupov explained, not much is known about Berdymukhammedovs challengers.

"We do see limited footage of the other candidates, but without their voices, only the [news] presenter saying that this candidate met with people in this district of this region, and they only show them for a few seconds," he said.

Yusupov added, "The election campaign itself was not obvious until three of four weeks ago, almost nothing was published in official media..."

Yusupov said that in contrast, "State TV isshowing President Berdymukhammedov running around the country meeting with voters, with different groups of people, giving out gifts, and people saying, not only [they] but their friends and families, 'We will vote for you.'"

Clement said, "This is all heavily scripted and the people who participate in the meetings with the candidates are hand-selected by the government, but I think part of the reason the government bothers to do this is so that it can have a veneer of support. It wants to be able to claim a popular mandate."

No one outside of Turkmenistan seems fooled by this "heavily scripted" election campaign. Human Rights Watch (HRW) just published a statement about Turkmenistans presidential election, in which it said the country's "appalling human rights record undermines the possibility of a free and fair presidential election."

Probably very few inside Turkmenistan are fooled, either. Anceschi spoke for many when he said, "I can no longer make sense of why they keep [holding presidential elections]."

Speaking about Berdymukhammedovs second term in office, the one just coming to an end, Anceschi pointed out this sudden interest Berdymukhammedov has in campaigning, in happily meeting voters, and ini making great promises about the future, seems a bit ridiculous.

"You cannot have five years of extreme authoritarianism and then have a couple of weeks of democracy," Anceschi said. "It doesnt work like that."

So what is driving Berdymukhammedov and state medias newfound enthusiasm for this weekend's presidential election?

The answer is the dire economic situation into which Turkmenistan has plummeted in the last two years.

Not even in the early days of independence was Turkmenistans economy in as bad a shape as it is today, and though it is impossible to get any sort of accurate poll as to the popularity of Berdymukhammedov, it is surely lower than it was just a few years ago.

The panelists agreed that external factors have caused many of the problems Turkmenistan faces today. Natural gas is Turkmenistans major export, and the price of gas is half what it was just a few years ago. There are security problems along Turkmenistans border with Afghanistan, something else for which Berdymukhammedov and his government cannot be blamed.

At the start of this year, Turkmenistan lost the second of what were once three gas customers when Turkmen authorities demanded back payments from Iran and cut off gas supplies to that southern neighbor, almost exactly one year after Russias Gazprom said it was canceling its contract for Turkmen gas. Turkmenistans only customer now is China, a country that has loaned Turkmenistan billions of dollars to develop its gas industry and now expects some of the Turkmen gas it is receiving in repayment for those loans.

Anceschi said the Turkmen government does bear responsibility for failing to act in the face of all the negative economic indicators.

"The economy has been unchanged and this is no longer sustainable," Anceschi explained, adding, "There will have to be a point at which someone in Ashgabat starts telling the president that change needs to come, otherwise the whole house just falls."

But with no solutions in sight, the Turkmen people have instead been treated to state television covering events such as "Berdymukhammedov...driving around in his pickup truck, driving to the shepherds in Akhal region [to campaign]," Yusupov noted.

Clement said the campaign and the election are not a complete waste of time.

"I do think that its worth pointing out that the election process in and of itself is an important stage in a countrys path, and if theyre to progress in any way, this kind of activity needs to be normalized," she said, sounding a possibly optimistic note for the future.

Listen to this week's Majlis podcast to hear more about these issues in greater detail and to explore other aspects of Turkmenistans 2017 presidential election, the reasons for it, and what might come next.

Listen to or download the Majlis podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes.
Officials say a militant suspected of inspiring several attacks in France was targeted by a coalition air strike near the Iraqi city of Mosul and likely was killed.

"We can confirm that coalition forces targeted Rashid Kassim, a senior [Islamic State] operative, near Mosul in a strike in the past 72 hours," Pentagon spokesman Major Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway said on February 10, although he said he could not as yet confirm Kassim's death.

In Paris, a high-ranking official involved in counterterrorism operations told AFP there was not "absolute confirmation" of his death, but the probability is high.

Kassim, who is in his 30s, is believed to have inspired an attack last year in which a senior French policeman and his partner were stabbed to death and another in which an elderly priest's throat was cut.

He is suspected of using the encrypted Telegram app to direct attacks on France from IS-controlled territory in Iraq or Syria.

Originally from Roanne in the Loire Valley, Kassim has posted videos on the Internet praising attacks in France that have killed 238 people since 2015.

Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters
Mass anticorruption protests are expected to continue in Romania on February 11.

On February 10, tens of thousands took to the streets for the 11th day, demanding the resignation of the leftist-led government for trying to curb the anticorruption fight.

At least 7,000 protesters showed up outside the government building in the capital, Bucharest, on February 10, while another protest in the southwestern city of Timisoara drew 3,500 people, according to media reports.

Thousands rallied in other major cities, such as Cluj, Brasov, and Sibiu.

Much smaller pro-government counterdemonstrations were held in Bucharest and other cities. Several hundred protested outside the presidential palace in Bucharest against President Klaus Iohannis, who has come out strongly in support of the anticorruption protesters.

The president is elected through a direct vote, separately from the parliament.

Iohannis, a former mayor of Sibiu, was head of the center-right National Liberal Party before becoming president in 2014.

Massive nationwide protests kicked off on February 1, after the government of Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu issued an emergency decree the previous night decriminalizing several corruption-related offenses. Critics said the decree was aimed at helping corrupt politicians avoid or get out of jail.

One of the main beneficiaries of the decree would have been Liviu Dragnea, the leader of the ex-communist Social Democrats (PSD).

Dragnea has been convicted of abuse of office and is under trial in a separate graft case. His conviction bars him from becoming prime minister.

The huge rallies, the largest since the fall of communism in December 1989, forced the government to revoke the decree on February 5 and led to the justice minister's resignation.

However, the demonstrations continued, with protesters demanding the resignation of the entire government, despite it surviving a no-confidence vote on February 8. Grindeanu has so far refused to resign.



Meanwhile, a court ruled on February 10 that Senate speaker Calin Popescu Tariceanu, accused of making false statements in a property fraud case, can go on trial.

The High Court of Cassation and Justice rejected an appeal by Tariceanu, who had argued there were insufficient grounds for his trial. No date was set for the trial to begin.

Tariceanu's ALDE party is PSD's junior coalition partner.

With additional reporting by digi24hd.ro
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- The forested landscape of Russia's Karelia is dotted with a necklace of decaying concrete bunkers stretching from the Gulf of Finland to the shores of Lake Ladoga.

During World War II, the defensive line held back the Finnish Army, which participated with the Germans in the 900-day siege of Leningrad. But now, environmentalists say, it presents a serious danger: radioactivity.

The St. Petersburg branch of the Bellona environmental NGO has measured radiation in some of the bunkers at more than 1,000 times background levels. The levels of radiation from alpha particles exceeded the limits of their detection equipment -- 30,000 particles per square centimeter per minute.

"There was no electricity in the bunkers, so they installed panels with fluorescent paint that would shine for many years," said Aleksei Shchukhin, a Bellona specialist on radiation. Now those panels have become a problem.

The bunkers -- part of the so-called Stalin Line -- were built in the 1920s and 1930s but were modernized in the 1950s. Abandoned in the 1990s, the bunkers attract hikers, history buffs, children playing soldier, and homeless people. Some of them have been used as the foundations for homes. Others are used to store preserved fruits and vegetables.

I decided to take the [radiation] detector as long as I happened to have it with me. And we were in for a very unpleasant surprise."

Bellona estimates that tens of thousands of people have visited the bunkers since the military pulled out. There are about 230 of the bunkers, but it remains unknown how many of them are irradiated.

The potential danger was first discovered by chance late last year, when members of a volunteer organization called North-West, which searches for human remains and artifacts from the war, visited a bunker to take some photographs.

"We went there with the head of North-West, and I thought I would grab my radiation detector, which I happened to have in the car," Anton Kolomitsyn, the North-West activist who first discovered the radiation, told RFE/RL's Russian Service. "People are always climbing around in those bunkers, including myself, so I decided to take the detector as long as I happened to have it with me. And we were in for a very unpleasant surprise."

Ironically, North-West activists used to lead excursions to visit the bunkers for history enthusiasts.

Although the activists have raised the alarm, local and military authorities have been slow to react. Officials say the bunkers are not emitting radiation into the environment.

But environmentalists say officials are ignoring the many people who are exposed to high levels of radiation inside the bunkers.

"All of these bunkers are open," activist Shchukin said. "They are accessible to children and all the other residents of Leningrad Oblast. People go there without knowing the danger. There are no signs that these are radioactive objects. They are not closed."

Sergei Gribalyov, head of the testing laboratory of the Leningrad Oblast Legislative Assembly's Ecology Commission, told RFE/RL that his experts have confirmed Bellona's findings.

"I plan to ask the commission to authorize a complete study," Gribalyov said. "It is expensive work and it needs to be done by specialists. But I am pessimistic. Even though it is the Year of Ecology, there have been sharp cuts to all environmental programs and ecological projects. If we ask for money to decontaminate the bunkers, we will most likely encounter opposition."

For now, Gribalyov is placing his hopes on the local population, hoping that some nongovernmental organization will agree at least to help put up warning signs. Or even to pay to have the bunker doors welded shut.

RFE/RL correspondent Robert Coalson contributed to this report
U.S. President Donald Trump said late on February 10 that he is considering issuing a new executive order on immigration now that his original January 27 order has been suspended indefinitely by the courts.

Insisting that he has the law on his side, despite two defeats in U.S. courts in quick succession, Trump said security concerns necessitate a quicker response than legal channels now allow.

"The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order," he said, adding that any action would not come before February 13.

The original order temporarily barring refugees from the United States as well as visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries was blocked by a U.S. district court on February 3, and an appeals court upheld that block on February 9.

"We need speed for reasons of security, so it very well could be" that issuing a new order is the best course to take, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Earlier, Trump told a news conference in Washington, "We'll be doing things to continue to make our country safe... It will happen rapidly. We will not allow people into our country who are looking to do harm to our people."

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said, "We're pursuing executive orders right now that we expect to be enacted soon that will further protect Americans from terrorism."

Trump suggested the new executive order could be a modified version of the original, "with very little changes in honor of the [appeals court] decision" suspending the order.

The White House could rewrite the order to explicitly exclude green-card holders, or permanent U.S. residents, a congressional aide told Reuters. Doing that could alleviate some concerns with the original order expressed by three San Francisco appeals court judges who unanimously agreed to keep blocking the order this week.

While the White House said it still is reviewing all its options for appealing the San Francisco court's ruling, including possibly raising it before the U.S. Supreme Court, an unidentified judge on the appeals court on February 10 requested that the court's 25 full-time judges vote on whether the ruling should be reheard before an 11-judge panel, Reuters reported.

A rehearing before a broader panel of the same appeals court that blocked the original Trump order is one of the options the White House has been considering.

With reporting by AP, AFP, dpa, and Reuters


MINSK -- A popular Ukrainian writer says he was seized by Belarusian security agents in the middle of the night while visiting Minsk and ordered to leave the country.



Serhiy Zhadan said on February 11 that he was in Minsk to attend a poetry festival but was ordered to leave on the basis of a 2015 Russian entry ban that accused him of "involvement in terrorism."



Zhadan said police and Belarusian KGB agents entered his hotel room while he was sleeping at about 2 a.m. on February 11 and took him into custody.



Zhadan, an acclaimed novelist and poet whose books have been widely translated, said nothing was explained to him initially by the authorities who detained him.



He said he was taken to a jail in Minsk, where he spent the rest of the night in a cell.

Zhadan said he was told later about the Russian entry ban and was ordered to leave the country by the end of the day on February 11.



Writing on Facebook, Zhadan said: "It turns out that back in 2015 they banned me from entering Russia...for 'involvement in terrorist activity'."

Belarus has a border agreement with neighboring Russia, but Ukrainian citizens are allowed to visit either country without a visa.



Zhadan took part in pro-European protests in Kyiv that led to the ouster of Ukraine's Moscow-backed president in 2014.



In addition to the 2015 travel ban imposed against him by Russia, Zhadan had been targeted and assaulted by pro-Russia activists during the 2014 Maidan protests in Kyiv.



Iryna Herashchenko, first deputy speaker of Ukraine's parliament, told RFE/RLs Belarus Service on February 11 that Russia created a special list of banned Ukrainian politicians and activists in an attempt to influence relations between Minsk and Kyiv.



"Russia's FSB (Federal Security Service) is behind this,' Herashchenko said. "There is a blacklist in which there are hundreds of Ukrainian politicians, activists, and public figures."

Calling the incident a real disgrace, Herashchenko said Zhadans case was "very worrying" and "does not add trust to bilateral relations" between Ukraine and Belarus.



She said Russia's FSB should not be in a position to be able to decide which Ukrainians can and cannot visit Belarus.



Belarusian media published a photograph of Zhadan holding his passport with a stamp saying he is banned from entering Belarus.



That stamp does not include an expiry date for the ban.



The 42-year-old Zhadan lives in Kharkiv in the Kyiv-controlled part of eastern Ukraine.



He grew up in the Luhansk region that is now partly controlled by Russia-backed separatists and has openly supported Ukrainian government forces that are battling those separatists.



His support for Ukrainian government forces has included visits to the conflict zone and the raising of funds to help those living in the war-torn area.



His novels have won numerous European prizes.



In 2014, The New Yorker magazine called him "Ukraine's most famous counterculture writer."

With additional reporting by AP, AFP, and Interfax Ukraine
U.S. Democrats have called for an investigation into whether White House national security adviser Michael Flynn discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Moscow's ambassador to the United States while President Barack Obama was still in office.

The lawmakers contended on February 10 that the phone conversations being widely reported by U.S. media may have broken U.S. law barring private citizens from conducting foreign policy.

The White House said President Donald Trump has "full confidence" in Flynn, who has told reporters he "can't be certain" whether he discussed sanctions with Sergei Kislyak in late December when Obama was formulating a new round of sanctions against Russia.

Democratic Senators Ed Markey and Chris Murphy called for an investigation of Flynn while other Democrats demanded that Trump dismiss him.

The reports "raise serious questions of legality and [Flynn's] fitness for office," said Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

Two other Democratic senators, Richard Blumenthal and Jeanne Shaheen, asked U.S. intelligence agencies to review Flynn's security clearance, saying the reports raise "questions concerning his suitability for continued access to classified information."

The Kremlin on February 10 flatly denied that Flynn had any discussions about sanctions with Kislyak.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP


The bullet still lodged in Eli Johnsons bladder doesnt bother him. Neither do the metal plate and screws surgeons had to embed in the 17-year-olds left forearm.

The Huguenot High School senior speaks plainly of shoving his head under a bed to avoid gunfire and stumbling up, after, to find his intestines sliding toward the floor.

Johnson was already restless Friday on his first full day home from VCU Medical Center, where he spent more than a week recovering from a home invasion in the citys South Side.

He teased his father, sister and girlfriend; flashed irrepressible grins; and looped around the house on bandaged, muscular legs.

The honor roll student is neither bitter, nor angry, about the men who shot him seven times on Feb. 1, but his face darkened at the memory of his girlfriends grandmother trembling against the barrel of a handgun pressed to her chin.

I had too much respect for her to allow that to happen, Johnson said of the woman, who is in her 70s. I try to prevent a fight if I can, but, if you put my people in harm, then I will handle my business.

He worries about the effect that night had on her but feels hopeful about following in his fathers footsteps.

A U.S. Army recruiter who helped Johnson register to take the oath of enlistment later this month said the nation will still welcome his service after he graduates this spring.

***

Carmelita Brown was lying in bed as January turned to February when she heard the muffled boom of two men kicking in the front door of her Graystone Place apartment.

Then, yelling.

It was very, very traumatic, Brown recalled Friday in a lilting Jamaican accent. I wish I could erase it from my mind.

The men ran straight up the stairs to her second-story bedroom, shouting obscenities and demanding at gunpoint to know the whereabouts of a distant family member no one had seen.

Next door, Johnsons eyes shot open.

The walls in Browns home are so thin, you can hear someone turn over in bed, Johnson said. His ears registered cursing, and he noticed a pool of light coming from the hall.

He thundered into Browns room to find her at gunpoint and threw his 225-pound frame on the first man in sight.

He hits hard. A celebrated linebacker for the Huguenot High Falcons football team, Johnson has drawn the eye of college recruiters from up and down the East Coast.

I like to hit. I can take the pain, Johnson said. I didnt even think about it  I just threw myself on top of the dude, because thats what you do.

Thats when the second man shot him in the shoulder. Another bullet grazed him as the first man joined the fire in a hail of bullets that eventually would strike Johnson in the stomach, arm, leg and chest. His intestines split in two.

Everyone asks him how it felt to get shot, but Johnson doesnt know how to explain it. He says hes not a hero but just someone doing the right thing. Besides, hes felt worse pain cramping up after a strenuous football practice.

You feel it, but you dont really feel it, he said. You feel something before you hear the pop, but its nothing; anyone could take it.

Hes glad Brown didnt have to.

***

On this night, they were the only adults in the home. Johnsons girlfriend of two years, Keona Braithwaite, was half asleep at her mothers house when the violence erupted.

I remember my moms boyfriend coming in and telling me not to drive, said Braithwaite, also a senior at Huguenot High. I was so confused, I rolled back over to go to sleep.

He handed her the phone, and her mother repeated the advice. By this point, Braithwaite was awake and wished she were dreaming.

I wanted to cry, but I couldnt, she said. I was numb.

Her mother left an overnight shift to take her to the hospital, where she had to seek her own medical care after throwing up repeatedly. It would be six hours before she heard Johnson was OK and believed it.

A detective told us hed been up and talking, but we felt like it was just something they say, said Johnsons father, Harry Johnson.

He and Johnsons mother, Faye, were so shocked when the call came, they fumbled around in the dark for essentials.

We didnt think to turn on a light in the house, Harry Johnson said. I served three tours in Iraq and one tour in Kosovo, and Ive never felt anything like that in my life.

Elis sister, Keyeria Grant, broke her phone throwing it after hearing what had happened. She hopped a plane from Little Rock, Ark., where she lives, and has not left Johnsons side.

The family had already endured enough tragedy, said Grant, recalling a car crash that claimed the life of her toddler brother more than 20 years ago.

I just kept thinking, I lost one brother; I cant lose two, she said.

***

Information about Johnsons health was slow to trickle out, at first, to the Huguenot High School community, principal Robert Gilstrap said Thursday.

His eyes reddened as he recalled the emotions of the early days and discussed his hopes for Johnsons future.

Kids were emotional, staff members were emotional  hes one of our best academic kids and also one of our kindest students, he said.

Students held a moment of silence for Johnsons recovery at a Feb. 4 buzzer-beater basketball game against the George Wythe High Bulldogs, Gilstrap said. Johnson Facetimed with the crowd and urged the team to play with heart.

There he was, rooting for them from the hospital, Gilstrap said. Hes always the cheerleading type, eager to see others do their best.

Richmond police have not made an arrest in Johnsons case.

Friends are rallying to help the Johnson family with medical bills through the online donation site GoFundMe. They had surpassed their $2,000 goal by Saturday evening.

The road ahead will likely involve physical therapy  and determination. Thats OK with Johnson, who attributes his grit to his mother. Faye Johnson said she was proud of her son.

He is a strong person, very determined, she said.

Maybe too determined. The wound-care specialist arched an eyebrow at Johnson on Friday, as he sat  briefly  on a couch in the family room he will likely occupy for the next several weeks.

A 3 out of 10 on the pain scale sounds low, she said. You were holding your breath when we looked at your shoulder.

Johnson smiled and shifted in his seat.
A federal judge on Friday ordered that a Charlottesville man convicted in a $10.5 million bank fraud case be taken into custody.

Magistrate Judge David J. Novak made the decision, which was later affirmed by U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson, after a federal prosecutor said the defendant was a flight risk because he had been in negotiations to buy a multi-million-dollar airplane.

Michael P. Klekamp, 68, sat down in his chair and shook his head after Novak announced he was revoking the convicts bond.

Klekamp pleaded guilty on Dec. 9 to defrauding the Fauquier Bank, causing a $10.5 million loss. He had been released on bond as he awaited sentencing next month in the case, an arrangement that initially raised no objections from federal prosecutors.

But David T. Maguire, an assistant U.S. attorney, urged Novak to revoke that bond during Fridays court hearing. Maguire laid out a case in court where Klekamp tried to purchase the aircraft for no more than $4 million using a Washington, D.C. airplane broker.

There are new circumstances that scream out that say he is a risk of flight, Maguire said.

FBI Special Agent Jane Collins testified that she received an email Feb. 6 from officials at a complaint line that the bureau maintains. That email summarized a complaint from a Washington-based plane broker who told federal law enforcement officials that he had been in contact with Klekamp about him buying the plane, which is located in Dallas, Collins said.

Negotiations over the plane had cooled down for a period of time before Klekamp contacted the broker again on Feb. 2, Collins said. A federal probation officer, Diane Moczydlowski, testified that she had received a call from Klekamps wife saying he was distraught and had suicidal thoughts over the possibility of going to prison and worried about his safety while incarcerated.

Maguire had argued in court papers that Klekamps attempts to buy the plane amounted to an attempt to obtain property by false pretenses since he had nowhere near $4 million in assets, is unemployed and is likely going to jail over the bank fraud.

Maguire told Judge Novak that Klekamps actions constituted wire fraud and demonstrated he was a danger to the community, but the judge rejected those arguments. The federal magistrate was more swayed by Maguires argument that Klekamp might flee if he wasnt taken into custody.

Novak asked Klekamps attorney, Paul G. Gill, what his client was planning to do with the aircraft.

Why else buy the airplane if not flight? the magistrate asked Gill.

Gill explained during the court hearing that his client has long had an interest in airplanes. The defense attorney dismissed as pure folly any notion that securing an aircraft would be the most efficient way to flee authorities.

Under questioning by the defense attorneys, federal witnesses acknowledged they had no evidence that Klekamp is a pilot or that he put down any money for the airplane.

In court documents, Gill wrote that emails the government relied on for its case indicated he met the airplane broker in Charlottesville in August, months before he first appeared in court.

Court records show Klekamp was the president of Capitol Components and Millwork Inc. of Culpeper, which manufactured and distributed building material for mid- to high-end residential and commercial buildings.

The company drew money from a secured revolving line of credit at Fauquier Bank. In pleading guilty, Klekamp admitted fraudulently maintaining the credit line by misrepresenting the true financial condition of his company and lying to the bank about the true value of the firms collateral.

On Oct. 25, 2015, Klekamp told the bank that there was approximately $17 million of total accounts receivable and inventory to secure the banks $11.5 million credit line, while there was actually no more than $3.4 million of total accounts receivable and inventory.

The company was not able to repay the interest or principal amount of the loan, resulting in a loss of approximately $10.5 million as a result of the scheme.

Klekamp is expected to be sentenced on March 24 by Hudson.
ALEXANDRIA  Mohamed Bailor Jalloh says he was looking to meet a Muslim wife when he reached out to an Islamic State recruiter he had met overseas. Instead, he agreed to take part in a terrorist attack on American soil.

Jalloh, a former National Guardsman, was sentenced Friday to 11 years in prison for attempting to provide support to the Islamic State. Jalloh bought a Glock handgun and an AR-15 rifle, having researched the massacre at an Orlando nightclub last year and the deadly 2009 shooting at an Army base in Fort Hood, Texas. The FBI was monitoring his movements, and he was arrested before any attack was attempted.

Defense lawyer Joseph Flood argued that Jallohs behavior sprung not from radical fervor but from heavy drug use and untreated trauma from a childhood marked by rape, war and neglect. The gullible 27-year-olds attachment to the Islamist militant group was superficial and confused, his attorney said.

During a hearing in federal court in Alexandria, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gibbs said he was not unsympathetic but that Jallohs past did not justify his actions.

Mr. Jalloh probably is and was a very troubled individual and probably was in a very bad place, but individuals in those situations often do very dangerous things, Gibbs said. He could have stepped away; he never did that.

Gibbs asked Judge Liam OGrady to impose the maximum 20-year sentence.

Jalloh, a U.S. citizen, lived in Loudoun County at the time of his 2016 arrest.

According to court papers, he was born in Sierra Leone, the youngest of eight children. His father was polygamous, and his young mother fled to the United States when he was 2 years old. His father and stepmother soon left Sierra Leone as well, leaving him with extended family. For several years he was sexually abused by an older cousin. At age 8, the countrys civil war made him a refugee. While running with relatives to Guinea, he saw a child shot by a soldier.

I was hungry, starving, crying, he recalled in a court filing.

Jalloh made it to the United States after six months and reunited with his family. But after a few years, his father left and his mother was deported. He lived with various relatives, who largely ignored him.

Seeking direction, Jalloh joined the Army National Guard out of college.

Jalloh was frustrated by the idea that he could not do more for Syrian refugees.

I started to watch online videos of civilians escaping Assad, on the beach shores, and walking long distances took my memory back to when I was a child and civilian in the Sierra Leone War which incited an emotion reaction rather than a rational reaction in me, Jalloh wrote in a letter to the judge. Unfortunately, I succumbed to the same ISIL online propaganda that is responsible for so many atrocities in the world. ISIL is another name for the Islamic State.

In 2015, Jalloh visited his father in Sierra Leone and met Islamic State recruiters who encouraged him to go to Libya and fight, according to his account. He gave them several hundred dollars, but when he actually got on a truck to Libya he quickly changed his mind and fled.

We were packed like sardines, he recalled. Guys in the truck would whip people with a hose to pack you in. This was the worst, most scary situation that I had ever been in as an adult.

On arriving back in the U.S., Jalloh made contact online with Abu Saad Sudani, a now-deceased Islamic State member who was plotting an attack . But he claims he was looking not for a co-conspirator but for a wife. His girlfriend of six years had dumped him, sending intimate photos of herself with a new man for emphasis, Jalloh wrote in the court filing.

I started doing marijuana, coke and mushrooms using one of them at least on a daily basis in order to kill the pain I was in, he wrote. I cast my depression as some kind of noble inspiration. In truth, it was complete self-destruction.

Sudani connected Jalloh with someone who he says he thought would help him find a bride, but who was actually an FBI informant. Flood said that the informant pushed Jalloh toward terrorism. For two months, Flood wrote, the informant hounded Jalloh with nearly constant entreaties to engage in a violent attack.

The FBI informant told Jalloh about a plot to murder U.S. military personnel and asked Jalloh about acquiring weapons. Jalloh tried to buy an assault rifle. As he did, the FBI was watching. The gun had already been rendered inoperable.
In many ways, the Tuckahoe condominium building in Richmonds West End represents the pinnacle of Southern charm. It features a chandelier-lined, marble foyer with expansive parlors off the reception lobby, along with a pair of roof terraces that offer striking views. And its architect, Richmond-based Duncan Lee, incorporated several significant Georgian Revival motifs into its design, thereby evoking some of Virginias most recognized buildings of the Colonial era.

The floor plan is similar to the H-plan of the Tuckahoe plantation house in Goochland County, said Kim Chen, Richmonds senior preservation planner. The cupola is drawn from the bell tower in Capitol Square. There are also elements from Westover (in Charles City County) and Mount Airy in Richmond County.

Lee was a master of quoting details and elements of historic facades and adapting them for contemporary uses, Chen said. He did it with such grace.

But the cultural referents behind the Tuckahoe building, which is located at the intersection of Cary Street and Three Chopt roads, arent solely Southern.

Just ask Frederick Thompson. When he and his wife, Donna, decided to move from Manhattan to the Tuckahoe in order to be closer to their twin grandsons, they discovered something they werent expecting: a building that felt like home.

The Tuckahoe reminds me of a lot of the classic apartment buildings on Fifth and Park avenues in New York, Thompson said. Many of these buildings, especially on the Upper East Side, are not so called high-rises, but rather mid-rise buildings like the Tuckahoe, and they were designed by well-known architects of the day like Stanford White. The Tuckahoe shares many of their classic exterior and lobby details, which were a sign of pre-war elegance and sophistication.

The Tuckahoes relaxed, leafy setting reminded the Thompsons particularly of their New York apartment, which overlooked Fifth Avenue and East 87th Street.

When we look out, its almost as if were looking out onto East 87th Street, which is tree-lined and has a very residential scale and feel, Thompson said.

A milestone in the citys golden age of luxury apartment living

The Tuckahoes New York vibe isnt surprising. It was built as a luxury apartment building in 1929, when apartment living was the height of chic in Richmond, and many architects in the city looked to New York for models.

Builders also hired New York-based architects to design Richmond apartments. Among them were William Lawrence Bottomley, who designed the Stuart Court apartment building at 1600 Monument Avenue, and Alfred Charles Bossom, who designed the Prestwould apartment building at 612 West Franklin Street.

Apartment building in Richmond peaked between 1915 and 1929, Chen said. Between 1922 and 1927, 30 to 40 building permits for apartment buildings were issued each year.

Lee, who was one of the citys most prolific residential architects in the 1910s and 1920s, had designed other apartment buildings before undertaking the Tuckahoe project in 1928.

But the Tuckahoe was Lees largest building, and his most extravagant, Chen said. It was his tour de force.

It was also one of the last major commissions he undertook. The Great Depression brought residential construction to a halt nationwide, and Richmonds age of luxury apartment building ended shortly after work on the Tuckahoe was completed.

I dont think Lee had an inkling that the bottom was going to fall out of everything, Chen said. He probably thought the Tuckahoe was the start of something big.

After designing the Tuckahoe, Lee oversaw the renovation of the mansion at the Tuckahoe Plantation, as well as the Carters Grove mansion in James City County. And he designed Evelynton, a Colonial Revival-style mansion near Charles City. But the Great Depression all but ended the careers of many of Richmonds most prestigious architects, including Lee.

He died in 1952, at the age of 68.

Reimagined as condos

The Tuckahoe suffered misfortunes, as well. It went into receivership in 1936 and changed ownership three times before Investors Development Corp. bought the building and converted it to condos in 1981, during Richmonds early wave of condo conversions, said Lee Mumford, a real estate agent with Long & Foster.

The new owners retained many of the buildings original architectural features, including the marble foyer, crown molding and decorative archways. In addition, each of the units retained its parquet floors.

The Tuckahoe originally had 68 units, said Sarah Mumford, a real estate agent with Long & Foster. Today, it has 62 units because some were combined.

Unit sizes range from 400 to more than 2,100 square feet.

The smaller ones are more like studio apartments, but the largest have three to four bedrooms, Sarah Mumford said.

Currently, three units, all of which have three bedrooms, are on the market, with prices ranging from $320,000 to $379,500.

The Mumfords, a husband-and-wife team, are preparing to put another three-bedroom unit on the market in the low $300,000s. (With at least 30 sales in the Tuckahoe over the course of 28 years, theyre the buildings sales leaders.)

If theyre priced right, units in the Tuckahoe sell quickly, Lee Mumford said.

Landmark Property Services Inc. manages the building.

The Tuckahoes aesthetics, historical provenance and location near the Country Club of Virginia as well as the shops and restaurants along Libbie and Grove avenues help drive sales, Lee Mumford said.

Thats the hub of where a lot of people like to live, Sarah Mumford said.

And the Tuckahoe, which was listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register in 2000 and on the National Register of Historical Places in 2001, continues to evolve, albeit subtly.

When we moved here in 2011, the building population was probably 50-plus, said Thompson, who has served two terms as president of the Tuckahoes board of directors. Today, those demographics are 40-plus. And there are young children here. The demographics are really changing.

_______________
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
Former Roanoke newscaster Chris Hurst plans to run for the House of Delegates against Del. Joseph Yost, R-Pearisburg.

Hurst, whose girlfriend, reporter Alison Parker, was killed during an on-air shooting in 2015, resigned as anchor at WDBJ-TV (Channel 7) on Friday. Saturday, he said that he has moved from Roanoke to Blacksburg, where he will file paperwork on Sunday to seek the Democratic nomination in the 12th House District.

He also said that he is leaving Roanoke because he needs a change of scenery nearly 18 months after Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were killed during a live broadcast at Smith Mountain Lake on Aug. 26, 2015.

Ill be able to develop some different routines that [are] not a constant reminder of some of the emotional pain that I have been having to face over the past year and a half, Hurst said in an interview Saturday afternoon. But I am really excited to be a part of that community and run for the House of Delegates as a Democrat for this Novembers election.

Yost, a three-term Republican, welcomed Hurst to the race.

This will certainly be one of the biggest House races this year, and maybe even bigger than the governors race, Yost said in a phone interview Saturday. He said earlier this week that he plans to run for re-election. On Tuesday, Democrat Andrew Schultz filed to run in the 12th House District.

Hurst, 28, had worked at Channel 7 for nearly seven years before deciding to mount a campaign for public office. Born and raised near Philadelphia, Hurst has not held office before, and he knows that, because of the national attention that WDBJ and he received after the 2015 shooting, guns will be an issue in the race.

He said that even though reducing gun violence will be a prominent part of his campaign, anybody who sees me as a single-issue candidate because my girlfriend was killed with a gun needs to look at my body of work over the past seven years here and see how many different topics Ive covered and have been curious and interested in.

He said that he wants to make sure that Virginia Tech, which he described as a massive economic driver, continues to have the resources to create high-tech innovations and green jobs. He also wants Tech to attract the best and brightest from around the world to Blacksburg and provide incentives to keep students in the New River Valley after they graduate. Improving funding for rural schools is also a priority, he said.

Protecting the environment will be a priority, said Hurst, who said he fears there will be continued rollbacks of some needed regulations to make sure our waterways and our property [dont] become polluted.

In addition to policy issues, he said that he was inspired to run because of the apathy and indifference he sees from some people in power.

I really believe that the best representative for that region is going to be somebody who not only personally knows the people he or she will represent but then will also be a loud fighter for them, too, he said. As corny as it sounds, I believe public service can make a difference in peoples lives.

Returning to the topic of guns, Hurst said that he is a gun owner who wants a healthy discussion of where we are with firearms, and trying to reduce gun violence is the only thing that I am interested in doing.  This is not about trying to change anybodys way of life, but we can do more and do better to reduce gun suicides and gun homicides.

Specifically, he said that he wants to find ways to remove guns from people under emergency protective orders until we can get them necessary help. And thats something that in Virginia we dont have any mechanism for.

Yost, too, has been affected by gun violence. His friend Jarrett Lane, a Giles County native, was killed in the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16, 2007. Yost has not focused on gun control issues in the General Assembly, but has worked for mental health reform, which stems from his graduate school research and a stint as a jail diversion coordinator.

The National Rifle Association endorsed Yost in 2015, as it did other local Republicans and also Democratic state Sen. John Edwards.

The 12th House District, covers Radford, Giles County and parts of Montgomery and Pulaski counties. With its even split of Republican and Democratic voters, it is one of the more contentious districts in the commonwealth. Yost, considered a moderate Republican in the House, has faced Democratic challengers in each of his three previous elections, starting with a close victory over former Blacksburg councilman Don Langrehr in 2011. He won his third term comfortably in 2015.

Roanoke Times reporter Carmen Forman contributed information for this story.
Virginians who want to post scathingly honest online reviews on websites like Yelp and Angies List could soon be able to fire away with less fear of getting sued.

But whether a new free-speech law pending in the General Assembly extends beyond political speech to cover the increasingly online rating-powered marketplace will depend on how the House of Delegates and Senate reconcile two versions of the bill.

Commonly known as anti-SLAPP statutes (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), the proposals are aimed at cracking down on defamation lawsuits that, despite having little merit, could scare people into holding back their opinions for fear of a costly court case. The legislation doesn't slam the door shut on defamation lawsuits over provably false statements, but some legislators fear it could leave businesses susceptible to damaging attacks on their reputation by competitors or others.

Yelp, the San Francisco-based online platform for user-powered reviews of restaurants and other business throughout the country, is backing the legislation with the help of Richmond lobbying powerhouse McGuireWoods.

"Yelp is proud to provide an online platform where consumers can post their honest, fact-based opinions,"Laurent Crenshaw, Yelp's director of public policy, said in a written statement. "Virginians need anti-SLAPP protections to ensure that bogus lawsuits can no longer undermine their free expression."

In one closely watched lawsuit in Virginia, a contractor sued a Fairfax woman in 2012 over negative reviews she posted on Yelp and Angie's List after hiring the company to do work at her home. The postings also implied the contractor may have stolen her jewelry because no one else had a key. In 2014, a jury essentially declared the case a draw.

Though some lawmakers are skeptical of adding protection for online reviews, a separate provision shielding speech on government and civic affairs appears to have wide bipartisan support. That element of the legislation was inspired by the case of a Richmond Public Schools principal who sued a group of parents who wrote a letter criticizing the principals performance.

A bill that passed the House 74-23 covers both political and consumer speech.

"What my bill would do is say if you're in the marketplace and you're holding yourself out to the public, then folks can go on and make an honest take on your business," said Del. Terry G. Kilgore, R-Scott, the patron of House Bill 1941.

The bill that cleared the Senate 38-2 only covers political speech after the consumer element was stripped out in committee.

The Senate bill's sponsor is Sen. Glen H. Sturtevant Jr., R-Richmond, who had an up-close view of the principal's defamation case in his former role as a member of the Richmond School Board.

In 2014, the then-principal of Lucille M. Brown Middle School filed a $3 million lawsuit accusing four parents of conspiring to write a damaging letter criticizing the school's administration and atmosphere. The letter, written to school system leaders, was later published by Style Weekly, Richmond's alt-weekly newspaper.

The lawsuit was struck down, but the principal appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which struck down the case again.

That didn't prevent the parents from having to hire lawyers to defend themselves, Sturtevant said.

"We're talking about private citizens. Parents who are concerned about the education of their kids," Sturtevant said. "And they were being faced with a multi-million dollar lawsuit that had the potential to cost them their homes, their life savings, kids' college funds, their livelihoods."

Wendy Martin, one of the parents named in the suit, along with her husband, said at a Senate committee hearing this month that the ordeal meant "455 days of feeling like we had a gun to our head" and nearly $40,000 in legal fees.

"These suits are brought to be vindictive," Martin said. "And I am confident that if I had lived in any of the 28 other states, red and blue, that have this legislation, I never would have been sued."

State law already protects comments on public matters made before a governing body in a public hearing. This year's legislation would widen that protection to statements "communicated to a third party," which could cover letters, online comments and other forms of expression.

Sturtevant and Del. G. Manoli Loupassi, R-Richmond, pushed for a bill signed into law last year to allow people who beat meritless defamation suits to recoup attorney fees and costs.

Though the added protection for political speech outside of public hearings seems headed for easy passage, the commerce provision sought by Yelp faces tougher odds.

At a Feb. 1 Courts of Justice committee hearing, Sen. Mark D. Obenshain, R-Rockingham, said it could be particularly perilous for small businesses.

"For every action, there is a reaction," said Obenshain, the committee chairman. "And I get what you're trying to protect, but you're going to hurt other people in the process."

Without the marketplace provision, "matters of public concern" would be defined as issues "properly before a governing body" or "reasonably likely to encourage consideration or review by a governing body."

Sturtevant said he doesn't expect the commerce provision sought by Yelp to make it out of the Senate.

Kilgore was more optimistic.

"Hopefully we'll get it all," Kilgore said.
Immunomedics Inc. (IMMU) said that it has entered into an exclusive global licensing agreement with Seattle Genetics Inc. (SGEN), an innovative global biotechnology company that develops and commercializes novel antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs for the treatment of cancer.

As per the agreement, Seattle Genetics will develop, fund, manufacture and commercialize IMMU-132, Immunomedics' proprietary solid tumor therapy candidate.

The agreement also provides that Seattle Genetics will be responsible for initiating the Phase 3 clinical trial of IMMU-132 in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and submitting the initial Biologics License Application (BLA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for accelerated approval.

The agreement includes the development of additional indications for IMMU-132, including urothelial cancer (UC), small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) and non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which are currently in Phase 2 clinical studies, along with other solid tumor indications being studied in ongoing clinical trials.

The agreement provides for potential payments of approximately $2 billion across multiple indications, plus double-digit tiered royalties on global net sales. Under the terms of the agreement, Immunomedics will receive $250 million in upfront cash payment, plus, among other milestone payments, an additional $50 million (or negotiated economic splits) relating to rights outside the U.S., Canada and the EU.

The remainder of the consideration comprises approximately $1.7 billion that is contingent upon achieving certain clinical, development, regulatory and sales milestones, including an anticipated near-term milestone for acceptance of the Biologics License Application (BLA) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for TNBC, additional milestones based on regulatory approval of IMMU-132 for TNBC in the U.S. and other territories, and future development and regulatory milestones for additional indications beyond TNBC. Future royalty payments are tiered double-digit royalties based on global net sales.

In addition, Immunomedics will retain the right to elect to co-promote IMMU-132 in the United States by participating in 50% of the sales effort, subject to certain parameters set forth in the agreement.

Upon completion of the transaction, Immunomedics and Seattle Genetics will each appoint representatives to serve on a Joint Steering Committee (JSC) that will be chaired by a Seattle Genetics representative. The JSC will be responsible for, among other things, determining the overall development, commercialization, manufacturing and intellectual property strategy for IMMU-132.



The companies expect the transaction to close in the first quarter of 2017, subject to expiration or termination of the applicable waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, as well as other customary closing conditions.

Under the terms of the agreement, for a limited period, through February 19, 2017, Immunomedics has the right to continue negotiating with a select number of parties still in the strategic process, and accept a superior proposal. Seattle Genetics has the right to match any superior proposal and if it decides not to match, Immunomedics has the right to accept the superior proposal and terminate the proposed development and license agreement upon payment of a termination fee to Seattle Genetics.

Concurrent with the transaction, Seattle Genetics is purchasing 3 million shares of common stock, representing an approximately 2.8% stake in Immunomedics, at a per share price of $4.90, which represents a 10% premium to Immunomedics' 15-day trading volume weighted average stock price of $4.45 for the period ending at the close of trading February 9, 2017, the last trading day prior to entering into the global licensing agreement.

Seattle Genetics will also be issued a three-year warrant to purchase 8.66 million shares of common stock at the same price, which shall be exercisable when the Company has sufficient authorized shares of common stock to enable the exercise of the warrant. Seattle Genetics will not be eligible to vote its stake at the upcoming 2016 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Ford Motor Co. (F) announced that it is investing $1 billion during the next five years in Argo AI to develop a virtual driver system for Ford's autonomous vehicle coming in 2021 - and for potential license to other companies.

The company said that the $1 billion investment in Argo AI will be made over five years and is consistent with the autonomous vehicle capital allocation plan shared last September as part of Ford Investor Day.

By the end of this year, Argo AI expects to have more than 200 team members, based in the company's Pittsburgh headquarters and at major sites in Southeastern Michigan and the Bay Area of California.

Argo AI's initial focus will be to support Ford's autonomous vehicle development and production. In the future, Argo AI could license its to other companies and sectors looking for autonomous capability.

Founded by former Google and Uber leaders, Argo AI will include roboticists and engineers from inside and outside of Ford working to develop a new software platform for Ford's fully autonomous vehicle coming in 2021.

Argo AI founders Bryan Salesky, the company's chief executive, and Peter Rander, chief operating officer, led the self-driving car teams of Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) and Uber, Ford said.

"Argo AI's agility and Ford's scale uniquely combine the benefits of a technology startup with the experience and discipline of the automaker's industry-leading autonomous vehicle development program," Ford said in a statement. Ford last year announced plans to sell driverless cars by 2021 and unveiled partnerships and investments in the arena, as well as buying a San Francisco-based shuttle startup.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
By SA Commercial Prop News

Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa.



The cost to build three nuclear power plants with two reactors each should be between R300 billion to R400 billion and not the R1-trillion as previously reported, says Rob Adam, CEO of the Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA (Necsa).

Answering questions during the presentation of the corporation's annual report to Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Energy on Tuesday, Adam pushed the idea that nuclear power was the cleanest and most cost effective form of energy.

"If you take the simple arithmetics, a 1,600 MW nuclear reactor would cost around R50 billion and so the total cost of the programme would not amount to more than R400 billion at the top," he said.

The Department of Energy's Integrated Resource Plan that aims to build the country's power generation over the next 20 to 30 years proposes the build of three new nuclear power stations with two 1,600 MW generators each. However, no firm plans have been revealed about the details of the proposed nuclear build programme.

"The economics of a nuclear power plant are also very simple," Adam said. "One pays for it over 20 to 30 years and then it has a life span of between 40 to 60 years. The electricity can be sold for a long time after it has been paid off. There is a reason why Koeberg is Eskom's cash cow."

In answer to a specific question from MPs about Necsa being consulted on the nuclear build programme, Adam said that it had not but that it was understandable.

"It is human nature to believe that one has not been consulted as much as one should have, and we have been partly consulted. However, the information around the programme is being quite closely guarded within government," he said.

Adam said nuclear was still the best manner in which to increase the country's power generation, while trying to reduce carbon emissions.

Referring to Germany's recent announcement to phase out its nuclear power stations, Adam said that it would not meet its carbon reduction targets without nuclear power.
Reality TV personality Khloe Kardashian has returned to her famous last name after her divorce with retired professional basketball player Lamar Odom was officially finalised. She celebrated it with a unique cake.On Thursday, the 32-year-old reality TV star got a surprise - a big licence-shaped cake from her assistants to celebrate her name change on her new passport, reports aceshowbiz.com. Khloe got help from sister and reality TV star Kim Kardashian in commemorating the happy day. The wife of rapper Kanye West shared a series of videos of Khloe celebrating dropping Lamar's moniker. "Look what Khloe's assistants got for her because she got a new passport," Kim said on the Thursday evening posts. "Without her old last name. It's her new last name and look at the weight you guys," she added. The edible cake featured a photograph of Khloe's new licence as well as a joke about her recent three-stone weight loss. It listed her weight as "skinny b***h". It also showed her address now being "Freedom Lane". But her sister Kim later clarified on Twitter, saying: "I did not just show Khloe's address on my snap chat! It says Freedom Lane people...It's a joke!"
After celebrating Rose Day, Propose Day, Chocolate Day and Teddy Day, this is time strengthen your true love with some firm commitment and promise.

The fifth day of valentine Week is being observed as the Promise Day. This falls on February 11 every year.



So guys what you are waiting for. Go ahead and assure your beloved of your love by making a promise.



Here are some Promise Day 2017 SMS messages



We met it was Luck! We talked it was CHANCE!

We became friends it was DESTINY! We are still friends it is FAITH!

We will always be friends its a PROMISE! On this Promise Day.



This Promise Day 2017. I dont promise you the moon,

I dont promise you the star, but if you promise to remember me,

I promise to be always there. Thinking of you on this Promise Day.



With every beat of my heart

I will love you more and more,

After years of togetherness

This is my solemn vow for you, my love!

Happy Promise Day



You are as sweet as Rose bud

You are Bright As A Star

You are cute as a kitten

That's What U Are.

You Are Everything for me

Happy promise day 2017



Ye promise h humara,

Na chhodenge kabhi saath tumhara,

Jo gaye tum hume bhool kar,

Le aayenge pakad kar haath tumhara..

Happy promise day



Speaking Without Egos,

Loving Without Intentions,

Caring Without Expectations,

I Promise You That You Will Be Mine Always.

Happy Promise Day



We Have So Much More

Than I Ever Thought We Would,

I Love You More

Than I Ever Thought I Could.

I Promise To Give You

All I Have To Give,

Ill Do Anything For You

As Long As I Live.



Love Is The Happiness Of Today,

And Promise Of Tomorrow,

So This Warm Note Comes To You,

To Say That Live Life With A Heart Full Of Love.

Happy Promise Day



We Met It Was Luck!

We Talked It Was CHANCE!

We Became Friends It Was DESTINY!

We Are Still Friends It Is FAITH!

We Will Always Be Friends Its A PROMISE!

On This Promise Day..





Wo Gulab Jo Tumne mujhe diya tha

Wo Pyaar Jo Tumne mujhse kiya tha

Wo yaad Jo Tumne mujhe diya tha

Wo safar Jo humne saath tay kiya tha

nahi bhool pauga mai

jab tak hai jaan

jab tak hai jaan

Happy promise day 2017



Sweetie I Cant Promise To Solve All Your Problems,

I Can Only Promise,

That Ill Never Let You Face Them Alone..

Happy Promise Day..



Promise Me We R True lover

Im Lamp, Ur Light.

Im Coke, Ur Sprite.

Im (Sawan)Rain, Ur Badal.

Im Normal, Ur Pagal.



I Must Have Been Born Under A Lucky Star,

To Find A Friend As Nice As You Are.

I Will Follow The Rainbow To The End ,

If You Promise To Remain My Friend !!!



If At Any Time Life Is Like A Candle In The Wind,

Then Ill Put My Hands Around You So That

All Burns Are Mine And All Light Is Yours.

Its A Promise



This Promise Day 2017

I Dont Promise You The Moon,

I Dont Promise You The Star,

But If You Promise To Remember Me,

I Promise To Be Always There.

Thinking Of You On This Promise Day



I Wont Promise To Be Your Friend Forever,

Because,

I Wont Live That Long,

But Let Me Be Your Friend As Long As I Live



If one day u feel like crying, call me.

I can't promise to make u laugh,

but I'll b cry with u.
At least 13 people were killed and over 20 injured when a bus and a pick-up truck carrying gas cylinders collided head-on in Bangladesh's Faridpur district, a police official said on Saturday.

The accident took place on a highway connecting Dhaka and Khulna town on Friday night.



The official told media that the collision sparked a huge fire and the toll might increase since some of the injured were in critical condition.

"Fire fighters recovered 13 charred bodies from inside the bus," he said.



The cause of the accident is being probed.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday ridiculed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "peeping into others' bathrooms" and said he was a complete failure at the job.

"The Prime Minister is fond of Google searching, peeping into others' bathrooms. Let him do that in his free time but his main job is that of a Prime Minister in which he has been a cent per cent failure," Gandhi said while addressing a joint press conference here with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.



Gandhi's jibe come a day after Modi, while campaigning in the poll bound state, mocked the Congress leader for being the "most joked about politician".



The Prime Minister had earlier attracted the wrath of the Congress over his "bathing wearing a raincoat" barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh.





"The country's biggest problem is lack of jobs. Modi promised two crore jobs but has not fulfilled even one per cent of his promise. Modi talks a lot about security, terrorism and surgical strikes."



"But the result is we have suffered most number of casualties in the last seven years. Over 90 of our security personnel have been killed," said Gandhi while referring to the Indian Army's September 29 surgical strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan occupied territory.



"The Prime Minister is apprehensive of Uttar Pradesh polls result. The result will give him a big shock, will put a question mark on his credibility. That is why he is saying such things," he added.


In a sharp reaction to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's warning to Congressmen that he had prepared dossiers on them, Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday warned that even he had the "horoscopes" of both Modi and BJP President Amit Shah.

"Everybody who is born has a 'janam patrika' (horoscope). The PM must not forget this. Even we have his and Amit Shah's 'janam kundli'. Have they forgotten how they survived after the Godhra communal carnage? It was because my late father, Bal Thackeray stood solidly behind them," he said.





Interacting with a select group of senior media persons at his residence 'Matoshri' here, Thackeray spoke on a wide range of issues, including relations with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its ally in both Maharashtra and the centre, though he unilaterally snapped ties on January 26.



Criticising Modi, Thackeray said that "never before has any Indian Prime Minster stooped to such levels" in politics.



"All he does is mock and ridicule leaders of other parties but now people are tired of this. During the 2014 Maharashtra assembly elections, he addressed 27 rallies in this state. So I demanded he should come here even for the BMC elections," he said.



Alleging that they (BJP leaders) are "liars, who are not interesting in anything but grabbing power", Thackeray said this was the reason he decided to break the alliance with the BJP for the civic polls and would henceforth fight all elections independently.



Asked how the Shiv Sena continued with the ruling alliance in centre and Maharashtra, he countered: "Have they asked us to get out? If they don't like us, they can leave. But they are stuck. We will decide our future course after the civic elections here."



He recalled how, with the blessings of people like his late father Bal Thackeray and late BJP leaders Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Munde, the alliance between the two parties was finalized and it grew from strength to strength.



"At that time, my father decided that to prevent a split in the Hindu votes, the BJP would concentrate at the central level and Shiv Sena at the state level. It worked fine. But, now, the BJP wants to grab everything - the centre, state, civic bodies and all else," he said.



Looking back at the past few years, it would have been much better if the Shiv Sena had gone alone, as it would have emerged into a major national political force in the past 25 years, he said.



Touching on allegations by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on transparency in administration and a corruption-free government, Thackeray sarcastically said first he should look within and at his own partymen.



"All the ministers facing allegations of corruption in Maharashtra belong to the BJP. Not a single Shiv Sena minister is facing similar charges of graft," he said.



On the issue of transparency, he said the Union government has declared last week that the administration of BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation is the country's most transparent, adding the Sena already has "complete transparency" in the civic body where all major decisions of the Standing Committee are taken in the presence of officials, opposition leaders and even media.



"We are talking of such high levels of transparency. Why can't the BJP do the same at the state or centre? The Leaders of Opposition enjoy a cabinet status, so they should be invited to cabinet meetings along with the media," Thackeray said.



"When everything was done so transparently, with the media witness to the decisions, how can the BJP accuse Shiv Sena of corruption or malpractice?" he asked.



Asked whether the war with BJP has entered a new dimension with his party praising the Congress, Thackeray said the good work they did cannot be ignored.



"There's no question of praising the Congress. I was only appreciating the good work they have done all these years. Indira Gandhi had the guts to break Pakistan, for instance... What has the BJP done, except the 'surgical strike' on the borders," he said.



Asked to list the achievements of the Modi government in the past 33 months, Thackeray smiled smugly: "They have survived for so long on lies... That's an achievement ! And they will continue doing so for the remaining 27 months."
The emerging consensus that there is a wave in favour of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab is terrible news for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, not because they will have lost the election but because the road ahead will become that much more difficult.

The image of Narendra Modi, after reversals in this round of election, will have lost sheen irretrievably. The euphoria his victory in the May 2014 general election had generated should have begun to evaporate after two successive AAP victories in Delhi in December 2013 and February 2015, the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Janata Dal-United (RJD-JDU) victory in Bihar followed by BJP defeats in the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.



These did not appear to demoralise him. But defeat in key states in the current round will create internal restiveness and aggravate the political effects of demonetisation.



For the Congress, the AAP's further rise spells an existential danger. Its inability to reclaim lost ground in the northern states will begin to look like a pitiable reality, exactly as the visage of the Gandhi-Nehru parivar will. Holding on to Akhilesh Yadav's coat-tails in Uttar Pradesh will carry neither Rahul Gandhi nor the Congress very far.



That Priyanka Gandhi may give the party a helping hand at a critical juncture is a hope some peripheral Congress leaders nurse. If her behaviour were anything to go by, she is by some accounts in indifferent health and cannot focus even on Rahul and Sonia Gandhi's constituencies, Amethi and Rae Bareli, which have been assigned to her for safe-keeping.





But she clearly has a tremendous sense of survival. There were fears during the 2014 general elections that these seats would be swept away in the Modi wave. That her mother and brother may not be in the next Parliament was an unnerving prospect. She stiffened her sinews and in two weeks of campaigning ensured success for her sibling and her mother. She has talent but, apparently, is short on stamina.



There are several reasons for the Congress' expected defeat. Among the reasons is the habitual delay in naming the chief ministerial candidate. Amrindar Singh was projected as Chief Minister far too late in the day.



Congressmen murmur but never actually say that the Congress President will not project anybody who might have the potential of eclipsing the family, particularly Rahul Gandhi. I am not implying Amrinder specifically, but there are instances.



I have always maintained that in 2014 Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit may well have come up trumps in the state had the party High Command by hint or gesture talked of her in Prime Ministerial terms. Remember the state victory would have been her fourth in a row. Her late husband had been a popular IAS officer; she had been a minister in the Prime Minister's Office.



Instead of these credentials being advertised, something that would have enthused the cadres, the High Command demonstrated hostile indifference. Dikshit lost. That was the beginning of Kejriwal and AAP.



It is now of course too late in the day for any movement towards fulfilment of Sonia Gandhi's dream of crowning Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister. What future for the party Vice President who is now playing second fiddle to Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow?



During the Panchmarhi conclave of the Congress in September 1998, senior leaders Kamal Nath, Arjun Singh and Jitendra Prasad had refused to see the writing on the wall: they had shot down a proposal that the Congress must seek alliances for survival.



"No," they said, "we must recover the social base lost to the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party." By what feat was this goal to be achieved?



Chandrajit Yadav and Rajesh Pilot (Sachin Pilot's father) cried themselves hoarse: "In the present circumstances, there is no alternative to alliances."



What irony, then, that 18 years after Sonia Gandhi shot down alliances at the Panchmarhi conclave, an alliance has been forged in Uttar Pradesh precisely with a party which was anathema to Congress leaders who are even today part of the Sonia coterie.



The BJP and the Congress would not have been in the state of funk in which they are today had they defeated each other in the contest. As the third force called AAP rises from Delhi to Punjab, making inroads in Goa too, the demoralisation of the Congress in states like Rajasthan will become palpable as results start coming on March 11.



Corporates, comfortable with alternating between the Congress and the BJP, will now have to find new ways of placing their bets.



In anticipation of the Punjab results, Kejriwal has already immersed himself in the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections due in two months.



What must cause considerable disquiet to the Modi-Amit Shah duet is the AAP targeting Gujarat. To make matters worse, Hardik Patel, the Patidar icon, is already positioning himself in that state as a Shiva Sena leader.



Despite the chaos attending demonetisation, Modi was able to prove one thing: he could make the country stand outside banks without any leader being able to ignite a revolt. Things will change now. The momentum behind Kejriwal and Akhilesh Yadav will make Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar-Lalu Prasad and others look like a muscular array of regional forces.



Where Rahul Gandhi fits into this arrangement only time will tell.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Bihar Police probing the topper's scam on Saturday arrested the father of Ruby Rai, an accused, police said.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Bihar Police probing the topper's scam on Saturday arrested the father of Ruby Rai, an accused, police said.

The SIT with the help of local police in Vaishali district arrested Avadesh Rai, who has been absconding for over seven months after his involvement in the topper's scam surfaced last year.

"A team of SIT went to Ruby's house to attach the property of Avadesh Rai to put pressure on him to surrender, but much to its surprise, her father was found inside and arrested," a police official said.

Ruby Rai had topped this year's Class XII examination conducted by the Bihar State Education Board in humanities stream.

She got into trouble after a sting by a TV channel showed her giving ludicrous answers to elementary questions related to her subjects.

Class XII science stream topper Saurabh Shreshtha was also caught on camera giving wrong answers to basic science questions.

The sting suggested the "toppers" might have used cheating or fraud to achieve their ranks.

Both Ruby and Saurabh belonged to V.R. College in Vaishali district.

According to police, the SIT last year arrested Ruby but later a special juvenile court here granted bail to her.

A chargesheet was filed against former Chairman of BSEB Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh, his wife and former JDU legislator Usha Sinha, the alleged kingpin of the scam, Bachcha Rai, and former director and principal of V.R. College and former board secretary Harharnath Jha.

Singh and Jha are currently in jail.
The Democratic Alliance of Nagaland Legislature Party (DANLP) on Friday appealed to the National Tribal Action Committee (NTAC) and Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) to lift the indefinite shutdown.

The appeal came after the Naga tribal groups threatened to intensify their agitation after Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang refused to accede to their demand for his resignation and their three-day ultimatum in this regard ended on Friday.

The two Naga tribal bodies had served a three-day ultimatum to Zeliang to step down following the government's decision to hold local bodies elections with 33 per cent reservation for women in 12 towns across the state and the death of two persons in clashes between the police and protestors at Dimapur, the commercial hub of Nagaland, on the night of January 31 .

"The DAN Legislature Party resolved to appeal to the agitating groups to lift the indefinite shutdown, and take up the offer for dialogue being extended by the state government in the true spirit of democratic practices so as to bring about amicable resolution to the ULB issue in the State," a statement issued from Chief Minister's Office stated.

The DAN Legislature Party, which held an emergency meeting this evening at the State Banquet Hall, discussed the present situation and came to the conclusion that the issue of election to the Urban Local Bodies is over with the entire process having been declared null and void, and that the stage now is set for dialogue and negotiations on the future course of action to be taken in this regard.

Of the 60 DAN members , only 53 legislators including the Speaker Chotisuh Sazo, Chairman of the DAN and President of the NPF party Shurhozelie Liezietsu, Vice Chairman of DAN and President of the BJP Nagaland Visasolie Lhoungu, and lone Nagaland Rajya Sabha member KG Kenye attended the legislature party meeting as special invitees.

It stated that the legislators discussed the present situation and came to the conclusion that the issue of election to the Urban Local Bodies (ULB) is over with the entire process having been declared null and void, and that the stage is now set for dialogue and negotiations on the future course of action in this regard.

On Thursday, Governor P.B. Acharya had declared the entire process of elections to ULBs as null and void.

"We met the Governor (P.B. Acharya) on Friday and told him of our demand seeking the resignation of the Chief Minister. The governor told us that he is waiting for the chief minister (who is scheduled to meet him this evening) to discuss on the issue," NTAC Convener K.T. Velie told IANS.

The NTAC leader, however, warned: "If Zeliang does not step down, we have no other option but to further intensify our agitation in the form of an indefinite total shutdown which will affect all educational institutions, markets and functioning of banks."

Zeliang, who flew back to Nagaland on Friday morning after meeting Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday evening, had reiterated he would not not step down.

However, Naga People's Front legislator Neiphrezo Keditsu had last week submitted his resignation as Chairman of Nagaland State Mineral Development Corporation (NSMDC) Limited on moral grounds since one of the persons killed in the Dimapur police firing was from his village.

The Chief Minister had explained Singh the ground reality of the on-going face off between the NTAC and the government, and the ensuing shutdown which have affected the normal day to day life.

Zeliang also briefed the Home Minister about how his government, determined to fulfill the Constitutional obligation of holding polls to the civic bodies, had initiated the process after several tribal organisations expressed their support to holding of elections to the ULBs with 33 per cent reservation of seats for women, and how these organisations took a U-Turn after the polls were announced.

Nagaland has never elected a women legislator since it gained statehood in 1963. The lone woman member of Parliament from the state was Rano M. Shaiza, who got elected in 1977.

Meanwhile, Nagaland Police chief L.L. Doungel told IANS that police are keeping a close watch on the strike and will function accordingly.

The government continued to shut down the internet and mobile data service to stop the spread of rumours through social networking sites.

The Kohima district administration also imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC banning assembly of more than five persons and carrying of arms in certain areas including Raj Bhavan, Chief Minister's official residence and the Civil Secretariat.
Four gangsters were arrsted on Saturday after a shootout with a Punjab Police team in Ferozepur district, an officer said.

Around 100 rounds were fired by both sides before the police team nabbed the gangsters on the outskirts of Makhu town, 210 km from here, following a tip-off.



The police was tracking gangsters in the area following an incident of firing in the air outside a polling station in Guru Har Sahai town on February 4 when voting for the assembly elections was underway.
Former Minister and AIADMK spokesperson C. Ponnaiyan on Saturday joined the group of old timers to join acting Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam's camp - in another jolt to party General Secretary V.K. Sasikala.

Former Minister and AIADMK spokesperson C. Ponnaiyan on Saturday joined the group of old timers to join acting Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam's camp - in another jolt to party General Secretary V.K. Sasikala.

The development came as Tamil Nadu School Education Minister K. Pandiarajan too joined the Panneerselvam camp earlier in the day.

Besides them, two sitting Lok Sabha members -- Ashok Kumar representing Krishnagiri constituency and Sundaram representing Namakkal - have also joined the group.

Till Friday Pandiarajan, Ponnaiyan, Ashok Kumar and Sundaram were with Sasikala and were defending her in a staunch manner.

Earlier, sitting Rajya Sabha member V. Maitreyan joined Panneerselvam's camp.

The four new joinees to Panneerselvam's camp comes a day after AIADMK spokesperson Vaigaichelvan said people joining Panneerselvam's camp are "beyond their expiry date".

Speaking to reporters here, Ashok Kumar said other AIADMK MPs will also start joining hands with the acting Chief Minister.

The AIADMK has 37 members in the Lok Sabha.

Panneerselvam revolted against AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala on Tuesday night alleging that he was forced to resign as Chief Minister to pave the way for her to occupy that chair.

As of now seven legislators (including Panneerselvam), three sitting MPs - two Lok Sabha and one Rajya Sabha - several office bearers, old timers, former legislators and most of the party's grass root workers are in support of Panneerselvam.

According to V. Maitreyan, more ministers and legislators are likely to join the Panneerselvam camp.
US President Donald Trump has said he has "no doubt" his administration will win legal challenges to his travel ban.

In a press conference with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, Trump also promised to move "rapidly" to introduce "additional security" steps for the US next week, BBC reported.

He spoke as Virginia state lawyers argued in court that his policy "resulted from animus toward Muslims".

"We are going to keep our country safe, we are going to do whatever is necessary to keep our country safe," Trump said at the White House on Friday.

"We'll be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country, you'll be seeing that sometime next week," he added.

"In addition we will continue to go through the court process and ultimately I have no doubt that we'll win that case."

Trump did not clarify what he meant by additional steps, but his remarks were in response to a journalist's question about whether he was considering fresh executive orders, the report said.
I may have broken the aft cabin. This is the text I get from Jamie a few hours after Ive departed Totem for an overnight road trip to Miami. The smoky-green smell of sawdust wafts to me from half a state away and the disarray of a deconstruction project easy to picture. The critical path project for our departure from the US for the Bahamas is to replace the soft sides for our hardtop dodger, so of course, the aft cabin is going to be torn apart.

It comes down to this: cruising boat projects are more likely to be done when you can than when you want to. Those you do when you must often leave something to be desired based on local limitations. And over time, these done-as-you-could projects accumulate into something that stands to benefit from a re-do.

Here in Florida we have easy access to well-made, relatively affordable goods. Its a short ride to a spectrum of lumber options and hardware. A selection of dying tools were readily replaced: drill, orbital sander, and a jigsaw Jamies had since he was 17. Quality wire at great prices was available with help from a friend. So a combination of two needs based in the aft cabingetting our batteries wired up correctly, and dealing with mold in the bamboo panelingpushed this one to the fore.

Breaking the aft cabin stems from a must-do project that wasnt done entirely right, based on local limitations. Nearly three years ago we replaced our battery bank back in Malaysia. Moving the bank location under our bunk helped address weight distribution on Totem, eliminating a port list. That move required different wiring to connect to the bus bar nearer the old nav station location. We didnt have access to the right sized wires, so Jamie made it work by patching long cables.

The knee bones connected to the shin bone: charge controllers wired to the battery bank had been installed on a piece of bamboo paneling that got moldy thanks to the damp on board (possibly starting from this unpleasant passage, but condensation during the recent cold months was a kicker). Blinking lights reflecting off the headliner over our bunk at night doesnt make for a romantic atmosphere (and is just kind of annoying!), so theres a whole new utility closet being built in the cabin to house these in beautiful organization.

This might have been postponed, but access to the right materials to do it right bumped it up. The kicker was some very nice wires that friends helped us source (Asifs a rocket scientist, a pilot, and a boat owner-- thus knows not just a few things about wiring but a great place to buy quality marine-ready stuff for less).

There are a lot of concurrent projects on Totem right now, and while Im dreaming about getting the dodger and bimini done (it will happen! It has to) its pretty exciting to see the improvements in our cabin.

Life rolls on! The roadtrip was relatively spontaneous. My friend Patricia Leat takes special needs kids and families out sailing on the healing waters of the ocean: she wanted to meet with her friend and Active Disabled Americans board member, Kerry Gruson, in Miami. As it turned out, I'm the one who lucked into a sail with this inspiring woman: Kerry has been paralyzed from the neck down for decades, but despite the limited mobility in her arms she helms the boat with tenderness and intensity. Team Paradise is the Miami-based organization that helps people of all levels of ability get out on the water. Wheelchair? Other needs? No problem, they figure it out.

I also met up with Pam Wall in Fort Lauderdale. Pam and I are delivering a two-day Cruising Women seminar alongside the spring boat show in Annapolis and had some coordinating to do! Between those two priorities, Patty and I worked in some meetups (Halden Marine, with the supremely helpful JT who provided watermaker troubleshooting for us from halfway around the world, and at Strataglass, to get materials for Totem's dodger). Of course, you really should have a Cuban sandwich in Miami, too.

We've been lucky to spend time with special people, like my old nanny / au pair, Jorunn, who visited from Norway. I haven't seen her in at least 40 years, but the face and the voice - I knew them, and it was wonderful.

Or hanging out with our friends on MV Cortado, who we can't wait to see again down in Miami soon.

The ocean beaches, where hunting ospreys flaunted their catch, are best visited with a friend.

There are homemade pasta dinners with the McMermaids, another family who feels at one with the ocean.

Spontaneous visits by neighbors Kristen, Hans and their daughters, via dinghy, keeping our psyches closer to cruising while tied to a dock.

Getting to know Jacksonville a little: Anne Frank's diary facsimile, in an exhibit at the Museum of Science & History.

Yet another Amazon delivery,.And yet another sunset.
Follow here for live updates as Kansas State football takes on Texas

Follow along here for live updates as Kansas State takes on Texas at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints has extended its helping hand to Avele College.

Yesterday, 200 desks, chairs and reading books were presented to the school.

The church hopes the equipment will contribute to the development of future leaders at the College.

It is actually a co-operation between the Charitable Trust in NZ, Elders charity and the Ministry of Education because we place the furniture where the Ministry of Education advises us to place,said Elder Vellinga.

We hope that you will enjoy and appreciate these wonderful gifts.

Principal Lesaisaea Reupena Matafeo accepted the donation and thanked the church.

The weather man this morning saidthat there will be too much rain this weekend but forAvele,this is a shower of blessings for us, Lesaisaea said.

Its a shower of blessings because we believe that through this donation, it is a way for us to move forward,especially the help of educational resources.

On behalf of Avele College, the staff, A.C.O.P.A. and the parents,we want to say thank you very much for your generosity.

This is a big help to promote what Avele is trying to do in terms of offering a holistic education system for all, not just academic but vocational subjects as well, so will be able to meet the needs of Samoa in the future.
The Samoa Qualification Authority (S.Q.A) is working with registered providers for Post School Education Training (P.S.E.T) to encourage tertiary educations to accredit their programmes.

In doing so, S.Q.A hosted a two-day workshop at the Samoa Convention Center this week to raise awareness on available funds under the P.S.E.T Support Fund to support providers in accrediting programmes.

The project also reaches out to vulnerable students offering scholarships and helping teachers in tertiary education by upgrading their qualifications.

A similar workshop was conducted in Savaii at the Jetover Hotel on Friday, 10th February 2017 to help providers in the big island.

An estimate of close to a million tala is set aside for the PSET Support Fund which is financed by New Zealand, Australia and the government of Samoa.

Once programmes are accredited with SQA it will be listed on the Samoa Qualifications Framework (SQF).

From the 25 registered formal providers that were invited for the Upolu workshop, only 18 of them were able to participate.

SQA, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Maposua Mose Asani spoke about the importance of collaborative effort needed to accredit programmes.

Maposua reminded the registered providers that all programmes must be listed on SQF framework to ensure completeness of a quality assurance system.

Most of the providers we have in Samoa are now registered formal providers, he said.

We are hoping that the awareness workshop will encourage you to bring all your programmes listed on SQF.

SQA Assistant Chief Executive Officer of Research, Policy and Planning, Lealiifano Easter Manila Silipa also gave a presentation on how to apply for a project under the fund.

Some of the obstacles identified in the past by providers in accrediting their programmes is the lack of technical knowledge and assistance to compile and package programs.

However, SQA has stepped in to minimise this problem through the PSET Support Fund by providing Technical Assistance to develop and finalise programs, resourcing consumable materials and to fund professional developments for trainers to deliver the programmes.

The PSET fund also promotes the use of National Competency Standards (NCS) and Samoa Qualifications (SQs).

SQA encourages other registered Providers to utilise the PSET Support Fund to accredit their programmes.
Once again, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, is right.

This is to say his worries about the impending threat of climate change on our low-lying homes in the Pacific Ocean, as a result of the worlds wealthy nations having brazenly heating up the atmosphere over the years with their hazardous greenhouse gas emissions, are quite justified.

In any case this is not a new concern.

Back in 1992, much concern was raised globally about the threat of rising sea level caused by greenhouse gas emissions, so that an international body was formed to look at how to combat the problem.

The Kyoto Protocol was born.

It became the international treaty governed by the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (U.N.F.C.C.C.), whose job was to commit State Parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the premise that (a), global warming exists, and (b), human-made carbon dioxide emissions, have caused it.

Who signed the Kyoto Protocol?

Samoa did. First on 16 March 1998. Second on 27 November 2000 as the treaty had specified. And later still on 29 November 2000, when the treaty was ratified.

In the end, a total of 192 countries signed and ratified the 1992 Kyoto Protocol, also known as the treaty thats the closest thing we have to a working global agreement to fight climate change, the official statement announced.

But then which country did not sign?

Only three did not. They refused to sign. They were Afghanistan, Sudan, and guess who the last one was - The United States of America, arguably one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases  if not the biggest of them all - one of which is human-made carbon dioxide.

Now getting back to Prime Minister Tuilaepa, and his expressed concern about the threat of sea-level rising to Samoa  and indeed the rest of the vulnerable, low lying island nations of the world that are not in any way able, to protect themselves against this very threat  there is nothing to say except to agree that from here the future is indeed bleak.

According to a 2016 report from Microsoft Corporation Earthstar Geographics, a huge glacier in the South Pole called Larsen Cs shelf has been retreating past this line called the compressive arch, and the shelf is likely to collapse.

And should that happen, the report explains: The crack along Larsen C which now reaches over 100 miles in length, and some parts of it are as wide as two miles. The tip of the rift is currently only about 20 miles from reaching the other end of the ice shelf.

And at this time, Adrian J. Luckman of Swansea University in Wales, who is leading another research team called Project Midas, and has been monitoring the rift since 2014, has warned: Once the crack reaches all the way across the ice shelf, the break will create one of the largest icebergs ever recorded.

And because of the amount of stress the crack is placing on the remaining 20 miles of the shelf, a complete break is expected soon.

Indeed, Mr Luckman, warns: The iceberg is likely to break free within the next few months.

The rift tip has moved from one region of likely softer ice to another, which explains its step-wise progress.

Mr Luckman explains that ice shelves, which form through runoff from glaciers, float in water and provide structural support to the glaciers that rest on land.

When an ice shelf collapses, the glaciers behind it can accelerate toward the ocean. Higher temperatures in the region are also helping to further the ice shelfs retreat.

If the ice shelf breaks at the crack, Larsen C will be at its smallest size ever recorded. And if the front keeps on retreating, the northernmost part of the shelf could collapse within months.

It could also significantly change the landscape of the Antarctic peninsula, Mr Luckman says.

And according to Eric J. Rignot, a glaciologist, and professor at University of California Irvine, and a senior scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, At that point in time, the glaciers will react.

If the ice shelf breaks apart, it will remove a buttressing force on the glaciers that flow into it. The glaciers will feel less resistance to flow, effectively removing a cork in front of them.

So what is all that likely to lead to?

We are not sure. All we are led to believe, is that the scientists who have been examining the deterioration that has been caused to the ice shelf at the Antarctica, are of the opinion that human-made carbon dioxide emissions were indeed responsible.

On the other hand, whether or not the damage in question had been caused over the last fourteen years since the Kyoto Protocol had been established and given the go ahead, had also not been ascertained at this point.

And lastly, the scientists had not given a crystal clear indication as to whether or not they believe the damage caused is irreparable.

Incidentally therefore, perhaps that is where Prime Minister Tuilaepa, should be kind enough, to elaborate on.

After all, on the front page of the Samoa Observer dated 29 January 1917, under the headline - P.M. Tuilaepa schools Trump on climate change  he was quoted as having sent a message delivered during a press conference for the United States President, Donald John Trump.

The response was in relation to (Trumps) denial of climate change 

Said Tuilaepa: A leader cannot say that the country is not affected by climate change, when everyone else in the community is facing it and living with the impact of climate change.

Now what is he talking about here? Is he referring to Donald Trump as the President of the United States or America, or himself as the Prime Minister of Samoa?

Were not sure.

Another quote from him: The thing is up until now, they still havent fully recovered from the impact of Cyclone Katrina.

Imagine having a strong tornado during the cold weather, he said.

This can affect the power outrage. Even if you stay in a hundred-storey apartment, when the elevators dont work, you will be stuck there and many lives can be affected too.

There are a lot of things that we dont know.

Along the way, it appears that Tuilaepa is now interested only in the rich and powerful Trump whose threat to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, has obviously become a non-issue at this point.

According to Tuilaepa, such a withdrawal is unlikely to happen.

He said: The truth is, that can never happen. There is that phrase we always hear, common sense will finally prevail.

And lastly he said: You see Trump did not introduce anything new to do for America as President.

Now is that so?

Well, perhaps hes been travelling so much these days, he is no longer aware about what Donald Trump has been doing for his country over the last two months or so.

In fact, Trump has been quite busy reveling in the limelight, if he really wants to know.

First, Trump has made known his plan to build a wall between America and Mexico with the idea of stopping once and for all Mexicans, from sneaking into America in the middle of night, and then end up living illegally in America.

Second, Trump has made it clear the wall in question will not cost the American people a penny, since the total cost will be taken care of by the Mexican government.

Third, Trump has put a stop on immigrants of seven countries in the Middle East from moving to America with the idea of living there, in his bid to end the wanton violence that he claims is perpetrated by refugees in America.

Fourth, Trump has allowed himself to be sued by a former contestant of his pet project The Apprentice, who had previously accused him of sexual assault.

Fifth, Trump has allowed himself to be shamed publicly by the United States Federal Appeals Court, who has ruled unanimously that the U.S. will remain open to refugees and visa holders from seven Muslim-majority countries, rejecting a bid by the Trump administration to reinstate a travel ban in the name of national security.

Sixth, Trump has defied the Court and the Judicial System, by tweeting within minutes of the ruling, SEE YOU IN COURT. THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!

Theres more.

And so, if Prime Minister Tuilaepa still thinks Trump did not introduce anything new to do for America as its President, perhaps he should sit down and think again.

So stay tuned.

Have a peaceful Sunday Samoa, God bless.
Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has instructed Attorney General, Lemalu Hermann Retzlaff, to proceed with the necessary groundwork to set up a Sex Offenders Register.

The instruction comes amidst growing concerns about repeated sex offenders and sexual predators roaming the streets including sex offenders sent back to Samoa from overseas.

In an email to the Sunday Samoan, Lemalu confirmed the plan.

I can confirm that this office is now working with the Ministry of Police with reference to the work of the Returnees Trust to finalise a Legislation as to a Sexual Offenders Register for Samoa, he said.

The work and report of the Samoa Law Reform office has reached this office and that is the overall basis of this task."

On the instructions of the Hon P.M. we are aiming to table a Bill for consideration of the Cabinet with a view for it to be tabled as soon as is practicable before Parliament.

Lemalu said people with a history of sexual convictions would be targeted.

The Legislation will create mandatory requirements for those with previous convictions of sexual offending to be registered and therefore monitored as to their current whereabouts in order to attempt to ensure public safety while not being unmindful of the need to promote rehabilitation where at all possible, Lemalu said.

The Act will have a retrospective element to cover past offenders already in the community when it is enacted."

It will be new to Samoa so we in government enforcement will need to work together to work through how best to implement it."

I am confident I can work with the Acting Police Commissioner and I am personally mindful of Judicial awareness as per Justice Nelson's comments as far back as 2013. '

We will be committed to making this work for our community at large. The Register will be confidential to enforcement agencies unless legally required to disclose for safety issues that may arise.

The call for a Sex Offenders Register is not new. It was sparked by Justice Vui Clarence Nelson who became increasingly concerned about the presence of sex offenders in the community.

Back in 2015 for example, Justice Vui revived the call to clamp down on the number of sex offenders  including criminals sent back from other countries - roaming freely around Samoa.

Comparing them to a pack of wolves in a sheeps den, Justice Vui made the point when he jailed a father found guilty of 13 counts of rape of his biological daughter for 21 years.

The girl, whom he ended up impregnating, was 15 years old at the time of the offences. The identity of the victim has been suppressed while the defendant is referred to as VL.

The Court heard that VL was convicted and imprisoned in New Zealand in 2009 for indecently assaulting a female between the age of 12 and 16 years.

He was deported from that jurisdiction after serving his sentence, in the company of two New Zealand police officers. Back in Samoa, the Court was told that the defendant treated his daughter like his wife.

Whats more, he imprisoned her in her own home.

He would forbid her going outside the house. He would beat her when he returned from work and found her outside the house for whatever reason, Justice Vuis ruling said.

Her brothers evidence was sometimes these beatings would produce blood (e masaa le toto o lo'u tuafafinepe a fasi).'

The complainant was not even allowed, according to her, to watch TV. The defendant seems to be what is referred to in common parlance as a control freak. Sounds to me like he kept his daughter a virtual prisoner in her own home.

Justice Vui said the defendants behavior was sick.

"This defendant is a man with no conscience who almost beat his teenage son, the brother of the complainant, when the boy confronted him about his behavior, Justice Vui said.

Whats worse, when he was charged, he pleaded not guilty, which necessitated the complainant and her brother, his very own children, to relive the harrowing experience of a public hearing before a court room full of strangers.

I find it astounding how a convicted sex offender deported from an overseas jurisdiction because of his offending, considered dangerous enough to warrant being accompanied to Samoa not by one but two police officers, can then be permitted to live freely and anonymously in our community with no restriction whatever. With nothing in place to prevent possible reoffending."

This case once again highlights the need for a Sex Offenders Register for registration of serious sex offenders. So that such offenders can be supervised and monitored post-release from prison."

Irrespective of whether they are convicted and imprisoned in Samoa or elsewhere. It seems to be a normal practice now that sex offenders convicted in overseas jurisdictions are being returned to Samoa upon expiry of their sentences."

Then are released back into an unsuspecting community which is blissfully ignorant of the criminal past of these people who walk and live among them. This is the proverbial insertion of the wolf into the sheeps den.
A prisoner who attempted to rape a Norwegian woman who was making her way back down from the Robert Louis Stevenson tomb atop Mt. Vaea will have to serve three more years at Tafaigata Prison.

Daniel Vailopa was sentenced by Justice Tafaoimalo Leilani Tuala-Warren on Friday. The defendant was represented by Alalatoa Rosella Viane-Papalii while Fuifui Ioane was the prosecutor.

The defendant was found guilty of attempted sexual violation and theft in relation to an incident back in 2015. The woman, whose name is suppressed, was working for the United Nations Development Programme office at Matautu. In sentencing, Justice Tafaomalo said the ordeal was violent and terrifying in nature for the victim.

This offending on the victim who is a foreigner also has a negative impact on the image of Samoa as a country to visit, she said.

Now in the case of the accused his previous conviction shows total disrespect and disregard for the law.

The Judge said there is no question an imprisonment penalty is called for.

You live a life of crime which has land you in prison so many times, she said.

There must be times where you want to live as a free man and enjoy being in society however that will never happen as long as you offend and hurt others."

The court will not hesitate to send you back to prison to protect the community from you. The choice as to the life you want is yours alone to make.

According to the Police Summary of facts, the incident occurred on 31 August 2015 between 9 and 10am.

The defendant and three fellow prisoners had escaped from prison and stayed at an abandoned house at Mt. Vaea.

When the woman went for her routine hike, she was confronted by Vailopa on her way back down.

The victim initially walked past the defendant but he chased after her and grabbed her hand. He touched her waist and attempted to kiss the woman, who continued to resist him.

The victim struggled with the defendant while he attempted to remove her pants. During the struggle, the womans phone slipped out.

This caught the prisoners attention and it made him let go of her hand as he became interested in the phone. She ran from the prisoner and screamed for help. She reported the matter to the Police.

During her final submission, Alalatoa asked for mercy.

Daniel Vailopa who is here for sentencing on the charges of attempted sexual assault with the intention to rape as well as another charge to do with theft or taking the mobile of the victim, said Ms. Papalii.

To both charges the defendant has pleaded guilty and I do confirm with the prosecution that, that is perhaps the only mitigating factors in this paper."

In saying that however, we are at large plea for the courts mercy on Daniel and we are aware that he has quite an impressive record of previous conviction."

Ever since he was 15 he committed his first offense and that was to do with possession of narcotics back in 2004."

Following that he had other convictions so from a very young age 15 such a tender age when young youths such as himself should be in school or be happy he went downhill at such an early age.

And we respectfully submit your honor that once he had a taste of imprisonment at the age of 15 everything went downhill for him from there on.

Ms. Papalii went on to say that her submission is not trying to justify Mr. Vailopas action but rather asking the Court for leniency.

According to Daniel on the day of the offending the day that he had escape from prison like two days earlier and they were scrambling around for food, she said.

So when the opportunity presents itself they were walking down from Mount Vaea when the victim went passed. He saw that the victim had her phone attached on the side of her tummy on her waist and earphones plugged to her ears.

He saw this as an opportunity to steal the cell phone so they can kulei it for some money to buy food.

Unfortunately that didnt go according to plan because it wasnt easy for him to get the phone and every other action that he carried out to obtain the phone which came across to the victim as an attempt to sexually force her to force her to have sex with him.

She concluded: Please dont throw away the key but please give him some sort of light so that he can see the end of the tunnel after all these that he is going through.
Tom Hern hardly needs an introduction in the movie world.

Most moviegoers in this part of the world are likely to recognise the award winning producer and actor who was dubbed the future leader of the industry in 2015.

He is renowned for producing New Zealand feature films such as, The Dark Horse, Everything We Loved and now newly released comedy, Pork Pie, which is already screening at the Apollo Cinemas in Samoa.

He has a distinguished acting career, playing leading roles in Power Rangers Dino Thunder, The Ram and much more.

The Sunday Samoan caught up with the award-winning producer where he shared his connection to Samoa, his love for the people of Samoa and of course his new film, Pork Pie.

Mr. Hern has visited Samoa on many occasions and the natural beauty and pace of life always brings him back form more.

I love Samoa, he said. I have been to Samoa many times over the years. Usually I try and visit once a year. I love the heat, the people, the laid back pace, the natural beauty."

I have always dreamed about settling there or setting up some kind of creative retreat over there where we can write and edit our movies!

Born and raised in New Zealand, he says he feels a strong connection to the Samoan Culture.

For some reason I have always felt like I am Samoan, he said.

Although I am palagi, I feel a deep affinity with Pacific, Polynesian culture. I guess Aotearoa is the biggest island in the Pacific and part of the Pacific Islands, so it makes sense for those of us who have grown up here to feel a connection to other parts of the Pacific."

My brother is married to a Samoan and they have two boys - who I absolutely adore and encourage to embrace their Samoan heritage."

I have also always been a Manu Samoa supporter and also Toa Samoa rugby league! And I play rugby league for the mighty Richmond Rovers rugby league club in Auckland, who have deep Samoan links (via the Ah Kuoi aiga and other Samoan family lines).

At the moment, Im one of the only palagis in the team! Geez. This list is going on. My sister in law also taught me how to make a mean Oka - so that is part of my repertoire now!

Mr. Hern goes on to say that the love and warmth shown to him by the people of Samoa has left a life long impact and made him the person he is today.

When I was young and moved out of home from Christchurch to Wellington (at the young age of 15), my in-laws (my brothers wifes family), the Afamasagas, embraced me as part of their aiga."

They had my back and made me feel like I belonged."

They took me in and loved me. This impact of love and loyalty and support in the family I have since learned is often rich in Samoan culture and communities - and it has had a lasting impact on me. For these reasons, Samoa is now in my bones.

Herns most recent project is the newly release comedy, Pork Pie. It is a reboot of the Kiwi classic, Good Bye Pork Pie.

In short, the movie tracks the escapades of a trio of accidental outlaws as they travel the length of the New Zealand in a yellow Mini, protesting conformity and chasing lost love with a posse of cops and a frenzied media in hot pursuit.

Mr. Hern believes the Samoan audience will love the film.

It is hilarious! A rollicking, fun and heart warming journey down Aotearoa! I know Samoan humour, and I reckon Samoans will crack up at this one!

The three leading roles are played by a distinguished star studded cast, Dean OGarman, Ashleigh Cummings, and James Rollestone.

The name Rollestone may sound familiar as he is the as the young Alamein in the New Zealand movie, Boy.

For Mr. Hern, he understands the importance of having Pacific Islanders in leading roles.

I think it is very important that Maori and Pacific actors are represented on screen in a diverse way - not just as under-developed stereotype characters or negative portrayals, he told the Sunday Samoan.

My last film was The Dark Horse, starring Cliff Curtis, and I was proud to play a part in showcasing an incredible, real life character, Genesis Potini, in that film."

In Pork Pie, it was a great experience giving young James Rolleston an opportunity to play a fun comedic, cool character such as Luke. I mean the guy is a Casanova. Hes got game with the ladies, speaks French and is generally a smooth as fulla!

Mr. Herns latest project is a television series titled, NZ Panthers.

I am currently developing a television series in about the The Polynesian Panthers, a group of young street gangsters and university students turned political revolutionaries in Ponsonby, Auckland in the 1970s."

The PP's modelled themselves on the Black Panthers in the US, with the goal to improve living standards and secure equal rights for Pacific immigrants at that time. They had a huge impact on New Zealand history and culture.

Although the series is still in the planning stage, Mr. Hern is keen to film in Samoa.

I would also like to film parts of the series in Samoa, Tonga or both and would then look to cast some locals! Well have to get the scripts finished before we know the plan on that front though."

Im really looking forward to exploring more Pacific characters on our series The Panthers.
Cubic Corp.s shares ticked up nearly 10 percent on Friday after the San Diego defense and transportation contractor posted higher revenue and a narrower loss for its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 31.

The company said first quarter sales rose to $335 million, up 7 percent over the prior year despite foreign currency headwinds from a strong U.S. dollar.

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Cubic posted a net loss of $2.9 million, or 11 cents a share, compared with a loss of $5.4 million for the same quarter the prior year.

The company provides military training simulation technology for ground, air and naval forces, and builds secure communications gear for command, control and intelligence gathering. It also has a civilian public transportation business, providing fare collection technology to some of the worlds largest public transit agencies.

In a conference call with analysts, Chief Executive Bradley Feldmann said the Trump administrations plans to improve the U.S. military and infrastructure will benefit the company over the next few years.

In addition, the impetus to have our allies carry a larger share of the defense cost burden could also open up additional international opportunities for Cubic, said Feldmann. In all, we believe these initiatives will increase the demand for Cubics defense products and services.

Feldmann added that the long-term prospects for its fare collection business remain solid, particularly as more public transit agencies upgrade their technology to allow riders to pay for fares by tapping their mobile phones or credit cards on a reader at the gate or on the bus.

Cubic released results Thursday after markets closed. Its shares gained $4.60 on Friday to close at $51.50 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Business

mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com;

Twitter:@TechDiego

760-529-4973
Im the nuclear waste guy, thats what I do in Washington, said Rep. John Shimkus, R-Illinois, after taking a tour Friday morning of the decommissioning process at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Accompanied by his colleague, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, Shimkus said he was optimistic that progress can be made on Capitol Hill to deal with stockpiles such as the 3.6 million pounds of spent fuel sitting next to the Pacific Ocean at SONGS.

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But getting it off the beach will take time and, literally, acts of Congress.

This is a multiple legislative process, said Shimkus, who is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee for the Environment, which reviews nuclear sites as part of its responsibilities.

We gotta get the licensing done, we have to rewrite part of the authorization language, he said. Were optimistic we can move on spending bills.

And SONGS is far from the only nuclear site where spent fuel has been stranded. More than 76,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel sit in various facilities across the U.S.

Dont feel alone, said Shimkus. Weve got 10 of these all over the country. Weve got five that are shutting down and we still have nuclear power plants being built. So this has to be a longterm solution.

If an elusive solution can be worked out, though, Issa wants SONGS to be at or near the top of the list for shipments heading out.

We know sitting between Interstate 5 and the water and on this little strip of land is not the right place for these spent rods, said Issa.

With a change of presidential administrations, there have been more rumblings among Capitol Hill Republicans about reviving the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository in Nevada.

The federal government has spent about $15 billion at Yucca Mountain to house nuclear waste from sites across the country. However, then-Sen. Harry Reid, R-Nevada, fiercely opposed the site and, after Barack Obama became president in 2009, Reid killed the project.

The site had been slated to open in 2017.

When asked Friday if Yucca Mountain was back on the bargaining table, Shimkus said, Its never been off the table.

Issa said hes willing to consider re-opening Yucca if the science supports it but in the meantime, he has introduced a new bill aimed at finding interim consolidated storage to house spent fuel from sites like SONGS.

The bill aims to get the U.S. Department of Energy to tap into the massive $35.8 billion Nuclear Waste Fund to help fund the project. The process, even if expedited, would take years.

Officials at one site in West Texas and another in New Mexico have indicated they would be willing to accept spent fuel from nuclear power plants.

We are making investments for a decade or more from now before you would probably see the elimination of the spent rods, Issa said. Its probably a 10-year process.

But if the processes are put in place, Shimkus said he had no doubts the spent fuel can be shipped elsewhere.

I guarantee you it can be moved and can be moved safely, Shimkus said.

Safety has been a concern raised by some in the area surrounding SONGS, such as Donna Gilmore, a San Clemente resident, who has questioned the integrity of the stainless steel canisters storing the waste.

Those canisters could start leaking before you could even get it out of here, she told the Union-Tribune last April.

The operator of SONGS, Southern California Edison, insists the canisters are safe.

Edison is the majority owner of the facility, and San Diego Gas & Electric owns 20 percent.

An advocacy group, Citizens Oversight, is going to court to try to get the waste at SONGS transferred to another site, perhaps in Arizona. Its case will be heard later this year.

SONGS has not produced electricity since January 2012 after a steam generator tube leak. Edison officials overseeing the plants decommissioning have set a target date of the end of 2032 to remove nearly every remnant of the generating station.

Shimkus said hes optimistic progress can be made because he said there is will and a commitment by all sides in Washington.

But he said progress figures to be slow.

When asked a second time Friday how long people in the San Onofre area will have to wait, Shimkus said, Just say a long time  a lot longer than you really hope, Ill be honest with you.

Business

rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski
A Vista judge ruled Friday that a now 26-year-old man accused of gunning down an Oceanside police officer in 2006 can continue to be tried as an adult, rejecting a defense argument that, under a 2016 law, the case should start in Juvenile Court.

The decision is likely to be appealed, and was announced the same day that a San Diego judge issued a tentative ruling with an opposite result, finding that the new law should apply to an 18-year-old defendant accused in a string of violent home-invasion robberies that took place a year ago, when he was 17.

At issue is Proposition 57, which was approved by voters on Nov. 8 and strips prosecutors of the power to charge juveniles as adults, leaving that decision to Juvenile Court judges. The question is whether the new law should apply to cases already moving through the courts.

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Its clear that nobody has a handle on the issue, said Mary Ellen Attridge, who is representing Jose Compre, the defendant in the North County murder case.

Compre is accused of being a triggerman in the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Oceanside police Officer Dan Bessant on Dec. 20, 2006.

Bessant was assisting a fellow officer during a traffic stop in a gang-plagued neighborhood when teenage gang members unexpectedly opened fire on the pair. Bessant was struck and killed.

Within months, Compre, Meki Gaono and Penifoti P.J. Taeotui were charged with murder. Gaono and Penifoti were eventually tried as adults and convicted, but the charges against Compre were dismissed for lack of evidence.

Compre was rearrested last year after prosecutors refiled the case, citing new evidence. They have not disclosed what that evidence may be.

Attridge said Friday she plans to ask a state appellate court to review the judges ruling.

The San Diego case stems from a string of home-invasion robberies in early 2016 in neighborhoods including Carmel Mountain, Sorrento Valley and Scripps Ranch. Authorities say the assailants entered homes through open windows or unlocked doors, held residents at gunpoint then made off with cash and jewelry. In one break-in, a woman was sexually assaulted.

One of the six defendants in the case, Aaron Rico V, was 17 at the time of the crimes. Charges against him include conspiracy to commit burglary, residential robbery in concert and sexual assault. If convicted as an adult, the now-18-year-old faces 47 years to life in prison.

On Friday, San Diego Superior Court Judge Joan Weber tentatively ruled in favor of sending Ricos case to Juvenile Court, where the proper venue  adult or juvenile court  would be determined. Weber is expected to issue her final ruling on March 2.

If the tentative ruling sticks, Jalyn Wang, the prosecutor in the Rico case, said she anticipates asking the appeals court to review the decision.

Our position is that it (Prop. 57) doesnt apply to cases like this one, or Compre, Wang said, noting that both cases were filed at a time when the law allowed prosecutors to charge juveniles as adults without first starting in Juvenile Court.

If either the Compre or Rico case lands back in Juvenile Court, it might not stay there. Given the heinous nature of the crimes charged in both cases, a Juvenile Court judge will review them and could send them back to adult court as the proper venue.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
Greg Bear is the author of more than 30 science fiction and fantasy novels, some of them so prescient hes been invited to closed-door consultations with government and military analysts trying to forecast events. His latest, Take Back the Sky, concludes an interplanetary war trilogy that has its roots in his own childhood as the son of a Navy officer.

Born in San Diego, Bear helped found Comic-Con. Now a resident of Washington state, he returns to his hometown Monday at 7:30 p.m. for a reading and signing at Mysterious Galaxy bookstore in Clairemont.

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Q: How old were you when you knew you wanted to be a writer?

A: I was probably around 7 or 8. I started writing my first stories in San Diego, in the San Carlos area.

Q: Were they science fiction stories?

A: Yeah, they were pretty strange. I did giant robots and all sorts of stuff back then.

Q: Where did you get your interest in science fiction? Were there books around the house or did you pick it up somewhere else?

A: I probably got it around the house. My dad liked scary movies, and he took me to see things like King Kong. In the Philippines, I got to see 20 Million Miles to Earth, which was a Ray Harryhausen movie. It had a monster from Venus that doubled in size every day. That thing came out of my bedroom wall that night and threatened to eat me. That confirmed my love of all things science fiction. That was pretty much it for me.

Q: In what ways did your time in San Diego shape you as a writer?

A: San Diego was an interesting mixing pot for strange young men and women who love science fiction. I had a friend named David Clark who went to the same high school. I had another friend named Scott Shaw who I first met at Horace Mann Junior High School. There was this whole crew of people who loved to get together and talk about science fiction. We also joined the film club at Crawford High to make a science fiction movie. We got to meet Ray Bradbury.

Q: What got you started on the War Dogs trilogy?

A: Since I was a Navy brat, I got to hang around with a lot of people who were Marines, Navy officers, pilots. A lot of them were in my family or extended family. I was fascinated by the whole culture, the attitudes, that kind of stuff. Plus Im a big fan of history. Ive read a lot about World War II. I taught a class about World War II from the Japanese theater perspective in the 1980s.

I started writing this while looking back at a lot of classic military science fiction like Starship Troopers and The Forever War, all these different approaches to wars in space. Id already written the Halo trilogy, but that was set 100,000 years ago. What I wanted to do this time was take a look at how things had changed and what happened to the whole idea of the military with the no-draft, all-volunteer forces. I wanted to do a serious examination of the modern-day military and the military attitude that goes back centuries.

Q: Youve been at this a while. How do you go about building your worlds?

A: As a young writer, I kind of got through all those rough patches by the time I was 20. I was pretty clear by then how to put together a world. I loved the science angle of it and I loved the cultural and mythological angles. So I would pick and choose from a lot of things I had been reading or studying in college and I would just take that and run with it.

Writing this trilogy, I paid attention to the planetary scientists who are figuring out a lot of things as new space probes visit Pluto and other places. What they are finding makes the solar system even stranger. And I love that. We have a very science fictional solar system. There is a lot of stuff going on out there that we dont know about.

Q: How do you keep abreast of all the scientific developments?

A: Over the years Ive kept in touch with a lot of scientists. I read the journals. We are friends with Donna Shirley, who helped run the Mars Pathfinder missions. We know a lot of the rocket scientists involved in the projects over the years, have met some of the astronauts, people like that.

Q: Do you run your stories by the scientists you know?

A: The best example was the Darwins Radio books, where I was looking at my own crackpot theories of biology and saying to myself, You know, this stuff might be correct. We were coming up on a time when we were going to be finding out more stuff about the genome, and I thought it was time to write a rabble-rousing book that knows what its talking about and points scientists into areas they may not have been reading much about.

A lot of scientists are very focused on their areas of expertise, and they dont get to read much outside of that because what they are doing is so extraordinarily complex. What I would do is skim over all of these ideas and books and discoveries. Sometimes I would point them out to scientists. Did you see this over here? And they would go, No, I havent, and they would be a little dismayed.

What we had was this wide-ranging revolution coming along and Darwins Radio fit right in and boy, did I get a lot of good help on that. I got to talk to a lot of people and I had some major scientists critiquing the book, and they kept me on the straight and narrow. The book turned out to be very popular in the scientific community. It was even reviewed in Nature, and it was kind of a science review, which I was charmed by.

Q: You have a reputation for foreshadowing various trends. Are you particularly proud of any of your glimpses into the crystal ball?

A: Back in the 1980s, I helped kind of create what later became known as nanotechnology in science fiction. Blood Music was part of that. The whole thing with quantum computing? I was the first science fiction writer to delve seriously into that in the 1990s.

Q: Are there some things you wish maybe you hadnt been so good at predicting?

A: In 2009, I went into an agency we shall not name to give a threat analysis. I said, You know, conservatism is getting so very strange and extreme. Its going to keep on this way and I think its going to be a security issue in the next few years. Ive already written a few books pointing in that direction, Quantico and Mariposa and so on. Its been very informative to watch whats going on and realize: Just because you forecast it doesnt mean you can stop it from happening.

Q: Why do you think the science fiction genre has endured as long as it has?

A: For one thing, its become part of pop culture. The whole science-fiction-into-movies thing took off in the 1920s with Metropolis, and later with Things to Come and The War of the Worlds and 2001: A Space Odyssey. From that point on, with Star Wars and everything else, it just took off like a rocket. Science fiction has always been very, very dynamic in movies and TV. That made it accessible to an extraordinarily wide audience. And its a lot of fun.

Take Back the Sky, by Greg Bear, Orbit Books, 296 pages

john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-2236
The two most prominent characters in Picasso at the Lapin Agile dont have back stories so much as fore stories. Which must make this Steve Martin comedy, if you will, a fore play.

(Hey, whaddya want? Im not Steve Martin here.)

There is a bit of the gently ribald to the actor-comic-musicians 1993 work, which just opened in a crisp and satisfying revival at the Old Globe Theatre. Pablo Picassos way with the ladies, after all, was not limited to the way he depicted them in the revolutionary Cubist painting Les Demoiselles dAvignon.

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But with Picasso, which was his first full-length play, Martin is less interested in the id than in ideas  and in particular the question of what sparks genius in its myriad forms.

The play posits a fictional 1904 meeting between Picasso (Philippe Bowgen) and Albert Einstein (Justin Long) at the Lapin Agile, a real-life Paris tavern. At that moment, both men were in their mid-20s, and each was on the verge of a history-making breakthrough: the painter with Les Demoiselles and the physicist with his Special Theory of Relativity.

Both also seem to know (and obviously, so do we) that great things are in store for them, although Einstein is toiling in a patent office and Picasso is dashing off drawings for his apparently abundant groupies.

Martin has a canny way of working up an atmosphere of grand, historic portent in the piece, only to puncture it a bit with a joke or savvy sight gag. In the first scene, bar owner Freddy (Donald Faison) says dreamily, Theres something in the air tonight!  then proceeds to sneeze and continue sweeping.

Picasso at the Lapin Agile

When: 7 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Through March 12.

Where: Old Globe Theatres Shiley Stage, Balboa Park.

Tickets: $29 and up

Phone: (619) 234-5623

Online: theoldglobe.org

Director (and Globe artistic chief) Barry Edelstein, a longtime collaborator of Martins who brought the writers Broadway-bound 2014 musical Bright Star and 2016 play Meteor Shower to the Balboa Park theater, makes those moments land in this occasionally rambling work, which unfolds on John Lee Beattys sumptuously detailed set. Edelstein also keeps even the more extended dialogue dynamic: One scene has Einstein and Picasso literally one-upping each other by scaling a table while deep in discussion.

The directors smart (and smartly chosen) cast is full of familiar faces. In fact, the first three  Faison (of TVs Scrubs), Hal Linden (the Tony Award winner and Barney Miller star) and Long (whose dozens of movies include Galaxy Quest and Idiocracy)  earned entrance applause on opening night, common on Broadway but a relative rarity in San Diego.

As it happens, Long is supposed to appear fourth  a fact Faison backs up by grabbing a playgoers program, which prompts Long to run offstage and redo his entrance. Its just that kind of play; Martin tosses in goofy anachronisms and wordplay and convention-flouting twists with the distractible glee of a kid discovering new toys.

With his physics-defying hair and rich accent, Long is one entertaining Einstein, and brings more energy and expressiveness to the role than maybe even e=mc2 can contain. (Speaking of which: One of the plays funniest exchanges comes when Picasso gazes at Einsteins famous equation and barks, This is a formula!  to which the scientist replies, while examining a Picasso drawing, Sos yours!)

Bowgen makes for an amusingly self-serious Picasso, full of high sentence but a bit obtuse (in the words of another 20th-century master). Linden is an earthy gem as Gaston, the elderly bar-fly, and Faison has just the right bemused air as Freddy.

Barreling into the bar are two forces of nature: the art dealer Sagot (a wonderfully bombastic Ron Orbach) and the smug Schmendiman (Marcel Spears, in comically glad-handing, revival-meeting mode), who believes his sketchy-sounding building material is the next big thing.

While men more or less dominate Picasso, Liza Lapira is also winningly versatile in multiple roles, chiefly the painters slighted squeeze, Suzanne; while Luna Velez brings warmth and a chippy wisdom to bar hostess Germaine.

And then theres Kevin Hafso-Koppman, beaming in with a blaze of light and blare of guitar as a hip-swiveling Visitor who asks only that no one step on his blue suede shoes.

This time traveler (whom Hafso-Koppman portrays to curled-lip perfection) stands in for another, less heady kind of creative achievement that amazes the Lapin Agile regulars, and leads to a cosmically climactic moment nicely realized by Beatty, lighting designer Russell H. Champa and composer/sound designer Lindsay Jones. (Katherine Roths costumes are also fetching throughout.)

In the end, Picasso  which has been staged many times at theaters large and small over the years (though never at the Globe)  is better at spotlighting the diverse strains of human ingenuity than it is at limning the links between them.

Actually, though, at the Globe the end is not the end. Which is to say, dont miss the shows first-class curtain call.

Hal Linden jamming on clarinet? Now thats genius.

San Diego Theater  On Now Video: Bruce Springsteen's solo trip to Broadway On Now Video: Inside the rehearsal room of SDMT's Damn Yankees! 2:22 On Now Video: La Jolla Playhouse-bred shows earn key Tony nominations 3:05 On Now Video: Broadway moment has arrived for La Jolla Playhouse's 'Come From Away 0:33 On Now Video: Lamb's Players Presents "An American Christmas" 2016 1:21 On Now Old Globe's 'Grinch' ready to rumble again 0:52 On Now Little Miss Sunshine at La Jolla Playhouse On Now Working the Magic On Now San Diego Repertory Theatre presents "Federal Jazz Project" On Now An American Christmas

Twitter: @jimhebert

jim.hebert@sduniontribune.com
When Tim Richards retired in 2006, he was looking for a hobby to fill his time. He had been collecting duck decoys since the 1980s, and because they were getting more and more expensive, Richards thought he would try his hand at carving them. It started a whole new career.

Im self-taught, said Richards, 65, who lives part time in Encinitas. He learned his craft online and through books by Bob Berry, an El Cajon resident who is well known for his fish and bird carvings.

Richards started selling some of his work at the Artisan Gallery in Cedar City, Utah, where he and his wife, Denise, have another home. From then on, it didnt take long for his hobby to snowball into a job far different from the 25 years he spent in sales and management at Frazee Paints.

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Ive always liked art. I used to do drawings, Richards said.

In the past 10 years, he has become a well-known carver in his own right. His work has won several awards, including 2014 Novice Carver of the Year from the International Wildfowl Carvers Association.

His carvings went in a new direction when he responded to a query from Encinitas arts administrator Jim Gilliam asking local artists for their input on what to do with an 80-year-old Torrey pine at Swamis State Beach that was killed by bark beetles. His pitch for turning the dead tree into an Easter Island head, known as a moai, was approved by the City Council, and in March 2011 Richards was ready to create his first piece of public art.

But before he could start, he had to stop at Home Depot to buy a chainsaw. That tiki was the first time Richards had ever carved anything that big  and the first time he used a chainsaw to carve anything.

I always liked big carvings, and I always thought Id like to do one one day, said Richards, a Michigan native who moved to the San Diego area in 1976. He also thought Swamis would be great exposure for his work.

Since then, Richards has carved 86 tikis in private residences and public spaces, mainly in North County. Most are carved in the trunks of trees that needed to be cut down.

It takes Tim Richards 10 to 12 hours to carve an Easter Island head. (Eduardo Contreras / U-T)

Two and a half years ago, Shawn Rogers had a Mexican fan palm that was growing too close to power lines at his Escondido property. Instead of removing the entire palm, he left the trunk standing and commissioned Richards to carve a tiki that included a pineapple motif.

Its the first impression and a good feel for the property, said Rogers of the statue. Its really fun. The neighbors love it. He has more than 40 palms on his property, so the tiki fits right in. Rogers, who owns Land Doctor Landscaping, now provides Richards with tree trunks for movable tikis whenever he needs to cut down a palm.

But most of Richards tiki carvings are in tree trunks that are still in the ground. He works mainly with palms but has also carved from pine and liquidambar trees. The requirement is that the stumps are at least 3 to 4 feet  but no more than 8 feet  tall and 12 inches across. Richards said he has never worked on a live tree because he is afraid that the carving could kill the tree.

The process, which takes about eight to 10 hours for an Easter Island head and 12 hours for a traditional tiki, starts with stripping the bark. Then he measures and marks where he will make the cuts with the chainsaw.

Richards uses the chainsaw for the deepest parts of the sculpture, such as under the eyes and the nose. He then switches to a powered angle grinder to remove the wood around objects that are in relief. Details are done with chisels and gauges.

The chainsaw is the hardest part. Its heavy, and you have to twist and turn, Richards said. You have you be careful you dont cut off more than you want. I usually take my time.

To finish a project, he burns off any fuzzy fibers with a propane torch and paints the recesses black to make the design pop. Finally, everything is sealed with water-based wood sealer.

Hes an amazing artist, Jaquelin Pearson said. Hes very creative. Richards recently completed a second tiki on Pearsons Encinitas property. She said she will call him every time a palm tree needs to be cut down.

Richards creates templates for the different elements in a tiki, which he saves so pieces can be easily mixed and matched to customize a project. Richards has also gotten some special requests.

He has carved a crawling lizard into a fan palm in Encinitas and a Chihuahua head onto a tiki top from a pine in Fairbanks Ranch. His latest project is a howling coyote carved out of a dead liquidambar tree in Carlsbad.

Paul Marr wanted to customize his tiki with a nod to the Navy. The former lieutenant requested the Navys emblem with an anchor and the words USN for the stump of a king palm in his Carlsbad backyard. Marr needed to cut down the palm to make way for a patio cover.

Its a big talking point, said Marr of the project, which was completed last November.

Richards work is also publicly displayed in Del Mar. Another Torrey pine killed by bark beetles was transformed into a narrow bench with a large red-tailed hawk on one side. It was designed by Del Mar resident David Arnold, a retired graphic designer and illustrator, who asked Richards to do the carving.

The bench, which was completed in March 2015 and is known as the Sunset Seat, overlooks the Pacific at the bluffs along South Camino Del Mar, just north of Carmel Valley Road.

Ive just kind of stumbled into this, Richards said of his new business, which keeps on growing. But its been really fun.

Tim Richards Facebook page is facebook.com/timrichardswoodcarving.

Schimitschek is a San Diego freelance writer.
Home is where the heart is, literally.

This Valentines Day, heart-shaped home goods and matching, whimsical prints are turning up the heat on style, providing a cadre of creative ways to embrace design  and showing up on everything from shower curtains to casserole dishes.

Although there are several theories concerning how the heart shape as we know it came to be the enduring symbol of love, no one can say for sure. Its a mystery that seems fitting for the instantly recognizable symbol representing the worlds most sought after and sometimes confounding emotion.

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Luckily, looking for love in all the right places just got a whole lot easier. We shopped some of our favorite stores and found a lineup of gift-worthy goods aimed at celebrating  you guessed it  the joy of  home. (What, you were expecting something else?)

Your style is timeless

Beating heart clock, $85 at UncommonGoods.com.

My love doesnt waffle

Five-of-hearts waffle maker, $69.99 at Kohls.com.

You shine, my Valentine

Oliver Gal heart canvas, $160 at LaylaGrayce.com.

Youre intoxicating!

Bottle opener, $21 at UncommonGoods.com. Pair it with a favorite craft beer and youre golden.

Lets turn up the heat

Le Crueset 2-quart Cerise red heart casserole dish, $285 at CrateandBarrel.com.

You brighten the stormiest skies

Heart-shaped umbrella, $32 at UncommonGoods.com.

Shower you with love

Hello Beautiful shower curtain, $89.99 at Target.com.

Im pouring my heart out: Will you be my valentine?

Heart-shaped bottle stopper, $4.95 at CrateandBarrel.com. Pair it with a beloved vintage.

You keep me in stitches

Yarn bowl, $50 at UncommonGoods.com.

Valentine, youre ottoman league

Oh Joy! heart-shaped ottoman, $59.99 at Target.com.

Doggone it, be my valentine!

Heart-shaped dog bowl, $38 at HenriBendel.com.

Welcome to my heart

Rubber heart doormat, $28 at UncommonGoods.com. Valentines rug, $14.99 at Target.com

I believe in love at first sight

Budi Kwan Love Eye Test print, $49 at Target.com.

Write it on your heart

RoomMates dry erase peel-and-stick wall decals, $13.99 at Target.com.

Youre eggstraordinary!

Pair a dozen farm-fresh eggs with the Gama Go heart egg mold, $10 at SurLaTable.com.

You make my heart race

A heart-to-heart pillow, from $55 at DanielDuganArt.com.

This buds for you

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Bonnie McCarthy contributes to the Los Angeles Times as a home and lifestyle design writer. She enjoys scouting for directional trends and reporting on whats new and next. Follow her on Twitter @ThsAmericanHome.

Home@latimes.com

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Local chapters of a nationwide patriotic group presented flags commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War to two North County veteran groups.

The Santa Margarita Daughters of the American Revolution based in Oceanside presented a flag to the Veterans Association of North County in Oceanside. The patriotic group also presented a flag on behalf of the Center of the Valley chapter based in Valley Center to Veterans of Foreign War Post 1513 in Escondido.

The flag is part of the Department of Defense 50th Anniversary Commemoration of the Vietnam War.

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The flag is a tribute to those who served in the Vietnam War and says on the bottom, A Grateful Nation Thanks and Honors You.

One flag was presented to Matt Foster, commander of VFW Post 1513 in Escondido and Tom Cowan, chairman of North County San Diego Veterans Stand Down, both retired Marines. Another flag was presented to veterans Carter Crewe and John Meyer, co chairmen of the Interfaith Community Services/Veterans of North County Association Veterans Advisory Committee.

The colors and symbols on the flag are explained on the commemoration website.

The red, white, and blue inner rings represent the flag of the United States of America and recognize all Americans, both military and civilian, who served or contributed to the Vietnam War effort, according to the website.

The outer black ring represents those killed in action, held as prisoners of war or missing in action during the Vietnam War and their sacrifices.

Near the center are the words Service, Valor and Sacrifice. The gold-rimmed white star between the words Service and Valor, represents hope for the families of those veterans for which there has not been a full accounting. The blue-rimmed gold star between the words Valor and Sacrifice represents the families of those veterans who paid the ultimate sacrifice during the war. The blue star over the representation of the Vietnam Service Medal represents the families of all veterans and symbolizes their support from home.

Visit vietnamwar50th.com/about/commemoration_flag/and santamargarita.californiadar.org
After a tumultuous year that included allegations of undue influence from wealthy developers and the firing of a popular leader, the California Coastal Commission has selected a new executive director.

Jack Ainsworth, a career commission employee who has served as the acting executive director since his boss was fired last February, has been awarded the top spot, the agency announced Friday night.

Ainsworth, 59, has worked at the commission for nearly 30 years.

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Jacks depth of understanding of coastal issues, the challenges confronting this agency and his steady leadership over the last year has thoroughly impressed us, said Dayna Bochco, chair of the commission, which voted unanimously to appoint Ainsworth.

The commission, which was created by voter initiative in 1972, is responsible for preventing over-development on Californias 1,100 miles of oceanfront  some of the most scenic and valuable real estate in the nation.

Last years firing of Ainsworths predecessor, Charles Lester, sparked fierce protests from California environmentalists.

They accused Gov. Jerry Brown of stocking the commission with developer-friendly appointees and removing Lester because he stood in the way of construction plans up and down the coast.

When the commission offered Lester a chance to step aside quietly, he turned them down, setting up a very public showdown. The commission received more than 20,000 emails and letters on the subject, including one signed by 153 commission staff members in opposition to Lesters removal.

Lesters supporters claimed his ouster coincided with looming decisions on a large desalination plant in Huntington Beach and Banning Ranch, a plan for hundreds of homes, a hotel and commercial development on 401 acres overlooking Newport Beach.

Commissioners appointed by Brown insisted they wanted Lester out because of poor management, not because they intended to take more developer-friendly positions.

A news release Friday evening announcing Ainsworths appointment said the commission had conducted an extensive, nationwide search for a new leader, contacting more than 1,000 potential candidates, before settling on their acting executive director.

I am honored and humbled by this decision, Ainsworth said in the release. I want the people of California to know that I will do my best every day to protect the coast for everyone.

Susan Jordan, the executive director of the environmental group California Coastal Protection Network, described Ainsworth as an excellent choice with a strong institutional memory. She said he showed his mettle as the temporary head of the agency.

He brought a very calm hand, Jordan said. I think he inspired trust with the commissioners and his staff and he brought them through a storm. At this point, this is what the agency needs.

Jordan said she believes the veteran insider will be able to guide the agency if it winds up battling the Trump administration, especially over offshore drilling.

Our coast is one of the most import resources we have, she said. We need someone who knows the agency and can be a steady hand as we face this difficult period.

Jordan said she was impressed with how Ainsworth handled the Banning Ranch project.

Shortly before the commissions vote last fall, Ainsworths staff said the developments footprint needed to shrink to avoid destroying foraging habitat for burrowing owls that winter on the land -- eliminating the hotel, a road from Pacific Coast Highway and roughly 400 residences.

In the end, the commission denied the developers proposal altogether.

He really tried to work with the developer, but he was also very clear where the law drew lines about what youre allowed and what youre not allowed to do, Jordan said. Thats the kind of leadership you want.

Jennifer Savage, the California policy manager for the Surfrider Foundation, also welcomed Ainsworths promotion. She described him as a consensus builder who has managed to diffuse tensions over controversial issues such as a proposal to impose parking fees at beaches in Sonoma County.

Hes very calm and very engaging, so a lot of the drama falls away, Savage said.

Ainsworth grew up in San Bernardino. He has a bachelors degree in environmental studies and geography from Cal State San Bernardino and a masters degree in geography from UC Riverside.

As executive director, Ainsworth will make $165,432 a year and be based in San Francisco, according to the news release.

jack.dolan@latimes.com

jack.leonard@latimes.com

Follow us on Twitter: @jackdolanLAT and @jackfleonard

ALSO

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UPDATES:

9:10 p.m.: This article was updated with additional background about the commission and Jack Ainsworth and additional quotes.

This article was first published at 7:20 p.m.
Capping days of tense planning at the nations tallest dam, water flowed down an emergency spillway Saturday at Oroville Dam for the first time after the dams main spillway suffered significant damage.

Water started flowing down the spillway into the Feather River early Saturday, with officials continuing to emphasize there was no imminent threat to the public or to the integrity of the dam.

The state Department of Water Resources said Lake Oroville  the linchpin of the states water system that sends water from the Sierra Nevada south to cities and farms  was rising to the point where water would flow down the emergency spillway. At 8 a.m., the agency said the spillway was now in operation.

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Eric See, a spokesman for the Department of Water Resources, said it was the first time the auxiliary spillway was used to drain water from the lake since the dam was finished in 1968.

This is a very unusual event for us at Lake Oroville, See said. Its the first time the structure has ever been used to spill water.

Water is flowing down the emergency spillway at a rate of 6,000 to 12,000 cubic feet per second, while 55,000 cfs was going down the main spillway, he said.

Relatively speaking, its a small spill, See said, noting that the flow over the emergency spillway is expected to end in the next 38 to 56 hours.

The lake will actually drop and the spill will cease, he said.

Officials said the flow of water into the Feather River is about half of the downstream flood capacity and consistent with releases made at the same time of year during previous wet years such as this.

Bill Croyle, acting director of the water department, reiterated that the flow is less than half of what the system is designed to handle.

The dam is not threatened by these conditions, Croyle said. These kinds of flows are typical for this kind of runoff period.

The agency is expecting a few dry days ahead before another storm hits later in the week, he said. The large snowpack means the agency will have to continuously monitor inflows into the lake.

In this kind of situation, the next 60 to 90 days will be critical how we route this runoff into the Feather River, Croyle said.

But he said those who live downstream from the dam need not worry.

The flow rates that we see now pose no threat to the dam and no flood threat to downstream waters, Croyle said at a news conference at the state park headquarters in Oroville.

A gaping hole  some 250 feet long and 45 feet deep  appeared Tuesday in the lower part of the main spillway, a concrete channel that rests on dirt. The state shut down releases from the spillway for a time but then restarted them to counter inflows to the lake from the weeks storms.

Croyle said Saturday that he told the governor, state legislators and Congress that it may cost $100 million to $200 million to repair the damage to the spillway and other features.

Residents Greg and Doreen Schmidt, who live in a low-lying area of downtown Oroville, marveled at the amount of water flowing down from the dam.

Once it spills over the emergency spillway, who knows whats going to happen, said Greg Schmidt. But it seems like they have it under control.

His wife wasnt so sure.

I have my bags packed and Im on alert, she said.

Brumhilde Maurice has lived in Oroville for just a year and was glad her apartment building is on a hill, unlikely to see flooding. She was one of dozens of people gathered on the Washington Avenue Bridge to gaze in wonder at the massive, muddy flow of water coming from the dam.

Its scary, she said of the fast-flowing river. Its quite threatening.

But Ralph Thomas, who drove with his wife, Tracy, to see the overflow, remembers higher water in storms 20 years ago.

This aint nothing compared to 97, he said. Back then the water was almost up to the bridge.

Workers with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection on Friday used heavy equipment to clear trees and brush from the hillside route of the 1,700-foot-long emergency spillway.

Utility workers were preparing to move transmission poles out of the way. Booms and boats were brought in to collect debris and keep it from clogging the pool at the base of the dam and downstream diversion gates.

Department officials have said that emergency releases would not flood the Feather River.

A team of hydrologists, meteorologists and engineers concluded that the river channel can accommodate whatever we throw at it today and over the weekend, said Doug Carlson, a water resources spokesman.

State engineers repeated that Orovilles earthen dam  a separate structure from the spillway  was not in any danger.

The emergency spillway has not been used since the dam was finished in 1948, but DWR has anticipated and prepared for its use since Tuesday, when erosion opened a cavity on the concrete, gated spillway typically used in winter operations at Lake Oroville, water officials said in a statement Saturday.

 Water from the lake exits through an auxiliary spillway.

State engineers dont know what caused the collapse of the main spillway section, which has been further eroded by the pounding dam releases. The Sierra Nevada have been hit with heavy snowfall and rain in recent months, filling Lake Oroville. Just a few years ago, receding water levels made the lake a symbol of the states serious drought.

The spillway is inspected annually by several agencies and was last repaired in 2013.

We made repairs, and everything checked out, said Water Resources Department engineer Kevin Dossey. Obviously, something has happened that we didnt expect.

He added that it was common for spillways to require repairs after drainage creates voids in the underlying soil.

In an interview, Dusty Myers, president of the Assn. of State Dam Safety Officials, agreed.

Its not uncommon to have an issue like this, he said of the spillway hole, though he added he was not aware of any as large as the one that has developed at Oroville.

At 770 feet high, Oroville is the tallest dam in the U.S. It was completed during the administration of Gov. Ronald Reagan and serves as the keystone for the State Water Project, which sends Northern California supplies south to the southern San Joaquin Valley and the urban Southland.

In January 1997, downstream towns were evacuated when the reservoir came within a foot of pouring down the emergency spillway into the swollen Feather River.

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22 freight train cars tumble into flooded Northern California river after derailment

UPDATES:

5:10 p.m.: This story has been updated with comments from area residents.

2:45 p.m.: This post was updated with new comments from officials of Department of Water Resources.

11:30 a.m.: This post was updated with information about water flow levels from both spillways into the Feather River.

10:35 a.m.: This article was updated with remarks from Doug Carlson, a spokesman for the Department of Water Resources.

9:30 a.m.: This article was updated with officials noting that the flow from Lake Oroville was well within the capacity of the Feather River to accept.

9 a.m.: This article was updated with statements from Department of Water Resources officials and background.

This article was originally published at 8:30 a.m.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly visited San Diego on Friday and used part of his time here to accompany immigration agents on predawn arrests and inspected one of the numerous tunnels Mexican smugglers have constructed under the U.S. border fence. He also met with federal border security agencies and local law enforcement officials.

Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who once led the U.S. Southern Command, now leads the department that houses the key border security agencies  Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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In remarks to local officials and news reporters, Kelly addressed the Trump administrations travel ban, the effectiveness of border barriers and stepped-up ICE immigration arrests this week.

In a meeting in a conference room at the San Ysidro Port of Entry with state, local and federal law enforcement officials, he said he had met with similar groups this week in Texas and Arizona and was trying to get my hands around and better understand the border communities.

Kelly said he also received feedback from officials on the administrations proposed border wall. He talked tough on the issue of sanctuary cities and the refusal by many local law enforcement agencies not to cooperate with federal immigration work.

San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman asked for a definition of a sanctuary city, according to a pool report of the meeting. I have no clue, Kelly responded.

With cars entering the United States from Mexico as his backdrop, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly spoke about immigration issues at a news conference Friday at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Zimmermans boss, Mayor Kevin Faulconer, has insisted San Diego is not a sanctuary city and does work with immigration authorities. But its not clear if the level of cooperation provided will satisfy President Donald Trump. No city in San Diego County calls itself a sanctuary city.

Its inconceivable to me that people who are sworn to protect their communities would not want someone, anyone to remove criminals from their communities and send them somewhere else, Kelly said. Im stunned when people say, well, were not going to cooperate with you even in the event of convicted criminals.

I understand that every community is different. You are all under different pressures. It would be hard for me to justify giving grant money to cooperate with removal operations and you were not able to help us with that.

Kelly said, however, that the federal government will work with you and will make no Draconian moves until I fully understand what a given locale might be doing or not doing.

Historically, local police dont assist in federal immigration arrests, contending unauthorized immigrants would be less likely to cooperate with police crime-fighting efforts if they were afraid of being turned over to immigration.

At his news conference, Kelly also addressed the executive order Trump issued that banned entry into the country of people from seven predominantly Muslim nations and refugees for a limited time. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a restraining order issued by a lower court judge in Washington state that halted enforcement of the ban.

Kelly said the order was a pause on people from those countries entering the U.S. because information from those nations on individuals entering the country were either unreliable or nonexistent. The vetting process from citizens of those countries are, at best, loose, he said.

He acknowledged he was worried about the stay preventing enforcement of the order. I am concerned that we are unable to vet those folks who are coming here in a more meaningful way, Kelly said.

Also, on Friday, Mexican authorities reported the discovery of another tunnel, though it did not reach the U.S. Asked about that discovery in light of the goal of the Trump administration to build a wall along the entire Southwest border, Kelly said it was a sign of how effective the barrier that has been built so far is.

I would argue the fact they (drug cartels) are spending huge amounts of money to tunnel underneath the wall tells you they cant get through it, he said. That tells me the barrier, and the people who patrol it, are very effective today.

His visit came on a day swirling with rumors and reports of increased immigration enforcement sweeps in Southern California and other areas of the country.

In San Diego, there were reports of sweeps in Vista that ICE denied. In a statement, the agency said that rumors currently being circulated, primarily on social media, claiming the agency is conducting widespread traffic stops throughout northern San Diego County are completely baseless.

In addressing the reports, Kelly said, The people who ICE apprehended are people who are here illegally  and then some.

He said he got an up-close look at ICE enforcement Friday before 6 a.m.

I went out this morning on two what they call knock and talks, he said. That is when officers go to homes of suspects, knock on their doors and ask for consent to enter.

Went to one house, knocked on the door, and took a particularly bad individual, a male into custody, Kelly said. A visit to a second home yielded two more arrests, he said.

ICE is executing the law, he said.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
The start of Gary Kreeps judicial career on the San Diego Superior Court five years ago was marked by a steady stream of meetings, memos, complaints and concerns about his demeanor on the bench.

Testimony this week, at a rare disciplinary hearing into Kreeps conduct by the California Commission on Judicial Performance, highlighted those troubles and came from prosecutors with the San Diego City Attorneys Office and two fellow judges.

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But the first week of the hearing also revealed that Kreep was given little training  in fact, training shorter than most new judges typically get  and assigned a high-volume criminal courtroom.

Kreeps Escondido law practice was focused on what he described when he testified Friday as constitutional law cases via his U.S. Justice Foundation. It included lawsuits against school districts over homeschooling and providing free education for all, and most famously on birther lawsuits challenging the citizenship of former President Barack Obama.

The commission has charged Kreep with violating judicial ethics rules, both on and off the bench. The charges cover his conduct during the 2012 judicial election that he narrowly won, and a series of comments he made while on the bench and how he handled certain cases.

Kreep is fighting the charges, forcing the hearing that began this week and that will resume on Feb. 21. Its being held in the downtown San Diego courtroom of the state 4th District Court of Appeal.



Previously:

Fellow judges counseled Kreep to read ethics book, improve his courtroom conduct

Judge on trial: Gary Kreep disciplinary hearing begins Monday

Judge Kreep faces discipline from state judicial commission

Judge Kreep says judicial watchdog agency targeted him, wants him to quit

Fine may not be last problem for Kreep



The judges attorneys have argued that Kreep was targeted for reasons other than his conduct on the bench, mainly that he had made rulings that antagonized the City Attorneys Office.

They also have said the court leaders put him under a microscope of scrutiny and contend Judge Robert Trentacosta, who was the courts presiding judge in Kreeps first year, eagerly helped out commission investigators as they began to investigate Kreep in 2013.

When Trentacosta testified, he described an ongoing effort to work with Kreep and steer him away from conduct that could get him in trouble. He said he had several meetings with Kreep in the first months of his term. He also said a comment Kreep made even before he was sworn in, during a meet-and-greet session with Trentacosta in December 2012, took him off guard.

Trentacosta recalled that during a cordial half-hour meeting discussing the transition from private practice to the court, Kreep abruptly told him, Im a conservative, pro-life Christian.

Trentacosta said he was puzzled by the comment. I didnt know what to say to that. Later, he said Kreep made a comment about President Obama or Obamacare.

Gary, Trentcosta testified he replied, the great thing about being a judge is were nonpartisan.

Trentacosta said he began hearing concerns about Kreeps conduct on the bench in Department 3, a small courtroom down a side corridor on the ground floor of the old downtown Superior Court building. It is where misdemeanor arraignments for people in custody are held and is staffed by city attorney and public defender staff lawyers.

At first, they were reports Kreep was speaking Spanish to some Hispanic defendants  even when the defendants didnt speak the language. While these were often nothing more than a buenos dias, the commission said the conduct broke court rules that proceedings are conducted in English, with the use of an official interpreter when needed, and also showed Kreep was treating Hispanic defendants differently than everyone else.

Trentacosta said he also was worried when he heard Kreep had asked a Hispanic deputy public defender if she had been born in the U.S. and said he liked her accent. Trentacosta raised this and other issues in a Jan. 30, 2013, meeting with Kreep, and said Kreep seemed surprised his comments could be taken as offensive.

But complaints about Kreep from the City Attorneys Office persisted, and in August Trentacosta and two other judges met with him and gave him a corrective plan of action. But the next month, the City Attorneys Office said its lawyers would boycott any new assignments to Kreeps courtroom  essentially freezing him out and causing the court to send him to hear traffic cases.

By then, the Commission on Judicial Performance had received a complaint about Kreeps conduct during his campaign from San Diego attorney Len Simon. Trentacosta said he called the commission in October to inquire about it.

Under cross-examination from Kreeps lawyer, James Murphy, Trentacosta said he had a court employee review two full weeks of tapes of hearings in Kreeps courtroom. He eventually forwarded a report about the review to the commission, he said.

When Kreep testified at the discipline hearing, he said he was given little instruction or training by the court before being assigned to the busy Department 3. He said he took advantage of as much training as was offered. I was trying to do everything I could to learn my craft, Kreep said.

He said the City Attorneys Office disagreed with how he was disposing of some of their misdemeanor cases. Still, he said, he was blindsided when he was told in September that they would boycott his courtroom.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
The mother of a little girl who was stuck and killed while walking with a friend on a Tierrasanta sidewalk last year shared photos in a courtroom Friday, depicting moments from the childs brief but happy life.

One of the images featured a list, printed neatly in a childs handwriting, of 10-year-old Raquel Leeann Rosetes goals. Some of them read as follows:

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I want to be a gymnast when I grow up.

I want to pass 5th grade.

Go to college.

Make black belt in Judo.

During a sentencing hearing for Julianne Little, the driver who struck Raquel and a 12-year-old girl who was seriously injured but survived, a prosecutor called the list heartbreaking and then asked a judge to impose the maximum penalty allowed by law.

And thats what the judge did.

Little, 31, was sentenced to 11 years in state prison. She had been convicted in San Diego Superior Court of gross vehicular manslaughter and felony hit and run causing injury.

Although the jury did not find that she was texting while driving, as the prosecution had argued, the panel did find that Little was distracted when she drove onto off a road on Feb. 20, struck the girls and fled the scene.

She contended during the trial that she was unaware she had hit anyone.

During the sentencing hearing, which lasted more than three hours, several people talked lovingly about Raquel and Mekayla. The surviving victim appeared in the courtroom with her family, her right leg in a purple cast.

Nearly a year ago, the girls were walking to a McDonalds restaurant in Tierrasanta when they were hit along Santo Road near Shields Street around 6 p.m.

The car kept going after impact, but others in the area  a jogger, a family on their way to get ice cream  stopped when they saw the two children lying in the bushes near the sidewalk and called for help.

Little returned to the scene with her father about a half hour after the collision. During the trial, her lawyers contended she had fallen asleep behind the wheel.

You have caused me so much pain in life, Mekayla said in the courtroom Friday morning, adding that her pain had been both physical and emotional.

For a long time, she said, she blamed herself for the loss of her best friend, thinking there might have been something more she could have done to save Raquel. But she has since learned she did nothing wrong.

I will never get to laugh or share secrets with her because she is no longer here, she said in a soft voice, while standing at a podium in a courtroom filled with more than 50 people.

You took something away from me that I will never get back, she continued. She said she is still recovering from her injuries and cant run and play the way she once did.

You took away my freedom to be a kid, Mekayla said.

Little became emotional several times throughout the hearing. At times she held her head low while others were speaking. As Raquels mother, Brandye Rosete, described the photos from her youngest daughters life, Little wiped tears from her eyes and appeared to listen intently as the mother spoke.

When she was given an opportunity to speak, Little apologized for what she had done.

First, I want to say how deeply sorry I am for everything that happened.  There is no way to express the guilt I feel every single day, she said.

Several of her family members spoke as well, including her parents and brother, who expressed condolences to the victims families. They also told the judge that Little was not a bad person despite how she was portrayed during the trial.

Deputy District Attorney Melissa Vasel agreed that Little was no monster, but the defendant made a choice to leave the scene of the crash  a decision the prosecutor called devoid of human decency.

There is no way you didnt know you hit those little girls, Vasel said.

Defense attorneys Charles Quirk and Anna Yum asked the judge to consider sentencing their client to a seven-year sentence. The Probation Department recommended nine years.

But Judge Lorna Alksne explained that she selected the maximum term because she did not believe Little was remorseful or truthful when she testified at her trial.

I dont think she took responsibility, the judge said.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @danalittlefield
Did that really happen?

Brooke Binkowski is asked a variation of that question about 1,500 times each day through e-mails to Snopes.com, the popular fact-checking website she edits.

Richard Hatch may have died, the star of Battlestar Galactica, but its looking a little iffy, Binkowski, 39, said while texting Snopes writers from a Pacific Beach office overlooking the surf. It was reported by one source. And lead levels in a Bronx school are 16 times higher than in Flint, Michigan.

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Both stories turned out to be true. A recent story about about President Donald Trump enacting a 90-day ban on childhood vaccinations, however, was false. Another story about Trump reversing Obamas Thanksgiving turkey pardons.and ordering the birds executed was easily exposed as satire.

The emails come in 24/7, and as managing editor, Binkowski assigns a team of four staff reporters and two contract writers to look into the ones that are the subject of most inquiries. Some are easily solved and traced to hoax or humor sites. Others can take days or even weeks to track down. Then there are the ones that will never go away, like the rumor that Michelle Obama is transgender.

That one will not die, Binkowski said. That one and, Is Facebook about to start charging?

Launched in 1995 by California couple David and Barbara Mikkelson as a way to expose urban legends, Snopes has become the go-to site for countless internet users trying to separate truth from fiction in an era of fake news, propaganda and hoaxes. Google Analytics reports it has 21 million visitors a month.

As the recent presidential election season became more contentious, people began to rely more on the site to sift through political rhetoric and daily claims of scandals. Unique visits increased 42 percent since 2015, with a peak of 2.5 million visits the day after the election.

With that jump came rumors about the site itself. Critics on the right claim the site is funded by liberal mogul George Soros, Binkowski said, while critics on the left say its funded by the conservative Koch brothers.

Binkowski assured that neither is true.

The attacks can get ugly and threatening. Binkowski said people who apparently believe the items being debunked have left death threats and posted online personal information about Snopes writers, including the home address of one reporter.

Increased visits and more political posts arent the only things that have changed in the past two years.

Snopes began a noticeable transition in 2015 when David Mikkelson, who by then had divorced his wife and partner, sold half the site to five owners to a group in San Diego.

Among the new owners is Vinny Green, 25, a former Marine and MiraCosta College graduate featured recently in Forbes magazine in its 30 Under 30 for media professionals.

Green was stationed at Camp Pendleton and in his final year as a Marine when he enrolled in MiraCosta with a plan to major in business.

He hated the subject but fell in love with sociology, which he said gave him a broader understanding of the world. He earned associate degrees in sociology and humanities with a plan to transfer to either UC San Diego or UC Berkeley.

A chance meeting with someone while volunteering in MiraCostas Service Learning Program led him to connect with the owners of TVTropes.org, an all-devouring pop-culture wiki, as the site describes itself. Green was entranced.

I said, Just give me something to do, he said. Social media. Busy work. They looked like they were doing exciting things and I wanted to get some exciting skills.

He began interning in early 2015, and his duties began to grow as he and the others redesigned the site and worked to monetize it.

We got kind of good at it, he said.

Hoping to apply what they learned to other businesses, the group looked for other sites to buy. They approached Mikkelson at just the right time.

I think he saw me as a person who would aggressively pursue the best that Snopes could do in its space, and I think I very much aligned with the vision he had for his site but couldnt do it on his own, he said.

He and four partners bought 50 percent of Snopes and formed Proper Media, LLC, a company that helps high-traffic websites maximize their advertising dollars. The company owns other sites and has many more as clients, and last year moved into a beachfront office with enough room for a pool table, ping pong table, dart boards, a bar and big-screen TV for gamers.

Green is vice president of Proper Media and director of business development for Snopes, which he began revamping shortly after the purchase.

Before we came on board, there was not even a content management system for the site, he said. It was an excruciating process for developing content. What you see now is our quick and dirty change-over from 20 years of bad code to something more responsive and functional.

More noticeable changes that will make the site more functional are due in about a week, he said.

In November 2015, Green hired Binkowski, a freelance journalist who had worked for CNN, KPBS. Southern California Public Radio, KNX, CBS Radio, CNN Radio and other outlets.

A news veteran with broad experience, Binkowski said the declining number of journalists in the country has left a vacuum being filled by propagandists and opportunists producing spurious versions of news.

The only way back from fake news is robust and vibrant journalism, she said. We are in bad, dire shape in the journalism industry, and its directly reflecting what were seeing now.

Binkowski said the past couple of years have seen a shift on the internet from viral videos about busty women, puppies and aliens to fake news, propaganda and racist stories created by sites seeking a quick buck from a gullible public.

These people are such bottom-feeders, theyll do anything as long as its monetizable, she said. And they found that hate and fear are extremely lucrative.

With an expanded staff, Snopes has been able to do more investigative work. Binkowski spent four weeks researching public records for a story on pit bulls while another reporter was the first on the scene at the Dakota Access Pipeline when the Army Corps of Engineers announced it was denying permits for the project in December.

Although Green abandoned his plans for a business degree long ago, he still has a good business sense. For all the claims that Snopes has a political bias, his answer is that it would not be good for business to take sides.

When were covering topics, theres no side, he said. Were not defending Hilary Clinton Were not defending Donald Trump. Were not defending any of these institutions. Were defending facts.

gary.warth@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @GaryWarthUT

760-529-4939
San Diego has never legalized commercial cultivation of marijuana, manufacturing of marijuana byproducts or the testing of either, but 27 businesses engaged in such activities are operating in the city.

There is significant debate about whether this was an unintended consequence of the citys zoning laws, a quiet city effort to allow a supply chain for 15 dispensaries the city has approved, or a calculated move by politicians to allow cultivation and manufacturing without officially legalizing them.

No matter how it happened, the existence of these businesses has thrown a monkey wrench into the City Councils decision later this year whether to ban or allow with regulations the cultivation, manufacturing and testing of marijuana.

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The council last week approved allowing dispensaries selling medical marijuana to begin selling recreational marijuana later this year when state guidelines get finalized.

Prestigious pot-testing lab faces uncertain future in Ocean Beach

But the council left any decision on legalizing cultivation, manufacturing and testing until later this year.

They agreed to allow the existing businesses engaged in such activities to stay open until then, but its not clear how a ban or legalization would affect them.

Under a ban, could they continue operating as a previously allowed nonconforming use, would they be immediately shut down or would they be given sunset clauses allowing them to stay open for a short period and then close?

Under new regulations, what would happen if those rules include zoning requirements the businesses dont meet or other restrictions that require changes they cant feasibly make?

Theres really a wide range of options, said Bob Vacchi, director of the citys Development Services Department, which enforces zoning rules.

Vacchi said the 27 businesses  17 manufacturers, eight commercial cultivators, one testing lab and one warehouse  dont actually have any legal standing despite being given city business tax certificates, more commonly known as a business license.

But the businesses are in a far different position than dozens of unpermitted dispensaries that the city has struggled to close down. Those businesses are clearly illegal, Vacchi said, because such businesses need a conditional use permit approved by the Planning Commission and none of them have one of those.

And Vacchi said the business licenses could be enough to prompt the council to declare them legal, nonconforming uses that could continue to operate but not expand or upgrade their operations.

Vacchi said the businesses were given licenses primarily because the council didnt address cultivation, manufacturing and testing when they approved a rigorous permitting process for medical marijuana dispensaries in 2014.

When we did the ordinance for medical marijuana dispensaries, nobody even thought about cultivation or manufacturing so we didnt change any of those codes, Vacchi said.

Consequently, the city issued business licenses with zoning use certificates to many marijuana businesses as long as they met zoning requirements.

For cultivation that essentially meant being located in an agricultural or industrial zone, for manufacturing that meant being in an industrial zone, and for testing it meant being in an agricultural, industrial or commercial zone.

You can get a zoning use certificate to grow corn or wheat or marijuana so long as the zone allows cultivation of crops, so weve been issuing a bunch of these, Vacchi said.

Gina Austin, a local attorney representing many of the affected businesses, offered a similar take.

The determination was made that the new conditional use permit process in 2014 regulated storefronts but did not regulate any of the ancillary services, so those ancillary services were allowed by right, Austin said.

Jessica McElfresh, another attorney representing marijuana businesses, said she thinks there was more to it.

Parts of the city government wanted to work to have a regulated supply chain, and you cant really have that without registration, she said. There were specified zones and you had to state very clearly what you were doing.

A young marijuana plant Photo by Charlie Neuman (Charlie Neuman / San Diego Union-Tribune/Zuma Pre)

Owners of the businesses have stressed that each of them specified they were engaged in activities related to marijuana and were still issued city licenses, something they characterize as the city acknowledging their legality.

Austin said thats debatable, but noted that state officials have said the operators will need more than a business tax certificate to get newly required state permits later this year because California marijuana law requires local governments to expressly authorize marijuana-related businesses.

They will need something else than just a business tax certificate, she said. The state says a BTC is not local authorization.

Zach Lazarus, chief operating officer for the citys first permitted dispensary in Otay Mesa, said he thinks the 27 businesses were tacitly allowed to open as part of a clever political move.

He said that many of the citys elected officials have privately expressed in recent years a desire to allow a local marijuana supply chain, but a reluctance to fully legalize it with an ordinance until the state takes more concrete action.

Since then, the state approved comprehensive medical marijuana regulations in 2015 and then state voters legalized recreational marijuana last November.

Absolutely they knew tax certificates were being handed out for marijuana cultivation, but they didnt want to draft an ordinance because they were on the fence and they wanted to take a wait-and-see approach, Lazarus said. And they are still debating it.

Austin said some of the 27 businesses either arent yet operating or are operating on a relatively small scale.

Its a large investment, so because of uncertainty whether the city is going to ban or expressly allow it, theres a lot of hedging of bets going on, she said.

david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick
A 24-year-old Oceanside man accused of killing an acquaintance by forcefully restraining him during a party late last year pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges Friday.

Police had initially arrested Pablo Mendoza Jr. on Dec. 11, when 22-year-old Ade Perdue was found not breathing at Mendozas home on South Horne Street shortly after 6 a.m.

Although there were no visible signs of traumatic injury, detectives determined Perdue was a victim of foul play based on the totality of the circumstances and after speaking to witnesses.

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However, Mendoza was released from jail a few days later, with no charges filed by the District Attorneys Office. Oceanside police continued investigating, and a warrant for Mendozas arrest was issued Jan. 26.

Mendoza hired an attorney and turned himself in Friday, a prosecutor said. After his arraignment in a Vista courtroom, Mendoza was jailed in lieu of $125,000 bail. He posted bail and was out of custody by the next morning.

Deputy District Attorney David Uyar said that during the Dec. 11 encounter, Mendoza had put his arm around Perdues neck to restrain him during a struggle, and continued to keep his arm there  stopping the flow of blood and causing Perdues death.

We have a young man whose life was cut short, and the defendant did it, Uyar said.

On Monday, Mendozas Los Angeles-based attorney, Jose Romero, said that, according to the sworn statement from the police officer who sought an arrest warrant, Perdue had hit a girl at the party and was trying to fight with the Mendoza before Mendoza restrained him.

Hes a good kid who was in college and enrolled in school when this happened, Romero said of Mendoza, adding that about 20 people turned out to support him during the arraignment.

Romero said that, aside from the statement attached to the arrest warrant, he has not yet seen police reports and other evidence in the case.

Perdues family disputed claims that Perdue would hit a woman.

Related:

Family seeks answers in mans death

Roughly three dozen of Perdues family and supporters attended the arraignment, according to his sister-in-law Ilene Perdue. She said the family is happy to see the case moving forward.

Our faith got us to this point of beginning to heal, now that someone is being held accountable for the death of our brother, Perdue said.

She also said the family continues to be grateful for the outpourings of support from the community. Hundreds turned out for his funeral.

Ade Perdue, an Oceanside native, graduated from Oceanside High School in 2013. He had worked his way up from a busboy job to a bartender position at an Oceanside restaurant, and had dreams of one day owning a bar, his family said.

His first name means royalty in the Nigerian language of Yoruba. His family had called him Prince Ade ( pronounced AH-dee) since he was a baby.

Breaking News

Email: david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com

Phone: (619) 293-1876

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez

UPDATES:

12:10 p.m. Monday: This story was updated with additional details. It was originally published at 7:35 p.m Friday.
Nothing is more important for a college education than engaging with a diversity of ideas. When students confront concepts and beliefs that differ from their own, theyre able to critically analyze their own thought processes and the wider world around them. The resulting process of discovery enables students  and scholars  to improve themselves and contribute to their communities throughout their lives.

Sadly, a diversity of ideas is too often lacking at todays universities, both in California and across the nation. Students are too often thrown into an environment of conformity rather than vigorous debate. Far from promoting discussion among competing viewpoints, colleges and universities too often frown upon  or even penalize  students and scholars who seek to challenge the status quo. But this undermines students ability to pursue knowledge and find fulfillment in their own lives, as well as the very purpose of a college education.

Overcoming this crisis is one of the great challenges of our day. That is why, in conjunction with a group of seven donors, we are pleased to support the University of San Diego as it announces the launch of its Center for Ethics, Economics, and Public Policy.

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This new center will focus on an important area of study: How political and economic institutions help promote freedom and social justice  or put more simply, how a free society can improve peoples lives.

As three of the centers primary supporters  including one who is a USD alumnus  were excited by the scholars vision for their center to inspire debate and discovery both inside and outside the classroom. This exchange of ideas will benefit students, San Diego, and society itself in the years to come.

The school is committed to fostering a vibrant debate of ideas with a particular focus on a free and open economy. This is something the three of us deeply believe in. We have each discovered opportunities to achieve success in business by improving others lives through our various entrepreneurial endeavors. Americas free society made our own stories possible; it is our hope that such a society will flourish even more in the years ahead so that more and more people can pursue and achieve well-being in their own lives.

This deeply matters. History demonstrates that the more free and open a society  in terms of both economic and civil liberties  the happier and more fulfilled its citizens are. The past 200 years in particular show that increased freedom directly leads to increased opportunity, prosperity, and well-being, especially at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.

In fact, the global trend toward free economies and free societies has liberated over a billion people from extreme poverty over the last 25 years alone. And the march of freedom has brought with it corresponding advances in social justice.

Alas, this perspective is often the most foreign to college campuses. It runs counter to the dominant mindset of control and statism in modern academia. Thats why its so critical that students and scholars have the chance to encounter a new way of thinking. They can ultimately reach whatever conclusion they want  but if they only hear one perspective, then they havent reached any conclusion at all. Education, after all, is supposed to encourage self-reflection and critical thought.

The University of San Diego should be applauded for seeking to increase the diversity of ideas available on its campus. We are honored to partner with the school in this project. It is our hope that USD  to say nothing of other schools  will do even more during the years ahead. The future of higher education  and perhaps of America itself  depends on it.

Brennan is the founder of Enlightened Brand Ventures. Burnham is vice chairman of Cushman & Wakefield. Farrell is founder and chairman of ResMed, Inc.
Two weeks ago, President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily banning the entrance of all refugees and travelers from seven majority Muslim nations, leading to chaos at U.S. airports and heartache around the world. At first, the order seemed even larger in scope; it was initially interpreted as affecting the lives of up to 500,000 green card holders from those nations  Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  before the federal government cleared up confusion and said it still believed they were legal U.S. residents.

Now, to the alarm of the president and his supporters and the relief of others, Trump has been swatted down. A week ago, a challenge to his order by the states of Washington and Minnesota led to a stay by Seattle-based U.S. District Judge James L. Robart. This week, three judges  Michelle T. Friedland, William C. Canby Jr. and Richard R. Clifton  from the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld Robart.

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Contrary to the claims of U.S. government lawyers, the appellate panel ruled that many precedents showed it had the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges to executive action and to question claims that an executive action was done to protect the nations security. The ruling noted the government offered no evidence that anyone from any of the seven nations had committed terrorist acts in the United States. It also noted that statements by Trump that he would seek or consider a ban on Muslim immigrants raised basic constitutional questions about the intent of the order.

So whats next? Trump on Friday declared he would announce next week what his next step would be. The Justice Department may seek an immediate appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and its also possible that a majority of the active members of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would vote to have an en banc hearing in which a panel of 11 judges takes a second look at the federal trial court ruling.

The worst possible option, though, is one that is already under consideration by the White House, according to a Washington Post report: issuing a revised version of the travel ban. If such an order were a watered-down, face-saving maneuver, it would still have originated as a ban on Muslims. And if the order tries to respond to the weaknesses in the initial order by finessing the language, it seems likely it would be stayed by another federal judge  possibly after another day or two of chaos at airports  after being seen as an attempt by Trump to escape constitutional checks and balances.

The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board believes the best likely course of action going forward is for Trumps Justice Department to accept a federal trial at which the claims and counterclaims about the extent of presidential authority could be examined in a less frantic atmosphere, starting with this section of federal law: Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

Critics and backers of Trump, and the president himself, shouldnt celebrate or criticize his court losses too much. Until a final decision is handed down, it seems certain that Judges Robart, Friedland, Canby and Clifton wont get the last word.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: UTOpinion
Dont let the restaurant site sit idle for years

Regarding Anthonys: A looming eyesore on the bay? (Feb. 8): As an alternative to the potential waterfront eyesore and two-year to three-year delay costing the Port Authority more than $1 million in rent, maybe the port and Brigantine should consider a plan to utilize the existing Anthonys Fish Grotto today and its facilities (before they are auctioned off), thus continuing operation of a rent-paying restaurant until the legalities are finally cleared.

James Nathenson

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San Diego

Former Anthonys site debacle is very telling

As I read about permit delays for the proposed Portside Pier project, its apparent that there is a lack of accountability within and lack of coordination among the various taxpayer-supported entities from which permits are required.

Letters and commentary policy

The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy.

E-mail letters@sduniontribune.com

Mail: Andrew Kleske, Reader Outreach Editor San Diego Union-Tribune P.O. Box 120191 San Diego, CA 92112-0191.

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How many hoops has the Brigantine Group had to jump through so far? City planning commission, City Council, the Corps of Engineers, the Unified Port District, the California Coastal Commission, the Regional Water Quality Control Board? Any other taxpayer-supported entity that I missed?

There must be better ways to protect the public than by spending tax dollars to support this jumble of public agencies. To whom are they accountable? If I were a cynic, I would say that the employees of these agencies are less interested in protecting the public than in protecting their jobs. They should be looking for ways to expedite worthy projects, not delay them.

Jack Hill

Encinitas

Attacks on electric cars are without warrant

Regarding California bets on electric cars, charge stations at taxpayer risk (Feb. 7): It was quoted the electric cars charge with fossil fuels. This may be true from midnight to 4 a.m., but they also can be charged with solar, wind, nuclear, etc. It has a smart charger called value charge when the power grid has a surplus, much to my surprise during the day sometimes.

What cost $40,000 in 2012 with a 78-mile range is now $40,000 with a 238-mile range  with a state rebate. The gas cars only have one source of fuel, gasoline. Wait until the next unplanned outage, refinery fire, gas shortage and $4.50 a gallon gas. Try to find a deal then. Oh, you can drive in the carpool lane with one person in the car, too.

Ron Simas

Clairemont

Citys inaction on homeless is shameful

The excellent article by Dan McSwain (Homeless crisis is solvable, but wont yield to political inaction, Jan. 30) nails the two self-inflicted wounds most responsible for San Diego Countys dire straits  while other communities apparently are making gains in similar situations. First, the elimination of affordable housing units in favor of private redevelopment. Second, the dilly-dallying by weak-kneed officials and politicians such as Mayor Kevin Faulconer (remember how he didnt take a stand on either Measure C or Measure D in November until the last second).

Lets hope that leaders more responsive than our current ones clip McSwains story as a reference on how to reduce homelessness in San Diego County.

Dale Rodebaugh

San Diego

Promoting Democrats means nothing changes

I found myself laughing at your editorial Dont forget day jobs, state Democrats (Feb. 5). You spend the entire editorial correctly criticizing our state Democrats for speeding the death of the American Dream in California through both their actions and inactions.

They have held a majority in Sacramento (sometimes even a supermajority) for many, many years, yet in the recent election you predominately endorsed Democrats for state office. If you want to see things change, how about changing those we send to Sacramento? As Albert Einstein defined, Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. He was a wise man. Maybe you should listen to his words.

Joan Fritz

Oceanside

Congress must not abandoned its role

The Republican-controlled Senate, with Vice President Pences tie-breaking vote, approved Betsy DeVos as secretary of the Department of Education. This is an unfortunate decision for education in America, but a dreadful decision regarding our countrys governance.

The Senates abnegation of its responsibility to properly vet and then disapprove this candidate for a vital governmental role indicates it is cowering in its chamber, rather than opposing the presidents nomination of an unqualified candidate.

Proper functioning of our political system requires the Congress serve as a reasoning, moderating force against poor decisions by the judiciary, and in the DeVos case, the executive branches. If the Congress relinquishes this responsibility, inevitably decisions are made that serve the country poorly. That is what occurred in the DeVos case.

Larry Cousins

Kensington

* * *

Our government was set up with three branches, executive, legislative and judicial, to ensure no one branch gained too much power  checks and balances to preserve the democracy. Im concerned our major parties, due to negative campaigning, have succeeded in causing a great loss of confidence in Congress. Lately, the judiciarys separation from a party agenda is being questioned.

My concern is that as the voters lose confidence in our congressional and judicial branches, the more they may accept too much power exercised by the president through executive order. Obama was accused, by many, of exceeding this power and now Trump is on the same path.

We sorely need all three of our branches to regain our trust and confidence by putting our countrys needs first, not their re-election and blind party support.

David Nordquist

Carlsbad

Nothing wrong with U.S. playing it safe

Steve Breens drawing (Refused, Feb. 5) representing a saddened Islamic mother of two being denied U.S. entry did not tug at my heartstrings, manipulative as it was.

Careful vetting and a 90-day ban on seven of the more than 50 majority-Islam countries does not seem unduly harsh, considering the wait period required for prospective immigrants from other nations. Perspective is needed.

Karen W. Maxwell

El Cajon

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Regarding GOP wrestling with health care (Feb. 9): Whats to wrestle?

All the GOP has to do is lift the restrictions and mandates Obamacare imposes on doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and consumers; Obamacare collapses from its own weight like a house of cards.Insurance companies will immediately design individual plans for consumers anywhere and compete with each other to hold prices down.

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Letters and commentary policy

The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy.

E-mail letters@sduniontribune.com

Mail: Andrew Kleske, Reader Outreach Editor San Diego Union-Tribune P.O. Box 120191 San Diego, CA 92112-0191.

You can also leave a comment below

Doctors and hospitals will be relieved from having to comply with unnecessary regulations. Its called a free market and works for other consumer products that could use reductions in their regulatory requirements themselves.

This system worked well enough to create a living standard surpassing all other nations in our nations first 100 years.

Tony Flitcraft

National City

* * *

I am a local physician worried about President Trumps intention to eliminate Obamacare. This government-subsidized insurance program has been very effective across the nation, saving both dollars and lives while preserving the health of many of at least 20 million Americans. So now is the time for California to create its own version of an affordable health program much like Gov. Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts 10 years ago, often called Romneycare.

I agree with the critics that there are many aspects of Obamacare that are not optimal. So lets create our own CalCare, taking the best of Obamacare and making it even better.

Californians must again lead the nation, inspiring Congress to come up with a new, improved comprehensive national health care program that truly works for everyone. Until then, lets be creative how we can best care for our neighbors here in California.

Alan W. Larson

San Diego

Tired of port thinking only about its profits

After reading David Garricks article regarding the parking meters being installed at Laurel Street Mooring (Boat owners frustrated by Port parking changes, Feb. 1), I had to laugh at the comments made by port spokeswoman Tanya Castaneda.

In defending the charge to park, Castenada said the port realized it wasnt doing a good job of managing (i.e.: making more money) the parking. She said, We want locals to come. How are locals supposed to come if they are nickel-and-dimed to death every time they go to the harbor?

I, a concerned citizen of San Diego, am appalled at the greed oozing from port officials. What they use the money for is beyond me. I suppose they will use the money to annihilate our precious Seaport Village and give the proceeds to the greedy developers who are licking their chops to make even more money for themselves. What a sad commentary on our society.

Sali Weiss

San Diego

Public pension plans need to be modernized

Regarding Pension boards must get real when it comes to numbers and challenges (Feb. 3): How can the public expect pension boards to get real when most are stacked with current and future plan beneficiaries? This is the perfect definition of conflict of interest and should be corrected immediately.

The main driver of public pension costs is the extraordinarily young age (50 or 55) required to obtain a full pension, one that requires no actuarial adjustment for the increased costs to the plan. Why should public employees be allowed to retire 10 to 15 years earlier than those private sector employees who still have a defined benefit plan? If this early retirement is to be continued, the cost should be offset by an amount representing each year of increased cost to the plan.

That is what getting real entails.

William Bradshaw

San Diego

Dont equate Cabinet, Supreme Court posts

Regarding McConnells hypocrisy is on full display (Feb 3): Letter writer Gloria Espeseth notes Sen. Mitch McConnells remark that a president is entitled to have his Cabinet appointments considered, then draws a parallel to President Obamas nomination of Judge Merrick Garland.

Cabinet appointments are not equivalent to judicial nominations, the most obvious difference being that a Cabinet appointment is not a lifetime gig.

Majority Leader McConnell, who has demonstrated the same level of hypocrisy as his Democrat colleagues, was simply following the Biden rule when he blocked President Obamas lame-duck nomination, made in an election year.

Deborah Attwood

Kensington

Travel ban shed light on the plight of Muslims

Regarding Judges to hear travel ban case (Feb. 7): Besides opposition from 100 Silicon Valley tech companies, 280 law professors, 16 state and district attorneys general, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Twitter, Uber and countless demonstrations across the country and worldwide, it seems to me the most prominent result of Trumps immigration ban has been a newfound understanding, welcome and respect for the Muslims living here, which has been long overdue.

Steve Blumenschein

Clairemont

Do we want Trump to be more like Putin?

Conservatives seem confused by Trumps continued praise of Vladimir Putin. It is more like he is envious of Putin and how he deals with his adversaries. Trump threatens and name-calls anyone who disagrees with him, unless they work for him, then he fires them.

Whereas Putin imprisons (as Trump suggested for Hillary Clinton) or does worse to his adversaries. How long before Trump signs an executive order that makes it a crime to disagree with the president?

Bob Stewart

Oceanside

California should not protect unauthorized

Regarding California as a sanctuary state (Feb. 1): Let me see now, an innocent woman named Kate Steinle was murdered by a known undocumented felon who was not deported because San Francisco was/is a sanctuary city.

Now, because one policeman decided to turn in an undocumented motorist for a broken taillight, the Jerry Brown gurus in Sacramento are now passing a law that the entire state will be a sanctuary.

Since when did a taillight become more important than murder?

Ralph Larson

Coronado

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Live from New York, its Alec Baldwin !

The actor, comedian, writer and producer has become a big league star playing President Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live, and on Saturday, the show is bringing him back  as a host, for a record 17th time. In honor of that, we decided to take a look back at all of Baldwins big scenes or cold opens so far this season.

Some, lets be honest, have not been so great. Others have been yuge.

Check out our rankings and let us know which youd rank differently in the comments section. Well be reading!

1. Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Debate

This was the debut of Baldwins Trump character and it served as some much-needed comic relief after the intense first presidential debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton at Hofstra University on Sept. 26. Its also the most watched video of Baldwin as Trump on Saturday Night Lives YouTube channel with more than 23 million views. Thats one popular vote that matters.

Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) and Hillary Clinton ( Kate McKinnon ) face off in the first presidential debate, moderated by Lester Holt (Michael Che).

2. Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump

This gets one of our top spots purely for the bipartisan fun at the end. Baldwin actually turns back into himself at about the 6:48 mark and he and SNL cast member Kate McKinnon, who plays Hillary Clinton, join hands and frolic through Times Square together.

3. Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Town Hall Debate

This is the second-most viewed Baldwin clip on SNLs Youtube channel with more than 20 million views. SNL expertly spoofed a scene in Clinton and Trumps town hall debate that went viral online: Trump standing weirdly close behind Clinton. Just how weirdly? Take a look.

4. Trump prepares

The Mitt Romney bit in this one was fantastic. When President-elect Trump met with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in real life, many people couldnt believe it because Romney had so recently called Trump a phony and a fraud. SNL played their meeting exactly how so many imagined it.

5. Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Third Debate

Clearly America loves the Trump vs. Clinton moments on SNL. This cold open almost hit the 20 million view mark and is Baldwins third most popular sketch. Baldwin as Trump and McKinnon as Clinton played so well off each other. Oh, and it doesnt hurt to have Tom Hanks involved!

6. VP Debate

It was a smart idea to cut to Baldwin as Trump during the otherwise uneventful vice presidential debate. Of course, the bit also touched on Trumps Access Hollywood scandal, as everyone expected SNL would.

7. Oval Office

SNL got to the heart of what many people think about Trumps chief strategist Steve Bannon with this cold open. Instead of a Bannon character, the show just brought in a Grim Reaper.

Points to all the other cast members for acing their accents as Trump called other world leaders in the sketch, but Baldwins part in this one wasnt too exciting.

8. Donald Trump Christmas

This was good political commentary, but not the funniest work by Baldwin. The other characters, especially John Goodman as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, are actually the stars of this one.

9. Classroom

SNL just had to make fun of Trumps tweeting habits. Its clear the writers were trying to make a point, but it was overkill after a while.

10. Donald Trump Press Conference

Finally, we get to Trump as president. But this cold open was weirdly specific and focused for a long time on an unconfirmed report you may have read (or read about) that had something to do with urine. Unless you follow the national news obsessively, this one may make little sense. It wasnt funny enough to overcome that.

Which one is your favorite? Disagree with our rankings?

Comment below!

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin
Community survey

Ramona Unified School District invites the community to participate in its Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) Community Survey.

The LCAP Survey is a way for the RUSD Stakeholder Committee to gather pertinent information from the Ramona community, parents, teachers, staff and students to help develop the document that guides the decision making and budget for the entire district.

The survey will run through Feb. 17.

Community members may access the survey in English and Spanish from the main district webpage: www.ramonausd.net.

Printmaking series

A three-part printmaking series featuring three instructors will be offered in The Art Center.

Gelli Plate Printmaking with instructor Susan Bainbridge will be on Monday, Feb. 13; Soft Cut Lino Printmaking with Pamela Underwood will be on March 13; and Dry-point Printmaking with Helen Wilson will be on April 10. Each will be from 5 to 8 p.m. at the center at 438 Main St.

All levels are welcome. Children age 13 and older may participate if accompanied by an attending parent. Class size will range from six to 12 students.

For cost and more information, visit www.theartcenterramona.com.

Smartphone class

Girl Scouts from Ramona Troop 8731 will teach senior citizens how to use their Smartphones in Ramona Library on Saturday, Feb. 18, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Bring your Smartphones and well show you how to use them, note the Scouts, whose troop leader is longtime Ramona resident Janet Mandela. Anyone wanting more information may contact Mandela at 760-473-3841.

End of drought

San Diego County Water Authority Board of Directors has declared an end to drought conditions in the region.

The resolution calls on Gov. Jerry Brown and the State Water Resources Control Board to rescind the statewide emergency water-use regulation for areas of California that no longer face a drought.

The water authoritys supply forecast improved with recent wet winter conditions, including a series of record-setting storms across California.

As of Jan. 23, the official rainfall measurement station at Ramona Airport recorded 209 percent of average rainfall since the start of the water year on Oct. 1. Lindbergh Field recorded 172 percent of average rainfall during the same period.

The water content of snow in the Sierra Nevada, a prime water source for much of the state, was 193 percent of average as of Jan. 23, and snowpack levels were at 161 percent of average in the upper basin of the Colorado River, the water authority reported.

Asphalt project

San Diego County Department of Public Works will include several Ramona streets in its county-wide asphalt overlay and slurry seal projects that are scheduled to begin in April.

The roads in Ramona are Ramona Street from Raymond to H Street; Ashley Road from Hanson to Telford Lane; Steffy Road from Ashley to Keyes Road; Keyes Road from Hanson Lane to West Old Julian Highway; and Olive Street from Maple to Davis Street.

No specific dates were provided yet as to when the contractor will work on the above roads.

The county project is expected to be completed in December and is estimated to cost $9.8 million.
Rebuttal to Trumps trivial pursuits

It would appear that Mr. Quercia believes this president cant walk and chew gum at the same time. Yes, he is going forward with repealing and replacing the debacle called the Affordable (youve got to be kidding) Care Act. But he is also doing many other things at the same time.

Many of these other things, deemed trivial pursuits by Mr. Quercia, are aimed at protecting Americans here and abroad. As commander-in-chief (please refer to Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States of America) that is JOB ONE.

Border walls are effectively employed around the world for the protection were all looking for. Most notably the Israeli security fence has, since its construction, reduced terror attacks inside Israel by 90 percent. Other countries, despite their opposition to Israels security wall, have built their own. Walls now exist between India and Pakistan (and a new one is coming), Saudi Arabia and Yemen ( and a new one is coming there as well), Morocco and Algeria, and Turkey and Syria. Kenya is building one along its border with Somalia.

The president is also calling for a pause in refugee migration from seven countries that are known terrorist hotbeds (named by Trumps predecessor himself, although he did little about it). These are not trivial pursuits.

And through all of this Mr. Quercia seems to approve of sanctuary cities. The presidents withdrawal of federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities is in no way a violation of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America! California cities and others can continue to defy federal law, but they simply wont get the federal funding they are used to  their choice.

And lastly, Mr. Quercia refers to the peaceful womens march Jan.21 as some kind of unifying event. Have you ever heard more disgusting, crude, divisive, vile rhetoric as came from the mouths of Madonna and Ashley Judd? Give me a break! You have been blinded by tears from a thorough thumping at the polls!

Tom McKelvey

Ramona

Fast road from the Estates

The $22 million road is almost finished. The telephone company is still working on their stuff. Everyone can now go fast into town except for the sharp S curves when leaving the Estates.

The bike lanes, hiking and horse trails look very nice. It is unfortunate that most of the more than 10,000 people living in the Estates wont be able to use them. You probably can get through the S curves on a bike but I certainly wouldnt want to try to walk or ride a bicycle through them.

I also like the mosquito breeding (drainage) ponds the have been installed along the road.

Michael Cassidy

Ramona

Support the people or Trump?

Visiting Congressman Duncan Hunters office this week regarding President Trumps immigration order, I became aware that our GOP congressmen are backing Trump over we the people.

I complained that the immigration order was unconstitutional, singling out Muslims in this country as a threat. Hunters people argued that the order is not the problem, just rolled out improperly. Subsequent correspondence brought the information that the chief of Homeland Security had decided that the order does not apply to Muslims that are here legally, including those with green cards.

Homeland Security says that the Muslims in this country are not a threat because they have been vetted properly using established techniques --- a process in use well before Trump came on the scene. So I asked Hunters people, whats the point of the presidential order if the system in place is making us completely safe? No answer.

There can only be one purpose, and that is to single out our fellow Muslim citizens, neighbors, friends, and colleagues as some type of threat. Divide the people and fan the flames of hate. Apparently Hunter and fellow GOP Congressmen dont understand that the Constitution protects us all equally, regardless of our faith, or none. Not enough anyway for them to condemn Trump and force a retraction of the Presidential order.

Its time for Duncan Hunter and all GOP Congressmen to decide. Do they support Trump, or do they support the American people? Will they force a retraction or kiss Trumps feet?

Dave Patterson

Ramona

Ironic

I find it ironic that the Design Review Board argues over what size to depict a Mexican agriculturalist on a Mount Woodson mural, yet has no problem with a 40-foot tall Nazi sympathizer, with no relation to Ramona, hovering over Main Street.

Sandy Arsham

Ramona

Supervisors actions cruel and punitive

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors have been in a tizzy for months because of the publics lawful use of marijuana. Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who represents Ramona, said last month that Marijuana of any kind is illegal under federal law, and she does not consider medicinal use an option. If it were to be sold, it should be classified as a drug by the FDA only available by prescription at a pharmacy.

Jacob and the other supervisors have the audacity to deny terminally ill patients and cancer victims suffering the agony of chemotherapy treatments any relief. The board has decreed that there should be no more dispensaries in San Diego County and a phasing out of the existing facilities. As a result, Ramonas ShowGrow dispensary will be shut down within five years.

Vice Chairwoman Kristin Gaspar claims she has researched the problem of marijuana use in Colorado, and said there were significant increases in traffic fatalities, underage use, emergency room visits and crime. The board does not see a difference in recreational use and medical use of marijuana.

Colorados medicinal marijuana law was enacted in 2000; now there are 100,000 enrollees. Colorado Department of Transportations spokesman, Sam Cole, said the state erred to tally the negative effects of medical marijuana since its inception, only recording statistics for recreational marijuana when the new law passed two years ago.

Jacobs liaison said they have proof that marijuana use is wreaking havoc in the county but he did not have the facts readily available and no one from Gaspars office returned messages. Also, no one from the California Highway Patrol in El Cajon or the sheriffs substation in Ramona returned any phone messages over a three-day period. Chief Administrator Charles Boldwyn of ShowGrow, said theyre being treated unfairly by the Planning Commission and the board. Theyre going to fight hard to keep their business open and were in the middle of organizing a game plan to fiercely fight the proposed shutting down of their dispensary.

The board is philosophically opposed to medical marijuana use. Their actions are both cruel and punitive.

The Board of Supervisors Advisory Planning Commission will meet at 9 a.m. Friday, Feb. 10, at the County Operations Center, 5520 Overland Ave., Kearney Mesa.

Peter W. Quercia

Ramona
A robber who helped ambush and kill a Border Patrol agent in a plot to obtain his night vision goggles was sentenced Thursday to 40 years in prison.

Emilio Gonzales Arezanas was the fourth man to be sentenced for the robbery-gone-wrong, and potentially the last. A fifth remains at large, although he is believed to be dead.

Agent Robert Rosas was a 30-year-old married father of two when he was shot at least nine times in the Campo desert on July 23, 2009.

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With Thursdays sentencing in San Diego federal court, Rosas widow, Rosalie, told the judge that justice has been served.

As short of a life he lived, he fulfilled a huge purpose, protecting his country and laying his life down, she said. Im so proud of the man he was.

Her two young children flanked her as she spoke in court  her daughter, in a pink dress, stood on a footstool, next to her son, wearing a replica Border Patrol uniform.

She urged Gonzales to make the best of the life he still has.

People make mistakes, but the mistake you made will affect our life for the rest of our lives, she said.

I will raise my children not to hate you. The right thing to do is forgive you.

The statements brought tears to the eyes of the dozens of family members and friends from El Centro, who filled one side of the courtroom. On the other side were fellow agents in olive-colored uniforms, who have come for each of the previous sentencings.

Rosas older sister, Sylvia, held up framed photos of her brother and his family as she spoke to Gonzales.

I want you to see what you destroyed, she said.

U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz called the killing cold-blooded and callous, but decided against life in prison because of Gonzales willingness to cooperate with the government.

Gonzales, 25, pleaded guilty to murder of a federal officer during a robbery and had agreed to testify against other defendants if necessary. That cooperation led others to plead guilty.

I know there are no words that can turn back the time or that can mitigate the pain of your loss, a tearful Gonzales said, addressing the family. But I am completely remorseful. It was never my intention to come to this point. I feel completely sorry and upset at myself for having fallen so deep into ignorance.

His defense attorney, Barbara Donovan, said he was coerced into the crime, but the judge didnt buy it. Neither did Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Pettit, who questioned why Gonzales fired the gun rather than run away.

The plan to rob an agent was hatched after two of the defendants were robbed of their own goggles while they slept. The technology is prized by cross-border smugglers of drugs and people.

Gonzales was recruited for what he was told was a smuggling job by a teenager in his Tijuana neighborhood, Daniel Castro Alvarez. As the day wore on, Gonzales began to learn there was much more at stake, his lawyer said.

He became afraid of the groups leader, Jose Chacon Morales, who led them to a Mexico border ranch scattered with corpses. They were people Chacon had had killed, the lawyer said, and Chacon had laughed as he took photos of the bones and used a skull as an ashtray.

When the five men got to the border fence, Castro and Marcos Rodriguez Perez crawled under, leaving tracks in the dirt and shaking bushes in hopes of luring an agent. Gonzales was then ordered to go with them.

Rosas responded and began tracking the group about 9 p.m. Then his radio went silent.

A struggle ensued between the agent and Castro. A shot went off. Gonzales then fired at the agent, who was down on his knees. The agent clutched at his stomach.

Rodriguez fired a volley of several more shots into the agents head and back.

Gonzales grabbed Castro and dragged him back across the border, but was ordered by the gangs leader to go back for the agents gear. They snatched the agents goggles, gun and handcuffs before fleeing back to Mexico.

All the while, Chacon and lookout Jose Ramirez Dorantes stayed safely on the Mexican side of the border.

The break in the case came a month later, when Castro, 17 at the time, turned himself in. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Rodriguez was sentenced to 56 years, Ramirez to 55 years.

Chacon escaped to Sinaloa after the slaying and remains a fugitive, although authorities say he is likely dead. There is still a reward of up to $100,000 for tips leading to his arrest.
KIMBERLY EPLER

Staff Writer

VISTA -- A former Carlsbad attorney was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison on Friday, 10 months after a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder for shooting his girlfriend during a confrontation over a broken date.

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James Bottomley, 52, never denied killing Marietta Cordero Birbilis, 46, in the entryway of her Escondido home on Feb. 15, 2000, but he said he committed the crime in the heat of passion.

During his trial, Bottomley said he was upset over her relationship with another man when he took a gun over to Birbilis house to elicit her sympathy by threatening suicide.

On Friday, dressed in a blue jail jumpsuit, a thinner, paler Bottomley spoke for nearly half an hour before he was sentenced.

First, he apologized to Birbilis family. Then Bottomley spoke at length about betraying his ex-wife, his anguish at the crime he committed, his bout with depression and how, before the shooting, he tried to live an honest and moral life.

I have been in agony with remorse and suffering every day of the last 16 months and I should be, Bottomley said, his voice breaking with emotion at points. Marietta did not deserve to die.

Bottomley also told his family that his shame was not their shame and his guilt was not their guilt. Bottomleys sister, ex-wife and twin daughters tearfully addressed the court on his behalf, calling him a gentle man who drifted in a chasm of mental illness.

Our pain and suffering can only be surpassed by yours, his sister, Jennifer Bottomley Qwynne, told Birbilis family.

Before handing down the sentence, Superior Court Judge John Einhorn expressed his sympathy to Birbilis family. He also said he could offer no explanation as to why Bottomley went from being a devoted father, successful lawyer and community supporter to a self-absorbed murderer.

Einhorn called Bottomley an embarrassment to his profession and the court.

This court takes absolutely no joy in participating in this process today, Einhorn said, adding he was satisfied Bottomley had received a fair trial.

Earlier this week, Einhorn denied Bottomleys request to lower the conviction to involuntary manslaughter and denied a motion for a new trial based on allegations of insufficient counsel and prosecutorial and jury misconduct.

At the sentencing, several members of the Birbilis family gave tearful accounts of how her death has changed their lives. Her mother, Rosario Cordero, said the numerous delays in Bottomleys sentencing had worried the family.

Since the verdict was handed down, we have been agonizing while waiting for this day, she told the court. We thought justice delayed would be justice denied, but we are grateful justice will always prevail.

Oscar Cordero, Birbilis older brother, said the sentencing was a big relief.

Contact staff writer Kimberly Epler at (760) 739-6644 or kepler@nctimes.com.

6/16/01
Out of the several Moon formation theories proposed over the years, the giant impact hypothesis of the Moon's formation is most widely accepted. It seems scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, have found yet another proof of it.

James Day and his team studied the glass formed in the sand, near the ground-zero site of the first-ever nuclear blast made my men. The U.S. Army tested its first-ever nuclear bomb at the Trinity site, in the Southern New Mexico, on July 16, 1945.

Due to the heat and energy produced in the blast, the top layer of the sandy soil melted and led to the formation of a green color glassy layer, which is often referred to as trinitite. The trinitite can be found scattered in a region spreading 1,150 feet from the point of detonation of the nuclear bomb, Scientific American reported.

Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography tested the green radioactive glass obtained at a site, which is about 800 feet from the ground zero and tested its elemental composition. The study results published in the Science Advances journal revealed that the glass was almost completely devoid of water molecules and volatile elements, such as zinc. The small traces of zinc they did find were heavier, less reactive radioisotopes of zinc with a different atomic mass.

Lead researcher of the study, James Day, said, "The results show that evaporation at high temperatures, similar to those at the beginning of planet formation, leads to the loss of volatile elements and to enrichment in heavy isotopes in the left over materials from the event."

Science Daily reported that the scientists found extreme similarities between the elemental composition of the radioactive glass and the samples obtained from the surface of the Moon. The giant impact hypothesis of the Moon's formation proposes that a similar high-energy explosion caused due to collision between ancient Earth and a Mars-like celestial body led to the formation of the Moon. The high temperature produced as a result of the explosion may have caused the evaporation of the volatile elements like zinc, scientists say.

Day said that the present study "gives us confidence that we're interpreting the data from these lunar rocks in the right way."
Wild bison just made a comeback to Canada's Banff National Park, which is the country's oldest park, on Feb. 1, 2017. It took about 140 years for these huge and herbivorous mammals to finally be home.

Bison were common in Canada in the early 1800s. On the other hand, they were outnumbered by the end of the 19th century because of hunting. The National Park plans to re-establish the species and about 16 bison were sent to the area. Most of them are pregnant. This would lead to the growing population of the herd, according to Inhabitat.

After more than a century, wild bison have returned to Canada's oldest national park https://t.co/thswm7Ahk7 pic.twitter.com/Nrs3nF9lBo  Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) February 10, 2017

Harvey Locke, the Canadian conservationist, said that this is a great day for Banff National Park. He further said that it is a great day for Canada. He described it as one of the great days for wildlife conservation in the history of North America.

As seen in the video below, bison were transported by trucks from Elk Island National Park. Then, they were airlifted by helicopters. The shipping containers were lowered from the helicopters and the doors were opened. About 16 bison went out from the doors and ran fast into the snow. They will be closely monitored and expected to be released to roam freely in the park in the summer of 2018, according to The Huffington Post.

Parks Canada described the comeback of the wild creatures as "historic and cultural triumph." It stated that the restoration of bison to Banff will return a keystone species to the landscape, foster cultural reconnection, inspire discovery and provide stewardship and learning opportunities. It further said that by re-establishing a new wild population within its historical range in Banff National Park, this will be a key contribution to national and international bison conservation efforts.
FLORENCE, S.C.  A crowd of more than 1,000 fathers and daughters dressed to the nines to dance the night away at the YMCAs 18th annual Father-Daughter Dance.

One of the oldest father-daughter couples at the dance was Lon Bauer and his daughter, Renee Baker. Bauer is 64, and Baker is 41.

I wish they had had it when she was the age of some of these little girls that I see out here, but they didnt have it then, Bauer said. I asked her if she wanted to go to it, and weve been coming ever since.

Bauer and Baker have been coming to father daughter dances for four or five years, Bauer said.

Its fun watching the little girls because theyll get to dance and then theyll have such a great time with their dads, Baker said. I dont think theres enough things around here to where kids can do stuff like that.

One of the youngest couples was Adrian Barnwell and his 18-month-old daughter, Raegan. Although it was their first time at the dance, Barnwell said it will not be the last.

Well be back, Barnwell said. This will be a tradition that we can do.

Caydence Hampton was escorted by her grandfather, Allen Gainey. Hamptons father, who is Gaineys stepson, was not able to attend because he is out of the country.

Her dad is in the military, Gainey said. Hes in the Navy, and hes in Japan. This is his second year there. So I had her last year here, and were back for our second year. If we have to, well be here for the third.

Even though Hamptons dad is overseas, he supports Gainey taking Hampton to the dance.

He loves it, Gainey said. He loves the idea that Im stepping in for him.

Anwar Williams brought his 2-year-old daughter, Madison, to the dance for her first time.

Seeing all the men with their daughters  its really something special when a guy takes ownership and really treats his daughter like a lady, Williams said. What they see now is what they will pick in their husbands. Its good to see a lot of good examples out here.

Michael Orange has been bringing his daughter Maya, 7, to the dance to show her how she should be treated. While her favorite part of the dance may just be dancing, her dad is teaching her a lesson.

Its a good thing for us men to come out and date our daughters before somebody else gets to date them, so that they can know what its like for a man to open the door for them and to treat them right.  Orange said. Theyll know what a good man looks like, so whenever the riffraff comes along, they can run them off. I think thats the cool thing about it.

The father-daughter dance has become a family affair for the Oranges.

Its like a build-up for us, Orange said. After the first year she enjoyed it, and was kind of ready to go a little earlier the second year. More of her cousins came, and more of their dads came, and they all had a good time together. Now I tell other people about it. I think its something that shes starting to look forward to as the years go on. I want to see at what awkward teenage year is she going to be like Dad, Im not going.

Even when shes starting to get ready for the dance, her mother is involved in helping.

All three of us get involved with finding her a dress and then trying to match up a tie or something for me to wear, Orange said. Its a big deal for us. It became a family thing over time."

Dorothy Krasias is the membership and human resources administrator at the YMCA, and she is the CEOs assistant. She said that planning the event begins about two months before the dance.

The first thing that happens is we get community involvement, which means every single grocery store, Chick-fil-A, Walmart, Krasias said. We ask for donations so we can actually buy this and we dont have to spend money to put this on. Then we just start putting it out there with the help of the Morning News, of course, with advertisements, Facebook, all the internet craze.

Krasias said one thing that is special about the event is that people anticipate it.

Everybody knows this. Its almost like everybody comes. They are expecting this. They call us in December and ask us when the date is.

The proceeds from the event are split between the YMCA and the Morning News.

With us being the sponsor, along with the Morning News, we go half and half- part Newspapers in Education, and our scholarship program, which goes back to the people who need it to have child care or membership or sports, Krasias said.

The Florence Family YMCAs CEO, Brian New, said that each year the father-daughter dance grows. New was working with the YMCA when the event started 18 years ago.

The growth and transition has been awesome, New said. It grew from a few hundred the first year up to over 1,200, 1,300 now. Its been neat to watch the different generations come through.

The father-daughter dance raised between $16,000 to $17,000 this year, compared with $14,000 last year, New said.
Carnival Splendor will operate the 2018 sailing, which departs Aug. 25.

The ship will visit Hubbard Glacier and Icy Strait Point, a wilderness area offering some of the best whale- and bear-watching in the state and what's touted as the worlds longest zip line. Other destinations include Ketchikan, Skagway, Juneau, Sitka and Victoria, BC.

This 'Carnival Journeys' cruise also features additional on-board programming such as photography, arts and crafts and a 1980s-themed 'Throwback Sea Day.'

The 14-day cruise is part of Carnival's Alaska roster that includes a two-week voyage round-trip from Long Beach aboard Carnival Miracle in September this year that features the line's first call at Icy Strait Point and 38 seven- and eight-day voyages aboard Carnival Legend in 2017 and 2018. Several of the seven-day cruises visit Glacier Bay National Park.
A 1,700-year-old untouched tomb bearing the bones of a dozen male adults, as well as pre-Columbian figurines and statues, has been unearthed in Mexico.

Archaeologists discovered the ancient tomb, which dates to the Comala Period (between 0 and A.D. 500), during work to remodel a Seventh-day Adventist church in Colima, Mexico. The archaeologists uncovered a hole that was sealed up with stones, artifacts for grinding, and human bones.

Inside, 12 skulls and other bones were piled atop one another in a haphazard manner. Some of the skulls showed signs of damage, as well as tooth fractures and wear, said Rosa Maria Flores Ramirez, a physical anthropologist at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) in Mexico.

When the archaeologists explored further, they discovered three burial levels. In the second burial level, the team found two figurines - a male and female - placed facedown next to two skulls. [Prince's Tomb: Images from a Mayan Excavation]

RELATED: Ancient Wind God Temple Found Under Mexico City Supermarket

Ancient Figurines

The male figurine, which measures 15 inches (39 centimeters) tall and 6 inches (15 cm) wide, was wearing a feathered headdress with a horn jutting out from it. In his hand, he holds an ax.

The female figurine, which is 12.5 inches by 5.5 inches (32 by 14 cm), shows a woman with a sharp nose and a triangular head. She wears a banded headdress and has her hands crossed, with the right hand holding a pot. The burial also contained two other pots.

Each of the figures was sculpted from fine paste that was polished when complete. The ancient artists used cuts to etch in the facial features.

"The presence of these pieces in the offering hint at the worldview of the groups that inhabited the Colima valley in that period. The sculptures, according to their attributes, served as propitiatory elements that ensured the protection of the deceased, as is the case with the male sculpture, which represents a shaman. The other objects fulfilled the function of bringing the requirements to the underworld," Rafael Platas Ruiz, an archaeologist at the INAH, said in a translated statement.

RELATED: Ancient Civilization in Mexico Bred, Ate Rabbits

The finding is rare because tombs of this type are almost invariably looted before archaeologists can get to them.

The fact that the tomb was untouched "allowed us to have a first approach with the bone remains, to observe the lesions, deformations and to have more information to know what was their way of life," the researchers said in the statement.

It's possible that this isn't the only burial in the area, because the entire Colima valley was occupied continuously from 1500 B.C. to A.D. 1500, and cultural relics from different periods in the city's history may be lying beneath it, the researchers said.

Top photo: A tomb was recently uncovered in Colima, Mexico that held bones and ancient figurines that dated to 1,700 years ago. Credit: Rafael Platas/INAH Originally published on Live Science.
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After months of court battles and appeals, a 100-year-old woman was evicted Friday from her home in San Franciscos Western Addition.

San Francisco Sheriff Vicki Hennessy had what might be the final eviction notice delivered to Iris Canadas home on the 600 block of Page Street  after a lengthy battle with her landlord, who said she violated her life estate agreement by not living there full time. A judge agreed last year that Canada had not been permanently residing in the building.

Canada was not in the building when the notice was posted, and her lawyer said neither he nor Canadas family has broken the news to her.

Right now, Im really trying not to let Iris know this because Im truly afraid of the result, said Dennis Zaragoza, Canadas lawyer, citing her deteriorating health. Im trying to file an appeal (Friday) afternoon.

The six-unit buildings owners are trying to convert from a tenants-in-common structure to condominium status, but they need Canadas signature to do so. Canada and her attorney have refused to sign, saying it would remove her legal claim to her apartment.

The life estate agreement allowed Canada to remain in her apartment at a fixed rate of $700 a month for life.

Canada has kept up with her rent payments, but the building owners say she has not been living at the unit and is instead living in Oakland with her niece. The niece, Iris Merriouns, said that is false.

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.

Canadas battle ended Wednesday when Judge A. James Robertson of San Francisco Superior Court ruled that an eviction should take place by April 13.

In March, Robertson ruled that Canada has failed to permanently reside at the premises as the sole and only occupant.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
As long-feared threats of immigration raids and deportations became reality this week in California and Arizona, Bay Area advocates for people in the country illegally are struggling with how to help them.

In many cases, extra Kleenex is all there is.

I dont tell them to run and hide. But I tell them what the potential consequences are, and what they do is for them to decide, said Rosy Cho, a San Francisco immigration attorney. As for the Kleenex, we seem to be going through quite a bit now.

On Friday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced it had arrested 160 people over five days in the Los Angeles area in an operation targeting criminal aliens, illegal re-entrants, and immigration fugitives, according to a statement from the agency that said 10 noncriminals were among those arrested and will be processed for deportation.

But what constitutes a criminal who should be deported for public safety has changed under President Trump, so that even immigrants like 35-year-old Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos of Phoenix, who slipped into the country from Mexico at 14, is considered a threat because she relied on forged documents to get a job, which is a felony. She has a husband and two U.S.-born children in Phoenix, and reported to immigration officials periodically, as required, since they discovered her status in 2008.

Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

Officials deported her to Mexico on Thursday, a day after she kept her immigration appointment.

Under the Obama administration, immigrants like Rayos who were under a deportation order and whose crime involved their documentation, were allowed to remain in the U.S. under supervision.

Trump, however, has made it clear through executive orders, including one titled Enhancing Public Safety Within the Interior of the United States, that he intends to deport all who lack legal immigration papers.

ICE will continue to focus on identifying and removing individuals with felony convictions  including those whose deportation orders had been monitored but not acted on  said Yasmeen Pitts OKeefe, an ICE spokeswoman in Arizona who issued the statement in response to the Rayos case, believed to be the first of its kind since Trump took office Jan. 20.

As of Feb. 6, there were 960,483 people across the country who fit a similar description, federal immigration officials said Friday.

A growing number of them are consulting with Bay Area attorneys. But despite the crackdown, none of the lawyers contacted by The Chronicle said they officially advise such clients to skip immigration appointments.

If its hopeless, I let the client make that decision, said one attorney who asked to be anonymous because he doesnt advise clients to break the law. Still, he said, it becomes a life decision. If you dont show up, theyll look for you or your employer. It would require severing every connection. They would have to just completely flee. Leave your apartment, drivers license, and be very wary of signing a new lease.

A lot of times they will interview your whole family  so youre probably jeopardizing them, he said, noting that disappearing is easier for a single person who is paid with cash under the table.

Its definitely scary, said Maria Mora, 23, of Richmond, a legal assistant in an immigration law office where not a day goes by that I dont take a call from someone whos concerned about the new president. Weve had more calls than ever before.

Mora can relate to them. She was 4 when an uncle brought her into the country illegally. Now shes enrolled in the Obama administrations Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, which protects immigrants from deportation if they were brought here illegally as children and are students, graduates or honorably discharged from the military. Enrollment must be renewed every two years, and Moras is up in 2018.

It gives me some type of relief, unlike other undocumented people, Mora said. Theres definitely a fear that he (Trump) will target DACA.

Mora said she is still willing to reveal her full name. Being undocumented is part of my identity, she said. Now is the time to become more active. To go to marches and events. Were defending ourselves  were not going to just let a new president change what we know.

People in the country illegally are not without legal rights, and immigration advocates across the Bay Area want to make sure they understand those rights.

So employees at a San Jose nonprofit are stocking up on so-called Red Cards that their clients can slip under the door for ICE officials who come knocking.

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.

I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions or sign or hand you any documents, based on my 5th Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution, says the card on the side written in English.

We let people know not to open the door to ICE, said Diana Morales, director of immigration and legal services at Siren  Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network  in San Jose.

The cards message to ICE also cites the Fourth Amendment right that protects against warrantless searches.

The Spanish-language side of the card informs the holder not to open the door to immigration officials or answer questions or sign any documents they may present.

Theres definitely a greater demand for the cards, Morales said, noting that since the election in November, her agency has been increasingly asked to give Know Your Rights presentations at schools and churches. ICE usually comes with a jacket that says Police, and people want to cooperate. But were asking people to assert their rights.

On Friday, ICE officials defended as routine their mass arrest of 160 people around Los Angeles, in which 150 were said to have criminal histories. In a press release, the agency did not say how many of those were for crimes related to documentation. The agency compared the mass arrests with those done under the Obama administration between 2014 and 2016, when immigration officials apprehended roughly 400 people in the same area.

Press releases from those years say that all of those people arrested had a history of serious crimes, from assault with a deadly weapon to sex offenses.

Jesse Lloyd, an immigration attorney in Oakland, said the latest arrests feel different even from those conducted under the Bush administration.

The level of fear wasnt to the same degree, Lloyd said. Weve seen raids in the past  but nothing of the magnitude we see coming. This is the first step of four years of dramatic changes. Were gearing up for years of fighting.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
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Damien Cox didnt have health insurance for most of his life. So when the transgender man began transitioning 11 years ago, he went to a Planned Parenthood clinic for hormone treatments.

Planned Parenthood isnt just a womans thing, said Cox, a 40-year-old Sunnyvale resident. Its a queer health issue and a trans health issue. It affects everybody.

Cox is among those voicing support for the nonprofit reproductive health organization at what could be a critical moment in its history. President Trump and his administration have threatened to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, because the services provided by the clinics include abortions.

On Saturday, the debate will crest with nationwide rallies  including at clinics in San Francisco, Redwood City and Napa  calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

The whole issue would go away if they just didnt offer abortion services, said Monica Migliorino Miller, a Michigan resident who is part of a coalition of antiabortion groups that organized the demonstrations.

Supporters are planning counter-protests, arguing that a loss of funding would hurt an array of patients, and in particular low-income and minority communities. Planned Parenthoods services include prenatal care, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, cancer and diabetes screenings and vaccinations.

In the fiscal year that ended in June 2015, Planned Parenthood received $553.7 million in Medicaid reimbursements and federal grant money, according to the groups latest annual report  43 percent of its total budget.

Under federal law, none of that money went toward abortion services, which make up 3 percent of all services provided, barring situations where a womans life was in danger or cases of incest and rape, said Gilda Gonzales, the interim chief executive of the organizations Northern California affiliate.

If the group was defunded, Gonzales said, 60 percent of Planned Parenthoods clientele would lose care provided under Medicaid and the Title X family planning program. The vast majority of patients in Northern California range from ages 20 to 35, are people of color and live below the poverty line, she said.

But opponents of abortion believe stripping all federal funding will help their cause. Vice President Mike Pence, speaking at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 27, said ending taxpayer abortions was a priority for the new administration.

At a GOP debate in Houston in February 2016, Trump pointed out that millions and millions of women  cervical cancer, breast cancer  are helped by Planned Parenthood. But he said, I would defund it because of the abortion factor, which they say is 3 percent. I dont know what percentage it is. They say its 3 percent. But I would defund it, because Im pro-life.

Republicans in both the House and Senate plan to introduce measures to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood and ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, which Trump has pledged to sign.

While supporters of the group say the right to a safe abortion is critical, they are also working to bring more awareness to Planned Parenthoods other services. They include Nique Eagen, a 41-year-old Campbell resident, who will be among an expected 3,000 counter-protesters in San Jose.

For years, Eagen said she suffered through intense pain and nausea during her menstrual cycles, but didnt understand why.

I would get really, really sick, Eagen said. I was getting dehydrated. Id black out because I was losing too much blood.

After she lost her job in 2010, she sought care from Planned Parenthood and learned that the cause of her pain was ovarian cysts  a problem that was solved by taking birth control, which keeps the cysts from growing, she said.

Heather Jacoby, a 31-year-old Vacaville resident, said she turned to Planned Parenthood when she ran out of other options.

Last summer, she was thrilled when she found out she was pregnant. But within weeks, she wound up in the emergency room due to severe pain, vomiting and blacking out. She had lost the baby and gone into septic shock.

I was carrying a dead fetus inside me for over six weeks. I felt hopeless, Jacoby said.

Jacoby didnt want an abortion but needed one to save her life. She had insurance, but said her primary care provider didnt immediately schedule the procedure. When she ended up in the emergency room, a doctor referred her to Planned Parenthood in Walnut Creek, she said.

I still remember the day because two of my good friends gave birth that day, Jacoby said. Before it started, I just started crying because this is the culmination of six weeks and I was so exhausted and I just remember the nurse (at Planned Parenthood) grabbed my hand and looked in my eyes and said, I got you.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
Californias second-largest reservoir filled with so much water Saturday, thanks to extraordinary winter storms and unexpected damage to a release channel, that officials at Oroville Dam took the unprecedented step of opening the lakes emergency spillway.

Dam operators said the maneuver posed no risk of flooding or dam failure on the Feather River, about 75 miles north of Sacramento. But the untested move sent lake water cascading down a muddy hillside where boulders and brush in the unpaved spill route threatened to wash into the river and create hazards for fish and levees downstream.

The lakes power plant and electrical transmission towers at the foot of the dam, the nations tallest at 770 feet, were also being monitored for damage.

Officials said the emergency spillway, activated at 8 a.m. Saturday, would remain in use through at least Sunday night as mountain runoff from recent storms continued to swell the lake.

The event that we never wanted to happen, and didnt expect to happen, has happened, said Doug Carlson, spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources, which owns and operates the dam and reservoir. But it has performed as we hoped it would, even though it was the first time.

Problems for the reservoir began Tuesday when a section of the lakes primary spillway  a concrete channel to the Feather River below that is 180 feet wide and more than 3,000 feet long  collapsed amid high-volume water releases.

The resulting craterlike hole has grown dramatically, prompting officials to ease the amount of water released out the main spillway and ultimately use the emergency channel to keep the lake from flowing over the top of the dam. The emergency spillway, which is nothing more than an open hill that drains toward the river, has not been used since the dam was built in 1968, when Ronald Reagan was governor.

Lake Oroville is a key state water-storage plant, second in carrying capacity to only Lake Shasta. It supplies water to Central Valley farms as well as several urban water agencies, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

The reservoir also provides flood control for downstream communities and helps regulate salinity in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

State officials had hoped to avoid using the emergency spillway and, as late as Friday afternoon, remained optimistic that necessary releases could be handled by the main spillway. Crews, however, took the precautionary measure of clearing the emergency channel of brush, trees and other debris, which served them well when they realized Saturday morning that more water needed to be liberated from the lake.

Once Lake Oroville reaches 901 feet above sea level, which is 21 feet below the top of the dam, water begins to flow automatically into the emergency corridor.

The spillway was expected to release up to 12,000 cubic feet of water per second, a relatively small amount compared with the roughly 90,000 cubic feet of water per second that was pouring into the reservoir Saturday. But it was still enough to send a steady stream of water into a diversion pool below and ultimately into the Feather River.

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection teams were running boats downriver, where they deployed floating traps to catch debris.

It doesnt sound like theyre retrieving a whole lot, said Cal Fire Capt. Dan Olson. What little they are getting theyre moving to the shoreline.

Dam operators continued to release water out of the main spillway, too, despite its damage. About 55,000 cubic feet of water per second was being released Saturday afternoon, well short of the 270,000 cubic feet the channel was built to handle.

The total outflow from the lake, anticipated to be as much as 67,000 cubic feet per second, was not likely to create flooding problems, officials said.

The rated capacity of Feather River is much bigger than that, much larger, Carlson said. So there is no public danger. There is no expected evacuation.

The cost of repairing the channel rose from previous estimates Saturday, to as much as $200 million, but the fix cant be made until winter rains end and water releases are no longer necessary. An alternative option presented by state officials is to build a new spillway at another point on the lake.

Continuing to use the impaired spillway not only risks more damage to the structure, but also was posing a threat to the Hyatt Powerplant, officials said. Concrete chunks from the spillways tear were piling up beneath the dam, causing water to pool up behind the debris and flow toward the utility station.

The water in the pool creates a certain amount of back pressure, said Eric See with the Department of Water Resources. That can lead to damage. We definitely dont want to damage our power plant.

The station was shut down late Friday, and as of Saturday afternoon, no damage had been reported.

Besides being unable to generate electricity when its closed, the power house also is unable to serve as a third release point on the reservoir. When its in service, the power house discharges as much as 14,000 cubic feet of water per second downriver.

Two sets of transmission towers along the emergency spillway were also at risk of collapsing as water releases softened the ground and destabilized the soil, officials said.

Water releases earlier last week on the main spillway already have turned the Feather Rivers normally clear water brown with silt and debris, a problem for fish.

At the Feather River Fish Hatchery about 4 miles downstream, where endangered salmon are reared, the cloudiness of the water was running off the charts, said a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

With the turbidity threatening to asphyxiate the salmon, hatchery workers had been frantically collecting fish all week and trucking them to a nearby holding pond. By Saturday afternoon, 10 million salmon had been moved, officials said.

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 hatchery is very important to California salmon production, said John McManus, executive director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association.

It provides a lot of the fish that are caught in the ocean, McManus said. The loss of those fish would indeed be a blow to the salmon fishery.

The cause of the spillway rupture remained unknown Saturday.

The dam and spillway passed a routine safety review in 2015, but inspectors did not specifically examine the sloped surface of the chute, doing only a visual evaluation from above. State officials did not say why a closer inspection wasnt performed.

Improvements had been made to the the spillway in 2013, officials said, though it was not immediately clear if the work was in the same area as the recent tear.

In 2010, dam managers were reprimanded by state safety officials for operating without a critical piece of equipment a year earlier, which caused a wall to collapse at the power plant and five employees to be nearly sucked out of the facility by a powerful vacuum.

Downstream Saturday, Oroville residents had no doubt that everything was under control at the lake.

Im not worried, said Cooper Davis, 15, who was working an evening shift at the Boss Burger, where he could see the river rushing below. But you can tell that something is wrong. The water is real milky.

The height of the river, though, remained nothing out of the ordinary.

Many residents remembered the flows in 1997, when nearly twice as much water was being released from the dam during an unusually stormy winter. The season brought widespread flooding to the region.

This year is also on track to be an usually wet one. Seasonal precipitation in the northern Sierra measured 228 percent of average for the date, as of Saturday, while snowpack across the range was at 180 percent of normal.

The forecast is for sun over the next few days. State officials hope dry weather will help lower water levels at Lake Oroville and eliminate the need for continued emergency releases.
Sarah Ravani/The Chronicle

A man was arrested Thursday after attempting to kidnap another man in San Francisco and telling an onlooker he was a police officer, even flashing an official-looking badge, authorities said.

The incident happened at about 7 a.m. in the Castro District, when the would-be abductor, age 48, attempted to make the 38-year-old victim take him to a local hotel, police said. When the victim refused, the man forced him to walk to Noe Street, police said.
Courtesy Union City Police Department

Union City police released a sketch Friday and asked the public to help them catch a man who robbed a 12-year-old Girl Scout and her mother at gunpoint while they were selling cookies in a Safeway parking lot.

The suspect is described as a male, 16 to 19 years old, with a thin build and between 5 feet 4 and 5 feet 6 inches tall, police say. At the time of the robbery, he was wearing dark clothing, including a hooded sweatshirt.
Bill Hutchinson / The Chronicle

Police arrested the suspected gunman in a fatal shooting at an apartment complex Friday night near the Great Mall in Milpitas, officials said.

Police initially received a call that a car had crashed on the 1200 block of South Main Street at 10:45 p.m., and that a man was walking toward the nearby Ilara Apartments holding two guns. While responding, officers received a second call from a woman saying a man pointed two guns at her and took her car keys, police said.
The most forceful action by UC Berkeley police recently against hordes of demonstrators protesting a campus appearance by right-wing agitator Milo Yiannopoulos was to shoot pepper-and-paint balls at them from a distance.

Compared with past demonstrations, campus police in this case were positively kind.

Consider 1969, when their use of tear gas to quell student protests at UC Berkeley was so common that it even seeped into classroom ventilation systems.

My goodness, youve never shown any emotion before, Professor Jesse Sawyer joked, as his linguistics students melted into tears nearly half a century ago. Then he, too, was overcome and croaked out a final pronouncement that found its way into The Chronicle: Let us disperse.

By 2011, University of California police had dispensed with tear gas and Mace as their primary method of crowd control. They instead rammed peaceful student protesters with batons at UC Berkeley, and sprayed them with pepper spray at UC Davis.

The outcry over aggression by UC police that year was heard around the world as videos of their actions went viral. Police and chancellors at UC Berkeley and UC Davis were derided everywhere from the dinner table to late-night TV. Lawsuits were filed. Reports were produced.

And changes were made.

Police will limit the use of force to that which is objectively reasonable, read the 10th of 49 changes contained in the $300,000 Robinson-Edley Report of 2012 that would transform how UC police respond during demonstrations.

Overall, the changes required less force from police; more training in de-escalation techniques; and far more communication among police, student groups and administrators.

The test at UC Berkeley came Feb. 1 when campus police had to contend with hundreds of students and others swelling onto Sproul Plaza to decry the appearance of Yiannopoulos, a right-wing agitator preparing to speak in the student union. Dozens of masked black bloc anarchists infiltrated the protest and hauled down metal barricades, smashed windows and set fires.

In response, police canceled Yiannopoulos talk and hustled him away. But though they were joined by officers from other branches of law enforcement with their own rules of engagement, they did not use pepper spray or nightsticks on the agitators.

From the vantage point of the balcony of the student union above Sproul Plaza, they repeatedly warned protesters to leave the area, be arrested  or face chemical agents which may inflict serious injury.

Although the police shot the pepper-and-paint balls from the balcony at the most aggressive of the masked anarchists below, the half-dozen injuries reported were not a result of police actions, said Sabrina Reich, a police spokeswoman. And compared with heavy roundups of students and even faculty for resisting officers during the protests of yesteryear, campus police arrested just three people in connection with the protest, and none was a student, Reich said. One was taken in for failing to disperse, and the others on suspicion of battery and theft.

Yet some people complained.

Where were the arrests??? alumnus Jeff Beaver wrote The Chronicle and UC Berkeley, one of nearly 1,000 people who contacted campus officials to criticize or praise. Vandals, many wearing masks, were roaming the campus and streets of Berkeley, smashing windows, throwing Molotov cocktails, and attacking cars. ... Give me a break!

Such complaints didnt bother Dan Mogulof, UC Berkeleys spokesman.

If taking steps necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of our students meant forgoing some arrests in the short term, or giving up a few windows, well take that trade-off any day, he said.

Campus officials said the demonstration caused $100,000 in damage to the publicly funded campus.

How police use force is a question that has riveted California and the nation for years, pitting concepts of stern, law-and-order policing against the idea that safety  including that of suspects  merits a slower, less aggressive approach.

In the world outside of university campuses, police use-of-force methods reflect the communitys preference, said Ed Obayashi, a deputy sheriff and legal adviser who trains officers at the Alameda County Sheriffs Regional Training Center in Dublin.

In San Bernardino, for example, law enforcement officers are allowed to shoot at moving vehicles  a practice that San Francisco officials have decided places innocent bystanders at too great a risk.

Obayashi told of a San Bernardino sheriffs deputy who was in a helicopter in 2015 when he shot and killed a suspect driving the wrong way on a freeway. The mans Chevrolet then crashed into an SUV, severely injuring its occupants: a 13-year-old boy and his parents.

In San Francisco, by contrast, the Police Commission in December barred police from shooting at moving vehicles, over officers objections.

UC police are far more restrained in their response to student protesters than in the past, Obayashi said.

If youre the store owner (suffering vandalism), youll have an issue with that, Obayashi said. But I cannot fault the university for taking the stance that a few smashed windows and broken doors are a lot cheaper than hospital bills and lawsuits.

Police didnt see it that way in the 1960s, when students protested everything from the lack of free speech and ethnic studies on campus, to the Vietnam War and the universitys grip on Peoples Park in Berkeley.

They werent going to let chaos rule the streets. That was not in a police chiefs philosophy, Obayashi said. It was law and order. Were taking control.

Police unleashed tear gas so often that some news outlets issued gas masks to reporters, veteran Bay Area journalist Belva Davis recalled in her 2011 memoir, Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Womans Life in Journalism.

By spring 1969, Gov. Ronald Reagan had become so fed up with student protesters that he issued personal orders to use whatever force is necessary to control demonstrators, The Chronicle reported at the time. On May 15, he sent police to erect an 8-foot fence at Peoples Park, and as UC Berkeley students swarmed down Telegraph Avenue at noon aiming to pull it down, tear gas gave way to something more deadly.

Demonstrators screamed: The cops are coming! Theyve got rifles, and theyre shooting at people! Davis wrote.

She didnt believe it at first. She saw livid protesters and curious observers along Telegraph, some of them taking aim at the cops with chunks of concrete and debris.

But she also saw police in riot gear and gas masks. And sure enough, they had rifles, Davis wrote. Amid the fog of tear gas, she heard the ping of shotgun pellets ricocheting off cars, telephone poles, and buildings.

More than 110 people were wounded that day, including 35 hit by buckshot. Among those hit were two men standing on a theater rooftop. The shots blinded one and nearly missed the others heart. That second man, a 25-year old man from San Jose named James Rector, died four days later.

Rectors death prompted thousands of students to hold a vigil on the steps of Sproul Hall as the National Guard lined up at Sather Gate.

It was then that a helicopter let loose a particularly potent, nauseating form of tear gas that caused students, employees and others on campus to wheeze, cough and vomit, Davis wrote. The gas cloud even burned the skin of children splashing in Strawberry Canyon Pool, half a mile away.

I could hardly believe that the authorities were reacting so recklessly against students, she concluded.

Jack Radey, a military historian in Oregon, is nearly 70 and remembers being dragged by two officers down the steps of Sproul Hall as a 17-year-old UC Berkeley student in the Free Speech Movement of 1964.

Today, as he reflects on the black bloc anarchists who turned what might have been a peaceful student protest against Yiannopoulos into a fiery, destructive encounter, Radey doesnt see how officers could have dealt with the demonstration any better.

This black bloc business is really bad news, he said of the anarchists who have showed up at protests in the Bay Area and across the country, presenting challenges to police trying to de-escalate their responses.

To identify the police as the enemy in all these cases is a mistake, Radey said. Sometimes theyre just trying to actually uphold the law.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
The Sailor Girl and I got tired of the gray and rainy winter and boarded the Cunard Line cruise ship Queen Elizabeth last weekend and sailed out the Golden Gate bound for the South Seas.

It was one of those grand ideas that sweeps into the mind from time to time: Get on a big ship and sail off into the sunset. Relax, read books, watch the ocean, do nothing in grand style.

Its great to head out under the Golden Gate and watch the city drop astern. San Francisco has one of the most beautiful harbors imaginable, and from a ship sailing away, the city glittering on its hills is stunning.

San Franciscans forget that sometimes. We worry instead about the citys problems  the grime, the homeless on the streets, the general nastiness of life in an American city. But it is beautiful, especially as you head out toward the broad Pacific.

Looking out from San Franciscos Ocean Beach we sometimes forget how big the ocean is. Standing on the shore is one thing; being out there is quite another. It took five days to steam the 2,106 nautical miles to Honolulu, making a sedate 19 knots.

During that time we did not see a single ship. No birds either, and no visible sea life, only the dark blue ocean. The North Pacific in winter may not be for everyone. There was some kind of storm up to the north, and a deck officer told us we had headed a bit south of the normal track to Hawaii to avoid it.

Nonetheless, we had gale-force winds nearly every day. One day, Tuesday, I think, the wind got up to a steady 49 knots, and though the Queen Elizabeth is over 900 feet long, the ship rolled and pitched. An old merchant seaman once told me he avoided sailing in winter on the Pacific.

I hole up in Hawaii under a palm tree and wait for spring, he said.

The Queen Elizabeth flies the flag of Bermuda and has an international crew  the waiters and stewards are mostly Asian or Eastern European, and the captain was a woman with a Danish name from the Faroe Islands. But the ship has a British feel. There is afternoon tea, and the men passengers are asked to wear a coat and tie at dinner. The ship left England on a round-the-world voyage in January and will be back again in May.

The ship carries about 2,000 passengers, and roughly 450 are making the whole trip. Just over 1,000 got on in San Francisco for the Pacific leg. The guests aboard tend to be older. The ocean is blue, but the passengers are gray.

On Thursday morning, the green hills of Oahu came up on the port bow. Ive grown fond of Honolulu, a big city with a languid feel.

Its nice to play tourist, drink mai tais and walk along the beach at Waikiki, watch the surfers and see the racial diversity that makes Hawaii so special.

But this time, we also decided to make a trip to Pearl Harbor, a place that is seared into the American memory. There is a huge set of museums and memorials there: the submarine Bowfin, the battleship Missouri. But over it all, like a cloud, hangs the date that will live in infamy: Dec. 7, 1941.

The exhibits in the museums give a balanced picture of what happened that day, including some from the Japanese point of view.

Pearl Harbor is smaller and much more beautiful than I had imagined. It is hard to picture the American Pacific fleet anchored there on that Sunday morning so long ago.

We went out on a boat to see the memorial that stands over the wreckage of the battleship Arizona. You can still see the rusted remains of one of the gun turrets, and look through the water to see down into the ship. There is a faint smell of oil; the ship is still leaking fuel oil even after all those years. There is an oily sheen on the water, green and blue and red, oddly like the colors of a rainbow.

None of the visitors the other afternoon seemed to be of Pearl Harbor vintage. People spoke quietly aboard the Arizona. A plaque says that 1,177 men died on that battleship, and some are still there.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to leave, the national park ranger said. He paused. On board this ship there are still approximately 991 souls.

Pearl Harbor was an event that changed the world. We are fortunate to be able to remember. We went back to Honolulu, back to the ship and sailed that night for Maui and later across the Pacific. We are lucky to live in these times.

Carl Nolte is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. His column appears every Sunday. Email: cnolte@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carlnoltesf
Silicon Valley loves to talk about diversity. But it always gets pushed to the side when other priorities crop up.

Thats the perspective of Megan Smith, a former Google executive who just finished a three-year stint as the third-ever chief technology officer of the United States.

It was only when she went to Washington in 2014, after President Barack Obama appointed her to the post, that she finally found the diversity on her team that shed been looking for.

Done with her government role, she will continue working on things  unspecified, but one of them includes urging her old home to get more new faces of all colors and backgrounds. Silicon Valley companies, including Apple, Google and Facebook, still have technical staffs that are largely male and have far fewer black and Latino engineers compared with the nations population.

All the research shows that the more diverse a team is, the better results, Smith said in an telephone interview.

As chief technology officer, Smith oversaw an office that worked to make government services more digital-friendly and shape policies on artificial intelligence, autonomous cars and other emerging technologies. Her office also incorporated Silicon Valley tools like hackathons and open-source data. One challenge with bringing new technologies to government is that you still have to deliver services while upgrading it, she said.

Her leadership style is visionary and broad, said Alex Macgillivray, who served as deputy chief technology officer under Smith.

Smith, 52, a former CEO of PlanetOut, a LGBT-focused online media company, said the team she worked with in Washington was diverse in terms of race, gender and geographic region.

In 2015, Smith was on a panel with her former boss, Eric Schmidt  now Alphabets chairman  when he interrupted her more than once while she was speaking. Smith said she didnt notice it at the time, but others did. Its a good example of unconscious bias and habits that we all need to work on, Smith said.

Smith praised companies making inroads on diversifying their staffs, including Slack and Pinterest. Though praised by many for its work, Pinterest recently admitted that it had missed its own goals on hiring women engineers and set more modest ones for this year.

In general, the tech industry tends to delay meetings about diversity, Smith said. They never move the meeting about the product shipment or financial results.

Macgillivray and Smith are among the five people receiving the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Commonwealth Club of California on March 3. The award recognizes people who have devoted their lives to making the world a better place, the club says.

Macgillivray, like Smith, is not staying on with the Trump administration.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

Macgillivray said that while hes optimistic about the new administrations tech agenda, I dont agree with many things they are doing.

Smith says she plans on staying in Washington for now. She is separated from her wife, San Francisco journalist Kara Swisher, with whom she has two children.

Were back and forth a lot, Smith said of her travels between San Francisco and Washington. San Francisco will always be one of our home bases, no matter what.

Swisher has said she plans to run for mayor in 2023. Smith said she supports that.

I think its awesome that people get involved in civics, Kara and everybody, Smith said.

Wendy Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: wlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thewendylee
Once again its time for hearts and flowers. And sweet words of love, as uttered in everyday overheard conversations. Beginning the chronological tale of romance:

In the mood for love

Desperate, thats my brand of cologne. (Man in theater building, overheard at Modesto Junior College by Michael Sundquist)

Skier 1: Are you in the singles line? Skier 2: Yes. But thank you for reinforcing my loneliness. (Conversation at ski lift lines at Diamond Peak, overheard by Betsy McNab)

OMG, can you imagine dating and having to pick up the phone just to find out who is calling? Young woman to young woman, overheard walking down California Street by Ken Lerch)

Listen, heres the difference between looking and staring! It only takes two seconds to look. It takes three to stare. (Man to man, overheard on the 9-San Bruno bus by Don Stevens)

Yeah yeah yeah, they have Match.com. Im waiting for Perfect.com. (Woman to woman, overheard at 2016 Opening Day of the Giants season by Debbie Freitas)

Shes very spiritual on paper. (Man to lunch companion, overheard at La Note in Berkeley by Jamie Gold)

I am so over being a lesbian. It is too much hard work. (Woman to friend, overheard along the shore path in Tiburon by Philip Hicks)

The trick is to look lonesome, but certainly not lonely. (Man to man, overheard walking to the Giants game by George Leal)

No, Im jogging. ... I wish I was having sex. (Woman on phone, talking into earbuds on the Sonoma Montini Trail, overheard by Steven Meloan)

Getting to know you

I was always appropriate back then. You wouldnt have liked me. (Woman in Toronto, overheard by Sean Dowdall)

Youre looking good these days. If I werent cisgendered, Id definitely make a pass at you. (Man to man, overheard at Reverie Cafe by Ted Weinstein)

No, I promise, Im clean. I just took a shower! (Young man on cell, overheard at Van Ness and Sutter by Gregory Davidson)

Have you seen those new butt plugs with a fox tail attached to them? (Young man to young woman, overheard in North Beach by Beverly Brown)

I wasnt sure if I was taking a yoga class or having sex. It was totally tantric. (Man describing yoga class, overheard on 24th Street in San Francisco by Robert Weiner)

Goin to the chapel

I need a boyfriend, a ring and an IPO. (One to woman, overheard on Union Street by Ruth Werner)

Outside Lands is not a priority! Youre getting married! (Woman to friend, overheard at brunch at Novy in Noe Valley by Stefan Gruenwedel)

Man: He went straight from go-go boy to trophy husband. Woman: So he has no life skills? Man: His whole family is just very into sex work. (Conversation overheard at Paina by Michael Black)

Two weeks after meeting him, she texted me asking for help planning her wedding. (Woman to man, overheard on BART by Robert Weiner)

I finally figured out what marriage is. ... Its living with irreconcilable differences. (Man on verge of his 60th wedding anniversary, overheard by Tom Grasshoff)

Is your mom having, like, a wedding wedding? (Young woman to young woman, overheard in line for ferry from Giants game by Alison Owings)

She doesnt have any Jewish relatives anymore. Theyre all Chinese now. (Woman at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, overheard by Joe and Julie Pramuk)

So it was a silent, dry, gluten-free wedding? (Barber to customer at Phills Barber Shop in Pacific Grove, overheard by Bix Whitcomb)

Liver was part of our prenuptial agreement. (Woman at Safeway in Walnut Creek, overheard by Paul Giurlanda)

And from these peaks of romance, hormones pumping, matters proceed. More tomorrow.

Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik

Public Eavesdropping

Give me a real hug, not an I-like-you-but-not-that-much hug.
President Trump says a federal appeals court made a political decision when it refused to reinstate his ban on travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority nations.

If so, it was bipartisan politics.

The panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that issued Thursdays 3-0 ruling consisted of two Democratic-appointed judges  William Canby, nominated by Jimmy Carter, and Michelle Friedland, named by Barack Obama  and one Republican, Richard Clifton, chosen by George W. Bush.

On Friday, the Trump administration was setting out a plan for what to do next. White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said that every single court option is on the table, including a high court appeal or fighting out this case on the merits in a lower court. Trump, meanwhile, told reporters he may sign a brand new order in response to Thursdays ruling. But he said it probably would differ very little from the executive order he issued Jan. 27.

That order placed a 90-day ban on admission of anyone from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The order also halted all U.S. admission of refugees for 120 days, and barred refugees from war-torn Syria indefinitely.

A federal judge in Seattle blocked enforcement of Trumps order a week later in a lawsuit by the states of Washington and Minnesota. The administration then filed an emergency motion asking the appeals court to suspend the judges ruling and reinstate the presidents order, arguing that courts lack both the wisdom and the authority to second-guess executive decisions on national security.

The panel unanimously rejected that argument. Such claims, the court said, are contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy. Within our system, it is the role of the judiciary to interpret the law.

The courts decision to emphasize judicial independence was the road to a unanimous ruling that crossed ideological lines and sent a message to the White House, said Jayashri Srikantiah, a Stanford law professor and director of the schools Immigrants Rights Clinic.

This message is one thats not political, she said Friday. The judiciarys role is to make sure the executive branch complies with the Constitution.

Another immigration law professor, Bill Ong Hing of the University of San Francisco, said the appeals court judges obviously want somebody to educate Donald Trump about Marbury vs. Madison, the Supreme Courts 1803 ruling that established the Constitution as the supreme law of the land and declared the courts duty to say what the law is.

The 3-0 vote came two days after a hearing in which the same court panel seemed divided, with Clifton pointedly questioning the states claim that the executive order was aimed at excluding Muslims, referring to their argument that Trumps order discriminated on the basis of religion.

Since fewer than 15 percent of the worlds Muslims live in the seven nations, Clifton said, the vast majority of Muslims would not be affected by Trumps order. He also asked the lawyer representing the states whether we have to take your word for it that the order was anti-Muslim. He observed that President Ronald Reagan had barred Cubans from entering the United States, a possible precedent for exclusions based on nationality.

But both Srikantiah and Hing said Clifton and his colleagues evidently decided to emphasize the issues on which they agreed  that the president must follow the law, that the states had legal grounds to challenge his order based on its potential impact on their universities, and that the exclusion of legal residents, visa-holders and refugees without advance notice or a hearing may violate their constitutional rights.

By contrast, the court sidetracked the states claim of discrimination against Muslims, the argument that did not appear to persuade Clifton at the hearing. The panel said the states had raised some serious allegations, but that they could be reviewed at a later stage of the case.

The court has ordered written arguments through March 29 on the disputed legal issues, and then will schedule a hearing on whether to block enforcement of the executive order indefinitely.

Those plans could change, however, if Trump makes substantial changes in the order, which was drafted hurriedly, was issued without warning, and has been criticized by a number of judges for unclear language and shifting government interpretations.

USFs Hing said major revisions would be needed to survive judicial review.

While Trumps lawyers have invoked a 1952 federal law authorizing the president to bar entry of any class of aliens that would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, Hing said the Bush and Obama administrations interpreted that law to apply only to terrorist organizations and other specific groups and not to entire nationalities. Another law, passed in 1965, prohibits discrimination in immigration decisions based on national origin.

If you try to keep everyone out from Iran, Iraq or Syria, you cannot win that factual argument in court, Hing said. There are people who have come here (from those countries) who have not done us harm.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@egelko
WASHINGTON  Seeking to regroup after a stinging legal defeat, President Trump said Friday he is considering signing a brand new order after his refugee and immigration travel ban was halted in court.

Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One, said he expected his administration to win the legal battle over his original directive. But he said the White House was also weighing other alternatives, including making unspecified changes to the order, which could address some of the legal issues that have arisen.

As Trump flew to Florida for the weekend, his advisers debated their next steps after the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday upheld a restraining order on the original travel ban. The White House directive suspended the nations refugee program and barred all entries from seven Muslim-majority countries.

A White House official initially suggested the administration would not ask the Supreme Court to overturn that order. But chief of staff Reince Priebus scrambled to clarify to reporters that every single court option is on the table, including a high court appeal or fighting out this case on the merits in a lower court.

The chief judge of the Ninth Circuit, Sidney Thomas, announced Friday that the court will vote on whether to have a larger panel of judges reconsider the ruling. One of the courts judges, who was not identified, had requested the vote, which will determine whether an 11-judge panel of the court rules on the administrations request. A majority of the courts 25 active judges would have to vote in favor of rehearing the case.

Trumps executive order was hastily unveiled at the end of his first week in office. While the White House boasted that Trump was fulfilling a campaign promise to toughen vetting procedures for people coming from countries with terror ties, the order caused chaos at airports in the U.S. and sparked protests across the country.

The president has cast the order as crucial for national security. Earlier Friday, he promised to take action very rapidly to protect the U.S. and its citizens in the wake of the appeals court decision, but he did not specify what steps he planned to take.

Well be doing things to continue to make our country safe, Trump pledged at a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It will happen rapidly. We will not allow people into our country who are looking to do harm to our people.

The presidents comments were far more restrained than his angry reaction to last weeks initial court ruling blocking the travel ban. Trump took aim at both the so-called judge in that case and the ruling, which he called ridiculous.

Trump continued to conjure images of unspecified danger Friday, saying he had learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely president. And there are tremendous threats to our country. We will not allow that to happen, I can tell you that. We will not allow that to happen.

The Ninth Circuit ruling represented a significant setback for Trump in just his third week in office. The appellate decision brushed aside arguments by the Justice Department that the president has the constitutional power to restrict entry to the United States and that the courts cannot second-guess his determination that such a step was needed to prevent terrorism.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted that Trump ought to see the writing on the wall and abandon the proposal. The New York Democrat called on the president to roll up his sleeves and come up with a real, bipartisan plan to keep us safe.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco promised, Democrats will continue to press for President Trumps dangerous and unconstitutional ban to be withdrawn. And Trumps former presidential rival Hillary Clinton offered a terse response on Twitter, noting the unanimous vote: 3-0.

U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle issued the temporary restraining order halting the ban after Washington state and Minnesota sued, leading to the federal governments appeal.

The Trump administration has said the seven nations  Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  have raised terrorism concerns. The states have argued that the executive order unconstitutionally blocked entry based on religion and the travel ban harmed individuals, businesses and universities.

Trump and his aides frequently refer to a ruling by a federal judge in Boston who declined last week to extend a temporary injunction against Trumps travel ban. In a separate federal ruling in Seattle, a different federal judge put the ban on hold nationwide; it is that judges decision that the White House has challenged.

Its a decision that well win, in my opinion, very easily and, by the way, we won that decision in Boston, Trump said.

Julie Pace and Jill Colvin are Associated Press writers.
In one sense, Californias housing crisis is a matter of simple math. This state was not building anywhere close to the number of homes that would be required to accommodate the addition of 300,000 residents a year over the past decade. Demand is greatly outstripping supply, and its only going to get worse with the anticipated population growth of 3.4 million by 2025.

So why isnt that construction happening?

The causes are all political .

There are no inherently evil intentions in the people putting up these barriers. Californians who are fortunate enough to own a home in a comfortable community dont want to disrupt their good life with newcomers clogging roads, overcrowding schools or overrunning their parks. They worry about the impact of property values.

Taxpayer groups dont want to subsidize affordable housing. Politicians want to require below-market housing mandates that may or may not have any correlation with a developments economic viability. Unions demand that any government-promoted housing must require union-level wages. Environmentalists and neighborhood groups want to reserve the right to challenge developments even if they fit within zoning guidelines. No city wants to be told how much it must contribute to the greater good of making its region or its state more affordable.

But add up each of those forces  and the clout that each brings to bear  and its clear to see why not enough building is getting done.

So the question arises: Do we have the collective will to change that dynamic, when it results in the nations highest poverty rate, our children unable to settle down near us and businesses struggling to recruit and retain workers in a transient economy?

So far, the answer has been no.

Just ask Gov. Jerry Brown, who last year pushed the not-so-radical notion that proposed residential projects that fully complied with local zoning and set aside at list 5 percent of their units for below-market sales should be put on a fast track. Opposition came from various quarters  tenant groups, environmentalists, the League of California Cities  but the true death blow came from the construction trades, which the Legislatures Democrats dare not cross. Their beef: They wanted any projects that got special treatment to be subject to the equivalent of union wages.

A prevailing wage clause is no small deal in construction. A 2005 UC Berkeley study found that such clauses added as much as 37 percent to the price of a unit. It concluded that such union-friendly pacts essentially subsidized construction workers at the expense of low-income buyers. Those requirements work in pricey San Francisco and parts of Los Angeles, but they make projects unattainable most everywhere else.

Browns by-right plan to streamline housing died last year.

Freshman state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, has come in with a scaled-down plan (SB35) to spur housing construction. It would put the first real teeth in a state process that identifies how much housing each city must provide at each income bracket: Those that are out of compliance would be forced to give fast-track approval to projects that fit their zoning rules.

Asked where he is getting opposition, Wiener said, You get pushback from everyone. He has tried to fend off union opposition  at the expense of home buyers  by including a prevailing wage provision.

So it goes in California.

The Legislature also is looking for ways to raise money to subsidize affordable housing, though that is a futile chase:. At an average subsidy of $300,000 a unit statewide  much more in the coastal areas  it would take tens of billions to even come close to meeting the demand. Another fallacy, especially prevalent among San Francisco progressives: The focus should be limited to affordable housing. This crisis is the result of shortages at all price levels.

Gabriel Metcalf, CEO of SPUR, a San Francisco urban planning think tank, said he is struck by the self righteousness that good liberal Democrats can have in stopping new housing  and their failure to see the contradiction with their expressed concern for the underclass. There needs to be a call to (homeowners) moral conscience to care about other people who do need housing, he said.

We all need to compromise to preserve the California Dream.

That awakening needs to reach the state Capitol, and city halls everywhere.

John Diaz is The San Francisco Chronicles editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@fchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnDiazChron

Whats in the way? Plenty

Among the many factors why housing is so difficult to build in California:

City

resistance

Each local government is required to create a housing element that spells out how it will meet the housing needs at all income levels. But those are goals, not mandates, and many cities dont bother to follow them.

CEQA

The California Environmental Quality Act can provide a powerful legal tool to stop development  even when the issues being raised against a project have nothing to do with environmental preservation. Competitors, unions and residents who simply dont like a project have exploited the 45-year-old law to stop housing.

NIMBYs

An Ive got mine mind-set prevails in many affluent areas that are loath to allow newcomers, especially of lesser means, to change the demographics of a neighborhood or city.

Revolving

rules

One of developers biggest complaints is the lack of certainty in the planning process, especially in cites such as San Francisco that give opponents multiple chances to slow or stop a project even when it adheres to all the zoning requirements. Delays can add greatly to the cost of each housing unit.

Unrealistic

targets

When politics, not data, drives a citys affordable housing requirement ... the result can be that projects dont pencil out. Exhibit A: San Francisco voted in June to double the portion of below-market housing to 25 percent in major projects, a figure the city controller later calculated to be too high.
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A large presence will be missing from Saturdays Chinese New Years Parade: the inimitable Rose Pak, whose colorful and expletive-filled commentary on the San Francisco politicians passing in front of the grandstand made more than a few of them tremble.

People would be forgiven if they believed Pak, the Chinatown power broker who died in September at age 68, had been the parades master of ceremonies. That honor has belonged to the Rev. Norman Fong for 25 years. Pak just grabbed the microphone from him and yelled out what she pleased, when she pleased  just as she did in city politics.

Her quips, bellowed from the grandstand at Jackson and Kearny streets, ranged from humorous to mean, but they were almost always pointed and pertinent to Chinatowns interests.

There was the time she yelled out to Fred Lau, the citys first Asian American police chief, who got the job in part because of Paks support. So we have our first Chinese police chief. When are we going to have more Chinese captains?

Or, in 2010, when she dinged former state Sen. Mark Leno for telling everyone hes not a candidate for mayor, but in the next breath, letting everyone know that hes the No. 1 choice for the job in a downtown poll.

There were also the public officials Pak ragged on relentlessly, among them District Attorney and former Police Chief George Gascon.

That same year, Pak welcomed Gascon to Chinatown soon after he had become police chief, but just as quickly questioned why it took so long for him to find the neighborhood. What is he afraid of? she asked. Hes armed, and now he even has a Taser.

Two years later, Pak was more brutal. She was mad at Gascon for investigating voter fraud in Chinatown related to Mayor Ed Lees 2011 campaign for mayor. Im going to light firecrackers under the D.A.s crotch, Pak said memorably.

Malcolm Yeung, deputy director of the Chinatown Community Development Center and one of Paks confidants, said Paks zingers might have stung, but not being mentioned was worse.

If she targeted you in the parade, it was always painful, Yeung said. If she praised you, that was even better. But if she didnt talk about you, you really knew that you were nobody.

She was such a fundamental part of the parade, said former Supervisor David Campos, who enjoyed a friendly relationship with Pak. From putting it together to the actual event itself. She was the reason why a lot of people went, and perhaps why some people didnt go to the parade.

Like many of my fellow elected officials, Ill be missing Roses uncensored commentary, Mayor Ed Lee said. Rose was tough as nails, but she always acted in a way that she felt would uplift her community. She is dearly missed, and we know shell be with us in spirit this weekend.

Fong, executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center, likened their dual appearance to a good cop/bad cop act.

She used that platform, at Jackson and Kearny, and she made it a political show, Fong recalled.

Fong said if Pak was mad at a supervisor who she thought didnt treat Chinatown right, she would tell the audience, I want you to be silent. Dont say anything when he comes by.

In a sea of cheers, that politician would endure pure silence as he or she passed by the grandstand.

The opposite was also true. In 2014, when City Attorney Dennis Herrera drove by, Pak grabbed the microphone and said that since Herrera was not running for mayor, the audience could clap for him.

This isnt the first year the parade has gone on without Pak. She was missing last year because she was in China for a kidney transplant. But while not physically there, Pak was on the phone before the parade giving directives, Yeung said.

She wanted me to grab the mike and make some comment about the mayors shoes, he recalled.

As for the mayors shoes, lets just say they score high on the comfort scale and low in style points. Yeung didnt obey Paks directive. Only she could get away what that kind of barb.

Pak also had nicknames for everyone. She called Supervisor Aaron Peskin the Napoleon of the North, implying that he was short and dictatorial, and referred to 6-foot-7 Supervisor Scott Wiener as the giraffe.

Wiener embraced the image in his successful 2016 state Senate campaign against Supervisor Jane Kim  whom Pak favored. Wiener said he texted a picture of his Chinese campaign poster with a giraffe on it to Pak and said, Thank you for the great idea.

He never heard back. Four months later at a Chinatown banquet, Wiener asked one of Paks friends if she received it. Hes like, Oh, she got it. She says you owe her royalties, Wiener recalled.

Yeung remembered that one year after a parade in which Pak was particularly outspoken, the organizers received lots of complaints about her cursing.

One of the parade organizers said, Someone has to talk to her about not cursing so much, Yeung said. They started looking around to see who would deliver the message to her. And it was complete and utter silence.

As long as she was alive, no one could silence Pak.

Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @emilytgreen
Technology  or maybe I should say people in that industry  are moving the San Francisco dining scene forward in an interesting way.

Former engineer Azhar Hashem opened Tawla to assuage her desire to bring Middle Eastern food to the masses, and now Hetal Shah has taken a similar approach with Indian food.

Shah, who was in advertising technology at Google, is almost doing a public service to the culinary world by bringing unabashedly complex, well-balanced and modern Indian food to our city.

Shah took over the 4,000-square-foot space at Van Ness and Redwood Alley that has housed a series of restaurants, including California Pizza Kitchen and O3 Bistro.

Such a large space could be daunting and feel too commercial, but with the help of designer Craige Walters, the interior has a modern sensibility that takes inspiration from a peacock. The bird translates through both graphics and colors, such as deep blue walls and teal velvet booths that flank the entrance, separated by an ornate open screen. Its colorful without being garish and modern without looking too trendy.

For the food, Shah hired Manish Tyagi, who was previously chef at Rasika West End in Washington, D.C., one of the best Indian restaurants in the nation. He came to San Francisco in 2013 to run the now-closed Amber Dhara in the Mission and later, the three Amber India restaurants.

It wasnt until he stepped into the August 1 Five kitchen that his immense talent and creativity emerged, blending influences of his native and adopted lands. The menu looks very different from what youll find at most places, and any familiar classics have been artfully re-imagined.

A good example is the gol gappa ($8), crisp wheat puffs filled with spiced potatoes and flavored water. Here, the shells are accompanied by five small carafes of colorful waters that catch the light and give off a jewel-like glow: theres mint and cilantro, tamarind, mango, grape and fruit punch. The ingredients sound as if they might be too sweet, but Tyagi balances the fruit with spicy heat. Diners pour the liquid into the shells to create a simultaneous crunch and gush when eaten whole.

Every dish is logically and creatively imagined, whether its a take on arancini ($11) where rice, lentils and goat cheese are shaped into cubes, deep-fried and served on a puddle of yogurt. A shaft of pappadam leans on each one, next to a pungent dollop of pureed pickles. The fist-size soy meatballs ($21) are coated in chickpea batter and breadcrumbs, fried and arranged on a nest of crisp sweet potato threads and a sauce made from tomato, fenugreek and watermelon seeds. The balls have the texture of a meatball, and just as much flavor. In the presentation, the chef breaks open one to reveal melting Monterey Jack cheese inside.

Tyagi arranges slabs of paneer ($12) on a kidney-shaped slate tile with dollops of sauce, squares of peppers and tiny sprigs of mint. Its a striking presentation, but the true test comes in the bold seasonings playing against the soft, slightly resistant texture of the cheese.

A crock of spiced ground bison ($17) is topped with a fried egg and served on a cutting board with four Parkerhouse-style dinner rolls. The enthusiastic waiters  who are knowledgeable guides through the menu and eclectic drink list  tell us to split the rolls to hold the meat mixture. The sweet, almost fluffy, bread is a perfect vehicle for this new-age sloppy joe, with a complex heat from a hefty dose of black cardamom and black pepper.

The chef also provides another winning dish: meaty pork spare ribs ($14) with garlic, ginger, jaggery (sugar) and vinegar. Brussels sprouts are cooked to tender, cut in half and arranged on and around the stack of ribs. It not only has dramatic visual appeal, but the vegetables help cut the intensity of the sauce.

In fact every dish has something distinctive: The coating of green pistachio on the lamb chops ($34); the cloud of lemon foam over the smoky tandoori sea bass ($34); the chunks of coconut snow around the dhokla ($8).

Every dish offers elements of surprise. August 1 Five, which is the date India gained its independence from Britain, honors a long culinary history, but also feels like California  and you cant get any better than that.

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

   

August 1 Five

Food:    

Service:   

Atmosphere:   

Price: $$$

Noise: Three Bells

524 Van Ness Ave. (at Redwood) San Francisco; (415) 771-5900. www.august1five.com. Lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday; dinner 5-9:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday and until 10:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Full bar. 5% S.F. surcharge. Reservations and credit cards accepted. Difficult street parking.
The transgender woman whose case led to a court ruling requiring prisons in California to allow inmates to undergo sex-reassignment surgery had her own surgery Friday.

Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, 53, underwent the operation at Marin General Hospital in San Rafael. She has been living in a halfway house in San Francisco since her release from prison in August 2015. A federal judge had ordered the surgery four months earlier, but Norsworthy was paroled before the operation could be scheduled.

Norsworthy was born male and served as a medical specialist in the Army National Guard as Jeffrey Norsworthy. In 1985 Norsworthy fatally shot a man after an argument at a bar in Buena Park (Orange County). A jury returned a conviction of second-degree murder, and Norsworthy was sentenced to 17 years to life in prison in 1987.

I went to prison because I had spent my whole life denying who I was  overly male ways, carrying guns, being a tough guy, she said in an interview last year.

After years of confusion about gender identity, Norsworthy began identifying as a transgender woman in the mid-1990s. In 2000, she was diagnosed as transgender by prison doctors and started receiving hormone therapy. Still housed in a mens prison, she was gang-raped by nine male inmates in 2009 and became infected with hepatitis C.

Prison doctors recommended sex-reassignment surgery in 2012, but officials refused, saying hormone therapy was sufficient. In an April 2015 ruling, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of San Francisco said prison officials had been deliberately indifferent to her serious medical need and ordered the surgery. It was the first such ruling in California and the second in the United States.

Another California transgender inmate, Shiloh Quine, underwent the surgery last month, the first such operation on a prisoner in the nation.

Norsworthys surgery was covered by Medi-Cal. She directs a nonprofit organization that is raising money to open a home in San Francisco called Joans House for other transgender individuals during their periods of transition.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@egelko
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Demonstrators in the Bay Area joined abortion opponents outside Planned Parenthood facilities across the country Saturday for protests calling for an end to government funding for the organization.

While demonstrators in both San Francisco and Redwood City joined more than 200 anti-Planned Parenthood rallies across the country, both groups were outnumbered by counter protesters supporting the womens health centers.

At the San Francisco Planned Parenthood location on Valencia Street, both sides noisily shouted chants at the other. About 300 rallying in support of Planned Parenthood stood on the opposite side of a walkway where about 50 demonstrators held antiabortion signs.

Not your bodies. Not your choice! one demonstrator, Terrisa Bukovinac, shouted through a bright red megaphone.

The crux of why Im pro-life is also the crux of why Im a feminist, Bukovinac said.

One man on the defund Planned Parenthood side began pointing at counterprotesters, shouting, All of you were born!

Maya Malika, a Planned Parenthood supporter, tried to yell louder, shouting, A fetus is not a baby, abortion is not murder, women are not incubators!

President Trump and (Vice President Mike) Pence, especially Pence, is a Christian fascist who wants to take women back to where women induce their own abortions in back alleys, Malika said.

At a Saturday morning protest outside Planned Parenthoods Redwood City location, about 30 demonstrators rallying against the clinics were met with about 200 counterprotesters.

The groups faced off on opposite sides of the streets, with a demonstrator against Planned Parenthood strumming a guitar while those in support chanted We care for health care.

Some supporting Planned Parenthood crossed to the other side to stand next to those against the clinics. One young woman held a sign that read Alternative Facts next to the antiabortion signs.

Palo Alto resident Arline Miyazaki, holding a sign that read, I am the pro-life generation turned toward the woman.

If you ever, ever, ever really cared about people, you would not want to have someone be murdered, she said. Ill pray for you.

House Speaker Paul Ryan announced in January that sweeping legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act would include eliminating money for Planned Parenthood.

Saturdays #ProtestPP rallies, primarily sponsored by Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, Created Equal and Pro-Life Action League, were held across 45 states to promote reallocation of funds to health centers that do not provide abortions.

The government currently awards Planned Parenthood reimbursements only for birth control services, along with reimbursements from the Medicaid program for a variety of health services provided to low-income women.

Jennifer Chaloemtiarana came from Pacifica to Redwood City in support of Planned Parenthood, which she said gave her health care when she was a young woman without health insurance.

Planned Parenthood was the only way I got any of my health care in my 20s. ... They dont just do reproductive health she said. It was affordable, it was accessible, it was easy to find.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno
A 23-year-old man from Daly City was arrested for a San Francisco slaying, police said Friday.

Aaron Tagata  who had been a suspect in the Jan. 29 stabbing death of 58-year-old San Francisco resident Marco Perez-Diaz  was arrested in Daly City on Wednesday, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

Officers with the Daly City Police Department spotted Tagata around the intersection of Mission Street and Templeton Avenue just before 9 a.m., officials said.

Tagata was transferred to San Francisco County Jail, where he was held on $12 million bail, jail records show. He was charged with murder.

Tagata was captured on surveillance footage fleeing the scene of the crime, at Mission and Excelsior streets just after 9 a.m., which allowed police to identify him, they said. Perez-Diaz was stabbed in the head repeatedly, and he died from his injuries at San Francisco General Hospital, police said.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley
The California Coastal Commission named its acting executive director to formally head the agency Friday, exactly one year after firing his predecessor in a controversial ouster that caused a statewide outcry among environmentalists.

Named to the post was Jack Ainsworth, 59, who has worked for the commission for 29 years. Meeting in Newport Beach (Orange County), the commission voted unanimously to appoint Ainsworth, the agency announced in a news release.

Jacks depth of understanding of coastal issues, the challenges confronting this agency and his steady leadership over the last year thoroughly impressed us, said commission chair Dayna Bochco. We are all looking forward to continuing our work to protect Californias magnificent coastline and ensure access for all.

Ainsworths promotion followed the commissions decision last Feb. 10, with a 7-to-5 vote, to fire Charles Lester after a heated debate over the long-term mission of the agency. The decision prompted thinly veiled allegations of racism and intolerance to be hurled between commissioners and Lesters staunchest supporter, the Surfrider Foundation.

Supporters of Lester alleged big-money developers were behind the move. His opponents said Lesters staff was insufficiently diverse.

Surfrider, an advocacy group created more than 30 years ago to fight coastal development, said the commission pushed out Lester to appease builders and rich movie stars who wanted to construct Malibu mansions.

Ainsworth was among the top finalists interviewed on Friday for the $165,000-a-year job.

I am honored and humbled, he said after his appointment. I will do my best every day to protect the coast for everyone, as will all the staff.

Ainsworth grew up in San Bernardino and received a bachelors degree from California State University, San Bernardino, and a masters degree from UC Riverside.

In its announcement of Ainsworths promotion, the commission made no mention of Lester or the controversy over his firing.

The commission, widely considered one of the most powerful and effective coastal protection agencies in the country, was created by voter initiative in 1972 to regulate development and protect the coastline.

Since firing Lester, the commission has come under fire for meeting with lobbyists before important decisions.

The commissioners who voted to push Lester out  Mark Vargas, Martha McClure, Erik Howell, Wendy Mitchell, Effie Turnbull-Sanders, Roberto Uranga and Olga Diaz  strongly denied that pressure from development interests had anything to do with it. They pointed to poor communication between commissioners and the 163-member staff, lack of outreach to minority communities and a lack of staff diversity.

Peter Fimrite and Steve Rubenstein are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com, srubenstein@sfchronicle.com.
Northgate High School in Walnut Creek saw 468 school-related arrests during the 2013-14 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights. This translates to 28 percent of the student body having been arrested in the span of a year.

But contrary to what the numbers imply, a wave of crime has not swept through the suburban school in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District (MDUSD). Rather, the high arrest rate is due to a case of misreported data.
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As a series of moisture-packed storms drench Northern California this year, Lake Shasta is seeing an impressive turnaround from near record lows.

California's largest reservoir has received some 215 billion gallons of water since Feb. 1 and as a result the lake level rose 25 feet since the start of the month, as of Friday. To put that in perspective, the San Francisco Public Utility Commission says the entire Hetch Hetchy Reservoir "can store up to 117 billion gallons of drinking water."

Over 24 hours this week alone (Feb. 8 to 9), Shasta's water level shot up eight feet.

Dramatic lake level rises are common in this rainy season marked by moisture-packed weather systems known as atmospheric rivers.

Folsom Lake east of Sacramento rose roughly 33 feet over the three days this week, while Lake Oroville went up 44 feet since February 1.

But for a reservoir the size of Shasta's  you could put four Folsom Lakes in Shasta and still not fill it  a 25-foot increase requires substantially more water, as reported previously in SFGATE.

This is great news for a lake that flirted with record-low levels over the past five years of drought.

The lake is currently at 92 percent capacity, and at the same time last year, when weak El Nino storms brought less rain and snow than predicted, it was at 55 percent capacity.

Shasta registered its lowest elevation level ever, 837 feet above sea level, in 1977. In December 2014, the lake dipped down to 889 feet.

On Feb. 9, the lake level was 1,055 feet.

Louis Moore, a deputy public affairs officer with the Bureau of Reclamation, says the February storms bringing with them billions of gallons of water have been especially helpful in filling the lake.

"We've had tremendous precipitation coming through the area over the past couple days," Moore said. "The runoff area above Shasta Lake is quite large and and it seems like the storm might have been lined up right on that area."

Moore added: "We're coming out of our fifth year of drought and going into our sixth year and we're still working on moving out of the drought. This is a good turnaround and now we get to look at all of this water to see what we can do with it."
As India Today Group concluded the 2022 Mumbai edition of its premier thought event -- the Conclave, Group Vice Chairperson Kalli Purie thanked the city of Mumbai and its people for playing host to two days of engrossing discussions and debates. "It is so good to be back in Mumbai after three years. Since our last conclave we've all had the best of times and worst of times so it's even more important that we are all here together discussing contentious issues that affect us all," Kalli Purie said. Talking about the two days of Conclave Mumbai and the sessions witnessed, she said that the event's eclectic line-up of speakers and personalities was a reflection of the city and its people.
By Press Trust of India: PTI2_11_2017_000051B

Mumbai, Feb 11 (PTI) Eman Ahmed, one of the heaviest women in the world weighing 500 kg, today landed here for weight reduction treatment at a local hospital and was lifted, along with the bed on which she laid while travelling, with the help of a crane.

"Eman (36), who travelled to India in an EgyptAir plane, landed at Mumbai international airport shortly after 4 AM and reached the Saifee hospital around 6 AM. The special bed on which she laid during the journey was hoisted with the help of a crane," doctors said.

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She was transported by a fully equipped truck, which was followed by an ambulance and a police escort, to Saifee Hospital where a special room has been built for her.

The woman, who has not moved out of her house for 25 years, would be under observation for about a month before she undergoes surgery, doctors said.

She is currently under the care of a city-based bariatric surgeon Muffazal Lakdawala and his team of doctors. They have been treating bed-bound Eman for almost three months and took all necessary precautions for her transportation from Egypts Alexandria, an aide to Lakdawala said.

"Transporting Eman to Mumbai was a challenging task keeping in mind the complexities of her case as she is a high risk patient who has not been able to move or leave the house for the last 25 years," doctors said.

Eman was accompanied by Aparna Govil Bhasker, an Advanced Laparoscopic and Bariatric Surgeon at Centre of Obesity and Digestive Surgery and Head of Department of Bariatric surgery at Saifee Hospital and Kamlesh Bohra, Senior Intensivist, Department of Critical and Intensive Care at the hospital.

"She, along with her sister Shaimaa Ahmed, arrived here early today. To prepare her for the flight, the team of doctors was in Egypt for the last 10 days to optimise the conditions for her travel.

"Given the fact that Eman is so heavy and had not moved for the last 25 years, she is at a high risk of pulmonary embolism and hence has been put on blood thinners to try and minimise the chances of such an eventuality during her transfer," doctors said.

A special bed was created by local Egyptian artisans in accordance to the safety measures as laid down by EgyptAir for her safe transport on ground and in the plane.

As a precautionary measure, the flight was furnished with all the equipment required in case of an emergency such as portable ventilator, portable defibrillator, oxygen cylinders, intubating laryngoscopes and other drugs. PTI VT RMT NSD

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By Press Trust of India: Jaipur, Feb 11 (PTI) Nearly 5,000 pending cases were taken up during the National Lok Adalat held in the High Court here today, officials said.

Of them, approximately 3,000-4,000 cases were likely to be settled through the Lok Adalat, member secretary of the Rajasthan Legal Services Authority SK Jain said.

As many as 5,000 cases related to post-retirement benefits, industrial disputes, transfer, CAT, selection grade, pre-litigation, parole and the Jaipur Development Authority were taken up by the Lok Adalat, he added.

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Ten benches comprising judges were set up for the purpose, Jain said, adding that Lok Adalats were also held in all the courts of the state today. PTI SDA RC

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PARIS  Four people, including a 16-year-old girl, who were believed to be preparing a terrorist attack were arrested in southern France on Friday after bomb-making materials were found in the home of one of the detainees, according to the Paris prosecutors office.

The three other people taken into custody near the city of Montpellier were men, ages 20, 26 and 33, said Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors office, but no other information about the four was released.

The arrests highlighted the danger posed to France, which has been the site of several deadly attacks in the past two years and is thought to be the most targeted country in Europe.

We are facing an extremely high level of threat, Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in an interview with the BFM TV news channel, although he did not comment specifically on the arrests.

In a statement, the Interior Ministry said that the police operation was preceded by a two-week investigation led by the antiterrorism section of the Paris prosecutors office and that an attack had been imminent. Thibault-Lecuivre said, however, that the authorities do not know where nor how it was to be carried out.

Three of the people taken into custody were directly suspected of preparing a violent act on our territory, the interior minister, Bruno Le Roux, said in the statement.

The prosecutors office said that the police who searched the 20-year-olds home found 70 grams of TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a peroxide-based explosive that was used by the Islamic State in attacks in Paris and Brussels.

Thibault-Lecuivre said that police officers had also discovered ingredients that could have been used to produce more TATP, including a liter, or just over a quart, of acetone, a liter of hydrogen peroxide and a liter of sulfuric acid.

France is under a state of emergency that was declared after the November 2015 attacks in and around Paris that left 130 people dead, and the country has been consistently on edge. This month, a man wielding two large knives was shot in Paris after he attacked a military patrol near the Louvre Museum.

Aurelien Breeden is a New York Times writer.
BEIRUT  Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview released Friday that the United States is welcome to join the battle against terrorists in Syria  as long as it is in cooperation with his government and respects the countrys sovereignty.

Speaking with Yahoo News, Assad said he has not had any communication  direct or indirect  with President Trump or any official form the new U.S. administration.

But the Syrian leader appeared to make a gesture to the new U.S. president in the interview, saying he welcomes Trumps declaration that he will make it a priority to fight terrorism  a goal Assad said he also shares.

However, Assads government has labeled all armed opposition to his rule  including the U.S.-backed rebels  as terrorists.

We agree about this priority, Assad said of Trump. Thats our position in Syria, the priority is to fight terrorism.

Syrias six-year civil war has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced half the countrys population. The country is shattered and the chaos has enabled the rise of the Islamic State, which in a 2014 blitz seized a third of both Syria and neighboring Iraq. The extremist group, responsible also for several deadly attacks around the world, has declared an Islamic caliphate on the territory it controls.

Assad also told Yahoo News that his country would welcome U.S. participation in the fight against terrorism but it has to be in cooperation with the Syrian government.

Assads comment ignored the U.S.-led international coalition, which has been targeting the Islamic State and al Qaedas affiliate in Syria with air strikes since September 2014. The U.S. also has advisers in Syria along with predominantly Kurdish fighters north of the country who are fighting against the Islamic State.

If you want to start genuinely, as United States ... it must be through the Syrian government, Assad said. We are here, we are the Syrians, we own this country as Syrians, nobody else, nobody would understand it like us.

The Syrian government has always blamed the U.S. for backing opposition fighters trying to remove Assad from power. The rebels formed a serious threat to the Syrian leader until 2015, when Russia joined Syrias war backing Assads forces and turned the balance of power in his favor.

We invited the Russians, and the Russians were genuine regarding this issue. If the Americans are genuine, of course they are welcome, like any other country that wants to defeat and to fight with the terrorists. Of course, with no hesitation we can say that, Assad said in English.

But when asked if he wants American troops to come to Syria to help with the fight against the Islamic State, Assad said that sending troops is not enough  a genuine political position on respecting Syrias sovereignty and unity is also needed.

All these factors would lead to trust, where you can send your troops. Thats what happened with the Russians; they didnt only send their troops, Assad added.

Bassem Mroue is an Associated Press writer.
TEHRAN  Iran celebrated the anniversary of the 1979 ouster of pro-U.S. monarch Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with large nationwide rallies Friday that were strikingly devoid of one thing: the usual full-throated denunciations of the United States.

Amid rising tensions between Iran and the U.S. since President Trump took office, many observers had expected Iran to use the annual, politically tinged festivities to attack him.

Instead, Irans leaders sought to lower the temperature. The heavily choreographed rallies in Tehran and other cities featured remarkably few anti-Trump placards and none of the faux missiles or nuclear centrifuges that had been paraded down the streets in years past.

By showing restraint, the Iranian establishment signaled that it would continue to pursue the rapprochement with the U.S. that began under former President Barack Obama.

There were even signs of friendship. Some placards read: Thanks to American people for supporting Muslims, a reference to the protests in the U.S. over Trumps attempt to temporarily block citizens of Iran and six other predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.

Another sign said: American people are welcome and invited to visit Iran.

It seemed Iran was trying to capitalize on the distance between American civil society and its historically unpopular new president. Trump has threatened to undo the nuclear deal that has brought Iran some relief from international economic sanctions and said he was putting Tehran on notice after it conducted a missile test last month.

The U.S. government has for years tried to distinguish between the fundamentalist regime and the civilized people of Iran, said Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow in the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Now the Iranian government is trying to drive a similar wedge between the American government and people.

To be sure, there were some anti-Trump messages. One poster featured a fist punching the face of a cartoon U.S. president. Another demonstrator in Tehran carried a small placard that read  in Farsi  Trump, thank you for all your stupidities. And some people stepped on large U.S. flags laid out on the streets.

Ramin Mostaghim and Shashank Bengali are Los Angeles Times writers.
At their joint press conference in Lucknow, Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not fulfilling his promise of providing jobs and bringing development.

By India Today Web Desk: Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav addressed a joint press conference on the polling day of the first phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, where the Congress vice-president returned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'raincoat in bathroom' barb.

Rahul Gandhi slammed Modi for his uninhibited attack on Manmohan Singh saying, "I know Prime Minister Narendra Modi loves to search on Google. He loves to peep into others' bathrooms."

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"He should continue to do what he loves to do but he should also focus on fulfilling the promise of providing jobs to youth," Rahul Gandhi said.

PM Modi's 'raincoat in bathroom' in launching an attack on former PM Manmohan Singh while replying to the President's address to Parliament dominated the joint press conference that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi held today in Lucknow.

READ| Uttar Pradesh election LIVE: 10.56 per cent voting in first phase till 9 am

Responding to the question about Modi's threat of revealing the 'janampatri' of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi said, "I know he loves to read janampatris. He still has two-and-a-half-years, he must reveal the janampatri."

Rahul Gandhi also said PM Modi has not fulfilled his 2014-promise of providing two crore jobs to youth every year. "But, last year only one lakh jobs were created. This year the number has reduced. It means no jobs have been created. He has not fulfilled even one per cent of what he promised."

Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav released a 10-point programme for the development of Uttar Pradesh if the alliance is voted to power in the state.

AKHILESH-RAHUL PRESSER: WHAT THEY SAID PM Modi's strategy is distraction. When he can't answer questions, then he starts distracting. Truth is that in two-and-a-half-years, he has failed: Rahul Gandhi It is not a healthy sign to get very angry. This shows that the ground is slipping beneath their (BJP's) feet: Akhilesh Yadav. There is no problem on 99 per cent of 403 seats. Issues are being resolved on remaining seats. It is wrong to say that there is no coordination between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party in the alliance: Rahul Gandhi Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP should not mislead people. They should come forward and tell what they have given to state which has elected all prominent NDA leaders: Akhilesh Yadav If Prime Minister takes a ride on Agra-Lucknow Expressway, he will vote for Samajwadi Party: Akhilesh Yadav The Prime Minister will get jolt from UP poll results: Rahul Gandhi. Anyone's janampatri is just a click away in this age of Internet: Akhilesh Yadav on PM Modi's horoscope statement There is no need for emotions and anger. These are elections for growth and prosperity of the state: Akhilesh Yadav We want a government of the youth and vision. These ten points in the joint programme are foundations of development: Rahul Gandhi Smart phones, skill development, free cycles and homes for the poor are among key points in SP-Congress joint programme.

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Blaming the Samajwadi Party for deviating from its founding principles in allying with Congress, Modi said, "Lohiaji was against Congress. Those who followed the ideals of Lohia ji have come forward to support Congress."

By India Today Web Desk: Addressing a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Badaun on the day of phase 1 voting on 73 seats, Prime Minister lashed out at the ruling Samajwadi Party government, accusing it of sheltering criminals.

Blaming the Samajwadi Party for deviating from its founding principles in allying with Congress, Modi said, "Lohiaji was against Congress. Those who followed the ideals of Lohia ji have come forward to support Congress."

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Also read | Rahul Gandhi returns Modi's raincoat jibe, says PM likes to peep into others' bathrooms

Along with the Samajwadi Party, the Prime Minister also lashed out at the Bahujan Samaj Party for lack of development in the state. "Budaun is among 100 backward districts. Why could fruits of development not reach this land under SP and BSP."

SP-CONGRESS ALLIANCE OPPORTUNISTIC: MODI

Calling Samajwadi Party's alliance with Congress political opportunism, Modi alleged that Akhilesh, only to seek political benefit, had plunged the future of youth into darkness. He was quoted as saying, "Akhileshji, aapne rajnitik swarth ke liye naujawaanon ke bhavishya pe Aligarh ka taala laga diya hai."

For political gains, UP government played with aspirations of youth in the state: PM Modi pic.twitter.com/Dur8R7qNDe ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

Also slamming Opposition parties for attacking him for his demonetisation drive, Modi said, "When I took strong steps against corruption, all parties came together against me. SP, BSP united and spoke in one voice against us. We have eliminated interview processes for class III and IV jobs; this has reduced corruption."

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The accident occurred in the southern town of Oswiecim, when Szydlo was travelling in a convoy along the town's main road and another car drove into the convoy, causing it to hit a tree.

By AP: Polish prime minister Beata Szydlo suffered injuries in a car crash in southern Poland on Friday and was flown by helicopter to Warsaw for medical tests, even though doctors and her spokesman said that she was not badly hurt.

The accident occurred shortly before 7PM in the southern town of Oswiecim, which is Szydlo's hometown. Szydlo, 53, was travelling in a convoy along the town's main road when another car drove into Szydlo's black Audi limousine, causing it to hit a tree.

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The state broadcaster TVP published an image of her limousine, with the front of the car bashed in.

Sebastian Glen, a police spokesman, said the car that hit the prime minister's car was a small Fiat driven by a 21-year-old man who was sober. Two security officers, one of whom was the car's driver, were also taken to a hospital with injuries.

Government spokesman Rafal Bochenek said Szydlo was in "good condition" but was being transported 350 kilometers (215 miles) by helicopter to a government hospital in Warsaw for further monitoring and tests.

Dr. Andrzej Jakubowski, who examined Szydlo in a hospital in Oswiecim, said she was stable and conscious all the time and was talking and "very strong" given the trauma. Jakubowski said it was Szydlo's decision to go through more tests in Warsaw.

ALSO READ | Taking on Russia: Britain, US sending fighter jets, troops to Poland

Two other persons from the accident were being diagnosed and undergoing treatment at the hospital's orthopedics ward, the doctor said.

In Warsaw, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the governing party, Law and Justice, said during a speech to supporters that "I must start from the sad news that there has been a car accident in which the prime minister and Government Protection Bureau officers were seriously hurt."

Oswiecim is best known to the world by its German name, Auschwitz. It is the town where Nazi Germany ran the death camp in occupied Poland during World War II and today is the site of a memorial and museum that draws large numbers of visitors.

Poland's interior minister called an emergency meeting with the leadership of the Government Protection Office, which protects and drives Szydlo and other top figures.

It was the second such accident in four months involving a convoy that Szydlo was travelling in and the third involving a top government member.

In November, several vehicles in a Polish government convoy collided during a state visit to Israel. Szydlo was not in one of those that collided but two other Polish officials had minor injuries.

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Separately, Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz escaped uninjured from an eight-car collision in January.

ALSO READ | Two miners dead, 6 missing after earthquake hits Polish mine

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By Piya Hingorani: Remember the anti-tobacco advertisements which are played in theatres before every film begins? Or the "smoking is injurious to health" disclaimers that are flashed when an actor consumes tobacco on screen? They sure make you cringe and squirm in your seats. The directive dates back to October 2012, when the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) made it was mandatory to show anti-tobacco warnings such as audio-visual disclaimers and static health warning messages in films. As per a recent study in association with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (Government of India), these statutory warnings appears to be effective. However, the the Ministry feels that there should be a better implementation and enforcement of the rule across media, since the film and TV industry have the power to influence millions across the country.

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In a meeting between the ministry officials and the members of the film fraternity held in Mumbai, Central Board of Film Certification Chief Pahlaj Nihalani and filmmaker Ashoke Pandit were of the opinion that Bollywood and art cannot be wholly blamed for encouraging the youth to smoke. "Stop bashing cinema for smoking," said Pandit, adding, "I don't smoke because my parents told me it's a bad habit. You sit at home with a glass of whiskey and smoke in front of your children, and then blame the film and television industry for portraying characters that smoke on screen. Films shows good things also, why don't you follow that? If you think a small caption on screen will change people's mind and their perception, you are living in a fool's paradise."

The newly-elected President of the Film and Television Producers Guild, Siddharth Roy Kapur, on behalf of the film industry, promised to implement better anti-tobacco capsules, but without impinging on the film's freedom of expression and creativity. He argued, "Art is a reflection of society. What you depict on screen - which could be love, hate, murder, someone smoking - it's a reflection of what is happening in our society. Today, if cigarettes and gutkas are freely available at every street corner and if you have a movie that is reflecting that and a protagonist is indulging in that activity, the easy thing for us to do is remove it from the movies. The tougher thing is to remove it from society. When you have an issue with Pakistan, let's take the Pakistani actor out of the movie but let's continue trade with Pakistan, let's have the Samjhauta Express continue, because the easiest part is, let's target a society that is vulnerable because it's a group of artists who have come together to put their creative expression, to get into the limelight seeming like we have taken that action, but actually the action hasn't been taken. You think you'll take a cigarette out of Shah Rukh Khan's hand on screen, and society will be rid of smoking?"

Siddharth Roy Kapur committed to have Bollywood A-listers feature in the anti-tobacco capsule, which could be aired in cinema halls, across the country, but have the static disclaimer removed from scenes where the protagonist is smoking in the film, since it irritates the audiences and distracts the viewer, hence hindering the flow of the film.

Recently, John Abraham was in the eye of the storm, when he picked up the cancer-stick in Dishoom, in a bid to make his character look suave and debonair. He admitted to having smoked 600 cigarettes during the course of the film, but the confession backfired when NGOs lashed out at the makers asking them to to delete his portions from the film and also remove his posters from billboards. While promoting the film, John went hoarse, screaming from the rooftops that he in fact does not smoke in real life. Conveniently, not many remember that John in 2007 had starred in a full-length feature film on the ill-effects of smoking, titled No Smoking, directed by Anurag Kashyap.

Agreed, films have the power to impact the youth, but more often than not, they are a mirror of society. With the film industry joining hands with the Government, and Ministry of Health, there is hope that more people will kick the butt. However, the buck doesn't stop at Bollywood.

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ALSO READ: Saif Ali Khan gets notice for 'promoting smoking'

ALSO READ: Aamir Khan is back to smoking again, Dhoom 3 to blame?

ALSO WATCH: When smoking landed SRK in trouble!

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By Press Trust of India: Chennai, Feb 11 (PTI) In a boost to O Panneerselvam camp, an MLA and three MPs of AIADMK today joined him after deserting V K Sasikala who met the legislators supporting her and threatened to hold protests tomorrow against the delay in swearing her in as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. MLA and School Education Minister K Pandiarajan as also MPs P R Sundaram, K Ashok Kumar and Satyabama switched over to the Chief Ministers camp, pledging their support to him, amid mounting pressure from the party cadres and apparent public sentiment. In the evening, party veteran, spokesman and minister in the MGR Cabinet C Ponnaiyan also drove to Panneerselvams residence and offered his support. After these switchovers, Panneerselvam camp now has seven MLAs, including him. In the 235-member Tamil Nadu Assembly, AIADMK has 135 MLAs.

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A former minister M M Rajendra Prasad also joined the Chief Ministers camp. Rattled by the desertions, Sasikala, who has been elected the Leader of the AIADMK Legislature Party on February 5, drove to the luxury resort, 100 km from here, in an attempt to prevent the MLAs who have been put up there for the last three days from switching sides. K A Sengottaiyan, who was appointed the presidium chairman after the removal of Madhusudhanan, told reporters after Sasikalas meeting with the MLAs that all of them have taken a pledge that they will back her to the hilt till she becomes Chief Minister. Kept on wait, Sasikala tonight said, "We were patient, tomorrow we will protest." Earlier in the day, she wrote a letter to Governor Vidyasagar Rao, asking him to take steps immediately to swear her in at the earliest. She said she was ready to parade the party MLAs supporting her before him.

She told him she had on Thursday submitted an "elaborate presentation to invite me to form the government as I have absolute majority," besides the original letter and true copy of the resolution electing her as the AIADMK Legislature party leader. Sasikala said she believed that the Governor would "act immediately to save the sovereignty of the Constitution, democracy and the interest" of Tamil Nadu. (MORE) PTI SA VGN AKK AKK

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The home on Post Avenue in Port Richmond was badly damaged after a 3-alarm fire on Thursday. (Staten Island Advance/Mira Wassef)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Due to the extent of his injuries, police have only tentatively identified the man who died during a three-alarm fire in a Port Richmond home Thursday morning.

"He was burned beyond recognition," an NYPD spokeswoman told the Advance Friday. "He had burns all over his body."

The deceased man was found on the first floor of the home at 1028 Post Ave., and was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.

His brother, 69, suffered buns to his body and remains in critical condition in the burn unit at Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, said a hospital spokeswoman.

Public records indicate the siblings were born in May of 1947, which would make them twins, though it wasn't clear if they were identical.

One of the men had a disability and was confined to a wheelchair, neighbors said.

The fire started at around 7 a.m. in the two-and-a-half story dwelling, and reached a third alarm, before being brought under control at 8:59 a.m., an FDNY spokesman said.

The fire produced copious amounts of smoke that seemed to be fanned by the snowstorm's high winds. Flames shot through the roof of the attic, according to witnesses.

On Friday afternoon, the home was littered with debris from the blaze and a burning odor was still lingering. The door, windows and roof were destroyed, and children's toys in the side yard were damaged.

"It's just terrible," said a man who lives in the neighborhood. "Horrible."

Four other people, including a 12-year-old female, a 43-year-old male, a 26-year-old male and an 11-year-old male, were transported to Richmond University Medical Center, West Brighton, in stable condition, police said.

There were 15 injured in total, including eight civilians and seven FDNY members. Six firefighters and one EMS worker suffered minor injuries, the FDNY spokesman said.

Fire marshals are investigating the incident.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- John Russell, 69, has been identified as the man who died in the three-alarm house fire in Port Richmond Thursday morning, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

"He was burned beyond recognition," an NYPD spokeswoman told the Advance Friday. "He had burns all over his body."

The deceased man was found on the first floor of the home at 1028 Post Ave., and was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.

His brother, Joseph Russell, also 69, was badly injured and remains in critical condition in the burn unit at Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, a hospital spokeswoman told the Advance Saturday.

Public records indicate the siblings were born in May of 1947, which would make them twins, though it wasn't clear if they were identical.

One of the men had a disability and was confined to a wheelchair, neighbors said.

The fire started at around 7 a.m. in the two-and-a-half story dwelling, and reached a third alarm, before being brought under control at 8:59 a.m., an FDNY spokesman said.

The fire produced copious amounts of smoke that seemed to be fanned by the snowstorm's high winds. Flames shot through the roof of the attic, according to witnesses.

On Friday afternoon, the home was littered with debris from the blaze and a burning odor was still lingering. The door, windows and roof were destroyed, and children's toys in the side yard were damaged.

"It's just terrible," said a man who lives in the neighborhood. "Horrible."

Four other people, including a 12-year-old female, a 43-year-old male, a 26-year-old male and an 11-year-old male, were transported to Richmond University Medical Center, West Brighton, in stable condition, police said.

There were 15 injured in total, including eight civilians and seven FDNY members. Six firefighters and one EMS worker suffered minor injuries, the FDNY spokesman said.

Fire marshals are investigating the incident.
nws rma

Police seek a man for questioning in connection with a stolen credit card. (NYPD)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police seek a man for questioning in connection with a stolen debit card that was used to make a purchase at a store in Stapleton last month.

On Jan. 21 at around 5:55 p.m., an unknown individual did use a stolen debit card to purchase items at the Bayview liquors at 694 Bay St., according to a written statement from the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner for Public Information.



The individual is described as an adult black male with a beard, and was last seen wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt and black jeans, police said.

Police released a surveillance photo of the man wanted for questioning, taken from the liquor store, police said.



Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.
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Munther Omar Saleh, of Queens, has admitted in Brooklyn federal court to plotting a terrorist bomb attack along with Mariners Harbor resident Fareed Mumuni. (Staten Island Advance file photo)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Queens man, who along with a Mariners Harbor resident plotted a pressure-cooker bomb terrorist attack in the metropolitan area, has pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and other charges.

Munther Omar Saleh, 21, entered his plea Friday in Brooklyn federal court, a day after Staten Island resident Fareed Mumuni, 22, pleaded guilty to similar charges.

Both men admitted to conspiring and attempting to provide material support to ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), as well as to assaulting and conspiring to assault federal officers, said authorities.

Mumuni also pleaded guilty to attempted murder of federal officers.

Mumuni tried to plunge a kitchen knife into the chest of an FBI special agent executing a search warrant at his Mersereau Avenue home on June 17, 2015, said Brooklyn federal prosecutors.

According to prosecutors, Saleh received instructions from an ISIL attack facilitator to build a bomb and discussed potential targets in the city.

In addition, Saleh, Mamuni and others helped New Jersey resident Nader Saadeh plan a trip to ISIL-controlled territory, authorities said.

Saleh accompanied Saadeh to Kennedy International Airport where Saadeh departed for Jordan in the first leg of his journey, said authorities.

Saadeh was later captured and pleaded guilty in New Jersey federal court to conspiring to provide material support to ISIL, officials said.

Saleh and another person were arrested in June 2015 after charging at a federal officer who was surveilling Saleh, said authorities. The two men were armed with knives.

The defendants' guilty pleas "show just how close the threat of homegrown terrorism exists for New York City," William F. Sweeney Jr., assistant director-in-charge, FBI New York Field Office, said in a statement.

Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill said Saleh and Mumuni were "committed to violence."

Saleh, a U.S. citizen, faces up to 53 years behind bars when sentenced May 16.

Mumuni, originally from Ghana, faces up to 85 years in prison. His initial lawyer, Anthony Ricco, previously told the Advance Mumuni is a U.S. citizen.

Besides Sweeney and O'Neill, the pleas were announced by Robert L. Capers, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and Mary B. McCord, acting assistant attorney general for national security.
schwarz.jpg

Ex-cop Charles Schwarz, seen in this 2002 file photo, can't sue Con Edison for firing him due to his role in the Abner Louima torture case, an appellate court has ruled. (Staten Island Advance)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Charles Schwarz, the ex-cop from Staten Island convicted of perjury for lying about his role in the brutal sodomy of Abner Louima in a Brooklyn stationhouse bathroom in 1997, can't sue Con Edison for firing him due to his notoriety in the case, a state appellate court has ruled.

Schwarz, 51, alleged Con Edison wrongly terminated him in December 2014 based on his 2002 perjury conviction, and vacated convictions, stemming from the assault on Louima. The utility had hired him as a mechanic a month earlier in November 2014.

Schwarz sued Con Edison under state law that prohibits denying a person employment due to a criminal conviction.

But a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, in Manhattan disagreed, upholding an August 2015 ruling by a Manhattan state Supreme Court justice who tossed the case.

Schwarz failed to "show that (he) was terminated under circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination based on his perjury conviction, rather than due to the disruption of Con Ed's workplace and its employee and customer relations stemming from his perceived involvement in the underlying assault," the appellate court determined.

Schwarz said he had disclosed his perjury conviction when applying for the job.

However, a week after he started work investigating gas leaks in Manhattan, a supervisor told him his hiring "blew up the building (at Con Edison), and people are talking," Schwarz alleged, according to court papers.

Just over two weeks later, Con Ed's director of employee and labor relations told Schwarz he was being sacked due to "potential disruption of business operations" and "damage to the company's reputation" if he continued working there, court documents said.

In her original ruling denying Schwarz, Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Carol Robinson Edmead wrote his firing "was unrelated to any crime for which plaintiff was convicted or to any 'perception' of plaintiff's conviction record."

"Instead, Con Ed's termination was based on the perception of plaintiff's reputation and notoriety," said the judge.

At Schwarz's first trial, in 1999, he was convicted of violating Louima's civil rights by conspiring and aiding fellow Officer Justin Volpe in the assault. During the same trial, Volpe, an Eltingville resident, pleaded guilty.

A year later, Schwarz and two other cops were convicted on obstruction charges.

In February 2002, a federal appeals court threw out the obstruction conviction and ordered a new trial for Schwarz on the civil rights violations.

Shortly thereafter, Schwarz was slapped with two perjury charges, which accused him of lying when he said he didn't escort Louima to the bathroom and when he said he wasn't in the bathroom during the attack.

At the third trial -- which ended on July 16, 2002, after six days of deliberation -- Schwarz was convicted on just one count of perjury, lying when he said he didn't escort Louima to the bathroom. Jurors deadlocked on the remaining perjury charge and the more serious civil rights violations.

Immediately following the verdict, federal prosecutors announced their intention to seek a fourth trial.

But in a last-minute, late-night deal Schwarz agreed to serve five years in federal prison on the perjury charge to avoid another trial.

He didn't have to admit guilt and prosecutors agreed to drop the remaining charges.

Alan Serrins, Schwarz's appellate lawyer, could not immediately be reached Saturday for comment.

However, according to a published report in the New York Post, Serrins said the defense was "disappointed with the ruling" and considering an appeal.
Quick Fix-File Early

The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance today encouraged all New York State taxpayers to have their income tax refunds directly deposited into their bank accounts. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance is encouraging all taxpayers to have their income tax refunds directly deposited into their bank accounts.

Touted as the fastest and safest way to receive a tax refund, direct deposit is available to all e-filers.



"Taxpayers who e-file and choose direct deposit can receive their refund twice as fast as those who file on paper and elect to have a check mailed to their home," said Acting Tax Department Commissioner Nonie Manion. "A paper check can take an extra week or more."



To opt for direct deposit, simply enter your bank's nine-digit routing number and your account number on your tax return.

Manion also stressed that filing an error-free return will prevent delays in processing and refunds.



"Any error or omission on your return could significantly delay your refund," she said. "It's essential to take the time to properly complete the return, double check all entries, and make sure that deductions and credits claimed can be supported."



CHECK YOUR REFUND

Taxpayers can quickly view the status of their state tax refund anytime by using the Check your Refund tool on the Tax Department website: www.tax.ny.gov. It's a fast and most convenient way to know when to expect your refund.



You can also find out when your refund will be issued by signing up for Tax Department email alerts. It's easy and on the Tax Department home page at www.tax.ny.gov (select subscribe at the bottom of the page).



The Tax Department's automated refund status phone line is available at (518) 457-5149.

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nws freshkills

There were will be various Community Board meetings this week regarding Freshkills Park, which is one of five city parks to receive $30 million for major improvements as part of the Anchor Parks initiative. (Staten Island Advance/ Jan Somma-Hammel)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- As the temperatures continue to drop this month, the activity at local Community Boards really heats up as issues arise on a variety of topics from the environment to local development.

Committees plan to meet this week regarding parks and recreational issues as well as environmental, public service and land use issues.

Community Board meetings are all open to the public and a way to get involved in your community. It is also a great place to learn more about local happenings and report neighborhood news about issues in your neighborhood.

If you have a question or concern you'd like to speak out about, all you need to do is sign up -- before the meeting is called to order -- to speak in the public session.

COMMUNITY BOARD 1

Arlington - Castleton Corners - Clifton - Concord - Elm Park - Fort Wadsworth - Graniteville - Grymes Hill - Livingston - Mariners Harbor - New Brighton - Port Richmond - Randall Manor - Rosebank - St. George - Shore Acres - Silver Lake - Stapleton - Sunnyside - Tompkinsville - West Brighton - Westerleigh

There is a

Several committees will meet before the full board meeting. There will be a

The board office is located at 1 Edgewater Plaza, Suite 217, Stapleton. The office phone number is 718-981-6900. The board chairman is Nicholas Siclari; the district manager is Joseph Carroll.

COMMUNITY BOARD 2

Arrochar - Bloomfield - Bulls Heads - Chelsea - Dongan Hills - Egbertville - Emerson Hill - Grant City - Grasmere - High Rock - Lighthouse Hill - Midland Beach - New Dorp - New Springville - Oakwood - Ocean Breeze - Old Town - Richmond - South Beach - Todt Hill - Travis

There is an

There will be a joint meeting of the

All committee meetings are in the board office, which is located in the Lou Caravone Community Service Building on the campus of Sea View Hospital Rehabilitation Center and Home, 460 Brielle Ave., Sea View. The office phone number is 718-317-3235. The chairman of the CB 2 board is Dana T. Magee; the district manager is Debra A. Derrico.

COMMUNITY BOARD 3

Annadale - Arden Heights - Bay Terrace - Charleston - Eltingville - Great Kills - Greenridge - Huguenot - New Dorp - Oakwood - Pleasant Plains - Prince's Bay - Richmond Valley - Richmond - Rossville - Tottenville - Woodrow

There will be a joint meeting of the

Committee meetings are in the board office located at 1243 Woodrow Road, 2nd Floor, Rossville. The office phone number is 718-356-7900. The CB 3 board chairman is Frank Morano; the district manager is Charlene Wagner.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Fatal fire dominated the news in a week that also saw the first major snowstorm of the year slam Staten Island.

CREATIVE, INSPIRING

Megan Meagher's dream is to be a movie producer. Robert Meagher, Megan's father, said she has always been creative and began using her drawings to express herself at a young age. Megan, now 24, was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), which is on the autism spectrum, when she was 17-months-old, wrote reporter Kristen Dalton. Read the story on SILive.com.

CYO HOOPS

Our roving photographer Hilton Flores was at the Blessed Sacrament gymnasium in West Brighton to snap some photos of the CYO action. Check out 100 photos in his gallery and a video.

PORT RICHMOND HOUSE FIRE

FDNY marshals are investigating the cause of the three-alarm fire that left one dead and 14 others injured after it ripped through a Port Richmond home Thursday morning, officials said. The unidentified man who was killed was found on the first floor and pronounced dead by EMS at the scene, police said, wrote reporter Mira Wassef.

YEAR OF THE ROOSTER

Students of the Staten Island Chinese School performed songs and dances and recited poetry on Saturday to celebrate the Chinese New Year at the Rocco Laurie Intermediate School (I.S. 72) in New Springville. The Chinese new year celebration helped kick off the Year of the Rooster, which started on Jan. 28. Read the story, more photos and a video on SILive.

MARLEE: WILBUR'S NEW FRIEND

Ann Varner knows exactly what Cristy Matteo -- the owner of world famous Wilbur the pig -- is going through. When 21-year-old Varner, from Kansas City, Missouri, was told she had to get rid of her pig, Marlee, back in 2014, she knew that she would do whatever was necessary to keep her pet. Story and photos on SILive.com.

SNOWSTORM

A significant snowstorm took aim at Staten Island on Thursday, affecting the morning commute and making a mess of borough roads. Mayor Bill de Blasio closed public schools; many private ones weren't open either. And while it wasn't as bad as the 10 to 14 inches of snow that the National Weather Service had predicted, the storm was intense during the morning hours.
Even after nearly 60 hours, the Chandigarh police not only failed to arrest the two accused, but also clueless about the car which was allegedly used to hit Akansh.

By Manjeet Sehgal: A relative of Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, Akansh Sen, who was allegedly hit by a BMW car on early Thursday morning, succumbed to his injuries in PGI Chandigarh on Friday where he was admitted in a critical condition.

Even after nearly 60 hours, the Chandigarh police not only failed to arrest the two accused, but also clueless about the car which was allegedly used to hit Akansh.

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"This is a high profile case and the accused have also been identified. The manner in which the police are working is deplorable. We demand that a SIT be constituted to probe the matter as it is not a simple road accident but an intentional hit-and-run case," Virbhadra Singh's son Vikrmaditya Singh told India Today.

It is worth mentioning here that Akansh Sen is the son of Pratibha Singh's brother who owned a restaurant in Sector 9 of Chandigarh.

According to the family sources, an altercation took place between the friends of Akansh and the accused Balraj Singh Randhawa and Har Mehtab Singh Gill who were partying in the restaurant on Thursday.

Sources said Akansh left the restaurant and outside a home in Sector 9, the accused Balraj Singh Randhawa , allegedly hit him with his BMW car and fled from the scene. Another accused Har Mehtab Singh Gill also accompanied him.

The police officials refuted the allegations of protecting the accused and said teams have been sent to nab both the accused involved in the hit-and-run case.

"The incident took place on Thursday morning. The accused were drinking in a party. SIT has already been formed. Police teams have been sent to arrest the accused," Inspector Poonam Dilawari said.

The accused Balraj Singh Randhawa and Har Mehtab Singh Gill belong to the influential political families. Har Mehtab Singh Gill is the great grandson of a former Punjab minister.

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: From K J M Varma

Beijing, Feb 11 (PTI) A Chinese soldier, who was stuck in India for over 50 years after he crossed over the border following the 1962 war, today arrived here with his Indian family members to an emotional reunion with hisChinese kin.

Wang Qi, 77, was received by his close Chinese relatives, besides officials of the Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Indian embassy when he arrived here along with his son, daughter-in-law and grand daughter from Delhi-Beijing flight.

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Wang became emotional as he hugged his relatives, their first reunion after he crossed into Indian side over five decades ago.

"It was an emotional reunion," an official present at the airport told PTI here.

Wang was accompanied by his son Vishnu Wang, 35, daughter-in-law Neha and grand daughter, Khanak Wang. His Indian wife Shushila, however, stayed back.

Indian officials said Wang and family members will be later flown to Xian, the provincial capital in Shaanxi province from where he will be taken to his native village Xue Zhai Nan Cun in the province.

His return became a possibility after India and China worked out modalities for both Wang and his Indian family to travel together to China and later return as per their wish.

Wang was caught when he entered the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962.

After his release from prison in 1969, he settled in Tirodi village of Balaghat district in Madhya Pradesh.

Though his story has been published by Indian media several times in the past, a recent BBCTV feature on him was widely picked by the Chinese social media highlighting his plight, prompting the Chinese government to initiate action in coordination with India to facilitate his return.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on February 6 that he was provided a passport to travel to China in 2013 and he was also paid a living allowance.

Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui recently spoke to him.

While the Chinese government has provided visas for his family to visit China, India has provided a re-entry visa for Wang to return back if he chooses to.

Indian officials terms the facilitation of the travel of Wang and his family by both sides s positive development, specially at a time when India-China relations were stuck with differences over issues like China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China blocking Indias entry into Nuclear Suppliers Group and listing of JeM leader Masood Azhar as terrorist by UN.

Before leaving for Beijing, Vishnu told media in India yesterday that"my father joined the Chinese Army in 1960 and he entered India through the eastern frontier after losing his way in the darkness one night."

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He landed in Assam where an Indian Red Cross team handed him over to the Indian Army on January 1, 1963. MORE PTI KJV ZH AKJ ZH

--- ENDS ---
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By Press Trust of India: Itanagar, Feb 11 (PTI) Commercial flight operations from Pasighat in East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh is likely to begin later this month, officials said today.

These flights would be operated from a separate terminal for civilians, which is almost ready, at the Advanced Landing Ground (ALG).

Initially, the existing civil supply office building, adjacent to the ALG, would be used as an interim civilian terminal before a separate terminal within the ALG is set up, the officials said.

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Private airlines have also evinced keen interest to start operation from this month, they said.

Local MLA Kaling Moyong along with East Siang DC Tamiyo Tatak, officers and engineers today visited the airport and inspected the temporary civil terminal which is nearing completion.

Moyong said that the state government has resolved all pending issues and moving ahead on the work for it.

Deputy Commissioner Tatak said that engineers should ensure that the terminal building is eco-friendly and convenient to all categories of passengers. PTI UPL NN KKB

--- ENDS ---
The Bureau of Meterology said a severe thunderstorm warning, issued for Canberra, had eased temporarily.

Severe thunderstorms were still possible, the bureau warned.

A severe thunderstorm warning was issued for Canberra on Saturday.

"The situation is being closely monitored and further detailed warnings will be issued as necessary," a spokesman said.

The State Emergency Service is advising residents to unplug computers and appliances, avoid using the phone during the storm, stay indoors away from windows, and keep children and pets indoors as well.
At Blakes Pharmacy in Potts Point, store manager Kim Wood watches and waits. The tourist buses arrive, regularly, with keen shoppers who will "buy whatever Blackmores (vitamins) we have".

"Sometimes I come in and the whole shelf has disappeared and getting in stock has been hard to get for close to a year now," Ms Wood said.

"I just did an order and there are four or five things out of stock that I couldn't get my hands on."

Among tourists, Ms Wood said fish oil, cranberry capsules, vitamin C and the eye supplement Macu-Vision were the most in-demand products.
Few people know more about the risk of nuclear war and nuclear accidents than former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, so when he warns that the world appears to be preparing for war, we need to sit up and take notice.

As President of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev was in a unique position to hear of the accidents at nuclear weapons' facilities and the false alarms that came close to triggering a nuclear exchange between the USSR and the United States.

US President Donald Trump's statements give some hope that a Republican president might again make progress in arms reduction. Credit:Bloomberg

Today most people live in blissful ignorance of the dangers.

Who can recall the Damascus Titan missile accident where an intercontinental ballistic missile, armed with a thermonuclear warhead, blew up on 18 September 1980?
When people say that "we live in unprecedented times", I always wonder if it's true. After all, human history is full of weird tales. Providing Donald Trump doesn't try to promote his horse into the Senate, or execute those who fall asleep during his speeches, there'll always be Roman emperors who'll make him look rather dull.

It's not only Trump. We live in unprecedented times, people suggest, because of the inflammatory way we speak to each other. Social media has coarsened the debate. Even world leaders  we're back to President Trump  use Twitter, it is said, to talk about their opponents in the most demeaning of ways.

Sharp words: Former prime ministers Paul Keating and John Howard. Credit:Lisa Maree Williams

Witness, they say, Trump's recent tweet about this "so-called judge".

A new low, people say. Such language: unheard of.
NSW is facing the "worst possible fire conditions" in its history with a "catastrophic" warning in place across large slabs of the state after a heatwave smashed temperature records on Saturday.

Rural Fire Service (RFS) Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the situation was as "bad as it gets" and warned it was set to get worse on Sunday when winds are expected to sweep through scorched parts of mid to northern NSW.

"To put it simply [the conditions] are off the old scale," he said. "It is without precedent in NSW".

Commissioner Fitzsimmons said "catastrophic" fire ratings had been issued only once before in NSW - in 2013 - since national standardised ratings were introduced in 2009. Sunday's catastrophic fire rating will stretch from Dubbo to Coonabarabran to Port Stephens, affecting the Central Ranges, North Western NSW and the Greater Hunter.
A former Tory minister who helped bring about same-sex marriage in Britain has a warning for conservatives in the Turnbull government: same-sex marriage cannot be ignored, and it may even be good for you.

Nick Herbert, who led the "Freedom to Marry" campaign in Britain, is in Australia to support the Australian 4 Equality campaign and will make the case directly to MPs in Canberra next week as the Coalition prepares for an internal fight on same-sex marriage.

Former British prime minister David Cameron legalised same-sex marriage in 2013 after famously declaring: "I don't support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I'm a Conservative."

Speaking exclusively to Fairfax Media, Mr Herbert said the issue was divisive in the Cameron government at the time but same-sex marriage was universally accepted - including by conservative MPs - once it was made law.
A New York City museum has shut down an exhibit protesting US President Donald Trump co-created by actor Shia LaBeouf, saying the installation titled "HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US" had triggered threats of violence and endangered public safety.

LaBeouf and two artists had set up a live-streaming camera outside the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens on January 20, the day that Trump was inaugurated, and encouraged members of the public to repeat "he will not divide us" into the camera. The exhibit was intended to continue through Trump's four-year term.

In a statement on Friday, the museum said the camera had "created a serious and ongoing public safety hazard".

"While the installation began constructively, it deteriorated markedly after one of the artists was arrested on the site of the installation and ultimately necessitated this action," the museum said. "Over the course of the installation, there have been dozens of threats of violence and numerous arrests, such that police felt compelled to be stationed outside the installation 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), K Durga Prasad has declined a farewell parade being planned for his retirement at the end of the month. This is, in his own words, keeping the 'convenience of the force in mind'.

By Jugal R Purohit: A step to ease some pressure from a vast body of stressed troops has been taken.

In what many have termed an 'unprecedented departure from an age-old norm', the Director General of the India's biggest central armed police force, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), K Durga Prasad has declined a farewell parade being planned for his retirement at the end of the month. This is, in his own words, keeping the 'convenience of the force in mind'.

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From being deployed for the conduct of elections to supporting counter-insurgency operations to aiding the police, the 239-battalion strong CRPF is among the most extensively deployed forces.

WHY NO FAREWELL PARADE

In his first reaction, K Durga Prasad, a 1981 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer said, "As such the CRPF is stretched. Then is the additional responsibility of ongoing elections. In this, a farewell parade would have meant that my personnel would be committed for an extended period to duties which are ceremonial in nature". Instead, "I visited my troops where they are, heard them and am trying to address their issues", he said. Travelling over weekends, clearing files till late in the evening in office and camping for night halts between troop locations is indeed a norm for the present DG. He asked his staff to arrange a simple Guard of Honour to mark the end of his career.

A shot from an older farewell parade. This one was for former DG CRPF Dilip Trivedi.

Durga Prasad enjoys the reputation of being a hands-on leader with his ear to the ground. From taking the Maoists head-on in united Andhra Pradesh as the leader of 'Greyhounds' force, he also held charge of the elite Special Protection Group (SPG) between November 2011 and November 2014. He also, as the Inspector General (IG), played a role in raising CRPF's own commando force, CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action). His choice, to many, reflects an acknowledgement of something being amiss.

Also read | Exclusive: CRPF working on mobile app for its 3 lakh jawans

A uniformed force functions on the principle of alternative posting for its personnel. From areas considered 'hard', personnel should be posted to areas considered 'soft'. This so that adequate rest, recuperation and training can be provided. However, forces like the CRPF have almost junked this principle. Rest, recuperation and training have been reduced merely to concepts on paper, say insiders. "From a 50 per cent divide into hard and soft areas, the CRPF is more than 80 per cent into hard areas. Where is the room for respite?", asked an informed source.

DURGA PRASAD'S MOVE WELCOMED

An officer of the CRPF, who has previously organised farewell parades termed Durga Prasad's decision a 'welcome move'. He recounted, "For about a month, nearly 1,000 troops pooled in from all across the country march up and down in practice for the farewell parade at the CRPF training academy near Gurugram. In comparison, a Guard of Honour will involve not more than 100 troops". DC Dey is a highly-regarded veteran, who retired as the Additional Director General of the CRPF. In his opinion, Durga Prasad's move deserves to be 'commended'. "Someone retiring as a DG definitely deserves a show. However, very few outside have an idea of how much stress the force personnel are under. When elections are around the corner, we cancel all leaves".

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On February 7, while replying to his fellow lawmakers, Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju laid out a statement. In it, he told how 20,618 uniformed personnel had opted out from the six central armed police forces since 2014. They had the option to serve. CRPF had the highest number among all the forces.

Also read | After jawan video tarnishes image, CRPF holds public hearing

Earlier, a Home Ministry study had found how between 2007 to September 2011, close to 50,000 members of these forces had done the same. Asked if the government had conducted a study to ascertain the cause behind the exodus, Rijiju replied in the negative. However, it did not stop Rijiju from declaring that most personnel left due to 'personal and domestic reasons' as well as 'to enjoy a static life'.

--- ENDS ---

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The boys club of radio has finally woken up and realised what women  both their and their advertiser's target market  want. It turns out they want more women.

Southern Cross Austereo is leading the charge of promoting more on-air female talent in 2017 with the introduction of "queen" blogger Constance Hall and the installation of comedian Em Rusciano as the new 2DayFM breakfast host.

Em Rusciano and Harley Breen have made a strong start on air at 2DayFM

Rusciano replaced Bachelorette star Sam Frost after she failed to win over listeners with banal stories of her relationship with now ex-boyfriend Sasha Mielczarek. It turns out taking pregnancy tests on air and whinging about tabloids who made you famous isn't what makes radio great anymore.

Rusciano brings to the station's marquee program all the razzle, dazzle and delight of her stage shows. She's the thinking women's crumpet who, in just a few weeks, has tackled issues of Donald Trump, domestic violence and Miranda Devine.
The girls  who are now six, four and two  all have iPads and we FaceTime, which they think is pretty cool. They always want to know where Mum is. Usually it's "Hi Mum, where are you?" "Mummy is in Melbourne" or "Mummy is in New Zealand this week". What I've learnt, as any good working parent would know, is that some times are really good times for us to talk, and some times, such as homework and reading time, are really inappropriate. Early mornings are usually good. I miss out on some things but I make it a rule that I don't miss out on everything. Sometimes I can't work on a particular day  not that other people need to know  because I am prioritising something for my children. When I am not here, Scott is on. When Scott is working, then my job is to do that role. I have a whiteboard filled with this stuff. And I have an amazing cleaner. I outsource chores wherever I can to support the lifestyle we live. And while I travel, there is also a benefit in that I'm often home as well. I love working  I am really good at it, actually  and so I manage both. My children are happy and secure and they get to do lots of interesting things because of my work.

I'm sure it might look a bit weird from the outside but I'm okay with that. And, most importantly, my husband and I are both okay with that. Socially, I'm not going to lie  sometimes it's just too much for some people to comprehend and of course I have had that. I cope with that by surrounding myself with like-minded people. But on a daily basis I think, "I've got this. This is great." SARAH HANSON-YOUNG Greens senator for South Australia

A lot of mums in this situation have to continue managing the logistics whether they're at home or away. I'm a single mum and I manage with the help of a number of different people  either my sister, the woman who helps nanny for my daughter, or her dad. Kora is nine now and we have been living this crazy fly-in, fly-out lifestyle between Adelaide and Canberra since she was born on the campaign trail in 2007. I've never known politics without juggling her, and she doesn't know what life is like without me juggling politics. I have lots of her photos and artwork here in my office in Canberra and it does send me a bit of a message that there is a real life going on. When she was very little, Kora used to fly with me everywhere. The flying back and forth from Canberra to Adelaide dropped off when she had to go to school, and so now she doesn't travel as much as she used to. I try and keep her routine, even though my schedule is anything but regular. Sometimes I'm away for a couple of days a week, sometimes for a week and I get back on the weekends. Other times I am away for two weeks at a time. Children can fly unaccompanied from the age of five and that was a huge relief. I can just get someone to put her on the plane and meet her at the airport.

I remember the first couple of solo flights. All the flight attendants were like, "Are you nervous, is this your first flight?" She just balled on in, took her own boarding pass. She knew exactly what seat she was in, she knew the drill! We FaceTime as much as possible, and it's just such a good way of being able to check in. I was a little bit reluctant to give Kora her own iPad but it has been a saving grace. It's so nice  she can call me when she wants and we can see each other and I can pick up on things. I think we mums are the worst at making ourselves feel guilty about things. I don't ever want anyone to think that it's easy or that I am some kind of supermum. There are days when it's crap, and days when I feel guilty, and days when I think, "I just want to be at home with her." And there are times when I actually haven't been able to get in touch with her, for whatever reason. I think most mums do the best job they can, and that a happy kid is the best indication that things are okay. ALISON BUTLER

Fleet management co-ordinator I've been working in mines in central Queensland for about 11 years. I met my partner Tessa eight years ago. She started in the mines and I was her truck trainer. That's a bit naughty, isn't it? We were together for about 18 months and then we talked about having a child and obviously we were both doing fi-fo  seven days on, seven off  and we finally decided to do IVF. So we pulled my egg out, fertilised it, and popped it into her. She had a baby, took 12 months maternity leave, and during that time we broke up.

We talked to the company we both worked for and they agreed to allow us to work back-to-back so that we could share custody of Lucas. And because we work back-to-back, we are never home at the same time really, unless we take holidays. Lucas has high-functioning autism. Going from one place to the next was a bit hard for him  we wanted to try and keep where he was living fairly routine and decided it was cheaper and easier to live in the same house. We fly out of Brisbane airport to Moranbah, which takes an hour and 40 minutes. It's not like the WA mines, where most people fly for four hours and are doing two weeks on, one week off, or three weeks on, one week off. We're pretty fortunate with our work hours, and with the fact that we earn good money and are able to do it. It is getting harder for Lucas to understand us going away. He doesn't like it when either of us goes, but we use FaceTime and spend a lot of time communicating with him. Toward the end of a week of being home with an ASD hyperactive child, you're kind of hanging to get back to work. By about day two at work you're like, "I miss him, let's go home again." It gets really hard midweek  I really start to pine to see him.
This was the most common response and the median  or middle  value for men, women, Generation X (age 35-54) and Generation Y (age 18-34). So $200 per couple is typical. But a few big spenders mean the average is much higher, at $315 per person. Men are even more likely to be big spenders, with an average budget of $386 compared with $268 for women. And there are more Millennials (Gen Y) willing to splash the cash than their cynical older cousins (that's me), spending $346 per person on average compared with $261 for Gen X. In 2016 the most common activities included a meal in a restaurant (51 per cent), a romantic night in (33 per cent), going to a movie (7 per cent) or a picnic (5 per cent). Pocketbook, a personal finance app that lets you track and categorise your spending, took a different approach, crunching through the actual transactions of 135,000 Australians.

Pocketbook looked at how much people spent on things that were likely to be Valentine related in the fortnight to February 14. This included jewellery, ticketing, activities, florists, restaurants, transport and movies. Men spent an average of $123 and women spent an average of $91 on such purchases during the two-week period, while the typical man spent $65 and the typical woman $55. Pocketbook's sample is much bigger than the Finder survey but less targeted, since it includes singles, couples who are dating or in a de facto relationship, and those who've been married more than five years. It's also worth noting that the Pocketbook customer base skews young with an average age of 25-30. The past two years saw flower purchases plummet, but Pocketbook's figures suggest this was because Valentine's Day fell on the weekend two years running.

I guess people have more time to do things on a weekend, rather than resorting to flowers as a stop gap after a busy day at work. If that hypothesis is right then flower sales will rebound this year, since Valentine's Day is on a Tuesday. Pocketbook also found the average spend is lower in years where Valentine's Day is on a weekday. Still, there is a longer term trend to the extravagant. For example, of the people who buy jewellery in the Valentine's fortnight, the average spend is now $220 rather than $160 four years ago. I appreciate that gifts can be a beautiful expression of love, but I can't help feeling there's something a bit gross about all this consumption. It's less than two months since Christmas when Australians spent an average of $539 on presents, according to Finder statistics. And we can't afford it  as a nation we collectively owe $52.46 billion on our credit cards or an average of $3149 per card.

There are so many other ways to show your love besides an avalanche of stuff. You could also shift your special time together to another date, and enjoy greater intimacy and choice and better prices. You can pick up a bargain on chocolate and flowers on the 15th. Celebrating another time is what we're doing. This Tuesday my husband and I have a special date to attend a parent information meeting at our children's school and then a farewell dinner for my aunt who is visiting from Scotland. Our wedding anniversary is just around the corner, so we'll make an occasion of that instead  with locally grown flowers. But, like King Canute, I know I'm powerless to hold back the Valen-tide.
Hugely successful Australian author Kate Morton has accused the top literary agent who kick-started her career of favouring her own interests and is seeking a refund of up to $2.8 million paid in commission.

Ms Morton, the author of five bestsellers including The Shifting Fog and The Lake House, has earned more than $17.3 million in royalties from her novels since she broke onto the literary scene in 2005.

Australian author Kate Morton and her agent Selwa Anthony are locked in a legal battle over $17.3 million in royalties. Photograph: James Brickwood. Credit:James Brickwood

But Ms Morton claims her long-time literary agent Selwa Anthony deprived her of further income by failing to get her the best publishing deal when she was an unpublished and inexperienced author.

Ms Anthony, who represents some of the biggest names in Australian popular fiction including Tara Moss, Belinda Alexander and Diane Armstrong, took legal action in the NSW Supreme Court after Ms Morton suddenly sacked her in December 2015 following a relationship spanning more than 10 years.
They say not to look too closely at how a sausage is made if you want to maintain an appetite.

But a Coles customer in Sydney couldn't overlook one unusually revolting ingredient in his pork and apple cider bangers: a live grub that emerged from inside one of the sausages.

To the astonishment and repulsion of Andrew Wood, the grub exited the sausage, he said, once the tray of six "Coles finest" Australian pork sausages went on the heat of the barbecue.

Mr Wood, 40, who bought his sausages from Coles in Lindfield on Sydney's north shore on Thursday, complained and has been offered a $7.50 refund by the supermarket chain, which he has not yet accepted.
Queenslanders using dating apps for no strings sex are being warned to protect themselves amid rising cases of sexually transmitted infections such as chlamydia and gonorrhoea.

Gonorrhoea notifications in the state increased by a staggering 32 per cent in 2016, while chlamydia cases rose by 7.5 per cent.

Queenslanders are being warned of the dangers of unprotected sex as figures reveal gonorrhoea notifications in the state increased by 32 per cent in 2016.

Those aged under 30 account for the majority of infections, which can cause long-term complications including infertility.

Dr Bill Boyd says STI transmission is entirely down to human behaviour and people need to think twice when using dating apps for hook-ups.
A man has been charged after another, aged 69, died after being assaulted at an Ipswich hotel on Saturday afternoon.

The man was taken to Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital after the incident at a Redbank Plains hotel on Saturday afternoon, but later died.

A 44-year-old man has been charged with one count of unlawful striking causing death and will appear in court on Monday.
"Mum, why don't you tuck us into bed? Why don't you hug and kiss us?"

Looking at her teenage daughter's face, Eva-Jo Edwards couldn't find an answer.

Stolen Generations survivor Eva-Jo Edwards Credit:LUIS ENRIQUE ASCUI

When she was five, she wanted to say, torches woke her in the dark of night.

Eva-Jo and her five siblings had been asleep at their home in Swan Hill. But strangers shone harsh lights into their sleepy faces, beams sweeping around the room.
The port is deep dark as the Cape Grant answers to skipper Allan Geraldene's touch on the controls and reverses out of its berth.

The sound of its engines, up here on the bridge, is a mere grumble.

Portland's tugboats in action in a giant ballet. Credit:Dean Koopman

It's illusory: below decks two great diesel motors, each with 12 cylinders and capable of producing 1400 horsepower, fairly bellow. Big funnels baffle the sound.

The Cape Grant's twin, the Cape Nelson, is sliding into the pre-dawn, too, under the command of Garry John. Work to be done.
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A Chinese middleman to VIP high-rollers at Crown, detained by the Chinese government in a crackdown on foreign casinos last year, has been revealed as a generous ALP donor.

Nine Dragons Club, owned by one of Crown's most lucrative private junket operators, Tian Di, donated $20,000 to the Victorian branch of the ALP in 2014-15. A further $26,700 was donated to the New South Wales branch and $6500 to the federal party in 2015-16, disclosures to the Australian Electoral Commission show.

Crown's planned tower is set to rank as Melbourne's tallest. Credit:Jessica Shapiro

In November last year, Fairfax Media revealed Mr Tian spent most nights at his "office", the ultra-VIP gaming salons on the top floor of James Packer's Crown Towers, until he travelled to mainland China and was detained by police as part of a crackdown on suspected violations of the country's strict gambling regulations.
DCW received complaints from women forced into prostitution and detained in beggar home after which Maliwal issued notices to Delhi Police and Foreigner Regional Registration Office.

By Arpan Rai: In another surprise visit to Delhi's beggar home, DCW chief Swati Maliwal has issued notices to Delhi Police and Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in connection with complaints regarding detention of foreign nationals at a beggar home.

DCW received complaints from a 20-year-old Nigerian woman who was forced into prostitution and a force-fully blacklisted Afghan widow detained in the beggar home.

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Nigerian national Maria (name changed) informed the Commission that she has been detained in the beggar home since January 17, 2017. "I was brought to India by another Nigerian lady who promised me employment. She instead, made me work as domestic help in her house. She even forced me into prostitution," Maria said.

To escape prostitution, Maria told DCW that she ran away from her employer's home to save herself. "I, however, failed as the woman, along with four other men, abducted me for seven days," she said.

Maria was handed over by her abductors to PS Uttam Nagar and then to Foreign Regional Registration Offices (FRRO).

ALSO READ | DCW notice to Delhi Police over CCTV camera installations, asks why Supreme Court order not implemented

In another case of detention, DCW received a complaint from a woman from Afghanistan for getting blacklisted by FRRO and being confined to the beggar home. "My husband was killed in Afghanistan in 2009 by the Taliban after which I had to come to India with my three children on a six-month visa. On the expiry of visa, I returned to Afghanistan but then Taliban took away one of my sons. I again came back to India. We have been living here since then on a permit from UNHCR which allows us to stay here till 2017," the woman told DCW chief.'

The woman and her sons have now been detained by the FRRO, citing that they have blacklisted the family. The family has been confined to the beggar home since January 17 of this year. "The woman has informed us that her children are enrolled in a school and their examinations are approaching. With the family being moved to beggar home, the kids will face troubling times ahead of their exams," DCW officials told Mail Today.

"There are several complaints received against the FRRO. It is nothing short of sad that they have failed to provide adequate information to the Commission till date. Lack of transparency in the working of the FRRO is not proper. We have issued notices and summons to FRRO and Delhi Police on the serious complaints of the women detainees of the beggar home," Swati Maliwal told Mail Today.

ALSO READ | Mentally disabled patients found naked, crawling in Delhi's Asha Kiran House by DCW

--- ENDS ---
Wild weather continues to lash much of WA's south as emergency services issue flood warnings and shut roads.

A map on the Bureau of Meteorology's radar system reveals a massive storm system stretching from Perth all the way south to Albany and east to Esperance and beyond.

Forecasters have issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the Central Wheat Belt and parts of the Gascoyne and Goldfields and a severe weather warning through parts of the Great Southern, South and South East Coastal districts.

Facebook and twitter have lit up with photographs and videos of rivers in flood and towns preparing for bad weather.
A fresh flood warning has been issued for people living on and around the Avon River and Mortlock River including Northam, Beverley, York and Toodyay.

Northam's Shire President Steven Pollard said the town had survived intact overnight with water levels high, but steady.

However he warned the worst could still be to come with forecasts predicting the rivers might not see their highest water levels until some time tonight, Saturday.

"Overnight conditions were unchanged with water levels still very high but not rising or dropping. The status quo remains very concerning," Mr Pollard said.
Washington: President Donald Trump pushed back on Saturday on assertions that the wall he wants built on the US border with Mexico would cost more than anticipated.

Mr Trump made his comments in two Twitter posts but did not say how he would bring down the cost of the wall.

Reuters on Thursday published details of an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security that estimated the price of a wall along the entire border at $US21.6 billion ($27 billion). During his presidential campaign Mr Trump had cited a $US12 billion ($16 billion) figure.
Emmanuel Macron, former French Economy Minister, founder and President of the political movement 'En Marche !' (On the move!). Credit:Chesnot "Seventy-eight days because our time has come and our will is on the march! Vive la Republique! Vive la France!" He raised both hands to a stamping, cheering, standing ovation. Campaign volunteers for Emmanuel Macron before the start of a campaign event in Paris. Credit:Bloomberg At the moment Macron is the man most likely to be France's next president.

To the left of him is Socialist Benoit Hamon, an unelectable utopian. To the right, Republican Francois Fillon, mired in a corruption scandal that might not even see him last to the May election. Further right, Front National populist Marine Le Pen is riding high but unpalatable to the majority. Conservative French presidential candidate Francois Fillon applauds while his wife Penelope looks on. Credit:Christophe Ena Macron's biggest problem is simple: he's a banker, and "no one likes bankers". And in the radical centre: Macron. Some call him the French Obama (one person I talked to called him the French Kevin Rudd).

Attendees wave flags and hold signs as Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Front, speaks in Lyon. Credit:Bloomberg Macron is the right man at the right time, and he cannot believe his luck. "This guy is a political UFO," says Philippe Marliere, professor of French politics at University College London. French National Front leader Marine Le Pen's support has risen to 27 per cent. Credit:AP "A Macron victory would transform the party politics and  the way French politics works. Certainly."

Macron was born to a comfortable, middle-class life in Amiens in northern France, son of medical professionals. As a child he would bury himself in books on grammar, history and geography. At his Jesuit private school he shone  and scandalised. At age 16 he fell in love with Brigitte Auziere, a French and drama teacher, married and 24 years his senior. They eventually married in 2007, by which time he was working in the Ministry of the Economy. The next year he left to work as an investment banker at Rothschilds, which made him a millionaire. In 2014 President Francois Hollande made Macron his economy minister. But he found the socialists an uncomfortable fit. Two years later he formed his "En Marche!" movement: socially and economically liberal, secular and pro-Europe. But from the start it had a whiff of a personality cult (note the initials). En Marche means literally "start walking", or more figuratively "on the move", with an echo of the "marchons'' bit of the French national anthem. Says Marliere: "Now we're going to walk to our bright future, it sort of conveys that kind of idea, but it's very vague." Nevertheless, it seems to be catching on.

"This man only two years ago was a completely unknown quantity," says Marliere. "It's still a mystery as to why he has succeeded in making the breakthrough he's got  of course, nothing is definite, let's remember it's a crazy election with lots of upsets. [But] now he's the clear favourite." Thanks to France's two-round presidential election, Le Pen is unlikely to be able to capitalise on Europe's right-wing populist surge. In the second round, conventional political theory says, the left and right combine against the National Front (FN), whoever the candidate. Polls currently predict Macron would rout Le Pen by a 2-1 margin. Marliere calls Macron a "populist from the centre". He uses the same rhetorical devices as the populists  he is apart from the political establishment, above the usual political divides, an outsider with new ideas and policies. "It's not an ideology or a program, it's more an attitude, a way of addressing people," Marliere says. He attracts young voters, reassures big business and appeals to France's large retired population.

Dr Rainbow Murray, a reader (associate professor) at Queen Mary University of London says the secret of Macron's success is simple: "He's filling this huge gap where the median voter lies. "He is a blank canvas on to which [voters] are projecting their own hopes and dreams, a bit like Barack Obama in 2008. I think a lot of people want something more moderate than what their respective parties are offering and Macron seems to be the best fit. "He's quite charismatic and good at pitching to an audience. He really knows how to mobilise a crowd. And he's also quite politically savvy  he's played every move very carefully, he's made sure to keep his campaign squeaky clean." There are more than two months to the election, more than enough time for Macron's star to fall. Murray says Macron's biggest problem is simple: he's a banker, and "no one likes bankers". There has been serious political science research on this: bankers score pretty much at the bottom of the pile of professions you can have if you want to be a professional politician.

Marliere predicts another problem could be hubris  "he will start believing too much in himself". "I think there are signs of it in certain rallies  he gets a bit carried away. I think some people are asking who is this guy, looking a bit more like a preacher than a standard French politician. The French like good orators  but don't get carried away." Another political insider, who has met Macron several times, echoes this concern. "There's a touch of the Kevin Rudd about him," they say. "He becomes a little hectoring. He is extraordinarily clever, no doubt, but he knows he's clever and that puts off some people. He emits this sense of 'I am the cleverest person in the room'." Then there is the more practical problem of where he will place his policies. His Lyon speech was thick with rhetoric such as "our project is to enable all French people to take their destiny in their own hands  not to speak in the name of the people but to work with the people, for the people". It was thin on actual policy. He has pledged to reveal more next month, later than his opponents. At that point, says Marliere, his centre-right economics could lose him a lot of support.

Explains Murray: "The left is suspicious of his overtures to the right, and vice versa. He risks turning people off every time he tries to talk to the opposite audience. Once he's got his manifesto out that will be 'make or break' for him. [He may] weave it all together in a coherent way, but if people can't make sense of it or find too many holes to pick then they might start wandering off." The least likely problem is a personal scandal, despite some recent rumours about his sexuality, and despite the way his current relationship began. The French just don't care much. "They could make allegations tomorrow that he's having orgies or he's sleeping with men. I think the French would take that with a pinch of salt," says Marliere. And if it was an affair with another woman "they absolutely couldn't care less because they assume that all politicians have affairs". Murray says the story behind Macron's marriage, in France, doesn't hurt him. "You would think it wouldn't go down well, would you?  the teacher dating her student kind of smacks of paedophilia. But it's never been framed that way in France. In fact some people have said it shows that he's open minded and willing to think outside the box and be unconventional. If anything it garnered him respect."

In France financial, rather than personal impropriety hurts politicians. Marliere agrees  the age gap and the origin story would only shock bigots, or "very old people". However Macron's youth could hurt in a more basic way: when they come to the ballot box, the French might think twice about giving the presidency of a nuclear power to a man not yet 40. A Paris political insider disagrees. He says Macron projects the image of a person comfortable and capable in moving around the capitals of the world. He says Macron's downfall is more likely to come, if it does, from that of his rival, Francois Fillon. If Fillon is forced to withdraw then his place could be filled by centre-rightist Alain Juppe, who could tempt Macron supporters over to a more familiar and comfortable candidate.
Tripoli: Mayors from Libya's desert south to its northern shores fear a deal between Tripoli and Rome to fund migrant holding centres in this north African country will simply shift Europe's migration crisis onto Libyan soil.

The Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy has become the main crossing point for asylum seekers and economic migrants seeking a better life in Europe. Last year, Italy recorded its record number of arrivals and many migrants drowned at sea.

Migrants and refugees wait to be helped by members of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, as they crowd aboard a rubber boat in the Mediterranean north of Sabratha, Libya last week. Credit:AP

The deal foresees European Union money for holding centres in towns and cities along the main human trafficking routes criss-crossing Libya, as well as training and equipment to fight the smugglers.

But Libyan mayors are not happy with the deal.
Washington: Funny thing, reality. Donald Trump promised to be a hairy-chested president, who would shirt front all who stood in his way  but just as the courts have brought to heel on the legality of his migration crackdown, foreign policy experts have him turning somersaults on China, Iran and Israel.

It's not as though former White House novices have not had to skip a step to get into line with the real world. But Trump was so in the face of his opponents, that his volte-faces are historically spectacular.

For all his tweeted anger and contempt for the response of the courts to his migration crackdown, the president has all but conceded that his team screwed up, with him now threatening to issue a complete new executive order to block refugees and migrants from some countries. But it would have to be a different order, which is to say that the White House now gets it that the first was a dud.

Trump aides say that all options are on the table, including taking the first, contested travel ban to the Supreme Court. That would be a gamble because in the on-going absence of the ninth member of the court, the current ideological split is 4-4 and were the judges to split in that fashion, the result would be to leave the current court-enforced freeze of the ban in place.
A cruise ship that lost power en route from Australia to New Zealand, ruining holiday plans for more than 2000 travellers, has moored in Melbourne for repairs.

The Norwegian Star departed from Sydney on February 6, en route to Auckland, but suffered a technical malfunction on Friday, leaving it adrift off the Victorian coast.

The ship was slowly towed to Melbourne harbour by tugs on Saturday evening, and moored in the early hours of Sunday morning.
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PHILIPSBURG:--- The Methodist Church on the island (St. Maarten/St. Martin) in collaboration with the Mens Work Commission is observing its annual Mens Week, from February 19th through February 26th, 2017. It is an exciting time, not only for the men of the church but for the Methodist community in general as the Methodist Church of St. Marten/St. Martin celebrates 200 years of Methodism.

The week begins with an opening service to be held at the Tabernacle Methodist Church in French Quarter on Sunday, 19th February at 5.30 p.m. The Preacher for this service will be the Rev. Denis Baptiste. On Monday, 20th February there will be a lecture giving by the well-known Physician of the island and lecturer at the American Caribbean School of Medicine, Dr. Albert van der Waag, at the Philipsburg Methodist Church beginning at 7.30 p.m. From Wednesday through Friday, beginning at 7.30 nightly, there will be a series of revival services at the Philipsburg Methodist Church. The Preacher at these Services will be Pastor Robert Wright from the BVI.

On Saturday, 25th February there is a retreat for all men at the Ebenezer Methodist Church in Marigot from 8.30 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. The facilitator will be the Rev. Joseph R. Lloyd from Anguilla. Sunday, 26th February, all men are free to worship at their respective churches and the pulpits in the various churches will be manned by selected men of the communities, French and Dutch sides of the island. In the afternoon the Circuits rally will be held at the Philipsburg Chapel beginning at 5.30 p.m. The Preacher will be Pastor Robert Wright.

Outside of Mens week, but organized by the Methodists Men Work Commission, is our annual Senior Citizens Service which will take place this year on Sunday, March 5th, at the Philipsburg Methodist Church beginning at 4.30 p.m. It is in the spirit of respect and caring for the elders of our community that the Church, through the work of men reaches out to them.

In this way we give thanks to God for them, their faithful contributions in various ways for the building up of our island and our church.

As a church and people of God, we are happily and eagerly looking forward to welcoming all who will come to worship with us, seeking a closer relationship with God and more so, willing to surrender their lives to Christ.

We are using this medium to invite all our elected representatives, dignitaries and Service minded men and women, such as the Lions Clubs and Rotarians and others from both Dutch and French sides to come and worship with us at all the special services mentioned herein.
GREAT BAY (DCOMM):--- Ministry of Public Housing, Environment, Spatial Development and Infrastructure (Ministry VROMI), announces that there will be a road closure on Arch road from St. Maarten Cable TV up to the entrance of the St. Maarten Zoo.

The area where the road repair works will be carried out is a section of Arch road, section of Madame Estate/Paradise Island road/Watling Island road.

The road closure will take place from February 12 up to and including February 17. Road repair works will be carried out between 8.00pm and 5.00am and will entail milling, excavation of the road and recapping.

The contractor responsible is Windward Roads.

Ministry VROMI apologizes for any inconveniences this may cause.
In November 2015, Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of the Breitbart News Network, a far-right news and opinion site. In the course of the conversation, Bannon made the startling assertion that Silicon Valley has far too many Asian CEOs. An ominous portent of things to come? It certainly seems so today.

Fast-forward to 2017: Trump is the president of the United States, and Bannon, who has been described as a white supremacist, is his all-powerful advisor. Add to this the fact that soon after coming to office, Trump issued a highly-charged and controversial executive order-which had Bannon's fingerprints all over it-banning citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from all over the world from entering the US. A federal judge in Seattle has since blocked the travel ban. Regardless, Trump is determined to get it passed.

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Given this recent and not-so-recent history, Indian and American firms that have benefitted from the H1B visa programme are now wracked with anxiety following reports that Trump has another executive order in the works, one that would place severe restrictions on hiring foreign workers. A leaked draft of the order shows that the Trump administration wants to reduce legal immigration to the US. The order directs the secretary of the department of homeland security to promulgate a regulation that would "restore the integrity of employment-based non-immigrant worker programmes" and "consider ways" to amend the H1B programme so that it is "more efficient and ensure that beneficiaries of the programme are the best and the brightest".

"With this executive order, President Trump will help fulfil several campaign promises by aligning immigration policies with the national interest and ensuring that officials administer our laws in a manner that prioritises the interests of American workers and-to the maximum degree possible-the wages and well-being of those workers," the draft states.

Sheela Murthy, an immigration attorney based in Owings Mills, Maryland, has been inundated with inquiries from people worried about the Trump administration's immigration agenda. "It is freaking out a lot of consulting companies and businesses that use H1B workers," says Murthy. Close to 70 per cent of the H1B visas, currently capped at 65,000 a year by the US Congress, are snapped up by Indian workers.

"The text of the leaked draft suggests that the administration believes that the H1B and other employment-based immigrant programmes have lost their integrity. [This] is very troubling in and of itself because it shows an incredible bias," Murthy adds. "They want recommendations to make US immigration policy better serve the national interest-meaning it is not serving our national interest right now."

The sentiment reflected in the draft echoed Bannon's comments in his interview with Trump. Referring to those comments on Asian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, Murthy says: "Frankly, it shows racist tendencies. It is very troubling. This is not what this country is all about."

But racism is not the primary driver of visa reform, at least not for everyone. The H1B visa programme has for long been criticised as a tool used by US and foreign firms to exploit foreign workers who often receive low wages and few benefits. Employers argue that the visas are important because they allow foreign workers to fill skill gaps in the American workforce. For years, US lawmakers have discussed visa reform. Now, with Trump vowing 'America First', and pledging to crack down on the existing visa regime, lawmakers are sensing an opportunity for change.

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"Restricting H1B is not a new topic, and fits in well with President Trump's agenda of restricting channels to hire non-American workers," says Richard M. Rossow, the Wadhwani Chair in US India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

A slew of legislation related to H1B visa reform is in the works in the US Congress. Chuck Grassley, a senator from Iowa, who is chairman of the US Senate's Judiciary Committee, and Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from the state of Illinois, are long-time advocates of H1B visa reform. They have reintroduced a bill, first introduced in 2007, which would prohibit companies with more than 50 employees, of which at least half are H1B or L1 visa holders, from hiring additional H1B employees, and prohibit the replacement of American workers by H1B or L1 visa holders.

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"Congress created these programmes to complement America's high-skilled workforce, not replace it," says Grassley, referring to the H1B and L1 visa programmes. "Unfortunately, some companies are trying to exploit the programmes by cutting American workers for cheaper labour. We need programmes dedicated to putting American workers first."

Representative Darrel Issa, a California Republican, has introduced a bill that he hopes will reduce the chances that American workers will lose their jobs to cheap foreign labour because it would raise the salary requirement for H1B visa holders to $100,000, up from the current $60,000 annual wage. Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, who represents Silicon Valley in the US Congress, has introduced a bill under which employers who pay as much as up to three times the prevailing wage would get first preference to hire workers through the H1B visa programme.

"From an employer's point of view, one of the big issues is whether the minimum salary is going to be raised for H1B workers," says Murthy. Rossow says he is certain that Indian technology firms are concerned about possible restrictions on the use, and the cost, of H1B visas. He contends there are only three steps that these technology firms can take: "To either adapt by doing more of the work in India; to comply and hire a larger percentage of American workers for their US operations; or to try to change the rules through advocacy."

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Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro are among the major technology firms that have benefitted from outsourcing. On January 31, shares of these companies took a nosedive on news that Trump was planning changes to the H1B visa system."TCS does not participate in such industry speculation," Benjamin Trounson, head of North America corporate communications for the company, said in response to questions from india today. Similarly, a spokeswoman for Infosys, Sarah Vanita Gideon, said the company would not comment on the issue at this time. Spokespersons for Wipro did not respond to a request for comment.

Foreign workers on H1B visas play a critical role in the US economy. "Technology firms regularly report a dearth of US workers for high-end jobs. If this limits their ability to do business and win contracts, clearly we need to make sure an alternative channel, such as immigration, will allow for businesses to thrive," Rossow says. "Immigrants have made powerful contributions to the American economy and society through their innovations; this pipeline must also be maintained," he says, while adding, "I also realise that no programme is perfect, and I'm sure there are helpful adjustments that can be made."

For now, employers and foreign workers may find solace in the knowledge that Trump has not signed the executive order related to the visa programme. The draft that has circulated in the press could still be modified before it gets to his desk. The White House also cannot change the law without Congress support, but it could issue regulations on laws that already exist, says Murthy. As regards the language of the draft order, she adds, "that seems to portend a future that is not very bright".

--- ENDS ---
COLOMBIA/PHILIPSBURG:--- On Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister William Marlin paid a visit to a number of patients from Sint Maarten who are in Cali Colombia. The Prime Minister himself is there for a medical checkup.

The Prime Minister dropped in on the patients who are staying at the Bela Nova Hotel, made up of a complex of four buildings totaling some 88 rooms.

Marlin said the patients were all full of praise for the facilities where they were staying and also very impressed with the care at the medical facilities.

Some patients are there for several months already and others for a couple of weeks now.

The Prime Minister was given a tour of the facilities by owner, Lina, who was very proud of her services she provides. She said she wanted to create a home environment for the patients and every door has a sign saying: Welcome Home.

To make her guests even more comfortable, she has equipped building 4, the newest of the units with 28 rooms on 6 floors, with a small gym with three machines, a room where they can get a massage. On the bottom floor the patients get together for Zumba classes.

All apartments are equipped with a kitchen, one or two bedrooms, and a small living area.

There are presently some 40 plus patients staying at the Bela Nova complex alone.

Prime Minister said he was pleased to meet Miss. Lelia Brown who is recovering from her bout with cancer.

He also already contacted the SZV about a patient who has been there now for more than a year and according to her brother who is there with her she has been released for some time now but no arrangements have been made by SZV for her return.

There was one patient who had surgery and complained about having to wait no less than 9 days before a nurse came to change the bandage.

Overall the patients were in high spirits and were a happy group of Medical Tourist enjoying Cali while there. It sort of gave me a glimpse of what Sint Maarten could soon mean to others when our own new medical facilities have been built.
When photography was invented in France in the 1820s, some artists predicted  even feared  that it would in time take the place of painting. That didnt happen, but photographers around the world consistently have recorded images that reveal...
Everything you need to know about the Irish vs. No. 5 Clemson at Notre Dame Stadium Saturday night

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By Nolan Pinto: This news couldn't have come at a better time than this. On February 14, the day Aero India 2017 begins, the IAF will be the proud owner of its very own indigenous all-weather airborne early warning and control system popularly known as the AEW&C.

This aerial platform is meant to be a force multiplier that will guide the IAF's fighter aircraft during combat. It will have the capability to detect incoming fighters, cruise missiles and even drones from both Pakistan and China.

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For Dr. Christopher, Chairman, DRDO it will be a fine day indeed. He was earlier the Programme Director (airborne early warning and control system) and Director, Centre for Air-Borne Systems in the DRDO before being elevated to the topmost post.

Speaking exclusively to India Today, he said that his association with the early warning system programme goes back to 1985 when it all started. He also had a narrow escape having flown on the same test aircraft as a flight engineer that crashed in January 1999. 'I flew on that same test aircraft, the previous sortie, the last but one sortie before it crashed,' he told India Today.

The indigenous AEW&C system has been developed by Bengaluru based CABS and integrated onto a Brazilian built Embraer-145 aircraft. It is equipped with a 240-degree coverage radar and can detect, identify and classify threats in the surveillance area and also act as a Command and Control Centre to support Air Defence operations.

Dr. CP Ramanarayanan, Director General - Aeronautical Systems (Aero) participated in the final trials of the AEW&C. 'I was onboard this flight in Jodhpur and it was so heartening to see all the functional performance requirements were met meticulously,' he says. According to him the users (IAF) observed that this was such a trial they have never undergone. So while the second AEW&C will be handed over to the IAF in a few months time, the third which was initially to be with CABS, will also be handed over to the IAF.

LOTS OF CATCHING UP TO DO

China today has more than 20 AWACS and Pakistan has 8 AWACS, India on the other hand has just this one AEW&C and 3 Phalcon systems. To play catch up, in March 2016, the Defence Acquisition Council cleared the building of 2 AWACS-India.

These systems will be much more powerful and capable than the AEW&C and will involve mounting an indigenous 360-degree coverage AESA radar on an Airbus A-330 jet. 'As far as the functionality is concerned, both are identical. However, the new one is much more capable with extended range and better angular coverage,' Dr. S Christopher says. The requirement of the IAF is for 8 AWACS-I aircraft.

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As of today, Dr. Christopher says the file will be moved to the Cabinet Committee on Security and they are hoping to secure clearance anytime soon with a developmental timeframe of close to 7 years.

Also read: IAF to get 'eye in the sky' to snoop on Pakistani and Chinese air force

--- ENDS ---
A two-year AIIMS study has revealed the differing opinions among doctors in the national Capital over mercy killing- - whether or not it should be allowed for terminally ill patients.

The Supreme Court in 2011 legalised passive euthanasia but later referred it to a constitution bench.

By Priyanka Sharma: The euthanasia debate has divided the city's men in white. A two-year AIIMS study has revealed the differing opinions among doctors in the national Capital over mercy killing- whether or not it should be allowed for terminally ill patients.

While oncologists are against the practice, most other doctors expressed strong support. Euthanasia is the termination of a very sick person's life in order to relieve them of their suffering.

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The Supreme Court in 2011 legalised passive euthanasia by means of the withdrawal of life support to patients in a permanent vegetative state. The decision was made as part of the verdict in a case involving Aruna Shanbaug - a sexual assault victim who remained in a coma for 42 years. The court later referred the issue to a constitution bench.

The Centre prepared a draft bill and invited public suggestions last year for authorising passive euthanasia. The internal AIIMS study interviewed doctors from 28 government and private hospitals. These include 50 oncologists, 50 haematologists, 50 psychiatrists, and 50 intensivists.

ALSO READ | Unable to afford cancer treatment, parents seek mercy killing for 4-year-old

The report that was also published in the Asian Journal of Oncology, noted, "Oncologists and haematologists are "against" the practice of any form euthanasia while psychiatrists and intensivists "supported passive euthanasia".

Medical experts say that worldwide only the Netherlands, Belgium, Colombia, and Luxembourg allow euthanasia.

Those who are against mercy killing may argue for the sanctity of life, while proponents of euthanasia rights emphasise alleviating suffering, and preserving bodily integrity, self-determination, and personal autonomy.

Dr Sheetal Singh from AIIMS who conducted the research under the guidance of Dr Shakti Gupta, head of hospital administration and medical superintendent at the institute, told Mail Today, "The study showed about 87 per cent oncologists and 82 per cent haematologists believe no action should be taken to induce death even if death is preferable to life in a terminally ill patients, whereas 74 per cent psychiatrists and 63 per cent intensivists disagree with the same."

ALSO READ | New euthanasia bill may give terminally ill patients right to die by rejecting treatment

"80 per cent of psychiatrists, 77per cent of intensivists were of the opinion that a person with a terminal and painful disease should have the right to refuse/reject life-sustaining/support treatment. However, 67per cent oncologists and 61per cent haematologists opposed the same," said one of the authors, Dr DK Sharma.

While passive euthanasia entails the withholding of common treatments, such as antibiotics, necessary for the continuance of life, active euthanasia involve the use of lethal substances or forces, such as administering a lethal injection, to kill.

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"There should be strong protocol and it should not be affected by the thought process of psychiatrists and his/her personality traits. There should be robust mechanism and understanding among psychiatrists even if passive euthanasia is followed," said Dr Nand Kumar, psychiatrist at AIIMS.

According to Dr Gupta, the attitude of doctors towards various components of euthanasia varies with their training and their experience of caring for terminally ill patients.

ALSO READ | Faced with acute poverty, paralysed Bengal youth seeks euthanasia

--- ENDS ---
By Sneha Agrawal: Dinesh Sharma, an avid social media user, fell in a honeytrap and lost Rs 1.10 lakh. Although he lodged a complaint with police, he knows at the back of his mind that the money is all but gone.

The 41-year-old senior manager in a telecom company befriended a girl named Neha Bajaj who claimed to be based in London. Both developed a close relationship.

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"We started talking as friends. Soon, we exchanged text messages. She told me that as her father is an Indian, she wanted to come to India on a long break. I decided to help her when she told me she knows nobody in India and would need help with booking hotels," Sharma told Mail Today. "While discussing her vacation plans, she said she would send gifts for me as I have been kind to her," he added.

On November 6, the woman gave Sharma details of the courier, including receipts and the reference number.

ALSO READ | ISI laying honeytraps on Facebook and Twitter to snare Indian defence personnel

"The list included things like teddy bear, laptop, watch and some money in pounds. She told me she had sent them through a diplomatic courier service and I will have to pay for the clearance in Indian currency," he said.

Sharma said since the beginning of the conversation, he was asked details about his salary and other financial details. "The day the status of the parcel mentioned 'arrived in India', I received a call from the company asking me to pay Rs 23,600 for custom clearance. I was told the parcel is in Mumbai. I paid the amount in the given bank account. The same day, demonetisation was announced and I was told they are not able to withdraw cash from the account due to the same and the amount has to be paid in cash and will take some time for clearance," the FIR stated.

Sharma said, "After a while, I was asked to Rs 85,000 for some registration without which the package would not be delivered. Meanwhile, Neha kept calling me and emotionally blackmailed asking me to speed up the procedure."

ALSO READ | Delhi honey trap: Gang extorted money after luring men to dating sites

"Eventually, she started building pressure on me to make the payments. Somehow, I got into the trap and paid the amount. They later said that since they did not get the amount and norms have also become strict, they would send the package to the Royal Bank of Scotland which would convert the pounds in rupees," he said. It was then that Sharma grew suspicious.

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"My suspicion got stronger when they asked for Rs 2 lakh to convert the currency. I decided to get in touch with bank officials who explained it's a fraud," he said.

SI Manish Yadav, the investigating officer, told Mail Today, "Everyday, Delhi sees a number of such cases. Investigation is on, but so far, we don't have any lead."

ALSO READ | Indian intel unearths ISI's social media honey trap designed to snare defence personnel

--- ENDS ---
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Artist's impression of the Breakthrough Starshot project arriving at the Earth-like planet Proxima Centauri b. You can see a representation of laser beams emanating from the corners of this sail.

Last year, a consortium led by billionaire Yuri Milner and physicist Stephen Hawking announced a plan to get to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to Earth. Called the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, the plan is to send ultra-light "nanoprobes" to the system in 20 years by accelerating them to 20 percent of the speed of light using powerful lasers.

A group of German researchers  while fully supportive of the initiative  worried that without an important tweak, however, the science might suffer. One of these nanoprobes would be able to dash the Earth-moon distance in just six seconds at that speed. With this in mind, the researchers devised some ideas about how to slow the nanoprobes down so they can carry out some observations when they arrive at their destination (rather than zipping through the system at high speed), potentially spotting Proxima Centauri b, a possible habitable planet that orbits Alpha Centauri's oddball red dwarf sibling, Proxima Centauri.

"The solution is for the probe's sail to be redeployed upon arrival so that the spacecraft would be optimally decelerated by the incoming radiation from the stars in the Alpha Centauri system," said scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, led by Rene Heller, in a statement.

"During the approach to Alpha Centauri, the braking force would increase," they added. "The stronger the braking force, the more effectively the spacecraft's speed can be reduced upon arrival. Vice versa, the same physics could be used to accelerate the sail at departure from the solar system, using the sun as a photon cannon."

RELATED: Is Hawking's Interstellar 'Starshot' Possible?

The plan is for the spacecraft to go to the star Alpha Centauri A at a distance of about four million kilometers, moving at about 4.6 percent the speed of light. Any higher and the probe would go right past the star, rather than being caught in the star's gravitational field.

If the probe goes in at just the right speed and just the right place, the spacecraft would be attracted by the star's gravitational field and could be swung around the star, similar to how spacecraft in our solar system sometimes move between planets. One option here would be to keep the spacecraft in the Alpha Centauri A system to look at its planets, but the scientists would prefer to also include Alpha Centauri B and Proxima Centauri, the other two stars in the system.

"The sail could be configured so that the stellar pressure from star A brakes and deflects the probe toward Alpha Centauri B, where it would arrive after just a few days. The sail would then be slowed again and catapulted towards Proxima Centauri, where it would arrive after another 46 years  about 140 years after its launch from Earth."

RELATED: Hawking Backs Project to Launch Probe to Nearby Star

The astronomers said they will discuss their ideas with the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative to see if this mission extension could be included  that is, if Breakthrough ever makes it to space at all. The mission is at a very early stage right now and is not guaranteed to fly. The astronomers, for their part, said that they are optimistic that Breakthrough could fly successfully eventually.

"Many great visions in the history of mankind had to struggle with seemingly insurmountable obstacles," Heller said. "We could soon be entering an era in which humans can leave their own star system to explore exoplanets using fly-by missions."

Originally published on Seeker.
Scientists will hunt for iron meteorites just below the surface of the ice in Antarctica. Here, a view of West Antarctica, as captured from above on Oct. 29, 2014.

There are meteorites missing in Antarctica, and a group of British researchers plans to go find them.

The icy continent is a heaven for meteorite hunters, in part because flowing ice concentrates the space rocks in particular locations. But only about 0.7 percent of the meteorites found in Antarctica are iron-based, compared with 5.5 percent of the meteorites found around the rest of the globe.

"There's this huge underrepresentation of iron meteorites," said Geoffrey Evatt, an applied mathematician who specializes in ice-rock interactions at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. Evatt and his colleagues think they know where these metallic meteorites are, and they're now putting together a mission to bring modified land-mine-sweeping equipment to the middle of nowhere, Antarctica, to find them. [Gallery: Images of Meteorites from Around the World]

Metallic meteorites

Around 90 percent of the meteorites that land on Earth are chondrites, which, according to the Armagh Planetarium, are nonmetallic, stony masses that cooled from droplets created when tiny planets smashed into each other in the early solar system. Iron meteorites, on the other hand, are metallic remnants of the cores of these small planets. Studying both kinds of meteorites can reveal information about the formation of the solar system.

Evatt and his colleagues aren't meteorite experts, and they had no idea that Antarctica's cache of space rocks was mysteriously low in iron-based samples. During a glaciology workshop in 2012, a "blue-sky" discussion about how rocks and ice interact led them to do some theorizing about meteorites, Evatt told Live Science.

Meteorites cluster in Antarctica because of the dynamics of the ice sheet: When a space rock falls on the continent, it gets covered with snow and becomes one with the ice. Often, the ice flows directly to the sea. But some Antarctic ice gets hung up on the Transantarctic Mountain Chain, crashing against the rock like a slow-motion wave. The upward motion of the ice brings buried meteorites to the surface, where wind and sun expose them by brushing away the top layer of snow and ice.

These spots are called meteor stranding zones, or blue-ice zones, and they make it easy for researchers to pluck space rocks right off the surface. But Evatt and his glaciologist and mathematician colleagues figured that iron meteorites, as they got close to the surface, might capture the sun's heat and transfer it to the ice around them, melting that ice and falling back downward. It's a bit like walking the wrong way on an escalator: The overall motion of the ice is up, but the meteorites never quite make it to the top.

Mission planning

After discussing the possibility of missing meteorites amongst themselves, Evatt and his colleagues got in touch with meteorite experts and planetary scientists and found out that their blue-sky theorizing was based on fact: Iron-based meteorites really are underrepresented in Antarctic collections.

A U.S. Geological Survey map of Antarctica showing meteorite collection sites. Green stars indicate spots where meteorites have been recovered. The red square indicates the area where a new British Antarctic Survey and University of Manchester expedition may find potential new meteorite stranding zones (and buried iron-rich meteorites). (Image credit: USGS and the Meteoritical Society Meteoritical Bulletin Database)

Intrigued, Evatt and his colleagues tested their ice-melting-meteorite hypothesis in a laboratory setting with real meteorite samples embedded in chunks of ice and published their findings last year in the journal Nature Communications (opens in new tab).

In December, the team received a grant from the Leverhulme Trust to put their hypothesis to the test in the field. The researchers will visit Antarctica in late 2018 into 2019 to survey for meteorite zones in previously unexplored areas of the Transantarctic Mountains. Most meteorite hunts have taken place on the side of the mountain chain that's near the U.S. McMurdo research station, on the Ross Sea side of the continent, Evatt said. The new mission will explore areas on the other end of the mountain chain, in the Shackleton, Pensacola and Argentina ranges, Evatt said. The region is within the purview of the British research station Halley VI, a base built on hydraulic legs so that it can be moved as the Brunt Ice Shelf upon which it sits crumbles.

The British Antarctic Survey is helping with logistics, Evatt said, which will include multiple leapfrogging flights to the mountain ranges to set fuel and supply depots. Meanwhile, University of Manchester researchers who normally specialize in land-mine clearance are working to modify their metal-detecting equipment to hunt for space rocks.

"Our meteorites are so sparsely spaced that we can't have any false negatives," said Evatt, meaning that the researchers don't want to miss any meteorites that are present.

The team will test its equipment on Arctic ice in Svalbard, Norway, in the spring of 2017, Evatt said. The goal of the late-2018 trip to Antarctica will largely be to survey for meteorite stranding zones on the surface, as well as to conduct further equipment testing. The real hunt for iron meteorites will start in late 2019 and early 2020, when the researchers will spend months camped far from any permanent base.

"It's going to be a bit wild, to say the least," Evatt said.

Original article on Live Science.
SpaceX is preparing to launch its Falcon 9 rocket from the historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has gone vertical at NASA's historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) for the first time.

The California-based company is getting ready for a planned Feb. 18 liftoff from LC-39A, which is part of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Falcon 9 will blast SpaceX's robotic Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA, if all goes according to plan.

Over the years, Apollo moon missions and space shuttles lifted off from LC-39A. SpaceX signed a 20-year lease for the pad in 2014 and, after making some modifications, is now ready to start using it.

(opens in new tab) A photo posted by on

"This is the same launch pad used by the Saturn V rocket that first took people to the moon in 1969. We are honored to be allowed to use it," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk posted on Instagram Friday (Feb. 10), along with a photo of the Falcon 9 at LC-39A.

The Feb. 18 launch will kick off SpaceX's 10th ISS resupply mission, during which Dragon will deliver more than 5,500 lbs. (2,500 kg) of scientific hardware and other cargo to the orbiting lab.

SpaceX plans to launch Falcon Heavy rockets as well as Falcon 9s from LC-39A. The Falcon Heavy is still in development; the booster's first flight should come sometime this year, Musk has said.

The last launch from LC-39A occurred in July 2011, when the orbiter Atlantis lifted off on the last-ever mission of NASA's space shuttle program.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Chris Cook captured this photo of the moon near maximum penumbral lunar eclipse on Feb. 10, 2017 from his observatory in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

A penumbral lunar eclipse and a bright green comet gave skywatchers across the globe a double treat Friday night (Feb. 10) and early into Saturday morning.

The full Snow Moon spent over four hours gliding through Earth's outer shadow, or the penumbra, causing a large portion of the moon to appear darker than usual. Meanwhile, Comet 45P swooped in for its closest approach. As the comet glowed at its maximum brightness, skywatchers could get a rare glimpse of the beautiful, green comet with binoculars and telescopes. You can see a video of Comet 45P here, courtesy of the Slooh Community Observatory.

Slooh shared live telescope views of both the Snow Moon eclipse and Comet 45P from Chile and the Canary Islands while astrophotographers around the world captured the celestial events on camera. Here are some of the most amazing images shared by skywatchers. [See more photos of the Snow Moon eclipse & Comet 45P]

Chris Cook captured this photo of the moon near maximum penumbral lunar eclipse on Feb. 10, 2017 from his observatory in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. (Image credit: Chris Cook Photography www.cookphoto.com

Astrophotographer Chris Cook watched the Snow Moon eclipse from his observatory in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In his telescope image, which was taken close to the eclipse's peak, you can see Earth's penumbral shadow encroaching on the moon's upper limb.

"Visually, the darkening of the moon by the penumbral shadow was easily detected," Cook told Space.com. "Conditions were quite appropriate for the Snow Moon eclipse as we had received 10 inches of snow the day before."

Because the moon does not enter the dark middle of Earth's shadow (called the umbra) during a penumbral eclipse, the moon only appears to darken slightly. During Friday's eclipse, the upper portion of the moon grew noticeably darker while the lower portion appeared to glow as usual. [Infographic: How Lunar Eclipses Work]

This comparison image of the Snow Moon penumbral lunar eclipse captured by the Slooh Community Observatory on Feb. 10, 2017 shows how much of the moon was darkened during the relatively minor eclipse. The image was taken by a Slooh.com telescope in Spain's Canary Islands. (Image credit: Slooh.com

Slooh kept its cameras pointed at the moon throughout the entire 4 hour-long eclipse. While the eclipse may not have been obvious at a glance to the casual observer, Slooh's telescope views from before and during eclipse show a distinct difference that is pretty impressive for a penumbral eclipse.

People often claim that penumbral lunar eclipses are not even worth watching, because the effect is too subtle to see. But Slooh's side-by-side comparison shows how remarkably visible this eclipse was. Because the moon ventured farther into the penumbra than with most of these kinds of eclipses, the shadow reached across 70 percent of the moon's face, making for an exceptional view.

This animated view of the Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova is made of multiple observations my members of the Slooh Community Observatory telescope service on Feb. 8, 2017 just ahead of the comet's closest approach to Earth on Feb. 10. (Image credit: Slooh.com

After the lunar eclipse ended, Slooh began streaming live views of Comet 45P//Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova as it whizzed by Earth. The comet's closest approach happened early Saturday morning (Feb. 11) at about 3 a.m. EST (0800 GMT). The glowing, green spectacle passed 7.4 million miles (12 million kilometers) by Earth, which is closer than any comet has come in more than 30 years.

This image is the first in a three-image series of the Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova taken by Slooh Community Observatory telescopes by members on Feb. 8, 2017, just two days ahead of the comet's closest approach to Earth on Feb. 10. (Image credit: Slooh.com

The bright green comet was visible to skywatchers using the aid of binoculars and telescopes, but it was too faint to see with the naked eye. As the comet makes its way away from Earth and farther out into the solar system, it can still be spotted (with stargazing equipment) for at least a few more days. You can track Comet 45P here.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
El Aaiun (occupied capital of the SADR), February 11, 2017 (SPS) - The Moroccan occupation has continued to expel international journalists and observers as part of its systematic campaign to avoid reporting the situation in the Occupied Territories of Western Sahara .

This Thursday and in flagrant violation of the international law the Moroccan police expelled the Spanish photographer Bernat Millet from Western Sahara

Millet said that Moroccan police had detained him for three hours at night in a garrison in El-Aaiun, in the Moroccan city of Agadir, reported by EFE.

Millet intended to take photos with the intention of subsequently assembling a documentary about the life of the Saharawis.

Millet, a 30-year-old from Barcelona and free-lance photographer, according to the same source, entered Aaiun by road on Wednesday afternoon with normality, but later, after meeting with a group of Sahrawi activists, he was arrested, Interrogated and expelled from the Sahara.

In a statement on his Facebook account, the Spanish journalist said that he only wanted to confirm the situation that the Sahrawis live under Moroccan occupation and stressed that he will not be the first nor the last of professionals "who are trying to do their work with the right to freedom of expression that is being repressed by the Moroccan government and police.SPS

125/090/TRA
Delhi Police's Special Cell arrested a fugitive criminal Pankaj, who was absconding since 2015, on Thursday from Anand Vihar.

By Anuj Mishra: Delhi Police's Special Cell arrested a fugitive criminal Pankaj, who was absconding since 2015, on Thursday from Anand Vihar.

The police recovered one. 32 pistol loaded with 6 live cartridges and 50 live cartridges of. 30 bore gun from the criminal.

He is a proclaimed offender in a murder case of registered with Karawal Nagar police station and is wanted in a number of cases of attempt to murder in the areas of East, North East and Shahdara Districts of Delhi.

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Acting on a tip-off, the team of Special Cell laid a trap at Shahdara - Bihari colony turn, main road opposite Kanti Nagar and arrested him.

Pankaj along with his associates Sandeep, Rahul and Chetram was first arrested in a murder case when they murdered a staff member of a bar in Karkardooma area.

--- ENDS ---
STRATFORD - A pair of state legislators want to ban fishermen from harvesting horseshoe crab along the towns shoreline to protect a species some believe is struggling in Long Island Sound.

This is an adaptable species that has been around for 300 million for years, said state Rep. Joe Gresko, D-Stratford. They just need a little assistance.

Gresko, a co-sponsor of a bill before the General Assembly that would ban crab harvesting only within Stratfords borders, said the legislation is backed by research from Sacred Heart Universitys biology department that shows dangerously low breeding rates for the crab.

But Robert Klee, commissioner of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, came out against the bill last week, telling the legislatures environment committee the states crab population is stable and a Stratford ban is not needed.

There is nothing unique about the shoreline of Stratford in terms of horseshoe crab abundance or breeding success that warrants a special designation, Klee said.

Gresko pointed out that horseshoe crabs provide food for birds, and said considerable money and effort resulted in a new bird sanctuary at Stratford Point. What can it hurt? he said of the proposed ban, which is also sponsored by state Rep. Ben McGorty, R-Shelton.

Often referred to as living fossils, horseshoe crab are among the oldest species on Earth, dating back 445 million years. Although more than 48,000 of the spiked-tailed, U-shaped creatures are harvested annually in Connecticut for use as bait, researchers are also using their blood, extracted without harming the crab, to test vaccines.

Collapsing crab

Jennifer H. Mattei, a Sacred Heart University biology professor, said the population of Limulus Polyphemus, or horseshoe crab, is suffering in Long Island Sound, based on studies by the university.

We have found that the adult spawning population on the beaches of Connecticut to be very low compared to numbers found in the Mid-Atlantic states, Mattei told the General Assemblys environment committee last week.

She noted that in Delaware Bay one spawning female is found per square meter, on average, while the average density of spawning females on Milford Point Beach is several orders of magnitude less.

Mattei also said the Connecticut crab population is aging, a trend that reduces breeding and the number of baby crabs born each year. A healthy growing population of horseshoe crabs should have at least 30 percent of new adult recruits but the Long Island Sound population had between 10 and 12 percent, she said.

Based on our data, we support an expansion of no harvest zones to allow female horseshoe crabs to lay more eggs, Mattei said. The Long Island Sound population is reproducing well below its maximum level and needs Short Beach [in Stratford] to allow for better survival and expansion of our local population.

Klee painted a much different picture in testimony submitted to the environment committee.

DEEPs Long Island Sound Trawl Survey and extensive tagging studies show that the horseshoe crab population in the western Sound is stable, Klee said. This population overwinters in the mid-Sound area and spawns on all available spawning beaches over their mature life span [approximately 10 years].

Klee pointed out the state has closed some areas to horseshoe crab harvesting, including in adjacent Milford. These areas were identified based on scientific information gathered by DEEP staff in consultation with migratory bird experts, Klee said.

Perennial problem

Christina Senft-Batoh, Stratfords conservation administrator, urged the environment committee and General Assembly to pass the harvest ban.

This direct capture has been a perennial problem on Short Beach in Stratford, Senft-Batoh said. Enacting and enforcing the proposed bill would bolster their population throughout the Sound.

Senft-Batoh added Protecting the species is of great importance from both an environmental and human-health standpoint. Horseshoe crab eggs are a primary source of fuel for migratory shorebirds, and horseshoe crab blood is used extensively in the pharmaceutical industry.

Gresko said he understands DEEPs opposition to the bill but pointed out Sacred Heart is doing far more research on crabs than the state.

Im going with the professor, Gresko said. There has been a lot of work in Stratford, such as planting native species to provide food for birds. They put in [concrete] reef balls to lessen erosion and replenish the beach. My point is why cant [a harvest ban] work?
C elebrity chef Aldo Zilli called on London to wake up to the problem of homelessness as Centrepoint prepares to launch its first helpline for young people.

The Italian chef was holding a cooking class at the youth homelessness charity centred around teaching people life and employment skills.

Mr Zilli hosted the class at the Dean Street Cafe in Soho  which is staffed and run by Centrepoint residents.

The chef has long since had an interest in helping the homeless, as he experienced it himself as a teenager.

Cooking class: (L-R) Calum Fuller, Dean Masters, Aldo Zilli and Abdul Lelo Ndambi

I was homeless at 16 when I left my home in Italy and moved to Munich, he said. I moved there because I lived in a fishing village where, in the winter, there was nothing to do and no jobs.

I had somewhere to go when I got there but, when I arrived, I was let down. It was a struggle at the beginning.

Mr Zilli was homeless a short amount of time before getting a job in a kitchen  which sparked his interest in cooking.

Centrepoint - Tesco fundraising

After three years he moved to London, going on to open a string of celebrated restaurants across the city.

He spent many years both living and working on Dean Street  a stones throw away from the Centrepoint headquarters.

Having lived in Soho for 30 years you see that homelessness is a big problem, he said. London does not deserve to be in this state with so many homeless people.

We need to wake up and smell the coffee and we need to look after what is in front of us and what we are facing every day.

Centrepoint poem about homelessness

Dean Masters, who runs the training at the cafe, said the cookery scheme is a "social enterprise about trying to get young people into work".

And everyone needs to learn to cook at some stage in their life  even simple stuff like boiling an egg," he said. "It is good for them to learn these skills.

Mr Zilli added: And it is healthy for them because then they dont need to rely on fast food or ready meals.

Centrepoint resident interns at the Evening Standard

It is all about improving their lives, what they are doing and where they are living."

Abdul Lelo Ndambi is one of the young Centrepoint residents who is taking part in the scheme.

After being trained by Dean he has managed to get a placement at Mod Pizza in Leicester Square.

Enthusiastic student: Abdul Lelo Ndambi with chef Aldo Zilli

Centrepoint gave me a lot of links which, if I was at home, I dont believe I would have had," he said.

Right now I am just building the foundation but one day I would like to own a restaurant.

The money raised by the Standards Young and Homeless helpline appeal will also help fund workshops like the one Abdul attends.

The helpline is great and will be good for young people who need it in the future, he said. It wont be hard for them to get help straight away.

It would have been good for me because I would have had advice which would have made things easier. The extra support will be there for the kids in the future now and I am happy to see that.
A hotel worker has been jailed for attempted murder after brutally assaulting and stabbing his pregnant fiancee in north London.

Petar Petrov, 31, attacked his 30-year-old partner at their home in Edmonton leaving her with life-threatening injuries including several facial fractures, severe bruising of the lungs and a stab wound to the face.

She has virtually no chance of recovery and has been left in a persistent vegetative state, police said.

Bulgarian national Petrov was sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday to 21 years in prison for attempted murder.

The attack on the woman, who was eight months pregnant at the time, took place at their home in Densworth Grove on the evening of August 5 last year.

Jailed: Petar Petrov has been jailed for 21 years for the horrific attack / Metropolitan Police

Doctors performed an emergency caesarean section four days later and the baby was born premature but with no physical injuries.

The judge said a witness Kerry Keogh saved the life of the victim and her unborn child by helping her following her ordeal.

Detective Inspector Christopher Skelt, of Enfield Police Community Safety Unit, said: "The severity of the sentence handed to Petrov today reflects the seriousness of this offence.

This has been a truly shocking case. It is incomprehensible to think that a father-to-be could carry out such a violent and horrific attack on his partner when she was eight months pregnant with their baby.

"I am very pleased the judge commended the bravery of Mr Kerry Keogh who found and helped the victim at the scene following her ordeal.

I personally would like to also commend all the members of the public who were first at this distressing scene, and who performed first aid on the injured parties and called the emergency services.

"Sadly the mother remains in a persistent vegetative state with virtually no chance of recovery. Thankfully her child was born without any physical injuries via caesarean section however; unfortunately, this child is likely to never know his parents.

Petrov has never revealed the motive behind his shocking attack.

He had been in a relationship with the victim for just over a year after they met working at a hotel in Knightsbridge, the court heard.

The couple moved into the property in Densworth Grove in July 2016 ahead of the arrival of their unborn baby.

At about 8pm on the evening of the attack, neighbours reported hearing loud shouting and arguing which lasted for around an hour.

A resident reported hearing a man shouting followed by a bang which sounded like a car crash.

A passer-by then found Petrov lying on the floor looking unresponsive and believed he had been thrown through the first-floor window as he was surrounded by blood and glass. He also had knife wounds to his body.

The Good Samaritan provided immediate first aid and called police at around 9.15pm before entering the flat and finding the victim lying on the floor with life-threatening injuries to her head and neck.

He discovered she was heavily pregnant and he immediately began first aid with the assistance, over the phone, of a paramedic.

She was later rushed to hospital and placed in an intensive care unit.

Petrov, who was hurt in the fall from the window and also had self-inflicted injuries, was taken to the Royal London Hospital where he was arrested and later charged.

Petrov was also given an extended license of five years and issued with a European Protection Order preventing him from ever entering the country in the EU where the victim resides.

He previously pleaded guilty to the offence on Wednesday, 11 January at the same court.
A secondary school is to allow well-behaved pupils to leave ten minutes earlier than students who have been naughty in class.

Castle View School in Canvey Island, Essex, will allow pupils who behave well to leave at 2.50pm, while others will have to wait another 10 minutes for a second dismissal, the BBC reported.

It is thought to be the first time a school has introduced such a policy in the UK.

Teachers at the school have introduced the new rule in the hope that it will encourage students to make the right decision, every lesson of the day, according to the BBC.

In a letter to parents, the school, which has been rated good by Ofsted, said: Our second dismissal system is designed to ensure students have an instant consequence that can be put right at the end of the day and start afresh the next day."

Jerry Glazier, general secretary of the Essex branch of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) said: Perhaps it is not that innovative if most pupils are leaving at the normal time and the rest are getting detentions."

"It is up to schools to determine what rewards or sanctions they want to use to motivate pupils."

The academy trust school, which has about 1,100 students aged 11 to 16, previously made headlines in 2013 when it banned triangular shaped flapjacks.

The treats were banned after a pupil was hit in the face by a triangular-shaped flapjack.
J ean-Claude Juncker has suggested that Britain may move to divide remaining EU members during Brexit talks.

The European Commission President said that he believed London would attempt to break EU unity during the crunch divorce talks by making separate promises to different nations.

He also expressed doubts that EU countries would be able to maintain a united front during the Brexit negotiations.

Mr Juncker told Deutschlandfunk radio: "The other EU 27 don't know it yet, but the Brits know very well how they can tackle this.

They could promise country A this, country B that, and country C something else, and the end game is that there is not a united European front."

He added: "Has the time come for when the European Union of the 27 must show unity, cohesion and coherence?

"Yes, I say yes, when it comes to Brexit and [US President Donald] Trump... but I have some justified doubts that it will really happen."

His comments come just days after MPs in Britain approved the Brexit bill giving Theresa May the power to trigger the UKs divorce talks from the EU.

The Prime Minister is set to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty which formally begins the two-year withdrawal negotiation process next month.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 10 (PTI) Government has approved Rs 681 crore as seed capital for building a total corpus of Rs over Rs 6,800 crore under the electronic development fund meant to support entrepreneurship and innovation in electronics and IT.

"My Ministry has approved Rs 6,831 venture fund for electronics development. We have given seed money of Rs 681 crore on the basis of which more venture capital will be raised," Law and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters today.

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The electronic development fund is the monther fund that will contribute to various funds under it for those who invest the money in companies for creation of intellectual property rights in the field of electronics and IT.

He said that investments in electronic manufacturing, which was just Rs 11,000 crore in June 2014, has increased to Rs 1,27,880 crore and from 6 crore mobile handsets in 2014-15, Indias mobile manufacturing capacity has increased to 11 crore in 2015-16.

"With 72 new mobile handset and component manufacturing units set up in last two years, India has emerged as a mobile manufacturing hub. This includes 42 mobile manufacturing units and 30 component makers in the mobile phone segment," Prasad said.

He added that electronics production in the country has increased across segment with value of LED products registering an increase of 65 per cent to Rs 3,590 crore in 2015-16 from Rs 2,172 crore in 2014-15.

"Value of mobile handsets produced in India has increased by 185 per cent to Rs 54,000 crore in 2015-16 from Rs 18,900 crore in 2014-15. Next year, it is going to cross Rs 90,000 crore," Prasad said. PTI PRS JM

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C live Lewis has dismissed claims he touted for support in a bid to topple Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The former shadow business secretary was the most high-profile rebel to resign from Mr Corbyn's top team ahead of defying the leader on a three-line whip.

He voted against triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which formally gives Theresa May the power to start the Brexit withdrawal process.

His actions provoked claims the Norwich MP was sounding-out colleagues about a possible leadership run, but Mr Lewis rejected such talk.

Divisive: Jeremy Corbyn imposed a three-line whip on his MPs to vote for triggering Article 50 / PA

"There has been speculation about that, and it is just that. You can quote me on this. It is total b****ks," he told the Eastern Daily Press.

He said whispers of a bid to topple Mr Corbyn were part of a "game of fantasy politics in Westminster".

Mr Lewis added he would be "working hard to support the leadership and the party from the backbenches".

The comments came as it emerged frontbench rebels who defied Mr Corbyn over the Brexit Bill but did not resign will not get the sack, but a written warning.

The reprimand emerged after Labour's chief whip Nick Brown met Mr Corbyn to decide what disciplinary action would follow after 52 MPs ignored the leader's orders and voted against triggering Article 50.

The light touch reaction was put down to the "extraordinary circumstances" of the referendum aftermath, according to Labour sources.

Labour sources say Mr Corbyn believes it will "not be viable" for someone to remain in the shadow cabinet if they ignore another three-line whip and that he is clear that this is the final warning on the issue.

The Labour leader was forced to reshuffle his top team after a number of members quit ahead of voting against triggering Article 50.

However, 11 shadow ministers and three whips remained in their posts despite defying the leader's command.

The 11 frontbenchers who voted against the Bill in its final Commons stage without quitting their jobs were Rosena Allin-Khan, Kevin Brennan, Lyn Brown, Ruth Cadbury, Rupa Huq, Chi Onwurah, Stephen Pound, Andy Slaughter, Catherine West, Alan Whitehead and Daniel Zeichner.

The whips were Thangam Debbonaire, Vicky Foxcroft and Jeff Smith.
A petition signed by 50,000 people calling for Theresa May to continue taking lone child refugees has been handed in to Number 10.

On Saturday former refugee and Labour peer Lord Dubs arrived at Downing Street with the petition urging against the closure of a scheme to bring unaccompanied minors into the UK.

The Government has come under increasing pressure over its decision to scrap the programme, which was expected to facilitate some 3,000 vulnerable youngsters.

Lord Dubs originally strong-armed the commitment from Whitehall by adding an amendment to the Immigration Act in 2016, known as the Dubs amendment.

But ministers have provoked fury by pumping brakes on the scheme after 150 children joined the 200 who have already arrived on British soil, despite the fact thousands more children were expected to be accomodated.

Opposite the Prime Minister's residence, the peer was joined by campaigners, local politicians and faith leaders who gave a series of short speeches.

Lord Dubs said: "I was shocked and in disbelief, I couldn't believe the Government could back off in quite that way.

"We want the Government to change their minds. The Government have said they don't want to take more than 350 in total under the amendment, I think that's a very shabby cop out.

"I believe that there are thousands of unaccompanied child refugees suffering greatly in Greece, Italy and some in France, the Government has said no more and I think that is an abdication of their responsibilities, it goes against public opinion and it goes against parliamentary opinion."

The move follows a stinging intervention from the Archbishop of Canterbury, who warned that halting the initiative would see more children being trafficked, exploited and killed.

The petition is delivered to Number 10 / Getty Images

The Most Rev Justin Welby added his voice to the heated political row by saying he was "saddened and shocked" at the move.

He said it would be "deeply unjust" to leave the burden of caring for such children on Italy and Greece, where thousands of refugees and migrants arrive from the conflict-ridden Middle East and north Africa.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said British and French authorities were concerned the scheme was acting as a "pull factor" for children to be drawn to the UK and that it provided opportunities for people-traffickers.

More than 900 unaccompanied children were transferred to the UK from Europe last year.

A Home Office spokesman said the Government was "clear that behind these numbers are children" but that it needed to strike a balance between accepting minors and making sure local councils can support them.

He said: "We are not giving up on vulnerable children who are fleeing conflict and danger.

"Thanks to the goodwill of the British public and local authorities in the last year alone, we have provided refuge or other forms of leave to more than 8,000 children.

"Our commitment to resettle 350 unaccompanied children from Europe is just one way we are helping.

"We have a proud history of offering protection to those who need it and children will continue to arrive in the UK from around the world through our other resettlement schemes and asylum system."

Additonal reporting by Press Association
T he price of fish and chips could be about to rise as a strike by Icelandic fishermen threatens the UKs supply of fresh cod and haddock.

Consumers could face a price hike in the coming weeks as a dispute involving Icelandic trawlermen hits the UK fishing industry.

Grimsby fish market, Britains biggest importer of fresh Icelandic fish, is expected to be hit particularly hard by reduced stock levels.

The fish market has been forced to reduce one fifth of its workforce following the dispute - with staff cut from 32 to 26.

The price of whole cod is 2.80 to 3 per kilogram with haddock at 2.20 to 3.30 per kg and on Tuesday just 514 boxes of fish were offered for auction, which was described as the "least supply ever".

The Icelandic trawlermen are on strike demanding a larger share of the value of their catch.

Martyn Boyers, chief executive of the group that operates Grimsby fish market said: "It is a question of how long the strike goes on and the longer it goes on, the worse it gets.

"Iceland is one of the main suppliers of fish into the UK. It has hit our business particularly badly because we do rely on Icelandic fish.

"In due course there will be a knock-on effect as there will be less fish available and if the demand stays the same then generally the price will go up."

Two thirds of the fish sold at Grimsby fish market comes from Iceland and stock levels are around 50 per cent down.

"We have had to lay people off, which is unfortunate for them as it is not their fault," Mr Boyers said.

Mr Boyers said the Iceland government had to resolve the crisis with the trawlermen before prices rose in the UK.
A third of Britons back Donald Trump's controversial ban on travel for people from a range of Muslim-majority countries, a new poll has found.

The Republican president's blanket ban received a 33 percent approval rating, according to a ComRes poll for The Independent and Sunday Mirror.

More than half of voters (55 per cent) would not like to see a similar move imposed in the UK but 29 per cent of voters said they would support it, the poll found.

Commons Speaker John Bercow's refusal to allow Mr Trump to address both houses of Parliament during his state visit is backed by 45 per cent of people, while 39 per cent oppose it.

It comes after Mr Trump said he was considering signing a brand new order after the travel ban was halted in court.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, he said he expected his administration to win the legal battle over his original directive.

But he said the White House was also considering other alternatives, including making unspecified changes to the order, which could address some of the legal issues.

As Mr Trump flew to Florida for the weekend, his advisers debated their next steps after the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a restraining order on the original travel ban.

The executive order put a temporary stop to the US's refugee programme, indefinitely banned Syrian refugees, and suspended all nationals from six other Muslim-majority countries - Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Com-Res interviewed 2,021 adults online for the poll between February 8 and February 10. It said the group was representative of all adults in the UK.
D onald Trump is considering signing a "brand new order" banning citizens from specific countries from travelling to the US after his previous ban was halted in court.

The US president told reporters on Air Force One that he expected his administration to win the legal battle over his original directive.

But he said the White House was also considering other alternatives, including making unspecified changes to the order, which could address some of the legal issues.

As Mr Trump flew to Florida for the weekend, his advisers debated their next steps after an appeal court backed a restraining order on the original travel ban.

The White House directive had suspended the nation's refugee programme and barred all entries from seven Muslim-majority countries.

A White House official initially suggested the administration would not ask the Supreme Court to overturn that order, but chief of staff Reince Priebus scrambled to clarify that "every single court option is on the table", including a high court appeal or "fighting out this case on the merits" in a lower court.

'Crucial': President Trump signing orders as his senior team looks on / Getty Images

Mr Trump's executive order was hastily unveiled at the end of his first week in office.

While the White House boasted that he was fulfilling a campaign promise to toughen vetting procedures for people coming from countries with terror ties, the order caused chaos at airports in the US and sparked protests across the country.

The president has cast the order as crucial for national security.

Ban lifted: A student from Iran is greeted at Logan Airport after the ban was lifted / REUTERS

Earlier, he promised to take action "very rapidly" to protect the US and its citizens in the wake of the appeal court decision, but he did not specify what steps he planned to take.

"We'll be doing things to continue to make our country safe," Mr Trump pledged at a news conference with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

"It will happen rapidly. We will not allow people into our country who are looking to do harm to our people."

Theresa May calls Trump's travel ban 'wrong'

The president's comments were far more restrained than his angry reaction to last week's initial court ruling blocking the travel ban when he attacked both the "so-called judge" in that case and the ruling, which he called "ridiculous".

But Mr Trump continued to conjure images of unspecified danger, saying he had "learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely president".

"And there are tremendous threats to our country. We will not allow that to happen, I can tell you that. We will not allow that to happen," he said.

President Donald Trump threatens to "destroy" the career of a Texas state senator

The 9th Circuit ruling represented a significant setback for Mr Trump in just his third week in office.

US District Judge James Robart issued the temporary restraining order halting the ban after Washington state and Minnesota sued, leading to the government's appeal.

The Trump administration has said the seven nations - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - have raised terrorism concerns.

The states have argued that the executive order unconstitutionally blocked entry based on religion and the travel ban harmed individuals, businesses and universities.

Mr Trump and his aides frequently refer to a ruling by a federal judge in Boston who declined last week to extend a temporary injunction against Mr Trump's travel ban.

In a separate federal ruling in Seattle, a different federal judge put the ban on hold nationwide and it is that judge's decision that the White House has challenged.

"It's a decision that we'll win, in my opinion, very easily and, by the way, we won that decision in Boston," Mr Trump said.
P iers Morgan and JK Rowling became embroiled in a furious Twitter row after the Good Morning Britain presenter was told to f*** off on a US panel show.

The Harry Potter author expressed glee at the broadcaster being sworn at by Australian comedian Jim Jefferies while discussing US President Donald Trumps travel ban on Real Time With Bill Maher.

Discussing Mr Trump's attempt to stop people from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the US, Morgan said it is not a Muslim ban, to which Jefferies responded: "Oh, f*** off. It's a f****** Muslim ban."

Rowling wrote on the social networking site: "Yes, watching Piers Morgan being told to f*** off on live TV is *exactly* as satisfying as I'd always imagined."

Morgan replied: "This is why I've never read a single word of Harry Potter."

Rowling said: "Because you had a premonition that one day the author would roar with laughter at seeing you called out for your bull**** on live TV?"

Morgan said that "everything I said was factual".

He added, referring to Jefferies: "If you think screaming 'F*** OFF!!!' at me changes that, then you're mistaken."

Trump considers "brand new" travel ban

Rowling then asked Morgan: "Would you like a couple of hours to mock up some pictures of refugees carrying explosives to substantiate your position?"

"The superior, dismissive arrogance of rabid Remain/Clinton supporters like @jk-rowling is, of course, precisely why both campaigns lost," Morgan wrote in response.

JK Rowling argued with Morgan after she said she enjoyed seeing someone tell him to f*** off / AP

He added: "Would you like me to explain why all your political views keep being defeated at the ballot box?"

Rowling wrote to her 9.55 million Twitter followers: "The fact-free, amoral, bigotry-apologism of celebrity toady Piers Morgan is, of course, why it's so delicious to see him told to f*** off."

Morgan shared Rowling's post and described it as "peak foul-mouthed, minor celebrity anti-Trump hysteria at its most deliciously supercilious".

He called the author a "liberal", and said that she is "all for tolerance & free speech, until you refuse to call Trump the new Hitler".

Morgan's appearance on Friday night's episode of Real Time saw him angrily rebuked by Jefferies.

The British broadcaster said, over Jefferies's protests: "This is the hysteria I'm talking about; 85 per cent of the world's Muslims are allowed in the country."

Jefferies said: "Oh, f*** off. This is what you do, Piers. You say 'He hasn't done this, he hasn't done that, he's not going to do all these things.'

"Give him a f****** chance mate - Hitler didn't kill the Jews on the first day, he worked up to it."
T om Hanks has praised Felicity Jones, calling her a huge star in a behind the scenes clip from Inferno.

The Hollywood A-lister, 60, starred alongside Jones in the Ron Howard directed film which follows Dr. Sienna Brooks (Jones) and Robert Langdon (Hanks) as they race across Europe in a bid to foil a deadly global plot.

Speaking about his co-star, Hanks said: Youre working with someone who is such a huge star, but is already such a thoughtful artist.

In an exclusive clip Jones can be seen tending to Hanks' character, discussing a deadly plague and working with film bosses on the set in Florence, Italy.

The film marks the third in the franchise, following 2006s The Da Vinci Code and 2009s Angels & Demons.

Jones said she took on the role as she was excited by the idea of playing a Machiavellian character.

When I read the script I just thought there is so much for me to get my teeth into, she said.

I love doing adaptations from books because youve already got the foundations of the character and youre already building on something.

It was fun to play someone who was quite Machiavellian.

Inferno is out on Blu-ray & DVD on February 20.
From Jennifer Lopez's sheer dress to Taylor Swift's fiery acceptance speech, here's a list of five biggest scandals to have rocked Grammy Awards.

By India Today Web Desk: Hailed as a big, fat celebration of music world's biggest stars, Grammy Awards have hardly ever been just that.

High on surprise wins, royal snubs and a whole lot of controversies, the Grammys have played host to every shade of drama there exists.

And today, as we stand two days away from the 59th edition of these awards, here's a look at the five most controversial moments to have ever struck the Grammy stage.

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1. Taylor Swift throwing major shade at Kanye West (2016)

Swift and West's infamous feud reached peaked during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech after winning the Album of the Year award last year.

"I want to say to all the young women out there. There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success, or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame. But if you just focus on the work and you don't let those people sidetrack you, someday when you get where you're going, you'll look around and you'll know it was you and the people that love you that put you there," she said in reference to West's controversial lyrics "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bi*ch famous" from his track, Famous.

Photo: Reuters Photo: Reuters

Also Read: Kanye West needs an ice pack, because Taylor Swift just burned him with her speech

2. Macklemore's apology text to Kendrick Lamar (2013)

Kendrick Lamar's album good kid, m.A.A.d city was a favourite among fans and critics, so when Macklemore and Ryan Lewis took away the Grammy in the Best Rap Album category, things turned weird.

Making things weirder, Macklemore posted a screenshot of an apology text message he sent Lamar, that said, "You got robbed. I wanted you to win. You should have. It's weird and sucks that I robbed you."

Some called the gesture an attention-seeking gimmick, while the others called it a "class act."

Photo: Reuters

Also Read: Taylor Swift's opening act, Kendrick Lamar's medley, Pitbull's 'Bad Man' made #Grammys2016 a musical affair

3. Rihanna and Chris Brown's abusive relationship (2009)

On the eve of 2009 Grammy Awards, news of Chris Brown's violent abusive attack on his popstar-girlfriend, Rihanna rocked the music industry. Photos of a bruised and bloody-faced Rihanna were released by an LA Police Department officer, that accelerated the case.

Rihanna, who was to attend the Grammy evening, ended up ditching it, obviously.

Photo: Reuters

4. Elton John and Eminem's performance (2001)

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The LGBTQ community accused rapper Eminem of using homophobic terms in his 2000 album, The Marshall Mathers LP. The matter was put to rest when Eminem teamed up with openly-gay music legend, Elton John for an onstage performance during the 2001 Grammy Awards.

Photo: Reuters

Also Read: Which one of these songs do you think deserves the Grammy this year?

5. Jennifer Lopez's Versace gown (2000)

Lopez's green, see-through Versace gown made way too much noise than it should've. Reportedly, her dress was the reason why CBS officials issued a strict 'wardrobe advisory' at the Grammys.

Photo: Reuters

The 59th Grammy Awards will air live on Vh1 on Monday, February 13, 7:30 am IST onward.

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By Press Trust of India: Dhaka, Feb 11 (PTI) Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas son today accused the World Bank of having attempted to "discredit" his mother by levelling graft allegations in awarding contract of an ambitious bridge project, saying the global lender had "fabricated evidence".

Sajeeb Wazed Joy said those who raised allegations of graft in awarding contracts for the Padma Bridge project should apologise to the government after a Canadian court debunked graft allegations in the case, bdnews24.com reported.

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Joy, also the Prime Ministers Information and Communication Technology adviser, blamed the World Bank for raising a controversy over graft and bribery in the Padma Bridge project, the report said.

"The evidence was fabricated by the World Bank. I had seen the evidence myself during the whole episode. It was quite clearly made up as there were no concrete details, just one anonymous source who was never revealed, even to the Canadian court.

"The World Bank came up with this plot against my mother, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas government in an attempt to discredit her," he wrote in a Facebook post.

Hasina had said that the graft-bribery allegations were aimed at undermining the image of her government and that some Bangladeshis were also involved with it.

She had alleged that Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus had tried to influence then US secretary of state to cut off World Bank funding for the Padma Bridge, the report said.

Joy hit out at "a section of our civil society" who had joined the World Bank in raising the stink over alleged graft.

"They dragged the reputation of several highly respected, qualified and hardworking people through the mud..." the report said.

The Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) had earlier said it had found no truth to the allegations of graft but filed a case after reports of Canadian consultants SNC Lavalins alleged bribery attempts to win contracts in the project.

Five years after the case was filed, a Canadian court dismissed the allegations raised by the World Bank against SNC Lavalin as "unfounded".

Leading Canadian daily "Globe & Mail" reported that the judge had dismissed the allegations filed by the prosecution based on wiretaps and phone intercepts as rumours. PTI CPS AKJ CPS

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By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 11 (PTI) Telecom operator Idea Cellular today logged a consolidated net loss of Rs 383.87 crore for the December 2016 quarter compared to a net profit of Rs 659.35 crore in the year-ago period, hurt by newcomer Reliance Jios free voice and data promotions.

Total income also has decreased to Rs 8,706.36 crore for the quarter, from Rs 9,032.43 crore in the same period in the previous year, as per a BSE filing.

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"The Indian mobile industry witnessed an unprecedented disruption in the quarter of October to December 2016, primarily due to free voice and mobile data promotions by the new entrant in the sector," Idea Cellular said in a statement.

Consequently, revenue KPIs (key performance indicators) and financial parameters for all mobile operators have sharply declined, and for the first time in its history, the flourishing Indian wireless sector is trending towards an annual revenue decline of 3-5 per cent in 2016-17 (vs 2015-16), it added.

"The sector can expect to recover revenues only once the new operator starts charging for its pan-India mobile services. As a result of this current industry upheaval, the standalone Idea revenue dropped to an unforeseen level at Rs 8,662.7 crore, a decline of 6.9 per cent on sequential quarterly basis," it said.

Idea, which is in talks with rival Vodafone for a merger, said it was "forced to reduce" its voice rates on sequential quarterly basis by 10.6 per cent to 29.6 paise per minute (versus 33.1 paise in the second quarter of 2016-17) and drop in mobile data rates by 15.2 per cent q-o-q to 15.9 paise per megabyte (vs 18.7 paise).

"Despite an unprecedented outgoing voice rate fall, the lure of free offerings resulted in lower than normal volume elasticity with the quarterly sequential voice minutes growing only by 7.3 per cent to 210 billion minutes (vs 195.5 billion minutes in second quarter of 2016-17), that too led by double digit growth in incoming call volume," Idea said.

Also, the higher blended voice realisation rate fall was also an outcome of the "tsunami of minutes" terminating on Ideas network from the new operator, resulting in overall higher ratio of subsidised incoming minutes recovered at below cost IUC settlement rates.

Idea, for the first time, witnessed a decline of 5.5 million mobile data customers on sequential quarter basis with overall mobile data subscriber (2G+3G+4G) base receding to 48.6 million (vs 54.1 million in second quarter of 2016-17).

Its net debt stood at Rs 49,140 crore at the end of December 2016, including a larger proportion of this debt from DoT under Deferred payment obligation for spectrum acquired in last four spectrum auctions.

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Ideas capex spend was Rs 2,000 crore (excluding forex and interest capitalisation) in the reported quarter, partially funded by cash profit of Rs 1,230 crore. PTI SR ARD

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Water mills once served as the communitys gathering place to process harvests and catch the latest gossip.

Nearly every settlement had one and in the mid-1900s, Rocky Creek north of Statesville supported 11 mills, said Billy Linney, owner of Linneys Mill.

Today, only Linneys Mill remains.

And Linneys is not just surviving. Its thriving.

The family-owned mill remains a hub for conversation as it still operates a full-time first shift Monday through Saturday using traditional stone-ground and water-fueled milling methods.

A WORKING HISTORY

The first mill on site was built by Richard Cook in the 1790s and ownership was passed among several families until W.T. Linney, Billys grandfather, bought it in 1936.

W.T. Linney used sandbags to divert the creek so he could carry five-gallon buckets of concrete across the water and begin pouring concrete flanks to the existing wooden dam. Billy Linney said the log center was washed away by a flood in 1940, before his grandfather could clear the center.

The mill still uses the double-breasted waterwheel installed by W.T. Linney, but the mill changed hands to William Linney, Billys father, in 1950.

Billy started working at the mill when he was 14, sweeping floors and occasionally grinding cornmeal. He took over in 1985 and his father continued to work at the mill.

He would say, Im the boss until Im dead, Billy said.

VISITORS FROM ALL OVER

Roger Hollar, 70, is another familiar face to those who frequent the mill. He can be found in the back, near the mills original building, filling bags with cornmeal and grits and sewing them shut. Its the same job he has performed for 54 years, when he started working there under William Linney.

Ive been here since I was a teenager, Hollar said. Started when I was about 16. I can remember Billy running around when he was around 8 years old.

Hollar opened a protective gate and the door behind it, to unveil a multi-story drop onto the waterwheel and into the creek below. The sound of creek water running down the racetrack and onto the wheel drowned the thrum off the grinder in the other room.

Restaurant entrepreneur Bob Evans made several visits to the mill, Billy said, noting a photo pinned next to the waterwheel exit. The photo shows Billy and Bob Evans and a family friend. Theres a hole in the picture where Billys face should be.

The photo flew into the creek one day and I had to fish it out, he said. Caught my face.

Billy says the mills popularity with celebrities goes beyond Bob Evans.

Flossie and Junior Johnson, of NASCAR fame, are regular visitors, he said.

And publisher Malcolm Forbes dropped by once. At the time, he didnt connect Forbes surname to the magazine or know the Liz Forbes kept referring to was Elizabeth Taylor, until much later when he recognized Forbes on television.

CONTINUED SUCCESSES

The mills largest customers are Frank Courier livermush and a Mennonite community in Bulls Gap, Tennessee, where the local general store, Yoders Country Market, orders two tons of cornmeal. Linney said he delivers the cornmeal to them by truck.

Billy said he doesnt want to deal with the headache of a second shift, but the 3,000 pounds of cornmeal he grinds per day goes fast. He credits it to the rising popularity of traditionally made, healthy foods and the superior taste.

Kristal Linney, Billys daughter, goes to Wilkes Community College. He says shes interested in working as a veterinarian or a flock manager, but he holds onto the hope shell take over the mill.

I want her to be happy and enjoy what she does, Linney said. Maybe being a veterinarian is her thing.

But if she decides to join the family business, the old mill will be waiting for her.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

Billy intends to build a second mill and hopes the creek can support it, despite the water table dropping in recent years.

He invites guests to sign a book that has, over the years, accumulated signatures from visitors as far away as China and Spain.

You can start down at the Shiloh General Store in Amish country, then come up to Union Grove to find homemade crafts at the Union Grove general store and end up at Linneys Mill, he said. Makes for a fun day trip.

Linneys Mill, at 4635 Linneys Mill Road, Union Grove, operates a campground from April to October, depending on the weather. The mill can be reached at 704-592-2075.
The concluding session of the second edition of the India Today School Summit began with a discussion on the idea of a perfect school.

By Adete Dahiya : Speakers Col. Gopal Karunakaran, CEO, Shiv Nadar Schools, Suman Nandy, Founder and Director, Epaathsala, Sharad Agarwal, Founder, ISDM, and Prateek Bhargava, CEO and Founder, Mindler, talk on how schools can help shape better individuals.

The concluding session of the second edition of the India Today School Summit began with a discussion on the idea of a perfect school.

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"Fundamentally, we are shaped by two things-nature and nurture. Schools are often associated with nurturing. Students between the age of three and 18 spend over 60 per cent of their time in the school, therefore schools are a deep source of nature too, in that they can help recognise the child's inherent talent and then provide opportunities to hone that. That's what a great school will do," said Gopal Karunakaran, CEO, Shiv Nadar Schools.

Suman Nandy, founder and direcor, Epaathsala took the discussion forward by talking about our obsession with the formal rating system.

"Not every aspect requires a formal rating system. That is not necessary. A national rating standard speaks about 12 outcomes that should be achieved by students. Of these, only six are related to knowledge and learning. Things like ethics, compassion, and communication are equally important and these can't be measured on a scale. Schools should pay attention to these and address these in their day-to-day methodologies," he said.

Also read: Mumbai: Parents file FIR against school after 5-year-old girl loses finger

Also read: Delhi schools turn into theatres of violence, teachers feel terrorised

WHAT'S WRONG WITH OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM

This is where Prateek Bhargava, CEO and founder, Mindler, stepped in and brought to light the fact that the Indian education system is rooted in rote learning. "Discussion of new ideas is something that is limited to very few schools across the country. There is a huge gap in the implementation of education. We need to realise that we are training students for a future that we don't know about. We need to inculcate skills that will be relevant 10 years from now. Things like collaborative thinking ,social intelligence, and problem solving need to be taught. Right now, mass schools are like factories," he said.

Another problem, according to Sharad Agarwal, founder, ISDM, is the low cost of education in the country.

Also read: Javadekar: Quality of primary public education deteriorating, need to prioritise importance of skill

"The larger challenge is that school education in our country is very cheap and that is why we don't attract the right talent. Even private schools don't attract the best talent," he said. "Another problem is that teachers need to have limited number of students. We have teachers who have come through a limited education system and on top of that teaching is left to a limited number of people with very limited perspectives. We need to understand that they come from very different backgrounds to understand the gap in education today," he added.

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According to Agarwal, with the collapse of joint families, schools have an important role to play in educating students. If we don't do a good job of this, students, even those from elite schools, will end up growing up with a limited perspective.

Also read: Delhi: How school vans, buses ferry children to jaws of death and back

Also read: Centre wants porn jammers in school buses

HOW TO ADDRESS THESE ISSUES

Karunakaran added to this saying, "We are shaped by the people around us-our peers, teachers and students. The key is to get ideas from them and incorporate these into schools. Ideas can only come through repetition, great teachers and culture of conversations in schools." He also shed light on another problem that is often ignored, the privatisation of the school education system. "This is a very disturbing trend and a very dangerous situation to be in. A country's system will collapse if the education is completely privatised," he said.

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The answer to all these problems, according to Bhargava, is technology. "We should embrace it, adopt it and focus on strategic human intervention," he said.

--- ENDS ---
ST. LOUIS  Police have identified two men killed in separate shootings Friday in St. Louis.

Albert Bass, 41, of the 4100 block of Gardenview Drive in Bridgeton, was fatally shot shortly before 6 p.m. Friday, polcie said. He was found dead in the street in the 5600 block of St. Louis Avenue in the city's Wells Goodfellow neighborhood, in the northwest corner of the city.

Bass was pronounced dead at the scene.

Just before 10 p.m., Dwayne Gibbs, 30, was found fatally shot in the 4700 block of Bircher Boulevard near Interstate 70, in the Penrose neighborhood.

The shooting happened in parking lot of a BP gas station at Bircher Boulevard and Marcus Avenue.

Gibbs, of the 800 block of Harlan Avenue, was found with multiple gunshot wounds, police said. A gunman was seen fleeing in a vehicle.
On the last day of her familys cruise to Mexico, Kim Nunemaker, 16, asked the cute boy who had barely spoken to her during the trip to take a picture with her and her younger brother.

She had been urged by her aunt to approach the young man, who had followed her around for days but lacked the nerve to make much conversation. John Powell, then 18, had been smitten by her bright blue eyes and her smile and agreed to the picture.

He had been taken by the way Kim looked at him.

The aunt then slyly took the younger sibling out of the picture and snapped one of the teenagers awkwardly standing next to each other before disembarking.

Kim asked John if he would like a copy of the photo, as this was in the era long before tagging and cell phones, and they swapped mailing addresses. She headed to Indiana with her family, and he took off for California with his. A few weeks later, she mailed him a copy of the photo along with a letter on her stationery. He mailed her a Christmas card a few months later. She sent him one, too.

Months passed, and he sent her a picture of himself in the back of a limo from his senior prom. On the back, he wrote: Wish you were here.

Johns father suggested that the subject of his crush was geographically undesirable. They were separated by thousands of miles, and there were plenty of women in California. Both of the teenagers realized the impracticality of their situation and lost touch after those few exchanges. They both went about their separate lives, off to college, into their careers, then eventually marriages to other people.

It was decades later that John, a retired sheriffs deputy who had been separated from his wife, stumbled across that old photo and Kims letter in a box he hadnt looked at in years. He got misty eyed, remembering the intensity of the youthful crush. He decided to reach out to her, say hello and see how she was doing.

Kim, now an art teacher at Kirkwood High School, recognized his face the minute his profile picture popped up next to his Facebook message: Is this the woman I should have married 25 years ago?

Her heart dropped to her stomach, and she caught her breath.

I felt like I was 16 all over again, Kim said, who was divorced.

She looked in the photo album she had made of that long ago family trip, where she had that same photo he had found. She confirmed it was the same person.

Yes, I remember you, she wrote back. Youre pretty hard to forget.

From that minute on, they were constantly communicating  texting and talking on the phone for hours. After a few months, he invited her to meet at his sisters timeshare in Florida, where he was headed with his daughter to visit with family.

She agreed.

John saw Kim at the airport for the first time after 26 years.

When I saw her, I thought, Oh, boy, Im going to marry her, he said. She had a feeling fate had brought them together.

We just hit it off, she said.

Two days later, it was time for her to return to St. Louis. She told him that she wasnt going to leave her job and move, and she didnt want a long-distance relationship. John, who was in the process of selling his house, changed his and his daughters return flights to St. Louis, and they spent the next week with Kim.

When they left, he said he planned to pack up his stuff and move to St. Louis. Sure enough, he sold his house, loaded up a truck and drove back to Missouri. He moved in with her, and for the next couple of years they made up for those lost years.

John bought a lake house at the Lake of the Ozarks. One weekend they were sitting on the boat dock when he pretended to fall into the lake.

When he crawled out of the water, he held out a ring to Kim.

You make me really happy, he said. I think were supposed to be together.

She said yes.

Kim decided they should get married on a cruise ship and found one that departed from California and stopped at the same ports in the Mexican Riviera they traveled with their families. They were married nearly 30 years to the date from when they first met.

Theyve changed over the decades, of course. But John recognized the same things that drew him to her as a teen  her smile, her eyes.

She gave me the exact same look, he said.

He had not forgotten the way she looked at him. Kim Powell said she still got butterflies around him.

Like teenagers.
ST. LOUIS  A bill that would add reproductive health decisions to the citys anti-discrimination ordinance passed Friday on a 17-10 vote.

The bill would ban employers and landlords from discriminating against women who have had an abortion, use contraceptives or are pregnant.

The bills sponsor, 15th Ward Alderman Megan Green, said the legislation was an attempt to shield women from discrimination at the local level, particularly in deep-red Missouri where state lawmakers are unlikely to offer housing and workplace protections for matters dealing with reproductive health.

Employers can have their own beliefs, Green said. But they shouldnt be able to impose those beliefs on people or fire someone because of those beliefs.

The bill has come under attack from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and other groups who say it would allow a government to force people to act against their beliefs.

Archbishop Robert Carlson released a statement Friday criticizing the bills passage as a terrible moment for a city with such proud history.

The laws of the city of St. Louis now actively protect and promote the killing of unborn children, he said.

The rhetoric was similarly heated at a public hearing last month when supporters and opponents of abortion rights came face-to-face at City Hall.

Anti-abortion groups largely kept to one side of the room, while abortion rights advocates  decked out in red  packed the other side.

One man brought in a poster-sized photo depicting a disfigured fetus. Another man stood next to the image throughout the meeting clutching a rosary.

Thomas Buckley, general counsel to the Archdiocese, said the bill promotes religious discrimination against those who dont want to be complicit in the evils of abortion.

The Archdiocese will not and cannot comply with this, Buckley said at the meeting. We will go straight to federal court.

People of faith will hold it against elected officials who vote for this bill, he said.

Are you threatening us? 4th Ward Alderman Sam Moore replied.

Just stating a fact, Buckley said.

Though Fridays board meeting was not as tense, several aldermen spoke against the bill, including 8th Ward Alderman Stephen Conway, who said Green was being divisive.

Why is she so afraid of the Catholic church? Conway said.

We are down here acting as a government, not as a religious instrument, Green said.

In urging her colleagues to pass the bill, Green said St. Louis would join only the District of Columbi, Boston and Delaware in passing similar legislation.

Put St. Louis on the map as a place that protects and values women, she said.
Missouri state Sen. Gary Romine, sponsor of a bill that seeks to make it harder to sue businesses for racial discrimination, says the measure will improve Missouris legal climate.

It also could improve Romines personal legal climate, making it less likely that his rent-to-own furniture business will face any more racial discrimination lawsuits like the one it has been embroiled in for almost two years.

Romine, R-Farmington, isnt the only lawmaker in Jefferson City who is trying to change the law to protect businesses from lawsuits in ways that could theoretically protect his own bottom line as well.

Another Republican senator, who is a veterinarian, is sponsoring legislation to put new limits on malpractice suits against veterinarians. And the Senates top Republican is trying to change a state consumer-protection law that is currently being used to sue one of his biggest campaign contributors.

The proposals are in keeping with the promise Missouri Republicans have been making for years: to rein in what they allege is an out-of-control civil litigation system that hurts the states business landscape. With the new Republican control of virtually every lever of state government that went into effect last month, it was a foregone conclusion that bills of this type would start moving through the Legislature.

Still, the pace of it has surprised even statehouse veterans.

This has been one of the most ambitious agendas weve ever seen to limit access to the courts, said Sen. Scott Sifton, D-Affton. Like many other Democrats, he argues that such limits can infringe on the rights of injured plaintiffs who have legitimate complaints against businesses.

And the appearance of conflict of interest in at least some of the bills is absolutely concerning, says Jay Benson, president of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys, a group that frequently donates to and supports Democrats.

This is all being presented with the suggestion that our tort system is bad for business. Its not bad for business; its bad for bad business, said Benson, who calls the proliferation of such bills an epidemic. The civil justice system is designed to hold people accountable when they do bad things.

Republicans and pro-business groups counter that what they call frivolous lawsuits create costs not just to individual defendants but to Missouris entire business climate.

My office has already received an exceptionally good response from members of the business community to the bill putting new restrictions on lawsuits alleging discrimination by businesses, Romine wrote in an online column recently. It will go a long way toward reforming Missouris legal climate and improving our ability to grow existing businesses and attract new employers.

Lawmakers  particularly in part-time, term-limited systems such as Missouris  are expected to bring their private-sector experience and perspective to their lawmaking. There is no one more qualified to write agricultural laws than a farmer, goes the thinking, or to write medical laws than a doctor, and so forth.

Im the person pursuing the legislation because I have firsthand experience with the situation, Romine said in an interview Saturday. As for concerns that such legislation looks like self-dealing, Romine noted, I have 33 other senators who have to consider it.

But others say when a business owner writes laws addressing conflicts between business owners and their employees, it inevitably raises the question of whether the employees are getting fair representation.

This kind of legislation just adds to the perception that legislators are benefiting themselves and using government to do it, said Dave Robertson, political scientist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Its fair to be concerned about the tort system, but the very specific benefits connected to the individual lawmakers really add the perception of corruption.

Do not rent to

Romine owns the Show-Me Rent-to-Own chain of furniture stores in southeast Missouri. A Scott County lawsuit, filed in 2015 and still pending according to records, alleges that a supervisor at the chains Sikeston store routinely used racial epithets against a black account manager.

The account managers suit claims the supervisor also circled an African-American neighborhood on a wall map in the store with the notation Do not rent to written on it. The suit further claims that the account managers complaints about the supervisor went up the chain to Romine, but that he declined to take any action. (A defense filing in the suit denies that and all the other allegations.)

The account manager was later fired, on what the suit alleges was the pre-textual reason of using profanity. White employees routinely use profanity in Defendants workplace and are not disciplined, alleges the suit. It specifically claims that Plaintiffs race was a contributing factor to the account managers termination.

That last line is crucial because court precedent in Missouri says a fired employee can invoke the states anti-discrimination laws if discrimination was a contributing factor in the firing, even if it wasnt the only factor.

Thats one thing that Romines legislation, Senate Bill 43, would specifically change: to win a discrimination case, the plaintiff would have to show that discrimination was the primary cause of his firing, and not just a contributing factor.

It would also make it more difficult for plaintiffs to appeal their complaints into the civil court system if the Missouri Commission on Human Rights finds for the employer.

In his recent column, Romine notes his frustrating experiences with the current discrimination law. On three different occasions, I have had to go before the (Missouri Commission on Human Rights) as a business owner. In each instance, they determined the employees case had no merit, he wrote.

But in each case, he added, the plaintiff was allowed to sue in the court system, which opened the case up all over again.

In its current form, this system encourages individuals to pursue a meritless case simply to force a settlement, costing our small businesses time and money they do not have, Romine wrote.

In an interview Saturday, Romine said the Scott County case is a prime example of what needs to get fixed in the system.

Aiding a contributor?

Sen. Dan Brown, R-Rolla, who has practiced veterinary medicine for more than 40 years, wants to place a two-year statute of limitations on malpractice or negligence actions against veterinarians.

His legislation, Senate Bill 88, would add vets like himself to the list of providers subject to the statute, including doctors, optometrists and other providers who treat human subjects.

Brown acknowledged last week that to have a veterinarian carrying this particular bill looks terribly self-serving, but said his profession has been shortchanged in lawmaking because of the rarity of having veterinarians in public office.

The bill would change the statute of limitations for filing a malpractice suit against a veterinarian to two years from the current seven years  a common-sense change, Brown argued, given the limited life spans of most animals. If I treat a dog thats eight years old, and theyre going out to seven years (with the statute of limitations for filing a malpractice suit), most dogs arent going to live that long.

Still, he said, hes hoping an identical bill in the House  sponsored by someone who is not a veterinarian  will work out instead of his. I think its wise to let someone else carry it, he said. I truly am not trying to do anything nefarious here.

Last week, Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard had to field questions about whether his legislation to put new limits on use of the states consumer-protection law is designed to help out one of his largest campaign contributors: the Humphreys family of Joplin, which has given Richard almost $300,000.

David Humphreys is CEO of TAMKO Building Products Inc., which is facing a class-action lawsuit over allegedly defective roofing shingles it sold. The company is being sued under Missouris Merchandising Practices Act, the consumer-protection law that Richard seeks to change with his bill.

Richards legislation, Senate Bill 5, would, among other things, impose new requirements on people joining class-action lawsuits of the kind being pursued against TAMKO.

Critics, including the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys, say the measure would effectively prohibit consumer-protection class-action suits under the statute. Richard told reporters last week that sounds like a great idea, but denied his bill has anything to do with protecting the Humphreys business from future litigation.

Kurt Erickson and Stephen Deere of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
By Adila Matra: Bulls sculpted out of bronze--sometimes poised and at others playful, with their human companions and alone--become the muse of the Tamil artist Elanchezhiyan Pichaikannu.

In an exhibition titled 'The Eternal Waiting' at Gallery Art Positive, P Elanchezhiyan displays around 18 statues of bulls among other objects. The much debated issue of Jallikkattu also finds a place in his works.

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"The bronzes celebrate life, capturing the bull form in an array of movements: complex, acrobatic and graceful. They are a tribute to the animal, the love for it in our country and its relationship with the people," Says Anu Bajaj, director of Gallery Art Positive.

In the sculpture titled 'Jallikkattu', two men hold the tail of a bull in action and 'that's what Jallikkatu means' according to Elanchezhiyan.

Also Read: Jallikattu held in Madurai's Alanganallur; 74 people injured, 23 taken to hospitals

"It has turned into an art of cruelty, which by the recent government intervention, will hopefully come to an end. The specialty of this festival is the bull fight. There isn't anyone who is not awe struck and scared by the magnificence of these bulls. I'm one among them," says the artist.

The artist is drawn to its aesthetics and the structure of the animal. Some of the sculptures are made of forged sculptures of various Gods and Goddesses. These statues of bulls in various forms--sometimes striking a pose with Krishna and at others, ready for a Jallikkattu race--provide a unique and interesting perspective.

Also Read: Should Tamil Nadu ban Jallikattu? Leading Chennai voices say NO

"I could feel the intensity because I come from an agrarian family. We treat bulls as a part of the family and even worship them. The prime example is the Nandhi statue that is seen in every Shiva temple. We can also find the images of cow and bull in many cave paintings and in folklore. It gives me immense joy in sculpting the bulls as per my imaginations. It reminds me of the all the memories I had with the bulls," he adds.

The Eternal Waiting is on at Gallery Art Positive, Lado Sarai, till February 25

--- ENDS ---
It was a week of hard lessons for President Donald Trump. He learned the hard way that he doesnt have unlimited authority over immigration and that the courts actually do have independent authority to constrain him. Trump also learned that his words and deeds have real consequences, and when he fails to project decorum and self-restraint, serious embarrassment follows.

Usually, lower offices and the lengthy electoral process are where politicians learn to measure their words and be strategic in their public pronouncements. They feel the sting of gaffes and missteps when their poll numbers drop. Not so with Trump. He has lied repeatedly and said horrible things. He misinterpreted his election victory as a mandate to stay on this chaotic track.

Now, three weeks into office, the polls indicate growing public rejection. The presidents repeated Twitter outbursts and off-the-cuff style are a dangerous combination. Trumps staff may realize that, but the question is whether the president is capable of change.

Trump even won an indirect rebuke from his Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. Trump had tweeted a denigrating remark about U.S. District Judge James Robart, referring to him as the so-called judge who struck down Trumps executive order temporarily banning the U.S. entry of refugees and immigrants from seven primarily Muslim countries.

Gorsuch was quoted as telling senators in Capitol Hill meetings that he found remarks disparaging the judiciary to be disheartening and demoralizing. The White House quickly asserted that the remarks werent aimed at Trump, but what else would have prompted Gorsuch to speak that way? The message was clear: Trump needs to dial it down.

He faced another rebuke when a federal appeals panel unanimously upheld Robarts ruling. A Supreme Court appeal is Trumps next option, but a decision in his favor seems highly unlikely. This embarrassment for Trump is the result of a badly researched and vetted executive order. The clear lesson: Slow down.

Trump also was forced into an embarrassing acknowledgment that he was being frozen out by Chinas President Xi Jinping after a December phone conversation Trump had with the president of the breakaway island of Taiwan. The United States broke diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, but Trumps stated willingness to reconsider the one China policy favoring Beijing, which has prevailed under the previous six presidents, threatened to inflict long-term damage with Americas biggest trading partner.

The White House announced Friday that Trump had phoned Xi and pledged to honor the one-China policy.

Multiple embarrassments were capped by senior aide Kellyanne Conways clear violation of federal ethics rules by using her official status to promote the apparel line of Trumps daughter, Ivanka.

A president who so frequently invokes the word disaster to describe the track record of his critics seems intent on outdoing them at every turn.
What has happened to our powers of discernment and our ability to see these people for what they are, which is that they care nothing for us?
By Press Trust of India: Jammu, Feb 11 (PTI) Two Kashmiri youths have been arrested here for allegedly disrespecting the national anthem, police said today.

An FIR was registered against the youths--Javaid Ahmad Teeli of south Kashmirs Anantnag district and Mudasir Ahmad, a resident Handwara belt of north Kashmir, for refusing to stand up for the national anthem before the start of a film at a cinema hall in Narwal belt of Jammu on Thursday, they said.

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The duo was granted bail by a court here today.

The Supreme Court had last year directed cinema halls across the country to play the national anthem before the screening of every movie, stating that all persons present must stand up in respect except the differently-abled. PTI AB SRY

--- ENDS ---
The James R. Browning U.S. Court of Appeals Building, home of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is pictured in San Francisco, California February 7, 2017. REUTERS/Noah Berger

By Ayesha Rascoe and Steve Holland

PALM BEACH, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is considering issuing a new executive order banning citizens of certain countries traveling to the United States after his initial attempt to clamp down on immigration and refugees snarled to a halt amid political and judicial chaos.

Trump announced the possibility of a "brand new order" that could be issued as soon as Monday or Tuesday, in a surprise talk with reporters aboard Air Force One late on Friday, as he and the Japanese premier headed to his estate in Florida for the weekend.

His signaling of a possible new tack came a day after an appeals court in San Francisco upheld a court ruling last week that temporarily suspended Trump's original Jan. 27 executive order banning travel from seven majority-Muslim countries.

Trump gave no details of any new ban he is considering. He might rewrite the original order to explicitly exclude green card holders, or permanent residents, said a congressional aide familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified. Doing that could alleviate some concerns expressed by the courts.

A new order, however, could allow Trump's critics to declare victory by arguing he was forced to change course in his first major policy as president.

Whether or not Trump issues a new order, his administration may still pursue its case in the courts over the original order, which is still being reviewed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told reporters late on Friday that taking the case to the Supreme Court remained a possibility, after another White House official said earlier in the day the administration was not planning to escalate the dispute.

"Every single court option is on the table, including an appeal of the Ninth Circuit decision on the TRO (temporary restraining order) to the Supreme Court, including fighting out this case on the merits," Priebus said.

"And, in addition to that, we're pursuing executive orders right now that we expect to be enacted soon that will further protect Americans from terrorism."

REWRITE ORDER

Trump's original order, which he called a national security measure meant to head off attacks by Islamist militants, barred people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days, except refugees from Syria, who were banned indefinitely.

The abrupt implementation of the order plunged the immigration system into chaos, sparking a wave of criticism from targeted countries, Western allies and some of America's leading corporations, especially technology firms.

A federal judge in Seattle suspended the order last Friday after its legality was challenged by Washington state, eliciting a barrage of angry Twitter messages from Trump against the judge and the court system. That ruling was upheld by an appeals court in San Francisco on Thursday, raising questions about Trump's next step.

An official familiar with Trump's plans said if the order is rewritten, among those involved would likely be White House aide Stephen Miller, who was involved in drafting the original order, as well as officials of the National Security Council, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security.

It is not clear if a new order from Trump would immediately put a travel ban back in place, or if those who have filed lawsuits, including the state of Washington, would succeed in asking the same judge for another hold.

Should Trump issue a new order, he is still likely to face legal challenges, as opponents could ask the court to let them amend their complaints, said Alexander Reinert, a professor at Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law in New York.

'WE NEED SPEED'

On Air Force One, Trump addressed the San Francisco court fight, saying: "We will win that battle. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily... We need speed for reasons of security."

The matter could move forward next week. An unidentified judge on the 9th Circuit on Friday requested that the courts 25 full-time judges vote on whether the temporary block of Trumps travel ban should be reheard before an 11-judge panel, known as en banc review, according to a court order. The 9th Circuit asked both sides to file briefs by Thursday.

In a separate case on Friday, Justice Department lawyers argued in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia against a preliminary injunction that would put a longer hold on Trump's executive order than the Seattle court ruling, but focused solely on visa holders.

Judge Leonie Brinkema asked the administration for more evidence of the threat posed by citizens of the seven countries.

Aboard the flight with Trump were his wife Melania, daughter Ivanka, son-in-law Jared Kushner and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie. The Trumps landed in the evening and went to their Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball, Doina Chiacu and Julia Edwards Ainsley in Washington; Mica Rosenberg in New York; and Dan Levine in San Francisco; Writing by Ginger Gibson; Editing by Bill Rigby and Mary Milliken)
FILE PHOTO: Illegal migrants, who have been detained after trying to get to Europe, look out of barred door of a detention hut at a detention camp in Gheryan, outside Tripoli, Libya December 1, 2016. REUTERS/Hani Amara/File Photo

By Ahmed Elumami

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Mayors from Libya's desert south to its northern shores fear a deal between Tripoli and Rome to fund migrant holding centers in this north African country will simply shift Europe's migration crisis onto Libyan soil.

The Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy has become the main crossing point for asylum seekers and economic migrants seeking a better life in Europe. Last year, Italy recorded its record number of arrivals and many migrants drowned at sea.

The deal foresees European Union money for holding centers in towns and cities along the main human trafficking routes criss-crossing Libya, as well as training and equipment to fight the smugglers.

Reuters contacted Libyan mayors to hear their reactions to the deal, and they were not positive.

"Our priority is to support our own sons instead of allowing for illegal migrants in centers," said Hamed Al-Khyali, mayor of the southern city of Sabha, a migrant smuggling hub.

"If the Europeans want to allow them to stay, they can have them in their own lands, which are larger, but not in Libya, because we have our own problems to take care of."

Libya descended into chaos after the 2011 toppling of long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi, enabling smuggling gangs to develop entrenched networks.

Smugglers typically demand thousands of dollars from migrants for a risky journey across the desert before cramming them onto ill-equipped boats for a perilous crossing of the Mediterranean. An estimated 4,500 migrants drowned in 2016.

The agreement will depend heavily on the cooperation of local authorities along the smuggling routes because the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli exerts little effective control over much of the country.

Several mayors said they were not notified of the accord before it was struck.

The agreement, which has the backing of EU leaders, pledges support for "reception camps" where migrants can be held "until their deportation or their voluntary return to their countries of origin".

Some migrant detention centers already exist in Libya. A U.N. report in December said migrants in Libya were exposed to widespread abuse in the centers, which are generally controlled by armed groups, although some have official status.

The report also said some local officials were collaborating with the smugglers.

'DANGEROUS STEP'

Hussein Thwadi, mayor of the western coastal city of Sabratha, the departure point most frequently used for Mediterranean crossings by smugglers in Libya right now, said keeping migrants in Libya would be a "dangerous step".

"The idea of allowing illegal migrants to stay in Libya and providing good conditions for their livelihood is rejected by Libyans and by the authorities too," Thwadi said.

The migrant crisis was too great for Libyan authorities to handle, the mayor said. "The problem of illegal migration must be solved internationally."

Most migrant-smuggling boats launch from western Libya.

Mayors in the southern towns of Kufra, Murzuq and Ghat also told Reuters by telephone that they were against the agreement for similar reasons.

Authorities in eastern Libya, who oppose the U.N.-backed government and hold sway over swathes of the south used by the human traffickers, this week rejected the Italian-Libyan deal.

Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano on Thursday said this came as no surprise.

"We got ourselves a good deal, but it's not a magic wand, it doesn't mean that tomorrow morning all the problems will be resolved," Alfano told reporters in Rome.

This week the EU said it would try to protect migrants in Libya and increase voluntary repatriations through closer cooperation with the U.N. refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration.

Both agencies have said that Libya should not be considered a safe country to hold migrants and process asylum requests.

The two agencies' heads, together with the U.N. human rights chief and the U.N. Libya envoy, called on Friday for a "comprehensive approach" to tackling migrant and refugee flows in Libya, stressing the need to look at driving factors behind the crisis while "improving regular pathways" for migrants.

(Additional reporting by Antonella Cinelli and Ayman al-Warfalli; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's anti-corruption watchdog has seized $9.8 million in cash from the former head of the state oil company, a spokesman said on Friday, as the government continues to battle endemic corruption.

Graft, particularly in the oil sector on which Nigeria relies, has taken large sums from the country's coffers.

President Muhammadu Buhari rode to victory in 2015 on an anti-corruption platform after widespread anger at the plundering of the state under his predecessor Goodluck Jonathan. But some have criticised the current administration's efforts as ineffective.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) raided a building belonging to the former head of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Andrew Yakubu, in Kaduna on Feb. 3, Friday's statement said.

Yakubu was group managing director of NNPC from 2012 to 2014, under Jonathan.

In the house, officials found the cash in U.S. dollars in a fireproof safe, said the statement, adding that Yakubu had reported to the EFCC office in Kano on Feb. 8 and claimed ownership of the money.

Yakubu said the money was a gift, but did not say from whom, and is now assisting the investigation, the statement said.

Yakubu was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Camillus Eboh; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Andrew Roche)
Pedestrians cross the street behind a billboard showing a pictures of US president-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Danilovgrad, Montenegro, November 16. 2016. REUTERS/Stevo Vasiljevic

By Olesya Astakhova

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Slovenia would be a good place for a first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, Russia's Vladimir Putin said on Friday, but he said the choice of venue would not be Moscow's alone.

Putin made the comments after Slovenian President Borut Pahor offered Ljubljana, his country's capital, as a venue for a meeting between the Russian and U.S. leaders who have not met since Trump's inauguration last month.

Trump and Putin have both said they would like to try to mend battered U.S.-Russia ties, which fell to their lowest level since the Cold War after Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.

Putin made it clear that no date for such a meeting had yet been agreed, but said he was keen to try to restore Russian-U.S. relations in full.

"As regards Ljubljana, Slovenia in general, it is of course a brilliant place to have a dialogue of such a sort. But it doesn't depend only on us, it depends on a whole series of circumstances," Putin told reporters after meeting Pahor in Moscow.

"If these meetings ever happen, we don't have anything against Ljubljana," Putin said.

European Union member state Slovenia was the venue for the first meeting between George W. Bush and Putin in 2001 where the then American leader made what became a famous comment about looking Putin in the eye and getting "a sense of his soul."

It is also where Melania Trump, the U.S. president's wife, grew up.

The Kremlin sees Slovenia as an ally in its quest to end Western sanctions over the Ukraine conflict.

Russia was a big export market for Slovenian food products before the Ukraine crisis, and Slovenia remains keen to be a transit country for Russian gas supplies to southern Europe.

(Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
An Egyptian, who is believed to be the worlds heaviest woman, was transferred on a special chartered flight from the Egyptian city of Alexandria to Mumbai in India for treatment.

Eman Abd El-Aaty, 36 and allegedly weighs half a ton, could not make the journey to the Egyptian capital Cairo where flights to India usually depart from.

She was taken from her house in Alexandria in a medically-equipped vehicle that drove her to Burj Al-Arab Airport, from where she was flown directly to Mumbai on a special shipping plane.

A hole in her room's wall was made in order to fit her bed out of the flat and a crane was used to bring her bed down to the street.

Due to the gravity of the patients case, her flight was provided with all the medical equipment needed to guarantee both her comfort and safety, Bassem Gohar, Chairman of the Egypt Air Cargo Company confirmed.

Another crane was used to lift the patients bed from the transferring vehicle to the shipping plane, as she was accompanied by her sister and her doctors onboard of the flight to Mumbai.

The patients family claim that she hasnt been able to leave home for 25 years due to her weight problem. She will be operated on by Indian bariatric surgeon Dr. Muffazal Lakdawala.
According to her son Riju Muthayyan, 52-year-old Pushpabai Muthayyan committed suicide by pouring acid over her body on February 10. Her son rushed her to Kattakad government hospital where she succumbed to death.

By Jeemon Jacob: A poor widow in a Kerala village bordering Tamil Nadu committed suicide after monkeys repeatedly raided and destroyed her house and household items. According to her son Riju Muthayyan, 52-year-old Pushpabai Muthayyan committed suicide by pouring acid over her body on February 10. Her son rushed her to Kattakad government hospital where she succumbed to death.

Before her death, she told the doctor, "Monkeys have made my life unbearable." So she tried to commit suicide. Pushpabai lost her husband who was a woodcutter in March 2015 in an accident. She was living with her son in Kathipara, near Vellarada forest range.

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"Most of our neighbours shifted from the area which is under constant attack of monkeys. We could not shift as we have no means. Monkeys used to raid our house and destroy household articles and cooked food. On Thursday, mother had gone for work under NREGA programme. When she returned home in the evening, she found monkeys destroyed her cooked food and household articles and dress," Riju Muthayyan said. According to him, monkey menace is an everyday affair in the area as the monkeys destroy crops and vegetables and even attack women and children.

Family of Pushpabai lodged complaints with the forest and local panchayat officials, but no compensation was awarded.

Her body was handed over to relatives after postmortem. Pushpabai's death triggered protest in the area and demanded government's intervention to end the monkey menace in the area.

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Army foiled an attempt of operatives of banned outfit to enter Pakistan from Afghanistan after they attacked a border-post in Mohmand Agency.

Terrorists from Afghanistan side fire raided Pakistani border post in Mohmand agency. Pakistani troops at post effectively responded to render the fire ineffective. Terrorist fleeing back to Afghanistan, Inter-Services Public Relations reported.

Pakistan military effectively retaliated to the attack and foiled the Pakistan-entering bid.

Pakistan has cited poor border management by Afghanistan on numerous occassions for terror attacks in Pakistan.

The incident has come over a week after Provincial Intelligence Centre of Home Department of Punjab issued a terror alert for Lahore.

According to the warning issued, Tehreek-e-Taliban Swat trained young boys aged around 10 to 12 years in Kunar of Afghanistan for suicide attacks in various cities across the country including capital of Punjab.

One such minor, tasked to attack Lahore revealed that a school near Abdali Chowk was his target.

The warning issued by the department called for increased security of important installations and stressed for an immediate meeting of District Intelligence Committee.
Polling for the phase 1 of the Uttar Pradesh election came to an end at 5 pm. 73 constituencies in 15 districts went to the polls today.

By India Today Web Desk: The first phase of the nearly month-long mega event called Uttar Pradesh Assembly election was held today with 73 constituencies in 15 districts of the state going to vote today. The polling came to an end at 5 pm, with polling crossing 50 per cent at 3 pm.

Western UP, known for its industries and agriculture, witnessed a four-cornered contest with Ajit Singh's RLD all set to play spoilsport in the contest.

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The Uttar Pradesh election, which is being seen as a litmus test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's nearly three-year rule, will be held in seven phases.

Assembly Elections 2017: Full Coverage

The 15 districts that went to the polls in the first phase are Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Hapur, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras, Agra, Firozabad, Etah and Kasganj.

Also read | Uttar Pradesh Assembly election: BJP leader Sangeet Som's brother held with pistol near a polling booth

Around 6,000 paramilitary personnel were deployed in all the 887 polling centres in Muzaffarnagar and neighbouring Shamli, the areas which had witnessed communal riots in 2013.

Here are the day's updates:

Initial estimates put voting in Noida at 51 per cent, at 31 per cent in Dadri and at 66 per cent in Jhevar till 5 pm.

Overall turnout for the phase 1 of polling in Uttar Pradesh was 52.90 per cent at 3 pm.

At 3 pm, turnout is 43 per cent in Noida, 56 per cent in Dadri, 51 per cent in Jevar, 54.62 per cent in Meerut, 51.17 per cent in Agra, 54 per cent in Baghpat, 54.51 per cent in Bulandshahr, 54 per cent in Muzaffarnagar, 54 per cent in Shamli.

Congress-SP alliance is in everyone's interest. People must cast their votes carefully so that they do not get divided, says Muslim cleric Khalid Rashid.

People are voting strongly in favour of Bahujan Samaj Party, our party will get maximum votes after first round of polling, says Mayawati in Saharanpur.

For political gains, UP government played with aspirations of youth in the state, says Modi.

Overall voting percentage in Uttar Pradesh elections 1st phase at 1pm is 39.43 per cent.

By 1 pm, 40 per cent voting in Shamli, 42 per cent polling in Muzaffarnagar, 42.59 percent in Etah, 41.8 per cent in Ferozabad.

Why is the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh sheltering criminals, says PM Modi in Budaun rally.

In Uttar Pradesh's Etah, police lathicharge people who were creating a ruckus on the voter list name missing issue at Maharani Laxmi Bai inter college booth numbers 44, 45, 46 and 47.

Our internal polls suggest we are leading in more than 50 out of 73 seats, says Javadekar. In 2014, we got 42 per cent votes, and our hold continues. This is happening despite Opposition leaders having tried to mislead the people. People's anger is against SP goverment on law and order issue, says Javadekar.

We have a lead in more than 50 seats going in first phase of polls today as per our estimate, says BJP leader Prakash Javadekar.

30 per cent votes polled till noon in phase 1 of voting.

In Muzaffarnagar, sitting MLA Kapil Dev Agarwal of BJP is facing Gaurav Bansal of SP, Payal Maheshwari of RLD and Rakesh Sharma of BSP.

Union Minister Sanjeev Balyan cast his vote in Muzaffarnagar #uppolls2017 pic.twitter.com/obhuhw5IAO

ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

Till 11 am, 24 per cent voter turnout was recorded in Agra, 25.71 per cent in Ghaziabad, 26 per cent in Baghpat, 29 per cent in Shamli, 24 per cent in Bulandshahr, 27 per cent in Muzaffarnagar, 18 per cent in Noida, 21 per cent in Firozabad, 21 per cent in Shikohabad, 19 per cent in Jasrana, 22 per cent in Tundla, 20 per cent in Sirsaganj, 27.17 per cent in Etah, 28 per cent in Marhera, and 26.33 per cent in Jalesar.

We want to win. Noida is witnessing crime at an alarming rate. People are fed up of it. They want good governance. We appeal to the people to vote. I am sure Rajnath Singh ji's Pankaj Singh will win from here, says BJP leader Mahesh Sharma.

Rahul-Akhilesh joint a joint press conference to release the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance's 10-point agenda.

People have intentions of voting for change and development, says BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain on UP polls.

Police detain Gagan Som, brother of BJP MLA Sangeet Som, for carrying a pistol inside a polling booth at Sardhana in Meerut.

10.56 per cent voting in first phase across 73 seats till 9 am.

I would like to say this that if meeting with Mulayam doesn't go well and Akhilesh portrays me as a villain, I would say to Mulayam ji that next time, he want to meet me then he should take permission from his National president. They abused me and my family. It is not Indian culture to abuse your elders.

12 per cent voting in Hathras by 9 am.

15 per cent voting in Muzaffarnagar till 9 am.

10.5 per cent voting in Aligarh and 12 per cent in Bulandshahr till 9 am.

Meerut: BJP MLA and Sardhana candidate Sangeet Som after casting his vote #uppolls2017 pic.twitter.com/dfhsrvcseT

ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

In the Mant assembly of Mathura the voters boycott the elections. The reason cited was the absence of development.

Ghaziabad's Sahibabad is the largest constituency in terms of electorate #uppolls2017 pic.twitter.com/ig9lUYwF9c

ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

Baghpat: Voters in Baraut given roses by EC officials #uppolls2017 pic.twitter.com/xJquZT2WVn

ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

Long queues of voters seen in Bishada amid heavy security.

Good voter turnout has been reported from Bishada village in Dadri.

Villagers of Nagla Koti village in Shikohabad constituency of Firozabad boycott polling. Not a single vote has been cast as yet.

Amar Singh has reached to caste his vote at the Bal Bharti Public School in Sahibabad.

Voting stops at booth numbers 131, 132 and 133 due to problems in electronic voting machines (EVMs) at Barni village of Jalesar in Eta.

Electronic Voting Machine not functioning at booth number 110 on Friganj Road in Hapur in UP.

People after casting their votes in Bulandshahr #uppolls2017 pic.twitter.com/8pvpPiyQ7j ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

Etah's Jalesar is the smallest constituency in terms of electorate.

BJP Mathura candidate Shrikant Sharma casts his vote #uppolls2017 pic.twitter.com/BFPG8R2K3h ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

Voting underway in different districts of Western Uttar Pradesh #uppolls2017 pic.twitter.com/hIigbJBTZA ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

People after casting their votes in Baghpat #uppolls2017 pic.twitter.com/XKh65K2qxs ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

Development is the main issue. BJP's Srikant Sharma is an outsider. There is no anti-incumbency. I have been serving for the last 15 years. UP assembly election is a pre-run to the big battle of 2019. And SP-Congress win in UP will ensure that communal forces are stopped, says Congress leader from Mathura Pradeep Mathur.

Polling delayed in booth no.42 in Mathura's Govardhan, and in booth nos 119 and 120 in Baghpat as EVMs are not working.

Polling underway in Shamli's Thana Bhawan.

People arrive for voting in Dadri's Bishada.

Most of the voters in Noida are above 60 years old.

Polling underway in Noida Sector 15A.

Dadri: Polling underway in Bishada, people cast their votes.

Voting for first phase of UP Assembly polls 2017 begins.

Congress candidate from Mathura Pradeep Mathur, who is also CLP leader, performs Yamuna Arti in Mathura.

Mathura: People queue up outside polling stations in Govardhan. Voting to begin shortly.

Controversial BJP MLAs Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana are also in fray from Sardhan and Thanabhawan seat respectively.

Prominent contestants in this phase include Pankaj Singh (Noida seat), son of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

WATCH VIDEO | UP Assembly polls: Sangeet Som's brother detained with pistol near polling booth

--- ENDS ---
CSE donates library to Diganegama Vidyalaya in Anuradhapura View(s):

The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) recently completed a library donation project at the Diganegama Vidyalaya in Anuradhapura which the CSE said was aimed at recognising the value of fostering access to education in rural communities.

The school was identified by the CSE as a potential beneficiary of its Corporate Social Responsibility project, and the exchange has since embarked on an initiative to donate a library facility for the benefit of the students. The library was provided with new furniture, literature and other resources to facilitate a comfortable learning environment for students, a CSE media release said.

Diganegama Vidyalaya, established in 1954, plays a vital role in delivering learning opportunities to over 100 children spread across grades 1 to 11 in the rural village of Diganegama located in the Anuradhapura district. Access to sound facilities and resources concerning early childhood education, primary and post primary education remains a key challenge for the school.

Despite many challenges, the school has been remarkably successful in maintaining an 80 per cent pass rate in the local GCE OL examination over the years. The school was also awarded as the best eco-friendly school in North Central Province in the year 2012. Such success could be credited to the priceless contribution and dedication of the schools Principal and 12 teachers, who have been instrumental in inspiring students and families to commit to education despite many challenges, the release said.

The CSE Anuradhapura Branch will continue to monitor the progress of the children, the facilities and identify new ways through which the CSE could support the livelihood of the community.
Knight in shining armour View(s):

In the latter part of the 1970s, serving as a cub reporter at the now-defunct Sun newspaper, the Ministry of Public Administration was one of my beats. While the public service was still in its heyday politics was slowly (but surely) creeping in. In the latter part of the 1970s, serving as a cub reporter at the now-defunct Sun newspaper, the Ministry of Public Administration was one of my beats. While the public service was still in its heyday politics was slowly (but surely) creeping in.

On one occasion I walked into the office of the Secretary to the Ministry, in an era of Permanent Secretaries now gone-by. D.B.I.P.S. Siriwardena, at his desk, got up to greet me. He was dressed in full white  nicely creased short sleeved shirt and trousers  and after the usual pleasantries, we sat down for an interview. Noticing the immaculately clean desk, bare except for an old, black telephone, I asked him about the files that deal with day to day business. His response: When a file comes to my attention and action, I immediately deal with it without waiting for the next day.

A few years later I happened to walk into the office of D.S. (Lal) Jayasundera, then Chairman of the Hayleys Group. Dressed in a well-pressed, beige suit and tie, his elegant desk too was bare  without a file on it. Asking the same question I received a similar answer.

These are imprints in my mind, years later watching how the engines that drive a country  the public and the private sectors that were held in high esteem  have disintegrated in dignity and decorum. While the public service has been highly politicised, much of the private sector succeeds by greasing the palms of politicians and corrupt public servants, a fact alluded to in a Hayleys Group annual report many years ago.

These thoughts came to my mind when I read about the Auditor General Gamini Wijesinghes darlings and his ongoing confrontation with the political administration.

The AG had recently told a meeting that the Minister of Finance had said he was the darling of the media. His response, The only darling is my wife and what can I do if what I do draws the attention of the media.

So why take issue with a public official whom the media and his wife love in equal or different doses, is the question.

The reality here is that though the fearless AG has become an irritant to some ministers with his outspoken remarks and unrelenting stand towards accountability and good governance, even exhorting public officials not to bow to political pressure, his public posture has made him the new knight in shining armour. The most, he says, that can happen to an honest public officer is to be transferred. In his case, he has reportedly said, he was planning to return to the village on completion of his term.

Wijesinghe is fast becoming a darling in public and media circles; a throwback to respected civil servants of the likes of Siriwardena, Bradman Weerakoon or Lionel Fernando among others, or that genre of public servant who served the public more than his or her political master. A senior journalist colleague recalls how public servants those days adhered to FRs and ARs. These were their Bibles, he says. They were not only dressed in white or cream but were meticulous about the use of official telephones, stationery, vehicles, etc.

The AGs reports on the mounting losses of state institutions and finger-pointing as to who is responsible are not the main issues. The conflict is with the United National Party (UNP) section of the government appearing to protect former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran who in all or most of the probes (COPE and internal Central Bank inquiries) on two tainted Treasury bond issues in 2015 and 2016 was found to have overstepped conventional boundaries in favour of one primary dealer.

This is a key issue that has torn apart the government with Sri Lanka Freedom Party ministers demanding punitive action while the UNP is downplaying the issue and instead asking why the alleged wrongdoings of former Governor Nivard Cabraal are swept under the carpet in the near two- year-long saga unfolding before the public.

To the governments credit, such outspokenness from public officials is freely permissible under yahapalanaya and wouldnt have been tolerated by the former regime. Transfer was not the only punishment then.

Open governance has become the Achilles heel of the government. In this context it would be interesting to see how the administration manages the openness in the Commission of Inquiry appointed by the President to probe the bond issue. Though without punitive powers and only on a fact finding mission, the Commission has decided, according to one news report, to open the proceedings to the public taking it to a whole new level, a kind of public trial without punishment.

One gets a sense that this could be a deft move by the President to let the public decide and make conclusions, as evidence and testimony are recorded for all to hear and see. Could this be another way to support the Auditor General whose report would be publicly available and shared for the publics benefit during the Commissions hearing?

On the other hand how the Central Bank would respond to its processes and confidential data on the bond issue (initially refused to the AG) being discussed before the Commission at a public hearing, remains to be seen.

According to last weeks political column in the Sunday Times, the Evidence Ordinance does not apply to this Commission. This means evidence not admissible in an ordinary Court of Law, like hearsay for example, would be allowed. Even the production of documents could be made directly instead of summoning the relevant authority to do so, the report said. There is also provision to hold certain proceedings in camera.

These developments come at a time when the government struggles to come to grips with the Right to Information Act (RTI), a process that has been driven by the Editors Guild and other media unions for more than a decade and which became operational on February 3.

It also shows that while the government on one side is willing to open out to the public, on the other hand  owing to growing mismanagement and corruption  the secrecy clause is being thrown around to hide information. On a more amusing note, I was drawn to a front-page newspaper story saying so-and-so was appointed the information officer at the Department of Information under the RTI law. Unlike other departments including the Central Bank which is yet to appoint an information officer designated under the RTI law, the only officer to be appointed  as far as the public is aware  is at a department that has little direct dealings with the public. According to its website, the Information Department assists media in a macro level in welfare, training, policy planning and accreditation, and providing easy access to government news and information. A much better option would have been for the department to coordinate a process whereby all required state institutions got their act together vis-a-vis the RTI and had the information officers appointed by the time the law came into force.

The gallant AG standing up to the government in an incongruous environment has given some hope and inspiration to the public service. With the RTI helping in open government and ensuring little can be hidden from the people (once the system starts working), the public sector could be made effective, efficient and non-condescending. Maybe Parliament should amend its recently-approved Code of Conduct for members to include a clause stipulating least interference as possible in the conduct of the public service. This, to a large extent, would restore faith in Parliament and in its Members.
Public sector wages on two days View(s):

The Government is exploring the possibility of paying public sector employees salaries in two installments each month as a remedy for the sudden cash-flow problems in the Treasury, Public Administration Ministry sources disclosed.

A proposal has been made to pay the basic salary of public servants on the 25th or a date between the 20th and the 25th and allowances on a date between the 5th and the 10th

The state is spending 40 per cent of the national income to pay salaries and pensions of government employees.

All these efforts are being taken to develop the efficiency and the productivity of the Sri Lankan public sector, which has to play a major role towards the countrys development.

But the productivity of the government servants have not been improved even after the granting of Rs.10,000 salary hike to them, a HR expert told the Business Times.

At present the government spends Rs. 800 billion to pay salaries and pensions for public sector employees.
SriLankan Airlines fails in new bid to lease aircraft to PIA By Bandula Sirimanna View(s): View(s):

SriLankan Airlines lost a fresh bid this week to win a Pakistan Airlines (PIA) A 330 aircraft wet lease tender following the end of its 6-month commercial contract of the first aircraft lease in a three-A 330-deal inked in August last year.

These developments had followed tough negotiations by the top brass of the national carrier over the past few weeks with their PIA counterparts who repeatedly requested for a discount on the original lease rental of the single A330 aircraft.

The PIA had also delayed the payment of lease rental in the August 2016 A 300 aircraft wet lease deal, an agreement termed highly successful by SriLankan Airlines CEO Suren Ratwatte in a media release on Thursday. Earlier Capt. Ratwatte had attributed a delay in payment due those authorities being pre-occupied with a PIA plane crash on a domestic flight on December 7 and, bank holidays in the US over Christmas.

Earlier this week on Monday, just as the SriLankan Airlines wet lease arrangement with PIA was due to end on Friday, February 10, the PIA called for bids to wet lease A330 aircraft. In the earlier arrangement with SriLankan Airlines no bids had been called or a tender announced.

Three international airlines, Turkish Airlines, Sri Lankan Airlines and Hi Fly submitted bids for the new A-330 craft wet lease tender and the tender was awarded to Turkish Airlines, according to authoritative Pakistani aviation industry sources.

At the evaluation of the bids Hi Flys bid was rejected due to non availability of the desired aircraft, while Turkish Airlines received 32.8 points for its technical capability and 60 points for financial position. The only other competitor, SriLankan Airlines secured 36.4 points for its technical capability and 53.8 points of its financial position, the sources added.

Thus Turkish Airlines with 92.8 points won the tender outwitting SriLankan Airlines which received 90.2 points during the evaluation process.

The Turkish Airlines wet lease charge was around US$ 6000 per hour, much lower than the rate of $8100 per hour PIA paid for the earlier SriLankan Airlines plane. Though PIA has an option of taking two more aircraft under the earlier deal in addition to extending the lease after the first six months the airline appears to have opted to exit from all those options owing to the cost.

There had been intense negotiations last month between SriLankan Airlines and PIA which requested a discount on the agreed price of $8100, as it was higher than the industry market average of $6000. The discussions which included a request from PIA to offer the second and third aircraft at the market average hire rate, ended inconclusively.

The sources said that a Turkish Airlines A330 plane will be in Pakistan within the next two weeks while the SriLankan Airlines plane would be returned to rejoin the local fleet.

In August last year, PIA agreed to acquire three Airbus A330 aircraft from Sri Lankan Airlines on a wet lease  which includes use of the crew. CEO Ratwatte went on record stating that PIA has agreed to take over the second A330 Aircraft on February 10, in accordance with lease agreement. The third aircraft will be taken over in March or April, subject to crew availability. The first aircraft acquired by them was used for the Islamabad-London Premier Service, since its inauguration by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on August 14 in 2016.

In a statement on Thursday, Captain Ratwatte said: This contract was the most profitable commercial agreement undertaken by SriLankan in the recent past. It has helped to uplift the bottom line of the company at a time when we are facing significant challenges in our efforts to transform the financial fortunes of our airline and return it to profitability.

In what was most probably the last flight under the PIA banner, the SriLankan Airlines-owned A330 on February 7 was intercepted by RAF typhoon fighters while flying to London and forced to land at Stansted Airport. A Pakistani man wanted by the UK Metropolitan Police was reported to have been escorted off the aircraft after it landed, media reports revealed.

Meanwhile the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Lahore is carrying out an investigation into the PIA A330 aircraft deal with SriLankan Airlines, Pakistani media reports revealed.

The inquiry against the PIA management into charges of corruption was launched as there were allegations of taking massive commissions from the deal, media reports said.
BSP chief Mayawati has warned Muslims against voting for the SP-Congress alliance saying this will help the BJP in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

By India Today Web Desk: Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati is using the BJP's anti-Muslim image as deterrent for the minority voters in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

Addressing a rally in Saharanpur in Wester in Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati warned Muslims that if they voted for the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance, they would be favouring the BJP in the ongoing assembly elections.

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Mayawati said, "(SP founder) Mulayam Singh Yadav has insulted Shivpal Yadav out of his love for son (Akhilesh Yadav). This infighting will damage the Samajwadi Party's prospects in the polls. In such a scenario if minority community votes for the SP, it will only benefit the BJP."

WHAT ELSE MAYAWATI SAID: 10 POINTS FROM SAHARANPUR RALLY The minority community should not prefer the BSP to the SP. The BSP's vote bank is fixed and if the minority votes for the party, the Dalit-Muslim combination will be the decisive factor. There is a jungle raj in Uttar Pradesh. The state has witnessed large scale land grabbing, atrocities against women and communal riots. Dadri incident and bloody clashes in Mathura happened under present government. The BSP will bring an end to the jungle raj by putting all the culprits in jail. The Samajwadi Party has carried out half-baked development programmes. They are more interested in publicity than doing their job. All the good works done by the Samajwadi Party were initiated by the previous BSP government. They have just changed the name of the old schemes. The SP and the Congress were also responsible for communal tension and riots in different parts of Uttar Pradesh. The BSP will establish the rule of law in Uttar Pradesh. The BSP is winning with flying colours in the first phase of assembly polls. The trend shows that the BSP will emerge as the largest party and achieve absolute majority. The BJP will do away with reservation for the backward and Dalit castes in jobs. The BSP will always fight for Dalits and the poor. The BJP has not fulfilled its promise to bring back black money stashed in foreign banks and distribute it among the poor by waiving off their loans and debts. The middle class and the poor have not yet recovered from the jolt delivered by demonetisation three months ago. It has hampered the economy of the country. Before implementing demonetisation, the BJP helped big industrialists settle their black money. The BSP government will give favourable posting to women employees of the state government by taking into consideration the place of their spouses' work.

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Tea hub in Sri Lanka only a proposal, say exporters By Sunimalee Dias View(s): View(s):

Tea exporters who succeeded in getting the tea hub status and blending of teas in Sri Lanka passed in two successive budgets say the proposal is yet to get implemented due to strong opposition from sections of the industry.

Government authorities have noted that they have not had any discussion on this subject. Plantation Ministry Secretary Upali Marasinghe told the Business Times that there is no blending discussion underway.

We have done our best to get the setting up of the tea hub passed but due to objections by one or two parties it is not happening, former Tea Exporters Association Chairman Rohan Fernando told the Business Times.

He noted that as a result exporters were going overseas and more are going to countries in Africa while others are looking at Dubai, Sharjah and India.

Protectionist policies of tea manufacturers have impeded the chances of establishing a tea hub in Sri Lanka, Mr. Fernando explained adding that today the quality of tea also has come down as a result of which exporters were compelled to clean it prior to selling them.

Heritage Teas Director Shiraj De Silva said that as a company they were for tea blending since the foreign buyer needs to have a product that could be sold in overseas markets at the right price.

Tea blending is happening in places that dont grow a single tea bush like Dubai, he said but due to protests by tea smallholders and the plantation sector that this could erode the price for Ceylon Tea the proposed has been stalled. Definitely we are going to keep pushing for this, Mr. De Silva said.
Creme de la creme at crossroads View(s):

My dear doctors,

I thought I must write to you when I heard that you are fighting amongst yourselves over a medical college in Malabe and about who should be recognised as doctors  and who shouldnt be. From what we have heard so far, all you seem to be doing is calling each other names and getting nowhere!

We are being told that your Council had decided that this medical college should not be recognised  after many years and after hundreds of students have passed through its doors. However, all hell broke loose when the courts said the Council had got it wrong because it had no power to say so anyway.

Now, GMOA doctors are fighting with the medical college and students are on the streets getting tear gassed. This is why Maithri put Lucky in charge of Highways and Higher Education, so he could supervise our streets and students at the same time  maybe he should be in charge of the Police too!

Pardon me, GMOA doctors, I am a bit confused about your arguments  and that maybe because I am not intelligent enough to get a high Z score as you did. But, it does seem as if you think that this Z score should determine someones fate and that if it is low, you are doomed for the rest of your life.

GMOA doctors, why do you object to smart students, who have just failed to make it to a university, trying to become a doctor by spending their own money? And let us be honest, you are not the creme de la creme either because most of you wouldnt make it to university if not for the district basis!

Of course we agree with the argument about the need to maintain standards of training, because doctors deal with peoples lives. But if it is really about that, GMOA doctors, are you saying that there is enough staff for training in the state medical schools in Anuradhapura, Batticaloa or even Jaffna?

If it is all about standards, GMOA doctors, why didnt we hear the same protests when the Kotelawela school got their degree recognised without even having a teaching hospital of their own? Or, is it because it was Gotas brainchild and in the R era you didnt dare to get into his bad books?

And, if it is all about standards, GMOA doctors, why did you object when the Malabe students were to be given access to government hospitals so they could overcome deficits in their training? It is no wonder that some people call you the JMOA and not the GMOA, where the J stands for Jealous!

Remember, GMOA doctors, when you say that you are battling for the safety and welfare of poor patients and at the same time stage strikes at the drop of a hat, whether it is to get your vehicle permits or even to get your children admitted to prestigious schools, you are not very convincing.

It is intriguing, GMOA doctors, that you now seek the support of the rathu sahodarayas and Mahinda maamas blue boys. In fact, it was Mahinda maama who set up this school in Malabe, giving loans and scholarships! Do you really believe that going behind politicians is the best way forward?

As for the doctors in the Council, you seem to have got it wrong too. The courts said that you approved the Kotelawela school without batting an eyelid but imposed strict conditions on the Malabe school. I thought the purpose of having your Council was to ensure standards, not double standards!

Of course, double standards are nothing new to Carlo, the chief of your Council. Thirty years ago, he was against private medical colleges of any kind on principle  and there is nothing wrong with that. But, during Mahinda maamas time, he was all for them and now he has changed his mind again!

Doctors in the Council, you too need to get your act together. Everyone agrees that it is you  and you alone  who should decide on standards for doctors but you havent had the courage to question the standards in some state medical schools which lack staff. So it looks as if you are also not being fair.

Now, dont get me wrong, the doctors at Malabe are not lily-white either. They have enrolled two batches of students in some years, so it is fair to ask whether they are motivated by profit alone. Also, they could have operated at least part of their hospital free, so it would have attracted enough patients.

So, everyone appears to have blundered along the way- and the futures of hundreds of students at the Malabe school are at stake through no fault of their own. Sadly, doctors who are supposed to be caring and compassionate seem to be the most inconsiderate of all, especially towards their own kind!

We hope that laws are changed to give your Council the powers to regulate medical schools and that those standards will apply not only to the Malabe school but to others as well. Surely, as doctors you should be able to do this if necessary in court, without resorting to ugly strikes, threats and protests?

Maithri has said that he will provide a solution that will satisfy everyone. I am not holding my breath for that. He couldnt get the bond scam probed properly. Some MPs in his own party defy him openly. So, his chances of cleaning up this mess are as good as the GMOA doctors giving up private practice!

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: Thirty years ago when there was another private medical college, the GMOA was against that too. Joining them at that time was the trade union of dental surgeons. It was led by a chap named Rajitha. We all know where he is now and what his views are. So, there is still some hope for a chap named Padeniya: in the fullness of time, he might become our Health Minister and sing a different tune!
Police Counter Terrorism Unit warns of LTTE resurgence View(s):

Other Intelligence Units say no envidence of organised LTTE activity

Concern that unsubstantiated reports of Tiger activity could give ammunition to opposition campaigns

President to head apex body to consider decisions of CCEM, following controversies over several projects

By Our Political Editor

The Police Departments counter terrorism arm, the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID), believes there is a resurgence of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the north, six years after they were militarily defeated.

The seemingly alarming findings, hotly disputed by others familiar with the developments, are contained in a report sent to Police Chief Pujith Jayasundera by the TIDs head, acting DIG Nalaka de Silva.

The report, a copy of which was seen by the Sunday Times said that on January 13, 2017, three persons were arrested in Kilinochchi. They were Karalasingham Kulendran alias Master (LTTE pseudonym Cholai) from Kilinochchi, Louis Mariyanayakam Ajanthan alias Jana (LTTE pseudonym Kadalawan) a rehabilitated cadre from Championpattu and Murugiah Thavendran alias Vendran (LTTE pseudonym Ven Arasan) from Kilinochchi.

They were arrested, the report said, when they were engaged in LTTE reorganisation activity (prathisanvidanaya) and planning terrorist activities (thrusthakriya). From the house of Kulendran in Kilinochchi, the report alleges, that a claymore mine was found. Also found, the report said, was a C-4 explosive device in the hands of Ajanthan. That was meant to target a VIP (prabhuvarayek illakkakeragana) whilst he was in Maruthankerni 30 kilometres south east of the northern capital of Jaffna. However, the report does not identify the VIP or provide details on how the assassination plot was to be carried out.

The suspects were produced before the Kilinochchi Magistrate on charges of drug peddling together with another two arrested later. The same five were also charged in a second case for an alleged attempt to assassinate M.A. Sumanthiran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, with help from an overseas group. TID sources claimed this was on the grounds that they believed Sumanthiran was supporting the government. Since this development, Sumanthirans personal security has been enhanced. The suspects were remanded and the case will come up again tomorrow (February 13).

Alleged LTTE activity

During the past three months, the TID Directors report noted that the three suspects, who were arrested first, operated freely to achieve their objectives. On November 27 last year, they had allegedly hoisted an LTTE flag (somewhere in Kilinochchi), photographed the activity and distributed it among overseas groups supporting them. It was to demonstrate that LTTE activities were still going on in the area.

In October and November last year, according to the report, the threesome had planned to attack Police personnel who were deployed on road patrol in Kilinochchi. The idea, it claimed, was to seize their weapons. In what seemed a contradiction, the report also claimed that the trio had gone to areas where the LTTE has buried arms/ammunition. They were trying to unearth them in the night without any hindrance. If they were not arrested, there was a high possibility that they would have carried out attacks. The targets for such attacks were not explained. There was some self-congratulation to the Police too. Such attacks, the report said, could have caused serious damage (vishala kelelak) to the Police.

Barely three days after he received the TID report, Police Chief Jayasundera wrote to Sarath Kumara, senior DIG in charge of the North, seeking an immediate report. The note, seen by the Sunday Times calls upon him to take into consideration:

The threats to national security

Whether there is an environment where people feel safe

Whether anti-government forces would seize the opportunity to exhort that the LTTE was now re-emerging.

Noting that steps taken to maintain law and order in the Kilinochchi area are not upto a satisfactory level, Police Chief Jayasundera directed that special investigation units and officers in the Kilinochchi District investigate the re-grouping of the LTTE. He has asked them to identify the people involved including those expressing extremist viewpoints.

As the news of these developments spread, there was panic among sections of the public in the area and concerns among the Police there. The Sunday Times has seen reports to Police Chief Jayasundera from officers-in-charge of Police Stations in the Kilinochchi District, the divisional intelligence units and even the Special Branch, an intelligence outfit which comes directly under him. All of them held the view that there was no evidence that the LTTE was re-grouping. How then did the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) conclude that the LTTE is re-emerging? The answers appeared elusive.

Kilinochchi is the nerve centre from where the LTTE ran its bloody campaign of assassinations, violence and terror during the separatist war. It has the largest number of Maveerar or great heroes families. These families are the next of kin of fighting cadres who died. When the LTTE dominated the ground there, these families received preference over others in the distribution of food and medicine. Ironically, these were provided by the government as part of efforts to demonstrate that its writ ran even in guerrilla-dominated areas. Military intelligence records say that in addition to the families, there were more than 2,000 non-rehabilitated guerrilla cadres in the Kilinochchi area.

Theres no truth

A high ranking source familiar with the day-to-day inputs of intelligence and the ground situation spoke to the Sunday Times on grounds of anonymity. He said There is no truth whatsoever in saying that the LTTE is physically regrouping. We dont see such activity on the ground. That is not to say we do not have concerns. There are. Take for example the 12,000 rehabilitated cadres who have since been released. They are youth who have been trained by the LTTE to handle different kinds of weapons and other military hardware. We are mindful of the issues they pose. There are plans to induct a substantial number to the Civil Defence Force and the armed services where they will be deployed on non-combatant roles. One group has already been taken for the Army farm. The defeatedLTTE has no leader and internationally terrorism is not tolerated anywhere now. The access to weapons has become severely restricted.

The source added: Another cause for concern for us is the role of a local politician, one who had close links with the then LTTE leadership. We are aware that he has been receiving funds from diaspora groups and paying them out regularly to Maveerar families. As long as it is for the latters sustenance, there is no cause for serious concern. We are carefully monitoring the situation.

As is well known, the most effective intelligence mechanism in the north has remained the Military Intelligence (MI). Since it was very much a part of the Armys fighting apparatus, its personnel were able to serve in the battle zones where military camps were located when the separatist war was under way. Relatively, the role of their counterparts in the Police was severely restricted then.

It is only after the military defeat of the LTTE that the TID has become active on the ground. Earlier, guerrilla suspects arrested by the Police and the armed forces were handed over to it for further investigation. For reasons of national security, the MI deployment and operational routine cannot be discussed. However, an MI source spoke on grounds of anonymity about reports on the resurgence of the LTTE.

We monitor them very closely. We get to know any unusual activity within hours than days. For regrouping and engaging in a form of sophisticated guerrilla warfare, it took them more than thirty years. Now, they cannot have a meeting of even a small group without our getting to know. The civilians who suffered then and were fed up are helping us. They do not want their lifestyles to be disturbed though some may have economic hardships. One has to look very carefully about these reports of LTTE resurgence. They are coming at a time when the Government is engaged in rehabilitation efforts. The bogey of a regrouped LTTE on the ground could become a ploy to get the troops in the north to be more active. At present they are confined to their camps. Large-scale search operations will not only disrupt lifestyles but also draw complaints of harassment to civilians.

Of course, since the military defeat of the LTTE, every now and then, we recover unexploded ordnance, arms, ammunition buried or hidden in places. Some are committing crimes with them. Almost all of them were hidden by the LTTE since they did not want it to fall into the hands of the troops. As long as we continue to maintain vigilance, even a small group cannot become active. There is no room for them. Unfortunately, when reports of LTTE resurgence reach those in the south, people get worried and that leads to instability.

State of preparedness

The TIDs claims of a resurgence of the LTTE have not been formally conveyed to the intelligence arms of the security forces. The move showed that it deprived the security establishment of jointly monitoring developments that relate to national security. The administrative supervision of the defence establishment has dropped to such levels that these occurrences are not taken note of or those concerned are blissfully unaware.

Even the military display at the Galle Face Green to mark Independence Day on February 4, just eight days ago, watched by Sri Lankans via live television coverage, reflected a woeful inadequacy. Almost all the military ware on display was those acquired by the previous administration. Perhaps the bureaucracy believes that with the LTTE defeated, there was no more need for modernisation. The only priority has been procuring the requirements of units that plan to engage in UN peace keeping operations overseas.

The need to equip troops to meet new challenges is top priority for national security in any country, warns a senior Army official. He noted that during the separatist war there have been numerous instances of rushing to procure equipment when threat levels were perceived to be high. It is during peace times that we should maintain a high level of preparedness, he pointed out. Of course, one of the primary causes for such a situation has remained the troubling financial situation in the country. In the light of this, military procurements have sometimes been considered an item of less priority compared to other more urgent needs.

Some matters relating to Independence Day were also cause for concern for President Maithripala Sirisena. He raised issue at the weekly ministerial meeting on Tuesday over ministers confirming attendance and keeping away from state functions. A case in point, he said, was the customary dinner he hosted on the night of February 4 on account of Independence Day. He said if the ministers are unable to attend, they should say so. However, keeping away from state functions, particularly those hosted by him, was not desirable. If they explained their absence, the tables could have been filled by other invitees. This was because he was aware that there were many who wanted to attend.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe intervened at this stage. He said that ministers and even MPs were sometimes absent from Parliament sessions. Attendance was poor. He revealed that he was formulating a roster which will make it necessary for a considerable number to be present at any given time.

Sirisena was also critical of his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa over the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) in Malabe. Last Tuesday, the Court of Appeal directed the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) to grant provisional registration to SAITM medical graduates. The ruling came amidst months long protests by the Inter-University Students Federation (IUSF) and the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA). Sirisena said Rajapaksa was now protesting against SAITM. When in office, it was he (Rajapaksa) who had given Rs. 600 million to SAITM, Sirisena said. He said the Mahinda Rajapaksa group (of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party) was now in splinters. Sirisena also agreed to look into an issue at the Mannar District Co-ordinating Committee for development activities where questions have been raised over the chairmanship. At present Ministers Rishad Bathiuddin, Faiszer Musthapha and Duminda Dissanayake are co-chairs.

Questions over devloution

A more significant political development, which has given an insight into President Sirisenas thinking over issues related to devolution came at the meeting of the government parliamentary group last Monday at the Presidential Secretariat. It began with two Deputy Ministers  Ameer Ali and M.L.A.M. Hisbullah  raising issue against Eastern Province Chief Minister Nazeer Ahmed. Joining in was Minister Rishad Bathiuddin, who has himself been the target of strong criticism by SLFP ministers. Even last week, they directed complaints against him to President Sirisena and urged that action be taken. In essence, they were complaining against Chief Minister Ahmed for what they called his high handed conduct. There were MPs who opined that it was difficult to get matters attended to by even other chief ministers.

Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader and Minister Rauf Hakeem appeared to concede Ahmed was sometimes not approachable but argued that there were a lot of power struggles that were going on. Pointing out that Minister Daya Gamage had also raised issue, Hakeem said his ministerial colleague backed a particular Eastern Provincial Council member. That member, he argued, was not in good terms with Ahmed. All this boiled down to internal politics, he argued. SLMC sources said the matter is expected to play out when the party holds its annual sessions at the BMICH in Colombo today.

Owa okkoma hari, or all that is correct, declared President Sirisena. He said he also had issues with the North Central Provincial Council. They have to be sorted out. There are inter-party and intra-party problems. We have committed ourselves to devolution. How far can we go?

He noted that the issues over Chief Ministers were taking place when the Government was considering devolving more power. What would happen if they had more powers? He asked what would also happen if the Concurrent List (under the 13th Amendment) is taken away? We have to consider how far we can go. He opined that the issue would become even worse. The Concurrent List deals with subjects assigned to the Central Government and Provincial Councils. This includes subjects of planning, finance, higher education, national housing and construction, agricultural and agrarian services, health, irrigation, fisheries, animal husbandry, tourism development, trade and commerce and protection of the environment.

Though Sirisena did not elaborate, one UNP minister held the view that the remarks articulated by Sirisena could run counter to the pledges made at both the presidential and parliamentary elections. That is both by the SLFP and the UNP. He may be right if those remarks amount to a hint on a marked shift in policy. But that issue notwithstanding, a shift emerged when SLFP ministers decided that provisions relating to the executive presidency in the Constitution should be retained. They have also decided that Sirisena should be their candidate at the 2020 presidential election.

Even more importantly, another decision by the SLFP ministers is that the devolution of power should be confined only to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. As a result, a parliamentary debate on six different reports of the Constitutional Assembly, which is a precursor to the formulation of a new Constitution, is now on hold. This week, Highways Minister and House Leader Lakshman Kiriella declared that the Government would introduce a new Constitution and go for a referendum to seek public approval. The credibility of this announcement remains a key question. No such decision has been made by the Cabinet of Ministers. Moreover, such a declaration has not come from either President Sirisena or the Premier Wickremesinghe.

It is in this backdrop that President Sirisena decided to put off for next month (March) a re-shuffle of portfolios held by ministers. No reasons have been given for the delay but one senior SLFP Minister said: The President wants it to be a surprise. This will not only obviate pressure moves but also prevent any adverse impact on the bureaucracy, he said.

As revealed in these columns, President Sirisena has already conveyed to Premier Wickremesinghe his plans to carry out a re-shuffle of ministers. Sirisena, a source close to the Presidency said, has been receiving complaints with regard to the workings of three different ministries. They are ones not earmarked for change. Important enough, they relate to those from the UNP. Sirisena also met Wickremesinghe again to iron out issues that have arisen between the two principal partners in the Government. Sirisena was accompanied by Ministers Mahinda Amaraweera and Duminda Dissanayake. Wickremesinghe was assisted by Ministers Kabir Hashim and Malik Samarawickrema.

Sirisena-Ranil meeting

Another significant development came last Tuesday when Sirisena and Wickremesinghe met. The duo agreed that there should be an apex body chaired by the President and comprising select ministers to closely study decisions and recommendations made by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM). At present, the CCEM, which is chaired by Wickremesinghe, forwards a copy of its minutes to the Cabinet of Ministers. It is endorsed by the ministers and included in the cabinet minutes.

The decision came in the light of issues that have arisen in the CCEM process. A few examples were the so-called factory to assembly Volkswagen vehicles, the Hambantota Port project and the tyre factory project in Horana. The Government is yet to conclude the Concession Agreement with the Chinese company despite pronouncements by Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrema that it would be concluded late last month. The Volkswagen project turned out to be an embarrassment to the Government after its parent company declared it had no ties with the Sri Lankan interests who were behind the project. President Sirisena had to order a halt to ground clearing work at Horana for the setting up of the tyre factory after it turned out that it had begun even before an agreement was concluded. It also transpired that land for the project has been given at a paltry Rs. 100 an acre.

According to the Board of Investment, the Presidents Office is now looking into the legality of the project. This is particularly in the light of revelations that an industrial zone in the area, declared by the President, cannot be carved out. The observations are learnt to have been made by the Attorney General. A probe is also under way to ascertain as to who directed the company involved in the project, the owner of which was once linked to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, to begin work when an agreement has not even been signed.

SLFP-UNP MoU

These issues, no doubt, have come as irritants in the relationship between the two principal partners of the government  the SLFP and the UNP. It comes in a year where the relationship will formally come up for review. That is the renewal of the August 21, 2015 ten point Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two sides. It was signed at the Presidential Secretariat by the two party secretaries  Duminda Dissanayake (SLFP) and Kabir Hashim (UNP).

Among the highlights were the introduction of a new Constitution and the establishment of an independent commission to crack down on corruption in accordance with internationally accepted anti-corruption norms. It is not immediately clear how the MoU will be revived for the remaining period of the Government. Though President Sirisena declared last year that the alliance would continue till 2020, no mention was made of the two-year MoU.

Developments in the past weeks show that matters related to defence and security woefully lack proper direction. Whilst the armed forces are under the Ministry of Defence, the Police Department is under the Ministry of Public Safety. There seems little co-ordination at bureaucratic levels. Unsubstantiated reports of the LTTE resurgence are counterproductive to the Government and manna from heaven for the opposition. They could argue with justification, with the Police Departments own accounts, that the victory they won whilst in power in 2009 is now being spirited away. Needless to say, this matter calls for a full probe in the interests of national security and public wellbeing. Coupled together with other burning issues, like mounting living costs, a deteriorating law and order situation among them, inaction would only add to more woes for the Government.
Scientific and economically rational decision making vital for agricultural development View(s):

Unscientific and irrational decision making in vital areas of the economy is a serious constraint to the countrys economic and social development. Decisions of momentous significance for agriculture are taken without consultation with scientists and agronomists. Instead, persons who have little knowledge of the field and have serious prejudices are determining agricultural policy.

There is a huge gap between decision makers in agricultural policy and agronomic research. Policy decisions have been taken without taking into account either the available research knowledge or ground realities such as labour shortages that are a critical constraint to agricultural development.

Seminar

This was the strong message that came out at the seminar on The future of agriculture and food security in Sri Lanka organized jointly by the Marga Institute and the Gamani Corea Foundation on January 30th. Several agronomists underscored the need to use available scientific knowledge and research findings in determining agricultural policies.

Speakers

The main presentation was made by Professor Buddhi Marambe, Professor of Crop Science of the University of Peradeniya. Dr. Parakrama Waidyanatha, a former Chairman of the Coconut Research Institute, former Chairman of the Kurunegala State Plantations and senior scientist demonstrated the irrationality of decisions taken on fertiliser and pesticides and provided evidence on agronomists not being involved in critical policy decisions on agriculture. Professor Jeevika Weerahewa, Professor of Agricultural Economics of the University of Peradeniya discussed the policy imperatives for food security and nutrition, while Mr. Rizvi Zaheed Director of Hayleys Agriculture explained the private sector initiatives in agriculture and the constraints faced.

Challenges

Professor Buddhi Marambe pointed out that there were serious challenges ahead for Sri Lankas agriculture. Feeding the increasing global population, as well as Sri Lankas increasing population, in the context of climate change is an enormous task. He pointed out that policy changes and climate change are unpredictable, human induced and detrimental to agriculture. He stressed the need to take decisions with knowledge of the ground situation and based on sound scientific knowledge in order to meet the challenges of climate change and produce the food needs of the future.

Climate change

Climate change, Professor Marambe said was a reality that has to be faced. Dry areas would get dryer and wet areas wetter. We have to accept these facts and respond to them scientifically. He said both policy changes and climate change were unpredictable and human-induced and together had a detrimental effect.

The world population will increase to 10 billion by 2050. Here in Sri Lanka, we need to increase our food production by 50 per cent from current levels to feed our population in 2030. It is a Herculean task with limited land and water resources.

Hotter every year

Every year since 2000 has been hotter than the previous year breaking the record. Global warming has resulted in an increase in droughts and floods. We have experienced both recently where there is no rain when it is needed and more rain when not needed.

The recent drought had a large impact with only one-third of the land extent during the Maha season being cultivated. Even if we have good rainfall next season, do we have adequate seed paddy for the next cultivation season?

Policy decisions

Prof. Marambe stressed: We have to take judicious policy decisions or this country will be heading for trouble. However politicians are not making the correct decisions. He justified this view based on two recent examples of policy changes with regard to fertiliser and pesticides.

Fertiliser use

Professor Marambe pointed out that decision making on fertiliser use was not based on scientific evidence and a realistic and pragmatic policy perspective. He contended that the change in the fertiliser subsidy to a cash subsidy was a move which didnt address the real issue, which was the misuse of fertiliser.

He pointed out that all recent increases in yield and rice production were due to technology that included the use of appropriate fertilisers. If technology is overthrown, Marambe said, the system will fail. The unfortunate problem is that changes in policy are made without consulting people who know about the subject.

Some advisers have said that Sri Lanka was the highest user of fertiliser in the region and Asia. Professor Marambe demonstrated that a World Bank study showed that leading rice producers like Thailand, Malaysia, India, and Bangladesh were higher users of fertiliser.

Pesticide

The same thing happened with pesticide. There was a ban imposed on pesticide but after that there was a cry for an alternate cost-effective method for weed control. He emphasised: The real issue was the misuse of pesticides.

Herbicide

The same thing happened with the ban on glyphosate (a herbicide). People said this was used heavily in paddy but the problem was it was used on tea, maize and wet zone paddy. Look at the level of misinformation fed to policy makers. The result was reduced tea production. The decision is now being reversed after the damage.

People do not understand the ground level situation in Sri Lanka and they advise people to make erroneous decisions which are irreversible and significantly damage our economy and our agriculture, Prof. Marambe called on decision makers to be impartial and discerning and to put faith in scientific methods and modern technology.

Resilient planting material

Professor Marambe stressed the need to develop climate resilient planting material, seeds and a move to animal integrated farming systems which are climate resilient. We also need to prioritise investment in agriculture with the private sector playing a key role. Without the private sector and their intervention, agriculture cannot progress in this country. We need to strengthen entrepreneurial capacities and increase investment in research and development.

Agronomists ignored

Dr. Parakrama Waidyanatha demonstrated very clearly how agricultural policy is not decided on by agronomists. Even the Director General of Agriculture was not consulted when deciding on the fertiliser, pesticide and weedicide issues. The several crop research institutes were not consulted or their advice not taken with respect to fertiliser and pesticide use.

Dr. Waidyanatha stressed that what was needed was a judicious use of fertiliser. Furthermore, there was no conclusive evidence that fertiliser use was the reason for chronic kidney disease (CKD). How come provinces other than the NCP that use fertiliser do not have the problem of CKD?

Conclusion

Decision making on agricultural policy illustrated the lack of scientific knowledge and ignorance of ground realities. This deficiency is also evident in other areas of decision making. The countrys economic and social development is seriously retarded by political decisions that are not knowledge based.
Medical misadventures View(s):

The issue of a private Medical College refuses to go away. It seems the flavour of at least the week gone by after undergraduates marched the streets facing police water-cannon. The Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) is due to go to a superior court, the medical trade union (GMOA- Government Medical Officers Association) is howling in protest and political parties are joining hands to offer stubborn resistance to Government moves to allow fee-paying students at private institutions to become doctors. The public watches in dismay.

The latest upsurge of protests came after a Court of Appeal verdict rejecting the SLMC objections to a private medical institution (SAITM) offering medical degrees. The long ongoing campaign to block these Government moves, begun with the previous administration and being continued with the incumbents in office, continues. The SAITM issue is plagued with allegations of bribery and corruption, intimidation, irregularities, incest and vested interests involving ministers, doctors, health officials and business interests best left to the President and the Supreme Court now to unravel. But it also involves an issue that goes beyond SAITM  that of private medical universities.

Universal Adult Franchise in 1931 was credited with providing Sri Lanka with a health care system that gave rise to statistics that were the envy of many economically developing, especially in the region and even developed countries. Surveys have shown that giving women the vote in 1931 ensured the peoples representatives paid attention particularly to maternity and neonatal care and paediatric facilities. This required quality medical education and trained nurses and midwives. And what is more, throughout these decades, this relatively high standard of health care has been achieved despite a shoe-string budget from successive Governments.

Alas, scores of doctors trained at State Medical Colleges at the expense of the meagre resources of the taxpayers have left the Health Department to serve in hospitals in foreign countries, distinguishing themselves no doubt, but depriving the country of their own services. Many who went for further education and training, as they should have, never returned. Yes, they paid a pittance in the form of a bond, but what of the place they occupied at the limited Medical College. Who can replace that?

Every year 1,200 medical graduates join the state health service. 2015 figures on the renewal of registrations by the SLMC indicate 27,000 renewals. If for arguments sake more than 2,000 have left the country over the years, and more than 1,000 are not practising, there are still more than 20,000 in service. But there is a serious maldistribution of doctors in the remote areas where doctors and patients lack adequate facilities and services, not to mention shortages in some specialties.

In the 1980s, the J.R. Jayewardene Government took the first steps in rectifying this anomaly of a shortage of doctors by starting a private Medical College. (Please see ST2 section Page 14). He managed to steamroll political opposition to it.

Todays crisis also has a political element. It is not limited to downright envy that children of affluent parents can become doctors while others cannot  unless they enter the State Medical College. It is also not limited to the fact a greater influx of doctors will mean more riding the gravy train of private practice. This is a move from a socialist-welfare State struggling to make ends meet, providing free health care without the money to foot the bill for it, and hoping an open economy will take care of the bills and burdens of the State to deliver the goods to the people.

The entire medical education exercise is inexorably linked to the University entrance examination and the current Z score system. For many years, when University entrance was on merit, there were accusations that some examiners were partial towards a particular community giving high marks for papers answered in a particular language stream resulting in a greater intake to the Medical Faculty in particular than was in proportion to its population. Others dismissed this with scorn saying they were simply cleverer than the others. Then came standardisation and the quota system to give rural students either in Kilinochchi or Kamburupitiya a better chance of entering universities, but that backfired into a trumped up racial discrimination issue and was said to be the springboard to attract youth to a violent insurgency in the north.

While there can never be a foolproof system in a country where false addresses and documents are produced for entry from primary schools onwards, the Z score may have also caused reverse-discrimination by depriving bright students mainly from the cities entering medical school and universities because of quotas given to rural students. Conversely, rural children were deprived of places because city students took temporary residence in the provinces for examination purposes.

Those thousands thus deprived must be given an opportunity of access to higher studies even at a later stage. The Open University opened new vistas for children thirsting for knowledge and a degree, but were kept out of universities due to a corrupted entrance system.

The country is in need of more doctors, though no one really knows what the shortage is. The numbers going abroad for medical studies because they dont have access to a medical faculty in Sri Lanka is an astounding 500-800 on average a year. It costs them Rs. 2-5 million a year depending on if they go to India, Bangladesh, Nepal or to the United Kingdom. This money has to be met with foreign exchange to the tune of Rs. 15 billion or more. Only half of these outgoing students return to Sri Lanka. These cold statistics cannot be simply ignored. For the GMOA, paradoxically, doctors who pass out of some of the foreign medical schools are not an issue should they sit for the local qualifying examination conducted by the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC).

That is what is at the crux of this debate. Whatever medical education is obtained, the SLMC ought to remain the Gatekeepers to the profession, the licensing body for medical practitioners in Sri Lanka. It must sue  and be sued, and take the responsibility for untrained, unqualified doctors unleashed on unsuspecting patients, especially the poor. Business schools giving medical degrees that do not meet the required standards will inevitably collapse if their graduates dont get registration to practise as doctors. In some countries, in the neighborhood as well, politics has crept into the regulation of some private medical colleges tarnishing the otherwise good reputation of the quality medical colleges. That is the last thing that must happen here.

Higher education in economically advanced countries comes at a financial cost to the undergrad. Many students keep paying their student loans for many years after graduation and while in employment. In Japan, fees are charged according to the parents financial status. Scholarships are given in abundance for poor students in universities where fees are charged from those who can afford to, and are willing to, pay. Thats how prestigious private universities, including medical colleges abroad have the funds to provide quality education without waiting for government handouts that are not there.
Incredible lineup at Colombo Jazz Fest View(s):

Mercedes Benz Colombo Jazz Festival, comes alive on the 18th and 19th of February at the Galle Face hotel, is a Mainstage production. Following on the immense success of its inaugural festival in 2016, this years event has expanded to cover two days with over 80 artistes. The concept behind the festival is music, culinary and art event, that promises to combine and showcase the talents of the best international jazz artistes as well as artistes of national renown.

The heritage property the Galle Face Hotel, in Colombo, will welcome global music fans to jazz-centric celebration, where fans of all types of jazz-related music rub shoulders with aficionados of the genre. Jazz is a genre that evokes such powerful and varied emotion, and it strongly emphasizes the experimentation of sound and musicianship. When putting together artistes such as this, Mainstage Events, the organsers aim to capture all that diversity, all that makes this art form so beautiful, in a weekend of performances.

The lineup is the culmination of the festivals commitment to bringing a diverse and unique group of jazz musicians to Colombo, all flown in courtesy of festival partner SriLankan Airlines, to deliver a collection of performances that includes, exciting new artistes, international and local jazz legends and groups all connected around presenting unique musical experiences in a first for Colombo.

At a press conference at the Galle Face hotel the Festival Founder Gehan Fernando along with partners DIMO Lanka General Manager Sales Rajeev Pandithage, Etisalat Lanka CEO Sulaiman Alkaabi, SriLankan Airlines CEO Suren Ratwatte, Managing Director Sugar Restaurants Dinesh Wijesinghe, Spa Ceylon Co Founder Shalin Balasuriya, Galle Face Hotel General Manager Deni Duki and Olu Water CEO Shalindra Fernando announced the impressive lineup.

Diesel and Motor Engineering PLC (DIMO) with Mercedes-Benz, has partnered with the Colombo Jazz Festival for the second time since the events inception last year.

The renowned group headlining the festival is Incognito, which has been labelled as everything from pop band to Latin jazz ensemble, from 70s-styled funk crew to an acid-jazz collaboration.

It is best defined in terms of its leader, guitarist-vocalist-composer Jean Paul (Bluey) Maunick. Over the course of the ensembles history and its 16 albums, Bluey, has encompassed a variety of forms of music anchored all the while by his original inspirations: Herbie Hancock, Earth, Wind and Fire and especially Stevie Wonder.

Another legend performing is Mud Morganfield who describes the resemblance of the tone and timber of his voice to that of his fathers voice as a double edged sword.

The Kevin Davy Quartet, Kevin Davy is a London-based trumpeter, composer, arranger and bandleader. Geoffrey Fernando of famed Sri Lankan band Purple Rain will also perform. Jerome Speldewindes powerful vocal styling makes for a compelling combination when paired with his guitar skill and is really one to watch from the stellar lineup of local artistes.

Brown Sugar, regulars at 41 Sugar are one of the islands up and coming jazz sextet whose brilliantly quirky performances have made them a firm favourite in the scene.

From afternoon to midnight the Mercedes Benz Colombo Jazz Festival will all take place at the iconic Galle Face hotel, designed to meet festival-goers every need.

As there are a limited number of tickets available, early booking is advisable. Tickets will be available from Sugar Bistro Crestcat and Odel, 41 Sugar, PR and the Galle Face Hotel. Also be purchased on line at www.colombojazzfestival.com .Tickets are priced at Rs 5000/- for a day pass for either day and Rs 8000/- for the weekend pass which includes entwry for both days, children (under 12) are half price and toddlers are free.
More than a cradle song By Tarini Pilapitiya Cast and directors of The Lullaby share with the Mirror Magazine their hopes of using the stage to address pressing issues often ignored View(s): View(s):

The curtain opens on a gaggle of girls; they innocently present a sense of camaraderie amidst a setting of a sleepover. The tables turn on the audience as they discover the girls are ladies of the night, getting ready for an evening out.

The Lullaby, written and directed by Maleen Jayasuriya and Nash Naranpanawa is a play that tackles the issues of the legalisation of prostitution, the grey areas of abortion and the corruption of political power. On speaking with Maleen, we gather the purpose of the play is to Shock the audience out of a sense of apathy towards issues common in society. These issues are conveniently swept under the carpet, he says solemnly.

I want people to walk out of the theatre thinking about it, the radical director says. The plays main antagonist is the fictional politician Roy Kumarasinghe, played by Maheeth Nimantha, who is portrayed as a man on a mission. The plot twists however when the seedy politician visits a brothel and chooses the protagonist Amaya for the night. The themes of drugs and consent also being highlighted here, the plays characters, give life to portraying victims of society and judgment and leave the audience with a chill in their bones and mind unbolted.

Having studied in the Engineering faculty at the University of Peradeniya, Maleen recalls days at Wesley College and directing Shakes competitions at the ages of 19-20. Maleen continued to pursue his passion even into his university days.

The play also brings to light a transgender prostitute by the name of Trixie, played by Jeremy De Zilwa. The character is portrayed as one who has had a difficult road in their transformation. Possibly bullied in the past as a boy, Trixie has now started to feel more comfortable in her skin as a woman. Its good to step into someone elses shoes,says Jeremy and reveals that Trixies story line has a tragic element to it. Piumi Wijesundara who plays the lead Amaya describes her character as a Doe-eyed Bambi with a naive personality. She sees the other people in the brothel as her family.

A student of the University of Colombo, Piumi is no stranger to the stage having worked closely with local dramatist Ruwanthie de Chickera, both behind the scenes and onstage.

She speaks passionately on the facade of culture shown prominently by the character Roy, and she says You have to look into how these things came into being, before you can judge the person or the profession. Piumi adds the fate of Amaya will keep the audience on the edge of their seats wondering Can she make it in the world?

While the production follows the twists of the system, Roy Kumarasinghe, wreaks havoc from the outside while the deviant Tasha, played by Chalukya Weerakoon poisons the environment from within.

Tashas insecurity grows when she sees the demand for the younger girls and the competitive element she has with Trixie makes her a force to be reckoned with.

Enter Themiya, Amayas love interest. Played by Tharaka Hettiarachchi, Themiya provides the light in a dark situation. Portrayed as the candid love interest and the typical Nice guy his naive nature draws Amaya to him. With Themiya around he rekindles Amayas belief that innocence is still out there. Tharaka says that although he portrays Themiya as very black and white there is a sense of inner conflict within the character and he brings his own personal confusion into the plot. Finding solace in Amaya to satisfy his emotional validity, Tharaka states he is not your stereotypical love interest.

The evening will also include a guest performance by the Faculty of Arts, University of Peradeniya, who will be performing a short skit centered on similar themes and directed by Ruwanthi Edirisinghe.

The Lullaby will premiere at the Namel Malini Punchi Theatre on February 17 at 7 pm. Tickets are priced at Rs. 750 and can be reserved online on their Facebook events page: The Lullaby or by contacting Ruwanthi: 077 267 3211.
Sri Lankan Cinema needs an identity By Susitha R. Fernando View(s): View(s):

Two young filmmakers Kalpana and Vindana Ariyawansa who are releasing their debut film Premaya Nam (Dirty, Yellow, Darkness) on February 17 strongly believe that Sri Lankan cinema must find its own identity and emulating would not take the small industry anywhere.

Kalpana and Vindana two brothers who had extensive training and exposure to the Hollywood cinema industry spoke to the TV Times and shared what they had experienced with their first movie and what direction the countrys cinema should take for it to be sustained.

Kalpana and Vindana who are also sons of welknown lyricist Kularatne Ariyawansa spoke about their film, what their vision for Sri Lankan cinema and the challenges the cinema of the island nation is facing.

Going back to the past how they started liking cinema Kalpana said We were film fans from the younger days and we equally enjoyed all forms of art. Our father selected the lyrics form as his medium of expression and we decided to choose cinema as our medium of expression,.

We enjoyed any type of cinema. We were not prejudiced to any type of genre. Initially we were attracted by local movies like Handaya then we watched Hollywood movies like Jungle Book, then we liked Bollywood films like Sholay and even Sri Lankan movies like Muwan Pelessa and films acted by Vijaya Kumaratunga, he went on to say.

The turning points for the two brothers with regard to cinema was their journey to the United States after their Advanced Level examination. By going to the US the spectrum was opened to us and we were able to watch any film we preferred, says Vindana who first joined Columbus College of Arts and Designs in Ohio to learn graphic designing and story board designing. That school was famous for animations and lot of graduates from there went to work for Disney. Our animation dean was from Hollywood and there I got to meet visiting art directors and directors from Hollywood.

Aiya has a collection of Disney movies. Starting from some of the early Disney movies like Steamboat Willie and Bambi. He also has a major collection of epic movies and film literature. We had the access to learn about movies and we got the best use of it, Vindana, the younger brother said.

A number of Kalapanas friends are right now big names in Hollywood and in the animation industry and are attached to companies like Disney and Pixar. Dan Scanlon who directed the animation movie Monstrous University was one of my colleagues, says Kalpana.

Asked as to why he did not want to go with them and get himself based in Hollywood, Kalapana says it was the time factor that stopped him. Once you are in an animation film project you are stuck for 6 years. The way Pixar company work is, story pitching goes for more than two years and the rest of the film goes for four more years. In a career of 15 to 20 years you will only be able to work in a three or four movies.

Those days I wanted to work for Disney but now I want to do more live action films, Kalpani added.

Aiya went to the US 23 years ago and he is a US resident now. He will be based in the US and will be visiting Sri Lanka for his film work but I will be based here says Vindana.

Vindana was graduated from the University of Kentucky on Computer Engineering.

While nearing the studies because of the facilities available I conducted independent studies on cinema. I had the freedom to pursue my interest. Then I moved back to Sri Lanka and started working as a consultant of media, communication, IT and marketing plus Quizzing which was my pastime. I am a quiz master and I have a team and my team is the top ranking quiz team in the country. I also published the first English language book on quizzing. I have compiled quiz for the inaugural season of the local version of Who wants to be a Millionaire on Sirasa TV and Pentathlon on TV One. Other than that Im also a quiz master and a quiz compiler. Film making is also pastime because it is not an industry that one can be sustain, says Vindana.

Premaya Nam also had a series of screenings from Beijing to Hollywood. For nearly two years two brothers were going around the world with the film.

We had a sellout Hollywood screening. Then we had a feastival run from Beijing to Shanghai, Goa, Kerala, Bangalore, Florida, London, Madrid, then back to India and back to California, Vindana described.

However according to the brothers the film screening in Jaffna was one of the best experiences as Tamil speaking audience which would hardly watch Sinhala cinema embraced the film whole heartedly.

At the film discussion after the screening in Jaffna,someone from the audience said this film did not need a language, Kalpana said.

Describing another experience they said In Goa when we saw our film there was a girl wearing a salwar and at the end of the film she stood up and addressing the audience said I am a Sri Lankan and this is a movie from my country and Im so proud to be a Sri Lankan.

The two brothers also spoke where Sri Lankan cinema could be placed in the international map.

Iranian cinema has reached the world in a certain way. Coming from a county like Sri Lanka that is the level we can reach. We can make a name. We can compare ourselves to countries like China, Korea or Taiwan. Their films are being remade as Hollywood and Bollywood,.

Comparing our cinema to any other cinema would not take us anywhere. Even in Bollywood they had to stick to Bollywood tradition and identity. If they break out of the Bollywood tradition they fail. The only way we can win the global audience at least to some extent is by preserving our own identity and making films based on that.

We can draw inspirations from other countries but we cannot emulate them. That is where we go wrong

We cant have Iranian culture are European culture. We need to see that artistic films that are made here is watched by our audience.

We had a huge movie going audience in 1960s and 1970s but they could not keep up to the other alternative medium of cinema. All the other countries maintained these standards.

You need more mainstream films not only artistic movies. There is a monetary value. Having established a mainstream medium will help all the other alternative genres.

Our industry has been polarized. At one end there are festival movies. Then you have highly commercialised film, nothing in between. So the industry has been polarised. As long as we have cinema with our own identity without emulating others we will have a future.

Hollywood recognise Iranian films for being Iranian films. Making films with Sri Lankan identity does not mean exploitation. Showing only the bad and negative aspects of it. That is why local audience are not watching them.

We cannot project human form at its lowest level as our cinema. If we do that we would not be able to be successful locally or internationally.

During the 60s we had a good industry. Other than India we were ahead of other Asian countries. They were nowhere but we went downhill and they rose in global audiuence. They started making films keeping their identity. Ever since we start loosing our identity we lost the global audience.

Speaking about their movie Premaya Nam they saidIt is a movie about a mental disorder but we did not want to make a film that would create mental disorder for the audience. No matter our intentions are film has been the most influential form of storytelling about humanity Vindana said.

Vindana was open and humble to share the source of the story. It is my own story that I struggled along with my nearest family being part of that. We are not candid about it.

They were grateful to the National Film Corporation chairman and the theatre owners in which the film would be screened. He was also grateful to Dr. Kapila Ranasinghe from the Mental hospital he had the trust on us. They gave us total freedom. The two brothers were also grateful to the chairman of the National Film Corporation, Ridma and CEL circuit and all the theatre owners in whose theatres the film would be screened.
V Day: Lets get the guys on board! By Tarini Pilapitiya and Shakya Wickramanayake View(s): View(s):

Valentines Day creeps up on us in a buzz of sweet nothings.flowers, chocolates, sweet treats, romantic dinners.. We mark down the days, some eagerly anticipating the occasion, others treating it as just another day. Each reaction so vastly different, yet one dynamic remains constant.

Lets face it, expectations are high! With much of the marketing and advertising for Valentines Day targeted at women, we were curious as to how the guys handle the expectations that seem to fall on them on this particular time, whether they believe these expectations exist and whether they are willing to shoot Cupid or give him a run for his money.

We interviewed 10 eligible gentlemen, between the age of 20- 85, for a male perspective on Valentines Day .This is what we found out;

What are your thoughts on Valentines Day?

* Im not really for it. For me its more a commercialized holiday, like Mothers Day or Fathers Day. This is a day for your significant other.I see every day as a day for something special for my significant other. Im cheesy on a daily basis. (Undergraduate, 23)

* Its ridiculous! Its so commercialized! But do you celebrate it? Yes. (Doctor, 33)

* It is a meritorious celebration; I reckon an effort is made more than on other days. It shouldnt be quantified simply on materialism, although materialism never hurt anyone in my opinion. (Law student, 24)

* Ive never really celebrated Valentines Day Why?One day isnt enough to really celebrate a relationship. (Business student, 24)

* I dont believe in Valentines Day. Its a Western concept and is confined to people who dont meet very often. In Sri Lanka we get to meet and spend time with our loved ones on a daily basis. We dont need to have one special day to show them that we are here and that we care. There is no necessity to have a special day. (Director, Playwright, Dramatist, 82)

* Being thoughtful, caring, and understanding should be done on a daily basis, not just on Valentines Day. ( Journalist, 24)

What obligations or expectations do you personally feel about Valentines Day?

* If you dont do something,you feel bad. It looks like youre not invested. (Undergraduate, 23)

* Id like to think that men are not that bothered about showcasing their love. I enjoy doing things at random on days. The littlest things show your significant other that you care. The expectations of proving your love is ridiculous. It then becomes more an obligation than genuinely wanting to do something. (Doctor, 33)

* I feel that yes, guys are expected to do something special and unique on this day and that the highlight is on girls. But anyone can take the initiative to plan or gift something. Its not a competition. ( Business student, 24)

*Its only an obligation if your significant other thinks that its a must to celebrate the day. (Journalist, 24)

* Its not an obligation. Girls shouldnt expect anything. If you do celebrate it, you should do it without thinking of it as an obligation. (Lawyer, 29)

* Yes, its an obligation. You should make her feel special and give her something to tell her friends about. (Lawyer, 24)

What motivates you to celebrate the day?

* Im doing something for the other person and making her happy. (Undergraduate, 23)

* Surprising the other. A smile is always nice. Unexpected ones, the sweeter. (Law student, 24)

* The only motivation should be your partner. Because Im in a long distance relationship, if I meet her on that day Id celebrate it. (Lawyer, 29)

Do you prefer your significant other being more direct in your relationship with what they want?

* Its much easier when they directly tell you what they want, but girls are mysterious. I dont see that as bad. It gives you time to get to know them personally, and makes the surprise of what you give them so much more rewarding. (Undergraduate, 23)

* If she wants something Id want her to be direct. I cant be bothered playing mind games. (Lawyer, 29)

* A bit of both. [Its] fun if she takes it with a laugh when I get it wrong. Direct, if she is catty. (Law student, 24)

* When it comes to things like gifts and things I enjoy the mystery and romance of it. But I want her to be direct with me when it comes to important things.

( Marketer, 22)

* Being direct would be nice. But then I feel that sense of surprise is lost. Unless of course the surprise goes wrong, because it wasnt what she was expecting, then at those moments I wish she was direct. ( Lawyer, 24)

What are the staple gifts/ plans you give/make for Valentines Day? What challenges do you face when shopping or

planning for it?

* Flowers, chocolates, handmade cards  (majority of the respondents)

* I dont see it as a cost or a challenge. Its for a loved one. Its more an investment. ( Doctor, 33)

* In the initial stages its difficult to buy gifts as you have to guess what your girlfriend would want or like. Also celebrating Valentines Day tends to be bad on the pocket. ( Journalist, 24)

* If its a younger couple, getting permission to go out and celebrate is an issue. (Lawyer, 24)

Many like talking about their Valentine experiences. Do guys tend to talk about it with other guys?

* I havent really met any guy who has spoken to me about their Valentines Day. I dont talk about it in particular Its personal. (Undergraduate, 23)

* Guys dont really talk about it. I dont know why. They do ask for advice, in terms of what to get, what to do. Its not that they think any less about the day, I think its because its a personal topic for them and they dont care to share. (Business student, 24)

What are your thoughts on being single on Valentines Day?

* Its never really bothered me. Im assuming, like me, most treat it like a normal day.

(Undergraduate, 23)

* Nothing to tackle. They would probably do normal routine things. (Doctor, 33)

* I know that usually single guys go drinking on that day. But being single isnt, and shouldnt be an issue. If you learn to love yourself, it should be fine. (Journalist, 24)

* When I was single, I used to be very thankful that I was, unlike my friends who were under pressure to properly plan and celebrate the day. ( Lawyer, 24)

How do you think women handle being single on this day?

* From what Ive observed from social media and from the conversations Ive had with my friends it seems like women want to be with someone on days like Valentines Day. (Marketer, 22)

* Women are okay being single. They usually either build up their expectations based on what they see on Valentines Day, or theyre relieved after hearing the horrible Valentines Day celebration stories their friends went through. They try to be optimistic by thinking maybe one day Ill have that or Im so glad I didnt have to go through that. (Lawyer, 24)

* Probably celebrate with wine and movie night at home or at a club with free booze. (Executive, 25)

* Women usually deny it but they want to be with someone during that day. There are exceptions to the rule. But its normal for them to want to be with someone, because people need other people. No one wants to be alone. (Lawyer, 29)

Suppose a girl bought you flowers and asked you to be her Valentine. What would be your thoughts?

* I dont like flowers, but I would accept it. It would make the house look nice. (Doctor, 33)

* I would be surprised but I would accept them. I would appreciate the sentiment. (Business student, 24)

What do you like to receive this Valentines Day?

* Nothing really. Well maybe forgiveness since I wont be in the country on the 14th, so Ill be missing this years Valentines Day. (Lawyer, 24)

* PS4. ( Business Student, 24)

The stereotypes of advertising tend to make us believe that men are brain dead when it comes to romance, in reality men however do not think entirely the same. So to all the lucky significant others out there grab your man and have an exceptional Valentines Day and cherish every day of your relationship. To all those singles, have a read, a possible chuckle and know that February 14 is just another day. Happy Valentines Day.

Want to be the seeni to my sambol? If youre single this Valentines Day, but very much ready to mingle, why not use the cheesy, but uniquely, Sri Lankan pick-up lines from our curated list below; Are you Dilmah? cause youre Ceylons finest. Want to be the seeni to my sambol? Are you the Ceylon Electricity Board? Cause youre leaving me in the dark! You add so much value to my life that Ravi wants to slap VAT on it. Everytime I see you my heart feels like its in a private bus ride. A life without you is like String hoppers without the kirihodda. For you, I will put down my kotturotiya mid meal Life without you feels like the Mattala airport. You wanna come over, watch Atapattama and chill? You and I are like Galle Face and issowadai. It may not lead to you finding the one, but at least itll break the ice. On that note, how much does a polar bear weigh?  Enough to break the ice! With that, we bid all you singles Good Luck!
Big purge at Royal amid charges and counter charges over Grade 1 admission View(s):

By Chrishanti Christopher

A major purge of senior masters at Royal College, Colombo has taken place following recent allegations by Education Minister Akila Kariyawasam that Grade One admissions to the countrys leading state school were fraught with irregularities.

As many as eight members of the senior staff, including two Deputy Principals, two senior Games Masters/Assistant Principals, a Section Head and a senior most teacher at the Primary section have either been interdicted or been transferred, the Sunday Times learns.

Most of these teachers were appointed to sit on the admissions panels or assist in finalising the 2017 Grade 1 entrants. They were reportedly held accountable for being unable to detect the fraudulent documents (i.e. registered deeds, extracts from the Land Registry, lease agreements drawn up by lawyers and voters lists certified by the Elections Commissioner) submitted by some applicants. Other reasons given for the transfers or removal from important posts were that these teachers exceeded ten years of service, obstructing school administration among other charges.

The move follows earlier allegations by Minister Kariyawasam that irregularities in Grade One admissions to Royal College had taken place and that the old boys union of the school, the Royal College Union (RCU), cannot deny its involvement as initial investigations have shown that thirty one (31) applicants had produced fraudulent documents at the interviews, a charge the RCU dismissed as being baseless and unsubstantiated.

Minister Kariyawasam told the Sunday Times this week that twenty (20) national schools were under investigation by his ministry for irregular admissions for Grade One in 2017, and that old boys and past pupils associations were found to be involved in these irregularities. Applicants had submitted false addresses and documents and there were two RCU members sitting on the interview panel, he said.

He also said that members of the old boys unions and past pupils associations were only allowed to sit for five years in the interview panels, but there were those who were sitting for ten years or more. It has become a mafia, he said and added that it has become a lucrative business for them.

RCU Secretary Athula Munasinghe hit back saying the allegations against the unions representatives on the interview panel were unfounded and only come via the media. He said the union was 125 years old and has 14,000 members working with the authorities for the betterment of the College.

Last week, the RCU took out a half page advertisement in the newspapers challenging the Education Minister to hold an impartial inquiry to the allegations he has made against the union, and assuring its cooperation in such an inquiry. It accused interested parties with hidden agendas of tarnishing the name of the College and the union with innuendos, half-truths and veiled threats.

RCU office-bearers told the Sunday Times last night that this purge of senior teachers raises concerns as to the real reason for the unplanned terminations, as they have played a major role in managing this institution and in supervising the outstanding success of Royal students in the last many years in studies, sports, community projects and other extra-curricular activities.

Its a remarkable coincidence that a varied number of reasons all happened in a very short period of time enabling the Ministry of Education act in this manner to expose the children of Royal. The real and eminent danger to Royal College now is that all these vacancies will be filled by powerful people in the ministry with obvious animosity and malice towards Royal, sending unsuitable people to the school for their own purposes and agendas, one union official said.

Principal of Royal College B.A. Abeyratne told the Sunday Times last night that he needed time to explain the movements of his senior staff, and cannot do it at short notice.
By Press Trust of India: Mumbai, Feb 11 (PTI) A minor fire broke out at the Tata Memorial Cancer hospital in Parel today, said a fire brigade official.

No one was injured in the incident, said the official.

"We received the call regarding the fire breaking out at 8.52 AM. Four fire engines and an equal number of water tankers were rushed to the site. The blaze was doused within a few minutes," the official said.

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The fire was confined to the wiring, electric installation in the basement area of the hospital building. The cause of the blaze will be ascertained after a thorough inquiry into the incident, said the official.

Senior Public Relations Officer of Tata Memorial Hospital S H Jafri, in a statement said, "Fire broke out in the basement of the main building, store room of dispensary. The fire has been brought under control. There is no casualty. All activities have resumed. The cause and extent of damage is being assessed." PTI APM RMT SDM

--- ENDS ---
Bond issue: AG appoints 9-member team to assist Commission of Inquiry View(s):

A 9-member Attorney Generals Department team headed by Senior Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Dappula de Livera P.C., has been appointed to assist the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) and to look into irregularities in respect of the issuance of Treasury Bonds (TB) including the controversial Central Bank TB issue of February 2015.

The team comprising senior officials of the AGs Dept, were nominated by AG Jayantha Jayasuriya, P.C., and their names forwarded in writing to the CoI this week.

The team from the AGs Dept will assist the CoI to lead evidence during its sittings, some of which will be conducted in public, as well as assist with the legal work it will have to undertake, the Sunday Times learns.

The CoI has been given time till February 28, for members of the public to send in written representations, complaints, statements or information relating to any irregularity in the issuance of TBs between February 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016.

The CoI has notified that, when factual matters are referred to, those making the representations should, where possible, support them with affidavits and supporting documents.

The CoI will not accept anonymous submissions and hence, those who send in written submissions, are required to state their names, addresses and contact details. Such persons may be called to give oral submissions, after the CoI examines their submissions.

Secretary to the CoI, Sumathipala Udugamasuriya has notified that, Every person who gives evidence before the CoI, shall be entitled to the privileges of witnesses and special immunity, as provided for in the CoI Act.

The other members of the team from the AGs Dept are ASG Yasantha Kodagoda P.C., Senior Deputy SG (DSG) Priyantha Nawana, DSG Milinda Gunatillake, DSG Dilan Ratnayaka, Senior State Counsel (SSC) Shaheeda Barrie, SSC Dr Avanthi Perera, SSC Nayomi Wickremasekera and SC D. Kaneshayogan.

Meanwhile, the IGP will soon name a special team of officers from the Police Dept to assist the CoI in its investigations into the TB issue. The 3-member CoI was appointed by President Maithripala Sirisena in January, to investigate and inquire into and report on the issuance of TBs during the period of February 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016. Its members are Supreme Court Justices K.T. Chitrasiri and Prasanna Sujeewa Jayawardana and (Rtd) Deputy Auditor General Kandasamy Veluppillai.

Among the matters the CoI will inquire into, will be the management, administration and conduct of affairs of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) in respect of the TB issuance during this period and whether, there has been any malpractice or irregularity, or non-compliance with or disregard of the proper procedures applicable to this in relation.

The CoI has the discretionary powers on whether it will conduct pubic sittings or not, when it begins hearings. The CoI has been given 3 months to submit its report.
Conflicts between Ruhunu students and villagers: Peace talks begin today View(s):

Ruhunu University authorities will meet students and villagers today in bid to get the five faculties of the campus reopened after they were shut down last week due to a clash between undergraduates and villagers.

Vice Chancellor Gamini Senanayake told the Sunday Times the closure of the faculties was a temporary measure aimed at bringing the situation under control after two days of tension. He said a committee had been appointed to probe the recent incidents and its members consisting of academics of the university were talking to both sides to sort out the dispute.

Tharaka Sandaruwan, a student union leader of the university which is situated on the Tangalle Road, Matara, confirmed that a meeting with the villagers had been scheduled for today.

The students say the dispute could be sorted out only if the villagers give an assurance that they would not resort to violence. Residents, however, say that the students behaviour and their regular protests disturbed the peace in the area.

They also insist that the students withdraw their police complaint which they lodged after last weeks incidents.

The Sunday Times learns that the ill-feeling between students and villagers surfaced only after a clash two years ago and since then the situation has been aggravating with little or no effort to bring the dispute to an amicable settlement.

The student leader said a number of students had been attacked over the years and some of them had to be hospitalised. One student even lost his hearing.

Mr. Sandaruwan said students had come under attack twice after their recent demonstration against the private medical institute SAITM. The villagers have warned the students that no such demonstration be held in the neighbourhood.

He said they had complained to the police but very little action had been taken against the perpetrators. The Matara Police declined to comment on the matter.
Crisis brewing over UDA getting powers of PCs View(s):

By Damith Wickremesekera

A constitutional crisis is in the making over the Governments move to vest with the Urban Development Authority (UDA) some key functions exercised by provincial and local councils.

Western Province Chief Minister Isuru Devapriya, who has been in consultation with the nine provincial councils, said yesterday that such a move contravened the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. We will introduce legislation in the different PCs to prevent the UDA from taking over the functions, he told the Sunday Times. There were also indications this move may be challenged in courts if other efforts fail.

From February 1, the Government has vested the UDA with the power to approve building plans and give clearance for industries, fuel stations and construction of buildings of national importance. These functions were earlier exercised by the PCs and local councils.

Chief Minister Devapriya said these powers had been given to the PCs under the Provincial Councils Act, which came as a result of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. This could not be changed arbitrarily.

As a retaliatory measure, Mr. Devapriya warned that the Councils would refrain from providing other public facilities like clearing garbage and the supply of water.

Local councils are required at present to seek approval from the PCs when they open up or plan to develop roads under their purview.This also might be stopped, he warned.

Protests by the Provincial Councils appear to be bi-partisan. Southern Province Chief Minister Shan Wijayalal de Silva told the Sunday Times, We will use our powers to introduce laws to ensure the functions are not taken away. He said both the PCs and the local councils had been enjoying these powers for 30 years.

Central Province Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayake said that the new move went against the principles of devolution. People who had the PCs or the local councils in their areas to transact business would not be forced to travel to the UDA in Colombo to conclude their transactions.

UDA Chairman Jagath Munasinghe admitted that some powers exercised by the PCs and local councils were being taken over. He said that the new scheme was already in operation.
Govt. undecided on PMs call for state of emergency View(s):

By Namini Wijedasa

Disaster Management Department statistics published online yesterday show that 493,556 people across the districts of Trincomalee, Gampaha, Hambantota, Moneragala, Anuradhapura, Jaffna, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi, Vavuniya, Ratnapura, Kegalle, Kurunegala, Puttalam and Kandy have been hit so far by the current drought, said to be the worst in four decades.

This comes in the wake of a Cabinet paper put up by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe a fortnight ago, proposing a state of emergency be declared in view of the worsening drought and warning that drinking and agricultural water supplies have been hit everywhere.

The Sunday Times political column last week exclusively reported that Premier Wickremesinghe had made this proposal so that it would even facilitate the deployment of troops in relief work. The Cabinet, however, deferred taking a decision on a request by the line minister, Disaster Management Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa who wanted to further discuss the issue with a committee headed by President Maithripala Sirisena.

The Prime Ministers note, titled Formal Declaration of Emergency in view of the impending severe drought was presented to the Cabinet in late January. It warned that the drought in many parts of the country is getting worse. Sri Lanka would soon need the assistance of other countries and agencies such as the United Nations, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank (WB).

I am of the view that the assistance of other countries and the agencies such as the UN, the ADB and the World Bank could be accessed easily if a formal declaration of emergency is made in view of the impending severe drought, he told the Cabinet. Further, precise needs have yet to be identified and a more focused all-of-Government approach is required when seeking assistance.

The note also said the UNs Resident Coordinator had suggested a meeting to discuss the crisis with the diplomatic community with the participation of the President, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Disaster Management Minister and other relevant officials to get required assistance in a more focused manner.

In view of the above, it is suggested to instruct the Ministry of Disaster Management to report to the Cabinet of Ministers on declaring an emergency situation, after having discussions with all the relevant stakeholders and taking into consideration the drought indicators and indices included in the Handbook of Drought Indicators and Indices published by the World Meteorological Organisation.

But despite it being two weeks since the note was submitted, there has been no further movement. A Cabinet source said it was discussed on and off and that a committee was appointed comprising relevant ministers to make recommendations on how to face the drought.

An Emergency in view of natural disasters is usually declared under the Sri Lanka Disaster Management Act by the President. The law falls under the purview of the Disaster Management Minister.

The decision was that our Minister (Anura Priyadarshana Yapa) should submit a proposal to the Cabinet but he has not taken a final decision, said S.S. Miyanwala, Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management. He wants to consult with the President.

The Minister wanted to examine the pros and cons of declaring such a State of Emergency, he continued. Among the aspects to be considered is whether such a move would affect the tourism industry which is one bright spot in Sri Lankas sombre economic situation. Officials have presented a paper to the Minister with all the implications.

Most probably, a decision will be taken next week, Mr. Miyanwala said. The Disaster Management Act allows the President to issue a proclamation declaring that a State of Disaster exists in respect of any area or areas or of the whole country. For this, the extent or severity of a disaster or impending disaster must likely be so great that any counter-measures that may become necessary to counter such disaster or impending disaster are beyond the resources or means normally available to the administration.

Such a proclamation will remain in force for two months and may, if necessary, be extended for further periods not exceeding two months at a time. A National Emergency Operation Plan will then come into effect.

Among other things, declaring a State of Disaster  or Emergency, as defined in the Prime Ministers note to Cabinet  will allow Sri Lanka to reschedule loans and obtain speedy financial assistance from donors and funding agencies.

For instance, the WB has a Development Policy Loan with a Catastrophe Deferred Drawdown Option which is a contingent credit line that provides immediate liquidity to member countries in the aftermath of a natural disaster. It is only one of a broad spectrum of financing instruments available from the WB in the event of natural disasters.
President Maithripala Sirisena this week visited his ancestral village of Lakshauyana in Polonnaruwa. The President also visited his ancestral home and met with the villagers.
Karuna leaves SLFP, forms Tamil United Freedom Party View(s):

Former Eastern Commander of the Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and Deputy Minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman, launched a new political party, Tamil United Freedom Party in Batticaloa yesterday, breaking away from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), in which he was Vice President during the previous regime.

Announcing the inauguration of the new party in Focus Hall, Batticaloa, the militant-turned-politician noted there is a need to form a new party to address the concerns of the Tamil speaking people in the North and East, as the current Tamil National Alliance (TNA) continues to fail the people.

Unlike the Federal Party or the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), which brought the Tamil people under one umbrella, there is a vacuum in the political leadership of the Tamil people. Hence, we have come out to fill that space Mr Muralitharan said, explaining to his supporters as to why he had to come out with a new party, at this juncture.

He noted that the TNA was formed by the LTTE in the past, ahead of Parliamentary elections, by bringing all Tamil political parties under one umbrella, but its leaders are not willing to admit that today, due to various reasons.

When I was Deputy Chief Minister, there were no issues of land grabbing by the military in the East but today, people are complaining their lands are being acquired for security reasons. The TNA and the Good Governance government also do not seem to be worried about this, he said.

It was announced at the meeting that, the party would be based in Batticaloa and eventually, would open branches in the North and East, for political work. As a former top LTTE military commander for the Eastern Province during the Eelam war, he broke away from the outfit and joined the then government. He later became Deputy Minister of National Integration in the Rajapaksa government.

Later, he was arrested by the Financial Crimes Investigation Department (FCID) in November last year, for alleged misuse of a bulletproof luxury government vehicle. He was remanded by the Colombo Magistrate and subsequently enlarged on bail.
PIA ends lease deal with SriLankan, US$ 1 million in arrears View(s):

Pakistans national carrier has run up more than US$1 million in arrears for the Airbus A330-300 aircraft it wet-leased from debt-ridden SriLankan Airlines last year, authoritative sources said.

The crisis-ridden Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) suspended its lease with SriLankan on February 9 with US$1.3 million still outstanding. It will no longer lease two additional A330-300 aircraft from SriLankan as earlier planned, authoritative sources confirmed.

SriLankan Airlines management maintains, however, that the PIA wet-lease was one of the most advantageous deals the company has ever struck, earning almost US$9 million profit in six months. The figures could not be independently verified.

They flew more than the contracted number of hours per month, said Suren Ratwatte, Chief Executive Officer of SriLankan. So the extra flying was practically all profit for us. He refused to divulge numbers, saying those could only be calculated once the leased aircraft is returned and the last invoice is settled.

PIA announced in a statement this week that Pakistans national aviation policy did not allow it to wet-lease an aircraft for more than six months. It said it has now shortlisted another plane to replace its PIA Premier product that was operated on the SriLankan A330-300 between Pakistan and London. New aircraft are to be inducted into the fleet later this month.

The A330-300 that SriLankan leased out to Pakistan, complete with cockpit and cabin crew, is owned by Avolon Aircraft Leasing and Management Services.

It had been acquired by SriLankan in brand new condition. A monthly rental is still being paid to the lessor. In October last year, SriLankan cancelled its long-haul flights to Paris and Frankfurt on the grounds that the routes were loss-making. This was after it struck a deal in July of that year to lease out three A330-300 aircraft (which are used on long-distance routes) to PIA. The first plane was deployed in August on aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance basis.

But the PIA deal soon came in for censure both here and in Pakistan. Critics say the SriLankan management should have been more circumspect in examining the financials of the Pakistani carrier which has long been in a monetary mess. In Pakistan, newspapers have flagged the high cost of the lease rental charged by SriLankan Airlines.

This week, Pakistans The Nation newspaper flagged the hourly cost of US$ 8,500 charged by SriLankan was too high to have ever made commercial sense PIA. Journalist Amraiz Khan wrote that it exceeded both the revenue generated and the additional cost incurred by launching PIA Premier.

Meanwhile, sources from among SriLankan Airlines crew claimed they had not been given advance notice of the PIA lease ending on February 9. On January 31, rosters were published for the next 28 days with crew allocated to operate PIA sectors from Lahore and Islamabad to London.

On 8th of February, a sudden mail was sent out to crew from the Chief Pilot that the PIA wet lease has ended with immediate effect and that crew rostered for PIA flights would be placed on alternate duty patterns, a message circulated among staff said.

The cabin and technical crew were in Islamabad waiting to operate a PIA flight to London. Hours later, they were stranded as the flight to London was cancelled and they were made to passenger to Karachi and then take UL184 to Colombo, the message said.

Mr. Ratwatte denied that the lease ended suddenly. We were expecting it, he insisted. The roster was just a plan. We had also been planning for the lease to end for weeks. Meanwhile, the A330-300 aircraft was ferried from Lahore to Karachi for repainting yesterday. It is likely to be brought back to Sri Lanka on February 26.

SriLankan management will then have to decide how to use its three A330-300s which are a legacy from the Rajapaksa era. They each cost more than US$1 million a month. Curiously, the airline might return some leased A330-200s to the lessors in mid-2017, authoritative sources said. This means they must either ground their A330-330 long-haul craft or fly them unprofitably on short-distance routes which are mostly what SriLankan is now limited to.
PM asks for settlement of landless families- SLAF camp issue:TNA MP View(s):

By S. Rubatheesan

Defence authorities have been directed to find a solution to dozens of families who had been demanding the return of their lands occupied by the air force in Mullaitivu following continuing protests, Vanni Parliamentarian of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Selvam Adaikalanathan said.

Protesters in Keppapulavu of Mullativu have been demanding that their lands be handed over.

Adaikalanathan said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe directed defence officials to meet the protesters following a meeting on Thursday.

But Adaikalanathan said a concrete decision was not taken.The Divisional Secretariat has been asked to take measures with defence authorities to shift military camps to state lands. A ministerial team is to visit the protesters early next week.

Over the past 12 days, more than 20 families in Pilavukkudiyiruppu village, Keppapulavu of Mullaitivu have been protesting in front of an Air Force camp. They allege that their lands had been acquired by the military after the war ended.

Some 84 families of Pilavukkudiyiruppu of Keppapulavu, a small village in the Divisional Secretariat of Maritimepattu in Mullaitivu district began protesting on January 31 demanding the government return 25 acres. An Air Force camp is located on the land.

Mother of three Sathees Kawsalya, who earns a daily wage as a labourer, has spent most of her days and nights with others in front of a temporary shed erected by protesters. We are determined to go to our lands. Until we are allowed to go, we wont give up. It was the military who forced us to protest. They told us they will release the lands but cheated us, Kawsalya told the Sunday Times.

She said families have been waiting for more than eight years. We are fed up of assurances given by politicians and government ministers. The President and Prime Minister should intervene immediately.

Residents alleged that they had been assured by government officials on January 31 that their lands would be returned when President Maithripala Sirisena hands over documents at a ceremony. President Sirisenas visit was cancelled due to bad weather.

Following their displacement during the final phases of the war in 2009, Keppapilavu and Pilavukkudiyiruppu families lived in the Aananda Kumarasamy section of Menik Farm camp in Chettikulam, Vavuniya before they were resettled by the military in a model village in Keppapulavu.

Keppapulavu model village was mooted by the military to resettle families of three villages  the Pilakaadhu, Sooriyapuram, and Keppapulavu Grama Sevaka divisions. Lands belonging to at least 300 families were acquired by the Defence Ministry. The residents were then resettled in plots of state land temporarily.

These families have been demanding the return of their lands for eight years. They feel that they can not wait anymore, said Thurairasa Raviharan, a member of Northern Provincial Council representing the Mullaitivu district.
Ajahn Brahm teaches the teachers By D.C. Ranatung View(s): View(s):

Tiring but very worthwhile and very enjoyable, was how Ajahn Brahmavamso summed up the retreat he conducted exclusively for monks and nuns at Bandarawela recently.

Sri Lanka has been a Buddhist country for 2,300 years. A white monk is invited to teach meditation to monks and nuns there. Really they should come and teach us. At the start I felt scared at the thought of teaching the teachers  150 of them, he said at the Friday Dhamma talk he delivered in Perth just after his arrival from Sri Lanka.

Obviously it was a first for Ajahn Brahm who gets invited regularly from numerous countries to conduct meditation programmes where mostly the laity participate. He spends a better part of the year touring.

It was Ajahn Brahm who suggested to the organisers, the Ajahn Brahm Society in Sri Lanka that an exclusive retreat for monks and nuns will be beneficial since they can learn the techniques and spread them among larger numbers.

At Bandarawela among the participants were non-Sri Lankan monks and nuns who are resident in Sri Lanka to either learn the Dhamma or have made Sri Lanka their home after ordination. The Sri Lankan monks were from various parts of the country. Ajahn Brahms talks were translated into Sinhala by Ven. Kusalanana Thera, who is currently in the United States doing post-graduate studies, for the benefit of some of the participants.

The group was a mixed lot both in seniority and age. There was at least one Mahanayaka Thera among them. Everyone found the retreat useful and interesting. At the end of the programme, one senior monk commented: What he taught was very clear. Obviously he was speaking from experience. No looking at other techniques in meditation for me.

Another senior monk who had come with a young pupil monk had to leave three days before the retreat was over. He left the younger monk behind saying, Let him stay. He likes it and it is good for him.

The resident monks in the village temples around Bandarawela were very cooperative in making the retreat a success and arranged for their dayakas to bring the alms every day throughout the ten days.

The monks and nuns came on pindapatha and collected the alms from a nearby location. The grand finale was when monks in those temples too joined the participants at the retreat on the day after the programme to go on pindapatha in the Bandarawela town. There were nearly 200 monks and nuns in total.

Expressing his satisfaction, a spokesman of the Ajahn Brahm Society was thankful to the monks and devotees of the surrounding temples, the staff of the Sri Lanka Tourism resort at Bandarawela and the public on the way they rallied round to make what he described as a unique event in the recent history of Sri Lanka, a total success.
It can never be Goodbye for us in distant lands Recalling the stirring verses by Rev. Walter Senior in his collection, The Call of Lanka: Ceylon in Prose & Verse in this our 69th year of independence View(s): View(s):

On the eve of another independence day in Sri Lanka, with nostalgia I recall the first Independence Day celebrations I attended with my father at Bogambara grounds in Kandy. Just seven years old then, I didnt quite understand what it was to get freedom after many centuries of foreign rule. Yet, I still could feel the pulsating sense of a new beginning from all the grown up talk around me, so that it remains a milestone in my memory.

Sixty nine years later, trawling with quite some anguish through the many crises we have since gone through as a nation  several brutally suppressed southern youth uprisings, the recurrent racial riots culminating in the pogrom of 1983 which uprooted so many of us from our native soil and scattered us haphazardly in foreign lands (which graciously provided us with a second home), the prolonged civil war which followed with its wanton waste of lives and property until the war was declared over in May 2009, much to the relief of many and the unwept erasure of others  I feel impelled to write this particularly because we have yet to see the reconciliation that is so much talked of.

It is against such a background that I re-read the Rev. Walter Seniors The Call of Lanka: Ceylon in Prose & Verse (Kandy; Trinity College Press. 1960) gifted to me many years ago by my godmother, Miss Eva Van Schoonbeek of Trinity College.

It was the Rev. A. G. Fraser, (Principal of Trinity College Kandy between 1904  1924) who persuaded the Rev. Walter Stanley Senior to join the staff of Trinity as Vice-principal. Senior arrived in 1906, just 30 years of age, and there begins the journey of a remarkable man who was to write, In Ceylon, the best twenty years of my life were spent. It is the land of my life-work The Editorial Preface to this book says, A man of the West of the highest stature of mind and spirit came to the East and was entranced. The message of his love is plain writ in the pages that follow, writ with eloquence and elegance, in piety and in truth, in language of surpassing beauty.

Throughout the book, Seniors sheer love of our land spills over, compelling in its purity, radiant in its beauty  He writes, The Paradise is Ceylon, the loveliest of landsCeylon with its low-country of gorgeous colour and its up-country of delicious coolness; that casts a spell on all who ever come within her borders, drawing them back, and still back to herself. Senior says part of the aim of his prose was to arouse,in others some similar love of Lankaand of the love which it and its people can inspire.

When I read the words written many decades ago by this foreign poet and scholar who came to love us and the beauteous land around us with such an intense love, I ask myself with immeasurable pain and regret, where could we thine own children, born of thy womb (Senior) have gone so very wrong? How could we have allowed ourselves to let go of this essential ingredient for making our land a true home to all alike of its people, at the cost of wreaking such havoc on ourselves?!

In a Foreword to this book, Canon R. S. de Saram writes, in 1959, prophetic words the appearance of this book is timely. It has a message for us and sets before us an ideal which we in our day are tending to neglect  to our countrys great loss.

In the poem The Call of Lanka Senior writes:

I climbed oer the crags of Lanka

And gazed on her golden sea,

And out of her ancient places

Her soul came forth to me.

Give me a Bard, said Lanka

My Bard of the things to-be.

..

My sceptre is long departed

And the stranger is lord instead.

Yet, give me a Bard, said Lanka

I am living, I am not dead.

..

The pride of the past is pulsing

Hot in the peoples veins.

Give me a Bard, said Lanka,

A Bard for my joys and pains.

In response, Senior offer (s his own) voice (to) Lanka, though in self-effacing awareness that he is but the child of an alien isle/(whose) heart has heard thee, and kindled. He asks Lanka, Foster-Mother to takeand use it, hastening to add no less humbly,  Tis but for a while. For in assured expression of belief in her, he affirms,

For surely of thine own children,

Born of thy womb, shall rise

He (who) shall hymn thee,

singing of whatsoever is fair in Lanka, its waterfalls, its lakes and lotuses, its shrines,

But most shall he sing of Lanka

In the brave new days that come

When the races all have blended

And the voice of strife is dumb.

Each year, Independence Day renews the hope, the stirrings of which I first felt on February 4, 1948, that Seniors prediction will some day come true, that someone will emerge to offer a new beginning, new expectations to heal our land. If a foreigner from our colonial past can transcend the limits of his colonial place and time to revere us so much, how is it that loud noises/voices in our midst, still prevent us from hearing Seniors voice of pure love for our beloved land and its people?

Seniors Hymn for Ceylon, set to the inspirational music of Dhanno Buddunge by Deva Surya Sena, we all know so well.

Lo! we this islands watchmen

would give and take no rest

Till our dear land be blessed

Give peace within her borders

Twixt man and man good will

The love all unsuspicious

The love that works no ill;

In loyal, lowly service

Let each from other learn,

The guardian and the guarded,

Till Christ Himself return

He writes with warmth and admiration to capture the splendour of our heritage - Polonnaruwa, Dambulla, Nalanda, Mihintale, the Abhayagiriya Dagoba (the thrust of its dome through the azure), Sigiriya (precipitous bee-blanketed Rock), the stone sedent Buddha in Anuradhapura (there it sat fair and unconventional of face, closed eye, lost since centuries to life and longing in Nirvana); and much else.

Of Sri Pada, he writes, arduous though the climb was for him, the Peak is once more weaving spells and a spirit in ones feet is drawing one backI was able to rejoin the eddying crowd on the little platform of the peak, down-rushing on all sides and to walk round the parapet wall reading the relief-map of Ceylon at unutterable distance belowI also rang the Buddhist bell at the western side of the wall four times for my four ascents: while a woman of the pilgrims rang it thirty-one times! Apey Buddha cried the leader of the pilgrim trainfollowing that strong man came an old, old man gasping and fighting for breathcame women of lowland villageswith babes in their arms.

Not included in this collection is the Trinity College hymn Where River, Lake and Mountain meet, once again written by Senior, which calls upon the boys of Trinity to

constant serve with might and mind

The school, the land that bore thee

When his health was failing him he wrote Goodbye?

So youve had enough of the tropics, and the back is growing

bent,

And the heart is not so buoyant, and its time you packed

and went

Yet, O My soul, remember: when you have sailed the seas away

better than places  faces

With (their) brown and olive beauty, the youths and maids youve

known;

And the tender pearl of India in the black and brilliant eye: 

My soul, you will break with longing  it can never be Goodbye.

And so it happened, when he was dying in England, he requested that his ashes be laid to rest at St. Andrews Church in Haputale.

Engraved on his tombstone are the following words from his poem Lanka from Piduru Tallagala

Here I stand

In spirit, as in body once I stood

Long years ago, in love with all the land

This peerless land of Beautys plenitude.

Many of us too, now in distant lands, can only humbly echo Seniors words, It can never be Goodbye.

Indranee Kannangara Kandiah (Perth, February 4, 2017)
Mulayam Singh Yadav addressed a Shivpal Yadav rally in his home district of Etwah. None of the members of the larger Yadav clan were present at the rally.

By Javed M. Ansari : The spring may have gone out of Mulayam Singh Yadav's step after he was unseated from the leadership of the Samajwadi Party by his son Akhilesh Yadav, but he still retains his ability to sting. Evidence of that came at the rally that he addressed this afternoon at Jaswantnagar in his home district of Etwah. He came here asking for votes for his brother Shivpal Yadav but what was more interesting was his open support for a Lok Dal candidate from the Etwah seat.

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Mulayam rooting for the Lok Dal candidate is significant. The party exists mainly on paper and is distinct from the Rashtriya Lok Dal, which is headed by Ajit Singh. After Mulayam Singh Yadav was tossed out as the president of his party, he, along with Shivpal, toyed with the idea of taking over the Lok Dal, but ultimately decided against it.

Speculation abounds in political circles that close to 40 of the duo's loyalists who were denied tickets by the SP are now contesting on the Lok Dal ticket. If a handful of them manage to win, they could strengthen Mulayam's hand in the event of a hung Assembly.

Also read: Samajwadi feud: Mulayam-Akhilesh fight leaves Shivpal supporters in limbo

YADAV CLAN ABSENT AT SHIVPAL RALLY

Although Etwah happens to be the family bastion of the Yadav family, not one member of the larger Yadav clan has been out seeking votes for Shivpal. Conspicuous by their absence from today's rally were the chief minister and MPs Ram Gopal Yadav, Dimple Yadav, Dharmendar Yyadav, Tej Pratap Yadav and Akshay Yadav.

A significant feature of Shivpal's campaign and today's rally was that votes were sought in the name of Mulayam Singh Yadav and the development work that has taken place in the district during his time as chief minister and by Shivpal as the state irrigation and PWD minister. No mention was made of Akhilesh Yadav or any of that development work done by his government.

Speaker after speaker, Mulayam Singh Yadav included, extolled the electorate to ensure that Shivpal wins by a margin bigger than the 83,000 vote margin he won by the last time. The message was not lost out on anyone. Mulayam and Shivapl have a point to prove - they may have lost the battle for the control of the Samajwadi Party but the last word has clearly not been heard on the issue.

Also read: Uttar Pradesh Assembly election: Mood in Lucknow favours Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance

Also watch: Is Akhilesh Yadav the future of Samajwadi Party?

--- ENDS ---
How Lankans overseas celebrated Independence Day View(s):

France

The embassy of Sri Lanka in Paris celebrated the 69th Anniversary of the Independence on 4th February 2017 at Espace Saint Pierre in Paris with the participation of over 550 invitees from the Sri Lankan community representing all ethnicities.

Staying true to the spirit of reconciliation, the national anthem was sung in both Sinhala and Tamil by two groups of students followed by a two minute silence for all Sri Lankans who sacrificed their lives on behalf of the country. The traditional oil lamp was lit by Ambassador Tilak Ranaviraja and a group of children representing the four main ethnicities in Sri Lanka; Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim and BurgherThe national day messages of President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera were read out by Ambassador Tilak Ranaviraja and members of the staff.

Ambassador Ranaviraja in his remarks highlighted the importance of national unity for advancing meaningful reconciliation and economic development which are also the policy priorities of the Government. In this context, he invited the Sri Lankan community living in France to join in the development process of the country.

Cultural performances featuring different dancing traditions of the country to display its rich cultural heritage made the event more vibrant. Guests were treated to a traditional Sri Lankan meal consisting of rice and curry at the end of the event.

South Korea

Sri Lankas embassy in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in collaboration with Gimpo City Office and the Sri Lankan community celebrated the 69th anniversary of independence and the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries at a community event held at the Civic Center in Gimpo City on Sunday February 5.

The celebration, towards which particular support was extended by the Sri Lankan community representatives and the Sri Lanka Students Association, was attended by Korean dignitaries and more than 400 Sri Lankans living and working in different regions in Korea.

The Chief Guest was Gimpo City Mayor Yoo Young-Rok.

Ambassador Manisha Gunasekera extended the Sri Lankan Governments special appreciation to the workers for their significant contribution towards the economies of Sri Lanka and Korea. She also noted that there was a 32 percent increase in Sri Lankan workers in Korea in 2016 as compared to the 2015 figures, and reiterated the commitment of the Sri Lankan Government to look after every aspect of the welfare of Sri Lankan workers in Korea.

Delivering Congratulatory Remarks on the occasion, the Mayor of Gimpo City strongly welcomed this celebration being organised in Gimpo City which is home to more than 800 Sri Lankan migrant workers. The Mayor greatly appreciated the contribution of Sri Lankan workers to the economy of Gimpo city as well as that of Korea.

The Ambassador presented special plaques of appreciation to the Mayor of Gimpo City and other Guests of Honour, as well as employers/CEOs of 10 Korean employers, in consideration of their strong support to enhancing Sri Lanka  Korea labour relations. Ten Korean employers were presented with plaques of appreciation on the occasion as a result of the programme launched by the Embassy in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment.

The celebrations also included a buffet meal of Sri Lankan food and sweet meats, cultural programmes featuring Sri Lankan and Korean traditional dance and music.

India

Sri Lankas High Commission in India celebrated the 69th anniversary of the independence with the official ceremony held in the morning of February 4, followed by a reception at the High Commission premises on February 6.

The official ceremony began with the hoisting of the national flag by High Commissioner Chitranganee Wagiswara amid the sound of the ceremonial drums (Magul Bera). Following the rendering of the National Anthem, religious dignitaries representing all four major religions in Sri Lanka  Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity  blessed the country, the leaders and the people.

A two minute silence was observed in respect of national heroes of Sri Lanka. The messages of President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera were read by the High Commissioner and members of the diplomatic staff. The invitees who also included Sri Lankan expatriates in New Delhi were hosted to a traditional Sri Lankan breakfast. An alms giving was held prior to the official ceremony at the official residence for the Buddhist clergy representing all major Sri Lankan Buddhist institutes in India.

The diplomatic reception was graced by the Minister of State for External Affairs of India, M.J. Akbar, as the Chief Guest and other prominent guests who included Foreign Secretary S. Jaishanker and Bharatiya Janata Party National General Secretary Ram Madhav.

Addressing the invitees High Commissioner Wagiswara highlighted the excellent relations between Sri Lanka and India and referred to the strengthening of the bilateral ties after the assumption of office of the National Unity Government in Sri Lanka, She said the two countries were moving together in partnership in building and further strengthening the traditionally close relations.

Britain

The High Commission of Sri Lanka in London commemorated the 69th Anniversary of Independence on February 4 at the High Commission premises, with the participation of all the communities.

The programme began with the hoisting of the National Flag by High Commissioner Amari Wijewardene. The National Anthem of Sri Lanka was sung in Sinhala followed by the observance of two minutes silence in remembrance of the fallen heroes of the nation. Religious observances were conducted by Ven. Bogoda Seelawimala Nayaka Thero, Supramaniya Kurukkal, Rev. Fr. Daya Perera, and Moulavi Mohamed Anas.

High Commissioner Wijewardene, in her address, stated that the commemoration of our independence is in many ways an occasion for us to celebrate the lives of our national heroes and to assess the path that our country has taken over the past 69 years. Quoting President Maithripala Sirisena, she stated that the realisation of the true meaning of freedom and independence lies in our potential to free ourselves from the shackles of all kinds and forms of poverty and ill-health, and confines of diverse identities of race, religion and caste, and enrich ourselves, as a society that values equity and rights of all, and called on everyone to resolve this endeavour in every possible way.

The event concluded with the singing of the National Anthem in Tamil. Copies of the Independence Day messages of the President, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister were made available to the guests in Sinhala, Tamil and English languages.

On February 6, the High Commissioner hosted a reception for the representatives of the diplomatic corps, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Lords and Members of the House of Commons, representatives of the international organisations based in London, Mayors, Councillors, academics and the business community in London. Rt. Hon. Patricia Scotland, Commonwealth Secretary General and Her Majestys Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps Sir Alistair Harrison were among those present.

Indonesia

Sri Lankans in Indonesia celebrated the 69th Anniversary of Independence on February 4. The ceremonies at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Jakarta reflected the multi-religious, multi-ethnic character of Sri Lanka, in keeping with this years theme of National Unity.

Following the hoisting of the National Flag, the National Anthem was sung in both Sinhala and Tamil. This was followed by the observance of two-minute silence in remembrance of those who scarified their lives for the Nation.

In his remarks during the occasion, Ambassador Dharshana M. Perera outlined the developments that had taken place in the country in strengthening democracy, rule of law, inter-ethnic and inter-religious harmony, pluralism and good governance particularly under the present Unity Government.

Mr. Perera said the friendly relations between the two countries had gained significant elevation following the meetings between Sri Lankas President and Prime Minister with Indonesias President in May and August last year and that of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs in October that year.

He identified fisheries, education, skills developments, aviation, electoral management and commercial agriculture among others as areas for closer cooperation between the two countries. He said the two countries had a common desire to elevate the economic engagement and pointed to the existing good cooperation with regard to Indian Ocean matters, culture, tourism and defence. He acknowledged the role played by the Sri Lankan community in Indonesia in bringing the peoples of the two countries closer together.

The mornings event concluded with a reception, serving traditional Sri Lankan and Indonesian food.
Should we abolish private medical education in Sri Lanka? View(s):

By Dr. Miran Salgado

Private medical college and private medical education have once again become bitter words generating an awful taste, as it was merely 35 years ago when I was a medical student at the Colombo Medical Faculty. Answers to the questions raised today as to private medical education can be found if the events that unfolded 35 years ago are analysed.

Regardless of the long delay in the replay, the main actors of this drama remain almost the same. History is repeating its self and ironically we have failed to learn from history!

The North Colombo Medical College (NCMC) aka Private Medical College (original PMC) which was subsequently nationalised and renamed the Faculty of Medicine, Kelaniya University was started by a group of wealthy, influential private practitioners who controlled the College of General Practitioners in the 80s. They were disillusioned by the district-based admission criteria introduced by the Bandaranaike Government which effectively excluded their children and the children of the Colombos wealthy from the state run medical schools. Admissions to the PMC was based on the minimum criteria for university entry as well as other criteria including extracurricular activities, proficiency in English, and if I were to guess, ones family back ground and connections.

They clearly had the backing of politicians then in power during the J.R Jayewardene era and a sizable proportion of doctors including members of the Colombo Medical Faculty and its Dean, Professor Daphne Atygalle. Many of the Colombo medical faculty staff were involved both in teaching and curriculum development at the NCMC.

Many professed that admitting students to the medical schools on a formula based on merit and district basis not only eliminated better qualified urban candidates but it also admitted non-English speaking less refined out station ( village) students who not only had poor scores but clearly did not suit the medical profession: they did not have the finesse to be physicians  at least by their standards. This was similar to the attitude of the Colombos elite when swabasha education was first introduced in 1957 opening the gates of opportunity to the uneducated masses.

We were drawn into campus politics irked by the control of the Medical Student Union by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and its proxies who pretty much made puppets out of the rest of the student body. Lunch time picketing and strikes at the drop of a hat disrupting class work led some of us to form the United Independent Medical students Federation in order to counter-balance the unchecked and uncontested authority of the JVP and its proxies.

As the first ever group to challenge the JVP in the medical faculty in the student assembly elections, we managed to split the medical faculty votes almost in half (less fourteen votes) and for the 1st time shift power to the independent group in Colombo University (controlled by the Nava Sama Samaja Party) from the JVP. Regardless of this dynamics of power both factions of the medical faculty at the time passionately opposed the NCMC/PMC for different ideological reasons.

We were more concerned with the Colombo degree being granted to the NCMC and already stretched resources being shared by the NCMC. We were not so convinced with the concept of undermining the free education system as a whole, as many private higher education institutions were already in operation in non-medical fields and no one opposed them. The JVP was more concerned with whipping up emotions of the masses and hence undermining free education was a better theme. The JVP also demanded the nationalisation of the NCMC which was almost impossible for the then-UNP government which had given numerous assurances to the NCMC and helped its creation. In fact the JVP wanted to create an impossible demand that would continue to fester till such time the Government was in imminent collapse.

We who belonged to the non JVP fraction took great pains to explain to the powers at the time including the current Prime Minister who was the minister of Education and Youth Affairs in the J. R. Jayewardene cabinet that the PMC issue was close to the hearts and minds of the medical students and granting a separate degree to the NCMC would clearly diminish the magnitude of the problem and erode their support base. We were able to see that the PMC issue was a catalyst for greater unrest of the entire university student population based on the premise of undermining free education which was a catchy theme for a broader struggle between the haves and the have-nots.

Unfortunately this was realised far too late and giving into this simple demand later, could not stop the JVP momentum which nearly toppled the Premadasa presidency ultimately leading to the nationalisation of the NCMC. The suffering endured by students of both institutions could have been averted by giving into some simple and justified demands early and taken the steam off a broader political movement.

Fast forward 35 years, and students of the Colombo Medical Faculty with the help of their brethren in other universities instigated once more by the JVP are rising against a private medical college (South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine  SAITM) started by physician turned businessman Dr. Neville Fernando. He had constructed his own private 500 bed hospital as a medical school training ground for the newly formed private medical school. The Sri Lanka Medical Council chaired by non-other than our beloved Carlo Fonseka (I still think he is one of the best teachers I have had) and the GMOA have once again weighed in.

There are clear differences and similarities between what gave rise to the student unrest then and what is happening now. Thirty five years ago the opposition to the PMC consisted of the vast majority of the medical students, some of the left-leaning, popular medical school professors including Carlo Fonseka and Colvin Gunaratne. Carlo and Colvin both belonged to the Physiology Department and were actively involved in leftist politics. They were excellent teachers not only of Physiology but also of their leftist ideology. The arguments against the then private medical college (i.e. NCMC) were as follows:

1) Colombo Medical Faculty degree should not be awarded to the NCMC students.

Almost all Colombo medical college students as well as other university students were against the Colombo degree being awarded to a private institution. This was difficult to contest. It seemed that money and power became eligibility criteria for obtaining the Colombo Medical degree through a back channel. This is clearly not an issue today with the Malabe PMC as they will be granting their own medical degree.

2) At the time, Carlo Fonseka and Colvin Gunaratne passionately argued that the PMC undermined the free education system. This was supported by most left leaning students including the JVP which supported anything which was antigovernment. Free education equalised the playing field in education which was the only avenue for the poor and less fortunate to come up and be placed above the wealthy. This was now being short changed. The concept is not difficult to understand except there were private education and degree awarding institutions present in most other lucrative fields such as engineering, marketing, accountancy and business. So why single out medicine? What about the students who spend a fortune outside the country obtaining foreign medical degrees and returning to Sri Lanka?

Regardless, surprisingly the argument of undermining free education appears to draw the attention of the youth even today and their fears should be alleviated. In fact this appears to be more of a struggle between the rich and the poor in a country where income disparity has widened exponentially.

Thirty years after graduating from the Colombo medical school and having trained both in Sri Lanka and the United States I continue to support district basis admissions having seen many bright colleagues who have done extremely well and become excellent physicians later in life who would have been left behind had it not been for the district basis admission policy. District basis by itself appears unfair as it does not correlate directly with economic hardship but it is extremely difficult to weigh in multiple factors especially in the Sri Lankan context.

On the other hand I strongly believe that a well-rounded student makes a better physician and marks alone should not be the only criteria for admission. This clearly applies to the many excellent well rounded candidates with better marks left out of the public universities due to the district quota. We have seen many outstanding physicians who have come through the NCMC. It is probably worthwhile studying the trajectory of the first few batches of students who were admitted the NCMC and comparing them to the graduates of the other faculties.

Selecting candidates via an interview process is difficult to implement at the state universities, particularly in Sri Lanka, where political interference permeates every aspect of existence and corruption is out of control.

3) Government resources and hospitals should not used to support private medical schools.

It is rather obvious that teaching hospitals maintain better standards throughout the world. These provide better and more sophisticated medical care to patients. If there is a need for more physicians in the country, encouraging the private sector is a logical solution. The government could always levy a fee from the schools for the use of their facilities but should not compromise the limited resources available for teaching at the government institutions used by the state run schools. Hospitals which are currently not used by the students of the government institutions could be assigned to private schools. The teaching faculty at state run medical schools should not be actively engaged in teaching at private institutions.

As far as SAITM is concerned none of the above appears to be an issue. Thirty five years after I first opposed the then PMC (NCMC) mainly on the grounds of awarding the Colombo University degree to the NCMC and upon a partial conviction that the free education system is being compromised by setting up a private medical school I strongly believe that Sri Lanka could gain by encouraging private higher education institutions to operate side by side with state funded institutions:

1) If there is a continued need/ shortage of professionals in a given area encourage setting up of private higher education institutions. The quality of all such professional degree awarding institutions private or public should be monitored by an independent body such as Liaison committee on Medical Education (LCME) existent in the United States which would grant them accreditation on a three to five year cycle.

2) Encouraging and rewarding private universities to diversify their student body based on geography, ethnicity, and socio economic back grounds as well as extracurricular activities while the government institutions follow a strictly score based admission policy.

3) Make low interest student loans available for all candidates admitted to private universities through the State. Enforce need blind admission policies to the private universities to safe guard the less affluent.

The main argument leveled against SAITM appears to be the quality of training although even from 10,000 miles away one could guess that the training in the Eastern campus cannot be superior to that of SAITM. The GMOA which has progressively become unpopular amongst the masses has joined hands with the JVP and the joint opposition to fish in troubled waters with complete disregard of a court ruling which enumerated the double standards used to asses SAITM as opposed to other medical schools.

Sri Lanka appears to be making strides in ethnic reconciliation and media freedom but has conveniently forgotten the vast number of youth it buried in 1971 and 1988-89. It is time we address the issues of our youth early and without further delay before they become fodder for bankrupt political parties.

(The writer is the Chairman of the Department Of Neurosciences and Chief Division of Neurology New York Presbyterian, Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, New York, USA.)
The Female Resistance View(s):

By Sawomir Sierakowski

WARSAW  Antagonism is mounting between todays right-wing populists and a somewhat unexpected but formidable opponent: women. In the United States, much like in Poland, womens rights have been among the first targets of attack by populist leaders. Women are not taking it lying down.

Traditional conservatism in the West has largely come to terms with the need to grant women broad reproductive freedom. Todays right-wing populist administrations, by contrast, are downright pre-modern in this regard, attempting to reverse reforms championed not just by the left  and long accepted by the conventional right.

It is no secret that the mainstream consensus is a source of contempt  and success  for the modern populist, and not just on womens rights. Donald Trumps first acts as US President show an eagerness to reject longstanding norms in many other areas as well, including foreign affairs and economic policy.

But it is the attack on womens rights that is receiving the most powerful pushback. Polands de facto leader, Jarosaw Kaczynski, has retreated politically only once since his partys return to power in 2015. Last October, when thousands of women of all ages took to the streets in the black protest, his government was forced to withdraw from its plan to introduce a total ban on abortion. (Under the current law, abortion is allowed in the event of rape, severe fetal defects, or a threat to the health of the mother.)

Similarly, of all the sources of opposition to Trump, only women have been able to organize quickly and efficiently. Last months Womens March on Washington boasted a turnout some three times larger than Trumps own inauguration the previous day. In other words, Trump began his term with a symbolic defeat at the hands of American women.

Trumps subsequent reinstatement of the global gag rule, which undermines womens health in developing countries by defunding organizations that provide abortion counseling, could not obscure that loss, nor could his pledges to defund Planned Parenthood, which offers reproductive-health services in the US. Instead, women continued to resist  for example, by creating the #DressLikeAWoman hashtag on Twitter, to shine a spotlight on Trumps sexist demand of female staffers.

As women have stood in the path of the populists, mainstream political leaders and parties have practically cowered; unsurprisingly, they continue to lose ground. But women have not been entirely alone. NGOs and other kinds of social movements have also stepped up. Even the media have helped the cause; though they are not accustomed to such a blatantly political role, circumstances  such as Trumps war on them  have forced their hand.

The composition of the resistance actually makes considerable sense. Right-wing populism is, at its core, an attack on liberalism, not necessarily on democracy. Separation of powers, a free press, an independent judiciary, and free trade are liberal ideals; they are not democratic. Women have stood above the rest in the opposition, because they are, in many ways, the antithesis of right-wing populism, support for which comes primarily from poorly educated white men  the demographic cohort with the least comprehension of feminism.

The question now is whether women can win the battle against the populists. While the answer is not yet clear, they do have a few powerful weapons in their arsenal.

For starters, women are more numerous than any other single social group, including blacks, Latinos, the left, the right, liberals, conservatives, Catholics, and Protestants. There are more women than there are white men in the US  or in Poland, for that matter. And, most important, women far outnumber populists. (Women must fight for their rights as if they were a minority, though they are a majority, and as if they lacked human capital, though, in the West, they tend to be better educated than men.)

Moreover, women are everywhere, and discrimination, to varying degrees, is part of all womens experiences. This makes women something of a revolutionary class, in the Marxist sense. It also makes it relatively easy for women to build solidarity.

During Polands black protest, thousands more people protested in solidarity, from Berlin (where several thousand took to the streets) to Kenya (where about 100 people demonstrated). During the Womens March on Washington, up to two million people marched in solidarity around the world. Clearly, women are a global force. Who better, then, to resist the likes of Trump, Kaczynski, and other right-wing populists, as they launch an assault on globalism?

Perhaps the most important weapon in womens arsenal is that they are unashamed. While the twentieth century was characterized by discipline through fear, the twenty-first century has been characterized by repression through shame. Unlike fear, shame can be hidden  and thats the point.

Whereas one can feel fear without losing ones dignity, shame arises from feelings of inferiority. That is what women are rejecting in their anti-populist protests. Defending the rights of women to choose whether to have an abortion  particularly in places where abortion is still relatively accessible  amounts to defending womens dignity and autonomy.

Mainstream political parties, however, still experience shame, as do other traditional organizations like trade unions. They have scruples, and are concerned about how they are perceived. That makes them poorly equipped to stand up to the most shameless group of all: the populists.

The likes of Kaczynski and Trump have benefited massively from their lack of shame, saying and doing whatever wins them the support of their political base. But women arent having it. They are throwing off the shackles of the shame that has long been used to repress them, and fighting fire with fire. Can the populists take the heat?

Sawomir Sierakowski, founder of the Krytyka Polityczna movement, is Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2017.

www.project-syndicate.org
On behalf of BKT, Ashok Jain, vice president - legal and compliances, had filed an FIR against Bidaye on January 9, 2017 at N M Joshi Marg police station under Section 381 and 408. The FIR alleged that Bidaye was involved in sharing BKT's sensitive, secret and intellectual properties with BKT's competitor.

By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: On the allegation that senior management of India's leading tire manufacturer company Balkrishna Industries (BKT) was involved in kidnapping, threatening, criminal trespass, outrage of modesty and picking personal items of one retired official - Rajan Bidaye, the company has hit back by saying Bidaye was involved in "breach of trust" and was in close communication with BKT's competitors.

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Three days back, India Today had reported that on February 6, 2017, Bidaye - a senior deputy general manager (technology) and a retired official of BKT had filed a First Information Report (FIR) at Tilaknagar Police Station against ten senior officials including managing director Arvind Poddar, under Section 452, 354, 509, 368, 380, 504 and 506.

VP Mathur, senior vice president HR, BKT responded to queries of India Today saying all the allegations made by Bidaye are false.

Mathur said, "BKT has filed an FIR in January 2017 against Rajan Bidaye for stealing the company property being IP and drawings and selling the same to competitors. In order to divert attention and to harass the company and its officials, Bidaye has concoted some stories and filed this FIR which is absolutely false. BKT denies each and every allegation in the FIR."

On behalf of BKT, Ashok Jain, vice president - legal and compliances, had filed an FIR against Bidaye on January 9, 2017 at N M Joshi Marg police station under Section 381 and 408. The FIR has alleged that Bidaye was involved in sharing BKT's sensitive, secret and intellectual properties with BKT's competitor.

As per the Indian Penal Code, Section 381 is for committing theft in respect of any property in the possession of his master or employer, and Section 408 is criminal breach of trust by an employee.

The FIR said, "Examination of Bidaye's electronic data revealed that he possessed all sensitive information of `tire samples' in his laptop and personal emails. Without BKT's permission, for his own benefit and to hurt the company's business plans, Bidaye unprofessionally got involved into committing theft."

Talking to India Today, Jain said, "Whatever information and evidences the company had has been handed over to police officials. Based on that, the police were satisfied that there was a prima facie case they have taken cognizance of that."

Also read: Mumbai: Rejecting his plea to quit, seniors kidnap, drag 58-year-old to office

Details such as Bidaye's appointment letter, extension letter, copies of email exchanges and CCTV footages has been given to police by BKT for further investigation. "From my understanding, till now, Bidaye has not been summoned or interrogated. As of now, the police is taking all evidences from the company and later would work on its action plan," Jain said.

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COMPANY TRUST

As per the FIR details, the company officials came to know that Bidaye "breached the trust" between October and November 2016. That time, he had crossed 58 age and was working on the extension period, specially offered by the company after seeing his past good conduct and records.

"We got to know about these things on October 28, 2016. Even Bidaye got the hint that his misdeeds have been exposed. Next day, when Bidaye was expected in the office he took sick leave. In order to safeguard our sensitive information which was present in Bidaye's laptop, the company decided to send a team to his home. Even, during confrontation, Bidaye failed to reply how the sensitive information related to BKT's tire products was uploaded on his desktop and what he was upto," Jain said.

Pravin Padwal, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Zone 3, Mumbai Police admitted that his team is investigating the case. "There is evidence in the complaint filed by BKT and N M Joshi Marg Police Station", Padwal confirmed not revealing much inofrmation about his further action plan.

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However, Bidaye remained unavailable to respond on BKT's FIR, but his advocate Mohan Tekavade said, "I and my client are unaware about these developments. He has not been summoned or informed about this FIR. But still, we maintain the same that my client had been harassed by the company in fear of losing Bidaye to its competitors."

Earlier, while talking to India Today, Bidaye had stated that he has no such plans to join any other company in future, rather "enjoy his retired life", but he expects "law should take its course", against BKT's officials for causing mental and physical harassment to both.

No doubt, it would be quite interesting to see who comes clean after the investigation, Bidaye or BKT?

Also read: Exclusive: Over 16 cases of rail sabotage so far in 2017

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Show a little love this Valentines Day.

And show the love to Mauao. The Western Bay Wildlife Trust is looking for an army of volunteers with deep feelings for the Mount to help clean it up.

We find all sorts of paraphernalia on Mauao, says Western Bay Wildlife Trust chairperson Julia Graham. Deck chairs, jandals, fishing equipment, and lots and lots of coffee cups from the cafes, restaurants and street stalls around the Mount.

There arent any rubbish bins on Mauao because they attract predators. Rubbish bins just arent an option, says Julia. And people going for walks are generally in shorts and T-shirts, they cant store coffee cups until they get off the mountain and so they just biff them into the bush.

It tells us people are pretty lazy and inconsiderate.

And bottles are a huge problem. We get hundreds and hundreds of alcohol and soft drink bottles. People go up Mauao to drink at night and they arent interested in carrying off their rubbish.

Last Valentines Day volunteers helped the trust remove 80 bags of rubbish. We go where the council contractors dont go  off the tracks, down in the rocks, through the paddocks and around the bushline.

So the trust is inviting you to bring your love, sunscreen, a hat and water to the grass area outside the surf club at 9.30am this Sunday morning. We will supply the rubbish bags, the gloves and health and safety advice, says Julia. The trust would like to see a 100 volunteers for the clean-up on February 12.

Make a worthwhile contribution in the morning and have the afternoon at the beach.

Wouldnt it be great if we only got 40 bags of rubbish? says Julia. It would indicate a change in attitude and that people are taking more pride in our community. Then, she says, we need to start saying to people: Hey! Pick up your rubbish, please dont throw that there.

But the main message, says Julia, is people shouldnt take rubbish onto the mountain unless theyre prepared to carry it off again. Surely its not hard.
Motorists who regularly travel to and from Matamata via State Highway 24 will be affected by a month-long detour from Monday.

The New Zealand Transport Agency says SH24, near the intersection with Old Te Aroha Road, will be closed for up to four weeks to allow works to be carried out on the Waiomou Stream Bridge.

A full road closure is needed while the bridge is strengthened and the deck is repaired. Once the work is finished heavy trucks will be able to use that route to access Matamata and beyond, says an NZTA spokesperson.

While the works are carried out, south-bound traffic from Matamata on SH24 will be detoured down Te Poi Road to SH29. Motorists are being asked to allow an extra two minutes for travel.

While north-bound traffic heading towards Matamata will be detoured at SH27, with motorists being asked to allow an extra seven minutes of travel time).

Local residents and traffic needing to access properties off SH24 will have access maintained for the north and south to the bridge.

A temporary speed limit for 50km/h will also be in place at the intersection of SH27 and SH29.

The NZ Transport Agency would like to apologise in advance for any frustrations caused while this essential work is carried out.
Police are warning farmers and tool shed owners in rural areas to ensure their valuables are hidden and sheds locked up.

Cow sheds and shearing sheds have recently been targeted around Awakino /Mahoenui and surrounding areas inland, and tools and farm and shearing equipment are being taken.

The thefts are also serving as a reminder for those in the Bay as well.

"We are asking our farmers to be vigilant and to ensure their farm equipment is locked away out of sight," says Senior Sergeant Karley Hunt.

"If you see something that does not look right, it probably isnt.

Call us on 111 if this happens and take down as much detail as you can.

For example, it could be a vehicle thats been left on the side of the road, one you hear at odd times during the night, or maybe people walking around who look out of place.

"These thieves are taking every opportunity they get to wander onto your farms and go through sheds, which can generally be accessed from the roadside.

Some of these sheds may even be unlocked, which thieves see as an open invitation."

Security options for farmers to consider include installing CCTV or wireless alert systems which can activate an alarm in your house to alert you that someone is in your shed by alarm or light sensors.

These devices are highly effective and can even work in areas across some distance, where there is no cell coverage.

There are also Satellite GPS devices available that can be installed covertly on items such as quad bikes and other machinery which can be tracked if they get stolen.

Satellite devices also do not require cell coverage to track.

We are seeing this technology more and more and it has been highly effective, says Karley.

There have been recent projects across the country where a group of innovative farmers within the same community have paid for a good quality CCTV device and installed it in key areas, such as on an intersection, which can provide good prevention coverage across a number of farms.

Burglaries are incredibly intrusive, not to mention causing significant inconvenience to our farmers and impacting their livelihoods.

Dont let your farm become the next target for these thieves.

Suspicious information can be passed on to the nearest police station.

Alternatively, information can also be left anonymously via the Crimestoppers 0800 555 111 line.
Senior advocate Janak Dwarkadas appearing for the Colaba resident said that trees take years to grow and instead of saving trees the authorities gave permission. "The priority should have been to save the trees, relocate them or replant the trees after identifying a different location," said Dwarkadas.

The division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur said that this had been done in Bengaluru as well at Cubban Park. While explaining that trees are important for our healthy living, Justice Chellur also proposed that a committtee comprising of citizens as well as authorities could survey the trees and identify if trees have been cut without proper application of mind or if trees could have been transplanted elsewhere which would save them from being cut.

The advocates representing MMRDA and BMC objected to it saying that they should be given a chance to evaluate it themselves. Justice Chellur asked the authorities if they were scared of an inspection. They replied in the negative but they insisted that they be given time to suit a report on whether the trees can be transplanted elsewhere. There were many residents of Goregaon as well as other places who had come to the court for show of strength towards saving the trees as a petition that they had filed challenging the cutting of trees for metro is also tagged along with the present case.

While granting the authorities time to file their report, Justice Chellur said, "Don't cut a single tree or even a branch. Within one day sky will not fall. The projects take years together to complete. One day will not mark a difference." With this, the court ordered that trees should not be cut in Mumbai for metro till further orders.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- From over 1,500 miles away, protestors in Syracuse sent the Standing Rock Sioux Nation a message: You are not alone.

About 70 people gathered downtown in a snowy Perseverance Park to speak out against the controversial oil pipeline and show solidarity with protestors in North Dakota.

The protest came days after the Army Corps of Engineers announced plans to allow the pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir. The crossing will allow oil to be shipped from North Dakota to Illinois.

The announcement was a blow to Standing Rock and the protestors who fear the pipeline will pollute drinking water and destroy sacred sites. But Syracuse protestors said they don't plan on giving up.

"We're all in this together," said Jeanne Shenandoah, of the Onondaga Nation. "It's up to us to make the change, to stay strong, to share spirituality, to share prayers."

As speaker after speaker stepped up to the microphone, one protestor slowly beat a drum -- giving a heartbeat to the rally.

Protestors held handmade signs that read "protect the water" and "you can't drink money." The children of protestors played on the outskirts of the gathering, building snowmen as speakers discussed the importance of having clean water.

Brian Patterson, of the Oneida Nation, led a moment of silence for the protestors in Standing Rock. He then urged the crowd to continue working for change.

"What befalls one befalls us all," Patterson said. "It's a sacred time. We need to pay attention."

Some motorists honked and waved as they drove by on South Salina Street. Near the end of the event, a man rolled down a window in his truck and yelled "you're the devil" as he passed the rally.

The protestors were not deterred.

"We will not go away," the crowd chanted. "We will not go away."
Syracuse, N.Y. -- Sophomore attack man Nate Solomon, making his first career start, paced a balanced and powerful Syracuse lacrosse offense with four goals to lead the Orange to a 19-6 rout of Siena in its season-opener Saturday in the Carrier Dome.

Brendan Bomberry, playing in his first SU game after transferring from Denver, also tallied four times. Jordan Evans scored three times and dished out five helpers and Nick Mariano added three goals and four assists for SU. Stephen Rehfuss added three goals in late game action.

Evan Molloy stopped seven shots for No. 5 Syracuse, and Ben Williams won 15 of 22 faceoffs.

Siena goalie Aaron Lewis was outstanding with 15 saves as SU outshot the Saints 54-26.

The Orange pulled away with an 8-1 run over the first and second quarters.

With Syracuse nursing a 3-2 lead with 4:35 left in the first, Brad Voigt powered in a low shot from six yards out. Siena's Joe Arcarese answered for his team just 17 ticks later.

Solomon then took over.

He restored SU's two-goal edge with 3:35 left, coming from behind the net to whip a shot past Lewis. Williams won the ensuing faceoff, and just nine seconds later Evans fed Solomon for another score, this one on a low shot from just outside the crease.

Solomon closed the first-quarter scoring and hit the hat-trick mark by taking a dish from Mariano and finding the back of the net with six seconds left for a 7-3 Orange cushion.

Lewis picked up an unnecessary roughness penalty early in the second, and Gage Ponsetti came in to replace him during the Syracuse man-up attack. Mariano took that opportunity to burn him for a goal that changed the scoreboard to 8-3 Syracuse.

Bomberry then turned in an early candidate for goal of the year. Mariano ripped a long shot on net that Lewis saved, but the ball bounced a few inches out of his stick and into the air. Bomberry was right on the crease to quickly steal the pop-up and in a blink whip a behind-the-back shot past a stunned Lewis with 11:20 left in the half.

Evans put the Orange ahead 10-3 on a tally with 3:22 left in the half. Lewis made an initial save to deny Sergio Salcido, but Salcido hustled to control the rebound and set up Evans out front.

Solomon closed the first-half scoring just 10 seconds later, finishing a faceoff win by Williams and then a fast break by burying a shot from four yards out on the left.

Attendance was 2,880.

Syracuse hosts Albany Feb. 18.
Immigration Raids California

In this Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, photo released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shows foreign nationals being arrested this week during a targeted enforcement operation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) aimed at immigration fugitives, re-entrants and at-large criminal aliens in Los Angeles. Immigrant advocates on Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, decried a series of arrests that federal deportation agents said aimed to round up criminals in Southern California but they believe mark a shift in enforcement under the Trump administration.

(Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP)

U.S. immigration authorities arrested hundreds of undocumented immigrants in at least a half-dozen states this week in a series of raids that marked the first large-scale enforcement of President Donald Trump's Jan. 26 order to crack down on the estimated 11 million immigrants living here illegally.

The raids, which officials said targeted known criminals, also netted some immigrants who did not have criminal records, an apparent departure from similar enforcement waves during former President Barack Obama's administration that aimed to just corral and deport those who had committed crimes.

Trump has pledged to deport up to 3 million undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Last month he also made a change to the Obama administration's policy of prioritizing deportation for convicted criminals, substantially broadening the scope of who the Department of Homeland Security can target, to include those with only minor offenses or those with no convictions at all.

Immigration officials confirmed that agents this week raided homes and workplaces in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, the Los Angeles area, North Carolina and South Carolina, netting hundreds of people. But Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said they were part of "routine" immigration enforcement actions. ICE dislikes the term "raids," and prefers to say authorities are conducting "targeted enforcement actions."

Christensen said the raids, which began Monday and ended Friday at noon, found undocumented immigrants from a dozen Latin American countries. "We're talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system," she said, noting that the majority of those detained were serious criminals, including some who had been convicted of murder and domestic violence.

Immigration activists said the crackdown went beyond the six states DHS identified, and said they had also documented ICE raids of unusual intensity during the past two days in Florida, Kansas, Texas and Northern Virginia.

That undocumented immigrants with no criminal records were arrested and could potentially be deported sent a shock through immigrant communities nationwide amid concerns that the U.S. government could start going after law-abiding people.

"This is clearly the first wave of attacks under the Trump administration, and we know this isn't going to be the only one," Cristina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream, an immigrant youth organization, said Friday during a conference call with immigration advocates.

ICE agents in the Los Angeles area Thursday swept a number of individuals into custody over the course of an hour, seizing them from their homes and on their way to work in daytime operations, activists said.

David Marin, ICE's field director in the Los Angeles area, said in a conference call with reporters Friday that 75 percent of the approximately 160 people detained in the operation this week had felony convictions; the rest had misdemeanors or were in the U.S. illegally. Officials said Friday night that 37 of those detained in Los Angeles have been deported to Mexico.

"Dangerous criminals who should be deported are being released into our communities," Marin said.

A video that circulated on social media Friday appeared to show ICE agents detaining people in an Austin shopping center parking lot. Immigration advocates also reported roadway checkpoints, where ICE appeared to be targeting immigrants for random ID checks, in North Carolina and in Austin. ICE officials denied that authorities used checkpoints during the operations.

"I'm getting lots of reports from my constituents about seeing ICE on the streets. Teachers in my district have contacted me - certain students didn't come to school today because they're afraid," said Greg Cesar, an Austin city council member. "I talked to a constituent, a single mother, who had her door knocked on this morning by ICE."

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said he confirmed with ICE's San Antonio office that the agency "has launched a targeted operation in South and Central Texas as part of Operation Cross Check."

"I am asking ICE to clarify whether these individuals are in fact dangerous, violent threats to our communities, and not people who are here peacefully raising families and contributing to our state," Castro said in a statement Friday night.

Hiba Ghalib, an immigration lawyer in Atlanta, said the ICE detentions were causing "mass confusion" in the immigrant community. She said she had heard reports of ICE agents going door-to-door in one largely Hispanic neighborhood, asking people to present their papers.

"People are panicking," Ghalib said. "People are really, really scared."

Immigration officials acknowledged that authorities had cast a wider net than they would have last year, as the result of Trump's executive order.

The Trump administration is facing a series of legal challenges to that order, and on Thursday lost a court battle over a separate executive order to temporarily ban entry to the U.S. by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries, as well as by refugees. The administration said Friday that it is considering raising the case to the Supreme Court.

Some activists in Austin and Los Angeles suggested that the raids might be retaliation for those cities' so-called "sanctuary city" policies. A government aide familiar with the raids said it is possible the predominantly daytime operations - a departure from the Obama administration's night raids - meant to "send a message to the community that the Trump deportation force is in effect."

Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a pro-immigrant advocacy group, said the wave of detentions harks back to the George W. Bush administration, when workplace raids to sweep up all undocumented workers were common.

The Obama administration conducted a spate of raids, and also pursued a more aggressive deportation policy than any previous president, sending more than 400,000 people back to their birth countries at the height of his deportations in 2012. The public outcry over the lengthy detentions and deportations of women, children and people with minor offenses led Obama in his second term to prioritize convicted criminals for deportation.

A DHS official confirmed that while immigration agents were targeting criminals, given the broader range defined by Trump's executive order they also were sweeping up non-criminals in the vicinity who were found to be lacking documentation. It was unclear how many of the people detained would have been excluded under Obama's policy.

Federal immigration officials, as well as activists, said that the majority of those detained were adult men,and that no children were taken into custody.

"Big cities tend to have a lot of illegal immigrants," said one immigration official who was not authorized to speak publicly because of the sensitive nature of the operation. "They're going to a target-rich environment."

Immigrant rights groups said they were planning protests in response to the raids, including one Friday evening in Federal Plaza in New York City, and a vigil in Los Angeles.

"We cannot understate the level of panic and terror that is running through many immigrant communities," said Walter Barrientos of Make the Road in New York City, who spoke on a conference call with immigration advocates.

"We're trying to make sure that families who have been impacted are getting legal services as quickly as possible. We're trying to do some legal triage," said Bob Libal, the executive director of Grassroots Leadership, which provides assistance and advocacy work to immigrants in Austin. "It's chaotic," he said. The organization's hotline, he said, had been overwhelmed with calls.

Jeanette Vizguerra, 35, a Mexican house cleaner whose permit to stay in the country expired this week, said Friday during the conference call that she was newly apprehensive about her scheduled meeting with ICE next week.

Fearing deportation, Vizguerra, a Denver mother of four including three who are U.S. citizens, said through an interpreter that she had called on activists and supporters to accompany her to the meeting.

"I know I need to mobilize my community, but I know my freedom is at risk here," Vizguerra said through an interpreter.
Donald Trump

President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017.

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said Friday that he is considering rewriting his executive order temporarily barring refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the country, indicating that the administration may try to quickly restore some aspects of the now-frozen travel ban or replace it with other face-saving measures.

Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he would probably wait until Monday or Tuesday to take any action, and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said several options - including taking the case to the Supreme Court - were still on the table.

Trump hinted that the ongoing legal wrangling might move too slowly for his taste, though he thought he would ultimately prevail in court.

"We will win that battle," he said. "The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand-new order."

He said among the revisions he might make are "new security measures."

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled unanimously Thursday that Trump's travel ban should remain suspended, allowing people previously barred to continue entering the United States. While the judges were deciding only whether national security concerns necessitated immediately reinstating the ban - and not whether it could ultimately pass constitutional muster - their ruling put the future of Trump's order in doubt.

White House and Justice Department officials began mulling several options as new Attorney General Jeff Sessions was briefed on the matter. They could rewrite the order in hopes that modifications would help it pass legal muster. They could ask the Supreme Court or the full 9th Circuit to intervene immediately. Or they could wage a battle in the lower courts, hoping that judges considering more squarely whether the issue ran afoul of the Constitution would land on Trump's side.

On Friday, the White House injected an element of confusion when an official told reporters that the administration would not seek Supreme Court intervention, only to take it back and be contradicted by Priebus minutes later. Meanwhile, a 9th Circuit judge, without prompting, called for a vote to determine whether the entire court should rehear the case. The court asked for briefs from those involved in the case by Thursday.

No matter what it chooses to do, the White House will face a difficult battle to restore the ban, particularly in the short term. The 9th Circuit judges indicated that some of the administration's proposed concessions - which presumably could turn into rewrites - don't go far enough. Government lawyers also cannot undo Trump's campaign trail comments about wanting to stop all Muslims from entering the country and his assertion after taking office that Christians would be given priority. That is potentially compelling evidence that even a watered-down order might be intended to discriminate, said Leon Fresco, who worked in the office of immigration litigation in President Barack Obama's Justice Department.

"The problem is this is such a bad case for the government to be making these arguments," Fresco said.

If judges fear that the government will revert to its original position once litigation has stopped, "the court won't usually dismiss those matters, because they say, 'Look, it's likely to come up again,' " Fresco said.

The initial ban, introduced two weeks ago, on people from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen was set to expire in 90 days, and the ban on refugees in 120 days. The order ostensibly enacted a temporary pause on people entering the country so that the administration could develop more stringent vetting procedures. Trump referenced "extreme vetting" when asked what a modified order might entail.

"We have very, very strong vetting," he said. "I call it extreme vetting, and we're going very strong on security."

In a separate case in federal court in Virginia, a judge Friday pressed the government to produce any evidence that a ban on travel was necessary on national security grounds. Judge Leonie Brinkema said the presidential order "has all kinds of defects" and "clearly is overreaching" when it comes to long-term residents of the United States. She said there was "startling evidence" from national security professionals that the order "may be counterproductive to its stated goal" of keeping the nation safe.

The 9th Circuit judges also rejected the Justice Department's request to narrow a lower-court judge's freeze of the ban, saying that even if that freeze was too broad, it is "not our role to try, in effect, to rewrite the Executive Order." They asserted their authority to serve as a check on the president's power, while noting that their ruling was limited to whether the ban should be temporarily suspended.

The president has forcefully said all week that judges were wrong in their decisions on his order and that immigration law gives him broad authority to restrict foreigners from entering the United States. On Friday he posted on Twitter a quote from a Lawfare article, which noted that the 9th Circuit judges had not cited in their opinion the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives him such powers.

There seemed to be a growing view from commentators on the right, though, that the Trump administration might be better off to abandon this fight, rewrite portions of the executive order and thus be on more solid ground for future legal battles.

Edward Whelan, an influential voice in the conservative legal world who writes for the National Review Online, indicated on Twitter that he had doubts about the 9th Circuit's ruling but also concerns about whether the Supreme Court would reinstate an executive order he viewed as flawed.

He tweeted: "2 modest propositions: (1) Courts are getting it wrong on EO; and (2) this is not the right legal battle to fight. Do the EO right this time." "EO" is a common acronym for "executive order."

In the court hearing before the 9th Circuit, Justice Department lawyers offered a possible concession. The court, they said, could permit travel for those "previously admitted aliens who are temporarily abroad now or who wish to travel and return to the United States in the future," but not, perhaps, for those without visas already.

The judges rejected that argument, saying that such relief would not help U.S. citizens who "have an interest in specific non-citizens' ability to travel to the United States," nor would it allay concerns about the due process rights of people in the country illegally.

Justice Department lawyers also argued that the ban no longer applied to green-card holders - citing guidance from the White House counsel issued after the ban took effect - and that challenges on those grounds should thus be invalidated. On that, too, the judges disagreed.

"The White House counsel is not the President, and he is not known to be in the chain of command for any of the Executive Departments," the judges wrote. "Moreover, in light of the Government's shifting interpretations of the Executive Order, we cannot say that the current interpretation by White House counsel, even if authoritative and binding, will persist past the immediate stage of these proceedings."

The White House could adjust the order in other ways, such as by exempting students or other categories of people. That would be significant because it might affect the ability of states such as Washington and Minnesota to have adequate standing to sue.

But analysts said the administration is likely to still face vigorous challenges.

"Whatever they do, I think they're running into a problem," said Reaz H. Jafri, the global head of immigration at the Withersworldwide law firm. "I don't know what type of a ban they can possibly craft that can be constitutional."
2015-07-02-dl-hearts14.JPG

Joel Capolongo (left) and Nick Ryan, owners of Strong Hearts Cafe , 719 E. Genesee St. The cafe also has a location in the Marshall Square Mall near Syracuse University.

(David Lassman)

SYRACUSE, NY -- They call them milkshakes, but there's no dairy involved -- in fact no animal products at all.

A shake from Strong Hearts Cafe in Syracuse.

The 40-plus milkshake flavors available at the two Strong Hearts Cafe locations in Syracuse have always been among the vegan eateries' most popular selections.

Now they're getting national recognition: The animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has put Strong Hearts in its list of Top 10 places in the United States for "vegan sweets." PETA specifically cites the shakes, but also mentions its vegan cupcakes, cookies, crumb cake, and whoopie pies.

"At Strong Hearts Cafe, diners can indulge their sweet tooth while being sweet to animals," PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said in a news release. "As PETA's coast-to-coast list of decadent desserts proves, choosing vegan treats today is a piece of cake."

Strong Hearts uses soy milk as the base for most of its shakes, but also uses coconut or almond milk, and sometimes orange juice, chai, espresso coffe or others depending on the flavor.

Milkshake menu at Strong Hearts Cafe , 719 E. Genesee St.

The current menu lists 42 flavors, most named after radicals, activists, or movements (not all associated with animal rights). Examples include the Rosa Parks (peach cobbler); Bobby Sands (mint chocolate chip); John Lennon (vanilla); and the Cesar Chavez (chocolate, espresso). See the menu.

Strong Hearts is owned by Joel Capolongo and Nick Ryan, who were both active in animals rights issues before opening their first location, at 719 E. Genesee St. in 2008. In 2014, they opened the second location in Marshall Square Mall (720 University Ave.). In 2015, it became the first vegan vendor at the New York State Fair.

PETA's motto includes the phrase "animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way."

Other eateries in its Top 10 vegan sweets list are: Sublime Restaurant & Bar in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Vegan Treats Bakery in Bethlehem, Pa.; Passion Flour Patisserie in Salt Lake City; Avalon International Breads in Detroit; My Vegan Sweet Tooth in Virginia Beach, Va.; Cinnaholic in Atlanta; Sweet Ritual in Austin, Texas; Little Pine in Los Angeles; and Back to Eden Bakery in Portland, Ore.

Don Cazentre writes about food, beverages, restaurants and bars for syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Contact him by email, on Twitter, at Google+ or via Facebook.
By Srijani Ganguly/Mail Today: It's not unusual for a jazz musician to be born in Cuba. The country has a proud tradition of that genre of music, after all. What is less heard of is a violinist, born in the country's capital city of Havana, to (largely) forgo her classical training in favour of a more jazz style. Swiss-Cuban musician Yilian Canizares, who will perform in Delhi next week, developed her own style after coming across the work of French jazz violin player Stephane Grappelli.

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"At first I thought that I was going to be a classical musician," she says, "because this is more or less the usual path for a violin player. But little by little, I started to feel the necessity to express myself in a most personal way. I was far from my home (for studies) and I had a lot of emotions that were asking to come out. Most of all, there was a very strong urge to connect with my roots, with my ancestors and my cultural heritage. These are the main reasons that pushed me forward and made me embrace my own style."

Her style is a mix of jazz, classical and Afro-Cuban rhythm; and the medium of her songs ranges from Spanish and French to Yoruba. Canizares performances, therefore, are truly multicultural. She says, "I have these strong cultural roots that every Cuban has and also a solid classical training from early age.

Also Read: When musicians blatantly refused to perform at Trump's inauguration event

I had also the chance to pursue my musical studies outside of Cuba, and through this experience, I was in contact with other cultural traditions and with new ways of thinking, of living and making music. This gave me a different perspective and a different approach to music. As a consequence of all these experiences, I see myself as a citizen of the world--able to speak to the heart of every human and I want this to be reflected in every note I play or sing."

She is, of course, a Cuban at heart, and loves the country of her birth. "Cuba is a very beautiful country," she says, "It's full of culture, amazing traditions and powerful spirituality. I have never been in India before but I know that we have these points in common. Music is written in the DNA of every Cuban. We have great artists, not only in traditional music but also in jazz and in many other artistic expressions. We have also a very cultivated and enthusiastic audience all over the country. Through the years, we had developed a very specific language, or a 'Cuban way' of doing jazz that is still evolving every day. The young generation of Cuban musicians is really amazing and I'm very proud to be part of it."

--- ENDS ---

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North Korea is famous for its unusual rules and laws, and you probably caught yourself thinking what are the most ridiculous laws in North Korea.

North Koreas dynasty began in 1948 with Kim II-Sung who is the grandfather of the incumbent Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. Kim II-Sung became the president of North Korea after the Japanese left it divided in 1945. Once, North Korea invaded the South in order to unite the Korean peninsula under its government.

In its early days, North Korea was influenced by the Russian way of government which was characterized by Marxism-Leninism and communism. But, Kim II-Sungs self-created philosophy became dominant. Kim always ruled ruthlessly, but compared to North Korea back then, today it has a more stable economy and the standard of living is far better. Because of the Soviet Union and its ties to North Korea, the collapse of the union and the North Korea didnt affect the Kims and they continued to rule even today.

You cant even imagine what kind of laws North Korea has. Did you know that there are only 28 government approved haircuts, or that blue denim is not allowed? If you wanted to visit North Korea you should expand your knowledge and learn a thing or two about their laws.

Insider Monkey created an interesting list of 8 most ridiculous laws in North Korea. If you want to read even more about North Korea, check their list where you can expand your knowledge and learn about their laws.
If Samsung needs to rebound from the Galaxy Note 7 disaster, it has to pull all the stops to produce a truly impressive handset in the Galaxy S8. You must have heard this line repeated over and over as the new flagship nears its debut.

Recent rumors, however, suggest that the Note 7 may have triggered the opposite. That short of being a panic product, the S8 will be worse than what Samsung could have made it to be in the case where the specter of the phablet's failure is not hovering around to hold it back.

Smaller Battery

The latest leaks now claim that the S8 will be outfitted with a smaller battery module than originally planned. According to a South Korean source, the Galaxy S8 gets a 3,000 mAh battery, which will make it the same as the S7. The battery, of course, has been blamed for the Note 7's misfortune.

With the use of higher specs under the hood and even better screen technology, however, it is not going to be surprising if the battery life will get reduced.

Impact Of Stricter Production Process

A key change adopted by Samsung after its Note 7 investigation was concluded involves the introduction of more stringent testing and safety rules. For example, a number of components now have to be taken apart for inspection.

If the process has been implemented beyond battery, then the company will surely be forced to cut on features and innovations since inspections will take so much time. This is probably one of the reasons why the S8 launch has been delayed repeatedly.

Tepid S8 Hardware Change?

So far, unconfirmed rumors could only identify few radical changes such as the elimination of the home button and the repositioning of the fingerprint sensor. Much has been said about the purported changes to the hardware such as the increased screen real estate and possibly an even better design implementation. However, rumors still fail to capture any drastic redesign to date.

Leaked images of what appear to be actual prototype, for example, only showed portions of the handset. Those that showed the entirety of the device did not reveal any earthshaking appearance modification.

Even the 3.5 mm audio jack, which was rumored to be eliminated following the iPhone 7 lead, seems to have been retained. Noted mobile tipster Evan Blass also revealed that Samsung has stuck with the 4 GB of RAM, failing in its promise to set industry standard by making devices with 8 GB of RAM.

Users would probably say: but what more could you ask?

Well, remember that Samsung has not been shy about pushing the envelope in its handsets. It single-handedly introduced the phablet category and gave us the dual-edged display. Without the Note 7 disaster, it could have given us a much better S8 especially on the face of an iPhone 8 redesign.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Parenting has always been a tough job. Moms usually go through a lot of stress and exertion to manage their kids, as well as ensure that they are receiving proper care. Amid all of this, their own social life gets neglected.

This happens mostly because the priority and mindset of a mother is different. However, things are about to change as a new app called Peanut is here to bring together like-minded mums.

Former deputy CEO of dating app Badoo, Michelle Kennedy is the brains behind Peanut, a social networking site designed exclusively for moms. Before starting Peanut, Kennedy was associated with Bumble, which is a location-based dating app.

The lead software developer of Peanut is Greg Orlowski, who is the co-founder of food delivery app Deliveroo.

What Is Peanut?

Peanut is a social media app for mothers to meet and connect as women. Peanut promotes the idea of women who are also mother's connecting with fellow moms sharing similar interests and thoughts and forge lasting friendship.

"Peanut is designed to give women a network, [and] view motherhood as an adventure in the life of a woman," stated the team of Peanut in a press release

How To Use Peanut?

Peanut calls all new users "mamas." To start connecting, at first a mum needs to log in with her Facebook profile into the Peanut app. After logging in, the user needs to create a profile by answering questions about the duration of their pregnancy, the age of the child or children they have and more.

The moms get to choose colourful labels or "packs" as Peanut likes to call them from categories of "Spiritual Gangster", "City Gal", "Fashion Killa", "Single Mama" and some more. That is all it takes for one to start using the app.

How Does Peanut Work?

Once the profile creation process is finished, Peanut uses machine learning to connect moms. Machine learning enables the app to get insights about the users independently.

Friendship Recommendations are given based on common interest and proximity. The app will give recommendations to connect mamas on the basis of certain commonalities like age and gender of children, hobbies, languages spoken, educational back ground and more.

Users can show their interest on another user's profile by swiping upward on their profile picture. The upward movement is known as "wave" in Peanut's terms.

Why Come Up With Peanut?

Kennedy stated that she had the idea of making Peanut after seeing the abysmal quality of apps currently existing in the market for mums.

"The UX and the UI was quite frankly appalling," said Kennedy.

Peanut basically allows moms to do more than just grab coffee with another mother. It wants mothers to connect at a level and develop lasting friendship.

Price And Availability

The app is free and is launching in the U.S. and the UK, specifically eyeing mothers in New York and London. The app is currently available only for iOS users and can be downloaded from the App Store.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Thirty-three-year-old Shawn Blazsek was devastated when the director of the memory-loss center he went to told him he has Alzheimer's disease, a condition affecting up to 5 million Americans as of 2013 and is expected to affect about 14 million by 2050 in the absence of an effective cure.

More Than 50 Misdiagnosed Patients

Another test, however, showed he did not have the neurodegenerative disease. It also turned out that Sherry-Ann Jenkins, who misdiagnosed him of the neurological disorder, did not have a medical or psychology license required to give such diagnosis.

Blazsek is now one of over 50 individuals who are suing Jenkins and the owner of the now-closed Toledo Clinic Cognitive Center of the Toledo Clinic for telling them they had Alzheimer's or another form of dementia, despite not having the condition. Most of the complainants are now aware that the diagnosis is not true but a few are still awaiting confirmation that they have been misdiagnosed.

Some of the patients said that they have spent months going through treatment and making plans for their final years. Some took what's supposed to be their last special trip and some made drastic decisions quitting their jobs and selling their possessions. One killed himself.

$1 Million In Damages

The lawsuits each seeks more than $1 million in damages. The patients also sued the Toledo Clinic saying that it should have been aware that Jenkins lacked the training and credentials to treat and diagnose patients.

The lawyers of both sides would not reveal if there is a criminal investigation but the court records show the Ohio Medical Board already talked with some patients.

Jenkins's lawyer would not answer questions regarding the clinic, which shut down in early 2016. The attorney neither disputed that Jenkins was licensed but denied the other allegations..

Nearly all of the patients who were diagnosed by Jenkins started seeing her after suffering traumatic brain injuries or experiencing cognitive issues. Some of the patients described her as compassionate and easy to talk with. She also ended therapy sessions by asking her patients to give her a hug.

At her suggestions, there were patients who appeared in articles that tout the benefits of the holistic treatments she offered including daily doses of coconut oil and memory games. Patients also said that she was against getting a second opinion.

To date, no treatment that can reverse the condition is available for Alzheimer's patients. Experts also question the effectiveness of using coconut oil for the condition.

"There have been some claims that coconut oil could be used as a treatment, or even a cure, for Alzheimer's disease. However, there is currently not enough experimental evidence to back up these claims," the Alzheimer's Society said in a statement.

Driven By Greed

David Zoll, who represents the complainants, said that Jenkins was likely motivated by greed as several patients were overbilled.

"Many times she would diagnose the whole family," Zoll said.

The lawsuit claims that Jenkins who has a doctorate degree in physiological science did not have the authorization to order medical tests and that her husband, a licensed doctor and partner in the Toledo clinic, signed off in the tests and at times was listed as the referring physician on billing even though he did not see any of the patients.

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By Press Trust of India: Kathmandu, Feb 11 (PTI) A new species of birds has been discovered in the high mountainous region of Nepal, bringing the total number of avian species in the Himalayan country to 866.

A Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush (Monticola saxitilis), considered an autumn passage migrant bird species in Pakistan and India, was first seen and photographed by an expedition last year near the Shey monastery within the Shey-Phoksundo National Park.

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Researchers from an NGO Friends of Nature (FoN) Nepal spotted the bird while studying Himalayan wolf, wild yak and snow leopard last year.

The identification of the bird reported by the team was confirmed by the bird experts Carol Inskipp and Hem Sagar Baral.

The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) and Bird Conservation Nepal authorised the presence of a new bird species in the country, said Naresh Kusi, from FoN.

Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush is considered an autumn passage migrant bird species in Pakistan and India, The Kathmandu Post reported.

"The sighting location was very remote and rarely visited by ornithologists. More research is needed to ascertain the status of Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush in Nepal," said Yadav Ghimirey, director, Wildlife Research at FoN. PTI MHN SAR AKJ MHN

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President Donald Trump nominated some unpopular personalities to become part of his Cabinet, and people are still questioning a number of those nominations, especially since the nominees seem bent on demolishing established programs.

While the confirmation for Trump's cabinet has been incredibly slow, the president of the United States did achieve another win on Feb. 10 when the Senate confirmed his nomination for Thomas Price as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Obamacare, Planned Parenthood In Trouble

Needless to say, former President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act is in big trouble because Price is well known as one of Obamacare's biggest critics and has even submitted several proposals to repeal the healthcare program.

Women's healthcare and Planned Parenthood are also in hot water because Price has been ardently trying to defund both programs.

As the new secretary of the HHS, Price has been assigned as the point person who will dismantle Obamacare and ensure that Trump's Executive Order to reduce government support, outlined in the Obamacare, follows through.

"This is the first vote in the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act," Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington (D) said.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire (D) agrees with Sen. Cantwell. "[Mr. Price] seems to have no higher priority than to terminate health coverage for millions of people," she said.

Republican Senators: Price Had 'Good Sense To Oppose' Obamacare

Republican senators disagree with such sentiments since they believe Price was correct in wanting to dismantle Planned Parenthood and health care.

"You could say his chief qualification for the job of replacing Obamacare is he had the good sense to oppose it in the first place," Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas (R) said.

Trump's nomination would have been confirmed with 51 votes but with 52 Republicans in the House, which greatly outnumber Democrats and independent party representatives, the president may just get the Cabinet he wants  unless the nominees step back or a couple of Republican representatives oppose the nominations.

There were no defectors during the senate vote, however, and all Republican representatives supported Price's nomination.

On the other hand, Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders and Angus King, as well as almost all Democratic party representatives, voted "No" on Price's appointment. Only Rep. Claire McCaskill of Missouri (D) was unable to place her vote due to her husband's heart surgery, but the senator said earlier that she was opposed to both the Price and Steven Mnuchin nomination for the HHS and Treasury departments, respectively.

Mnuchin's fate will be decided on Feb. 14.

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You might want to rethink doing those long workweeks or rendering overtime work every so often.

A new study from Australian National University revealed that people working more than 39 hours a week are putting their health at risk, including the danger of developing mental health issues.

How Many Hours Constitute A Healthy Workweek?

The research, based on data from 8,000 working individuals as part of the survey Household, Income, and Labor Dynamics in Australia, also showed that the healthy work limit every week should be set at 39 hours instead of the 48 hours internationally set about eight decades ago.

Long work hours erode a persons mental and physical health, warned lead study researcher Dr. Huong Dinh in a statement. [This is] because it leaves less time to eat well and look after themselves properly.

Around two in three Australians who were employed full-time worked more than 40 hours weekly.

The long hours, Dinh said, proved more problematic for women since they performed unpaid work at home. While being as skilled as men in general, women maintained lower-paid jobs and less autonomy  add to the fact that they devoted time to domestic work, he explained.

For men, the healthy work limit was substantially higher, or up to 47 hours, since they typically spent much less time on care or domestic duties.

The findings were discussed in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

The Debate On Long Work Hours

In Australia, national guidelines specify that companies must not ask full-time workers to render more than 38 hours a week unless the added hours are reasonable, which could be defined differently among organizations. But factors to be considered include family responsibility, health and safety risks, and typical work patterns in their specific industry.

UN conventions starting 1919, on the other hand, mandate a 48-hour week at a maximum.

Based on the American Time Use Survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans ages 25 to 54 who lived in households with children under age 18 spent an average of 8.8 hours working or doing related activities.

A separate Gallup report back in 2014, however, demonstrated that that the average time worked by full-time workers had ticked up to 46.7 hours weekly or almost a full extra eight-hour day, but surprisingly, the report showed that people highly engaged in their work and logging over 40 hours still maintained better overall well-being than actively disengaged workers who clock out at 40 hours.

Recently, a separate study showed that jobs that involve carrying heavy loads and working night or rotating shifts could reduce a womans fertility. A team from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health made a link between reproductive ability and these occupational factors, although the underlying cause remains unknown. They deemed the risk, however, more pronounced in overweight, obese, and older females.

While the idea of flexible working hours have been more welcomed in recent years, some UK experts found it can actually be risky too since theres the constant stress that accompanied being unable to switch off from work.

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Good news for consumers who were looking to snag the Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones. The company has restocked the devices once again!

Those who have been waiting patiently for the two smartphones will now be able to purchase them easily.

The Google Store is now restocking the Pixel XL and Google Pixel smartphones once again. For the unfamiliar, the two smartphones were "out of stock" for a while.

That Google has been facing supply issues for the flagship smartphones is no secret. Recently, reports suggested that the company was ceasing production of the smartphones. However, this was a rumor which was circulated erroneously by Canadian carrier TELUS.

Now that the Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones are back in stock on the company's store, consumers in the United States will be able to purchase the device swiftly. Make sure this time you place your order before the product goes out of stock like what happened earlier.

Google Pixel And Pixel XL: Availability

In the United States, Verizon Wireless is the only carrier which is retailing the two smartphones. However, one can directly purchase it from the Google Store or even Best Buy.

Based on reports, the Quite Black and Very Silver options of the Pixel XL are now available for purchase. However, the shipping times for the versions are different.

The 32 GB Quite Black model of the smartphone will ship immediately. However, the 128 GB variant of the same color will take nearly five weeks.

Those looking for the Very Silver option can buy the 32 GB model, which will ship in six to seven weeks. The 128 GB version of this color, however, is still unavailable.

Smartphone enthusiasts waiting for the Really Blue model will also be disappointed as the Google Store lists it as unavailable.

Those looking for the smaller sibling i.e. the Google Pixel can get it in Really Blue, Quite Black and Very Silver according to reports.

However, only the 32 GB storage version of the smartphone is in stock as the 128 GB variant is still listed as unavailable. The price for the smartphone has not changed at $649.

Google Pixel And Pixel XL: Where To Buy

Those looking to purchase either of the Google smartphones that run on Android Nougat will need to rush to the online store before stocks run out.

Hopefully, the company will ramp up production of the Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones so that it can meet consumer demand without any trouble.

To purchase the Google smartphones, head to the online store. Those unwilling to wait for the long shipping times and prepared to shell out a little extra can buy the smartphone from Amazon.

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The NASA-employed Science Definition Team has been crafting a plan to launch a mission that would search for alien life on Jupiter's icy moon Europa.

Europa

The extraterrestrial world of Europa is considered as among the most likely places in the solar system to have the ability to support life as we know it. Scientists have gathered evidence that the salty ocean that lurks beneath the icy crust of the moon could be hospitable to life. Recent models also hint that the icy world can produce oxygen and hydrogen, which suggests it may have the necessary energy to support life.

On Tuesday, Feb. 7, the 21-member SDT submitted a report detailing the concept of sending a lander to Europa to determine if the moon harbors life. The report proposed a mission that could launch by 2030 to search for life on Europa by drilling toward the moon's subterranean ocean.

While there has been strong evidence of the existence of the ocean - based on data gathered by NASA's Galileo mission that explored Jupiter and its moons in the 1990s - no sample has yet been collected from the ocean itself, which is believed to be buried beneath 11 to 15 miles of ice layers. The liquid water could be 62 miles deep. Scientists estimate that the large global ocean has about twice as much water found in the Earth's oceans, albeit this is protected by hard ice.

Probe To Drill Into Europa's Icy Crust

SDT members worked with NASA engineers to design a probe that can drill about 4 inches into the icy crust of Europa to collect samples for analysis on the spacecraft for signs of extraterrestrial life. If the mission is successful, a future Europa mission could drill even further and possibly even reach the subterranean ocean. Scientists noted that the best chance of finding life on the moon would be to drill beneath the crust, but this would not happen with the first mission, which would drill only a few inches down into the crust.

"This mission would significantly advance our understanding of Europa as an ocean world, even in the absence of any definitive signs of life, and would provide the foundation for the future robotic exploration of Europa," the report reads.

Team members also proposed that besides having a drill or cutter for extracting samples, the lander should include a camera system that could see what is going on outside, instruments that can analyze the chemistry of the icy crust of Europa, as well as a device that would monitor geologic activity.

Researchers are particularly keen on finding biosignatures such as isotopes or molecules that can hint at past or present life on the moon. NASA said that the report proposed three science goals for the mission.

"The primary goal is to search for evidence of life on Europa," the U.S. space agency said in a statement. "The other goals are to assess the habitability of Europa by directly analyzing material from the surface, and to characterize the surface and subsurface to support future robotic exploration of Europa and its ocean."

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Google is already rolling out the Instant Tethering feature to Google Pixel, Pixel XL and a slew of Nexus handsets. You might be interested to know that this update will allow any of these smartphones to automatically share their cellular data with supported devices that are signed in to a user's Google account.

The explanation is quite a mouthful but, in practice, the process is simple, zippy and smart.

How Instant Tethering Works

If you turn a Pixel Chromebook on and it finds that no Wi-Fi network is available, it will ask your Google smartphone, say the Pixel XL, to share its connection. If approved, the devices will pair automatically and the handset will start acting as a Wi-Fi hotspot.

That is not all. As was previously mentioned, the process is automatic so this involves devices talking to each other through Bluetooth and acting on specific requests and circumstances on their own without user input.

Let's go back to the opened Chromebook example. Once it communicates with the Pixel XL requesting a connection, the latter will evaluate its own condition before making an action.

The device will check, for instance, if it has enough battery to share data over a period of time. The connection will be denied if there is less juice left.

Automated Wi-Fi Hotspot

Android users should already recognize the tremendous convenience of the Instant Tethering feature. Up until the update's release, there is a need to turn the Wi-Fi Hotspot toggle on every time they want to share their mobile phone's data. It also has to be deactivated when it is no longer in use to avoid draining battery fast.

Now, users will now play very minimal part in the process. The devices will sort this thing out among themselves so that your involvement will probably be limited to just one tap, to confirm a Wi-Fi hotspot connection notification.

You will also no longer require a password. Even disconnection becomes automated.

"When you are done, if you don't disconnect, we will notice that you stopped using your tablet and we will disconnect the hotspot for you to save your precious battery throughout the day," a Google technician said in the Google Pixel support forum.

Launch And Android Compatibility

The Instant Tethering feature first surfaced last January. The speculation then was that Google has already unleashed it to a limited number of Pixel users. We have not heard of owners actually experiencing it first-hand so the rollout seems to be really happening around this time.

If you own a Pixel smartphone or any of the cited Nexus devices, you need to upgrade to Android 7.1.1 before you can access this new feature. There is no official word yet on how Instant Tethering is getting deployed. A previous Tech Times report, however, has stated that it is part of the Google Play Services 10.2 update.

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Popular China-based phone manufacturer Xiaomi is reportedly divorcing from Qualcomm to develop its own line of "Pinecone" SoCs for future top-tier smartphones.

Xiaomi To Create Own Mobile Processors

The move, if true, stands as a signal that the company is fully prepared to stand out in its highly competitive home market, and it represents its desire to join the ranks of Apple, Samsung, and others who also make custom chipsets for their devices.

Chinese companies are exerting increasing effort to develop their proprietary technology, so as not only to assume foothold in the market, but to differentiate themselves altogether, offering phones whose hardware is integrated with its software, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The Pinecone chips will be released within a month, according to the report. The chip could land on the forthcoming Xiaomi Mi 6, which should be released sometime in March, if the company sticks to its annual release pattern.

More On Pinecone

The chip division isn't just plucked from somewhere, however. Using a shell company called "Beijing Pinecone Electronics," the company shelled out $15 million to acquire such a mobile processor technology from Datang subsidiary Leadcore Technology Ltd.

Advantages Of A Proprietary Chip

At present, nearly every Android smartphone not from Samsung or Huawei packs a chip from Qualcomm, often for high-end offerings. Occasionally, Qualcomm slips up, such as with 2015's Snapdragon 810, which was the target of overheating problems, and when those slip-ups occur, most phone manufacturers have no recourse.

Samsung, meanwhile, has its own Exynos chips, although it still releases smartphone variants with Qualcomm chips packed inside. In 2015, Samsung took advantage of its chip independency and shipped Exynos in the Galaxy S6, avoiding the Snapdragon 810 fiasco altogether.

Creating chips in-house, especially for a phone manufacturer, not only makes sense, but is necessary.

"A phone maker can only reach the pinnacle of user experience when optimizing the integration of hardware and software on its own," said Sean Yang, a Taiwan-based research director with TrendForce, a tech research firm.

Beijing Pinecone Electronics is officially set to develop Xiaomi's own processors, the report states. A regulatory filing shows that it has an equity pledge agreement with Xiaomi.

The global smartphone market, as it balloons, has underscored the need for in-house chips, because of the advantages associated with it. For one, supply-chain executives say that overwhelming demand has left smartphone makers scrambling for components, a task which could potentially be less exhausting if the components come from the phone maker itself.

Still, whether Xiaomi can actually stand out remains to be seen. Apple and Huawei are the leaders in self-developed chips, according to Wang Yanhui, Mobile China Alliance's secretary-general.

In the United States, Xiaomi has struggled to assume a firm foothold, as per Ars Technica. Not that it's not trying, though: it's making moves by adding a U.S. Store, and such, but no Xiaomi smartphone has ever officially landed stateside.

Xiaomi isn't attending this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, so questions about its Pinecone chips will have to wait.

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Huggies now has diapers for prematurely born babies.

Called Huggies Little Snugglers Nano Preemie Diapers, the diapers are specially designed for babies weighing less than 2 pounds, particularly made to protect delicate skin while promoting healthy development and growth in preemies.

Filling A Need

Diapers for babies are numerous, but with fewer than 1.4 percent of babies born as preemies weighing below 2 pounds, there is a severe lack of options for the fragile population. Huggies responded to this need by working with Neonatal Intensive Care Unit nurses and neonatal therapists, using input from experts to develop the Little Snugglers diapers.

"We're passionate about helping all babies thrive, especially the smallest and most fragile," said Eleonora Daireaux, Huggies North America vice president, adding the new diaper reflects the brand's ongoing commitment of delivering innovative NICU solutions.

From concept to launch, the Huggies Little Snugglers Nano Preemie Diapers only took six months, as the brand's research, skin science, manufacturing, and product safety experts strove to address the need at the soonest time possible.

Huggies Little Snugglers Nano Preemie Diapers

Huggies' new diaper features a narrow absorbent pad and is fitted with gentle, specially sized fasteners to offer a flexible fit that will offer comfort when preemies are in a fetal tuck position where their legs and arms are placed close to their bodies. Gentle leg gathers and a soft, smooth liner were also added for leak protection that doesn't irritate fragile and underdeveloped skin.

According to infant development specialist Anjanette Lee from Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital, one of nine NICUs where Huggies' new diaper was tested, the Little Snugglers conformed to babies' bottoms without gaps and limiting movement in the babies' legs. She added that less material at the waist and thinner fasteners used were effective in providing a good fit while also protecting the babies' fragile skin.

To ensure quality, Huggies has every diaper go through a rigorous inspection process that includes a 40-point hand inspection before being individually folded and then hand-packed for distribution.

No Baby Unhugged

The Little Snugglers Nano Preemie Diaper is part of Huggies' No Baby Unhugged program established to make sure that all babies receive the hugs they require to thrive. According to research, hugs don't only ease stress but can also help improve sleep, keep heart beats at a normal rate, and promote healthy weight gain in babies.

For every signup Huggies receives under the No Baby Unhugged program, the brand donates $5 to volunteer hugging efforts. By funding volunteer hugging programs in hospitals, Huggies is helping ensure that the 380,000 preemies born in the United States every year, alongside all other newborns, get enough human contact for their well-being.

"When babies have a longer stay in the NICU and parents unfortunately can't be there all of the time, our NICU volunteers are able to step in and help provide this crucial interaction," said Rebecca Meyers, Lurie Children's Hospital child life manager.

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago was the first hospital to receive a grant from Huggies under the No Baby Unhugged program.

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Following up on the policies stated in the executive order passed by President Donald Trump, the U.S. immigration authorities have reportedly arrested hundreds of undocumented immigrants this week.

The Trump administration has pledged to arrest nearly 3 million immigrants who are undocumented and have a criminal record.

Immigration officials disclosed that agents had conducted a raid in several workplaces and homes in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, North and South Carolina, as well as Los Angeles. The raid has reportedly resulted in the capture of hundreds of individuals who are undocumented and have a criminal background.

Gillian Christensen, who is the spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department which supervises the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has asserted that the immigration implementation was a routine activity.

Was It A Raid?

However, the ICE takes objection to the word "raids" and terms it "targeted enforcement actions."

Christensen disclosed that the enforcement actions were carried out from Monday to Friday and resulted in the arrest of several immigrants with improper documents, especially from the Latin American countries.

"We're talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system," says Christensen.

She divulged that a majority of people detained by the authorities were hardcore criminals. Some of them had even been convicted for domestic violence and murder.

However, activists differ and have said that the raid was beyond the areas mentioned by the immigration officials. They asserted that evidence of the raids lay with them, which documented the intensity in the past few days in Texas, Kansas, Northern Virginia and Florida.

Several individuals from the Los Angeles area were reportedly taken into custody within an hour by ICE agents.

David Marin, the field director of ICE, shared that nearly 75 percent of the 160 individuals who have been detained had a criminal record. The remainder were either living in the United States legally or had some transgressions.

The authorities also shared that nearly 37 of immigrants detained in Los Angeles have been extradited to Mexico.

Reportedly, a video circulating on social media shows how ICE agents detained people in the parking lot of the Austin Shopping mall. Roadway checkpoints in North Carolina and Austin were reportedly targeted by the ICE agents and they conducted random checks for IDs. However, the officials have denied any such checks.

According to The Washington Post, an official from the Department of Homeland Security has affirmed that even though agents are eyeing criminals, they are also zoning in on non-criminals in the area who are undocumented.

Activists, as well as immigration officials, have let on that most of the people taken into custody are adult men. No children have been detained.

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Global credit rating agency Fitch deems President Donald Trump a potential threat to the global economy.

In their report released Friday, Feb.10, Fitch analysts harped on the unpredictability of U.S. policy and the Trump administrations willingness to sever established international ties as factors that could potentially destabilize markets worldwide.

Risk To Global Markets

The agency, rating countries on their perceived debt-payment ability, said Trumps presidency could be a risk to international economic conditions and global sovereign credit fundamentals.

Tax cuts and infrastructure plans planned by Trump could bolster the economy, but the agency believes its not going to happen right now. The team led by Fitch managing director James McCormack pointed to the administrations abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pending reevaluation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and a general rebuke of American companies with operations and investments abroad.

The analysts feared that prolonged volatility of currencies and financial markets may follow, with countries like Canada, Germany, China, Mexico, Japan and the United Kingdom as some that could bear the most brunt.

The feared primary risks to sovereign credits comprise potential disruptions on trade relations, decreased international capital flows, and limits on migration, which could adversely affect remittances. Nations with a huge amount of U.S. immigrants sending back remittances and shipping goods to the United States may face economic risks, the report added.

In an analysis, it is thought that these factors cited by Fitch may very well be the reason Trump was elected and rose to power. Forbes contributor Tim Worstall even dubbed it a refreshing change for a politician to actually implement his campaign promises, including bringing or keeping jobs at home.

Immigration Ban

In the wake of Trump issuing the immigration ban, several new protocols are believed to be under consideration. These include visitors to the United States potentially getting required to give their Twitter and Facebook passwords to the immigration counter at the airport or to border security agents.

"We want to get on their social media, with passwords: What do you do, what do you say? If they don't want to cooperate then you don't come in, said Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, clarifying this is just one of the options for added security layers being considered.

The Executive Order titled Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, issued Jan. 27, sought to temporarily bar the entry of people from seven Muslim-majority nations in the country and suspend its refugee program. Its a 90-day ban targeting residents of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Thousands of Americans flocked the streets to protest the immigration ban, with Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and other leading tech firms and businesses taking a united legal stance against it.

In tech-related policy news, net neutrality could be at risk now that Ajit Pai is at the helm of the Federal Communications Commission, with the Trump administration taking a different strategy and seeking to eliminate important regulations set under Obamas time.

In his first days in office, for instance, the new FCC chairman closed the investigation on internet companies' zero-rating practices, no longer probing if they violate the Open Internet Order or have negative effects on the market.

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The legal war between Oracle and Google over Android is not over, as Oracle just started another battle with a new appeal.

For those unfamiliar with the case, Oracle and Google have long been fighting in court in two separate cases, in a bid to determine whether Google should pay Oracle a hefty sum for parts of code copied from Oracle's Java programming language and used in Google's Android mobile operating system.

Oracle vs Google Copyright Infringement

At the heart of the matter were Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which are bits of code that enable various computer programs to communicate with each other. Google used Java APIs in Android and Oracle sought to get billions of dollars for it.

More specifically, Oracle wanted to get Google to pay $9.3 billion in damages over the Java-Android software copyright infringement. The legal battle has been ongoing for several years now - since 2012 - and it's not over yet.

Oracle suffered a defeat back in May 2016, when Google won a jury vote ruling that implementing 37 Java APIs into Android did not constitute an infringement upon the copyright Oracle owned.

Over the years, the legal tussle has gone back and forth and each side won in various stages, but Google was not found liable to pay for the use of Java APIs. Oracle promised back in May to file an appeal and it has now made good on its word, starting a new chapter in the legal battle against Google.

The battle back in May revolved around how much, if at all, Google should pay Oracle, after a previous trial had found that Google did indeed copy some bits of Oracle's Java code.

While Oracle asked for $9.3 billion in damages, Google argued that copying those bits of Java code fell under the copyright law's "fair use" provision, meaning that it was free to use. A 10-people jury unanimously sided with Google and that's what Oracle is appealing now.

Oracle Appeal Against Google

In the latest appeal filing, Oracle now argues that it didn't get the chance to share everything it wanted to share with the jury of the trial in May, Business Insider reports. Additional facts the jury should have heard include all the ways Oracle believes Android hurts Java, including how Android may eventually trump Java in its main domain - as a programming language for creating applications and web applications for PCs.

"Although Google's project to bring Android's full functionality to Chromebooks was underway well before the close of discovery, Google falsely denied its existence in written discovery responses," Oracle argues in its appeal filing. "For example, three months after launching the secret project, Google denied that it 'intend[ed] to use some or all of ANDROID, including ... the 37 JAVA API PACKAGES, to create a platform that runs on desktops and laptops.'"

"Google started trial knowing a fact it kept secret from everyone else: It was days away from announcing that 'the full functionality of Android would soon be working on desktops and laptops, not just on smartphones and tablets,'" Oracle adds.

The legal war between Oracle and Google has been closely monitored by the tech industry because it could have a chilling ripple effect. Some critics believe that should Google be forced to pay a hefty fine to Oracle, it could have a negative effect on some of the ways in which software developers use and share code.

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By Press Trust of India: Washington, Feb 11 (PTI) NASAs New Horizons spacecraft is healthy and operating normally after spending over 24 hours in a protective "safe mode" - the result of a command-loading error that occurred this week, the US space agency said.

New Horizons is healthy and continues to speed along towards its next target - the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 - while its operations team works to restore it to full operations and resume scientific data collection, NASA said.

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Due to the 10.5-hour round trip communications delay that results from operating a spacecraft more than 5.7 billion kilometres from Earth, the team expects New Horizons to be back on its activities timeline early Sunday.

The spacecraft is designed to automatically transition to safe mode under certain anomalous conditions to protect itself from harm.

In safe mode, the spacecraft suspends its timeline of activities and keeps its antenna pointed toward Earth to listen for instructions from the Mission Operations Centre at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in the US.

"Our rapid recovery was supported by other NASA missions that provided New Horizons with some of their valuable Deep Space Network (DSN) antenna time," said Alice Bowman, New Horizons mission operations manager at APL.

The New Horizons mission, launched on January 19, 2006, is helping researchers understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of the dwarf planet Pluto and by venturing deeper into the distant, mysterious Kuiper Belt - a relic of solar system formation. PTI SAR SAR

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By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 11 (PTI) Three persons, including a Nigerian, were arrested in two separate cases and contraband worth Rs 2 crore seized from them following which Delhi Police claimed to have busted two interstate drug trafficking modules.

Information was received that a man, involved in drug trafficking, will be coming near Dwarka Mor between 2 PM and 3 PM.

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Acting on the tip-off, a Nigerian national, Uchenne (28), who is allegedly involved in supply of cocaine and heroin in different parts of Delhi, was arrested by a team of Crime Branch from near taxi stand, Dwarka Mor on February 9, said Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner of police (Crime).

"Our team recovered 330 gm of fine quality heroin and 170 gm of fine quality cocaine from his possession. The recovered contraband is worth Rs 1.5 crore (approximately) in the international market," said the officer.

Uchenne came to India from Nigeria in February, 2015 on a business class visa but got involved in drug trafficking after coming into contact with some men in Punjab. He started drug trafficking and supplying the consignment in Delhi. This time also, he had come to supply the consignment in Delhi but was caught.

In another incident, Ajay (33) and Naresh Kumar (39), who are allegedly involved in supply of heroin in Delhi, were arrested from near TVS Bajaj Showroom, Mor road leading towards Vikas Nagar, on February 10, he added.

"We have recovered 260 grams of fine quality heroin from Ajays possession. The recovered heroin is worth Rs 50 lakh (approximately) in the international market," he added.

Ajay came to Delhi 15 years back to work as a labourer but got involved in drug trafficking after he came in contact with some bad elements of Bareilly, UP. Thereafter, he along with Naresh started supplying consignments from Bareilly to Delhi.

Teams are being sent to Bareilly and other areas to arrest more people who are involved in drug trafficking, sources said. PTI SLB KUN

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Arce stressed that "this table has a vital importance to continue giving certainties and solutions, above the whims, subway agreements and political calculations". | Read More
By Press Trust of India: Dehradun, Feb 11 (PTI) Congress today hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his horoscopes (dossiers) remarks, saying it was not afraid of such threats.

Terming the party a "lion" which is not afraid of such "full of arrogance" threats, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, the horoscopes also indicate BJPs days are numbered.

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The Congress leader was here to campaign for February 15 Uttarakhand Assembly polls.

Quoting a couplet, Andhiyon ko zid hai jahan bijliyan girane ki, Mujhe bhi zid hain wahin ashiyan basane ki (I insist on making my abode where lightning is to strike).

"Politics of dossiers existed in Stalinist Russia and countries in East Europe not in democratic countries," he told reporters.

Accusing Modi of weakening the democratic institutions, he said, why Lokpal had not been constituted despite UPA passing the bill wayback in 2013?

Under fire from the Opposition over his raincoat barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh in Parliament, Modi at a poll rally in Haridwar yesterday asked the Congress to hold its tongue and show regard to the dignity of language.

"I tell Congress leaders to hold their tongue or else I have their entire horoscope. I do not want to give up dignity of words and conduct but if you speak nonsense, your past will chase you, your misdeeds, your sins will chase you," Modi had said. PTI ALM SMJ

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Superstar Nagarjuna is back to the silver screen with his devotional drama Om Namo Venkatesaya. But how good is the film? Here's our Om Namo Venkatesaya review.

By Srivatsan: Period dramas are hot in Telugu cinema these days. A month after Balakrishna's Gautamiputra Satakarni, superstar Nagarjuna's devotional drama Om Namo Venkatesaya is in theatres now. Here's our review.

Om Namo Venkatesaya Cast: Nagarjuna, Anushka Shetty, Saurabh Raj Jain and Pragya Jaiswal

Om Namo Venkatesaya Director: K Raghavendra Rao

Om Namo Venkatesaya Rating: (2.5/5)

Watching Om Namo Venkatesaya is like getting an accommodation in Tirumala for a week or so, to get a glimpse of Lord Sri Venkateswara, who is touted as the richest Hindu god in the world in terms of donation and wealth. More than a film, Om Namo Venkatesaya seems to be a mixture of slogans, history and religious stories, documented in 2.5 long hours, for God knows what reason.

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ALSO READ: Singam 3 Review

ALSO READ: SS Rajamouli's Mahabharata to feature Rajinikanth, Mohanlal and Aamir?

After what was expected from its teaser, Om Namo Venkatesaya narrates the story of Hathiram Bhavaji, a saint, who became an ardent devotee of Venkatesa. At first, we see a young Rama (Nagarjuna) asking his preceptor (played by actor Sai Kumar) about means which can let one see god for real. To boost his belief, the sage cites the famous quote 'matha pitha guru deivam'. Cut to present, we see a teenage Rama performing rituals in a forest. Struck by Rama's spirituality, Lord Vishnu disguises himself as a boy and interrupts his rites.

When Rama gets to know from his preceptor that it was Vishnu himself, he sets on a pilgrimage to Tirumala, to worship Venkatesa. In Tirumala, Rama gets acquainted with a fellow devotee, Krishnamma (Anushka Shetty). Though the duo educates people in their village with short stories of Venkatesa, Rama's quest to meet the lord remains unanswered. And that's when Venkatesa (Saurabh Raj Jain) descends on the earth, only to play dice with Rama, his favourite bhakt.

The film is set in the 18th century. Rama gets the privilege of becoming the administrator of Tirumala, who is also responsible for the induction of the famous Tirumala prasad and Nitya Kalyanam. The rest of Om Namo Venkatesaya narrates several incidents that made Rama transform into Hathiram Bhavaji, who, we believe, has his own Mutt in Tirumala.

Despite a generic story, the film hits the bull's eye when it talks about Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam's (TTD) hypocrisy that it has continued with for years now. For instance, those who pay a considerable amount to the temple authorities, get their darshan done in a matter of a few minutes, while others wait for hours.

Nagarjuna, who has given some memorable performances in films like Ramadasu and Annamayya, returns to his forte. His portrayal of Rama does justification to the iconic character. Just like each time when someone says "Krishna", we're inevitably reminded of late superstar NT Rama Rao, who will forever be remembered for playing the eponymous character.

In Om Namo Venkatesaya, we have Saurabh Raj essaying Vishnu and it's safe to say that we finally have a replacement to fill in NTR's shoes. The portions between Nagarjuna and Saurabh play out pretty well. Music and songs by MM Keeravani take us back to that era, especially the song Kaliyuga Vaikuntapuri.

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If you're into spiritualism, Om Namo Venkatesaya is a must watch, as the film itself seemed to have been made for a particular sect; the ones who visit Tirumala twice a year, if not more. The audience stands up twice inside the hall. Not only for the National Anthem before the film, but out of devotion too at the end.

However, it is a sleep-inducing film for atheists and agnostics.

( The writer tweets as LoneWolf_7126 )

WATCH: Om Namo Venkatesaya Trailer

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Two Baton Rouge residents were sent to prison Monday after admitting their guilt in a fatal 2017 armed robbery at an Airline Highway motel.
There's often a lot of foot traffic headed in and out of the Baton Rouge Day Reporting Center, where people who've violated the terms of their probation or parole check in for classes and counseling.

But alongside the probationers and parolees shuffling through on Friday morning was the top brass at Louisiana's prison system, with a gaggle of judges, district attorneys, state officials and local news reporters trailing behind.

As case workers taught classes on job readiness and offered advice to the regular clientele, Jimmy LeBlanc, secretary of the state's Department of Public Safety and Corrections, was busy making the case for more money in the state's strained budget for more places just like this one.

The privately run Baton Rouge facility is one of four statewide day reporting centers, which combine social services with intensive supervision.

Candice Wilkinson, who runs the center for the GEO Group, a Florida-based private prison operator, said parolees and probationers assigned to the center check in daily to work on life skills, for help hunting down a job and for therapy, all designed to help them avoid a trip back to prison.

Though those sorts of services cost money  the four-day reporting centers in the state cost a total of $450,000 a year, according to DOC  LeBlanc said it winds up being a bargain for taxpayers as well as a way for convicts to avoid a trip to prison over technical violations like failed drug tests or missed meetings.

Yet the state's chronic budget woes have led the department to cut back on these services, LeBlanc said. Budget cuts last year shuttered four more day reporting centers scattered across the state and led corrections officials to cancel programs for inmates in some prisons.

LeBlanc, a former prison warden who's headed the department since 2008, said programs like these can pay for themselves, helping slash the state's prison population and reducing the rates at which former convicts commit new crimes.

"If you invest in these centers, you save money," LeBlanc said after touring the Baton Rouge facility Friday morning. "It avoids them going to prison and helps them stay out of prison. If we were able to get more of these back open, we'd be able to save money."

He's also pushed additional drug treatment and mental health services for those in the prison system. Just before Friday's tour, LeBlanc led a discussion with local officials including a pair of 19th Judicial District judges  Tony Mirabella and Trudy White  and East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore III about ways to direct criminal defendants toward alternatives to prison or social services that might keep them away from future crimes.

Pushing more state resources into services and programs for offenders in and out of prison is likely to form the backbone of a broad push to overhaul the state's criminal justice system and reduce its highest-in-the-nation incarceration rate.

LeBlanc, who's chairing the task force charged with crafting a slew of reforms for the state Legislature, has frequently argued that housing inmates in bare-bones facilities without programs  which he derisively calls a "lock and feed" model jailing  helps drive up the rates at which former prisoners commit new crimes.

Louisiana Justice Reinvestment Task Force aims to cut state's prison population After decades of locking 'em up on the way to Louisiana's tops-in-the-nation incarceration r

Several graduates of the Baton Rouge Day Reporting Center spoke with LeBlanc, Mirabella and other officials Friday to highlight the role the programs  as well as support from Catholic Charities  played in getting them back on their feet after lengthy stints behind bars.

Stephen Coco, 54, said he found himself bewildered by much of the outside world two years ago after finishing two decades behind bars.

"I didn't know what the internet was, what a cellphone was, because I'd been locked up so long," said Coco. "Now I'm part of the community. I can go visit my mom and dad. I can drive down the road with a good license."

Reginald Rome, 60, said he's managed to land a $15 per hour job at a piping company and get his own apartment in the year and a half since he returned to Baton Rouge after decades in prison.

Rome said he'd been put in the program after breaking rules at the Catholic Charities transitional housing facility where he'd been living.

He credited what he'd learned at the Day Reporting Center and from his caseworker with changing his mindset and helping him find his job. At his program graduation, Rome said, he had tears in his eyes.

Though not many folks come by his new apartment  "I gotta be very careful about who I associate myself with these days"  those that do will see his diploma tacked to the wall.
Update, 1:30 p.m. Saturday

On Saturday afternoon, the fire was still burning and the employee was still unaccounted for, said Tristan Babin, a spokesman for St. Charles Parish.

Original story

A natural gas pipeline in St. Charles Parish that erupted in flames Thursday night was still ablaze almost a full day later, with one worker missing and another recuperating in a hospital burn unit.

Officials and plant workers could do little Friday but seal off the section of pipe that caught fire and wait for the gas inside to burn off. Authorities warned it could be hours or days more before the flames were entirely extinguished, although the fire had shrunk considerably by early evening.

Those evacuated from homes in the small community of Paradis, where the fire started, were allowed back home about midday Friday, though some remained wary of returning before the fire had been put out.

We are going to wait a little while because the kids  I dont think theyre ready to go back yet, said Earlyandra Robinson, 32, who lives two blocks from the site of the fire and sought shelter at a community center in Luling. We dont want to take any chances.

Robinson described hearing a series of thunderous booms Thursday evening. She said it sounded like food being boiled, only 10 times louder. Then her son pointed out the enormous cloud enveloping the neighborhood.

Todd Denton, general manager of midstream operations for Phillips 66, the company that owns the pipeline, said Friday it was the most serious industrial accident of his career. I cant express strongly enough the concern I have and that the Phillips 66 family has for those impacted, he said.

The missing worker and those who were injured have yet to be identified by company officials. One worker received treatment at a nearby hospital and was released, while another was listed in fair condition after being airlifted to the regional burn unit at Baton Rouge General Hospital.

Other workers were evaluated on the scene and released.

The fire began in a fenced-off, 800-square-foot area around which six workers  three employed by Phillips 66 and three by Blanchard Contractors  were trying to clean out a section of the pipeline, officials said.

Oil and gas companies routinely send pieces of equipment called pigs down the line. They look like sea urchins and are supposed to clear debris from the inside of a pipe, either for regular maintenance or to clear the way for other equipment used to check for leaks or corrosion, said Tyler Gray, general counsel for the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association.

To launch a pig, crews typically burn off the fuel in the pipe, then seal off the section so it can be depressurized. Then they load the pig, seal the pipe back up and open the valve, allowing the liquefied natural gas to push the equipment through.

We were receiving that pig, Denton said. We dont know what happened after that.

Between depressurizing and pressurizing the pipeline and burning off gas, running the equipment can be dangerous, experts said, especially if all the gas doesnt burn off or if theres a leak in the line or some other problem.

Steven Giambrone, director of the state Department of Natural Resources pipeline safety program, said its too early to speculate on the precise cause of Thursday's fire. His office has 30 days to prepare an investigative report.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration also has begun a probe, said Steve Barr, a U.S. Department of Labor spokesman.

The pipeline, built in 1958, runs 86.6 miles between Venice and Paradis. Thursday marked the second time it ignited since 2013. The first time it caught fire was after it was struck by a boat in a bayou where Jefferson and Lafourche parishes meet.

Its operators havent incurred any violation notices since at least 2008, when the DNR began filing its records electronically, Giambrone said.

Chevron, which sold the pipeline recently to Phillips 66, was given notice to perform better surveys in the area in 2015, but that issue has been resolved and had nothing to do with the fire, Giambrone added.

According to online records, Phillips 66 has received four corrective action orders since 2002 from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which oversees interstate pipelines. None of the incidents were in Louisiana.

There are various levels of notices and warnings, but orders are for more serious pipeline incidents, such as Phillips' most recent case, when 700 barrels of crude oil spilled near Plains, Texas, in 2008.

Still, environmental groups seized on the fire as an example of the dangers posed by pipelines carrying fossil fuels. Those groups hope to halt the construction of another line, the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, in which Phillips 66 is a partner.

Conservationists are planning to rally outside the state Department of Environmental Quality at 10:30 a.m. Monday to keep up the opposition.

As the Phillips 66 pipeline fire continues to burn, can we really trust their assurances that another pipeline would be safe? Cyn Sarthou, executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network, asked in a statement. Clearly, if the Bayou Bridge pipeline is built, it will place our communities and our workers at risk.

Regulators argued that the comparison doesnt hold water. The Venice-Paradis line that caught fire Thursday transports liquid natural gas, while Bayou Bridge would carry crude oil.

Venice-Paradis is really like Bayou Bridge only "in the sense that it is a pipeline," said Department of Natural Resources communications director Patrick Courreges.

"In terms of the regulatory community, (the fire) doesn't have any bearing on the Bayou Bridge debate, said DEQ spokesman Greg Langley.

There are risks associated with pipelines, but trains and other methods of transportation have potential dangers as well, Langley said. "Any method you use has some risk. ... The alternative is don't use any oil," he said.

Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental group, was unconvinced.

Industrialists and politicians friendly to them may offer excuses and claim that new technology will make future lines safer, she said in a statement. But the fire and the explosion speak for itself. Pipelines are dangerous, and we don't want more in Louisiana."

One of the major concerns about Bayou Bridge is that crude oil will leak into rivers, contaminating wetlands and drinking water. Natural gas is much more volatile; St. Charles Parish Sheriff Greg Champagne described the scene in Paradis as a large blowtorch.

Despite the plume of black smoke that still hung over the pipeline Friday afternoon, company and local authorities repeatedly said that all available data indicated there were no health impacts to the surrounding community as a result of the fire.
Washington, D.C.  As a few people who've been following my dispatches from the annual Washington Mardi Gras festivities have pointed out, this is a place where money talks.

They're not wrong. The elaborate parties for politicians and the people who hang around them are pricey, as are tickets to events that are not fully funded by lobbyists, big companies, local economic development arms and other sponsors. Given the demand, hotel rooms at or near the giant Washington Hilton are at a premium. Members of the Louisiana delegation host hospitality suites at the Hilton, and each is sponsored by a campaign committee or PAC.

Some of the most memorable moments in recent Washington Mardi Gras history, though, were born of a tight budget.

During most of her career, former Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu had no problem at all attracting donations. But things were different after her first election in 1996, when she beat Woody Jenkins by fewer than 6,000 votes, and Jenkins challenged the results with the GOP-led Senate. Jenkins' fraud allegations would eventually fall apart, but at the time of her first Carnival season in office, Landrieu was still under a cloud, contributors weren't yet lining up at her door, and any money raised was going toward fighting the challenge.

But her staffers had to find a way to host people in town for the big show, a former aide told me this week, so one of them brought in a karaoke machine from home.

Landrieu's karaoke party would become not only an annual event but one of the long weekend's most popular ones. Crowds who crammed into her suite might have heard Landrieu harmonizing (if you can call it that) with her longtime Senate nemesis David Vitter, or caught former Attorney General Buddy Caldwell's Elvis impersonation. They would invariably have heard someone's rendition of "Proud Mary," always a popular request.

Landrieu was voted out of office in 2014 and skipped Washington Mardi Gras this year, and regulars say no other single party has replaced hers on the "can't miss" list.

So I guess the lesson here is that money may talk, but it doesn't necessarily sing.
Washington, D.C.  Jefferson Parish has always sent a large contingent of political and business leaders to the annual Washington Mardi Gras, but it holds a particularly high profile this year.

Homegrown U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise recently took over as the Mystick Krewe of Louisianians' captain, a role that tends to go to the delegation's senior member (David Vitter held the title until he left office earlier this year). Scalise is also chair of this year's festivities and ball, a position that rotates among the state's House members and senators. He chose Warner Thomas, president and CEO of Ochsner Health Systems, the Jefferson Parish-based hospital network and largest employer in Louisiana, as this year's king, and Thomas' daughter as queen.

The Jefferson Chamber acted as the host business group at the big statewide economic development lunch Friday. Chamber president Todd Murphy emceed the sold-out event, which drew every member of Congress from the state as well as Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Jefferson Parish Council members Mark Spears and Jennifer Van Vrancken made the trip up to D.C., as did Kenner Mayor Ben Zahn and former parish presidents Tim Coulon and John Young.

One prominent leader, though, is noticeably absent.

While chief executives of other major cities and parishes showed up  the list includes New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome, St. Tammany Parish President Pat Brister, St. John Parish President Natalie Robottom and Lafayette Mayor-President Joel Robideaux  embattled Jefferson Parish President Mike Yenni was nowhere to be found.

That's perhaps not a surprise, given the turmoil of his sexting scandal and an ongoing recall effort. Still, it was a little glaring.

Some Jefferson attendees attributed his absence to the fact that his wife recently gave birth to their second child. Others talked vaguely about the "situation." Several noted that the parish was well-represented anyway, by chief operating office Keith Conley and several other top Yenni aides. Yenni has turned aside calls from most of his fellow politicians to resign, arguing that business can go on as usual despite his personal woes.

That's actually what seems to be happening in Washington this weekend.

Something is "obviously missing," Murphy said after staging the successful lunch. "But we're getting a lot of work done."
Rajasthan education minister Vasudev Devnani reiterated that the distortion of the glorious history of Rani Padmavati will not be permitted.

By Dev Ankur Wadhawan: The Karni Sena, who were in the limelight for their vicious attack on Padmavati director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, have received support from a senior BJP member and minister in the Vasundhara Raje government. Vasudev Devnani, the Minister for Education in Rajasthan, has expressed solidarity with the Karni Sena view and said that distortion of history will not be tolerated.

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"People of Rajasthan will not permit the distortion of the glorious history of Rani Padmavati. If someone does not want to shoot their film here, so be it," said Devnani.

The Rajasthan government had been panned for the lack of any stringent action against the Karni Sena. A video showing the vicious attack on Sanjay Leela Bhansali and the vandalism carried out on the sets of Padmavati at Jaipur's Jaigarh Fort had gone viral. No FIR or formal police complaint was registered in the matter.

However, the Rajasthan Home Minister and the state police had claimed that action will be taken if a formal complaint is made against the Karni Sena men. The Karni Sena, however, claimed it was Bhansali's bodyguards who opened fire on their men when they reached the sets of Padmavati, which led to the entire fracas.

Bhansali had suspended the shooting and left for Mumbai soon after. Talks about compromise gathered pace as Bhansali's production unit and the Karni Sena tried finding common ground. The Karni Sena objected to any romantic scene being shown between Padmavati and Allauddin Khilji. However, the production house has insisted there is no romantic dream sequence or objectionable scene between Padmavati and Allauddin Khilji in the script.

With the Rajasthan minister clearly expressing his viewpoint, the Karni Sena may feel further emboldened on the issue. It had earlier laid down its terms claiming no compromise will be allowed on the issue of Rajput honour.

ALSO READ | Sanjay Leela Bhansali thrashed on Padmavati sets for allegedly distorting history

OPINION | Padmavati: What is the line between creative liberty and distortion of history?

ALSO WATCH | Rajasthan education minister backs Karni Sena stance in Padmavati row

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Louisiana State Museum properties, the Presbytere, at right, and the Cabildo flank St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. The buildings face Jackson Square in New Orleans (Provided Photo)
Washington, D.C.  There's tons of revelry at the annual Mardi Gras, but the focus in some corners is on misery as well as mirth.
His withered body propped up on a medical bed, a paraplegic shooting victim took square aim at the federal governments star witness as the victim testified remotely this week during the federal court trial of 10 accused "39'ers" gang members.

Percy Baker said that detailed claims the witness, Gregory Rabbit Stewart, has made  about telling Baker he'd just killed another man in New Orleans East to revenge Bakers own maiming in 2009  were false.

In fact, Baker testified that he has never even met Stewart, who has admitted to killing 13 people as the top hitman for the 39'ers, although both grew up in the former Florida housing project.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys will make their closing arguments Monday in the sprawling case against the 39'ers, which authorities describe as a once-fearsome alliance of violent drug clans from Central City and the Upper 9th Ward.

Each of the 10 defendants is accused of a role in at least one killing on behalf of the group, and each faces firearms conspiracy and other charges that could land them decades, if not life, in federal prison.

As jurors wade through a daunting spread of wiretaps, ballistics reports and witness statements produced during a month of testimony, prosecutors are counting on the words of five cooperating witnesses to tie it all together with the details they've provided on the alleged motives, back stories and triggermen behind 15 murders.

But defense attorneys on Thursday called several witnesses of their own to suggest that three of those cooperators  Stewart, Darryl "Breezy" Franklin and Washington Big Wash McCaskill  have all lied in a bid to cut decades off their own sentences.

Baker testified via video link from his home for what U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey described as "obvious reasons." But he may have left the most lasting impression of any defense witness, appearing before the jury on a big screen.

His arms have both shriveled down to stubs as a result of an Oct. 9, 2009, shooting near the former Florida complex.

He said in court that he had no idea who shot at him and his young son that day.

I heard rumors from a lot of different people, he said.

On Feb. 22, 2010, Kendall Tyrone Faibvre was shot to death outside a house in New Orleans East. Stewart claims that he committed the killing along with defendants Alonzo Woo-dee Peters, Ashton Pound Price and Jasmine Rell Perry in revenge for the attack months earlier on Baker.

"After the shooting, we went by his house, like, the next day and we were talking about it," Stewart testified about the purported visit to Baker's home. "So I told him, 'Son, you know, we handled that.' I'm like, 'It wasn't the dude who shot you, but it's one of his friends. They gonna cry behind that.' "

"How did Percy react to that?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Myles Ranier asked.

"He just was, like, saying, 'Thank you.' "

But Baker, in a series of monosyllabic answers to questions from Billy Sothern, the attorney for defendant Evans Lewis, claimed the conversation never happened.

He also denied knowing Stewart or Price. Baker said he knew Peters, but that Peters never came to him saying he had killed for him.

Stewart testified that Peters wasn't usually a killer but was forced to kill Faibvre to stick up for his paralyzed friend.

Earlier in the trial, Franklin testified that he learned about Faibvre's slaying because "it was Jasmine Perry's first time catching a body. So you're going to brag about it. It's like when you go to the prom that night or getting your diploma or whatever."

Ranier, during cross-examination, sought to show that Baker might have reasons of his own for lying about the events that led up to his shooting. He said that Baker was driving a Pontiac Grand Prix owned by Ernest Diaz, a convicted heroin trafficker.

You had about $1,000 cash on you when you were shot? Ranier asked.

I dont think I had that much, Baker said.

"You agree that what happened to you was horrible and cruel, correct?" Ranier said.

"Right," Baker replied.

Did you ever try and find out what happened to you? Ranier asked.

I mean, Ive been in this position ever since. All I can do is ask, Baker said.

Gregory 'Rabbit' Stewart, admitted 13-time killer, ends testimony in 39'ers case with talk of book project Over four unrepentant days on the witness stand in the federal "39'ers" gang racketeering tr

His testimony came shortly after an appearance on the witness stand by Camry Moore, a 23-year-old convicted killer who has spent months in the Tangipahoa and St. Tammany Parish jails with several alleged 39'ers.

Moore hates snitches. He said as much on the stand. He had already proved his point in May 2013, however, when he shot and killed a man who was providing the Kenner Police Department with information on his crack cocaine operation.

Moore was sentenced to 30 years in that case last month and will soon be shipped off to the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons. Clad in an orange jail jumpsuit, he provided detailed accounts of life in parish jails with the onetime members of the 39'ers.

Franklin and McCaskill both had contraband cellphones that they used, frequently, to chat with Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurice Landrieu, Moore said.

Moore said he remembered the moment when Franklin, his cellmate of two months, told him he planned to follow in the path of Stewart and turn states evidence.

He was just saying that like Rabbit lied on him to get out of jail, so he was going to lie on the rest of the people, Moore said. He called it a 'get out of jail free coupon.' You know like, in the newspaper they have coupons and you get stuff free? Thats what he was basically saying.

If things are sort of looking bad, you should tell them something they want to hear, to help yourself out, Franklin counseled him, according to Moore.

Attorneys for the 10 defendants have suggested an overly cozy relationship between Landrieu, a brother of Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's Office, and Stewart, whose chilling accounts of murder after murder, placing specific guns in the hands of his former associates, stand at the center of the federal racketeering case.

McCaskill, meanwhile, cut an odd figure during the time the two spent together at the jail in St. Tammany Parish, Moore said. Most days McCaskill smoked mojo  synthetic marijuana  and seemed to live in another world.

He felt like he lost his swag. He felt like his life was gone, like he couldnt be the person he was before, Moore said.

Playing ball in the yard, Moore said, he would sometimes overhear McCaskill huddling with Rico Jackson and Tyrone T-Bone Knockum. All three men pleaded guilty in the 39'ers case and testified at a trial that will enter its sixth week Monday.

They were concocting a plan to get back home, Moore said.

One morning at breakfast, Moore said, he told McCaskill that he was going to take his lick  30 years in prison. McCaskill reacted in disbelief, he said.

He was like, Man, you tripping, man,  Moore said.  'Man, I be talking to Maurice.' 

Zainey has yet to sentence McCaskill following his guilty plea in the 39'ers case, but he's already serving an 80-year state sentence. His testimony in the current trial marked his second stint on the witness stand in hopes of paring down that prison time.

An admitted five-time killer, McCaskill testified last year in a state trial that brought a conviction and 100-year prison sentence for Kentrell "Black" Hickerson, a leader of Central City's notorious "3NG" gang.

Prosecutors say the 39'ers were an alliance of 3NG, "G-Strip" from Gallier Street in the Upper 9th Ward, and associates from the Florida project.

McCaskill, an admitted 3NG member, has acknowledged lying to a federal agent when he once claimed he bought drugs from Kevin Jackson, a cousin and co-defendant of notorious Central City cocaine kingpin Telly Hankton.

But Ranier, the prosecutor, argued that Moore was the one lying in this case and suggested he needed to do it to protect himself in jail.

Isnt it true youre lying here today on Darryl Franklin and Washington McCaskill because youre in jail with these 10 guys? Ranier asked.

No, sir, Moore replied.

How much do you weigh, 150 pounds? Ranier asked, drawing a contrast to the big-boned men crowded around the defense table.

160, Moore shot back.

You dont like rats, do you? Rainier said.

No, sir. Especially lying ones, Moore said.

Staff writer John Simerman contributed to this report.
Firefighters say there is no fire in the Brindabellas after lightning strikes in the area on Saturday night.

Firefighters had been investigating reports of smoke in the Brindabellas south-west of Canberra.

Canberra fire crews have been unable to enter the building due to the intensity of the fire. Credit:Rohan Thomson

The smoke was sighted near the ACT/NSW border in the evening.

A spokeswoman for ACT Emergency Services Agency said there had been storm activity in the region.
But Mr Turnbull is now all but mute. Apart from a rare moment in Parliament this week when he temporarily recovered his voice, his inability to commit to an opinion and his loss of passion for inspiring words has reduced his repartee to strange gurgling sounds whenever he is within proximity of a microphone.

His opponent, Bill Shorten, is even more at sea with the English language, adopting a teenage-girl upward inflection on the occasions when his minders roll him out to make observations about the future of the country based on misheard song lyrics from the 1970s and borrowed sayings from stale fortune cookies.

The language is dying, Mr Trump. While some linguists claim it is merely evolving, your passion for the exclamation point runs deeper than just a brash raising of the middle finger. It also displays a complete ignorance as to how a subtle sentence or a powerful play on words can carry more power and convey more emotion than any of the blunt instruments you employ. Used at its most skilful, language is a graceful mansion with countless warm rooms that welcome the visitor. Under your hand, English has become a cheap roadside motel where the sheets are always stained and the flashing neon sign out the front is missing several letters.

But should we expect any better? Stephen King has often noted that to be a good writer  to have a command and passion for the language so it will move and immerse others  you have to read a great deal. Mr Trump, you don't read. Tony Schwarz, the ghostwriter behind your 1987 book The Art of the Deal, says he spent 18 months working closely alongside you. In all that time he never sighted a book on a shelf or even in your apartment.

This speaks to an unusual lack of curiosity in the world around you. And those who are not curious are usually those most dangerous of individuals  people who lack imagination, who all too easily believe the world runs along black and white lines.
One of life's most difficult challenges is to imagine yourself in another person's shoes, especially the situation that confronts those who suffer the hardship of unexpected loss. In our society, built around an economy where most people are paid for their labour, finding yourself out of a job can be devastating. Electricity bills and groceries, rent or a mortgage, fuel for the car or a ticket for a train  none of these costs stops when a person is out of work.

So, as a community, we don't ignore those in need. We contribute via our taxes to a government-provided safety net to catch those who fall  to catch ourselves, should one day the imagined become real.

The community lends a helping hand for those in need.

This is not charity, it's an investment, with the knowledge, backed by detailed economic modelling, that those who need assistance to find work will eventually pay back society many times over.

Certainly, there are people who seek to take personal advantage, just as any economic system is subject to abuse. Cunning accounting schemes mean some of the wealthiest individuals pay almost no tax and plenty of politicians have been caught rorting their entitlements.
Alan Cooper, Ashburton THE FORUM No passion for policy Like many Australians I don't care much for Turnbull or Shorten, or their empty shells of parties. However, it was Turnbull's attack on Shorten that reminded us why we don't like them. Where is a similar passion to implement Gonski so all students receive a high quality public education? The passion to improve health outcomes, particularly in rural and remote regions?

Where is the leadership to create a strong renewable energy sector that positions us to be a key player as the rest of the world surges ahead? Or voices for constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians? Where is the strength to rebuke Trump's racist approach to immigration? Personal attacks diminish not only yourselves, but your parties, your positions, and most importantly, your country and its people. Craig Jory, Glenroy, NSW Give us vision, purpose How can we have any confidence in either main party when its members constantly assure us the other is deserving only of contempt? Scorn and derision is the automatic response to any stance taken by the government. Then, of course, we are treated to rounds of reciprocal mud-slinging. Flying both ways are accusations of stupidity, incompetence, bad judgment, hypocrisy and moral turpitude. Meanwhile, we, the people increasingly have misgivings about the calibre of those we have chosen to represent us.

Vision, strength and purpose might impress us a whole lot more than a talent for abuse. Vivienne Player, Beaumaris Get out in real world Ian Macdonald is correct; MPs are not freeloaders. They work hard and demonstrate admirable commitment to their vocation. But lots of people work hard and show great commitment but do not get $200,000 per year, a generous pension and a gold travel card. If the senator feels he could do better in the real world, he should go for it. In the meantime, stop bleating. Jane Edwards, Peterhead, SA

Paying homage to relic In the grand "suppository" of wisdom known as Parliament House, Treasurer Scott Morrison held aloft a religious relic. He beckoned others to pay homage, declaring that this holy relic of energy generation would bring prosperity and wealth to the faithful while striking down those who dared to label it a false idol. Blinded by the riches bestowed upon them by the high priests of coal, the Liberals fail to understand that coal is a vengeful god who will take revenge on the planet's inhabitants for ripping it from the place where it has quietly slept for millennia. Leonie Ashton, Maribyrnong Coal-fired IQ? What a strange day in federal parliament on Thursday. The Coalition engaged in a heated debate over the power cuts in SA  caused by extreme heat, conditions that are likely to worsen due to climate change. And the Coalition's answer is to build more coal fired power stations, a point emphasised by MPs handing around a lump of coal. It didn't seem to occur to these mental giants that blackouts were caused by burning the material they were proudly handing around and that more such burning will lead to more power problems. You have to wonder about the IQ of some of our federal MPs.

Colin McLean, Montrose Tough climb out The government wants to ensure those under 25 who lose their jobs do not receive any assistance for four weeks. Few 24year olds or younger, living independently, have the savings to cover life expenses for that length of time. If this bill is passed many young adults will be unable to pay rent and other expenses and will have nowhere to go but the street. The politicians who support this bill assume all youth can move home and that their parents can afford to support them. This isn't the case. And once homeless the climb back to paid employment is even harder. Ruth Hudnott, Canterbury Fake political parties

It's now clear that party names are alternative facts. The Liberal party is ill-liberally fostering inequality; One Nation openly promotes social division; Labor spends most of its time leaning on its shovel uncertain of what to do. Meanwhile assuming it gets enough numbers to hold a party, Cory Bernardi's Conservatives are destined to be fascists. They are all fake parties. It's time we had some real ones. David Champion, Ivanhoe Values not so noble Bernardi's defection speech employed the noble language of a venerable elder statesman. The pity is that the values so nobly defended are the self-interested and morally bankrupt values of free enterprise and small government. Bernardi wants to defend the rights of the powerful to continue doing what they please. For the good of all Australians, of course. Tim Hartnett, Margaret River, WA

School funding issue The Howard government ramped up federal funding of elite private schools largely to the detriment of spending on state schools. The Coalition under Tony Abbott and now Turnbull enthusiastically continued this policy. Indeed, critics were labelled as promoting class warfare. So the headline "Rich schools in firing line" (5/2) has to be viewed with a substantial grain of salt. Phil Alexander, Eltham Needs being ignored Another driver behind the growing trend to vote not just for One Nation but anyone other than the two major parties is that a large swath of people across metro and regional areas are vulnerable to Pauline Hanson's nasty rhetoric because they have lost faith in the main parties. These people are sick of their needs being ignored. They resent being expected to take on mega mortgages or help their children to do so. Many would love to move to a smaller regional centre but know neither jobs nor basic services are available there, as so eloquently put by John Fitzgerald (Letters, 5/2).

Rather than accept being taken for granted while watching job losses and politicians indulge in rorts, many Australians are sending a clear message. The question is, are the major parties prepared to listen? Bernadette George, Emu Park, Qld Youth detention centre Some 28 years ago I wrote to The Age recommending a purpose-built secure psychiatric and treatment unit for adolescents (Editorial, 5/2). This followed criticism by a Supreme Court judge that he had no effective sentencing options other than "Turana" or the "J-Ward" (the now-closed prison for criminally insane) in a murder case involving a youth whose life had been ruined by years of neglect. Young people caught up in the "youth detention crisis" are among the most disadvantaged in the community. They certainly need containment. The levels of violence involved attest to this. But "warehousing" alone is clearly ineffective.Victoria has never had a secure forensic mental health unit and such a unit is long overdue. In a secure multi-disciplinary in-patient assessment and rehabilitation program attention would be given to all levels of a young person's development and integration back into the community, including individual, family, group and employment skills. More importantly, care would be given to the development a positive group culture  a skill and technique refined in the late 1960s. Not benign neglect of group dynamics to the point of dysfunction, drug addiction and riotous behaviour. Continuing the current approach will result in some very damaged people being loose on our streets.

Richard Polkinghorn, Bundoora Boost country town If a new youth detention centre is needed, why not build it near a regional city instead of in the metro area. Country towns continually tell us they need more opportunities for employment. Such a centre near a regional city would do just that and probably make it easier for police to apprehend any escapees. Come on, Premier, think creatively. Stan Thomson, Sandringham Money for nothing
Smoke from the Sir Ivan fire east of Dunedoo, NSW, seen from Coolah, on Sunday 12 February 2017. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Cassillis resident Stella Cornish says the predicament facing those in the small town in central NSW on Sunday was frightening.



"By god, this morning all hell broke loose. I said to one of the firey guys that we have never seen it this bad," she said.



The situation worsened late on Sunday morning when power was cut to the town, which took out of action a pump fire crews used to fill their trucks with water.



Mrs Cornish, 79, and her husband Doug, 86 evacuated Cassillis on Sunday, and will stay further east along the Golden Highway at the town of Merriwa. They have lived in Cassillis for most of their lives and Mrs Cornish has run the small town's post office for the past 46

years. Bushfires burning in four parts of the state have triggered five emergency warnings, with residents told to shelter as the fires approach. NSW RFS crew members from Cumberland Strike Team take a well earned rest after a long day of fighting a large grass fire burning towards the small township of Wollar in the greater Hunter region. Credit:Wolter Peeters The Rural Fire Service has issued emergency warnings and told residents to seek shelter for five bushfires:

at Lower Paooinbarra, west of Port Macquarie;

near Leadville, east of Dunedoo

at Kains Flat, north-east of Mudgee;

near Boggabri, in north-western NSW;

at Dondingalong, near Kempsey. Three people have been arrested accused of lighting fires during the total fire ban - a 32-year-old man in Nabiac, a 40-year-old man on the Central Coast and a 13-year-old boy near Orange. Livestock being relocated from property near Coolah as smoke from the Sir Ivan fire east of Dunedoo, NSW, seen in the background, on Sunday 12 February 2017. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Shortly after 3pm, the RFS reported that the fire at Kains Flat, north-east of Mudgee, was burning towards homes. At 3.20pm, it said the fire north of Mudgee was burning east towards Cassilis and had breached containment lines. "People in the area of Uarby, Turill and Cassillis should seek shelter as the fire front approaches. It is too late to leave."

Farmers battle a fire that started with a lightning strike near a larger blaze west of Cassilis. Credit:Nick Moir Anyone east of Cassilis has been advised to leave now towards Merriwa, and anyone north of Ulan should move south towards Mudgee. Near Port Macquarie, two fires were reportedly spreading quickly towards the village of Beechwood at 2.45pm, with people living near Pappinbarra Road in Hollisdale, Lower Pappinbarra and Beechwood told to prepare for the fire front. Cattle escape a grass fire burning towards the small township of Wollar in the greater Hunter region. Credit:Wolter Peeters Two further emergency warnings were issued at 4.20pm for a grass fire near Binalong Road, south of Boggabri, and for an out-of-control bushfire near Spring Hill Road in Dondingalong.

Earlier in the day, the RFS said there were unconfirmed reports of a house lost in the fire north of Mudgee, known as the Sir Ivan fire. Warren Jarvis says he has lost his home and animals to the fire near Cassilis. Credit:TNV Emergency alert telephone messages were being sent to people in the area. "The fire is burning in catastrophic fire conditions," the RFS said. "In these conditions, the fire will spread quickly. It will be difficult for firefighters to contain the fire." The Sir Ivan bushfire burns near Dunedoo. Credit:NSW Rural Fire Service

The Golden Highway has been closed due to smoke and is expected to remain closed for the remainder of today. Soaring temperatures across much of the state have led to warnings of catastrophic fire conditions. In Walgett, the temperature has hit 46 degrees. Red alert: An upgraded fire warning for NSW released by the Rural Fire Service on Sunday. As NSW faces the "worst possible fire conditions" in its history with 'extreme' and catastrophic' warnings in place across large slabs of the state, RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the situation was as "bad as it gets" and warned it was set to get worse on Sunday when winds are expected to sweep through scorched parts of mid to northern NSW.

"To put it simply [the conditions] are off the old scale," he said. "It is without precedent in NSW". As of 11am, the RFS reported 76 bush and grass fires across NSW with 26 not yet contained. Deputy Commission Rob Rogers told ABC news: "It's going to be a really tough day." Concerns are also held around the mid-north coast around Taree and Wauchope. A number of fires are burning to the east of Buladelah. Deputy Commissioner Rogers warned residents in areas listed as 'catastrophic' to leave their homes.

"We've got everything we can possibly need to be ready for this but obviously in conditions forecast like this, we can't guarantee to save everybody, we can't guarantee to save every house, we can't even guarantee to have a fire truck at every fire. "People just need to focus on their own safety today." A dramatic graphic image of the threat released by the RFS on Sunday shows a great swathe of the state covered in red, representing a 'catastrophic' or 'extreme' threat.

The area stretches from the lower central west plains taking in Dubbo, Parkes and Wellington, right up to the Queensland border in the north western region taking in Moree and Walgett. The extreme threat stretches to the east taking in Gunnedah, Tamworth and the coastal Kempsey, Coffs Harbour region. On Sunday morning, the Southern Ranges and Easter RIverina were upgraded to very high fire danger. Commissioner Fitzsimmons said "catastrophic" fire ratings had been issued only once before in NSW - in 2013 - since national standardised ratings were introduced in 2009. Sunday's catastrophic fire rating will stretch from Dubbo to Coonabarabran to Port Stephens, affecting the Central Ranges, North Western NSW and the Greater Hunter.

He said strong winds were affecting fire fighters' ability to tackle the fires from the air with much of the fleet grounded. Commissioner Fitzsimmons said conditions in some parts of NSW could be worse than Victoria's Black Saturday fires, Australia's worst ever fire disaster which claimed 173 lives in 2009. He warned residents to prepare themselves. "We can't guarantee that a warning or telephone message will occur for everyone that comes under threat," he said. Text message warnings were being sent to residents in the Hunter Valley region on Saturday night. Sydney's west recorded its hottest ever day, hitting 46.9 degrees at Penrith, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, eclipsing its previous hottest of 46.5 degrees in January 2013, while Richmond touched the 47 degree mark.
One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts, Labor MP Rick Williams (two left) and LNP MPs Mark Robinson and Christian Rowan (right) led the march. Credit:Glenn Hunt Under Mr Pyne's proposed legislation, women more than 24 weeks pregnant could only have an abortion if their doctors reasonably believed continuing the pregnancy would involve greater risk of physical or mental injury than if it was terminated. A second doctor would also have to agree that continuing the pregnancy posed a greater risk. One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts said the UN had an anti-life agenda. Credit:Glenn Hunt Dr van Gend said that would be too easy for doctors to get around.

"In the small print at the bottom of Mr Pyne's legislation, there is a 'get out of jail free' card for the doctor," he said. A small group of pro-choice demonstrators greeted the pro-lifers at Parliament House. Credit:Glenn Hunt "If he or she fails to comply with these two minimal conditions for late-term abortions, no worries, that failure will not be considered an offence under this bill." Then, Senator Roberts took the stage. Starting off by mentioning Perth's "record-coldest February (maximum) ever yesterday" and suggesting an impending ice age, Senator Roberts launched into a speech that touched on taxation, energy prices and farmers' property rights before blasting the state and federal governments for "destroying sovereignty".

"They are destroying the mortar that binds the bricks and that mortar is respect for life," he said. "We are now becoming prey to an external force, and that is the United Nations. "This abortion push is part of that anti-life agenda." Senator Roberts said human civilisation was "based on the nation state and the family unit" and the government had a responsibility to protect life, property and freedom. He said calls to change the definition of marriage "defied science", before eventually showing the crowd a small lapel badge that featured two tiny feet.

"We are being told increasingly that we are subordinate to fungus and bugs and critters and plants and that is not right," he said. "We are the pinnacle of life on this planet and it starts at the moment of conception in a woman's womb. "Abortion is new to me, the topic, because I've been studying other things, but about six months ago, I was given a pair of little feet of a 10-week-old baby. "That has been very dear to me and I wear it every day on the lapel of a coat, regardless of where I am, whether speaking at Parliament or at a meeting, I wear it every day on my coat." Mr Robinson said Mr Pyne's proposed legislation was "the most dangerous abortion legislation in the western world" and he would oppose it at every level.

He said the legislation was in Parliament "waiting to explode". "If detonated, these bills will wreak havoc on expectant mums, on babies and upon our legal and our health systems," he said. The crowd then marched down George Street, past the counter-protesters, to Speaker's Corner, where Emma Morris spoke about how her own abortions had affected her life. In her desire to replace her lost babies, Ms Morris said, she turned to drugs, alcohol and promiscuity. "What you're trying to do, subconsciously, is replace that loss inside of you that nothing can replace, nothing at all," she said.
It comes as no real surprise that US President Donald Trump has a "massive fan" in Lisa Oldfield, wife of One Nation co-founder, David Oldfield.

The Real Housewives of Sydney star told Fairfax Media that although she does "not think a blanket ban works," she can see Trump's reasoning behind his attempts to restrict travel to the US from seven Muslim-majority countries, which a US federal appeals court has suspended.

"I am sure there are people within the country's borders already that are more of a threat but with the terrorist attacks around the world I think he's got reasons to be concerned," she said.

When it comes to Australian border control, she says there needs to be "more rigorous threats," but she laughs: "[Australian Prime Minister] Malcolm Turnbull would not have the guts."
By Press Trust of India: From Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Feb 11 (PTI) A decision by Pakistan to deport Turkish employees of Pak-Turk Schools forced some of them o to seek UN protection due to fear of persecution back home in Turkey, a media report said today.

Pak-Turk schools were run by a foundation linked to Fethullah Gulen and Pakistan government was asked by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to close them or hand over control to his nominated people after the failed coup in Turkey in July 2016.

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Pakistan handed over the administration of schools to a new organisation close to Turkish government and refused to extend visas of Turkish employees of the schools, leaving them with no choice but to leave.

Dawn newspaper said that as many as 108 the Turkish employees of these schools along with their families opted to seek United Nations (UN) protection instead going back.

It reported that these individuals had requested the UNs refugee agency, UNHCR, that they be resettled in a country other than Turkey after Pakistan ordered to deport them.

The applicants had told UNHCR they feared arrest, coercion and torture by the Erdogan government in Turkey in case the Pakistani government forcibly deported them to Istanbul.

A spokesman for the UNHCR confirmed that the affectees will stay in UN protection until November 2017 and that efforts are underway to resettle them in another country. PTI SH NSA

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Australian Islamic State fighter Khaled Sharrouf has become the country's first dual nationality individual to be stripped of Australian citizenship under anti-terrorism laws, The Australian newspaper said on Saturday.

Australia, a staunch ally of the United States and its battle against Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria, is on alert for attacks by radicalised Muslims, including home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East.

Sharrouf shot to infamy in 2014 after photographs emerged of him and his 7-year-old son holding the severed heads of Syrian soldiers.

Under a 2015 law, Australia may strip dual nationals of their citizenship if they are found to have carried out militant acts or been members of a banned organisation.

Sharrouf, the son of Lebanese immigrants, shot to infamy in 2014 after photographs emerged of him and his 7-year-old son holding the severed heads of Syrian soldiers, causing a global outcry.
A four-car accident on the Riverside Expressway on Saturday has brought weekend Brisbane CBD traffic to a crawl, with lanes blocked and roads closed.

The crash was one of several in south-east Queensland at the weekend, with a man dead after his van burst into flames following a collision with a ute on the Gold Coast overnight.

A large crash on the Riverside Expressway caused delays in the city on Saturday afternoon. Credit:File

The Riverside Expressway crash happened on Saturday about 11.20am near the Elizabeth Street ramp.

The Alice Street westbound off-ramp was closed, with traffic delays back about four kilometres to Greenslopes about two hours.
The woman was keen to give the ultimate middle finger to inconsiderate parkers.

She'd just smashed the mirror and torn the aerial from a car that was repeatedly parking in her space.

"Legally within buildings you can't have the car towed away, and the police can't do anything about it," says Suzy Luppino Credit:Simon Schluter

"They can get angry," James Strachan says.

The angy woman was now on the phone to Mr Strachan and his company Shug Bollards which installs personal parking bollards to customers sick of other drivers parking in their car spot. Tall and yellow, they are the ultimate middle finger to bad parkers, naughty neighbours and car park squatters.
A 42-year-old man has been arrested after a body was found in a Coburg house on Saturday afternoon.

Victoria Police spokesman Alistair Parsons said homicide squad detectives had arrested a Coburg man following the discovery of a man's body.

A 42-year-old man has been arrested after the body of a 73-year-old man was found in Coburg on Saturday. Credit:Rohan Thomson

"The body of a 73-year-old man was discovered at a residence on Baxter Street about 2.25pm," Senior Constable Parsons said.

"Police have arrested a 42-year-old Coburg man and he is currently assisting police with their enquiries."
An man is recovering in hospital after being stabbed multiple times on his way home from a party this morning.

Police say the 30-year-old victim, an Indonesian national, and a friend were returning from a private party in Burwah Avenue, Brighton East, when they were approached by a man about 5.30am on Saturday.

The victim is receiving treatment at The Alfred.

Police spokeswoman Leonie Johnson said the offender demanded the pair hand over their belongings before lunging at one of the men with a knife and fleeing on foot.
The Safe Schools program will continue to be offered to primary-aged children despite the prospect of a backlash, with state Education Minister James Merlino telling parents he is personally invested in ensuring all LGBTI students are properly supported.

Two months after the Andrews government announced it would overhaul Safe Schools  and remove its controversial founder Roz Ward  Mr Merlino has held private talks with families and youth groups who feared the restructure could end up compromising the program.

Victorian Education Minister James Merlino says he "personally feels very strongly" about Safe Schools. Credit:MODFORM

The Youth Affairs Council, Rainbow Families Victoria, and other community representatives met with Mr Merlino on January 18, raising concerns that the Education Department, which has taken over the program, might not have the necessary expertise to ensure that children get the specialised help they need.

Some had also feared the political heat could also result in the "risk-averse" bureaucracy backing away from the more controversial parts of the program, such as the support offered to primary school children who are dealing with gender identity issues.
Forty firefighters were called to the scene about 6am on Saturday.

Firefighters have contained a blaze at a soap factory in Melbourne's north.

It took firefighters almost four hours to control the blaze.

A Metropolitan Fire Brigade spokesman said neighbouring properties had been affected by heat and smoke.

He said firefighters were expected to remain on the scene for most of the day.

The cause of the fire is being investigated.
Los Angeles: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been warned not to be a "Malcolm" when he visits the White House.

Mr Trudeau will meet face-to-face with US President Donald Trump on Monday, the latest world leader entering the real estate billionaire's unpredictable realm.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull infamously felt the Trump sting in their drastically shortened phone call on January 28.

"Don't be a Theresa. Don't be a Malcolm," the Toronto Star newspaper's editorial board wrote on Friday.
Washington: Fresh from a legal setback to his travel ban, US President Donald Trump is considering signing a new executive order on immigration and may not be planning to escalate the dispute over an earlier travel ban to the US Supreme Court.

Trump's executive order banning entry to the United States by refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries was put on hold by a federal judge in Seattle last week, and that suspension was upheld by an appeals court in San Francisco on Thursday. Trump later tweeted, saying "see you in court".

MSNBC reported on Friday night local time that a senior official said the Trump administration would not ask the US Supreme Court to reconsider the ruling by the federal appeals court. The administration could still ask a larger panel of judges of the appeals court to reconsider the case.

Minutes later, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus reversed the earlier statement, saying the White House was "reviewing all of our options in the court system," including possibly going to the Supreme Court.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 11 (PTI) RBI Governor Urjit Patel today attributed the banks grappling with high bad loans to legacy issues saying they are mostly on account of credit facility provided for long-gestation projects before 2011-12.

He further said the problem of non-performing assets (NPAs) was earlier also but it is only recently that the issue is being recognised.

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Patel said that sectors in which bad loans have emerged over the years pertain to long-gestation projects, which were mostly funded before 2011-12.

"Therefore, ...by definition, this proportionate amount is a legacy issue, although the recognition and reporting of these have taken place only recently," the RBI Governor said.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley after addressing the RBI board said a legal and executive framework to deal with NPAs has been put in place by the government as its resolution is an ongoing process.

Jaitley also said the bad loans figure has increased owing to emergence of some new NPAs or loans that have been continuing. Congress leader Veerappa Moily had recently raised the bad loans issue in Parliament and said the NPAs figure has grown since 2014.

"I was in Parliament responding to a comment which Moily had made. What was figure in 2014, then 2015, 16, 17 it increased. So I had said these are all loans which have been continuing and whats have been added is either the discovery of some non-performing assets as a result of some exercise that RBI had directed to be undertaken and also the interest factor has increased," Jaitley said.

After the Asset Quality Review (AQR), there was huge surge in NPA. In the third quarter of the last fiscal alone, NPAs rose over Rs 1-lakh crore.

"Now resolution of these is an ongoing process...Now for individual bankers to get into exercise of resolving each one of the pending issues," he said.

On when the RBI will be able to come out with the figures of scrapped notes which have been deposited with the banks, the Governor said the number that should divulge should be a verified number and a number that is congruent with the complex accounting.

"Given that the window is open until March 31 and then at a lower level until June 30 we need to be careful and try as hard as possible that this is a number that is not a mere estimate but a verifiable number both physically and in accounting stance," he said.

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Following the shock demonetisation announcement on November 8, the government had asked people to deposit old notes in banks by December 30.

Indians who were abroad during November 9 to December 30 have been given a 3-month grace period till March 31 to deposit the junked notes, while for the NRIs, it is 6 months till June 30.

Earlier this week, RBI Deputy Governor S S Mundra said the final numbers can only be revealed after counting the notes deposited in cooperative banks, receipt of information from Nepal and Bhutan and close of the window for deposit of notes by NRIs. PTI DP CS MKJ

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Farewell Spit: A super pod of hundreds of whales was pushed offshore after repeated strandings at Farewell Spit, New Zealand, on Saturday morning, as volunteers scrambled to save a smaller group of stricken animals still on the beach.

Some 416 whales stranded overnight on Thursday, with 75 per cent of those, about 300, dying on Friday morning before rescuers could get to them. A pod of 200 headed for the same beach as the tide came in on Saturday, only to be met by 200 volunteers forming a human chain in the water to stop them stranding.

Some people shed tears, others sang songs or whistled to the whales, some gave them names. Most worked quietly and collaboratively to balance the whales upright to give them the best chance of surviving.

Volunteer Henry Swichirbank said they had successfully helped about 50 swim away this morning, before the new pod swam in. It was "heartbreaking", he said, to watch them struggling to get out.
Ford is investing $1 billion during the next five years in Argo AI, combining Fords autonomous vehicle development expertise with Argo AIs robotics experience and startup speed on artificial intelligence software  all to further advance autonomous vehicles

Founded by former Google and Uber leaders, Argo AI will include roboticists and engineers from inside and outside of Ford working to develop a new software platform for Fords fully autonomous vehicle coming in 2021; through their equity participation, Argo AI employees will share in the startups growth



Investment in Argo AI strengthens Fords leadership in bringing self-driving vehicles to market in the near term and creates technology that could be licensed to others in the future

&amp;nbsp;

San Francisco, Feb. 10, 2017  Ford Motor Company today announces it is investing $1 billion during the next five years in Argo AI, an artificial intelligence company, to develop a virtual driver system for the automakers autonomous vehicle coming in 2021  and for potential license to other companies.

Founded by former Google and Uber leaders, Argo AI is bringing together some of the most experienced roboticists and engineers working in autonomy from inside and outside of Ford. The team of experts in robotics and artificial intelligence is led by Argo AI founders Bryan Salesky, company CEO, and Peter Rander, company COO. Both are alumni of Carnegie Mellon National Robotics Engineering Center and former leaders on the self-driving car teams of Google and Uber, respectively.

The next decade will be defined by the automation of the automobile, and autonomous vehicles will have as significant an impact on society as Fords moving assembly line did 100 years ago, said Ford President and CEO Mark Fields. As Ford expands to be an auto and a mobility company, we believe that investing in Argo AI will create significant value for our shareholders by strengthening Fords leadership in bringing self-driving vehicles to market in the near term and by creating technology that could be licensed to others in the future.

The current team developing Fords virtual driver system  the machine-learning software that acts as the brain of autonomous vehicles  will be combined with the robotics talent and expertise of Argo AI. This innovative partnership will work to deliver the virtual driver system for Fords SAE level 4 self-driving vehicles.

Ford will continue to lead on development of its purpose-built autonomous vehicle hardware platform, as well as on systems integration, manufacturing, exterior and interior design, and regulatory policy management.

Argo AI will join forces with Fords autonomous vehicle software development effort to strengthen the commercialization of self-driving vehicles. Argo AIs agility and Fords scale uniquely combine the benefits of a technology startup with the experience and discipline of the automakers industry-leading autonomous vehicle development program.

We are at an inflection point in using artificial intelligence in a wide range of applications, and the successful deployment of self-driving cars will fundamentally change how people and goods move, said Salesky. We are energized by Fords commitment and vision for the future of mobility, and we believe this partnership will enable self-driving cars to be commercialized and deployed at scale to extend affordable mobility to all.

The collaboration supports Fords intent to have a fully autonomous, SAE level 4-capable vehicle for commercial application in mobility services in 2021.

Working together with Argo AI gives Ford a distinct competitive advantage at the intersection of the automotive and technology industries, said Raj Nair, Ford executive vice president, Global Product Development, and chief technical officer. This open collaboration is unlike any other partnership  allowing us to benefit from combining the speed of a startup with Fords strengths in scaling technology, systems integration and vehicle design.

Also complementing the relationship will be Ford Smart Mobility LLC, which will lead on the commercialization strategy for Fords self-driving vehicles. This includes choices for using autonomous vehicles to move goods and people, such as ride sharing, ride hailing or package delivery fleets.

Ford will be the majority stakeholder in Argo AI. Importantly, Argo AI has been structured to operate with substantial independence. Its employees will have significant equity participation in the company, enabling them to share in its success. Argo AIs board will have five members: Nair; John Casesa, Ford group vice president, Global Strategy; Salesky; Rander; and an independent director.

The $1 billion investment in Argo AI will be made over five years and is consistent with the autonomous vehicle capital allocation plan shared last September as part of Ford Investor Day.

By the end of this year, Argo AI expects to have more than 200 team members, based in the companys Pittsburgh headquarters and at major sites in Southeastern Michigan and the Bay Area of California.

Argo AIs initial focus will be to support Fords autonomous vehicle development and production. In the future, Argo AI could license its technology to other companies and sectors looking for autonomous capability.

Expert Comments:

Karl Brauer, Executive Publisher, Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book:

This race for the self-driving car will not be won by a single entity. It will require collaboration between traditional automakers and advanced technologists with experience in computer learning and integration. Argo AI is a new entity in the technology field, but its founders are established experts in the world of self-driving development. The competition in this field is intense, though an alliance between Ford and a start-up company like Argo AI should accelerate the process for both companies.

Michelle Krebs, senior analyst for Autotrader:

Fords $1 billion investment in an artificial intelligence company demonstrates the bridge being built between traditional automakers and tech companies, each optimizing their expertise to create something new.

Rebecca Lindland, senior analyst for Kelley Blue Book:

Fords announcement further emphasizing the evolving definition of an original equipment manufacturer as more of a mobility provider and less as just an OEM. It also shows Ford is embracing the future of autonomous vehicles wholeheartedly.

Michael Harley, analyst for Kelley Blue Book:

As drivers are replaced by computers, artificial intelligence will be the key technology piloting our vehicles. Fords investment is a significant endorsement of a future with a new mode of transportation, one that is a major departure from companys previous century of business.
if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...
Monday 05 September, 2016 Reliable information reaching Biafra writers desk has it that the life of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indi...
Gaurav Kumar, a student of prestigious L P Shahi College in Gaya, was arrested from his rented accommodation in Manpur area of Gaya along with 14 bottles of foreign liquor.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Perhaps this is a story of how liquor smugglers are using all means to push liquor into Bihar despite prohibition. Police on Friday arrested a class 11 student in Bihar's Gaya district on charges of smuggling liquor into the state. Gaurav Kumar, a student of prestigious L P Shahi College in Gaya, was arrested from his rented accommodation in Manpur area of Gaya along with 14 bottles of foreign liquor.

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The police had specific inputs regarding Gaurav being part of group of liquor smugglers who are involved in door to door delivery of liquor in Gaya. Soon after his arrest, he was interrogated and he disclosed how he was handed over the job of smuggling foreign liquor from neighboring Jharkhand into Bihar.

The accused student said liquor smugglers used him for the job since he was a student and there was less chances of police suspecting him. Gaurav's role after smuggling liquor from Jharkhand into Bihar was to hand it over to the main smugglers and he was paid Rs 1500 for his work.

"I was paid Rs 1500 each time I smuggled liquor from Jharkhand into Bihar. I smuggled liquor four times in a week and made Rs 6000 weekly. I fell into this trap because of my greed," said Gaurav Kumar, the accused student.

Police maintained that they had received inputs that sale of liquor in Manpur area had increased, and therefore acting on the input they raided Gaurav's house and arrested him with 14 liquor bottles.

"Gaurav is a resident of Kapsia village and he was studying in Gaya after taking a rented accommodation. In a bid to make quick money, he got involved with liquor smugglers," said Kamlesh Tiwary, SHO, Paraiya police station.

Ever since prohibition was imposed in Bihar last April, smugglers are resorting to every means possible to smuggle liquor into the state.

Police, however, are on alert especially in bordering areas because of which they are regularly recovering liquor bottles which smugglers are trying to sneak into Bihar.

--- ENDS ---
In comments to Fox News yesterday, Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway painted the Presidents reticence to discipline her for an embarrassing ethical breach as a victory for women everywhere.

All I can say to Americas women is, Conway simpered, at some point in our life you ought to have a boss who treated you the way that the president of the United States treated me today.

Give me a break.

Kellyanne Conways unforced error had nothing to do with her being a woman, and everything to do with her being somebody who has, for the last three weeks, been astoundingly bad at her job. Conway sure seems eager to brand herself a victim of sexism in an attempt to garner sympathy. It wont work this time.

Since signing on to help right the then-rickety Trump campaign, Conway has had a famously fraught relationship with the truth. She spent the presidential campaign slipping out from beneath the thumbs of cable hosts eager to pin her down bobbing and weaving like the Muhammad Ali of bullshit. Nothing could stop her, it seemed. Whether or not she was a woman, she was damn good at her job.

But after inauguration day and under the microscope of White House press coverage, she lost her magic touch. She flailed in the nonsense of alternative facts in a disastrous interview with Chuck Todd during her first round of Sunday show interviews as a professional denizen of the White House. Not long thereafter, she left Fox News Chris Wallace aghast in a long, rambling answer that was Palinesque in its inscrutability. Then, Kellyanne introduced America to the hidden tragedy of the under-reporting of the Bowling Green Massacre, an attack that never actually happened. She tried to apologize for that incident, calling it an honest mistake. But that, too, turned out to be an alternative fact, since Conway had been citing the Bowling Green Massacre as justification for her bosss Muslim ban in multiple interviews with multiple media outlets. She got into a strange fight with CNN over whether or not they wanted to book her for a show, and was caught in yet another easily disprovable lie. It seems she was too unreliable a narrator, even for the Trump White House.

To quote Mitch McConnell: Nevertheless, she persisted.

This week, Conway threw the news cycle, already dizzy with nonsense, into even more of a cacophony when she urged viewers of Fox & Friends to purchase items from Ivanka Trumps eponymous clothing line. Retail giant Nordstrom was discontinuing the line, citing poor sales as the reason for severing the relationship with the First Daughter.

Go buy Ivankas stuff is what I would say, the counselor to the President told the morning TV hosts, standing before the White House briefing room podium. Its a wonderful line. I own some of it.

Conway continued her promotion of the mostly-basic line of non-offensive separates that look pretty much like anything for sale at Express at any point over the last 5-8 years. I fullyIm going to just, Im going to give a free commercial here: Go buy it today, everybody; you can find it online.

This is what political scientists would call bad. Ivanka had promised to divest from the family business, so unless Ivankas stuff meant Ivankas upcoming and henceforth unannounced garage sale, Conway acting as though she still had a business in the clothing line was troubling to ethical watchdogs. Secondly, rules governing the behavior of White House employees, elected or appointed, prohibit the use of their positions to hawk products or brands. Theres no Q, V, or C in USA. Its pretty cut and dry.

(Besides, its tough to believe that Conway, who wore a $3,600 Gucci coat to the inauguration three weeks ago, would mess around with cheaply-made Babys First Job Interview attire with a $50-$200 per-piece price point. But I digress.)

For her trespass, the GOP and Democratic chairs of the House Oversight Committee penned a letter to the White House demanding an explanation of what in the world was going on. White House press secretary Sean Spicer sternly told reporters that afternoon that Conway had been counseled.

Apparently, actual repercussions for Conway involved spending lots of time with President Trump on Thursday afternoon, and then gushing about it to Fox, somehow, bizarrely, tying her womanhood to her malpractice.

How on earth is this scenario something to which American women should aspire?

How is having a boss that enables ones worst qualities an inspirational story of female empowerment? Getting away with a serious ethical breach isnt a rah-rah you-go-girl victory. It would be like getting away with robbing a bank and then yelling This is a victory for women everywhere! as you jump into your getaway car. Acting unethically doesnt have a gender. Its objectively bad.

Kellyanne Conway should and does know better. She built a powerhouse career being an expert on women. As a pollster, she sought to dissect the motivations behind their votes. As the first woman to head a successful presidential campaign, she touted breaking a glass ceiling of her ownno small feat, especially given what she had to work with. The only reason somebody with her body of knowledge would try to pull a fast one like that on Americas women is if she truly believed that Americas women were dumb enough to believe her.

Are you tough, Kellyanne? Are you a straight-shooting contributor who owns her mistakes? Or are you a coward throwing punches and then hiding behind your boss and your womanhood? You dont get to be both.
Supreme Court nominee Neil M. Gorsuch might not be the only Donald Trump admirer whos disheartened and demoralized by the presidents recent behavior.

Internet rabble-rouser Matt Drudgewho last year essentially put his influential Drudgereport.com news and opinion site at the service of Trumps presidential campaignhas also been expressing dissatisfaction of late.

In a series of eruptions over the past couple of weeks on his personal Twitter accountmostly tweets that Drudge deleted almost as soon as he posted themthe 50-year-old media and political tastemaker has been chiding congressional Republicans, the White House staff, and seemingly even the president himself for losing sight of campaign promises and getting mired in time-wasting distractions.

Republican party should be sued for fraud, Drudge recommended on Wednesday alongside a photo of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan prayingDrudges only tweet that, as of this writing, remained online. NO discussion of tax cuts now. Just lots of crazy. Back to basics, guys!

In a second, now deleted, tweet this week, Drudge noted sarcastically: White House eyeing executive order targeting conflict minerals rule Meanwhile, is Obamacare penalty tax still in place?

Since that tweet, the Trump White House has plunged even further into confusion, with its attempts to govern and communicate thwarted not only by adverse court rulings but also by an epically pointless, and ethically damaging, debate over whether a department store chain dropped Ivanka Trumps clothing line for nefarious political reasons.

Sitting in front of his laptop 15 hours a day at his grand, 20-acre estate in Homestead, Florida, a Miami suburb on the edge of the Everglades, Drudge is doing basically the same work he did two decades ago when he was a humble blogger in a tiny Hollywood, California, apartmentbefore he achieved global fame, and accompanying riches, by revealing the Monica Lewinsky scandal during Bill Clintons second term.

Every so often Drudge has threatened to retire, privately complaining that staring into a computer screen for hours on end is a terrible way to livesomething he has done so others dont have to, as he has told friends, even if it has meant martyring himself in order to warn against sinister liberal schemes to destroy Western civilization.

Three years ago, Drudge seemed to be losing enthusiasm for his mission, and traffic to his web siteusually more than 30 million page-views per dayhad begun to dip into the 18 million range.

Yet, in the midst of the 2016 campaign, Drudge was freshly energized by Trumps anti-establishment, populist candidacy; when the Washington establishment scoffed and snickered, Drudge was an early and eager adopter of Trumpism. And he has managed to maintain and even enhance his relevance, especially in the power precincts of Trumpworld.

The thing is, Drudge has a very inflated ego, said a person who agreed to be quoted as someone familiar with Drudges thinking. In a lot of ways, Drudge believes that he may have singlehandedly given Donald Trump the presidency.

Self-confidence verging on megalomania, if true, is certainly something Drudge has in common with the 45th president; he didnt respond to an email seeking comment.

This person added: Drudge is really very good at seeing trends and seeing where things are going much earlier than most people. A lot of other people got on top of the Trump phenomenon later, but Drudge was early in recognizing that Damn! This Trump message is really resonating across America!

During the campaign, the president took care to flatter the web aggregatorWhats better than Drudge? Hes a fantastic guy. What hes built is unbelievably respected, Trump once declared on CNNand Drudge returned the favor. At one point, Trumps then-rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, accused The Drudge Report of becoming Trumps personal attack site, a reliable promoter of whatever the Trump campaign is pushing that day.

Thus a White House and a president that didnt hesitate this week to trash a bona fide war hero and fellow Republican, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, for daring to criticize the failed military operation in Yemen, has reacted to Drudges complaints with delicacy and respect.

White House press secretary Sean Spicerwho on Wednesday demanded that former Vietnam prisoner of war McCain apologize for doing a disservice to the memory of the Navy SEAL killed in the Yemen raidwas careful not to lay a glove on Drudge.

I think its hardly stalling, he responded mildly to Drudges Obamacare kvetching, obviously attempting to placate rather than confront the blogger. I think its a mammoth thing to repeal and replace. I think theres no question of the presidents commitment to doing this.

Former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown was also on a mission to mollify when he told Fox News on on Thursday, I love Drudge. I read Drudge, before arguing, with respect, that its been 19 days I think people need to relax a little bit and give the guy at least his full Cabinet and give him a month maybe. And then if it doesnt work out, you can hammer him.

Political scientist Larry Sabato, director of University of Virginias Center for Politics, said Drudges dissents are both significant and surprising.

Im not shocked by much of anything anymore, Sabato told The Daily Beast, but I was shocked by that, because he was so pro-Trump during the campaign.

While Drudge in the past has been critical of Republicans in Congress for not standing up for conservative ideals or offering effective opposition to President Obama, this is worse, because its not just Congress, hes going after Trump, too, Sabato argued. When he says lots of crazy that means one person. I think we all know crazy is a synonym for Donald Trump these days.

Sabato explained the White Houses extraordinary deference toward Drudge this way: Obviously in Trumpworld he is very significant. Hes not as important as Steve Bannon, but hes on that same list.

His fan base and his subscriber base are enormous. Whether you like or dislike the Drudgereport, you cant ignore it, Sabato continued, because what he says very quickly works its way into conversations of the Trump cult, and the millions of people who are Trumps base and the Republicans who generally follow him.

With Drudge keeping the pressure on the Trump White House, its not going to be long before its obvious to everybody that theres trouble in paradise, Sabato added. Its easy to talk about this stuff on the campaign trail. But, as always, its difficult to do.
As far as journalistic integrity goes, Piers Morgan is more bankrupt than MC Hammer shooting craps at Trump Castle.

The British blowhard, who has failed upwards his entire career, was found to be in violation of the Code of Conduct for business journalism after investing his savings in a tech company before recommending it in the Daily Mirrors pages, was axed from the Mirror for publishing fake photos of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by British troops, and is alleged to have presided over a culture of phone hacking while at the Mirror. If that werent enough, he has an ugly history of transphobia and unbridled misogyny.

In recent months, as editor-at-large of the Daily Mail and a TV host in his native UK, Morgan has garnered a reputation for staunchly defending Donald Trump. For those whove blessedly missed it, Trump jump-started Morgans career in America (after he was chased out of Britain) by allowing him to win his reality TV series Celebrity Apprentice, and later having him on the program in a guest judge capacity. During one particularly gross moment, Morgan can be seen cackling in the corner as Trump sexually harassed Brande Roderickwhom the real estate mogul allegedly terrorized on the set of Celebrity Apprentice.

Morgan continues to claim, as he did on the latest edition of Real Time with Bill Maher, that he wouldnt have personally voted for Donald Trump, but its complete horseshit. Hes been paying lip service to his pal for over a year in his columns and on the tube, and the trend continued Friday night.

When pressed by Maher and his fellow panelists on President Trumps chaotic first few weeks in office, Morgan claimed that Trump should have received more credit and acknowledgment for being the first Republican president to stand there on Inauguration Day and talk about the lesbian and gay community of America. Read the Republican platform on it, shot back John Waters, the celebrated gay filmmaker. Indeed, its odd for Morgan to claim that President Trump deserved credit for merely acknowledging the LGBT community, when the GOP platform is against same-sex marriage (despite the fact that the majority of Americans support it), and Trumps VP Mike Pence has been a strong supporter of gay conversion therapy. If that werent enough, Trump and Pence had Pastor Robert Jeffries, a rabidly anti-gay preacher, speak during their private Inauguration Day service. Pastor Jeffries has disgustingly claimed that homosexuals live a filthy and miserable lifestyle, and are paving the way for the antichrist, according to CNN.

Later, as Morgan kept qualifying Trumps actions, Maher lost it. You and the Trump voters are confusing usual with normal. Yes, its good to upset business as usual, but its not normal when the CIA says we cant tell the president secrets because we dont know if hell share them with Russia, snapped Maher.

Morgan had no clever quip or comeback.

Maher then challenged Morgan on the White House spin concerning the Yemen raid, a failed mission that left one American soldier dead along with 14 militants and at least 30 civiliansincluding 10 women and children, one of which was an 8-year-old girl. The intended target, an al Qaeda leader, got away safely and proceeded to mock President Trump via video, calling him the new fool of the White House.

According to Reuters, U.S. military officials told Reuters that Trump approved his first covert counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations. As a result, three officials said, the attacking SEAL team found itself dropping onto a reinforced al Qaeda base defended by landmines, snipers, and a larger than expected contingent of heavily armed Islamist extremists.

Cue Maher: You have Sean Spicer saying the Yemen raid, which was a giant, dismal failurewe didnt get the guy we were going after, whos now gloating and talking about the fool in the White House, we killed children and women, they knew we were coming, it was not a success. But hes saying, because Trump says its a success, we all have to. Then Morgan appeared to defend the raid, chiming in with, Why have you left out the fact that they killed 12 al Qaeda operatives? Is that not significant? The number was 14 militants, and, given the expertise of the SEALs, its not considered to be a successful mission if we lose one of themor, for that matter, kill dozens of civilians, including women and children.

The Trump defense didnt stop there. Morgan tried to back up a Trump claim that the U.S. murder rate is the highest its been in 47 years, exclaiming, The murder rate is rocketing. That is categorically false. Though theres been an uptick in some major U.S. cities this year, the overall murder rate numbers arent even in yet, and they pale in comparison to U.S. murder rates in the 90s.

Another Morgan misstep concerned Trumps so-called Muslim banan executive order barring immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. Morgan, repeating a White House propaganda point, alleged that, There is no Muslim Ban, adding that 85 percent of the worlds Muslims [werent affected]. This is, of course, a wacky statistic. Yes, a large percentage of the worlds Muslims are not affected, but when it comes to Muslim refugees immigrating to the United States, from 2014-2016, 82 percent came from the seven countries outlined in President Trumps executive order. Furthermore, Rudy Giuliani confessed on Fox News that Trump had asked him how to institute a Muslim ban "legally."

The final insult came courtesy of Aussie stand-up comedian Jim Jefferies, who yelled, Oh, fuck off! when Morgan tried to claim there was no Muslim ban, before later shouting, You just like that you won The Apprentice and you have a famous friend, mate.

Sounds about right.
By Press Trust of India: Amritsar, Feb 10 (PTI) The chief of Radha Soami sect, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, was today flown to Singapore for medical check-up on the advice of doctors.

An official at Beas headquarters of the sect said Dhillon was flown to Singapore for complete medical check-up on the advice of a team of doctors at Fortis Escort hospital.

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Dhillon was suffering gastritis problems but could not take any medicine without consulting the doctors at a hospital in Singapore from where he was receiving regular treatment after being diagnosed with throat cancer two years ago, an official said.

After Dhillon was flown to Singapore, a two-day religious congregation at Beas headquarter of the sect, nearly 45 kilometres from Amritsar, was cancelled.

The sect Dera Radha Soami also known as Dera Baba Jaimal Singh has a large number of followers across the nation. PTI COR CHS NSD

--- ENDS ---
This week, we crashed through yet another floor in the rapidly pancaking edifice that is Donald Trumps America, when Jefferson Sessions, a man deemed too racist to be seated as a federal judge during the Reagan era, was sworn in as the 84th attorney general of the United States. And while he is far from the only steep price the country will have to pay for elevating a vengeful reality show crank and theoretical billionaire to our nations highest office, its worth pausing to note the particular horror of his ascension, and the breadth of the damage he could do.

There are few instances when American history offers us two clear sides of a moral line. On matters of racial equality and civil rights, the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his aides and collaborators like Ralph Abernathy, Bayard Rustin, and John Lewis, and his ever-dignified wife Coretta Scott King stood on one side of that very bright line, with the forces of racial revanchism standing firmly on the other.

This week, Mitch McConnell roused the Kingian ghosts in a way he and his party may come to regret. As Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren rose to read the words written by Mrs. King in 1986, in searing opposition to Sessionss elevation to a federal judgeship, McConnell silenced her, invoking the upper chambers Rule 19 to accuse Warren of impugn[ing] the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama.

She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted, added McConnell.

And indeed, Senator Warren had persisted, just as Mrs. King had persisted in 1986 in defending her husbands legacy 18 years after he was gone. In her letter, she absolutely impugned the motives and conduct of a man who, in her words, used the power of his office as United States attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts.

Mr. Sessions, Mrs. King told the Senate Judiciary Committee all those years ago, has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. That included prosecuting three Alabama civil rights workers for the crime of trying to help black people register and vote (PDF), referring to the NAACP, Operation PUSH, and the National Council of Churches as un-American organizations teaching anti-American values, and accusing civil rights groups like the NAACP of seeking to force civil rights down the throats of people. He reportedly called a white civil rights lawyer a disgrace to his race, and is said to have referred to a black lawyer in his office as boy, warning him: You ought to be careful as to what you say to white folks. He enthusiastically supported the Shelby decision that struck out the heart of the Voting Rights Act and is a champion of voter ID laws, which curtail the voting rights of people of color and the young.

His supporters could argue that he has changed and matured over the years, the way a young Klan member named Robert Byrd grew to repent of his past racism and became a respected elder Democratic Senator. Except that Jefferson Sessions has never repented. Instead, he has simply denied that the numerous tales of his racist statements are true. As The Nations Ari Berman has written: Sessions has spent his whole career opposing voting rights. Its hard to imagine he wont continue that pursuit as attorney general.

Sessionss bitter legacy goes beyond his decades of attacks on the right of the descendants of the once enslaved to vote.

It is largely through Sessionss influence and some of his top aides that Trump reportedly came to craft his executive order barring travel to the U.S. by people from seven Muslim-majority countries, as well as U.S. green card holders with connections to those countries; a ban which was recently rebuffed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and which is likely headed to the Supreme Court. The travel ban, which Trump and his top advisers, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani have explicitly called a Muslim ban, happens to target the seven countries from which 82 percent of the Muslim refugees who came to the U.S. in 2016 came.

Sessions has long opposed not just unlawful migration, but also legal immigration, which in 2015 he called the primary source of low-wage immigration into the United States. He has opposed every attempt at immigration reform during his two decades in the Senate, most recently with the help of his former aide, Stephen Miller, an ideologue who literally wrote the GOPs talking points on how to defeat the Gang of Eight immigration reform plan in 2013.

In significant ways, the presidency of Donald J. Trump is the shadow presidency of Jefferson Sessions.

He bequeathed Miller, a protege of white supremacist Richard Spencer while at Duke University, to Trump; along with many of the populist and nativist campaign themes that Sessions himself has pushed for decades. He then became the first Senator to endorse the bombastic celebrity businessman for president, while Miller became Trumps principal speechwriter. It was Miller, apparently, who gave us Trumps Midnight in America speech at the Republican National Convention last year and the American Carnage address on Inauguration Day.

Miller joins Steve Bannon, who sits at the fulcrum of the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, apocalyptic, white Christian nationalist cell operating inside the White House. Theres also Michael Anton, recently unmasked by The Weekly Standards Michael Warren as the former right-wing blogger who wrote under the name Publius Decius Mus, and who in a Trump-supporting essay during the campaign warned darkly that [t]he ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty means that the electorate grows more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle. His addition to the team led Jamelle Bouie to declare in a recent essay that government by white nationalism is upon us.

Beyond his own racial and immigration views, our new attorney general is an opponent of the Black Lives Matter movement, a climate change denier, and an opponent of scaling back the war on drugs, including the legalization of marijuana. It seems unlikely that he will pursue the enforcement of the consent decrees reached with various cities under the Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch tenures at Justice, let alone seek any more. And it seems likely that under his watch, many more men, women and children of color will wind up behind bars.

In short, we are in for a dark time at the DOJ, and our countrys most vulnerable are in for a long four years. Young activists who style themselves the heirs to John Lewis, will soon find out what Lewiss turbulent and valiant youthalready full of so much state violencewould have been like without Robert Kennedy.

Yet, for Mitch McConnell and his party, this moment in history may also be decisive, because for the resistance, the time for depression has past, and the spark has been lit for a new civil rights movement; one that is led largely (though not solely) by women, who now bear Mrs. Kings mantle, and Senator Warrens defiance.

Even Bernice KingMartin and Corettas surviving daughter and a culturally conservative minister from Georgiawas ignited by McConnells silencing of her mothers words. She joined the legions who tweeted #LetLizSpeak and #ShePersisted, issuing a statement saying: The profound voice and leadership of Coretta Scott King, my mother, a global peace advocate and a human rights activist, still resonates today. Her letter regarding Senator Jeff Sessions, written 30 years ago, yet still prolific, should propel us all toward a commitment to eradicating all systemic injustices. She added: I firmly believe that my mother would consider it an affront to women and humanity that Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced and prevented from reading her letter, while male members of the Senate were permitted to read that same letter. These actions on our Senate floor reflect the continual blight of a patriarchal order in our nation and world.

Grandiose protestations of the GOP being the Party of Lincoln and attempts to revive the long-dry bones of past associations between the Democratic Party and the conservative, southern rejectionists of the Red Shirts, Redeemers and the Klan have long ceased to have any meaning. Parties change, for better and for worse. And the Democrats grew over many decades to become the party of civil rights, immigrant rights and womens liberty; of the first black president and the first woman presidential nominee (who made double history by winning the popular vote); and of Senator Warrens carriage of Mrs. Kings letter into the heart of white, male, Republican power. And the Republican Party, which grew out of the noble cause of ending slavery, is now the party of Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller; of Publius Decius Mus, Jefferson Sessions and Trump.

Well see whose persistence wins out.
Last night, ethically murky Twitter troll Piers Morgan was thoroughly embarrassed on HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher.

The editor-at-large of the Daily Mail and UK morning show host has spent the past year-plus defending the largely indefensible actions of Donald Trump. You see, Morgan is a celebrity hanger-on, and Trump is his longtime pal, having granted him entree into the world of U.S. reality television with a winning stint on his program Celebrity Apprentice. It eventually landed Morgan a CNN talk show before people caught on to his brand of bullshit, and chased him out of America (Morgan had previously lost favor in the UK for presiding over a series of questionable journalistic practices while editor of the Daily Mirror, including printing fake photos of British troops torturing Iraqi prisoners, a shady investment scheme, and phone hacking allegations).

On Fridays Real Time, Morgan continued playing the role of sad Trump apologist, appearing to defend the presidents botched Yemen raid before parroting POTUSs bogus statistics concerning the U.S. murder rate. The most heated exchange, however, came when Maher, Morgan and his fellow panelists discussed Trumps so-called Muslim banan executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. Morgan, as is his wont, regurgitated the White House spin that there is no Muslim ban, adding that 85 percent of the worlds Muslims [werent affected]. This is a misleading statistic. As I wrote, Yes, a large percentage of the worlds Muslims are not affected, but when it comes to Muslim refugees immigrating to the United States, from 2014-2016, 82 percent came from the seven countries outlined in President Trumps executive order. Furthermore, Rudy Giuliani confessed on Fox News that Trump had asked him how to institute a Muslim ban legally. Morgans Muslim ban comments prompted Aussie stand-up comedian Jim Jefferies to yell at him to fuck off, before later shouting, You just like that you won The Apprentice and you have a famous friend, mate.

The exchange appeared to tickle J.K. Rowling, the billionaire bestselling author behind the Harry Potter franchise, who tweeted the following:

This appeared to get under Morgans notoriously thin skina man who regularly searches for his name on Twitter to defend himself against critics. Morgan tweeted back, This is why Ive never read a single word of Harry Potter. Rowling, who is far wittier than Morgan, proceeded to mock him with this great burn:

But wait, there was more:

J.K. Rowling, you are an international treasure.
Meghan Markle has spent the past week back in Kensington Palace, shacked up with her boyfriend Prince Harry.

They went for dinner at the private members club Soho House last weekend, and, significantly, allowed themselves to be photographed together for the first time leaving the club.

In other signs of domestic bliss, Meghan was spotted buying flowers for the house, and the couple are believed to be planning another vacation together after flying off to see the Northern lights in Scandinavia in the New Year.

Unsurprisingly, given the dizzying pace of developments in Harrys love life, many are speculating that an engagement could be on the cardsbut others caution that such talk is highly premature.

Putting a precise timeline on affairs of the heartespecially where Harry is concernedmay be construed by some as a fools errand, but there are certain waymarkers along the road that will need to be passed, and will give opportunities to divine if the relationship is progressing towards marriage.

Friends of Harry, 32, do believe that he is as serious about Meghan, 35, as he has ever been about anyone, hes equally unlikely to rush into anything.

William is Harrys most trusted advisor, and he is likely to be counseling his little brother to proceed slowly and cautiously.

He credits the success of his own marriage in large part to the fact that he and Kate lived together for several yearsat St. Andrews University and then in Londonbefore getting engaged.

While such a lengthy period of cohabitation would not be practical for Harry and Meghan, it is unlikely that they would announce an engagement without living together for several months first.

If Harry and Meghan are seen to be spending as much time as possible together for the rest of this month and nextand take another trip abroadobservers will assume that a wedding is still in play.

But before that could happen, Harry would probably feel it politic to introduce his girlfriend to the queen (they have already met each others parents) who will ultimately have to sign off on the marriage (not that there would be any question of her thwarting Harrys desires).

Such a meeting would not be publicly announced, but its a fair bet that the news would be leaked out.

The next key date to watch is April 5, when Meghan is due back at work in Toronto to start filming the next series of Suits.

If the relationship does seem like it is going to go to the next level, Meghan will be unlikely to carry on filming the show.

To continue a career as an actress would create impossible tensions and leave her exposed to press criticism; the Middletons get accused of cashing in by the Daily Mail when one of the thousands of lines they stock on their website Party Pieces contains so much as a reference to a little Prince or a tiny Princess, so one can only imagine how the press might criticize Meghans every pay raise or new starring role. (This seems sexist and absurd, of coursewhy shouldnt she be allowed to continue doing what she loves to do?)

If Meghan does go back to work to film the next series of Suits, therefore, one would have to assume that the possibility and timeframe of marriage were receding.

After that, Kates sister Pippas big day will be the focal point. Pippa is marrying her fiance James Mathews on May 20, and it is inconceivable that Meghan would not be there if the relationship is still firing on all cylinders.

Pippa and Harry get on extremely wellalthough rumors of a romance have never had a shred of truthand the Middletons would be thrilled to have Harry and Meghan there.

Making a relationship work is challenging enough for anyone. For Meghan and Harry its going to be all the more difficult, obliged to conduct so much of their lives under public scrutiny.

An engagement announcementif it does happenmay well be a way off, but it may happen sooner than anyone expects.

Dont bet against it; Harry, after all, has a mighty talent for surprise.
Throughout the eight years of Barack Obamas presidency, book lovers were delighted to have a commander in chief who possessed and publicized a voracious reading habit. Obama made frequent trips to local independent bookshops, and released his summer reading list so book lovers could take cues from his purchases. In the final days of his presidency, Obama granted an interview to Michiko Kakutani, the chief book critic at The New York Times, in which he said that books were often his secret to surviving the turmoil of the White House.

Reading allowed Obama to slow down and get perspective. He enriched his mind with books both classic and contemporary, such as Colson Whiteheads National Book Award-winning The Underground Railroad, V.S. Naipauls A Bend in the River, Ta-Nehisi Coatess Between the World and Me, and Lauren Groffs Fates and Furies.

Someone who readsas opposed to, say, watching TV news all dayis, I imagine, more compassionate and disciplined when it comes to the nuanced and tricky decisions that a president faces every day, says Dana Schwartz, arts and culture writer for the New York Observer and author of the forthcoming novel And Were Off. Books by definition force you to engage with someone elses viewpoint.

Yet in Donald Trump, Americas 45th president, we behold a self-admitted lifetime non-reader, save for the pile of Trump-related Google Alerts his assistants print out for him each morning. Yet a series of controversial feuds, policy decisions, and seeming ignorance of American history has sparked massive interest in several titles that stand in almost defianceor fearof the Trump presidency.

Unlike President Obama, who inspired reading based on his own love of books, President Trump seems to have sparked sales of books that either defyor possibly mirrorhis policies and behaviors. And over the last few months, Americans have flocked to support authors and institutions Trump has either willfully or accidentally discredited.

Theres this contrarian American spirit stuff, thats always angling for some underdog otherness, says journalist and novelist Porochista Khakpour (The Last Illusion). The more the president boasts of not reading, the more people wonder about reading. The more the president says The New York Times is failing and fake, the more they subscribe and it succeeds. (NYT subscriptions doubled in 2016.)

On Jan. 14, Trump tweeted that Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a revered civil rights leader, was all talk, talk, talkno action or results. Trumps comments fueled a huge backlash, and in subsequent weeks, Lewiss autobiographical graphic novel trilogy March saw sales skyrocket. In the two weeks proceeding Trumps attacks, March: Book One sold 1,496 copies and the trilogys box set sold 1,709 copies (per Bookscan). In the week following Trumps tweets, sales of March: Book One jumped to 7,268 copies and the box set to 7,669 copies. Subsequently bolstered by winning many prominent awards, March: Book One became the first graphic novel to land on The New York Times non-fiction paperback bestseller list since Marjane Satrapis Persepolis.

On Jan. 22, in an interview with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway cited the now-infamous use of alternative facts to determine that Trumps inauguration was the largest of all time (it was not, by any measurable metric). Conways use of the term alternative facts struck many as a particularly Orwellian turn of phrase. The week following Conways remarks, sales of George Orwells dystopian classic, 1984, increased nearly 600 percent, and the book has remained near the top of Amazons rankings on both print and digital lists. Alexandra Alter of The New York Times reported that Signet has reprinted 500,000 copies of 1984, more than they typically sell in an entire year.

According to Orwell, political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, which seems even more prescient after Trumps dismissive comments about Vladimir Putins alleged murderous treatment of political opponents in an interview broadcast on Feb. 5 with Bill OReilly of Fox News.

Given this type of cultural climate, readers are sensing parallels between what is currently happening and books theyve read, says literary agent Kristin Nelson. That is why Orwells 1984 suddenly hit the bestseller list after all these years. When I saw what bestsellers were trending, Hugh Howey (a Nelson client) and I joked that his [dystopian] Silo Series would soon start showing up on If you like 1984, youll like lists. It took only one week for that to happen.

Trumps purported ignorance of history has also led to a resurgence of books about the subject. On Feb. 1, at a breakfast to commemorate the start of Black History Month, Trump described Frederick Douglass as an example of somebody whos done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.

Trumps seeming obliviousness to the fact that a) Douglass died in 1895, and b) he has been recognized and venerated for years, spurred a renewed interest in Douglasss autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Several different versions of the book (which is currently in the public domain) skyrocketed up the charts on Amazon, with Bookscan sales leaping 72 percent the week following Trumps comments.

Margaret Atwood published The Handmaids Tale in 1985, and her decades-old vision of a future where a totalitarian regime has stripped women of their civil rights drew some to see parallels in Trumps rise. A surge in misogyny and anti-feminism (growing seemingly unchecked online), coupled with Trumps history of lewd, dismissive comments about women and apparent embrace of nationalism and isolationism, have led to an uneasiness that the Trump regime could mirror that of Atwoods novel. In 2016, sales of The Handmaids Tale rose over 30 percent from the previous year, and have spiked even more recently. In the first five weeks of 2017, The Handmaids Tale has sold 23,645 copies, compared to sales of 6,936 copies through the first five weeks of 2016, a year-over-year 340 percent increase (some of which can perhaps be attributed to an upcoming Hulu adaptation of the novel).

Leading up to the election, many saw parallels between Trumps fascistic tendencies and those of Buzz Windrip, the main character in Sinclair Lewiss 1935 novel It Cant Happen Here. In Sinclairs book, Windrip is a man on the side of the plain people, and against all the tight old political machines, who runs for president on a populist platform of economic and social reform and defeats incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt. Yet when he takes office, Windrip imposes a brutal totalitarian regime, incarcerates his opponents, and guts the rights of women and minorities.

Sales of Lewiss novel (whose online description is now headlined by Salons ominous quote: The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trumps authoritarian appeal) spiked heavily leading up to the election, and have increased over 13,000 percent in the first five weeks of 2017 versus the same time period in 2016.

Books like 1984 and A Handmaids Tale are exaggerated, Schwartz says, but they were written in the first place (and stuck around for so long) because they operate from a kernel of truth. Harry Potter was for many, including myself, the first book people read that dealt with young people facing a compromised government and responding with rebellion. Its a helpful framework in which to process whats going on, and then a means by which someone might feel braver because theyre in some respects able to take on the persona of their favorite heroes.

Says Ron Charles, editor of The Washington Posts Book World, I think people are drawn to these titles because theyre genuinelyand rightlyafraid, and they want to understand the forces at work. Great literature has always provided that kind of knowledge, insight, even solace in dark times.

In addition to the surge in classic literature, a Trump presidency will also likely inspire contemporary works of both fiction and non-fiction that attempt to navigate the new political landscape, either by understanding the current world or creating a fictional one.

As was the case during the end of Nixons presidency, we will also see some degree of uptick in paranoid thrillers (even if fiction cannot come close to outpacing truth) and, perhaps, some tweaking of the standard private detective tropes, says Sarah Weinman, news editor of Publishers Lunch and author of the forthcoming book Among the Wholesome Children. Its no accident that the Robert Altman movie version of The Long Goodbye and Robert B. Parkers Spenser novels arrived roughly around the same time.

There is hope, though, that President Obama will continue to advocate for books even after his departure from the Oval Office. Adds Weinman: Obama will still (I hope!) buy books at bookstores. Hell have avenues for recommending titles. And those in the arts, and outside of it, will be more than happy to take up his recommendations.

Many feel inspired to stand up to President Trump through their words, because the extent to which his policies might cause global upheaval and personal strife remains, to some, frighteningly unclear. Says the Iranian-born Khakpour, I dont think I have a choice. Im going to put my voice and thoughts out there until they are silenced for good, which is already a possibility.

Jason Pinter is the bestselling author of six novels and is the founder and publisher of Polis Books. Follow him at @JasonPinter.
It was a tentative ascent, up the steep flight of steps to the seats of the Wooster Groups performance space in New Yorks Soho. Snow and slush on the bottom side of peoples shoes had left the steps slick and wet, and audience members trod carefully.

The show they had come to see was choc-full of its own set of perils. The Town Hall Affair is an hour-long meditation on Town Bloody Hall, Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebakers documentary, which captured what happened one night in 1971 when Norman Mailer chaired, and sneered his way through, a debate about feminism with Female Eunuch author Germaine Greer, lesbian activist Jill Johnston, the writer Diana Trilling, and Jacqueline Ceballos, then-president of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women.

The Wooster Groups co-founder Elizabeth LeCompte doesnt merely direct a recitation of the speeches and antagonisms of the evening, though these are present. The handsome Scott Shepherd and Ari Fliakos both play Mailer, sometimes as himself, and sometimes reporting what Mailer did. The author is by turns witty, bullying, and menacing.

Maura Tierney, most famous for playing Helen Solloway in The Affair, plays Greer, a languid, eloquent force for mischief, whowhile politically and diametrically opposed to Maileralso, in both film and this stage show, smiles and laughs with him.

Their egos match in size, and it is significant that Greers speech that night is not about legal equality, but artistic power, and the primacy of the male artistic voice over the female. A young gun herself at the timewearing a slinky fur stole--but one intensely aware of her own celebrity (just as Mailer was of his), Greer was seeking to advance her own star-power as well as the rights of her sex.

Jill Johnston (Kate Valk) is a force neither Greer, who she flirts with, and Mailer can contain. Just as on film, the moment when Johnston and another woman kiss proves pivotalso it is here. And suddenly, in the screen behind the actors, scenes from the 1971 film segue to scenes from another film, Maidstone, made the year before, starring Mailer in which he and the actor Rip Torn wrestle each other to the ground.The use of that footage means we get to see Mailers violence in all its forms: linguistic, menacing, and brutely physical. The actors even produce a hammer to evoke the one Mailer used in Maidstone, also asking us to imagine it as a gavel in which to bring order to the debate at Town Hall.

Valk is a wonderful Jill Johnston: flighty of voice, mischievous in intent, and strangely childlike when Mailer tries to cut her off. Greg Mehrten as Diana Trilling also brings to mind the characters basilisk-steady command. She who will not be interrupted is as lofty as Mailer and Greer, and similarly not to be messed with. On the sides of the stage, Erin Mullin, Gareth Hobbs and Enver Chakartash are voices of scattered audience members, and a kissing partner of Jills. Mia Fliakos, Aris daughter (who he sweetly holds in his arms at the end), is charming as a small girl disturbed by the violence of the adults around her.The fragments of the 1971 Town Hall event are not reconstituted in total. The company has not simply produced a piece of tub-thumping feminism, positing Mailer as a sexist jerk to be mocked and condemned.

Instead, the Wooster Group cleverly blurs the already blurred lines of that night to tell us something new about fractious masculinity and fractious early modern feminism. It was, like the social media universe of today, a time of so many voices, all jostling for attention. But back then, debates were conducted as debates, as opposed to landing zingers. Now, the notion of debate is more polarized, andwith the political stakes so highthere are few smiles to be had. What seemed like entertaining cultural prize-fights in 1971 are now urgent matters of rights, equality, and dignity being stripped from women and minority communities. If there is a nostalgia about The Town Hall Affair it might be a nostalgia about discourse. Here are a group of peopleall well-known writers and cultural avatarswith opposing views, willing to talk. They may not totally respect one another. They may not understand one another. They are also arrogantGreers putdown of one sexist in the audience is wonderfulbut they are also an chaotic compendium of our own clashing political and cultural beliefs. The night might be a car-crash of personalities, but all its participants leave unscathed, smiling to themselves as the evening ends.In contrast, in todays extremity-filled echo chamber we demand the right to speak having willingly forsaken the ability to listen.
She was the symbol of a movement.

On May 30, 1989, 10 art students unveiled the Goddess of Democracy in the middle of Tiananmen Square in Beijing. She stood 30-feet tall, her arms raised to hold her torch high, her eyes staring unwaveringly into those of Mao Zedong, whose portrait hung on the opposite building. The statue rallied the flagging protestors, helping them to reinvigorate their pro-democracy movement in the face of exhaustion and government opposition.

And then, five days later, she watched as hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers invaded the camp, shooting down students and ultimately bringing down the goddess herself.

The protests had started two months earlier, in mid-April, after the death of Hu Yaobang, a Chinese politician who had been forced to resign from his position two years earlier over criticism that he was too sympathetic toward students and intellectuals.

While the movement would eventually end with a bloody roar in Beijing, protests were launched in several cities throughout the country.

For nearly two months, students, intellectuals, journalists, and others who sympathized with the activists call for greater rights and government transparency staged protests and boycotts.

In Beijing, these activities centered around Tiananmen Square, the site of many of the countrys most important historical events, from Maos creation of the Peoples Republic in 1949 to earlier student protests dating back to 1919.

The 1989 protests had launched with the force of the students passionate convictions, but, by the end of May, they were starting to wind down.

The students and their supporters were tired. They had put themselves on the line, their lives on hold, for months, and their initial energy and zeal was starting to leech away as more and more people left the square. There were murmurings that it all might be coming to an end.

But not everyone was ready to give up the fight. In a piece written on May 30, 1989, The Wall Street Journal reported that a core group of students had hoped they could keep the protests going through June 20, when the standing committee of the National Peoples Congress was scheduled to meet. But in order to do that, they needed a rallying cry to unite and reinvigorate the movement. They needed a piece of arta symbolthat would represent what they were fighting for.

Over four days and nights, 10 students from Beijings Central Academy of Fine Arts got to work building a statue that would do just that.

The result was a towering white statue of a woman, her one-shoulder dress artfully draped down her body. Her left arm reached across her chest to grasp the bottom of the torch held high in her righta two-handed grip on the flame of democracy.

Her hair billowed out to one side and her facewhich was detailed with Western featuresgazed determinedly over the crowd.

The artists made the choice to construct the statue out of plaster and Styrofoam, a decision that may be attributed partly to speed, but one that also had another benefitthe massive structure would be harder to dismantle.

The students regard the statue as a public relations coup: either it will remain and symbolize the democracy movement and official weakness; or the authorities will be in the embarrassing position of sending the police to attack the Goddess of Democracy and Freedom with sledgehammers, Nicholas Kristoff wrote in The New York Times on May 30, 1989.

On the night of May 30, the remaining protestors in Tiananmen Square became curious when they noticed a wooden scaffolding being built in the middle of the square. Soon after, a crew of tricycle carts came riding into the courtyard, ferrying sections of the goddess from the art school to her new home. It took all night, but piece-by-piece, the Goddess of Democracy took shape.

Reporter Steve Futterman was on the scene that night covering the events of the protest. In a 2009 article on The Huffington Post, he recounted watching this momentous event unfold. It was a slow, arduous process, yet virtually no one left the square, so enraptured were they by the power if [sic] this papier-mache Goddess. The crowd cheered each time a new section was put in place.

The reaction was immediate. Futterman remembers that tens of thousands of ordinary Beijing citizens, people who had played no active role in the protests, quickly flocked to the square to see the statue.

She signifies hope for China, 22-year-old Y. H. Yang told The New York Times. But shes behind schedule in reaching the square, and shes coming by tricycle. That is symbolic of the slowness and backwardness of the democratization process in China.

This new symbol injected a fresh wave of hope and energy into the movement. Tiananmen Square filled back up and the protest enjoyed a new sense of resolve, one bolstered by the tall white beacon of democracy standing vigil in their center.

The Chinese government, predictably, was not so moved. They called the artistic expression an abomination and reiterated that this is China, not America, a fact that surely did not need to be reiterated to those who had given the previous couple of months to the fight for democracy.

But less than four days later, the government decided to intervene and end the stand-off. Premier Li Peng ordered tanks and thousands of soldiers to break up the protestors Tiananmen Square camp on the night of June 3 and into the next day.

There were reports that locals rushed into the streets to try to slow down the soldiers and provide a barricade for the students. But they were no match for the military force, which began firing into the crowds.

To this day, the exact number who lost their lives in the Tiananmen Square Massacre is unknown. Estimates range from the hundreds to the thousands, with thousands more injured and arrested.

Among the death toll that night was the Goddess of Democracy. Her end was televised as a tank rammed into her base and the statue toppled over, face forward.

While the government ultimately prevailed that day, the Goddess of Democracy remains a symbol of the freedom that the Chinese students were fighting for during those protests over two decades ago.

In the following years, cities and countries around the world, from Hong Kong to Canada to San Francisco, constructed replicas of the statue in their own public spaces.

But the Goddess of Democracy remains banished from Chinaat least for now.

The 10 artists knew their plaster and Styrofoam creation wouldnt last forever. In a statement they issued when the statue was unveiled, they revealed their hopes that a more permanent replacement would eventually be created.

On the day when real democracy and freedom come to China, we must erect another Goddess of Democracy here in the Square, monumental, towering, and permanent. We have strong faith that that day will come at last, they wrote. In the meantime, they implored, Chinese people, arise! Erect the statue of the Goddess of Democracy in your millions of hearts!
Jess Herbst was not expecting to become the first openly transgender mayor in Texasat least not yet.

But when the previous mayor of the tiny 673-person town of New Hope passed away from a heart attack last May, she had already quietly undergone a year and a half of hormone replacement therapy to transition from male to female. Herbst, a longtime city councilor then going by the name Jeff, was appointed to finish Hamms term. She faced a crucial choice: Come out or hide.

I certainly wasnt going to stop transitioning, she told The Daily Beast. That was just not an option. So I really thought that the only thing I could do was to just come out on my own terms to the town and see if I could control the message.

That message came in the form of a letter to the townpublished on the New Hope website at the start of Februaryin which Herbst declared, I am transgender. Several close friends were already familiar with that fact, but the letter made it official.

I use the name Jess, a simple change from Jeff, she joked in the message.

Herbsts story has since attracted international media attention, with outlets from The New York Times to the BBC seeking her out for interviews. She doesnt quite see what all the fuss is aboutIm just someone who came out as trans in a tiny little town; theres nothing really special about me, she told The Daily Beastand she hopes that the TV crews roaming the streets of New Hope dont hurt her re-election chances.

But self-deprecate as she might, Herbsts story is a big dealnot just for LGBT people for whom she represents an important political precedent, but for anyone lingering under the misconception that anti-transgender legislation is a top priority in small-town America.

Indeed, Herbsts situation might seem paradoxical to some coastal liberals: She lives in a county that favored Trump over Clinton by a 17-point marginand in a state currently considering an extreme anti-transgender bathroom bill known as SB6and yet she told The Daily Beast that she has had no negative reactions in person from anyone since she came out. In fact, Herbst, her wife, and her two daughters, appear to be having a grand old time in New Hope, Texas.

Thats not so tough for Herbst to understand, however. A town of New Hopes size has its priorities straightand while anti-LGBT sentiment can certainly be stoked, its much further down on that list.

What were concerned with here is the neighbors got a car in the front yard on blocks, this house is falling apart, somebodys trying to buy a piece of property thats half an acre in a two-acre minimum [area]and the neighbors all have two or three or four acres and they dont want somebody coming in on what they consider too small a lot, she said.

But what about the bathroom bills that were told are being demanded by concerned Texans who want to stop evil restroom predators? Herbst doesnt deny that Republicans in her area might go along with their party on that issue, but having lived in Texas as a closeted transgender woman for many years, shes certain that the demand for those bathroom bills on the right comes from the top-down rather than the bottom-up.

There was no swelling of people from New Hope and Princeton and Melissa and Anna and all these towns saying, Oh my God, we cant let transgenders in the bathroom! she told The Daily Beast. It just doesnt exist.

But once [Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick] says that, she continued, then theyre like, Oh well, thats OK, I voted Republican, my pappy voted Republican.

Indeed, from Herbsts perspective, the sudden push for bathroom legislation is primarily coming from politicians like Patrick who want to shore up support among their base and from anti-LGBT groups like Focus on the Familynot from regular Americans who are worried about the safety of women and girls, as those politicians and groups might want us to believe.

Theyre instilling fear that didnt exist in the first place, said Herbst. People are easily manipulatedespecially by media. If you show them something and if you repeat the same thing to them over and over again, theyll begin to believe it.

Herbsts frustrations echo the feelings of many transgender Americans that the increased visibility of the so-called Transgender Tipping Point in 2014 has given way to a terrifying backlash. Its hard to be excited about increased media exposure for transgender people and well-written transgender television characters when your rights are now under constant attack from state legislatures throughout the country. Its enough to make some transgender people nostalgic for life before the spotlight.

Herbst, for instance, has slowly been living more and more of her life as Jess in North Central Texas without incident for the last decade.

Ive been going to the womens room for 10 years in Dallas, Fort Worth, and McKinney, and I have never even had a second look, she recalled. I do okay these days but when I first started coming out, it was pretty obvious [that I was transgender], and even then people were kinda like, Eh. It was not something that was bothering them.

To counteract the current fear-driven backlash, Herbst believes that the public needs to hear more stories like hers. Over the past few years, the media has fixated on transgender celebrities like Caitlyn Jenner, who congratulated Herbst last week, and on controversial topics like transitioning children, so its the everyday stories that tend to get lost in the shufflestories of people like Herbst, a Texan who knew she was transgender before she knew the word transgender, who has been married for 36 years to a supportive spouse, and who put transition on hold to raise children but finally realized she had no choice but to be herself.

(Its like Im free, Herbst said her wife told her last weekend. Its like were free. And her children have become her fiercest defenders.)

In a country with at least 1.4 million transgender adults, there are hundreds of thousands of stories like hers for every transgender model.

I really think thats where we are in the transgender movement right now is the realization, by the public that we are just regular peopleand that there are plenty of us, said Herbst.

Once Herbst has survived her 15 minutes in the spotlight, its back to the work of being mayor. When asked what was on her agenda going forward, she gave The Daily Beast a long and complicated answer about zoning laws and coding enforcementnot exactly sexy issues but, in New Hope, big ones.

Being transgender has nothing to do with my job, she said. The car on blocks and the house next door are way more important than what Im wearing.
President Donald Trumps deportation force promise may be coming true.

Over the last five days, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conducted what they call an enforcement surge in the Los Angeles area, arresting more than 160 undocumented immigrants. Immigrants rights groups and lawyers told The Daily Beast that ICE also increased its enforcement activitiesincluding, in some cases, in apartment buildingsin a number of cities around the country, including Atlanta, Phoenix, Charlotte, and Austin.

ICE officials and the White House say this is normal. Activists, lawyers, and members of Congress say its a major changeand likely just the beginning.

The muscle to do this kind of stuff is hereits just that the leash has been taken off, said Sarah Owings, an immigration attorney in Atlanta. Theyre out and theyre hunting.

Owings said upward of 40 undocumented immigrants have been detained in the Savanna, Georgia, area over the last two days, according to the family of an undocumented immigrant currently detained there. And she said she knows of two apartment complexes with high concentrations of Latino residents where ICE officers went door-to-door looking for specific individuals. When people opened their doors, Owings said, the ICE officers would ask everyone present to show proof that they were in the United States legally.

Theyre picking up and rounding up anyone they can get, she said.

In a statement, an ICE spokesperson criticized recent media coverage of the Los Angeles apprehensions.

The rash of recent reports about purported ICE checkpoints and random sweeps are false, dangerous, and irresponsible, the spokesperson said. These reports create panic and put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger. Individuals who falsely report such activities are doing a disservice to those they claim to support.

On Feb. 9, an ICE official told reporters on background that reports the agency arrested 100 people in the Los Angeles area that day were grossly exaggerated. Virginia Kice, an ICE spokesperson, told The Daily Beast there were 38 arrests in the L.A. area that day.

Kice and Michael Short, a White House senior assistant press secretary, both told The Daily Beast that the enforcement activities were routine.

Many immigration activists and Capitol Hill Democrats say they doubt that. Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona, told The Daily Beast that among his conference, theres not much confidence in the agencys statements. And Bob Libal, the executive director of Grassroots Leadershipa group based in Austin that opposes immigrant detention and deportationsaid he suspected the agency may have targeted Austin because of frustration over the county sheriffs recently announced refusal to comply with ICEs detainer requests.

Libal said his group estimates that about two dozen undocumented immigrants have been arrested by ICE agents on Feb. 9 and 10.

We have a deportation defense hotline and its ringing off the hook, he said.

He added that he wasnt aware of a time in recent memory when that many undocumented immigrants were arrested in Austin in such a short period of time.

This is a level of intimidation that seems new, he said. And our community is not going to be intimidated.

It very much feels retaliatory, he added. It feels like a vicious attack.

Grijalva said he thought the enforcement surge may be a response to Trumps recent defeat in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel moved unanimously to block enforcement of his travel ban.

Every time he gets hit politically, like in the 9th Circuit, his reaction is to go back to that mantra and use it and use it, Grijalva said, of Trumps anti-immigrant rhetoric during the campaign. Except now its not campaign rhetoric.

Im not a conspiracy-theory person, he added. But it walks like a duck. Its gotta be a duck.

Short said thats completely wrong.

They are routine, enforcement operations targeting criminals, Short said. Rep. Grijalvas comments couldnt be further from the truth.

Kice said ICEs enforcement activities are motivated solely by public safety and law enforcement concerns.

Our enforcement operations are lead-driven and they are targeted, she said.

And David Marin, who helps head ICEs Los Angeles field office, told reporters on a conference call on Friday evening that the L.A. enforcement activity was nothing out of the ordinary.

These are targeted enforcement operations, nothing different than what weve been doing for the past five, six, seven years, he said.

Immigration activists point to one of Trumps first executive orders as the impetus behind the enforcement surge. In a blog post, Azadeh Erfani of the Capital Area Immigrants Rights Coalition wrote that the presidents Jan. 25 executive order titled Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States made upward of 8 million undocumented immigrants top priorities for deportation.

Our immigrant community likely will experience the paradox of being both at the margins of society and the target of law enforcement, Erfani wrote.

Trump hasnt kept all his immigration-crackdown campaign promises; despite making it a key campaign issue, the president has yet to undo the temporary deportation protections that President Barack Obama made available to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.

A staffer for a Democratic congressional office that frequently criticized the Obama administrations immigration enforcement practices said the weeks enforcement uptick was uniquely concerning. He said that though the ICE conducted raids that resulted in dozens of arrests during Obamas presidency, this particular surge worries activists because its happening in so many cities around the country at the same time and in the wake of Trumps executive order. Some Hill Democrats worry this could be the new normal, he added.

Owings said she shares that concernto a limit.

It will happen until the beds are full, she said. Theyll have to stop at some point, right?
Obama Calls Out Dr. Oz for Selling Political Snake Oil

GET ELECTED WITH THIS SIMPLE TRICK!

The former president took shots at Dr. Oz for his endorsement of quack medical products while campaigning for John Fetterman in Pittsburgh.
"There were 45 incidents in 2016 including 7 blasts, 3 instances of track tampering, 27 cases of sabotage and attempt to sabotage and 8 agitation related incidents. In 2017, in the first 40 days there have already been 16 cases and this is abnormally high," Mohammed Jamshed, Member Traffic, Railway Board told India Today.

By Gaurav C Sawant: Terming it as 'abnormally high', a top Railways official told India Today that most of these instances have occurred in non-traditional left wing extremism (LWE) affected areas, and do not carry the signature of Maoist subversive activities.

"There were 45 incidents in 2016 including 7 blasts, 3 instances of track tampering, 27 cases of sabotage and attempt to sabotage and 8 agitation related incidents. In 2017, in the first 40 days there have already been 16 cases and this is abnormally high," Mohammed Jamshed, Member Traffic, Railway Board told India Today.

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The stunning revelation by Bihar police about a suspected Pakistan's notorious counter intelligence agency ISI plot to spread terror on the rail tracks has led to Railways transfer sensitive cases to the NIA. "Explosives kept at the track in East Champaran, the derailment of the Patna-Indore express on November 21 near Kanpur and the Koneru derailment have all been referred to the NIA," sources said. Subsequently with iron rails being found placed across the railway track, to cause derailment of another train in Mumbai, the CBI has been roped in to probe the matter.

On Saturday, Gelatin sticks were found next to the railway track near Mumbai prompting the Railways and Maharashtra police to launch investigations. The Indian Railways is spread over 1,10,000 track kilometers across the country.

"There are three traditional trouble spots. The North Frontier pocket - Upper Assam has Bodo and ULFA agitation. The Asansol to Gaya track and the Dantewada-Jagdalpur track where Maoists carry out their subversive activities are 3 pockets of trouble. However, more often than note, Maoists issue a warning in advance before they remove fish plate or destroy rail tracks. Their aim appears to be to cause more damage to infrastructure than people," sources added. What is alarming this time is the loss of life and no one claiming responsibility for the incidents. Like the one in Mumbai, there have been instances of big boulders being brought from elsewhere and deliberately put on tracks. Also read: Terror angle in Kanpur train tragedy: NIA, IB on hunt for recruiter in derailment cases

KANPUR TRAIN TRAGEDY

The NIA has sought cooperation from the Nepal police in connection with the interrogation of Shamul Hoda, a suspected ISI operative arrested in Dubai and deported to Nepal late last week. Hoda is suspected to be the mastermind of an ISI plot to derail trains and cause massive loss of life in India.

The Bihar police initially busted three people - Motilal Paswan, Umashankar Patel and Mukesh Yadav for reportedly planting explosives on the rail track in east Champaran. Fortunately the explosives were detected and a tragedy averted. On sustained interrogation the three confessed to having allegedly been paid by Brij Kishore Giri, their handler in Nepal who in turn had been paid by Shafi Sheikh and Shamsul Hoda.

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According to officials in the Bihar police, the three had been paid Rs 3 lakh each for planting the explosives. Simultaneous investigations by the Nepal police revealed that Arun and Deepak Ram were killed on Hoda's instructions for refusing to blast rail tracks and kill people. "Apparently Hoda did not want to leave any trail. Since both Arun and Deepak Ram knew of the plot and refused to carry it out, they were eliminated," sources said. Investigators painstakingly tracked down Hoda in Dubai and intelligence officials kept an eye on his movement and phone conversations. In one conversation Hoda spelt out the plan to derail trains and kill people, the intelligence officials passed on the audio link to their counterparts in the middle-east.

"Hoda was deported to Nepal where the police arrested him for the murder of Arun and Deepak Ram. He is currently being questioned and may be brought face to face with the other suspects in the case to unravel the entire plot," sources added. A team of NIA sleuths is also travelling to Nepal to question Hoda in connection with the Kanpur and Koneru derailments. But with 1,10,000 kilometers of railway track across the country vulnerable to subversive and anti-national elements, the Railways is now desperately working to devise ways to secure the rail line. In a race against time this is a task, easier said than done.

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Also read

Uttar Pradesh: Another train derailment attempt foiled, miscreants try to cut rail track

--- ENDS ---
RBI had earlier said that notes worth Rs 12.44 lakh crore have been deposited till December 10, 2016.

Jaitley said the meeting with the RBI was to discuss the various Budget suggestions and the current economic situation.

By India Today Web Desk: The Reserve Bank of India today said that it needs to be careful before disclosing post-demonetisation deposit figures as they should be verified multiple times, leaving no room for an approximation.

"The number that we should now divulge should be a verified number and congruent with the complex accounting," Governor Urjit Patel said after meeting between RBI Board and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

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"There are tens of thousands of bank branches and 4,000 currency chests. We need to be careful and try that this is a number which is not a mere estimate but a verified number both physically and in the accounting sense," Patel added.

RBI RECAP

RBI had earlier said that notes worth Rs 12.44 lakh crore have been deposited till December 10, 2016.

There were 17,165 million pieces of Rs 500 notes and 6,858 million pieces of Rs 1,000 notes in circulation on November 8, 2016, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the currency revamp announcement.

Also read: RBI keeps repo rate unchanged, lowers GDP growth forecast to 6.9 per cent

Also read: Public Accounts Committee meets RBI Governor: What happened behind closed doors

The total amount of high denomination currency circulating in the system on that day was, thus, Rs 15.44 lakh crore (Rs 8.58 lakh crore in Rs 500 notes and Rs 6.86 lakh crore in Rs 1,000).

Jaitley said the meeting with the RBI was to discuss the various Budget suggestions and the current economic situation.

When asked about RBI not going for a rate cut in its latest monetary policy review on February 8, he said, "All Finance Ministers have the perpetual desire, but at the end we all respect the decision that the RBI takes."

Also read: Government respects RBI's autonomy and independence: Finance Ministry

With input from agencies

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AIADMK chief Sasikala has sought appointment from Governor Vidyasagar Rao with her supporters. She wrote a letter to Rao asking him to act fast towards formation of the new government in Tamil Nadu.

By India Today Web Desk: AIADMK general secretary Sasikala is showing signs of desperation now as she fears more leaders from the party may switch sides to support Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam.

In her letter to Governor Vidyasagar Rao, Sasikala claimed, "I have absolute majority." Sasikala asked the Governor to "act immediately" and call her to form the new government in Tamil Nadu.

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She said that as a proof of majority support, "original letter and true copy of the resolution were also handed over" to the Governor.

READ| Sasikala vs Panneerselvam: Running party, govt my duty, says Chinamma, OPS group gets support of 2 MPs

Sasikala shows her impatience in the letter saying, "seven long days" have passed "since Chief Minister O Panneerselvam submitted" his resignation and Governor accepting the same. She also sought an appointment with Governor Rao by today.

Speaking a little later after she shot off the letter to Governor Rao, Sasikala told her supporters, "When so many of you are with, I won't fear anything."

Sasikala said, "We believed in democracy and justice. That is why we are patient. We can only be patient to a certain extent. If it goes beyond, we will act together and do what we have to do."

ALSO WATCH:

PANNEERSELVAM INVOKES JAYALALITHAA'S 'SOUL'

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu CM Panneerselvam invoked Jayalalithaa to garner more support from the AIADMK cadre and most importantly legislators saying, "Amma's soul is leading us. Truth will win."

After getting minister Pandiarajan's support, Panneerselvam said, "He (Pandiarajan) accepted the people's opinions and supported me. We will stop the government from falling into the hands of one family."

Panneerselvam also said, "After Pandiarajan, each and every MLA will come (to my side). Pandiarajan has come so that the people's revolution succeeds. Pandiarajan has come to add strength to the war of dharma."

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December 21, 1922 - February 8, 2017

Robert Gregg Chilton died in his sleep on Wednesday, February 8, 2017. He was born December 21, 1922 in Springfield, Tennessee to John Cecil and Sarah Mayes Chilton, where he grew up and graduated from Springfield High School in 1941. With assistance from the National Youth Administration, Robert enrolled at Austin Peay State College in Clarksville, Tennessee where he attained a Junior College Diploma in 1943. During that same year, he began pilot training for the US Army Air Force (USAAF), to be commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in April 1944, completing his training as a B-17 pilot assigned to the 486 Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force and deployed to England in January 1945, where he flew bombing missions over Germany through the end of the war in Europebeing awarded four Air Medals for service that had him flying a mission about every other day.

In fall of 1945, the Red Raideras Chilton was nicknamed while serving in Europeenrolled at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts on the GI Bill, where he earned a BS and an MS in Aeronautical Engineering in 1949, and where he was recruited to serve on research teams for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) at Langley Field, Hampton, Virginiamainly for the Stability and Control Branch of the Flight Research Division. Working for NACA on multiple tasks relating to flight research from 1949 through 1958, he had embarked on a career path toward his playing a vital role in the formation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958, transitioning at that time out of NACA's Space Task Group for which he also served. As such, he was to fill key positions in NASA's Project Mercury, the U.S.'s first human spaceflight program, and in the Apollo program that culminated in six lunar landings between Apollo 11 in July, 1969 and Apollo 17 in December, 1972.

Serving with NASA's Space Task Group as Chief over the Flight Dynamics Branch of the Flight Systems Division from 1958-62, Robert was primary in conceptualizing the dynamic between man and machine in pioneering U.S. space flightthat is, in integrating the role of astronauts with automated control systems (computers), operating mutually, neither fully manual nor fully automaticthe astronaut performing "a balanced role," in his words more like "being the captain of the ship and not just the pilot [of the aircraft] . . . making command decisions, monitoring the systems, and supervising navigation and control." With this overlying vision, he was instrumental in specifying the Mercury Capsule control system while also selecting and supervising the contract to incorporate the system into the spacecraft; thus he was named co-inventor of the Mercury Capsule in 1962, one of seven patent holders. Likewise, he initiated and oversaw the contracting for Apollo's navigation and control system in 1961, the first contract for the entire Apollo programthe Apollo guidance system being widely regarded as the most intricate and complex of any of the Apollo subsystems.

With the Apollo program off and running and with Mission Control established at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas, Robert advanced to Assistant Chief of the Spacecraft Technology Division (1962-1965); Deputy Chief of the Guidance and Control Division (1965-1970); and to Chief of the Guidance and Control Division (1970-1973). Finally, the Space Shuttle program getting underway at the end of the Apollo program, he concluded his twenty years at NASA as Chief of the Control Systems Development Division (1973-1978). He then retired from NASA in 1978 to sign on with the college of engineering faculty of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, as Visiting Professor of Aerospace Engineering from 1978-1988. Retiring from the classroom in 1988, professor Chilton stayed on to advise aerospace students through the fall of 1993.

In short, he had a remarkable career and a remarkable life; but Robert Chilton defined himself foremost as a family man: a devoted son and brother, and a devoted husband and father. A friend and a mentor; a teacher and a scoutmaster; a jazz and swing enthusiast, a self-taught carpenter, a model airplane hobbyist and a Buck Rogers romanticisthe lived beautifully and he will be missed.By his love most of all we remember him.

Robert Chilton is preceded in death by his wife of sixty years, Ruth Lee Martin Chilton, and his son, David Lee Chilton; his parents, John Cecil Chilton and Sarah Mayes Chilton; and by his brother-in-law William Curtiss, his nephew James Curtiss, and his sister-in-law Laura Martin Mueller.

He is survived by sons Donald Chilton and wife Patricia, and Lawrence Chilton and wife Lori; his seven grandchildren, Courtney Chilton, Nathaniel Chilton, John Chilton, Brendan Chilton and his daughter Crissy, Robert Chilton, Alec Chilton and wife Kimberlie, and Eli Chilton; his sister, Ann Chilton Curtiss, and his niece, Amy Davidoff; his brother-in-law and sister-in-law, James and Emily Mueller, and his two nephews, Robert Mueller and Andrew Mueller.

A graveside memorial service is to be held at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Heathsville, Virginia on a date yet to be determined. For those who desire, please send contributions in Robert's honor to the Aerospace Engineering Excellence Scholarship Foundation through one of the following links: https://engineering.tamu.edu/aerospace/academics/advising/undergraduate/scholarships

Flowers may be sent to Callaway-Jones Funeral and Cremation Centers at 3001 S. College Ave., Bryan TX, 77801.

Express condolences at CallawayJones.com
Even as support for O Panneerselvam grows, sources say the Sasikala camp may change the chief ministerial candidate. Keep reading for live updates.

By India Today Web Desk: It's the day 5 of the political turmoil in Tamil Nadu where both VK Sasikala and O Panneerselvam have staked claim to the chief minister's chair.

Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao, who must take a decision on whom to invite to become the next chief minister, has maintained an official silence on the issue. However, a note that surfaced Friday night indicate that the governor was not inclined to invite Sasikala to become the chief minister.

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Here's what happened on Saturday:

Tiruvannamalai MP R Vanaroja reaches Panneerselvam's residence, extends support.

Pravin added that he has no intentions of joining the AIADMK and will soon join in the BJP.

A leader who is unanimously elected by the people should stake claim to be the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Pravin said.

MCR Pravin, the grandson of MGR's brother, expressed sadness by the developments in the AIADMK, but said it is not surprising that the demise of a strong leader has led to a vaccum in the party.

Srimathi added that it has now become clear that Sasikala had kept Jayalalithaa away from her close friends.

The late J Jayalalithaa's classmate and close friend Srimathi spoke to India Today, saying she is very hurt with the developments in Tamil Nadu. She backed Panneerselvam, calling him the best candidate for the chief minister's chair.

Please wait and watch: VK Sasikala on question if she will look for legal remedies

From tomorrow onwards, we would begin a new kind of protest. Delaying tactics is an attempt to create divisions in party: Sasikala

From tomorrow onwards,we would begin a new kind of protest. Delaying tactics is an attempt to create divisions in party: Sasikala pic.twitter.com/LIv57fmAXD ANI (@ANI_news) 11 February 2017 All party MLAs are fine and happy.We are waiting patiently till this moment for a reply from the Governor. Needed measures will be taken: Sasikala

The created time lag looks like it was intended to create a split in the party says VK Sasikala.

AIADMK tweets: After meeting the party MLAs,I feel happy says VK Sasikala

I extend my support to our leader Paneerselvam, who continues to walk on the path of our beloved leader Amma: Sathyabama,AIADMK MP

AIADMK General Secretary Sasikala reaches Poes Garden.

In order to maintain peace and public order, Chennai police has intensified patrolling across the city.

Another MP joins Panneerselvam camp. V Sathyabama of Tirupur meets the caretaker chief minister at his residence, extends her support.

BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who has backed VK Sasikala's claim to the Tamil Nadu CM's office, had an approximately 30-minute meeting with Governor Vidyasagar Rao at Raj Bhavan.

It will be proper if she takes responsibility, will help in achieving party's goal: TN MLA Rengasamy after meeting with Sasikala

Only OPS has the capacity to lead the party. He was selected by Amma herself: Ponnaiyan

Only Sasikala was able to see Jayalalithaa. None of us were able to meet the CM: AIADMK leader Ponnaiyan

During Vardah cyclone Pannerselvam immediate relief measures won the hearts of people in Tamil Nadu. He also supported youth during jallikattu: Ponnaiyan

Youngsters are supporting Pannerselvam, all the party members and supporters are with him with the blessings of Amma: Ponnaiyan

People have been praising Pannerselvam for handling admin very well: Ponnaiyan

Only 1.5 crore cadres can elect the General Secretary of AIADMK. No one else can be GS as per party bylaws: Ponnaiyan

Speaking to the media at his residence on Thursday, Panneerselvam said, "Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden residence will be converted into a memorial."

Volunteers present say Panneerselvam will sign the banner, after which people will be allowed to sign as well.

Supporters at Panneerselvam's house have brought a banner demanding that Poes Garden - residence of the late J Jayalalithaa - be converted into a memorial.

Sasikala chaired a meeting with party MLAs on the next set of actions to be taken, at Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur.

#TamilNadu: VK Sasikala chaired a meeting with party MLAs on the next set of actions to be taken, at Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur. pic.twitter.com/UsS5aQ9kts ANI (@ANI_news) 11 February 2017 Ponnaiyan has extended support to Panneerselvam.

Support for O Panneerselvam is growing. Now, C Ponnaiyan, one of the founding members of the AIADMK, met the caretaker Tamil Nadu chief minister at the latter's house.

According to sources, Sasikala is unhappy after the meeting with the AIADMK MLAs.

Radhakrishnan said the governor is merely taking time as his decision will decide the fate of the state. 'He is taking opinion of the legal side and he will take a decision,' he added.

Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan has said that he doesn't think Governor Vidyasagar Rao is waiting for the outcome of the DA case against Sasikala.

Sasikala, however, has not been allotted an appointment yet.

Tamil Nadu: Inside visuals of the Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur, VK Sasikala present along with MLAs. Slogans raised in support of Sasikala pic.twitter.com/QIYkH8wfW8 ANI (@ANI_news) 11 February 2017 Security outside the Tamil Nadu Raj Bhavan increased on reports that Sasikala and her supporters may come to meet Governor Vidyasagar Rao.

Sasikala's meeting with the MLAs gets over.

Sources indicate that the Sasikala camp may change the chief minister's candidate after discussing with the MLAs.

Tamil Nadu Education Minister K Pandiarajan, who earlier switched to Team Panneerselvam, said their numbers will be more than what they are today and they will end up the support of 135 MLAs.

Maitreyan said, "She (Sasikala) has threatened the Tamil Nadu Governor, a constitutional authority. We urge the President of India, Prime Minister, Home Minister to take severe action against her for threatening the state Governor."

AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP V. Maitreyan, who has lent his support to Panneerselvam, urged the President of India to take "severe action" against party General Secretary VK Sasikala.

Sasikala reaches the Golden Bay resort where 130 AIADMK MLAs are currently located. The Sasikala camp had on Wednesday night whisked the MLAs away to the resort to prevent them from engaging with O Panneerselvam.

Sasikala, in her letter to the Governor, has sought appointment to parade MLAs before him.

AIADMK General Secretary VK Sasikala has written to Governor C Vidyasagar Rao asking him to act fast in the interest of Tamil Nadu.

The rebel Panneerselvam faction got a boost with two AIADMK MPs - PR Sundaram (from Namakkal) and Ashok Kumar (from Krishnagiri) extending their support to OPS.

Tamil Nadu Education Minister K Pandiarajan, who earlier backed Sasikala, jumped sides today to join Team Panneerselvam.

The note cites, among other issues, the pending DA case against Sasikala in which the Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling next week.

On Friday night, a note surfaced indicated that Governor Rao is not inclined to call Sasikala to be chief minister.

(With inputs from agencies)

Also read: The enigma of Sasikala

Also watch: Chinnamma's rise in Tamil Nadu and how she emerged from Jaya's shadow

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--- ENDS ---
Iowa Poll: Tom Miller narrowly leads Brenna Bird in AG race

Forty-seven percent of likely Iowa voters support Tom Miller, the incumbent Democrat, while 45% support Brenna Bird, the Republican challenger.
By India Today Web Desk: The Khans are the most formidable force in Bollywood, and when Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan come together, you know it is epic. SRK took the internet by storm when he tweeted a selfie of himself with the Dangal actor and captioned it, "Known each other for 25 years and this is the first picture we have taken together of ourselves. Was a fun night."

Known each other for 25 years and this is the first picture we have taken together of ourselves. Was a fun night. pic.twitter.com/7aYKOFll1a Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) February 10, 2017

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Both the superstars were in Dubai to ring in the birthday of their friend, entrepreneur Ajay Bijli. Filmmaker Karan Johar took to Twitter to share a picture from the bash.

Happy 50 Ajay!! Have the best decade ever!! It was such a fun evening!!! pic.twitter.com/zQN6MJPIjr Karan Johar (@karanjohar) February 10, 2017

While both SRK and Aamir are close to Salman Khan, their own rapport was something of a question mark. In fact, Aamir raised eyebrows when he wrote on his blog, "Shahrukh is licking my feet." Although he went on to clarify that Shahrukh was the name of their dog, rumours of their rivalry spread like wildfire. However, the two seem to have bonded in the recent past, with SRK even praising Aamir's Dangal physique.

ALSO READ | SRK-Salman get close, Aamir left out: Two's a company, three a crowd?

ALSO READ | Aamir Khan says he would love to work with Shah Rukh Khan

ALSO WATCH | SRK, Aamir come together for Big B

--- ENDS ---
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In celebration of Black History Month, the Norwalk Historical Society has scheduled a lecture on the life of Ebenezer D. Bassett, a pioneering black educator who served as the United States first black diplomat after the Civil War.

Carolyn Ivanoff, an award-winning local historian and educator, will deliver a discussion, entitled The Life and Times of a Quiet American Hero  Ebenezer D. Bassett, at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 15. Tickets to the event cost $5 at the door.

Ivanoff was named the Civil War Trusts Civil War Teacher of the Year in 2003, according to the Historical Society. During the talk, Ivanoff will recount Bassetts life from his birth in Derby on through his adult years.

The talk is to be held at the Norwalk Historical Society at 141 East Ave. Seating for the event is limited and those wishing to attend are asked to RSVP in advance.

In the event of bad weather, a makeup date has been scheduled for 6 p.m. on Feb. 22.

To RSVP or to learn more, email info@norwalkhistoricalsociety.org or call 203-846-0525.

SOUTH NORWALK

The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is seeking citizen-scientist volunteers who will leap at the chance to participate in a new FrogWatch census this spring and summer.

The FrogWatch effort is a collaboration between The Maritime Aquarium, Connecticuts Beardsley Zoo and Yales Peabody Museum of Natural History to monitor area frog populations.

The organizations are seeking volunteers willing to make regular visits to wetlands in their neighborhoods where frogs typically can be heard calling.

FrogWatch volunteers will visit their wetlands once or twice a week for about 15 minutes this spring and summer, beginning a half-hour after sunset each night. Though kids can help, older children are recommended because, in summer, a half-hour after sunset can be after 9 p.m.

Participants dont need to know anything about frogs to sign up. Those interested can learn about the native species  and what will be asked of volunteers - during upcoming training sessions, each from 7 to 9 p.m.

Training sessions will be held at the Maritime Aquarium on Wednesday, Feb. 22. If you miss this session, there will also be training sessions at the Beardsley Zoo on Wednesday, March 1, and at the Peabody Museum of Natural History on Wednesday, March 8.

The trainings are free to members of the three organizations, or $10 for non-member families.

Pre-registration is required at least one week before your desired session. Sign up online at peabody.yale.edu/events/become-a-frogwatch-citizen-scientist.

FrogWatch USA is a nationwide citizen-scientist program that provides individuals, families and groups with opportunities to learn about wetlands in their communities by reporting on the calls of local frogs and toads. Observations are reported to a national online database to contribute to amphibian-conservation efforts.

FrogWatch USA has chapters all across America, hosted by zoos, aquariums, nature centers and other organizations accredited by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums.

ROWAYTON

Do you keep losing that argument with your friend over the U.S. and their current trade policies, or are you just looking brush up on whats going on with the country outside of its borders?

The Rowayton Library is looking to help you on your journey toward enlightenment, with their Great Decisions discussion series.

Great Decisions is Americas largest discussion program on world affairs. Participants receive a briefing book (available in January) that provides participants with background information and policy options for the eight most critical issues facing America each year.

The library holds discussions twice a month on Wednesdays from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Rowayton Library.

Erik Rambusch facilitates the discussion groups. The dates and topics to be discussed include a February 15 talk on trade policy and a discussion next month scheduled for March 1, on the South China Sea.

Space is limited so please register for the program on www.rowayton.org. You can also find a complete list of dates for future Great Decisions talks on the website.

EAST NORWALK

As the General Assembly works to right the state economy, residents across Connecticut have grown increasingly concerned with what the future holds in store.

To address this and other issues head on, state Rep. Fred Wilms, R-Norwalk, will take to the stage on Wednesday, Feb. 15 at the latest meeting of the Norwalk Exchange Club.

Wilms will update attendees on the current state of affairs in Hartford, Gov. Dannel P. Malloys latest budget proposal and more at 7 p.m. at the Norwalk Inn and Conference Center, located at 99 East Ave. in Norwalk.

The event is free to Exchange members, but guests will have to pay $30, which includes dinner.

The Norwalk Exchange Club is a member organization of the National Exchange Club, first formed in Detroit, Michigan in 1911 and was chartered in Norwalk in October 1946.

For information on this meeting or the club, call Jerry Toni, club president at 203-424-1122 or visit the web site at www.exchangeclub.com.

Share your neighborhood news

To share your community and neighborhood news with The Hour, contact staff writer Pat Tomlinson at 203-354-1046, or at ptomlinson@hearstmediact.com.
NORWALK  As part of its month-long celebration of Black History Month during February, NCC takes a trip back in time to the Harlem Renaissance in hosting The Core Ensemble as they perform a chamber music theatre work, Of Ebony Embers: Vignettes of the Harlem Renaissance. The performance, sponsored by the NCC Foundation, will be held Thursday, Feb. 16 at 4 p.m. in the PepsiCo Theater on East Campus.

Celebrating the music and poetry of the Harlem Renaissance era in New York City, Of Ebony Embers examines the lives of three outstanding but very different African American poets  -Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and Claude McKay  as seen through the eyes of the great painter and muralist Aaron Douglas.
NORWALK  Norwalk Hospital is offering a free smoking cessation program beginning on Thursday, March 30, in the third floor respiratory classroom in the Section of Pulmonary Medicine at the hospital. The program consists of eight weekly sessions in the evening at 6 p.m.

The hospitals Section of Pulmonary Medicine offers the smoking cessation program free of charge as a community service. The instructor is Beverly Jacoby, registered respiratory therapist and Cheri Werbesky, CRT of the Section of Pulmonary Medicine.
NORWALK  On the surface, it seemed Gov. Dannel P. Malloys budget plan was a big win for Norwalk Public Schools.

But cuts to some funding sources and a huge change in the way teacher retirement plans are funded has district officials concerned that Norwalks financial future isnt as rosy as it first seemed.

Under Malloys budget proposal, Norwalk would gain about $6.5 million in combined special education aid and redistributed funding in Education Cost Sharing. But Tom Hamilton, chief financial officer for Norwalk Public Schools, said that number is misleading and, based on the school districts own analysis, the proposed budget would result in an increase of just over $3 million in net aid for the district.

That number is lower and the reason is one of the things we didnt know until getting more information was that the governor has proposed creating a new special education grant and is indicating we are expected to get 5.8 million, Hamilton said. But along with that, he has proposed eliminating the special education excess cost grant  thats a grant that for the current year we had assumed we would receive $3.5 million. So with that, we estimate our new special education budget would be $5.842 million, which is a $2.3 million net increase in special education funding.

The district will also receive a small increase in overall ECS funding of about $700,000, bringing the total net increase in district aid to about $3 million.

The ECS formula, which determines funding levels based on factors like property values and area wealth, has been scrutinized for its unfair portrayal of district need. Norwalk has become somewhat of a poster child for the need to rewrite the formula. The formula has been rewritten slightly, but not to the degree Hamilton believes is necessary to equitably fund Norwalk schools.

More Information Estimated state funding per pupil (ECS+SpEd grant) =$1,521 Expected local contribution to teacher pensions per pupil = $788 Net municipal impact = -$5.2 million net change for FY17-18 over FY16-17 Source: Connecticut School Finance Project See More Collapse

Certainly we look at the ECS formula and believe there are still inequities in that formula, Hamilton said. The formula still does not adequately capture the real need in the community, so we would love to see further changes in the ECS formula that more appropriately reflect the need of our school district.

The new education funding formula is said to be based on actual student enrollment, something absent from the school funding equation for more than a decade, and counts poverty in a different way. Instead of basing need on the number of school children qualifying for school lunch subsidies, it looks to the number who qualify for HUSKY medical insurance assistance. Hamilton said about 50 percent of Norwalk students are eligible for free and reduced lunch, but only about 44 percent qualify for HUSKY medical insurance assistance, a discrepancy the district is looking into.

Were glad to see the proposed changes to the formula are capturing enrollment growth, Hamilton said. But on the other hand, the formula still weighs property value at 90 percent and income at 10 percent and thats a formula we dont agree represents the need of the community  here in Norwalk, because were in Fairfield County we have a lot of people who are house rich and cash poor.

Katie Roy, director and founder of the Connecticut School Finance Project, a New Haven-based nonprofit that tracks Connecticut public education spending, said she had hoped for a more comprehensive review of the ECS formula.

Theyve tweaked the ECS formula rather than looking at the school finance system comprehensively, Roy said. Getting to a logical, unified, non-arbitrary funding system for all of the public schools that we have in our state is going to require a comprehensive look at the school finance system.

In addition to lower net funding than originally anticipated, Malloys budget would shift the cost burden for teacher pensions to municipalities and, by association, school districts.

The state currently pays 100 percent of the employer share of teacher pensions, but under the new proposal, municipalities would contribute one third of the employer share costs. In Norwalk, this would cost the city and the district about $9 million, ultimately resulting in a net loss of more than $5 million, according to an analysis by the Connecticut School Finance Project.

Malloy has also proposed a policy that would have municipalities levy property taxes against hospitals. In Norwalk that would generate $9.9 million in revenue for the city, which would theoretically be used to offset the pension costs, Hamilton said.

Its our understanding that the governor has proposed municipalities pick up one-third of the required contributions into state teachers retirement, but he has also proposed municipalities levy a property tax on hospitals, Hamilton said. Those two issues are in some senses tied together the way we read it.

kkrasselt@scni.com; 203-354-1021; @kaitlynkrasselt
Chavan criticised both BJP and Sena for ignoring work and welfare of people and only indulging in self-aggrandizing politics.

By Mayuresh Ganapatye: Amid the Shiv Sena and BJP tug of power war ahead of BMC polls in Maharashtra, trying to regain some lost ground, Congress today held a press conference headed by former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.

Chavan criticised both BJP and Sena for ignoring work and welfare of people and only indulging in self-aggrandizing politics.

Press conference

WHAT DID CHAVAN SAY "Shiv Sena is solely responsible for non development of Mumbai. Congress is not going to support Sena if they withdraw BJP's support. We are against Shiv Sena that's why we are contesting against them," said Chavan. Attacking Fadnavis government he said that they were taking credit for projects which were initiated under the tenure of Congress-NCP government, like coastal roads, Indu Mill, Shivaji Memorial among others. "Modi govt has failed to keep their promise. They were supposed to generate 2.50 lakh jobs every year but in last two-and-half years, they have managed to generate only 1.50 lakh," he added further. "PM should apologize for insulting former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh," fired Chavan on Modi's raincoat comment on Singh. "Sena leaders who are talking about resignation, don't have guts to actually do it. Carrying resignation in pocket is just a joke," he further said in a scathing attack on Shiv Sena. The former Maharashtra chief minister blamed the Sena-BJP alliance for all the problems that Mumbaikers complain of, including road conditions, traffic and corruption in local civic bodies.

--- ENDS ---

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NORWALK  A Norwalk woman is facing charges for threatening to kill her ex-boyfriend and their infant with a large kitchen knife, police said.

Police responded to the residence of Zulma Chavez-Perez, 26, at approximately 12:32 a.m. on Feb. 11 for a reported domestic disturbance.

Chavez-Perezs ex-boyfriend, who has full custody of the infant, told police that an argument broke out after he had received a text from another woman while picking up the baby from his exs house.

As Chavez-Perez began to grow more animated over the text, the babys father took out his phone and began to tape the incident.

The phone footage, which was shown to police when they arrived, showed Chavez-Perez trying to slap the father in the face. When the slap attempt was blocked, Chavez-Perez picked up the infant and retreated to the kitchen, where she grabbed a large kitchen knife and threatened to kill both the infant, who she was still holding in her left arm, and the father.

By the time police arrived on scene, the confrontation had ended and Chavez-Perez had attempted to hide the knife in the sink under a pile of dirty dishes.

Chavez-Perez was charged with two counts of second-degree threatening, risk of injury to a minor and disorderly conduct. She was held on a $25,000 bond, and is expected in court on Feb. 14.

The incident was also reported to the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, whom police said has had previous encounters with Chavez-Perez, and the domestic violence hotline.

ptomlinson@hearstmediact.com; 203-354-1046; Twitter: @Tomlinson_PE
A total of 15 districts and 73 Assembly seats of Uttar Pradesh would vote in the first phase of elections.

By India Today Web Desk: Elections in Uttar Pradesh (UP), with 138 million voters, greater than the population of Mexico, start today. The fight for UP will be the most closely watched - not only because the outcome will have direct implications on the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in the Centre but also due to the bitter family feud in Samajwadi Party and the recent SP-Congress alliance.

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This Assembly election also holds importance for Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati as the BSP has always been a strong contender on the nine seats of Agra district and a defeat could well pronounce the death-knells for the BSP as well.

Predicting doom for BSP in UP Assembly elections, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said Mayawati's party was fighting a "lost battle," and termed SP-Congress alliance as "opportunist".

ALSO READ | Uttar Pradesh election: PM Modi makes last ditch effort to woo the sulking Jats, small traders

A total of 15 districts and 73 Assembly seats of Uttar Pradesh would vote in the first phase of elections.

All 26 seats of the Braj region will vote on February 11 and although this number may appear small the results of Braj are of prime importance for the Samajwadi Party which is hoping to gain a lot of ground it has lost here in the past elections.

Another important area that goes to poll today is Muzaffarnagar, which is still limping back to normalcy post the Hindu-Muslim riots that shook it in 2013.

After the carnage, most Muslim families moved out and this has dented their trust and vote to Samajwadi Party, as they blame his governments failure for the massive unrest.

All in all, it is a triangular contest in the state with SP-Congress alliance, the BJP and the BSP.

ALSO READ | Uttar Pradesh Assembly election: BJP faces stiff opposition in western belt

WATCH | Will demonetisation play villain or hero for BJP in UP Assembly elections?

--- ENDS ---
College students have always worried about the Big Talk they might need to have with their parents.

In 1847, a student at the University of Pennsylvania might have had to explain to his parents that he joined one of the literary societies, which, on the eve of the Civil War, debated the role of slavery while pistols lay on the lectern.

In the 1960s, college students were worried about their parents discovering they were having sex.

In the 1970s, college students worried that wed have to tell our parents that not only that were we having sex, but that we were having it with people of a different color, or from a different background or of the same sex.

You know what the Big Talk is for todays students? You know what theyre afraid to reveal to their parental units? The current topic for the Big Talk is telling their parents that theyre going to major in the humanities.

Apparently what people are really terrified of is that their kid is going to end up in the humanities. They think that an English major, for example, is not specialized enough; they think English is something everybody can do.

One of my students said his father asked, How is an English major going to help you? You already speak the language.

Thats as narrow as thinking that anybody could major in biology because you already have a body, or major in math because you know how to count. Its not a valid argument, and English majors would know that, because we know how to make  or counter  an argument.

Although practical experience and the direct application of knowledge are the result of any good education, theyre not necessarily what is most significant about it.

The importance of a good education, especially one heavy in the humanities, is about being able to survey, understand and either strengthen or dismantle the apparatus that underlies our civilization, culture and society.

Only a sense of context informed by history, the ability to understand competing philosophies and an intellectual curiosity can permit us to confront unexamined systemic injustice, manufactured falsehoods and the electing of a meme into a position of enormous political power. Not that Im bitter.

Taking a lot of selfies doesnt mean you live an examined life, and youll remember hearing that an unexamined life is not worth living. That line isnt from Stephen Colbert or Lady Gaga by the way; its Socrates via Plato.

Were in danger of losing our hold on a shared culture because we no longer have a shared basis of knowledge or basis to assess what has actual value. For example, just because you get a lot of retweets doesnt mean your ideas are original, judicious or accurate.

One of the most interesting new presences on Twitter is called @HalfanOnioninaBag, which is exactly what its name indicates. It was created only to garner more Twitter followers than Donald Trump and, in its brief life, it has amassed 768,000 of them.

One terrific aspect of a humanities education is that is allows you to distinguish irony, satire and humor from what is serious. You can distinguish a fraudcast from a broadcast.

Is language important enough to deserve study? Why dont we just listen to what people mean behind the words?

Because how we envision the world depends on how we construct our description of it. Language makes you see things in a certain way  and once youve seen it that way, you cant unsee it. Words can be as irrevocable as an action. They can cut as deeply as a surgeons scalpel.

So what can you do with an English major? The quick answer is: Anything you please. English majors, who know how to read carefully, think critically, write brilliantly, argue convincingly and speak with wit, panache and a vocabulary wide enough to include the word panache are in leadership positions in every field.

Whether in government, academics, business, technology, medicine, the law, teaching, writing or the fine arts, graduates who hold bachelors degrees in English have the erudition, confidence and skills to organize and articulate the worlds most interesting and vital ideas. You can write this down: Our future depends on them.
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Linkedin Jessicha Valentina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11, 2017 08:43 2094 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bf7d543 1 Lifestyle jeweler,jewelry,Valentines-Day,gifts,#ValentinesDay Free

Valentines Day is not only about a bouquet of roses or a romantic dinner. The day is also considered an occasion to shower your significant other half with gifts.

Nothing beats meaningful jewelry when it comes to a Valentines Day present. Here are a few jewelry gift ideas that will make your partner feel much loved.

FOR HER

Pandora cherry blossom ring

In Japanese culture, cherry blossom is recognized as a symbol of a beautiful yet short life. This pink cherry blossom ring from Pandora illustrates this. It tells your partner about how beautiful life is, but, at the same time, the short period of time you have to cherish every second you spend with her.

Plaza Indonesia, Level 1, Jl. MH Thamrin Kav. 28-30, Central Jakarta

Pink cherry blossom ring symbolizes a beautiful and precious life. (Pandora's official website/File)

Amullete de Cartier earrings

The Amullete de Cartier earrings combine a variety of natural gemstones, which symbolize a myriad of wishes. The materials are designed to unite, closing like a padlock to hold luck and unlock wishes. The elegant design makes these earrings suitable for every occasion.

Plaza Senayan ,Level 1,Jl. Asia Afrika No. 8, Central Jakarta

Amullete de Cartier earrings combine a variety of natural gemstones.(Cartier's official website/File)

Read also: Roses? No, try roaches for an unusual Valentine's Day gift

Damiani smoky quartz

The smoky quartz stone is said to be a protector from negative energy. The stone is said to give the wearer a positive outlook. The Italian jewelry brand Damiani combines smoky quartz with pink gold and diamonds, resulting in a unique yet elegant ring. This surely is the perfect gift for those who want to protect their loved ones.

Plaza Indonesia, Level 1, Jl. MH Thamrin Kav. 28-30, Central Jakarta

Damiani smoky quartz ring. (Damiani's official website/File)

FOR HIM

Thomas Sabo feather pendant

American poet Emily Dickinson once wrote, Hope is the thing with feather. This feather pendant from Thomas Sabo illustrates the poem well. As a Valentines Day gift, this simple yet masculine pendant tells your partner that there is always hope even at the darkest time.

Plaza Indonesia, Level 2, Jl. MH Thamrin Kav. 28-30, Central Jakarta

Feather pendant from Thomas Sabo.(Thomas Sabo's official website/File)

Read also: Choc-loving gents want to be own Valentine

Tiffany & Co. knot cuff links

The knot is a sign of connecting two different ropes. These Tiffany & Co. knot cuff links are suitable for married couple as it represents the unity of two individuals. Moreover, the classy design makes the cufflinks suitable to be worn on both formal and informal occasions.

Plaza Indonesia, Level 1, Jl. MH Thamrin Kav. 28-30, Central Jakarta

Tiffany & Co. knot cuff links.(Tiffany & Co's official website/File)

John Hardy bamboo bracelet

In Chinese culture, bamboo is considered a symbol of virtue. The Bali-based jewelry designer John Hardy, who is known for its Asian inspired creations, has produced a bracelet inspired by bamboo. Made of 18 carat gold and black leather, this piece symbolizes the wearer's virtue. (kes)

Jl. Raya Mambal, Br Baturning No. 1, Abiansemal, Badung, Bali

Bamboo bracelet by John Hardy. (John Hardy's official website/File)
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Linkedin Severianus Endi (The Jakarta Post) Pontianak, West Kalimantan  Sat, February 11, 2017

Known for its large population of people of Chinese descent, Singkawang, a West Kalimantan city, will see two female candidates of Chinese descent compete for the mayoral post on election day on Feb. 15.

Singkawang mayor Awang Ishaks wife, Tjhai Nyit Kim, also known as Malaika Fitri, will fight for the mayoral seat with running mate Suriyadi. The pair is backed by a coalition of three parties comprising the Golkar Party, the United Development Party and the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI).

Meanwhile, Tjhai Chui Mie, who once served as Singkawang Legislative Council (DPRD) speaker, will also fight for the mayoral post with her running mate Irwan. They are supported by four parties, namely the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), the NasDem Party, the Democratic Party and the Hanura Party.

They will compete against two other candidate pairs. One pair, Abdul Mutalib and Muhammadin, have received support from three parties: the National Awakening Party (PKB), the Gerindra Party and the National Mandate Party. The other pair, Andi Syarif and Nurmansyah, will run as independents.

Tanto Yakobus, a member of Tjhai Chui Mie-Irwans campaign team, said campaigning by using the Hakka Chinese dialect became one of its strategies to connect to older voters, who still use this language in their daily lives.

The Hakka dialect is one of three main languages, including Malay and Dayak, used in the city.

There is no [regulation] prohibiting the use of the Hakka Chinese dialect during the campaign [period], is there not? Many older voters cannot speak the Indonesian language fluently, said Tanto, who is also a member of DPRD West Kalimantan from the Democratic Party.

There will be 405 polling stations set up in five districts across the city. (ebf)
The sandcastle made by Pattnaik broke the world record previously held by USA.

By India Today Web Desk: Renowned for his exquisite sand creations, artist Sudarsan Pattnaik, has done the nation proud by entering his name in the coveted Guinness Book of World Records.

The artist whose sand art has a reputation of being high on social impact and relevance has created a world record for building world's tallest sandcastle.

Built at the Puri beach, Pattnaik's 48.08ft structure surpassed the previous record held by a 45.10ft sandcastle built by Ted Siebert of USA.

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Also Read: Indian sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik bags gold medal at World Sand Art Championship

Reportedly, the sandcastle took over four days, 45 students from Pattnaik's sand art institute and around 500 labourers for its completion.

The sculpture preaches the message of world peace and harmony while featuring Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Buddha as its torchbearers.

Picture courtesy: Twitter/@sudarsansand Picture courtesy: Twitter/@sudarsansand

"I have fashioned faces of world peace champions such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Buddha on the structure. The design was finalised after a series of scrutiny," Pattnaik was quoted as telling Telegraph India.

With a Padma Shri Award and several other world records to his credit, Pattnaik hopes to headline a sand art park in his state someday.

Picture courtesy: Twitter/@sudarsansand

"I also hope that my dream of setting up a sand art park in the state sees the light of the day and I receive government patronage. The park will be a boost to tourism in the state," Telegraph India quoted him as saying.

--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin Moses Ompusunggu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11, 2017

Jakarta gubernatorial ticket Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono-Sylviana Murni have expressed a commitment to build inclusive schools to meet the rights of people with disabilities should they secure City Hall's top posts.

The pair conveyed their pledge in a press conference held after the third Jakarta gubernatorial debate at Bidakara Hotel in South Jakarta on Friday evening.

"We are committed to protecting and empowering disabled people. That's why we will build inclusive schools in Jakarta [should we win the election]," Sylviana told journalists.

(Read also: Agus camp optimistic despite drop in popularity)

Protecting people with disabilities was one of the issues, including demography and welfare improvement, discussed in the third debate organized by the Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta).

Sylviana gave no further details on the inclusive school plan, except to say that she and Agus planned to build 800 inclusive schools and was optimistic the project could be funded by the city's annual budget.

Sylviana said the pair also planned to establish community-based counseling at the subdistrict level for people with disabilities. (ebf)
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Linkedin Moses Ompusunggu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11, 2017

Jakarta gubernatorial candidate Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono has vowed to prioritize mending the city's "fragmented society" if he wins the Feb. 15gubernatorial election.

Agus, who has a strong base of support from Muslim voters, claimed that Jakarta society was divided and said reconciliation was needed to rectify this.

"It's not good if after a four-month campaign period, we remain divided, which may trigger unnecessary conflict," Agus told a press conference late Friday after the third gubernatorial debate at Bidakara Hotel in South Jakarta.

(Read also: Ahok defends himself against Agus' criticism of tough-talking style)

Political tension in Jakarta reached a new high following two massive rallies last year. Initiated by several Islam organizations, including the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) led by firebrand cleric Rizieq Shihab, the demonstrators demanded Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, who is running for reelection, be prosecuted for alleged blasphemy.

Before the rallies, Ahok was the frontrunner in the race, ahead of Agus and another candidate, former education minister Anies Baswedan. Pollsters found, however, that support for Agus had drastically risen in aftermath of the events, partly due to the stronger perception among Jakarta voters, 85 percent of whom are Muslim, that Ahok had committed blasphemy.

Surveys conducted during the January-February period found, however, that Agus is no longer the candidate to beat in the three-horse race, as polls suggested that Agus did not perform well in the first two debates.

Im committed to forging relations with all entities in Jakarta by pursuing dialogue, Agus said on the reconciliation he aimed to carry out. (ebf)
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Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11, 2017

Two cars were set ablaze early Saturday morning after four men allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail into a parked vehicle in the Central Jakarta area, a police officer said.

The two vehicles were parked on Jl. Pecenongan Raya in Gambir when the incident took place at 3:20 a.m., Jakarta Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Raden Prabowo Argo Yuwono said on Saturday.

A witness, named Edy Kurniawan, saw the perpetrators approach one of the cars and broke its window.

According to the witness, one of them then lit something that resembled a Molotov cocktail to set the car alight, which spread to the car next to it, Argo told The Jakarta Post.

There were no casualties from the incident, he said adding that six firefighters and two fire trucks deployed at the scene managed to extinguish the fire by around 4 a.m.

Police were looking for the perpetrators and were investigating their motives for the incident, he said.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11, 2017

The latest campaign rally of Jakarta gubernatorial ticket Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga Uno held at Belalang field in Rawajati, South Jakarta, on Saturday featured the self-styled king of dangdut, Rhoma Irama.

Rhoma, who has just established his own political party, the Peaceful and Benign Islam (Idaman) Party, called on the audience to vote for the pair.

Choose number three [Anies-Sandiagas ballot number], the benign leaders, Rhoma said as quoted by kompas.com.

During the event, Rhoma performed his dangdut (popular Indonesian folk music) songs that were popular in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Idaman Party declared its support for Anies-Sandiaga on Jan. 29.

(Read also: Tight race in Jakarta may trigger vote-buying: ICW)

Anies, meanwhile, called on his supporters to be watchful on polling day.

"Keep a close eye on every polling station because there is information about potential fraudulent activities. So please pay attention until the vote count at each station is complete, the former minister said.

Campaigning is set to end as the cooling-off period begins Feb. 12 to 14, with voting day on Feb. 15. (bbs)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11 2017

Inflows of imported oranges have put the countrys own exotic orange variants in a tight squeeze, further jeopardizing local businesses that are already facing a hard time against their foreign counterparts.

The saying dont judge a book by its cover does not apply to the sales of Mandarin oranges at Kopro Market in Grogol, West Jakarta.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11 2017

Ten people have been fined for littering on Jl. Sultan Agung in Pasar Manggis, Tebet, South Jakarta.

Pasar Manggis subdistrict office head Purwati said on Friday that they were caught by 36 administration officers patrolling the Pasar Rumput Market area from Thursday night to early Friday morning.

We caught 10 people littering on the sidewalks, she said as quoted by beritajakarta.com.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11 2017

The South Tangerang Police have arrested a housewife in Tangerang regency, Banten, for fraud involving 25 credit cards.

The polices criminal unit head, Adj. Comr. Alexander, said on Thursday that the suspect, identified as Lilianni, 33, reportedly stole the credit cards on Jan. 19.

At the time, she went to a karaoke bar in Penjaringan, North Jakarta, with two friends, including victim Susan, 54.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post)  Sat, February 11 2017

Here are the sneak peek into the latest lifestyle stories from www.thejakartapost.com. If you are keen to read the full articles or want to look for more interesting pieces, complete with photos and videos, drop by to the J+ channel on our website. For a quick access, download QR scanner application in your smartphone and scan the codes display next to the articles.

London festival to feature Indonesian childrens storybooks

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Linkedin Jon Afrizal (The Jakarta Post) Jambi  Sat, February 11, 2017

Tight security measures are being put in place in preparation for simultaneous elections in Muarojambi, Sarolangun and Tebo regencies, Jambi, on Feb. 15.

To anticipate unexpected incidents, the police will put in place maximum security measures on election day, Jambi Police chief Brig.Gen.Yazid Fanani said on Saturday.

He further said the police would try their best to prevent polarization triggered by the elections.

Yazid said the police would pay equal attention to all three regencies. All areas are prone to security threats on election day. Thus, we are striving to provide maximum security in all areas, he said.

According to Yazid, the Jambi Police can manage all security measures needed for regional elections. So far we dont need additional support from police commands in neighboring provinces. Insya Allah [God willing], the elections will run safely and smoothly, he said.

To secure the three regencies on the day, the Jambi Police headquarters will dispatch six platoons of personnel, with one platoon comprising 31 personnel. Two platoons will be readied in each regency. They will support security personnel deployed from police offices in the three areas. (ebf)
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Linkedin Suherdjoko (The Jakarta Post) Semarang, Central Java  Sat, February 11, 2017

About 250 farmers who are against the construction of a cement factory operated by PT Semen Indonesia in Gunem district in Kendeng, Central Java, blockaded the access road to the factory on Friday.

As a consequence, workers could not enter the compound.

Joko Prianto, coordinator of the blockade, said they resorted to such action to push Semen Indonesia to stop construction as ordered through a Supreme Court decision and a Central Java governor decree issued on Jan. 16 by Ganjar Pranowo, which revoked the plant's environmental permit.

When the permit was revoked by Supreme Court, activities at the factory should have stopped, Joko said.

He said the farmers had reported the activities to the Central Java Police, saying they were illegal.

Kendeng farmers have fought against the construction of the factory for years, saying that it would compromise the quality of water source in the Kendeng karst mountain. They argued that they only wanted to farm in peace and that they made a decent living growing crops. Semen Indonesia has argued that the factory would create jobs and an improved local economy, which was much needed by Kendeng residents. The argument has been supported by several other residents.

Semen Indonesia corporate secretary Agung Wiharto said his company had stopped construction following the governors instruction.

We have laid off our project head and 3,000 workers since Jan. 18. But we keep 400 workers to maintain and guard our asset, Agung said.

He said construction had reached 98.75 percent. We have to bear losses too because we have to keep paying the outsourced construction company, he said.

We have obeyed the law, he said.

Nine female farmers of Mount Kendeng, Rembang regency, Central Java protest against cement plants developments in their area by cementing their feet in front of the State Palace, Jakarta, on April 13, 2016.(The Jakarta Post/Seto Wardhana)

Sujono, an anti-factory farmer, said that when they blockaded the road, residents who supported the factory also held a rally against their move.

The farmers legal counselor from the Semarang Legal Aid Institute (LBH Semarang), Eti Oktaviani, said all activities should be halted, otherwise Semen Indonesia would be in violation of a 2009 law on environmental protection.

(Read also: Protest against Semen Indonesias Rembang factory continues)

The Supreme Court on Oct. 5 last year issued a ruling in a case review against a gubernatorial decree on the environmental permit for PT Semen Gresik, the former name of Semen Indonesia.

The ruling ordered the Central Java governor to revoke the environmental permit.

Consequently, Eti said, all permits issued on the basis of the environmental permit should be null and void too, including the construction and operational permits. (evi)
Pointing out that he has started imposing heavy costs on such petitioners, he slapped fines of Rs 10 lakh on a Bihar MLA and Rs 1 lakh on a Maharashtra professor in two separate cases.

By Harish V Nair: "Whatever the case, we have to read all these pages. My brother judges are young (looking at justices DY Chandrachud and NV Ramana seated with him). They have no problem going through the entire records but I am old. Look at my white beard. After reading all this I feel tired also. So please," 65-year-old Chief Justice of India JS Khehar said in the Supreme Court on Friday. The CJI was both upset and angry about the number of frivolous petitions piling up in the apex court, which is already reeling under a backlog of nearly 61,000 cases.

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Pointing out that he has started imposing heavy costs on such petitioners, he slapped fines of Rs 10 lakh on a Bihar MLA and Rs 1 lakh on a Maharashtra professor in two separate cases.

The CJI's remarks came just before the lawyer for the professor said she wanted to withdraw the case, which was filed challenging a circular issued by the Gujarat government. An angry Khehar rebuked the lawyer and allowed her to withdraw the plea but after imposing a Rs 1 lakh fine.

BACKLOG

"Why do you now want to go back to Gujarat? Why did not this occur to you when you were preparing the petition?" he said.

When the lawyer pleaded for cancelling the cost, CJI Khehar shot back: "No. This has to stop and only this way it can stop. For years we have not done it. See if you have a good cause we are with you but not for such petitions which take away judicial time."

Millions of cases are pending in India's courts, draining litigants of resources and pointing towards an urgent need for more judges and judicial reforms. Khehar's predecessor, TS Thakur, said last year that the country needs to double the number of judges.

The CJI imposed a Rs 10 lakh fine on Bihar MLA Ravindra Singh for indulging in frivolous litigation. The legislator from the state's ruling RJD had challenged in the SC a high court order dismissing his petition, which questioned the veracity of a 23-year old newspaper article. SC said the cost needs to be higher as the representative of the people was found indulging in "unpardonable" activity of wasting judicial time. When the MLA's lawyer pleaded that the cost be reduced, the CJI said after hearing the plea for leniency what came to his mind was the story of a hostel mate while he was a college student.

ADJOURNMENTS

Recounting the incident, the CJI said, "When a fine of Rs 25 was imposed on him in a case of indiscipline, he had said, 'I belong to a rich family. At least impose a fine of Rs 250.' Likewise you also please say I am an MLA, please impose a fine of Rs 1 crore on me and not mere Rs 10 lakh. Come on," the CJI told the MLA's lawyer, raising peals of laughter in the packed courtroom.

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What apparently set the tone for the CJI's angry mood in the morning hours itself was a petition filed by a car mechanic from Madurai. He was challenging "illegal additional floors" in a hospital in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.

"Can a car mechanic complain about a hospital? What has he got to do with it? All these are vested interests. If anybody has a good cause we are there to hear it. We are adjourning this matter and in the next hearing if you are not able to prove your bonafides, we will impose costs on you," he said.

"How many cases we are going to hear which are nonsense and trash? Daily we are seeing such petitions increasing. This is Supreme Court. Do have some respect for us?," Khehar questioned.

Within hours after taking charge on January 4, CJI Khehar had made his determination to bring down the backlog in the apex court clear by summarily dismissing long-pending frivolous petitions and refusing adjournments in cases. He had begun the practice of disposing of old petitions in a single sitting without granting any adjournments.

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The CJI also identified central and state governments as the biggest adjournment seekers and threatened to impose heavy fines on requests for deferments. "Things cannot go on like this. I will start imposing heavy cost on adjournment seekers. I find government lawyers the biggest culprit. How will cases finish?" he had asked a lawyer who appeared for the Centre on January 5.

ALSO READ | CJI Khehar expresses concern over shortage of judges in Supreme Court

New Chief Justice JS Khehar cracks the whip on NGOs, puts them under strict scrutiny

--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11 2017

The government has not provided state-owned construction firm Adhi Karya, which has been assigned to build the light rail transit (LRT) project in Greater Jakarta, with a financing scheme to fund the project.

After months of delay, the Transportation Ministry signed on Friday the Rp 23.3 trillion (US$1.7 billion) contract for the first phase of the LRT construction with Adhi Karya on Friday. However, the fundamental issue as to how the government will repay Adhi Karyas early expenses in the project is not addressed in the contract.

The government will decide the payment scheme in the next few days, or a month at the latest, Budi Harto, the president director of publicly listed Adhi Karya said after the contract signing.

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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11, 2017

Indonesia will soon see the establishment of its long-planned National Cyber Agency. The country is only waiting for President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to issue a presidential decree that will set the operation of the body, which is assigned to tackle cyber crimes in the country, in motion, a state official has said.

First Marshall Sigit Priyono, the assistant deputy 2/VII for the coordination of telecommunications and information at the Office of the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister, said the process to establish the body was already complete, including the synchronization of regulations and coordination among cyber divisions within the government.

"Cybercrimes are multidimensional and so we are seeking the best option that can coordinate all aspects, including those bodies or departments that already have sufficient supporting infrastructure. Other matters related to the planning are already complete and now we are waiting for the presidential regulation," Sigit said on Friday.

Sigit added that the government had initially planned to open the agency in January.

The government delayed opening it up because of budget constraints, restrictions on creating a new organization and difficulties related to the recruitment of civil servants.

(Read also: Police to support national cyber agency)

Previously, the coordinating political, legal and security affairs minister had planned to merge the cyber body with the National Encryption Agency (Lemsaneg), according to Sigit.

However, he said the government had other options, including the Defense Ministry's Information and Data Center. (dan)
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Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani, Moses Ompusunggu and Indra Budiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11 2017

Meet the potential next first ladies of Jakarta: Annisa Larasati Pohan, Veronica Tan and Fery Farhati Ganis. The three women have been busy hitting the road, garnering support for their husbands who are running in the upcoming Jakarta election. Each spouse has her own unique way in wooing voters.

Take Agus Harimurti Yudhoyonos wife, Annisa Larasati Pohan. As a former model and TV presenter, Annisa appeared composed when handling a crowd of Agus supporters during a visit to Kebon Kosong subdistrict in North Jakarta recently.

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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11 2017

Indonesia and Singapore celebrated 50 years of diplomatic relations with an exchange of ratification instruments, putting into force a treaty delineating about 9.5 kilometers of maritime borders on the eastern coast of the Singapore Strait.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi and her Singaporean counterpart Vivian Balakrishnan exchanged the documents during a meeting in the city state on Friday, attesting to the successful negotiations between the neighboring countries.

The landmark treaty, signed on Sept. 3, 2014, was passed unanimously by the Indonesian House of Representatives in December. It is the third treaty of its kind to cover the waters between Singapore and Batam.

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Linkedin Eva Aruperes (The Jakarta Post) Manado, North Sulawesi  Sat, February 11, 2017

The North Sulawesi Police have dispatched hundreds of personnel to help secure regency elections in Bolaang Mongondow and Sangihe Islands on Feb.15.

For Bolaang Mongondow, police sent 150 personnel while for Sangihe Islands, 177 personnel were allocated to regency. They would all work under the command of local police in the respective areas.

The 125 personnel we have dispatched for the Bolaang Mongondow Police and Sangihe Islands Police are auxiliary forces, North Sulawesi Police chief Bambang Waksito said on Thursday.

It is hoped that with the deployment, regency elections in Bolaang Mongondow and Sangihe Islands can run orderly.

Sangihe, for instance, can only be reached by sea. It will be difficult to tackle any sort of disruption there if we do not anticipate it from the very beginning. With numerous security personnel deployed, the situation can hopefully be better controlled, said Bambang.

The auxiliary forces will assist securing 299 polling stations in Sangihe and 346 in Bolaang Mongondow.

(Read also: Sangihe outermost islands prioritized in election logistics)

The Indonesian Military is also ready to help safeguard elections in North Sulawesi. We have prepared two company-level units who will secure the voting process in Bolaang Mongondow and Sangihe, Military Regional Command (Kodam) XIII/Merdeka commander Maj. Gen. Ganip Warsito said.

I call on all military personnel to stay neutral in securing the elections. All measures taken must be in line with the proper procedures. (ebf)
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Linkedin Nury Vittachi (The Jakarta Post) Bangkok  Sat, February 11 2017

My sons high school economics textbook had an interesting homework question: Why cant you just print as much money as you like?

Easy. Because we have a crappy home printer and everything comes out yellow, I said.

Okay, so thats possibly not the answer they were looking for, but I told him good teachers value honesty more than accuracy.

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Jakartas politics never cease to amaze me. Just when I thought the religion card couldnt have been used more coarsely, Instagram delivered a surprise earlier this week. And to think I actually logged into Instagram to avoid the highly political Twitter.

It started with a group of hijab-wearing women posting the hashtag #MuslimvoteMuslim that went viral. When I did a quick search, the hashtag didnt conclusively show allegiance for gubernatorial candidate number one or three, but it clearly was not being used to show support for gubernatorial candidate number two, the incumbent who happens to be a Christian.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11 2017

Life seems to be getting better for a number of evictees who were relocated to the West Jatinegara low-cost rental apartment in East Jakarta last August.

Some of the former Kampung Pulo residents said they were slowly adapting to the high-rise living habits, although there were still several problems that needed to be solved.

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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, February 11 2017

As companies try to squeeze labor costs, supported by an ample low-skilled workforce, the outsourcing business in Indonesia has a bright future, business players have said.

Indonesian Outsourcing Association (Abadi) secretary-general Hadi Busono said most companies were reluctant to recruit permanent workers because of the high costs they had to pay, including monthly benefits and severance packages.

Furthermore, a majority of Indonesias abundant workforce remains unskilled, limiting their chance to get jobs without high qualifications.

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Linkedin Panca Nugraha (The Jakarta Post) Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara  Sat, February 11, 2017

At least 24 cruise ships are set to dock in Lembar Port in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), throughout 2017, quite an increase compared to last year with 18 ships.

"For this year, 24 cruise ships have been confirmed to visit Lombok via Lembar Port. The passengers are expected to enjoy a one-day trip in several Lombok destinations," NTB Tourism Agency head Lalu Mohammad Faizal told The Jakarta Post on Friday in Mataram.

Lalu said the ships that largely originated from European countries and Singapore generally accommodated 3000 to 5000 passengers, which would mean the potential number of foreign tourist arrivals could reach more than 50,000 visitors.

Art and cultural performances have been said will entertain the tourists while visiting the destination. "Visitors will be greeted with traditional musical dances that we provide at the NTB National Museum and NTB Cultural Park in Mataram," said Lalu.

(Read also: Foreign cruise ships flock to Komodo Island)

State port operator PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Pelindo) II's Lembar Port general manager Baharuddin said that Volendam cruise ship from the Netherlands had arrived at the port on Tuesday carrying a total of 1,968 passengers and crew.

"The ship docked in Lembar Port from Tuesday morning until night," he said, adding that the company had welcomed the visitors with Gendang Beleg traditional music performances and local dances.

"Some visitors joined tours provided by travel agents, some others shopped on their own by taxi or charter vehicles," said Baharuddin. Some of the popular routes visited by the tourists include Sekotong, Kuta Beach in Central Lombok, Mataram Mall, Senggigi, Sukarare weaving art center, Gili Nangu, Gili Kedis and Gili Sudak.

Baharuddin added that cruise ships that visited Lombok usually passed through Komodo Island, Flores, Lombok and then headed to Bali. (kes)
The Supreme Court has recommended that nine High Court judges be appointed as chief justices of various high courts.

On February 6, the Supreme Court collegium recommended that nine high court judges be appointed as chief justices of various high courts. The move seems to follow an earlier recommendation, made the previous week, to appoint five HC judges to the apex court.

Together, these moves have been hailed as a breakthrough in the ongoing impasse between the judiciary and the executive. Arguably, till the executive confirms these appointments, the only breakthrough is that the collegium has recommended names to the SC for the first time since December 2015!

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So, what would a real breakthrough on judicial appointments look like? The approval of the Memorandum of Procedure outlining the protocol of consultation between the executive and the judiciary would be a good first step.

However, the recent controversies over the five names recommended to the Supreme Court suggest that a legitimate judicial appointment process remains as distant as ever.

The exclusion of Justice K.M. Joseph was strongly criticised in a dissenting note filed by Justice J. Chelameswar, who contended that he was an exceptional judge. The opacity of the current collegium process, and subsequent negotiation with the executive, leaves open the possibility that the executive may be uncomfortable with Justice Joseph's ruling to reverse the Centre's decision to impose President's rule in Uttarakhand.

Last week, the US President nominated his pick for the US Supreme Court.

This announcement has sparked sharp assessments of the academic, professional and judicial qualities of the nominee as well as allegations that the Senate, by stalling President Obama's nominee, has stolen a Supreme Court seat. The partisan rancour of US wrangling over judicial appointments occludes the deliberative and transparent nature of the judicial appointment process. A real breakthrough in judicial appointments is possible only if the collegium process is modified to allow for transparency and public participation.

The author is Director, School of Policy and Governance, Azim Premji University.

--- ENDS ---
Heres an anniversary no one on the Lower East Side is celebrating. It was one year ago today, Feb. 11, 2016, that the Slate Property Group acquired Rivington House, the former nursing home for AIDS patients.

As we noted yesterday, Neighbors to Save Rivington House, a local advocacy group, is planning two public forums to discuss the future of the community facility. The building, stripped of its deed protections by the city administration, still appears destined to become luxury condos.

Today the organization is sharing more thoughts about the long-term fate of the property. The mayor has said he does not believe the city can successfully sue Slate and its co-owners or the Allure Group (the previous property owner). This means prospects of reversing the sale seem bleak. So theres one obvious question: Is it really realistic to hold out hope that Rivington House can be returned to the community? Heres what the group has to say about that:

Our position is and has always been that the building must be returned to the public. Its been one year today that Allure finalized its agreement with (new owners) China Vanke, Adam America and Slate. Its been two years plus (November 19, 2015 and December 1, 2015) since the community warned that something was happening to Rivington House. Warnings that went unheeded. Its been three years since VillageCare sold Rivington House to Allure with the clear understanding between Allure and the Community Board, and neighborhood, that it was to remain a health care facility. (Lobbyist James Capalino first tried to have the deed restrictions removed on behalf of VillageCare from 2013-2014). We decided there was something we could do. We could say no. Wed seen our Rivington House neighbors evicted and dedicated staff lose their jobs and the home they had built together. With the dedicated smarts and persistence of The Lo-Down and with the diligence of the wider press  it didnt go away. The building still has a stop-work order on it. Five investigations were/are underway. Weve helped other community groups pressure the city not to use Slate on any city deals. Weve instigated the tightening of deed restriction removals city-wide. We have received a commitment for a long-sought affordable housing site on Pike Street. We have applauded the efforts of the Attorney General to prevent Allure from buying two nursing homes that would have fallen to them. We have shined a light on the plight of nursing homes and their residents and their families city-wide. We have supported our local elected officials  City Council member Margaret Chin, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and State Sen. Daniel Squadron  to fight for its return. We have pushed for greater transparency in decision-making, built a remarkable coalition around care-giving in our neighborhood and beyond and and helped re-inspire and galvanize community groups to fight for their own neighborhood resources. And more. So it has been good and important  so far. You never know what can happen, including the ill-gotten real estate being returned voluntarily to the community as a goodwill gesture and recognition that there really are some things that are more important in life than excessive profit at the expense of the poor and vulnerable. This resistance and the history of resistance in these neighborhoods has been their hallmark. The country is now resisting destructive policies put forth by those who would place quick profit and divisive irrational decisions above the common good. We expect more people will be joining this and other human-centered efforts. So yes, we continue to organize for Rivington Houses return and have faith in the power of people to collectively win the building back.

The first forum will be held Sunday, March 12, 2-4 p.m. at University settlement. You can read more details here.
(lead article)

Protests continue against govt attack on immigrants

SWP: Join protests, demand amnesty!

AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews

NEW YORK  Protests continue across the country against President Donald Trumps series of anti-working-class executive orders targeting undocumented workers, refugees and citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries.

Several hundred high school and college students demonstrated here Feb. 7. Daily life cannot just continue as is, when others are suffering, Beacon High School student Selam Murphy, one of many high school students who walked out of class to join the protest, told the press. Students carried handmade signs with slogans written on school notebooks, poster board and skateboards.

The day before, some 20 rabbis affiliated with Truah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights were arrested for blocking a street near the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Manhattan. Some of the language thats being used now to stop Muslims from coming in is the same language that was used to stop Jewish refugees from coming under Franklin Delano Roosevelt prior to World War II, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, told the New York Times.

At the same time, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in California heard arguments Feb. 7 on whether an injunction issued by a federal district court in Washington state against the travel ban should be lifted.

The first immigration-related executive order signed by Trump Jan. 25 mandated the extension of the wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, hiring 5,000 more immigration cops, and promising to step up deportations. This hasnt been challenged in court.

Working people need to take to the streets to protest the administrations moves against undocumented workers, Osborne Hart, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of New York, told the Militant. The propertied rulers and both their two parties  the Democrats and Republicans  seek to keep workers without papers in a pariah status, to divide and weaken the labor movement. We demand amnesty for all those in the U.S.

The Jan. 27 decree imposed a three-month ban on travelers from seven mostly Muslim countries  Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  a four-month moratorium on admitting refugees from any country, and an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees.

Some 60,000 visas of all types were revoked after Trump signed these executive orders. At the same time immigration officials detained more than 100 permanent U.S. residents at airports inside the country. After widespread protests, and a number of court injunctions, the visas were reinstated and many of those detained were admitted into the country.

The Trump administration asked the Court of Appeals to lift or limit the injunction. There should be no second guessing of presidential decisions on national security, U.S. Justice Department lawyer August Flentje told the judges.

Washington state Solicitor General Noah Purcell argued for maintaining the injunction until courts rule on the legality of the order as a whole, saying the states challenge will likely prevail.

Trump order follows Obama

In a White House statement Feb. 5, Trump said, My policy is similar to what President Barack Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months. The Obama administration did stop processing Iraqi refugees at that time, allowing only those already processed to enter. Former President Jimmy Carter barred all Iranians from entering the U.S. after the revolution there in 1979.

This is not about religion, Trump claimed, referring to the seven countries singled out in the order. There are over 40 different countries worldwide that are majority Muslim that are not affected by this order. But his advisers have said if the ban is upheld, more countries could be added to the list.

Despite a lot of demagogy from both the administration and its liberal opponents, the Jan. 25 order targeting undocumented workers does not represent any significant departure from the policies of previous presidents. The goal of the U.S. rulers is not to eliminate undocumented workers, but to regulate their numbers as the economy expands or contracts and to maintain their status as a superexploited layer of the working class the bosses can use to push down all wages.

Since the passage of the Secure Fence Act of 2006 during the George W. Bush administration, more than 650 miles of fencing at the border has been built. In a May 10, 2011, speech in El Paso, Texas, Obama bragged, We have gone above and beyond what was requested, saying the border fence is now basically complete.

The highest number of deportations in U.S. history took place during President Bill Clintons last year in office, when more than 1,800,000 immigrants were deported. The Obama administration holds the record for the criminalization of immigrants  putting more workers charged with immigration crimes behind bars than any other president in U.S. history.





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Join the protests! Demand amnesty!

Yemeni bodega owners close shops, rally against travel ban







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(front page)

Cuba brigade: Unique chance to learn about

the revolution

Working people and youth have a unique opportunity to learn firsthand about Cubas socialist revolution and to offer their solidarity with the Cuban people by joining the 12th May Day International Brigade April 24 to May 8. Last year more than 200 people from 34 countries participated in the brigade, which is sponsored by the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP).

For the first time, a U.S. contingent will be part of the brigade. Its a fantastic opportunity, Steve Eckardt, co-coordinator of the Chicago Cuba Coalition, which is organizing the U.S. contingent, told the Militant. Participants will visit three provinces besides Havana and meet with members of the Federation of Cuban Women, the Central Organization of Cuban Workers, the Federation of University Students and other mass organizations.

The low cost of the brigade is extraordinary, Eckardt said, just $512 for the entire two weeks, including food, housing and transportation. And flights to Havana from the U.S. are quite inexpensive today, he said.

The brigade will start at the Julio Antonio Mella International Camp, in Artemisa province. Mella was a leader of student protests at the University of Havana and founder of the Cuban Communist Party. After being expelled from school and arrested by the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado, Mella escaped Cuba, ending up in Mexico. Organizing there to overthrow the Machado regime, he was assassinated in 1929.

Along with meetings with people from Cubas mass organizations, brigadistas will take part in talks and discussions on topics such as Socialism in Cuba Today: Relations with the U.S. and The Cuban Economy. Participants will work in the fields on area farms for four hours a morning for five days.

Other activities are planned each day, including films, visits to museums in Havana and Santa Clara, free time to explore these cities, visits to farms and production cooperatives, and opportunities to talk with brigade members from around the world.

On May Day, the brigade will join the annual mass demonstration in Havana for International Workers Day, the celebration of revolutionary labor struggles worldwide. And the next day they will participate with other political activists in an International Meeting in Solidarity with Cuba at the Convention Palace in Havana.

This years brigade is a special tribute to the Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara, ICAPs call says. Castro, the central leader of the revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in January 1959, died in November. This is the 50th anniversary of the death in combat of Guevara, killed by Bolivian government troops and CIA agents while leading a guerrilla column against the dictatorship there. Guevara is a symbol of the Cuban Revolutions solidarity with the struggles of working people around the world.

For the last six days of the trip, participants have two options.

After May Day, brigade members will travel to the provinces of Villa Clara and Cienfuegos where they will visit health centers, the Benny More School of Arts, meet with members of area Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and with students from the University of Medicine, and tour historical sites.

For an additional cost, participants can instead attend the Fifth Seminar for Peace and for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases, in Guantanamo May 4-6. The seminar will take place in Guantanamo, the invitation says, because 117 square kilometers of [Cubas] territory has been illegally occupied by a US naval base that was turned into a center of torture.

The meeting is organized by the World Peace Council, the Cuban Movement for Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples, and ICAP, and co-sponsored by the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America (OSPAAAL), the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and the Oscar Arnulfo Romero Center for Reflection.

The seminar takes place as the Cuban and U.S. governments have re-established diplomatic relations, unilaterally broken by Washington in 1961 as one of the opening guns of its 50-year-long military, economic, and political efforts to crush the revolution and the example it sets for working people in the United States, across the Americas, and the world over. The U.S. rulers maintain their brutal economic embargo and continue to occupy Guantanamo against the legitimate will of the Cuban people for more than half a century, the invitation says.

Theres a lot of interest in Chicago in joining the brigade. A dozen people attended our first meeting on the brigade here, Eckardt said. It shows the opportunity for us to reach young people around the country.

I encourage people to get in touch with us as soon as possible, he said. The spaces should fill up quickly, and we need to make sure everyone has all the travel documents they need. Whats more, we also plan a little course of study on Cuba, because the more you know before you go there, the more youll appreciate and learn from the trip.

To find out more about participating in the May Day brigade, contact the Chicago Cuba Solidarity Committee at (312) 952-2618 or email: ICanGoToCuba@gmail.com.





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NY event celebrates life of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro







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(front page)

Social catastrophe after Georgia storms is product

of capitalism

Militant photos by Sam Manuel Above, remnants of trailer where Betty Lee and Jesse James Newsome were killed when tornado hit. Inset, farmer Willie Head, left, and Fred Swain in front of Swains home in Albany, Georgia. Outpouring of working-class solidarity since storms hit is sharp contrast to governments bureaucratic runaround.

ALBANY, Ga.  Its passed off by Democratic and Republican politicians alike as an unavoidable natural disaster. But the catastrophic effect on working people here of the most severe winter storms in the states history Jan. 21-22 is the result of social relations bred by the capitalist system.

The huge storm system, which passed from Louisiana to South Carolina over several days and pounded eight states, spawned 40 tornadoes in Georgia alone. Hardest hit was Dougherty County, which includes Albany, the largest city in this rural part of the state, with a population of 76,000. People had barely begun to recover from a tornado that passed through the area less than three weeks earlier when another one hit Jan. 22, with wind speeds up to 150 mph.

The storms destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes, as well as farms, businesses and factories. Thousands of trees were uprooted or snapped in half like toothpicks. Thousands lost electricity when power lines were torn down. At least 21 people were killed, most of them in Georgia, and many others injured. A 2-year-old boy, Detrez Green, went missing here and has not been found. Initial estimates of damages by the state insurance commissioner were at least $100 million, on top of $30 million from the Jan. 2 tornado.

Storms this bad are unusual for our area, especially in winter, said Willie Head, a small farmer who lives in Brooks County. Head joined myself and Sam Manuel, Socialist Workers Party members from Atlanta, to visit some of the hardest-hit areas a few days after the storm.

The only warning we got was an amber alert on our cellphones at 3 a.m., Head said. Whos looking at their phones in the middle of the night?

The two fatalities in Brooks County were Heads friends  Betty Lee and Jessie James Newsome  a retired couple he had known for years. They were in bed when a tornado blew their mobile home onto the highway, shredding it and killing them. We met relatives who were trying to find clothing to bury the Newsomes, among debris where their trailer once stood.

I didnt expect to meet with so much bureaucracy after just a few days, Aaron Sims, Betty Lee Newsomes son, who lives in Miami, told us. The family also has to deal with a pile of county government forms they have to fill out. They wont even let us take anything from the garage  tools and other items we need to use, Sims said.

A tornado struck a mobile home park in neighboring Cook County, demolishing half of the 40 homes there. Ten of those killed in the storm in Georgia lived in mobile home courts.

More working people in the South live in mobile homes than in most other parts of the country, and people living in trailer parks are far more likely to be killed in a tornado than those residing in houses. Laws requiring storm shelters in those vulnerable communities are few and far between, Associated Press reported Jan. 24.

We are taxed and taxed, but what does the government do when something like this happens? said Head. Where is the help? People arent warned or evacuated, even though government people knew for hours and even a few days that the storm was coming and what its path was. Here, everyones left on their own to protect themselves.

We should learn from the example of the Cuban people and their government, the way they are trained and the way they look after each other when theyre hit by storms like this, said Head, who has visited revolutionary Cuba several times  where people and resources are mobilized to minimize loss of life and damages. Why cant we adopt their methods here? Here, the officials treat the loss of life almost nonchalantly.

Of course, it will take a revolution to do that, he said. But I plan to bring up these safety questions at whatever local meetings I can, to start the discussion.

We saw an outpouring of working-class solidarity here, as workers and farmers volunteered to help neighbors, friends and fellow workers deal with the aftermath of the storm. Many churches organized volunteers to provide meals, clear debris and give whatever other assistance they could.

This was the worst tornado in my lifetime, Freddie Swain, a retired auto worker, who lives in one of the hardest hit parts of Albany, told us. The tornado hit our neighborhood midafternoon. There was no alarm or other warning, except what was on TV. His roof was damaged and a huge tree in his front yard was ripped out of the ground.

Many others were hit much harder, Swain said. We were lucky because we have insurance. But the insurance wont pay to remove the tree, he said, because it didnt hit the house. And that can cost $1,000 or more.

Many workers affected by the storms dont have the resources to handle a social disaster like this. They lack home or health insurance to handle injuries and damage, and cant cover the cost of funerals for those who were killed. Many lost everything, including clothing and medicine.

At least 20 percent or more of the population in storm-struck areas live below the federal poverty level, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported. Four of the 16 counties under a state-proclaimed emergency decree  Calhoun, Clay, Crisp and Dougherty  are among the 100 U.S. counties with the highest poverty rate.

Gov. Nathan Deal visited the area a few days after the storm, promising some help would come eventually.

We were not able to come until local authorities had done their assessment and asked us to come in and provide state assistance, he told the Albany Herald a couple weeks earlier after the first tornado. Just as the federal government will not come until the state has done its assessment and request they come in.

Its the opposite of how the Cubans do it.

Willie Head in Pavo, Georgia, and Sam Manuel from Atlanta contributed to this article.





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(editorial)

Join the protests! Demand amnesty!

The Militant urges our readers to join the ongoing protests against President Donald Trumps executive orders barring entry to the U.S. from seven majority-Muslim countries and preparing to increase the criminalization and deportation of workers without acceptable papers who are already here.

Bring signs demanding, Amnesty for all undocumented workers in the U.S.! Join Socialist Workers Party candidates and members at these actions explaining why fighting for amnesty is necessary to unite the working class and to chart a course to take political power. Join the SWP in speaking out against any sort of religious test for entry into the U.S. or discrimination based on country of origin.

The ruling class, aided by their government in Washington, depends on the superexploited status of workers they criminalize and call illegal. This is key to their ability to maintain sharp divisions in the working class  to drive down wages and deepen the exploitation of millions. They try to pit us against one another in competition for jobs and to take our focus off our common enemy  the propertied capitalist class.

The rulers count on workers without legal status to stay in the shadows, accept their lot and refrain from fighting to join unions to raise wages and defend their conditions on the job. The constant fear of deportation is a powerful weapon in the rulers arsenal.

The fight for amnesty is a life-and-death question for the labor movement. Its essential to build the unity, self-confidence and class-consciousness working people need to overthrow the dog-eat-dog capitalist system and take political power.

This, unfortunately, is not the aim of those organizing the demonstrations today. Their intent is to try to delegitimize and take down the Trump administration, and rebuild a more progressive Democratic Party, the other party of U.S. imperialist rule. They cry crocodile tears over Trumps decrees, while avoiding any mention of the anti-working-class record of the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations. Many call Trump a fascist and disdain those who voted for him as racist, xenophobic deplorables.

But workers  Caucasian, Black or foreign-born  who voted for Trump, or who voted for Sanders or Clinton or none-of-the-above, are searching for a break from the economic carnage and endless imperialist wars we all face. The Socialist Workers Party gets a hearing from all of them today.
(commentary, special feature)

Anarchist black bloc politics pose threat to

working class

Claiming to be fighting fascism, anarchist groups in the U.S. have carried out numerous actions in recent weeks that pose a deadly danger to the working class  from sucker punching rightist Richard Spencer as he was speaking to a reporter, to assaulting workers who express support for President Donald Trump, to disrupting and shutting down campus speeches by individuals they disagree with.

These thuggish black bloc actions flow from the petty-bourgeois view that a minority of adventurers can substitute themselves for mass actions and change society. But the result is their actions close down political space, hand the government and its police agencies a golden opportunity to clamp down on political freedoms, and become a hotbed for provocateurs.

Thats the opposite of what the Socialist Workers Party stands and fights for: mobilizing the working class to organize politically independent of the capitalist rulers and their parties, joining todays labor and political struggles seeking to build a revolutionary party capable of overthrowing capitalist rule and its dog-eat-dog social relations.

Rich articles about the destructive effects of the anarchists can be found in the works of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, V.I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Farrell Dobbs.

One of the most striking things about the anarchists actions  such as the riot they organized in Berkeley, California, (see article below)  is that they reduce workers to bystanders, erasing any possibility of mass protest.

Writing in The Nation Jan. 22, Natasha Lennard gives a graphic description glorying in the black bloc she joined in Washington Jan. 20 during Trumps inauguration. Disrupt J20 aimed to directly impede, delay and confront the inaugural proceedings, she writes. This message was delivered with human blockades, smashed corporate windows, trash-can fires, a burning limousine, Make America Great Again caps reduced to ashes, and a blow for Richard Spencer.

Spencer is a white supremacist and president of the National Policy Institute. He was speaking to a reporter on the street when a black-clad assailant sucker punched him in the face and ran away. A video of the blow went viral on the internet, accompanied by tweets such as, We all have to stay strong and survive so that we too can have the chance to punch Richard Spencer in the face.

A righteous mob

That video shows anti-fascist bloc tactics par excellence  pure kinetic beauty, Lennard declares. She waxes lyrical about bottle rockets flying, bricks hurled through bank windows, clashes with cops and mild altercations with rowdy Trump supporters. She says, If that sounds to you like a precondition for mob violence youre right. But this is only a problem if you think there are no righteous mobs.

Anarchist black blocs have targeted speaking engagements of Milo Yiannopoulos, an editor for Breitbart News, at many campuses. At the University of Washington in Seattle, they forced their way to the front of a Jan. 20 protest, throwing bricks and paint to try to stop people from attending his talk. A member of the anarchist Industrial Workers of the World was shot and wounded in the confrontation. A man who had come to hear Yiannopoulos later turned himself in to the cops, claiming he fired in self-defense.

Similar groups tried to stop an event organized by the College Republicans at New York University Feb. 2 for comedian Gavin McInnes, who calls himself a Western chauvinist. McInnes was pepper sprayed on the way in.

In all these incidents, targets have included individuals wearing pro-Trump hats or signs. The anarchists join the liberals in slandering workers who voted for Trump, fed up with the grinding depression conditions that world capitalism is producing, those Hillary Clinton called deplorables.

Neither Trump nor the workers who voted for him are part of a fascist movement. (See article on front page.) But as the class struggle deepens and the danger of fascism is posed, the stakes for working people in rejecting anarchism and its methods will only grow.

An anti-working-class course

Attempting through violent attacks to silence those you disagree with from expressing their views is a method that can and will be used against the workers movement. Groups that carry out such attacks are fertile ground for provocateurs, and to breed actual fascists. And their provocations allow rightists such as Spencer and Yiannopoulos to appear to stand on the moral high ground as defenders of freedom of speech.

If you start by attempting to hastily gather together a vanguard force and crush fascism in the egg, you are playing into the hands of the fascists, said Socialist Workers Party leader Farrell Dobbs in a 1975 discussion titled Counter-Mobilization: A Strategy to Fight Racist and Fascist Attacks, published by Pathfinder Press. You are losing ground in the mobilization of the real class that can do away with fascism.

The workers movement has a long history of experience with anarchist currents, going back to the political battles of communist leaders Karl Marx and Frederick Engels against Joseph-Pierre Proudhon and Mikhail Bakunin in the 1800s. (See Marxs The Poverty of Philosophy and an 1873 article The Bakuninists at Work by Engels.) The anarchists destroyed the International Workingmens Association led by Marx. They bore much of the responsibility for the disastrous defeat of the working class in the Spanish Revolution of the 1930s. Those and many other examples are the political continuity of todays black blocs.

The anarchist perspective is marked by opposition to political action by the working class. They favor the action of small groups to the mobilization, education and organization of the working class to take power out of the hands of the capitalist rulers and begin to reorganize society in the interests of the toiling majority  as both the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the 1959 Cuban Revolution showed was possible.

Other recommended reading on anarchism and its deadly record in the working class includes Dobbs two-volume series Revolutionary Continuity: Marxist Leadership in the U.S. and The Spanish Revolution (1931-39) by Leon Trotsky.





Related articles:

Calling Trump a fascist disorients the working class

Berkeley: Anarchists shut down speaker, attack workers

Fascism rises when capital must crush working class







Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home




Yemeni bodega owners close shops, rally against travel ban

NEW YORK  Over 1,000 Yemenis closed the bodegas and corner stores they own and operate in neighborhoods throughout the city from noon to 8 p.m. Feb. 2 to protest President Donald Trumps executive order banning travel from Yemen to the U.S. for three-months. They rallied along with other supporters in front of Brooklyns Borough Hall that evening.

A lot of businesses are shut down, Abdul Salah, 65, told the Militant. He runs a wholesale deli in Staten Island and has been living in the U.S. for 50 years. Our message is Jews, Muslims, Christians, we should live together in harmony and be treated as equals.

He said it was already hard to get here from Yemen before the new order. It took five years for Salah to bring his wife over under the Barack Obama administration. Three children from his previous marriage put in for a visa a year ago. These applications remain in limbo, he said

Rally organizers said there are several thousand bodegas and grocery stores owned by Yemeni-Americans citywide, many open around the clock. We are closing our business Feb. 2, said signs posted on many of the bodegas, in support of our families, friends and loved ones stranded overseas. The closures won support from many of their regular customers, bodega owners at the rally told the Militant.

Im here to stand in solidarity with Yemeni students and family members, said Katie Lapham, a teacher at P.S. 58 in Brooklyn and a member of the United Federation of Teachers. She teaches English as second language and said she has many students from Yemen in her classes.

High school student Yasmeem Humood carried one of the most popular homemade signs in the crowd. It said, If you dont want refugees, stop creating them, referring to Washingtons ongoing wars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Mideast.

Saris Alkbas, a Yemeni-American born in the U.S., operates a deli in Harlem along with his father. I voted for Trump because I wanted change, he said. But now hes having second thoughts, noting that Trump signed off on the recent Navy SEAL commando attack in Yemen.

After just a week in office, the new administration continued in the footsteps of the old, ordering drone airstrikes and the landing of U.S. special operations forces in central Yemen. They attacked the home of Abdul-Raouf al-Dhahab, a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, killing him and 13 others, U.S. military spokespeople said. However, medics on the scene reported that some 30 people, including 10 women and children, were killed. This included the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born supporter of al-Qaeda who the Obama administration assassinated in a 2011 drone strike.

Yemen has been wracked by civil war among contending capitalist forces since the beginning of 2015, with working people suffering the consequences. Former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, supported by Houthi militias backed by Tehran, deposed the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition force and Washington. More than 10,000 civilians have been killed and 40,000 wounded, many in U.S.-supplied airstrikes. Millions are on the brink of famine.

Al-Qaeda stepped into the vacuum left in much of the country by the civil war, taking control of a number of areas along the countrys coast and looting area banks, smuggling and imposing taxes on trade.
Rakesh Talreja, 25, hailing from Vasai in Maharashtra had moved to Jamaica two-and-half years back to work with Caribbean Jewellers in Kingston.

By India Today Web Desk: External Affairs Minister Sushma Sawarj today reached out to the family of an Indian youth Rakesh Talreja, who was shot dead by robbers at his residence in Jamaica earlier this week.

"Talreja family - I am sorry to know about this tragedy. My heartfelt condolences," Sushma Swaraj tweeted.

Talreja family - I am sorry to know about this tragedy. My hearfelt condolences. /1 @hcikingston Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 11, 2017

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"Indian High Commission in Jamaica will follow up this case with the police and help you in all possible manner," she said.

Indian High Commission in Jamaica will follow up this case with the Police and help you in all possible manner. /2 @hcikingston Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 11, 2017

Vasai (Mumbai): Sushma Swaraj ji has assured us that the mortal remains will be sent from Jamaica soon says mother of Rakesh Talreja pic.twitter.com/kNomW91cVG ANI (@ANI_news) February 11, 2017

According to reports, four armed robbers broke into his house on Thursday evening in Kingston and robbed him and two other housemates on gunpoint, before shooting Talreja in the back three times.

They also shot at his housemates who are now undergoing treatment at a local hospital.

Rakesh Talreja, 25, hailing from Vasai in Maharashtra had moved to Jamaica two-and-half years back to work with Caribbean Jewellers in Kingston.

Swaraj has also directed the High Commission to, "ensure best possible treatment to the injured Indian nationals and coordinate with the affected families".

Also read: Sushma Swaraj helps parents of disabled daughters

Also read: Tricolour on doormat row: Amazon regrets 'offending' Indian sentiments in letter to Sushma Swaraj

Also read: I want to help Sushma Swaraj: AIIMS flooded with kidney donation offers

--- ENDS ---
If you didnt expect much excitement to come out of National Pizza Day, oh how wrong you were.

And its all thanks to the chizza: the fried chicken crust pizza from KFC.

Just tried the new KFC CHIZZA, pizza topping + chicken crust!! pic.twitter.com/D6OJMa0ang  Xavier Lur (@xavierlur) February 8, 2017

Heres exactly whats going on with the chizza.

Dont try and pretend it doesnt look amazing  especially if you havent had your lunch yet.

anyone tried it? is it bomb as it looks?  yung chizza (@xaldsx) February 9, 2017

Found a rare photo of Lucy trying to explain to me why the KFC Chizza is not only a good idea but could save this country. pic.twitter.com/v3HPNVRJU7  Jack Rochester (@JackRochester) February 9, 2017

Actually, on second thoughts, the more we look at the chizzaerm, were not so sure now.

The KFC Chizza looks revolting but I'm not gonna complain if someone treats me to one.     (@theOnlyShamil) February 9, 2017

See, the inclusion of pineapple on top of the chicken is dividing people.

@andysignore @kfc but they put pineapple on it. gross. I don't want pineapples on my chizza  Calvin (@TheSuperCal) February 8, 2017

The KFC Chizza has pineapples on fried chicken wht the hell. Revolting  Hadi Abdul (@hadi_abd92) February 9, 2017

@KFC_SG jog the pineapple on and im in

And in reality, would it live up to the fried chicken/pizza hybrid of our dreams?

Chizza rating 7/10. they say expectation leads to disappointment pic.twitter.com/svAA9iP6ep  Shiqah Ali. (@shiqahali) February 8, 2017

So I hear the @KFC_UKI #Chizza may be coming to the UK! I had many of these last year when I was in India. It's needed here! pic.twitter.com/lX8XDc4GCT  Charlick75 (@Charlick75) February 9, 2017

Potentially not.

Well, its only on sale in Asia for now anyway, with Singapore the latest place to welcome the chizza onto KFC menus. Who knows when it may end up making our drunk food dreams a reality here.
The new croissant from L.A.'s "hottest" bakery features a smoked salmon sushi roll baked inside of it, and I pass. I pass.  jordan okun (@jordanokun) January 27, 2017

In case you were wondering what it actually entailed, the sushi croissant unsurprisingly does exactly what it says on the tin. Its a flaky croissant stuffed with smoked salmon, baked seaweed, pickled ginger and wasabi. We miss the innocent days of almond croissants Sure, we like sushi. And yes, we have been known to inhale more than a few croissants in one sitting. But together? Were just not sold.Mr Holmes Bakehouse (with locations in San Francisco, LA and Seoul) is responsible for this assault on the sweet name of the croissant. First it brought us the cruffin (a marriage between croissant and muffin), which actually sounds pretty tasty to us  but then it got even more experimental.What is it even going to call it? Crossushi doesnt exactly roll off the tongue. Excuse us while we go drown our sorrows in a *normal* croissant. Luckily, Mr Holmes Bakehouse doesnt just specialise in such unholy alliances. For a bit of a palate-cleanser, get an eyeful of the delicious and slightly more traditional pastries that the shop sells.Ahh. Thats better.
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A British model posted a photo of herself breastfeeding her two-year-old daughter which soon attracted the ire of many on the internet.

By India Today Web Desk: Tamara Ecclestone is a 32-year-old British model and a television personality who is caught up in the middle of a controversy.

Tamara posted a photo of herself nursing her two-year-old daughter Sophia on Instagram on Wednesday.

In her picture, Tamara described breastfeeding as a "powerful demonstration of love and nurturing - yet it has become so normal to hide".

Screengrab: Instagram/tamaraecclestoneofficial

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Soon the photo grabbed the ire of many on the internet and then started coming in hate and trolls.

Also Read || Supermom: US mother pumped breast milk while running a half-marathon ||

THE CONTROVERSY

After people charged at her for posting a photo of herself breastfeeding her little daughter, the model told people to "toss" out this idea of nursing babies in private.

Model Tamara accused "bitter people" of "hatred" for disapproving of her posting a photograph of herself breastfeeding her daughter.

Tamara also said she was "astonished" that people are of the view that the picture criticised other mothers who have been bottle-feeding their babies.

"I am astonished that breast feeding mums get such a hard time as there is no reason why we should."

Screengrab: Instagram/tamaraecclestoneofficial

Tamara, apart from receiving flak, also got support of many mothers on the Internet.

One mother -- Helen Tomlinson -- said, "I love this. I only managed to breastfeed my baby for a month as I felt very uncomfortable in public and even in front of my family."

While another mother Leanne Caffyn said, "I breastfed my daughter until she was four. I have never understood how people think it is strange."

Breastfeeding in public still remains a topic of discussion, however, many have been trying to not stigmatise it. On the other hand, there is a camp of people who who'd speak out against it.

Also Read || US mom takes 2-hour break from work every day to breastfeed boyfriend ||

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By India Today Web Desk: With Madhuri Dixit as your teacher, is it possible that you do not put up a good show? Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan's Tamma Tamma Again is out, and the duo let their hair down in this new song from Badrinath Ki Dulhania.

ALSO WATCH Badrinath Ki Dulhania trailer: Alia-Varun's desi charm wins hearts

The song has the vibe of the original, with a more new-age and upbeat rhythm. Although, in all honesty, the Badshah rap seems a little out of place. Comparisons to the original song from Thanedaar were inevitable, but Alia and Varun's carefree jig is not a let-down.

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The makers of Badrinath Ki Dulhania had created a huge buzz around the song before its release, with original Tamma Tamma girl Madhuri coming onboard to teach Alia and Varun a thing or two.

Sanjay Dutt also gave the song his stamp of approval and said that Alia and Varun are "magic" in the song.

The one and only @duttsanjay is all heart!Felt so lovely to show him the song and see his reaction! Love him!! #TammaTammaAgain @Varun_dvn pic.twitter.com/YUZ1jY9TEf Alia Bhatt (@aliaa08) February 10, 2017

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

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Man arrested over Hong Kong subway fire, 17 injured

HONG KONG: Hong Kong police said yestrady (Fab 10) that they have arrested a man for arson after a fire engulfed a subway train, injuring 17 people and triggering the evacuation of a major station during rush hour.

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By AFP

Saturday 11 February 2017, 09:21AM

Hong Kong rescue personnel remove an injured passenger after a fire broke out on the citys subway system yesterday (Feb 10). Photo: Handout via AFP

Videos showed chaos on the platform at Tsim Sha Tsui Station, with a cabin on fire and one man lying on the platform with his clothes ablaze as bystanders tried to help him.

According to our preliminary investigations and the statements of the injured, we suspect there was a resident (who) had lit combustible agents, Deputy Chief Fire Officer Yau Chi-on told reporters.

A government spokeswoman said that of the 17 injured, two were in a critical condition. Yau said the victims had suffered serious burns and inhaled harmful fumes.

Police said they had ruled out terrorism as a motive.

We have arrested this person for committing arson, Police District Commander Kwok Pak-chung told reporters, adding that the man was a 60-year-old surnamed Cheung.

According to our investigation up until now, we believe this incident was related to the personal issues of one person, an independent incident. No information at this point shows that it was an act of terror or an attack targeting public transportation, he said.

When one of my colleagues brought one of the injured persons to the hospital, the person declared he was involved with the fire and that he had lit the fire, Kwok said.

An unnamed police source told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) that the man had said burn you to death before lighting a Molotov cocktail and catching on fire himself.

Photographs taken by passengers and circulating online showed people packed into a smoke-filled train cabin, and firemen rushing injured people out of the station in chaotic scenes.

One man was completely on fire, his long trousers became shorts... he crawled and fell, others helped to put out the fire, eyewitness Ray Chau told the SCMP.

That train journey felt particularly long, he said. There was nothing we could do but to inhale the smoke.

Police cordoned off the entrance to the station where dozens of curious onlookers had gathered, some taking photos with their cellphones, an reporter said. A number of fire trucks and police vehicles lined the street.

Inside the station first-aid debris and empty water bottles were scattered on the floor.

The citys leader Leung Chun-ying expressed his sympathy for those injured and called for a full investigation.

The incident is a rare occurrence in Asias finance hub, where the transport network is known for its safety and efficiency.

In 2004, 14 people were injured on the subway when a man started a fire in the citys Admiralty Station during the morning rush hour.

Mass Transit Railway, the company which operates the citys subway, said that trains were skipping Tsim Sha Tsui Station, which services a popular shopping and nightlife district.
Phuket masseuse says wrongly convicted of theft, seeks help from Court of Appeal

PHUKET: A 32-year-old Thai woman from Ratchaburi province who has received a 10-year sentence for theft from Trang Provincial Court is seeking assistance from the Region 8 Court of Appeal in Phuket as she says she has been wrongly convicted in the case.

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By Eakkapop Thongtub

Saturday 11 February 2017, 11:28AM

Ms Phawitra Konggompon, 32, says she has been wrongly convicted of theft and sentenced to 10 years in jail. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

At around midday yesterday (Feb 10), Ms Phawitra Konggompon, 32, who currently works at a spa in Karon, visited the Region 8 Court of Appeal to hand over documents which she says prove she has been wrongly convicted of theft in a case dating back to 2011.

A representative of the court, Mr Chayathip Chitluag, received the documents on the courts behalf.

Explaining her story, Ms Phawitra said, I need help because I have been wrongly convicted of theft and was sentenced to 10 years in prison on April 2, 2016. I was accused of stealing necklaces and amulets worth over B700,000 from a customer of a restaurant where I worked in Trang.

I need the help of the Court of Appeal in appealing my conviction because I have to take care of my young son and I have not got the money for a lawyer to help me fight my case, she said.

I have come here to the Court of Appeal so that they can examine the evidence I have again. Evidence includes CCTV images which officers from Hat Samran Police Station in Trang say proves I was the thief.

However, the woman seen in this image is not me. Furthermore, fingerprints taken from the scene are not mine, Ms Phawitra said.

I have already asked police to recheck the evidence but they have not made any progress in doing this.

I would also like to have to opportunity to see the victim in this case as I have never seen this person before. Even on the day I was convicted the victim was asked to identify me as the thief, but this was done via a video link, she added.

This whole issue dates back to 2011 when I was employed at a restaurant in Trang and an arrest warrant was issued by Hat Samran Police Station after a customer of the restaurant had B700,000 worth of valuables stolen.

Police have never been able to find anyone responsible for the theft so last year they decided to arrest me and say I was the thief, Ms Phawitra concluded.

Mr Chayathip said that having heard details of Ms Phawitras predicament, the Region 8 Court of Appeal would provide her with a lawyer to help her fight this case and clear her name.
By Press Trust of India: Washington, Feb 10 (PTI) A defiant US President Donald Trump today denounced as "disgraceful" an appellate courts decision blocking his controversial ban on refugees and nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Referring to a portion of an article written on the national security blog Lawfare, which highlights a statute that the author says the judges failed to cite, Trump tweeted: "LAWFARE: Remarkably, in the entire opinion, the panel did not bother even to cite this (the) statute. A disgraceful decision!"

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Lawfare is a legal blog that covers the intersection of national security and the legal world. Its website reads that it is published in cooperation with the Brookings Institution, a well-known Washington think tank, Politico reported.

The post Trump referred to breaks down the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholding a stay on the president?s executive order temporarily banning individuals from certain majority-Muslim nations from entering the US.

Benjamin Wittes, who wrote the article and is the editor-in-chief of Lawfare, swiftly responded to Trumps tweet, saying he supports the courts decision and urged the public to read his full blog post.

"You decide whether the POTUS is quoting me in context. Heres the article. For the record, I support the decision," Wittes tweeted, including a link to his article.

The White House has vowed to continue to fight for the orders and has expressed confidence that they will ultimately be upheld in court, but todays ruling keeps them out of effect, at least for the time being.

Trump, after todays court decision, took to Twitter and said the court ruling was a "political decision" and he looked forward to pursuing a legal challenge.

A three-judge panel ruled earlier in the day not to grant a stay that would have reinstated Trump?s controversial immigration order to temporarily halt immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East and Africa and temporarily shut down the refugee programme.

"We hold that the Government has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal, nor has it shown that failure to enter a stay would cause irreparable injury, and we therefore deny its emergency motion for a stay," the panel, from the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, wrote in the decision. PTI NSA

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How many people have already voted absentee in South Dakota ahead of Election Day?

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That awkward moment when Donald Trump shook hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and refused to let go. We wondered what they were thinking about during this time, and we came up with this.

By India Today Web Desk: India hasn't been slow on news these days, thanks to the Akhilesh Yadav-Rahul Gandhi duo in Uttar Pradesh, and the Panneerselvam vs Sasikala clash in Tamil Nadu. Meanwhile, the US is making headlines with its brand new president's awkward handshake.

Yesterday, Donald Trump met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House. They must've made some small talk, discussed some very important issues concerning their countries.

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And then, they started shaking hands. For 17-odd, long seconds.

*Awkward*

An honor to host Prime Minister @AbeShinzo in the United States. pic.twitter.com/f6TvfZ6sMj President Trump (@POTUS) February 10, 2017

Near the end, it almost seems like Abe is muttering "please". What for, we don't know, but we hope it was not him pleading Trump to let go of his hand.

Even if it wasn't so, one close look at PM Abe, and you can't help but wonder what was going on in his mind.

So, we came up with some hypothetical scenarios of what PM Abe and Trump may have been thinking during that long, awkward handshake. Enjoy!

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By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Feb 11 (PTI) US President Donald Trump has said he is "working" on a major tax reform which would massively reduce taxes of workers and businesses of the country.

"We are in the process right now of working on a major tax reform that will massively reduce taxes on our workers and businesses," Trump said yesterday in his weekly web and radio address to the nation.

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"We want to make it much easier to do business in America, and thats what were going to do. Were going to make it also much harder for companies to leave. Theyre not just going to say bye-bye and fire everybody. There will be consequences," he said.

Trump said, he met the CEO of Intel (Brian Krzanich) this week, who announced that his company will invest USD 7 billion in a new manufacturing facility in Arizona, creating thousands of new American jobs.

"Thats what we want, new American jobs and good jobs. Intel decided to move forward with this project because they know we are totally committed to lifting the regulatory and tax burdens that are hurting American innovation and companies," he said.

Trump said he want America to be the greatest jobs magnet of the world.

"But we cant do that if we dont stop the wasteful rules and excessive taxes that make it impossible for companies to compete," he said.

Every hour of every day, his administration is focused on creating jobs for people, Trump said.

"I mean good jobs. More jobs, better jobs, higher paying jobs, thats our mission," he said.

Referring to his meeting with sheriffs and police chiefs from across the country, Trump said his administration is committed to national security, which is why he will continue to fight to take all necessary and legal action to keep terrorists, radical and dangerous extremists from ever entering the country.

"We will not allow our generous system of immigration to be turned against us as a tool for terrorism and truly bad people We must take firm steps today to ensure that we are safe tomorrow," Trump said.

"We will defend our country, protect our Constitution and deliver real prosperity for our people," he said. PTI LKJ AJR

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After unveiling a gripping poster of The Ghazi Attack, the insiders have reported that producer Karan Johar was the one to name the film The Ghazi Attack

The movie centres around a war between India and Pakistan which is still an enigma to a lot of people and it is an important event in Indian history.

The film was initially titled Ghazi but co-producer Karan Johar made a huge contribution in suggesting the new title The Ghazi Attack He felt it would give a more Indian perspective to the narrative, depicting how PNS Ghazi, a Pakistani submarine was on a mission to destroy the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, by entering Indian waters.

Karan Johar has been supporting good content and has recently produced films like Dear Zindagi,' Baahubali: The Beginning and Kapoor & Sons which have been loved by the audience and were critically acclaimed too. He understands the cine-goers' sensibilities really well, which made the makers incorporate his suggestion for The Ghazi Attack title.

India's first War-At-Sea film, The Ghazi Attack is slated to release on February 17.


BJP MLC and local panchayat leaders were detained this morning in a high-voltage drama as they led a protest against collection of toll in Udupi district of Karnataka.

BJP MLC Kota Srinivas Poojary (extreme right) sharing stage with the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi during Lok Sabha polls. (PTI file photo)

By Nolan Pinto: It was chaos on the National Highway-66 in Udupi district of Karnataka today as the BJP MLC Kota Srinivas Poojary led a protest to the toll plaza.

The supporters of Poojary were planning to demolish the toll booth protesting against the delayed construction of the road.

Protesters complained that even though 90 per cent of the road was yet to be built, the construction company was levying toll on the vehicles passing through it.

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BJP MLC Kota Srinivas Poojary, who once shared stage with the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi during the Lok Sabha poll campaign, was detained along with other local leaders as police enforced prohibitory orders in the affected area.

Section 144 of the CrPC has been imposed in and around toll plaza on the NH-66. The agitators have now called for a Udupi bandh on February 13.

The road construction is being undertaken by Navayuga Construction Company. It was permitted by the district administration to collect toll at the Sasthan (Gundmi) in Udupi on Friday.

The BJP protested the decision of the district administration and threatened to demolish the toll booth. Tight police security was provided at the toll plaza.

The protest was led under the banner of National Highway Jagriti Samiti.

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Actor Kangana Ranaut, who is busy promoting her upcoming flick Rangoon talks about sharing the cottage with co-star Shahid Kapoor.

As the place where they were shooting was a remote area and no pucca house was located to accommodate the cast and crew of Rangoon, they were made to stay in a makeshift cottage.

Since the cottage was filled with people, not everyone could have their personal space at all times. Shahid Kapoor is a big fan of hip-hop music and prefers playing music every morning to get into the groove. Kangana, on the other hand, prefers serene and soft music.

Reminiscing about her cottage days in Arunachal Pradesh, Kangana shared,  We were shooting in a remote location where a little makeshift cottage was erected. Shahid and I were sharing the cottages with our respective teams. Every morning, I would wake up to this mad hip- hop music. And he would exercise listening to crazy trance and techno songs blasting from the speakers. I was fed up and wanted to shift out. Sharing the cottage with Shahid was a nightmare,

The idea of putting everyone together in a cottage was to build a good rapport amongst the cast for a smooth filmmaking experience.

Talking about shooting in a hostile terrain, Kangana said, Initially, it was a bit taxing because I was suddenly taken from an urban location to an extremely remote location with no network. But, gradually, it became a lot easier since I am a mountain girl. But Shahid would often freak out, she adds.

Rangoon is an intense drama revolving around love, deceit and war, starring Saif Ali Khan, Kangana Ranaut and Shahid Kapoor in pivotal roles.

Directed by Vishal Bhardwaj and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala under the banners, Rangoon is all set to hit the theatres on February 24, 2017.
If they are not a spitting image of each other they are at least joined at the hip, these inspired people who are rewriting history textbooks in India and Pakistan.

The inevitable target of their bogus and potentially violent writings are the minorities  non-Hindus in India and non-Muslims in Pakistan.

Consider the latest attempt at subversion from India. According to reports on Thursday, ministers in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled (BJP) Rajasthan state have proposed that the outcome should be rewritten in the mediaeval battle of Haldighati that was fought between the forces of Mughal emperor Akbar and Rajput chieftain Rana Pratap.

It ended in a stalemate with the latter retreating deeper into Mewar, but Hindutva historians are determined to show him as the clear victor.

It is less widely admitted that his Rajput General Mansingh led Akbars 1576 campaign.

If Hindutva historians have their way they would project even Alexander of Macedonia as an anti-India Muslim marauder.

Cinematic versions of Alexanders war with King Porus have already attempted this in a way, showing the foreigner speaking in Urdu, implying a Muslim language, while the vanquished Indian ruler spoke chaste Hindi, erroneously projected as a Hindu language.

It would be equally embarrassing for Hindutva historians to admit that Maratha king Shivaji communicated with his arch-foe Emperor Aurangzeb in Persian while conducting his Maratha empires administration in Modhi, a less discussed precursor of Marathi.

It is routine among Hindutva historians to claim mediaeval monuments as Hindu structures grabbed by Muslims. According to P.N. Oak, an early myth-maker in this genre, Taj Mahal was a Hindu palace as was the Asafi Imambarha of Lucknow.

According to Oak, Christianity is Chrisn-nity, an ascription to Lord Krishna. Christianity is in fact a popular variation of the Hindu, Sanscrit [sic] term Chrisn-neety, i.e. the way of life preached, advocated or exemplified by the Hindu incarnation Lord Chrisn, spelled variously as Crsn, Krsn, Krishn, Chrisn, Crisna or Krisna also, Oak wrote.

To keep the spirit from flagging, even Wagners theory of continental drift was harnessed to claim that light-skinned Indians originally came from the border of Bihar and Orissa.

Later, the border drifted away to form the North Pole, thus implying that Caucasian and Central Asian genes travelled from India to their current abode, not the other way round.

As in India, rigging the chronology of history has been honed into a craft in Pakistan too, and it is difficult to say who between the two is better in conjuring myths that exhort young minds to violence.

A recent study in Pakistan found that the countrys public school textbooks negatively portrayed religious minorities, including Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis, as untrustworthy, religiously inferior, and ideologically scheming.

The report, Teaching Intolerance in Pakistan: Religious Bias in Public School Textbooks, analysed 78 textbooks from all four provinces covering grades five through 10.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) sponsored the study, which was conducted by a Pakistan-based NGO, Peace and Education Foundation (PEF). The study found 70 new instances of bias in addition to finding that some problematic content found in a 2011 study conducted by USCIRF had remained and even been expanded upon.

Pakistans public school textbooks contain deeply troubling content that portrays non-Muslim citizens as outsiders, unpatriotic, and inferior; are filled with errors; and present widely-disputed historical facts as settled history, USCIRF Chairman Robert P. George said in a statement on the reports release.

Missing from these textbooks are any references to the rights of religious minorities and their positive contributions to Pakistans development.

These textbooks sadly reflect the alarming state today of religious freedom in Pakistan, he concluded. A countrys education system, including its textbooks, should promote religious tolerance, not close the door to cooperation and coexistence.

The 52-page report contains many examples of a troubling portrayal of religious minorities in the public school textbooks.

A passage in an eighth grade Islamic Studies book, published in 2015 as part of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa curriculum, describes Jihad in a fraught way.

Jihad will continue till the end of times. Jihad is going on in different parts of the world. Many Mujahidin of Islam are participating in Jihad for sake of Allah, for protection of their religion, to help their oppressed brothers, and to get freedom from tyranny, it read. As a student if you cannot practically participate in Jihad you can at least financially help in preparation of Jihad.

A passage from a tenth grade Punjab textbook, also published in 2015, states: Because the Muslim religion, culture and social system are different from non-Muslims, it is impossible to cooperate with Hindus.

The subversion of textbooks, and thereby of young minds, inevitably point to violence as the way forward.

The Indian move to alter the result of Haldighati came days after violent protests broke out in Rajasthan over a coming film, Padmavati, a quasi-mythical elegy written by Malik Mohammed Jaisi in 1540. The poem in Awadhi eulogises the Rajput princess to surpass Helen of Troy.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday expressed confidence that his AAP will perform exceedingly well in Punjab and Goa where it is contesting against both the BJP and the Congress.

"On March 11 when results will be out, we are confident of winning big number of seats in Punjab and in Goa too we are sure of performing well and securing good number of seats," Sisodia, who was here to review the party's organisational matters, said at a press interaction.

The senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader said that the party plans to contest polls in various states including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh.

"We will fight elections in Rajasthan as people are tired of BJP and they do not trust the Congress," he said.

In reply to a question, Sisodia said that his party will welcome all leaders, including rebels from other political parties, to its fold if they are not corrupt, and have clean characters.

He claimed that because of demonetisation, trade, industry and the common man have suffered badly.

"The Prime Minister should inform the country on black money it has received after demonetisation and the quantity of new currency Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued since November 8 when demonetisation was announced," he demanded.
Phungzathang Tonsing, veteran Congress leader who had resigned from the party, on Saturday joined the National People's Party (NPP).

In a reception organised by NPP here, the National President of NPP Conrad K Sangma welcomed Phungzathang Tonsing.

Earlier on Friday, Tonsing had resigned from Congress without showing any reason.

Tonsong was the president of MPCC and had been minister in the Congress regime in Manipur for about 20 years but dropped from the present congress ministry in the recent past.

He was, however, given Congress party ticket by the AICC for the ensuing 11th Manipur Assembly elections, 2017.
Tamil Nadu police on Saturday visited beach resorts near here to enquire about AIADMK legislators staying there, officials said.

The police action comes a day after the Madras High Court adjourned to February 12 its hearing on habeas corpus petitions filed by two advocates to trace two AIADMK legislators.

Legislators supporting AIADMK General Secretary V K Sasikala were taken in buses and made to stay in the resorts since Wednesday.

The state government counsel told the court that the legislators were not in illegal custody and asked for time to get instructions about their whereabouts.

The ruling AIADMK has a total of 135 legislators.

Acting Chief Minister O Paneerselvam's camp claims six legislators  including himself, while the remaining are part of Sasikala's.

On Friday, some AIADMK legislators belonging to the Sasikala camp told the media that they were staying in the resort on their own will and are not in captivity.
The first phase of election in western Uttar Pradesh saw an overwhelming response from voters as about 63 per cent polling was reported on Saturday. The polling was conducted peacefully with the exception of stray incidents of clashes amongst the supporters of rival political parties.



On an average, 65 per cent voting was reported on the 73 constituencies of the 15 districts of western UP. Barring a few places the polling percentage is greater than the election of 2012, showing a bigger response from the voters in the first phase of polling. The fate of 839 candidates, including 77 women, have now been locked in the EVMs from these assembly seats.



Polling started at 7 a.m. on all the 26,823 polling stations at 14514 locations across the 15 districts on which 26,01,081 people were expected to cast their votes. Polling began at a slow start barring a few places like Muzaffarnagar where the enthusiasm of voters appeared on a peak. However, it gradually picked up and by evening it was much more than what was recorded in the last election.



Meerut registered an approximate 65 per cent, Muzaffarnagar 65 per cent, Shamli 62 per cent, Baghpat 67 per cent, Hapur 69.8 per cent, Bulandshahar 64 per cent, Ghaziabad 57 per cent, Noida 59.80 per cent, Aligarh 65 per cent, Mathura 68.3 per cent, Agra 63.94 per cent, Ferozabad 65 per cent, Kasgunj 64 per cent, Hathras 62 per cent and Etah 68 per cent at 5 pm. The exact percentage would come later as polling was still ongoing at some polling stations even after the 5 pm deadline.



Polling was by and large peaceful with the exception of a few incidents of the minor clash. One such incident was reported in Lion Malakpur village of Baraut constituency of Baghpat where Dalits were allegedly prevented from casting their votes by a dominating caste for almost an hour.  Polling was resumed only after the intervention of security forces, told Jaikumar Jatav, district president of BSP. On Booth no.183 of the same constituency Supporters of SP candidate Shokendra Tomar and rival RLD also had an altercation which could be prevented on police intervention.



A minor clash was also reported in Kithore constituency of Meerut, where Minister of state government Shahid Manzoor was contesting for the seat. The angry crowd, supporting BSP pelted stones on minister`s vehicle when he was inside a polling booth in Rardhana village of the constituency.



Earlier in the morning, BJP`s controversial MLA Sangeet Som`s brother Ganga Som was arrested from village Fardipur on charges of entering the booth with his licensed revolver. Incidents of the clash were also reported at the booths of BAV college and Shyam Nagar locality.
It is that time of the year again when movie enthusiasts will take a break from their busy schedules, curl up on their sofas with a hot coffee on their table and some popcorn maybe to accompany them through the evening as they brace themselves to watch the prestigious Oscar Awards, an award ceremony that recognizes the excellence in cinematic achievements in the United States which 89th edition is scheduled to take place on February 26.

While the predictions are on whether the Golden Globes show stealer La La Land would take home the golden souvenir this year or the critically acclaimed Manchester by the Sea would register its name in the most prestigious list, heres looking at the 5 best of best Oscar awarded movies selected by Metacritic.

12 years a slave

It is a period drama film and an adaptation of the 1853 slave narrative memoir Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, a New York State-born free African-American man who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. Its Metascore was 96, which is said to be the highest Metascore a movie has ever earned.

The Hurt Locker

Released in 2009, The Hurt Locker is an American war thriller film about an Iraq War Explosive Ordnance Disposal team who are targeted by insurgents with traps, remote control detonations and ambushes. Director Kathryn Bigelow won the Best Director award and also became the first woman to receive that award (Metascore 94)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

This Lord of the Rings sequel is an epic high fantasy adventure film produced, written and directed by Peter Jackson based on the second and third volumes of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.It is the third and final part of the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, following The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers (Metascore 94)

The Schindler's List

It is an American epic historical period drama film, directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg and scripted by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the novel Schindler's Ark by Australian novelist, Thomas Keneally (Metascore 93)

No country for old men

It is an American thriller film directed and written by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on Cormac McCarthy's eponymous novel (Metascore 90)
The fierce battle is between Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties such as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Samajwadi Party (SP), and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD).
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Uttarakhand last month, he addressed a public rally and avoided making direct attack on Chief Minister Harish Rawat. As a changed strategy, Modi now bashes the Uttarakhand CM regularly. And that too directly!

The Ruderpur public rally on Saturday was no different and Narendra Modi launched a series of attack on Rawat. Illegal mining, imposing Har Da tax, tv sting operation, all featured in the PM speech.

This time the social media campaign of Congress was on focus of Narendra Modi. Congress released a video on social media recently showing Chief Minister Harish Rawat as Baahubali. The video became viral on social media and the one minute 20 second film shows Rawat as the saviour of Uttarakhand.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, Public used to criticize political parties for providing ticket to Baahubalis. But, in Uttarakhand some love becoming Baahubali. Which is shameful.

The morphed video, made by using the video clippings of Indian movie Baahubali, shows BJP president Amit Shah, vice president Shyam Jaju and ex-Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna expressing joy as muscle-man marches on lift a heavy load. Harish Rawat lifts heavy Uttarakhand. The video shows Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a Sadhu, shocked and surprised on the power of Baahubali.

The Baahubali video concludes by making an appeal to vote for Congress the video ends. After Baahubali, Harish Rawat featured as Rowdy Rathore and latest as Welcome movies don Uday Shetty.

On the Baahubali clip, Harish Rawat clarified, I have not uploaded the clip on internet. After facing continuous and personal attack from BJP, Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat has started advocating, BJP should make Narendra Modi the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand.

BJP intensified its poll campaign on Saturday by fielding Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Smriti Irani, Hema Malani and Yogi Adityanath- who addressed public rallies in different parts of the hill state. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat in Guptkashi and other parts of the state to address public gatherings.
About 90 lakh tax payers in the country are going to be part of the countrys largest indirect tax network. Building the world's biggest and most ambitious Goods and Services Tax Network, which is going to roll out in June 2017, is the task of GSTN chairman Navin Kumar, a retired IAS officer of the 1975 batch. After serving the government for many decades, he undertook in May 2013 the Himalayan task of setting up an IT network and tax company for the benefit of the country. Born in 1952, Kumar did his post graduation in Physics with first class academic credentials. He joined the civil service in 1975 at the age of 23 and was assigned to the Bihar cadre. Kumar served as secretary in the ministry of urban development and was also chairman of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation as well as other metro rail companies operating in Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata. Subsequently, he was appointed chief secretary of Bihar, the post from which he retired in 2012. In an interview, Kumar spoke about the GSTN journey. Excerpts

Q. Can you take us through the various steps you have taken in building this network and where we stand today in terms of GSTNs preparedness?

A: In May 2013, when I joined, I was the first person. I met the Finance Minister and the Revenue Secretary and asked them what they expect from me, since GST law was nowhere in sight and there was no time schedule for GST. They advised me then that these things are not certain, but what is certain is that GST is going to come and we have to get prepared for it. They suggested to first get into organisation building, setting up an office, devising the organisational structure, see what kind of people were needed and try to get them on board. So, that is how we started in 2013. Then, I took two retired officers who helped me. We were only three of us working till January 2014. After that we hired a company secretary but recruitment takes time and then we selected the HR and CEO. The CEO joined in October 2014. But in the meantime, we appointed E&Y as our consultants for doing a study on the kind of organisational structure a company of our nature should possess. They studied IT and ITeS companies. We had very specific and peculiar requirements. We were not only supposed to be an IT company, but also a company with a strong knowledge in the tax domain because GST required both and there was no company in the country like that. Then we had a broadly four-layered organisational structure which was suggested by E&Y ~ IT, taxation, security and support.

Q. Why has GSTN started enrolling taxpayers when the law is yet to be passed?

A: The law says that all the existing taxpayers of VAT, central excise, service tax and all other taxes that are being subsumed dont have to register themselves again. They will be given provisional registration certificate. This will enable them to carry on with their businesses and file returns. Within six months, they will have to provide some information after which their registration will be confirmed. But without waiting for roll-out date we have started enrollment process in advance. This will help in giving enrolled applicants provisional certificates as soon as the system becomes operational. This would help the authorities issue final registration certificates in time.

Q. We are not very far from the scheduled date of June 2017. Where do you stand in terms of training of officers?

A: We have prepared a plan to train tax officers in the IT system. Our strategy is that we will first train about 3,000 master trainers. These are tax officers from States and Central government and once they are trained, they will go back to their respective states and train other officers. This will begin from 9 February and by mid-March it will be completed. The master trainers will undergo training for three days. Each batch has 50 people and there are six batches running simultaneously. We are providing slots for the state training groups to come to the system and work. There would be around 60,000 officers who will get trained by mid March.

Q. Can you share some details on the process of putting in place the hardware and software, in terms of both timelines and cost?

A: In May 2014, when the new government came to power, in the very first month it was decided to introduce GST in April 2016. Since, GST was their priority, at that time we appointed PwC for defining the scope of our work for the GST project and to write an RFP. In December 2014, we had our first interaction with the IT industry to come on board and work with us and we were stunned with their response, because the IT industry point blank told us that they are not interested in our work. They said the problem is they dont have any faith in government projects, because they do the work and dont get paid. They gave several examples. After addressing their concerns, which was a major challenge, in May 2015 we went ahead with the RFP and invited bids that were open till June. Around 21 companies bought the papers. Then, the IT industry felt that this was a responsive organisation as we understand their concerns and are trying to address them. All five big IT companies submitted their bids. A select technical panel was constituted and finally Infosys was selected on the basis of evaluation. The cost of the project was Rs 1,378 crore and capital cost was around Rs 600 crore. The issue was whether we should go ahead with hardware costing Rs 450 crore and software of Rs 125 crore. After several discussions with the government, since the GST law was nowhere in place, we still gave the green signal to Infosys to prepare the software with the rough draft of GST and any changes that can be incorporated in the second version.

Q. GSTN would be the custodian of a huge amount of sensitive financial information. How do you think data security concerns will be addressed?

A: Security is very important and we have been working on it from day one. What we have planned is that we are going to have security at eight levels. Then we are going to have a round-the-clock security operation and monitoring centre and will also have a third party security audit. There will be a security operation centre that Infosys will run but we will have another one in New Delhi. The best standard of information security is ISO:27001 and we are going to certify our systems as we are using the best security software and hardware systems currently available in the world.

Q. How robust is your system capacity?

A: We have done the sizing of the system. If there are 80 lakh tax payers and each of them uploads about 400 invoices per month, around 320 crore invoices will come. We also have to factor in redundancy of multiple times. Hence, we will have enough storage.

Q. Since you are a not-for-profit organisation, what financial model is GSTN working on?

Originally, when we drafted our revenue model, we suggested that we should be allowed to borrow from the banks for funding the capital cost and that we should be allowed to charge a user fee from all the users, including the government and tax payers. We proposed charges ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 500 per month. But when this proposal went to the empowered committee, the states didnt agree. The states asked why the tax payer should be charged for paying returns, hence it was not acceptable. The states promised us grants but we rejected it. In the end it was decided that the capital part will be funded by the government and when the operation starts, user fee will be charged but the government will pay on behalf of the tax payers. I said this will not work, because collecting money from thirty governments will not be easy. I have my liabilities cut out and how will I manage if they dont send money on time. Then they said they will pay user charge as a years advance. But later, the Central government felt that the earlier model of GSTN to borrow from banks is more practical. The government will provide guarantee. Regarding the user charge, they will pay six months fee in advance and if there is any delay in payment, GSTN can take a working capital loan and the interest will be borne by the government.
By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Feb 11 (PTI) President Donald Trump has said the US is in the process of "getting along very well" with China, including the South China sea dispute, a day after he made his first telephonic conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

"I had a very, very good conversation yesterday, with the President of China. It was a very, very warm conversation. I think we are on the process of getting along very well and I think that well also be very much of a benefit to Japan," Trump told reporters at a joint news conference with the visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

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The two leaders, he noted, "had a very, very good talk last night" and discussed a lot of subject. "It was a long talk and we are working on that (South China Sea) as we speak. We have conversations with various representatives of China," Trump said responding to a question on Chinas aggressive behaviour in South China Sea.

"I believe that, that will all work out very well for everybody, China, Japan, the US and everybody in the region," he said.

Responding to a question on Chinese currency devaluations, Trump said he had been complaining about that for a long time.

"I believe that we will all eventually and probably, very much sooner than a lot of people understand or think, we will be all at a level playing field, because thats the only way its fair," he said.

"Thats the only way that you can fairly compete in trade and other things. We will be on that field and we will all be working very hard to do great for our country. But it has to be fair and we will make it fair," Trump said.

Trump said the US is going to be an even bigger player than it is right now by a lot when it comes to trade.

"A lot of that will have to do with our tax policy, which youll be seeing in the not-too-distant future," he said adding that his administration will have an incentive-based policy.

The White House is working with Congress on this issue, he said.

"Were also working very much, and this has a lot to do with business, on health care, where we can get great health care for our country at a much reduced price both to the people receiving the health care," he said, adding that Obamacare was a total and complete disaster. PTI LKJ AJR

--- ENDS ---
The Union Budget for 2017-18 presented in Parliament on 1 February by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley highlights the Narendra Modi governments resolve to promote digital economy by bringing more transactions under the cashless regime. The American governments USAID had succeeded in convincing Modi that a cashless society is the panacea for all problems India is facing.

He found former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Mr Raghuram Rajan, standing in the way of making India an Eldorado. The RBI reportedly sent an eight-page note pointing out the pitfalls of demonetisation. Even in the USA, 46 per cent transactions are carried out in cash. Germany conducted 80 per cent transactions in cash. Modi wnted to be one up on the USA.

Jaitley said in reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha that the decision to print Rs 2,000 notes was taken in May 2016 and printing began in July, two months before Mr Urjit Patel took over as RBI Governor. In October 2016, the USAID and the Finance Ministry entered into an agreement known as Catalyst, inclusive Cashless Payment Partnership with the goal of ushering in a quantum leap in cashless payments in the country.

The partnership was based on a report commissioned by USAID in 2015 and presented in January 2016, titled Beyond Cash. The study and subsequent plans were kept a secret, which explains Prime Minister Modis statement that preparations for demonetisation had been going on long before the 8 November announcement. In a press statement following the release of the Beyond Cash report, USAID revealed that more than 35 key American, Indian and international organisations had partnered with Catalyst.

These organistions, mostly IT companies and payment service providers, stand to benefit from increased digital payments and from associated generation. Among them are Microsoft, credit card companies like Mastercard and Visa, financial services corporation Citigroup and internet services company eBay Inc.

For digital India to become a reality, it is necessary to first focus on access to reliable, stable and high-speed broadband service all over the country. While expansion of BharatNet, a project to connect all the 2.5 lakh gram panchayats is a move in this direction, raising allocation from Rs 6,000 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 10,000 crore for the current fiscal is hardly adequate.

In comparison, China is spending Rs 11.5 lakh crore ($182 billion) to ensure universal, high-speed broadband access by the end of 2017. Jaitley said in his budget speech, Promotion of digital economy is an integral part of the governments strategy to clean the system and weed out corruption and black money. This in turn is expected to energise private investment in the country through lower cost of credit. India is now on the cusp of a massive digital revolution. Claiming the government was creating an ecosystem to make India a global hub for electronic manufacturing and that more than 250 investment proposals for electronics manufacturing had been received during the last two years, Jaitley said that a number of global leaders and mobile manufacturers had already established production facilities in India.

Ram Sewak Sharma, chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority, is of the view, Digital financial transactions are not sustainable unless you address the issues of cost, convenience and confidence. What is important from the citizens perspective is that cash does not have any costs. If I have Rs 100 in my pocket, I get Rs 100 worth of goods. But if I have to pay Re 1 or Rs 2 for the same digitally, it is not fair, explained Sharma. The payment service providers, predominantly American corporations, stand to benefit most from Catalyst.

Indias digital payment industry is estimated to have the potential to grow to $ 500 billion by 2020 if millions of Indians can be drawn into the digital payment net. USAID and its partner corporations are aware that this policy spells doom for Indias small traders and producers and people in remote regions. Beyond Cash had analysed the impact of demonetisation extensively but were not bothered in todays world dominated by big corporations. Maximisation of profit is all that matters even if this profit comes drenched in the sweat of the toiling masses.

A reality check on the impact of demonetisation shows it has instead of empowering the poor, as claimed by the Prime Minister, impoverished about 40 crore people in the unorganised sector, close to 15 crore casual, manual labourers and 25 crore self-employed and dependent on daily wage earners. Most of them are in deep debt. The agriculture sector is the worst affected. The majority of Indian peasants are small farmers because of the land reforms in vogue in most states.

Small farmers are being driven out of their lands in the name of globalisation so that big agribusiness corporations can take them over. Successive governments have been reducing public investment in agriculture, cutting subsidies on major inputs like fertilizer, electricity and irrigation and gradually phasing out subsidised credit by the public sector banks, allowing imports of heavily subsidized agricultural produce from the developed countries.

Local farmers have not been able to get a remunerative price for their perishables like vegetables and fruit and have even given them away free or fed them to cattle. These policies have pushed Indian agriculture into deep crisis and driven farmers into such despair that more and more of them are committing suicide. A report by the State Bank of India based on a survey last month suggested a sharp decline in business in Mumbai and Pune.

The All-India Manufacturers Organisation has projected a drop in employment of 60 per cent and a loss in revenue of 55 per cent by March-end. Reports from hosiery and machine business in Ludhiana suggest that in January business was down by 50 per cent, much sharper than in organised sectors.

Demonetisation has so far not fulfilled any of the objectives spelt out by the Prime Minister. He maintains the decision was taken when the economy was doing well. Had the economy been weak, then we could not have done it successfully. According to Budget documents, the revised GDP growth for 2016-17 is estimated at around 6.5 per cent, one per cent less than the previous year, which is about Rs 1.6 lakh crore in monetary terms. This disruption is a direct result of demonetisation. Modi said the decision was not taken for any political mileage but for the benefit of the poor. The poor are groaning under its weight.

Black money cannot be eliminated by denying withdrawal of ones own tax paid money deposited in banks. On the contrary, it has generated a new breed of black-marketers dealing in currency exchange. Income Tax raids conducted during the currency exchange phase showed there was circulation of black money in the new Rs 2,000 notes when there was an acute shortage of smaller denomination notes. Moving away from a cash economy to a largely cashless economy needs a change in attitude of the people which cannot be brought about by a fiat of the government however well intentioned it may be.

The writer is a veteran journalist and former Director of The Statesman Print Journalism School.
Rhetoric has come full circle in the dispute over the South China Sea but can the Philippines, the current chair of Asean and a claimant state, deliver a peaceful solution for the area? So far, there is little to see apart from wishful thinking from Manila as it pledges to conclude the Code of Conduct (CoC) for the South China Sea by the end of this year.

A joint working group of officials from China and Asean have agreed on a series of meetings to speed up the work towards creating an international legal instrument that would control the behaviour of the signatories in the contentious sea. But their actions reveal a different mindset.

China and many countries in Southeast Asia have had territorial conflicts over the sea for several decades. China, however, asserted itself and occupied the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos in the 1970s and 1980s respectively. In addition to China, its rival Taiwan as well as Asean countries Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam are also claimants.

Asean began to use diplomatic tools to talk to China with the aim of creating a climate of good practices in the South China Sea.

After years of negotiations beginning the late 20th century, Asean and China signed the Declaration on the Conduct of the Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in 2002.

Articles in the DOC clearly cited that the contracting parties should exercise restraint in the conduct of activities that could complicate or escalate the disputes.

Article 5 of the DOC says countries should refrain from the action of inhabiting presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner.

The non-binding DOC failed to prevent any of these activities. While China was moving southward to the South China Sea, countries in Southeast Asia began to secure their respective positions in the islands and archipelagos in the contentious sea, leading to numerous skirmishes. Tension in modern times arose when Asean and China commemorated the 10th anniversary of the DOC in 2012. In April 2012, the Philippines Navy seized eight Chinese fishing boats accusing them of illegally operating off Scarborough Island, which was occupied by the Philippines.

In the meantime, China began large-scale island building and reclamation in the Spratlys in 2013. China occupies many locations in the Spratlys and has reclaimed more than 3,200 acres of land there. Beijing controls the Cuarteron, Fiery Cross, Gaven, Hughes, Johnson South, Mischief and Subi reefs. At least three airfields and other military facilities were built on these features.

In December last year, Vietnam made significant progress in its land reclamation activities and upgraded its air force infrastructure in the Spratlys. In fact, Vietnam had constructed an airfield in the Spratlys way back in 1977. The recent development was in response to Chinas move. Some of the islets and rocks that Vietnam keeps in the Spratlys include Amboyna Cay, Collins Reef, Ladd Reef, Namyit Island, Sand Cay, Sin Cowe Island and Southwest Cay.

While maintaining good terms with all claimants, notably China, Malaysia was the first to claim some of the Spratly Islands way back in 1979 in its Exclusive Economic Zone. Malaysia lays claim to the Ardasier Reef, Dallas Reef, Erica Reef, Investigator Shoal, Mariveles Reef and Swallow Reef.

As such activities in the contentious sea raised tensions in the region, Asean looked forward to other legal instruments to maintain peace and stability once it realised that its DOC is a toothless paper.

The group called upon all concerned parties to frame a so-called CoC, to supplement  if not replace  the DOC.

Initially, Beijing was reluctant to come along as it argued that the DOC had not yet been fully implemented.

The Asean side insisted it wanted to have something more binding.Finally, negotiations for the CoC began four years ago when Thailand was the Asean-China coordinator. A joint working group was set up to seek common ground for the code.

The efforts to have a CoC were conducted amid differences, if not disputes, among Asean members due to their respective interests with China. There were some changes along the way over the past year.

The Philippines secured a favourable verdict from the Permanent Court of Arbitration against China but since then there has been a policy flip-flop under President Rodrigo Duterte.

The current Asean-China coordinator is Singapore, a non-claimant state.

The aggressive rhetoric coming out of Washington and the reactions from Beijing have once again raised tensions in the South China Sea. These factors always cast a shadow over the efforts to create a CoC.

However, some technical terms such as early harvest and fast track have been contrived over the past few years whenever the two sides or their working groups met to make sure they had something to capture media headlines, implying some progress had been made.

Observers believe that both sides would take longer to finalise the CoC, and it was not likely unless both sides were sure the commitment would not affect their respective occupation and activities on the ground.

Furthermore, both Asean and China would not make the CoC a dispute settlement mechanism. Beijing has made it clear that it would resolve the conflict only on a bilateral basis.

While some Asean members prefer to speak in one voice, many of them  notably the claimants  remain unsure if any multilateral mechanism could help.

But the point is the CoC will likely suffer the same fate as the DOC unless the issue of territorial conflict is seriously addressed.

Otherwise, it will be another well-intentioned but useless piece of paper.

The writer is Regional Editor, The Nation, Thailand. This is a series of columns on global affairs written by top editors from members of the Asia News Network and published in newspapers across the region.
The British parliament  an embodiment of the people's will, as all legislatures are in theory  has taken a bow in the direction of the people. The Prime Minister has won a critical moral victory before the scheduled formal negotiations on Brexit start next month.

Having won the approval of the House of Commons (494 members in favour and 122 against), Theresa May is now on course to trigger Article 50 by her target of early March.

After the occasionally unnerving uncertainty since last June, the Brexit bill was cleared by the Commons on Thursday markedly with no changes. Crucially, the Commons has rejected no fewer than nine attempted amendments, including one to guarantee the future rights of EU nationals.

This would imply that what they call a clean Bill will now be advanced to the House of Lords, an unelected entity, which boasts a strong Remain majority. Further amendments are, however, unlikely as the Bill has passed the muster of the elected House of Commons. Not wholly unfounded is the risk that the Lords will face an overwhelming public call to be abolished if the upper chamber now tries to frustrate the Bill.

They must get on and deliver the will of the British people was the general popular sentiment in the UK in the immediate aftermath of the Commons vote. The marginal victory of the Leave camp in the referendum has now been ratified in the legislature, a fact that must rank as a striking feature of British constitutional history.

The country showcases a remarkable amalgam of the organs of democracy  the judiciary which had sought the concurrence of the legislature, Parliament per se, and the executive. In the net, the voice of the people has been upheld.

The Bill is now expected to be given royal assent on 7 March; the approval of Buckingham Palace will formally enable the Prime Minister to notify the European Union that she will invoke Article 50 at a EU summit. Profound has been the impact on parties and politics.

Not wholly unrelated is the widening rift within the Labour party on a day when Britain was inching closer towards Brexit. It isnt merely that Labour and Conservatives are divided on the issue; Labour is split no less acutely on whether Britain should leave the European Union which is not to be confused with Europe, a geographical expression.
A critical change  is climbdown the right expression?  in the post-Obama Americas policy towards China and Taiwan has been somewhat overshadowed in the midst of the discord over the bar on entry of citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries.

President Trump has accepted the One-China policy, under which Washington does not challenge Beijings claim to what it deems to be a breakaway province  Taiwan.

This must rank as a stunning reversal of policy, one that erases indicators that Trump intends to pursue closer ties with Taiwan. The short point must be that given the forbidding challenges at home, the 45th President of the United States of America can scarcely afford to ruffle Beijings feathers. In terms of geostrategy, therefore, he has opted for continuity rather than any abrupt change that can have profound implications for the America-China-Taiwan axis.

On closer reflection, he has effected a U-turn on Taiwan, somewhat coincidentally with Fridays setback in the appeals court on the immigration order. Indeed, his approach towards a welter of international issues has softened considerably since he assumed office, though it would be presumptuous to imagine that he may yet prefer conformity to impetuous change.

Well might President Xi Jinping claim that he has called Trumps bluff, underlining the fact that the One-China principle is the bedrock of US-China equations and Washington must uphold it and abide by it. There is little doubt though that Chinese diplomatic pressure has paid off.

It bears recall that after Trumps telephonic interaction with the Taiwan President  ahead of the inaugural  Beijing had insisted on the continuation of the existing US policy towards Taiwan as a precondition to discussing other issues, notably bilateral trade.

The mending of fences will help restore the status quo in geopolitics, the message being that while Trump can afford to ignore Taiwan, he cannot antagonise China. More accurately, the One-China policy ought not to have been jettisoned even before he stepped into the White House. In a sense, therefore, the acknowledgement of the tactlessness is a measure of forward movement towards restoring the diplomatic paradigm.

Small wonder there is speculation in the West over whether Trump is still picking up the ropes or whether he is a bully who backs off when he encounters resistance. He has been prevaricating in his views on Israel, most particularly the Jewish settlements.

He may also have taken a call on his dealings with NATO. Much as he is opposed to Iran's nuclear ambition, he appears to have heeded the British Prime Minister's caveat that he cannot simply tear up the 2015 nuclear deal, as he had vowed to do. Pragmatism will hopefully dictate his policy towards immigrants as well.
Twenty-two per cent of the Indian television programmes have been found depicting tobacco and broadcasting them despite 71 per cent viewers being children and adolescents, a report revealed on Friday.

The report titled 'Evaluation of Tobacco Free Film and Television Policy in India' conducted by Vital Strategies and supported by World Health Organization (WHO) noted that the implementation of the rule under the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products Act was very low.

The report added that anti-tobacco messages are effective in countering the imagery of tobacco and prompting decision to quit. It also called for better implementation of the act.

The film rule was legislated on October 2, 2012, and mandates that three forms of warning messages (anti-tobacco health spots, audio-visual disclaimers and static health warning messages) are broadcast when tobacco products, branding or use are shown in films and television programmes.

The study was conducted under the guidance of the Union Health Ministry.

"An effective way of tobacco control would be to ingrain and indoctrinate the young minds, the children and the youths. If they could be weaned away from tobacco use, we believe that the battle is half won," said Health Secretary C.K Mishra.

Present on the occasion, Nandita Murukutia, Country Director Vital Strategies, said: "The tobacco industry spends billions of dollars to mislead consumers by depicting tobacco use as glamorous or popular."

According to Murukutia, when tobacco is depicted in films and TV Programmes, it's doing the tobacco industry's work for them.

"Tobacco kills one million Indians every year and costs our economy $22.4 billion. The objective of this study is to understand the importance of 'film rule' and the current gap in implementation," said Murukutia.

Murukutia urged the TV and film industry to recognise its responsibilities and work towards a tobacco-free culture.
Love is not just a feeling but it is a celebration of a lifetime. Each and every moment with the beloved is unique and special. A relationship is called so because love is what binds the two together.

When people say love life and you think of this one special person, when they say love and you skip a beat, when you hear that voice your world spins around all ecstatic then you must thank the stars and more than that thank the one.

With Valentines Day around the corner, steal your beloved from the world and elope to a place where you two have the perfect solitude.

We picked a few places where you can walk hand in hand under the sky which showers love and make it bright with all the night stars.

Here are five romantic getaways for this Valentines Day.

Binsar

Away from the hustle bustle of the city, secluded, surrounded with beautiful mountains and picturesque landscapes, Binsar in Uttarakhand is 396 km away and makes it for one of the most amazing romantic getaways of all time.

Nainital

Some places never lose their charm and Nainital is one of those. Take an hour long flight or a seven-hour long drive from Delhi to a destination which is one of the most chosen places for honeymoon. The place reflects love and makes for a good choice for valentines celebration.

Agra

It houses the symbol of love that the world loves and admires. The city of Taj Mahal can beat all the romantic destinations with the magnificence of the white wonder of love. A smooth 4 hour-long drive from Delhi in this pleasant weather will spark the element of love and make the getaway a wonderful one.

Jaipur

Paint the pink city red with love this Valentines Day. With old forts reciting the love stories of kings and queens, cherish your moments in the royal city and spend some royal romantic time with your beloved. Hit the road for a six-hour long drive and begin the celebration of love.

Kasauli

If Shimla is the queen of hills then Kasauli is the princess. A secluded town on hill top makes it a perfect getaway for the nature lovers. With Chandigarh on the foothills, the place is an epitome of picturesque views. A six-hour long drive from Delhi, Kasauli is worth a try in the spring season.

So surprise your beloved with a romantic getaway this valentines day and let the colour of love fill your life.
Despite the heavy blanket of fog surrounding us, our flight was on schedule. It was early afternoon and we were peckish. Without further ado we hailed a cab for Aminabad. The Nawabs, the European imperialists, fortune seekers and politicians, all contend dazzlingly in the Lucknow firmament, but the brightest star got to be Haji Murad Ali, alias, Tunda Kababi. Haji Murad was the man without an arm (Tunda in Urdu) who improvised a wondrous treat for a toothless (perhaps both literally and metaphorically) Nawab. Thus was born the legend of melt-in-the mouth kababs called Galawati or Galauti in colloquial parlance.

A cramped, non-descript shop set up by Haji Murad himself in 1905 in the Chowk areas labyrinthine alleys and now run by his son, continues to do brisk business. The grandson opened another outlet in Aminabad in 1996. For our first meal in Lucknow, we decided to bestow our gluttonous patronage on the grandsons establishment. We had the kababs with shirmal, a saffron flavoured traditional flatbread. And the verdict  definitely not to be missed.

Nicely fed and watered, we visited the ruins of the Residency complex in the heart of the city. This used to be the seat of the British Resident General, representative of the infamous British East India Company in the court of the Nawabs of Awadh. Less than three hundred years ago it had been one end of an intricate chessboard where a mini clash of civilisation played out with the Company seeking to oust the Muslim Nawabs and annex Awadh in their quest for domination of India.

The last Nawab was packed out of his palace in Lucknow in 1856 and exiled to Calcutta with a handsome pension. Less than a year later, disgruntled Indian soldiers, in the companys employ, rebelled. When they marched on to Lucknow, the British residents, including women and children, took shelter in the Residency which was subjected to a prolonged siege and heavy artillery fire. Many died. Particularly poignant were the weathered epitaphs Here lies the son of Empire who tried to do his duty. Another nearby grave reads Do not weep my children, for I am not dead, but am sleeping here.

The ruins of the Residency stand today as monument to the violent aftermath of a misguided regime change. The Nawabs, though not very effective administrators and morally ambiguous, were popular cultural icons tolerated by their subjects, both Hindus and Muslims. Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab, it is rumoured, enquired of the Resident General if the subjects of her majesty, Queen Victoria, sang songs penned by her.

After successfully putting down the rebellion, the East India Company extracted its pound of flesh. The victorious Company troops entered Lucknow in 1858 through the elegant Rumi Darwaza the Turkish modelled gateway of Lucknow and slaughtered the rebels and their suspected sympathisers. Many more died.

The stretch of road from Rumi Darwaza to Chattar Manzil or the Umbrella Palace was old Lucknows Avenue des Champs-Elysees and was reputed to be at par with the nineteenth century urban landscapes of Rome, Paris, London and Constantinople. Not anymore, I thought as we covered the stretch in a Tanga, a horse pulled carriage in which we barely managed to squeeze in, one of those touristy things that has to be done.

We had chosen Lucknow because it presents on one canvas the different layers of Indias rich and diverse past. Myth has it that Ramas brother, Laxman, allegedly colonised and christened the city, Laxmanavati, although the subaltern movement claims that the city was originally named after Lakhan Pasi, a dalit ruler. In its prime Lucknow profited economically and culturally from the decline of the mighty Mughal Empire, attracting in equal measure both greed and wrath of several rampaging European East India companies before becoming the capital of modern Indias most populous state.

Lucknow flourished under the Nawabs with the blossoming of the Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb, a term describing the fusion of the very best elements of the Hindu and Islamic traditions characterised by cultural eclecticism and exaggerated rituals of refinement. This is best illustrated in a painting at the Hussainabad picture gallery which we visited the next morning. It depicts the celebration of Basant Panchami on a gilded barge on the Gomti , presided over by Wajed Ali Shah, his family and ministers, all dressed in yellow and graced by the presence of the English resident and his wife.

The European influence added to this melange with contributions from John Company and individuals like Claude Martin. Martin was a French adventurer who came to India from Lyon as a soldier with the French East India Company. With the declining fortunes of the French in India, he shifted allegiance to the British and with their permission in 1776 took up the post of superintend of Arsenal for the Nawab in Lucknow. An amateur architect, a committed philanthropist and educationalist, he is best remembered for establishing the schools that bear his name and architectural imprint.

In the afternoon we visited the Bada Imambara, a grand assembly with a mosque and a labyrinthine maze where the Nawabs sported with their consorts and concubines. This sprawling building was commissioned by Nawab Asad ud Daula in 1785, during a famine, to provide employment to the poor and the suffering. Apocrypha has it that construction ended only when the famine was over  perfect example of Keynesian economics in action before its time.

We spent our last evening in Lucknow admiring  chikan, the exquisitely delicate embroidered patterns on cool pastel shades of light muslin and cotton fabric. Chikan is to Lucknow what lace is to Brussels and no visit to the city is complete without acquiring a piece of this traditional craftsmanship which goes back many centuries.

As we sat nursing our tea in the gathering gloom, across the murky waters of the river Gomti, the Victorian-gothic clock tower loomed over us in splendid isolation. History, jostling with the crowds, slowly dissolved in the din of modernity.
A Chinese soldier, who was stuck in India for over 50 years after he crossed over the border following the 1962 war, today arrived here with his Indian family members to an emotional reunion with his Chinese kin.

Wang Qi, 77, was received by his close Chinese relatives, besides officials of the China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Indian embassy when he arrived here along with his son, daughter-in-law and grand daughter from Delhi-Beijing flight.

Wang became emotional as he hugged his relatives, their first reunion after he crossed into Indian side over five decades ago.

"It was an emotional reunion," said an official present at the airport.

Wang was accompanied by his son Vishnu Wang, 35, daughter-in-law Neha and grand daughter, Khanak Wang. His Indian wife Shushila, however, stayed back.

Indian officials said Wang and family members will be later flown to Xian, the provincial capital in Shaanxi province from where he will be taken to his native village Xue Zhai Nan Cun in the province.

His return became a possibility after India and China worked out modalities for both Wang and his Indian family to travel together to China and later return as per their wish.

Wang was caught when he entered the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962.

After his release from prison in 1969, he settled in Tirodi village of Balaghat district in Madhya Pradesh.

Though his story has been published by Indian media several times in the past, a recent BBC TV feature on him was widely picked by the Chinese social media highlighting his plight, prompting the Chinese government to initiate action in coordination with India to facilitate his return.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on February 6 that he was provided a passport to travel to China in 2013 and he was also paid a living allowance.

Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui recently spoke to him.

While the Chinese government has provided visas for his family to visit China, India has provided a re-entry visa for Wang to return back if he chooses to.

Indian officials terms the facilitation of the travel of Wang and his family by both sides s positive development, specially at a time when India-China relations were stuck with differences over issues like China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China blocking India's entry into Nuclear Suppliers Group and listing of JeM leader Masood Azhar as terrorist by UN.

Before leaving for Beijing, Vishnu told media in India yesterday that "My father spent six years in prisons in Assam, Ajmer, Delhi before the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered his release in March 1969," Vishnu said.

"The Indian government had promised to the court that it will rehabilitate my father. He was taken to Delhi, Bhopal, Jabalpur and then finally handed over to Balaghat police," said his son.

Wang started working as a watchman with a mill and soon his colleagues named him Raj Bahadur, apparently due to his Nepali features, Vishnu said.

Wang's mother died in 2006 but he could not be with his dear ones in the time of grief, Vishnu said.

Three years later he met his nephew Yun Chun, who had come to India as a tourist and narrated his ordeal to him.

After returning home, Chun got in touch with Chinese politicians and authorities to bring his uncle home.

Finally, he met then Chinese Foreign Minister who helped Wang to get a Chinese passport in March 2013.
After spotting the pistol with Gagan Som, police officials whisked him away from the booth in Faridpur.

By India Today Web Desk: Senior BJP leader and Sardhana legislator Sangeet Som's brother Gagan Som was detained in Faridpur today after a pistol was recovered from him near a polling booth, according to a police official.

After spotting the pistol with Gagan Som, police officials whisked him away from the booth.

As per an official, the act was in contravention of election rules and hence the action was taken.

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Assembly Elections 2017: Full Coverage

Sangeet Som hit the headlines for his fiery speeches during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. The BJP MLA was also named in an FIR filed in connection with communal riots.

Sardhana(Meerut): Police detain Gagan Som, brother of BJP candidate Sangeet Som for carrying a pistol inside poll booth #uppolls2017

ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

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From boycotting the assembly polls to making jalebis in Modi's name, there's a lot cooking in Uttar Pradesh this election season.

People show off jalebis spelling PM Modi's name and shaped like a lotus. Source: ANI/ Twitter

By India Today Web Desk: In their matching outfits and trash-talks against PM Modi, Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav shone out as brothers-in-arm at their joint press conference in Lucknow today. But even as much of the spotlight fell on them, there's a lot more happening in the state at the moment.

For starters, the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election has kick-started with 73 constituencies in 15 districts going to vote today. Namely, the districts in action today are Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Hapur, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras, Agra, Firozabad, Etah and Kasganj.

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In order to keep a check on any form of riots, some 6,000 paramilitary personnel have been deployed in 887 polling centres in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli.

Read more: Uttar Pradesh election LIVE

Meanwhile, despite all the promises and efforts made by everyone from the Yadav family to PM Modi, residents of a village called Mant in Mathura are boycotting the elections altogether.

NO VOTE FOR YOU, MISTER!

Voters in Mant have refused to cast their vote as an act of protest because of the lack of development in the region. Residents in unison have chosen this path of defiance to show express their anger.

Here's an ANI report in which a local talks about the ordeal they have been facing in the constituency:

SWEET MODI OF MINE

In other news, a sweet shop in Lucknow is banking on peoples' sweet tooth to campaign for PM Modi.

The unnamed sweet shop is selling jalebis shaped like lotus (the BJP symbol) and spelling PM Modi's name, calling them 'Kamal jalebis' and 'Modi jalebis' respectively.

A Sweet shop in Lucknow campaigns for BJP by making 'Modi jalebis' and 'Kamal jalebis' #uppolls2017 pic.twitter.com/UkBdGDiaW1 ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 10, 2017

Sweet shop in Lucknow campaigns for BJP by making 'Modi jalebis' and 'Kamal jalebis' #uppolls2017 pic.twitter.com/TJq1JdAMM8 ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 10, 2017

Perhaps, the shop owner was inspired by the Trump supporter in Chennai, who sold special 'Trump white dosa' in his restaurant to pitch for his favourite candidate.

UP's GOOD, OLD VOTER

A 98-year-old woman turned up to cast her vote in Chhaprauli, Baghpat district today. Even at this age, Sultani stuck to duty as a citizen of the country to vote.

Baghpat: 98 year old Sultani cast her vote in Chhaprauli #uppolls2017 pic.twitter.com/hBgrMQOy5s ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 11, 2017

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In a complaint to the Chief Election Commissioner, Rawat said why only his helicopter was being checked "when BJP leaders from New Delhi were bringing money in their choppers to distribute it among party candidates".

By Press Trust of India: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat today objected to the checking of his helicopter for unaccounted cash during campaigning in Haldwani and alleged he was being harassed at the behest of the Centre.

In a complaint to the Chief Election Commissioner, Rawat said why only his helicopter was being checked "when BJP leaders from New Delhi were bringing money in their choppers to distribute it among party candidates".

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Taking exception to the "special treatment" being meted out by the Commission to BJP central leaders, Rawat alleged he was being harassed on the direction of his influential political adversaries based in Delhi.

Assembly Elections 2017: Full Coverage

Rawat's chopper was checked in Haldwani yesterday by the administration apparently to find out if unaccounted cash was being carried in it.

Accusing BJP of having pumped Rs 2,000 crore into the elections so far, Rawat said the poll panel should subject everyone to equal treatment howsoever important they may be.

Also read: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat issued notice for poll code violation

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Job Title: Field Assistant

Organisation: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

Position No.: TMP017 Vacancy Notice: 007/2017

Reports to: Field Officer/Associate Field Officer/Associate

Duty Station: Uganda

Post Grade: GL4

About UNHCR:

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. UNHCRs mandate under the Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is to lead and co-ordinate action for international protection to refugees; seek permanent solutions for the problems of refugees and safeguard refugee rights and well-being. UNHCR has an additional mandate concerning issues of statelessness, as it is given a designated role under Article 11 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

Job Summary: The Field Assistant performs a variety of functions related to Field activities within the office. The supervisor exercises close control and regular review of the work processes and provides regular advice and guidance. The incumbent keeps frequent internal contacts with staff members in the same duty station to exchange information and with the external contacts generally with officials of national and international institutions, leaders of the refugee community, local population and/or Implementing Partners (IPs) on routine subject matters under the direction of the supervisor.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Assist in administrative tasks as required such as preparation of reports and meeting authorized personnel and assisting them during field missions.

Act as interpreter in the exchange of routine information, contribute to related liaison activities and respond directly to routine queries.

The incumbent will collect data and other information relevant to UNHCR and report to the supervisor accordingly.

Keep regular contacts with local authorities and implementing partners as requested by supervisor.

Work in close coordination with implementing partners, assist in the reception, registration and provision of assistance to persons of concern to UNHCR.

Undertake other relevant duties as required.

Key Performance Indicators: UNHCR office has sufficient administrative and local support for the field activities thus better able to meet the needs of persons of concern. UNHCR office has sufficient administrative and local support for the field activities thus better able to meet the needs of persons of concern.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

The ideal candidate for the United Nations UNHCR Field Assistant job placement should have secondary education with post-secondary training/certificate in Business Administration, Law, Political Science or related field.

At least three years of previous job experience

Good computer skills

Completion of UNHCR learning programmes or specific training relevant to functions of the position is desired

Excellent knowledge of English and working knowledge of another relevant UN language.

Excellent knowledge of Acholi is an added advantage.

How to Apply:

All interested Ugandan nationals who wish to join the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the aforementioned capacity are encouraged to click on the link below and follow the application instructions after reviewing the job details.
The Infosys board does not want a war of words with the Indian software services company's former leadership to descend into the kind of damaging row seen at Tata, according to an Infosys boardroom source.

India's second biggest IT services company has been in an escalating public dispute with its founders and former executives this week, who have accused the board of lapses in corporate governance.

The founders own 12.75 per cent of the company.

The boardroom tussle at Infosys comes at a time when another iconic Indian firm, Tata Sons, has been hit by allegations of corporate governance lapses following the ouster of former Chairman Cyrus Mistry. The Tata row has spilled into the courts and has tainted the reputation of one of India's most respected business houses.

"For sure we don't want another Tata happening. We don't want that replay and therefore we will do what it takes to avoid that kind of situation," said the boardroom source, asking not to be named given the sensitivity of the situation.

The strain between Infosys and its founders also comes at a turbulent time for the Indian IT sector in general, expecting changes to visa laws in their biggest market, the United States, to raise costs and dent business.

Earlier on Friday, V. Balakrishnan, a former chief financial officer at Infosys, told Reuters the company's board had become "lax on corporate governance and was undermining the values on which the company was built".

Balakrishnan said founders including N.R. Narayana Murthy, Kris Gopalakrishnan and Nandan Nilekani had been engaging with Infosys since last year but the board had not addressed any of the concerns raised.

"They have validly raised certain governance issues," Balakrishnan, who is aware of the exchanges between the founders and the board, told Reuters.

"It is not about performance, or Vishal Sikka," he said declining to give further details.

Infosys Chief Executive Vishal Sikka's pay rise and large severance packages offered to two former executives were among a host of issues that have not sat well with Infosys founders, local media reported this week.

"Big letdown"

Infosys declined to respond to Balakrishnan's comments. The company downplayed talk of governance lapses in a lengthy statement issued on Thursday that backed Sikka's performance.

The company said: "Vishal and the board, while being pleased with the company's resumption of industry leading performance on many parameters, are keen to further accelerate the progress and achieve even more shareholder value increase."

Balakrishnan said he had stopped communicating with the board some two years ago after failing to get a reply on a share buyback suggestion.

"This board is a big letdown," said Balakrishnan, who also criticized the appointment of a law firm to receive and assess input from stakeholders and make recommendations to the board.

"The board has to personally engage with the founders," he said.

The Infosys boardroom source insisted there had been no breakdown in communication breakdown with the founders. "We've been engaging directly with the founders for several months, we'll continue to do so."
Despite support from board members, performance of Infosys in the next few quarters will be highly crucial for the survival of chief executive officer Vishal Sikka in the company.

The past week saw India's second largest information technology company being broiled in controversies as differences cropped up between its founders and board members. Despite allegations of lapses in corporate governance in the company, the Infosys board, led by its non-executive chairman R. Seshasayee has expressed strong faith in Sikka, the first non-founder chief executive of the company.

However, if the company performance slumps in the next few quarters, shareholders might lose confidence in Sikka and the latter may find himself in troubled waters again.

Although Sikka is trying his best to bring in new innovations and strategies in the company despite the challenging environment, his performance has not been anything great or exemplary to make him stand out, Alok Shende, of Ascentius Consulting told THE WEEK. We have seen that over the last one year or so, the performance of the company has not been that great. It will take at least two or three more quarters to judge that.

Currently, while the co-founders have questioned Sikka's high compensation package, this is unlikely to have a major impact in boardroom decisions since the former holds only a minority share and hence, do not have much say to influence the board.

Shende feels that things may also change if a few of the non-founder shareholders start questioning Sikka's performance and his compensation package. Though many investors have imposed faith in Sikka they may turn against him if the performance keeps going down in the near future, he said.

However, if founder Narayana Murthy has his way and Seshasayee is shown the door, Sikka's position will be shaky and he may eventually have to leave the company, according to experts. They add that though there have been lapses in company governance, such issues are quite common in firms these days. At many companies, executives at the CEO level exercise a few privileges, which are often accepted by the board.

Narayana Murthy used to travel economy class even for foreign trips but you cannot expect the same from a new-age professional CEO heading a multi-billion dollar organisation, said Kris Lakshmikanth, founder of the recruitment firm Head Hunters India Limited. I don't find anything wrong in Sikka using private jets for some trips in the US. Many other CEOs do it and there is nothing unusual about it. Most of the company boards generally overlook such things.

Industry experts feel that Murthy had set up high standards for Infosys when he was at the helm of affairs, but off late there has been a dwindling of standards, especially when it comes to choosing board members. There are also reports that appointment of law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas to engage with the companys founders and deal with issues of corporate governance has not been welcomed by many in the company.

The appointment of Punita Kumar Sinha, wife of Union Minister Jayant Sinha, as an independent director last month did not go down well with many and created a controversy. It needs to be seen what kind of people are chosen to the board and if they align with the standards set up by Murthy,said Shende.
Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan slammed a foreign lifestyle brand for using the pictures of himself and his sons Hrehaan and Hridaan without permission.

He tweeted: "Dear Tommy.I dont wear u, neither do my kids endorse u.If u hv lost ur spine I hv a great team 2help u find it.Please (hil)figure urself out."
Andhra Pradesh Speaker Kodela Shiva Prasad sparked off a controversy on Saturday after he compared women to cars while addressing a gathering on the second day of the National Women's Parliament, a first-of-its-kind conclave at Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh.

While talking about the increasing number of crimes against women, Prasad sought to draw a comparison between a woman going out and a car being taken to market. When the car is parked in the garage at home, accidents can be avoided. When it is taken to a bazaar or to the road, accidents are likely to happen. When the car is speeding, chances of accidents are even higher.

"Similarly, in older times, when women were housewives, they were safe from all kind of atrocities, except discrimination. Today, they are studying, working, and also are doing business. When they are exposed to the society, they are more prone to eve-teasing, harassment, atrocities, rape and kidnap. If they do not leave home, it doesn't happen," he said.

The Speaker, however, soon went into a damage control mode and said women should be educated and allowed to do their job. Not only kung fu, they should also be taught self-defence and to build bravery, he said.

Over 10,000 Indian and foreign delegates, including MLAs, MPs, businesswomen and other influential leaders are attending the three day event which focuses on under-representation of women in elected bodies, decision making levels and obstacles being faced by them in different spheres.

Earlier, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama attended the inaugural session of the event on Friday.

Roja detained?

YSR Congress MLA R.K. Roja alleged that she was detained at Gannavaram Airport on her way to participate in the conclave. "When Chandrababu Naidu's daughter-in-law, Venkaiah Naidu's daughter and KCR's daughter are allowed to speak at the event, I was arrested. Is it politics or are they really discussing womens empowerment?" she asked.

Meanwhile, many women leaders in the state, especially of the BJP have alleged that they were not invited to the event. BJP is an ally of the ruling TDP.
Agra led the voting percentage in the first phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh, in the first four hours, as 28 percent of the electorate cast their votes, an official said on Saturday.



The communally polarised Muzaffarnagar also saw brisk voting and by 11 a.m. the voting percentage hit 27. Firozabad, Mathura and Meerut were neck-to-neck at 21-22 per cent.



Noida, neighbouring New Delhi, where Pankaj Singh, son of Home Minister Rajnath Singh is contesting as a BJP candidate, registered 18 percent in four hours.



Voting is continuing in all the 73 seats amid tight security. There have been some reports of clashes and poll-related violence.



Bright sunshine helped voter turnout to improve at many places, especially in the minority dominated areas.



Long queues were seen in places like Mathura, Agra, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut (City), Sardhana, Shamli.



The largest constituency in this phase, as per population, is Sahibabad in Ghaziabad and the smallest is Jalesar in Etah.



There are 26,822 polling centres for over two crore voters in this phase of polling for 73 seats across 15 districts. Fate of 839 candidates will be sealed on Saturday.
Even as voting for the state assemble elections is underway in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has reasons to cheer as it won all three MLC seats of Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Bareilly in the state.

BJP retained its seats in Bareilly and Kanpur and dethroned SP in Gorakhpur as it managed a clean sweep in the MLC election. The polling for these seats were held on Monday.

Meanwhile, the state recorded 28 per cent polling as of noon in the 73 assembly seats across 15 districts of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday.

Taj city Agra led the voting percentage in the first phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh in the first four hours as 28 per cent of the electorate cast their votes.

The communally polarised Muzaffarnagar also saw brisk voting earlier and by 11 a.m. the voting percentage hit 27. Firozabad, Mathura and Meerut were neck-to-neck at 21-22 per cent.

Noida, neighbouring New Delhi, where Pankaj Singh, son of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is contesting the elections as a BJP candidate registered 18 per cent in four hours.

Voting is continuing in all the 73 seats amid tight security. There have been some reports of clashes and poll-related violence.

Bright sunshine helped voter turnout to improve at many places, especially in the minority dominated areas.

Long queues were seen in places like Mathura, Agra, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut (City), Sardhana, Shamli.

The largest constituency in this phase, as per population, is Sahibabad in Ghaziabad and the smallest is Jalesar in Etah.

There are 26,822 polling centres for over two crore voters in the first phase of polling.

(With inputs from IANS)
The state unit of the party has now roped in 5,000 bikers, 150 dhol walas (drummers), 900 volunteers, and will hold 140 nukkad sabhas also to woo the voters before voting on February 15.

By Supriya Bhardwaj: With just four days left for Uttarakhand to go to polls, state Congress has launched an aggressive outreach program in the last leg of its election campaign.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will also join this blitzkrieg poll campaign by holding a 75 km long road show in Haridwar district on Sunday. He will also visit the famous Ganga river bank, Har Ki Paudi, and is most likely to perform Ganga Aarti there.

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The state unit of the party has now roped in 5,000 bikers, 150 dhol walas (drummers), 900 volunteers, and will hold 140 nukkad sabhas also to woo the voters before voting on February 15.

The idea behind launching this massive 'show of strength' program is reach over one lakh households in the state.

Also read: Uttarakhand Assembly election: CM Harish Rawat cries foul over helicopter search for unaccounted cash

Also read: Uttarakhand election: Rahul Gandhi to start 75-km roadshow in Haridwar on Feb 12

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Eman Ahmed, weighing 500 kg and considered to be the heaviest woman in the world, successfully completed her journey from Alexandria in Egypt and landed in Mumbai in the wee hours of Saturday.

Upon landing, Ahmed was taken to Saifee hospital in a fully-equipped truck. A special room was created for her in the first floor of the hospital where a team of eight doctors will be constantly monitoring her.

Eman is currently suffering from severe lymphedema and water retention, explained Dr Muffazal Lakdawala, who has been treating the 36-year old since the last three months. She also suffered from stroke, which left her paralyzed in the right arm and leg.

The Egyptian woman left her bed and moved out of her house after 25 long years.

Ahmed travelled to India in an Egypt Air aircraft and had to be accompanied by two doctors  Dr Aparna Bhasker, a bariatric surgeon and head of department at Saifee hospital and Dr Kamlesh Bohra, a senior intensivist.

In fact, the team of doctors had to travel to Egypt 10 days in advance to prepare Ahmed for her flight. They ensured that she would be able to travel without any further health complications. A special bed also had to be made by local artisans in Alexandria so she could be safely transported both on ground, and in the plane. During the flight, the doctors were continuously monitoring her blood pressure, heart condition and also giving blood thinners throughout the journey.

Ahmeds sister, Shaimaa, accompanied her along with the doctors during the journey. There was a portable ventilator, defibrillator, oxygen cylinder and safety drugs on flight as precautionary supplements.

Ahmed is unable to speak and communicates with her sister and the doctors in sign language.
Indian Space Research Organisation's workhorse PSLV will carry a record 104 satellites in a single mission on February 15 from the space centre at Sriharikota Andhra Pradesh.

"PSLV-C37/Cartosat-2 Series Satellite Mission is scheduled to be launched on February 15, 2017 at 9.28 hours IST from SDSC SHAR Sriharikota," ISRO said.

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its 39th flight (PSLV-C37), will launch the 714 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite for earth observation along with 103 co-passenger satellites, together weighing about 664 kg at lift off.

It will be launched into a 505 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO).

ISRO said the co-passenger satellites comprise 101 nano- satellites, one each from Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and 96 from United States of America (USA), as well as two from India.

The two Indian nano-satellites are ISRO's INS-1A and INS-1B.

INS-1A and INS-1B will carry a total of four different payloads from Space Applications Centre (SAC) and Laboratory for Electro Optics Systems (LEOS) of ISRO for conducting various experiments, the space agency said.

Last year, ISRO had launched a record 20 satellites at one go.

The highest number of satellites launched in a single mission is 37, a record that Russia set in 2014. The US space agency, NASA has launched 29.

The 101 international customer nano-satellites are being launched as part of the commercial arrangements between Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix), the commercial arm of ISRO and the international customers.

Speaking on the record launch, ISRO Chairman Kiran Kumar had earlier said the aim was to maximise the capability with each launch and it was not to set a record.

"We are not looking at it as a record or anything like that; we are just trying to maximise our capability with each launch, in trying to utilise that launch for the ability it has got and getting the maximum return," he had said.
US President Donald Trump said that drafting a new executive order is one of the options he is considering in response to a court ruling blocking his January 27 measure barring citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations, the media reported.

On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a restraining order issued on February 3 by a district judge in Seattle, Efe news reported.



"We will win that battle. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order," Trump told the media Friday aboard Air Force One.



When a journalist asked if issuing a new executive order would be the best option, the President replied: "It very well could be. We need speed for reasons of security, so it very well could be."



Trump had addressed the issue earlier on Friday during a joint press conference with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.



"We'll be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country. You'll be seeing that sometime next week," the president said.



Trump's original order mandated a temporary pause in admission of refugees, a 90-day prohibition on entry by residents of Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen, and an indefinite suspension of admission of Syrian refugees.



The administration can ask for a review of the panel's decision by the full 9th Circuit, or it can seek intervention by the US Supreme Court, which is still one short of its normal complement of nine members, creating the possibility of a 4-4 deadlock.



A tie in the Supreme Court would allow the appellate ruling to stand.



The White House said that the executive order was meant to provide time to develop a procedure for "extreme vetting" of Muslims seeking to enter the US, something Trump proposed during the presidential campaign after his initial call for an outright Muslim ban drew criticism from across the political spectrum.



Roughly 1,000 state department career employees have signed a memo denouncing the executive order.



The Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Washington, has pointed out that since at least 1975, no terrorist attacks have been carried out on US soil by nationals of the seven nations affected by the visa suspension.


Five crew members of a wharf were trapped in the vessel's ballast tank after falling unconscious due to poisonous gasses.

Coast Guard managed to rescue one of the five trapped crew members (ANI photo)

By Jugal R Purohit:

Three crew members died onboard a wharf off the Mumbai coast after inhaling poisonous fumes emanating from the vessel's wet waste tank. The wharf, ORION II, was anchored to a ship around ten kilometres in the sea.

The unfortunate incident began with one of the ORION II's nine crew members entering the ballast tank to fit a de-flooding pump. However, the person fell unconscious due to the poisonous gasses inside. Four other crew members entered the tank to rescue him but were trapped themselves.

Two of the five trapped members were ultimately rescued and taken to a hospital in Mumbai.

Here's how the situation unfolded: At 10.40 pm Friday, the Coast Guard Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC) in Mumbai received information that a Singaporean Bulk carrier ship MV THOR ENDEVOUR, anchored off Mumbai anchorage area, around 10 kms west of Malabar Point, had reported an emergency onboard barge ORION II, which was secured to the ship for unloading of wheat cargo. The information indicated that there was some form of a gas leakage in the engine room and that five of the nine crew members onboard the barge were in an unconscious condition. Indian Coast Guard Ship C-154 commanded by Dy Commandant C Vijay Kumar, the commanding officer of the ship, sailed out and arrived at the location of the distressed barge at 12.20 am on Saturday. Investigations revealed that the level in the 'sludge tank' (tank for collecting the wet waste) had increased. An ORION II crew member had had entered ballast tank for fitment to de-flood pump at around 9.20 pm on Friday. However, the crew member became unconscious due to the poisonous gases inside. Subsequently, the other four crew members, including the barge master, entered the compartment to evacuate the unconscious member. But, the four members to fell unconscious. The remaining crew of four managed to safely evacuate one of the five unconscious people. The Coast Guard team that reached barge assessed the situation and determined that of the four remaining crew members in the tank, three seemed to be dead. The fourth was found floating in an unconscious state and seemed to be partially breathing. The unconscious crew member was safely pulled out by the Coast Guard with a special rope. The rescued crew member was identified as the approximately 50-year-old master of the barge, Md. Daud Ibrahim Kurey. Kurey was given first aid onboard the Coast Guard ship and his pulse, breath and temperature were observed to be normal. The Coast Guard vessel left the area with the two rescued crew members and reached Ferry Wharf of Mumbai Port Trust at 3.45 am on Saturday. The rescued members were rushed to the Bombay Hospital using ambulance. One of the men is in a stable and healthy condition while the second one has been admitted to the ICU. ORION II with its three deceased crew members arrived at the Mumbai harbour at 8 am on Saturday.

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Also read: Coast Guard Ship rescues distressed fishermen boat in Porbandar

Also watch: How coast guard prevented ships from colliding with submarine during cyclone Vardah

--- ENDS ---
Here is a look at what happened to some of the world's heaviest people after their weight reduction programme.

By India Today Web Desk: Obesity is a disorder involving excessive body fat and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, metabolic diseases like diabetes, all of which increases the risk of mortality.

Later in the day, the 36-year old Egyptian woman Eman Ahmed, who is believed to be the heaviest women in the world, arrived in Mumbai to undergo a weight reduction programme.

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Also Read: || Weighing 500 kg: World's heaviest woman from Egypt lands in Mumbai for treatment ||

It's not the first time a person is undergoing a weight reduction surgery and here's how some of the world's heaviest people fared post weight reduction programme.

JUAN PEDRO

Twitter: Edgar Arteaga 9@Arteaga_Edgar)

In November 2016, a 32-year-old Mexican Juan Pedro, who weighed nearly 500 kg, after spending six years confined to his bed, was dubbed as the 'World's heaviest man'.

According to doctors treating him, Pedro, who suffers from Type 2 diabetes, thyroid problems, hypertension and liquid in his lungs, will need at least six months of treatment to stabilise his body before gastric bypass surgery can be undertaken.

ERICA WALL

Screenshot: YouTube/Source Turk

Earlier this month, a 44-year-old woman from California, who weighed nearly 300 kg, underwent weight loss surgery and shed 86 kg.

Erica Wall, who was overweight as a child, had her stomach stapled when she was only 16 years old. Five years later, she gained weight so rapidly that her staple line burst and her weight continued to spiral out of control.

DOUG ARMSTRONG

Screenshot: YouTube/rbernard266

A 310 kg father of three from the US, who turned to food after being sexually abused in childhood, lost 100 kg in a year with the help of surgery.

Thirty-six year old Doug Armstrong's gastric bypass surgery was a success. Post the surgery, he started going to gym, where he did cardio and lifted weights and began shedding a lot.

KAMI PERRITT

Screenshot: YouTube/KamiPerritt

In another case, a 172 kg woman crowdfunded money to undergo weight-loss surgery. Kami Perritt, lost 37 kg post the surgery last year and aims to weigh 90 kg by the end of 2017.

According to WHO, nearly 13 per cent of the world's adult population (11 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women) were obese in 2014.

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 11 (PTI) External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has sought a report from the Indian High Commission in Jamaica about an Indian youth shot dead there.

"Indian High Commission in Jamaica - Please send me a detailed report of this unfortunate incident. Also, pl ensure best possible treatment to the injured Indian nationals and coordinate with the affected families," Swaraj tweeted when her attention was drawn to a news report that a Vasai youth was shot dead by four unidentified men in his Kingston home in Jamaica in a case of suspected armed robbery.

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According to the report, two of his Indian roommates suffered bullet injuries in their legs.

"Talreja family - I am sorry to know about this tragedy. My heartfelt condolences.

"Indian High Commission in Jamaica will follow up this case with the Police and help you in all possible manner," she further tweeted. PTI PYK ZMN

--- ENDS ---
United Cacao has been a disastrous investment. Recommended by Midas in December 2014 at 159p, shares in the Peru-based cocoa business were delisted from AIM last week at 50p.

All AIM companies need to have a nominated adviser, Uniteds resigned in early January and the group was unable to find a replacement within the one-month time limit.

The delisting caps a tumultuous few months for this business. In June, when the company released its 2015 results, Dennis Melka, then executive chairman and chief executive, was full of optimism, expecting to start production this summer and grow rapidly thereafter.

Decline: Founder Dennis Melka was full of optimism in 2015

Melka who founded the business, stepped down from the board in September and took up the position of managing director instead, after a disagreement with leading shareholders. Three new directors were appointed to make the board more independent.

All of them spoke gushingly about Uniteds prospects. However, in December, the company admitted it was exploring a range of funding options, an announcement that sent the share price tumbling on the day by almost half to 62p.

The news went from bad to worse. Melka was ousted by the board, emergency bonds were issued to pay employees and field workers were reduced from 450 to 250 to save cash.

It also transpired that Melka had lent money to United without notifying the board or the stock market.

New chairman Constantine Gonticas is urgently seeking cash to keep the business going. He is also talking with brokers and alternative trading platforms to find a way for investors to sell their shares.

More news could emerge on this within the next few days.

Midas verdict: United Cacao seemed like an excellent investment. Global demand for cocoa is rising, the supply is shrinking and United was building an estate in Peru, where the climate is ideal for cocoa production.

But the company has been badly managed, finances were allowed to dwindle to a parlous level and Gonticas is now fighting to keep the business afloat. If he finds the necessary cash, it will come at a heavy price  and current shareholders will bear the brunt.

Sadly, therefore, if Gonticas finds a suitable share trading facility, investors should sell  if buyers can be found.
Exactly three days to Valentines, I have been accused of being a quart low on life. I am unromantic, exceedingly practical and pragmatic in the extreme.



Neither a believer of soulmates nor fairytales, when asked for advice on marriage I invariably discuss the logistics of love.

I talk about the mechanics of a constructive argument. I teach people how to listen intelligently. I promote financial literacy. I get all animated about making a budget.



Thats just the way I think. I am all about process and procedure. I have always believed that the love will take care of itself if the details are okay. As a result, I have never thought much of Valentines Day.



In fact, I used to believe it was a silly thing, a holiday heralded by white people to get gifts from their loved ones.

But I am 24 years old and I have survived my fare share of ugly in relationships, and I am now convinced that some unrestrained sentimentality (even if corporately inspired) might be just the thing.



Challenged



Whether or not you are romantically challenged like me, I think a fresh look at Valentines Day might be worthwhile. It can become routine for any one of us.

If not ignored, we often meet it with a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up a card and some flowers.

I think this may just be the year to work Valentines Day like a job.



Valentines Day is an opportunity to celebrate the soft side of the whole thing, to rekindle that first-year passionate stuff that you dont think of doing anymore. Instead of just giving it a passing nod this year with some candy or a card, you can use it as a launching pad for a more passionate and expressive marital year.



And with that said, I was taken by a certain couple that runs a business together, they have been in love for 15 years and in that 15 years they were reconnected by social media. Gcwala had a chat with the two...

Melissa Mitchell is a co-director of Mitchells Restrobar and Grill.



She was born and raised in Swaziland, and attended Sifundzani Primary and High School before heading off to Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa to pursue a degree in Commerce focusing on Marketing, Social and Market Research, Corporate Comms and Industrial and Organisational Psychology.



Then there is Garren Mitchell, her husband. He is the other half of the directorial team at Mitchells.

He was born in the Eastern Cape, but was raised in Swaziland as his family is from here, attending Salesian and Piet Retief High School.



Reconnect



Mellisas husband has worked in the Sales Industry for many years, but had come home recently to assist his mother with running her catering business and to reconnect with Melissa.

Garren is also part of the Red Eyed Ravers Motorcycle Club, and biking is more than just a passion for him as he describes it as a lifestyle that his wife has also grown to love and support.



Gcwala: How did you two meet?



We actually met 12 years ago through mutual friends but lost contact over the years. In 2015 we reconnected via social media as we had both returned from living and working in South Africa. The timing was right, and the rest is history as they say.



Gcwala: What then made you guys to venture into business? And how has it been working with each other?



When we found out that we were going to have a daughter, we both started seriously thinking about what kind of future we wanted for her. We wanted her to be in our care, full time, and be raised by us with our own beliefs and value system. Nurturing and shaping a human being is a tough task, and we didnt want to put that role in anyone elses hands, so we decided to open a business where we could spend time together as a family. Its been a long road, and we have our ups and downs as business partners, but we try to keep work and our relationship separate.

We often find that we start our sentences with As your business partner or As your husband/wife so there is never any confusion over what side of our lives we are discussing. Living and working together can put a strain on any relationship, especially being full time parents without nanny care, so its important to communicate with each other.

Yes, sometimes tempers get heated, so its crucial to walk away from a heated situation and take private time to breathe as individuals and come back later when the situation is calmer.

Gcwala: Tell us how you went about choosing the name of your restaurant and what the challenges have been so far and how you have overcome them?



Mitchell is our surname, so when planning this business, we had the hope in our hearts that it would be a legacy for our daughter and what siblings may follow her. We also want everyone to feel as though we are welcoming you into our lives and offering a bit of ourselves and what we like. A fun and funky place just like we both are, but still family oriented. There are so many challenges when it comes to businesses in general, but particularly hospitality and service industries.

You never fully realise when youre planning and putting pen to paper how many challenges you will face on a daily basis. That is often what deters people from pursuing business ventures, especially if they have tried and have had to give up or shutdown before. Its the constant questioning and having to find solutions to problems and questions, which happens on a daily business.

Being a parent to business and similarly to a young child is not a 9-5 job, its a when we open our eyes to when we close our eyes job. The key is to just stay calm and pull yourself into the realisation that nobody really has life figured out, no matter how old we get, we can only try to inform ourselves as best as possible and do our best, one day at a time. There is no such thing as failure, only lessons.



Gcwala: How do you guys deal with running a family and a business at the same time?

Its incredibly taxing - mentally, spiritually, physically and emotionally. Were still figuring it all out as we go along. We always say that no matter what comes our way, if we do it together as a unit, well get through it. You unfortunately have to be selfish when you are in a position like this, you have to do whats best for you, your relationship, your children and your business.

Nobody will have to live with the consequences but you, so you just have to make logical decisions that work for you. I as a woman am very reluctant to give unsolicited advice, were all such unique people that what works for me may not work for the next person; and thats also what we try to live by when receiving tons of unsolicited advice, is that everyone means well, but we have to steer the ship and ultimately live with our choices.



Gcwala: How will you be spending Valentines Day?

We will be working on Valentines Day but the Monday prior to which is also my wifes birthday, so we plan to handle all the business affairs in the morning and spend the rest of the day curled up on the sofa with our little one, some good movies and treat ourselves to some comfort food and chill time as a family.



Gcwala: And how will the restaurant be spending Valentines? What can people expect?

Today, we will be hosting an event called 50 First Dates. It offers speed dating for singles and two for one cocktails for couples or groups of two, throughout the evening. There will also be a draw on the night, where the winner will take home coupons for three free meals of their choosing. Strawberry Mimosas will be served on entry and InnovaBooths, photo booths will be there to capture everyones memories. Expect great music, great food, a fun walkabout social experience and more!



Gcwala: Tell us of a Valentines Day that you will forever remember and why?

I think for both of us it has to be last years Valentines Day. My wifes birthday is the day before and her waters broke on that day, so we spent our Valentines Day wondering when we were going to meet our little girl. Best gift ever.



Gcwala: Plans for the future (for Michelles)

We would definitely like to see more live acts at Mitchells. We have now also officially partnered with the Swaziland International Comedy Festival and will be hosting their official media launch at Mitchells in March of this year. We will now also, in conjunction with Larry Mhlanga, the hilarious Mdura and their team, be hosting Comedy Club Thursday twice a month at Mitchells, leading up to the festival and thereafter. So we are geared to become the home of open mic nights, poetry slams and comedy nights.



Gcwala: And advice to the young couples who draw inspiration from you guys? How do you keep the spark going?

With a baby and a business, it can become easy for partners to begin focusing more on the day to day tasks that need to get done. We try taking any moment to be affectionate and remind one another of our love for each other. Quality time is hard to come by, so when we do have a chance to be alone, and our little one is with any of her grandparents (our baby is blessed to have three sets of grandparents) for a night or a few hours, we prioritise each other. No cellphones, no business talk, just being together. Laughter is the best medicine for a marriage. Well that, and one other thing we might not mention in public domain.
MBABANE  Senate President Inkhosatana Gelane Zwane has warned certain politicians who she alleged were after her position to forget it.



The fearless politician was adamant that she would not move an inch from her position, until the lapse of the term of office next year.



She was shedding light on reactions following last weeks incident during the Speech from the Throne by His Majesty King Mswati III, where she just froze while making her speech, seconds into it.



Since then, there have been growing speculations and concerns around her health. Following allegations that some people were on a mission to have her removed from her position by capitalising on her health condition, the senate president said this would never happen.

The allegation was sourced from some of the politicians within Parliament. Responding to the challenges she has faced in her tenure as Senate President, Zwane said: There is no action I can take selishonile, and someone who just wants to topple me, she/he just wants to stay in the seat for a day. Parliament will soon be closing in 2018.



She said this was the final year of her term and for that reason, a person who would want the position must just forget as the time is not up, unless they want to stay for an hour and go.



However, we do have people who do not mind about the length of time they spend in a position but just want power, she said.

Another politician who spoke on condition of anonymity revealed that while the Senate president seems to have health challenges, they are aware of certain individuals who are after her seat adding that there is no disputing that.
MBABANE  With yesterdays headlines reading E50m Fraud Convicts Get 24 Years in Jail, Sabelo Mavuso and Qhawe Mamba can only sympathise and thank God they were cleared in the matter.



Judge Nkululeko Hlophe on Thursday sentenced Sebenzile Thango, Ethel Matsebula, Phindile Gwebu and their companies to a total of 56 years imprisonment.



They were convicted of fraud and bribery in December.

Thango and Gwebu, on the charges of bribery, were sentenced to six years imprisonment. Two years of the sentence were suspended for a period of three years on condition that they do not commit a similar offence.



On the count of defrauding government a sum of E880 400, Thango, Matsebula and Gwebu were also sentenced to six years in prison. The court suspended two years of the sentence for a period of three years, in which they are not expected to commit a similar offence. Speaking to this newspaper yesterday about the sentence handed down by the court, Mavuso said he could only thank God to have found himself out of this.

Though he said he hadnt seen the newspapers by the time he was reached on his mobile phone, he was too shocked to learn of the sentence.

He recalled a scripture from the Holy Bible that never can someone who was innocent be made guilty of a crime.



I cannot say much on the latest developments. Im too shocked by the sentence and I just ask myself that had God not been with me, what would have become of me now, wondered Mavuso, saying he knew this could have been him.



He didnt wish to say the sentence was too harsh or not but he was, from the onset, just an employee at the time of Capacity Building exercise.

Mavuso said he had no company at the time and had no idea of how the operations went down.
As'ad's Bio

As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. His favorite food is fried eggplants.
By Press Trust of India: Amaravati, Feb 11 (PTI) YSR Congress MLA R K Roja was today detained at the Vijayawada airport as she arrived from Hyderabad to take part in the ongoing National Womens Parliament (NWP) at Pavitra Sangamam here.

Roja was not allowed to attend the conclave though she was duly registered and invited, as police suspected she "might create trouble" at the venue. In fact, Roja is also a member of the NWP welcome and reception committee.

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A delegation of YSRC leaders later met Director General of Police (in charge) N Sambasiva Rao, protesting against Rojas detention, but was told that there was "credible information" that the firebrand MLA was planning to stage a protest at the NWP venue.

"We have credible information that Roja is prepared to stage a protest at the venue. Since a number of national and international delegates are attending the prestigious event, it is the polices responsibility to ensure it is conducted smoothly. Hence, we detained her," the DGP told YSRC legislators Gouru Charita, G Eeswari and other leaders, who met him in Vijayawada.

Eeswari, however, blamed Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu for the detention.

"Roja was detained only at the behest of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. Is this democracy or dictatorship?," Eeswari said.

It all began in the morning when Roja arrived at the Vijayawada airport from Hyderabad when the police took her away to a room saying the Dalai Lama was about to arrive (to proceed to Hyderabad).

After over an hour, they told the legislator that she would be dropped at her hotel in Vijayawada.

"But they are taking me away from Vijayawada on the National Highway towards Ongole. Why should they invite me (to NWP) and then detain and take me away like this," Roja questioned in a video that was captured on her mobile phone and posted on Facebook.

The MLA was driven away to Medikonduru police station in Guntur district and later allowed to return to Hyderabad. PTI DBV NP ASV

--- ENDS ---
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By Mark Hallum

Community leaders and elected officials led about 200 people in an Astoria rally against President Donald Trumps executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries last Feb. 3.

Were standing today with our Muslim community. Were here to say that this disgusting order that has divided families, thats pushed people out of our country is wrong and hateful and it is not what our country was founded on, Councilman Costa Constantinides (D-Astoria) said. And its not just about this order, its about the entire tenor of the this presidency.

The T intersection at 25th Avenue and Steinway Street was partially blocked off for protesters by NYPD barricades with about 20 officers keeping watch over the proceedings led by Constantinides and featured speakers such as U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Astoria), Public Advocate Letitia James, state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria), Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Flushing), Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas (D-Astoria) and Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Jackson Heights). Representatives from the Muslim American Society of Queens, Ansob Center for Refugees and the New York chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations also delivered remarks.

We either tear up this ban, or we tear down the Statue of Liberty and what it stands for, Maloney said. We hold these ideals so close to our hearts and we will overturn this ban, and we will go forward with the American Dream.

Early in the rally, an opponent of the demonstration launched insults at the speakers from the back of the crowd, calling the officials and attendees scumbags and snowflakes, which the speakers ignored.

Those that oppose us think that were going to suffer from fatigue, and I want them know that we are going to be out here everyday because I am of the opinion that this president is illegitimate and that what we should do is resist, resist, resist, James said.

Simotas immigrated to the United States with her family as a child and praised the number of children in the crowd holding signs.

The children! Thats what were fighting for, to make sure America stays America for us and for our children, Simotas said. My family came here in the late 70s. I can tell you that the reason they were able to get by was because they got help from their neighbors The reason why we are all so connected in Astoria is because this community was built by immigrants and will be one that continues to welcome immigrants.

Kim, the first Korean-American elected to the Assembly, came from Flushing to speak about the xenophobic sentiments he had to deal with growing up as an immigrant who came to the United States when he was 7 years old.

I know how it feels, my wife knows how it feels, to be treated like a foreigner in our own country, Kim said. He cited the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in 1882, which imposed a 10-year moratorium on the immigration of Chiense laborers and marked the first U.S. law to ban immigrants.

Saying the act still is felt in America today in the way Asian-Americans are treated socially, Kim said: It is more important than ever to be united and stick up for our Muslim brothers and sisters or the next generation will suffer.
Strong defense, pair of goals from Shaye Bailey hands Freedom WPIAL Class 1A championship

A shutdown defense and a pair of second-half goals from junior Shaye Bailey led the Freedom Bulldogs to a convincing 3-0 win over Springdale Friday.
PERTH  A man died Saturday after an early morning crash in Fulton County.

Robert Sparks, 58, was pronounced dead after his vehicle, traveling southbound on Route 30, crossed into the path of a northbound vehicle around 5:45 a.m., according to State Police in Mayfield.

The operator of the second vehicle, Gregory Smith, 48, and his two 16-year-old passengers were taken to a hospital and treated for minor injuries, police said.

An investigation into the accident is ongoing.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has told the Dail that the HSE has been ordered to maximise the use of Our Lady's Hospital campus in Cashel, to alleviate overcrowding in Clonmel.

Following correspondence from Cashel based Co. Cllr Tom Wood, Minister for Health Simon Harris sent the following response regarding Our Lady's Hospital in Cashel: I have been assured by the HSE that it will continue to explore and maximise the on-going and future use of the Cashel campus, and services provided will continue to play a significant role in the provision of overall health services within the South Tipperary area.

I have requested that the HSE explore what additional supports Our Lady's Hospital, Cashel, can provide in alleviating pressure in South Tipperary General Hospital, including on the Emergency Department. This work is on-going, added Minister Harris.

The matter of Our Lady's under-utilisation was raised in the Dail on Tuesday last week by Independent Deputy Michael Lowry.

Referring to a Prime Time Investigates programme called 'Living on the List' which focused on the human toll of spending weeks, months, and even years on hospital waiting lists, Deputy Lowry said every patient on the programme had had representations made on their behalf by TDs and public representatives. Our representations have been ignored. It takes a TV programme to get action, said Deputy Lowry.

Pointing to the disgraceful situation of South Tipperary General Hospital, which has grossly inadequate number of acute beds, to manage to the crisis in acute services.

Deputy Lowry told the Dail Leaders Question Time that South Tipperary General Hospital (STGH) routinely has 140% occupancy, where the desired occupancy level for a hospital of this size should be approximately 85%.

So when there's a Surgeon demand, there's no flexibility in the system. As a result, Clonmel has the highest trolley count in the country on a regular basis. In STGH there are only 150 acute beds, for a population of 100,000. The national average is 230 beds per 100,000 population. That speaks for itself, we have a problem in Clonmel.

It's like a battle zone. Any time you go in there, you see the 'walking wounded'. It's completely overcrowded, there are trolleys literally coming out the door. We have mixed wards with male and female where there's no dignity in relation to patient care.

Deputy Lowry said the interim solution of modular type beds, and that South Tipp be included in the capital programme as part of its review.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny responded by saying Minister Harris has recognised the importance of prioritising STGH and Our Lady's Cashel.

My understanding is that a tender is due in the coming weeks, requesting proposals for temporary accommodation in Tipperary. And the HSE has been asked to maximise the use of the Cashel campus, and is considering every option to support South Tipperary with both community and primary care services.

Deputy Kenny continued: I am also advised that the HSE is working towards providing extra capacity through the 'fit out' of additional space on the first floor of the hospital, to alleviate the pressure on the emergency department. And this extra capacity is expected to be available from early May of this year, and could be used to accommodate for space of up to 11 beds. In addition STGH has been identified as one of the nine 'focus sites' experiencing the greatest challenges in terms of emergency department pressures.

Additional measures will be put in place to support the hospital to respond to increases in demand for emergency care over the busy Winter period.

Deputy Kenny said the Winter initiative has allowed for a further three additional homecare packages at STGH, until the end of February this year. The Winter initiative also recognises that there are specific challenges relating to capacity at STGH. As such, consideration is being given to accommodation on alternative sites, such as Cashel, to provide additional capacity through temporary in-patient solutions at that site in Cashel. Our Lady's, which provides mainly primary care services, has a small residential facility on site, together with day and outreach services. Deputy Kenny said the residential unit, which includes elderly, mental health, and intellectual disability beds, is currently fully occupied.

The development of the campus as a centre for non-acute healthcare services, arose from the decision by the former SE Health Board, to centralise acute hospital services for the South Tipperary area on one site in Clonmel, and that took place back in 2007.

The Cashel primary care team are based on campus, and a range of services are provided from the site, including physiotherapy, occupational therapy, public health nursing, social work, and disability, and community health nursing.

Deputy Lowry said people are baffled that while there is there is a healthcare crisis in Clonmel, up the road in Cashel, we have a magnificent building, which 20m has been spent refurbishing since 2007.

We have three floors which are empty at the moment, that could take 30 to 35 beds. They're in excellent condition. I'm asking that Cashel be re-opened and that it will be developed as a Primary Care Centre, as a Community Care Centre. It's lying idle, it's shameful, it's mind boggling that the HSE are not getting on with utilising that building to its maximum potential.

Deputy Kenny responded, saying Minister Harris was surprised by the extent of what's in Cashel. He has given the HSE an instruction to come up with better use of what's there, and he will have that report shortly.
Now nine months without a full-time fire chief, the City of Titusville is no longer searching for a new leader for the department.
[February 10, 2017] Milton Security Opens a Security Operations Center and Offers Network Access Control As A Service

FULLERTON, Calif., Feb. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Milton Security Group Inc., a global leader and innovator in network and endpoint security, today launched the Milton Security Operations Center (SOC). Included with this new SOC, Milton is bringing Network Access Control (NAC) As A Service, which reduces the burden on staff. As many professionals in the cyber industry gather next week in San Francisco for RSA to look at all the new blinky light boxes, we are here standing watch over our customers' networks. Organizations now will get real-time results without the noise, letting them focus on their primary business rather than trying to use limited resources in building and maintaining their own SOC. With NAC As A Service, when customers sign up for SOC Services at the 18x7 or 24x7 levels, they get the needed EdgeWall NAC appliances included for free. Understanding the high cost of hiring and training technical experts to work round-the-clock, as well as a capital expense for equipment, Milton is happy to offer Security as a Service at an affordable price to its customers. With both 18x7 or 24x7 coverage options, customers are able to sign up for a SOC Plan of their choosing. "Milton has revolutionized the Network Access Control space and has minimied the path to adoption," said James McMurry, CEO. "We wanted to simplify the implementation to get your organization to the next level of layered security architecture. The industry experience of our team, and the 10 years of building one of the premier NAC solutions ensure we enhance the security posture of any organization. We will be your NAC administrator, Subject Matter Expert, and your ever vigilant, around the clock cyber security partner."



As we have all witnessed, attacks are becoming more frequent and the targets are not just large organizations, but organizations of all sizes. The amount of data coming from internal platforms, applications, anti-virus, anti-malware, IDS, firewalls, Network Access Control is becoming larger by the day. Fancy marketing and advertisements in airports does not make your organization secure. With our proactive SOC and inline EdgeWall solutions, we are able stop threats in real-time, even the silent ones. About Milton Security Group Inc.:

Our core belief is that marketing terms and blinky lights do not solve cyber security problems. We have designed a range of solutions tailored to meeting critical infrastructure needs in securing systems. From the foundation of the EdgeWall NAC, to our new SOC, Milton has proved that security starts with you. Milton Security Group Inc. is a Department of Veterans Affairs Certified Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) For more information about Milton Security Group, please visit http://www.miltonsecurity.com/ Milton Security Group

801 North Harbor Blvd

Fullerton CA 92832

(714) 515 4011 Media Contact:

Lydia Coulter

[email protected]

714-515-4011 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/milton-security-opens-a-security-operations-center-and-offers-network-access-control-as-a-service-300405810.html SOURCE Milton Security Group, Inc.

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Peter Cave-Gibbs Joins Korn Ferry as Senior Client Partner

Korn Ferry (NYSE:KFY), the preeminent global people and organizational advisory firm, today announced that Peter Cave-Gibbs will be joining the firm as Regional Market Leader EMEA for Korn Ferry's Technology Practice. He will be based in Korn Ferry's London office.

Mr. Cave-Gibbs brings a wealth of executive search and leadership advisory experience to Korn Ferry. He joins the organization from a technology and private equity-focused boutique, where he was one of the senior partners. In this role, Mr. Cave-Gibbs completed several successful projects at board and senior executive level, and advised clients in the public and private sector - ranging from start-ups to large multi-nationals.

Previously Mr. Cave-Gibbs spen 13 years at another leading global search firm, where he led the EMEA Software Practice and Technology and Professional Services practices, before his promotion to UK Managing Partner.







"Peter has unique experience working with the technology sector, gained over a number of years. This, combined with his enviable executive search and advisory credentials make him an ideal fit for Korn Ferry's Technology Practice," said Bernard Zen-Ruffinen, President, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Korn Ferry. "His experience will bolster our offering to technology clients seeking first-class consultancy on global leadership topics."

Mr. Cave-Gibbs obtained his bachelor's degree from University College, London.

About Korn Ferry

Korn Ferry is the preeminent global people and organizational advisory firm. We help leaders, organizations, and societies succeed by releasing the full power and potential of people. Our nearly 7,000 colleagues deliver services through our Executive Search, Hay Group and Futurestep divisions.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170210005619/en/
[February 11, 2017] World Government Summit: UAE Sets Global Framework for Governments to Prioritize Happiness as Key Measure of Progress & Development

With the World Health Organization expecting depression to rank in the top three biggest diseases within the next 15 years, over 300 global experts, scientists and decision makers met in Dubai today for the first Global Dialogue on Happiness. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170211005012/en/ His Excellency, Prime Minister of Bhutan Tshering Tobgay speaks on 'The Role of Government in Achieving Happiness during the Global Dialogue on Happiness' (Photo: ME NewsWire) The conference is a global initiative driven by the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai and intends to create a framework for governments to align their policies with the happiness and well-being of their people. To underscore its commiment to this initiative, the UAE has created an official cabinet-level position focused specifically on happiness.



The Global Dialogue on Happiness is a pre-event to the 2017 World Government Summit, beginning 12 February in Dubai. UAE Minister of State for Happiness H.E. Ohood Bint Khalfan Al Roumi, outlined the sense of urgency and moral imperative of governments to take the well-being of their citizens seriously: "350 million people globally suffer depression and 800,000 people between the ages of 15-29 commit suicide annually."

The UAE is tackling these concerns directly, convening global experts on happiness to build a framework to implement ideas that will potentially affect substantial positive change and build happiness in societies. According to findings from "A 75-Year Study on Human Happiness," by Dr. Robert Waldinger, Harvard Professor of Clinical Psychology: "Close relationships were the strongest predictor of what kept people happy throughout their lives." Helen Clark, Administrator of the UNDP spoke about the Human Development Index and reinforced the need to measure happiness to accurately assess and compare progress across countries. Prime Minister of Bhutan Tshering Tobgay spoke about his country's Gross National Happiness initiative which considers responsibility of individual happiness in the same way it thinks about education, healthcare or any other public good. "Great philosophers and religious leaders have devoted their lives to teaching people how to be happy," he said. "Why don't governments make happiness a public good rather than relegating it to an individual pursuit?" The 2017 World Government Summit features 150 speakers across 114 sessions that highlight the world's most pressing challenges and showcase best practices and cutting-edge solutions to deal with them. *Source (News - Alert): ME NewsWire View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170211005012/en/

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A look back on all of our reporting of the Delphi murders since 2017

crime
It's clear from the hair alone that

Kylie (right) has been famous for a long time





The dispute began back in April 2015 when Kylie Jenner (a member of the Kardashian family) attempted to register KYLIE in the USA for advertising and endorsement services.



Kylie Minogue opposed the application. It is rare for oppositions to be quoted in the press, but the description of Jenner as a "secondary reality television personality" has been repeated in almost every report of the dispute.





On 19 January 2017 Kylie Minogue withdrew her opposition fuelling speculation that a settlement has been reached. Given the value of the mark to both Kylies it is fair to assume that a reasonable amount of money changed hands.





Kylie Jenner

Kylie Jen ner has been on a trade mark filing spree.



For example, in December 2016 she applied to register KYLIE for r etail store services featuring gifts, general consumer merchandise, apparel, apparel accessories, calendars, gift wrap, phone cases, pins and buttons. But she is not alone... a recent application for KYLIE BEAUTY for various hair accessories including false beards; False hair; False moustaches may give the Kylie's a common foe to unite against in the future.





Watch out for all the Kylie merchandise coming to a store near you.

Kylie Minogue first sprang to fame as Charlene Robinson in Neighbours . Since then she has had an international pop career with hits such asand
Iran is one of the countries named, as it has been said that the Islamic Republic of Iran remains the number one state sponsor of terrorism.

Overlooked is the threat may be coming from the well-knit group of the Islamic Republic of Irans operatives or lobbyists, who are already in the US, and are determined to persuade US policy-makers that appeasement is the only peaceful means to contain the top state sponsor of terrorism.

Many, like Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American political scientist, and president of the International American Council, are of the opinion that although Irans lobbyists work in plain sight and have access to top officials at the White House and State Department. He says, they lobbied for the lifting of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, top state sponsor of terrorism, and subsequently lifting of sanctions against Irans Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), while demonizing Iranian-Americans who called for firmness against Irans ruling clerics and ayatollahs.

In addition, Dr. Rafizadeh claims that some of pro-Iran lobbyists appear to have managed to ignore the US law, the lobbying disclosure act, that requires anyone who is lobbying and gaining money to register for the sake of transparency.

He also believes that there is another category of Irans lobbyists who are now embedded in almost every sector of the American society including academic, universities, and non-academic arenas such as think tanks.

They have their work cut out for them, adding that this category include some of the former regime insiders, was pointed out by Ali, a policy analyst.

The former assistant director for counterintelligence for the FBI, Frank Figliuzzi, told Bloomberg We have intelligence and cases indicating that US universities are indeed a target of foreign intelligence services.

Dr. Rafizadeh wonders if one can, with any credibility, defend their paymasters export of terrorism, military adventurism, meddling in other countries affairs, vicious abuses of human rights or persecution of religious and ethnic minorities. He adds that over the years, sophisticated modus operandi, has been developed by Irans Ministry of Intelligence whereby its advocates offer excuses for the ruling regimes antipathy to democratic freedoms because of cultural differences or Western preconceptions.

The lobbyists and advocates for the Islamic Republic, Dr. Rafizadeh claims, dismiss those who suggest that the US should respond to this conduct with firmness as a warmonger. He says that it seems that according to them, the way to improve Irans behavior, is to ignore the regional meddling, human rights abuses, arrests of activists and journalists, abuse of Sunni, Bahais and other religious minorities, and mass executions.

However, they ignore the popular opposition, the organized resistance to the regime, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and its main component, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

In 2009 millions of Iranians protested in the streets, calling for the regimes overthrow. The US and the rest of the world watched helplessly as unarmed protesters were killed. That massive popular movement was an expression of the sentiment of Irans people, coalescing in the NCRI, which serves as the parliament-in-exile from its headquarters outside Paris.

The NCRIs main component, the MEK, has been described as a legitimate resistance movement, by bi-partisan majorities in the House of Representatives and a significant number of Senators, as well as a prominent anti-fundamentalist organization adhering to a tolerant Islam, and a major player in confronting this ominous phenomenon and terrorism emanating from it.

For 36 years the NCR has been the longest-standing political coalition in Irans history. Its annual convention in Paris is attended by leading bi-partisan political, military and diplomatic officials from around the world, who speak to crowds that exceed 100,000.

In 2001, nearly three-dozen Senators wrote: US policy should reach out to those working to establish a democratic and pluralistic system in the country. In this context, support for the democratic goals of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and its President-elect, Maryam Rajavi, whose objectives are supported by the majority of Iranians, can contribute to peace, human rights and regional stability.

Why havent our policy-makers listened? asks Dr. Rafizadeh. It may be because so-called Iran experts and scholars , who he calls subtle, often sophisticated, well- heeled and well trained, are likely working for the Islamic Republic of Iran, and he alleges, Irans Intelligence Ministry have been spoon-feeding them the Iranian regimes gruel, adding that they pose a real and present danger and they should be dealt with swiftly and decisively.
Yes, its happened  the Dunies have debuted at #1 on the ARIA charts with their second album, beating out some tough competition to nab the coveted number one spot.

The boys took to social media today to thank fans for grabbing the album, while also beating the heat in glorious fashion by taking a dip with their brand new award.

Our new album has somehow landed at #1 on the Australian Aria charts! Cant explain how much this means to us and we cannot thank everyone enough for the crazy amount of support youve shown!

We started this band to quit our telemarketing jobs and live on free beer and centerlink. We are absolutely gobsmacked. THANK YOU!!! We still live at home with our parents.

Were sure theyll be able to find a spot on the folks mantlepiece for that one.

They were the favourites to take out the number one spot, but they had to knock off a couple of animated kids movie soundtracks (seriously, those things are unstoppable), not to mention yet another Human Nature record. The most notable competition came from the Unified-signed Ocean Grove, who were also predicted to leap into the top three with their debut album The Rhapsody Tapes, but eventually landed at a very respectable fifth spot.

Album marketing 101 with Dune Rats

Love Skegss? Get the latest Skegss news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more JOIN

While Dunies certainly helped their chances at chart glory by jumping on the Laneway lineup and running all over the country just before the album dropped, and scoring the triple j feature album spot a few weeks back, their constant stream of video hijinks on social media has also kept them on everyones radars too.

The appearance of album singles Bullshit and Scott Green at numbers 33 and 34 respectively on this years Hottest 100 countdown always bode well for the trio too, and their hardcore following of Rats devotees obviously put their money where their mouths were and grabbed the record this week.

Congrats to the Dunies for a well-deserved win this week (thanks for a fun arvo too, guys). If youre one of the lucky ones who scored tickets to their sold-out album tour in March with Skegss and The Gooch Palms (okay, Fremantle are still dragging their feet, but were sure thatll be tapped shortly), youll be in for a victory lap to remember.
KANSAS CITY MAYOR SLY ISN'T SO POPULAR WITH LOCAL VOTERS ACCORDING TO RECENT POLLING AND A NEWBIE POLITICO ON THE SCENE!!!

INSIDERS SAY THAT JACKSON COUNTY EXEC FRANK WHITE IS NOW THE MOST LIKEABLE KANSAS CITY POLITICO BY FAR!!!

- Exec Frank White won his office by an even bigger margin than Mayor Sly . . . He was unopposed.





- The deets of JaxCo are far too Byzantine to attract much public scrutiny and even the newspaper only assigns one newsie hack on half salary to show up late to meetings and reprint pressers . . . So it's non-stop PR for Exec White even though the JaxCo Jail looks like one of the lower circles of Hell.





- Spring Training is coming up and love for the home team also supports the Frank White cult of personality . . .

FACT: EXEC FRANK OUTRANKS MAYOR SLY IN TERMS OF VOTER POPULARITY FOLLOWING THE KANSAS CITY HONCHO'S PUBLIC OPPOSITION AND PROTEST OF PREZ TRUMP POLICIES!!!

BEHIND THE SCENES IT'S ONLY CONSULTANT AND SPOKESMAN STEVE GLORIOSO WHO MISTAKENLY TOUTS MAYOR SLY'S POPULARITY AT A HIGHLY UNBELIEVABLE 70% APPROVAL RATING!!!

KANSAS CITY VOTERS DON'T NEED MUCH RESEARCH, POLLING OR REASSURANCE TO UNDERSTAND THAT RAISING TAXES OVER AND OVER IS AN UNPOPULAR MOVE!!!

Mayor Sly James is selling anamount of debt to Kansas City voters and banking on his "popularity" as he makes a great deal of promises supported by nothing more than a smile but very few deets.However . . .You guessed it . . .Supporting data to ago along with our month long series of posts on this topic . . .To be fair, we can all pretend that this isn't all secret data leaked frombecause they make their clients sign on to expensive non-disclosure forms . . . Which is a pretty big catch despite their discount prices., people talk and for the moment Kansas City's political elite still suffer from a slavish devotion tothat was mostly embarrassed by Prez Trump.But here's the most important tidbit . . .Translation . . . Arguing for more taxes should and always will be a tough sell.The reality is that with horrifically low voter turnout . . . The current administration has been able to tax KCMO to death time and again with a couple of notable setbacks.However, coming back to the taxpayer trough over and over again has hurt the Mayor's nice guy image as an increasingly vocal group of residents vow to vote with their wallet rather than their heartstrings.Developing . . .
THE JACKSON COUNTY PROSECUTOR WORKS TO BUILD TRUST BETWIXT POLICE AND COMMUNITY WITH "NEW PROTOCOLS" THAT PROBABLY STILL WON'T SATISFY PROTESTERS!!!

New police use of force guidance report recommends investigation independence and detailed protocols

Baker, who was co-chair of the year-long committees effort to draft the report, said she has already taken steps to implement many of the reports key recommendations, especially fostering more transparency into the process.





The public trust frays when prosecutors fail to explain how and why decisions were made, she said. We must do everything within our legal authority to rebuild this trust and extend fairness to all parties including, including police officers and community members.

The weather is already getting warmer and that means another season of police vs. public conflict awaits.To wit . . .Take a peek, the highlights are mine . . .Some of the nations leading big-city prosecutors, including Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, have released the first guidance document on how local prosecutors should respond, investigate and report on incidents in which a peace officer uses force.Among the recommendations are that prosecutors should respond immediately to the scenes of such use-of-force incidents and that prosecutor offices should develop written internal protocols about how to investigate and make charging decisions in such cases.The Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, based in Washington DC, organized the committees effort, and Baker served as a co-chair of the committee. During their year-long effort the committee invited not only top prosecutors from around the nation to join, but also critics in cities where they met. This included faith-based community leaders, police, and representatives of multiple activist groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP, as well as other critics of the criminal justice system.The report, 21st Century Principles of Prosecution: Peace Officer Use of Force Project, notes that in recent years encounters between police officers and citizens have generated great concern and distrust. Broadcast real-time on widespread social media platforms, peace officer use of force cases have deepened already fragile racial, social and economic divides in our country, and have aggravated distrust between our officers and the communities they serve, the report stated.The report details four pillar principles that should guide prosecutors in these cases: Respect for human dignity; independent investigation and prosecution decision making; responsible transparency; and procedural fairness and justice.Amid the national debate regarding police officer use of force cases, some critics have called for special prosecutors to be named to oversee charging decisions. But the APA report recommends that prosecutors demonstrate their independence and responsibilities, rather than handing it to an outside attorney. To do so, the report recommends detailed memorandums of understanding between prosecutors and police agencies, increased community outreach and detailed letters from the prosecutor to the public to reveal the investigations findings, evidence and legal analysis of the prosecutors review of each officer-involved use of force.The committee concludes by saying that it expects its efforts will continue and will be revised as new and improved ways are developed to foster trust and to reduce or prevent the number of officer-involved use of force cases.##############Check the link toYou decide . . .
The National Library of Greece is making a bet on its future. From the historic neoclassical building in the centre of Athens, one of an iconic triplet of imposing public buildings erected by Theophil von Hansen and Ernst Ziller in the 19th century, the library is methodically preparing for a historic move and its transition into a new era, housed in the airy yet monumental building erected by architect Renzo Piano for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre (SNFCC).

Paradoxically, after languishing unheeded for many years as its needs grew ever greater, the donation of the SNFCC to the Greek state means that the National Library is experiencing this great historic moment in the midst of Greeces crisis. In its new 22,000-square metre premises, it will provide the Greek public with access to a wealth of Greek knowledge and literature, either directly or in digital form, or through temporary exhibitions.

At the building on Panepistimiou Street, feverish preparations are underway ahead of the move. The reading room has been temporarily closed to the public and every corner is a hive of activity, with library employees and external staff, conservators in white coats and plastic gloves preparing the collections to be transferred, once the SNFCC is officially turned over to the Greek State on February 23.

The move is expected to last up to six months and the library will then operate on a trial basis for about two months before an official inauguration in the autumn. The old building on Panepistimiou Street is destined to reopen as a reading room and as a conference and exhibition space in the city centre.

Preparing for the move

Talking about the preparations underway, National Library director Dr. Philippos Tsimboglou told the ANA that the librarys entire collection of books and periodicals, estimated at 760,000 volumes and other items, is to be moved.

The order in which they are transferred will be determined by a series of factors, including weather conditions, humidity conditions, the progress of work in the two buildings and others, he said.

The massive project of cleaning the collections has now been completed, and external crews have in recent months been working on fitting Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems on the collection. The work involves sticking labels on each volume and scanning 400,000 covers to create a complete electronic catalogue for the library.

The books, periodicals and newspapers, each item individually accounted for, will then be ready to be packed in boxes for the transfer to the new building.

According to Christina Tsaroucha, in charge of the National Librarys conservation workshop, this process is also an opportunity for conservators to examine the condition of the items in the collections.

She explained that special materials were chosen to affix the RFID, which do not damage the paper, since the labels needed to be stuck on exceptional papers, decorated, using handmade marble glues, in historic bindings. For some of the more damaged or fragile volumes, where the paper could not come into direct contact with the label, these were first enclosed in transparent bags with the label inserted inside.

In cases where the bindings have started to come apart, the books are held together using white cotton tape. We do not do restoration here, except rescue operations on items where there is urgent need, such as when they are to take part in some exhibition. Restoration will begin in the very well equipped laboratory in the new building, she said.

In our sector, the equipment is very expensive so the new building is an opportunity for us to organise an ultra-modern lab to high standards, with new machinery, she added. She noted that extra staff recently taken on by the Library  though far short of the 286 needed to run it at full efficiency  would increase the number of conservators working at the library to nine.

Rare Treasures

The National Librarys collection includes a number of original editions from the earliest days of the printing press, such as the 1476 book Epitome of the Eight Parts of Speech and Other Sundry Necessities by Constantinos Laskaris printed in Milan or a first edition of the Homeric epics printed in Florence in 1488 and others. There is also a large collection of hand-written codices, rare maps, engravings and other items either purchased, donated or presented under the depot legal, a law requiring that two copies of each Greek edition be given to the National Library dating back to its foundation in 1834.

Set apart in the preparation process were the books and publications that are exceptionally old or have rare historic or artistic value. They were added to the already existing special, closed collection of the National Librarys valuable items, including some 10,255 rare print publications, put together by Yiannis Kokkonas, a professor at the Ionian Universitys Archives, Library Science and Museology Department.

On books and the love of reading

The real treasures of the National Library are not hidden only on its bookshelves but also within its Archives Service, which is being scientifically organised for the first time by historians Dimitra Samiou and Dimitra Vasiliadou. The library archive dates back to its foundation in 1834 and includes more than 40,000 items that are being constantly added to: loose documents and ledgers, correspondence with readers and state services, donation documents, requests by impoverished readers and students. Among those signing these documents are Emmanouil Roidis, Nikolaos Politis, Tellos Agra and other major Greek authors that served on the librarys staff.

Once it is all fully classified, everyone will have access. The aim is to digitise and post it on the internet, Samiou told ANA, noting that this will be a valuable resource for the history of the National Library but also for the history of books and reading in our country.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: License: CC-BY-SA
Cyprus is now playing a larger role in the security of the Eastern Mediterranean, UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said

Cyprus is now playing a larger role in the security of the Eastern Mediterranean, UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said on Friday, following a meeting with President Nicos Anastasiades.

Weve had very constructive talks this morning about continuing the defence cooperation programme and extending it in maritime security and aviation security as well, he said during his first official visit to the island.

Fallon added that he would visit the ZENON Crisis Coordination Centre in Larnaca after his meeting with the President.

CYPRUS ROLE IN SECURITY SHOULD BE INCREASED

Following the meeting, government spokesperson Nikos Christodoulides said that Fallon is well informed on the Cyprus problem.

It is important that the British government recognises the upgraded role of the Republic of Cyprus in the area, and it is important that the role of Cyprus in the area  as a security provider  be strengthened more in the framework of a potential solution to the Cyprus problem, he added.

Asked if Cyprus upgraded role in security after a potential solution would include an army on the island or a multi-ethnic force, the government spokesperson said, It means Cyprus would have to be able to play its role in the region.

He added that in order for the Republic to play its role, the country would have to be a completely sovereign state and in that framework it would have to strengthen its relations with all neighbouring countries.

Christodoulides added that Cyprus already maintains excellent relation with its neighbours.

He stated: This role can be ensured and strengthened through the existence of all the necessary structures, and as a member states of the EU.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
The Italian embassy in Athens is organizing on Sunday a ceremony at the monument for the victims of the ship SS Oria which sank in a storm on February 12, 1944, near the islet Patroklos

The Italian embassy in Athens is organizing on Sunday a ceremony at the monument for the victims of the ship SS Oria which sank in a storm on February 12, 1944, near the islet Patroklos, killing 4,115 Italian soldiers, heading to German concentration camps.

The islet is located a mere 3 klm off the coast of Sounio, southeast of Athens. The event is scheduled at 11:00 on the 60 klm of the Athens-Sounio coastal avenue.

In this way, the embassy expressed its admiration for the humanity shown by the Greek people immediately and spontaneously, honoring every year the memory of the victims of this horrible tragedy, the embassy said.

We also wish to pay homage to the 4,115 Italian soldiers who lost their lives in this shipwreck, but at the same time to the many others who perished in similar conditions in Greece at that time, it added.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Populations of seahorses and pipefishes are under threat in the Mediterranean, according to data released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN estimates that if the degradation of their habitats continues  along with the damage caused by overfishing  then at least 15 percent of seahorse species in the region will face the serious risk of extinction. As it is, scientific knowledge about seahorses is limited.

A few days ago, the IUCN said that the first signs of a drop in the number of seahorses, to which pipefishes are closely related (they both belong to the Syngnathidae family), are now visible. The organization whose Red List details the global conservation status of biological species ranked Mediterranean seahorses and pipefishes as near threatened, one step away from being classified as endangered. More than half of the seahorses and pipefishes found in the Mediterranean Sea (seven species) are currently considered Data Deficient because there is insufficient information available to assess their extinction risk and further research is needed to understand their distribution, population trends and threats, the groups report said.

According to the report, seahorses and pipefishes are mainly threatened by habitat loss and degradation caused by coastal development and destructive fishing practices such as trawling and dredging.

Seahorses are not targeted by the fishing industry but often end up as bycatch or succumb to oceanic pollution, says Costas Dounas, research director at the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture, a part of the Hellenic Center for Marine Research (HCMR). There have not been systematic studies in Greece, but it is clear that their populations have thinned. It is a species with great variability  they can adopt the color of the habitat they are in  so if there is not a targeted research effort, its hard to spot them.

One of the few known examples of seahorse colonies in Greece can be found off Stratoni, in Halkidiki. The HCMR has initiated actions for this population to be studied. Two species of seahorses can be found in Greeces waters, Hippocampus hippocampus and Hippocampus guttulatus, whose populations are estimated to have decreased by 20-30 percent and which are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and the Barcelona Convention.

A few Mediterranean countries, such as Slovenia, protect seahorses in their national legislation.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
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Kuwait-based Gulf Bank said it is spearheading the banking professional excellence through collaboration with the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (Cisi).



The move comes following its agreement with the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) back in January 2015.



A MoU between the two organizations envisions a promotion of a qualifications framework to the Kuwaiti market where CISI qualifications is mandated to specific job functions within CMA licensed entities.



Gulf Bank pointed out that it is following suit by integrating excellence into its banking services through a series of trainings provided by the Cisi.



So far, 48 employees from both the wealth division and priority division already undertook the International Certificate in Wealth and Investment Management training (ICWIM) and the International Introduction to Securities and Investments training (IISI).



The ICWI covered the essentials of financial planning, private client asset management, fund management, advisory functions and investment analysis from a global perspective.



As for the ISSI, it offered a broad introduction to the financial services industry, with a specific focus on investments from a global perspective. It is the foundation exam for many higher-level CISI qualifications.



Tareq Al Saleh, the assistant general manager (investments) at Gulf Bank, Meshari Shehab, the assistant general manager (priority banking) and Esra Alhabib, the manager (external relations) met last week with Simon Culhane-Cisi chief executive, and Matt Cowan-CISI Regional Director, to further discuss the collaboration and to set future plans.



Al Saleh said: "In line with the CMA efforts, Gulf Bank emphasizes on promoting and enabling its staff with the right competencies for efficient banking services results."



"By collaborating with the CISI, we are not only keeping up with the international best practices, but also integrating them into our daily performance," he stated.



CISI is a not for profit organization whose mission is to set standards of professional excellence and integrity for the securities and investment industry, providing qualifications and promoting the highest level of competence to its members, individuals and firms.-TradeArabia News Service
The Lives and Livelihoods Fund (LLF), the largest multilateral development initiative based in the Middle East, has signed its first project  a $32 million financing agreement to support Senegals malaria eradication campaign.



The funding will give Senegal a substantial boost to its capacity to diagnose and treat malaria, supporting the countrys mission to eradicate malaria by the end of 2018.



Launched by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) in September 2016, the Lives and Livelihoods Fund combines $2 billion of IsDB financing with $500 million in grants from donors.



Grants of $400 million have been committed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (20 per cent of the total up to $100 million); the Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development ($100 million); the Qatar Fund for Development ($50 million); the King Salman Relief and Humanitarian Aid Center ($100 million); and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development ($50 million).



The project will help in:



Providing 2.5 million people with free, long lasting insecticide-treated nets.

Contributing to the free distribution of 1.6 million rapid diagnosis tests and more than 70,000 doses of anti-malarial drugs

Improving malaria surveillance and diagnosis by trained professionals

Providing 4 million people with advice on how to avoid malaria

Training 400 community workers and health care providers in malaria control and case management



The project was designed in collaboration with the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria under the framework of the National Malaria Control Program.



Malaria prevalence in Senegal decreased from 5.9 per cent in 2008 to 2.8 per cent in 2013, but remains a major cause of death throughout the country.



The Lives and Livelihoods Fund will help finance the necessary infrastructure to move Senegal from the first stage of malaria response, the control phase, to the pre-elimination phase.



Maher Al Hadrawi, the executive director of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, and chair of the Lives & Livelihoods Fund for its first year of operations, said: "It is a privilege to launch the first project of the Fund and to make a substantial investment in support of Senegals malaria eradication efforts."



"Eradicating malaria will enable millions of people to lead healthy and productive lives. This agreement represents a major milestone for the Fund in its mission to lift the poorest people in the Muslim world out of poverty," he added.



Khalifa Bin Jassim Al Kuwari, the director general of Qatar Fund For Development expressed pleasure to contribute with $50 million for the Lives and Livelihoods Fund over the next five years.



"This contribution will support the millions of people to get out of poverty in the Islamic countries in dire need of help in areas of primary healthcare, disease control, agriculture, and basic rural infrastructure," stated Al Kuwari.



"We are proud to join efforts with the Islamic Development Bank and with regional and international development institutions to launch the first project of the Lives and Livelihoods Fund in Senegal, and to help this country build capacity in the diagnosis and treatment of malaria which has been a major cause of morbidity and mortality," noted the official.



Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, the director general of Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), said: "This initiative is a significant step forward for the LLF and for Senegal. The project will save lives, improve living standards, and bring Senegal closer to eradicating malaria."



"Projects like this reflect ADFDs mission to forge partnerships and provide financial resources to support governments in achieving their goals. We strongly believe in the power of working with partners to ensure aid is used as effectively as possible to drive socio-economic wellbeing for developing nations," he added.



Macky Sall, President of Senegal said the IDB has already supported Senegal by providing concessional financing for several development projects that have had a direct impact on the lives of the poorest.

Sall pointed out that the LLFs funding for Senegals malaria eradication effort shows that African countries are able to stand on their own feet and can develop successful programmes capable of attracting outside funding.



The funds finance projects in health, agriculture and infrastructure in the Muslim world. The Lives and Livelihoods Fund has already signed off $363 million for projects in its first year.-TradeArabia News Service
Launched from Dasht-e Kavir, a remote area 45 miles south of Semnan, the Iranian Sayyad, or Hunter, missiles were launched successfully, officials said, adding that these missiles are used to down aircraft and incoming ballistic missiles. Its unclear whether Sayyad-1s or Sayyad-2s were launched on Sunday. The Type 2 missiles range is up to 125 miles, but the Type 1 can only fly up to 75 miles. Officials say that the missiles appear similar from satellite imagery. Both Type 1 and Type 2 have been in Irans arsenal since 2013, when mass production began.

The officials believe that the launches were scheduled to coincide with Irans 10 Days of Dawn celebrations, that mark 37 years since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

February 1, the anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeinis return to Iran after 15 years in exile, was the day that the celebrations began. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavis regime collapsed just 10 days after Khomeinis return.

A separate military exercise on Saturday was conducted by Irans Revolutionary Guard, to test its missile and radar systems, and came after Michael Flynn, National Security Adviser, declared that the U.S. was putting Iran on notice for testing ballistic missiles and supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen.

About a week ago, Iran apparently conducted its first ballistic missile test during the new Trump Presidency. At the same time, defense officials said, the Iran-backed rebels may have been targeting the U.S. in their recent attack on a Saudi ship.

In a tweet Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said,We will never use our weapons against anyone, except in self-defense. Let us see if any of those who complain can make the same statement.

Although U.N. Resolution 2231 states that Iran is called upon not to conduct ballistic missile tests, it does not forbid them from doing so. The resolution went into effect days after the landmark Nuclear Deal was signed by world powers including the U.S.
Alfardan Premier Motors Company, the exclusive retailer of Jaguar Land Rover in Qatar, said it was recently recognized for its impressive first-class customer service at the 2016 Jaguar Land Rover Technician of the Year and Service Advisor of the Year awards.



The regions Land Rover Retailer of the Year 2016 accolade was presented to Alfardan Premier Motors as a reward for its outstanding market success over the last year. Delivering excellence on all fronts for the Land Rover brand in Qatar, Alfardan Premier Motors carries the brands promise and values at the core of its work.



Scooping up the second award of the night, Alaa Chamas from the Alfardan Premier Motors team was also named the regions Land Rover Technician of the Year 2016.



As part of the twelve Jaguar Land Rover finalists who emerged from the Technician of the Year semi-final rounds, Alaa Chamas competed during the final regional leg of the programme at the Dubai Autodrome (UAE) in January. Alaa Chamas will now go on to attend the Global Jaguar Land Rover Technician of the Year finals which will be held in the UK in November 2017.



Richard Jabilis from Alfardan Premier Motors also ranked third in the regional Jaguar Technician of the Year 2016 awards. Finding himself in the top three for the second year in a row, Richards achievement highlights his ongoing commitment to the Jaguar team, said a statement from the company.



While the company runs its successful Technician of the Year award challenge every year, the new Service Advisor category is testament to Jaguar Land Rovers growing determination to supporting customer service with enhanced skilled and knowledgeable staff.



Driving the Regions Service Advisor award category forward for the very first time, Mahmoud El Bayroutieh and Ibrahim Albaragheeti from the Alfardan Premier Motors team placed among the nine finalists who emerged from over ninety competition applicants, it stated.



Showcasing mastery in their field, El Bayroutieh and Albaragheeti were commended for their commitment to the customer-first principles Jaguar Land Rover promises both regionally and globally.



Rob Preston, the customer service director at Jaguar Land Rover Mena, said: "Our Technician and Service Advisor of the Year award platform is a great way of recognizing and celebrating success of those people in our Jaguar Land Rover team who are making such a valuable contribution to creating first-class experiences for our customers."



The Alfardan Premier Motors team has done an outstanding job over the last year to build on a strong and loyal customer base in Qatar, he stated.



Andrew Wheeler, the after sales manager for Alfardan Premier Motors, said: "We are honoured to be recognized by Jaguar Land Rover Middle East and North Africa (Mena) for our efforts and promise to both brands. Customers are quickly evolving in the Middle East, which is why adopting the correct customer approach is essential in guaranteeing our success in Qatar."



"We pride ourselves on the technical and non-technical skill sets that our talented team at Alfardan Premier Motors strives to showcase on a daily basis and are grateful to be able to play a part in the success and growth of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands in the Middle East," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Iceland is known for having numerous volcanoes in its country. With 130 volcanoes that include both active and inactive ones, the place is always closely monitored by geophysicists. Now, reports say that four of Iceland's biggest volcanoes are showing signs of a near eruption.

The 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano did not only cause physical damage to the nearby locations but it did cause some damage to the economy as well. According to the Daily Mail, a huge number of flights were canceled which affected more than 10 million air passengers that amounted to losses of $4.9 billion in the European economy.

With four volcanoes about to erupt namely, Katla, Hekla, Bararbunga and Grimsvotn, there's going to be a lot at stake. Experts even state that it will definitely cause chaos in world travel which could affect the world economy.

IFLScience! reported that any of these volcanoes might erupt within the next few years. As of now, the four volcanoes are having some pre-eruptive activities with its minor lava flows.

Bararbunga, one of the most recentl-active volcanoes, showed some signs of activity that happened back in 2014-2015 where lava flows came out of the volcano. Katla has been exhibiting tremors as well that goes along with some minor lava flows.

Grimsvotn, which is just a nearby volcano to Bararbunga, last erupted in 2011. There are also some consistent seismic activities happening because its magma source is the same with Bararbunga.

The last eruption of Hekla was back in 2010 and its previous records show that it has a recurrence of 10 years. Now, the volcano is seven years late and some are predicting that it will be one of the most catastrophic events if erupts after a few years more.

These four volcanoes are being closely monitored by researchers and scientists. However, it's still quite hard to predict which of the four will erupt first. It's also hard to forecast the duration of the eruptions.

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Japanese coffee shops not only cater to the caffeine cravings of the very busy (overworked) citizens, they also provide an illusion of calm in the noisy and 'light-noxious' concrete jungles. In Tokyo alone, specialty coffee shops gratify a vast array of subcultures and cliques that thrive in Japan's capital.

Curiously, however, there are only several well-known shops in the city that are well-known for combining books and caffeine. Coffee and literature are the hallmarks of sophistication. Visiting one of these shops is a great luxury addition to the succinct low-cost Tokyo itinerary.

Brooklyn Parlor

This shop is one of Tokyo's best cafes for book lovers. Owned by the renowned company called the Blue Note Tokyo, this coffee shop imitates the vibes of its namesake New York district. Three wall sections are made of shelves with an abundance of multi-various volumes. Other than coffee and snacks, this shop in Shinjuku district also serves its signature Brooklyn lager.

Blue Books Cafe

Another shop owned by Blue Note Tokyo, this cafe for book lovers differs from its sister shop in terms of design and placement. Blue Books Cafe is a basement coffee shop, smaller and relatively cozier in terms of interior sound ambiance - hence a more conducive place for reading. This cafe in Jiguyaoka district also has a lesser selection of books.

Anjin

Located on the second floor of Tsutaya Building in Shibuya district, this is one of the Japanese coffee shops that perfectly combine traditional Japanese interior design with posh Western accouterments. Anjin boasts a very wide selection of rare books, high-tech Ipad menus and first class barista and waiter service.

Rainy Day Cafe

Among Tokyo's best cafes, this place proves to be one of the hardest to locate. However, the Rainy Day Cafe is definitely everything one would expect for a booklover's quiet lounge. Like a stringent library, its interiors block all mobile phone signals.

Paperback Cafe

What makes this place a genuine cafe for book lovers has a lot to do with its location. Jimbocho neighborhood is famous for selling used books. Paperback Cafe is stationed in a bookstore that is almost 100 years old. Like an alternative library, this place is an ideal lounge for those who are grappling with heavy writing drudgery (e.g. novel, report, etc).

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Education is an important calling. While virtually all teachers have the privilege to take a vacation, not all of them really want to 'take a break' per se. Some have considered teaching an innate lifetime commitment that these traveling teachers' idea of a vacation is simply 'to resume classes elsewhere.'

Case in point: erudite citizens from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, the Philippines and other nations fluent in speaking and writing in English consider ESL (English as a Second Language) opportunities abroad in their next scheduled overseas trip. But even for educators who are simply pursuing leisure trips, their experience and gained perspective from foreign countries allow them to become better teachers. These are the five ways on how travel enhances teaching methods:

Curiosity Bait

A worldly professor always has a better chance of appealing to younger students because, despite their propensity for distraction and boredom, the youth is generally curious about things they do not know. Young students always love to think outside the box. Foreign ideas can somehow interest them because the youth are easily impressed by concepts that 'defy the commonplace.'

The Virtual Tour

It is natural for young students not to take the claims of a worldly professor at face value. But a decent learner can hardly question an observable proof. One of the best ways social science educators can do to shatter that barrier of skepticism is to use vlogs as a resource material.

Cultural Reference

It is always difficult for social science educators to teach world culture, especially in an environment that is rife with 'hyper-sensitivity.' But a teacher can impart essential wisdom by simply narrating his or her own experience abroad. An objective recounting of past events has an effective way of letting the audience's minds work without imposing ideas for them.

Foreign Correspondence

Some traveling teachers often build connections with other equally competent institutions abroad. Encouraging students to write letters to their foreign counterparts is the best way to get them into proper writing exercises.

Exposure Trips

The best program a teacher can use from traveling is 'traveling itself.' A determined and highly-esteemed educator can often arrange exposure trips to exotic countries. This method, however, is the most painstaking in terms of gaining approval from the school board and other related authorities (e.g. consulates).

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
In most Muslim countries, serving alcohol is illegal. Some countries make exceptions for tourists -- their reasons being tourists are part of the economy. However, for most countries, religious restrictions and even constitutional acts restrict their local shops from selling alcohol-laced drinks.

Dubai is liberal and has no opposing viewpoint against alcohol consumption but Dubai is not the only emirate in the UAE. Dubai's own alcohol rules are strict but it is allowed, but for emirates such as Sharja, one needs a government license to procure alcohol. This is easy to get for travelers -- but not so for locals.

When in Africa's Somalia, travelers should drop the tin-can filled with brandy; when tourists are caught manufacturing, trading or publicly consuming alcohol, they could be punished. Tourists and non-Muslim foreigners are allowed to drink liquor but only in private spaces -- which means no wine or beer in restaurants.

The country of Bahrain has plenty of sites to visit amid the civil chaos erupting occasionally almost every second half of the year. But most of these incidents are not alcohol-induced; according to The Daily Meal, alcohol in Bahrain is only available in hotels. Travelers also need to secure a private license to purchase alcohol but they need to be careful; drinking in public or worse, getting drunk, means imprisonment.

Amazing enough, Maldives is a non-Muslim majority country yet it prohibits the sale of alcohol for the local population and establishments including hotels and restaurants need to secure special licenses to sell alcohol. This would mean the nightclubs and resorts are paying hefty dues to keep travelers happy with alcohol.

According to World Atlas, another puzzling alcohol-inhibitor is India -- nowadays perceived as liberal when it comes to inebriation, modern culture and Western culture. In some states including Gujarat, Bihar and Nagaland, travelers could be imprisoned for consuming alcohol. While New Delhi and Bombay allows its sale and consumption, in some areas such as Kerala, drinkers and sellers need special permits to sell alcohol.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
President Donald Trump has finally held his first conversation over the telephone with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping. The White House had confirmed that the president already agreed to honor the so-called "One China Policy".

It can be recalled that it has been a long-standing agreement which states that there is only one Chinese government for China. Recently, President Trump broke with this diplomatic norm in December by accepting a call from the president of Taiwan which was also considered a breakaway province of China.

The president also said that he saw no reasons why this agreement should continue without any key concerns from Beijing. Further, the telephone conversation that they had on Thursday night was the first between the two since Trump had taken office on January 20 even though he already had called several national leaders, BBC News reported.

Accordingly, the US president said that their conversation was very warm. He even added that they had a very good talk that night and discussed lots of subjects which made them talk long. Further, the White House also added that the wide range of issues were also discussed during the US-China call and characterized it as very pleasant. Both leaders had even invited each other for a nation visit.

Further, with a much lengthier call between these two national leaders, China's official news agency also said that Xi had vowed to work with Trump's administration in order to ensure relations could advance in a more sound and stable manner, The Guardian reported.

These two countries are apparently capable of becoming good cooperation partners, as quoted from Xi's statement to Trump. Both also had agreed to keep close contact with each other and to further strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation in terms of trade and economy as well as with international affairs. Trump and Xi also had agreed to hold a meeting together at an early date.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Cuba is one of the most sought after travel destinations right now because of the end of the 60-year long trade and financial embargo with the US. This exquisite Caribbean island is now slowly opening its doors for travel excursions, cruise ships now include Cuba in their stops, and a chance to explore the country is now more realistic than ever.

And this year, the country is set to open their very first five-star hotel, the Gran Hotel Kempinski Manzana La Habana. Owned by Kempinski, Europe's oldest luxury hotel group, this hotel will open up a lot of opportunities for the local economy, and luxurious travelers will now have a great accommodation to stay in.

No official date has been announced yet, but the Kempinski group is confident about its grand opening to the public sometime in the second quarter of the year. The whole endeavor was in partnership with Gaviota, one of Cuba's leading tourism enterprises.

Although Cuba already has a number of luxury hotels, the demand for 1st class accommodation actually hasn't been really met. This is where the Gran Hotel Kempinski Manzana La Habana fills the gap.

Collin Laverty, president of Cuba Educational Travel, said: "The Saratoga is considered a luxury property but it is more a boutique hotel. The Kempinski hotel is a whole other level in terms of brand, professionalism and the size of the hotel."

"It certainly fills a gap in terms of supply. Almost all the upscale visitors in that part of town are trying to get into the Saratoga or the Parque Central, and the Kempinski is going to be a great offering."

Among the top features the Kempinski hotel offers include 246 rooms and suites, a Swiss Resense spa, an inhouse cigar lounge, a rooftop terrace with a swimming pool, a lobby bar, and three restaurants. There is also going to be a 1,600-square-foot presidential suite.

According to Markus Semer, chairman and chief executive of Kempinski Hotels, "The opening is a continuation of our pioneering spirit as the Gran Hotel Kempinski Manzana La Habana will be Cuba's first modern luxury five-star hotel. And its location within a famous historic building currently makes it the most exclusive hotel project in Old Havana." The hotel is built in the historical streets of Old Havana, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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America is full of beautiful national parks and nature reserves. You've probably visited some of the most popular ones like the Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, but there are actually more than 50 national parks in the US, and some of them are really under-appreciated. Let's take a break from the populous, popular parks and take a look at some of the best underrated national parks in America. Here are some of them:

Great Basin National Park, Nevada. It's actually surprising how this place is underrated considering it's one of the most picturesque destinations in the US. Great Basin has all the things you're looking for--- magnificent views, luscious wildlife, beautiful caves, towering mountains, and it is also one of the best stargazing spots in America. Don't miss out.

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. You'll never run out of heart-stopping and thrill-seeking adventures here at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. It is the largest national park in the United States, and several adventure tours are always offered here. I guess we can understand why the conservatives prefer more the Denali National Park, but if you're a total badass adventurer, experience St. Elias National Park too.

Biscayne National Park, Florida. This national park is somewhat different from the rest, seeing that almost  of the whole preserve is set underwater. Biscayne National Park houses the third largest coral reef in the world, and you can experience scuba diving and swimming with over 200 species of colorful fishes and other marine animals. The beauty of this place will make you feel like you're on a deserted island in the Caribbean, so don your diving gear and take selfies under the ocean!

Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota. Wind Cave National Park is a good alternative if you can't afford to go to the world-famous Underground River in the Philippines, and after your visit I'm sure you'll be wanting to come back. It houses the 4th largest cave in the world, and with the ranger-guided tours always available, you will be mesmerized with its display of boxwork, the unusual formation of thin calcite fins resembling honeycombs. Outside, you'll be rewarded with a diverse wildlife and an impressive green scenery as well.

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After the Iran nuclear deal was announced in July of 2015, rumors began about secret side agreements made between the Islamic Republic and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Many of those secret agreements have been released, but with the tension between Iran and US President Trump, who criticized the deal, the White House may reveal more details.

Trump tweeted last week, Iran has been formally PUT ON NOTICE for firing a ballistic missile. Should have been thankful for the terrible deal the U.S. made with them! In a later Tweet, he said, Iran was on its last legs and ready to collapse until the U.S. came along and gave it a life-line in the form of the Iran Deal: $150 billion.

Almost as soon as the deal was reached, speculation about secret side agreements that involved Irans past testing and inspection methods began. Susan Rice, President Obamas National Security Adviser acknowledged that the documents between Iran and the IAEA were not public. She reiterated that Obama administration was informed of their contents and would share the details with Congress in a classified briefing.

Still, a number of alleged side deals have been revealed, and many Republicans in Congress, including former Kansas congressman and current CIA director Mike Pompeo, are demanding that the full context of the deal with Iran is brought to light, especially following the Irans recent failed ballistic missile test.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior Iran analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News, The fact that there are side deals to begin with is a problem. The deal was sold to us as transparent and that hasnt been the case.

Roger Simon, PJMedia columnist, called for a full airing of the nuclear deal in an article that was picked up by several conservative blogs.
With the Trump administration, signs indicate that Iran will be in for a major change. In less than a month, Trump has proven that, in regards to its Middle East doctrine, and especially, in comparison to its predecessors appeasement policy, things will be very different.

Michael Flynn, U.S. National Security Advisor, took a firm stance against Irans January 29 ballistic missile test launch. He put Iran on notice, which was followed by new sanctions on 25 Iranian individuals and entities with ties to Tehrans ballistic missile program. Nothing could have made it more clear that the U.S.-Iran policy has been revamped.

Tehran used its missile launch to test the new U.S. administration, and it backfired when President Trump and his team reacted with a series of measures, letting the regime know that their harassments, including a suicide boat attack against a Saudi frigate conducted by Iran-supported Houthis in Yemen, wont be tolerated.
One issue that has been mentioned numerous times is that the people who pose the most danger are already in the country. And even worse, it has been said that they are in positions where they can influence some very high members of the administration.

Iran is one of the countries affected by the Executive Order and it is the biggest exporter of terrorism in the world.

It is possible that the Iranian regime has a tight group of lobbyists that are influencing and persuading policymakers in the US government. Their main task is to make them believe that appeasement is the only solution when it comes to dealing with Iran.

These lobbyists are in positions where they can carry out this mission and were involved in the negotiations that lifted sanctions against Tehran. They were thus very critical of the Iranian-Americans who wanted the US to treat Iran firmly.

For reasons of transparency, lobbyists are supposed to be registered, but the Iran lobbyists are not. Do they believe they are above the law, just like the Iranian regime?

The Obama administration has, unwittingly or not, done exactly what the Iran lobbyists want. It followed a policy of no popular opposition and, when faced with the impressive images of the 2009 uprising remained silent.

A former assistant director of the counterintelligence section of the FBI said that it has been proven that foreign intelligence services have targeted academic institutions such as universities. Some say that Iran lobbyists have infiltrated much more than universities  they have also entered non-academic areas such as think tanks.

The lobbyists also try to discredit those who are against appeasement and dismiss discussions about further sanctions. They try to persuade policymakers that being too firm with Iran will instigate armed conflict.

The Iranian regime is known for its complete disregard of human rights and its mistreatment of journalists, activists and religious minorities. The lobbyists have to draw attention away from these issues, as well as away from Tehrans murderous involvement in the Syrian civil war.

Appeasement does not work with Tehran. Concessions do not change the Iranian regimes behaviour. Turning a blind eye to the violations of the Iran nuclear deal does no good for anyone. So, something has to change.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is the organised opposition that has been around for decades. It knows the Iranian regime more than any other group. It has support from many US politicians and has been named a major player in the fight against the Iranian regime.

Over 15 years ago, more than 30 senators advised: US policy should reach out to those working to establish a democratic and pluralistic system in the country. In this context, support for the democratic goals of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and its President-elect, Maryam Rajavi, whose objectives are supported by the majority of Iranians, can contribute to peace, human rights and regional stability.

Maybe now is the time for this advice to be followed. Havent all other areas been exhausted?
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 12

As much as Rs21.1 crore was donated by various alumni of the PEC University of Technology for the campus infrastructure and for the economically weaker sections yesterday. The Global Annual Alumni Meet of the PEC University of Technology organised by the Punjab Engineering College Old Students Association (PECOSA), in collaboration with the office of the Dean Alumni, Corporate and International Relations, announced the donations.

The chief guest on the occasion, Monte Ahuja, chairman and CEO, MURA Holdings, USA, was an alumnus of the 1967 batch.

As a token of gratitude to his alma mater, he proposed a grant of Rs6.7 crore to PEC yesterday.

Another alumnus, Manmohan Kalsi of the 1967 batch, also proposed a grant of Rs1.67 crore for the university.

Ahuja narrated the challenges met by him during his lifes journey in the USA and inspired the alumni to remain connected to their roots.

This year, the batches of 1957, 1967,1982 and 1992 were honoured. The alumni of 1988 and 1990 batch donated Rs12.76 crore to the institute. The batch of 1988, led by Gurvin Singh and Ranesh Bajaj, was honoured for setting up the Mechatronics laboratory at a cost of Rs14.05 lakh in the institute. The 1990 batch of electrical engineering was honoured for providing testing equipment for numerical relays of Rs5 lakh in the T&D lab of the institute. The alumni body provided an aid of Rs50,000 to a third-year student, who was facing scarcity of funds, for undertaking his internship in Italy.

KK Vohra, president, PECOSA, explained that the theme of the alumni meet was purposefully chosen as building bridges across alumni as they needed to connect and exchange views in a better way if they wanted to reassert themselves as a strong and vibrant alumni body.

Director, Dr Manoj K Arora, addressed 1,000 delegates who came from various parts of the country and the US.
From the New York Times comes this information on the nature of immigration in California.

Mr. Trumps immigration policies could transform Californias Central Valley, a stretch of lowlands that extends from Sacramento to Bakersfield. Approximately 70 percent of all farm workers here are living in the United States illegally, according to researchers at University of California, Davis. The impact could reverberate throughout the valleys precarious economy, where agriculture is by far the largest industry. With 6.5 million people living in the valley, the fields in this state bring in $35 billion a year and provide more of the nations food than any other state.



Now he worries that a Trump administration could mandate a Homeland Security Department program called E-verify, which was aimed at stopping the use of fraudulent documents. In all but a few states, the program is voluntary and only a small fraction of businesses use it.

Farmers here have faced a persistent labor shortage for years, in part because of increased policing at the border and the rising prices charged by smugglers who help people sneak across. The once-steady stream of people coming from rural towns in southern Mexico has nearly stopped entirely. The existing field workers are aging, and many of their children find higher-paying jobs outside agriculture.



Many growers here and across the country are hopeful that the new administration will expand and simplify H-2A visas, which allow them to bring in temporary workers from other countries for agricultural jobs. California farmers have increasingly come to rely on the program in the last few years.



Yet, many of Mr. Trumps supporters say they are counting on him to follow through on his promises. Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said that limiting the use of foreign labor would push more Americans into jobs that had primarily been performed by immigrants.

It doesnt matter if its programming computers or picking in fields, he said, Any time youre admitting substitutes for American labor you depress wages and working conditions and deter Americans.



Mr. Marchini, the radicchio farmer, said he felt similarly after seeing generations of workers on his family farm send their children to college and join the middle class. Mr. Marchinis family has farmed in the valley for four generations and he grew up working side by side with Mexican immigrants.

He said that no feasible increase in wages or change in conditions would be enough to draw native-born Americans back into the fields.
[February 10, 2017] Matrix Video Surveillance Solution for Healthcare Helping Hospitals Tighten their Security and provide Excellent Customer Service at all Times!

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Our Correspondent

Kharar, February 11

Two Delhi residents, who had come to attend a wedding at Jhanjheri village near here, were killed in a road accident on the Jhanjheri-Landran road near Swara village, last night.

The deceased have been identified as Yash Shoukeen of Laxmi Park in New Delhi and Aryan Soni of the Mianwali area in New Delhi. The accident took place when both the deceased, after attending a wedding at Jhanjheri village, left in their Toyota Fortuner SUV for Chandigarh and when they reached near Swara village at around 12.20 am, a truck coming from the opposite direction, collided head-on with them, the police said here today. Both victims were entrapped in the mangled remains of the SUV and till the time, they were pulled out and rushed to Kharar Civil Hospital, they died. The Kharar police have registered a case of causing deaths by rash and negligent driving against the unknown truck driver, who fled the spot after the mishap. In a statement to the police, Pinki Chahar, a resident of Pachmi Vihar in New Delhi, informed the police that it was the marriage of her daughter Jasleen Kaur at a resort in Jhanjheri, where both the victims had gone.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 11

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and family members of Akansh Sen (28), who was run over by a BMW car in Sector 9 here on Thursday, have doubts on investigation into the case by the UT police. Sen, succumbed to his injuries on Friday.

We will study his post-mortem report and check if the FIR is effective or has been manipulated by the police, said Virbhadra, whose wifes brothers son also died in the incident.

The police will have to verify whether it was an accident or a deliberate attempt to kill him as it does not seem he was run over under the tyres of the car. Had it been the case, his head would have been crushed badly, he added while leaving from Himachal Bhawan, Sector 28, to Sens hometown at Kuthar village in Solan, Himachal Pradesh.

The victims sister who was also staying at the Himachal Bhawan, told Chandigarh Tribune in a similar tone, We will tally the post-mortem report with the FIR to see whether appropriate action is being taken by the police.

According to the police complaint, Balraj Singh Randhawa, a resident of Sector 77, Sohana, Mohali, and Harmehtab Singh, a resident of Radewala Farm, Landra, Mohali, had entered into an altercation with the victim. The accused then sat in the luxury car and allegedly crushed the victim under its wheels. Sen is the co-owner of Boom Box Cafe in Sector 9 here.

Broken skull cause of death: Post-mortem report

Chandigarh: The UT police on Saturday handed over the body of Akansh Sen to the family after post-mortem. The family, accompanied by Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, left for Kuthar village in Solan district later in the day for cremation. Sources said a panel of three doctors conducted the examination at the PGI in which it was prima facie found that he had suffered head injuries and his skull was broken, which claimed his life. The police remained tight-lipped on the matter. TNS
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 11

The Crime Branch has busted two drug trafficking modules and arrested three drug traffickers in two incidents. The accused are Uchenne (28) of Nigeria, Ajay (33) and Naresh Kumar (39) from Uttam Nagar, Delhi, and 170 gm of cocaine and 590 gm of heroin was recovered from their possession.

Head Constable Rupesh Kumar Information received information that a Nigerian national involved in the supply of cocaine and heroin in different parts of Delhi would come near Dwarka Mor.

A team of officers of the Narcotics Cell and the Delhi Police laid a trap near the taxi stand at Dwarka Mor. Uchenne was apprehended and 330 gm of heroin and 170 gm of cocaine was recovered from his possession. The recovered contraband is worth Rs.1.5 crore in the international market. And a case was registered by the Crime Branch.

In the second incident, information was received by Sub Inspector Dinesh Kumar that Ajay and Naresh Kumar, involved in the supply of heroin in Delhi, would come near a showroom in Vikas Nagar, Delhi.

A trap was laid and Ajay and Naresh Kumar were apprehended with 260 gm of heroin. The recovered heroin is worth about Rs 50 lakh in the international market and a case by Crime Branch was registered. Investigations are underway in both cases, said Joint CP Ravindra Yadav, Crime, Delhi.
Gurugram, February 11

Four persons were arrested on Saturday in connection with a heist at the office of a private gold loan company here and over 30 kg of the yellow metal along with firearms was recovered from them, police said.

In the major daylight heist on February 9, the Mannappuram gold loan branch at New Railway Road was targeted by a gang of armed robbers who overpowered the security guard on duty and physically assaulted the branch staff before decamping with the gold.

Three persons were arrested from Farukhnagar area in Gurugram while one accused was arrested in Ahmedabad by a Special Investigation Team, Gurugram Police Commissioner, Sandeep Khirwar said.

The accused have been identified as Hoshiar Singh, a resident of Farrukhnagar, Kanpur resident Vikas Gupta, and Bijender, hailing from Jind. Devender, also a resident of Jind, was arrested from Ahmedabad, a police spokesperson said.

As many as 829 pouches of gold weighing over 30 kg were recovered from their possession along with two pistols and four rounds of ammunition.

Police teams are looking for their absconding associates, Khirwar said.

The police teams accessed the CCTV footage of the crime yesterday after contacting the Mannappuram gold loan head office in Kerala.

Posing as customers, seven persons had entered the branch at around 11.30 am and held hostage four employees, including a woman and two guards, besides a few customers.

A case was registered under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act at Civil Lines police station, Gurugram.

The accused had also attacked a guard and a customer who have been admitted to a hospital with multiple stab wounds and are undergoing treatment.  PTI
Tribune News Service

Gurugram, February 11

The police have cracked the Mannapuram case within 48 hours of the robbery. They arrested four accused and recovered 30-kg gold looted from the gold for cash bank.

After getting leads from the Aadhaar card used by the accused to gain entry into the bank and CCTV footage, the police arrested Hoshiyar Singh, Vikas Gupta and Bijendra Singh, alias Chhabila, from a guesthouse at U-block of DLF Phase 3 in Gurugram.

Kingpin Devender was caught in Ahmedabad, where he had gone to sell the booty. Sources claimed that Vikas, hailing from Kanpur, had contacted four more men for the crime and the police were on the lookout for them.

The accused were in the process of sharing and selling the booty. The gold was recovered in 829 sealed packets. It will be easy to identify the owners, said Police Commissioner Sandeep Khirwar.

DCP (Crime) Sumit Kuhar, who headed the team, said a CCTV grab had provided major leads. The footage was circulated widely by the media and on social media. We got major leads from the footage and the Aadhaar card submitted by Devender, he said.

The sources said Devender had used his identity card to gain entry into the bank as customer and the police traced him to his Jind address.

They came to know about his cousin, who gave key contact numbers. This led the police to the girlfriend of one of the accused. She called them with the loot on the pretext of finding customers. The robbers came to Sector 29, where the police nabbed them.

Some of the accused have criminal record. Superimposing their latest photographs on those available with the police and analysis of call record helped the investigators track them, said Kuhar.
Tribune News Service

Kurukshetra, February 10

A delegation of Jat community leaders would hold a meeting with a state government delegation in Panipat on Saturday, Yash Pal Malik, All-India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti president, said on Friday.

Malik said the government had invited them for talks at 10.20 am. He said he would lead the delegation for the meeting and that members from various dharna sites too had been invited.

He said though the issue of reservation for Jats was under consideration of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the Centre had the option to extend the reservation benefit to the community.

We expect the delegation will initiate talks with an open mind. There is no question of rolling back our seven-point agenda for the benefit of the Jats, he added.
Our Correspondent

Sundernagar, February 11

The police have booked a youth from the Dehar locality of Sundernagar for taking away a parked HRTC bus from the bus stand yesterday.

As per information, the driver and conductor were taking tea at the bus stand when a youth came and boarded the bus. He started it and drove towards the Sundernagar side.

The police were informed about the incident and the accused was nabbed at Bhawana, 10 km away from Dehar. He has been identified as Mukesh Kumar (26), a resident of Dehar.

A case has been registered against the accused under Section 379 of the IPC.

According to HRTC officials, an inquiry has been initiated against the driver and conductor of the bus as they were found negligent while discharging their duties.

12 vehicles damaged

Twelve vehicles parked near the BSL colony police station were damaged by unknown miscreants yesterday.

The vehicles were parked on the Swar-Purana Bazar Road. The windowpanes, front and rear glasses of these vehicles were broken completely.

4 booked for tree felling

Chamba: Four persons have been booked for allegedly felling three green trees and one dry tree from the land of Dalhousie MLA Asha Kumari on Friday. The land is located at Jumhaar near Chamba.

Giving this information here today, a police report revealed that the sleepers of these trees had been impounded by forest officials and kept in the Forest Department store. The persons involved in the felling had fled the site.

The report said on the complaint of a caretaker of the land Rajesh Thakur, a case had been registered under the Indian Forest Act and the IPC at Chamba police station.

Drive against drug menace stepped up in Una

Una: The Una police have intensified their campaign against drug mafia.

In a statement issued here today, SP Anupam Sharma said during the last one month, the police had gathered specific information from various sections of society regarding local youth involved in the illegal trade.

The SP said raids conducted by the police had produced results, adding that 10 persons involved in seven instances of drug trafficking had been arrested from February 1 to 11 in the district. He said two cases were registered at the Haroli and Una police stations, while the remaining three were registered at Gagret, adding that 305.19 gm of charas and 8.71 gm of heroin had been recovered from the accused.

Acting on a tip-off, a police party today stopped a motorcycle bearing registration number HP20D 1067 in Basal village of Una district and recovered 150 gm of poppy husk from his jacket. He said accused Bharat Bhushan, a resident of Bhalad village, under the Gohar police station had been arrested under Section 20 of the NDPS Act.  OC
Tribune News Service

Jammu, February 11

The Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) today staged a protest against the state government for allegedly perpetuating discrimination against the educated youth of Jammu while providing lions share to Kashmir in employment.

The educated youth, who were a part of the protest, also torched their degrees to register their resentment against the alleged dark rule of the BJP-PDP alliance. They raised slogans against the ruling parties and accused them of resorting to grave injustice against the Jammu region in employment.

It is shocking to note that Jammu has been subjected to grave injustice in employment. In the recently published selection list of assistant professors in the discipline of commerce, mere 13 posts went to the Jammu region out of 58 while the rest were given to Kashmir, said Harsh Dev Singh, JKNPP, chairman, while addressing the protesters.

He said in an earlier selection list, out of 34 candidates in history, only nine belonged to the Jammu region. In faculties of physics, psychology and other subjects, the situation was similar, he added.

He further revealed the alleged highly-biased selections in economics and statistics directorate wherein out of 26 candidates selected for the posts of junior statistical assistants, only one belonged to the Jammu region.

In the Health and Medical Education Department, out of 123 selections of consultants in radiology, medicine, ophthalmology, ENT, orthopaedics, gynaecology, pathology and paediatrics, only 23 belonged to the region, he claimed, adding, The bias and prejudice in the selections has not only demoralised the aspiring Jammu youth but sparked outrage which needed immediate attention of the government.
Tribune News Service

Srinagar, February 11

A shutdown was observed in the Kashmir valley in response to the separatists call on the 33rd death anniversary of the JKLF founder, Mohammad Maqbool Bhat, who was hanged in Delhis Tihar Jail on this day in 1984.

The normal life was paralysed across Kashmir for the third consecutive day today as the fourth death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was observed on February 9 followed by a call for a march to the United Nations office in Srinagar on Friday.

The separatist leaders, Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik, who had been spearheading the protest programme during the unrest in 2016, had called for a march to the office of the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan at Sonwar here on Friday, demanding the return of the mortal remains of Bhat and Afzal.

Meanwhile, restrictions were today imposed in the areas falling under seven police stations of Nowhatta, Khanyar, Rainawari, MR Gunj, Safakadal, Kralkhud and Maisuma to prevent any protests. A heavy deployment of police and CRPF personnel was made in the areas and elsewhere to keep a vigil and maintain law and order.

Restrictions were also imposed around the central Lal Chowk area to prevent any protest demonstrations. A protest was held by members of the Democratic Liberation Party (DLP) at Lal Chowk here. The police immediately swung into action and detained the DLP members.

Protests also erupted in Kupwara districts Trehgam, the native village of Maqbool Bhat, where protesters demanded the return of Bhats mortal remains.

All shops and business establishments were closed and traffic was off the road today. There was thin attendance in government offices due to non-availability of public transport. Private vehicles and autorickshaws were seen plying in some areas of the city and in the major towns of the Valley.

In a joint statement, the separatist leaders today reiterated their demand for the return of the mortal remains of Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru. The statement condemned the restrictions and crackdown on the separatists and the arrest of senior leaders, Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, describing the measures as unjustified and unlawful.
Amarjot Kaur

Acting upon the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), submitted in 2014, Information and Broadcasting ministry, in January, amended policy guidelines for community radio stations (CRS), thereby notifying rules for licence extension/renewal and allowing them to broadcast news sourced from All India Radio. With 200 operational community radio stations across the country, the existing community radio station guidelines, issued in 2006, are silent on licence renewal/extension and are not allowed to air news or current affairs.

Meanwhile, on February 9, the NDA government ruled out allowing news and current affairs programmes on community radio stations, saying it could pose serious security risk to the country in the absence of a mechanism to monitor live content. Reportedly, citing objections raised by the Ministry of Home Affairs in an affidavit filed as a response to a PIL by NGO Common Cause, in the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said: As these stations/channels are run mainly by NGOs/other small organisations and private operators, several anti-national/radical elements within the country can misuse them for propagating their own agenda.

With Panjab Universitys CRS Jyotirgamaya, Padho Aur Padhao91.2 FM, celebrating its sixth anniversary along with World Radio Day, today, Archana R Singh, chairperson of School of Communication Studies, PU, expresses her concern over the Centres statement in the affidavit. The premise on which community radio works is towards communitys interest, so any content that is broadcast on CRSs has to be developed by the community and for the community. So, information-sharing should be allowed. Since its the government that issues/renews our licenses, we are always open to scrutiny. While the students at the department are being trained, and are already bringing a lab-journal, on PU campus news, registered with the RNI, then why not radios? As an interim solution, local news may be allowed to be broadcast by the CRSs conforming to the AIR code. As stations are mere licencees, the operating licence could be revoked if violations are reported, she shares.

Selective news

Ashish Tandon, the station head of Vivek High Schools community radio started in 2007, Vivek, Nai Generation Ka Naya Radio90.4 FM, agrees with the statement in the affidavit, but wants local news, which is not political in nature, to be disseminated among the community. We must be allowed to cover local events that are not political, but are socially relevant. To cover news, we would need more staff, and it calls for more responsibility. But we should be allowed to discuss issues like demonetisation, says Tandon. Zora Singh of Desh Bhagat University, who launched the community radio station Desh Bhagat Radio, Aap Ki Aawaz107.8 FM, vehemently opposes the governments viewpoint as he says, The news that we give on our CRS is in the form of an informationoriented programme called City Life, but we dont give political news, and discuss social issues. The government must have a clear mind, as they are backtracking from both, the purpose and meaning of CRSs.

Pankaj Garg, programming head, at Radio Chitkara, explore your potential107.8 FM, says, AIR gives balanced news; it should be allowed for community radios, not the private ones because they have their own agendas. Also, CRSs should be allowed to broadcast local and regional news.

amarjot@tribunemail.com
Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, February 11

Eman Ahmed, 36, who has been billed as the worlds heaviest woman by global media for weighing 500 kg, today reached Mumbai for weight-loss surgery.

Ahmed, who hails from Egypt, was brought to India this morning by a specially equipped EgyptAir aircraft. After the aircraft landed at the Mumbai International Airport at 4.10 this morning, it was wheeled to the cargo bay from where Eman was wheeled into a specially equipped truck, which was then brought to the Saifee Hospital in South Mumbai under police escort.

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At the hospital, a crane was employed to hoist Emans bed into the ward where she will undergo bariatric surgery in the next few days, according to doctors at the hospital. Dr Muffazal Lakdawala, the bariatric surgeon who is attending on Eman, said she will undergo multiple surgeries over the next six months. Dr Lakdawala had been treating Eman at her home in Egypts Alexandria city, an official from the Saifee Hospital said.

Doctors here say Eman has been confined to her house for the last 25 years because of her weight. She has suffered a number of medical complications on account of her weight, say doctors. She has already suffered a stroke resulting in paralysis of her right arm and leg.

Eman also suffers from type 2 diabetes, hypertension, hypothyroidism, has severe obstructive and restrictive lung disease and is unable to speak coherently.

According to officials, Saifee Hospital doctors Aparna Govil Bhasker, an advanced laparoscopic and bariatric surgeon, and Kamlesh Bohra, senior intensivist, accompanied Eman to Mumbai. Her sister, Shaimaa Ahmed, was also on the flight. EgyptAir officials said the aircraft was equipped with emergency equipment.

Sources say modifications to the hospital premises have been carried out in order to accommodate Eman. Doctors at the facility even ran a campaign to raise Rs 50 lakh to get her transported to India.
Lucknow, February 11

A 63 per cent turnout was recorded on Saturday in the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, the election commission said.

The turnout figure is provisional and will be revised later, the EC said.

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A total of 2.60 crore voters, including over 1.17 crore women and 1,508 belonging to third gender category are eligible to cast their ballot to decide the fate of 839 candidates.

Barring an incident of voter-slip snatching and clashes among supporters of rival parties at Baghpat, polling was peaceful.

A report from Baghpat said RLD workers obstructed Dalit voters from exercising their franchise in Looyan village under Badaut area leading to clash.

Police swung into action to disperse them. FIRs have been filed against three RLD workers.

In Meerut, controversial BJP leader Sangeet Soms brother Gangan Som was detained by police for carrying a pistol inside a polling booth.

Gagan reached the polling booth in Sardhana Assembly seat at 9 am. The security personnel deployed there frisked him and found a pistol in his possession. He was immediately detained, police said.

Later, more than 400 of Soms supporters tried to enter the polling booth, sources said.

Officials said that as per the poll code, those possessing licensed weapons are required to deposit them with the police.

The permission to keep arms is granted in special cases only.

Sangeet is the sitting MLA from Sardhana and had shot to limelight for his controversial speeches during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.

In Mathura, minor EVM malfunctions were reported at a few places. No incident of violence took place in all five seats of the district, Deputy Collector Basant Agrawal said.

The first phase of polling will decide the electoral fortunes of Pankaj Singh (Noida seat), son of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Congress Legislature Party leader Pradeep Mathur (Mathura) against whom BJP spokesman Srikant Sharma is in fray, Mriganka Singh (Kairana), daughter of BJP MP Hukum Singh and controversial BJP MLAs Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana - Sardhan and Thanabhawan respectively.

Former BJP state president Lakshmikant Bajpai (Meerut), RJD chief Lalu Prasads son-in-law Rahul Singh (SP) from Sikandarabad, and Sandeep Singh, grandson of Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh from Atrauli are among other key figures in this phase.

The districts where polling is on in this phase are Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Hapur, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras, Agra, Firozabad, Etah and Kasganj.

In the 73 constituencies where polling is being held today, SP and BSP had bagged 24 seats each, BJP 11, Rashtriya Lok Dal headed by Ajit Singh nine and Congress five in the 2012 polls.  PTI
New Delhi, February 11

The BJP on Friday hit back at Rahul Gandhi for his remarks against the Prime Minister, saying the Congress leader behaves as per his standards and it does not expect anything better from him.

At the unveiling of common minimum programme of SP-Congress alliance in Lucknow, Rahul today took a swipe at Narendra Modi for his raincoat in bathroom barb at Manmohan Singh, saying the Prime Minister was more interested in peeping into bathrooms of people.

Asked about the Congress leaders remarks, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said, Everybody behaves as per his standards and BJP does not expect anything better from the Congress leader.

SP and BSP are not options for people. Only BJP is the right alternative. Only BJP can do holistic development of the state and will win the polls with a big mandate, he said at a press conference.

Targeting Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav, he alleged that the states public service commission was embroiled in scam and there was discrimination in handing over laptops to students by the SP government.

Asked about the support announced for Mayawati-led BSP by some Muslim clerics, the BJP leader downplayed it saying everybody has a right to seek votes for a leader of their choice but people take a judicious call.

He claimed BJP has maintained its prime position in Uttar Pradesh, which it had swept in 2014 general election.

He said a BJP survey had shown that the party will win majority of the seats which went to polls today and will get a big mandate.

He also cited the partys win in all three graduate constituencies of the Legislative Council elections as evidence of popular support. Its results were announced today.

Referring to the murder of a youth in Bijnor last night, he said law and order has been destroyed under the SP government.

There have been 1,400 incidents of criminals attacking police personnel in the last five years and 24 police personnel were killed, he said.

Women and Dalits have suffered the most, he said, adding that on an average 13 murders had occurred daily.  PTI
Beijing, February 11

A Chinese soldier, who was stuck in India for over 50 years after he crossed over the border post the 1962 war, on Saturday arrived in Beijing with his Indian family members to an emotional reunion with his Chinese kin.

Wang Qi, 77, was received by his close Chinese relatives, besides officials of the Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Indian embassy when he arrived here along with his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter on the Delhi-Beijing flight.

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Wang became emotional as he hugged his relatives, their first reunion after he crossed into Indian side over five decades ago.

It was an emotional reunion, an official present at the airport told PTI here.

Wang was accompanied by his son Vishnu Wang, 35, daughter-in-law Neha and granddaughter, Khanak Wang. His Indian wife Shushila, however, stayed back.

Indian officials said Wang and family members would be later flown to Xian, the provincial capital in Shaanxi province from where he would be taken to his native village Xue Zhai Nan Cun in the province.

His return became a possibility after India and China worked out modalities for both Wang and his Indian family to travel together to China and later return as per their wish.

Wang was caught when he entered the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962.

After his release from prison in 1969, he settled in Tirodi village of Balaghat district in Madhya Pradesh.

Though his story has been published by Indian media several times in the past, a recent BBC TV feature on him was widely picked by the Chinese social media highlighting his plight, prompting the Chinese government to initiate action in coordination with India to facilitate his return.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on February 6 that he was provided a passport to travel to China in 2013 and he was also paid a living allowance.

Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui recently spoke to him.

While the Chinese government has provided visas for his family to visit China, India has provided a re-entry visa for Wang to return if he chooses to.

Indian officials term the facilitation of the travel of Wang and his family by both sides a positive development, specially at a time when India-China relations were stuck with differences over issues like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China blocking Indias entry into Nuclear Suppliers Group and listing of JeM leader Masood Azhar as terrorist by UN.

Before leaving for Beijing, Vishnu told media in India on Friday that my father joined the Chinese Army in 1960 and he entered India through the eastern frontier after losing his way in the darkness one night.

He landed in Assam where an Indian Red Cross team handed him over to the Indian Army on January 1, 1963.

My father spent six years in prisons in Assam, Ajmer and Delhi before the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered his release in March 1969, Vishnu said.

The Indian government had promised to the court that it would rehabilitate my father. He was taken to Delhi, Bhopal, Jabalpur and then finally handed over to Balaghat police, said his son.

Wang started working as a watchman with a mill and soon his colleagues named him Raj Bahadur, apparently due to his Nepali features, Vishnu said.

Wangs mother died in 2006 but he could not be with his dear ones in the time of grief, Vishnu said.

Three years later, he met his nephew Yun Chun, who had come to India as a tourist and narrated his ordeal to him.

After returning home, Chun got in touch with Chinese politicians and authorities to bring his uncle home.

Finally, he met the then Chinese Foreign Minister, who helped Wang to get a Chinese passport in March 2013. PTI
Mumbai, February 11

In a sharp reaction to Prime Minister Narendra Modis warning to Congressmen that he had prepared dossiers on them, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday warned that even he had the horoscopes of both Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.

Everybody who is born has a janam patrika (horoscope). The PM must not forget this. Even we have his and Amit Shahs janam kundli, he said. Thackeray said never before has any Indian PM stooped to such levels in politics. All he does is mock and ridicule leaders of other parties but now people are tired of this. During the 2014 Maharashtra Assembly polls, he addressed 27 rallies in this state. So I demanded he should come here even for the BMC polls, he said.

Alleging that they (BJP leaders) are liars, who are not interesting in anything but grabbing power, Thackeray said this was the reason he decided to break the alliance with the BJP for the civic polls and would henceforth fight all elections independently.

Asked how the Shiv Sena continued with the ruling alliance in the Centre and Maharashtra, he countered: Have they asked us to get out? If they dont like us, they can leave. But they are stuck. We will decide our future course after the civic elections here.

Asked whether the war with BJP has entered a new dimension with his party praising the Congress, Thackeray said, I was only appreciating the good work they have done all these years, he said.  IANS
Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 11

India is confident its strategic and defence ties with the US will remain unaffected during the tenure of Donald Trump as almost everything is institutionalised, hence not dependent on individuals.

A top functionary in the Indian security establishment allayed fears of a U-turn in the long-term India-US defence and strategic ties. These things are never dependent on individuals, said the functionary while citing the recent status of major defence partner (MDP) given to India.

The MDP is part of the US institutional mechanism and to change it will need an amendment to the law or an executive order. Three days ago, when US Defence Secretary James Mattis ran up Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, the MDP  okayed in December 2016 during the Barack Obama tenure  was one of the discussion points.

Such is the institutionalisation that Mattis and Rex W Tillerson, the Secretary of State in US, are required to jointly submit to the Congress a report on how the US is supporting its defence relationship with India. This report needs to be given by end-June.

India and the US have more than 50 bilateral dialogue mechanisms that include strategic cooperation; energy and climate change, education and development; economy, trade and agriculture; science and technology; and health and innovation. Ministerial-level dialogues involve those on home, finance, commerce, higher education, science and technology and energy.

The biggest pillar is the Framework for India-US Defence Relations first signed in 2005 and renewed in 2015. Since 2008, India has procured defence equipment worth $13 billion (around Rs 85,000 crore). Defence trade, joint exercises, cooperation in maritime security and counter-piracy are its components.

Mechanisms include Defence Policy Group, Defence Joint Working Group, Defence Procurement and Production Group, Senior Technology Security Group , Joint Technical Group, Military Cooperation Group, and Service-to-Service Executive Steering Groups.

Separately, the senior functionary said India would welcome back all those who went to the US illegally and were being deported due to recent changes in the US immigration laws. A large number of people from India, especially from Punjab seek political asylum in the US.

The country has no policy to encourage people to leave the country without a passport. In case there are cases in the US, they will be welcomed back. The issue of H1-B visas is still being taken up with the US and that is separate.
Tribune News Service

Lucknow, February 11

Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having failed cent per cent on all fronts, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today said the PM was good at Google search, reading janampatri (horoscope), making people stand in queues and peeping into bathrooms.

Addressing a joint press conference with Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav to release the SP-Congress alliances 10 key priorities, Gandhi said Modi was using distraction as strategy.

Responding to a question about Modi making personal comment on the two youth leaders, Yadav said there was no need to get emotional and angry. It is an alliance of two youth leaders which is attracting the young generation. If someone is getting emotional and angry, he probably fears shrinking support.

According to the CM, the alliance is not snatching anything from anyone. All I am trying is to retain power so that we can continue with the development agenda. Describing the 10-point commitment of the alliance as the foundation of UPs transformation, Gandhi said the tie-up was not only about assuming power in UP but the coming together of two young leaders with a common vision for transforming the state.

Modis desperation was understandable, said the Congress vice-president, as he had miserably failed in his promise of providing two crore jobs to the youth every year. He claimed Modi had given barely one lakh jobs and demonetisation had caused further massive unemployment.

Similarly, after making national security and terrorism a poll issue, the country has seen that during his rule in the last three years 90 security personnel lost their lives in Kashmir, pointed out Gandhi.

Answering a question about a Lucknow-based Shia cleric first coming out in support of the BJP and now the BSP, Yadav said this along proved that there was some tacit understanding between the two parties . Who can forget the Rakshabandhan days, he quipped.

Commenting on Delhis Jama Masjids Imam Bukharis support for the BSP, Yadav said whatever he might say in public, in private, his blessings were for the alliance.
Chennai, February 11

Amid desertions by some key leaders, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham General Secretary VK Sasikala held discussions with party MLAs supporting her at a resort near here on Saturday.

The partys channel Jaya Plus TV said that Chinnamma  a name she is popularly called by held discussions on the next course of action in the meeting that lasted an hour.

The meeting came hours after she shot off a letter to Governor Vidyasagar Rao to demand that she should be made chief minister of a state, a position that interim Chief Minister O Paneerselvam has also claimed, as the party feud escalates.

The AIADMK leader claimed after the meeting that the governors delay in appointing her will split the party, and even threatened to protest on Sunday.

The meeting also came on a day when two MPs switched their loyalties to Panneerselvams camp.

Earlier in the day, Sasikala, a confidante of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa  whose death in December caused breakdown of the party  wrote to Rao saying: ...taking the urgency of the situation at hand, I would like to seek an appointment with Your Excellency by today with all MLAs (Members of Legislative Assembly) who extended their support to me regarding further course of action to form the government."

"I believe Your Excellency will act immediately to save the Sovereignty of the Constitution, democracy and the interest of the State," the letter, copies of which were issued to the media, noted.

Sasikala was elected AIADMK Legislature Party Leader and was announced the next chief minister. A day after he submitted his resignation, however, Pannerselvam claimed he was threatened into quitting his position and that he would continue to head the government if AIADMK workers and the people of Tamil Nadu so wished.

What followed was a series of hectic parleys in both camps, with Sasikala even carting off her MLAs to a private resort near Mahabalipuram.

Both camps have met Governor Rao to stake claim, but the latter has yet to give his decision.  PTI
[February 10, 2017] Netsurion's Brand Guard Named Best Managed Security Service, EventTracker Named Best SIEM in 2017 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. and COLUMBIA, Md., Feb. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Netsurion today announced that its Brand Guard managed network security service and subsidiary EventTrackers security information and event management (SIEM) platform have been named Best Managed Security Service and Best SIEM, respectively, in the 2017 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards. As a combined firm, the companies are now better positioned than ever to protect their customers against increasingly sophisticated network breaches.

The independent awards program honors companies and individuals that demonstrate excellence, innovation, and leadership in information security. Each year, it is produced in cooperation with the Information Security Community on LinkedIn, tapping into the experience of 350,000+ cybersecurity professionals to recognize the worlds best cybersecurity products, individuals, and organizations. Hackers are successfully infiltrating multi-location brands, franchisees, and other small- to mid-size businesses with alarming frequency. The effects on compromised companies financials and reputations can be devastating and unrecoverablehurting profit and customer trust. Multi-location businesses specifically face the challenge of securing many geographically diverse locations in an environment where IT resources and consistency in network topology are often impossible. As such, a brands security is only as strong as its weakest link. Netsurions Brand Guard is a highly scalable network security service that is designed to help mitigate these challenges through centralized firewall management, compliance management, and automation, as well as advanced threat protection technology. A key differentiator of the Brand Guard solution is Netsurions security adoption program, Compliance Accelerator, which helps dramatically increase the number of protected edge locations, as well as the level of security employed, at a fraction of the costs associated with a self-managed solution. Netsurions SIEM-at-the-Edge service, made possible through the Oct. 2016 EventTracker merger, can be added to further harden edge location security through the implementation of EventTrackers leading SIEM technology directly on workstations and the combination of security event monitoring capabilities with managed detection and response (MDR). EventTrackers award-winning SIEM technology is comprehensive and complete with modules for every facet of security monitoring for small- to mid-size companies. In addition to basic log management and advanced SIEM features, EventTracker includes support for behavior anomaly detection, threat intelligence integration, correlation, alerting, and flexible reporting. Modules for intrusion detection systems (IDS), vulnerability scanning, network and flow monitoring, and a HoneyNet deception framework are also available. ventTracker is unique in the industry as a vendor that offers both best-in-class SIEM technology for self-service and a 24/7 intelligence-driven security operations center (SOC) to provide a fully managed service. This is a critical differentiator because the skill shortage of experienced analysts is the leading cause of SIEM products becoming unused shelfware.



It is an honor for Netsurion and EventTracker to be recognized by such a prestigious group of information security professionals. The fact that they have been named the best in their segments reinforces the strength of the two companies working together, said Kevin Watson, Netsurion CEO and EventTracker board member. In the last year, we have seen more successful network intrusions that could have been prevented by the type of security SIEM brings. Unfortunately, many small- to mid-size and multi-location businesses cannot afford and do not have the knowledge to manage such complex systems. Providing a managed network security service, coupled with a managed SIEM product, will enable us to best protect our clients from current and emerging threats. Congratulations to Netsurion for winning the Managed Security Services category in the 2017 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards. And congratulations to EventTracker for winning the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category in the same awards program, said Holger Schulze, founder of the Information Security Community on LinkedIn, which organizes the awards program. With over 450 entries, the 2017 awards are highly competitive, and all winners and finalists reflect the very best in leadership, excellence and innovation in today's cybersecurity industry.

To view the winning award entries, visit http://cybersecurity-excellence-awards.com/candidates/brand-guard-netsurion/ and http://cybersecurity-excellence-awards.com/candidates/eventtracker/. Learn more about Netsurion and EventTracker offerings at RSA Conference 2017, South Hall booth #2710, Feb. 13-17, and HIMSS 2017, booth #694, Feb. 19-23. Tweet This: [email protected] wins Best #ManagedSecurity Service, @LogTalk wins Best #SIEM in #Cybersecurity Excellence Awards http://bit.ly/2kQMmiF Resources

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Netsurion is a managed security service provider specializing in the protection of multi-location businesses information, payment systems, and Wi-Fi networks from data breaches, network outages, and ever-evolving cyberthreats. Our new service offering  SIEM-at-the-Edge  is powered by our subsidiary, EventTracker, which helps deliver comprehensive security benefits to edge locations that normally would not have the means to leverage such a solution. Netsurions award-winning remote network security services and PCI compliance solutions help keep businesses of any size secure. Any sized branch or remote office, franchise, or sole proprietor operation can use Netsurion without the costs of onsite support. The company serves the retail, hospitality, healthcare, legal, and insurance sectors. www.netsurion.com About EventTracker

EventTrackers advanced security solutions protect enterprises and small businesses from data breaches and insider fraud, and streamline regulatory compliance. EventTrackers platform comprises SIEM, vulnerability scanning, intrusion detection, behavior analytics, a HoneyNet deception network and other defense-in-depth capabilities within a single management platform. The company complements its state-of-the-art technology with 24/7 managed services from its global security operations center (SOC) to ensure its customers achieve desired outcomessafer networks, better endpoint security, earlier detection of intrusion, and relevant and specific threat intelligence. The company serves the retail, hospitality, healthcare, legal, banking and financial services, utilities, and government sectors. EventTracker is a division of Netsurion, a leader in remotely-managed IT security services that protect multi-location businesses information, payment systems, and on-premise public and private Wi-Fi networks. www.eventtracker.com. Twitter: @LogTalk. CONTACT: Deb Montner, Montner Tech PR (203) 226-9290 [email protected]

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Pilibhit (UP), February 11

The Bharatiya Janata Party national president Amit Shah described the alliance between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress as the coming together of two families who are neck deep in corruption as part of the state casts its ballot in the first phase of assembly elections.

"Akhilesh Yadav has already accepted defeat or he would not have joined hands with the Congress," he said at an election rally here. "The mother of one of them is fed up with her son, the father of the other is not happy with him. People of the state were dealing with only one, but now they will have to face two."

Shah also demanded to know from Yadav what the Uttar Pradesh government under him had done with an additional Rs 2.5 lakh crore that the central government had sanctioned to the state.

"People of the state were troubled by successive BSP, SP governments in the past 15 years and to change the future, they need to vote for the BJP," the party president said.

He also called the feud that had roiled the party until recently because of infighting within its first family  a battle that had, at its core, power tussle between SP patriarch, Akhilesh Yadavs father Mulayam Singh Yadav, his brother Shivpal Yadav and the chief minister himself  drama.

Shah also demanded to know from Yadav what the Uttar Pradesh government under him had done with an additional Rs 2.5 lakh crore that the central government had sanctioned to the state.

"People of the state were troubled by successive BSP, SP governments in the past 15 years and to change the future, they need to vote for the BJP," the party president said.

This will be the first time the Samajawadi Party has forged an alliance with a national party for state assembly elections. The SP is contesting the elections from 298 of the states 403 assembly seats. The Congress will fight from the remaining seats.

 PTI
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 11

Faced with contempt proceedings initiated by the Supreme Court, controversial Calcutta High Court Judge CS Karnan has played the Dalit card and sought to project himself as a crusader against corruption in judiciary.

In a letter written to the Supreme Court Registrar General, Justice Karnan alleged that he was being victimised as he was a Dalit and that there was an attempt to get rid of him.

In a letter written to the Supreme Court Secretary General on February 10, Justice Karnan said: This order does not conform to logic; therefore it is not suitable for execution.

In an unprecedented order, the Supreme Court had on February 8 issued contempt notice to Justice Karnan and ordered him to forthwith refrain from discharging any judicial or administrative functions.

A seven-judge bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar had asked him to forthwith return all judicial and administrative files to the high court registrar general. The bench ordered him to remain present before it on February 13 to explain why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him.

Terming the order as unusual, he demanded that judicial and administrative work withdrawn from him should be restored. He said the matter should not be taken up until Chief Justice of India JS Khehar retired and suggested that, if considered urgent, it should be referred to Parliament.

Justice Karnan described the contempt proceedings against him as erroneous and contended that courts had no power to initiate contempt proceedings against a sitting judge of a high court. He also contended that the contempt notice violated principles of natural justice.

While repeating the allegations of corruption against many judges, he said the contempt proceedings against him were not maintainable.

During the February 8 hearing, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had said the communications sent by Justice Karnan were scurrilous and calculated to bring the judiciary into disrepute. The top court must set an example so that citizens get a message that the court would not hesitate in taking action against even its own, Rohatgi had said.

Justice Karnan, who has been courting controversy for quite some time, sent a letter to the PM on January 23 stating that high corruption in the judiciary is still being perpetrated in an arbitrary fashion and without fear.
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 11

A former Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has deposed before a Delhi court in a 23-year-old kidnapping case against DGP Sumedh Singh Saini.

Justice Rajive Bhalla, who retired from the High Court in March last year, appeared before Special CBI Judge MK Nagpal on February 9 as a prosecution witness.

Justice Bhalla was counsel for Vinod Kumar, one of the three missing men feared murdered, before his elevation to the Bench as an HC Judge.

Justice Bhalla was examined by Special Public Prosecutor YK Saxena, but his deposition remained inconclusive. Saxena told the court that it would take quite a long time and may be stretched to many days

The prosecutor said he would consider moving an application for recording further evidence of the former Judge currently the Chairman of the Punjab Education Tribunal  through a Local Commissioner.

Saini is accused of being involved in the kidnapping and elimination of three persons in 1994. After a detailed investigation, the CBI filed a chargesheet and the court has already framed charges in the case. Saini is currently out on bail.

Delhi businessman Ashish Kumar had earlier claimed in the High Court that Saini was out to eliminate him. Ashish had alleged that his brother, Vinod, brother-in-law Ashok Kumar and driver Mukhtiar Singh were kidnapped and later eliminated, and the CBI probe found Saini and three other police officials responsible for their disappearance.

Ashish had alleged that Vinod was picked up from the High Court premises on March 15, 1994, after the conclusion of court proceedings.
Gurdeep Singh Mann

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 11

The police are working on various leads in their investigation into the Maur car blast. Besides collecting the CCTV footage and mobile tower locations, they have dispatched a team to Delhi to check registration numbers of a few vehicles that passed through Maur Mandi on January 31 when a blast during Congress candidate Harminder Jassis roadshow rocked the town.

While Jassi escaped with minor bruises, four children, a beggar and Congress office incharge lost their lives.

Besides rounding up two-three persons, the police are also keeping a close watch on the activities of more than 12 suspected elements. We are yet to lay our hands on anything concrete, said a senior police officer, pleading anonymity.

The police said over 24 vehicles passed through Maur Mandi that day. Separate teams have been sent to Delhi after examining the footage of CCTVs installed at the possible route of the culprits.

Bathinda SSP Swapan Sharma said though they managed to collect vital clues from the crime spot and through electronic surveillance, they were yet to arrest anyone in the case.

Meanwhile, the administration is awaiting funds to release the ex-gratia grant of Rs 5 lakh for the family of those who were killed in the blast and Rs 50,000 for the injured. The amount is likely to be received in a couple of days.
Chandigarh, February 11

The PSERC  power regulator in Punjab  on Saturday said it will announce the multi-year electricity tariff after consultations with the new government in the state.

The Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) will announce the multi-year tariff for 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 the first time in the state.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

It will comprise electricity tariff for one year and indicative tariff for the next two years, while determining the Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) for power utilities -- Punjab State Power Corporation and Punjab State Transmission Corporation.

As per rule, PSERC has to take call on electricity tariff within 120 days of the submission of ARR by the power utilities and the power regulator has the time till March 31 to decide on the new tariff proposal.

"Our process is going on. We have 120 days period from the date when ARR was submitted on November 30. We will definitely wait for the new government and we will definitely consult the new government (before announcing multi -year tariff)," PSERC chairman D S Bains told reporters here.

He was replying to a question that whether PSERC will wait for the formation of new government before announcing tariff.

The commission would give sufficient time to the new government in the state to decide its "own policy," he said.

...there will be decisive verdict (poll result). If not then we will wait and not be in a hurry to announce the tariff. We will give sufficient time to the new government," he said.

"Before the end of March, we would like to give it to the government to decide its own policy what it wants to do and we will faithfully implement whatever is the directive of the government on subsidy," he said.

The commission is required to get written consent from the state government on bearing financial burden on account of power subsidy announced for any section of society.

Notably, major political parties, including the Congress, SAD-BJP (coalition) and AAP, have announced free power for farmers if voted to power.

The result of Punjab elections will be announced on March 11. Punjab witnessed three-cornered contest between SAD-BJP, Congress and AAP on February 4 assembly polls.

Power subsidy burden on the state exchequer was estimated to be Rs 6,364 crore in current financial year on account of free power to farmers, free power of 200 units to SC domestic consumers and BPL consumers.

Bains asserted that there should be a public debate on the power tariff to fix them on sound commercial principles so that power utility remained financially sound to generate power.

The Commission has set the process of holding public meetings in motion for hearing the objections and suggestions of the different sections of the public.

Bains said a lot of people demanded reviewing the old power-purchase agreements (PPAs) with the government of India in the wake of surplus power available in the state.

People have demanded that PPAs for gas-based power projects signed between PSPCL and government of India should be examined as we are in a situation of power surplus," he said.

However, Bains acknowledged that "there was a legal problem in terminating the PPAs.

"We have asked PSPCL to engage a good lawyer of the Supreme Court to take up this issue," he said.

The commission has already issued directions to PSPCL to check the possibility of terminating PPAs in which rates of power were higher.

Bains said industry representatives demanded to reduce cross subsidy in order to give fillip to large supply industries.

The chairman said PSPCL has also proposed two-part tariff and the commission was examining this proposal.

Another official of the commission said it may implement on the industry on pilot basis.

Under two-part tariff, power expenses get reduced with the increase in electricity consumption.

The power regulator further said a whooping Rs 530 crore of power bill was still outstanding towards several government departments including public health, rural development, police etc.

PSPCL has total 72 lakh power consumers in the state and 30 per cent each is consumed by agriculture and industry.  PTI
Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 11

Peaceniks have requested governments of India and Pakistan to turn the Retreat, a daily flag-lowering ceremony between India and Pakistan at the Attari-Wagah Joint Check Post, into a symbol of peace and co-existence.

These peaceniks, from across the state, were unanimous in their opinion. They were at Khalsa College here today for a seminar held jointly by the Sai Mian Meer International Foundation and Folklore Research Academy.

A memorandum was also sent to Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif to set up visa consulates of Pakistan and India in Amritsar and Lahore for the free movement of people across the border.

The current phase of bitter bilateral relations between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan has increased belligerent posturing and gestures between border guards of both nations during the ceremony.

Foundation head Harbhajan Singh Brar said that provocative gestures went up at the ceremony after the Indian military carried out a surgical strike on September 29.

The 45-minute ceremony takes place daily and features a formal set of handshakes between Indian and Pakistani soldiers.

But now, it is interspersed with ferocious opening of border gates and stares before making a brusque handshake.
Anirudh Gupta

Ferozepur, February 11

In a joint operation, the Special Task Force (STF) and the Ferozepur police arrested Malerkotla gangsters Bagga Khan and Gahia Khan, both allegedly involved in several cases of murder, and three of their accomplices after an encounter early this morning in Makhu block of the district.

More than 100 rounds were fired during the shootout in Ward No. 5. Gahia, who was hit by a bullet in the ankle, was admitted to the Civil Hospital, Amritsar.

The accomplices were identified as Makhu residents Stephen and Vishal and Faridkots Amandeep.

Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, Inspector General (IG), STF, said the accused had fired at a shopkeeper, Kalimuddin, in Malerkotla on February 8. Later that day, a shootout had taken place between the gangsters and the police near Jitwal Kalan village in Sangrur district. A village youth, Bikramjit Singh alias Bobby, was killed in the crossfire, sparking off a protest in the area.

The STF got a tip-off last evening that gangsters were hiding in the Makhu area. The police located the hideout around midnight. Gaurav Garg, Ferozepur SSP, said, We cordoned off the place. Around 6:45 am, the gangsters were told to surrender, but they opened fire at the cops. The police team retaliated.

Later, the five men were arrested with two .32-bore pistols, one .315-bore country-made revolver and ammunition. Barring Gahia, they were taken to the State Special Operations Cell in Amritsar.

The IG said Bagga was also involved in the Tarn Taran gang war, in which a gangster was killed and another was injured in Harike area on the intervening night of August 9-10, 2016.

He added that the Khan duo was wanted in over two dozen criminal cases. According to the IG, Bagga and Gahia used to supply weapons to other gangsters. Later, they joined a gang and remained active in Malwa for the past 6-7 years. He said Stephen and Amandeep had given shelter to the Khans, while Vishal used to work as a spy for them.

(With inputs from PK Jaiswar)
Vikrant Parmar

A serial-killer, cops in hot pursuit, journalists in tow; makes for a perfect pot-boiler; but The Front Page Murders by Puja Changiowala is a work of non-fiction that reads much like a racy crime-thriller. The author, a senior crime correspondent with a leading daily, has chronicled Mumbais sensational serial-killer Vijay Palandes gory journey in a book that goes in-depth into the world of crime and its perpetrators.

It all begins with the murder of Arun Kumar Tikku, father of Bollywood actor Anuj Tikku, who is slain in cold blood inside his flat in Mumbai. Investigations point towards a businessman-cum-gangster, the flamboyant Vijay Palande, who along with his alleged wife, Simran Sood, a former model, is behind the gruesome act. And then, opens a Pandoras Box of dastardly acts of crime  cold-blooded murders, extortion and blackmail. Palande turns out to be a sauve criminal, who, based on the financial standing and assets, sets sight on his prey. His modus operandi is simple  get friendly with the victims, murder them, ruthlessly shred the body parts and dispose them somewhere in the Western Ghats. Many murders follow, including that of Bollywood film producer, Karan Kakkad. Each time, fingers are pointed at Palande, who is finally put behind bars, where he rests till date.

The author has afforded a peep into the life of a newspaper reporter  the daily grind, search for page one stories, quest for bylines, struggle for good display, their sources, their methods of digging out a story. After every page or two, Changiowala has dropped pearls of wisdom from a life she has lived first-hand journalists are accomplished trespassers and even better stalkers, a journalist can ask the same question in at least three different ways, confusion is the mother of all journalism, to journalists, their sources are mightier than both the pen and sword, in journalism, one mans misery is another mans job, cops are cautious when it comes to journalists. Were their bitter-halves, unlike regular people, the presence of cops doesnt scare journalists. Their absence does, for journalists, drastic times call for sarcastic measures, journalists are people who spot anomalies for a living many more such witty one-liners about the world of journalists are sprinkled throughout the book.

Changiowala has nicely laid down the what, who, when, where, why and how of journalism. Newspaper offices are like pressure cookers on the brink of explosion, and she has quite successfully taken the reader inside the cooker! Also revealed are polices torture methods and nuances of a serial-killers mind Most of them are intelligent, educated and extremely well-read, Closer to home, serial killings have little to do with psychopathology, Our monsters, according to my research, dont kill for pleasure or because of a psychopathic disorder; they kill for money and the lack of it. Such is the brazenness of the serial killer that when she asks Palande whether he wished to say anything to the public from inside the jail, he looked me in the eye and said tell them I am innocent, that I love my country.

In addition to the commendable research, her language flows nice and easy. Barring the length of the book, which at times makes it hard to hold the horses of attention, most of the other things have been done right.

A journalist is as good as the last byline. To be a good reporter, you have to be a good reporter every day, says Changiowala. Holds true for an author too!
Pushpesh Pant

Some time back the writer of these lines was associated with a TV food show that strove to retrieve lost recipes of India. It was fun but what was amazing that the production house was quite content to stick this label even to stuff like galauti kebab that is available on almost every street corner. Not much energy or effort had been spent on finding out recipes really lost or on the verge of extinction. But we digress. What warmed the cockles of our heart recently was when we met this long lost friend from childhood in Chhattisgarh. A delightful outlet sponsored by the Department of Culture Garh Kaleva has it on offer. What was even more gladdening was the quality of the traditional sweet. Purely for matter of record, the last we had found a mention of the poor sweet thing was in Zaqiya Zaheers memoirs reviving the nostalgia of Awadh in an era gone by. Lala Maheshwar Dayal, too, refers wistfully to anarsa in his memorable account of Delhi. There was a time when it was prepared at home for Diwali. We strongly urge you to try it out ASAP. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Anarasa

Ingredients

Rice (soaked in water for three successive night, but change water everyday) 2-1/2 cup

Powdered sugar or jaggery  cup

Curd 1-2tbsp

Sesame seeds 3tbsp

Ghee/oil To deep fry

Method: Grind the soaked rice after draining. Mix it with powdered sugar to hard dough-like consistency with curd and a little milk/water if required. Shape into patties. Heat ghee/oil in a karahi and fry the anarasa patties on medium high flame till reddish brown. Spread the sesame seeds on a platter and coat the patties evenly and generously by placing on it and turning once or more. Enjoy!
Kalpana Sunder

Sitting under the harsh light of a naked blue bulb, the handloom weaver sits in a pit, craning his neck over a loom, manipulating a mass of threads like an expert concert artist perfecting his overture. Slowly frame by frame, a paisley motif emerges on fuchsia pink silk, sourced from South India. I am in Varanasi, the centre of the countrys spiritual compass. What started as a ritual use of cotton fabrics in burial ceremonies held along the citys ghats has expanded into an artisan industry.

According to artisans, the citys silk weaving business began roughly in 1300 AD when many skilled Gujarati weavers migrated to Varanasi, following a massive fire. Banaras silk is mentioned in the Rig Veda and Buddhist history texts, which, together with images from the Mughal court, provide clues to its evolution. Silk-embroidered sarees have been an art form during the Mughal period in the 16th century.

To gain an insight into the intricate weaving process, a visit to the Mehta International Silk Centre helps. The Mehta family is one of the few Hindu families in the weaving business and their patterns mark a break from the Mughal-style Banarasi patterns. Here you can understand the intricacies of the process: difference between phenkua and kadhua: the technique of throwing the shuttle from end-to-end between the threads of the warp, and weaving in the threads, one by one. Mehta also makes stoles, scarves, wall hangings and bedcovers. He shows us an intricate bedcover that is not for sale and is a family heirloom  depicting the traditional nayikas.

Three generations can wear an intricately woven Banarasi saree, and it is more a family heirloom that a mother passes on to her daughter or daughter-in-law, explains the owners son. The complexity of design in a Banarasi saree is of the highest order  the highest pixels. He tells us how these old-fashioned looms, which are museum exhibits in Europe, were imported from Lyon in France and are still in use in this labour-intensive industry.

The workers, mostly men, may take 10 days to weave a saree working eight hour shifts on wages as low as Rs 600 per day. If the design is complicated, then the saree may proceed at 2 inches a day and the weaver may even take three months to weave just one saree. Sarees may tell pictorial stories; the motifs on sarees are like a history book of influences  Persian and Mughal and Hindu culture. One can find motifs like asharfi (coin-shape), gainda (marigold flower), chand-tara (moon and star), lateefa (floral bouquet), etc.

We always use vegetable dyes, natural dyes. They last longer and give more vivid colours, explains Mehta. Natural dyes dont damage the fabric either. Various varieties of Banarasi sarees are available  each different from the other  based on the type of motif or pattern weaved on to the textile like jaamdani, tanchoi, jangla, brocade, chiffon organza, tissue, and so on.

Despite intermittent government bans on the import of cheap Chinese silk clothes threatened the existence of Varanasis silk industry, as the demand for the hand-woven, hand-printed and embroidered silks local weavers produced, declined in the face of less expensive imports. The recent Geographic Indication (GI) status given to Banarasi brocade means that brocade sarees made only in the mentioned districts of Varanasi, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Jaunpur, Bhadohi and Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh can be authentically identified as Banarasi saree or brocade. The Varanasi textile industry today produces a diverse range of products with traditional as well as innovative designs to cater to the contemporary market.

The nations top fashion designers have also come together to recreate the magic of Banarasi weaves with a contemporary twist. They work with clusters of weavers and help in reviving and sustaining this age old tradition and making sure its a lucrative profession.
Saba Naqvi

We must conclude that US President Donald Trump has beaten Dear Leader at existing on a plane where he operates with the use of facts that no one else knows about. All that Dear Leader has done lately is make speeches in parliament as if he were in a public rally, he's accused a former prime minister of wearing a raincoat (nothing wrong with the garment), a fellow MP of imbibing liquor when he should be drinking ghee (cheers to that), he's mentioned dogs (remember the puppies who come under cars?), and he's not even suggested that his electoral opponents are about to give quotas to Muslims as he once did before a crucial election in Bihar.

The most powerful man in the world has however detected a conspiracy of gigantic proportions that's not been hatched in Moscow (because Putin is a friend) but by liberals and the media in the US. Earlier this week Donald Trump said that the American media intentionally failed to cover acts of terrorism around the globe. It's gotten to a point where it's not even being reported, he said in a speech to military commanders. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.

Do note the emphasis on the very, very dishonest press. What the 'reasons could be is a matter of speculation, imagination, mega conspiracy. There is indeed a terrorist act that was not reported in the US media probably because it never happened. That's called the massacre of Bowling Green (a place in Ohio). This is the incident that never happened but has an entire Wikipaedia page dedicated to it as senior White House aide to Trump, Kellyanne Conway mentioned the 'massacre in several interviews as justification for the immigration and travel ban from some Muslim countries. Conway also uses the phrase alternative facts to describe facts that people have a hard time confirming.

So we have a universe turned upside down in the US where a White House aide provides hard facts to confirm facts, while it's the reality TV stars like Kim Kardashian who now give the hard facts on their social media feeds, along with the sources of information listed below. Here's a list that the dazzling lady put out: 'Number of Americans killed annually by': Islamic Jihadist immigrants: 2; Far right wing terrorists: 5; All Islamic jihadist terrorists: 9 (including US citizens); Armed toddlers: 21; Lightning: 31; Lawnmowers: 69; Being hit by a bus: 264; Falling out of bed: 737; Being shot by another American: 11,737 Our celebrities, do note, how beauty and brains can go together in males and females.

Frankly, Trump is being given a pretty rough time. Besides mega celebrities registering protests, there are huge gatherings against his immigration policies across the US. The media has been having a field day really tearing Trump apart, lampooning him, and so on. It's actually quite a treat to watch Steven Colbert and other hosts of late night shows, tear into Trump.

Our not-so-brave troopers in the Indian media are a downright bores in comparison. When they shout the loudest it's usually when they are making the argument for the status quo and/or against Pakistanis.

Meanwhile, there's a theory that makes absolute sense to me that Trump is being hit hard not just because he is crazy, stupid, awful and successful but because he is an anti-system figure in his own way, as Hillary Clinton would never have been, as Barack Obama held out the promise of being, but never was, and as the two Bushes never were.

Let me confess that I have a perverse view of the world and little interest in a US visa as some of our great nationalists have. I think it would be a great trade-off if Trump promises to leave the world alone as a price for not allowing the world into the US. The not-so-crazy presidents of that country have entered into bloody wars and stoked conflicts that have uprooted millions, (a few of whom do want to go to the US).

The world is so complicated that it's better to contemplate Dear Leader, who beats Trump in the way he carries the system with him. Every now and then he also produces alternative facts but because he says it is so some of us believe it is so. He could certainly give Trump some lessons on creating an alternative reality.

Dear Leader is also ahead in the number of twitter followers that stand at 27 million while Trump has 24.3 million (a little more than Shah Rukh Khan at 23.2 million). Trump's twitter style is however more in keeping with that of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. The US president keeps tweeting feed and clips about fake news and puts out polls that show how many people agree with him in spite of what The New York Times says.
Suresh Dharur in Hyderabad

US President Donald Trumps proposed curbs on H1B visa, as a bigger part of his America First, have unnerved the Indian IT sector. As protectionist trade and aggressive diplomacy define the new normal in American scheme of things, The Tribune takes a look at both the fronts

The global fears over Donald Trumps presidency are beginning to come true. The maverick Republican seems to be a man in a hurry, issuing executive orders at a breathless pace focusing on immigration, terrorism and trade. As the world watches on nervously for his administrations next move, there are growing concerns in India over imminent visa restrictions.

An air of uncertainty and fear has gripped the Indian IT companies employing around 3 lakh Indians, working in the US on H1-B visa. Typically, they account for over 86% of H-1B visas issued for technology firms. The proposed curbs could not have come at a worse time for the Indian IT sector which is already smarting under downward revision of revenue growth forecasts. Is it the end of the Great American Dream for Indian techies?

I have waited for onsite assignment for several years. That dream may not come true now. My company may not send me to the US in view of the changed atmosphere, said Anil Kumar, a software engineer working for a leading IT solutions company in Hyderabad. There are thousands of Indian engineers like him who are more than willing to work for a low salary, if they get to work in America under H-1B. It is seen as a passport to a dream life in the Land of Opportunities.

Indians account for one lakh such visas every year, besides another 1.25 lakh that are renewed. Indian IT companies such as TCS, Infosys, HCL and Wipro have been cornering a major chunk of H-1B visas and send their Indian employees to work in the US on much lower salaries. The imminent protectionist policies of the Trump administration, in the name of America First policy, have fuelled fears over Indian students aspiring to pursue post-graduation courses in American universities.

Signs of panic

I have got admission in Computer Science PG course in a reasonably well-ranked US university. I am in a dilemma now. What happens if I do not get any job after that? What happens if I am denied H-1B visa? said Praneeth Reddy. He says many of his engineering friends are caught in a similar situation. Hyderabad sends more students to US than New Delhi and Mumbai. During the period 2008-12, over 30,000 students from the city went to the US to pursue higher studies.

The proposed amendment to deny jobs to the spouses of H-1B visa holders has also caused severe consternation. I plan to join my husband in the US who is an H-1B visa holder. If I am not allowed to work, what will I do there? asks Anjana Reddy, an electronics engineering graduate from a local college.

The key element of the bill, proposed by Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat Congresswoman from California and representing Silicon Valley, is the minimum salary requirement of $130,000 to be eligible for H-1B visa. The risks to the IT services sector include an increase in cost per professional, more local hiring and a disruption in service continuity, which may have a negative impact on profitability of companies that are visa-reliant, said the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom). Its president R Chandrashekhar questioned the rationale behind the amendments and said, Raising wage levels for H-1B dependent companies alone will defeat the basic objective as non-dependent companies can continue to bring in skilled workers at lower wage levels, thereby nullifying the objective of protecting job opportunities for American nationals.

Chandrashekhar says the bill does nothing to address the underlying shortage of skilled workers, which has led all companies to have a calibrated strategy of hiring locally and bridging the skills gap by bringing skilled workers on non-immigrant visas including H-1Bs. It is also argued that over last five years, the Indian IT sector has created over 4.11 lakh direct jobs in the US and contributed around $20 billion in local taxes.

The other view

There are those who contend that the proposed amendments to the much-abused visa programme would actually benefit Indians, and that the social and mainstream media have been spreading fear psychosis based on unverified and inaccurate information. In a way, these proposed changes may affect the IT companies that send IT graduates from India on cheaper salaries and work out positively for Indian students on US campuses, said Narsi Reddy Gayam, an alumnus of MIT and an education consultant.

Since Indians constitute the second highest foreign students on US campuses, the proposals may actually appeal to them. Instead of the present lottery system, the proposed H-1B visa allocation based on market needs is likely to enhance the chances of employment for students passing out from good schools with good academic track records. The present system doesnt differentiate between students from good institutions or those working in good companies. The salaries will improve and so will chances for meritorious candidates, Reddy said.

The proposal to make Masters Degree mandatory and to remove numerical quotas per country in the issuance of Green Cards would actually benefit Indians, he argued.

The Infosys founder and one of the pioneers of Indias IT industry NR Narayana Murthy asked the IT companies to take an optimistic view of the changes. We should look at it more as opportunity for Indian companies to become more multi-cultural than we have been, rather than looking at it as a lacuna, he said. Indian software companies must recruit American residents in the US, Canadians in Canada, British people in Britain. Thats the only way, we can become a true multi-national company and in order to do that, we should stop using H1-B visas and sending a large number of Indians to those countries to deliver services, Murthy says.
BD Kasniyal

Pithoragarh, February 11

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today called for the ouster of the Congress-led state government for being one of the most corrupt governments where everyone has to pay tax to its leader Harish Rawat.

Modi, while addressing an election rally at Rudrapur, said everyone in the state had the responsibility to oust such a corrupt government and install a BJP government. Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led Central government had created Uttarakhand and it was only the BJP that has a vision to develop the state.

In an over hour-long speech, the Prime Minister remembered his earlier visit to Rudrapur saying the region reflected not only Devbhoomi but mini-India. This land is not only Devbhoomi but also Veer Bhoomi as local youth are serving at the borders, said the Prime Minister.

Modi said the country would celebrate Vijay Diwas on March 11, which begins with the BJP winning three MLC seats in Uttar Pradesh.

The Prime Minister said some political parties criticised the demonetisation decision as they had amassed wealth in the past 70 years of their rule and had promoted black money holders. He claimed that the common man was with the Union government in its initiative against black money.

Corrupt politicians in the country have a tendency to cope with black money holders while common people want the black money to be used for the progress of the country, said Modi.

He added central schemes were not being executed in the state. To get benefits of the Centre-sponsored development schemes, the state needs a double engine by having a BJP government in the state while a BJP-led government already there at the Centre, he said.

He said former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had created Uttarakhand along with two other states. He had also set up the industrial estate in Rudrapur.

The previous NDA government at the Centre had given loans to over 2 crore people to create more jobs, which had dried up in the state. I have not come to seek votes only but have come to have a feel of the economic energy of the people of Rudrapur, said the Prime Minister.

While talking about the Char Dham Yatra, Modi said every citizen in the country wants to visit Char Dham at least once in his life time but the state government had done nothing to provide facilities on the yatra routes.

We have sanctioned Rs 12,000 crore for all-weather roads to connect the Char Dham so that people from all over the country can visit the revered shrines, Modi said.

The Prime Minister said government wanted to give jobs to the unemployed, provide houses to the poor and give skill training to the youth but people who had looted the country for over 60 years were opposing these initiatives. The poor and the middle class, including farmers, are with the BJP in its fight against corrupt practices in the country. This support is the strength of the BJP, he added.

Ex-servicemen to support BJP

Dehradun: The Uttarakhand Poorv Sainik Welfare Association will support the BJP in the February 15 elections, said president of the association Shamsher Bisht at the BJP office here today. He said the association would support the BJP over one rank one pension, surgical strikes and other policies of the Centre.TNS
Beijing: China plans to relocate 34 lakh people from poverty-stricken communities to more developed areas this year as part of its poverty reduction drive. By the end of 2016, there were relocation projects in 22 provinces, which include housing, infrastructure and public services. China has vowed to lift all of its poor out of poverty by 2020. PTI

FB to make ad data available for audit

New York: Facebook said it intends to make ad data available for independent audit this year to verify the accuracy of the information it delivers. The move comes after the social networking giant admitted last year that it had overstated some ad metrics. It will also start providing specific in-view and duration data for display ads, including milliseconds. IANS

Hunt for Hitler double seen around birthplace

Vienna: Austrian authorities are probing reports of a man appearing in public in Adolf Hitlers birthplace as the Nazi dictators double, including distinctive moustache, haircut and clothing. I have often seen this gentlemen in Braunau and wonder if this means something, the Oberoesterreichische Nachrichten paper cited a resident as saying. Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, then part of Austria-Hungary, in 1889. Reuters
Baghdad, February 11

An Iraqi policeman was killed and seven others wounded in clashes with protesters loyal to prominent Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who had gathered in Baghdad on Saturday to demand political reforms and fight against corruption.

Thousands had gathered in the square to demand an overhaul of the commission that supervises elections ahead of a provincial vote due in September.

Police tried to disperse them as they attempted to cross the bridge that links Tahrir Square in central Baghdad and the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings, embassies and international organisations.

The escalation of problems with Sadr comes at the wrong time for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi who wants to keep the focus on dislodging Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul.

Police fired tear gas to prevent protesters from getting too close to the Green Zone, witnesses said, choking about two dozen demonstrators, according to the organisers of the protest.  Reuters
Washington, February 11

President Donald Trump has said he is considering signing a brand new executive order by next week to temporarily bar citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations from entering America, a day after a US court refused to reinstate his controversial travel ban.

We will win that battle. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order, Trump told reporters travelling with him on Air Force One from Andrews Air Force Base to Florida.

Asked if his plan might be to issue a new executive order, Trump said: It very well could be. We need speed for reasons of security, so it very well could be. Trump said that in honour of the (9th US Circuit court) decision he will likely wait until next week to respond with any action. Perhaps Monday or Tuesday, he said.

The new executive order on immigration would include security measures, Trump said. New security measures. We have very, very strong vetting. I call it extreme vetting and were going very strong on security. We are going to have people coming to our country that want to be here for good reason, he said.

The Presidents remarks came after a three-judge bench of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco refused to reinstate his controversial travel ban on Thursday. The judgment means that citizens of seven majority- Muslim countries will continue to be able to travel to the US.

Trump signed the executive order last month suspending the arrival of all refugees for at least 120 days, Syrian refugees indefinitely, and barring citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days.

We will be doing something very rapidly to do with the additional security for our country. Youll be seeing that sometime next week, Trump said speaking at the White House. In addition, we will continue to go through the court process and ultimately, I have no doubt we will win that particular case, Trump.  PTI

US, Japan pledge to strengthen strategic ties

President Donald Trump has pledged close security and economic cooperation with Japan as he described the US-Japan alliance as the cornerstone of peace and stability in the Pacific region, a day after patching up with an assertive China over the Taiwan issue. Seeking to put behind any friction as a result of his sometimes provocative statements during the presidential campaign, Trump hugged Abe as he arrived at the White House, and offered strong reassurances about Americas commitment to Japans defence in the face of Chinas increased military assertiveness.

Trump not to address Parliament during UK visit: Report
Washington, February 11

President Donald Trump has said he is considering signing a "brand new" executive order by next week temporarily barring refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the country, a day after a US court refused to reinstate his controversial travel ban.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

We will win that battle. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order, Trump told reporters travelling with him on Air Force One from Andrews Air Force Base to Florida.

Asked if his plan might be to issue a new executive order, Trump said: It very well could be. We need speed for reasons of security, so it very well could be.

Trump said that in honour of the (9th US Circuit court) decision he will likely wait until next week to respond with any action. "Perhaps Monday or Tuesday," he said.

The new executive order on immigration would include security measures, Trump said.

New security measures. We have very, very strong vetting. I call it extreme vetting and we're going very strong on security. We are going to have people coming to our country that want to be here for good reason, he said.

The Presidents remarks came after a three-judge bench of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco refused to reinstate his controversial travel ban on Thursday.

The judgement means that citizens of seven majority- Muslim countries will continue to be able to travel to the US.

Trump signed the executive order last month suspending the arrival of all refugees for at least 120 days, Syrian refugees indefinitely, and barring citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, fulfilling one of his central campaign promises.

We will be doing something very rapidly to do with the additional security for our country. You'll be seeing that sometime next week," Trump said speaking at the White House.

In addition, we will continue to go through the court process and ultimately, I have no doubt we will win that particular case, Trump told reporters during a joint news conference yesterday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

We are going to keep our country safe. We are going to do whatever is necessary to keep our country safe. We have had decision which we think will be very successful with, it shouldn't have taken this much time because safety is a primary reason, Trump said.

One of the reasons I am standing here today, the security of our country, the voters felt I would give it the best security, he said, indicating that he would continue with his efforts for the safety and security of the US despite the court setback.

While I've been President, which is just for a very short period of time, I've learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely President, he said.

Trump said there are tremendous threats to the country.

We will not allow that to happen, I can tell you that right now. So we'll be going forward and we'll be doing things to continue to make our country safe. It will happen rapidly and we will not allow people into our country who are looking to do harm to our people, he said. PTI
The liberal bashing I read on here gets really old. Having a government requires government employees who run the day to day operations. To categorize them all as fat and lazy shows how uninformed you are. Regarding entitlements -- anyone who has ever collected unemployment, Medicaid, Medicare, social security, disability, link card, subsidized daycare, federal student loans, pell grants, map grants, farm subsidies, corporate tax breaks, government grants for private businesses, VA benefits, free and reduced lunches, free flu shots and vaccines, waivers for school fees, Earned Income Credit and other federal, state or local government benefit have received a hand out from the government. There are millions of people in need in this country. Many of them were hard working individuals just like you until some life changing event happened. This could be a catastrophic illness or accident, a job loss, a fire, a foreclosure, a divorce, the death of a breadwinner, a hurricane -- these are things that could throw any of us into a situation in which we need help. To think you are somehow above this is foolhardy. To think that anyone who needs help through tough times is fat and lazy demonstrates the cruelty and intolerance in our country. More money is spent on "wealthfare" to the rich than any entitlements to the rest of us. Rich people like our POTUS who brag about paying zero taxes are admitting that they get all the benefits with none of the responsibilities. Income inequality has more to do with CEOs paying themselves $50 million in bonuses during the worst recession in 90 years and less to do with government employees making $40000 a year. From 2001 to today we have been militarily involved in two Middle East conflicts that many liberals opposed but led to trillions in debt.
Sailfin Blenny

By David Gottlieb  (Atlanta, GA)

I just returned from a snorkeling trip to Glovers Reef. Situated off the coast of Belize, it is one of only four atolls in the western Hemisphere.

I was hoping for a lot of closeup photography opportunities but a storm blew through on the second of my five days and stirred things up quite a bit. I was still able to enjoy these beautiful reefs and managed a number of decent shots.

This was my second visit there with Slickrock Adventures. I think they do a great job considering the remoteness of the location.

Without question these appear to be the most pristine reefs Ive seen in the Caribbean.

Sea fans, coral and grunts

Sea Goddess Nudibranch

Brittlestar on a purple Sea fan

Nicole & Galen  Feb 10, 2017  Nice Shots! Hi David, thanks for sharing your nice shots and short trip report about snorkeling Glovers Reef Belize. We had a great time snorkeling the very alive reefs there too. Here are our pages about snorkeling Glovers Reef.

Bill  Feb 27, 2017  Second the Motion Excellent snorkeling camera work!!!

Steve Sarasota  Mar 4, 2017  Incredible Snorkeling Pix David, your pix are phenomenal!

Heather  Aug 8, 2017  Glovers Reef Snorkeling Spots Hi David, I stayed at Off the Wall (next door to Slickrock) in mid-June. I absolutely loved it! Were you able to make it out to the snorkel The Aquarium? That and the area by the metal pool were some of the best snorkel spots Ive experienced!
A 75th-anniversary screening of Casablanca is set for Feb. 19 at Circle Cinema, presented in conjunction with the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle.

Tulsas historic arthouse cinema will play it again on the big screen, with the idea that it will probably round up the usual suspects for this viewing: the legion of fans for one of Hollywoods most beloved films.

The screening will begin at 1 p.m. on Feb. 19 at Circle Cinema, 10 S. Lewis Ave.

It will feature a post-film panel discussion among Oklahoma Film Critics Circle members Jeff Huston, Joe OShansky and myself, as well as former Tulsa World critic Kim Brown, who is a member of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.

The film won three Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Michael Curtiz.

Humphrey Bogart was nominated for best actor, but he did not take home an Oscar until winning for The African Queen. Ingrid Bergman was not nominated, but she would go on to win three Oscars.

The American Film Institute has voted Casablanca the No. 2 movie of all time, according to its members, and in various other votes it placed No. 1 among love stories, No. 4 among greatest heroes (Bogarts Rick Blaine) and No. 2 among best movie songs (As Time Goes By).

In another vote, the AFI ranked the film at Nos. 5, 20, 28, 32, 43 and 67 among favorite movie quotes, with the highest ranking going to Heres looking at you, kid.

Tickets are available at circlecinema.com. More information can be found on the Circles Facebook page.

Casablanca is the latest in the Circles and OFCCs anniversary screenings/panel discussions, following 2016 events for The Searchers, Citizen Kane, Taxi Driver and Fargo.
Attention all property owners of Coles County. The county has initiated the process of reassessing all commercial and industrial property in the county. Mattoon Township has already been assessed and it is estimated that the county will receive an additional ten million dollars next year just from Mattoon Township alone. Charleston, Lafayette, and Seven Hickory Townships are to be reassessed next. Once the entire county is reassessed, the county stands to receive millions more in tax revenue. This will have huge implications on your property tax bills, rent, and the cost goods and services produced in Coles County. It will have far reaching consequences on our already depressed economy here in central Illinois. We urge all tax payers and business owners to attend the Coles County Board meeting on February 14th at 7 p.m. on the third floor of the Court House in Charleston to ask questions and understand how the reassessment process will affect you.
Almost sounds like a scene from UnREAL.

Nine has denied an altercation took place between a producer on Married at First Sight and reality participant, Scarlett Cooper.

The Sunday Telegraph reports Cooper decided not to proceed with a statement she made to Glebe police alleging she was grabbed by a male producer, dragged inside a function centre and prevented from leaving during filming on January 30.

According to Cooper, a 20-minute pursuit by a film crew through Lilyfield ended only when, hysterical and disorientated, she slammed into a police car that was dispatched after she made a Triple 000 call.

Nine said police involvement was down to a misunderstanding.

As a duty of care, a producer followed her off set to ensure her safety. A misunderstanding resulted in police attending to also ensure Scarletts safety, a spokeswoman said.

Cooper is partnered with stripper Michael on the Nine reality series.
Hello! My name is Daniel P. I am a fifth grade student at Harlan Intermediate School in Harlan, Iowa. My class is studying the geography and history of the United States. I am excited to learn more about your state of Illinois. I would really appreciate it if you would send me pictures, postcards, or information on your state. My teacher, Mrs. Newlin, would like a car license place, if possible, for a teacher project. I really appreciate your time and look forward to learning more about Illinois!
When Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese come together to make a movie we can definitely expect it to be mind-blowing. The Wolf of Wall Street is their sixth movie together and tells the story of a corrupt stockbroker whose only purpose is to earn a lot of money. Scorsese directs the rise and fall of Jordan Belfort in a fabulously comic way, which means there are many behind-the-scenes stories that are sure to be funny and interesting. Thanks to IMDB and other sources we have listed some facts about The Wolf of Wall Street down below that we are sure you would enjoy reading.

1 While serving time in jail, it was Tommy Chong who convinced Jordan Belfort to write a memoir about his stock brokering time in Wall Street. That memoir is The Wolf of Wall Street.

Belfort served 22 months of his four year sentence at the Taft Correctional Institution, California, where he shared his cell with Tommy Chong, the Canadian-American actor, writer and activist who encouraged him to write his memoirs. Belfort and Chong remained friends after they were released from prison. Belfort credits Chong for his change of career and becoming a motivational speaker and writer.(source)

2 In 2007, Leonardo DiCaprio/Warner Bros. won a bidding war against Brad Pitt/Paramount Pictures for the rights to Jordan Belforts memoir.

After getting the rights, Martin Scorsese, with whom DiCaprio has worked before on Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed and Shutter Island, was considered to direct the movie. Scorsese actually worked on the script for the movie before working on Shutter Island and said that he wasted five months of [his] life without getting a green light on production dates by Warner Bros. studio. The studio, in 2010, offered Ridley Scott to direct the movie with DiCaprio in the lead role and the idea was eventually dumped. Again in 2012, an independent film company called Red Granite Pictures gave the green light with no restrictions on the content, which brought Scorsese back on board.(source)

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3 Jonah Hill who played Donnie Azoff agreed to take only $60,000 for 7 months of shooting because he wanted that specific role in the movie.

Though Hills character Azoff earns millions of dollars in the movie and was the epitome of decadence and debauchery, he himself took a much lesser paycheck home. He was quite committed to the role and even went on to demand an audition for the part even though Martin Scorsese already requested a meeting with him. That was his first audition in six years. But, of course, he profited in other ways such as receiving much acclaim and a second Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.(source)

4 The chest bump humming that Matthew McConaughey does in the movie was Leonardo DiCaprios idea. He saw McConaughey beating his chest to relax himself before shooting and proposed to include it in the movie.

During an interview in The Graham Norton Show, McConaughey revealed that the caveman like chest beating was something DiCaprio spotted him doing off-camera. It is something he does before doing the scenes as a way to relax himself and get his voice to drop. He also stated that sometimes he also hums, though without beating his chest, to find a rhythm.(source)

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5 The word fu*k, or its variations, were used 569 times in the movie. Considering the running time of the movie, 180 minutes, its 3.16 fu*ks per minute.

The word fu*king was uttered 359 times while the word fu*k 169 times. In total, all variations of the word fu*K, including motherfu*ker, fu*ked, fu*ksville and so on, were said 569 times. Other curse words include sh*t (79 times), names of private parts (31 times) and variations of b*tch (8 times). The highest number of curse words were uttered by Leonardo DiCaprios character Jordan (332) and Jonah Hills Donnie was the second (107).(source)
Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro release date and specifications reportedly leaked online. Here is what we know so far about Samsung's new mobile unit.

As per recent update, the said leaked introductory teaser for Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro has surfaced the and has been gathering a lot of attention these past few weeks. Android Headlines reported that the video "was first posted on the Retail Samsung website on its Retail Mode demo application"

Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro Leaked Release Date

Samsung has allegedly released its launching date for Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro. The brand's new model has first reported five months ago, September 2016.

According to the leaked video, the introductory promo for Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro reportedly shows its release date. Samsung lovers won't have to wait too long as the launching will happen this month.

The date featured on Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro display reportedly suggests that the unit will have a February 28 launch. Though nothing has been formally confirmed and Samsung has yet to give comment about this, gadget geeks and other technology websites are guessing that the phone might arrive on this mentioned day.

Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro Specifications: What Else You Need To Know

Based on SamMobile, Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro leaked specifications and other rumors regarding the phone suggest that the new unit will be sporting a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor. It will also feature a 5.2-inch full HD display.

Other details for Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro includes an AdrenO 506 GPU, 16-megapixel camera (both front-and-rear facing side of the phone), an expandable internal storage of 64GB and 6GB of RAM. The device has an Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. however, reports claim that the device' android version will be on the list of having an Android 7.0 Nougat update.

Moreover, as for Samsung Galaxy C5 Pro mobile unit design, purchasers can buy it in Gold, Dark Blue, and Pink color.
A concept video of the Nokia 8 recently made its rounds online. The clip showcased the high-end smartphone's camera and appearance, with its processor and RAM also teased.

The Nokia 8 resembles the Nokia 6 in terms of appearance, as seen in the concept video (which you can watch at the end of this report). The latter device was introduced at CES in January.

Both handsets sport a luxurious design, with the upcoming smartphone shown as a sleek block of metal and glass with thin side bezels, according to Android Headlines. The device in the concept video appears to have a stable build despite having a 2.5D curved glass atop its display.

A round camera housing protrudes from the handset's back, which is akin to the feature's positioning in the Nokia Lumia 1020 PureView, Forbes reported. The Nokia 8 will reportedly have a 23 MP primary camera (f/1.7 aperture and 1.8um pixel size) with a Carl Zeiss lens, which is used around the globe on SLR and rangefinder cameras. A 12 MP snapper is on the device's front part for taking selfies.

Judging from the concept video, the smartphone will have a 5.7-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display like what was said in previous speculations. The device will reportedly have two different versions; one model will be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 chipset paired with 6 GB of RAM and the other equipped with Snapdragon alongside 4 GB of RAM, Trusted Reviews noted. Other speculated specs include a pair of front-facing speakers and 128 GB of internal storage.

HMD Global, which made the Nokia 6, assured the public that there will be a huge announcement about the Nokia brand later this month. HMD and Nokia confirmed a major event in Barcelona on Sunday, Feb 26, a day prior to the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017's kickoff date.

It's possible that the event will see the launch of the Nokia 8. In late 2016, HMD Global acquired the rights to use the Nokia brand name on their smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

The 5.5-inch Nokia 6 comes with 4 GB of RAM, a 3000 mAh Li-Ion battery, Android 7.0 Nougat, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 430 chipset, a 16 MP primary camera, an 8 MP front-facing snapper and 64 GB of internal storage.

Are you excited for the Nokia 8? Will you buy the smartphone? Sound off in the comments section below.
Among the many amazing, breakthrough initiatives Trump has launched these first weeks, one stands out as an especially genius idea: his promise to totally destroy the Johnson Rule that bars tax-exempt churches from endorsing political candidates. As a Deacon of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I take up my pen in praise of this bold move to tear down the artificial wall of separation between church and state. My priest, Father Rico, says that dumping the Rule will be a great thing for him as he plans his sermons. Now he can just flat-out tell our parishioners who and what to vote for, on pain of eternal damnation by the FSM, without worrying that our tax-exempt status might suffer. Of course, ours will not be the only church to enjoy the new freedom. Religious organizations of every kind, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Wiccan, and Zoroastrian, will all be free to endorse candidates and collect lobbying fees, tax-exempt. Pious people will now have a way to deduct political donations on their taxes. This is just as it should be in America. I have heard from many friends in formerly secular groups that they love Trumps plan. Before long, America may see a boom in new churches: Our Lady of Womens Health, St. George of Progressive Taxation, Brotherhood of the Sacred Southern Wall, Conclave of Second Amendment Apostles, First Church of Workers Rights, and so on. At the same time, all those super-PACs everyone seems to hate will start disappearing. All in all, this looks like a great job of fixing one of the Founders big mistakes. Yours In Communion With the Monster, Ronald Damp.
After receiving its necessary certification from China's telecommunications regulatory board TENAA last December, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X has been officially unveiled in China which is similar to the Redmi Note 3 device in terms of design. A Hatsune Miku Limited Edition Redmi Note 4X is also introduced in limited quantities, which will be available in Valentine's Day.

Earlier, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X visited telecom regulatory board for its certifications, which revealed its key specs and features. After being official, Redmi Note 4X contains similar screen display like the Redmi Note 4 smartphone's 5.5-inch screen.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X is also sticking with its original camera sensors and battery unit, Indian Express reported. It will sport a 13-megapixel primary rear camera, as well as a 5-megapixel front-snapper. The device will also house a hefty 4100mAh battery. As of now, Xiaomi has disclosed few details on the Redmi Note 4X's design and chassis.

In terms of the Redmi Note 4X's internal unit, Xiaomi fueled the smartphone with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor. No additional information was revealed as opposed to possible two CPUs coming in different countries, which is employed in the Redmi Note 4. To those uninitiated, Redmi Note 4 came with a MediaTek Helio X20 deca-core SoC in China, while the Indian market received a Snapdragon 625 variant of Redmi Note 4.

Xiaomi has not yet confirmed the RAM and storage options on the Redmi Note 4X, although previous leaks point to 3GB RAM/32GB storage, 4GB RAM/32GB storage and 4GB RAM/64GB storage. The device may leave out the original Redmi Note 4's 2GB RAM option.

All in all, the Redmi Note 4X will not be an upgraded version of its original handset in terms of hardware. However, the new device seems to cater a cosmetic upgrade through a customized package containing a printed protective case and a limited edition Mi Power bank.

On another note, Xiaomi introduced a special variant of Redmi Note 4X, which is the Hatsune Miku Special Edition, NDTV reported. The phone will start selling on Valentine's Day and will pack the same tech as the Indian variant of the Redmi Note 4. The Redmi Note 4X Hatsune Miku Special Edition offers several color variants, namely Green and Cherry Pink colour variants. Aside from that, the Redmi Note 4X will also be available in Champagne Gold, Matte Black, Cherry Powder, and Platinum Silver Grey colour variants.

Xiaomi did not reveal the pricing details for the Redmi Note 4X, but confirmed its availability on Feb. 14.
Are you ready to USE your TALENTS to make the world a better place for Children?





If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the worlds leading childrens rights organization would like to hear from you.

For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote childrens survival, protection and development. The worlds largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.
A handout picture released by Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) on February 10, 2017 shows holdalls containing cocaine which were found at Hopton-on-Sea near Great Yarmouth, in Norfolk, southern England on February 9, 2017. (NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY / AFP)

The drugs - 360 kilos (794 pounds) - were in holdalls found at Hopton-on-Sea on Thursday and Caister-on-Sea on Friday, villages on either side of Great Yarmouth, a major port, in Norfolk, the National Crime Agency said.

A member of the public spotted the bags and police are now looking for more that could be in the area.

"This is obviously a substantial seizure of class A drugs, and its loss will represent a major blow to the organised criminals involved," NCA investigator Matthew Rivers said in a statement.

Two Turkish drug traffickers were jailed in Britain last year after being caught with 3.2 tonnes of cocaine on a boat in the North Sea in 2015 following an international operation.

The drugs had a street value of 500 million and it was believed to be the single biggest cocaine haul ever recovered at sea in Europe.
Vietnam has imported twice as many new vehicles since the beginning of 2017, when the import duty on cars from the ASEAN was lowered to 30 per cent. According to the General Department of Vietnam Customs, the country spent around $116 million on importing 4.900 vehicles in the first half of January, more than double than a year ago.

Kenichi Horinouchi, general director of Mitsubishi Motors Vietnam (MMV), attributes the strong surge to left-over demand from December being spurred by the ASEAN tariff reduction. It does not reflect an annual trend for the car business, although some brands have adjusted their strategy to tackle growing auto imports.

According to Horinouchi, MMV is not only expanding retail- based on import cars, but is also looking to enhance production in Vietnam to a new scale. Mitsubishis sales target in 2017 is more than 8,000 units.

As auto imports are predicted to lead the market in the coming years, billions of dollars have been spent on developing car distribution networks, instead of manufacturing. In 2016, the automobile retail and after-sales sectors ranked second overall among the sectors attracting the most foreign direct investment (FDI), following real estate with 505 newly-registered projects, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Laurent Genet, general director of the official Audi importer in Vietnam, told VIR that indeed all automotive companieslocal or foreign-ownedhave made long-term commitments to Vietnam and are investing to develop retail and after-sales to attend customers better.

In 2016, the Vietnamese automotive market exceeded the 300,000 unit milestone, including used vehicles imports. The market will continue to develop as the vehicle ownership rate is still low, while the authorities are enforcing regulations for cargo loading and technical testing for commercial vehicles. As cities turn into megacities, automotive brands need to expand their dealership networks to reach customers and increase their geographical coverage.

In Audis case, we opened Audi Danang in 2015 and will build a new 10,000-sqm Audi dealership in Ho Chi Minh City this year. Regarding local production, we reckon that completely knocked-down (CKD) assemblers with established facilities will continue to invest in local production for models they deem strategic to Vietnam, despite the small-scale production, he noted.

Other ASEAN countries, such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, issued clear automotive policies and incentives over time which attracted automakers and second to third-tier parts suppliers. Local sourcing being limited in Vietnam, almost all components for assembly are imported which is costly in terms of transport, packaging, and import taxes.

As the local content is reaching about 10 per cent on average, except Toyota Innovas 37 per cent, vehicles made in Vietnam do not qualify for the 40 per cent local content value threshold to benefit from the preferential import within the ASEAN. By 2018, the zero per cent import tax for ASEAN completely-built units, unlike that on CKD kits, will present further issue for local assembly.

In 2016, CKD assemblers started to switch to CBU imports from the ASEAN, mostly Thailand, even for key CKD models previously assembled in Vietnam. Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia have vehicles with right hand drive, thus there will be a cost to adapt to Left Hand Drive to be able to export to Vietnam. The expected volume may or may not justify these costs. Imported premium CBU brands have been competing successfully with locally assembled Mercedes-Benz models. So far, Audi, BMW, and Lexus are making headways.

Audi Vietnam was proactive in implementing a right-sizing strategystarting as early as 2015 with Audi Q7 2.0 TFSIby launching models with more compact engines delivering more power and consuming less petrol. Vietnamese customers acknowledged and appreciated this shift. We will continue in 2017, he noted.
The decree will make sure less buyers get their fingers burnt

Among the big projects to be launched is An Khanh New City Developments sale of its first phase this quarter. The mega $2 billion project is developed by South Koreas Posco E&C and Vietnams Vinaconex, located in Hanois Hoai Duc district, along the Thang Long Boulevard.

Scheduled for completion in 2013, the city is expected to supply 6,440 apartments, equivalent to 392,319 square metres of accommodation, enough for 30,000 people.

Even though Hoa Phat Group, the investor in a more than 1,000 apartment Mandarin Garden in Cau Giay districts Tran Duy Hung road, refused to release its launching time, real estate experts predicted the project would be soon launched.

At the beginning of this month the CT7D, located in Le Van Luong street and invested by Nam Cuong Group and the FLC Landmark Tower of FLC Group will also be launched, with a total of 200 units and prices ranging from VND23 million ($1,200) to VND28 million ($1,470) per square metre.

In Gia Lam district, over the Red River, the second lot of Rung Co Residentials belonging to the Eco Park is also being launched, with around 1,500 apartment units.

In addition, Victoria Van Phu, Star City, Diamond Tower and Song Da City View will also add apartments to the mix.

Real estate consultant CBRE Vietnam expected that there would be 3,000 units in Hanoi launched this quarter, compared to 1,950 units in the third quarter. There were more than 4,600 units launched in the second quarter.

This decline, according to CBRE Vietnam, could be due to the Decree 71, effective on August 8, 2010 providing guidance on the Housing Law, which caps the proportion of units sold via capital contribution contracts at 20 per cent with the remaining 80 per cent sold on transaction floors.

This decree, CBRE Vietnam said, had put a pressure on developers with low financial capabilities and enhanced market transparency.

However, CBRE Vietnam executive director Richard Leech said new project launches would continue trending towards more affordable options.

With the opening and improvement of major infrastructure routes, the capitals western and southern districts are attracting new residents with easier access for commuting into the core urban districts, Leech said.

He said that the Decree 71 was expected to benefit the market by enhancing transparency, placing pressures on developers with low financial capabilities, lessening the threat of price bubbles and limiting speculative forces.

Tran Nhu Trung, Savills Vietnam associate director, said the Decree 71 had showed off its advantages to clearly regulate five types of mobilising capital investment. However, Trung said the procedures to implement Decree 71 were still complicated and wasted customers time and energy.

The more simple it [decree] regulates, the more it is practical in the real life, Trung said.
Deputy PM Vuong Dinh Hue (standing) at a meeting with ministries and agencies in preparation for the second conference between PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the Vietnamese business community, Ha Noi, February 9, 2017 - Photo: VGP/Thanh Chung

Mr. Hue made the point on February 9 while presiding over a meeting with ministries and agencies in preparation for the second conference between PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the Vietnamese business community which was scheduled at the end of March in Ha Noi.

The upcoming conference expects to uphold the role of business force which generates over 90% of national budget collection.

The conference is among the Governments four most important events for 2017. The three others are the one on shrimp production held early this week, the others on development of material sources for the pharmaceutical industry and on reviewing five years of implementing the 2012 Law on Cooperatives.

Earlier, the Government released Resolution 35/ND-CP on on supporting and developing enterprises by 2020 and Resolution 19/ND-CP on improving the nations business environment and competitiveness in 2017 with orientations towards 2020.

The Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) assessed that 75% of enterprises responded that the group of measures on business equality and trade facilitation was positive. Up to 60% of respondents gave positive feedback for local authorities.

The first conference between the PM and the Vietnamese business community was held in April last year under the motto "Vietnamese enterprises - the countrys economic development force". The event looked to realize the PMs message that the Government would create favorable conditions for startups and boost the development of enterprises in terms of both quantity and quality.

Addressing the conference, Deputy PM Hue assigned the Ministry of Finance to assess business performance; implementation of the single-window mechanism, simplification of 73 administrative procedures, stock market development, and assistance for commercial banks.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment was assigned to report on business development indexes in 2017.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development was asked to enable investors to develop agriculture and rural areas and suggest specific policies to pilot land use market and land assembling.

The Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs was asked to develop the labor market.

Finally, the Ministry of Science and Technology was urged to build business start-up ecosystem and boost the scientific and technological market.
It is estimated that by the end of this year, the market will have additional 200,000sq.m of offices for lease. - Photo vneconomy.vn

It is estimated that by the end of this year, the market will have additional 200,000sq.m of offices for lease. - Photo vneconomy.vn

It is estimated that by the end of this year, the market will have additional 200,000cq.m of offices for lease from seven projects. However, there is no new project in the capitals centre.

CBRE said last year, the total supply of office for rent was up to around 1.2 million sq.m including 65 per cent of B-class offices. The rental price of the B-class offices was US$17.8 per sq.m a month, posting 0.6 per cent year-on-year increase. That of A-class offices was $28.5 per sq.m a month, representing 3 per cent decrease from the previous year.

The rental price and occupancy rate of offices in the citys centre has been at high level due to favourable locations and limited land funds.

Companies with strong financial situations were ready to pay $30-40 per sq.m a month for A-class offices and $20-30 per sq.m a month for B-class offices excluding taxes and service fees.

However, big areas in the centre areas were hard to find.

Nguyen Hoai An, CBERs deputy director, said that rental in the citys centre was expected to increase due to limited supply, while the western area rents might sink due to abundant supply.

Viet Nam in general and the real estate market in particular are expected to attract foreign direct investment in the upcoming time thank to the advantages of stable politics, geographical location and human resources.

The positive signs of the economy could draw attention from foreign investors to the country and the capital markets, thus making demand of office for lease higher.

Cushman & Wakefield said the competition in the market would be increased due to not only new projects but also to the increase of new types of offices such as co-working spaces and office-tel.

In term of retail space for lease, Ha Noi has around 1.2 million sq.m, posting 10 per cent increase from last year with the launch of two new commercial centres including Vincom Pham Ngoc Thach and Vincom Plaza Bac Tu Liem with a total of 45,900 sq.m.

The average rental price of the citys commercial centres in the first quarter of the year was reduced by 7.6 per cent from the previous quarter.

According to Savills Viet Nam 12 new commercial centres with a total area of 158,000 sq.m are expected to be completed this year. All of the centres are located in the citys outside centre area in Cau Giay, Thanh Xuan and Ha Dong district. Most of the projects have been integrated into residential complex.

The country opened its retail market under WTOs commitments and has attracted foreign retailers, causing the fierce competition. Japanese, Thailand and Chinese retailers have expressed increasing attention to investments in Viet Nam, showing strong development potential in the market despite competition.
An artists impression of the proposed agricultural zone in Phu Yen province. - VNA Phoro

The zone will be located in the Phu Hoa Districts Hoa Quang Bac Commune, over a total area of 460ha in its first phase.

Of these, the central, management and hi-tech services zone will cover a site of 10.78ha.

The research zone will cover a site of 56.5ha and will be divided into four sub-regions.

The training, technology transfer and agricultural products introduction zone will be located near the management zone over an area of 1.85ha.

The zone also consists of the production zone of hi-tech applied products; technical infrastructure zone and welfare services and rural residential area.

The zone, which aims to serve production and development of the province and the south central region, will focus on sectors of farming, livestock, forestry, fisheries, farm produce preservation and processing, biological products and animal feed.
The property market is attractive to foreign investments.-Photo batdongsan.com.vn

Foreign Investment Agency statistics show that nearly US$300 million worth of foreign direct investment (FDI) was poured into the property market in January, accounting for roughly 20 per cent of the total FDI attraction.

Nguyen Mai, chairman of the Viet Nam Association of Foreign Investment Enterprises, said that the Viet Nam real estate market appeals to foreign investors due to two factors:

The first one is the growing middle class, which is expected to reach 33 million by 2020 from 12 million in 2012. A series of policies targeted to improve the investment climate and allowing foreigners to own real estate assets in Viet Nam also consolidated confidence, Mai said, adding that investments in property assets promises higher returns in Viet Nam than in many other countries.

Mai said that the low- and middle- income housing market is catching the eyes of foreign investors due to land use incentives and credit. This is a good sign, he said.

According to Phan Huu Thang, former Director the Foreign Investment Agency, many foreign investors and investment funds are eyeing opportunities in the realty market of the country of 90 million population.

Opening-up policies together with rapid ubanisation are turning Viet Nams realty market into a destination, Thang said.

However, Thang noted that attention must be paid to attracting investors of adequate capacity to implement projects, calling this essential to prevent stagnation, which has caused significant losses.

In 2016, foreign investors poured a total of $1.3 billion into the realty market.
A suicide car bombing Saturday killed at least seven people and wounded many others in Afghanistans embattled southern province of Helmand, officials said.

The Taliban insurgency took responsibility for the bombing, according to a spokesman for the group, who claimed army officers and soldiers were among the casualties.

The attack near a bank in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah was aimed at an Afghan National Army (ANA) convoy, a provincial government spokesman told VOA.

Soldiers and civilians were among those killed and wounded, said Omar Zwak. He added that at least 21 wounded people have been sent to area hospitals.

The victims were collecting their salaries when the bomber hit a military vehicle with his explosives-laden car outside the bank, said the spokesman.

The Taliban insurgency controls most of the province and often claims suicide and other bombings against Afghan security forces.

Airstrike probe

Meanwhile, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said Saturday it is looking into reports of civilian casualties from American airstrikes in another district of Helmand.

Residents and Taliban insurgents in Sangin, the district center, alleged that the airstrikes Thursday night killed at least 20 civilians and wounded several others.

Provincial Governor Hayatullah Hayyat, accompanied by military and police commanders, told a joint news conference Saturday in Lashkar Gah that claims of civilian casualties were untrue.

He said the U.S. strikes targeted insurgent positions and killed nearly 60 Taliban fighters. Hayyat asked for proof from those claiming the attack caused civilian casualties.

A U.S. military spokesman on Friday confirmed it carried out air raids against Taliban positions in the area, and it was looking into allegations of civilian casualties in the strikes.

We are aware of the allegations of civilian casualties, and take every allegation very seriously, a statement quoted the spokesman as saying.
Authorities in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo threatened striking police officers with criminal charges on Friday as the federal government sent in more troops to try to end a week of violent anarchy that has left more than 120 people dead.

Espirito Santo is one of several Brazilian states grappling with a budget crisis that is crippling essential public services for millions of citizens. The police strike over pay during the past week has left a security vacuum and led to rampant assaults, robberies and looting, often in broad daylight.

Limited protests by police in nearby Rio de Janeiro alarmed residents of the metropolitan area of 12 million people, many of whom live in fear of violence between rival drug gangs and other criminals. Some mayors in Rio de Janeiro state even announced plans to help make up for unpaid police salaries by using city finances to cover the state's shortfalls.

In Espirito Santo, a spokesman for a local police union said the death toll from a week of unrest had risen to 122. State officials have not confirmed the toll but have said many of those killed are believed to belong to competing gangs.

If accurate, the toll would be more than six times the average daily homicide rate in the state last year.

President Michel Temer, addressing the crisis publicly for the first time, in a statement on Friday called the strike "illegal" and said, "The right to protest cannot take the Brazilian people hostage."

The federal government, he said, "will make every effort for Espirito Santo to return to normal as soon as possible."

States across Brazil are facing budget and debt problems due to a recession that is the country's worst on record. The federal government has negotiated debt relief with some states and now finds itself shoring up public security too.

Temer's comments came as the defense ministry mobilized hundreds more soldiers and federal police to help stem the chaos, focused mostly in the metropolitan region of Vitoria, the state's capital. After an initial deployment of 1,200 troops earlier in the week, the ministry on Thursday said as many as 3,000 would be in place by the weekend.

Rio's state security secretary late Friday said the limited strike there had caused a small uptick in reported crimes but nothing like the violence gripping Espirito Santo. He said the state did not foresee a full-fledged strike but would not hesitate to request federal assistance if needed.

In Espirito Santo, state officials said that more than 700 striking state officers, who in Brazil are organized with military-style ranks and rules, would be charged with rebellion.

Wives and family members who have blockaded police stations could also face fines and other penalties, they said.

"We will not be weak," said Andre Garcia, state security secretary in Espirito Santo. "We will ensure that the rule of law is preserved."

Schools, Shops Shut

Local officials have closed schools, clinics and public transportation, while shops and other businesses have remained shuttered, causing about $30 million in losses, according to a state retail association.

In Rio, where the state government has been struggling to pay salaries, family members of some officers early on Friday blocked entrances to several police stations in an effort to keep officers from patrolling.

The tactic, which on a much larger scale has paralyzed Espirito Santo, affected just a few districts. Authorities tweeted photographs of patrol cars and officers at their posts across Rio, Brazil's most popular tourist destination.

The mayor of Niteroi, located across a long bay from state capital Rio, said his city would make a one-time payment of 3,500 reais ($1,129) to police working there. The city of Macae, near Rio's offshore oil fields, said it would help cover the cost of a paycheck from last year that the state still owes.

State police officials, who said they detained one Rio officer for encouraging a strike online, said the slowdown never affected more than 10 percent of the police force but that officials would remain on guard in case the protest grew.

A bigger strike "could threaten the lives of all of us," said Roberto Sa, the state security secretary told reporters Friday evening.
The head of Cambodia's opposition party has announced his resignation from the group after the country's long-serving prime minister announced plans for a law that could lead to the party's dissolution.



Sam Rainsy announced his resignation Saturday in a letter to his Cambodia National Rescue Party.



His actions came after Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier this month vowed to amend the laws on political parties to keep convicts from holding leadership positions, among other rules.



Sam Rainsy is in self-imposed exile to avoid a prison sentence for criminal defamation. He's been the target of several lawsuits by Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People's Party.



The opposition says the lawsuits are without merit, and just a legal ploy to try to cripple them. Cambodia will hold local elections this June.
January started gray, stayed gray and ended gray. Worse, it wasnt a shining silver gray or an inviting blue gray. It was the flat, disengaging gray of used dishwater that seemed to whisper, Dont bother.

The one-colored weather wasnt cold weather, though. Early in the month, a few days of Arctic temperatures did thicken the lake ice for safe  and, as it turned out, good  fishing. Neither lasted, however, and within a week squadrons of honking Canada geese again ruled their gray sea.

It was the first January in memory that delivered more rainfall than sleet, ice and snow combined. So, oddly, it was a month of no shoveling, no slipping, no falling, no sweating, no bruises and no complaints.

It was also a month of no wood cutting. Cold, snowless January days are perfect days to cut and split firewood because they feature hard ground, natural cooling and skies so blue you could swim in them. That wasnt this just-passed January.

Howard, the herdsman on the southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth, would have loved January because it would have afforded him a seven-days-a-week opportunity to haul and spread manure. Howard was hard on manure; he hated seeing it anywhere but on a stubble field.

His little brother Jackie, our farms other hired man, didnt have the familys anti-manure gene and only lent his limited talent for the task when ordered to do so by my father. That action brought two quick reactions from Jackie: colorful, instant cussing and an immediate trip to the dairy barn for a pre-emptive cup of hot, instant coffee.

My brothers and I would have done the work if allowed. Most winter days, however, the only available job for Jackie was to haul manure so he and his salary pre-empted us and our 50-cents-an-hour eagerness. As such, his cussing and coffee became a staple in our January lives.

Given the equipment we used back then, Jackie had cause for both. For more than 30 years our go-to manure spreader tractor was a narrow-front Oliver of current vintage  first a 77, then 770 and, finally, a 1650. None, of course, had a cab.

All, however, sported a winter jacket called a Heat Houser, a canvas-and-twine strings contraption meant to divert the tractors engine heat toward the driver. Even better, the floppy rig was crowned with a near wrap-around plastic windshield of sorts that kept at least 5 percent of winter wind off your face.

The windshields biggest flaw (among many other flaws) was that it was wide open behind the driver so, in theory, he or she could watch the operation of whatever implement they were using at the time.

Turning to watch the operation of a manure spreader, however, was not something experienced drivers did. In fact, most learned to use the sound of the spreaders rotating rear tines  slow and throaty when full; faster and more hollow-sounding when empty  to endure a run without risking either a glance back or a facial splat of, well, you know.

Still, with our small New Idea manure spreaders, that no-look skill did not mean the drivers hat, back of his ear, or back of his coat didnt sometimes catch an errant wad of already-digested alfalfa or hard clump of used straw. As is said on the farm, it happens. Often as not, when it happened, it happened to Jackie.

Uncle Honey, on the other hand, rarely hauled manure because Uncle Honey was banned from operating any machinery that involved both power-takeoffs and less-than-solid animal-based fertilizer. There was a time when an employee of the U.S. Postal Service could have explained the reason for the ban but he, like Uncle Honey, is long gone.

So, too, is Januarys bleak grayness. Now, get to work February.
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan says Russia, Pakistan and Iran are pursuing their own agendas with regard to the fragile country, complicating the fight against terrorism and extremism.

"We're concerned about outside actors," General John Nicholson told VOA's Afghan service in an interview.

Russia, which had an ill-fated intervention into Afghanistan that started in 1979 and ended nearly a decade later, has been trying to exert influence in the region again and has set up six-country peace talks next week that are excluding the United States. Nicholson worries about Russia's links with the Taliban.

"Russia has been legitimizing the Taliban and supporting the Taliban," he said. "Meanwhile, the Taliban supports terrorists. I'm very sorry to see Russia supporting the Taliban and narcoterrorism."

Moscow denies that it provides aid to the Taliban and says its contacts with the group are aimed at encouraging them to enter peace talks.

Taliban role in peace efforts

Despite the Taliban's history of violence and extremism, Nicholson didn't rule out a role for the Taliban in the peace process, saying there were elements in the group that appeared to be more pragmatic about the country's prospects for peace.

"Many of its leaders see a better life for all Afghans," he said.

Meanwhile, he said Iran appeared to be supporting extremists in western Afghanistan.

"But the situation is more complex than with Russia," Nicholson said. "There needs to be a relationship" between Afghanistan and Iran, which have seen a resurgence in trade that has partially compensated for a decline in Afghan economic activity with Pakistan.

President Donald Trump's new administration has made a flurry of contacts with top Afghan and Pakistani officials in recent days as it formulates a new policy in the region. That clearly involves pressure on Islamabad to do more to crack down on terrorist groups that hide out near the Afghan border in Pakistan's volatile tribal areas.

"We want cooperation from Pakistan against all terrorists," Nicholson said. "We must have pressure on external sanctuaries in Pakistan."

Rooting out terrorists would help ease Pakistan's concerns about further attacks on its turf that are seen by many as a penalty for the country's support for the U.S. war on terrorism, he said.

"We all hope for a change in Pakistani behavior," Nicholson said. "This is in Pakistan's interest."

Congressional appearance

The general spoke shortly after appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, where he said he needed "a few thousand" more soldiers to bolster the 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Nicholson told VOA that the extra troops would serve as advisers, extending that role from the core of the Afghan military down to the brigade level to help the country's troops in what he called a "very, very tough fight" to foster peace.

"The enemy is trying to seize cities," he said. "It's a new dimension to the fight."

The Afghan military has suffered heavy losses as a result. More than 6,700 of its soldiers were killed last year through November 12, according to a quarterly report from the U.S. government's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, up from 6,600 for all of 2015.

Nicholson discounted recent figures that indicated the Taliban has gained more territory this year and now holds about 15 percent of the land, saying it was the result of a revised Afghan government strategy to focus on protecting urban areas.

"This was a wise decision by the government," he said, adding that it had provided greater protection for most of the people. "There's a difference between territory and population. Many areas are sparsely populated."

Propaganda war

U.S.-led forces also have been losing ground in the propaganda war waged by the Taliban and the 20 terrorist groups that operate in Afghanistan, who aggressively use social media, often with false reports that put the international mission in a bad light, Nicholson said.

He sought advice from VOA journalists on the best ways to counter the extremists' message and recruitment efforts, saying "the enemy" was doing a better job than the government and its allies at reaching the Afghan people. "We're trying to be more proactive in communications," he said.

The U.S. has been in Afghanistan for more than 15 years and has committed to at least four more years. But Nicholson said even though the internal fight is currently at a "stalemate," the battle is worthwhile. He added that he did see a peaceful future for the country.

"I believe it will end well for the Afghan people," he said. "Our Afghan brothers and sisters are worth our support."
There is understandable confusion around the world about U.S. immigration and refugee policies in light of President Donald Trump's executive order and the subsequent court challenge to that order. VOA has invited its worldwide audiences to submit their questions about the policies via Facebook and attempts here to answer some of the most frequently asked questions.

The court case

Do federal judges have the right to veto the president's executive order? What rights does the president have if that happens?

No, judges cannot veto the president's order. Judges can only rule on specific cases that are brought to them. In the case of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the three appeals court judges were asked to rule very narrowly on whether a ban on the order, called a temporary restraining order (TRO), should remain in effect. The judges decided that it should. Meanwhile, lower courts continue to move through the process of looking at the constitutionality of the entire executive order. If a court were to find the order unconstitutional, the president could appeal the ruling, first back to the appeals court, and if he got no satisfaction there, to the nation's highest court, the Supreme Court.

Who is challenging the travel ban in court?

About 60 lawsuits have been filed against the ban. Some of these were by individuals who initially could not get back into the country, and their suits have been dropped. About two-thirds of the lawsuits are proceeding, according to the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse.

What will happen if the Supreme Court finds the travel ban is unconstitutional?

If the nation's highest court finds the ban unconstitutional, the order cannot take effect. The president could try to write a new order that would pass constitutional muster.

If the case ends up at the Supreme Court, and its voting result is 4-4, who wins?

If the Supreme Court ties, the ruling remands back to the appeals court. So whatever that court ruled would stand.

If the judicial stay of the travel ban is sustained by the courts, how long does that last?

The current judicial stay is a temporary restraining order. If it is upheld, it will stay in effect until the district court reviews filings and makes a decision on a preliminary injunction, which is a longer stay. The injunction would remain in effect while the court decides the constitutionality of the executive order.

In the American system of checks and balances, who keeps the courts in check? Who can punish a judge who abuses his power?

Courts are kept in check by other courts. A ruling can always be appealed to a higher court, up to the Supreme Court. Judges are appointed by the president but have to be approved by Congress. They can also be impeached by Congress and removed from office.

Does the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) belong to the executive branch? Besides the court system, what other agencies are under the US judiciary branch?

Yes, DOJ is part of the executive branch. And the federal court system is part of the judiciary branch. There are some 60 agencies within DOJ. You can view them here. ((https://www.justice.gov/agencies))

The executive order

How were the seven countries affected by the travel ban selected?

The countries targeted in Trump's executive order on immigration were initially identified as "countries of concern" under the Obama administration. Former President Barack Obama in December 2015 signed a bill that placed limited restrictions on certain travelers who had visited Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria on or after March 1, 2011. Two months later, the Obama administration added Libya, Somalia and Yemen to the list in an effort to address "the growing threat from foreign terrorist fighters." The Obama-era restrictions were not as stringent as those in the Trump travel ban.

Can other countries be added or removed from the list?

Yes, countries can be added to the list. The secretary of homeland security is working with the secretary of state on new screening rules for foreign nationals who want to visit the U.S. The order says that countries that do not comply with those criteria will be added to the list.

Can the government grant waivers to the travel ban for individuals or classes of individuals?

The secretaries of state and homeland security may issue visas or other immigration benefits to nationals whose countries are on the banned list on a case-by-case basis.

How does Trump's executive order on immigration affect undocumented immigrants?

There are currently three executive orders on immigration. One is the travel ban. Another is on border security and the wall. The third one, "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States," very much affects undocumented immigrants. It appears to expand the definition of who would be eligible for deportation, which would mean more undocumented immigrants will be deported. It also threatens to withdraw federal funding from sanctuary cities, which could limit undocumented immigrants' protection. Three lawsuits are pending against this piece of the order.

Is it true that some people arriving at U.S. airports are being pressured to renounce their green cards?

No. Not now, although it did intially happen with a very small number of individuals.

How does the ban affect green-card holders if they leave the United States for a visit and want to come back?

The Trump administration initially included green-card holders in the ban but then changed its mind and said they would not be included.

Will this travel ban affect people who have Temporary Protected Status (TPS)? What will happen to those Haitian immigrants with TPS after the expiration date of their status in July of this year?

The travel ban executive order does not address TPS directly. Immigration lawyers say TPS travelers will most likely be subjected to additional screening and those from the seven banned countries should be aware the president can rescind TPS at any time. There is no way of knowing what will happen after the expiration of Haiti's TPS.

What will happen to the green-card lottery system?

To be determined. There have been media reports that the Trump administration intends to further restrict legal immigration in a future executive order.

The political issues

What is the evidence for a threat to U.S. security to justify the travel ban?

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which left the stay on the travel ban in place Thursday, asked the same question. "The government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States," the three-judge panel said in its ruling. The court conceded that it does not have access to classified information but pointed out that the government could have provided classified documents to bolster its case and did not.

Some people say the travel ban will actually increase the risk of a terror attack in the United States. Why do they say this?

Ten former national security, foreign policy and intelligence officials filed a brief with the appeals court that makes this argument. The group, which includes two former secretaries of state, notes that the executive order would endanger U.S. troops in the field, disrupt counterterrorism and national security partnerships, aid Islamic State propaganda and recruitment efforts by feeding the narrative that the U. S. is at war with Islam, and endanger intelligence sources in the field. "It will hinder relationships with the very communities that law enforcement professionals need to address the threat," the group adds.

Why are so many Americans protesting against the travel ban?

Many Americans are proud that America is a country of immigrants. They also like to think of the U.S. as an open and welcoming country. The travel ban is an offense to both beliefs. "The order offends our nation's laws and values," wrote the group of foreign policy experts cited above.

Is this travel ban the same as the ban on Muslims that Trump promised during his election campaign?

That is a hotly debated question. Trump and members of his administration have said in no uncertain terms that the travel ban is not a Muslim ban. But the question is at the heart of many of the court suits that have been brought against it. The suit brought by the states of Washington and Minnesota (the one that went up to the 9th U.S. Circuit panel) points out that Trump repeatedly called for a Muslim ban on the campaign trail. Less than two weeks after his inauguration, he signed an executive order banning all Syrian refugees and travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries. In addition, the suit says, "President Trump has made clear that one purpose of the order is to favor Christian refugees at the expense of Muslims." But the states also suggest discriminating against Muslims may not have been the sole purpose of the order but only a "motivating factor."

Do the U.S. opponents of the travel ban have any options other than the court challenges?

No.

Now that the stay on the travel ban has been upheld, how does that affect the administration's ability to issue future executive orders?

Not at all.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, visiting one of the most fortified stretches of the U.S. border with Mexico Friday, says he would take no Draconian measures regarding federal funds for U.S. sanctuary cities.

Kelly met with federal, state and local law enforcement officials late Friday at the border between San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico.

Last month, the Trump administration, which continues its plan to build a wall between the two countries, had said it would cut off federal grants for sanctuary cities  cities and other municipalities that, generally speaking, shelter immigrants in the country illegally by refusing to help the federal government enforce immigration laws.

Near the San Ysidro port of entry, a fence topped with razor wire, a barrier that is often cited as an example of how walls can slow illegal crossings, stands between the two cities. Critics say the wall only forces migrants to move to more dangerous border crossings.

Kelly also toured southern Arizona, until recently one of the busiest corridors for illegal migrants, Thursday. Migrants are now traveling in large numbers through southern Texas, which Kelly visited last week.

The retired Marine general, appointed to lead the Homeland Security Department last month, has said he supports a wall along the border between the southern U.S. and Mexico, as promised by President Donald Trump more than a year ago, during the early days of his campaign for office.

Kelly told senators during his confirmation hearing that a wall, in and of itself, would not entirely prevent immigrants from entering the United States. He said the United States also must confront drugs and drug violence in South and Central America, which prompt northward migration.

Mother deported

In another development Friday, Mexico warned its citizens to take precautions while in the United States, after an undocumented mother, a longtime resident of the United States, was deported.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos was sent back to Mexico Thursday after she stopped to check in at a U.S. immigration office in Phoenix, Arizona  a routine visit that she has carried out every year since 2008.

The case of Mrs. Garcia de Rayos highlights the new reality that the Mexican community is experiencing in U.S. territory with the stricter application of migration control measures, the Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement late Thursday.

"For this reason, the entire Mexican community is invited to take precautions and keep contact with its closest consulates to receive the necessary help to face this type of situation, it said.

Rayos had lived for more than two decades in the United States, where two of her children were born. Her deportation sparked protests outside the immigration office in Phoenix.

Number of arrests increase

Immigrants' advocates say there has been increased activity by immigration officials in several cities, including Alexandria, Virginia; Dallas, Texas; and Charlotte, North Carolina, and that about 100 people have been taken into custody in Los Angeles recently. Immigration officials dispute those numbers and say the arrests they made are part of routine activities.

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said she has had over 30 years' experience with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and that this is "not normal ICE."

Responding to Trump's repeated pledge that he would build a wall along the Mexican border, and that he would make Mexico pay for the construction, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said that would not happen. He also canceled a planned White House visit because of the wall policy.

Buffet of options

The White House said last month that Trump has a buffet of options on how to get Mexico to pay for the wall. However, U.S. officials have said American taxpayers initially would foot the bill for the project, which is expected to cost as much as $15 billion.

Although the stated purpose of a border wall is to stop illegal immigrants from from entering the United States, many Mexicans regard it as an insulting gesture toward their nation. Rough terrain and stretches of private property along the border could make building a wall a long and complicated project.
U.S. immigration authorities have arrested hundreds of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally in raids across the country that began last week, although authorities say the enforcement action is not linked to a recent executive order signed by President Donald Trump.

Trump said on Twitter Sunday morning "The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!"

The raids targeted criminal illegals, Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, told The Washington Post, noting they were part of a routine action.

Were talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system, Christensen told the newspaper.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea told the French news agency, "The focus of these operations is no different than the routine, targeted arrests carried out by ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis."

The enforcement actions took place in in at least six states, and included cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, where more than 160 people were arrested throughout the week.

White House Senior Policy Adviser Stephen Miller told NBC's Meet the Press that the enforcement actions happening all over the country focuses on gang members, drug dealers, and sex offenders.

The order describes a criminal offense, which will typically mean anything from a misdemeanor to a felony  Our emphasis is deporting and removing criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety, Miller said.

Speaking to reporters Friday night, ICE Enforcement and Removals (ERO) LA Field Office Director David Marin said about 75 percent of those arrested in Los Angeles had felony convictions and had no connection to the Trump order.

This operation that we conducted is on par with similar operations that were done in the past, said Marin.

Trump issued an executive order last month to crack down on the estimated 11 million immigrants living in America illegally.

He also made changes to Obama era policies, prioritizing the deportations of those illegal immigrants with criminal histories and allowing immigration agents broader authority to deport those with minor offenses or no offenses at all.

The raids have led to numerous protests around the country, including in Austin, Texas, which counts about 100,000 undocumented immigrants among its population; Minneapolis, Minnesota, New York City, Los Angeles and Washington.

More than 100 people protested late Friday in Austin against what they said were intensified ICE operations over the past few weeks.

One of the first deportations under Trump's new order was a mother of two children, both U.S. citizens, who was deported to Mexico early Thursday, her lawyer said.

The deportation showed a change in U.S. policy toward undocumented immigrants.

Ray Ybarra Maldonado said the undocumented woman, Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, 36, was taken into custody Wednesday in Phoenix, Arizona, when she stopped in for a routine check at a U.S. immigration office.

Garcia de Rayos had checked in with U.S. immigration authorities every year since 2008, when she was stopped for using a fake Social Security number during a raid on a water park where she worked. In past visits, she answered questions that were put to her and went home.

But when Garcia de Rayos went in for her meeting Wednesday, she was arrested and deportation proceedings were begun. She had lived in the U.S. for more than 22 years.
Piyush Rai emerged from a polling station Saturday morning in Ghaziabad in Indias northern Uttar Pradesh state along with his family, fervently hoping his vote for a new regional government will help bring development and jobs for young people.



Even those among us who have post-graduate degrees have no jobs. The law and order situation is so alarming, laments Rai who is convinced that only Prime Minister Narendra Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can improve the situation.



A short distance away at another polling booth, the sentiment is completely different among people who crowd around officers searching for their name in the voters list.





As he waits to cast his vote, Nadeem Malik slams the prime ministers recent ban on high-value currency notes that created a massive cash crunch. Our work, which was going well, came to a halt, common people like me took a hit, he says, vowing to support the ruling Samajwadi Party.

Crucial mid-term verdict



These are among millions of voters in northern Uttar Pradesh state who will deliver a crucial mid-term verdict on Modi and decide whether he can wrest Indias biggest political prize from the ruling Samajwadi party.



Polls are being held in five states, but none is more crucial to the political fortunes of Modi as Uttar Pradesh. Home to 220 million people, the sprawling state is the countrys biggest and polling will be held in seven stages over the next four weeks. It is also among the countrys poorest regions, but the battleground state is widely seen as holding the political pulse of the country.





This is a kind of test for Mr. Modis continuing popularity, says Ajoy Bose, an independent political analyst in New Delhi.



Three years ago, the BJP won a stunning victory in the state during national elections, helping it get the biggest parliamentary mandate in three decades. At that time Modi had rallied voters with his promise of economic revival and cleaning up what is widely seen as corrupt governance.



Uphill battle

But bringing about the radical change he promised and creating the tens of thousands of jobs that Indias young population needs has not been easy and many analysts say winning the regional polls will be an uphill battle.



The BJP had hoped to capitalize on Modis radical currency ban last year that aimed at striking at rich people with illegal cash and empowering the poor.





Many like Pinky Bharti, a beautician in Ghaziabad, admire the bold move and see him as a messiah who will root out corruption. He did not distinguish between the rich and the poor, he brought everyone down to the same level, she says.



But analysts warn that the high-risk gamble could have also cost him the support of tens of thousands of poor people in remote areas, who were worst affected by the currency shortages, as well as that of traders whose businesses, which depend heavily on cash transactions, slowed down.



If he is unable to form a government there, it will be seen as an erosion of BJP support, warns Bose.



The BJPs main opponent is the regional Samajwadi party of incumbent Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav - a savvy young politician who last month struck what many consider could be a winning alliance with the Congress Party.



Another contender for power is Mayawati, whose Bahujan Samaj Party draws its support from the lower castes, but who has also made an outreach to Muslims hoping to broaden her base.



Predictions vary

Pollsters have given varying predictions, some putting the Samajwadi Party ahead, while others say the BJP is in front. Most analysts feel the race is wide open and the contest could be close.



Whatever the outcome, Saturdays poll was another colorful celebration of democracy in India. Across towns and villages, by 9 a.m. there were long lines at schools and colleges that had been converted into polling locations. Police and armed guards ensured smooth polling.



In this poor state where people tend to vote along traditional caste and religious lines, thousands of illiterate women emerged from their homes enthusiastically, but simply cast their ballots as they were instructed to do by the men in the family.





Twenty-five-year-old Suman, who arrived with her two young children simply says she will vote for the flower, meaning the lotus symbol of the BJP, and finds it difficult to elaborate beyond that. Poonam Puri is also looking forward to voting, and says she will stamp on the hand, referring to the symbol of the Congress Party.



Polling will end on March 8 and results will be tallied on March 11.



It will be a crucial count for Modi. The fact is the rest of his term, Mr. Modi will be looking over this shoulder if he does badly in these elections, says political analyst Bose. On the other hand, if he does well, then he will get breathing space and he will have time to recover.
Iraqs mercurial Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged his supporters to suspend a demonstration Saturday near Baghdads iconic Green Zone, after violent clashes that left at least four dead and 320 wounded, according to Baghdads governor.

Iraqi security forces fired tear gas at supporters of Sadr after reports they were trying to advance in the direction of the iconic Green Zone, where government institutions, including parliament and the prime ministers office are located.

In later skirmishes, live ammunition reportedly was used, although it was not clear who was doing the firing.

Baghdad governor Ali al-Tamimi said in a statement that four people were killed and 320 wounded in the clashes that ensued, as protesters dispersed following a call by Sadr to pull back. Baghdads security operations command also reported that one of its men was killed and seven wounded.

Sadr supporters broke into the Green Zone last year, ransacking parliament and harassing lawmakers.

A Shiite cleric who supports Sadr told Iraqi media that demonstrators were not trying to harm anyone or disturb government institutions this time around.

Demands

He claims that Sadrs partisans are protesting corruption in the government, and the electoral commission, and are not trying to storm the Green Zone, but will continue protests until the members of the electoral commission are removed from their posts.

Sarbast Mustapha, who heads the electoral commission, remained firm, however, telling Iraqi media that he would not be influenced by popular pressure.

He says that he will not step down, except at the request of parliament, and he urged security forces to protect his offices and employees. He urged everyone to abide by the law, since the electoral commission was an institution based on law.

Mustapha insisted the protests are merely an internal dispute among Shiite [political] parties, but warned that [upcoming parliamentary) elections could be suspended if the protests continue.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi issued a statement Saturday, reacting to casualties among protesters, insisting that Iraqis had the right to protest peacefully. He also called for the setting up of a commission to investigate what happened.

Member of Parliament Ali Budeiri, who belongs to Muqtada al-Sadrs movement, insisted that members of his group would not back down on their demands.



He insists that all Iraqis are demanding what he calls deep reforms, and he goes on to insist that the people are the source of all (political) power.

Sadr, who has strong ties to Irans clerical establishment, held numerous protests outside the Green Zone last year demanding the resignation of various government ministers, and over-running the Green Zone, before withdrawing.
Iraq wont take part in any regional or international conflicts, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told state TV Saturday.

The comment came after Abadi had spoke in a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump during which tensions with Iran were mentioned. The call was the first between the two leaders.

A political commentator close to Abadi, Ihsan al-Shammari, said Abadis comment addressed the U.S.-Iranian tensions. Iran has close ties with the Shiite political elite ruling Iraq, while Washington is providing critical military support to Iraqi forces battling Islamic State.

Preserving its interests

Iraq is very keen to preserve its national interests (...) and does not wish to be part of any regional or international conflict which would lead to disasters for the region and for Iraq, Abadi said, according to state TV.

Trump said Friday that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani better be careful after the latter was quoted as saying that anyone who speaks to Iranians with threats would regret it.

The White House on Friday said Trump and Abadi spoke to the threat Iran presents across the entire region, in their first phone call since the inauguration of the U.S. president.

Abadis office Friday also gave a readout of the phone call that took place overnight Thursday, without specifically mentioning Iran.

Both readouts stressed the importance of their continued cooperation against Islamic State, as the militants are being pushed back in Iraq and losing control over Mosul, the last major city stronghold under their control in the country.

US, Iran influence Iraq

The United States has more than 5,000 troops deployed in Iraq and is providing air and ground support in the battle of Mosul.

Iran has also played a major role in the fight against Islamic State by arming and training Iraqi Shiite groups collectively known as Popular Mobilization.

The Iraqi prime minister Dr Abadi is stressing once again the policy of neutrality and to steer clear from conflicts, political commentator Shammari told state TV.

The Iraqi readout said Abadi asked Trump to lift the ban on people from his country traveling to the United States. U.S. courts suspended the restrictions announced end January on entries from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Trump has said he will keep trying to reinstate them.

Abadi resisted calls from influential pro-Iranian Shiite politicians to retaliate against the ban, at a meeting January 29, citing Iraqs need for U.S. military support.

Washington last week ratcheted up pressure on Iran, putting sanctions on 13 individuals and 12 entities days after the White House put Tehran on notice over a ballistic missile test.

Irans dominant influence in Iraqi politics was eroded after Islamic State routed the Iraqi army commanded then by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a close ally of Tehran, in 2014.
A California Islamic school wanted to keep an open mind before Donald Trump took office. But less than a month into Trumps presidency, the school rejected $800,000 in federal funds aimed at combating violent extremism.



The decision made late Friday night by the Bayan Claremont graduate schools board to turn down the money, an amount that would cover more than half its yearly budget, capped weeks of sleepless nights and debate. Many there felt Trumps rhetoric singling out Islamic extremism and his travel ban affecting predominantly Muslim countries had gone too far.



It also marked the fourth organization nationwide under the Trump administration to reject the money for a program created under President Barack Obama known as countering violent extremism (CVE), which officials say aims to thwart extremist groups abilities to recruit would-be terrorists.

Soul searching

Bayan Claremont had received the second-largest grant, among the first 31 federal grants for CVE awarded to organizations, schools and municipalities in the dwindling days of the Obama administration. The school had hoped to use the money to help create a new generation of Muslim community leaders, with $250,000 earmarked for more than a dozen local nonprofits doing social justice work.



But the fledgling schools founding president, Jihad Turk, said officials ultimately felt accepting the money would do more harm than good.



Its a heck of a lot of money, (but) our mission and our vision is to serve the community and to bring our community to a position of excellence, Turk said. And if were compromised, even if only by perception in terms of our standing in the community, we ultimately cant achieve that goal, he said, adding that accepting the funds would be short-sighted.



The schools internal debate is also emblematic of handwringing among grassroots and nonprofit organizations involved in the program in the last couple weeks.

Others turn down grants



At Unity Productions Foundation of Potomac Falls, Virginia, officials said they would decline a grant of $396,585 to produce educational films challenging narratives supporting extremist ideologies and violent extremism due to the changes brought by the new administration, according to a private message to donors reviewed by The Associated Press.



And in Dearborn, Michigan, Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities said last week it was turning down $500,000 for youth-development and public-health programs because of the current political climate. Ka Joog, a leading Somali nonprofit organization in Minneapolis, also turned down $500,000 for its youth programs.



The Homeland Security Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.



A U.S. official said the Trump administration has been discussing changing the Obama administration programs name, established as a presidential strategy in 2011, to an iteration of countering Islamic extremism. The official, who has knowledge of the discussions, was not authorized to speak publicly about the proposal and spoke on condition of anonymity.

20 percent of funds rejected

All told, more than 20 percent of the roughly $10 million awarded by the Homeland Security Department has been rejected. And other groups have signaled they may follow suit, should the name change.



Turk said school officials had reservations about the CVE strategy under Obama because they felt theres no clear or proven pathway to violence for someone with a particular extreme ideology. The group went ahead, despite worries by some activists that the program equated to a government surveillance program, because it believed the previous administration wasnt hostile to their faith.



But amid what Turk called Trumps fixation on the American Muslim community, it became clear that the presidents actions were more than campaign-trail rhetoric, he said.



It was becoming more and more apparent, Turk said of Trump, that hes actually looking to carry out all the scary stuff he said.
A new exhibition takes a look at how American artists found inspiration in rural landscapes during an era of modernist art that was more closely associated with cities.



"Cross Country: The Power of Place in American Art, 1915-1950'' opens Sunday at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. It features about 200 works from more than 80 artists, including Georgia O'Keeffe, Grant Wood, Jacob Lawrence and Andrew Wyeth. It is divided into five geographical regions - the South, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Northeast and the West - based on the part of the country featured in the works.



"The thing that they all share is that these are all works that reflect an artist thinking about or being moved by a specific location,'' High curator of American art Stephanie Heydt said.





While American artists still traveled to Europe for instruction and inspiration in the first half of the 20th century, many also began to focus on things that were new to them closer to home, Heydt said. They looked outside major cities and found pastoral settings with barns and rolling hills, industrialism creeping into previously pristine spaces, dramatic vistas and scenes of regular people living their everyday lives.



"We often think of modernity being sparked by modern urban spaces,'' Heydt said. "But the story should also include the rural spaces, the places that artists retreated to.''



She cited four main reasons for the artists' travel: relaxation and escape from the bustle of the urban environment; a sense of community found in artist colonies and art schools; government or foundation grants or commissions from commercial customers; curiosity about unfamiliar places and a desire to experience the unknown.



Thomas Hart Benton, usually associated with the Midwest, traveled to the South and captures a weathered old tobacco farmer teaching a slight young girl about tobacco leaves in "Tobacco Sorters,'' a commission for a tobacco company that was ultimately rejected. Another of his pieces, "The Cliffs,'' shows sculpted-looking cliffs rising over crashing waves on the island of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.





"Opening Day at Talladega College,'' painted by Hale Woodruff in 1942, is one of a series of six murals for the historically black college's library that traces the slave's journey to freedom. The bright colors lend vibrancy to the scenes of former slaves registering for classes. The other five murals are on display in another part of the High to complement this exhibition.



In "Black Hunter,'' Andrew Wyeth paints an old friend of his in a rural field. The painting, drawn from the artist's personal memories, has a haunting quality, Heydt noted. It hangs near works by his father N.C. Wyeth and sister Carolyn Wyeth.



O'Keeffe's "Red Canna'' captures the canna lilies that caught the artist's eye when she visited the family home in Lake George, New York, of her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, whose photographs are on display nearby. The painting, from 1919, gives a preview of her bright floral paintings with blended colors that have become so popular.





Maynard Dixon's "Red Butte with Mountain Men,'' a stunning large-scale painting from 1935, shows men on horseback in the shadow of spectacular rock formations. The warm colors radiate from the canvas like sunlight reflecting from the mesas.



A large-scale print of Ansel Adams' iconic "Yosemite Valley from Inspiration Point, Winter, Yosemite National Park'' captures the majesty of the Western landscape in a way that is so familiar but still breathtaking.



The exhibition is a collaboration between the High and the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and expands on a recent Brandywine show called "Rural Modern: American Art Beyond the City.''
President Donald Trump has promised more legal action after a federal appeals court refused to reinstate his ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations. Trump tweeted "SEE YOU IN COURT" after the decision came out Thursday, but what he has in mind remains to be seen.

Trump said Friday that he has "no doubt" he will win the case in court and told reporters he's considering signing a "brand-new order" on immigration.

The 3-0 ruling means that refugees and people from the seven nations -- Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen -- can continue entering the United States for now. The administration has several options on how to proceed. Here's a look at where the legal fight goes from here.

Rehearing at the Appeals Court

The Trump administration could decide to ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the three-judge panel's ruling. But the odds of success seem low, said Margo Schlanger, a law professor at the University of Michigan. She noted that the three-judge panel was unanimous and included a judge chosen by a Republican president.

Supreme Court appeal

The government could file an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court and ask the justices to restore the ban. But it would take at least five justices to overturn the ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and that may be a long shot. The high court still has only eight members since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia -- four conservative and four liberal justices.

"There are almost surely four votes to deny an emergency request to reinstate the order," said Peter Spiro, a law professor at Temple University.

The last immigration case to reach the justices ended in a 4-4 deadlock last year. That suggests a similar split over Trump's order, which would let the 9th Circuit ruling stand and keep the freeze in place.

Waiting for Gorsuch

If the Supreme Court declines to intervene right away, the case would remain in the 9th Circuit and ultimately be considered on its legal merits. It also could return to U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle, who temporarily blocked the ban after Washington state and Minnesota urged a nationwide hold on the Jan. 27 order.

The lower court action so far is temporary and hasn't resolved broader questions about the legality of Trump's order. It simply halts deportations or other actions until judges can more fully consider whether the order violates legal or constitutional rights.

Allowing the case to play out longer at the appeals court has one advantage: By the time a ruling on the merits comes down, the Senate may have confirmed Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. That may improve Trump's chances to prevail on appeal.

But just how the issue might reach the Supreme Court isn't clear. Several other challenges have been launched in courts around the country, and the court could opt to wait before stepping in.

Revising the executive order

The White House could amend the executive order to expressly carve out existing green card holders and other people that already have some ties to the United States. Up to 60,000 visas were initially canceled in the wake of the ban, affecting the lives of students, professors and workers.

White House counsel Donald McGahn had issued guidance days after the executive order saying it didn't apply to legal permanent residents of the U.S., but the appeals court said that was not enough.

"The government has offered no authority establishing that the White House counsel is empowered to issue an amended order superseding the executive order signed by the president," the opinion said.

Revising the order "shifts the legal boundaries so that it becomes a tougher constitutional target,'' Spiro said.

The appeals court issued a sharp rebuke to the Justice Department's argument that the president has the constitutional power to restrict entry to the United States to prevent terrorism, and that courts cannot second-guess that authority.

"There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy," the opinion said.

Washington state, Minnesota and other states say Trump showed his intent in the presidential campaign when he called for a ban on Muslims entering the country. They also say his order discriminates against Muslims because it provides exceptions for refugees who practice a religion that makes them a minority in their home country. That would favor Christians in the countries affected.

The appeals court said the administration failed to show that the order satisfied constitutional requirements to provide notice or a hearing before restricting travel. But it did not rule on whether the order violated religious protections under the First Amendment.

Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni told a Virginia judge hearing arguments in a similar case on Friday that the administration hasn't decided what to do.
It's hard to find two bigger brand names than Coke and Marlboro, and Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) and Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) have both worked hard to make their products well-known across the globe. Unfortunately, both companies have increasingly had to deal with similar negative comments regarding the health concerns that many have about their respective products.
Advocacy groups are turning away U.S. federal grants to combat extremism after reports that the Trump administration wants to focus its counterterrorism effort exclusively on Muslim radicals.

The Reuters news agency reported last week that the Department of Homeland Security planned to change its "Countering Violent Extremism" program to "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism" and no longer would target white supremacists and other violent groups.

In the final days of the Obama administration, the Homeland Security Department announced $10 million in grants to a diverse group of 31 nonprofit groups and state agencies to combat all manner of extremism, from Muslim extremists to neo-Nazis. Now, at least three of the grantees have responded to the planned revamping and the Trump administration's perceived anti-Muslim policies by rejecting the money.

Forgoing grants

Ka Joog, a Somali-American youth organization in Minneapolis; Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities, a nonprofit that works in Dearborn, Mich.; and Unity Productions Foundation in Virginia have all spurned their grants. Several others are reviewing their offers, while other grantees such as the Muslim Public Affairs Council are taking a wait-and-see approach.

Hoda Hawa, MPAC's director of policy and advocacy, said she'd heard from congressional staffers and government officials that Trump was considering renaming the CVE program through an executive order.

"We'd vigorously oppose such a program, and in fact, we'll be working on multiple fronts, including legislative and legal, to stop its creation and implementation," Hoda said.

Another nonprofit official said he'd received conflicting information about the reported change, with some officials "reassuring" his organization that no renaming was in the works.

A Homeland Security spokesman declined to comment on the report. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said he did not have information about it, but he said at a White House briefing February 3 that it would not be a surprise that "rooting out radical Islamic terrorism" is a major focus of the Trump administration.

With its neutral name, the Countering Violent Extremism initiative, launched in 2015, ostensibly sought to combat all violent ideologies, but Muslim critics felt their community of 3.3 million was its real target.

Controversy abounds

Regardless of whether the administration renames the program, experts say the new White House's growing focus on "radical Islamic terrorism" to the exclusion of other extremists is troubling to many.

"The threat today is so diffuse that tomorrow we could have an intermediate or mass casualty event across a spectrum of ideologies of which violent Salafist jihadists are but one," said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino.

The Department of Homeland Security has said the threat of violent extremism has evolved in recent years, with individuals inspired by the Islamic State terrorist group and al-Qaida posing the "most immediate threat." However, research indicates the level of Muslim involvement in violent extremism in the United States remains relatively low.

According to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, since the attacks of September 2001, far-right extremists have carried out 89 attacks, causing 158 deaths, while Muslim extremists have been responsible for 41 acts of terror, killing 119 people. Levin's data, however, show that "Salafist jihadists" killed a larger number than far-right extremists.

Adnan Kifayat, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, a public policy and grant-making group, said refocusing the program exclusively on Islamic extremism would make it more difficult for Muslims to cooperate with government counterterrorism efforts.

"My sense is that, unfortunately, the Trump administration will only be focused on radical Islam and Middle East-based terrorist organizations and that the administration will continue to associate countering violent extremism with an entire religion, if not an entire region of the world," said Kifayat, who is also head of global security ventures at the Gen Next Foundation, a "venture philanthropy" group that works to create opportunities and confront challenges in education, economic opportunity and global security.

"I think we need to invest far more in these programs," Kifayat added. "What we cannot do is have the administration talk about countering violent extremism and then come the kind of executive orders that are simply not going to solve the problems."

Constitutional questions

Other critics of renaming the program say it could run afoul of the Constitution.

"Insofar as the administration is singling out Islam as the root of terrorism, one could argue a violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause because it disfavors one faith tradition and group in contrast to others," said Engy Abdelkader, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University in Washington.

"Policies and tactics that single out innocent Americans on account of their faith practices may also trigger the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause," Abdelkader said.

But John Banzhaf, a professor of law at George Washington University in Washington, said the government enjoys broad authority to choose counterterrorism targets and methods. As long as federal agencies can show a "compelling public interest," they can use religion or race as a factor in conducting counterterrorism.

"Undoubtedly someone will try to raise legal objections to it, but I think overall it would be constitutional, it would be legal," Banzhaf said of the reported plan to rename the Countering Violent Extremism initiative.

Rather than excluding other groups from the program, Banzhaf suggested splitting it up into parts that focus on different strands of extremism.

"Each of these is different enough that you'll probably want to have a different program, and this will make people feel a lot better because it's not as if you're abandoning all the others," he said.
A high-ranking, influential Islamic State foreign fighter linked to numerous attacks and plots in France may have been killed in a coalition airstrike.

Coalition forces targeted Rachid Kassim, a senior ISIS operative near Mosul, in a strike in the past 72 hours, Pentagon spokesman Major Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway said, using an acronym for the militant group. We are currently assessing the results of that strike.

Kassim traveled to Syria with his wife and three children in 2012 and has been tied to at least four plots to attack France since June 2016.

Among them was the murder of a French priest in Normandy, France, in June 2016 and the attempted attack on the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, when three French women parked a car filled with explosives nearby. The women were later arrested.

In an IS video from 2016, Kassim was shown beheading a captive and threatened French President Francois Hollande. He also called on French citizens to carry out attacks.

The strike targeting Kassim was first reported by French media.
Peru asked for international help in finding former president Alejandro Toledo, wanted in connection with a far-reaching bribery probe, saying on Friday that he was likely now in San Francisco and may try to flee to Israel.

The government of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who served as prime minister and finance minister during Toledo's 2001-06 term, said it was asking authorities in the United States and Israel to help find and return him to Peru.

A judge on Thursday ruled that Toledo, who denies any wrongdoing, must be jailed for up to 18 months while influence peddling and money laundering charges are prepared against him.

Prosecutors allege that Toledo, 70, took $20 million in bribes from Brazil's Odebrecht SA, a family-owned construction conglomerate at the center of Latin America's biggest region-wide graft scandal.

The downfall of Toledo, once a pro-democracy hero and anti-corruption crusader to many in Peru, has raised questions about who might be next as Odebrecht provides testimony on high-ranking officials it bribed from Argentina to Panama.

Interpol issued a red alert notice to 190 member countries to search for and capture Toledo, Kuczynski's Cabinet said on Friday.

The Interior Ministry has offered 100,000 soles ($30,000) for information leading to his capture.

"Anyone in the world who can help us find him can claim the reward," Interior Minister Carlos Basombrio said. "Peru doesn't deserve to see another president flee justice."

Toledo rose to power denouncing widespread corruption in the government of his predecessor, Alberto Fujimori, who fled to Japan amid a far-reaching graft inquiry in 2000. Fujimori is now serving a 25-year sentence in Peru for corruption and human rights abuses during his decade-long authoritarian rule.

Toledo has not been charged with or convicted of any crimes.

He was last known to be in France a week ago.

Toledo's lawyer, Heriberto Benitez, denied that Toledo was on the run and told Reuters he was waiting for the results of an appeal. Benitez declined to say where Toledo was, citing a confidentiality agreement with his client.

After the judge's decision, Benitez said he would recommend Toledo not return to Peru to face a justice system he called "vindictive." He said he believes Toledo should be investigated but thought preventive detention was excessive, calling it a hallmark of autocratic regimes.

Justice Minister Marisol Perez Tello said Toledo would be guaranteed a fair trial.

"We're all very ashamed of what this looks like internationally; all we're asking is that he come back to explain what happened," Perez Tello said.

Toledo has earned postgraduate economics degrees from Stanford University, near San Francisco, and has lectured there.

Toledo's wife has Israeli citizenship and his longtime friend, Peruvian-Israeli businessman Yosef Maiman, is believed to live there.

Peru does not have an extradition treaty with Israel but does have one with the United States.

The U.S. and Israeli embassies in Lima did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Prosecutors, citing testimony from an Odebrecht executive, alleged Toledo made a pact with the company to help it win two lucrative highway contracts in exchange for bribes he asked to be deposited in the accounts of offshore companies controlled by Maiman.

Authorities have traced some $10 million from Odebrecht to Maiman's companies so far.

Maiman did not respond to requests for comment.

Toledo made two unsuccessful bids for a second presidential term in 2011 and 2016 and had not ruled out a third attempt in 2021.
Prime Minister Beata Szydlo suffered injuries in a car crash in southern Poland Friday and was flown by helicopter to Warsaw for medical tests, even though doctors and her spokesman said that she was not badly hurt.



The accident occurred shortly before 7 p.m. in the southern town of Oswiecim, which is Szydlos hometown. Szydlo, 53, was traveling in a convoy along the towns main road when another car drove into her black Audi limousine, causing it to hit a tree.



The state broadcaster TVP published an image of the limousine with the front of the car bashed in.

Prognosis good

Government spokesman Rafal Bochenek said Szydlo was in good condition but had been flown 350 kilometers (215 miles) by helicopter to a government hospital in Warsaw for further monitoring and tests.



The car that hit the prime ministers vehicle was a small Fiat driven by a 21-year-old man who was sober, said Sebastian Glen, a police spokesman. Two security officers, one of whom was the cars driver, were also taken to a hospital with injuries.



Dr. Andrzej Jakubowski, who examined Szydlo in the hospital in Oswiecim, a town of 40,000, said she was stable and conscious all the time and was talking and very strong given the trauma. Jakubowski said Szydlo suffered some injuries but that the prognosis is good.



Oswiecim is best known to the world by its German name, Auschwitz. It is the town where Nazi Germany ran the death camp in occupied Poland during World War II and today is the site of a memorial and museum that draws large numbers of visitors.



Polands interior minister called an emergency meeting with the leadership of the Government Protection Office, which protects and drives Szydlo and other top figures. Meanwhile, prosecutors also opened an investigation.

String of accidents

It was the latest in a string of road incidents involving top state officials.



In November, several vehicles in a Polish government convoy collided during a state visit to Israel. Szydlo was not in one of those that collided, but two other Polish officials had minor injuries.



Separately, Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz escaped uninjured from an eight-car collision in January.



In March 2016, a limousine carrying President Andrzej Duda skidded into a grassy ditch because of a punctured tire. Duda was unhurt.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe got a hug at the front door of the White House on Friday.

"I shook hands, but I grabbed him and hugged him because that's the way we feel," President Donald Trump told reporters during a joint news conference with Abe a bit later.

Left unexplained was Trump's 19-second handshake with the visiting Japanese leader while they both sat for the cameras in the Oval Office.

Prolonged handshakes between leaders are not unusual for such staged media encounters, known in the business as a "camera spray," but they are most always analyzed for the state of relations between the two sides.

Friday's complex clasp immediately set social media abuzz. Commenters on Twitter variously described it as "awkward," "never-ending" and "weirdly aggressive."

Trump said something about "strong hands." (It wasn't clear whether the president was complimenting Abe's grip or talking about his own famous fingers.)

At the end of the encounter, which included a double-handed Trump yank and grab, the normally subdued Abe stood mouth agape with a wide-eyed expression, and planted his hands into the armrests of his chair as he looked away from the president.

WATCH: Trump and Abe Shake Hands in Oval Office

Expert astonished

A specialist in interpersonal communication exclaimed "Oh, my God!" three times when first reviewing the clip of Friday's Oval Office encounter.

Human behavior researcher Patti Wood said that by initially offering his hand palm up to his visitor, Trump "wants to show he's subordinate"  a highly unusual gesture for the veteran dealmaker.

But then Trump put Abe "off kilter," Wood told VOA, by dragging Abe's hand closer to him. This is a presidential gesture seen previously, such as in greeting Vice President Mike Pence or Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.

Abe's discomfort, according to Wood, can be seen from his free hand: fingers curled, close to his body.

"Trump likes to break expectations," added Wood, an author who has been an instructor on body language and communications at several universities.

Trump then proceeds to pat Abe's hand, she noted, to show "I'm still in power. I'm going to show dominance."

Another veteran interpreter of the language of the body, former University of South California professor Lilian Glass, saw the encounter in a different light.

"Trump is a very affectionate guy, and people don't realize it," she told VOA.

According to Glass, a grinning Trump's gestures with Abe meant "We're with you" and "I really like you."

During their time before the cameras, the two leaders were having fun, she added.

Cultural disconnect

Glass, who helps train politicians and Hollywood actors how to communicate, explained that if there is any disconnect between Trump and Abe, it is a cultural one, as Japanese handshakes tend to be "very, very limp." So the prime minister encountering the presidential hand-clamp was "not used to that behavior, but it's the American way."

Abe, she suggested, would most likely have been comfortable with a diplomatic bow, but if Trump "had to bow, it would be weird."

Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, faced criticism in 2009 when he combined a handshake and 45-degree bow facing Japanese Emperor Akihito. At the time, historians noted that a Republican president, Richard Nixon, had bowed deeply, without a resulting uproar, in a 1971 encounter with Akihito's father, Emperor Hirohito.

Before he entered politics, Trump wasn't much for shaking hands, let alone bowing. A self-declared "germaphobe," Trump initially eschewed offering his hand to potential voters on the hustings. He eventually embraced the practice, however, and made it part of the unconventional campaign that led him to the Oval Office and encounters such as the one he enjoyed with the Japanese leader on Friday.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos made her first visit to a public school Friday, and was met by dozens of protesters who tried to keep her from entering the building.

At least two protesters blocked DeVos' entrance to the Jefferson Middle School Academy in Washington, slightly more than one kilometer from her new office at the U.S. Department of Education.

DeVos remained inside her sport utility vehicle for a few minutes, dodging the most aggressive demonstrators, but eventually found another way into the building. Police said they arrested one man for assaulting a police officer.

City education officials criticized the protesters, saying that DeVos, a wealthy education activist who has never been a teacher, a school administrator or even attended any public school, needs to understand what goes on in the U.S. system of public education. The mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, tweeted: We welcome Betsy DeVos and anyone who wants to learn more about our schools.

Jefferson Middle School Academy is considered one of the most outstanding schools in the nation's capital.

Former secretary offers support

Former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who served during the administration of former President Barack Obama, added his voice to the debate on Twitter: Let's all agree [DeVos] really needs to be in public schools. Please let her in.

DeVos' opponents said they plan to continue protesting her appointment at every opportunity.

DeVos herself told reporters her visit was awesome.

It was really wonderful to visit this school, and I look forward to many visits of many great public schools, both in D.C. and around the country, she said. Thanks very much.

Controversial choice

DeVos, a 59-year-old billionaire philanthropist and political activist, was a highly controversial choice for education secretary because of her lack of experience in public schools and her past activism supporting school voucher programs  a government program in many areas of the country that provides financial assistance to parents who do not want their children to attend public schools. Critics say school vouchers drain funding from public schools and divert it to fee-paid private schools that in many cases can support themselves financially.

During hearings in the U.S. Senate before the vote that confirmed her nomination by President Donald Trump, DeVos attracted attention and derision when she was asked why she would not support rules prohibiting firearms in all school buildings. DeVos said some schools in rural areas might need to be protected against attacks by grizzly bears.
The forested landscape of Russia's Karelia is dotted with a necklace of decaying concrete bunkers stretching from the Gulf of Finland to the shores of Lake Ladoga.

During World War II, the defensive line held back the Finnish Army, which participated with the Germans in the 900-day siege of Leningrad. But now, environmentalists say, it presents a serious danger: radioactivity.

The St. Petersburg branch of the Bellona environmental NGO has measured radiation in some of the bunkers at more than 1,000 times background levels. The levels of radiation from alpha particles exceeded the limits of their detection equipment -- 30,000 particles per square centimeter per minute.

Radiation problem

"There was no electricity in the bunkers, so they installed panels with fluorescent paint that would shine for many years," said Aleksei Shchukhin, a Bellona specialist on radiation. Now those panels have become a problem.

The bunkers -- part of the so-called Stalin Line -- were built in the 1920s and 1930s but were modernized in the 1950s. Abandoned in the 1990s, the bunkers attract hikers, history buffs, children playing soldier, and homeless people. Some of them have been used as the foundations for homes. Others are used to store preserved fruits and vegetables.

I decided to take the [radiation] detector as long as I happened to have it with me. And we were in for a very unpleasant surprise."

Bellona estimates that tens of thousands of people have visited the bunkers since the military pulled out. There are about 230 of the bunkers, but it remains unknown how many of them are irradiated.

The potential danger was first discovered by chance late last year, when members of a volunteer organization called North-West, which searches for human remains and artifacts from the war, visited a bunker to take some photographs.

"We went there with the head of North-West, and I thought I would grab my radiation detector, which I happened to have in the car," Anton Kolomitsyn, the North-West activist who first discovered the radiation, told RFE/RL's Russian Service. "People are always climbing around in those bunkers, including myself, so I decided to take the detector as long as I happened to have it with me. And we were in for a very unpleasant surprise."

Ironically, North-West activists used to lead excursions to visit the bunkers for history enthusiasts.

Slow to react

Although the activists have raised the alarm, local and military authorities have been slow to react. Officials say the bunkers are not emitting radiation into the environment.

But environmentalists say officials are ignoring the many people who are exposed to high levels of radiation inside the bunkers.

"All of these bunkers are open," activist Shchukin said. "They are accessible to children and all the other residents of Leningrad Oblast. People go there without knowing the danger. There are no signs that these are radioactive objects. They are not closed."

Sergei Gribalyov, head of the testing laboratory of the Leningrad Oblast Legislative Assembly's Ecology Commission, told RFE/RL that his experts have confirmed Bellona's findings.

"I plan to ask the commission to authorize a complete study," Gribalyov said. "It is expensive work and it needs to be done by specialists. But I am pessimistic. Even though it is the Year of Ecology, there have been sharp cuts to all environmental programs and ecological projects. If we ask for money to decontaminate the bunkers, we will most likely encounter opposition."

For now, Gribalyov is placing his hopes on the local population, hoping that some nongovernmental organization will agree at least to help put up warning signs. Or even to pay to have the bunker doors welded shut.
Hundreds of people held a rally Saturday in Somalias capital Mogadishu in support of the countrys new president, demanding political representation in the Upper-house of the Parliament and a role in the countrys political power sharing system.

The rally gathered at the citys main Daljirka Dahson square carrying banners and placards, and chanting slogans in support of the newly installed President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo.

One banner read: Hamar [Mogadishu] deserves respect and representation as it is the mother of Somalia and the seat of Somali government.

Regional officials and community leaders who attended the rally called for the countrys new president and parliament to help the capital get political representation and address the grievances of its residents.

The current mayor of Mogadishu, Hussein Yusuf Jimale, led the spirited rally to demand passage of the citys political rights, including voting rights in parliament.

We want to send a message to the countrys parliament and the new president that the people of Mogadishu who are the defenders of the Somali peoples rights would not accept to be deprived of their political representation, the mayor said.

We gathered here to support our new president and in the meantime demand our citys political rights, one resident said.

Somalia has a parliament that consists of lower and upper houses. The lower house is based on representation of clans through the countrys clan-based power-sharing political system, but the upper-house has been based on federal member states representation.

Somalias Provisional Constitution does not give Mogadishu a status of a federal member state.

It reads: The capital city of the Federal Republic of Somalia is Mogadishu. The status of the capital city of Somalia shall be determined in the constitutional review process, and the two houses of the Somali Federal Parliament shall enact a special law with regards to this issue.
Every Valentine's Day, U.S. businesses reap great profits on all things red, pink and heart-shaped.

But for tourists roaming Times Square in New York City, there's a big red-and-pink heart that costs them nothing  and it's learning opportunity.

On display through March 5, beneath the big-apple-red stadium seating on Broadway and 46th Street, is the winning sculpture of this year's Times Square Valentine Heart, called "We Were Strangers Once Too."

The lesson, according to its artists, is to celebrate diversity by way of public data and visual art.

"After the election, we in the studio  were really upset about the language that was coming out about immigration," said Jer Thorp, founder and principal of the Office for Creative Research, a Brooklyn research group.

Thorp and his team decided their sculpture would focus on immigration, something he said "makes this city great." His team spent six weeks producing a sculpture featuring 33 metal poles, inscribed with data from the 2015 American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau.

As visitors make their way around each section, they view the diverse origins and shifting population patterns of New York City's foreign-born residents. Upon reaching the final observation point, a red-and-pink heart appears on full display.

"It's an interesting manifestation of data, to make data real," said Stephen Jaklitsch, an architect who attended the sculpture's opening ceremony. "To see the relative numbers of people from different countries  and then all of us united in one large heart  I think is an interesting piece."

Thorp, himself an immigrant from Canada, says the structure is meant to serve as an important reminder to all who visit.

"Immigrants are our mothers and our fathers and our grandmothers, and our sons and daughters and our loved ones, and our friends," Thorp said. "There is love at the center of this community."
There was confusion in Israel Friday over the publication of President Donald Trump's first interview with Israeli media, in which he made his strongest statements yet on Israeli settlement building.

They [settlements] don't help the process," he told the Israel Hayom newspaper, which on Friday published excerpts from the interview. There is so much land left. And every time you take land for settlements, there is less land left.

Israelis say they are not sure what to expect out of the new American president when he meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington next week.

Many people are having a tough time understanding Trump, said Knesset insider Jeremy Man Saltan. It is difficult to see how Trump can be the man to close the ultimate deal between Israel and the Palestinians if both Israel's coalition and opposition currently oppose his positions.

Trumps election welcomed

Trump's election win last November was welcomed by Israel's right wing.

Trump's victory is an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state in the center of the country, which would hurt our security and just cause, Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party, said at the time.

Little wonder he was hopeful. In May 2016, for example, Trump told Britain's Daily Mail that Israeli settlement building should "keep going" and "keep moving forward," which observers say was seen as a green light for Israel to continue expansion into the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

On Monday, Israel's Knesset passed a law that retroactively legalized thousands of housing units in more than a dozen settlements on 2,000 acres of Palestinian land, which Palestinians claim for a future state.

The White House did not comment on the new law. Trump spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Wednesday that the issue would obviously be on the agenda for talks between Trump and Netanyahu next week. But on February 3, Spicer said the settlements were not helpful.

Previous U.S. leaders have called the settlements an impediment to peace. The United Nations Security Council in late December passed a resolution calling the settlements a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to a peaceful, two-state solution.

The United States abstained from that vote, angering Netanyahu, who rejected what he called a shameful anti-Israel resolution" and said Israel "will not abide by its terms. He said he would re-evaluate ties with the U.N., and he ordered a review of the funding of U.N. institutions and the presence of U.N. representatives in Israel.

Small earthquake'

In his interview with Israel Hayom, Trump said the White House would continue to study the issue of settlements. But, no, I am not somebody that believes that going forward with these settlements is a good thing for peace, he said.

News of the interview broke around noon Israeli time on Friday, said Israeli commentator Marc Schulman, and he called it a small earthquake for the right wing.

They had been pressuring Netanyahu to make use of this historic opportunity of the [sympathetic] Trump presidency, and now they were hearing, in his words from a friendly newspaper, that there was limited land and increasing settlements are bad for reaching peace, Schulman said.

Bezalel Smotrick, a powerful newcomer to right-wing politics in Israel, was particularly disturbed by the interview, according to Schulman, suggesting that coming so close to next week's meeting in Washington, it was a sign that Netanyahu might shift his own policy.

Wait and see

Ori Nir, the spokesman for Americans for Peace Now, has adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

As a dealmaker, Trump should know that actions speak louder than words, said Nir. If he really wants to make a difference and make a deal, he should resist being manipulated by Israeli, Palestinian or other politicians, and pursue what he knows best serves America's national security interests: a two-state solution based on guidelines set by consecutive U.S. administrations.

And he added, This imperative should guide the president when he meets with Prime Minister Netanyahu next week.
A newly formed group hopes to buy out Whiteclay's beer stores and shut them down as part of an effort to redevelop the troubled, unincorporated village in northwest Nebraska.

Owners of all four beer stores have already expressed interest in the plan, said Bruce BonFleur, founder of Whiteclay's Lakota Hope Ministry and a member of the redevelopment group.

"They're dead serious," BonFleur said Saturday. "We believe that the beer store owners are ready to sell out. They're waiting for an offer."

Now the group is trying to raise $6.3 million to fund the buyout and kick-start Whiteclay's transformation. It has launched a website, WhiteclayRedo.com, and plans to formally begin its fundraising efforts as soon as next week.

The four beer stores sell millions of cans of beer each year to residents of the nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, about 200 yards north of Whiteclay across the Nebraska-South Dakota state line. Alcoholism and its symptoms, including fetal alcohol syndrome, are rampant on the reservation despite alcohol being banned there.

The stretch of highway connecting Whiteclay to Pine Ridge has been labeled one of the worst in the nation, BonFleur said.

"Our plan is to turn that into a miracle two miles."

He announced the fundraising effort to about 75 people during a legislative event Saturday at Christ United Methodist Church in Lincoln, 4530 A St.

The redevelopment group -- a low-profit limited liability company, or L3C -- was formed in Wyoming and includes Christian businessmen from Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota, BonFleur said.

They hope the beer stores' uncertain fate will provide some leverage.

Last year, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission ordered all four stores to reapply for their liquor licenses, citing concerns about law enforcement in the area. A hearing is scheduled for early March.

In the meantime, BonFleur said he has met with the beer store owners at least four times to discuss buying them out.

"It's possible that in a month and a half or so, their livelihood -- some of them for the past 30 years -- ends," he said. "The other incentive for them is because they're tired of it."

The stores are Arrowhead Inn, State Line Liquor, D&S Pioneer Service and Jumping Eagle Inn. The owners either couldn't be reached or declined to comment.

If the buyout effort succeeds, BonFleur said the redevelopment group plans to take additional steps to ensure more liquor stores don't pop up.

That could include seeking a presidential executive order to reinstate the buffer zone on the reservation's southern border. The zone was formed by executive order in the 1800s in large part to prevent white people from selling alcohol to people from the reservation, but was eliminated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904.

BonFleur said the redevelopment group's other goal is to promote the national identity of Pine Ridge's Oglala Lakota people and improve Nebraskans' understanding of the tribe.

"Our culture has looked as them as a people, as a nation, as less than us," he said.

That goal fits with the priorities set by a working group convened by Gov. Pete Ricketts, on which BonFleur serves, as well as a similar list compiled by lawmakers who have examined Whiteclay issues.

State Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon, an Oglala Lakota tribal member whose district includes Whiteclay, said he's doubtful the Liquor Control Commission will deny the licenses next month.

That means buying out the stores "may be the only solution to fix Whiteclay," he said.

Ending Whiteclay beer says won't fully stop the flow of alcohol onto the reservation, Brewer said, and some people would surely still drive to nearby Gordon, Rushville or Chadron for booze.

But he compared closing beer stores within walking distance of Pine Ridge with shutting down a Starbucks on a commuter's route to work.
As the Trump administration promises to take a hard line on Iran, U.S. pressure could rise against Iranian proxy Hezbollah, which has a key fighting role in backing the Syrian regime in its fight against rebels, analysts say.



In their first meeting next week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to use U.S. President Donald Trumps frustration with Iran to pursue new sanctions against Tehran and seek pressure on Hezbollah, according to analysts.



The two leaders will meet at a critical time with the new U.S. administration cobbling together its Mideast strategies. They will be seeking to reboot a relationship that fractured under icy relations between Netanyahu and former U.S. president Barack Obama.



Hezbollah  known as the Party of God  is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European allies, and follows a Shi'ite ideology that calls for the destruction of Israel. It has expanded beyond its Lebanese borders in recent years and has been fighting in Syria on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad and Iran in Syria's civil war.



"Iran seeks to annihilate Israel, it seeks to conquer the Middle East, it threatens Europe, it threatens the West, it threatens the world. And it offers provocation after provocation," Netanyahu said in Britain this week.



"That's why I welcome President Trump's assistance of new sanctions against Iran, he said, adding that he hopes other nations join in.

Netanyahu agenda

Netanyahu, whose Israeli forces have struck Hezbollah convoys in Syria, is likely to make the pitch that sidelining Hezbollah is good for the security of the volatile Mideast, analysts say.





It is obvious that not only Israelis but some Gulf rivals of Iran are going to carry their goals on the waves of Trumps anger with Tehran, said Joseph Bahout, a scholar in Carnegie's Middle East Program. Netanyahu will clearly do his best to convince the U.S. president that  hampering Hezbollah is a big part of the security base strategy he tries to share with Trump.



Sam Bazzi, a Middle East affairs analyst and director of the Islamic Counterterrorism Institute based in Washington, D.C., said Hezbollah is worrisome on a number of levels, particularly if confrontation with Iran is looming.



I'd say in this particular situation one cannot go to the heart of the regime before paralyzing its long arms: Hezbollah, the pro-regime Iraqi Shi'ite militias, and the Houthis [in Yemen], Bazzi said.



Organically attached to the Lebanese Shi'ite diaspora, Hezbollah can inflict terror attacks throughout the world, bringing chaos to the West and many other countries worldwide," Bazzi said. "The Iraqi Shi'ite militias loyal to Tehran can attack U.S. and Western troops in Iraq.



Both are very vulnerable now in Syria and Iraq, said Bazzi.



The U.S. Air Force flies over them, and Sunni and Wahhabi militias wage war against them, he said. Without the Russian political and military umbrella, the U.S. can wipe out the Hezbollah forces deployed in Syria in a matter of weeks, which would certainly lead to the fall of the Assad regime. This, of course, could trigger chaos in Iran and embolden the Iraqi Sunnis.



Indeed, with Trump's rise to power, many members of the Shi'ite community in Lebanon are increasingly frightened and unsure about the future, Bazzi said.

Hezbollah intentions

For its part, Hezbollah hopes that Trump is so busy pursuing his America first policy that he will leave a lighter U.S. footprint in the Middle East, perhaps even setting the stage for a withdrawal from the region.





The more the U.S. policy turns toward isolationism, the more relieved the world would be from its troubles, Nawwaf Moussawi, a member of Hezbollah in the Lebanese parliament, said last month.



Some analysts believe Hezbollah has reasons for optimism and that Trumps possible policy in the region could, by default, strengthen the militant group.



Trumps reluctance toward the fight in Syria will practically provide more room for Hezbollah, a major player in Syria, to grow and flourish, said U.K.-based Middle East scholar Scott Lucas, an editor at the EA Worldview research organization.



Others argue that Hezbollah doesnt have the resources to create further instability in the region.



Hezbollah, now at its weakest situation ever in terms of legitimacy and manpower due to the big losses it suffered in Syria, will unlikely create unrest during the newly formed U.S. administration as it does not want to attract Trumps attention to its existence, said Alex Vatanka, a senior analyst at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.



Vatanka added that Hezbollah has lost its legitimacy among many Arab nations because of its involvement in Syria, and is transforming itself from a self-defending militant group inside Lebanon to a mercenary force for Iran.



However, Hezbollahs supporters believe that the group will pursue its long-held policy of fighting the occupation of what it calls Palestine by Israel, regardless of who is in charge in Washington.



"Hezbollah does not see much difference in power transition at the White House and will pursue its mission, which is to continue fighting against occupation," said Salem Zahran, head of Media Focal Center, a pro-Hezbollah group in Beirut.

US-Russia dynamic



There also are questions about how Trumps seemingly friendly approach toward Russia will affect the new U.S. policy in the Mideast. The Kremlin not only treats Hezbollah as an ally in the region, but also has reportedly armed the group.





Trumps rapprochement with Russia makes the situation more uncertain in the region, and this is what makes [Israel] concerned, said Meir Javedanfar, a Tel Aviv-based analyst.

In 2014, Russias deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov met with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut to discuss regional developments.

We maintain contacts and relations with them [Hezbollah] because we do not consider them a terrorist organization, the Interfax news agency quoted Bogdanov as saying.



Hezbollah also has claimed the group has the Kremlins blessing.



We are strategic allies in the Middle East right now - the Russians are our allies and give us weapons, a Hezbollah commander who called himself Bakr told the Daily Beast last year.
U.S. President Donald Trump says he is considering a "brand new order" on immigration after an appellate court unanimously ruled against his order barring refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

Trump told reporters on board Air Force One Friday that a new executive order could be issued as soon as Monday or Tuesday, if the administration decides to pursue that course of action.

He said such a move might be faster than defending the current rule in court. "We need speed for reasons of security," he explained.

WATCH: Trump addresses travel ban options on Air Force One

Chief of Staff Reince Priebus sought to clarify to reporters, however, that "every single court option is on the table, including an appeal of the 9th Circuit decision on the TRO (temporary restraining order) to the Supreme Court, including fighting out this case on the merits."

Meanwhile, an unidentified judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals requested the court's 25 full-time judges vote on whether the temporary block of the president's travel ban should be reheard before an 11-judge panel, known as en banc review, according to a court order. Both sides in the lawsuit have been asked to file briefs by next week.

Earlier Friday, Trump said he had no doubt that government attorneys would be able to overcome the appellate court's decision.

In the meantime, foreign travelers with valid visas can expect to enter the U.S. unhindered.

WATCH: Appeals Court refuses to reinstate Trump travel ban

Earlier, Trump said the legal dispute, which arose when states objected to the executive order, was not about politics but the security of the United States. Speaking at a White House news conference together with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump said he would be announcing new measures to bolster U.S. security next week.

Trump did not disclose any details about the new security measures, but said he intends to bar from the United States people who are looking to do harm. Critics have charged that his original order discriminated against members of the Muslim faith.

Referring to Thursday's decision by a three-judge panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the president indicated his administration will continue to pursue its case through the judicial system.

The appellate court let stand a lower court ruling that suspended Trump's immigration order, which has been widely referred to as a "ban," although it has more limited effects. The action allows travelers who were unable to enter the United States in late January to return and complete border formalities.

The ruling did not say definitively whether or not the president's action was constitutional. A professor law at Florida's University of Miami, David Abraham, told VOA the appeals court only reviewed the lower court order that halted enforcement of the president's order until its legality can be determined.

The temporary bar, the 'putting on ice' of the president's executive order," will continue until the underlying question is resolved, Abraham said, "...whether the president has the power without either congressional or judicial support to bar people as he did.

Appeal now seen uncertain

John Banzhaf, a law professor at George Washington University in the nation's capital, told VOA he believes any move by the Trump administration to immediately appeal the case to the Supreme Court is unlikely to succeed, because legal experts see the high court as ideologically divided, with four justices likely favoring Trump's view and the four others likely opposing it.

However, Banzhaf added, the administrations chances of prevailing in court would rise if the case is delayed until Trump's nominee to fill the vacant ninth seat on the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, is installed. A win for the government would be more likely, he said, if the case is put off until Gorsuch is confirmed by the Senate and sworn in; Gorsuch was only nominated on January 31, and the confirmation process is widely expected to take months.

If they wait until the lower courts decide the underlying, important issues - does the president have this authority? Is it constitutional? - by the time that important issue gets up to the Supreme Court, there will almost certainly be nine justices, Banzhaf said.

Trump took to Twitter following the appellate court's ruling on Thursday: See you in court, the security of our nation is at stake. A short time later, he told reporters at the White house that the court made a "political decision," and said his administration eventually would win the case "very easily."

Opponents warn of 'chaos'

In court arguments earlier this week, government attorney August Flentje argued that Trump's executive order was within the powers granted to him by Congress and the Constitution. In opposition, the solicitor general of Washington state, Noah Purcell, said reinstating the travel ban without a full judicial review would throw the country "back into chaos," with families separated and travelers confused and wondering whether they would be able to enter the country.

The University of Miami's Professor Abraham said it would be easier for Trump to replace the executive orders rather than try to fix them. These orders are tainted beyond recognition and the administration has already backed off substantial parts of them, he said.

Trumps original order was set to expire in 90 days, meaning it could expire before the issues goes before the Supreme Court. Before then, however, the administration could revise the scope of the order or its duration.
The United States has objected to the appointment of a former Palestinian prime minister to lead the U.N. political mission in Libya.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres notified the Security Council in a letter Thursday that he planned to name Western-educated economist Salam Fayyad to the position. The internationally respected Fayyad, 64, was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013 and was also the authority's finance minister.

But U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley released a statement late Friday saying the United States was "disappointed" at the choice.

"For too long the U.N. has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," Haley said in her statement. She added, "Going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies."

The United States is among a minority of U.N. members that do not recognize Palestine as an independent state, which has only nonmember observer status in the world body.

UN chief responds

The secretary-generals spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said Fayyad was chosen to lead the mission based on his experience and competence, and that U.N. personnel did not represent any government or country.

The secretary-general reiterates his pledge to recruit qualified individuals, respecting regional diversity, and notes that among others no Israeli and no Palestinian have served in a post of high responsibility at the United Nations, Dujarric said. This is a situation that the secretary-general feels should be corrected, always based on personal merit and competencies of potential candidates for specific posts.

Permanent representatives to the U.N. from France and Sweden also expressed support for Fayyad's appointment as special representative, saying they trusted Guterres' judgment on the issue.

"France reiterates its total trust to the secretary-general in identifying the personality that will represent the United Nations for Libya, a matter on which the international community needs more than ever to remain mobilized," French Permanent Representative Francois Delattre said.

Olof Skoog, permanent representative from Sweden, made a similar statement, saying that Fayyad "has the relevant experience and would be an excellent [representative] for the very important work relating to Libya."

In December, during the last days of the Obama administration, the U.S. chose not to veto a U.N. resolution on reining in Israeli settlement building, allowing the measure to pass. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the U.S. abstention and the resolution itself "shameful" and said his government would ignore its provisions.

US-Israel relations

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon released a statement Friday praising the Trump administration for its support of his country.

"This is the beginning of a new era at the U.N., an era where the U.S. stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish State," Danon said.

Trump's support for Israel, however, was thrown into question Friday after an interview with him was published in an Israeli newspaper. The U.S. president told the Israel Hayom newspaper that Israeli settlement building hurts the peace process.

"The [settlements] don't help the process," Trump said. "There is so much land left. And every time you take land for settlements, there is less land left."

Adding to the confusion, Trump told Britain's Daily Mail during his presidential campaign that Israeli settlement building should "keep moving forward."

Netanyahu is due to visit the United States on Wednesday, the same day the United Nations holds its monthly meeting on Middle East issues.

VOA's U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) says the landslide victory of President Robert Mugabes ruling party in a January by-election in Zimbabwes Bikita West constituency in Masvingo Province is a troubling bellwether for the future of the country.

ICG says it signals that presidential and parliamentary elections in mid-2018 are unlikely to be credible, free or fair, and also that without fundamental change through a legitimate election, Harare will maintain the self-destructive policies that have done so much damage.

In Bikita West, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) candidate, Beauty Chabaya, promoted from its provincial womens league, won with 77.9 per cent of the vote. The opposition complained of assaults, intimidation and threats of retribution by senior ZANU-PF figures against disloyal voters  the identification of whom was easier as voting results are broken down by polling station. Local party structures and traditional authorities also helped to monitor voters and in the run-up to the poll reportedly manipulated the distribution of food aid and farming inputs.

ICG says the Bikita West vote was the latest in a series of by-elections being watched for how Zimbabwe and the ZANU-PF will fare, not just in next years elections, but also during the transition from more than three decades of rule by the ailing President Robert Mugabe, 92.

Zimbabwes Relentless Decline

The organizationa says credible elections in 2018 will be crucial for arresting Zimbabwes precipitous decline. Considered a middle-income country in the 1990s, the economy nearly halved in the 2000s and has not recovered since. A large number of skilled workers in the government and private sector have left the country. According to the World Bank, 72 per cent of the population is poor and 20 per cent live in extreme poverty.

Zimbabweans, despite exposure to much poor governance, put great store in a legitimate electoral process leading to reform. But this will require more than simply depoliticising the institutional machinery responsible for elections. More years of unchanged policies would further entrench a corrupt government and predatory state incapable of decisive change, leading to further social stagnation, economic slowdown and risks for the future stability and development of the region.

Is says the opposition has struggled to make an impact following the 2013 elections defeat of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai (MDC-T) and subsequent turmoil within that party that resulted in the vacation of many parliamentary seats.

According to ICG, the main oppositions subsequent boycott has allowed ZANU-PF to win all but one of more than 20 post-2013 by-election contests and grow its two-thirds majority in parliament.

The ruling partys shock loss in the Norton constituency in the October 2016 by-election was seen by some as a sign of its vulnerability. The MDC-T and Joice Mujurus Zimbabwe Peoples First (ZimPF) coordinated with disaffected war veterans to elect the independent candidate, Themba Mliswa (a former ZANU-PF parliamentarian and Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwas cousin).

Some argue Mliswas victory demonstrated that a unified opposition could win, even without meaningful electoral reforms. But others contend that the loss was a result of a contest between ZANU-PF factions, and that the nominally independent Mliswa was a stalking horse for Vice President Mnangagwa against the official ZANU-PF candidate, Ronald Chindedza, who was loyal to a rival faction of the party.

ZANU-PFs Show of Force

ICG says there were no signs of ruling party vulnerability in Bikita West: President Mugabe sent a clear directive that the constituency be won at all costs; ZANU-PF presented a united front; and MDC-T and war veterans did not close ranks behind the main opposition candidate, ZimPFs Kudakwashe Gopo.

Opposition parties continue to talk, but, riven by infighting, have neither fully joined forces, nor been able to take advantage of ZANU-PFs internal discord either. ZANU-PFs most significant challenge remains the choice of Mugabes successor. Mugabe was re-endorsed at the partys National Conference in December as its presidential candidate for the 2018 elections, when he will be 94.

With his physical capacities visibly waning, his failure to put in place a clear succession plan appears to be designed both to temper the ambitions of Mnangagwa, who is regarded by many as an obvious heir, and also to soothe the frustrations of those opposed to the vice president. The intra-party discord and jockeying is likely to frustrate political and economic reform and thus Western re-engagement.

ICG notes that the sweeping victory for the ruling party in Bikita West raises deeper questions about the scale of popular support for the opposition. The National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA), an umbrella opposition campaigning platform, retains an official position of boycotting elections until the process is reformed, but has failed to present a united political front.

The MDC-T has boycotted all by-elections because promised reforms remain largely unaddressed, but others have joined in to varying extents.

It is unclear why ZimPF, a member of NERA, put up a candidate in the Bikita West election at all. There were internal ZimPF tensions over whether or not to participate, and the provincial party leaders who pushed against it have now resigned. In the end, the failure of ZimPFs candidate in Bikita West has now damaged ZimPF leader Mujurus prospects of leading an opposition coalition in the 2018 elections.

Addressing Zimbabwes Electoral Weakness

ZANU-PF vehemently denies allegations by the opposition and civil society of wrongdoing in Bikita West. But that is not enough to make the opposition trust institutions like the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), the police and the courts, which should be able to combat these violations. Severely underfunded after producing reports critical of the government, the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) cannot launch a serious inquiry into the elections.

The region, says ICG, could help. The Southern Africa Development Community and African Union have developed a framework for electoral conditions, and should launch an assessment of Zimbabwes democratic progress and shortfalls. They should carefully consider the concerns raised by NERA and others, and propose realistic reform implementation timelines ahead of the polls.

Powers from further afield will be less willing to engage the more compromised the legitimacy of the regime becomes. Even then they will have to tread carefully, balancing support for improving institutional capacities and addressing problems, without inadvertently adding to distortions of what is already a skewed electoral environment.

The March by-election in Mwenezi East promises to test conditions once again, as a senior ZimPF leader and former ZANU-PF firebrand, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, runs in his former constituency.

The Bikita West by-election highlights how much still needs to be done  both by the ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition.
The CIAs new director, Mike Pompeo, has arrived in Turkey. He was welcomed at Esenboga airport (Ankara) by representatives from the US embassy.

He has met his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey had hoped to secure from the US the end of its support for the Syrian Kurds, even perhaps some help to fight them, as well as the extradition of Fehtullah Gulen. [For its part] the United States was hoping to define the parameters for fighting both Daesh and all Islamists including their mother association: The Muslim Brotherhood. The White House is getting ready to include the Brotherhood on the list of terrorist organizations.

The agenda for this trip had been decided the night before during a conference call between President Trump and President Erdogan.
This time, the heads of Yankee central intelligence (the CIA) and the

Pentagon, embittered over their total defeat at the Bay of Pigs, in April

1961, thought up a strategy for US armed forces to directly attack the

Island, together with representatives of puppet Latin American armies.

A significant development to justify the attack was Cubas expulsion from

the Organization of American States (OAS) during a meeting that took place

in Punta del Este, Uruguay. At this meeting, with the sole exception of

Mexico, every single Latin American country broke off diplomatic relations

with the revolutionary government.

This fact and the general climate that presaged the attack, drove Fidel

Castro, the Leader of the Revolution, to declare on 4 February 1962, the

Second Declaration of Havana, approved unanimously by the Peoples

General Assembly that had assembled in Plaza de la Revolucion Jose

Marti.

On this occasion, Fidel denounced these plans, reaffirmed his decision to

resist the imperialist attack and delivered a historical analysis of the

revolutionary situation on the continent and the imperialist exploitation

that had endured. For almost a century, the Latin American governments had

cowered in submission to Washingtons interests.

One part strikes out:

"We will resist on every single battle site: we will resist on the economic

battleground, we will persist in advancing on the cultural front (...) Our

Fatherland is not toiling away for today. Rather, our Fatherland sweats for

tomorrow. And this will be a tomorrow, overflowing with promises that

nobody will be able to snatch away from us; no one will be able to deny us

it, because with our peoples pietas, we are going to win it; through our

peoples bravery and heroism, we are going to conquer.

The Second Declaration of Havana aroused support from the people of Latin

America and was an inspiration for the revolutionary processes across the

entire continent. And this consolidated in a political and moral victory

for Cuba against the whole world. [Whats more], it served as a warning

to the White House: if it attacked the island, it would be faced with a

trump card: the active opposition of the peoples against the puppet

governments in the surrounding lands.

In this respect, the Cuban Leader said that the poor would rise up like of

wave of

fibrilating rancour, justice demanded and rights that had been trampled.

A wave that is beginning to surge throughout the lands of Latin

America.

Fidel ended with words repeated years later by Ernesto Guevara at the UN:

Because this great humanity has said enoughs enough! and has

awoken. Because this march of giants will not stop until it has won true

independence; because they have died more than once in vain. Today, in any

event, those that may die, will die like those in Cuba, those at the Bay of

Pigs. They will die for a single, genuine independence that can never be

given up!"

The Second Declaration of Havana heralded an entire initial phase of

resistance and victory for the Cuban Revolution, still a newborn, and for

the revolutionary heroic acts of Latin America during the 1960s. This

revolution found its greatest expression in the guerrilla, Che, in Bolivia.

Such heroic acts sowed the seed of processes - anti-imperialism and

revolutionary in kind - that are currently taking place in the region;

that, today in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, are fighting against

imperialist aggression, which with just as much anger, is trying to topple

them.
Flats Allocated at Charles Bruzon House

The public ballot for the allocation of housing in Charles Bruzon House took place on Thursday. The ballot was conducted in the communal lounge area and offered new tenants the opportunity to view their new homes for the first time. The atmosphere was buzzing with happy tenants who attended and many of whom were also accompanied by many family members for this important day.

Charles Bruzon House has been purpose-built to meet the needs of our elderly residents. The new homes are fully accessible and the buildings common areas provide social spaces that promote a community atmosphere. At all stages Charles Bruzon House has been designed in consultation with care professionals to ensure a comprehensive approach that matched need with functionality. It is without doubt that these flats will offer fantastic quality of life for our elderly citizens.

After spending time with the new tenants, Minister for Housing, Samantha Sacramento said: "It has [also] been a great pleasure to meet the new residents of Charles Bruzon House and to wish them all the best for their new homes. I am confident this purpose-built accommodation, which incorporates all the best of communal and independent living, will provide a fantastic quality of life for its tenants.

This marks the fulfilment of another important manifesto commitment and I am proud to see the real, positive impact that this will have on peoples daily lives. Of course, this will also have positive knock-on effects for the rest of the community: as tenants move in to Charles Bruzon House they move out of Government rental properties. I expect their previous properties will be made available to others on the Housing waiting list over the next three to six months.

This represents the culmination of work by 3 housing ministers in our government, and it is all the more special that this block is named after our friend the late Charles Bruzon, who was indeed so passionate about helping individuals with their housing problems. The fruition of this important project makes us all extremely happy and proud to be delivering to our community.

I am also looking forward to meeting the new tenants of Sea Master Lodge at their allocation ballot, which is scheduled to take place within the next two weeks."
There are myriad ways that photographing war and its aftermath can be presented by a museum.

There could be an historical approach -- photography has been inextricably intertwined with war since the birth of the medium. The daguerreotype, introduced in 1839, was immediately hailed for its accuracy in depicting armed conflict. In the 1860s, the Civil War became the first conflict to be extensively photographed with images widely reproduced, seen and sold.

Since then, war photography has been seared into our collective image bank -- Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima, the little girl burned with napalm running naked down a Vietnamese road, the man facing down the tanks in Tienanmen Square and hundreds of others.

Or an exhibition could concentrate on a specific conflict with multiple views of, for example, World War II, the Vietnam War, the war on terror, etc. Or it could collect the work of a noted war photographer, from the Civil Wars Matthew Brady to World War IIs Robert Capa to Vietnams Eddie Adams.

For Conflict and Consequences: Photographing War and Its Aftermath, the Sheldon Museum of Art has chosen another option -- presenting the work of 12 photographers who have spent their careers as journalists, documentarians and artists, shooting in war zones, capturing images of the conflicts and the results of the fighting.

All the photography in the show could be classified as contemporary. The oldest images date to 1978 when Susan Meiselas documented the Sandinista National Liberation Fronts revolution against the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle.

But the remainder of the images come from the 2000s, depicting aspects and impacts of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, east African genocide and civil wars in Sierra Leone and Syria.

The latter images, by Andrew Stanbridge, arent ripped-from-the-headlines shots of the ongoing battles between the Syrian army and ISIS and the resulting humanitarian crisis that has sent refugees spilling out around the world.

Rather, they are a series of four color prints from 2012, that illustrate the early days of the conflict -- a man shouting at the sky in the rubble of his destroyed home, a portrait of an al-Qaeda associated fighter, tattooed hands holding a machine gun and, potently, a dirt-smeared doormat with the face of President Bashar al-Assad.

Stanbridge doesnt want to be known as a conflict photographer, but he educates those new to the field to the dangers of working in the hostile environments. Nor is he a photojournalist, like Kenneth Jarecke, whose three images in the show come from his acclaimed coverage of Operation Desert Storm in the 1991 Gulf War.

All the photographs in Conflict and Consequence are, by nature, documentary. But there is a distinction between journalism and art photography, a differentiation of intention and editing acknowledged by Louie Palu, who left the Toronto Globe and Mail to work as an independent documentary photographer and filmmaker.

Photojournalism was limiting for me, Palu says in one of the exhibitions wall labels. I started to ask myself, Why dont we see insurgents? Why dont we see see dead bodies?' Not having a newspaper editor always tell me what to do has become the most important aspect of my work.

To that end, Palu images from Afghanistan in 2010 show a wounded Afghan soldier in the cabin lights of the medevac helicopter evacuating him from a Taliban stronghold and a Army medic talking with a wounded American soldier on another helicopter.

One of Meiselas photographs shows the body of a National Guardsman, killed during the fighting engulfed in flames, being burned with Samozas official state portrait.

Beyond that, however, Conflict and Consequence doesnt contain any gruesome images -- by design.

I dont think we wanted to be gratuitous, said Sheldon associate director Todd Tubutis, the exhibitions curator. I wouldnt say it was designed around that, but we were aware of the impact of gratuitous images can have, their shock value.

Even so, the fourth-grade tours that regularly come to Sheldon bypass Conflict and Consequence and it is recommended that parents see the exhibition before taking their children.

My goal, Tubutis said,  is to have parents have a look first, then, if they bring in their kids, say lets have a conversation about this.

The toughest material in the exhibition appears to be some of its calmest -- a trio of portraits of a mother and a child taken in Rwanda in 2007 by Israeli-born photographer Jonathan Torgovnik.

But the photographs from his Consequences series depict one of the ongoing horrors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide -- the women, members of the Tutsi tribe, were raped by Hutus and the children, age 12 or 13 when the pictures were shot, were born out of the violence.

That has created difficult relationships between the mothers and the children -- visually apparent in the image of Bernadette with her son Faustin, the mother with one leg sitting on the ground, the son standing on the opposite side of a doorway. In contrast, Josette with her son Thomas finds mothers arm wrapped around the shoulders of her son, holding him close.

Similarly, In My Life, a series of images taken by Miriam X in collaboration with documentarian Sara Terry, tells Miriams story through benign images of Sierra Leone, with captions that describe what the scenes represent to her.

Abducted at 11 by rebels, raped, made the wife of a rebel commander and forced to bear his child, Miriam X (a pseudonym) was a child soldier during the 1991-2002 civil war and her captions are heart-rending, whether talking about rape with a picture of an infant lying on its back on a dusty road or looking at a hole in the ground, saying it resembles a place where a woman was buried alive.

At the end of the series, the captions speak of forgiveness and a picture of Miriam in the shadows says that taking the photos helped her forgive herself and deal with what happened in her life.

In My Life, like the photographs of Meiselas and those of the late Tim Hetherington, who shot U.S. troops in Afghanistan along with making his superb documentary film Restrepo, are hung without frames -- putting an emphasis on the image on paper as opposed to that of an art object.

Another series of work, particularly resonant in the midst of the current debate over refugees entering the U.S., comes from Jim Lommasson, who collaborates with Iraqi refugees in What We Carried: Fragments from the Cradle of Civilization.

Lommasson photographs cherished objects that the refugees have brought to the U.S., then asks them to write on the print, talking, for example, about the pictures of their home and numbers in an old cell phone, a Washington Post press pass and a family picture that details where each of those depicted now lives.

Palus Garmsir Marines is another series that, in the exhibition, is targeted at University of Nebraska-Lincoln students. A collection of 13 straight-on, close-up portraits of U.S. Marines in Afghanistan in 2008, the Garmsir Marines are, with a couple of exceptions at 31, in the early 20s -- the same age as the students who will view them.

That is because Conflict and Consequences is an exhibition created to work within the university, used for studies beyond art and photography. It does that well for students -- and for those who will look at the images and contemplate their origin and ongoing meaning.
Following a Super Bowl advertisement for Hulus upcoming adaptation of Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale, the 1985 dystopian novel  which focuses on the vast oppression of women in a theocratic dictatorship  experienced a massive resurgence in interest and quickly topped the charts on Amazons best-sellers list. Atwood took note of the skyrocketing sales over the past week, and although she acknowledges that the sporting event helped her novel reach a larger audience, she believes the real reason behind the boosted sales to be Donald Trump and the increased focus on womens issues that came with the U.S. election. When it first came out it was viewed as being far-fetched, Atwood said in an interview during Cubas international book fair. However, when I wrote it I was making sure I wasnt putting anything into it that human beings had not already done somewhere at some time.

Atwood explained that progress in society shouldnt be viewed as a straight line forever upwards, but rather as a concept full of sudden twists and turns. You are seeing a bubbling up of it now, she said, referring to President Trumps plan to restrict womens health care. Its back to 17th-century puritan values of New England at that time in which women were pretty low on the hierarchy  you can think you are being a liberal democracy but then  bang  youre Hitlers Germany. The Handmaids Tale currently remains among the top ten best sellers on Amazon, while Hulus Elisabeth Mossstarring adaptation premieres on April 26.


Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Billboard

Producer DJ Khaled may be known for his motivational words and inspirational Snapchats, but the rap mogul and Muslim-American recognizes the harsh realities facing people around the world. While his parents native Palestine wasnt targeted by President Trumps travel ban, the New Orleansborn Miami resident understands that hes not totally in the clear. It hasnt affected me [yet], the artist said at the Billboard Power 100 party in Los Angeles last night. But I have family that it can affect. Im too positive to think this will happen to us. Im about expressing love  every color, every shape, every city, every country. What is going on in the world right now, what Im watching is that everyone is coming together. Love wins all the time. So Im not thinking anything but love, you know what Im saying?

Of course, this message stays true to Khaleds optimistic brand, but what does he think about the policies of President Trump? When we come together were the strongest people ever. Love is the answer. I recommend any leader to lead with love, you know what I mean? Anybody who is going through hard times right now, I am praying for them  especially my people. Heres hoping Khaleds infant son further addresses these issues as he executive produces Khaleds new album.
Frank Ocean at the Grammys in 2013. Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Frank Ocean is boycotting this years Grammys, deliberately submitting neither Blonde nor Endless for awards consideration. In what he labeled his Colin Kaepernick moment, the artist says he is skipping the ceremony due to concerns over the Grammys track record with representation. Kanye West followed suit, but Grammys creative team Ken Ehrlich and David Wild are now casting doubt on Oceans professed motivations.

Appearing on the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, the duo suggested that Oceans Grammys antipathy may in fact stem from his faulty performance at the 2013 show. Per Wild, Ocean came into that experience with strong opinions about doing Forrest Gump at the ceremony. Frank had a very definite idea of exactly what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it  Ken said, thats not great TV, Wild explains. He admits that, unable to dissuade Ocean, the creative team executed his vision knowing that it was faulty. And we tried to tell him that, we tried to tell his management that, we tried to tell the record label that. The performance indeed did not go over well, and so Wild believes that Ocean may be harboring ill-will because of it. His feelings about the Grammys right now, I would imagine, probably go back to that in one way. But honestly, it wasnt us, he says.

Ehrlich also argued that if representation issues are truly behind the boycott, then Ocean and company have the wrong solution. He said, If theyre concerned about the representation of hip-hop on the show, they need to respond and say Yeah, of course I want to do it  Theyve all done it in the past. Without overstating it, I think we were very instrumental in the growth of Kanye Wests career. Looks like that productive dialogue is going to have to wait.
Arnett voices both Lego Batman and BoJack Horseman. Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture/Netflix

In The Lego Batman Movie, youll see Batman like youve never seen him before. By that, I mean, youll see him exactly as youve seen him before  arrogant, isolated, strangely self-promotional  but with far more awareness of how weird the character often seems, what with that whole savior-complex, secret-identity, bat-everything deal.

Its a tightrope-walk foreshadowed by the supremely meta Lego Movie, except now its hyperfocused on just Batman himself. For the whole delicate joke to land, it takes the kind of actor who can manage to communicate both wholehearted dickishness and a sympathetic angst. An actor with a voice like, say, Will Arnetts.

Arnett, of course, is most famous for a full-bodied role: Gob Bluth, the bombastic live-wire magician from Arrested Development. But since then, the actor has made his most significant impact as the voice behind cartoons. He has three seasons under his belt as BoJack Horseman, the titular protagonist of Netflixs whip-smart and surprisingly poignant animated series about a washed-up horse haunted by his glory days as the lead of a network sitcom. And now, hes taken on the role of Batman, joining the ranks of actors like George Clooney, Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, and Ben Affleck. Except, unlike their versions of the legendary superhero, Arnetts isnt meant to be taken seriously. Also, hes a Lego.

In that way, and many others, Arnetts performance as Batman is unique. In keeping with the spirit of the Lego Movie world, his Batman is simultaneously true to the hyper-earnest, hard-core standard  the lone crime fighter forever trying to avenge the death of his parents  as well as a send-up of that same character, forever mired in his own dark legend, to the point where every tool and vehicle he uses has to take the weirdo form of a bat. To pull that off, Arnett adapts a version of Bales Batman voice, which sounds more or less like a thousand cigarettes being smoked at once. If Keatons hyperbolic portrayal was best embodied by Matthew Perry on Celebrity Jeopardy, repeatedly asserting Im Batman, then Arnetts is the perfect send-up of the ultraserious latter-day version, out-graveling the gravelly moan that both Bale and Affleck have gone for.

But its Arnetts work as a talking horse that truly distinguishes him as a voice actor. BoJack Horseman is, against all odds, one of the most humanist shows on TV, using its wonderful array of anthropomorphized animals to highlight the strange ways people behave toward each other  good, bad, kind, selfish, and sometimes, a mix of all four. As BoJack, Arnetts perfected the balance of cocky derangement and sheer self-hatred, a tricky equilibrium. We always feel for BoJack even as he one-ups his own vileness, and much of that has to do with the pathos Arnett lends him.

While Lego Batman never wades into the deep waters BoJack does, the role requires that same kind of dichotomy to work. And interestingly, its a trick Arnett hasnt quite pulled off in a live-action role since Arrested Devlopment. Without necessarily any fault of his own, the parts hes played as a living person have tended to skew too far in either direction, like the cloying protagonist of Flaked or the dickish billionaire in Running Wilde. But as a voice, hes had no trouble maintaining that tricky balance, with BoJack especially proving one of the most captivating characters on television right now, animated or not. Arnett is an engaging performer, and certainly it seems like he could still find a character worth his time in the real world. Until then, though, there are plenty of asshole cartoons who need love, and hes just the guy to bring it to them.
Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Maeve may have deboarded her train out of Westworld, but Thandie Newton apparently bought herself a first-class ticket, got off at the Disney-Lucasfilm lot, and immediately entered talks to appear in Phil Lord and Chris Millers upcoming young Han Solo film. According to Variety, Newton is currently in negotiations for the as-yet unnamed role. The actress would be joining co-stars Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Atlantas Donald Glover, Game of Thrones Emilia Clarke, and potentially Fleabags Phoebe Waller-Bridge in the stand-alone movie. Seeing as how its part of the Star Wars franchise, theres a 50-50 chance Thandie will be a robot in the film. Only this time, she would know that right up top.


A free presentation for parents of gifted students will run from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m. Feb. 23 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Omaha.

All Things Gifted: Q & A for Parents and the Community is held in conjunction with the annual Nebraska Association for the Gifted conference taking place Feb. 23-24.

The community presentation will explore themes in contemporary parenting practices and family engagement, through a series of 15-minute roundtable discussion groups. Participants select a table topic of their choice. Topics address academic instruction, summer programs toys, technology, problem solving and online high school courses.

The conference, running from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, is for educators and others interested in students of high ability and gifted-ness. More than 300 people, representing schools and community across Nebraska, are expected to attend.

The theme of the conference is Learners Doers, Creators, and Makers: NAG 2017.

Each days presentations will feature 20 breakout sessions addressing the educational, social and emotional needs of high-ability students. For full conference details, go to negifted.org/NAG/Spring_Conference.html.
Joe Reisdorff was tired all of the time, his head was always foggy.

The 29-year-old member of the Syracuse Rescue Squad wasn't able to function the way he was used to -- his kidney was beginning to shut down.

Reisdorff was diagnosed with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a disease that attacks the kidney's filtering units, when he was 21. For eight years, medications helped to keep his kidney working properly and keep the necessity of a transplant at bay.

"Knowing that it was coming, it made it easier to cope with," he said. "I knew it was down the line."

Reisdorff was placed on the kidney transplant list in 2015 with more than 93,000 other people after four people in his family were tested and turned out to not be a match.

His wife, Christa, reached out to friends and family on social media, which is how Dan Masters found out about Reisdorffs condition.

The two had known each other for nearly 20 years. Masters is an X-ray technician at a hospital that Reisdorff frequently works with through the Rescue Department. Reisdorff is also Masters' agronomist.

Masters, 40, talked with his wife, Liza, and went in to get tested.

His son and my daughter were about the same age, he said. I tried to put myself in his place and think about what that might be like and I would want somebody to step up and try and help me.

Another of Reisdorff's friends was also going through the testing process when Masters contacted him. The friend, like Reisdorff's family, turned out not to be a match.

Masters, however, was "a better match than we ever could've hoped for," Residorff said.

It just seemed like everything fell into place like it was supposed to, Masters said.

Reisdorff was elated with the news and a surgery was scheduled for Nov. 30.

"I got tears in my eyes," Reisdorff said about finding out Masters was a match. "I had to step back to breathe."

After the surgery, Masters was out of the hospital in two days and Reisdorff was home after three days.

"My recovery was not as bad as I thought, which was good," Masters said. "Outside of a little bit of pain for the first few days, there wasn't really much else."

On Friday, both men and their families joined nearly 100 others at Nebraska Medicine to celebrate National Donor Day.

This is the second annual Gift of Life Donor Recognition event that Nebraska Medicine has hosted. Vicki Hunter, kidney and pancreas transplant manager at Nebraska Medicine, said the event shows appreciation for both the donors and the recipients and is a way to celebrate the success.

"It's overwhelming to see a recipient doing so well, especially after seeing them struggle through dialysis," she said.

She also hopes that the event will raise awareness about living organ donation.

"I think that the more people know about it and just know that it is going to be OK," she said. "You can donate an organ and still live a normal life."

Perrin Adams, 28, attended the event with her mother and sister. Four years ago she donated her kidney to her older brother.

After their mother, Elaine, found out she was unable to donate, the greatest gift she could imagine was for her children to be able to save each other's lives.

"She gave part of herself so that they could give more abundantly," Elaine said.
A few local entrepreneurs have graduated from a new program that left them with confidence and guidance to sustain a viable business.

The first class of City Center of Wacos new Workshop in Business Opportunities program graduated last week. Program director Cuevas Peacock said the program is based on the idea that people with an entrepreneurial spirit can be taught how to start and grow a profitable business that develops economic power, provides jobs and improves the community.

Peacock said the 16-week program is open to anyone but specifically targets low-income, underserved communities. Workshop in Business Opportunities is part of a national program founded in New York Citys Harlem neighborhood. The Waco course is the first in Texas, he said.

The first graduates were Erick Gama, co-owner of Rufis Cocina; Orva McCoy, owner of 2Pickled Gourmet Flavored Pickles; Johnny McDowell, owner of House of Legacy Publishing; and Linda Weaver, owner of Franklin Real Estate Development Co.

Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the community, said Andrea Barefield, City Center Waco main street manager.

Organizations like City Center Waco and the people who have supported WIBO, its our responsibility to make sure our citys lifeblood is sustained, merchants and small businesses owners, and we continue to do everything we can to make Waco grow.

McDowell, who opened his publishing company in 2011 in Waco, said becoming an entrepreneur was a way to take control of his destiny.

When he heard about the class, he jumped at the opportunity to be part of the program, and hes glad he did, he said.

McDowell said he gained new insights into marketing, promotions, taxes and administrative work. The programs instructors were Class A, he said.

There was a chapter during class that each of the four students was stuck on. Instead of taking a week off for Christmas, the instructors agreed to keep meeting with the students to help them understand the material, McDowell said.

McDowell served some prison time and was released in 2007, he said. Since then, he has worked to bring his family together, start his business and secure clients. He said someone gave him a chance, and now he wants to do the same by helping someone in grade school publish a childrens book.

Think about their why

Barefield said she encouraged the students to think about their why. The marriage between the personal why and the business why allows a company to flourish, she said.

Many businesses dont take advantage of resources available to them, which can add to their list of obstacles, she said. City Center Waco aims to ensure small businesses are connected to the resources they need, she said.

McCoy said she had her own business for about three years before she realized it wasnt financially viable anymore.

After taking this class, she said she expects 2Pickled to be far more successful than her last venture. She opened for business in May and spent part of this week searching for a storefront in Waco to call home so she can move out of her kitchen.

Workshop in Business Opportunities instructors helped explain the importance of tracking finances, she said.

The lady talked about having receipts in a shoebox. I was one of those, McCoy said. Im learning to write those down.

She said she also learned a lot about the hiring process.

I do look forward to one day creating some jobs for the community, for people that are homemakers, people that want something extra to do after retirement, McCoy said.

Various pickle flavors

The lifelong Waco resident said her pickles feature various flavors, including green apple, tropical punch, grape, candy apple and more.

Ive had many things Ive done before, but none have given me what this gives me, she said. My personality is extreme. So in everything I do, I was told coming up as a kid and adult, You are so extreme. So my extreme nature is in these pickles.

Gama said he has run several kitchens over the years, but he has less experience on the management side.

The lessons on taxes and payroll were among the most useful for him, Gama said.

The business end is the hard part for me, trying to read numbers and understand what those numbers mean, he said.

Focus on many factors

Peacock said the Workshop in Business Opportunities course aims to focus on as many factors as possible, from human resources to networking and sustainability. Entrepreneurs help create their own community within a community and build fellowship, he said.

Baylor University paid for the first four students to attend the course, which ran at $350 each to cover materials, he said. Organizers are working to identify potential donors to help offset costs for participants for future courses.
Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas expects this year to reopen a local abortion facility that since-overturned state legislation forced it to shut down four years ago, and abortion foes are already rallying against it.

The nonprofit organization won a state license in November to resume abortion services at its clinic at 1121 Ross Ave., which already provides other womens health services.

The abortion services ceased in 2013 in the wake of new state laws that required abortion clinics to qualify as ambulatory surgical centers and to have admitting privileges with a hospital within 30 miles. That law shut down more than half of Texas 40 abortion operations.

But in June 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned key provisions of the law. Since then, the Texas Department of State Health Services has approved three abortion facilities licenses for Waco, Austin and Houston.

An Austin-based spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas said its possible Waco will have the first reopened abortion facility in Texas after the court ruling, but the opening date has not been set.

The news has outraged officials with local anti-abortion groups, which held a rally Saturday with the theme Never Again in Waco. Pro-Life Waco teamed with CareNet Waco for the event at a construction site at 700 W. Highway 6.

Pro-Life Waco director John Pisciotta said he thinks the 6,500-square-foot medical building going up there will ultimately be Planned Parenthoods Waco abortion clinic, based on private conversations he has had. He acknowledged that he doesnt know with certainty what the building will be.

What we know is that they were in the abortion business from 1994 to 2013 and they performed 19,000 abortions and now they intend to start again, Pisciotta said. Its a matter of proclaiming hopefully that people opposed to abortion and the shedding of innocent blood will stand up and proclaim, Never again in Waco. We hope to persuade Planned Parenthood to stop it, because youre going to face huge opposition.

No contractor boycott

Pisciotta recently sent letters to local construction contractors urging them to stay far away from this project in view of its possible eventual use.

Pisciotta in the past has organized boycotts against the Girl Scouts and regular protests against a bank for their purported connections to Planned Parenthood. But he said he has not called for a boycott or protest against contractors in this case.

K. Paul Holt, executive director for the Central Texas Associated General Contractors, said such a boycott would be inappropriate and unprecedented in this area. He said contractors often bid to build the shell of a structure without knowing what its final use is.

Its difficult in a case like this to accuse people of trying to help any organization or business when theyre just working on the shell of a building, Holt said. They may not know whats going in that building, but they have a contractual commitment thats very expensive to break.

In fact, the applicant for the building permit last May was a private firm based in Memphis, with no mention of Planned Parenthood, city inspection officials said. McLennan County Appraisal District and McLennan County Clerk records dont indicate that Planned Parenthood has bought the Highway 6 property.

Planned Parenthood did sell its former abortion clinic site on Columbus Avenue in November, clerks records show.

Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas spokeswoman Sarah Wheat declined comment on whether the organization is building a new clinic in Waco.

In light of the history of harassment by extremists opposed to the Planned Parenthood mission, it is our ongoing policy to not comment on renovation or construction projects for security reasons, Wheat said in an email.

She said the overturned state laws mandates created unnecessary and dangerous obstacles for women seeking safe, legal abortion, and forced many Texas women to drive hundreds of miles for abortion services.

In the meantime, she said Planned Parenthoods remaining services in Waco face the threat of further government funding cuts.

The Ross Avenue clinic provides about 4,000 Waco-area patients a year with services such as contraception, well-woman exams and screening for breast and cervical cancers and sexually transmitted diseases.

The Texas Legislature in 2015 blocked breast and cervical cancer screening funding from Planned Parenthood clinics in Waco and elsewhere in the state. Now foes of Planned Parenthood in the U.S. Congress are seeking to defund the organization by eliminating it from the Title X program that has funded family planning services for 40 years.
The family of a China Spring teenager who was injured three years ago in a gymnastics accident settled their lawsuit Friday against the gym owners and say they hope the funds will help their son achieve a level of independence in the future.

Judge Jim Meyer of Wacos 170th State District approved the confidential settlement between Pat and Cynthia Hyland, the parents of Blake Hyland, and Texas Dynasty Cheer and Gymnastics during a hearing Friday afternoon.

Blake Hyland, 17, attended the hearing with his parents. He was injured Feb. 18, 2014, during a tumbling routine and suffered permanent brain and physical injuries, although he has made far better progress in his recovery than doctors first expected.

After the hearing, Pat and Cynthia Hyland said they are glad to have the litigation behind them and will continue to focus on Blakes ongoing recovery.

Craig Cherry, one of several Waco attorneys who represented the Hylands, said he is also glad the lawsuit was resolved.

Blake is truly a miraculous young man. It has been a privilege to represent him and his family. I know that he is going to continue to accomplish great things in life and I know he will always have a positive impact on whoever he is around, Cherry said. As he has been since the beginning, he will continue to be in my thoughts and prayers, and I look forward to watching his future.

Blake was 14 and his family was living in McGregor when he was injured. He was practicing an advanced tumbling maneuver called an Arabian, a flipping move in which the gymnast starts backward, jumps and does a half-turn in the air and then completes a front flip.

Blake intended to land in an in-ground foam training pit but drifted a bit to his left, striking his head on an exposed concrete side of the pit that was not covered with padding.

He was near death, underwent multiple surgeries and was in a coma for almost a month.

His family has since moved to China Spring, where Blake attends high school.

Annuity fund

According to figures read into the court record by attorney David Tekell, who also represents the Hylands, the settlement proceeds will go into an annuity fund that will pay Blake monthly for the rest of his life. The owners of the gym admitted no wrongdoing in settlement documents.

For the first seven years, Blake will be paid $600 a month. Starting in March 2024, Blake will get $3,037 a month for the next 35 years. If he is still alive, he will be paid that amount until his death.

The judge also approved a confidential amount for attorneys fees and expenses that totals 30 percent of the settlement. Also, the Hylands health insurance carrier will be able to recover the hundreds of thousands of dollars it has paid so far during Blakes recovery.

Lawsuit settlements involving minors must be approved at hearings before a judge.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the Hyland family and getting to represent them in this matter, Tekell said. I am very excited we got this resolved for Blake and for the Hyland family and hope he continues to do well in the future.

The settlement hearing was postponed for several months after a dispute between Pat Hyland and two law firms he contracted with to represent him in the lawsuit. At least two lawsuits were filed over how much the law firms would be compensated and included claims and counterclaims of fraud, breach of contract and case poaching.

Fort Worth attorney Darrell Keith, who represented the Hylands in their dispute over the attorneys fees, attended the hearing Friday and would say only that the lawsuits involving the fees were resolved and dismissed by mutual agreement.
President Donald Trumps targeting of refugees and unauthorized immigrants  through campaign rhetoric and executive orders  has sparked a nationwide conversation of sanctuary status.

And as campuses debate how best to respond to immigration agency queries, a group of Baylor University graduate students proposed a plan for the worlds largest Baptist university.

A recently begun petition addressed to high-ranking administrators asks Baylor to declare itself a sanctuary campus that will refuse to comply with immigration investigations or deportations to the fullest extent possible, including denying access to university property.

The petition, started Monday, had garnered over 1,200 signatures by Friday afternoon, including those of Baylor professors, students and alumni, local pastors and Waco residents.

The petition asks Baylor to condemn Trumps executive orders on immigration, citing incompatibilities with the schools Christian commitment.

Information regarding immigration status of students, scholars and community members should be protected from any enforcement agency, the petition says.

The co-authors, a group of graduate students in the department of religion, say the petition is rooted in the very theology Baylor claims.

Theres general agreement on what holy Scripture says: to love and not to oppress the stranger, said Nicholas Krause, 27. The question is, will those teachings be merely ideals or private commitments? Or will we give public expression to them, and will we order our institutional life according to those teachings? Im pretty confident the administration shares the commitment to see our common life ordered on those things.

The petition is addressed to interim President David Garland, Executive Vice President and Provost L. Gregory Jones, Vice President for Student Life Kevin Jackson and Vice Provost for Global Engagement Jeffrey Hamilton.

In the wake of Trumps executive order temporarily barring people from seven countries from entering the United States, the four administrators released a statement saying Baylor officials made personal contact with people with ties to the seven predominantly Muslim countries listed in Trumps order.

A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected that order, meaning the travel ban remains blocked.

Hamilton said he met with international students to discuss the order, provide up-to-date information and to keep communication lines open.

In response to the petition, a university statement said the school appreciates the support and encouragement of the community for those affected.

The statement also said Garland hosted a lunch at his home for Baylor students and scholars from the impacted countries.

The Center for Global Engagement and University officials are closely monitoring the situation and will continue to provide personal guidance, support and encouragement for our students, staff and faculty who are impacted directly, the statement said.

However, the universitys statement didnt indicate Baylors position on the possibility of becoming a sanctuary campus. It did acknowledge the petition by stating that the university is aware of the sanctuary petition and fully appreciates the strong support and encouragement of the campus community for our students and scholars who have been impacted by the recent executive order.

Professors support

Though Baylor has not committed to becoming a sanctuary campus, one of the petitions co-authors, Laura Lysen, said professors have shown overwhelming support for the petition and she is encouraged by the universitys statements so far.

Certainly, the kinds of work we do with (faculty) and the things that they care about have prepared us to be theologically formed in such a way that (the petition) was a natural step for us, said Lysen, 30.

She said people should examine the way the Trump administration describes refugees and immigrants and question if the statements are true based on history, policy and economic reality.

If we cant bring those questions to the table, were going to stay in this split, where were not even able to find each other, she said.

Laura Hernandez, a Baylor Law School professor, said the petition in no way asks Baylor to break any law.

Ones presence at a university is not tied to citizenship status, she said, and the petition asks that Baylor not affirmatively ascertain that information and immediately turn it over to immigration agencies.

That is increasingly the tone that is being set by the new administration and some of these executive orders, Hernandez said. Theyre trying to turn lots of institutions into private immigration enforcers. Thats very unusual.

The petition says Baylor should create an office with access to free legal counsel for non-citizen students and increase financial aid for such students.

It also asks Baylor to create a scholarship program for displaced students, with preference to those from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  the seven countries specified in Trumps order  as well as to partner with other institutions to defend rights of non-citizens.

Krause said the issue of what it means to be a Christian institution of higher learning is an ongoing conversation at Baylor.

Part of what that entails for all us, I think, is thinking about how we structure our university life together, such that it reflects what we believe, morally and theologically, he said. We approached the petition in that kind of light, as a cooperative effort between us who study theology and the administration, who seeks to embody the theology in the institutions, and try to figure out what it might look like for what we take to be essential Christian claims about sanctuary, refugees and migration, and put it into concrete practice.
AUSTIN  Reports of immigration raids swept across Texas and the rest of the nation Friday, sparking protests and press conferences. But in Austin and elsewhere, it was difficult to find hard evidence of actual raids, and federal officials insisted their agents were simply conducting routine enforcement.

Immigrant lawyers and advocacy groups have sounded alarms in multiple cities over what they called unusual enforcement activity by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In Los Angeles, the American Civil Liberties Union tweeted: URGENT: ICE conducted multiple raids of homes across the city. Protests erupted soon after.

The Washington Post reported sweeping immigration raids in at least six states, including Texas. Quoting immigration activists, the Post reported raids in Austin, Dallas and Pflugerville, and said there were also reports of an ICE checkpoint in Austin that targeted immigrants for random ID checks. But it provided few details about specific cases.

Details have also been scant in Austin, where a pair of arrests following traffic stops by ICE agents led to a downtown protest and a press conference denouncing ICE activities. The Mexican Consulate told the Austin American-Statesman that ICE detained 44 Mexican immigrants Thursday and Friday  compared to four or five a day typically  but it didnt indicate the circumstances surrounding the detentions.

Following reports that an immigration officer suffered minor injuries after arresting an undocumented immigrant in North Austin, Austin City Council members Greg Casar and Delia Garza spoke to reporters outside the Little Walnut Creek public library, joined by representatives of the Workers Defense Project, Education Austin, and the Texas chapter of the AFL-CIO.

This is something very different than what weve seen before, Casar said. [Donald] Trump and allies will do everything they can to divide Americans and demonize communities. Its clear people like Trump try to get political gain by creating fear and hostility  these ICE actions magnify that fear.

In a statement on Facebook Friday morning, Casar said his office had confirmed a large amount of [ICE] actions in Austin in the last 24 hours.

Casar said hes received several calls from constituents expressing fear about the situation, but he couldnt offer details on ICE actions beyond a Friday arrest in North Austin. Austin police told the Austin American-Statesman that an ICE agent made a traffic stop and was trying to arrest a person in the vehicle when the suspects family members tried to intervene.

Fear in the community

We dont understand it, Garza said, but the ripple effect is . . . its invited fear in the community.

The other reported arrest happened in East Austin, where a Honduran woman called an immigrant support group to report that ICE agents had pulled over and detained her husband on Thursday; a protest followed at a downtown federal building, the Statesman reported.

ICE spokeswoman Adelina Pruneda told the Tribune that the agency doesnt conduct random sweeps and its enforcement actions are based on investigative leads. By removing from the streets criminal aliens and other threats to the public, ICE helps improve public safety, Pruneda said.

San Antonio Congressman Joaquin Castro said Friday that ICE had confirmed to him that the agency was conducting a targeted operation in parts of Texas.

I have been informed by ICE that the agencys San Antonio field office has launched a targeted operation in South and Central Texas as part of Operation Cross Check, Castro said in a written statement. I am asking ICE to clarify whether these individuals are in fact dangerous, violent threats to our communities, and not people who are here peacefully raising families and contributing to our state. I will continue to monitor this situation.

State Sen. Dawn Buckingham, R-Lakeway, said it was outrageous that two elected officials in Austin publicly backed undocumented immigrants over law enforcement.

Not only does questioning law enforcement put our communities at risk, Buckingham said in a written statement, it paints a bulls-eye on the backs of the brave men and women sworn to protect us under extremely challenging circumstances.
The Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress are pushing to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds to pay for contraception and cervical and breast-cancer screenings. Funding for the federal Title X program, which provides infrastructure support to a network of nearly 4,000 clinics across the country, could also be in jeopardy.

Five years ago, we learned in Texas what can happen when efforts to defund Planned Parenthood are carried out: The network of health-care providers falls apart and women lose access to essential preventive services. Now Trump and his allies are poised to wreak the same havoc on the country that the 2011 Republican state legislature imposed on Texas.

The motivation for the Texas action was the same as the motivation for what Congress plans to do: appeasing groups opposed to legal abortion. But none of these family-planning programs pay for abortion care, which the law already prohibits spending federal money on. Defunding Planned Parenthood only reduces access to contraception and other necessary health care. Indeed, by reducing unintended pregnancies, the programs Republicans want to cut Planned Parenthood out of actually reduce the number of abortions.

Our study of what happened in Texas provides some warnings of what to expect if the GOP carries out its plan. In 2011, the Texas Legislature cut the two-year budget for funding family planning from $111 million to $38 million in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood. After these cuts, 82 Texas family-planning clinics  one out of every four in the state  closed or stopped providing family-planning services.

An unintended consequence of the law was that two-thirds of the clinics that closed were not even Planned Parenthood clinics! Organizations that remained open, many with reduced hours, were often unable to offer the most effective methods of contraception, such as IUDs and contraceptive implants, to women who wanted them. The closings and reduced hours also eliminated or cut back access to primary-care providers for a significant number of women. The leaders of family-planning clinics who we interviewed felt devastated by the choices they had to make, and some ended their interview sessions in tears.

Organizations also were forced to begin charging uninsured women fees for birth control and other health services that had previously been free or lower cost. In focus groups with low-income Texas women, we heard again and again that it was more difficult for them to obtain birth control. Some said they did not seek care at all because they were unable to pay the new fees.

Another component of the 2011 legislation prohibited any doctor or clinic associated with abortion care from participating in the Womens Health Program, the states Medicaid fee-for-service family-planning program. This effectively excluded Planned Parenthood, which until then had cared for more than 40 percent of the programs clients. Over the two-year period following the funding cuts and exclusion from the Womens Health Program, 31 of Planned Parenthoods 74 Texas family planning clinics closed. (The others were able to stay open through payments from private insurance plans, out-of-pocket payments for other care, grants and donations.)

Removing Planned Parenthood from the Womens Health Program reduced access to IUDs and implants at a time when use of these methods was increasing in the rest of the country. Comparing counties with and without a Planned Parenthood clinic, our research found that in counties with no clinic, there was a reduction of 36 percent in the provision of IUDs and implants and a reduction of 31 percent in the provision of injectable contraceptives.

In a survey we conducted among former Planned Parenthood clients who used injectable contraception in Houston and Midland, many reported difficulties finding a new provider, having to repeat exams or make multiple appointments before getting a method and being charged unauthorized co-payments. Several years later, many were using less-effective methods and some had become pregnant.

These findings represent a stark rebuttal to the repeated assurances made by state leaders then  and Republicans in Congress now  that the gap left by Planned Parenthood would be easily filled by community health centers or women switching their care to private physicians. In interviews with other health-care providers who have not been working in family planning, we learned that many lack the training to provide IUDs and implants. Some also lack the commitment to integrate family planning into their current services because they are already struggling to meet the demand for primary care in their communities.

Perhaps voters are already aware that defunding Planned Parenthood brings a lot of unintended consequences. In an October 2016 poll conducted by Politico and the Harvard School of Public Health, 58 percent of likely voters supported federal funding for Planned Parenthood, including almost half of Trump voters. As shown in a Quinnipiac poll last month, the proportion is even higher  8 in 10  when respondents are told that the money will be used for non-abortion services.

Rather than repeat the Texas experience, the new administration could be inspired by another era in Republican history. With the 1970 bipartisan passage of the Title X program, President Richard Nixon stated no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition. This national commitment to women should not be abandoned now.

Joseph E. Potter is the principal investigator and Kari White is an investigator of the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, which began in the fall of 2011 with the purpose of documenting and evaluating the impact of reproductive health legislation passed by the 82nd Texas Legislature.
Urban sprawl

A recent Waco Trib article outlined a proposed 200-acre shopping center/development at the intersection of Interstate 35 and Loop 340 on land that presumably is suitable for agriculture or industrial use. I saw a recent quote by a county commissioner referring to new businesses and homes: All growth is good.

My response: Uncontrolled growth is the mode of the cancer cell.

All growth is not good. It may be urban sprawl that has negative secondary effects lasting decades. Thirty to 40 years ago, Waco had a thriving downtown and bustling activity along Elm Street in East Waco. As land was rezoned in outlying areas, shopping centers sprang up at Richland Mall, Central Texas Marketplace, Parkdale Shopping Center, Market Square, Lake Air Shopping Center, Town West Center, Franklin Village, etc.

In general, the anchor stores in these centers are not locally family-owned businesses. Mostly these corporations offer low-paying wages and take profits out of Waco  heck, out of Texas. These stores, along with big-box stores, drive a stake into the heart of downtown.

Waco is not alone in allowing downtown to be destroyed by big chain stores. This phenomenon is apparent all over America. When downtown businesses die, the entrepreneurs leave for bigger places and the local charities they supported wither. The problem is that decision-makers are lured by the false economy of higher sales taxes promised by developers. We must look at the negative, often permanent impact when sprawl kills existing downtowns and retail areas. Of course, as local retail centers die, so do the neighborhoods around them.

This bleeding should stop. Waco can recover its former place as a great American city, but leaders (nudged by citizens) need to take a stand. Once all the shops on Jackson, Franklin, Austin, Washington, Elm and Columbus are filled, then perhaps look at paving over open land out by the interstate.

For now, there are many, many empty buildings and empty lots that should be filled with vibrant businesses, hopefully locally owned as well. Bravo to Magnolia Market for showing it can be done. Maybe our leaders will do the right thing and focus measured growth where it belongs.

Dave Morrow, Waco

All about them

I am utterly amazed at how very sick the men and women in our government are. The entire country is in an uproar because of people many voters have put into office. I have never witnessed as much immaturity and as many childish actions as I am now and I am very sad that our country has allowed these people to expose themselves to the world.

God bless them and help them to grow up. We are the laughingstock of the world. Think about it. They are acting like drug addicts and alcoholics who think its all about them. People need to open their eyes.

Jerry Dodd, Waco
At first I paid little attention but in the late 1960s when I first moved into our present home there were occasions when our electricity went out for one reason or another, but mysteriously the house directly across the street still had lights on. It was some time later that I discovered they had lines surviving from a time when Lincoln had two separate electric utilities operating in competition with each other.

Even later I discovered Lincoln had two entirely independent telephone companies for a number of years.

The Nebraska Telephone Company, a Bell Telephone franchise, arrived in Lincoln in the late 1870s, which later met competition from the Western Union Independent Telephone Company whose owners and board included Frank, George and Mark Woods. Because each firm had its own lines and switchboards, businesses were forced to have two telephones in order to reach the entire community.

A year later the Woods organized as the Lincoln Telephone Co. The experiment with two telephone companies ended in 1913 when Lincoln Telephone gave up its interest in several Nebraska counties in exchange for 22 southeast counties and a check for $2,293, the largest check written in Lincoln up to that point.

Electricity arrived in Lincoln in 1884 as the Lincoln Electric Light Co. incorporated and the citys trolleys became electrified. Six years later the Lincoln Traction Company began selling its excess power to residents and businesses.

Lincolns voters approved the construction of an electrical generating facility at 29th and A streets in 1901, and the question was passed on to the city council for action. The following year the Lincoln Heat, Light & Power Co. was incorporated and in August 1904 the city council approved the Mockett or A Street project, including a water distribution system at the same facility. The new facility went on-line in 1906 producing sufficient electricity for city street lights and pumps at the water works. It was not until 1915 that the City Water & Light Departments generation capacity had increased sufficiently so that sales to consumers could be established.

A second major power plant was completed in 1922 at Ninth and K streets, which also produced steam as a byproduct. This steam was sold to businesses in the downtown core and delivered by an underground system of pipes. This meant that both small and large buildings did not have to build and maintain separate and often inefficient coal-fired furnaces. Even the Stuart Building utilized city-generated steam without firing up its boilers for decades.

As a result of the merger of the Lincoln Traction Co. and the Lincoln Public Service Co., Iowa-Nebraska Light & Power was incorporated in Lincoln in 1926 and within five years was furnishing most of Lincolns electricity. In August 1939, Consumers Public Power District was created to sell excess electric power generated by the Nebraska Public Power System. Then, in 1941-42 Consumers Public Power purchased Iowa-Nebraska. This meant that Lincoln had two distinct electricity providers: Consumers Public Power District and City Water & Light. In effect, one city block could have half their electricity provided by one of two completely different, parallel sets of wires.

In 1946 Lincoln mayor and attorney Lloyd Marti began pushing Consumers Public Power to sell to the city. In order to increase its advantage, the city built spite lines down alleys directly adjacent and in direct competition to Consumers poles. Although interest in cooperation between the utilities continued as a talking point, by 1949 Consumers Public Power furnished about 75 percent of Lincolns electricity.

As sale or merger talks continued, the Legislature passed LB633 in 1964, which, in essence, said that if there was more than one electricity supplier in a city, that city could assume the non-publicly owned utility. To that end Consumers Public Power was transferred to the city of Lincoln becoming the Lincoln Electric System though it was managed by Consumers until 1974.

Interestingly, although still owned by the city of Lincoln, checks for payment of electric service to LES are mailed to Omaha.
Maverick government MP George Christensen has defended his attendance at a controversial anti-Islam function, saying he was there to push back against the "erosion of free speech" by the Left in Australia.

Mr Christensen, along with Liberal Party defector Cory Bernardi, addressed the anti-halal fundraiser in Melbourne on Friday night despite a similar event in Sydney on Thursday causing uproar after cartoonist Larry Pickering told guests he "couldn't stand Muslims" but praised radical Islamists for their murderous treatment of homosexuals.

Amid more fallout from the event, far-right political candidate Kirralie Smith on Saturday defended the comments of former Liberal MP Ross Cameron, who referred to The Sydney Morning Herald as the "Sydney Morning Homosexual" and claimed the NSW division of the Liberal Party was one big "gay club".

Ms Smith described his remarks as a display of Mr Cameron's "dry humour".
How Pauline Hanson's One Nation will fare is still a big guess. Credit:Andrew Meares Could Bernardi be the one to unite the splinter groups on the right of the political spectrum and change the Australian political landscape? As the sitting week ended on Thursday evening, Bernardi sat down to a beer at his desk and explained to Fairfax Media that he did not believe that he had left the Liberal Party so much as that it had abandoned its conservative heritage and its principles. Kirralie Smith speaks at a Q Society fundraiser for her legal battle on February 9. Credit:Wolter Peeters "My heart and my belief system is enshrined with Sir Robert Menzies," he said, speaking of the Liberal Party founder who forged a party dedicated to free markets and personal responsibility.

He was dismayed that under Turnbull the Coalition had appeared willing to countenance compromise on issues of governance (which should be little), taxation (low), renewable energy targets (scrapped) and gay marriage (banned). South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon. Credit:Getty Images He was particularly dismayed that the party had dumped Tony Abbott, a cultural warrior after his own heart, and emphasised that in his view Australians were abandoning the major parties because they failed to stand firm for anything much at all. Bernardi was also inspired by a long visit to America as Donald Trump fought his way to an unlikely victory. Bernardi was dispatched by the government to spend three months as an observer at the UN. (These observer seats are a sought-after parliamentary privilege, though whether Turnbull was seeking to mollify or banish him is not clear.) While there Bernardi took to using Trump slogans  Drain the swamp, Crooked Hillary  in his social media. On election day he tweeted out a picture of himself wearing a Trumpian "Make Australia Great Again" hat.

Bernardi confirms his time in New York did contribute to his decision to leave the Liberal Party, but he says he was inspired as much by the general atmosphere of a city built by people willing to take big risks for big rewards as he was by Trump's victory. According to Bernardi, due to their fear of offending interest groups, the major parties are ignoring the concerns of mainstream Australia, such as opposition to large-scale immigration. His party, once registered, would offer a "safe" conservative alternative, at least in the senate. By safe, he means that he will stand by his beliefs in free-market economics and resist the populism of protectionist policies espoused by the current star of the right-wing crossbench, Pauline Hanson, even as he shares her distrust of Islam and opposition to large-scale immigration. Hanson, he said, is an "utterly charming, tenacious, remarkable Australian". This divergence over protectionism would appear, so far, to be enough to prevent a merger between the two groups. Similarly it marks a significant gulf between Bernardi and George Christensen, another right-wing Liberal who has flirted with defection. Another theory kicking around conservative circles is that both men  and others on the right fringe  don't believe that Hanson has the organisational skill to keep her party together, and that despite her recent successes and surging polling in Western Australia, Bernardi and others are positioning themselves to absorb her support should One Nation again collapse.

Asked what he would consider to be a success, Bernardi said he would either like to build an enduring political movement, or use whatever leverage he garnered in the shorter term to reshape national politics. In practical terms, that would mean winning his own seat in South Australia  which comes up in 2022  and a handful of senate seats around the nation. He claims to have already built an impressive email list of 50,000 and secured donations from 700 supporters to that end. The South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon, whose protectionist NXT has secured real power on the current crossbench, does not doubt those claims. But he believes that if Bernardi is to enjoy success in South Australia, let alone the rest of the nation, he will need to soak up the vote of Family First, the Christian right party that had Bob Day elected in South Australia in the last election. Day has been forced to resign and the High Court is yet to decide whether he is to be replaced by a member of his own party or the Labor Party. In the interim, Bernardi has hired Day's chief of staff, Rikki Lambert, to join his own staff. Lambert has previously declared he would nominate to fill Day's vacant seat. Otherwise, Xenophon believes Bernardi presents a greater challenge to the Liberal Party than he does to Xenophon's NXT. There is a simple logic to his argument. Many South Australians are concerned about the decline of manufacturing in a state that some call an Australian rust belt.

Xenophon supports government intervention to protect Australian manufacturing jobs, while Bernardi remains a free marketeer in line with the Coalition. Thus protest votes would, Xenophon suggests, continue to flow his way. Do enough Australians care about preventing gay marriage to see Bernardi gather a national populist vote? "I'd say a minority care about that, a decreasing minority," says Xenophon. Bernardi says he doesn't have much faith in polls that suggest Xenophon's analysis is right. According to a recent Essential poll, 59 per cent of Australians now believe in marriage equality compared with 30 per cent who do not. Even 50 per cent of Coalition voters now support gay marriage. Bernardi is unimpressed. Having spoken with voters about his ideas, he believes his instincts are right. You can see why too. One of the first people to celebrate Bernardi's defection on the Australian Conservative's Facebook page was Graham Souter, a wood machinist from the NSW north coast who was abandoning the Liberal Party with Bernardi. He was not a homophobe, he said, but agreed that marriage should be between a man and woman, and like Bernardi he believed political parties should stick to principles. The mainstream parties no longer listened to people like him, he said. At a dinner held on Thursday night by the anti-Islamic Q Society in Sydney, speaker after speaker talked of Bernardi's defection in the same breath as they did Brexit and the Trump victory.

But Monash University political scientist Nick Economou believes that Bernardi's instincts are way off. "He must be mad if he thinks there is a conservative groundswell," he told Fairfax Media. Dr Economou agrees that the vote for the major parties is fragmenting. He notes that in 2007, 80 per cent of voters backed either the Coalition or Labor in the senate, and that the number had declined each election since. Last year, just 64.9 per cent cast a vote for the majors. But he said each year the number of minor parties appearing to mop up that vote kept growing. That is, he says, the conservative vote is remaining relatively stable, it is simply fragmenting. He believes that the Trump victory was less anomalous that it appears to be, because Trump was the endorsed candidate of a major party. Had he been a true outsider, he would have been destroyed at the polls, he says. Economou believes it may well be true that voters are seeking to punish the major parties out of a sense of frustration but, he says, in such circumstances they rarely turn to someone like Bernardi, who is promising to maintain most of the policies of the party he is abandoning. Instead, he says, they look for the biggest troublemaker in town. So far, that looks more like Hanson than Bernardi. Given the scale of the task ahead of him then, Bernardi seems confident enough to be accused of either chutzpah or hubris. The second charge he has faced before.
More concerning though, was the relationship dynamic between billionaire BDSM aficionado Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) and the demure Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), which was unhealthy at best and abusive at worst.

For a story focused almost entirely on sex, the love scenes in the first movie were widely lambasted. "Those looking for hot, kinky sex will be disappointed," USA Today's Claudia Puig wrote in her one-star (out of four) review of the 2015 movie. "Even the graphic nudity grows numbing."

Fifty Shades Darker, the sequel to BDSM romance Fifty Shades of Grey, may have its share of flaws, but the movie improves one aspect that was particularly fraught in its predecessor: the way it depicts sexuality.

The second time may not be the charm, but it's certainly sexier than the first try.

Fifty Shades Darker doesn't solve all of the original's problems, but it does rebalance the power, pivoting the focus from Christian's BDSM needs to Ana's desires and emotions. The sex, this time, truly includes her.

In the many sex scenes Darker offers, almost all are shot and told from Ana's perspective. Although the male gaze remains throughout (especially in one regrettable slow pan of Johnson in heels and lingerie), the film makes strides in recognizing Ana as a partner in the escapades. She instigates most of the sex, and the breadth of that activity is on her terms. There's no more punishment; there are no more scenes of Ana attempting sexual feats she doesn't seem to fully consent to. Shame and fear have been removed, replaced by genuine fun and affection. For most of the sex in the film, things are about what she gets out of the relationship, not what he does -- a radical departure from the first movie.

"The thing I admire most is that she's not afraid to have a sense of self-respect and power while also being very vulnerable in exploring her feelings and her interests -- whether it's emotional or sexual," Johnson told USA Today. "And that's something that I think is not necessarily encouraged these days."

The world outside of the bedroom is still toxic, for Ana and the other women on screen. Ana's personality tends to swing based on the needs of the outlandish plot and she shrugs off red flags, like the private detective Christian hires to follow her or when he buys the company she works for.

But it is gratifying, in a franchise so targeted at women, for the film to celebrate a woman's sexuality rather than shame it. It's probably no coincidence that Darker leans away from the franchise's BDSM roots. Many in the BDSM community condemned the first film for its portrayal, which was likened to abuse.
A man charged after a wild clash with police at a suburban McDonald's claims officers sparked the fracas when they tried to move him on as he waited for his food.

But a Victoria Police superintendent said a video of the conflict did not tell the whole story and has backed the police involved.

A screenshot from footage of police and a group of men clashing in Altona North Credit:Nino Bucci

Fady Taleb says he parked in front of the Altona North outlet about 7.10pm on Friday and was waiting for food missing from his drive-through order when a police officer in a passing car told him to leave.

He said he instead drove again through the drive-through lane, and that police then stopped him and told him he would be issued a ticket.
Ace West Coast Eagles recruit Willie Rioli has suffered a sickening setback to his plans for an emotional AFL debut early into the new season.

The classy small forward has seriously ripped his hamstring and could be out of action for up to three months.

Could Willie Rioli be a surprise selection for West Coast this week? Credit:West Coast Eagles

The mature-age draftee is headed for surgery to repair the torn muscle next Tuesday.

Rioli, 21, was ruled out of the Eagles full-scale practice match behind closed doors in Perth on Friday.
Western Australia's mining industry shed more than three thousand jobs in the period 2015-16 - the second consecutive measured decline - new statistics show.

At its peak, mining-related employment occupied 107,871 people in 2013-14, but the switch from construction to production has seen the sector steadily shedding jobs across the board as the boom fades.

WA's mining sector shed jobs for the second consecutive measurement period in a row. Credit:Minara Resources Limited

The latest 'Statistics Digest' from WA's Department of Mines and Petroleum shows the mining industry shed more than 3000 workers, from 105,470 to 102,273, in the past two years. The numbers include regular employees and contractors.

Sector by sector, the biggest job losses were in iron ore which fell from 58,851 in 2013-14 to 53,099 in 2015-16.
Bangkok: Cambodia's opposition leader has resigned to save his party from forced dissolution after threats from the country's strongman Hun Sen.

Sam Rainsy, who has been living in Paris, said the surprise decision was "for the sake" of his Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), which faces crucial commune elections in June.

Cambodia's opposition leader Sam Rainsy, pictured in Phnom Penh in 2013. Credit:AP

"I remain the symbol and embody the spirit of resistance to the autocratic and corrupt Hun Sen regime, and this is what matters in the minds of the Khmer people," Mr Sam Rainsy said on his Facebook page.

"In all the circumstances I continue to cherish and to uphold the CNRP's ideals in my heart," he said.
Seoul: China has expelled 32 South Korean Christian missionaries, a Korean government official said on Saturday, amid diplomatic tension between the two countries over the planned deployment of a US missile defence system in South Korea.

The missionaries were based in China's northeastern Yanji region near the border with North Korea, many of whom had worked there more for than a decade, South Korean media reported.

South Korean Defense Ministry's Deputy Minister for Policy Yoo Jeh-seung, center, and US Lieutenant General Thomas Vandal, left, speak to the media in July, 2016, about deploying THAAD. Credit:AP

South Korea's foreign ministry said on Friday it briefed Christian groups on the case of the missionaries, adding that they were expelled in January.

The ministry advised the groups on the importance of complying with the laws and customs of the areas where they work, it said.
WASHINGTON -- The Obamacare repeal effort was already in unstable condition. Now its status must be downgraded to critical -- and completely unserious.

After years of Republican yammering about the urgent need to repeal the Affordable Care Act and months of fruitless pursuit of an alternative, President Trump now says he may not unveil a replacement this year at all. And from Capitol Hill comes new word that Republicans aren't even talking about a plan.

"To be honest, there's not any real discussion taking place right now," Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told reporters Tuesday at the Capitol. Corker, according to the Huffington Post, said he has "no idea" when Republicans might start drafting an alternative to Obamacare, adding, "I don't see any congealing around ideas yet."

For seven years, opponents of the Affordable Care Act vowed to make its repeal their top concern, warning that the law would turn America overnight into a socialist dystopia. Now these opponents have unfettered control of the government and they aren't even talking about repealing.

On Nov. 1, a week before the election, Trump gave a speech pledging "to immediately repeal and replace Obamacare."

But in his weekend interview with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, Trump said that "maybe it'll take till sometime into next year" for his administration to unveil a new health-care plan. It is, the president said, "very complicated."

So complicated, in fact, that he apparently wants nothing to do with it. At Trump's meeting with congressional leadership, Trump told the lawmakers Obamacare would be replaced with something better, and then he turned to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). "And Paul's going to fill in the details. Right, Paul?"

Right.

A secret recording of Republican lawmakers' Obama-repeal talks late last month revealed angst and uncertainty about how to proceed and a great deal of worry that they would be blamed for whatever went wrong in the health-care market. Corker, in his talk with reporters this week, said that "you would have heard more of the same" in other meetings that weren't recorded.

An executive order Trump signed relaxing enforcement of Obamacare, and the constant talk of repeal, have injected a debilitating uncertainty into the health-care market -- essentially beginning the unraveling of Obamacare with nothing to replace it.

This means that Republicans, while waiting for their alternative to "congeal," have already set in motion the disintegration of the current health-insurance market. "It's worse than the dog who caught the car," said Jesse Ferguson, a strategist advising Democrats on health care. "It's the dog who somehow is now driving the car."

That would explain the series of erratic maneuvers we've seen from GOP lawmakers lately.

Take Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who in 2011 called Obamacare "the single greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime. It will destroy our health-care system. ... It must be repealed."

Now Johnson has shed the hysteria. "Let's start working with Democrats," he said on CNBC. "Let's transition to a system that will actually work, that, you know, Democrats are talking about. ... It's way more complex than simply repeal and replace."

Then there's Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.). In 2014, he proclaimed that Obamacare's "damage cannot now be undone by delaying it or tinkering with it -- it must be repealed and replaced with the patient-centered plan proposed by House Republicans."

These days he's not so bold. "We'd better be sure that we're prepared to live with the market we've created," McClintock said in the recorded session with Republicans. "That's going to be called Trumpcare. Republicans will own that lock, stock and barrel, and we'll be judged in the election less than two years away."

Or sooner. Arguably, Republicans already own the instability in the health-care system that their inaction has caused. Now that Trump is talking about delaying a health-care rollout for another year and Republican legislators aren't even talking about an Obamacare alternative, it's becoming clear what "Trumpcare" will look like: chaos.
The black-clad protesters who smashed windows and set fires at the University of California, Berkeley, forced cancellation of a campus appearance by a conservative provocateur. A similar group of protesters at President Donald Trumps inauguration broke windows and threw rocks at police officers.

The tactics can never be condoned in a civil society. The violence, with property damage estimated at $100,000, is criminal. It befouled the message sent by much larger groups of peaceful protesters.

Intolerance of conservative viewpoints has been a recurring problem on college campuses, symbolized by cancellation of prominent speakers like former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who withdrew from a planned appearance at Rutgers after student protests.

In fairness it should be pointed out that Milo Yiannopolous, an editor for Breitbart News, is nowhere close to Rices stature.

Yiannopoulos aims to inflame. Hes so outrageous that some find it hard to take him seriously. The openly gay Brit told Bloomberg Businessweek that being a gay Republican reinstates the illicitness that homosexuality has lost. He battles feminism, political correctness and globalization. He calls Trump his daddy.

He came to fame with a Twitter campaign against Leslie Jones, one of the stars of the remake of Ghostbusters. As a result Yiannopolous was banned from Twitter. His appearance at Berkeley was a stop on his Dangerous Faggot Tour of college campuses. He was invited to Berkeley by the campus College Republicans.

Despite his flamboyance, Yiannopolous should not be dismissed. Consider this. Black bloc protesters destroyed property at Berkeley. Fox News commentator Todd Starnes suggested Trump withhold federal funding. In short order Trump tweeted the same. And Yiannopolous posted this on Facebook: American universities should be on notice. The president is watching. The days you could silence conservative and libertarian voice on campus and still expect to collect their tax money are coming to an end. I am the catalyst for this change.

If Yiannopolous were to drop in on the average county Republican meeting in Nebraska wearing the accoutrements described by Bloomberg -- blond-tipped hair, pearl bracelet, gold necklace with a dog tag and a diamond in his ear -- he might raise an eyebrow or two.

Nonetheless Yiannopolous is part of the Trump movement, mocking campus liberals and safe spaces on campus, provoking in the name of conservatism.

Any violence he triggers by exercising free speech should be condemned by the entire political spectrum.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Feb. 10, 2017 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Feb. 10, 2017 | 06:11 PM | PADUCAH, KY

Five people were arrested Thursday evening, after what police are describing as a drug deal gone bad at a Paducah hotel.



The Paducah Police Department says officers responded to the Baymont Inn just before 6:00 p.m. Thursday, after a 911 call was received from the hotel. Officers arrived and and encountered two men, later identified as 27-year-old Dequarelle Meadows and 25-year-old Jeremy Baker, attempting to drive away from the area. Other officers found a third man, identified as 24-year-old Isaiah Cruz hiding near the hotel.



A semi-automatic handgun and several pounds of marijuana were reportedly found next to Cruz, and an investigation revealed that a fourth man, 28-year-old Carrington Byas, and Baker were meeting in one of the hotel rooms for a pre-arranged drug deal.



Police say Baker, Meadows and Cruz came into the room to rob Byas. Cruz was wearing a mask and was armed with the handgun. A brief struggle ensued and everybody involved fled.



Detectives said they recovered a total of more than six pounds of marijuana and $5,600 in cash during searches of the hotel room and the suspects' vehicles.



Cruz, Baker and Meadows all face first degree robbery charges. Byas is charged with trafficking in marijuana.



Police say more charges are possible.
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By Mark Edwards Feb. 11, 2017 | 04:31 PM | PADUCAH, KY





Today was a special day for many area military veterans and their families. Some of which drove as many as three hours to get to the Quilts of Valor presentation that was held Saturday afternoon.The 'call to order' began with the Pledge of Allegiance and prayer led by The Rev. Dr. Jenna Goggins, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Paducah, Invited veterans were asked to be seated on the front row for this ceremony that was a surprise for some.Robert Worden and his wife Donna, members of the Quilts of Valor Foundation, Paducah Ambassadors, Disabled American Veterans and First Presbyterian Church, lead the ceremony with a special introduction.Worden read to the guests, The Quilts of Valor Foundation is a grassroots group of quilters from all across the United States. In 2003, a quilter named Catherine Roberts had the idea of comforting veterans with quilts during the time her son was deployed in Iraq. Since then, over 151,768 Quilts of Valor have been awarded here in the United States, and abroad. Our mission is to honor our service members and veterans who have been touched by war with Quilts of Valor.For the veterans, these quilts bring a three part message from the hearts of those who created them. First and foremost, the quilts honor the veterans for their service in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Worden continues to read, We honor you for leaving all you hold dear and for standing in harm's way in a time of crisis, protecting us from the effects of war.Next, our quilters know that freedom is not free. Worden continues, The cost of our freedom is the dedication of lives of men and women like you, and this quilt is meant to say THANK YOU for your sacrifce.The quilters craft these beautiful and functional works of art so that veterans can be comforted and to remind them that although their family and friends cannot be with them at all times, they are forever in our thoughts and in our hearts.One by one, the service members in attendance were presented with a beautiful patriotic themed quilt and a certificate that read, The Quilts of Valor Foundation wishes to recognize your service to our nation. We consider it a privilege to honor you. Though we may never know the extent of your sacrifice and service to protect and defend the United States of America, as an expression of gratitude, We Award You This Quilt of Valor.Each veteran had their quilt draped over them and were presented with their certificate.Special thanks to these veterans for their service and sacrifice:Richard Borges  Navy/Desert Storm  Desert ShieldRobert Cashner  Army/IraqJohn English  Army/Iraq and SomaliaArthur Hastings  Army/VietnamWilliam Billy Haynes  Army/Afghanistan and IraqJohnny Jones  NavyJoey Pullin  Army/Gulf War and IraqRobin WallsDamian Bachman  Marines/Iraq (currently serving at Camp Pendleton)

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By WestKyStar & MSU Staff

Feb. 11, 2017 | MURRAY, KY

By WestKyStar & MSU Staff Feb. 11, 2017 | 08:27 AM | MURRAY, KY

Murray State Universitys Program of Distinction in telecommunications systems management has announced the TSM Transfer Scholarship. The scholarship will be awarded annually to transfer students in the TSM program at Murray State University.



Support from private sector partners AT&T, Community Financial Services Bank and Peel and Holland aided in the establishment of the scholarship.



Director of the Center for TSM Michael Ramage said, The new scholarship fund and private sector support are evidence of the growing importance and need for TSM and IT professionals in the west Kentucky region.



The Center intends to award multiple scholarships this year and plans to grow the fund in the future. The scholarship will target students transferring from the Kentucky Community & Technical College System, where the TSM program has an articulation agreement.



The scholarship will assist students with tuition, room, board, fees and other related costs.



For more information on scholarships within the TSM program, please visit murraystate.edu/tsm.




One of the many things I love about living in Nebraska is that this is a conservative state. To me, this is not an ideological or partisan statement. Instead, it means that we act cautiously and avoid jumping on some bandwagon just because some self-interested snake-oil vendors call on us to do so. As far as charter schools go, Nebraska is in fact so far behind the curve that we are now ahead of it. I suggest we keep that lead.

Our well-functioning public school system is a major attraction for outsiders to move into the state. My own family is testament to it. It contributes greatly to our collective quality of life. For anyone who is familiar even in passing with the credible news coverage and scientific analyses of charter school and student performance, it is crystal clear that charter schools literally undermine the public system and, thus, weaken our communities. Charter school students do not perform better than those in private schools; on the contrary, they perform in bimodal ways.

Charter schools exclude students most in need of instructional and social service support. Charter schools play a major role in fostering hypersegregation by both class and race. Support for public officials who think that charter schools somehow represent the panacea for what we dont like about our public schools are throwing out the kid with the bathwater. Betsy DeVos is incompetent and our public officials would do well to distance themselves from her and her plans.

Dr. Regina Werum, Lincoln
By Sen. Danny Carroll Feb. 10, 2017 | 06:50 PM | PADUCAH, KY

The hallways were packed with Kentuckians from across the state making their voices heard as we began the second part of the 2017 Legislative Session in Frankfort. I was especially heartened at the passionate crowd for the Rally for Life on Wednesday, February 8, and later in the evening that energy and excitement continued during Governor Bevins State of the Commonwealth Address.Hundreds of people filled the Capitol to celebrate the sanctity of life alongside Governor Bevin and members of the General Assembly. The governor ceremonially signed Senate Bill (SB) 5 and House Bill (HB) 2, both pro-life bills that help protect unborn Kentuckians who cannot protect themselves. As Governor Bevin noted, 83 percent of the General Assembly supported these billsa great reflection of the pro-family values of Kentuckiansand I was proud to be a member of those ranks.During the State of the Commonwealth Address, the governor told compelling stories from citizens across the commonwealth both praising our states progress and offering suggestions for improvement. From addressing tax reformation to our pension crisis to assistance for veterans, Governor Bevin hit the nail on the head when he outlined these issues. I look forward to continually working with him to solve these problems.Between the rallies and visits from citizens from across the commonwealth, the Senate was busy hearing bills in committee and passing some out of the chamber. Although this week was not quite as hectic as the first week of session in January, we kept a quick pace and sent four bills to the House.Senate Bill 2, a bill I cosponsored, encourages transparency and accountability in the state pension system. This bill passed unanimously from the Senate, and I am proud to stand up for taxpayers and retirees alike by taking another step toward fixing our broken pension system.Senate Bill 18, which protects the confidentiality of peer review information conducted by doctors.Senate Bill 50 was another bill that passed with bipartisan support. This legislation gives local school districts control over their school calendars, giving them the option to push back their school start dates so families have more time to enjoy the summer months. I voted to support this bill only after changes to the original bill made this change optional for local school districts.Senate Bill 17, which protects students rights to religious and political speech, is another bill I cosponsored and was the last bill to pass this week. I feel this piece of legislation will strengthen the First Amendment rights of our students and allow for expanded discussion of religion and politics in our schools.On a personal note, I was honored to accept a 2017 Champion for Children award this week during Childrens Advocacy Day.I also had the pleasure of welcoming several folks from home to the Capitol this week including Jennifer Jordan, Morgan Guess and her mother, Susan Guess, Paducah Fire Chief Steve Kyle, members of the Paducah Board of Realtors, Mary Foley from the Merryman House, Julie McKeel from ChildWatch, Jennifer Beck Walker and staff from the PADD office, Calvert City Administrator John Ward and staff from the City of Calvert City, Mr. and Mrs. Barney McNeill with NAMI Paducah, Mrs. Lana Trice Blish, and last, but certainly not least, a group of awesome young people from the Oscar Cross Boys and Girls Club.I would like to thank all those in my district who have taken the time to reach out with their questions, concerns, and support, and those who responded to Facebook posts asking for input. It is an honor to be in Frankfort on your behalf.If you have any questions or comments about these issues or any other public policy issue, please call me toll-free at 1-800-372-7181 or email me at danny.carroll@lrc.ky.gov. You can also review the Legislatures work online at www.lrc.ky.gov.
"They just want to stop fossil fuels." Another time, he compared the tactics of some anti-pipeline activists to "terrorism." Kelcy Warren.Warren is a co-founder and CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the conglomerate whose security contractors have deployed pepper spray and snarling dogs against the Native Americans protesting its Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in North Dakota., near Big Bend National Parkhallowed ground to many Texans. He's spent millions of dollars supporting right-wing politicians. He gave $700,000 to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's political action committee and $6 million to PACs supporting former Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign. He also put Perry on ETP'S board.With his business partners, Warren has distributed $223,000 to the three members of the Texas Railroad Commission, who rule on the eminent-domain requests his companies often use to run pipelines through privately owned farms and ranches. He personally spent $100,000 to help elect Trumpformerly an ETP shareholderwith the unvarnished expectation that the new administration would remove the last hurdles for the stalled North Dakota project on "January 20 or shortly thereafter." Indeed, four days after taking office, Trump issued an executive order to speed the completion of the pipeline; this week, the Army Corps of Engineers granted an easement that will allow the construction to proceed.The scale of Warren's projects is mind-boggling. The 1,172-mile-long Dakota Access Pipeline will carry 570,000 barrels of oil a day through watersheds and wildlife habitats. Add that to the 75,000 miles of pipe Warren already owns, a carbon-based nervous system worth an estimated $67 billion, and it's not hard to see why he has become the target of some truly nasty personal attacks. Pipeline foes have called him "the face of genocide for Native Americans" and "nothing but a cancer on the planet."Warren has vigorously defended his projects, saying the Dakota Access Pipeline is "built to safety standards that far exceed anything government requires." At a meeting of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commissionto which Gov. Abbott appointed him as a commissioner in 2015Sometimes Warren lets his exasperation show. "This is not a peaceful protestthere are violent people," he told a Fargo, North Dakota, radio host in November. "They just want to stop fossil fuels." Another time, he compared the tactics of some anti-pipeline activists to "terrorism."
For nearly eight years, I represented Lincoln and most of Lancaster County on the Nebraska State Board of Education. I have been closely involved in public education policy in Lincoln for nearly 30 years. At all points, my focus has been to improve the educational outcomes of our children.

I was hopeful about a couple of others who were mentioned during the presidents consideration of a nominee for Secretary of Education. Betsy DeVos would not have been my first choice but she was the nominee, and Ms. DeVos has been closely vetted by someone who I trust, our U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer.

Sen. Fischer secured passage of an amendment to the Every Student Succeeds Act, the law that replaced No Child Left Behind, reinforcing the need for state and local control for education.

Sen. Fischer, who has a long track record as a local school board member, and whose mother taught in public schools for 30 years, received express written commitments from Ms. DeVos addressing Sen. Fischers concerns about local control. The letter is on the senators website. Ms. DeVos generally praised returning control over education decisions to states and local communities.

Regarding school choice, Ms. DeVos specifically stated that (d)ecisions about whether to provide parental choice will vary from state to state and district to district, reflecting local needs and I will be respectful of state and local decisions on this issue.

During my service on the State Board of Education, we fought daily against federal interference in the operation of Nebraska schools. Here, we have a nominee who explicitly confirmed her commitment to local control. I am pleased and encouraged that Sen. Fischer elicited a promise from Ms. DeVos to leave decisions about charters, vouchers, and the like, to us.

Over the past few days, we have seen demonstrations from those who were in an uproar over this nomination ("More heat on Fischer," Feb. 5). I do understand their concern but I dont think that DeVos is the threat that shes been made out to be. To the contrary, if her stated objective is to have the federal government leave us alone, we should be pleased that Sen. Fischer elicited such a promise.

Bob Evnen, Lincoln
I note that the recent presidential executive order to strengthen vetting of refugees from seven nations is under fire from many sides, especially considering that there have been no attacks on our homeland by any refugees from those countries ("LPS Joel calls on LPS staff to help immigrant children feel safe," Feb. 3). In fact, most deaths due to radical Islamic terrorism in our country since 9/11 have been by American citizens. I suggest that President Trump look elsewhere if he wishes to save American lives.
Larry Nassar is the former MSU and Team USA Gymnastics doctor accused of molesting athletes.

News 10 spoke with the lawyer for a women who claims he sexually assaulted her when she was a cheerleader at a local high school. The attorney told us Nassar had contact with a lot of local athletes and not just gymnasts.

Earlier today Tim Staudt interviewed one of the other lawyers for the plaintiffs on his radio show Staudt on Sports.

John Manly said many of his clients are MSU alumni who still love the school and don't want to see this play out the way things did during the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State University. He also said MSU has to answer for failing to tell USA Gymnastics and Twistars when it put Nassar on probation in 2014.
It is clear that Nebraska Sens. Ben Sasse and Deb Fischer have turned their backs on the schoolchildren of Nebraska ("DeVos gets confirmed," Feb. 8). Did they not hear what their constituents were saying back home? Did they not read their emails or listen to the messages that were left for them? The most important resource in any state is its children. How dare you treat them with such disregard! Its unconscionable that they voted with their party instead of for the children of this state. I am ashamed of Sasse and Fischer and I am ashamed that they are my representatives in Washington. I promise that I will not forget how they voted and I will make sure I remind others of this vote come re-election time.
Housing sales have been red-hot in both Omaha and Lincoln, with homes often selling above their asking prices -- sometimes within days or even hours of going on the market.

And assessors in both Lancaster and Douglas counties have responded, updating property valuations to catch up with smoking sales.

Figures got posted last month. Initial total valuations, which could change, jumped 8.5 percent in Douglas County while Lancaster County residential values spiked an overall 12.5 percent.

Despite those superficial similarities, reactions have differed drastically from one county to the next.

In Omaha, homeowners flooded the offices of Assessor/Register of Deeds Diane Battiato and Douglas County commissioners with complaints, their consternation compounded by last years state-mandated 7 percent increase in the value of homes in central and west Omaha.

The Douglas County Board has held meetings on the issue and passed a nonbinding resolution on Jan. 31 urging a 3 percent cap on increases.

Battiato rejected the cap, saying it would put the countys total valuations at 91.4 percent of market value, just short of the states requirement that they be within 92 to 100 percent. Also, a cap would let fast-appreciating homes fall below their value on the market.

The Douglas County Board sought the intervention of Gov. Pete Ricketts, who ordered state Property Tax Administrator Ruth Sorensen to send a letter offering guidance on keeping values low yet within the acceptable range.

Bowing to political pressure, Battiato recently said shes considering options to ease taxpayers distress.

In contrast, Lancaster County valuations have generated plenty of chatter, but no special hearings from the County Board, no resolutions and no public gubernatorial admonition. While more than 5,000 people signed up for informal meetings to review home values with an assessor, that figure is smaller than the 7,000 the assessors office in Lincoln had predicted.

There will be another chance for formal protests of values in June.

Lancaster County's last full-scale reassessment happened two years ago and initially was scheduled to take place next year. It got bumped up to avoid a state mandated adjustment like the one Omaha saw last year, Lancaster County Assessor Norm Agena has said.

Lincoln Realtor Rich Rodenburg talks real estate Saturday mornings on radio station KFOR-AM and said he's heard stories of valuation increases as high as 25 to 30 percent in Lancaster County. But most people acknowledge home sales are driving the market up, and the increase likely is warranted.

The complaints in Omaha are different, he said.

There are people in Omaha who are going up in percentages like 40 percent and more. Those people are kind of up in arms, Rodenburg said.

With assessments done from scratch, changes in residential property valuations can differ wildly -- even houses across the street from each other -- some go up, some stay the same and others go down.

One womans land near Omaha Westside High School went up almost 800 percent, from $42,800 to $337,600, according to a report from WOWT.

Douglas County Board Chairwoman Mary Ann Borgeson said taxpayers shouldnt suffer because of past or current mistakes by assessors.

You cant expect the taxpayer to be on the hook for making up all the wrongs that were done in the past in one fell swoop, she said.

Its not whether or not people can buy a house, its whether they can stay in their house with these increases.

Beyond issues of sticker shock, the counties have different politics and personalities at play. Assessors are elected, answerable to voters, not commissioners.

Im not sure any of us commissioners would have a huge impact on (Lancaster Assessor) Norm Agena, frankly, said Roma Amundson, a Lancaster County commissioner and real estate agent.

Norm is doing his job. And he has a statutory responsibility and right to do it.

Agena, who has said he plans to retire at the end of his current term, came to the defense of his counterpart in Douglas County, saying Battiato is doing her job and following state statute.

The market has just changed up there. There isnt anybody that has control of that but the buyers and sellers, he said.

Taxes dont figure into the calculations, he said. Local governments like cities, counties and schools approve budgets and set tax rates.

Even Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert, who filed re-election papers last month, has sounded off on the Douglas County valuations throwing her weight behind a 3 percent cap.

Meanwhile in Lincoln politicians have focused on tax rate cuts rather than having city government reap a windfall from the valuations.

Rob Ogden, the Lancaster County Assessor's chief field deputy, said years of work and attention to detail created a quality product and less problematic value adjustments here.

While the governor hasn't sent guidance to Lancaster County, his spokesman, Taylor Gage, said the advice doled out to Douglas County "is generally applicable to any county experiencing dramatic residential valuation increases.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 11/02/2017 (2093 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

True to its title, the Agatha Christie mystery Black Coffee, the flagship production of Royal MTCs Master Playwright Festival, is a dark and stimulating piece of theatre.

First produced in 1930, Christies theatrical debut seems to be a little dated with its drawing-room setting and its quaint, mannered characters. Yet the plays McGuffin (the Hitchcockian term for the single object that drives the action) is a formula for an explosive that can wipe out populations by the tens of thousands, according to its fiercely autocratic inventor, Sir Claude Amory (Ross McMillan). So points to Christie for presaging the nuclear race a decade-and-a-half before it became reality, not to mention her authoritative knowledge of narcotics and poisons.

When Amorys valuable formula goes missing, the bullying scientist orders everyone in his house to assemble in the cavernous locked drawing room (an especially rich and impressive piece of set design by Brian Perchaluk). Having invited master detective Hercule Poirot (Lorne Kennedy) to the posh Abbots Cleve estate, Amory has the lights turned off so the guilty party might return the stolen item without consequence. But that plan doesnt work out, and by the time Poirot arrives on the scene with his guileless associate Captain Arthur Hastings (Arne MacPherson), there is a murder to be solved, as well as a theft.

Dylan Hewlett photo Lorne Kennedy organic life into master detective Hercule Poirot, a character whose every move is normally precise and calculated.

The suspects will ring familiar variations-on-an-archetype to anyone who followed the PBS series Poirot. Sir Claudes impoverished son, Richard (Derek Moran), may have a money motive. Richards Italian emigre wife, Lucia (Claire Armstrong), is visibly distraught prior to the theft, possibly the result of the disturbing presence of a sinister visitor from Italy, Dr. Carelli (Omar Alex Khan). Less suspicious, but no less likely (in the Christie canon, anyway) possibilities include Sir Claudes fusspot sister Caroline (Mariam Bernstein), his scandalously forthright niece Barbara (Daria Puttaert), his spinsterish assistant Edwina (Miriam Smith) and, of course, his imperturbable butler Tredwell (Andrew Cecon).

The plays three-act structure may throw audiences for a loop in that the intermission comes after the first act, a mere 40 minutes in. Director Ann Hodges set a zingy pace for the remainder of the two acts, artfully blending comedy with suspense in one big handsome package.

Bernstein is notably funny in a role of a foreigner-averse xenophobe who nonetheless finds herself sweet on our Belgian sleuth. MacPherson gets laughs as a mature man turned into a lovelorn schoolboy by the wiles of the sophisticated Barbara. McMillan, doing double-duty, also appears as Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard, a no-nonsense cop who makes a fine earthy foil to the unfailingly cerebral Poirot.

Kennedy does especially excellent work as the dapper sleuth with the exemplary little grey cells. An iconic figure of mystery fiction, Poirot is a character whose every physical movement is as precise and calculated as a Swiss watch. Yet Kennedy breathes organic life into him, usually though his exasperation with unnatural English obsessions such as exercise and fresh air.

Black Coffee runs two hours and 20 minutes including intermission.

Dylan Hewlett photo Claire Armstrong (left) plays Italian emigre Lucia and Daria Puttaert plays Sir Claude's niece Barbara.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing

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Think about this from a third-graders perspective. From the day they were born, they were strapped into a car seat. Then a booster seat. Now their parents constantly harp them to strap on seat belts.

But then they step on a school bus, and theres not even the option to buckle up.

So when third-graders at Laura MacArthur Elementary School in Duluth were tasked with writing a letter to their local state senator, suggesting an idea for a bill to introduce, requiring seat belts on school buses seemed like a no-brainer.

They were all just kind of, we have to wear them in cars, why dont we have to wear them on the bus? explained Emily Glomski, whose class composed the letter just after the election.

Glomski assumed the class would get a polite reply, but little else.

To her surprise, state Sen. Erik Simonson, DFL-Duluth, decided to introduce a bill, inspired by her third-graders. Then, earlier this week, he visited the school to talk to the class.

The reason Im here today, and the reason Ive introduced a bill in the state Senate, is because of the work that you guys did, he told the students as they sat cross-legged in front of him in the school library. Thats the only reason.

The original idea came from a student named Hunter Kuehnow, decked out for Simonsons visit in a black corduroy sport coat and red tie (clip-on, he admitted), and black-rimmed glasses.

He slowly read a few sentences from the letter. We should have seat belts so we can stay safe on the bus. If we get in a crash, we dont want to hit our heads on the seats.

When he was a kindergartner, Kuehnow said, he got hurt when a friend was messing around with him on the bus, and he got stitches in the back of his head.

Despite that injury, school buses are already incredibly safe, Simonson told Kuehnow and his classmates.

To be clear, and to be fair, school buses are the safest way to get kids from point A to point B, without a doubt, he said.

School buses are seven times safer than passenger cars, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Board. Theyre heavy, high off the ground, and bright yellow so other drivers can easily spot them. And the rubberized seats, placed close together, are designed to protect kids in the event of a crash.

School buses transport more than 23 million kids back and forth to school. Yet on average, only six die in bus crashes every year.

But we have an opportunity here to make them even safer, I think, Simonson told the kids.

Then the senator opened it up for questions. And immediately a third-grade student cut right to the chase. How are you going to pay for this? he asked.

Huh. Excellent question, Simonson said. If theres one argument that could be made against seat belts, its the cost of the seat belts. And I understand that. And well try to figure out a way around this.

It costs between $8,000 and $10,000 to equip a bus with seat belts, according to industry officials. With about 12,500 buses in Minnesota, that adds up to between $100 and $125 million.

The price tag is a big part of the reason why similar legislation has failed to pass three times in Minnesota since 2011. Currently only six states require seat belts in school buses.

While everyone acknowledges that seat belts save lives, there are also other concerns with installing them in school buses.

Groups that represent bus operators and companies worry that drivers will be required to make sure kids wear the seat belts. And if there is an accident, they say, it could be difficult to free kids from their belts to leave the bus.

But momentum may be shifting in favor of the idea. Minnesota is one of 17 states where school bus seat belt bills have been introduced this year, according to Amanda Essex with the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Some states have pointed to the fatal crash in Tennessee in November of last year, she said, in which six grade school students died. The accident received a huge amount of national attention.

I think that has maybe spurred this to the top of the mind for some legislators, she said.

Also, about a year and a half ago, the administrator for the National Highway Transportation Safety Board for the first time came out in favor of seat belts on school buses, although the board has declined to mandate them.

Then the National Safety Council followed with its own recommendation that seat belts should be installed on new school buses, a move that Simonson said could give the bill a better chance in the Legislature this year.

But Derrick Agate, transportation director for the Hopkins school district, said requiring seat belts on new buses would put districts like his in an uncomfortable position because typically a district will buy only a handful of new buses every year. It could take 10 years to replace the entire fleet.

How do you tell one set of parents that, yes, were having new buses in, but were going to be using it in this neighborhood, as opposed to this neighborhood? he said.

Agate, whos also president of the Minnesota Association of Pupil Transportation, doesnt oppose seat belts. But he said any bill should also include money for school districts to pay for them.

And that leads to another tough question posed by a Duluth third-grader to state senator Erik Simonson. What happens if the bill doesnt pass?

Thats a really good question, and a really strong possibility, Simonson conceded.

He told the class if it doesnt pass, hell keep trying, every year, until it does.

Whatever happens, Glomski said her students wont forget that they spoke up and got the Capitols attention.

Its just been awesome for these kids, she said. Even though theyre just 8 and 9, were all citizens, and all of our voices matter. Now they have this initial dipping their toes in civic engagement. Its pretty cool.

It costs between $8,000 and $10,000 to equip a bus with seat belts, according to industry officials. With about 12,500 buses in Minnesota, that adds up to between $100 and $125 million. The price tag is a big part of the reason why similar legislation has failed to pass three times in Minnesota since 2011. Currently only six states require seat belts in school buses.
The Baraboo Optimist Club hopes to raise $1,500 to support a Baraboo High School program that prepares incoming students for the transition from eighth to ninth grade during its 12th annual Valentines Brunch on Sunday.

Known as Link Crew, the program connects underclassmen with junior and senior leaders. The upperclassmen act as mentors for incoming freshmen, offering an initial high school orientation, school tours and a lot of advice on what to expect from life at Baraboo High School.

I have roughly 60 juniors and seniors who go through an application process to become a Link leader, said Baraboo High School business teacher Marcie Gratz, who acts as an adviser to the group.

Link leaders are trained to mentor younger students, and drop in on freshman homerooms throughout the school year for anything from social visits to academic tutoring.

Theres research out there that says if freshmen or new students make a relationship within the first few weeks at school, its going to lead to success in their high school careers, Gratz said. Thats what Link Crew is all about.

The Optimist Clubs donation will be used to finance a variety of Link Crew events, including the groups annual freshman tailgate party and Link Crew leader training. Other funds will be used for Link Crew t-shirts.

The Optimist Club is amazing, and their ability to help our program is appreciated, Gratz said.

Twenty to 30 Link Crew leaders will be on hand at the Optimists Valentines Brunch to help with anything from serving to washing dishes. Baraboo Optimist Club President Joan Kenney said she looks forward to opportunity to interact and work with students.

Its one of the few times we have an opportunity to work directly with the kids who we support, she said.

The buffet-style brunch will be prepared by Mike Alten of Elite Catering, who is an Optimist Club member. The menu will include made-to-order omelets, pancakes, quiche, French toast, ham, potatoes, pastries and a host of other breakfast dishes. Alten and a team of volunteers will make enough food to feed up to 400 guests.

He has been instrumental in making this possible for all of the things that we do that involve food, Kenney said of Altens work for the Optimist Club.

Aside from the food, Kenney said her favorite part of hosting the annual brunch is the opportunity to meet new people, while working to support the kids and programs at Baraboo High School.

Its all going back to servicing our local kids and supporting the programs in our community, she said.
Well, the swamp keeps on getting swampier.

In the first-of-its-kind move, Vice President Mike Pence, who is also president of the U.S. Senate, cast a tie-breaking vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as secretary of education Tuesday. The DeVos nomination was moved ahead of Sen. Jeff Sessions attorney general nomination, so he could still vote for DeVos.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted against DeVose. Murkowski told The Hill last week that her office had been flooded with calls urging her to oppose the nomination of a private school advocate who has no personal or professional experience in public education.

I have serious concerns about a nominee to be secretary of education ... who has been so immersed in the discussion of vouchers, Murkowski said.

DeVos answers in her Senate confirmation hearing revealed a shocking lack of knowledge about education law and public schools.

While Pences tie-breaking vote was the first of its kind, the politics are not. Talk all you want about draining the swamp or changing things in Washington, but politics is politics in the beltway. For those of us watching, it doesnt give much inspiration regardless of campaign trail promises.

Remember last year when Senate Republicans refused to give then President Barack Obamas pick for the U.S. Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, a hearing? We chided Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., for shirking his duties. We pointed out that the Constitution he swore to uphold didnt allow him the right to block a hearing on a nomination to the Supreme Court just because Obama was in his final year. Daines failed to do his job.

We hope that Judge Neil Gorsuch gets the hearing he deserves. Were glad to see Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., say frankly that he deserves an up or down vote.

While we have questions about where Gorsuch stands on certain issues, there can be little doubt he is well qualified for the position and would serve honorably.

Last week, we also saw Senate Democrats on the Finance Committee boycott the hearings for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Rep. Tom Prince. This forced the Senate Finance committee to reschedule and ultimately, come closer to a showdown.

As citizens  regardless of party  we must hold our leaders accountable for their actions, not necessarily holding them to a party line. Showing up is part the job, and so too is pushing for a yes-or-no vote, even if the president only has a year left on his final term. Both are dereliction of duties. Both should be anathema to citizens, regardless of parties.

Republicans ran from their sworn duty months ago, and now its the Democrats turn at turnabout, whether in boycotts or filibusters. Two wrongs and nothing seems quite right in Washington, D.C.
Nebraska Wesleyan University will host an international film series that will screen foreign films in February and March.

The series begins Saturday, February 18 with the film Who Am I? No System Safe, a 2014 German film.

All screenings will include English subtitles, and are free to the public. Films will be shown in Olin B Lecture Hall, located in the Olin Hall of Science near 50st and St. Paul Ave.

The following is a schedule of events:

Saturday, Feb. 18  7 p.m., Who Am I? No System Safe, 2014 German film. Benjamin, a young German computer whiz, is invited to join a subversive hacker group that wants to be noticed on the worlds stage; crime/drama; not rated.

Friday, Feb. 24  7 p.m., Ernest & Celestine, 2012 French film. Nominated for an Academy Award, this movie tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a bear, Ernest, and a young mouse named Celestine; animation/comedy/crime, PG.

Thursday, March 16  7 p.m., Instructions Not Included, 2013 Mexican film. Valentin is Acapulcos resident playboy until a former fling leaves a baby on his doorstep and takes off without a trace. As Valentin raises Maggie, she forces him to grow up. This unique and offbeat family is threatened when Maggies birth mom shows up out of the blue, and Valentin realizes hes in danger of losing his daughter and best friend; comedy/drama, PG-13.
MOUNT PLEASANT  A 23-year-old Racine man suffered gunshot wounds to both legs early Saturday morning on Mead Street, Mount Pleasant police reported.

According to a press release, officers from the department were monitoring pedestrians and traffic in the 2300 block of Mead Street, due to a high volume of people leaving area taverns, when one of the officers reported hearing two pops.

Moments later, at 2:11 a.m., the male victim was found lying on Mead Street just south of 23rd Street, the release states.

Wounded, but conscious and alert, the man was taken by South Shore Fire Department rescue crews to Ascension All Saints Hospital, where he remained as of Saturday morning, in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries.

The incident remains under investigation, police said.
Koppers Holdings Inc. provides treated wood products, wood preservation chemicals, and carbon compounds in the United States, Australasia, Europe, and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Railroad and Utility Products and Services (RUPS), Performance Chemicals (PC), and Carbon Materials and Chemicals (CMC). The RUPS segment procures and treats crossties, switch ties, and various types of lumber used for railroad bridges and crossings. It also provides rail joint bars to join rails together for railroads; transmission and distribution poles for electric and telephone utilities; and pilings. This segment also provides railroad services, such as engineering, design, repair, and inspection services for railroad bridges. The PC segment develops, manufactures, and markets copper-based wood preservatives, including micronized copper azole, micronized pigments, alkaline copper quaternary, amine copper azole, and chromated copper arsenate for decking, fencing, utility poles, construction lumber and timbers, and various agricultural uses; and supplies fire-retardant chemicals for pressure treatment of wood primarily in commercial construction. The CMC segment manufactures creosote for the treatment of wood or as a feedstock in the production of carbon black; carbon pitch, a raw material used in the production of aluminum and steel; naphthalene for use as a feedstock in the production of phthalic anhydride and as a surfactant in the production of concrete; phthalic anhydride for the production of plasticizers, polyester resins, and alkyd paints; and carbon black feedstock for use in the production of carbon black. The company serves the railroad, specialty chemical, utility, residential lumber, agriculture, aluminum, steel, rubber, and construction industries. Koppers Holdings Inc. was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Palo Alto Networks, Inc. provides cybersecurity solutions worldwide. The company offers firewall appliances and software; Panorama, a security management solution for the control of firewall appliances and software deployed on a customer's network, as well as their instances in public or private cloud environments, as a virtual or a physical appliance; and virtual system upgrades, which are available as extensions to the virtual system capacity that ships with physical appliances. It also provides subscription services covering the areas of threat prevention, malware and persistent threat, URL filtering, laptop and mobile device protection, and firewall; and DNS security, Internet of Things security, SaaS security API, and SaaS security inline, as well as threat intelligence, and data loss prevention. In addition, the company offers cloud security, secure access, security operations, and threat intelligence and cyber security consulting; professional services, including architecture design and planning, implementation, configuration, and firewall migration; education services, such as certifications, as well as online and in-classroom training; and support services. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. sells its products and services through its channel partners, as well as directly to medium to large enterprises, service providers, and government entities operating in various industries, including education, energy, financial services, government entities, healthcare, Internet and media, manufacturing, public sector, and telecommunications. The company was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
On behalf of the Knights of Columbus Ladies Auxiliary Council #207, we would like to thank all those who attended our first Polish/Ukrainian Dinner held on Sunday January 29th .

Much to our surprise we were sold out of 260 dinners in 45 minutes and regretfully had to turn away many people. To those who were unable to buy a meal we extend our apologies.

Special thanks to Alice Abate and Nancy Villano for all the work they did helping to prepare the food prior to Sunday. I would also like to thank all the auxiliary members who donated their time and money to make this event a success as well as Tim Chadwick, Dave Henry , Jim LaMay, and Glenn Jorgensen for their help the day of the dinner.

I would also like to thank David Wilcox of The Citizen for advertising this event for us.

We are tremendously appreciative to all who help make the day so successful. Thanks to all again!
RACINE COUNTY  Gov. Scott Walker's budget plan has won initial praise from higher education leaders, including Gateway President Bryan Albrecht.

The budget proposal, presented Wednesday to the state Legislature, freezes tuition for technical college students, a move Walker's administration says would save the typical student $279 over two years based on prior tuition increases. State funding for technical colleges would increase $10 million to offset the impact of the freeze.

Walker's plan provides $5 million for a worker training grant program called Wisconsin Fast Forward, which allows technical colleges to partner with local businesses to help fill high-demand fields, according to the governor's office. It also invests $10 million more in a need-based financial aid program.

Albrecht said Walker delivered a "bold agenda to make college more affordable."

"We celebrate the important aspect that education is a cornerstone of the state budget agenda," Albrecht said in a statement to The Journal Times. "Investments in student financial aid, general state aid for technical colleges and workforce training grants all demonstrate the important role Gateway plays in building a local workforce."

Albrecht added: "We recognize the need to increase student access through K-12 dual-credit pathways and university transfer programs. Our goal is to always put students first and deliver success through performance-based outcomes."

Deliberations to come

The budget is now in the hands of the Legislature, which begins deliberations this spring.

A spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said Vos supports the proposed technical college tuition freeze. Some of Walker's other higher education plans have come under scrutiny by Vos and GOP legislative leaders, who have hesitated about a proposed 5 percent tuition cut for the University of Wisconsin System.

Other Republicans, who control both chambers of the Legislature, expressed skepticism about the overall amount of new spending in the proposed budget, so it remains to be seen what the final budget will look like.

"I am deeply concerned by the dramatic spending increases within the governor's budget, which further expand government and increase the fiscal commitment of taxpayers going forward," said state Sen. David Craig, R-Town of Vernon, whose district includes the village and town of Waterford.
CALEDONIA  For more than 20 years, Marcel Dandeneau had a tradition.

The last Saturday of every month, Dandeneau held court during breakfast at DeRango's, 3840 Douglas Ave., talking politics with whomever could join him.

He would bring his thoughts and share magazines for people to read and get updated on the goings-on at the state and federal level, said Ray DeHahn, a lifelong friend of Dandeneau and Racine alderman.

"He was a people person," DeHahn said. "He cared about everybody. He may have been on different sides of the political arena sometimes, but I've seen him help people that were not necessarily (with the same) political beliefs."

Dandeneau, a longtime Democratic activist and former state representative from Caledonia, died Thursday after batting cancer. He was 85.

Korean War veteran

Born and raised in Racine, Dandeneau graduated from St. Catherine's High School and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1951, less than a year after graduation. He fought in the Korean War in a rifle unit, leaving the Army with the rank of sergeant.

It was after his time in Korea when he endured arguably his most dangerous incident  participating in an atomic bomb test in Nevada. Two of the other test subjects wound up on 100 percent disability, according to a 2010 Journal Times story. But Dandeneau came out unscathed despite witnessing an explosion and walking through the blast site an hour later.

Back in Racine County, Dandeneau was a teacher for nearly 30 years, served as a state representative from 1975-81 and was heavily involved with the local Democratic Party.

Dandeneau also was active in Caledonia politics, serving on the Town Board in the 1970s and early 1990s. The latter stint was followed by two years as town chairman.

"He was a guy that, if something wasn't right, he wasn't going to sit on his hands and say, 'I'm not going to do nothing about it,' " DeHahn said. "Especially when he felt there's things that should be done to make it right."

State Rep. Cory Mason, D-Racine, said Dandeneau was a steadfast proponent of the Democratic Party and its values, as is his wife, Shirley, who survives him.

"In my more than 20 years in Wisconsin politics, I have rarely had the privilege to know anyone as dedicated and gracious as Marcel Dandeneau," said Mason, D-Racine.

"I will miss Marcel's mentorship, fellowship and wisdom."

Honor Flight

Last year, Dandeneau took an Honor Flight trip to Washington, D.C., and was moved to tears several times, he told The Journal Times.

He and other veterans toured the Washington area by bus, beginning at the Korean War Memorial and ending at Arlington National Cemetery, before returning home to a cheering crowd at General Mitchel International Airport.

It was really and truly an incredible experience, Dandeneau said in an interview. It rebuilds your pride in being an American.

Funeral arrangements had not been announced as of Friday afternoon. Mason requested Gov. Scott Walker fly flags at the state Capitol at half-staff in Dandeneau's memory.




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Ott Tanak won all three Saturday morning speed tests at Rally Sweden to close on second-placed Jari-Matti Latvala.

Stage info: SS10/11 SS10: Hagfors 1, 15.87km

New name but familiar roads  Hagfors was called Varmullsasen and driven as the live TV Power Stage in 2016. After negotiating a series of fast, flowing corners, competitors burst into view in front of thousands of fans on the Varmullsasen ski slope. A set of tight downhill hairpin bends leads into a big jump before the finish at the bottom of the hill on the edge of Hagfors. SS11: Vargasen 1, 14.27km

Rally Swedens best-known test, Vargasen is famous for Colins Crest  a blind jump 12.8km from the start where fans gather in their thousands. Eyvind Brynildsen set a new record last year with a 45 metre jump, and the biggest leap this season will receive the award named in memory of the late Colin McRae. It starts on a narrow and twisty road but becomes wider and more flowing. Its shorter this year but with a new 900 metre section at the end last used in 2000.

After victory in the ultra-fast Knon opener, the third-placed Estonian was quickest through Hagfors and Vargasen to narrow the gap to 9.2sec.

The Ford Fiesta driver edged out rally leader Thierry Neuville by a tenth of a second in Hagfors, with Latvala 2.7sec off the pace. He clawed back a further 3.4sec in Vargasen to leave Latvala feeling the pressure.

Ive been pushing very hard. Conditions are better because Im not early in the running order. The grip is consistent and were in a big battle with Jari-Matti. It needs to be perfect and so far weve done a really clean job, said Tanak.

Latvala (below) rued his decision to take two spare wheels in his Toyota Yaris. I had a really nice run, I cant do better, said the Finn. I made a mistake taking two spares when everyone else took one. Im carrying too much weight at the back and losing time in the long corners.

Neuville eased through both stages in the top three times and returned to the Torsby service park with a 32.8sec lead over Latvala in his Hyundai i20 Coupe. With our lead we took it a bit more steady. I didnt really jump over Colins Crest, I didnt want to risk anything, were controlling it, he said.

Sebastien Ogier was fourth and pulling away from Kris Meekes Citroen C3, the Ulsterman happy with his rhythm but disappointed with the times.

Dani Sordo completed the top six ahead of Craig Breen. The Irishman had a mistake-free morning following yesterdays errors and his confidence was improving step by step.

Elfyn Evans, Stephane Lefebvre and Hayden Paddon completed the leaderboard, the Kiwi losing another two minutes with no power steering in his i20 Coupe. With these wider cars its like wrestling a 400lb lion  and Im coming off second best! he said.

 This afternoons SS12 Knon has been cancelled. Following this mornings initial pass, organisers said the repeat would be scrapped due to safety reasons after analysing the average speeds and on recommendations from the FIA.

Head to WRC+ to see the latest onboard and video reports from Rally Sweden.

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SOMERS  University of Wisconsin-Parkside Chancellor Debbie Ford is advocating that money for a Wyllie Hall renovation be included in the state budget.

Gov. Scott Walker presented his 2017-19 budget proposal Wednesday to the state Legislature, but funding for UW capital projects has not yet been disclosed.

Parkside and the UW System also requested money for a Wyllie Hall renovation in the 2015-17 budget, but were turned back.

When the final version of the budget is crafted and approved, Im hopeful that adequate funding is included to address capital project priorities throughout the UW System, including Wyllie Hall at UW-Parkside, Ford said in a letter Friday addressed to students, colleagues and friends of UW-Parkside.

Ford noted the delay in Wyllie Hall construction has increased costs. The UW System has requested the state borrow $35.9 million for work at Wyllie Hall, reportedly about $5.9 million more than what UW officials requested for the last state budget.

Wyllie Hall is a multipurpose building that includes classrooms, computer labs, administrative offices, study areas and access to the library.

Chancellor offers praise

UW System leaders have commended Walkers overall funding plan, calling it a reinvestment in the UW System. Ford, too, said she was encouraged Walker recognizes the vital role UW-Parkside and the entire UW System play in strengthening Wisconsins economy and workforce.

The governors proposal includes a 5 percent tuition cut for in-state students paid for by a $35 million bump in general purpose revenue, which is on top of a $100 million increase to the systems budget.

It would also allow students to opt out of paying segregated fees that go toward certain campus activities, require students to have an internship or work experience before graduating and require UW institutions provide three-year degree options.

Ford praised the plan for including funds to boost faculty and staff compensation, which has been a source of frustration at Parkside.

By including funds to address compensation, Governor Walker recognizes that our faculty and staff are key to the success of our students, our institutions and our state, she said.

Ford, who is a candidate for the presidents post at Wright State University near Dayton, Ohio, also noted that budget discussions have only just begun.

The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau will present its analysis in the coming weeks. The Joint Finance Committee will begin deliberations in the spring before the full Legislature adopts a budget, which could come in June.

As a learning community, we look forward to working with our legislative delegation and advocating for a 2017-2019 biennial budget that promotes student success and access to quality and affordable, higher education at UW-Parkside and across the UW System, Ford said.
Jari-Matti Latvala was the surprise leader of Rally Sweden on Saturday night after Thierry Neuville crashed out of top spot in the final speed test.

Neuville held a comfortable advantage before ripping the left front wheel from his Hyundai i20 Coupe after going off the road in the short special stage at Karlstad trotting track.



His demise left the Finn with a slender 3.8sec lead in his Toyota Yaris over the rapidly closing Ott Tanak with just Sundays short finale remaining. World champion Sebastien Ogier was only 12.8sec further back in third.



It is the second rally in a row in which the Belgian has crashed out of a secure lead. He hit a drainage culvert and broke his suspension in last months season-opening Rally Monte-Carlo - ironically, that also happened in Saturdays final stage.

Having pulled clear of Latvala late on Friday, Neuville measured his pace on snow and ice-covered forest roads and his lead hovered around 30sec. Victory in the penultimate speed test increased his advantage to 43.3sec before his error.

Neuville threw away his rally lead on Saturday's super special stage

A thin layer of overnight snow ensured drivers struggled for grip and Latvala couldnt match yesterdays pace. He regretted his decision to carry two spare wheels this morning as Tanak closed in with an impressive hat-trick of stage wins in his Ford Fiesta.



I carried too much weight at the back and lost time in the long corners, said Latvala.



Freed from opening the roads in the worst of the conditions, Ogier quickly demoted Kris Meeke from fourth. But the Frenchman admitted he couldnt find the speed he hoped for.



Meeke was a comfortable fifth in his Citroen C3 before diving off the road and down a small bank in the penultimate test. Fans lifted his car back onto the track but more than eight minutes passed before he continued and he plunged off the leaderboard.



His mistake promoted Dani Sordo into fourth, the Spaniard 25.0sec clear of Craig Breen. After an error-strewn day yesterday, Breen was mistake-free as his confidence grew step-by-step on his C3 debut.



Elfyn Evans was sixth ahead of Hayden Paddon who drove all morning with no power steering in his i20 Coupe. He lost almost four minutes, comparing driving the car to wrestling a 400lb lion.



Stephane Lefebvre, WRC 2 leader Pontus Tidemand and Teemu Suninen completed the leaderboard, while Neuville will restart tomorrow in 13th with a 10-minute penalty.



Speeds were high and after the opening Knon test was won at an average of 137kph, the afternoons repeat pass was cancelled for safety reasons.



Sundays final leg is the shortest with just three stages covering 58.81km. Two passes through Likenas precede the live TV Power Stage at Torsby, which offers bonus points to the fastest five drivers.



Head to WRC+ to see the latest onboard and video reports from Rally Sweden.

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Jail For Man Who Stole Phone From Sleeping Train Passenger

This article is old - Published: Saturday, Feb 11th, 2017

A man who stole a phone from a sleeping train passenger has been jailed for 10 weeks.



Ryan Jones, 30, Bangor, took the phone while travelling on a service between North Wales and Chester on 19th December 2016.

Jones thought no one had seen him steal the phone however he did not take into account CCTV footage.

However officers from British Transport Police examined the extensive CCTV network and uncovered footage of the thief outside the train and at Flint station.

Having circulated his image, he was tracked down and arrested by police in January.

Jones pleaded guilty to theft at Wrexham Magistrates Court on 3rd February and was sentenced to 10 weeks imprisonment.

Investigating officer PC Henry Thompson said: The best part was that during a search of Jones house, the victims phone was recovered and returned to them immediately.

You might think no one is watching and youll get away with taking someone elses property. But were here to make sure you wont.
"Gun Control" fanatic's insane reasoning

By Bob Owens. February 8th, 2017

Michael Bloomberg's gun control mouthpiece Shannon Watts has never been one to let little things like "facts" and "objective reality" get in the way of her attempts to infringe on your natural right to self-defense. Her latest bizarre objection to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is just the latest example of the insanity inherent to the rants we often hear from Moms Demand Action.

Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, raised concerns Tuesday that DeVos may not protect students from being exposed to gun violence. "During the Senate confirmation process, DeVos did not oppose guns in schools, a dangerous gun lobby priority that endangers our children in the very place that should be a safe haven for learning," Watts said in a statement Tuesday after the Senate confirmed DeVos. "Our kids deserve better than this -- and like mothers everywhere, we will stop at nothing to make sure they are safe," she added. But there is little DeVos can do to loosen the nation's gun laws.

The attack from Watts against Devos is absurd on two separate levels... .......

Another example of 'head-in-the-sand' thinking! Watt's, like so many, has this naive notion that no guns in schools makes them safer - the continued insane promotion of 'gun-free-zones'. It has to be wondered just how the Watts type thinking might react to a situation where a child of hers was under attack at school, with no one available to provide armed resistance. Perhaps she would prefer that her offspring be murdered - instead she should see reality instead of misplaced altruism.

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Representatives of the student bodies of two leading universities in Berlin, Germany, have issued declarations in support of the General Student Committee (Asta) at the University of Bremen. The Asta is being sued by professor Jorg Baberowski, a leading ideologue of the far right in Germany.

In October 2016, the University of Bremen Asta published a leaflet in which they quoted and criticized statements made by Baberowski advocating a crackdown on refugees and more aggressive military intervention by Germany. Falsely claiming that he had been slandered, Baberowski has sued the Asta to prevent students from criticizing and even quoting his statements.

One week ago, one hundred students and teachers in Bremen attended a meeting to express their solidarity with the General Student Committee.

The student parliament of the Free University of Berlin, which represents more than 36,000 students at the university, has declared its solidarity with the University of Bremen Asta.

A resolution adopted last Thursday declares that the student parliament opposes in the strongest terms, the attempt of the professor of Eastern European history at Humboldt University, Jorg Baberowski, to sue the student body of the University of Bremen because their Asta had expressed criticism of his smear campaign against refugees and theory of violence. Baberowskis attempt to muzzle critical students represents a fundamental attack on freedom of expression and a critical university.

At the meeting of the student parliament, the grounds for the motion were outlined. While Baberowski bangs the drum for war in talk shows, interviews and newspaper articles, and agitates against refugees, he wants to use the courts to silence students who criticize him, a representative of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) told the student parliament.

Defending the Bremen student body is therefore of the utmost importance, the IYSSE representative said. It concerns the defense of the right to be able to expose and criticize reactionary, nationalist and militarist positions. If an evident right-wing ideologue like Baberowski succeeds with his censorship attempts, it means the criminalization of resistance to the shift to the right.

Students at Humboldt University have also declared their support for the Bremen Asta. While the next meeting of the Humboldt Student Parliament will not take place until April, the Universitys Departmental Student Representative Council (Friv) has already expressed its solidarity. The Friv comprises student representatives of all the individual university departments.

At its meeting on February 1, the Humboldt University Friv opposed Baberowskis effort to sue the Bremen students because their student union had expressed criticism of his agitation against refugees and theory of violence. The statement, which was sent directly to the Bremen Asta, concludes: We therefore express our solidarity explicitly with the Bremen Asta.

In addition, the student representatives at the history department (FSI Geschichte) also issued a statement. The FSI Geschichte represents students in the department where Baberowski teaches Eastern European history.

In a letter to the Bremen Asta, published on the organizations website, the student representatives state: We have learned that the Chair for the History of Eastern Europe at our institute, Jorg Baberowski, is suing you because you quoted him and expressed criticism of his positions. In a university context, criticism should lead to discussion and not be prevented through legal means. We defend the right of all students to criticize their teachers and solidarise ourselves with you!

Solidarity also came from the Plenary Body of the Institute for Social Sciences at Humboldt University, which is calling for the reinstatement of the urban sociologist Andrej Holm. Holm was sacked by the university on the pretext that he had made false statements about his brief activity for the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi).

Baberowskis actions signify an attack on objective discussion with critical students. We condemn this illegitimate action in the strongest possible terms and solidarise ourselves with you, the plenary body wrote in a Tweet. It added, Student criticism cannot be banned by court order.

The IYSSE group at Humboldt University will expand its campaign for support for the Bremen students and has called a solidarity meeting for next Monday.

The World Socialist Web Site calls on students, teachers and especially workers to express their support for the Bremen student body. Send letters of solidarity to the University of Bremen University Asta and send a copy to iysse@gleichheit.de!
A recently published report for the Policy Exchange think-tank is titled, The Cost of Doing Nothing: The price of inaction in the face of mass atrocities.

The report opposes what it complains is the new anti-interventionist consensus [that] has emerged in sections of the main UK political parties and elements of the press. It is based on a paper that was being co-authored by Labour MP Jo Cox before she was murdered by a fascist in the run-up to the referendum on UK membership of the European Union in June 2016.

Coxs brutal murder shocked millions. But her death has been used in the most cynical fashion by right-wing forces within the Labour Party.

Cox was a supporter of humanitarian interventionism and was a co-founder of the All-Party Parliamentary Friends of Syria group. Before her murder she had co-authored an October 2015 article in the Observer with Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell, arguing for British military involvement in Syria on the pretext of creating safe havens. Cox worked on the original draft of her report with the Conservative MP and former British Army Lieutenant Colonel Tom Tugendhat. The report was finished posthumously by Tugendhat and Labour MP Alison McGovern, who is chair of the Blairite campaign group Progress.

The report was then launched at a meeting attended by former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who employed Coxs husband Brendan as an adviser. A video contribution from former Conservative Foreign Minister William Hague was shown, arguing against knee-jerk isolationism, and asserting that ideological pacifism and doctrinal anti-interventionism are not in Britains national interest.

Policy Exchange is described by the Telegraph as the largest and most influential think tank on the right. It was set up in 2002 by Michael Gove, who last year became one of the leaders of the pro-Brexit right within the Tory Party, and Francis Maude. Both went on to hold senior cabinet positions in the 2010 Tory-Liberal Democrats coalition. Gove was succeeded as Policy Exchange chair by former Telegraph editor Charles Moore.

The report appears as part of the Britain in the World series, which Policy Exchange describes as a new non-partisan initiative, i.e., one that provides a meeting ground for the Tory and Labour right-wings.

Its stated aim is to revitalise the British foreign policy debate in the UK, challenge the narrative of decline, encourage the creation of a new generation of foreign policy leaders, and to ask hard questions about Britains place in the world, its hard and soft power assets, and future grand strategy.

This imperialist mission statement centres on support for hard power military force in the defence of Britains national interest for which the type of humanitarian rhetoric in which the late Cox specialised is used to justify. The report states:

* Interventionmilitary and otherwisehas been an irreducible part of British foreign and national security policy for over two hundred years.

* The willingness or capacity to intervene militarily is an essential element of Britains grand strategy.

* We must keep military intervention as a legitimate tool in our foreign-policy toolkit.

* Important deterrents rely for optimal effectiveness on the backing of a credible threat of military force.

* The tools of diplomacy and deterrence  will be most effective if backed up by a willingness to use military force.

Then follows the well-rehearsed political complaint of the warmongers that no one any longer believes their humanitarian excuses for war, because intervention has become discredited and, in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, populations and politicians have, understandably, come to regard it with deep suspicion.

There are then a series of banalities about learning the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, asserting, Regrets about Iraq focus on the fact that the invasion went ahead without UN sanction and in the face of widespread public opposition, and the belief that the evidence of an imminent threat was deliberately exaggerated by the UK government under Tony Blair.

The belief that evidence was deliberately exaggerated hardly comes close to what happened. Blair had promised British military support to US President George W. Bush for an intervention to topple Saddam Hussein, as was borne out by the Chilcot Report published last year. The evidence was so clearly manufactured to justify launching the war that millions of workers and young people renamed the British prime minister Bliar.

Afghanistan offers another cautionary tale and further underlines just how elusive success can be, the report states. Two such failures have undermined the idea that humanitarian outcomes can be delivered by military intervention. This, in turn, has fed the view that military intervention itself is flawed, and has led to increased wariness towards the efficacy of military intervention.

In true Blairite-speak, widespread public hostility to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is described as oversimplified, since it fails to take into account the existing violence in each country, and the losses and suffering that would have occurred if intervention had not taken place.

Libya too provides another example of the complexities and potential pitfalls of the use of military force to protect civiliansan anodyne description of a bloody war of aggression for which, the report complains, the UK and its allies were criticised for allowing to morph into an effort to achieve regime change.

To achieve regime change, NATO protected civilians by carrying out over 20,000 sorties, destroying schools, hospitals and homes and slaughtering untold numbers of Libyan soldiers, many of them young conscripts. (See Libya: The criminal face of imperialism)

Examples of successful military interventions cited in the report include, The establishment of a no-fly zone in northern Iraq in 1991 [which] successfully protected Kurds from Saddam Husseins genocidal air attacks, and The 1999 NATO intervention in Kosovo  [which] protect[ed] tens of thousands of Kosovar civilians.

The result of the first Gulf War, launched in 1990, as is explained in Desert Slaughter: The Imperialist War Against Iraq, was at least 250,000 Iraqi soldiers killed and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, either through the savage bombing campaign, or from disease and starvation in the aftermath of the war.

The subsequent imposition of no-fly zones accompanied a crippling regime of sanctions that, according to various analysts, led to the deaths of at least 500,000 civilians.

The Kosovo intervention was in reality part of a massive bombing campaign launched against Serbia in which hundreds of civilians were killed and vital infrastructure destroyed.

The lessons the authors are concerned should be learned from this are that the British state should once again be made ready to intervene militarily on the same lying humanitarian pretext used to sanction its previous crimes.

In Syria, the report laments the failure of the UK parliament to vote for air strikes in 2013, coupled with President Obamas failure to follow through on his pledge to act if President Assad crossed the US-designated red line of using chemical weapons.

In the reports foreword, Cox is cited saying, My heart sank as I watched in 2013 when, following President Assads use of chemical weapons against civilians, we first voted against a military response and then supported taking military options off the table.

Advocacy of military intervention throughout is couched in the humanitarian rhetoric of the UNs Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, for which Cox actively campaigned. I still firmly believe that a legitimate case can be made for intervention on humanitarian grounds when a Government is manifestly unwilling or unable to protect its own civilians. Sovereignty must not constitute a licence to kill with impunity, she said in parliament in October 2015.

The Policy Exchange report concludes by quoting the Roman writer Vegetius, If you desire peace, prepare for war, before listing eleven points advancing the case for continuing British military intervention around the globe. These include the need to use massive force to avoid retaliation and further conflict, cynically claiming, overwhelming force deters and ultimately saves lives.

Anticipating that such brutal interventions will unleash popular opposition, they insist the Allies should anticipate and have the ability to withstand opposition from domestic constituencies and demands for early exits.

This implicit threat to mobilise the power of the state against the development of a new anti-war movement is the iron fist concealed behind the political beatification of Jo Cox.
Donald Trump signed executive orders on January 25 and January 27 outlining a series of new measures aimed at setting massive restrictions on immigration to the United States and on tearing those already present in the country away from their children, parents, and other loved ones. Two particularly high-profile components of these measures, the construction of a border wall between the US and Mexico and a travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East, have sparked social outrage in the form of mass demonstrations throughout the US and internationally.

Though the travel ban has for the present been halted by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the other elements of the immigration orders are only just beginning to take effect. The result is a massive ramping up of the deportation apparatus and strengthening of the police state built up under the Obama administration. For millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States, the future poses the immediate danger of deportation. According to an analysis by the Los Angeles Times, the new orders could result in the deportation of eight million people, with millions more family members affected. The Trump administrations move to scapegoat millions of immigrants is part of a broader attack on the democratic rights of the working class as a whole.

The language of the domestic immigration enforcement order exposes the deeply anti-democratic character of the orders. Trump proposes to end the abuse of the parole and asylum provisions currently used to prevent the lawful removal of removable aliens, despite the fact that asylum applications were rarely granted under the Obama administration. A website put together by Syracuse University tracks the denial rates of immigration judges nationwide. In California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, most judges deny between 70 and 99 percent of asylum applicants. One judge in Texas, Howard Rose, denied all 110 asylum applicants who appeared before him between 2011 and 2016.

The executive orders will only lead to more denials of asylum applications from deserving migrants. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has already issued a call for volunteers from within the agency to travel to border states to aid in processing newly arrived migrants for mass deportation.

The order on border security and public safety will deputize state and local law enforcement to aid immigration officials in leading deportation operations in major American cities nationwide. It also threatens to cut federal funding to sanctuary cities where sheriffs and local police are not required to aid federal forces in deporting migrants. The result will be a massive increase in deportations, an increase in workplace and home raids by ICE officials and police, and the incarceration of hundreds of thousands or millions of workers for the crime of bringing their families to the US to escape violence or look for work.

The executive orders drastically expand the list of individuals the administration will prioritize for deportation as removable aliens. The orders state that even those migrants accused of committing a crime will be removablea gross violation of due process and the centuries-old presumption of innocence.

Trump has called for the construction of new immigrant detention facilities along the US-Mexico border through both federal as well as for-profit private contracts. He has also directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to allocate all legally available resources to immediately assign asylum officers to immigrant detention facilities to conduct credible fear hearings for asylum seekers.

The credible fear hearing is the process by which the Asylum Office for US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) determines whether or not asylum seekers will be allowed to enter the country. If the interviewee does not appear to have reasonable or credible fear of returning to his or her country of origin, the ICE immediately deports the individual. If the person is found to have a credible fear, he or she has the right to appear before a judge, though most people end up getting deported anyway.

The system is rigged against asylum seekers, with judges and prosecutors paying little attention to the merits of their asylum claims. Officers frequently lie to the courts and submit false testimony in which asylum seekers admit that they have no claim. This practice, which took place regularly under the Obama administration, will intensify under Trump. Since Trump took office, immigration attorneys have reported that their clients are being denied the right to appear before a judge even when the migrants were found to have a credible fear of returning to their home countries.

According to a senior US immigration official who spoke to the Intercept on the condition of anonymity, ICE is preparing internally for a drastic increase in deportations. Trumps executive orders promised to hire 10,000 new ICE deportation officers. The official said, I cant think of any other reason than preps for processing a lot of expedited removal cases. In addition to mass deportations, the measures will produce a vast number of asylum seekers who become trapped in a bureaucratic swamp, detained for months without the right to meet their family and without the ability to easily access an attorney. Under US immigration law, jailed migrants do not have the right to an attorney. The Obama administrations official position was that children as young as three or four years old do not have the right to an attorney. As a result, they are often forced to appear in court alone.

The state has already set into motion the vast acceleration of deporting immigrants, with raids beginning last week. Immigration agents in Phoenix, Arizona, arrested Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos on Wednesday. Rayos, 35, had been living in the US since she was a teenager, regularly checking in with a local ICE office after being caught using a false social security number to get a job in 2008, as many migrants are forced to do in order to receive a legal wage. The Trump administration is now prioritizing the deportation of these individuals, who were not at the top of Obamas list for deportation.

Another controversial aspect of Trumps orders are the resurrection of the DHS-administered Secure Communities program. Began by the Bush administration and expanded by Obama, this program partnered ICE officials with local jails to aid in the sharing of biometric data. It was suspended in November 2014 after pressure from immigration advocates, only to be replaced by a similar initiative known as the Priority Enforcement program.

The second program to be expanded by Trump is the 287(g) program, which allows local and state police to be deputized as immigration officials for the purpose of rounding up migrants for deportation. The Department of Justice (DoJ) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have shown on numerous occasions that the program causes racial profiling and routine violations of constitutional rights amongst Latinos.

The proposed economic penalties against so-called sanctuary cities have particularly authoritarian characteristics. According to the orders language, any city that does not abide by Washingtons exact dictates can be considered a sanctuary city and therefore liable for cuts to federal funding, without which cities would be unable to deliver basic services. This is an attempt by the Trump presidency to bring local authorities to heel while creating yet another opportunity to slash municipal budgets and gnaw away at the few remaining social gains of the working class.

According to an analysis by Reuters, a sum of $2.27 billion in annual funds for the 10 largest cities in the US are under threat. This includes hundreds of millions of dollars meant for Head Start preschool programs, public housing and HIV prevention and treatment.

Aware of growing discontent within broader layers of the working class, the American political and media establishment seeks to divert attention from the growing chasm of social inequality by scapegoating immigrant workers and transforming the US-Mexico border into an armed zone replete with internment camps. Though the executive orders represent a qualitative deepening of the breakdown of American democracy, Trump's policies are the outcome of the eight years of record deportations under Obama, who deported 2.5 millionmore than all his predecessors combined.
The Honduran government and business elite has responded with furor and threats to the findings of the London-based human rights group, Global Witness (GW). Its recent report Honduras: The Deadliest Place to Defend the Planet, published on January 31, provides evidence linking international finance, top figures of the ruling class and the military apparatus to corruption cases and the murders of environmental and indigenous activists.

The explosive growth of inequality, poverty, social opposition and militarization in Honduras since the 2009 military coup backed by the Obama administration, along with dwindling investments and global profitability, set the context for the reports findings and the uproar it provoked.

Global Witness documents 123 murders of land and environmental activists opposing dams, mining, and other extractive projects in Honduras since 2010, the highest number in the world, while countless others have been attacked or faced trumped-up legal charges.

The government has done virtually nothing to protect activists, instead leading a race to the bottom on rights and standards to attract investments. The study notes that out of the 49 rights defenders that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) requested protection for, 13 have been murdered.

In March 2016, the indigenous rights activist, Berta Caceres, was murdered as she gained international recognition for her role in the struggle against the Agua Zarca dam. A very dangerous network of wealthy people in this country were consistently after her. Berta received at least 33 death threats, stated her brother in May. Four of the seven men arrested so far for her murder were military or special forces veterans; one of them was the former head of security for the company building the dam, DESA.

The GW investigation sheds new light on the mix of military, political, corporate and international forces behind the killing of Caceres and dozens of other activists. The executive board of DESA is a stark representation of this collusion of reactionary forces. According to GW, the companys president worked for military intelligence and has a record of corrupt sales to the military, while the secretary is an ex-minister of Justice. Three of the board members are close relatives of the well-connected Atala familyone is the president of a local bank, while the other is the president of the US-Honduras Chamber of Commerce and ex-director of the Central American Development Bank, which has invested in the dam.

They are also relatives of the billionaire owner of Ficohsa bank and ex-minister Camilo Atala, who according to Bloomberg, in April 2015 hosted the Guatemalan and Honduran presidents and US State Department officials at a resort to initiate discussions over an annual $1 billion package to halt child migration into the US.

Several other networks like these are exposed, involving numerous top officials and sponsors of the ruling National Party (PN). Most notably, the head of the PN and vice-president of the Honduran Congress, Gladis Aurora Lopez, allegedly staged prior community consultations and ordered incursions against protesters over the Los Encinos dam, owned by her husband.

Global Witness writes that 82 of the 123 murders it documented are of small farmers and activists protesting land theft for the Bajo Aguan palm oil plantation in northern Honduras, owned by late billionaire Miguel Facusse until his death in 2015. The report mentions that a US-funded task force investigating the plantation found at least 148 killings of campesinos.

The publication of the report on Honduras was immediately met with furious responses and attempts to discredit its documented findings. The secretary of Natural Resources, Jose Galdamez, called for the GW campaigners who presented the report in Honduras to be detained. The governments chief coordinator signaled that the 123 murders are not substantiated anywhere in the document and that the NGO is discrediting itself by acting ideologically or politically. The head of the ruling National Party, who was mentioned repeatedly in the report, threatened to file a lawsuit with the Public Ministry.

The GW representatives met with Attorney General Oscar Chinchilla, a figure close to the US embassy, but cancelled meetings with opposition politicians due to safety concerns. Yes, we felt threatened, said Global Witness in an official statement criticizing the smear campaign. They called upon the government to demonstrate its absolute commitment to implement the measures they suggest in the report.

Several regional rights organizations also denounced the governments attacks against the British NGO, while calling for the same policies outlined in the GW report. Last week, organizations meeting at the ProDerechos Forum in Costa Rica expressed their concern over the governments reaction and called on the Honduran attorney generals office and MACCIH to investigate the cases presented in the GW report.

Another umbrella group stated that the government should uphold the requirement of defending activists in order to receive $125 million from Washington as part of the Alliance for Prosperity.

GW writes, What is driving the attacks? Corruption, a lack of consultation and a failure to protect activists, and calls on president Juan Orlando Hernandez to urgently address these root causes. In terms of corruption, it calls on the US-financed judicial body MACCIH to investigate at least one high profile case of corruption in the natural resource sector. (emphasis added) As this purely symbolic proposal suggests, MACCIH is an anti-impunity tool being used by the US Embassy to gain greater control of its client state by pressuring the Honduran ruling class with corruption investigations, while also seeking to deal with the crisis of legitimacy and opposition in Honduras that has deepened since the 2009 coup.

In terms of consultation and protection of activists, GW couches its recommendations in terms of the profit interests of Honduran and foreign capital: Defenders local expertise is essential in helping investors to identify, prevent, and mitigate human rights abuses and therefore also minimize related adverse business impacts

The bulk of the funding for Global Witness comes from the same financial oligarchies and international cooperation money that fund the dams and mines in Honduras and fills the corrupt pockets of its ruling class. GW lists the UK and other European governments, along with the CIA-linked Ford Foundation and US billionaire George Soros Open Society Foundation, as some of their main contributors.

The NGO warns that the countrys reputation will be too lawless and risky for respectable companies. This is ludicrous. The international development banks, where the US financial aristocracy holds sway, like the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Banks International Finance Corporation, have recently invested hundreds of millions in energy and extractive projects in Honduras, concerns over their respectability notwithstanding.

A 2016 UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean report found that Honduras has the third highest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) profitability of the region, while most of new FDI into Honduras is going into banking and renewable energy projects like dams and solar power. For the financial aristocracy, naked reaction and the race to the bottom in regulations and democratic rights have been the norm of the global movement of capital, but increasingly so since the 2008 financial crisis. The record highs on Wall Street on the basis of Trumps anti-regulatory, reactionary, and militaristic program clearly reflect this process.

The ominous attitude of the Trump administration toward the region is reflected by its attacks against immigrants. Moreover, in October 2015, retired general John Kellythen the head of the Southern Command and currently the secretary of homeland aecuritycommented on the Northern Triangle (Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador): So over time, the court systems have collapsed. The Attorney Generals are ineffective. The police are all bribed. The only functioning institutions that exist today are the militaries.

The reality is that the killings in Honduras are generated both by the thuggish drive for profit by the local oligarchy and increasing pressure from US and European capital on the Honduran ruling class to create ever more profitable conditions for investment.

In the end, under the guise of human rights, the demands made by GW and local rights organizations to the criminal Honduran coup regime are aimed at advancing the efforts of the imperialist powers to suppress social opposition and gain greater control over the Honduran political establishment.

Workers need to draw their own conclusions from the GW findings. Activists, indigenous communities, peasants, workers and youth cannot rely on the government for protection from persecution and death inflicted by its own repressive forces. Workers and peasants need to fight for a revolutionary socialist program under the workers leadership of the International Committee and its efforts to unite workers across the region, the US, Europe and the world, to confront the imperialist powers and their semi-colonial client regimes.
In an interview with the conservative Die Welt newspaper, joint founder of the Left Party Oscar Lafontaine spoke out in favour of a stricter deportation policy.

Many states rightly rely on voluntary repatriation and offer assistance. But the state must ultimately be able to decide who it accepts. That is of course the basis of the state order, stated Lafontaine, who will run as the Left Partys leading candidate in state elections in Saarland at the end of March. Whoever has crossed the border illegally should be given the option of voluntarily returning. If they do not accept this offer, deportation is all that is left. The state governments in which the Left Party is involved also see things this way.

In common with representatives of the far right, Lafontaine seeks to invoke social issues in his attacks on refugees, the majority of whom have fled from war zones in the Middle East and North Africa. He promotes nationalism, attacks globalisation from the right and attempts to play off the poorest sections of the population against immigrants.

We cannot afford to leave it to right-wing parties to talk about the problems of wage and rent competition, the Left Party politician said. Businessmen support open borders to secure labour power from developing countries and intensify wage competition by means of increased migration. He added that the immigration question was above all a social issuefor those who come here and those already living here. He went on to cite sociologist Colin Crouch,who had pointed out that the call for open borders [is] a central demand of neoliberalism.

Lafontaines line of argument is reactionary and cynical. For one thing, the Left Party, as a party of government, is responsible for much of the social misery he now blames on immigration, particularly in the eastern German states where workers have been driven to desperation. Currently the party is in government in the eastern states of Brandenburg, Thuringia and Berlin. Secondly, the fact it poses as a left party, while implementing right-wing, anti-working class policies, creates the political frustration which the AfD (Alternative for Germany) and others exploit.

We noted in a previous article that Lafontaines right-wing slogans come as no surprise. They arise directly out of his partys orientation, which defends capitalism and German imperialism. Hardly anyone else embodies this better than the former Social Democratic Party chairman and federal Finance Minister. A brief review is enough to show that Lafontaine has been one of the leading trailblazers for an anti-refugee policy over the past 25 years.

In the early 1990s, as Minister President in Saarland, he adopted immediate measures including the introduction of mass detention camps, communal caring facilities and benefits in kind. At the same time, he pushed for new legislation from the German government, which would deny the guarantee of asylum to those coming from countries where according to general opinion, no political persecution is taking place.

Lafontaine was seen within the SPD at the time as a hardliner on refugee policy. He saw his task as one of imposing his line on the entire party. When in August 1990 then-minister president of North Rhine-Westphalia and future German President Johannes Rau (SPD) publicly backed Lafontaine, Der Spiegel wrote, North Rhine-Westphalias SPD government intends to restrict the right to asylumentirely in the spirit of Chancellor candidate Oscar Lafontaine.

Then in August 1992, Lafontaine enforced, together with then SPD chair Bjorn Engholm, the so-called Petersburg Turn, which marked the repositioning of the SPD on refugee and foreign policy, including among other things the virtual abolition of the right to asylum through a so-called asylum compromise. A central element of this was so-called third-state regulations. These laid the basis for the current mass deportations: asylum seekers from what are designated secure third states could be rejected without any further review. Lafontaine described this as a real step forward.

After his resignation as SPD chair and departure from the party, Lafontaine stuck to the same line. In 2004, he was among the few who supported the controversial plans of Interior Minister Otto Schily (SPD) to establish detention centres for refugees in Africa. At the time, Lafontaine formulated in the Bild newspaper what has become one of the favourite arguments of the far right today. Among the 15 percent who leave Africa as refugees, are not the weak, elderly, sick and children without parents. It is normally the healthy, those capable of achievements who want to get to Europe to live better, Lafontaine wrote.

In 2005, Lafontaine then deliberately encouraged prejudices against foreign workers. The state was obliged to prevent family fathers and women becoming unemployed while foreign workers take jobs from them with low wages, he declared in a now infamous speech in Chemnitz.

Over the past two years, Lafontaine and his wife, the parliamentary group leader of the Left Party Sahra Wagenknecht, have repeatedly attacked the refugee policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) from the right. Already in November 2015, Lafontaine appealed for a strict upper limit for refugees. In a statement he demanded the limitation of refugees being provided protection in Germany by strict quotas in Europe.

Then at the beginning of this year, Wagenknecht stated that chancellor Angela Merkel was jointly responsible for the terrorist attack on a Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin. There is joint responsibility, but it goes deeper, said Wagenknecht. Along with the uncontrolled opening of the borders there is the police cut to the breaking point, with neither the personnel nor the technical equipment appropriate to the danger of the situation.

The agitation against refugees and the demand for more police are part of the broader campaign by the Left Party to participate in the federal government. Lafontaine noted in Die Welt that the SPD, Greens and Left Party hold the majority in the Bundestag (parliament). In Neues Deutschland, Wagenknecht urged a new, more self-assertive German power politics, Regardless of what Trump does: we have to intensify the pressure on the German government to break free from subordination to US policy.
The eruption of mass demonstrations against the Donald Trump administration, involving millions of people, is politically and historically unprecedented. It is an initial indication of the crisis-ridden character of the new US government and the immense social upheavals to come.

The fight against Trump is a fight against capitalism and all of its political representatives. It depends on the education, organisation and mobilisation of workers in every country of the world against a social and economic system rooted in inequality and exploitationa system that is driving humanity toward catastrophe.

The Socialist Equality Party is leading this struggle, in alliance with our American co-thinkers and all sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International. We are entering a period of mass radicalisation and unprecedented political struggles.

Attend a public meeting in your area.

Manchester

Wednesday February 22 6.30pm

Friends Meeting House

6 Mount Street

(behind Manchester Central Library)

Manchester, M2 5NS

Brighton

Monday February 27 6.30pm

Brighthelm Centre

North Road

Brighton, BN1 1YD

(Nearest stations: Brighton, Queens Rd - Car Park via entryphone)

London

Wednesday March 1 6.30pm

Terrace Room, London Jesus Centre

Marylebone Passage/83 Margaret St.

London W1W 8TB

(Nearest tube: Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Rd)

Glasgow

Thursday March 2  7pm

Room LT 407

Boyd Orr Building

University Avenue

Glasgow, G12 8QR

Leeds

Saturday March 4  1.30pm

Woodhouse Community Centre

197 Woodhouse Street

Leeds, LS6 2NY

Sheffield

Tuesday March 7  7pm

Victoria Hall

Norfolk Street

Sheffield, S2 2JB

Peterborough

Sunday March 12  2.00pm

Peterborough Central Library

Broadway

Peterborough, PE1 1RX
Performers in the classical music field have joined the widespread protest over the Trump administrations attempt to ban the entry of refugees and visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries that he has branded the sources of terrorism.

Symphony orchestras in major US cities (and many smaller cities as well) have large and growing numbers of immigrants in their ranks, and the music they perform is international in scope and history. Visiting orchestras, of course, consist almost entirely of non-US citizens.

In the case of the highly regarded Budapest Festival Orchestra, currently in the midst of a five-city US tour, the travel ban nearly prevented the participation of one of its members. Only the last-minute intervention of BFO conductor Ivan Fischer succeeded in securing the entry into the US of an Iraqi-born Hungarian cellist who is a vital part of the ensembles string section. The cellist is a Hungarian citizen, but holds Iraqi citizenship as well.

The Budapest orchestras tour brought it to Newark, New York, Boston, Chicago and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Its programs, featuring the Bronx-born Richard Goode, one of the greatest American pianists, consisted of Beethoven symphonies paired with some of his piano concertos.

Ivan Fischer is a Hungarian conductor and composer whose work, especially with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, has attracted acclaim and wide recognition. He is known as an outspoken opponent of extreme nationalism and the growth of ultra-right elements, both in the government of Viktor Orban in Hungary today, and elsewhere as well.

The 66-year-old conductor, of Jewish ancestry, lost some of his grandparents in the Holocaust. He told the New York Times that he saw echoes of the past--when Jewish musicians were removed from such orchestras as the Vienna Philharmonic and Berlin Philharmonic and later exiled or in some cases killed--in the current conditions of the rise of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant hatred. Having learned this lesson, he is quoted as saying, I have a very strong determination not to allow that ever to happen.

According to the BFO website, the orchestra has for a number of years been performing in abandoned synagogues in Hungarian towns and villages where the Jewish communities were destroyed in the Holocaust. The local community hears a free concert, and also a brief talk about the synagogue and the history of the local community. Fischer sees this as part of an effort to combat the danger of renewed anti-Semitism, along with hostility to immigrants and refugees.

Fischer is also known for his unusual and imaginative attempts to break down barriers that have been allowed to grow between classical music and todays audiences. These have involved fresh presentations of important classics, without violating the content and spirit of the compositions. In Budapest he has sometimes held concerts where the programs are not announced in advance, and he has also attracted audiences of tens of thousands for open-air performances.

On his current tour, the Times reports, the BFOs performance of Beethovens immortal Fifth Symphony saw music students from New Yorks Juilliard School and Bard College suddenly move onto the stage to join with the older musicians in the works closing measures. In a performance of Beethovens Ninth, choristers appeared in different parts of the auditorium for the Ode to Joy choral finale.

Conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim is also known as a defender of the rights of immigrants and refugees, as well as an opponent of the brutal and longstanding Israeli occupation of the West Bank. He joined Fischer last December for a fund-raising concert for the Budapest ensembles synagogue project. The orchestras official funding was cut back last year, possibly as retribution for its conductors outspoken political stance.

American orchestras have issued statements or otherwise indicated their opposition to the travel ban. One of the more prominent examples was the special program presented by the Seattle Symphony on February 8, a program which originated at the initiative of the musicians themselves. The concert, titled Music Beyond Borders, consisted entirely of music by composers from among the seven countries targeted by Trumps travel ban. The composers included two Iranians, an Iraqi, a Sudanese and a Syrian.

The principal trumpet for the Seattle Symphony, introducing one of the works, noted that about one-quarter of the 80 musicians of the orchestra were immigrants, hailing from 15 countries. The music on the program reflected a cross-fertilization between Western and Middle Eastern classical traditions, and included a large number of instruments not usually heard in US concerts, among them an oud (a stringed instrument related to the lute) and a santoor (an Iranian instrument similar to the hammered dulcimer).
In a joint press conference Friday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, President Donald Trump made it clear he would not be deterred by the Appeals Court ruling delaying his anti-Muslim travel ban from pressing ahead with his attacks on immigrants.

Declaring that there are tremendous threats to our country, he restated his demand for extreme vetting of travelers from predominantly Muslim countries and added darkly, We will be doing things to continue to make our country safe, promising to announce new measures next week.

The administration, with its fascist political adviser Stephen Bannon and its ultra-right immigrant baiter Jeff Sessions now confirmed as attorney general, is already beginning to implement Gestapo-like tactics against undocumented workers, as outlined in Trumps January 25 order mandating the construction of a wall along the border with Mexico.

That order, which is barely being mentioned in the press, dramatically expands the categories of undocumented workers targeted for detention and summary deportation, including people merely suspected of committing a crime. It expands the border patrol, seeks to enlist local police in the detention of immigrants, and provides for the building of new immigrant detention centers near the US-Mexico border. It aims to create the infrastructure for the mass roundup and deportation of as many as 8 million people living in the US.

On Wednesday, one day before the Appeals Court ruling upholding a lower court restraining order on Trumps travel ban, immigration police in Phoenix, Arizona arrested and deported a 36-year-old mother of two who has been living in the US for 21 years. She was detained when she made a routine visit to her local immigration office. Also this week, immigration raids were carried out in the Los Angeles area in which more than 160 workers were seized, put on buses and sent to Tijuana, Mexico.

In the current dispute within the political establishment over Trumps anti-Muslim travel ban, no faction within either of the two big business parties or the corporate-controlled media is taking a principled stand in defense of the democratic rights of immigrants. The entire framework of the official debate is reactionary, accepting the supposed right of the state to terrorize, jail and deport so-called illegal aliens. For the most part, Democratic critics of Trumps immigration policies attack them as being counterproductive in the war on terror and bad for business.

Trumps war on immigrants is, like his other right-wing policies, a continuation and intensification of policies carried out by previous administrations, Democratic as well as Republican. The Obama administration deported more than 2.5 million immigrants, more than all previous US governments combined.

No one is raising the fact that people from Central and Latin America risking their lives to cross one of the most dangerous and militarized borders in the world are fleeing grinding poverty and murderous violencethe legacy of a century of US imperialist oppression, including Washington-imposed dictatorships.

Trumps escalation of the assault on immigrants is part of a global phenomenon. Attacks on immigrants and refugees are intensifying all around the world, as capitalist governments from North America to Europe and Australia seek to make the most impoverished and vulnerable workers scapegoats for the destruction of jobs and living standards at home resulting from their own policies.

More than 15 years of the so-called war on terrora pretext for the renewal of colonialist war and plunder in the Middle East and elsewherehave produced the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. The millions who are fleeing the mass killing and destruction inflicted on their countries by the major imperialist powers, led by the United States, are met by the European governments with walls, barbed wire, concentration camps and racist agitation. Tens of thousands are perishing at sea because of the anti-refugee lockdown imposed by Fortress Europe.

The mass persecution of immigrants and the rising tide of national chauvinist poison is the response of the international bourgeoisie to the mortal crisis of the capitalist system. This goes hand in hand with the erection of trade barriers and a new eruption of trade and currency wars, as each capitalist class seeks to resolve its crisis at the expense of its rivals, while they all turn on the working class.

As the history of the 20th century shows, this is the prelude to world war. All of the conditions of the 1930sslump, austerity, economic nationalism, the collapse of bourgeois democracy and the turn to dictatorshipare once again emerging. Among the foulest expressions of the putrefaction of capitalism is the treatment of immigrants.

What Trotsky wrote in May of 1940 could, with a minor updating, be cited as a description of present conditions:

The world of decaying capitalism is overcrowded. The question of admitting a few hundred extra refugees becomes a major problem for such a world power as the United States. In an era of aviation, telegraph, telephone, radio and television, travel from country to country is paralyzed by passports and visas. The period of the wasting away of foreign trade and the decline of domestic trade is at the same time the period of the monstrous intensification of chauvinism, and especially of anti-Semitism Amid the vast expanse of land and the marvels of technology, which has also conquered the skies for man as well as the earth, the bourgeoisie has managed to convert our planet into a foul prison.

The brutalization of immigrants is one of the most damning expressions of the bankruptcy of the nation state system to which capitalism is tied. The globalization of economic life and the technological integration of the world populationthe Internet communications revolution, the advances in travel, the linking of workers all over the world in transnational production networkshave progressed far beyond what existed in Trotskys day.

But under capitalism, these revolutionary changes, which could propel a vast expansion of the productive forces and the living standards of the worlds people, are employed to intensify the exploitation of the working class, add to the already obscene wealth of the ruling elites, and fuel national conflicts and the drive to world war. Governments all over the world foment hatred of immigrants to divide the working class and divert attention from the real source of workers suffering, the capitalist system.

The Socialist Equality Party and the International Committee of the Fourth International reject the entire framework of the official discussion on immigration. We advance a socialist and internationalist solution to the crisis facing immigrant workers. It is based on the strategic perspective of the international unity of the working class and world socialist revolution.

We stand for the right of workers from every part of the world to live in the country they choose, with full citizenship rights, including the right to work and travel without fear of deportation or repression.

The fight for this program must begin with the rejection of all attempts to divide native-born and immigrant workers. Only by uniting with the working class internationally can workers in the US or any other country successfully struggle against globally mobile capitalist corporations and advance their own independent solution to the world economic crisis: the reorganization of world economy to meet social need, not private profit.
Tom Price, Republican of Georgia, was sworn in Friday as secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). The Senate confirmed Donald Trumps pick for the cabinet post by a 52 to 47 vote early Friday morning along party lines. Price had served in the US House as the congressman from Georgias 6th District since 2005.

Price, 62, a retired orthopedic surgeon from the Atlanta suburbs, is a staunch opponent of Medicare and Medicaid, programs that insure more than 100 million Americans. As HHS secretary, he will lead Trumps efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and replace it with as yet to be unveiled Republican legislation.

In his confirmation hearings before the Senate Finance Committee last month, Price would not go on record with his right-wing views on health care policy, repeatedly refusing to answer yes or no to questions from committee Democrats on whether he supported block-granting of Medicaid, privatization of Medicare or overturning ACA guarantees of insurance coverage to people with preexisting conditions.

The program popularly known as Obamacare, while providing modest government subsidies and guaranteeing certain essential services, was implemented for the purpose of slashing health care costs for corporations and the government and shifting cost burdens onto the working class. It requires uninsured individuals to purchase coverage from private insurers under threat of a tax penalty.

Democrats aimed much of their fire on Price for his bad judgment in actively trading shares of medical and pharmaceutical companies while he was shaping health policy in Congress. They had little to offer in resistance to his opposition to the ACA and his repeated claim in response to their queries: People will have access to the highest quality of health care at an affordable price.

Prices record, however, speaks to the reactionary character of his views and policies. His Empowering Patients First Act, put forward in the House in 2015, calls for repealing the ACAs expansion of Medicaid, the insurance program for the poor jointly administered by the federal government and the states. About half of the 20 million people who have gained insurance under the ACA did so through Medicaid expansion.

Price, along with Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan (Wisconsin), has endorsed block-granting Medicaid, which would result in deep cuts to the program and denial of benefits to those who qualify. Since its inception in 1965, Medicaid has been an open-ended program, meaning that as more people become eligible, states receive more federal money.

Under block-granting, states would be given a set amount, or block, of funds that would not keep pace with health care costs or increases in enrollment due to rising unemployment, poverty, natural disasters or other factors. States would be faced with the task of deciding who should be denied benefitspoor children, poor pregnant women, poor seniors?

The House Republican budget plan for fiscal year 2017 called for block-granting Medicaid. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that, if that budget had passed, Medicare spending would have been slashed by $1 trillion over a decade.

According to the School Superintendents Association (AASA), nearly 40 percent of children in the US receive their health care through Medicaid. A recent report by the group estimated that under Republican proposals to restructure financing of Medicaid, the percentage of uninsured children could go from 12 percent to an estimated 21 percent or higher.

AASA projects that Medicaid cuts due to block-granting or placing a per capita cap on benefits would result in lost funding to special education grants and health services for students in poverty. School districts, some of the largest employers in communities, would be forced to furlough or lay off school personnel who are paid, in part or entirely, through Medicaid reimbursement.

The new HHS secretary also stands for the privatization of Medicare, the government insurance program that provides benefits to more than 55 million seniors and the disabled. In July 2009, speaking in opposition to the Affordable Care Act, Price wrote in an op-ed in Politico: I can attest that nothing has had a greater negative effect on the delivery of health care than the federal governments intrusion into medicine through Medicare.

As chairman of the House Budget Committee, Price told reporters on November 17 that he expected Republicans in the House to move on major Medicare reforms six to eight months into the Trump administration. Privatization of Medicare, through vouchers or another system, has been a key feature of Ryans budget proposal for years.

Price indicated that the assault on Medicare would be tackled through budget reconciliation, the same tactic already used by Republicans as the first step to repeal Obamacare. This process allows passage of bills with a simple majority in the Senate, avoiding a Democratic filibuster.

Medicare has vastly improved the lives and health of American seniors, lifting millions out of poverty and expanding life expectancy. Medicare and Medicaid were the last social reforms wrested from the ruling establishment, won in the course of bitter struggles of the working class.

Prices reactionary views are in line with his membership, until last year, in the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. AAPS is an ultra-conservative group founded in 1943 to fight socialized medicine and to fight the government takeover of medicine.

AAPS opposed the Social Security Act of 1965, which established Medicare and Medicaid, arguing that the effect of the law is evil and participation in carrying out its provisions is, in our opinion, immoral, and called for doctors to boycott Medicare. Its web site currently notes: We have helped hundreds of doctors opt out of Medicare through information on our web site and our limited legal consultation service.

The associations journal has advocated beliefs that HIV does not cause AIDS, that being gay reduces life expectancy, that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer, and that vaccines are associated with autism.

Individuals espousing such anti-scientific and anti-social views are the types being tapped by Trump to populate his administration, along with his fascistic chief adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, and others associated with the alt-right Breitbart News. Alongside a lineup of retired generals and billionaires, Trump is assembling the most right-wing cabinet in history, pledged to ride roughshod over democratic and social rights, including the right to free, high-quality health care.
US President Donald Trumps trade threats and nationalist policies have shocked sections of the ruling elite in Sri Lanka as the island-nation faces an increasingly desperate economic crisis.

Deputy Foreign Minister Harsha de Silva gave voice to these concerns in an address to the National Chamber of Commerce annual meeting late last month in Colombo. Trumps policies, de Silva said, could dampen the global trade flow as never before and would seriously impact on Sri Lankas economy.

President Maithripala Sirisena and his prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, are politically dependent on Washington. Sirisena came to power in 2015 as part of a US-orchestrated regime-change operation to bring the Sri Lankan government into line with Washingtons war preparation against China. The Obama administration opposed previous President Mahinda Rajapakses close economic and political relations with Beijing.

While Sirisena and Wickremesinghe have hailed Trumps election victory and appealed for his support, their government is being hit by falling investment and declining export earnings, and they are acutely nervous about Trumps economic policies.

De Silva told the National Chamber of Commerce that Trumps policies were inward looking, anti-trade and regressive and could dampen the global trade flows. Global trade, which has already slowed down from the heydays of the globalisation era, could further slow if US closes its borders for global goods and imposes taxes.

De Silva said Trumps claim that he would bring industrial jobs back to America was a lot of rhetoric and it will stop soon It seems that reality television is what Mr Trump believes in. This is quite ridiculous, based on lies and misconceptions and just pure, absolute fabrications. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka has long experience in post-truth politics.

However, the deputy foreign ministers hope that Trumps rhetoric will stop soon is an illusion.

Trumps policies are not an accident but an expression of the crisis of American capitalism, which is at the centre of a global breakdown. His America First and Make America Great Again slogans are part of the US ruling elites attempts to regain its economic dominance by trade war measures, military aggression and ever-more ruthless exploitation of the American working class. The appointment of billionaires and military generals to his cabinet is in order to take forward these reactionary policies.

Trumps repeated attacks on Beijings trade policies and against its territorial claims in the South China Sea mean that China is an immediate target of his administration, posing the danger of military conflict between the two nuclear-armed powers.

De Silva said any increase in US import taxes or the imposition of trade barriers would have a serious impact on Sri Lankan export earnings. The US is Sri Lankas single largest export market, accounting for 27 percent of the countrys total exports.

The deputy foreign minister explained that Sri Lankan exports have dwindled to 13 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), down from about 35 percent in the 1980s. He pointed out that the country only attracted $300 million in foreign investments in 2016, one-third of the amount invested in 2014 (see: Central Bank governor says Sri Lankan economy hospitalised).

While bluntly criticising Trumps policies, de Silva hailed Chinese President Xi Jinping as an economic saviour. Referring to the Chinese presidents recent speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, de Silva declared that Xi was a greater believer in [the free trade policies] of David Ricardo and Adam Smith than Donald Trump.

At the Davos meeting Xi praised free trade and globalisation and, without naming Trump, declared that protectionism would lead to trade war. De Silvas praise of Xi is another indication that Colombo will step up its efforts to attract more Chinese investment.

The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government halted a number of Chinese-funded projects after it came to power. Over the past two years, however, and in response to falling exports and investments, it has turned back to Beijing for financial assistance.

One such investment is the $1.4 billion Colombo Port City Project (CPCP). The government is changing investment rules, including to allow the Chinese construction company to own part of the project. Colombo has also obtained new loans from Beijing on other infrastructure development projects.

De Silva told the National Chamber of Commerce: The current global geopolitics offers an opportune time and circumstances for Sri Lanka to open its borders to the rest of the world when others are shutting their doors.

In other words, Colombo hopes to use its strategic location and geo-political importance to rival global powers to secure some economic advantage. This means expanding its economic relations with Beijing, while deepening its military ties with the US, which are, in fact, directed against China. Colombos delicate balancing act, however, cannot be maintained as the Trump administration steps up its economic and military threats against Beijing.

Following the regime-change operation that brought the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government to power, Washington sent a number of senior political and military officials to Sri Lanka. The US Pacific Command has begun regularly sending navy vessels to Sri Lankan ports, and US and Sri Lankan military forces are involved in training and so-called maritime security exercises in the Indian Ocean (see: US Pacific commander visits Sri Lanka, praising new regime).

The Trump administration has made clear that it will boost its political and military ties with Sri Lanka. Addressing a Sri Lankan independence celebration at the embassy in Washington on Monday, Acting Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Bruce Wharton declared: While our level of cooperation today is unprecedented, there is always more progress to be made.

Sri Lanka, he continued, was one of the most strategic maritime locations in the entire Indo-Pacific: at the nautical crossroads of Africa, South Asia, and East Asia, with the Strait of Hormuz to its west and the Strait of Malacca to its east.

Whatever its economic fears, the pro-US government in Colombo will continue to strengthen its military ties with US imperialism as it ratchets up its confrontation with China, posing real dangers, not only for the Sri Lankan working class but workers internationally.
The increasingly unstable Turnbull government this week suddenly unveiled an omnibus bill, seeking to push through parliament welfare cuts that have been stalled in the Senate since 2014 because of deep popular hostility to them.

Facing defections and rifts in his government, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is desperately seeking to demonstrate to the corporate elite that he can impose the cuts and other austerity measures that his ousted predecessor Tony Abbott failed to deliver.

The bill contains 16 separate provisions to slash welfare payments by a total of $7.5 billion over four years, with the most severe cuts targeted at young people, working-class families and aged pensioners. Over the past three years, the media has dubbed these measures zombie cutsstinking carcasses of the 2014 budget that the Liberal-National government, then headed by Abbott, was unable to fully implement.

By resuscitating the zombies, Turnbulls government is intensifying an assault on welfare entitlements. The poorest and most vulnerable members of society are being victimised. One of the central aims is to coerce thousands of jobless workers, students and parents with young children into low-paid and insecure jobs.

This is under conditions where there is massive destruction of full-time jobs taking place throughout basic industries, especially manufacturing and mining, and wide areas of the country are already in recession.

An entire generation of young people will be the hardest hit. School leavers and jobless youth will be forced to wait five weeks, and made to complete a compulsory activity program, before receiving income support. Unemployed or ill people aged 22 to 24 will be shifted from sub-poverty Newstart dole and sickness allowances to even lower Youth Allowances.

Together, these measures will cost a single person living away from home at least $1,320 upfront and around $47 a week thereafter. The result will be deep impoverishment. The maximum Youth Allowance rate for a young person living independently of their parents is $219 a weekfar less than rents in most cities.

Students, young and old, will also lose their once-a-year $208 education entry payments, and all welfare recipients will be stripped of annual education supplements.

The cheap labour thrust of this package is exemplified by a social security income test incentive aimed at increasing the number of job seekers who undertake specified seasonal horticultural work, such as fruit picking. The pay and conditions of seasonal fruit pickers are so poor that employers have for years relied heavily on young overseas backpackers, who must undergo such work to satisfy visa conditions.

All new welfare recipients will be forced to wait a week before being eligible for any payments, and will lose an energy supplement, cutting their benefits by up to $7 a week. This includes people on the lowest incomes, such as the unemployed, aged pensioners, students and sole parents.

Aged pensioners who leave the country to live overseas will have their retirement pensions cut off after six weeks, down from 26 weeks, unless they have worked for 35 years in Australia. The government delayed one zombie measure, to increase the pension age from 67 to 70, but insists it still intends to proceed with that plan.

The biggest cuts of allworth $4.7 billion over four yearsare the abolition of end-of-the-year supplements for family tax benefits, including those for sole parent or low-income households. These payments, made to about 1.5 million families, can be worth up to $726 a year per child.

Social Security Minister Christian Porter claimed that the government was making the family tax benefit system fairer by increasing some weekly payments by $10. According to the Australian Council of Social Services, however, this does not make up for the supplement cuts. A sole parent with two children aged 13 and 15, for example, will still lose between $14 and $20 per week.

The governments bill ties these cuts to what Porter called once in a generation reforms to parental leave and childcare subsidies, designed to assist parents to work for the first time, or work more.

In reality, working-class mothers will be under increased pressure to return to work early after giving birth. Previously, they received 18 weeks parental leave paid at the minimum wage, on top of any leave provided by their employer. Now, leave granted by an employer will be deducted from their entitlements, with government top-up payments capped at 20 weeks.

Childcare subsidies will rise, but new means testing will make an estimated one-third of families worse off. The childcare benefits also only apply if families can afford to have children enrolled in day care or after school care, with fees of up to $200 a day.

This package is part of an offensive against welfare recipients. Despite a public outcry over its crackdown on supposed welfare fraud, the Turnbull government is stepping-up its debt recovery program. It is seeking to compel or terrify recipients, under threat of imprisonment, into paying back $4 billion in alleged over-payments. These measures will be extended from unemployed workers to sole parents and aged and disability pensioners by July.

While targeting the poor, the government is pushing ahead with cuts in the company tax rate from 30 to 25 percent to boost corporate profits. This will widen the sharp social divide in Australia, where the richest 10 percent of the population own more than half of household wealth, while the poorest 40 percent are in debt or own virtually nothing.

The full extent of the welfare cuts was quickly buried by the mass media this week, submerged beneath coverage of Prime Minister Turnbull demagogically denouncing Labor Party opposition leader Bill Shorten as a parasite for feigning outrage at the cuts. Turnbulls theatrics, which seek to shore up his leadership in the Liberal Party and divert attention away from the severity of the cuts, will only intensify the widespread popular hostility to his government and the entire political establishment.

Shortens pretence of opposition to the dismantling of welfare entitlements is equally cynical. For decades, Labor governments have proved equally committed to enforcing the dictates of the corporate elite.

The last Labor government, in which Shorten was a key minister, stripped sole parents of benefits once their children turned 8. Like Turnbull and his ministers today, Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard declared that her government was creating the right incentives for getting people back into work.

Last September, Labor helped the Turnbull government pass another omnibus bill, cutting $6.3 billion from social spending over four years. It also supported the governments abolition of a six-year statute of limitations on welfare debts and is counting on the $4 billion in budget savings from debt recovery for its own proposed measures to eliminate the federal budget deficit of nearly $40 billion a year.

Driving these measures is a deepening economic crisis, with the implosion of the mining boom compounded by a sharp decline in business investment. These pressures have been amplified by the election of Donald Trump as US president. His America First program of aggressive trade measures and huge cuts to company taxes and social spending is fuelling the demands of the capitalist class in every country for their governments to match him.
SANFORD, Fla. (AP) - A central Florida man has been convicted of trying to kill a police officer during a shootout.

The Orlando Sentinel (https://goo.gl/TSW5jU ) reports that 28-year-old Roshad Smith was found guilty Wednesday of attempted first-degree murder. His sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 22.

Police say Smith was walking down a federal highway in Sanford, Florida, and pointing a gun at vehicles in January 2016. When police arrived, Smith began shooting at them, and they returned fire.

A bystander was wounded by a bullet, though records don't show who fired the shot. Smith fled on foot but was arrested later that night.

Records show Smith previously served three years in prison after pleading no contest to manslaughter in 2008.

___

Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com/

(Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
QUINCY, FL (WTXL) -- The community is helping a Gadsden County senior citizen live on her own by raising money to buy her a heating and cooling unit.

An online effort has been underway for about a month now to help Willie Cobbs, a 91-year-old woman from Quincy.

"She still cooks for herself, she still can drive," said Skye Christian. "She's just a very compassionate person."

Christian met Cobb last month at her home in Quincy.

"She's been blessed to live to be 91 years young, and she's outlived everybody," she said. "I just felt compelled to help her, because she doesn't have anybody else."

Christian started to raise money online. The goal is to raise $3,500 to buy and install a heating and cooling unit. She and others pitched in to get Cobb space heaters during the winter months.

"Right now, it's cold, but we had to do something that would help her long-term, where she won't be sitting in any type of extreme weather."

In Gadsden County, about 200 people take advantage of Gadsden Senior Services, but the organization admits it can't meet every need because of funding.

"There's always money needed for a match, because we're going to only receive so much through the federally funded programs," said Berta Kemp, board chair for Gadsden Senior Services.

The organization is part of a 14-county agency that is dependent on federal and community money.

"Our seniors here in Gadsden County are very important to us, and we want to make sure when it's cold, that they are kept warm -- and when it's hot, that they are cool," Kemp said.

"We don't want to have anybody left behind," Christian said, "and we want everybody to feel like we love them."

Gadsden Senior Services does offer home energy assistance for low-income senior, but they must meet certain criteria.

The Emergency Home Energy Assistance for the Elderly Program (EHEAP) is federally funded. Eligible households can get up to $600 per season. To be eligible for assistance, households must have:

- a documented healing or cooling emergency

- at least one individual age 60 or older in the home, and

- a gross household annual income equal to or less than 150 percent of the federal poverty guidelines

To contribute to Christian's fundraiser for Cobb, click HERE.
CAIRO, Ga. (WTXL) - Officials are investigating the death of a newborn baby in Grady County.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigations Thomasville Regional Office said that on Friday, they were requested by the Grady County Sheriffs Office to assist in a death investigation involving a newborn baby girl.

The GBI says the baby was brought to Grady General Hospital on Friday where she was pronounced dead.

The infant's body will be taken to the GBI Crime Lab in Macon for an autopsy.

Officials say the investigation is ongoing.

Anyone with information on this case is asked to call the Grady County Sheriffs Office at (229) 377-5200 or the Georgia Bureau of Investigation at (229) 225-4090.
A water stain in the ceiling of a classroom indicates a leak near a set of windows at Eisenhower High School in Yakima, Wash. on Monday, Dec. 5, 2016. The wall near the windows was opened up and positively tested for black mold  one of 22 other windows in the school that were also found to be the cause of a black mold problem. (SHAWN GUST/Yakima Herald-Republic)
If You Go

 What: A panel discussion on Balancing Act: How the Federal and State Constitutions Protect Freedom and Justice

 Who: Panel includes Judge Robert S. Lasnik of the U.S. District Courts Western District of Washington; State Supreme Court Justice Steve Gonzalez; University of Washington School of Law constitutional and election Professor Lisa Marshall Manheim; and Rowland Thompson, executive director of the Allied Daily Newspapers of Washington.

 Who can attend: Anyone

 When: 10:30 a.m. to noon, Wednesday

 Where: SURC Theatre at Central Washington University

 How much: Free
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Driving opens up new vistas when youre used to asking and waiting for rides
Amelia Pruiett is a junior at Davis High School and is a member of the Yakima Herald-Republics Unleashed program for teen journalists. 
FILE - This file image released by 20th Century Fox shows Ansel Elgort, left, and Shailene Woodley appear in a scene from "The Fault In Our Stars." MTV announced Wednesday, March 4, 2015, that The Fault in Our Stars, Neighbors, and Guardians of the Galaxy all have seven shots at winning a golden popcorn trophy at the annual awards ceremony airing live on April 12 from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/20th Century Fox, James Bridges, File)
Three weeks have passed since Donald Trump entered the White House, and one thing must be clear: Israels situation on campuses and in public opinion is going to get worse, possibly much worse. And the more officially Israel is associated with Trump, the worse things will get.

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I was at the protests against him last week . I spoke to countless pro-Israel Jewish activists. There is one conclusion: Israel is playing with fire. In the past, Israel received bipartisan support. The Democrats have not turned into Israel haters. But only a blind person cant feel the change. This isnt predetermined destiny. It can be stopped. But Im not certain that the current government is capable of doing what is best for Israel. It is enthusiastic over the illusion of an alliance with the new administration. This is dangerous.

Bernie Sanders addresses his supporters. What has happened to the British Labour Party could also happen to the Democratic Party in the US (Photo: AFP)

Trump became president even though he did not have the Republican Partys support and even though most Americans did not vote for him. He appointed Stephen Bannon as his senior advisor. Bannon may not have been caught making an anti-Semitic comment himself, but he has been connectedand it is a real connectionto white supremacists who are usually also anti-Semites. And the combination between the two announces a rise in the level of anti-Semitism.

This is the same Bannon who was behind the statement issued two weeks ago, in honor of International Holocaust Day, which fails to mention the Jews. And the Israeli Right turned a blind eye.

I personally heard a senior Jewish official at a closed forum. We are talking about a person who works day and night for Israel. A peace process is needed, he cried out there. Even if nothing comes out of it, even if its clear that the Palestinian side will say no, there is a need for an impressive presentation of an Israeli willingness for peace. Its not that this senior official doesnt know that there is zero chance of that happening. Its not that he doesnt know that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has turned down every offer. He does know that. But in the battle against delegitimization, more has to be done. Much more.

Israel can do more. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can do more. But hes not doing more. He has turned himself into a caricature of Emile Zola. He accuses. All he does is accuse. Everyone is to blame. He is perfect and wonderful. Its sad, because there is another Netanyahu. The smart Netanyahu. More than smart. He can be at the top of the list of Israels most impressive leaders. Its time for the small politician, the talkbacker, the haggler, to return to the drawer, and for this smart person to spring into action. It would be good not only for Israel, but also for Netanyahu.

The United Nations decided to mark an international Holocaust remembrance day in 2005. It was the initiative of Silvan Shalom, who served as foreign minister at the time. The decision stated as follows: The Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of one third of the Jewish people, along with countless members of other minorities, will forever be a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice. Representatives of Muslim countries expressed reservations. The Indonesian ambassador argued that the Holocaust is not the only human tragedy, and an Egyptian diplomat said that the resolution must cover all over cases of genocide. They protested the fact that the resolution talks about Jews.

In January 2014, then-EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton issued a statement in honor of International Holocaust Day. She refused to mention the word Jews. She was clearly anti-Israel. She drew angry reactions in Israel. Now its Trump, and the silence is deafening. It wont stop the radical right in Israel from worshipping the man following the path taken by Ashton and Muslim countries. No, its not Holocaust denial. Its Holocaust distortion. As long as he gives them permission to settle in every Kasbah and on every hill, in order to replace the Jewish state with one big state.

The deterioration is on the left as well. Bernie Sanders , the unshakable leader of the Democratic Left in the United States, tweeted congratulations to Linda Sarsour for organizing the mass protests following Trumps inauguration as president: Thank you for helping to build a progressive movement. When we stand together, we win.

Something bad is happening to the worlds greatest and most important democracy. Trump is carrying a dark cloud of racist comments and a group of supporters that includes anti-Semites and racists. But the Democratic response is as scary. Because the Sanders-Sarsour coalition is basically the red-green coalition. Left and jihadists.

In the anti-Israel protests, mainly in Europe, there is a collaboration between radical left and Islamists. In Britain, its reflected in the Labour Party, which has turned into an incubator of anti-Semitism. The partys leader, Jeremy Corbyn, announced in the past that he was friends with Hamas and Hezbollah . In the US, its the cooperation on campuses between members of the red-green coalition. The common denominator is of course hatred for Israel. It infiltrated the Democratic Party very quickly and climbed all the way up to a leader of Sanders caliber. And what Corbyn did to the British Labour Party Sanders is doing to the Democratic Party in the US.

Because Linda Sarsour, the protest leader, opposes the State of Israels existence, supports BDS and one big state (like part of the Israeli Right, because edges always meet). She is also an Islamist for all intents and purposes and supports, for example, Sharia law. When the Shalom Hartman Institute initiated a collaboration with Muslim American activists, Sarsour signed a petition opposing the initiative. She is against cooperation with bodies seeking peace. She supports cooperation only with bodies that deny Israels right to exist.

And this Islamist activist receives Sanderss blessing, as well as the blessing of progressive Jews across America. There are always the useful idiots, useful Jews this time, who will support this direction, under slogans of justice and human rights. What is happening in the campuses, we should take notice, is reaching the top very fast. Its too early to say that this stream will take over the Democratic Party. But it has happened to the British Labour. It could happen in the US as well.
There is basically nothing new in the Regulation Law, which was approved by the Knesset on Monday and allows the state to legalize the takeover of private Palestinian lands in the territories retroactively. In practice, the State of Israel has been operating in the territories according to a sweeping and consistent principleanything the settlers do is legal, legitimate and Zionist.

Its true that the High Court of Justice intervenes sometimes and orders home demolitions or the evacuation of one outpost or another, but these interventions are like a drop in the ocean. If one land expropriation is forbidden, anothera larger onewill come along. If one illegal outpost is evacuated, otherslarger oneswill be established. The illegality of these outposts is legal in the eyes of the authorities.

Amona. The Regulation Law says what everyone is thinking: There is no law for the Palestinians (Photo: Reuters)

In practice, the State of Israel operates vis-a-vis the settlers according to the thinking-in-reverse principle. First, the settlers do as they please. Then, the State of Israel finds ways to legalize their abominable behavior. When one looks at the overall picture, the High Courts rare disruptions of the annexation race are marginal. Someone rarely gives a damn, and its just business as usual.

In practice, despite international law, despite the principles of justice and common sense, the High Court has accepted the principle of the annexations legitimacy. Its permitted to steal Palestinian lands, because there is no such thing as Palestinian lands. They are public lands. What public? The settler public. When the High Court intervenes, it intervenes in the name of protecting the sanctity of private property, but the most important thing at the end of the day is the abominable annexation, and the abominable annexation is thriving.

The private property issue, which is allegedly the bone of contention, was forgotten in the Knesset discussion as well. Minister Ofir Akunis declared that the approved law was an expression of our right to the land. The dispute is over our basic right to this land. We are voting not just on the Regulation Law, but on the connection between the Jewish people and their land. This entire land is ours.

Seemingly, you will say, the Regulation Law is not a vote on the Jewish peoples right to their land, because it deals with rights to private property. In practice, Akunis clarifies, the meaning of the Jewish peoples right to the entire land is ignoring every right, whether collective or private, of the other people (the demographic problem) living here. In other words, if we have a rightothers dont.

But the Regulation Law did not invent this principle. It has been strengthened by all Israeli governments, if not in their declarationsthen in their actions. The law simply provides a harsh and blatant expression of the reality on the ground. Look at the comments made by Knesset Member Israel Eichler (United Torah Judaism), one of the laws supporters, who saw it fit to praise Amonas residents for evacuating without rioting(!) Why are land robbers, who established a community which they knew was based on deceit, worthy of praise? Because in the settler state (also known as the State of Israel), any implication that people who are not Jewish settlers have rights too is a moral scandal.

The willingness of the alleged law transgressors from Amona to (relatively) restrain themselves and not to resist the law authorities was an act of self-sacrifice for the greater goal. What goal? The Regulation Law. The law that says what everyone is thinking: There is no law for the Palestinians. Their insistence on their rights is annoying. Its time to stop it.

More than the law (which removes a marginal obstacle in the annexation race), the important thing is the loss of concern over the worlds response and the public opinion. The Netanyahu government, which is taking refuge in the shadow of the great boxthorn from Washington, Donald Trump, is no longer afraid of what the world will say. It is definitely not afraid of the opposition, which keeps voicing warningsfrom Opposition Leader Isaac Herzogs mouthexpressing the ideological partnership with the Right.

Herzog, so it seems, has no problem in principle with the abominable annexation and with the apartheid it entails. He cares about preserving the legal outward appearance maintained by the High Court. Why? Because international indictments will now be issued against Jewish and Israeli soldiers and officers. Forget about the Palestinians. Jews are in danger. Gevald! With such an opposition, the Right has nothing to worry about.
The United States on Friday blocked the appointment of the former Palestinian prime minister to lead the UN political mission in Libya, saying it was acting to support its ally Israel.

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US Ambassador Nikki Haley said the Trump administration "was disappointed" to see that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had sent a letter to the Security Council indicating his intention to appoint Salam Fayyad, who served as the Palestinian Authority's prime minister from 2007  2013, as the next UN special representative to Libya.

US Ambassador to UN Nikki Haley

"For too long the UN has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," Haley said.

Palestine is a non-member observer state at the United Nations and its independence has been recognized by 137 of the 193 UN member nations. But Haley stressed that the United States does not currently recognize a Palestinian state "or support the signal" Fayyad's appointment would send within the United Nations.

Former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

UN diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private, said Fayyad is well-respected for his work in reforming the Palestinian Authority and spurring its economy and had the support of the 14 other Security Council members to succeed Martin Kobler in the Libya job.

Despite opposition to Fayyad, Haley indicated that the Trump administration wants to see an end to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We encourage the two sides to come together directly on a solution," she said.

Haley's statement comes ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump on Feb. 15, and was welcomed by Israelis.

"This is the beginning of a new era at the UN, an era where the US stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish State," Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon said of the US decision to block Fayyad's appointment. "The new administration proved once again that it stands firmly alongside the state of Israel in the international arena and in the UN in particular."

Haley (L) and Danon

Dan Shapiro, until recently the US ambassador to Israel, responded to the move with criticism. In a series of tweets, Shapiro stated that blocking Fayyad from the position is "stunningly dumb." He added that "True it's farce, ridiculous. But if you know Fayyaddecent, smart, honest, ethical, hardworkingit's much more outrageous."

While Haley made it clear that "going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies," Trump himself indicated in comments Friday that there might be some difficult discussions with Netanyahu next week on Israel's settlement expansion.

The US leader was quoted as saying that Israel's settlement expansion or new construction in land outside present settlement blocks may not advance peace. The sentiment is in line with most of the international community, which considers all Israeli settlements in territory the Palestinians want for a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal and counterproductive to peace.
Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview released on Friday that the United States is welcome to join the battle against "terrorists" in Syriaas long as it is in cooperation with his government and respects the country's sovereignty.

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In an interview with Yahoo News, Assad said he has not had any communicationboth direct or indirectwith President Donald Trump or any official form the new US administration.

But the Syrian leader appeared to make a gesture to the new US president in the interview, saying he welcomes Trump's declaration that he will make it a priority to fight terrorisma goal Assad said he also shares.

Assad during his interview (Photo: AP)

However, Assad's government has labelled all armed opposition to his ruleincluding the US-backed rebelsas "terrorists."

"We agree about this priority," Assad said of Trump. "That's our position in Syria, the priority is to fight terrorism."

Syria's six-year civil war has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced half the country's population. The country is shattered and the chaos has enabled the rise of ISIS, which in a 2014 blitz seized a third of both Syria and neighboring Iraq. The extremist group, responsible also for several deadly attacks around the world, has declared an Islamic caliphate on the territory it controls.

Assad also told Yahoo News that his country would welcome US "participation" in the fight against terrorism but it has to be in cooperation with the Syrian government.

Assad's comment ignored the US-led international coalition, which has been targeting ISIS and al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria with airstrikes since September 2014. The US also has advisers in Syria along with predominantly Kurdish fighters north of the country who are fighting against ISIS.

"If you want to start genuinely, as United States ... it must be through the Syrian government," Assad said. "We are here, we are the Syrians, we own this country as Syrians, nobody else, nobody would understand it like us."

"So, you cannot defeat the terrorism without cooperation with the people and the government" of Syria, he added.

The Syrian government has always blamed the US for backing opposition fighters trying to remove Assad from power. The rebels formed a serious threat to the Syrian leader until 2015, when Russia joined Syria's war backing Assad's forces and turned the balance of power in his favor.

"We invited the Russians, and the Russians were genuine regarding this issue. If the Americans are genuine, of course they are welcome, like any other country that wants to defeat and to fight with the terrorists. Of course, with no hesitation we can say that," Assad said in English.

But when asked if he wants American troops to come to Syria to help with the fight against ISIS, Assad said that sending troops is not enougha genuine political position on respecting Syria's sovereignty and unity is also needed.

"All these factors would lead to trust, where you can send your troops. That's what happened with the Russians; they didn't only send their troops," Assad added.

Assad would not comment on Trump's move to bar Syrian refugees and people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US, calling it an "American sovereignty" issue.

But he appeared to offer some veiled support at last, saying that there are "definitely terrorists" among the millions of Syrians seeking refuge in the West, though it doesn't have to be a "significant" number.

Russia vows to improve communication within Syria

In other developments Friday, the Kremlin said that Russia and Turkey have agreed to improve coordination in Syria to prevent further friendly fire incidents after a Russian airstrike killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded 11 the day before.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the accidental strike near the town of al-Bab in northern Syria prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to discuss better cooperation in fighting ISIS in the area. In a signal that the incident hasn't hurt a Russia-Turkey rapprochement, Peskov said that Erdogan is set to visit Russia next month.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the Turkish casualties on Thursday were the result of "faulty coordination" in Syria and showed "there is a need for a much closer coordination."
US President Donald Trump has revived groundless claims of voter fraud, arguing in a lunch meeting with senators that he and former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte would have won in New Hampshire if not for voters bused in from out of state.A GOP official with knowledge of Thursday's lunch conversation described the president's comments. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because it was a private meeting.

There is no evidence of people being improperly bused into New Hampshire to vote.

Ayotte was present for the meeting at the White House with a bipartisan group of 10 senators because she is working with Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trump's Supreme Court nominee, to shepherd him around Capitol Hill for meetings. The discussion at Thursday's lunch partly involved Gorsuch's nomination as Trump looks for eight Democratic votes to get him over a procedural hurdle in the Senate. In the course of the conversation Trump had a lighthearted exchange with Ayotte, who withdrew her support from Trump during last year's campaign after audio emerged of him boasting about groping women. Trump said he wished Ayotte had endorsed him like she'd endorsed Gorsuch and also made the comments about voting in New Hampshire.
A top US official stated that Russia is contemplating the possibility of turning whistleblower Edward Snowden over to the US, as a sort of "gift" or gesture toward the recently elected President Donald Trump.

Following Snowden's revealing the covert goings on of the US National Security Agencywhich included, among other dealings, spying on US citizensTrump has called him a "traitor" and stated that he should be executed.

Snowden, for his part, has insisted that he had brought the information to the knowledge of the American public so that they could decide on the legitimacy of their government's actions. Responding to rumors of his possible extradition, Snowden tweeted, "Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel. No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next."
US President Donald Trump is considering issuing a new executive order banning citizens of certain countries traveling to the United States after his initial attempt to clamp down on immigration and refugees snarled to a halt amid political and judicial chaos.

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Trump announced the possibility of a "brand new order" that could be issued as soon as Monday or Tuesday, in a surprise talk with reporters aboard Air Force One late on Friday, as he and the Japanese premier headed to his estate in Florida for the weekend. Later on Saturday, he tweeted "Our legal system is broken! "77% of refugees allowed into U.S. since travel reprieve hail from seven suspect countries," before adding "so dangerous" all in capital letters.

Trump speaks of future plans to enforce new national security measures

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His signaling of a possible new tack came a day after an appeals court in San Francisco upheld a court ruling last week that temporarily suspended Trump's original Jan. 27 executive order banning travel from seven majority-Muslim countries.

Trump (Photo: AP)

Trump gave no details of any new ban he is considering. He might rewrite the original order to explicitly exclude green card holders, or permanent residents, said a congressional aide familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified. Doing that could alleviate some concerns expressed by the courts.

A new order, however, could allow Trump's critics to declare victory by arguing he was forced to change course in his first major policy as president.

Whether or not Trump issues a new order, his administration may still pursue its case in the courts over the original order, which is still being reviewed by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Trump warns Iran's Rouhani to 'be careful'

Meanwhile, Trump issued a personal warning on Friday to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Iran is one of the seven included in his orignal ban

Trump was asked in a brief appearance in the press cabin aboard Air Force One to respond to the remarks reportedly made by Rouhani, who was quoted in the media as saying that Iran had shown in the 38 years since the revolution that "it will make anyone who speaks to Iranians with the language of threats regret it."

"He better be careful," Trump said.

Trump on Feb. 2 put Iran "on notice" over charges that Tehran violated a nuclear deal with the West by test-firing a ballistic missile, taking an aggressive posture toward Iran that could raise tensions in the region.

Trump made the comments about Rouhani while flying on the presidential jet carrying him and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a weekend at Trump's Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida.

Supreme Court appeal remains possiiblity

Referring to a possible new ban, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told reporters late on Friday that taking the case to the Supreme Court continues to be an option for the administration, after another White House official said earlier in the day the administration was not planning to escalate the dispute.

"Every single court option is on the table, including an appeal of the Ninth Circuit decision on the TRO (temporary restraining order) to the Supreme Court, including fighting out this case on the merits," Priebus said.

"And, in addition to that, we're pursuing executive orders right now that we expect to be enacted soon that will further protect Americans from terrorism."

Trump's original order, which he called a national security measure meant to head off attacks by Islamist militants, barred people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days, except refugees from Syria, who were banned indefinitely.

Protestors in New York against the Mulsim ban (Photo: AFP)

Clinton goes on the attack, Conway fires back

The abrupt implementation of the order plunged the immigration system into chaos, sparking a wave of criticism from targeted countries, Western allies and some of America's leading corporations, especially technology firms.

Among the many people watching Trump's battle with the courts unfolded was his former adversary, Hillary Clinton. Following the repeated rulings to block Trump's bn, Clinton tweeted "3-0," in reference to the panel of three judges who concluded that Trump had not managed to bring forward a single piece of evidence to support the necessity of his executive order.

Conway (L) and Clinton (Photos: AFP)





Senior Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, however, did not let the tweet pass by without a response, tweeting at Clinton "PA, WI, MI," referring to states Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, which Clinton lost to Trump despite predictions that she would win all three.

Among other, the original Muslim ban raised concern for Israelis holding dual citizenship with one of the banned countries. However, a later clarification made by the Trump administration stated that they will be admitted into the US as long as their second passport was not valid.
Palestinian activist and Palestinian Liberation Organization Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi denounced the decision by US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley to block the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to lead the United Nations political mission in Libya. Ashrawi issued a statement on Saturday, following the US's decision to block Fayyad's appointment.

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It is unconscionable that the US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, would block the decision of UN Security-General Antonio Guterres to appoint former Palestinian Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad as his envoy to Libya on the flimsy excuse that that 'the UN has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel,'" read the statement.

Ashrawi (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

"It defies logic that the appointment of the most qualified candidate is blocked because it is perceived as detrimental to Israel. It constitutes a blanket license for the exclusion of Palestinians everywhere.

"Dr. Fayyad is a person of the highest standards of professionalism and integrity, and this move is a case of blatant discrimination against him on the basis of his nationality. It betrays unbridled bias against the Palestinian people as a whole whereby every Palestinian is guilty and punished because of his or her identity.

Fayyad (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

"We hope that saner voices will prevail and that the US will take back this irrational and discriminatory decision immediately and not deprive the UN of such a highly qualified individual. Rather, they should block petty acts of bigotry and vindictiveness and the further victimization of the Palestinian people for the mere fact of their existence, concluded Ashrawi's statement.

Haley (Photo: AFP)

The United States blocked on Friday the appointment of the former Palestinian prime minister to lead the UN political mission in Libya, saying it was acting to support its ally Israel.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley said the Trump administration "was disappointed" to see that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had sent a letter to the Security Council indicating his intention to appoint Salam Fayyad, who served as the Palestinian Authority's prime minister from 2007  2013, as the next UN special representative to Libya.

Dan Shapiro, until recently the US ambassador to Israel, also responded to the move with criticism. In a series of tweets, Shapiro stated that blocking Fayyad from the position is "stunningly dumb." He added that "True it's farce, ridiculous. But if you know Fayyaddecent, smart, honest, ethical, hardworkingit's much more outrageous."

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon took a decidedly different, and positive approach to the move. "This is the beginning of a new era at the UN, an era where the US stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish State," Danon said following the US decision to block Fayyad's appointment. "The new administration proved once again that it stands firmly alongside the state of Israel in the international arena and in the UN in particular."

Haley (L) and Danon sit down at the UN

Ever since her confirmation as US ambassador to the UN, replacing Obama appointee Samantha Power, cooperation between US and Israeli delegations has reportedly improved. A week ago, Haley met with her Israeli counterpart Danon, at his UN office.

Haley's statement comes ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump on Feb. 15, and was welcomed by Israelis.
An IDF project is providing training for military scouts in identifying animals and behavior patterns in the wild as part of their efforts towards environmental preservation.

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The project is a joint initiative of the IDF and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) with the collaboration of the Nature and Parks Authority, and it began three years ago. Today, 25 various IDF unites participate across the country. According to the chief of staff, its purpose is to change the way in which the army operates and relates with nature and the environment. In the project, the scouts operate nearly the same way as rangers.

As of now, around 30 scouts have completed the program, including senior officers, at the course held at the Scouts' Training School at the Lachish Training Base.

IDF tracker (Photo: Roee Idan)

Eldad Peled of the Nature and Parks Authority explained, "Scouts are out in the field and pass on information about wildlife. That information has great value, because there are many places that we can't visit. So the information about the types of animals and hours of operation is far more important to get a snapshot of the future of nature in the country."

"I love nature, and protecting it is important to me, especially for rare animals and plants," said Master Sgt. Shovel Shibli, a scout for 15 years who has gone through the program. Sgt. 1st Class Taysir Okla explained that there is no way that a scout can make mistakes in animal tracks, and when terrorists try to camouflage their own tracks as those of wildlife, the scouts identify them without problems.

The military is still considered one of the worst polluters in the country. About half of the country's territory is under its control. This project opens a long path for change in the way that the IDF interacts with the environment. Today, training exercises are planned with environmental concerns taken into consideration. If, for example, a rare bird's nest is discovered next to a shooting range, the IDF prefers to train elsewhere.

Peled explained, "It's not obvious that the Israel Defense Forces will stop and tell its soldiers, 'Look out for wildlife, protect the environment.' I don't know of other armies in the world in which something like this takes place, and it's admirable."
Tens of thousands took advantage of the pleasant Saturday weather for hikes, treks and trips to parks and other nature reserves, celebrating Tu B'Shevat (The 'New Year for Trees') by planting trees and enjoying nature's beauty.

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In Ofira Park in the city of Karmiel tree plantings were held. In the town of Ramat Yishai thousands participated in trips to the nearby Yehoshua village and other local festivities. Plantings were also held in Hurshat Tal National Park and in Ein Gev Kibbutz, among many other sites.





Almond trees blossom (Photo: Shoshi Friedman)

Photo: Ahiya Raved

Photo: Avihu Shapira

Photo: Avihu Shapira

Photo: Ramat Yishai community center

Gamla National Reserve (Photo: Eli Segal)

Gamla National Reserve (Photo: Eli Segal)

Golan Heights (Photo: Eli Segal)

Amir kibbutz (Photo: Avihu Shapira)

Planting in Alon HaGalil

Countriy's blossoming, Mount Hermon's snowing (Credit: Lior Baruch) ( : )

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In the Jewish National Fund sites and in Haifa, plantings were held during the week, where President Reuven Rivlin and Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav planted dozens of trees in place of the ones that burned down last November. In the next few months close to 100,000 trees will be planted in Haifa.

The Nature and Parks Authority stated that a spike in tourists and hikers was noticed in the Yarkon National Park where visitors were invited to take place in plantings in celebration of Tu B'Shevat, and also in Beit Guvrin National Park where the NPA led hikes along beautiful blossoming trails.
Hamas's military wing released a video on Friday in tribute to its rocket engineer who died on Sunday from wounds he is believed to have sustained whilst manufacturing a missile in the Gaza Strip.

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The video claims that the engineer, Mohammad Walid Al-Koka, worked before his death to develop missiles for the terrorist organization that controls Gaza.

From the video

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Hamas had announced that the 44-year-old Al-Koka and another operative were injured in a structure in the coastal Sudania region, which is in northern Gaza. However, a Palestinian source claimed that Al-Koka was a rocket engineer for the organization and that they presumed he was killed by an explosion during the manufacturing of a missile.

Al-Koka in action, as seen in the video

The video states that Al-Koka had been a member of the military wing since the Second Intifada. Hamas sources further claimed that Al-Koka took part in developing self-made antitank missiles as well as developing and improving mortars.
3D-printed prosthetic dreams

In a small lab in Kathmandu, a group of students are working hard, learning how to use a 3D printer so that they can make a prosthetic arm for a girl they have not even met yet.
Two Israelis were lightly wounded from stones thrown at their car on the Hussan Bypass Road outside of Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem, on Saturday evening. The car's windshield was also damaged.

One of the injured was taken to be treated at a hospital, while the other only required medical treatment at the scene.
Jerusalem once again experienced the country's highest rate of negative population growth. According to the annual Central Bureau of Statistics report, last year Jerusalem lost 7,851 inhabitants: 10,351 people moved to the city, but 17,091 people left it.

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The capital has been experiencing negative population growth for several years. Most of those leaving the city are young religiously non-observant families.

Fewer secular Jews in the capital (Photo: Sharon Gabai)

The main reasons they cite for leaving are the poor quality of life and of municipal services and the high cost of housing. Other factors are the relative scarcity of high added-value jobs, which means low salaries. Even in hi-tech, companies in Jerusalem tend to pay less than in the greater Tel Aviv area. In addition, its being one of the few cities in Israel where the secular population is a relatively disempowered minority consequently renders it less attractive to such families.

Ultra-Orthodox in Jerusalem (Photo: Eli Mendelbaum)

Jerusalem is one of the country's poorest cities. The country's lowest earning demographic groups with the highest poverty rates, Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews, account for almost two thirds of the population. As a result, many families are exempt from paying municipal taxes, and a relatively higher number of families require social welfare services.

It is not just the secular who are leaving the city. Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox families are also contributing to the negative population growth, primarily due to high housing prices. The shortage of housing is exacerbated by the fact that Jerusalem has a high rate of foreign ownership of apartments. Many foreign Jews own apartments in the city, which they tend to use only twice a year: around the High Holy Days Passover. The rest of the year, most of these residences remain empty.

Arabs in Jerusalem (Photo: Eli Mendelbaum)

The most popular destinations for secular families who want to stay relatively close to the city are Mevasseret Zion and Modi'in. The popular destinations for Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox families are Beitar Ilit, Beit Shemesh, and settlements in the West Bank.

Ashdod and Haifa also experienced negative growth, but only at a rate of about 2,000 each. Most of the cities with the highest growth rates are in center of country, such as Hod Hasharon, Petah Tikva, Rehovot, Yavne, and Kfar Saba.
Seven months have passed since the Hizma bombing when Lt. Shahar Roditi was wounded by an explosive device when a large fragment from the explosion pierced the young officer's face, shattering his nose and jaw.

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Today, against all odds, his is back to wearing his IDF uniform, and more importantly, back on his feet.

Roditi, a humble and unassuming officer from Nordia, near the city of Netanya, has managed to recover from his grievous injury, and while still in the process of rehabilitation, chose to return serving in the IDF, if only for the few months he has left before he finishes his service.

Roditi at the scene of the event (Photo: Yoav Zitun)

Returning with Ynet to the scene of the event, he recounted, "'I'm glad that it happened to me and not the civilians. This is my job, and if it weren't me, it would have been another soldier. This is what we were trained for."

After waking up in Hadassah Medical Center , groggy from painkillers with bandages covering his face, he learned what we already knew: He had been wounded from one of the nine remote explosive devices planted along the road near Hizma village.

Investigations later uncovered that the explosive charges had been intended to blow up an Israeli civilian bus.

Before the incident

This happened on the eve of Remembrance Day. A total of nine explosive devices were stashed alongside the road, and the terrorist holding the remote controller to them was standing nearby. Roditi, without any prior intelligence, noticed them while on patrol, and decided to stop to examine.

"I noticed an object that seemed to stand out to me, which I didn't remember seeing an hour before, and it made me suspicious. This was in a road that belonged both to Israeli and Palestinian civilians that sees a lot of traffic every day, and is dangerous as it essentially divides the village. Even right before we got there, there had been a shooting, another terrorist attack.





With his friends from Home Front Command

"I got out of the vehicle, and the other soldiers stepped out as I ordered them to secure the perimeter and behind the jeep for protection. I approached the suspicious object from the other side. Then the explosion happened. I remember very little of what happened later.

"I remember standing, and then I was suddenly lying down. My chest felt hot, and I realized I was probably bleeding out. The deputy commander got me back into the armed car, and I was later evacuated by ambulance, where I was given first aid and morphine. I don't remember anything after that, not until I woke up in intensive care," he recalled.





At his release from the hospital (Photo: Hadassah Medical Center)

He then added, "I didn't even know where I was. In the ambulance, I knew I might die, but it could have been much worse, with 60 casualties after a bomb blew up a bus. Now that I'm here again, I'm glad that only I got hurt and not the any of my soldiers or any civilians. This is my mission, and I would do it again. Our awareness prevented a much bigger disaster."

Roditi's parents did not object to him returning to serve in his battalion as a special staff officer due to his severe injuries. "My brother is a soldier as well, so when they heard the knock on the door in the middle of the night they didnt know which one of us was involved. My two younger brothers are also going to be combat soldiers, because this is the upbringing we had," he said optimistically.





'I'm glad that it was I who was wounded and not the civilians' (Photo: Yoav Zitun)

During the interview, Jewish civilians were brining their cars for repair in Palestinian garages in the village, as if no terrorist attack had taken place there last year. Roditi responded naturally, "This is a very complex sector, and when you're in charge of it, you must remain at top vigilance. You need to be prepared for the unexpected, whether there are terrorist attacks or not."

Roditi said that he intends to continue serving as an officer in the reserves after his approaching discharge. Meanwhile, he will undergo additional surgeries. "The doctor told me after the incident that the bones in my face were gone, crushed, and that she would try to save the soft tissue. She told me that she saw my eye throu my mouth, and that I'm lucky to not have gone blind," he said, smiling.
Two men suspected of planning ISIS attacks in Europe were arrested in Turkey following 10 days of being interrogated by police, Turkey's state-run agency reported Saturday.

Mahamad Laban, 45, a Danish citizen, and Mohammed Tefik Saleh, 38, a Swedish citizen, received weapons and explosives training in Syria for the past three months, the Anadolu Agency said.

Pictures published by Anadolu show Laban and others in trenches covered with sandbags. In several pictures, Laban is seen wearing camouflage gear and holding a machine gun.

Anadolu did not provide details on the arrests but said Saleh's wife had informed Swedish authorities that he had crossed from Turkey to Syria and joined ISIS in 2014, along with his two daughters. The agency says the wife didn't go to Syria and returned to Sweden.

The agency said the two men entered Turkey using fake identification with the intention of going to European countries.
The Border Police arrested a 17-year-old female Palestinian who drew a knife and ran at an officer nearby the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Saturday afternoon, the Israel Police announced later that evening.

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The Palestinian, who was not injured, was transferred to security forces for investigating.

Security footage from the incident

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According to a statement from the Israel Police, the would-be attacker walked up to a checkpoint outside the holy site at about 4:35 pm. She there identified uniformed members of the Border Police, who are tasked with security at the Cave of the Patriarchs, drew a knife and began to run at one of the officers.

From the footage (Credit: Israel Police)

The Border Policeman saw her running towards him with a weapon, and he aimed his weapon at the young Palestinian. She began to run towards a nearby playground where children were playing.

The terrorist's knife (Photo: Israel Police)

He ran after her and managed to outflank her, positioning himself between the terrorist and the children. He and other members of the Border police aimed and cocked their weapons at the girl, who then stopped and threw her weapon to the floor.

The 17-year-old resident of Hebron was arrested and taken for questioning by security forces.
A new neighborhood in Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip was inaugurated on Saturday morning as the second phase of the Hamed City project, funded by Qatar, which includes 1,060 homes.

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The ceremony was attended by senior Palestinian official and former Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. He told the crowd that the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, will transfer an additional $100 million to help rebuild the strip. A quarter of that sum will be dedicated to building a hospital in Rafah. A tenth of the total sum is earmarked for erecting a hospital for special-needs patients in Gaza City.

Hamed City project

Hamed City project

Haniyeh speaking at the ceremony

Addressing the electricity crisis in the strip , Haniyeh said that the Qatari emir will donate $30 million to establish electricity infrastructure. This is in addition to the $12 million that he has already pledged over the next three months to be used to buy fuel for Gaza's power station. Haniyeh stated that Turkey was also helping with the crisis.

The Hamed City project involves the construction of a new neighborhood in Khan Yunis that will include two schools, a mosque and parks. Its first phase began a year ago.
Its a tired old adage, but as true as ever:

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

The latest to learn the hard way are customers of Creative Creations, which got a little too creative with travel packages back in 2014 and 2015.

PatriciaUrbanovsky of Omaha, 31, was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $4.7 million in restitution.

She was convicted of 16 counts of wire fraud after claiming to have a special relationship with another travel company and an airline that enabled her to sell airline tickets and vacation packages far below the market rate.

Urbanovsky was able to keep the scheme going by using money from new customers to buy actual tickets in time for earlier customers to use.

Like all Ponzi schemes, however, it collapsed under its own weight, cheating nine victims out of almost $4.7 million.

That included a group of 27 eight-graders and 20 adults who paid nearly $13,000 for a trip to Washington D.C. After the fraud came to light, sympathetic donors pitched in to enable the kids to make the trip three months later.

The main victim was a credit card company that suffered more than $4.6 million in losses from charge backs from Creative Creation accounts.

Travel voucher victims can find some small solace in knowing they have something in common with Steven Spielberg, Kevin Bacon, Larry King and many more celebrities.

They were victims of the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, losing $65 billion to Bernie Madoff, who doesnt seem to be taking rehabilitation seriously while serving 150 years in prison.

His latest scheme involves cornering the market on hot chocolate.

Reporter Steve Fishman says Madoff hasnt lost his business touch in prison.

At one point, he cornered the hot chocolate market. He bought up every package of Swiss Miss from the commissary and sold it for a profit in the prison yard. He monopolized hot chocolate! He made it so that if you wanted any, you had to go through Bernie.

Fishmans interviews with Madoff are part of an Audible series called Ponzi Supernova.

Just two more reminders to stop and think before money leaves your hand in exchange for a promise of products or service.

Always try to deal with someone you trust, and even if you do, if the deal they are offering seems too good to be true, it probably is.
County court

 Attempt of a Class 1 misdemeanor  Brian K. Davis, York, sentenced to 30 days jail, given credit for four days already served, ordered to nine months probation.

 Issuing a no-account check, less than $200  Mohamed A. Farah, no address listed, dismissed.

 Theft by shoplifting, $0-$500  Jessie R. Lance, Columbus, ordered to 12 months probation. Also attempt of a Class 4 felony, sentenced to 90 days jail, given credit for 30 days already served, ordered to 12 months probation.

 Cruelly mistreating an animal, first offense  Jerome M. Manning, Exeter, fined $300.

 Attempt of a Class 4 felony  Jadyn Lee Miller-Bailey, Geneva, sentenced to 60 days jail, given credit for six days already served, ordered to nine months probation.

 Fugitive from justice  Fred Akuma Oburu, York County Jail, preliminary hearing waived, bound over to District Court.

 Violation of a harassment protection order  Andrea S. Sharp, York, fined $300.

 Procuring/selling alcohol to a minor, two counts  Mitchell B. McGowen, no address listed, dismissed. Also failure to appear or comply, dismissed.

 Possession of drug paraphernalia  Caleb C. Stutzman, McCool Junction, fined $100. Also driving under suspension/before reinstatement, fined $100.

Traffic violations

 Overweight on axle or group of axles  Ray D. Andersen, Grand Island, fined $150.

 Overweight on axle or group of axles  Creighton C. Chrisman, York, fined $75.

 Violation of load content requirements  Chase G. Chrisman, Henderson, fined $100.

 No operators license  Ryne C. Mierau, Henderson, fined $75.

 No valid registration  Taysha M. Rock, York, fined $25. Also speeding, fined $200.

 No operators license  Matthew M. Green, Evergreen Park, Ill., fined $75. Also speeding, fined $75.

 Disobeying stop lights  Christopher J. Nilsen, Swansea, S.C., fined $75.

 Failure to display proper number  Brandon L. Johnson, York, fined $25. Also excess windshield and/or window tinting, fined $25. Also improper/defective vehicle lights, fined $25.

 Improper stopping or parking  Magdy T. Mohamed, Houston, Texas, fined $25. Also unattended motor vehicle, fined $25.

 Disobeying stop lights, two counts  Mark D. Pellock, Wichita, Kan., fined $75 on each count. Also speeding, fined $25.

 No proof of insurance  Douglas L. Kage, no address listed, dismissed. Also unlawful/fictitious display of plates, dismissed. Also operating or parking an unregistered vehicle, dismissed.

 Parking in a handicapped space, first offense  Barbara J. Peach, York, fined $150.

 No operators license  Paul D. Sloan, York, fined $75.

Speeding

 Cassius R. Lee, Seward, fined $25.

 Lane E. Tryon, Austin, Texas, fined $25.

 Samuel C. Leuck, Denver, Colo., fined $25.

 Brieanne G. Todd, David City, fined $75.

 Matthew A. Benbenek, Minneapolis, Minn., fined $25.

 Evan B. Norton, York, fined $25.

 Charina L. Walker, Lincoln, fined $25.

 George R. Foos, York, fined $25.
MONDAY 2/13

>> Alcoholics Anonymous - Fresh Start Group meets Monday at 12 noon at First Presbyterian Church located at 414 Delaware Ave. in York.

>> OB Enrollment is Monday, Feb. 13 at 8 a.m. in the Lower Level of the Medical Office Building. Please attend class as soon as possible after your positive pregnancy test. For more information or to enroll in the online Childbirth Preparation class, contact OB Director Nancy Hengelfelt, RNC, at 402.362.04573.

TUESDAY 2/14

>> Sexaholics Anonymous, a 12 Step recovery group for those dealing with addiction to pornography, sex, and other forms of lust, meets Tuesday nights at 5:45 p.m. For more information please call our toll free number 1-877-889-8071 or visit sanebraska.org.

>> Alzheimers/Dementia Support Group will meet on Tuesday, Feb. 14 at 4 p.m. in the Hearthstone Great Room. For more information call the Hearthstone Social Work Department at 402.363.0239.

>> Cancer Support Group will meet Tuesday, Feb. 14 at 6:30 p.m. at Willow Brook Assisted Living. For more information call 402.362.4662.

WEDNESDAY 2/15

>> Alcoholics Anonymous - Fresh Start Group meets Wednesday at 12 noon at First Presbyterian Church located at 414 Delaware Ave. in York.

THURSDAY 2/16

>> Weight Watchers meets in the basement of the York Towne House, 5th & Grant Ave., each Thursday. Weigh in 5:15 - 5:45 p.m.; Member meeting 5:45 - 6:15 p.m.

>> AL-ANON meets Thursday at 12 noon at First Presbyterian Church located at 414 Delaware Ave. in York.

>> Narcotics Anonymous meets Thursday at 8 p.m. at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in the Annex building.

FRIDAY 2/17

>> Alcoholics Anonymous - Fresh Start Group meets Friday at 12 noon at First Presbyterian Church located at 414 Delaware Ave. in York.

>> Alcoholics Anonymous - AWOL Group meets Friday at 8 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church located at 414 Delaware Ave. in York.

SATURDAY 2/18

>> Alcoholics Anonymous - Fresh Start Group meets Saturday at 11 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church located at 414 Delaware Ave. in York.
YORK  Matthew Aunkst, 29, of York, was to be sentenced Friday for a number of charges in two unrelated cases, involving burglary, drugs and arson. The sentencing proceedings, however, were continued to a later date.

In the first case, he pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary (both Class 2A felonies) and second degree arson (a Class 3 felony). In return for his changes of plea in this case, charges of theft and conspiracy to commit a felony were dismissed.

According to documents filed with the court, investigators said Aunkst and two co-defendants drove to a vacant house southeast of York. They said Aunkst had a gas can in his hand when he kicked in the back door of the house and poured gas all over the interior. They said smoke was coming from the house when Aunkst left the house (according to his co-defendants).

Investigators said the three drove down the road and parked behind some grain bins. Officers said the three watched the house burn and saw the owner of the house arrive on the scene.

Investigators said that at that point, the three then went to the owners private residence while he was at the scene of the fire. It was alleged that Aunkst and a co-defendant stole a substantial number of valuable items from the house.

Investigators said the three then went to a house in Lincoln where they split the stolen cash between themselves. They were later traced to a casino in Iowa and were subsequently arrested.

Eventually, Aunkst was able to pay bond and was released from the York County Jail while this case was pending.

While he was out on bond, he was arrested for a separate burglary and was found to be in the possession of a controlled substance.

In this case, according to court documents, a woman, who was the caretaker for her deceased parents farm, had received a call from one of her friends.

The friend said that he was driving past her parents rural residence when he saw a vehicle parked near the farmhouse.

The man walked onto the property and saw that the front and rear doors had been breached and he suspected someone was in the house.

The woman called the sheriffs department.

Meanwhile, the man at the farmhouse gave out a loud verbal warning for the person inside to come out, according to the investigators report. While he was standing on the west side of the house, he saw a white male with short hair come out of the rear basement door and run north. The man followed the perpetrator and yelled for him to stop.

The person did stop and the man detained him until the sheriffs department arrived to take him into custody.

The man escorted the perpetrator, who was identified as Aunkst, to the county road where they waited for the sheriffs deputies to arrive.

While they were waiting, according to court documents, Aunkst asked the man if he could remove some dope from his truck, bury it and conceal it. The man allowed him to do so, investigators said, and Aunkst allegedly buried it in the south ditch along the county road.

After Aunkst was taken into custody, the man told investigators where the drugs were located and they allegedly found two grams of methamphetamine and marijuana.

The woman who owned the property said she did not know Aunkst and he was not supposed to be on the property.

In the second case, Aunkst pleaded guilty to first degree criminal trespassing (which was an amended complaint from the original charge of burglary) and possession of a controlled substance.
The Scrap Happy Quilt Group which has hsoted the annual Winter Wonderland of Quilts show at First Presbyterian Church on January 28 would like to thank participants and members of the community who supported the show.
Chitlang boosts homestay services as arrivals jump

A rise in the number of touristsboth domestic and foreignhas encouraged residents of Chitlang, Makwanpur, to expand homestay facilities.
LIVE-2 Inning |06-10

SOUTH AFRICA VS NETHERLANDS

SA 64/3 VS 158/4 NED

South Africa need 95 runs in 63 balls at 9.04 rpo
Diplomacy for national security, Foreign Minister Mahat stresses

Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat has said the mentality of using relations with the neighbouring countries as a means to getting to power and fulfilling partisan interests would never make nationalism stronger.
Drone cameras to be used to check garbage disposal into Bagmati

Anyone used to throwing garbage into Bagmati river? Beware! You may be caught and booked.
Ajith Vijay Kumar A bomb goes off in downtown Baghdad leaving scores dead  Thats news. If it happens in our country, like in Jaipur, thats a tragedy. And when 15,000 people are uprooted from their homes everyday (80% being women and children) and forced to live as nomads; no food, no shelterno nothing! People left to degenerate and die everyday in bits & partsask yourself does it move youmove me? Welcome to a world where even the simplest joys of being alive are at most times out of boundswelcome to Darfur, the very place where at least 200,000 people have been killed and two million forced out from their homes in the last five years. Imagine your life, as you know it, disappearing in an instant and you are forced to watch helplessly. Fear for your familys safety precipitated by war, violence, hatred, massacre, and genocide force you to flee your home, your soil, your land. Shoving you onto a torturous journey spanning hours or even days in search of a sheltersomewhere where your child can sleep in peace. You are dependent on handouts of food; possibly have no clean drinking water or access to health care. Not a pretty picture, right? But the fact is that millions of people all across the world, in countries rich and poor have been living in such desolate and precarious conditions for years. These people are called refugees. This is their story. Darfur is now famous (Hopefully more aid is pouring in) thanks to celebrity activists like Don Cheadle, his friend George Clooney and Steven Spielberg as they step up and speak out in attempts to galvanize governments and ordinary people to try and help. Spielberg even went to the extent of pulling out of the Beijing Olympics committee accusing China of not doing enough to pressure Sudan to end the "continuing human suffering" in the region. But the misfortune of the world we live in is that Darfur is not alone, many more regions and countries are at the brink of a humanitarian crisis; thats in one word CATASTROPHIC. According to the 2006 World Refugee survey conducted by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), a staggering 33 million people worldwide are currently uprooted from their homes. USCRI says that Iraqis are currently the fastest growing refugee and IDP crisis group in the world with nearly 2 million people having fled the country, and 1.7 million internally displaced. In Sudan, more than 5.3 million people left their homes. And the on-going armed conflict in Colombia internally displaced 2.9 million people. These are however, just three in a long list of countries and regions impacted by this human tragedy. USCRI statistics show that there are 26 conflict-ridden nations, predominantly in Africa and the Middle East. Even in the best of conditions, humanitarian aid agencies are able to provide only the basics: food, clean drinking water, and elementary health care. But sometimes, local political climate ensures that weeks could go by before help arrives. All this happening in midst of a flickering hope of once gain revisiting those happy days when their children didnt cry out of hunger, days that were bliss. Somalia, Chad, Algeria, Zimbabwe; the dark continent and even large swathes of the so called peaceful world are full of such hell holes where entire generations are being lost in the unending search for a loaf of bread, a pitcher of water  but who cares? Do youdo I? I discern that misery is subjective, what can move me to edges may not mean anything to you. Thats human fallacy at its bestsomething we all are good at. What doesnt affect me directly is not happening at all; thats the motto for most of us. On World Refugee Day let us not forget that we are lucky.She calls out to the man on the street Sir, can you help me? Its cold and Ive nowhere to sleep, Is there somewhere you can tell me? He walks on, doesnt look back He pretends he cant hear her Starts to whistle as he crosses the street Seems embarrassed to be there Oh think twice, its another day for You and me in paradise Oh think twice, its just another day for you, You and me in paradise Just another day in paradise * Single from Phil Collins` album, But Seriously (1989)
Govt committed to speed up developmental projects: PM Dahal

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said that the government was serious to construct national pride projects with high priority.
High-level monitoring panel formed

The Prime Ministers Office on Friday formed a high-level panel to monitor the condition and status of various development projects, revenue mobilisation and government service delivery across the country.
Hong Kong metro 'arson attack' injures 17

At least 17 people have been injured after fire engulfed a train carriage in Hong Kong's underground system.
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 11, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani side continued to violate the ceasefire regime on Karabakh-Azerbaijan contact line on February 10 and overnight 11 using 60 and 82 mm mortars and different caliber gunfire weapons. In the mentioned period the Azerbaijani forces violated the ceasefire regime 75 times, firing more than 620 shots at the Armenian border guards. In the north eastern direction Azerbaijani troops used 60 and 82 mm mortars, firing 17 projectiles. Azerbaijani snipers were particularly active in the mentioned period, firing 83 bullets in different directions of the contact line.

NKR Defense Ministry press service informed ARMENPRESS that the front line units of the Defense Army mainly refrained from retaliation.
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 11, ARMENPRESS. A foreign citizen has been found dead in Yerevans Ani Plaza hotel. The press service of the Investigative Committee of Armenia informed Armenpress investigative officers are at the scene to find out the circumstances. No other details are reported at the moment.

At 15:30 the Police of Armenia informed that the body belongs to Russian citizen of Georgian nationality.
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 11, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyuan attended the solemn event dedicated to St. Sarkis the warrior on February 11 at Saint Sarkis Church of Araratian Pontifical Diocese.

Armenpress reports Defense Minister of Armenia Vigen Sargsyan, Culture Minister Armen Amiryan, Ararat Governor Aramayis Grigoryan also attended the event. A blessing of servicemen took place following the Divine Liturgy with the participation of 20 mandatory servicemen with best combat performance.

President Serzh Sargsyan addressed a congratulatory speech on the occasion of the commemoration day of St. Sarkis the warrior.

Your military service passes in the most important zone  the front line. Be convinced that you are backed by an ancient and powerful nation - resilient and hardworking, a combat ready nation that has an experience of millennia and an unwavering belief in tomorrows victory, Serzh sargsyan said, turning to the servicemen. Serzh Sargsyan expressed deep regret for some brave soldiers are not standing in the row since they were killed last year in April, but assured that they will always remain with us.

The President highly appreciated the courage and bravery of Armenian soldiers, but at the same time emphasized that they must combine courage and bravery with staying alive.

President Sargsyan stated that todays soldiers in no way remain behind the soldiers of 90s by their courage and combat readiness. You have even surpassed them, President Sargsyan said, adding that he has instructed the commanders of the soldiers present at the event to give them a 10-day holiday.
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 11, ARMENPRESS. The first ever Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Malaysia was celebrated on February 4, 2017 in Kuala Lumpur by Very Reverend Father Zaven Yazichyan, Pastor of the Armenian Spiritual Pastorates of Singapore, Myanmar and Bangladesh and the Representative of the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians to The Far East.

Armenpress reports the Divine Liturgy was delivered at the Archangel Michael Russian Orthodox Church in Kuala Lumpur. The event was organized by Mr. Emil Petrosyan, the President of the Armenian Society in Malaysia, with the blessings of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of all Armenians. Mr. Ashot Tunyan, a prominent member of the Armenian Society in Malaysia hosted the Spiritual Father for the occasion.

The Divine Liturgy was attended by all the members of the Community, guests and friends of the Armenian Society in Malaysia, Armenians living in Johor Bahru (Malaysia), as well as Armenians from Indonesia. During the Divine Liturgy Father Zaven Yazichyan addressed his message to the faithful and expressed his gratitude and appreciation to Mr. Emil Petrosyan, the President of the Armenian Society in Malaysia, as well as to all the members of the Community for their outstanding efforts and contributions towards organizing this historic and brilliant event. Particularly, Father Zaven Yazichyan emphasized stating that: "...strong faith and boundless love towards our Mother Church and Homeland unites us today in this sacred place despite the reality that there is no Armenian Church in Malaysia, your zeal, enthusiasm and keenness deserves appraisal, as well as your love and devotion, efforts and energy for making this beautiful vision become a reality... you truly and proudly continue to be the heirs to the legacy of our forebears who came to this country and established a good name and created history".

On this landmark occasion Father Yazichyan conveyed the appreciation and blessings of His Holiness Karekin II Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of all Armenians and wished that the Almighty God multiple the successes and grant new achievements and the very best in everything as the Community prepares for new and remarkable events in the days to come.

Following the Divine Liturgy, the Holy Sacrament of Baptism was performed and three children were reborn a spiritual birth and sanctified by the Holy Spirit and became as children of God and true members of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church. The ceremony of the Holy Sacrament of Baptism was a kind of "rebirth and resurrection" of the Armenian community in Malaysia; like a bell-sound which once again proved the dedication of the community towards the Armenian Apostolic Mother Church. The happiness and joy of the faithful audience was boundless, expressed in mixed feelings of hope and faith in our future.

After the Holy Sacrament of Baptism, a Requiem service was offered; for one of the relative of the member of the Community, who suddenly passed away in Armenia. Father Zaven stated in his speech that "...it was with deep sorrow that we learned of the untimely death of Mr. Sasun Tunyan, cousin of Mr. Ashot Tunyan, one of the members of the Armenian Community in Malaysia. We all are with you in this difficult moment. No one can prepare you for a loss; it comes like a swift wind. However, take comfort in knowing that he is now resting in the arms of our Lord. A person that departs from this earth never truly leaves, for they are still alive in our hearts and minds, through us, they live on. Prayers and fond memories are what we have to remember our dearly departed. May the love of family and friends comfort you during these difficult days. Please accept our heartfelt condolences."

The day ended with lunch in the Church hall, during which Mr. Emil Petrosyan, the President of the Community expressed his gratitude to Father Zaven stating that "...today a memorable, unforgettable, unrepeatable and prayerful day was recorded in the history of the Armenian community in Malaysia". Afterwards, on behalf of the Women's Guild of the Community, Mr. Emil Petrosyan handed a souvenir to Father Zaven as an expression of their gratefulness. All the Community members thanked the visiting Pastor for his strong spiritual encouragement.

Historical Overview: Armenians settled in South-East Asia from 16-17th centuries. Settling on the foreign soil and forming communities, the priority was and still is to preserve their identity, language, culture and faith. Armenians have come to Malaysia mainly from India and Old Jugha, Iran. They have settled in the Malay Peninsula, southern part of Indochina peninsula. Currently, it is divided between Myanmar, Malaysia and Thailand. Armenians mostly settled in the city of Georgetown, Penang State and after a short while played an important role in the shaping of the economic and cultural history of the state. Till today the most famous street in Georgetown is called Armenian Street or Lebuh Armenia which is an indelible part of the history of Penang.

The locals proudly recount to everyone about the rich legacy of the Armenians. Today the street and almost all the buildings on that location which were once owned by prominent Armenians are under the protection of UNESCO World Heritage. Legendary and famous Sarkis brothers, who were the most eminent businessmen in South-East Asia, established The Eastern & Oriental Hotel in Penang. The Sarkis brothers also founded the Strand Hotel in Yangon, Myanmar and the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, as well as the Crag Hotel on Penang Hill which in the 1950's became the first home of the Uplands School. Another prominent Armenian Dr. Avetoom who went on to become one of the leading figures in Penang Society founded the first George Town Dispensary.

Despite the small numbers, the Armenians were responsible citizens and built an Armenian Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator on Bishop Street. Unfortunately, in 1906 the Church was demolished and an elegant monument took its place. Although there are no Armenians in Penang now, they have undoubtedly left behind a rich cultural legacy that all Armenians can be proud of. Today Armenians are mostly settled in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia.
IRC submits report on Karki to Speaker Gharti

The Impeachment Recomme-ndation Committee of Parliament has submitted its investigation report against Lokman Singh Karki to Speaker Onasari Gharti, recommending action in four of the seven charges filed in the impeachment motion.
A feud between Elon Musk and the United Automobile Workers revved up on Friday as the group denied his accusation they planted a mole to unionize Tesla employees.

The UAW statement was the latest twist in a saga triggered by an online post by a man who claimed to work at Tesla's plant in California for four years and decried conditions faced by employees there.

Tesla co-founder and chief Musk was quoted at gadget review website Gizmodo this week as calling the accusations "morally outrageous" and saying it was his understanding the man was paid by the UAW to join Tesla and agitate for a union.

In a brief statement Friday, the UAW said the man "is not and has not been paid by the UAW" and called on Musk to apologize for spreading "fake news" about him.

The UAW confirmed that the post's author, who identified himself as Jose Moran, and others at Tesla have approached the union.

Moran contended that many Tesla workers put in more than 40 hours weekly of hard, manual labor, some of it "excessive mandatory overtime."

Machinery is not ergonomically designed to minimize risk of injuries, he maintained.

"I often feel like I am working for a company of the future under working conditions of the past," Moran said in a post at medium.com.

He also argued for a raise in pay, citing the high cost of living in the Silicon Valley area and contending that Tesla plant workers make a few dollars less hourly than peers in the automotive industry.

"In a company of our size, an 'open-door policy' simply isn't a solution," Moran said.

"We need better organization in the plant, and I, along with many of my coworkers, believe we can achieve that by coming together and forming a union."

Musk rejected Moran's claims about working conditions, according to Gizmodo.

In an email response to an AFP inquiry, Tesla said that as the largest manufacturing employer in California it has created thousands of jobs and "this is not the first time we have been the target of a professional union organizing effort such as this."

Story continues

Tesla added that it has a history of engaging directly with employees about their concerns and will continue to do so "because it is the right thing to do."

The company's site in the northern California city of Fremont is the only car factory in the US where workers are not organized into unions.

The company making the software-infused electric cars, however, is also considered a member of a Silicon Valley technology world -- where skilled workers are not typically organized.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said, "If the Eurogroup is not in a position to (produce a result) on Friday, I have asked EU President Donald Tusk to call a summit of eurozone countries"

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Saturday warned the International Monetary Fund and EU economic powerhouse Germany to stop playing with fire over his country's debt problems.

Opening a meeting of his far-left Syriza party, Tsipras said he was confident a solution over repayments would be found, despite talks between Greece and its creditors ending in Brussels with no breakthrough on Friday.

Months of feuding with the IMF has rattled markets and raised fears of a new debt crisis, with Athens resisting pressure to cut public services any more than has already been agreed with creditors.

The Greek premier urged a change of course from the IMF.

"We expect as soon as possible that the IMF revise its forecast.. so that discussions can continue at the technical level," he said.

And referring to Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble, Tsipras called for Chancellor Angela Merkel to "encourage her finance minister to end his permanent aggressiveness" towards Greece and "stop playing with fire".

"The IMF is playing a game of poker by dragging things aside because it does not want to blame the intransigence of the German minister," Tsipras said, criticising the "new absurd demands" targeted at Greece.

The next meeting of eurozone ministers on February 20 -- is seen as an unofficial deadline ahead of important elections in Europe.

The row with its eurozone paymasters over debt relief and budget targets has also revived talk of Greece's place in the euro.

On Friday, Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said progress had been made in the Brussels talks with Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and other EU and IMF officials. But he provided few details.

- 'Highly unsustainable' -

Athens faces debt repayments of 7.0 billion euros ($7.44 billion) this summer that it cannot afford without defusing the feud that is holding up new loans from Greece's 86 billion euro bailout.

An IMF report obtained by AFP on Monday said Greece's debt "is highly unsustainable" and "will become explosive in the long run."

Story continues

There has long been a split between the IMF and Europe over a demand by the eurozone that Greece deliver a primary balance, or budget surplus before debt repayments, of 3.5 percent of GDP. The IMF has said only 1.5 percent is feasible.

The options Athens is said to be considering, including substantial debt relief or even a withdrawal from the bailout, have been ruled out by Schaeuble in the run up to Germany's elections later this year.

And IMF proposals that Greece increase taxes and invoke pension cuts go against Tsipras's refusal to enact "one more euro" of savings.

Breaking the stalemate in the coming weeks is seen as paramount with elections in the Netherlands on March 15 and France in April through June threatening to make a resolution even more difficult.

But Dijsselbloem indicated Friday that the February 20 meeting would still be too early for a breakthrough.

"We will take stock of the further progress (during that meeting)," said Dijsselbloem, who is also the Dutch finance minister.
Reporters with CNN interviewed federal investigators who confirm for the first time that some elements in that mysterious British spy's dossier on Donald Trump's Russia hijinks are legit.

The claims were first written up in a 35-page dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent that began making the rounds with journalists and members of the intelligence community last year. That spy has since gone missing.

The dossier included salacious details of unusual sexual conduct with Russian sex workers. CNN's sources offered no information on that material.

In today's report, CNN cites unnamed current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials as the sources of this new confirmation.

Until today, American intelligence and law enforcement had repeatedly said they were unable to verify any portion of the dossier.

Officials say the intercepted communications revealed individuals known to the US intelligence community as "heavily involved" in collecting dirt to damage Hillary Clinton and assist to Donald Trump, during the presidential campaigns.

As CNN reported earlier, Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on dossier's existence before Trump was inaugurated, and before Buzzfeed published a portion of the material online.

CNN's Jim Sciutto and Evan Perez discuss breaking news on the Russia dossier https://t.co/7mO0kHl36k https://t.co/m2KiblwmqO  CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 10, 2017

From the CNN report by Jim Sciutto and Evan Perez:

None of the newly learned information relates to the salacious allegations in the dossier. Rather it relates to conversations between foreign nationals. The dossier details about a dozen conversations between senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals. Sources would not confirm which specific conversations were intercepted or the content of those discussions due to the classified nature of US intelligence collection programs. But the intercepts do confirm that some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier, according to the officials. CNN has not confirmed whether any content relates to then-candidate Trump.

The corroboration, based on intercepted communications, has given US intelligence and law enforcement "greater confidence" in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents, these sources say. Reached for comment this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, "We continue to be disgusted by CNN's fake news reporting." Spicer later called back and said, "This is more fake news. It is about time CNN focused on the success the President has had bringing back jobs, protecting the nation, and strengthening relationships with Japan and other nations. The President won the election because of his vision and message for the nation." Spokespeople for the FBI, Department of Justice, CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

Sen. Dick Durbin is calling for the release of Flynn-Russia transcripts, says allegations warrant a "serious and thorough investigation". pic.twitter.com/0Pt1XgSctg  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 10, 2017

"Fake news is what they call any news they don't like," @jaketapper said on CNN after @jimsciutto broke the story on-air shortly before 5pm.  Eric Geller (@ericgeller) February 10, 2017

oh fuck off pic.twitter.com/UOc6eJvbSc  Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) February 10, 2017

CNN reporting on Trump-Russia memos confirms USG has intel showing Russians plotted against HRC and for Trump. https://t.co/xU0940zj75 pic.twitter.com/hEDwROTa1z  David Corn (@DavidCornDC) February 10, 2017

When you hang up because you're angry but call back because you're STILL angry pic.twitter.com/gqvfgXLqj7  Colin Jones (@colinjones) February 10, 2017

USG confirmed these parts of dossier based on "routine intelligence gathering." Implicated ppl known to have collected anti-Clinton files. pic.twitter.com/qxa07wHAOO  Eric Geller (@ericgeller) February 10, 2017

A good way to prove something isn't tru is to freak out when asked about it & then call back and freak out some more https://t.co/RczCLpOJPx pic.twitter.com/owsgj8cQfO  Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) February 10, 2017

"Someconversationstook place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations" as the dossier said they did.  Eric Geller (@ericgeller) February 10, 2017
ICE agent

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have arrested hundreds of people in a nationwide sweep in what they called a routine "enforcement surge."

The moves, however, were seen by immigration advocates as a consequence of President Donald Trump's recent executive orders on immigration.

According to officials cited by The Associated Press, the five-day operation was designed to round up undocumented immigrants who have criminal histories and pending deportation orders.

Hundreds of arrests  from Atlanta to Chicago to New York, Los Angeles, North Carolina, and South Carolina  drew backlash from several immigration advocacy groups. ICE officials arrested about 160 people in Southern California alone.

"This is not normal," said Angelica Salas, the Director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) in a news conference on Friday. "We have responded to raids in the past and this is what sweeps ... large numbers of people picked up in a very short period of time, look like," she said.

Though attorneys and immigration advocates accused ICE agents of using traffic stops and checkpoints as part of the enforcement surge, the agency denied those allegations, The Associated Press said, citing agency officials who warned that the "rash of recent reports about purported ICE checkpoints and random sweeps are false, dangerous, and irresponsible."

immigration ban

According to an unnamed Department of Homeland Security official cited by The Washington Post, civilians who lacked documentation, but had no criminal history were also rounded up alongside people known by the agency to have criminal records  a result of Trump's recently expanded immigration rules.

Weiterlesen

Big cities tend to have a lot of illegal immigrants, the DHS official said. Theyre going to a target-rich environment.

We cannot understate the level of panic and terror that is running through many immigrant communities, said Walter Barrientos, a member of the nonprofit organization Make the Road New York.

Barrientos said ICE agents were "not just detaining individuals they are looking for ... but in fact, taking anyone else in the community, or in these homes who does not have immigration status at the moment, or who is not able to prove citizenship."

ICE agent deportation

Marlene Mosqueda, whose father was picked up by ICE agents during the sweep, described her experience in a news conference: "It wasn't just my dad ... it was someone else they came to [search for]. And they didn't even have ICE on them, titled," she said, apparently referring to department identification. "That's what is pissing me off: that they came in with the police sign on their backs. They weren't even ICE."

CHIRLA Director Salas accused ICE of "denying information and misleading attorneys."

John Kelly

An Immigration Customs and Enforcement spokesperson did not immediately return Business Insider's request for comment.

"Every immigrant needs to speak out," Mosqueda said. "We need to unite as one, we need to be together, we need to support each other."

The arrests came the same week Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly testified before Congress that the department was frustrated with the Obama administration's lenient policy toward undocumented immigrants who committed no serious crimes.

"I think their morale has suffered because of the job they were hired to do, and then in their sense, they're ... kind of hobbled or, you know, hands tied behind their back, that kind of thing," Kelly said. "And now, they feel more positive about things. I bet if you watch the morale issue, you'll ... be surprised going forward."

Government data compiled by the Pew Research Center estimates that the majority of the 11.1 million undocumented immigrants living in the US reside in New York, Los Angeles, and Houston.

NOW WATCH: 'Courts seem to be so political': Trump calls out Federal Courts for freezing the travel ban





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Anthony Ray Hinton spent nearly 30 years on Alabama death row

Racism, poverty, freedom and confinement will be the focus of speeches delivered by 2 former Alabama death row inmates, sharing their stories at the University of North Alabama later this month.





Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent 30 years on death row, and Gary Drinkard, who was released after 5 years, will share their stories of exoneration and wrongful conviction during a conference at UNA Feb. 23-24. The events are open to the public.





Hinton walked free in April 2015 at age 52. He'd been on death row for 30 years for the 1985 murders of 2 Birmingham fast food restaurant managers. Hinton and his attorneys asked prosecutors for years to retest the gun that linked him to the crime.





On April 3, Anthony Ray Hinton walked free, prosecutors dropping the charges - the U.S. Supreme Court had ordered a retrial - that he'd killed 2 men in a Birmingham area fast food managers in 1985. The bullets didn't match up beyond a doubt, the state said.





Shortly before his release, new tests ultimately ruled that the bullets found at the crime scenes couldn't be conclusively linked to the gun or to each other.





Hinton's conviction, he has said, is rooted in racism, poverty and failures of the criminal justice system.





"We want to help people think critically about the crimes and evidence that warrant sentencing someone to death," said Stephanie Renee Adair, one of several English graduate students helping plan the conference at UNA.





Incarceration has been a focus of Alabama politics recently, particularly with Gov. Robert Bentley's plans of spending millions on new prisons to house the state's inmates, who currently are being held in overcrowded facilities.





Bentley will propose a plan similar to the one he proposed last year, borrowing $800 million to build 4 new prisons, while closing most of the existing prisons.





"Mass incarceration is a crisis, but we're not really answering why," said Katie Owens-Murphy, an assistant professor of English at UNA. "Maybe the problem isn't with space but rather with the way the criminal justice system itself operates. Anthony Ray Hinton and Gary Drinkard show how it becomes possible to convict and sentence innocent people, even to death."





Gary Drinkard spent 5 years on death row for the Morgan County murder of Dalton Pace, a junkyard dealer. But, he was released in 2000 after getting a new trial. Drinkard said his lawyers weren't up to the task of defending him in a death penalty case the 1st time around, and the Alabama Supreme Court threw out his 1st conviction.





7 men have been released from death row in Alabama since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. One man who has been there shares his experience.





The 2 are speaking at the Alabama Regional Graduate Conference because its focus this year is on confinement. Graduate students have studied prison literature as part of their focus on American literature.





Anthony Ray Hinton and Gary Drinkard show how it becomes possible to convict and sentence innocent people, even to death.





Rather than having only academic research and scholarship tell the story of the criminal justice system, Adair said the conference will offer a real-life testimony of the system's failures.





"We're putting on human face on how the system can go wrong," Adair said.





Hinton will speak Feb. 23 at 6 p.m. in UNA's Guillot University Center. Drinkard will speak at 4 p.m. the next day.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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Source: al.com , February 10, 2017
Manila, Philippines

Senator Leila de Lima has called on lawmakers to cross party lines as they deliberate on the measure calling for the immediate reinstatement of the death penalty as capital punishment for heinous crimes.





De Lima made her appeal as the House leadership called members of the so-called supermajority for a party stand on the death penalty measure.





"The issue of possible re-imposition of death penalty is addressed more to the conscience of the members of both houses of Congress," De Lima said in an interview. "Lawmakers should transcend political affiliations in this particular issue, especially with the points raised by some members of the Senate that treaty commitment cannot be taken for granted," she stressed.





House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez earlier threatened House members, particularly those holding key positions or chairmanships in his chamber, to strip them from their posts if they refuse to support President Rodrigo Duterte's call to restore the death penalty.





Unlike in the House of Representatives, the Senate has different dynamics and thus will deliberate on the measure "based on the cogency and the soundness of the arguments and would not succumb to any type of coercion or arm-twisting."





"But that is something that they cannot do, hopefully, here in the Senate," she said.





The joint Senate committees on justice and human rights and constitutional amendments and revision of codes and laws earlier decided to suspend public hearing on death penalty to review the implications of the country's commitment to treaties and international agreements which prohibit executions and compel member states to abolish death penalty.





The Philippines is signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to the Second Optional Protocol of the ICCPR, as well as in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties which states that "treaties which do not have provisions on withdrawal or denunciation cannot be denounced or be withdrawn from."

Death penalty only 'punishes the poor'

Though knowing that he is in the minority, Rep. Raul del Mar of Cebu City's north district remains adamant about his opposition to plans of reimposing the death penalty.





During the interpellation and debate at the House of Representatives last Tuesday, Del Mar said death penalty is never the solution to address crimes.





"When death penalty was applied in the Philippines, was there any showing that it worked? There is no evidence that death penalty is more effective than for-life imprisonment," he said.





Among the first bills filed by Congress this year was the reinstatement of death penalty.





House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said they are targeting to submit the bill to reinstate death penalty next month.





Legislators opposing the death penalty also pointed to the "conflict of interest" by proponents who lobbied to remove the inclusion of plunder in the list of crimes punishable by death.





In opposing the reinstatement of capital punishment or death penalty, Del Mar said it punishes only poor people who could not afford the best lawyers to defend them.





"Do you agree that the Philippine justice system is ill-equipped and severely flawed? Do you dispute the fact that most of those who end up in the death row had deficient defense because they were poor and had no money to get witnesses, pay good lawyers, or bribe judges?" he said.





The lawmaker said there is a possibility that innocent individuals will be subjected to death.





He said in the US, 68 % of all death penalties were reversed either because the evidence was insufficient or illegally admitted.





"Once an innocent person is put to death, is it not an act that can never be reversed? Bad enough if an innocent person is jailed but at least he is still alive when the wrong is corrected," he said.





Del Mar described the death penalty as "barbaric, antiquated, and regressive."





He said at least 105 countries had rejected it and several religious denominations also denounced it as policy.





As a country whose population is mostly Catholic, del Mar said the faithful believe in retribution, but not by taking human life.





"The 'eye-for-an-eye' injunction in the Old Testament has long been replaced by the 'turn-the-other-cheek' advice in the New Testament," Del Mar said.





"Catholics and other Christians believe in repentance and the capacity of sinners to reform. The death penalty totally rejects that possibility," he said.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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Source: Manila Bulletin, February 10, 2017Source: cebudailynews.inquirer.net, February 10, 2017
By Huw Jones LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is likely to face some economic disruption and worse trading terms if it loses access to the European single market when it leaves the EU in 2019, the bloc's financial services chief said on Friday. Valdis Dombrovskis, who is also vice president of the European Commission, said "lots of time and energy" would be spent on negotiating new trading terms if British Prime Minister Theresa May pressed ahead with a so-called "hard Brexit" plan to leave the single market. "If the UK is outside the internal market, we need to find a workable solution," Dombrovskis said at a Bloomberg event in London. May is due to formally trigger divorce talks with the EU next month, lasting two years. In the meantime, it was important Britain remained a fully committed EU member to approve financial rules such as giving regulators powers to close failing clearing houses speedily to avoid contagion, Dombrovskis said. The EU has launched a project to create a capital markets union or CMU to improve the ability of markets to raise funds for the economy, but Brexit will change its "dynamics", he said. There was a need in upcoming divorce talks to see how market links could be preserved to make CMU work in a wider context and not just inside an EU of 27 countries without Britain, he added. Some EU policymakers want clearing of euro denominated derivatives contracts to move from London to the continent after Brexit, potentially taking thousands of jobs from Britain. The European Central Bank's first attempt at shifting euro clearing to the euro zone was shot down by the bloc's top court. "We know the European Central Bank has now put the issue back on the table. We have said that from the Commission's side that we are ready to assess this situation together with the ECB and find an appropriate way forward," Dombrovskis said. But there was a need to consider the effect of shifting volumes on financial stability, the potential for market fragmentation, and costs for consumers, he said. "At the end of the day we need to arrive at a balanced solution." The EU executive is reviewing the bloc's derivatives trading and clearing rules, seen as one way of getting euro clearing to shift to the euro zone, but bankers have warned it could end up in New York or Asia instead. (Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter)
Off the deep end

If you set out to explore the cobbled-stone lanes of the traditional old quarters of the Kathmandu Valley, the lanes always lead you to a square-shaped courtyard, with a temple dedicated to one of the many deities, and almost always, a water conduit.
English Spanish

BOSTON, Feb. 11, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Through its ministry and evangelization, the Catholic Church should focus on economically excluded communities, eliminating inequality, and uplifting disadvantaged people throughout the world, according to Hispanic theologians from Latin America, Spain and the U.S. attending a historic conference at Boston College.



That message  in many ways distinctive of theological movements of Latin America  will be delivered to Pope Francis in a sign of support for reforms within the Church and throughout societies of the world, according to one of the organizers of the Ibero-American Conference of Theology, which concluded Friday, February 10.

The weeklong conference examined the role of liberation theology as Pope Francis and the Catholic Church respond to issues of globalization, migration and economic exclusion, said Boston College School of Theology and Ministry professor Rafael Luciani, a co-organizer of the conference with his Boston College colleague, professor Felix Palazzi.

Luciani said the theologians  among them professors, priests and Vatican officials  will return to their communities in the U.S., Latin America, and Spain with a renewed commitment to the Popes reforms and a deeper understanding of the pontiffs own thinking, rooted in the theology of the people and liberation theology.

Two papal representatives, Cardinal Baltazar Porras, of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, and Bishop Raul Biord Castillo, SDB, together will present the groups work to Pope Francis. Research and analysis from the theologians is scheduled to publish in a book later this year, said Luciani, a lay theologian from Venezuela.

The work of the conference is of particular importance in efforts to better serve Hispanic Catholics, who make up the fastest growing demographic in the U.S. church. Worldwide, more than 65 percent of Catholics live in the Global South, which includes Latin America and Africa.

Attending the conference were some of the leading figures in the birth of liberation theology, including Juan Carlos Scannone, SJ, a founding philosopher of the theology of the people and the popes seminary instructor, and Notre Dame University Professor Gustavo Gutierrez, OP, regarded as the founder of liberation theology.

Fr. Scannone reminded participants that the pope has called the poor protagonists and makers of history. He told the conference: The poor should not just feel at home in church. They should feel like the heart of the Church.

Society of Jesus Superior General Arturo Sosa, SJ, delivered a video message of support to the conference, extolling the Popes call for Catholics to work hard to find Gods presence in everyday life.

That discernment is the path suggested by Pope Francis to renew the Churchs mission of evangelization around the world and is the only true way to actually transform and renew the structures of the Church itself, Fr. Sosa said. The Society of Jesus wants to be included in that path, that process of renewal that we feel as a call of the Lord to the whole Catholic Church.
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
PM Dahal leaving for Bara, Rautahat districts today

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal is leaving for Bara and Rautahat districts to inspect ongoing development projects on Saturday.
Polls over partisan interests

Nepali politics is once again at a critical juncture. After a decade of upheaval and transitions, the biggest challenge the leadership faces today is if it can safeguard the monumental political changes that have been ushered in;
Among the headlines President Donald Trump made during his first week was one citing his executive order to clear obstacles standing in the way of the proposed Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines.

That is a good start, many may have reacted. Now, let's move on to accelerating federal action on natural gas pipelines important to the country.

Former President Barack Obama held up the Keystone XL pipeline for much of his term in office, citing environmental concerns. That was despite the fact his own State Department investigated and concluded there were no environmental concerns about the pipeline, intended to bring Canadian oil to the United States.

Obama's action on the Dakota Access pipeline was more egregious. The oil transportation line already was under construction when, late in his presidency, Obama chose to shut work down solely because of protests against the project.

Good for Trump for ordering federal officials to stand aside and allow construction of both pipelines. They will be better for the environment than other methods of transporting oil, not to mention safer.

During the Obama administration, federal officials consistently "slow walked" permitting and other actions needed to clear the way for construction of pipelines to carry gas produced here to processing facilities and overseas shipping terminals. As a result, a substantial amount of gas in our country has been locked up.

A gas company official put it this way: "Ours is an industry on a leash."

Of course, considerations of safety, preservation of valuable natural areas and other environmental concerns should not be dismissed. No one has asked the federal government do that.

But the Obama administration's policy of hampering any fossil fuel initiatives it could not kill needs to end. If Trump's order on the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines does not make that clear to federal agencies, the president should pick up his phone or his pen and reinforce his intentions.

 The Leader-Herald, Gloversville

President Donald Trump's order banning travel to this country by citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries certainly could have benefited from more planning. For example, denying re-entry to travelers who resided here, then left the United States intending to return within days or weeks may not have been wise.

But Trump's rationale makes enormous sense. Overlooked, perhaps intentionally, by critics of his order is the fact that the seven affected countries are hotbeds of terrorist activity. They are Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. For years, efforts to ensure would-be terrorists from those nations do not infiltrate our country have been lacking.

Improving the "vetting" process during Trump's temporary suspension is important and should improve homeland security.

The sooner that can be done  and harmless travelers from the affected countries can be welcomed  the better.

 The Post-Journal, Jamestown

Scientists who study the risk of nuclear war recently moved the hands of the symbolic Doomsday Clock to 2 minutes before midnight  meaning they believe that the world is closer to nuclear catastrophe than it has been since 1953 after the United States and Soviet Union tested hydrogen bombs. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which created the clock in 1947, says that President Trump is the main reason for this worrisome development.

Mr. Trump came to office with little knowledge of the vast nuclear arsenal and the missiles, bombers and submarines it contains. He has spoken, alarmingly, about deploying this weaponry against terrorists and about expanding America's nuclear capabilities. He has said he values unpredictability, meaning presumably that he wants to keep other nations on edge about whether he will use nuclear weapons.

"Let it be an arms race," he told a television interviewer in December. During a debate three months earlier he contradicted himself, saying that "I would certainly not do first strike," then adding, "I can't take anything off the table." What's worrisome about all this is that it is the opposite of what Republican and Democratic presidents have long sought, which is to ensure that these weapons are not used precipitously if at all.

It is the fear of such precipitous action that has led Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Representative Ted Lieu of California, both Democrats, to propose legislation to prohibit any president from launching a first-strike nuclear weapon without a declaration of war from Congress.

Mr. Trump commands about 4,000 weapons that he alone is empowered to launch. Any decision responding to an attack would have to be made quickly. That kind of life-or-death choice would test any leader, even those well-schooled in arcane nuclear doctrine, the intricacies of power politics and the importance of not letting tensions get to the point where a nuclear exchange becomes likely. But none of Mr. Trump's closest advisers are known to be nuclear experts, the president has yet to put together a nuclear strategy and, as the Bulletin's Science and Security Board warned last month, Mr. Trump "has shown a troubling propensity to discount or outright reject expert advice."

With Mr. Trump, sound decision-making may be an even greater challenge, given his disruptive, impulsive style. There is also the fact that he has assumed office at a particularly unstable time, with the Middle East in turmoil and Russia and China acting more aggressively. This is a time for restraint and careful deliberation, and for leaders who clearly understand that nuclear weapons are too dangerous to be brandished as a cudgel.

 The New York Times
Sebon directs Nepal Life, Forward to wrap up stock allotment by February 24

The securities market regulator has directed two companies that recently floated shares to the public to wrap up stock allotment process within February 24, in a bid to ease the shortage of loanable funds faced by the banking sector.
Sisdol landfill site row: Okharpauwa VDC put off protest

The residents of Okharpauwa VDC, Nuwakot, have given the Kathmandu Metropolitan City one month to find an alternative to clear the Sisdol landfill site. They have also postponed their protest programme set to begin on February 13.
Students enforce vehicular strike

Students of Damak Bahumukhi Campus on Friday enforced an hour-long vehicular strike at Campus Mod in Damak to protest passenger buses refusal to provide services to students.
The paper accidentally ran a photo of Alec Baldwin playing Donald Trump on SNL instead of a photo showing the real president, according to Gizmodo.

El Nacional published an article on Friday about President Trumps views on settlements in Israel. The piece included an accurate photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the photo of Trump was a bit off.

The newspaper ran a correction, explaining that they had just pulled the photo from the Associated Press wire service and that it simply went unnoticed by everyone who reviewed it.

As Gizmodo noticed: Who among us hasnt made that mistake, right? I mean, real life has become so absurd that its basically beyond parody at this point.

The error has been picked up and ridiculed on social media, with plenty of people wondering if the Dominican Republic will now be added to Trumps list of banned countries, referring to the seven predominantly Muslim countries from which Trump has tried to restrict travel.

Gizmodo notes that the edition team dont want newspapers to be running fake news.

So if youre going to write about the president, we humbly suggest using the very real photo of Trump seen below, Gizmodo said.
On 3-5 October 2017 Kyiv is going to host the Space and Future Forum to network international experts and youth, many of whom will also participate at the first CosmoHack in the world. Joinfo provides media coverage of the Forum, and some of its topics were already discussed ...
Chris, I believe that the reaction to Trumps speech yesterday is further going to reduce the relevancy of the media in minds of his supporters. I live in WV and all the people I spoke with yesterday were amazed at his performance and when they read todays news they would come to conclusion that media is biased and out to get him. One thing i agreed with Trump was that the tone used by majority of the newspaper and networks speaks of people who have made up their mind and justifying thier conclusions. The problem is when their is really a wolf none of his supporters would be listening. I should add that your coverage is probably the most neutral (neither fawning or fuming) for the last presidency and this one. I hope more reporters can follow your lead
Credit: Robert Kraft/public domain

Doctors are beginning to get answers to the question that every parent whose child has had a traumatic brain injury (TBI) wants to know: What will my child be like 10 years from now?

In a study to be presented Friday Feb. 10 at the annual meeting of the Association of Academic Physiatrists in Las Vegas, researchers from Cincinnati Children's will present research on long-term effects of TBIan average of seven years after injury. Patients with mild to moderate brain injuries are two times more likely to have developed attention problems, and those with severe injuries are five times more likely to develop secondary ADHD. These researchers are also finding that the family environment influences the development of these attention problems.

Parenting and the home environment exert a powerful influence on recovery. Children with severe TBI in optimal environments may show few effects of their injuries while children with milder injuries from disadvantaged or chaotic homes often demonstrate persistent problems.

Early family response may be particularly important for long-term outcomes suggesting that working to promote effective parenting may be an important early intervention.

Certain skills that can affect social functioning, such as speed of information processing, inhibition, and reasoning, show greater long-term effects.

Many children do very well long-term after brain injury and most do not have across the board deficits.

More than 630,000 children and teenagers in the United States are treated in emergency rooms for TBI each year. But predictors of recovery following TBI, particularly the roles of genes and environment, are unclear. These environmental factors include family functioning, parenting practices, home environment, and socioeconomic status. Researchers at Cincinnati Children's are working to identify genes important to recovery after TBI and understand how these genes may interact with environmental factors to influence recovery.

They will be collecting salivary DNA samples from more than 330 children participating in the Approaches and Decisions in Acute Pediatric TBI Trial.

he primary outcome will be global functioning at 3, 6, and 12 months post injury, and secondary outcomes will include a comprehensive assessment of cognitive and behavioral functioning at 12 months post injury.

This project will provide information to inform individualized prognosis and treatment plans.

Using neuroimaging and other technologies, scientists are also learning more about brain structure and connectivity related to persistent symptoms after TBI. In a not-yet-published Cincinnati Children's study, for example, researchers investigated the structural connectivity of brain networks following aerobic training. The recovery of structural connectivity they discovered suggests that aerobic training may lead to improvement in symptoms.

Over the past two decades, investigators at Cincinnati Children's have conducted a series of studies to develop and test interventions to improve cognitive and behavioral outcomes following pediatric brain injury. They developed an innovative web-based program that provides family-centered training in problem-solving, communication, and self-regulation.

Across a series of randomized trials, online family problem-solving treatment has been shown to reduce behavior problems and executive dysfunction (management of cognitive processes) in older children with TBI, and over the longer-term improved everyday functioning in 12-17 year olds.

Web-based parenting skills programs targeting younger children have resulted in improved parent-child interactions and reduced behavior problems. In a computerized pilot trial of attention and memory, children had improvements in sustained attention and parent-reported executive function behaviors. These intervention studies suggest several avenues for working to improve short- and long-term recovery following TBI.
YEREVAN. - Feast of St. Sarkis is a national holiday in Armenia, which is annually celebrated in late January or early February.

St. Sarkis is one of the greatest saints of Armenia. He died together with his son Martyros and 14 soldiers for the sake of the Christian faith.

Noticing St. Sarkis courage, king Kostandianos the Great (285-337) appointed him the prince and general in chief of the region of Cappadocia bordering Armenia.

St. Sarkis was not only a brilliant ruler but also a wonderful preacher. With the

consent of the emperor, he destroyed pagan temples in the cities under his rule and built churches instead of them, disseminating Christianity. When during the period of reign of king Julianos the Betrayer (360-363) the persecutions against Christians began, God appeared to St. Sarkis and urged him to leave the territory of the empire. Together with his only son Martyros, St Sarkis came to live in Armenia, where the Armenian king Tiran, grandson of Tiridates the Great, ruled.

Receiving notice that Julian was moving to Persia with great army, and seeking to avoid intrusion into his lands, the Armenian king persuaded Sarkis to go and start serving in the army of the Persian king Shapouh. The latter received St Sarkis with love and appointed him the captain of regiments.

Seeing morality and dedication to God in their new captain, many fighters converted to Christianity. However, Shapouh ordered him to worship the fire and offer sacrifice to the heathen gods, to which Sarkis immediately refused, saying: We should worship one God - the Holy Trinity, which has created the earth and the heaven. Whereas fire or idols are not gods and the human being may destroy them.

After these words the saint destroyed an idol statue. The enraged crowd went at the saint and his son. First the son of the saint was martyred. St. Sarkis was put into prison and beheaded remaining unshaken in his faith. 14 soldiers-companions of the saint were also martyred for the sake of the Christian faith. After the martyrdom of the saint, light appeared over his body.

St. Sarkis is one of the most beloved saints of Armenians. It is no coincidence that St. Mesrop Mashtots brought the relics of the saint to the village Karbi (Ashtarak Region), where the Church of St. Sarkis was later built.

In Armenia the Feast of St. Sarkis is celebrated not only according to church rites and prayer, but also according to various folk traditions. St. Sarkis the Captain is considered the patron of youth. Many miracles happen thanks to his intercession. On this day, young people pray, asking the saint to make their prayers audible to God and St. Sarkis helps the lovers.

The feast is preceded by the five-day fast of Catechumens established by St. Gregory the Illuminator.

On the eve of the feast, young people eat salty cookies in the evening and dont drink water, expecting revelation in their dream about their future bride or bridegroom. Also, on the night preceding the feast of St. Sarkis, the faithful place a tray full of gruel before the door believing that while passing near their door at dawn St. Sarkis will leave his footprint on the gruel symbolizing the fulfillment of their dreams.

On this day, the lovers gift each other cards, flowers or sweets.
BMW M4 turned into a pickup truck

Blinken calls on Israel and Palestine to urgently de-escalate tensions

Romania signs deal with Norway for purchase of over 30 F-16 fighters

Stoltenberg: The alliance has no plans to change nuclear positions and deployments

Tagesschau: Nearly 200,000 people took part in strikes at industrial enterprises of Germany

Teenagers hacks Uzbekistan senate website

Artsakh Ombudsman: Azerbaijanis fired at tractor in Khramort village of Artsakh

Rally participants' statement: Artsakh can't be a part of Azerbaijan

Person accused of arson in Russia cafe confesses

Fars: Iranian Foreign Ministry reported UAV deliveries to Russia a few months before the start of the UAS

Bayramov: Azerbaijan, Armenia leaders next meeting will take place in Brussels this month

Unity rally of participants start march in downtown Yerevan

North Korea launches 4 ballistic missiles

Council of Border Guard Troops commanders discusses situation at CIS external borders

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan joins rally in downtown Yerevan

Russia oil, natural gas companies plan to collaborate with Iraq

Armenia army intelligence troops 30th anniversary is solemnly celebrated (PHOTOS)

Rally of unity in support of Karabakh kicks off in downtown Yerevan

Pentagon announces sending 8 NASAMS air defense systems to Ukraine

Armenian Apostolic Church Supreme Spiritual Council meeting ends, Armenia and Artsakh security discussed

Tropical Storm Nalgae death toll climbs to 155 in Philippines

Artak Beglaryan is appointed advisor to Artsakh Minister of State (PHOTOS)

US House committee extends deadline for Trump to produce documents on Capitol attack

Over 200 elephants die in Kenya amid drought

13 dead in cafe fire in Russia

Armenia Security Council chief to head for Poland, Netherlands, Lithuania

Rishi Sunak: State cannot fix all problems

Newspaper: To what extent Armenia adheres to sanctions on Russia?

Biden accuses Twitter of spewing lies

Newspaper: There are active political processes in Karabakh

Qatar FM slams hypocrisy of calls to boycott World Cup

France, Singapore and Switzerland begin joint testing of experimental digital currencies

Oil war is Biden's biggest mistake

Japan considers possible deployment of hypersonic missiles by 2030

Germany to install better air defense system over Defense Ministry buildings

Erdogan and Stoltenberg discuss war in Ukraine

Armenian MOD: Azerbaijani Armed Forces open fire in direction of Armenian positions

True cost of Europe's rejection of Russian gas

White House tries to explain Biden's statement about freeing Iran

Former Pakistani Prime Minister: Either we will have a peaceful revolution or a bloody one

Aramyan: Why are police officers' salaries increasing, while defense officers' are not?

Pentagon and U.S. weapons manufacturers to discuss Russia, human resources and supply chain

Ankara says U.S. may approve sale of F-16s to Turkey within few months

IMF: Turkey should tighten monetary policy and give the Central Bank more independence

Pope urges religious leaders to keep the world from brink of abyss

Putin awards Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II with Order of Honor

U.S. says G7 countries realize need for coordinated response to China

Round-the-clock curfew is introduced in Kherson

Borrell says they can't put China and Russia on same level

Olaf Scholz calls on China to influence Russia

G7 foreign ministers express 'unwavering commitment' to protecting Ukraine, criticized PRC and IRI

Political technologist explains why Pashinyan was elected chairman of board of ruling party in Armenia

Erdogan signs up for TikTok

China's army is constantly preparing for war amid provocative U.S. actions

Kalin: Armenia is constructive about normalization of relations

Poland asks EU to suspend fines

Putin: Situation in Ukraine was deadly for Russia

Portugal to test a four-day workweek

US embassy in Armenia issues statement ahead of November 5 protests in Yerevan

Dollar, euro go up in Armenia

Baku authorities once again refuse to allow PFPA to hold protest rally

Iranians commemorate anniversary of US embassy seizure

Richard Kauzlarich: Azerbaijan, Armenia FMs meeting in Washington 'will send message to Putin'

Russia ratifies protocol on requirements for length of service of EEU bodies' employees for pensions

Armenia deputy defense minister in Russia, discusses military cooperation

Yerevan receives proposal to hold Russia-Armenia-Azerbaijan interparliamentary talks

Health minister: We will work with fallen Armenia detainees relatives one more time after which bodies will be buried

Putin allows mobilization of citizens with unexpunged criminal record for serious crimes

Arnika, NESEHNUTI NGOs of Czech Rep. issue joint statement on plan to expand gold mine in Armenias Karaberd

Putin urges to evacuate civilians living in Kherson from the war zone

Iran parliament speaker to visit Armenia

Ruling force MP: Canada is opening embassy in Armenia because we are one of worlds most democratic countries

Girl with Armenian roots ends up in Vladimir orphanage

Erdogan says he has agreed with Putin to supply grain to needy countries for free

Armenia President, UK envoy agree to continue cooperation, close contacts

Armenia FM receives EU Monitoring Capacity

Spanish MPs don't approve agreement with Baku as a sign of solidarity with Armenia

Japan says North Korea may go ahead with nuclear test

Armenia government to allocate about $5M to Karabakh refugees support program

Belarusian border service: Border guards intercepts Ukrainian training drone

President appoints Ruben Vardanyan as Karabakh Minister of State

US embassy expresses concern about human rights violation in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan continues muscle play on Iran border

Ibrahim Kalin says Turkey will become an important gas center one way or another

Biden: We're gonna free Iran

Reuters: G7 countries and Australia agrees on fixed price for Russian oil

World oil prices dropping

Wizz Air to launch new flights between Venice, Yerevan

EU assesses Armenia, Azerbaijan border commissions meeting in Brussels as constructive

Artsakh President convenes enlarged working consultation

Envoy: China supports Armenians

Azerbaijan MOD disseminates disinformation, Armenia army did not fire

Armenia ruling party recounts congress voting results

Quake jolts Turkey

Newspaper: Armenia PM once again manipulates topic of negotiations, Karabakh conflict

Newspaper: Studies underway on Armenia MPs business involvement

US wants to prevent Germany, other allies from working together with China

Protests turn violent in Iran's Alborz Province

Portugal is considering abandoning golden visa scheme

Biden and Erdogan to meet at G-20 summit
Sunrise completes acquisition of NIDC

Sunrise Bank on Friday formally completed the acquisition of NIDC Capital Markets. Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) Governor Chiranjeevi Nepal inaugurated the joint operation amid a function.
iYEREVAN.  On February 11, which marks the death day of the great Russian writer and diplomat Alexander Sergeyevich Griboyedov, the activists of the Russian-Armenian Youth Unity NGO laid flowers at his memorial.

Annual flower-laying and holding of round-table meetings and events commemorating A.S. Griboyedov have already become traditional for the organization.

We remember and honor the memory of great people, who made their strong contribution to the history of our countries. A.S. Griboyedov was one of the respected diplomats of Armenia. Caring for the Armenians was the most important constituent part of his diplomatic activity. He was one of the authors of the Treaty of Turkmenchay, and upon his insistence the document came to include a special point, pursuant to which Armenians were allowed to leave Persia and return to their historical homeland, Deputy Chairman of the organization, Sergey Vardazaryan, said in his speech.

The representatives of the Russian-Armenian Youth Unity NGO, for their part, noted that we can build great future only by remembering and respecting the past, as well as the historical heritage of our peoples.
Polands Prime minister Beata Szydo who got into a car accident in Auschwitz on Friday, did not suffer serious injuries, Government spokesman Rafal Bochenek stated at a briefing.

According to him, Szydo was in good condition but had been transported 350km by helicopter to a government hospital in Warsaw for further monitoring and tests, TASS reported.

He also added that Polands Prime minister felt good and could carry out her duties of the head of the government.

The accident happened in Auschwitz, when a car crashed into the convoy of several cars from the secondary road. The Polish Prime Minister is taken to the hospital for examination.
YEREVAN. - Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan on Saturday received Transport Minister of Russia and Co-Chair of the Armenian-Russian economic cooperation intergovernmental commission, Maxim Sokolov. The latter has arrived in Armenia to take part in the 6th consultation of the heads of the authorized bodies of EAEU states in the sphere of transportation.

The interlocutors discussed issues related to the further development of Armenian-Russian relations and the process of implementing the agreements reaches within the framework of Armenian PMs visit to Russia. It was stressed that steps have already been taken in that direction.

Lauding the level of the Armenian-Russian ally relations, Karapetyan stressed that there is a great potential for deepening them in a number of directions. In this context, the PM underscored the importance of establishing a foundation, which will enable involving the Russian capital in the Armenian business through joint projects, contributing to the increase in the volume of the turnover of goods. The Armenian PM also highlighted the need to deepen the cooperation in the sphere of agriculture, expressing satisfaction with the fact that precise steps are already being made jointly with the Russian side towards the process of farm equipment supply.

Apart from this, Karapetyan and Sokolov referred to the cooperation in the transportation sphere, improvement and development of infrastructures, the program of creating a free trade zone on the border with Iran and involvement of Russian companies therein.

The Russian Minister of Transport, for his part, stressed that the free trade zone to be created in Meghri may serve as a good platform for the Russian business in terms of deepening the trade and economic relations with the Iranian market. In Sokolovs words, this program can be mutually beneficial for all the sides.

Furthermore, Karen Karapetyan and Maxim Sokolov expressed readiness to continue the efficient collaboration and give new impetus to the bilateral trade and economic ties.
YEREVAN. - The implementation of an agreed policy in the sphere of transportation must both contribute to the development of routes within the EAEU and connect the latter to third countries.

Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan said the aforementioned on Saturday at the meeting with the administrative staff of the transportation sphere of the EAEU member states.

The latter have arrived in Armenia to take part in the 6th consultation of the heads of the authorized bodies of EAEU states in the sphere of transportation, the Armenian Government press-service informed Armenian News  NEWS.am.

Welcoming the guests, the Armenian PM expressed conviction that their visit to Armenia and the aforementioned consultation will give a new impetus to the development of cooperation in the sphere. As an EAEU member-state, we attach special importance to the creation of favorable conditions for the development of the transportation market. The combined efforts in this sphere will result in the growth of competition of our economies, he noted.

The guests thanked the Armenian PM for organizing the consultation on a high level. Board Member - Minister in charge of Energy and Infrastructure, Adamkul Zhunusov, noted that a number of issues related to the transportation policy between the EAEU member-states, development of infrastructures, as well as formation of common transportation area and common transportation services were discussed.

Russian Minister of Transport, Maxim Sokolov, for his part, stressed that reference was also made to the agreements reached between the heads and government heads of EAEU countries in regard to the transportation sphere, the process of implementing the decisions, as well as opportunities of realizing new ideas, which will contribute to the removal of restrictions in the sphere.

In Sokolovs words, the programs planned to be implemented in the sphere will give a new impetus to the development of integration unity and deepening of economic ties. He also stressed that in the future steps will be taken towards ensuring direct flights between all the capitals of the EAEU states, which will foster the tourism development.

PM Karapetyan welcomed the implementation of the new programs in the transportation sphere, wishing fruitful work to the consultation participants.
What is behind the U.S. President Donald Trumps tough anti-Iranian rhetoric and what the consequences of possible increase in tensions between the United States and Iran for Armenia? What should be expected from Trumps unpredictable Administration. NEWS.am discussed these issues with political analyst Hayk Martirosyan.

What is the reason of the U.S. President Trumps tough anti-Iranian statements and what are the possible consequences? Do you think the United States will review the nuclear agreement with Iran?

I do not think there will be a review, because the nuclear agreement includes not only the United States and Iran, but also several other countries, which have contributed to it, and I think that the United States government, Trumps Administration, will not put the prestige of United States at risk. I think that the tensions between the United States and Iran will continue, but I would not expect drastic changes.

Now, why did the relations deteriorated. In some ways it was predictable, because Barack Obama is known for his tense relations with the Israeli leadership, especially for strained personal relations with Benjamin Netanyahu. Thus, many people in Israeli lobby in U.S. did not consider Barack Obama as a friend of Israel. In the meantime, Trump during his election campaign have emphasized his stance as pro-Israeli and contrasted it to that of Obama. Of course, this was done during the campaign. But as we see, Donald Trump is trying to implement almost all of his election promises and in this respect, as he had expressed unconditional support for Israel, he is trying to express his readiness to defend Israeli interests in relations with Iran, which is the fiercest enemy of Israel.

What consequences for Armenia will have the U.S. tough stance on Iran?

First of all, it is not good for anyone, neither Iran, nor the United States, nor, of course, Armenia. Armenia is not a player in the international politics. Unfortunately, Armenia appeared in this situation voluntarily. Thus, if Iran becomes internally unstable and if, God save us, a war starts, Armenia will be affected, and I think that could be tragic because we are the immediate neighbor of Iran and have quite good relations with this country.

The media reports that the U.S. can ease sanctions against Russia demanding in return Moscows support in pressure against Iran. In your opinion, is such a development possible and will Moscow accept that?

Everything is possible, but I do not know where the information that Moscow is actively supporting Iran comes from. Iran pursues an independent policy, and the views of Moscow and Tehran differ from each other and, as far as I know, Iranians are trying to maintain their strong position. Russia doesnt play a dominant role, and Iran does not dependent on Russia. So, I do not rule out that United States and Iran can cooperate in Syria, because President Trump during his campaign stressed the need to collaborate with the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to destroy the ISIS and other terrorist organizations.

Iran is among major forces in Syria, which particularly fights against Sunni Salafist extremists. In this regard, the pressure on Russia to stop working with Iran is impossible. When it comes to other areas, it is hard to tell as developments happen behind the curtain. Again, I have to say, let us wait and see.

Overall, based on the new U.S. President Trumps internal and foreign policy actions, what is his real goal, what does he want to do?

He wants to Make America Great Again. That is Trumps motto, which certainly does not belong to him, it was Ronald Reagans idea. Trump has a simple idea, to bring the United States back to its former glory. It is hard to say, how exactly Trump wants to return glory to the United States, but in any case, his efforts are directed at the American-centric policy. During his inauguration ceremony, the new U.S. president said America First. It had certainly raised some concerns among world leaders, but it is rather difficult to make predictions, because this is one of the most unpredictable and unforeseeable administrations, yet it immediately began to fulfill some of the promises two weeks after the inauguration. It is almost unprecedented. The development of the U.S. foreign policy is very difficult to predict.
The new chiefs

Our Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force (APF) will have new chiefs next week as the current ones retire.
Students at technical colleges throughout the state could get a break from tuition increases under Gov. Scott Walkers proposed budget.

A technical college student on average pays around $4,500 a year, which students say is getting harder to pay.

"Its a little bit challenging because I do not qualify for financial aid, so it has to come out of my pocket," Madison Technical College student Alfonzo Benitez said. "I think it would go a long way especially for other students who may have a hard time paying their tuition, not everyone qualifies for financial aid."

Under the governors proposal, technical colleges statewide would see a freeze in tuition for the next two years.

Dirk Last, a student at Madison Technical College, is finding it hard to pay for college while working a full-time job and taking a full course load.

"Im already struggling to pay for college as it is, not having it increase would be extremely ideal," Last said.

While you will probably not find a student who wants to pay more money for school, there are varying opinions on the governors proposal.

"Its way too late. It shouldve been stopped a long time ago. The students are the ones that are presenting the future for everyone, and we are getting hit the hardest," Wendy Shaver said.

While Shaver thinks the freeze will not help students who she said are already paying too much in tuition, others welcome the possibility.

"If I didnt have to see a tuition increase in the next year, it (the tuition freeze) would be right on time," Rose McBlackwell said.

To make up for the loss in revenue, the governor would budget $5 million in the second school year and an additional $5 million to go toward grant funding programs for high school students, which would be developed by technical colleges.

"I think its a good middle ground. I know a lot of people want free college, but then we would have to increase taxes and I think this is a good middle ground," Benitez said.

The Wisconsin Technical College System said it is still analyzing the details of the budget.

"Affordability is always top-of-mind for our board, the system president and college leaders and the board incorporates input from students when setting tuition. Its worth noting that the board has approved the lowest increase in the systems history in each of the past three years, including a 1.5 percent increase for this year, or about $120 for the vast majority of full-time tech college students. Were continuing to analyze the many details of the governors full budget proposal, which has an education focus and were glad to say includes new funding for need-based financial aid for our students," said Conor Smyth, WTCS spokesperson.

The system would not comment on the impact this would have on colleges or if the money would be enough to cover the loss in revenue from the freeze.
Police in Panama arrested the founders of Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the center of the Panama Papers scandal, on money laundering charges after authorities raided the firms headquarters as part of investigations into Brazils largest-ever bribery scandal.

The firms founding partners, Ramon Fonseca and Jurgen Mossack, were taken into police custody on Thursday, according to the mens lawyer. Kenia Porcell, Panamas attorney general, released a statement that said evidence gathered by her office indicated that the law firm was a potential criminal organization that concealed and removed evidence related to illegal activity.

Both Fonseca and Mossack are well-known in business and political circles in Panama. Fonseca is a former adviser to Panamas president, Juan Varela, and Mossack served on Panamas council on foreign relations from 2009 to 2014.

They have consistently denied any wrongdoing. Their law firm says that it is not at fault in cases in which offshore companies it set up for clients were later used for illegitimate purposes. The firm told ICIJ last year that it follows both the letter and spirit of the law.

Mossack Fonseca issued a statement Thursday that accused Panamanian officials of an attempt to divert the attention from those who really merit a deep and proactive investigation. It said authorities have not presented a single piece of evidence that shows us guilty.

The arrests come 10 months after the Panama Papers investigation by ICIJ and other media partners revealed that Mossack Fonseca had set up or managed offshore companies and other hard-to-trace corporate structures for world leaders, drug kingpins, American fraudsters and other clients. ICIJ, German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other media partners worked together to investigate a trove of 11.5 million leaked documents detailing the law firms day-to-day operations over nearly 40 years.

Shortly before the media partnership began releasing its findings, Brazilian and Panamanian authorities began targeting Mossack Fonseca as part of a wide-ranging bribery investigation in Brazil  dubbed Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash)  that has led to criminal charges against leading Brazilian politicians. Brazilian prosecutors said in January 2016 that they were investigating the law firms alleged role in helping individuals involved in the multi-million-dollar bribery case use offshore companies to launder money.

Porcell, Panamas attorney general, said in her statement that bribe money circulated through various companies and was then laundered or washed through Panama.

The business dealings of Odebrecht, a Brazil-based construction conglomerate, has been a focus of the Lava Jato investigation. In December, Odebrecht pleaded guilty in the United States and reached settlements with authorities in Switzerland and Brazil over allegations that it paid millions of dollars in bribes to government officials on three continents.

After Thursdays surprise raid, Ramon Fonseca lashed out at President Varela, telling reporters that Varela had told him the president had accepted money from Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction company, because he couldnt fight everyone. Varela said the contributions were donations, not bribes.

Despite official statements that Thursdays raid and detentions were related to Brazils Lava Jato case, Mossack Fonsecas Twitter account posted an image of a search warrant from the attorney generals office that referred to a criminal investigation into alleged economic crimes, in particular money laundering, that has its origins in the journalistic investigation Panama Papers.

The documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) are related to the creation and sale of offshore companies by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, the document from the attorney generals office said. The companies were allegedly used for laundering millions of dollars from multiple illicit activities around the world.

Lava Jato case? Mossack Fonseca tweeted. Here is a search warrant indicating that it is #PanamaPapers.

Its really confusing, Guillermina MacDonald, Mossack Fonsecas lawyer, told ICIJ in a telephone interview Friday afternoon.

MacDonald confirmed that Mossack Fonseca had received the official document that referred to the Panama Papers but said that when she visited the attorney generals office, she was provided information related to Lava Jato.

MacDonald said she waited for four hours at the attorney generals office and was then denied access to complete documentation relating to charges relating to the firm.

The attorney generals office doesnt show its face, she said.

A spokeswoman for Panamas attorney general told ICIJ the arrests related to Lava Jato only.

The raid comes during a busy month for Mossack Fonseca and related corruption and bribery scandals.

This week, Ojo Publico, a Peruvian news outlet that collaborated with ICIJ on the Panama Papers investigation, reported that Mossack Fonseca had created offshore companies for middlemen recently accused by Peruvian authorities of helping to channel bribes to Perus former president, Alejandro Toledo.

Toledo is currently under investigation in Peru as part of a probe into $800 million in bribes paid across Latin America by the Odebrecht conglomerate. A judge in Peru issued an arrest warrant Thursday for Toledo, citing a high degree of probability that the former president took up to $20 million in bribes in exchange for awarding Odebrecht public contracts during his time in office.

Separately, Mossack Fonseca is in court fighting Panamas anti-corruption prosecutor, who was recently granted the power to indefinitely extend his investigation of the firm in relation to the Panama Papers.
Volunteers pour water over the stranded Pilot whales during a mass stranding at Farewell Spit on February 11, 2017

Rescue workers are in a race against time to refloat 100 whales stranded on a New Zealand shore a day after a mass beaching left hundreds dead.

It was not known if the whales found Saturday were a fresh pod or survivors from Friday's stranding at Farewell Spit in the Golden Bay region at the north-western tip of South Island.

The area, about 150 kilometres (95 miles) west of the tourist town of Nelson, is notorious for whale strandings and has witnessed at least nine mass beachings in the past decade.

"There are 100 live whales on the beach this morning. It is not known at this stage where the whales that were refloated (on Friday) are now," Department of Conservation (DOC) ranger Kathy Inwood said.

The sun was making it difficult for volunteers to keep the whales cool while they waited for the late morning high tide to get the mammals back into the water.

"We have a bit of a problem today with the hot sun which is not good for the whales. We were lucky yesterday with the cloud," DOC official Andrew Lamason told Fairfax Media.

It would take several hours after the whales were refloated to know if the mission had been successful.

Many of the whales that survived Friday's beaching remained in the bay as darkness fell.

Pilot whales are one of the species most involved in mass strandings

"If you designed something to catch whales then Golden Bay is probably the perfect design," Lamason said.

When the first mass beaching of 416 pilot whales was found on the beach on Friday morning nearly 300 were already dead.

Pilot whales grow up to six metres (20 feet) long and are the most common species of whale in New Zealand waters.

 2017 AFP
News

Microsoft Outlines Coming Windows 10 Security Improvements

Microsoft announced some Windows 10 security improvements and milestones today in advance of the RSA security conference, taking place next week.

Even the U.S. National Security Agency can now use Windows 10. Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 and the Surface Pro 4 machines have made the NSA's Commercial Solutions for Classified Programs list, Microsoft boasted, in its announcement on Friday. However, those Surface devices are the only Windows 10 machines that have made the NSA's list at present, Microsoft indicated.

SEMM Device Security

Microsoft has provided a means to control security for the hardware components in its "Surface Pro 4, Surface Book and Surface Studio" devices via a new Surface Enterprise Management Mode (SEMM). This hardware management software lets organizations have better control over devices such as cameras and microphones in those machines, for instance. SEMM is currently in use by organizations, Microsoft's announcement noted.

SEMM will only work on UEFI-based firmware, according to Microsoft's TechNet documentation. It's currently available as a standalone tool, known as the "Microsoft Surface UEFI Configurator," but SEMM is also available as a management addition to the "current branch" release of System Center Configuration Manager, as described in this TechNet article.

Using SEMM requires having "physical possession of the device." It uses certificate-based signatures to ensure security, which also serves to prevent modifications should a machine get lost or stolen. In a video, Microsoft explained that a "dynamic SEMM" will be capable of setting up automated configurations, such as turning off particular hardware access during work hours, but not after-work hours.

Update Compliance

Microsoft's "Windows Analytics" tool (formerly known as "Windows Upgrade Analytics"), which is part of the Microsoft Operations Management Suite, now has a new preview of an "Update Compliance" service. It's described as a "free resource" that provides "a holistic view of Windows 10 update compliance for both monthly quality updates and new feature updates." It only works for Windows 10 devices right now.

The Update Compliance service will help organizations get "insights about their fully-patched, secure Windows 10 device environment," Microsoft's announcement suggested. While it's described as a free service, the Microsoft Operations Management Suite isn't free. Apparently, though, it's possible to use the Update Compliance service by signing up for "OMS Update Compliance" using an Azure subscription, according to this "getting started" document.

Windows 10 Creators Update Security

Microsoft also offered a short update to some security improvements coming to the Windows 10 "creators update," which is expected to arrive in March or April. The company is planning to make its security baseline policies available to mobile device management solutions with the release of the Windows 10 creators update. Previously, those policies had a dependency on Group Policy use, but they'll be available more broadly through MDM software, Microsoft promised.

Microsoft also recently published its MDM Migration Analysis Tool on GitHub. According to the instructions published at GitHub, the MDM Migration Analysis Tool helps organizations translate their Group Policy settings when they use an MDM tool. It runs a PowerShell script and generates reports on whether the MDM tool has the same Group Policy support or not, although it's just a "best-effort analysis."

Windows Hello, Microsoft's biometric log-in alternative to typing passwords, will be getting future support for operations on the customer's premises, rather than being tied to Microsoft's datacenters and the use of Azure Active Directory service. It will be possible with the Windows 10 creators update to use Windows Hello based on an organizations Active Directory use on their premises, Microsoft promised. Microsoft also plans to add a "Dynamic Lock" feature to Windows Hello. It's a Bluetooth wireless feature will lock a computer if the user's smartphone travels outside a certain range.

Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection, a post-breach analysis service based on signals data processed by Microsoft's machine learning algorithms, will have a customization option with the Windows 10 creators update release. Organizations will be able to add their own "customized detection rules" and they'll be able use those rules to look across "six months of historical data," Microsoft's announcement promised.

Microsoft also previously described a bunch of Windows 10 security improvements coming in the creators update back in December.
Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies entered the Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab in northern Syria Saturday, as government forces moved closer to the jihadist bastion, a monitor said. Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency quoted military sources as saying one Turkish soldier was killed and another wounded in clashes with IS in Al-Bab. Turkish forces and allied insurgents have for weeks pressed an operation codenamed Euphrates Shield to drive the jihadists from the flashpoint town. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Turkish forces and allied militias entered Al-Bab from the west and then took full control of its western suburbs after fierce clashes with the jihadists. The fighting coincided with "Turkish shelling and intensive air strikes" on Al-Bab, the Britain-based monitor said. It said at least six civilians were killed by Turkish artillery fire and air strikes. Al-Bab is the jihadist group's last stronghold in the northern province of Aleppo and is also being targeted by regime forces. While Turkish-led forces have been advancing from the north, east and west, Syrian government troops are attacking from the south. On Monday, Syrian troops severed a road leading into the town from the south and by Friday they were just 1.5 kilometres (less then a mile) from the southern outskirts of Al-Bab. Turkey began an unprecedented campaign inside Syria in August, targeting both IS and Kurdish militia. After initial rapid progress, the campaign has been mired since December in the deadly fight for Al-Bab. - 66 Turks killed in campaign - Turkey's Dogan news agency says 66 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the campaign since it started, mostly in IS attacks. And on Thursday, three Turkish soldiers were killed when a Russian air strike accidentally hit their position in an attack targeting IS in Al-Bab. Moscow said it was an accident and is being investigated. Despite backing opposite sides in Syria's conflict -- Moscow is a government ally while Turkey supports the opposition -- the two countries have worked closely in recent months. They helped broker a nationwide ceasefire in place since December 30, and sponsored a round of peace talks last month in the Kazakh capital, Astana. Al-Bab has been under IS control since 2014, when the group seized large swathes of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, proclaiming its self-described caliphate. In recent months, the jihadists have been rolled back in large parts of northern Syria, both by the Turkish campaign but also by a Kurdish-Arab alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF fights with air support from the US-led coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq, but Turkey regards the Kurdish component of the SDF as "terrorists". The alliance is pushing towards IS's de facto Syrian capital Raqa in an operation dubbed "Wrath of the Euphrates". The advance has progressed slowly, in part, SDF officials say, because IS has heavily mined territory around Raqa. - New talks in Astana? - The Observatory said Saturday that SDF fighters had now advanced to around eight kilometres from the eastern outskirts of Raqa, though their forces are further from the north of the city. Turkey has suggested that it could turn its sights to Raqa after the Al-Bab operation is complete, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussing both Al-Bab and Raqa in a call with US President Donald Trump this week. Syria's conflict has killed more than 310,000 people since it began with anti-government protests in March 2011. Successive rounds of peace talks, including discussions organised by Russia and Turkey in Kazakhstan last month, have failed to advance a political solution to the conflict. A new round of UN-sponsored talks is scheduled to take place in Geneva on February 20, but invitations have yet to be sent out. The High Negotiations Committee, which is set to represent Syria's opposition at the Geneva talks, meanwhile appointed its delegation to the negotiations after two days of discussion in Riyadh. A statement said the 21-member delegation would be headed by Nasr al-Hariri and would also be supported by 20 advisers. On Saturday, Kazakhstan's foreign ministry said Syrian government officials and rebels were being invited to new talks next week in Astana. "It is planned to hold the latest high-level meeting within the Astana process on resolving the situation in Syria on February 15 and 16," the ministry said in a statement. It added that UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura and US observers would also be invited to the talks.
AFP News

Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan was recovering in hospital Friday after a gunman shot him in the leg, with his supporters vowing the assassination attempt will not derail his "long march" bid to return to power. The attack on his convoy, apparently by a lone gunman, killed one man and wounded at least 10, significantly raising the stakes in a political crisis that has gripped the South Asian nation since Khan's ousting in April. Khan "was stable and he was doing fine" at Shaukat Khanum hospital in the eastern city of Lahore, his doctor Faisal Sultan told AFP Friday. Seemi Bokhari, a lawmaker with Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said after visiting Khan the former premier was in high spirits. "The doctors are allowing him to move ... He is feeling perfectly well and he will soon be discharged," she told AFP. The 70-year-old former international cricket star had been leading a campaign convoy of thousands since last week from Lahore to the capital Islamabad when he was attacked. Khan suffered at least one bullet wound to his right leg when a gunmen sprayed pistol fire at his modified container truck as it drove slowly through a thick crowd in Wazirabad, around 170 kilometres (105 miles) east of Islamabad. "Everyone who was standing in the very front row got hit," former information minister Fawad Chaudhry, who was standing behind Khan, told AFP. Senior aide Raoof Hasan said it was "an attempt to kill him, to assassinate him". Chaudhry said party officials would meet later Friday to discuss the immediate fate of Khan's campaign march. "The real freedom long march will continue and the movement for people's rights will remain until an announcement on the general elections," he tweeted. - Threats - Party officials also called for supporters to stage rallies and marches across the country after Friday afternoon prayers, the most important of the week. Protesters lit fires and blocked roads in several cities late Thursday as news of Khan's shooting spread. His campaign truck has become a crime scene for now, cordoned off and guarded by commandos as forensic experts comb the area. Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said Thursday the attacker had been taken into custody. Officials shared an apparent confession video that was circulating online. "I did it because (Khan) was misleading the public," says a dishevelled man in the leaked video, shown with his hands tied behind his back in what appears to be a police station. He says he was angry with the procession for making a racket during the call to prayer that summons Muslims to the mosque five times a day. Pervaiz Elahi, the chief minister of Punjab, said officers who leaked the video would be disciplined. Pakistan has been grappling with Islamist militancy for decades, with right-wing religious groups having huge sway over the population. It has been no stranger to assassination attempts during decades of political instability, and the powerful military has led the country several times. Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was shot dead at a rally in Rawalpindi in 1951. Another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, was killed in 2007 when a huge bomb detonated near her vehicle as she greeted supporters in the city of Rawalpindi. - Kicked from power - Khan was booted from office in April by a no-confidence vote after defections by some of his coalition partners, but he retains huge support. He was voted into power in 2018 on an anti-corruption platform by an electorate tired of dynastic politics, but his mishandling of the economy -- and falling out with a military accused of helping his rise -- sealed his fate. Since then, he has railed against the establishment and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's government, which he says was imposed on Pakistan by a "conspiracy" involving the United States. Khan and Shehbaz have for months traded bitter accusations of corruption and incompetence, raising the political temperature in a nation that is frequently at boiling point. Khan has repeatedly told supporters he was prepared to die for the country, and aides have long warned of unspecified threats made on his life. The attack drew international condemnation including from the United States, which had uneasy relations with Khan when he was in power. "Violence has no place in politics, and we call on all parties to refrain from violence, harassment and intimidation," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. sjd/fox/ecl/pbt/dhc
AFP News

Pope Francis warned the world is on the edge of a "delicate precipice" and buffeted by "winds of war" as he held inter-faith talks with one of Sunni Islam's top leaders in Bahrain on Friday. The 85-year-old Argentine decried the "opposing blocs" of East and West, a veiled reference to the standoff over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in a speech to religious leaders in the tiny Gulf state. "We continue to find ourselves on the brink of a delicate precipice and we do not want to fall," he told an audience including Bahrain's king and Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo's prestigious Al-Azhar mosque. "A few potentates are caught up in a resolute struggle for partisan interests, reviving obsolete rhetoric, redesigning spheres of influence and opposing blocs," he added. "We appear to be witnessing a dramatic and childlike scenario: in the garden of humanity, instead of cultivating our surroundings, we are playing instead with fire, missiles and bombs." The pope's visit, aimed at strengthening relations with Islam, comes with the Ukraine war in its ninth month, and as tensions grow on the Korean peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who met Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in September, told journalists that there had been "a few small signs" of progress in negotiations with Moscow, warning that peace initiatives should not be "exploited for other goals". Francis, who is on his second visit to the wealthy Gulf, later met privately with al-Tayeb, with whom he signed a Muslim-Christian manifesto for peace in the United Arab Emirates in 2019. "This meeting has great symbolic importance, both locally and internationally, for promoting peace and peaceful co-existence between different religions and civilisations," said Hala Ramzi Fayez, a Christian and member of Bahrain's parliament. - Sunni, Shiite talks? - Leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics, Francis has placed inter-faith dialogue at the heart of his papacy, visiting other Muslim-majority countries including Egypt, Turkey and Iraq. Al-Tayeb, who met with the pope on previous Middle East visits, also called on Friday for talks between Islam's two main branches, Sunni and Shiite, to settle sectarian differences. Later, the pope addressed 17 members of the Muslim Council of Elders, an international group of Islamic scholars and dignitaries, at the mosque of the Sakhir Royal Palace. He told them dialogue was "the oxygen of peaceful coexistence". "In a world that is increasingly wounded and divided, that beneath the surface of globalisation senses anxiety and fear, the great religious traditions must be the heart that unites the members of the body," he said. He also struck out at the arms trade, a "commerce of death" that he said was "turning our common home into one great arsenal". The pope, who is using a wheelchair and a walking stick due to long-standing knee problems, began the first papal visit to Bahrain on Thursday by hitting out at the death penalty and urging respect for human rights and better conditions for workers. Sheikh Salman bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa, Bahrain's minister of finance and national economy, insisted the country has "led the region" with its criminal justice reforms. "We have some of the most robust and wide-ranging human rights and criminal justice protections in the region," the minister told AFP on Friday. "There are very well-established channels through which any of these critics can go, well established institutions of accountability," he said, adding that the pope's comments on the death penalty did not single out Bahrain. "It is important to note that that reference... was a general reference to countries around the world," the minister said. Bahrain has executed six people since 2017, when it carried out its first execution in seven years. Some of the condemned were convicted following a 2011 uprising put down with military support from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. cmk-lar/par/ho/th/dwo
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FILE - In this Sept. 21, 2001, file photo, men shave, brush their teeth and prepare for the day at a refugee camp on the Island of Nauru. U.S. officials had stopped screening refugees for potential resettlement in the United States but would return to the Pacific atoll of Nauru to continue working toward a deal that President Donald Trump has condemned as "dumb, an Australian minister said on Thursday. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)

CANBERRA, Australia (AP)  U.S. officials stopped screening refugees held on Nauru for potential resettlement in the United States this week but will return to the Pacific atoll to continue working toward a deal that President Donald Trump has condemned as "dumb," an Australian minister said Thursday.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would not say when U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials would return to Nauru to conduct what Trump describes as "extreme vetting."

Trump made enhanced screening a condition for agreeing to honor an Obama administration deal to accept up to 1,250 refugees refused entry into Australia. Australia pays Nauru and Papua New Guinea to keep more than 2,000 asylum seekers  mostly from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka  in conditions condemned by rights groups.

The process of "extreme vetting" has yet to be explained.

U.S. officials were sent to Nauru within days of the deal's announcement in November after the U.S. presidential election. But they left this week with arrangements under a cloud.

"I don't have any comment to make in relation to when U.S. officials will be on Nauru next," Dutton told reporters. "There have been officials there who have left ... in the last couple of days and we would expect other officials to be there in due course."

Dutton later denied in an interview with Sky News that the screening process was on hold, saying his staffers were working with homeland security officials in Washington to assess each of the refugees' cases.

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said most of the refugees on Nauru who had been accepted by the United States as candidates for resettlement had initial interviews with U.S. officials in what they had been told was a two-step process.

But there have been no second interviews so far, Rintoul said.

Australia has determined that there are 1,600 genuine refugees among 2,077 asylum seekers on Papua New Guinea and Nauru. There could also be refugees among the 370 asylum seekers who came to Australia for medical treatment then took court action to prevent their return to the island camps.

Story continues

As of last week, Nauru held 1,132 asylum seekers including women and children. The Manus Island facility in Papua New Guinea housed 818 men with another 127 male asylum seekers living elsewhere in Papua New Guinea.

Australia has said the "most vulnerable" refugees on Nauru would be given priority for U.S. resettlement.

After committing to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that he would honor the agreement, Trump tweeted that it was a "dumb deal."

Asked last week whether the deal would continue, Trump said: "We'll see what happens."

Papua New Guinea was on Thursday accused of breaching the rights of 60 asylum seekers who have been told they are about to be deported. Such deportations are rare.

The 60 have had their refugee claims rejected and one has already been removed from the men-only Manus facility, said Ben Lomai, a lawyer representing them.

Most of those targeted for deportation were from Iran, with others from Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Bangladesh.

It is not clear how Papua New Guinea hopes to overcome Iran's refusal to accept back its citizens who have not returned voluntarily.

One asylum seeker from Nepal was put on a commercial flight Wednesday night and told he was being returned to his home country, Lomai said.

Lomai was preparing an application for the court in Papua New Guinea on Thursday asking that the deportations be halted. The asylum seekers already have separate court applications pending asking that they be resettled in Australia, and Lomai said it would be unjust to deport them before those matters were heard.

Australian Attorney-General George Brandis defended Papua New Guinea's legal right to deport the men, saying their refugee claims have been investigated and rejected.

The Papua New Guinea government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

___

Associated Press writer Kristen Gelineau in Sydney contributed to this report.
Technology has made a mark on so many different areas of business  including sales. There are plenty of tech tools and techniques you can use to gain more customers and make more money.

If you want to make more sales for your small business, you can take a look at some of the tips from members of our small business community below.

Remember the Major Digital Marketing Mistakes

When it comes to your online marketing, there isnt necessarily one right way to do things. But there are some common mistakes that can sidetrack your efforts. If you want your digital marketing efforts to be successful, avoid the mistakes in this post by Kevin Donnellon of Macali Communications.

Learn How to Use Messaging in Your eCommerce Business

Messaging apps are becoming increasingly popular with online and mobile consumers. And they can also apply to eCommerce businesses as well. Here, Aliona Surovtseva discusses what eCommerce businesses should know about messaging apps and services.

Study the Major Trends in B2B Marketing

For B2B businesses, marketing trends can differ from those that apply to B2C businesses. Sam Hurley identifies some significant B2B marketing trends in this Sparklane post. And BizSugar members share their thoughts on the post here.

Engage Customers With Experiential Marketing

When attempting to sell products to customers, it can help if you create a whole experience for them. In this Target Marketing post, Candice Simons shares how businesses can utilize the concept of experiential marketing to sell products to customers.

Master the Basics of Customer Retention

Its not just a matter of bringing new customers in but also of keeping the ones you have with the hopes of increasing sales from those who have already bought from you in the past. Heres a look at how to improve that process by Shayla Price at Kissmetrics with some additional thoughts from the BiSugar community here.

Set New Financial Goals for Your Small Business

No matter what changes you have planned for your small business in 2017, you always need to keep finances in mind. But there are some changes you can make to ensure a better financial future for your business, like the ones listed in this CorpNet post by Christa Donovan.

Have a Unique Selling Proposition

When attempting to make sales, you need to have a unique angle to really convince customers to do business with you. Thats where your unique selling proposition comes in. If you dont currently have one, read why you need to change that in this GetEntrepreneurial.com post by Ron Finklestein.

Stop Overthinking Your Content

Content marketing has proved to be a powerful tool for small businesses. But some tend to overthink their content strategies, as Sujan Patel expresses in this Content Marketing Institute post. You can also see commentary on the post over on BizSugar.

Use Live Video Chat to Reach Out to Customers

As technology evolves, businesses constantly get new opportunities to reach out to customers. Live video chat is one of those new opportunities. You can read more about why your business should use live video chat in this Biz Epic post by Ivan Widjaya.

Learn How to Prevent Data Breaches

When you use technology to support your small business operations, you might find that youre vulnerable to data breaches. But there are ways to prevent them, as Liz Green points out in this Smallbiztechnology.com post.

If youd like to suggest your favorite small business content to be considered for an upcoming community roundup, please send your news tips to: sbtips@gmail.com.
Stockholm, capital of Sweden. The country is the best place for an expat family to raise children, a new survey has shown: Ola Ericson/imagebank.sweden.se

A six-hour working day with full-time wages sounds like a dream for most people, but for a group of 70 Swedish nurses it has been a reality for the past two years.

They were part of a trial aimed at testing the benefits of less work, which has gained huge attention around the world.

But is the nine to five really going to be a thing of the past?

The results of the trial released so far are encouraging.

Nurses working shorter hours took less sick days, felt healthier and were more productive.

They also said they were 20 per cent happier on average and had more energy at work and in their spare time. This allowed them to arrange 85 per cent more physical activities with elderly residents, the study found.

Assistant nurse Emilie Telander, who has now gone back to eight-hour shifts, told the BBC: I feel that I am more tired than I was before.

During the trial all the staff had more energy. I could see that everybody was happy.

Despite the positive results there was one big problem: the cost. The city of Gothenburg spent 12m kronor (1.1m) on the trial, largely because it had to hire 17 extra nurses to cover the lost hours.

Even in Sweden, famed for its generous welfare state, this is apparently too much to bear.

Could we do this for the entire municipality? The answer is no, it will be too expensive, Daniel Bernmar, a Left Party councillor who has backed the Gothenburg pilot scheme said.

It's put the shortening of the work day on the agenda both for Sweden and for Europe, which is fascinating."

While it may have captured many headlines, as well as the attention of overworked people around the globe, the idea of a six hour working day has struggled to gain widespread political support in Sweden.

The Left Party is the only party in the country that backs shorter working hours and won just 6 per cent of the vote in the last general election.

Attempts to prove the economic efficiency of reduced hours have produced inconclusive so far.

Story continues

A handful of trials in the 1990s and 2000s were scrapped due to a lack of definitive data.

Another recent Swedish trial at a retirement home in the town of Umea found that sick leave actually rose, from 8 per cent to 9.3 per cent.

One success has come at Toyotas Swedish service centre where shifts were cut in 2003, sparking an immediate boost to productivity and increased profits.

The company has kept the shorter hours ever since.

If a six-hour day isnt catching on in Sweden, with its famously generous welfare system and emphasis on work-life balance, there seems little hope for workers in Anglo Saxon economies like the UK.

But some companies have taken up the idea. Liverpool-based Agent Marketing first trialled shorter days for two months in early 2016.

Speaking to The Independent, Agents managing director Paul Corcoran said: There were loads of really great benefits. People were refreshed and more creative. It was good for effectiveness and efficiency.

Clients also noticed the happiness of the employees which helped win business, Corcoran said.

Agent stuck rigidly to the six hour format at first which led to some impressive changes.

Corcoran said one hour meetings have been cut to fifteen minutes because of the imperative to save time.

But he added: There were challenges surrounding it. Surprisingly it sometimes actually brought about more stress, because people feel theyve got to get their work done more quickly in order to go earlier, Corcoran said.

Eventually, the company settled for a compromise - every Friday is a six hours and employees can each choose another shorter day each week. The other three are normal business hours. But the benefits have remained, with happier, more productive employees, Corcoran said.

The company also provides meditation, pilates and a monthly massage to all staff.

But even this seemingly perfect workplace cant avoid commercial realities.

In the end, the most important thing is getting the work done for our clients otherwise well be doing zero hour working days because we would have no clients, Corcoran said.
NEW YORK  Sears may sell more locations, cut more jobs and put more of its famous brands on the block as part of its latest plan to revive the faltering retail chain.

The company, which also owns Kmart, said Friday that it is cutting costs by at least $1 billion a year. It also said that it was adding $140 million in liquidity by reworking its debt, giving the company more breathing room.

The Hoffman Estates, Illinois, retailer, which has been losing money for years, also said comparable-store sales during the holiday shopping season werent as bad as industry analysts had believed them to be.

Shares of Sears Holding Corp., which are already down 40 percent this year, soared 30 percent at Fridays opening bell.

Sears had already announced last month the closing of 150 of its 1,500 stores. It did not announce new store closures Friday, but said it would actively manage our real estate portfolio to identify additional opportunities.

It may also sell two of its brands  Kenmore appliances and DieHard car batteries  after striking a deal last month to sell its popular tool brand Craftsman.

Job cuts may also be on the way as it streamlines its organization structure, but the company did not release any details. Sears had about 178,000 employees in the U.S. last year.

From November to January, which includes the holiday shopping season, Sears expects sales to have fallen 10.3 percent at its established stores. Thats better than the drop of 13.1 percent that Wall Street had expected, according to FactSet.

We believe the actions outlined today will reduce our overall cash funding requirements and ensure that Sears Holdings becomes a more agile and competitive retailer with a clear path toward profitability, CEO and Chairman Edward Lampert said in a company release.

Lampert, whose hedge fund has forwarded millions in funding to keep Sears afloat, has long pledged to turn the companys fortunes around and that the retailer would find ways capitalize on its best known brands, as well as its vast holdings of land.

Lampert, a billionaire hedge fund manager, combined Sears and Kmart in 2005, about two years after he helped bring Kmart out of bankruptcy. But the retail landscape has undergone seismic shifts since then.

While Amazon.com had been up and running for almost a decade at that time, the titanic disruption in retail went into full force around the time of the recession a few years later.

But Sears troubles go further than that, having to compete on appliance sales with Home Depot and to match the cut-rate prices at huge chains like Wal-Mart.

And old rivals have made it tougher. J.C. Penney has brought back to its floors major appliances more than 30 years after abandoning the sale of refrigerators and stoves.

Sears has ramped up online services, but its having a hard time disguising its age. Stores are in need of a major redo.

Sears rose $1.64 to $7.18 in early trading.
SANTA FE  They end up in backyard sheds, unfinished garages and crowded trailer homes.

Discharged from New Mexicos psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas, ex-patients find shelter wherever they can.

Sometimes thats in boarding homes run by caring operators who help administer medication and charge reasonable rent. And, lawmakers were told Friday, sometimes its with less scrupulous landlords who take advantage of people struggling with mental illness.

A proposal headed for a vote on the House floor aims to address that  by imposing a licensing system to identify boarding homes and allowing local governments to adopt standards for living conditions. The homes arent regulated now.

The measure won a unanimous recommendation of passage Friday from the House Judiciary Committee, its last stop before hitting the floor. To become law, House Bill 85 would also need approval from the Senate and Gov. Susana Martinez.

There have been many instances of pretty egregious living conditions, said Rep. Deborah Armstrong, an Albuquerque Democrat whos sponsoring the proposal.

Opponents of the measure  some of them boarding-home residents themselves  turned out Friday to say the bill might have unintended consequences. Good landlords might be forced out of business by new regulations, they said, leaving residents with no other option but the streets.

Molly Gonzales, who has run a boarding care facility in San Miguel County for 28 years, said homes like hers provide nutritious meals and services with minimal funding. She cares about her boarders, she said.

Their safety and well-being is of the utmost importance to us, Gonzales said during Fridays committee hearing.

Armstrong, in turn, said the proposal is built to allow for compromise. The state Health Department would develop model regulations that local governments could adopt, she said, and boarding home operators could offer their input as the rules are crafted. And there would be public hearings if a city or county decides to adopt the regulations.

The initial state licensing system is expected to impose bare-minimum standards  mostly to ensure the state knows where the homes are if a problem arises.

Supporters said it would be a step in the right direction, even if the proposal isnt as stringent as theyd like, because people with mental illness deserve some protection.

They have been the forgotten people for too long, said Lorraine Mendiola, who said her son had lived amid a bedbug infestation as a boarder.

A Journal investigation last year found that residents of some boarding homes in Las Vegas lived in crowded conditions and some went hungry because meals provided by operators were inadequate. There have also been reports of abuse and financial exploitation.

In 2013, two men released from the psychiatric hospital died of carbon monoxide poisoning at a boarding home, where they paid a total of $1,100 a month to live in a shed without plumbing.

Residents often use their Social Security disability checks to cover their rent.

No one knows how many boarding homes there are, but legislative analysts estimate there are hundreds of such homes in Las Vegas, Albuquerque and elsewhere around the state.
The FBI is investigating an officer involved shooting that happened Thursday night on the Navajo Nation, according to spokesman Frank Fisher.

No Navajo police officers (were) hurt, he said. An adult male is dead.

The shooting happened on the Burnham or Bisti area of Navajo land, Fisher said. New Mexico State Police and San Juan County Sheriffs Office are assisting the FBI and the Navajo Police Department with the investigation.

Fisher didnt say who shot the man, or how the incident unfolded. He didnt identify the dead man or the officers.

Thats all the information being released at this time, he said.
Donald Trump ascended to the presidency in part by vowing to fight for working people. Mr. Trump promised that, as president, he would promote policies that lead to economic growth and good, well-paying jobs. Nominating Andrew Puzder to head the Department of Labor is a betrayal of that promise.

The mission of the Department of Labor is to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment. The department has been vital to protecting workers from exploitation and unsafe working conditions.

As the CEO of CKE Restaurants  the parent company of Carls Jr. and Hardees  Puzders track record suggests that he is fundamentally at odds with the mission of the department he has been tabbed to head.

Puzder has engaged in union busting and has opposed any meaningful increases to the minimum wage. His restaurants have been the source of numerous sexual harassment, discrimination, and wage and hour complaints. His company has been forced to pay tens of millions of dollars of wrongfully withheld wages and has faced numerous workplace safety investigations.

Puzders business model is to get rich on the backs of low-wage workers. In fact, he makes more money in a day than a minimum-wage worker makes in a year. Recently, Puzder told Business Insider that he would be interested in replacing his own workers with robots, saying, [machines] are always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, theres never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.

Puzder is a shameful choice to head the Department of Labor. The person holding the position of labor secretary has tremendous responsibility to improve the lives of Americas workers. Now, more than ever, we need a labor secretary who will push for policies that reverse trends of declining wages and rising inequality. Andrew Puzder is the wrong person for the job, and his nomination should be opposed by all who care about the basic rights of working people in New Mexico and across the United States.

Note: The views expressed are those of the individual authors and not the UNM School of Law.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was interrupted while reading the words of Coretta Scott King on the Senate floor this week. Warren was reading a 1986 letter King wrote in opposition to the confirmation of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, then a U.S. attorney in Alabama, to a federal district judgeship. In a rare decision, the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected Sessions. Now, as the Senate debated a new confirmation of Sen. Sessions for the position of U.S. attorney general, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., silenced Warren shortly after she read Coretta Scott Kings words, invoking an obscure Senate rule against impugning colleagues. She was told to sit down and was barred from speaking further during the ongoing debate on Sessions.

King sent the letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Strom Thurmond, a fierce segregationist. She asked him to make the letter a part of the hearings formal record, but he didnt. The 10-page letter was essentially lost until last month, when The Washington Post obtained and published a copy of it.

The irony of Mr. Sessions nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given a life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods, King wrote in her testimony, adding, I believe his confirmation would have a devastating effect on not only the judicial system in Alabama, but also on the progress we have made toward fulfilling my husbands dream. She wrote at length about Sessions record as a U.S. attorney in Alabama, aggressively prosecuting African-American voting-rights activists on charges of voter fraud in the case of The Marion Three. In that case, Albert Turner, an aide to Martin Luther King Jr., Turners wife, Evelyn, and Spencer Hogue were all members of the Perry County Civic League in rural Alabama. Sessions prosecuted them, alleging they tampered with ballots of elderly African-American voters.

The Marion Three faced well over 100 years in prison if convicted. Sessions was accused of selectively seeking cases to prosecute in Black Belt counties of Alabama, like Perry County, where a rising number of African-American registered voters threatened to eliminate the long-held political domination by whites. A federal judge threw out most of the charges, and a jury acquitted the three on the remaining charges.

Civil rights leaders, including my husband and Albert Turner, have fought long and hard to achieve free and unfettered access to the ballot box, Coretta Scott King continued. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as federal judge.

By reading Kings words, Elizabeth Warren was accused of imputing conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator. After McConnell forced her to stop speaking, Warren replied, from the floor, I am surprised that the words of Coretta Scott King are not suitable for debate in the United States Senate.  I ask leave of the Senate to continue my remarks. After her request was denied, she was instructed to leave. She immediately exited, and, just outside the doors to the Senate chamber, read the entire King letter, broadcasting via Facebook Live. After 20 hours online, the 15-minute video had close to 10 million views.

McConnell, speaking from the Senate floor, said of his decision to silence Warren: She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted. His words created a firestorm across social media, with posts of solidarity with Warren marked by the hashtag #ShePersisted. Back on the Senate floor, several of Warrens male colleagues read Kings letter aloud. None of them were rebuked by McConnell. In fact, in 2015, when fellow Republican Ted Cruz accused McConnell himself of being a liar, McConnell did not invoke the same Senate rule to bar Cruz from speaking.

On Wednesday evening, the Senate confirmed Jeff Sessions as the 84th attorney general of the United States, despite receiving more no votes  47  than any attorney general in U.S. history.

What also made history was a woman: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, bringing to life the words of another historic woman, Coretta Scott King, whose words will inform and inspire the resistance to Sessions as he assumes one of the most powerful positions in the Trump administration.

Amy Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
SANTA FE  A new version of the proposal to require background checks when people buy firearms online or in other private transactions is working its way through the House.

Rep. Stephanie Garcia Richard, D-Los Alamos, introduced the amended version Friday during a committee hearing.

She described it as a move toward compromise  a narrowing of the bill from an earlier version that covered more transactions, such as lending a gun to someone temporarily.

But the amended version didnt satisfy opponents. New Mexico sheriffs and other opponents said criminals generally get their guns by stealing them and wont bother complying with a new law.

The amended version requires background checks in private sales or if the gun is changing hands for more than five days. In other words, you could lend your gun to someone temporarily, but giving it as a gift or selling it would trigger the requirement for a background check.

Licensed firearms dealers are already required to do a background check. Garcia Richards bill would apply to unlicensed sellers.

Her proposal cleared the Judiciary Committee on a 7-6 party-line vote and now heads to the House floor.

Joint session

Sheryl Williams Stapleton  the first black floor leader in the history of the New Mexico Legislature  presided over a joint session of the House and Senate on Friday for African-American Day at the Capitol.

Stapleton, D-Albuquerque, was elected House majority leader before this years session.

Lawmakers heard poetry, watched dancing and listened to a speech by the Rev. DeForest B. Soaries Jr., a former New Jersey secretary of state and senior pastor of a baptist church in Somerset, N.J.

He shared a story about learning as a child why his grandmother packed a chicken sandwich in a shoebox when the family traveled from New Jersey south to Virginia: They couldnt stop to get food along the way because of their dark skin.

But she also told him through tears that it wouldnt always be that way.

I believe we become a better country when all of our stories are known by all of our people, Soaries said. The more we know each others stories, the more likely it is we can be the one people we declare we want to be.

He urged lawmakers and others to stay hopeful, no matter their challenges.

Ive never had to pack my lunch in a shoebox once in my life, Soaries said.

Dan McKay: dmckay@abqjournal.com
SANTA FE  Despite a Democratic majority in both New Mexico legislative chambers, proposals to legalize and tax recreational marijuana use could be derailed due to dissent in the Democratic ranks.

A Senate bill that would make New Mexico the nations eighth state to legalize recreational cannabis use  the state already has a medical marijuana program  stalled in a committee Friday after a bevy of legal concerns was raised.

While its expected to be reworked and brought back, at least some Senate Democrats have made it clear theyre fundamentally opposed.

Morally, I just dont think its the right thing to do, Sen. Clemente Sanchez, D-Grants, said in an interview. Ill vote against it from the beginning.

Sanchez is the chairman of the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee, where the marijuana legalization bill would head if its eventually approved in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

If Sanchez were to vote against the bill in his committee, along with the three Republicans serving on the panel, it would block the measure from moving forward under a committee process the Senates Democrat majority has staunchly defended.

The bill would still have to clear a third committee before reaching the Senate floor, where Democrats hold a 26-16 majority over Republicans.

Backers of the legalization push  theres also a similar House bill and a proposed constitutional amendment pending at the Roundhouse  have acknowledged the tricky path forward, but say they plan to keep trying.

After Fridays hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Emily Kaltenbach of the New Mexico Drug Policy Alliance indicated supporters are prepared for a multi-year effort.

This was really our intent this legislative session to hear from elected officials whats palatable and whats not, she told the Journal. We want to get it as far as possible and have as much debate as possible.

Republican lawmakers have generally opposed marijuana legalization efforts in recent years, and two-term GOP Gov. Susana Martinez has repeatedly said she is against the idea. However, the governor will be barred from seeking a third consecutive term in 2018.

Supporters of the proposals to legalize recreational marijuana have touted Colorados adoption of a similar law and say it could generate about $60 million a year in tax revenue for New Mexico schools, health programs and other efforts.

In addition, Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, said legalization could increase New Mexicos profile as a tourist destination  particularly from Texans, where recreational marijuana use is illegal.

Every eastern (New Mexico) border county will decry the devil of marijuana and take every penny they can get, McSorley predicted. It would be, Come for horse-racing, casinos and cannabis.

The bill debated Friday, Senate Bill 278, was largely modeled on cannabis laws in other states, including California and Oregon.

Its sponsored by Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, who has also filed the proposed constitutional amendment, which would bypass the governor but require approval of statewide voters, likely in November 2018.

If enacted, the bill calls for a 15 percent state excise tax to be levied on legal marijuana purchases, with local governments having the option of tacking on more.

However, legal concerns raised during Fridays hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee included potential penalties for teens using a fake ID to purchase marijuana, civil liability claims against cannabis dispensaries and how much leeway cities and counties would have to enact local tax rates.

Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, said he wants to ensure any penalties for running afoul of a potential legalized cannabis system would be no less severe than alcohol laws.

Meanwhile, Senate Corporations Committee chairman Sanchez said hes not convinced the benefits of legalizing pot  including more tourism  would outweigh its potential costs, such as addiction treatment.

Im not sure its the kind of tourism we want, he said.
Perhaps its a sign of the times.

We plan to spend less this Valentines Day on those we love than we did last year, the average allowance for amor falling from a record $146.84 to $136.57, according to the National Retail Federation.

The organization also predicts that just 54 percent of Americans plan to celebrate the holiday Tuesday.

Were giving love a bad name, people.

So once again we turn our lonely eyes to the South Valley man who puts the O! in romance. When it comes to Valentines Day, Lonnie Anderson is the king of hearts.

Anne Bolger-Witherspoon, his wife of 16 years, is his queen and possibly the luckiest woman in the world on Feb. 14 and, I suspect, most of the other 364 days of the year.

Love Anderson-style is always a grand gesture, though that does not mean he spends a grand. Youll find no diamond as big as a cabbage on his wifes finger, no fancy gourmet dinner, no bouquets of long-stem roses, though there was that year Anderson crafted 30-feet-tall flowers for her out of cardboard and butcher paper.

And then there was the year he rented a working carousel and set it up in his yard for a night. The year he spelled out one of e.e. cummings longer poems in pebbles across a dirt lot. The year he organized a high school prom. Or built a 15th-century throne. Or a giant box of Sweethearts candies. The year he got people from around the world  including war-torn Syria  to hold up I Love Anne signs and send the photos to her.

Last year in this column, he debuted a mural he painted of a pink Sweetheart candy imprinted with the name ANNE that covered the side of a building near Tapia and Goff SW.

He pondered what to do this year while at Deep Space Coffee at Fifth and Central SW. Maybe it was the caffeine, maybe it was the beatnik vibe of the place, but Andersons thoughts turned to poetry.

My idea was to have a private poetry reading for my wife in this coffee shop, said Anderson, who owns a graphic design firm and works with at-risk youth. So I talked to one of the owners, Solve Maxwell, told him my idea and he was super supportive.

There was just one hitch.

Im not that great of a poet, he chuckles.

So he thought maybe he could convince a local poet to recite a love poem to his wife in a private reading at the coffee shop. And if he could convince one poet, maybe he could convince two poets. And if two poets, maybe three.

After 2 months of convincing, he had nine poets signed up, each of them willing to share their poem either in person or by video Sunday night at the coffee shop.

And not just any poets but some of the best. Rudolfo Anaya. Jimmy Santiago Baca. Carlos Contreras. Former Albuquerque poets laureate Hakim Bellamy and Jessica Helen Lopez and current poet laureate Manuel Gonzalez and his daughter Sarita Sol Gonzalez.

Even Sherman Alexie and Joy Harjo, both who live nowhere near Albuquerque, agreed to appear by video.

Rounding out the reading will be the couples eldest daughter, Hawthorn, 12. Youngest daughter, Cheyenne, 9, is in charge of making cupcakes.

Im still so in awe that everybody was so super excited to do this, said Anderson, who sounds super excited as he speaks. These are world renown amazing poets reciting love poems for my wife. I mean, wow! I kind of do these things and never know how they will turn out.

But then, they always eventually turn out beautifully. Love, even in these turbulent times, is contagious.

It seems like everything is so negative crazy these days, he said. But when you mention love it brings out something awesome in people.

Anderson reminds me that the reason he is so committed to making Valentines Day a big deal for his wife is because of a vow he made years ago that he would never let her feel the same pain he saw in his grandmothers eyes every year when other women at work gushed over the candies and flowers their beaus sent them and she received nothing. The man she had been married to for 50 years and had given seven children to didnt believe in gifts.

And Anderson reminds you that it doesnt take a lot of money to come up with ways to say, I love you.

We get into this thing where we think we have to spend all this money or go to Walgreens the night before when all it takes is just a little time and thought for the person you love, he said. This is the most important person in your life. Do something. Do anything. People forget that when you show you care, really show you care, in whatever way that is, thats what matters.

And thats a pretty good sign.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
Thousands of criminal cases have been dismissed and the suspects released from jail, the crime rate is eye-popping and the prosecutors office is crowded, bleak and unwelcoming.

Criminal justice in Albuquerque is in dire need of change, brand new District Attorney Raul Torrez said, echoing a theme that has been hammered on by Albuquerque Police Department Chief Gorden Eden and Mayor Richard Berry regarding the impact of catch and release on public safety.

Ive worked in a lot of government offices and Ive never seen anything like this.  Think about what this does to peoples morale when they come in here, he said as he walked through a maze of thousands of boxes filled with court cases during a tour he gave the Journal of the district attorneys office this week. Youve been in the U.S. Attorneys Office, its like Were on it. Were going to put everything into it. This is Were drowning.'

Yes, the aesthetics of the office are unremarkable. The off-white walls are empty, except for the occasional paper tacked up to indicate that the nearby attorneys work in violent crime, gangs or crimes against children.

Some of the boxes of files date back 20 years and are labeled with things like CSPs (criminal sexual penetration) and the names of defendants with long criminal histories.

They act as makeshift dividers to sitting areas, are stacked against walls and are crowded into many of the prosecutors small offices in the four-story building.

The DAs office doesnt have the manpower or scanners to digitally archive the documents, Torrez said. He said hes trying to work with Bernalillo County to have them archived and removed from the office within months.

https://abqjournal.com/947933/new-da-wants-to-d-by-predecessor.html

But the problems with the office go far beyond looks. Torrez said that, since February 2015, about 3,000 criminal cases were dismissed, many voluntarily by prosecutors, because of fear by his predecessor that court-mandated deadlines for discovery wouldnt be met and the case would be thrown out.

Instead of trying the cases, prosecutors filed nolle prosequi notices in court and abandoned the cases so that the charges could be refiled later, when more evidence was available. But most of those cases have never been refiled.

The dismissals include 2,500 cases from the offices community crimes division, primarily property crimes, and 500 from other divisions, such as violent crime, he said.

When those charges were dismissed, the suspects were released from jail and, in some cases, committed additional crimes that also were dismissed, Torrez said.

A new direction

My predecessors policy was essentially to hold off on indicting, charging and moving forward with cases until we had everything we could possibly need to keep the prosecution alive once we filed it, Torrez said. Were not going to do that anymore. Were going to file these cases and were going to let the court make the decision on whether or not they want to impose these strict deadlines.

Kari Brandenburg, the former district attorney for 16 years, has said her office started voluntarily dismissing cases only after judges started throwing them out in large numbers when management rules were first enacted. She said the strategy prevented her office from having to re-indict cases after they were dismissed by judges, which would have strained office resources.

I certainly respect his perspective and willingness to try something new, Brandenburg said in an interview Friday. However, we felt it was our experience that, if we didnt have the majority of the evidence at arraignment, then the case would be dismissed.

The deadlines were set in a Case Management Order that was approved by the Supreme Court. They were created in part to ease overcrowding at the Metropolitan Detention Center and apply to criminal courts in the 2nd Judicial District.

The rules went into effect in February 2015 and have had a dramatic effect on criminal prosecutions in Bernalillo County, numerous law enforcement officials have said.

Supreme Court justices have publicly said Brandenburg was misreading the order.

Torrez said theres debate about how to interpret the order. He doesnt think its necessary for prosecutors to wait until they have all possible evidence in the case before filing charges.

We are responsible for disclosing the information that we have in our possession that we used to determine probable cause, he said.

To reduce the number of dismissals, Torrez said hell prosecute fewer cases, but target serious crimes and suspects with a history of run-ins with the law.

In recent years, the district attorneys office in Albuquerque opened about 18,000 misdemeanor and criminal cases. Torrez said a smarter strategy would be to send many of those defendants to probation or diversion programs and build stronger cases against the more serious criminals.

Attorneys will consider a suspects frequency of coming into contact with police, criminal history, nature of the case and whether the suspect has a history of being a felon in possession of a firearm  which he said is a major red flag.

Aggressive pursuit

Priorities will go to the most frequent fliers in the criminal justice system, who will be assigned experienced attorneys who will aggressively pursue cases against them, even for menial crimes like drug possession, he said.

Torrez said he has a team of attorneys using the same criteria on the thousands of dismissed cases so they can decide which ones to refile.

https://abqjournal.com/947934/bernco-da-says-control-in-county.html

Its a relatively small percentage of the criminal population that drives a disproportionate amount of crime, Torrez said. If you surgically dedicate resources to those criminal overperformers and give them the quality customer service that they need, what you should see, as theyve seen in other cities, is a dramatic decline in overall crime.

Police officials  who Brandenburg recently compared to a continuing criminal enterprise  said theyre encouraged by steps Torrez has taken to improve relationships between police and prosecutors.

The best way for me to describe our relationship with the new district attorney is outstanding, Eden said in an email. He has a clear understanding of the problems that we are facing in Bernalillo County. He is very engaged in all areas of the criminal justice system and recognizes the many challenges we all face.

Celina Espinoza, a police spokeswoman, said a member of the district attorneys office, and sometimes Torrez, has attended weekly high-level crime briefings where police discuss trends and analyze how the arrests of certain suspects affect overall crime trends. She said its an important place to learn about who is causing the most trouble in the city.

This has been very encouraging for our department and our investigators, she said. Its nice to know that youre being heard.
WASHINGTON  Opponents of President Donald Trumps travel ban are seeking another legal victory against the measure.

They believe they have the administration on the defensive after a federal appeals court refused to reinstate the order.

As government attorneys debated their next move, they faced unsympathetic judges on both coasts.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided Thursday with the states of Washington and Minnesota in refusing to reinstate the ban, opening the possibility that the case could advance to the U.S. Supreme Court. On Friday, a federal judge in Virginia also seemed inclined to rule against the administration in a different challenge.

For his part, Trump said Friday that he is considering signing a brand new order while the ban is held up in court.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  New Mexico Public Education Hanna Skandera absolutely would welcome a visit to any New Mexico school by newly confirmed U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a spokesman for Skandera said.

Robert McEntyre, a spokesman for the New Mexico Public Education Department, said Skandera would gladly host a visit from DeVos to visit any school or charter school in New Mexico  one of the poorest states in the nation.

But the states largest school district says its superintendent would have to check with parents and the school board first if DeVos sought to come to Albuquerque.

If asked (Superintendent Raquel Reedy) would engage the Board of Education, schools, students, families and entire community before responding, Albuquerque Public Schools spokeswoman Monica Armenta told The Associated Press.

Several dozen protesters gathered outside a southwest Washington, D.C., public school Friday where DeVos paid her first visit as education secretary. It was a bid to mend fences with educators after a bruising confirmation battle.

DeVos has previously worked to promote charter schools and school voucher programs, which her critics say would hurt public schools. She was confirmed for the job by the Senate on Tuesday by the narrowest possible margin, after two Republicans opposed her.

The U.S. Department of Education has not announced any visits outside of Washington, D.C.

Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Veronica Garcia said shed welcome an honest dialogue from DeVos on policy differences and a visit to a Santa Fe public school.

I believe we must respect the office, Garcia said. Obviously, if the community and parents feel a need to show their concerns, its certainly their prerogative.

Betty Patterson, president of the National Education Association in New Mexico, said the union would gladly provide DeVos with a list of New Mexico schools for un-rehearsed visits should she come to the state.

She would see hard-working educators helping students succeed despite the lack of educational resources needed for our students, Patterson said.

___

Follow Russell Contreras on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/russell-contreras .
The conflict between the German apparel giant and the American automaker was quickly resolved, as Tesla has decided to switch its application of the numerical form of three instead of the stripes.While nobody in their right mind would purchase a car instead of a pair of sneakers just because both of them had three lines as a logo, the problem was of a different nature.As Engadget notes, Adidas considered that Tesla could have sold clothing and other products with three stripes on them, which would have formed the base for confusion between the two brands.From this point of view, the German companys representatives were correct to file a challenge against Teslas trademark request, especially because selling apparel with three stripes is their business, not Teslas.Responding to an inquiry from the media, Tesla representatives stated that they had changed the logo of the Model 3 weeks before Adidas filing. After the latter, Tesla withdrew its application for the three-striped logo, but its representatives claim that an internal marketing decision led to the change in branding, and not the possible trademark conflict with Adidas.Regardless of what logo Tesla will use for the Model 3 and its corresponding apparel line, it looks like it will not have a legal battle with Adidas on the topic.All that is left to do is to begin the production of its most affordable electric model , and start delivering it to the clients that have placed deposits in 2016.Tesla has registered an impressive number of refundable deposits for the Model 3, and this car could become the companys new best-seller, but it must first find a way to ramp up production to deal with the vast number of people that pre-ordered it last year.Once that is done, Tesla can begin launching it in other markets and enjoy the results of years of development.




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
Update 8.52pm: Sinn Fein Deputy Leader Mary Lou McDonald has said that this evening's statement from Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald in relation to her knowledge of Tusla's role in the scandal impacting Sgt Maurice McCabe is not credible.

Ms McDonald said: "It is alarming that the Tanaiste, having misled the Dail yesterday, should continue her cycle of evasion this evening. Her version of events is not credible.

"I repeat my call for the Tanaiste to correct the record of the Dail. She should resign if she is not prepared to do so.

"This scandal goes to the very heart of the integrity of government in this state. Nothing but the full truth and the disclosure of an accurate version of events will suffice. It is the very least that Sgt McCabe and his family deserve after everything they have been put through."

It comes as the Minister for Children Katherine Zappone released a second statement on the affair today saying it would have been inappropriate for her to brief the Cabinet on her reasons for meeting Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe.

It is after it emerged that both the Taoiseach and Tanaiste had been told Katherine Zappone was meeting Sergeant McCabe, but not the reasons why.

The statement from a spoksperson from her department read: "Minister believed Tusla would be subject to investigations by the Commission of Inquiry.

"It would have been highly inappropriate for the Minister to brief the Cabinet on confidential, highly sensitive and personal information which one could reasonably assume was the subject of a protected disclosure, which was leading to the establishment of the Commission."

Update 6.30pm: The Tanaiste and Minister for Justice has broken her silence around the allegations against Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe.

Frances Fitzgerald says she learned about "an issue affecting Sgt McCabe in January" from Minister for Children Katherine Zappone, but was unaware of the details to do with Tusla.

"As was confirmed in a statement by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs this afternoon, Minister Zappone became aware in mid-January of an issue affecting Sgt McCabe which related to her Department," the Tanaiste said.

"As the statement points out Minister Zappone has taken and is taking a number of steps to deal with this matter.

"She informed me in January that she intended to meet with Sgt McCabe. She of course did not inform me about any details in relation to confidential Tusla records."

She adds that she had avoided commenting on the matter in the Dail, as she "would be rightly open to criticism."

"The Terms of Reference of the proposed Commission put before the Oireachtas by me refer specifically to a complaint of criminal misconduct against Sgt McCabe and whether this allegation was used against him.

"I have always been scrupulous to avoid any comment in the Dail on what was at issue in the criminal complaint against Sgt. McCabe, referred to in the terms of reference. Had I put into the public domain anything which indicated or implied the nature of the complaint against Sgt McCabe I would be rightly open to criticism.

"At the heart of the issues to be examined by the Commission is whether senior Gardai were involved in a campaign to use information to damage Sgt McCabe.

"I agreed to take on board amendments designed to put beyond doubt that the examination of any smear campaign would not be confined.

"Just as my colleague Minister Zappone is dealing with the serious matters relating to her area of responsibility, I am proceeding to finalise the terms of reference of the Commission of Investigation arising from Mr Justice O'Neill's report."

Update (4.30pm): Labour's children's spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan has said: "The Tanaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald claimed she was not aware of any contact between An Garda Siochana and Tusla about Sergeant Maurice McCabe.

"If Minister Zappone briefed her Cabinet colleagues on the details, then the Tanaiste must now account for why she misled the Dail on this matter."

Mary Lou McDonald questions if Tanaiste has misled the Dail. #Garda #McCabe  Juno McEnroe (@Junomaco) February 10, 2017

Fianna Fail's children's spokeswoman Anne Rabbitte added: "Did the Minister for Children contact the Minister for Justice when she became aware of this grave error?"

"We now know that Minister Zappone met with Sergeant McCabe two weeks ago - why was this meeting not included in the terms of reference of the Commission of Investigation that was announced this week?"

Update (3.20pm): Minister for Children Katherine Zappone has said that she had informed "relevant government colleagues" of the allegations made against Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe.

The Minister revealed in a statement today that her department was contacted by Garda McCabe's wife, via the office of the Minister for Health, on January 18.

Zappone has said she told Gov colleagues of Tusla Maurice McCabe case,& first found out about it on Jan 18.Thinks Tusla should be in inquiry  Juno McEnroe (@Junomaco) February 10, 2017

Minister Zappone said that she later met with Mrs and Sgt McCabe on Wednesday, January 25, and her office has been "in regular contact" with the pair, and Tusla, since.

Spokesperson for the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr Katherine Zappone stated: "Minister Zappone has met with Mrs Lorraine McCabe and Sgt Maurice McCabe. She has heard first hand of the devastation caused to them by the false allegations against Sgt Maurice McCabe.

"The Minister became aware of the circumstances when Mrs McCabe contacted the office of the Minister for Health on January 18, 2017.

"As the matter related to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, the Private Secretary of DCYA was requested to call Mrs McCabe.

"The private secretary did this on January 18.

"Minister Zappone met Mrs and Sgt McCabe on Wednesday, January 25.

"Since then her office has been in regular contact with Mrs and Sgt McCabe and Tusla - which has led to the offer of a public apology.

"The Secretary General of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs held a meeting with Senior Tusla Personnel on Friday, January 27.

"Tusla provided DCYA with a chronology and analysis of the case - which my Department gave to Mrs and Sgt McCabe on Saturday, January 28.

"Tusla informed the Secretary General that they have instituted a case review to extrapolate all relevant information in order to provide a more detailed analysis.

"Minister Zappone informed relevant Government colleagues during the course of this period.

Minister Zappone was always of the view that Tusla would form part of the investigation by the Commission of Inquiry.

Katherine Zappone has declined to reveal the identity of the "relevant Ministers" she spoke to about Mr McCabe  Sarah Bardon (@SarahBardon) February 10, 2017

.@simonharristd has said he had no knowledge that Mrs. McCabe had contacted the Dept of Health & there was no request for a meeting @rtenews  Martina Fitzgerald (@MartinaFitzg) February 10, 2017

Cabinet sources now expressing surprise & regret that #Tusla was not included in #McCabe terms.This does not explain why it was not #iestaff  Juno McEnroe (@Junomaco) February 10, 2017

Update 1.30pm: The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has today expressed its concerns at the ongoing controversy surrounding the treatment of Garda whistle-blower Sergeant Maurice McCabe.

The ICCL notes that issues arising may be so profound as to require a broader response engaging institutions beyond the proposed Commission of Investigation.

They said that the potential involvement of a range of state agencies in the alleged smear campaign against Sergeant McCabe run to the very heart of the Irelands justice system and its political system, even raising issues of public confidence in the State's child protection systems.

Speaking today, ICCL Executive Director Mr Liam Herrick said: Information which has been placed into the public domain in the last 48 hours including very serious allegations of misconduct in the treatment of Sgt Maurice McCabe raise very serious questions for accountability and oversight across a range state agencies which must be addressed if the public is to retain full confidence in the administration of justice and policing in Ireland.

"The Tanaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality must ensure that the proposed Commission of Inquiry is constituted to stop the rot and that measures to ensure meaningful reform of policing and justice are implemented without delay.

Drawing attention to the time frame in which the Commission of Investigation will conduct its work, Mr Herrick noted: It is imperative that Judge Charelton is empowered to reach full conclusions within a specified timeframe and can do so while respecting and vindicating the rights of all parties to the Investigation.

"However, it is equally important that the Government and the relevant oversight bodies now accelerate the wider process of Garda reform. From the seriousness of the issues that arise in this case, it is clear that Garda reform to date has been partial, and that systemic and cultural resistance to reform remains.

Update 11.45am: The Child and Family Agency Tusla says it has begun an internal review into the circumstances surrounding recent revelations concerning Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe.

It emerged yesterday that Tusla opened an investigation into the welfare of Sergeant McCabe's children, around the same time he made allegations of mismanagement in the Garda force.

However, no attempt was made to contact Sergeant McCabe and put the allegations to him.

Sergeant McCabe now says he's going to sue over the false child abuse claims.

Due to Data Protection and Constitutional rights, Tusla is prohibited from commenting on the detail of individual cases, Tusla said in a statement.

We also have a responsibility to protect the privacy and wellbeing of the children and families with whom we work.

Taking an overall view of this situation, however, it is clear to us that mistakes have been made. On this basis, we have commenced an internal review and will cooperate fully with any Commission of Inquiry if requested.

Although we cannot comment on the details of this individual case, we can confirm that we are in the process of apologising fully to the individual involved.

It is important to note that when we receive allegations from a child  or from an adult reflecting on when they were a child  that we are obliged to carry out a complete assessment.

We also accept that because of the nature and complexity of these situations, the systems and processes involved in doing this need to be extremely robust.

In this case, it appears there were some failures and these are the subject of our internal review, the conclusions of which will be made public.

Tusla regrets that this situation has arisen and deeply apologises for distress caused.

It does not reflect the high standards that we hold ourselves to and we want to assure the public that we will take whatever steps are required to ensure that nothing like this happens again.

Maurice McCabe

Update 11.20pm: Sean Costello, solicitor for Maurice McCabe, has said his client is devastated over the allegations made against him.

Speaking on Today with Sean O'Rourke, he said: "To think a government agency charged with the protection of children and a state run body who would deal with a complaint in the manner outline."

He said that the complaint was first made in August 2013 and was referred to local gardai, but that it appears nothing happened until May 2014 when the same individual who referred the complaint to the HSE wrote to state that the initial report contained an "administrative error".

He said that error related to the description of abuse and that they need more information from Tusla and the HSE about how mistakes like the one made are possible.

"It is extraordinary that an agency like Tusla should make a mistake of that nature. The question will only be answered if this should be the subject of the inquiry."

In relation to the files opened on McCabes children, Mr Costello said it is devastating.

"As any parent, aunt, uncle, whoever sees these thing written about Maurice McCabe, that he posed a potential risk is just absolutely devastating. And how that manifests itself and became part of what are allegations at least at this stage and became part of a campaign."

Earlier: Garda whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe says he's going to sue over false child abuse claims.

It emerged yesterday that Tusla opened an investigation into the welfare of Sergeant McCabe's children, around the same time he made allegations of mismanagement in the Garda force.

The abuse claims were made by a young woman in August to a counsellor, who contacted Tusla and gardai. However, no attempt was made to contact Mr McCabe and put the allegations to him.

However the child and family agency later said the allegations were based on a 'clerical error'.

The allegation surfaced on a file in August 2013, and the error was detected the following May, a period during which Sergeant McCabes claims of malpractice were causing major political and garda related controversy.

Yesterday, Labour leader Brendan Howlin told the Dail that he had been contacted by a journalist who told him he had direct knowledge of the garda commissioner, Noirin OSullivan, briefing journalists that Sergeant McCabe was responsible for sexual crimes.

Mrs O'Sullivan has denied spreading the allegations of sex crimes against Mr McCabe.

In a statement yesterday, she said she was surprised by claims of her involvement in a smear campaign targeting Mr McCabe and insisted it was the first time she had heard the accusation.

Sinn Fein TD Mary-Lou McDonald wants the Garda Commissioner to step aside during an inquiry.

"It seems a concerted campaign to blacken a serving officers name, to take his good character, to destroy his career, and I'm very concerned that the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice insist on the Garda Commissioner staying in place - I think that is not an acceptable position.

"She does need to stand aside and allow the Commission of Investigation to proceed."

Fianna Fail says Sergeant Maurice McCabe was failed by the state in the most fundamental way.

Expenditure and Reform Spokesperson, Dara Calleary, claims the Children's Minister was aware of the false sex abuse claims against him, but may not have passed on that information to the Justice Minister.

"If she did not tell why not, given in any circumstance no matter who it was, the absolute breach that Tusla had put on a family given that was such a high-profile individual."

Opposition parties such as Sinn Fein and Labour say Noirin O'Sullivan's position as head of the force is untenable.

However Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are still supporting her.

Fianna Fail TD Niall Collins said: "Noirin O'Sullivan, no more than any other person or any other citizen under the constitution of the land, is entitled to her good name.

"Because an allegation has been made against her by way of a protected disclosure in my mind doesn't mean that she should step aside."
A Buddhist monk has been arrested in Burma after authorities said they found more than four million methamphetamine pills in his car and his monastery.

The monk was stopped as he drove in northern Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh, said police officer Maung Maung Yin.

Authorities had been tipped off that the monk was carrying an illegal haul.

Maung Maung Yin said an anti-drug task force found 400,000 pills in the monk's car.

A subsequent search of his monastery turned up 4.2 million pills along with a grenade and ammunition.

A statement from the office of Burma's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, said that one million kyats (591) in cash was also found in the vehicle.

Burma is a major producer of methamphetamine, usually smuggled from the north east to neighbouring countries.

It is also the world's second biggest producer of opium, from which heroin is derived.

"This is not a normal case, and when we were informed that the monk was arrested, we were all shocked," said Kyaw Mya Win, a township police officer.

Asked about the case, the director general of the religious affairs ministry, Soe Min Tun, acknowledged some surprise.

"It is not a very common case, but not impossible to happen. What will happen to the monk is that he will have to give up his monkhood right away and face trial as an ordinary person," he said.

Police said they were still questioning the monk.

Last year, Burma officials seized 21 million methamphetamine pills with a street value of around 35.5 million dollars (28.7 million) near the border with China in the biggest such seizure in recent memory.
Posted on October 7, 2022

The original version of Lisa Loomer's 2016 play "Roe" ended with the words, "As of today, Roe v. Wade still stands." In June 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned a woman's right to abortion, the play's final statement was no longer true. So students at California University Lutheran, who are staging "Roe" in October, had to wait for a rewrite from Loomer.
Huck Out West: A Novel by Robert Coover (W. W. Norton and Co., 320 pp., $26.95)

You dont know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mr. Mark Twain. He made more books about me after that. One was called Tom Sawyer Abroad and the other Tom Sawyer, Detective. They warnt worth the effort and he knowed it.

Mr. Twain took a whole lot more satisfaction in his other books: The Prince and the Pauper, say, and Puddnhead Wilson, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court. But some of them other writers, they couldnt get enough Huckleberry. So in the next century, they wrote me up their own selves, inventing all sorts of copycat mischief under titles like Finn and I Been There Before. I hoped that might be the end of it.

But no, just when Im fixing to set back and catch up on my fishing on the Mississippi, here comes Huck Out West by Mr. Robert Coover. Hes writ novels that was interesting but tough, like The Origin of the Brunists, about how religion gets mangled by the folks who believe in it. And The Public Burning, about a real couple called Ethel and Julius Rosenberg that got convicted as spies. Railroaded is the way he seed it. They wound up in the electric chair. This Mr. Coover is one angry man.

Well, here, hes the ventriloquist and Im the innocent wanderer again, heading for the mountains like Mr. Twain once did, stumbling into the dark side of the Western Expansion. Some of the old Missouri gang are with me. Trouble is, Mr. Coover, he makes them into folks I dont hardly recognize. For instance, Jim could break your heart when he talked about how much he loved his wife and children that was sold into slavery. Well, now hes a tomcat. I mean, were having our usual gabble under the stars like we used to done, and I ask if hed ever been in love.

Sho. Mos all the time.

Did you ever get in trouble?

Always tried to.

And thats nothing compared to what the author done to Tom Sawyer. Now, Tom always did have a ringmaster personality. I have to admit that. He loved to turn everything into a stunt, such as having us sneak into our own funerals after we run off and people thought we drowned. And complicating things something awful when we stole Jim and led him to freedom.

But the thing is, Jim did get away. In Huck Out West, the three of us are on our own, and Tom sells Jim to an Injun tribe, just like that. For a pair of boots. Toms excuse: the freed man back in chains is probably happier when he has someone telling him what to do. Now that just aint Tom Sawyer. Thats a puppet named Tom Sawyer. Theres a difference.

That aint all. My old pal Tom becomes the sperrit of Eastern greed, come out West to get rich at the expense of anybody in its way. He marries his childhood sweetheart Becky Thatcher, just like you would expect. But then he abandons her for other temptations. And she winds up in what you might call a pleasure house out Wyoming way.

Meantime, Tom and General Hard Ass, which is a disguise for George Armstrong Custer if I ever saw one, they slaughter Lakota Injuns right and left. Tom tells me he dont hate the natives at all. But were building something grand out here, ocean to ocean and theyre in the way. Some day, well make statues of them, like they was our own heroes. First, though, we got to kill them all.

Once upon a Territory that would have been daring. But come on, it dont take any sand to say, White man spoke with forked tongue. Stuff like that has been in Western novel after Western novel and what the movies call oater after oater. I know; I seen them all. Mebbe Im a nineteenth-century immortal, but I get around. Even that great John Wayne director John Ford, he made a film called Cheyenne Autumn about the sad state of one tribe after they got beat by the U.S. cavalry and their land stole by the U.S. government. And what about Little Big Man? Didnt it rassle Custer to the ground? Didnt the book and the picture undo They Died with Their Boots On? Didnt it kick the romance out of the Boy General? Didnt they show him as a bully and a fool before he got punctured like Saint Sebastian?

And this dont include the work of Mr. Mark Twain, who got there first. Here he is on Western Man: There are many humorous things in the world; among them the white mans notion that he is less savage than the other savages. Or, Man is the only animal that . . . gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his kind. Or his mocking War Prayer about the enemies of our army and navy: O Lord our God . . . help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst.

I got a dictionary here by Mr. Noah Webster, tells the meanings of the word novel. One is an invented prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals especially with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events. That pretty much describes Mr. Coovers book. But its the second definition that gets it as right as can be: New and not resembling anything or anyone formerly known or used. The folks in Huck Out West dont hardly seem like the originals at all. I should know. I been the real Huck since 1885.
The Government has angered farmers by ditching plans to increase the on-the-road weight limit for agricultural trailers.

The National Farmers Union (NFU) has expressed its disappointment in the Department for Transport's (DfT) decision, saying the decision will hinder farm efficiency and competitiveness.

Farmers are calling on the DfT to explain the reasoning behind this and engage transparently with the farming industry on the next steps for this important issue.

The maximum combination weight of a tractor and single trailer was increased from 24.39t to 31t in March 2015.

NFU crops board chairman Mike Hambly said the Union will continue to push for the DfT to increase weight regulation.

'Vital progress in jeopardy'

NFU combinable crops board chairman Mike Hambly said: The NFU, with the crops board, has worked effectively with the DfT for many years on updating decades-old regulation on tractor and trailer weights and speeds, making progress in moving to 31 tonnes and 40kph. DfTs announcement has put vital progress on this regulation in jeopardy.

Farmers across the country are being held back by regulation that does not reflect the capabilities of modern machinery and does not allow farmers to use it to its full efficiency.

Weight restrictions for tractors and trailers in other countries far surpass our own 31 tonne limit. Were put at a competitive disadvantage to countries like Germany and France who benefit from 40 and 38 tonne limits respectively.

The NFU will keep up the pressure for enabling regulation for the farming sector, and tractor and trailer weights and speeds regulation is a core part of this work. We remain committed to understanding why Phase 2 has been halted with DfT and will report back to members on the action we propose to take.
A man in his 60s has died after apparently being crushed by a Land Rover on a Denbighshire farm.

The man, named locally as Huw Smith, died on Wednesday evening (8 February) at a farm in Llanfair Dyffryn, Clwyd, Wales.

Mr Smith is understood to have been working on the vehicle when he was killed.

North Wales Police said the death was not being treated as suspicious and the case would be handed to the coroner.

A spokesman for North Wales Ambulance Service said: We were called at about 5.35pm on Wednesday 8 February to an incident in Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, near Ruthin.

We sent two crews in emergency ambulances to the scene.

A spokesman for North Wales Police said: Police were notified and attended the scene. However, the death is not being treated as suspicious.

The investigation will be passed to other authorities, including the coroner for North East Wales.
Penang romantic restaurant - new candlelight dinner set at valentine's day 2017

Farquhar Mansion is celebrating the launch of their new 2017 valentine's day candlelight dinner set in Penang, Malaysia. With A complimentary Eastern & Oriental Hotel room (worth RM1000 per night).. Further information can be found at http://www.farquharmansion.com/.

--

In a slightly different approach to launching its new 2017 valentine's day dinner set, Farquhar Mansion, a Romantic Fine Dining Restaurant in Penang, Malaysia has decided it with a complimentary Eastern & Oriental Hotel room (worth RM1000 per night).This is expected to take place at Tuesday 14th February 2017 this coming valentine's day.

If travellers or residents make an online reservation before 10 FEB 2017, they and their significant other will receive 5 exclusive wine pairing to complete the course dinner. All for only RM1,688+ per couple. Available on 13rd, 14th Feb 2017 only. Make reservation earlier to secure the limited seating & a complimentary Eastern & Oriental Hotel room (worth RM1000 per night). Visit the Romantic Restaurant Farquhar Mansion Website at http://www.farquharmansion.com/ (Deposit RM 1000 per couple) for reservation before too late.

Farquhar Mansion, says: "It is our pleasure to serve our customers the best through our food and services. True inspiration behind our philosophy and Farquhar Mansion aim for guest satisfaction and service excellence."

Farquhar Mansion has always made a point of standing out when compared to other Romantic Fine Dining Restaurants in the Penang, Malaysia area.

This is a great chance for Malaysia residents and world travellers to come try out the new valentine's day dinner set at Farquhar Mansion local romantic restaurant. Farquhar Mansion has been serving the Penang, town area since 6 July 2014. To date it has served over customers and has become recognized as the best most romantic environment and the best food in penang town.

Farquhar Mansion also said: "While Farquhar Mansion may not be the only business with this kind of offering, local residents are still love to choose Farquhar Mansion because Farquhar Mansion truly care and give truly memorable unique experience to all customers."

When asked about what special about new 2017 valentine's day dinner set, Farquhar Mansion said: "Farquhar Mansion will feature a special Valentine's Day menu created for all the romantics out there. This Valentine's dinner will be all about contemporary cuisine. The chefs are planning all sorts of fun for lovebirds at this coming 2017 Valentine's Day".

Further information about Farquhar Mansion and the new dinner set can be discovered at http://www.farquharmansion.com/.

Contact Info:

Name: Farquhar Mansion

Email: reservation@farquharmansion.com

Organization: Farquhar Mansion

Address: 33 Lebuh Farquhar George Town, Pulau Pinang 10200, Malaysia

Phone: +60-19-528-8933

For more information, please visit http://www.farquharmansion.com/

Source: PressCable

Release ID: 168946

For more information visit r



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Haiti - Politics : Important meeting in Suriname





Thursday, 9 February, Alex Jospitre, the Consul General of Haiti in Suriname, met with the new Foreign Minister of the Republic of Suriname, Mrs. Yldiz Pollack-Beighle, who was accompanied by her advisers.



Discussions focused on several important topics :



- The obstacles Haitian Nationals who applied for temporary residence or a visa are facing in Haiti following the closing of the Consulate General of the Republic of Suriname in Port-au-Prince https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18637-haiti-flash-temporary-closure-of-suriname-consulate-in-haiti.html



- The many challenges our Compatriots, who recently migrated to Suriname on a tourist card, are facing daily, as well as the proper approach to address several incidents that occurred in the past year to avoid their repetition in the future ;



- The enhancement of the collaboration and communication between the Consulate and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as all other Government entities providing services to the local Haitian Community for a better and more coherent assistance ;



- The major difficulties faced by Haitian Nationals who applied for Temporary Residence and were later told, without any further explanation or information, that many of the original documents of their civil status registry (included in their files) just vanished following a fire that erupted in a building of the Ministry of Justice and Police in Paramaribo back in 2015 ;



- The undeniable benefits of an eventual conditional adjustment of the immigration status of the Haitian Nationals in difficulty in Suriname and the delicate involvement such adjustment would require from the Parliament and the Ministry of Justice and Police for its implementation.



Both Parties however agreed that if these Haitian Nationals would become lawful workers in Suriname they would boost considerably productions in certain key areas and subsequently increase exportation and tax revenues while decreasing certain prices in the country.



After an hour of exchanges, considered fruitful and instructive by both parties, Yldiz Pollack-Beighle undertook to transmit to the President of the Republic of Suriname the highlights of these discussions and to discuss in a timely manner with the Consulate of Haiti the many challenges faced by Haitian nationals in Suriname.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18637-haiti-flash-temporary-closure-of-suriname-consulate-in-haiti.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18549-haiti-flash-suriname-visa-mandatory-for-haitian.html



SL/ HaitiLibre


















Bhopal : The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Madhya Pradesh Police on Thursday arrested 11 members of an espionage ring backed by Pakistans spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from different parts of the state.

Those arrested were allegedly running call centres using Chinese equipment and SIM cards that helped ISI to spy on Indias military operations.

As per officials, they were allegedly operating parallel telephone exchanges using Chinese equipment and SIM-boxes.

The MPATS officials have confiscated several Chinese equipment, SIM-boxes, prepaid SIM cards, mobile phones, laptops and data cards.

All the 11 men have been booked under provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act, besides Section 122 and 123 of Indian Penal Code (IPC).

ATS chief Sanjeev Shami, who led the operation, told reporters that three people were arrested from Bhopal, one from Satna, two from Jabalpur, and five from Gwalior.

Shami said that Balram, the man who was arrested from Satna, is allegedly the mastermind of the racket.

We arrested a Satna-based man identified as Balram, the kingpin of the espionage ring, following tip-offs by two ISI agents, Satwinder and Dadu, he said.

The two ISI agents were arrested from RS Pura in Jammu in November last year on charges of sending strategic information to their handlers in Pakistan. Balram led us to 10 other people involved in the racket, Shami said.

He said Balram and his associates were operating a number of parallel telephone exchanges across as well as outside the state.

ISI used to deposit money in multiple accounts opened by Balram through hawala. Balram then used to disburse the funds to other members of the espionage ring, Shami said.

The ISI men from Pakistan used the facilities to call military personnel in Jammu and Kashmir by posing as senior Army officers and take details of strategic operations, the ATS chief said.

Shami added that the role of employees of some telecom firms will also be probed and more arrests will be made in the coming days.

The ATS chief said the arrested men also caused a huge revenue loss to the central government and department of telecommunications via illegal conversion of international calls into local calls.

The ATS was helped by the Telecom Enforcement Resource and Monitoring Cell, the technical arm of the Union Telecom Ministry.

Source : Zee News
Russian President Vladimir Putin has thanked Slovenia for offering to host his first meeting with US President Donald Trump, but added that the prospect hinges on Washington.

The Russian leader hailed Slovenia, where Mr Trump's wife Melania was born and grew up, as an "excellent" venue for possible talks with the US president.

"It depends not only on us, but we are naturally ready for it," he said.

Speaking after holding talks at the Kremlin with his Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahort, Mr Putin said Russia welcomes Mr Trump's statements about his intentions to restore strained Russia-US ties.

"We always welcomed that and we hope that relations will be restored in full in all areas," Mr Putin said.

"It relates to trade and economic ties, security issues and various regions of the world, which are suffering from numerous conflicts.

"By pooling our efforts, we naturally would be able to significantly contribute to solving those issues, including the fight against international terrorism."

In recent years, Russia-US relations have plunged to post-Cold War lows over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and the allegations of Russian hacking of the Democrats in the US presidential election.

In 2001, Slovenia hosted Mr Putin's first meeting with former US president George W Bush that led to a short-lived thaw in relations between Moscow and Washington.

Slovenian President Borut Pahor

A similarly short warm spell early during Barack Obama's presidency gave way to new tensions.

As part of Mr Obama's early effort to "reset" ties with Moscow, the two nations in 2010 signed a pivotal arms control pact that set new lower caps on the number of warheads each country can deploy.

Mr Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the prospects of extending the New START Treaty that is set to expire in 2021 will "depend on the position of our American partners" and require negotiations.

He would not say whether the Kremlin favours extending the pact that limited Russian and US nuclear arsenals to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads each.

Speaking in a conference call with reporters, Mr Peskov pointed to a "certain break in dialogue on strategic security issues" during the Obama administration, and said Moscow and Washington now need "an update of information and positions".

Mr Peskov denied a report by the Washington Post claiming that Michael Flynn, the retired general who is now Mr Trump's national security adviser, had discussed a possible review of anti-Russian sanctions with the Russian ambassador to Washington in December.

Mr Peskov said ambassador Sergei Kislyak did talk to Mr Flynn but the rest of the report was wrong.

While suggesting possible co-operation with Moscow to fight Islamic State (IS) in Syria, as a candidate Mr Trump was critical of the New START Treaty and talked about a need to strengthen US nuclear arsenals.

In December, Mr Trump declared on Twitter that the US should "greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability" until the rest of the world "comes to its senses" regarding nuclear weapons.

Mr Putin has also said strengthening Russia's nuclear capabilities should be among the nation's priorities.

The platform of Mr Trump's Republican Party had promised to "abandon arms control treaties that benefit our adversaries without improving our national security" and called for the development of "a multi-layered missile defence system".

Mr Kislyak told Russian media in Washington that he sees little chance for a compromise on missile defence, as Moscow believes the US wants to develop the shield against Russia despite assurances that it is directed against other threats.

"I don't exclude that at a certain stage we may have a mutual interest to talk about those issues, but as of now I'm not seeing any basis for reaching agreement," he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

He voiced hope, however, that joint efforts to fight IS could help break the ice in Russia-US ties.

"If we have serious co-operation, it could help to start rebuilding trust," Mr Kislyak said in televised remarks.

Mr Kislyak added that Russian and US diplomats will start soon to try to prepare a Putin-Trump meeting.

The ambassador has also sought to downplay differences on Iran, saying that "we disagree more on accents related to the nuclear agreement rather than substance".

Mr Trump has accused the Obama administration of being weak on Iran and responded to Iran's recent missile test with a package of sanctions.

The penalties, however, referred solely to the missile programme and did not directly undercut a landmark 2015 deal between Iran and six world powers that curtailed Tehran's nuclear programme in exchange for rolling back international sanctions.

- AP
Figures provided by the Irish Prison Service also show almost 100 fewer cases of drugs being found in jails in 2016 compared with the previous year, alongside a fall for the sixth consecutive year of visitors to prisons and a steady decline in the number of people arrested for allegedly trying to get contraband into prisons.

Last year 107 people were arrested in connection with contraband seizures, down from 128 arrests in 2015. The number of arrests last year is also around half of those made as recently as 2013, while the comparable figure in 2011 was 283 arrests.

A spokesman for the Prison Service said that additional security measures have been introduced in the past year, including the introduction of a new free confidential telephone line which means prisoners, visitors, staff or the public with information on the trafficking of prohibited items into jails can pass on that information in strictest confidence.

The confidential phone line will be in operation two years this summer and it is understood it has received more than 1,000 calls since it was first set up.

A Prison Service spokesman said the prison service is confident that seizures had been made as a direct result of the phoneline in which otherwise lives could have been lost.

Overall, 3,702 contraband seizures were made in prisons last year, down just nine from the figure in 2015.

However, while 648 phones were seized (up 22 on the previous year) the 715 drug seizures represent a fall of 93 on that for 2015, while the 435 seizures of weapons were down 129 on the comparable figure for 2015.

There were 1,904 seizures of other items in 2016, almost 200 more than in 2015. According to the Prison Service those items include things such as USB keys and DVDs, but is most likely alcohol including homebrewed hooch.

A prison-by-prison breakdown shows that the highest number of mobile phones seized last year was in Mountjoy, with 183, ahead of Limerick Prison with 119.

Wheatfield Prison had the highest number of drug seizures at 156, ahead of Mountjoy, which had 139 seizures, and the Midlands Prison with 99.

Wheatfield also had the highest number of weapons seized, with 104. Castlerea had the second highest amount of weapons seized, at 89. When it came to other items seized, Limerick Prison had by far the most with 697 confiscations, more than double the amount in jails such as Mountjoy and the Midlands Prison.

Castlerea, with 420 seizures of other items, had the second highest haul in that category.

Limerick was the only prison last year to see an increase in the number of items seized across all four categories compared with the comparable figures for 2015.

The Prison Service said it is still compiling figures on the number of staff assaulted while on duty.
Terms for an inquiry into an alleged garda smear campaign are set to be extended after a fresh political crisis engulfed the Government over how Sgt McCabe was treated.

Meanwhile, RTE has reported a second case of a Garda whistleblower who claims they were referred to Tusla as part of a campaign of harassment involving gardai. Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald was allegedly told of a child protection referral for the garda whistleblower last October, made by his garda superiors.

Ms Zappone is facing mounting questions about why she did not tell Cabinet colleagues about a Tusla file with false child sex abuse allegations against Sgt McCabe. She said it would have been inappropriate to brief colleagues on the issue.

The child and family agency said it was giving Sgt McCabe an apology, after it emerged the file was on its database for two years without his knowledge.

Rocked by the further grievances against Sgt McCabe, the Government said the Tusla blunder would specifically be included in the commission of investigation. The Cabinet will discuss this next week, before a Dail vote on the terms on Thursday.

However, a series of accusations and questions now face Ms Zappone and Ms Fitzgerald. There are questions about how much the ministers knew and shared about the false allegations after Sgt McCabe met Ms Zappone last month.

Ms Zappones spokesman said yesterday that she met Sgt and Mrs McCabe on January 25, after becoming aware of the Tusla file the previous week.

A statement added: Minister Zappone informed relevant Government colleagues during the course of this period. Minister Zappone was always of the view that Tusla would form part of the investigation by the commission of inquiry.

But the justice minister, overseeing the terms for the inquiry, said she was only told of the two meeting and not any details on confidential Tusla records.

The terms of the inquiry also specifically referred to a complaint of criminal misconduct against Sgt McCabe and whether this allegation was used against him, added a statement.

Taoiseach Enda Kennys spokesman also said he only became aware of the false Tusla accusations on Thursday night, when they featured on an RTE Prime Time programme after earlier being published by the Irish Examiner.

The minister made the Taoiseach aware she was in contact with Sgt McCabe but no detail was discussed, he said.

The growing questions, though, concern how Mr Kenny led his Cabinet meeting last week without being informed about the Tusla false sex claims against Sgt McCabe. It is also unclear why Mr Kenny and Ms Fitzgerald would not have asked Ms Zappone what she was meeting Sgt McCabe about, or why.

The opposition has been especially critical of the justice ministers denials to the Dail that gardai had interacted with other agencies in relation to Sgt McCabe.

Ms Fitzgerald said she would have been criticised if she had made public the Tusla allegations.

Nonetheless, Sinn Feins Mary Lou McDonald asked whether Ms Fitzgerald had misled the Dail by not mentioning the Tusla file.

The Tanaistes office denied this and said that she, too, had only first become aware of the Tusla allegations on Thursday night. Ms Fitzgerald had not been briefed by the childrens minister and had only been told about Sgt McCabe meeting with Ms Zappone on the morning of January 25, said sources.

Ms Fitzgeralds spokesman said that she was not closed to the notion of now including the Tusla allegations in the forthcoming Charleton inquiry.

But several sources insisted last night that Tusla would now be specifically referenced in the inquiry.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin asked how alarm bells had not gone off in Government when Ms Zappone learnt of the Tusla allegations.

His party colleague, TD John McGuinness, went further and said a criminal investigation was now needed. He also said Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivan should stand aside while the inquiry is ongoing and he would seek party support for this. Mr McGuinness said the Tusla apology had been delivered to Sgt McCabes elderly neighbour, rather than him.

Ms OSullivan refused to comment on the Tusla revelations or how gardai used the agencys information.
The Irish Examiner revealed earlier this week how the creches, which provide family support for 225 toddlers in some of the most disadvantaged parts of Cork City, face serious funding challenges due to changes to childcare regulations which mean they must hire more trained staff.

The Cork Early Years Alliance is to hold a briefing at the Imperial Hotel on Monday to inform local politicians of how these early years services cannot survive beyond September.

Lone parent Samantha Austin, mother to three-year-old Timmy and one-year-old Dylan, said staff at the Togher Family Centre did so much to help when she and her children were homeless. With their help, she is now housed in nearby Greenmount.

They do a lot more than look after children, she said. I went there myself when I was younger and theyve always been there for me and the kids when we needed it. Theyve also done great work with Timmy. He has more words because of the creche, before he couldnt sit down but now he can sit on a chair, he can count, knows his colours.

Shyni Joy George, from Wilton, has two children with additional needs. Her five-year-old son Jonathan has autism and her two-year-old daughter, Juanita, who attends the Togher Family Centre, has microcephaly, which leads to feeding and balance problems.

I have my hands full with two children with special needs, she said. The Brothers of Charity recommended them to me and they have been helpful to us all the way. Juanita has benefitted hugely from being there, from exploring new things, from learning. They have been helpful to so many families in the area.

The Cork Early Years Alliance creches say their existing budgets cannot stretch to having three qualified childcare workers for every child under three.

The creches affected include Togher Family Centre, An Cliabhan in Ballyphehane, the Traveller Visibility Group creche in Shandon, Baile Beag in Mayfield, Glenfields Childcare in Ballyvolane, Mahon Community Development Project, and Before 5 creche in Churchfield.

According to Niamh Sheridan of the Cork Early Years Alliance and Togher Family Centre, many of these children attend their creches as they are unable to find places in other creches.

Some 26% of these children have already been identified as having special needs such as Down syndrome, epilepsy, or learning or physical disabilities, while another 24% are awaiting a diagnosis.

Another 12% of the children come from families where English is not their first language and so they present communication challenges.

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs says some community creches have been historically reliant on CE staff who did not have Fetac Level 5 training and were given until the beginning of this year to ensure that the extra required training was completed as per the 1991 Child Care Act.

The department said it is finalising a package of support for services who have engaged with Childcare Committees Ireland but the Cork Early Years Alliance says it has not any guarantees of sufficient funding beyond September.
Vancouver, B.C. / TheNewswire / February 10, 2017 - Harvest Gold Corporation (TSX.V: HVG) (the "Company" or "Harvest Gold") is pleased to announce that Mr. Warren Bates, P. Geo (APGO #0211), has agreed to become the Company's Director of Property Investigation.

Mr. Bates has over 30 years of experience in mining and exploration, mainly in gold, porphyry copper, VMS and nickel. He has over 10 years of experience in the Vice President, Exploration role and, importantly, is also experienced in exploration and project acquisition and reserve resource reviews. He is presently consulting to Pelangio Exploration Inc (TSXV: PX) as their Vice President of Exploration, which the Company has agreed with Pelangio, is his primary responsibility.

The Company's President and CEO, Rick Mark, states: "Harvest Gold is focused on acquiring a substantial gold asset in a politically stable environment, while we asses our short-term plans in Suriname. The search is literally worldwide and is ultimately dependent on excellent technical Due Diligence. I am excited that Warren has agreed to lead our Due Diligence team, which includes two other consulting Geologists and Independent Director, David Mosher. His ability to focus, execute and provide clear and useful opinions is exactly what we need to consider opportunities and, ultimately, make the deal that will immediately increase shareholder value."

The Company has reviewed serval properties in the past three months, including in Suriname. Most recently the Company reviewed a gold producing opportunity in Brazil and is currently in Guyana meeting property owners.
From left are Kim Yong-yeon, vice president of the Kumho Asiana Cultural Foundation, Vladimir Mendelssohn, artistic director of the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival and Eero Suominen, Finnish Ambassador to Korea, posing for a photo after a press conference held at the Finnish Embassy in Seoul, Wednesday. / Courtesy of Kumho Art Hall



By Yun Suh-young

The Kumho & Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival kicked off Thursday, marking the first musical exchange between the Seoul-based Kumho Art Hall and the Finnish Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival. It will be held from Feb. 9 to 11 at the Kumho Art Hall in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul.

The festival is one of the world's largest chamber music festivals. Started in 1970 in the small Finnish town of Kuhmo, 600 kilometers from Helsinki, the festival has survived for over 40 years attracting 50,000 visitors annually. It runs every July for 14 days in Kuhmo which has now become a summer vacation destination, thanks to the music festival's success. Around 200 musicians and 100 music students participate in the annual event.

This event will be the first in a series of cultural exchanges between the two countries. The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival decided to take its act to Korea for the first time this year, and moving onwards the two countries will continue to exchange musicians for future co-organized events.

"Kumho Art Hall and the Finnish Embassy began planning the festival in Seoul four years ago," said Kim Yong-yeon, vice president of the Kumho Asiana Cultural Foundation, during a press conference Wednesday. "Starting this year, Finnish musicians will be coming to Seoul to perform. Next year, Korean musicians will visit Finland to take part in the festival there. We'll continue to exchange musicians back and forth like this."

This year is especially meaningful for the Finnish festival as it marks the 100th anniversary of Finland's independence from Russia in 1917.

As a tribute and dedication to the iconic Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, often identified as a symbol of the country, the music festival will begin Thursday at 8 p.m. The repertoire includes "Finlandia, Tone Poem for Orchestra, Op. 26" and "Valse Triste from Kuolema, Op. 44" under the theme, "The Time of Sibelius."

"The heart of Finnish culture, the symbol of Finland is Jean Siberius. He was born before the Finnish independent state was born and started music when Verdi and Brahms were flourishing. Nothing can move Sibelius away from Europe. It is why the first program of this weekend of concerts is called The Time of Sibelius," said Vladimir Mendelssohn, artistic director of the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival.

On Friday, Feb. 10, more Sibelius is to come, but the focus shifts onto French composers such as Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Darius Milhaud and Cesar Franck. Under the theme "Paris by Night," the program will offer pieces such as Sonata for Cello and Piano, L. 135 by Debussy and Tzigane, Rhapsodie de Concert for Violin and Piano by Ravel.

On Saturday, two performances are scheduled for 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. The 3 p.m. concert is themed "Baroque, Evergreens" with pieces by Johann Pachelbel, Tomaso Albinoni and Antonio Vivaldi, while the 8 p.m. performance will feature Mozart, Schubert and Brahms.
A South Korean tourist was found dead on Kuta Beach on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on Friday, two days after he went missing while snorkeling, police said.

A local merchant found the body of the man in his 50s washed ashore around 6:30 a.m. about 500 meters away from the spot he went into the sea.

The man, a South Korean resident in Vietnam, disappeared after he went snorkeling with his wife and acquaintances at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday. His wife and the acquaintances returned to the beach around 5:00 p.m. for rest, but he went back into the sea to snorkel more and went missing.

Police, who are investigating the case, suspect he drowned or suffered a heart attack.

Officials at the South Korean Embassy in Jakarta are helping his bereaved family transfer his body and set up a funeral. (Yonhap)
By Park Si-soo





Lee Cheong-yeon

Incheon's education superintendent has been found guilty of bribery and jailed for eight years.

Lee Cheong-yeon, superintendent of the Incheon Metropolitan City Office of Education, was charged with taking 300 million won in bribes from a construction firm in 2015 and 120 million won from a promotional leaflet maker in 2014. In return, the construction firm won profitable projects at two Incheon schools and the leaflet maker won the right to produce fliers for Lee's election campaign in 2014.

The Incheon District Court on Thursday also jailed three of Lee's close aides for their involvement in the scandal.

Lee is the first education superintendent to be prison while in office.

"Lee let down and even shocked numerous people by perpetrating corrupt deeds," Judge Chang Se-young said. "He deserves the punishment given integrity and honesty are the most crucial values educators must have."
By Kim Bo-eun



The independent counsel team filed a suit Friday, calling for a court to allow it to search Cheong Wa Dae as part of its investigation into the influence-peddling scandal involving President Park Geun-hye.



On top of the administrative suit, the team also filed a separate injunction with the Seoul Administrative Court, asking the court to nullify Cheong Wa Dae's disapproval of the team's search.



"We filed the suit and injunction as we want the court to determine whether the refusal of the counsel team's search of Cheong Wa Dae is lawful," team spokesman Lee Kyu-chul said during a press briefing.



The team cited a clause in the Criminal Procedure Law, which states that searches cannot be refused, with the exception of when it is deemed to harm critical national interests.



It claims the presidential office's denial of the search is not covered by this clause.



The team's move to take the case to court is aimed at pressuring Cheong Wa Dae. President Park has also rejected the team's request for face-to-face questioning.



The team attempted on Feb. 3 to search the presidential office after receiving a court-issued arrest warrant, but was denied entry, as officials stated the grounds are a national security zone.



The search was intended to secure evidence for the allegations Park faces, including receiving bribes from Samsung and other conglomerates, ordering a blacklist of artists critical of the government, and dereliction of duty on the day of the Sewol ferry disaster in 2014.



After the attempted search failed, the team sent a request to acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn for permission to conduct the search, but it has yet to receive an official reply.



Hwang has said he sees no immediate need to extend the mandate for the independent counsel.



The court is likely to make a decision by next week, as the team's investigation period expires at the end of the month.



The team said it will immediately conduct a search if the request is approved. The search warrant is valid until Feb. 28.



The team is reviewing an extension of its investigation period, as it has not made much progress in its investigations of the allegations against the President due to Cheong Wa Dae's uncooperativeness. However, the extension needs Hwang's approval and it is unclear whether it will be made.



Park pulled out of an earlier agreement with the counsel team for face-to-face questioning to take place earlier this week at Cheong Wa Dae.




By Yi Whan-woo



The reopening of the inter-Korean industrial park in Gaeseong, North Korea, is emerging as a presidential campaign issue.



Moon Jae-in and Lee Jae-myung, presidential hopefuls from the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), have pledged to make efforts to reopen the Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC) if elected.



They claim this will help restart stalled talks between the two Koreas and save South Korean firms that have plants there. The companies have been suffering snowballing losses following the shutdown a year ago.



But other potential presidential contestants are cautious about joining Moon and Lee amid concerns the resumption of the GIC could be a breach of the U.N. Security Council's (UNSC) nuclear sanctions on North Korea.



The Park Geun-hye government closed the GIC on Feb. 10, 2016, claiming that the Kim Jong-un regime was pocketing earnings from North Korean employees there and funneling funds to the UNSC-banned nuclear program.



Against this backdrop, Ahn Cheol-soo, a former co-chairman of the minor opposition People's Party, has taken an ambiguous stance, saying, "The shutdown of the GIC doesn't do any good for peace on the Korean Peninsula but we must be prudent over whether to resume its operation."



Another DPK presidential hopeful, South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung, says Pyongyang's sincerity in making changes, such as resuming inter-Korean dialogue and denuclearization efforts, should precede any GIC reopening.



Two conservatives from the Bareun Party  Rep. Yoo Seong-min and Gyeonggi Province Governor Nam Kyung-pil  have echoed a similar view by proposing conditions for the GIC's reopening. Yoo wants "progress in resolving North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs" while Nam seeks to "create a peaceful atmosphere on the peninsula."



The accumulated loss of the 123 South Korean enterprises at the GIC is estimated to be at least 250 billion won ($218.1 million), according to an emergency committee aimed at helping the victims.



The victims say they have had difficulty securing new factories and experienced other problems in reviving their businesses.



The Ministry of Unification, citing its own data, downplayed the concerns. It said 114, or 92.7 percent, of the 123 companies are operating and their average sales last year were about 79 percent of those in 2015.



The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday reopening the GIC "does not correspond with" the international cooperation to press North Korea.







Harsh reality



Some analysts said Moon and Lee are not realistic in their pledges and that they are trying to court more left-wing voters.



"The support groups of Moon and Lee tend to overlap and they need to ensure wooing more supporters ahead of the primary by making what can be seen as radical promises," said Shin Yul, a political science professor at Myongji University.



Shin said the situation is more urgent for Lee, a Seongnam mayor who has been trailing Moon in the polls. Moon, a former DPK chairman, has had a firm lead for weeks.



"The issues over the GIC are not something that can be resolved on our own," Shin said. "It is complicated and involves discussions with the United States and Russia, among others."



Political commentator Hwang Jae-soon agreed.



"The GIC is the most noteworthy legacy of late President Kim Dae-jung and underscoring a need to resume its operation can be effective to bring the voters together for Moon and Lee only until a DPK presidential candidate is chosen," he said. "It will be burdensome for a candidate to oppose the UNSC sanctions, the U.S. pressure and other international measures taken against North Korea in the presidential campaign."



Other experts disagreed, claiming Seoul's suspicions over Pyongyang's exploitation of the GIC to funnel funds to the nuclear program are not proven.



"Moreover, the UNSC does not explicitly state anything about closing the GIC," said Chang Yong-seok, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University.



Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said the issues over the GIC should be separated from national security and ideology.



"It makes more sense to say that the GIC is more related to economic interest," he said. "Moreover, the voters are fed up with ideological disputes surrounding North Korea."




By Chyung Eun-ju





Last year, my two home countries, Korea and Brazil, had a total political meltdown. Corruption is often been prevalent in both countries but it finally has taken the two to the extreme with their respective first female presidents mired in impeachment.

The two countries dealt with improper relations between government and businesses. In a big cauldron of collusion, politics and business are like potato or potahto  the same difference.

In Korea, there have long been cozy relations between the political elite and chaebol, family-oriented big businesses. Reports have it that when Lee Jae-yong, de facto leader of the Samsung business empire, pushed an inter-subsidiary merger in order to succeed his ailing father, Korea's government-controlled pension fund gave him a helping hand.

Some other leading Korea businessmen are also accused of buying the influence of President Park Geun-hye directly or through her proxy and longtime friend, Choi Soon-sil. Park awaits the verdict from the Constitutional Court on her impeachment motion passed by the National Assembly. Bizarre as it may be, Park is just carrying the dishonorable tradition of corruption at top. .

Brazil also has a long series of bribery and corruption scandals. One last development is a notorious case known as Operation Car Wash that began with money laundering at a network of gas stations. The impeached President Dilma Roussef's Worker's Party and the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party of her successor Michel Temer stood behind the shady deals at Petrobras that are found to have helped fund campaigns and buy political support.

The two female leaders' cases involved the cast of a number of aides and chaebol owners. Some of them are being sent to prisons. In the long run, the economy has slowed, unemployment rise, and the people are deeply concerned about their future. Hundreds of thousands protestors hit the streets with burning candles and placards.

Koreans may brace for more bad news  impeachment is hardly the end of the story.

Dilma's supporters strongly argue that a vote for her impeachment was an endorsement for corruption. Dilma was accused of concealing the budget deficit, and the impeachment process went too fast thanks to the conspiracy of her downfall. Michel Temer received $1.6 million through Operation Car Wash and Eduardo Cunha, former speaker of the lower house of Congress, has allegedly received a similar amount. Rousseff claimed that she was innocent, arguing that her predecessors had done the same things without being charged. Many news outlets appreciated in the rise of Temer the surreal elements of Frank Underwood in the "House of Cards." It is no compliment.

Unfortunately, we are still seized by the sense of hopelessness. It is not easy for the government to restore public confidence. I fear the same post-impeachment blues will befall Korea, too.



The writer has lived in Brazil for 18 years and studied at Graded School. She currently studies at Seoul National University and works at Arirang TV. Her email address is: elainechyung@gmail.com.
Government should properly compensate Gaeseong businesses



It has been a year since the government closed the inter-Korean industrial complex in the North Korean city of Gaeseong. On Feb. 10, 2016, Seoul suspended business operations there following Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a long-range missile launch on Feb. 7.



Gaeseong had been the workplace for more than 50,000 North Koreans and 123 small businesses from South Korea. It was a key symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. The closure is not just an irreparable loss for businesses, but also a huge blow to the course of reconciliation of the two Koreas.



Reopening the factory zone has been raised by some heavyweight politicians from the opposition camp, timed with the first year of its closure. In a recent message on social media, leading presidential contender Moon Jae-in pledged to expand the complex and encourage more businesses to enter it and participate in other joint ventures. Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung, another presidential contender, and Sohn Hak-kyu, who just joined the minor opposition People's Party, have also announced their intentions to pursue its reopening.



There is more to consider  besides Gaeseong's special symbol or the situation of the resident companies  before making rash claims about restarting the inter-Korean complex. Proponents of the reopening should also consider the grave national security situation. North Korea's military threats are ongoing. During his first overseas visit, U.S. President Donald Trump's Defense Secretary Jim Mattis vowed an "effective and overwhelming response" if North Korean leader Kim Jong-un uses nuclear weapons.



President Park Geun-hye was hasty in deciding suddenly to terminate the biggest symbol of inter-Korean cooperation, which was established with the long-term goal of preparing for unification. Even Park's first unification minister, Ryu Gil-jae, expressed a negative view about the President's decision during a recent interview, saying that the Gaeseong complex should be reopened. However, it is premature to talk of reopening while North Korea keeps up its nuclear weapons development. Most importantly, reopening is not compatible with the U.N. sanctions against North Korea.



The estimated damages, calculated by an association representing the Gaeseong enterprises, exceeded 1.5 trillion won, and more than 1,000 South Korean workers at the industrial complex lost their jobs. The association said that the government has compensated only about 32 percent of losses so far.



The immediate concern is not reopening the complex but how to help the business owners facing mounting difficulties. It will be hard for the owners ever to trust the government's policies for inter-Korean ventures if the government keeps looking away from their hardships.




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The following companies are subsidiares of Pfizer: AH Robins LLC, AHP Holdings B.V., AHP Manufacturing B.V., Agouron Pharmaceuticals LLC, Alacer, Alpharma Holdings LLC, Alpharma Pharmaceuticals LLC, Alpharma Specialty Pharma LLC, Alpharma USHP LLC, American Food Industries LLC, Anacor Pharmaceuticals, Anacor Pharmaceuticals Inc., Angiosyn, Array BioPharma, Ayerst-Wyeth Pharmaceuticals LLC, BIND Therapeutics Inc., BINESA 2002 S.L., Bamboo Therapeutics, Bamboo Therapeutics Inc., Baxter International - Marketed Vaccines, BioRexis, Bioren, Bioren LLC, Blue Whale Re Ltd., C.E. Commercial Holdings C.V., C.E. Commercial Investments C.V., C.P. Pharmaceuticals International C.V., CICL Corporation, COC I Corporation, Catapult Genetics, Coley Pharmaceutical GmbH, Coley Pharmaceutical Group, Coley Pharmaceutical Group Inc., Continental Pharma Inc., Covx, Covx Technologies Ireland Limited, Cyanamid Inter-American Corporation, Cyanamid de Argentina S.A., Cyanamid de Colombia S.A., Distribuidora Mercantil Centro Americana S.A., Encysive Pharmaceuticals, Encysive Pharmaceuticals Inc., Esperion LUV Development Inc., Esperion Therapeutics, Excaliard Pharmaceuticals, Excaliard Pharmaceuticals Inc., Farminova Produtos Farmaceuticos de Inovacao Lda., Farmogene Productos Farmaceuticos Lda, Ferrosan A/S, Ferrosan International A/S, Ferrosan S.R.L., FoldRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Foldrx Pharmaceuticals, Fort Dodge Manufatura Ltda., G. D. Searle & Co. Limited, G. D. Searle International Capital LLC, G. D. Searle LLC, GI Europe Inc., GI Japan Inc., GenTrac Inc., Genetics Institute LLC, Greenstone LLC, Haptogen Limited, Hospira, Hospira (China) Enterprise Management Co. Ltd., Hospira Adelaide Pty Ltd, Hospira Aseptic Services Limited, Hospira Australia Pty Ltd, Hospira Benelux BVBA, Hospira Chile Limitada, Hospira Deutschland GmbH, Hospira Enterprises B.V., Hospira France SAS, Hospira Healthcare B.V., Hospira Healthcare Corporation, Hospira Healthcare India Private Limited, Hospira Holdings (S.A.) Pty Ltd, Hospira Inc., Hospira Invicta S.A., Hospira Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, Hospira Ireland Sales Limited, Hospira Japan G.K., Hospira Limited, Hospira Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Hospira NZ Limited, Hospira Nordic AB, Hospira Philippines Inc., Hospira Portugal LDA, Hospira Produtos Hospitalares Ltda., Hospira Pte. Ltd., Hospira Pty Limited, Hospira Puerto Rico LLC, Hospira Singapore Pte Ltd, Hospira UK Limited, Hospira Worldwide LLC, Hospira Zagreb d.o.o., ICAgen, Idun Pharmaceuticals, Industrial Santa Agape S.A., InnoPharma, InnoPharma Inc., International Affiliated Corporation LLC, JMI-Daniels Pharmaceuticals Inc., John Wyeth & Brother Limited, Kiinteisto oy Espoon Pellavaniementie 14, King Pharmaceuticals Holdings LLC, King Pharmaceuticals LLC, King Pharmaceuticals Research and Development LLC, Korea Pharma Holding Company Limited, Laboratoires Pfizer S.A., Laboratorios Parke Davis S.L., Laboratorios Pfizer Ltda., Laboratorios Wyeth LLC, Laboratorios Wyeth S.A., Laboratorios Pfizer Lda., MTG Divestitures LLC, Mayne Pharma IP Holdings (Euro) Pty Ltd, Medivation, Medivation Field Solutions LLC, Medivation LLC, Medivation Neurology LLC, Medivation Prostate Therapeutics LLC, Medivation Services LLC, Medivation Technologies LLC, Meridian Medical Technologies Inc., Meridian Medical Technologies Limited, Monarch Pharmaceuticals LLC, Neusentis Limited, NextWave Pharmaceuticals, NextWave Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, P-D Co. 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Ltd., Pfizer PFE Spain B.V., Pfizer PFE Spain Holding S.L., Pfizer PFE Sweden Holding 2 S.a.r.l., Pfizer PFE Sweden Holding S.a.r.l., Pfizer PFE Switzerland GmbH, Pfizer PFE Turkey Holding 1 B.V., Pfizer PFE Turkey Holding 2 B.V., Pfizer PFE UK Holding 4 LP, Pfizer PFE US Holdings 1 LLC, Pfizer PFE US Holdings 2 LLC, Pfizer PFE US Holdings 3 LLC, Pfizer PFE US Holdings 4 LLC, Pfizer PFE US Holdings 5 LLC, Pfizer PFE spol. s r.o., Pfizer PFE Ilaclar Anonim Sirketi, Pfizer Pakistan Limited, Pfizer Parke Davis (Thailand) Ltd., Pfizer Parke Davis Inc., Pfizer Parke Davis Sdn. Bhd., Pfizer Pharm Algerie, Pfizer Pharma GmbH, Pfizer Pharma PFE GmbH, Pfizer Pharmaceutical (Wuxi) Co. 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Ltd., Pfizer Singapore Trading Pte. Ltd., Pfizer Spain Holdings Cooperatief U.A., Pfizer Specialties Limited, Pfizer Strategic Investment Holdings LLC, Pfizer Sweden Partnership KB, Pfizer TRAE Holdings Kft., Pfizer Trading Polska sp.z.o.o., Pfizer Transactions Ireland Unlimited Company, Pfizer Transactions LLC, Pfizer Transactions Luxembourg SARL, Pfizer Transport LLC, Pfizer Ukraine LLC, Pfizer Vaccines LLC, Pfizer Venezuela S.A., Pfizer Venture Investments LLC, Pfizer Ventures LLC, Pfizer Worldwide Services Unlimited Company, Pfizer Zona Franca S.A., Pfizer spol. s r.o., Pharmacia, Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Inc., Pharmacia & Upjohn Company LLC, Pharmacia & Upjohn LLC, Pharmacia & Upjohn S.A. de C.V., Pharmacia Brasil Ltda., Pharmacia Hepar LLC, Pharmacia Holding AB, Pharmacia Inter-American LLC, Pharmacia International B.V., Pharmacia LLC, Pharmacia Limited, Pharmacia Nostrum S.A., Pharmacia South Africa (Pty) Ltd, PowderJect Research Limited, PowderMed, Purepac Pharmaceutical Holdings LLC, Redvax, Renrall LLC, Rinat Neuroscience, Rinat Neuroscience Corp., Roerig Produtos Farmaceuticos Lda., Roerig S.A., Sao Cristovao Participacoes Ltda., Searle Laboratorios Lda., Serenex, Servicios P&U S. de R.L. de C.V., Shiley LLC, Sinergis Farma-Produtos Farmaceuticos Lda., Site Realty Inc., Solinor LLC, Sugen LLC, Tabor LLC, The Pfizer Incubator LLC, Therachon, Thiakis Limited, Treerly Health Co. Ltd, US Oral Pharmaceuticals Pty Ltd, Upjohn Laboratorios Lda., Vesteralens Naturprodukter A/S, Vesteralens Naturprodukter AB, Vesteralens Naturprodukter AS, Vesteralens Naturprodukter OY, Vicuron Holdings LLC, Vinci Farma S.A., W-L LLC, Warner Lambert, Warner Lambert Ilac Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Warner Lambert del Uruguay S.A., Warner-Lambert (Thailand) Limited, Warner-Lambert Company AG, Warner-Lambert Company LLC, Warner-Lambert Guatemala Sociedad Anonima, Warner-Lambert S.A., Whitehall International Inc., Whitehall Laboratories Inc., Wyeth (Thailand) Ltd., Wyeth AB, Wyeth Australia Pty. Limited, Wyeth Ayerst Inc., Wyeth Ayerst S.a r.l., Wyeth Biopharma, Wyeth Canada ULC, Wyeth Consumer Healthcare LLC, Wyeth Europa Limited, Wyeth Farma S.A., Wyeth Holdings LLC, Wyeth Industria Farmaceutica Ltda., Wyeth KFT., Wyeth LLC, Wyeth Lederle S.r.l., Wyeth Lederle Vaccines S.A., Wyeth Pakistan Limited, Wyeth Pharmaceutical Co. 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United Rentals, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as an equipment rental company. It operates in two segments, General Rentals and Specialty. The General Rentals segment rents general construction and industrial equipment includes backhoes, skid-steer loaders, forklifts, earthmoving equipment, and material handling equipment; aerial work platforms, such as boom and scissor lifts; and general tools and light equipment comprising pressure washers, water pumps, and power tools for construction and industrial companies, manufacturers, utilities, municipalities, homeowners, and government entities. The specialty segment rents specialty construction products, including trench safety equipment consists of trench shields, aluminum hydraulic shoring systems, slide rails, crossing plates, construction lasers, and line testing equipment for underground work; power and heating, ventilating, and air conditioning equipment, such as portable diesel generators, electrical distribution equipment, and temperature control equipment; fluid solutions equipment for fluid containment, transfer, and treatment; and mobile storage equipment and modular office space. This segment serves construction companies involved in infrastructure projects, and municipalities and industrial companies. It also sells aerial lifts, reach forklifts, telehandlers, compressors, and generators; construction consumables, tools, small equipment, and safety supplies; and parts for equipment that is owned by its customers, as well as provides repair and maintenance services. The company sells used equipment through its sales force, brokers, website, directly to manufacturers, and at auctions. The company operates a network of 1,360 rental locations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. United Rentals, Inc. was incorporated in 1997 and is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.
The following companies are subsidiares of Cummins: Anvl, Apollo FC Holdings Ltd., Atlantis Acquisitionco Canada Corporation, Atlantis Holdco UK Limited, Brammo, CIFC Worldwide Partner C.V., CMI Africa Holdings BV, CMI CGT Holdings LLC, CMI Canada Financing Ltd., CMI Canada LP, CMI Foreign Holdings B.V., CMI Global Equity Holdings B.V., CMI Global Equity Holdings C.V., CMI Global Holdings B.V., CMI Global Partner 2 C.V., CMI Global Partners B.V., CMI Group Holdings B.V., CMI Group Holdings Cooperatief U.A., CMI International Finance Partner 1 LLC, CMI International Finance Partner 2 LLC, CMI International Finance Partner 3 LLC, CMI International Finance Partner 4 LLC, CMI International Finance Partner 5 LLC, CMI Mexico LLC, CMI Netherlands Holdings B.V., CMI PGI Holdings LLC, CMI PGI International Holdings LLC, CMI Turkish Holdings B.V., CMI UK Finance LP, CMI UK Financing LP, Cherry Island Renewable Energy LLC, Consolidated Diesel Company, Consolidated Diesel Inc., Consolidated Diesel of North Carolina Inc., Cummins (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Cummins (Xiangyang) Machining Co. Ltd., Cummins Africa Middle East (Pty) Ltd., Cummins Afrique de l'Ouest, Cummins Americas Inc., Cummins Angola Lda., Cummins Argentina-Servicios Mineros S.A., Cummins Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Cummins Aust Technologies Pty. Ltd., Cummins BLR LLC, Cummins Battery Systems North America LLC, Cummins Belgium N.V., Cummins Botswana (Pty.) Ltd., Cummins Brasil Ltda., Cummins Burkina Faso SARL, Cummins CDC Holding Inc., Cummins CV Member LLC, Cummins Canada ULC, Cummins Caribbean LLC, Cummins Center of Excellence Singapore Pte. Ltd., Cummins Centroamerica Holding S.de R.L., Cummins Child Development Center Inc., Cummins Colombia S.A.S., Cummins Comercializadora S. de R.L. de C.V., Cummins Corporation, Cummins Cote d'Ivoire SARL, Cummins Czech Republic s.r.o., Cummins Deutschland GmbH, Cummins Diesel International Ltd., Cummins Distribution Holdco Inc., Cummins EMEA Holdings Limited, Cummins East Asia Research & Development Co. Ltd., Cummins Eastern Marine Inc., Cummins Electrified Power Europe Ltd., Cummins Electrified Power NA Inc., Cummins Emission Solutions (China) Co. Ltd., Cummins Emission Solutions Inc., Cummins Empresas Filantropicas, Cummins Energetica Ltda., Cummins Engine (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Cummins Engine (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Cummins Engine (Shanghai) Trading & Services Co. Ltd., Cummins Engine Holding Company Inc., Cummins Engine IP Inc., Cummins Engine Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Cummins Engine Venture Corporation, Cummins Enterprise LLC, Cummins Filtration (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Cummins Filtration GmbH, Cummins Filtration IP Inc., Cummins Filtration Inc., Cummins Filtration International Corp., Cummins Filtration Ltd., Cummins Filtration SARL, Cummins Filtration Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Cummins Filtros Ltda., Cummins Franchise Holdco LLC, Cummins Fuel Systems (Wuhan) Co. Ltd., Cummins Generator Technologies (China) Co. Ltd., Cummins Generator Technologies Americas Inc., Cummins Generator Technologies Germany GmbH, Cummins Generator Technologies India Private Ltd., Cummins Generator Technologies Italy SRL, Cummins Generator Technologies Limited, Cummins Generator Technologies Romania S.A., Cummins Generator Technologies Singapore Pte Ltd., Cummins Ghana Limited, Cummins Ghana Mining Limited, Cummins Global Financing LP, Cummins Global Technologies LLP, Cummins Grupo Comercial Y. de Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Cummins Grupo Industrial S. de R.L. de C.V., Cummins Holland B.V., Cummins Hong Kong Ltd., Cummins India Ltd., Cummins Intellectual Property Inc., Cummins International Finance LLC, Cummins International Holdings Cooperatief U.A., Cummins International Holdings LLC, Cummins Italia S.P.A., Cummins Japan Ltd., Cummins Korea Co. Ltd., Cummins LLC Member Inc., Cummins Ltd., Cummins Maroc SARL, Cummins Middle East FZE, Cummins Mining Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Cummins Mobility Services Inc., Cummins Mongolia Investment LLC, Cummins Mozambique Ltda., Cummins NV, Cummins Namibia Engine Sales and Service PTY LTD, Cummins Natural Gas Engines Inc., Cummins New Zealand Limited, Cummins Nigeria Ltd., Cummins Norte de Colombia S.A.S., Cummins North Africa Regional Office SARL, Cummins Norway AS, Cummins PGI Holdings Ltd., Cummins Power Generation (China) Co. Ltd., Cummins Power Generation (S) Pte. Ltd., Cummins Power Generation (U.K.) Limited, Cummins Power Generation Deutschland GmbH, Cummins Power Generation Inc., Cummins Power Generation Limited, Cummins PowerGen IP Inc., Cummins Research and Technology India Private Ltd., Cummins Romania Srl, Cummins S. de R.L. de C.V., Cummins Sales and Service Korea Co. Ltd., Cummins Sales and Service Philippines Inc., Cummins Sales and Service Private Limited, Cummins Sales and Service Sdn. Bhd., Cummins Sales and Service Singapore Pte. Ltd., Cummins Sinai ve Otomotiv Urunleri Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Cummins South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Cummins South Pacific Pty. Limited, Cummins Southern Plains LLC, Cummins Spain S.L., Cummins Sweden AB, Cummins Technologies India, Cummins Trade Receivables LLC, Cummins Turbo Technologies Limited, Cummins Turkey Motor Guc Sistemleri Sats Servis Limited Sirketi, Cummins U.K. Holdings Ltd., Cummins U.K. Pension Plan Trustee Ltd., Cummins UK Global Holdings Ltd., Cummins UK Holdings LLC, Cummins Vendas e Servicos de Motores e Geradores Ltda., Cummins Venture Corporation, Cummins West Africa Limited, Cummins West Balkans d.o.o. Nova Pasova, Cummins XBorder Operations (Pty) Ltd, Cummins Zambia Ltd., Cummins Zimbabwe Pvt. Ltd., Distribuidora Cummins Centroamerica Costa Rica S.de R.L., Distribuidora Cummins Centroamerica El Salvador S.de R.L., Distribuidora Cummins Centroamerica Guatemala Ltda., Distribuidora Cummins Centroamerica Honduras S.de R.L., Distribuidora Cummins S.A., Distribuidora Cummins Sucursal Paraguay SRL, Distribuidora Cummins de Panama S. de R.L., Dynamo Insurance Company Inc., Efficient Drivetrains, Efficient Drivetrains (Beijing) New Power Technology Co. Ltd., Efficient Drivetrains (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Hilite International, Hydrogenics, Hydrogenics Corporation, Hydrogenics Europe N.V., Hydrogenics GmbH, Hydrogenics Holding GmbH, Hydrogenics USA Inc., Markon Engineering Company Ltd., Nelson Burgess Ltd., Nelson Industries, Newage Engineers GmbH, Newage Ltd. (U.K.), Newage Machine Tools Ltd., OOO Cummins, Petbow Limited, Power Group International (Overseas Holdings) B.V., Power Group International (Overseas Holdings) Ltd., Power Group International Ltd., Quickstart Energy Projects SpA, Shanghai Cummins Trade Co. Ltd., TOO Cummins, Taiwan Cummins Sales & Services Co. Ltd., Worldwide Partner CV Member LLC, Wuxi Cummins Turbo Technologies Co. Ltd., Wuxi New Energy Automotive Technologies Co. Ltd., and ZED Connect Inc..

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Everest Re Group, Ltd., through its subsidiaries, provides reinsurance and insurance products in the United States, Bermuda, and internationally. The company operates through Reinsurance Operations and Insurance Operations segments. The Reinsurance Operations segment writes property and casualty reinsurance; and specialty lines of business through reinsurance brokers, as well as directly with ceding companies in the United States, Bermuda, Ireland, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The Insurance Operations segment writes property and casualty insurance directly, as well as through brokers, surplus lines brokers, and general agents in Bermuda, Canada, Europe, South America, Canada, Chile, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The company also provides treaty and facultative reinsurance products; admitted and non-admitted insurance products; and property and casualty reinsurance and insurance coverages, including marine, aviation, surety, errors and omissions liability, directors' and officers' liability, medical malpractice, mortgage reinsurance, other specialty lines, accident and health, and workers' compensation products. In addition, it offers commercial property and casualty insurance products through wholesale and retail brokers, surplus lines brokers, and program administrators. Everest Re Group, Ltd. was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.
Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. provides financial products and services in South Korea and internationally. The company operates through six segments: Banking, Credit Card, Securities, Life Insurance, Credit, and Others. It offers retail banking services, including demand, savings, and fixed deposit-taking; checking accounts; mortgage and home equity, and retail lending; electronic banking and automatic teller machines (ATM); and bill paying, payroll and check-cashing, currency exchange, and wire fund transfer services. The company also provides corporate banking services, such as investment banking, real estate financing, overseas real estate and development project financing, infrastructure and structured financing, equity/venture investments, mergers and acquisitions consulting; securitization and derivatives services comprising securities and derivative products, and foreign exchange trading; and working capital loans and facilities loans. In addition, it is involved in treasury and investment activities in international capital markets consisting of foreign currency-denominated securities trading, foreign exchange trading and services, trade-related financial services, international factoring services, and foreign banking operations. Further, the company offers trust account management, securities brokerage, and asset management services, as well as leasing and equipment financing, savings banking, loan collection and credit reporting, collective investment administration, private equity investment, and financial system development services. As of December 31, 2021, it operated a network of 784 service centers; 5,234 ATMs; 7 cash dispensers; and 85 digital kiosks. Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.
Symantec Corporation provides cybersecurity products, services, and solutions worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Enterprise Security and Consumer Digital Safety. The Enterprise Security segment provides endpoint and information protection products, including endpoint security, advanced threat protection, and information protection solutions and their related support services; and network and Web security products, such as network security, Web security, and cloud security solutions and their related support services. It also offers consulting, premium support, and cyber security services. The Consumer Digital Safety segment provides Norton Security solutions as a subscription service providing protection for devices against malware, viruses, adware, and ransomware on various platforms; and LifeLock identity theft protection solution that provides identity monitoring, alerts, and restoration to its customers, as well as Norton Wi-Fi Privacy services. The company serves business, government, and public-sector customers; small, medium, and large enterprises; and individuals, households, and small businesses. It markets and sells its products and related services through direct sales force, direct marketing and co-marketing programs, e-commerce and telesales platforms, distributors, Internet-based resellers, system builders, Internet service providers, employee benefits providers, wireless carriers, retailers, original equipment manufacturers, and retail and online stores. Symantec Corporation has strategic alliance with Ernst & Young LLP to help organizations address intellectual property and data, as well as manage cyber risk. The company was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
The Blue Jays have struck a minor-league deal with outfielder Jose Tabata, according to Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (via Twitter). Other terms of the arrangement remain unreported at this time.

Still just 28 years old, Tabata will be looking to spark a career revival in Toronto. Once a highly promising young talent, he was shipped to the Dodgers in the middle of the 2015 season in a bad-contract swap that sent Michael Morse back to the Pirates.

After two solid seasons to start his MLB career with the Bucs, Tabata signed an extension that the club hoped would deliver surplus value over its lengthy term (six guaranteed years with three options). But he struggled in the first season after signing and never developed into more than a part-time player in Pittsburgh. Hopes were raised by a solid 2013 campaign, in which he slashed .282/.342/.429 over 341 plate appearances, but Tabata fell off sharply thereafter.

Los Angeles paid down the remainder of the deal when it cut Tabata loose last summer, wrapping things up with a $250K buyout of a 2017 club option. He had failed to earn a return to the majors after a tepid start to the 2016 season at Triple-A, though he did exhibit his typically high-quality approach during a stint in the Mexican League. In 123 plate appearances for Quintana Roo, Tabata slashed .320/.439/.410 while drawing 18 walks against just 13 strikeouts.
Multi-award winning Nigerian Afro-Soul diva, Aramide is set to storm Ghana to promote her SUITCASE album.

Armed with Songs like FunMi Lowo ft. Sir Dauda,  Love Me  ft. Adekunle Gold and Funmi Lowo Remix featuring Sound Sultan and Koker, the talented musicians first body of work has topped various charts for several weeks in Nigeria.

In addition to her award winning single, Iwo Nikan which talks about unconditional love, there is I Dont Care an up-tempo rendition, which tells off the haters of her relationship.

The Nigerian songstress will be in Ghana for a media tour on the 8th of March to 11th of March. The tour will be mainly centered on expanding her fan base in the country. Shell be flooding social media and newspapers with more of her interviews while she moves from TV stations to radio and to the clubs.

Watch FunMi Lowo featuring Sound Sultan and Koker below, follow @aramidemusic on all social media and visit www.aramidemusic.com for more information.
One does not know the value of what he has until he loses it. Brother Martin Amidu, like His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo, is in my estimation, if not factually, a man of proven integrity who is also an invaluable asset to Ghana. His track record dating from the day when Alfred Agbesi Woyome was publicly known to have swindled Ghana of GHC51.2 million until now proves how he has the collective interests of mother Ghana and fellow Ghanaians deeply at heart.

Could we innocently let such a precious asset or gem waste away without making use of it, considering our sincere expectation to rescue Ghana from her economic rot intentionally or inadvertently brought about by former President Mahama and his NDC government and party? No, we couldnt, and we shouldnt!

Many were the Ghanaians with me included that were very hopeful that His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo was going to engage Brother Martin Amidus services in his (the Presidents) resolute determination to curtail, if not completely wipe out, corruption, the bane of Ghanas economic emancipation, from the system.

However bleak the chances are for the President to tap into Brother Martin Amidus unique qualities, by failure to have appointed him to any ministry having to do with seriously fighting the institutional corruption in Ghana, I say, it is never too late to involve him in the government. It is said, better late than never but better never late.

Does it matter how corruption is fought using legal means and people of Ghanaian descent or foreigners to get the job well done? Does it matter if we use a Ghanaian who is not a member of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to fight the canker provided the person will honestly, and by the fear of God, do the job exactly as he is tasked with to the satisfaction of the Ghanaian masses?

The President will need honest, dynamic and dedicated persons like Brother Martin Amidu, Professor Frimpong Boateng, Kofi Basoah, Joe Diggie etc. to be able to succeed in his drive to resurrect Ghana from her current socio-economic comatose.

Unless Brother Martin Amidu has himself declined to play any direct role in the government of NPP led by His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo, I will strongly implore the President to seriously consider offering him a job in his government.

The fact that he is an NDC cadre does not disqualify him from serving in the current NPP government to do the job he knows best and selflessly performs with distinction. Was it not for the love of Ghana that he single-handedly stood up to fight the create, loot and share judgment debt corruption masterminded by Alfred Agbesi Woyome and his NDC co-conspirators? Did his initiative and determination not pose to him the risk of losing his job as the Attorney General yet; he proceeded with his good intentions which finally cost him his job?

How many people of such enviable character bordering on love of ones nation could do as he did knowing he risked losing his elevated position? He placed the collective interests of the nation and the people above his personal and parochial party interests.

Do us in the NPP fear his presence in our government and if so, what are we afraid of about him being a member of the government to help successfully fight corruption in the country?

As well as having more highly qualified persons, experts, technocrats, engineers with fewer bureaucrats to help bring about the successful resuscitation of Ghana from her coma, we need men and women of integrity to play positive role in accelerating the socio-economic recovery of Ghana. This is my view hence itching to see Brother Martin Amidu play an important role in the government of NPP under His Excellency the Incorruptible President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo.

Could anyone help bring this request of mine to the attention of His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo?

Rockson Addo

(Written on Saturday, 11 February 2017)
A former deputy Minister of Communications under the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, Felix Kwakye-Ofosu, believes the current government did not look hard enough for the cars it claims are unaccounted for at the presidency before jumping to conclusions.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, the former Deputy Minister said the government jumped to conclusions on the matter merely for political propaganda.

The Director of Communications at the Presidency, Eugine Arhin, had said there were at least 208 cars unaccounted for at the presidency's car pool, and that the President was left with only 10-year-old BMW for official use.

Government later made available a documents detailing a list of 173 serviceable vehicles left behind by the NDC administration indicating that there were four bulletproof vehicles for use by the President as claimed by the NDC.

The NDC also released a document with 641 vehicles which were listed and properly accounted for saying they were captured in the handing over notes.

Mr. Ofosu Kwakye recounted that the current government's side of the transition team had an Executive Access Committee, chaired by Nii Ayikoi Otoo, which was taken around to where the 370 vehicles were kept.

He also noted that it is not only at the Flagstaff House where cars belonging to the presidency are kept. There are vehicles that belong to the Presidency that are used by ministers and deputy ministers so you would find them at the various ministries, departments and agencies.

Mr. Ayikoi Otoo's committee was given a total of 370 vehicles and they inspected each of these vehicles. They were taken to all the places where these vehicles are kept and they took receipt of 370 vehicles. Now the outstanding vehicles were accounted for as per the documents released yesterday, he revealed

Arhin didnt make thorough checks

Mr. Kwakye-Ofosu asserted that, the handover notes for the current government had a list of vehicles with persons or units within the presidency who are using these vehicles, but added that it does appear to me that they [government] are unprepared to peruse the various sets of documentation.

According to him, all government had to do was to look through the various agencies, but in his view, it is obvious he [Eugine Arhin] didn't have access to all the information regarding this matter. He should have taken his time and allowed the people at the Transport section of the Flagstaff House to be properly engaged for instance, I don't know if he has spoken to the Ayikoi Otoo committee.

If they were not minded to do any political propaganda, all they could have done was to cross-reference against the list that has been provided, and whether there are gaps, then you contact the specific individuals or units, Mr. Kwakye Ofosu stated.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
The Ford Expedition gifted to Mr John Mahama when he was in office as president has is missing from the fleet of vehicles bequeathed to the Nana Akufo-Addo government by the immediate past government, Acting Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Scheme, Nana Boakye, has said.

He told Peace FM's morning show 'Kokrokoo' on Friday that "cars that are there [Flagstaff House] as I talk now are 173. In fact, the Ford Expedition is not part. That car is not part of the fleet of vehicles.

"Even the Ford Expedition that was given as a gift to the President  and he said that its been added to the fleet of vehicles at the presidency ...and that it is for the government and has been registered, and so its part of the State cars - is not part of the vehicles. Its not there.

So, somebody should come and show us where the vehicles are, he demanded.

Mr Mahama received the car gift from Burkinabe Contractor Djibril Kanazoe who, was, in turn, awarded some Government of Ghana contracts, including one to wall Ghanas mission in his home country.

There is currently a back-and-forth between the Akufo-Addo government and the erstwhile Mahama administration concerning the number of state vehicles left at the presidency after the change in government. Nana Akufo-Addos press secretary Eugene Arhin revealed that 208 of those cars were missing.

The former government subsequently released a statement on Thursday saying it left behind 641 cars and dared the new government to point out the alleged missing ones.

Meanwhile, former Deputy Communications Minister Felix Kwakye Ofosu has said a transition committee led by former Attorney General and Minister of Justice Nii Ayikoi Otoo, took physical inventory of all 641 cars used at the presidency before the Mahama government left office.

Responding to a comment by Administrator General David Yaro that no such inventory was done, Mr Kwakye Ofosu told Nabil Ahmed Rufai in an interview on Class91.3FMs mid-day news 12Live: That is not correct. I regret that I have to say this: like Ive told you, Mr Ayikoi Otoo and a gentleman called Elvis Omane Agyei, who I believe should be speaking on this matter, were taken round to where these vehicles were.

For instance, I was given a Toyota Avensis, which I used as Deputy Minister of Communications. It came from the Office of the President but it was given to me through the transport officer at the Ministry of Communications, so, when I was leaving, I parked it at the Ministry of Communications. If the Office of the President requires it, it will call for it.  Some of the vehicles are with the Judicial Service, some of them are with agencies like the Ghana AIDS Commission, which operates under the Office of the President. Some of them are at regional coordinating councils, some of them are at various ministries, departments and agencies. But Mr Ayikoi Otoos committee were taken round to physically inspect each of these vehicles, they were also taken to a place called Point Six, which is the name given to a place where broken down or unserviceable vehicles belonging to the presidency are kept, and they took physical inventory of these vehicles. Therefore, it is surprising that the Administrator General will make this commentary, it is entirely possible that the NPP side of the transition team sidelined him, and, so, perhaps, he is unaware of this physical inventory taken beyond the list that was given him.
The Youth Wing of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) says it will embark on a massive demonstration to protest against what it termed the culture of intimidation, fear mongering, general harassment, dismissals and seizure of private properties of NDC officials and members by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.

National executives of the NDC, it would be recalled, earlier issued a statement signed by the party's General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, warning the Akufo-Addo administration to desist from 'lawlessly' seizure of private properties 'belonging' to officials of the immediate-past NDC administration, as well victimization of their supporters and members.

This was after some members of the ruling government had reportedly locked up some state agencies and seized some vehicles and other assets believed to be owned by the state, which were in the possession of NDC executives.

Kofi Adams, National Campaign Coordinator for the 2016 Elections, is currently being investigated by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) over some five 'stolen' cars allegedly belonging to the state.

Numerous state properties, mainly vehicles, are reportedly missing from departments, institutions and ministries upon the NDC leaving office.

More than 200 vehicles in the presidential pool at the seat of government, the Flagstaff House, according to the Director of Communications of President Akufo-Addo, Eugene Arhin, are missing.

News about the sudden disappearance of numerous state assets under the previous Mahama administration has generated controversy in the country.

Meanwhile, the Youth Wing of the NDC, in a statement to announce its planned demonstration, which is expected to take place on February 24th, 2017, indicated that the purpose of our planned peaceful walk through some major streets of the capital, Accra is to draw the general public and international community's attention to the culture of intimidation, fear mongering and general harassment, dismissals and seizure of private properties of NDC officials and members  a lawless culture that has been introduced by the New Patriotic Party government since assuming power recently.

A statement signed by the National Youth Organizer of the NDC, Siidi Abubakar Musah, the opposition party's youth, said that the planned mass walk by scores of Ghanaian youth in Accra is accordance with the Public Order Act.

By Melvin Tarlue
Our chiefs occupy a place in our psyches that is difficult to define.

We offer them respect and loyalty automatically without pausing to ask ourselves why exactly we are doing so. Strange as that may seem, theres nothing we can do about it. For our relationship with them was determined long before we ourselves were born. Our ancestors realised that our ethnic groups would only survive and prosper if they had the proper leadership to be able to face the ever-present dangers posed by hostile neighbours, natural disasters or any of the other menaces that we are exposed to, due to our location in the tropics.

That last bit about our location in the tropics is relevant to what this piece is about  galamsey. Survival in the tropics has its own peculiar challenges. Diseases are more widespread here than elsewhere on the globe. Ditto crop failures. Drought. Floods. Poor food storage.

And as the sun gets closer to extinguishing humanity by punishing humanitys suicidal addiction to the creation of emissions that cause global warming, it has become obvious that we in the tropics may well be the first to go. If you doubt that, just look at the Sahara Desert. Apparently, there are underground waterways beneath those huge mounds and dunes of burning sand. Is that probable? I am afraid it is.

When global warming begins to bite really hard, there will be water wars.

What we are seeing in the Mediterranean Sea  thousands of people drowning weekly in the cold sea, as they flee from unbearable conditions at home and try to reach what they hope will be a better life in Europe  will become the norm.

And our social cohesion will dissolve into thin air. Unless we have good leadership at the local level. But can we count on that?

From the evidence to hand, we cannot be sure that we shall be offered any leadership at all. The evidence? Yes  the destruction wrought by galamsey on once-mighty rivers such as Bia, Tano, Ankobra, Pra, Ofin, Birem, Ayensu and Densu (to name a few) indicates clearly that by the time global warming unleashes its full effects on us, we ourselves would have done half its diabolical job for it.

The people of Ghana will have no water to drink. And even if they did, they would have no food to eat, because plants need water to grow, and when the rivers dry up, the soil loses its ability to absorb water from the underground waterways fed by the rivers, and cannot transmit moisture to plants through their roots.

Now, the strange thing is that our institution of chieftaincy was created with well-tested social tools that make it impossible for any chief not to know what goes on in his locality. In the Akan areas (which I know well) a chief is supposed to work with a council of elders (MPANINFO) who are made up of the heads of families or clans (Abusua). Every person in a village or town belongs, by birth, to an Abusua and if he/she encounters any problem in relation to how he/she has been treated by someone else, he/she first goes to tell his own elder (Abusuapanin) who may approach the elder of the person against whom a complaint has been made. It is only when such informal attempts to solve the problem have failed that the matter reaches the chief and his council of elders.

In other words, no situation that is potentially capable of causing a conflict in the society can be hidden from all the elders and the chief of a town or village. At least, one person in authority would hear of it and if he is a person of responsibility, he would convey the information to the chief, with a view to resolving the problem.

That is why a lot of people think that some chiefs are in league with the galamsey operators in the destructive enterprise with which they are laying waste to the waterways and forests of Ghana. So, I was absolutely delighted when the President of the Republic of Ghana, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, appealed to the National House of Chiefs to help eradicate the galamsey phenomenon from our society.

QUOTE [The President]  expressed concern about the involvement of some traditional rulers in activities that affect the environment, especially illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.

There are occasions whenthere are chiefs who are complicit in the decisions that are taken about galamsey operations, he saidHe therefore asked the chiefs to rather take initiatives that would protect the environment.

I think it's important that all of us in Ghana recognize that if we don't make a stand against this wilful degradation of our environment, sooner than later, we will all get up and find we have devastated the country and its future...The president stressed the need for all Ghanaians to make sure that we bring this phenomenon under control.

He  [urged] the National House of Chiefs to support proposals his government intends to make to Parliament to control the degradation of the environment.UNQUOTE [DAILY GUIDE 8 February, 2017]

Indeed, the chiefs can start the campaign for eradicating galamsey off by consciously reviving the Asafo groups that used to play such an important role in our society but which have been allowed to die in many places due to sheer neglect.

In the past, the Asafo were organised in military formations and were the first line of defence against marauders and encroachers of all types. But instead of integrating them into the national crime prevention programme, our governments, following the British practice blindly, isolated them from the police.

Now, the people of our towns and villages are totally confused. When they observe crime, they report it to the police. But they cant do anything if the police dont act on their complaints! The time has come for an imaginative new approach to galamsey. Thank God for Nana Addos government.

cameronduodu.com

By Cameron Duodu
The death toll in the renewed chieftaincy clashes in Bimbilla in the Nanumba North District of the Northern Region has reached 11.

The police have found nine bodies in addition to the previous two, increasing the number to 11, with some others sustaining various degrees of injury and several houses set ablaze.

According to the Northern Regional Police Command, 17 persons have been arrested in connection with the latest deadly clashes.

Those who were injured  some children, two men and three women  are receiving treatment at the Bimbilla Hospital.

The suspects picked up so far are said to be largely members of the opposing family who reportedly engaged the security agencies in a gun battle when they went to the area to restore calm.

Some residents are said to have sought refuge at the Bimbilla police station since tension is still high despite the security presence.

It has been confirmed that some women and children have even started fleeing the area.

Northern Regional Police Public Relations Officer (PRO) ASP Ebenezer Tetteh, who confirmed the arrest to DAILY GUIDE, said the suspects would be transferred to Tamale for further investigation.

According to him, after police investigations, the suspects would be arraigned before court in Tamale.

ASP Ebenezer Tetteh hinted that there was a high possibility that the death toll could increase because more bodies could be found in the bush.

Two persons were confirmed dead in renewed chieftaincy clashes in Bimbilla in the Nanumba North District of the Northern Region on Thursday.

Information available to DAILY GUIDE revealed that Naa Dasan, the regent of Bimbilla Traditional Area, wanted to enskin a sub-chief called Kanbong Naa (chief warrior) against the advice of the City Council and the police.

He, however, reportedly went ahead, which resulted in a clash with the opposing side.

According to ASP Tetteh, there had been severe exchange of fire and so military and police personnel had been deployed to the area from Tamale.

Touching on those arrested, he said, They were caught either in the act or contributed remotely in the criminal act, adding that more persons would be picked up if they establish their involvement in the incident.

The Minister of the Interior, Ambrose Dery, has extended the curfew hours in Bimbilla from 4pm to 6am with immediate effect.

From Eric Kombat, Bimbilla
Cairo (AFP) - The Islamic State group in Egypt claims to have executed five men it accused of working for the army, which is battling the jihadists in the Sinai Peninsula.

In a series of photos published Friday on the secure messaging app Telegram, five men presented as army "elements" are seen lying face down on the ground before a militant shoots them in the back of their heads with an assault rifle, the SITE intelligence group said.

Jihadists have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 unleashed a bloody crackdown on his supporters.

The crackdown decimated the Islamist movement and killed hundreds of his followers, and set off a jihadist insurgency that has killed hundreds of security personnel.

Most of the attacks have taken place in the Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip, but attacks have also been carried out in other areas including Cairo.

The Egyptian army announced on Friday that it had killed "500 terrorists" since it launched a wide-ranging security operation in the Sinai in September 2015.

In October 2015, IS claimed the downing of a plane carrying Russian tourists home from the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which killed all 224 people on board.
Some leading members of the opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC),attended One week celebration of the late Fmr. Sunyani Municipal Chief Executive Officer (MCE).

The Family and friends of late Fmr. MCE, Hon.Kwasi Oppong Ababio, on Friday February 10, gathered at R/C primary school in Abesim a suburb of Sunyani to commemorate the one-week anniversary of the MCE passing.

Politicians like Johnson Kwadwo Asiedu Nketia popularly known as General Mosquito,General Secretary of the NDC,Solomon Nkansah,Communications Director of the National Democratic Congress ( NDC),Brong Ahafo Regional chairman of the National Democratic Congress(NDC), Opoku Atuahene and some NPP Regional executives were at the week celebration to sympathize with family and friends.

According to Metro 90.5FM, the family has set 29th April for his funeral.

Brother of the late MCE. Apostle K. Osei Anane in an interview with Metro 90.5FM. Said "it is not true that my Brother (Fmr MCE) fell on the ground at his residence when he was watching Television or die at his residence and later was quickly rushed to the Sunyani Regional Hospital after he complained of stomach pains, as it is trending on the social media".

Narrating the incident, Apostle K. Osei Anane "My brother(late Hon. Kwasi Oppong) did not complained of stomach pains but he complained of not physically fit so he was the one who drove his car from home to the hospital and he was accompany by his driver but on their way that his driver take over when he complained that he can't drive".

He appealed to family members and friends of the late Fmr. MCE to remain calm and not listen to the fake trending news.

Apostle K. Osei Anane, thanks Regional executives and supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) party for the love they are showing to the family.

He stated that the family is putting things together to give a befitting burial to the late MCE,which would be on Friday, 29th February 2017.

Apostle K. Osei Anane said the late Fmr. MCE survived by a wife and four children,three girls one boy.

Former Sunyani Municipal Chief Executive Officer(MCE), who contested the Sunyani East seat on the ticket of the NDC, in the 2016 Elections, Hon. Kwasi Oppong Ababio, passed away on Saturday, January 21st 2017, at the Regional hospital,after he complained of not physically fit.

By..Nana Antwi Boasiako, Metro 90.5FM-Sunyani.
11.02.2017 LISTEN

The Vice President of the Republic, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, left Ghana on Friday February 10, 2017 to attend the fifth annual World Government Summit to be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from February 12 to 14, 2017.

Under the theme Shaping Future Governments, the World Government Summit will explore the future of government in the coming decades.

The Vice President would take part in discussions on The development and Future of Africa and deliberate on the future of the African continent.

The World Government Summit is a global platform dedicated to the enhancement of government around the world. It convenes over 3,000 government leaders and policy makers, private sector executives and renowned experts from worldwide.

The Vice President will return to Ghana on Wednesday February 15, 2017.
A public interest campaigner has faulted the decision by former Attorney General, Martin Amidu, to discontinue the pursuit of a corruption case at the Supreme Court.

Kwame Jantuah, who is CEO of the African Energy Consortium Ltd, says the decision may come back to haunt the Citizen Vigilante if the current administration also stalls in the retrieval of over GHE50 million paid unlawfully (according to the court) to businessman, Alfred Woyome.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted a request by the former Attorney-General and struck out an application he had filed to cross-examine Mr Woyome in the long-drawn-out GHE51million judgement debt saga.

According to Mr Amidu, because there is a change in government, he would leave the matter to new Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Gloria Akuffo to retrieve the money.

I have this morning 4th November 2016 filed an application at the Supreme Court for leave to examine the judgment debtor as the citizen public interest plaintiff in favour of whom the case was decided for the Republic of Ghana, Mr Amidu had said in the application.

Mr Amidu had applied to cross-examine Mr Woyome following what he said was a deliberate effort by the then ruling National Democratic congress (NDC) to retrieve the money from the businessman.

Mr Woyome is a known NDC financier, hence when the then Attorney-General, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong decided to discontinue oral examination of Mr Woyome in connection with the judgment debt, Mr Amidu filed to cross-examine the judgement debtor.

Martin Amidu

The Supreme Court had been considering Mr Amidus request when he asked to withdraw it.

Speaking on Newsfile Saturday, February 11, 2017, Mr Jantuah said although the reasons Mr Amidu gave to discontinuing to cross-examine Mr Woyome was worth respecting, it defeats his initial motivation for single-handedly taking up the matter.

One of his reasons is that he knows the New Patriotic Party (NPP) will prosecute the matter. It would be a lost opportunity if so happens that this government is unable to prosecute Woyome...So I would have thought he will take the advantage for Ghanaians' sake and go ahead with the case and question Woyome, said Mr Jantuah.

He said Mr Amidu should have pursued the matter to its logical conclusion  ensure that the moneys retrieved.

If they [NPP government] goes on with the way it has gone on like the NDC government I think it is a lost an opportunity, he said.

However, a fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and lecturer at the University of Ghana, Prof Ransford Gyampo, who was also on the show, backed Mr Amidus decision.

Public trust and confidence in institutions is very key to our effort to build strong institutions. He [Amidu] has trust and confidence in the Attorney-General [Gloria Akuffo] and he believes that they [NPP government] dont suffer huge legitimacy deficits...so be it, he said.

Good decision

However, a fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and lecturer at the University of Ghana, Prof Ransford Gyampo, who was also on the show, backed Mr Amidus decision.

Public trust and confidence in institutions is very key to our effort to build strong institutions. He [Amidu] has trust and confidence in the Attorney-General [Gloria Akuffo] and he believes that they [NPP government] dont suffer huge legitimacy deficits...so be it, he said.

According to him, the onus is now on the new government to uphold the confidence Mr Amidu and the public have reposed in it.

Imprudent

However, a former NDC MP for North Dayi, George Loh thinks Mr Amidus decision to hold back on the judgement debt case is reckless.

Speaking on Newsfile, Mr Loh said I was of the opinion that whatever he [Amidu] was doing was to aid the process and that he wanted to expedite the move to retrieve the money.

And so for him to just curtail that and say that a new government has come in and I want them to come in I find that imprudent, he said.

He said Mr Amidu had the duty to ensure the process he started came to a successful end.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | George Nyavor | [email protected]
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday defended his choice of former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad to be the UN peace envoy to Libya after the United States blocked the appointment.

The decision to put forward his candidacy "was solely based on Mr Fayyad's recognized personal qualities and his competence for that position," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

"United Nations staff serve strictly in their personal capacity. They do not represent any government or country," he said.

Guterres had informed the Security Council earlier this week of his intention to appoint Fayyad and set a deadline of Friday for members to raise objections.

Diplomats had said they expected the appointment to be approved, but US Ambassador Nikki Haley decided to oppose it.

Haley said in a statement that the United States did not "support the signal this appointment would send within the United Nations," where the state of Palestine does not have full membership.

"For too long the UN has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," she said in a statement.

Dujarric said no Israeli and no Palestinian had served in a high-level post at the United Nations and that "this is a situation that the secretary-general feels should be corrected," based on personal merit and competencies of the candidates.

Appointments of the UN special representatives of the secretary-general require the unanimous backing of the 15-member council.

Fayyad, 64, was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013, and also served as finance minister twice.

He had been tapped to replace Martin Kobler of Germany, who has been the Libya envoy since November 2015.

Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi condemned the US decision as "blatant discrimination."

US President Donald Trump and Haley have criticized the United Nations for adopting a resolution in December that demanded an end to Israeli settlement building.

"Going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies," Haley said.
Students of KNUST Senior High School in Kumasi have received a boost to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) education as their predecessors augment stock in the schools computer laboratory.

The 1991 Year Group has donated ten brand new computers and accessories worth Gh20,000 to their alma mater.

Chairman of the group, Reverend Isaac Opoku Agyeman, told Nhyira News at the presentation ceremony the gesture is meant to encourage teaching and learning of ICT in the school.

We have come to our old school to present computers, as a year group. We heard the school is having limited computers, so we contributed and bought ten computers from Canada to augment the existing ones, he emphasized.

Assistant Headmaster at the KNUST SHS , Daniel Boamah-Duku, was full of praise for the donors.

He was optimistic the gesture will help the school realize its one- to- one student- computer ratio.

We are grateful for the kind gesture by the 1991 Year Group. Though the school is procuring some computers; we need more to match the increasing students population, explained Mr. Duku.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday defended his choice of former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad to be the UN peace envoy to Libya after the United States blocked the appointment.

The decision to put forward his candidacy "was solely based on Mr Fayyad's recognized personal qualities and his competence for that position," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

"United Nations staff serve strictly in their personal capacity. They do not represent any government or country," he said.

Guterres had informed the Security Council on Wednesday of his intention to appoint Fayyad and set a deadline of Friday for members to raise objections.

Diplomats had said they expected the appointment to be approved, but US Ambassador Nikki Haley decided to oppose it.

Haley said in a statement that the United States did not "support the signal this appointment would send within the United Nations," where the state of Palestine does not have full membership.

"For too long the UN has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," she said in a statement.

The Palestinians were upgraded to non-member observer status at the United Nations in 2012.

Dujarric said no Israeli and no Palestinian had served in a high-level post at the United Nations and that "this is a situation that the secretary-general feels should be corrected," based on personal merit and competencies of the candidates.

The UN chief seeks the unanimous backing of all 15 council members for appointments of his special representatives to conflict areas.

Surprise for Guterres

The US decision to block the appointment surprised Guterres who did not receive indications of any clear opposition to his choice during preliminary consultations.

It was the UN chief's first appointment of an envoy to a conflict area since he took over from Ban Ki-moon on January 1.

"Based on the information available to him at the time, the secretary-general had the perception, now proven wrong, that the proposal would be acceptable to Security Council members," Dujarric told AFP.

Fayyad, 64, was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013, and also served as finance minister twice.

He had been tapped to replace Martin Kobler of Germany, who has been the Libya envoy since November 2015.

Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi condemned the US decision as "blatant discrimination."

US President Donald Trump and Haley have criticized the United Nations for adopting a resolution in December that demanded an end to Israeli settlement building.

"Going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies," Haley said.

French Ambassador Francois Delattre said he had supported Fayyad's appointment, praising him as a public figure with "great qualities who is unanimously well-regarded for his experience and expertise."

"France renews its full confidence to the secretary-general to identify the person who will represent the United Nations on the Libya issue, where the international community must be mobilized now more than ever," he added.

Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon applauded the US decision, describing it as "the beginning of a new era where the US stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish state."

The council will discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Wednesday, the same day that Trump is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
11.02.2017 LISTEN

The University of Cape Coast is a university in Ghana. The university was established in 1962 out of a dire need for highly qualified and skilled manpower in education and was affiliated to the University of Ghana. It was established to train graduate teachers for second cycle institutions such as teacher training colleges and technical institutions, a mission that the two existing universities were unequipped to fulfill. Since its establishment, the university has added to its functions the training of education planners, administrators, agriculturalists and health care professionals. In pursuance of its mission, the university restructured its degree program from BA, BSc and BEd in education to B.A/BSc with non-education content and a BEd, a professional qualification in Education.

The university now offers courses in BA,B.Com, BEd, BSc, LLB, MA, MBA, MCom, MEd,MSc, MPhil, MBChB, OD, and PhD.

The University of Ghana which is the premier and largest University was established in 1948 whereas the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology was established in 1952. These two universities are 14 and 10 years older than the University of Cape Coast respectively. Technology and a whole lot of factors affect change in this 21st century thus making it very difficult to differentiate between a teenager of 14 years and an adult of 24 since body growth in our times is not solely dependent on age but other social, biological and other factors: one could meet a 14 year old girl with bigger hips, breasts and a body comparable to that of a full grown adult whereas on the other side, one could meet an adult of 28 with smaller breasts, hips and a body comparable to that of a teen. My 11 year old cousin and I are a perfect example of such contrasting growth. This is to caution those who will be doing age comparisons between the above mentioned schools in relation to their respective development levels to have a deeper thought and know that age is just a number, the era where we used to say life begins at 40 is no more because even at 25, people have reached the last stage of the Abraham Maslow's growth pyramid. Your age is never an excuse as to why you remain stunted while others grow. Ashesi University, one of the private Universities leading in terms of infrastructure, academics and etc is a very young university yet has reached this height so instead of battling with age differences, let's treat the sick system and acknowledge that we have not been fair to time.

"Nothing in this school has changed in these long years except some few buildings here and there"

" Those at the administration get to sit under air conditions whereas the very students whose monies are used to run the school sit in this heat not to talk of the heat under which lecturers are forced to teach"

"Keep quiet and suffer, we were under this same conditions yet we survived. It is some of these conditions that make the University, a University of Choice"

"I will never allow any of my family members to attend this school after me except a very stubborn child of mine"

"If I had a second chance, I won't be in this school"

"If only my parents could afford, I would have left for another school"

These are some of the disturbing comments you hear from lecturers, students and alumni everyday. To some, things can never change and these difficult situations are what make the University distinct and a University of Choice no wonder some have nicknamed the University, "the University of Constant Confusion " and surprisingly most take pride in this nickname and even shamelessly debate out with colleagues in other schools how these tough conditions make the University better than others. When did discomfort start triumphing over comfort? When did bad become better than good? When did stunted growth start rubbing shoulders with a nourished being? But why am I not surprised? In the minds of most Africans, the tougher the situation, the higher you are likely to get to your destination no wonder a student was reported dead few years back for falling from the roof top of a four storey during prayer sessions with other people getting bitten by snakes and scorpions because they chose a "jungle" as a better place to pray to get heard. Did Jesus Christ, whom Christians follow even do these? This comes back to confirm my statement that most Africans think the tougher the situation, the higher you are likely to get to your destination. Why then are we still not grabbing all the awards and rankings but staring sadly as others in comfort grab? We need a repositioning of our minds on certain things to appreciate the fact that, discomfort can never be better than comfort same as darkness can never be better than light.

Several years have passed yet same structures stand in the University with few other structures joining in. Students always rant that they pay higher fees than colleagues in other public universities yet are placed in the worst conditions. In an era where other universities are building more lecture theatres to correspond with the growing number of students in the University, a contrasting view is seen in the University where students outnumber lecture theatres with people sitting on window edges during lecture halls and others standing. It wouldn't have been so bad if the lecture halls were properly ventilated: students sit under motionless fans with both lectures and students sweating profusely. How well can a student digest what she's being taught under such a condition and how well can a lecturer teach when he has to break intermittently to wipe his face till class ends? Imagine lecturing or sitting in such a large class with motionless fans.

As far back in primary, JHS and even SHS, we weren't so worried when lights went out because we had plants that could be powered to facilitate a good learning environment. It's a bit different in the University of Cape Coast where students have to move from one lecture room to another trying to find which of them has light to learn? Is this what a University environment is supposed to be? What we only see daily are people who come in shirts and ties to mark the attendance of lecturers to lectures yet fans still remain motionless even after they've been reported to be malfunctioning. What we see daily is an SRC who make promises during campaign to help prevent some of these situations including dawn quizzes and etc but come back to weep with students about how hard they have being trying to change the unchangeable. If leadership was about try and errors then the microphone tester would be the best leader. We see buildings being put up daily to serve as offices for departments and a new administration yet the very students whom the University should be much concerned about have little lecture halls. Who should be the utmost priority here?

Students who live far off the University due to the fact that there are few hostels in campus which are very expensive have to be forced to battle with thieves who rob them daily with some getting raped. They are then forced to sing the same chorus of some alumni,

"It has always being like this and will always be, Chinese conditions make it The University of Choice"

When did it become wrong to attend a University especially when other universities cannot accommodate everyone. The faces of the students shone with smiles when one of their own senior lecturers, Mrs. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang was appointed the Minister of Education under the Mahama led NDC administration. They thought their woes were over and that their cries have been heard yet their faces have dropped below its original position even after the tenure of her appointment. They only look on with hope that things will change but know that, HOPE NEVER BROUGHT CHANGE, ACTION DID.

Read more at www.yaagh.com
11.02.2017 LISTEN

On 7th December 2016, the NPP won the election against the incumbent NDC government with an unprecedented margin in Ghanaian history, signifying a loud expression of dissatisfactions toward the incumbent. The party is thus faced with a huge responsibility of meeting huge demands of the populace who voted massively in its favour. To this effect, as the value of a democratic state connotes majority rule, the NPP just has to reach a compromise of all anticipations, by initiating policies that would satisfy major demands.

The NPP cannot afford to give room for public resentment against it, at least not just after a few days of being in office. That would amount to a political suicide. Lately however, various decisions by the party's flag bearer and newly elected president of Ghana, H. E. Nana Akkufo-Addo, leave much to be desired. Not surprisingly, the NDC has been fuelling these mistakes to its advantage when they did not do any better during their 8 years term.

The office of a special prosecutor created for the first time by the NPP is a very laudable attempt to make sure governing bodies are on their toes, with no room for corruption. Such a role is to be handled by a neutral candidate, who does not hold allegiance to any party, to properly execute justice. When such a condition is not met, then this office would be dead before it begins. However, the NPP government leaving such responsibility to a "die hard" party member in the person of lawyer Akoto Ampaw creates an elusive picture of competency and accountability.

Secondly, appointing a minister, Otiko Djaba who happens not to hold a National Service certificate is an insult to citizens. The NPP can do far better than follow failed precedent set by the NDC government. Unless of course they want to suffer the same fate the NDC did in the 2016 General Election-a total reflection of failure.

One character who holds enough guns to determine the fate of the NPP after four years is Alfred Agbesi Woyome. Ghanaians are expectant of the retrieval of 51 million back into the state coffers. However, Martin Amidu dropping his charge against Woyome with the excuse of leaving it to the new State Attorney is nothing but an attempt to alleviate public pressure towards retrieval of this money from the new government. My take is that Martin Amidu should have continued his law suit especially under the auspices of a 'fair' administration whose sole aim is to retrieve "stolen money" from the NDC. Notwithstanding, Ghanaians are 'watching' to see if the NPP would fulfill its promise of retrieving all government resources. It is important to note that failure to do this would shorten its term.

It is one thing taking an action and an entirely different thing just talking about it. Complaints coming from the NPP, about the president using an old BMW car model should not be; I wonder who they are complaining to. The party should be action motivated. Make a decisive seizure of cars that belong to the state!

The appointment of the First Deputy Speaker of Parliament who already has a bribery allegation against him should have been put on hold till further investigation is carried out to prove his innocence. It is too early for the NPP to be making mistakes and allowing mistakes to be made under its watch. The NPP is a party of individuals and not just an individual. Thefore, if appointing an individual would cause it to lose its competency in the eyes of Ghanaians, then such individuals should be let go of to save the whole.

The NPP cannot afford to leave loose ends. To whom much vote is given, much is required.

#Measuring Competency

Rachael Omeife

(Department of Political Studies)

KNUST

[email protected]
"...As Akufo-Addo's NPP was wont to holler J. B. Danquah's creed under Kufuor, and lately in their 2016 party manifesto, the policy of the New Patriotic Party is to, '...liberate the energies of the people for the growth of a property owning democracy...with right to life, freedom and justice,...to enrich life, property and liberty of each and every citizen.' In all 68 pages of that new 2016 Manifesto, 'property' appears just four times: twice in the Danquah creed itself; once for 'revenue mobilization'; once to serve a special interest group by creating a new court '...on the Creative Arts...'. With the 21st Century heating up in a globally competitive environment controlled by agile multinationals with more resources than many countries on this planet combined, did Akufo-Addo and company suddenly realize that at best Dr. J. B. Danquah was a marvelous theoretician who never, ever, did negotiate, plan, execute, evaluate, supervise, fund, or dedicate a single development project; or command other people to do any of those tasks? Except, of course, to agitate and resist those who were actually manning and driving Ghanas nascent industrialization and development program until the overthrow, in February of 1966.. And now free One-District-One-Factory...and free $1 Million Per Voting Constituency...When did the Rubber Meet The Road for Serious Akufo-Addo?...", (Prof Lungu and Francis Kwarteng, 10 Feb, 2017).

Frequently, you will hear pragmatic Americans make a statement with the phrase, "the rubber meets the road." The rubber meets the road when you, the operator, when you the actor, when persons in the middle of an action, must make a momentous decision, take an action, do something from which they may never recover whole or in part, if they failed. On the other hand, if you failed to execute the action you took when you started, or did not take that action at all, or if you changed course right in the middle of that action when you said you wouldn't for principle's sake, at that point, any reasonable person could consider your credibility, your perseverance, your sincerity, your resolve to follow through, as having been torn to shreds just as a tire is consumed by the road on which it is driven.

Everyone, including members of a political party, associates in an apketeshie association, members of a marijuana smoking syndicate, even, have the freedom to change course in whatever they promise doing for themselves and their friends, guided and controlled by their own principles and speed. However, when they change course in the face of seeming adversity and reality, when they change their principles without notice before they have achieved what they told us in the face they would, any reasonable person, any mad man, any loser, even, can question their resolve, the principles they in truth stood for, what in fact they believed in, when they timely fail to explain exactly why.

When taxpayers are involved and it is the fortunes of a Nation-State founded by a singularly nation-centered personality, most of the people in the state, including those who in fact pay income taxes, would agree that it is especially important for the group to set the record as straight as possible, with speed and little talk. This especially applies to a political party operating out of character in a national and international environment of corruption (NIEC) that suddenly wins a national election and immediately assumes control of all governance, all treaties, all resources, all roads, and all manner of contracts worth billions of dollars.

What happened to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his NPP between their two electoral defeats and December 2016, on the way to the old Flagstaff House in Accra, Ghana?

What happened to the capitalist, property-owning principles of Akufo-Addo and his NPP?

Did Akufo-Addo and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, behind closed doors, in the middle of the last election, suddenly decide to re-brand the NPP party according to a set of principles sharply at odds with the party they themselves inherited, and were the other political parties (NDC, CPP, PNP, etc.), too distracted and sharply obtuse to understand what was going on? Did the other parties and many Ghanaians not appreciate the real situation, that the NPP had in fact appropriated one or more of the other partys' organizing principles? You know, precisely the kind of community organizing principles Ghanaians in fact had before Akufo-Addo's forebears and Greedy Komla Gbedemah did the overthrew at the direction and control of/by the Johnson CIA.

Cameron Duodu, a long-standing virulent, rabid, and vocal critic of Kwame Nkrumah pointedly observed a few days to Akufo-Addos swearing-in ceremony:

The CPP under President Kwame Nkrumah identified national priorities through its First and Second Development Plans, and published the plans for nation-wide discussion. There could not have been, for instance, anyone who had not heard about the Volta River Project before Akosombo power came online. We knew what was supposed to be achieved by Tema Harbour; factories were established with a rational objective in mind for them within an overall national development goalIf the Akufo-Addo Government is able to reintroduce the Nkrumah-type dynamism into our economyit will be able to usher Ghana into a new era of self-confidence and can-do patriotism that will at last do justice to our pride as a black nation that can match all others in achievement.

Certainly, Cameron was not referring to the property-owning democracy of Akufo-Addo's NPP government considering Busia and Kufour's governments always impressed on Ghanaians that they were in the midst of creating for Ghanaians a property-owning democracy, a land of "Milk and Honey", as Kufour observed just recently. Surely, Cameron was not referring to the same property-owning democracy mantra which oddly did not assume a major policy staple in NPPs electioneering and sloganeering campaign leading up to the general elections last November.

Like under Kwame Nkrumah, what we have under Akufo-Addo now looks exactly like a mixture of socialism and social democracy, with a gallon of capitalism thrust in there. What we have now is a deeply-buried strategic richness of socialist rhetoric that cries to be heard in the latest NPP political manifesto that was presented with moderate fanfare in the lead-up to the 2016 elections. Today, that same moderated socialist streak and unspoken rhetoric define the economic logic of the policy framework, vision, and tactics of Ghana's only "property-owning party".

It's all in the NPP political manifesto!

Talking about the Government of Ghana allocating outright 1 factory to each administrative district!

Talking about the Government of Ghana allocating outright $1 million to every "voting constituency" without any capitalist or public interest conditions, just as long as the "constituencies" themselves use the funds on whatever they preferred.

It is all as free as free can get!

Kwasi Adu published a long list of over 100 government-funded homes that suddenly became Kufour-gifted "properties" to NPP- and other Kufour-favored individuals and entities at the end of the Kufour presidency.

Free of any mortgage or cost, whatsoever.

Free to use, free to sell, free property to own.

The rubber meets the road!

And so, today, one way property-owning democracy has begun to manifest itself is through vigilante seizure of public toilets, toll booths, vehicles, and other "state" properties by NPP and their foot-soldiers, just as they say some in the regime before them did to them. Then again in the article Politicians and Phantom Promises, Emmanuel Akli, of the Chronicle, wrote of the then-President John Kufuor, one of the notable faces of property-owning democracy thusly (our emphasis):

His [Kufuor] Ministers and other government appointees were also grabbing state lands with careless abandon.

Readers may still want to see Kwasi Adus piece, Kufuor Dares Us, We Respond, The Insight Newspaper, January 9, 2014, for a more detailed description of land grabbing under Kufuor.

Yet, it is also clear that it does not take rocket science to either know or conclude that property-owning democracy is fundamentally about crony capitalism. It is now clear to some observers why Akufo-Addo and the leadership of the NPP may have replaced their property-owning democracy mantra with a political philosophy and ideology that is generally built around a rich scaffolding of socialism, social democracy, and a quart of capitalism.

Rubber met the road!

In 2008 and 2012, property-owning-democracy rhetoric did not fetch the NPP the kind of awe-inspiring political capital and appeal it needed to win elections. That is because discerning Ghanaians easily saw through all of that as a prank being played on their consciences, possibly explaining the partys volte-face, on-and-off muffling of the property-owning-democracy rhetoric.

Property-owning democracy has proven to be empty rhetoric for the most part, incapable of inspiring Ghana, a Nation-State, to build up all its people in peace, fairness, and economic prosperity, among other people-centered values.

And so, like the NPP, Mr. Duodu seems to now have hope for Ghana and Ghanaians. That is to say, under Akufo-Addos stewardship of the country, should his new administration put its political and ideological ego aside and wisely appropriate the progressive ideals of Kwame Nkrumah. After all, there are many people who will argue that Akufo-Addo himself cut his teeth in politics on the back of Nkrumah and Nkrumahism.

Here, for instance, Kwesi Pratt recalls a conversation he had with Akufo-Addo (our emphasis):

I have known Akufo-Addo very well and I have had several conversations with him. In one of those conversations, he [Akufo-Addo] told me that one February 24, 1966; his name was on the list of the CPP activists who were to be arrested and the only reason why he was not detained was the fact of his father being key in the events of those days. And Im sure Nana himself will confirm this, because hes told this story to many of us.

Pratt then concludes:

Be that as it may, if until February 24, 1966, Nana Akufo-Addo was active in the CPP, then all the things that he complains about are complaints of himself.

Dr. Kwame Botwe-Asamoah has confirmed this account and variants of it for us through the medium of autoethnography. What is more, Akufo-Addos CPP and Nkrumahist credentials, his respect for Nkrumah, and his profound ideas may not be in doubt. For instance, speaking in South Africa in May of last year when he accepted an honorary doctorate, Dr. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo reminded his South African host, the leadership and students of the University of Fort Hare, and all Africans of his firm conviction in the capacity of progressive ideas of Kwame Nkrumah to bring Africa together through economic and industrial development. Said Akufo-Addo in part:

Highlighting the importance of the work of his [Danquahs] compatriot, Kwame Nkrumah, the NPP flagbearer stressed that African unity, through the political and economic union of the continent, remains the most effective context within which to maximise the collective power of the African peoples, and achieve the continents full potential...Others have done so in America, in Europe and in Asia. We must do the same in Africa. We cannot continue to be either the pawns or the victims of history. We have a huge, unique contribution to make to the growth of world civilisation. It is time for us to step forward.

Like Akufo-Addo, Kufuor also appreciated the progressive ideals and legacy of Nkrumah when he declared May 25 an African Union holiday in Ghana.

Ironically, though, and the above notwithstanding, Kwarteng advanced a similar argument as Camerons in an essay December 12, 2016, titled, Is Akufo-Addo the Change Ghanaians Want? In that paper, Kwarteng made the case that the property-owning democracy of the NPP can never transform Ghana in the same vein as, say, Chinas or Indias radical scientific and technologicalindustrialeconomic transformation, given that both have managed to lift hundreds of millions of its population out of poverty within a generation, that those unimaginable feats were not achieved through a hollow property-owning mantra.

Kwame Nkrumah did not have the liberty to be merely an arm-chair theoretician, a holler of empty, untested, unworkable, virgin rhetoric and political dogma!

Now, that is what was phenomenal for Ghana, back in 1964, exactly 53 years before Mr. Cameron Duodu wrote the first word in the essay we cite today.

That is what was phenomenal for Ghana, back in 1964, exactly 53 years ago when Akufo-Addo's forebears helped the Johnson CIA steal "Ghanas Industrial Revolution As (Ghana) Toiled To Close Technology Gap". In the essay by Prof Lungu, an archived report from Ebony Magazine brought it all to light, in text and now solemn graphics, in Kodak black-and-white, long before Cameron Duodu's:

"....While the detractors of African independence are predicting that the continent will revert to the jungles once it is left on its own peoples rule, Ghana is wasting no time refuting that 'prophecy' with words...Key projects in Ghanas effort to close the technology gap that separates it from the industrial world community are the already completed $81 million Port of Tema and the giant $210 million Volta River dam to be operational in 1966. The Tema harbor and adjacent Tema town, built on a site once occupied by a tiny fishing village, were officially opened early in 1962. Where only a decade ago indigenous fishermen had plied their ancient craft, thousands of Ghanaian men and women work today in ultra-modern industrial plants, live in comfortable homes and spend leisure hours in modern recreation....".

Nkrumah-type dynamism it was, surely!

When all is said and done, a multi-trillion cedi question anxiously waiting for an answer rears its head, that is, why do we now have socialism in the camp of a party that long prided itself on property-owning democracy, free markets, and capitalism?

Didn't the rubber hit the road way back with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS)?

Didn't the rubber hit the road with the free school feeding program?

And now free One-District-One-Factory?

And now free $1 Million Per Voting Constituency?

And now free One-Village-One Dam?

And now free a Zongo Development Fund of undefined boundaries?

And now free Senior High School? Marry that one with not the "free school feeding program" and irony of all ironies, the idea that it was they, practically, who discontinued total free education under their military-cum-police-cum rascal civilian government 53 years ago.

So much FREE public interest welfare by properly-owning, capitalist democrats.

And so, in freedom, we can now state our case that maybe, just maybe, Akufo-Addo the political player, philosophically and ideologically, having grown up on Nkrumahism, has now come of age two scores and 13 years later.

A win is a win, and public policies and public goods that help people develop their local economies and communities are good public policies and useful public goods. Ghanaians will take a good win no matter where it comes from. Even so, as active citizens, as critical observers, the people can still analyze the idea that Akufo-Addo is at least, now, a closet socialist, a social-democrat who has just begun to come out. The practical question for so many observers and citizens these days then, is, when did Akufo-Addo and his NPP discover that socialism actually can work?

When did the rubber meet the road for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo?

CONCLUDING REMARKS

As we conclude, all we know is that at the end of the day it was the socialist mantracall it social democratic mantra, if you willnot property-owning democracyand capitalist populist rhetoric that finally won the day for Akufo-Addo and his NPP.

Also, we should never forget that Dr. J.B. Danquah, at best a marvelous political theoretician in colonial Ghana (the then-Gold Coast), one of the ideological and philosophical great-grandfathers of the NPP, and Madam Mabel Dove-Danquah, Danquah's his first wife (a most productive professional in her own right), named their one and only son Vladimir Danquah, after Vladimir Lenin. Yes, the more famous Russian leader, Lenin, the communist!

We do not know exactly when Cameron Duodu saw that light.

But, as we've shown, no more African-centered voice than Ebony Magazine in North America was there in 1964, long before Duodu's.

And still, we, as Akufo-Addo contemporaries, have little doubt that Akufo-Addo has been in possession of that light long before he officially assumed the presidency of Ghana, if his 2016 manifesto were to be our only guide. Predictably, it is whence Akufo Addo got some of his public exuberance and facade of incorruptibility.

It is all in that magnificent, historic photo, and the gift of a book of yore. And so, we shall not attempt to overstate our position that even property-owning democracy advocate Cameron knows how powerful and relevant Nkrumah and his progressive ideas were then, and still are, today.

The situation frothing with ironies upon ironies that appear rather opaque to so many politicians in the other parties (NDC, CPP, PNP, etc.), those who screamed death to Nkrumah and socialism have now warmed up to socialism and social democracy. And, if they were honest with themselves, they would all attest that the political economy Kwame Nkrumah worked so hard for and advocated for Ghana was essentially a mixed economy, a well-founded quest for an optimal fusion of socialism, social democracy and capitalism.

Those simpletons and traitors who chose to reduce Nkrumahs complex formula of political economy and organization of Unitary Ghana into "socialism in Africa they did not want" were not merely absent-minded. Like Greedy Gbedemah, they were also mischievous. They literally did not understand or care about Kwame Nkrumah's multi-year development plans for Ghana. They did not know or care that those ideals were founded on a deep, inter-disciplinary, and broad spectrum of literature in development planning, regional-cum-national planning, welfare economics, and liberal doses of scientific, philosophical, and technocratic understanding of public administration and public management, of that age. And beyond, in visionary terms. After all, early in the 1960s, Kwame Nkrumah was talking about research and Ghana's KNUST harnessing solar power that could have been used to complement Akosombo Power and Light.

The newer simpletons and latter day loud-mouths should give us a Mount Afadjato-sized breaks. In fact, they themselves ought to be asking each other a few other serious questions, including these three:

(1) Seriously, when did the Rubber Meet The Road for Serious Akufo-Addo?

(2) Seriously, when did Serious Akufo-Addo and his NPP discover that Nkrumah's brand of socialism works?

(3) Seriously, shouldn't Serious Akufo-Addo apologize to Kwame Nkrumah, and to all Ghanaians, on behalf of himself, his father, Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia, and the entire New Patriotic Party?

When will Serious President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo make that big announcement?

REFERENCES

1. Cameron Duodu. Lets Kick-Off Ghanas 60th Anniversary Of Independence Now! January 4, 2017, (http://www.todaygh.com/lets-kick-off-ghanas-60th-anniversary-independence-now/).

2. Ghanaweb. Rise Up To Meet Challenges Of TodayNana Addo Urges African Youth. May 5, 2016, (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Rise-up-to-meet-challenges-of-today-Nana-Addo-urges-African-youth-436283).

3. Kwame Botwe-Asamoah. A Salute to President Kufuor on African Union Day. June 12, 2002, (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/A-Salute-To-President-Kufuor-on-African-Union-Day-24778).

4. Francis Kwarteng. Danquahs Father Passed On The Gene Of Statutory Rape To Nkrumah 1. Ghanaweb. October 2, 2015, (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Danquah-s-Father-Passed-On-The-Gene-Of-Statutory-Rape-To-Nkrumah-1-385213).

5. Ghanaweb. Akufo-Addo Was An Active CPP MemberPratt Alleges. February 9, 2015, (http://www.ghanafilla.net/akufo-addo-was-an-active-cpp-member-pratt-alleges/).

6. Prof Lungu. They Stole Ghanas Industrial Revolution as Nation Toiled to Close Technology Gap!, (https://www.modernghana.com/news/719162/they-stole-ghanas-industrial-revolution-as-nation-toiled-to.html).

VISIT WWW.GHANAHERO.COM/VISIONS, FOR MORE INFOR:

See "Visions": Prof Lungu Says.... /\....Francis Kwarteng Says....

FOIB - Freedom of Information Bill (FOIB/FOI/Ghana), (http://ghanahero.com/FOIB.html).

SUBJ: When Did Akufo-Addo And His NPP Discover That Socialism Works, by Prof Lungu & Francis Kwarteng.

Support Fair-Trade Oil Share Ghana (FTOS-Gh) Campaign/Petition:

https://www.change.org/p/ghana-fair-trade-oil-share-psa-campaign-ftos-gh-psa/

Brought to you courtesy www.GhanaHero.com11 Feb 17.

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11.02.2017 LISTEN

Let us begin the new course towards African development, with the mindset that if one's parent or God loves them, they will not do anything harmful to them. And that the child exist and develop for the glory of themselves and parents/God. We however should take note of the saying that "No pain, no gain." If this is understood then it won't be difficult to understand that:

The dark color of Africans is not bad and so it is nothing to be ashamed of to necessitate Africans bleaching their skin, even it were safe to be acceptable; or have to stretch their hair to look like others in order to feel confident. The benefits in the dark skin and kinky hair may be appreciated only after changing them.

The African continent could comparatively be described as the most endowed with natural resources and also about the most climate-friendly of the continents. The hurricanes, typhoons, tornados, extreme freezing and what have you are but occasional floods and mild droughts in Africa.

The African is one of the most religious with their environment, worshipping almost everything of creation, the very things which are expected to be studied, understood and used. By extension they are either afraid of or over-revere themselves to the point that they would rather not take risks or adventure.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained; so, if the average African has doubts about or lacks faith in their capabilities and so are not applying them productively, then they will rarely be associated with innovations, discoveries, inventions, science and technology, which are the ingredients of development.

Now that you appreciate that the greater part of your development as a Black African is in your own hands more than in anybody's, what benefit will any bashing of others (who may not even care about you), give you?
11.02.2017 LISTEN

Conflicts have dire consequences. If there is nowhere to point as an instance, Liberia and Rwanda are not far from our memories. People became homeless. People earned the new titles refugees because they have fled their place of birth to seek refuge at different places not because they have committed war crimes against humanity and that the International Criminal Court was after them for prosecution but their place of birth was no more an ally of peace and tranquility. Conflicts are sparked by so many causes. Key among them is land litigation but chieftaincy as at now has become the foremost cause.

It was all over the media landscape, both print and electronic. I followed the stories as they unfold. I read the stories with icicles of tears dripping down my cheek. Icicles of tears in the midst of disappointment not because I was born and bred at the place but for the mere fact that we are Northerners and even descendants of one ancestor and too what happens at some places in the North has once again resurfaced. Initially, a voice of a journalist at the place on radio informed me that two precious lives have been lost to the bullet of a gun. What caused this? The factor I have labelled as the foremost cause of conflicts in this era, chieftaincy! Power struggle between people. Who was the rightful occupant of a throne and who have the legitimacy to name subjects to work under him as being the cause. I wont pretend to be a Historian as I do not know the genesis of this power struggle.

Bimbilla is one of the popular places in Northern Ghana if not the whole country. Mention the name to any Ghanaian and the first thing to come from his or her mind is this name, Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambers, an accomplished politician, a diplomat and a role model to so many. The place used to be peaceful but now the present status of the place is completely antithetical with peace. Dominic Nitiwul has to do the talking on every media platform when a gunshot is heard not because he is the Public Relations Officer of the place but as the Member of Parliament for the area. The word assurance have always been the word he uses. An assurance that the situation will be dealt with once and for all, only for me to wake up the following morning with X number of people dead, Y number of people injured, and Z number of people arrested. On the headlines of credible newspapers and the subsequent evening to listen to the voice of Richard Dela Sky on Citifm reechoing same. Isnt that pathetic?

The peace of the place in the long run cannot be guaranteed. I said this not because I am a Ph.D. candidate on security at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Center but as an observer from afar. Those attacked will retaliate with reprisal attacks, if care is not taken. The end result is very clear and highly predictable. There will be indefinite loss of precious lives with a devastating toll on the families of the grieved and on the country as well because well-meaning and productive citizens continue to become unproductive through deaths. The place is a farming community like my village in the Gushegu Constituency. I think this should not be a surprise as agriculture is the major employer of the people of the North. Every penny and dime earned is somewhat from agricultural source. We survive on agriculture that is rain-fed which makes it seasonal.

The lives of the people are being lost. The future of their children cannot be forecasted as those who supposed to support their education are dying like fowls suffering from coccidiosis. The agriculture component of the Gross Domestic Product is sure to precipitate and the yam with palava sauce eater is even sadder than the one who have cooked yam with too much salt not because he will miss the delicacy but the mutual help they were all getting from each other. The buyer gives money in exchange for the yam knowing very well he is indirectly impacting the life of an unknown person somewhere. The farmer sells to the buyer for money for livelihood and the buyer go home to eat it with palava sauce. This might sound funny but it is the starring reality. The economic impact of agriculture on us up North cannot be downplayed. It is the main nourishment to our souls and livelihoods. School fees are paid from this and many other provisions are provided from this. I am currently a beneficiary in school.

One does not need an expert to tell you the devastating effect of curfew as a result of the conflict in Bimbilla. The regular hours can no longer be spent at farms. At your farm, you are not certain whether you will return home as a farmer with life because times of resurrection of the conflict is uncertain to even the security agencies. What can trigger it, you have no clue. Anything insignificant or issue that could have been settled amicably can be a cause. We continue to suffer this plight because of our failure to disintegrate circular politics from chieftaincy. We will become one people once again when the politician stops exchanging promises for votes. Promises that do not have economic empowerment element in them. I am not saying someone made such promise in the case of Bimbilla as I have no evidence in case I am asked to produce one but politics cannot be overruled as a cause.

Lets make ourselves proud as Northerners by becoming so different in the eyes of the politician. Lets make ourselves proud by becoming so different in the eyes of those who always name our region a warzone. Lets make them change their mentality about us. Lets make them not believe that we are people who like fighting even when we are not the only people fighting in Ghana. I pray that the people of Bimbilla will all over a sudden realize the importance of peace and the need to smoke the peace pipe. I learnt peace is an expensive commodity whose value cannot be expressed in monetary terms but lets try to buy it, even if it means selling the current weapons that we use in fighting ourselves.

May peace return to Bimbilla.

God Bless Ghana.

Writers Email: [email protected]
- The EFCC's fresh breakthrough is said to be a 15-storey structure located at Banana Island that comprised 18 flats and six penthouses worth N11.75bn

- The edifice was alleged to have been bought between 2011 and 2012 from a developing company by a lawfirm traced to ex-oil minister Alison Diezani-Madueke

Diezani is alleged to have bought the edifice between 2011 and 2012

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has announced the discovery of a porperty in Lagos worth a whopping $37.5million totalling N11.75bn which allegedly belongs to former oil minister Alison Diezani-Madueke.

EFCC discovers fresh $37.5m Diezani Lagos mansion

READ ALSO: Presidency staff put on standby for Buharis return

Vanguard reports that the money which was said to allegedly belong to Diezani follows the announcement of acting chairman of the anti-corruption body Ibrahim Magu on Thursday, February 9 that 9.75 million dollars and 750,000 pounds were recovered from a residence in Kaduna state.

The EFCC said Diezani reportedly bought the building in Lagos top class location Banana Island between 2011 and 2012 at a total cost of $37.5m from the YF Construction Development and Real Estate.

5 Floors, 18 Flats and 6 Pent-houses acquired by Diezani

The commission said: The aggressive drive by the EFCC to recover all hidden assets of former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, who is under investigation for corruption and money laundering, produced another breakthrough this week with the discovery of a property acquired through shell companies by the former minister at upscale Banana Island in Lagos.

The property is a 15-storey edifice comprising 18 flats and six penthouses.

The property was acquired by the former minister between 2011 and 2012 at a total cost of $37.5m from the developers, YF Construction Development and Real Estate. The property was allegedly acquired in the name of a shell company, Rusimpex Limited under the control of certain Mr. Afamefuna Nwokedi of Stillwaters law firm, in Lagos.

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In 2016, the commission said it seized the ex-ministers $18m mansion in the Asokoro area of Abuja but Diezani has denied all the allegations levelled against her, saying all the seizures never belonged to her.

Meanwhile, the EFCC has recovered $9.8million in cash from a secret bunker owned by Dr. Andrew Yakubu who is a former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

The EFCC made the discovery on February 3 in a building belonging to Yakubu which is located in the slums of Sabon Tasha area of Kaduna.

The anti-graft agency said the former NNPC GMD confessed that the money was his and that it was given to him by unnamed persons.

Source: Legit.ng
The long and winding legal drama over the demise of Curt Schillings video game company has apparently come to a close, as the state of Rhode Island reached a settlement with the final party involved in the debacle.

Wells Fargo Securities and Barclays Capital Inc. agreed to pay $25 million in a partial settlement earlier this month, but the suit was still pending against Schilling and other 38 Studios executives as well as Rhode Island financial advisor First Southwest. Mondays settlement, if approved by a judge, will see Schilling and the others pay $2.5 million to settle the claims against them, bringing the total the state has recovered to close to $45 million and leaving First Southwest as the only remaining defendant.

If you need a quick refresher, here are the basics: back in 2012, Schillings company moved to Rhode Island in exchange for a $75 million loan, and then went bankrupt. Not a great look! Schilling himself settled last fall

And via the AP comes news that that final defendant has indeed settled as well:

Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein approved the settlement after hearing from lawyers for both sides: the states economic development agency and Dallas-based Hilltop Securities Inc. Hilltop was formerly the First Southwest Co., the states financial adviser on the deal, and agreed to pay $16 million to get out of the case. The total settlements in the case end up at about $61 million. A number of other parties previously settled, including Schilling and other 38 Studios executives, lawyers and companies that worked on the deal, and officials at the economic development agency.

No criminal charges were filed during the course of the proceedings, which some residents have criticized. In a respectable effort towards transparency, the current Rhode Island governor is aiming to release all the documents in the case to the public:

Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo announced Friday shell file a petition in court to seek the release of documents from the state grand jury investigation into the deal that never resulted in any criminal charges. Now that the civil case and criminal case is closed, we should make all the documents available to the public and give the people of our state closure, Raimondo said in a statement. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin, also a Democrat, has voiced concerns about releasing investigative records from the case. Raimondo says Rhode Island residents have a right to know what happened.

Its hard to imagine that theres going to be anything in those documents that makes Curt Schilling look good, though at the same time, its also hard to imagine his reputation falling any farther from where it currently lies.

Though the final paragraph in that AP story is choice:

Schilling has said his company failed because it didnt raise enough money, not because he did anything malicious or illegal. He also has faulted Rhode Island politicians for giving him a loan guarantee in the first place.

Its hard to imagine that a variant of Grouchos I dont want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member! defense would have held up in court.

[AP]
- The controversy surrounding the recent discovery of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is still a major topic in the polity

- The EFCC recovered $9.8million in cash from a secret bunker owned by Engineer Andrew Yakubu on Friday, February 3

- Yakubu is a former managing director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)

The controversy surrounding the recent discovery of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is yet to fritter away.

The EFCC recovered $9.8million in cash from a secret bunker owned by Engineer Andrew Yakubu on Friday, February 3.

Engineer Andrew Yakubu

Yakubu, 61, a former managing director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was relieved of his job by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014.

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When he was sacked, the Kaduna state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) condemned the removal of Yakubu by the Jonathan government, describing it as an unceremonious removal.

Kaduna APC protested against Andrew Yakubu's removal in 2014

A report by Premium Times indicates that Yakubu lost his job because he had a major disagreement with then minister of petroleum, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke.

The disagreement between the duo was over who to appoint as the Managing Director of Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited (NPDC).

Yakubus insistence that only someone with technical background was fit to head the NPDC, resulted in a clash of interests with Alison-Madueke, who allegedly engineered his removal by the administration of ex-President Jonathan.

Part of the APCs statement read: The unceremonious removal of Yakubu has exposed the contradictions within the PDP political family in which godfatherism and negative political backstabbing have taken the centre stage against equity, fairness and sense of political decency.

READ ALSO: Former NNPC GMD, Jide Omokore arrested by EFCC

In a related development, the EFCC has announced the discovery of a property in Lagos worth a whopping $37.5million totalling N11.75bn which allegedly belongs to former oil minister Alison Diezani-Madueke.

Source: Legit.ng
- The special adviser to the president on media and publicity, Femi Adesina, insists Nigerians will see Buhari return to the country

- Adesina however, stops short of disclosing when the president will return

- Presidential aides are on standby for Buharis return from London, United Kingdom

Femi Adesina has said President Buhari will not sneak into Nigeria.

The presidency has said President Muhammadu Buhari will not sneak into the country when he returns from his vacation abroad.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: Buhari may return from vacation on Saturday

The special adviser to the president on media and publicity, Femi Adesina, on Saturday, February 11, told the Daily Post in a telephone chat that Nigerians will see Buhari when he returns to the country.

He said: If the president returns, we will all see him. He is the president of Nigeria and will not sneak in.

When asked if his reaction was a sign he doesnt know exactly when the president will return, Adesina replied: Dont put words in my mouth please.

READ ALSO: Some people want lies but they wont get it from me - Femi Adesina

I said when the president returns, Nigerians will see him. Its not like he will sneak in, so lets wait.

Meanwhile, in what appears to be a sign that President Muhammadu Buhari may return to the country this weekend as earlier reported, presidential aides have been put on standby his return from London, United Kingdom.

The Punch quotes sources at the Presidential Villa in Abuja as saying on Friday, February 10 that the president was being expected this weekend and that presidential aides and officials of the Protocol Unit, including security operatives, had been put on the alert over the Buhari's imminent arrival.

The President is expected back this weekend. We are expecting him to return either on Saturday or Sunday.

As of now, we are not sure of the time of his arrival yet. The Protocol Unit will confirm that to us later, a source said.

Source: Legit.ng
For all citizens expecting President Muhammadu Buhari back in the country soon, Nigerias number one citizen has said he would only come back to Nigeria when his doctors certify him well enough to return.

President Buhari relaxing in UK where he says he would remain until his doctors say he can travel

According to Premium Times, the president revealed this much in the letter he sent to the National Assembly to extend his vacation.

The letter, which was addressed to president of the senate Bukola Saraki, read in part:  I am extending my leave until the doctors are satisfied that certain factors are ruled out.

READ ALSO: Fayose threatens to sue FG over $1bn Eurobond

A copy of the letter acquired by Premium Times and appearing in public glare for the first time revealed that the president put his return date in the hands of his doctors depending on his progress in the tests they are carrying out.

The letter read in full: Further to my letter dated 18th January 2017 in which I notified the Distinguished Senate of taking part of my annual leave.

During my leave, I took the opportunity to have routine check-ups and consult my long standing doctors in London.

Snapshot of the full letter by President Buhari requesting extension of his vacation.

In the course of the routine examinations, certain test result indicated the need for a course of medications and further appointments have been scheduled for next week.

I am therefore notifying the Distinguished Senate that I am extending my leave until the doctors are satisfied that certain factors are ruled out. In the circumstances, the vice president will continue to act on my behalf.

Please accept, Distinguished Senate President, the assurances of my highest consideration.

READ ALSO: Presidency staff put on standby for Buharis return

Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari proceeded on a 10-day leave on Thursday, January 19, 2017 after his letter was read on the floor of the Senate.

Although the leave was supposed to last 10 work days, between January 23 and February 6, according to the initial letter sent to the National Assembly, the president flew out on January 19.

Meanwhile, IBTimes has reported that it is unable to ascertain the presence of President Buhari in London after it turned up empty following a visit to the Abuja House at Holland Park in west London.

Source: Legit.ng
- President Muhammadu Buharis medical vacation to the United Kingdom (UK) is still a major topic in Nigeria

- A few hours after President Muhammadu Buhari left Nigeria for the UK, rumours floated on he had died

- The presidents vacation is said to be having an effect on Nigerias politics

A report by Daily Trust has detailed how President Muhammadu Buharis medical vacation in the UK is affecting Nigerias politics.

President Buhari's medical vacation is still a major topi in Nigeria

According to the report, the presidents absence has created suspicion in the polity and alters political calculations especially as 2019 approaches.

While some Nigerians believe that a good foundation has been laid by Buhari, others are of the opinion that the tea party is over as indicated by the use of his trip to ventilate their anger, with many drawing his rule to an end with the death rumours.

Ordinarily, the fact that the president had transmitted a letter to the National Assembly effectively ceding executive powers to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, just like what he did in the past, should have calmed frayed nerves.

However, curious analysts, opposition politicians and those who are not in tune with his style of governance picked hole in the abrupt manner the journey was announced and executed.

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When the president was departing for the 10-day vacation, Vice President Osinbajo, who was in Davos, Switzerland, attending the 2017 World Economic Forum returned to Nigeria the following day and resumed duty as acting president.

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has carried on well in President Buhari's absence

This abrupt departure of the president and abrupt return of the VP was the first thing that aroused suspicions that Buharis trip was not normal as Nigerians were made to believe, said opposition politician, Musa Ali Bagi.

Protocol-wise, it was not normal for the president to start a vacation while his deputy was away because a vacuum was created, he said.

And the suspicion of the presidents weak health state heightened when it was announced that he would not return on the appointed date.

Buhari was to return on Sunday, February 5, so that he would be in his office on Monday, but sadly, it was on that Sunday that his aides announced he would not come.

It was wrong for the president to also send a letter to the National Assembly, extending his leave without telling Nigerians when he would resume, said PDPs spokesman, Dayo Adeyeye.

The president should know he is not a private citizen. He should know that Nigerians are the ones paying his health bills and therefore, he should tell them the true state of his health.

He should not treat Nigerians with levity and should also know what is obtainable in civilized countries. Nigeria is not a jungle, he added.

Since his departure and the return of Osinbajo, President Buharis office has since almost been deserted. Politicians, in particular, are no longer visiting the presidents office, and the acting president has been operating from the Vice Presidents Wing of the Aso Rock Presidential Villa.

Since Osinbajo became acting president, only five state governors have visited the Presidential Villa. They include Abdulaziz Yari (Zamfara State), Mohammed Abubakar Badaru (Jigawa), Rochas Okorocha (Imo), Samuel Ortom (Benue) and Olusegun Mimiko (Ondo).

READ ALSO: Muslim clerics begin 10-day prayer and fasting for President Buhari's health

The National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, was at the State House for a meeting with the acting president Monday, February 6. He was not accompanied by any of the partys national working committee.

The acting president had met with the leadership of the National Assembly over the economy and budget-related matters. Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki and House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara visited Osinbajo twice.

Osinbajo had led the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting three times between January 25 and February 8 where contracts were approved and certain policy decisions were made.

Osinbajo also met with the service chiefs. On January 20, he was briefed on the situation in The Gambia, where Nigerian troops were deployed last month.

However, the routine meeting of the National Security Council (NSC), which is headed by the president, has not been convened since President Buhari departed.

Since the president left, there has not been any meeting of the Council of State, even though Buhari himself only held such a meeting twice since his assumption of office on May 29, 2015.

On February 1, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo inaugurated new five national commissioners of the National Population Commission. But after administering the oath of office on them, the acting president made no remarks.

On Tuesday last week, the acting president forwarded the name of the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, to the Senate for confirmation as substantive CJN.

Osinbajo has also been briefed by several heads of agencies including those of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigeria Customs Service, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission and the Department of State Services.

Two traditional rulers have visited the acting president at the State House. They are the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi and the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu.

The presidency has asserted that Osinbajo has done everything he ought to do as acting president.

READ ALSO: Buhari not returning to Nigeria until doctors okay it (evidence)

His spokesman, Mr Laolu Akande: There is absolutely nothing needed to be done that has not been done, the acting president has presided over Federal Executive Council meetings and has met with service chiefs.

In fact, his first meeting with the service chiefs was when we came back from Davos when they briefed him on the situation in The Gambia. President Muhammadu Buhari has done well by transmitting powers to his deputy in line with the constitution.

Akande said Osinbajo could not have moved to Buharis office because the former is only acting as president.

Source: Legit.ng
- President Muhammadu Buharis supporters believe he is a victim of diabolical machinations

- They said enemies of the president are distracting him from the arduous task of leading the nation with illness

- President Buhari is currently on medical vacation in the United Kingdom

Ardent supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari believe that the president is a victim of diabolical machinations.

Is President Buhari under a spell?

This was the submission of the presidents supporters when Daily Trust spoke to them recently on the medical vacation of President Buhari.

Nasiru Aminu, a resident of Katsina, said many people were deploying diabolical means to distract Buhari from concentrating on his duties.

His words: The president was not as frail as he is now when he assumed office in 2015, that time, he was extremely agile and focused but he is no more himself now and we actually see the devil at work.

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Aminu said Buharis adversaries had deployed prayer merchants to cause curses that would make it difficult to concentrate.

The opposition to the president is not just from southern Nigeria because hundreds of so-called Mallams are being sponsored to Saudi Arabia and other places to pray against the success of the president, he added.

Another supporter, Abba Yakubu, said the president was tamed right from the onset.

His words: We know that his several travels abroad at the inception of his administration were not normal, some unpatriotic elements tagged him through dubious means to be traveling and when he finally settled, they changed tactics, he is now constantly sick.

Strange stories from the Presidential Villa are not new. Former first lady, Patience Jonathan, had reportedly said her health status significantly improved after her husband vacated the seat of power.

Three months ago, Reuben Abati, the spokesman of former president Goodluck Jonathan, wrote an explosive article about the Aso Rock presidential villa and its many dirty secrets. Abati revealed that there are spiritual forces disturbing Nigerian presidents from performing their functions.

But in response to Abatis article, President Buharis spokesman, Femi Adesina dismissed Abatis claims, describing his article as a glorification and deification of superstition.

On his part, the chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria Southwest Zone, Archbishop Magnus Atilade believes Abatis claims should be taken seriously.

His words: "If principalities and power have not occupied Aso Rock, how would you explain the actions of some of our leaders that have at one time or the other been the landlords at Aso Rock, even including the present landlord there?

"Some of our leaders before getting to Aso Rock would make a lot of promises to Nigerians but on getting to Aso Rock, they become changed persons, they become inaccessible, and Nigerians now become baffled as to what has gotten over them.

"Of course, it is those principalities, and demons that are responsible. We need to carry out spiritual cleansing of Aso Rock.

READ ALSO: Buhari not returning to Nigeria until doctors okay it (evidence)

Source: Legit.ng
- The wife of the president, Mrs Aisha Buhari, prays for the peace, stability and progress of Nigeria

- Aisha expresses gratitude to Nigerians for their support for President Muhammadu Buharis administration

Aisha Buhari urges Nigerians to pray for prosperity of the country.

The wife of the president, Mrs Aisha Buhari, has urged Nigerians not to relent in their prayers and good deed for Nigeria to prosper among the comity of nations.

READ ALSO: Five conditions Osibanjo must meet before being allowed to succeed Buhari

She made the plea shortly after her arrival at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja on Saturday, February 11, from Saudi Arabia where she performed the lesser Hajj, The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports.

She prayed for the peace, stability and progress of Nigeria and expressed her gratitude to God for the successful trip.

The wife of the President, who expressed her gratitude to God for the successful trip, also prayed for Nigerian leaders and for peaceful coexistence of Nigerians.

I thank God for a journey mercy, I prayed for Nigeria and Nigerian leaders and we should not relent in prayers and good deed. she said.

She also expressed her gratitude to Nigerians for their support for President Muhammadu Buharis administration; urging them to sustain the tempo.

I want to use this opportunity to thank all Nigerians for the goodwill and support for my husband and Nigeria in general, she said.

READ ALSO: Boko Haram brides fear returning to their normal lives without their terrorist husbands

She was received by the wife of the Senate president, Mrs Toyin Saraki, former deputy governor of Plateau state, Mrs Pauline Tallen and her aides.

Also on hand to welcome the wife of the president were the wives of the service chiefs.

Meanwhile, the presidency has said President Muhammadu Buhari will not sneak into the country when he returns from his vacation abroad.

The special adviser to the president on media and publicity, Femi Adesina, on Saturday, February 11, told the Daily Post in a telephone chat that Nigerians will see Buhari when he returns to the country.

When asked if his reaction was a sign he doesnt know exactly when the president will return, Adesina replied: Dont put words in my mouth please.

Source: Legit.ng
Boko Haram insurgents have razed dozens of residential houses in Mussa village of Askira-Uba local government area in Southern Borno.

Boko Haram attacks Mussa village for the second time.

A man was suspected to have been trapped in the attack which occurred on Saturday, February 11, Vanguard reports.

Confirming the incident in Maiduguri, a military source said: The fleeing insurgents are venting their anger on communities bordering the forest, as they have no other place to go, but to attack some of the villages, while fleeing their hideouts.

READ ALSO: Boko Haram insurgents attack village near Chibok

This was not the first time Mussa village is witnessing Boko Haram attacks, as even the palace of the community head was burnt down by insurgents in recent past.

Mussa, which is a farming community on fringe of Sambisa Forest, had been severally attacked by the fleeing insurgents.

The attack is coming on the heels of an ambush on a convoy of new Nigerian Army recruits in Maiduguri, Borno state capital, which killed soldiers.

Premium Times reports that not fewer than 20 other recruits were injured in the gun battle which occurred along the Maiduguri-Dikwa road in the North-Eastern State. Dikwa is 70 kilometres east of Maiduguri.

The report quotes Army sources as saying that three other soldiers, including a female, were declared missing after the incident.

Quoting eyewitnesses, Premium Times reports that the battle between the insurgents and the soldiers began at about 7.30pm on Thursday after a detachment of troops numbering about 250 soldiers and one officer ran into a Boko Haram ambush as they traveled through the area in Army trucks and buses owned by the Borno state government.

The terrorists were said to have suddenly emerged in large numbers from the bushes and opened fire on the soldiers who were mostly young soldiers fresh from training

Source: Legit.ng
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In 2006, the pianist Piotr Anderszewski took his first sabbatical. He had no clear purpose in scheduling a break from concertizing and recording  no special project in mind, like learning new repertory. He just wanted time to think and relax, to cook a beautiful meal and share it with good friends, as he explained in an interview last month in New York.

Pleased with the rejuvenating results, Mr. Anderszewski, who plays a solo recital at Carnegie Hall on Friday, Feb. 17, took another sabbatical five years later, an extended break of 16 months. But when he embarked on his latest one, an eight-month pause that ended in November, he did have a project in mind, and an unusual one: This musician wanted to become a filmmaker. His subject? Warsaw, the city where he was born and which has always been, he said, a fascination and pain for me.

Mr. Anderszewski, 47, remains deeply connected to Warsaw, though he lives in Paris. He has been haunted by growing up in a city that had, he said, ceased existing not that long before his childhood, given the horrors inflicted on the Jewish ghetto under Nazi rule and the almost total annihilation of the city in 1944. Mr. Anderszewskis mother is of Hungarian Jewish heritage. His father is Polish. And though he said it is difficult for him to talk about something so personal and painful, his paternal grandfather, who was not Jewish, died in Auschwitz.

I have a trauma related to Warsaw, he said.

He had picked up some filmmaking techniques when he was the subject of several documentaries by Bruno Monsaingeon. So during his sabbatical, with a camera in hand and a filmmaker friend to assist him, Mr. Anderszewski walked Warsaw, a city he said he knows like my pocket. He filmed buildings, squares, a cemetery on a hillside dotted with wooden crosses  whatever inspired him. He didnt want a scenario or spoken narration  just images and music, using pieces from his own recordings.
Svend Asmussen, a Danish jazz violinist whose collaborators over more than 70 years included Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, the Indian violinist L. Subramaniam and the bluegrass mandolinist David Grisman, died on Feb. 7. He was 100.

Mr. Asmussens son Claus confirmed the death to The Associated Press. He did not say where his father died.

Mr. Asmussen was one of the first world-class jazz musicians from Scandinavia and one of the first jazz violinists of note. The jazz writer Doug Ramsey placed him among the handful (or fewer) of violinists who in the 1930s proved their instrument capable of swing and emotional expression at the highest jazz level.

Inspired by recordings of the American violinists Joe Venuti and Stuff Smith, Mr. Asmussen began leading a small group in Copenhagen in the mid-1930s. By the end of the decade his group was regularly opening for, and impressing, visiting American musicians like Fats Waller.
Buchi Emecheta, a British-based Nigerian writer who, in Second-Class Citizen, The Joys of Motherhood and other novels, gave voice to African women struggling to reconcile traditional roles with the demands of modernity, died on Jan. 25 at her home in London. She was 72.

The cause was dementia, her son Sylvester Onwordi wrote in the British magazine New Statesman.

Ms. Emecheta (pronounced BOO-chee em-EH-cheh-tah) came to the attention of British readers in the early 1970s when New Statesman began running her accounts of the travails of a young Nigerian woman in London. Adah, a thinly disguised version of the author, lived in a dreary apartment, worked menial jobs to support her young children and abusive husband, studied at night and weathered the slights meted out by a racist society. Buoyed by ambition and pluck, she remained undaunted.

In the Ditch, a novel based on those columns, appeared in 1972.

With the publication two years later of a second Adah novel, Second-Class Citizen, critics in Britain and the United States hailed the arrival of an important new African writer. Like her immediate predecessor Flora Nwapa, Ms. Emecheta revealed the thoughts and aspirations of her countrywomen, shaped by a patriarchal culture but stirred by the modern promise of freedom and self-definition.

Scarcely any other African novelist has succeeded in probing the female mind and displaying the female personality with such precision, the Sierra Leonean scholar Eustace Palmer wrote in African Literature Today in 1983.
Two New York City men have pleaded guilty to federal charges that they plotted a pressure-cooker bomb attack in the city on behalf of the Islamic State, prosecutors said on Friday.

The men, Munther Omar Saleh, 21, of Queens, and Fareed Mumuni, 22, of Staten Island, were arrested in 2015.

Mr. Saleh searched online for materials needed to build a pressure-cooker bomb and looked at images of city tourist attractions in hopes of carrying out an attack, a federal complaint said. An ISIS fighter gave Mr. Mumuni the go-ahead for a suicide attack against law enforcement officers who were following the men, the United States Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of New York said in a statement.

A police officer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey saw Mr. Saleh walking on and looking around the George Washington Bridge on two consecutive days. The authorities said he was also seen visiting a spy store in Queens and he later searched online for disguises.
Misinformation, managerial breakdowns and misplaced attacks are emblematic of how City Hall seems to operate, he added.

Later in the day, Mr. de Blasio held a news conference in the Bronx to announce an increase in the citys high school graduation rate, to 72.6 percent, which he and other officials described as a historic high.

But the achievement  and a separate announcement about a new affordable housing initiative to be included in the mayors State of the City speech on Monday  were at least partly obscured by questions about the feud with Mr. Stringer and the continuing investigations into Mr. de Blasios fund-raising activities.

Mr. de Blasio was questioned in December by investigators with the Manhattan district attorneys office who are examining his role in raising money for Democratic State Senate candidates in 2014.

He has also agreed to be questioned by federal investigators from the office of the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara  an interview that is expected to occur in the coming days.

When asked about the investigations, the mayor has typically been brusque in his replies, saying little, if anything. On Friday, his office went further, sending an email to reporters in an effort to shut off questions on the topic.

The email contained what Mr. de Blasios press secretary, Eric Phillips, called a fact sheet about the inquiries, saying it was the extent of public information the mayors office will be disclosing and asserting twice more that the mayor and other city officials would not answer further questions or provide further information.
On Friday, the New York State Commission on Forensic Science, which is weighing whether to authorize the method in New York, held a public meeting to hear testimony on both sides of the debate. Here are remarks from four people who shared their perspectives at the hearing. Their comments have been edited for length and clarity.

Disproportionate Impact

The criminal justice system has created a massive racial disparity in the way poor New Yorkers of color are policed and prosecuted. So logically their overrepresentation in the DNA database would be equally dramatic. Thus, the communities largely falling under investigation from familial searching would be those communities of color already disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system as it is.

This kind of hunch policing in communities of color used to go by the name stop and frisk. Eventually declared unconstitutional, stop and frisk had a devastating impact on communities of color and their relationships with law enforcement. Now instead of whats in your pockets, law enforcement wants to know whats in your DNA, all because a relative of yours was convicted of a past crime.

 Brad Maurer, DNA specialist at the New York County Defender Services.

Helping Solve Crimes

It reliably can generate leads that enable law enforcement to identify the guilty. But the technique can also, importantly, help ensure that the innocent will not be wrongly charged, let alone subjected to prosecution, conviction or sentence. Why, weve been asked in the past days, are we still pressing for familial DNA searching if an arrest has been made in the murder of Karina Vetrano? After all, it was the vicious killing of this young women that drew our attention to this modern tool of DNA technology and it moved us to press the commission to take up the issue.

We are grateful that with the arrest the Vetrano family may find some very small measure of comfort in knowing that a suspect has been apprehended. However, while the public can rest easier knowing the suspect is in custody, there are other horrible crimes that remain unsolved.

 Eric C. Rosenbaum, chief of the Queens District Attorneys DNA Prosecutions Unit
The New York State Education Department said on Friday that the high school graduation rate hit a new high of 79.4 percent in 2016, an increase of 1.3 points from 2015 and more than 12 points from a decade ago. But changes to graduation requirements in 2016 made it hard to know whether schools were doing better or students were simply clearing a lower bar.

Among other changes, the Board of Regents, the body that governs the states education system, made it possible for students with disabilities to graduate by passing two Regents exams, rather than five, if they showed proficiency in the other subjects through coursework. The Education Department said that 418 students statewide benefited from that change alone, which nudged the graduation rate up by 0.2 percent.

Additionally, the Regents allowed more students to appeal to their districts to graduate despite falling slightly short on one or two Regents exams. The Regents also let students graduate by passing four Regents exams and earning a credential showing that they have the skills for entry-level employment. The Education Department said it could not say how many students had benefited from those changes.

While the adjustments placed an asterisk on the states announcement, data from New York City, where the graduation rate increased to 69.6 percent from 67.2 percent in 2015, offered clearer evidence of progress.
Q. It was unfortunate that the Bronx deer granted clemency by the governor last year met such a sad end. But didnt another animal make a bid for leniency decades ago in New York?

A. Tammany, a cat who roamed City Hall in the 1930s, not only received a reprieve, but also was said to have typed the letter seeking clemency himself. Tammanys story ended more happily than that of the deer who was found stranded in a Harlem park in December, prompting a governmental back-and-forth on whether to euthanize him. Shortly after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomos pardon, the deer died before it could be released.

In 1930 or so, Mayor James J. Walker found Tammany, a grayish and white tabby, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and brought him inside to help catch rats, said Peggy Gavan, who runs The Hatching Cat website, a forum that explores unusual animal tales of old New York. The cat was named after Tammany Hall, the political machine that ruled City Hall.

Tammany was a particular favorite in Room No. 9, where the journalists were quartered.

They would pose him for pictures there, Ms. Gavan said. And there were stories about how he didnt love the publicity, but he got great press anyway. They adored him.
We know this not from Mr. Flynn or the administration, but from accounts first provided to The Washington Post by nine current and former government officials who had access to reports from American intelligence and law enforcement agencies that routinely monitor the communications of Russian diplomats. Bizarrely, Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday afternoon that he was unaware of the Post report, but would look into that.

By consorting with the Kremlin after it interfered in the election, Mr. Flynn may have violated the Logan Act, which prohibits citizens from negotiating with foreign governments in disputes involving the American government. Prosecution seems unlikely since the act, which dates back to 1799, has never been used. Former American officials may have a point when they say that aggressive enforcement could discourage sensible foreign contact. But there is little doubt that Mr. Flynn displayed the kind of bad judgment that makes him unfit for high office and raises fresh questions about why he kowtows to President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

The episode has also showed that Mr. Flynn has utter disregard for the truth. On Wednesday, he twice told The Post no when asked if he discussed sanctions with Mr. Kislyak. But the next day, a spokesman said Mr. Flynn couldnt be certain that the topic never came up.

Mr. Flynn may also have lied to Vice President Mike Pence, who last month told CBS News that Mr. Flynn had not discussed sanctions with Mr. Kislyak, but had an informal chat in which he extended Christmas wishes. Given his background, shouldnt Mr. Flynn have known that someone would be listening to his conversation and that any falsehoods would be discovered? He was always a flawed choice for national security adviser and is irreparably damaged now. No one can believe what he says.
LAS VEGAS  Recently, I met with a former student of mine who showed exceptional promise during his freshman year. Since he took my class, he has become a leader in social justice groups and works part time at the universitys womens center. He is now a junior and is on schedule to graduate a semester early. He is a model student. He is also undocumented.

He was among a group of students and faculty members who signed a petition requesting our college president declare our university a sanctuary campus  one of hundreds of similar petitions that circulated on colleges across the nation after President Trumps election.

Much like sanctuary cities, sanctuary campuses grant protections to undocumented students while enrolled. A college or university would, for example, prevent federal immigration officers from entering campus without warrants, and keep information on students immigration status private unless subpoenaed.

Here in Nevada, where 7 percent of the population is undocumented, the sanctuary movement has particular relevance. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where I teach, is a federally designated Hispanic-serving and Asian-Pacific-serving institution, meaning it gets government support to help underprivileged minority students. Some 25 percent of our students are Hispanic, and U.S. News and World Report has named it one of the most diverse campuses in the country.
The school responded. Campus cultural centers received more funding, faculty were hired to teach ethnic studies and plans for a new Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity and Transnational Migration were announced. But Calhoun College would remain. Yales president argued, in essence, that changing the name would be an erasure of history  a sentiment with which many alumni agreed.

To students of color, the idea that this history could be erased was laughable. Calhouns ideologies are not inert elements of the past. White supremacy is very much a part of our present. Those who see the name Calhoun as a benign symbol of history must not encounter racism in their daily lives.

Just how present this history was became clear to me around that time.

While I was at school, my grandmother sent me a recently uncovered family tree and oral history. It was compiled by one of my great-uncles for a 1990 family reunion, and it stretches back to the early 1800s, to a great-great-great-great-grandmother known as Grandma Nancy. She was born near the Fort Hill Plantation  now preserved on the campus of Clemson University. Her mother was a Cherokee slave named Liza Lee. Her father was John C. Calhoun.

I couldnt make sense of it. Id spent the past year and a half advocating the removal of my own ancestors legacy and I didnt even know it.

Over Thanksgiving, I went to Clemson to visit the plantation, now a museum. The Calhouns silverware was kept in pristine condition, but the slave quarters were destroyed. I felt very apprehensive entering the house, knowing the likelihood that Liza Lee had been raped by Calhoun. I imagined myself inhabiting her space. According to our oral history, Grandma Nancy was fair-skinned and blue-eyed, and she was forced to wear a head scarf to distinguish her from the white women. She was forbidden to learn to read or write. As a child, she was sold.

My reflection looks different to me now. I know I shouldnt be ashamed, but this knowledge definitely doesnt make me proud. I am both a part of Calhouns family and a descendant of African-Americans he claimed as his property, and it blows my mind. My family has been running from slavery and its aftermath for at least five generations. I ran farthest, but ended up right where my ancestor was in 1804 when he graduated from Yale.

Some days, I cant shake the thought that Calhoun influences my identity. Other times, I tell myself that being at Yale  and being me  is a beautiful thing.
Congressional Republicans are finding that constituents, like facts, are stubborn things.

On Thursday night, Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who heads the House Oversight Committee, cut a town hall short by an hour when some of the 1,000 attendees jeered him for failing to investigate Mr. Trump.

Why arent you checking out your own president? one woman demanded.

That same evening in Tennessee, Representative Diane Black tried to answer only questions submitted in advance. This failed, as she was blasted by constituents over Republicans plan to kill Obamacare without a replacement.

There are people now who have cancer that have that coverage, that have to have that coverage to make sure they dont die, said Mike Carlson of Antioch, Tenn. How can I trust you to do anything thats in our interest at all?

Representative Dave Brat of Virginia, a Tea Party tough guy, said recently that hes getting hammered by women who want to keep Obamacare. They are getting in my grill, he said. They come up  Whens your next town hall? 
For men of a certain age, learning to tie a tie was a rite of passage. The necktie is a sign of maturity, self-discipline and respect for tradition. The knot in ones necktie is a biography in silk, communicating details of temperament, character and upbringing. Bulky Double Windsors are brash and extroverted. Perfectly symmetrical knots with centered dimples betray an obsessive-compulsive personality. The Italians have mastered the insouciance of the slightly off-center knot  some even leave the narrower end a bit longer, letting it peek out from behind the thicker one in front, as if to say, I really couldnt be bothered to redo it.

Trump partisans may well complain: Why is the Italian imperfect tie-knot considered chic and the presidential idiosyncrasy declasse? Isnt this a double standard set up by liberal elitists?

As with most sartorial conventions, there is an underlying logic. The long, fat end of Mr. Trumps tie, flapping in the breeze like an advertising banner or swinging far beneath his belt, is both overly contrived and disproportionate. By contrast, the Italians slightly askew tie is visually balanced and charmingly unselfconscious. If the Italians tie shows an aristocratic disdain for the trappings of masculine potency, Mr. Trumps symmetrical but overlong tie stands out like a rehearsed macho boast, crass and overcompensating. In past eras such posturing could be unlawful: The overstuffing of ones codpiece, for instance, was considered such an affront to public order in Renaissance England that offenders were forced to march through the streets with their stuffing pulled out  their deception exposed for all to see.

And then there is the matter of the tape. This is the opposite of the Italians devil-may-care. It betrays a devil who cares too much  and about the wrong things. Whereas the slightly imperfect tie knot demonstrates nonchalance, the badly tied and taped tie suggests a desperate but failed bid to look correct. Its not only a failure, but also a fraud, a paper moon artlessly stuck over a cardboard sea.

Mr. Trumps neckties tell us something about his social and political ties. He has made the persona of the loud, tacky mogul a sort of trademark. Many of his supporters cheer him on because of his lack of refinement  they consider him a refreshing change from patrician politicians born with a silver tie bar clutched in their long elegant fingers. Mr. Trump comes off as a plebeian hero in spite of his inherited wealth because he did not inherit the sensibilities of the elite. He may have grown up in a plutocrats manor, but he was not to the manner born.
Im beside myself. Im beside myself, mutters an anxious and excited Jill Johnston at the beginning of The Town Hall Affair, the very timely and time-bending new mixed-media piece thats churning up decades of sexual discontent at the Performing Garage in SoHo. Johnston (reincarnated by Kate Valk), the poetic polemicist whose works included Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution, sure isnt alone in feeling that way.

This, after all, is a production from the Wooster Group, those downtown masters of deconstruction and detonation whose perspective-muddling shows have a way of expanding the view of who and where we are. And The Town Hall Affair  which recreates one explosive night of public debate in Manhattan in 1971  splits some very well-known identities by means theatrical and cinematic, so a number of real-life literary figures are literally beside themselves.

Johnston, for example, who frames this witty and deeply stimulating exercise in cultural archive-diving, shows up as exactly the way she was, in film footage from Town Bloody Hall, the 1979 documentary by Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker that inspired this show. But she has also been reincarnated in the flesh by the peerless Ms. Valk, the Wooster Groups longtime leading lady.

In The Town Hall Affair, directed by Elizabeth LeCompte, this same double vision is applied to other participants in the fabled and combative Dialogue on Womens Liberation, which was the hottest ticket in town for the New York literati of 46 years ago. There are the glamorous Australian feminist Germaine Greer and her ratty fur stole, onscreen and in person (in the form of the actress Maura Tierney), and the august essayist Diana Trilling, whose face on film looks remarkably like that of the male actor playing her onstage, Greg Mehrten.
But I would tell them that a warrant issued for your arrest is not something you would want.

Immigrant advocacy groups like Make the Road New York have been holding regular Know Your Rights workshops in case ICE comes to the door, and one on Wednesday in Queens drew 40 people.

On the advice of La Colmena, a group that assists day laborers in Staten Island, Armando, 45, who asked that his last name not be used because he is in the country illegally, filled out an emergency packet, hid it inside his home and told his oldest son, Johnny, where to find it. He told me, Do not worry, nothing is going to happen,  Armando said. I dont know if he says that to keep us calm or because he just does not want to think about it.

Esmeralda, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico in Alexandria, Va., is trying to find a new place to live with her 2-year-old daughter after her husband was deported to Mexico after a routine check-in at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office. She is now wondering if she should apply for a visa  which could end up in her becoming legal, or put her at risk because it notifies the government of her presence here.

I have to look out for her, she said of her daughter. Its just me and her now.

In Savannah, the immigrant community has been on high alert this week. Social media posts spread around town, warning of the presence of ICE agents in various trailer parks, and informing people of their rights if confronted by an agent.

Attention, people of Savannah and the surrounding areas, declared a Spanish-language message posted Wednesday on the popular Facebook page Latinos Mexicanos Savannah, which was subsequently shared more than 400 times. This is to inform you that we have been notified that immigration agents (ICE) are going to the trailers, knocking and taking people away. It continued, Be very careful.

In Austin on Friday, more than a dozen women in a laundromat were trading news in Spanish gleaned from text messages and Facebook feeds about enforcement actions in the area. In one case, an ICE agent was injured during a scuffle with a man who had been arrested in a parking lot, according to the agency.

Theres no doubt that ICE officers have significantly more presence in Austin, and they are arresting people at street stops, said Denise Gilman, director of the University of Texas Immigration Law Clinic. She said it appeared the agency was targeting people who already had deportation orders against them, and then catching others in their dragnet.
In early November 1983, after President Ronald Reagan denounced the Soviet Union as the evil empire and unveiled his so-called Star Wars missile defense strategy, Kremlin leaders were growing convinced that war games planned by the United States and NATO in Western Europe were, in fact, a disguised prelude to a nuclear first strike on Russia.

Their fear was almost palpable. On Sept. 27, a Soviet early warning station had received signals that five incoming Minuteman intercontinental missiles had been launched from American bases. The duty officer, Col. Stanislav Petrov, made a split-second gut decision that proved correct: He concluded that a satellite glitch had triggered a false alarm.

Six weeks later, as the war games began with realistic precision, fully armed Soviet fighters were placed on alert at Polish and East German bases for the first and only time in the Cold War. Soviet helicopters began ferrying nuclear weapons from storage sites to launching pads. Civilian aircraft in Warsaw Pact nations were grounded while the Soviets launched three dozen spy-plane flights over Western Europe to assess whether the mobilization presaged a sneak attack.

At Ramstein Air Base in West Germany, where the United States Air Force had its European headquarters, Lt. Gen. Leonard H. Perroots, the deputy chief of staff for intelligence there, faced, like Colonel Petrov, a quandary  one with profound potential consequences.
President Trump said he plans to look into reports that his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, discussed sanctions in his pre-inauguration conversations with Russias ambassador to the United States and possibly misled administration officials about it.

I dont know about that. I havent seen it, said Mr. Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One late Friday, during a flight to Florida from Washington. Several news outlets reported on Thursday that Mr. Flynn and Ambassador Sergei I. Kislyak had discussed sanctions that the Obama administration had imposed on Russia.

The White House has denied publicly that the two men discussed sanctions.

Even as Mr. Trump professed his lack of knowledge of the episode, administration officials were scrambling to contain the fallout of the latest revelations about the embattled former three-star general, who has been criticized internally for his judgment and for staffing the National Security Council with military officers instead of trained civilian personnel.

Perhaps a bigger concern for Mr. Flynn is his relationship with Vice President Mike Pence, who sometimes has had to defend him in public.
To put somebody in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services that is inimical to Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act  this guy is a wrecking ball, Mr. King said. He is not a secretary. He is going into this agency to destroy it. He wants to undercut and diminish and, in some cases, literally destroy some of the major underpinnings of providing health care to people in this country.

By contrast, at the swearing-in ceremony, the vice president said Mr. Price had emerged as the most principled expert on health care policy in the House of Representatives, if not the entire Congress.

Mr. Trump said again on Friday that the Affordable Care Act was a total and complete disaster. With the confirmation of Mr. Price, he said, the administration will get down to the final strokes, devising a plan that can provide tremendous health care at a lower price.

In a farewell address to the House submitted for publication in the Congressional Record, Mr. Price said that, as chairman of the Budget Committee, he had begun an important effort to fix our nations broken health care system and get Washington out of the way of patients and doctors.

One of the first challenges facing the new secretary is to stabilize insurance markets and decide the future of financial assistance provided to insurance companies that say they have lost large amounts of money treating patients under the Affordable Care Act.

A judge on the United States Court of Federal Claims ruled on Thursday that the Obama administration had illegally reneged on a promise to pay subsidies to an Oregon insurer, Moda Health Plan. Many other insurers have filed similar claims. The Obama administrations failure to pay the claims was cited as a reason for the collapse of many nonprofit insurance cooperatives created under the Affordable Care Act.
MEXICO CITY  The final version of an internal review by the Mexican government into the conduct of investigators searching for 43 missing students has rejected an earlier report that found that the officials mishandling of suspects and evidence broke the law.

The original review described such serious wrongdoing, beginning with the illegal arrest of key suspects, that it threatened the foundations of the governments legal case. The new review, led by a different official, wiped clean the most damning of those violations, leaving the governments version of the case intact.

The investigators actions amounted only to technical violations, according to the new report, which was prepared by the inspector general of the attorney generals office and given to the students families on Thursday.

The final report is a clear example that they are covering up and diluting investigators responsibilities, said Mario Patron, director of the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center in Mexico City and the families legal representative.
MANILA  At least six people were killed and more than 100 others were injured when an earthquake struck the southern Philippines late Friday, a disaster management official said on Saturday.

The earthquake, which the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology measured as a magnitude 6.7, hit northeast of the city of Surigao in the Mindanao region.

Renato Solidum, the institutes director, said that the quake occurred at a depth of 11 kilometers, or about 6.8 miles, and that as many as 30 aftershocks followed over the next 10 hours.

An official with the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, Ramon Gotinga, said on Saturday that at least six people had been killed as a result of the quake and that 90 others had been hospitalized, saying that those numbers might rise.
WASHINGTON  The weather, and her reception here, were far colder than when she visited last summer during the Obama administration, but Federica Mogherini, the European Unions foreign minister, made it clear that she can handle a chill in the air.

I think we are entering into a different phase of our relationship, Ms. Mogherini said Friday in a 30-minute interview, adding, A more transactional approach means Europeans will be more transactional, and we will base our approach on our interests.

But Ms. Mogherini said she had received important reassurances from top administration officials on the Iran nuclear deal and on Russian sanctions.

I was reassured by what I heard in my meetings on the intention to stick to the full strict implementation of the agreement in all its parts, Ms. Mogherini said of the Iran deal.
Col. Ljubisa Beara, the Bosnian Serb Army security chief sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide in 2010 in the massacre of as many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys near Srebrenica in 1995  the worst mass murder in Europe since World War II  died on Wednesday in Berlin. He was 77.

His death was confirmed by Peggy Fiebig, a spokeswoman for the Berlin states Justice Department, but she did not give a cause.

Colonel Beara, who was being held at Tegel prison in Berlin, surrendered to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague in 2004. The tribunal had accused the Serbian government of sheltering him for the two years after he was indicted on charges stemming from his role in the massacre.

What amounted to a five-day killing frenzy began when Serb soldiers and police units overran Muslim forces and United Nations troops guarding what was supposed to have been a haven for Muslim refugees who had fled ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian war. Srebrenica is in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina.
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria suggested in an interview published Friday that he could foresee cooperation with the Trump administration and might even countenance the deployment of American soldiers in the country one day.

The remarks by Mr. Assad appeared to signal that he might be more amenable to dealing with Mr. Trump than he was with President Barack Obama, whose administration repeatedly called on the Syrian leader to step down, accused his government of repeated atrocities and supported rebels seeking to topple him.

We dont have any contact with the Americans, Mr. Assad said. Were not in that position.

Mr. Assad not only held himself blameless for the conflict but expressed confidence that the millions of refugees who had fled would eventually come home. He also asserted that some had already returned and that life in Damascus, the capital, was safe and nearly normal.

The 34-minute interview in Mr. Assads presidential offices, conducted by Michael Isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News, was the Syrian leaders first with an American news organization since the inauguration of President Trump three weeks ago.
UNITED NATIONS  The United States on Friday blocked the appointment of a former Palestinian official for a senior United Nations post in a move intended to signal its support for Israel and its defense of the position that there is no Palestinian state.

The former Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, had been put forth as the next United Nations special representative to Libya.

The American ambassador, Nikki R. Haley, said in a statement on Friday that the Trump administration was disappointed that the new United Nations secretary general, Antonio Guterres, had sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council announcing his intention to appoint Mr. Fayyad to the Libya post.

For too long the U.N. has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel, Ms. Haley said. The United States does not currently recognize a Palestinian state or support the signal this appointment would send within the United Nations.
ABSTRACT: THE ART OF DESIGN on Netflix. The idea that design is everywhere is hardly new; it is the backbone of the podcast 99% Invisible, for example, and fodder for TED talks about architecture and planning. And now this series, which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is the latest exploration of how smart design is in fashion, technology and even the mundane facets of daily life. Expect to hear from eight design luminaries, including Es Devlin, the stage designer whose credits include Beyonces 2016 concert tour; Platon, the photographer known for his memorable portraits of heads of state; and Bjarke Ingels, the architect who has a knack for speaking about his buildings with catchy sound bites like High Line to the skyline.

JOSHUA BELL AND THE NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 8 p.m. on Medici.tv. Live from Kennedy Center, its the star violinist Joshua Bell conducting this orchestra in a performance of Beethovens Symphony No. 7  which is famous for its second movement, the captivating Allegretto. Then, the Kansas City Symphony director Michael Stern takes up the baton while Mr. Bell performs the solo part in Edouard Lalos Symphonie Espagnole, a concerto-like piece inspired by Spanish dance melodies. This music will be accompanied by the Brooklyn-based Dance Heginbotham (led by John Heginbotham, a longtime member of the Mark Morris Dance Group). Available to stream after Saturday.
One of the models starring in Alexander Wangs show on Saturday on West 146th Street  a model who, with her I-dare-you blue-eyed stare and power stomp, is one of the most familiar faces on the runway  recently took on a new daytime gig. Not actress. Not brand ambassador.

Intersex advocate.

Hanne Gaby Odiele, a favorite of Mr. Wang who has appeared in his labels campaigns and is regularly booked for Chanel, Givenchy, Prada and more, revealed that she is intersex in late January through her Instagram account and articles in USA Today and Vogue magazine.

Though she has been a highly successful model since 2005, it took her over 10 years to decide to tell her story. When she did, the announcement was the pinnacle of a plan almost a year in the making.

Hanne is making people aware of intersex, in a way thats like what Caitlyn Jenner did for the trans movement, said Elizabeth Reis, author of Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex.
In the hours after Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was silenced by her Republican colleagues for impugning a fellow senator by reading aloud a letter Coretta Scott King had written that was critical of Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama (later confirmed as attorney general), thousands of Americans did what they always do: They tapped away at their phones.

But they werent checking text messages or liking a photo on Facebook. They were thumbing through online dictionaries, looking for a definition of impugn. On Wednesday morning, the dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster posted on its website that searches on the word had surged.

Its been at the top for almost 12 hours now, said Peter Sokolowski, the companys editor at large.

As he wrote on the Merriam-Webster website: Impugn means to oppose or attack as false or lacking integrity or to criticize (a persons character, intentions, etc.) by suggesting that someone is not honest and should not be trusted. It comes from the Latin word pugnare meaning to fight, which is also the root of pugnacious and pugilism.
I also caught up there with former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, one of her rivals for the post. What voters heard from Clinton, he told me, was not I feel your pain but Vote for me because hes crazy, and thats not a message.

By the time of the Houston event, the field of contenders for the D.N.C. chairmanship was up to 10. I sat down with more than half of them, and noticed a contradiction between their rightful worry about focusing too much on Trump and their continued focus on  Trump.

That dynamic was reflected in a recent poll showing that while 41 percent of Democrats were unfamiliar with their partys Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, only 29 percent were unfamiliar with Trumps apocalyptic guru, Steve Bannon. Democrats at all levels are clearer on their enemies than on their agenda.

And theyre constantly swerving from vision to process: Its a tic they cant control. In Houston I was told that the party needed a more transparent presidential nominating system. And better voter-registration drives. And increased coordination between the D.N.C., the D.C.C.C. and the D.S.C.C. I supped on an alphabet soup.

We didnt make house calls, said Perez.

We abandoned the 50-state strategy, said Keith Ellison, a Minnesota congressman also running for the chairmanship.

All of thats true. But none of it gets at larger challenges that were much less frequently mentioned, if at all: the necessity of grooming and rallying behind candidates who can forge an emotional connection with voters and are in sync with the moment; the imperative of studying the map, identifying every Senate and House seat that could possibly swing to Democrats in 2018 and playing a ruthlessly pragmatic game of chess; the articulation of a down-to-earth, visceral message that resonates with as many voters as possible. Im with her didnt cut it.

Another of the D.N.C. candidates, Raymond Buckley, the chairman of the Democratic Party in New Hampshire, acknowledged to me, Sometimes we try to impress ourselves too much by talking about issues that are overly complex when the populace really wants you to boil it down to a much more simplistic message.
Given the increased political power Republicans won in the last elections, from Washington to red-state legislatures, voters might expect the party to feel that the nations voting procedures are working quite well. Yet this is far from the case, as triumphant Republicans are using their enhanced clout to continue their campaign playing up the mythical threat that voter fraud abounds in the nation.

The newest and loudest zealot in this cause is, of course, President Trump, with his scurrilous claim that millions of illegal ballots cost him a popular vote majority. His baseless claim only encourages the renewed efforts at voter suppression reported to be underway in a score of Republican-dominated statehouses intent on making it harder for citizens to register or vote.

Mr. Trump is trying to sell the false idea that he was fraudulently denied a clear mandate. Republican state legislators, in turn, are no more convincing but just as cynical in insisting that elaborate new ballot protections are needed  protections that effectively target poor people, minorities and students, who tend to favor Democratic candidates.

These include proposals requiring voters to produce new or tighter voter identification documentation and photos at the polls. Other measures would eliminate the convenience of Election Day registration, which invites more turnout. Some measures make it more difficult for college students to claim residency to vote near their colleges; others shorten early voting periods that encourage greater participation.
The Argentine general Jose de San Martin and the Chilean leader Bernardo OHiggins, both revered as founding fathers of their respective republics, were bold and inventive enough to believe that the Andes would be not a barrier to their search for justice, but a friend. Though hungry, thirsty and exhausted, the insurgents beat the Spanish forces of La Reconquista on Feb. 12, 1817, at the battle of Chacabuco.

Inspired by that distant feat, 20th-century Chileans also found the strength, patience, craftiness and unity to vanquish their oppressor, the Pinochet dictatorship. We did so by occupying every space possible, invading every corner and organization of the country, unshackling our fetters one by one. It took 17 painful years, and many dead and disappeared, but today we enjoy a thriving democracy that is constantly seeking to expand the rights of all people  men, women, immigrants, students, pensioners, workers, artists.

Would that I could say the same of the world at large.

All over the globe, the slow but steady accomplishments of the past are under siege. Worse still, the earth itself is threatened by climate disaster and extinction. The forces of regression and authoritarianism, contemporary avatars of La Reconquista, are on the march in country after country, fueled by ethnic nationalism. Walls are going up along borders as swiftly as the hearts of millions are closing to solidarity. Rights that we had considered unassailable and secure are being eroded.

Not since the iniquity of Hitler and Mussolini have we witnessed such a resurgence of hatred against the Other, even as the United States  one of the countries that led the fight against fascism  is now governed by men who would turn back the clock, and use repression rather than persuasion to obliterate so many gains and glories we took for granted.

Having seen in my own country how easily a proud democracy can be replaced by the most terrifying of tyrannies, I believe it is never too soon to issue a warning about the dangers ahead. If I invoke, 200 years later, the example of those revolutionary patriots who were undeterred in their quest for liberty by catastrophic odds and some of the highest mountains on the planet, it is not because I think that an invasion from abroad is the answer to the daunting challenges humanity faces. It is for what we can learn today about resistance and hope from the Army of the Andes.

Just as those fighters for independence found a sanctuary from which to gather strength, so should the multitudes who struggle now for justice and equality seek a similar haven. From that place of safety, we can hold firm against the forces of fear and reaction, and inch by inch, take back our land  bold in the knowledge that no obstacle is too large, no enemy too mighty, no mountain range of desolation and death too insurmountable.

Each of us occupies some space of respite from the whirlwind, each of us has something to contribute, our own Andes to cross, if we are to prevail. The mountains of Chile tell us that if we are brave enough, resourceful enough, imaginative enough, then nothing in this miraculous world is impossible.
Above all, fear spouses: Husbands are incomparably more deadly in America than jihadist terrorists.

And husbands are so deadly in part because in America they have ready access to firearms, even when they have a history of violence. In other countries, brutish husbands put wives in hospitals; in America, they put them in graves.

Yet Trump is raging about a risk from refugees that seems manageable, even as he talks about relaxing rules on another threat, guns, that is infinitely more lethal.

I will get rid of gun-free zones on schools, Trump said last year. My first day, it gets signed, O.K., my first day. Trump hasnt in fact signed such an order, but his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, backed him up at her confirmation hearing last month, saying that guns might be necessary in schools because of potential grizzlies.

Then theres Sebastian Gorka, a White House aide to Trump, who wrote a book in which he suggested that Americans engage in their own private counterterrorism strategy: Consider applying for a concealed-carry permit.

One reason to think that this isnt great advice: Gorka was arrested at Reagan Airport in Washington last year for trying to bring a gun through security. This didnt prevent him from getting a White House job.

The House of Representatives this month voted to end a restriction on people with severe psychiatric disorders buying guns. Likewise, there is a strong push in Congress  backed by Donald Trump Jr., the presidents son  to end longstanding curbs on the purchase of silencers. The younger Trump and other advocates say that silencers would reduce the danger of hearing loss from gunfire.
HAIFA, Israel  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is expected to visit Washington this week to meet with President Trump, presumably to discuss the political philosophy they share: power through hate and fear. A government that bars refugees and Muslims from entering the United States has much in common with one that permits Israeli settlers to steal land from Palestinians, as a new law that Mr. Netanyahus coalition pushed through Parliament last week did.

Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Netanyahu used blatant race-baiting tactics to win his last election, in 2015. Since then, he has made discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel central to his agenda. This takes many forms; a particularly painful one is his governments racist, unjust land use and housing policies.

Arabs make up one-fifth of Israels population, yet only 2.5 percent of the states land is under Arab jurisdiction. And since the founding of the state, more than 700 new towns and cities have been built for Jews, while no new cities have been built for Arabs.

In Arab towns, the government has made building permits so difficult to obtain, and grants them so rarely, that many inhabitants have resorted to constructing new housing units on their properties without permits just to keep up with growing families that have nowhere else to go. As a result, Arab communities have become more and more densely populated, turning pastoral villages into concrete jungles.
You have certainly heard of Bowe Bergdahl  the American soldier captured by the Taliban after he left his post in Afghanistan, the subject of the second season of the podcast Serial and the recurring object, during the presidential campaign, of Donald J. Trumps ire.

With Mr. Bergdahls court-martial now in its second year  a pretrial session is set to begin on Monday  his defense team recently filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him on the basis of unlawful command influence. It claims that President Trumps many prejudicial remarks about Mr. Bergdahl made at campaign events and political rallies preclude the possibility of a fair trial.

Mr. Bergdahl went AWOL from his unit in Afghanistan in 2009, was captured by the Taliban and later traded by the Obama administration for five Guantanamo inmates. He is charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. In at least 40 public attacks on Mr. Bergdahl, Mr. Trump repeatedly made reference to what we would have done 20, 30 or 50 years ago. A representative excerpt from a July 2016 rally in Indiana:

So we have a traitor named Sergeant Bergdahl. So Sergeant Bergdahl thinks he likes their way of life, obviously. Oh, they have a wonderful way of life. So one day he leaves. We lose five and maybe six but five at least people looking for him. They were killed. They were killed by the enemy. They go out; theyre looking for him. They knew he left. Everybody with him knew he left because he was all whacked out and a believer in them, not us.

Mr. Trump went on a bit, and then: He deserted! Remember the old days? A deserter, what happened?

He made a rifle-shooting gesture, then: Bang. Twenty years ago it was bang. Another rifle-shooting gesture.
A bit of silver lining at the onset of the Trump administration has been the groundswell of activism by hundreds of thousands of Americans taking to the streets to face off against a president, and a Republican establishment, they see as reckless, divisive and destructive.

But Republican lawmakers have been so alarmed by the size and intensity of the demonstrations  for womens rights, immigrants and the environment  and by protests around the country before the election, that they have introduced measures in at least 10 states to intimidate free speech by criminalizing it.

While their proponents say the bills and initiatives are needed to protect public safety and ensure civility, these efforts would crush the right of free protest at a time when key American principles and institutions are under attack.

In North Dakota, where activists have fought the construction of an oil pipeline that threatens to pollute a neighboring Indian reservations drinking water as well as deface sacred lands, lawmakers have proposed punishing protesters who demonstrate on private property with up to 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine. Another state measure would make wearing a mask in a public setting a crime punishable by up to a year in prison.
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, 25 percent of practicing physicians in this country are foreign-trained, with many of them working in the nations most vulnerable areas  places like my city and in rural America. Rural counties overwhelmingly voted for President Trump; with his election, they may now lose their health insurance, and their doctors.

What our country stands to lose by walls and bans, in talent, drive, creativity and entrepreneurship, is staggering, but the personal toll is greater. In 1980, my family arrived here full of hope, trading a future of war, fascism and oppression for one of peace, freedom and opportunity. My parents are secular progressives, dissidents who opposed Saddam Husseins increasingly murderous and autocratic regime. A future in Iraq might have included imprisonment or death at the hands of the government. It is through these everyday-grateful immigrant eyes that I first saw our country as a 4-year-old and still see it today.

As a young immigrant, I may have been scared, and my school lunches looked and smelled different (no one knew what hummus or falafel was back then), but I was embraced in the suburban Detroit community where I grew up as one of the few brown kids.

The ban, and other equally ignominious limitations to immigration that may be on their way, ignore the contributions of our immigrants. Perhaps these limitations are an effort to return us to a make-believe Leave It to Beaver past. Whatever the motivation, my family and millions just like us are intertwined in the fabric of America. My mom taught English to recent immigrants, while my dad worked for General Motors as an engineer for 31 years, designing custom alloys. Together, they instilled in me and my brother an ethic of social justice and service-oriented work while providing us with a better life. The American dream was our reality.

Today, people still want to come to America, as it remains the epitome of freedom and prosperity, the richest country that ever was, and blessed by tranquillity. Immigrants know that the laws here shelter diversity, protect rights and property, and provide the opportunity for economic prosperity. America is as great as ever. And as immigrants we understand it is our obligation to continue making it great for all of us, no matter where we came from.
Both scientists had developed techniques for turning N.M.R. data into images  Dr. Lauterbur while he was at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

When N.M.R. imaging became common for medical use, the name was changed to magnetic resonance imaging; the word nuclear was dropped for fear that patients might think radioactive elements were being used.

Dr. Mansfield built a prototype of a magnetic resonance imaging machine in 1978, and he volunteered to be the first person to be enclosed in it and scanned, even though some scientists worried that its nonuniform magnetic field could induce cardiac fibrillation.

He was the guinea pig, said Richard Bowtell, a professor at Nottingham, who had been one of Dr. Mansfields graduate students. He went into the scanner. There was the worry it would knock him dead.

Dr. Mansfields own calculations indicated no danger.

In fact, the scan went well, and after fifty minutes and sweltering heat, I got out of the machine dripping like a wet rag, he wrote in his 2013 autobiography, The Long Road to Stockholm: The Story of M.R.I.

Dr. Mansfield went on to seek faster scans that could capture the beating of a heart. He developed a technique called echo-planar imaging, which could assemble an image in less than a second instead of minutes or hours.

His techniques enabled scientists to take a rapid-fire succession of images that tracked the movement of internal organs. That led to another advance called functional M.R.I., which depicts activity in the brain.
Every presidential administration needs a grande dame to smooth relations between rival factions and serve as a bridge to society. In the 1970s and 80s, Sally Quinn, then married to Benjamin C. Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post, was known for the high-I.Q. salons held at their Georgetown townhouse. Roughly a decade later, Georgette Mosbacher, a cosmetics executive and philanthropist, became Washingtons hostess supreme as a result of the round-table dinner parties she hosted with her then-husband, the oil tycoon turned commerce secretary Robert A. Mosbacher.

Who will take on that important but unofficial role under President Trump? A strong candidate is Hilary Geary Ross, 66, a fixture of Palm Beach and New York society and wife of the 79-year-old multibillionaire investor and industrialist Wilbur L. Ross Jr., who is likely to be confirmed as commerce secretary as early as next week.

C-Span cameras captured Ms. Ross as she sat behind her husband when he testified before Congress on Jan. 18. At one point she had a laugh with Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. On Jan. 27, Daily Mail photographers on a stakeout caught the arrival of Ms. Ross and her husband as they made their way into a Shabbat dinner held at the Washington home of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

As Ms. Ross prepares to become a significant social presence in the capital, she is overseeing the remodeling of a 10,000-square-foot mansion, complete with a movie theater and staff quarters, on a portion of Woodland Avenue known as billionaires row in the citys Massachusetts Heights enclave. The couple purchased the home not long after the election, for a reported $10 million.
Republicans, championing individualism, are philosophically wary of allying themselves with identity groups as Democrats have done  even if critics charge they have sent coded messages to groups such as Southern whites and the white working class.

I guess I would say Im not someone who thinks in terms of gender, said Sharon Fraser Toborg, 48. She is raising four children in Barre, Vt., and resents that her choice to stay home despite Ivy League and graduate degrees still draws condescension from many women. She did not back Mr. Trump in the primaries, but preferred him in the end to Mrs. Clinton. Im someone who thinks in terms of capabilities, so to me how many men or women are in a particular presidents cabinet, I dont keep score. I dont believe only women can understand so-called womens issues.

That unease with gender as a unifier exists for those on the right who support Mr. Trump and those who declared themselves Never Trump.

Kori Schake, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution who served on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, joined a group of Republican national security officials in a public letter pledging not to vote for him.

If you are going to make a sweeping claim of gender opposition to the president, you have to account for those women who voted for him and continue to support him, she said. It seems to me a better broader argument to make against the president is to join forces across gender lines, across all manner of lines, and argue for the respect of human dignity.

For years, conservative women have wrestled with the very idea of feminism. Many refused the label because they saw it as tarnished by association with the left, even as they pursued careers or won prominence in public life.

Conservative women say dont put me in the feminism bloc because somehow its emblematic of a whole set of liberal issues that may have nothing to do with promoting women, Mrs. Mitchell said.
NSO Groups motto is Make the World a Safer Place. But its spyware is increasingly turning up on the phones of journalists, dissidents and human rights activists.

NSO spyware was discovered on the phone of a human-rights activist in the United Arab Emirates and a prominent Mexican journalist in August. Researchers at the Citizen Lab at the University of Torontos Munk School of Global Affairs discovered NSO had exploited flaws in Apple software  since patched  to infiltrate the phones of the Emirati activist and the Mexican journalist, Rafael Cabrera.

In 2015, Mr. Cabrera reported that a luxury home that had been custom-built for President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico and his wife was owned by the subsidiary of a Chinese company that had been awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts. Mr. Cabreras report forced the presidential couple to forgo its stake in the home and the government to rescind contracts.

The discovery of spyware on Mr. Cabreras phone prompted digital rights activists to warn more journalists and activists in Mexico to look out for similarly suspicious text messages. In the process, they uncovered a new class of targets: nutrition policy makers and activists, some of whom were government employees.

Each had been targeted by NSOs main product, a tracking system called Pegasus, that could extract their text messages, contact lists, calendar records, emails, instant messages and location. It turned their phones into recording devices and secretly captured live footage off their cameras. Its full range of capabilities was detailed in an NSO Group marketing proposal leaked to The Times last year.

In interviews and statements, NSO Group  whose headquarters are in Herzliya, Israel, but which sold a controlling stake in 2014 to Francisco Partners, a San Francisco-based private equity firm  claims to sell its spyware only to law enforcement agencies to track terrorists, criminals and drug lords. NSO executives point to technical safeguards that prevent clients from sharing its spy tools.
The two new studies draw their data from the Health and Retirement Study at the University of Michigan and from the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation at the Census Bureau. The data included surveys that tracked the same women over time; in some cases, the researchers studied respondents income tax and Social Security records.

Women now in their 60s and 70s were the first generation to become professionals in large numbers, but that doesnt explain all of the increase in older women who work, which began in the late 1980s.

For some women, the decision to keep working was unexpected and not necessarily welcome, because of late-in-life divorce, pension or real estate losses, or changes in Social Security. A recent paper by the economists Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia S. Mitchell examined women who were working into old age because they had more debt than in previous generations and lacked financial savvy. Older workers who lost their jobs during the financial crisis were more likely to be unemployed long term  especially women, in part because their resumes tended to be spottier.

But most of the time, Ms. Goldin and Mr. Katz found, women are working longer because of decisions they made much earlier in their lives  to get an education and spend years building a career.

If people work when theyre younger, economists say, theyre more likely to work when theyre older. And because women are marrying and having babies later, they spend more time pursuing careers first. That means that even if they take breaks to care of children, they are likely to return to work and to work past a typical retirement age. Children had no effect on working later in life, the analysis found.

The same thing is happening among women in their 60s in most developed countries, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The presiding Speaker of the Public Parliament Jeff Wadulo has asked the National Assembly to increase sittings of the Peoples Parliament to at least four in a year to enhance public participation in legislation.

Wadulo has been speaking at the commencement of the Public mock debate at Parliament in Kampala.

He has however appreciated the initiative for public engagement towards policy formulation as a landmark undertaking towards formidable political participation by citizens.

The House is currently debating a motion for the resolution of the Public Parliament to urge Government to take measures to mitigate the adverse effects of Climate Change.
Every Sunday in February, we will feature and explore previously unpublished photographs from The New York Timess archives, with a special focus on the 1960s. Revisit last years Unpublished Black History project, sign up for our Race/Related newsletter and share your own experiences with black history in the comments.

One of the Apollo Theaters fans got it almost right when she told Earl Caldwell of The New York Times: You get two shows at the Apollo. Thats what I like down there. You get the show on the stage and the one in the audience.

In fact, theres a third performance that Times reporters and photographers often witnessed: the scene backstage. Check out Tommy Hunt here, gesticulating, arguing, singing  its hard to tell exactly what he was doing, but hed probably done it before. Mr. Hunt was an Apollo regular in the 60s, alongside Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, the Shirelles, the Supremes and many others.
The former president, who was 11 when his boyhood home got running water after his father installed a windmill, did not need convincing and became deeply involved with the project, writing notes in the margins of the lease agreement and visiting the site regularly.

Mr. Carter, Jason Carter recalled this week, regularly sent pictures of the construction on the farmland, which he often passed during walks here with his wife, Rosalynn.

When I told people we were getting solar panels, they said, In Plains? said Jan Williams, who runs the Plains Historic Inn and helps to organize Mr. Carters regular Sunday school classes, which remain a draw for tourists. They say, Well, thats because of Jimmy Carter. It is because of Jimmy Carter. Plains is all because of Jimmy Carter.

The Plains project, limited in size, according to Mr. Carter and SolAmerica, because of what existing infrastructure could handle, is far from the first solar effort in Georgia. But it is among the highest-profile projects in a state where, after years of reluctance, regulators have demanded that the predominant utility company place a greater emphasis on solar power.

In this state, and in other parts of the country where many residents are unconvinced of climate change, renewable energy supporters have often tailored their pitches to focus on economic benefits. A plurality of Georgias electric generation jobs are in solar, according to the Department of Energy.

The old politicized arguments about renewable energy being for coastal liberals just dont play anymore in parts of the country where theyre experiencing firsthand the economic benefits of renewable energy development and job creation, said Jodie Van Horn, the director of the Sierra Clubs Ready for 100 campaign, which pushes American cities to commit to entirely renewable energy offerings.

Renewable energy supporters do not have to ignore climate change arguments entirely, though. In 2014 in Sumter County, which includes Plains, 62 percent of residents believed that global warming was happening, according to an estimate from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. That is slightly higher than some counties in metropolitan Atlanta.
Federal workers are more likely to be Democrats, according to surveys. But partisanship and ideology explain only some of the intense feelings among workers, many of whom have seen Democrats and Republicans in the White House come and go.

At bars after work, in employee break rooms, on conference calls and on social media networks, employees at agencies targeted for steep reductions fear for their jobs. They worry about Mr. Trumps freeze on hiring and regulations, his pledge to reverse environmental protections, and his executive order shutting down immigration for refugees and people from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Some federal workers welcome Mr. Trumps promises to create new jobs, build infrastructure and lower taxes. Others say they are focusing on doing their jobs and trying not to be distracted by the political noise that surrounds them. Still others say they are struggling with the question of whether they want to work for a president with whom they so strongly disagree.

What do you do, asked Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia, if you work at a place where the leader avowedly renounces the work of that agency?

All of a sudden, you are faced with a real moral dilemma, continued Mr. Connolly, whose district just outside Washington is home to thousands of federal workers.

Federal workers watched with growing alarm last year as Mr. Trump waged a campaign filled with antigovernment bombast and then during a transition in which he recruited cabinet secretaries hostile to the agencies they lead. Now they wait in these chaotic early days of Mr. Trumps presidency as he and his political advisers use executive orders to shred the policies and traditions the workers have championed.

The intensity of feeling was already raw in late December, when members of the Digital Service gathered for drinks at the Laughing Man Tavern, a Washington bar, to say goodbye to Mikey Dickerson, their boss and the Google engineer first hired to rescue HealthCare.gov, the governments Affordable Care Act website.
WASHINGTON  Phil Berg was nervous as he prepared to tell Neil Gorsuch he was gay.

AIDS was still in the headlines at the time, the early 1990s, and same-sex marriage was a far-fetched notion. Some of Mr. Bergs other friends had not reacted well to his news. So he moved with caution, slipping the word boyfriend casually into conversation with Mr. Gorsuch, his dear friend and Harvard Law School classmate.

He didnt skip a beat, Mr. Berg, now a corporate lawyer in Manhattan said, recalling how that conversation led to a special bond between the two men. It was a huge deal for me, and it made a lasting impression.

Now President Trump has named Judge Gorsuch, 49, of the Federal Appeals Court in Denver, his nominee to the Supreme Court at a time when the clash between gay rights and religious freedom is one of the most contentious questions on the courts agenda.

Democrats and their progressive allies are marching in lock step to oppose Judge Gorsuch, whose record they find deeply troubling, and gay pundits are painting him as a homophobe. But interviews with his friends  both gay and straight  and legal experts across the political spectrum suggest that on gay issues, at least, he is not so easy to pigeonhole.
WASHINGTON  When President Trump formally nominated Judge Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, he boasted that Judge Gorsuch had been confirmed by the Senate to his current appeals court position by a unanimous vote more than decade ago.

Can you believe that? the incredulous president asked during the dignified ceremony in the East Room of the White House. Does that happen anymore?

Well, no, and it did not even really happen in Judge Gorsuchs case. He was seated on the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit on July 20, 2006, as part of a negotiated four-judge package approved on a perfunctory voice vote in a mostly empty chamber late on a Thursday in the middle of summer. No one objected, but most senators were probably on their way to the airport or had already taken flight.

I did not, in my view, vote for him, said Senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who has come under fire from conservatives for criticizing the Supreme Court nominee now but not raising a fuss back in 2006. I can tell you that I was not for him.
Still, his allusion to a rush of dangerous refugees is somewhat misleading. According to an analysis of data maintained by the State Departments Refugee Processing Center, the percentage of refugees arriving from those countries  Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  has risen considerably since the directive was suspended, but the weekly total of refugees arriving from the targeted countries has risen by only about 100. And all are stringently vetted.

At the same time, refugee arrivals from countries not affected by the order have fallen sharply. Since the judge blocked the ban, 1,049 of the 1,462 refugees who have arrived in the United States, or 72 percent, were from the seven countries affected. In Mr. Trumps first week of office, before he issued his order, more refugees arrived, 2,108, and 935 of them, representing 44 percent, were from those seven nations.

The figures suggest that the State Department and refugee resettlement agencies, which meet weekly to determine which individuals and families to admit to the United States, may be stepping up their efforts to help refugees from the seven countries.

Mr. Trumps order also sought to put an indefinite freeze on Syrian refugee admissions and temporarily suspend the rest of the refugee program until the screening process could be reviewed and made more restrictive.
When Republicans in Kentucky seized total control of the state government last year, Damon Thayer, the majority leader in the State Senate, began asking around for advice from counterparts in other capitals where the party already dominated both the legislative and executive branches.

How should we handle all this power? he wanted to know.

One answer impressed him, Mr. Thayer said, from a senior Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin: Move quickly.

Kentucky Republicans have done just that, swiftly passing laws to roll back the powers of labor unions and restrict access to abortion. But they are only getting started, Mr. Thayer said in an interview: They also plan to make sweeping changes to the education and public pension systems this year.

And they have plenty of company.

While Republicans in Washington appear flummoxed by the complexities of one-party rule, struggling with issues from repealing the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, to paying for President Trumps promised wall on the Mexican border, rising party leaders in the states seem far more at ease and assertive. Republicans have top-to-bottom control in 25 states now, holding both the governorship and the entire legislature, and Republican lawmakers are acting with lightning speed to enact longstanding conservative priorities.
After a swelling tide of protests, the president of Yale announced on Saturday that the university would change the name of a residential college commemorating John C. Calhoun, the 19th-century white supremacist statesman from South Carolina. The college will be renamed for Grace Murray Hopper, a trailblazing computer scientist and Navy rear admiral who received a masters degree and a doctorate from Yale.

The decision was a stark reversal of the universitys decision last spring to maintain the name despite broad opposition. Though the president, Peter Salovey, said that he was still concerned about erasing history, he said that these are exceptional circumstances.

I made this decision because I think it is the right thing to do on principle, Mr. Salovey said on a conference call with reporters. John C. Calhouns principles, his legacy as an ardent supporter of slavery as a positive good, are at odds with this university.
KABUL, Afghanistan  The NATO mission in Afghanistan has opened a preliminary investigation into claims that more than 20 civilians were killed in recent American airstrikes in the southern province of Helmand, military officials said Saturday.

Elders from the Sangin district, the scene of heavy fighting in recent weeks, with the Taliban blowing up Afghan Army posts there, have said that multiple American airstrikes early Friday morning killed at least 22 civilians, including several women and children.

Brig. Gen. Charles H. Cleveland, a spokesman for the American-led NATO mission, insisted that the military command had seen no conclusive evidence that civilians were killed in the airstrikes, but said that a formal review to determine the credibility of the claims had been opened. The investigation team involved NATO officers outside the American command to ensure impartiality, he added.

We are absolutely investigating this, and we take claims of civilian casualties seriously, although at this point we have no indication at all that civilians were killed, General Cleveland said.
The anti-Basuki demonstrations were heavily policed, and few, if any, Chinese-Indonesians were injured. President Joko Widodo, a pluralist who has strengthened ties with China, vigorously denounced fake news stories that targeted Chinese-Indonesians.

Nonetheless, the drama for Indonesias Chinese population appears far from over. Mr. Basuki remains popular with middle-class Jakartans of all ethnicities and has rebounded in the polls since being charged with blasphemy in November. He is facing two charismatic opponents whose camps have fanned Islamist sentiment against him.

If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote on Wednesday, a runoff will be held, which could lead to more demonstrations if Mr. Basuki advances. A decision on his blasphemy case isnt expected until March. If he is convicted he will most likely be required to resign from the governorship and potentially spend years in prison.

Mr. Basuki was promoted to governor two years ago after Mr. Joko was elected president, so this is his first time facing election for governor.

Some community leaders worry that Mr. Basukis travails will discourage other Chinese-Indonesians from seeking office. Hary Tanoesoedibjo, an ethnically Chinese business partner of President Trumps, said he would not be deterred from running for president in 2019.

I do not want to be compared with Ahok, he said in an interview. I just want to move forward.

But Mr. Gozali, the entrepreneur whose family supports Mr. Basuki, said the racism unleashed during the campaign would make it difficult to move on if Mr. Basuki lost.

A photo of Mr. Gozali showing his support for the governor was recently plucked from his personal Facebook page and spread on the web, with the leading comment saying: Typical rotten Chinese brain. Bunch of shady immigrants from China with false IDs.

Its not about Ahok anymore, Mr. Gozali said. Its an ideological war now. Are we going to be treated as second-class citizens?
ANKARA, Turkey  President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and the officials around him rarely miss a chance to call out Western hostility toward Islam.

When Danish newspapers published cartoons a decade ago that mocked the Prophet Muhammad, Mr. Erdogan quickly called for checks on press freedom. After the 2015 attack in Paris on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Mr. Erdogan warned that its blasphemous cartoons were wreaking terror on Muslims. And when Donald J. Trump made Islamophobia a central part of his presidential campaign last summer, Mr. Erdogan called for the rebranding of a pair of towers in Istanbul that bear Mr. Trumps name.

Yet in recent weeks, Mr. Erdogan has kept quiet as President Trump has taken office and signed an executive order banning immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

That is in large part because, at least for the moment, Mr. Erdogan sees Mr. Trumps rise to the presidency as a chance to reset relations with the United States, which had nearly collapsed in the last years of the Obama administration, officials say.
The Haggler has a spotless criminal record. Of course, that is because the Haggler is a fictional construct, which means he has no wrists, and this makes him impossible to handcuff. Here we have a key difference between the Haggler and the bumbling nitwit whose name is affixed to this column. He has wrists. Has he ever been arrested? Nobody cares. And the Haggler doesnt know because he and the nitwit are barely on speaking terms.

Forgive the snippy tone, dear readers, but many of you keep confusing the Haggler with the nitwit, and it is starting to grate.

This little outburst aside, the Haggler does care about the thousands of people who have been arrested and whose mug shots appear on mug-shot websites. For the uninitiated, these are sites that scrape online mug shots from sheriffs departments around the country and post them. This is a nightmare for the arrestees because when people search for their names online  for a job-related background check, for instance  up pops the image. The sites typically offer to delete it for a fee, anywhere from $20 to $400. This is high-tech extortion, and the victims are often people who have never been convicted of a crime. They were only arrested.

Its a scourge that the aforementioned bumbling nitwit has written about, and while state legislators have tried to constrain these sites, there really is only one entity that can help: Google. The worlds largest search engine and its algorithm determine whether mug-shot sites turn up high in Google searches. While that 2013 article was being edited, Google rejiggered the ingredients of its secret sauce, and mug-shot websites were drastically demoted, to the deep relief of many.
UPDATE Sean Spicer resigned as press secretary Friday morning, telling President Trump he vehemently disagreed with his choice for a new communications director.

Less than a month into the Trump administration, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, was already upending some of the longstanding traditions surrounding the nearly daily press conference with Washington reporters.

Who Sits Where

Click or pinch to zoom. Reporters highlighted were called on at the Feb. 7 briefing.

Photograph of the briefing room on Feb. 7 by Doug Mills/The New York Times

The 49 seats in the photo above (and chart below) have been assigned by the independent White House Correspondents Association since 1981, largely because administrations of both parties wanted to avoid the appearance of favoritism.

The briefings in the first few weeks of the Trump administration have been packed, with many reporters who do not have assigned seats standing in the aisles or sitting in empty chairs.

Boston Globe/ BBC Dallas Morning News Talk Radio News Service Scripps/ BuzzFeed FT/ Guardian CBN Roll Call Row 7 Media News/ Daily Beast Christian Science Monitor Salem Radio Network Wash. Examiner Dow Jones Sirius Yahoo 6 Chicago Sun Times/ Al Jazeera New York Post Real Clear Politics NY Daily News Hearst TIME Bloomberg BNA 5 Voice of America National Journal Washington Times Foreign pool FOX Radio The Hill MSNBC 4 American Urban Radio Network ABC Radio USA Today Tribune Politico McClatchy AFP 3 New York Times Washington Post CBS Radio Wall St. Journal AP Radio NPR Bloomberg 2 1 CNN Reuters ABC AP CBS FOX NBC Spicer Talk Radio News Service Scripps/ Buzz Feed Boston Globe/ BBC CBN Roll Call Dallas Morning News FT/ Guardian Media News/ Daily Beast Dow Jones Christian Science Monitor Sirius Salem Radio Network Yahoo Wash. Exam- iner Chicago Sun Times/ Al Jazeera NY Daily News Real Clear Politics New York Post TIME Bloom- berg BNA Hearst National Journal VOA FOX Radio The Hill Wash. Times MSNBC Foreign pool Amer. Urban Radio ABC Radio Tribune Politico McClat- chy USA Today AFP AP Radio New York Times Wash. Post NPR Bloom- berg CBS Radio Wall St. Journal CNN Reuters ABC AP CBS FOX NBC Spicer Boston Globe/ BBC Dallas Morning News Talk Radio News Service Scripps/ BuzzFeed FT/ Guardian CBN Roll Call Media News/ Daily Beast Salem Radio Network Christian Science Monitor Dow Jones Wash. Examiner Sirius Yahoo Chicago Sun Times/ Al Jazeera New York Post New York Daily News Real Clear Politics Bloomberg BNA Hearst TIME Voice of America National Journal Washington Times Foreign pool FOX Radio The Hill MSNBC American Urban Radio Network ABC Radio USA Today Tribune Politico McClatchy AFP New York Times Washington Post CBS Radio Wall St. Journal AP Radio NPR Bloomberg CNN Reuters ABC AP CBS FOX NBC Spicer

Who Gets Called On First

In the past, White House press secretaries tended to prioritize the reporters sitting in the first two rows.

They would give the first question to The Associated Press (after decades of starting with Helen Thomas, long known as the dean of the White House press corps). Then it was on to the major networks, newspapers and other wire services.

Mr. Spicer has bypassed this convention.

As he goes around the room, Mr. Spicer typically calls on media organizations outside the mainstream before getting to more traditional news outlets.

There are voices and issues that the mainstream media sometimes doesnt capture, and its important for those issues to get as much prominence as some of the mainstream ones, Mr. Spicer said in an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News in late January.

The first briefing question of Mr. Spicers tenure went to a New York Post reporter who wrote a book that was critical of Bill and Hillary Clinton. LifeZette, a website founded by the radio host Laura Ingraham, was first in the second briefing.

Reporters from conservative outlets like Breitbart, One America News Network and Newsmax are regularly tapped for questions.

Mr. Spicer also calls on non-mainstream outlets that may be more critical of the Trump administration, including American Urban Radio Networks, a minority-owned radio station, and Telemundo, Univision and other Spanish-language news outlets.

A comparison of Mr. Spicers first three briefings with the first three by Robert Gibbs, a press secretary under President Barack Obama, shows how things have shifted.

Row 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 No Assigned Seat First Briefing Gibbs, 2009 Associated Press CBS News NBC News ABC News CNN Spicer, 2017 New York Post Christian Broadcasting Univision Fox Business American Urban Radio Second Briefing Gibbs, 2009 Associated Press Reuters Unidentified CBS News ABC News Spicer, 2017 LifeZette USA Today Reuters Breitbart ABC News Third Briefing Gibbs, 2009 Associated Press NBC News Reuters ABC News CNN Spicer, 2017 Washington Times Telemundo Daily Mail Politico Washington Examiner

Other New Voices in the Briefing Room

Mr. Spicer has also awarded first questions to reporters in the new Skype seats that appear on two large flat-screens on either side of the lectern, including one to the CBS affiliate in his native Rhode Island. In addition to local TV networks, Skype seats have gone to conservative radio hosts and a Kentucky newspaper publisher.

Mr. Spicer with the first four Skype seat participants. Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Mr. Spicer routinely reaches out to the foreign news media (though so far not for the first question). Raghubir Goyal, who says he is affiliated with the news organization India Globe and whose tendency to veer off topic has been used by previous secretaries to defuse tense moments, has been called on twice.

Live, From Washington

Melissa McCarthy, donning an ill-fitting suit, mocked Mr. Spicers habit of chain-chewing cinnamon gum, his scolding of the press, and the flap over the news medias  and Mr. Trumps  use of the word ban to describe an executive order.

The sketch devolved into Ms. McCarthy using the lectern to literally attack a reporter, and using a water gun filled with soapy water to wash out a reporters lying mouth. It didnt go over too well in the White House, Politico reported.
Authoritarianism often begins as democracy. A democratic systems biggest flaw is its vulnerability to the tyranny its citizens are willing to either tolerate or ignore outright.

If you dont support democracy because it gave us Donald Trump, then you never truly believed in democracy at all. But that doesnt mean you have to support Donald Trump.

In fact, the opposite can be true.

The reality is many of us never really considered it. I dont mean Trump as president, though many of us never took that seriously either. I mean democracy.

We are not a direct democracy (one reason why the Electoral College exists), but rather a constitutional republic. It is, however, a democratic system: a government for the people by the people.

Except we forgot.

Too caught up in partisan point scoring and identity politics, many of us forgot how our government was supposed to actually function.

In order for our democracy to be effective and efficient, the checks and balances both within government and without it must be working in concert with one another.

And they werent.

Instead of governing by consensus and with bipartisan congressional action, too often President Obama was left to use executive action. Part of this was the fault of obstinate Republicans in Congress, and part of this was the presidents unwillingness or inability to sell his own policy positions. Its a flaw he freely admitted to in recent months as he reflected on his presidency.

A polarized political media was too busy staving off the death of its business model to realize they were covering politics in a way beneficial to consumerism but not to the public good.

And politicians were politicians. They reacted to all of this by worrying more about who wins the argument than helping the American people.

Trump has a chance to change all of thatthough not on purpose. And not in the way he seems to hope.

People are watching. The world is watching. More importantly, citizens of the United States are watching, carefully tracking Trump and Trumpism.

We have a chance to grow as a democratic nation because we have a chance to grow as a people. My guess is at no time in modern US history will every piece of legislation be more publicly scrutinized and studied.

I had a friend recently return from Germany saying she was so surprised with the ease people spoke about our election. People could have political discussions freely not just because they could intelligently articulate their point of view, but because they were able to shirk off the vitriol we assign one side of the argument with the other in this country. An ideological disagreement didnt devolve into name calling and demagoguery.

When I was in elementary school, my family took a trip to Paris. We went to visit the Arc De Triomphe but it been taken over by a group of protesters. They were protesting an election somewhere in the Muslim world, far from the streets of Paris. Police in riot gear littered the Champs-Elysees and protesters were being bused out by the hundreds.

We asked the hotel manager about the protest. He looked up and said flatly, it happens about once a week.

Advocacy and resistance are part of political culture everywhere in the modern world and it had been missing from the U.S. in large numbers for decades. Occupy Wall Street was a flash in the pan and never truly brought about the kind of meaningful change it sought.

The irony is the United States were founded on the principle of a fair and open government, on the idea that tyranny is a constant threat and we ought to be perpetually vigilant. Our founders were inherently dubious of governmental power. Our independence was based on government overstepping its just bounds.

When I saw the videos from Womens Marches around the country my first thought was that trip to Paris, how engaged a group of people were to protest an election that had happened thousands of miles away. We saw that around the world with anti-Trump marches, but also that level of engagement from our own citizens.

I wrote back in the fall about how a Trump presidential campaign had caused the political media to wake up. There were legitimate scandals to investigate, moral questions to interrogate, and a candidacy to vet in a way we dont normally see or at least havent seen in years.

But its not enough.

Some aspect of the resistance to Trump will always be partisan. Thats not only reasonable, but necessary. Its imperative in our governmental system that the minority party offer resistance to the ruling party to prevent tyranny. But weve also seen pushback from a number of prominent conservative media outlets. Will Republican politicians do the same? And how long will it take? How bad must it get?

An enthusiastic, informed, and engaged populous will help both the Democrats and Republicans act in a way that reflects the true will of the people.

With that in mind, let me offer one point of caution. Hundreds of thousands took the streets to protest Donald Trump, a much larger crowd than came to cheer on the president at his inauguration. That does not mean the will of the people has spoken.

Millions cast ballots for Donald Trump. Yes, he lost the popular vote, but he won the only voting system that matters: the electoral one. No, it wasnt a landslide win no matter what he says, but it was a legitimate and democratic win.

Protests cant and dont change that. Hes still the president and it doesnt mean the Republicans, who won a resounding victory in Congress regardless of the presidential popular vote outcome, dont have a constituency to represent.

All of that is to say, an engaged populace works both ways. Winning the battle of who has a bigger protest is not the end of the story (no matter what POTUS says). The Democrats and Republicans will hear the voices of their constituents. This is a good thing for our democracy.

Hundreds of thousands also marched in D.C. in support of pro-life legislation, something the Trump administration has already taken swift action to accommodate.

Public opinion polling consistently finds capping refugee and immigrant numbers, as well as Trumps various plans for Muslim immigrants, have always had stronger numbers than most in the media and on the left expected or hoped for.

Those voices will be heard as well. Ideas must find champions and battles must be waged over who has not only the best ideas but those which are most morally just. That a broad swath of Americans support something doesnt mean theyre right to support it. Thats why we elect leaders. Thats why we have a republic. History has proven this a hundred times over.

Resistance in this country isnt just to government itself, but to ideas and ideologies, along with the people who represent and perpetuate them. It makes us all stronger.

Public discourse, discussion, and ultimately adjudication of ideas is the foundation of a healthy and strong democracy.

Its like any workout: The more resistance you add, the stronger it becomes over time.

To borrow a phrase from the protests, This is what democracy looks like.

People dont get to vote on everything, you vote on people to represent you. This is precisely why all people, even Democrats who agreed with many of the executive actions taken by President Obama, ought to be dubious of governing by fiat.

When the president can, with a quick flip of his pen, make it nearly impossible for the United States to help in the greatest refugee crisis of our day, it should concern every citizen.

It was easier when President Obama sat at the head of our democratic system because even though there were those who disagreed with him ideologically, they believed he would govern faithfully, legally, and with some level of moral foresight.

That is not the case with President Trump and he has already been accused of a slew of ethical and constitutional violations. Its worth nothing there isnt a legal consensus on any of this as theres very little historical legal precedent to go on.

Interestingly, Trump can and is swayed by public opinion. Outcry over a Rudy Giuliani cabinet position cost the former New York City mayor a post. Ditto for Trumps gag order of the EPA.

Its a near certainty public outcry caused the White House to soften its stance on green card holders as part of its executive order on refugees and immigrants from a group of majority-Muslim countries.

Our voices are heard, and perhaps ironically, its Trumps very tempestuous demeanor that makes him unpredictable (and potentially scary) that also causes him to put his finger in the wind to make decisions.

But this is why we have a democracy and not a monarchy. Its why we should have always insisted on limits for executive orders, worried about our standing to carry out extrajudicial killings via drone strikes, and a host of other thorny issues on which liberals and conservatives alike have too long remained silent.

The irony of this is not lost on American conservatives. I suspect youve seen it either in writing or in your social media feeds. A friend of mine who works in politics in D.C. recently wrote on Facebook, After 8 years in the wilderness, only a few more hours until Democrats re-discover their love of the Constitution, separation of powers, checks and balances and a distaste for governing by executive order!!!

Republicans and Democrats can disagree on all sorts of things and still agree on the above (except maybe the wilderness part). It should never have been a question, but political power has never been wielded by a figure like Trump.

Perhaps we will finally take ownership of our political destiny.

Weve taken for granted that our system works, forgotten the lessons history has taught us and continues to teach us from around the worldthe corrupting power of power itself.

It is fair to wonder how many who believe in expansion of government as a force for good have fully considered that same power in the hands of a tyrant.

Steve Bannon has said outright his goal is to blow up the state. Its up to the American people to disarm that bomb.

If our democracy can be taken down by one man, then it wasnt a very strong democracy to begin with.

But thats why democracy is a unique system. The people have a voice. The system is only as good as the people in it, who engage with it, who drive it forward and refuse to move it back.

The people are the driving engine of democracy. If you dont believe in it because Trump was elected, that is an indictment as much on you as it is anything else.

Regardless though, the future is not written. We must still blaze our own trail moving forward.

The world is watching. So too are the eyes of history.

Are you?
UPDATE: Davine Arckens has been located safe and well in Murray Bridge. She is currently with police.

Well update this one as it develops.

South Australian Police say they are gravely concerned for the welfare of 24-year-old Belgian tourist Davine Arckens, after her family notified local authorities of her suspected abduction.

According to a police spokesperson, Arckens contacted her family to notify them that she believed shes being held against her will.

#BREAKING: Police speak on disappearance and suspected abduction of Belgian tourist Davine Arckens. #9News pic.twitter.com/fgLXCSNZri  Nine News Adelaide (@9NewsAdel) February 10, 2017

Arckens last known whereabouts were in Murray Bridge around 10am yesterday, at which point its believed she may have taken a lift from somebody in a red ute.

Police are following that line of enquiry, and have told the media theyre focusing their search for Arckens in the Meningie region. Authorities are also investigating in the broader Murray-Mallee region.

Its believed Arckens had placed a Gumtree ad seeking farm work prior to her disappearance, and police think an individual who may have responded to the post could be involved in her disappearance.

Arckens arrived in Adelaide on February 2, before visiting Kangaroo Island until February 6.

Shes described as about 160cm tall, with mousey-brown hair and pierced ears. She was last seen wearing a white shirt and khaki pants.

If youve got any info about this one, contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.





Well update this story as it develops.



Source: ABC / Nine News Adelaide.

Photo: Facebook.
Sunrise host Sam Armytage, a popular target for paparazzi photographers, has taken to Instagram to vent about a gross invasion on her privacy, and share a photo of a drone she caught buzzing above her Bondi property.

In the post, Armytage fumed about pervy, stalker, weirdo paps hovering ANOTHER drone in my backyard. She said that she planned to call the police and threatened a fight to outlets who might choose to run these particular shots.

Saturday night; Pervy, stalker, weirdo paps hovering ANOTHER drone in my backyard. Calling police in now. ANY womens magazines or online gossip sites who buy these creepy pictures, had better be prepared for a fight. Fed up with this rubbish. A photo posted by Samantha Armytage (@sam_armytage) on Feb 11, 2017 at 12:44am PST

Last month, Armytage spoke to The Daily Telegraph about life as a paparazzi target, saying: It has meant I have to readjust dramatically. Its taken me a while to learn to deal with that and accept it. I still dont enjoy it, but I accept it now.

In December of last year, Armytage took action against The Daily Mail, for an article whose original title was Sunrise host Sam Armytage dares to bare with granny panties showing a visible line as she steps out in Sydney.

When contacted by Armytages representatives, the Mail changed the headline and issued a small apology, however, she returned fire, demanding the article be taken down, and an apology be issued from both the outlet and writer.

An attached letter read, in part:

Ms Armytage is at a loss to understand the reasons why Daily Mail Australia has chosen to publish this article, which represents a gross invasion of her privacy.

Ms Armytage accepts that she is a public figure and it follow that she is subjected to a great deal of media attention, including by way of rumour and innuendo, such as the misinformation as to whom she is dating which is also referred to in the article. [But Armytage] retains a reasonable expectation that intimate, private information which is not known by and is of no interest to any other person would not be the subject of media exposure and comment.

Source: News Corp.

Photo: Don Arnold / Getty.
A museum in Queens has shut down a controversial artwork by Shia LaBeouf, saying that the anti-Donald Trump installation He Will Not Divide Us has become a flashpoint for violence and a public safety hazard.

The artwork, installed over the weekend of Trumps presidential inauguration, was intended to run 24/7 for the next four years, and people were invited to come and chant he will not divide us into a camera live-streaming from the site.

As expected, the piece drew crowds from both the pro-Trump and anti-Trump camps to the Museum of the Moving Image, leading to a number of heated exchanges and actual physical confrontations.

Shia LaBeouf himself was taken away in handcuffs after what has been described as a scuffle with another individual at the site, and the museum claims that this was just one of numerous arrests that were made.

Per NY Post reports, local residents complained about noise, loitering and marijuana smells from the installation, to the point where police from the 114th Precinct set up a 24-hour patrol at the site.

Explaining their decision to shut it down, the museum said:

The installation created a serious and ongoing public safety hazard for the museum, its visitors, its staff, local residents and businesses. While the installation began constructively, it deteriorated markedly after one of the artists was arrested at the site of the installation and ultimately necessitated this action.

Shia LaBeouf does not appear to be taking the news well:

Source: NY Post.

Photo: NY Daily News Archives.
Playground Winter Festival: Day 1a of WPT Playground Kicks Off

February 11, 2017 Anthony Charter

The headline event of the Playground Winter Festival 2017 is underway. Day 1a of the $1,000,000 guaranteed World Poker Tour (WPT) Playground kicked off on Friday gathering 134 entries. At the end of 10 levels, none other than Anthony Zinno sat atop the 54 remaining chip counts.

One of the more decorated WPT Champions, Zinno is no stranger to shipping WPT titles in Canada. In 2015, Zinno topped the field at WPT Fallsview and a week later bested the prestigious WPT LA Poker Classic. The American has three WPT titles under his belt and more than $2.5M in career WPT earnings.

Zinno led the charge bagging an impressive 209,200. The only player to the cross the 200K mark. Jake Schwartz used the best of a second bullet to finish behind Zinno on the leaderboard. Schwartz doubled up quickly after re-entering and ran his stack up to 163,100 by nights end. Rayan Chamas (162,100), Theodore Doukas (157,700), and recent Winter Festival Omaha Champion and partypoker.net qualifier Nicolas Le Floch (156,500) round out the top five.

Spending most of the day among the leaders, Chamas had cooled down toward the latter part of the day and was slipping down the counts. That is until a huge cooler swayed in his favor on one of the last hands of the night. Chamas called off a five-bet shove from Christopher Hudson with pocket kings, crushing Hudson's pocket queens. A king on the turn sealed the pot for Chamas who climbed up to third in chips.

Rayan Chamas

Some big names also securing a seat on Day 2 include Daniel Dvoress, Marc-Andre Ladouceur, Mike Leah, David Paredes, Kristen Bicknell, Sam Chartier and Christian Harder.

With one re-entry permitted per day, 18 of the 116 players in the field on Day 1a required a second bullet. Many more fell but perhaps decided to take their next shot on Saturdays Day 1b. Leah and Schwartz both re-entered and had better luck the second time. Others firing twice were Mike Sexton, Alex Difelice, Will Failla and Jeffrey Cormier.

Hope is not lost for all that fell on Day 1a as they can fire again on Day 1b. Some needing to make the best of that opportunity include Max Silver, Mark Radoja, Benoit Jean, Peter Jetten, Mike Dentale, Xuan Liu and WPT Champion Eric Afriat.

Day 1b is set to get underway at 11 a.m. local time Saturday morning at Playground Poker Club. Another 10 levels are scheduled with late registration open until the end of the break following level 6.

The Playground Winter Festival runs through Feb. 15 and PokerNews will bring you daily updates of all the happenings throughout the festival. For full coverage and details check out the Playground event blog here.

Sharelines Anthony Zinno sits atop the 54 remaining chip counts after Day 1a of WPT Playground.
President calls UN Secretary General to stop Saudi aggression on Yemen





SANAA, Feb. 10 (Saba)  President of Supreme Political Council Saleh Al-Sammad on Friday called on Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, to play an active role in stopping the Saudi aggression on Yemen.



In a letter he sent to the UN Secretary General, al-Sammad demanded the United Nations to oblige the Saudi-led coalition states to compensate human losses and material, psychological and health damage and to end the siege on Yemen.



The letter asked for opening the ports and airports for commercial and civil flights, topped by Sanaa International Airport, Taiz Airport and Hodeidah Airport.



The president called, in his letter, for seriously considering the disastrous humanitarian situation caused by the Saudi aggression and the blockade on the country.



Al-Sammad requested the formation of a neutral committee to investigate the Saudi aggression coalition's crime against civilians offering condolences in the Major Hall in the capital Sanaa and all other war crimes, as well as the use of internationally-banned weapons against civilians and bombarding hospitals and health centers, including MSF hospitals.



In his letter also, al-Sammad demanded that the term of the current UN envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh, not be extended for failing in his mission and lack of impartiality.



BA

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[11/February/2017]
Yemeni people acquire high combat experiences: Leader of Revolution





SANA'A, Feb. 11 (Saba)  Leader of the Revolution Sayyed Abdul Malik al-Houthi said that gains of the legendary steadfastness in confronting US-Saudi aggression war were that our people have acquired high combat experiences.



"The gains of the legendary steadfastness in the confrontation against the US-Saudi aggression war were that our people have acquired high combat experiences in the face of the powerful countries' plots that being plotted by senior military professional experts," Sayyed al-Houthi said in a speech to the nation aired on Friday evening.



Sayyed al-Houthi said : "in an unique and important achievement, our forces have began manufactured pilotless aircrafts and drones and those planes will be more effective and modified to fly long-range, as well as there are steps to develop air defense."



"The achievement of locally-modified, Scud-type, long-range ballistic missile Borcan 2 (Volcano 2) was the most important achievement in our military industry," Sayyed al-Houthi said.



"Our people today are spectacularly building their military capabilities, topped by the rocketry force, in which ballistic missiles were developed from Sarkha to Borcan 2 that hit the heart of the Saudi capital of Riyadh," the leader said.



Sayyed al-Houthi warned the aggressor Saudi regime that "whatever the size of the sacrifices and suffering, our stance is the steadfastness and we will not give up."





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[11/February/2017]
The effects of roads on carnivores have obviously been underestimated in worldwide species conservation. This is the conclusion of the first comprehensive global study on this topic, which has been published in the scientific journal Global Ecology and Biogeography by an international research team from Germany and Portugal. The protection status of several species that are severely affected by roads cut through their habitat should be reconsidered, the researchers say.

The first global overview of the effects of roads on carnivores offers new insights for the protection of well-known species such as the puma (Puma concolor), the American black bear (Ursus americanus) and the brown bear (Ursus arctos). According to the study, they are among the species whose survival in the long term is most seriously threatened by roads, but for which this hazard has not been fully acknowledged so far. Among the 5% of carnivores (17 species) that are most affected by roads, nine are currently categorised as "least concern" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which means that they are regarded as not endangered. "Our results show the necessity of updating the protection status of these species, whose threat from roads has previously been underestimated," insists Prof Henrique Pereira from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and the Portugal Infrastructures Biodiversity Chair/Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (CIBIO-InBIO).

Particularly under threat is the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus), which lives only in Spain and Portugal; according to estimates, only a few hundred animals remain. The projection in the current study suggests that the species will have died out in 114 years. But while the Iberian lynx is IUCN-classified as "endangered," other species threatened by roads are not. For example, two species in Japan: According to the projection, the Japanese badger (Meles anakuma) and the Japanese marten (Martes melampus) will have died out in nine and 17 years, respectively, because of the threat from roads.

Those 5% of carnivores (17 species) that are influenced most heavily worldwide by roads include the mammal families of cats, bears, martens, dogs and raccoons. Four species of bear are affected -- half of all existing bear species. Surprising for the researchers was that also the stone marten (Martes foina) is among the 17 species most exposed to roads. Although the stone marten is widely distributed and not categorised as endangered by the IUCN, it is often killed by cars. Another species in Germany, the wolf (Canis lupus), is among the top 25% of carnivores (55 species) most exposed to roads globally. It belongs to those predator species that for long-term survival require a large area but whose habitat is cut by roads.

For their study, the researchers considered a total of 232 carnivore species around the world (out of a total of ca. 270 existing species) and assessed how severely these are affected by roads cut through their habitat. To do this, they considered for example the natural mortality rate, the number of offspring and the movement behaviour of a species. From these factors, they calculated the maximum density of roads that a species can cope with. Furthermore, they determined the minimum area of unbroken habitat that a species needs to maintain an enduring healthy population. Finally, they compared these numbers with road network data.

"Our results show that North America and Asia are the regions with the highest number of species most negatively influenced by roads, followed by South America and Europe," explains Ana Ceia Hasse from iDiv, the MLU and Portugal Infrastructures Biodiversity Chair/CIBIO-InBIO. "But while we had already expected that carnivores would suffer particularly in regions with greater road density, we were surprised to find that even in regions with relatively low road density there are species that are threatened by roads." In Africa, for example, roads have a significant effect on the habitats of leopards (Panthera pardus). This is because sensitive species that naturally cover greater distances can be restricted by comparatively few roads. "We did not simply lay roads and habitats of species over one another, but also considered the specific characteristics and requirements of the species in our calculations. In this way we could also identify species that react sensitively to even only a few roads," says Ceia-Hasse. The methods established in the new study can be used in future for applied purposes -- for example for local protection measures, for environmental assessments by authorities, or to integrate the long-term effects of road building into scenarios of the World Bank regarding global biodiversity changes.
One of the best gifts a person could give their significant other for Valentine's Day is a discussion on boundaries regarding social media, according to a researcher at Kansas State University.

"Social media can enhance romantic relationships when it's used to stay in touch throughout the day or honor your partner's achievements, but there are pitfalls to avoid that could damage the relationship," said Joyce Baptist, associate professor of marriage and family therapy in the School of Family Studies and Human Services.

In a study of nearly 7,000 couples who use social media, Baptist found that the more accepting couples are of "boundary crossing," or communicating with someone they perceive as physically attractive, the more harmful it is to their relationship.

Baptist says there is a difference between boundary crossing and boundary violation. A crossing is when a partner brushes a proverbial guard rail, possibly by having platonic but frequent contact with another individual he or she finds attractive. Boundary violation, on the other hand, may be emotional or physical infidelity, Baptist says.

Without a discussion, each person in the relationship might have a different view of what is and is not acceptable, according to Baptist.

"Couples should be on the lookout for boundary crossing and discuss when a crossed boundary becomes a violation," Baptist said. "It's an important conversation for couples to have as a preventative measure."

Baptist's research showed that while some people accepted the fact that their partners interacted with old flames or flirted with others online, their resignation to the situation was not indicative of relationship satisfaction.

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"Although they may say, 'I trust you and it's OK,' they are not happy about it," Baptist said. "They eventually perceive that their significant other is spending too much time connecting with others on social media rather than paying attention to their own partner."

Baptist says these situations decrease relationship satisfaction and levels of care that people receive from their significant other.

According to Baptist, the foundational problem is a lack of agreement regarding boundaries on social media. She says couples ought to share not only what they are willing to tolerate but also what they would prefer so the couple can create a secure and satisfying relationship.

"When you come across an old flame or another attractive person on social media, the question to ask is: Will communicating with this other person enhance my relationship or harm it?" Baptist said. "Just because you see that your girlfriend or boyfriend from high school is on Facebook doesn't mean that you need to 'friend' them."

Keeping lines of communication open with former significant others can become a slippery slope, according to Baptist, because relationships naturally have peaks and valleys. During a relationship's lower points, a person may be tempted to confide in a previous partner.

"Ebbs and flows do not mean the relationship is heading down the drain, but reigniting an old flame could destroy it," Baptist said. "My best advice is that if you are serious about your relationship, cut off those ties."
A team of biomedical scientists has identified a molecule that targets a gene known to play a critical role in the rapid progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), sometimes known as Lou Gehrig's disease, the neurodegenerative disease that affects motor neurons -- nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that link the nervous system to the voluntary muscles of the body.

The research, done on a mouse model of ALS, aims at blocking the gene, thus providing an important stepping stone for the development of novel treatments to delay the progression of ALS and, potentially, other human diseases.

Specifically, the team, led by Maurizio Pellecchia, a professor of biomedical sciences in the School of Medicine at the University of California, Riverside, reports in the journal Cell Chemical Biology on the design of 123C4, a molecule the lab developed that targets the EphA4 receptor, a gene in animal models and in humans that is efficacious in delaying the progression of ALS.

Importantly, the expression of EphA4 is associated not only with the progression of motor neuron disease, but also with other conditions including abnormal blood clotting, spinal cord and brain injury, Alzheimer's disease, as well as gastric and pancreatic cancers.

"Research in assessing the therapeutic value of EphA4 for these diseases has been hampered, however, by the lack of suitable pharmacological EphA4-inhibitors," said Pellecchia, who holds the Daniel Hays Endowed Chair in Cancer Research and is the director of the Center for Molecular and Translational Medicine. "While the exact mechanism responsible for the therapeutic efficacy of our agent, 123C4, is still to be fully understood, we are confident that 123C4 -- or its derivatives -- will find wide application in preclinical studies as well as human clinical trials for the treatment of ALS and potentially other human disorders."

Pellecchia said that only recently genetic studies on humans affected by the disease, as well as animal models of ALS, clearly indicated that the EphA4 receptor could be a suitable drug target to delay the progression of motor neuron death.

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"Prior to this current work, no bona fide EphA4 targeting agent with demonstrated efficacy in animal models of ALS had been reported," he said. "It has been a long and difficult journey to derive 123C4."

To derive the molecule, Pellecchia's lab used an approach it developed recently that merges combinatorial chemistry and biophysical methods based on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, and tested more than 100,000 possible candidates. The research entailed a combination also of a wide variety of other sophisticated techniques and approaches, ranging from medicinal chemistry, to cell biology and imaging, to in vivo pharmacology, and efficacy studies using transgenic mice models of ALS.

"My lab has had a long-standing interest in developing approaches to target protein-protein interactions and to apply these to relevant drug targets," Pellecchia said. "Targeting EphA4 has been particularly challenging, though. But its association with the progression of ALS inspired us to increase our efforts in this field in the past years."

He noted that most studies suggest that decreasing EphA4 levels genetically in transgenic animal models of ALS result in prolonged survival. Intuitively, it can be imagined, therefore, that blocking EphA4 with drugs would have the same effect.

"Indeed 123C4 increases survival in mice models of ALS, but acts as an EphA4 agonist and not antagonist," Pellecchia said, going on to explain that an agonist is a substance that stimulates chemical action, while an antagonist blocks such action. "We show that 123C4 interacting with EphA4 causes the receptor to be internalized by a process known as endocytosis -- a process initiated only by an agonist. We hypothesize that by inducing receptor internalization, 123C4 effectively removes EphA4 from the surface of motor neurons."

The transgenic mouse model Pellecchia and his colleagues used for the study has been widely adopted as a standard to select drug candidates as potential ALS therapeutics. But challenges lie ahead for Pellecchia's team to bring 123C4 to the clinic to confirm that the laboratory studies effectively translate to patients affected by ALS.

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"As in any preclinical study, we must acknowledge that several obstacles are still in the way of translating agents like 123C4 into viable therapeutics," Pellecchia said. "But Iron Horse Therapeutics, a biotech company in San Diego, is taking steps to progress this class of agents into the clinic."

Pellecchia was joined in the study by Surya K. De, Anna Kulinich, Ahmed F. Salem, Jordan Joeppen, Elisa Barile and Iryna Ethell, a professor of biomedical sciences, at UC Riverside; and Bainan Wu (the first author of the paper), Rengang Wang, Si Wang, and Dongxiang Zhang at Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, Calif.

"The collaboration with Dr. Ethell and her laboratory, which specializes in cell biology and the imaging of primary neurons, was particularly fruitful in our endeavors," Pellecchia said. "I consider it a perfect example of the power of collaborative research at UCR"

Next, the researchers plan to develop additional agents based on 123C4 with either antagonist activity or enhanced agonist activity, and to test these in motor neurons and in animal models of ALS.

"In collaboration with Iron Horse Therapeutics, we hope these additional studies will further facilitate the translation of these agents into novel treatments," Pellecchia said.
Political discussions about immigrants often include the claim that there is a relationship between immigration patterns and increased crime. However, results of a University at Buffalo-led study find no links between the two. In fact, immigration actually appears to be linked to reductions in some types of crimes, according to the findings.

"Our research shows strong and stable evidence that, on average, across U.S. metropolitan areas crime and immigration are not linked," said Robert Adelman, an associate professor of sociology at UB and the paper's lead author. "The results show that immigration does not increase assaults and, in fact, robberies, burglaries, larceny, and murder are lower in places where immigration levels are higher.

"The results are very clear."

Adelman's study with Lesley Williams Reid, University of Alabama; Gail Markle, Kennesaw State University; Charles Jaret, Georgia State University; and Saskia Weiss, an independent scholar, is published in the latest issue of the Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice.

"Facts are critical in the current political environment," said Adelman. "The empirical evidence in this study and other related research shows little support for the notion that more immigrants lead to more crime."

Previous research, based on arrest and offense data, has shown that, overall, foreign-born individuals are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, according to Adelman.

For the current study, the authors stepped back from the study of individual immigrants and instead explored whether larger scale immigration patterns in communities could be tied to increases in crime due to changes in cities, such as fewer economic opportunities or the claim that immigrants displace domestic workers from jobs.

The authors drew a sample of 200 metropolitan areas as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau and used census data and uniform crime reporting data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation for a 40-year period from 1970 to 2010.

"This is a study across time and across place and the evidence is clear," said Adelman. "We are not claiming that immigrants are never involved in crime. What we are explaining is that communities experiencing demographic change driven by immigration patterns do not experience significant increases in any of the kinds of crime we examined. And in many cases, crime was either stable or actually declined in communities that incorporated many immigrants."

Adelman says the relationship between immigration and crime is complex and more research needs to be done, but this research supports other scholarly conclusions that immigrants, on the whole, have a positive effect on American social and economic life.

"It's important to base our public policies on facts and evidence rather than ideologies and baseless claims that demonize particular segments of the U.S. population without any facts to back them up," said Adelman.
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The workhorse rocket of the ESA (European Space Agency), the Ariane 5, made seven successful launches in 2016 and the last one lifted 10.6 tons (two communications satellites). That makes 76 successful launches in a row for the Ariane 5. The ESA spent ten years and $8 billion to develop Ariane 5 and is now seeking new development efforts from ESA member states (especially France and Germany, who provide nearly half the $5.8 billion annual budget) to keep competitive with low cost competitors Russia and China as well as technical breakthroughs from American firms (like SpaceX) that appear to be delivering on their goal of achieving 30 percent savings for launches. Competing with that may be difficult because new firms, non-government, firms in the business, like SpaceX, have an edge in other areas besides tech. SpaceX is achieving the 30 percent savings with unique tech (self-landing booster rocket) and more flexibility than most government (usually military) developed launchers. As a privately owned company SpaceX has less bureaucracy and is quicker to adapt new technology for launch services. Many existing and potential SpaceX customers see this as the future of space transportation. So do competing launch providers, who find they may be unable or unwilling to keep up.

Ariane 5 is considered state-of-the-art for current tech. Its theoretical maximum GTO payload is ten tons, and up to three large satellites can be put into orbit at the same, or many more small ones. Right now, communications satellites are the big money makers. The first successful launch of an Ariane 5 was in 1998, after two failed launches. Each Ariane 5 launch costs about $180 million and it has a success rate of 95 percent for the 90 launches so far. It wasnt until 2006 that Ariane 5 started putting its max payload into orbit. That launch lifted an 8.3 ton payload, containing two satellites, into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). This is one of the more difficult orbits to achieve, because it is 36,000 kilometers out, and exact positioning is required in order to get the satellite to the proper position.

The 777 ton Ariane 5 is to be replaced by the Ariane 6 after 2023. The 800 ton Ariane 6 is have its first launch in 2020s. Ariane 6 cost nearly $4 billion to and will cut launch costs by over 30 percent. And will, like most European Space Agency rockets operate from the Guiana Space Center in South America (French Guiana.)

GTO birds are usually communications satellite, with each one having 18 to 24 transponders. Each transponder is capable of relaying data at speeds of from 45 to 90 Megabits per second. There are about 250 GTO based communications satellites out there. While most communications traffic these days goes by much cheaper fiber optic cables, the satellites are in demand for mobile communications. This is especially true as portable satellite dishes become smaller and cheaper. Military use of satellite communications got its first big workout during the 2003 Iraq invasion, where American troops used, on average 3,200 Megabits of bandwidth. That tied up a lot of transponders, which rent for about $2 million a month each. But most of the communications satellites are for commercial users.

While military satellites get more media attention, the real business of space, and where the Chinese put most of their efforts, is in commercial satellites. The Chinese have noted that since the 1980s space satellites have gone from big business to huge business. By 2012 there were about 1,000 active satellites in orbit, and nearly half of them were American. The number of satellites has been going down a bit since then because individual satellites last longer and can do more. It is expected that the number of satellites will now start to rise rapidly because of the popularity of mini-satellites (under 100 kg/220 pounds). Some of these mini-sats are much smaller (under ten kg) and still useful. In some cases dozens of mini-sats are put into orbit by one launcher.

About 75 percent of all satellites are non-military. Most of them are commercial, the rest government non-military birds. Since 2001 satellite industry revenues more than doubled, from $86 billion (in 2014 dollars) a year to over $200 billion now. The cost of the satellites is less than ten percent of annual satellite revenues. About four percent of the money comes from launching all those satellites and 36 percent of those launches are military. The U.S. has about a third of the launch business, mainly because of the requirement that U.S. classified satellites be launched by American rockets. About half the satellite launches (and two-thirds of the satellites) were for communications, which generates the most income (mostly for TV, followed by data). The U.S. remains the major manufacturer of commercial satellites, with over half of the market. China sees opportunity in all this and has come a long way in a short time to take advantage of it. The European Space Agency is a competitor, but a small one. The most dangerous competitor is the one that uses methods the other major operators are unable or unwilling to copy.
Fifty years ago, a young couple paid $27,000 for a modest home in Don Mills. That approximately 1,500-square-foot house sold for $2.3 million, more than $1.15 million over the nearly $1.19 list price on Wednesday.

The home on Norden Cres. near Lawrence Ave. East and Don Mills Rd., drew 31 offers following 175 showings over nine days. Two weekend open houses attracted another 75 viewers, said listing agent Sohail Mansoor of Royal Lepage Signature Realty.

We anticipated it would be busy. We could not have predicted that outcome, he said on Friday.

In terms of that neighbourhood, its the highest price an older three-bedroom home has sold for. You have new construction properties that have sold for much higher but those are brand new, said Mansoor.

He had been working with the sellers for the last three months and gives them credit for their tireless preparation in selling a home they have occupied since Canadas Centennial year in 1967.

It was lightly staged and the time spent preparing it for market generated some buzz and made the home appealing to a wider audience, said the agent.

Initially he thought the house might sell for between $1.5 million and $1.6 million. But the January market activity combined with the small number of listings on the market changed everyones expectations, said Mansoor.

His colleague had listed a property a few weeks earlier in the same area for $990,000. It sold for $1.95 million. The Norden Cres. homeowners agreed to similarly list below market value to try and generate a similar response.

They wanted to appeal to the broad range of buyers that are house hunting in the leafy neighbourhood close to the Shops of Don Mills  the buyers who might want to live in the house and the builders and consumers who could tear it down and rebuild in that location.

A lot of the other homes are being sold mostly for land value at this point. Theyre homes that need work and theyre not being marketed. Theyre really just being listed and sold, said Mansoor.

Now you have builders competing with end-users, he said.

The home has been lovingly maintained and updated over the years. It was renovated in the late 1990s or early 2000s with an extension on the front and a bathroom on the main floor. The owners had carefully tended to the roof and mechanicals and were thrilled with the sale, according to their agent.

Its nice to see people who have been in their homes for a long time, who are now selling and having the opportunity to enjoy their retirement, said Mansoor.

If you think about people who bought in that neighbourhood five years ago and paid $900,000 and theyve made $1 million in equity in five years, that is crazy. These guys have actually earned it. You dont hear a lot of stories of people who have been in their homes for 50 years straight, he said.

The key for this couple, said Mansoor, is that theyll be moving into a larger older condo in the same neighbourhood where their son has been living.

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Eric Braeden knows how good it feels to be bad.

Since 1980, Braeden has inhabited the role of the cutthroat, cunning and charming Victor Newman on the daytime drama The Young and the Restless. His Emmy-winning portrayal of the much-married, villainous business tycoon has cemented his status as a legendary TV bad guy who viewers both cheer for and curse.

Some deep characteristics within me come through as the character, said the 75-year-old actor in a phone interview from New York.

I had a relatively hard life and dont take any (crap), Braeden added candidly. But Im very friendly, Im very open, I love meeting people.

In his new memoir, Ill Be Damned, Braeden offers a window into an early life marred by the horrors of war and personal tragedy.

Born Hans Gudegast on April 3, 1941, in the basement of a bomb-stricken hospital in Kiel, Germany, the actors father died of a heart attack when he was 12, leaving his widowed mother with four boys to raise on her own.

Braeden earned a partial track and field scholarship to a university in Montana, and later landed a series of stage and screen roles, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood heavyweights along the way.

After finding fame on the Y&R, Braeden developed a soft spot for another role linking him to Canada. Several years ago, a tuxedo-clad Braeden starred in commercials for the now-defunct discount retailer Zellers, which served as a playful send-up of his character.

Braeden spoke with The Canadian Press about the ads, working on Titanic with Canadian filmmaker James Cameron and what he loves most about becoming Victor Newman.

You were born in the middle of the Second World War and those events and the legacy of Hitler and the Nazis clearly had a strong impact on you and your family. What was it like for you to revisit that part of your life?

Ive done that very often, obviously, and then you lay it to rest until I wrote the memoir again. It was an event with enormous consequences on many, many levels. It was the most cataclysmic thing that ever happened in our history. It left many scars on a lot of people, but I think some of it has resulted in better government, a more conscious public  certainly in Germany  and lessons learned from that. Now, we need to make sure that we dont fall into the same simplistic, fascistic trap that Hitler plunged Germany into.

In your early roles, you were so often typecast as the bad German or the Nazi. How did you not grow frustrated and bitter by that whole experience?

Not only Germans; I played heavies of all stripes and all nationalities after a while. It was very emptying. Hence, I became eventually  not at first  but eventually very happy to do Y&R. Because it allowed you to play something akin to a human being, you know?

I wanted to ask you about those Zellers commercials that you did many years ago.

I loved them! I loved doing those commercials. Whatever happened to that?

Well, Zellers is no longer. They brought in Target to replace Zellers and Target also disappeared.

No kidding? I loved doing them. I thought they were funny.

How did that even come about?

I dont know. I heard one of the guys at the ad agency said: Oh, that would be perfect for Victor Newman, Eric Braeden or whatever. And the (other) guy said: Who? People in the ad business are apparently not aware of what goes on in daytime television. They have no clue. And its amazing, it is stunning. If they only knew that I was one of the most recognizable faces in many parts of the world. There is still a certain stigma attached to daytime and totally without justification. Its difficult for me to walk the streets of Toronto, of Saskatoon, Vancouver, or New York or Paris, Istanbul, wherever.

You worked with James Cameron in Titanic and it was fascinating to read that you almost didnt take that part (as German-American business magnate John Jacob Astor).

No, exactly. He happened to be a very nice man and a genius; hes simply a genius. I say that about very few people. As I pointed out in the book, he is one of the most impressive people. After I finished shooting, I took my wife, my son and his girlfriend down to Rosarito Beach (in Mexico) where they were filming. (Cameron) stopped shooting and he said: Come here. And we went to his dressing room and he showed us the first minute or two of the film. Celine Dion  who I adore  I heard her voice and I got goosebumps sitting there. And I said: Youre going to make a fortune with this film. And he said Really? And I said: Youre going to make a fortune.

Having been in the role of Victor Newman for such a long time, do you still discover new things in your character?

Im grateful to be going to work, which in our business is a rare thing. Im grateful to be working with the people Im working with. Something that has always appealed to me is to make something real written by someone else. That has always intrigued me as an actor. Whether you do Shakespeare, or you do what we do, its really the same process: how do you make it real? Ive never tired of that. And I make good money.

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The 2016 Athena and Athena Young Professional Award winners -- Cheryl Blume and Stephanie Smith, respectively -- are looking out for the future of others.

Blume is the development director at Housing Solutions of Northern Arizona, and Smith is the director of alumni engagement at Northern Arizona University.

The Athena Award is an international organization that partners with chambers of commerce around the world to honor women for their community service and leadership in the community. The Greater Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce picks two award winners each year. The Young Athena Award is designed to honor women under the age of 40.

Blume is one of Housing Solutions biggest cheerleaders, leading the charge on fundraising and grant writing for Sharon Manor. Sharon Manor provides a safe place for women and children who are survivors of domestic violence to live and learn about services that can help them put their lives back together.

Blume has also worked with Planned Parenthood, the American Red Cross, Camp Colton and the Museum of Northern Arizona.

Shes extended her fundraising efforts to help 14 other Flagstaff nonprofits through her outreach campaign for the Flagstaff Tax Credit Coalition. The Coalition reminds Flagstaff taxpayers to take advantage of the states Charitable Contribution Tax Credit. The credit gives taxpayers a dollar for dollar credit in their refund for donating to an eligible charity up to $800 for a married couple filing jointly or $400 for an individual.

The Coalition makes it easy for taxpayers to make individual donations to their favorite local organization, which are also eligible for the tax credit, with their website flagstafftaxcredit.org. All of the Coalitions member organizations listed on the site are eligible for the credit and there are direct links to those organizations webpages, where you can find out how to donate to them.

To make things even easier, this year, the Coalition teamed up with the Arizona Community Foundation and created a one-click donation button on the Coalitions website. The button sends taxpayers to the Arizona Community Foundations website where you can make one donation and split it among different local charities.

Blume is also a graduate of the Flagstaff Leadership Program and served on the board of directors for the Leadership Program, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Flagstaff, Hozhoni, North Country Community Health Center, the North Country Foundation Board and as a community engagement committee member for the Civic Service Institute at NAU.

Smith worked for the city of Flagstaff for 10 years before moving over to NAU last year. During her time at the city Smith was known for her mentoring of women interns and helping them find their career paths.

Smith is also a volunteer powerhouse in the community. Shes served with Americorps, on the NAU alumni board, as a member of the Flagstaff Leadership Program, with the Literacy Volunteers of Coconino County, the Grand Canyon Youth Board, the United Way campaign coordinator for the city of Flagstaff, on the International City-County Management Association, the Arizona City-County Management Association and Arizona League of Cities.

Last years Athena Award winner was Kim Ott, the former communications manager for the city of Flagstaff and now the assistant to the president of NAU for executive communications and media relations. The 2015 Young Athena Award went to Margaret Marney Babbitt, a program specialist for Girls on the Run of Northern Arizona and a council director at North Country HealthCare.
Imagine turning to your insurance company after catastrophic damages to your house and being told, Youre not covered.

Thats what happened to Hassan Hojjatian and Mitra Kermani in June 2011, when their house suffered extensive water damage to the basement, basement bathroom, garage roof and foundation.

An independent expert later assessed the loss to the Toronto house at more than $2 million.

And when their insurers, Axa Insurance Company and Intact Insurance, denied the claim, Hojjatian and Kermani sued to recover their losses.

Justice Suhail Akhtar last year wrote in his judgment of the case: Water damage to a homeowners property is, in todays world, not an uncommon occurrence. In some cases, he added, the damage can be catastrophic and render the property unfit to live in as a home.

Thats what happened in this case.

The homeowners position was that the damage was caused by water entering from the windows and outside the home due to a heavy rainstorm, and at the same time, there was a sudden and accidental escape of water from the plumbing.

The insurers argued that the damage was the result of water seepage through the propertys foundation walls, in addition to a general physical deterioration of the structure, and that damage from these sources was not covered by the home insurance policy.

Several expert reports were introduced in court in an attempt to determine the source of the damage and whether it was covered under the insurance policy. All of the experts concluded that the water damage was related to grading of the land around the home and that the basement flood had been caused by water seeping through the foundation.

Justice Akhtar found the water in the home fit under the policy definition of surface water and ground water, and was not covered by the policy. In fact, the insurance contract specifically excluded damage caused by this kind of water seepage.

Unhappy with the lower court decision, Hojjatian and Kermani took their case to the Court of Appeal. In November, a three-judge panel upheld the lower courts decision.

Dayle Semple is my own insurance broker at FCA Insurance. When I expressed surprise at this unfortunate ruling for the homeowners, he explained that an insurance policy is not a maintenance contract . . . An insurance policy is not meant to respond to water damage caused by maintenance issues that have been unaddressed or ignored.

All insurance policies, he said, have limitations on what types of water damage they will respond to. In general terms, coverage is for the sudden and accidental escape, not infiltration, of water. This is why coverage for sewer back-up is an additional charge on your more basic insurance policies, Semple told me.

Seepage is a general exclusion in insurance policies and usually occurs due to a lack of maintenance and care.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada warns consumers that sudden and accidental bursting of pipes is covered by all home insurance, although damage may not be covered when freezing causes water to escape. Some Canadian insurers have started to offer overland flood coverage for policyholders, but this offering is in its infancy.

The takeaways here are:

Know whats covered by your policy.

Buy sewer-backup coverage.

Ask your insurer if you can get coverage for overland flood damage.

Bob Aaron is a Toronto real-estate lawyer. He can be reached at bob@aaron.ca , on his website http://aaron.ca/ aaron.ca END , and Twitter @bobaaron2.

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A Quebec student athlete says hes not sure why he was denied entry to the United States after a five-hour interrogation in which he was asked about religion and his Moroccan roots.

Yassine Aber, a track and field athlete with the Universite de Sherbrooke, said he was travelling to a weekend competition in Boston on Thursday when he ran into trouble at the Stanstead crossing on the Quebec-Vermont border.

CBC News reported that a search of Abers phone led U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to a Facebook photo where he was tagged with Samir Halilovic, a Canadian man suspected of having joined the Islamic terror group Daesh. It is believed that Halilovic died in Syria.

Aber, 19, told CBC News he did not know Halilovic well, but they had attended the same mosque. The Facebook photo was taken at a wedding four years ago.

Aber said U.S. authorities wanted to know whether he attended a mosque and how often he visited Morocco.

They asked me very specific questions about, do I go to the mosque or not, what mosque do I go to, some specific questions about people I may or may not know, he told The Canadian Press in a telephone interview.

They were very precise with the questions, very targeted.

Aber said he was also fingerprinted, photographed and asked to turn over his phone and passwords for the duration of the interrogation, after which he was told he wouldnt be allowed entry.

He said he was given a document stating he did not have a valid passport or visa to enter the country.

Border officials also told him that entering the United States is a privilege and not a right, he said.

Aber, who was born and raised in Sherbrooke, Que., says his Canadian passport is valid and does not expire until 2026. His parents moved to Canada from Morocco and have been here 25 years.

The kinesiology student said university staff is helping him find a solution he hopes will allow him to travel in the future.

In the meantime, hes considering attending a race in Ottawa next weekend instead.

Abers incident comes after a woman from the Montreal area said she and a cousin were denied entry to the United States last Saturday.

Fadwa Alaoui, a Moroccan-born Muslim who has lived in Canada for 20 years, said the questions she was asked focused almost exclusively on her religion, although authorities also wanted to know what she thought about U.S. President Donald Trump.

On Friday, an NDP MP urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to raise Abers case with Trump when the two leaders have their first meeting on Monday.

Our prime minister needs to speak with Donald Trump when they meet next week and say that a Canadian, born in Canada, who happens to be of another faith, a Muslim faith, does not need a visa to go to the United States, Murray Rankin told reporters in Ottawa.

Theres not a rule for Muslims and a rule for other Canadians. Its shocking, and we need the government to start taking action.

With files from Alicja Siekierska

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YELLOWKNIFEPrime Minister Justin Trudeau spent Friday visiting with a Snow King and he also tried to head off the prospect of a frosty meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump next week by suggesting he will handle any disagreements respectfully.

At a Yellowknife town hall, Trudeau walked a communications tightrope ahead of his first face-to-face meeting with Trump, set for Monday in Washington.

Trudeau has repeatedly refused to comment on the new presidents policies, such as his executive order banning immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries.

Read more:

Finding order in the Trump chaos will be job one for Trudeau: Hebert

Justin Trudeau vows to address issues past and present affecting Inuit

That did not change during his first trip to the territories as prime minister, which also included a visit to a bed of ice Friday where he met with Anthony Foliot  more commonly known as the Snow King  and explore his snow castles.

Later Trudeau said there are many areas where he sees eye-to-eye with Trump, including jobs for the middle class and economic growth.

Canada will stay true to its values of openness and respect, he added, noting this is the path of success for an increasingly polarized world.

I am counting on having a good working, constructive relationship with the president, Trudeau said.

Canadians largely understand diversity is a source of strength, Trudeau said, noting this did not happen by accident and it wont continue without effort.

The country has faced dark chapters rife with discrimination, racism and intolerance including its residential school legacy and the turning away of Jewish refugees before the Second World War, he said.

There are recent examples of intolerance and racism and a troubling spike in recent hate crimes, Trudeau added.

The prime minister has now completed a whirlwind trip to the Arctic that featured a number of outdoor photo-opportunities.

Trudeau also met with indigenous children from the Aboriginal Head Start Program and paid a visit to the headquarters of Joint Task Force North in Yellowknife.

Before the sun was up, Trudeau was greeted by an honour guard including two Rangers who are husband and wife  Master Cpl. Priscilla Canadien and Sgt. Joseph Canadien.

The Canadiens drove up to Yellowknife on Thursday from Fort Providence, which is about a four-hour trek.

He is the prime minister of Canada, she said. His dad was also prime minister  it is an honour to meet him.

Trudeau also spoke with a number of soldiers during a morning coffee event and was presented with a commander coin. He was asked to sign a picture of featuring a soldier on a snowmobile from the Royal Canadian regiment.

The image was snapped in 2016 in Resolute Bay during Operation Nunalivut, a sovereignty operation conducted annually in Canadas North.

To all my friends on Team North, thank you for your service, Trudeau wrote.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett, Health Minister Jane Philpott and Liberal MP Michael McLeod were also present at events throughout the day.

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WASHINGTONCanadas prime minister has to go see the U.S. president, and hes not especially thrilled. The president is deeply unpopular in Canada  and elsewhere, since campaigning on protectionism and tariffs.

The prime minister wants to lay low. His plan: get in and out of Washington with the least possible fuss. He even pleads with photographers while entering the White House: Dont snap my picture. Hed rather not be seen with this president.

What a stark difference from his other Washington visit  when he basked in the well-wishes of hundreds in a pomp-filled festival on the White House lawn as he visited a different president, adored by Canadians.

Of course the year was 1931.

When Justin Trudeau meets U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, he might feel like hes experiencing the life of R.B. Bennett. The 11th prime minister had to juggle a political hand-grenade in the form of Herbert Hoover.

That single Depression-era term illustrates extreme examples of how the White House occupant can shape a prime ministers career: some presidents are locomotives pulling your popularity, others the wagon that drags.

Hoover was a human-sized heap of dead political weight. One book, Lawrence Martins, The Presidents and the Prime Ministers, chronicles various ways Bennett avoided being seen during his 1931 trip.

The ultimate snub occurred on the White House lawn, Martin wrote.

Twenty-five photographers prepared to take the standard picture of the president and the visiting dignitary ... But Prime Minister Bennett stopped them ... (He said that) since the visit is unofficial pictures should wait for another occasion. The problem, as most top officials there realized, was that Bennett did not want to be seen on the front page of Canadian newspapers with Herbert Hoover.

The meeting with the president did not go well.

Bennett avoided the press elsewhere. The Washington Star said media tracked Bennett to a wreath-laying at Arlington Cemetery: (But) a photographer who followed (Bennett) was requested to refrain from taking pictures.

Bennett issued no public statement about the trip, and wouldnt answer questions. One reporter asked about U.S. hopes for a new seaway: What about the St. Lawrence? Bennett replied: I believe it is still there.

The Ottawa Journal wrote that Bennett returned home, as silent as a Tammany magistrate before a grand jury. The Associated Press said he passed through the train station unnoticed  U.S. Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson said: (Bennett travelled) incognito consisting of the wearing of a derby rather than a silk hat.

How different with Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Two years later, Bennett arrived at the White House for meetings aimed at reversing the protectionist devastation of the Hoover years. He and Roosevelt released a joint statement promising to expand trade.

The New York Times called the White House lawn welcome a scene of shifting colour. About 500 people were there to greet Bennett and a French dignitary. Eleanor Roosevelt served tea. There was a state dinner. Newspaper scribblers were on hand to record the presidents first words to his guests: I am glad to see you. Welcome to the White House.

Trudeau was treated last year to such a scene on the White House lawn. The smile etched into his face, and the arms extended in a hug around Barack Obama, prompted headlines about a bromance.

Now hes pulled in two directions, dealing with Trump.

Read the latest news about U.S. President Donald Trump

Trudeau has conceded as much. In a year-end interview with The Canadian Press, Trudeau said he has dual responsibilities: on the one hand, to encourage a strong economic partnership, and the other, to stand up for his values. In certain situations, its to work in a very collaborative way. In other situations, it will be ... very clear that we do not share the same values.

Read more:Trudeaus meeting with Trump in Washington will set tone for years

Hes hardly the first prime minister to deal with a politically problematic president  as illustrated by the Hoover episode. George W. Bushs unpopularity in Canada also caused headaches for the Paul Martin Liberals.

They agonized for months over missile-defence co-operation with the U.S.

But a former Martin aide says he feels lucky  dealing with Bush was pleasant. For starters, Bush was easygoing, says Scott Reid. His White House was filled with professionals who understood Canadas political realities, and didnt hold grudges.

I dont think our situation with George W. Bush was even remotely as challenging, Reid says.

I always found that (Bush) was impressive. And thoughtful ... You were dealing with a rational human being.

Take the rejection of missile-defence. Reid recalls hand-wringing from political pundits and diplomats  everyone was convinced Canada had to say yes, after saying no to Iraq.

But Bushs people? They took it in stride.

Reid recalls the fateful phone call: (Undersecretary of defence Paul) Wolfowitz says, Thats fine ... We knew that wouldnt work for you guys, politically. The doors open if you ever want to come back ... Listen, while Ive got you on the phone, I just saw Hotel Rwanda last night. Is there any way we could arrange an opportunity to sit down with Gen. (Romeo) Dallaire? Wed really love to hear from him and get his impression on things.

That is literally, word-for-word, the way the discussion went, Reid says.

Political maturity? Tons of it.

History shows another lesson.

Its that Canada can achieve big things with unpopular president. Take Ronald Reagan. A Gallup poll from June 1980 shows Canadians favoured his opponent Jimmy Carter by a mind-boggling margin of almost 5-to-1.

In one of his final acts as president, he signed the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement.

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A political dilemma of global proportions confronts me. No it doesnt, you will say. But the personal is political, and so is Nordstrom boycott-shopping. This may be my only chance to have even the tiniest effect on the calamity that is the Trump Administration. Hear my tale.

My clothes dryer lost its heat so I set the load to 56 minutes of Icy Blast and ran it three times in a row. This sort of works, by the way, but its not sustainable. The repairman opened it up and revealed what it looked like internally: a burned-out knee-high grey ball of lint.

He said he could either fix it for $400 or reseal the huge fur-lined maw for $90. Apparently, you are supposed to pay someone to inspect your washer-dryer every five years. Like that is going to happen.

In the end, he closed it up  this was a bad idea as I suffer from night terrors  and I chose to buy a new one because it comes with a $400 discount, if you do the math my way.

Thats when my problem began enlarging. I would normally take the subway to the Bay, buy the item and have it delivered, possibly to live in the cardboard box it came in if Trump really messes things up. I have no interest in home appliances. Just do your job and call it a day, you thing.

But Trump then tweeted an attack on Nordstrom for having dropped his daughter Ivankas clothing line, which is an emoluments crime right there. Then civilized people called it a moral crime to not shop at Nordstrom. Thats two full crimes.

When Trump says not to, of course I will. If that makes me a fearless fighter for freedom, so be it.

But Torontos Nordstrom, which basically sells birthday gifts, doesnt sell washer-dryers. Who sells them? Hudsons Bay. But the Bay also sells Ivanka Trump apparel and is under Canadian #GrabYourWallet public pressure to stop.

I cannot fathom why they sell Ivankas line. Its tragic.

The shoes are fine if you dont like feet. The dresses are bagged-out sheaths that say, You didnt see me. They look like condoms that dont fit, like body bags in beige and grey. Theres one that used to be called flesh-toned before the racism got noticed. Honestly, its the colour of pus.

Then theres Ivankas version of tea dresses, striped when they should be floral. You know who wore tea dresses? Eva Braun. Designers have been trying to rescue the tea dress ever since but no one fails like Ivanka.

Everything fits on a mannequin but not these. Club Monaco pins its clothes at the back to make them fit  I boycott it because its owned by Ralph Lauren who did Melanias Inauguration dress  but the Bay person with pins clearly lost the will to live, a bridge too far, etc.

I took photos as the Bay staff laughed. I like the Bay.

Im going to just give it a free commercial here: go buy it today, everybody, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said of these dreary garments. I own some of it.

I bet you do, Kellyanne. She sounded like Rudy Giuliani after Sept. 11, telling Americans to get out there and shop, which is as depraved as those people clamouring to watch Superbowl ads. Consumers are slaves.

Not me. Do I wait for the Bay to do the decent thing and drop the Ivanka line? Or do I make a major purchase that damages a full-bore With Pulp Trump boycott?

I could go to Home Depot. Its co-founder offered a Trump endorsement but to be fair, he left the company in 2002.

By the way, all these stores are American-owned, so theres no Canadian nationalist angle except for Shopify for the discerning white supremacist.

Poor L.L. Bean seems to have got stuck in the middle because Trump got his Beans mixed up. I would boycott NewBalance  the official shoes of white people, neo-Nazis say  but who am I kidding, I dont wear sneakers.

Trump loves and hates corporations, but never on a factual basis. When he makes it public on Twitter, the stock market no longer reacts the way it once did. Companies now assemble Twitter factoids about long-done deals in order to present them as new, should Trump attack them. I respect that, as I respect boycotts.

Boycotting used to be easy. After considering German history and then Chancellor Angela Merkels attempt at redress by accepting refugees, I finally bought a Miele dishwasher.

But I had been hypocritically buying their vacuum cleaners for years. Mieles vacuums are best in show. If I had only thought to stick their crevice nozzle into my dryer vent, Id be home-free.

So I could safely buy Miele washer-dryers but their shop is a long drive for a person with no moral backbone.

At this point, I shall hang wet laundry on the deck the way I do in the summer. In the icy wind they will form stiff shapes, like a Joseph Beuys felt suit sculpture, and the raccoons will befoul them at 3 a.m.

My artful Saturday plan is this. 1. Buy gift for Syrian refugees at Nordstrom. 2. Motor over the Bays priciest washer-dryers online and pointedly not click on Purchase, thus raising the alarm. 3. Buy washer-dryer at an echoing Home Depot in East York.

Do I overthink? Very well, I overthink. Hurry up, Hudsons Bay. Do the right thing.

hmallick@thestar.ca

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Most tenants of a fire-damaged Toronto Community Housing building were able to return home on Sunday, three days after a man died in a fire on Thursday.

Toronto Community Housing staff and contractors have worked round the clock since (Saturday) morning to complete the clean up and all necessary repairs to restore power, heat, hot water and elevator service in the building. The building passed a safety inspection this morning and is now ready for re-occupancy, said spokesperson Sara Goldvine in a statement.

Mayor John Tory expressed his thanks to community housing staff for ensuring the tenants were able to return to their homes relatively quickly.

I am glad the vast majority of tenants from 291 George Street will be back in their homes today. I want to thank Toronto Community Housing staff for their quick work to make sure units were clean and safe after Thursdays tragic fire, Tory said in a statement.

When I visited the residents on the night of the fire and the day after, they were patient and understanding and that is very much appreciated as well, Tory added.

Residents of the 132-unit building at 291 George St. were initially housed at three downtown hotels and at the nearby Wellesley Community Centre before being relocated to a Quality Inn hotel at Highway 401 and Islington Ave.

Nobodys really happy about the situation but it is what it is, said Conrad Hall, a voluntary tenant representative, who praised the response of community housing staff.

The coroner has yet to confirm the identity of the victim of the fire which occurred about 6 p.m. on Thursday but hes been identified as Vern Belanger, 54, a long-time resident who has recently suffered three strokes and had discharged from St. Michaels Hospital on the day of the fire.

Four other tenants were injured in the blaze. The cause of the fire is under investigation by the Ontario Fire Marshal.

Belanger, 54, who had no known family, had struggled with mental health issues, Hall said.

The blaze broke out around suppertime Thursday at the Toronto Community Housing building on 291 George St., near Dundas St. E.

While the fire marshal has not yet released control of the building, some of the cleanup and contractor work had been cleared to begin Friday night.

Tenants on the fourth floor, where the fire occurred, and some whose units were damaged in the fire, will not be able to return immediately.

Hall said the response from community housing staff has been outstanding and contractors have been on the site making repairs, including re-starting the buildings heating system.

Belanger, who was receiving care from a team of support workers, was in and out of the St. Michaels Hospital multiple times in recent months, Hall said.

His fourth-floor door was being held together by duct tape, Hall said, because of the number of times it had been busted open to get to him. Toronto Fire said Thursdays blaze was concentrated to a fourth-floor apartment.

Hall, who lives on the first floor, saw Belanger return from the hospital Thursday afternoon. The building superintendent went over to him immediately and noted he didnt look well, Hall said.

Yeah, yeah, Im okay, Belanger replied, when asked how he was doing.

It had become a common response from the troubled man, Hall said.

Yesterday he was dropped off at 3 oclock. By quarter after six he was dead, Hall said.

Before his strokes, Hall said Belanger had two loves  playing his ukulele with a harmonica rigged up around his neck, and his cat, Charlie, who he would take for walks on a leash with a harness  a pet that was his world.

Hed stand down at Yonge-Dundas or anywhere downtown and hed play and hed sing and hed just have a grand old time. Sometimes people would throw money in his can and sometimes they dont, but he was just out there having a ball, Hall said.

After the stroke, Belanger asked his workers to bring him his ukulele, even though his left hand could no longer close properly around the frets.

He just wanted the ukulele to have it. As a comfort thing, Hall said. But he worried about his cat, who Hall had agreed to care for.

Charlie unfortunately and ironically survived the fire because he was in the community room, Hall said.

Other residents in the building have volunteered to take care of the cat.

TCHC interim CEO Greg Spearn said the man killed in the fire had some vulnerability issues and was cared for by three or four support agencies.

The decision to discharge and return people to homes is really not ours. Its the hospital and the support agencys, Spearn said. Were concerned for all of our residents and particularly if we have high vulnerabilities we like to keep an eye on them. I do understand in this case there was a fair amount of support given to this gentleman.

St. Michaels Hospital did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, whose Ward 27 (Toronto Centre-Rosedale) includes the building, said residents are demoralized by the death and fire at a close-knit building that was considered a social housing success.

With files from Bruce DeMara

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised Canadians that 2015 would be the last election conducted under the first-past-the-post electoral system.

On Saturday, that now-broken promise sent protesters into the streets across the country for a national day of action. There were rallies planned for 29 cities across Canada.

In Toronto, a few hundred protesters gathered at Nathan Phillips Square to denounce what many called a cynical, underhanded move.

Were fed up with Trudeau breaking his promises, said Phyllis Creighton, a protester with the Toronto Raging Grannies, who opened the protest concert with two songs on the stage at Nathan Phillips Square.

He made all these promises to get elected, Creighton said, referencing not just electoral reform but Trudeaus other promises like the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

He could have been such a gift to this country because everyone believed him, Creighton said. But not so much anymore.

Protesters later prepared to march to Yonge-Dundas Square chanting fair elections, no exceptions!

Read more:

Trudeau cites Kellie Leitch as a reason for turning back on electoral reform

Feds love to consult us, but does anyone listen?

From electoral reform to protecting the electoral process END

Only two months ago Trudeau was still committing to electoral reform.

In a meeting with the Stars editorial board on Dec. 2, Trudeau said he heard loudly and clearly that Canadians want a better system of governance, a better system of choosing our governments.

That promise had been a major plank in the Liberal Partys 2015 campaign platform.

I make promises because I believe in them, Trudeau told the Star.

His decision to scrap the plan undoes months of work by a special House of Commons committee, two separate public engagement and consultation exercises, numerous MP town hall meetings and one cross-country ministerial tour.

The move was called a betrayal by the opposition New Democrats, who accused Trudeau of lying to progressive voters when he made electoral reform a central promise in the 2015 election.

The governments stated reasons for the reversal have evolved since it was first announced.

After electoral reform was taken off the table earlier this month, Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould said it was because no clear consensus had arisen over what to replace it with.

Goulds predecessor, former Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef, said it was because the Special Committee for Electoral Reform had failed to endorse an alternative to the first-past-the-post system, something she had never actually asked them to do.

Speaking at a town hall in Yellowknife on Friday, Trudeau said hed scrapped electoral reform because it would be too divisive an issue for Canadians, particularly at a time when the forces of nationalism and populism are sowing instability in countries around the world.

I felt that it was not in the best interest of our country or of our future that I turned my back on that promise, Trudeau said, to a chorus of boos.

In Iqaluit on Thursday, at another of his cross-country town hall meetings, a live microphone picked up Trudeau speaking with a woman in the crowd, and raising the specter of controversial Conservative leadership hopefully Kellie Leitch gaining too much power under a different electoral system.

Do you think Kellie Leitch should have her own party? Trudeau could be heard saying.

Because if you have a party that represents the fringe voices  or the periphery of our perspectives and they hold 10, 15 or 20 seats in the House, they end up holding the balance of power.

Leitch has drawn fire from inside and outside her own party many of her policy ideas, including advocating that immigrants be screened for Canadian values before being allowed into the country.

With files from Alex Boutilier and The Canadian Press

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They killed their three daughters without a trace of regret or remorse. But would do anything, say anything, to give their murderous son a quicker springboard beyond prison walls.

Thirteen-year-old Geeti. Seventeen-year-old Sahar. Nineteen-year-old Zainab. And the first wife in a polygamous Afghan marriage, Rona Amir Mohammad, 58. Their lives were worth nothing when measured against the dishonour theyd brought upon the family. Their crime: violating a strict code of behavior  removing the hijab, consorting with boys, disregarding curfew, pining to be Canadian teenagers. For Rona, the barren wife, having sympathy for the girls, resenting her alienation within the household, spurring the wrath of the woman whod usurped her.

Drowned in the Rideau Canal by Mohammad, Tooba and Hamed Shafia, for which all received life sentences in 2012, with no parole eligibility for 25 years.

Even if they come back to life a hundred times, if I have cleaver in my hand, I will cut (them) in pieces, Mohammad Shafia said on a police tap three weeks after the murders.

In another recorded conversation with his wife and son: Lets leave our destiny to God and may God never make me, you or your mother honourless. I dont accept this dishonour.

But Hamed, the eldest son  an abusive sibling, a lying and scheming henchman in the murder plot, watching (at least) as his sisters and aunt were likely rendered unconscious, then placed in a car that was pushed into the canal outside Kingston  he was his parents pride and precious scion, groomed from birth as hereditary patriarch.

Birth when?

That is the question and that is the substance of an application seeking leave to appeal from the Supreme Court of Canada.

Youd think a mother would know when her children were born, most especially the first of the brood. At trial, Tooba Mohammad Yahya never disputed that Hamed came into the world on December 31, 1990, in Afghanistan. Hameds lawyer raised no issue about the defendants age. So Hamed  18 when the crimes were committed  was tried and sentenced as an adult.

This is Canada, however, where details matter, regardless of how spurious the claims. And the notorious Shafias now assert that Hamed was actually born December 31, 1991, buttressing their fresh evidence submission with documents of dubious provenance, provided by a former employee of the family in Afghanistan, who just happened to discover a Tazkira  an Afghan identity document issued in 1995, recording Hameds birth date as December 31, 1991. This same employee, nowhere identified, thereafter obtained from the Afghan Ministry of Public Health a Certificate of Live Birth, allegedly premised on a check of hospital records  in a country which admits to haphazard and largely unverifiable birth records, particularly from its decades of civil war.

Those documents, along with a form issued by the Ministry of Interior Affairs translating the Tazkira and confirming its information, were examined by the Afghanistan Embassy in Ottawa. A formal letter from the embassy states: Taken together, the three documents we have reviewed . . . would constitute sufficient proof of identity, and of proof of a birthdate of December 31, 1991. . . Given that documentation systems in Afghanistan are not as sophisticated as those in Canada, and in particular were less sophisticated in the early 1990s, it would be difficult, if not impossible for most citizens of Afghanistan to obtain more reliable proof of their identity using Government of Afghanistan documents. If an individual were to present themselves at our Embassy with these three documents, we would issue them an Afghan passport bearing the date of birth of December 31, 1991.

With automatic right of appeal for their sentences, this fresh evidence was submitted in a pre-hearing at the Ontario Court of Appeal  and rejected. The Crown pointed out that two passports had been issued to Hamed in 1996 and 2006, indicating he was born in 1990.

While unanimously turning down the jumbo-sized appeal of all four convictions on various submissions last November, the appellate court also specifically found no reason to allow the fresh evidence on Hameds age. When the deceased were killed, Hamed was not a young person, Justice David Watt wrote. He was an adult, properly joined with his parents in a joint trial.

And thats what the new appeal, filed this week with the highest court in the land, uses as a launch pad. One more time round the legal mulberry bush.

Not that Hamed Shafia didnt do it  that train has left the station. But that he should have been sentenced as a minor, though even if 17, the prosecution could have applied for Hamed to be tried as an adult.

In requesting leave to appeal, Hameds lawyers maintain that the Ontario Court of Appeal failed to apply the standard test  known as the Palmer test  for admitting fresh evidence.

The Palmer test for the admission of fresh evidence has been the controlling authority for a generation, Hameds lawyers argue. If it had been applied by the Court of Appeal for Ontario in this case, the evidence would have been admitted.

Essentially, the memorandum of argument implies Watt was making it up  reinventing the Palmer test, holding it to a stringent standard  to fit a rejection, by asserting fresh evidence must be compelling, as distinct from credible, thereby ignoring precedents set by appellate courts elsewhere in Canada.

Both the B.C. Court of Appeal and the Manitoba Court of Appeal have held that Palmer is applicable in precisely these circumstances. The logic is simple: the fact of age is an essential component of the courts jurisdiction. Once the accused has discharged a tactical burden of adducing some evidence of age, the Crown must prove it, like any element of jurisdiction beyond a reasonable doubt.

What does this mean in practice?

An adult convicted of first-degree murder faces life without parole for 25 years. A young offender  a 17-year-old Hamed Shafia  even sentenced as an adult, faces a maximum of life without parole eligibility for 10 years.

In that circumstance, Hamed Shafia, convicted of four first-degree murders, could walk out of prison in five years. When hed be 31. Or 32.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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I once got on a crowded bus, spotted an empty seat beside a middle-aged white man and caught myself hesitating before sitting beside him. I considered the possibility he was anti-Muslim and would not want me near him. Then I mentally smacked myself, plopped down on the seat and, in true Toronto fashion, we ignored each other for the rest of the ride.

This was sometime last year  maybe it was as Kellie Leitch was building up her campaign on screening immigrants for Canadian values; or when cities in France began banning burkinis; or maybe it was when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump proposed a national Muslim registry. I cant pin down a timeline; Western Muslims are so routinely under suspicion that the individual controversies bleed together in my mind.

That day on the bus I vowed never again to let the climate of fear force me to assume the worst of the world and those around me. But last week, thats exactly what I did. As fear and confusion surrounding Trumps travel ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries grew, I cancelled a vacation to beautiful, sunny California, planned months ago with a close friend. And then I immediately felt ashamed.

My decision was a relief to friends and family, but to me it was a betrayal of my own principles. With the uncertainty of what could or couldnt happen at the airport, I let my anxiety get the best of me and fled the situation altogether.

In the face of xenophobia, I felt vulnerable and was ultimately knocked out by fear. Im now learning the way to get back up lies in remembering Im not fighting alone.

After the ban was announced Id become increasingly uneasy, even though Ive been a Canadian citizen for more than a decade and was born in Pakistan, which was not on the list of targeted countries. But with my hijab Im very visibly Muslim, and Pakistan is still often a security concern at the border. Though Ive never had issues travelling since becoming a Canadian, Im no stranger to horror stories.

My cousin, an American citizen with Global Entry (pre-approved border security clearance), was detained at JFK on his way back from Pakistan last year. My mom was once made to remove her hijab in the middle of a busy security screening area at Pearson. Her colleague recently told her about a relative, a hijab-wearing U.S. citizen, who was forced to strip down to her underwear and searched when she arrived home in New York from India last week.

I read stories of phones being searched, social media feeds being scoured, political views being questioned. Who was to say Trumps rhetoric hadnt emboldened bigoted customs officials? This vacation was causing me more stress than it was worth. But when my parents urged me to cancel my trip, I told them everything would be fine. I mostly believed it.

Soon my (white, non-Muslim) travel companion also began to get nervous. Another friend and my dad both recommended I either cancel my trip or contact a lawyer.

The day before we were set to leave, my friend and I frantically cancelled our flights, Airbnbs and rental car. Money was the last thing on my mind but it helped that we got partial refunds. We will each be out a couple hundred dollars.

Though I do feel relief now, immediately afterwards I just felt shame. I had let the fear of discrimination keep me from going about my life.

Trumps policy felt more targeted than ever, but truthfully, Muslims are always under a microscope. Im coping with that now by learning about my rights, surrounding myself with those who support me and keeping in mind the ongoing efforts by people of all backgrounds to combat bigotry.

Im reading more about the American Civil Liberties Unions relentless fight against the unfair treatment of travellers based on their nationality. Im focusing on those who formed rings of peace around mosques in solidarity after one was attacked in Quebec last month. And Im remembering the countless kind and generous Americans Ive met on previous trips, including a family in L.A. who, in the middle of last years divisive presidential campaign, shared their Fourth of July sparklers with us.

We need these acts of defiance and unity to remind ourselves that hate cannot divide us from our neighbours, our faith or our country.

But for Muslims, thats often a choice between a principled stance and taking not-totally-paranoid precautions to ensure our own safety. I wish Id been brave enough to stand my ground this time  but now Im better prepared for the next blow.

Sahar Fatima is an editor at the Star.

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For years, people have been counselled to turn down their heating at night to save on energy bills.

But with hydro prices high in rural areas, homeowners with electric heat should be doing the opposite, says a green building contractor.

I still know people who are setting back their electric baseboard heaters at night, says Ben Polley of Evolve Builders in Guelph, which specializes in green homes and renovations.

Theyre hurting themselves.

Aside from buying energy-efficient LED light bulbs, improving insulation and cutting down on drafts, thats just one of several ways to trim hydro bills for people who cant heat their homes with natural gas, Polley adds.

Ratepayers with electric heat should be taking advantage of cheaper hydro rates between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. and on weekends to crank up the heat, says Polley, who recommends a programmable thermostat for the job.

Rates overnight and on weekends are less than half the peak daytime prices from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Cutting down on drafts, by targeting cans of spray-foam insulation in open areas behind the walls surrounding windows and doors, or using weather stripping and caulking in those areas and where walls meet foundations or roof lines, can also make a big difference.

Its really simple, low-tech stuff and low skill for the average person. The payback can be good, adds Polley, who says such measures can enable homeowners to lower their thermostats by a couple of degrees because rooms feel warmer when drafts are eliminated.

Insulation should never be left out of any major renovation because it doesnt add much to the construction cost but makes a huge difference in energy bills.

Other potential measures include adding solar water heaters, and, for small families, on-demand water heaters with small tanks that use half the electricity compared with traditional models with large tanks.

They can account for as much as one-third of a household hydro bill, so its worth replacing the old-style tanks when they wear out after 10 to 15 years, says Polley, a former Green party candidate.

The cost is double a normal hot water heater, but the payback is there after a few years, he said.

Polley himself lives in a fully renovated and thoroughly insulated Ontario cottage home first built in the 1800s and disconnected his natural gas line to the furnace and installed electric baseboards.

These were cheaper than a new furnace. He augments these with a wood stove when the mercury dips drastically.

Right now, my house is set at 15 degrees, he says, wearing jeans and a polar fleece top over a T-shirt. Thats all our bodies need if there are no drafts.

New Democrat MPP Peter Tabuns, who spent about $3,000 a few years ago insulating the attic and some walls in his Toronto-Danforth home and also bought LED light bulbs, says he noticed a drop in his electricity and natural gas use.

It was not a lot of money. We were surprised, says Tabuns, who spent the money on top of a government subsidy program for energy retrofits and called on the Wynne administration to offer more help to homeowners.

We desperately need people to get the work done without having to lay out a lot of money up front.

The government has promised more home retrofit programs soon under its new cap-and-trade plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

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Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

A few passing clouds. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 41F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 41F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.
Never mind electricity price points. Pay heed to the talking points.

Ontarians keep talking up an existential electricity crisis, and it goes something like this:

Heat or eat. We are being hosed by hydro utilities. Its never been this bad before. Its worse than anywhere else.

Welcome to the mother of all memes.

Opposition politicians keep asking, Why we should pay more for power than anyone else in North America?

Good question  or allegation  except that we dont. Rates in key U.S. cities are nearly double what we pay here.

Read more: People who live in rural areas should turn up their heat at night: green builder

If you live in Toronto and wonder what the fuss is about, a more honest answer is that many  though not all  rural Ontarians do, in fact, face rapidly rising electricity prices.

Higher rural rates are explained, unsurprisingly, by the extra costs of far-flung transmission lines in areas of low population density. That disparity is compounded by the unavailability of natural gas in some areas, forcing residents to use baseboards for more costly electric heat.

Thats different from griping about the high cost of hydro in cities, given the costs of cable TV, Internet access and mobile phones. Not to mention the cost of heating a hot tub in the country.

Yet complaints over hydro price hikes have gone viral on Facebook, and are spreading at warp speed across the province. Which is why Premier Kathleen Wynne keeps promising a fix.

Wilting under the political heat, will her Liberals be tempted to ease the heating bills of cottagers and rural folk by sticking it to city folk who are supposedly sitting pretty? Should you brace yourself for the fallout from future price shock if the government tries to even things out?

That would be a blunder.

Yes, hydro is cheaper here, but Torontonians are weighed down by massive mortgages and costly commutes. True, hydro can be expensive elsewhere, but home ownership costs are a fraction of what it costs in big cities.

We pay a price for living here. And they pay a price for living there.

Is it fair to off-load more of that cost onto others? Why should working people in Toronto be forced to pay higher rates just so that affluent cottagers (their fellow Torontonians) get a price break?

Its a recipe for confusion, not to mention more unfairness, because its hard to cross-reference high bills with low incomes.

Ontarios electricity system has long been likened to a Rubiks cube, but that is a gross oversimplification: My 13-year-old learned long ago how to solve that puzzle in about a minute (hint: there are YouTube videos telling all).

Electricity is infinitely more complicated, and there are no easy YouTube solutions. The only certainty is that every action generates a reaction, which is what got us where we are today.

The political pressure for Wynne to take decisive action with a big bang  bigger than Band-Aids of the past  is growing. Mindful of past missteps, however, government sources say they must avoid shortcuts that short-circuit the system in future.

There is unlikely to be significant cross-subsidization between city and country folk. For one thing, the urban-rural divide is something of an urban myth  Torontos electricity transmission costs are higher than most other utilities, due to daunting infrastructure challenges, but high population density cushions the blow.

Dont expect quick fixes for cottagers who complain about high delivery costs in the winter months when they shut off most appliances. Utilities need to recoup their fixed costs somehow, just like phone companies do with fixed contracts.

The government has already started rebating the 8-per-cent provincial portion of the HST from hydro bills, and offered greater relief (20 per cent) for people in the most underserviced and overpriced areas. But the Liberals are getting little credit for nibbling at the edges, so there is a need to be bolder  by breaking out of the meme.

Wynne has already hinted that the province needs to rebalance the burden between ratepayers and taxpayers, which sounds suspiciously like a shell game. There is good reason to be skeptical, but also practical. Anyone who looks at the global adjustment in their monthly bill knows how arbitrary the billing and cost-allocation system has become over the years.

For example, monthly bills charge customers upfront for massive infrastructure investments  $50 billion  that arguably have a much longer useful life, and could be amortized further into the future. Also, ratepayers are bearing the full burden of renewable energy, which has as much to do with industrial  and environmental  policy as electricity policy (in the U.S., much of that extra cost is borne by the federal government through tax credits).

Where there is a political will to retain power, there is always a way to tinker with the power system. Thats always been the Ontario way, for better or for worse.

Ahead of the spring budget, and the 2018 election, well see whether the Liberals have opted for a quick political fix to deal with talking points, or a more coherent way of dealing with true price points.

Martin Regg Cohns political column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn

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BERLINA German parliamentary assembly will elect the countrys new president on Sunday, with a respected former foreign minister who last year called Donald Trump one of the worlds hate preachers the overwhelming favourite to win.

The German president has little executive power, but is considered an important moral authority. The new head of state will succeed Joachim Gauck, a 77-year-old former pastor and East German pro-democracy activist, who announced last year that he wouldnt seek a second five-year term because of his age.

The president is elected by a special 1,260-member assembly made up of the 630 lawmakers in parliaments lower house and an equal number of representatives from Germanys 16 states.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germanys foreign minister until last month, has the support of Chancellor Angela Merkels grand coalition of centre-right and centre-left parties. Between them, Merkels conservative Union bloc and the centre-left Social Democrats  her junior coalition partners  hold 923 seats, which should assure Steinmeiers election.

Read more:Germanys foreign minister compares Donald Trump to hate preachers

Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, emerged as the governments candidate after Merkel was unable to find a conservative of presidential stature willing to run for the job. He has long been one of Germanys most popular politicians, although he failed in a long-shot bid to unseat Merkel as chancellor in 2009.

The presidential vote is likely to be one of the last moments of coalition unity ahead of a parliamentary election in September in which Merkel is seeking a fourth term. Both sides hope to end the grand coalition.

The Social Democrats are currently enjoying a poll boost from their surprise nomination as her challenger of Martin Schulz, a former European Parliament president.

Unlike Gauck, who has no party affiliation, Steinmeier has had a long career in German politics. As former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeders chief of staff, he was one of the main architects of Schroeders 2003 package of economic reforms and welfare cuts, which has been credited with making the German economy more robust.

Under Merkel, he served twice as foreign minister  from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 until this year, with a stint as opposition leader in between. He has won respect for his persistence in trying to resolve the long-running crisis in Ukraine.

Steinmeier, 61, is normally studiously diplomatic, but strongly criticized Trump during the U.S. election campaign.

Asked in August about the rise of right-wing populism in Germany and elsewhere, Steinmeier criticized those who make politics with fear. He cited the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, the promoters of Britains exit from the European Union, and the hate preachers, like Donald Trump at the moment in the United States.

When he was nominated for the presidency in mid-November, Steinmeier called for confidence in the face of international crises. A German president must not be someone who simplifies things; he must encourage people, he said.

The events of our times  Brexit and its consequences for Europe, the election in the U.S., the situation in Turkey  are truly political earthquakes, he said. They shake us, but they can also shake us awake.

There are four other candidates in Sundays election.

The opposition Left Party nominated Christoph Butterwegge, a political science professor who opposed Schroeders economic reforms. A deputy leader of Alternative for Germany, Albrecht Glaser, also is running, as is Alexander Hold, nominated by the small Free Voters party in Bavaria, and Engelbert Sonneborn, the father of a satirist.

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Every week is a cliffhanger in this new Trump reality show, so what did we see in this weeks episode? Amid the drama and the farce, we saw the shape of an enormous battle to come.

We were told that the news media has endangered the American people by intentionally covering up terrorist acts: The very, very dishonest press doesnt want to report it. They have their reasons and you understand that.

We were told that judges reviewing Donald Trumps Muslim travel ban have put our country in such peril. If something happens, blame  the court system. People pouring in. Bad!

And we were told what the outcome will be from all of this: journalists and judges  not the president and his men  will have blood on their hands if terrorists attack.

That was what the 45th president of the United States tried to sell Americans this week. He must have been shocked at the depth of the resistance.

Trump knows that America needs to transform into the land of the Big Lie for him to accomplish his goals. Creating an authoritarian country in his image is only possible if the independent institutions that potentially stand in his way are fatally compromised.

Historically, these institutions are what separate modern democracies from authoritarian regimes. They protect societies from the fever of political excess. This is why they cannot be tolerated in Trumps America.

We have already seen how Trump works. During the presidential campaign, he destroyed his political rivals by demeaning and belittling them: Crooked Hillary, Little Marco, Lyin Ted, Low Energy Jeb and the like.

Trump pursued the same approach this week when he took on journalists and judges with lies and threats. But, significantly, these institutions fought back.

The judges responded to Trumps insults in subtle ways. The judges from the several states who dealt with challenges to Trumps travel ban were obviously silent  except in the work they did. But many members of the legal community protested on their behalf.

They received surprising public support on Wednesday from Neil Gorsuch, Trumps nominee for the Supreme Court. Gorsuch described the presidents attacks on judges as demoralizing and disheartening in a meeting with a U.S. senator.

Trumps attack on the news media generated a more explosive reaction. On Monday, Trump had suggested that journalists were intentionally covering up reports of terrorist attacks: Youve seen what happened in Paris, and Nice. All over Europe, its happening. Its gotten to the point where its not even being reported.

Within hours of those remarks, several news organizations worked to prove that Trump was lying. They put together lists of the various terrorist incidents that have occurred in recent months, with details of the extensive media coverage they received.

Trump and his team regard journalists as their major opposition and are frantic to get them under control. There is more than a little irony in this, since it was the endless, uncritical broadcast coverage of Trumps early primary race that pushed him so far ahead of his rivals.

Since Trumps election, and led by newspapers such as The New York Times and Washington Post, the coverage has toughened up. The falsehoods and distortions uttered by Trump and his senior officials have particularly inflamed journalists and have been challenged  resulting in a growing prominence of fact-checkers and investigative reporting.

But in the face of the Trump onslaught, American journalism is vulnerable. There is growing public distrust of traditional news outlets and an explosion of new information sources. Many newsrooms are suffering budget cuts even though some of their corporate bosses  such as cable news channels  are experiencing record profits due to the Trump phenomenon.

Television, in particular, has seen a growing emphasis on soft news and cheap punditry at the expense of rigorous, fact-based newsgathering and investigation. Foreign bureaus, for example, are becoming extinct. Is there any wonder why so many Americans distrust so much of Americas news media?

The last time American journalism was regarded highly by Americans was in the 1970s. That was when the Pentagon Papers revealing U.S. government lies about the Vietnam War were leaked and when meticulous investigative reporting broke open Richard Nixons Watergate scandal.

Those events led to a resurgence in high-quality U.S. journalism. Somewhat ironically, given the current presidents agenda, will the Trump era accomplish the same feat?

Lets not delude ourselves: the stakes in this reality show are incalculable.

Tony Burman is former head of Al Jazeera English and CBC News. Reach him @TonyBurman or at tony.burman@gmail.com .

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After months of privately pleading with Trustee Nancy Elgie to do the right thing, the chair of the York Region school board is now publicly urging her to step down for using a horrific slur that has caused such upset among parents, students and staff.

I have called on her for months to make this right, and I feel now, clearly, the only way to do so is for her to resign, Loralea Carruthers told the Star. While I do believe her apology was heartfelt, it is clear that doing all that is necessary in this situation requires Trustee Elgie to resign.

Elgie has come under increasing pressure to step down after admitting to  and saying sorry for  referring to a black parent as a n----- after a public meeting late last year. Earlier this week, her family announced she is taking an indefinite medical leave, saying she misspoke because of a head injury she suffered last October.

The use of such a horrific slur, even if inadvertently, has caused undue pain to parents, students and staff of colour in our communities, Carruthers said. Trustees have heard from parents directly about how this has hurt them. While we do not have the authority to force a colleague to resign, I strongly urge her to take responsibility for what this has done to our board and the community we serve.

Read more:York board falters amid accusations of racism, Islamophobia

In the meantime, Elgie, 82, is staying put.

My mother cares deeply about the families of York Region, and the school board  that is why she is a trustee, Elgies son, Stewart, said in an email to the Star Friday night. While there have been some calls for her resignation, we've also heard from many in the community and on the board who know her life-long opposition to discrimination. They accept that she was referring to the awful word that kids were being called, not to the parent  and that she has apologized for her terrible mistake.

She knows that what she said  even inadvertently  has caused real pain, and she wants to help heal that. I hope that people can find understanding and forgiveness in their hearts, and work towards learning, dialogue and restorative justice, not just punishment.

Carruthers call for Elgie to step down comes as a group of parents from across Greater Toronto launch a series of targeted Facebook ads saying its time for trustees to vote to suspend Elgie.

Ongoing issues at the York board and accusations that it is ignoring incidents of racism and Islamophobia, as well as questions about trustee spending and conduct, have already prompted the provincial government to send in two investigators. They have been deluged with requests from families to meet  so much so they can now take submissions only via email.

Carruthers, who took the helm just last December, has attempted to make the board more responsive and open to parents, communicating with families, providing equity training for trustees and also reinstating a 15-minute public forum before board meetings.

She is also hoping that at a meeting Monday night, trustees will move forward with plans to create a position for an independent integrity commissioner.

Carruthers is the first member of the board to speak out about Elgie, which is not only hugely symbolic, but a really strong first step, said Rob Davis, a former Toronto city councillor and Toronto Catholic school board trustee now co-ordinating the Facebook ad effort. To publicly say something that may have been said in the backrooms is a big deal.

At Queens Park, Minister of Children and Youth Services Michael Coteau and Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown have also said Elgie is no longer fit for public office.

The Facebook ads, which begin Saturday, have been funded by people all over Greater Toronto who are very upset with whats happening at the York Region board  the ads are intended to give people in various wards across York Region an opportunity to know what their trustee is or isnt doing and to take action, said Davis.

The ads are specific to each elected official, he added, and will appear in the feeds of their constituents only. They say, in part: Trustee Nancy Elgie called a parent the N word at a school board meeting  Thus far your Trustee (name here) has said nothing  she has the power to suspend Trustee Elgie from the school board. But she hasnt. Does she stand up to racism?

Davis lauded groups like the Vaughan African Canadian Association and the National Council of Canadian Muslims for doing the really heavy lifting in fighting for change at the board, and this effort is to support their efforts.

Shernett Martin, executive director of the Vaughan association  who was recently interviewed by a radio station in Ireland about the troubles at the York board  said a town-hall meeting is in the works for community members.

As for Elgie, we want her to resign and appeal to her to understand that a community is hurting and she is causing disarray in the board, said Martin. The way forward begins with her resignation.

The board had earlier hired an independent investigator to look into Elgies comments though an internal probe. In a previous interview with the Star, Elgies son Stewart said his mother, who has worked for fairness and equality her whole life had accepted the investigators finding that what she said was a violation of policy, even though it was accidental.

Meanwhile, the York boards own equity advisory committee met Thursday evening and as a group expressed concerns about Elgie, who was vice-chair of the committee in 2016.

Trustee Elgies comments were unanimously condemned by our committee, said chair Naheed Yaqubian. We stand with the public in urging trustees to quickly foster healing, respect, and confidence in the board.

Carruthers said the board has recently taken a number of steps, such as posting a note from trustees on the board website, to symbolic steps, such as acknowledging indigenous lands before board meetings, to show that its committed to positive change.

This is an ongoing process, and quite frankly I am as frustrated as anyone with how long it can seem to take to make system-wide change, she said. I got involved with the school board through my own experience advocating for my own two children, and I am heartbroken at the stories I have heard from parents, students and staff. I believe I have a mandate as the new chair to do all that I can with my colleagues, with our staff team and now with provincial reviewers to makes this right.

In her chairs note posted online this week, Carruthers said while a code of conduct complaint is still possible against Elgie, proceeding with one could take months, be costly and would likely be confidential.

This has been updated from a previous version.

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For years, the York school board stood above all others: touted by the province as a model, boasted by the premier as her favourite, a valued testing ground for new education strategies and equity work.

Now, just how far  and how fast  it has fallen has stunned educators and parents alike.

A board once in the provinces good graces, is now regarded as a disgrace  with numerous incidents of racism ignored, a trustee, Nancy Elgie, 82, who has admitted to referring to a black parent as a n-----, a principal who posted Islamophobic material online, and questionable conduct and travel by elected officials.

Read more: Nancy Elgie must resign over racial slur: York board chair

Recently, after the Stars year-long investigation into the board, Education Minister Mitzie Hunter appointed two troubleshooters to determine what exactly had gone awry. They have been deluged with so many requests to meet they can only accept email submissions from now on. Their report is due April 7.

We were considered the most progressive board in the province, said Bill Crothers, a former York Region District School Board trustee who served as chair for 15 years and worked with long-standing director Bill Hogarth.

People came to our schools to study how we were teaching students.

But it was not only about student achievement, he said. The board also had an active and engaged race relations committee that ensured parents voices were heard, something parents now say is lacking.

It was fairly unique in the province at the time, said Crothers, who retired in 2011.

But as a trustee, Crothers said the most important role was to hire the director of education to do the best for the students education. Hogarth, who came from North York, stayed at the board for 16 years, but instead of a 10-year contract  an unprecedented length, which the York board recently granted controversial director J. Philip Parappally  the veteran educator saw his contract extended every four years.

Crothers said the boards success at the time was due to the presence of a strong leader  who can put an end to any infighting pretty quickly, he said.

Joel Hertz, a former trustee involved in the hiring of current director Parappally, says promoting him in 2014 was fraught with controversy.

The Star has previously reported how Parappally wasnt endorsed by the third-party consultant brought in to facilitate the hiring, as the consultant was concerned that Parappally brought notes to the interview and didnt have strong references.

A year later, he was given an unprecedented 10-year contract, raising eyebrows across the province.

I still dont know why they did the 10-year thing, said Hertz, who admitted he voted for the contract. He, like other education insiders, believes trust in the organization has plummeted since then.

In the past, Parappally has told the Star via email he was humbled to be chosen as director and that in accordance with the Education Act, I am qualified to hold the position of director of education in Ontario. He earned $268,267 in 2015.

The previous chair, Anna DeBartolo, has also told the Star the 10 years was needed to provide the board with stability over a long term.

Avis Glaze, a former associate director at the board under Hogarth, said, at that time, the boards focus was on creating leaders with integrity.

When other boards were cutting leadership programs in the late 1990s, the York board created a leadership institute to train and develop future principals, she added.

People were flocking to the board because they knew we were investing in our people, she said. Our leadership style was collaborative, participatory. It was not top down. It was always about creating leaders with integrity and character.

Glaze, who came to Canada from Jamaica as a young teacher, said equity was always a top priority during her 16 years at the board, as was keeping parents involved.

Organizations must make sure equity and diversity are at the forefront and not just a plaque on the wall. They must be a model of equity, said Glaze, who now lives in British Columbia.

Parappally told the Star the York board remains committed to providing high quality instruction in learning and working environments that are safe and welcoming. By any measure of achievement, our students continue to perform above provincial averages.

This has been a challenging time for our board, he added. But I want to assure our communities that we have already started taking action to address their concerns.

We welcome the opportunity to work with Ms. Suzanne Herbert and Mr. Patrick Case and look forward to implementing their recommendations, Parappally said, referring to the two investigators appointed by the education minister. We also continue to work with our stakeholders to look at how we can move forward to address these concerns and to strengthen trust and confidence in our board.

John Ippolito, an education professor at York University who has conducted research projects with the York Region board, said hes baffled as to why the board isnt looking at some of the outreach it is doing in a handful of schools to help it regain parents trust.

One project involves arranging social and educational get-togethers for parents and teachers to meet and come in and share a meal, while the kids go off and parents and administrators and researchers from York University discuss issues that parents think are worth talking about.

It has a profound impact on a school, a positive impact that can help avoid the kinds of problems the board is now experiencing, he said.

In light of whats going on now, thats the kind of groundwork you need to deal with these issues that emerge, he said. They are bound to happen  not just in York Region, but its the response that counts.

If youve laid a culture of communication, and preferably a culture of trust and an ability to speak to each other, it will serve you well when these episodes (happen)  there are some real gaps in how the board is addressing the issue.

For her part, Glaze said she will be closely watching the findings of the investigators sent into the York board.

We have to restore public confidence, with all members of the community, especially our diverse communities, she said. No organization is good unless it can serve all its people. We need to personalize and individualize the strategies we are using, so that all children regardless of background, regardless of personal circumstance can achieve success, she said.

That was our philosophy in York Region. No child was left behind.

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CSX (CSX) on Friday pushed back a deadline for shareholders to nominate dissident director candidates until Feb. 24 in a move suggesting that a newbie activist fund is still in talks with the railroad over a possible board overhaul.

The delay comes after officials from the Jacksonville, Fla.-based CSX reportedly met recently with veteran railroad executive Hunter Harrison and representatives from newbie activist Mantle Ridge over the insurgent fund's push for more than three seats on the company's board.

A report Friday suggested that Harrison and CSX have discussed setting up a three-year contract for Harrison to head the railroad but that an agreement hasn't been reached as Mantle Ridge is pushing for more board control.

Harrison stepped down as CEO of Canadian Pacific (CP) in January to join Mantle Ridge's efforts to shake up CSX.

A Wall Street Journal report said that while CSX, which was represented at the meeting by board members Edward Kelly and David Ratcliffe, is open to a compromise, it is reluctant to surrender that many board seats. The two sides had been trying to reach an agreement before a deadline originally set for Friday for investors to nominate directors. However, the move to postpone the deadline by two weeks indicates that both sides are still in talks.

CSX's share price spiked significantly last month on news of the insurgency campaign, with investors hopeful that Harrison would have success streamlining the railroad and making it more efficient. The exec was brought to Canadian Pacific by activist Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management in 2012 and orchestrated a turnaround there that led to CP's Toronto-based shares climbing nearly 190% during his tenure.

CSX shares were up about 1.4% to $48.40 a share in afternoon trading on Friday on the news that negotiations were likely continuing.

Harrison joined ex-Pershing Square partner Paul Hilal last month to form Mantle Ridge. Hilal was the Pershing partner who largely engineered the spectacularly successful CP insurgency.
Current and potential Snap Inc. investors may get a bit of sticker shock when they see how much the company is spending on its cloud commitments, but experts say the costs are growing pains needed to support its 158 million daily active users.

Snapchat's parent revealed in an amended S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday that it has renewed a $1 billion cloud services contract with Amazon's (AMZN) Amazon Web Services that runs from January 2017 to December 2021. As part of the agreement, Snap will shell out $50 million in 2017, $125 million in 2018, $200 million in 2019, $275 million in 2020 and $350 million in 2021 to use the tech giant's cloud platform.

That's on top of the previously revealed, five-year agreement with Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google Cloud Platform, which requires Snap to spend at least $2 billion ($400 million annually) to store its data there.

The amended filing was published a week after Snap filed its original S-1 document, a move that's an incremental first step ahead of its planned IPO in March. Snap hopes to raise up to $3 billion in the offering.

Together, the contracts equate to Snap spending about $450 million on cloud storage this year. It's a hefty price tag when compared to Snap's annual revenue of $404 million in 2016. It's worth noting, however, that Snap's revenue grew almost six-fold between 2015 and 2016.

Snap will likely exceed its $450 million hosting budget this year, but it's a "reasonable" cost to expect as the company continues to scale up, said Loup Ventures analyst Doug Clinton, formerly a tech analyst at Piper Jaffray. It also costs more for companies to store video data on the cloud, Clinton added, because video files are usually larger than photos.

"I would say the cloud deals don't present a big risk to us," Clinton said by email. "It probably makes sense for them to eventually build their own infrastructure, but from a priority standpoint, they can keep comfortably focusing on user growth, which will be the key metric to follow over the next year."

Snap indicated in the S-1 filing that it may decide to build its own data storage infrastructure at some point, which would follow similar moves by its rivals such as Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TWTR) .

Watch More: Snap Inc. is Going Public

The data center costs outlined in Snap's S-1 filing are actually much less than what Facebook and Twitter spent ahead of their IPOs, which were in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Facebook's cost of revenue, which includes expenses related to data center expansion, was $860 million in 2011. Twitter, meanwhile, logged $800 million in its cost of revenue category in 2012.

Facebook operates several of its own data centers, including the massive Prineville, Ore-based location, while Twitter has data centers near its headquarters in San Francisco, as well as other places in the U.S.

Snap is one of a relatively small number of Silicon Valley companies who have opted to host their data entirely on the cloud, which carries some risks, including the costs, potential privacy/security issues and reliability. Netflix (NFLX) and Verizon's (VZ) AOL run their companies on Amazon Web Services, as do Juniper Networks (JNPR) and Intuit (INTU) .

The cloud commitment agreements serve as an interesting case study, in which companies such as Snapchat and Netflix become reliant on companies they compete with in many respects.

In particular, as Snapchat continues to expand beyond just being a friend-to-friend communications platform, Amazon is likely to rise to the forefront of its list of rivals. Just this week, Snapchat signed two original content deals with BBC and A&E Networks, and already has existing content deals with Comcast's (CMCSA) NBCUniversal and Time Warner's (TWX) Turner Broadcasting, as well as Disney's (DIS) ABC. Amazon has said it plans to double its spending on original content this year and has made its Prime Video service available in new international markets.

Snapchat also competes with Google for digital advertising dollars, though it has a lot of catching up to do to match the tech giant's share of the ad market.

Facebook,Alphabet and Comcast are holdings in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells FB,GOOGL or CMCSA? Learn more now.

Snapchat noted in its filing that the contracts could become a risk to their business for various reasons, such as if Amazon or Google decide to raise their prices, or if the cloud providers make changes to the cloud systems and hardware.

"..Google and Apple, respectively, each provide consumers with products that compete with ours," Snapchat said in the filing. "We have no control over these operating systems and any changes to these systems or hardware that degrade our products' functionality, or give preferential treatment to competitive products, could seriously harm Snapchat usage on mobile devices."

Netflix acknowledged in its own recent 10-K filing that any disruption of service on Amazon Web Services could be a problem, but said that beyond that, there are few risks to using them.

"While the retail side of Amazon competes with us, we do not believe that Amazon will use the AWS operation in such a manner as to gain competitive advantage against our service," the streaming company wrote.

If anything, the deal signals that Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud will continue to grab an outsized share of the public cloud market, said Rohit Kulkarni, managing director of investment firm Shares Post, who is a former analyst at RBC Capital Markets. It also means that Snap is building the foundation for future growth.

"Very few companies have announced agreements with Google and Amazon and my guess is that probably Snap is the only company to have billion-dollar agreements with both," Kulkarni said. "For Snap, it means they do anticipate significant growth in user engagement, traffic, etc. Otherwise, they wouldn't be comfortable signing an agreement."

F
The following companies are subsidiares of Abbott Laboratories: 3A Nutrition (Vietnam) Company Limited, ABON Biopharm (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AGA Medical Belgium, AGA Medical Corporation, AGA Medical Holdings Inc., ALR Holdings, AML Medical LLC, APK Advanced Medical Technologies LLC, ATS Bermuda Holdings Limited, ATS Laboratories Inc., Abbott, Abbott (Jiaxing) Nutrition Co. Ltd., Abbott (UK) Finance Limited, Abbott (UK) Holdings Limited, Abbott AG, Abbott Asia Holdings Limited, Abbott Asia Investments Limited, Abbott Australasia Holdings Limited, Abbott Australasia Pty Ltd, Abbott B.V., Abbott Bahamas Overseas Businesses Corporation, Abbott Belgian Investments, Abbott Bermuda Holding Ltd., Abbott Biologicals B.V., Abbott Biologicals LLC, Abbott Bulgaria Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Capital India Limited, Abbott Cardiovascular Inc., Abbott Cardiovascular Systems Inc., Abbott Delaware LLC, Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Abbott Diabetes Care Limited, Abbott Diabetes Care Sales Corporation, Abbott Diagnostics GmbH, Abbott Diagnostics International Ltd., Abbott Diagnostics Technologies AS, Abbott Doral Investments S.L., Abbott Equity Holdings Unlimited, Abbott Equity Investments LLC, Abbott Established Products Holdings (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Finance Company SA, Abbott Financial Holdings SRL, Abbott France S.A.S., Abbott Fund Tanzania Limited, Abbott Gesellschaft m.b.H., Abbott GmbH & Co. KG, Abbott Health Products LLC, Abbott Healthcare (Puerto Rico) Ltd., Abbott Healthcare B.V., Abbott Healthcare Costa Rica S.A., Abbott Healthcare LLC, Abbott Healthcare Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Healthcare Private Limited, Abbott Healthcare Products B.V., Abbott Healthcare Products Ltd, Abbott Holding (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding GmbH, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited Luxembourg S.C.S., Abbott Holdings B.V., Abbott Holdings LLC, Abbott Holdings Limited, Abbott Holdings Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Hungary Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Iberian Investments (2) Limited, Abbott Iberian Investments Limited, Abbott India Limited, Abbott Informatics Asia Pacific Limited, Abbott Informatics Canada Inc, Abbott Informatics Corporation, Abbott Informatics Europe Limited, Abbott Informatics France, Abbott Informatics Germany GmbH, Abbott Informatics Netherlands B.V., Abbott Informatics Singapore Pte. Limited, Abbott Informatics Spain S.A., Abbott Informatics Technologies Ltd, Abbott International Corporation, Abbott International Enterprises Ltd., Abbott International Holdings Limited, Abbott International LLC, Abbott International Luxembourg S.ar.l., Abbott Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Ireland, Abbott Ireland Financing Designated Activity Company, Abbott Ireland Limited, Abbott Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Abbott Knoll Investments B.V., Abbott Korea Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Bangladesh) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco (Dos) SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Laboratories (Mozambique) Limitada, Abbott Laboratories (Pakistan) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Philippines), Abbott Laboratories (Puerto Rico) Incorporated, Abbott Laboratories (Singapore) Private Limited, Abbott Laboratories A/S, Abbott Laboratories Argentina Sociedad Anonima, Abbott Laboratories B.V., Abbott Laboratories C.A., Abbott Laboratories Finance B.V., Abbott Laboratories GmbH, Abbott Laboratories Inc., Abbott Laboratories International LLC, Abbott Laboratories Ireland Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited - Laboratoires Abbott Limitee, Abbott Laboratories NZ Limited, Abbott Laboratories Pacific Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Laboratories Products B.V., Abbott Laboratories Residential Development Fund Inc., Abbott Laboratories S.A., Abbott Laboratories SA, Abbott Laboratories Services Corp., Abbott Laboratories Slovakia s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories South Africa (Pty) Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trustee Company Limited, Abbott Laboratories Uruguay S.A., Abbott Laboratories Vascular Enterprises, Abbott Laboratories d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories de Chile Limitada, Abbott Laboratories de Colombia S.A., Abbott Laboratories de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Abbott Laboratories druzba za farmacijo in diagnostiko d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories(Hellas) Societe Anonyme, Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios del Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Abbott Laboratuarlari Ithalat Ihracat ve Ticaret Ltd.Sti, Abbott Laboratorios Lda, Abbott Laboratorios do Brasil Ltda., Abbott Limited Egypt LLC, Abbott Logistics B.V., Abbott Management GmbH, Abbott Management LLC, Abbott Manufacturing Singapore Private Limited, Abbott Mature Products International Unlimited Company, Abbott Mature Products Management Limited, Abbott Medical (Hong Kong) Limited, Abbott Medical (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Medical (Portugal) Distribuicao de Produtos Medicos Lda, Abbott Medical (Schweiz) AG, Abbott Medical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Australia Pty. Ltd., Abbott Medical Austria Ges.m.b.H., Abbott Medical Balkan d.o.o. Beograd (Novi Beograd), Abbott Medical Belgium, Abbott Medical Canada Inc./ Medicale Abbott Canada Inc., Abbott Medical Danmark A/S, Abbott Medical Devices Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Espana S.A., Abbott Medical Estonia OU, Abbott Medical Finland Oy, Abbott Medical France SAS, Abbott Medical GmbH, Abbott Medical Hellas Limited Liability Trading Company, Abbott Medical Ireland Limited, Abbott Medical Italia S.p.A., Abbott Medical Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Korea Limited, Abbott Medical Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Medical Laboratories LTD, Abbott Medical Nederland B.V., Abbott Medical New Zealand Limited, Abbott Medical Norway AS, Abbott Medical Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Medical Sweden AB, Abbott Medical Taiwan Co., Abbott Medical U.K. Limited, Abbott Medical spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Middle East S.A.R.L., Abbott Molecular Inc., Abbott Morocco SARL, Abbott Nederland C.V., Abbott Nederland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Netherlands Investments B.V., Abbott Norge AS, Abbott Nutrition Limited, Abbott Nutrition Manufacturing Inc., Abbott Operations Singapore Pte. Ltd., Abbott Operations Uruguay S.R.L., Abbott Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Overseas Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Overseas S.A., Abbott Oy, Abbott Point of Care Canada Limited, Abbott Point of Care Inc., Abbott Poland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Procurement LLC, Abbott Products (Philippines) Inc., Abbott Products (Spain) S.L., Abbott Products Algerie EURL, Abbott Products B.V., Abbott Products Distribution SAS, Abbott Products Egypt LLC, Abbott Products Limited, Abbott Products Limited Liability Company, Abbott Products Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Products Operations AG, Abbott Products Operations LLC, Abbott Products Romania S.R.L., Abbott Products Tunisie S.A.R.L., Abbott Products Unlimited Company, Abbott Resources Inc., Abbott Resources International Inc., Abbott S.r.l., Abbott Saudi Arabia Trading Company, Abbott Scandinavia Aktiebolag, Abbott Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, Abbott South Africa Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Strategic Opportunities Limited, Abbott Trading Company Inc., Abbott Universal LLC, Abbott Vascular Devices (2) Limited, Abbott Vascular Devices Limited, Abbott Vascular Inc., Abbott Vascular Instruments Deutschland GmbH, Abbott Vascular International, Abbott Vascular Japan Co. Ltd, Abbott Vascular Limitada, Abbott Vascular Netherlands B.V., Abbott Vascular Solutions Inc., Abbott Ventures Inc., Abbott West Indies Limited, Abbott drustvo sa ogranicenom odgovornoscu za trgovinu i usluge, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., Alere, Alere (Shanghai) Diagnostics Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Healthcare Management Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Medical Sales Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Technology Co. Ltd., Alere A/S, Alere AB, Alere AS, Alere AS Holdings Limited, Alere BBI Holdings Limited, Alere Bangladesh Limited, Alere China Co. Ltd., Alere Colombia S.A., Alere Connect LLC, Alere Connected Health Limited, Alere Connected Health Ltd., Alere Diagnostics GmbH, Alere DoA Holding GmbH, Alere GmbH, Alere GmbH (Austria), Alere GmbH (Germany), Alere HK Holdings Ltd., Alere Health B.V., Alere Health BVBA, Alere Health Corp., Alere Health Sdn Bhd, Alere Health Services B.V., Alere Healthcare (Pty) Limited, Alere Healthcare Connections Limited, Alere Healthcare Inc., Alere Healthcare Nigeria Limited, Alere Healthcare S.L., Alere Holdco Inc., Alere Holding GmbH, Alere Holdings Bermuda Limited, Alere Holdings Pty Limited, Alere Home Monitoring Inc., Alere Inc., Alere Informatics Inc., Alere International Holding Corp., Alere International Limited, Alere Lda, Alere Limited, Alere Limited (New Zealand), Alere Medical BVBA, Alere Medical Co. Ltd., Alere Medical Pakistan (Private) Limited, Alere Medical Private Limited, Alere North America LLC, Alere Oy Ab, Alere Philippines Inc., Alere Phoenix ACQ Inc., Alere Pte Ltd, Alere S.A., Alere S.r.l., Alere S/A, Alere SAS, Alere San Diego Inc., Alere Scarborough Inc., Alere Spain S.L., Alere Switzerland GmbH, Alere Technologies GmbH, Alere Technologies Holdings Limited, Alere Technologies Limited, Alere Toxicology AB, Alere Toxicology Inc., Alere Toxicology S.r.l., Alere Toxicology Services Inc., Alere Toxicology plc, Alere UK Holdings Limited, Alere UK Subco Limited, Alere ULC, Alere US Holdings LLC, Alere s.r.o., Alisoc Investment & Co, Amedica Biotech Inc., Ameditech Inc., American Generics S.A.S., American Medical Supplies Inc., American Pharmacist Inc., Antares S.A., Apica Cardiovascular Limited, Aquagestion Capacitacion S.A., Aquagestion S.A., Arriva Medical LLC, Arriva Medical Philippines Inc., Arvis Investments Limited, Atlas Farmaceutica S.A., Avee Laboratories Inc., Axis-Shield AD III AS, Axis-Shield AD IV AS, Axis-Shield AS, Axis-Shield Diagnostics Limited, Axis-Shield Ltd., BBI Animal Health Limited, BBI Diagnostics Group 2 Public Limited Company, Banco de Vida S.A., Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions Inc., Bioalgae S.A., Biohealth LLC, Biosite Incorporated, Bosque Bonito S.A., Branan Medical Corporation, Brandex Europe C.V., British Colloids Limited, CFR Chile S.A., CFR Interamericas EL Salvador Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, CFR Interamericas Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CFR Interamericas Panama S.A., CFR Pharmaceuticals, California Property Holdings III LLC, CardioMEMS LLC, Caripharm Inc., Cephea Valve Technologies, Cephea Valve Technologies Inc., Colibri Medical Aktiebolag, Comercializadora y Distribuidora CFR Interamericas Honduras S.A., Concateno South Limited, Concateno UK Limited, Consorcio Tecnologico en Biomedicina Clinico-Molecular S.A., Continuum Services LLC, Cozart Limited, Dextech S.A., Diagnostik Nord GmbH, Distribuciones Uquifa S.A.S., Domesco Medical Import-Export Joint-Stock Corporation, Duphar International Research B.V., Endocardial Solutions, Epocal (US) Inc, Esprit de Vie S.A., European Chemicals & Co, European Drug Testing Service EDTS AB, European Services S.A., Evalve Inc., Evalve International Inc., FARMINDUSTRIA S.A., Fada Pharma Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Fadapharma del Ecuador S.A., Farmaceutica Mont Blanc S.L., Farmacologia Em Aquicultura Veterinaria Ltda., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV Ecuador S.A., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV S.A., Fernwood Investment S.A., First Check Diagnostics LLC, Focus Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Forensics Limited, Forestcreek Overseas S.A., Fournier Pharma Corp., Fournier Pharma GmbH, Fournier Pharmaceuticals Limited, Framed B.V., Gabmed GmbH, Garden Hills LLC, Global Analytical Development LLC, Globapharm & CO LP, Glomed Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Golnorth Investments S.A., Gynocare Limited, Gynopharm Sociedad Anonima, Gynopharm de Centroamerica S.A., Gynopharm de Venezuela C.A., Hi-Tronics Designs Inc., IDEV Technologies Inc., IG Innovations Limited, IMTC Finance B.V., IMTC Holdings B.V., IMTC Technologies Inc., Ibis Biosciences LLC, Igloo Zone Chile S.A., Igloo Zone S.L., Inmobiliaria Naknek S.A.C., Innovacon Inc., Instant Tech Subsidiary Acquisition Inc., Instant Technologies Inc., Instituto de Criopreservacion de Chile S.A., Integrated Vascular Systems Inc., Inverness Canadian Acquisition Corporation, Inverness Medical (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Australia Pty Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Hong Kong Limited, Inverness Medical Innovations SK LLC, Inverness Medical Investments LLC, Inverness Medical LLC, Inverness Medical Shimla Private Limited, Inversiones K2 SpA, Inversiones Komodo S.R.L., Ionian Technologies LLC, Irvine Biomedical Inc., Kalila Medical, Kangshenyunga S.A., Knoll UK Investments Unlimited, LLC VeroInPharm, Laboratoires Fournier S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano Lafrancol S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano del Ecuador S.A., Laboratorio Internacional Argentino S.A., Laboratorio Synthesis S.A.S., Laboratorios Lafi Limitada, Laboratorios Naturmedik S.A.S., Laboratorios Pauly Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Laboratorios Recalcine S.A., Laboratorios Transpharm S.A., Laboratory Specialists of America Inc., Lafrancol Dominicana S.A.S., Lafrancol Guatemala S.A. Sociedad Anonima, Lafrancol Internacional S.A.S, Lafrancol Peru S.R.L, Lake Forest Investments LLC, Lightlab Imaging Inc., Limited Liability Company Abbott Laboratories, Limited Liability Company Abbott Ukraine, Limited Liability Company VEROPHARM, Lung Fung Hong (China) Limited, Mansbridge Pharmaceuticals Limited, MediGuide LLC, MediGuide Ltd., Medscreen Holdings Limited, Metropolitana Farmaceutica S.A., Midwest Properties LLC, Murex Argentina S.A., Murex Biotech Limited, Murex Biotech South Africa, Murex Diagnostics Inc., Murex Diagnostics International Inc., Natural Supplement Association LLC, Negocios Denia Sociedad Anonima, Neosalud S.A.C., Nether Pharma N.P. C.V., NeuroTherm LLC, Normann Pharma-Handels GmbH, North Shore Properties Inc., Novamedi S.A., Novasalud.com S.A., Nutravida S.A., OJSC Voronezhkhimpharm, Omnilab Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OptiMedica, Orgenics France SAS, Orgenics International Holdings B.V., Orgenics Ltd., PBM-Selfcare LLC, PDD II LLC, PDD LLC, PT Alere Health, PT. Abbott Indonesia, PT. Abbott Products Indonesia, Pacesetter Inc., Pantech (RF) (PTY) LTD, Pembrooke Occupational Health Inc., Penagos S.A., Pharma International Sociedad Anonima, Pharmaceutical Technologies (Pharmatech) S.A., Pharmatech Boliviana S.A., Polygon Labs S.A., Quality Assured Services Inc., RF Medical Holdings LLC, RTL Holdings Inc., Ramses Business Corp., Recben Xenerics Farmaceutica Limitada, Redwood Toxicology Laboratory Inc., Rich Horizons International Limited, SC VEROPHARM, SJ Medical Mexico S de R.L. de C.V., SJM International Inc., SJM Thunder Holding Company, SPDH Inc., Saboya Enterprises Corporation, Salviac Limited, Scanax AS, Sealing Solutions Inc., Selfcare Technology Inc., Shandong Abbott Dairy Product Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Medical Devices Science and Technology Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Shanghai Si Fa Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Sinensix & Co., Spinal Modulation LLC, St. Jude Medical, St. Jude Medical AB, St. Jude Medical ATG Inc., St. Jude Medical Argentina S.A., St. Jude Medical Asia Pacific Holdings GK, St. Jude Medical Atrial Fibrillation Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Brasil Ltda., St. Jude Medical Business Services Inc., St. Jude Medical Cardiology Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Colombia Ltda., St. Jude Medical Coordination Center, St. Jude Medical Costa Rica Limitada, St. Jude Medical Europe Inc., St. Jude Medical Export Ges.m.b.H., St. Jude Medical GVA Sarl, St. Jude Medical Holdings B.V., St. Jude Medical India Private Limited, St. Jude Medical International Holding, St. Jude Medical LLC, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings II, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings NT, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings SMI S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings TC S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Mexico Business Services S. de R.L. de C.V., St. Jude Medical Middle East DMCC, St. Jude Medical Operations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., St. Jude Medical Puerto Rico LLC, St. Jude Medical S.C. Inc., St. Jude Medical Systems AB, St. Jude Medical Turkey Medikal Urunler Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Standard Diagnostics Inc., Standing Stone LLC, Swan-Myers Incorporated, TC1 LLC, Tendyne Holdings Inc., Tendyne Medical Inc., Thoratec Delaware LLC, Thoratec Europe Limited, Thoratec LLC, Thoratec Switzerland GmbH, Tobal Products Incorporated, Topera GmbH in Liquidation, Topera Inc., Tremora S.A., Tuenir S.A., TwistDx, UAB Abbott Laboratories, UAB Abbott Medical Lithuania, Union-Madison Realty Company Inc., Unipath Limited (dba Alere International/aka Cranfield), Unipath Management Limited, Unipath Pension Trustee Limited, Veropharm, Veropharm Limited Liability Partnership, Vida Cell Inversiones S.A., Vida Cell S.A., Vivalsol, W&R Pharma Handels GmbH, Western Pharmaceuticals S.A., X Technologies Inc., Yissum Holding Limited, ZonePerfect Nutrition Company, eScreen Canada ULC, eScreen Inc.,      ( ), and Abbott Laboratories Baltics.

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ResMed Inc. develops, manufactures, distributes, and markets medical devices and cloud-based software applications for the healthcare markets. The company operates in two segments, Sleep and Respiratory Care, and Software as a Service. It offers various products and solutions for a range of respiratory disorders, including technologies to be applied in medical and consumer products, ventilation devices, diagnostic products, mask systems for use in the hospital and home, headgear and other accessories, dental devices, and cloud-based software informatics solutions to manage patient outcomes, as well as provides customer and business processes. The company also provides AirView, a cloud-based system that enables remote monitoring and changing of patients' device settings; myAir, a personalized therapy management application for patients with sleep apnea that provides support, education, and troubleshooting tools for increased patient engagement and improved compliance; U-Sleep, a compliance monitoring solution that enables home medical equipment (HME)to streamline their sleep programs; connectivity module and propeller solutions; and Propeller portal. It offers out-of-hospital software solution, such as Brightree business management software and service solutions to providers of HME, pharmacy, home infusion, orthotics, and prosthetics services; MatrixCare care management and related ancillary solutions to senior living, skilled nursing, life plan communities, home health, home care, and hospice organizations, as well as related accountable care organizations; and HEALTHCAREfirst that offers electronic health record, software, billing and coding services, and analytics for home health and hospice agencies. The company markets its products primarily to sleep clinics, home healthcare dealers, and hospitals through a network of distributors and direct sales force in approximately 140 countries. ResMed Inc. was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.
Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. provides investor communications and technology-driven solutions for the financial services industry. The company's Investor Communication Solutions segment processes and distributes proxy materials to investors in equity securities and mutual funds, as well as facilitates related vote processing services; and distributes regulatory reports, class action, and corporate action/reorganization event information, as well as tax reporting solutions. It also offers ProxyEdge, an electronic proxy delivery and voting solution; data-driven solutions and an end-to-end platform for content management, composition, and omni-channel distribution of regulatory, marketing, and transactional information, as well as mutual fund trade processing services; data and analytics solutions; solutions for public corporations and mutual funds; SEC filing and capital markets transaction services; registrar, stock transfer, and record-keeping services; and omni-channel customer communications solutions, as well as operates Broadridge Communications Cloud platform that creates, delivers, and manages communications and customer engagement activities. The company's Global Technology and Operations segment provides solutions that automate the front-to-back transaction lifecycle of equity, mutual fund, fixed income, foreign exchange and exchange-traded derivatives, order capture and execution, trade confirmation, margin, cash management, clearance and settlement, reference data management, reconciliations, securities financing and collateral management, asset servicing, compliance and regulatory reporting, portfolio accounting, and custody-related services. This segment also offers business process outsourcing services; technology solutions, such portfolio management, compliance, fee billing, and operational support solutions; and capital market and wealth management solutions. The company was founded in 1962 and is headquartered in Lake Success, New York.
Graco Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets systems and equipment used to move, measure, control, dispense, and spray fluid and powder materials worldwide. The company's Industrial segment offers proportioning systems to spray polyurethane foam and polyurea coatings; equipment that pumps, meters, mixes and dispenses sealant, adhesive, and composite materials; and gel-coat equipment, chop and wet-out systems, resin transfer molding systems and applicators, and precision dispensing solutions. It also provides liquid finishing equipment; paint circulating and supply pumps; paint circulating advanced control systems; plural component coating proportioners; spare parts and accessories; and powder finishing products to coat powder finishing on metals under the Gema and SAT brands. The company's Process segment offers pumps to move and dispense chemicals, water, wastewater, petroleum, food, lubricants, and other fluids; pressure valves used in the oil and natural gas industry, other industrial processes, and research facilities; and chemical injection pumping solutions for injection of chemicals into producing oil wells and pipelines. It also supplies pumps, hose reels, meters, valves, and accessories for fast oil change facilities, service garages, fleet service centers, automobile dealerships, auto parts stores, truck builders, and heavy equipment service centers; and systems, components, and accessories for the automatic lubrication of bearings, gears, and generators in industrial and commercial equipment, compressors, turbines, and on- and off-road vehicles. The company's Contractor segment offers sprayers to apply paint to walls and other structures; and viscous coatings to roofs, as well as markings on roads, parking lots, athletic fields, and floors. It sells its products through distributors, original equipment manufacturers, and home center channels; and directly to end-users. The company was incorporated in 1926 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The following companies are subsidiares of Johnson & Johnson: 3Dintegrated ApS, ALZA Corporation, AMO (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AMO (Shanghai) Medical Devices Trading Co. Ltd Beijing Branch, AMO (Shanghai) Medical Devices Trading Co. Ltd Guangzhou Branch, AMO (Shanghai) Medical Devices Trading Co. Ltd., AMO ASIA LIMITED, AMO Asia Limited (Korea Branch), AMO Asia Limited Taiwan Branch (Hong Kong), AMO Australia Pty Limited, AMO Australia Pty Limited (New Zealand Branch), AMO Canada Company, AMO Denmark ApS, AMO Development LLC, AMO France, AMO Germany GmbH, AMO Groningen B.V., AMO International Holdings Unlimited Company, AMO Ireland, AMO Ireland Ireland Branch, AMO Italy SRL, AMO Japan K.K., AMO Manufacturing USA LLC, AMO Netherlands BV, AMO Nominee Holdings LLC, AMO Norway AS, AMO Puerto Rico Manufacturing Inc., AMO Sales and Service Inc., AMO Singapore Pte. Ltd., AMO Spain Holdings LLC, AMO Switzerland GmbH, AMO U.K. Holdings LLC, AMO United Kingdom Ltd., AMO Uppsala AB, AUB Holdings LLC, Abott Medical Optics, Acclarent Inc., Actelion Ltd, Actelion Pharmaceuticals, Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Actelion Pharmaceuticals Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Actelion Pharmaceuticals US Inc., Actelion Treasury Unlimited Company, Akros Medical Inc., Albany Street LLC, Alios BioPharma, Alza Land Management Inc., Anakuria Therapeutics Inc., Animas Diabetes Care LLC, Animas LLC, Animas Technologies LLC, AorTx Inc., Apsis, Aragon Pharmaceuticals, Aragon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Asia Pacific Holdings LLC, Atrionix Inc., Auris Health, Auris Health Inc., Backsvalan 2 Aktiebolag, Backsvalan 6 Handelsbolag, Beijing Dabao Cosmetics Co. Ltd., BeneVir BioPharm Inc., Berna Rhein B.V., BioMedical Enterprises Inc., Biosense Webster (Israel) Ltd., Biosense Webster Inc., Branch of Johnson & Johnson LLC (RU) in Kazakhstan, C Consumer Products Denmark ApS, CSATS Inc., Calibra Medical LLC, Campus-Foyer Apotheke GmbH, Carlo Erba OTC S.r.l., Centocor Biologics LLC, Centocor Research & Development Inc., Cerenovus Inc., ChromaGenics B.V., Ci:Labo Customer Marketing Co. Ltd., Ci:Labo USA Inc., Ci:z Holdings, Ci:z. Labo Co. Ltd., Cilag AG, Cilag GmbH International, Cilag Holding AG, Cilag Holding Treasury Unlimited Company, Cilag-Biotech S.L., CoTherix Inc., Coherex Medical Inc., ColBar LifeScience Ltd., Company Store.com Inc., Conor MedSystems, Cordis International Corporation, Cordis de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Corimmun GmbH, DePuy Hellas SA, DePuy International Limited, DePuy Ireland Unlimited Company, DePuy Mexico S.A. de C.V., DePuy Mitek LLC, DePuy Orthopaedics Inc., DePuy Products Inc., DePuy Spine LLC, DePuy Synthes Gorgan Limited, DePuy Synthes Inc., DePuy Synthes Institute LLC, DePuy Synthes Leto SARL, DePuy Synthes Products Inc., DePuy Synthes Sales Inc., Debs-Vogue Corporation (Proprietary) Limited, Dutch Holding LLC, ECL7 LLC, EES Holdings de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., EES S.A. de C.V., EIT Emerging Implant Technologies GmbH, Ethicon Endo-Surgery (Europe) GmbH, Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc., Ethicon Endo-Surgery LLC, Ethicon Inc., Ethicon LLC, Ethicon PR Holdings Unlimited Company, Ethicon Sarl, Ethicon US LLC, Ethicon Women's Health & Urology Sarl, Ethnor (Proprietary) Limited, Ethnor Farmaceutica S.A., Ethnor del Istmo S.A., FMS Future Medical System SA, Finsbury (Development) Limited, Finsbury (Instruments) Limited, Finsbury Medical Limited, Finsbury Orthopaedics International Limited, Finsbury Orthopaedics Limited, GH Biotech Holdings Limited, GMED Healthcare BV, GMED Healthcare BV (Branch), Global Investment Participation B.V., Guangzhou Bioseal Biotech Co. Ltd., Hansen Medical Deutschland GmbH, Hansen Medical Inc., Hansen Medical International Inc., Hansen Medical UK Limited, Healthcare Services (Shanghai) Ltd., Hickory Merger Sub Inc., I.D. Acquisition Corp., Innomedic Gesellschaft fur innovative Medizintechnik und Informatik mbH, Innovative Surgical Solutions LLC, J & J Company West Africa Limited, J&J Pension Trustees Limited, J-C Health Care Ltd., J.C. General Services BV, JJ Surgical Vision Spain S.L., JJC Acquisition Company B.V., JJHC LLC, JJSV Belgium BV, JJSV Manufacturing Malaysia SDN. BHD., JJSV Norden AB, JJSV Produtos Oticos Ltda., JNJ Global Business Services s.r.o., JNJ Holding EMEA B.V., JNJ International Investment LLC, JOM Pharmaceutical Services Inc., Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy (Holding) Limited, Janssen BioPharma LLC, Janssen Biologics (Ireland) Limited, Janssen Biologics B.V., Janssen Biotech Inc., Janssen Cilag C.A., Janssen Cilag Farmaceutica S.A., Janssen Cilag S.p.A., Janssen Cilag SPA, Janssen Development Finance Unlimited Company, Janssen Diagnostics LLC, Janssen Egypt LLC, Janssen Farmaceutica Portugal Lda, Janssen Global Services LLC, Janssen Holding GmbH, Janssen Inc., Janssen Irish Finance Unlimited Company, Janssen Korea Ltd., Janssen Oncology Inc., Janssen Ortho LLC, Janssen Pharmaceutica (Proprietary) Limited, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Janssen Pharmaceutica S.A., Janssen Pharmaceutical K.K., Janssen Pharmaceutical Sciences Unlimited Company, Janssen Pharmaceutical Unlimited Company, Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. Japan Branch, Janssen Products LP, Janssen R&D Ireland Unlimited Company, Janssen Research & Development LLC, Janssen Sciences Ireland Unlimited Company, Janssen Scientific Affairs LLC, Janssen Supply Group LLC, Janssen Vaccines & Prevention B.V., Janssen Vaccines Branch of Cilag GmbH International, Janssen Vaccines Corp., Janssen-Cilag, Janssen-Cilag (New Zealand) Limited, Janssen-Cilag A/S, Janssen-Cilag AG, Janssen-Cilag AS, Janssen-Cilag Aktiebolag, Janssen-Cilag B.V., Janssen-Cilag Farmaceutica Lda., Janssen-Cilag Farmaceutica Ltda., Janssen-Cilag GmbH, Janssen-Cilag International NV, Janssen-Cilag Kft., Janssen-Cilag Kft. Branch Office, Janssen-Cilag Limited, Janssen-Cilag Manufacturing LLC, Janssen-Cilag NV, Janssen-Cilag OY, Janssen-Cilag Pharma GmbH, Janssen-Cilag Pharmaceutical S.A.C.I., Janssen-Cilag Polska Sp. z o.o., Janssen-Cilag Pty Ltd, Janssen-Cilag Pty Ltd (Branch), Janssen-Cilag S.A., Janssen-Cilag S.A., Janssen-Cilag S.A. de C.V., Janssen-Cilag de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Janssen-Cilag s.r.o., Janssen-Pharma S.L., Jevco Holding Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Johnson & Johnson (Angola) Limitada, Johnson & Johnson (China) Investment Ltd., Johnson & Johnson (China) Investment Ltd. Beijing Branch, Johnson & Johnson (Egypt) S.A.E., Johnson & Johnson (Hong Kong) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Ireland) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Jamaica) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Kenya) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) Inc., Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) Inc. (DHCC Branch), Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) Inc. (JAFZA Branch), Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) Inc. Service Center (DAFZA Branch), Johnson & Johnson (Mozambique) Limitada, Johnson & Johnson (Namibia) (Proprietary) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (New Zealand) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Philippines) Inc., Johnson & Johnson (Private) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Thailand) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson (Trinidad) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Vietnam) Co. Ltd, Johnson & Johnson - Societa' Per Azioni, Johnson & Johnson AB, Johnson & Johnson AB Eesti filiaal (Branch), Johnson & Johnson AG, Johnson & Johnson AG (Zuchwil Branch), Johnson & Johnson Belgium Finance Company BV, Johnson & Johnson Bulgaria EOOD, Johnson & Johnson China Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Consumer (Hong Kong) Limited, Johnson & Johnson Consumer (Thailand) Limited, Johnson & Johnson Consumer B.V., Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health Care Switzerland Branch of Janssen-Cilag AG, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Holdings France, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. (Dominican Republic Branch), Johnson & Johnson Consumer NV, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Saudi Arabia Limited, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Services EAME Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Del Paraguay S.A., Johnson & Johnson Dominicana S.A.S., Johnson & Johnson Enterprise Innovation Inc., Johnson & Johnson European Treasury Unlimited Company, Johnson & Johnson Finance Corporation, Johnson & Johnson Finance Limited, Johnson & Johnson Financial Services GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Financial Services GmbH (Branch Office), Johnson & Johnson Gateway LLC, Johnson & Johnson Gesellschaft m.b.H., Johnson & Johnson GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Guatemala S.A., Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc., Johnson & Johnson Health and Wellness Solutions Inc., Johnson & Johnson Hellas Commercial and Industrial S.A., Johnson & Johnson Hellas Consumer Products Commercial Societe Anonyme, Johnson & Johnson Hemisferica S.A., Johnson & Johnson Holding GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Inc., Johnson & Johnson Industrial Ltda., Johnson & Johnson Innovation - JJDC Inc., Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC, Johnson & Johnson Innovation Limited, Johnson & Johnson International, Johnson & Johnson International (Belgian Branch) (European Logistics Center), Johnson & Johnson International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Johnson & Johnson International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (Branch), Johnson & Johnson International Financial Services Unlimited Company, Johnson & Johnson K.K., Johnson & Johnson Kft., Johnson & Johnson Korea Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Korea Selling & Distribution LLC, Johnson & Johnson LLC, Johnson & Johnson Lda, Johnson & Johnson Limited, Johnson & Johnson Limited (Sri Lanka Branch), Johnson & Johnson Luxembourg Finance Company Sarl, Johnson & Johnson Management Limited, Johnson & Johnson Medical (China) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medical (Proprietary) Ltd, Johnson & Johnson Medical (Shanghai) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medical (Shanghai) Ltd. Beijing Branch, Johnson & Johnson Medical (Suzhou) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medical B.V., Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices & Diagnostics Group - Latin America L.L.C., Johnson & Johnson Medical GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Medical Korea Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medical Limited, Johnson & Johnson Medical Mexico S.A. de C.V., Johnson & Johnson Medical NV, Johnson & Johnson Medical Products GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Medical Pty Ltd, Johnson & Johnson Medical S.A., Johnson & Johnson Medical S.C.S., Johnson & Johnson Medical S.p.A., Johnson & Johnson Medical SAS, Johnson & Johnson Medical Saudi Arabia Limited, Johnson & Johnson Medical Taiwan Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medikal Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Johnson & Johnson Medikal Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi (Ankara Branch), Johnson & Johnson Medikal Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi (Izmir Branch), Johnson & Johnson Middle East - Scientific Office, Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ - LLC (Lebanese Branch), Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ-LLC, Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ-LLC (Ghana Branch), Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ-LLC (Kenya Branch), Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ-LLC Branch (TSO) (Saudi Arabia Branch), Johnson & Johnson Morocco Societe Anonyme, Johnson & Johnson NCB (Belgian Branch), Johnson & Johnson Nordic AB, Johnson & Johnson Pacific Pty Limited, Johnson & Johnson Pakistan (Private) Limited, Johnson & Johnson Panama S.A., Johnson & Johnson Personal Care (Chile) S.A., Johnson & Johnson Poland Sp. z o.o., Johnson & Johnson Poland sp. z o.o. oddzial w Warszawie "Consumer", Johnson & Johnson Private Limited, Johnson & Johnson Pte. Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Pte. Ltd. Korea Branch, Johnson & Johnson Pty. Limited, Johnson & Johnson Romania S.R.L., Johnson & Johnson S.A., Johnson & Johnson S.A. de C.V., Johnson & Johnson S.E. Inc., Johnson & Johnson S.E. d.o.o., Johnson & Johnson SDN. BHD., Johnson & Johnson Sante Beaute France, Johnson & Johnson Services Inc., Johnson & Johnson Surgical Vision Inc., Johnson & Johnson Surgical Vision India Private Limited, Johnson & Johnson Taiwan Ltd., Johnson & Johnson UK Treasury Company Limited, Johnson & Johnson Ukraine LLC, Johnson & Johnson Urban Renewal Associates, Johnson & Johnson Vision Care (Shanghai) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Inc., Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Ireland Unlimited Company, Johnson & Johnson d.o.o., Johnson & Johnson de Argentina S.A.C. e. I., Johnson & Johnson de Chile Limitada, Johnson & Johnson de Chile S.A., Johnson & Johnson de Colombia S.A., Johnson & Johnson de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Johnson & Johnson de Uruguay S.A., Johnson & Johnson de Venezuela S.A., Johnson & Johnson del Ecuador S.A., Johnson & Johnson del Peru S.A., Johnson & Johnson do Brasil Industria E Comercio de Produtos Para Saude Ltda., Johnson & Johnson for Export and Import LLC, Johnson & Johnson s.r.o., Johnson Y Johnson de Costa Rica S.A., Johnson and Johnson (Proprietary) Limited, Johnson and Johnson Sihhi Malzeme Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, LTL Management LLC, La Concha Land Investment Corporation, Latam International Investment Company Unlimited Company, Legal Entity Name, MDS Co. Ltd., McNEIL MMP LLC, McNeil AB, McNeil Consumer Pharmaceuticals Co., McNeil Denmark ApS, McNeil Healthcare (Ireland) Limited, McNeil Healthcare (UK) Limited, McNeil Healthcare LLC, McNeil Iberica S.L.U., McNeil LA LLC, McNeil Nutritionals LLC, McNeil Panama LLC, McNeil Products Limited, McNeil Sweden AB, Medical Device Business Services Inc., Medical Devices & Diagnostics Global Services LLC, Medical Devices International LLC, Medos International Sarl, Medos International Sarl succursale de Neuchatel (Branch), Medos Sarl, MegaDyne Medical Products Inc., Menlo Care De Mexico S.A. de C.V., Mentor B.V., Mentor Deutschland GmbH, Mentor Medical Systems B.V., Mentor Partnership Holding Company I LLC, Mentor Texas GP LLC, Mentor Texas L.P., Mentor Worldwide LLC, Micrus Endovascular LLC, Middlesex Assurance Company Limited, Momenta Ireland Limited, Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc., NeoStrata Company Inc., NeoStrata UG (haftungsbeschrankt), Netherlands Holding Company, NeuWave Medical Inc., Neuravi Limited, Novira Therapeutics, Novira Therapeutics LLC, NuVera Medical Inc., OBTECH Medical Sarl, OGX Beauty Limited, OMJ Holding GmbH, OMJ Ireland Unlimited Company, OMJ Pharmaceuticals Inc., Obtech Medical Mexico S.A. de C.V., Omrix Biopharmaceuticals Inc., Omrix Biopharmaceuticals Ltd., Omrix Biopharmaceuticals NV, Ortho Biologics LLC, Ortho Biotech Holding LLC, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical LLC, Orthospin Ltd., Orthotaxy, PT Integrated Healthcare Indonesia, PT. Johnson & Johnson Indonesia, Patriot Pharmaceuticals LLC, Peninsula Pharmaceuticals LLC, Pharmadirect Ltd., Pharmedica Laboratories (Proprietary) Limited, Princeton Laboratories Inc., Productos de Cuidado Personal y de La Salud de Bolivia S.R.L., Proleader S.A., Pulsar Vascular Inc., Regency Urban Renewal Associates, RespiVert Ltd., RoC International, Royalty A&M LLC, Rutan Realty LLC, SYNTHES Medical Immobilien GmbH, Scios LLC, Sedona Singapore International Pte. Ltd., Sedona Thai International Co. Ltd., Serhum S.A. de C.V., Shanghai Elsker For Mother & Baby Co. Ltd, Shanghai Elsker Mother & Baby Co. Ltd Minghang Branch, Shanghai Johnson & Johnson Ltd., Shanghai Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Sightbox LLC, Sodiac ESV, Spectrum Vision Limited Liability Company, Spectrum Vision Limited Liability Partnership, SterilMed, SterilMed Inc., Surgical Process Institute Deutschland GmbH, Synthes Costa Rica S.C.R. Limitada, Synthes GmbH, Synthes Holding AG, Synthes Holding Limited, Synthes Inc., Synthes Medical Surgical Equipment & Instruments Trading LLC, Synthes Produktions GmbH, Synthes Proprietary Limited, Synthes S.M.P. S. de R.L. de C.V., Synthes Tuttlingen GmbH, Synthes USA LLC, Synthes USA Products LLC, TARIS Biomedical, TARIS Biomedical LLC, TearScience Inc., The Anspach Effort LLC, The Vision Care Institute LLC, Tibotec LLC, Torax Medical Inc., UAB "Johnson & Johnson", UAB Johnson & Johnson Eesti Filiaal (Estonian Branch), Vania Expansion, Verb Surgical, Verb Surgical Inc., Vision Care Finance Unlimited Company, Vogue International, Vogue International LLC, Vogue International Trading Inc., WH4110 Development Company L.L.C., XO1, XO1 Limited, Xian Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd., Xian-Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd. Beijing Branch Office, Xian-Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd. Shanghai Branch Office, Zarbee's Inc., and Zarbee's Naturals.

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ANGOLA  A Fremont man was sentenced Friday to serve 20 years in prison for fondling two girls in 2015.

Stephen Thomas Bartell, 57, pleaded guilty to two Level 4 felony counts of child molesting in November. At his sentencing hearing Friday afternoon in Steuben Superior Court, Bartell told Judge William Fee he lied when he pleaded guilty to get a lesser sentence. His plea bargain allows the dismissal of two other child molesting counts, including a Level 1 felony punishable by up to 40 years in prison, as well as a Level 5 felony charge of child solicitation and an allegation that he is a repeat sexual offender.

Fee ruled that Bartells request to withdraw his guilty plea was made exceptionally late, two days prior to his sentencing, and that it was not done in compliance with Indiana statute.

I dont believe for a second that you lied to me about your guilty plea here, said Fee as he rendered judgment. Bartells crime was a betrayal of 8- and 11-year-old girls trust, Fee said. In addition, it is a repeat offense, as Bartell was convicted in Michigan 30 years ago of sexual misconduct in the second degree.

He had to work to regain his familys trust, only to break it again, said Fee. He called the crimes Bartell pleaded guilty to the most disgusting, horrendous, horrible crimes only overshadowed by the contents of the charges against him that were dismissed.

Deputy Prosecutor Travis Musser asked for the maximum under each charge, 12 years, noting that Bartell robbed two innocent children of their trust so that he could satisfy his own sick sexual desires.

Bartells court-appointed attorney Eugene Bosworth, who Bartell insinuated coerced him into the plea agreement with a threat of a higher sentence, suggested six years on each count.

Fee concurred with Steuben County Probation Departments recommendation of 10 years on each count, to be served consecutively. Bartell can receive a day of good time credit for every three days served, and was given credit for 357 days served in Steuben County Jail.

Bartell was arrested Feb. 23, 2016, after an investigation that started around the holidays in 2015. The molestation occurred between Feb. 1, 2015 and Aug. 31, 2015.

The 8-year-old said Bartell engaged her in sexual situations and showed her pornographic videos, says the probable cause affidavit. Bartell allegedly paid the girl $5 for sexual favors. The 11-year-old also said Bartell gave her money for allowing him to touch her.

One of the girls wrote a letter to the court as part of the sealed presentence investigation. In it, she detailed the emotional trauma she endured. The girls family members also wrote impact statements, and sat in court on Friday for the sentencing. Though no victims statements were made on record during the hearing, the pain experienced by those in the audience was palpable.
- The US government has sent its military to the troubled Boni forest near the Kenya-Somalia border

- The soldiers are reported to have been sent to eliminate terror group al-Shabaab

- The US special forces will be working alongside the Kenyan soldiers to hunt down the militants

The US government has deployed its special forces to Boni forest near the Kenya-Somalia border.

US government has sent its military to the troubled Boni forest near the Kenya-Somalia border.

READ ALSO: Kenya police officers in daring gun fight with al-Shabaab

The American soldiers from the Green Berets will work alongside members of the Kenya Defence Force (KDF) in the dense forest.

The US soldiers were deployed to hunt down fighters belonging to terror group al-Shabaab.

Boni forest has been a hideout for al-Shabaab in the last few years, with its dense foliage making it difficult to track the militants.

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READ ALSO: Inside Kulbiyow KDF base after DEADLY al-Shabaab attack (video)read

The US soldiers were deployed to hunt down fighters belonging to terror group al-Shabaab.

READ ALSO: KDF changes tactic after Kulbiyow attack to BEAT al-Shabaab

According to local residents, US military Humvees and other armored vehicles have been spotted around the forest.

The US soldiers are said to be using advanced surveillance system and drones to track the militants in and around the forest.

The American soldiers from the Green Berets will work alongside members of the Kenya Defence Force (KDF) in dense forest.

READ ALSO: Al-Shabaab fighters STEAL election material in Mandera police station attack

Al-Shabaab emerged in 2006 from the now-defunct Islamic Courts Union, which once controlled Somalias capital of Mogadishu.

The militant group launched its own insurgency on major Somali cities in 2009, taking control of Mogadishu and southern Somalia.

In 2015, the militant group launched a deadly assault on Garissa University College.

The Garrisa University attack,was one of Kenyas most bloodiest terror attacks.

Watch a video of Boni forest below.

Have anything to add to this article? Let us know on news@tuko.co.ke

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Foreign Minister of the Republic of Lithuania Linas Linkevicius has stated that sanctions against Russia must not be lifted.

The minister said this during his visit to Avdiivka in Donbas, which recently survived heavy shelling, the press service of the Donetsk Regional Military and Civil Administration reports.

Linkevicius talked with the locals and expressed condolences to the victims of the attacks. "Unfortunately, Lithuania is a small country and cannot provide huge support, but everything we do comes from the heart. Having been here, I received irrefutable proofs of Russian aggression. We must adhere to the current policy. Sanctions against Russia must not be lifted," he said.

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The Honorary Consulate of Austria has resumed its activity in Lviv to mark the 25th anniversary of establishment of the diplomatic relations between Ukraine and Austria.

This is reported by an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Austria cooperates with Ukraine through international organizations, in particular, chairs the OSCE, which is committed to resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine. However, cooperation between the regions is also very important as it enables people to understand better each other and the situation in certain regions," Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Austria to Ukraine Hermine Poppeller said at the opening ceremony.

The Ambassador noted that other Austrian consular offices in Ukraine are located in Chernivtsi, Odesa, Kharkiv, and Dnipro.

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Ukraine has sent Russian Foreign Ministry and Interior Ministry Investigative Department the requests for information about presence of 47 detained citizens of Ukraine  Ukrainian Foreign Ministry
SOLDIERS GROVE  Joie L. Skarda, 78, of rural Soldiers Grove passed away peacefully Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, surrounded by family.

He was born Sept. 11, 1938, to James and Alma (Hatfield) Skarda. He attended Ontario High School and graduated in 1957. On Nov. 8, 1958, he married the love of his life, Sandra J. Neprud. He worked at Waukegen-Abbot Laboratories until moving to Soldiers Grove in 1963. He was a hard-working farmer his entire life. He won Crawford Co. Young Farmer of the Year. He was an active member of 4-H and was proud to be a leader. He was also a proud member of the United Methodist Church in Viroqua. Joie was a lifelong member of the F.O.E Post 2707. He was very proud of serving in the Eagles and was voted into Eagles Hall of Fame. Joie loved to hunt on his farm, especially rabbits.

Joie is survived by his loving wife of 58 years, Sandra; three children, Alan Skarda, Douglas (Lisa) Skarda, and Amy (Billy) Alexander; five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild; as well as many other family.

Joie was preceded in death by his son, Jeffery Skarda; as well as his parents; and other family and friends

Friends and family may call for a visitation from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 12, at the Soldiers Grove Methodist Church, with a prayer service at 4 p.m. A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 19, at the Viroqua Methodist church. Friends may also call after 12 p.m. at the church. Burial will be in the Bear Creek Cemetery, rural La Farge, at a later date. Online condolences may be left at www.thorsonfuneralhome.com.

Thorson Funeral Home, Viroqua, is serving the family of Joie L. Skarda.
Before a book is published and released to the public, its passed through the hands (and eyes) of many people: an authors friends and family, an agent and, of course, an editor.

These days, though, a book may get an additional check from an unusual source: a sensitivity reader, a person who, for a nominal fee, will scan the book for racist, sexist or otherwise offensive content. These readers give feedback based on self-ascribed areas of expertise such as dealing with terminal illness, racial dynamics in Muslim communities within families or transgender issues.

The industry recognizes this is a real concern, said Cheryl Klein, a childrens and young adult book editor and author of The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults. Klein, who works at the publisher Lee & Low, said that she has seen the casual use of specialized readers for many years but that the process has become more standardized and more of a priority, especially in books for young readers.

British author J.K. Rowling (Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press)

Sensitivity readers have emerged in a climate  fueled in part by social media  in which writers are under increased scrutiny for their portrayals of people from marginalized groups, especially when the author is not a part of that group.

Last year, for instance, J.K. Rowling was strongly criticized by Native American readers and scholars for her portrayal of Navajo traditions in the 2016 story History of Magic in North America. Young-adult author Keira Drake was forced to revise her fantasy novel The Continent after an online uproar over its portrayal of people of color and Native backgrounds. More recently, author Veronica Roth  of Divergent fame  came under fire for her new novel, Carve the Mark. In addition to being called racist, the book was criticized for its portrayal of chronic pain in its main character.

This potential for offense has some writers scared. Young-adult author Susan Dennard recently hired a fan to review her portrayal of a transgender character in her Truthwitch series.

Susan Dennard is the best-selling young adult author of the Truthwitch series. (Courtesy of Emily Rae Photography)

I was nervous to write a character like this to begin with, because what if I get it wrong? I could do some major damage, Dennard said. But, she added, she felt the voice of the character was an important one that wasnt often portrayed, so she hired a fan, who is a transgender man, just to be sure she did it right.

For authors looking for sensitivity readers beyond their fan base there is the Writing in the Margins database, a resource of about 125 readers created by Justina Ireland, author of the YA books Vengeance Bound and Promise of Shadows. Ireland started the directory last year after hearing other authors at a writing retreat discuss the difficulties in finding people of different backgrounds to read a manuscript and give feedback about such, well, sensitive matters.

[Why write a novel about a race thats not your own? The case of Ginny Gall]

One reader for hire in Irelands database is Dhonielle Clayton, a librarian and writer based in New York. Clayton reviews two manuscripts per month, going line by line to look at diction, dialogue and plot. Clayton says she analyzes the authenticity of the characters and scenes, then points writers to where they can do more research to improve their work.

Clayton, who is black, sees her role as a vital one. Books for me are supposed to be vehicles for pleasure, theyre supposed to be escapist and fun, she says. Theyre not supposed to be a place where readers encounter harmful versions and stereotypes of people like them.

Ireland underscores the value of sensitivity readers  both for authors and for readers. (She was a strong voice behind the push to get Keira Drake to make changes to the advance readers edition of The Continent.)

Justina Ireland is an author and the creator of the Writing in the Margins database to help authors find sensitivity readers. (Courtesy of Justina Ireland)

Even if authors mean well, even if the intention is good, it doesnt change the impact, Ireland said. Its nice to be that line of defense before it gets to readers, especially since the bulk of people who come to me write for children. Fees for a sensitivity readers generally start at $250 per manuscript.

Childrens book author Kate Messner has used sensitivity readers for many of her books, some of which deal with poverty, abuse and race.

I wouldnt dream of sending those books out into the world without getting help to make sure Im representing those issues in a way thats realistic and sensitive, she said. Messner, whose works include The Seventh Wish and All the Answers, asks a reader for feedback on whether the experience shes written reads realistically or whether anything stands out as problematic.

Her upcoming book, tentatively called Breakout, focuses on three girls coping with a prison escape in their small town. Messner has enlisted multiple sensitivity readers to help her work out the class and race issues affecting the town and her characters. A reader has called out when her language doesnt ring true, and has questioned when her character does something that seems inauthentic and provides her perspective on why that is. Messner said its been encouraging to hear when shes gotten something correct, but also shes had to make adjustments.

Lee & Low Books has a companywide policy to use sensitivity readers. Stacy Whitman, publisher and editorial director of Lee & Lows middle-grade imprint Tu Books, said she will even request a sensitivity reader before she chooses to acquire a book to publish.

Its important for authors to consider expert reader feedback and figure out how to solve the problems they point out, Whitman said. Everyones goal is a better book, and better representation contributes to that.

Still, some sensitivity readers feel they are in part contributing to the problem. Clayton said shes unsettled by the idea that shes being paid for her expertise, but also is helping white authors write black characters for books from which they reap profit and praise.

It feels like Im supplying the seeds and the gems and the jewels from our culture, and it creates cultural thievery, Clayton said. Why am I going to give you all of those little things that make my culture so interesting so you can go and use it and you dont understand it?

Concerns about cultural appropriation have been around for years  think of William Styron writing as the slave Nat Turner in 1967. (Thats what were paid to do, isnt it? Lionel Shriver said in a controversial speech last year. Step into other peoples shoes, and try on their hats.)

But sensitivity readers introduce a new twist in the debate. On the one hand they help a writer create the experience of a marginalized group more authentically. On the other, they legitimize the mimicking of marginalized voices by non-marginalized writers.

Why not just publish more books by black people, Latinos, Native Americans and others? some ask.

Despite the efforts of groups like We Need Diverse Books, its more likely that a publishing house will publish a book about an African American girl by a white woman versus one written by a black woman like me, Clayton says.

So until publishing is equitable and people are still writing cross-culturally, Clayton points out, sensitivity reading is going to be another layer of whats necessary in order to make sure that representation is good.

Dig Deeper: Books + Diversity

Want to explore how the book industry is becoming more inclusive? Check out our curated list of stories below.

Understanding how publishers are trying to diversify

Authors and publishers are hiring sensitivity readers to ensure novels are free of racism, sexism and anything offensive.

Understanding the fight for inclusive textbooks

Some parents, teachers and students are worried about stereotypes in textbooks and are calling for new reading material that shows more diversity.

Context matters: Why some students are taught history differently

A fight in Texas over how to portray slavery and the Civil War is bringing attention to the mostly white state boards of education.

Everdeen Mason is an audience editor and science fiction and fantasy columnist for The Washington Post.
After a nearly two-hour debate, the Maryland Senate approved a resolution late last week that gives the attorney general authority to take legal action against the federal government without having to first get permission from the governor.

The measure, which is on a legislative fast track, now goes to the House. The Senates 29-to-17 vote came more than a week after Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) said he asked Gov. Larry Hogan (R) but did not receive clearance to move forward to sue the Trump administration.

Raquel Coombs, a spokeswoman for Frosh, said Friday that the attorney general sent a letter to the governor on Feb. 1 asking for permission to take legal action against President Trumps controversial entry ban but never received an answer.

He has not said yea or nay, Coombs said.

During a media event in Baltimore on Friday, Hogan was asked about the resolution and whether he responded to Frosh. He said the two had gone back and forth over the issue.

He is an independently elected constitutional officer and he does what he wants to do, and now the legislature has given him more power, Hogan said.

Senate Democrats moved the resolution quickly, to the chagrin of Republicans, who said the measure was a partisan attack against Hogan in an attempt to tie him to Trump.

But Democrats balked at the notion, saying 41 other attorneys general can bypass the governor and legislature to sue the federal government.

Sen. Dolores Kelly (D-Baltimore County) said the state attorney general should be able to respond to the actions being taken by the Trump administration on immigration, health care, consumer protections and the environment.

Time is of the essence, she said. So many threats and actions are in fact impacting states rights.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert), who has expressed his concerns about the future of the Chesapeake Bay, told his Republican colleagues that the resolution was aimed at Capitol Hill and had absolutely nothing to do with Hogan.

On Thursday, the majority of the Republican caucus walked out in protest after trying unsuccessfully to delay an initial vote on the resolution.

In other business Friday, lawmakers in the House approved a bill that would prohibit firearms on Marylands public college campuses. The legislation, which moves to the Senate for consideration, passed 84 to 49, with no Republicans supporting it and four Democrats voting against it.

Advocates say the bill would improve campus safety, but Republicans said it would strip individuals of their constitutional right to bear arms and their ability to protect themselves.

This bill doesnt create safe spaces. It creates target zones, said Del. Robin L. Grammer Jr. (R-Baltimore County).

Del. Pam Queen (D-Montgomery), an assistant professor at Morgan State University, said guns on campus could cause fear and stifle intellectual debate, potentially cause minor altercations to escalate into deadly violence, and create anxiety among faculty over posting grades.

College campuses are a special place  a special place to foster education, to be devoid of physical intimidation, to have a right to an education in a safe environment, to have an exchange of ideas from various people, she said.

Republicans failed to win support for several amendments to the bill, including language that would have required colleges to arm their security forces and provided an exemption for cases in which state police have determined that an individuals life is in danger.

The bill would require colleges to notify the public of the firearm ban with signs posted in prominent locations, including at campus entrances.

The House passed similar legislation last year, but the Senate never voted on it.
Justin Sterling McElwain, 22, was taken from us unexpectedly Feb. 2, 2017. What a sad day that was for anyone who had the privilege of his acquaintance.

In the beginning, March 10, 1994, the world got a little bit better. His childhood was filled with love, adventure, and travel. Between his mother, Missy Cobra, and his father, Mark, he visited over 30 states. Justin once said while on vacation in the mountains, This is the most beautiful place in the world. However, now we believe he is in the most beautiful place in the universe. Justin embraced the diversity of changing schools numerous times in Rice Lake, Spooner and Eau Claire. He was a resilient child.

Because Justin had such a creative mind and thirst for learning, he enjoyed a variety of hobbies and interests such as Pokemon, Halo, Hero Scape, Mass Effect, Dragon Ball Z, and Deathnote, with L being one of his favorite characters. He was a die-hard Packer fan and was named after Sterling Sharpe. He had a passion for frolfing, grilling, drawing, rapping, dreaming and enjoying a cool buzz from time to time. Justins favorite past time was making people laugh and could run a room with ease. He had a huge heartlight.

Justin graduated from Memorial and worked at Famous Daves. He transferred to La Crosse with his friend, Luke, where he touched many Famous friends (but not inappropriately).

Justin will be forever living in the hearts and minds of his father, Mark; and his other moms, Sandy Becker (Mark Colby), and Heidi Loesch (Brady/Megan); his beautiful sister, Alysha Nelson (Michael); his grandma, Connie McElwain; a bunch of aunts; uncles; and cousins; his best friend, Luke Schmidt (Rachel); his Famous family; and way too many friends to mention.

Justin was preceded in death by his mother, Mellissa Kuhnly; grandma and grandpa Kuhnly; Grandpa McElwain and family friend, Jeffrey T. Johnson.

In summary, his friends and family wanted to sayWe will never forget your vibrant smile, glowing personality, witty sense of humor, gentle arrogance, mad dance moves, and how he made everyone he was in contact with feel like they mattered.

On a personal note as his father.Justin makes me better. I am so proud of him.

A celebration of Justins life will be ready to rock on his birthday weekend March 11. Check social media for more information.

Here is a list of LOVE: Cornerstone Community Church, thank you for being true people of God. Love you Ben. La Crosse Fire and Police Department, the heroic divers, who were relentless in their pursuit in finding Justin, Bruces Legacy in Black River Falls, Court Yard Marriott for going above and beyond, the hospitality industry mission statement-what a staff, Packers.com Insiders Inbox-I was smothered with love and support-what a community, and the Bloodhound K-9 unit.

Cremation Society of Wisconsin, Altoona, is assisting the family with arrangements. Online condolences may be shared at www.cremationsociety-wi.com.
Groups gather for the Womens March on Washington on Jan. 21. (Amanda Voisard/For The Washington Post)

Hundreds of thousands of people traveled to the nations capital last month for the inauguration and the Womens March on Washington. In the weeks since theyve left, more than 10,000 visitors have donated to local charities Metro SmarTrip cards that might have otherwise been discarded.

The idea to collect leftover SmarTrip cards started before Inauguration Day with a Maryland woman who participated in the Womens March. Hilary Moore Hebert, 35, purchased dozens of the plastic cards and mailed them to a friend who was attending with a bus full of women from New Orleans.

Metro no longer sells disposable paper cards, and instead requires customers to purchase $2 plastic cards, with at least $8 preloaded.

Hebert asked her friend whether cards with a remaining balance could be returned to her, then posted to a Facebook group inquiring where to donate them.

People immediately chimed in, and word spread quickly: After the Womens March, volunteers who learned of the Facebook efforts went to Union Station and the main charter bus parking lot at RFK Stadium to collect cards from people as they left Washington.

In all, more than 10,000 cards have been donated to the prominent D.C. charity Marthas Table. Hebert said she is still receiving about 1,000 cards each week in the mail at her Maryland horse farm. She said donations have come from all over the country, including Hawaii. She is donating them to a handful of charities across the region.

Ive never seen anything like this before, where its just a bunch of strangers coming together, and by using social media in a really positive way, Hebert said. Its something that seems so straightforward and easy, but its just something that hasnt been done before.

Ryan Palmer, chief external relations officer at Marthas Table, said the nonprofit organization has never organized a Metro Farecard donation drive, nor has it extensively offered cards to clients.

Marthas Table, which provides food, family and educational support to low-income D.C. residents, said it is sifting through the cards to determine the balance on each of them.

We dont put any restrictions on it, Palmer said. Transportation is expensive, hands down, whether you are trying to grocery shop, pick up your kid from school or go to work.

It is unclear how many more SmarTrip cards might trickle in. The Womens March on Jan. 21 accounted for Metros second-busiest day ever, with 1,001,613 station entries. The inauguration one day earlier saw 570,557 trips.

[Womens March leads to 2nd-busiest day in Metro history, just trailing Obamas 2009 inauguration]

Hebert said people have also donated cards to D.C.s Miriams Kitchen and the Virginia charity Doorways for Women and Families.

She said she wants to turn it into a sustained effort, eventually working with hotels to get their customers to donate Metro cards once they check out.

Who would have thought that someone in Hawaii could help the homeless in D.C.? she asked. And that I could be sitting in a horse farm in Germantown and could end up raising tens of thousands of dollars for the city.

Palmer said donated Metro cards are a novel idea for Marthas Table. The organization will try to measure the effect of the donations to determine whether the initiative could be continued in the future.

This was completely brand new to us, Palmer said. Its really sort of evidence of what can happen when the community comes together.
A suspect was arrested inside Maryland Live Casino on Friday night after a car chase that began in the District, authorities said.

In what appeared to be the same incident, the Anne Arundel County fire department said transported three people from the casino to the hospital with minor injuries. Three others were looked at but declined to be taken to hospitals, the fire department said.

The casino, in the Hanover area of Anne Arundel County, was partially evacuated for a time, Anne Arundel County police said.

The suspect was arrested without a struggle, however, the large number of officers searching in and around the casino led to the partial evacuation, authorities said.

Exactly how the injuries occurred was not clear early Saturday. But police said that while the search went on some patrons fled the area.

According to Anne Arundel County police, they were informed that Prince Georges County police officers were pursuing a vehicle that was involved in a carjacking in the District.

The pursuit entered Anne Arundel County on Interstate 295, police said.

The vehicle being pursued ultimately entered the casino parking garage and the suspect was arrested shortly after he entered the casino, they said.

The casino is open 24 hours a day.
A case of mistaken identity after a carjacking in the District late Friday resulted in a police pursuit that ended 20 miles away at Maryland Live Casino, where several panicked customers were injured as they tried to flee from the resulting arrest action.

The Anne Arundel County Fire Department transported three individuals from the casino to a hospital with injuries consistent with efforts to evacuate the building, according to spokesman Russ Davies. Three others declined to be transported. Police said the driver of the car was arrested without incident at a slot machine and is being held on a drug charge.

We didnt order anyone to leave the casino or the casino shut down, but I guess when a bunch of cops come in, people get worried, said Glenn Shanahan, a spokesman for Anne Arundel County police.

The incident began about 9:30 p.m. Friday when D.C. police responded to reports of an armed carjacking in the 800 block of Division Avenue NE. They found one person with a nonfatal gunshot wound who reported that he had been shot by people who then took his Jeep Cherokee.

According to Shanahan, police searching for the vehicle stopped a similar Cherokee in the vicinity. That driver, while not apparently involved in the carjacking, fled the scene. Anne Arundel police said the driver was worried about having marijuana in his possession.

Just bad luck for the bad guys, Shanahan said. If he had stayed at the stop, it probably would have been fine.

Instead, police took up the pursuit north on Interstate 295, believing that they were chasing a possible carjacking suspect. The pursuit was taken over by a Prince Georges police helicopter, Shanahan said, which followed the Cherokee to the Hanover area of Anne Arundel. The suspect was speeding, but not excessively, he said.

At Maryland Live, which shares parking with Arundel Mills, police working as mall security officers saw the vehicle enter a parking garage. Quickly reviewing security video, the officers followed the driver into the casino and to a particular slot machine. Within 20 minutes, they moved in and took him into custody without resistance.

Once they determined exactly where he was, they sent an arrest team in, Shanahan said. It was pretty seamless on our end.

But the arrival of a large group of fast-moving officers sparked a panic among some casino patrons.

In bolting for the exits, at least five suffered minor injuries and one was evaluated for a medical emergency. Three of the injured declined to be taken to the hospital.

The casino released a statement saying they had assisted police in the arrest.

Ensuring the safety and security of our guests and employees at all times is our top priority, and well continue to welcome millions of guests in a safe manner, as we have since opening, spokeswoman Carmen E. Gonzales said.

Anne Arundel police had not released the name of the person suspected of having marijuana by Saturday afternoon. Other charges were possible against the individual, they said. D.C. police said the investigation into the carjacking was continuing.
THE DISTRICT

Two critically injured in NE house fire

A professor and another person were critically injured Friday in a fire on Capitol Hill, authorities said.

John L. Slack, 75, directs the public health program at the University of the District of Columbia, and is on the executive board of the Faculty Association.

The fire was reported about 5 a.m. at Slacks home in the 700 block of Maryland Avenue NE. He was found outside. The second injured person, also male, was found inside, officials said. They said the fire began in a basement furnace.

 Peter Hermann

THE REGION

Clouds block view of full moon, eclipse

Neither the full moon nor the lunar eclipse could be seen at the appointed time Friday night from a prominent Washington-area intersection.

At 9 p.m., clouds covered the sky above 14th and K streets NW, a busy crossroads in the heart of downtown.

It appeared that many people in the Washington area would be deprived of a glimpse of the full moon passing into and then out of the shadow of the Earth.

The moon will remain close to full for a while. But it seems unlikely that it will live up to its name, the full snow moon.

Washington has seen little more than a few flakes of snow recently.

 Martin Weil

MARYLAND

Man fatally shot in Montgomery Village

A man was fatally shot Friday in the Montgomery Village area of Montgomery County, police said.

He was found in the 8500 block of Hawk Run Terrace. Details were not yet available late Friday.

 Justin Wm. Moyer

VIRGINIA

Inspector general is not reappointed

The Virginia Senate on Friday voted to reject the reappointment of the state inspector general, who had been criticized for her offices investigation into the death of a mentally ill man at Hampton Roads Regional Jail 18 months ago.

The Senate, with virtually no debate, voted 37 to 2 to approve the House of Delegates action taken Wednesday, which removed June Jennings from Gov. Terry McAuliffes normally uncontroversial list of appointees.

McAuliffe (D) had suggested that sexism was behind the decision by the Republican-controlled General Assembly to deny Jenningss appointment.

But Del. Robert B. Bell (R-Albemarle), who earlier had called Jennings too nice . . . too sweet for a job that needs a bulldog, said Thursday night that he was not casting aspersions on Jenningss gender, just making the point that the inspector general should be willing to ask hard questions and be persistent in seeking answers.

McAuliffe now must appoint a new inspector general to start after Jenningss term expires June 30.

 Patricia Sullivan

Driver in bay bridge plunge is identified

A truck driver who died Thursday after his tractor-trailer plunged from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel on Virginias Eastern Shore has been identified as Joseph Chen, 47, of Greenville, N.C.

Winds were gusting above 40 mph. But officials do not think wind was a factor in the crash, said Edward Spencer, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel police chief.

Chen was unresponsive when pulled from the water by a Navy helicopter, and he died at a hospital.

 Dana Hedgpeth
Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia, former congressman Tom Perriello, speaks with a supporter after a news conference in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017. Perriello announced his opposition to the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline. (Steve Helber/AP)

At the first large rally of his upstart Virginia gubernatorial campaign, Tom Perriello on Friday defended progressivism in the era of President Trump and offered himself before a packed concert hall as the candidate raring to fight for liberal causes.

Bluegrass bands warmed up the crowd of about 500 before the former congressman emerged on a stage wearing a black blazer and blue jeans, standing in front of a drum set with theatrical smoke curling behind him.

His speech quickly turned to the White House instead of the governors mansion. He said he has seen demagogues up close as a State Department envoy to Africa and he denounced Fridays federal immigration raids.

[Hundreds arrested in immigration enforcement raids in at least six states]

Perriello (D) called the November election a game changer for me, inspiring him to jump into the race to try to defend progressive values. He noted that Trumps loss in Virginia  the only Southern state to vote for Hillary Clinton  was the worst of any Republican candidate in my lifetime.

Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello makes a forceful case for progressive ideas before a crowd of more than 500 at a Charlottesville concert hall in his first major campaign rally, Friday. (Fenit Nirappil/The Washington Post)

Thats because progressive values are Virginia values, he said. Progressives are a majority of Virginia. Progressives are the future of Virginia.

Perriello shocked the Democratic establishment by deciding in early January to mount a late primary challenge to Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam. Since then, his campaign says it raised more than $1.1 million, and has staffed up with veterans of Sen. Bernie Sanderss (I-Vt.) and Clintons presidential campaigns.

Northams campaign on Saturday struck back against Perriellos attempt to claim the mantle of progressive champion, the first direct criticism leveled by either candidate during the campaign for the June Democratic primary.

A spokesman criticized Perriellos conservative stances in Congress  including supporting a measure to allow oil and gas drilling off Virginias coast, defending the National Rifle Association and voting for an amendment to the Affordable Care Act that would have restricted funding to insurance plans that cover abortion.

When it came time to stand up to big oil, stare down the NRA or commit to being pro-choice, Toms boldness vanished, Northam campaign spokesman David Turner said. Dr. Northam has been standing up for womens health care, civil rights and gun reform his entire career, winning the fights in Virginia.

Perriello now says hes skeptical of off-shore drilling, calls the NRA a nut-job extremist group and penned a Facebook post in the first days of his campaign apologizing for his vote on the abortion amendment.

So far, Perriello has avoided direct criticism of Northam. Without mentioning his genteel opponents name, Perriello sold himself as the candidate best able to turn out voters anxious about Republican domination of Washington.

Im not scared of a fight, Perriello said at the rally. Im not scared to be bold because thats what our times deserve.

Perriello said earlier in the week that he opposes two planned natural-gas pipelines in the commonwealth, putting him at odds with Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) but winning plaudits from environmentalists. His loudest applause of the night came when he reiterated that stance.

Charlottesville is friendly territory for Perriello, 42. It is the liberal bastion of the conservative central and southern Virginian congressional district he represented from 2009 to 2011. Many attendees said they have been fans of Perriello since his days in Washington, and one even sported a button from his 2008 campaign.

But many local activists and officeholders had already endorsed Northam, including Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer (D) who showed up at the concert hall but said he was still backing the lieutenant governor.

Diane Hillman, a Charlottesville resident who researches health policy, said a key lesson from the presidential election was the importance of turning voters out, and she said Perriellos enormous energy and the diversity of Fridays crowd boded well on that front.

I was shocked to see how many people under 40 are here, said Hillman, 68, who said shes a fixture at local political rallies. A lot of time its the same old people my age.

In interviews, attendees who paid $50 to get in said theyd be happy with either Northam or Perriello as their partys nominee. But they said they preferred the newcomers forceful style for the current political environment, and were willing to forgive Perriellos past conservative stances such as his opposition in Congress to an assault weapons ban.

Tom has more energy and passion, said Kathryn Laughon, a 52-year-old Charlottesville nurse. Have you heard Ralph speak? Its just not what he does. Hes a good man, hes a smart man, his policy is sound. I just dont think he inspires the passion that Tom does.

Perriello ended his speech with a rousing appeal to reject Trump by supporting his campaign.

This year, the first chance to defeat Donald Trump is in this election here in Virginia, he said.
Surrounded by protesters, Corey Stewart records a Facebook Live video defending a Charlottesville Confederate statue with Thaddeus Alexander, whose Facebook video railing against liberal demonstrators went viral. (Fenit Nirappi/The Washington Post)

Republican gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart came to this town to defend its statue of Robert E. Lee in a downtown park, only to be swarmed by dozens of protesters who shouted him down everywhere he went.

It was the harshest reception yet for the provocative chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, who is campaigning for the GOP nomination for governor as Virginias Donald Trump, with a hard-line stance against illegal immigration.

A divided Charlottesville City Councils decision last week to remove the statue of the Confederate general gave Stewart an opening to appeal to his base. On social media, he urged people to defend Virginias heritage, likening those who wanted to remove the statue to tyrants and Nazis.

But when he tried to take his message to this college town Saturday morning, protesters shouting White supremacy has got to go! drowned out his interviews and conversations.

Protesters shout over Stewart as he gives an interview about his opposition to removing a Robert E. Lee statue from a Charlottesville park. (Fenit Nirappil/The Washington Post)

[Stewart dumped as Trumps Virginia campaign chair]

Stewart took it in stride, frequently grinning and trying to chat up his detractors. In an interview, Stewart welcomed the protests and the attention they would bring, believing they would buttress his pitch as a conservative standing up to an intolerant left and political correctness.

I am calling them out for who they are, Stewart said. Its really a symptom of the problem of the left and their unwillingness to listen to alternative points of view.

He recorded a Facebook Live video with Thaddeus Dionne Alexander, an African American veteran who became a conservative star online after his Facebook video railing against liberal protesters went viral.

Their latest video ran a little more than two minutes and had racked up more than 13,000 views by 3 p.m.

They have no respect for our heritage, Stewart said over shouts in the video. They have no respect not only to Robert E. Lee, a great American, but they have no respect for Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington or any of the other great American and Virginia heroes.

The demonstrators continued to follow Stewart, hoisting signs saying Ban Bigots and No tolerance for white supremacy over his head as they yelled at him to go back to Prince William.

Do you need to be escorted to your car? Toby Gray, 51, carrying a giant American flag, asked as Stewart walked down the stairs out of the park.

I think I do, Stewart responded, crossing the street to a parking lot.

Protesters didnt follow, shouting Whose town? Our town!

The protesters outnumbered a group of supporters of the statue, some of whom carried Confederate flags. The statue supporters  who were angered by the wave of protests against President Trump nationwide  said the whole exchange left them feeling warmer to Stewart.

I wasnt sure about voting for Corey Stewart before, but Id be very honored to vote for him after today, said Isaac Smith, a 20-year-old Charlottesville resident who filmed the rally for a local blog.

He backed Trump for president but said he was uneasy about the prospect of having a mirror image in the governors mansion.

Id like to see something a little more tempered, a little more mild. Certainly the way Stewart dealt with these people, I think he was an absolute angel, Smith said.

[Alexandrias Confederate symbols to stay put]

Fellow Republican candidate Ed Gillespie, a political strategist whom Stewart derides as Establishment Ed, said in a statement that he doesnt support moving statues but that such decisions are local issues. Gillespie is leading the Republican field in polling and campaign cash for the June primary.

Republican distillery owner Denver Riggleman, who, like Stewart, is running a populist campaign, also denounced the statue move and instead recommended using money that would go toward demolition to add a statue of a prominent African American.

The fourth Republican candidate for governor, State Sen. Frank Wagner (Virginia Beach), says he opposes removing the statue, calling it political correctness run amok.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello, who represented Charlottesville in Congress from 2009 to 2011, supports the statues removal as part of creating a more inclusive environment. Lt. Gov Ralph Northam, the Democratic front-runner in the gubernatorial contest, has said local communities should make decisions about Confederate symbols, but held up Charlottesville as a model for creating a welcoming community.

As Stewart hopped into his Toyota Tundra to go to his next rally in Winchester, he flashed a thumbs-up sign to the handful of supporters who escorted him to the park.

This was fun, he said.
MIAMI (TNS)  At least 121 killings within a four-year span were carried out by convicted immigrants who were not deported, according to a 2015 U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee document recently reviewed by el Nuevo Herald.

Every year, federal immigration authorities release foreign nationals convicted of crimes  including murder  both because the U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited indefinite detention or because their countries refuse to take them back even after immigration judges have ordered deportation.

While the release of convicted immigrant criminals has been routine since the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling 15 years ago, the practice is now in the national spotlight because President Donald Trump has made it imperative to deport immigrant convicts as quickly as possible lest they commit more crimes.

Research by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has elicited evidence that could be used to back Trumps claim. A committee document, obtained by el Nuevo Herald, contains comprehensive information from the Department of Homeland Security about the number of immigrant convicts in the United States, their whereabouts, whether immigration authorities have succeeded in deporting them and whether they committed additional crimes after being released.

A committee letter sent to the Department of Justice and the Departments of State and Homeland Security nearly two years ago said that at least 121 homicides could have been avoided between 2010 and 2014 had Immigration and Customs Enforcement, under the prior Obama administration, deported immigrant convicts instead of releasing them.

This disturbing fact follows ICEs admission that, of the 36,007 criminal aliens it released from ICE custody in Fiscal Year 2013, 1,000 have been re-convicted of additional crimes in the short time since their release, according to the letter, dated June 12, 2015.

The Senate Judiciary Committee letter revealed that 121 immigrant convicts were charged with homicide following their release from ICE custody between 2010 and 2014. It also noted that in 2014, ICE released 2,457 immigrant convicts because of the Supreme Court ruling prohibiting detention of deportable foreign nationals beyond six months.

Most of these immigrant convicts are nationals of 23 countries described by ICE as recalcitrant because they routinely refuse to take back deportables. The bulk of these immigrant convicts in 2014  1,183  were from Cuba, according to the letter. The other recalcitrant countries include Afghanistan, Algeria, China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Zimbabwe, according to ICE.

Generally, foreign nationals who are convicted of crimes are put into deportation proceedings after they complete their sentences.

A committee spokeswoman did not provide additional information on the letter when contacted by el Nuevo Herald last week.

But in response to the letter, Sarah Saldana, then-director of ICE, stated that 33 of the 121 immigrant convicts accused of homicide-related offenses had been released on bond at the discretion of immigration courts. Another 24 were released because ICE was unable to obtain approval to deport them to their countries within the 180-day deadline set by the Supreme Court in 2001.

Immigrant rights advocates, for their part, argue that blaming immigrants for a surge in crime is not supported by studies. The Washington-based group American Immigration Council (AIC) in 2015 published an in-depth report about the chief findings in those studies.

For more than a century, innumerable studies have confirmed two simple yet powerful truths about the relationship between immigration and crime, according to the AIC report. Immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of violent crime and property crime. This holds true for both legal immigrants and the unauthorized, regardless of their country of origin or level of education.

One weapon Trump has suggested he could wield to compel countries to take back their deportable nationals is halting the issuance of visas to visitors and immigrants from those nations. While this has yet to happen, Trump has shown a willingness to strike harshly through executive orders like his decision to bar admission of refugees for 120 days and nationals from seven Muslim-majority nations for 60 days, a measure that took effect last weekend at international airports, seaports and border ports of entry  and at foreign airports where many travelers were prevented from boarding U.S.-bound flights. The measure sparked chaos at airports around the nation and has since been lifted because of a court order that is being challenged by the Trump administration.

In a speech in Phoenix during the campaign, Trump vowed to deport immigrant criminals regardless of whether their countries agreed to take them back.

There are at least 23 countries that refuse to take their people back after theyve been ordered to leave the United States, Trump said. Including large numbers of violent criminals. They wont take them back. So we say, Okay, well keep them. Not going to happen with me, not going to happen with me.

While Trump has not himself articulated a threat to deny visas to nationals of these countries, he has suggested that he might take such a course of action.

Trumps executive order temporarily halting the worldwide refugee program and the entry of nationals from the seven Muslim-majority countries contains language stipulating that if the countries from where those people came do not provide certain requested information, then the president will prohibit the entry of nationals from those countries.

If those countries refuse to provide the information Washington wants, then the secretary of state will deliver to Trump a list of countries recommended for inclusion on a presidential proclamation that would prohibit the entry of foreign nationals  from countries that do not provide the information requested, according to the executive order.

Denying any future visas from countries reluctant to take back deportable nationals has long been cited as a weapon to induce compliance but has never been widely used.

On the issue of convicted immigrants, the committees letter focused on the 121 prisoners released between 2010 and 2014 because they were charged with homicide after they were allowed to walk out of jail.

This is a significant issue because one of the pillars of Trumps opposition to immigrants with criminal records is that some have been linked to murders of American citizens.

One weapon Trump has suggested he could wield to compel countries to take back their deportable nationals is halting the issuance of visas to visitors and immigrants from those nations.
A Feb. 7 photo released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shows foreign nationals being arrested this week during a targeted enforcement operation conducted in Los Angeles. (Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP)

Fear and panic have gripped Americas immigrant community as reports circulate that federal agents have become newly aggressive under President Trump, who campaigned for office with a vow to create a deportation force.

Federal officials insist they have not made fundamental changes in enforcement actions, and they deny stopping people randomly at checkpoints or conducting sweeps of locations where undocumented immigrants are common.

But anxiety among immigrants spiked last week after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency conducted a series of enforcement actions in large metropolitan areas, detaining hundreds of people in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta and other cities.

Amnesty International USA released a statement Saturday saying reports of the enforcement actions raise grave human rights concerns. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus demanded an immediate meeting with Thomas D. Homan, the acting head of ICE.

These raids have struck fear in the hearts of the immigrant community as many fear that President Trumps promised deportation force is now in full-swing, the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Homan.

Whats certain is that even if ICE and other officials say this is business as usual, many immigrants find more persuasive the words and actions of Trump, whose political rise was propelled by anti-immigrant rhetoric, a vow to build a wall on the Mexican border and the promise to deport 3 million criminal immigrants.

On Jan. 25, five days after taking the oath of office, he issued an executive order titled Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States. Media attention focused on Trumps call for an end to federal funds for sanctuary cities, which do not automatically hand over illegal immigrants who come to the attention of local law enforcement.

But the order also expanded the list of deportation priorities to include any noncitizen who is charged with a criminal offense of any kind, or who is suspected of committing criminal acts or being dishonest with immigration officials. The order gives broader leeway to ICE officers in deciding whether someone poses a risk to public safety.

For immigrant rights activists, the rules of engagement have clearly changed.

Donald Trump has effectively created a way to deport individuals who have been accused, charged or convicted of anything from murder to jaywalking, said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Fear of being detained or deported could lead many people to avoid going to work, school or public places in coming days, Salas said. She noted that one person detained by ICE last week had been at his job in a Target store.

ICE wants us to believe they have removed a bunch of felons who were just plotting their next crime, Salas said. We know that ICE picked up some collaterals, people who happened to be nearby when officers arrived looking for someone else, and we think what weve just witnessed is how an emboldened ICE will operate.

Several undocumented Los Angeles residents told The Washington Post that they did not want to be identified because they fear the Trump administration could use newspaper coverage to craft a list of deportation targets.

Under policies crafted during President Barack Obamas second term, priority deportees included people who had been convicted of murder and other violent crimes as well as certain drug offenses and gang involvement. Obamas policies called on ICE officials to avoid detaining, whenever possible, nursing mothers and those with serious medical conditions.

ICE last week has put out messages on social media suggesting that the enforcement actions were not part of a major crackdown ordered by Trump. ICE immigration enforcement actions target specific individuals according to the laws passed by Congress, reads a tweet posted Thursday by ICE.

ICE spokeswoman Sarah Rodriguez wrote in an email to The Washington Post: ICE does not use checkpoints, nor do we use sweeping raids. We use targeted enforcement actions against specific individuals to make these arrests.

Immigration rights activists are hoping to call attention to the actions of ICE while at the same time preventing full-scale panic among people who may be avoiding going to work or riding buses out of fear of being detained.

Were not trying to sow hysteria here, so were not reporting rumors, said Elizabeth Alex, a regional field director in Baltimore County for CASA, an immigrant advocacy group. But it is fair to say we are seeing new tactics across the county.

She said ICE agents detained a handful of people after they exited the county courthouse in Towson, Md. In one incident, on Monday, an undocumented immigrant who had gone to the courthouse to pay a ticket for driving on a suspended license was taken into custody by federal agents as he left, she said.

She added that CASA has documented cases of illegal immigrants being taken into custody in recent weeks after they showed up for check-in meetings with parole and probation officers in the county.

In Montgomery County, considered a sanctuary jurisdiction, lawmakers and dozens of advocates for the states immigrant population fanned out Friday evening and Saturday morning after unfounded rumors circulated on Facebook that a public bus had been raided by federal immigration officers. As the rumor went, officers boarded a bus in the Wheaton area, home to a sizable chunk of the Washington areas Salvadoran community, and began removing riders who could not produce identification.

ICE spokeswoman Rodriguez denied that, and local officials said they found no evidence to back up the rumor, either. Similar unfounded rumors popped up elsewhere in the country, including Portland, Ore., and Austin.

The epicenter for the enforcement actions in the Washington region last week appeared to be a maze of garden apartments tucked inside the Beltway in Annandale, Va., where more than a thousand Hispanic residents live in apartments starting at $1,200 a month. Immigration attorneys said federal officers had staked out the Fairmont Gardens apartment complex at least twice last week, arresting men as they left for work Tuesday and Thursday morning.

I fear were going back to the bad days under [former president George W.] Bush  or worse  when immigration officers were given quotas for arrests and whether they found their person or not, they filled up the van to meet the quota, said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, legal director for the Legal Aid Justice Centers Immigrant Advocacy Program.

Virginia state Sen. Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax), held a town hall meeting Saturday morning in Mount Vernon where more than 200 constituents showed up. Surovell discussed pictures he had been sent of federal immigration officers on Friday detaining a man about two miles away in the parking lot of an Aldi grocery store along Route 1.

He said he has heard that the surge in enforcement is scaring schoolchildren, who may avoid going to school on Monday. They dont know if their parents are going to be taken away, Surovell said.

Dozens of community organizers held a telephone conference Saturday afternoon to discuss strategy, with one lawyer saying in Spanish that immigrants need to take steps to protect themselves.

Do not open the door to your home without seeing a warrant, he said. Do not drive a car with broken lights, and do not drive at all at night.

Ross reported from Los Angeles. Davis and Achenbach reported from Washington. Abigail Hauslohner and Lisa Rein contributed to this report.
LOS ANGELES (TNS)  The children were going to die.

Mohamed Bzeek knew that. But in his more than two decades as a foster father, he took them in anyway  the sickest of the sick in Los Angeles Countys sprawling foster care system.

He has buried about 10 children. Some died in his arms.

Now, Bzeek spends long days and sleepless nights caring for a bedridden 6-year-old foster girl with a rare brain defect. Shes blind and deaf. She has daily seizures. Her arms and legs are paralyzed.

Bzeek, a quiet, devout Libyan-born Muslim who lives in Azusa, Calif., just wants her to know shes not alone in this life.

I know she cant hear, cant see, but I always talk to her, he said. Im always holding her, playing with her, touching her.  She has feelings. She has a soul. Shes a human being.

Of the 35,000 children monitored by the countys Department of Children and Family Services, there are about 600 children at any given time who fall under the care of the departments Medical Case Management Services, which serves those with the most severe medical needs, said Rosella Yousef, an assistant regional administrator for the unit.

There is a dire need for foster parents to care for such children.

And there is only one person like Bzeek.

If anyone ever calls us and says, This kid needs to go home on hospice, theres only one name we think of, said Melissa Testerman, a DCFS intake coordinator who finds placements for sick children. Hes the only one that would take a child who would possibly not make it.

Typically, she said, children with complex conditions are placed in medical facilities or with nurses who have opted to become foster parents.

But Bzeek is the only foster parent in the county known to take in terminally ill children, Yousef said. Though she knows the single father is stretched thin caring for the girl, who requires around-the-clock care, Yousef still approached him at a department Christmas party in December and asked if he could possibly take in another sick child.

This time, Bzeek politely declined.

A life sentence

The girl sits propped up with pillows in the corner of Bzeeks living room couch. She has long, thin brown hair pulled into a ponytail and perfectly arched eyebrows over unseeing gray eyes.

Because of confidentiality laws, the girl is not being identified. But a special court order allowed The Times to spend time at Bzeeks home and to interview people involved in his foster daughters case.

The girls head is too small for her 34-pound body, which is too small for her age. She was born with an encephalocele, a rare malformation in which part of her brain protruded through an opening in her skull, according to Dr. Suzanne Roberts, the girls pediatrician at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Neurosurgeons removed the protruding brain tissue shortly after her birth, but much of her brain remains undeveloped.

She has been in Bzeeks care since she was a month old. Before her, he cared for three other children with the same condition.

These kids, its a life sentence for them, he said.

Bzeek, 62, is a portly man with a long, dark beard and a soft voice. The oldest of 10 children, he came to this country from Libya as a college student in 1978.

Years later, through a mutual friend, he met a woman named Dawn, who would become his wife. She had become a foster parent in the early 1980s, before she met Bzeek. Her grandparents had been foster parents, and she was inspired by them, Bzeek said. Before she met Bzeek, she opened her home as an emergency shelter for foster children who needed immediate placement or who were placed in protective custody.

Dawn Bzeek fell in love with every child she took in. She took them to professional holiday photo sessions, and she organized Christmas gift donation drives for foster children.

She was funny, Bzeek said during a recent drive home from the hospital. She was absolutely terrified of spiders and bugs, so much that even Halloween decorations creeped her out  but she was never scared by the childrens illnesses or the possibility that she would die, Bzeek said.

The Bzeeks opened their Azusa home to dozens of children. They taught classes on foster parenting  and how to handle a childs illness and death  at community colleges. Dawn Bzeek was such a highly regarded foster mother that her name appeared on statewide task forces for improving foster care alongside doctors and policymakers.

Bzeek started caring for foster children with Dawn in 1989, he said. Often, the children were ill.

Mohamed Bzeek first experienced the death of a foster child in 1991. She was the child of a farm worker who was pregnant when she breathed in toxic pesticides sprayed by crop dusters. She was born with a spinal disorder, wore a full body cast and wasnt yet a year old when she died on July 4, 1991, as the Bzeeks prepared dinner.

This one hurt me so badly when she died, Bzeek said, glancing at a photograph of a tiny girl in a frilly white dress, lying in a coffin surrounded by yellow flowers.

By the mid-1990s, the Bzeeks decided to specifically care for terminally ill children who had do-not-resuscitate orders because no one else would take them in.

There was the boy with short-gut syndrome who was admitted to the hospital 167 times in his eight-year life. He could never eat solid food, but the Bzeeks would sit him at the dinner table, with his own empty plate and spoon, so he could sit with them as a family.

There was the girl with the same brain condition as Bzeeks current foster daughter, who lived for eight days after they brought her home. She was so tiny that when she died a doll maker made an outfit for her funeral. Bzeek carried her coffin in his hands like a shoe box.

The key is, you have to love them like your own, Bzeek said recently. I know they are sick. I know they are going to die. I do my best as a human being and leave the rest to God.

Bzeeks only biological son, Adam, was born in 1997  with brittle bone disease and dwarfism. He was a child so fragile that changing his diaper or his socks could break his bones.

Bzeek said he was never angry about his own sons disabilities. He loved him all the same.

Thats the way God created him, Bzeek said.

Now 19, Adam weighs about 65 pounds and has big brown eyes and a shy grin. When at home, he gets around the house on a body skateboard that his father made for him out of a miniature ironing board, zooming across the wood floor, steering with his hands.

Adam studies computer science at Citrus College, driving his electric wheelchair to class. Hes the smallest student in class, Bzeek said, but hes a fighter.

Adams parents never glossed over how sick his foster siblings were, and they told him the children were going to eventually die, Bzeek said. They accepted death as part of life  something that made the small joys of living all the more meaningful.

I love my sister, the shy teenager said of the foster girl. Nobody should have to go through so much pain.

About 2000, Dawn Bzeek, once such an active advocate for foster children, became ill. She suffered from powerful seizures that would leave her weak for days. She could hardly leave the house because she didnt want to collapse in public.

The frustrations of her illness wore on her, Bzeek said. There was stress in the marriage, and she and Bzeek split in 2013. She died a little over a year later.

Bzeek chokes up when he talks about her. When it came to facing the difficulties of the childrens illnesses, the knowledge that they would die, she was always the stronger one, he said.

No options

On a chilly November morning, Bzeek pushed the girls wheelchair and the IV pole that carries her feeding formula into Childrens Hospital on Sunset Boulevard. She was wrapped in a soft pink blanket, her head resting on a pillow with the stitched words: Dad is like duct tape holding our home together.

The temperatures had been bouncing up and down that week, and the girl had a cold. Her brain cannot fully regulate her body temperature, so one leg was hot while the other was cold.

On the elevator, her face glowed bright red as she coughed, her throat filled with phlegm, screaming for air. People in the elevator looked away.

Bzeek rubbed her cheek playfully and held her hand, waving it playfully. Heeeey, mama, he cooed in her ear, calming her down.

For Bzeek, the hospital has become a second home. When hes not here, hes often on the phone with her many doctors, the insurers who fight over whos paying for it all, the lawyers who represent her and her social workers. Any time they leave the house together, he carries a thick black binder filled with her medical records and pages of medications.

Still, Bzeek  who had to be licensed through the county to care for medically fragile children and receives about $1,700 a month for her care  is not able to make medical decisions for her.

Roberts entered the exam room, smiling at the girls frilly socks and brown dress with fall-colored leaves.

Theres our princess, the doctor said. Shes in her pretty dress, as always.

Roberts has known Bzeek for years and has seen many of his foster children. By the time this girl was age 2, Roberts said, doctors said there were no more interventions to improve her condition.

Nobody ever wants to give up, she said. But we had run through the options.

But the girl, who is hooked to feeding and medication tubes at least 22 hours a day, has lived as long as she has because of Bzeek, the doctor said.

When shes not sick and in a good mood, shell cry to be held, Roberts said. Shes not verbal, but she can make her needs known.  Her life is not complete suffering. She has moments where shes enjoying herself and shes pretty content, and its all because of Mohamed.

Other than trips to the hospital and Friday prayers at the mosque  when the day nurse watches her  Bzeek rarely leaves the house.

To avoid choking, the girl sleeps sitting up. Bzeek sleeps on a second couch next to hers. He doesnt sleep much.

You are 6

On a Saturday in early December, Bzeek, Adam and the girls nurse, Marilou Terry, had a celebratory lunch for the childs sixth birthday. He invited her biological parents. They didnt come.

Bzeek crouched in front of the girl  wearing a long, red-and-white dress and matching socks  and held her hands, clapping them together.

Yay! he said, cheerfully. You are 6! 6! 6!

Bzeek lit six birthday candles in a cheesecake and sat the girl on the kitchen table, holding the cake near her face so she could feel the warmth of the flames.

As they sang Happy Birthday, Bzeek leaned over her left shoulder, his beard gently brushing the side of her face. She smelled the smoke, and a small smile crossed her face.

The key is, you have to love them like your own. I know they are sick. I know they are going to die. I do my best as a human being and leave the rest to God. Mohamed Bzeek
Gavin Grimm, a senior at Gloucester High in Gloucester, Va., sued his school board two years ago after it barred him from using the boys bathroom. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)

The Trump administration signaled Friday that it was changing course on the previous administrations efforts to expand transgender rights, submitting a legal brief withdrawing the governments objections to an injunction that had blocked guidance requiring that transgender students be allowed to use restrooms that match their gender identity.

The move by the Justice Department does not immediately change the situation for the nations public schools, as a federal judge had already put a temporary hold on the guidance as a lawsuit by a dozen states moved through the courts.

But it suggests that the Trump administration will take a different approach on the hotly contested issue of transgender rights, which many conservatives thought went too far under the Obama administration.

And how the Trump administration decides to proceed on the particular issue of transgender students and bathroom use would affect several other cases in which students are challenging their school districts policies, including one involving Virginia student Gavin Grimm, which is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court later this spring.

[Im transgender and cant use the student bathroom. The Supreme Court could change that.]

(McKenna Ewen,Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)

The brief, filed in the Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, came as part of a long-running lawsuit by 12 states opposed to Education Department guidance issued last year directing the nations public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice. The Obama administration took the position that barring the students from bathrooms that matched their gender identity was a violation of Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in public schools.

[Obama administration directs schools to accommodate transgender students]

U.S. District Judge Reed OConnor had sided with the states and issued a temporary injunction blocking the guidance last year. The Obama administration appealed the decision and asked that the injunction apply only to those 12 states. Arguments in the case were scheduled to be heard Tuesday in Austin.

[States sue Obama administration over bathroom guidance for transgender students]

But the Justice Department and the suing states said in a joint brief Friday that they were withdrawing that request. The brief asked the court to cancel arguments, explaining that the parties are currently considering how best to proceed in this appeal.

The request was immediately granted, according to Equality Case Files, a nonprofit organization that provides legal updates on cases related to gay and transgender rights.

The decision drew immediate criticism from gay and transgender rights groups.

Transgender students are entitled to the full protection of the United States Constitution and our federal nondiscrimination laws, Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. It is heartbreaking and wrong that the agency tasked with enforcing civil rights laws would instead work to subvert them for political interests. President Trump must immediately reverse course and direct the DOJ to uphold guidance protecting transgender students.

That the Trump administration would reverse course on the previous administrations efforts on behalf of transgender people is not exactly a surprise.

In an interview last May with The Washington Post, Donald Trump, then the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president, said it was important to protect the rights of transgender people but thought the decision of how to direct schools to deal with transgender students was best left up to the states.

I dont think so, because youve got to protect all people, even though its a tiny percentage of 1 percent, Trump said. I think from that standpoint, [states] should come up with a policy thats going to work for everybody and protect people.

He repeatedly said during the interview he thought most states would make the right decisions.

[Trump: Rescind Obamas transgender directives, but protect everybody]

Grimm, a senior at Gloucester High in Gloucester, Va., sued his school board two years ago after it barred him from the boys bathroom. In April, the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit sided with Grimm, deferring to the Obama administrations position that barring transgender students from bathrooms that align with their gender identity is sex discrimination.

The school board appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear arguments in March.

But it is unclear what will happen if the administrations position on transgender students rights changes. Joshua Block of the American Civil Liberties Union, who is representing Grimm, said he believes the case still has grounds to move forward. But Francisco Negron Jr., chief legal officer for the National School Boards Association, said late last year that he is skeptical.
When online crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and GoFundMe debuted, people hoping to invent and sell a better bottle opener, those in need of help with medical bills and all sorts of personal would-be fundraisers talked about the concept in grand, world-changing ways. This, they said, was a disruptive, potentially transformative financial development.

A new website aims to mash up that kind of popular Internet fundraising with legal work, hoping to turn legal cases into publicly funded  and backed  social causes.

CrowdJustice.org, went live with its first U.S. fundraising appeals in recent weeks with a tagline meant to promote equal access to the courts, regardless of ones economic standing: The law should be available to everyone.

The sites founder, a British transplant, says CrowdJustice is a politically neutral portal where people and organizations pursuing litigation can solicit and win public help with the costs. So far, CrowdJustice has helped fund an assortment of cases, including a lawsuit fighting a multistory car park in Berkhamsted, England, and one trying to quash Brexit. But, just weeks after the site opened to U.S. causes, CrowdJustice, or at least its marketing plan, appears to set it on a collision course with one of the Trump administrations signature policies: the travel ban.

In the past few weeks, the story of the Aziz brothers  Yemenis detained at Washington Dulles International Airport then shipped out of the country because of President Trumps temporary seven-country travel ban  appeared in The Washington Post, the New York Times and the Guardian. Their journey across continents and the legal wrangling required to get the them back inside the United States seemed to many an exemplar of what Trumps executive order wrought. Its also an example of how CrowdJustice might fit into the nations increasingly active public-interest law space.

[Yemeni brothers deported at Dulles will probably be allowed back into U.S.]

Just after Trumps executive order, CrowdJustice posted a description of Aziz v. Trump  the case that ultimately helped the Aziz brothers and at least one other family enter the United States on Monday morning. The case, brought by the Legal Aid Justice Center, a Charlottesville-based nonprofit group with a small staff, focused on people turned away from Dulles Airport immediately after the travel ban went into effect. Virginias attorney general and other litigators later joined the case. A separate but related case in Seattle temporarily halted the ban, and a federal appeals court Thursday night kept the ban on hold, perhaps setting up a U.S. Supreme Court fight.

The Center doesnt charge clients, relying instead on donations. Sometimes, the organization can persuade a federal court to pay the agency legal fees, which range from $275 to $450 an hour. But the organization faces the same travel costs, court filing fees and other expenses as do lawyers working for major civil rights organizations or corporate clients.

We are committed to this work, said Mary Bauer, executive director of the Legal Aid Justice Center who agreed to have the Aziz v. Trump case posted on CrowdJustice. But there are costs, and we are not the ACLU. So we did not see $24 million in donations when this all started.

During the campaigns first week on CrowdJustice, the Center raised $36,600 in pledges from 650 people, an average of $56 per donation.

That, to politicos accustomed to working with multimillionaire backers, might not sound like much money. But to Neil Weare, president and founder of the We the People Project, a D.C.-based voting rights organization, CrowdJustice carries the capacity to resolve two of the organizations biggest challenges.

Thats fundraising and what Weare called the awareness gap.

In 2015, We the People filed a lawsuit on behalf of six plaintiffs, U.S. citizens who once lived in Illinois but have since moved to Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico and as a result do not get to participate in all aspects of federal elections. There are approximately 4 million U.S. citizens in a similar position, living in the three territories mentioned in the lawsuit along with Washington and American Samoa.

A lot of Americans dont even know that the United States has territories, Weare said. Nor do they know that the millions of U.S. citizens living in them do not have the same rights to vote as everyone else.

A federal district court in Illinois ruled against We the People before the 2016 election and declared that voting is not a fundamental right. So lawyers working for the organization free of charge took the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, arguing the case raised potentially significant national questions about voting and equality.

The same year the lawsuit was filed, John Olivers HBO show included a segment on territorial voting rights, which was viewed on YouTube more than 6.4 million times. And, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has since lambasted restrictions on territorial voters in a Senate committee hearing. Both helped, Weare said.

This week, We the People posted a CrowdJustice appeal seeking to raise $10,000 to help with the case, Segovia v. Board of Election Commissioners, which seeks voting rights for a U.S. military veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and now lives in Guam. In its first few days, the campaign has raised more than $7,000 from 74 people.

Continuous attention-grabbing is part of the work, and money a sheer necessity, Weare said.

CrowdJustice began in the Britain in 2014, but moved its headquarters to New York this year with a plan to launch U.S. operations. CrowdJustice moved its launch up two weeks to post the Aziz v. Trump case. The company dispatched people well-known in the nonprofit-organization world to gain word-of-mouth among public-interest lawyers.

Also, despite its dot.org URL, CrowdJustice is not a nonprofit organization. It collects 5 percent of all donations made to legal cases and another 3.5 percent goes to the websites payment processor. The remaining 91.5 percent of donations goes to trust accounts set up to fund the individual cases to which donors contribute.

CrowdJustice does some due diligence to ensure none of the parties to the lawsuit are subject to any kind of national or international sanctions (such as Securities and Exchange Commission violations, federal or international court matters) and verifies that the case in question is under active litigation by a licensed attorney. Then, it posts a campaign.

Julia Salasky, chief executive and founder of CrowdJustice, describes the site as politically agnostic and only interested in helping people engage in the legal system. When asked whether CrowdJustice, might, for instance, post a fundraising effort for a white supremacist group, Salasky said the company has not yet confronted a case the site deemed inappropriate.

Third-party litigation finance  such as crowdsourcing  is a relatively new field, one that has emerged within the past decade, said Bruce Hay, a Harvard law professor who specializes in procedures and ethics. In the past three years, Hay said, he has seen some of his students graduate and become litigation financiers focused on corporate cases, not public-interest law and nonprofit causes. Regulators and courts have been generally accepting of the practice, so long as firewalls are established to keep the financiers out of decisions lawyers must make, Hay said.

Before such funding practices, lawyers sometimes took out bank loans to finance cases, Hay said. Nonprofit groups doing public-interest legal work had no other choice but to dedicate significant time to fundraising. CrowdJustice could provide another option to people with limited resources who want to pursue cases that deal with constitutional questions but promise no payout.

CrowdJustice could face another challenge in the Trump era that has roots in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Then, officials in Southern states attempted to crush the NAACPs legal successes by bringing cases against the organization under anti-ambulance-chasing laws. Such laws are intended to prevent baseless, nuisance lawsuits, but officials instead tried to stop the NAACP from finding clients. They wanted to thwart efforts seeking to move the nation toward equity in voting, housing, jobs, transportation and other matters, Hay said.

It will be interesting to see if we see a return to fake legal ethics claims, when someone tries to, say, crowdfund a case to block voter suppression, Hay said.

One item of potential interest to the Trump administration right now: In early November, CrowdJustice donations totaling more than $200,000, at the current exchange rate, allowed a group of 4,918 people to challenge a referendum that provided the legal basis for Britain to exit the European Union, according to the companys figures. A lawsuit filed by people opposed to Brexit pushed to give Parliament the final say. They won.

Parliament is expected to vote on the British-E.U. divorce sometime this year.
ONALASKA -- Altra Federal Credit Union will host a free Teens & Money Seminar for students 13 to 17 from noon to 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 19, their it operations center at 1700 Oak Forest Drive in Onalaska.

This is the first session in our quarterly series, and is a great way for teens to learn valuable financial skills for the future, said Danielle Anderson, youth coordinator for Altra.

The free session is highly interactive, focusing on budgeting, money management and goal setting. Participants will have the chance to win prizes, including cash.

Altra membership is not required to attend, but registration is required. The session is limited to 40 students. Pizza and refreshments will be provided. Register online at www.altra.org.
IRAQ

Suicide bombings kill at least 10, wound 33

At least 10 people were killed and 33 wounded Friday in suicide bombings in Baghdad and in parts of Mosul recently recaptured from the Islamic State, sources said.

The militant group, which controls significant parts of Iraq and Syria, claimed the attacks in online statements.

A man blew himself up in a restaurant at lunchtime in eastern Mosul, killing at least four people and wounding 15.

A suicide car bomber killed a soldier and wounded four others on the eastern side of the city, which Iraqi forces took from the Islamic State last month.

A car bomb in the Ilam district of southern Baghdad blew up, killing five and wounding 14.

 Reuters

PHILIPPINES

Powerful quake kills at least 4 in countrys south

A powerful nighttime earthquake in the southern Philippines killed at least four people, injured about 120 others, damaged buildings and an airport and knocked out power, officials said Saturday.

The late-Friday quake with a magnitude of 6.5 roused residents from sleep in Surigao del Norte province, about 430 miles southeast of Manila, sending hundreds fleeing their homes. The temblor was centered about 8 miles northwest of the provincial capital of Surigao at a relatively shallow depth of 6.8 miles, said Renato Solidum of the Philippine Institute of Seismology and Volcanology.

Nearly 100 aftershocks have been felt, officials said, adding that schools were being opened as evacuation centers for residents wary of returning to their damaged homes.

Some of the four people killed were hit by falling debris and blunt objects, provincial disaster-response official Ramon Gotinga said, citing hospital reports. The 120 cases of injury were reported in Surigao city.

 Associated Press

NIGERIA

Boko Haram kills 7 troops, abducts one

Boko Haram insurgents ambushed a convoy of new troops in northeast Nigeria, killing seven and abducting a female soldier, the Nigerian military and a self-defense commander said Friday. Nineteen soldiers were wounded.

Thursday nights ambush occurred 30 miles east of Maiduguri. The city in northeastern Nigeria is the birthplace of Boko Haram and headquarters of the Nigerian militarys campaign to crush the seven-year Islamist insurgency that has killed more than 20,000 people. A military spokesman said seven soldiers were killed and 19 were wounded.

An army officer and a self-defense commander said a female soldier was abducted from the convoy of recruits traveling to relieve troops who had long overstayed their rotation in the war zone.

 Associated Press

U.N. says Yemen fighting displaces tens of thousands more: The United Nations refugee agency said Friday that tens of thousands of people have been displaced amid the latest escalation of fighting along Yemens western coastline. The stark warning came as the leader of Yemens Shiite rebels announced that his forces have built drones and missiles that will be used against the Saudi-led coalition and will target the Saudi capital.

French farmer is convicted of helping migrants: A French activist farmer was convicted Friday of helping migrants illegally cross the border from Italy and was given a suspended $3,191 fine. Authorities said Cedric Herrou, 37, assisted some 200 migrants over the past year, housing some on his farm in the Roya valley in the Alps, near the Italian border, and others in an unused building owned by French national railway company SNCF. He also helped them travel in France, using his own vehicle. Herrou was convicted Friday for having helped migrants cross the border illegally between Italy and France.

Peru says ex-president is likely to be in U.S.: Peru said Friday that it thinks fugitive former president Alejandro Toledo, who is wanted in a far-reaching bribery probe, is in San Francisco and will try to flee to Israel. The government of President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski added that the country was asking U.S. and Israeli authorities to help capture Toledo.

 From news services
An injured protester is assisted after reacting to tear gas fired by security forces, as demonstrators run during a protest against corruption by followers of Iraq's influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Tahrir square, Baghdad. (Karim Kadim/AP)

IRAQ

Protests called by cleric turn deadly

Two rockets landed in Baghdads highly fortified Green Zone on Saturday night following clashes at anti-government protests that left five dead, according to Iraqi security and hospital officials.

The rocket attack left no casualties, because the munitions landed on the parade grounds in the center of the compound that is home to Iraqs government and most foreign embassies. It was not immediately clear who fired the projectiles.

Saturdays protests  called by influential cleric Moqtada al-Sadr  and clashes that erupted as crowds pushed toward the Green Zone left two police officers and three protesters dead, police and hospital officials said.

The demonstrators demanded an overhaul of the commission overseeing local elections scheduled this year. Sadr has accused the commission of being riddled with corruption.

 Associated Press

BRAZIL

Police return to duty

in violence-torn state

A few dozen military police returned to duty Saturday in Espirito Santo, but it was unclear whether the force as a whole was ready to end a week-long strike that has paralyzed the southeastern Brazilian state and led to an outburst of violence in which more than 130 people have reportedly died.

The Espirito Santo Public Safety Department said in a statement late Saturday that officers were patrolling in the center of the state capital, Vitoria. It didnt say how many had shown up for work, but a photo with the statement appeared to show at least a few dozen officers.

The standoff began a week ago when family members of military police surrounded their barracks. The protesters prevented vehicles from exiting, thus paralyzing the force.

Because the military police, who patrol Brazilian cities, are forbidden to strike, relatives of the officers took the lead.

 Associated Press

British defense secretary reports progress in Syria: Western-backed Syrian forces should have fully encircled the Islamic States de facto capital in Syria by the spring before an offensive on the city itself, British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said. The Syrian Democratic Forces, which includes the powerful Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, launched the campaign on Raqqa in November. It announced this month the start of a new phase in the offensive, aiming to complete its encirclement of the city and cut off the road to the militants stronghold in Deir al-Zour, southeast of Raqqa.

European Commission president wont seek reelection: Jean-Claude Juncker says he will not run for another term as president of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union. The 62-year-old former prime minister of Luxembourg is set to serve until 2019.

Turkish police say two were planning attacks in Europe: Two men suspected of planning Islamic State attacks in Europe were arrested in Turkey after 10 days of being interrogated by police, Turkeys state-run news agency reported. Mahamad Laban, 45, a Danish citizen, and Mohammed Tefik Saleh, 38, a Swedish citizen, received weapons and explosives training in Syria during the past three months, the Anadolu news agency said.

Iran detains 8 alleged takfiri terrorists: Irans semiofficial Tasnim News Agency is reporting that the countrys intelligence forces have detained eight non-Iranian takfiri terrorists who they say planned to sabotage celebrations during the anniversary of the Islamic revolution. Takfiri is a term used by Iranian officials to describe militant Sunni Muslim fundamentalists such as the Islamic State group.

Hundreds protest plan to expand Warsaw boundaries: Hundreds of protesters waved flags and banners as they marched in downtown Warsaw against the ruling partys plan to enlarge the Polish capital by incorporating 32 neighboring municipalities. Opponents say the move would deprive local governments of decision-making powers but is chiefly designed to help the ruling party win control of Warsaw in the 2018 local election.

Italians protest right-wing groups meeting in Genoa: Hundreds took to the streets in the northern Italian city of Genoa to protest a meeting of European far-right political groups Saturday, and tension simmered at times with police. Demonstrators gathered in a square to the east of the coastal city ahead of the meeting, which was organized by the hard-line Italian group Forza Nuova and went ahead as planned.

 From news services
Shanez Tabarsi, right, is greeted by her daughter Negin at Logan Airport in Boston on Feb. 6 after traveling to the United States from Iran. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Why did The Post choose an emotional image of a woman embracing her mother in a wheelchair on the front page of the Jan. 29 paper? The mother was from Dubai, which was not on President Trumps list of countries from which travelers were banned, as the caption noted. The Post could equally well have used images of travelers from Canada or Australia because those countries citizens werent affected either.

This is a misleading image and not up to The Posts standards.

Margaret-Ann DeBats, Charlottesville
Laurel Eckhouse is a researcher with the Human Rights Data Analysis Groups Policing Project, and a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of California at Berkeley.

Big data has expanded to the criminal justice system. In Los Angeles, police use computerized predictive policing to anticipate crimes and allocate officers. In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., machine-learning algorithms are used to set bond amounts. In states across the country, data-driven estimates of the risk of recidivism are being used to set jail sentences.

Advocates say these data-driven tools remove human bias from the system, making it more fair as well as more effective. But even as they have become widespread, we have little information about exactly how they work. Few of the organizations producing them have released the data and algorithms they use to determine risk.

We need to know more, because its clear that such systems face a fundamental problem: The data they rely on are collected by a criminal justice system in which race makes a big difference in the probability of arrest  even for people who behave identically. Inputs derived from biased policing will inevitably make black and Latino defendants look riskier than white defendants to a computer. As a result, data-driven decision-making risks exacerbating, rather than eliminating, racial bias in criminal justice.

Consider a judge tasked with making a decision about bail for two defendants, one black and one white. Our two defendants have behaved in exactly the same way prior to their arrest: They used drugs in the same amount, have committed the same traffic offenses, owned similar homes and took their two children to the same school every morning. But the criminal justice algorithms do not rely on all of a defendants prior actions to reach a bail assessment  just those actions for which he or she has been previously arrested and convicted. Because of racial biases in arrest and conviction rates, the black defendant is more likely to have a prior conviction than the white one, despite identical conduct. A risk assessment relying on racially compromised criminal-history data will unfairly rate the black defendant as riskier than the white defendant.

To make matters worse, risk-assessment tools typically evaluate their success in predicting a defendants dangerousness on rearrests  not on defendants overall behavior after release. If our two defendants return to the same neighborhood and continue their identical lives, the black defendant is more likely to be arrested. Thus, the tool will falsely appear to predict dangerousness effectively, because the entire process is circular: Racial disparities in arrests bias both the predictions and the justification for those predictions.

We know that a black person and a white person are not equally likely to be stopped by police: Evidence on New Yorks stop-and-frisk policy, investigatory stops, vehicle searches and drug arrests show that black and Latino civilians are more likely to be stopped, searched and arrested than whites. In 2012, a white attorney spent days trying to get himself arrested in Brooklyn for carrying graffiti stencils and spray paint, a Class B misdemeanor. Even when police saw him tagging the City Hall gateposts, they sped past him, ignoring a crime for which 3,598 people were arrested by the New York Police Department the following year.

Before adopting risk-assessment tools in the judicial decision-making process, jurisdictions should demand that any tool being implemented undergo a thorough and independent peer-review process. We need more transparency and better data to learn whether these risk assessments have disparate impacts on defendants of different races. Foundations and organizations developing risk-assessment tools should be willing to release the data used to build these tools to researchers to evaluate their techniques for internal racial bias and problems of statistical interpretation. Even better, with multiple sources of data, researchers could identify biases in data generated by the criminal justice system before the data is used to make decisions about liberty. Unfortunately, producers of risk-assessment tools  even nonprofit organizations  have not voluntarily released anonymized data and computational details to other researchers, as is now standard in quantitative social science research.

For these tools to make racially unbiased predictions, they must use racially unbiased data. We cannot trust the current risk-assessment tools to make important decisions about our neighbors liberty unless we believe  contrary to social science research  that data on arrests offer an accurate and unbiased representation of behavior. Rather than telling us something new, these tools risk laundering bias: using biased history to predict a biased future.

The writer is a researcher with the Human Rights Data Analysis Groups Policing Project and a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of California at Berkeley.
Regarding The wonders of an empathetic ear in the doctors office, the Feb. 5 Book World review of Danielle Ofris book What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear:

The theme of Ofris book, the value of a doctors empathetic ear in his or her interactions with patients, presents an objective worth pursuing. Who doesnt want to feel heard and understood, particularly when one is sick or fearful of a diagnosis?

Unfortunately, medicine has evolved over decades into a business; physicians clinics are often crammed full, and practice guidelines set out stringent times for new and follow-up visits, ranging from approximately 30 minutes for the former to 15 for the latter. If a visit exceeds these limits, a physician gets behind, and subsequent patients are made to wait (and they probably become irritable). In a hospital setting, administrations impose quotas; if the doctor cant meet them, a replacement can be found.

Most doctors I know are caring and sympathetic; they are simply squeezed and stretched thin by perhaps impractical time constraints and unrealistic quotas. If this book elucidates the importance of meaningful doctor-patient interactions, perhaps a future one will suggest how this important goal of connection can be attained.

Anne Louise Clayton, Rockville
An Israeli flag waves in front of the minaret of a mosque in Jerusalem's Old City. (THOMAS COEX/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

The Jan. 29 news article Netanyahus talk of a state-minus stumps diplomats alleged, For a generation, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah has been very specific about what it wants: a sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, based on 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Aside from the fact that there are no 1967 borders between Israel and the West Bank, only the 1949 Israeli-Jordanian armistice line, the article failed to remind readers that the Palestinian leadership rejected in 2000 and 2008 U.S. and Israeli offers of what it asserts those leaders wanted.

The article also said, Israelis, Palestinians and American diplomats have been struggling to define what Netanyahu might have meant by a state-minus  arrangement instead of a two-state solution. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, even after the 1993 Israeli-Palestine Liberation Organization Oslo accords, favored Palestinian self-rule but not full sovereignty. He reiterated in his last Knesset speech in 1995 that Israels security border would remain along the Jordan Valley and warned that evacuation of the West Bank would pose a grave danger.

Further, the Jan. 20 WorldViews column Jerusalem mayor releases video praising Trump reported that Tel Aviv is 50 miles from Jerusalem. If only. It is 33 miles from Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean coast to Jerusalem on the crest of the Judean Mountains. If it were 50, Jerusalem would sit on the shore of the Dead Sea opposite Jordan, and at that point, by implication, thered be no West Bank.

The article also claimed that former president Barack Obama, as has every other modern-day president, supports a two-state solution to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The two-state solution has been a diplomatic possibility only since the Clinton administration, formally endorsed by President George W. Bush. Perhaps George H.W. Bush and his immediate predecessors were not modern-day presidents.

Eric Rozenman, Fairfax

The writer is a communications consultant with the Jewish Policy Center.
PRESIDENT TRUMP shook the Peoples Republic of China in December with his unprecedented phone call with Taiwans leader and by suggesting he might alter the one-China policy that has been the bedrock of relations with Beijing for nearly four decades. On Thursday evening, Mr. Trump spoke for the first time during his presidency with President Xi Jinping and pledged to honor the one-China approach. It was a wise turnabout. Now Mr. Trump should get on with a refurbishment of relations with China.

A new study points out those relations are at a precarious crossroads. In the past decade, Chinas behavior has grown more assertive. It has put muscle into its maritime claims, become more repressive at home and strengthened state control over the economy while protecting Chinese business at the expense of foreign competitors. Overall, say authors of the new task force report, led by Orville Schell of the Asia Society and Susan L. Shirk of the University of California at San Diego, the relationship has become more fraught with risk and more contentious since the 2008 financial crisis.

Mr. Trump has made no secret of his unhappiness with China over trade. But the task force suggests the larger recalibration must be done with care and should focus on six urgent priorities: restraining North Koreas nuclear and missile programs, reassuring U.S. allies in Asia, righting an imbalance in trade and business relations with China, seeking a rules-based approach to settling maritime disputes, pushing back at Chinas repression of civil society and sustaining cooperation on global warming. This is a serious and laudable to-do list.

On North Korea, the group urges Mr. Trump to enlist China actively, setting up a new high-level channel, a shift from President Barack Obamas approach of strategic patience. The group outlines a possible grand bargain in which North Korea agrees to a verified freeze in the nuclear and missile programs in exchange for a formal peace treaty replacing the Korean War armistice and diplomatic relations with the United States. If North Korea balks, the United States should impose sanctions on Chinese firms doing business with North Korea and deploy antimissile batteries to South Korea, the report says. That makes sense: A more proactive approach on North Korea is overdue, even if bargaining with Pyongyang is difficult and Chinas wholehearted engagement is not assured.

The task force usefully points out that while Chinese think tanks, academic institutions and media are allowed to operate freely in the United States, American nongovernmental organizations are being put under tighter police and government control inside China. Beijing is also curtailing U.S. media and Internet companies. This kind of imbalance should lead the United States to demand more reciprocity from China, the task force says.

As the report makes clear, Mr. Trump is right to want to put the hugely interdependent U.S.-China relationship on a new footing. But it makes no sense to go about slamming doors. The goal should be more openness, reciprocity and rules-based behavior from Beijing.
Flemming Rose is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Jacob Mchangama is director of the Copenhagen-based think tank Justitia.

Remember George Orwells Ministry of Truth? In his dystopian novel 1984, its purpose was to dictate and protect the governments version of reality. During the Cold War, Orwells book was banned behind the Iron Curtain, because readers perceived the novel as an allegory for their own repressive regimes.

It was a serious crime to distribute information defaming the Soviet social and political system. Such criminal laws were widely used by the Kremlin to silence dissidents, human rights activists, religious movements and groups fighting for independence in the Soviet republics. Similar laws were on the books in East Germany, Poland and other Eastern bloc countries.

Thankfully, today this landscape is much changed, but increasingly there are disturbing echoes of the past. Amid a debate about the rising influence of fake news and the danger it poses to the political and social order in the West, democratic politicians in Europe have proposed sanctions  and even prison terms  for those found responsible for distributing false information.

Euopean Union Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova has warned tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter that if they dont find ways to eliminate hate speech and combat fake news, a law mandating action may be necessary. Commissioner Andrus Ansip reinforced that threat last month, albeit in softer language, prompting social-media giants and traditional media to announce a flurry of initiatives aimed at combating fake news.

Italys antitrust chief, Giovanni Pitruzzella, has said that E.U. countries should set up a network of government-appointed bodies to remove fake news and potentially impose fines on the media. Pitruzzella doesnt hide his political agenda  he wants to target his opponents on the populist left and right. Post-truth in politics is one of the drivers of populism, and it is one of the threats to our democracies, he told the Financial Times.

In Germany, politicians eager to counter Russian meddling and populist movements in upcoming parliamentarian elections have issued similar calls. Justice Minister Heiko Maas argues that authorities need the power to impose prison terms for fake news on social media. Defamation and malicious gossip are not covered under freedom of speech, Maas said. Justice authorities must prosecute that, even on the Internet. Anyone who tries to manipulate the political discussion with lies needs to be aware [of the consequences].

It is understandable that liberal democracies are deeply worried about disinformation, which tears at the fabric of pluralistic democratic societies. John Stuart Mill famously argued that free speech would help exchange error for truth and create the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. Yet this justification weakens considerably if lies and disinformation become indistinguishable from truth. In such an environment, Democracy will not survive a lack of belief in the possibility of impartial institutions, political scientist Francis Fukuyama recently wrote. Instead, partisan political combat will come to pervade every aspect of life.

That is indeed a nightmare scenario to be avoided. But using legal measures to counter disinformation is likely to be a cure worse than the disease. One does not need to go back to the Cold War to worry about what happens when governments become the arbiters of truth.

In the past two years, Egypt has sentenced six Al Jazeera journalists to death or long prison terms for, among other things, allegedly spreading false news. In 2013, Gambia  until the recent ouster of Yahya Jammeh, one of Africas worst dictators  introduced a punishment of up to 15 years imprisonment and hefty fines for those who spread false news, citing a need for stability and the prevention of unpatriotic behavior and treacherous campaigns. Russia, ironically the source of so much of the disinformation menacing liberal democracies, uses broad and vague anti-extremism laws to prohibit news that the Kremlin views as propaganda  including prison sentences for social-media users who insist that Crimea is part of Ukraine.

Of course, Europes established democracies have little in common with the Soviet Union or other illiberal regimes. But the legal tools proposed by European politicians to suppress fake news sound alarmingly like those used by authoritarian governments to silence dissent. This is dangerous. Not only are such measures incompatible with the principle of free speech, but also they set precedents that could quickly strengthen the hand of the populist forces that mainstream European politicians feel so threatened by.

Europe may soon find itself with populists such as Frances Marine Le Pen and the Netherlands Geert Wilders with real power. Such leaders would draw the line between fake news and free speech very differently than mainstream politicians  perhaps aiming them at the supposedly corrupt established media rather than websites, blogs and social media trafficking in alternative facts. It is also unlikely that the increasingly illiberal governments of Poland and Hungary would agree with the European Commission or German Chancellor Angela Merkel on what constitutes false information or fake news.

And while the First Amendment prevents the U.S. government from overtly limiting press freedom, its clear that President Trumps definition of fake news is vastly different from what his opponents or the media have in mind.

Above all, rather than strengthening established media institutions, banning fake news might very well undermine them in the eyes of the public. If alternative outlets are prosecuted or shut down, mainstream media risk being seen as unofficial propaganda tools of the powers that be. Behind the Iron Curtain, nonofficial media outlets had more credibility than official media in spite of the fact that not everything they published was accurate or fact-checked. The hashtag #fakenews could become a selling point with the public if it were banned rather than rigorously countered and refuted.

As White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon replied when asked whether press secretary Sean Spicer, after making irrefutably false statements, had damaged his credibility with the media: Are you kidding me? We think thats a badge of honor.
PHOENIX  Citing limited resources and Arizonas controversial history, many local and state law enforcement officials said they have no plans to amp up their immigration enforcement in light of a presidential executive order calling for them to crackdown on illegal immigration.

The executive order, which President Donald Trump signed January 25, in addition to pushing for the immediate planning and construction of a border wall, directed the federal government to empower State and local law enforcement agencies across the country to perform the functions of an immigration officer,

Officials from law enforcement agencies across the state were cautious not to elaborate on specific effects of the executive order until the federal government provides more detailed instructions.

As far as Im concerned its business as usual unless some specific order or mandate comes up that changes the law that makes us immigration officers, and I think were a long way from that and thats something we dont need, said Santa Cruz Sheriff Tony Estrada. Santa Cruz County and encompasses 50 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, including Nogales.

Estrada said his department cooperates with Customs and Border Protection officers and Border Patrol agents, who have a significant presence in his county. He said his deputies call Border Patrol if they have reason to believe that an individual is in the country illegally. But he said he simply doesnt have the resources to enforce immigration law.

Capt. Arnold Freeman, a spokesman for the Apache Junction Police Department, said he has similar concerns. Apache Junctions police force has about 15 officers, comparable size to many smaller cities and towns in the state, but it has the additional challenge of policing a population that doubles in winter months because of visiting snowbirds.

With our current population and what weve got we couldnt take on any additional duties, Freeman said. Unfunded mandates kill local budgets, whether its coming from the county, the state or the feds, if its an unfunded mandate it will literally take away from our local services. If they want us to do it, somebody needs to pay for it.

Part of Trumps order calls for a renewed push for 287(g) agreements, which are a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that allow the Department of Homeland Security to deputize local and state law enforcement officers to act as federal immigration agents to investigate, apprehend and detain undocumented immigrants.

Seven Arizona law enforcement agencies had active 287(g) agreements in May 2008, according to ICE data, that allowed some departments to check immigration status in their jails and others to have immigration enforcement authority while patrolling the streets. Many of these agreements expired or were scaled back during the Obama Administration, leaving only four agencies in Arizona with active agreements today, according to ICE.

These agencies  Arizona Department of Corrections, Mesa Police, Pinal County Sheriffs Office and Yavapai County Sheriffs Office  only have authorization to check immigration status in their detention centers.

Three of the four departments with active agreements said they dont anticipate expanding their 287(g) capabilities to allow immigration enforcement on the streets.

A spokesperson with the Mesa Police Department declined to be interviewed on the subject and did not respond to emailed follow-up questions by the time of publication.

Chief Deputy Matt Thomas of the Pinal County Sheriffs Office said his county benefits from the 287(g) program in the jail.

Rather than cycle people through our jail that are in the country illegally and have committed crimes we cycle them through and once we finish state charges, they are handed off to ICE to face the immigration charges, he said. Obviously theres a lot of emotion around this particular topic but were really just trying, at the local level, to do our best for our citizens without infringing on peoples rights.

The agencies that previously had active 287(g) agreements  Phoenix Police, the Department of Public Safety and Pima County Sheriffs Department  said they do not have plans to resurrect those agreements after Trumps order.

We want crime victims and witnesses to feel comfortable reporting to police regardless of their residential status, said Sgt. Jonathan Howard, a spokesman for Phoenix Police, in an emailed statement.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton went a step further on Thursday, following large protests opposing the deportation of a Mesa mother who had lived in the U.S. for decades. She was detained Wednesday and deported to Mexico Thursday afternoon.

Rather than tracking down violent criminal and drug dealers, ICE is spending its energy deporting a woman with two American children who has lived here for more than two decades and poses a threat to nobody, Stanton said in a statement Thursday. It is outrageous, and precisely why as long as I am mayor, Phoenix will not participate in the 287(g) program or enter into any other agreements with the Trump Administration that aim to advance his mass deportation plans.

According to a Pew Research Center report released Thursday, the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area is home to approximately 250,000 undocumented immigrants, which is tied for the eighth-highest undocumented population in the country when compared to other metropolitan areas.

Alessandra Soler, the executive director of the ACLU Arizona, said Trumps executive order evokes flashbacks to SB 1070, Arizonas controversial immigration law.

It was a dark and awful time for our state and what was so sad about this executive order was it really reminded me of that period in our history in 2010, she said. People were afraid and there was so much outrage.

The state law went beyond the 287(g) agreements, which limited the enforcement to criminal task forces and excluded undocumented immigrants who hadnt committed a crime from being affected. Being in the U.S. illegally is a civil offense.

But SB 1070, even after portions of the law were struck down by the Supreme Court, requires law enforcement making routine traffic stops or arrests to attempt to determine someones immigration status if the officer has reasonable suspicion that they are undocumented.

The law was embraced by the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office, which also dedicated extensive resources to 287(g) agreements under the previous sheriff, Joe Arpaio. In October 2016, he was charged with contempt of court after a judge said he intentionally defied orders to stop racially profiling Latinos during traffic stops and workplace raids conducted in search of undocumented employees.

Arpaio for us, hes the worst case scenario, Soler said. So when you start entering into these types of agreements it opens the door to racial profiling and other illegal practices, like prolonging the time of an arrest just to check someones status.

Arpaios successor, Paul Penzone, said in a statement his office would no longer conduct workplace raids, saying the practice was an exaggeration of law enforcement resources and tactics. Court monitors have been placed in the sheriffs office to ensure their practices follow the rules of the court orders Arpaio incurred.

Mark Casey, spokesman for the sheriffs office said the process for referring undocumented immigrants who are arrested to ICE is very complex and very cumbersome and very slow which is a bad thing because it requires us and everyone to deliberate how were going about dealing with human beings.

Penzones campaign centered on improving community relations, and Casey said he aims to correct previous wrongs.

Our predecessor here engaged in wholesale racial profiling in the name of immigration enforcement the was taken to court and was found to be acting in a manner that is outside the law, Casey said. No matter where this ends up, were going to follow the law and court orders and treat people humanely and with respect no matter what their culture or citizenship status.

Doris Marie Provine, a professor at Arizona State Universitys School of Justice and Social Inquiry, is an expert in immigration enforcement on the state and local levels and published a book in 2016 on the subject, titled Policing Immigrants: Local Law Enforcement on the Front Lines.

She said Trumps executive order likely wont have far-reaching effects in Arizona.

I think these orders are incomplete and theyre more limited than the administration is really letting on, she said. The other reason is because, frankly, we never got that far away from the policies hes trying to reinstate in the first place.  Police departments never really did give those programs up. Still, over half of the people that they report to immigration authorities have no criminal history at all.

Provine also said the order could create potential liability issues for Arizona law enforcement, which is why many departments dont have an official policy on immigration enforcement.

We found that over half of places didnt have either written or an unwritten policy, and since 98 percent have an anti-racial profiling policy Why would they not have a policy about how to handle the cases where there might be an immigration issue? And the reason is because its a total hot potato, she said. They dont want to write anything down.
Wisconsin-based artist and pastor Paul Oman will visit the Franciscan Spirituality Center on Saturday, March 18, for a special event, Drawn to the Word: Seeing the Bible Story Come to Life Before Your Eyes.

Oman will journey through Lenten texts from the Gospel of Luke as he paints a large mural before an audience, sharing the stories not only visually and artistically but also scripturally and musically.

People of all faith traditions are welcome.

Oman was serving as a science teacher and then Lutheran pastor when, in 2011, he took up work as an artistic pastor full time. He says he seeks to give new vision to Gods Word by using the process of painting to captivate audiences in our visually oriented culture.

Oman lives near Amery, Wis., with his wife and three children. Highly proficient in both watercolor and acrylic mediums, Oman has earned numerous awards for his work over the years. Learn more about him at www.paulomanfineart.com.

Drawn to the Word will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the center, 920 Market St. Cost is $50, and lunch is included. To register, call 608-791-5295 or go to www.fscenter.org.
Protesters outside of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco on Tuesday. (Jeff Chiu/Associated Press)

IT IS possible to debate whether President Trumps immigration executive order was callous and counterproductive, as we believe it was. But there is no question that its rollout was sloppy and arrogant  and that includes the legal defense the government mounted when inevitably challenged in court. Four federal judges have now rejected several untenable claims the Trump administration made, and rightfully so.

A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled Thursday that the Trump administrations restrictions on travel from seven majority-Muslim countries will remain on ice while the courts work through whether the restrictions are legal. This is only the beginning of a long battle, but there are a few arguments the judges dispensed with upfront.

For example, the government argued that the president has unreviewable authority to suspend the admission of any class of aliens. The court easily batted down this dangerous contention: There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy, the panel wrote. Although courts owe considerable deference to the Presidents policy determinations with respect to immigration and national security, it is beyond question that the federal judiciary retains the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges to executive action.

In short: Mr. Trump needs to accept that he cannot rule by decree, without regard for judicial checks. The courts can and must block him when he overreaches, especially on matters of civil liberty and national security.

The government also argued that the court should ignore a glaring problem with the presidents executive order  that it appeared to apply to green-card holders and others with legal status that rightly led them to expect that they would be able to travel into and out of the United States  because the White House counsels office later issued an authoritative guidance lifting restrictions from lawful permanent residents.

The court fired back: At this point, however, we cannot rely upon the Governments contention that the Executive Order no longer applies to lawful permanent residents, the judges wrote. The White House counsel is not the President, and he is not known to be in the chain of command for any of the Executive Departments. Moreover, in light of the Governments shifting interpretations of the Executive Order, we cannot say that the current interpretation by White House counsel, even if authoritative and binding, will persist past the immediate stage of these proceedings.

In other words, the Trump administrations erratic behavior has earned it no credibility with the judiciary, and it deserves no trust that any lawful elements of the order will be executed properly without supervision.

As if to illustrate that very point, Mr. Trump responded to the court ruling in his unsettlingly juvenile fashion, condemning the decision as political and disgraceful. GOP critics pilloried President Barack Obama for issuing a relatively mild criticism of the Supreme Courts Citizens United decision. Mr. Trump, by contrast, continues to treat the judicial branch as yet another political enemy to bully into submission  behavior that reportedly led his own Supreme Court nominee to comment that attacks on judges are demoralizing and disheartening.

The independence of and trust in the judiciary are prerequisites for a free society. What sort of society does Mr. Trump want?
Good news: In two years, well have a new president. Bad news: If we make it that long.

My good prediction is based on the Law of the Pendulum. Enough Americans, including most independent voters, will be so ready to shed Donald Trump and his little shop of horrors that the 2018 midterm elections are all but certain to be a landslide  no, make that a mudslide  sweep of the House and Senate. If Republicans took both houses in a groundswell of the peoples rejection of Obamacare, Democrats will take them back in a tsunami of protest.

Once ensconced, it would take a Democratic majority approximately 30 seconds to begin impeachment proceedings selecting from an accumulating pile of lies, overreach and just plain sloppiness. That is, assuming Trump hasnt already been shown the exit.

Or that he hasnt declared martial law (all those anarchists, you know) and effectively silenced dissent. Were already well on our way to the latter via Trumps incessant attacks on the media  among the most dishonest human beings on Earth  and press secretary Sean Spicers rabid-chihuahua, daily press briefings. (Note to Sean: Whatever hes promised you, its not worth becoming Melissa McCarthys punching bag. But really, dont stop.)

With luck, and Cabinet-level courage that is not much in evidence, theres a chance we wont have to wait two long years, during which, lets face it, anything could happen. In anticipation of circumstances warranting a speedier presidential replacement, wiser minds added Section 4 to the 25th Amendment, which removes the president if a majority of the Cabinet and the vice president think it necessary, i.e., if the president is injured or falls too ill to serve. Or, by extension, by being so incompetent  or not-quite-right  that he or she poses a threat to the nation and must be removed immediately and replaced by the vice president.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Arent we there, yet?

Thus far, Trump and his henchmen have conducted a full frontal assault on civil liberties, open government and religious freedom, as well as instigating or condoning a cascade of ethics violations ranging from the serious (business conflicts of interest) to the absurd (attacking a department store for dropping his daughters fashion line). And, no, its not just a father defending his daughter. Its the president of the United States bullying a particular business and, more generally, making a public case against free enterprise.

To an objective observer, it would seem impossible to defend the perilous absurdities emanating from the White House and from at least one executive agency, the Agriculture Department, which recently scrubbed animal abuse reports from its website, leaving puppies, kittens, horses and others to fend for themselves.

In a hopeful note, a few Republicans are speaking out, but the list is short.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz recently got a taste of whats ahead for Republican incumbents. Facing an unruly crowd at a town hall meeting in Utah, the House Oversight Committee chairman was booed nearly every time he mentioned Trump. Even if many in the crowd were members of opposition groups, the evening provided a glimpse of the next two years. From 2010s tea party to 2018s resistance, the pendulum barely had time to pause before beginning its leftward trek.

While we wait for it to someday find the nations center, where so many wait impatiently, it seems clear that the president, who swore an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution, has never read it. Nor, apparently, has he ever even watched a Hollywood rendering of the presidency. A single episode of The West Wing would have taught Trump more about his new job than he seems to know  or care.

Far more compelling than keeping his promise to act presidential is keeping campaign promises against reason, signing poorly conceived executive orders, bashing the judicial and legislative branches, and tweeting his spleen to a wondering and worrying world.

1 of 83 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  See what President Trump has been doing since taking office View Photos The new president is expected to make his mark on an aggressive legislative agenda. Caption The beginning of the presidents term has featured controversial executive orders and frequent conflicts with the media. March 17, 2017 President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and their son, Barron, walk to Marine One at the White House en route to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

Trumps childish and petulant manner, meanwhile, further reinforces long-held concerns that this man cant be trusted to lead a dog-and-pony act, much less the nation. Most worrisome is how long Trump can tolerate the protests, criticisms, humiliations, rebuttals and defeats  and what price hell try to exact from those who refused to look away.

Read more from Kathleen Parkers archive, follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook.
At their post-Civil War apogee, 19th-century Republicans were the party of activist government, using protectionism to pick commercial winners and promising wondrous benefits from governments deft interventions in economic life. Today, a Republican administration promises that wisely wielded Washington power can rearrange commercial activities in ways superior to those produced by private-sector calculations in free market transactions.

According to the Financial Times, which interviewed him, Peter Navarro, head of the presidents National Trade Council, indicated an administration priority is unwinding and repatriating the international supply chains on which many U.S. multinational companies rely. This will make life interesting for, among many others, Americas third and 24th largest corporations, Apple and Boeing, respectively.

The tiny print on the back of iPhones accurately says it is assembled, not manufactured, in China. The American Enterprise Institutes James Pethokoukis notes that parts come from South Korea, Japan, Italy, Taiwan, Germany and the United States. Components of Boeing airliners wings come from Japan, South Korea and Australia; horizontal stabilizers and center fuselages from Italy; cargo access doors from Sweden; passenger entry doors from France; landing-gear doors from Canada; engines and landing gear from Britain.

Navarros unwinding and repatriating is, to say no more, part of an improbable project: making America greater by making Apple, Boeing and many other corporations much less efficient and less competitive. This will further slow economic growth, making even more unattainable the 4 percent (more than double the economys average growth this century) or higher growth that the administration says will enable it to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure (including a $15 billion or so wall on the Mexican border, begun after nearly a decade of net negative immigration from Mexico), while substantially increasing military spending, leaving entitlements unreformed and delivering enormous tax cuts. Cuts that, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (whose co-chairs include Republican Mitch Daniels and Democrat Leon Panetta, both former directors of the Office of Management and Budget ), will reduce revenues by $5.8 trillion over 10 years. This, as the Congressional Budget Office projects that even without any of the administrations proposed spending spree and tax cuts, under current law the national debt would increase by $9.4 trillion.

Speaking of supply chains: In her book The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, Georgetown Universitys Pietra Rivoli recounts a conversation with a man from Shanghai who said that if she would come to China he would help her see various places involved in producing the inexpensive T-shirts exported to the United States. She would see where the yarn is spun, the fabric is knit and the shirts are sewn. Asked if she could see where the cotton is grown, the man from China said he could not show her that because the cotton probably is grown in Teksa. Rivoli spun a globe around to China and asked him to point to Teksa. He took the globe and spun it back around the other way, Rivoli writes.  Here, I think it is grown here. I followed his finger. Patrick was pointing at Texas.

Todays Republican administration promises protection against the destruction of American jobs by the Chinese, Mexicans and other foreigners. The really prolific destroyers are: Americans. As Reasons John Tamny says, Americans streaming movies from Netflix (based in Los Gatos, Calif.) erase American jobs in movie theaters and DVD rental stores. Americans buying books from Seattle-based Amazon have caused many American bookstores to do what Borders (399 stores, 11,000 employees) did: disappear. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon, owns The Post.) Americans using San Francisco-based Uber are destroying many taxi drivers jobs.

Evidently our protectors in the administration must believe this: The destruction of American jobs because Americans buy goods or services of some American companies rather than those of other American companies is benign. But the destruction of American jobs because Americans buy goods or services of foreign companies is intolerable.

An administration confident about conducting interventions in the economy should demonstrate care when bandying numbers. But in defending the sensible idea of reducing government regulation of the financial sector, Gary Cohn, director of the presidents National Economic Council, said this would save literally hundreds of billions of dollars of regulatory costs every year. Former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers notes the implausibility: Total bank profits last year were about $170 billion. Deregulation will more than double profits?

As todays Republicans celebrate a protectionist administration that is confident that Washingtons superior wisdom can improve upon the markets allocation of economic resources, Democrats must resent Republican plagiarism. Who will protect Americans from their protectors?

Read more from George F. Wills archive or follow him on Facebook.
Senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, with White House chief of staff Reince Priebus in the foreground, has been at President Trumps side for more than a year. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

As a young conservative in liberal Santa Monica, Calif., Stephen Miller clashed frequently with his high school, often calling in to a national radio show to lambaste administrators for promoting multiculturalism, allowing Spanish-language morning announcements and failing to require recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Millers outrage did not appear to subside after he graduated. As a Duke University sophomore, Miller penned a column, titled Santa Monica Highs Multicultural Fistfights, in which he ripped his alma mater as a center for political indoctrination.

The social experiment that Santa Monica High School has become is yet one more example of the dismal failure of leftism and the delusions and paranoia of its architects, Miller wrote in the 2005 article for the conservative magazine FrontPage.

In the years before he became a top adviser to President Trump and a leading West Wing advocate for the executive order temporarily halting entry into the United States from seven majority-Muslim countries, Miller was developing his skills as a culture warrior and conservative provocateur eager to condemn liberal orthodoxy  particularly on matters of race and identity. Like Trump, Miller forged that identity while immersed in liberal communities, giving him cachet with fellow conservatives for waging his battles on opposition turf.

Starting as a teenager, with his frequent calls to the nationally syndicated Larry Elder Show, Miller made a name for himself in conservative media circles for his willingness to take controversial stands and act as a champion for those on the right who felt maligned by a culture of political correctness.

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

He produced a canon of searing columns on race, gender and other hot-button issues and, at Duke, became known to Fox News viewers as a leading defender of the white lacrosse players wrongfully accused of raping a black stripper. By his late 20s, Miller was a key aide to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), helping to torpedo a long-sought goal of immigrant advocacy groups to put millions of unauthorized Hispanic immigrants on a path to citizenship.

Today, at 31, he has emerged alongside former Breitbart News chief Stephen K. Bannon as a chief engineer of Trumps populist America first agenda that has roiled the Washington debate over immigration and trade and sparked alarm among traditional U.S. allies abroad.

Miller, whose White House title is senior adviser to the president for policy, has been at Trumps side for more than a year, joining his campaign in January 2016 when Sessions, who was sworn in Thursday as attorney general, was one of the only Republican officials to endorse the businessmans candidacy.

While Trump at times revamped his campaign leadership, with Bannon joining relatively late in August 2016, Miller remained a steady presence whose profile and influence grew over time.

He wrote some of Trumps most strident speeches during the campaign, including his Republican National Convention acceptance address in which Trump declared that nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.

And Miller sometimes served as the warm-up act for Trump at his large campaign rallies, including a rip-roaring speech in Wisconsin during the Republican primary when Miller thrashed Trumps chief rival, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), for supporting increases in legal immigration that would result in more Muslims entering the country  a position Miller charged that Cruz held with no regard, no concern for how it would affect the security of you and your family.

After reports of Millers central role crafting the order imposing a 90-day ban on citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States, the young aide has drawn uncomfortable new scrutiny. MSNBCs Joe Scarborough, host of the Morning Joe program that is a Trump favorite, recently blasted Miller as a very young person in the White House on a power trip thinking that you can just write executive orders and tell all of your Cabinet agencies to go to hell.

View Graphic Who is affected by Trumps travel ban

For Miller, though, working in the Trump White House is a natural culmination of his young career  a chance to work for a president who appears to share his zeal for getting under the skin of political opponents.

The way that people on the left abuse and slam people on the right  thats probably the thing thats most concerned Stephen, said Elder, the Los Angeles-based conservative talk-show host who Miller describes as a mentor. The lack of fairness. The left wing dominance in academia. The left wing dominance in the media. The left wing dominance in Hollywood.

Millers ideological awakening found its roots in a left-leaning high school where he has written that social life and academics were badly segregated, despite what he saw as a devotion among teachers and administrators to multiculturalism.

My best judgment at the time was that the educational answer that had been provided, which was to reject the melting-pot formula in favor of an educational formula that focused on all the things that made us different, was not working, he told The Washington Post in an interview.

Miller said he rejects the provocateur label, saying it suggests that his intentions are to seek attention rather than what he says is his true goal  to battle against slim odds, a stacked deck and powerful entrenched forces, in pursuit of justice.

Miller said he turned away from the more liberal politics of his parents as he grew up in Santa Monica after buying a subscription to Guns & Ammo magazine and becoming familiar with the writings of actor Charlton Heston, a longtime president of the National Rifle Association.

Miller began appearing on Elders show, a local broadcast that is aired in 300 markets, after the 9/11 attacks, when he felt his home town lacked sufficient patriotism.

Elder said that Miller called in the first time to voice objections to his schools failure to recite the Pledge of Allegiance daily as required by state law.

In writings at the time and later, Miller said he lobbied for the pledge recitation against a recalcitrant administration that refused to put the practice in place even after he had flagged the legal violation. Osama Bin Laden would feel very welcome at Santa Monica High School, he wrote in a letter to the editor at the time.

Its difficult to overstate the extent to which the instructional environment on campus was breathtakingly PC, Miller said in an interview.

Mark Kelly, who was the principal at the time, said he did not recall the episode as a major fight. When Miller flagged the issue, Kelly said he researched the law and realized that the school, indeed, needed to change its policy and institute the recitation of the pledge. Miller was invited to lead the pledge after it was reinstated.

Stephen was right, Kelly recalled.

The victory was a validation for Miller of the necessity to fight powerful figures who opposed his views.

Miller pushed the school administration over his desire to host an on-campus speech by David Horowitz  a onetime Marxist, then controversial far-right conservative  who became an early mentor and would later introduce Miller to Sessions.

Horowitz recalls being immediately impressed with Miller. One of the things that struck me when I became a conservative was that conservatives dont have any fight, Horowitz said. They dont have any stomach for it. . . . Stephen Miller had that from the get-go.

Cultural-identity issues appeared to particularly animate Miller. In a column in his high school newspaper, titled A Time to Kill, he urged violent response to radical Islamists.

We have all heard about how peaceful and benign the Islamic religion is, but no matter how many times you say that, it cannot change the fact that millions of radical Muslims would celebrate your death for the simple reason that you are Christian, Jewish or American, Miller wrote.

Ari Rosmarin, a civil rights lawyer who edited the student newspaper at time, recalled that Miller was especially critical of a Mexican American student group.

I think hes got a very sharp understanding of what words and issues will poke and provoke progressives, because he came up around it and really cut his teeth picking these fights that had low stakes but high offense, Rosmarin said.

That skill led Miller to become a mini-celebrity in conservative intellectual circles because of his passion, age and home town. He appeared 70 times on Elders show before his high school graduation, according to the host.

He found a really unique role to play that was deeply attractive to national conservatives, Rosmarin said. He was like a lonely warrior behind enemy lines.

In the halls of Santa Monica High School, though, where students and teachers took pride in their ethnic diversity and liberal values, Miller was becoming something of a pariah. That environment prompted Miller to become even more assertive, recalled one of his former teachers.

He had to come on a little strong as a defense mechanism  just to survive, said the teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for how colleagues would react to the defense of an alumnus so closely associated with Trump. He came under a lot of fire, even from teachers.

At Duke, Miller wrote a biweekly column for the student newspaper that regularly aroused the ire of classmates.

Men and women are in many ways the same, but theyre also innately and magnificently different, he wrote in one column that argued laws requiring men and women to be paid equally would hurt businesses and that the pay gap largely resulted from women taking time off for childbirth, being less willing to ask for raises and being less likely to take part in hazardous work.

The point is that the pay gap has virtually nothing to do with gender discrimination, he wrote. Sorry, feminists. Hate to break this good news to you.

In a column titled The Case for Christmas, Miller, who is Jewish, argued that the holiday should be more widely recognized as a crucial American holiday.

Christianity is embedded in the very soul of our nation, he wrote.

Miller stepped into the national spotlight after three white lacrosse players were falsely accused of rape in a case rife with racial tension. The players were eventually cleared and the local district attorney was disbarred for prosecutorial misconduct in the case. Miller wrote a series of columns about the case and appeared on national television to discuss it.

This travesty has been allowed to continue because we live in a nation paralyzed by racial paranoia, he wrote in November 2006, writing that professors and others were frightened to speak in defense of the students because the district attorney had turned the case into a racial crusade and opposition would be perceived negatively by the black community and that there would be a political price to pay.

Speaking years later about his role as an advocate for the players, Miller told The Post: The one takeaway I have from it is that in a difficult moment, I took a stand on principle  and I was correct.

Reflecting more broadly on his college-era columns, Miller said his writings were a good reflection of his views at the time. But, he said, I would surely hope that any person who was a writer about political and controversial topics in college would find that their thoughts had matured on a variety of issues. He declined to outline where his own views had changed over time.

Millers outspokenness in the lacrosse case first brought him to the attention of Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who was a Duke graduate student at the time. Spencer said he became friendly with Miller through the Duke Conservative Union in fall 2006.

He was very out in front, very bold and strong, Spencer said in an interview.

Spencer last year told the Daily Beast that he was a mentor to Miller, which Miller has angrily denied.

I condemn him. I condemn his views. I have no relationship with him. He was not my friend, Miller said.

Miller noted that he served on campus as the executive director of the leading conservative group, which put him in contact with Spencer. Our interaction was limited to the activities of the organization, of which he was a member, and thus ceased upon graduation, Miller said.

But Spencer said that the two met frequently during their Duke days. As first reported by Mother Jones magazine, they both helped organize an immigration debate between Peter Brimelow, an anti-immigration activist whose website has been labeled a hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Peter Laufer, who advocated for opening the southern U.S. border. Spencer praised Millers media savvy and organizational skills in advance of that event.

David Bitner, a friend of Millers who also belonged to the conservative club at Duke, said the two did interact in the small group. But Bitner called it scurrilous libel for Spencer to claim he was Millers mentor.

Richard Spencer believes in white identity politics. Stephen Miller disavows identity politics, he said.

Nevertheless, Millers role in the White House has been greeted with enthusiasm by Spencer and other white nationalist figures.

He is not a white nationalist, Spencer said. But you cant be this passionate about the immigration issue and not have a sense of the American nation as it historically emerged.

After attending Trumps inauguration, Jared Taylor, another high-profile white nationalist, posted a piece to his website in which he wrote that Trump is not a racially conscious white man but that there are men close to him  Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller  who may have a clearer understanding of race, and their influence could grow.

In an interview, Taylor said he was speculating and that he has not met or spoken with Miller.

Miller said he has profound objections to the views advanced by Taylor and Spencer, saying: I condemn this rancid ideology.

Elder, who is black, said he has never heard Miller speak of Spencer or Taylor or express what he considers racist views.

Instead, Elder said, Miller believes as he does: Race and racism are no longer major problems in America. This is the fairest majority-white country in the world. If you work hard and make good decisions, youll be fine.

Miller said that his views at the time were best summed up in a 2005 column in the Santa Monica Mirror, titled My Dream for the End of Racism, in which he argued that Americans should focus on how far the country has come in overcoming such prejudice. No one claims that racism is extinct  but it is endangered, he wrote. And if we are to entirely extract this venom of prejudice from the United States, I proclaim Americanism to be the key.

Focusing on multiculturalism, he wrote, has had the effect of keeping different groups separate.

Millers White House role is in many ways a departure for an activist who has mostly seen himself as representing an oppressed political minority. Now he holds the power, helping to drive the government while working steps from the Oval Office.

Bitner said he wonders how Millers tactics will translate.

I dont think hes had the opportunity to practice this, he said. These are all outsiders, many of them people who have been vocal minorities. How do you transition from there to governing?

Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Grass-roots movements can be the life and death of political leaders.

Its a well-worn story now about how John A. Boehner, then House minority leader, joined a rising star in his caucus, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, in April 2009 for one of the first major tea party protests in the California Republicans home town of Bakersfield.

A little more than six years later, after they surfed that wave into power, the movement consumed both of them. Boehner was driven out of the House speakers office and McCarthys expected succession fell apart, leaving him stuck at the rank of majority leader.

Democrats are well aware of that history as they try to tap the energy of the roiling liberal activists who have staged rallies and marches in the first three weeks of Donald Trumps presidency.

What if they can fuse these protesters, many of whom have never been politically active, into the liberal firmament? What if a new tea party is arising, with the energy and enthusiasm to bring out new voters and make a real difference at the polls, starting with the 2018 midterm elections?

(Alice Li,Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)

The womens marches that brought millions onto streets across the country the day after Trumps inauguration  spurred organically through social media  opened Democratic leaders eyes to the possibilities.

With a 10-day recess beginning next weekend, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has instructed her members to hold a day of action in their districts, including town halls focused on saving the Affordable Care Act. The following weekend, Democratic senators and House members will hold protests across the country, hoping to link arms with local activists who have already marched against Trump.

[Swarming crowds and hostile questions are the new normal at GOP town halls]

It was important to us to make sure that we reach out to everyone we could, to visit with them, to keep them engaged, to engage those that maybe arent engaged, Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told reporters at a Democratic retreat in Baltimore that ended Friday. The trick is to keep them aiming their fire at Republicans and Trump, not turning it into a circular firing squad targeting fellow Democrats.

Now we want people to run for office, to volunteer and to vote, Lujan added.

[Schumers dilemma: Satisfying the base while protecting the minority]

Its too early to tell which direction this movement will take, but there are some similarities to the early days of the conservative tea party.

In early 2009, as unemployment approached 10 percent and the home mortgage industry collapsed, the tea party emerged in reaction to the Wall Street bailout. It grew throughout the summer of 2009 as the Obama administration and congressional Democrats pushed toward passage of the Affordable Care Act.

Many of the protesters were newly engaged, politically conservative but not active with their local GOP and often registered as independents. Their initial fury seemed directed exclusively at Democrats, given that they controlled all the levers of power in Washington at the time; the protesters famously provoked raucous showdowns at Democratic town halls over the August 2009 recess.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumers first brush with the anti-Trump liberal movement came in a similar fashion to Boehner and McCarthys Bakersfield foray in 2009. Originally slated to deliver a brief speech at the womens march in New York, Schumer instead spent 4 1/2 hours on the streets there, talking to people he had never met. By his estimate, 20 percent of them did not vote in November.

That, however, is where Schumer must surely hope the similarities end.

By the spring and summer of 2010, the tea party rage shifted its direction toward Republican primary politics. One incumbent GOP senator lost his primary, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) defeated the Kentucky establishment favorite, and three other insurgents knocked off other seasoned Republicans in Senate primaries (only to then lose in general elections).

One force that helped the tea party grow was a collection of Washington-based groups with some wealthy donors, notably the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity, who positioned themselves as the self-declared leaders of the movement. For the next few years, they funded challenges to Republican incumbents, sparking a civil war that ran all the way through the 2016 GOP presidential primaries.

Boehner could never match the rhetorical ferocity of the movement. He was perpetually caught in a trap of overpromising and under-delivering. Republicans never repealed Obamacare, as they derisively called the ACA, and they could not stop then-President Obamas executive orders on immigration. Boehner resigned in October 2015.

Democrats want and need parallel outside groups to inject money and organization into their grass roots. There are signs it is happening: The thousands of activists who protested at a series of raucous town halls hosted by Republican congressmen over the past week were urged to action in part by sophisticated publicity campaigns run by such professional liberal enterprises as the Indivisible Guide, a blueprint for lobbying Congress written by former congressional staffers, and Planned Parenthood Action.

[Should House Democrats write off rural congressional districts?]

What is less clear is whether such energy and resources will remain united with Democratic leaders  or will be turned on them, as happened with the tea party and the Republican establishment, if the activist base grows frustrated with the pace of progress.

There have been some signs of liberal disgruntlement toward Democratic leaders. Pelosi and Schumer (D-N.Y.) were jeered by some in a crowd of more than 1,000 that showed up at the Supreme Court two weeks ago to protest Trumps executive order travel ban. Marchers showed up outside Schumers home in Brooklyn, demanding he filibuster everything and complaining that he supported Trumps Cabinet members involved in national security.

But there are two key differences between the conservative and liberal movements: their funding, and their origins. Some anti-establishment liberal groups have feuded with leaders, but they are poorly funded compared with their conservative counterparts. And the tea party came of age in reaction not only to Obama but, before that, to what the movement considered a betrayal by George W. Bushs White House and a majority of congressional Republicans when they supported the 2008 Wall Street bailout.

There is no similar original sin for Democrats, as the liberal protests have grown as a reaction to Trump, not some failing by Schumer and Pelosi.

Schumer remains unconcerned about the few protesters who are angry at Democratic leaders. I think the energys terrific. Do some of them throw some brickbats and things? Sure, it doesnt bother me, Schumer said in a recent interview.

How the liberal activists respond to early defeats may be the next sign of which direction the movement takes. Their demand that Schumer block Trumps Cabinet is impossible to satisfy, because a simple majority can confirm these picks. All Schumer can do is drag out the debate, which he has done to an unprecedented degree.

The stakes will be even higher for the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch, whose lifetime appointment still requires a 60-vote supermajority to reach a final confirmation vote. A Trump victory on Gorsuch might deflate the liberal passion, and some think that was the main ingredient missing for Democrats in 2016.

We just didnt have the emotional connection, Pelosi told reporters in Baltimore. He had the emotional connection.
Mourners watch as graveyard workers carry the closed casket of Marlon Pepito, 42, to be placed inside an apartment-type tomb next to his brother Maximo Pepito, 49, victims of a summary execution by unknown assailants in the drug war, north of Metro Manila in the Philippines. (Romeo Ranoco/Reuters)

Eric Claptons Tears in Heaven played over a loudspeaker as pallbearers lifted the casket of Ronnel Jaraba out of the hearse and carried it into the depths of the San Jose Catholic Cemetery for burial.

Under a glaring sun, the casket was opened one last time as the mourners, many dressed in black shirts, said goodbye. His father leaned over the body, sobbing, repeating the same words: I did everything! I didnt lack in anything!

The burial followed a wake that lasted 12 days  as Jarabas family desperately tried to raise money for the funeral.

Found with a gunshot wound through the eye, he was believed to be one of the more than 7,000 victims of President Rodrigo Dutertes drug war, carried out by the police and vigilante groups. Duterte has promised to rid the Philippines of drugs and the crime associated with the drug trade.

But the war on drugs here has been labeled a war on the poor, and generating the money for a final resting place can be too difficult for some families.

In Jarabas case, first the family haggled with the funeral home to bring down the price for services from $1,000 to about $750, said his older brother Rizaldino Jaraba, 40.

But wakes have associated costs, such as food for guests. The family held a wake that was twice as long as normal as they tried to find a way to raise money for the burial.

Through the family of another victim, they got help from a church program that assists with burial costs. Otherwise, they didnt know what they would do.

We were afraid; thats why we sought someone we could ask for help, Rizaldino Jaraba said.

The average family income for drug users in the Philippines is just over $200 a month, according to a January report by Amnesty International that cited government statistics.

An anti-drugs police officer told the rights group of a scheme in which funeral homes give authorities a kickback for each body, incentivizing the police to seek out pricey funeral homes when cheaper ones might exist.

Sometimes, if Im the investigator, Ill bring the body to the biggest and most expensive [funeral home], because they give the biggest cuts, the officer reportedly said.

Orly Fernandez, the manager at Eusebios Funeral Home, a business accredited with law enforcement, denied that there are kickbacks, saying it would be difficult for funeral homes to make any money if that were the case.

Dante Novicio, the chief of police in Navotas, one of the communities most affected by the drug war, said he was unaware of the alleged arrangement.

This is the first time that somebody like you called me and tell [me about] that kind of problem, he said.

Duterte vowed to refocus his attention on corrupt police after a South Korean businessman was killed, allegedly by police, in October, sparking a diplomatic scandal and prompting the president to consider bringing in the military to deal with his drug war. In the interim, the killings have slowed but not stopped.

At a traditional wake in the Philippines, card games are held to keep visitors occupied, and a portion of the winnings is allotted to the bereaved family. The stakes, however, are normally small and not enough to cover the costs of a funeral package.

One day last week, Aileen Aquino, 19, was sitting by the casket of her husband, Mark Christian Mesias, in Metro Manilas Quezon City as players shuffled and dealt cards nearby.

We still have a problem with his burial, she said. We just need money for the place where he will be buried.

Mesias was shot four times in the head, and 17 bullets were recovered from his body, she said, adding that the autopsy showed the bullets came from different guns.

Although the family was still in need, she felt relatively more fortunate than others who had to make more drastic choices. Some wakes have lasted weeks, while other families could not even afford them.

They didnt even have a casket, she said of an acquaintance whose relative was also killed as part of the drug war. It was just a wooden box that they used to bury. . . . They just buried that one in the back yard because they really had no money at all.

In the Navotas Public Cemetery, there have been several mass burials for victims whose bodies were unclaimed. A man living at the cemetery said the bodies arrived in trucks.

The Baclaran Church in Manila has set up a program to help families with funeral costs.

Program coordinator Dennis Febre said that the church had always offered support but that the drug war compelled it to allot more help for victims of extrajudicial killings.

We cannot wait for government agencies to help, he said. These are the poor people who cannot even afford to buy their food for the day.

He said the church has spent more than 1 million pesos, or nearly $20,000, helping families.

It doubles, or triples even, [compared with] the number of those clients that we experienced [before], he said.

Jarabas family was one of the recipients. They are thankful not to be in debt. But they are in pain.

We cant do anything about this. We dont know the identity [of the killers]. Even if we are rich, if we file charges, we dont know the identity, who the suspects are, nothing. Nothing will happen. My brother will be an unsolved case, Rizaldino Jaraba said.

We already accepted it, the hardship. Well feel it for the rest of our lives.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the last name of the police chief in Navotas. He is Dante Novicio, not Dante Lubiciano.

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Philippine justice minister says deadly drug war not crime against humanity because drug users not humanity

Duterte and Trump will dramatically recast U.S.-Philippine ties. But how?

Faced with criticism from Catholic Church, Duterte invites Filipinos to join him in hell

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Afghan soldiers move the bodies of victims from the scene of a suicide car bomb attack in Lashkar Gah in Afghanistans Helmand province on Feb. 11. (Noor Mohammad/AFP/Getty Images)

A suicide bomber detonated a vehicle laden with explosives outside a bank in Afghanistans Helmand province Saturday, killing soldiers on their way to pick up their salaries and civilians, the latest incident in spreading violence in the country.

At least 20 people, including both army troops and civilians, were wounded in the strike that happened outside a branch of the New Kabul Bank in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of restive Helmand province.

The chief spokesman for the Defense Ministry, Dawlat Waziri, in Kabul said five of the 12 killed were soldiers. A Health Ministry official said seven civilians also perished in the attack.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, part of spiraling violence that has hit various parts of Afghanistan in recent harsh days of winter, a season when fighting usually subsides in the country.

[Top U.S. commander in Afghanistan opens door to a few thousand more troops deploying there]

Helmand is the hub of Afghanistans illegal drug industry and part of the main bastion of Taliban insurgents. The United States has pledged to send several hundred extra troops in the spring, when violence usually increases.

The militants have unleashed several attacks in the province with their focus on Sangin district in the past few weeks, prompting airstrikes by the NATO-led Resolute Support mission forces.

When contacted, the head of the provincial council, Karim Attal, a spokesman for the army in Helmand, said they had received reports of civilian deaths in at least two such air attacks in two different villages of Sangin on Thursday night.

We had 22 civilians, including women, children, young and elderly people killed in the air attacks, Haji Daud, a tribal chief from Sangin said by phone.

Thirteen of them were from one family and nine from another one, and they lived not far from the district center, Daud said.

He said both heads of the two families were ordinary farmers, and he knew them well.

[Gunmen kill 6 Red Cross staffers in northern Afghanistan; 2 others missing]

The Taliban had taken shelter in the mosque that was next door to the house of one of the farmers, named Feda Mohammad, Daud said.

The Taliban use some private houses as their shelter, and this attack was not the first one and wont be the last one here, Daud said. We are used to this and are under pressure from both sides [the Taliban, the Afghan government and foreign troops].

The U.N. said it was also aware of the civilian deaths from the airstrikes, apparently the first one in Afghanistan since Donald Trump became U.S. president in January.

The Resolute Support forces confirmed conducting air attacks to defend Afghan forces on the ground.

As with all claims of civilian casualties, we will investigate them to determine the facts and whether civilians were hurt or killed as a result of our operations, Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, a spokesman for the coalition, said in response to an email.

The United Nations last week said the number of airstrikes by Afghan and coalition forces had nearly doubled in 2016, compared with the previous year. It also said nearly two-thirds of 3,500 civilian deaths were caused mostly by the Talibans expanding violence.

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National Security Adviser Michael Flynn sits in the front row before the start of the joint press conference by President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday at the White House. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

National security adviser Michael Flynn spoke privately with Vice President Pence on Friday in an apparent attempt to contain the fallout from the disclosure that Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with that countrys ambassador and then allowed Pence and other White House officials to publicly deny that he had done so, an administration official said.

The conversations took place as senior Democrats in Congress called for existing investigations of Russias interference in the 2016 election to expand in scope to scrutinize Flynns contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak weeks before the Trump administration took office.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that if the allegations are proved, Flynn should step down.

If the now national security adviser was undermining U.S. national security interests, hes unfit to hold that office, Schiff said in an interview with The Washington Post. Compounding the issue is whether he then misled the country about the nature of his contacts.

[National security adviser Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador]

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

Current and former U.S. officials said that in his conversation with Kislyak in late December, Flynn urged Moscow to show restraint in its response to punitive sanctions being imposed on Russia by the Obama administration, signaling that the Trump administration would revisit the issue when it took office.

That contact was seen by some U.S. officials as potentially illegal interference in the U.S. relationship with Moscow at a time when U.S. intelligence agencies were concluding that Russia had waged extensive cyber and influence campaigns to upend the 2016 presidential race and help to elect Donald Trump.

President Trump claimed to be unaware of the Flynn controversy as he traveled to Florida on Friday afternoon as part of a weekend trip with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In a brief exchange with reporters during the flight south, Trump was asked about the report in The Post that Flynn had discussed sanctions against Russia despite repeated denials.

I dont know about that, I havent seen it, Trump said, according to a transcript of the conversation. What report is that? I havent seen that. Ill look into that.

Flynns relationship with Pence was placed under particular strain because the vice president  apparently relying on inaccurate accounts from Flynn  publicly declared that Flynn had never discussed sanctions with the Russian diplomat.

A senior administration official said Flynn and Pence spoke in person Friday morning and by phone in the evening. Officials declined to discuss the outcome of the conversations. The two men could be seen engaging in an awkward handshake during the day while taking their seats in the audience for Trumps news conference with Abe.

The controversy fanned speculation about Flynns standing in the White House and whether he would face pressure to resign. The senior administration official disputed that Flynn was in jeopardy.

He seems fine, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters. Hes in every meeting hes supposed to be doing, fulfilling his job as national security adviser. Hes seeing the president constantly.

Flynn also traveled to Florida with Trump.

Republicans were quiet on the matter Friday, but senior Democrats called for investigations of Flynns contacts with Kislyak. Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, called for FBI Director James B. Comey to testify before the committee on the status of the bureaus examination of Flynns calls.

Schiff said that he intends to request the intelligence reports on Flynns conversations with the Russian ambassador. Their contacts were captured as part of routine U.S. intelligence surveillance of Russian officials in the United States.

This is one discrete set of allegations that ought to be simple to prove or disprove, Schiff said. If these allegations are true, it ought to compel him to step down.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo requesting a review of Flynns security clearance.

Ashley Parker contributed to this report.
KENOSHA, Wis.  Kenosha County Medical Examiner Patrice Hall opened her email recently and found something she had long hoped for  a cold case ID.

Halls work has led her to develop a passion for working toward finding the identities of people who have died and been left abandoned, either by malice or by chance.

For years, she has been promoting the idea that local police departments and families of missing persons use the federal Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) for Human Identification, believing it was the best way to identify John Doe cases of found human remains.

Its huge; the NamUs system is huge, Hall said, because it allows local law enforcement agencies to tap into national resources in trying to link a name to an unidentified body.

But despite her belief in the system  and her encouragement of police departments, medical examiners and families of the missing to use it  she had never been able to successfully use it to identify a John Doe before. Until this time.

On a recent workday, she opened her email to find a message from the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification, which works with NamUs. They had  through a DNA search  identified the person whose skull and other skeletal remains were found in Kenosha County last spring.

The skeletal remains were those of Hozia Jackson, a Chicago man who was reported missing by his family in 2012. Jackson would have been 47 years old the year he was reported missing.

Hall said Jackson was identified through a NamUs search of DNA databases around the country.

Hall does not like to speak about ongoing cases. And while families of missing people hope their loved one is alive, even finding remains can be comforting.

I feel horrible for the family that first of all their loved one had been missing, Hall said. Finding Jacksons body was not the outcome they were hoping for.

But now they know. They can have a funeral. They can have closure, she said.

Hall said when human remains like a skeleton or parts of a body are found, they are examined in a local autopsy. Then, if they cannot be identified locally, they are sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification.

There, they are examined by a forensic anthropologist who tries to estimate how old the bones are, and to determine the sex, height, approximate weight, likely race and any possible injuries or illnesses.

Scientists there then extract DNA from the bones and run it through various DNA data banks, including NamUs, the military and the criminal justice system.

The science behind that process gives investigators hope that remains considered nearly impossible to identify can be pinpointed to a specific person.

That may be the case for skeletal remains found on the shoreline of Lake Michigan in Somers in late December.

Hall is hopeful that identities can be found for two longtime John Does in her offices case files.

One of those cases is that of a white man found buried in a shallow grave in what is now Pleasant Prairie in March 1988. The man is believed to have been strangled to death about three months before his body was discovered, based on the level of decomposition.

He is estimated to be somewhere between 30 and 60 years old, about 180 pounds and 5 feet 6 inches tall. He is believed to have been balding and with a beard.

The very interesting part of this is his clothing, Hall said. The man was wearing a Hermes sweater that would have retailed at the time of his death at $800 to $900, a shirt from the French fashion designer Ted Lapidus, and underwear labeled Saks Fifth Avenue.

People wealthy enough to have that kind of clothing are less likely to have no family ties or acquaintances. Hall hopes that someone who knew the man, a friend or family member, may still wonder about his whereabouts.

Hall also hopes to find the identity of a man found along railroad tracks in August 1993 in Pleasant Prairie. The severely decomposed body was never identified, and while he had severe head injuries, it was unclear if he was killed or met an accident along the tracks.

That man was estimated to be 39 to 60 years old, about 5 feet 9 inches tall, with black hair and a black moustache.

On his left forearm, he had an unusual tattoo, Hall said. The image covered the mans arm from the wrist to below the elbow, and appeared to show overlapping panther claws along with what may be a snake and foliage.

Hall has an artists rendering of the tattoo. Weve taken it to a lot of people to try to figure out what it is, she said, saying she has even taken it to tattoo parlors to see if theres some significance to the design. For now, she said, no luck.

Thats our big clue for him, she said. Maybe someone will see this, and maybe it will bring back a memory.
Over 20 civilians were reported killed and scores more wounded in a US air strike conducted in the Sangin district of Afghanistans southern Helmand province Thursday night. Eleven of the victims were reportedly from the same family, whose house was demolished by a missile.

Last night, US Air Force bombed the house of Haji Fida Mohammad in Chinari village, killing 10 members of the family, including women and children, reported Haji Saifuddin Sanginwal, a tribal elder in Sangin district.

A spokesman for Resolute Support, the name given to the latest stage of the more than 15-year-old US war in Afghanistan, acknowledged that US warplanes had carried out attacks in the area and said that the American command was aware of the allegations of civilian casualties and took them very seriously.

This latest bloodletting came on the same day that the top US commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, told a Senate panel that a few thousand more US troops were needed to sustain what is now by far Washingtons longest war.

The US has 8,400 US troops currently deployed in Afghanistan. Italy, Germany, Britain and other countries have some 5,000 troops in the country.

Early in his presidency, Barack Obama launched a surge in Afghanistan that brought US troop levels up to 100,000. Afterwards, he pledged to reduce the American presence to a normal embassy protection force. In the face of the continuing reversals for the US-backed security forces, however, he scrapped his withdrawal schedule, handing the continuing US war over to Donald Trump.

Asked by the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Arizona Republican John McCain, In your assessment, are we winning or losing? Nicholson replied, Were in a stalemate. This was the same description provided by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford in testimony last September.

Objective indices, however, suggest that the US and its puppet regime in Kabul are steadily losing ground, while the wars impact on Afghanistans 33 million people is today more catastrophic than ever.

The Afghan National Army continues to suffer record losses. A quarterly report issued last month by Washingtons Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) revealed that more than 6,700 Afghan soldiers were killed last year through November 12, exceeding the 6,600 soldiers killed in all of 2015. Combined with continuing high levels of desertion, the US-backed Afghan National Army is growing weaker.

This reality underlay General Nicholsons testimony that the few thousand more US troops were needed for training and advising Afghan forces. Such an increase would entail the deployment of such trainers and advisors more directly in combat. We have identified the requirement and the desire to advise below the corps level, the US commander told the committee. It would enable us to thicken our advisory efforts across the Afghanistan mission.

The problem confronted by the US occupation force in previous such efforts has been the proliferation of insider or green on blue attacks, in which Afghan recruits have turned their guns on their American advisors.

While the losses suffered by the Afghan National Army are severe, the wars impact upon the civilian population has been even more devastating.

A United Nations report issued this week documented 11,418 civilian casualties in 2016, more than double the number a decade ago and the highest since the UN began keeping a count of the wars toll. The casualties included 3,500 dead, 923 of whom were children. Another 2,600 children were wounded over the course of the year.

In addition, fighting on the ground combined with air strikes drove at least a half a million Afghans from their homes in 2016a 40 percent increase over 2015aggravating a protracted humanitarian crisis and swelling the number of Afghan refugees, whose numbers are second only to those from Syria.

Among the sharpest increases in civilian casualties recorded by the UNs Afghan agency were those stemming from suicide and complex attacks, with the Afghan capital of Kabul seeing the greatest number of dead and wounded, reflecting the tenuous grip of the US-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Also driving up the civilian toll was the increased number of airstrikes, with the number of dead and wounded caused by these attacks doubling since 2015. The Obama administration issued the order last summer allowing US commanders to provide greater levels of air support for Afghan forces.

The UN report called for an immediate halt to the use of airstrikes in civilian-populated areas, an injunction that the Pentagon is certain to ignore as it would spell the rout of its Afghan puppet security forces.

As it is, according to the SIGAR report issued last month, the share of Afghan districts under government control decreased from 72 percent in November 2015 to 63 percent in August 2016 as a result of the offensive by the Taliban and other anti-government insurgents.

Among the more ominous features of Thursdays Senate hearing were the attempts by both Senator McCain and General Nicholson to implicate Russia in the deteriorating situation for the US in Afghanistan.

McCain accused Moscow of meddling in Afghanistan in an apparent attempt to prop up the Taliban and undermine the United States. The US military commander charged that Russia was acting to legitimize and support the Taliban, while claiming he could not provide any specific evidence to support this charge in an open hearing.

What has drawn the ire of the Pentagon and sections of the American ruling establishment is the announcement earlier this week by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Afghan counterpart Salahuddin Rabbani that Moscow will host a meeting later this month bringing together representatives from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran and Pakistan in a bid to resolve the decade-and-a-half-old war. Lavrov added that the Taliban had to be included in any effort to reach a settlement.

The Russian effort threatens to repeat Washingtons humiliation in Moscows brokeringtogether with Turkey and Iranof a ceasefire in Syria after the strategic reversal for the US-backed war for regime-change with the governments retaking of eastern Aleppo at the end of last year.

From the outset, US imperialism has aimed at utilizing its intervention in Afghanistan, launched in the name of the war on terror, to secure permanent bases that would provide a strategic launching pad for operations in the former Soviet republics of energy-rich Central Asia, in South Asia and against both Russia and China.

While the US ruling establishment has been engaged in a bitter internecine struggle over the incoming Trump administrations apparent tactical shift in relation to Moscow, there is little doubt that Washington will continue to pursue its aggressive aims in Afghanistan.

General Nicholson told the Senate panel that he was confident that the Trump administration would support increases in troop levels requested by the Pentagon. On the same day as the US commander gave his testimony, Trump made his first call since his inauguration to Afghan President Ghani.
Amidst protests internationally against the anti-immigrant, America First policies of the new Trump administration, and vows to defend Spain against the ravages of other countries, the Spanish pseudo-left Podemos party is calling for an international anti-fascist conference.

Behind the appeal is the attempt to block the emergence of an independent movement of the working class and youth and channel anti-Trump sentiment behind pro-European Union (EU) factions of the Spanish bourgeoisie.

Like its European counterparts, the Spanish bourgeoisie is split over how to react to the Trump regime. His election marks the definitive end of the post-war role of the US as the anchor of European integration and guarantor, through NATO, of Europes imperialist interests. Trump has declared the EU a German-led economic rival to the US and predicted that other countries would follow the UKs lead and leave.

Such sentiments are expressed by the National Fronts Marine Le Pen, currently forecast to win the first round of the French presidential elections in April and in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders Freedom Party is polling first with 31 percent for the March national election.

Podemos, however, offers no alternative to the rise of right-wing, nationalist sentiment. In fact, Podemos facilitates it.

The two leading factions contesting for power within Podemos at this weekends party congressthe majority faction led by general secretary Pablo Iglesias and the Errejonistas wing led by Podemos spokesperson in parliament and Secretary for Policy and Strategy and Campaigning, Inigo Errejonboth support the calling of an anti-fascist conference. So has Podemos Anticapitalistas faction led by Miguel Urban and Teresa Rodriguez.

The conference is called against austerity, the rise of the far right and in defence of a democratic revolution in Europe. It aims to counter the rise of racism and authoritarianism, Islamophobia, and racist and unsupportive EU institutions. Similarly, Trump is attacked for reinforcing racism. In response, Podemos calls for a two-pronged solutionfirstly, to prevent people being attracted to right-wing populism and secondly, to form a new historic bloc that serves as a retaining wall against the rise of far-right nationalism.

Podemos posturing as an opponent of far-right nationalism is a political fraud. If the far right has been able to rise, it is precisely because pseudo-left forces like Podemos have sought alliances with social democratic parties (or, as in the case of Syriza in Greece formed governments directly) committed to austerity. This has enabled far-right forces to exploit social discontent and present themselves as an opposition to the establishment.

Podemos has itself legitimated the deepening integration of far-right forces into mainstream European bourgeois politics, by hailing nationalism as progressive and seeking to recruit large sections of the Spanish officer corps into its ranks. Its new historic bloc is a term designed to cover up the development of deeper ties with other bourgeois parties using the pretext of a struggle against the far right.

This was recently made clear in the December issue of the magazine La Marea dedicated to Left Antidotes to Neo-fascism and containing interviews with a dozen prominent pseudo-left leaders.

Pablo Iglesias, asked about Podemos promotion of patriotism, defended it absolutely. He explained that the misfortune of losing a Civil War meant certain signifiersa reference to words such as Spain or homelandremained in the hands of our political adversary. Asked whether an international strategy could confront the far-right, Iglesias responded negatively, declaring that, it crashes with the political scenario of the nation-statethe foundation of Podemos reactionary politics.

Alberto Garzon, leader of the Stalinist-led United Left which has a parliamentary alliance with Podemos, when asked about Trumps protectionism, openly declared that the economic proposals of Trump and other far-right parties does not differ much from us.

Just as blunt was Inigo Errejon, a proponent of left populism. Asked if there is a possibility that Podemos could adopt certain anti-establishment positions of the far right, Errejon replied that the neo-fascists and Podemos occupy the same political space.

He said, the difference between a democratic and open populism and reactionary populism is who is the enemy. The question is who provides a sense or who constructs that national community. It is true that the Popular Party has occupied the space of Francoism, but I think the other space, the possibility of a nation constructing itself against the weak, that of fascist populism, I think we occupy that space.

Errejon simply added that Podemos popular and patriotic direction avoided this space being occupied by the far right.

Another interviewee was none other than Ada Colau, mayor of Barcelona and leader of Barcelona en Comu, a political ally of Podemos, who is notorious for ordering the citys police force to target street vendors and her opposition to a strike by subway workers. By imposing a legally mandated minimum service, she ensured its defeat.

Podemos does not intend to mount any serious struggle against the far right, in Spain or elsewhere. Rather, it aims to block social opposition by containing, misdirecting and ultimately dispersing any movement of the working classin the interests of its upper-middle-class constituency.

Podemos value to the ruling elite is expressed in the media support it has received for its back to the streets campaign, coordinated with the union bureaucracy, which consists of a few staged media stunts during strikes. The media talk up these actions as oppositional in order to railroad escalating social anger behind Podemos bankrupt, nationalist perspective.

The anti-fascist conference is the latest manifestation of these politics. It was first proposed by the Pabloite Anticapitalistas and its leader Miguel Urban, according to pro-Podemos web site Cuarto Poder. The intention of Urban, it said, is to be able to count upon with relevant politicians in Madrid such as Britains Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders in the US, alongside representatives of the European left, who are facing the advance of the far right.

No sooner had the ink dried on proposals for Urbans conference, however, than the two main relevant politicians showed their true face.

Bernie Sanders declared, If President Trump is serious about a new policy to help American workers, then I would be delighted to work with him. He then approved the appointment of General James Mad Dog Mattis as Trumps secretary of defence. The same man led the bloody assault on Fallujah in 2004, which reduced the city to rubble and resulted in the deaths of untold thousands of civilians.

As for Jeremy Corbyn, he recently dropped his opposition to immigration controls, declaring that Labour is not wedded to freedom of movement for EU citizens as a point of principle in Brexit talks. This was but the latest step in his capitulation to Labours right wing, which has seen Blairite warmongers appointed to his first shadow cabinet, a free vote in support of bombing raids on Syria, the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons programme, and his abandonment of his lifelong oppositionbased on a programme of economic nationalismto the EU.

The Pabloite idea of an anti-fascist conference then disappeared, only to be resuscitated nearly a month later, just as rising divisions erupted within the Spanish ruling class over how best to preserve and advance its national interests. Spains main dilemma is whether to side with Germany and France in defence of the EU, or with the US in the hope of becoming Washingtons new strategic partner in Europe.

Podemos has intervened, for now at least, to defend the pro-EU faction. In parliament, Iglesias and Errejon joined the chorus of voices, spearheaded by the daily El Pais, criticizing Mariano Rajoys Popular Party government for its attempt to continue relations with the US as before. They both condemned Rajoy as shameful for being one of the few European leaders not to have criticized Trump.

Iglesias said, Mr. Donald Trump is clearly a representative of an unprecedented democratic setback and a brazen attack on human rights, adding I think our Government should at least say so. Errejon said Rajoy should join the clamour of civil society and many world leaders against Trumps policies, of which I feel proud.

Whatever mild criticism they raise against Trump, what they despise of Trump and the sections within the US ruling class he represents is the fact that the US is repudiating its previous role as the overseer of the EU and NATOinstitutions that Podemos defends. At the same time, Trumps nationalism and economic protectionism are exposing the right-wing implications of their promotion by Podemos.

A real threat facing the working class is that Podemos is creating fertile ground for the creation of a genuine far-right party, one that can more directly use the language of homeland, Spain, and nationalism to defend the interests of the ruling class.
Officials from the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed Friday to a take a unified hard line against Greece, as the countrys debt crisis worsens.

The Syriza government must make a further 7 billion payment to its creditors by July or risk default on its entire debt, which remains at a staggering 330 billion.

Greece continues to drown in debt because virtually every cent of the 300 billion in loans received over the last seven years as bailouts have been siphoned off to service its debt to banks and financial institutions that continue to draw interest.

For the last two years, the IMF has been involved in a fraught standoff with the EU, insisting that it would not back any further bailout programmes for Greece if they did not include some debt relief structures. The IMF is on record that Greeces debt is unsustainable and opposes demands from the EU that Athens must meet a primary budget surplus of 3.5 percent. Instead, it calls for Greece to be bled dry more slowlybased on a 1.5 percent primary budget surplus with debt relief factored in so as not to kill the milch cow. Addressing an Atlantic Council event Wednesday, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said, Reforms are absolutely needed. Somebody can ask me the questions three times over, I will still say the same thing.

The IMF position was reinforced by concerns that if Greece were forced out of the euro zone, it would mean a relaxing of the relentless imposition of massive budget cuts and threaten overall debt repayment by Athens. According to an IMF report leaked last week, Greeces debt is set to reach 170 percent of gross domestic product by 2020 and 164 percent by 2022, and become explosive thereafter, escalating to 275 percent of GDP by 2060.

Fridays announcement confirms that whatever tactical differences exist on the means to impose austerity on Greece, there are no conflicts over carrying it out. Reuters quoted a senior eurozone official: There is agreement to present a united front to the Greeks. Noting that the proposal had yet to be put to Greece, the official said, What comes out of it, we will see.

Regarding the substance of the deal, Reuters reported, Officials said the lenders would ask Greece to take 1.8 billion euros worth of new measures until 2018 and another 1.8 billion after 2018, focused on broadening the tax base and on pension cutbacks. The new cuts represent 2 percent of GDP, which has already fallen by 25 percent since 2010. In human terms, a further 3.6 billion in austerity represents taking another 327 from every man, woman and child in the country.

The agreement came following talks in Brussels Friday between Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch president of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, Pierre Moscovici, EU commissioner for economic affairs, Klaus Regling, head of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM)the EU fund overseeing Greeces loans in exchange for the austerity programmeand Benoit Coeure from the European Central Bank.

Later Friday, Euclid Tsakalotos, Greeces finance minister, arrived for talks with the EU leaders. According to the Athens News Agency, Tsakalotos will discuss the crisis in coming days with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, ESM President Regling and Poul Thomsen, Director of the IMFs European Department.

The party led by Alexis Tsipras is widely despised for repudiating its pledge to oppose austerity and agreeing to impose the most vicious attacks yet in return for a further 86 billion in loans. The latest poll shows Syriza has the support of just 15 percent of the electorate. Tsakalotos boasted last week that a third of the austerity measures Greece had to impose as part of the current programme have been totally completed, another third are totally agreed, while the rest are subject to political negotiation.

Under conditions in which US President Donald Trump has declared his desire for the break-up of the EU, Greece is once again in the eye of the storm. This week Ted Malloch, Trumps favoured candidate for US ambassador to Europe, declared that Greece could soon be forced to exit the eurozone and the euro itself was under threat. Malloch told Greek broadcaster Skai TV, Whether the eurozone survives, I think its very much a question that is on the agenda.

He added, We have had the exit of the UK, there are elections in other European countries, so I think its something that will be determined over the course of the next year, year-and-a-half.

Trump himself has repeatedly insisted that Greece should withdraw from the euro. On announcing his candidacy for president last year, Trump described Greeces position as unsalvageable. Back in October 2012 he tweeted, Greece should get out of the euro & go back to their own currencythey are just wasting time.

Of the divisions between the IMF and EU that seem at this point to have been patched up, Malloch said, If the [IMF] will not participate in a new bailout that does not include substantial debt relief, and thats what they are saying, then that, more or less, ensures a collision course with eurozone creditors.

Germany led the resistance to the IMF proposals for debt relief, and challenged, along with other EU nations including France, Belgium and Sweden, the IMFs Greek projections at a board meeting Monday.

The Financial Times editorialised, in a swipe primarily aimed at Germany, The rest of the IMFs membership should be prepared to overrule the recalcitrant Europeans. The complaints of a self-interested cabal cannot be allowed to get in the way of Greeces best interests. Eurozone governments have behaved poorly on this issue. They deserve to be defeated.

Germany responded not by backing down, but with brutal language and further threats against Greece. On Wednesday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble warned that no relief would be offered on Greeces mammoth debtof which a substantial chunk is owed to German banks. We cant undertake a debt haircut for a member of the European single currency, its ruled out by the Lisbon Treaty, he said, adding, For that, Greece would have to exit the currency area.

He continued, The pressure on Greece to undertake reforms must be maintained ... otherwise they cant remain in the currency area.

The joint EU/IMF proposals will be presented to the Syriza government, which is overseeing a social counterrevolution.

More than a third of the population (35.7 percent) are officially in poverty, unemployment stands at 23 percent and 46 percent among youth. Last year alone Syriza slashed another 350 million from the health budget under conditions in which 2.5 million Greeks have no health care coverage. Public spending on higher education was gutted by 75 percent five years ago, with 15 to 25 percent cuts in each subsequent year. An example of the impact of this is at the University of Crete, which had a budget of 17.5 million in 2011, but now operates with just 3.1 million.

Tsipras responded to Berlins warning by again solidarising his government with the EU. On Tuesday, he visited Kiev and held a joint press conference with Ukraines President Petro Poroshenko. Calling for continued sanctions against Russia, Tsipras said, Greece is a member-state of the European Union and, despite the fact that it has a particular economic interest in an immediate resolution of the crisis and the lifting of sanctions that have had an extremely painful effect on the Greek economy, nevertheless we will not fragment European unity.

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Syriza agrees to further austerity measures

[18 October 2016]
In the weeks leading up to its Vistalegre II congress opening today in Madrid, an extraordinary crisis has erupted inside Spains Podemos party. The party that proclaimed itself an electoral war machine fighting for the people against a corrupt caste of pro-austerity Spanish politicians is now threatened with dissolution, by the admission of its leaders themselves, as they denounce each other as sell-outs and would-be dictators.

The university lecturers who occupy the partys top two positions, General Secretary Pablo Iglesias and Political Secretary Inigo Errejon, are engaged in a vicious faction fight. Gone is the time after Podemos foundation in 2014 when the two spoke of their collaborationIglesias praising the rare intellectual complicity uniting him with Errejon, while Errejon thanked Iglesias for teaching him how to practice the art of war  methodically and with persistence.

Significantly, none of the factions involved in the increasingly bitter fight inside Podemos can give a coherent accounting for their criticisms of their rivals inside the party. What is emerging very clearly, however, is the reactionary character of Podemos, which is moving sharply to the right.

Since December, as ever broader sections of Podemos backed Errejon or declined to sign common positions with Iglesiasincluding Podemos members in Spains second and third cities, Barcelona and ValenciaIglesias has turned on his lieutenant. Ignoring the fact that he himself championed ties with the big-business Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), he is attacking Errejons factional manoeuvres and support for ties to the PSOE. Iglesias says that this could destroy Podemos, turning it into a corrupt electoral machine.

It is of fundamental importance that Podemos not become a coalition of currents, a party of feudal barons, a party divided for all time that is like a cake, where each leader says: this is my part, so I want so much money and so many jobs  If we do things this way, we will only become the PSOE, and well be dead, Iglesias said shortly before the New Year.

Errejons supporters respond that Iglesias ties with members of the Stalinist Communist Party (PCE) and of the PCE-led United Left (IU) coalition, whom he is bringing into his secretariat, will produce a dictatorial regime inside the party.

Even though it has always been well known that Iglesias began his career in the PCE youth movement, Podemos founding member Luis Alegre warned that conspirators [are] about to take control of Podemos. He added, I believe this is something that will almost certainly happen, because they are going to be able to infest Pablo [Iglesias] to destroy the organization.

Errejons supporters oppose Iglesias ties with IU also because they see them as an obstacle to developing alliances beyond left parties, that is, with the political right. One of their documents states, Podemos must remain an autonomous and independent organization. ... Our objective is much more ambitious than the unity of the left, it is the unity of the people and the citizens, which includes the traditional left but goes well beyond it.

On this basis, Errejons supporters have refused to support traditional resolutions from IU and sections of Podemos around Iglesias for lifting the reactionary 1977 amnesty law for the crimes of fascism, passed in the closing years of the fascist regime of Francisco Franco.

Significantly, some of these criticisms are now echoed by parts of Podemos Anticapitalistas faction, the Spanish affiliates of Frances New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA).

Warning in anti-communist tones that Iglesias might impose his positions, Santiago Alba Rico wrote in Anticapitalistas Viento Sur web site: Now some of us have never seen the risk that we could become a new PSOE, except insofar as we aspire to restore the symbolic and political capital that the PSOE had in 1982, in order to carry out a completely distinct policy. We do, however, see the very serious danger that we may become a new United Left oreven worsethat Vistalegre II will recast the oldthe oldestCommunist Party.

Anticapitalistas has however tried to maintain unity between the pro-Iglesias and pro-Errejon factions, generally defending the line of Iglesias. Anticapitalistas leader Miguel Urban has declared that this is not the moment for Errejon to lead Podemos. We will see if that moment comes. Asked if he would side with Iglesias in the future leadership contest, Urban answered: we would support [Iglesias] in some agreements.

These conflicts expose the bankruptcy of Podemos populist, nationalist and pro-capitalist politics, theoretically rooted in a postmodernist rejection of Marxism and the revolutionary role of the working class by affluent layers of the middle class. Podemos promised a different policy from the PSOE, based on demagogic attacks on the banks and the casteall the while recruiting layers of the Spanish officer corps, speaking to audiences of bankers and businessmen, and orienting to the European Union (EU). This program is collapsing under the weight of its insoluble contradictions.

The last year has proven devastating for Podemos ambitions. A year ago, it hoped to emerge as the main beneficiary of the devastating collapse of the two-party system that had ruled Spain since the 1978 Transition from the Franco regime to parliamentary democracy. A hung parliament emerged in the December 20, 2015 elections: neither the PSOE nor the Popular Party (PP), the conservative heirs of Franco, had a majority. For nearly a year, Spain could not form a government.

This reflected deep popular disillusionment with the pro-business policies they had pursued since the PSOE took power in 1982, particularly amid the EU austerity drive after the 2008 Wall Street crash, and Spains participation in NATO wars since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. With nearly a quarter of Spains working population and half of its youth unemployed, and poverty soaring, explosive social anger was building in the working class.

The Podemos leadership devised a strategy of allying with IU, hoping to overtake the PSOEs electoral weight and emerge as the dominant partner in an anti-PP coalition with the PSOE. The failure of this strategy in the June 26, 2016 electionsin which the Podemos-IU alliance lost nearly 1 million votes compared to the 2015 elections, failed to overtake the PSOE, and a new hung parliament emergedset the stage for the current crisis inside Podemos.

This failure was the product of growing popular distrust of the pro-capitalist, pro-EU perspective of Podemos. Its Greek ally, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Syriza government, was repudiating all his promises to the electorate, ruthlessly imposing austerity policies dictated by the EU, after Tsipras trampled the no vote in the July 2015 referendum on austerity he himself organised.

At the same time, Podemos orientation to the PSOE and its steady progress into the middle levels of the capitalist state brought them ever more into conflict with the working class. They have witnessed first hand the Podemos-backed governments of change running major cities including Madrid, Barcelona, Cadiz, Zaragoza, Valencia and Santiago de Compostela.

These have reduced their debts by at least 2.3 billion and earned the applause of the banks. In the words of Cadiz mayor Jose Maria Gonzalez (a Podemos member), even the [Ministry of the] Treasury recognises that the local town councils of change do their homework. Barcelona mayor Ada Colau, who rules the city in alliance with local Podemos officials, ruthlessly suppressed the March 2016 Barcelona metro strike.

In an interview in Le Monde Diplomatique, Guillermo Lazaro from Podemos local front Zaragoza en Comun said You cant change a city in a year and a half. People werent really hoping for a real change in their living conditions, they just wanted people to come to office who were normal people, who looked like them.

Above all, Podemos officials constant planning and discussion in the mass media of an alliance with the PSOE only underscored that, like Tsipras, they had no real differences with the austerity policies of the EU and the European social democrats.

The decision of leading figures in the Spanish ruling class, desperate to avoid a third inconclusive election, to violently impose a PP government only further discredited Podemos. A small cabal of bankers, CEOs, intelligence officials and top politiciansled by former PSOE Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and speaking through the pages of the daily El Paisworked closely with the PP to impose an unpopular minority PP government.

They ousted then-PSOE party secretary Pedro Sanchez, the leading advocate in the PSOE of an alliance with Podemos, and forced the PSOE to tacitly back the minority PP government. This event highlighted the links between Podemos and not only the PSOE but the political right, insofar as Podemos had aggressively courted the social democrats, who emerged as the key support of an unpopular PP government in Spain.

The three positions at the Vistalegre II conferencethe Iglesias, Errejon, and Anticapitalistas factionsreflect varying strategies to strengthen Podemos weight inside the state machine despite the exposure of its reactionary policies. They are all cynical and false, however, insofar as all share the same anti-Marxist policy and anti-worker orientation, and none offers an alternative to the bankrupt policy Podemos has pursued until now.

Errejons supporters take aim at Iglesias reaction to the PSOE putschhis call for a back to the streets campaign to try to drum up more popular support and strengthen Podemos electoral position by joining protest actions by the union bureaucracy. Denouncing this strategy, which Errejon arrogantly dismissed as pandering to a noisy minority, they demand greater freedom to manoeuvre inside Podemos and closer integration into the capitalist state, based on nationalism, populism, gender politics and alliances with the PSOE.

This is bound up with an ever more explicit rejection of any presence for Podemos outside the media and state machine, and ever more explicit recognition of the right-wing implications of their nationalism and hostility to the working class.

Writing for Errejons position, German Caro declares, It would be a great mistake if the debates within Podemos limited themselves to aiming to provide a pale rerun of the historical debates internal to the Spanish left. Podemos requires a less vertical, more decentralized, and more feminized structure in all its spheres of action.  This requires a democratic organisation internally that, in short, can critically and patiently work on the slow acquisition of influence and prestige within the media and civil society.

Asked whether such a nationalist and pro-establishment orientation could lead sections of Podemos to adopt fascist-populist policies, Errejon replied that he thought Podemos would prevent the rise of a far-right party in Spain, because it occupies the same political space as the far right, thanks to Podemos popular and patriotic discourse.

He said, the difference between a democratic and open populism and reactionary populism is who is the enemy. The question is who provides a sense or who constructs that national community. It is true that the Popular Party has occupied the space of Francoism, but I think the other space, the possibility of a nation constructing itself against the weak, that of fascist populism, I think we occupy that space.

Errejons positions enjoy the support of powerful factions of the ruling elite, including El Pais, the post-Franco paper of record that strongly backed the September PSOE putsch. Last month it carried an editorial announcing that In front of Iglesias, who calls for free hands to his personal power ... Errejon defends a much more modern, democratic and open Podemos, totally different from the confusion generated by Iglesias around a strategy of ideological radicalization and street mobilisation whose effect is to dilute the strength and negotiating capacity of the party in Parliament and the institutions.

The criticisms made of Errejons positions by Iglesias supporters, and their defense of the back to the streets campaign, are empty and politically fraudulent, however. The purpose of this campaign is not to prosecute the class struggle or to shift policy, but to boost Podemos weight in the state institutions by falsely appearing to take a more radical stance of opposition, not just to the PP, but also to the entire Transition regime.

Writing in support of Iglesias and against Errejons criticisms, Pedro Honrubia Hurtado states, When invoking the false dilemmathe street or the institutionsa dilemma which no one really contemplates in Podemos, what they refer to in reality is a choice between these two previously described strategies. Now it is time to decide which to adopt. I support the first one as this would have us be the opposition to the regime of 78 in its entirety, and not a mere institutional opposition to the PP in its struggle with PSOE, and would entail exposing those who for such a long time now have ruled for the privileged few and abandoned the people in every possible way.

Workers are sceptical, however, of Podemos claims to represent an alternative to the Transition regime or about its ties to the unions, who have in any case been discredited by their failure to organise opposition to the EU austerity drive. One reason for this is that Iglesias himself has at various points openly declared, with unparalleled cynicism, that Podemos calls for change through street protests were lies.

Thus in July, right after the June 26 general elections, Iglesias declared that change should occur through state institutions, because the stupid things we used to say when we were far-left, that things change on the streets and not in the institutions, are lies.

In October, Iglesias again stressed that his populist rhetoric did not aim to shift policy, but to help Podemos reach a better position for compromise with the other major partieswhich would inevitably be at the expense of the workers. He said that Podemos populism ends when politics culminate in [public] administration, when administrative decisions have to be taken from the state, the town hall or the party. He added, If we rule, we will look for compromises and consensus, and we would openly say that our populism has ended, that it was useful in the fight.

As for the Anticapitalistas, they have sought to reconcile Iglesias back to the streets campaign with Errejons call for total entry into the capitalist state.

Podemos cannot offer an isolated response, writes Isabel Serra, but it needs, instead, to look to articulate it within a social and political alternative alongside other social forces, all over the state, and be able to generate a dynamic cycle of social demands and mobilisations. This step will undoubtedly go through the institutionsthese institutions that are known to be not neutralwhere the goal should be that of changing these and using them as platforms from where to build our positions in such a way as to allow us to give voice to those who do not have it and continue to promote the self-organisation of social majorities ...

Claims by Anticapitalistas or Iglesias supporters that Podemos represents an alternative mobilising opposition to the post-Transition regime are political lies. In the face of deep social distress and popular anger, it defends the PSOE and the entire post-Franco set-up. It does not represent an alternative, but an attempt to repair the slightly frayed alliance between the PSOE, the PCE, and pseudo-left forces like Anticapitalistas that suppressed revolutionary struggles of the working class against the fascist Franco regime and preserved capitalism during the Transition in the 1970s.

As infighting erupts between Podemos factions, the criticisms the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) made of this party from its foundation have been vindicated. Based on the heritage of Trotskys struggle against Stalinism and the ICFIs struggle against the pseudo left, it immediately pointed to the class gulf separating Podemos from the working class.

At the time of Podemos foundation in April 2014, the WSWS warned that its model is SYRIZA in Greecea bourgeois party whose leaders publicly indulge in left demagogy, while privately reassuring the leaders of world imperialism that they have nothing to fear should it come to power. After Podemos entered the EU parliament the next month, the WSWS warned that Podemos had the aim of preventing a rebellion by the working class against the social democratic parties and the trade union bureaucracy, and channelling discontent into supposedly radical, but pro-capitalist formations.

After Podemos continued backing Syriza even after it betrayed its promises to end EU austerity in Greece, the WSWS wrote: As the crisis of capitalism places on the order of the day the re-eruption of the wars and revolutionary struggles that marked the 20th century, these pseudo-left forces step forward as guardians of order. The conclusion they drew from the Stalinist dissolution of the USSR in 1991 and the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe ... is that capitalism is the only game in town. They are politically and ideologically conditioned to serve as bribed tools of finance capital.

These assessments have been proven completely correct: the working class can defend its interests only in a ruthless political struggle against the type of cynical, middle-class pseudo-left politics Podemos represents. What it needs is not a restored Podemos, but a party offering political leadership and a socialist perspective for the international overthrow of capitalism. The task now is to build new sections of the ICFI in Spain, in Greece, across Europe and internationally.
Forty-three percent of all children in the United States live in low-income families, according to a report released late last month by the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP).

The percentage of children living in low-income families increased by one percentage point between 2009the official start of the economic recovery proclaimed by the Obama administrationand 2015. The NCCP defines low-income families as those earning below twice the federal poverty threshold (FPT), which is currently set at $24,036 for a family of four.

The total number of children living in these families is 30.6 million, including 5.2 million infants and toddlers under the age of three.

The very youngest of children are the most vulnerable to poverty and low-income. Forty-five percent of children under the age of three live in in low-income families, and 23 percent (2.6 million) live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level.

According to the NCCP, families generally need to make twice the FTP to support themselves. What constitutes a livable income varies widely, however, as the cost of food, rent/mortgage, and other necessities is significantly higher in many cities.

Supporting a family of four in Boston, Massachusetts requires an annual income of about $85,000, according to the report. In Akron, Ohio, a family of four needs an annual income of about $61,500, and a family in Tulsa, Oklahoma needs $57,200. Many children in these cities are in families that are struggling to meet basic necessities but are not defined as poor or low-income.

Many children have parents who are employed but whose wages are insufficient to meet basic needs. Half of low-income children under age three and 28 percent of poor children have at least one parent who works full-time. While 84 percent of children whose parents did not graduate high school live in low-income households, 50 percent of low-income children have at least one parent who has attended college. Forty-one percent of poor children have a parent who has attended college.

Low income families are also more likely to move and move more frequently. While rents have risen steadily since 2009, 71 percent of low-income children are in families that rent their homes.

During the US election campaign last year, Obama declared that things have never been better, a message he and Democratic Party candidate Hilary Clinton contrasted with Trumps slogan of Make America great again. Obama cited stock market gains and employment statistics to support these claims.

The child poverty figures, however, expose the reality of social life in the United States. Most of the post-recession job growth occurred in low-paying, service sector jobs. American manufacture continued to decline--even in places where manufacturers continued to hire, they did so with lower wages and fewer benefits.

There is little reason to expect the economic prognosis for low-income children to improve as they reach adulthood. In an indication of economic insecurity in young adults, almost half of people in their early 20s require assistance from their parents with rent payments and other necessities, according to a recent report in the New York Times.

Forty percent of young adults between the ages of 22 and 24 require help, with a median assistance level of $250 a month. Young adults living in metropolitan areas of one million people or greater are 30 percent more likely to need help from their parents. These numbers have grown steadily. In the 1980s, fewer than 30 percent of this age group needed assistance.

The record of the Obama administration and the hostility of the Democratic Party to the working class opened the way for Trump to posture as an opponent of the status quo who would bring back jobs. However, the Trump administration, packed with billionaires and corporate CEOs, is preparing a vast intensification of the assault on the working class.

Throughout his campaign, Trump denounced programs such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program). One of his campaign advisors, Jack Kingston, stated in 2013 that children who need free or reduced lunches should be made to sweep floors in order to "[get] the myth out of their head that there is such a thing as free lunch." Trump has promised to cut over one million Americans off of SNAP and Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) by early 2017.

America's young children are essentially canaries in a mine. Like the decreasing ability of young adults to support themselves, their financial instability points to a greater level of economic instability for the entire working class.
Photo credit: Getty

From Cosmopolitan

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - As President Donald Trump hurls unfounded allegations of colossal fraud in last fall's election, lawmakers in at least 20 mostly Republican-led states are pushing to make it harder to register or to vote.

Efforts are underway in places such as Arkansas, Iowa, Maine, Nebraska and Indiana to adopt or tighten requirements that voters show photo ID at the polls. There is a move in Iowa and New Hampshire to eliminate Election Day registration. New Hampshire may also make it difficult for college students to vote. And Texas could shorten the early voting period by several days.

Supporters say the measures are necessary to combat voter fraud and increase public confidence in elections. But research has shown that in-person fraud at the polls is extremely rare, and critics of these restrictions warn that they will hurt mostly poor people, minorities and students - all of whom tend to vote Democratic - as well as the elderly.

They fear, too, that the U.S. Justice Department, under newly confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, will do little to intervene to protect voters.

Some election watchers see voting rights under heavy attack.

"What is really happening here is an attempt to manipulate the system so that some people can participate and some people can't," said Myrna Perez, director of the Voting Rights and Elections project at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice.

Even so, there are more bills around the country aimed at making it easier to vote, according to the Brennan Center. Starting or expanding early voting and creating automatic voter registration are two popular proposals.

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, for example, is backing a proposal to automatically register people to vote using their motor vehicle paperwork and to offer early voting for 12 days before Election Day.

Many of the restrictive laws became possible after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 struck down a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act that required certain states and counties, largely in the South, to get Justice Department approval before changing their election laws. The 2016 presidential election was the first without those protections, and voters in 14 states faced new restrictions on voting or registration.

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Kevin Hall, spokesman for the Iowa Secretary of State, said the voter ID legislation proposed there would provide for photo identification cards to anyone who needs one and would also update voting system technology.

"This is a commonsense approach just to protect the integrity of our election," he said. "We want to make sure it's secure and boost voter confidence as well."

In addition to eliminating same-day registration, New Hampshire Republicans want to add a residency requirement that critics say could prevent college students from voting. People can now vote in New Hampshire if they consider it their home. Proponents say the new measure would ensure that only people who truly live in the state can take part in elections.

Many of these measures are certain to face court challenges.

Before the presidential election, federal courts rolled back some of the toughest restrictions in North Carolina and Texas. Those cases are still working their way through the legal system, and voting rights groups are worried the new attorney general will abandon efforts made under the Obama administration to fight the restrictions.

Over the past few years, "states and localities were emboldened unlike ever before in employing a wide range of tactics to deny voting rights to people of color and people with disabilities," said Scott Simpson with the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "We expect that this will get much worse with a Justice Department that is hostile to voting rights."

Trump has claimed without evidence that as many as 5 million people voted illegally in the presidential election, complaining that the voter rolls include dead people, non-citizens and people registered in multiple states. He has called for an investigation.

Election experts are more concerned about the age of the nation's voting systems and their vulnerability to tampering.

A federal commission responsible for working with states on those very issues is facing an uncertain future, after a House committee this week voted to eliminate it. The Election Assistance Commission was created after the "hanging chad" debacle in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. Republicans say the agency is a prime example of government waste.

The commission is scheduled to make recommendations later this year on new standards for voting equipment.

___

Cassidy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Barbara Rodriguez in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

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Photo credit: Bill Clark / Getty

From Cosmopolitan

The Senate on Wednesday night confirmed Sen. Jeff Sessions as the 84th attorney general of the United States, making him the nation's top law enforcement official despite strident protests from Democrats.

A former prosecutor, Sessions, 70, is the junior senator from Alabama, a role he's held for the past 20 years. In February 2016, he became the first sitting U.S. senator to support Trump for president.

But Sessions' nomination riled democrats who threw a spotlight on racially insensitive comments he made nearly three decades ago. In 1986, then-President Reagan nominated Sessions to serve as a federal judge. Sessions' former deputy, Thomas Figures, who is black, claimed he made a number of remarks about black people, some of them aimed directly at him.

Figures testified that Sessions called him "boy" multiple times and warned him about what he said "to white people," according to The Washington Post. Sessions denied these allegations during testimony.

Sessions also joked that the Ku Klux Klan were OK, until he learned that they smoked marijuana," Figures said. And a lawyer in the justice department, J. Gerald Hebert, testified that Sessions referred to the NCAAP and the American Civil Liberties Union as "un-American" and "Communist-inspired," The Washington Post reported.

Sessions admitted that he did make those comments, but described the KKK remark as a joke, saying it was a "silly comment."

Ultimately, the Republican-led committee voted 10-8 against Sessions.

During his testimony for attorney general in January, Sessions said the "caricature of me from 1986 is not correct."

"I did not harbor the kind of animosity and race-based discrimination ideas that I was accused of. I did not!" he said, adding that he "abhors" the KKK.

Beyond these statements, Sessions also holds hard line views on immigration and has stoked fears that he will walk back Obama administration rules around accountability among America's police forces, The New York Times reported.



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A Sharp Divide Among Democrats and Republicans

Photo credit: The Washington Post / Getty

In the months leading up to Sessions' confirmation, Democrats issued damning statements indicating they wouldn't support his nomination. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia and hero of the civil rights movement, gave emotional testimony against Sessions.

It doesnt matter how Senator Sessions may smile, how friendly he may be, how he may speak to you, he said. We need someone who is going to stand up, to speak up, and speak out for the people that need help.



Sen. Corey Booker, a democrat from New Jersey and Senate colleague of Sessions, also testified against him, saying:

"Sen. Sessions has not demonstrated a commitment to a central requisite of the job: to aggressively pursue the congressional mandate of civil rights, equal rights, and justice for all of our citizens. In fact, at numerous times in his career, he has demonstrated a hostility towards these convictions and has worked to frustrate attempts to advance these ideals."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said he was "not confident in Senator Sessions' ability to be a defender of the rights of all Americans, or to serve as an independent check on the incoming administration."



"I am also deeply concerned by his views on immigration, which I saw firsthand during the push for comprehensive immigration reform," he added.

"Senator Sessions has failed to convince me that he will be a champion of constitutional rights: voting rights, women's health care and privacy rights, and anti-discrimination protections," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said in a statement last month. "Rather, he has demonstrated hostility and antipathy - even downright opposition - to these bedrock Constitutional principles."



Photo credit: The Washington Post / Getty

However, Republican support for Sessions showed no sign of cracking. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine who voted against Betsy DeVos for Education secretary, spoke highly of Sessions. "He is an individual who works hard, believes in public service and acts with integrity," she said. "As a former U.S. attorney and former Alabama attorney general, Senator Sessions is well qualified and would serve our country well as United States Attorney General."

Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, said, He knows the Justice Department as a former U.S. attorney, which would serve him very well in this position.

Sessions Protest Leads to Rallying Cry for Democrats

On Tuesday night, Democrats pulled another all-nighter on the Senate floor - just as they did before the confirmation vote for DeVos - to protest Sessions' looming nomination. At one point, Republicans voted to silence Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, when she tried to read a letter from Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., asking Congress to block Sessions' 1986 nomination.

Republicans claimed that Warren was violating a Senate rule meant to prevent lawmakers from disparaging their colleagues on the Senate floor. After she was formally silenced, Warren brought her message to Facebook Live, attracting millions of viewers.

In reprimanding Warren, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky used a phrase that has since becoming a rallying cry from Democrats. McConnell said: "She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted. That sparked a tweet from Hillary Clinton, which became part of the flood of support for Warren online.



"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."



So must we all.https://t.co/JXROGHPNkH - Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 8, 2017

Follow Michael on Twitter.

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Sunday is the 208th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

Born in 1809 in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky, Lincoln was a largely self-educated lawyer who served first in the Illinois House of Representatives and then in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1860, he was elected president of the United States. A few months later, Fort Sumter was attacked by the Confederates, and Lincoln became a wartime president.

Five days after Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered on behalf of the Confederate Army, Lincoln was shot and killed by a Confederate sympathizer. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated; he had just been overwhelmingly re-elected.

While there were certainly those who celebrated his death, especially white Southerners, most peoples relief and joy over the wars end quickly poured over into their grief. For decades after his death, it was common for people to hang an image of Honest Abe in their homes. The legacy of this mourning can still be seen in the La Crosse County Historical Societys collections.

During the Civil War, La Crosse residents Capt. Wilson Colwell and his wife, Nannie, had an opportunity to visit the White House and meet Lincoln and his family. Colwell was the sixth mayor of La Crosse and a captain of Company B, 2nd Wisconsin Infantry, also known as the Iron Brigade, during the Civil War. Company B, along with Capt. Colwell and his family, went to Washington to respond to Lincolns call as the first La Crosse contingent of volunteers to serve in the war.

Many years later, Colwells widow reminisced about her meeting with Lincoln in the La Crosse Tribune (Feb. 13, 1927). She described the president as a tall, gaunt, awkward figure, yet lovable and big-hearted.

This full-body portrait of Lincoln  in his customary suit, bow tie and top hat  captures the Lincoln that Nannie described. It is an etching, produced by an artist carving a design into a metal plate. The plate is then covered in ink and placed into a high-pressure press with a sheet of paper to produce an image.

The signature, Schneider, is that of Otto J. Schneider (1875-1946). Schneider is the creator of another, more famous portrait of Lincoln created from a photograph taken by Alexander Hesler. Written in pencil on the back of this print is February 2, 1913, possibly the date it was made. The original deed of gift identifies this as a rare Schneider etching. It was donated in 1974 by Mrs. James Polk, a member of the La Crosse Daughters of the American Revolution.

This is one of many portraits of Lincoln that memorialized the man who brought the nation through the bloodiest war in U.S. history. The full Abraham Lincoln collection at La Crosse County Historical Society can be viewed on the societys website.
Production incentives could be under threat in Croatia after Hrvoje Hribar, the head of national audio-visual center HAVC, resigned following a highly critical State Audit Office report, he said.

Hribar said this week that he was stepping down as head of HAVC after facing political pressure over an audit report that alleges financial misconduct by the public film body. HAVC promotes Croatia as a movie location and runs the country's multimillion dollar 20 percent tax rebate scheme, which has helped attract top international film and TV projects, including HBO's Game of Thrones.

Those incentives could now be at risk, Hribar told The Hollywood Reporter. "There has been no reaction from the government to these events, which is threatening," he said. "And there is no money left in the state budget for 2017 as far as incentives are concerned."

Government officials weren't immediately available for comment.

The audit was the culmination of over a year of pressure on HAVC that began under the watch of right-wing minister of culture Zlatko Hasanbegovic, who was in office between February and October of last year, Hribar said.

During that time, there were delays in paying out rebates owed to domestic and foreign producers that had shot films in Croatia. Total eligible production spending, on which the 20 percent rebate is calculated, fell from $25 million in 2015 to less than $9 million last year.

Hribar says the attacks on the center began after vilification by right-wing politicians in Croatia of a decision to fund a controversial 2015 Danish documentary about war crimes committed during the Yugoslav civil war, 15 Minutes - The Dvor Massacre, directed by Georg Larsen and Kasper Vedsmand.

Read more: Croatia Keeps Attracting Hollywood Productions

"It was a trigger for right-wing demands to dismantle an institution they claimed was not funding enough patriotic films," Hribar argued.

The special audit was ordered and alleged discrepancies were found in financial management, focusing on a rule stipulating that any spending over 200,000 Croatian Kuna, or $28,600, had to be signed off by the Minister of Culture. In practice, Hribar said, those rules had only ever applied to office spending, not operational spending that involved paying out tax rebates to producers of eligible film and TV projects.

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"We were blamed for operating the system that had always [been used] at HAVC and that had passed countless independent audits. The law is on our side," Hribar said, adding that under the political and media pressure in the wake of the critical audit office report, as a public servant he had had no choice but to resign. "I fear now that the center and incentives will not survive."

Fearing the campaign against the center could be a lever to politicize film funding, the Croatian Producers Association and Croatian Directors Guild accused the State Audit Office of making "aesthetic and artistic assessments  beyond [its] scope and jurisdiction."

They added that "since all contracts for film production are above 200,000 HRK, the State Audit Office is suggesting to introduce a practice where no film in Croatia will be allowed to be filmed without the consent of the government."

Under Croatian government rules, Hribar remains in office for two weeks following his resignation, meaning that he will attend the Berlin Film Festival, which opened Thursday night, to attend the European Film Market. He said that would give him the opportunity to explain the situation in person to producers and international film industry executives.

Read more: Oscars: Croatia Selects 'On the Other Side' for Foreign-Language Category
Thessaloniki (Greece) (AFP) - Greek authorities on Saturday began evacuating some 70,000 people in the city of Thessaloniki ahead of an operation to defuse a bomb from World War II.

The bomb, containing nearly 250 kilograms (550 pounds) of explosives, was unearthed in the northern city during road works last week and is due to be defused on Sunday.

More than 300 disabled people and bedbound patients were set to be the first evacuated on Saturday using 20 ambulances, authorities from Greece's second city said.

The full evacuation of all residents within a 1.9-kilometre (1.1-mile) radius of the bomb site, affecting three working-class neighbourhoods around west of the city-centre, is due to be completed before 0800 GMT on Sunday.

Evacuation is "obligatory", regional security chief Apostolos Tzitzikostas told reporters Friday.

The operation is unprecedented in Greece, "where a bomb of this size has never been found in an area this densely populated," Tzitzikostas added.

Regional authorities said the entire operation would take up to eight hours, but local military spokesman Colonel Nikos Phanios was more cautious.

"We don't know what we're going to find," he told AFP. Defusing the bomb and then moving it to a military shooting range "could take us up to two days", he added.

It is not yet known which side in the war dropped the bomb or when it fell, Phanios said.

A thousand police officers have been mobilised for the operation, with residents given several days' warning via the media, leaflets and posts on social networks.

Thessaloniki residents were facing disruption on the bus and train networks, with facilities set up to host evacuees in need of shelter.

People living in a nearby refugee camp will also have to be evacuated, the migration ministry said, without specifying the number affected. At their request, the refugees will use the evacuation as an opportunity to visit the local archaeology museum, the ministry added.

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Seven decades after the end of World War II, unexploded bombs from the conflict are still being found around the globe.

On January 23 dozens of people were evacuated after a bomb was found near a Hong Kong university, while three days before that Britain's navy disposed of a suspected World War II bomb found close to the parliament in London.

In the German city of Augsburg, 54,000 people had an unwelcome Christmas surprise on December 25 when they had to leave their homes while authorities dealt with a bomb dropped by Britain during the war.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday that he and U.S. President Donald Trump would discuss trade and economic issues at a working lunch and he was "optimistic" there would be good results from the dialogue. Abe said he was "fully aware" of Trump's decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership multilateral trade accord. But he said Japan and the United States had agreed on a new framework for economic dialogue. "I am quite optimistic that ... good results will be seen from the dialogue," he said, adding that Japan was looking for a fair, common set of rules for trade in the region. (Reporting by Steve Holland; Writing by David Alexander; Editing by James Dalgleish)
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP)  An Afghan official says at least seven people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked Afghan soldiers in southern Helmand province.

Omer Zwak, spokesman for the provincial governor in Helmand, said Saturday that 22 others were wounded in the attack, which took place in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.

Mohammad Rasoul Zazai, spokesman for the army in Helmand, confirmed that three soldiers are among those killed and seven soldiers were wounded.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Taliban insurgents frequently use roadside bombs and suicide attacks to target Afghan security forces as well as government officials across the country.
Alec Baldwin is returning to the Saturday Night Live stage on Saturday to host the sketch comedy show for the 17th time. Many are hopeful that hell bring his best Donald Trump impersonation yet, especially amid revelations from anonymous White House sources that the president and his cabinet members are increasingly unnerved by their portrayals on the NBC show.

Baldwin, 58, first debuted the impersonation in 2016, before the former reality star won the election in a surprising turn of events. The skit took off like wildfire on social media, grabbing the attention of the then-presidential hopeful. Trump slammed Baldwins impersonation, calling it a hit job. Furthermore, he called SNL a boring and unfunny show.

Baldwin continued impersonating Trump, 70, alongside other members of the SNL cast  namely Kate McKinnon and Beck Bennett  who portrayed the controversial cast of characters the president has chosen to align himself with. McKinnon, who began the election cycle drawing laughs by portraying Hillary Clinton, began appearing as Trumps counselor Kellyanne Conway, while Bennett played Vladamir Putin and Vice President Mike Pence in various skits.

On Feb. 4, SNL took on two new members of Trumps team. In a cold open starring Baldwin as Trump, the NBC series tackled claims that former Breitbart editor Steve Bannon was actually calling the shots on Capitol Hill. Rather than have someone sit in hair and makeup to take on Bannons appearance, SNL portrayed him as the grim reaper. Later in the show, Melissa McCarthy appeared as Press Secretary Sean Spicer. She mocked his frequent press conferences and style of fielding questions from the press.

Donald Trump

Photo: Getty Images

Baldwin has given no indication of whats to come on Saturday when he takes the stage, but we have our doubts hed miss an opportunity to take a jab at the current Commander in Chief. Before his latest SNL hosting gig, lets relive some of his best Trump sketches thus far:

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Oval Office Opening

During this skit, SNL addressed reports that Bannon, rather than Trump, was making the important decisions in the White House. During the skit Trump is shown sitting with Bannon, who urges him to make a few calls to various world leaders despite being fatigued. This is, of course, a spin on very real events that took place on Jan. 28 when Trump hung up on Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Press Conference Opening

On Jan. 14, SNL took aim at Trump by mocking a press conference hed delivered days prior. During the meeting with members of the press, the acting President slammed Buzzfeed as a failing publication and bashed CNN as fake news and refused to show proof that he had separated from his businesses.

Christmas Cold Open

After winning the election, Trump (Baldwin) was visited by Putin (Bennett) in this special SNL skit. John Goodman also made an appearance as oil tycoon and Trump cabinet members Rex Tillerson.

Classroom Cold Open

SNL took aim at Trumps frivolous Twitter usage during their Dec. 3 show after the President retweeted the unverified account of a 16-year-old boy who attacked a CNN journalist for having no sufficient evidence that Donald Trump did not suffer from voter fraud. In the skit Trump was shown in a security briefing paying little to no attention to the important updates being delivered. In character Baldwin claims Trump does it because his brain is bad. He is shown retweeting several other controversial accounts  all of which, once again, really happened.

Donald Trump Prepares Cold Open

In their second show after the election of Trump, Baldwin threw on his awful toupee and ill-fitting suit alongside McKinnon to mock the presidents preparation process. The 45th President was shown panicking and seeking reassurance from Conway, only to find that his biggest supporters are some of the most controversial figures in the world. With nowhere else to turn, Trump looks to Siri for support. Jason Sudeikis revived his Mitt Romney impression for the skit and Bennett appeared as Pence.

Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump Debate Opening

Throughout much of the political cycle, pundits and voters alike balked at Trumps behavior during debates. His strategy seemed to be to cut Clinton off, make grandiose claims to his supporters and attempt to elicit fear among viewers. SNL mocked his behavior in an especially volatile debate just days before the election.

Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Third Debate Opening

In the third debate of the election cycle, Trump upped his tactics. He followed Clinton around the stage and interrupted her answers with a simple wrong. The NBC sketch comedy show recreated this event on the show days later.

Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Town Hall Opening

During the election cycle, SNL tackled one of the early presidential debates as only they could. At the time, many still believed Clinton had secured the presidency. During the town hall the NBC show also debuted their very own version of Ken Bone, the red sweater clad undecided voter who saw his 15 minutes of fame after raising an important question during the broadcast.

VP Debate Cold Open

During an SNL skit based on the Vice Presidential debate, Trump (Baldwin) appeared to defend himself amid claims he made lewd comments about sexually assaulting women on the Access Hollywood bus with Billy Bush several years prior. He defended his comment, even repeating it, for the broadcaster. He delivered a very-Trump like apology to his supporters for what he had said and explained the moment. Baldwin also took shots a Bush, claiming he only said what he said on that bus to appear cool in front of him and mocking claims that Trump was younger and less wise at the time.

Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Debate Opening

Not long after Baldwin debuted with his impeccable Trump impression, SNL reenacted one of the earliest debates. At the time, no one could have imagined how off the wall both the political cycle and the scale of the sketch comedy shows skits would get.

SNL also took on the endorsements of Ben Carson and Sarah Palin, the GOP debate and more. Click HERE to check out more Trump skits the legendary NBC sketch comedy show. Catch Baldwin on SNL on Saturday, Feb. 11, at 11:30 p.m. EST on NBC.

Alec Baldwin

Photo: Getty Images

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Paris (AFP) - Algorithms are a crucial cog in the mechanics of our digital world, but also a nosy minder of our personal lives and a subtle, even insidious influence on our behaviour.

They have also come to symbolise the risks of a computerised world conditioned by commercial factors.

- A gift from a Persian scientist -

Long before they were associated with Google searches, Facebook pages and Amazon suggestions, algorithms were the brainchild of a Persian scientist.

The term is a combination of mediaeval Latin and the name of a ninth century mathematician and astronomer, Al-Khwarizmi, considered the father of algebra.

A bit like a kitchen recipe, an algorithm is a series of instructions that allows you to obtain a desired result, according to sociologist Dominique Cardon, who wrote "What Algorithms Dream Of".

Initially known mainly to mathematicians, the term spread as computers developed.

The brains of computer programmes are algorithms, and are thus a central cog in the internet machine.

- Where are algorithms found? -

"We are literally surrounded by algorithms," says Olivier Ertzscheid, a French professor of information technology and communication.

"Every time you consult Facebook, Google or Twitter you are exposed to choices" that algorithms calculate for us, and we are also sometimes influenced by them, he told AFP.

They reign in the finance sector, one example being high frequency trading programmes, which can execute trades in milliseconds driven by algorithms that analyze a range of market and economic factors. Their speed and rule-based nature means they can make markets volatile and have triggered so-called flash crashes in the foreign exchange and stock markets.

Police forces increasingly use algorithms to predict where and when crimes are most likely to be committed. Predpol, a software programme, claims to have contributed to double-digit drops in burglaries, robberies and vehicle theft in several US states and is also used in Kent, southern England.

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Satellite tracking and surveillance would not have reached the point they are at today without sophisticated algorithms.

- How Google began -

In the 1990s, PageRank (PR) was created in Stanford, California by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google's co-founders.

PR made it possible to class web pages by order of popularity. It became the heart of the Google research engine, which responds to key words within a fraction of a second. In addition to PR, Google uses "a dozen algorithms... to deal with spam, detect copyright infractions" and handle other crucial tasks, Ertzscheid explains.

- Facebook and the 'filter bubble' -

Facebook uses sophisticated algorithms to offer its more than 1.8 billion users worldwide personalised content, in particular on its News Feed service which compiles messages from "friends", and shares articles selected according to each users social media contacts.

One risk posed by such a system is that of "The Filter Bubble" according to Eli Pariser, who developed the concept in a book of the same name. Being surrounded by information filtered by algorithms based on one's friends, tastes and previous digital searches and choices, someone surfing the internet can be plunged unwittingly into a "cognitive bubble" that just reinforces their convictions and perspective on the world.

- Algorithms and the truth -

Another risk was exposed during the last US presidential election -- the prevalence of so-called fake news or hoaxes on Facebook and other social media. Facebook's algorithms were not designed to distinguish true from false -- a feat that is difficult even for artificial intelligence -- but the popularity of information.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has sought to deflect criticism that it had been used to fuel the spread of misinformation that may have impacted the presidential race, but the company responded to growing criticism by saying new tools would be provided so users could call attention to controversial content.

- Thinking for us? -

Cardon says four main "families" of web algorithms exist. One calculates the popularity of web pages, another assesses their authority within the digital community, and a third evaluates the notoriety of social network users. The fourth attempts to predict the future.

This last one is "problematic" for the sociologist, because it tries to anticipate our future behaviour based on clues we have left on the internet in the past.

It shows up on Amazon for example as book recommendations based on past purchases.

"We build the calculators, but in return they build us" too, Cardon concluded.
By Jeffrey Dastin (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc warned on Friday that government actions to bolster domestic companies against foreign competition could hurt its business, in a possible reference to U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda. In a routine description of regulatory risks in its 2016 annual filing, the world's largest online retailer said "trade and protectionist measures" might hinder its ability to grow. That language has not appeared in Amazon's warning about government regulation in at least the past five annual filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. However, the Seattle-based company has cited trade protection in those filings as a risk to its international sales and operations specifically. The new Republican president has made job creation a cornerstone of his policies, threatening to impose tariffs on imports so companies produce and hire within the United States. Republicans in Congress also have a plan to target imports while excluding export revenue from U.S. corporate income tax, known as a border adjustment tax. The proposal in the U.S. House of Representatives has divided corporate America. Major exporters like Boeing Co have thrown their weight behind it, but a retail association has said it would raise prices for shoppers. It was not clear what kinds of protectionist measures - whether tariffs or other actions - concerned Amazon the most, or from which countries Amazon saw the greatest risk. Amazon so far has declined to comment on Republican lawmakers' border tax plan. It declined comment on the new language in its annual filing, which appeared under the header, "Government Regulation Is Evolving and Unfavorable Changes Could Harm Our Business." The filing did not mention the change in leadership of the White House. Separately, Amazon said in the filing that it may face penalties for having delivered consumer products to entities covered by the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act, between 2012 and 2016. Products included apparel, consumer electronics, software and books. Amazon said it processed goods worth about $2,400 for an entity controlled or owned by Iran's government, for example. "We do not plan to continue selling to these accounts in the future," Amazon said. "Our review is ongoing and we are enhancing our processes designed to identify transactions associated with individuals and entities covered by the (act)." (Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; Editing by Andrew Hay and Cynthia Osterman)
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump has promised more legal action after a federal appeals court refused to reinstate his ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations. Trump tweeted "SEE YOU IN COURT" after the decision came out Thursday, but what he has in mind remains to be seen.

Trump said Friday that he has "no doubt" he will win the case in court and told reporters he's considering signing a "brand-new order" on immigration.

The 3-0 ruling means that refugees and people from the seven nations  Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  can continue entering the United States for now. The administration has several options on how to proceed.

A look at where the legal fight goes from here.

REHEARING AT THE APPEALS COURT

The Trump administration could decide to ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the three-judge panel's ruling. But the odds of success seem low, said Margo Schlanger, a law professor at the University of Michigan. She noted that the three-judge panel was unanimous and included a judge chosen by a Republican president.

SUPREME COURT APPEAL

The government could file an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court and ask the justices to restore the ban. But it would take at least five justices to overturn the ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and that may be a long shot. The high court still has only eight members since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia  four conservative and four liberal justices.

"There are almost surely four votes to deny an emergency request to reinstate the order," said Peter Spiro, a law professor at Temple University.

The last immigration case to reach the justices ended in a 4-4 deadlock last year. That suggests a similar split over Trump's order, which would let the 9th Circuit ruling stand and keep the freeze in place.

WAITING FOR GORSUCH

If the Supreme Court declines to intervene right away, the case would remain in the 9th Circuit and ultimately be considered on its legal merits. It also could return to U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle, who temporarily blocked the ban after Washington state and Minnesota urged a nationwide hold on the Jan. 27 order.

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The lower court action so far is temporary and hasn't resolved broader questions about the legality of Trump's order. It simply halts deportations or other actions until judges can more fully consider whether the order violates legal or constitutional rights.

Allowing the case to play out longer at the appeals court has one advantage: By the time a ruling on the merits comes down, the Senate may have confirmed Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. That may improve Trump's chances to prevail on appeal.

But just how the issue might reach the Supreme Court isn't clear. Several other challenges have been launched in courts around the country, and the court could opt to wait before stepping in.

REVISING THE EXECUTIVE ORDER

The White House could amend the executive order to expressly carve out existing green card holders and other people that already have some ties to the United States. Up to 60,000 visas were initially canceled in the wake of the ban, affecting the lives of students, professors and workers.

White House counsel Donald McGahn had issued guidance days after the executive order saying it didn't apply to legal permanent residents of the U.S., but the appeals court said that was not enough.

"The government has offered no authority establishing that the White House counsel is empowered to issue an amended order superseding the executive order signed by the president," the opinion said.

Revising the order "shifts the legal boundaries so that it becomes a tougher constitutional target," Spiro said.

The appeals court issued a sharp rebuke to the Justice Department's argument that the president has the constitutional power to restrict entry to the United States to prevent terrorism, and that courts cannot second-guess that authority.

"There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy," the opinion said.

Washington state, Minnesota and other states say Trump showed his intent in the presidential campaign when he called for a ban on Muslims entering the country. They also say his order discriminates against Muslims because it provides exceptions for refugees who practice a religion that makes them a minority in their home country. That would favor Christians in the countries affected.

The appeals court said the administration failed to show that the order satisfied constitutional requirements to provide notice or a hearing before restricting travel. But it did not rule on whether the order violated religious protections under the First Amendment.

Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni told a Virginia judge hearing arguments in a similar case on Friday that the administration hasn't decided what to do.
WASHINGTON (AP)  It was a week of sound and fury from President Donald Trump, the commander in tweets. A look at how some of his statements fit with the facts:

TRUMP made an unsupported assertion Monday that terrorist acts in Europe are going unreported: "All over Europe it's happening. It's gotten to a point where it's not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that."

THE FACTS: Trump and his team cited one example of a deadly terrorist attack going unreported: the one that didn't happen in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Adviser Kellyanne Conway spoke a week earlier about a Bowling Green "massacre" that didn't take place, correcting herself when she was called out on the error.

As for Trump's claim about Europe, it's probably true that you haven't heard of every attack on the continent that can be tied to terrorism. Scores if not hundreds happen every year. Many don't rise to the level of an international audience because they cause no casualties, or little or no property damage, or are carried out by unknown assailants for unclear reasons.

One exhaustive list is the Global Terrorism Database, maintained by the University of Maryland. It lists 321 episodes of suspected or known terrorism in Western Europe alone in 2015. Many are anti-Muslim attacks against mosques, not the brand of terrorism Trump has expressed concern about. Many are attacks undertaken for right-wing or left-wing causes that have nothing to do with Islamic extremism or xenophobic attacks on mosques.

The database defines a terrorist act as one aimed at attaining political, religious, social or economic goals through coercion or intimidation of the public, outside acts of war.

The devastating attacks by Islamic extremists in 2015 are also on the list, among them the murderous assault on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and the even bloodier attack at Paris' Bataclan concert hall, the worst in a series of killings in one day. Those attacks and other deadly ones in Europe received saturation coverage for days.

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But even the smaller, nonlethal acts of terrorism received coverage. The database itself is built from media reports.

THE WALKBACK:

Trump made his claim before a broad audience on live television, while speaking at Central Command headquarters in Florida. On Air Force One, before a smaller audience, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump did not really mean that terrorist attacks received no coverage. Trump's actual complaint, he said, was that such acts don't get enough attention.

The White House later released a list of 78 worldwide attacks it described as "executed or inspired by" IS. Most on the list did not get sufficient media attention, the White House said, without specifying which ones it considered underreported.

Attacks on the list that had high death tolls were given blanket coverage, such as the Brussels bombings in March, the San Bernadino, California, shootings in December 2015, and the Paris attacks in November 2015. Some with a smaller death toll, such as two attacks in Canada that killed one soldier each, were covered at the time and well known.

The White House did not point to any examples supporting Trump's contention that terrorist attacks were "not even being reported."

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TRUMP, speaking to sheriffs Tuesday: "The murder rate in our country is the highest it's been in 47 years, right? Did you know that? Forty-seven years. I used to use that  I'd say that in a speech and everybody was surprised because the press doesn't tell it like it is." He circled back to add: "The murder rate is the highest it's been in, I guess, from 45 to 47 years."

THE FACTS: The murder rate in 2015, the latest year for which figures are available, is actually among the lowest in half a century. It stood at 4.9 murders per 100,000 people, a far cry from the rates in the 1970s, 1980s and most of the 1990s, when they were typically over 6 per 100,000, peaking at over 10 in 1980.

It's true that 2015 saw one of the largest increases in decades, up 10 percent from 4.4 murders per 100,000 people in 2014. But even with that rise, homicides are not on the order of what the country experienced in previous decades.

Trump has misrepresented crime statistics on several occasions. He stated last month that Philadelphia's murder rate has been "terribly increasing" even though it dropped slightly last year. The city's murder rate rose in the previous two years but remained substantially lower than in past decades.

He also incorrectly claimed that two people "were shot and killed" in Chicago during then-President Barack Obama's farewell speech on Jan. 10. Although Chicago has experienced a surge in murders compared with previous decades, no one was fatally shot in Chicago that day, police records show, much less during Obama's speech.

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TRUMP in a tweet Thursday: "It is a disgrace that my full Cabinet is still not in place, the longest such delay in the history of our country. Obstruction by Democrats!"

THE FACTS: That's a premature judgment. It's only February, and several other recent presidents did not have their full Cabinets seated this soon. Obama did not have all his Cabinet vacancies filled until late April 2009, for example, or President Bill Clinton until mid-March 1993.

Looking at the far broader range of people throughout government who must be confirmed by the Senate, it's true that the process has lagged this time. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price this past week became the ninth member of Trump's administration to be confirmed. At this point eight years ago Obama had more than 20 officials confirmed, including department heads and deputies.

Democratic resistance is partly responsible. So is the fact that Trump has been slower than his predecessor in submitting vetting information and paperwork for his nominees, even though he was unusually fast in putting the names of his Cabinet picks into play.

As for his accusation of Democratic obstructionism, the opposition party can cause some procedural delays, and has done so. But obstructionism isn't what it used to be. Unlike Obama, Trump only needs a simple majority to confirm his executive-office nominees, thanks to a change in rules instituted by Democrats when they controlled the Senate in 2013. And Trump has a Republican-controlled Senate to push his nominees through.

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TRUMP on Thursday disputed statements by at least three senators that his nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, voiced complaints to them about the president's recent attacks on the judiciary. Tweet: "Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?" At a lunch with senators: "His comments were misrepresented."

THE FACTS: Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut who falsely claimed in years past that he had served in Vietnam, offered an account of his meeting with Gorsuch that was corroborated by Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist serving as communications director for the team that is working to get Gorsuch confirmed by the Senate.

The senator said Gorsuch told him it was "disheartening" and "demoralizing" to see Trump disparage the judge who temporarily blocked the president's restrictions on visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries and on refugees. Trump has called U.S. District Judge James Robart a "so-called judge" and accused the judiciary of being political. Robart's decision was upheld Thursday in a unanimous decision by an appeals court panel that includes a Republican appointee.

A Republican senator said Gorsuch also objected to Trump's comments about Robart during their meeting.

"He got pretty passionate about him, about it," Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska told MSNBC on Thursday. "I asked him about the 'so-called judges' comment, because we don't have so-called judges or so-called presidents or so-called senators, and this was a guy who kind of welled up with some energy and he said any attack on any of  I think his term to me was, brothers or sisters of the robe  is an attack on all judges, and he believes in an independent judiciary."

The Senate's top Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York, also said Gorsuch told him he was "disheartened" by Trump's insult.

Former GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is helping to usher Gorsuch through the Senate, said in a statement released by the White House that the nominee "made clear that he was not referring to any specific case," but "finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing." Even if Gorsuch did not name Trump in some of his exchanges with senators, however, it's clear that judicial integrity only came up because Trump had attacked it.

Blumenthal told The Associated Press that Ayotte and White House staff members were in the room during his conversation with Gorsuch, that "there's no question that he said that President Trump's attacks on the judiciary are demoralizing and disheartening" and that the nominee added: "You can repeat that. You can quote me."

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TRUMP tweet Thursday: "Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave 'service' in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!"

THE FACTS: Not so. Cuomo, a CNN host, brought up that issue upfront with Blumenthal. Cuomo asked him about Trump's belief that the senator has no credibility "because you misrepresented your military record in the past." Blumenthal did not answer the question, but went on to talk about his meeting with Judge Gorsuch.

During Blumenthal's Senate campaign in 2010, The New York Times reported on multiple occasions when he falsely claimed he had served in Vietnam during the war. He joined the Marine Reserve but never served in Vietnam. Blumenthal told AP on Thursday: "I've been in public life for quite a while. Anyone who is interested can go back over it."

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TRUMP tweet Friday: "LAWFARE: 'Remarkably, in the entire opinion, the panel did not bother even to cite this (the) statute.' A disgraceful decision!"

THE FACTS: In this rather bewildering tweet, Trump cited a legal blog as support for his complaints about the appeals case that kept the borders open to people he wants banned.

Trump accurately quoted a passage from the Lawfare blog about the decision Thursday by the federal appeals court in San Francisco. But the blog's editor-in-chief and author of the post, Brookings Institution scholar Benjamin Wittes, actually wrote in favor of the decision while exposing what he considers its weaknesses.

He wrote that Trump's executive order barring visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries and refugees worldwide was promulgated with "incompetent malevolence." Continuing its suspension, as the appeals court did, avoids plunging the country into turmoil again while other courts address the merits of the case, he said.

Yet Wittes said the judges failed to address the law at the heart of Trump's statutory case. The law says the president may, "by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens" or impose "any restrictions" if he decides their presence in the country would be detrimental to the U.S.

That's a "pretty big omission," he wrote. Wittes also criticized the court's "arch and clucking dismissals of presidential demands for deference in national security cases."

Trump's selective citation from the blog suggests that this line of argument could be central to the administration's case that courts have not given presidential authority proper weight.

The passage quoted by Trump was featured on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and the president's use of it prompted the author to tweet: "You've found the only sentence in it congenial to your views."

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Find all AP Fact Checks here: http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

EDITOR'S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures
General James Mattis in 2007 (credit: Shawn Eklund)

On January 20, the U.S. Senate confirmed General James Mattis as the U.S. Secretary of Defense by a vote of 98-1. Mattis is an incredibly decorated veteran, having served in the Persian Gulf and risen to leadership of U.S. Central Command in the Middle East. He is extremely qualified to lead the Department of Defense.

So why was his confirmation considered historic? Mattis had retired from the military only three years ago, and therefore might have been deemed ineligible for the job by an obscure provision of the National Security Act of 1947, which states that, in order to lead the Department, one must be seven years removed from military service (it was originally 10 years). Instead, Mattis became only the second person to receive a waiver that would allow him to serve despite his recent retirement. The first person to receive the waiver was General George Marshall, architect of the Marshall Plan.

But the waiver is only for the Secretary of Defense. President Donald Trump has also appointed two other generals to high-ranking roles: John Kelly as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and Michael Flynn as National Security Advisor. Kelly was confirmed by a vote of 88-11 on the same day as Mattis. Flynns position does not require Senate confirmation. So why is there a waiver in the first place, and why only for Defense?

The answer is grounded in the principle of civilian control of the military. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 feared a standing army; they worried that an army could arbitrarily seize control of the government. The framers therefore put the President in charge of the army as Commander in Chief.

It was clear to the Framers that George Washington would be President once the Constitution was ratified, and his prior military experience only made it fitting that he would lead the nations fighters. It also made sense from a practical and strategic standpoint that a single person should direct the military, instead of requiring Congress every single tactic. Still, the delegates did not want all military power in the Presidents hands; as such, in Article I, Section 8, Congress was given the responsibility of funding the military and approving declarations of war and treaties. The President wields the sword, but Congress holds the purse.

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The United States is one of many countries that employ this civilian-military relationship, and it has been very effective. Unlike countries like Turkey, the U.S. has never suffered a military coup, attempted or otherwise. While Presidents have feuded with military personnel in the pastPresident Abraham Lincoln famously quipped, If General McClellan does not want to use the Army, I would like to borrow it for a time, provided I could see how it could be made to do somethingthe relationship between the two parties has generally been productive and effective.

With this principle in mind, the Defense waiver was enacted for two reasons. For one, Congress wanted to ensure that the Secretary is not overly chummy with military officials, leading to a power struggle between the Secretary and the President if they disagree on a certain issue.

The waiver was also designed to allow a general to gain perspective as a private citizen. As former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers explained, When you get to that Defense Secretary role, it has to be a broader, strategic impact brought to any decision you make in any strategic event you make around the world. The waiver ensures that a President does not pick a general right off the battlefield who may harbor vendettas and immediately try to act on them.

Because the Secretary of Homeland Security and the National Security Advisor do not deal so directly with military strategy and leadership, Congress has not felt the need to enact a waiver for those positions.

President Trumps selection of generals is not unprecedented. Still, some believe the appointments are an invaluable check on a President with no foreign policy experience, while others, like U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), believe they weaken civilian control. Gillibrand, the only senator to vote against Mattis, said, Civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of American democracy, and I will not vote for an exception.

Chris Calabrese is an intern at the National Constitution Center. He is also a recent graduate of St. Josephs University.

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Syrian President Bashar Assad endorsed President Donald Trump's claim that some terrorists are hidden among refugees entering the U.S. in an exclusive interview with Yahoo News Friday. Assad confirmed in the interview that some refugees are "definitely" terrorists.

You can find it on the Net, Assad said. Those terrorists in Syria, holding the machine gun or killing people, they [appear as] peaceful refugees in Europe or in the West."

With more than four million Syrian refugees, Assad did not specify how many of those refugees were terrorists, but said, "you don't need a significant number to commit atrocities," and added that it took fewer than 20 terrorists to commit the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

"So it's not about the number, it's about the quality, it's about the intentions," he said.

Syria's President

Photo: Sana Sana

While Trump's recent executive order has temporarily halted entries from seven Muslim-majority countries, the order has banned Syrian refugees indefinitely until "sufficient changes" have been made to screening operations. "I hereby proclaim that the entry of nationals of Syria as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the United States," Trump's order signed last month read.

Assad has actively participated in discharging refugees to other countries amid a civil war that has pitted the Syrian military against Islamic State militants and rebel groups. Thousands of civilians in entire cities have been killed by the Assad regime's chemical weapons and barrel bombs, especially in Aleppo in the northwest part of the country, where ISIS fighters have set up a base. But in the Yahoo exclusive, Assad explained that his priority for the future of Syria's refugees was to "bring those citizens to their country, not to help them immigrate."

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Trump said he would create safe zones in Syria for victims of war to seek protection but has provided few details about how he would do that. Assad has deemed the proposal "not realistic." Other U.S. politicians and officials have supported the creation of safe zones, including Trump's Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton. However, skeptics fear such a policy would further drag the U.S. military into Syria's civil war.

"Safe zones for the Syrians could only happen when you have stability and security, where you don't have terrorists, where you don't have flow and support of those terrorists by the neighboring countries or by Western countries," Assad concluded.

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By Aaron Crouch, The Hollywood Reporter

Only Robert Downey Jr. could assemble this many new Avengers.

After Downey answered some Facebook Live questions from Avengers: Infinity War headquarters (AKA the Atlanta) set, Marvel Studios released a behind-the-scenes featurette (watch above) touting it upcoming mega-teamup, and it confirmed a few rumors and will surely provide fodder for a few more.

Tom Holland (Spider-Man), Chris Pratt (Star-Lord) and Downey (Tony Stark) lead off the set footage, which is from day one of shooting last month, with Downey calling it the start of a year of fun-filled lensing.

The featurette confirms the Guardians of the Galaxy will be meeting the Avengers and that Spidey will be swinging into the film.

Related: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Receives Extremely Rare 100 Percent Rating in Test Screening

There were also a few plot tidbits.

 The Avengers will be totally unprepared to face Thanos, thanks to the events of Captain America: Civil War, says studio head Kevin Feige.

 Tony and Captain America still arent talking, and the Avengers are basically a name with nobody in it, according to screenwriter Christopher Markus.

 Tony senses this greater threat approaching, so he is doing everything in his power to keep the Earth safe, says co-director Joe Russo.

As for Downeys Facebook Live (watch below, there were also a few entertaining nuggets. Asked if Tony and Captain America (Chris Evans) still arent getting along, Downey responded, hes still on my S-list. There were also a few unexpected guests, with directors the Russo Brothers coming to try to get Downey back to work, while Pratt also dropped by in costume. And the camera man is also a familiar face.

Avengers: Infinity War opens May 4, 2018. An untitled Avengers sequel, which is shooting back-to-back with Infinity War, opens May 3, 2019.
GREELEY, Colo. (AP)  A baby sitter accused of using two children in her care to rob a Colorado bank has pleaded guilty to theft, forgery and attempted robbery.

The Greeley Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/2lAs1xf ) Rachel Einspahr was sentenced to six years in prison after entering her plea Friday.

Einspahr was charged with robbing a bank in the town in Severance last May. Authorities say she had two sisters in her car when she went to a drive-up lane and passed a note to a teller saying an armed man was in the back seat threatening the children and demanding money.

One child later told police there was no gunman.

Some of the charges against Einspahr stemmed from separate allegations that she was skimming money from a business she managed for someone else.

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Information from: The Tribune of Greeley, Co, http://greeleytribune.com
A Russian airstrike that was intended for Islamic State group militants in Northern Syria but instead accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers happened because Turkey's army provided them with the wrong coordinates about their troops location, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday. However, the Turkish military responded saying it had warned Russia military that their troops were going to be in that area before Thursdays attack, Sputnik International reported Friday.

A representative of the Turkish army said the three casualties in the northern town of Al Bab were the result of a lack of agreement of coordinates during strikes by the Russian air force. However, the representative maintained that the air strike that blew up a building where Turkish troops were deployed was an accident," according to France 24 NewsThursday.

The Russian defense ministry said chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov and his Turkish counterpart, Hulusi Akar, had spoken to one another on the phone to agree on closer coordination of joint actions.

Both Russia and Turkey have been conducting air strikes in Al Bab, which has been held by the Islamic State group since December. But the Turkish military spearheaded efforts to take the city on the ground this week when it started besieging the town Monday and successfully entered its southern outskirts Thursday. Five Turkish soldiers were killed Thursday in firefights with Islamic State militants, while five others died in battles Wednesday, according to BBC News Thursday.

The two countries were seemingly on opposing sides of the Syrian Civil War, with the Kremlin hoping that Syrian President Bashar Assad remains in power and Ankara viewing his removal as the key to peace in the conflict that has killed an estimated 400,000 people since starting in March 2011. But with Russia and Turkey agreeing to work together to exterminate the presence of the Islamic State in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin quickly reached out to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after Thursday's incident to express his condolences and offer his assurance that the Kremlin would do everything in its power to prevent such mistakes from happening again.

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Both countries have launched an investigation into the attack.

Each sides was reportedly eager to move on from Thursdays incident in a similar fashion to when the two countries offered to help one another in December after an off-duty Turkish policemen shot and killed Russias ambassador to Ankara in an art gallery.

After Andrey Karlov's assassination, which Erdogan called an attempt to "derail" efforts by Turkey and Russia to work together to bring peace to Syria, the Turkish government offered Russian detectives whatever resources they needed during their investigation. As an additional sign of respect, Karlovs body was given a traditional Turkish honor ceremony on the tarmac before being sent back to Russia on an airplane.

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By Solarina Ho TORONTO (Reuters) - The Bank of Canada's early experiment on a blockchain-based payment system highlights challenges such as cost-efficiency and data privacy, according to an article by a senior bank official published on Friday. "The experiment will be ongoing until later this spring, but already it has taught us a lot about how the technology would have to improve to win a horse race with our current Large Value Transfer System (LVTS)," senior deputy governor Carolyn Wilkins wrote in an article published on Coindesk.com. LVTS is the Canadian system for electronic wire transfers of large sums of money. Known as "Project Jasper," the blockchain experiment launched last year is a joint initiative between Canada's central bank, Payments Canada and R3, a consortium of the world's largest financial institutions, including Canada's biggest banks. Originally used to underpin digital currencies like bitcoin, blockchain is a distributed record of data or transactions, maintained by a network of computers without the need for approval from a central authority. Banks and other large financial institutions have been ramping up efforts to develop blockchain-based technology to run some of their most burdensome back-office processes, such as the clearing and settlement of securities. Wilkins said the experiment shows cost-savings are unlikely to come directly from the core system itself, but rather through reducing the need for data reconciliation. While the shared, or "decentralized," nature of distributed ledger technology may cut security risks, core payment systems used by financial institutions still require "a substantial amount of centralization," she wrote. A Bank of Canada spokesman said in an email that public blockchains share too much information and do not meet the requirements for the bank's core payment systems. Private blockchains, which are favoured by banks over public ones, have a central authority, or designated administrators who manage the network under agreed terms. Wilkins said the group was looking at a new prototype of the platform to try to address further aspects of a blockchain-based payment system, such as how to verify transactions by members of the system and balancing that with how much information participants are comfortable with sharing. The Bank of Canada declined to elaborate on other issues mentioned in article, such as cybersecurity, legal issues and data privacy. (Reporting by Solarina Ho; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images

An Amnesty International report which claimed that up to 13,000 people have been hanged in a Syrian prison as part of an extermination campaign, has been called fake news by the country's president, Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian leader insisted it had been fabricated on fake allegations in a bid to undermine the government.

Put into question the credibility of Amnesty International, it is always biased and politicised and it is a shame for such an organisation to publish a report without a shred of evidence, he told Yahoo News. They havent been to Syria, they only made their reports on allegations. You can forge anything these days - we are living in a fake news era.

Amnestys report said that mass hangings were taking place at the Saydnaya Prison on the outskirts of Syria's capital Damascus, was part of a systematic campaign of torture and "extermination" against dissidents.

Detainees referred to the prison as the slaughterhouse, it said, adding that the hangings had been authorised by officials at the highest level government from 2011.

Amnesty International carried out 84 interviews to compile the report, which included 31 men who were detained at Saydnaya and four prison officials or guards who previously worked at the prison.

They also spoke to, three former Syrian judges, three doctors who worked at Tishreen Military Hospital, four Syrian lawyers, 17 international and national experts on detention in Syria and 22 family members of people who were or still are detained at the prison.

The human rights organisation is barred from entering the country by the Syrian authorities and so interviews were carried out in southern Turkey, via telephone or by other remote means.

But Mr Assad accused the organisation of having deliberately fabricated information.

They said it is based on interviews but what about the documents," he said. "What about the concrete evidence?

He added: It means nothing. When you make a report you need evidence, concrete evidence. You can make any report and pay money to anyone."

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An aerial view of Saydnaya Prison (Amnesty International)

Previously, the justice ministry claimed the findings were totally untrue and were part of a smear campaign, in a statement published by state-controlled media.

Asked whether he knew what was going on inside the prison and whether he had been there, Mr Assad replied: No, I have been in the Presidential palace.

He added that the US had no grounds on which to condemn Syria for human rights abuses considering its own record.

The US is in no position to talk about human rights since the Vietnam War. Since that moment, when they killed millions of civilians and 1.5 millions in Iraq without any assignment by the Security Council, he said.

Your own the questions, I own the answers, the Syrian President also told his American interviewer.

Executions by the Syrian government or by affiliated institutions were legal actions following a trial, he insisted.

After the report's publication, Boris Johnson said he was sickened by the reported executions, adding: Assad responsible for so many deaths and has no future as leader.

The report covers the period from 2011 to 2015, when Amnesty said 20 to 50 people were hanged each week at Saydnaya Prison in killings authorised by senior Syrian officials, including deputies of President Bashar al-Assad, and carried out by military police.

The report referred to the killings as a "calculated campaign of extrajudicial execution".

Before detainees were hanged, the victims were allegedly condemned to death in trials lasting between one and three minutes. The decisions were made without the presence of a lawyer and the victims were not given any information about their sentence, the report said.
A recent executive order from President Donald Trump, the self-described "law and order candidate" in last year's presidential election, directed new Attorney General Jeff Sessions to lead the development of new legislation that would protect police. Trump has repeatedly portrayed officers as besieged by criminals and betrayed by politicians.

"It's a shame what's been happening to our truly great law enforcement officers," Trump said Thursday.

The president wasn't alone in his belief that police need to be supported and protected. Across the country, state lawmakers have introduced legislation that would add law enforcement officers and first responders to classes of people protected by existing hate crime laws. The "blue lives matter" bills, as they've come to be called, would make assaulting officers a hate crime -- something that proponents said would prevent the kind of brutal anti-police ambushes that took the lives of officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge last year. Now, in Trump's executive order, some see the groundwork for a federal "blue lives matter" law to be enacted.

"We're extremely heartened by the executive order," James Pasco, the senior advisor to the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest police group, told the International Business Times. "We will look to [Trump's] continued leadership in crafting legislation... What we'd like to see is police officers included in existing hate crimes legislation."

That could happen soon. Last year, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) introduced the "Blue Lives Matter Act of 2016," which would add employment as a police officer to the list of characteristics -- religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disabilities -- that can be used to prosecute a hate crime.

"Blue Lives Matter" is a play on Black Lives Matter, a global social justice borne out of a recent spate of police killing mostly unarmed black men.

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A spokesperson for Buck confirmed the congressman was working with the House Judiciary Committee to hone the language in the bill, which was expected to be reintroduced later this year. Louisiana became the first state to enact a "blue lives matter" law last summer, and similar bills have been introduced in Kentucky, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and New York.

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Photo: REUTERS

But opponents argue that "blue lives matter" bills are empty political gestures; penalties for assaulting or killing cops are already extremely harsh.

"Hate crime legislation is about protecting people who have been discriminated against," Jeffery Robinson, deputy legal director at the ACLU, told IBT.

Robinson explained that hate crime legislation was designed to protect classes of people who were historically victimized and weren't properly defended by the legal system. Crimes against these groups would go uninvestigated or unprosecuted and the convictions that did arise would lead to light sentences.

"There is no evidence anywhere in America that crimes against police officers are not prosecuted vigorously and that punishment against the offenders is not strict and serious," Robinson said. "The whole foundation for having a hate crime is missing when it comes to police officers."

The number of police killed by gunfire did jump from 2015 to 2016 -- from 41 to 64. That's the highest number of firearm related police deaths since 2011, when 73 police officers were killed by guns while on the job, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Total line-of-duty officer deaths have risen each year since 2013, when 109 cops died on the job. (In 2016, 135 officers lost their lives while on duty). But 2013 had the fewest police deaths on record. In 1974, for example, 280 police officers died in the line of duty.

It was debatable whether increasing penalties for violent acts against police officers will dissuade criminals from attacking cops. In many states, cop killers are already put to death. But it was a fact that the first state which enacted a "blue lives matter" law has fumbled enforcing it.

Louisiana first applied the law in the case of Raul Delotoba after he damaged a hotel window in the French Quarter neighborhood of New Orleans and then shouted slurs at responding officers. After initially charging Delotoba with a hate crime, the New Orleans Police Department admitted the law had been applied incorrectly and dropped the charge.

Less than two months later, NOPD tried to use the law for a second time after Frenwick Randolph called 911 and told the dispatcher he was going "to shoot and kill any officer that responded to the call." An officer approached and apprehended Randolph, who didn't resist. Randolph didn't have any weapons and was charged with terrorizing and a hate crime. A local magistrate commissioner ruled that the there wasn't probable cause for either felony charge, but that Randolph could be charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief.

As Louisiana showed, the application of "blue lives matter" bills could prove problematic.

"What it will do is create confusion at the lower levels about what constitutes a hate crime now," Dennis Kenney, a former Florida police officer and a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, told IBT. "The definitional problems become considerable."

Kenney explained that a hate crime statute could be used against people at a Black Lives Matter rally advocating the ending of some particular police behavior.

"That's the kind of thing that will create a much more chilling effect within communities," Kenney told IBT.

"It will create a short term rush, making police feel good about not letting people talk bad about them... but it will continue to drive that wedge between the police and the community, which is an unfortunate thing we are seeing now," he added.

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By Paulo Whitaker and Pablo Garcia VITORIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Authorities in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo threatened striking police officers with criminal charges on Friday as the federal government sent in more troops to try to end a week of violent anarchy that has left more than 120 people dead. Espirito Santo is one of several Brazilian states grappling with a budget crisis that is crippling essential public services for millions of citizens. The police strike over pay during the past week has left a security vacuum and led to rampant assaults, robberies and looting, often in broad daylight. Limited protests by police in nearby Rio de Janeiro alarmed residents of the metropolitan area of 12 million people, many of whom live in fear of violence between rival drug gangs and other criminals. Some mayors in Rio de Janeiro state even announced plans to help make up for unpaid police salaries by using city finances to cover the state's shortfalls. In Espirito Santo, a spokesman for a local police union said the death toll from a week of unrest had risen to 122. State officials have not confirmed the toll but have said many of those killed are believed to belong to competing gangs. If accurate, the toll would be more than six times the average daily homicide rate in the state last year. President Michel Temer, addressing the crisis publicly for the first time, in a statement on Friday called the strike "illegal" and said, "The right to protest cannot take the Brazilian people hostage." The federal government, he said, "will make every effort for Espirito Santo to return to normal as soon as possible." States across Brazil are facing budget and debt problems due to a recession that is the country's worst on record. The federal government has negotiated debt relief with some states and now finds itself shoring up public security too. Temer's comments came as the defence ministry mobilized hundreds more soldiers and federal police to help stem the chaos, focussed mostly in the metropolitan region of Vitoria, the state's capital. After an initial deployment of 1,200 troops earlier in the week, the ministry on Thursday said as many as 3,000 would be in place by the weekend. Rio's state security secretary late Friday said the limited strike there had caused a small uptick in reported crimes but nothing like the violence gripping Espirito Santo. He said the state did not foresee a full-fledged strike but would not hesitate to request federal assistance if needed. In Espirito Santo, state officials said that more than 700 striking state officers, who in Brazil are organised with military-style ranks and rules, would be charged with rebellion. Wives and family members who have blockaded police stations could also face fines and other penalties, they said. "We will not be weak," said Andre Garcia, state security secretary in Espirito Santo. "We will ensure that the rule of law is preserved." SCHOOLS, SHOPS SHUT Local officials have closed schools, clinics and public transportation, while shops and other businesses have remained shuttered, causing about $30 million (24 million) in losses, according to a state retail association. In Rio, where the state government has been struggling to pay salaries, family members of some officers early on Friday blocked entrances to several police stations in an effort to keep officers from patrolling. The tactic, which on a much larger scale has paralysed Espirito Santo, affected just a few districts. Authorities tweeted photographs of patrol cars and officers at their posts across Rio, Brazil's most popular tourist destination. The mayor of Niteroi, located across a long bay from state capital Rio, said his city would make a one-time payment of 3,500 reais (905) to police working there. The city of Macae, near Rio's offshore oil fields, said it would help cover the cost of a paycheck from last year that the state still owes. State police officials, who said they detained one Rio officer for encouraging a strike online, said the slowdown never affected more than 10 percent of the police force but that officials would remain on guard in case the protest grew. A bigger strike "could threaten the lives of all of us," said Roberto Sa, the state security secretary told reporters Friday evening. (Additional reporting by Paulo Prada and Rodrigo Viga Gaier. Editing by Daniel Flynn and Cynthia Osterman)
Phnom Penh (AFP) - The self-exiled leader of Cambodia's opposition party said Saturday he would resign his post, a shock blow to a movement struggling to unseat the country's authoritarian premier.

Sam Rainsy, who has led the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) since its creation in 2012 and has spent over a year in France to avoid several lawsuits, announced his resignation from the party on Twitter and Facebook.

The sudden move casts doubt over a party that poses the only viable challenge to strongman Hun Sen's 32-year rule in a general poll scheduled for 2018.

"I resign as CNRP leader for the sake of the party. In all circumstances I cherish and uphold the CNRPs ideals in my heart," wrote the 67-year-old, who has been a major force in Cambodian politics for decades.

His resignation comes shortly after Hun Sen proposed amending political party laws to bar convicts from leadership positions -- a clear threat to Rainsy, who has long been his top foe and the target of his political machinations.

The opposition leader has not visited Cambodia since 2015, when he fled to France to avoid a two-year jail term for defamation, which his supporters say was politically-motivated.

In December a Phnom Penh court handed him a five-year prison sentence over a post on his Facebook page -- a conviction that made any imminent return from exile even more unlikely.

Hun Sen also lodged a one-million-dollar defamation lawsuit against Rainsy last month and threatened to seize the CNRP's headquarters if he wins the case.

The party's spokesman Yim Sovann told AFP he had no other information about Rainsy's decision to step down on Saturday, saying only that it was motivated by "personal reasons".

Rainsy's deputy, Kem Sokha, who has been serving as acting leader, is expected to guide the party as it prepares for local commune elections in June.

Sebastian Strangio, an expert on Cambodian politics, said it was unlikely that Rainsy was bowing out for good and would perhaps try to return before 2018 elections.

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"He is stepping aside so the party can move forward, unburdened by his legal sideshow with the Cambodian judiciary," Strangio added.

Although nominally a democracy, Cambodia has been ruled for more than three decades by Hun Sen, a shrewd political operator who has amassed extensive control over the government, armed forces and economy.

Ever since he nearly lost his office to the CNRP in 2013, rights groups say Hun Sen has been bent on dismantling the opposition, using pliant courts to target his rivals and other critics.

Hun Sen claims to have brought much needed peace and stability to an impoverished nation ravaged by decades of civil war and the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.

But opposition groups have drawn growing support in recent years amid disillusionment with the endemic corruption and rights abuses that have flourished under his watch.
Carl Higbie, an ex-Navy SEAL, is in contact with White House officials over a potential position in President Donald Trumps administration, the Daily News reported Friday. Higbie is said to have close relations with Trumps family.

Ive offered my services to the administration in whatever capacity they could use me, Higbie told the Daily News. He did not elaborate on his statement but said that he was obviously a little busy.

However, the report noted that it was not clear which post Higbie is interviewing for in the Trump administration.

This follows a report by the Washingtonian that said Higbie was interviewed by the White House for the post of press secretary, which is currently held by Spicer.

Well, I can say that Ive offered my services, Higbie told the Washingtonian. I havent heard back from the administration yet. Im honored to be even considered for this.

However, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said that the Washingtonian report is completely false.

Sanders reportedly said Higbie hasnt interviewed for anything. He spoke to a few people to say hed like to help. Thats it.

Higbie also tweeted Saturday clarifying that he has not undergone any formal interviews with the White House.

FOR THE RECORD: in last few weeks I spoke to some in admin regarding communications or spox positions, NO formal interviews, he tweeted.

The White House has been reportedly looking to fill up its vacant communications director post, which is currently managed by Sean Spicer. Several Republican officials are reported to have not shown any interest in the position.

Higbie is known for his support to the controversial Muslim registry  a federal surveillance program to monitor people following Islam. He said that such a registry would be legal and hold constitutional muster.

Weve done it based on race, weve done it based on religion, weve done it based on region. Weve done it with Iran back  back a while ago. We did it during World War II with Japanese, Higbie said in an interview with Fox News last November.

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SEOUL (Reuters) - China has expelled 32 South Korean Christian missionaries, a Korean government official said on Saturday, amid diplomatic tension between the two countries over the planned deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in the South. The 32 were based in China's northeastern Yanji region near the border with North Korea, many of whom had worked there more than a decade, South Korean media have reported. South Korea's foreign ministry said on Friday it briefed Christian groups on the case of the missionaries, adding that they were expelled in January. The ministry advised the groups on the importance of complying with the laws and customs of the areas where they work, it said. On Saturday, a South Korean missionary in Seoul who insisted on anonymity told Reuters that four people, including a Korean missionary and a Korean-American pastor, were apprehended by Chinese police in a Yanji hotel on Feb. 9. The South Korean official who talked about the 32 expulsions confirmed that one Korean man, whom he did not identify, had been arrested in China for possible immigration violations. "We will provide consular services for him as needed," the official said, without giving details. The official did not comment on whether three other people had been detained. RETALIATION? In South Korea, China is widely believed to be retaliating against Seoul's plan to host the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system of the U.S. military, against the threat of the missile attack from North Korea. But there was no indication of a direct link between the expulsions and tension over THAAD, said the official. "There was no official explanation from China," he said. "There is no confirmation that it is related to THAAD." China's Communist Party says it protects freedom of religion, but keeps a tight rein on religious activities and allows only officially recognized religious institutions. The number of Korean missionaries working in China might top 1,000, South Korean media say. Most are in the northeast, and many help defectors flee North Korea and travel to third countries, including the South. THAAD's radar is capable of penetrating Chinese territory. Beijing has objected to the planned deployment, saying it will destabilize the regional balance of security, threaten China's security and do nothing to ease tension on the Korean peninsula. Many South Koreans believe Beijing is retaliating against THAAD, with measures against some companies and cancellations of performances by Korean artists. On Wednesday, South Korea's Lotte Group said Chinese authorities had halted construction at a multi-billion dollar real estate project after a fire inspection. (Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
By Camille Augustin

CNN has an extensive relationship with discussions concerning the N-word. From producing segments on its usage in certain public settings to one guest blurting out the racial slur during a live broadcast, one of the networks anchors found a way to reference the word again.

On Thursday (Feb. 9), CNN broadcast journalist Chris Cuomo sat down for a talk with SiriusXM P.O.T.U.S. host, Michael Smerconish. On the topic of the term fake news, dubbed by Donald Trump, Cuomo warned that the sting of a journalist falling under that category is just as agonizing as if a black person were to be called the N-word.

The only thing thats bothersome about it, is that I see being called fake news as the equivalent of the N-word for journalists, he said. The equivalent of calling an Italian any of the ugly words that people have for that ethnicity. Thats what fake news is to a journalist.

After receiving backlash for his controversial comparison, Cuomo took to Twitter to issue an apology on his arguable collation. I was wrong. Calling a journalist fake -nothing compared to the pain of a racial slur, he wrote. I should not have said it. I apologize.

I was wrong. Calling a journalist fake -nothing compared to the pain of a racial slur. I should not have said it. I apologize https://t.co/TJGUgWz9Q2  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

During one of Trumps first press conferences as president, he denied a question from CNNs Jim Acosta, and followed up his refusal with, Your organization is terrible.

This post CNN Anchor Says Fake News Is The Same As Being Called The N-Word For Journalists first appeared on Vibe.
GROVE CITY, Ohio (AP)  A convicted sex offender released from prison in November has been charged in the shooting death of a 21-year-old Ohio State University student.

Grove City police say 29-year-old Brian Golsby was arrested early Saturday and charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery in the slaying of Reagan Tokes. Her nude body was found Thursday near a park entrance in Grove City. She was last seen leaving work at a Columbus restaurant Wednesday night and was reported missing by her off-campus roommates and co-workers when she never made it home.

Tokes grew up outside Toledo. She was a fourth-year psychology major at Ohio State and was due to graduate in May.

Grove City Police Sgt. Chris White said at a news conference Saturday that Tokes was shot twice in the head. A coroner didn't find any other visible injuries but would be testing a rape kit, White said.

Golsby was arrested around 4 a.m. Saturday after being identified as a suspect through DNA evidence gathered in and around Tokes' car, which was found not far from where Golsby was living in Columbus, White said. Police believe Tokes encountered Golsby not long after she left the restaurant shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday.

It's unclear whether Golsby has an attorney.

The charges against Golsby also were based on statements he gave to police, White said.

Asked if Golsby had confessed, White said: "He gave us details of these events of that night that closely match what we're finding."

Golsby registered as a sex offender after being released from prison. He pleaded guilty in Franklin County Common Pleas Court in Columbus to aggravated robbery and attempted rape charges in May 2011 and received a six-year sentence.

Tokes' uncle, Jeff McCrary, issued a statement on behalf of her family.

"We will always remember Reagan as a vibrant, loving young woman who embraced life," the statement said. "She made a positive impact on people, was enthusiastic about everything and brought laughter and joy to all who knew her."
Khartoum (AFP) - A prominent Sudanese human rights activist has begun a hunger strike in detention and the authorities have accused him of attempting to commit suicide, his wife said Saturday.

Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, a 58-year-old engineering professor at the University of Khartoum, was arrested in December by security forces as part of a crackdown on opposition leaders and activists.

"We visited him Thursday and found he had started an indefinite hunger strike since February 2," his wife Sabah Mohamed Adam said.

Ibrahim Adam, who had a heart operation in 2015 and needs to see his doctor on a regular basis, had previously been on a hunger strike between January 22 and 29.

"He told us this time his hunger strike was for an indefinite period unless the authorities bring him before a court or release him," his wife said at a press conference in the city of Omdurman.

During the first eight days of his latest hunger strike the prison doctor visited him only once, she said, adding the family has been allowed to visit him twice so far.

"Our lawyers have told us that NISS (National Intelligence and Security Service) has filed a case against him, accusing him of attempting to commit suicide."

Attempting to commit suicide is a crime under Sudanese law.

"We found he was very weak. We're really worried for him," Ibrahim Adam's wife said.

Many opposition leaders and activists were detained in December in an attempt to crush widespread protests against a government decision to raise fuel prices.

Ibrahim Adam, who has worked extensively on human rights causes in Sudan, has been arrested several times before for his work.

The government shut down a development organisation he headed in 2009.

Rights group Amnesty International said Ibrahim Adam was "at grave risk of torture and other ill-treatment" after his arrest.

His "arbitrary arrest underscores the government's desperate attempts to extinguish the last embers of dissent in the country", it said.

His wife added Ibrahim Adam's driver and a female employee had also been arrested in late December.
DETROIT (AP)  The University of Michigan's Venice Architecture Biennale exhibition is opening this weekend at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.

"The Architectural Imagination" is an exhibition of new speculative architectural projects designed for specific sites in Detroit that could have applications around the world.

The exhibit opens Saturday and is on view through April 16. It's organized by the Ann Arbor school's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning on behalf of the U.S. State Department. It first opened at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy last year.

Curators Cynthia Davidson and Monica Ponce de Leon selected 12 architectural practices to produce new work that demonstrates the creativity and resourcefulness of architecture. The projects address the social and urban issues of Detroit in the 21st century.

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Online:

http://mocadetroit.org
'Special relationship': Donald Trump with Theresa May during her visit to the US last month

Plans for Donald Trump to address MPs in Parliament during his state visit to the UK later this year have been abandoned.

The US president will not address Parliament during his state visit after officials quietly shelved plans for him to speak, The Guardian reported.

His controversial visit to the UK is now expected to run from a Thursday to a Sunday in late summer or early autumn, according to the newspaper.

A source told the Guardian that officials were trying to ensure that Mr Trump was not in London when parliament is sitting in order to avoid "a formal snub".

Parliament will be in summer recess until September 5 followed by another month-long adjournment for the party conferences from September 15.

It comes after John Bercow, the Speaker of the House, said he would block an invitation for Mr Trump to address Parliament because of his racism and sexism.

Tory James Duddridge has tabled a parliamentary motion of no confidence in him as Speaker and said his comments about Mr Trump has overstepped the mark.

Mr Trump is currently hosting Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, in the White House.
Trump holds a press conference in the East Room of the White House: Mandel Ngan/Getty

US intelligence officials have confirmed some aspects of the Russia dossier that rocked Washington a month ago, it has been reported. However, those aspects of the dossier that have been confirmed do not relate directly to Donald Trump.

Last month, it emerged that Mr Trump and Barack Obama had been briefed by US intelligence officials about aspects of a 35-page dossier that was circulating in journalistic and government circles. The dossier made a series of unverified claims about Mr Trumps personal and financial dealings in Russia - claims he dismissed as false.

On Friday, CNN, which was first to break news of the briefing to Mr Trump and Mr Obama, said intelligence officials had confirmed some aspects of the dossier, which were initially collected by a former British intelligence agent, Christopher Steele. He collected it as opposition research for Mr Trumps opponents - Republicans and then Democrats - during the presidential campaign.

It said the elements that had been confirmed were several conversations in the dossier involving foreign nationals. None of the conversations involved Mr Trump or members of his team.

It also said that intelligence officials had at this stage, neither confirmed or disproved any of the more salacious claims included in the dossier, which was published in full by BuzzFeed and several other news outlets.

"We continue to be disgusted by CNN's fake news reporting," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said.

He later phoned back CNN: "This is more fake news. It is about time CNN focused on the success of the President has had bringing back jobs, protecting the nation, and strengthening relationships with Japan and other nations. The President won the election because of his vision and message for the nation."

Mr Spicer's comment hearkens back to Mr Trump's disavowal of the story earlier this year, conflating both CNN's reported story in January and BuzzFeed's release of the full documents.

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"I win an election easily, a great movement is verified, and crooked opponents try to belittle our victory with FAKE NEWS. A sorry state!" he tweeted. "Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to leak into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?"

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper expressed his "profound dismay" at the leak, which was circulated by politicians, intelligence officials, and journalists for weeks before the report.

Mr Clapper said that both he and Mr trump "agreed that [the leaks] are extremely corrosive and damaging to our national security."
US President Donald Trump in the White House on 10 February 2017: AFP

Donald Trumps attack on a department store chain which dropped his daughter Ivankas clothing line has been called reprehensible by former President George W Bushs most senior ethics lawyer.

Richard Painter said the US leader was using his position to intimidate Nordstrom, after Mr Trump said his daughter had been treated so unfairly by the firm on Twitter.

His actions unleashed a wave of disapproval as critics widely accused Mr Trump of misusing public office to benefit his familys own business.

Calling the outburst egregious, Mr Painter, who is now law professor at the University of Minnesota, told Business Insider that Mr Trump attacked a company for its decision in the free market that it didn't think the clothes were selling well".

He added that instead of "reining him in," White House staff were "jumping into the fray" to help defend him.

"The Republicans on the hill  and I'm a Republican and I've been very unhappy about this  they are not willing to confront the President and say that he has got to make some fundamental changes in his approach if he wants to keep this job," Mr Painter said.

He added: "We haven't elected a king or a fuhrer or whatever. He's a president. There's a Constitution. And the problem is the members of Congress are not willing to, at least the Republicans are not yet willing, to face the fact that there needs to be a fundamental attitude adjustment on the part of the President if he wants to keep this job.

Mr Trumps adviser Kellyanne Conway, who was later censured for telling people to go buy Ivankas stuff in the White House press briefing room, simply followed what he was doing, Mr Painter said.

He added: "She didn't go anywhere near as far as he did. She didn't attack anybody. She didn't seek to intimidate anybody for the decisions they make in the free market. Which he did. What he did was particularly reprehensible."

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Ms Conway drew sharp criticism from a top Republican lawmaker and complaints over the ethics of using her position to promote Ms Trumps product lines.

Federal ethics rules prohibit executive branch employees from using their positions to endorse products or for the private gain of friends. The law does not apply to the president.

Republican Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House of Representatives Oversight committee, told The Associated Press Ms Conway's promotion of the brand was clearly over the line, unacceptable".

The non-profit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Public Citizen filed complaints with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and the White House Counsel's Office.

It's a violation of the rule, Norman Eisen, who served as an ethics adviser to Democratic President Barack Obama, told MSNBC. It's a serious matter.
Donald Trump has left the position of communications director vacant: Carlos Barria/Reuters

At least two people have reportedly turned down the chance to become Donald Trumps White House communications director - a position that has been vacant since he was sworn in as President last month.

The White House's Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, has been tasked with filling the vacancy.

But his approaches to communications specialists with Mr Trump's Republican Party have been met with disinterest, according to the Politico website.

There is a list of candidates, but I can see why people aren't interested," a source told the site. "It's a tough job.

Jason Miller, Mr Trumps communications chief during the presidential campaign had been expected to take the role. But he turned down the job.

As a result communications in the first few weeks of Mr Trumps presidency have generally been led by the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer.

The President has reportedly been unimpressed with Mr Spicers performance and blames Mr Priebus for pushing him for the job.

In the administrations first 20 days, the press secretary has cited a fake terror attack, said coal will be a clean energy source, and wrongly accused Iran of going to war with the United States.

Steve Schmidt, a campaign strategist for the Republican Party, told Politico the complete and total chaos emanating from the White House made it clear there was no strategic planning.
Former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad holds a press conference in Ramallah in 2012: AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trumps envoy to the United Nations is moving to block the appointment of the former Palestinian Prime Minister to lead a mission to Libya.

Nikki Haley, the new American ambassador to the UN, said the US administration was very disappointed at Salam Fayyads selection for the role.

For too long the UN has been unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel, Ms Haley said.

Palestine is a non-member observer state at the UN and its independence has been recognised by 137 of the 193 member nations, but Ms Haley said the US does not recognise a Palestinian state or support the signal Mr Fayyad's appointment would send.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had sent a letter to the Security Council indicating his intention to appoint him as the next special representative to Libya, where a fragile unity government is struggling to end the civil war amid growing pressure to stop hundreds of thousands of refugees departing the countrys shores for Europe.

Mr Fayyad, who served as the Palestinian Authority's Prime Minister from 2007 to 2013, studied in Texas and was formerly a university professor in Jordan and worked for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

UN diplomats told the Associated Press he is well-respected for his work in reforming the Palestinian Authority and spurring its economy, and had the support of the 14 other Security Council members for the new role.

Salam Fayyad speaks with Hillary Clinton in 2012 (EPA)

Mr Guterres office issued a statement on Saturday morning saying the proposal for Mr Fayyad to become the Secretary-Generals special representative in Libya was solely based on his recognised personal qualities and his competence for that position.

United Nations staff serve strictly in their personal capacity, a spokesperson added. They do not represent any government or country.

The Secretary-General reiterates his pledge to recruit qualified individuals, respecting regional diversity, and notes that, among others no Israeli and no Palestinian have served in a post of high responsibility at the United Nations.

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This is a situation that the Secretary-General feels should be corrected, always based on personal merit and competencies of potential candidates for specific posts.

It was unclear whether the objection by the US, which holds huge influence within the UN and is a permanent member of the Security Council, had ended Mr Fayyads candidacy.

Ms Haley claimed the Trump administration wants to see an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in her letter, writing: We encourage the two sides to come together directly on a solution.

Israels ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, hailed Americas move to block Mr Fayyad as the beginning of a new era at the UN, an era where the U.S. stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish State".

He added: "The new administration proved once again that it stands firmly alongside the state of Israel in the international arena and in the UN in particular."

It came ahead of a meeting between Mr Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the White House next week.

The Israeli government has hailed the President as a true friend after he appointed several pro-Israel figures to prominent posts and pledged to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which is claimed as a capital by both Israelis and Palestinians.

But Mr Trump has sent mixed signals on the key issue of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, inviting a settler group to his inauguration but later saying the planned construction of 5,500 new housing units in the West Bank may not be helpful to peace.
President Donald Trumps relations with Russia are under the scanner again as a 35-page dossier put together by a former British spy, which went viral last month, is being scrutinized by law enforcement, CBS News reported Friday citing sources.

The documents were published online days before Trump was sworn in as president. However, in a press conference on Jan. 11, Trump dismissed the dossier, which claimed that Moscow had compromising financial and personal information on him. The documents claimed that sexual details were also a part of the information obtained.

Does anyone really believe that story? Trump said at the time, defending himself against allegations of sexual misbehavior. Im also very much of a germaphobe, by the way  believe me.

The dossier claimed that during one of Trumps visits to Moscow, he booked a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, specifically one where the then-President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama stayed during their visit. Kremlin had reportedly bugged the hotel and gathered compromising information on Trump to blackmail him.

The unverified documents first surfaced months ago and even after BuzzFeed News made them public, investigators continued to examine them for more details, the sources told CBS. While the FBI has taken the lead in this, a number of other intelligence agencies are also reportedly involved.

The sources say that although many people were not taking the documents seriously when they first came to light, a large number are reassessing their stand after Trumps remarks about Russia during his campaign trail. While Democrat Hillary Clinton was openly critical of Russia, Trump took to praising Russian leader Vladimir Putin and went on to dismiss the alleged hacking of the Democratic Party by Moscow.

On Thursday, after denying that he discussed sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Trumps National Security Adviser Michael Flynns spokesman reportedly said that Flynn indicated that while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldnt be certain that the topic never came up.

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Trump administration officials have said that there have been phone calls between Flynn and Kislyak, at least one of which took place around the time Obama was expelling a number of Russian diplomats from the country, in response to the cyberattacks.

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EU foreign affairs boss made the remarks on the second day of a two-day visit to Washington: EPA

Top EU diplomat Federica Mogherini has asked the US not to "interfere" in European politics.

Ms Mogherini made the remarks on the second day of a two-day visit to Washington, her first since Donald Trump became President.

"We do not interfere in US politics [...] And Europeans expect that America does not interfere in European politics," AFP quoted Ms Mogherini saying.

Her remarks follow the US President's repeated praise of Brexit, calling it a "great thing" and saying the UK was "smart" for voting to leave the EU.

In January, then-US ambassador to the EU Anthony Gardner said Mr Trump was supporting the fragmentation of Europe by backing Brexit  an outcome he said would not be in America's best interests.

During Ms Mogherini's visit, she also said meetings with the Trump administration had given her confidence that the US was committed to following through with the Iran nuclear deal.

"I was reassured by what I heard in the meetings on the intention to stick to the full implementation of the agreement," Ms Mogherini told reporters a day after talks at the White House and State Department.

She said the new administration made clear it had not decided on a new American ambassador to the EU, and had also not decided on a way forward on stalled US-European trade talks.

At the start of a series of meetings with top officials, the EU's foreign affairs boss said she hoped to find "common ground" with the Trump administration.
Berlin (AFP) - Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Union's powerful executive Commission, said Saturday he would not seek a second term when his tenure expires in 2019.

"It was a fine election campaign" in 2014, Juncker told Deutschlandfunk radio, according to extracts of an interview that will be broadcast on Sunday.

"But there won't be a second one, because I won't be putting myself forward as a candidate for a second time."

He also admitted to fearing that Britain's negotiations to leave the European Union could open up splits in the bloc.

"The British are going to succeed, without too much difficulty, to divide the 27 other EU countries," he said.

"The British know very well how to achieve this," he added. "You promise one thing to state A, another to state B and something else to state C and you end up with no united European front."

Germany's influential Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week that European leaders may commit to a union of "different speeds" when they make a major declaration on its future at a summit in Rome next month.

Juncker, 62, a conservative former prime minister of Luxembourg, took office on November 1 2014 after a long spell at the helm of the Eurogroup, gathering ministers of countries which share the euro.

Presidents of the Commission are appointed for a five-year term, which is renewable once.

The post is elected by the European Parliament, on a proposal by the European Council, which comprises heads of state or government.

Juncker was chosen despite fierce objections by Britain, which regarded him as too federalist.

In other comments, Juncker urged the 27 EU countries -- the entire bloc minus Britain, which wants to leave -- to face its challenges with strength and unity, but admitted to "serious doubts" that its members shared the same goals.

"Has the time come for when the European Union of the 27 must show unity, cohesion and coherence?" he asked.

"Yes, I say yes, when it comes to Brexit and (US President Donald) Trump... but I have some justified doubts that it will really happen."

He added: "Do the Hungarians and the Poles want exactly the same thing as the Germans and the French? I have serious doubts."
Cairo (AFP) - The Islamic State group in Egypt claims to have executed five men it accuses of spying for the army, which is battling the jihadists in the Sinai Peninsula.

In a series of photos published Friday on the secure messaging app Telegram, five men presented as "spies" are seen lying face down on the ground before a militant shoots them in the back of their heads with an assault rifle.

Jihadists have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 unleashed a bloody crackdown on his supporters.

The crackdown decimated the Islamist movement and killed hundreds of his followers, and set off a jihadist insurgency that has killed hundreds of security personnel.

Most of the attacks have taken place in the Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip, but attacks have also been carried out in other areas including Cairo.

The Egyptian army announced on Friday that it had killed "500 terrorists" since it launched a wide-ranging security operation in the Sinai in September 2015.

In October 2015, IS claimed the downing of a plane carrying Russian tourists home from the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which killed all 224 people on board.
The late 1980s were dark times for Jews trying to flee persecution in the fading Soviet Union.

Finally, the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., acted, adding language to a massive 1990 appropriations bill to offer special assistance to refugees among persecuted religious minorities. Year after year, the Lautenberg amendment has been extended to provide a lifeline to Jews, Bahais, Christians and others fleeing persecution in Iran, the former Soviet bloc and parts of Asia.

Theres nothing new about the United States taking religion into account when its clear that refugees are part of persecuted minority groups, said Samuel Tadros, a research fellow at the Hudson Institutes Center for Religious Freedom. He also teaches at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Tragically, religion is part of the refugee crises we see around the world right now, and that certainly includes whats happening in Syria and Iraq.

Thus, Tadros and a few other religious-freedom activists paid close attention  during the #MuslimBan firestorm surrounding President Donald Trumps first actions on immigration  when they saw language in the executive order that was more nuanced than the fiery rhetoric in the headlines.

In social media, critics were framing everything in reaction to this blunt presidential tweet: Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue! Trump also told the Christian Broadcasting Network: If you were a Christian in Syria, it was impossible, at least very tough, to get into the United States. ... If you were a Muslim, you could come in.

However, the wording of the executive order proposed a different agenda, stating that the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by law, to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individuals country of nationality.

The New York Times, however, summarized this part of the order by saying it gives preferential treatment to Christians who try to enter the United States from majority-Muslim nations.

The hottest debates, of course, focused on seven Muslim-majority lands  Syria, Iraq, Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen  designated as countries of concern by Obama administration security experts.

Its crucial that while Christians face brutal oppression in those lands, they are not the only minorities being targeted, Tadros said in an interview. Anyone who has followed the chaos unleashed by the Islamic State and other jihadist groups has seen reports about the persecution facing Yazidis, Alawites, Bahais, Druze and believers in other faiths, as well as the regions ancient Christian communities. Shia Muslims often face persecution by majority Sunni Muslims.

During the previous administration, Secretary of State John Kerry used the strongest possible language under international law to describe this crisis. In March 2016, he told reporters that Daesh  the Arabic term for the Islamic State  is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians and Shiite Muslims. ... Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology and by actions, in what it says, in what it believes and what it does.

However, refugees from religious groups facing extermination have few options when looking at the map. Can Yazidis  called devil worshippers by radical Muslims  flee into other Muslim lands? Are Assyrians safe in Kurdish territories? Can Christians flee into Turkey, which continues to oppress its own ancient Christian community? Can devastated minority-faith families return to the burned-out shells of their Nineveh Plain homes?

Meanwhile, noted Tadros, believers in all of these religious minorities face persecution in the very United Nations refugee camps in which they are forced to survive in order to climb the bureaucratic ladder toward approval for immigration.

These camps are a reflection of the cultures that surround them, he said. The hatreds and divisions inside these communities do not simply disappear when these people become refugees and head into these camps. ...

Look at it this way: Can you afford to go to church on Sunday morning in a refugee camp when you know that doing this will identify you as a Christian and place the lives of your children at risk?
WASHINGTON (AP)  A California Islamic school wanted to keep an open mind before Donald Trump took office. But less than a month into Trump's presidency, the school rejected $800,000 in federal funds aimed at combatting violent extremism.

The decision made late Friday night by the Bayan Claremont graduate school's board to turn down the money  an amount that would cover more than half its yearly budget  capped weeks of sleepless nights and debate. Many there felt Trump's rhetoric singling out Islamic extremism and his travel ban affecting predominantly Muslim countries had gone too far.

It also made the school the fourth organization nationwide under the Trump administration to reject the money for a program created under President Barack Obama known as countering violent extremism, or CVE, which officials say aims to thwart extremist groups' abilities to recruit would-be terrorists.

Bayan Claremont had received the second-largest grant, among the first 31 federal grants for CVE awarded to organizations, schools and municipalities in the dwindling days of the Obama administration. The school had hoped to use the money to help create a new generation of Muslim community leaders, with $250,000 earmarked for more than a dozen local nonprofits doing social justice work.

But the fledgling school's founding president, Jihad Turk, said officials ultimately felt accepting the money would do more harm than good.

It's "a heck of a lot of money, (but) our mission and our vision is to serve the community and to bring our community to a position of excellence," Turk said. "And if we're compromised, even if only by perception in terms of our standing in the community, we ultimately can't achieve that goal," he said, adding that accepting the funds would be short-sighted.

The school's internal debate is also emblematic of handwringing among grassroots and nonprofit organizations involved in the program in the last couple weeks.

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At Unity Productions Foundation of Potomac Falls, Virginia, officials said they would decline a grant of $396,585 to produce educational films challenging narratives supporting extremist ideologies and violent extremism "due to the changes brought by the new administration," according to a private message to donors reviewed by The Associated Press.

And in Dearborn, Michigan, Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities said last week it was turning down $500,000 for youth-development and public-health programs because of the "current political climate." Ka Joog, a leading Somali nonprofit organization in Minneapolis, also turned down $500,000 for its youth programs.

The Homeland Security Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

A U.S. official said the Trump administration has been discussing changing the Obama administration program's name, established as a presidential strategy in 2011, to an iteration of "countering Islamic extremism." The official, who has knowledge of the discussions, was not authorized to speak publicly about the proposal and spoke on condition of anonymity.

All told, more than 20 percent of the roughly $10 million awarded by the Homeland Security Department has been rejected. And other groups have signaled they may follow suit, should the name change.

Turk said school officials already had reservations about the CVE strategy under Obama because they felt there's no clear or proven pathway to violence for someone with a particular extreme ideology. The group went ahead, despite worries by some activists that the program equated to a government surveillance program, because it believed the previous administration wasn't hostile to their faith.

But amid what Turk called Trump's "fixation on the American Muslim community," it became clear that the president's actions were more than campaign-trail rhetoric, he said.

"It was becoming more and more apparent," Turk said of Trump, "that he's actually looking to carry out all the scary stuff he said."

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Follow Tami Abdollah on Twitter at https://twitter.com/latams
NICE, France (AP)  Behind barricades, the city of Nice was holding its Carnival, keeping up tradition but taking precautions seven months after the Bastille Day truck attack that killed 86.

Floats in the Carnival's 133rd edition that kicked off on Saturday were led by the King of Energy, this year's theme, and followed notably by a huge Donald Trump with hair dryers trained on his crown of blond hair. France 24 TV quotes a tourism official saying the image was decided before Trump was elected U.S. president.

French political leaders need not feel shunned. Presidential candidates are featured.

Deputy Mayor Rudy Salles, on BFM-TV, said security was "like in an airport" with 36 scanners, pat downs, police and soldiers.

A Tunisian plowed his truck through July 14 revelers in an Islamic State attack.
Sunderland (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Southampton striker Manolo Gabbiadini punished struggling Sunderland with a double strike that inspired his side's 4-0 victory at the Stadium of Light on Saturday.

Gabbiadini was on target twice before half-time to maintain his impressive form since his 14 million ($17 million, 16 million euros) move from Napoli in January.

Jason Denayer's own goal and a Shane Long strike ensured Southampton cruised to only their second win in their last eight league games, ending a run of three successive defeats since they booked their place in the League Cup final.

Sunderland manager David Moyes plans to take his squad to New York for some team bonding next week, but the flight across the Atlantic promises to be a gloomy one.

Moyes' men are rooted to the bottom of the table after seeing their two-game unbeaten run ended and they sit two points from safety with 13 games left to avoid relegation.

Buoyed by their 4-0 win at fellow strugglers Crystal Palace last weekend, Moyes' team were hoping to climb out of the relegation zone.

But they had won two consecutive games only once this season and they struggled to find any rhythm on a freezing, rain-lashed afternoon on Wearside.

Foreshadowing the danger to come for Sunderland, Gabbiadini had an early sight of goal as the Italian shot wide from the edge of the penalty area.

Gabbiadini threatened again when he beat Sunderland's offside trap and crossed for Cedric Soares on the edge of the area but the full-back fired wide.

It was a warning Sunderland failed to heed and they were punished as Gabbiadini opened the scoring in the 30th minute.

Ryan Bertrand whipped in a teasing cross from the left and as Gabbiadini and Sunderland defender Lamine Kone challenged for the ball, it deflected past Vito Mannone at the near post.

After keeping clean sheets in their previous two games, Sunderland were being torn apart by Gabbiadini's clever movement and he doubled Southampton's lead on the stroke of half-time.

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If Gabbiadini's first goal was slightly fortunate, there was no doubting the quality of his second as he took Dusan Tadic's pass and executed a sharp turn that left John O'Shea and Lamine Kone flat-footed before slotting past Mannone.

Moyes sent on Steven Pienaar and Fabio Borini, but the changes made little difference and Gabbiadini was only denied a hat-trick by Mannone, who held the striker's close-range effort in the second half.

By the time Didier Ndong had Sunderland's first shot on target in the 67th minute, it was already apparent there would be no way back for the hosts.

Their misery was complete when Denayer turned Long's cross into his own net in the 89th minute before the Saints forward struck himself moments later.
The wraps will soon come off the Galaxy S8. We already know Samsung won't be debuting its new flagship at Mobile World Congress in late February, but we now have a much better idea of when it will be unveiled to the public.





A Galaxy S8 concept. Credit: iPhone-Crash/YouTube

A Galaxy S8 concept. Credit: iPhone-Crash/YouTube

Samsung will be holding a press event late in March in New York City to unveil its Galaxy S8, The Wall Street Journal is reporting on Friday, citing people who claim to have knowledge of its plans. While the sources didn't provide an exact date, earlier reports have suggested that Samsung could hold the event on March 29.

Samsung's Galaxy S8 is one of the more sought-after and rumored devices in the mobile industry. When the device reaches store shelves, it's expected to offer a curved screen and move its home button to under its display. Samsung will also offer the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 in the device and will feature an all-new virtual personal assistant named Bixby.

MORE: Galaxy S8 Could Cost Nearly $1,000

The Journal's sources on Friday corroborated many of the rumors that have surfaced of late, including Samsung's plans to offer two versions of the Galaxy S8 with different screen sizes. However, apparently both versions will come with curved screens, a big departure from the Galaxy S7, which came in two variants but only one that had a curved display.

In addition, the Galaxy S8 will likely come with a button on the side that will be used to activate Bixby, according to the Journal's sources. However, it's now believed that Bixby won't be based on Viv Labs' technology and instead be an upgraded version of Samsung's earlier assistant, S Voice. There had been some hope that Bixby would rely solely on the technology developed by Viv Labs, but that apparently isn't happening.

Exactly when the Galaxy S8 will reach store shelves remains to be seen, but it's been rumored that Samsung is planning a mid-April release for the upcoming handset.

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(Reuters) - Pilots flew a GoJet plane bound for North Carolina back to Boston after they smelled smoke in the cockpit, an ABC-affiliated TV channel in Boston reported on Saturday.

The Delta Airlines 6266 connection flight bound for Raleigh-Durham International Airport with 76 passengers and 4 crew members aboard landed safely in Boston, WCVB.com reported.

The news channel reported that the pilot had said over the radio, "We actually have smoke in the cabin. Declaring an emergency and coming back to the airport."

A Delta spokesperson told the station that the pilot asked that the passengers get out of the plane on the tarmac and that they were then taken by bus to the terminal, rather than taxiing to an airport gate in the plane.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Associated Press

Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel will miss the rest of the World Series after spraining his right knee in Game 5, an injury that led to the surprise activation of rookie catcher Korey Lee. He wasnt crying, but he had tears in his eyes," Astros manager Dusty Baker said of Gurriel. Gurriel collided with Philadelphia first baseman Rhys Hoskins during a rundown between third base and home plate on Chas McCormick's seven-inning grounder during Thursday night's 3-2 win, taking a knee to his head.
More than 400 whales beached themselves in New Zealand, hundreds of them found dead, the New Zealands Department of Conservation said Friday.

Out of the hundreds of whales stranded near the base of Farewell Spit, 250 to 300 of them were already dead when discovered, officials said.

The whales were spotted in the water by a New Zealand Department of Conservation staff member in the night, and were found stranded early in the morning. This is the biggest mass stranding recorded in decades in New Zealand.

More than 500 volunteers rushed to the beach to help. The New Zealand Conservation team has been working with the organization Project Jonah to rescue the whales.

There was a refloat of 100 whales on the high tide on Friday morning local time, with 50 of them swimming out to the bay. However, 80 to 90 whales re-beached themselves. Rescuers will try to refloat the whales on Saturday.

The stranded whales cannot be helped at night for safety reasons. The animals may become agitated when stressed and can harm or kill a human, even with just a small flick of a whale fin or tail, according to officials. The whales also carry diseases so people need to avoid contact with blowhole exhalent or body fluids.

New Zealands Department of Conservation said it would work with Massey University on autopsies for some animals.

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NEW YORK (AP)  The Manhattan District Attorney's office has returned an ancient marble sarcophagus fragment to Greece that had been illegally trafficked into the United States.

The item dates to 200 A.D. and depicts a battle between Green and Trojan warriors. It was stolen from Greece in 1988, then smuggled and transported through Europe before landing in New York City.

Prosecutors say it wound up at a Manhattan-based art gallery, which gave up the fragment once it was presented with evidence of the theft. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R Vance Jr. held a repatriation ceremony for the item.

The Consul General of Greece, Konstantinos Koutras said at the ceremony Friday that he was grateful.

The fragment will be displayed for public view and research at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
Hundreds of undocumented immigrants have been arrested, detained and, in some cases, deported this week from a handful of states, according to multiple reports. The ramped up law enforcement appeared to be the result of President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration last month.

The crackdown by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was launched in at least seven states, including "target-rich" areas like Texas, where nearly 1.5 million undocumented immigrants were living, according to the most recent statistics in 2014.

The raids were also carried out in Arizona, from where the government agency deported a Mexican man living in the U.S. illegally while he was dodging accusations of kidnapping in Mexico. ICE announced the deportation to Mexico in a press release Friday that backed up Trump's assertion that his immigration order would only target the undocumented population with criminal records.

"ICE will continue to remove those who pose a threat to public safety especially those who've harmed our children," said Henry Lucero, an ICE official in Phoenix. "America is not a safe haven for those who are fleeing prosecution in their home countries. We are firmly committed to ensuring that foreign fugitives will be are returned to face justice for the criminal acts that they have perpetrated abroad."

Here is a glimpse of the at least seven states where some of the other reported ICE raids have been taking place this week.

Arizona

A woman who had lived in the U.S. illegally since she was a teenager was deported this week after agents took her into custody during a routine check-in with immigration officials in Phoenix Wednesday. Because Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, 35, had previously committed the crime of having a fake Social Security number, the next day she became the first person deported from Arizona under Trump's immigration executive order. Garcia de Rayos left a husband and two teenage daughters behind in the U.S.

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Rep. Ruben Gallego, A Democrat who represents Arizona's Congressional district, said Trump "has chosen to scapegoat the immigrant community instead of working with Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform."

California

Reports of ICE raids started coming out of Southern California Thursday, resulting in mass protests across Los Angeles after at least 160 people were reportedly either arrested or detained.

Georgia

Reports of ICE raids in Atlanta began to surface Thursday before federal agents reportedly confirmed them.

CBS46 News

Details were scarce, but at least one Twitter user posted directions for what to do should an undocumented immigrant in Georgia be confronted by an immigration agent.

However, federal agents have been carrying out raids in the metropolitan Atlanta area since before Trump's inauguration, so it was not clear if this week's raids there were a result of Trump's recent executive order on immigration.

Illinois

ICE raided areas of Chicago on Thursday, according to multiple reports. While those reports were light on details, the raids did happen in Chicago, according to the Washington Post and a number of users of Twitter.

Chicago is a so-called Sanctuary City, where local officials do not report the crimes of undocumented immigrants to federal officials, an act which runs contrary to federal law.

New York

The Empire State was similarly mentioned as being one of the places where the ICE raids were reportedly happening. It was listed in the Washington Post report, and a spattering of tweets seemed to confirm that report. Some users wondered what some of the state's more high profile elected officials were doing about the reported raids.

The confirmed reports of ICE raids this week did, however, bring together hundreds of people to protest in New York City Friday night.

North Carolina

ICE agents were performing random identification checks in North Carolina this week, although it was not clear if anyone had been arrested there, local news outlet the Times News reported. The state was among those listed in the Washington Post report. The city of Burlington was reported as being one of the areas in the state that was targeted.

South Carolina

About one-third of the ICE raid arrests this week took place in South Carolina, according to local news outlet the State. There were about 200 arrests total from Monday through Friday in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia, agents said.

Texas

An unspecified number of immigration-related arrests were carried out this week in the metro Austin area, prompting local teachers to provide their students who were children of immigrants with a flyer containing advice for "What to do if ICE comes to your door," the Austin Statesman reported.

Austin City Councilmember Gregorio Casar condemned the raids as "beyond reprehensible" and Democratic Texas Congressman Rep. Joaquin Castro said he was "concerned" about them.

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By Douglas Busvine KAIRANA, India (Reuters) - More than 13 million Indians voted in the first stage of state assembly elections on Saturday, the biggest electoral test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi since coming to power in 2014. The world's biggest election this year began in Uttar Pradesh, the first of six stages that will elect an assembly to govern the impoverished state of nearly 220 million people. Modi's nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to victory in Uttar Pradesh three years ago, and the election in the state that follows the shore of the river Ganges will set the tone for the 2019 national elections. More broadly, voters will deliver a mid-term verdict on Modi and his nationalist party after his decision to withdraw 86 percent of the cash in circulation. The banknote ban was launched by Modi three months ago to purge the economy of untaxed income and the proceeds of crime and corruption, and has disrupted daily life and commerce, and caused the economy to slow. On the campaign trail, Modi has said he had the interests of the poor at heart in making the move - his biggest gamble yet. "The results will tell us whether Modi continues to enjoy unquestioned support or if it has started to erode," said R.K. Mishra, an independent political analyst based in the state capital, Lucknow. Amid tight security, voting was conducted in 73 constituencies of western Uttar Pradesh, where violence has erupted frequently over the last few years. Fighting between Hindus and Muslims killed about 65 people in 2013. In the town of Kairana, where residents came to blows last year when the local BJP MP accused Muslims of driving out Hindus, voters from both communities turned out in large numbers. By noon, nearly half of those eligible had cast their vote. GODZILLA OF STATES The BJP polled 42 percent of the vote in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 election, winning 71 of 80 seats on its way to claiming India's biggest national mandate for three decades. But people have shown growing impatience that Modi's campaign promises of development and "better days" to come have failed to deliver new jobs in a state where per capita income averages less than $750 a year and many communities lack access to power, clean water and basic medical services. "It is the Godzilla of states," said BJP national spokesman Nalin Kohli, as he looked out over the darkened streets of Lucknow one evening this week. People tend to vote along traditional caste and religious lines, and successive governments have exploited communal divisions to fire up their power base and poach voters. "The situation gets very bad here sometimes  there is fighting between groups, between Hindus and Muslims," said Bhagwati Prasad, who sells material for Hindu cremation ceremonies outside a temple in Lucknow. "I am a Hindu. If there is a Hindu-Muslim fight I have to stand with the Hindus." The complexity of such politics makes it hard to predict outcomes in India's first-past-the-post system. Any party scoring significantly more than 30 percent can win by a landslide. Pollsters say it will be tough for the BJP to repeat its 2014 election performance. In not fielding a for the post of chief minister, it risks repeating a tactical blunder that contributed to a heavy defeat in Bihar, another Hindi-speaking heartland state, in 2015. The Samajwadi Party, which runs Bihar and is led by 43-year-old Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, won a majority in the last state election, in 2012, with just 29 percent of the vote. Yadav has formed an alliance with Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party that, polls show, will be tough to beat. Ranking third, Mayawati, who ran the state from 2007 to 2012 and whose Bahujan Samaj Party draws its support from communities on the bottom rung of India's ancient caste hierarchy. She has fielded a big crop of candidates from the Muslim minority that makes up 19 percent of the state's electorate. Polls show most Muslims siding with the ruling Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance, however. Results from Uttar Pradesh, along with Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur, are due on March 11. (Writing by Rupam Jain; Editing by Louise Ireland)
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has again allowed Russian planes to use its airspace during recent operations in Syria, a senior Iranian security official was quoted as saying on Saturday. In August, Russian aircraft for the first time used an Iranian air base to conduct strikes in Syria. The Russian military said its fighters had completed their tasks, but left open the possibility of using the Hamadan base again if circumstances warranted. Iran's Foreign Ministry said then that Russia had stopped using the base for strikes in Syria, bringing an abrupt halt to the deployment that was criticized both by the United States and some Iranian lawmakers. Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's National Security Council, on Saturday told the semi-official news agency Fars: "Their (Russians') use of Iran's air space has continued because we have a fully strategic cooperation with Russia." "In the recent cases, Russian fighter planes have only used Iran's airspace and have not had refueling operations," Shamkhani added. The agency said Shamkhani was commenting on media reports that Russia's Tupolev-22M long-range bombers had used Iranian airspace and a base in the country on their missions in Syria, where both Tehran and Moscow back President Bashar al-Assad's government. It was not immediately clear if the recent missions were linked to Russian air strikes on Thursday that accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers during an operation against Islamic State in Syria, according to the Turkish military. (Reporting by Dubai newsroom Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
By Maher Chmaytelli and Saif Hameed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq won't take part in any regional or international conflicts, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told state TV on Saturday. The comment came after Abadi had spoke in a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump during which tensions with Iran were mentioned. The call was the first between the two leaders. A political commentator close to Abadi, Ihsan al-Shammari, said Abadi's comment addressed the U.S.-Iranian tensions. Iran has close ties with the Shi'ite political elite ruling Iraq while Washington is providing critical military support to Iraqi forces battling Islamic State. "Iraq is very keen to preserve its national interests (..)and does not wish to be part of any regional or international conflict which would lead to disasters for the region and for Iraq," Abadi said, according to state TV. Trump said on Friday that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani "better be careful" after the latter was quoted as saying that anyone who speaks to Iranians with threats would ''regret it.'' The White House on Friday said Trump and Abadi "spoke to the threat Iran presents across the entire region," in their first phone call since the inauguration of the U.S. president. Abadi's office on Friday also gave a readout of the phone call that took place overnight Thursday, without specifically mentioning Iran. Both readouts stressed the importance of their continued cooperation against Islamic State, as the militants are being pushed back in Iraq and losing control over Mosul, the last major city stronghold under their control in the country. The United States has more than 5,000 troops deployed in Iraq and is providing air and ground support in the battle of Mosul. Iran has also played a major role in the fight against Islamic State by arming and training Iraqi Shi'ite groups collectively known as Popular Mobilization. "The Iraqi prime minister Dr Abadi is stressing once again the policy of neutrality and to steer clear from conflicts,'' political commentator Shammari told state TV. The Iraqi readout said Abadi asked Trump to lift the ban on people from his country traveling to the United States. U.S. courts suspended the restrictions announced end January on entries from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Trump has said he will keep trying to reinstate them. Abadi resisted calls from influential pro-Iranian Shi'ite politicians to retaliate against the ban, at a meeting held on Jan. 29, citing Iraq's need for U.S. military support. Washington last week ratcheted up pressure on Iran, putting sanctions on 13 individuals and 12 entities days after the White House put Tehran "on notice" over a ballistic missile test. Iran's dominant influence in Iraqi politics was eroded after Islamic State routed the Iraqi army commanded then by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a close ally of Tehran, in 2014. (Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
Rome (AFP) - A hat-trick of tries for CJ Stander and Craig Gilroy, and nine conversions from fly-half Paddy Jackson, relaunched Ireland's Six Nations title hopes Saturday with a record 63-10 win over Italy in Rome.

Ireland, the 2015 champions, arrived in the Eternal City looking to make amends for a 27-22 defeat at Murrayfield when Scotland scored three tries in the opening half hour.

And Joe Schmidt's men left the "Colosseum" of the Stadio Olimpico with no doubts as to their tournament credentials.

Depite their loss to Scotland, New Zealander Schmidt was buoyed by a win that sets the Irish up well for France next week: "We didn't release the pressure valve."

Ireland's previous highest score against Italy was a 60-13 win at Lansdowne Road in 2000. This was their highest against Italy away from home.

"I thought we were a lot more clinical than usual," said Ireland No 8 Jamie Heaslip, standing in as captain after hooker Rory Best was sidelined by a stomach bug.

"We definitely held on to the ball better through the phases."

Although Italy made amends for a 33-7 defeat to Wales with far better discipline, Conor O'Shea's men were dominated for long periods and, worryingly, saw their defence collapse in a completely one-sided second half.

O'Shea, who played 35 times for Ireland as a full-back, had asked for discipline to improve after shipping 15 penalties to Wales.

But in doing so, Italy's game elsewhere suffered.

"In the first 20 minutes we took a battering," said O'Shea. "We talked about Ireland's ability to hold the ball through the phases, and the first 20 minutes took a physical and mental toll on us.

"We played against a team that, in every department, is better than us. It was a tough day.

"But we will never hang our heads. We have to get ready in one week's time and be focused for England at Twickenham."

After seeing winger Angelo Esposito's timely intervention knock the ball from Simon Zebo's hands as he was about to touch down on 11 minutes, Ireland had their opener a minute later when Keith Earls was given acres of space on the right flank.

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The first of Jackson's conversions gave Ireland a 7-0 lead on 14 minutes.

Italy reduced arrears quickly thanks to Carlo Canna's penalty but Italy's defence caved in when Stander collected Zebo's skip pass to touch down past the left corner flag.

Jackson's conversion bobbled over for a 14-3 lead, "one of the ugliest I've ever seen", said Schmidt, who said it resembled "a wounded duck".

- Fast Irish hands -

Handling errors and a tight Irish defence intent on making amends for their poor start to Scotland ended Italian hopes of a quick fightback, and their defence suffered, too.

Fast Irish hands moved the ball out to the right channel, where Earls was allowed to run over unhindered, Jackson converting for a 21-3 lead.

Italy bounced back thanks to a penalty try, awarded after Ireland collapsed the line-out drive, losing Donnacha Ryan to a yellow card in the process.

But minutes later Stander touched over for his second try to secure a fourth try bonus point. Jackson converted for a 28-10 first-half lead that left Italy in disarray.

Despite collecting a bonus point, Schmidt was dismissive.

"For us it's about trying to get the right performance and the right results over the tournament," he said.

Ryan returned on 44 minutes and two minutes later Stander collected Conor Murray's offload from a ruck outside the 22 to skip round a series of tackles and seal his hat-trick, Jackson kicking his fifth conversion for a 35-10 lead.

Schmidt made a series of changes for the final quarter and the fresh legs were too much for Italy, Gilroy touching over the first of his hat-trick on 68 minutes after skipping inside his marker outside the 22 and running home.

Inspired, Garry Ringrose pulled off a similar move four minutes later, with Gilroy completing his hat-trick with a brace of tries in the final minutes.
MENOMONIE (TNS)  The defense lawyer for a Minneapolis man who faces charges in Dunn County for the beating death of a UW-Stout student says it is a case of self-defense.

Weve spoken with witnesses and weve spoken with my client, and it is an issue of self-defense, said lawyer Chris Zipko of St. Paul, after Cullen M. Osburn, 27, made a bond appearance Thursday in Dunn County before Judge Rod Smeltzer.

Zipko said he could not elaborate on the defense.

Smeltzer set bond at $75,000. Osburn is scheduled for an initial appearance March 27.

He was arrested on Jan. 13 in the Twin Cities on a warrant issued from Dunn County for charges of felony murder and battery in the death of Hussain Saeed Alnahdi, 24. Alnahdi died Oct. 31 after an altercation in downtown Menomonie on Oct. 30. He died from traumatic brain injury.

Dunn County District Attorney Andrea Nodolf sought a $1 million bond for Osburn.

I believe Mr. Osburn is a flight risk, she said. He fled after the initial incident.

Osburn originally fought extradition from Minneapolis where he was arrested, Nodolf said. He did waive extradition Feb. 3 in Hennepin County (Minn.) Court.

Zipko sought a signature bond or a low cash bond. He pointed out that after the altercation law enforcement had contact with Osburns brother and sister. Osburn also voluntarily reached out to law enforcement and advised them of his whereabouts.

He had not fled, Zipko said. He never attempted to leave Minnesota. He is not a flight risk in any sense.

Osburn did not understand the process and did not have the paperwork needed to waive extradition earlier, Zipko said.

Nodolf said Menomonie police went to Minneapolis to Osburns residence and his workplace to try to locate him and were not successful.

After the hearing, Zipko said Osburn is concerned how the case has been presented so far.

Its weighing heavily on him, Zipko said.

Despite heavy media coverage and the victim being an international student, Zipko said he believes it is similar to other such cases.

Facts are facts, he said.

Osburn, a convicted felon, was not a student at UW-Stout. He previously was convicted of domestic assault and failure to abide by an order to have no contact with the victim. The charges in Dunn County carry a penalty enhancer for the charges.

According to a criminal complaint:

Witnesses said Osburn and Alnahdi had an argument in front of Toppers Pizza, 406 Main St. E., on Oct. 30. Osburn punched Alnahdi twice, and he fell to the ground. When police arrived they found Alnahdi unconscious and bleeding from the nose and mouth.

Alnahdi was flown to Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire, where he died Oct. 31 due to a traumatic brain injury.

Alnahdi, who came to UW-Stout from Saudi Arabia to study English as a second language, was a junior majoring in business administration.
ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Western-backed Syrian forces should isolate Islamic State's de facto capital in Syria "by the spring" before an offensive on the city itself, British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said on Saturday. The Syrian Democratic Forces, which includes the powerful Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, launched the campaign on Raqqa in November. It announced this month the start of a new phase in the offensive, aiming to complete its encirclement of the city and cut off the road to the militants' stronghold in Deir al-Zor, southeast of Raqqa. "I hope that isolation will be completed by the spring and then operations to liberate Raqqa itself can begin thereafter," Fallon told reporters in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq. Islamic State is fighting hard to preserve its foothold in Syria as it loses ground in Iraq. U.S.-backed Iraqi and Kurdish forces last month dislodged the militants from the eastern side of Mosul, their last city stronghold in Iraq, and are preparing an offensive on the parts of the city that lie west of the Tigris river. "Raqqa is a much smaller city than Mosul but will clearly be defended very vigorously by Daesh and that means the operation to liberate Raqqa has to be very carefully prepared, as the operation for Mosul was," Fallon said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State."Once Raqqa is liberated after Mosul, we will see the beginning of the end of this terrible caliphate," he said. Islamic State declared the caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014. Britain is part of the U.S-led coalition supporting forces battling Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria. (Reporting by Stephen Kalin; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli in Baghdad; Editing by Alison Williams)
Three weeks after her father assumed office, Ivanka Trump has been quietly working behind the scenes. Pool reporters have spotted her in the West Wing where her husband, Jared Kushner, works as President Donald Trumps senior adviser.

Last weeks highlights include accompanying her father to Delaware to visit the family members of a fallen service member and bringing her Mandarin-speaking daughter Arabella to the Chinese Embassys Lunar New Year festivity.

Even her 10-month-old son is helping his mom settle. Taking a call in the White House with my personal assistant Theodore, Ivanka captioned an Instagram photo she shared on Tuesday.
John Bercow orchestrated a row over Donald Trumps visit to the UK to allow him to stay in post as Commons Speaker until 2020, government sources believe.

Mr Bercow was accused of violating his political impartiality after he said on Monday that he wanted to prevent the US President from addressing Parliament during a forthcoming state visit.

He said he wanted to stop Mr Trump from speaking in Westminster Hall because of his racism and sexism.

It prompted one Conservative MP, James Duddridge, to table a motion of no confidence in Mr Bercow, which has been formally supported by two Tory backbenchers.

However, Cabinet ministers have told the Telegraph they believe Mr Bercow intentionally created the row as part of a plot to ensure he stays on as Commons Speaker until at least 2020.

It had previously been expected that Mr Bercow would stand down next year.

But after making his comments about Mr Trump, Mr Bercow has been supported by numerous MPs from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, who said they would oppose any attempt to oust him.

It means it is likely that Mr Bercow will be able to remain in post for years. It is understood that Mr Bercow has told friends and allies he wants to remain in post until at least 2020.

Bercow did this to win Labour, SNP and Lib Dem support for staying on, a senior member of Theresa Mays Government said. He has orchestrated the whole thing.

Bercow did this to win Labour, SNP and Lib Dem support for staying on

Senior member of Theresa Mays Government

Allies of Mr Bercow said that he had simply been responding to a point of order in Parliament by Stephen Doughty, a Labour MP, calling on officials to withhold permission for an address to Westminster Hall by Mr Trump.

But a number of Conservatives claim that Mr Bercow knew the question was coming and had pre-prepared his remarks.

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Mr Bercow drew a furious response from ministers on Monday when he told MPs: "We value our relationship with the United States. However, as far as this place is concerned, I feel very strongly that our opposition to racism and to sexism and our support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary are hugely important considerations in the House of Commons.

"Before the imposition of the migrant ban, I would myself have been strongly opposed to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall. After the imposition of the migrant ban by President Trump, I am even more strongly opposed to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall."

Lord Fowler, the Speaker of the Lords, expressed anger that he was not consulted by Mr Bercow about his statement. He suggested that he and Mr Bercow should be stripped of their ability to "effectively veto" foreign leaders from addressing Parliament.

Alec Shelbrooke, a Tory MP, on Friday voiced support for Mr Duddridges motion, saying that although Mr Trumps faith-based migrant ban is discriminatory and wrong, Mr Bercow had politicised the office of Speaker and his position is untenable.

However, Labour MPs defended Mr Bercow.

Kate Osamor said: John Bercow has my full support and I wont be voting for a motion of no confidence.

And Seema Malhotra, a former shadow minister, said: Lots of support for Speaker Bercow, who does his job with impeccable fairness and honesty.

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, has written to the Speaker to stress his support for him.
Pundits have been drawing comparisons between the Tea Party and a new liberal movement that was born out of the Democratic Partys identity crisis after many were left shocked by Hillary Clinton's loss in Novembers presidential election.

Millions of protesters took to the streets the day after President Donald Trumps inauguration for the Womens March on Washington; thousands called and wrote to their senators to oppose the nomination of Betsy DeVos; thousands more protested Trumps immigration ban at airports across the country; and Thursday, hundreds packed a town hall meeting near Salt Lake City to hold Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) accountable.

Yemen Protest

Photo: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

The parallels are striking: a massive grassroots movement, many of its members new to activism, that feeds primarily off fear and reaction, wrote Molly Ball in the Atlantic Thursday.

Ball, who was reporting for a liberal-leaning magazine, was not the only one who saw similarities; conservative strategists do, too.

You know, what's interesting is that we in the Tea Party really borrowed some of the street protests and organizing from the left, with mass rallies, with getting out in the streets, with signs, said Brendan Steinhauser, an early Tea Party activist, on NPR. But the thing that we did also that I see the left borrowing from us is actually taking that activity and turning it into direct legislative contact in the form of thousands of phone calls and emails and posts on social media.

Youve got many options to keep that energy going. Here are a few:

Two general strikes are being planned, during which organizers were encouraging people to avoid buying anything or going into work for an entire day. The first is being planned for Feb. 17, and the idea originated from a column published in The Guardian in January.

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Lets designate a day on which no one (that is, anyone who can do so without being fired) goes to work, a day when no one shops or spends money, a day on which we truly make our economic and political power felt, wrote Francine Prose in The Guardian.

Women's March

Photo: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

The idea soon spread over social media, and on Monday, the Womens March organization announced its own General Strike, although no date has been scheduled.

Attend your lawmakers town halls. One town hall became raucous near Salt Lake City Thursday night, with attendees demanding answers from their Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz. You can do the same. The Town Hall Project 2018  named for the year of the next Congressional election  is a volunteer-run organization that has kept track of town halls across the country in a publicly available spreadsheet.

Another grassroots organization, called the Ides of Trump, has been encouraging people to write a postcard to the White House March 15. Historically, the date is known as the Ides of March and has commemorated the day when Roman emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated. But there were no planned assassination attempts here, just an effort to flood the White House with anti-Trump messages.

We will show the man, the media, and the politicians how vast our numbers are and we will bury the White House post office in pink slips, all informing the President that hes fired, the group explained on its Facebook page.

Gorsuch Protest

Photo: REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Finally, if you live in New York City, visit nextprotest.com. It has a simple mission: to list upcoming protests in the city. The website says it was expanding soon. But as of Friday, it had three demonstrations listed on its site in New York in February:

Feb. 12, 11 a.m. EST, Battery Park, NYC  A protest against Trumps immigration policies

Feb. 17, 2 p.m. EST, Washington Square Park, NYC  A Not My President demonstration

Feb. 20, 12 p.m. EST, Trump Tower, NYC  A Not My President" demonstration

Two other protests were being planned for later this year, too: On Tax Day, April 15, demonstrators were expected to gather across the country to demand Trump release his tax returns. And one week later, April 22, scientists were planning their own march on Washington.

Related Articles
Oklahoma City Thunder fans are still mad that Kevin Durant left for Golden State last summer. The best way to express that displeasure, of course, is with a clever t-shirt.

While the economists among them may at the very least appreciate Durant exercising his right to experience the free market as a person with valuable skills, the rest of the proletariat simply considers him a coward for jumping to the team that haunted Oklahoma Citys playoff nightmares rather than stay and fight off Steph Curry and Co.s overwhelming presence in the NBAs Western Conference.

Tensions are high in Oklahoma City with Durant and the Warriors return to town slated for Saturday night, and the shirt vendors are working overtime to shame Durants decision to leave. This shirt floating around Oklahoma City features the word Koward on the front, referencing Durants initials and also the fact that he is, well, a coward. Thats all conjecture, but sometimes hurt people lash out and say things they dont mean. And other people print shirts hurt people will buy because this hustle economy never stops.



Theres also a cupcake on the back.

SportsCenter

That two-sided printing, thats gonna cost you extra! I hope they can still turn a profit while shilling them outside the arena.

Durants Wikipedia entry also described him as a cupcake for a time on Saturday afternoon.

Wikipedia

The soft narrative came years ago after some inconsistent performances in the playoffs where The Oklahoman called him Mr. Unreliable in a huge headline. Some Thunder fans are clearly ignoring all the good times Durant had with Westbrook and Co. there for eight seasons and want to focus on the failures. Which is fine, but wont get them much more than a few new shirts to wear at the gym.

(via SportsCenter)
AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  A lawyer for a Mexican national sentenced to eight years in prison for voter fraud in Texas said Friday that President Donald Trump's widely debunked claims of election rigging was "the 800-pound gorilla" in the jury box.

Rosa Maria Ortega, 37, was convicted in Fort Worth this week on two felony counts of illegal voting over allegations that she improperly cast a ballot five times between 2005 and 2014. Her attorney, Clark Birdsall, said Ortega was a U.S. permanent resident who mistakenly thought she was eligible to vote.

The sentence was stark  voting fraud convictions many times result in probation. Tarrant County prosecutors say jurors made clear they value voting rights, but Birdsall said he believes Ortega would have fared better in a county with fewer "pro-Trump" attitudes.

Trump carried North Texas' Tarrant County with 52 percent of the vote in November. Birdsall said he wanted to steer the jury of 10 women and two men from any lingering thoughts about Trump's unproven claims that 3 million people illegally voted in 2016 but the judge wouldn't allow him.

"It was the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the jury box," Birdsall said. "I would have said, 'You cannot hold this woman accountable for Donald Trump's fictitious 3 million votes.'"

Birdsall said the Texas attorney general's office had agreed to leniency in exchange for Ortega testifying to lawmakers about illegal voting, but said Tarrant County District Attorney Sharon Wilson quashed those talks. A Wilson spokeswoman acknowledged plea negotiations but would not divulge details. A spokesman for Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did not return an email seeking comment.

Birdsall said Ortega has lived in the U.S. since she was a baby and now has four teenage children. He said Ortega had learning disabilities and only a sixth-grade education.

Sam Jordan, a spokeswoman for Wilson, said the decision to prosecute had "absolutely nothing" to do with immigration.

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"This is a voter rights case. Does she consider voter rights important? Yes she does," Jordan said of Wilson, the district attorney. "And she thought it was important enough to go forward to a jury and let the jury of citizens decide, and they decided pretty clearly how important they think voting rights are."

Birdsall said Ortega voted Republican. He said that included casting a vote for Paxton, whose office helped prosecute her.

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Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.

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Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber
Presidents Day has evolved from a specific salute to the countrys first commander in chief, George Washington, to a broad celebration of all the chief executives and their accomplishments. Most of them have exhibited a wide range of interests and many demonstrated a curiosity about, if not aptitude for, the sciences. In the area of astronomy alone, presidents have looked to the skies for various reasons, from trying to gain a basic understanding of the workings of our universe, to metaphorically explaining the state of the union and establishing the countrys prominence in science and technology.

This interest in celestial matters began with George Washington himself, who as a surveyor became proficient in collecting accurate astronomical data. Perhaps not surprisingly, Washingtons fellow Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, took an active interest in astronomical matters, from directing Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to use celestial navigation in fixing the coordinates of rivers they explored during their perilous Corps of Discovery Expedition, to making his own observations. Once, while suffering through a bout of rheumatism, he passed the time by observing the Sun and calculating the longitude of his residence. On September 17, 1811, he witnessed an annular solar eclipse with a refracting telescope and recorded the timing of each stage of the event. He also observed and commented on Uranus and double stars and even included an observatory in his design for the University of Virginia.

Jefferson is remembered as one of our most learned presidents, a true Renaissance man. President John Kennedy famously commented on this at an April 29, 1962, gathering of Nobel Prize winners at the White House. During his welcoming speech, Kennedy said, I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

Kennedy himself pointed his eyes to the heavens, galvanizing the country to work together in the name of national and ideological pride to send humans to the Moon. Kennedy was one of our more charismatic leaders and, on a sweltering day at Rice University on September 12, 1962, he gave a speech that left no doubt about his view on the importance of this quest.

The most poignant part of Kennedys speech read:

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people...There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the Moon! ... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win

A century before Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln incorporated his memory of a spectacular meteor shower (probably the Leonid Meteor Shower of 1833, which one observer estimated peaked at 100,000 meteors per hour!) into a comment about the troubled nation. The story was later recounted by poet Walt Whitman in his 1882 book, Specimen Days & Collect:

As is well known, story-telling was often with President Lincoln a weapon which he employed with great skill. Very often he could not give a point-blank reply or comment  and these indirections, (sometimes funny, but not always so,) were probably the best responses possible. In the gloomiest period of the war, he had a call from a large delegation of bank presidents. In the talk after business was settled, one of the big Dons asked Mr. Lincoln if his confidence in the permanency of the Union was not beginning to be shaken  whereupon the homely President told a little story. When I was a young man in Illinois, said he, I boarded for a time with a Deacon of the Presbyterian church. One night I was roused from my sleep by a rap at the door, & I heard the Deacons voice exclaiming Arise, Abraham, the day of judgment has come! I sprang from my bed & rushed to the window, and saw the stars falling in great showers! But looking back of them in the heavens I saw all the grand old constellations with which I was so well acquainted, fixed and true in their places. Gentlemen, the world did not come to an end then, nor will the Union now.

Lincoln also looked to astronomy for respite from the stresses of the crumbling nation. On several occasions, he sneaked away from the White House to peer through a telescope at the United States Naval Observatory (USNO), then located in Washington, D.Cs Foggy Bottom area, just north of where the memorial to Lincoln would one day be built.

The USNO is one of the oldest agencies of scientific research in the United States. Like Percival Lowells observatory here in Flagstaff, the USNO sprouted from the mind of an amateur astronomer from Massachusetts. His name was John Quincy Adams, yet another president who looked to the skies in the name of curiosity, knowledge, and national pride.
The meetings Friday and Saturday between President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may help lay the groundwork to carve out a bilateral trade deal from the ashes of the Trans-Pacific Partnership , said Tom Schieffer, former U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Trump's rhetoric on the campaign trail and subsequent abandonment of TPP as president has caused the Japanese "great anxiety," Schieffer told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Friday.

Schieffer said he hopes the meetings will "get the alliance back on the straight and narrow" and "allay people's fears" about U.S.-Japanese relations.

Abe used a lot of political capital to ratify TPP back in December, Schieffer said, adding that maybe Trump and Abe can "save the best parts" of the 12-nation free trade deal.

The Japanese brought their "A-Team to Washington," Schieffer argued, saying the prime minister is being accompanied by the deputy prime minister, the finance minister and the foreign minister.

"They're going to try to engage the American government across the board," said the former ambassador who served during the presidency of George W. Bush .
STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP)  A Pennsylvania man has been acquitted of third-degree murder but convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of the son who lived for more than two decades in a vegetative state following a brain injury.

Christopher Barber, 47, who served six years in the 1990s on an aggravated assault conviction in the case, was freed after a time-served term.

Prosecutors said he shook his fussy baby boy and threw him onto a couch so hard that he suffered catastrophic brain damage. The son survived 23 years in a vegetative state, hooked to a breathing machine and fed through a tube, until he died in May 2015.

Jurors in Monroe County deliberated for less than two hours before rendering a verdict Friday, and the judge then imposed a 2 to five-year term, allowing Barber's release due to time served.

Authorities said Barber told police that his son would not stop crying while being fed on New Year's Eve in 1991 in Saylorsburg, about 25 miles north of Bethlehem.

Barber tearfully testified during the trial that he didn't recall much of what happened on that night and also didn't recall what he later told police but clearly remembered "dropping," not "throwing," the infant. He said he was a stressed-out 21-year-old who was new to fatherhood and working long hours to support his family. Asked whether anger played a role in his actions, he said it was exhaustion and frustration, not anger.

Barber apologized for his actions after the verdict and before sentencing, saying he had taken responsibility since the beginning and "It was never my intent to harm my son."

Judge Art Zulick called it "a sad, horrific case" that snatched a child's life away at just two months old and left a father who now "will have to live with the consequences of those actions."

Assistant District Attorney Michael Mancuso called it a "tough, unusual case with a bittersweet conclusion."

"In the end, I don't think any amount of time served could ever be justice for what this victim had to suffer through," he said.
By Sarah Marsh HAVANA (Reuters) - Canada's best-known writer Margaret Atwood said it was largely worries about women's issues after the U.S. election that made her book "The Handmaid's Tale" the latest dystopian novel to shoot back up bestseller lists. The book, about a theocratic dictatorship in the United States where women are forced to bear children for the ruling class, topped Amazon's best seller list earlier this week, and still ranks in the top ten. In an interview during Cuba's international book fair, where Canada is guest of honor, Atwood said sales of "The Handmaid's Tale" were also boosted by a trailer during the Super Bowl for its new televised adaptation by video streaming site Hulu. "When it first came out it was viewed as being farfetched, the 77-year old grande dame of Canadian literature said of her novel that was originally published in 1985. "However when I wrote it I was making sure I wasnt putting anything into it that human beings had not already done somewhere at sometime." Atwood, a prolific writer who won the Booker Prize in 2000 for "The Blind Assassin", said "The Handmaid's Tale" was inspired by her studies of 17th century America and its Puritan values. "You are seeing a bubbling up of it now," she said, referring in particular to moves under U.S. President Donald Trump to restrict the right to abortion. Trump said last year women should face punishment if they receive abortions. "It's back to 17th century puritan values of new England at that time in which women were pretty low on the hierarchy". The first person narrator of "The Handmaid's Tale" tries to escape to Canada. Some have already taken refuge there since Trump's election, Atwood said, adding that it had historically been seen as a place of relative safety. In the TV adaptation that debuts in April and features "Mad Men" star Elisabeth Moss, Atwood plays a cameo role. Dystopian fiction is enjoying a moment. George Orwell's "1984", first published in 1949, ranks third on Amazon's best seller list. The classic book features an authoritarian government that spies on its citizens and forces them into "doublethink," or simultaneously accepting contradictory versions of the truth. Sales spiked two weeks ago after a senior White House official, Kellyanne Conway, used the term "alternative facts", an expression some denounced as "Orwellian". "We think as progress being a straight line forever upwards," said Atwood. "But it never has been so, you can think you are being a liberal democracy but then bang you're Hitler's Germany, that can happen very suddenly Cuba and Canada were alike in that they were small countries that both keenly felt the impact of international politics, said the author, who has made regular trips to the Caribbean island since a first cultural exchange in the 1980s. Birdwatching was one of the activities that kept her, and her partner and writer Graeme Gibson, coming back. Several new editions of her books are being presented at the Cuba book fair, which runs until Feb. 19 and in which nearly 50 countries are participating. (Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Andrew Hay)
London (AFP) - Gareth McAuley's header deep in stoppage time salvaged a 2-2 draw for West Brom in an entertaining Premier League encounter at West Ham's London Stadium on Saturday.

Slaven Bilic's men were eyeing all three points after goals from Sofiane Feghouli and Manuel Lanzini but for McAuley's dramatic late intervention.

West Ham were without in-form striker Andy Carroll, missing with a groin injury, with Lanzini standing in as the only change.

West Brom boss Tony Pulis fielded the same side that saw off Stoke City 1-0.

Beaten 4-0 on their last away day to the capital by Tottenham the visitors enjoyed the perfect start on this trip, catching the Hammers on the hop with their first attack with only six minutes on the clock.

A defensive slip-up led to James Morrison's assist to Nacer Chadli who beat off Cheikhou Kouyate before nutmegging keeper Darren Randolph.

West Ham's furious appeals that the goal should not stand after a foul by Chris Brunt on Feghouli were dismissed.

Shortly after West Ham's new Hull City recruit Robert Snodgrass forced Baggies keeper Ben Foster into action with a curling freekick.

Only the crossbar saved West Ham from falling further behind when Salomon Rondon's shot hit the woodwork from the edge of the area.

Feghouli then had the ball in the back of the net but the goal was disallowed for offside.

But any feeling of injustice felt by Feghouli dissipated after the hour when the Algerian international tapped in the rebound after Foster tipped Lanzini's shot onto the bar.

That set up a frenzied end as Lanzini's powerful drive with four minutes to go left the hosts' heading for the win.

But in the fourth minute of injury time Chris Brunt's lofty cross sailed over to the far post for McAuley to get a touch to substitute Jonny Evans's header.

Bilic was sent off after angry protests to match officials.

The stalemate left West Brom in eighth on 32 points while West Ham slipped one place to 10th.
Milan (AFP) - Poland striker Arkaduisz Milik made his return from a lengthy injury lay-off but watched from the bench as a Dries Mertens-inspired Napoli kept the Serie A title race ticking over with a 2-0 win over Genoa on Friday.

Piotr Zielinski and Emanuele Giaccherini struck in the second half as Maurizio Sarri's men leapfrogged Roma into second place to sit six points behind leaders Juventus.

Roma, now in third and a point behind Napoli, will move back up to second with a win at struggling Crotone while Juventus can further underline their bid for a record sixth consecutive title with a win at Cagliari in Sunday's late game.

Napoli's 18th consecutive win in all competitions kept morale high ahead of their Champions League trip to Real Madrid in midweek.

"We were all focused on Genoa tonight, not Real," Giaccherini told Sky Sport.

"We knew it would be hard because Genoa play a tight marking game. Personally, I work hard every day to be ready when the coach calls. And when the coach calls, you have to step up to the plate."

Milik, bought from Ajax to replace Gonzalo Higuain when he left Napoli for Juventus last summer, has only recently returned from a cruciate knee ligament injury suffered while on international duty last October.

But with Belgian midfielder Mertens in fine form, and the trip to Real Madrid in midweek in mind, Sarri's decision to keep the Pole on the bench proved correct.

Having hit three hat-tricks in less than 12 weeks to take his league tally to 16 goals in 24 games -- only one fewer than league leader Edin Dzeko of Roma -- Mertens turned provider for the night.

He started up front alongside Lorenzo Insigne and Giaccherini, who was handed his first Napoli start amid the enforced absence of Jose Callejon due to suspension and capitalised to hit his maiden league goal for Napoli.

But it took until the second half, after Faouzi Ghoulam, Kalidou Koulibaly and Marek Hamsik had come close, for Napoli to break down a resolute Genoa side.

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A mazy run from Mertens helped break the deadlock, the attempted clearance from his attempt falling for Zielinski to smash past Eugenio Lamanna and into the bottom corner minutes after the restart.

Mertens came close to adding a second when he nutmegged Lucas Orban to test Lamanna, Amadou Diawara firing the follow-up wide.

But the Belgian's masterpiece on the night was his assist for Giaccherini.

He hooked a long ball and flicked it around Nicolas Burdisso before rolling across for Giaccherini to tap into an empty net.
With Valentine's Day around the corner, US customs inspectors are rolling up their sleeves for the unromantic task of scrutinizing millions of imported flowers to keep out both bugs and drugs.

Cut flowers are a $15 billion industry in the United States and with two thirds of them imported, mostly from Colombia, it's Valentine's rush hour at Miami International airport, the hub of the massive operation.

Millions of flowers at a time are kept in a refrigerated warehouse, motors humming to guarantee a stable 1 C (34 degrees F), often despite sweltering subtropical heat, as the flowers are inspected, cleared and shipped.

"It's a very busy time of the year for us and we have to be very careful," said Migdalia Arteaga, spokeswoman for agriculture at the US Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agency.

Their approach is not high-tech but seems to work: inspectors grab a bunch, hang it upside down and smack it a few times to see if any insect or other stray stowaway material, drops out.

Even under the magnifying glass, most of the flowers turn out to be problem free.

But sometimes the whacking turns up a ride-along insect.

"This is one of the most important missions that we have," said Arteaga. "Protecting the nation against pests, that can get to the ecosystem and destroy it or cause havoc," she warned.

Traffickers in the past have been known to hide drugs in the flood of flowers by injecting them right into flower petals, Arteaga said.

In such cases, customs does not seize the drug-laced plant, but lets it be delivered -- and busts the person at the receiving end.

But keeping out the tiny bugs is just as serious a matter, explains Christopher Maston, the customs authority's port director for Miami.

"It only takes one exotic plant pest to inflict tremendous damage on domestic agriculture, which is a trillion dollar industry," he said. "Our agriculture specialists represent a front line in protecting America."

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And so biologists and entomologists toil day and night, moving heaven and earth to move a mountain of 500 million roses through Miami, ahead of the February 14 holiday.

"During that period our agriculture specialists at CBP will find roughly 1,800 plant pests," said Maston. "That sounds like a lot but it's relatively low."

Valentine's Day accounts for a quarter of annual cut-flower sales in the United States, according to the American Society of Florists -- rivalled on the calendar only by Mother's Day.
The soldier embraces his family before shipping out. The spouse stoically waves goodbye knowing heartache and worry are about to take hold. Thoughts creep in that life as they know it could soon be shattered.

Its a scene Nikki Batts has played out twice with her Army husband and one she fears going through again with her 18-year-old son who just finished Army Reserve training. The mother to six children, including a transgender son, has led a difficult life as a military spouse, overcoming long bouts of not being able to communicate with her husband and swallowing fears that he might not return home from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And now, with the military in the hands of commander-in-chief Donald Trump, she's scared more hard times are on the way.

Im afraid of our new president and what that means for my husband and for my son, in terms of going to war, Batts, wife to a 25-year Army officer, said during a recent phone interview with International Business Times. And Ive never felt more compelled to want to speak out.

Under the recently installed administration of President Trump, the emotions of some military families can best be described as fearful. Dripping with hyperbolic and at times vitriolic words, Trumps speeches, tweets and some of his executive orders during the first days of his administration have led to uncertainty and worry among some military families who are afraid his rhetoric and actions could lead to more deployments and possibly endanger enlisted personnel stationed overseas.

During the presidential campaign, many Americans voted Republican because they believed Trumps goal was to isolate the country from the rest of the world to avoid international conflicts and instead focus on domestic policy. Yet, Trumps recent actions and threats have put many military families on high alert. There was his decision to remove Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from the National Security Council, and his flippant remarks to the Central Intelligence Agency about how "we should have taken the oil," after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. During his short time in the White House, Trump has also threatened China, Mexico, North Korea, Iran and other nations, and praised intelligence officials for sending generals in the right direction so the fighting becomes easier.

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You do the job like everybody in this room is capable of doing, said Trump in a recent speech directed at the CIA. And the generals are wonderful, and the fighting is wonderful. But if you give them the right direction, boy, does the fighting become easier. And, boy, do we lose so fewer lives, and win so quickly. And that's what we have to do. We have to start winning again.

But winning wasnt Liesel Kershuls top concern during her husband's five deployments. Kershul, 33, met her Marine Corps husband while studying at the University of California-Irvine and the couple has been together for the last 15 years, including 10 years of marriage. During that time, hes shipped out five times for combat, including the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and then Afghanistan the following year. During one particularly difficult deployment, Kershul didnt speak to her husband, an MV-22 Osprey pilot who flies in support of bombers, for six months.

Currently based at Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona, Kershul said every deployment is different and military family members often deal with low-level anxiety with spikes in between. Kershul said Trump might not have understood what military families go through when he spoke to the CIA.

It felt disconnected to my reality as a military spousebecause the fighting is never wonderful. It felt like he maybe lacked a little empathy for how military spouses feel about sending our loved ones to go fight those battles, Kershul said.

Angie Drake

Photo: Angela Drake

Angie Drake is also afraid of what Trump could do to her family. She said Trumps decisions and choice of words seem erratic and misguided, increasing fears and further destabilizing a community that any day could see a loved one deployed or killed in combat. The Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer and photographer has been married to her husband for his entire 27-year Air Force career. Together, they have two sons who are now in college.

I think military families are always worried when a new administration comes in because theres always a time of uncertainty, said Drake, and I know Im feeling this and a lot of my friends are feeling this, that this current president, the uncertainty the levels are probably the highest Ive ever felt in my time as a military spouse. I think all you have to do is look at the newspaper or your social media of choice every morning and see that there is an uproar every single day since he has taken office. That alone suggests this is a president who is trying to turn things upside down, and not necessarily with a definitive plan with each move that he makes. And military families value planning.

Drake has deep family ties to the military. Her father was also in the Air Force and was stationed in England, where he met his wife and Drakes mother. But when Drake recalled her sons, then eight and 11 years old, saying goodbye to their father before he deployed to Afghanistan in 2008, she started to fight back tears.

They have watched their dad go to war, they remember what it felt like to have their dad at war, Drake told IBT. One of the hardest things a family can do is say goodbye to someone who you may not see again.

Theres no denying the number of spouses and children that could be affected by more deployments. Roughly 50.6 percent of the total military force is married, according to a Defense Department report from 2015 that broke down the militarys latest demographics. Meanwhile, 36.5 percent of the active duty force are married with young children.

Tracy Sivacek, 51, is another seasoned military spouse whos worried about the Trump administration. Shes been there for 17 of her husbands 27-year Army career and has a disabled 17-year-old son afflicted with Freeman-Sheldon Syndrome. The syndrome is in the same family as arthrogryposis, similar to that of disabled reporter Serge Kovaleski, who many accused Trump of mocking in November 2015 during a campaign trail speech.

Sivacek said Trump may not be looking out for the best interests of military families.

When I heard that [Dunford] was out, I started feeling like maybe theyre shopping for the advice they want to hear, Sivacek said. And that concerns me because every time Ive seen an administration start shopping for the advice they want to hear, something bad happens to the military.

An untimely death isn't the only fear hounding military spouses. Myra Hinote, a 23-year Air Force wife and mother of three, stressed many people dont truly understand the long-term effects a severe war injury of any kind can have. The immeasurable damage long deployments can have on the enlisted, such as in cases involving post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), affect both the servicemen and their families once they return from a combat zone, she said.

Thankfully this has not affected my husband, but so many of our service members have suffered traumatic brain injuries, along with other, more visible injuries, and the physical and psychological effects are life-long and significant, Hinote said in an email. I dont think that weve even begun to grasp the long-term implications of this. So, any talk of new deployments, especially fighting terrorists who favor [improvised explosive devices] and landmines, is doubly concerning. 

Roughly 11 percent of all veterans who served in Afghanistan and 20 percent in Iraq were afflicted by PTSD, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Meanwhile, a 2011 Pew Research Center survey of 1,853 veterans, including 712 who served after 9/11, found 44 percent of veterans said their readjustment to civilian life was difficult.

When President Trump spoke to the CIA and he mentioned taking the oil that sent a chill through my community of military spouses, the people I talk to and we support each other, that sent a chill through all of us because we know what that takes  to go into a country, to take something that belongs to them, that means putting boots on the ground and using your military to do so, Drake said. And I think that when President Trump speaks about actions like that he forgets that there are people in those uniforms and that there are families of people behind our men and women in uniform and that we are worried.

Amy Bushatz

Photo: Amy Bushatz

Servicemen have traditionally supported Republican policies and candidates, but have moved toward the center of the political spectrum in recent years. While roughly 50 percent of the military backed the GOP in 2000, only 32 percent did by 2014, according to a poll conducted by Military Times. Another 28 percent identified as independents.

In many military families, political conversations are rare if only to avoid possible conflicts in a community that supports and relies on each other to get through lengthy overseas deployments. The wives who spoke to IBT are registered as independents, although Batts said she actually switched to the Democratic Party to vote for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders during the primary races last year.

Amy Bushatz has been married for the last nine years to a 10-year Army serviceman recently turned Army National Guard infantry officer. Bushatz, a 32-year-old editor with Military.com, suggested the military, like the rest of country, is deeply divided over Trump, with some showing support, others not and some in between.

Now that [Trump] is our president I think the attitude is the same that we had by and large as a military for President Obama, Bushatz said. Not everybody liked President Obama, but they recognized that hes the commander-in-chief and that is your contractual duty as a member of the military and your duty as an American to obey the commander in chief.

But for others, the reaction to Trump has been much more visceral. When the president said he wouldve taken Iraqs oil, Batts said she was stunned. Combining the words take, oil and Iraq equaled one thing to many military spouses: more boots on the ground.

Its been by far the most trying experience of my life to be a military spouse," Batt said. "But also the level of camaraderieamong the Army family is unlike anything Ive ever seen or experienced before. We would do anything for each other. When the unit goes out and theyre all overseas somewhere, were a family, just that quick, overnight, because we all understand how hard it is to sleep at night and the fear thats involved and just the difficulties of taking care of your family and dealing with the stress that the kids are experiencing. Were all going through the same things together.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Ohio Gov. John Kasich has a pet peeve: the use of the term "Rust Belt" to describe his state.

The Republican governor has made it his mission to send the label to the scrap heap of history. He points to advances in such areas as drones, data analytics, biotechnology, robotics and autonomous vehicle research.

"We're a big manufacturing state. But we also want to change the image of Ohio into something from the Rust Belt to the Knowledge Belt," Kasich said during an Associated Press forum this month. "Now, this is hard."

Why is it hard? Because it's been repeated and entrenched over more than 30 years, including by President Donald Trump during last year's election, when he called Ohio and Pennsylvania places where "everything is rusting and rotting."

A look at the economics and politics of the debate:

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MANUFACTURING ROOTS

Ohio's manufacturing roots date to the earliest days of its statehood. The first steel furnace west of the Alleghenies was built in Poland Township, near Youngstown, in 1802, according to the Ohio Steel Council. The region's readily accessible coal stoked steel-making furnaces and the region's steel, rubber and glass were shipped to nearby plants to make cars.

The industry was devastated by a combination of economic changes in the 1970s and 1980s, including foreign competition and strict environmental regulations. That left behind abandoned  yes, rusting  mills, unemployment and a fleeing working class. Ohio lost 405,000 manufacturing jobs between 1969, when employment at Ohio factories peaked, and 1983, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The sector settled in at around 1 million jobs for almost two decades after that. The sector began a pre-recessionary descent in the early 2000s before employment bottomed out at 614,000 in 2009. Advances and innovations are bringing the sector back, with 76,000 jobs added as of 2016.

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ONE RUSTY, AND PERSISTENT, LABEL

Democrat Walter Mondale helped invent the term Rust Belt during his 1984 presidential bid. Mondale attacked the economic policies of incumbent Republican President Ronald Reagan for "turning our great industrial Midwest and the industrial base of this country into a rust bowl," according to the Dictionary of American History. The media picked up on the concept and the Rust Belt label was born.

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Kasich isn't the first to try to replace the name.

During their 2006 campaigns, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and former Gov. Ted Strickland, both Democrats, promised to make Ohio "the Silicon Valley on alternative energy." Technology business in northeast Ohio created a "Tech Belt" with western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia.

A recent "Trust Belt" movement by central U.S. business leaders pushes back against what they say is a media misrepresentation of the region's economic progress.

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WHAT'S PAST IS PROLOGUE

Marketing and economic development experts say the best way to shed Ohio's Rust Belt label would be to acknowledge and embrace the state's manufacturing legacy with a new image that it can live up to.

That's what Las Vegas did when it moved to replace its unwanted "Sin City" label with the slogan "What happens here, stays here," said Mike Diccicco, CEO of the Philadelphia-based brand communications agency DDCworks.

"If you took a look at it, you'd have to say the dominant theme of Las Vegas is one of adult freedom. It's not a place to take your family," he said.

Ohio State University economist Ned Hill said Ohio shouldn't try to shed its Rust Belt label, but to build on it.

"It's a part of our heritage, but it's not our future," Hill said.

Younger generations actually like the label, said Richey Piiparinen, director of Cleveland State's Center for Population Dynamics and author of "Rust Belt Chic."

"'Born into ruin' is what we say. They don't have the psychic baggage, they were not born in the heyday," he said. "And so this idea of resiliency, of struggle, of fighting for your land, of being proud of your land, but at the same time not having any illusions about what we were, that's been a whole new generation owning that term."

He said Kasich's promotion of Ohio's knowledge economy makes sense amid a climate where Trump is stoking the fears of blue-collar regions that elected him by painting a picture of "this Mad Max world."
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Opponents of President Donald Trump's travel ban sought Friday to rack up another legal victory against the measure, believing they have the administration on the defensive after a federal appeals court refused to reinstate the order.

As government attorneys debated their next move, they faced unsympathetic judges on both coasts.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided Thursday with the states of Washington and Minnesota in refusing to reinstate the ban, opening the possibility that the case could advance to the U.S. Supreme Court. On Friday, a federal judge in Virginia also seemed inclined to rule against the administration in a different challenge.

For his part, Trump said Friday that he is considering signing a "brand new order" while the ban is held up in court.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One as he flew to Florida for the weekend, the president said he expected his administration to win the legal battle over his original directive. But he said the White House was also weighing other alternatives, including making changes to the order, which suspended the nation's refugee program and barred all entries from seven Muslim-majority countries.

In Virginia, a lawyer for the state asked a judge to impose a preliminary injunction barring the government from enforcing a portion of Trump's Jan. 27 executive order that bars anyone from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days.

A preliminary injunction would be long-lasting, continuing through the trial in a case. Still, because of the 9th Circuit's decision refusing to reinstate the order, the practical effect of any decision in Virginia may be muted for now.

Judge Leonie Brinkema, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton in 1993, did not seem satisfied with answers about the executive order from an administration lawyer.

Brinkema said that the order "clearly has all kinds of weaknesses," and she asked the government to explain the justification for the ban, saying courts have been "begging" for that explanation. The president can legally suspend the entry of non-citizens into the country when he "finds" that their entry "would be detrimental to the interests of the United States."

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"Finds," she said, doesn't mean just "think."

Virginia's Solicitor General Stuart Raphael said the government has been unable to answer the charge that the ban was targeted at Muslims.

Brinkema, who did not say when she will rule, said that there was strong evidence that the order is harmful to national security. She quoted from a joint declaration filed in the case by former national security, foreign policy and intelligence officials, including former secretaries of state Madeline Albright and John Kerry, former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

"In our professional opinion, this Order cannot be justified on national security or foreign policy grounds. It does not perform its declared task of 'protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States," the declaration states.

The group continued that Trump's executive order "could do long-term damage to our national security and foreign policy interests."

A lawyer for the administration, Erez Reuveni, countered that the group is not in the current administration. But he did not give any additional justification for the order. Instead, Reuveni argued that Virginia does not have the right to challenge the ban and that Brinkema does not have the power to review the president's executive order.

As for how the government will move forward in the 9th Circuit case, Reuveni said no decisions had been made.

"We may appeal. We may not," Reuveni said. "All options are being considered."

Moments after the ruling Thursday, Trump tweeted, "SEE YOU IN COURT," adding that "THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!" But he did not specify what court he meant.

The administration could appeal the ruling to a larger 9th Circuit panel or bypass that step and go straight to the U.S. Supreme Court. That could put the decision over whether to keep the temporary restraining order suspending the ban in the hands of a divided court that has a vacancy. Trump's nominee, Neil Gorsuch, probably could not be confirmed in time to take part in any consideration of the ban, which would expire in 90 days unless it is changed.

In addition to the challenge in Virginia brought by Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, the ban still faces lawsuits around the country, some filed by refugees directly affected by it. The Trump administration did win a legal victory earlier this month in Massachusetts, where a federal judge in Boston declined to extend a temporary injunction against the travel ban. But a separate federal ruling in Seattle later in the day put the ban on hold nationwide. It was the Seattle judge's ruling that was ultimately appealed to the 9th Circuit.

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Associated Press writers Ken Thomas and Darlene Superville in Washington and Gene Johnson in Seattle contributed to this report.
The Mossack Fonseca head office in Panama City: AFP/Getty Images

The heads of the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers scandal have been denied bail, following their arrests in Panama last week.

The two founders of Mossack Fonseca were detained following allegations they played a part in a Brazilian corruption scandal known as Lava Jato, which involved the laundering of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of political bribes.

Defence lawyers for Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca confirmed they will remain in custody. Two other employees of the firm, lawyer Edison Teano and legal director Sara Montenegro, are also believed to be under investigation.

Mr Fonseca's lawyer, Elias Solano, dismissed evidence against his client as weak, according to a report in The Guardian. He said: It does not seem too difficult to show the lack of foundation to these allegations.

Mr Mossacks lawyer Marlene Guerra told reporters he had been refused bail because there is a risk of flight from the country, due to the financial means of our clients.

She said the indictment process was ongoing. The Panamanian newspaper La Prensa reported that they were being charged with alleged economic crime, in the form of money laundering.

The two men were arrested following what appeared to be a coordinated swoop by police across Latin America, capturing people involved in the enormous Lava Jato  "Operation Car Wash"  scandal.

The ongoing investigation, which began in mid-2014, was initially a money laundering investigation but was expanded to cover allegations of corruption at the state-controlled oil company Petrobras, where executives allegedly accepted bribes in return for awarding contracts to construction firms at inflated prices.

In a press conference, Kenia Porcell, Panamas attorney general, said she had information that identified Mossack Fonseca allegedly as a criminal organisation that is dedicated to hiding money assets from suspicious origins.

She said the firms Brazilian representative had allegedly been instructed to conceal documents and to remove evidence of illegal activities related to the Lava Jato case.

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Put simply, the money comes from bribes, circulated via certain corporate entities to return bleached or washed to Panama, said Ms Porcell. She confirmed charges had been formulated against four individuals, including the Mossack Fonseca partners.

Among the web of companies used to transfer bribes are a number of entities represented by Mossack Fonseca.

Gabriel Fonseca, Ramons son, told reporters outside the justice ministry: They are wasting time putting pressure on my father ... They already have all the electronic information, its in the ministry.

Mossack Fonseca rebutted the charges on Twitter, describing the proofs gathered by the justice ministry as documents taken from the internet that are the proceeds of a theft.

The offshore law firm, which is the fourth biggest in the world, became notorious last year after an unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files from their database, which implicated some of the world's richest people, including public officials and celebrities, in financial crimes including tax evasion, money laundering and fraud.

The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

The ICIJ then shared them with a large network of international partners, including the Guardian and the BBC.
Former President of Peru Alejandro Toledo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

Peru has offered a reward of 24,000 for the capture of its former president, Alejandro Toledo.

A judge issued an international arrest warrant after accusations that he took $20 million (16 million) in bribes.

The bribes were apparently given so a company could win a contract to build a highway from Peru to Brazil.

The reward is being given to anyone in the world who may be able to provide information on Mr Toledo.

Prosecutors believe there was a high probability Mr Toledo received the bribes - something Mr Toledo denies.

Peru's government it has information that Mr Toledo, who led the country from 2001 to 2006, is in San Francisco.

Authorities have also reached out to Israel because they believe Mr Toledo may take advantage of his wife's dual Belgian-Israeli citizenship in an attempt to seek refuge in the country, which doesn't have an extradition treaty with Peru.

Agencies contributed to this report
MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine police have sacked nearly 100 policemen since the start of the year because they were found to be drug users, a top official said on Saturday, in a clean-up of the ranks after President Rodrigo Duterte halted police anti-drug operations. More than 7,700 people have been killed since Duterte unleashed his bloody war on drugs seven months ago, about 2,500 in police operations, while the rest are being investigated. Duterte had been unwavering in defending the police in the face of international outrage over the toll, but his faith was shaken by the killing of a South Korean businessmen late last year by rogue officers. Ninety police officers have been fired since the start of the year and nine were removed last year, Internal Affairs Service Inspector General Alfegar Triambulo said in comments broadcast on ANC TV. "Those caught using illegal drugs, according to the civil service rules, must be dismissed...that is a grave offence," he said, adding that he had promised the chief of police that he would quickly resolve outstanding cases. Triambulo said he would recommend next week the dismissal of 40 more policemen to the chief of police. Last month, Duterte denounced the police as "corrupt to the core" and suspended their role in anti-drug operations, although he vowed to forge ahead with the drug campaign. Human rights groups suspect many of the killings being investigated were committed by vigilantes or hitmen supported by the police. The Philippine Drugs Enforcement Agency has been put in charge of anti-drug operations and Duterte has also raised the possibility of getting the military to help. (Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
WARSAW, Poland (AP)  Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo is feeling "quite well" following her limousine's crash into a tree that appears to have been caused by a young driver in another car, the interior minister said Saturday, but questions arose about the quality of the government agency protecting Polish officials.

Friday night's accident in the southern town of Oswiecim was a second crash of a government limousine so far this year.

Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak told a news conference he had spoken with Szydlo, 53, who remains hospitalized and was undergoing tests at a government hospital in Warsaw. Szydlo told him she was feeling "quite well" and thanked all those who helped her after the crash, he said.

Blaszczak then addressed security concerns. He insisted Szydlo's three-car convoy observed all traffic rules and had their warning lights and sirens on as they were passing a small Fiat. Her driver was an officer with 15 years of experience.

He admitted, however, that the Government Protection Office was undergoing restructuring under the Law and Justice government that took power in 2015 and many new officers are being admitted and trained. He said that had no negative effects on the quality of the agency.

But opposition lawmakers demanded a detailed report into changes taking place at the office and said they will provide legal assistance to the 21-year-old driver of the Fiat that was involved in the accident.

National police head Jaroslaw Szymczyk said the driver had admitted to involuntarily contributing to the crash and could face up to three years in prison if convicted.

The accident occurred shortly before 7 p.m. Friday as Szydlo arrived for the weekend in Oswiecim, her hometown.

Her car, a new Audi A8, was in the middle of a three-car convoy going about 50 kilometers (30 miles) per hour on the town's main road when a small Fiat they were overtaking suddenly turned left and hit the limousine, causing it to hit a tree, according to Janusz Hnatko, the spokesman for prosecutors in Krakow.

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Szydlo's driver and her bodyguard were also hurt and hospitalized.

Dr. Andrzej Jakubowski, who examined Szydlo after the crash, said she suffered some slight injuries and was in some pain, but the prognosis was good. TVP INFO, a state TV program, said she suffered bruises to her chest from her seat belt.

It was the latest in a string of road incidents involving top state officials.

Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz escaped uninjured from an eight-car collision two weeks ago. In November, several vehicles in a Polish government convoy, driven by Israelis, collided during a state visit to Israel, injuring two Polish officials.
Warsaw (AFP) - Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo was in "stable condition" in hospital after a car accident, a government spokesman said.

The prime minister was riding in a motorcade on Friday evening when a Fiat 600 driven by a 21-year-old man struck her vehicle in the southern town of Oswiecim.

Her car was forced off the road and crashed into a tree, with the front of the car badly damaged. Two security agents including Szydlo's driver were also injured, one of them suffering serious leg injuries.

Szydlo underwent medical tests in a local hospital before being transported in the evening by helicopter to a military hospital in Warsaw.

Government spokesman Rafal Bochenek told reporters the prime minister was still in hospital "under observation" and the duration of her stay would "depend on the specialists".

"She is being well looked after. She can carry out her role, she can fulfil her obligations as head of the government," Bochenek said.

He refused to specify the nature of medical tests undergone by the 53-year-old or confirm if she would preside over the weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

"She feels well although she is not completely back to normal after being involved in an accident," he said.

Szydlo was wearing a safety belt at the time of the crash.

The Fiat's driver has admitted responsibility for the accident and has been charged with causing "bodily damage in a road accident". If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the powerful head of Szydlo's rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) party, had told supporters at an event Friday night the premier was "seriously hurt" in the accident.

"We're with you Beata and we're sure that after a brief stay in hospital, you'll be back with us again leading the government," he said.
Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis on Saturday named a Polish archbishop as special envoy to a Bosnian town that has become a huge but controversial pilgrimage site thanks to reported appearances by the Virgin Mary.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is said to have appeared to six young people in the town of Medjugorje in 1981 and to continue visiting them to this day, but the apparitions have not been confirmed officially by the Vatican.

The new envoy, Archbishop Henryk Hoser, is being sent to "acquire a deeper knowledge of the pastoral situation" in Medjugorje, and "above all the needs of the faithful who go there on pilgrimage," the Vatican said in a press statement.

But Hoser, whose mandate will last until summer, will not be tasked with verifying the authenticity of the apparitions, because that task falls to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Under growing pressure from local clergy and pilgrims to term the Medjugorje events a continuation of Marian visions, several church investigations have been commissioned.

The last one, commissioned in 2010, concluded its report in January 2014, but nothing has been officially announced.

In November 2013, Pope Francis issued what could be interpreted as an invitation to caution about events in Medjugorje.

"The Virgin is not a post office chief who would send messages every day," he said.

Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the southern French city of Lourdes and the northern Portuguese city of Fatima are recognised as Marian visions.

Each year about one million people visit Medjugorje, some 25 kilometres (16 miles) southwest of Mostar and not far from the Croatian border.

Even Bosnia's 1990s war did not stop pilgrims from coming.

For locals, the religious tourism has been like manna from heaven, bringing prosperity in a poor Balkan country where Catholics make up 10 percent of its 3.8 million population.
Julian Assange could be evicted from the Ecuadorean embassy in London by the start of Spring if opposition candidate Guillermo Lasso comes out on top in next months Ecuadorean presidential election.

Assange has been housed at the embassy since June 2012. Ecuador granted the WikiLeaks founder asylum after Sweden sought his extradition to face questioning over an accusation of sexual assault. Assange claimed that he could face extradition to the United States and be prosecuted over the leaking of documents, videos and diplomatic cables obtained by Chelsea Manning. Those leaked materials would lead to the founding of WikiLeaks.

But Lasso, of the right-wing Creo-Suma Alliance, has argued that its time for Assanges stay to come to an end.

The Ecuadorian people have been paying a cost that we should not have to bear, he told The Guardian in an interview published Thursday. We will cordially ask Senor Assange to leave within 30 days of assuming a mandate.

The man who granted Assange asylum, current president Rafael Correa, will not be eligible for re-election having already served two terms. However, his vice-president Lenin Moreno, has maintained a steady lead in the polls and currently has around a 10-point advantage.

Julian Assange

Photo: Reuters/Peter Nicholls

Still, even if Lasso does not come to power, Assanges time in the embassy could soon be over. Ecuadors top diplomat has expressed his frustration with the ongoing situation, decrying the human cost of housing Assange in an embassy that has been under constant surveillance by British police.

Assange, too, has appeared increasingly desperate for a solution. He has vowed to accept extradition to the U.S., providing his rights will be protected, when Mannings commuted sentence ends in May.

And earlier this week, he again appealed to British and Swedish authorities to honor a United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that he was being arbitrarily detained.

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"I call on UK and Sweden to do the right thing and restore my liberty," he said. "These two states signed treaties to recognize the UN and its human rights mechanisms.

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Protesters for and against Planned Parenthood turned out across the country on Saturday  motivated by what activists on both sides described as a wake-up call that came in the form of the 2016 presidential election and the Womens March that followed.

I feel like this past year has really woken people up, said Tiffany Caudill, one of the organizers of a Denver rally in support of Planned Parenthood on Saturday.

She said more than 3,000 people planned on attending the rally in a park outside the office of Republican Sen. Cory Gardner. It was one of a series of events organized by abortion rights advocates on Saturday, partially in response to simultaneous protests at about 120 clinics calling for Congress to defund Planned Parenthood.

In New Jersey, about 130 Planned Parenthood supporters signed up to host events aimed at writing Valentines to lawmakers, said Casey Olesko, communications manager for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund of New Jersey.

I feel like we got sort of complacent and comfortable with the status quo and didnt realize how quickly things can change and didnt realize how many things can be at threat if we dont participate, Caudill said.

Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, felt much the same way when he witnessed hundreds of thousands turn out for the womens march last month.

That event was really a wake-up call to how important it is for pro-lifers to make their voices heard in the public square, said Scheidler, who was one of the primary organizers of Saturdays protests outside Planned Parenthood centers in 45 states.

He and other anti-abortion advocates see the current political moment, with the election of President Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress, as a key opportunity.

We want to see Congress and the White House encouraged to follow through on their campaign promise to defund Planned Parenthood and divert that money, he said, adding that he wants the money to fund health clinics that do not perform abortions.

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Planned Parenthood affiliates received $553 million in government funding in 2014, largely from Medicaid reimbursements. That money does not fund abortions, but pays for medical services that include cancer screenings and HIV testing.

Scheidler  who protested Saturday outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, Illinois  said he intends keep up the effort in the future. We dont hold a rally every decade, we hold rallies constantly, he said.

Caudill said she is prepared to keep showing up every weekend for protests against Trumps policies. The 31-year-old mother said she has long been active in protests, walking her first picket line in elementary school with teachers who were on strike. It just has continued from there, she said.

Planned Parenthood provides vital resources to the community, not just in the form of abortions  which is what they like to focus on  but they provide wellness exams, breast exams, cancer screenings, Caudill said, referring to anti-abortion advocates. They are essentially asking to defund an organization that provides healthcare to our low-income community, further oppressing them  and we wont stand for that.
The Trump White House should be less concerned with the U.S. border with Mexico and turn its attention to Canada instead, an investigative report in the U.S. online news site The Daily Beast suggested this week.

The report quotes unnamed FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials as saying far more "suspected terrorists" are being encountered at the U.S.-Canada border.

"We are looking in the wrong direction," the story quotes a senior Homeland Security official as saying. "Not to say that Mexico isn't a problem, but the real bad guys aren't coming from there  at least not yet."

The story points to leaked FBI data collected between 2014 and 2016 that showed the number of "suspected terrorists" trying to enter the U.S. from Canada at land border crossings was in some months twice that encountered at the Mexico-U.S. border.

- The Investigators airs Saturday at 9:30 p.m. ET and Sunday at 5:30 p.m. ET on CBC News Network.

The data was leaked to Daily Beast reporter Jana Winter, who said the term "suspected terrorist" can be misleading.

"Our watch list system has long been criticized for being way too broad, so it could mean, you are, you know, a terrorist [or] you have the same name as someone who is being investigated. Or you could be associated with a certain group from a certain country  It really covers the gamut."

While focus is on south, criminals head north

Speaking this week to The Investigators, Winter said her story has prompted reaction on both sides of the border.

"I think most shocking [is] that some of the law enforcement officials  and also congressmen and senators who live and work in border states  had no idea that these numbers existed. The U.S is so busy focusing on Mexico."

But when asked, she deemed "ridiculous" any suggestion that the data was leaked by those opposed to a border wall with Mexico trying to shift the focus to Canada.

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"I was given them, frankly, by sources who largely agree that there should be some sort of border wall  but who think both sides need to be looked at," Winter said.

"Plus, the more that you're on TV talking about the southern border as the only threat  as one of my sources pointed out  if you were a terrorist trying to get into the country, and you weren't incredibly stupid, you would probably go to the border that isn't the focus of every single conversation."

The Canadian government has responded to the story by pointing out that "no terrorist attack has ever been carried out by individuals entering the United States from Canada."

For years, after the 9/11 attacks, some U.S. government officials  including for a time, then New York Senator Hillary Clinton  mistakenly insisted some of the attackers had made their way to the U.S. through Canada. They did not. But Winter suggests the numbers she's obtained show the U.S. has to at least consider the possibility that Canada poses a substantial threat.

"How about we have a discussion about what's actually happening?" she said. "The trend towards the northern border has been increasing substantially, which doesn't mean that Mexico is still not a threat. But, it seems sort of ridiculous to be focusing on one border, when the the other one is right there."

Also this week on The Investigators: Why are so many asylum seekers illegally crossing into Canada from the U.S. at the Manitoba border? CBC News reporter Karen Pauls talks about trying to find who's behind the asylum pipeline. Watch the show Saturday at 9:30 p.m. ET and Sunday at 5:30 p.m. ET on CBC News Network.
Seoul (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of people took part in rival rallies in Seoul Saturday, protesting for and against the impeachment of President Park Geun-Hye, after months of political turmoil in South Korea.

Park was impeached by parliament in December over a corruption scandal that tapped into mounting economic and social frustrations and brought millions of people onto the streets in weekly protests.

The Constitutional Court in Seoul is now deliberating whether to approve the impeachment, which would trigger new elections, or to allow her to see out her five-year term.

Saturday's pro-Park protest, which drew an estimated 50,000 people, attracted large numbers of the elderly who grew up under her late dictator father, Park Chung-Hee, the leader credited with the country's rapid industrialisation.

They claimed Park's impeachment was a work of "pro-North Korea" leftists, urging the court to turn it down and bring Park back to power.

The rally took place outside the City Hall as anti-Park protesters, estimated by organisers to number 500,000, gathered nearby, calling for the court to approve Park's impeachment at an early date.

Anti-Park protesters, holding lit candles, chanted "Arrest Park Geun-Hye" and "Stop delaying verdict on impeachment".

They marched toward the presidential Blue House.

Police set up barricades to keep the two groups apart.

Park is accused of colluding with a longtime friend, Choi Soon-Sil, to strong-arm donations worth tens of millions of dollars from top firms to dubious foundations controlled by Choi.

The president is also accused of using her influence to ensure the merger of two Samsung units in 2015 to help facilitate a father-to-son power succession of Samsung's founding family, allegedly in return for bribes given to Choi.

The court's chief justice Lee Jung-Mi earlier this week gave Park's lawyers until next Thursday to wrap up their arguments and present them in writing.

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Her order sparked speculations that the court might reach a verdict in March.

Should the impeachment be approved, new presidential election would have to take place within 60 days.

If rejected, Park would be restored to power immediately.
(BAGHDAD)  Two rockets landed in Baghdads highly fortified Green Zone on Saturday night following clashes at anti-government protests that left five dead, according to Iraqi security and hospital officials.

The rocket attack left no casualties as the munitions landed on the parade grounds in the center of the highly fortified Baghdad compound that is home to Iraqs government and most foreign embassies. It was not immediately clear who fired the projectiles.

Saturdays protests were called for by influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and clashes that erupted as crowds pushed toward the Green Zone left two policeman and three protesters dead, according to police and hospital officials.

The officials said six other policemen were injured along with dozens of protesters. The violent outbreak prompted the government to call for a full investigation.

The demonstrators loyal to al-Sadr gathered in Baghdads downtown Tahrir square demanded an overhaul of the commission overseeing local elections scheduled this year. Al-Sadr has accused the commission of being riddled with corruption and has called for its overhaul.

Shots rang out in central Baghdad as security forces used live fire and tear gas to disperse the crowds. An Associated Press team at the scene witnessed ambulances rushing away protesters suffering from breathing difficulties.

Hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not allowed to brief journalists said the policemen died of gunshot wounds. They gave no details as to the cause of death of the protesters.

While at times the crowds advanced toward Baghdads highly fortified Green Zone, by afternoon they began to disperse after a statement from al-Sadrs office called on his followers to refrain from trying to enter the compound.

Meanwhile, Iraqs prime minister ordered an investigation into the violence.

The prime minister ordered a full investigation into the injuries among security forces and protesters during the demonstration today in Tahrir square, read a statement from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadis office Saturday evening.

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Al-Sadrs office issued another statement Saturday night following news of protester casualties claiming that excessive force was used against the demonstrators and threatened greater protests. The next time the blood of our martyrs will not go in vain, the statement read.

We will not give in to threats, said the head of the electoral commission, Serbat Mustafa, in an interview with a local Iraqi television channel Saturday afternoon. Mustafa said he would not offer his resignation and accused al-Sadr of using the commission as a political scapegoat.

Al-Sadr has been a vocal critic of al-Abadi, and last year protests that included many of his followers breached the highly fortified Green Zone twice.

Attention in Iraq is generally focused on the war against the Islamic State group, with Iraqi forces currently fighting the militants in Mosul, but al-Abadi is also facing a serious power struggle in Baghdad. A deepening economic crisis and persistent insurgent attacks in the Iraqi capital have fueled support for powerful political opponents of al-Abadi like al-Sadr.

Al-Abadi has said that he respects the rights of all Iraqis to peacefully demonstrate but called on the protesters Saturday to obey the law and respect public and private property.

The Green Zone is home to most of Iraqs foreign embassies and is the seat of the Iraqi government.

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Associated Press writer Murtada Faraj contributed to this report.
Singureni (Romania) (AFP) - As Romania's government stares down calls to quit over its bid to weaken anti-corruption laws, residents of one small village, like many Romanians, have lost faith in the party in power.

Singureni, a village of 3,100 people about 30 kilometres (18 miles) south of Bucharest, is a stronghold of the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (PSD).

And like the majority of residents there, Ionut and his wife, who declined to give their surnames when talking to AFP, voted to put the Social Democrats back in power.

Now after barely two months, what had promised to be a dawn of economic opportunities and a responsive government has soured to a twilight of disappointment, even despair.

"Here, if we steal a chicken -- I give you this as an example, I don't steal them -- we are convicted and sent to prison," Ionut, in his 30s, said.

"But they could steal 200,000 lei (44,000 euros, $47,500) without being sent to jail?"

On January 31, less than a month after its election, the PSD adopted an emergency decree which critics say would have protected corrupt politicians from prosecution.

The proposed changes would have made abuse of power a crime punishable by jail only if the amount of money concerned exceeded 200,000 lei.

Separately the government wants to release some 2,500 people serving prison sentences for non-violent crimes of less than five years.

The offending decree was scrapped last Sunday in the face of the country's biggest protests since the end of communism in 1989.

Those protests have continued, with thousands flooding the streets this week in Bucharest and other big cities, and now calling for the entire left-wing government to quit.

On Thursday, Florin Iordache became Romania's first major political casualty, resigning as justice minister. The day before, Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu had survived a no-confidence vote in parliament.

PSD has argued the measures were meant to align the penal code with the country's constitution and to reduce prison overcrowding.

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- To 'protect themselves' -

Singureni seems a world away from Bucharest. Residents live simply, doing odd jobs in shops or farms, eking out a living on government assistance and raising chickens and pigs to make ends meet. Many others report that family members have had to leave Singureni to find work, heading to Spain or Britain.

The Social Democrats garnered 88 percent of the vote here on December 11, mainly on promises of equal access to education and health, raising wages and public pensions.

One of the PSD's first measures was to raise the minimum wage of 1,250 lei (277 euros, $295) to 322 euros ($343) and pensions.

Now all of those efforts have been undone by rising anger over the decree and efforts to ease up on punishing graft.

"They hurried to adopt the decree," Ionut said. "They wanted to serve and protect themselves" from justice.

The decree "disappointed a lot of people," said Elena Zaharia, 20.

She said her conversations with customers at the grocery store where she works reflected people's disillusionment.

"It's not normal," said a 19-year-old high-school student who talked to AFP, also on condition of anonymity. Like 60 percent of Romanians, he did not vote in the last elections because he felt let down by the choices.

"Politicians are always treated differently," he said.

- 'Respect the vote' -

Despite the fallout, the small town still has its PSD supporters, like Ana-Maria Catalina Enache, a mother in her 30s.

"It's the best party, which has already started to raise government allowances for children, retired people, in order for us to maintain a certain level of salaries," she said.

Enache recounted her problems affording medication and the difficulties retired people face living on less than 100 euros per month.

"Here in the country, there are no jobs, we are practically abandoned," she said. Her husband relies on daily, though irregular, labour jobs.

She said she "can't take it any more with the corruption" but believes that those who protest in Bucharest are being pushed to get rid of PSD by Romania's centre-right President Klaus Iohannis.

Iohannis this week rebuked the government for doing "too little" to resolve the crisis over the decree, but stopped short of calling for its resignation.

"The PSD gained the majority," Enache said. "Let's respect the vote."
TOKYO (AP)  Rowing's governing body has voted to drop the lightweight men's four class from the 2020 Tokyo Olympic program despite opposition from Asian countries including China.

The world body, known as FISA, said Saturday it wanted to introduce the women's four class to promote gender equality.

Still, several Asian countries objected to downgrading the status of lightweight rowing before the FISA favored option passed in a 94-67 vote.

If the IOC approves the proposal in July, the 14 rowing events in Tokyo will have seven medal classes each for men and women.

The FISA proposal was the "only one that has a realistic chance of being accepted by the IOC Executive Board," delegates were told during the debate in Tokyo.

Opponents included China and Switzerland, which won gold in lightweight men's four at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics last August.

The proposed women's four was won at the 2016 world championships by Britain with the United States taking silver.

In a further move toward gender equality, FISA decided that men or women should be allowed to cox either a men's or women's crew.
Berlin (AFP) - Oleg Sentsov is a Ukrainian filmmaker imprisoned in Siberia and the target of a global campaign to free him, with stars like Johnny Depp wearing his solidarity T-shirt.

Now he's also the subject of "The Trial: The State of Russia vs. Oleg Sentsov", a chilling Russian documentary showing at the Berlin film festival Saturday, taking aim at what it calls the use of Soviet-style "show trials" to silence opposition today.

Sentsov, 40, a pro-EU activist, was convicted of terrorism in 2015 for arson attacks on pro-Kremlin party offices in Russian-annexed Crimea and sentenced to 20 years in a Siberian prison.

The verdict drew strong condemnation from Kiev, the European Union and fellow filmmakers including Germany's Wim Wenders, who appear in the film to offer their support.

The Voice Project advocacy group to free jailed artists has also taken up his cause, with Depp last November posing in one of its T-shirts bearing Sentsov's name.

The documentary's Russian director Askold Kurov, 42, admitted in an interview with AFP that it would be an uphill battle to secure Sentsov's liberation.

"Yes, I believe (the film) can increase the pressure on the Russian authorities (but) they don't care about any pressure," he said.

Born in the Crimean city of Simferopol, Sentsov is seen on screen as the budding young director behind the 2011 feature "Gamer" about the shadowy world of competitive computer gaming.

But when Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014, Sentsov, a father of two, was detained, accused of being a militant with the Ukrainian ultranationalist movement Right Sector.

- 'Kafkaesque' -

Kurov, who filmed much of the trial, said the proceedings revealed deep procedural flaws and quotes an expert in the film who draws parallels with Communist-era show trials.

"The whole trial was a very Kafkaesque story because they didn't have any real evidence, any real witnesses," the director said.

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"It looks like a theatre. Judges know the results before they start the trials."

Sentsov is seen throughout the proceedings in a steel cage, often flashing the victory sign for the camera as he musters a wan smile.

In a devastating scene towards the end, a star witness for the prosecution tells the court he confessed under torture. Another "co-conspirator" fails a lie-detector test.

The documentary builds to a rousing climax, in which Sentsov denounces his accusers including the feared FSB security service, calling it the "Federal Service of Banditry".

"I know that the rule of the bloodthirsty dwarves will end sooner rather than later," he says acidly, dismissing the judges as a "court of occupiers" and quoting from the long-banned Mikhail Bulgakov Soviet-era satire "Master and Margarita".

"Cowardice is the most terrible sin on Earth," he says.

Kiev sees the film's Berlin premiere as a chance to raise the case's international profile.

"When there are so many colleagues coming to such a large festival and again talking about Sentsov -- this is very important," Ukraine's Culture Minister Yevgen Nishchuk said.

"Unfortunately, the health of both Oleg Sentsov and our other compatriots (in Russian prisons) is failing. And time, unfortunately, is not on our side."

- 'Tired of being afraid' -

His family holds out faint hope that the spotlight will prompt the Russian government to shorten the sentence.

"The only thing we can expect is that international pressure on Russia grows," his cousin Natalia Kaplan told AFP.

Kurov looks to the cases of former oil tycoon and Kremlin foe Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, freed in 2013 ahead of the Olympic Games in Sochi.

"I believe they're just waiting for a moment when they can (release) Oleg or any political prisoners," he said.

Kurov, his blue eyes sunken in a gaunt face, shrugged when asked what reaction his film might have at home.

Keenly aware of the risks he himself faces with the documentary, he said it was a way of standing up to intimidation.

"I passed this period in my life when I was frightened and that sort of paranoia. I was scared about this movie, about my family, my relatives, about the materials I had for this film," he said.

But he added: "I'm not brave, I'm not an activist but I'm really tired of being afraid."

The Berlin film festival runs until February 19.
KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's relations with the United States are "historic and strategic", Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef said on the occasion of the visit of CIA director Mike Pompeo to Riyadh. This is the first reported visit by a senior Trump administration appointee to the kingdom. "Our relationship with the United States is historic and strategic, any attempts to undermine that will falter," Prince Mohammed said, according to state news agency SPA late on Friday. Prince Mohammed, who is also interior minister, said his country will continue to combat terrorism. In a recent phone call Saudi Arabia's King Salman invited U.S President Donald Trump "to lead a Middle East effort to defeat terrorism and to help build a new future, economically and socially," for Saudi Arabia and the region. (This version of the story fixes a typo in paragraph three.) (Writing by Reem Shamseddine Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)
Donetsk (Ukraine) (AFP) - Rebel fighter Roman smirks when asked about the two-year-old peace deal that was supposed to end what is now a 33-month war between government forces and separatists in Ukraine's east.

The camouflage-clad gunman in Europe's only armed conflict -- the bloodiest since the 1990s Balkans crises -- simply warms his trigger finger by a stove in a barracks on the frontline of the Russian-backed separatists' de facto capital Donetsk.

"I have been here from the very start, since 2014," the 32-year-old told AFP. He and many fighters like him decline to give their last names for security reasons.

"There are no peace deals. That is just paper. The Ukrainian side does not observe them -- I think the whole world knows that," he said.

Roman used to be a mechanic in one of the coal mines that dot the region. He downed his tools and picked up a gun the moment the conflict's first shots were fired.

He acknowledges being tired of the constant sound of shelling and the smell of drying pools of blood. The stalemate on the ground also saps his morale.

But he vows he will return to his family only when Ukraine recognises the independence of the Russian-speaking "people's republics" of Lugansk and Donetsk.

Roman says he is ready to fight to the death in a war that has already claimed more than 10,000 lives.

"We can end this war when they free our land. We want them to leave."

- 'We can support ourselves' -

The Minsk II accord of February 2015 -- reached by the Ukrainian and Russian presidents with the help of the leaders of Germany and France -- was meant to halt fighting between Kiev and the Kremlin-backed insurgents through a complex roadmap to peace.

It came as intense combat was stoking fears of open war between Russia and Ukraine and with Kiev accusing Moscow of covertly sending thousands of troops to fan the conflict.

The deal helped ease worries of a broader war but failed to eliminate the deep mistrust on all sides that has kept a political solution out of reach.

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Roman says the only way dialogue can be restored is a change of power in Kiev that pushes out President Petro Poroshenko and returns Ukraine to the Russian orbit that it pulled out of during its February 2014 revolution.

But he says he does not want his Russian-speaking region to join Russia: all he wants is his own state that has close ties to the Kremlin.

"We have our own coal industry and steel mills," he said. "We can support ourselves."

Roman is itching to get back into battle after a clash on the northern outskirts of Donetsk this month killed dozens.

Other skirmishes have seen Ukrainian troops surrender and leave behind their biggest guns after being outflanked by the rebels.

"We have a lot of weapons that we grabbed from the Ukrainians," Roman said. "They were running away and leaving them for us. That's enough to keep us fighting for a long time."

- 'A Russian world' -

An ethnic-Russian rebel commander who goes by the nom de guerre Abkhaz calls himself a patriot at heart.

"I came here to fight for a Russian world," Abkhaz said. "And if I did not feel Russia's support, I would not be here."

But he said he had no illusions that eastern Ukraine would suddenly become part of Russia.

"We are ready to remain unrecognised, the most important thing is independence," he said.

On the other side of the front is a Ukrainian fighter who is as determined as the rebel Roman.

Fartoviy -- a 40-year-old Ukrainian whose name translates as "the Lucky One" -- acknowledges that his forces are tired. But he added that they are willing to fight to the end.

"Yes, many are unhappy with our current president and the government's actions," he said. "But that does not mean we are ready to give up our land."

Fartoviy is also convinced that the separatists would never survive on their own.

"People there wouldn't be able to live without our help," he said. "There's nothing left there now: no factories, no work. And Russia only supplies them with weapons."

The animosity between the two sides seems as impossible to breach as when the war began in April 2014.

As Fartoviy put it: "We might be tired, but not one of my fellow fighters has given up and walked away."
Baghdad (AFP) - Seven people were killed in clashes that erupted in central Baghdad on Saturday between the security forces and protesters demanding reforms to Iraq's electoral system, police said.

The violence was the deadliest to break out at a protest since a wave of demonstrations demanding better services and accusing Iraq's political class of corruption and nepotism began in 2015.

Police fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at the crowd when some protesters, most of them supporters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, tried to force a cordon and reach Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.

"There were seven dead as a result of the violence. Two of them are from the security forces and the other five are protesters," a police colonel told AFP on condition of anonymity.

He said more than 200 were hurt in the chaos. Most were protesters suffering from tear gas inhalation, but at least 11 had more serious injuries caused by bullets and tear gas canisters.

Protesters initially gathered peacefully on Tahrir square to demand a change in the electoral law and the replacement of the electoral commission ahead of provincial polls due in September.

"The demonstrators tried to cross Jumhuriya bridge, the security forces fired tear gas to stop them but they insisted," a senior police official said.

Sadr supporters accusing Iraq's political class of corruption and nepotism broke into the so-called Green Zone twice in 2016, storming the prime minister's office and the parliament building.

- Pressure on Abadi -

Last year's protest movement was halted when tens of thousands of forces launched Iraq's largest military operation in years four months ago to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State group.

However, last month's announcement that elections would take place in September has brought the political agenda back to the fore, and Sadr's movement has vowed to increase the pressure again.

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Saturday's demonstrators received a de facto green light to escalate their protest in the shape of a statement from the Najaf-based Sadr.

"If you want to approach the gates of the Green Zone to affirm your demands and make them heard to those on the other side of the fence... you can," he said.

Sadr encouraged the protesters to remain there until sunset but warned them against attempting to break into the fortified area.

The protesters met fierce resistance from the security forces and never made it across the Tigris River running between Tahrir Square and the Green Zone.

But Sadr, a mercurial Shiite who once led a rebellion against US occupation but has more recently spearheaded an anti-corruption protest movement, urged Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi not to turn a deaf ear.

"I urge him to deliver those reforms immediately, listen to the voice of the people and remove the corrupt," the statement said.

He later appealed for restraint and the demonstrators dispersed.

- Partisan commissioners -

Abadi said the violence would be investigated and those responsible for it prosecuted.

"Our action will get tougher, even if that involves physically taking over the commission," Abu Haidar, a protester wearing traditional Arab dress, told AFP before the rally turned violent.

The electoral commission issued a statement asking for protection from the premier's office and the international community.

A smaller group of protesters had already demonstrated near the Green Zone on Wednesday, while hundreds also gathered in several southern cities on Friday.

Their two main demands are for the members of the electoral commission to be replaced on the grounds that they are all affiliated to political parties and that the body supervising nationwide ballots was therefore anything but independent.

They also want the electoral law to be amended to give wider representation to smaller parties in the country's elected bodies.

Sinan al-Azzawi, a popular Iraqi actor, was among those who addressed the protest before the violence broke out.

Politicians "are profiteers and their only loyalty is to the countries they used to live in but not to Iraq", he said, referring to the Saddam-era exile of many of the country's current leaders.

"Those politicians, they created an electoral commission based on sectarian quotas. It has nine commissioners who belong to political entities... It's not independent," he said.
To boycott or not to boycott First Lady Melania Trump because of her husband's politics has been hotly debated in US fashion circles, but for one Chinese designer, at least one member of the first family is a major asset.

Tiffany Trump, the youngest daughter of the US president, was guest of honor in the front row at Taoray Wang's New York fashion week show Saturday, accompanied by her mother, Trump's ex-wife Marla Maples.

The 23-year-old first daughter, who wore Taoray Wang at her father's inauguration weekend, has been happily adopted by the Chinese label as it seeks to open its first overseas store, in New York in September.

She looked beautiful in a pale pink Taoray Wang coat and ivory dress, a similar version of which appeared in navy on the catwalk, and the label proudly announced her attendance in a subsequent statement.

The namesake brand of Shanghai-based designer Wang Tao, the fall/winter 2017 collection starred her modern take on classic suiting, with a unique twist of East meets West, and an empowering masculine look made feminine when paired with delicate lace negligees.

Wang designs for the powerful, professional and modern woman -- leaders in government, business, finance and law who are not afraid to disguise their femininity.

She sent down the runway black jackets, military-style double breasted coats and wide-legged tweed pants -- a powerful look made sexy with knee-high platform boots, lace underlay and pink silk lining on coats.

Wang said that clients, who are largely in China, and been delighted to see Trump -- "this wonderful young lady" -- wear her clothes at the inauguration and said there had been no negative feedback.

"I would rather focus on personal qualities and characters, rather than labeling them," she told AFP backstage before the show.

It was a stunning collection inspired by contemporary Chinese drama depicting Qing dynasty characters crossing over from ancient times to the present day, and earned her cheers of approval at the end.

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Wang said she had not given much thought to the refusal from some prominent American designers to dress the new first lady.

"I didn't think about that, because I'm very open minded. I cooperate with international celebrities and all these leaders," she said.

Front of house was packed, a mix of Chinese and Asian guests mingled with Park Avenue types -- sleekly dressed, stiletto-wearing and well-groomed American women similar to the younger Trump.

"I believe there is a lot of bridge between different cultures," said the designer, who studied in Japan and keeps a studio in London.

Her label focused on "this blending and diversity," she said.
By Richard Cowan and Julia Edwards Ainsley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Congressman Will Hurd - whose district spans 800 miles (1,290 km) of the Texas-Mexico border - on Friday criticized plans under consideration by the Trump administration to build walls and fences costing an estimated $21.6 billion to deter illegal immigration. Reuters on Thursday revealed details of an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that estimated the cost of covering the entire border. It called for the first phase of construction to begin in San Diego, California; El Paso, Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. "Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border," Hurd, whose district includes El Paso, said in an email. He said his district includes rough terrain where "it is impossible to build a physical wall." The estimated price tag in the report is much higher than a $12 billion figure cited by Republican President Donald Trump in his campaign and estimates as high as $15 billion from Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The border wall was one of Trump's main campaign promises. Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, has vowed to make Mexico pay for it, but the United States' southern neighbor has repeatedly said it will not fund its construction. Many congressional Democrats reacted strongly to the news of plans for the wall and its estimated price. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a telephone interview that he welcomed the debate in his committee over funding the wall. "Instead of funding this costly and ineffective proxy for real action on immigration reform, we should be directing our resources toward finding cures for cancer, building schools for our children, feeding the hungry and rebuilding our bridges and our roads," Leahy said. Five Democratic senators on Friday wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly claiming that the money would be misspent. The letter was signed by Senators Kamala Harris of California, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Warren, a star of the political left, was silenced in the Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday evening for speaking out against Trump's attorney general nominee, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions. Sessions was confirmed on Wednesday. The senators wrote, "We are extraordinarily concerned that President Trump's executive order appears to require that you divert DHS funds meant for critical security priorities to instead fund the border wall." They asked that Kelly respond to a series of questions, including how much funding will be diverted to cover costs for building the wall. Hurd said he had seen estimates as high as $40 billion for the barrier's construction, citing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study released in October. (Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Severe winter weather has slowed rail deliveries of crops to shippers in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, sending freight rates soaring and prompting Asian buyers to seek fill-in loads as they wait for the backlog at ports to clear. Blizzards, avalanches and heavy rain in recent weeks have hit transport of corn, soy and wheat to ports where they head for the lucrative Asian market, adding to the struggles that have plagued U.S. exporters since harvest. The setbacks come at a critical time for U.S. exporters, who are trying to move as much grain as possible before buyers turn their attention to South America when corn and soybean harvests in Argentina and Brazil accelerate in the coming weeks. "There isn't much you can do about awful weather," said John Crabb, a grain broker at Tradewest Brokerage Co in Hillsboro, Oregon. "It's just expensive. You can't load in the rain." BNSF Railway Co shut down rail service between Shelby and Whitefish, Montana in both directions due to an avalanche. The company said in a statement on Thursday that it had rerouted some trains. A spokesman said that the company hoped to restore service in the area, which is on the way from the Midwest, where the crops are harvested and stored, to the Pacific Ocean, on Friday evening. "This is a major pinch point for trains, and could impact an already awful logistical situation headed west," Tregg Cronin, a market analyst for Halo Commodity Co, a brokerage and marketing consulting agency, wrote in a note to clients. The cost of rail freight on the secondary market has spiked as shippers scrambled to secure empty space. The average rate in the secondary market for spot BNSF shuttle railcars has hit $2,000 above tariff rate per car, up from $1,267 above tariff a month ago. A year ago, it was $108 below tariff, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. On the Pacific Northwest coast, rains and snow stopped loadings of ocean vessels in Oregon and Washington this week. The National Weather Service this week instituted a flood watch for much of western Oregon. ALTERNATIVE SUPPLIERS A senior official at a major Japanese trading house said his company was looking into where to buy corn as an emergency measure if it was not able to source grain from the United States. Possible countries of origin include China, Australia or Russia, he added. Tradewest Brokerage's Crabb said there were few alternatives for Asian grain buyers, as it would likely take longer to ship grain to Asia from Brazil, Argentina, or the Gulf of Mexico. But indications are that the congestion at ports is unlikely to ease soon, as about 60 ships are in port or waiting offshore, Cronin added. Monthly loading capacity is about 40 ships. "We are looking at a delay of about 15 to 20 days from the Pacific coast," said a Singapore-based grains trader with an international trading company. South Korea diverted 40,000 to 50,000 tonnes of its corn imports to Taiwan in late December and in January because shipments from the United States were delayed, a Korean trader said. South Korea imported more than 3 million tonnes of U.S. corn in the 2015/16 marketing year. The shipping season since last autumn's harvest has been among the most challenging for PNW grain shippers. After excessive rain delayed vessel loading in October, frigid temperatures and snow have hit rail deliveries across the northern Plains since December. Click http://reut.rs/2lAFOF1 for graphic on cargoes. (Reporting by Julie Ingwersen, Michael Hirtzer, Karl Plume and Mark Weinraub in Chicago, Jane Chung in Seoul, Naveen Thukral in Singapore and Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo; Writing by Mark Weinraub; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden claimed Saturday that an NBC News report, which said Russia was planning to hand over the whistleblower to President Donald Trump as a gift, proved that he never spied for Moscow.

Snowden, who was given refuge in Russia in 2013, is facing espionage charges in his home country U.S. for leaking documents about secret mass surveillance programs. He has been accused of spying for Russia  a claim both Snowden and Moscow have rebuffed.

The NSA leakers tweet came after NBC News, citing two senior U.S. officials, reported Friday that Russia is deliberating to hand over Snowden to curry favor with Trump, who has talked about establishing better relations with the country. The report added that a second intelligence community source supported the claims.

However, Snowdens American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Ben Wizner said he does not know of any such plans by Russia as mentioned in the NBC News report.

Team Snowden has received no such signals and has no new reason for concern, he said.

In March 2016, during his presidential campaign, Trump said of Snowden: I said he was a spy and we should get him back. And if Russia respected our country, they would have sent him back immediately, but he was a spy. It didnt take me a long time to figure that one out.

However, Russia rejected the allegations that Snowden was spying for the country.

According to former Deputy National Security Adviser Juan Zarate, Trump should be careful about any possible offer from Russia over Snowden.

"For Russia, this would be a win-win. They've already extracted what they needed from Edward Snowden in terms of information and they've certainly used him to beat the United States over the head in terms of its surveillance and cyber activity," Zarate said, according to NBC News.

"It would signal warmer relations and some desire for greater cooperation with the new administration, but it would also no doubt stoke controversies and cases in the U.S. around the role of surveillance, the role of the U.S. intelligence community, and the future of privacy and civil liberties in an American context. All of that would perhaps be music to the ears of Putin," Zarate added.

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Paris (AFP) - Teenage striker Kylian Mbappe scored a superb hat-trick as Monaco hammered Metz 5-0 on Saturday to remain three points clear of reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain at the top of Ligue 1.

The highly-rated 18-year-old struck with just eight minutes gone at the Stade Louis II before Radamel Falcao netted his 15th league goal of the season three minutes later.

Mbappe's blistering pace and steely composure saw him add a third as Monaco threatened a repeat of their 7-0 rout from the reverse fixture in October.

Mbappe completed his treble five minutes into the second half and Falcao rounded out a thumping win as Monaco issued a powerful response to Paris Saint-Germain in the wake of their 3-0 success at Bordeaux on Friday.

Monaco head to Bastia next weekend before travelling to Manchester City for the first leg of their Champions League last 16 clash on February 21.

"The best preparation for Manchester City is to win matches," said Monaco boss Leonardo Jardim.

"I think we did well in the first half and created lots of chances. In the second half, we looked after the players a bit more."

But Monaco suffered a potential blow with Jardim suggesting Brazilian midfielder Gabriel Boschilia could miss the rest of the season with suspected knee ligament damage.

Lyon slumped to a damaging 2-1 defeat at Guingamp despite France striker Alexander Lacazette netting his 20th league goal of the campaign.

Lacazette curled in a superb 10th-minute opener at the Stade du Roudourou as Lyon sought to build momentum on the back of Wednesday's 4-0 rout of Nancy.

But the visitors were blindsided by two goals in the space of four minutes as Moustapha Diallo levelled on the half-hour mark before Nicolas Benezet's glancing header snapped Guingamp's six-game winless run.

- 'Doubt' hurting Lyon -

Lyon received a hostile welcome from sections of their own fans at Parc OL in midweek following last Sunday's loss at bitter Rhone rivals Saint-Etienne and their latest setback adds to the enveloping gloom.

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Bruno Genesio's side are 12 points adrift of the Champions League places after losing four of their last six matches and travel to Dutch outfit AZ Alkmaar in the first leg of the Europa League last 32 on Thursday.

"It's symptomatic of teams that are suffering from doubt: they had two big chances and scored twice," Lyon right-back Christophe Jallet told Canal+ Sport.

"We're all doing everything to get going again in the right direction, to move towards, but we haven't been rewarded and we can't say we didn't try everything to get back into the match."

He added: "It's true we've lost far too many matches this season to compete for the top three."

Dijon claimed a vital 2-0 home win over Caen amid heavy snowfall in eastern France, while Angers picked up three crucial points with a 2-1 victory at Lille.

Toulouse thrashed nine-man Bastia 4-1 and Montpellier inflicted a 3-0 defeat on Nancy.

On Friday, Edinson Cavani scored twice -- taking his tally this term to 25 -- with Angel Di Maria also on target as PSG warmed up for Tuesday's Champions League clash with Barcelona in reassuring fashion.

Nice are three points behind in third but will be without Mario Balotelli for Sunday's trip to Rennes with the Italian striker unwell.

All matches in France's top flight this weekend will feature a minute's silence prior to kick-off to honour the 17 people killed in a stadium stampede in Angola. Friday's crush also left 56 people injured and government officials have launched an investigation into the tragedy.
Kandahar (Afghanistan) (AFP) - At least six people were killed Saturday when a Taliban bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into Afghan soldiers who had queued outside a bank in southern Helmand province to collect their salaries, officials said.

Nearly two dozen others, including women and children, were wounded in the explosion in the capital Lashkar Gah, many of them critically.

The Taliban, who control vast swathes of the opium-ravaged province and have repeatedly threatened to seize Lashkar Gah, claimed responsibility for the bombing, calling it revenge for recent US air strikes in the volatile district of Sangin.

"A suicide car bomber killed six people, including five soldiers, and 21 others were wounded," Helmand police chief Agha Noor Kentoz told AFP.

Omar Zhwak, the provincial governor's spokesman, confirmed the casualties from the bombing, which upturned military vehicles and left the area strewn with charred debris.

The Italian-run Emergency hospital in Lashkar Gah said it had received at least 12 people, including a woman and a child.

The Taliban ruled out civilian casualties in a statement on their website, claiming that 21 Afghan army soldiers had been killed. The insurgents are known to exaggerate battlefield claims.

The attack comes after the US military this week stepped up air strikes in Sangin as fierce fighting with the Taliban raised fears that the key district could fall to the insurgents.

NATO on Friday said it was looking into local media reports of nearly a dozen civilian casualties from the strikes.

"While supporting and defending Afghan troops, the US conducted air strikes in Sangin district," the coalition said in a statement.

"We're aware of the allegations of civilian casualties, and take every allegation very seriously. We'll work with our Afghan partners to review all related material."

For years Helmand was the centrepiece of the Western military intervention in Afghanistan only for it to slip deeper into a quagmire of instability.

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The Taliban effectively control or contest 10 of the 14 districts in Helmand, the deadliest province for British and US troops over the past decade and blighted by a huge opium harvest that helps fund the insurgency.

Lashkar Gah -- one of the last government-held enclaves -- also risks falling to the Taliban's repeated ferocious assaults. The intensified fighting in the province last year forced thousands of people to flee to Lashkar Gah from neighbouring districts.

The Pentagon said last month it will deploy some 300 US Marines this spring to Helmand.

NATO officially ended its combat mission in December 2014, but the Marines will return to train and advise Afghan soldiers and police officers fighting the Taliban, said US Central Command.

The decision was welcomed by the Afghan government ahead of what is expected to be another fierce spring fighting season.
Bernie Sanders may have lost the Democratic presidential nomination last year, but it appears he hasnt lost the ardent support of his fan base. Some people who were feeling the Bern, including members of the Vermont senators campaign staff, certain delegates and a group of volunteers began a campaign Thursday for Sanders to spearhead his own political party.

Draft Bernie for a Peoples Party is aimed at transforming Sanders amorphous, widespread support base into a new, concrete political party. The proposed party said it intends to mobilize opposition to President Donald Trump.

This party will offer new progressive electoral choices and strive to enact the people-first platform that so many supported during the Sanders campaign, the website reads.

Sanders presidential campaign catalyzed a movement, and theres evidence that many voters became disillusioned with the Democratic party after it threw its support behind Hillary Clinton as the nominee instead of Sanders. Fourteen million voters changed their affiliation from Democrat to independent in the wake of the election, according to a Gallup poll. The new party will attempt to gather those voters into a permanent working class party.

Sanders campaign already built the coalition, all we have to do is give it a name, the Draft Bernie for a Peoples Party website stated.

If successful, the campaign planned to challenge districts in the 2018 midterm elections and put up its own presidential candidate in 2020. Should that candidate be Sanders himself, the 79-year-old would be the oldest person ever to run for president.

A crowd funding campaign for the party that calls Sanders a knight in shining armor had raised $3,000 of its $27,000 goal Friday. Though its unknown what Sanders thinks of the campaign to draft him as party leader, the senator has been clear and outspoken about his Democratic socialist political views. During the 2016 campaign, he vowed to fight for a progressive party platform. Since Trump has taken office, Sanders has voiced his opposition to a number of the presidents policies, calling him a fraud and a hypocrite on CNN in early February.

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We are a democracy, not a one-man show, he said. We are not another Trump enterprise. Its called the United States of America.

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Photo: Getty

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young woman outside thinking looking at camera

Some people have a condition that makes it difficult for them to recognize familiar faces, even those of friends and family. Sometimes they may even have issues recognizing themselves. This is called prosopagnosia.

Prosopagnosia is estimated to affect about 1% of the population.

It's not necessarily linked to brain damage or any other intellectual problem; the prolific author and neurologist Oliver Sacks was a prosopagnosic.

Merriam-Webster added prosopagnosia to the dictionary earlier this week.

I've seen a lot of faces that I can't forget.

No, I'm not talking about being in love, as The Beatles lyrics might imply. Instead, I may be a super-recognizer, meaning that other peoples' faces get strangely seared into my brain  even those of complete strangers. It's not that I necessarily want to remember them  I just can't seem to help it.

And I'm not alone. Josh P. Davis, a psychology professor at the University of Greenwich in England who studies the phenomenon, told me he estimates some 1% of the population could qualify as super-recognizers. (Keep in mind, Davis said  "if you do very well then you may be a super-recognizer"  if you want to know for sure, you can inquire with his team about additional testing.)

But it turns out that another 1% of the population appears to fall into a category that might be best-described as the opposite of super-recognition.

These face-blind people, or "prosopagnosics," a term that neuroscientists have used to refer to them for several years but was only officially added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary this month, essentially cannot recognize familiar faces.

'Prosopagnosia' is essentially face blindness

The word prosopagnosia, which combines the Greek words "prosopon," or face, with "agnos," or lack of knowledge, dates back to when researchers first identified the "condition" in people with brain damage to a specific area of the brain called the fusiform face area, or FFA, about 30 years ago. Scientists believe the FFA is thought to play a key role in our ability to identify a face.

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Prosopagnosics, they found, had severe difficulties recognizing familiar faces  even, sometimes, their own.

Oliver Sacks

But you don't have to have experienced brain damage to have prosopagnosia.

More recently, researchers have diagnosed the condition in perfectly healthy people who appear to be born with it. The deficit, called "developmental prosopagnosia," doesn't appear to negatively affect other intellectual efforts in these people.

Oliver Sacks, the renowned neurologist and prolific writer, for example, was a prosopagnosic. He wrote extensively about his condition in the book "The Mind's Eye."

"I am much better at recognizing my neighbors' dogs (they have characteristic shapes and colors) than my neighbors themselves," Sacks wrote.

'Super-recognition,' on the other hand, is a superior ability to pick out a familiar face

In the first paper to mention the phrase "super-recognizer," published in 2009, University College London cognitive neuroscientist Brad Duchaine, along with Harvard psychologists Ken Nakayama and Richard Russell, outlined the experiences of four people who claimed to have an unusually good ability to recognize faces. In addition, the researchers presented the world's first test designed to identify these so-called super-recognizers, the Cambridge Face Memory Test, which you can take online now.

All four subjects in the paper described eerie instances in their past in which they had recognized apparent strangers: family members they hadn't seen for decades or actors they'd glimpsed once in an ad and then seen again in a movie. Each person in the study said that for years they'd felt as if something were wrong with them. One of the participants, for example, told the researchers she tried to hide her ability and "pretend that I don't remember ... because it seems like I stalk them, or that they mean more to me than they do."

For the first time, the Cambridge test suggested to these people that they weren't alone  that their abilities weren't merely in their head but quantifiable, testable, able to be proved and put down on paper.

What we know  and don't know  about facial recognition

Research suggests that facial super-recognition is fundamentally different from traditional memory in several key ways. First, the ability doesn't appear to be able to be learned or enhanced with training. Second, it appears to have a neurological and structural basis.

Face_recognition

But there's still a lot we don't know about super-recognition  and about facial recognition more broadly.

In a recent study in the journal PLoS One, for example, researchers studied two so-called memory champions, people who had competed extensively in memory contests and had even been recognized by the Guinness World Book of Records for their memorization skills. When the researchers studied these people's facial-recognition abilities, however, their results were merely average. In other words, the researchers concluded, something about facial processing was fundamentally different from memory  and it couldn't be learned by any training or class. Instead, it seemed to be innate.

And if people are born with their facial-recognition abilities, then they most likely have a neurological basis in the brain, researchers say. A super-recognizer, for example, might have a slightly larger fusiform face area than a face-blind person, or the person might show more activity in this area when looking at images of a face. "Any time there's a psychological difference there has to be a neurological basis," said Duchaine, the University College London cognitive neuroscientist. "Just like you'd say, OK, that car is faster than that other car. Is there a difference in their engines? Well yes of course there is."

Still, Duchaine and other researchers lack the data to confirm this. All of the existing studies of super-recognizers are based on very small samples of people  anywhere from just two individuals to a half-dozen people. Several of the researchers have presented their hypotheses about super-recognizers at conferences and presentations, but many of these haven't yet been published in peer-reviewed journals.

So what exactly are prosopagnosia and super-recognition? Skills? Signs of intelligence? Quirky developmental traits?

That's something that remains to be seen.

NOW WATCH: Neuroscientists are trying to understand how the brains of elite athletes work





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By Ellen Francis BEIRUT (Reuters) - A prominent Syrian dissident said on Friday he believed the country's war was effectively over, as foreign governments have cut support to rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Louay Hussein said Russian-backed diplomacy had "launched a new path" towards ending the conflict, which is nearing its sixth anniversary having killed hundreds of thousands of people and shattered Syria into a patchwork of territories controlled by different armed groups. "The armed conflict for the state is over," said Hussein, 57, a longtime pillar of Syria's internal Damascus-based opposition, seen by critics as aligned with the government. He stayed in Damascus when the revolt against Assad erupted in 2011, but finally fled in 2015, saying he feared the government would harm him. He had been detained several times. "There are no longer foreign states saying they support certain groups to topple the regime by force. We are going back towards a political struggle," he said. Hussein, who now lives in Madrid, was speaking during a visit to Beirut to launch a new political alliance that he hopes will be invited to U.N.-backed peace talks later this month. The diplomatic landscape has seen major changes in recent months, including an apparent shift in Turkish priorities towards fighting Islamic State and Kurdish militia instead of backing rebels against Assad. Turkey is cooperating with Russia, Assad's most powerful ally, co-sponsoring a ceasefire and helping Moscow revive peace talks. Turkey has been a major sponsor of rebel groups fighting in northern Syria under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) banner. These groups suffered their biggest defeat of the war in December when they were driven from Aleppo by the government with decisive help from the Russian air force and Iranian-backed militias. Some FSA groups are now fighting alongside the Turkish army in a campaign against Islamic State in northern Syria. Rebel groups have also received support from Gulf Arab states and the United States. While U.S. President Donald Trump has yet to spell out his policy on Syria, he has previously indicated he could cut support to rebels. Hussein said "Aleppo was not just one battle, it represented the war", which he said had been lost by the rebels. The fighting continues, however. A newly formed alliance of Islamist factions vowed on Thursday to launch new attacks against the government. Free Syrian Army rebels also said they had attacked government positions in northwest Syria on Friday. Swathes of Syria remain out of government control, including the Islamic State-controlled Deir al-Zor province, large areas of northern Syria held by a Kurdish militia, and pockets of rebel-held territory in the west. Hussein, a member of Assad's minority Alawite sect, has been a vocal critic of hardline Sunni Islamist factions, which are not covered by the ceasefire and continue to fight the government. He says Russia's involvement has given him new confidence. "We now have an international entity acting as a guarantor, Russia," he said, calling for support for the new diplomatic efforts that "might contribute to ending the crisis". "When I fled my country, Russia was not present", said Hussein. (Reporting by Ellen Francis; Editing by Tom Perry and Andrew Roche)
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson believes the telecommunication giants merger with Time-Warner will go through by the end of this year, according to CNBC.

In an interview with CNBCs Squawk Box, Stephenson provided an update on the status of the merger with regulators.

The filing has been made with the Department of Justice. The review is ongoing right now. There will not be a filing with the FCC. We're going to assume no licenses from Time Warner, Stephenson told CNBC. It will be a one-track review. The Department of Justice will review it and that's going at pace. We still think we'll be closed by end of year.

Stephensons confidence in the mergers success echos past statements the company has made within the past year. Last October, the two companies announced a proposed $85.4 billion merger.

Both companies already have significant footprints in the content creation space: AT&T purchased cable provider DirecTV in 2014 and Time-Warner controls major film and TV channels like HBO & Warner Brothers. The move also follows similar acquisitions in the telecommunications space like Verizons purchase of AOL as more companies look to consolidate resources and become multifaceted entities.

AT&Ts confidence in the mergers passage also goes up against general opposition from President Donald Trump. In an October campaign speech, Trump blasted the proposed merger.

"As an example of the power structure I'm fighting, AT&T is buying Time Warner and thus CNN, a deal we will not approve in my administration because it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few. Trump said.

Via Bloomberg, Trump is still privately opposed to the merger, but the administrations transition team appointments and likely shift in approach from the Obama administration on regulatory oversight have fueled confidence in the success of the merger.

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Taiwan will shoot down any drones that are found flying into its airports territory, the countrys defense minister said Saturday. The comments came after a drone was found at Taipei Songshan Airport resulting in closure of the airport for nearly an hour Monday.

Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan said that officers can shoot down any drones that fly into the airports territory without prior approval. He also noted that a rise in drone use has posed security concerns to airports.

"If the threat is imminent, there is no need to ask for the approval of the superior," Feng said, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency.

On Monday, a drone was found at Taipei Songshan Airport forcing a China Airlines plane to reroute to Taiwan Taoyuan Airport. The operations of four other civilian flights and one military flight were also affected, the report added.

Several cities across the world are cracking down on drones flying into airports, citing public safety. A Tuesday report in San Diego Tribune said that the city authorities are planning to bring new regulations over drone use near the airport.

Last month, Britains Evening Standard reported that drones were involved in at least 13 near misses with passenger airlines using Londons airports in 2016. Richmond Park MP Sarah Olney said at the time: In the wrong hands, drones are endangering the lives of passengers and thousands more on the ground. There should be an annual report to Parliament on drone incidents over London and other highly-populated areas.

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Port-Leucate (France) (AFP) - France, traditional land of romance, has come up with a new offering to tempt lovers on Valentine's Day: heart-shaped oysters.

They are the creation of an oyster farmer on France's Mediterranean coast who for some 10 years has successfully cultivated a small quantity of oysters in the form of heart -- a special dish found in the region's top restaurants for Saint Valentine's Day.

It all started as a love offering from his wife.

"One day my beloved gave me an oyster in the form of a heart. I was very touched by this oyster which had taken that shape by chance," Christophe Guinaut told AFP.

"That gave me the idea to try to cultivate oysters in that shape," he said.

Guinart of Port-Leucate in the Languedoc region tested several techniques before perfecting the technique for creating the romantic mollusc.

"I keep secret how I make them," he said, adding that each year he tries to improve the process.

His labour of love has paid off, with top restaurants coming to him for oysters, including the three Michelin starred Can Roca in Girona, Spain, which the British press dubbed the world's best restaurant in 2015.

"I sell them for the same price as the others even though they are three times more work," Guinaut says. "I don't do it for the money."

"It's the continuation of a beautiful romance. I love to think that the people who order them have the same emotion as I did when my wife gave me that heart-shaped oyster."
London (AFP) - Technology firms must up their game in tackling "fake news", Apple chief executive Tim Cook said Saturday, calling for a major public information campaign.

"All of us technology companies need to create some tools that help diminish the volume of fake news," the US tech giant boss told the Daily Telegraph in an interview.

"We must try to squeeze this without stepping on freedom of speech and of the press, but we must also help the reader.

"Too many of us are just in the complain category right now and haven't figured out what to do."

But Cook, who met British Prime Minister Theresa May at Downing Street on Thursday, said governments should also introduce a public information campaign.

"We need the modern version of a public-service announcement campaign. It can be done quickly if there is a will," he said.

He added: "We are going through this period of time right here where unfortunately some of the people that are winning are the people that spend their time trying to get the most clicks, not tell the most truth.

"It's killing people's minds in a way."

Fake news -- fabricated reports designed to promote a particular agenda -- came to prominence during last year's US presidential election campaign.

Facebook in particular has come under pressure for failing to take action, and last month modified its system for showing trending topics.

The change is designed to ensure that trends reflect real world events being covered by multiple news outlets.
Counter-terror police arrested the group in Montpellier on Friday morning: EPA

An imminent terror attack has been thwarted in France with the arrest of a group of suspected Isis supporters who were manufacturing explosives for a possible suicide attack.

A 16-year-old girl, named locally as Sara, was arrested alongside her 20-year-old boyfriend and two other men aged 26 and 33 near Montpellier on Friday morning.

Local reports said the group were suspected of planning a suicide bombing in an unspecified tourist area of Paris.

A building in Montpellier, where suspects believed to be involved in plotting an attack were arrested by French anti-terrorist police on 10 February (AFP/Getty Images)

Explosives and other equipment were found during searches of a home shared by Sara and her boyfriend, identified only as Thomas.

Police discovered 71g of triacetone triperoxide (TATP), a powerful explosive widely used by Isis militants, inside a makeshift factory manufacturing the substance.

The volatile explosive, known as the mother of Satan, was used in the Paris and Brussels attacks, as well as the 2005 London bombings.

Isis propaganda magazines have contained instructions on how to make TATP, which is difficult to detect, from legally available and low cost products.

The suspects were arrested after buying acetone, one of the key ingredients.

Debris of an explosion after French anti-terrorist police raided a flat, where suspects believed to be involved in plotting an attack were arrested, in Clapiers, near Montpellier, on 10 February (EPA)

Sara had allegedly used social networks to express her desire to either journey to Syria or Iraq, or attack France, and pledged loyalty to Isis in a video posted online on Wednesday.

But one of her online jihadi "mentors" was working for France's domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI, and the intelligence triggered the dawn raid on her home.

The couple had planned to have an Islamic marriage before Thomas carried out the suicide bombing, with Sara then travelling to join Isis in Syria as a "martyr's widow", BFMTV reported.

The 34-year-old man arrested is suspected of putting the couple in contact with jihadis in Syria, as well as helping the teenage girl obtain a fake passport.

Bruno Le Roux, the French interior minister, said counter-terror operations were carried out in Montpellier, Clapiers and Marseillan.

A spokesperson for his ministry said the arrests had foiled plans for an imminent attack on French soil, vowing that authorities would continue to fight terrorism.

Story continues

A statement said three of the four people arrested were suspected of directly preparing a violent act, while explosives in the course of manufacture had also been discovered at the culmination of the two-week investigation.

The Prime Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, also praised the work of investigators.

Faced with the heightened threat, there has been an extremely strong mobilisation of our intelligence services to ensure the French are protected to the utmost, he said.

The arrests came a week after a suspected Isis supporter attacked French soldiers guarding Le Louvre.

Abdallah el-Hamahmy, a 29-year-old Egyptian man, claimed he received no direct orders from the terrorist group and intended to deface artworks.

France has been repeatedly targeted by Isis, whose militants launched a series of mass shootings and suicide bombings across Paris that killed 130 people in November 2015.

A supporter killed 86 people by ramming a lorry into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice in July, and supporters have also carried out several stabbing attacks including the murder of a police officer and Catholic priest.

The country remains under a continuing state of emergency, which has been extended four times, prompting human rights concerns from the United Nations.

France's top constitutional court has struck down a contentious law brought in under the emergency measures, which allowed prison sentences for the offence of consulting terrorist websites, saying it infringed on the ability to communicate freely.

The 2016 law, approved after the attacks in Paris, was intended to stem the influence of jihadi social networks and online propaganda and made exceptions for purposes of research or informing the public.

In a ruling on Friday, judges said France had other laws at its disposal to protect the public from acts of terrorism and imprison Isis sympathisers.
San Francisco (AFP) - A feud between Elon Musk and the United Automobile Workers revved up on Friday as the group denied his accusation they planted a mole to unionize Tesla employees.

The UAW statement was the latest twist in a saga triggered by an online post by a man who claimed to work at Tesla's plant in California for four years and decried conditions faced by employees there.

Tesla co-founder and chief Musk was quoted at gadget review website Gizmodo this week as calling the accusations "morally outrageous" and saying it was his understanding the man was paid by the UAW to join Tesla and agitate for a union.

In a brief statement Friday, the UAW said the man "is not and has not been paid by the UAW" and called on Musk to apologize for spreading "fake news" about him.

The UAW confirmed that the post's author, who identified himself as Jose Moran, and others at Tesla have approached the union.

Moran contended that many Tesla workers put in more than 40 hours weekly of hard, manual labor, some of it "excessive mandatory overtime."

Machinery is not ergonomically designed to minimize risk of injuries, he maintained.

"I often feel like I am working for a company of the future under working conditions of the past," Moran said in a post at medium.com.

He also argued for a raise in pay, citing the high cost of living in the Silicon Valley area and contending that Tesla plant workers make a few dollars less hourly than peers in the automotive industry.

"In a company of our size, an 'open-door policy' simply isn't a solution," Moran said.

"We need better organization in the plant, and I, along with many of my coworkers, believe we can achieve that by coming together and forming a union."

Musk rejected Moran's claims about working conditions, according to Gizmodo.

In an email response to an AFP inquiry, Tesla said that as the largest manufacturing employer in California it has created thousands of jobs and "this is not the first time we have been the target of a professional union organizing effort such as this."

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Tesla added that it has a history of engaging directly with employees about their concerns and will continue to do so "because it is the right thing to do."

The company's site in the northern California city of Fremont is the only car factory in the US where workers are not organized into unions.

The company making the software-infused electric cars, however, is also considered a member of a Silicon Valley technology world -- where skilled workers are not typically organized.
A Texas father killed his wife and daughter before turning the gun on himself, PEOPLE confirms.

Jefferson Stovall, 46, was found dead Thursday in his Corsicana home near the bodies of his wife, Penny Stovall, 43, and 8-year-old daughter, MaKenzie, according to a Navarro County Sheriffs news release.

Deputies checked on the family after receiving a call from worried family members, who said they hadnt been able to reach the couple in 24 hours.

A .44 magnum rifle was found at the scene, according to the news release. Deputies gave no information on a possible motive.

Sheriff Elmer Tanner tells PEOPLE it was blatantly obvious that Jefferson was responsible for the killings, but he wouldnt elaborate on why investigators believe this.

Tanner says police had never received reports of criminal incidents or family violence from the Stovall house.

He says there was a presence of alcohol at the scene, but says investigators are not sure if that was a contributing factor.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

Any time youre dealing with the needless loss of life, especially a child of 8 years of age, innocent 8-year-old, its a traumatic experience for the community, Tanner says. But its also that we keep our officers in your thoughts and prayers, because its troubling for the officers to investigate such a scene.

Tanner says he hopes the investigation will help make sense of this senseless crime.

 Pick up PEOPLEs special edition True Crime Stories: Cases That Shocked America, on sale now, for the latest on Casey Anthony, JonBenet Ramsey and more.

MaKenzie was in the second grade at Mildred Elementary School, the school announced on Thursday in statement on Facebook.

As a family we are devastated to learn about the reported loss of a second grader from Mildred Elementary. We extend our heart felt sympathy to the family, the statement read. Additional counselors and support will be available to meet the needs of our students and staff tomorrow. Please keep the students family as well as our Mildred ISD family in your thoughts and prayers. Be blessed.




Consumer anger that resulted in this smashed ATM was tempered by the CFPBs $100 million fine against Wells Fargo. Source: AP

In a recent press conference, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer bashed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, heightening already-raised questions as to whether the agencys director would last in a Trump administration.

[Dodd-Frank] imposed hundreds of new regulations on financial institutions while establishing an unaccountable and unconstitutional new agency that does not adequately protect consumers, said Spicer, referring to the CFPB, which launched in 2011 as Elizabeth Warrens brainchild.

However, Spicer demurred when asked whether President Donald Trump would attempt to oust the agencys current director Richard Cordray before the completion of his five-year term in 2018, or what elements Trump would seek to keep.

Currently, Trump only has the power to fire Cordray for cause, after a court decision that deemed an unfireable-for-any-reason single-director structure was unconstitutional. But a leaked memo reported by the New York Times showed that Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), chair of the House Financial Services Committee, has plans to move forward with legislation that would significantly declaw the agency.

This is not the first time Hensarling has targeted the CFPB. He has put forth legislation called the Financial Choice Act that would change the agencys name to Consumer Financial Opportunity Commission, reduce its powers to hold companies accountable for deceptive conduct, and establish an SEC-like five-member commission instead of a single director that CFPB advocates say is essential to its efficiency and quick action.

According to the Times, Hensarlings memo steps back from the Financial Choice Act, which advocates a commission structure, and proposes that the president can yank the director at any time. The legislation would also reduce the agencys power to make rules and punish companies with fines and other enforcement actions.

This new version of the Chairmans Wrong Choice Act is even worse than the original, said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, about the memo. This bill makes it crystal clear that Republicans mean to disarm our consumer protections, expose the American public to financial predators, and ultimately steer us in the direction of another Great Depression.

Story continues

For Trump voters, who were promised a populist vision that puts interests of ordinary families above big corporate business, it may be confusing politically to square killing the agency. The problem? CFPBs record. By the numbers, the agency has thus far accomplished goals of fighting harmful business practices and helping to protect working people from deceptive and unfair business:

$11.8 billion

Almost $12 billion has been returned to wronged consumers since the CFPBs inception. Around $7.7 billion of that comes from canceled or reduced debts after an action by the agency, but $3.7 billion comes from exacting money from companies that engaged in illegal practices.

$596 million

The CFPB doesnt just return money back to consumers who were taken advantage ofthe agency fines offending companies and puts the proceeds into a fund used to educate or pay other wronged consumers if the offending party has no money to pay redress. As of Feb. 7, $589 million has been paid in.

1,080,677 complaints

As of Jan. 1, 2017, the CFPB has given consumers a direct line to an agency that will listen, and has fielded over a million consumer complaints. After a complaint has been submitted, the company can respond, and its response is published in a large, public database. If the company does not respond after 15 days, the complaint is published alone. There is a 97% quick response rate, according to the bureau.

27% of the complaints are about debt collection

The most common source of complaint is in debt collection, closely followed by mortgage related problems, which made up 24% of complaints.

29 million people

Have received relief after a CFPB enforcement action. This is 9.1% of the total population in the USincluding children.

$4.55 billion

The amount of consumer relief won by the CFPB against JPMorgan Chase (JPM). The bureau, along with 47 states, took action against the bank in 2015 for violating Dodd-Franks prohibitions of unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices like robo-signing for debt collection and selling bad mortgages.

$0

Taxpayer funds used by the CFPB. The agency is not funded by the taxes but rather by the Federal Reserve, which gets fees from financial institutions.

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann.

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By Johan Purnama and Agustinus Beo Da Costa JAKARTA (Reuters) - Thousands of Indonesians gathered on Saturday at a mosque in central Jakarta, where religious leaders urged them to support a Muslim candidate during next week's contentious election to select the capital's governor. Millions of Jakarta residents head to the polls on Wednesday to pick the next governor of the sprawling city, in a contest analysts say has shaped as a proxy fight ahead of a presidential election in 2019. Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population but recognizes six religions and is home to hundreds of ethnic groups and adherents of traditional beliefs. In Jakarta, the Christian and ethnic Chinese incumbent, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, faces two Muslim contenders - Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, the son of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and former education minister Anies Baswedan. Purnama is in the extraordinary situation of campaigning for election while he is on trial for blasphemy, making weekly court appearances to defend himself against charges of insulting the Muslim holy book, the Koran. "On Feb. 15, we are happy to vote for a Muslim leader," one speaker, Maulana Kamal Yusuf, told a crowd of men and women in white robes who had poured into the vast Istiqlal mosque from the early hours for mass prayers. "Jakarta will be led by a Muslim leader who submits to the will of Allah," he added, urging his listeners to choose Yudhoyono or Baswedan. "Jakarta will be a religious city." Security around the mosque was tight, with armed military and police officers standing guard. Saturday is the last day before a 'quiet period' in which candidates and their supporters are barred from canvassing for votes. Yusuf also asked his audience to support Habib Rizieq, the head of hardline Muslim group Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), who has been reported to the police for allegedly insulting the state ideology, Pancasila, and state symbols. The allegations against Rizieq "go against justice," a senior official of the group has previously said. Muslim groups led by FPI have held rallies demanding that Purnama be jailed for the alleged insult, a sensitive topic in a country where the population of 250 million is mostly Muslim and Chinese-Indonesians officially make up just over 1 percent. One of the biggest rallies in November last year was attended by hundreds of thousands. (Reporting by Johan Purnama and Agustinus Beo Da Costa; Additional reporting and writing by Eveline Danubrata; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
An elderly couple walk past debris on the Cimanuk river banks in Garut district, West Java province on September 22, 2016 following floods: GETTY

At least 13 people have been killed and thousands more made homeless after devastating floods swept across Indonesia.

The idyllic tourist hotspot of Bali was partially submerged after five days of torrential rain triggered deadly landslides.

Rivers on Sumbawa Island burst their banks following rainfall of 12 to 28 inches, flooding seven sub-districts.

The countrys Disaster Mitigation Agency confirmed 12 people were killed, with young children among the dead.

The agency's spokesman, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, said three villages had been hit in the mountainous region of Bangli.

Members from two families lost their lives in the Songan village, including a mother, her one-year-old son and her seven-year-old daughter.

In the neighbouring Awan village four people died, and one person was killed from the Sukwana village which saw five homes buried beneath the debris.

Some two people were rushed to hospital with severe injuries, and a further two suffered minor wounds in Sukwana.

A further landslide in the Subaya village on Friday killed one person, bringing the total to 13.

Mr Nugroho said in total 40,291 villagers had been affected by the flooding, with many taking refuge in mosques and government buildings.

He stressed survivors were in desperate need of clean water, food and medicine.

But he added some 8,000 were stranded in their villages in two sub-districts which are now only accessible by boat.

The agency warned more heavy rains could be on the way, bringing with it further flooding and landslides adding to the misery of remaining residents, many of whom live in stilt houses.

Millions of people live in mountainous areas or on flood plains, with heavy rainfall regularly causing landslides and floods on the archipelago.

Last year at least five people were killed and 100,000 were forced to flee their homes after floods swept through Balis neighbouring island West Nusa Tenggara, and the Belitung region to the east of Bali and Sulawesi in the north.

And at the end of last month severe rainfall affected North Sulawesi and Bangka-Belitung Province, north of Bali, affecting around 7,000 people.
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP)  North Korea reportedly fired a ballistic missile early Sunday in what would be its first such test of the year and an implicit challenge to President Donald Trump, who stood with the Japanese leader as Shinzo Abe called the move "absolutely intolerable." There was no immediate confirmation from the North, which had recently warned it is ready to test its first intercontinental ballistic missile. The U.S. Strategic Command said it detected and tracked what it assessed to be a medium- or intermediate-range ballistic missile. The reports came as Trump was hosting Abe and just days before the North is to mark the birthday of leader Kim Jong Un's late father, Kim Jong Il.

The U.S. Strategic Command says it detected and tracked what it assessed was a medium- or intermediate-range ballistic missile test-fired by North Korea. It says it did not pose a threat to North America. The command said the launch occurred near the northwestern city of Kusong. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned in his New Year's address that his country was ready to test its first intercontinental ballistic missile, which could threaten the U.S. mainland.

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP)  For most of the day President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe used golf under the Florida sun to show the world the U.S.-Japan alliance remained strong. Then events half-a-world away provided a more significant example of cooperation. After North Korea reportedly launched a ballistic missile, the two leaders appeared for hastily prepared statements in a ballroom of Trump's south Florida estate. Abe spoke first and longest, though his statement was terse. "North Korea's most recent missile launch is absolutely intolerable," Abe said through a translator. He added that the North must comply fully with relevant U.N.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP)  Whale lovers in New Zealand finally got some good news on Sunday after more than 200 stranded whales managed to refloat themselves overnight and swim away, while volunteers managed to save another 17 whales at high tide. More than 650 pilot whales had beached themselves along Farewell Spit at the tip of the South Island in two separate mass strandings over recent days. About 350 whales have died, including 20 that were euthanized. Another 100 have been refloated by volunteers and more than 200 have swum away unassisted. Hundreds of volunteers from farmers to tourists have spent days at the beach dousing the whales with buckets of water to keep them cool and trying to refloat them.

Retired Lt. Gen. Harold G. "Hal" Moore, the American hero known for saving most of his men in the first major battle between the U.S. and North Vietnamese armies, has died. He was 94. Joseph Galloway, who with Moore co-authored the book "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young," confirmed Saturday to The Associated Press that Moore died late Friday in his sleep at his home in Auburn, Alabama. Galloway said Moore, his friend of 51 years, died two days shy of his 95th birthday. "There's something missing on this earth now. We've lost a great warrior, a great soldier, a great human being and my best friend.

SURIGAO, Philippines (AP)  A powerful nighttime earthquake in the southern Philippines killed at least six people and injured more than 120, with officials combing through cracked buildings and nearby towns Saturday to check on the damage and other possible casualties. The magnitude 6.7 quake roused residents from their sleep late Friday in Surigao del Norte province, forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes. The quake was centered about 16 kilometers (8 miles) northwest of the provincial capital of Surigao at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), said Renato Solidum of the Philippine Institute of Seismology and Volcanology.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP)  Tens of thousands of Indonesians gathered at the national mosque in the capital on Saturday for mass prayers urging people to vote for a Muslim governor of the city as the country prepares for regional elections next week. The crowds overflowed from Istiqlal Mosque in the heart of Jakarta into the surrounding streets. Clerics gave sermons calling on people to protect Islam and vote for Muslim candidates. Police denied hard-line groups permission to march through the city. Jakarta police spokesman Argo Yuwono estimated the crowd at 60,000 to 70,000 people in the morning. Protests against the minority Christian governor of Jakarta drew hundreds of thousands of people to the city's streets in November and December and shook the government of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)  The head of Cambodia's opposition party announced his resignation from the group on Saturday in apparent response to plans by the country's long-serving prime minister for a law that could lead to the party's dissolution. Sam Rainsy announced his resignation in a letter to senior members of his Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP. "In all circumstances I continue to cherish and to uphold the CNRP's ideals in my heart," he said on his Facebook page. His action came after Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier this month vowed to amend the laws on political parties to keep convicts from holding leadership positions, among other rules.

WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump, fresh off patching up ties with China, reassured Japan's leader Friday that the U.S. will defend its close ally. Together, the pronouncements illustrated a shift toward a more mainstream Trump stance on U.S. policy toward Asia. Welcoming Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the White House with a hug, Trump said he wants to bring the post-World War II alliance with Japan "even closer." While such calls are ritual after these types of meetings, from Trump they're sure to calm anxieties that he has stoked by demanding that America's partners pay more for their own defense.

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan (AP)  The authoritarian president of Turkmenistan is set to sail to victory in Sunday's election where eight other candidates are on the ballot, but all praise his polices. President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has been the overwhelmingly dominant figure in the former Soviet republic since late 2006, when he assumed power after death of his eccentric predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov. Berdymukhamedov has made small reforms of the single-party system imposed by Niyazov and some aspects of the latter's cult of personality, which included naming the months of the year after his family members and mandating all schoolchildren read his book of philosophical musings.
Washington D.C. [USA], Feb. 11 (ANI): U.S. President Donald Trump during his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday said that Washington is committed to defend Tokyo 'through the full range of U.S. military capabilities, both nuclear and conventional', a stand that contradicts his campaign rhetoric that accused Japan of taking advantage of U.S. security aid and stealing American jobs. "The unshakable U.S.-Japan Alliance is the cornerstone of peace, prosperity, and freedom in the Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. commitment to defend Japan through the full range of U.S. military capabilities, both nuclear and conventional, is unwavering," said a joint statement issued by the White House after the meeting of the two leaders. The statement said that amid an increasingly difficult security environment in the Asia-Pacific region, the United States will strengthen its presence in the region, and Japan will assume larger roles and responsibilities in the alliance. "The two leaders affirmed the commitment of the United States and Japan to the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, to ensure the long-term, sustainable presence of U.S. forces. They affirmed that the United States and Japan are committed to the plan to construct the Futenma Replacement Facility at the Camp Schwab/Henoko area and in adjacent waters. It is the only solution that avoids the continued use of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma," it said. The two leaders also affirmed that Article V of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security covers the Senkaku Islands, a group of uninhabited islands controlled by Japan and also claimed by China. The statement said that the U.S. opposes any unilateral action that seeks to undermine Japan's administration of these islands. According to the statement, the two leaders also underscored the importance of maintaining a maritime order based on international law, including freedom of navigation and overflight and other lawful uses of the sea. "The United States and Japan oppose any attempt to assert maritime claims through the use of intimidation, coercion or force. The United States and Japan also call on countries concerned to avoid actions that would escalate tensions in the South China Sea, including the militarization of outposts, and to act in accordance with international law," said the statement. They also urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and not to take any further provocative actions, according to the statement. (ANI)
(Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Friday: JAPAN Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe open a new chapter in U.S.-Japan relations with Trump abruptly setting aside campaign pledges to force Tokyo to pay more for U.S. defense aid. IMMIGRATION Trump says he is considering issuing a new travel ban executive order, while White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus says the administration could still escalate a legal dispute over Trump's original travel ban order to the U.S. Supreme Court. Several Democratic U.S. senators and a Republican congressman whose district includes a section of the U.S.-Mexico border express skepticism about Trump's proposed wall there after learning the project's estimated cost is $21.6 billion. CHINA Trump changes tack and agrees to honor the "One China" policy during a phone call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a major diplomatic boost for Beijing, which brooks no criticism of its claim to self-ruled Taiwan. RUSSIA-UKRAINE The Washington Post reports White House national security adviser Michael Flynn privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Moscow's ambassador during the month before Trump took office. Flynn had previously denied discussing sanctions. Russian President Vladimir Putin proposes Slovenia, the birthplace of Trump's wife, Melania, as a good place for a meeting with Trump, but says the decision on a location is not Moscow's alone. Trump expresses support for an undivided Ukraine in a letter to Lithuania's president, using language similar to that of his predecessor Barack Obama, and seen as likely to be welcomed by Kiev and North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies. IRAN Trump says Iran President Hassan Rouhani "better be careful" after Rouhani was quoted as saying that anyone who speaks to Iranians with threats would regret it. ADMINISTRATION Trump pulls Elliott Abrams as a contender for the No. 2 position at the State Department after learning that the Republican foreign policy veteran criticized him during the 2016 election campaign, sources say. Tom Price is sworn in as U.S. secretary of health, which Trump says will allow his administration to fulfill his pledge to dismantle Obamacare and reshape the healthcare system. BANKING The Federal Reserve Board's top bank regulator says he will resign, giving a boost to Trump's plans to ease reforms put in place after the 2007-09 financial crisis. (Compiled by Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis; editing by Andrew Hay, Grant McCool and G Crosse)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP)  The Environmental Protection Agency halved the number of staffers attending an annual Anchorage forum on issues like climate change in response to a request from President Donald Trump's transition team.

Trump transition official Doug Ericksen told Alaska's Energy Desk (http://bit.ly/2lvyXjt) in an email that the EPA was directed to limit staff at the conference to save money on travel. "This is one small example of how EPA will be working cooperatively with our staff and our outside partners to be better stewards of the American people's money," Ericksen wrote.

Alaska Forum on the Environment Director Kurt Eilo says even some Anchorage-based EPA employees were pulled, as were some who would have traveled from Seattle and Washington, D.C.

Climate change is a major issue in Alaska. One town has had to move further back from its shoreline position because of rising seas caused by climate change.

"We got a phone call from the local office of EPA, and we were informed that EPA was directed by the White House transition team to minimize their participation in the Alaska Forum on the Environment to the extent possible," Eilo said.

Eilo said he was given three days' notice that 17 instead of 34 staffers would attend.

One session had to be canceled as a result.

He said there is concern about what the halved EPA delegation foreshadows.

"There's a lot of uncertainty among folks here at the forum," Eilo said. "There's concern about the tribal programs, there's concern about how we're going to address things like climate change in the next upcoming administration."

___

Information from: KSKA-FM, http://www.kska.org
With the Trump administration reeling after a defeat in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, it is reportedly mulling redrafting the controversial travel ban, whose haphazard implementation sowed chaos across airports and inside the U.S. government, as well as for thousands of U.S. visa holders around the world.

But rewriting the order to make it viable against a court challenge will be harder than simply tweaking the language and coordinating with White House counsel. Experts say whats needed is a thorough overhaul, one that would only serve to underscore how untenable the initial order was.

Its not clear whether the administration will try to defend the first order or start from scratch. President Donald Trump tweeted on Thursday that he would appeal the ruling, then late Friday the White House said it would not immediately appeal the Ninth Circuit courts decision. Later that evening, the White House reversed its position and said it would appeal.

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Meanwhile, Trump at a press conference earlier Friday seemed torn between defending the initial order and presenting a new one next week. He said any new order would require very little change, but many legal experts disagree.

It would require a complete overhaul in their approach, Rebecca Hamilton, a law professor at American University who focuses on national security, told Foreign Policy. She wrote last week that the seven Muslim-majority nations the initial travel ban targets is hard to justify on counterterrorism grounds.

If an administration really was concerned about preventing future terrorist attacks, this is not the executive order they would have come up with, Hamilton said.

To prevail against the kinds of legal arguments the 9th circuit flagged in its ruling, the Trump administration would likely have to refine entirely the scope of the travel ban, legal experts say. Options include either adding non-Muslim nations  to sidestep arguments that the ban has a religious basis  or adding Muslim nations actually responsible for carrying out serious acts of terror in the United States. Counterterror experts and national security lawyers questioned the exclusion from the original order of countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, home to most of the hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

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The Government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States, the Ninth Circuit Court wrote this week.

I think the court really was skeptical of the correlation in this order [with] the protection of national security, said Stephen Legomsky, a law professor at Washington University who specializes in immigration law.

Another approach would be to add non-Muslim nations to the list, to parry charges that the ban is based on religion. The Ninth Circuit declined to rule on that issue, but noted evidence presented by Washington and Minnesota that Trump had sought a Muslim ban.

The States claims raise serious allegations and present significant constitutional questions, the court found.

The administration of George W. Bush sought to avoid charges of religious discrimination with its travel restrictions in 2002, creating the National Security Entry-Exit Registration. That required citizens from 25 countries  24 Muslim-majority countries, plus North Korea  to register with the administration and to undergo special vetting when entering or leaving the country. The program still drew legal challenges for the composition of the list, and proved wholly ineffective, producing zero terrorism-related convictions in its nine years of existence.

One likely tweak to the order would be to scale back its reach, excluding legal permanent residents and individuals who hold U.S. student or work visas.

Exempting current visa holders and green card holders from the order would improve Trumps chances with the courts, Paul Rothstein, a Georgetown law professor and expert in constitutional law, told FP. The Ninth Circuit highlighted its concerns with the broad reach of the initial executive order, which it said violated due process rights of legal residents and even some aliens.

Those people are the ones who have the strongest claim that they have not been afforded due process, Rothstein said.

The president by law has broad authority over immigration actions, and traditionally enjoys wide deference on matters of national security. But legal experts say that doesnt mean the Supreme Court will necessarily reverse the circuit courts ruling, given the apparent weaknesses of the initial order.

The president has a lot of scope, but he cant violate the constitution, Hamilton said.

Photo credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images
The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : -LAWFARE: "Remarkably, in the entire opinion, the panel did not bother even to cite this (the) statute." A disgraceful decision! [0815 EST] -The failing @nytimes does major FAKE NEWS China story saying "Mr.Xi has not spoken to Mr. Trump since Nov.14." We spoke at length yesterday! [0835 EST] - Heading to Joint Base Andrews on #MarineOne with Prime Minister Shinzo earlier today. [1824 EST] @POTUS : - An honor to host Prime Minister @AbeShinzo in the United States. [1448 EST] - Congratulations @SecPriceMD! The 23rd Secretary of @HHSGov! #ICYMI: @VP swearing Dr. Price in: https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/posts/10158630647075725 [1501 EST] - Join me for my weekly address! #ICYMI - you can watch here https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/posts/10158631682280725 [1633 EST] -- Source link: (http://bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (http://bit.ly/2jpEXYR) (Compiled by Bengaluru bureau)
Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump insisted early Saturday that he would bring the price of his planned Mexican border wall "way down," after US media circulated a government report estimating it would cost $21.6 billion.

In the internal government study, the US Department of Homeland Security said the contentious border barrier would take more than three years to build and the price could soar much higher than the $12-15 billion figure cited by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan last month.

"I am reading that the great border WALL will cost more than the government originally thought, but I have not gotten involved in the design or negotiations yet" Trump posted in a series of tweets.

"When I do, just like with the F-35 FighterJet or the Air Force One Program, price will come WAY DOWN!" the president promised.

Shortly after his inauguration Trump ordered work to begin on building the wall along the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) US-Mexico border -- one of his signature campaign promises -- in a bid to block migrants from illegally entering the United States.

The issue has infuriated Mexico, whose president has vowed his country will not pay for a wall, which Trump insists the country will fund.

Trump's Twitter missives came as he and his wife Melania are hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie at the US president's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

As he transitioned into the presidency prior to his swearing-in, Trump -- a real estate mogul who prides himself on his deal-making skills -- blasted what he called "out of control" costs of Lockheed Martin's F-35 stealth fighters.

The company said afterwards it would trim costs for the next batch of planes, announcing $728 million in savings, although most of the price cuts were already planned ahead of Trump's involvement during a months-long contract negotiation.

The US president has also pushed for reducing the cost of the next generation Air Force One presidential jet, which is built by Boeing.

The MIT Technology Review estimated in October that the border wall bill could skyrocket to around $40 billion.

US-Mexican relations have plunged since Trump's pronouncements on the border wall, prompting Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to cancel a scheduled meeting with the new US leader.
Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump dialed up the rhetoric against Iran on Friday, warning the country's president he "better be careful" about his words.

The war-of-words between Tehran and Washington escalated as President Hassan Rouhani and Trump traded threats and warnings.

Rouhani told a crowd of hundreds of thousands marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution that "the Iranian people must be spoken to with respect."

"Iranians will make those using threatening language against this nation regret it," he said.

"Anyone threatening Iran's government and armed forces should know that our nation is vigilant."

Trump was asked about the remarks later, responding that "he better be careful."

The US president has toughened the rhetoric against Iran considerably since coming to office.

He has also introduced sanctions after an Iranian missile test.

Many in Trump's inner circle want to see a harder line against Tehran, but have so far shied away from killing a deal that saw Iran get sanctions relief in exchange for curbing its nuclear program.
By Ayesha Rascoe and Steve Holland PALM BEACH, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is considering issuing a new executive order banning citizens of certain countries traveling to the United States after his initial attempt to clamp down on immigration and refugees snarled to a halt amid political and judicial chaos. Trump announced the possibility of a "brand new order" that could be issued as soon as Monday or Tuesday, in a surprise talk with reporters aboard Air Force One late on Friday, as he and the Japanese premier headed to his estate in Florida for the weekend. His signaling of a possible new tack came a day after an appeals court in San Francisco upheld a court ruling last week that temporarily suspended Trump's original Jan. 27 executive order banning travel from seven majority-Muslim countries. Trump gave no details of any new ban he is considering. He might rewrite the original order to explicitly exclude green card holders, or permanent residents, said a congressional aide familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified. Doing that could alleviate some concerns expressed by the courts. A new order, however, could allow Trump's critics to declare victory by arguing he was forced to change course in his first major policy as president. Whether or not Trump issues a new order, his administration may still pursue its case in the courts over the original order, which is still being reviewed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told reporters late on Friday that taking the case to the Supreme Court remained a possibility, after another White House official said earlier in the day the administration was not planning to escalate the dispute. "Every single court option is on the table, including an appeal of the Ninth Circuit decision on the TRO (temporary restraining order) to the Supreme Court, including fighting out this case on the merits," Priebus said. "And, in addition to that, we're pursuing executive orders right now that we expect to be enacted soon that will further protect Americans from terrorism." REWRITE ORDER Trump's original order, which he called a national security measure meant to head off attacks by Islamist militants, barred people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days, except refugees from Syria, who were banned indefinitely. The abrupt implementation of the order plunged the immigration system into chaos, sparking a wave of criticism from targeted countries, Western allies and some of America's leading corporations, especially technology firms. A federal judge in Seattle suspended the order last Friday after its legality was challenged by Washington state, eliciting a barrage of angry Twitter messages from Trump against the judge and the court system. That ruling was upheld by an appeals court in San Francisco on Thursday, raising questions about Trump's next step. An official familiar with Trump's plans said if the order is rewritten, among those involved would likely be White House aide Stephen Miller, who was involved in drafting the original order, as well as officials of the National Security Council, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security. It is not clear if a new order from Trump would immediately put a travel ban back in place, or if those who have filed lawsuits, including the state of Washington, would succeed in asking the same judge for another hold. Should Trump issue a new order, he is still likely to face legal challenges, as opponents could ask the court to let them amend their complaints, said Alexander Reinert, a professor at Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law in New York. 'WE NEED SPEED' On Air Force One, Trump addressed the San Francisco court fight, saying: "We will win that battle. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily... We need speed for reasons of security." The matter could move forward next week. An unidentified judge on the 9th Circuit on Friday requested that the courts 25 full-time judges vote on whether the temporary block of Trumps travel ban should be reheard before an 11-judge panel, known as en banc review, according to a court order. The 9th Circuit asked both sides to file briefs by Thursday. In a separate case on Friday, Justice Department lawyers argued in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia against a preliminary injunction that would put a longer hold on Trump's executive order than the Seattle court ruling, but focused solely on visa holders. Judge Leonie Brinkema asked the administration for more evidence of the threat posed by citizens of the seven countries. Aboard the flight with Trump were his wife Melania, daughter Ivanka, son-in-law Jared Kushner and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie. The Trumps landed in the evening and went to their Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. (Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball, Doina Chiacu and Julia Edwards Ainsley in Washington; Mica Rosenberg in New York; and Dan Levine in San Francisco; Writing by Ginger Gibson; Editing by Bill Rigby and Mary Milliken)
Washington (AFP) - After his travel ban suffered two defeats in the US court system, President Donald Trump has vowed to continue his judicial fight -- but with the controversial measure now on shaky ground, it is likely to be an uphill battle.

Trump's executive order -- issued on January 27 with no prior warning -- suffered two blows over the course of two weeks in western US courts.

Since then the president has proffered a variety of solutions, from taking the matter to the Supreme Court to simply writing a new executive order.

The president's decree, which temporarily barred nationals from seven mainly Muslim countries and refugees, was halted nationwide by a federal judge in Seattle on February 3 and last Thursday a three-judge panel in San Francisco declined to reinstate the ban.

Following the latter decision, Trump tweeted: "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!"

But the options available to him are not extremely appealing.

After a day of evaluating the best course of action, the White House Friday evening betrayed its understanding of this fact, expressing hesitation at taking the matter to the Supreme Court.

For Trump and his administration, the top court would be a risky bet, as it is currently divided evenly between four conservative and four progressive justices.

A tie vote would leave the San Francisco court's halt in place. And it would mark defeat at the highest level of the judiciary for the brand new president.

- Keeping 'options open' -

The high court is not the Trump administration's only legal option, however, and the White House could consider taking the case back to a lower level.

"We're keeping all our options open," one official said.

On Thursday, the three San Francisco judges who upheld the ban from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals only weighed in on whether the lower court's suspension should be upheld. In doing so, the judges only partially touched on the legal validity and underpinnings of the decree.

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A possible hearing to delve further into these matters would be heard in a lower court rather than the Supreme Court.

As if there were not enough options on the table, Trump told reporters Friday while traveling on a plane to Florida that he would consider writing a totally new executive order.

"The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order," Trump said, adding that any action would not come before next week.

Regardless of the path Trump choses, the decision rendered in San Francisco on Thursday will carry substantial weight going forward: in their 29-page ruling, the judges expressed deep concerns with the measure.

- Arguments against ban -

In upholding the suspension, the three judges said that the government had provided no evidence that any foreigner from the countries named in the order had carried out a terrorist attack on US soil.

They also rejected the idea that the impact of the ban was light. Although the Trump administration reported that 109 people were held for questioning under the executive order, the court pointed to the thousands of visas that had been abruptly cancelled, hundreds of travelers forbidden from arriving in the United States and the detentions.

While the court sided against the administration's argument that the temporary ban was within the president's prerogative, it declined to decide whether the executive order discriminated against people from the seven barred countries -- all of which have Muslim-majority populations -- on the basis of religion.

The court did, however, open the way for future hearings in which opponents would be able to cite anti-Muslim rhetoric made by Trump and his advisors.

"Recognizing that national security matters are the purview of the president, the Ninth Circuit refused to bury its head in 'alternate facts,'" said David Pressman, a lawyer and former assistant secretary of Homeland Security.

Instead, he said, the court "considered the real ones -- including the impact of the president's executive order on so many and the unambiguous statements of the president's discriminatory intent."
Athens (AFP) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Saturday warned the International Monetary Fund and EU economic powerhouse Germany to stop playing with fire over his country's debt problems.

Opening a meeting of his far-left Syriza party, Tsipras said he was confident a solution over repayments would be found, despite talks between Greece and its creditors ending in Brussels with no breakthrough on Friday.

Months of feuding with the IMF has rattled markets and raised fears of a new debt crisis, with Athens resisting pressure to cut public services any more than has already been agreed with creditors.

The Greek premier urged a change of course from the IMF.

"We expect as soon as possible that the IMF revise its forecast.. so that discussions can continue at the technical level," he said.

And referring to Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble, Tsipras called for Chancellor Angela Merkel to "encourage her finance minister to end his permanent aggressiveness" towards Greece and "stop playing with fire".

"The IMF is playing a game of poker by dragging things aside because it does not want to blame the intransigence of the German minister," Tsipras said, criticising the "new absurd demands" targeted at Greece.

The next meeting of eurozone ministers on February 20 -- is seen as an unofficial deadline ahead of important elections in Europe.

The row with its eurozone paymasters over debt relief and budget targets has also revived talk of Greece's place in the euro.

On Friday, Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said progress had been made in the Brussels talks with Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and other EU and IMF officials. But he provided few details.

- 'Highly unsustainable' -

Athens faces debt repayments of 7.0 billion euros ($7.44 billion) this summer that it cannot afford without defusing the feud that is holding up new loans from Greece's 86 billion euro bailout.

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An IMF report obtained by AFP on Monday said Greece's debt "is highly unsustainable" and "will become explosive in the long run."

There has long been a split between the IMF and Europe over a demand by the eurozone that Greece deliver a primary balance, or budget surplus before debt repayments, of 3.5 percent of GDP. The IMF has said only 1.5 percent is feasible.

The options Athens is said to be considering, including substantial debt relief or even a withdrawal from the bailout, have been ruled out by Schaeuble in the run up to Germany's elections later this year.

And IMF proposals that Greece increase taxes and invoke pension cuts go against Tsipras's refusal to enact "one more euro" of savings.

Breaking the stalemate in the coming weeks is seen as paramount with elections in the Netherlands on March 15 and France in April through June threatening to make a resolution even more difficult.

But Dijsselbloem indicated Friday that the February 20 meeting would still be too early for a breakthrough.

"We will take stock of the further progress (during that meeting)," said Dijsselbloem, who is also the Dutch finance minister.
Berlin (AFP) - Hollywood actor-director Stanley Tucci said Donald Trump's administration could have a "devastating" impact on the arts and "civilised society", as he unveiled his new biopic at the Berlin film festival Saturday.

Tucci ("The Devil Wears Prada") presented "Final Portrait", a depiction of Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti's twilight months in Paris, when he painted American writer James Lord in 1964.

The movie stars Australian Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush as the temperamental sculptor and painter, swearing up a storm in French, English and Italian, and Armie Hammer ("The Social Network") as his muse of the moment Lord.

Asked ahead of the film's red-carpet premiere about the state of the arts at home under Trump, Tucci painted a bleak picture.

"I can only imagine with this administration that if they have their way they will eviscerate the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) which I think is devastating on so many levels," he said, referring to one of the main US government sponsors of the creative industries.

"As a civilised society, the arts are not an adjunct to society. They should be an integral part of society and unfortunately a lot of America and a lot of politicians don't see it that way."

Tucci, whose father was an art teacher, admitted that it was not a new development that conservatives saw such funding, a fraction of the federal budget, as a "waste".

"They also don't see it as an important part of education, which is unfortunate," he said.

"This administration might not even see education as important."

Media reports last month said that the Trump administration was considering eliminating the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

"Final Portrait", Tucci's fifth outing as a director since 1996's "Big Night", premiered out of competition at the Berlin film festival.

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It shows Giacometti at the height of his powers but wracked by self-doubt and swaying between his devoted wife (Sylvie Testud) and a flighty prostitute and model (Clemence Poesy from the "Harry Potter" series).

He asks Lord if he can paint his portrait but a process that he promises will take "two or three days" stretches across weeks in which the American becomes caught up in the whirlwind of the artist's life.

Lord eventually wrote a memoir about the episode, which is the basis of the film. One of the portraits completed during their time together sold at auction for $20.9 million in 2015.

Tucci said he was drawn to a story detailing the creative process at such close proximity, and watching genius unfold.

"Giacometti's work itself I find incredibly moving. It's at once kind of ancient and modern," he said.

"There's nothing quite like it, I don't think there's ever been an artist that comes close to touching that. There's such a truthfulness to it."
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By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Turkish hacker was sentenced to eight years in a U.S. prison on Friday for his role as one the masterminds behind three cyber attacks that enabled $55 million to be siphoned from automated teller machines globally. Ercan Findikoglu, who went by the online nicknames "Segate," "Predator," and "Oreon," was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in Brooklyn after pleading guilty in March to computer intrusion conspiracy and other charges. Findikoglu, 35, is expected to get credit for the time he spent in custody since his arrest in Germany in 2013. Findikoglu apologized for the damage he had caused and wiped away tears as he said he had not seen his wife and son since his arrest. "I could have used my skills for good," he said. "Instead I wasted them." Prosecutors said Findikoglu was a leader in a series of cyber heists, which allowed for the simultaneous withdrawal of millions of dollars after hackers infiltrated credit and debit card processing companies. In what were called "unlimited operations," hackers targeted databases those companies maintained for prepaid debit cards and effectively eliminated the card accounts' withdrawal limits, prosecutors said. The processing companies included Fidelity National Information Services Inc, ElectraCard Services, now owned by MasterCard Inc, and enStage. Findikoglu and others then distributed the data to teams of "cashers" worldwide who encoded the data onto magnetic stripe cards to conduct thousands of fraudulent ATM withdrawals, prosecutors said. The biggest heist, in which $40 million was withdrawn, targeted cards issued by Bank Muscat in Oman and involved thieves in 24 countries in 2013 executing 36,000 transactions, prosecutors said. They said two other heists in 2011 and 2012 resulted in $15 million in losses and targeted cards issued by JPMorgan Chase & Co and National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates. Thirteen members of a New York cashing crew that prosecutors say withdrew $2.8 million in two operations have pleaded guilty. In court papers, defense lawyer Christopher Madiou said Findikoglu's crimes occurred while he was facing Turkish charges that he conspired to produce fake debit and credit cards. In that case, Findikoglu was convicted in 2012 and sentenced to 19-1/2 years in prison. While out on bail, he was arrested in 2013 in Germany, which extradited him in 2015. After completing his U.S. sentence, Findikoglu will be deported and is expected to serve that Turkish sentence, Madiou said. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Cynthia Osterman)
Beirut (AFP) - Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies entered the Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab in northern Syria Saturday, as government forces moved closer to the jihadist bastion, a monitor said.

Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency quoted military sources as saying one Turkish soldier was killed and another wounded in clashes with IS in Al-Bab.

Turkish forces and allied insurgents have for weeks pressed an operation codenamed Euphrates Shield to drive the jihadists from the flashpoint town.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Turkish forces and allied militias entered Al-Bab from the west and then took full control of its western suburbs after fierce clashes with the jihadists.

The fighting coincided with "Turkish shelling and intensive air strikes" on Al-Bab, the Britain-based monitor said.

It said at least six civilians were killed by Turkish artillery fire and air strikes.

Al-Bab is the jihadist group's last stronghold in the northern province of Aleppo and is also being targeted by regime forces.

While Turkish-led forces have been advancing from the north, east and west, Syrian government troops are attacking from the south.

On Monday, Syrian troops severed a road leading into the town from the south and by Friday they were just 1.5 kilometres (less then a mile) from the southern outskirts of Al-Bab.

Turkey began an unprecedented campaign inside Syria in August, targeting both IS and Kurdish militia.

After initial rapid progress, the campaign has been mired since December in the deadly fight for Al-Bab.

- 66 Turks killed in campaign -

Turkey's Dogan news agency says 66 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the campaign since it started, mostly in IS attacks.

And on Thursday, three Turkish soldiers were killed when a Russian air strike accidentally hit their position in an attack targeting IS in Al-Bab.

Moscow said it was an accident and is being investigated.

Despite backing opposite sides in Syria's conflict -- Moscow is a government ally while Turkey supports the opposition -- the two countries have worked closely in recent months.

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They helped broker a nationwide ceasefire in place since December 30, and sponsored a round of peace talks last month in the Kazakh capital, Astana.

Al-Bab has been under IS control since 2014, when the group seized large swathes of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, proclaiming its self-described caliphate.

In recent months, the jihadists have been rolled back in large parts of northern Syria, both by the Turkish campaign but also by a Kurdish-Arab alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The SDF fights with air support from the US-led coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq, but Turkey regards the Kurdish component of the SDF as "terrorists".

The alliance is pushing towards IS's de facto Syrian capital Raqa in an operation dubbed "Wrath of the Euphrates".

The advance has progressed slowly, in part, SDF officials say, because IS has heavily mined territory around Raqa.

- New talks in Astana? -

The Observatory said Saturday that SDF fighters had now advanced to around eight kilometres from the eastern outskirts of Raqa, though their forces are further from the north of the city.

Turkey has suggested that it could turn its sights to Raqa after the Al-Bab operation is complete, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussing both Al-Bab and Raqa in a call with US President Donald Trump this week.

Syria's conflict has killed more than 310,000 people since it began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

Successive rounds of peace talks, including discussions organised by Russia and Turkey in Kazakhstan last month, have failed to advance a political solution to the conflict.

A new round of UN-sponsored talks is scheduled to take place in Geneva on February 20, but invitations have yet to be sent out.

The High Negotiations Committee, which is set to represent Syria's opposition at the Geneva talks, meanwhile appointed its delegation to the negotiations after two days of discussion in Riyadh.

A statement said the 21-member delegation would be headed by Nasr al-Hariri and would also be supported by 20 advisers.

On Saturday, Kazakhstan's foreign ministry said Syrian government officials and rebels were being invited to new talks next week in Astana.

"It is planned to hold the latest high-level meeting within the Astana process on resolving the situation in Syria on February 15 and 16," the ministry said in a statement.

It added that UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura and US observers would also be invited to the talks.
Given that incumbent president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was reelected five years ago with 97 percent of the vote, Sundays presidential election in Turkmenistan was not carrying a whole deal of suspense.

However, for the first time under Berdymukhamedovs decade-long repressive rule, opposition parties have been allowed to participate in a presidential election. Meanwhile, Turkmenistan was also gripped by an unprecedented crisis. Still few expected the 59-year-old to face real competition.

Berdymukhamedov has not only controlled the media but he has also had the power to appoint and dismiss local and national government representatives as well as members of the Central Commission for Elections and Referenda.

Turkmenistan has never held a free and fair election and this one is no exception, Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement released this week. Genuine elections are impossible where authorities maintain tight control over all aspects of public life, violating basic rights relating to freedom of the media, expression, and civil society.

Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov Turkmenistan

Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The election in 2012 was described as an example of faux democracy by an expert at the London-based Chatham House policy institute. At least on the surface, Berdymukhamedov moved to open up the process by allowing two new parties to form.

Thus he will face competition this time around from Agrarian Party candidate Durdygylych Orazov and Bekmyrat Atalyev, representing the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. The other six candidates were all head of departments within the government.

Last time the only international observation mission overseeing the election was the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States. Its report ahead of the upcoming election stated that it had been conducted in the spirit of competition.

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The end of Berdymukhamedovs time in office, however, appeared some way off. Last September, the Constitution was amended, increasing presidential term from five to seven years and removing the 70-year age limit for candidates, effectively enabling Berdymukhamedov to be president for life.

As well as imposing tight restrictions on information and freedom of expression, Berdymukhamedov has created a cult of personality. Two weeks ago he provided a rendition of a song he had apparently written to a group of workers. He has also been a regular participant in, and winner, of races on horseback, bicycles and in cars.

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Kiev (AFP) - Two years have passed since the signing of a deal aimed at ending the war in Ukraine but the bloody conflict has rumbled on -- at the cost of another 5,000 lives.

The Minsk II accord saw Kremlin-backed rebels agree with Kiev and Moscow on a halt to the fighting and outlined a complex roadmap for securing peace.

It was hammered out by the presidents of Ukraine and Russia with the help of their French and German counterparts and signed on February 11 two years ago.

The deal was inked during a period of intense combat and rising fears of an open war between the two neighbours. Kiev was accusing the Kremlin of covertly sending in thousands of troops -- putting huge pressure on Moscow's ties with the West.

What Minsk II did was rein in worries of a broader war. But it never eliminated the violence and deep mistrust blocking progress toward a political solution.

Today's death toll stands at more than 10,000 and swathes of Ukraine's coal-and-steel-producing east are still controlled by the self-proclaimed "people's republics" of Lugansk and Donetsk.

And damaging Western sanctions against Moscow remain in place.

So where did Minsk II go wrong?

"It is everyone's fault and there is no political will," one Western diplomat in Kiev told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The West is convinced that Russia sparked the conflict and is continuing to stoke it.

But it also believes Kiev must now share the burden over its refusal to hand some autonomy to the rebel fiefdoms in line with the terms of the deal.

- 13-point plan -

Minsk II followed on from the collapse of a September 2014 agreement that triggered some of the heaviest fighting of the entire war.

The deal emerged from 18 hours of talks between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko. Their French and German counterparts acted as mediators between the two sworn foes.

But the real meat of Minsk II was a separate 13-point plan that called for an "immediate and comprehensive ceasefire" and the quick withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front.

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It granted Kiev control over all of its border with Russia on condition that Ukraine change its constitution to grant the separatist regions near Russia "special status" and "interim local self-government" by the end of 2015.

But none of these conditions was met and the agreements have been repeatedly extended as international powers cling on to them as the only hope of ending the 33-month war.

One key factor is the refusal of the dominant nationalist and populist forces in Ukraine's parliament to grant extra powers to the rebels for fear they would hand the regions over to Russia.

The insurgents themselves have never held OSCE-monitored elections under Ukrainian law -- as stipulated in the deal -- and instead pushed ahead with their own local council votes that infuriated Kiev.

And the Russian-Ukrainian border remains open wide enough for the Kremlin to send in tanks and other weapons to assist the separatists.

- Frozen conflict -

The deal has succeeded in limiting the scope of clashes to specific hotspots. Flareups like this month's battle in Avdiivka that killed dozens are increasingly rare.

What Ukraine fears most is that the war will turn into a "frozen conflict" -- like the situation in two Georgian regions seized by Russia and declared independent in 2008.

Georgia still considers them its own territory and had previously vowed to win them back through a new military offensive.

Kiev is also concerned that Western sanctions may be eased with the arrival of Donald Trump.

The new White House chief has taken a more conciliatory tone toward Moscow and Ukraine fears that this may result in US concessions over its future.

It is also frustrated that Western powers -- fearful of inciting Putin -- have refused to provide Ukrainian troops with the modern weaponry that could make Moscow's intervention more costly.

The past two years have seen every truce collapse and have left Poroshenko at a loss about what to do.

For now all eyes are on Washington.

"I think that inside the US administration, they are still looking for their Russian strategy," German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on February 4.

"We all hope that (possible deals) between Russia and the US will not be made at the expense of Ukraine or Europe, and will lead to a detente between both global powers," he said.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States has objected to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' choice of former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad as the body's new representative to Libya. It was unclear whether the objection, expressed in a statement late on Friday by Nikki Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Haley, had ended Fayyads candidacy. The U.S. objection drew Palestinian condemnation. Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Saturday that the proposal to nominate Fayyad "was solely based on Mr. Fayyads recognized personal qualities and his competence for that position". The United States wields significant influence as one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. "The United States was disappointed to see a letter indicating the intention to appoint the former Palestinian Authority prime minister to lead the UN Mission in Libya, Haley said in her statement. "For too long the U.N. has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," she said. Haley added that the United States "does not currently recognize a Palestinian state or support the signal this appointment would send within the United Nation. The U.S. ambassador said Washington encouraged Israel and the Palestinians "to come together directly on a solution" to end their conflict. Dujarric said in response that "United Nations staff serve strictly in their personal capacity. They do not represent any government or country. "The Secretary-General reiterates his pledge to recruit qualified individuals, respecting regional diversity, and notes that, among others no Israeli and no Palestinian have served in a post of high responsibility at the United Nations. "This is a situation that the Secretary-General feels should be corrected, always based on personal merit and competencies of potential candidates for specific posts." Hanan Ashrawi, an executive committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, denounced the U.S. objection as "unconscionable". "We hope that saner voices will prevail and that the U.S. will take back this irrational and discriminatory decision immediately and not deprive the U.N. of such a highly qualified individual," Ashrawi said in a statement. Fayyad, a Texas-educated former International Monetary Fund official, was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013. He had earned praise in the international community for his efforts to crack down on corruption and to build effective Palestinian public institutions. Guterres selected Fayyad to take over as Libya envoy from Martin Kobler, a German diplomat who has served as the U.N. representative since November 2015. (Reporting by Ned Parker Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
Arbil (Iraq) (AFP) - British Defence Minister Michael Fallon said Saturday in Iraq that he expected to see the Islamic State group expelled from the country's major towns by the end of 2017.

"We expect to see Daesh (IS) expelled from the major towns and cities of Iraq during the course of the year," he told reporters in Arbil, the capital of Iraq's northern autonomous region of Kurdistan.

Iraqi forces are nearly four months into a massive operation to retake nearby Mosul, which is the country's second city and where IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a "caliphate" in 2014.

The jihadist organisation then controlled around a third of Iraq, but federal and allied forces have since retaken around two thirds of that territory and Mosul is IS's last major stronghold.

After retaking the eastern side of Mosul last month, Iraqi forces are currently preparing to launch an assault on the part of the city that lies west of the Tigris River.

Commanders expect the battle to be fierce because the narrow streets of the Old City will complicate operations and the western side also harbours some traditional jihadist bastions.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said around the new year that he expected his forces would need three more months to rid the country of IS.

Most observers argued that the premier's prediction was optimistic, however, with Mosul alone threatening to bog down Iraqi forces way past that target.

Retaking the northern city would deal a death blow to the "caliphate" and any claim that IS is still running a "state", but the group retains control of several populated areas.

In Iraq, IS still holds Hawijah, a large town southeast of Mosul, and the town of Al-Qaim on the western border with Syria.

When Iraqi forces retake Mosul, the jihadists' last major hub will be the city of Raqa in neighbouring Syria.

"The situation in Syria is more complicated, given the continuation of the civil war there," Fallon said.

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A 60-nation coalition led by the United States has carried out thousands of air strikes in support of the war on IS and provided assistance and training to thousands of Iraqi forces.

Britain is a key member of that coalition, together with France, Italy and Australia.

Fallon said the Royal Air Force had struck 300 targets in and around Mosul since the operation to retake the city began on October 17.
Washington (AFP) - US authorities arrested hundreds of undocumented migrants this week in the first large-scale raids under President Donald Trump, triggering panic in immigrant communities nationwide.

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency rounded up undocumented individuals living in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and other cities two weeks after Trump signed an executive order that broadened which undocumented immigrants would be targeted for deportation.

According to ICE, however, the operations were "routine."

"The focus of these operations is no different than the routine, targeted arrests carried out by ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis," said agency spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea.

David Marin, head of ICE's removal operations in Los Angeles, told reporters that approximately 160 people had been arrested in the California metropolis.

Some 75 percent of them had prior felony convictions, he said, adding that some people had been nabbed solely because they were undocumented.

By Friday night, 37 undocumented immigrants had already been expelled to Mexico.

In a January 25 decree, Trump prioritized the deportation of undocumented males who had been convicted of or "charged with any criminal offense," including misdemeanors.

The order was a move to make good on his campaign pledge to crack down on America's undocumented population, estimated at 11 million people.

Marin said the operations were planned prior to Trump's swearing-in and were comparable to past actions.

He rebuffed reports about ICE checkpoints and random sweeps, calling them "dangerous and irresponsible."

"Reports like that create panic, and they put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger," Marlin said.

The raids, which hit residential areas and workplaces, sparked protests and provoked the ire of elected Democratic representatives, notably in California and particularly in Los Angeles, where the Pew Research Center estimates around a million undocumented migrants reside.

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"President Trump's policy change betrays our values," Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said in a statement.

"Tearing families apart isn't what this country stands for."

- 'New reality' -

In Austin, Texas, where 100,000 unauthorized migrants live, a bystander captured video footage of an arrest, which made local front-page news and ignited demonstrations.

Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas confirmed the launch of a "targeted operation" aimed at arresting the undocumented.

He has asked ICE officials to "clarify whether these individuals are in fact dangerous, violent threats to our communities, and not people who are here peacefully raising families and contributing to our state."

Castro said the roundups were part of "Operation Cross Check" -- a series of large-scale raids that began in 2011 under Barack Obama.

The agency conducted the last sweep in March 2015, corralling 2,059 undocumented immigrants deemed threats to "public safety."

In New York, which hosts the country's largest population of undocumented immigrants -- 1.15 million, according to Pew -- a few hundred people demonstrated near the immigration services office.

Obama deported more immigrants than any of his predecessors, prioritizing the expulsion of repeat criminal offenders or those convicted of serious crimes, including rape, child pornography and gang membership.

Undocumented migrants with repeated drunk driving convictions were also targeted.

With his decree, Trump -- who vowed as a candidate to deport some three million undocumented immigrants with criminal records -- broadens the scope of the Obama administration's policy, dropping the distinction between convicted criminals and those who have simply been charged.

Activists have rallied around the case of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos -- a 35-year-old mother arrested during a routine visit to Phoenix, Arizona who has become symbolic of Trump's hardline measures.

The mother of two US-born children was caught in 2008 using a fake social security number and slapped with a deportation order. Authorities had not previously expelled her for practical reasons, however, as she posed little threat.

But by Thursday, she was in Nogales, the Mexican border town where she crossed into the US more than two decades ago.

The Mexican Foreign Ministry said her deportation "illustrates the new reality of Mexican community living in the United States in the face of more severe application of migration controls."

The ministry urged Mexican citizens to "take precautions" and stay in close contact with consular authorities, echoing instructions from immigrant advocacy groups stateside.

El Salvador, in Central America, also is home to many recent immigrants to the United States. Their remittances are key to its economy.

"We are working to ensure that Salvadorans who are overseas, especially... in the United States are protected," Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren told local media.
Washington (AFP) - Anti-abortion activists staged dozens of rallies across the US on Saturday against Planned Parenthood, while vocal counter-protests backed the family planning group targeted by Republicans who hold the White House and Congress.

Activists held more than 200 demonstrations near Planned Parenthood locations in 45 states, according to the website protestpp.com, demanding the federal government cut off funding to the non-profit health care group.

"We have the wind in our sails," said Eric Scheidler, the executive director of the Pro-Life Action League -- one of the demonstrations' primary backers -- told the New York Times. "The election was a real benchmark."

"Pro-life voters were really a key constituency, and the Trump administration has taken note."

Supporters of the family planning clinic network -- whose services include providing birth control as well as abortions -- turned out in response, many waving pink posters with messages of solidarity with the organization.

"Planned Parenthood advocates and activists show that they refuse to be intimidated and they won't back down," Kelley Robinson, a senior official for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement.

Relatively modest crowds gathered to demonstrate on both sides of the issue.

More than two million people flooded US cities last month for "Women's Marches" over fears that Donald Trump will roll back the rights of women, immigrants and minorities -- including the right to abortion.

A week later, optimistic anti-abortion advocates rallied in the annual March for Life -- billed as the world's largest rally of its kind -- featuring a speech from Vice President Mike Pence, an ardent abortion opponent.

The immediate threat to defund Planned Parenthood is just an opening salvo in the battle against abortion.

If Trump's current nominee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch -- a judge known for his pro-life stance -- is confirmed, a majority of conservative justices could threaten the constitutional right to abortions itself.
UNITED NATIONS (AP)  The United States on Friday blocked the appointment of the former Palestinian prime minister to lead the U.N. political mission in Libya, saying it was acting to support its ally Israel.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the Trump administration "was disappointed" to see that U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had sent a letter to the Security Council indicating his intention to appoint Salam Fayyad, who served as the Palestinian Authority's prime minister from 2007-2013, as the next U.N. special representative to Libya.

"For too long the U.N. has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," Haley said.

Palestine is a non-member observer state at the United Nations and its independence has been recognized by 137 of the 193 U.N. member nations. But Haley said the United States doesn't currently recognize a Palestinian state "or support the signal" Fayyad's appointment would send within the United Nations.

U.N. diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private, said Fayyad is well-respected for his work in reforming the Palestinian Authority and spurring its economy and had the support of the 14 other Security Council members to succeed Martin Kobler in the Libya job.

Despite opposition to Fayyad, Haley indicated that the Trump administration wants to see an end to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We encourage the two sides to come together directly on a solution," she said.

Haley's statement came ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump on Feb. 15, and was welcomed by Israelis.

"This is the beginning of a new era at the U.N., an era where the U.S. stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish State," Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said of the U.S. decision to block Fayyad's appointment. "The new administration proved once again that it stands firmly alongside the state of Israel in the international arena and in the U.N. in particular."

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The new U.S. ambassador made clear that "going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies."

But Trump also indicated in comments to an Israeli newspaper Friday that there might be some difficult discussions with Netanyahu next week on Israel's settlement expansion. The U.S. leader was quoted as saying that Israel's settlement expansion in land claimed by the Palestinians does not advance peace.

Israel's settlement building has been a key obstacle to the revival of stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Most of the international community considers all Israeli settlements in territory the Palestinians want for a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal and counterproductive to peace.
Love is in the air which means it is time to gift your sweetheart something special for Valentines Day. Although you cannot put a price on love, everyone has their limits and it is important to be mindful of what is in your budget.

Most people expect some type of chocolate on this love-themed day and you should make sure you do not disappoint. Whether you are trying to splurge, keep it moderate or spend as little as possible, there is a gift out there that you can give to someone special.

Check out these Valentines Day chocolate gift ideas for every budget.

Chocolate 5 Layer Cake

Layer Cake

Photo: Mastros Restaurants

If you are in New York City, treat that special someone to a night out at Mastros Steakhouse. While you will definitely enjoy the dinner menu, the dessert will be the real reason why you are there. The luxurious eatery offers a tasty cake that is layered with rich chocolate mousse and brushed with citron vodka and Frangelico. The edges are encrusted with cake drums and the dessert is served on top of caramel and chocolate sauces topped with fresh raspberries and fresh mint.

Those hoping to enjoy a night in with their loved one can call ahead to pick up their order and have a cozy meal at home, ending the night with a decadent dessert.

Godiva

The chocolatier known for their rich chocolate offers an array of gifts that can suit any price range. Those looking to spend less can consider purchasing the Collectors Edition Valentine's Day Chocolate Heart Tin which comes with 12 pieces of chocolate for $15.

Those who are feeling a bit more generous can spend anywhere from $100 purchasing a 37 piece Valentine's Day Satin Embroidered Heart Chocolate Gift Box or $315 on a 7-Tier Ultimate Chocolate Gift Tower.

Edible Arrangements

Edible Arragements

Photo: Edible Arragements

Interested in gifting your sweetheart with something even sweeter? You may want to invest in an edible arrangement. The chocolate covered fruit serves as both a bouquet and a tasty treat. The companys Valentines Day Bouquet will run you $75 and consists of a gourmet Belgian Chocolate Pop, fresh strawberries, grapes, pineapple heart slices and gourmet semisweet chocolate dipped strawberries.

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Early birds who get their online orders in before Feb. 13 can save money and receive a gift. Customers whose order totals $39 or more will receive $10 off their purchase. Customers whose order totals $75 or more than will receive $10 off their purchase and two free movie tickets.

Jacques Torres Chocolate 34 Piece Bon Bon Box

Jacques Torres Chocolate

Photo: Jacques Torres Chocolate

Gift your loved ones with these decadent bonbons that come in a variety of flavors including exotic tea and spice infusions, nutty pralines, ganaches, buttery caramels, fruit and wine blended chocolate and a surprise mystery flavor. This 34 piece box set is $50.

Do it yourself

If you are feeling creative or just want to try out a homemade project consider heading to Pinterest to look at all the creative ideas. Make your own edible arrangement or try melting chocolate for a unique spin on gourmet chocolate covered strawberries. The sky is the limit and the options are endless from chocolate covered cake pops to chocolate covered pretzels. There is no doubt that you will find something youll feel confident creating and serving to that special someone.

Drug Store Chocolate

It may not sound appetizing but it sounds cheap, doesnt it? By heading into your local pharmacy, you are bound to find anything from Dove to Hersheys to Russell Stovers chocolates on sale or at least at a decent price with some chocolate being as little as $1. Whether your drug store is Rite Aid, Walgreens, CVS or any other small business, you will more than likely find some chocolate within your price range.

Chocolate

Photo: Getty Images

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US President Donald Trump reads from an executive order he signed in the Oval Office of the White House: Getty Images

Donald Trumps threat to see you in court after a bid to to reinstate his controversial travel ban was defeated for a second time, was dismissed by one of the senior litigators in the case.

Weve seen him in court twice, and were two for two, said Washington state Attorney General, Bob Ferguson.

Within moments of the unanimous ruling handed down from a three judge panel in the ninth Circuit US District Court, Mr Trump dispatched a furious tweet about the ruling.

See you in court, the security of our nation is at stake, he tweeted in block capitals.

SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

The ruling allowed citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries to continue travelling to the US, despite Mr Trumps executive order.

The decision represents a significant setback for the US President, who seemingly remains determined to enforce the ban, despite widespread opposition and multiple legal challenges.

Mr Ferguson, who filed the case against the ban on behalf of the state of Washington, said: In my view, the future of the constitution is at stake.

We respect that the President has broad authority when it comes to executive orders, but they still have to follow the constitution. Thats the bottom line. And we firmly believe that this executive order does not.

Mr Ferguson added that he was very confident he and his team would win any future court battle against the order, and urged Mr Trump to rethink his position.

The President does have a choice. He can continue to fight this, or he can tear up this executive order, and I would strongly encourage him to consider the latter course of action.

Handing down their decision, the three judges said there was no evidence that any foreign citizen from any of the seven countries had carried out a terrorist attack on US soil.

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They said: The public has a powerful interest in national security and in the ability of an elected President to enact policies... the public also has an interest in free flow of travel, in avoiding separation of families, and in freedom from discrimination.

Rather than present evidence to explain the need for the Executive Order, the government has taken the position that we must not review its decision at all.

In response Mr Trump told reporters at the White House that they had taken a "political decision".

He said: "Were going to see them in court, and I look forward to doing that. Its a decision that well win, in my opinion, very easily.

Mr Trumps fomer presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, celebrated the latest defeat for the ban by simply tweeting: 3-0.

3-0  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 10, 2017

Washington state Solicitor General Noah Purcell, who argued the case, responded to Mr Trumps tweet in an interview with CNN.

The irony from our perspective is that we've seen him in court twice now, and we've won both times," he said. "It's not like it doesn't count until you get to the Supreme Court.

The Justice Department said in a statement it was reviewing the appeal courts decision.

The next step in the legal process would be the Supreme Court, which currently has only eight out of nine members appointed, meaning there is a real prospect of a 4-4 split between the ideologically conservative and liberal judges.

Stalemate in the Supreme Court would mean the ruling against the travel ban by the ninth circuit judges would be upheld  dealing a serious blow to the Trump administration.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer: Getty Images

The White House has been forced to deny claims it is looking for a new press secretary or communications director to replace Sean Spicer.

According to disputed reports, Fox News contributor Carl Higbie, a former Navy SEAL and vocal Trump supporter, discussed the position on Thursday.

Mr Higbie, who describes himself as a "Red white and blue blooded, flag loving American" on Twitter, said he had not had a formal interview, but had offered his services and spoken to government staff about working in a communications role.

He tweeted: FOR THE RECORD: in last few weeks I spoke to some in admin regarding communications or spox positions, NO formal interviews.

Mr Higbie also told the Washingtonian: Well, I can say I offered my services,

I havent heard back from the administration yet.

FOR THE RECORD: in last few weeks I spoke to some in admin regarding communications or spox positions, NO formal interviews.  Carl Higbie (@CarlHigbie) February 11, 2017

A White House spokesperson has told media outlets there is no truth to the speculation.

Sean Spicer had a rocky first fortnight in the dual-role of press secretary and communications director, and CNN recently reported President Trumpregretted choosing him for the position.

The news outlet said Mr Trump was disappointed with Mr Spicers performance and blamed his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, for pushing for Mr Spicer for the job. Priebus vouched for Spicer" and he was appointed "against Trump's instincts, one source told the network, adding that the president regrets it every day and blames Priebus.

Mr Spicer is a longtime Republican party operative and has a close relationship with Mr Priebus. However, in his first two weeks, he berated reporters and was tasked with defending numerous falsehoods pushed forth by the Trump administration.

CNN reported that Mr Spicer was not the presidents first choice for press secretary and he wanted White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway to assume the role, but she eventually turned it down. Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle was another top candidate interviewed for the position.

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In response to the report, one senior official told the network that the president is behind Mr Spicer "100 per cent."

It has been reported the White House is urgently seeking to fill the communications director role, with a source telling CNN that the position needs to be filled more than ever.
Whitney Houston Was Too Perfect to Stay

Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib | MTV News

The message is that greatness can only be unexpected for so long before it becomes routine and pushes the great to some collapse. With Whitney, the first decade-plus seemed impossible. She was polished and presented in a way that set her firmly on the edge of titanic and fragile. She was a black pop star in the era of Michael, Prince, and Janet. But she was a black pop star who, at first, avoided the societal pitfalls of being black, a woman, famous, and powerful in a country that is often only comfortable with a person being one of those things at a time, and sometimes not even then.

Lydia Davis and Jhumpa Lahiri Learn New Languages

Charles Halton | The Millions

Dictionaries can be detrimental crutches for those learning a new language. They are psychological hindrances to fully grasping vocabulary. If you know that a dictionary is only a keystroke away, youll likely not spend as much effort driving new words into your head as you would if you had no safety net. Furthermore, discovering words in context gives a deeper understanding than scanning an abstract definition.

How Anna Nicole Smith Became Americas Punchline

Sarah Marshall | BuzzFeed

If the heroines allure is the product of not just blind luck but sustained effort and intentlet alone strategic surgical alteration and courtship of wealthy benefactors, as Anna Nicole Smiths wasthen she is too powerful to remain sympathetic, and becomes an object of jealousy, rather than aspiration. Its one thing to be chosen as a goddess; its quite another to claw your way to the top of Mount Olympus. And when the public finds out a goddess is in fact a striving mortal, this revelation will push her into a very different kind of myth: one whose satisfying conclusion comes not when a woman is exalted, but when she is destroyed.

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The Promising State of the Actor-Musician

Bridget Minamore | Pitchfork

Even those actors and musicians who bypass accusations of artistic hubris and achieve success in their second field will still find themselves viewed primarily as one profession or the other. It is rare for the two sides of the creative career coin to be held in equal esteem, particularly at the same time. Instead, successful crossover artists tend to transition between acting and making music, with the peak of one career coinciding with a lull in the other.

Recommended: 'Fifty Shades Darker': You'll Be the One in Pain

Alec Baldwin, James Baldwin, and Apocalyptic Exceptionalism

Matt Seybold | Los Angeles Review of Books

The humor in Baldwins sketches does not originate from the antics of their central figure, but from his foils, who elicit laughs primarily by reacting to Trumps un-ironic vulgarity with open exasperation, horror, and disdain. Many previous presidential impersonators found unmistakable joy in playing their characters, but Baldwin makes palpable his revulsion towards the character he inhabits. Portraying Trump is an act of endurance, even penitence, which every fiber of his being resists.

How Scorsese Made a Film That Went Against Hollywoods Rules

Stephanie Zacharek | Time

Scorseses insistence on thinking everything through in advance makes a cinematographers job easier, though nothing is ever set in stone. It cant be, because so much of filmmaking is problem solving, particularly when vagaries of weather, or even just shifting light, enter the picture. Besides, all working relationships between directors and their cinematographers are different, and even when a director-cinematographer duo work together on another movieor on many more moviesthe nature of that relationship shifts with the material.

Anthony Bourdains Moveable Feast

Patrick Radden Keefe | The New Yorker

[Bourdain] once described his body as gristly, tendony, as if it were an inferior cut of beef, and a recent devotion to Brazilian jujitsu has left his limbs and his torso laced with ropy muscles. With his Sex Pistols T-shirt and his sensualist credo, there is something of the aging rocker about him. But if you spend any time with Bourdain you realize that he is controlled to the point of neurosis: clean, organized, disciplined, courteous, systematic. He is Apollo in drag as Dionysus.

Recommended: Can Megyn Kelly Escape Her Past?

The Big Short: Sarah Mangusos Aphorisms in an Age of Alternative Facts

Rachel Syme | The New Republic

The aphorism has come back into vogue, or at least into the cultural conversation, because we are currently enmeshed in short-form writing, which is flourishing on Twitter and in the proliferation of political soundbites, both true and false. We are engaged in big cultural battles for truth and where to find it, and we are all searching for verified phrases that we can repeat over and over in order to maintain a sense of sanity as facts shift beneath our feet.

Culture on Culture

Bryan Washington | The Awl

Trap music, as an idea, started as one thing  utilizing the sparest assortment of beats on-hand to deliver the gruffest, hardest rhymes at an artists disposal  and through the phantasms of the music industry, its since become a similar other. The same permutations have occurred with what wed have originally identified as screw, and dub-step, and dancehall, and other forms thatve been molded away from their original variables by the markets demands. But, in this way, the genre becomes akin to other hyper-specific forms (like reggaeton, or k-pop), and the trick becomes retaining the particularity, while capitalizing on the variables that draw so many folks in.

Is My Novel Offensive?

Katy Waldman | Slate

Its not hard to imagine why sensitivity readers could potentially put authors in a difficult position. After all, where would we be if these experts had subjected our occasionally outrageous and irredeemable canonMoby Dick or Lolita or any other classic, old, anachronistic bookto their scrutiny? Plenty of fictionPortnoys Complaint, or Martin Amiss Moneyis defined in part by a narrators fevered misogyny. Novels like Huckleberry Finn derive some of their intrigue and complexity from the imperfections of their social vision.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Yale University announced Saturday that it will rename the Calhoun College residence hall  a decision that follows over a year of protests calling for the removal of the name of John C. Calhoun, a Yale alumnus who called slavery a positive good.

Yales Board of Trustees initially voted in April to keep the name. At the time, Yale President Peter Salovey voiced concerns that removing it would mean masking history. But the trustees reversed their decision on Friday, the Hartford Courant reported.

I made the decision because I think it is the right thing to do on principle, Salovey said in a phone interview with reporters Saturday morning, according to the Courant. Judging Calhouns principles and legacy as an ardent supporter of slavery as a positive good are at odds with the values of this university.

The residence hall will now be named after Grace Murray Hopper, a Yale alumna and computer scientist.

Yale is among many universities that have faced calls by students and alumni to acknowledge their historical ties to slavery. In 2015, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill renamed a building that had been named after a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Princeton University has faced pressure to remove Woodrow Wilsons name. And Georgetown last year released a report about its own ties to slavery.
By Charlotte Greenfield WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Rescuers were trying to save scores of pilot whales on Friday in a remote bay in New Zealand, where some 300 carcasses littered the beach after one of the country's largest recorded mass whale strandings. Hundreds of volunteers flocked to Golden Bay, at the northwest tip of South Island, after dawn broke and surviving whales were refloated at high tide by lunchtime, but 90 quickly became stranded once again as the tide ebbed. About 50 more lingered in shallow waters near their beleaguered pod. A conservation department worker spotted the whales washed ashore on Thursday evening. But the government agency decided against a night rescue effort because of the risk of accidents. Hoping to save more whales at the next high tide on Friday evening, rescuers took turns pouring water over the beached whales to try and keep them cool, while school children sang to soothe the distressed beasts. A ferry service offered free transport to qualified marine medics, while broadcast media carried a livestream of the rescue attempt. Even for a country with the most whale strandings in the world, the scale of the latest event "was a shock," said Darren Grover manager of marine environmental organization Project Jonah. It was New Zealand's largest known whale stranding since 1985, when 450 were stranded in Auckland, and the third largest on record. The precise cause of the stranding was not known, though beached whales are not an uncommon sight at Golden Bay. Its shallow muddy waters confuse the marine mammals' sonar, leaving them vulnerable to stranding by an ebb tide, according to Project Jonah. Pilot whales are not listed as endangered, but little is known about their population in New Zealand waters. (Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)


Credit: Girls star Allison Williams, wearing a silk dress and gold-plated earrings by Diane von Furstenberg, and Jonathan Saunders, the new Chief Creative Officer of the house; Kerry Hallihan

When Jonathan Saunders packed up his belongings last May to move from London, his home for the past 16 years, to New York City, where he would become Diane von Furstenberg's designated design successor, his biggest concern was for his dog, an ailing 14-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier named Amber.

"She made it over the ocean, just," Saunders says, six months after settling into a charming town house in the West Village along with his partner, Justin Padgett, a fashion publicist. "But she now has a kind of strange second wind and this sprightly step. She's socializing. She's been feeling a new lease on life."

Amber, it turns out, is not alone in this regard. First, there is von Furstenberg and the bright new direction that Saunders has brought to her business, which has experienced numerous revivals in its 45-plus years but none as significant as this: In naming Saunders as chief creative officer, she has stepped back from the runway spotlight for the first time to instead focus on her philanthropic passions. And then there is what has happened to Saunders himself, who little more than a year ago had all but given up on fashion after resigning from his signature label in London.

"I wanted to change my pace of life and do something different," says Saunders, a confident 38-year-old who in fact had made plans to design a furniture collection when von Furstenberg came calling. He was hesitant to follow in the footsteps of such an iconic living designer. And yet the scale of the job--and the resonance of the von Furstenberg name in popular culture as well as in fashion--made it impossible for him to resist. "I saw an opportunity to tell a story with clothes but also to have more meaning," he says.

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Credit: Diane von Furstenberg cotton-spandex trenchcoat, silk one-shoulder blouse, linen-viscose pants with ribbon belt, and specchio leather heels. Studs worn throughout, her own; Kerry Hallihan

In his office at DVF's modern glass headquarters in Manhattan's Meatpacking District, Saunders sits at a whimsical, rounded metal desk with colorful circular seats that swivel out like a vintage amusement park ride. It was designed by Ringo Starr and Robin Cruikshank in 1970. "I wanted people to relax and feel they could have a game of musical chairs after a meeting," he says. On the wall is a delightfully cartoonish painting by Greek artist Thanasis Lalas. Behind him is an Ettore Sottsass penis-shaped Shiva vase.

Von Furstenberg says her decision to hire Saunders was somewhat spontaneous but also based on a long admiration for his work, which, like hers, is known for a warm embrace of prints. His love of color theory--how certain tones and combinations make you feel--stems from his early fixation on the Bauhaus period during his studies in product design and textiles at the Glasgow School of Art. Then he switched to fashion at Central Saint Martins in London, where instructor Louise Wilson set him on a course of creating graphic womenswear that delighted with the juxtaposition of luxurious colors with sometimes purposely tacky ones. He also has a doctorate of the arts from Glasgow University.

"His incredible sense of color and prints is unique and so perfect to refresh the heritage of the brand," von Furstenberg says. While her presence is less felt around the studio these days (she has been remarkably hands-off in the transition), Saunders has been careful to establish his control with respect but not idolization. One of his first moves was to update the label in block letters with white space that literally separates "Diane" from "von Furstenberg." But he has also taken time to seduce her customers and to understand their emotional attachment to what she represents.

"I see a synergy with the people who have always believed in Diane and loved the clothes here," he says. "They're strong women. They are in touch with their emotions. They are funny. They are serious. And they are warm."

When he presented his spring collection, one of the first of those women he encountered was Allison Williams. She and von Furstenberg have been close since meeting at a party eight years ago for President Obama's first inauguration, and as an astute observer of fashion, she has developed personal relationships with many designers.

"It just makes the experience of wearing the clothes so much more fun," says Williams. "The personality type that is attracted to becoming a designer fascinates me--part business and part creative. I'm so impressed they are able to innovate so quickly."

And once she met Saunders, she was naturally charmed by him. "I think I mostly expressed jealousy for his accent," Williams recalls.

"She asks a lot of questions, which I always think is a good sign," says Saunders. "I instantly understood why she was a great person to know and to represent the brand, because of her character, down to where it's about a talented, smart, emotional, warm, cool girl."

Saunders's spring collection was a critical hit and also a departure from the wanderlusty glamour of von Furstenberg's recent work. His more casual sportswear focus included easy knits, fluid wide-legged trousers, and silk

kimono-like dresses in exotic floral prints that slyly hint at her signature wraps. He was inspired by artists like Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, and Bridget Riley, "people who used color in quite a provocative way," he says. And "provocative" is a word he uses to describe the work of von Furstenberg, who famously designed garments that were sensual both in the way they were meant to be worn and unworn.



Credit: Diane von Furstenberg sequined nylon-spandex dress. Ring, her own; Kerry Hallihan

Saunders arrives in New York at an interesting moment, as other major brands, like Calvin Klein and Oscar de la Renta, are preparing reinventions that will undoubtedly shift the perception of American fashion even farther from its pragmatic sportswear roots toward something Saunders believes should be seen as purely about individualism. Still, the transition has not been entirely seamless, professionally with the unexpected resignation of DVF's chief executive, Paolo Riva, in November, and personally with the sudden death of the designer Richard Nicoll, a close friend and classmate from Central Saint Martins, in October. Saunders now wears a necklace that belonged to Nicoll as a sort of talisman, but, like Amber, he finds that life in New York has given him reason to look up.

Ironically, he is now living in a home so irregularly shaped, with triangular floors and walls of windows, that it's nearly impossible to place any of his own furniture designs. Not that it bothers him all that much.

"I seem to remember people shouting at me all the time when I used to come to New York and that it was a very aggressive place," he says. "All of a sudden, it's the opposite." As for Amber, "she has gotten a whole new range of friends," he says. "She's officially an over-opinionated, strong-minded New Yorker." n

Fashion Editor: Ali Pew

Check out the March issue of InStyle, available on newsstands and for digital download Friday, Feb. 10.
By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission under President Donald Trump is keeping under wraps his strategy to revise or reverse the Obama administration's "net neutrality" rules, but emphasized he is committed to ensuring an open internet. Ajit Pai, 44, a Republican lawyer who has served as a FCC commissioner since 2012, strongly opposed former Democratic President Barack Obama administration's 2015 net neutrality rules that reclassified broadband providers and treated them like a public utility. "I believe, as I think most Americans do, in a free and open internet and the only question is what regulatory framework best secures that," Pai said in an interview in his FCC office, where several storage boxes remain to be unpacked. "Before the imposition of these Depression-era rules, we had for 20 years a bipartisan consensus on a regulatory model." In December Pai vowed to take a "weedwacker" to unneeded rules and has not backed away from his prior criticism of net neutrality, when he again said net neutrality's "days are numbered." The net neutrality rules bar internet access providers from slowing consumer access to web content. A federal appeals court upheld the rules last year. Internet providers fear net neutrality rules make it harder to manage internet traffic and make investment in additional capacity less likely, while websites worry that without the rules they might lose access to customers. Unlike Trump, Pai cannot simply issue an order doing away with the net neutrality rules, but must go through an administrative process. Pai is keeping his cards close to the vest, only saying he will mount a "careful look at the regulatory framework." Last month, then FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said reversing the net neutrality rules "is not a slam dunk" and will face the "high hurdle" of "a fact-based showing that so much has changed in just two short years that a reversal is justified." Pai faces opposition on Capitol Hill and from many on social media to reversing net neutrality, with Democrats urging him not to favour the "big broadband barons" as one called them. "There is no problem that needs to be fixed," said Senator Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat. "Net neutrality rules ensure those with the best ideas, not simply the best-funded ideas, have the opportunity to share their content with the world." Pai said in 2015 that the FCC had adopted the sweeping new net neutrality rules at Obama's behest and would result in "higher broadband prices, slower speeds, less broadband deployment, less innovation, and fewer options for American consumers." Pai's goal is "a modern flexible framework that gives everybody a level playing field."Wheeler last month urged the next FCC not to "undo something that is demonstrably working" and says broadband investment has remained high. Earlier this week, a key Republican on telecommunications policy, Representative Marsha Blackburn said Congress will let the FCC "make the first move" on net neutrality. Last Friday, Pai sent letters to Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T Inc to notify them that the FCC was closing investigations into "sponsored data" or "zero rating" programs in which mobile phone companies give customers free data for using certain video services. FCC had previously raised concerns about their data policies. "My position is the government should not be in the position of prohibiting companies in a competitive marketplace from offering free data," Pai said. Pai has taken steps to make the FCC more transparent, including a pilot program to circulate proposals before they voted on. "A lot of involves divestment of power from the chairman's office," he said. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
"Number one, soon after Hitler came to power and nationalized the banks, Germany became the most technologically advanced, prosperous and most envied nation on Earth."

"Countries and people all over the planet were marveling at the changes that had occurred, and praising Adolph Hitler. He was made Time magazines an of the year. It was at this time in history that the Jews became concerned this idea of national socialism would spread, destroying their international banking scam, so they literally declared war on Germany as a nation would. Yes, as a matter of historical fact despite Hitlers transfer agreement which gave Jews free passage to Palestine with all of their wealth, the Jews declared war on Germany and Hitler."

"Also undeniable is that communism was completely and wholly a Jew creation, all of the communist creators and promoters were Jews, as were almost all of the commissars and commandants of the Gulags."

"Number three, Adolph Hitler wanted peace."

"It is often falsely claimed that Hitler intentionally started world war two. What is seldom stated is the reasons why Hitler invaded Poland, the single military action often credited with starting the war. There was a region in Poland that was part of Germany called East Prussia, created when the allies sliced up Germany after world war one, which Germany lost ONLY as result of the US being dragged into the war by a false flag attack."

"In the former German territories of Poland, Germans were being murdered and dispossessed of their property,"

"The Gleiwitz incident in 1939 involved Reinhard Heydrich fabricating evidence of a Polish attack against Germany to mobilize German public opinion for war and to justify the war with Poland. Alfred Naujocks was a key organiser of the operation under orders from Heydrich. It led to the deaths of Nazi concentration camp victims who were dressed as German soldiers and then shot by the Gestapo to make it seem that they had been shot by Polish soldiers. This, along with other false flag operations in Operation Himmler, would be used to mobilize support from the German population for the start of World War II in Europe."

"...and East Prussia was cut off from Germany."

"Hitler simply wanted to take back what was rightfully Germany's and to stop the slaughter. He tried many times to find a diplomatic solution, and all efforts were ignored by the Poles, who were under communist control."

"AT this time in history, Russia and Germany had a treaty between them, and had agreed how Poland would be dealt with. Stalin would later break this agreement. This is how world war two actually started. Austria wanted to unite with Germany."

"Soon afterwords, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and Germany invaded and successfully occupied France. The Jews made an agreement with Churchill that they would drag the US into the war , if Great Britain would insure they be given control of Palestine after Germany's defeat."

"Number four, the only reason world war 2 started was because the Jews were in control of Great Britain and Frances banking infrastructure and central banks, and had powerful influence and control over their governments."



"The Jews declare war..."

"and shortly thereafter Great Britain and France declared war, it was simply the same declaration extending to the national governments in those countries they had control over. At the same time in history, Americans actually sided with Hitler and looked up to Germany."

Some Americans were for Hitler

And some were not. Take your pick

"Americans were very reluctant and against entering the war on either side, but Roosevelt conspired with Stalin and Churchill to use the Jew media to create hatred of Hitler."

"At the same time Japan , who was allied with Hitler,had their energy imports cut off by the US. The US expanded their military into the Pacific regions close to Japan, provoking the attack. It is now known that the attack at Pearl harbor was allowed to happen, dragging the US into WW2."There is no doubt whatsoever that defenses were stood down to allow it to happen."

"Soon after, a false flag sinking of a ship carrying munitions to Great Britain would be used to get Americans behind declaring war on Germany. AT this time Roosevelt "lend lease" was in full swing, where America was sending Great Britain billions in munitions."

"Number five, Hitler respected Great Britain's people and saw them as natural allies. He never wanted war with either Great Britain or France."

A sign of Hitler's respect and love for Great Britain.

"Number six, Germany's invasion of Russia was partly inspired by an attempt to free the Russian people from Bolshevik oppression and to restore a government that wouldn't murder Russia's people, and primarily as result of military aggression in Eastern Europe by Stalin, who was expanding his sphere of influence westward towards Germany."

"By instinct, the Russian does not incline towards a higher form of society.. It is so easy for an animal to go back to its origins!"

"We will take the southern Ukraine, especially the Crimea, and make it an exclusively Germany colony. There will be no harm in pushing out the population there now.. The German colonists will live on handsome, spacious farms.. what exists 30 to 40 kilometers out will be another world, in which the Russian remnants will live.."

"We'll drive Asia back behind the Urals. No organised Russian state will be allowed to exist west of there.. they are brutes in a state of nature"

"There is no denying Hitlers war strategy was "a good offense is the best defense", and I agree personally."

"Number seven, we lost the war."

New York after the war

Berlin after the war





We report- you decide.







"No matter what the history books claim, the defeat of Hitler was the defeat of the people of the united States and Europe, who were now firmly under the Jews' control, and their boots."

"All of the military's of these nations as well as the governments were now completely funded by Jews' central banks, and thus under their control. While these governments declared victory, that victory was actually over the peoples in the countries they controlled, and not just Germany as a country. World war two was fought for one reason and one reason only, to destroy the idea of nationalism, and this becomes critically important in understanding what is happening today. The USA is ripe for a nationalist takeover, all we need is a real leader to circumvent the "system" in place and to get power."

"The Marxist had no idea the backlash that subverting morality and degrading the middle class would have in the USA, and how powerful the American people themselves could be in deciding their own fate. There is no more powerful force on the planet than nationalists in the USA, we decide the fate of the world through our actions. If we take back our country the Jews can be stopped.."

"The Jews were afraid, they failed to get control of the "right" in the US , a people who are armed and prepared to use force to resist oppression, unlike Russia and Europe."

Here is an account of Nazi Germany and World War II that I found online while hunting out things for Wingnut Wrapup. There is nothing unique in anything it has to say, but it brings together so much that I have now heard over and over again from the right that I thought it was worth leaving a record of exactly the sort of attitude we are up against in this country. It's hard for most of us to comprehend the right's willingness to believe this sort of malignancy, but here it is. Read as much of it as you can take; as I say, I am mainly posting it to leave a record of what the right in this country is up to. I need hardly add my own comments, because I know that most of the people who read my blog know how ugly and deceitful this all is, but of course, being Green Eagle, I couldn't resist.Completely false. Germany had been the most technologically advanced country on earth since the middle of the 19th century. And the most prosperous country in the first three decades of the 20th century was, of course, the United States.They will believe anything, as long as it is a malignant, disgusting lie.A patent lie, but who'se counting?Ha ha.What, the Lusitania attack? First of all, that was not a false flag operation, it was a German atrocity. Second, anyone who knows anything about World War I is aware that the Lusitania sinking was not what got the US to enter the war, but discovery of communications between Germany and Mexico aimed at having Mexico attack the United States, in order to make it impossible for us to enter the war in Europe. In return, Mexico was promised that they would be given Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.Another malignant lie. In fact, while we are on the subject of false flag operations, a little actual fact:And...and...That's what happens when you start, and then lose, a war in which 50 million people are killed.The Poles were not under Communist control, and Hitler did nothing to find a "diplomatic solution" to getting Poland to give up its territory. And let's remember that Hitler believed that all the land between Germany and the Urals was rightfully Germany's.Austria did not want to unite with Germany. Stalin did not break the treaty; Hitler did, by sending three million troops into the Soviet Union. However, the pact had given Stalin what he wanted, which was a chance to build up his military to the point where it could defeat Germany. The three years that the nonaggression pact held essentially won the war for the allies; it was the greatest mistake Hitler ever made.Nonsense. Britain and France entered the war after Germany invaded Poland, because they had a treaty with Poland requiring them to do so if Germany invaded. After Chamberlain's miserable cowardice at Munich over the German invasion of Czechoslovakia, Hitler thought he could pull the same trick again with Poland, and the British would refuse to honor their treaty there too. He was wrong.The old lie. It's all about the Jews and their money.Because an unarmed small group is always declaring war on the greatest military machine the world had ever seen. But that's what they believe- the Jews really started World War II. This simply makes clear how impossible it is to ever argue with them on the basis of facts. These people have given themselves over to deranged hatred, and are essentially lost to the decent world.Well, some Americans did. Father Coughlin, Charles Lindbergh, Prescott Bush and a pretty good collection of Republican leaders, anyway.Nothing that Hitler had done up to 1941 could possibly have had that effect.This is, of course, another preposterous historical lie. The US cut off oil supplies to Japan, because they were using their military to perpetrate one of the most brutal campaigns of aggression against their neighbors that the world had ever seen. And the story about Pearl Harbor is a long discredited lie.Americans, who were behind the war except for a few traitors, like George W. Bush's grandfather, by the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, no matter how the Republican party tried to get the US to favor Germany.No one who knows a thing about Nazi Germany could believe that for a second. Yeah, Hitler said that, as he was actively preparing to crush England. And make the attempt he did, while still claiming that the English were his brothers, in the hopes of getting them to refuse to defend their country. Luckily for the world, the heroin addicted Goering did such a miserable job in directing the aerial bombardment of England, that Hitler's attack failed.Bullshit. Hitler's invasion of Russia was openly about reducing the world's entire Slavic population to slavery, and taking their land for Germany. This is shown over and over again in his comments, and in the genocidal actions he took against Slavs in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Unless you can tell yourself that the German siege of Leningrad, which lasted over 800 days and resulted in the deaths of a million and a half Russians, or roughly three times the number of deaths suffered by the United States in the entire war, was aimed at freeing the Russian people. And just in case you need more convincing, here are a few quotes from Hitler himself:Well, I guess this settles that point.Hitler's war strategy was, "a good offense is the best offense." Stalin's strategy was, "kicking the crap out of them over and over again is the best offense." Guess which one worked and which one didn't?I hadn't noticed that. Man, did I fall for the Jewish propaganda. Here are a couple of photos to help you decide who won the war:Jewish boots. Because so many Jews wear boots.A leader like you-know-who. Well, you got him. Let's see how that works out for you.Which you did so admirably by electing the worst President in the history of the United States. Man, George W. Bush must be thrilled not to have that albatross hanging around his neck any more.What, like the Bundys in Oregon? All three dozen of them? Standing up against the Jews' mighty armies? As far as I can tell, all the right in this country is prepared to do is to dress their fat, out of shape bodies up in camo, and have a day of cosplay out in the woods.Well, there it is, and I have to thank this unnamed author (Of course, I won't link to the article) for putting together all of the basic thoughts about World War II which I have seen in right wing thinking for at least a couple of decades (well, except for the holocaust denial thing, which of course this guy believes too.) When I first encountered degenerate comments like this, they were the province of a very small minority, but things have really changed. This is your Republican party today. This is what it really thinks. Do not be deluded by their hypocritical show of support for Israel; it is nothing but a tool for them to use to incite another World War. I could have never believed that this kind of attitude could be accepted by so many people, but this is the reality we live with today.
"In his first call as president with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump denounced a treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads as a bad deal for the United States, according to two U.S. officials and one former U.S. official with knowledge of the call.

When Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty, known as New START, Trump paused to ask his aides in an aside what the treaty was, these sources said."

"Trump, Changing Course on Taiwan, Gives China an Upper Hand...BEIJING  By backing down in a telephone call with Chinas president on his promise to review the status of Taiwan, President Trump may have averted a confrontation with Americas most powerful rival.



But in doing so, he handed China a victory and sullied his reputation with its leader, Xi Jinping, as a tough negotiator who ought to be feared, analysts said.



Trump lost his first fight with Xi and he will be looked at as a paper tiger, said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, in Beijing, and an adviser to Chinas State Council. This will be interpreted in China as a great success, achieved by Xis approach of dealing with him.

Lindsey Graham: Floor action to silence Warren long overdue...The bottom line is, it was long overdue with her. I mean, she is clearly running for the [Democratic presidential] nomination in 2020.

"WASHINGTON  The Trump administration is considering closing down the enforcement division of the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a report Wednesday evening from Inside EPA."



"GOP senator: Elizabeth Warren shouldnt criticize Sessions, because think of his wife." Jeff Sessions is a really fine person, Hatch said. Think of his wife. Shes a really fine person. Jeff has been here 20 years. Hes interchanged with almost all of us. Sometimes you agree with him and sometimes you dont, but hes always been a gentleman.

"National security adviser Michael Flynn privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that countrys ambassador to the United States during the month before President Trump took office, contrary to public assertions by Trump officials, current and former U.S. officials said.



Flynns communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were interpreted by some senior U.S. officials as an inappropriate and potentially illegal signal to the Kremlin that it could expect a reprieve from sanctions that were being imposed by the Obama administration in late December to punish Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 election."

The talks were part of a series of contacts between Flynn and Kislyak that began before the Nov. 8 election and continued during the transition, officials said. In a recent interview, Kislyak confirmed that he had communicated with Flynn by text message, by phone and in person, but declined to say whether they had discussed sanctions.

The emerging details contradict public statements by incoming senior administration officials including Mike Pence, then the vice president-elect."



"The Trump administration has prepared a new executive order that would extinguish regulatory controls designed to prevent US companies profiting from and encouraging the spread of conflict minerals that are inflaming violence in Congo.

A draft executive order, composed last week and obtained by the Guardian, proposes a two-year suspension of a portion of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms that requires US firms to carry out due diligence to ensure that the products they sell include no minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or neighbouring countries. The regulation was widely applauded as a mainstay of attempts to cut the umbilical chord between big business and violent warlords who have spread unrest throughout the Congo and caused the deaths of more than five million people since the 1990s."

"Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker recently visited the White House, prompting speculation that the Trump administration might be looking to follow Walkers model of anti-unionism. But following Walkers model means betraying the very people who put President Trump in office: frustrated working-class Americans."





Well, two days really, but who is counting?Let's start out with some foreign policy WINNING from the man who knows more than all the generals:He's negotiating with Putin and he never even heard of the most important US-Russia nuclear treaty in existence. But wait, there's more foreign policy WINNING today:The great negotiator at work! Just like with Mexico paying for the wall, he talks like a Mafia don, and then when he gets on the phone with his opponents, he caves. What a laugh this guy is. In two days, he has blown negotiations with Russia and China. The winner at work!And now, Republicans' ideas of free speech in the Trump era:It is only appropriate to shut up a sitting United States Senator if they are running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, I guess. Even though, of course Elizabeth Warren isn't. So, I guess it is okay to shut up any Democrat.And why would that be okay? Because stubborn, unreasonable Democrats won't go along with sensible measures such as this:And you've got to love this argument:Really, the nerve of Warren. Forget that Sessions is a corrupt racist. Don't you dare bring it up because he has a wife. Funny that nobody on the Republican side of the aisle thought of Obama's wife, or Bill Clinton's wife, or Gore's or Kerry's, while they were making hundreds of lying accusations against them.And the Young Republicans at Central Michigan University have taken the new Trump consciousness as an appropriate opportunity to send out the following delightful Valentine's greeting:Yup, Trump-bringing our country together. After certain elements have been eliminated, of course.And from the Washington Post, this exciting news:Inappropriate and potentially illegal. Sort of the definition of the Trump administration. Of course, thewas just too polite to add the term "treasonous."And absolutely no atrocity is too degraded for Trump if one of his backers can make money from it:Great news for Pat Robertson, the sainted religious leader who has used contributions to his tax-exempt foundation to trade in conflict diamonds for decades.And let's just end with one of the most oblivious comments I have heard in months:Come on. Every damned thing the Republican party has done for fifty years has been a betrayal of working-class Americans, and the suckers lap it up and send them back to Washington over and over again. Why should it be any different now?After two weeks in office, Trump took a weekend vacation, costing the taxpayers $3 million dollars. Now, after a grueling five day work week, he is off on another vacation, presumably racking up another $3 million dollar cost. And they screamed bloody murder when Obama took his first day off, after four months in office.
1 An Afghan refugee sits up after waking up in an abandoned warehouse, where he and other migrants took refuge in Belgrade, Serbia. Hundreds of migrants have been sleeping in freezing conditions in central Belgrade looking for ways to cross the heavily guarded EU borders.
A Hollywood talent agency has cancelled plans for a party celebrating the Academy Awards, known as the Oscars.

Instead, the agency is organizing an event to help the American Civil Liberties Union and the International Rescue Committee. It also has plans to donate $250,000 to the two groups.

United Talent Agency, known as UTA, announced the move on Wednesday.

The company says it represents actors and writers in the movie industry, as well as in television, books, music and digital media.



Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi is one of the agencys clients. He was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for his movie The Salesman.



Farhadi announced early this month he will not attend the Academy Awards ceremony on February 26. Iran is one of seven countries listed in an executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump. The order bars Iranian citizens from entering the United States for 90 days.

Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who stars in The Salesman, has also said she will not attend the ceremony in protest of the executive order.

Trump has defended the measure. He says it is necessary to protect American citizens and to prevent possible terrorists from entering the country.

Last week, a judge in Seattle temporarily suspended the ban on travelers from the seven countries.

A federal appeals court on Thursday refused to block the lower court ruling. President Trump plans to appeal the ruling, taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

United Talent Agency says its United Voices rally will be held in Los Angeles two days before the Academy Awards. The agency said it welcomes anyone who wants to express support for artistic freedom and their concern with growing anti-immigrant sentiment in our country and its potential chilling effect around the world.

UTA said the event is designed to help the American Civil Liberties Union and the International Rescue Committee, known as IRC, which work in support of civil rights and help refugees.

The IRC thanked the Hollywood talent agency for its support in a Twitter message.

Another talent agency, WME-IMG, has announced plans to form a Political Action Committee. The agency said the committee will raise money to support or oppose political candidates, ballot measures or legislation.

Im Dan Friedell.

Chris Hannas reported this story for VOANews.com. Marsha James adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

generosity  n. the quality of being kind, understanding and not selfish

cease  v. to stop happening: to end

rally - n. a public meeting to support or oppose someone or something

chilling adj. of or related to a discouraging or deterring effect, especially one resulting from a restrictive law or rule

compatriot  n. a person from the same country as someone else

hardliner  n. a member of a group, often a political group, that follows a set of ideas or policies

talent  n. a special ability that allows someone to do something well

client  n. a person who pays a professional person or organization for services
American Mikah Meyer has an unusual goal. He wants to visit all of the more than 400 properties operated by the National Park Service.

He spent January 2017 visiting historic areas in the southeastern United States.

One of his first stops was Fort Sumter, a former military position in waters just off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina.

Fort Sumter is famous for being the place where the first shot of the Civil War was fired. It is also where the first person killed in the conflict died.

After years of rising tensions between Northern and Southern states, the two sides clashed in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861. That was when the Southern army launched an artillery attack on Fort Sumter. Federal troops surrendered the fort a short time later. Union forces eventually fought to regain control of the base, and defeated the South in 1865.

As he stood inside the large walls of Fort Sumter National Monument, Mikah Meyer looked across the water to the port at Charleston. He imagined what the area must have looked like more than a century and half ago.

Youll see across that bridge, Charleston, South Carolina. It was under siege at one point for 17 months. There were cannons that could fire from where Im standing on the fort all the way to the old town

Meyer also visited the Charles Pinckney National Historic Site in South Carolina. There he had a chance to learn about Charles Pinckney, who helped write  and was a signer of -- the U.S. Constitution.

Some people call him our forgotten founding father, but he was a political figure of early America who helped shape what our eventual constitution ended up looking like

The National Park Service helps care for what remains of Pinckneys former home and farm. Park service workers tell the stories of 18th- century plantation life for free and enslaved people.

During his travels in January, Meyer had a surprise. Barack Obama, in his last few days as president, named a new national park site in Beaufort, just south of Charleston. It is called the Reconstruction Era National Monument.

The Reconstruction Era stretched from 1861 to 1898. It was a period when Americans struggled with the treatment of newly freed African Americans. The new national monument will help tell that story.

So all within the Charleston, South Carolina, area you have these three sites now that are really related to either America becoming America, or America figuring out who America is

Driving south into the state of Georgia, Meyer stopped at Fort Pulaski National Monument. Many observers believe the creation of Fort Pulaski was a major turning point in U.S. military history.

Built in 1861, the former base is considered one of the most modern posts of its time. It had a moat, with water that surrounded the whole fort.

Just an hours drive south, Meyer visited Fort Frederica on St. Simons Island. He walked among the ruins of this former 18th-century settlement.

Continuing south, he visited the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve in Jacksonville, Florida. He learned that a plentiful supply of oysters provided food for the Native Americans who once lived there.

Meyer noted that some areas are covered with oyster shells. Former wetlands are now walkable because the remains of shells have turned into earth. Meyer explains how oyster shells are used as building materials.

And its all of these little huts that were built out of a kind of paste of oyster shells and other minerals that, when mixed together, form, you know, sort of a brick-like substance

Continuing down the Florida coast, Meyer stopped at Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in the city of Saint Augustine. He also stopped at another former military post, the much smaller Fort Mantanzas.

Meyer said visiting these historic places helped him recognize the many things the National Park Service does to protect national treasures for all to enjoy.

Im Caty Weaver.

And Im Ashley Thompson.

Julie Taboh reported on this story for VOANews.com. George Grow adapted this story for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

siege  n. a military blockade of a base or a city

cannon  n. a large heavy gun

plantation  n. a large farm or place where agricultural products are grown

advanced  adj. modern

brick  n. a common building material
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is changing his deadly war on drugs.

The change came after the killing last October of a South Korean businessman by Philippine police officers working on the drug war.

The police agency blamed for killing the businessman has been suspended from anti-drug efforts.

Duterte has put the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in charge of anti-drug efforts. Duterte said the Philippine military would also assist efforts to stop illegal drug selling and use in the Philippines.

The businessman, Jee Ick-joo, was picked up by police and quickly killed, according to news reports in the Philippines.

The news reports said police led his family to believe Jee was still alive for several weeks, as they continued to ask for ransom payments.

Police offered no evidence that the businessman had any connection to illegal drugs.

Duterte criticizes corrupt police

Duterte spoke this week to 400 police officers reportedly under investigation for corruption and other misconduct.

He said corrupt police would be sent for two years to a southern island that is a stronghold of Islamist militants.

Duterte also spoke about former Colombian President Cesar Gavirias recent column in the New York Times. The column was titled, President Duterte Is Repeating My Mistakes.

Duterte called Gaviria an idiot for warning that throwing more soldiers and police at the drug users does not work.

Gaviria wrote in the New York Times column that doing so is not just a waste of money, but also can actually make the problem worse.

Reuters news agency reported that Duterte said his war on drugs is different than Colombias because shabu, or methamphetamine, is the common drug choice in the Philippines. The drug damages the brain. Duterte said the effects of cocaine, the drug of choice by Colombias sellers and users, are not as bad.

Last week, Catholic Bishops in the Philippines wrote a letter that was read at church services. The letter called on Catholics to speak out against the violent drug war.

Let us not allow fear to reign and keep us silent, the bishops wrote.

Human Rights Watch has been critical of Dutertes war on drugs. The group says that more than 7,000 Filipinos have been killed in the war on drugs since Duterte became president in June of 2016.

Human Rights Watch has asked for the United Nations to investigate.

Phelim Kine, the Asian director for Human Rights Watch said that the Philippine police wont seriously investigate themselves, so the UN should take the lead in conducting an investigation.

Bruce Alpert reported on this story for VOA Learning English based on reporting by Reuters and other news sources. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section and share your views on our Facebook Page.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

ransom - n. money that is paid in order to free someone who has been captured or kidnapped

misconduct - n. bad behavior

idiot - n. a very stupid or foolish person

methamphetamine - n. a powerful, addictive, stimulant that affects the central nervous system

cocaine - n. a drug that is used in medicine to stop pain or is taken illegally for pleasure

reign - n. to rule

conduct - v. to carry out
On Nov. 1, Linn Benton Food Shares warehouse in Tangent received two truckloads of food and household supplies arranged by the local branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
scholarship, news and new ideas in legal history
It is often asserted that the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 proved that HWA was right and he really did see the future.

This of course is nonsense. Herbert W. Armstrong said that Christ would return within twenty years in his book Mystery of the Ages. (PCG has since deleted those words so someone in there knows HWA spoke nonsense.) How convenient for them to forget this.

Also Herbert W. Armstrong never said the Soviet Union would collapse. He thought it would survive intact until a few years after Christ's return. It shows how biased some many in the COGs are that they never seem to notice this. This inconvenient truth is just tossed into the memory hole.

It is true that HWA said that some Eastern European states would break away from Moscow's orbit and join the European Empire he said would arise at any moment. But he never talked of the Soviet Union collapsing. He did not teach that. Also he portrayed the rise of the European Empire to be far quicker then what has actually happened. In Mystery of the Ages Christ was supposed to return by 2005 at the most.

So assertions that the fall of the Berlin Wall somehow prove that HWA was right is just complete nonsense spread by people who, for whatever reason, are still in denial that HWA was a false prophet who merely talked out of his own "human reasoning".
The Legal Theory Bookworm recommends Law and Order in Ancient Athens by Adriaan Lanni. Here is a description:

The classical Athenian 'state' had almost no formal coercive apparatus to ensure order or compliance with law: there was no professional police force or public prosecutor, and nearly every step in the legal process depended on private initiative. And yet Athens was a remarkably peaceful and well-ordered society by both ancient and contemporary standards. Why? Law and Order in Ancient Athens draws on contemporary legal scholarship to explore how order was maintained in Athens. Lanni argues that law and formal legal institutions played a greater role in maintaining order than is generally acknowledged. The legal system did encourage compliance with law, but not through the familiar deterrence mechanism of imposing sanctions for violating statutes. Lanni shows how formal institutions facilitated the operation of informal social control in a society that was too large and diverse to be characterized as a 'face-to-face community' or 'close-knit group'.

And from the reviews:

"Classical Athens was a marvel. With style and insight, Lanni scours the limited sources to identify the institutions that enabled the city to flourish."

Robert Ellickson, Yale Law School, Connecticut



"The Classical Athenian democracy, despite its relatively weak mechanisms of formal coercion, normally exhibited a remarkably high level of social order. This is a puzzling paradox that Harvard Law School professor Adriaan Lanni, building on her exemplary Law and Justice in the Courts of Classical Athens (Cambridge, 2006), decrypts and illuminates with her usual brilliance of insight and forensic skill in argument."

Paul Cartledge, A. G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow, Clare College, Cambridge, and co-editor of KOSMOS: Essays in Order, Conflict and Community in Classical Athens (Cambridge, 2002)



"This is a groundbreaking work. Lanni provides a fascinating analysis of the complex interplay of formal and informal norms and procedures, showing how such features as the expressive function of laws can help explain why, despite the unpredictable and inconsistent judicial enforcement of statutory norms, Athenians by and large adhered to both statutory and non-statutory norms."

Michael Gagarin, James R. Dougherty, Jr, Centennial Professor of Classics Emeritus, University of Texas



"In this masterful, deeply textured, in-the-round account of ancient Athenian law and social practice, Adriaan Lanni explores a deep mystery about ancient democracy: how did the Athenian state, with its limited coercive capacity, achieve a peaceful and productive social order? Lanni elucidates how law's expressive function dynamically interacted with formal Athenian legal institutions, and with litigants' strategic deployment of extra-statutory norms. As a result, we understand better than ever before how the Athenians successfully deterred socially destructive behavior, how they survived civil war, and how bold courtroom arguments can change social behavior through creatively reinterpreting the relationship between law and norm. Lanni's outstanding legal sociology reveals anew the startling similarities and discontinuities between ancient and modern approaches to democracy and rule of law."

Josiah Ober, Stanford University, California
A group of girls in Hillsborough County are looking to break barriers in the fields of science, engineering, and math through a new innovative program.

Young girls get chance to learn about science, engineering, technology

Students design, build small underwater drones

Girls Underwater Robot Camp opens doors for girls in science, tech fields

Twenty students got to design and build small underwater drones at Girls Underwater Robot Camp at the Museum of Science and Industry.

National Geographic explorer Erika Bergman is on a mission to inspire more girls to pursue careers in science, engineering, technology, and math.

"Girls don't usually focus on this, because most people stereotype it as a boys job. Ms. Erika has opened the door and said, 'women can do this!'" said 10th grader Alexia Hegedus.

Erika Bergman knows first had that woman are outnumbered in those fields.

"The ocean industry is still heavily male so it is rather unusual to be a submarine pilot. I'm only one of a couple in the world," Bergman said.

The National Girls Collaborative Project said woman make up only 29 percent of the science and engineering workforce. The numbers are even lower for minority women, at just 10 percent.

The girls say part of the problem is that they're just not exposed to this often.

"Normally we might not get these opportunities and we might not get to actually know that there's a career out there for us," said 8th grader Jaylin Cole.

That is what the camp is all about -- opportunity.

Girls between 10 and 15 years old were chosen from six schools in underserved areas, based on the skills they've shown in school.

"We're working with melted metals which is really cool. It's something you don't usually get to do in a classroom or at home," said 8th grader Shrisha Saravana.

The students are soldering electronics, welding acrylic, and wiring and programming drones from scratch.

For Erika Bergman, she said the girls' new found confidence is the most rewarding lesson.

"I'm now more inspired by them than they could ever possibly be by me," she said.

The girls get to spend the night Saturday at the Florida Aquarium. On Sunday they're deploying the robots in the Tampa Bay off the deck of the Aquarium's catamaran.

The camp is part of Tampa Bay's mission, aimed at promoting education.
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County treasurers would be required to break down on peoples property tax notices exactly how much a taxpayer pays for each approved bond they are paying for, if a bill introduced Friday becomes law.

This would let people see how much they are paying on each given bond and whether the projected cost it was sold with lines up with their actual tax bills, Rep. Ron Nate, R-Rexburg, its sponsor, told the House Revenue and Taxation Committee.

In response to a question from Rep. Stephen Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, who said Twin Falls County already provides some of this information already, Nate said different counties provide the information in inconsistent ways.

Responding to a question from Rep. Dell Raybould, R-Rexburg, Nate said he has heard from some county treasurers who are concerned about the extra work the bill could create. Nate said he sympathizes with them, but that the value of letting people know exactly how much theyre paying and what its for outweighs that.

The committee voted unanimously to introduce the bill, clearing the way for a hearing later.
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TWIN FALLS  A doctor determined a Twin Falls man charged with sexually abusing a young girl is unfit to proceed through court, prompting the felony charge against the man to be dismissed Friday.

Earl Jay Casper, 63, was charged in October with a felony count of lewd conduct with a child under 16.

In charging Casper last year, prosecutors said he admitted to the abuse, telling a detective in August he began touching the girl in October 2015, tried avoiding her for several months, and then molested her another dozen times between spring and July 2016.

Police began investigating Casper in early August after the girls mother caught Casper on two occasions with his hand under her nightgown, court documents said. Casper allegedly told a detective he inappropriately touched (the victim), but claimed the young girl initiated the contact and acted sexually towards him; he also said he was not always sexually aroused when touching the girl.

In November, a judge signed an order for Casper to undergo a psychological examination to determine if he was fit to proceed through court.

Idaho law prevents defendants from being tried, convicted, sentenced or punished if they lack the capacity to understand the proceedings against him or to assist his own defense due to mental disease or defect.

In December, a doctor found Casper was unfit to proceed with the case due to an unspecified neurocognitive disorder, possibly due to the onset of dementia, according to court documents filed Friday.

The doctor also found that the mental disorder was not a health condition that could be successfully treated in a locked facility, and that it was highly unlikely that Mr. Casper would become fit to proceed in the future.

Casper will not and cannot be held in custody, but he will be placed under the guardianship of his wife. A term of the guardianship order is that Casper cannot have children in his home and is prohibited from places where children congregate.

But prosecutors cannot legally pursue the charge against him because of the courts finding.

This is not a statement that he didnt do something, Twin Falls County Prosecuting Attorney Grant Loebs told the Times-News Friday. This is a statement that he cant be tried  were not allowed by law to proceed.

Prosecutors took extra steps to safeguard the community while crafting the terms of the guardianship order, Loebs said. The term that precludes Casper from being around children is not typical.

This is not a choice we made (to not prosecute), but a requirement of the law, Loebs said. Weve done everything we could do with this guardianship order to protect the community.
TWIN FALLS  A Twin Falls woman testified Friday she vividly remembered the night last October when the ex-girlfriend of a man she was kissing burst into his bedroom and immediately started punching and kneeing her.

Police say the attack left the victim with a broken nose and large gash across her head requiring 10 staples.

Prosecutors charged 24-year-old Alicia Marie Hernandez in December with a felony count of aggravated battery causing great bodily harm.

Hernandez appeared in court Friday for a preliminary hearing in the case. After hearing testimony from the victim, a witness and a police officer who responded the night of the incident, Magistrate Judge Roger Harris bound the case over to district court, ruling there was substantial evidence for Hernandez to stand trial.

In the days following the Oct. 29 attack, Hernandez told police she was texting her boyfriend, but when he stopped texting her, she went to his house, where she found him in bed with another woman, court documents said. Hernandez said she struck the other woman only in self-defense out of fear she would be attacked.

But the alleged victim and the homeowner where the attack took place both testified Friday that the man in the center of the love-triangle had broken up with Hernandez at least a month before. The witness said Hernandez came into the house uninvited and went straight to her ex-boyfriends bedroom.

Then the door swung open, then I was hit repeatedly, the victim testified. The first time was straight in the face, on my nose  That was hit a few times.

The woman said she fell to her knees on the ground as Hernandez continued to punch her.

I was trying to block the bleeding with my right hand, and by that time she had a hold of my hair and was hitting her knee against my head, the victim testified. I was trying to block her from hitting me with my left hand, which I wasnt successful.

Did you try to fight back? a prosecutor asked.

No, I couldnt see yet, there was too much blood, the victim said. I couldnt open my eyes.

During the beating, the woman testified, Hernandez yelled at her that the man she was kissing was her boyfriend.

I was screaming back that I didnt know he had a girlfriend, the victim testified.

After another brief attack by Hernandez in the kitchen, the woman said she went to the emergency room, where doctors told her she had a broken nose and the gash in her head would require staples.

Hernandez, who is out of custody on $5,000 bond, will next appear in district court to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. That court date has not been set. She faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
TWIN FALLS  Dutch Bros plans to celebrate the companys Dutch Luv Day on Tuesday with a fundraiser for South Central Community Action Partnership.

The local franchise will donate $1 for every drink sold that day. The money will go toward food boxes for families and individuals in need.

We are excited to celebrate Valentines Day by showing our communities love, Dutch Bros co-founder Travis Boersma said in a statement. Dutch Luv Day is a day we are able to come together as a community to serve people who are in need of food.

Last year, Dutch Bros Twin Falls donated $2,260 to Twin Falls South Central Community Action Partnership. It is hoping to surpass that amount this year.

No man, women or child should ever be forced to go without a meal, or have to choose between paying utilities bills or purchasing food, Boersma said. These local organizations that we have the opportunity to partner with on Dutch Luv Day are working towards a common goal  to eliminate hunger in our communities.
BOISE  The House Transportation Committee introduced two competing bills Friday to extend the surplus eliminator that puts some of Idahos excess revenues into the states roads and bridges, while killing a proposed 5-cent hike in the gas tax.

The committee also voted to introduce another version of a bill to move gas tax money the state police receive into a transportation fund. To replace Idaho State Polices cut, the Legislature would tap the general fund. The idea has been introduced but hasnt passed in previous sessions.

The surplus eliminator was passed as part of a session-ending transportation funding deal in 2015, but will expire at the end of May without action. Rep. Clark Kauffman, R-Filer, introduced a bill Friday to direct both the Idaho Transportation Department and the Local Highway Technical Assistance Council to establish a Strategic Initiatives Program to fund transportation projects based on priority. The surplus eliminator money, which consists of half of any excess general fund balance at the end of the fiscal year, would be split, with 60 percent going to ITD and 40 percent to local governments.

Rep. Terry Gestrin, R-Donnelly, introduced a competing bill that would simply extend the existing surplus eliminator for another two years, with all of the money going to the state as it does now.

The committee introduced both bills. Rep. Jason Monks, R-Meridian, said that while he isnt against local governments getting some of the money, he thinks the committee should hash the issue out.

I think that would be a healthy discussion to have, he said.

The committee also killed, on a 9-7 vote, another bill Kauffman brought to raise the fuel tax by 5 cents for the next three years. This would have brought in another $49 million a year in transportation funding.

According to ITDs estimates, Idaho is still short $165 million a year for what it needs just to keep up with maintenance and short $281 million to pay for the expansion projects it would like, even after a $95 million hike in transportation spending in 2015. Kauffman pointed to the harsh winter, including heavy snow earlier this year in much of the state and flooding in the Magic Valley and around the state as all the more reason to support his proposal.

With the degradation of the roads, the washouts, the bridges weve lost, I think this bill is even more timely, he said.

A majority of his colleagues on the committee didnt agree.

We have a surplus this year and a decent surplus, and I am not inclined to raise taxes in a surplus year, said Rep. Brandon Hixon, R-Caldwell.

The committee then voted 10-6 to print a bill to shift, over five years, the roughly $17 million a year gas tax revenue the Idaho State Police get into road spending.

In no way is it trying to take money away from ISP, said Committee Chairman Rep. Joe Palmer, R-Meridian, who introduced it. It is just trying to move the gas tax completely onto transportation funds.

The idea would be that ISP would then be paid for out of the general fund rather than having a share of the gas tax as a dedicated source of revenue, with the gradual phase-out of gas tax funds, Palmer said, intended to give everyone time to adjust.

ISP has opposed the idea in the past. A similar bill was voted down in the Senate last year.
BOISE  Four senators who were part of a working group studying child deaths and Idahos faith healing exemptions sent a letter to the Senate president pro tempore Friday outlining five possibilities for the future of the states controversial law.

The options range from doing nothing to removing the exemption entirely.

Currently, if a child doesnt get medical care and gets sick or dies, the parents wont be prosecuted under the usual laws that would apply if they believe in faith healing and were treating the child through spiritual means alone. Child deaths that would likely have been avoidable with medical treatment have been documented in recent years and going back many decades among members of the Followers of Christ, a group that doesnt believe in conventional medicine and has a number of congregations in southwestern Idaho.

The issue has became politically controversial in Idaho after Oregon, where some Followers also live, got rid of its exemption, bringing more media attention to Idahos laws and child deaths here. Boise Democrat John Gannon has been pushing to change the law since 2014 but none of his bills have ever gotten a hearing, with many Republicans saying they dont want to infringe on religious freedom by changing the law.

In their letter to Pro Tem Brent Hill, R-Rexburg, Sens. Dan Johnson, Jeff Siddoway, Marv Hagedorn and Mark Harris say the options are to:

leave the law alone,

broaden exemptions to include other types of religious practices or alternative treatments,

remove the exemptions in cases where death or serious harm is both likely and likely preventable with medical care,

remove the exemptions entirely, or

adopt reporting requirements for parents who treat their children through spiritual means or prayer, giving a child protection judge authority to intervene if necessary.

All four senators are Republicans. Sen. Dan Schmidt, a Democrat, was also on the panel but lost his re-election bid.

Hill and House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, created the working group last year to study the issue over the interim at the request of Gov. C.L. Butch Otter.

The letter summarizes the working groups findings and the public testimony for and against changing the law, and summarizes the five options without recommending any of them.

Finding the right balance in Idaho law between protecting children and honoring a parents free exercise of religion is challenging, the letter concludes. In spite of this challenge, we believe that religious beliefs and practices should continue to be recognized as methods of treatment in health care choices in Idaho. In fact, all of the actions studied above support this belief in one way or another.

Other lawmakers have been crafting legislation to narrow or get rid of the exemptions, but it remains to be seen if any of these proposals will get a hearing. Hill said the Senate leadership plans to meet Wednesday to discuss how to move forward.
Death by Chocolate fundraiser a success

The Rotary Club of Twin Falls would like to thank all of the businesses and individuals who sponsored, donated and helped at Rotarys 12th Annual Death By Chocolate Fundraiser to make it such a successful event, especially its corporate sponsor, First Federal. We raised a little under $30,000 this year that will go to local charities, Rotary and its projects.

Without the participation of the following chocolate vendors, Rotary would not have an event. So please show your appreciation for them helping Rotary raise money by supporting their businesses. They are: Alices Sweets; Ashley Manor; Bridgeview Estates; Brookdale TF; Cactus Petes Casino Resort; Candy Cravings; Canyon Ridge High School; Carlas Creations; Cloverleaf Creamery; CSI Baking, Pastry & Culinary Arts; Daisys; Fredericksons; Magic Valley High School; Mountain View Barn; Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory; Scooters; Sharis Cafe; Sips n Sweets Treats; St. Lukes Magic Valley; Sweet Creations by Tammy; Taylor Made Cakes; Twin Beans Coffee; Twin Falls High School and Twin Falls Senior Center.

Rotary would like to thank all those who attended this years event and past events for supporting its fundraiser all these years. Hope to see you at next years Death By Chocolate!

Thank you,

Jill Skeem

Rotarys Death By Chocolate Event chairwoman

Magic Mountain

to the rescue

I would like to say thank you to Gary Miller at Magic Mountain. He came to my rescue when I locked my keys in my car with all my ski equipment in it. He was very happy to help and did everything he could. I am thankful that the Miller family and staff takes such great care of their customers. They truly go above and beyond.

Mackenzie McBride

Twin Falls

Local Foundation Helping Local People

On behalf of Interlink Volunteer Caregivers, thank you to The Janice Seagraves Family Foundation for a generous grant award! These funds are greatly needed for organizational operations in order to provide critical services to citizens in our community. Your generosity will allow IVC to continue helping elderly, chronically ill and disabled individuals remain safe and independent while living in their own homes where they desire to be.

The Janice Seagraves Family Foundation provides so many of our local partnering nonprofit organizations the opportunity to continue their good work. IVC is honored to now be among the many agencies this foundation helps. Please know we are forever grateful for your vote of confidence.

On behalf of IVC volunteers, clients and board of directors, thank you one and all for believing in us! You have truly given many people the Gift of Home!

Edie Schab

Executive director, Interlink Volunteer Caregivers

Thank you to so many

Family, friends, community and health care providers,

I will never forget the day I was told my kidneys were no longer functioning and I was placed on emergency dialysis. This was a life-changer for me and my family. The potential long-term side effects were devastating news that triggered a journey we knew nothing about but knew we had to be eager to explorer.

I very humbly want to thank all the people who rallied behind me, giving me strength, support and hope. As always my family played an important role in helping me maintain good spirits. My friends were passionate in making sure I understood they were always there if I needed them. The many Health Care Providers were knowledgeable, compassionate and eager to see me get better. Everywhere I went from Gooding to Twin Falls to Boise and eventually Murray, Utah, I couldnt have asked for better care from any of these remarkable people. And to my wife, well  you always give me strength. Thank you.

And then there is that one special person, that Hero, my Hero, who took the time to think about the future and what one last good deed they could do should their time expire here on earth. This Hero Im talking about is my organ donor. Thank you and may you rest in peace.

I thank all of you for the fundraising events, donations, well wishes, prayers and personal visits. This community has reminded my wife and me why we are so proud to call Wendell our home.

Brad Christopherson

Wendell

Thank you for your support

On behalf of the Magic Valley Fly Fishers, we are grateful to the following donors for their contributions in support of our annual scholarship fundraising banquet: Advantage Archery, Anglers Habitat, Arryan Hicks, BASF Corporation, Betsy Morishita, Boot Barn, Bryan Woodhouse, Clear Lakes Country Club, D&B Supply, DL Evans Bank, Dale Quigley, Dave Anderson, Dexter and Cindy Ball, Eye Center, Glenn Buscher, Gowan Chemical, Greg and Gloria Misbach, Idaho Angler, Idaho Joes, Janitzio Restaurant, Jason Hicks, Jayva Hicks, Jimmys All Season Anglers, Kurts Pharmacy, Larry Johansen, Les Reitz, MAD Technologies, Magic Valley Bowhunters, Microchips, Mike and Marsha Chojnacky, Northwestern Mutual Life, Norms Cafe, Northwest Mutual Life, Olsons Ski & Board Tune, Papa Murphys Pizza, Pizza Pie Cafe, Purdys RR Ranch, Quales Electronics, Red Canary, Red Shed Fly Shop, Rio Products, River and Adventure Toys, Robert Jones Realty, Ron Hicks, Salmon River Scenic Run, Sav-Mor Drugs, Schiermeier Taxidermy, Scott Knight, Simms Fishing Products, Sorans Turf Club, Standard Printing, Syngenta Crop Protection, The Fly Shop, University of Idaho, Watkins Distributing, and West Addison Sportsmans Supply.

This event raises money to fund scholarships for CSI fisheries students, Trout in the Classroom, and governmental and non-governmental agencies to improve fly fishing opportunities and habitat.

Don Morishita, president

Magic Valley Fly Fishers

The Letters of Thanks column will publish letters of up to 200 words from:

Organizations thanking contributors or supporters.

Individuals thanking public agencies and businesses for extraordinaryservice.

Send letters to letters@magicvalley.com. If you would like to purchase a classified ad to express gratitude of a personal rather than public nature, call The Times-News Customer Service department.
MALTA  Assembly lines of people held sandbags while others wielded shovels Thursday in several Mini-Cassia cities as people banded together to help others protect their homes, property and animals from encroaching floodwater.

Students from Declo were bused to Albion to help bag sand, and Raft River High students were on their fifth day of filling bags. Minidoka County students were released early because roads were washing out in the county.

Minidoka County School District Superintendent Ken Cox said school was released early Thursday due to road conditions and cancelled on Friday.

School was also cancelled Friday at Raft River and Almo due the road conditions.

Its kind of all a blur, said Jared Gardiner, a 17-year-old Raft River High School student. But, its fun to me. I like helping people.

Principal Eric Boden said the students are volunteering for the job.

They have been great, he said. I havent had one say no yet.

The worst area in Malta is south of town where three roads are impassable, Boden said.

Ross Lloyd of Almo said there was not flooding yet in that area but he was picking up a pallet of sandbags at the high school as a precaution.

Andrea Scott, with Raft River Electric, said the company has been using its equipment to help with the relief effort.

This is a small community and if I had something wrong there would be 100 people on my doorstep to help, Scott said.

The ranchers, she said, are being hit the hardest.

They are calving and some of them cant get feed out to their animals, she said.

The Declo Fire Department is collecting non-perishable food and supplies for the relief workers at the Mini-Cassia Chamber of Commerce. On Thursday, food went to workers in Albion and Malta, said Fire Chief Winn Osterhout.

Pat Field, who lives outside Albion, worked alongside the students to fill sandbags that were placed on pallets. Fork-lift drivers then picked up pallets and delivered them to low areas along Marsh Creek, which runs through town.

Many farmers fear the winter wheat in the ground will be lost and the ranches could lose up to 25 to 40 percent of their calves this year, Field said.

When the weather changes back and forth like this the calves develop pneumonia and die or they freeze to the ground after they are born. When you are calving 500 head, you just cant keep up with it, Field said. Were survivors out here; thats why we live out here. We are used to dealing with Mother Nature, but right now were just doing the best we can.

Declo High School made an announcement at the school asking for volunteers, and about 50 students signed up to help. They were bused from the school to Albion to join the crews working there.

We know how bad it is and you never know when something like this will hit Declo, said Christian Kidd, 17.

In Minidoka County, Sheriff Eric Snarr said flooding is widespread with the worst north of Rupert.

Idaho Highway 24 between Rupert and Acequia at milepost 8 to 9 were closed and many county roads are flooded, Snarr said.

If people need help and cant get it, they need to say something, Snarr said. Dont wait until its too late.

Authorities are also concerned about sewage backing up and the quality of ground water in wells.

The Cassia County Commissioners held an emergency meeting Feb. 8 to renew the county-wide emergency declaration. Language was added to request assistance from state and federal agencies.

Minidoka County commissioners also declared an emergency.

Motorists should always cross floodwater with care because the asphalt can be washed away or the water can be deeper than expected, Cassia County Undersheriff George Warrell said.

Becoming submerged is a danger, he said. If it looks deep, dont enter it, especially if you have a small vehicle.
Contact: Attila Nemecz

Attila Nemecz Attila.Nemecz@beaufortccc.edu

WASHINGTON, NC- Reverend Dr. Robert Cayton was welcomed back to the Beaufort County Community College Board of Trustees on Tuesday, February 7. The Beaufort County Commissioners appointed Rev. Robert Cayton to the BCCC Board of Trustees at their meeting on November 7, 2016 in response to a recommendation from BCCC Board Chair Laura Staton. Rev. Cayton, with his wife Debra alongside him, was affirmed by district court judge Darrell Cayton.He fills the position left open by resignation of Cynthia Davis, who was appointed in 2014 and whose term would have expired in 2018. As the board searches for a new president, Rev. Cayton will help guide the process, as he has helped with searches for both BCCC and Barton College.wrote Staton in her letter of recommendation to Chairman Jerry Langley.The Beaufort County Commissioners had previously appointed Rev. Cayton to the BCCC Board of Trustees in 1991 where he served until 2003. In 2003, he was appointed by the Governor to continue serving on the board until 2014. He served as board chair from 2002- 2007. With 23 years of service on the board, Rev. Cayton is one of the longest serving members and brings with him the institutional memory that is crucial for stable and continuous governance.Rev. Cayton has long history of community service. A resident of Aurora, he has served as a pastor for 46 years, most recently at Reelsboro Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Concord Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Pamlico County. He serves on the board for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the U.S. and Canada, Barton College and the Southern Albemarle Association, where he served as president three times. He served as the chair of the Food and Consumer Science Foundation where he assisted NC State University with dean searches. In the past he has served on the boards of the N.C. Association of Community College Trustees, the Rural Planning Organization for Transportation, the Highway 17 Association, where he represented Beaufort County. This list does not include the many local boards he has served on. He has also served his community through his nine years of service on the Beaufort County Commission. His wife Debra is a retired from the Beaufort-Hyde-Martin Public Library System.enumerated Rev. Cayton.he said.Rev. Cayton will hold the position through 2018.
LOS BANOS, Laguna-The Philippine government-hosted Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture announced recently that the scholarship tenable at Tokyo University of Agriculture (NODAI) in Japan is now open.

SEARCA, scholarship secretariat, said researchers employed at the University of the Philippines Los Banos can now apply for the Dissertation Doctorate Program for Agriculture and Natural Resources.

The scholarship is also open to researchers working full-time at the Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) in Malaysia, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) and Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB) in Indonesia, and Kasetsart University (KU) in Thailand.

All four universities including UPLB are founding members of the Southeast Asian University Consortium for Graduate Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC) forging the dissertation doctorate scholarship with Tokyo NODAI.

Tokyo NODAI is a UC associate member, while University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada and Georg-August University of Hohenheim in Germany are affiliate members.

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Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit Jr., SEARCA Director, said the scholarship is one of the many academic grants provided by the UC.

SEARCA initiated the UC in 1989 to pursue agricultural human resource development in Southeast Asia by linking top agricultural universities in the region to facilitate free exchange of information, facilities, and expertise.

To be eligible, Saguiguit said, the applicants must hold a masters degree in agriculture or related fields and published three peer-reviewed scientific papers in scholarly journals, and have made a substantial progress in a research project that will deserve a dissertation doctorate.

He said the scholarship provides funds for research as well as annual travel to and accommodation at Tokyo NODAI for one month to consult with their assigned academic adviser in order to complete their research within the three-year scholarship duration.

Applications must be sent to Los Banos-based SEARCA not later than March 2017, he added.

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By Noah Feldman

US PRESIDENT Donald Trumps phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the weekend visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are important reminders of a basic reality: While Americans obsess over the constitutionality of the presidents executive order on immigration, the rest of the world keeps on going. Measured by number of people it affects, foreign policy outranks domestic affairs. If Trump manages to create diplomatic chaos in Asia, history wont pay much attention to the rest of his presidency.

The call with Xi, in which Trump agreed to continue the US One China policy, was a sign of foreign policy rationalityand a recognition that the US is weaker relative to China than Trump seems to have imagined before he took office.

As if to prove it, Xi used Trump-style tactics before the call, insisting that he wouldnt get on the phone unless Trump agreed in advance to embrace One China. Thats more or less what Trump did to Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, insisting that Nieto shouldnt come to Washington unless he agreed in advance to pay for a wall along the US-Mexico border.

The difference, of course, is that Nieto didnt knuckle under, preferring to give up the visit, and Trump did. It cant have been pleasant for Trump to admit that, as the White House put it, he agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor our One China policy. But Trump had little choice. He couldnt forgo all communication with the leader of the second-most-influential country in the world.

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In practice, One China means only that if a country wants to have diplomatic relations with China, it cant also have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. US presidents since Richard Nixon have been prepared to live with this.

But Trump called the policy into question in December through his much-publicized phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. Then, Trump told Fox News, I dont know why we have to be bound by a One China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.

Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Donald Trump shake hands after a press conference in the East Room of the White House Feb. 10, 2017 in Washington. AFP

Trump now has an answer to his question: The reason the US has to be bound by the policy is that it would lose too much by abandoning it. The price that China could extract would be much too high for any benefit that might be gained by creating diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

And that benefit would certainly be minimal. The US has very close de facto ties to Taiwan, including a purposefully vague quasi-commitment to defending it from Chinese attack.

The only reason to end the One China policy would have been to use it as a bargaining chip with China. Trump clearly thought that he might be able to gain concessions from doing so.

Xis point in making the policy a condition of the phone call was to show Trump that he cant change the terms of the bargain between the two countries unilaterally. This round went to Xi.

Abes visit affords Trump another opportunity to walk back hostile comments and conduct Asia policy rationally. On the campaign trail, Trump sharply criticized the traditional US-Japan relationship, characterized by US security guarantees and strong trade ties. Among other things, Trump said the US should be prepared to walk in negotiations with Japan, leaving it to defend itself against North Korea.

It might be good strategy in a real estate deal to be able to walk away from the table at any time. But thats preposterous coming from a superpower, particularly one that has sought for almost 75 years to maintain its hegemony in the Pacific. Its worth remembering that Japan didnt choose to be under US security guarantees. The US made that arrangement after defeating Japan in World War II and forcing it to relinquish its capacity for offensive war on a permanent, constitutional basis.

To walk away from the table with Japan would mean inviting Japan to arm itself and assert a dominant position in Asia. It would also signal US weakness vis-a-vis China.

Now Trump will have to use the visit to reassure Japan about US security guaranteesin other words, to walk back his previous policies.

As for trade, Trump will have to explore some way to work out a bilateral deal, because his first week in office he trashed the Trans-Pacific Partnership that would have included Japan. Abe had expended significant political capital getting legislative agreement to join the TPP. Trump will be hoping to take advantage of the efforts Abe made on behalf of closer ties to the US. That would be a lot easier if Trump hadnt cut off Abe at the knees with his TPP announcement.

The upshot is that Trump now has the chance to start pursuing a more tenable Asia policy. That would be good. And if it works, maybe he can start rethinking some of his domestic policies, too. I can think of at least one executive order that would benefit from being scrapped and redrafted from scratch.

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IN SEPTEMBER last year, Philippine National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa went to Colombia to exchange notes with that countrys leaders in the fight against illegal drugs.

Colombia has been dealing with powerful drug cartels that have earned for it the reputation of being the worlds primary supplier of cocaine.

There is less confidence in Colombians these days. President Rodrigo Duterte now says its former president, Cesar Gaviria, is an idiot.

In an op-ed piece published in the New York Times last week, Gaviria, who was president from 1990 to 1994, urged Mr. Duterte to reconsider his approach to tackling illegal drugs.

Trust me, I learned the hard way, Gaviria said, under whose term the notorious trafficker Pablo Escobar was taken down.

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The war against illegal drugs, the former Colombian president wrote, cannot be won by armed forces and law enforcement agencies alone. His ruthless campaign notwithstanding, the government failed to eradicate drug production, trafficking and consumption and pushed drugs and crime into neighboring countries.

Gaviria now supports a new approachone that strips out the profits that accompany drug sales while ensuring the basic human rights and public health of all citizens.

Gaviria tells Duterte that military hardware, repressive policing and bigger prisons are the answer. Real reductions in drug supply and demand will come through improving public health and safety, strengthening anti-corruption measuresespecially those that combat money launderingand investing in sustainable development.

He adds, citing the spate of killings that have characterized Dutertes war: The fight against drugs has to be balanced so that it does not infringe on the rights and well-being of citizens.

Its an unwinnable war, Gaviria says, as he expresses hope that Duterte does not fall into the same trap.

But almost on impulse, and likely before he even read the op-ed piece, Mr. Duterte descended into his usual folly of talking foul against anybody who dared criticize him, no matter how well-meaning and constructive the criticism is.

The President also said he is taking full responsibility for the actions of law enforcers whom he has tasked to combat the drug menace. I will answer for everything that I ordered, he said.

Duterte also split hairs and said the Philippines situation is different from Colombias. They deal with cocaine and marijuana, he said, while we are dealing with the virulent effects of shabu.

Again we are at a loss on whether to take the Presidents word at face value or apply creative imagination to decipher a profound message from a confounding man.

Mr. Duterte may just be acting in characterthe maverick leader who will not be lectured by anybodybut its a character that is fast becoming trite and exasperating, especially since the results we have been seeing are far from ideal.

Nobody has the monopoly of good sense and wise solutions. But anybody can get drunk silly with arrogance and power.

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1. Brendan Nyhan reading list on the authoritarian turn and U.S. politics.

2. Ben Casnocha put a lot of time into this blog post on why people work as much as they do. And I know why he did it.

3. In San Francisco, sometimes even the renters support NIMBYism.

4. Survival is Syrias strategy. And whats behind the flare-up in eastern Ukraine?

5. Influential Mexicans are pushing an aggressive and perhaps risky strategy to fight a likely increase in deportations of their undocumented compatriots in the U.S.: jam U.S. immigration courts in hopes of causing the already overburdened system to break down. (WSJ)

6. The U.S.-educated Mexican economists who negotiated the trade pact in the 1980s are worried more about their own countrys protectionist tendencies than about Donald Trump. (WSJ)
The European Union this week launched a $47 billion development fund for Africa.

The African Economic Development Fund is to help accelerate African countries economic growth and most importantly, reduce the migrant numbers moving into Europe.

The fund is also going to help the digital industry in Nigeria which the EU sees as one of the areas with the strongest growth potential.

The vice president of EU Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip, said the EU is already developing a strategic framework for the implementation and disbursement of the fund

Our aim is to help developing economies. We have decided to create the European external investment fund which is meant to cover main risks to attract private investment, He said.

In his words, this kind of fund was really efficient in the European Union where we created investment for strategic investment and we believe this fund will go a long way to help the African economy.

He pointed out that more than one million refugees and migrants have arrived in the EU, adding that EU has agreed on a range of measures to deal with the crisis.
Ousted Tunisian First Lady Leila Ben Ali and her husband convicted in absentia several times for stealing millions in cash and jewellery belonging to state; have been handed a new 10-year prison sentence for corruption.

The couple was found guilty earlier this week by a court in Tunis in a case involving administrative and financial corruption, said prosecution spokesman Sofiene Sliti.

The case also saw two other officials convicted, including a former minister for the environment who was sentenced to five years and another ministry official sentenced to three years. Since 2012, the couple has been sentenced to decades in prison for embezzlement, illegal possession of narcotics, fraud and abuse of power.

Ben Ali and his spouse Leila Trabelsi currently live in exile in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where they sought refuge following the mass uprising against the regime in January 2011.

The 61-year old Leila dubbed the Queen of Carthage and reputed to have a voracious appetite for power and money had admitted that the flashy lifestyle of her Trabelsi clan  which had a stranglehold on business in the country  played a large part in ending Ben Alis 23-year rule.

Their control over the North African countrys economy was rampant with stakes in banks, airlines, car dealerships, radio and television stations and big retailers.
South African Police and security forces on Thursday, fired teargas to drag opposition lawmakers out of the parliament after the group denounced President Jacob Zuma as a scoundrel and started a brawl in the chamber.

President Zuma was to present the State of the Nation address.

Tensions had been rising ahead of the session as Zuma ordered over 400 soldiers to help maintain law and order during the event. That order was subsequently rescinded after opposition parties strongly protested.

The main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) was led out of the chamber by their leader Mmusi Maimane minutes after members of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters party (EFF); all dressed in red, were ejected from the chamber on the orders of the Speaker of the Parliament.

Zuma is rotten to the core, said Julius Malema, leader of the EFF. Other opposition legislators described the president as a scoundrel and a constitutional delinquent.

Zuma continues to face growing criticism from the public, civil society and the opposition over a series of damaging corruption scandals, worsening unemployment levels and slowing economic growth.

Zuma, who took office in 2009, had to reimburse the state more than $500,000 in a scandal over upgrades to his private home.
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Senate Majority Leader Brown uses 'constitutional crisis' to describe standoff between General Assembly and governor



A seat for acting Military and Veterans Affairs Secretary Larry Hall remained empty as the Senate Commerce Committee attempted to hold a hearing Wednesay to confirm Hall. (CJ photo by Dan Way)

An empty chair was pulled up to a scuffed table, upon which rested a tablet, a pencil, and a name card for "Larry Hall." A room full of senators, media, and visitors encircled the table to await Hall's arrival Wednesday as the first of Gov. Roy Cooper's cabinet appointees to be scheduled for a Senate confirmation hearing.Hall, the veterans and military affairs secretary nominee, never showed, prompting a television newsman to muse that perhaps a Clint Eastwood moment was in store. The Hollywood action star awkwardly interviewed an empty chair, which represented President Barack Obama during his stage appearance at the 2012 Republican National Convention.Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow, was among those who were not so amused by Hall's decision to thwart the will of Senate Republicans to impose what they believe is a clear advise-and-consent role to confirm gubernatorial appointees. That authority appears in the state constitution and was enshrined in a state law passed late last year.A three-judge Superior Court panel had ruled the previous night in favor of Cooper, who sued to block the confirmation process for Cabinet members. The panel issued a temporary restraining order directing the Senate not to proceed with confirmation hearings.Asked if the will of the Senate to confirm Cabinet members, and the order of the court to bar the action until a ruling is delivered Friday have created a constitutional crisis, Brown was as sparse with his words as he was quick to answer.he responded from his office, shortly after the Senate Commerce and Insurance Committee adjourned without Hall showing up. Committee Co-Chairman Wesley Meredith, R-Cumberland, said the confirmation hearing would be reset, pledging,Brown said.Cooper said in a statement released by his press secretary after the committee meeting let out.In a response on Twitter, Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said:Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, faulted Republicans for creating a problem where none should have existed.McKissick said of Republicans forging ahead with the confirmation hearing after the three-judge panel told them to scrap the process until a formal ruling is issued.McKissick said.He also expressed concern over a joint statement issued Tuesday night by Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland in response to the temporary restraining order. They said the judges'"It's a very veiled threat, and I think it's improper," McKissick said.he said.Like Brown, Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, said he is prepared to fight for the legislature's constitutional powers.Rabon said when asked whether he believed the judiciary has final say over constitutional matters.he said.Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, said he does not believe there is a separation-of-powers crisis.Hise said. "I see it as a misinterpretation" by the judges, and errant reasoning to direct the legislature not to hold committee meetings at which it conducts its constitutional duties.He put little stock in McKissick's contention that Cooper insists he has not yet made "official" Cabinet appointments, which he has until May 15 to do. For that reason, McKissick said, RepublicansHise said.The law allows provisions for temporary department heads to decide in the absence of a secretary, even if the interim person is the as-yet-unconfirmed nominee, Hise said.An interim department head can serve until 30 days after the General Assembly adjourns,he said.As an example, he said, Hall
THE TRUE COST OF ALL THAT 'CHEAP' LAOR THAT DESTROYED AMERICA THE BIG SECRET DEMOCRATS DO NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW: Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeless largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens.
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After mostly disappearing from public view for 80 years, a 1929 Technicolor film called "King of Jazz" will screen at the Roxy Theater on Monday.

The movie, heavily focused on famed bandleader Paul Whiteman, won an Oscar for art direction and featured the first on-screen appearance of Bing Crosby, along with a performance of George Gershwin's iconic "Rhapsody in Blue."

The screening was arranged by University of Montana music professor Nancy Cooper.

Cooper found out about the film through several members of the cast who have small parts. She was researching her great-aunt, Anna Maude Van Hoose, who was a musician. Her pianist in the 1930s and '40s was Felipe Delgado, who makes an appearance in the film.

Once Cooper learned about the movie, she kept track of the restoration efforts. The National Film Registry of the Library of Congress marked the film for such a task, which involved splicing together a complete film from multiple copies that each bore damage in different sections.

Cooper said director John Murray Anderson's vision is "dazzling" in the online clips she's seen. The music-centric film, with animation portions, was costly for the time period and made an untimely debut at the start of the Great Depression. After a short theatrical run, it was re-cut.

After it "re-premiered" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, it was made available for wider distribution. She reached out to the Roxy, where it will screen on the theater's digital projection system, the same one it uses for brand-new first-release movies.

Cooper will be joined by fellow UM faculty members James Randall (musical theater and musicology), Rob Tapper (jazz studies) and Pamyla Stiehl (musical theater and dance history).

Fact & Fiction will have copies of a book, titled "King of Jazz: Paul Whiteman's Technicolor Revue," for sale.
Our two grandsons are a great reminder to me of how individuals from the same gene pool can be so different. The same was true of our own two children but its fun to watch it play out with a new generation. Both boys had same gene pool to draw from but it blends very differently in each.

The older grandchild  3 years old  is Mr. High Energy. You generally know where he is because he is making noise of some sort and he is running. It may just be in circles in the living room, but he is running. His younger brother  14 months old - is a stealth monkey. He is much quieter and where older brother is on a constant horizontal run, the little one is looking for ways to go vertical. Hes a climber. He was playing quietly under the dining room table. I turn away and then back and he is still quiet but now on top of the table  smiling at me.

There has been much said lately as to how people are more alike than they are different. That goes for all people in all places. We are humanity and share common needs for hope, for community, for life. And like children who seem so different in so many ways despite shared family genes, we all share something that binds us together.

In the Judeo-Christian scriptures we are told that all humans were created in the image of God. That can mean many different things to different people or groups, but for me it means is that there is, within each living human being, a spark of the Divine. Call it spirit, call it soul, or refer to it by any term you choose. The human creature was wired to seek for and connect with something outside of self  beyond self  that is also, paradoxically, a part of self.

The fact that we are connected on such a deep level does not remove our individuality. My two children will always be very different, as will Mr. High Energy and the stealth monkey. But they also carry a part of me within their nature and being. So it doesnt matter what you believe or how you choose to express your belief; it doesnt matter if you are a warrior or a pacifist, a male or a female, a Palestinian or an Israeli, a Christian or an atheist, a conservative or a liberal, a redneck or a snowflake, we have a common connection.

No matter your sexual identity, your ethnic birthright, your age, your education, your pocketbook or how much power has been bestowed on you or claimed by you, we all have the same common connection. There is within each of us a common spark of the Divine, whatever you believe that to be and it binds us far more strongly than anything in this world can sever. Id much rather celebrate that community than argue our differences.
Over concerns that an ancient sport was getting too modern, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks commissioners approved letting archers use lighted nocks on their arrows.

The lighted nock has always made a lot of sense to me, FWP Commissioner Matt Tourtlotte said during the boards Friday meeting. I would hate for it to be a gateway for this other technology to come tumbling into a sport that has its roots in a primitive core. But I advocated for it in the past, and I support it now.

The nock is the notch at the end of an arrow that slips over the bowstring. Current Montana rules dont allow any artificial light, luminous chemicals or electronics on archery bow sights or arrows during hunting seasons. Those additions are allowed for archers hunting during the general rifle hunting season. Fridays meeting changed the rule to allow lighted nocks during archery-only hunting seasons.

The archery hunting record service Pope and Young Club previously did not consider animals taken with lighted or electronic assistance. But the club changed its rules in 2015 to allow lighted nocks.

Its almost like having a tracer bullet being used, Commissioner Gary Wolfe said. If an animal jumps but doesnt run off, you adjust your shot and shoot again.

Wolfe added it could encourage hunters to take legal shots at the end of the day they might not take if they had to recover the animal in the dark. While there was nothing officially wrong with that, and it might mean fewer game animals went unrecovered, it also took away one of the sports inherent ethical challenges.

On the other hand, supporters noted that lighted nocks make it easier for archers to recover arrows that might otherwise be lost until they stab through a tractor tire or farmers foot.

Commission Chairman Dan Vermillion argued the board had done a thorough job listening to the hunting community on the values of lighted nocks, and was in a better position to monitor the change than the Legislature. A bill to allow lighted nocks is currently progressing through the state Capitol, and Vermillion said board approval might make that unnecessary.

A one-month public comment period between December and January drew 1,515 responses, with 1,400 in favor of allowing lighted nocks. Another 114 opposed the idea and one had no comment. Supporters included the Montana Bowhunters Association, while the Traditional Bowhunters of Montana opposed it.
Missoulas International Rescue Committee office welcomed four new refugees to town Friday, a day after a federal appeals court refused to reinstate the Trump administrations travel ban on refugees as well as visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The new arrivals brings to 12 the number of refugees sent to Missoula since President Donald Trump issued an executive order with the bans on Jan. 27. Eight Eritreans arrived on Feb. 1, two days before U.S. Judge James Robart of Federal District Court in Seattle blocked Trumps immigration order.

An IRC spokeswoman said while the order went into effect immediately, resettlement agencies were allowed arrivals until Feb 3.

The nationality of the newcomers Friday could not be immediately determined. Missoula IRC interim director Patrick Poulin didnt return a request for comment.

According to a U.S. State Departments Refugee Processing Center website, theyre not from any of the seven countries targeted in Trumps order, nor from Eritrea or the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Those two nations are represented by 47 of the 67 newcomers to Missoula through the refugee program.

Nine Syrians and five Iraqis have landed in Missoula since October. Those two nationalities are on Trumps list of seven, along with those originally from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

I wouldnt say its been business as usual under these very fluid weeks, but arrivals are now coming, and from all countries, said Mireille Cronin Mather, who directs Pacific Region offices for the IRC. We have had no indication that we will not continue to get arrivals, albeit under the new 50,000 Presidential Determination.

That number is less than half the 110,000 requested by President Obama last fall.

In an email Friday afternoon, Mather said there have been close to 40,000 arrivals to the United States in the federal fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

So the balance is not very much for the remainder of the fiscal year. It is also of course unknown what action the administration may take since the suspension of the EO was upheld.

The Associated Press reported that Trump's chief of staff said he expects new executive orders to be "enacted soon" in response to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision Thursday to block the immigration ban.

Reince Priebus told reporters Friday that "every single court option" is on the table as the administration contests the action.

A White House official said the new order could be a modified version of the one signed last month or a new version altogether. The official spoke anonymously because the issue is still under review.

Priebus says the White House is "fighting out this case on the merits, which will be proven ultimately 100 percent correct and vindicated on the merits."

The IRCs president and CEO hailed the appeals court decision.

David Miliband said he is heartened the three-judge court, which included one George W. Bush appointee, showed that care for refugees and commitment to American security go together.

The confusion and chaos that resulted from the Administrations hasty and harmful executive order should be a lesson to keep intact carefully developed procedures that have kept America safe, Miliband said in a statement on the IRC website. We are grateful that we can get back to work resettling refugees who have fled the terrors of war and violence, while also caring for those who remain trapped in conflict zones.

As this ruling will almost certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, in the meantime, the IRC remains committed to serving our refugee clients here in the U.S. and in more than 40 countries around the world.

Mather, whose office is in San Diego, said the IRC in Missoula will continue to see arrivals and to work to integrate refugees into the very welcoming community there. But now we need more citizen support than ever to inform elected officials that the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program works extremely well as it is. The chaos and confusion that happened after the Executive Order is proof of what happens when you upset a very balanced system.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.
My great-grandmother, Adell Rogers, came from Wisconsin on the back of a covered wagon, at the advice of her doctor who believed the West would cure what ailed her. She lost a brother along the way, but she recovered, eventually even helping to drive the team.

Settling on what would become Rogers Lake, and eventually moving on to Libby, she rowed her kids across the mighty Kootenai River to school every day. I have a letter from her mother who, distraught at her daughters decision to go West, warned her, that place is no good for nothing except Indians (a warning I am not proud to share that reflected her ignorance and lack of exposure to Native people and cultures).

She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless she persisted. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines insulted my great-grandmother and all female Montana pioneers when he admonished U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, telling her to sit down. Instead of contesting the Senate Majority Leader, Daines went along, and couldnt even look at Warren as he addressed her. In fact, he nearly mumbles in clear humility and shame at the role he has to play in this historic moment in our nations history.

Daines, I played that video for my 14-year-old daughter. I explained to her that Warren was trying to read a letter from Coretta Scott King, wife of slain civil rights letter Martin Luther King, addressing concerns about Justice Jeff Sessions' potential judgeship 30 years earlier. I then read the letter to her and fielded her ensuing questions. We discussed Jeff Sessions' abhorrent background and his attempts to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens. When we were done, I told her to remember that Warren had persisted, and that, unlike Daines, she was defending the rights decreed in our Constitution.

We will remember, senator.

Andre Zollars,

Lewistown
Contact: Patrick Gannon

Patrick Gannon patrick.gannon@ncsbe.gov

RALEIGH, N.C. A Haywood County Superior Court jury on Thursday convicted 52-year-old Dewey George Gidcumb Jr. of voting twice in North Carolina's March 2016 primary, a Class I felony.Gidcumb, a Haywood County resident, voted in the Republican primary during the early voting period, then again on Election Day, a violation of G.S. 163-275(7). He received a suspended prison sentence of five to 15 months, 12 months of supervised probation, 24 hours of community service and a $100 fine, plus court costs.The Haywood County Board of Elections first uncovered the possible crime and forwarded it to the Investigations Division of the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement. After an investigation, State Board Chief Investigator Joan Fleming referred Gidcumb's case to District Attorney Ashley Welch in the 30th Prosecutorial District, who pursued charges.The jury determined that Gidcumb not only voted twice, but that he did so with intent to commit a fraud, which is required under state law in such cases. Fleming commended the Haywood County BOE for identifying the double voting and District Attorney Ashley Welch for her willingness to bring the case to trial.Chief Investigator Joan Fleming said.said District Attorney Ashley Welch.
How could this come about? First, destroy the truth through fake news and strategic lies, creating doubt and outright opposition to all forms of expertise, including science; then destroy the credibility of traditional news media, so that the truth has no widely accepted voice; identify a demagogue who can create a right-wing populist, brown-shirted movement through appeals to fear, resentment, xenophobia, racism and rejection of the system, including government; install Christian fundamentalism as the de facto official, or dominant, religion, while fomenting hatred of other forms of worship; concentrate on transforming the federal judiciary into an instrument of the political and religious right; curry the favor of conservative corporate leaders and billionaires through tax reductions for the wealthy and deregulation, so that free-wheeling capitalism can overpower democratic government; arrange for the sale of public lands, via the states if necessary; enact voter suppression laws across America, aimed at diminishing the votes of the poor, minority groups and college students; force public universities to abandon curricula that concentrate on critical thinking and the creation of good citizens in favor of simply training manpower for private enterprise; and now, at the most fundamental level, destroy our public schools.
HAVRE  A Havre (HAV'-ur) man has pleaded not guilty to charges of repeatedly beating his girlfriend and keeping her locked in a room for days.

The Havre Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/2lAQWAY ) Rick Valdez is charged with partner or family assault, kidnapping and destroying or tampering with a communications device.

He entered his plea Wednesday.

Charging documents say a woman told Hill County sheriff's deputies she had been kept against her will in a room at Valdez's home and beaten repeatedly for four days in January. She said Valdez had accused her of stealing a prescription medicine, which she denied.

The woman said she escaped Jan. 18 while Valdez was in the bathroom.

Authorities say her face was swollen and bruised and she had two black eyes.

___

Information from: Havre Daily News, http://www.havredailynews.com
GREAT FALLS  A proposal to pursue the disposal of a fishing access site in Great Falls that has become a law enforcement headache caused some Fish and Wildlife Commission members a bit of heartburn during their meeting on Friday.

White Bear fishing access site, located along the Missouri River six miles south of Great Falls, was donated to the state agency a decade ago. Since then Fish, Wildlife and Parks has dealt with under-age drinking, illegal drug use, violent behavior, public disturbances, vandalism and litter at the site during the summer.

Its a big safety concern, said Commissioner Richard Stuker, who has fielded complaints from surrounding landowners about the property.

As a last resort to stem the problems, FWP closed the site during the summer the last two years. Meanwhile, the agency has been seeking property elsewhere that it might be able to trade to rid itself of the White Bear problem while still not seeing a net loss of public access. But no land trades could be found. So FWP proposed selling the site outright.

Were not planning on this being the normal approach, said Don Skaar, FWPs Special Projects Bureau chief. There is still good public access in the area.

But given the current political debate over how public lands should be managed, a debate that drew about 1,000 people to a rally at the state capitol last week and two years ago, Commissioner Dan Vermillion said he could not endorse moving forward with the proposal.

Im hard pressed to see why a sale is our only option, he said.

Also troubling to some of the commissioners was the fact that money from the sale of the access site would go into a trust fund rather than to the purchase of another access site.

Commissioner Matt Tourtlotte, of Billings, said he wanted FWP to have more time to dispose of the property.

We need to be very careful how we set precedent, he said, to ensure sportsmen and -women dont see a net loss of property or funds. I fear it will create problems down the road.

In the end, the commission decided to move forward with another summer closure of the site while still searching for a possible land trade.

Fishing access sites dominated much of the commissions time during fisheries issues. Also on the docket the commission approved proceeding with the pursuit of a 1.5 acre fishing access site just outside Edgar that would allow floaters and anglers to reach the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River. Carbon County has proposed donating the site to FWP.

The commission appreciates this, Vermillion said. Im strongly supportive.

The commission also endorsed pursuing a lease agreement to improve the Milwaukee fishing access site along the Madison River, just outside of Three Forks, so a deteriorating road can be repaired. A formal agreement was apparently never established when the property was acquired in 1979.

The group also endorsed providing Gallatin County an easement on Nixon Gulch Road where it crosses the Gallatin River and FWP has a 271-acre fishing access site, to allow the county to build a new bridge. The county would not pay the state any money for the easement. The realignment will require FWP to build a new access road to the site.
HAMILTON  Two men and a woman will appear in Ravalli County District Court next week on charges tied to a robbery last May at the Lucky Lils Casino in Stevensville.

The three have already been convicted and sentenced in federal court in a case that involved armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping and a high-speed chase that occurred in Missoula last May just a few days after the robbery in Stevensville.

Nick JR West, 39, Thomas Earl Dempsey, 36 and Carissa Lynn Kopp, 24, are currently being held at the Ravalli County Detention Center.

According to an affidavit, Dempsey and West allegedly entered the Stevensville casino at about 11:40 p.m. on May 19 armed with handguns, and wearing all-black clothing and masks.

The casino's three patrons were locked in the bathroom after giving up their cellphones. The clerk was held at gunpoint, allegedly by Dempsey, who ordered the casinos employee to begin extracting money from a cash drop system. The machine dispenses cash at intervals after a code is entered.

The clerk and patrons were held for about 25 minutes. During that time, Dempsey and West collected $8,600 in cash, a carton of cigarettes and $75.58 from the clerk, according to the affidavit.

During the robbery, Dempsey allegedly was communicating with Kopp through a Bluetooth cellphone connection. Kopp was waiting in a vehicle outside listening to a police scanner and relaying law enforcement traffic to Dempsey, according to the affidavit.

It was later determined that the Lucky Lils robbery was closely tied to three similar robberies in Missoula in May, including the May 26 robbery at Deanos Casino that resulted in Dempsey and West carjacking a Washington State vehicle with a family of four inside. Kopp fled after overhearing that law enforcement had been dispatched to the casino.

The two men eventually dropped off the two children and their grandmother following a high-speed pursuit. The final victim was left with the vehicle after the two men abandoned it north of Missoula.

The men were arrested later that day.

The three were indicted in federal court in June 2016. They all pleaded guilty and were sentenced in federal court earlier this week.

The alleged crimes committed in Ravalli County were not included in the federal case.
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Ester Rae Boyd Daniello Malmfeldt, age 83, was born on June 6, 1933 in Beaufort County, NC and died on Tuesday, February 7, 2017 in Carolina Shores, NC.She was the daughter of the late Ernest Alton Boyd and Marthenia Maybelle Waters Boyd of Slatestone Road, Washington, NC. She was predeceased by two brothers, Ernest Haywood Boyd and Colton Gene Boyd and a niece, Kimberly Everett. She was married to Salvatore Anthony Daniello for 26 years. They divorced, and 18 years later, she married Gordon E. Malmfeldt. She lived in Bowie, MD from 1952 until June, 2001, when she and her husband, Gordon, moved to Carolina Shores, NC.Ester graduated from Bath High School in June 1951. She left Washington in 1952 to go to Washington, DC to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and worked there for 36 1/2 years, retiring on July 1, 1988. While working with the FBI, she earned an Associate of Arts degree from the American University in Washington, DC and a Para-Legal certification from MD University in Baltimore, MD.Ester started her own business with Mary Kay Cosmetics in 1981 while still working with the FBI. In January 1983, she debuted as an independent Mary Kay Sales director and continued in that position for the next 25 years. She earned the use of many Mary Kay cars, including the pink Cadillac, and she won many awards for being in Queens Court of Sales and Production. She surrendered her Mary Kay directorship in 2009.Ester did volunteer work in the Brunswick County area, mainly Carolina Shores and Calabash, NC, after she moved there in 2001. She organized several fundraisers for Alzheimer's in connection with the Organization for the National Association of Retired Employees (NARFE). She was a board member of the Emergency Medical Services of Calabash and served as treasurer for the board. She volunteered at Shallotte Assisted Living in Shallotte, NC, the EMS thrift store, was an active member of the Ladies Auxiliary of American Legion Post #503, and held several offices in that organization. She was a past Worthy Matron of Adah Chapter of the Eastern Star and held other offices in that organization in Mount Rainier, MD and was a current member of Brunswick OES #341. She was a member of Eastern Star for over 50 years.Ester was an avid reader and belonged to two book clubs. Her favorite memories were being selected to work for the FBI and having Mary Kay Ash, President of Mary Kay Cosmetics, teach her directorship classes in Dallas, Texas. Her greatest hobby was cooking, which she learned from her mother on the farm where she was raised. She was a member of Rosemary Church of Christ, where she learned how important it was to have a church family.She is survived by Gordon E. Malmfeldt, her husband; Salvatore Anthony Daniello, her ex-husband; Salvatore Anthony Daniello, Jr., her son; Dee C. Staver, her daughter; Dee's husband, Richard Staver; four grandsons: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who reside in Florida; a sister and brother-in-law, Arlene and Roland Morin; a step-daughter and step-son-in-law, Dianne and Michael Hutchinson of Carolina Shores, NC and two great-grand-daughters, Layla Marie and Lily Rose Staver.The family will receive friends from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM on Sunday, February 12, 2017 at Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington.A funeral service will be held at 11:00 AM on Monday, February 13, 2017 at Rosemary Church of Christ officiated by Marty Hale Alligood. Burial will follow in Oakdale Cemetery. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Richard Staver and Roland Morin will serve as pallbearers. The service and burial will be followed by a celebration feast for the family at Rosemary Church of Christ.In lieu of flowers, please send memorial contributions to Rosemary Church of Christ, 5226 Slatestone Road, Washington, NC 27889 or Calabash Covenant Presbyterian Church, 8820 Old Georgetown Road, Sunset Beach, NC 28468.A Celebration of Life Memorial service will be held at the Calabash Covenant Presbyterian Church in Calabash at a later date.Condolences may be sent to the family by visiting www.paulfuneralhome.com Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington is honored to serve the Malmfeldt family.
The folks at Headframe Spirits say they have a vision for the future, and that vision includes making Butte home to one of the largest distilleries in the U.S.

Wife-and-husband duo and company owners Courtney and John McKee unveiled part of that vision this week during an open house where community leaders and county officials got a chance to tour the companys latest addition: a manufacturing facility on the Butte Hill.

The McKees announced plans for the Butte Hill facility in July with a proposal they presented before Buttes Council of Commissioners. The proposal, ultimately approved, was to rent from the county 30,000 square feet of a 60,000-square-foot warehouse in the Kelley Mine Yard. There, the company owners said, they wanted to move their packaging, storing, and still-manufacturing operations from their then-stronghold at MSE, an industrial complex at 200 Technology Way south of Butte.

After pouring concrete floors and making upgrades to wiring, lighting, and heating and sewer lines, the company moved into the warehouse Labor Day and are now renting the facility for about $4,200 per month.

The move is part of a multi-phase vision to eventually purchase the property and possibly open a tasting room or bring a third-party restaurant to the site, the McKees said in July. But for now, Courtney McKee told The Montana Standard Wednesday, those things remain in the idea stage, and the Kelley is not a public-facing facility.

Should Headframe achieve its long-term goals, the company could become the largest distillery west of the Mississippi.

In previous articles in the Standard, the McKees said the expansion could enable the company to bringing 50 to 100 jobs to the Mining City and produce a barrel of whiskey every seven minutes.

And thats a vision for the future that the county and the state of Montana are putting their money on.

The company has received financial assistance from Buttes Urban Revitalization Agency in recent years, the latest a $1,450 grant to help make roof repairs at its building at 21 S. Montana St.

Similarly, in late December, commissioners agreed to steer $50,000 from its Hard Rock Mine Reserve Trust Account to help cover renovation expenses at the Kelley warehouse. During the Dec. 21 agenda, Headframe representatives told commissioners they had invested $600,000 of their own money into the project.

And most recently, the governors office issued a press release Tuesday listing Headframe as a recipient of a $60,000 grant from the Big Sky Economic Development Trust Fund, which the company will use to expand and hire eight more employees.

And one of those positions has already been filled.

During Thursdays tour, attendees were greeted by Headframes newest hire, design engineer Kris White, a graduate from Montana State Universitys Mechanical Engineering Technology program.

Hes ours, and we love the hell out of him, said Courtney McKee Wednesday, explaining how White will redesign equipment to it make more efficient and less expensive to manufacture.

He does all the nerdy math stuff, she said.

On Thursday, White demonstrated a computer model of Headframes newest still, the 30-foot-high CF-5000, which will boast five times the production capacity of the companys current largest still, the CF-1000, while employees worked behind him welding the first model, which is destined for a company in Reno, Nevada.

Headframe co-owner John McKee, who led the tour, said Headframe beat out German company CARL to sell the CF-5000 still to the Reno buyer.

Its a big feather in our cap, said John McKee.

But White wasnt the only new hire present during Thursdays tour. Guests were also greeted by Chris Byles, Headframes new production manager and distiller.

Byles spoke with the Standard about upcoming Headframe products: the Kelley Single Malt Whiskey, Speculator Rye Whiskey, and a limited-addition whiskey called The Steward, which is aged in barrels formally used for wine.

According to John McKee, The Steward came about when the owners of a Canadian company commissioned the whiskey from Headframe but couldnt get their operation off the ground. Rather than letting the whiskey go to waste, the two companies decided to sell the whiskey under the Headframe label.

When asked when the new spirits will be released, White said sometime around September but that its really up to the whiskey.

Youre looking at color; youre looking at flavor, he said. The alcohol tells you when its ready to be released.

In addition to the new whiskies, Courtney McKee said Wednesday that Headframes 2017 outlook includes shipping its first CF-5000 still and growing in a mindful and staged manner.

She said the company is also registering a holiday in honor of the Kelley Single Malt Whiskey.

The holiday, St. Kelleys Day, will be Sept. 17, which McKee said is the opposite day of St. Patrick's Day.

(Because) on opposite day, you should also have something fun to do.
DEER LODGE  A judge entered a not guilty plea in Deer Lodge district court recently for a Bear River, Wyoming, man facing drug and DUI charges.

Steven Thomas Parrish, 46, faces felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs and criminal endangerment and misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence of dangerous drugs and seat belt violation.

Judge Ray Dayton entered the not guilty plea on Parrish's behalf, and a mental evaluation will be sought by Parrishs attorney.

A warrant was issued for Parrish after he failed to appear for a court hearing in February 2016. He was arrested in Layton, Utah, on Jan. 4 and extradited to Powell County. Deputy County Attorney Patrick Moody received a call from Wyoming officials who are investigating a large interstate transportation of drugs case in which Parrish is a suspect.

Parrish is in the Powell County jail, but Moody said Parrish is an extreme flight risk because he knows of charges pending in Wyoming. He asked the court to increase Parrishs bond; Judge Dayton increased the bond to $20,000 with conditions.

According to court records shortly after 8 p.m. on Nov. 29, 2015, concerned motorists reported an eastbound vehicle without headlights on swerving all over Interstate 90. The vehicle crashed at mile marker 178 north of Deer Lodge, and the defendant, who was not wearing a seat belt, was unresponsive and barely breathing. He was treated at the scene and taken by helicopter to a Missoula hospital. A test determined his blood contained methamphetamine and amphetamine.

In other recently court proceedings:

Ralph Kalvin Sharette pleaded guilty to criminal possession of dangerous drugs, methamphetamine, a felony.

According to court records, Sharette was seen in his vehicle by a police officer at I-90 Auto Plaza on Nov. 23, 2016. The officer knew Sharettes drivers license was suspended and stopped the defendant and was informed by dispatch Sharette was wanted on a warrant out of Butte-Silver Bow County. The officer requested Sharette empty his pockets, during which a glass container with a baggie of 0.25 ounces of methamphetamine was discovered.

A pre-sentence investigation was ordered. Sharette is free on $10,000 bond pending further proceedings.
At the recent Ecumenical meeting, spiritual leaders gathered in prayer for Christian unity. Our prayers addressed the deep divisions in our world among religions and especially in politics. The upshot has been, and can be, fairly brutal attacks  at least verbally, if not worse  on those who think and believe differently. It is a good thing that people are passionate about values and beliefs, but the outrages can become destructive and counterproductive to good and loving outcomes.

William Miller wrote a wonderful book called "Make Friends With Your Shadow." In it, he shows how we all have a shadow side that we can learn from. That shadow side can become violent and even damaging to ourselves and others. There is a serious lack of civil discourse, especially in our politics these days. Miller claims that we can become shadow reflectors when we simply rage against the outrages of others. We become shadow absorbers when we make calm, reasonable responses to those we disagree with in our discourse.

It has been said that we dont have to accept every invitation to fight. Calm, reasonable arguments can be instructive to both sides of any issue. The inclination is too often the case that we believe, If only you would change, then we all would be happy. We are all of us control freaks with what we consider the only good answers to religious and political differences. We can all stand up and advocate for good causes, and that work is productive when there is more reasonable light than outraged heat.

When we realize that God is in charge of outcomes and were just responsible for processes, than we can meet each other with more calm and reasonable give and take.

Jesus talked about taking the beam out of our own eye before removing the splint in an others eye. That means we all need to examine our own hearts and behaviors before taking responsibility for correcting others.

We can be a house united when spiritual values of patience and tolerance are found in our discourse.
Beaverhead County outfitters and businesses lost an estimated $5 million in 2015 due to turbidity showing up in the upper Beaverhead River, according to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

While the state doesn't have numbers for the 2016 financial hit, FWP fisheries biologist Matt Jaeger estimates that 10,000 fewer anglers showed up to fish the Beaverhead in 2015 than they did in 2013.

Jaeger said the fish are taking a hit, too. While the turbidity is not affecting fish density, it is causing them to get skinnier. Jaeger said its because trout are visual foragers.

The see something coming, they eat it, said Jaeger. If the waters cloudy, its more difficult to see food coming.

The upper Beaverhead River has been hit in the summer months by turbidity issues since August 2014. FWP and the Department of Environmental Quality held a meeting earlier this week in Dillon to discuss their latest findings on the cause. But DEQ water-quality planning bureau chief Eric Urban told the Standard that the agency doesnt fully know the mechanisms of whats causing the turbidity. But they do know it starts in the bottom of Clark Canyon Reservoir, about 30 miles south of Dillon.

Kyle Flynn, DEQ environmental engineer, said warmer temperatures in summer months appear to be a significant factor. Flynn said the reservoir was 3 to 6 degrees warmer than average in June 2016. The turbidity reappeared in late June 2016. Ever since it first appeared in August 2014, the turbidity subsides in cooler months.

DEQ officials have observed that cool water from the bottom of the reservoir is released into the river. In addition, the turbid water is also escaping the bottom of the reservoir into the river.

DEQ officials said they need to do more studies this summer, but the agency has ruled out some previous theories of the cause. Flynn said one primary theory is sediment collected at the bottom of the reservoir was the cause, but Flynn said DEQ found that not to be the case.

The composition of the water was also ruled out.

More scientific work is needed to ultimately recommend the best action to take, DEQ officials said.

Meanwhile, Dillon outfitters Brad Platt and Tim Tollett both expressed frustration that there is not yet a solution. Tollett said everyone who uses the river needs to find consensus and move forward.

Platt wishes the state showed a greater sense of urgency.

Their patience could be our demise. Im sitting here looking at a blank August calendar, Platt said Friday.

Platt, co-owner of Anderson and Platt Fly Fishing Guide Service, said his guiding business lost $25,000 to $30,000 last year because of the Beaverhead Rivers turbidity problem.

And that doesnt reflect the additional hit his business took in lost retail. Platt and his partner, Jonathan Anderson, sell outfitting equipment in their Dillon store.

Tollett, co-owner of Frontier Anglers in Dillon, called the lost business devastating.

We lost 200 trips last year. Thats about a third of what we do, Tollett said Friday in a phone interview from his Dillon shop.
Mrs. Sarah Elizabeth "Sally" Burdge Talley, age 99, a resident of Washington, NC, died Wednesday February 8, 2017 at Ridgewood Manor Nursing Home.A celebration of life will be held 4:00 PM on Friday, February 10, 2017 in the sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church in Washington. Reverend Ken Hall and Reverend Danny Allen will be officiating. Honorary pallbearers include Wells Armstrong, Charlie Alligood, Mike Moore, Bill Redding, Jimmy Buck and Lewis Jones.Mrs. Talley was born on March 12, 1917 in Red Bank, NJ to the late Howard Burdge and the late Elizabeth Burdge. She attended Women's College of the University of North Carolina, now called UNCG, where she received a teaching degree. Mrs. Talley taught at Washington High School for 35 years. She loved teaching and touched many lives while working at Washington High School. Mrs. Talley was a people person who never met a stranger. She loved her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Mrs. Talley was a member of the North Carolina Retired Teachers, Delta Kappa Gamma and First United Methodist Church Women's Circle.Survivors include three children, Mary Lee Redding of Wilson, Billy Talley, Jr., and wife Pat of Washington, Sarah Kevitt and husband Wayne of Brevard, seven grandchildren, Sara Redding, Bill Redding and wife Pam, Kathryn Armstrong and husband Wells, Kim Jones and husband Lewis, Brent Talley and wife Elizabeth, Estyn Kevitt and significant other Yaro Neils, Ashley Kevitt, nine great grandchildren and a niece, Linda Waters.She is preceded in death by her husband, William "Bill" Talley, two brothers, Dr. Lawrence Burdge, Everette Burdge, and her twin sister, Mary Burdge Taylor.The family will receive friends at the home of her granddaughter, Kim & Lewis Jones, 115 S. Reed Drive, Washington, NC 27889.In lieu of flowers memorial contributions may be made to the First United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 715, Washington, NC 27889.Condolences may be addressed to the family online by visiting www.paulfuneralhome.com Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington is honored to serve the Talley family.
MUSCATINE, Iowa  Elly Lloyd, the owner of Elly's Tea and Coffee House on Second Street, said from the children she used to take to school in the mornings to the adults that regularly frequent her coffee shop, she loves connecting with the community.

Visiting with her customers, Lloyd said, is one of her favorite things about running the business.

"Mainly Im just a people person so I love the community, and contributing to other small businesses in the community," she said.

She visited the coffee shop on her birthday, shortly before she planned to retire from her job as a school bus driver, around 10 years ago. Lloyd said she mentioned to the owner that she would like to work in the coffee shop, and two weeks after she retired she got a phone call at 6 a.m., asking if she wanted to become a barista.

"And I said, 'That's still two hours later than me driving the bus,'" she laughed.

Lloyd bought the business two years later.

"I had some wonderful friends in the community who helped me get it started," she said.

Lloyd was a school bus driver for 20 years, and transportation director for five.

"It was great, I got to meet a lot of young kids," she said. "I think that's probably what helped keep me so young was being around those young kids."

Her time driving a bus was very rewarding, Lloyd said, and now some of the children she used to drive to school have grown up, and occasionally come in to Elly's for a cup of coffee.

With six grandchildren, and a business to run, Lloyd said the biggest change when she became a business owner was the long hours and often having to run to the bank or go on other errands to keep the business going.

"It can be pretty stressful some days," she said.

She also has enjoyed teaching students from Muscatine High School or Muscatine Community College when they have visited to learn about starting a business.

"Helping younger kids realize its not as easy as it looks and you dont get rich," Lloyd laughed.

Some other advice, she said, is to be prepared to work a lot of hours and always keep on top of things like advertising.

"Young kids that want to do this, that want to start their own business, if that's what you want to do I say go for it," she said. "Keep a smile on your face, keep your head up, you know, things work out."

Lloyd said she would also advise taking care of employees.

"We are more like a family here, like sisters," she said. "I think if your employees are happy, and your customers know that, it makes for a much nicer place."

Some employees help make sandwiches and bake, although Lloyd said she also often bakes and fills in when needed.

"And I have a great staff here," she said.

Lloyd said she works to stay in communication with her staff, to stay in touch with what they work with on a daily basis.

"Theyre with the customers a lot more than I am, sometimes I'm not here and so somebody might have a question or something," she said.

Lloyd said she thinks her staff have contributed to her success at the business.

"People talk to me all the time about my staff and how great they are, so that makes me feel wonderful," she said.

As she looks forward to the summer, hosting parties on the patio and enjoying the weather, Lloyd said she hopes business will pick up as well.

"The sun shines in here," she said. "I hope more people come enjoy it."
MUSCATINE, Iowa  Susan Cory, a long-time Muscatine resident and a volunteer, is planning to move on, but she hopes others will continue to assist local nonprofits by volunteering.

Cory retired in 2008 after spending years working first with the YWCA, then the Muscatine Y, and has since been serving as a full-time volunteer.

"She was very instrumental in building the Muscatine Community Y," said Melanie Steckel, the health promotion services program director at the Muscatine Y.

Steckel organized an open house to thank Cory for her time in Muscatine on Monday.

"We just felt that there were a lot of organizations and people she touched over the years and wanted to make sure people here had a chance to thank her," she said.

After having lived in Muscatine since 1982, Cory will be moving to Virginia to be close to family. Since becoming a full-time volunteer, Cory has been volunteering three times per month at the Window Box, a gift shop run by the Trinity Muscatine Friends organization from which profits go to purchase equipment and supplies for the hospital. She also has served as president of the board of directors of the friends group.

"One of the things I really learned was, I worked with volunteers my whole career, and so I understood the value of volunteers but not until I became a full-time volunteer did I really understand the value of volunteers," she said.

When she first began volunteering, Cory served as a court-appointed special advocate for children who were determined by the Department of Human Services to have been abused.

"As a court-appointed special advocate, I was responsible to the judge of the case to evaluate and write a report for him or her talking about what I felt were the concerns and the needs of the child," she said.

While she enjoyed her time in the position, Cory thought she fit better with the organization and management side of volunteering.

In the Muscatine community, Cory said she has seen a great need for volunteers.

"Every not-for-profit organization is struggling to do what they need to do with limited resources, and the resources seem to be getting fewer and fewer," she said. "So the more that those of us have the time and the energy and the interest can do to help them with volunteering, the better off well all be."

For example, Cory said, volunteers are needed to operate the Window Box because of the schedule and the amount of time the shop must be staffed.

"So in some respects, I mean it allows organizations to do more, and it allows organizations to bring more people into the mix through the volunteers," she said. "The more people you get involved with organizations, I think the better off we all are."

The "self-interest" reason to volunteer, Cory said, is volunteers often find they get more out of the experience than they give.

"And I think any volunteer would tell you that," she said.

As she looks forward to her next adventure, Cory said she will miss the city that has been her home for so many years.

"I certainly appreciate everybody's kinds words, and I don't deserve this kind of attention any more than anybody else does," she said. "But I do want to thank all my good friends for all that they have done for me."
Consolidated Data Report, Part I: Dropout Rate

Every year, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) releases the Consolidated Data Report. The 160+ page report contains data and information related to school crime and violence, suspensions and expulsions, corporal punishment, student reassignments for disciplinary reasons, alternative learning placements, and dropout rates.The media typically focus on two data points - the dropout rate and reported acts of school crime and violence. This article will focus on the dropout rate. A subsequent piece will look at school crime and violence statistics.Last year, the dropout rate for students in grades 9 through 13 dropped to 2.29 percent, a slight decrease from 2.39 percent the year before. Both were a stark contrast to the 5.24 percent rate recorded in 2006-07. Yet, before we schedule a ticker tape parade for lawmakers and state education officials, it is important to note that it is unimaginably difficult to determine why the dropout rates improved so dramatically over the last ten school years. That is because an immeasurable, and often irrational, muddle of economic, sociological, psychological, and educational factors informs each teenager's decision to leave or remain in school.In some cases, dropping out of school is indicative of a lack of maturity, determination, and other behavioral qualities not necessarily associated with academic ability. In Knowledge and Decisions , economist Thomas Sowell observed that theRather,While there are exceptions , most public schools are ill-equipped to cultivate perseverance, regularity, and discipline, regardless of their direct and indirect attempts to instill those values. Families and communities are in the best position to ensure that school-age children have the emotional wherewithal to be successful in school.According to data reported to DPI by school social workers and counselors, nearly half of the state's 10,889 dropouts left school because of attendance issues. They did so despite the fact that the state has compulsory attendance laws and various programmatic measures designed to mitigate chronic absenteeism.accounted for 7 percent of dropouts. Other non-academic reasons included incarceration, unstable home environment, discipline problems, and economic necessity.On the other hand, schools may reasonably be held responsible for a dropout who has difficulty completing academic coursework. Public school social workers and counselors reported that only 4 percent (433 students) exited their school last year due to academic problems. Another eleven percent said that they dropped out to enroll in a community college program, presumably to prepare for the GED or HiSET high school equivalency exams. These dropouts are difficult to characterize because students enroll in a community college program for any number of academic and non-academic reasons, including expediting the attainment of a credential to enter the workforce early.Aside from strengthening remedial programs, increasing access to career and technical education and individualized instruction through virtual schools, and strategic investments in research-based interventions , is there anything that lawmakers or state education officials can do to keep kids in school through graduation?Some have argued for years that the state should raise the compulsory attendance age . Currently, North Carolina law compels students to attend school when they are between the ages of seven and 16 years. If students cannot legally drop out until their 17th or 18th birthday, proponents reason, then more of them will stay in school and graduate.Despite our current compulsory attendance age law, however, recall that North Carolina has enjoyed sizable decreases in its dropout rate. There is no guarantee that raising the attendance age will increase the four-year graduation rate, decrease the annual dropout rate, or curb truancy. Indeed, a 2013 paper (pdf) published by the U.S. Department of Education's Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Mid-Atlantic found,In some cases, the additional enforcement and personnel costs of keeping a ruffian in school exceed long-term economic benefits.
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Ardy Robertson chose her room in the newest residence at Butterfly Homes in Billings Heights for a simple reason: the view.

The former Roundup resident is the first member of Butterflys new $2.7 million assisted-living facility, so she had her pick of rooms. She chose the one with a window facing an attractive, light-colored house next door, and she made it her own.

Family photos adorn the chest of drawers against one wall, and Robertsons recliner is next to her bed, both facing the window. After three months there, and family living nearby in the Heights, Robertson said she feels comfortable in her new digs.

Its home. Absolutely. Its home, she said before heading for a walk through the building.

Butterfly Homes completed construction of the 13-unit facility in November, its third on-site in a cul-de-sac at the end of Lily Valley Circle behind a Baptist church. The project also included new office and storage space.

The project opened in November and nearly doubled the available beds for Butterfly Homes, which owners Janet and Michael White launched in 2003.

The Whites have long careers in the health care industry. Janet White began her career with Blue Cross Blue Shield, and her husband owns other assisted-living facilities in Montana.

The Whites now operate three homes for Butterfly with a total of 37 units. The newest has eight suites, with separate living and bedrooms for $160 a day, and five single rooms like Robertsons for $125.

Six units are occupied, and White said she expects the remaining seven will go soon.

According to a 2013 study by the Montana Department of Commerce, Montanas population is expected to rise and grow older over the next two decades. Birth rates arent keeping up with death rates, and retiree migration into the state is creating demand for services such as housing, according to the agency.

The aging Baby Boomer population is creating new demand for senior housing, analysts say, and owners are weighing new models to meet their needs.

Writing for AssistedLivingFacilities.org, industry expert Carol Marak said that proprietors need to develop space that encourages active, social living. At the same time, they must also recognize that incoming residents probably havent saved as much money as previous generations, Marak wrote.

At Butterfly Homes, the Whites say theyre building a community for residents. The new building connects to an older facility by a long hallway and includes wide common areas.

Up front is a library, with table and chairs and a couch in the corner. Its designed as a gathering place for families, and a sliding door allows residents privacy if they want, White said.

That door opens into the kitchen and dining area, a wide space with wood-finished chairs around a table.

More of a home-like setting. They have their meals together, and they get to know everyone, White said.

Butterfly has a cook, two caregivers and an administrator for each building. The complex is hiring to hit 36 total employees, White said.

About two-thirds are part-timers, often young people interested in careers in nursing or other fields, White said.

If youre really interested in the healthcare industry, its a good on-the-ground experience, White said.

Butterfly also has an on-call nurse.

Next to the kitchen is a den for gathering, with a fireplace in the corner and a flat-screen TV against one wall.

Its just a nice place, White said.
For kids entering foster care, early and regular health care is an important part of ensuring their health and safety.

With that in mind, a partnership between RiverStone Health and the Department of Public Health and Human Services' Child and Family Services Division is working to make it easier to deliver that health care quickly and effectively in Yellowstone County while taking a bit of the load off of case workers.

"What this is about is ensuring that the needs of children in foster care are met," said Shawn Hinz, RiverStone's vice president of public health services. "This is a very vulnerable group of kids that need that medical care, and this makes sure that when they enter that care, those needs are met."

The program, called KidsFirst, is a collaborative effort between RiverStone and CFS that provides a baseline health checkup and ensures regular medical and dental appointments over time for any children from and placed in foster care in Yellowstone County.

Jason Larson, administrator of the CFS south central Montana region, which includes Yellowstone County, noted that it's not that children in foster care weren't getting care before.

Previously, CFS caseworkers and foster families coordinated the care, especially when it came to first visits. But the program puts the scheduling and administration of that care in one place and under the roof of a health organization well equipped to provide pediatric health services.

"It's really helped in the fact they've taken some of that off of the workers' plates, as far as caseloads go," Larson said.

Since the program went online Aug. 1, 2016, KidsFirst has received referrals for more than 480 children, up to 18 years old. RiverStone officials expect to have seen 600 to 700 youth by the end of 2017, either through exams in the foster home or at RiverStone's clinic off of South 27th Street.

"We just really want to meet the foster parents wherever they are," said Jennifer Olson, KidsFirst registered nurse supervisor at RiverStone.

The program is now receiving five to 10 new referrals each week.

During the initial exam, which happens within 30 days of children entering foster care no matter their age or health history, the trained nurses from RiverStone follow health screening guidelines set up by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Olson said that in addition to getting baseline medical information, they look for any chronic medical issues and try to identify any mental health needs, which can be referred to appropriate experts.

Children are also provided with a dental exam within 90 days.

If a child already has an existing relationship with another provider in the county  such as the Children's Clinic or a local hospital  they can continue receiving care there as well through the program, with KidsFirst staff at RiverStone continuing to help schedule regular care and communicating with CFS.

"We use all of our providers, and they're all valuable and very important to us," Larson said.

Foster families also receive education on health needs during the process, whether it's from one of three RN case managers or four specially trained health care providers and two medical assistants who carve out specific times at the RiverStone clinic to work with foster children and families.

Officials involved with the program noted that the majority of children in foster care in Yellowstone County are there because of neglect issues and many of them come in to care from an environment where their health care needs aren't being met.

Dr. Megan Littlefield, RiverStone's medical director, said that getting children in to assess any acute issues and medical needs is important in establishing continuing care for a population of youth that often arrives with more needs compared to the baseline population.

As an established health care organization with experience serving under-served populations, RiverStone is uniquely qualified to help, she said.

"A lot of work was done with the state looking at public health and family health services," she said. "We wanted to really figure out what were the needs of the system. What needs were being unmet, what were the gaps in care? Once we identified that, we were able to outline where we can fill in those gaps and help to coordinate services for these families and these kids."
At a Black History Month event recently, President Trump seemed to suggest that Frederick Douglass is still alive: He's "done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more," Trump said.

If he was referring to our awareness of Douglass's important historical legacy, then the president's remarks were on the money: More than 120 years after Douglass's death, the great abolitionist's impact on our country is still unfolding. The former slave who became one of the nation's most widely read authors and most popular orators speaks to us still through his prolific writings, and his legacy is ensured by his solid place in the literary canon and the treasure trove of images that he seemed determined to leave behind.

But as Douglass's fame has grown, so too have myths about his history and personality.

Myth No. 1: Frederick Douglass was an American patriot.

Douglass wanted blacks to fight for the Union in the Civil War, and after President Abraham Lincoln allowed them to serve, Douglass became the president's loyal supporter and friend. Following the war, Douglass became the first African American to receive a federal appointment that required Senate approval and was an official emissary to Haiti. It's no wonder that the Colored Republican Association of New York called Douglass "a patriot and a hero" upon his death in 1895 or that he is often listed in collections of American patriots: A monograph from the 1990s, for instance, was called "Frederick Douglass: Patriot and Activist."

Yet Douglass never defined himself as an American patriot - indeed, he was highly critical of the United States. In 1845, as a fugitive slave, he fled to the British Isles for two years, almost settling permanently in England. For the first time in his life, he said, he experienced "an absence, a perfect absence, of everything like that disgusting hate with which we are pursued" in America. Only a sense of duty to his wife and his fellow African Americans, and a desire to fight the scourge of racism and slavery, persuaded him to come back. "I have no love for America, as such," he announced upon his return. "I have no patriotism. I have no country."

Sixteen years later, on the eve of the Civil War, he planned a visit to Haiti to entertain permanent emigration to the black republic. "The North has never been able to stand against the power and purposes of the South," he concluded. If Haiti met his expectations as a "light of glorious promise," then he would remain in that country and call it home.

Myth No. 2: Frederick Douglass was a pious Christian.

Traditional Christian ministries such as the Colson Center claim that "Douglass was a committed Christian." Likewise, Christian publishing house Concordia includes Douglass in its "Heroes of the Faith" book series. And Douglass referred often to Christianity in his speeches and writing.

But his views on the religion were less than conventional. While a practicing member of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church for most of his adult life, Douglass used the Bible to interpret the North's role in the Civil War allegorically, with "Michael and his angels" battling "the infernal host of bad passions" in our country's version of the apocalypse. He frequently expressed his disgust at the fact that slave owners cited scripture to argue that slavery was divinely ordained and that the Lord demanded the docility of the enslaved.

In his final years, Douglass became a Unitarian, a Christian denomination that does not recognize Jesus as divine and rejects many other traditional doctrines. His home contained artifacts and writings from several world religions, as well as busts of his favorite philosophers, Ludwig Feuerbach and David Friedrich Strauss, both of whom viewed Jesus as a moral person but not the son of God.

Myth No. 3: Frederick Douglass, a Republican, would fit in with today's GOP.

Contemporary Republicans, including the Frederick Douglass Republicans and the Oregon Republican Party, proudly remind us of Douglass's GOP membership. "The Republican Party is the ship and all else is the sea around us," Douglass said after the Civil War.

But his politics hardly resembled those of modern Republicans (just as Democrats of the time weren't like today's Democrats). In 1855, Douglass was a self-professed radical as a founding member of the Radical Abolition Party,which wanted to upend the status quo in the most dramatic way: immediate and universal emancipation; full suffrage for all Americans, regardless of sex or skin color; the redistribution of land so that no one would be rich and no one poor; and violent interventions against slavery. Other founders included two of Douglass's close friends: the militant abolitionist John Brown and the nation's first university-educated black physician, James McCune Smith.

During the Civil War, Douglass became a Republican and remained a devoted member of the party for the rest of his life. At the time, the GOP - the party of Lincoln and Charles Sumner - consistently received enormous support from black voters and advocated a strong central government and certain entitlements for the underprivileged. In other words, it bears little resemblance to today's Republican Party.

Myth No. 4: Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery on foot.

Images accompanying descriptions of Douglass's flight from slavery (even period lithographs) often seem to depict him sneaking away through the wilderness or evading slave-catchers. Many sources say simply that Douglass "ran away," leaving readers to imagine him on foot, following the North Star to freedom, outracing bloodhounds, and avoiding snakes and slave-catchers in the swamps.

It's a dramatic notion, but Douglass's escape was more prosaic, mirroring many self-emancipations from the period that depended more on logistics and less on romance. Dressed in a sailor's suit (a red shirt, black cravat and tarpaulin hat) and traveling under an assumed identity, Douglass boarded a train in Baltimore on Sept. 3, 1838. Then he took a steamboat from Wilmington, Del., to Philadelphia. Finally, he traveled via a night train to New York.

As soon as Douglass reached safety in New York, he wrote his fiancee, Anna Murray, and asked her to join him at once. They were married Sept. 15 at the home of David Ruggles, a free black journalist, in a ceremony presided over by a famous black abolitionist, the Rev. James Pennington, a newly ordained minister and, like Douglass, a fugitive from Maryland. On Ruggles's advice, they moved to New Bedford, Mass., then the nation's whaling capital, where Douglass began work as a free man.

Myth No. 5: Frederick Douglass is "being recognized more and more."

In fact, Douglass was more famous in the 19th century than he is today. His first two autobiographies, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" (1845) and "My Bondage and My Freedom" (1855), were bestsellers. In addition, he was one of the nation's greatest orators, a widely read journalist and the most-photographed American of the 19th century. He was truly among the most famous Americans of his time.

In the 1850s, he was often compared in stature to Stephen Douglas, the Democratic leader who supported slavery, defeated Lincoln in the 1858 U.S. Senate race in Illinois and twice ran for president. Several journalists wanted "to have the black Douglas on the stump against the white Douglas." (The white Douglas, a virulent racist, hated the comparison.) Douglass was more famous than Lincoln until the 1860 presidential race; journalists sometimes misspelled the candidate's name as "Abram."

When Douglass died in 1895, thousands of tributes from the United States and abroad honored him. Collected in a 350-page closely printedbook, they highlight his stature. The Washington Post began its tribute by saying, "Frederick Douglass was one of the great men of the century." And the Chicago Tribune declared: "No man, black or white, has been better known for nearly half a century in this country, than Frederick Douglass."

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard, co-editor of "The Portable Frederick Douglass" with John Stauffer, and Host of the PBS Series Africa's Great Civilizations. Stauffer is Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard and the author or editor of six books on Frederick Douglass, including "Picturing Frederick Douglass." They wrote this for The Washington Post.
I have to admit that I thought it was impossible for Brett Eldredge to get anymore swoon-worthy until now. After co-hosting the Today Show in New York, Brett boarded a plane bound for Nashville so he could attend a very special prom he was invited to on Twitter.

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The Tennessee chapter of Best Buddies, an organization that provides various opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, held their prom on Friday night at Bridgestone Arenaand only wanted one guest to show up. And show up he did.

See below for the adorable invite and photos and videos from the Best Buddies prom.

Help us ask @bretteldredge to our Prom on February 10th with a Retweet! #getbretttoprom pic.twitter.com/xHMGpVrSN7  Best Buddies TN (@BestBuddiesTN) January 25, 2017

How could I pass up a chance to hang with my buddies at PROM!? Im on an airplane now but maybe I'll see ya soon bud? https://t.co/XP6kbDgPc9  Brett Eldredge (@bretteldredge) February 10, 2017

@bretteldredge thanks for coming all the way just for BB Prom!!!! it meant a lot to so many kids tonight. love ya pic.twitter.com/XyuGNHEToJ  kgc (@_toomuchnjh) February 11, 2017

https://twitter.com/CountryRoadsTI/status/830252648276299776p
Billings' youngest voters were plugged into the 2016 election like never before, whether they meant to be or not. And it hasn't let up, especially since President Donald Trump took office.

West High senior Mary Helen Satrom follows magazines like People and Cosmopolitan on Snapchat.

People in Cosmopolitan are usually like, top 10 Kardashian looks from last summer,' she said. Its so much more political than it has been  Im not going to Cosmopolitan to read about Trump.

Fellow senior Megan Hanson recalled high family tensions during George W. Bushs last election.

Our family is split pretty half and half, she said. Lately, arguments about those divisions have skyrocketed.

At school, a lot of friendships broke up just because of political views, senior Kyla Gause said.

Ive been distanced more from some of my friends because of political opinions, said junior Parker Smith.

That paints a bleak picture, but students who met with the Gazette to discuss how politics and current events permeate their education were still mostly upbeat, if frustrated. They agreed that discussing and debating current events is an essential part of their education.

This is a part of our lives, and it's getting pretty serious," Hanson said. "This is the point where we can actually make a difference."

The students said they consume the majority of their news from third-party platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, or YouTube. If they want to dig deeper on a topic, theyre likely to use Google. None of the students consistently went directly to a traditional news site, from Fox News to the Washington Post.

We look at other people for their news before going to the source, Gause said.

Students had a general distrust of news outlets, traditional or otherwise.

Every single source is biased, Satrom said.

We just want facts, Hanson said. How hard is it to give us just the facts?

James Unzaga, a junior, wasnt so sure.

Thats not what we pay for, he said, citing the popularity of punditry and outlets hawking feverish headlines. I take every article with a grain of salt.

The students gathered in teacher Bruce Wendts classroom Wednesday. Wendt, who teaches advanced social studies classes, noted that this political environment has created unprecedented teaching challenges.

Wendt's discipline is rife with ambiguity. The importance of historical movements, their causes and the roots of modern policies can all be debated with different supporting evidence. But in some cases, there are right and wrong answers, historical events that did or didn't occur.

How do students balance that with alternative facts  an explanation from the Trump administration about the Presidents incorrect insistence that his inauguration crowd was the largest in history?

I feel like its been diluted down to a game of what (politicians) can get away with, Unzaga said.

The bombardment of news, or news of dubious credibility, also has the effect of making this generation of teenagers more tapped into politics than ever before, students said.

Theres this image of teenagers as  help me out here, Hanson said to her peers.

Idiots, Satrom supplied. Self-centered morons.

They argued that students are more educated than ever before, even if news is showing up in Cosmo.

However, they said it hasnt led to changes in their peers' beliefs.

Our pre-determined opinions that I saw coming into high school are still being reinforced, Hanson said.

I think (people) go more extreme with their views, Gause said.

Some students lapsed into near-despair when discussing Trumps policies. Others expressed more optimism. Gause suggested that Trump could do "amazing things," and called some of his statements "crazy."

America isnt going to change because of one person, said junior Melanie Humphrey. Its going to change because of all of us.
The Cooper Center's educational family event on Feb. 25 at Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park will feature fossils, Native American artifacts, children's crafts and more. Pictured is an ancient whale fossil.

Learn about OCs Ancient Wonders at a free educational family event Saturday, Feb. 25, at Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park.

The John D. Cooper Archaeological and Paleontological Center, a partnership between Cal State Fullerton and OC Parks, is presenting the 11 a.m.-3 p.m. event at the parks Nature Center.

The event will focus on Orange Countys rich heritage of natural history, prehistoric animals and plants, and Native American culture. Displays of local fossils and Native American artifacts, educational crafts and hands-on activities for children, informative talks and a guided hike also will be featured.

Event highlights also include:

Noon  The Geology of the Santa Ana Mountains by Richard Lozinsky, Fullerton College

 The Geology of the Santa Ana Mountains by Richard Lozinsky, Fullerton College 1 p.m.  Native American storytelling by Jacque Tahuka-Nunez

 Native American storytelling by Jacque Tahuka-Nunez 1:30 p.m .  Reading of Ava and the Raven, a Native American story by Jeannine Pedersen-Guzman, Cooper Center associate curator for archaeology

.  Reading of Ava and the Raven, a Native American story by Jeannine Pedersen-Guzman, Cooper Center associate curator for archaeology 2 p.m.  Guided hike by Caspers Park Foundation

Caspers Wilderness Park is located at 33401 Ortega Highway in San Juan Capistrano. Parking is $5 per vehicle. For more info, visit online or contact Pedersen-Guzman at 714-647-2111.
Trade union leaders at the ailing Hindustan Motors (HM) on Saturday expressed disappointment over the management's decision to sell the iconic Ambassador brand to French auto major Peugeot SA. They said the "intuition of the management" is to sell off everything and "deprive workers". The C.K. Birla controlled Hindustan Motors executed an agreement with Peugeot SA on Friday to sell the Ambassador brand, including trademarks, to the French auto maker for Rs 80 crore. "The sale of the Ambassador brand shall be effective upon fulfilment of the terms of conditions as prescribed in the agreement," the company said. "It is disappointing that the management has sold the brand Ambassador while dues to the workers still remain unresolved. They deprive workers," Intuc-affiliated HM Employees' Union General Secretary Ajit Chakraborty told IANS. "About 600 workers in the Uttarpara plant, who did not avail VRS scheme are really suffering. Those who opted for the scheme have not yet realised their gratuity," Chakraborty said. "The intuition of the management is to sell of everything. We have moved the High Court protesting various moves of the management," CITU-affiliated HM Workers' Union Vice President Manindra Chakrabarty told IANS. "We have demanded that the suspension of work notice at Uttarpara plant in West Bengal be termed illegal. Operation must commence at the unit and payment of dues of all the workers be made," he added. "The Ambassador has been an iconic brand and a surplus asset with us," said a spokesperson from HM. "We were looking for a suitable opportunity and found the right buyer in the PSA Group. We intend to use the proceeds from the sale in clearing dues of employees, lenders and other outstandings," the spokesman said. In May 2014, the auto maker had suspended operations in Uttarpara plant and stopped manufacturing cars with the brand about three years ago. The Ambassador brand was born in 1957 when the automaker launched the Morris Oxford series II (Landmaster) anew and it was being produced at Uttarpara unit. The C.K. Birla group and Peugeot SA signed a partnership deal with an investment close to Rs 700 crore in a vehicle assembly plant and powertrain manufacturing unit in Tamil Nadu. --IANS bdc/in/vm ( 375 Words) 2017-02-11-13:52:07 (IANS)
Planning is well underway for Yellowstone Valley Gives, a 24-hour crowdfunding event that will last from midnight to midnight on May 4.

This will be the second year the Billings Community Foundation has hosted a Giving Day for nonprofits in the seven counties served by BCF. Last year, 61 regional nonprofits participated, raising more than $34,000 in just 24 hours. We hope to do better this year as Yellowstone Valley Gives unites supporters of regional nonprofits in a friendly competition for sponsor-funded prizes.

Any 501(c)(3) in Big Horn, Carbon, Custer, Musselshell, Stillwater, Treasure or Yellowstone County is encouraged to visit www.yellowstonegives.org to sign up. When nonprofits register, they will have online assistance in setting up their web pages with pictures and information that will serve as their introduction to donors on May 4. GiveGab, the platform developer, is presenting a webinar titled, How to Register and Build Profiles at 10 a.m. on Monday as further assistance.

We encourage Individuals and businesses to become event sponsors and prize sponsors to support the great work of nonprofits in our region. Sponsors can donate $250 for prizes or $1,000 or more to be event sponsors. Last year, sponsor names and logos were seen by 61 nonprofits and their supporters with all funds going to assist regional nonprofits. You can find more information about sponsor recognition and prize criteria on the Yellowstone Gives Bulletin Board.

For updates and more information about the event, please go to the BCF website at: www.billingscommunityfoundation.org and look for links to the Yellowstone Gives Bulletin Board. This web page will be updated with new information in the months leading up to May 4.

BCF will offer a brown bag lunch at noon on Feb. 21 in the Billings Public Library's Royal Johnson Community Room to answer questions, help with registration and explain how to prepare for the event.

Those familiar with the Giving Day event last year may recall we were on track to raise well over $50,000 before the online platform had problems handling donations. GiveGab is the new statewide online platform provider selected jointly by the community foundations in Montana. While we are still uplifting the support of local nonprofits, BCF had to change the name with the change of the platform provider.

Since last year was a first for this event, the biggest challenge was explaining to nonprofits and supporters what it was all about. Yellowstone Valley Gives is still new to some, but we already have a head start with the help we are receiving from last year's participants. Check out the web pages mentioned above and join us on May 4 to celebrate the great work of our regional nonprofits.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu's daughter-in-law Nara Brahmani hogged the limelight at the ongoing first National Women's Parliament here on Saturday. Brahmani, who is executive director of Heritage Foods, the company owned by the family, took the centre stage on the second day of the three-day conclave being attended by women delegates from India and abroad. The beautiful businesswoman shared her thoughts on women empowerment, the importance of education to achieve this and eulogized her grandfather late N.T. Rama Rao and father-in-law Chandrababu Naidu for their initiatives to empower women. While speaking about Amaravati's history, she also referred, albeit indirectly, to 'Gautamiputra Satakarni', the recently released movie of his father N. Balakrishna, a leading actor of Telugu cinema. She said Amaravati was the city of famous emperor Satakarni. "He venerated womanhood so much so that instead of the traditional practice of taking father's name, he took mother's name. Gautamiputra Satakarni or son of mother Gautami..." said Brahmani, who is married to her maternal cousin N. Lokesh, only son of Chandrababu Naidu. The Master of Business Administration from Stanford Graduate School of Business remarked that for them women empowerment starts at home. "Women in our family were always encouraged to pursue their passion," said Brahmani, whose mother-in-law N. Bhuwaneswari is managing director of Heritage Foods. While stating that India has been blessed with number of visionary leaders, she remarked a"yet we can't close our eyes to disparities and anomalies exist as far as women's issues are concerned". She said while India elected women heads of government and states much before many developed countries, equal pay for equal work is not given despite stringent laws. "A recent study shows only five percent women in India make to top leadership positions in corporate sector against global average of 20 per cent," she said. She believes self-help is the key to women empowerment and urged women to take matters in their hands rather than waiting around endlessly for others to help them. --IANS ms/pgh/vm ( 346 Words) 2017-02-11-14:56:08 (IANS)
With barely days left for a global summit here, Jharkhand is spending over Rs 150 crore on branding and face-lift before rolling out the red carpet for potential investors, an official said. The Momentum Jharkhand Global Investors Summit kicks off on February 16 and the Raghubar Das government is branding it big. They have hired chartered flights to ferry in businessmen and industrialists from Kolkata to Ranchi and have tied-up with the Air India and Alliance Air. "Jharkhand was nominated as a partner to CII, and other business association and allocated Rs 30 crore," the official told IANS. "The state cabinet gave its approval of Rs 40 crore for advertisement in news channels, newspapers," the official added. The cost to be incurred by the CII on the chartered flights is estimated to be around Rs two crore. The industry body urged the government to make arrangements of these flights keeping in mind the increase in the number of delegates expected to participate in the programme. A total of 150 rooms were booked in posh hotels here including 90 in Radisson Blu, 35 in Capitol Hill and remaining in other hotels. It is expected that more than 6,000 delegates would be participating in the event. It is estimated that around Rs one crore would be spent on hotel bills of visitors. To make sure that the stay of these high profile people was worth remembering the state government has also decided to spend lavishly on their food. An exorbitant Rs 4,000 per plate of food has been planned. To ferry the visitors to and fro Khelgaon to their respective hotels the government has also hired 150 taxis for which an additional expenditure of Rs 15-20 lakh would be meted out. Security which would be a prime concern during these two-day mega event would be taken care of by 4,700 jawans and officials of Jharkhand Police. It is expected that Rs 1.50 crore would be spent for providing food at least three times on two days for those in-charge for security. To erect the infrastructure required for holding the event another Rs 25 crore is slated. Around Rs 10 crore would be spent on beautifying the city with flowers. The opposition is against the huge expense although it says it is not against the investor submit, "there are few issues like... past MoU hardly translating into reality". "Land is a big issue the plants will not come up on air," Jharkhand Congress general secretary Alok Dubey told IANS. Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das has said that only those MoUs would be signed which will translate on ground. --IANS ns/in ( 449 Words) 2017-02-11-16:42:10 (IANS)
Help the autistic kids before it aggravates! A new study finds, the smaller the brain stem, the greater the likelihood of aggression in children, with autism. According to researchers from Brigham Young University in the US, there is an inverse correlation between aggression and brain stem volume in children with autism and the study will provide clues into the link between aggression and autism that will eventually lead to more effective intervention. The finding is significant because "the brain stem is really involved in autonomic activities - breathing, heart rate, staying awake - so this is evidence that there's something core and basic, this connection between aggression and autism," said study author Kevin Stephenson. They examined MRI images from two groups of children with autism - one that exhibited problematic levels of aggression and other that did not. "Identifying the brain stem as having at least a partial involvement in aggression helps to lay a foundation for better treatment," said another researcher Terisa Gabrielsen. "If we know what part of the brain is different and what function that part of the brain controls, that can give us some clues into what we can do in the way of intervention," Gabrielsen stated. The group used data collected from a University of Utah autism study funded by the National Institutes of Health. "Once the body arousal in a child is too much -- the heart is beating, the hands are clenched and the body is sweating -- it's too late. Some of these kids, if the brain isn't working as efficiently, they may pass that point of no return sooner. So with behavioural interventions, we try to find out what the trigger is and intervene early before that arousal becomes too much," explained another researcher Mikle South. Studying aggression is kids with autism, Gabrielsen said, "It impacts families' quality of life so significantly. If we look long-term at things that affect the family the most, aggression is one of the most disruptive." The team is interested in exploring further how the brain stem is connected functionally to other areas of the brain, "because usually the brain doesn't work from just one area; it's a network of areas that all work together," Stephenson concluded. (ANI)
The 11th biennial edition of International Aerospace and Defence Exhibition - Aero India 2017 will be held at the Air Force Station, Yelahanka here from February 14-18. Aero India which began in 1996, has carved a niche for itself as a premium aerospace and aviation exhibition in the international arena and has become one of the most sought after exhibitions in the Asian region in terms of participation from across the globe. The event is being organised and conducted by the Defence Exhibition Organisation (DEO). The highlights of this year's show are: (i) Participation from 270 Indian Companies and 279 foreign companies. That is a total of 549 companies. (ii) The total area of the show has grown from 24,403 sqm to 27,678 sqm this year. (iii) Number of aircraft participating are 72. (iv) The gross area has also increased from 2,50,000 sqm to 2,60,000 sqm. (v) It is expected that two lakh business visitors will attend the show. (vi) Seminars by State Governments (Andhra Global CEO's Conclave on Aerospace and Defence Manufacturing Opportunities in Andhra Pradesh) on February 14 2.30 pm onwards, shall be chaired by the Minister of Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati. The Guest of Honour will be the Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. Also attending the Seminar will be the Minister of State for Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences Y.S. Chowdary, the Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (Independent Charge) Rajiv Pratap Rudy, the Chief of Army Staff, General Bipin Rawat, the Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa, the Defence Secretary, G. Mohan Kumar, Secretary (Defence Production), A.K. Gupta and the Minister of Finance & Planning Commercial Taxes, Legislative Affairs, Government of Andhra Pradesh Shri Yanamala Ramakrishnudu. Under the Make in India Initiative the CII, FICCI, PHD shall jointly conduct the following events on February 15 and the topics are: (a) Indian Aerospace : Investor's Meet by CII (1000 hrs - 1115 hrs) (b) Make in India in Aerospace: Are MSMEs geared for it? - Reflections and the Way Forward - PHD, CII (1130hrs-1245 hrs) (vii) Round Tables - Country specific by Indian Chambers (B2B) (a) Indo-Swiss Business Meet (b) Indo-UK (c) Indo-Polish B2B Meetings by various companies (viii) A Business to Business meeting area has been created and is being offered to Indian business industries free of cost (ix) Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Kerala are setting up exclusive SEZ pavilions for attracting investment (x) Confirmation has been received from 30 Countries and the process is still on. In total 65 delegates comprising Ministers of Defence, Service Chiefs, Heads of Department from Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Brunei, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Sudan, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, the U.A.E., the U.K., U.S.A. and Uzbekistan have confirmed their presence (xi) There shall be country-wise company participation from 23 countries, including official delegations. A total of 51 countries are participating Exhibitors from U.S.A., France, the U.K., Russia, Israel, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Ukraine, Singapore, Sweden, Spain, South Africa, Italy, the U.A.E., South Korea, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, Canada, Australia, Poland and Greece will participate. Aerobatic teams participating in the show will be the Indian Air Force Sarang Team, the Indian Air Force Surya Kiran Team, the Scandinavian Air Show Team from Sweden and the Evolvkos Aerobatic Team from the U.K. (ANI)
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi threatening to expose the Congress for their 'corruption-riddled' past, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Friday called on the former to take action if he actually had evidence and stop with the stream of verbal assault, as it was unbecoming of his post. Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Modi addressed an election rally in Haridwar, where he warned the Congress to not test him, asserting that crossing of limits will result in him exposing the UPA Government's "corrupt" history. Joining the panel discussion during the launch of former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram's book "Fearless in Opposition", Yechury questioned the recent usage of language by the Prime Minister. "I just got a tweet from ANI, I'll just read it out because it is actually very telling. Prime Minister speaking at an election rally - "I appeal to the members of the Congress to hold their tongue, otherwise I have a full record of their actions, today in Haridwar." This is not the level of decorum and the level of politics that at-least we have grown up in," he said. Adding that the Left has had scathing arguments with the Congress and will continue to have them, Yechury further said that these are not the issues on which such language must be used, adding that if the Prime Minister has a record of their actions, he must put it out and take action. "I was asked by some of the media friends that Dr. Manmohan Singh was sitting in the Parliament when PM made the comment and why didn't he get up then and immediately answer. I said that knowing Dr. Manmohan Singh, that was the last thing he would do, but suddenly an old English saying came to my mind - In a street fight a gentleman would never win, because a gentleman loathes to stoop to the level of a street fighter," the CPI (M) leader stated. "And for heaven's sake as the PM of the country if you have some information which of something illegal, some loot, some sleaze, it is your foremost duty to proceed and take action, why are you threatening?," Yechury said referring to the Prime Minister's address in Uttarakhand. Yechury had earlier stated that the "raincoat" jibe at former prime minister Manmohan Singh probably came of Prime Minister Modi's "peculiar imagination". "I think the raincoat example came out of the peculiar type of imagination that the Prime Minister has," Yechury told reporters. Prime Minister Modi had trained his guns on his predecessor Dr. Manmohan Singh, accusing him of letting corruption run free under his nose but managing to steer clear of any charges. "Dr. Manhmohan has played a significant role in the economic system of India. But during the most corrupt regime in the nation, there was not a single corruption charge against him. This art of taking a bath wearing a raincoat must be learnt from Dr. Manmohan Singh," the Prime Minister said, setting off cries of shame by the Congress and a walkout. (ANI)
In the wake of the ongoing assembly polls in five states of the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been on an overhaul ride of outwitting his opponents with sardonic remarks, one after the other. The remarks have only invited the ire of the political stalwarts, all stating that the statements are unbefitting of his post. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, thoroughly supports its leader and has warned the Congress to be wary of its words as he has the power to 'expose' them. "The kind of language the Congress is using for Prime Minister Modi, the way the 'corruption-riddled' Congress is preaching, is wrong. They should stop it. They should remember that their whole 'janm-kundli' is with Prime Minister Modi. He knows the scams that took place under the rule of the Congress. The nation also knows it," BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain said on Saturday. "The Congress should be mindful of its words. Our government, our party is not involved in any scam. This is the first time that such a honest and able government is ruling the country. We are batlling against black money. They are not eligible to speak against us. Because, when Modiji will speak, the Congress will get exposed," he added. Prime Minister Modi, a day before, warned the Congress to not test him, asserting that crossing of limits will result in him exposing the UPA Government's "corrupt" history. (ANI)
In the line of fire because of his recent remarks against the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been getting backlash from different quarters of Indian politics, most of it stating that it is unbecoming of a position like his. Reiterating the sentiment, the Congress Party on Saturday ridiculed Prime Minister Modi's comments and dared him to 'expose' them if he really wants to. Congress leader Sandeep Dixit said Prime Minister Modi should remember if he tries to push his opponents in the muck, he might also get dirty. "If you have the 'kachcha chitthha', please open it and show it to the world. Is it a fun game that you're warning us? I want to tell Prime Minister Modi that we are not kids or the unarmed men, who you targeted in the year 2002. We fight openly. If you really can, please tell the world what you want to. And also remember, when you try to push your opponents in the muck, you also get dirty," he said. Further commenting on the Prime Minister's statements, Congress leader Tom Vadakkan said his advisory is more applicable to his own party - the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and not the Congress. He said, "Prime Minister Modi is very correct. Everybody should be careful with the tongue. I think it's relevant with his workers, his political leaders to watch their tongue. And whatever they say should be in the political framework and they should maintain basic decency. I think this advisory is more applicable to BJP leaders and followers, and not to the Congress." Prime Minister Modi, a day before, warned the Congress not to test him, asserting that crossing of limits will result in him exposing the UPA Government's "corrupt" history. Earlier, he had trained his guns on his predecessor Dr. Manmohan Singh, accusing him of letting corruption run free under his nose but managing to steer clear of any charges. (ANI)
The police action comes a day after the Madras High Court adjourned to February 12 its hearing on habeas corpus petitions filed by two advocates to trace two AIADMK legislators.

Legislators supporting AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala were taken in buses and made to stay in the resorts since Wednesday.

The state government counsel told the court that the legislators were not in illegal custody and asked for time to get instructions about their whereabouts.

The ruling AIADMK has a total of 135 legislators.

Acting Chief Minister O. Paneerselvam'S camp claims six legislators -- including himself, while the remaining are part of Sasikala's.

On Friday, some AIADMK legislators belonging to the Sasikala camp told the media that they were staying in the resort on their own will and are not in captivity.

--IANS vj/ksk/vm

( 164 Words)

2017-02-11-10:58:07 (IANS)
Eman Ahmad, 36, the world's heaviest woman and a resident of Egypt has arrived in at Mumbai for treatment at the Saifee Hospital. Eman is 500-kg -plus woman and this is her first trip out of her home in last 25 years. She reached Mumbai at 4a.m. on Saturday for her weight reduction-bariatric surgery. With the help of local Egyptian artisans, Egyptian Air arranged a special bed for her so that she is comfortable while travelling. All equipments required for any kind of emergency were also available in the flight. Shaimaa Ahmad, Eman's sister is also accompanying her along with two doctors Dr.Aparna Govil Bhaskar and Dr. Kamlesh Bohra. Bariatric surgeon Dr. Mufazzal Lakdawala will handle her case once she stabilizes. After reaching Mumbai, Emaan was taken to the hospital in a fully equipped truck followed by an ambulance and police van. A special room has been set up for her at the hospital. She is currently suffering from lymphedema, water retention, two diabetes, hypertension, and hypothyroidism, and highly obstructive and restrictive lung disease, gout and is at a very high risk of pulmonary embolism. She has suffered a stroke which resulted in paralysis of her right arm and leg. (ANI)
Amid unprecedented security cover, polling for the first phase in 73 Assembly seats covering 15 districts of western Uttar Pradesh started at 0700 hrs this morning. EC officials said that the polling commenced on a smooth note though in some places there were teething problems due to malfunctioning in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). However, long queues were witnessed in some polling booths of Ghaziabad, Noida, Meerut and Agra. The first phase will be a litmus test for the BJP and the BSP as well as the SP-Congress alliance which would give an indication of the party emerging as topper in the state polls. A record of 826 companies of Central Forces had been deployed for conducting free and fair polls. Moreover, two lakh other security forces, which includes 8,011 Sub-Inspectors, 4,823 head constables and 60,289 constables are also in place to maintain law and order situation. Special security measures have been taken in the communally-sensitive Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Bulandhshar, Etah and Agra districts. There are 2,268 sector magistrates, 285 zonal magistrates and 429 static magistrates, on election duty. The polling will continue till 1700 hrs in these 73 seats where 2.60 crore voters--.42 crore male and 1.17 crore female-- are likely to exercise their franchise from 26,823 polling booths of which 5,140 are identified as hyper-sensitive. There are 839 candidates in the fray, including 77 women, in which around 20 per cent have criminal cases registered against them and 36 per cent are crorepatis (multi-millionaires). BJP and BSP have fielded candidates in all 73 seats while SP restricted it to 51 seats, its alliance Congress 24 seats and RLD in 57 seats. As many as 293 Independents are also in the fray. State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) T Venkentesh said here today that to hold free and fair polls along with maintaining a transparent conduct of the elections, the EC had installed 2,364 digital cameras and 1,526 video cameras at the polling booths besides webcasting in 2,857 booths. To ensure free and fair polls, the EC has deployed 3,910 micro observers to keep track at the booth level while ten police observers and 62 general observers would also keep a check . Over 1.24 lakh polling personal have been deployed at the booths.More UNI MB PS SB 0850 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1145670.Xml
As I see it, health care in the United States is a failed experiment.

What I mean is that prior to 1972, we had price controls on health care costs. The Nixon administration removed those price controls and we began an experiment of converting what is a need  medical care  into a commodity like any other thing to be bought and sold.

This was a mistake. When it comes to hospital care its usually a need, not a want.

We have been using a market model for decades and there is still no wide array of choices, there is still no price transparency, and there is no competition when it comes to hospital care. If I get hit by a bus, the ambulance is going to come and scrape me off the pavement. Do I get a choice of which ambulance company picks me up? Do I get a choice of which emergency room I go to? Do I get to choose my emergency room physician? The answer to all of these questions, of course, is no.

Simply stated, hospitals have been monopolies since 1972, and prices at hospitals have been increasing at an unreasonable rate ever since then. It now costs thousands of dollars a night just for a room in a hospital  and that doesn't include the care you get. The intensive care unit could cost tens of thousands of dollars per night. This is ridiculous.

Hospitals have become one of the most profitable enterprises in the economy. It is disturbing to me that they have been using their economic power to purchase private medical practices and consolidate the industry under their management.

Thats why I have drafted legislation to treat hospitals like the monopolies they are. House Bill 395 redefines hospitals as public utilities just like electric utilities, railroads and water systems. Public utilities rates are controlled by our Public Service Commission because there's a recognition that there is a need to protect the public from predatory pricing.

By defining hospitals as public utilities, the PSC can set their rates. While that may seem complicated, there is a system that sets rates already; all hospital procedures and costs are currently defined, coded, and priced by the Medicare system.

Recognizing that Medicare rates are too low, HB395 would allow hospitals to charge rates that are somewhat higher than standard Medicare rates. For private hospitals, the charge would be set at 1.5 times the Medicare rate. For the so-called nonprofit hospitals the rate would be lower, at 1.38 times the Medicare charge

This bill is scheduled for a hearing in the House Human Services Committee at 3 p.m. on Feb. 15 in the Capitol. If you have something to say about hospital bills, I encourage you to testify. If you cant make that, Im inviting Montanans to share their stories of outrageous hospital prices via the web. Ive set up a portal on my Facebook page (Representative Tom Woods) for that. Montanans can confidentially share their stories on that page. Make your voice heard. Your examples will help make the case that this kind of legislation is needed.

I'm certain that hospitals will not be happy about rates being imposed on them, but to that I would respond that we the people are sick and tired of their rates being imposed on us. Hospitals would still have the option of going before the Public Service Commission to justify a request for higher rates. This would be just like other public utilities who have to present their costs in order to justify their profits.

Thats a fair system that protects us, the people who pay the rates.
Dacoits, including those who have surrendered, are playing a vital role in the Assembly polls in more than a dozen constituencies of five districts of Uttar Pradesh. Surprisingly, earlier, dacoits used to harp on political patronage for their survival. However, in the changed scenario, leaders are striking a chord with them to revive their sagging political career. The results of nearly a dozen constituencies in five districts, including Karchana and Bara in Allahabad, Khaga in Fatehpur, Manjhanpur and Sirathu in Kaushambi, Mau-Manikpur and Karvi in Chitrakoot, Naraini and Kamasin in Banda depends on their poll diktat. The polling in these Assembly seats will be held in the fourth phase on February 23. People of more than a dozen assembly constituencies of Allahabad, Fatehpur, Kaushambi, Chitrakoot and Banda are still reeling under the fear factor associated with the thugs who have left the badlands of Bundelkhand but still calling the shots from their hideouts. A majority of dacoit gangs, especially Shiv Kumar alias Dadua and Ambika Patel alias Thokia, who were known for issuing diktats in favour of their preferred candidates during Assembly polls were eliminated, but still Babuli Kol, who carries a reward of Rs five lakh and operates from Mau-Manikpur belt and Pahari area of Karvi circle, is giving sleepless nights to cops and district administration. Protege of these outlaws emerge winner in elections of gram panchayat, khestra panchayat, Assembly and Lok Sabha. Candidates in poll fray from nearly five districts are in constant touch with these dacoits, including Babuli Kol, a hardcore criminal and member of slain dacoit Shivkumar alias Dadua. Brigands have been calling the shots in Doab and Patha area of Uttar Pradesh from the very beginning. Fear of dacoit Khardushan, resident of Baberu, led to the exodus of people from the area, nearly 50 years ago. This was the beginning of political inference by dacoits in festival of democracy. Khardushan was later killed in police encounter, after which the reins of the gang had fallen on the hands of Gaya Kurmi, resident of Arki village under Baberu police station in Banda district. Gaya Kurmi holded say in nearly a dozen Assembly constituencies and Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Gaya Kurmi surrendered before former union minister Arjun Singh along with his accomplices and went on to become Block Pramukh ofBaberu. Before surrendering, Gaya Kurmi has handed over the reins of his gang to a hardcore criminal, Shiv Kumar alias Dadua, resident of Devkali, under Raipura police station in Chitrakoot. Dadua pushed his younger brother and former MP Bal Kumar Patel into the poll arena from Karchana Assembly seat of Allahabad in 2002, but failed to ensure his victory. He was trounced by Ujjawal Raman Singh of SP. Later Dadua was killed in a police encounter in Chitrakoot. After the death of Dadua, another member of his gang Ambika Patel alias Thokiya, resident of Silkhori under Bharatkoop police station in Banda commenced operation. He was armed withsophisticated weapons and recruited several youths of his caste. He possessed SLR, AK-47, 303 and 305 high magnum rifles. He took the revenge of Dadua's encounter by killing six STF men within 24 hours. It was a first in UP, when six STF personnel's were killed together by any dacoit gang. More UNI XC-MB SV SB 0914 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1145686.Xml
However, there is a report of BJP candidate Sanjeet Som's brother Gagan Som being detained after he was found moving carrying a revolver in Sardhana assembly constituency during BG polling. An FIR has been registered against Gagan under relevant section of the IPC.

The polling was totally peaceful in all the 73 constituencies of western UP with no reports of any untoward incident from anywhere, state ADG (Law and Order) Daljeet Singh here claimed.

Long queues were seen outside most of the polling booths in these constituencies and several senior citizen went to the booths directly from their morning walk.

Except for some teething problem of faulty EVMs , polling was peaceful everywhere, EC sources said.

According of reports, Muzaffarnagar polled 16 per cent of votes till 1000 hrs followed by Ghaziabad of 15 per cent , 12 per in Aligarh , 10 per cent in Meerut and 13 per cent in Etah.UNI MB SB 1038

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1145717.Xml
There was no relief for hardline Hurriyat Conference (HC) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who remained under house arrest while Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Mohammad Yaseen Malik was also under detention. Dozens of other senior separatist leaders also remained under house arrest or detained in police stations. However, chairman of moderate HC Mirwaiz Moulvi Omar Farooq, who was put under house arrest to prevent him from leading United Nations Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) march yesterday, has been released. Both the factions of the HC and JKLF had appealed to people to join UNMOGIP marches to present a memorandum, demanding resolution of the Kashmir issue and return of bodies of JKLF founder Mohammad Maqbool Bhat and Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru who were hanged and buried in Delhi's Tihar jail on February 11, 1984 and February 9, 2013 respectively. However, authorities imposed curfew-like restrictions to prevent UNMOGIP marches in the summer capital. A spokesman for the hardline HC Aiyaz Akbar said large number of security forces and state police personnel remained deployed outside the Hyderpora residence of Mr Geelani, who is under house arrest since May last year after his return from New Delhi. He said Mr Geelani was again not allowed to offer Friday prayers yesterday. Mr Akbar, who himself is also under house arrest since yesterday, said several other senior leaders of the amalgam have also been put under house arrest or detained in police stations. Besides, he said, dozens of other leaders and activists, also remained lodged in different jails in Kashmir and Jammu since July last year for their alleged involvement in the unrest. Majority of them have been booked under Public Safety Act (PSA), he said, adding despite court orders quashing the detention of several of them, they remained under arrest. He said two other senior leaders Shabir Ahmad Shah and Nayeem Ahmad Khan have also been put under house arrest. He said dozens of other separatist leaders of the amalgam have already been arrested since the eruption of unrest after the death of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) commander Burhan and two other militants in an encounter in Anantnag in July last year. Meanwhile, the Mirwaiz south Kashmir Qazi Yasir and several other separatist leaders also remainder under detention in Anantnag since February 9. JKLF chief Malik was arrested yesterday afternoon from Sarai-Bala when he alongwith his supporters was trying to lead a march to UNMOGIP. Mr Malik was later shifted from police station and lodged in Central Jail, Srinagar.UNI BAS SV SB 1039 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-1145719.Xml
BJP candidate Sanjeet Som's brother Gagan Som has been detained after he was found moving carrying a pistol near a polling booth in Sardhana Assembly constituency during polling.

An FIR has been registered against Gagan under relevant section of the IPC.

Reports of minor clashes were received from Aligarh, Etah, Meerut and Ferozabad but there was no such big incident. In Meerut, firing took place near Booth 34-37 at Mundali village in Kithore area when supporters of SP and BSP fired on each other. One was injured in the firing.

Besides minor clashes, the polling was totally peaceful in all the 73 constituencies of western UP with no reports of any untoward incident from anywhere, state ADG (Law and Order) Daljeet Singh here claimed.

Long queues were seen outside most of the polling booths in these constituencies and several senior citizen went to the booths directly from their morning walk.

Except for some teething problem of faulty EVMs , polling was peaceful everywhere, EC sources said.

According of reports, the polling percentage till 1300 hrs was around 40 per cent.

The EC said till 1100 hrs, the poll percentage in Ferozabad was the highest of 28.30 per cent, followed by Etah -26 per cent while Aligarh 23.67, Agra, 25.63, Bulandshahr 24 per cent, Gautam Buddha Nagar- 19.67 per cent Ghazaiabad 23 per cent Hapur- 28. 27 per cent Mathura- 23 per cent and Muzaffarnagar 25.97 per cent.UNI MB SV SB 1327

-- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-1145857.Xml
The Global Pharmaceutical market is expectedto reach USD 400 billion by 2020 from the present USD 300 billion,Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said today. "The industry is growing exponentially. According to WHO, theglobal pharmaceuticals market is worth US Dollar 300 Billion and itis expected to touch US Dollar 400 billion within three years," he added. Mr Siddaramaiah was speaking at the inauguration of 'India Pharma2017' organized by Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, inassociation with Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce ofIndustry (FKCCI) and other partners. He said that the Indian Pharma industry is expected to grow at aCompound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15 per cent to 20 per cent andachieve a turnover of US Dollar 50 Billion by 2020. He said that the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) marketis expanding at a rapid pace and formulation manufacturers have vastopportunities due to the upcoming patent cliff. He said that according to World Bank, India typically spends onlyOne per cent of its overall GDP on public health which is only onefifth of total health expenditure and more than 95 per cent ofprivate health expenditure is out of pocket expenditure. Mr Siddaramaiah said that 75 per cent of India's total demand formedical devices is currently met by imports, with nearly 30 per centof it being supplied by the United States alone. There is a mismatchbetween the design of certain technologies being imported andrealities of clinical conditions and healthcare infrastructureexisting in India. He said that Karnataka ranks fifth in Pharma exports andcontributes 10 per cent to the Indian Pharma export revenue. Thereare more than 230 pharma and bio-tech companies housed in the State. He said that Karnataka exports 40 per cent of its pharma produceand contributes eight per cent of the Country's pharmaceuticalrevenue. Karnataka is a largest bio-technology hub in India having194 out of 340 bio-tech companies. Mr Siddaramaiah said it was proposed to set up PharmaceuticalDevelopment Cell to serve as a dedicated single point contact forthis sector. He said that it was proposed to constitute separate vision groupsfor Pharmaceutical Sector and medical device segment to guide onfurther promotion of these two promising sectors. UNI RS/MSP HVB1252 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0284-1145874.Xml
North Eastern Council Secretary Ram Muivah said the people of the north-eastern states should reap the dividend out of India's Act East Policy, which can only happen when the infrastructural issues are in place in the region. Addressing the 3rd distinguished lecture of the ASEAN Studies Center (ASC) funded by the Ministry of External Affairs, Mr Muivah also called upon the need for more land custom stations in the north-eastern states to facilitate trade with Myanmar, Bangladesh and China. He also stressed upon the 186 kms missing link from the Indian side of the border which would otherwise connect the north east of India to Myanmar, Thailand and the rest of the ASEAN countries. "The public sector should play an important role in the infrastructural development in the region to lay fertile grounds for the private sector to invest in the region," he opined. In this regard, Mr Muivah also highlighted on the North Eastern Council's role in facilitating infrastructural development projects in the region. Apart from road and railway connectivity, he also touched upon how Gauhati should be the hub of air connectivity with the South-East Asian countries. Mr Muivah also mentioned about how commerce can only thrive in a region where the infrastructure is in place, which unfortunately the north-eastern region lags behind the rest of the country because of its geographical location. It is in this area that the North-Eastern Council is focused on working and he briefly mentioned the highway and road development projects of the NEC. Mr Muivah also spoke on the cultural connect that India shares with its South-East Asian neighbours stressing on the potential for growth of tourism industry in the region. Citing the example of an event to promote Indian culture and tourism which took place in Nepal named "Namaste Nepal" which was well received by the people of Nepal, Mr Muivah spoke on the importance of promoting the tourism industry in the region. An important start could be a tour package for the north-eastern region which the NEC is looking to partner with the private sector to promote tourism in the region. Prof M P Bezbaruah, who delivered the inaugural address, pointed out that though India's North-Eastern has contributed very little in India's Act East policy despite its potentials, it could not be more apt for India to Act East through the North-East as India's most important neighbours namely Bangladesh and Myanmar are looking to India for economic integration. The distinguished lecture was preceded by a documentary film titled, "This is Asia's Time" which explored India's trading and cultural ties with the South-East Asian countries. UNI RRK AKM 1349 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-1145928.Xml
West Bengal Food and Supplies Minister Jyotipriyo Mallick today held a meeting with the Nadia District officials about meeting the target of agricultural production. The minister was informed that there was a shortfall in paddy production in the district. Mr Mallick wanted to know from the officials the details about buying crops from farmers, whether the official paddy buying cells were functioning properly and the quantity of crop a farmer could sell. He said, every farmer could sell 90 quintals of paddy to the government agency. He also said, every block in the district will have four official counters which will remain open four days a week to enable farmers sell their stock.UNI XC-PL AKM 1411 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-1145958.Xml
Police have busted a 14-member international racket, including two girls, that had indulged in withdrawing money from ATMs fraudulently and recovered Rs 21.4-lakh from them. Police today said that seven members of the gang were arrested, while efforts were continuing to nab the remaining absconding members. The arrested were identified Eremhen Smart (Nigeria), Martin Nsamba (Uganda), Jolly alias Nambooze Jollly D/o Kayango (Uganda), Tinah D/o Thomas (Uganda), Kenny alias Ajany Kehind (Nigeria), Oloadeji Olayemi (Nigeria), and Vikram Rao Nikkam (Bengaluru). Police said that based on the inputs provided by accused Martin the investigation team visited Goa in search of Hillary Kiegen alias Tiger a Kenyan National who is said to be a kingpin behind this racket. However, Hillary Kiegen could not be traced. The investigation team, led by Additional Police Commissioner Hemanth Nimbalkar, arrested Miss Tina and Miss Jolly -- both Ugandan nationals -- and Kenny & Oloadeji Olayeni -- both Nigerian nationals -- in Bengaluru. Miss Jolly had booked magnetic card reader through the company by name Card-Tec India Pvt Ltd on the directions of Martin, which was delivered to Jolly on her address KFC Callangutte, Goa, Mapsa. After the arrest of Martin, Miss Jolly had destroyed the magnetic machine and disposed the same in some lake in Dharwad.Tina, Kenny and Oloadeji Olayeni are part of this conspiracy and were helping in collecting data and swiping the cards in various outlets. According to police, on 7th of January this year, Ms Payal Mandal complained fraudulent withdrawal from her HDFC Debit card to the tune of Rupees 94,318. Within span of one week about 11 cases of fraudulent transaction of debit cards of different banks were reported in Banaswadi Police Station itself. On analysing the statement of the accounts of all the complainants pertaining to fraudulenttransactions it appeared that there were some similarities pertaining to the last transactions prior to fraudulent transactions. The similarities lead the investigation team to an ATM in Kamanahalli where the data of all these complainants was suspected to have been compromised in ATM. (Skimming) Further scrutiny and analysis of the statements of account showed that compromised data was used by some unknown person through an agent and fake cards were generated and swiped in a travel agency by name VIA.COM. Later, investigative officer approached VIA.COM located in Bengaluru and collected the incriminating evidence and information of the suspects which lead to the arrest of Nigerian national Eremhen Smart on January 16 and recovered two mobiles phones cash Rs 2.64-lakh and freezed 2.40-lakh which was in the account of the agent of VIA.COM on the information of the accused Smart. The team which succeeded in unearthing the racket included, besides Nimbalkar, Addl. Commissioner of Police East Division, Ajay Hilory, DCP East Divison, Ravi Kumar, ACP Banaswadi Sub-Division, Muni Krishna, Inspector of Police, Bansawadi, Mrs Prasheela, PSI, Mr Sharath PSI, Staff and Technical Team Of Incognito Forensic.UNI MSP HVB AKC SNU 1443 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1145985.Xml
The Ministry of Tourism of the Republic of Indonesia is conducting a 2017 Sales Mission to India, to be held in Mumbai and New Delhi from February 10-13.According to a statement issued here today by the Indonesian Ministry, the Tourism Organisation has observed that India's number of outbound tourists increased from 16.6-million in 2013 to 18.3-million in 2014 and it has predicted that the number will reach 30-million by 2018. The increase is aligned with India's economic growth of 7.8 per cent during the same period.For the last two years, there has been a significant rise in the number of Indian tourists visiting Indonesia. Data shows that while in 2014, there were 237,990 Indian visitors to Indonesia, the number sprung up to 336,575 by the end of November 2016. The Ministry has set a target of 546,000 visitors by the end of 2017 for the Indian market, an increase of 56 per cent over the last year's target of 350,000, said the statement.Indonesia's Consul General Saut Siringoringo and Deputy Director of Sales Mission for Asia Pacific Andriyatna Rubenta were present here, during the event, it added.UNI JM RJ SNU 1607 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0098-1146111.Xml
Major issues relating to telecom sector, including Centre's ''anti-BSNL and anti-workers policies,'' would be deliberated in detail in the executive meet of the National Federation of Telecom Employees (NFTE) beginning here on February 13. Talking to reporters here, NFTE BSNL General Secretary Chandreswar Singh and Member (CHQ) New Delhi Michael PM said Niti Ayog's recommendations to sell the country's biggest telecom PSU to different territorial agencies including State Governments was aimed to arrest its growth and allow private players to ''loot'' the general public. They said the move will break the biggest telecom network into pieces and lay red carpet for private operators. The objective was very clear while the fact that such a move has come from the Government at a time when the BSNL started making operational profit as part of revamping, they said. Stating the workers were denied bonus and medical benefits citing losses, they said the Government was stipulating conditions and clauses related to profit to revise pay in the forthcoming Pay Revision of PSUs. Besides, the employees are under the shadow of voluntary retirement schemes, they said. Urging the Centre to protect the fully state-owned PSU, they said this would safeguard people from looting by private players in the country. As many as 180 executives from 40 telecom states would participate in the meet which would be inaugurated by All India Trade Union Congress national Secretary Amarjit Kaur. Secretary CHQ NJ Bhatia, Circle Secretary Lathika G Nair and CPI district Secretary TV Balan were also present at the press meet.UNI PCH AKC SNU 1520 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1146048.Xml